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 1 1117 1 1 11(7 I
 
 TlIK 
 
 MINOR PROPHETS 
 
 WITH A 
 
 COMMENTARY 
 
 EXPLANATORY AND PRACTICAL 
 AND INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SEVERAL BOOKS, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 OPEN THOU MINE EYES THAT I MAY BEHOLD WONDROUS THINGS OUT OF THY LAW. 
 
 P8. CXIX. 
 
 Slfbrntf) SCfiousanti. 
 
 OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE, AND LONDON; 
 
 J. PARKER & Co., OXFORD, & 377, STRAND; DEIGHTON, BELL & Co,, CAMBRIDGE; 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON, HIGH STREET, OXFORD, 
 
 AND TRINITY STREET, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 1869.
 
 StacK 
 Hnnex 
 
 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES AND OBJECT 
 
 OF THE COMMENTARY. 
 
 The object of the following pages is to evolve some portion 
 of the meaning of the Word of God. In regard to the literal 
 meaning of the sacred text, I have given that which, after a 
 matured study spread over more than thirty years,! believe to 
 be the true, or, in some cases, the more probable only. In so 
 doing, I have purposely avoided all shew of learning or embar- 
 rassing discussion, which belong to the dictionary or grammar 
 rather than to a commentary on Holy Scripture. Where it 
 seemed to me necessary, on some unestablishcd point, to set 
 down in some measure, the grounds of the rendering of any 
 word or phrase, I have indicated it very briefly in the lower 
 margin. I hoped, in this way, to make it intelligible to those 
 acquainted with the sacred language, without interrupting the 
 developement of the meaning of the text, which presupposes a 
 knowledge of the verbal meaning. Still less have I thought 
 the discussion, of diff'erent renderings of ancient Versions 
 suited to a commentary of this sort. As soon as one is satisfi- 
 ed that any given rendering of an ancient Version does not cor- 
 rectly represent the Hebrew original, the question how the 
 translators came so to render it, by what misreading or mis- 
 hearing, or guess, or paraphrase, belongs to a history of that 
 Version, not to the explanation of the sacred original. Still 
 more distracting is a discussion of the various expositions of 
 modern commentators or an enumeration of names, often of 
 no weight, who adhere to one or the other rcnderingorperhaps 
 originated some crochet of their own. These things which so 
 often fill modern commentaries have a shew of learning, but 
 embarrass rather than aid a reader of Holy Scripture. I have 
 myself examined carefully everycommentator,likely or unlike- 
 ly to contribute anything to the understanding of the sacred 
 text ; and, if I have been able to gain little from modern Ger- 
 man commentaries, (except the school of Hcngstenberg, Keil 
 and Havernick) it is not that I have not sifted them to the best 
 of the ability which God gave me. Even Luther said of his ad- 
 
 herents, that they werelikeSolomon'sfleet; some brought bac k 
 gold and silver ; but the younger, peacocks and apes. On tli e 
 other hand, it has been pleasurable to give (at times somewhat 
 condensed)thc expositionsof Pococke,extractcdfr()mthe folio , 
 in which, for the most part, they lie entombed amid the heaps 
 of other explanations which his learning brought together. 
 Else it has been my desire to use wliat learning of this sort I 
 have, in these many years, acquired, to save a student from use- 
 less balancing of renderings which I believe that no one, not 
 under a prejudice, would adopt. 
 
 If, in the main, I have adhered to the English Version, it has 
 been from the conviction, that ourtranslators wcrein the right. 
 They had most of tiie helps for understanding Hebrew, which 
 we have, the same traditionalknowledgefrom the ancient \'er- 
 sious, Jewish commentators or lexicographers or grammarians, 
 witli the exception of the Jewish-Arabic school only, as well 
 as the study of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, and they 
 used those aids wltli more mature and even judgment than has 
 mostlybeen employed in thesubsequentpcriod. Hebrew criti- 
 cism has now escaped, for the most part, from the arbitrari- 
 ness, which detected a various reading in any variation of a 
 single old Version, or in the error of some small fraction of 
 MSS., which disfigured the commentaries of Lowth.Newcome, 
 and Blayney. But the comparison of the cognate dialecfcs 
 opened for the time an unlimited licenc^e of innovation. Every 
 principle of interpretation, every rule of language, was vio- 
 lated. The Bible was misinterpreted with a wild recklessness, 
 to which no other book was ever subjected. A subordinate 
 meaning of some half-understood Arabic word was always at 
 hand to remove whatever any one misliked. No\V^, the mani- 
 foldness of this reign of misrule has subsided. But inter- 
 pretations as arl)itrary as any which have perished still hold 
 their sway, or from time to time emerge, and any revisal of 
 the authorised Version of the O. T., imtil the precarious use 

 
 Mil 
 
 INTROD[JCTORY REMARKS ON THE COMMENTARY. 
 
 of tlif dialects should be far more settled, u'ould fjive us cliatt" 
 for xvlieat, introducinfj an indefinite amount of error into tlie 
 W^ord of God. In some places, in the following; piiS'Oj ' have 
 put down what I tlioujj^-ht an improvement <jf the I'^nfjlish Ver- 
 sion ; in others, 1 have marked, hythewordoy,arenderinf;' which 
 I thought eciually or more probable than that which our Trans- 
 lators adopted. Where I have said nothinjj, it has not been 
 that 1 have been unaware of any other translation (for I have 
 proved all) but that I thoujjjht the received Version most in 
 accordance with the Hebrew, or at least the most probable. 
 For the most part, I have j)ointed out simple things, which any 
 one would see, who could read the Hebrew text, hut wiiicli 
 cannot mostly be j)reserved in a translation without a cum- 
 brousness which would destroy its beauty and impressiveness. 
 
 The literal meaninjj; of the words lies, of course, as the basis 
 of any further developement of the whole meaninc; of each pas- 
 sage of Holy Scripture. Yet any thoughtful reader must have 
 been struck by observing, how independent that meaning is of 
 single words. The general meaning remains the same, even 
 amid much variation of , single words. This is apparent in the 
 passages which the Apostles quote from the LXX, where it is 
 not an exact translation of the Hebrew. The variation arising 
 from any single word does not mostly extend beyond itself. 
 
 This is said, that I may not seem to have neglected the let- 
 ter of Holy Scripture, because 1 have not set down what is now 
 commonly found in books, which profess to give an explanation 
 of that letter. My wish has been to give the results rather 
 than the process by which they were arrived at ; to exhibit the 
 building, not the scaffolding. My ideal has been to explain or 
 develope each word and sentence of Holy Scripture, and, when 
 it should be required, the connection of verses, to leave no- 
 thing unexplained as far as I could explain it ; and if any verse 
 should give occasion to enter upon any subject, historical, mo- 
 ral, doctrinal, or devotional, to explain this, as far as the place ' 
 required or suggested. Then, if any thoughtful writers with 
 whom I am acquainted, and to whom most English readers 
 have little or no access, have expanded the meaning of any 
 text in a way which I thought would be useful to an English 
 reader, I have translated them, placing them mostly at the end 1 
 of the comment on each verse, so that the mind might rest upon 
 them, and yet not be sensible of a break or jar, in passing on to 
 other thoughts in the following verse. 
 
 The nature of the subjects thus to be expanded must, of 
 course, vary with the different books of Holy Scripture. The 
 propliets are partly teachers of righteousness and rebukers of 
 unrighteousness ; partly they declared things then to come, a 
 nearer and a more distant future, God's judgment on unright- 
 eousness, whether of His own sinful people or of the nations 
 who unrighteously executed God's righteous judgments upon 
 them, and the everlasting righteousness which He willed to 
 bring in through the Coming of Christ. Of these, the nearer 
 future, by its fulfilment of their words, accredited to those who 
 then would hear, the more distant ; to us, (with the exception 
 of those more lasting visitations, as on Nineveh and Babylon 
 and God'sformer people, whose destructions or dispersion have ; 
 lived on to the present day) the then more distant future, the ; 
 prophecies as to Christ, which are before us in the Gospels, or 
 of the Church among all nations, whose fulfilment is around 
 u.s, accredit the earlier. The fulfilments of these i>ropbecies, 
 as they come before us in the several prophets, it lies within 
 the design of the present work, God giving us strength, to vin- 
 dicate against the unbelief rife in the present day. Where 
 this can be done without disturbing the interjiretation of 
 the Scripture itself, the answers may often be tacitly supplied 
 
 for those who need them, in the course of that interpreta- 
 tion. Where a fuller discussion may be necessary, it will pro- 
 bably be placed in the Introduction to the several books. 
 
 To this employment, whi<'b I have had f<»r many years at 
 heart, but from which the various distresses of our times, an<l 
 the duties which they have involved, have continually withheld 
 me, 1 hope to conseirate the residue of the years and of the 
 strength which God may give me. "Vita? summa brevis spem 
 vetat inchoare loiigam." The wonderful v(dunie of the twelve 
 prophets, '"brief in words, mighty in meaning," and, if God 
 continue my life, the Evangelical Prophet, are what 1 have 
 specially reserved for myself. The New Testanicnt except the 
 Apocaly]»se, and most of the rest of the Old Testanicnt, have 
 been undertaken by friends, whose names will be published, 
 when the arrangement shall finally be completed. The Com- 
 mentary on the Minor Prophets is in the course of being print- 
 ed ; the Commentary on S. Matthew is nearly ready for the 
 press. Other portions arc begun. But the object of all, who 
 have been engaged in this work, is one and the same, to deve- 
 lope, as God shall enable us, the meaning of Holy Scripture out 
 of Holy Scripture itself; to search in that deep mine and — not 
 bring meanings into it, but, — (Christ being our helper, for "the 
 well is deep,") to bring such portions, as they may, of its mean- 
 ing out of it ; to exhibit to our peojilc, truth side by side with 
 the fountain from which it is drawn ; to enable them to see 
 something more of its riches, than a passer-by or a careless 
 reader sees upon its surface. 
 
 To this end, it is our purpose to use those more thoughtful 
 writers of all times, who have professedly, or, as far as we 
 know, incidentally developed the meaning of portions or texts 
 of the sacred volume, men who understood Holy Scripture 
 through that same Spirit by Whom it was written, to whom 
 prayer, meditation, and a sanctified life laid open its meaning. 
 For He Who first gave to man the words of eternal life stiU 
 hides their meaning from those who are wise and prudent in 
 their own eyes, and giveth wisdom to the simple. "Lord, to 
 whom whall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 "The reading of the Scriptures is the opening of Heaven." 
 " In the words of God, we learn the Heart of God." 
 
 "O Eternal Truth, and True Love, and Loving Light, our 
 God and our All, enlighten our darkness by the brightness 
 of Thy Light ; irradiate our minds by the splendor of holiness, 
 that in Thy Light we may see light, that we, in turn, may en- 
 lighten others, and kindle them with the love of thee. Open 
 Thou our eyes, that we may see wondrousthings out of Thylaw, 
 ^\■ ho makest eloquent the minds and tongues of the slow of 
 sjieech. To Thee, to Thy glory, to the good of Thy Church and 
 people, may we labor, write, live. Thou hast said. Lord, to 
 Thine Apostles and Prophets, their followers and interpreters, 
 ' Ye are the salt of the earth ; ye are the light of the world.' 
 Thou hast said it, and, by saying it, hast done it. Grant to 
 us then, Lord, that we too, like them, may be pi-eachers of hea- 
 ven, sowers for eternity, that they who read, may, by the know- 
 ledge of Thy Scriptures, through the graveness and the weight 
 of Thy promises and threats, despise the ensnaring entangle- 
 ments of earth, and be kindled with the love of heavenly goods 
 and the effectual earnest longing for a blessed eternity. This 
 be our one desire, this our prayer, to this may all our reading 
 and writing and all our toil tend, that Thy Holy Name may be 
 hallowed. Thy Holy Will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 
 Thy Holy Kingdom of grace, glory, and endless bliss, where 
 Thou wilt be all things in all, may come to us. Amen." 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, 
 
 Easter, 1860.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MINOR PROPHETS 
 
 AND CHIEFLY TO 
 
 HOSEA. 
 
 The twelve prophets, at the head of whom Hosea has been 
 placed, were called of old " " the lesser, or minor, prophets," 
 by reason of the smaller compass of their prophecies, not as 
 though their prophecies were less important than those of the 
 four greater prophets. Hosea, at least, must have exercised 
 the prophetic office longer than any besides ; he must have 
 spoken as much and as often, in the Name of God. A pro- 
 phecy of Micah and words of Joel are adopted by Isaiah ; Je- 
 remiah employs verses of Obadiah to denounce anew the pu- 
 nishment of Edoni ; a prophecy of Joel is expanded by Ezekiel. 
 The " twelve " were the organs of important prophecy, as to 
 their own people, or foreign nations, or as to Him Whom they 
 looked for, our Lord. Now, since the five tirst were earlier than 
 Isaiah, and next, in order of time, to the Prophetic Psalms of Da- 
 vid, Solomon, Asaph and the sons of Korah,therevelations made 
 to these lesser Prophets even ante-date, those given through the 
 four greater. The general out-pouringof the Spirit on all flesh 
 andthe Day of the Lord were first spokenofbyJoel. Our resur- 
 rection in Christonthe3i-d day; the inward graces which Christ 
 should bestow on His Church in its perpetual union with Him; 
 the entire victory over death and the grave ; and the final con- 
 version of Judah and Israel, were first prophesied by Hosea. 
 When S.James wished to shew that the conversion of the Gen- 
 tiles had been foretold by a prophet, he quoted a passage of 
 Amos. " The twelve" as they began, so they closed the cycle 
 oTtTibsewhom God employed to leave written prophecies. Yet 
 God,Who willed thatof allthe earlierprophets,who prophesied 
 from the time of Samuel to Elisha, no prophecy should remain, 
 except the few words in the books of Kings, willed also, that 
 little, in comparison, should be preserved, of what these later 
 prophets spake in His Name. Their \vTitings altogether are 
 not equal in compass to those of the one prophet, Isaiah. And 
 so, like the twelve Apostles, they were enrolled in one prophetic 
 band ; their writings, both in the Jewish '' and Christian "^ 
 Church, have been counted as one book ; and, like the Apos- 
 tles, they were called " the twelve ■'." 
 
 The earliest of this band followed very closely upon the 
 ministry of Elijah and Elisha. Elisha, in his parting words % 
 foretold to Joash the three victories whereby he recovered 
 from Syria the cities of Israel which Hazael had taken from 
 his father Jehoahaz. In the next reign, viz., that of Jero- 
 boam II., there arose the first of that brilliant constellation of 
 prophets, whose light gleamed over the fall of Israel and Ju- 
 
 » S. Aug. deCiv. D.xviii. 29. "The Prophet Isaiah is not in the books ofthe 12 pro- 
 phets who are therefore called minor, because their discourses are brief in comparison with 
 those who are called * greater ' because they composed considerable volumes." 
 
 I" The Jewish tradition ran,"our fathersmadetnemalargebook, thattheymightnotpe- 
 rish, for their littleness." BavaBathra(c.l. f. 14. col. 2.) in Carpzoif, Intr. iii.p.72. Jo- 
 
 dah, shone in their captivity, and set at last, with the predic- 
 tion of him, who should precede the rising of the Sun of Righ- 
 teousness. 
 
 In the reign of Jeroboam II., Hosea, Amos, Jonah, pro- 
 phesied in the kingdom of Israel. Joel was probably called 
 at the same time to prophesy in Judah, and Obadiah to de- 
 liver his prophecy as to Edom ; Isaiah, a few years later : Mi- 
 cah, we knowjbegan his office in the following reign of Jothani, 
 and then prophesied, together with Isaiah, to and in the reign 
 of Hezekiah. 
 
 The order, then, of " the twelve" was probably, altogether 
 an order of time. We know that the four greater prophets 
 are placed in that order, as also the three last of the twelve, 
 Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Of the five first, Hosea, 
 Amos and Jonah were nearly contemporary; Joel was prior to 
 Amos f ; and of the four remaining, Alicah and Nahum were 
 later than Jonah whom they succeed in order ; Nahum re- 
 fers to Jonah ; Zephaniah quotes Habakkuk. It may be from 
 an old Jewish tradition, that S. Jerome says^, "knowthatthose 
 prophets, whose time is not prefixed in the title, prophesied 
 under the same kings, as those other prophets, who are placed 
 before them, and wlio have titles." 
 
 Hosea, the first of the twelve, must have prophesied during 
 a period, as long as the ordinary life of man. For he prophe- 
 sied (the title tells us) while Uzziah king of Judah and Jero- 
 boam II. king of Israel, were both reigning, as also during the 
 reignsofJotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. But Uzziah survived 
 Jeroboam, 26 years ; Jotham and Ahaz reigned, each 16 years. 
 Thus we have already 58 years complete, without counting 
 the years of Jeroboam, during which Hosea prophesied at 
 the beginning of his office, or those of Hezekiah which elaps- 
 ed before its close. But since the prophecy of Hosea is di- 
 rected almost exclusively to Israel, it is not probable that the 
 name of Jeroboam would alone have been selected for men- 
 tion, unless Hosea had prophesied for some time during his 
 reign. The house of Jehu, which sunk after the death of Je- 
 roboam, was yet ^ standing, and in its full strength, when 
 Hosea first prophesied. Its might apparently is contrasted 
 with the comparative weakness of Judah '. On the other 
 hand, the office of Hosea probably closed before the end of 
 the 4th year of Hezekiah ^. For in that year, B.C. 721, the 
 judgment denounced by Hosea upon Samaria was fulfilled, 
 and all his prophecy looks on to this event as yet to come : 
 
 sephas must so have counted them, since hecounted all thebooksof the O.T.. besides the 
 five books of Moses and the Psalms and books of Solomon, as 13. c. .\p. i. 8. seeCosin, 
 Hist, ofthe Canon, § 25. " See Cosin, § 47 sqq. ^ See Carpzoff, iii. 270. and Cosin. 
 
 " 2Kings .Kiii. 14 sqq. 25. ' See Introd. to Joel. 8 Prsef. in duod. Proph. 
 
 iCh.i.l.S. 'Ch.i.7. k 2Kingsxviii.9.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 the 13th chapter closes with the prophecy of the utter de- 
 struction of Samaria, and of the liorrible cruelties wliicli 
 would befal Iier lielpless ones. The last chapter alone winds 
 up the lonj]f series of denunciations by a j)rediction of the 
 future conversion of Israel. This cliapter, however, is too 
 closely connected with the preceding, to admit of its being 
 a consolation after the captivity had begun. If then we 
 suppose that Hosea prophesied during 2 years only of the 
 reign of Hezckiah, and 10 of those in which the reigns of 
 Jeroboam II. and Uzziah coincided, his ministry will have 
 lasted 70 years. A long and heavy service for a soul full of 
 love like bis, mitigated only by his hope of the Coming of 
 Christ, the final conversion of his people, and the victory 
 over the grave. But the length is nothing incredible, since, 
 about this time, Jehoiada '"did good in Israel both towards 
 God and towards His House," until he "was 130 years." 
 The shortest duration of Hosea's office must have been some 
 65 years. But if God called him quite young to his office, he 
 need but have lived about 95 years, whereas Anna the 
 Prophetess served God in the temple with fasting and prayer 
 night and day, after a widowhood probably of 84 years"; and 
 S.John the Evangelist lived probably until 104 years; and 
 S. Polycarp became a martyr, when he was about 104 years 
 old, having served Christ for 86 years ", and having, when 95, 
 sailed from Asia to Italy. Almost in our own days, we have 
 heard of 100 centenarians, deputed by a religious order who 
 ate no animal food, to bear witness that their rule of life was 
 not unhealthy. Not then the length of Hosea's life, but his 
 endurance, was superhuman. So long did God will that 
 His prophets should toil ; so little fruit were tliey content to 
 leave behind them. For these few chapters alone remain of a 
 labour beyond the ordinary life of man. But they were con- 
 tent to have God for their exceeding great reward. 
 
 The time, during which Hosea prophesied, was the darkest 
 period in the history of the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam II. 
 was almost tlie last King who ruled in it by the appointment 
 of God. The promise of God to Jehu "in reward of his partial 
 obedience, that his ""children of the fourth generation should 
 sit on the throne of Israel," expired with Jeroboam's son, 
 who reigned but for 6 monthsP after an anarchy of 1 1 years. 
 The rest of Hosea's life was passed amid the decline of the king- 
 dom of Israel. Politically all was anarchy or misrule ; kings 
 made their way to the throne through the murder of their pre- 
 decessors, and made way for their successors through their 
 owni. Shallum slew Zechariah; Menahem slew Shallum ; 
 Pekah slew the son of Menahem ; Hoshea slew Pekah. The 
 whole kingdom of Israel was a military despotism, and, as in 
 the Roman empire, those in command came to the throne. 
 Baasha, Zimri, Omri, Jehu, Menahem, Pekah, held military 
 office before they became kings '. 
 
 Each usurper seems to have strengthened himself by a 
 
 ' 2 Chron. xxiv. 15. "" So S.Ambrose and others understand the words "a widow of 
 about fourscore and four years ;" (S. Luke ii. 37.) and it seems the most natural. If ac- 
 cording to Jewish law and practice, she was married at 12, her widowhood, after " 7 years " 
 began when she was 19, and when she was permitted to see our Lord, she was 103. 
 
 » Ep. Eccl. Smym. in Eus. H. E. iv. 15. » 2 Kings x. 30. P Ih. xv. 8. i See 
 lb. 10, 11, 25, 30. r Nadabwas with the army besieging Gibbethon, wlien Baasha 
 
 slew him (1 Kings xv. 27.) Zimri was "captain of half the chariots of Elah son of Ba- 
 asha," (lb. xvi. 'J.) "all Israel made Omri, tlie captain of the host, king over Israel in the 
 camp," (lb. U},) .Jehu seems to have been chief among the captains (2 Kings ix. 5.) Me- 
 nahem "went up from Tirzah," (the residence of the kings of Israel until Omri built 
 Samaria) II). XV. 14. Pekah was a captain of Remaliah (lb. 25.) • lKingsxv.19. 
 
 ' 1 Kings xvi. 31. " 2 Kings xv. 1!). » Is. vii. 1, 2, 5. 2Chron. xxviii. 5, 6. 
 
 " Sir II. Kawlinson and IJr. Hincks separately decyphered the name " Jahua (sin^) 
 son of Khumri," as one of those wliose tribute is recorded on the Black obelisk [pro- 
 bably of Slialmanubar,] now in the British Museum. In the same inscription Beth- 
 Khumri, i.e. house orcity of Omri (p for y) occurs for Samaria. .lehumay be sonamed 
 Irom his capital, or from supposed or claimed descent from Omri. See Layard, Nin. 
 and Bab. p. (113. Rawlins. Herod, i. 405. Dr. Hincks, Dublin Univ. Mag. 1863. p. 420. 
 Scripture ascribes to Jehu personal might (n-.i:j,) but in bis days Israel lost to Hazael 
 
 foreign alliance. At least, we find Baasha in league with 
 Hcnhadad, king of Syria"; Ahab marrying Jczclicl. daughter 
 of a king of Tyre and Zidon ' ; Menahem giving I'ul king of 
 Assyria tribute, that he might "confirm the kingdom in his 
 hand";" Pekah confederate uithHezin'. These alliances 
 brought with them the I'orruptions of the Pha'nician and 
 Syrian idolatry, wherein murder and lust became acts of re- 
 ligion. Jehu also probably sent triljutc to the king of Assyria, 
 to secure to himself the throne which God had given him. The 
 fact appears in the cuneiform inscriptions"; it falls in with the 
 character of Jehu and his half-belief, using all means, human 
 or divine, to establish his own end. In one and the same spi- 
 rit, he destroyed the Baal-worshippers, as adherents of Ahab, 
 retained the calf-worship, courted the ascetic Jonadab son 
 ofRechab, spoke of the death of Jehoram as the fulfilment of 
 prophecy, and sought help from the king of Assyria. 
 
 These irreligious had the more deadly sway, because they 
 were countenanced by the corrupt worship, which Jeroboam I. 
 had set up as the state religion, over against the worship at 
 Jerusalem. To allow the people to go up to Jerusalem, as the 
 centre of the worship of God, would have risked their owning 
 the line of David as the kings of God's appointment. To 
 prevent this, Jeroboam set up a great system of rival worship. 
 Himself a refugee in Egypt", he had there seen nature (i. e. 
 what are God's workings in nature) m orshipped under the 
 form of a calf y. He adopted it, in the words in which Aaron 
 bad been overborne to sanction it, as the worship of the One 
 True God under a visible form : "these be thy gods, O Israel, 
 which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt ^" With 
 great human subtlety, he laid hold of Israel's love for idol-wor- 
 ship, and their reverence for their ancestors, and words which 
 even Aaron had used, and sought to replace by this symbol of 
 God's working, His actual presence over the mercy-seat. 
 Around this he gathered as much of the Mosaic ritual as he 
 could. The Priests and Levites remaining faithful to God % 
 he made other priests, not of the line of Aaron''. Then, 
 while he gratified the love of idolatry, he decked it out with 
 all the rest of the worship which God had appointed for Him- 
 self. He retained the feasts which God had appointed, the 
 three great festivals'^, their solemn assemblies"', the new 
 moons and sabbaths"; and these last feasts were observed 
 even by those to whose coveteousness the rest on the festival 
 was a hindrance '. Every kind of sacrifice was retained, the 
 daily sacrifice^, the burnt oifering'', the meat offering", the 
 drink offering^, thank offerings '', peace offerings'', freewill 
 offerings '', sin offerings '. They had hymns and instrumental 
 music". They paid the tithes of the third year"; probably 
 they gave the firstfruits °; they had priests p and prophets "i 
 and temples ' ; the temple at Bethel was the king's chapel, 
 and temple of the state'. The worship was maintained by 
 the civil authority '. But all this outward shew was rotten at 
 
 all the country beyond Jordan. The attack of Hazael may have been the cause or the ef- 
 fect of bis seeking help of Assyria. 
 
 * 1 Kings xi. 40. xii. 2. >' Two living bulls. Apis and Mnevis, were worshipped as 
 symbols of Osirisand the sun atMemphis and Heliopohs.Diod. Sic. i. 21. Straboxvii.22.27. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxxii.4. 1 Kings xii. 28. • 2Chron. xi. 13-15. l" 1 Kings xii. 31. "Hemade 
 priests out of the lowest of the people," (lit. "the end of the people") should be rendered 
 "from the whole of the people" [indiscriminately] "which were not of the sous of Le\'i." 
 
 ' Hosea ii. 11. ix. 15. Amos v. 21. Jeroboam transferred, apparently, the feast of ta- 
 bernacles from the 15th of the seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 34.) to the 16th of the eighth 
 month (1 Kings xii. 32, 33.) <> Amos v. 21. ' Hosea ii. 11. ' Amosviii.5. 
 
 8 lb. iv. 4. k lb. V. 22. < Hosea ix. 4. Amos v. 22. J Hosea ix. 4. t Hosea 
 v. 6. vi. 0. perhaps iv. 8. ' Amos iv. 5. and of this class generally, Hosea viii. 13. 
 
 " Amos V. 23. viii. 3. ° Amosiv.4. " These were brought to Elisha (2 Kings iv. 42.) 
 from Baal-Shalisha in the mountainous country of Ephraim, where "the land of Shali- 
 sha" was, (1 Sam. ix. 4. by one probably who could not own the calf-priests. The 
 
 Erophets acted as priests in the kmgdom of Israel. (1 Kings xviii. 30. 2 Kings iv. 23.) 
 lence the mention of "altars of the Lord" in Israel also, 1 Kings xviii. 30. xix. 10. 
 P 1 Kings xii. 32. Hosea iv. 6, 9. v. 1. vi. 9. x. 5. i Hosea iv. 5. ix. 7, 8. '1 Kings 
 xii. 31, 32. Hosea viii. 14. ' Amos vii. 13. ' Hosea v. 11. xiii. 2.
 
 HOSEA. 
 
 the core. God had forhi(hlcn man so to worship Iliin, nor 
 was it lie Who was worsliippcd at ncthcl and Dan, tiioiif^li 
 Jerol)oain proi)aljly meant it. I'eople, when they alter (iod's 
 truth, alter more than tiiey think for. .Siieli is the lot of all 
 heresy. Jeroboam probably meant that (iod shouhl be wor- 
 ship|)ed under a symbol, and he i)roufi;'ht in a worship, 
 whieh was not, in truth, a worship of (iod at all. 'J'lie calf 
 was the symbol, not of the personal <iod, but of ever-renewed 
 life. His eontinued vivifyini;- of all whi(di lives, and renewin<j 
 of what decays. And so what was worshipped was not God, 
 but much what men now call "nature." The calf was a 
 symbol of " nature," much as men say, " nature does this or 
 that," "nature makes man so and so;" "nature useth sim- 
 plicity of means ; " " nature provides," &c. ; as if " nature 
 were a sort of semi-deity," or creation were its own Creator. 
 As men now profess to own God, and do own Him in the 
 abstract, but talk of " nature " till they forj^et Him, or be- 
 cause they forget Him, so Jeroboam, who was a shrewd 
 practical, irreliijious man, slipped into a worship of nature, 
 while he thoui;;ht, doubtless, he was doing honour to the 
 Creator, and professing a belief in Him. 
 
 But they were those same workings in creation, whieh 
 were worshipped by the neighbouring heathen, in Baal and 
 Ashtaroth ; only there the name of the Creator was altogether 
 dropped. Yet it was but a step from one to the other. The 
 calf was the immediate and often the sole object of worship. 
 They " sacrificed to the calves " ; " " kissed the calves "," in 
 token of worship ; swore by them as living gods *. They had 
 literally "''changed their Glory [i. e. (iod] into the similitude 
 of a bull which eateth hay." Calf-worship paved the way for 
 those coarser and more cruel worships of nature, under the 
 names of Baal and Ashtaroth, with all their abominations of 
 consecrated child-sacrifices, and degrading or horrible sen- 
 suality. The worship of the calves led to sin. The heathen 
 festival was one of unbridled licentiousness. The account of 
 the calf-festival in the wilderness agrees too well with the 
 heathen descriptions. The very least which can be inferred 
 from the words, " Aaron had made tliem naked to their 
 shame before their enemies V' is an extreme relaxedness, on 
 the borders of further sin. 
 
 And now, in Hosea's time, these idolatries had yielded their 
 full bitter fruits. The course of iniquity had been run. The 
 stream had become darker and darker in its downward flow. 
 Creature-worship, (as S. Paul points out %) was the parent of 
 every sort of abomination ; and religion having become 
 creature-worship, what God gave as the check to sin became 
 its incentive. Every commandment of (iod was broken, and 
 that, habitually. All was falsehood % adultery ^ bloodshed- 
 ding ' ; deceit to God '' produced faithlessness to man ; excess •= 
 and luxury f were supplied by secret^ or open robbery'', oppres- 
 sion', false dealingj, perversion of justice'', grinding of the 
 poor'. Blood was shed like water, until one stream met 
 another "', and overspread the land with one defiling deluge. 
 Adultery was consecrated as an act of religion ". Those who 
 were first in rank were first in excess. People and king vied 
 in debauchery ", and the sottish king joined and encouraged 
 the freethinkers and blasphemers of his court p. The idolatrous 
 priests loved and shared in the sins of the people i ; nay, they 
 
 " 1 Kings xii. 32. ' Hosea xiii. 2. » Amos viii. 14. 
 
 I Ps. cvi. 20. r Ex. xxxii. 25. « Rom. i. » Hosea iv. 1. vii. 1, 3. >> lb. iv. 11. 
 v.3,+. vii.l. ix. 10. Amosii.7. " Hosea.v.2. vi.8. il Ib.iv.2. x. 13. xi. 12. = Ib.iv. 
 11. vii. 5. Amos iv. 1. f Amos iii. 15. vi. 4-6. b Hosea iv. 2. vii. 1. l> lb. vii. 1. 
 
 ' lb. xii. 7. Amos iii. 9, 10. iv. 1. v. 11. i Hosea xii. 7. Amos viii. 5. ' Hoseax.4. 
 Amos ii. ti, 7. v. 7, 12. vi. 3, 12. ' Amos ii. 7. viii. 0. "■ Hosea iv. 2. " see on iv. 14, 
 
 " Hosea vii. 5. P lb. vii. 3. i lb. iv. 8, !». ■• lb. v. 1. vi. 9. « lb. iv. l] 
 
 ' Hosea iv. 15. x. 5, 8, 15. xii. 4. Amos iii. 14. v. 5. vii. 10, 13. 
 
 seem to have set themselves to intercept those on either side of 
 •lordau, who would go to W()rslii|» at Jerusalem, laving \\ait 
 to murder tliem ^ Corruption had spread tlirougiiiuit the 
 whole land"; even the places oncc! saere<l tlirough (jod'sn^vc- 
 lations or other mercies to their forefathers. Bethel ', (iijgal ", 
 (iilead % Mizpah *, Sheehem ", were es|)ecial scenes of corrup- 
 tion or of sin. ICvery holy memory uas etfaced bv pre>ent 
 corrui)tion. Could tilings be woi-se r 'I'here «as one aggi-a- 
 vation more. Ilenionstranr-e was useless J; the knowle(ige of 
 (iod was wilfully rejected' ; the people hated rebuke"; the 
 more they were called, the more they refused '' ; tliey forbade 
 their prophets to prophesy " ; and tiieir false prophet^- hated 
 (iod greatly''. All atten'ipts to heal all this disease only 
 showed its incurableness''. 
 
 Such was the condition of the people among whom llcjsea 
 had to prophesy for scniie 7*' years. 'I'liey themselves were 
 not sensible of their decay', moral or political. They set 
 themselves, in despite of the Pro])het's warning, to prop up 
 their strength by aid of the two heathen nations. Egypt or 
 xVssyria. In Assyria they chiefly trustedt', and Assyria, he had 
 to denounce to them, should carry them ca|)tive''; stragglers 
 at least, from them fled to Egypt ', and in Egypt they should 
 be a derision J, and should find their grave''. This cajitivitv 
 he had to foretell as iniminent', certain"', irreversible". Once 
 only, in the commencement of his prophecy, does he give any 
 hope, that the temporal punishment might be averted throujrh 
 repentance. This too he follows up by renewing the declara- 
 tion of God expressed in the name of his daughter, " I will 
 not have mercy "." He gives them, in God's Name, a distant 
 promise of a spiritual restoration in Christ, and fore«arns 
 them that it is distant p. But, tliat they might not look for 
 any temporal restoration, he tells them, on the one hand, in 
 peremptory terms, of their dispersion; on the other, he tells 
 them of their spiritual restoration without any intervening 
 shadows of temporal deliverance. God tells them absolutely, 
 "11 will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease ;" 
 " I will no more have mercy upon the Innise of Israel ; " " they 
 shall be wanderers among the nations ; " " they shall not dwell 
 in the Lord's land;" "Israel is swallowed up; she shall be 
 among the nations like a vessel in which is no pleasure." On 
 the other hand, the promises are markedly spiritual ' ; " Ye 
 are the sons of the living God;" " I will betroth her t<t Me 
 for ever;" "they shall fear the Lord and His goodness ;""He 
 will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight ;" "till He come 
 and rain righteousness upon you." " 1 will ransom them from 
 the power of the grave, 1 will redeem them from death." 
 Again, God contrasts ^ with this His sentence on Israel, His fu- 
 ture dealings with Judah, and His nu^rcies to her, of which Is- 
 rael should not partake, while of Judah's spiritual mercies. He 
 says, that Israel should ])artake by being united with Judah'. 
 The ground of this difterence was, that Israel's separate ex- 
 istence was bound up with the sin of Jeroboam, which clave 
 to them throughout their history, and which none of their least 
 bad kings ventured to give up. God tried them for two cen- 
 turies and a half; and not one king was found who would risk 
 his throne for God. In mercifid severity then, the separate 
 kingdom of Israel was to be destroyed, and the separate exis- 
 tence of the ten tribes was to be lost. 
 
 » Hosea iv. 15. ix. 15. xii. 11. ' Hosea vi. 8. xii. 11. 
 
 «' v. 1. I see on vi. U. r lb. iv. 4. « lb. iv. 6. « Amos v. 10. 
 
 •> Hosea xi. 2. add 7. ' Amos ii. 12. J Hosea ix. 7, 9. ' lb. vii. 1. 
 
 ' lb. vii. 9. B lb. V. 13. viii. 9, 10. xiv. 3. and with Egypt, vii. 11. xii. 1. 
 
 •■ Hosea X. 6. xi. 5. (den,ving it of Egypt.) i Hosea ix. 3. ' i Hosea vii. 16. 
 
 ^ Hosea ix. 6. ' i. 4. v. 14. "> v. 9. ix. 7. " i. 6. v. 6. ° ii. 2-4. 
 
 P iii. 4, 5. 1 i. 4, 6. ix. 17. ix. 3. viii. 8. and of distant captivity, iv. 19. and 16. 
 
 ' i. 10. ii. 19 sqq. iii. 5. vi. 1-3. x. 12. .xiii. 14. » i. 7. vi. 11. ' i. 11. iii. 5.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 This message of u-oe pves a peculiar character to the pro- 
 phecies »)f Hosca. He, liivc S. Paul, was ofthe people, whose 
 teuiporary excision he had to declare. He calls the wretched 
 kiufj of Israel "our kiui,^"; " and God calls the rebellious people 
 " thi/ people'." Of that people, he was specially the prophet. 
 Judah he mentions incidentally, when he does mention them, 
 not in his warninjrs only, but in his prophecies of good also. 
 His main commission lay among- the ten tribes. Like Elijah 
 and Elisha whom he succeeded, he was raised up out of them, 
 for them. His love could not he tied down to them ; and so 
 he could not but warn Judah against sharing Israel's sin. But 
 it is, for the most part, incidentally and parenthetically". He 
 does not speak of them equally, except as to that which was the 
 connnon sin of both, the seeking to Assyria for help, and un- 
 fulfilled promise of amendment". And so, on the other hand, 
 mercies, which belong to all, as God's everlasting betrothal of 
 His Church >, aiul our redemption from death' and the grave, 
 he foretells with special reference to Ephraim, and in one 
 place only expressly includes Judah'\ 
 
 The prophecies of Hosea, (as he himself collected them) form 
 one whole, so that they cannot be distinctly separated. In 
 one way, as the second chapter is the expansion and applica- 
 tion of the first, so the remainder ofthe book after the third 
 is an expansion and application of the third. The first and 
 third chapters illustrate, summarily, Epbraim's ingratitude and 
 desertion of God and his dealings with her, by likening them 
 to the wife which Hosea was commanded to take, and to her 
 children. The second chapter expands and applies the picture 
 of Israel's unfaithfulness,*, auched upon in the first, but it dwells 
 more on the side of mercy ; the remaining chapters enlarge the 
 picture ofthe third, although, until the last, they dwell chiefly 
 on the side of judgment. Yet while the remainder ofthe book 
 is an expansion of the third chapter, the three first chapters, 
 (as every reader has felt) are united together, not by their nar- 
 rative form only, but by the prominence given to the history 
 of Hosea which furnishes the theme of the book, the shameful 
 unfaithfulness of Israel, and the exceeding tenderness ofthe 
 love of God, Who, "in wrath, remembers mercy." 
 
 The narrative leads us deep into the Prophet's personal sor- 
 rows. Thei'e is no ground to justify our taking as a parable, 
 what Holy Scripture relates as a fact. There is no instance 
 in which it can be shown, that Holy Scripture relates that a 
 thing was done, and that, w\t\\ the names of persons, and yet 
 that God did not intend it to be taken as literally true''. There 
 would tlien be no test left of what was real, what imaginary ; 
 and the histories of Holy Scripture would be left to be a prey 
 to individual caprice, to be explained away as parables, when 
 men misliked them. Hosea, then, at God's command, united 
 to himself in marriage, one who, amid the widespread corrup- 
 tion of those times, had fallen manifoldly into fleshly sin. 
 With her he was commanded to live holily, as his wife, as 
 Isaac lived with Rebecca whom he loved. Such an one he took, 
 in obedience to God's command, one Gomer. At some time 
 after she bore her first son, she fell into adultery, and forsook 
 the Prophet. Perhaps she fell into the condition of a slaved 
 God anew commanded him to shew mercy to her,to redeem her 
 from her fallen condition, aiul, without restoring to her the 
 rights of marriage '', to guard and protect her from her sins. 
 Thus, by the love of God and the patient forbearance which 
 He instructed the Prophet to shew, a soul was rescued from 
 
 " vii.S. ' iv. 4. The words, "I have seen a lionible thing in the house of Israel," (vi. 
 10.) are words of God, not the prophet's own observation. ™ iv. 15. v. 5, 10. vi. 11. 
 
 "Judah also;" viii. M.xi. 12. "Judah vc(ruleth;" xii. 2. "with Judah also." » v. 13, 14. 
 vi. I. y ii. r,», 20. «xiii. 11. • i. U. Judah is included virtually in iii. 5. 
 
 ■> " The proj(hcl obeys and marries one impure, whose name and her father's name he 
 
 sin unto death, and was won to God ; to the children of Israel 
 there was set forth, year by year, before their eyes a picture 
 and a prophecy of the punishment upon sin, and of the close 
 union with Hiipself which He vouchsafes to sinners who re- 
 pent and return to Ilini. 
 
 "Not only in visions which were seen," says S.Irenseus', "and 
 in words which were preached, but in acts also was He [the 
 Word] seen by the Pi'ophets, so as to prefigure and foreshew 
 things future, through them. For which cause also, the 
 Prophet Hosea took ' a wife of whoredoms,' prophesying by 
 his act, that the earth, i. e. the men who are on the earth, 
 shall commit whoredoms, departing from the Lord ; and that 
 of such men (Jod will be pleased to take to Himself a Church, 
 to be sanctified by the communication of His Son, as she too 
 was sanctified by the communion ofthe Prophet. Wherefore 
 Paul also saith, that 'the unbelieving woman is sanctified in 
 her believing husband." "What," asks S. Augustine 8 of 
 the scoffers of his day, "is there opposed to the clemency of 
 truth, what contrary to the Christian faith, that one unchaste, 
 leaving her fornication, should be converted to a chaste mar- 
 riage? And what so incong-ruous and alien from the faith of 
 the Prophet, as it would have been, not to believe that all the 
 sins of the unchaste were forgiven, when she was converted 
 and amended ? So then, when the Prophet made the un- 
 (shasteonehis wife, a kind provision was madefor the woman 
 to amend her life, and the mystery [of the union of Christ 
 Himself with the Church of Jews and Gentiles] was ex- 
 pressed." " '■ Since the Lord, through the same Scripture, 
 lays clearly open what is figured by this command and deed, 
 and since the Apostolic Epistles attest that this prophecy was 
 fulfilled in the preaching of the New Testament, who would 
 venture to say that it was not commanded and done for that 
 end, for which He Who commanded it, explains in the Holy 
 Scripture that He commanded, and that the Prophet did it?" 
 
 The names which Hosea, by God's command, gave to the 
 children who were born, expressed the temporal punishment, 
 which was to come upon the nation. The Prophet himself, 
 in his relation to his restored yet separated wife, was, so long 
 as she lived, one continued, living prophecy ofthe tenderness 
 of God to sinners. Fretful, wayward, jealous, ungovernable, 
 as are mostly the tempers of those who are recovered from 
 such sins as her's, the Prophet, in his anxious, Matchful charge, 
 was a striking picture of the forbearing loving-kindness of 
 God to us amid our provocations and infirmities. Nay, the 
 love which the Prophet bare her, grew the more out of his 
 compassion and tenderness for her whom God had commanded 
 him to take as his own. Certain it is, that Holy Scripture 
 first speaks of her as the object of his love, when God com- 
 manded him a second time to take charge of her who had be- 
 trayed and abandoned him. God bids him shew active love 
 to her, whom, amid her unfaithfulness, he loved already. Go 
 yet, love a tuoman, beloved of her htmhand, yet an adulteress. 
 Wonderful picture of God's love for us, for whom He gave 
 His Only-Begotten Son, loving us, while alien from Him, and 
 with nothing in us to love. 
 
 Such was the tenderness of the Prophet, whom God em- 
 ployed to deliver such a message of woe ; and such the people 
 must have known to be his personal tenderness, who had to 
 speak so sternly to them. 
 
 The three first prophecies, contained severally in the three 
 
 tells, that what he says might seem not to be a mere fiction, but a true history of facts." 
 Theod. Mops. ■; See on iii. 2. '' See on iii. 3. ' iv. 20. 12. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vii. 14. ? c. Faust, xxii. 80. Not only S. Ambrose, (.\pol. David, ii. 10. 
 
 p. 726.) Theodoret, S. Cvril Alex, but evenTheodoreofMopsuestia understood the his- 
 tory as fact. ^ lb. 89.
 
 ROSEA. 
 
 S) 
 
 first chapters, form, each, a brief circle of mercy and judfij- 
 ment. They do not enter into any detail of Israel's sin, but 
 sum up all in tin; one, wliicii is both centre and circuinfer- 
 eni^eofall si n, t be all-corn prebendiii!;- sin, departure from (iod, 
 cboosin;; the creature rather than the (h-eator. On tliis, the 
 first prophecy foretells the entire, irrevocable destrnction <d" 
 the kinj;-dom ; (iod's temporary rejection <d' His people, but 
 their acceptance, tojjetber with Jndah, in One Head, Christ. 
 The second follows the same outline, rel)uke, cbastisenient, 
 the cessation of visible worship, lianisbnu'iit, and then the be- 
 trothal forever. The third speaks of offence aiiainst deeper 
 love, and more prcdoui^ed punisimieiit. It too ends in the pro- 
 mise of entire restoration ; yet only in the latter days, after 
 mcDii/ dai/.s of separation, both from idolatry and from the true 
 worship of (iod, such as is Israel's condition now. 'i'he rest 
 is one continuous j>roj)hecy, in wbitdi the I'rophet has jtroba- 
 bly jjathered into one the substance of what he had delivered 
 in the course of his ministry. Here and there, yet very sel- 
 dom in it ', the Prophet refers to the image of the earlier 
 chapters. For the most part he exhibits his people to them- 
 selves, in their varied ingratitude, folly, and sin. Tliejtropbecy 
 has many pauses, which with one exception coincide with (uir 
 chapters J. It rises and falls, and then bursts out in fresh tones 
 of upbraiding'', and closes mostly in notes of sorrow and of 
 woe ', for the destruction which is coininj;^. Yet at none of 
 these pauses is there any complete break, such as would con- 
 stitute what preceded, a separate prophecy ; and on the other 
 hand, the structure of the last portion of the book corresponds 
 most with that of the three first chapters, if it is regarded as 
 one whole. For as there, after rebuke and threatened chas- 
 tisement, each prophecy ended with the promise of future 
 mercy,so here, after finally foreannouncingthemiseries at the 
 destruction of Samaria, the Prophet closes his prophecy and 
 his whole hook, with adescrii)tionof Israel'sfuture repentance 
 and acceptance, and of his flourishing with manifold grace. 
 
 The brief summary, in which the Prophet calls attention to 
 all which he had said, and foretells, who would and who would 
 not understand it, the more marks the prophecy as one whole. 
 
 Yet, although these prophecies, as wrought into one by the 
 Prophet, bear a strong impress of unity, there yet seem to 
 be traces, here and there, of the different conditions of the 
 kingdom of Israel, amid which dift'erent parts were first 
 uttered. The order, in which they stand, seems, upon the 
 whole, to be an order of time. In the first chapters, the house 
 of Jeroboarn is still standing in strength, and Israel appears to 
 have trusted in its own power, as the Prophet Amos "' also, 
 at the same time, describes them. The fourth chapter is 
 addressed to the "house of Israel"" only, Mithout any allusion 
 to the king, and accords with that time of convulsive anarchy, 
 which followed the death of Jeroboam II. The omission of 
 the king is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the "house of 
 the king" is included in the corresponding address in eh. v. °. 
 The " rulers p" of Israel are also spoken of in the plural ; and 
 the blood-shed p described seems to be more than individual 
 insulated murders. In this case,the king, upbraided in ch. v. 
 would, naturally, be the next king, Zechariah, in whom (iod's 
 promise to the house of Jehu expired. In the seventh 
 chapter a weak and sottish king is spoken of, whom his 
 
 i iv. 5. V. 3. 7. ix. 1. J ch, V. and vi. alone seem to he one. 
 
 ^ seethe heginningsofch. v.vii.viii. ix. X. xi. xii. xiii. ' seeiv. ult.vii. lli.viii. 14. ix. 
 17. X. 15. xii. 11'. xiii. 16. Chapters vi. and ii.«lose with the eontrast with Judah, ch.vi. 
 declaring that for Jndah oidy w-as tliere a harvest reserved on its return from captivity ; 
 ch. xi. that it alone maintained the true religion. " ii. 14, 1(). vi. 13. " Hosea iv. 1. 
 
 ° V. 1. P iv. ly. 1 iv. 2. 'vii. 5. » 2 Kings xv. 10. ' Hosea vii. 5. " vii. 7. 
 
 ' viii. 14. » 2 Chron. xxvii. 2-4. ^ Hosea x. 14. r Hosea i. 4. see on x. 14. 
 
 ' Hosea iv. 5, 6, 13, 11. v. 3, 13. vi. 4, 5. viii. 5. ix. 10. xiii. 4,5, 9, 11. In xi. 8, 9. God 
 
 princes misled todebauchery, disgusting drunkenness iiiidini- 
 piety. Hut Menabem was a general of fierce dcterminatioM, 
 energy and barl)arity. Debauchery and brutal ferocity are 
 natural associates; but this sottishm'ss here described was 
 rather the fruit of weak com|)liance with the (leiiauehery of 
 others, ''riic princes made him ^ick^" it is said. This is not 
 likelyto havel)een tiie cbaraeter of siu'cesst'iil usurpers, as .Me- 
 nabem, or Pekab,()rlIoshea. Itis far niorelikelytobave been 
 that of Zechariah. who was placed on the throne fort) months, 
 "did evil in thesigiit of the Lord."andthen was"slain jiublicly 
 before the people »," no one resisting. Him, as being tlie last 
 of the line id' Jeiiu, and sanctioned l)y (iod, Ho>ea may the 
 rather have called " our king\" owning in him, evil as be was, 
 (iod's ajipointment. The words "they have devoured their 
 judges, all their kings have fallen "," had anew their fulfilment 
 in the murder of Zechariah and Shallum (15. ('.77^) as soon as 
 the promise to the house of Jehu had expired. The blame of 
 Judah for "' multiplying fenced cities," instead of trusting in 
 (iod, probal)ly relates to the tem])erin which they were iuiilt 
 in the days of Jotham", between B.C. 7o'S and 71 1- Al- 
 though j'otham was a religious king, the corruption of the 
 people at this time is specially recorded ; " the people did 
 corruptly." Later yet, we have mention of the dreadful 
 battle, when Sbalman, or Shalnianezer, took and massacred 
 women and children at Betharbel'- in the valley of Jezreel, 
 about B.C. ~'1\). Hosea, thus, lived to see the fulfilment of his 
 earlier prophecy, " ^ I will break the bow of Israel in the 
 valley of Jezreel." It has been thought that the (juestion 
 " where is thy king?" relates to the captivity of Hoshea, 
 three years before the destruction of Samaria. This sort of 
 question, however, relates not to the actual place where the 
 king was, hut to his ability or inability to help. 
 
 It belongs to the mournful solemnity of Hosea's prophecy, 
 that he scarcely speaks to the people in his own person. The 
 ten chapters, which form the centre of the prophecy, are 
 almost wholly one long dirge of woe, in which the Prophet 
 rehearses the guilt and the punishment of his people. If the 
 people are addressed, it is, with very few exceptions, (iod 
 Himself, not the Prophet, Who speaks to them; and (iod 
 speaks to them as their Judge'. Once only does the Pro- 
 phet use the form, so common in the other Prophets, " ^ saith 
 the Lord." As in the three first chapters, the Prophet, in his 
 relation to his wife, represented that of (iod to His people, so, 
 in these ten chapters, after the first words of the fourth and 
 fifth chapters, " Hear the word of the Lord, for the Lord hath 
 a controversy with the inhabitants of the land," " Hear ye 
 this, O priests ''," whenever the Prophet uses the first person, 
 he uses it not of himself, but of (iod. "I," " JNhV " are not 
 Hosea, and the things of Hosea. but God and what belongs to 
 God. God addresses the Prophet himself in the second per- 
 son ''. In four verses only of these chapters docs the Prophet 
 himself apparently address his own jteoplc Israel, in two " 
 expostulating with them ; in two f, calling them to repentance. 
 In two other verses he addresses Judah ?, or foretells to him 
 judgment mingled with mercy''. The last chapter alone is 
 one of almost unmingled brightness; the Prophet calls to 
 repentance', and God in His own Person J accepts it, and 
 promises large supply of grace. But this too closes the 
 
 speaks to them.inmitigationof His sentence;x.9. is uncertain.but inx.lO. God_ speaks. 
 
 » Hosea xi 11. ^ Hoseaiv. 1. v.l. i' In fil'lv-sevenTerecs.iv.5-',l. 12-14. 17. v.2.:i, 
 9, 10, 12. 14, 15. vi. 4-7, 10, 11 vii. 1, 2, 12-15. viii. 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 12. 14. ix. 10, 12, 15, 
 IB. X, 10. 11. xi. 1,3, 4, 7-9, 12. til. 9,10. xiii. 4, 9. 11. There are apparently only ten 
 verses, in wjiich the Prophet speaks ot Me iorrf in the third person, iv. 1(5. v. 4,(5, 7.ix.:t, 
 4. X. 12. xii. 2, 13. xiii. 15, He says, "My God" ix. S, 17. ^ iv,4, 17. viii.l. « ix. 1, 5. 
 
 < Hosea x, 12.(biit followed by a'declarationof the fruitlessness of his caU, 13, 15.) xii. 6. 
 
 B Hosea iv. 15. 
 
 ^ See on vi. 11. 
 
 Hosea xiv. 1, 3. 
 
 c 
 
 > Hosea xiv. 4, 8.
 
 6 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 linij)liecy witli the warning, that, rig:ht('ous as are the ways of 
 (iod, tlic transo-ressors slioiild stumhlo at tliem. 
 
 It is this same solemn patlios, wliirli lias chietly occasioned 
 the obscurity, complained of in Hosea. The expression of 
 S. Jerome has often been repeated ; " ^ Hosea is concise, and 
 speaketh, as it were, in detached sayinjjfs." The words of 
 upbraiding, of judgment, of woe, burst out, as it ^vere, one 
 hy one, slowly, heavily, condensed, abrupt, from the Prophet's 
 heavy and shrinking soul, as Cod commanded and constrained 
 him, and put His words, like fire, in the Prophet's mouth. 
 An image of Him ^\'ho said, " ' O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
 that killest the I'rophets and stonest them which are sent 
 unto thee, how often would 1 have gathered thy children 
 together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, 
 and ye would not," he delivers his message, as though each 
 sentence burst with a groan from his soul, and he had anew 
 to take breath, before he uttered each renewed woe. Each 
 verse forms a whole for itself, like one heavy toll in a fuiu>ral 
 knell. The Prophet has not been careful about order and 
 symmetry, so that each senteiu-e went home to the soul. 
 And yet the unity of the ])ro})hecy is so evident in the main, 
 that we cannot doubt that it is not broken, even when the 
 connection is not apparent on the surface. The great diffi- 
 culty consequently in Hosea is to ascertain that connection 
 in places where it evidently exists, yet where the Prophet 
 has not explained it. The easiest and simplest sentences "' 
 are sometimes, in this respect, tlie most difficult. It is in 
 remarkable contrast with this abruptness in the more mourn- 
 ful parts, that when Hosea has a message of mercy to deliver, 
 his style becomes easy and flowing. Then no sight of present 
 sin or impeiuling misery disturbs his brightness. He lives 
 wholly in the future bliss which he was allowed to foretell. 
 Yet, meanwhile, luj propliet had a darker futiu-e to declare. 
 The ])rophets of Judah could mingle with their jiresent de- 
 nunciationsa prospect of an early restoration. 'J'he ten tribes, 
 as a whole, had no future. The temporal part of their pu- 
 nishment H'as irreversible. Hosea lived almost to see its ful- 
 filment. Yet not the less confidently does he foretell the spi- 
 ritual mercies in store for his people. He promises them as 
 absolutely as if he saw them. It is not matter of hope, but 
 of certainty. And this certainty Hosea aunoiuices, in words 
 expressive of the closest union with God ; an union shadowed 
 by the closest union which we know, that whereby a uum and 
 his wife are no more twain but oitejiesli. Here, as filled and 
 overfilled with joy, instead of abrupt sentences, he gladly 
 lingers on his subject, adding in every word something to the 
 fulness of the blessing contained in the preceding". He is, 
 indeed,- (if one may venture so to speak) eminently a prophet 
 of the tenderness of the love of God. In foretelling God's 
 judgments, he ventures to picture Him to us, as overcome (so 
 to speak) by mercy, so that He would not execute His full sen- 
 tence ". God's mercies he predicts in the inmost relation of 
 love, that thosewhom He hadrejectcd.He wouldown, as "sons 
 of the living God ;" that He would betroth them to Himself 
 in righteousness, in judgment, loving-kindness,mercies, faith- 
 fulness, and that, for ever ; that He would raise us up on the 
 third day, and that we should live in His sight, ransoming us. 
 Himself, and redeeming us, as our Kinsman, from death and 
 the gravel. 
 
 k Oscecommaticusest.etquasi pcrseiitentiasloquitur.Praef. inxii. Proph. ' S.Matt. 
 xxiii.-')7. "' e. g. xii. 9, 12, i:i. " li. 11.20. xiv. 1-7. " xi. 8, 9. p see on i. 10. ii. 1!) 
 Eqq. vi. 2. xiii. 14. q Ex. xxxiv. 15, KJ. ' Lev. xvii. 7. xx. 5, 6. Num. xiv. 33. 
 
 » Deut xxxi. 16. ' Ex. xx. 5. xxxiv. 11. Deutiv.24. v.9. vi. 15.Num. xxv. 2. "The 
 language " went a wlioriiig/rom God," S:c. occurs in Ps. Ixxiii. 27. Hos. i. 2. iv. 12. ix. 1. 
 not ill tlie Pentateucli. In Ezek. xxiii. 5. " when she was Mine." ' viii. 12. " lit. 
 " ten thousand" according to the textual reading. » see iii. 1. iv. 8, 10. v. 6, 10, 11, M. 
 
 In tliis prophecy of tlu-betrofluil of the Church to God, he 
 both a|)pliesand su]iplies the teaching of the forty-fifth I'salm 
 and of theSongsof Solomon. Moseshadbeen tau htto declare 
 to his peojtie that (;o<l had, in a sjiecial way, ma ie them His 
 people, and was Himself their (Jod. The viol ition of this 
 relation, by taking other gods, Moses had also s lokcn of un- 
 der the image of married faithlessness. But faithlessness 
 implies the existence of the relation, to which they were bound 
 to be faithful. The whole human family, howev 'r, had once 
 belonged to God, and had fallen away from Hi n. And so 
 Moses speaks of the heathen idolatry also under this name, 
 and warned Israel against sharing their sin. "iLestthou 
 make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go 
 a whoring after their gods, — and their (laughters go a whor- 
 ing after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after 
 their gods." The relation itself of betrothal Moses does not 
 mention ; yet it must have been suggested to the mind of 
 Israel by his describing this special sin of choosing other gods, 
 under the title of married faithlessness ■■ and of desertion of 
 God ', and by his attributing to God the title of "Jealous'." It 
 was reserved to Hosea, to exhibit at once to Israel under this 
 image, God's tender love for them and their ingratitude, to 
 dwell on their relation to God AMiomthey forsook", and expli- 
 citly to foretell to them that new betrothal in Christ which 
 should abide for ever. 
 
 The image, however, presupposes an acquaintance with the 
 language of the Pentateuch; and ithasbeennoticed that Hosea 
 incidentally asserts that the written Pentateuch was still used 
 in the kingdom of Israel. For G.od does not say, " I have 
 given to him," but " I have icritten,'" or rather " I write '■'to him 
 the great" or "manifold "" things of the law. The "ten thou- 
 sand things"' which God says that He had written, cannot be 
 the decalogue only, nor would the word "written" be used 
 of an unwritten tradition. God says moreover, " I write," 
 in order to express that the law, although written once for 
 all, still came from the ever-present authority of Him Who 
 wrote it. 
 
 The language of Hosea is, for the most part, too concise 
 and broken, to admit of his employing actual sentences of the 
 Pentateuch. This he does sometimes % as has been pointed 
 onV. On the other hand, his concise allusions would scarcely 
 be understood by those who were not familiar with the his- 
 tory and laws of the Pentateuch ^ Since then plainly a pro- 
 phet spoke so as to be understood by the people, this is an 
 evidence of the continual use of the Pentateuch in Israel, after 
 the great schism from Judah. The schools of the prophets, 
 doubtless, maintained the teaching of the law, as they did the 
 public worship. The people went to Elisha on new moons and 
 sabbaths%and soto other prophets also. Even after the great 
 massacre of theprophets by Jezebel'', we haveincidental notices 
 of schotds of the prophets at BetheP, Jericho'', GilgaP, Mount 
 Ephraim', Samaria»', from which other schools were formed''. 
 The selection of Gilgal, Bethel, and Samaria, shews that the 
 spots were chosen, in order toconfront idolatry and corruption 
 in their chief abodes. The contradiction of men's lives to the 
 law, thus extant and taught among them, could scarcely have 
 been greater than that of Christians now to the Bible which 
 they have in their houses and their hands and their ears, but 
 not in their hearts. 
 
 vi. 2, 3. X. 14. xi. 7, 8. xii.t, 6. xiii. 6, 9. xiv. 2. ^ Hengstenberg, Authentic des Penta- 
 teuches, i. 48 sqq. although, natmally, all his instances will not seem to all to have the 
 forci- of proof. ^seei. 10, 11. iii.' 2. iv. 4, 8. viii. 6, 11, 13. ix. 3, 10. x. 4, 11. xi. 8. 
 
 .\ii. 4-li, 10, H, 12. xiv. 3, 4. "2 Kings iv. 23. ' 1 Kings .xviii. 13. " 2 Kings ii. 3. 
 "i Ih. 5. <■ lb. iv. 38. « Ih. v. 22. e Elisha dwelt in Mount Carniel, 2 Kings ii. 25. 
 iv. 25. but .also at Samaria, 2 Kings ii. 2.5. (probably v. 9.) vi. 32. He had a school of 
 "sons of the prophets" with him, vi. 1. ix. 1. ^ lb. vi. 1.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CH^^ffsT CHAPTER I. 
 
 cir. 785. 1 Hosea, to shetv God's judgment for spiriti«il 
 li'horedom, tnhcth Gomer, 4 <nid lintli hij iicr ,/cz- 
 recl, () Lo-rnlininiili, 8 (Utd Lo-(innni. 10 The 
 restoration of Jadah and Israel. 
 
 THE word of the Loiio that came 
 unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the 
 days of Uzziah, Jothani, Ahaz, and He- 
 
 Chap. I., Ver. 1. The irord of the Lord, that came unto 
 Hosea. Hosca, at the very l>c'ijinnini!: of his prophecy, dechires 
 that all this, whi(;h he delivered, came, not from his own mind 
 but from God. As S. I'aiil says, Paul an Apostle, not of men 
 neither hij man, hut hi/ ,/esus Christ, and God the Father. He 
 refers all to (iod, and claims all obedience to Him. That 
 word «/«((' to him ; it existed then before, in the mind of God. 
 It was first God's, then it became the Prophet's, receivinjij it 
 from God. So it is said, The word of God came to John ^ 
 
 Hosea, i. e. Salvation, or, the Lord saveth. The Prophet 
 bare the name of our Lord Jesus, Whom he foretold and t)f 
 "Whom he was a type. Son of Beeri, i. e. mi/ well or wellinir- 
 forth. God ordained that the name of his father too should 
 sig^nify truth. From God, as from the Fountain of Life, Hosea 
 drew the living waters, which he poured out to the people. 
 TVith joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation". 
 
 in the days of Uzziah, Sfc. Hosea, although a Prophet 
 of Israel, marks his prophecy by the names of the kinj:;s of 
 Judah, because the kinc;don'i of Judah was the kiuisjdom of 
 the theocracy, the line of David to which the promises of God 
 were made. As Elisha, to whose office he succeeded, turned 
 away from Jehoram ■', sayin";, get thee to the prophets of thy 
 father, and to the prophets of thy mother, and owned Jeho- 
 shaphat kine; of Judah only, so, in the title of his ])rophecy, 
 Hosea at once expresses that the kiniidoni of Judah alone 
 was lejiitimate. He adds the name of Jeroboam, partly as the 
 last kinar of Israel whom, by virtue of His promise to Jehu, 
 God helped; partly to shew that God never left Israel 
 unwarned. Jeroboam I. was warned first by the Prophet*, who 
 by his own untimely death, as well as in his prophecy, was a 
 witness to the strictness of God's judsjments, and then l)y 
 Ahijah'; Baasha by Jehu, son of Hanani''; Ahab, I)y Elijah 
 and Micaiah son of Imla ; Abaziah by Elijah ' ; Jehoram by 
 Elisha who exercised his office until the days of Joash *. So, 
 in the days of Jeroboam II., God raised up Hosea, Amos and 
 Jonah. "The kinc:s and people of Israel then were without 
 excuse, since God never ceased to send His prophets amonc; 
 them ; in no rei2:n did the voice of the prophets fail, warning- 
 of the comins; wrath of God, until it came." While Jeroboam 
 was recovering to Israel a larijer rule than it bad ever had 
 since it separated from Judah, annexine; to it Damascus' 
 which had been lost to Judah even in the days of Solomon, and 
 from which Israel had of late so greatly suffered, Hosea was 
 sent to forewarn it of its destruction. God alone could utter 
 " such a voice of thunder out of the midst of such a cloudless 
 sky." Jeroboam doubtless thouglit that his house would, 
 through its own strength, survive the period which God had 
 pledged to it. "But temporal prosperity is no proof either of 
 stability or of the favor of (iod. Where the law of God is 
 observed, there, even amid the pressure of outward calamity, 
 is the assurance of ultimate prosperity. Where God is dis- 
 obeyed, there is the pledge of coming destruction. The sea- 
 
 ' S. Luke iii. 2. - Isaiah xii. 3. 
 
 2 Kings iii. 13, 14. ^1 Kings xiii. s 1 Kings xiv. ' 1 Kings xvi. 
 
 zekiah, kings of .Tiuhdi, and in the days ch'hTst 
 of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of "'"■ ''^^'- 
 Israel. 
 
 2 The beginning of tlie word of tlie 
 FiORi) l>y Hosea. And tlie Loiio said to 
 Hosea, "Go, take unto thee a wife of'Soch. 3. i. 
 whoredoms and ehihh-en of whoredoms : 
 
 sons when men feel most secure against future chastisement 
 are often the preludes of the most sigiud revolutions." 
 
 2. The heginni/ig of the word of the Lord hy Hosea or 
 in Hosea. (iod first revealed Himself and His mysteries 
 to the Prophet's soul by His secret inspiration, and then 
 declared, through him, to others what He had deposited in 
 him. God enlightened him, and then others through the light 
 in him. 
 
 And the Lord said unto Hosea. For this thing was to be 
 done by Hosea alone, because (iod had comnuinded it, not by 
 others of their own mind. To Isaiah (iod first rcvcided 
 Himself, as sitting in the Temple, adored Ity the Scrapiiiiii : 
 to Ezekiel (iod first apjteared, as enthroned above tlie ( lic- 
 ruljim in the Holy of Holies; to Jeremiali (Jod annduiiced 
 that, ere yet he was born. He had sanctified him for this 
 office : to Hosea He enjoined, as the beginning of his j)ro- 
 phetic office, an act contrary to man's natural feelings, yet 
 one, by which he became an image of the Redeemer, uniting 
 to himself what was unholy, in order to make it holy. 
 
 Go take unto thee. Since Hosca prophesied some seventy 
 years, he must now have been in early youth, holy, pure, 
 as became a Prophet of God. Being called thus early, he 
 had doubtless been formed I)y God as a chosen instrument of 
 His will, and had, like Sanuiel, from his first childhood, been 
 trained in true piety and holiness. Yet he was to unite unto 
 him, so long as she lived, one greatly defiled, in order to win 
 her there'oy to purity ami holiness ; herein, a little likeness of 
 our Blessed Lord, W^ho, in the Virgin's womb, to save us, es- 
 poused our flesh, in us sinful, in Him All-Holy, without motion 
 to sin ; and, further, espoused the Church, formed of us who 
 whether Jews or Gentiles, were all under sin, aliens from (iod 
 and gone away from Him '", serri/ig divers lusts and passions, 
 to uutke it a glorious Church, without spot or wri/i/ile. 
 
 A wife of whoredoms, i. e. take as a wife, one who up to 
 that time had again and again been guilty of that sin. So 
 men of bloods ^^ are " men given up to bloodshedding ; " and our 
 L(U-d was a 3Ian of sorrows^-, not occasional only, but 
 manifold and continual, throughout His whole life. She 
 must, then, amid the manifidd corruption of Israel, have been 
 repeatedly guilty of that sin, perhaps as an idolatress, thinking 
 it to be in honour of their foul gods^^. She was not like 
 those degraded ones, who cease to bear children; still she 
 must have manifoldly sinned. So much the greater was the 
 obedience of the Prophet. Nor could any other woman so 
 shadow forth the manifold defilements of the hunuin race, 
 whose nature our Incarnate Lord vouchsafed to unite in His 
 own Person to the perfect holiness of the Divine Nature. 
 
 And children of whoredoms ; for they shared the disgrace 
 of their nmther, although born in lawful marriage. The sins 
 of parents descend also, in a mysterious way, on their children. 
 Sin is contagious, and, unless the entail is cut off by grace, 
 hereditary. The mother thus far pourtrays man's revolts, 
 
 V 2 Kings i. s lb. xiii. 14. » lb. xiv. 2S. 
 
 loEph. V. 27. iiPs. V.6. i= Is. liii. 3. « see on iv. 13, U. 
 
 c2
 
 8 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 ciniTsT for'^hc land hath committed j^reat whore- 
 cn. ,So. doj^i^ (Irpartiiiii- from the Lord. 
 
 3 So he \vent and took Gomer the daugh- 
 
 ■■ Deut. 31. 16. 
 Ps. 73. 37. 
 Jer. 2. 13. 
 
 before his union with God; the children, our forsaking of 
 (Jod, after wc have been made His cbiblren. The forefatliers 
 of Israel, God tells theui, served other gods, ott the other 
 side of the Jlood^, (i. e. in Ur of the Chaldees, whence (iod 
 called Abraham) eind in Egypt. It was out of such defile- 
 ment, that (iod took her-, and He says, Thoii hecaniest Mine^. 
 Whom He maketh His, He maketli pure ; and of her, not 
 such as she was in herself by nature, but as such as He made 
 her. He says*, / remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, 
 the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me, in the 
 tvildeniess. But she soon fell away ; and thenceforth there 
 were amonc: them (as there are now amontj Christians,) the 
 children of God, the ehildren of the promise, and the ehildren 
 of whoredoms or of the devil. 
 
 For the land, &;c. This is the reason why God com- 
 mands Hosea to do this thins, in order to shadow out their 
 foulness and God's mercy. A\'hat no num would dare to do \ 
 except at God's biddins?, God in a manner doth, restorinjr to 
 union with Himself those who had gone away from Him. The 
 land. i.e. Israel, and indirectly, Judah also, and, more widely 
 yet, the whole earth. 
 
 Departing from, lit. from after the Lord. Our whole life 
 should be ^, /o/-^p////;^- the things which are behind, to follow 
 after Him, \Miom here we can never fully attain unto, God 
 in His Infinite Perfection, yet so as, with our whole heart, 
 fully to follow after Him. To depart from the Creator and 
 to serve the creature, is adultery ; as the Psalmist says, 
 '■ Thou hast destroyed all them, that go a whoring from Thee. 
 He who seeks any tliinsf out of God, who turns from follow- 
 ing: Him, and takes to him somethiuj"; else as his god, is un- 
 faithful, and spiritually an adulterer and idolater. For he is 
 an adulterer, who becomes another's than God's. 
 
 3. So he went. He did not demur, nor excuse himself, 
 as did even Moses ^, or Jeremiah", or S. Peter ^", and were 
 rebuked for it, although mercifully by the All-Merciful. Ho- 
 sea, accustomed from childhood to obey God and every indi- 
 cation of the Will of God, did at once, what he was bidden, 
 hoAvever repulsive to natural feeling, and became, thereby, 
 the more an image of the obedience of Christ Jesus, and a 
 pattern to us, at once to believe and obey God's commands, 
 however little to our minds. 
 
 Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. Gomer is comple- 
 tion ; Diblaim, a double lump of figs ; which are a figure of 
 sweetness. These names may mean, that " the sweetness of 
 sins is the parent of destruction ;" or that Israel, or mankind 
 had completely forsaken God, and were children of corrupting 
 pleasure. 
 
 Holy Scripture relates that all this was done, and tells us 
 the births and names of the children, as real history. As 
 such then, must we receive it. We must not imagine things 
 to be unworthy of God, because they do not commend them- 
 selves to us. God does not dispense with the moral law, 
 because the moral law has its source in the Mind of God 
 Himself To dispense with it would be to contradict Himself 
 But God, Who is the absolute Lord of all things which He 
 made, may, at His Sovereign Will, dispose of the lives or 
 
 1 Josh. xxiv. 14. - Ezek. xxiii. 3, 8. ' Ezek. xvi. 8. ■• Jer. ii. 2. ^ Jer. iii. 1. 
 6 Phil. iii. 13. 7 Ps. Ixxiii. 27. ^ Ex. iv. 10. 9 Jer. i. G. '» Acts x. 14. 
 
 ter of Dildaim ; wliich eonceived, and ,■ Ji^t'i n t 
 
 (^ It K i a X 
 
 Before 
 
 ' ' c 
 
 ))are him a son. «'■•■ 785. 
 
 4 And the Lord said unto him, Call his 
 
 things which He created. Thus, as Sovereign Judge, He 
 commanded the lives of the Canaanites to be taken away by 
 Israel, as, in His ordinary Providence, He has ordained that 
 the magistrate should not bear the sword in vain, but has 
 made him His minister, a revenger to execute wrath upon him 
 that doeth eviP\ So, again, He, Whose are all things, willed 
 to repay to the Israelites their hard atid unjust servitude, 
 
 by commanding them to spoil the Egyptians 
 
 He, Who 
 
 created marriage, commanded to Hosea, whom he should 
 marry. The Prophet was not defiled, by taking as his lawful 
 wife, at God's bidding, one defiled, however hard a thing this 
 was. " He who remains good, is not defiled by coming in 
 contact with one evil ; but the evil, following his example, is 
 turned into good." But through his simple obedience, he fore- 
 shadowed Him, God the Word, Who was called'^ the Friend 
 of publicans and sinners ; Who warned the Pharisees that ** 
 the publicans and harlots should enter into the kingdom of God 
 before them ; and Who now vouchsafes to espouse, dwell in, 
 and unite Himself with, and so to hallow, our sinful souls. 
 The acts which God enjoined to the Pro]tliets, and which to 
 us seem strange, must have had an impressiveness to the 
 people, in proportion to their strangeness. The life of the 
 Prt)phet became a sermon to the people. Sight impresses 
 more than words. The j)rophet, being in his own person a 
 mirror of obedience, did moreover, by his way of life, reflect 
 to the people some likeness of the future and of things unseen. 
 The expectation of the people was wound up, when they 
 saw their prophets do things at God's command, wliich they 
 themselves could not have done. When Ezekiel was bidden 
 to shew no sign of mourning, on the sudden death of'^ the 
 desire of his eyes, his wife ; or when he dug through the wall 
 of his house, and carried forth his household stuff in the 
 twilight, with his face covered '* ; the people asked ^^, Ifllt thou 
 not tell us trhat these things are to us, that thou doest so f 
 No words could so express a grief beyond all power of grieving, 
 as Ezekiel's mute grief for one who was known to be " the 
 desire of his eyes," yet for whom he was forbidden to shew 
 the natural expressions of grief, or to use the received tokens 
 of mourning. God Himself declares the ground of such acts to 
 have been, that, rebellious as the house of Israel was^**, with 
 eyes ivhich satv not, and ears which heard not, they might yet 
 consider such acts as these. 
 
 4. Call his name ,/ezreel ; i. e. in its first sense here, " God 
 will scatter." The life of the Prophet, and his union with one 
 so unworthy of him, were a continued prophecy of God's 
 mercy. The names of the children were a life-long admonition 
 of His intervening judgments. Since Israel refused to hear 
 God's words. He made the prophet's sons through the mere 
 fact of their presence among them, their going out and com- 
 ing in, and the names which He gave them, to be preachers to 
 the people. He depicted in them and in their names what was 
 to be, in order that, whenever they saw or heard of them, His 
 warnings might be forced upon them, and those who would 
 take warning, might be saved. If, with their mother's dis- 
 grace, these sons inherited and copied their mother's sins, 
 then their names became even more expressive, that, being 
 
 11 Rom. xiii. 4. 12 Ex. iii. 22. 13 S. Matt. xi. 19. '< lb. xxi. SI. 
 
 li Ezek. xxiv. 16-18. is xii. 3-7. i? xxiv. la. add xii. 10. 18 xii. 2.
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 chrTst "'^'"<^ Jezreel; for yet a little i Hi I Ic, '' und I 
 
 cir. 7s:,. ^yii[ -j- averiffl' the 1)1<mm1 of Jczrocl upon the 
 
 " 2K,ngs 10. jjyj,j.j. Qf J^,\^^^^ a j^,„| ^y\\\ ,.;i„st; to cease tlie 
 
 ^ ^K^ngs'is. kinj^dom of the house of Israel. 
 
 « 2 K?ngs 15. 5 " And it shall come to pass at that day, 
 
 29. 
 
 that I will break tin; how of Israel in the en^aTsT 
 valh'y of Jczrccl. "''■ '^■'>- 
 
 (» i[ And she conceived a-ain, and hnn-^'^J:;,^. 
 a dau«rht(u-. And (iod sai«l unt(» liini, Call , o K'M4?i7. 
 her name || Lo-ruluunali : ^for f I will nO|^et^;;„,„ 
 
 not add any more to 
 
 such as they were, they woiiUl be scattered hy God, woiihl not 
 be owned by God as His people, or be ])itied l)y Him. 
 
 I will (U'ciii^e the Itlood iif Jvzreci iqion titv house (if Jfhii. 
 Yet Jehu shed this blood, tlie bh)od of the house of Ahab, of 
 Joram and Jezebel and the seventy sons of Ahal), at God's 
 command and in fulfilment of His Will. How was it then sin? 
 Because, if we do what is the Will of God for any end of our 
 own, for any thing except God, we do, in fact, our own will, 
 not God's. It was not lawful for Jehu to depose and slay the 
 kinaj his master, except at the command ofCiod, Who, as the 
 Supreme King, sets up andputs down earthly rulers as He wills. 
 For any other end, and done otherwise than at God's express 
 command, such an act is sin. Jehu was rewarded for the mea- 
 sure in which he fulfilled God's commands, as xVhab who had 
 sold /limself to wor/i: wickedness, hud yet a temporal reward for 
 humbling' himself publicly, when rebuked by God for his sin, 
 and so honouring God, amid an apostate people. But Jehu, by 
 cleaving, against the Will of God, to Jeroboam's sin, which 
 served his own political ends, shewed that, in the slaughter 
 of his master, he acted not, as he pretended, out oi'zeal^ for the 
 Will of God, but served his own will and his own ambition 
 only. By his disobedience to the one command of God, he 
 shewed that he would have equally disobeyed the other, had 
 it been contrary to his own will or interest. He had no prin- 
 ciple of obedience. And so the blood, which was shed accor- 
 ding to the righteous judgment of God, became sin to /liin 
 who shed it in order to fulfil, not the Will of God, but his own. 
 Thus God said to Baasha-, I exulted thee out of the dust, and 
 made thee prince over My people Israel, which he became by 
 slaying his master, the son of Jeroboam, and all the house of 
 Jeroboam. Yet, because he followed the sins of Jeroboam^, 
 the word of the Lord came against Baasha, for all the evil that 
 he did in the sight of the Lord, in being like the house of Jero- 
 boam, and because he killed him. The two courses of action 
 were inconsistent ; to destroy the son and the house of Jero- 
 boam, and to do those things, for which God condemned him 
 to be destroyed. Further yet. Not only was such execution 
 of God's judgments itself an oflFence against Almighty God, 
 but it was sin, whereby he condemned himself, and made his 
 other sins to be sins against the light. In executing the judg- 
 ment of God against another, he pronounced His judgment 
 against himself, in that he that fudged, in God's stead, did the 
 same things*. So aweful a thing is it to be the instrument of 
 God in punishing or reproving others, if we do not, by His 
 grace, keep our own hearts and hands pure from sin. 
 
 Ami u'ill cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. 
 Not the kingdom of the house of Jehu, but all Israel. God 
 had promised that the family of Jehu should sit on the throne 
 to the fourth generation. Jeroboam II., the third of these, 
 was now reigning over Israel, in the fulness of his might. 
 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Ilamath % 
 i. e. from the Northern extremity, near Mount Hermon, where 
 
 ' 2Kingsx. IG. - 1 Kings xvi. 2. ^ lb. xvi. ". ■* Rom. ii. 1. » 2 Kingsxiv. 25. 
 " 2 Clir. viii. 3, 4. 7 2 Kings x. 32. 33. » See on.\ni. vi. 14. ' 1 Kings xi. 21 
 '" 1 Mace. xii. 49. " Judith i.8. '- Judg. iv. 4 sqq. » Judg. vi. 33. » 1 Sam. 
 
 Palestine joins on to Syria, and. ^^■hich Solonioii only in all lii^ 
 glory had won for Isnicl ", unto the sra of I he plain, the Dead 
 sea, regaining all which llazael had con(|ucrcd ^, and even sub- 
 duing Moa!) also ", according to the word of the Lord bij Jonah 
 the son of Amittai. He had recovered to Israel, Damascus, 
 which had been lost to Judali. ever since the close of the reign 
 of Solomon''. He was a warlike prince, like that first Jero- 
 boam, who had formed the strength and the sin of the ten 
 tribes. Yet both his house and his kingdom fell with him. 
 The whole history of that kingdom afterwards is little more 
 than that of the murder of one family by another, such as is 
 spoken of in the later chai)ters of Hosea ; and Israel, i.e. the 
 ten tribes, were finally carried captive, fifty years after the 
 death of Zechariah, Jeroboam's son. Of so little account is 
 any seeming prosperity or strength. 
 
 5. I will break the Ixnv of Israel in the vullei/ofJezreel. 
 The valley of Jezreel is a beautiful and a broad valley, or 
 plain, stretching, from W. to E. from Mount Carmel and the 
 sea to the Jordan, which it reaches through two arms, between 
 the Mountains of (iilboa, little Hermon, and Tabor ; and from 
 S. to N. from the Mountiiins of Ephraim to those of Galilee. 
 Nazareth lay on its Northern side. It is called " '" the great 
 plain," •• '1 the great plain of Esdraelon." There God had sig- 
 nally executed His judgments against the enemies of His peo- 
 ple, or on His people wlien tiiey became His enemies. There 
 He gave the great victories over the invading hosts of Sisera^', 
 and of Midian, with the children of the East'*. There also 
 He ended the life and kingdom of SauP*, visiting upon him, 
 when his measure of iniquity was full, his years of contumacy, 
 and his persecution of David, whom God had chosen. Jez- 
 reel became a royal residence of the house of Ahab '\ There 
 in the scenes of Ahab's wickedness and of Jehu's hypocritical 
 zeal, there, where he drave furiously, to avenge, as he alleged, 
 on the house of Ahab, the innocent blood which Ahab had 
 shed in Jezreel, Hosea foretells that the kingdom of Israel 
 should be broken. In the same plain, at the battle with Shal- 
 nianeser, near Betharbel "", Hosea lived to see his jjrophecy 
 fidfilled. The strength of the kingdom was there finally bro- 
 ken ; the sufferings there endured were one last warning be- 
 fore the capture of Samaria ''^. 
 
 The name of Jezreel blends the sins with the punislunent. 
 It resembles, in form and in sound, the name of Israel, and 
 contains a reversal of the promise contained in the name of 
 Israel, in which they trusted. Yisrael (as their name was 
 originally pronounced^'*) signifies, he is a prince irith God; 
 Yidsreel, God shall scatter. They who, while tliey followed 
 the faith, for which their forefather Jacob received from God 
 the name of Israel, had been truly Israel, i.e. "princes with 
 God," should now be Yidsreel, "scattered by God." 
 
 (i. Call her name Lo-ruhamah. The name is rendered 
 in St. Paul ^^, not beloved, in St. Peter -", had not obtained 
 mercy. Love and mercy are both contained in the full mean- 
 
 xxxix.l.xxxi. 1,7,10. >5 iKingsxviii. 46.xxi. 1, 2,3. 2 Kingsix. 10, 2,5.311. x.l. 11. 
 
 >s see on x. 14. '' II). l.j. '* Tlie two names would either be pronounced 
 
 Yisrael, Yidsreel: or both Israel, Idsreel. " Romans ix. 23. -" 1 Peter ii. lU.
 
 10 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 c h^rTs t "'ore have mercy upon the house of Israel ; 
 
 "'■ '^''- \\ but I will utterly take them away. 
 l<wj''fl'«4<- 7 *'' But I will have mercy upon the house 
 
 »:«„/"'^' of Judah, and will save them by the Lord 
 
 K 2 Kings 19. ^j^gjj. Qjj^,^ .^jj^ 1, ^yijj „yj. gj^yg ^Jj^jjj^ |jy 1,,^^^,^ 
 
 !■ Zech. 4. 6. & 9. 10. 
 
 ing of the intensive form of the Hehrcvv word, which expresses 
 the deep tender yearnings of the inmost soul over one loved; 
 as in the words, " ^ As a father pitiefh [i/eurnethover] his own 
 children, so the Lord pitiefh [i/earneth over] them that fear 
 Him." It is tender love in Him Who pitieth ; viercij, as shewn 
 to him who needeth mercy. The punishment, foretold under 
 the name of the daughter, Unpitied, is a great enlargement of 
 that conveyed under the name of the first son, God shall scat- 
 ter. Judali too was carried captive, and scattered ; hut after 
 the 70 years, she was restored. The lOtrihes, it is now fore- 
 told, when scattered, should, as a whole, be cut off from the 
 tender mercy of God, scattered by Him, and as a whole, ne- 
 ver be restored. Those only were restored, who, when Judah 
 returned from captivity, clave to her, or subsequently, one by 
 one, were united to her. 
 
 But I will utterly take them aivay. Lit. for - taking a- 
 way, I will take away from them, or with regard to them, viz., 
 every thing. He specifies nothing ; He excepts nothing ; only, 
 with that awful emphasis. He dwells on the taking away, as 
 that which He had determined to do to the utmost. This is 
 the thought which He wills to dwell on the mind. As a little 
 while after, God says, that He would be nothing to them, so 
 here, where He in fact repeats this one thought, take away, 
 take away, from them, the guilty conscience of Israel would 
 at once, supply "all." When God threatens, the sinful or a- 
 wakened soul sees instinctively what draws down the light- 
 ning of God's wrath, and where it will fall. 
 
 7. / will have mercy on the house of Judah. For to them 
 the promises were made in David, and of them, acording to 
 the flesh, Christ was to come. Israel, moreover, as being 
 founded in rebellion and apostacy, had gone on from bad to 
 worse. All their kings clave to the sin of Jeroboam ; not one 
 did right in tiie sight of God ; not one repented or hearkened 
 to God. Whereas Judah, having the true Worship of God, 
 and the reading of the law, and the typical sacrifices, through 
 which it looked on to the great Sacrifice for sin, was on the 
 whole, a witness to the truth of God '". 
 
 And will save them by the Lord their God, not by bow, S)C. 
 Shortly after tliis, God did, in the reign of Hezekiah, save them 
 by Himself from Sennacherib, when the angel of the Lord 
 smote in one night 185,01)0 in the camp of the Assyrians. 
 " Neither in that night, nor when they were freed from the 
 captivity at Babylon, did they bend bow or draw sword a- 
 gainst their enemies or their captors. While they slept, the 
 Angel of the Lord smote the camp of the Assyrians. At the 
 prayers of Davidand the prophets and holymen,yea,and of the 
 Angels* too, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Per- 
 sia, to set them free to go to Jerusalem, and build the Tem- 
 ple of the Lord God of Israel^. But much more, this is the 
 special promise of the Gospel that God would deliver, not out- 
 wardly, but inwardly ; not by human wars, but in peace; not 
 by man, but by Himself. By the Lord God, by Himself 
 
 ' Ps. ciii. 13. - This mode of speech is often used in Holy Scripture. First a ne- 
 gative is used, then the opposite is said in this emphatic way affirmatively, Thou shall 
 not s/iare him, for killing thou shall kill him, Deut. xiii. 8, 9. [9, 10. Heb.] Thou shall 
 not escape out of his hand, for taking thou shall lie taken, Jer. xxxiv. 3. We tvill not 
 Itearken unto thee ; for doing we will do whatsoever, Sfc. lb. xliv. 17. add, Jer, xlix. 12. 
 
 nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses nor ^. ^^^^i 
 by horsemen. ""■ ''^- 
 
 8 ^ Now wtien she had weaned Lo-ru- 
 hamah, she conceived, and bare a son. 
 
 9 Then said God, Call his name || Lo-" T'^i^/f' 
 
 Who is speaking, or. The Father by the Son, (in like way as 
 it is said, * The Lord rained upon Sodom fire from the Lord.) 
 They were saved in Christ, the Lord and God of all, not by 
 carnal weapons of warfare, but by the might of Him Who sa- 
 ved them, and shook thrones and dominions, and \\'ho by His 
 own Cross triumplictii over the hosts of the adversaries, and 
 overthrowetb the powers of evil, and giveth to those who love 
 Him, to tread on .serpents and scorpions and all the pmcer of 
 the enemy. They were saved, not for any merits of their own, 
 nor for any thing in themselves. But when human means, 
 and man's works, such as he could do of his own free will, and 
 the power of his understanding, and the natural impulses of 
 his affections, had proved unavailing, then He redeemed them 
 by His Blood, and bestowed on them gifts and graces above 
 nature, and filled them with His Spirit, and gave them to 
 will and to do of His good pleasure. But this promise also 
 was, and is, to the true Judah, i. e. to those who, as the name 
 means, confess and praise God, and who, receiving Christ, 
 Who, as Man, was of the tribe of Judah, became His chil- 
 dren, being re-born by His Spirit." 
 
 8. JVow tvhen she had weaned, Sfc. Eastern women very 
 commonly nurse their children two, oreven three '' years. The 
 weaning then of the child pourtrays a certain interval of time 
 between these two degrees of chastisement ; but after this re- 
 prieve, the last and final judgment pictured here was to set in 
 irreversibly. 
 
 9. Call his name Lo-ammi, i. e. not My people. The name 
 of this third child expresses tlie last final degree of chastise- 
 ment. As the scattering by God did not involve the being 
 wholly unpitied; so neither did the being wholly unpitied for 
 the time involve the being wholly rejected, so as to be tio more 
 His people. There were corresponding degrees in the actual 
 history of the kingdom of Israel. God withdrew His protec- 
 tion by degrees. Under Jeroboam, in whose reign was this 
 beginning of Hosea's prophecy, the people was yet outwardly 
 strong. This strength has been thought to be expressed by 
 the sex of the eldest child, that he was a son. On this, fol- 
 lowed extreme weakness, full of mutual massacre and horri- 
 ble cruelty, first, in a long anarchy, then under Zechariah, 
 Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, Hoshea, within, and 
 through the invasions of Pul, Tiglathpileser, Shalmaneser, 
 kings of Assyria, from without. The sex of the daughter, Lo- 
 Riihama, Unpitied, corresponds with this increasing weak- 
 ness, and breaking of the spirit. 3. When she was weaned. 
 i. e. when the people were deprived of all consolation and all 
 the spiritual food whereby they had hitherto been supported, 
 prophecy, teaching, promises, sacrifices, grace, favor, conso- 
 lation, it became wholly Lo-ammi, not My people. As a dis- 
 tinct part of God's people, it was cast off for ever ; and yet it 
 became outwardly strong, as the Jews became powerful, and 
 often were the persecutors of the Christians. The same is 
 seen in individuals. God often first chastens them lightly, 
 
 Ex. xix. 13. Deut. xx. 1". This uniform usage, doubtless, determined our Translators 
 to prefer the rendering of the text to that in the margin, *' That I should altogether par- 
 don them," which would require the two "s's to be taken in different senses. 
 3 See on xi. 12. -i Zech. i. 12. * Ezr. i. 3. « Gen. xix. 24. 
 
 ■ 2 Mace. vii. 27.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 11 
 
 CH rTst '^'""^* • ^^^ y^ f^^^ "^'t my people, and I will 
 
 cir. 785. j^Ql |,g your (wO(l. 
 
 ■' Gen. 32. 12. IQ f Yet' the nuiiiber of the eliildren of 
 
 Rom. 9. 2", " 1 • I 
 
 28. Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, whieh 
 
 then more heavily, ciiul brinsjs tliein down in their inicjiiities ; 
 but if they still harden themselves, lie withdraws hoth His 
 chastisements ami His uraee, so tliat the sinner even j)ros|)ers 
 in this world, but, rcmainiiifj^ finally impenitent, is cast off 
 for ever. 
 
 I will not he 1/ our God; lit. / will not he to you, or, for 
 you ; for you, i)y Provideiu'e, to you, by love. The words say 
 the more throujrh their silence. They do not say what God 
 will not be to those who had been His people. They do not 
 say that He will not be their Defender, Nourisher, Saviour, 
 Deliverer, Father, Hope, Refuse ; and so they say that He will 
 be none of these, which are all included in the English, I will 
 not he your God. For, as God, He is these, and all things, 
 to us. / will not he to you. God, by His love, vouchsafes to 
 give all and to take all. Hegives Himself wholly to Hisown,in 
 order to make them wholly His. He makes an exchange with 
 them. As God the Son, by His Incarnation, took the man- 
 hood into God, so, by His Spirit dwelling in them. He makes 
 men gods, partaAers of the Divine Nature^. They, by His 
 adoption, belong to Him ; He, by His promise and gift, be- 
 longs to them. He makes them His ; He becomes their's. 
 This mutual exchange is so often ex{)ressed in Holy Scripture, 
 to shew how God loveth to give Himself to us, and to make us 
 His ; and that where the one is, there is the other ; nor can 
 the one be without the other. This was the original covenant 
 with Israel: I ic/ll heyour God, and you shall he My people" ; 
 and as such, it is often repeated in Jeremiah"' and Ezekiel*. 
 Afterwards, this is expressed still more affectionately. / will 
 be a Father unto you , and ye shal I he My sons and daughters''. 
 And in Christ the Son, God saith, I will he his Father, and he 
 shall he My Son'^. God, Who saith not tltis to any out of 
 Christ, nor even to the holy Angels, (as it is written '', Unto 
 trhich of the .Angels said He at any time I will he to hint a 
 Father, and he shall he to nie a son ? ) saith it to us in Christ. 
 And so, in turn, the Church and each single soul which is 
 His, saith, or rather He saith it in them ^, My Beloved is mine, 
 and I am His, and more boldly yet, / am my Beloved's and my 
 Beloved is mine^. Whence also at the Holy Communion we 
 say, " then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us, we are one with 
 Christ, and Christ with us;" and we pray thaf'we may ever- 
 more dwell in Him, and He in us." 
 
 10. Yet [lit. and] the number of the children of Israel, Sjx: 
 Light springeth out of darkness ; joy out of sorrow ; mercy out 
 of chastisement ; life out of death. And so Holy Scripture 
 commonly, upon the threat of punishment, promises blessings 
 to the penitent. "Very nigh to the severest displeasure is 
 the dispersion of sorrows and the promised close of darkness." 
 What God takes away, He replaces with usury ; things of time 
 by things eternal ; outward goods and gifts and privileges by 
 inward; an earthly kingdom by Heaven. Both St. Peter'" 
 and St. PauP'tell us that this prophecy is already, in Christ, 
 fulfilled in those of Israel, who were the true Israel, or of the 
 Gentiles, to whom the promise was made'-, Lt thy Seed shall 
 all nations he blessed, and who, whether Jews or Gentiles, 
 believed in Him. The Gentiles were adopted into the Church, 
 
 • 2 Pet, L 4. • Lev. xxvi. 12. add Ex. vi. 7. ' xi. 4, 5. xxiv. 7. xxx. 22. 
 
 xxxi.1,33. xxxiL 38. * xi. 20. xiv. 11. xxxvi. 28. xxxvii. 23, 27. ^ 2 Cor. vi. 18. 
 « 2 Sam. vii. 14. 7 Heb. i. 5. 
 
 eannot be measured or numbered;'' and Q^i^^^^^-y 
 it shall coHK^ to pass, t}i(tt \\ in th<! place "'*•• '^- 
 where it was said unto them, ' i e an; not 20. 
 my people, there it shall be said untonor, in'sWo/ 
 
 ' ch. 2. 23. that. 
 
 which, at the Day of Pentecost, was formed of the Jews, and 
 in which Jews and (icntiles became one in Ciirist'^ ^'et of 
 the Jews alone, not mil v did ttiiun/ tens of thonsamls in Jeru- 
 salem helieve^^, hut St. Peter and St. James both \vr\H- to the 
 dispersed of the ten tribes^'" ; and the Apostles themselves were 
 Jews. Although, then, those Jews who believed in Christ 
 were few in comparison of those who rejected Him, yet they 
 were, in themselves, many, and, through those who, in Christ 
 Jesus, were begotten by them through the Gospel^'', they were 
 numberless. Vet this |)ropliecy, although accompli>hcd in 
 part, will, according to St. Paul '", be yet more completely ful- 
 filled in the end. 
 
 /// the 1)1 are where it was said [or where it shall he said, i. e. 
 at the first] uuto them, ye are not My people, there // shall, 
 in after time, he said unto them, ye are the sons of the living 
 God. Both the times here spoken of by the Proi)het were 
 yet future ; for Israel, although they had apostatised from God, 
 had not yet been disowned by God, Who was still sending 
 to them prophets, to reclaim them. They ceased to he owned 
 as God's people, when, being dispersed abroad, they had no 
 share in the sacrifii'cs, no Temple worship, no proj)hets. no ty- 
 pical reconciliation for sin. God took no more noti<'e of them 
 than of the heathen. The Prophet then speaks of two futures ; 
 one, when it shall be said to them, ye are not My people ; 
 and a yet further future, in which it should be said, ye are 
 the sons of the living God. The place of both was to be the 
 same. The place of their rejection, the dispersion, was to 
 be the place of their restoration. And so St. Peter says that 
 this Scripture was fulfilled in them, while still scattered a- 
 hroad through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, ^Isia, and Bithy- 
 iiia. The place, then, where they should be called the sons of 
 the living God, is, wheresoever they should believe in Ciirist. 
 Although separated in body, they were united by faith. And 
 so it shall be unto the end. "Nothing now constrainctli to 
 go up to Jerusalem, and still to seek for the temple of stones ; 
 for neither will they worship God, as aforetime, by sacrifices 
 of sheep or oxen ; but their worship will be faith in Christ 
 and in His commandments, and the sanctification in the 
 Spirit, and the regeneration through Holy Baptism, making 
 the glory of sonship their's, who are called to be saints by 
 the Lord '»." 
 
 It shall he said ye are the sons of the living God. It was 
 the special sin of Israel, the source of all his other sins, that 
 he had left the living God, to serve dead idols. In the times 
 of the Gospel, not only should he own God as his God, but he 
 should have the greatest of all gifts, that the livi7ig God, the 
 fountain of all life, of the life of nature, of grace, of glory, 
 should be his Father, and as being his Father, should com- 
 municate to him that life, which He has and Is. For He Who 
 is Life, imparts life. God doth not only pour into the souls of 
 His elect, grace and faith, hope and love, or all the manifold 
 gifts of His Spirit, but He, the living God, maketh them to be 
 His living sons, by His Spirit dwelling in them, by Whom He 
 adopteth them as His sons, through Whom He giveth them 
 grace. For by His Spirit He adopteth them as sons. '* fFc 
 
 8 Cant. ii. IC. 9 vi. 3. "> 1 Ep. ii. 10. " Rom. ix. 25, 6. '= Gen. xxiL 18. 
 '3 Gal. iii. 28. '■> Acts xxi. 20. «> S. James i. 1. 1 Pet. i. 1. '« 1 Cor. iv. 15. 
 i; Rom. xi. 2o, G. " S. Cyr. " Rom. viii. 15.
 
 12 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 cifiiTsT them, IV arc'" the sons of tlio liviiii:: fiofl. 
 '•'■•• ''^■^- 11 " Then sliall the ehihh-en of .liuhih 
 
 f'joims'.'i. and the chilch-en of Israelhe gathered to- 
 
 " Is. 11. 12,13. Jer. 3. 18. Ezek. 34. 23. & 37. 10— 24. 
 
 /lare received the aptrlt of adoption ofso)is,wlierehi/ we rry,Ahh(i, 
 Fatlier. And if sons, then heirs ; heirs of God nnd /oint-heirs 
 of Christ, (iod not only jrivt'th us jrnu-e, but adoptetli us as 
 sons. He not only api-ountctli us, l>ut He niaketh us sons ; 
 He inaketh us sons, not outwardly, but inwardly ; not by in- 
 ward iiracc only, but by His Spirit ; not only by tbe birtb from 
 the Spirit, but /// the Only-Besjotten Son ; sons of God, because 
 members of Christ the Son of God ; sons of God, by adoption, 
 as Ciirist is by Nature ; but actual sons of God, as Christ is 
 actually and eternally the Son of God. God is our Father, 
 not by nature, but by grace; yet He is really our Father, 
 .since we are born of Him. sons of the /ii'ing God, born of the 
 Spirit. He giveth us of His Substance, His Nature, althouj^h 
 not by nature ; not united with us, (as it is, personally, with 
 His Son,) but dwelling; in us, and makinc; us paridh-ers of the 
 Divine Xatiire. Sons of the living God must be livinir by Him 
 and to Him, by His life, yea, throuj^h Himself living!; in them, 
 as our Saviour saith *, //" anij man love Me, he ivifl keep My 
 words, and Mif Father will love him, and IFe will come unto 
 him, and make Our abode ivith him. 
 
 11. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of 
 Israel he gathered together. A little imaijc of this union was 
 seen after the captivity in BaI)ylon, when some of the children 
 of Israel, i.e. of the ten tribes, were united to Judah on his re- 
 turn, and the ijreat schism of the two kinjidoms came to an 
 end. More fully, both literal Judah and Israel were gathered 
 into one in the one Church of Christ, and all the spiritual Ju- 
 dah and Israel; i.e. as many of the Gentiles as, by following 
 the faith, became the sons of faithful Abraham, and heirs of 
 the promise to him. 
 
 And shall make themselves one Head. The act of God is 
 named first, thei/ shall he gathered ; for without God we can 
 do nothing. Then follows the act of their own consent, thei/ 
 shall make themselves one Mead ; for without us God doth no- 
 thing in us. God gathereth, by the call of His grace; they 
 make to themselves one Head, by obeying His call, and sub- 
 mitting themselves to Christ, the one Head of the mystical 
 body, the Church, who are His members. In like way, Eze- 
 kiel foretells of Christ, of the seed of David, under the name 
 of David - ; / will set vp one Shepherd over them, and He shall 
 feed them, even Mi/ servant David ; and I tlie Lord will he their 
 God, and mi/ servant David, Prince among them ; and again ^ ; 
 I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of 
 Israel ; and one king shall he king to them all ; and they shall 
 he no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two 
 kingdoms any more at all. But this was not wholly fulfilled 
 until Christ came ; for after the Captivity they were under Zo- 
 robabel as chief, and Joshua as High Priest. 
 
 And shall come up oat of the land. To come up or go up is 
 a title of dignity ; whence, in our time, people are said to go 
 up to the metropolis, or the University, and in Holy Scripture, 
 to "come up," or " go up," out of Egypt ^ or Assyria =, or Ba- 
 byh)n^ to the land of promise, or from the rest of the land to 
 the place which God chose ^ to place His name there, Shiloh *•, 
 
 > S. John xiv. 23. -' Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 4. 3 xxxvii. 22. ■• Gen. xiii. 1. xlv. 2/5, &e. 
 
 5 2 Kings xvii. 3. xviii. D. 13. Is. xxxvi. 1, 10. 6 2 Kings xxiv. 1. Ezr. ii. 1. vii. (!. 
 
 Ueh. vii. Ci. xii. 1. 7 Ex. xxxiv. 24. s i Sam. i. 22. » 2 bam. xix. 34. 
 
 Ifether, and a])|)oint themselves one head, cj^^TsT 
 
 and they shall <-onie up out of the hind : '-•'''• '^'- 
 
 for great shall he the day of Jezreel. 
 
 or, afterwards, Jerusalem " ; and it is foretold that the moun- 
 tain of the Lord's house shall be exalted above the hills ; and 
 many nations shall come and say. Come and let us go uji to 
 the mountain of the L(n-il^". Tlie land from which they 
 should go up, primarily and in image, Babylon, whence God 
 restored the. two tribes, but, in truth and fully, it is the whole 
 aggregate of lands, the earth, the great city of confusion, which 
 Babel designates. Out of which they shall go up, " not with 
 their feet but with their affections," to the city set upon a hill '', 
 theheavenly Jerusalem '-, and Heaven itself,where weare made 
 to sit together with Christ '\ and where our conversatioti ?a'*, 
 that where He /.v, there may wc His servants be^'. They ascend 
 in mind above the earth and the things of earth, and the low- 
 ness of carnal desires, that so they may, in the end, come up 
 out of the earth, to meet the Lord in the air, and for ever be 
 with the Lord^'^. 
 
 For great is the day of Jezreel. God had denounced woe 
 on Israel, under the names of the three children of the Pro- 
 phet, Jezreel, Lo Ammi, Lo Ruhamah ; and now, under those 
 three names. He promises the reversal of that sentence, in 
 Christ. He begins with the name under which He had begun 
 to pronounce the woe, the first son, Jezreel. Jezreel means 
 God shall sow, either for increase, or to scatter. When 
 God threatened, Jezreel necessarily meant, God shall scatter ; 
 here, «'hen God reverses His threatening, it means, God shall 
 sow. But the issue of the seed is either single, as in human 
 birth, or manifold, as in the seed-corn. Hence it is used either 
 of Him Who was, eminently, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of 
 the woman, or of the manifold harvest, which He, the seed- 
 corn '~, should bring forth, when sown in the earth, by His vica- 
 rious Death. It means. then, Christ orHis Church. Christ,the 
 Only-Begotten Son of God before all worlds, was, in time, also 
 " conceived by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary," the 
 Son of God Alone, in a way in which no other man was born 
 of God. Great then should be the day, when '• God should 
 sow," or give the increase in mercy, as before He scattered 
 them, in His displeasure. The great Day wherein God should 
 sow, was first the day ivhich the Lord had made ^* the Incarna- 
 tion, in which God the Son became Man, the seed of the woman; 
 then, it was the Passion, in which, like a seed-corn, He was 
 sown in the earth ; then, the Resurrection, when He arose the 
 Firstborn among many brethren ; then, all the days in which 
 He bare much fruit. It is the one day of salvation, in which, 
 generation after generation, a new seed hath been or shall he 
 born unto Him. and shall serve Him ''. Even unto the end, e- 
 very time of anyspecial growth of the Church. every conversion 
 of Heathen tribe or people, is a day of Jezreel, a day in which 
 " the Lord soweth." Great, wonderful, glorious, thrice-blessed 
 is the day of Christ ; for in it He hath done great things for us, 
 gathering together under Himself, the Head, those scattered 
 abroad, without hope and ivithout God in the world ; making 
 •' not My people" into " My people" and those not beloved into 
 His beloved, the objects of His tender, yearning compassion, 
 full of His grace and mercy. For so it follows, 
 
 1 Kings xii. 27, 28. Ps. cxxii. 4, Sec. '» Is. ii. 2, 3. Mic. iv. 1,2. " S. Matt. v. 14. 
 '= Hel). xii. 22. '3 Epli. ii. fi. » Phil. iii. 20. >i S. John xii. 2t). 
 
 " 1 Thess. iv. 17. >7 S. John xii. 24. " Ps. cxviii. 24. " Ps. xxii. 30, 1.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 13 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 785. 
 
 That is, 
 
 Mif peoph'* 
 Tdat is, 
 Having nh- 
 taitieii tiwrci/. 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 1 T/ie idohifri/ of tJie jx'oplv. (5 God's judi^meiits 
 (tguinst theiii. 14 His j'ro'nises of reconcilia- 
 tion with them. 
 
 SAY ye unto your brethren, || Amml ; 
 and to your sisters, || Ruluunah. 
 
 II. 1. Sui/ ye unto your brethren, Ammi, i. e. My peo]ile, 
 and to your sisters, Buhaniah, i. e. beloved or tenderly pitied. 
 Tlie words form acliniax of the love of (Jod. First, the people 
 scattered', iinpitied -, and disowned by (iod \ is re-born of God; 
 then it is declared to be in continued relation to God, 3Iy peo- 
 ])le ; then to be the objei^t of His yearning? love. Tiic words, 
 3Iy people, may be alike filled up, " ye are My people," and 
 " lie ye My people." Tiiey arc words of hope in prophecy, 
 "ye shall be a^ain My people; "they become words of joy in 
 each stape of fulfilment. They are words of mutual joy and 
 gratulation, when obeyed; they arc words of cncourac;enient, 
 until obeyed. God is reconciled to us, and willcth that we be 
 reconciled to Him. Among those who already are God's peo- 
 ple, they are the voice of the joy of mutual love in the oneness 
 of the Spirit of adoption ; ive are His people ; to those without 
 (whether the ten tribes, or the Jews or heretics,) they are the 
 voice of those who know in Whom they have believed, Be ye 
 also His people. " Despair of the salvation of none, but, with 
 brotherly love, call them to repentance and salvation." 
 
 This verse closes what went before, as God's reversal of His 
 own sentence, and anticipates what is to come *. God com- 
 mands the prophets and all those who love Him, to appeal to 
 those wiio forijet Him, holding; out to them the mercy in store 
 for them also, if they will return to Him. He bids them not 
 to despise those yet alien from Him, " but to treat as bretiiren 
 and sisters, those whom God willeth to introduce into His 
 house, and to call to the riches of His inheritance." 
 
 2. Plead with your mother, plead. The prophets close the 
 threats of coming; judgments with the dawn of after-hopes ; 
 and from hopes they go back to God's judgments against sin, 
 pouring in wine and oil into the wounds of sinners. T'he mo- 
 ther is the Church or nation ; the sons, are its members, one 
 by one. These, when turned to God, must plead with their 
 mother, that she turn also. When involved in her judgments, 
 they 7nust ])lead witii her, and not accuse God. God had not 
 forgotten to be gracious ; but she " kept not His love and re- 
 fused His friendship, and despised the purity of spiritual com- 
 munion witli Him, and would not travail with the fruit of His 
 Will." "5 The sons difi"cr from the mother, as the inventor of 
 evil from those wlio imitate it. For as, in good, the soul which, 
 from the Sj)irit of God, conceiveth the word of truth, is the 
 motiier, and whoso profiteth by hearing the word of doctrine 
 from her mouth, is the child, so, in evil, whatsoever soul in- 
 venteth evil is the mother, and whoso is deceived by iier is the 
 son. So in Israel, the adulterous mother was the Synagogue, 
 and the individuals deceived by her were the sons." 
 
 "Ye who believe in Christ, and are both of Jews and Gen- 
 tiles, say ye to the broken branches and to the former people 
 which is cast off. My people, for it is your brother ; and Beloved, 
 for it is your sister. For when ''' the fulness of the Gentiles shall 
 have come in, then shall all Israel be saved. In like way we 
 are bidden not to despair of heretics, but to incite them to re- 
 pentance, and with brotherly love to long for their salvation.'" 
 
 ' Jezreel. " Lo-Rnhamah. 3 Lo-Ammi. ■■ v. 14 sqq. ^ Rup. 
 
 « Rom. xi. 25, 2G. 
 
 2 Plead wltli your mother, plead : for ^ ^il^^ t 
 she i.s- not my wife, neither am I her has- _ "''■ "^■ 
 
 leai. oU. 1. 
 
 hiind : let her therefore put away her 
 •' whoredoms out of her sijjrht, and her adul- '' Kztk. lo.sr^. 
 teries rrom l)etween her breasts ; 20. 
 
 3 Lest "=1 strip her naked, and set uy. 
 
 i'or she is not 3Iy wife. ikn\ speakcfh of tin- spiritual 
 union l)et\veen Himself and Ilis|>eo|)lc whom He had chosen, 
 under the terms of the closest iiunian oneness, of iiusband and 
 wife. She was no longer united to Him by faith and lo\c, nor 
 would He any longer own lier. IMcad thcrefdrc with iicr ear- 
 nestly as orpiians, wlio, for her sins, liave lost tlie protection 
 of their Father. 
 
 Let her therefore put away her whoredimis. So great is the 
 tender mercy of God. He says, let her but put away iier de- 
 filements, and she shall again be restored, as if she had never 
 fallen; let her but put away all objects of attacluncnt wliich 
 witiidrew her from God, and God will again lie All to her. 
 
 Adulteries, whoredoms. God made the soul for Himself; 
 He betrothed her to Himself through the gift of the H<dy 
 Spirit ; He united her to Himself. All love, then, out of God, 
 is to take another, instead of God. JFhom have I in heaven 
 but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides 
 Thee. Adultery is to become another's than His, the Oidy 
 Lord and Husband of the soul. TJ'horedom is to have many 
 other objects of sinful love. Love is one, for One. The soul 
 which has forsaken the One, is drawn hither and thither, has 
 manifold objects of desire, which displace one another, because 
 none satisfies. Hence the Prophet speaks of " fornications, 
 aduIter/fA;" because the soul which will not rest in God seeks 
 to distract herself from her unrest and unsatisfiedness, by 
 heaping to herself manifold lawless pleasures, out of, and 
 contrary to the Will of, God. 
 
 From before her, \\t. from her face. The face is the seat 
 of modesty, shame, or shamelessncss. Hence in Jeremiah 
 God says to Judah,* Thou hadst a harlot' s forehead ; thou refus- 
 edst to be ashauied ; and ^ they were not at all ashamed, neither 
 will they blush. The eyes, also, are the'" windows through 
 which death, i. e. lawless desire, e?iters into the soul, and takes 
 it captive. 
 
 From her breasts. These are exposed, adorned, degrad- 
 ed in disorderly love, which they are employed to allure. Be- 
 neath too lies the heart, the seat of the affections. It may 
 mean then that she should no more gaze with pleasure on the 
 objects of her sin, nor allow her heart to dwell on things 
 which she loved sinfully. Whence it is said of the love of 
 Christ, which should keep the soul free from all unruly pas- 
 sion ^vhii'h might off'end Him, ^^ My well Beloved shall lie all 
 night between my breasts, ^'-as a seal upon the heart beneath. 
 
 3. Lest I strip her naked. "There is an outward visible 
 nakedness, and an inward, which is invisible. The invisible 
 nakedness is when the soul within is bared of the glory and 
 the grace of God." The visible nakedness is the privation 
 of God's temporal and visible gifts, the goods of this world, 
 or outward distinction. God's inward gifts the sinful soul or 
 nation despises, while those outward gifts she prizes. And 
 therefore, when the soul parts with the inward ornaments 
 of God's grace, He strips her of the outward, His gifts of 
 nature, of His Providence and of His Protection, if so be. 
 
 S.Jei. siii.3. 9Ib.vi.15. i»Ib.ix.2I. 
 
 '2 Cant. viii. 6. 
 
 11 Cant. i. 13.
 
 14 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST ^^^^' "^'^ ^^^^ *^'^>' *'*'^^ ^^"' ^^'^'^ ''born, and 
 cir. 785. make her ' as a wilderness, and set her like 
 
 ' lit. w.ls. a dry land, and slay her with f thirst. 
 
 f Amos 8. u, ^ j^^^^Y J ^^,j|j ^^^ \iave mercy upon her chil- 
 
 throufjh her outward misery and shame and poverty, she may 
 come to feel tliat deeper misery and emptiness and disijraee 
 within, whi<'h she had had no heart to feel. So, wiien our 
 first parents lost the robe of innocence, f/iej/ knew that they 
 were naked ^. 
 
 And set her, (lit, " I will fix her," so that she shall have 
 no power to free herself, hut must remain as a jrazinjj stock,) (is 
 in the daij that she was horn, i. e. helpless, defiled, uncleansed, 
 uncared for, unformed, cast out and loathsome. Such she 
 was in Ej;;ypt, which is in Holy Scripture spoken of as her 
 birth-place-; for there she first became a people; thence the 
 God of her fathers called her to be His people. There she was 
 naked of the g:race and of the love of God, and of the wisdom 
 of tlie law ; indwelt by an evil spirit, as beinir an idolatress ; 
 without God ; and under hard bondage, in works of mire 
 and clay, to Pharaoh, the type of Satan, and her little ones a 
 prey. For when a soul casts off the defence of heavenly grace, 
 it is an easy prey to Satan. 
 
 And make her as a ii'ilde?-ness, and set her as a dri/ land, a)id 
 slay her with thirst. The outward desolation, which God in- 
 flicts, is a picture of the inward. Drought and famine are 
 among the four sore judgments with which God threatened 
 the land, and our Lord forewarned them, ^ Your house is left 
 unto you desolate; and Isaiah says, ^ fFhereas thou hast beeii for- 
 saken and hated, so that no man went through thee. But the 
 Prophet does not say, make her a wilderness, but make her as a 
 wilderness. The soul of the sinner is solitary and desolate, 
 for it is has not the presence of God ; unfruitful, bearing briars 
 and thorns only, for it is unbedewed by God's grace, unwatered 
 by the Fountain of living waters; athirst, not with thirst for 
 water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, yet also, burning 
 with desire, which the foul streams of this world's pleasure 
 never slake. In contrast with such thirst, Jesus says of the 
 Holy Spirit which He would give to them that believe in Him, 
 Whosoever drinketh of the water, that I shall give him, shall 
 never thirst ; hut the water, that I shall give him. shall be in 
 him a well of water springing up into everlasting life". 
 
 " ^ But was not that certain, which God had said, / ruill no 
 more have mercy on the house of Israel ? How then does God 
 recall it, saying, ' Let her put away her fornications, fyc. lest 
 I do to her this or that which I have spoken ? ' This is not 
 unlike to that, when sentence had been passed on Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, Daniel saying. This is the decree of the Most High, 
 which is come upon my Lord the king ; they shall drive thee 
 from men, and thy divelling ; the same Daniel says. Where- 
 fore, O king, let my counsel he acceptable unto thee, and redeem 
 thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy 
 on the poor, if it may he a lengthening of thy tranquillity"'. 
 'W'hat should we learn hereby, but that it hangs upon our 
 own will whether God suspend the judgment or no ? For we 
 ought not to impute our own evil to God, or impiously think 
 that fate rules us. In other words, this or that evil comes, 
 not because (iod foreknew or foreordained it, but because this 
 evil was to be, or would be done, therefore God both foreknew 
 it, and prefixed his sentence upon it. Why then does God 
 predetermine an irrevocable sentence ? Because He foresaw 
 
 dren ; for they fte"tlie children of whoredoms, q if\f{% t 
 5 '» For their mother hath played the "*•• "*^^- 
 
 11 11 -iiii. * John «. 41. 
 
 harlot : she that conceived them hath done ^ itai. 1.21. 
 shamefully : for she said, I will go after 9. Eiek.'i6. ' 
 
 •' ** 15, 16, &c. 
 
 ' Gen. iii.7. 
 5 Ezelc. xvi. 4. 3 S. Matt, xxiii. 38. * Is. Ix. 15. 
 
 ' S. John iv. 14. vii. 38, 39. 
 
 incorrigible malice. Why, again, after pronouncing sentence, 
 doth God counsel amendment ? That we may know by expe- 
 rience, that they are incorrigible. Therefore, He waits for 
 them, although they will not return, and with much patience 
 invites them to repentance." Individuals also repented, al- 
 though the nation was incorrigible. 
 
 4. / tvill not have mercy upon her children. God visits 
 the sins of the parents upon the children, until the entailed 
 curse be cut off" by repentance. God enforces His own word 
 to ruhamah, Unpitied, by repeating it here, /o arahem,''- I will 
 not pity." Reproaches which fall upon the mother are ever 
 felt with especial keenness. Whence Saul called Jonathan, 
 * Thou son of the perverse rebellious ivoman. Therefore, the 
 more to arouse them, he says, for they are the children of whore- 
 doms, evil children of an evil parent, as S. John Baptist calls the 
 \\y]tcivr\t\ci\\ icws, ye generation of vipers'^ "This they were, 
 from their very birth and swaddling clothes, never touching 
 any work of piety, nor cultivating any grace." As of Christ, 
 and of those who, in Him, are nourished up in deeds of righte- 
 ousness, it is said, / ivas cast upon Thee from the womb ; 
 Thou art my God from my 7nother''s belly, so, contrariwise, of 
 the ungodly it is said. The wicked are estranged from t he womb ; 
 they go astray as soo)i as they be born, speaking lies. And as 
 they who, live honestly as in the day and in the light, are called 
 children of the day and of the light, so they who live a defiled 
 life are called //if children of whoredoms. "*' To call them chil- 
 dren of whoredoms is all one with saying, that they too are in- 
 corrigible or unchangeable. For of such, Wisdom, after say- 
 ing, executing Thy Judgments upon them by little and little, 
 addeth forthwith, ^" not being ignorant that they were a naughty 
 generation, and that their malice was bred in them, and that 
 their cogitatioti tvould uever be changed, for it was a cursed 
 seed from the begimmjg. All this is here expressed briefly by 
 this word, that they are the children fjfwhrjredoms, meaning that 
 their malice too was inbred, and that they, as much as the Am- 
 orite and Hittite, were a cursed seed. Not yet, in so speak- 
 ing, did he blame the nature which God created, hut he ve- 
 hemently reproves the abuse of nature, that malice, which 
 cleaves to nature but was no part of it, was by custom changed 
 into nature." 
 
 5. She that conceived them hath done shamefully, lit. hath 
 made shameful. The silence as to what she made shameful is 
 more emphatic than any words. She made shameful every 
 thing which she could make shameful, her acts, her children, 
 and herself. 
 
 / will go [lit. let mega, Iwould go'] after my lovers. The 
 Hebrew word 3Ieahabim denotes intense passionate love ; 
 the plural form implies that they were sinful loves. Every 
 word aggravates the shamelessness. Amid God's chastise- 
 ments, she encourages herself, Come, let me go, as people har- 
 den and embolden, and, as it were, lash themselves into further 
 sin, lest they should shrink back, or stop short in it. Let me 
 go after. She wiiits not, as it were, to be enticed, allured, se- 
 duced. She herself, uninvited, unbidden, unsought, contrary 
 to the wont and natural feeling of woman, follows after those 
 by whom she is not drawn, and refuses to follow God W^ho 
 
 8 Rup. 
 7 Dan.iv. 24,25, 27. s i Sam. xx. 30. « S. Matt. iii. 7. '" Wisd. xii. 10, II.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 15 
 
 c H^iiTs T "^y lovers, ' that gixr me my broad and my 
 '^"- ^*^^- water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and 
 
 ' Jer. 4t. 17. i ■ • i 
 
 ver. 8. 12. my f drink. 
 
 jyotS" 6 t Therefore, behold, ^ I will hedge 
 Lam". V. 7, 9. up thy Way with tiiorns, and f make a 
 
 f Heb. tvalt a wall. 
 
 would draw her ^ The lovers are, whatever a man loves and 
 courts, out of God. They were the idols and false ;;ods, whom 
 the Jews, like the heathen, took to themselves, hesides (iod. 
 But in truth they were devils. Devils she sous^ht; the will of 
 devils she followed; their pleivsure she fulfilled, abandoniui,^ 
 herself to sin, shamefully filled with all wickedness, and tra- 
 vailingf with all manner of impurity. These she professed that 
 she loved, and that they, not God, loved her. For whoever 
 receives the jyifts of God, except from God and in (iod's way, 
 receives them from devils. Wiioso seeks what God forbids, 
 seeks it from Satan, and holds that Satan, not God, loves him ; 
 since God refuses it, Satan encourages him to possess himself 
 of it. Satan, then, is his lover. 
 
 That gave me my bread and my water. The sense of hu- 
 man weakness abides, even when Divine love is jjone. The 
 whole history of man's superstitions is an evidence of this, 
 whether they have been the mere instincts of nature, or whe- 
 ther they have attached themselves to relijiion or irreliirion, 
 Jewish or Pagan or Mohammedan, or have been practised by 
 half Christians. " She is conscious that she hath not these 
 things by her own power, but is beholden to some other for 
 them; but not remembering Him (as was commanded) Who 
 \i3iAgiven her power to get wealth, and richly all things to enjoy, 
 she professes them to be the gifts of her lovers." Bread and 
 water, wool and flax, express the necessaries oiWie, food and 
 clothing; mine oil and my drinh, [Heb. drinAs] its luxuries. 
 Oil includes also ointments, and so served both for health, food 
 and medicine, for anointing the body, and for perfume. In 
 perfumes and choice drinks, the rich people of Israel were 
 guilty of great profusion ; whence it is said. He that loveth 
 wine and oil shall not be rich ~. For such things alone, tiic 
 things of the body, did Israel care ; ascribing them to her false 
 gods, she loved those gods, and held that they loved her. In 
 like way, the Jewish women shamelessly told Jeremiah ', we 
 will certainly do whatsoever thing goes out of our own mouth, 
 to hum incense unto the queoi of lieaven, and to pour out drink 
 offerings unto her, us we have done, we and ourfathers, our /iings 
 and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of 
 Jerusalem. For then had ive plenty of victuals, and were well, 
 and saiv no evil. But since ive left o/f to burn incense to the 
 queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we 
 have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword 
 and by the famine. 
 
 6. Therefore, i. e. because she said, / will go after my lo- 
 vers, behold I will hedge up thy ways, lit. behold, I hedging. 
 It expresses an immediate future, or something which, as be- 
 ing fixed in the mind of God, is as certain as if it were actu- 
 ally taking place. So swift and certain shoidd be her judg- 
 ments. 
 
 Thy way. God had before spoken o/ Israel ; now He turns 
 to her, pronouncing judgment upon her; then again He turn- 
 eth away from her, as not deigning to regard her. "If the sin- 
 ner's way were plain, and the soul had still temporal prosperi- 
 ty, after it had turned away from its Creator, scarcely or 
 
 See Ezek. xvi. 31-1. 
 
 Prov. xxi. 17. 
 
 3 xliv. 17, 18. 
 
 wall, that she shall not find her ])aths. ^ jf jfpg ^ 
 
 7 And she shall follow after her lovers. "'■ "'^■^- 
 bnt she shall not overtake them ; and she 
 shall seek them, but shall not find them : 
 then shall she say, ' I will y^o and return to Luke' 15.' is. 
 
 never could it be recalled, nor would it hear the voice behind 
 it, warning it. But when adversity befalls it, and tribulation 
 or temporal diffi<'ultics overtake it in its course, then it remem- 
 bers the Lord its (Jod." So it was with Israel in Egypt. 
 \\'lien they sat by the Jlcsh jiots, and did eat bread to the full, 
 amid the fish, which they did eat freely, the lurumbers anil the 
 melons, tliey forgat the (iod of their fathers, and served the 
 idols of Egypt. Then He raised up a new king, who made their 
 lives bitter ivith hard lumdage, in mortar and in brick and in 
 all the service of the field ; then they groaned Ity reason of the 
 bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto (iod by 
 reason of their Imndage, and (iod heard their groaning*. .So 
 in the book of Judges the ever-recurring history is, they for- 
 sook God ; He delivered them into the hands of their enemies ; 
 they cried unto Him ; He sent them a deliverer. A way may 
 be found through a hedge of thorns, although with pain and 
 suffering ; through a stone ivall even a strong man canniit burst 
 a way. 77(o/v/,s- then may be the pains to the flesh «itli which 
 God visits sinful pleasures, so that the soul, if it would break 
 through to them, is held back and torn ; the irall may mean, 
 that all such sinful joys shall be cut off altogether, as by be- 
 reavement, poverty, sickness, failure of j)lans, &c. In sorrows, 
 we cannot find our idols, which, although so near, vanish from 
 us ; but we may find our God, though we are so far from Him, 
 and He so often seems so far from us. " God hedgeth with 
 thorns the ways of the elect, when they find prickles in the 
 things of time, which they desire. They attain not the plea- 
 sures of this world which they crave." They cannot ;?/;f/ their 
 paths, when, in the special love of God. they arc hindered from 
 obtaining what they seek amiss. " I escaped not Thy scour- 
 ges," says S. Augustine, as to his heathen state", '•for what 
 mortal can? For Thou M-ert ever with me, mercifully rigor- 
 ous, and besprinkling with most bitter alloy all my unlawful 
 ])leasures, that I might seek pleasures without alloy. But 
 where to find such, I could not discover, save in Thee, O Lord, 
 Who teachest by sorrow, and woundest us, to heal, and killest 
 us, lest we die from Thee." 
 
 7. A)tdshe shall follow after. The words rendered /o//o(r 
 after and seek °, are intensive, and express " eager, vehement 
 pursuit," and "diligent search." They express, together, a 
 pursuit, whose minuteness is iu)t hindered by its vehemence, 
 nor its extent and wideness l)y its exactness. She shall seek 
 far and wide, minutely and carefully, everywhere and in all 
 things, and shall fail in all. For eighteen hundred years the 
 Jews have chased after a phantom, a Christ, triumphing after 
 the manner of the kings of the earth, and it has ever escaped 
 them. The sinful soul will too often struggle on, in pursuit 
 of what God is withdrawing, and will not give over, until, 
 through God's persevering mercy, the fruitless pursuit ex- 
 hausts her, and she finds it hopeless. Oh the wilfulness of man, 
 and the unwearied patience of God ! 
 
 Then shall she say, I will go and return. She encourages 
 herself tremblingly to return to God. The words express a 
 mixture of purpose and wish. Before she said, " Come let me 
 
 < Ex. xvi. 3. Num. xi. 5. Ex. i. 8, 14. ii. 23, 4. 
 
 i Conf. ii. 4.
 
 16 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 for then was it better 
 
 8 For she did not " know that " I gave her 
 corn, and f wine, and oil, and multiplied 
 
 c h^rTs t '"y " ^^^^ husband 
 '^'"- ''^^- with me than now. 
 
 I" Ezek. lU. 8. 
 II Isai. 1. ;!. 
 « Ezck. 10.17. 
 
 18, 19. 
 + Heb. new whie. 
 
 go after my lovers ;" now, she says, " Conic, let me go luut let 
 me return," as the prodigal in the Gospel, / will arise anil go 
 to my Father. 
 
 To mi/ first hiishand. "God is the first Husband of the 
 soul, which, while yet pure. He, throu!;"li tlic love of the Holy 
 Ghost, united with Himself. Him the soul lonsjeth for, when 
 it tindeth manifold hitternesses, as thorns, in those delights 
 of time and sense wliieh it coveted. For when tiie soul hej:;ins 
 to be g-nawed by the sorrows of the world which she loveth, 
 then she understandeth more fully, how it was better with her, 
 witli her former husband. Those Avhom a perverse will led 
 astray, distress mostly converts." '* Mostly, when we cannot 
 obtain in this world what we wish, when we have been wea- 
 ried with the impossibility of our search of earthly desires, 
 then the thought of God returns to the soul ; then, what was 
 before distasteful becomes pleasant to us ; He Whose com- 
 mands had been bitter to the soul, suddenly in memory grows 
 sweet to her, and the sinful soul determines to be a faithful 
 wife." And God still vouchsafes to be, on her return, the 
 husband even of the adulterous soul, however far she had stray- 
 ed from Him. 
 
 For t/ien it was better ivith me than now. It is the voice of 
 the pi'odigal son in the Gospel, which the Father hears, How 
 many hired servants of my Father have bread enough and to 
 spare, and I perish ivith hunger .' " 1 will serve," Israel would 
 say, " the living and true God, not the pride of men, or of evil 
 spirits ; for even in this life it is much sweeter to bear the yoke 
 of the Lord than to be the servant of men." In regard to the 
 ten tribes, the " then " must mean the time before the apostacy 
 under Jeroboam. God, in these words, softens the severity of 
 His upbraiding and of His sentences of coming woe, by the 
 sweetness of promised mercy. Israel was so impatient of 
 God's threats, that their kings and j)rinces slew those whom 
 He sent unto them. God wins her attention to His accusa- 
 tions by this brief tempering of sweetness. 
 
 8. For she did not know. The Prophet having, in sum- 
 aiiary^ related her fall, her chastisement, and her recovery, 
 begins anew, enlarging both on the impending inflictions, and 
 the future mercy. She did not know, because she would not ; 
 she wmild not retain God in her knowledge ~. Knowledge, in 
 Holy Scripture, is not of the understanding, but of the heart 
 and the will. 
 
 That I gave her corn, Sfc. The / is emphatic ^. She did 
 not know, that it was I Who gave her. God gave them the corn 
 und wine, and oil, first because He gave them the land itself. 
 They held it of Him as their Lord. As He says, * The land is 
 3line, and ye are strangers and sojourners with 3Ie. He gave 
 them also in the course of His ordinary Providence, wherein 
 He also gave them the gold and silver, which they gained by 
 trading. Silver He had so multiplied to her in the days of 
 Solomon, that it was i)i Jerusalem as stones, nothing accounted 
 of'\ and golil, through the favor which He gave him^, was in 
 al)undance al)ove measure. 
 
 Which they prepared for Baal. Rather, as in the Eng. 
 INIargin, which they made into BaaV . "Of that gold and silver, 
 •which God had so multiplied, Israel, revolting from the house 
 
 •-' Rom. i. 28. 3 .-jk. 
 
 •■ Lev. XXV. 23. 
 
 1 Kings X. 27, 21. 
 
 her silver and gold, || wldch they ])repared j, „ rTs t 
 for Baal. <""■ "'^- 
 
 9 Therefore will I return, and p take a- " ^i^^Zy 
 way my corn in the time thereof, and my "h!'!.^!'''' 
 
 P ver. 3. 
 
 of David and Solomon, made first the calves of gold, and then 
 Baal." Of God's own gifts they made their gods. They took 
 God's gifts as from their gods, and made them into gods to 
 them. Baal, Lord, the same as Bel, was an object of idolatry 
 among the Phoenicians and Tyrians. Its worship was brought 
 into Israel by Jezebel, daughter of a king of Sidon. Jehu de- 
 stroyed it for a time, because its adherents were adherents of 
 the house of Ahab. The worship was partly cruel, like that 
 of Moloch, ])artly abominable. It had this aggravation be- 
 yond that of the calves, that Jezebel aimed at the extirpation 
 of the worship of God, setting up a rival temple, with its 450 
 prophets and 400 of the kindred idolatry of Ashtaroth, and 
 slaying all the prophets of God. 
 
 It seems to us strange folly. They attributed to gods, who 
 represented the functions of nature, the power to give what 
 God alone gives. How is it diff'erent, when men now say, " na^ 
 ture docs this, or that," or speak of " the operations of na- 
 ture," or the laws of " nature," and ignore God Who appoints 
 those laws, and worketh hitherto^ "those operations ?" They 
 attributed to planets, (as have astrologers at all times) influ- 
 ence over the affairs of men, and worshipped a god, Baal- 
 Gad, or Jupiter, who presided over them. Wherein do those 
 otherwise, who displace God's Providence by fortune or fate 
 or destiny, and say " fortune willed," "fortune denied him," "it 
 was his fate, his destiny," and even when God most signally 
 interposes, shrink from naming Him, as if to speak of God's 
 Providence were something superstitious ? What is this but 
 to ascribe to Baal, under a new name, the works and gifts of 
 God ? And more widely yet. Since " men have as many 
 strange gods as they have sins," what do they, who seek plea- 
 sure or gain or greatness or praise in forbidden ways or from 
 forbidden sources, than make their pleasure or gain or am- 
 Ijition their god, and offer their time and understanding and 
 ingenuity and intellect, yea, their whole lives and their whole 
 selves, their souls and bodies, all the gifts of God, in sacrifice 
 to the idol which they have made ? Nay, since whosoever be- 
 lieves of God otherwise than He has revealed Himself, does, 
 in fact, believe in another god, not in the One True God, what 
 else does all heresy, but form to itself an idol out of God's 
 choicest gift of nature, man's own mind, and worship, not in- 
 deed the works of man's own hands, but the creature of his 
 own understanding? 
 
 9. Therefore Izrill return. God is, as it were, absent from 
 men, when He lets them go on in their abuse of His gifts. 
 His Judgments are far above out of their sight. He returns to 
 them, and His Presence is felt in chastisements, as it might 
 liave been in mercies. He is not out of sight or out of mind, 
 then. Others render it, / will tiirn, i. e. / %viU do other than 
 before ; I will turn from love to displeasure, from pouring 
 ont benefits to the infliction of chastisements, from giving 
 abundance of all things to punishing them with the want of 
 all things. 
 
 / will take away My corn in the time thereof. God shews 
 us that His gifts come from Him, either by giving them when 
 we almost despair of them, or taking them away, when they 
 are all but our's. It can seem no chance, when He so doeth. 
 
 6 lb. ix. 14. X. 10, 14. V See viu. 4. Ezek. xvi. 17-19. ^ S. John v. 17. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 17 
 
 ch'IlTst ^vine in the season thereof, juid will || re- 
 "'''• "^°- cover my wool iind my flax given to cover 
 llOr,(«*<-«,<-«v. ]jj.j. nakedness. 
 
 lEzek. k;. 37. 10 And now'' will I discover her f lewd- 
 f Beb./ofiy, ncss in the sight of her lovers, and none 
 01, VI any. ^^xiyW dclivcr her out of mine hand. 
 
 The chastisement is severer also, when tiie ^ood tiiinfis, lone; 
 looked-for, are, at the last, taken out of our very hands, and 
 that, when there is no remedy. It' in harvest-time there he 
 dearth, what afterwards ! "God taketh away all, tliat they 
 who knew not tlie Giver through abundanee, might know Him 
 througii want." 
 
 And will recover Mi/ wool. God recovers, and, as it wi'rc, 
 delivers the works of His Hands from serving the ungodly. 
 While He leaves His creatures in the possession of the wicked, 
 they are holden, as it were, in captivity, being kept back from 
 their j)roper uses, and made tlie handmaidens and instruments 
 and tempters to sin. God made His creatures on earth to 
 serve man, that man, on occasion of them, might glorify Him. 
 It is against the order of nature, to use God's gifts to any o- 
 ther end, short of God's glory ; much more, to turn God's gifts 
 against Himself, and make them serve to pride or luxury or 
 sensual sin. It is a bondage, as it were, to them. ^A^lence 
 of them also St. Paul saith ', The creature was made siiliject to 
 vanifi/, not williiigh/, and all creation iiroanet/i and travaileth 
 in pain together until now. Penitents have felt this. They 
 have felt that they deserve no more that the sun shotild shine 
 on them, or the earth sustain them, or the air support them, or 
 wine refresh them, or food nourish them, since all these arethe 
 creatures and servants of the God Whom themselves have of- 
 fended, and they themselves deserve no more to be served l)y 
 God's servants, since they have rebelled against their common 
 Master, or to use even rightly what they have abused against 
 the will of their Creator. 
 
 Mij jla.v, given to cover her nakedness,!, e. which God had 
 given to that end. Shame was it, that, covered with the rai- 
 ment which God had given her to hide her shame, she did 
 deeds of shame. The white linen garments of her Priests al- 
 so were symbols of that purity, which the Great High Priest 
 should have and give. Now, withdrawing those gifts. He gave 
 them up to the greatest visible shame, such as insolent con- 
 querors, in leading a people into cajitivity, often inflicted upon 
 them. Thereby, in act, was figured that loss of the robe of 
 righteousness, heavenly grace, wherewith God beautifies the 
 soul, whereof when it is stripped, it is indeed foul. 
 
 10. Her lewdness. The word originally means/o////, and 
 so foulness. For sin is the only real folly, as holiness is the 
 only true wisdom. But the folly of sin is veiled amid outward 
 prosperity, and men think themselves, and are thought, wise 
 and honourable and in good re})ute, and are centres of attrac- 
 tion and leaders of society, so long as they prosper ; as it is 
 said, - so long as thou doest well unto thi/self, men will speak 
 well of thee. But as soon as God withdraws those outward 
 gifts, the mask drops oft', and men, being no longer dazzled, 
 despise the sinner, while they go on to hug the sin. God 
 says / will discover, as just before He had said, that His gifts 
 had been given to cover her. He would then lay her bare out- 
 wardly and inwardly ; her folly, foulness, wickedness, and her 
 outward shame; and that, i)i the sight of her lovers, i. e. of 
 those whom she had chosen instead of God, her idols, the hea- 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 20, 22. 2Ps. xlL\. 18. 3 See Introduction, p. 2. 'Zeph.i. 5. 
 
 11 M will also cause all her mirth to cease, ^ h jj^s t 
 her ' feast days, lier new moons, and her '="• '^^^- 
 sahhaths, and all her solenm feasts. m Ki^ps'12.' 
 
 12 And T will f destrov her vines and f neb.mX"'' 
 her fijr trees, ' whereof shehath said. These . t^ft' 
 arc my rewards that my lovers have given 
 
 venly bodies, the false gods, and real devils. Satan must jeer 
 at the wretched folly of the souls whom he deceives. 
 
 And none shall deliver her out of Mij hand. Neither 
 rebel sj)irits nor rebel men. 'J'he evil spirits would prolong 
 the prosperity of the wicked, that so they might sin the 
 more deeply, and might not repent, (which they sec men to 
 do amid God's chastisements,) and so might incur the deep- 
 er damnation. 
 
 1 1. I will also cause her mirth to cease, her feast days, 8fc. 
 Israel had forsaken the temple of God ; des])ised his priests; 
 received from Jeroboam others whom (iod had not chosen ; 
 altered, at least, one of the festivals ; celebrated all, \\iicre God 
 had forbidden ; and worshipped the Creator under the form of 
 a brute creature '^ Yet they kept the great /pc/.s/ days. Mhere- 
 by they commemorated His mer<ies to their forefathers ; the 
 new moons, whereby the first of every month was given to God; 
 the sahhaths, whereby they owned God as the Creator of all 
 things ; and all the other solemn feasts, whereby they thanked 
 God for acts of His special Providence, or for His annual irifts 
 of nature, and condemned themselves for trusting in false gods 
 for those same gifts, and for associating His creatures with 
 Himself. But man, even while he disobeys God. does not like 
 to part with Him altogether, but would serve Him enough to 
 soothe his own conscience, or as far as he can without jiart- 
 ing with his sin which he loves better. Jeroboam retained 
 all of God's worship, Avhich he could combine with his own 
 political ends ; and even in Ahah's time Israel halted hetween 
 two opinions, and Judah sware both hij the Lord and hy Mal- 
 chatn*, the true God and the false. All this their worship 
 was vain, because contrary to the AVill of God. Yet since (iod 
 says, Iirill take awai/ all her mirth, they had, what they sup- 
 posed to be, religious mirth in their feasts, fulfilling as they 
 thought, the commandment of God, Thou shall rejoice in thi/ 
 feasts^. She could have no real joy, since true joy is /// the 
 Lord''. So, in order that she might not deceive herself any 
 more, God says that He will take away that feigned for- 
 mal service of Himself, which they blended with the real 
 service of idols, and will remove the hollow outward joy, 
 that, through repentance, they might come to the true joy 
 in Him. 
 
 1*2. And I will destroy her ?^ines and her fig trees. Before, 
 God had threatened to take away the fruits in their season ; 
 now He says that He will take away all hoi)e for the future, 
 not the fruit only but the trees which bare it. " The vine is 
 a symbol of joy, the fig of sweetness^." It was the plague, 
 which God in former times laid upon those, out of the midst 
 of whom He took them to be His people. * He smote their 
 vines also and their fi'g trees, and brake the trees of their roasts. 
 Now that they had become like the heathen. He dealt with 
 them as with the heathen ''. 
 
 Of which he said, these are mi/ rewards ; lit. mij hire. It 
 is the special word, used of the payment to the adulteress, or 
 degraded woman, and so continues the likeness, by which he 
 had set forth the foulness of her desertion of God. 
 
 ^Deut.xvi. H. ^ phil. iv. 4. 7 See Judg. ix.ll, 13. s Ps. cv. 33. « See Jer. v. 1".
 
 18 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 c H uT s T '"^ ' '^"'^ " ' ^^'^^ nuiko them a forest, and 
 cii-- '•''■'"'■ the beasts of the fiehl shall eat them. 
 
 >■ Ps. 80. 12, 13. 
 Iscii. 5. 5. 
 
 •■< Ezek. 2.3. 40, 
 
 42. 
 
 13 Aiul I will visit upon her the days of 
 Baalim, wherein she burned incense to 
 them, and she " decked herself with her 
 
 yjiid I will multe them a forest. The vines and fiiu; trees 
 which had atbretinio been tlieir wealth, and full of Ixuuity, 
 sludild, when neglected, run wild, and become the harbour of 
 the wild beasts which should jircy upon them. So to the 
 wicked God causes that the things which should have heeii 
 for their wealth should he an oeatsiou of falling i. They con- 
 tain in tlicniselves the soun-es of their own decay. 
 
 ly. / will visit upo)i her the days of Baalim, or Baals. 
 When men leave the one true God, they make to themselves 
 many idols. Tiiey act as if they could make up a ffod piece- 
 meal out of the many attributes of the One God, and create 
 their Creator. His power of production becomes one "od; His 
 power of destroyinji;, another ; His Providence, a third ; and 
 so on, down to the very least acts. So they had many Baals 
 or Lords ; a Baal-heritlr, Lord of covenants, who was to guard 
 the sanctity of oaths ; Baal-zebuh'^ Lord of flies, who was to 
 keep off the plague of flies, and Baal-peor*, who presided over 
 sin. All these their various idolatries, and all the time of their 
 idolatries, God threatens to visit upon them at once. '"The 
 days of punishment siiall equal the days of the wanderings, in 
 which she burnt incense to Baal." God spares long. But 
 when persevering impenitence draws down His anger, He 
 punishes not for the last sin only, but for all. Even to the 
 penitent, God mostly makes the chastisement hear some pro- 
 portion to the lengtli and greatness of the sin. 
 
 IFIurein she burnt iucense unto them. Incense was that 
 part of sacrifice which especially denoted thanksgiving and 
 prayer ascending to God 
 
 And she decked herself with her eai'-rings and her Jewels. 
 Christ says to the l)ride ', Thi/ cheeks are comely with rows of 
 jeu'els, thy neck with chains of gold. But what He gave her 
 she threw away upon another, and cast her pearls before swine. 
 She decked herself, i. e. made God's ornaments her own, used 
 them not as He gave them, but artificially as an adulteress. 
 And what else is it, to use wit or beauty or any gift of God, 
 for any end out of God ? '"''The ornaments of souls which 
 choose to serve idols, is to fulfil those things which seem good 
 to the unclean spirits, ^'cry beautiful to devils must be the 
 sin-loving soul, which chooses to think and to do whatsoever 
 is sweet to, and loved by them." Sins of the flesh being a 
 part of the worship of Baal, this garish trickery and pains to 
 attract had an immediate offensiveness, besides its belonging 
 to idols. He still pictures her as seeking, not sought by her 
 lovers. She u'ent after her lovers andforgat 3Ie. The ori- 
 ginal has great emphasis. She ivent after her lovers, and 3/e 
 sheforgat, saith the Lord. She went after vanities, and God, 
 her All, she forgat. Such is the character of all engrossing 
 passion, such is the course of sin, to which the soul gives way, 
 in avarice, ambition, worldliness, sensual sin, godless science. 
 The soul, at last, does not rebel against God ; \t forgets Him. 
 It is taken up with other things, with itself, with the subjects 
 of its thoughts, the objects of its affections, and it has no tinu^ 
 for (iod, because it has no love for Him. So God complains 
 of .ludah by Jeremiah, their fathers have forgotten My name 
 for BaaP. 
 
 Ps. lxi.x.22. = Judg. viii. 33. 3 2 Kings i. 2. ■iNum.xxv. 3. * 
 S. Cyr. 7 xxiii. 27. add Judg. iii. 7. 1 .Sam. xii. 10. Set. ii. 32. iii. 
 
 Cant. i. 10. 
 20. xiii. 25. 
 
 earrinjifs and her jewels, and she went after (, "jf[gx 
 her lovers, and forsi;at me, saith the Loan. ^"- ^''•^- 
 14 ^ Therefore, behold, 1 will allure her, 
 
 > Ezek. 20. 35. 
 
 and ' brinj^ her into the wilderness, and J oT. friendly. 
 speak II f comfortably unto her. ^ w).'"'""^ 
 
 14. Therefore. The inference is notwhat we should have 
 expected. Sin and forgetfulness of God are not the natural 
 causes of, and inducements to mercy. But Goddeals not with 
 us, as we act one to another. Extreme misery and degrada- 
 tion revolt man ; man's miseries invite God's mercies. God 
 therefore has mercy, not because we deserve it, but because 
 we need it. He therefore draws us, because we are so deeply 
 sunken. He prepareth the soul by those harder means, and 
 then the depths of her misery cry to the depths of His com- 
 passion, and because (diastisement alone would stupify her, 
 not melt her, He changes His wrath into mercy, and speaks to 
 the heart which, for her salvation, He has broken. 
 
 / will allure her. The original word is used of one readi- 
 ly enticed, as a simple one, whether to good or ill. God uses, 
 as it were, Satan's weapons against himself. As Satan had 
 enticed the soul to sin, so would God, by holy enticements 
 and persuasiveness, allure her to Himself. God too hath 
 sweetnesses for the penitent soul, far above all the sweetness 
 of present earthly joys, much more, above the bitter sweet- 
 nesses of sin. 
 
 I Myself (such is the emphasis) ivill allure her. God 
 would show her something of His Beauty, and make her taste 
 of His Love, and give her some such glimpse of the joy of His 
 good pleasure, as should thrill her and make her all her life 
 long follow after what had, as through the clouds, opened up- 
 on her. 
 
 And will bring her into the wilderness. God, when He 
 brought Israel out of Egypt, led her apart from the pressure 
 of her hard bondage, the sinful self-indulgences of Egypt, and 
 the abominations of their idolatries, into the wilderness, and 
 there, away from tiie evil examples of the nation from which 
 He drew her and of those whom she was to dispossess. He 
 gave her His law, and taught her His worship, and brought 
 her into covenant with Himself^. So in the beginning of the 
 Gospel, Christ allured souls by His goodness in His miracles, 
 and the tenderness of His words, and the sweetness of His 
 preaching and His promises, and the attractiveness of His suf- 
 ferings, and the mighty manifestations of His Spirit. So is 
 it with each penitent soul ; God, by privation or sulfering.turns 
 her from her idols, from the turmoil of the world and its dis- 
 tractions, and speaks. Alone to her alone. 
 
 And speak to her heart ; lit. on her heart, making an im- 
 pression on it, soothing it, in words which will dwell in it, and 
 rest there. Thus within, not without, ^//e/*i<//e/( i^/.? laws 
 in the mind, and wrifeth them in the heart, not with ink, but 
 with the Spirit of the living God. God speaks to the heart, so 
 as to reach it, soften it, comfort it, tranquillise it, and, at the 
 last, assure it. He shall speak to her, not as in Sinai, amid 
 blackness and darkness and tempest, and the srmnd of a trum- 
 pet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard in- 
 treated that the word should not be spoken to them any more^'^, 
 but to the heart. But it is in solitude that He so speaks to 
 the soul and is heard by her, warning, reproving, piercing, 
 penetrating through every fold, until He reaches the very in- 
 most heart and dwells there. And then He infuseth hope of 
 
 xviii. 15. Ezek. xxii. 12. xxiii. 35. Is. xvii. 10. Ps. ix. 17. 1. 22. Ix-xviii. 11. cvi. 13, 21. 
 • See Ezek. xx. 34-36. 9 Heb. viii. 10. 2 Cor. iii. 3. i" Heb. xii. 18, 19.
 
 CHAPTER TI. 
 
 10 
 
 c h'hTs t ^^ "^"*' ^ "'^^^ f?^^ ^' ^'*^*' ''^'' vineyards from 
 
 cir. rH5. thence, and 'the valley of Aehor for a (h)or 
 
 ' isai.'fi'o. lo'. of hope : and she shall shisj^ there, as in 
 
 Ezekfii s "^^^^ days of her youth, and '' as in the day 
 
 22,(10. bEx. 15.1. 
 
 pardon, kindloth love, onlijihtcnoth fuitli, fjivcth fceliiif^s of 
 child-like trust, liftetli the soul treniljliiif^ly to cleave tit Iliiii 
 Whose voiee she has lieard within her. Then His infinite! 
 Beauty touches the heart ; His Holiness, Truth, Merey, pene- 
 trate the soul ; in silence and stillness the soul learns to know 
 itself and God, to repent of its sins, to con(|uer self, to medi- 
 tate on God. Coiiit' out from amanij^ tlwin (uid he i/c scpardfc, 
 saitli the Lord, and touch not the unrteun thing, and I will 
 receive you ^. 
 
 " - Search we the Scriptures, and wc shall find, that seldom 
 or never hath God spoken in a multitude; hut so often as He 
 would have anythinc; known to man, He shewed Himself, not 
 to nations or people, hut to individuals, or to very few, and 
 those severed from the common concourse of men, or in the 
 silence of the nif;;ht, in fields or solitudes, in mountains or 
 vallies. Thus He spake with Noah, Ahraham, Isaac, Jacob. 
 Moses, Samuel, David and all the prophets. Why is it, God 
 always speaketh in secret, except that He would call us apart ? 
 Why speaketh He with a few, except to collect and gather us 
 into one ? In this solitude doth God speak to the soul, from 
 the bef!;inninjj of its conversitni to the loneliness of death. 
 Here the soul, which, overspread with darkness, knew neither 
 God nor itself, learns with a pure heart to know God. Here, 
 placed aloft, she sees all earthly thintfs flee away beneath her, 
 yea, herself also passing; away in the sweepinsc tide of all pass- 
 ing things. " Here she learns, and so unlearns her sins, sees 
 and hates herself, sees and loves God. Only "^ the solitude 
 of the body availeth not, unless there be the solitude of the 
 heart. " And if God so speak to the penitent, much more to 
 souls, who consecrate theniselveswholly, cleave wholly to Him, 
 meditate on Him. By His presence "* the soulis renewed, and 
 cleaving, as it were to Him, feels the sweetness of an inward 
 taste, spiritual understanding, enlightening of faith, increase 
 of hope, feeling of compassion, zeal for righteousness, delight 
 in virtue. She hath in orison familiar converse with God, 
 feeling that she is heard, and mostly answered ; speaking face 
 to face with God, and hearing what God speaketh in her, con- 
 straining God in prayer and sometimes prevailing." 
 
 15. And I will give her her vineijurda from thence. God's 
 mercies are not only in word, but in deed. He not only speaks 
 to her heart, but He restores to her what He had taken from 
 her. He promises, not only to reverse His sentence, but that 
 He would make the sorrow itself the source of the joy. He 
 says, I will give her back her vineyards thence, \. e. from the 
 wilderness itself; as elscAvhere, He says, The wilderness shall 
 be a fruitful field". Desolation shall be the means of her re- 
 stored inheritance and joy in God. Through fire and drought 
 are the new flagons dried and prepared, into which the new 
 wine of the Gospel is poured. 
 
 And the vallei/ of Achor [lit. troubling^ for a door of hope. 
 As, at the first taking possession of the promised land, Israel 
 learnt through the transgression and punishment of Achan. 
 to stand in awe of God, and thenceforth all went well with 
 them, when they had wholly freed themselves from the accurs- 
 ed thing, so to them shall "sorrow be turned into joy, and hope 
 
 '2Cor. vi. 17. - Hugo de S.Vict, de Arc. Noe. iv. 4. in Lap. 'S.Greg. 
 
 Mor. XXX.12. Lap. ■• Ric. Vict. inCant. iii.4.Lap. Ms. xxxii. 15. <■ Josh. vii. 11-15. 
 
 when she came up out of the land of Ej^ypt. ^. jf iff s t 
 
 in And it shall he at that day, saith "'■ '^>'^'- 
 the Loiii), ^/*^/^ thou shalt call me '|1 Ishi ;"^;Xw.''^' 
 and shalt call me no more || liaali. "mv'/wy}. 
 
 dawn there, where there had been despair." "Therefore only 
 had they to endure chastisements, Ihat through them they 
 might attain blessings." It was through the punisiiment of 
 thos(! who trotihled the true /sT«t'/, " the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, that to the Apostles and the rest who ixdievcd, the hope 
 of \ictory over the whole world was opened." ^■il(i])e.'' The 
 ^^or(l nioi-e fully means, a'" patient, enduring longing. " To 
 each returning soul, the vallvij of trouble, or the lowliness of 
 rej)entance, hecometh a door «/ patient longing, not in itself, 
 but because Goil giveth it to be so ; a longing which rearheth 
 on, awuiteth on, entering within the veil, and bound fast to 
 the Throne of God. But then only, when none of tiie ac- 
 cursed tiling^ cleavetb to it, when it has no reserves with (iod, 
 and retains notiiing for itself, wliich (jo<l hath condemned. 
 
 And she shall sing there as in the days of her youth. The 
 song is a responsive song, choir answering choir, each stirring 
 up the other to praise, and praise echoing praise, as Israel did 
 after the deliverance at the Red Sea. "^ Then sang 3Ioses and 
 the children of Israel this so?ig uufo the Lord. I will sing 
 unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. And Miriam 
 the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel, and all the 
 women went out after her. And Miriam ansivered them. Sing 
 ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. So the Se- 
 raphim sing one to another. Holy, holy, holy^; so S. Paul ex- 
 horts Christians to admonish one another in jisalms and hynrns 
 and sjiiritual songs, singing with grace in their hearts to the 
 Lord'-*; so the Jewish psalmody ])assed into the Christian 
 Churc!), and the blessed in heaven, having on the Cross passed 
 the troublesome sea of this world, sing the neiv song of Jloses 
 and of the Lamb '". 
 
 She shall sijig there. Where? There, where He allurcth 
 her, where He leadeth her, where He speaketh to her heart, 
 where He inworketh in her that hope. There shall she sing, 
 there give praise and thanks. 
 
 As in the days of her youth. Yier youth is explained, in 
 what follows, to be the days when she came up out of the land of 
 Egypt, when she was first born to the knowledge of her God, 
 when the past idolatries bad been forgiven and cut oft", and 
 she had all the frcsliness of new life, and had not yet wasted 
 it by rebellion and sin. Then God first called Israel, My first- 
 born son. My son, 3Iy firstborn ^^. She came up into the 
 land whicli God chose, out of Egypt, since we go up to God 
 and to things above, as. on the other hand, the Prophet says, 
 If'oe to those who go down to Egypt ^'^ for the aids of this 
 world : and the man who was wounded, the picture of the 
 human race, was going dovrn from Jerusalem to Jericho^^. 
 
 1(5. And it shall he — thoushaltcall Me Ishi[3Iy Husband,'] 
 and shalt call 3Ie no more Baali [my Baal, Lord.] Baal, 
 originally Lord, was a title sometimes given to the husband. 
 •'The lord of the woman, ""her lord." " the heart of her 
 lord," stand for " the husband," " her husband '*." God says, 
 " so wholly do I hate the name of idols, that on account of the 
 likeness of the word Baal, 7ny Lord, I will not be so called 
 even in a right meaning, lest, while she utter the one, she 
 should think on the other, and calling Me her Husband, think 
 
 7 Ex.xv.l, 20, 1. "Is. vi. 3. »Col.iii.l6. WRev.xv.S. "Ex.iv.22. '-Is.xxxi. 1. 
 13 Luke .X. 30. Seeaboveoni.il. " Ex. xxi.22. 2 Sam. xi. 26. Prov. xxxi. n,«.c.
 
 20 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 ch^rTst ^7 For ''I will take away the names of 
 cir. 785. Baalim out of licr mouth, and tliey shall no 
 
 c Ex. 23. 13. , 1 I 1 ii • 
 
 Josh. 23.7. more he remembered hy then* name. 
 Zech!i3'. 2. 18 And in that day will I make ''■ a cove- 
 
 ■1 Job 5.23. Is. 11. 6—9. Ezek. 34. 25. 
 
 on the idol." Yet, withal, God says that He will put into 
 her mouth the tenderer name of love, Is/ii, lit. mi/ Man. In 
 Christ, tiie returning; soul, which would give herself wholly 
 to God, however far she had wandered, should not call God 
 so mueji her Lord, as her Ilus])and. " ' Every soul, altlnnigii 
 laden with sins, meshed in vices, snared hy enticements, a cap- 
 tive in exile, imprisoned in the hody, sticking fast in the mud, 
 fixed in the mire, affixed to its earthly memhers, nailed down 
 by cares, distracted hy turmoils, narrowed hy fears, prostrated 
 by grief, wandering in errors, tossed by anxieties, restless, 
 through suspicions, in fine, a captive in the Irind of tlie eneriiij, 
 defiled with the dead, accounted with them who i^o down in the 
 grave ~, — although she he thus c(ui(lemned, in state thus despe- 
 rate, yet she may perceive that in herself, whence she may not 
 only respire to hope of pardon and of mercy, but whence she 
 may dare to aspire to the nuptials of the Word, tremble not 
 to enter into alliance with (4od, he not abashed to take on her 
 the sweet yoke of love with the Lord of Angels. For what 
 may she not safely dare with Him, with Whose image she 
 seeth herself stamped, and glorious with His likeness ? To 
 this end God Himself, the Author of our being, willed that 
 the ensign of our Divine nobleness of birth should ever be 
 maintained in the soul, that she may ever have that in herself 
 from the Word, whereby she may ever be admonished, either 
 to stand with the Word, or to return to Him, if she have 
 been moved. ]\Ioved, not as though removing in space, or 
 walking on foot, but moved (as a spiritual substance is moved) 
 with its aft'ections, yea, its defections, it goes away from itself, 
 as it were, to a worse state, making itself unlike itself and 
 degenerate from itself, through pravity of life and morals ; 
 which unlikeness, however, is the fault, not the destruction, 
 of nature. Contrariwise, the return of the soul is its con- 
 version to the Word, to be re-formed by Him, conformed to 
 Him. Wherein? In love. Yor \ic %taX\\, he ye followers of 
 me as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved 
 us. Such conformity marries the soul to the Word, when 
 she, having a likeness to Him by nature, also maketh herself 
 like to Him in will, loving as she is loved. Wherefore, if she 
 loveth perfectly, she is married. What sweeterthan this con- 
 forniity ? What more desirable than this love ? For by it, 
 not content with human guidance, thou approachest, by thy- 
 self, O soul, confidentially to the Word ; to the Word thou 
 constantly cleavest ; of the Word thou familiarly enquirest, 
 and consultest as to all things, as capacious in understand- 
 ing as emboldened in longing. This is contract of marri- 
 age, truly spiritual and holy. Contract ! I have said too lit- 
 tle. It is embrace. For embrace it is, when to will the same 
 and nill the same, maketh of twain, one spirit." 
 
 17- For I will take aicdj/ the names of Baalim out of her 
 mouth. It is. then, of grace. He docs not only promise the 
 ceasing of idolatry, but that it shall be the fruit of His conver- 
 ting grace, the gift of Him from Whom is both to will and to do. 
 I will take nwcty, as God saith elsewhere ^, / will cut off the 
 name of the idols out of the land, and they shall he no more re- 
 membered ; and * the idols He shall utterly abolish. In like 
 
 1 S. Bern, in Cant. Serm. 83. Lap. 
 5 Barucli iii. 10, 11. 3 Zech. xiii. 2. ■• Is.ii.18. *Ezek.vi.6. 
 
 nant for them with the beasts of the field, (, „''^'7*st 
 and with the fowls of heaven, and tcith the "*•• "i^ ^- 
 
 I's. 46. 9. 
 
 ereepini^ tliinj^s of the j^round : and"" I will isai. 2!4. 
 break the bow and the sword and the battle lo? ' ' ' 
 
 Zech.9.10. 
 
 way God foretells of Judali that the fruit of her captivity 
 should he that her idols should cease, that He would cleanse 
 them from their idols, and renew them by His grace '". In all 
 your dwelling j/lacrs the cities shall he laid traste and the high 
 places shall be desolate ; that your altars may he laid waste and 
 made desolate, and your idols uiay he broken and cense, and i/onr 
 images niai/ he cut itinrn, and your works may be abolished. 
 And, * The)i I will sjirinkle clean ivater tipon yni, and ye shall 
 be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your idols ivill 
 I cleanse you. A neiv heart also will I give you, and a new spirit 
 will 1 put within you. Neither shall they defile themselves any 
 more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with 
 any of their trtDisgressions. 
 
 And they shall be no more remembered, or, made mention 
 of. Tiie names of Baal and the idols, through which Israel 
 sinned, are remembered now, only in the history of their sin. 
 18. And in that day. " ^ Truly and properly is the time 
 of the Incarnation of theOnly-Begotten called t he Day , where- 
 in darkness was dispelled in the world, and the mist dispers- 
 ed, and bright rays shed into the minds of believers, and the 
 Sun of Righteousness shone upon us, pouring in the light of 
 the true knowledge of God, to those who could open wide the 
 eye of the mind." 
 
 And I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of 
 the field, Syc. God promises to do away the whole of the for- 
 mer curse. Before, He had said that their vineyards should 
 be laid waste by tlie beasts of the field ; now, He would make 
 an entire and lasting peace with them. He, Whose creatures 
 they are, would renew for them in Christ the peace of Para- 
 dise, which was broken through Adam's rebellion against God, 
 and would command none to hurt them. The blessings of 
 God do not correspond only, they go beyond the punishment. 
 The protection is complete. Every kind of evil animal, beast 
 bird and reptile, is named. So St. Peter saiv all manner of 
 four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping 
 things, and foivis of the air. All were to be slain to their 
 former selves, and pass into the Church. Together, the words 
 express that God would withhold the power of all enemies, 
 visible or invisible ; worldly or spiritual. Each also may de- 
 note some separate form or character of the enemy. Thus 
 ivild beasts picture savageness or bloodthirstiness, the ceasing 
 whereof* Isaiah prophesies under the same symbols of beasts 
 of prey, as the leopard, lion, wolf, and bear, or of venomous 
 reptiles, as the asp or the basilisk. Thefotvls of heaven denote 
 stealthy enemies, which, unperceived and unawares, take the 
 word of God out of the heart ; creeping things, such as entice 
 to degrading, debasing sins, love of money or pleasure or appe- 
 tite, j^'^ose god is their belly, who mind earthly things^. All 
 shall be subdued to Christ or by Him ; as He says, I give you 
 power over serpents and scorpions, and all the porver of the ene- 
 my : and Thou shall go upon the lion and the adder j the young 
 lion and the adder shall thou trample under feet ^'^. 
 
 I will break the bow and the sword and the battle oat of the 
 earth. God foretells much more the greatness of what He 
 would do for man, than the little which man receives. The 
 
 6 lb. xxxvi.25,26. xxxvii.23. 
 7 S. Cyr. 3 ch. xi. » Pliil. iii. 19. i" S. Lukex. 19. Ps. xci. 13.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 21 
 
 c h^rTs t **"* ^^ ^^^ earth, and will make them to ^ lie 
 
 < =■■•• 78S- down safely. 
 jer?23.'c.' 19 And I will betroth thee unto nie for 
 
 Gospel briiiijs peace within, and, sim^e ^ M-ar* mulfis^^htiuij^s come 
 from evil passions and Insts, it briiiffs peace, as far it prevails, 
 withont also; peace, as the honlcrs oy'the Church-; peace in 
 the world, as far as it is won to ('hrist hy the Cliiircli ; peace 
 to the soul of the believer, so far as he loves God and obeys 
 the Gospel. 
 
 And will make them to lie down safely, i. e. in confidence. 
 God fiives not outward peace only, but fearlessness. Fearless, 
 the Ciiristian lies down during- life, at peace with God, his 
 neii^hbonr, and his own conscience; fearless, because /^cr/'cc/ 
 lovecasteth outfear^; and fearless in death also, because rest- 
 iuj:; in Jesus, in everlasting, unfailing, unfading peace. 
 
 19. And I will betroth her unto Me for ever. God does 
 not say here, "I will forgive her;" "I will restore her;" 1 
 will receive her back again ;" " I will again shew her love 
 and tenderness." Much as these would have been. He says 
 here much more. He so blots out, forgets, abolisiies all me- 
 mory of the past, that He speaks only of the future, of the 
 new betrothal, as if it were the first espousal of a virgin. 
 Hereafter God would makeher wholly His, and become wholly 
 her's, by an union nearer and closer than the closest bond of 
 parent and child, that, whereby thei/ are no more twain, hat 
 <nie flesh, and through this oneness, formed by His own in- 
 dwelling; in her, giving her Himself, and taking her into Him- 
 self, and so bestowing; on her a title to all which is His. And 
 this,/f>/- ever. The betrothal and union of grace in this life 
 passeth over into the union of glory, of which it is said ', 
 Blessed are they ivho are called to the marriage supper of the 
 Lamb. He, by His Spirit, shall be with His Church anto the 
 e)id of the world, and so bind her unto Himself that the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against her. The whole Church shall 
 never fail. This betrothal implies and involves a new cove- 
 nant, as God says ^, Behold the days come that I will make a 
 new covenant irith the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 
 not according to My covenant which I made with their fathers, 
 which My covenant they brake, and which vanisheth away. 
 To those who had broken His covenant and been unfaithful 
 to Him, it was great tenderness, that He reproached them 
 not with the past, as neither doth He penitents now. But 
 beyond this, in that He speaks of espousing her who was 
 already espoused to Him, God shews that He means something 
 new, and beyond that former espousal. What God here pro- 
 mised. He fulfilled, not as God the Father, but in Christ. 
 What God promised of Himself, He only could perform. God 
 said to the Church, / ivill betroth thee unto Me. He Who be- 
 came the Bridegroom^ of the Church was Christ Jesus ; She 
 became the wife of the Lamb " ; to Him the Church was espims- 
 ed, as a chaste f'irgin **. He then Who fulfilled what God 
 promised that He woidd Himself fulfil, was Almighty God. 
 
 / tvill betroth thee unto Me in righteousness or ratiier, 
 (which is more tender yet and more merciful,) by, with right- 
 eousness, &c. These are the marriage-dowry, the bridal gifts, 
 tti?7/i^ which He purchaseth and espouseththebride unto Him- 
 self. Righteousness then and Judgment, loving-kindness and 
 mercies,andfaitlifulnessortrutli,are attributes of God, where- 
 with, as by gifts of espousal. He maketh her His own. Jiight- 
 
 ' S. James iv. 1. " Ps. cxlvii. 14. 
 
 ■■< 1 John iv. 18. ■< Rev. xix. 9. s jgr. xxxi. 31, 2. « S. John iii. 29. 
 
 7 Rev. xxi. 9. " 2 Cor. xi. 2. » As in 2 Sam. iii. U. "> S. J6hn xvi. 8, 11. 
 
 ever ; yea, I will betroth thee vmto me in ^ j"rTs t 
 rii;hteonsness, and in jud<i;ment, and in ""'■ ~*'^- 
 lovinj^-kindness, an<i in nien-ies. 
 
 eousness is that in God, whereby He is Himself rigiiteous and 
 ]us\; judgment, that whereby He puts in act Mhat is rii,'-hf 
 against those who do wrong, and so Judges Satan ; as when 
 tiie hour of His I'assion was at liand. He said, irhen the Coiu- 
 forter is come. He will reprove the icorlil of sin. and of righteous- 
 ness, and of judgment ; of judgment, because the prince of this 
 world is judged^". Loi'ing-lcindness is that tender affection, 
 wherewith lie cherisheth Hiscbildren,tlie works of II i>- hands; 
 3/ercies, His tender yearnings over us", wherewith He hatii 
 compassion on our weakness ; Faithful/iess,\\\nt uiicrcby He? 
 keepeth covenant for ever^', and loveth His oirn aiilo the en(P'\ 
 And these (|ualities, as they are His wlicrel)y He savetli us, so 
 doth He impart them to the Church in her measure, and to 
 faithful souls. These are her dowry, her jewels, iier treasure, 
 her inheritance. He giveth to her and to each soul, as it can 
 receive it, and in a secondary way. His Righteousness, .ludg- 
 ment. Loving-kindness, Mercies, Faithfulness. \\\^ Righteous- 
 ness, contrary to her former unholiness. He ])ouretii into iier, 
 and giveth her, witii it, grace and love and all the fruits of the 
 Spirit. By His Judgment, He giveth her a right judgment in 
 all things, as contrary to her former blindness. Know ye not, 
 says the Apostle '^^. that we shall judge angels ? how much more, 
 things that pertain to this life .*' Loving-kijidness is tender 
 love wherewith we love one another, as Christ loved us ''. Mer- 
 cies are that same love to those who need mercy, whereby we 
 are merciful as our Father is merciful^^. Faithfulness is that 
 constancy whereby the elect f\\dA\ jiersevere unto the end, as He 
 saith. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a croivn 
 oflife^T. 
 
 The threefold repetition of the word betroth is also, doubt- 
 less, mysterious, alluding chiefly to the Mystery of the All- 
 Holy Trinity, so often and so manifoldly, in Holy Scripture, 
 foreshadowed by this sacred number. To them is the Church 
 betrothed, by the pronouncing of Whose Names each of her 
 members is, in Holy Yi?iyi\i^m, espoused as a chaste virgin, unto 
 Christ. At three times especially did our Lord espouse the 
 Ciiurch unto Himself. "'** First in His Incarnation, when He 
 willed to unite His own Deity with our humanity," and " in the 
 Virgin's womb, the nature of the woman, our nature, human 
 nature, was joined to the Nature of God." and that for ever. 
 " He will be for ever the Word and Flesh, i. e. God and .Man." 
 Secondly, in His Passion, when He washed her with His 
 Blood, and bought her for His own by His Death. Thirdly, in 
 the Day of Pentecost, when He poured out the Holy Sj>irit 
 upon her, whereby He dwelleth in her and she in Him. And 
 He Who thus es[)oused the Church is God ; she whom He 
 espcmsed, an adulteress, and He united her to Himself,making 
 her a pure virgin without spot or blemish. "^'■'Human marriage 
 makes those who were virgins to cease to be so ; the Divine 
 espousal makes her who was defiled, a pure virgin." / have 
 espoused you, says St. Paul to those whom he had won back 
 from all manner of heathen sins-", to one Husband, that I may 
 present you a chaste virgin unto Christ. U the boundless 
 clemencvof (iod. "-^ How can it be possible, that so mighty a 
 King should become a Bridegroom, that the Church should 
 be advanced into a Bride ? That alone hath power for this, 
 
 11 See ab. on i. 6. ■- Ps. cxi. 9. 13 S. John xiii. 1. 
 n 1 Cor. vi. .',. 1^ S. John XV. 12. 16 S. Luke vi. .■^6. i? Rev. ii. 10. i* Rup. 
 ■» S. Jer. ^ 2 Cor. xi. 2. see Jer. iii. 1, 2. ^' S. Bern, de dedic. Eccl. S. 5. Lap.
 
 •'•2 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 785. faithfulncss : and '■'thou shaltknovv the LoRn. 
 
 John if.' 3. ■ 21 And it shall eome to pass in that 
 
 I- Zecii.8. 12. tlay* '' I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear 
 
 the heavens, and they shall hear the earth ; 
 
 22 And the earth shall hear the eorn, (• ,{*r*|x 
 and the wine, and the oil;' and they shall __^!!iZ^l_ 
 hear Jezreel. "■'' 
 
 23 And''! will sow her unto me in the ^Jer.;}!. 27. 
 
 1 1 1 T •!. 1 ,1 Zech.10.9. 
 
 earth ; ' and 1 will have mercy upon her that' eh. i.e. 
 
 winch is All-po«'erfiil, love .ttro/zi^ us death '. IIow ^^hdiild it 
 not easily lift her up, which luith already made Him to stoop ? 
 If He hath not acted as a Spouse, if He hath not loved as a 
 Spouse, been jealous as a Spouse, then hesitate thou to think 
 thyself espoused."' 
 
 20. And thoH shnit know the Lord. This knowledge of 
 God follows on (iod's act of betrothal and of love. We love 
 God, because God first lotted us. And the true knowledge of 
 God includes the love of God. '• To love man we must know 
 him ; to know God we must love Him." To acknoivledge (iod, 
 is not yet to know Him. They who love not God, will not 
 even acknowledc^e Him asHe Is, "Supreme Wisdom and Good- 
 ness and Power, the Creator and Preserver ; tiie Author of all 
 which is Sfood, the Governor of the world. Redeemer of man, 
 the most bounteous Rewarder of those who serve Him, the 
 most just Retributorof thosewho persevere in rebellion ajrainst 
 Him." They who will not love God, cannot even know ariirht 
 o/God. But to know God, is somethinja: beyond this. It is to 
 know by experience that God is cjood ; and this God makes 
 known to the soul which He loves, while it meditates on Him, 
 reads of Him, speaks to Him, adores Him, obeys Him. ''This 
 knowledge cometh from the revelation of God the Father, and 
 in it is true bliss. Whence, when Peter confessed Him to be 
 the Son of Man and Son of God, He said, Blessed art thou ; 
 forjiesh and hlood hath not revealed it unto thee, hut Mi/ Fa- 
 ther whirh is in heaven." Yea, this knowledge is life eternal, 
 as He said. - This is life eternal, that the// might know Thee the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. 
 
 21, 22. I will hear the heavens, Sfc. As all nature is closed, 
 and would refuse her office to those who rebel against her God, 
 so, when He hath withdrawn His curse and is reconciled to 
 man, all shall combine together for man's good, and, by a kind 
 of harmony, all parts thereof join their ministries for the ser- 
 vice of those who are at unity with Him. And, as an image 
 of love, all, from lowest to highest, are bound together, each 
 depending on the ministry of that beyond it, and the highest 
 on God. At each link, the chain might have been broken ; 
 but God Who knit their services togcther,and had before with- 
 held the rain, and made the earth barren, and laid waste the 
 trees, now made each to supply the other,and led the thoughts 
 of man through the course of causes and effects up to Him- 
 self, Who ever causes all which comes to pass. 
 
 The immediate want of His people, was the corn, wine and 
 oil ; these needed the fruitfulness of the earth ; the earth, by its 
 parched surface and gaping clefts, seemed to crave the rain 
 from heaven ; the rain could not fall without the Will of God. 
 So all are pictured as in a state of expectancy, until God gave 
 the word, and His Will ran through the whole course of se- 
 ♦■ondary causes, and accomplished what man prayed Him for. 
 Such is the picture. But, although God's gifts of nature were 
 gladdening tokens of His restored favour, and now too, under 
 the (iospel, we rightly thank Him for the removal of any of 
 His natural chastisements, and look upon it as an earnest of 
 His favor towards us, the Prophet who had just spoken of the 
 highest things, the union of man with God in Christ, docs not 
 
 ' Cant. viii. 6. " S. John xvii. 3. 3 TerlulL Apol. end. p. 105. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 here speak only of thelowest. WbatGod gives, by virtue of an 
 espousal /or ever, are not gifts in time only. His gifts of na- 
 ture are, in themselves, pictures of His gifts of grace, and as 
 such the Prophets employ tlicin. So then (iod pr(tmisetli, 
 and this in order, a manifold abundance of all spiritual gifts. 
 Of these, corn and wine, as they are the visible parts, so are 
 they often, in the Old Testament, the symbols of His highest 
 gift, the Holy Eucharist, and oil of God's Holy Spirit, through 
 Whom they are sanctified. 
 
 God here calls Israel by the name of Jezreel, repealing, 
 once more in the close of this prophecy. His sentence, con- 
 veyed through the names of the three children of the Prophet. 
 The name Jezreel combines in one, the memory of the former 
 punishment and the future mercy. God did not altogether do 
 away the temporal part of His sentence. He had said " I will 
 scatter," and, although some were brought back with Judah, 
 Israel remained scattered in all lands, in Egypt and Greece 
 and Italy, Asia Minor, and the far East and West. But God 
 turned His chastisement into mercy to those who believed in 
 Him. Now He changes the meaning of the word into, God 
 shall sow. Israel, in its dispersion, wlien converted to God, 
 became everywhere the preacher of Him Whom they had per- 
 secuted ; and in Him, — the true Seed Whom God sowed in the 
 earth and It brought forth much fruit, — converted Israel also 
 bore, some a hundred-fold ; some sixty ; some thirty. 
 
 23. ^-Ind I icilt sow her unto Me in the earth. Shev/hom 
 God sows, is the Church, of whom God speaks as her, because 
 she is the Mother of the faithful. After the example of her 
 Lord, and by virtue of His Death, every suffering is to in- 
 crease her. "The blood of Christians was their harvest-seed'." 
 " The Church was not diminished by persecutions, but increas- 
 ed, and the field of the Lord was even clothed with the richer 
 harvest, in that the seeds, which fell singly, arose multiplied*." 
 
 In the earth. "" He does not say in their own land, i. e. 
 Judcea, but the earth. The whole earth was to be the seed-plot 
 of the Church, where God would sow her to Himself, plant, 
 establish, cause her to increase, and multiply her mightily." As 
 He said ^, Ask of Me and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine 
 inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession. 
 Of this sowing, Jews were the instruments. Of them accord- 
 ing to the flesh, Christ came ; of them were the Apostles and 
 Evangelists and all writers of Holy Scripture ; of them was 
 the Church first formed, into which the Gentiles were received, 
 being, with them, knit into one in Christ. 
 
 / will have 7nercy upon her that had not obtained mercy. 
 This, which was true of Israel in its dispersion, was much more 
 true of the Gientilcs. These too, the descendants of righte- 
 ous Noah, God had cast off for the time, that they should be 
 no more His people, when He chose Israel out of them, to 
 make known to them His Being, and His Will, and His laws, 
 and, (although in shadow and in mystery.) Christ Who was to 
 come. So God's mercies again overflow His threatenings. He 
 had threatened to Israel, that he should he unpitied, and no 
 more His people ; in reversing His sentence. He embraces in 
 the arms of His mercyaU who were not His people, and says ot 
 
 * S. Leo. Seeothers quoted lb. p. 105. 6. note a. * Poc. NotBa-sa, but y-s:- * Ps. ii. 8.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 23 
 
 c H rTs t '''^^' ^^^ obtained merry ; and I "" will suy to 
 _^hl^i them wliich wen- not iiiv i)eonlc, 'lliou art 
 
 "ch. 1.1(1. 
 
 Zich. IS. <j. my people: and they sliall saVj Thou art 
 
 Rom. 9. 20. r, , ^ ^ 
 
 iPet. 2. 10. my God. 
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 1 Bi/ the espiation of an adulteress, 4 is showed the 
 desolation of Israel before their restoration. 
 
 ri^HEN said the Ijord unto me, ' Go yet 
 
 I love a woman beloved of her ^ friend, 
 
 yet an adulteress, aecording to the love of 
 
 « ch. 1. 2. 
 •- Jer. 8. 20. 
 
 them all, that thej' should he My people and beloved. At one 
 and the same time, was Israel to be thus multiplied, and piti/ 
 was to be shewn to those not pitied, and those who were ?iof 
 God's people, were to become His people. At one and the same 
 time were those promises fulfilled in Christ ; the one throuj;;h 
 the other; Israel was not multiplied by itselt\ but throujjh the 
 bringing; in of the Gentiles. Nor was Israel alone, or chiefly, 
 brouii^ht into anew relation with God. The same words pro- 
 mised the same mercy to both, Jew and Gentile, that all should 
 be one in Christ, all one Jezrcel, one Spouse to Himself, one 
 " Israel of God," one Beloved ; and that all, with one voice of 
 jubilee should cry unto Him, " My Lord and my God." 
 
 ^nd they shall say, TIton art my God, or rather, shall 
 say, mi/ God. There seems to be more aft'ectionatcness in the 
 brief answer, which sums up the whole relation of the creature 
 to the Creator in that one word, Elohai, my God. The Pro- 
 phet declares, as before, that, when God thus anew called them 
 His people, they by His s:race would obey His call, and surren- 
 der themselves wholly to Him. For to say my God, is to own 
 an exclusive relation to God Alone. It is to say,my Bcginnin-^ 
 and my End, my Hope and my Salvation, my Whole and only 
 Good, in Whom Alone I will hope. Whom Alone I will fear, 
 love, worship, trust in, obey and serve, with all my heart, mind, 
 soul and streiig;th ; my God and my All. 
 
 III. 1. Go yet, love a icoman, beloved of her friend i/et an 
 adulteress. This tvoman, is the same Gomer whom the Pro- 
 phet had before been bidden to take, and who, (it appears from 
 this verse) had forsaken him, and was livina:in adultery with 
 anotherman. The/m'«f/Ms the husband himself, the Prophet. 
 The word//v>«f/ expresses that the husband of Gomer treated 
 her, not harshly but, mildly and tenderly, so that her faith- 
 lessness was the more a<jgravatcd sin. Friend or neighbour 
 too is the word chosen by our Lord to express His own love, 
 the love of the good Samaritan, who, not being akin, became 
 neighbour to him who fell among thieves, and had mercy upon 
 him. Gomer is called a woman, ishah, not, thy wife, is'hteea-, 
 in order to describe the state of separation, in" which she was 
 living. Yet God bids the Prophet to love her, i. e. shew active 
 love to her, not, as before, to tahe her ; for she was already and 
 still his wife, although unfaithful. He is now bidden to buy 
 her back, with the price and allowance of food, as of a worth- 
 less slave, and so to keep her apart, on coarse food, abstaining 
 from her former sins, but without the privileges of marriage, 
 yet with the hope of being, in the end, restored to be altoge- 
 ther his wife. This prophecy is a sequel to the former, and so 
 relates to Israel, after the coming of Christ, in which the for- 
 mer prophecy ends. 
 
 ' nOK not -rriSK 
 
 ' y-i as in Jer. iii. 20. Cant. v. 16. 
 
 the Loan toward the children of Israel, „ J^'iiT^. .^ 
 who look to other j;^od.s, and love flajrons "''■ "**"'• 
 t of wine. +^tt/ 
 
 2 So I boujj^ht her to me for fifteen piece.^ 
 of silv«'r, iiud for an homer of barley, and 
 
 an f half homer ctf barley : tn '>• '" 'I'^cit. 
 
 3 And i said unto her, Thou shalt abide" Deut.2i. u. 
 for me many days ; thou shall not play the 
 harlot, and thou shall not be for another 
 
 man : so will 1 also be for thee. 
 
 3 Jer. vii. 18. xliv. 19. 
 
 ^-Irrording to the love <f the Lord toward the ehildren of Is- 
 rael. The Prophet is directed to frame his life, so as to de- 
 pict at once the ingratitude of Israel or the sinful soul, and 
 the abiding, persevering, love of God. The woman, whom 
 God commands him to love, he had loved before licr fall ; he 
 was now to love her after after her fall, and amid her fall, in 
 order to rescue her from abiding in it. His love was to out- 
 live her's, that he might win her at last to him. Such, (Jod 
 says, is the love of the Lord for Israel. He, loved her before 
 she fell, for the woman was beloved of her friend, and yet an 
 adulteress. He loved her after she fell, and while persevering 
 in her adultery. For God explains His command to the Pro- 
 phet still to love her. by the words, arrording to the love of 
 the Lord toward the ehildren of Israel, while they look to other 
 gods, lit. and they are looking. The words express a contem- 
 porary circumstance. God was loving them and looking ii])- 
 on them, and they, all the while, were looking to other gods. 
 
 Lovejiitgons of ivine ; lit. of grapes, or perhaps, more pro- 
 bably, eakes of graj)es, i. c. dried raisins. Cakes were used in 
 idolatry ^. The wine would betoken the excess common in 
 idolatry, and the bereavement of understanding: the cakes 
 denote the sweetness and lusciousness, yet still the dryness, of 
 any gratification out of God, which is preferred to Him. Is- 
 rael despised and rejected the true Vine, Jesus Christ, the 
 source of all the works of grace and righteousness, and loved 
 the dried cakes, the observances of the law, which, apart from 
 Him, were dry and worthless. 
 
 '2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver. The 
 fifteen shekels were half the price of a common slave*, and so 
 may denote her worthlessness. The homer and half-homer 
 of barley, or forty-five bushels, are nearly the allowance of 
 food for a slave among the Romans, four Itushels a month. 
 Barley was the oflFering of one accused of adultery, and, being 
 the food of animals, betokens that she was like horse and mule 
 which have no undei'standing. The Jews gave dowries for their 
 wives ; but she was the Prophet's wife already. It was then 
 perhaps an allowance, whereby he brought her back from her 
 evil freedom, not to live as his wife, but to be honestly main- 
 tained, until it should be fit, com])letely to restore her. 
 
 ',i. Thou shalt abide for me many days ; lit. thou shalt sit, 
 solitary and as a widow % quiet and sequestered ; not going af- 
 ter others, as heretofore, but waiting for him '', and that for 
 an undefined, but long season, until he should come and take 
 her to himself. 
 
 ^^nd thou shalt not be for another man ; lit. and thou shalt 
 not be to a man, i. e. not even to thine own man or husband. 
 She was to remain, without following sin, yet without restora- 
 
 5 Deut. xxi. 13. 
 
 * Ex. xxi. 32. . 
 " Sucli is tlie force ol'; ;3" Ex. xxiv. 14. Jer. iii. 2.
 
 24 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 4 For the children of Israel shall ahide 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST , . , 
 
 "I-- 785. niany days * without a king, and without a 
 
 ' '^'' '"■ ' prince, and without a sacrifice, and without 
 
 tioii to conjuijal rif;lits. Her iiusl);in(l would he her i^fiKinliiui ; 
 but us yet, no more. 'So uill / ti/xo hv for thee or toiuard tlice. 
 He does not say " to thee," so as to belonji^ to her, but " to- 
 wards thee ; " i. c. he would have rej;;ard, respeet. to her ; he 
 would watch over her, l)e kindly disposed towards her ; he, his 
 atfeetions, interest, thouf>hts, would be directed towards her. 
 The word towards expresses resjard, yet distance also. Just 
 so would God, in those times, withludd all special tokens of 
 His favor, covenant, Providence ; yet would he secretly u])liold 
 and maintain them as a people, and withhold them from fall- 
 ing wholly from Him into the gulf of irreligion and infidelity. 
 4. For the children of Israel sliall abide niatn/ dai/s. The 
 condition described is one in which there should b«' no civil 
 polity, none of the special Temple-service, nor yet the idolatry, 
 which they hitherto combined with it or substituted for it. 
 King and pritice include both higher and lower governors. 
 .Tudah had /ciiigs before the Captivity and a sort oi' prince in 
 her governors after it. Judah remained still a polity, although 
 without the glory of her kings, until she rejected Christ. Is- 
 rael ceased to have any civil government at all. Sacrifice was 
 the centre of worship before Christ. It was that part of their 
 service, which above all fore-shadowed His love. His Atone- 
 ment and Sacrifice, and the reconciliation to God by His Blood, 
 Whose merits it pleaded. Images were, contrariwise, the cen- 
 tre of idolatry, the visible form of the beings, whom they w or- 
 shipped instead of God. The Kpliod was the holy garment 
 which the High-priest wore, with the names of the twelve 
 tribes and the Urim and Thummini, over his heart, and by 
 which he enquired of God. The Teraphim were idolatrous 
 means of divination. So then, /or many days, a long, long 
 period, the cliildreti of Israel should ahide, in a manner wait- 
 ing for God,as the wifewaitcdforherhusband,keptapart under 
 His care, yet not acknowledged by Him ; not following after 
 idolatries, yet cut oft from the sacrificial worship which He 
 had appointed for forgiveness of sins, tlirough faith in the 
 Sacrifice yet to be offered, cut ofi^ also from the appointed 
 means of consulting Him and knowing His Will. Into this 
 state the ten tribes were brought upon their Captivity, and 
 (those only excepted who joined the two tribes or have been 
 converted to the Gospel,) they have ever since remained in it. 
 Into that same condition the two tribes were brought, after 
 that, by killing the Son, they had filled up the measure of their 
 father's sins, and the second temple, which His Presence had 
 hallowed, was destroyed by the Romans. In that condition 
 theyhave ever since remained;free from idolatry,and ina state 
 of waiting for God. yet looking in vain for a Messias, since they 
 had not and would not receive Him Who came unto them ; 
 praying to God, yet without sacrifice for sin ; not owned by 
 God, yet kept distinct and apart by His Providence, for a 
 future yet to be revealed. " No one of their own nation has 
 oeen able to gather them together or to become their king." 
 Julian the Apostate attempted in vain to rebuild their temple. 
 God interposing by miracles to hinder the efibrt which chal- 
 lenged His Omnipotence. David's temporal kingdom has pe- 
 rished and his line is lost, because Shiloh, the Peace-Maker, is 
 come. The typical priesthood ceased, in presence of the true 
 Priest after the order of Melchisedek. The line of Aaron is 
 forgotten, unknown, and cannot be recovered. So hopelessly 
 
 f an iinaj^e, an<l without an ' ephod, and (jh'[[°ist 
 without ' teraphim : ""'• ^^' 
 
 n 11111 1-11 ft 1*^ Heh.astand- 
 
 5 Aiterwurd shall the children ot Israel i»!,',or,statue, 
 
 ' Exod. 28. 6. ' Judg. 17. 5. 19. 19. 
 
 are their genealogies confused, that they themselves conceive 
 it to be one of the offices of their Messiah to disentangle them. 
 Sacrifice, the centre of their religion, has ceased and become 
 unlawful. Still their characteristic has been to wait. Their 
 prayer as to the Christ has been, " may he soon be revealed." 
 Eighteen centuries have flowed by. Their eyes have failed 
 with looking for God's promise, when<-e it is not to he found. 
 Nothing has changed this charac-ter, in the mass of the people. 
 ( )pjiressed, released, favoured ; despised, or aggrandised ; in 
 East, or West ; hating Christians, loving to blaspheme Christ, 
 forced (as they would remain Jews,) to explain away the pro- 
 phecies which speak of Him, de|)rived of the sacrifices which, 
 to their forefathers, spoke of Him and His Atonement; — still, 
 as a mass, they blindly wait for Him, the true knowledge of 
 Whom, His offices. His Priesthood, and His Kingdom, they 
 have laid aside. AndGod has htentowards them. He has pre- 
 served them from mingling with Idolaters or Mahommedans. 
 Op])ression has not extinguished them, favour has not bribed 
 them. He has kept them from abandoning their mangled 
 worship, or the Scripture which they understand not, and 
 whose true meaning they believe not ; they have fed on the 
 raisin-husks of a barren ritual and unspiritual legalism, since 
 the Holy Spirit theyhave grieved away. Yet they exist still, 
 a monument to us, of God's abiding wrath on sin, as Lot's wife 
 was to them, encrusted, stiflT, lifeless, only that we know that 
 the dead shall hear the f'oice of the Son of God, and they that 
 hear shall live. 
 
 True it is, that idolatry was not the immediate cause of the 
 final punishment of the two, as it was of the ten, tribes. But 
 the words of the prophecy go beyond the first and immediate 
 occasion of it. The sin, which God condemned by Hosea, was 
 alienation from Himself. He loved them and they turned to 
 other gods. The outward idolatry was but a fruit and a sym- 
 bol of the inward. The temptation to idolatry was not simply, 
 nor chiefly, to have a visible symbol to worship, but the hope 
 to obtain from the beings so symbolised, or from their worship, 
 what God refused or forbade. It was a rejection of God, 
 choosing His rival. "The adulteress soul is, whoever forsak- 
 ing the Creator, loveth the creature." The rejection of our 
 Lord was moreover the crowning act of apostacy, which set 
 the seal on all former rejection of God. And when the sinful 
 soul or nation is punished at last, God punishes not only the 
 last act, which draws down the stroke, but all the former ac- 
 cumulated sins, which culminated in it. So then they who 
 " despised the Bridegroom, Who came from heaven to seek the 
 love of His own in faith, and forsaking Him, gave themselves 
 over to the Scribes and Pharisees, who slew Him that the in- 
 heritance, i. e. God's peojde, might he theirs," having the same 
 principle of sin as the ten tribes,were included in their sentence. 
 
 5. y/fterward shall t/te children of Israel return. Else- 
 where it is said more fully, return to the Lord. It expresses 
 more than turning or even conversion to God. It is not con- 
 version only, but reversion too, a turning /)rtcA-/ro7« the unbe- 
 lief and sins, for which they had left God, and a return to Him 
 Whom they had forsaken. 
 
 ^nd shall seek the Lord. This word seek expresses in 
 Hebrew, from its intensive form, a diligent search : as used with 
 regard to God, it signifies a religious search. It is not such
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 25 
 
 ^,??fTcr„ return, and ^ sock tlio fiOiu) their (Jcxl, ;iiul 
 
 C H R I o 1 
 
 cir. 785. ii David their kin<;j ; and shall i'ear the Jjoiid 
 
 '^"'5^6*'^' and his i^oodness in the ' latter days. 
 
 h Jer. 30. ;l. 
 
 ^tl^:5^; CHAPTER IV. 
 
 j J*;. , 1 God's judgments against the sins of the people, 
 
 Jer.' 30. 24. Ezek. 38. 8, 16. Dan. 2. 28. Mic. 4. 1. 
 
 seeking: as our Lord speaks of^, Ye seek Me, not because 
 ye saw the niirar/es, hut because i/e did eat of the loaves and 
 were filled, or-, inani/ shall see/i to enter in and shall not be able, 
 but that earnest scckiiiff, to \\liicli He has proniisctl. Seek and 
 i/e shall find. liefore. she had diliireiitly soii^ht her false 
 fjods. Now, in tlie end, she shall as ([ilii;enfly seek (iod and 
 His sjraee, as she had heretofore soiii^ht her idols and 
 her sins. 
 
 ^4nd David their King. David himself, after the flesh, 
 this could not he. For he liad lonii' since been gathered to his 
 fathers ; nor was he to return to this earth. David then must 
 be the Son of David, the same of Whom God s;vys'', I will set 
 up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My 
 servant David, and he shall be their Shepherd, and I the Lord 
 will be their God, and My servant David a Prince among 
 them. The same was to be a witness, leader, commander to 
 the people * ; He Who was to be raised up to David'', a righteous 
 Branch, and Who was to be called the Lord our Jlighteousness ; 
 David's Lord'' as well as David's Son. Whence the older 
 Jews, of every school, Talmudic, mystical. Biblical, j^rammati- 
 cal, explained this prophecy, of Christ. Thus their received 
 paraphrase is : " '^ Afterw-ard the children of Israel shall re- 
 ])ent, or turn by repentance, and shall seek the service of the 
 Lord their God, and shall obey Messiah tlie Son of David 
 their Kino;." 
 
 u4nd shall fear the Lord ; lit. shall fear toward the Lord 
 and toward His goodness. It is not then a servile fear, not 
 even, as elsewhere, a fear, which makes them shrink back//-6i;/i 
 His aweful Majesty. It is a fear, the most o])posed to this ; a 
 fear, whereby " they shall flee to him feu* help, from all that is 
 to be feared ;" a reverent holy awe, which should even impel 
 them to Him; a fear of losina; Him, which should make them 
 hasten to Him. "*They shall fear, and wonder exceedingly, 
 astonied at the greatness of God's dealing, or of their own 
 joy." Yet they should hasten tremblingly, as bearing in me- 
 mory their past unfaithfulness and ill deserts, and fearing to 
 approach, but for the greater fear of tiuMiing away. Nor do 
 they hasten with this reverent awe and aweful joy to God only, 
 but to His Goodness also. His Goodness draws them, and to 
 It they betake themselves, away from all cause of fear, their 
 sins, themselves, the Evil one. Yet even his Goodness is a 
 source of awe. His Goodness .' How much it contains. All 
 whereby God is good in Himself, all whereby He is good to us. 
 That whereby He is essentially good, or rather Goodness ; 
 that whereby He is good to us, as His creatures, and yet 
 more as His sinful, ungrateful, redeemed creatures, re-born to 
 bear the Image of His Son. So then His Goodness overflows 
 into beneficence, and condescension, and graciousness and 
 mercy and forgiving love, and joy in imparting Himself, and 
 
 1 S.John vi. 20. 2 S. Luke xiii. 2 I. ' Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 4. Ms. lv.4-. * Jer. xxiii.fi. 
 
 ^ Ps. ex. 1. " Jonath. Targ. " This is the King Messiah ; wlietlier he be from among 
 the living, his name is David, or wliether he be tVoni the, dead, liis name is David." Je- 
 ms. Beraclioth in Martini Pug. Fid. f. 277. and Schoettg. Horae Hebr. T. ii. .-.d loc. So 
 also the mystical books, Zoar.Midrabh Shemuel (ap. Schoettg. ii. p. 22.) and Tanchuma, 
 which has," God said to the Lsraelites ; In this world ye fear for your sins ; but in the 
 world to come [i. e. the time of Christ] when tliis evil nature shall no longer he, ye shall 
 be amazed at that good which is reserved for you, as it is written, ' Afterwards the child- 
 
 () and of the priests, 12 and against their idola- ,,'''.f","y ... 
 
 * K^ 11 11 1 O X 
 
 //•//. 1.') ,/udah is exhorted to lake warning by cir. 780. 
 Israel's calamity. 
 
 nEAR the word <»f the Ivord, ye eliil- 
 dren olTsrael : for the Lord hath a' gJ'ti.i.j, li. 
 'controversy with the inhahitants of tlic ch.'n.'o- 
 
 Mic. ti. 2. 
 
 complacence in the creatures whir-h He has formed, and re- 
 formed, redeemed and .sanctified for His glory. Well may 
 His creatures tremble towards it, with admiring wonder that 
 all this can he made their's! 
 
 This was to take [)liii(' /// the taller days. These wor(l>, 
 which are adopted in the New 'IVstament, where .\povtles say, 
 '■'in the last days, in these last days, u\run this, the last dis- 
 pensation of God, in contrast with all which went before, tin- 
 times of the (iospel '". The pr()phecy has all along been ful- 
 filled during this period to those, Mhether (d" the ten or of tin- 
 two tribes, who have been converted to Christ, since God 
 ended their Tcni|)lc-worship. It is fulfilled in every soul from 
 among them, who now is converted and lives. There will be 
 a more full fulfilment, of which S. I'aul speaks, when the eves 
 of all Israel shall be opened to the deceivableness of the last 
 Anti-Christ; and Enoch and Elias, the two witiu-sses". shall 
 have conu' to prepare our Lord's second Coming, and shall 
 have been slain, and, by (iod's converting grace, all Israel 
 shall be saved ^". 
 
 IV. 1. Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel. 
 The Prophet begins here, in a series of pictures as it were, to 
 exhibit the peojde of Israel to themselves, that they might 
 know that God did not do without cause all this which He 
 demumced against them. Here, at the outset. He summons the 
 whole people, their ])rophets and priests, before the judgment- 
 seat of God, where God would condescend. Himself to implead 
 them, and hear, if they had ought in their defence. The title 
 children of Israel is, in itself, an appeal to their gratitude and 
 their conscience, as the title "Christian" anu>ng us is an appeal 
 to us, by Him Whose Name we bear. Our Lord says ' '. If ye 
 were Ahraha)u's children, ye would do the works of Abraham ; 
 and S. PauP', let every one that nameth the name of Christ, 
 depart from iniquity. 
 
 For the Lord hath a controversy . God wills, in all His 
 dealings with us His creatures, to prove even to our own con- 
 sciences, the righteousness of His judgments, so as to leave us 
 without excuse. Now, through His servants, He shews men 
 their unrighteousness and His justice; hereafter, our Lord the 
 righteous .ludge, will shew it through the book of mens own 
 consciences. 
 
 fFith the inhabitants of the land. God had given the land 
 to the children of Israel, on account of the wickedness of those 
 whom He drave out from before them. He gave it to them, 
 ^^ thai they might observe His statutes and keep His laws. He 
 had promised that His ^''Eyes should always be upon it from the 
 begijining of the year unto the end of the year. This land, the 
 scene of those former judgments, given to them on those con- 
 ditions.^" the land which God had given to them as their God, 
 they had filled with iniquity. 
 
 reu of Israel shall return. Src." ' It is also one of the passages, which, they say, a voice 
 from heaven, bath col. revealed to them, as relating to the Messiah. Schoettg. lb. p. 1-11. 
 See also Aben Ezra and Kimchi inPococke, p. 1S9. ^ Rup. ' Acts ii. 17. Heb. i. 2. 
 
 1" " It is a rule given by Kimchi on Is. ii. 2. ' Whenever it is said in the latter days, it is 
 meant the days of the Messiah.' The same rule is also on that place given by .\barbanel, 
 and backed by the authority of Moses Ben Nachman, who on Gen. xlix. 1. gives it as a 
 general rule of all their Doctors." Poc. " Rev. xi. 3. '- Rom. xi. 2G. '^ S. John viii. 39. 
 
 i-i 2 Tim. ii. I'J. '^ Ps. cv. ult. '« Deut. xi. 12. >' See Deut. iv. 1, 40. vi. 21-25, &c. 
 
 H
 
 26 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 c h^rT'^s t la"<l) because there is no truth, nor mercy, 
 cir. -80. „„y. 1) knowledge of (Jod in the hind. 
 i'^s.t^^' 2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, 
 and stealing, and committing a(hiltery, they 
 
 t Heb. bloods, break out, and -f blood toucheth blood. 
 
 Because there in no frxlli, nor uierrtj. Trufli and tnrrci/ 
 are often spoken of, as to Alniiijlity (iod. Truth takes in all 
 whieli is ri^lit and to which God has hound Himself; nierrt/ 
 all heyond, u'hlch (iod does out of His i)oundle.ss love. When 
 God says of Israel, tliere is no truth nor mercy. He says that 
 there is absolutely none of those two jjreat qualities, under 
 whieli he comprises all His own g^oodness. There is no truth, 
 none whatever, " no rei;"ard for known truth ; no eonseienee, no 
 sincerity, no uprifi-htness ; no truth of words ; no truth of 
 promises; no truth in witnessing'; no making good in deeds 
 what they said in words." 
 
 Nor mercy. The word has a wide meaning ; it includes all 
 love of one to another, a love issuing in acts. It includes 
 loving-kindness, piety to parent.s, natural affection, forgive- 
 ness, tenderness, beneficence, mercy, goodness. The Prophet, 
 in declaring the absence of this grace, declares the absence of 
 all included under it. Whatever could he comjirised under 
 love, whatever feelings are iniluenced by love, of that there 
 was nothing. 
 
 Nor knowledge of God. The union of right knowledge 
 and wrong practice is hideous in itself; and it must be espe- 
 cially offensive to Almighty God, that His creatures should 
 know Whom they offend, how they offend Him, and yet, amid 
 and against their knowledge, choose that which displeases 
 Him. And, on that ground, perhaps. He has so created us, 
 that when our acts are wrong, our knowledge becomes dark- 
 ened \ The knotidedge of God is not merely to know some 
 things of God, as that He is the Creator and Preserver of the 
 world and of ourselves. To know things of God is not to 
 know God Himself. We cannot know God in any respect, 
 unless we are so far made like unto Him. Hereby do ice A/iow 
 that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He thatsaith, 
 I knotv Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar and 
 the truth is not in Him. Every one that loveth is horn of God. 
 and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; fin- 
 God is love". Knowledge of God being the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, he who hath not grace, cannot have that knowledge. 
 A certain degree of speculative knowledge of God, a bad man 
 may have, as Balaam had by inspiration, and the Heathen 
 who, when they knew God, glorified Him not as God. But 
 even this knowledge is not retained without love. Those 
 who /(('/(/ the truth in unrighteousness ended, (S.Paul says^) by 
 corrupting it. They did not like to retain God in their know- 
 ledge and so God gave them over to a reprohate, or undistin- 
 guishing mind, that they could not. Certainly, the speculative 
 and practical knowledge are bound up together, through the 
 oneness of the relation of the soul to God, whether in its 
 thoughts of Him, or its acts towards Him. Wrong practice 
 corrupts belief, as misbelief corrupts practice. The Prophet 
 then probablydenies that there was any true knowledge of God, 
 of any sort, whether of life or faith or understanding or love. 
 Ignorance of God, then, is a great evil, a source of all other eviLs. 
 2. By swearing, and lying, Syc ; lit. swearing or cursing*. 
 and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery ! 
 
 ' Rom. i. 21. 2 1 John ii. 3, 4. iv. 7, 8. 
 
 ' Rom. i. 21, 18, 28. * The word rendered swearing, aloh, is derived from the 
 
 Name of God Ehah, and signifies, using His Name ; invoking Him, probably in a curse. 
 
 3 Therefore ' shall the land mourn, and ^, u^ij^f^ x 
 
 ''every one that dwelleth therein hhall Ian- 'EsJ^ 
 
 guish, with the beasts of tlie field, and with & 12. t. ' 
 the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of tlie &8.8.' 
 sea also shall be taken awav. ep . . . 
 
 The words in Hebrew are nouns of action. The Hebrew form 
 is very vivid and solemn. It is far more forcible than if he 
 had said, " They swear, lie, kill, and steal." It expresses that 
 these sins were continual, that nothing else (so to sj)eak) was 
 going on; that it was all one scene of such sins, one course 
 of them, and of nothing besides ; as we say more familiarly, "It 
 was all, swearing, lying, killing,stealing,conimitting adultery." 
 It is as if the Prophet, seeing with a sight above nature, a vi- 
 sion from (iod, saw, as in a picture, what was going on, all 
 around, within and without, and summed up in this brief pic- 
 ture, all which he saw. This it was and nothing but this, 
 which met his eyes, wherever he looked, whatever he heard, 
 sivearing, lying, killing, stealing, committing adultery. The 
 Prophet had before said, that the ten tribes were utterly 
 wanting in all truth, all love, all knowledge of God. But 
 where there are none of these, there, will, in all activity, be 
 the contrary vi<'es. When the land or the soul is empty of 
 the good it will be full of the evil. They break out, i. e. burst 
 through all bounds set to restrain them, as a river bursts its 
 banks and overs])reads all things or sweeps all before it. 
 And blood toucheth blood, lit. bloods touch bloods'". The blood 
 was poured so continuously and in such torrents, that it flowed 
 on until stream met stream and formed one wide inundation 
 of blood. 
 
 .'3. Therefore shall the land tnourn. Dumb inanimate 
 nature seems to rejoice and to be in unison with our sense of 
 joy, when bedewed and fresh through rain and radiant with 
 light ; and, again, to mourn when smitten with drought or 
 blight or disease, or devoured by the creatures which God em- 
 ploys to lay it waste for man's sins. Dumb nature is, as it 
 were, in sympathy with man, cursed in Adam, smitten amid 
 man's ofi'enees, its outward show responding to man's inward 
 heart, wasted, parched, desolate, when man himself was mar- 
 red and wasted by his sins. 
 
 fPlth the beasts of thejield; lit. "in the beasts," &c. God 
 included the fowl and the cattle and every beast of the field in 
 His covenant with man. 80 here, in this sentence of woe, He 
 includes them in the inhabitants of the land, and orders that, 
 since man would not serve God, the creatures made to serve 
 him, should be withdrawn from him. " General iniquity is 
 punished by general desolation." 
 
 Yea, the fishes oj the sea also. Inland seas or lakes are 
 called by this same name, as the Sea of Tiberias and the Dead 
 Sea. Yet here the Prophet probably alludes to the history of 
 man's creation, when God gave him dominion * over the fish of 
 the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over every livini; 
 thing, (chaiah) in just the inverse order, in which he here de- 
 clares that they shall be taken away. There God gives domi- 
 nion over all, from lowest to highest ; here God denounces 
 that He will take away all, down to those which are least af- 
 fected by any changes. Yet from time to time God has, in 
 chastisement, directed that the shoals of fishes should not 
 come to their usual haunts. This is well known in the his- 
 tory of sea-coasts ; and conscience has acknowledged the hand 
 
 which the noun alah signifies. ^ " Bloods" is ever, in Ho!y 
 
 Scripture, used of blood-shed. On the history, see Introd. p. 5, and below, p. 148. 
 
 6 Gen. i. 28.
 
 CHAPTER rV. 
 
 ll 
 
 c tfiiTs T ^ ^^^ ^^^ "** v(\-A\\ strive, nor reprove 
 ""• ^'^"- another : for thy people are as " they that 
 ' Deut. 17.12. g^j,j^g ^^jjj^ jjj^ priest. 
 
 ' |1.''& is." 8. 5 Therefore shalt thou fall f in the day, 
 
 of God, and seen the ground of His visitation. Of the fliltil- 
 ment S. Jerome writes ; " Whoso believeth not that this befel 
 the people of Israel, let him survey lUyrieiim, let him survey 
 the Thraecs, Macedonia, the I'annonias, and tlie whole land 
 whieh stretches from the I'ropontis and Bosphorus to the Ju- 
 lian Alps, and he will experience that, together with man, all 
 the creatures also fail, which afore were nourished by the 
 Creator for the service of man." 
 
 4. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another ; lit. "Onli/ 
 man let liiin nut strive, and let not man reprove." God had 
 taken the controversy with His people into His own hands ; 
 the Lord, He said ', hath a controversy (rih) with the inhahi- 
 tants of the land. Here He forbids man to intermeddle ; i/iaii 
 let him not strive, (he again uses the same word -.) The 
 people were obstinate and would not hear; warning and re- 
 proof, being neglected, only aggravated their guilt : so God 
 bids man to cease to speak in His Name. He Himself alone 
 will implead them. Whose pleading none could evade or con- 
 tradict. Subordinately, God teaches us, amid His judgments, 
 not to strive or throw the blame on each other, but each to 
 look to his own sins, not to the sins of others. 
 
 For thy people are as they that strive icith the priest. God 
 had made it a part of the office of the priest, to keep A-noir- 
 ledge^. He had bidden, that all hard causes should be taken 
 to* the priest who stood to minister there before the Lord their 
 God ; and whoso refused the priest's sentence was to l)e put 
 to death. The priest was then to judge in God's Name. As 
 speaking in His Name, in His stead, with His authority, taught 
 by Himself, they were called by that Name, in which they 
 spoke, Elohim *, God, not in regard to themselves but as re- 
 presenting Him. To strive then with the priest was the high- 
 est contumacy ; and such was their whole life and conduct. 
 It was the character of the whole kingdom of Israel. For 
 they had thrown off the authority of the family of Aaron, 
 which God had appointed. Their political existence was bas- 
 ed upon the rejection of that authority. The national cha- 
 racter influences the individual. W^hen the whole polity is 
 formed on disobedience and revolt, individuals will not tole- 
 rate interference. As they had rejected the priest, so would 
 and did they reject the prophets. He says not, they ivere 
 priest-strivers, (for they had no lawful priests, against whom 
 to strive) but they were like priest-strivers, persons whose ha- 
 bit it was to strive with those who spoke in God's Name. He 
 says in fact, let not jnan strive with those who strive with God. 
 The uselessness of such reproof is often repeated. *' He that 
 reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame, and he that rebuk- 
 eth a ivicked man getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a scorn- 
 er, lest he hate thee. ^ Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he 
 will despise the wisdotn of thy words. S. Stephen gives it as a 
 characteristic of the Jews", Fe sti/fnecked and nncircumcised 
 in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ; us your 
 fathers did, so do ye. 
 
 5, Therefore shalt thou fall. The two parts of the verse 
 fill up each other. " By day and by night shall they fall, people 
 
 ' iv. 1, ai-i 
 * Deut. xvii. 8-12. * Ex. xxi. 6. xxii. 
 ' Acts vii. 51. 
 
 - a-i"> 
 
 ' S. John xi. 9, 10. 
 
 3 Mai. ii. 7. 
 <> Prov. ix. 7i 8. ' lb. xxiii. 9. 
 '» Jer. XV. 8. " Is. i. /. 
 
 Beforr- 
 
 C II Rl ST 
 
 cir. im. 
 
 and the prophet also shall fall with thee in 
 the nii^ht, and I will f destroy thy mother. 
 
 *. — r^ . . 1 II. 11-11+ Heb. rut o]f- 
 
 ^1 *>' My people are f destroye<l tor laekg !«,..}. v.;. 
 of knowledj'e : because thou hast rejected^ 
 
 and prophets together." Their calamities siiould come upon 
 them successively, day and night. Tiiey siiould stumble by 
 day, wiien there is least fear <(f stumbling'^; and iiiglit should 
 not by its darkness protect them. Evil sliimld come at noon- 
 day '" upon tiiem, seeing it. but uiialilc to repel it ; as Isaiah 
 speaks of it as an aggravation oi'tmiihle ", thy hind stronger.: 
 devour it in thy presence ; and the false prophets who saw their 
 visions in the night, should themselvs be overwhelmed in the 
 darkness, blinded by moral, perishing in actual, darkness. 
 
 And I will destroy thy mother. Individuals are spoken t>f 
 asthechildren; the whole iiation,as the mother, lie (Icnoiiiices 
 then the destruction of all.ccdlectively and individually. Tliey 
 were to be cut off, root and branch. They were to lose their 
 collective existence as a nation ; and, lest jirivate jiersons 
 should flatter themselves with hope of escape, it is said to 
 them, as if one by one, "thou shalt fall." 
 
 6. 3Iy people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. "My 
 people are," not, " is." This accurately represents the He- 
 brew '-. The word "people" speaks of them as a whole, arc 
 relates to the individuals of whom that whole is composed. 
 Together the words express the utter destruction of the « iiolc, 
 one and all. They are destroyed/or lack of knowlcdge.Wi.- of 
 the knowledge," i. e. the oidy knowledge, which in the crea- 
 ture is real knowledge, that knowledge, of the want of which 
 he had before complained, the knowledge of the Creator. So 
 Isaiah mourns in the same words '■', therefore uiy pcojile are 
 gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge. They are 
 destroyed for lack of it: for tlie true knowledge of God is the 
 life of the soul, true life, eternal life, as our Saviour saith. This 
 is life eternal that they should know Thee, the only true God, 
 and Jesus Christ IVh'om Thou hast sent. The source of this 
 lack of knowledge, so fatal to tlie people, was the wilful rejec- 
 tion of that knowledge by the priest ; 
 
 Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, 
 that thou shalt be no priest to Me. God marks the relation 
 between the sin and the punishment, by retorting on them, as 
 it were, their own acts ; and that with great emj)liasis, / will 
 utterly reject thee ^K Those thus addressed must have been 
 true priests, scattered up and down in Israel, who, in an irregu- 
 lar way, offered sacrifices for them, and connived at their sins. 
 For God's sentence on them is, thou shalt be no priest to J/J£. 
 But the pri( sts whom Jerobt)am consecrated out of other tribes 
 than Levi, were priests not to God, but to the calves. Those 
 then, originally true priests to (kid, had probably a precarious 
 livelihood, wht'n the true worship of God was deformed by 
 the mixture of the calf-worship, and the j)eople halted between 
 two opinions; and so were tempted by poverty also, to with- 
 hold from the people unpalatalde truth. They shared, then, in 
 the rejection of God's truth which they dissembled, and made 
 themselves partakers in its suppression. And now, they des- 
 pised, were disgusted with ^' the knowledge of God. as all do in 
 fact despise and dislike it, who prefer ought besides to it. So 
 God repaid their contempt to them, and took away the office, 
 which, by their sinful connivances, they had hoped to retain, 
 
 '■- The singular noun, as being a collective, is joined with the plural verb. 
 " PS-: •^li vi. 13. The absence of the article makes no difference. " Such is pro- 
 bably the force of the unusual form -Nts-is- '■' Such is the first meaning of the »ord.
 
 28 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 c ii'ttTs T knovvk'dsrf, I will also reject thee, that 
 "'■•• 7S0- thou shalt be no priest to me : seeiiiu; thou 
 
 '■ ch. !■■!. i;. 
 
 hast fors^otten the law of thy God, I will 
 also forifet thy ehihh-en. 
 
 7 '■ As they were increased, so they 
 
 Seeing tituu hast forgotten the law of thy God. This seems 
 to liave been the sin of tlie people. For the same persons 
 eould not, at least in tiie same stai>e ofsin. despise and forijct. 
 Tliev who despise or reject, must have before their mind that 
 whieh they rejert. To reject, is wilFul, eonseious, delii)erate 
 sin. witii a liii;h hand; to forget, an act of neglii2;enee. The 
 rejection of God's hiw was the act of the understandiniy and 
 will ; fori>etfuhu'ss of it comes from the ncijlect to look into it ; 
 and this, from the distaste of the natural mind for spiritual 
 thinsjs, from l)eini; al)sorbed in thiiiiis of this world, from in- 
 attention to the duties prescribed by it, or shrinkinu: from 
 seeinir that condemned which is ajjreeable to the Hesh. The 
 priests knew God's law and despised it ; the people forgat 
 it. Ill an advanced stage of sin, however, man may come to 
 forget what he once despised ; and this is the condition of 
 the hardened sinner. 
 
 I will also forget f hi/ children ; lit. I trill forget tin/ child- 
 ren, I tfjo. God would mark the more, that His act followed 
 on their's ; they first ; then, He saith, I too. He would requite 
 thein, and do what it belonged not to His Goodness to do first. 
 Parents who are careless as to themselves, as to their own 
 lives, even as to their own shame, still long that their child- 
 ren should not be as themselves. God tries to touch their 
 hearts where they are least steeled against Him. He says 
 not, I will forget thee, but I will forget those nearest thy heart, 
 thy children. God is said to forget, when He acts, as if His 
 creatures were no longer in His mind, no more the object of 
 His Providence and love. 
 
 7. yis they irere increased, so they sinned against 3fc. The 
 increase may be, either in actual number or in wealth, power 
 or dignity. The text includes both. In both kinds of increase 
 the bad abuse God's gifts against Himself, and take occasion 
 of them to offend Him. The more they were increased in 
 number, the more there were to sin. the more they were who 
 sinned. God promised to make Abraham's seed, as the stars 
 of heaven. They were to shine in the world through the light 
 of the law. and the glory which God gave them while obeying 
 Him. ^ Thy Fathers went down into Egypt with threescore 
 and ten persons ; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee like 
 the stars of heaven for multititde. Therefore thoa shalt love the 
 Lord thy God. and keep His charge, and His statntes, and His 
 judgments and His commandments alway. God multiplied 
 them, that there might be the more to adore Him. But in- 
 stead of multiplying subjects, He multiplied apostates. " As 
 many men as Israel had, so many altars did it build to dae- 
 mons, in the sa<M-ifices to whom it sinned against Me." "The 
 more sons God gave to Israel, the more enemies He made to 
 Himself; for Israel brought them up in hatred to God, and in 
 the love and worshiji of idols." "As too among the devout, 
 one provokes another, by word and deed, to good works, so, 
 in the congregation of evil doers, one incites another to sins." 
 Again, worldlings make all God's gifts minister to pride, and 
 so to all the sins, which are the daughters of pride. - Jeshnrun, 
 God says, waxed fat and kicked ; then lie forsook God which 
 made him, and lightly esteemed the Itock of his salvation. In 
 ' Deut. X. 22. xi. 1. - Deut. xxxii. 15. 
 
 sinned against ine : ' therefore will 1 change ^ jfffpsT 
 their glory into shame. ""■ 7'"'- 
 
 H They eat up the sin of my people, ' ifai". I'. ^' 
 and they f set their heart on their \ni- \H"Ai.'ufl%, 
 
 'P"^.»* their imqiaty. 
 
 this way too, the increase of wealth which God gives to 
 those who forget Him, increases the occasions of ingratitude 
 and sins. 
 
 / will turn their glory into shame. Such is the course of 
 sin and chastisement. <Jod bestows on man gifts, which may 
 be to him matter of praise and glory, if only ordered aright 
 to their highest and only true end, the glory of God; man 
 perverts them to vain-glory and thereby to sin ; God turns the 
 gifts, so abused, to shame. He not only gives them shame in- 
 stead of their glory ; he makes the glory itself the means and 
 occasion of their shame. Beauty becomes the occasion of de- 
 gradation; pride is proverbially near a fall ;" vaulting ambition 
 overleaps it'sel' and falls on th'other side ;" riches and abun- 
 dance of population tempt nations to wans, which become 
 their destruction, or they invite other and stronger nations to 
 prey upon them. Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, was the 
 message of Jchoash to Amaziah ', a)id thine heart hath lifted 
 thee up ; glory of this, and tarry at home ; for why shouldest 
 thou meddle to thy hurt, that thou shouldest fall, even thou 
 and Judah with thee ? But Amaziah would not hear. He lost 
 his own wealth, wasted the treasures in God's house ; and the 
 walls of Jerusalem were broken down. 
 
 8. They eat up the sin of My people. The priests made a 
 gain of the sins of the jteoplc, lived upon them and by them, 
 conniving at or upholding the idolatries of the people, partak- 
 ing in their idol-sacrifice and idolatrous rites, which, as in- 
 volving the desertion of God, were tlie sin of the people, and 
 the root of all their other sins. This the priests did knowingly. 
 True or false, apostate or irregularly api)ointed. they knew 
 that there was no truth in the golden calves ; but they with- 
 held the truth, they held it down in nnrighteousness, and 
 preached Jeroboam's falsehood, these he thy gods, O Israel. 
 The reputation, station, maintenance of the false priests de- 
 pended upon it. Not being of the line of Aaron, they could 
 be no priests except to the calves, and so they upheld the sin 
 whereby they lived, and, that they might themselves be ac- 
 counted priests of God, taught them to worship the calves, 
 as representatives of God. 
 
 The word sin may include indirectly the sin offerings of 
 the people, as if they loved the sin or encouraged it, in or- 
 der that they might partake of the outward expiations for it. 
 
 And they set their heart on their iniquity, as the source of 
 temporal profit to themselves. " Benefited by the people, they 
 reproved them not in their sinful doings, but charged them- 
 selves with their souls, saying, on us be the judgment, as those 
 who said to Pilate, His Blood he upon us." That which was, 
 above all, their iniquity, the source of all the rest, w^as their 
 departure from God and from His ordained worship. On this 
 they set their hearts; in this they kept them secure by their 
 lies ; they feared any misgivings which might rend the people 
 from them, and restore them to the true worship of God. But 
 what else is to extenuate or flatter sin now, to dissemble it, not 
 to see it, not openly to denounce it, lest we lose our populari- 
 ty, or alienate those who commit it ? What else is it to speak 
 smooth words to the great and wealthy, not to warn them, even 
 
 s 2 Kings xiv. 10,11.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 29 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 k Isai. 24. 2. 
 
 Jer. 5. 31. 
 t Heb. 
 
 visit upon. 
 f Heb. cause 
 
 to return, 
 1 Lev. 20. 20. 
 
 Mic. 6. li. 
 
 Hag. 1. 0. 
 
 9 And there shall he, ''like people, 
 like priest : and 1 will f |)iinish them 
 for their ways, and f reward tlunn their 
 doings. 
 
 10 For ' they shall eat, and not have 
 enough : they shall commit wlioredom, and 
 
 general terms, of the danger of making Mammon their god, 
 of the peril of riclies, oC parade, of luxury, of immoral dress- 
 ing, and, amid boundless extragavaiice, neglei't of tlie poor, 
 encouraging tlie rich, not only in the neglect of Lazarus, l)ut 
 in pampering tiie dogs, while they neglect him ? What is 
 the praise (d' some petty dt>le to the poor, but connivance at 
 the withliolding from God His due in them ? " Wo see now," 
 says an old writer, '' ^ how many prelates live on the oblations 
 and reveinies of the laity, and yet, whereas they are bound, by 
 words, by prayers, by exenij)lary life, to turn them away from 
 sin, and to lead them to amendment, they, in various ways, 
 scandalise, corrupt, infect them, by ungodly conversation, 
 flattery, connivance, cooperation, and neglect of due ])astoral 
 care. Whence Jeremiah says-. Mi/ people hath heett hint sheep; 
 their shepherds have caused them to go astrai/. O how horrible 
 and exceeding great will be their damnation, w\w shall be tor- 
 mented for each of those under their care who perish through 
 their negligence." 
 
 9. Atid there shall be like people, like priest. Priest and 
 people were alike in sin. Yea, they are wont, if bad, to foment 
 each other's sin. The bad priest copies the sins which he 
 should reprove, and excuses himself by the frailty of our com- 
 mon nature. The people, acutely enough, detect the worldli- 
 ness or self-indulgence of the priest, and shelter themselves 
 under his example. Their defence stands good before men ; 
 but what before God ? Alike in sin, priest and jieople should 
 be alike in punishment. "Neither secular greatness should ex- 
 empt the laity, nor the dignity of his order, the priest." Both 
 shall be swept away in one common heap, in one disgrace into 
 one damnation. They shall hind them in hundles to hum them. 
 
 And I will punish them for their U'ui/s and reward them 
 their doings ; lit. I will visit upon him his ways, and his doings 
 I will make to return to him. People and priest are spoken 
 of as one man. None should escape. The judgment comes 
 down iipo)i them overwhelming them. Man's deeds are called 
 his tvays, because the soul holds on the tenor of its life along 
 them, and those ways lead him on to his last end, heaven or 
 hell. The word rendered doings^ signifies great doings, when 
 used of God, hold doings on the part of man. These bold 
 presumptuous doings against the law and Will of God, God 
 will bring back to the sinner's bosom. 
 
 10. For they shall eat, and not have enough. This is 
 almost a proverbial saying of Holy Scripture, and, as such, 
 has manifold applications. In the way of nature, it comes 
 true in those, who, under God's afflictive Hand in famine or 
 siege, eat what they have, but have not enough, and perish 
 with hunger. It comes true in those, who, through bodily 
 disease, are not nourished by their food. Yet not less true is 
 it of those who, through their own insatiate desires, are never 
 satisfied, but crave tiie more greedily, the more they have. 
 Their sin of covetousness becomes their torment. 
 
 They shall commit u'horedom and not increase; lit. thei/ 
 have committed whoredom. The time spoken of is perhaps 
 
 ' Dionys. Carth. 2 1. 6. » l^'jbyn * Ps. cxxiii. 2. ^ S. Matt, xviii. 10. 
 
 shall n(»t inerease : heeause they have left cn^'^^fsT 
 off to take heed to the Loim. <-•'■"• "■'-'"• 
 
 11 VVnioredoni and wine and new vvine "" " IjeeEcciU. 
 take away the heart. '■^" 
 
 12 ^ My peoph? ask eounsel at their 
 
 " stocks, and their staff deelareth unto them : u!ih'2''ih. 
 
 changed, because God would not speak of their future sin, as 
 
 ccrtJiin. There is iwiturally too a long interval iietween this 
 sin and its possible fruit, which may be marked by this change 
 of time. The sin was past, the effect was to be seen hereafter. 
 They used all means, lawful and unlawful, to increase their 
 offspring, but they failed, even because they used forbidden 
 means, (iod's curse rested uj)on those means. Single mar- 
 riage, aci'ording to (iod's law, they twain shall he one flesh, 
 yields, in a nation, larger increase than polygamy. Illicit in- 
 tercourse God turns to decay. His curse is upon it. 
 
 Because they have left off' to take heed to the Lord, lit. to 
 watch, observe, the Lord. The eye of the soul should be upon 
 God, watching and waiting to know all indications of His 
 Will, all guidings (d' His Eye. So the Psalmist says, ^As the 
 eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and, as the 
 eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her 7nistrcss, even so our eyes 
 wait upon the Lord our God, until He liave mercy upon us. 
 The Angels (d' God, great and glorious as they are, do alway 
 behold the Face of the Father'", at once filled with His love, and 
 wrapt in contemplation, and reading therein His Will, to 
 do it. The lawless and hoj)cless ways of Israel sprang from 
 their neglecting to watch and observe God. For as soon as 
 man ceases to watch God, he falls, of himself, into sin. The 
 eye which is not fixed on God, is soon astray amid the vani- 
 ties and pomps and lusts of the world. So it follows ; 
 
 11. fFhoredom and wine and new zvine take away [lit. 
 takes a7vay] the heart. Wine and fleshly sin are pictured as 
 blended in one to deprive man of his affections and reason and 
 understanding, and to leave him brutish and irrational. In 
 all the relations of life toward God and man, reason and will 
 are guided by the affections. And so, in God's language, the 
 " heart" stands for the '■ understanding," as well as the " af- 
 fections," because it directs the understanding, and the under- 
 standing bereft of true affections, and under the rule of passion,, 
 becomes senseless. Besides the perversion of the under- 
 standing, each of these sins blunts and dulls the fineness of the 
 intellect ; much more, both combined. The stupid sottishness 
 of the confirmed voluptuary is a whole, of which each act of 
 sensual sin worked its part. The Heathen saw this clearly, 
 although, without the grace of God, they did not act on what 
 they saw to be true and right. This the sottishness of Israel, 
 destroying their understanding, was the ground of their next 
 folly, that they ascribed to their stock the office of God. " Cor- 
 ruption of manners and superstition," (it has often been ob- 
 served) " go hand in hand." 
 
 12. My people ask counsel at [lit. ow] their stocks. They 
 ask habitually," and that in dependance o;( their stocks. The 
 word wood is used of the idol made of it, to bring before them 
 the senselessness of their doings, in that they asked counsel 
 of the senseless wood. Thus Jeremiah " reproaches them for 
 saying to a stock, my father ; and Habbakkuk,** TFoe unto him 
 that saith to the wood, awake. 
 
 And their staff deelareth unto them. Many sorts of this 
 
 * The Hebrew tense expresses action which is repeatedly resumed. 
 
 27. 8ii. 19.
 
 30 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 chrTst f«»* " the spirit of whoredoms hath caused 
 "■-■ 780- tlirni to err, and tliey have gone a whoring 
 "SI'"- from under their God. 
 
 ' & sz.'i,?; 1^ '' They sacrifice upon the tops of the 
 ilo.'as/^' mountains, and burn incense upon the hills. 
 
 superstition existed anions the Arabs and Chaldees. They 
 were ditferent ways of ch-awing h)ts, without any dependance 
 upon the true (Jod to direct it. This was a part of tlieir sense- 
 lessness, of which the Prophet had just said, that their sins took 
 away their hearts. The tenderness of the word, »ii/ people, 
 ajjgravatcs both the stupidity and the inijratitude of Israel. 
 They whom the Living God owned as His own people, they 
 who might have asked of Him, asked of a stock or a staff. 
 
 For the spirit of w/iorednms. It has been thought of old 
 that the evil spirits assault mankind in a sort of order and 
 method, dift'erent spirits bending all tlieir energies to tempt 
 him to different sins'. And this has been founded on the 
 words of Holy Scripture, "a lying spirit,'"' an unclean spirit," 
 "a spirit of jealousy," and our Lord said of the evil spirit 
 whom the disciples could not cast out ; - T/ii.s kind goef/i not 
 out hut 1)1/ prayer and fasting. Hence it has been thought 
 that '"some spirits take delight in undeanness and delilement 
 of sins, others urge on to blasphemies ; others, to anger and 
 fury ; others take delight iu gloom ; others are soothed with 
 vainglory and pride; and that each instils into man's heart 
 that vice in which he takes pleasure himself; yet that all do 
 not urge their own perversenesses at once, but in turn, as op- 
 portunity of time or place, or man's own susceptibility invites 
 them." Or the word spirit of wlioredonis may mean the vehe- 
 mence with which men were whirled along by their evil pas- 
 sions, whether by their passionate love of idolatry, or by the 
 fleshly sin which was so often bound up with their idolatry. 
 
 Tliei) have gone a tvhoring from under their God. The 
 words //-ow under continue the image of the adulteress wife, by 
 which God had pictured the faithlessness of His people. The 
 wife was spoken of as wider her husband^, i.e. under his au- 
 thority ; she withdrew \\ev&c\i from under him, when she with- 
 drew herself from his authority, and gave herself to another. 
 So Israel, being wedded to God, estranged herself from Him, 
 withdrew herself from His obedience, cast off all reverence to 
 Him, and prostituted herself to her idols. 
 
 13. Thei/ sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains. The 
 tops of hills or mountains seemed nearer heaven, the air was 
 purer, the place more removed from the world. To worship 
 the LTnscen God upon them, was then the suggestion of na- 
 tural feeling and of simple devotion. God Himself directed 
 the typical sacrifice of Isaac to take place on a mountain ; on 
 that same mountain He commanded that the temple should 
 be built ; on a mountain, God gave the law ; on a mountain was 
 our Saviour transfigured ; on a mountain was He crucified ; 
 from a mountain He ascended into heaven. Mountains and 
 hills have accordingly often been chosen for Christian churches 
 and monasteries. But the same natural feeling, misdirected, 
 made them the places of heathen idolatry and heathen sins. 
 The Heathen probablyalso chose for their star and planet wor- 
 ship, Tnountains or large plains, as being the places whence 
 the heavenly bodies might be seen most widely. Being thus 
 connected with idolatry and sin, God strictly forbade the 
 worship on the high places, and (as is the ease with so many 
 
 under oaks and poplars and ehns, because q h^rTs t 
 
 the shadow thereof?* good : '' th«*refore your "''• ^^' — 
 
 daugliters shnll commit whoredom, and roIh. i.^s! 
 your spouses shall commit adultery, 
 
 14 1 wul not punish your daughters i,wi,S(c. 
 
 ' Cassian Collat. vii. 17. 
 
 J Num. V. I'J, 29. Ezek. xxiii. 5. 
 
 * Deut. xii. 
 
 2 S. Matt. xvii. 21. 
 
 of God's commandments) man practised it as diligently as if 
 He had commanded it. God had said*, W shall utterli/ de- 
 stroy all the places, wherein the nations, which i/e shall possess, 
 served their gods upon the high rnountuins, and upon the hills 
 and under every green tree. But '■' they set them up images and 
 groves [rather images of Ashtaroth^ in every high hill and 
 under every green tree, and there they burnt incense in all the 
 high places, as did the heathen ivliom the Lord carried utvay 
 before them. The words express, that this which (iod for- 
 bade they did diligently; they sacrificed much and diligently ; 
 t hey burnedincense much and diligently^'; and that, not here and 
 there, but generally, on the tops of the mountains, and, as it 
 were, in the open face of heaven. So also Ezekiel complains, 
 They saw every high hill and all the thick trees, and they 
 offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provo- 
 cation of their offering ; tltere also they made their stueet savour, 
 and poured out there their drinh-cj/f'erings''. 
 
 Under oaks, [white] poplars and elms [probably the tere- 
 binth or turpentine tree] because the shadow thereof is good. 
 The darkness of the shadow suited alike the cruel and the pro- 
 fligate deeds which were done in honor of their false gods. In 
 the open fa(;e of day, and in secret, they carried on their sin. 
 
 Therefore their daughters shall commit whoredoms, and 
 their spouses [or more probably, daughters in law] shall com- 
 mit adultery, or (in the present) commit adultery. The fa- 
 thers and husbands gave themselves to the abominable rites 
 of Baal-peor and Ashtaroth, and so the daughters and daugh- 
 ters in law followed their example. Tiiis was by the permis- 
 sion of God, who, since they glorified not God as they ought, 
 gave them up, abandoned them, to vile affections. So, through 
 their own disgrace and bitter griefs, in the persons of those 
 whose honor they most cherished, they should learn how ill 
 they themselves had done, in departing from Him Who is the 
 Father and Husband of every soul. The sins of the fathers 
 descend very often to the children, both in the way of nature, 
 that the children inherit strong temptations to their parents' 
 sin, and by way of example, that they greedily imitate, often 
 exaggerate, them. Wouldest thou not have children, which 
 thou wouldest wish unborn, reform thyself. The saying may 
 include too sufferings at the hands of the enemy. " What 
 thou dost willingly, that shall your daughters and your daugh- 
 ters in law suffer against thine and their will." 
 
 14.7 will not punish your daughters. God threatens, as 
 the severest woe, that He will not punish their sins with the 
 correction of a Father in this present life, but will leave the sin- 
 ners, unheeded, to follow all iniquity. It is the last punish- 
 ment of persevering sinners, that God leaves them to pros- 
 per in their sins and in those things which help them to sin. 
 Hence we are taught to pray,* O Lord, correct me, but in 
 Judgment, not in Thine anger. For since God chastiseth 
 those whom He loveth, it follows' if we be without chas- 
 tisement, tvhereof all are partakers, then are we bastards and 
 not sons. To be chastened severely for lesser sins, is a token 
 of great love of God toward us : to sin on without punish- 
 
 ^ 2 Kings xvii. 10, 11. 
 ^ XX. 28. 
 
 ^ yezabbecku,notizbecku; yekatteru, wot yaktiruj 
 8 Jer. X. 24. ' Heb. xii. 8.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 31 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 ' ver. 1. G. 
 II Or, be 
 punished. 
 
 when they eommit wliore(h)in, nor your 
 spouses when they eotninit adultery : for 
 themselves are separuted \vith whores, and 
 they saeiifice with harlots : therefore tlie 
 people that 'doth not understand shall || fall. 
 15 ^ Though thou, Israel, play the har- 
 
 ment is ii token of God's cxtremcst <lis|>leasuie, and asijjn oF 
 reprobation. "' Great is the offence, if when thou hast sinned, 
 thou art undeservinif of the wrath of God." 
 
 For themselves are separated wit k whores. God turnsfrom 
 tlieni, as unworthy to he spolten to any more, and speaks of 
 them. They sejxirate theuiselves,t'rom Wlioni ? and with whom ? 
 They separate themselves from God,andwitli the dejj^radcd ones 
 and with devils. Yet so do all those who ehoose wilful sin. 
 
 And thei/ sacrifice [coiiti)iiially, as before] with [the^ har- 
 lots. The unhappy women here spoken of were such as were 
 ^ consecrated (as their name imports) to their vile fjods and 
 goddesses, and to prostitution. This dreadful consecration, 
 yea, desecration, whereby they were taujijht to seek honor in 
 their disgrace, was spread in different forms over Phoenicia, 
 Syria, Phrygia, Assyria, Babylonia. Ashtaroth, (the Greek 
 Astarte) was its chief object. This horrible worship prevailed 
 in Midian, when Israel was entering the promised land, and it 
 suggested the devilisli device of Balaam'' to entangle Israel in 
 sin whereby they might forfeit the favor of God. The like 
 is said to subsist to this day in Heathen India. The sin was 
 both the cause and effect of the superstition. Man's corrujtt 
 heart gave rise to the worship ; and the worship in turn fos- 
 tered the corruption. He first sanctioned the sin by aid of a 
 degrading worship of nature, and then committed it under 
 plea of that worship. He made his sin a law to him. Women, 
 who never relapsed into tlie sin, sinned in obedience to the 
 dreadful law *. Blinded as they were, individual heathen had 
 the excuse of their hereditary blindness ; the Jews had imper- 
 fect grace. The sins of the Christians are self-sought, against 
 light and grace. 
 
 Therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall. 
 The word comprises both, that doth not understand and. that 
 will not understand. They might have understood, if they 
 would. God had revealed Himself to them, and had given to 
 them His law, and was still sending to them His prophets, so 
 that they could not but have known and understood God's 
 Will, had they willed. Ignorance, which we might avoid or 
 cure, if we would, is itself a sin. It cannot excuse sin. They 
 shall, he says,/a//, or he cast headlong. Those who l)lind their 
 eyes, so as not to see or understand God's Will, bring them- 
 selves to sudden ruin, which they hide from themselves, until 
 they fall headlong in it. 
 
 15. Let not Judah offend. The sentence of Israel had 
 been pronounced ; she had been declared incorrigible. The 
 prophet turns from her now to Judah. Israel had abandoned 
 God's w^orship, rejected or corrupted His priests, given herself 
 to the worship of the calves ; no marvel what further excess of 
 riot she run into ! But Judah, who had the law and the tem- 
 ple and the service of God, let not her, (he would say,) involve 
 herself in Israel's sin. If Israel, in wilful blindness, had 
 plunged herself in ruin, let not Judah involve herself in her sin 
 and her ruin. He turns (as elsewhere) incidentally to Judah. 
 
 ' S. Jer. - riii-n ^ Num. xxv. xxxi. 8, l(j. 
 
 * Herod, i. 19'J. It may liavebeen in some such way, that Gomer, whom the Prophet 
 was bidden to marry, had fallen. ^ Josh. iv. 19, 20. v. 9, 10. ix. 0. 
 
 lot, yet let not Judah offend ; "and eome not ^ ^ kTst 
 ye unto (lilfj^al, neitlier go ye up to ' Beth- '=''"• "^"- 
 
 aven, " nor swear, The Lord liveth. & 2.11! 
 
 1(5 For Israel "^ slideth hack as a l)a<'kslid- gi"'.! 
 
 ing lu'ifer : now the Lord will feed theni as 29. '"^'' 
 
 , , . , , ch. 10. 5. 
 
 a lanil) in a large plaee. "Amos 8. 14. 
 
 « 'jer. a. (i. & 7. 24. & 8. 5. Zcch. 7. 11. Ztph.l.o. 
 
 Come ye not unto (iil^^nl. Gilgiil lay between Jericho and 
 the Jordan. There, ten furlongs from the Jordan, first in all 
 the promised land, tlic jicoiilc ciicamjx'd ; there Josliiia placed 
 the monument (»f the mirainilous passage of the Jordan ; there 
 he renewed the circumcision of the people which had been 
 intermitted in the wilderness, and the feast of the passover; 
 thither tlie people returned, after all tlie victories by «liich 
 (iod gave them jxissession of the land of proTiiise '. 'I'here .Sa- 
 muel habitually sacrificed, and there before the /,o/v/,i.e.in His 
 special covenanted Presence, he publicly made Saul king^. 
 It was part of the policy of Jeroboam to take hold of all these 
 associations, as a sort of set-off against Jerusalem and the 
 temple, from which he had separated bis people. In rtpposi- 
 tion to this idolatry, Elislia for a time, established there one 
 of the schools of the Prophets". 
 
 Neither go i/e up to Jief haven. Bet haven, lit. h(nise of va- 
 nity, was a city East of Bethel,'* the house of God. Hut since 
 Jeroboam had set up the worship of the calves at Bethel, Be- 
 thel had ceased to be the house of God, and had become « house 
 or temjile of vaniti/; and so the Prophet gave it no more its 
 own name which was associated with the history of the faith 
 of the Patriarchs, but called it what it had bectmie. In Bethel 
 God had twice appeared to Jacob, when he left the land of 
 promise 'to go to Laban, and when lie returned'". Thither 
 also the ark of God was for a time in the days of the Judges 
 removed from Shiloh," near to which on the north '- Bethel 
 lay. It too Jeroboam profaned by setting up the calf there. 
 To these places then, as being now places of the idolatry of Is- 
 rael, Judah is forbidden to go, and then to swear, the Lord liv- 
 eth. For to swear by the Lord in a jilace of idolatry would 
 be to associate the living God with idols, ''^ which God ex- 
 pressly forbade. 
 
 IG. For Israel slideth hack, as a hackslidiiig heifer. The 
 calves which Israel worshipped were pictures of itself They 
 represented natural, untamed, strength, which, when put to 
 service, started back and shrunk from the yoke. "Untracta- 
 blcpetulant, unruly, wanton, it withdrew from the yoke, when 
 it could ; if it conhi not, it drew aside or backward instead of 
 forward." So is it rare, exceeding rare, for man to walk 
 straight on in God's ways ; he jerks, writhes, twists, darts aside 
 hither and thitlier, hati'ng nothing so much as one straight, 
 even, narrow tenor of his ways. 
 
 Noiu the Lord will feed them as a lamh in a large place. 
 The punishment of Israel was close at hand, 7ioir. It would 
 not have thestraitnessof God'scommandments; it should have 
 the wideness of a desert. God would withdraw His protect- 
 ing Providence from them : He would rule them, although 
 unfelt in His mercy. At large, they wished to be ; at large 
 they should be ; but it should be the largeness of « wilderness 
 where is no way. There, like a lamb, they should go astray, 
 wandering uj) and down, unprotected, a prey to wild beasts. 
 Woe is it t(» that man, whom,when he withdraws from Christ's 
 
 X. 6-9. 43. xiv. C. 
 ' 2 Kings iv. 38. 
 i» lb. XXXV. Land 9. 
 
 6 1 Sam. X. 8. xi. 14, 15. xiU.4-9. xv.21,33. 
 
 8 Jcsli. vii. J. ' Gen. xxviii. 10, 19. 
 
 Judg. XX. 26, 7. •- Judg. xxi. 19. '3 Zeph. i. 5. 
 
 i2
 
 32 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 ci"hTst 17 Ephraim ?* joined to idols : 'let liiin 
 "■•• "^"- alone. 
 
 they liave 
 
 .Man. 15. U. jy rp,,,.;,. ^i,.;,,,^ | Jg SOUl' 
 
 ' ivifri: 11. committed whoredom continually : ' licr f 
 t tilh^' rulers with sliame do love, Give ye. 
 Psf'ff'g. 19^ The wind hath bound her up in her 
 
 ff ^'sLi. wings, and '' they shall be ashamed because 
 ' jer.^.lo.' of their sacrifices. 
 
 easy yoke, God jjcniiits to take imliiiulered tlie broad road 
 wliich Icadcth to destruction. To Israel, tliis wide place was 
 the wide realms oftheMedes, where they were withdrawn from 
 God's worship and depriyed of His protection. 
 
 17- Ep/ir<ii)i) is joined to idols, i. e. handed, bound up with 
 them, associated, as the word means, with them so as to cleave 
 to thcni, willing neither to part \yith, nor to be parted from, 
 them. The idols are called by a name, denoting toils ; with 
 toil they were fashioned, and, when fashioned, they were a 
 toil and grief. 
 
 Let tiim nhme ; Wt.give him rest, i. e. from all further ex- 
 postulations, which he will not hear. It is an abandonment 
 of Israel for the time, as in the prophet EzekieP, As fur yuu, 
 O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, go ye, serve ye 
 every one his idols. Sinners often long, not to he tormented 
 by conscience or by God's warnings. To be left so, is to be 
 abandoned by God, as one whose case is desperate. God will 
 not, while there is hope, leave a man to sleep in sin ; for so 
 the numbness of the soul increases, until, like those who fall 
 asleep amid extreme cold of the body, it never awakes. 
 
 18. 77/t'//-(//v';(A- M.voH/-, lit. /»/•//«/, as we say of milk. So 
 Isaiah says ", Thy silver is become dross ; thy tvine is mingled, 
 i. e. adulterated, with ivater; and our Lord speaks of salt rvhich 
 had lost its savour. The wine or the salt, when once turned or 
 become insipid, is spoiled irrecoverably, as we speak of "dead 
 wine." They had lost all their life, and taste of goodness. 
 
 Her rulers with shame do love, give ye. Avarice and lux- 
 ury are continually banded together, according to the saying, 
 "covetous of another's, prodigal of his own." Yet it were pei'- 
 haps more correct to render, her rulers do love, do love, shame^. 
 They loye that which brings shame, which is bound up with 
 shame, and ends in it ; and so the Prophet says that they love 
 the shame itself. They act, as if they were in love with the 
 shame, which, all their lives long, they are unceasingly and, as 
 it were, by system, drawing upon themselves. They chase 
 diligently after all the occasions of sins and sinful pleasures, 
 which end in shame; they omit nothing which brings it, do 
 nothing which can avoid it. What else or what more could 
 they do, if they loved the shame for its own sake? 
 
 19. The wind liath hound her up in her wings. When 
 God brought Israel out of Egypt, He hare them on eagles' wings, 
 and hr<n(ght them unto Himself^. Now they had abandoned 
 God, and God abandoned them as chalf to the wind. The 
 certainty of Israel's doom is denoted by its being spoken of 
 in the j)ast. It was certain in the Divine judgment. Sud- 
 den, resistles>s, irreversible are God's judgments, when they 
 come. As if" imprisoned in the viewless winds, and" borne 
 " with restless violence" as it were on the wings of the whirl- 
 wind, Israel should be hurried by the mighty wrath of God 
 into captivity in a distant land, bound up so that none should 
 
 ' XX. 39. - i 22. •■" "in -irs is probably oneof the earliest forms of the intensive 
 
 verb, repeating a part of the verb itself, with its inflection. 
 
 CHAPTER V. cHuTsT 
 
 I God's fudgtnents against the priests, the people, '■ 
 
 and the jirinres of Israel, for their manifold 
 sins, \b until they repent. 
 
 HEAR ye this, () priests ; and hearken, 
 ye house of Israel ; and give ye 
 ear, O house of the king ; for judgment is 
 toward you, because ""ye have been a snare 'ch. 6. 9. 
 
 escape, but, when arrived there, dispersed hither and thither 
 as the chaft" before the wind. 
 
 And they shall he ashamed because of their sacrifices. They 
 had sacrificed to the calves, to Baal, or to the sun, moon, stars, 
 hoping aid from them rather than from God. When then 
 they should see, in deed, that from those their sacrifices no 
 good came to them, \)\\\ evil only, they should be healthfully 
 ashamed. So, in fact, in her captivity, did Israel learn to be 
 ashamed of her idols ; and so does God by healthful disap- 
 pointment, make us asliamed of seeking out of Him, the 
 good things, which He alone hath, and hath in store for them 
 who love Him. 
 
 V. 1. Hear ye this, O ye priests. God, with the solemn 
 threefold summons, arraigns anew all classes in Israel before 
 Him, not now to repentance but to judgment. Neither the 
 religious privileges of the priests, nor the multitude of the 
 peoj)le, nor the civil dignity of the king, should exempt any 
 from God's judgment. The priests are, probably, tlie true but 
 corrupted priests of God, who had fallen away to the idolatries 
 with which they were surrounded, and, by their apostacy, had 
 strengthened them. The king, here first mentioned by Hosea, 
 was probably the unhappy Zechariah, a weak, pliant, self- 
 indulgent, drunken scoffer ^, who, after eleven years of anar- 
 chy, succeeded his father, only to be murdered. 
 
 For judgment is totcardyou, lit. the judgment. The kings 
 and the priests had hitherto been the judges ; now they were 
 summoned before Him, Wlio is the Judge of judges, and the 
 King of kings. To teach the law was part of the priest's office ; 
 to enforce it, belonged to the king. The guilt of both was en- 
 hanced, in that they, being so entrusted with it, had corrupted 
 it. They had the greatest sin, as being the seducers of the 
 people, and therefore have the severest sentence. The Pro- 
 phet, dropping for the time the mention of the people, pro- 
 nounces the judgment on the seducers. 
 
 Because ye havebeen a snare on Mizpah. ]Mizpah,the scene 
 of the solemn covenant of Jacob with Laban, and of his signal 
 protection by God, lay in the mountainous part of Gilead on 
 the East of Jordan. Tabor was the well known Mountain of 
 the Transfiguration, which rises out of the midst of the plain 
 of Jezreel or Esdraelon, one thousand feet high, in the form of a 
 sugarloaf. Of Mount Tabor it is related by St. Jerome, that 
 birds were still snared upon it. But something more seems 
 intended than the mere likeness of birds, taken in the snare 
 of a fowler. This was to be seen every where ; and so, had 
 this been all, there had been no ground to mention these two 
 historical spots. The Prophet has selected places on both 
 sides of Jordan, wliich were probably centres of corruption, 
 or special scenes of wickedness. Mizpah, being a sacred 
 place in the history of the Patriarch Jacob*, was probably, like 
 Gilgal and other sacred places, desecrated by idolatry. Tabor 
 
 * See Introd. p. v. 
 
 •> Ex. xix. 4. Deut. xxxii. 11. 
 
 6 Gen. xxxi. 23-49.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 33 
 
 ci?r7st ^" Mizpah, and a net spread upon Ta))or. 
 cir. 780. 2 And the revolters are '' profound to 
 
 Or'andU^c'. uiakc sUiughter, || though 1 Ikiih: been -f a 
 correction, rebuker of them all. 
 i Ezek! tsfi, 3 " I know Ephrahn, and Israel is not hid 
 ch.'4. 17. from me : for now, O E[)hraim, "^ thou 
 
 was the sceiUMifGod'sdi'liveranceof Israel by liarak^. There, 
 by encouraiciiiix idohitrics, they beranie hunters, not pastors, 
 of souls-. There is an old Jewish tradition', that lyers-in- 
 wait were setin these twoplaees.tointercept and murder those 
 Israelites, who would yo up to worship at Jerusalem. And 
 this tradition trains countenance from the mention of slauf:;h- 
 ter in the next verse. 
 
 2. ^nd the revolters are profoimd to make slaughter ; 
 lit. They made the slaughter deep, as Isaiah says, they deeply 
 corrupted themselves^ ; and our old writers say " He smote 
 depc." They willed also douhtlessto '•make it deep,"hide it so 
 deep that God should never know it, as the Psalmist says of 
 the unf^-odly, "that the inward self and heart of the workers of 
 iniquity is deep," whereon it follows, that God should suddenly 
 wound them, as here the Prophet subjoins that God rebuked 
 them. ■ Actual and profuse nuirder has been already ^ men- 
 tioned as one of the common sins of Israel, and it is afterwards 
 also charf!;ed upon the priests ^. 
 
 Though I have been a rehuker ; lit. a rebuke, as the Psalm- 
 ist says '^, I am prayer, i. e. "I am all prayer." The Psalmist's 
 whole beings was turned into prayer. So here, all the attri- 
 butes of God, His mercies, love.justice, were concentrated into 
 one, and that one, rebuke. Rebuke was the one form in which 
 they were all seen. It is an aijjjravation of crime to do it in the 
 place of judsrment or in the presence of the Jud^e. Israel 
 was immersed in his sinandheeded not,althoua;h God rebuked 
 him continually by His voice in the law.forbiddina^ all idolatry, 
 and was nowall the while both in wordand deed rebukinjj him. 
 
 3. / knoiv Kphraiui. There is much emphasis on the /. 
 It is like our,"/ have known," or "I, I, have known." God 
 had known him all alone;, if we may so speak. However deep 
 they may have laid their plans of blood, however they would 
 or do hide them from man, and think that no Eye seeth them, 
 and say, fFho seeth me ? and who knoweth me ? I, to Whose 
 Eyes all things are naked and opened'^, have all along' known 
 them, and nothing: of them has been hid from Me. For, He 
 adds, even now, noiv when, under a fair outward shew, they 
 were veilins; the depth of their sin, «o«', when they think that 
 their way is hid in darkness, I know their doine^s, that they 
 are defiling themselves. Sin never wanted specious excuse. 
 Now too, unbelievers are mostly fond of precisely those cha- 
 racters in Holy Scripture whom God condemns. Jeroboam 
 doubtless was accounted a patriot, vindicating his country 
 from oppressive taxation, which Rehoboam insolently threat- 
 ened. Jerusalem, as lying in the Southernmost tribe, was 
 represented as ill-selected for the place of the assemblage of 
 the tribes. Bethel, on the contrary, was hallowed by visions ; 
 it had been the abode, for a time, of the ark. It lay in the tribe 
 of Epbraim, which they might think to have been unjustly de- 
 prived of its privilege. Dan was a provision for the Northern 
 tribes. Such was the exterior. God says in answer, / know 
 Ephraim. ^Known unto God are all His works from the begin- 
 ning of the world. Although (in some way unknown to us,) not 
 
 1 Judg. iv. 2 Ezek.xiii.18,20. 
 
 ^ Jarclii, Aben Ezra, Kimclii "out of ancicnter Rabbins." Poc. 
 
 eommittest wlu)redom, ««</ Israel is defiled. ^ if][YsT 
 
 4 -j- II They will not frame tlieir doin|u;s to '■'"'• ''•'^"- 
 
 turn unto their (Jod : for ''the spirit of neywui 
 whoredoms ?.v in tlie midst of them, and|| or',7vir</<,- 
 th(;y have not known the Lord. '"ujf.^tiZt 
 
 5 And 'the pride of Israel doth testify to' ch.'?.' lo. 
 
 ■• xxxi. 6. 
 
 interfering with our free will, known unto God are our thoughts 
 and words and deeds, before they are framed, while they are 
 framed, while they are being spoken and done ; known to Him 
 is all which we do, and all which, iinder any circunisf aiices, 
 we should do. 'I'his He knows with a kiioulcdge licforc the 
 things were. " "'All his creatures, cor]M(rcal or spirit inil. lie 
 doth not therefore know beca\ise they are ; but they therefore 
 are, because He knoweth them. For He was not ignorant, 
 what He was about to create ; nor did He know them, after He 
 had created them, in any other way than before. F(»r no ac- 
 cession to His knowledge came from them ; but, thcv existing 
 when and as was meet, that knowledge remained as it was." 
 How strange then to think of hiding from <iod a secret sin. 
 when He knew, before He created thee, that He created thee 
 liable to this very temptation, and to be assisted amidst it with 
 just tliat grace which thou art resisting, (iod had known Is- 
 rael, butit was notwith theknctwledge of love of which He says, 
 The Lord knoiceth the way of the righteous^^, and^-. If any ntan 
 love God, the same is known of Him, hut with the knowledge 
 of condemnation, whereby He, the Searcher of hearts, knows 
 the sin which He jiulges. 
 
 4. They u'ill not frame their doings, Sfc. They were pos- 
 sessed by an evil spirit, impelling and driving them to sin ; the 
 spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, i. e. in their very 
 inward self, their centre, so to speak, in their souls where re- 
 side the will, the reason, the judgment ; and so long as they 
 did not, by the strength of God, dislodge him, they would and 
 could not frame their acts, so as to repent and turn to God. 
 For a mightier impulse mastered them and drove them into 
 sin, as the evil spirit drove the swine into the deep. 
 
 The rendering of the margin, although less agreeable to the 
 Hebrew, also gives a striking sense. Their doings will not 
 suffer them to turn unto their God. Not so much that their 
 habits of sin had got an absolute mastery over them, so as to 
 render repentance impossible; but rather, that it was impos- 
 sible that they should turn inwardly, while they did not turn 
 outwardly. Their evil doings, so long as they persevered in 
 doing them, took away all heart, whereby to turn to God with 
 a solid conversion. 
 
 And yet He was their God; this 'made their sin the more 
 grievous. He Whom they«ould not turn to,still owned them, 
 was still ready to receive them, as their God. For the Proj)het 
 contiimes, and they have not kii<ncn the Lord. Him. their God. 
 they knew not. For the spirit \^•llicIl possessed them hindered 
 them from thougtit,from memory,from conceptionof spiritual 
 things. They did not turn to God, 1) because the evil spirit held 
 them, ami so long as theyallowed his hold. they were filled with 
 carnal thoughts which kept them back from (Jod. '2) They did 
 not know God ; so that, not knowing how good and how great 
 a good He is in Himself, and how good to us. they had not even 
 the desii'e to turn to Him, for love of Himself, yea, even for love 
 of themselves. They saw not what they lost, a loving God. 
 
 5. And the pride of Israel. Pride was from the first the 
 
 5 iv. 2. " vi. 9. 
 
 8 Heb. iv. 13. = Acts iv. 18. '" S. Aug. 
 
 ^ Ps. cix. 4. 
 " Ps. i. 6. 1- 1 Cor. riii. 3.
 
 34 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 n ,i'f/T« a- liis f:itH> : thoreforc shall Israol and Epliraiiu 
 cir. 780. fttii ill their iiii(iuity ; Judah also shall fall 
 with them. 
 
 6 ?They shall go with their Hocks and (.j^^^^f^T 
 with their herds to seek the Lord ; but they ''"■ '*^"- 
 
 Prov. 1. 28. 
 Isai. 1. 15. Jer. 11. 11. Ezek. 8. 18. Mic. 3. 4. John 7. 34. 
 
 leadiiitr sin of Ephraiiii. Tofjether with Maiias.>^ch, (with 
 whom tliey made, in some respects, one whole, as the c/ti/drcu 
 ofJos('p/i\) they were nearlyequalinnnmher to Judah. When 
 liumhered in tlie wiUlerness, .hidah had 74,000 liiihtins men, 
 Ephraini and]Manassehtoi;ether72,700. Theyspeak ot'them- 
 selves as a f^nat pcop/c, funi.'ntiiir/i as the Lord lutlli h/cs.scd 
 me liitliertd'. (iod liaviiif^ chosen out of tlieni tlie h-ader 
 under Avliom He hrouf;;lit Israel into the land of promise, they 
 resented, in the followine^ time of the Judj^es, any deliverance 
 of the land, in which they \\Qrv not called to take a part. 
 Theychode with (iideon'', and sutt'ered very severely for inso- 
 lence* to Jephthah and the (iileadites. When Gideon, who had 
 refused to he kin!i:,was dead, Abimelech, his son by a concubine 
 out of Ephraim, induced the E])hraimites to make him kinsf 
 over Israel, as beinj^ their hone and their fiesh^. Lyinfj in 
 the midst of the tribes to the North of Judah. they appear, in 
 antagonism to Judah, to have "-athered round them the other 
 tribes, and to have taken, with them, the name of Israel, in 
 contrast with Judah'''. Shiloli. where the ark was, until taken 
 by the Philistines, belonijed to them. Samuel, the last judge, 
 was raised up out of them '. Their political dignity was not 
 aggrieved, when God gave Saul, out ut' little BeHJdmiu, as king 
 ovcrHispeopIe. They could afford to ownakingout of the least 
 tribe. Their present jiolitical eminence \A'as endangered, when 
 God chose David out of their great rival, the tribe of Judah; 
 their hope for the future wascutotfby His promise to theposte- 
 rity of David. They accordingly upheld, for seven years*^, the 
 house of Saul, knowing that they were acting against the Will 
 of God". Their religious importance was aggrieved by the 
 removal of the ark to Zion, instead of its being restored to 
 Shiloh "'. Absalom won them by flattery^' ; and the rebellion 
 against David was a struggle of IsraeP-against Judah. When 
 Absalom was dead, they had scarcely aided in bringing him 
 back when they fell away again, because their advice had not 
 been first had in bringing him back''. Rehoboam was already 
 king over Judah'^ when he came to Shechem to he made king 
 over Israel'^ Then the ten tribes sent for Jeroboam of Ephra- 
 im""', to make him their spokesman. and, in tlie end, their king. 
 The rival worship of Bethel jirovided, not only for the indo- 
 lence, but for the jiride of his tribe. He made a state-worship 
 at Bethel over against the worship ordained by God at Jerusa- 
 lem. Just before the time of Hosea, the political strength of 
 Ephraim was so much superior to that of Judah, that Jehoash 
 in his pride compared himself to the cedar of Lebanon, Ama- 
 ziah king of Judah to the thistle^'^. Isaiah speaks of" jea- 
 lousy''"' or "envy,"' as the characteristic sin of Israel, which 
 perpetuatedthatdivisionwhich,heforetold. should be healed in 
 Christ. Yet although such was the power and pride of Israel, 
 God foretold that he should first gointo captivity. and so it was. 
 This pride, as it was the origin of the schism of the ten 
 tribes, so it was the means of its continuance. In whatever 
 degree any one of the Kings of Israel was better than the rest, 
 still he dejxirted not from the sins of Jerohoam, who made 
 Israel to sin. The giving up of any other sin only shewed 
 how deeply rooted this sin was, which even then they would 
 not give up. As is the way of unregencrate man, they would 
 
 ' Josh. xvi. 4. xvii. II, ^ josf, ^vii. 14. ' Jiidg. viii. 1 sqq. 
 
 * lb. xii. 1 sqq. s p,. viii. .31. ix. 1-3, 22. 6 2 Sam. ii. !i. 10. iii. 1(1, 17- 
 
 " 1 Sam. i. 1. 8 2 Sam. v. 5. a lb. iii. 9. '" Ps. Ixxviii. G0,07-'.i. 
 
 not give themselves up without reserve to God, to do all His 
 Will. They could not give up this sin of Jeroboam, without 
 endangering their separate existence as /.srot7,an(l owning the 
 superiority of Judah. From this <'omplete self-surrender to 
 God, their pride shrank and held them hack. 
 
 The pride, which Israel thus shewed in refusing to turn to 
 God. and in ])referring their sin to their God, itself, he says, 
 witnessed against them, and condemned them. Inthepresencc 
 of (iod, then; needeth no other witness against the sinner than 
 his own conscience. It shall witness to his face, "openly, pub- 
 licly, themselves and all others seeing, acknowledging, and ap- 
 jiroving the just judgment of (iod and the recompence of tlieir 
 sin."' Pride and carnal sin are here remarkably united. 
 
 ''''''The Prophet having said, the spirit of fornication is in 
 the inidst of them, assigns as its ground, the pride of Israel 
 will testify to his face, i. e. the sin which, through pride of 
 mind, lurked in secret, bore open witness through sin of the 
 fiesh. Wherefore the cleanness of chastity is to be preserved 
 by guarding humility. For if the spirit is piously humbled 
 before God. the flesh is not raised unlawfully above the spirit. 
 For the spirit holds the dominion over the fiesh, committed to 
 it, if it acknowledges the claims of lawful servitude to the 
 Lord. For if, through pride, it despises its Author, it justly 
 incurs a contest with its subject, the flesh." 
 
 Therefore shall Israel and Kphraiin fall in [or by] their 
 iniquity. Ephraim, the chief of the ten tribes, is distinguished 
 from the whole of which it was a part, because it was the rival 
 of Judah, the royal tribe, out of which Jeroboam had sprung, 
 who had formed the kingdom of Israel by the schism from 
 Judah. AH Israel, even its royal tribe, where was Samaria, 
 its capital and strength, should fall, their iniquity being the 
 stumbling-block, on which they should fall. 
 
 Judah also shall fall with them. "Judah also, being par- 
 taker with them in their idolatry and their wickedness, shall 
 partake with them in the like punisliment. Sin shall have 
 the like efiect in both." Literally,he saith,./Kf/«^ hath fallen, 
 denoting, as do other prophets, the certainty of the future 
 event, by speaking of it, as having taken place already ; as it 
 had, in the Mind of God. 
 
 6. They shall go with their flocks. " They had let slij) the 
 day' of grace, wherein God had called them to repentance, and 
 promised to be found of them and to accept them. When 
 then the decree shall go forth, and judgment be determined 
 against them, all their outward shew of worship and late re- 
 pentance shall not prevail to gain admittance for them to 
 Him. He will not he found of them, hear them, nor accept 
 them. They stopped their ears obstinately against Him call- 
 ing on them, and profi'ering mercy in the day of mercy: He 
 will now stop His ears against them crying for it in the Day of 
 judgment." Repenting thus late, (as is the case with most 
 who repent. or think that they repent, at the close of life,) they 
 did not repent out of the love of God, but out of slavish fear, 
 on account of the calanjity which was coming upon them. 
 But the main truth, contained in this and other passages of 
 Holy Scripture which speak of a time when it is too late to 
 turn to God, is this ; that "-" it shall be too late to knock when 
 
 11 2Sam. xv.2,5, in. 12, 1.3. i= xvi. 15- xvii. 15. xviii.6. " lb. xix.41-:<. 
 
 XX. 1,2. " 1 Kings xi. 43. '^ 1 Kings xii. 1. '^ 1 Kingsxi.26. 
 
 1? 2 Kings xiv. y. '^ xi. 13. '^ S. Greg. -" Commination Service
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 35 
 
 c H rTst s^*^^^ ^^^ fi"'^ '"'" f ^^^ hath with(h"iwn liim- 
 cir. 7H0. self from them. 
 
 Jerl'.'i^ao.' 7 rhey have '' dealt tn^u-herously asi'ainst 
 ch.6. 7.' the Lord : for they have hei>"otten strange 
 
 Mai.' 2.' 11. 
 
 chihh-cn : now shall 'a month devour them ciPrTst 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 the door shall be shut, and too late to cry for mercy when it is 
 the time ofjustice." God waits loiiijfor sinners; He threatens 
 lons;het'ore Fie strikes; He strikes and j)ierees in lesser(lei;rees, 
 and with inereasinj;- severity, before tlie final blow comes. In 
 this life, He places man in a new state ol' trial, even after His 
 first judiiinents have fallen on the sinner. IJiit the i;eneral 
 rule of His dealings is this ; that, when the time of each judg- 
 ment is actuallycome,then,as to //*«/ judgement, it is too late 
 to pray. It is tiof too late for other mercy, or for final forj^ive- 
 ness, so long; as man's state of probation lasts ; but it is too 
 late as to this one. And thus, each judirment in time is a 
 picture of the Eternal Judninent, when the day of mercy is 
 past for ever, to those who have finally, in this life, hardened 
 themselves ag;ainst it. Buttemporal mercies corrcsjjond with 
 temporal juda;ments ; eternal mercy with eternal judi^ment. 
 In time, it may be too late to turn away temporal judgments ; 
 it is not too late, while God continues grace, to flee from 
 eternal; and the desire not to lose God, is a ])roofto the soul 
 that it is not forsaken by God, by Whom alone the longing 
 for Himself is kept alive or reawakened in His creature. 
 
 T/u')/ sliall not find Him, This bcfel the Jews in the time 
 of Josiah. Josiali himself ^ turned to the Lord witli all /lis 
 lieart and with all his son/ and with all his might, according 
 to all the law of Moses. He put away idolatry thoroughly; and 
 the people so far followed his example. He held such a Pass- 
 over, as had not been held since the time of the judges. A^of- 
 withstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of His 
 great wrath, wherewith His auger was kindled against Judah 
 because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked 
 Him withal. And the Lord said, I will remove Judah out of 
 My sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city 
 Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, 
 My name shall he there. 
 
 The Prophet describes the people, as complying with God's 
 connnands ; tliey shall go, i. e. to the place which God had 
 chosen and commanded, with their flocAs and their herds, i. e. 
 with the most costly sacrifices, the flocks supplying the sheep 
 and goats prescribed by the law ; the herds, supplying the bul- 
 locks, calves and heifers oflFered. They seem to have come, so 
 far, sincerely. Yet perhaps it is net without further meaning, 
 that the Prophet speaks of those outward sacrifices only, not 
 of the heart ; and the reformation under Josiah may therefore 
 have failed, because the people were too ingrained with sin 
 under Manasseh, and returned outwardly only under Josiali, 
 as they fell back again after his death. And so God speaketh 
 here, as He does by David -, / will take no bullock out of 
 thine house, nor he-goat (n/t of thy fold. Thinkest thou that I 
 will eat bulls' flesh, or drink the blood of goats f and by Isa- 
 iah^, To u'hat /nn-jiose is the multitude of your sacrifices un- 
 to Me ? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of 
 fed beasts. 
 
 He hath withdrawn Himself from them. Perhaps he 
 woidd say, that God, as it were, freed Himself from them, as 
 He saith in Isaiah *, / a)n tceary to bear them, the union of 
 sacrifices and of sin. 
 
 7. They have dealt treacherously ; lit. have cloaked, and so, 
 
 ' 2 Kings xxiii. 25-27. 2 Ps. l. 9, 13. 3 i. 11. * i. 11. 
 
 witli tlieir portions 
 
 I 8 '' IJlow ye the eornet in Glhcah,kih. s. i." 
 d the trumpet in Kama : ' ery aloudi isi'ii.To.m 
 
 ant 
 
 acted deceitfully. The word is used of treachery of friend to- 
 wards his friend, of the husband to liis wife, or the wife; to her 
 husband '. Surely as a wife Ireacherouslij dcparleth from her 
 husband, sn have ye dealt treacherously ivith Me. () house of 
 Israel, saith the Lord. God, even in His uiibraiding, speaks 
 very tendei-ly to them, as having been in the closest, dearest 
 relation to Himself. 
 
 For they have begotten strange children. God had made 
 it a ground of the future blessing of Abraham *■, / kmnr him 
 that he will coiumand his children and his household <ifter him 
 aud they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and 
 judgment. But these, contrariwise, tliemsclves being idolaters 
 and estranged from God, had children, who fell away like 
 themselves, strangers to God, and looked upon as strangers 
 by Him. The children too of the forbidden marriages with 
 the heathen were, by their birth, .s7;v///i;Y- or foreign children, 
 even before they became so in act ; and they became so the 
 more in act, because they were so by Itirth. The next genera- 
 tion then growing up more estranged from God than them- 
 selves, what hope of amendment was there ? 
 
 Now sliall a niojith devour. The word now denotes the near- 
 ness and suddenness of (iod's judgments ; tbeterm?»o/(///, their 
 rapidity. A month is not oidy a brief time, but is visibly pass- 
 ing away ; the moon, which measures it, is never at one stay, 
 waxing till it is full, then waning till it disapj)ears. Night bv 
 night l)ears witness to the month's decay. The inicpiity was 
 full; the harvest was ripe ; now, suddenly, rapidly, com])letely, 
 the end should come. One month sluudd devour them icith 
 their portions. God willed to be the Portion of His peoj)le; 
 He had sai(P, the Lord's portion is His people ; Jacob is the 
 lot of His inheritance. To Himself He had given the title ^, 
 the portion of Jacob. Israel had chosen to Inmsclf of her por- 
 tions out of God ; for these, he had forsaken his God ; there- 
 fore he should be consumed with theyi. "All that they had, 
 all that they j»ossessed, enjoyed, trusted in. all, at once, shall 
 that short space, suddenly and certainly to come, devour, 
 deprive and bereave them of; none of them shall remain with 
 them orjjrofit them in the Day of wrath." 
 
 H. Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah. The evil day aud de- 
 struction denounced, is now vividly pictured as actually come. 
 All is in confusion, hurry, alarm, because the enemy was in the 
 midst of them. The cornet, an instrument made of born. «as 
 to lie blown as the alarm, when the enemy was at hand. The 
 //•^H/yjfMias especially used for the worship <if (iod. Gibeah 
 and Itamah werecities of Benjamin, ontbeborders of Ephraini, 
 where the enemy, who had possessed himself of Israel, would 
 burst in upon Judah. From Beth-avoi or Bethel, the seat of 
 Ephraim's idcdatry, on the border of Benjamin, was to break 
 forth the outcry ofdestruction, «/'/«'/• thee. Benjamin ; the ene- 
 my is upon thee, just behind thee, pursuing thee. God had 
 promised Hispeople, if they would serve Him ', / «•/// make all 
 thine enemies turn tlieir backs unto thee, and bad threatened 
 the contrary, if they should u-alk contrary to Him. Now that 
 threat was to be fulfilled to the uttermost. The ten tribes are 
 spoken of. as already in possession of the enemy, and he was 
 upon Benjamin fleeing before them. 
 
 * Jer. iii.2;). « Gen. xviii. 19. 7 Di.ut.xxxii.9. sJer. 1.16 » Kx. xxiii. i;7.
 
 3G 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 Befoie 
 H RIS 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 ■" Josh. 7. 2. 
 
 ch. 4. 15. 
 " Judg. 5. 14. 
 
 CHiusT ^* "Bethaven, "after tbee, O Bonjainin. 
 
 9 Pjpliraiin sliall be desolate in thi> day 
 of rebuke : among tbe tribes of Israel 
 liave I made known tbat wbieb shall 
 surely be. 
 
 10 Tbe princes of Judah were like them 
 ° &™7.' 17.' ^*' that ° remove the bound : therefore I will 
 
 9. E])hritim shall he desolate. It shall not he lightly re- 
 huked, nor even more grievously chastened ; it sliall not sim- 
 ply lie wasted by taniinc, pestilence, and the sword ; it sliall he 
 not simply desolate, hut a (les()l<tt>iiii,inw waste,/// the datj of 
 rehake. when God hrings home to it its sin and punishment. 
 Ephraim was not.taken away for a time ; it was never restored. 
 
 / haiw made Joiown that tchieh shall surely he. "^ Doubt 
 not that this whicli I say shall come upon thee, for it is a sure 
 saying which I have made known ;" lit. one well ffroanded, as 
 it was, in the mind, the justice, the holiness, the truth of God. 
 All God's threatenings or promises are grounded in ])ast ex- 
 perience. So it may also ne as though God said, "Whatever 
 I have hitherto promised or threatened to Israel, has come 
 to pass. In all I have proved myself true. Let no one then 
 flatter himself,as though this were uncertain ; for in this, as in 
 the rest, I shall be found to be God, faithful and true." 
 
 10. The priiires of Judah were like them that remove the 
 boiotd. All avaricious encroachment on the paternal inherit- 
 ance of others was straightly forbidden by God in the law, 
 under the penalty of His curse. - Cursed is he that removeth 
 his neighhoiir's landmark. The princes of Judah, i. c. those 
 who were the king's counsellors and chief in the civil polity, 
 had committed sin like to this. Since the Prophet had just 
 pronounced the desolation of Israel, perhaps that sin was, that, 
 instead of taking warning from the threatened destruction, and 
 turning to God, they thought only hoAv the removal of Ephraim 
 would benefit them, by the enlargement of their borders. 
 They might hope also to increase their private estates out of 
 the desolate lands of Ejihraim, their brother. The unrege- 
 nerate heart, instead of being awed by God's judgment on 
 others, looks out to see what advantages itmay gain from them. 
 Times of calamity are also times of greediness. Israel had 
 been a continual sore to Judah. The princesof Judah rejoiced 
 in the prospect of their removal, instead of mourning their sin 
 and fearing for themselves. More widely yet, the words may 
 mean, that t\\<^ princes of Judah "burst all bounds, set to them 
 by the law of God, to which nothing was to be added, from 
 which nothing was to be diminished," transferring to idols or 
 devils, to sun, moon and stars, or to the beings supposed to pre- 
 side over them, the love, honor and worship, due to God Alone. 
 / teill pour out My wrath like icater. So long as those 
 hounds were not broken through, the Justice of God, although 
 manifoldly provoked, was yet stayed. When Judah should 
 break them, they would, as it were, make a way for the chas- 
 tisement of God, which should burst in like a flood upon 
 them, overspreading the whole land, yet bringing, not renewed 
 life but death. Like a flood, it overwhelmed the land ; but it 
 was a flood, ni)t of water but of the wrath of God. They had 
 burst the bounds which divided them from Israel, and had let 
 in upon themselves its chastisements. 
 
 II. Ephraim is oppressed and hroketi iti judgment ; lit. 
 crushed in judginent. Holy Scripture, elsewhere also^ combines 
 
 ' Rup, Deut.xxvii. 17. 
 
 ' Dent, xxyiii.33/ 1 Sara. xii. 3,4. Is. lviii.6. Am. iv. l.pcy aud its derivatives arc 
 
 pour out my wrath npon them like water. cH^iffsT 
 11 Ephraim /.v '' oppressed and broken "'"■ ''^"- 
 
 I P Deut. 28. 33. 
 
 in judj^ment, because he willingly walked 
 
 after ^ the commandment. ii Kings. 12. 
 
 28 
 
 12 Therefore ii'ill I he unto Ephraim as Mic. c. i6. 
 a moth, and to the house of Judah "^as' Prov. 12. 4. 
 II rottenness. n Or, a ««»■».. 
 
 these same two words, rendered oppressed and crushed^, in 
 speaking of man's oppression by man. Ephraim preferred 
 man's commands and laws to God's ; they obeyed man and set 
 (iod at nought; therefore they should sufl'er at man's hands, 
 who, while he equally neglected God's will, enforced his own. 
 The commandment, which Ephraim willingly went after, was 
 doubtless that of Jeroboam * ; It is too much for you to go up 
 to Jerusalem ; hehold thy gods, O Israel, which hrought you out 
 of the land of Egypt ; and Jerohoam ordained a feast unto the 
 children of Israel. Through this commandment, Jeroboam 
 earned the dreadful title, tcho made Israel to sin. And Israel 
 went willingly after it, for it is said ; This thing became a sin ; 
 aiul the people went to worship before the one, even unto 
 Dan : i. e. while they readily accepted Jeroboam's plea. It is 
 too much for yon to go up to Jerusalem, they went ivillingly to 
 the Northernmost point of Palestine, even to Dan. For this 
 sin, God judged them justly, even through the unjust judgment 
 of man. God mostlypunishes, through their own choice, those 
 who choose against His. The Jews said, we have no king but 
 Ccesar, and Cfesar destroyed them. 
 
 I'2. Therefore I will he unto Ephraim a moth, lit. and las 
 a moth. This form of speaking expresses what God was doing, 
 while Ephraim was willingly fullowing sin. ^nd I was all 
 the while as a moth. The moth in a garment, and the decay 
 in wood, corrode and prey upon the substance in which they 
 lie hid, slowly, imperceptibly, but, at the last, effectually. Such 
 were God's first judgments on Israel and Judah ; such are they 
 now commonly upon sinners. He tried, and now too tries at 
 first, gentle measures and mild chastisements, uneasy indeed 
 and troublesome and painful, yet slow in their working ; each 
 stage of loss and decay, a little beyond that which preceded 
 it ; but leaving long respite and time for repentance, before 
 they finally wear out and destroy the impenitent. The two 
 images which he uses may describe diflerent kinds of decay, 
 both slow, yet the one slower than the other, as Judah was, 
 in fact, destroyed more slowly than Ephraim. For the rotten- 
 ness, or caries in wood, preys more slowly upon wood, which is 
 hard, than the moth on the wool. So God visits the soul with 
 different distresses, bodily or spiritual. He impairs, little by 
 little, health of body, or fineness of understanding ; or He mth- 
 draws grace or spiritual strength -, or allows lukewarmness and 
 distaste for the things of God to creep over the soul. These are 
 the gnawing of the moth, overlooked by the sinner, if he perse- 
 vere in carelessness as to hisconscience,yetin the end bringing 
 entire decay, of health, of understanding, of heart, of mind, un- 
 less God interfere by the mightier mercy of some heavy chas- 
 tisement, to awaken him. " *A moth does mischief, and makes 
 no sound. So the minds of the wicked, in that they neglect to 
 take account of their losses, lose their soundness as it were, 
 without knowing it, For they lose innocency from the heart, 
 truth from the lips, continency from the flesh, and, as time holds 
 on, life from their age." To Israel and Judah the moth and 
 
 scarcely used of any thing else. * 1 Kings xii. 28, 32, 33. 
 
 ^ S. Greg, on Job iv. 19.
 
 CHAPTER A^ 
 
 r,7 
 
 c hrTst 1*^ When Epliraim saw his sickness, and 
 
 "'■ '"^"- Judali saui his " wound, then went Ephiaim 
 
 « SKings'is". ' to the Assyrian, " aixl sent || to kinj^- Jarel): 
 
 &'i2. i/' " yet could lie not heal you, nor cure you of 
 
 ° ch. 10. (i. ' 1 
 
 norjoiheki,,. your wound. 
 
 fetX'f 14 For " I tvill he unto Ephraim as a 
 » Laml'sao.''" liou, and as a young lion to tlie house 
 
 ch. 13. 7, 8. 
 
 rottenness denoted the slow decay, by whicli they ucre gradu- 
 ally weakened, tmtil they were carried away captive. 
 
 13. IVIicn Ephraim saw his.sic/ittes.s, lit. ^-hid Kphraim saw, 
 i. e. perceived it. God proceeds to tell them, how they acted 
 when they felt those lighter afflictions, the decline and wasting 
 of their power. The siclaiess may further mean the gradual 
 inward decay ; the tuoinul, blows received from witiiout. 
 
 And sent to king Jareh, or, as in tiie E. M. a king tvho 
 should plead, or an avenging king. Tiie hostile king is, proba- 
 bly, tiie same Assyrian Monarch, whom both Israel and Judah 
 courted, who Avas the destruction of Israel, and who weakened 
 Judah. Ahaz king of Judah did send to Tiglath-Pilescr king 
 of Assyria to come and save him ^, when the Lord brought Ju- 
 dah loiv ; and Tiglath-Pileser king of Assi/ria came unto him 
 and distressed him, but strengthened him not. He who held 
 his throne from God sent to a heathen king -, I am thy servant 
 and thy son ; come up and save nie out of the hand of the king of 
 Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, tvhich rise iip 
 against me. He emptied his own treasures, and pillaged the 
 house of God, in order to buy the help of the Assyrian, and 
 he taught him an evil lesson against himself, of his wealth 
 and his weakness. God had said that, if they were faithful^, 
 ^ve shall chase an hundred, and an hundred jnit ten thousand 
 to flight. He had pronounced liim cursed, who trusted in man, 
 and made flesh his arm, and whose heart departed from the 
 Lord*. But Judah sought man's help, not only apart from 
 God, but against God. God was bringing them down, and 
 they, by man's aid, would lift themselves up. The king be- 
 came an avenger, for "^ whoso, wlien God is angr\', striveth 
 to gain man as his helper, findeth him God's avenger, who 
 leadeth into captivity God's deserters, as though he were 
 sworn to avenge God." 
 
 14. For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion. He who 
 would thus strengthen himself by outward help against God's 
 chastisements, challenges, as it were, the Almiglity to a trial 
 of strength. So then God, unwilling to abandon him to him- 
 self,changes His dealings,and"°He Whohad heretofore,in His 
 judgments, seemed but as a tender moth or a weak worm," 
 now shews forth His resistless power,imaged by His creatures 
 in whom the quality of power is most seen." It may again be, 
 that the fiercer animal (lit the roarijig) is associated with the 
 name of Ephraim ; that of the younger lion, fierce and eager 
 for prey, yet not full-grown, with that of Judah. 
 
 /, Iwill tear. It is a fearful thing, to fall into the Hands 
 of the Living God'^. The Assyrian was but the rod of God's 
 anger, and the staff. He says, in thine hand is His in(lignatio?i *. 
 Whatever is done, is done or overruled by God, Who gives to 
 the evil his power to do, in an evil way, what He Himself over- 
 rules to the end of His wisdom or jiisticc. God, Himself 
 would tear them asunder, by giving tlie Assyrians power to 
 carry them away. And since it was God Who did it, there 
 was no hope of escape. He Who was faithful to His word 
 
 ' 2 Chr. x.wiii. 19, 20. = 2 Kingsxvi.7, 8. ^Lev.xxvi. 8. <Jer. xvii. 5. 5 Rup. 
 
 of Judah: ^ I, eren T, will tear and jro chkTst 
 away ; I will take away, and none shall "'■•• ^^- 
 resinie /»//». ' t Kif ' 
 
 151[ I will jro an(/ return to my place, . 1':^ 2o.toT 
 f till ''they aeknowledj^e their offence, and jer.29.12,13. 
 seek my face : "in their aftli(;tion they will f':^;«.'''' 
 seek me early. , Ps!?^!^!-. 
 
 would do it. There is great emphasis on the /, /. God and 
 not man ; He, the autiior of all good, would Himself be the 
 Cause of their evil. What hope then is there, when He, Who 
 is Mercy, becomes the Avenger ? 
 
 15. I will go and return to 3Iy place. As the wild beast, 
 when he has taken his prey, returns to his covert, so (iod, 
 when He had fulfilled His Will, would, for the time, withdraw 
 all tokens of His Presence. God, Who is wholly everywhere, 
 is said to dwell there, relatively to us, where He manifests 
 Himself, as of old, in the Tabernacle, the Temple. Zion, Jeru- 
 salem. He is said to go and return, when He withdraws all 
 tokens of His Presence, His help, care, and Providence. This 
 is worse than any affliction on God's part, " ^ a state like theirs 
 who, in the lowest ])art of hell, are delivered into chains of 
 darkness, shut out from His Presence, and so from all hope of 
 comfort ; and this must needs be their condition, so long as 
 He shall be absent from them; and so perpetually, except 
 there be a way for obtaining again His favourable Presence." 
 
 Till they acknowledge their offence. " ^ He Who hath no 
 pleasure in the death of the icieked. but that the wicked tarn 
 from his way and live, withdraws Himself from them, not to 
 cast them off altogether, but that they might know and ac- 
 knowledge their folly and wickedness, and, seeing there is no 
 comfort out of Him, prefer His Presence to those vain things," 
 which they had preferred to Him. To say, that God would 
 hide His Face from them, //// they should acknowledge their 
 offence, holds out in itself a gleam of hope, that hereafter they 
 would turn to Him, and would find Him. 
 
 And seek 3Iy Face. The first step in repentance is con- 
 fession of sin ; the second, turning to God. For to own sin 
 without turning to God is the despair of Judas. 
 
 In their affliction they shall seek Me early. God does not 
 only leave them hopes, that He would shew forth His Presence, 
 when tliey sought him, but He promises that they shall seek 
 Him, i. e. He would give them His grace, whereby alone they 
 could seek Him, and that grace should be eflectual. Of itself 
 affliction drives to despair and more obdurate rebellion and 
 final impenitence. Through the grace of God. "evil brings 
 forth good ; fear, love ; chastisement, repentance." They 
 shall seek Jfe earli/,ov\g\na.\l\, in the m'irning,\. Q. with all di- 
 ligence and earnestness, as a man riseth early to do what he 
 is very much set upon. So these shall " shake off the sleep of 
 sin and the torpor of listlessness, when the light of repentance 
 shall shine upon them." 
 
 This was fulfilled in the two tribes, towards the end of the 
 seventv years, when many doubtless, together with DanieP, set 
 their face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and su/ipliea- 
 tion, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes ; and a-iain, in those 
 ^°who waited for redemption in Jerusalem .v.-\wno\\TljOr A came; 
 and it will lie fufilled in all at the end of the world. '"The first 
 Hash of thought on the power and goodness of the true De- 
 liverer, is like the morning streaks of a new day. At the sight 
 
 6 Poc. ? Heb. X. 31. s Is. x. 5. ' Dan. ix. 2, 3. " S. Luke ii. 25, 3S.
 
 58 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 ch\^'1t CH after VI. 
 
 <^'r-7S(>. I ^n exhortntion to repentance. 4 A complaint 
 ^ „„ „„ of theh^ wttoivardness andininidty. 
 
 " Deut. 32. 39. •' j ^ 
 
 jo1)Til. "■ /^OME, and let us return unto the Lord : 
 i.'jerfb"'!?. V_y for "he hath torn, and "he will heal 
 
 of that light, Israel shall arise early to seek his God ; he shall 
 rise quickly like the Prodigal, out of his wanderings and his 
 indigence." 
 
 VI. 1. Come and let us rcturii mito the Lord. These 
 words depend closely on the foregoing. They are words put 
 into their mouth by God Himself, with which or with tlielikc, 
 they should exhort one another to return to God. Before, 
 when God smote them, they had gone to Assyria ; now they 
 should turn to Him, owning, not only that He Who tore has 
 the power and the will to Iical them, but that He tore, in order 
 to heal them ; He smote them, in order to bind tlicm up. This 
 closeness of connection is expressed in the last words ; lit. 
 smite He and He ivill bind us up. " He smiteth the putrefac- 
 tion of the misdeed ; He healeth the pain of the wound. Phy- 
 sicians do this ; they cut ; they smite ; they heal ; they arm 
 themselves in order to strike ; they carry steel, and come to 
 cure." 
 
 They are not content to return singly or to be saved alone. 
 Each encouragcth another to repentance, as before to evil. 
 The dry bones, scattered on the face of the earth, reunite. 
 There is a general movement among those ?(»/io«/< in darkness 
 and the shadniv of death, to return together to Him, Who is 
 the Source of life. 
 
 2. After two daj/s will He revive tts or quicken us, give us 
 life, in the tldrddaij He will raise us up. The Resurrection of 
 Christ, and our resurrection in Him and in His Resurrection, 
 could not be more plainly foretold. The Prophet expressly 
 mentions tu'o days, after which life should be given, and a 
 third day, on which the resurrection should take place. What 
 else can this be than the two days in which the Body of Christ 
 lay in the tomb, and the third day, on which He rose again, 
 as^ the Resurrection and the life, - the first fruits of them that 
 slept, the source and earnest and pledge of our resurrection 
 and of life eternal ? The Apostle, in speaking of our resur- 
 rection in Christ, uses these self-same words of the Prophet ; 
 ^ God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He 
 loved us — hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath 
 raised us up and made us to sit together in heavenly places in 
 Christ Jesus. The Apostle, like the Propliet, speaks of that 
 which took place in Christ our Head, as having already taken 
 place in us, His members. "If we unhesitatingly believe in 
 our heart," says a father*, "what we profess witli our mouth, 
 we were crucified in Christ, we died, ive were buried, toe also 
 were raised again on that very third day. Whence the Apos- 
 tle saith ", If ye rose again tvith Christ, seek those things 
 tvhich are above, where Christ sifteth at the right hand of God." 
 As Christ died for us, so He also rose for us. " Our old man 
 was nailed to the wood, in the flesh of our Head, and the new 
 man was formed in that same Head, rising glorious from the 
 tomb." What Clirist, our Head, did, He did, not for Himself, 
 but for His redeemed, that the benefits of His Life, Death, 
 Resurrection, Ascension, might redound to all. He did it for 
 them ; they partook of what He did. In no other way, could 
 our participation of Christ be foretold. It was not the Pro- 
 
 1 S. John xi. 2.5. = 1 Cor. xv. 20. 3 Eph. ii. 4-6. ■* S. Leo. ^ Col. iii. 1. 
 
 « Targ. ^ S. Jer. so Tertull. adv. Jud. c. 13. Grig. Horn. 5. in Exod. S. Cypr. Test. 
 
 ii. 26. S. Cyr. Jer. Cat. xiv. 14. S. Greg. Nyss. de cogn. Dei. S. Aug. de Civ. U. xviii. 28. 
 
 us; he hath smitten, and he will bind curu 
 
 fir. 7rt0. 
 
 ST 
 
 US up. 
 
 2 " After two days will he revive us : in <= i Cor. 15, 4. 
 the third day he Avill raise us up, and we 
 shall live in his sight. 
 
 phet's object here, nor was it so direct a comfort to Israel, to 
 speak of Christ's Resurrection in itself. He took a nearer way 
 to their hearts. He told tlicm, " all we who turn to the Lord, 
 putingourwholetrust inHim,andcommittingoursclveswholly 
 to Him, to be healed of our wounds and to have our griefs 
 bound up, shall receive life from Him, shall be raised up by 
 Him." They could not understand then, how He would do 
 this. The after tivo days and, in the third day, remained a 
 mystery, to be explained by the event. But the promise it- 
 self was not the less distinct, nor the less full of hope, nor did 
 it less fulfil all cravings for life eternal and the sight of God, 
 because they did not understand, how shall these things he. 
 Faith is unconcerned about the " how." Faith believes what 
 God says, because He says it, and leaves Him to fulfil it, "how" 
 He wills and knows. The words of the promise which faith 
 had to believe, were plain. The life of which the Prophet 
 spoke, could only be life from death, whether of the body or 
 the soul or both. For God is said to give life, only in contrast 
 with such death. Whence the Jews too have ever looked and 
 do look, that this should be fulfilled in the Christ, though they 
 know not that it has been fulfilled in Him. They too explain 
 it ; " " He will quicken us in the days of consolation which 
 shall come ; in the day of the quickening of the dead ; He will 
 raise us up, and we shall live before Him." 
 
 In shadow, the prophecy was never fulfilled to Israel at all. 
 The ten tribes were never restored; they never, as a whole, 
 received any favour from God, after He gave them up to capti- 
 vity. And unto the two tribes, (of whom, apart from the ten, 
 no mention is made here) what a mere shadow was the restora- 
 tion from Babylon, that it should be spoken of as the gift of life 
 or of resurrection, whereby we should live before Him ! The 
 strictest explanation is the truest. The two days and the third 
 day have nothing in history to correspond with them, except 
 that in which they were fulfilled, when Christ, "rising on the 
 third day from the grave, raised with Him the whole human 
 race.'' " 
 
 And we shall live in His sight, lit. before His Face. In the 
 face, we see the will, and mind, the love, the pleasure or dis- 
 pleasure of a human being whom we love. In the holy or lov- 
 ing face of man, there may be read fresh depths of devotion or 
 of love. The face is turned away in sorrowful displeasure ; it 
 is turned full upon the face it loves. Hence it is so very ex- 
 pressive an image of the relation of the soul to God, and the 
 Psalmists so often pray, Lord, lift tip the light of Thy coun- 
 teiiance upon us ; make Thy Face to shine upon Thy servant ; 
 God bless us, and cause His Face to shine upon us ; cast me 7iot 
 aivay from Thy Presence or Face ; look Thou upon me and be 
 merciful unto me ; look upon the Face of Thine anointed; how 
 longtvilt Thou hide Thy Face from me? hide not Thy Face 
 from Thy servant^ ; or they profess. Thy Face, Lord, ivill I 
 seek ' ; or they declare that the bliss of eternity is in the Face 
 of God 10. 
 
 God had just said, that He would withdraw His Presence, 
 until they should seek His Face ; now He says, they should live 
 
 Ruf.de exp. Symb. S.Cyr. Al. in S. Joh. L. ii. S.Greg, in Ezek. Horn. 20. » Pe.iv. 
 G; xxxi. 16 (from Num. vi. 25.); Ixvii. 1. Ixxx. 7.cxix.l35; li^ll; cxix. 132; Ixxxiv. 9; 
 
 xiii. t. Ixix. 17. &c. 
 
 s Pb. xxvii. 8. See xxiv. 6. cv.4. '" Ps. xi. 7. xvi. 11. xvii. 15.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 39 
 
 c H rTs t ♦^ '' Then shall we know, if we follow on 
 cir. 7S0. ^Q ]inow the Lord : his J^oinfr forth is pre- 
 
 « 2'^sa^m'. 23. 4. pared *as the morning; and Hie shall come 
 
 'i's. 72.0. ' 
 
 he/ore His Face. To Abraham Hchadsaid', TFalk before 3Ic', Vit. 
 before Mij lutcc, mid he thotiperfeet. Bliss from the Creator, 
 and duty from the creature, answer to one another. We live 
 in His sight, in the way of duty, when we refer ourselves and 
 our whole bcinc;, our courses of action, our thoughts, our love, 
 to Him, remembering' that we arc ever in His Presence, and 
 ever seeking' to please Him. /^I? live in His sight, in the bliss 
 of His Presence, when we enjoy the sense of His favour, and 
 know that His Eye rests on us in love, that He cares for us, 
 guides us, guards us ; and have some sweetness in contempla- 
 ting Him. Much more fully shall we live in His sight, when, 
 in Him, we shall be partakers of His Eternal Life and Bliss, and 
 shall behold Him face toface,and see Him as He w.and tbesight 
 of Him shall be our bliss, and in His light we shall see light -. 
 
 3. Then shall we knoiu, if ive follow on to know the Lord ; 
 rather. Then shall we knotc, shall follow on to know the Lord, 
 i. e. we shall not only know Him, but we shall grow continu- 
 ally in that knowledge. Then, in Israel, God says, there ivas 
 no knowledge of Him; Yiis, people was destroyed for lack of 
 at ^. In Christ He promises, that they should have that inward 
 knowledge of Him, ever growing, because the grace, through 
 which it is given, ever grows, and the depth of the riches of 
 His wisdom and knoiuledge is unsearchable, passing knowledge. 
 Wc follow on, confessing that it is He Who maketh us to fol- 
 low Him, and draweth us to Him. We know,in orderto follow ; 
 we follow, in order to know. Light prepares the way for love. 
 Love opens the mind for new love. The gifts of God arc in- 
 terwoven. They multiply and reproduce each other, imtil we 
 come to the perfect state of eternity. For here tve knoiu in 
 part only ; then shall we know, even as ive are knoivn. JVe shall 
 follow on. Whither shall wefolloiv on ? To the fountains of 
 the water of life, as another Prophet saith ; For He that hath 
 mercy upon them shall lead them, even by the springs of icater 
 shall He guide them *. And in the Revelations we read, that 
 tlie Lamb fVho is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, a)ul 
 shall lead them unto living fountains of tvctters". The bliss 
 of eternity is fixed ; the nearness of each to the throne of God, 
 the mansion in which he shall dwell, admits of no change ; 
 but, through eternity, it may be, that we shall follow on to 
 knoto more of God, as more shall be revealed to us of that 
 which is infinite, the Infinity of His Wisdom and His Love. 
 
 His going forth, i. e. the going forth of God, is prepared, 
 firm, fixed, certain, established, (so the word means) as the 
 morning. Before, God had said. He would withdraw Himself 
 from them ; now, contrariwise. He says, that He wo\x\A go forth. 
 He had said, in their ajfiiction they shall seek Me early or in 
 the morning ; now. He shall go forth as the moryiing. '' ^ They 
 shall seek for Him, as they that long for the morning ; and He 
 will come to them as the morning," full of joy and comfort, of 
 •^ light and warmth and glorious radiance, which shall diffuse 
 over the whole compass of the world, so that nothing shall be 
 hid from its light and heat. He Who should so go forth, is 
 the same as He Who was to revive them and raise them up, i. e. 
 Christ. Of Him it is said most strictly, that He ruent forth, 
 when from the Bosom of the Father He came among us ; as of 
 Him holy Zacharias saith, (in the like language,) The Day- 
 spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that 
 
 unto us ^as the rain, as the latter and for- 
 mer rain unto the earth. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 Kjol) 2'J. 23. 
 
 4 '^l '' O Ephraini, what shall I Jo untobch.'fi.a 
 
 ' Gen. xvii. 1. 
 
 2 Ps. xxxvi. 9. ' ch, iv. 1, 6. * Is. xjii. 10. 
 
 sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet 
 into the way of peace. Christ goetb fo/th continually from the 
 Father, by an eternal, continual, generation. In time, He came 
 forth from the Father in His Incarnation; He came forth to us 
 from the Virgin's womb ; He came forth from the grave in His 
 Resurrection. His coming forth, as the morning, im;igcs the 
 secrecy of His Birth, the light and glow of hive which He 
 diffuseth throughout the whole new creation of His redeemed. 
 "''As the dawn is seen by all and cannot be hid, and appear- 
 eth, that it may be seen, yea, that it may illuminate, so His 
 going forth, whereby He proceeded from His own invisible to 
 our visible condition, became kno^n to all," tempered to our 
 eyes, dissipating our darkness, awakening our nature as from 
 a grave, unveiling to man the works of God, making His ways 
 plain before his face, that he should no longer walk in dark- 
 ness, but have the light of life. 
 
 He shall come unions as the rain, as the latter ^wiS. former 
 rain unto the earth. So of Christ it is foretold *, He shall come 
 dozen like rain upcm the mmvn grass, as showers that rvatcr the 
 earth. Palestine was especially dependant upon rain, on ac- 
 count of the cultivation of the sides of the hills in terraces, 
 which were parched and dry, when the rains were withheld. 
 The former, or autumnal rain, fell in October, at the seed- 
 time ; the latter or spring rain, in March and April, and filled 
 the ears before harvest. Both together stand as the begin- 
 ning and the end. If either were withheld, the harvest failed. 
 Wonderful likeness of Him Who is the Beginning and the End 
 of our spiritual life ; from Whom we receive it, by Whom it 
 is preserved unto the end; through Whom the soul,enriched by 
 Him, bath abundance of all spiritual blessings,graces,and con- 
 solations, and yieldeth all manner of fruit, each after its kind 
 to the praise of Him Who hath given it life and fruitfulness. 
 
 4. O Ephraim, tvhat shall I do unto thee f It is com- 
 mon with the prophets, first to set forth the fulness of the 
 riches of God's mercies in Christ, and then to turn to their 
 own generation, and upbraid them for the sins which withheld 
 the mercies of God from them, and were hurrying them to their 
 destruction. In like way Isaiah ^ having prophesied that the 
 Gospel should go forthfrom Zion, turns to upbraid the avarice, 
 idolatry, and pride,through which the judgment of God should 
 come upon them. 
 
 The promises of God were to those who should turn with 
 true repentance, and seek Him early and earnestly. What- 
 ever of good there was, either in Ephraim or Judah, was but 
 a mere empty shew, which held out hope, only to disappoint 
 it. God, Who willeth not that any should perish, but that all 
 should come to repentance, appeals to His whole people, fFhat 
 shall I do unto thee? He had shewn them abundance of mer- 
 cies ; He had reproved them by His prophets ; He had chas- 
 tened them; and all in vain. As He says in Isaiah i", TFhat 
 could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done 
 in it ? Here He asks them Himself, what He could do to con- 
 vert and to save them, which He had not done. He would 
 take them on their own terms, and whatever they would pre- 
 scribe to His Almightiness and Wisdom, as means for their 
 conversion, that He would use, so that they would but turn to 
 Him. " What means shall I use to save thee, who wilt not be 
 
 6 Rev. vij. 17. 
 
 . ' Poc. 7 Rup. 
 L 2 
 
 8 Ps. iTvii . 6. 3 ch. 
 
 '0 ch. V.
 
 40. 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 c u uTsT t'l^^ ? ^ Jiulah, what shall I do unto thee ? 
 
 cir. 7yo. 
 
 "~JSI and as die early dew it goeth away 
 
 kjCT.^i.io. 5 Tlieiefore have I hewed them ^ 
 
 1 ?ef.'23!'2o. prophets ; I have slain them hy ' the words 
 
 Hebr4'. 12! 
 
 for yorr || goodness is ' as a morning eloud, 
 
 by the 
 
 saved ? " It has been a bold saying, to describe the hwe of 
 Ckrist ichichpasscth A-itowlet/ge, " Christ so lovcth souls, tliat 
 He would rather be crucified ap:ain, than allow any one (as far 
 as in Him lies) to be damned." 
 
 For t/our goodness is as aniorning cloud. 3ferc)/or loving- 
 kindness, (which the E.M. suggests as the first meaning of the 
 word) stands for all virtue and goodness towards God or man. 
 For love to God or man is one indivisible virtue, issuing from 
 one principle of grace. Whence it is said \ love is the ful- 
 Jilling of the law. He that lovetli another hath fulfilled the 
 law. And -, Beloved, let us love one another ; for love is of 
 God, and every one that lovetli is horn uf God, and Unoiveth 
 God. Of this their goodness, he says, tlie character was, that 
 it never lasted. The morning cloud is full of brilliancy with 
 the rays of the rising sun, yet quickly disappears through the 
 heat of that sun, which gave it its rich hues. The morning 
 deiu glitters in that same sun, yet vanishes almost as soon as it 
 appears. Generated by the cold of the night, it appears with 
 the dawn ; yet appears, only to disappear. So it was with the 
 whole Jewish people ; so it ever is with the most hopeless class 
 of sinners ; ever beginning anew, ever relapsing ; ever mak- 
 ing a shew of leaves, good teelings,good aspirations, but yield- 
 ing no fruit. '-There was nothing of souiul, sincere, real, 
 lasting goodness in them;" no reality, but all shew; quickly 
 assumed, quickly disused. 
 
 5. Therefore have I hewed them hi/ tlie prophets. Since 
 they despised God's gentler warnings and measures. He used 
 severer. He hewed them, He says, as men hew stones out of 
 the quarry, and with hard blows and sharj) instruments over- 
 come the hardness of the stone which they have to work. 
 Their piety and goodness were light and unsubstantial as a 
 summer cloud; their stony hearts were harder than the ma- 
 terial stone. The stone takes the shape which man would 
 give it ; God hews man in vain ; he will not receive the image 
 of God, for which and in which he was framed. 
 
 God, elsewhere also, likens the force and vehemence of His 
 word to ^a hammer ivhich hreuketh the rocks in pieces ; ^a sword 
 tvhich pierceth even to the dividi)ig asunder of send and spirit. 
 He "^continually hammered, beat upon, dis([uieted them, and 
 so vexed them (asthey thought) even unto death, not allowing 
 them to rest in their sins, not suffering them to enjoy them- 
 selves in them, but forcing them (as it were) to part with 
 things which they loved as their lives, and would as soon part 
 with tlicir souls as with them." 
 
 ^nd thi/juilg)nents are as the light thntgoeth forth. The 
 j'udgmejifs here are tlie acts of justice executed upon a man ; 
 the "judgment upon him," as we say. God had done all which 
 could be done, to lay aside the severity of His own judgments. 
 All had failed. Then His judgments,' when they came, would 
 be manifestly just ; their justice clear as the light which goeth 
 forth out of the darkness of night, or out of the thick clouds. 
 God's past loving-kindness. His pains, (so to speak,) His soli- 
 citations, the drawings of His grace.the tender mercies of His 
 austere chastisements, will, in the Day of judgment, stand out 
 
 of my mouth : || and thy judgments arc «.s chiust 
 the liglit that goeth forth. __J!!iZ^ 
 
 6 For I desired ™ mercy, and "not sacri- "«»jw^- 
 fice; and the "knowledge of God more ZV''" 
 
 ,1 , . rp • ml Sam. 15. 22. 
 
 tlian burnt onerings. EccUs. 5.1. 
 
 Mic.6.8. Matt. 9.13. & 12.7. ° Ps.50.8, 9.Prov. 21. S.Is.l.ll. » Jer. 22.11;. John 17.3. 
 
 ' Rom. xiii.lO, 8. 
 
 : IS.Johniv. 7. 
 
 3 Jer. xxiii. 29. 
 
 ■• Heb. iv. 12. 
 
 clear as the light, and leave the sinner confounded, without 
 excuse. In this life, also, God's Una] /udg?ne)tts are as a light 
 which goeth forth, cnVightcn'ins;, not the sinner who perishes, 
 but others, heretofore in the darkness of ignorance, on whom 
 they burst with a sudden blaze of light, and who reverence 
 them, owning that the Jadgments of the Lord are true and 
 righteous altogether ". 
 
 And so, since they would not be reformed, what should have 
 been for their wealth, was for their destruction. I slew them 
 hi/ the words of Mi/ mouth. God spake yet more terribly to 
 tiiem. He slew them in word, that He might not slay them 
 in deed ; He tlircateucd them with death : since they repented 
 not, it came. The stone, which will not take the form which 
 should have been imparted to it, is destroyed by the strokes 
 which should have moulded it. By a like image Jeremiah 
 compared the Jews to ore which is consumed in the fire which 
 should refine it, since there was no good in it. ''They are hrass 
 and iron ; they are all corrupted ; the hellows are hurned, the 
 lead is consumed of the fire ; the founder melteth in vain ; for 
 the wicked are not plucked away. Iteprohate silver shall men 
 call them, because the Lord hath rejected them. 
 
 6. For I desired itTercy and not sacrifice. God had said be- 
 fore, that they should seek Him with their flocks and herds, 
 and not find Him. So here He anticipates their excuses 
 with the same answer wherewitli He met those of Saul, when 
 he would compensate for disobedienceby burnt offerings. The 
 answeris,thatallwhichtheydid to win His favour, or turn aside 
 His wrath, was of no avail, while they wilfully withheld what 
 He required of them. Their mercy and goodness were but a 
 brief, passing, shew ; in vain He had tried to awaken them by 
 His Prophets ; therefore judgment was coming upon them ; 
 for, to turn it aside, they had offered Him what He desired 
 not, sacrifices without love, and had not offered Him, what 
 He did desire, love of man out of love for God. God had Him- 
 self, after the fall, enjoined sacrifice, to foreshew and plead 
 to Himself the meritorious Sacrifice of Christ. He had 
 not contrasted mercy and sacrifice,Who enjoined them both. 
 When then they were contrasted, it was through man's sever- 
 ing what God united. If we were to say, " Charity is better 
 than Church-going," we should be understood to mean that it 
 is better than such Church-going as is severed from charity. 
 For, if they were united, they would not be contrasted. The 
 soul is of more value than the body. But it is not contrasted, 
 unless they come in competition with one another, and their 
 interests (although they cannot in truth ie,)A'ee;?itobe separated. 
 In itself. Sacrifice represented all the direct duties to God, all 
 the duties of the first table. For Sacrifice owned Him as the 
 One God, to Whom, as His creatures, we owe and offer all ; as 
 His guilty creatures, it owned that we owed to Him our lives 
 also. 3Iercy represented all duties of the second table. 
 In saying then, I will have }nercy and not sacrifice, he says, in 
 effect, tlie same as S. John ^,If a man say, I love God, and 
 hateth his brother, lie is a liar ; for he that loveth not his bro- 
 ther ivhom he hath seen, how can he love God IFlioin he hath not 
 
 ' from Poc. 
 
 « Ps. xix.O. 
 
 7 Jer. vi. 2S-30. 
 
 8 1 S.John iv. 20.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 41 
 
 chrTst 7 But they || like men p have trans- 
 cir. 7S0. trressed the covenant: there '' have they 
 like //dam, *lealt trcaclierously agauist nie. 
 
 JobSl..-i3.' P cli. 8. 1. 'I I'll. 5. 7. 
 
 not seen ? As the love, which a man pretended to liavc for 
 God, was not real love, it" a man loved not his hrotiier, so ,sy/- 
 crificc was not an offerin;;- to God at all, while man withheld 
 from God that otferinf::, which (iod most re(jnired of him, the 
 ohlation of man's own self. They were, rather, otterinps to 
 satisfy and hrihe a man's own conscience. Vet the Jews «'ere 
 profuse in makiiif;: these sacrifices, ^\hicli cost them little, 
 hoi)inf:- therehy to secure to themselves impunity in the wronir- 
 ful ^aiiis, oppressions, and unmercifulnesses which they would 
 not part with. It is with this contrast, that God so often re- 
 jects the sacrifices of the Jews^, To ir/iat purpose is the multi- 
 tude of 1/ our ohidfidiis unto Me f Bring no more ruin ohlit- 
 tions unto Me; new moons and sahhat lis, the volling of ussem- 
 hlies, I rutDiot awdi/ with ; iniquiti) and the solemn meeting ! 
 " I spahe not to j/our fathers, nor commanded them, in the dai/ 
 that I hrought them out of the land of Kgi/pt, concerning hurnt 
 off'eri)igs or sacrifices; hut this th ing commanded I them,saying, 
 Obei/ jSIy i'oice,and I will he your God,and i/eshallhc 3Ii/ people. 
 And the Psalmist'; I wilTnot reprove thee for tin/ sacri/ices or 
 thy hurnt (i/f'erings, to have been coutinually before Me. Offer 
 unto God thanksgiving, SjC. But unto the wicAed God saith, 
 what hast thou to do, to declare My statutes, Sfc. 
 
 But further the Prophet adds, and the knowledge of God 
 more than burnt offerings. The two parts of the verse fill out 
 one another, and the latter explains the former. The know- 
 ledge of God is, as hefore, no inactive head-knowledge, hut 
 that knowledjSje, of which St. John speaks ^, Hereby ive do 
 know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. It 
 is a knowledf^e, such as they alone can have, who love God 
 and do His \M11. Godsays, then, that He prefers the inward, 
 loving, knowledge of Himself, and loving-kindness towards 
 man, ahove the outward means of aceeptableness with Him- 
 self, which He had appointed. He does not lower those, His 
 own appointments; hut only when, emptied of the spirit of 
 devotion, they were lifeless bodies, unensoulcd by His grace. 
 
 Yet the words of God go beyond the immediate occasion 
 and bearing, i!i which they were first spoken. And so these 
 words '% I will have mercy and not sacrifice, are a sort of sacred 
 proverb, contrasting mercy, which overflows the bounds of 
 strict justice, with .sv/r/v'/'rc, which represents that stern justice. 
 Thus, when the Pharisees murmured at our Lord for eating 
 with Publicans and sinners. He bade them, go and learn what 
 that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. He bade them 
 learn that deeper meaning of the words, that God valued mercy 
 for the souls for which Christ died, above that outward jtro- 
 priety, that He, the All-Holy, should not feast familiarly with 
 those who profaned God's law and themselves. Again, when 
 they foundfault with thehungry disciples for breaking the sab- 
 bath by rubbing the ears of corn, He, in the same way, tells 
 them, that they did not know the real meaning of that saying. 
 " If ye had know/i what this meaneth, I ivill have mercy and not 
 sacrifice, ye would not have coiulemned the guiltless. For as, 
 before, they were envious as to mercy to the souls of sinners, 
 so now they were reckless as to others' bodily needs. Without 
 that love then, which shews itself in acts of mercy to the soiUs 
 and bodies of men, all sacrifice is useless. 
 
 3Iercy is also more comprehensive than sacrifice. For sa- 
 
 'Is.i.U-13. = Jcr.vii. 22, 3. 3 Ps. 1. S, U, 10. MEp.ii.S. ^ s. Malt. ix.l3. 
 
 H ' (iilead i.s a city of them that 
 work ini(|uity, (nid i.s \\ j)olluted with 
 l)h>o(l. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 ' ch. 12. 11. 
 
 II Or, cunnuiff 
 
 for blood. 
 
 crifice was referred to God only, as its end ; mercy, or love of 
 man for the love of (iod. ol)cvs (iod Who commands it ; imi- 
 tates (iod,'" Whose pro])ertyit is always to have mercy; " seeks 
 (iod. Who rewards it ; prom<(tes the glory of (jod, thnnigh tiie 
 thanksgiving to (jod from those «iiom it benefits. " Mercy 
 leads man u]> to (jod, for mercy l)ronght down (iod to man ; 
 mercy humbled (iod, exalts man." Mercy takes Christ as its 
 liattern, Who.fnun Ilislloly IncarnationtoHis Precious Death 
 on the Cross, bare our griefs and carried our sorrows'. Yet 
 neither does mercy itself avail without true knowledge of God. 
 For as mercy or love is the soul of all our acts, so true know- 
 ledge of God and faith in (iod are tin- source and soul of love. 
 '• ^'ain were it to boast that we have the other nieinbers, if 
 faith, the head, were cut otf ''.■' 
 
 7. But they like men, (better, as in the E. M. like Adam,) 
 have transgressed the covenant. As Adam, our first parent, 
 in Paradise, not out of any pressure, but wantoidy, through 
 self-will and pride, broke the covenant of (iod. eating the for- 
 bidden fruit, and then defended himself in his sin against God, 
 casting the blame upon the woman : so these, in the good land 
 which God had given them, that they should therein keep His 
 covenant and observe His laivs '■*, wantonly and petulantly 
 broke that covenant; and then obstinately defended their sin. 
 Wherefore, as Adam was cast out of Paradise, so shall these 
 be cast out of the land of promise. 
 
 There have they dealt treacherously against Me. There! He 
 does not say. where. But Israel and every sinner in Israel 
 knew full well, where. There, to Israel, was not only Bethel, 
 or Dan, or Gilgal, or Mizpali, or (iilead, or any or all of the 
 places, which God had hallowed by His mercies and they had 
 defiled. It was every high hill, each idol-chapel, each field- 
 altar, which they had multij)lied to their idols. To the sinners 
 of Israel, it was every spot of the Lord's land which they had 
 defiled by their sin. God points out to the conscience of sin- 
 ners the place and time, tlie very spot where they offended 
 Him. Wheresoever and M'hensoever they broke God's com- 
 mands, there they dealt treacherously against God Himself. 
 There is much emphasis u|)on the. against Me. The sinner, 
 while breaking the laws of (iod, contrives to forget (iod. God 
 recalls him to himself, and says, there, where and when thou 
 didst those and those things, thou didst deal falsely with, and 
 against, 3Ie. The sinner's conscience and memory fills up the 
 word there. It sees the whole landscape of its sins around; 
 each black dark spot stands out before it, and it cries with 
 David, there, in this, and this, and this,r/^^////.s7 Thee, Thee only, 
 have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight '". 
 
 8. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity. If we re- 
 gard " Gilead," (as it elsewhere is.) as the country beyond 
 Jordan, where the two tribes and a half dwelt, this will mean 
 that the whole land was banded in one, as one city of evil-doers. 
 It had an unity, but f)f evil. As the whole world has been 
 pictured as divided between " the city of (iod '' and the city of 
 the devil, consisting respectively of the children of God and the 
 children of the devil; so the whole of Gilead may be repre- 
 sented as one city, whose inhabitants had one occupation in 
 common, to work evil. Some think that there was a city so 
 called, although not mentioned elsewhere in Holy Scripture, 
 
 6 lb. xii. 
 
 7 Is. liii. 4. 
 
 8 S. Jer. 
 
 5 Ps. cv. -U. 
 
 w lb. li. 4. 
 
 M
 
 42 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 ciiiiTsT 9 And as troops of robbers wait for a 
 
 cir.rso. n^an, .so 'the eonipany of priests murder in 
 
 ' Ezek!'2^i.25. tlic wuv f bv conscnt I for they eonunit 
 
 eh.5. 1,2. " 11 , 1 ' 
 
 tHeb.«-;», II lewdness. 
 
 one shoul 
 tier, or, to 
 S/tecltfin. \\ Or, fnoniiitj/. ^Jer. 5.30 
 
 10 I have seen * an horril)le thinif in the 
 
 near that Mount Gilead. dear to the memory of Israel, be- 
 cause God there protected their forefather Jacol). Some think 
 that it was Ramoth in (iiiead '. which (Jod appointed as '"a 
 city of refiiii-e," and wliich, conseciuently, became a city of Le- 
 vites and priests-. Here, wlicre (Jod had preserved the life 
 oftlieir forefather, and, in him, had preserved them; here, 
 where He iiad commanded the innocent shcdder of blood to he 
 saved ; here, where He had appointed those to dwell, whom 
 He had hallowed to Himself, all was turned to the exact 
 contrary. It. which God had hallowed, was become a citi/ 
 (if workers of iniqiiifj/, i. e. of men whose hal)its and wont was 
 to work iniquity. It, where (iod had aj)pointed life to be pre- 
 served, was polluted or tracked with blood. " Every where it 
 M'as marked and stained with the bloody footsteps of those who 
 (as David said) put innocent hlood hi their shoes which were on 
 ///e/r/c^'^', stainin;;; their shoes with blood which they shed, so 
 that, wherever they Avent, they left marks and si<;ns of it." 
 'Tracked with hloijd \X was, throu£;h the sins of its inhabitants ; 
 tracked with hlood it was ajjain, when it first «'as taken cap- 
 tive *, and "/(", which had swum witli the innocent blood of 
 others, swam with the iruilty blood of its own people." It is a 
 special sin, and especially aveuijed of (iiod, when what God had 
 hallowed, is nuule the scene of sin. 
 
 9. ^-Lid as troojis of robbers wait for a man, so the compani/ 
 of priests murder in the win/ bij consent ; or (more probably) /// 
 the icatj to Shechem'. Shechem too was a "city of refujje *," and 
 so also a city of Levites and priests". It was an important 
 city. For there Joshua assembled all Israel for his last ad- 
 dress to them, and made a covenant with them'*. There, Re- 
 hoboam came to be accepted by Israel as their kinp:', and was 
 rejected by them. There, Jeroboam after the schism, for a 
 time, made his residence ^". The priests were banded t02,e- 
 ther ; their counsel was one; they formed one company ; but 
 they were bound toe:ether as a band of robbers, not to save 
 men's lives but to destroy them. Whereas the way to the cities 
 of refuije was, by God's lav.', to he prepared^^, clear, open, with- 
 out let or hindrance to the jruiltless fugitive, to save his life; 
 the jiriests, the guardians of God's law, obstructed the way, to 
 rob and destroy. They whom God appointed to teach the truth, 
 that men might live, were i)anded together against His law. 
 
 Shechem, besides that it wasacityof refuge, was alsohallowed 
 by the memory of histories of the patriarchs who walked with 
 God. There, was Jacob's well'-; there Joseph's bones were 
 buried ''; and the menu)ry of the patriarch Jacob was cherished 
 there, even to the time of our Lord '-. Lying in a narrow valley 
 between mount Ebal and Gerizim, it was a witness, as it were, 
 of the blessing and curse pronounced from them, and had, in 
 the times of Joslnui, an ancient sanctuary of God '^ It was a 
 halting-place for tlie pilgrims of the northern tribes, in their 
 way to the feasts at Jerusalem; so that these murders by the 
 priests coincide with the tradition of the Jews, that they who 
 would go up to Jerusalem were murdered in the way, 
 
 1 Deut. iv. B. Josh. xx. 8. S. Jerome instances Ramoth and the deeds there, but does 
 not identity Gilead with it, since he supposes the Prophet to speak of" the Province it- 
 self." - Josli. xxi. :iS. 3 1 K»s. ii. 5. •■ 2 Kgs. xv. 29. ' This translation ac- 
 counts for the grammatical form, .■!!:;», 'VozTOrrf.s Shechem;" (as inGen. xxvii.M,&c.) The 
 consent of many in doing a thing is indeed expressed by saying, " they did it with one shoul- 
 
 liouse of Israel : there is " the nhoredom of ^ if J'["[st 
 
 eir. 7W». 
 
 Ephraini ; Israel is defiled. 
 
 11 Also, O .ludah, " he hath set an har-° illjff/^' 
 vest for thee, J when I returned the capti-' j^'i's'.i^^^.' 
 vity of my people. , pri2c.^' 
 
 For they commit lewdness; lit. /or they hare done deli- 
 beratc siu^^. The word literally means, a thing thought of, 
 especially an evil, and so, deliberate, contrived, bethought of 
 wickedness. They did deliberate wickedness, gave them- 
 selves to do it, and did nothing else. 
 
 10. / have seen an horrible thing, lit. what would make one 
 shudder. God had seen it ; therefore man could not deny it. 
 In the sight of God, and amid the sense of His Presence, ail 
 excuses fail. 
 
 /// the house of Israel. " "^ For what more horrible, more 
 amazing, than that this happened, imt in any ordinary nation 
 but /;/ the house of Israel, in the people of God, in the portion 
 of the Lord, as Moses said, the Lord^s portion is His people, 
 Jacob is the lot of His inheritance ? In another nation, idolatry 
 was error. In Israel, which had the knowledge of the one true 
 (lod and had received the law, it was horror." There is the 
 ichoredom of Ephraim, widespread, over the whole land, where- 
 ver the house of Ej)hraim was, through the whole kingdom of 
 the ten tril)es, there was its spiritual adultery and defilement. 
 
 11. Also, O Judah, He hath set a harvest for thee, when 
 I returned (rather tvhen 1 7-eturn) the captivity of My ]ieople. 
 
 The harvest may be either for good or for bad. If the har- 
 vest is spoken of, as bestowed upon the people, then, as being 
 of chief moment for preserving the life of the body, it is a 
 symbol of all manner ofgood, temporal or spiritual, bestowed 
 by God. If the people is spoken of, as themselves being the 
 harvest which is ripe and ready to be cut down, then it is a 
 symbol of their being ripe in sin, ready for punishment, to be 
 cut otf by God's judgments. In this sense, it is said of Baby- 
 lon '", Yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come ; 
 and of the heathen '*, put ye w the sickle, for their harvest is 
 ripe, for their wickedness is great ; and of the whole earth '^, the 
 harvest of the earth is ripe. Here God must be speaking of a 
 harvest, which He willed hereafter to give to Judah. For the 
 time of the harvest was to be, when He should return the cap- 
 tivity of His j)eople, restoring them out of their captivity, a 
 time of His favor and of manifold blessings. A harvest then 
 God appointed for Judah. But when ? Not at that time, not 
 for a long, long period, not for any time during the life of man, 
 but at the end of the captivity of 70 years. God promises re- 
 lief, but after suffering. Yet He casts a ray of light, even 
 while threatening the intermediate darkness. He foreshews to 
 them a future harvest, even while their coming lot was cap- 
 tivity and privation. JVoiv Judah, His people, was entangled 
 in the sins of Ephraim, and, like them, was to be punished. 
 Suffering and chastisement were the condition of healing and 
 restoration. But whereas the destruction of the kingdom of 
 Israel was final, and they were no more to be restored as a 
 whole, God, Who loveth mercy, conveys the threat of impend- 
 ing punishment under the promise of future mercy. He had 
 ricii mercies in store for Judah, yet not until after the cap- 
 tivity, when He should again own them as 3Iy people. Mean- 
 der." (Zeph. iii. O.)^ et the word one, (which is not used here,) is essential to the figure, which 
 is, that many did the act as if thev were one. i" Josh.xx. 7- " lb. xxi. 21. * lb. 
 xxiv.1,25. MKgs.xii.l. 'Mb.25. n Deut.xix. .3. '- S. John iv. 5,fi. "josh. 
 xxiv.32. '■• lb. 26. '= It is nscd ofsins of thefleshin Lev. xix. 29. xx.l4. Jobxxxi. 11. 
 and especially in Ezekiel. "J Hup. •'' Jer. li. 33. '* Joel iii. 13. '" Rev.xiv. 15.
 
 CFIAITEII VII. 
 
 43 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 7SI). 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 A reproof of manifold sins. 11 GoiVs wrath 
 against them for their hj/pocrisi/. 
 
 time tlien, tlicre was withdrawal of tlie favor of God, distress, 
 and want. 
 
 The distinction bt-twccn Jiidali and Isriicl lay in the pro- 
 mise of God to David. ' The Lord hath sworn in truth to J)a- 
 vid, He will not turn from it ; of the fruit of thtj hodij will I set 
 upon thji fhro)ie. it lay in tlic counsels of (iod, hut it M'as 
 executed throiiLcli tliose who liiiew not of tiiose counsels. The 
 ten tribes were carried away l)y tiie Assyrians into Media; 
 Judali, by Neituchadnezzar, into Babylon. Tiic Bal)ylonian 
 empire, wiiich, under Nebuciiadnezzar, was the terror of Asia, 
 was l)ut a continuation of tlie Assyrian, beinj:; founded by a 
 revolted Assyrian ijeneral -. The seat of empire was removed, 
 the policy was unchanij-ed. In man's sis^ht tlicre was no hope 
 that Babylon would ffivc back lier captives, any more than 
 Assyria, or than the jiravc would give back her dead. To re- 
 store the Jews, was to reverse the human policy, which had 
 removed them ; it was to re-create an enemy, strong in his 
 natural position, lying between themselves and Egypt, who 
 could strengtlien, if he willed, their great rival. The mixed 
 multitude of Babylonians and others, whom the king of Assy- 
 ria had settled in Samaria, in their letter to a successor of 
 Cyrus, appealed to these fears, and induced the impostor Smer- 
 dis to interrupt the restoration of Jerusalem. They say ^ ; ffe 
 have sent and certified the hing, that search mai/ be made in the 
 hook of the records of t hi/ fathers. So shall thou find in the 
 hook of the records, and know that this citi/ is a rebellious citi/, 
 and hurtful unto kings and j)rorinces, and that thei/ have moved 
 sedition within the same of old time : for which cause was this 
 city destroyed. The king did find in his records tliat Judali 
 had been of old powerful, and had i-efused the yoke of Babylon. 
 * I commanded, and search hath been made, and it is found tluit 
 this city of old time hath )iiade iusurrectio)i against kings, and 
 that rebellion and sedition hath been made therein. There have 
 been mighty kings over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all 
 countries beyond the river, and toll, tribute, and custom, hath 
 been given to them. Conquerors do not think t)f restoring their 
 slaves, nor of rev'ersing their policy, even when there is no • 
 constraining motive to persevere in it. What is done, remains. 
 This policy of transplanting nations, when once begun, was 
 adopted, as a regular part of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian 
 policy^ Yet no case is known,in which thcpeopleonceremoved j 
 were permitted to return, save the Jews. But God first fore- ' 
 told, that Cyrus should restore His people and build Ilistemple; 
 then, through men's wills He ordered the overthrow of empires. 
 Cyrus overcame the league against him, and destroyed first the i 
 Lydian, then the Babylonian, empire. God then brought to 
 his knowledge the propliecy concerning him, given by Isaiah 
 178 years before, and disposed his heart to do, what Isaiah had 
 foretold that he should do. Cyrus made his proclamatimi 
 throughout all his kingdom. The terms were ample. * ff^io 
 is there among you of all His people ? His (iod be icith him, 
 and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the 
 house of the Lord God (f Israel (He is the God) which is in 
 Jerusalem. The proclamation must have reached the cities of 
 the Medes,whercthe ten tribes were. But they only, ivhose spirit 
 God had raised, returned to their land. Israel remained, of his 
 own freewill, behind ; and fulfilled unwittingly the prophecy, 
 
 ' Ps. cxxxii. 11. - Nabopolassar. See Abvden. in Eus. Chron. Arm. i.p. 51. 
 
 3 Ezraiv. 14,15. •''lb. 19,20. 
 
 w 
 
 ni']N I would have healed Israel, (.j^j^Yst 
 tlien the iirKiuity <»t" J'^pliraiin was '='"■ ''^"- 
 
 (liseovered, and the f wickedness of" Sama- + Heb. eviu. 
 
 that thev should be wanderers among the nations, \\bilc in Ju- 
 dah the Lord brought again the captivityof His //cople,iu\d gave 
 them the harvest \v\i\c\i He had appointed for them. A Psalm- 
 ist of that day speaks of the strangeness of the deliverance to 
 them '^. fVhen the Lord turned again the captiiity of '/Jon, we 
 iccre like them that dream. And, primarily, of tliat bringing 
 back ///(' captivili/ of His jicopic, lie uses Hosca's inia;:"e of the 
 harvest. Theij which sow in tears, shall rcaji in joi/. 'J'o the 
 eye of the politician, it was an overthrow of empires and con- 
 vulsion of the world, the herald of further convulsions, bv 
 which the new-est:iblished em])ire was in its turn overthrown. 
 In the real, the religious, history <if mankind, of fiir greater 
 moment were those fifty thousand souls, to whom, with Zoro- 
 babel of the line of David, ('yrns gave leave to return. In 
 them he fulfilled prophecy, and prepared fiu-that further ful- 
 filment, after his own empire had be(!n long disscdved, and 
 when, from the line of Zorobabel, was that Birth which was 
 promised in Bethlehem of Judah. 
 
 VII. 1. JVhen I would have healed Israel. God begins 
 anew by appealing to Israel, that all which He had done to 
 heal them, had but served to make their sin more evident, and 
 tliat, from highest to lowest, as to all mannersand waysof sin. 
 When the flash of God's light on the sinner's conscience en- 
 lightens it not, it only discloses its darkness. The name Is- 
 ?v(p/ includes the whole j»eople; the names, Ivphraim and. Sama- 
 ria, probably are meant to designate the chief among them. 
 Ephraim having been their royal tribe, and being the chief 
 tribe among them ; Samaria being their royal city. The sins 
 Avhicb Hosea denounces in this chapter are chiefly the sins 
 of the great, which, from them, had spread among the jieople. 
 AVhatever healing methods Gt»d had used, whether through 
 the teaching of the prophets or through Ills own fatjierlv 
 chastisements, they '' *would not hearken nor be amended, but 
 ran on still more obstinately in their evil courses. The dis- 
 ease prevailed against the remedy, and was irritated by it, so 
 that the remedy served only to lay open the extent of its ma- 
 lignity, and to shew that there was worse in it, tlian did at 
 first appear." So St. Paul says of all human nature'^. When 
 the commandment came, sin revived. Apart from grace, the 
 knowledge of good onlyenhances evil. '•'^' So, when God. made 
 Man, present and visible, willed to heal Israel ,thenX\\cit iniquity 
 of the Jews and wickedness of the Scribes and Phariseeswas 
 discovered, whereof this iniijuity of Ephraim and wickedness 
 of Samaria was a type. For an evil sj)irit goaded them to mock, 
 persecute.ldaspbeme the Teacher of repentance,Who, together 
 with the word of preaching, did works, such as none other 
 man did. For Christ pleased them not. a Teacher of repeirt- 
 ance, persuading to poverty, a I'attern of humility, a Guide to 
 meekness, a Monitor to mourn for sins, a Proclaimer of right- 
 eousness, a Requirer of mercy, a Praiser of purity of heart, a 
 Rewarder of peace, a Consoler of those who suflered persecu- 
 tionfor righteousness' sake. Why? Why did they reject, hate, 
 persecute. Him Who taught thus r Because they loved all 
 contrary thereto, and wished for a Messiah, who should exalt 
 them in this world, and disturb the peace of nations, until he 
 should by war suljdue to their empire all the rest of the world, 
 build for theinon earth a Jerusalem of gold and gems,and fulfil 
 
 Ps. cxxvi. 1,5. 
 
 * See instances in Rawiinson, Herod.T. ii. p. 564. 
 » Poc. » Rom.vii.y. 
 
 M 2 
 
 « Ezra i. 3. 
 10 Rup.
 
 44 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 cifiusT '■'•'^ ■ ^'*'* ' t'x'V <'<)niiiilt falscluxxl ; and the 
 *""'• "''^"- tliu'f I'oiiK'th in, (inil the troop of robbers 
 ° & r.'?io. t spoileth without. 
 
 2 And they f eonsich'r not in their hearts 
 tliat I '' remejnher all their wickedness : 
 
 t Hil). 
 
 strippeth, 
 f Heh. 
 
 sai/ not to. 
 >> Jer. 17. 1. 
 
 their covctoiisucss in all thinjjs of this sort. This their mind 
 He once briefly expressed ^ ; Hoti' can ye believe winch receive 
 honor one of diKither, and seek not (lie honor which coniefh from 
 God onlij'' They persecuted Him then \\'Ii() Milled to heal 
 them, as madmen strike the physician otVerinji- them medi- 
 cine, nor (lid they cease, until theyre(|uired Him their Kin;:: to 
 be crucified. Thus was/Z/c iniqnityoj'Kphruimandwickedness 
 of Samaria discovered, yet tilled up by them, and so they tilled 
 up the measure of their fathers, and discovered and testified, 
 that they were of the same mind with their fathers. — In all 
 these thini^s they committed falsehotnl, lyinij ajjainst their 
 Kini:: AN'hom they denied and accused as seditious." 
 
 For they [i. e. all of them] commit falsehood. False- 
 hood was the whole habit and tissue of their lives. " - They 
 dealt falsely in all their doinii's Iioth with (iod and man, beinj;;' 
 hypocritical and false in all their words and doinirs. fjiven to 
 fraud and deceit, from the hif;hest to the lowest." Niiclit and 
 day ; in silence and in open violence ; within, where all seemed 
 guarded and secure, and withtnit, in t)pen defiance of law and 
 public justice ; these deeds of wrong; went on in an unceasing 
 round. In the night, the thief comet h in, breaking into men's 
 houses and pillaging secretly ;« troop of rohhers spoileth icith- 
 out, spreading their ravages far and wide, and desolating 
 without resistance. It was all one state of anarchy, violence, 
 and disorganisation. 
 
 '2. And they consider not in their hearts, lit. (as in the E. 
 INI.) they say 7iot to their hearts. The conscience is God's voice 
 to the heart from within ; man's knowledge of the law of God, 
 and his memory of it, is man's voice reminding his heart and 
 rebellious aflections to abide in their obedience to God. God 
 speaks thr(mgh the heart, M'hen by His secret inspirations He 
 recalls it to its duty. Man speaks to his own heart, when he 
 checks its sinfulorpassionate impulsesby thcrule of God's law, 
 Thon shalt not. ''At first, men feel the deformity of certain 
 sorts of wickedness. When accustomed to them, men think 
 that God is indiftcrent to what no longer shocks themselves." 
 They say not to their heart any more, that God remembers them. 
 I remember all their wickedness. This was the root of «// 
 their wickedness, want of thought. They would not stop to 
 say to themselves, that God not only saw, but remembered their 
 wickedness, and not this only, but that He remembered it all. 
 Many will acknowledge that God .sees them. He sees all things, 
 and so them also. Tliis is a part of His natural attribute of 
 Omniscience. It costs them nothing to own it. But what 
 God remembers, that He will repay. This belongs to God's 
 attributes, as the moral Governor of the world; and this, man 
 would gladly forget. But in vain. God does remember, and 
 remendiers, in order to punish. Ntnc, at the very moment 
 when man would not recall this to his own heart, their own 
 doings have beset them nboat ; they are before Jly Juice. Un- 
 less or until man repent, (iod sees man continually, encom- 
 passed by alibis past evil deeds; they surround him, accom- 
 pany him, whithersoever he goeth ; they attend him, like a 
 band of followers; they lie down with him, they await him at 
 his awakening; they live with him, but they do not die with 
 
 ' S. John V. 44. 2 Poj.. a Prov. v.22. •• Ex. .\xxii. 34. 
 
 Before 
 
 now ' their own doinj^^s have beset them (• jfjf'i 
 about ; they lire ' before uiy fa(!e. 
 
 ST 
 
 cir. 7«0. 
 
 ti They make the king jrlad «'itli ' Prov! 5%2. 
 their wickedness, and the princes ^ with . K!^',f,".*i%2. 
 their lies. 
 
 him ; they encircle him, that he should in no wise escape them> 
 until he come attended by them, as witnesses against him, at 
 the judgment-seat of (lod. ■' J/is oirn inifji/ities shall take the 
 tricked himself anil he shall be lioldcn with the cords of his sins. 
 God remembers all their irickcdness. Then He will rerjuite 
 all ; not the last sins only, but all. .So, when Moses interceded 
 for his people after the sin of the calf, God says to him *, go 
 lead the people into the place of which I have spoken unto thee ; 
 behold My Angel shall go before thee ; nevertheless, in the day 
 when I visit, 1 will visit their sin njion them ; an<l of the sins 
 of Israel and their enemies'' ; Is not this laid tip in store with 
 Me, and sealed up among My treasures? to Mc belongeth ven- 
 geance and recompense ; theirfuot shall slide in due time. The 
 sins, forgotten by man, are remendjered by God, and are re- 
 quited all together in the end. A slight image of the Day of 
 Judgment, the Day of icrath and revelation of the righteous 
 judgment of God, against which the hard and impenitent heart 
 treasures up nnto itself wrath ! 
 
 They are before My Face. All things, past, present, and 
 to come, are present before God. He sees all things which 
 have been, or which are, or which shall be, or which could be, 
 although He shall never will that they should be, in one eter- 
 nal, unvarying, present. To what end then for man to cherish 
 an idle hope that God will not remember, what He is ever 
 seeing? In vain wouldest thou think, that the manifold ways 
 of man are too small, too intricate, too countless, to be re- 
 membered by God. God says, 7'hey are before My Face. 
 
 3. They make the king glad with their wickedness. Wicked 
 sovei'eigns and a wicked people are a curse to each other,each 
 encouraging the other in sin. Their king, being wicked, had 
 pleasure in their wickedness ; and they, seeing him to be 
 pleased by it, set themselves the more, to do what was evil and 
 to amuse him with accounts of their sins. Sin is in itself so 
 shameful, that even the great cannot, by themselves, sustain 
 themselves in it, without others to flatter them. A good and 
 serious man is a reproach to them. And so, the sinful great 
 corrupt others, both as aiding them in their debaucheries, and 
 in order not to be reproached by their virtues, and because the 
 sinner has a corrupt pleasure and excitement in hearing of 
 tales of sin, as the good joy to hear of good. Whence St. Paul 
 says^, who, knowing thej'udgment of God that they which com- 
 mit such things are worthi/ of death, not only do the same, but 
 have pleasure in them that do them. 
 
 But whereas they all, kings, princes, and people, thus agreed 
 and conspired in sin. and the sin of the great is the most de- 
 structive, the Prophet here upbraids the people most for this 
 common sin, apparently because they were free from the 
 greater temptations of the great, and so their sin was the 
 more wilful. " An unhappy complaisance was the ruling cha- 
 racter of Israel. It preferred its kings to its God. Conscience 
 was versatile, accommodating. Whatever was authorised by 
 those in power, was approved." Ahab added the worship of 
 Baal to that of the calves ; Jehu confined himself to the sin of 
 Jeroboam. The people acquiesced in the legalised sin. Much 
 as if noM-, marriages, which by God's law are incest, or re- 
 
 * Deut. xxxii. 34, 5. « Rom. i. 32.
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 45 
 
 ch'iu'st ^ "^ They «)V' uU adulterers, as an oven 
 
 "'"• "'^"- heated hy the bakc^r, j| who ceaseth || from 
 
 II Or," ^' ^' raising after he hath kneaded the dough, 
 
 wiilmZ. until it he leavened. 
 "?w^™:: 5 In the day of our king the ])rinees 
 
 " ^he'auiLugh hiive made him siek || with hotth's of wine ; 
 
 niarriaijes of the divorced, whieh our Lord pronounces adul- 
 tery, were to l)e held alhnvahle, because man's law ceases to 
 annex any penalty to tlieni. 
 
 4. Theij are nil adulterers. 'V\w Prophet continues to 
 picture the corruption of all kinds and dejirees of men. ^/// af 
 them, kinir, princes, people; all were jEi;iven to adultery, both 
 spiritual, in departiiii;- from (iod, and actual, (for both sorts of 
 sins went toj;etiier,) in detilinir themselves and otiiers. All of 
 them were, (so the word ^ means,) habitual (idulterers. One 
 only pause there was in their sin, tiie preparation to complete 
 it. He likens their hearts, inflamed with lawless lusts, to the 
 heat of an oven which the haker had already heated. The un- 
 usual construction "burnin;2;/>o;« the baker -"instead of'" heat- 
 ed hji tiie baker" may have been chosen, in order to express, 
 how the fire continued to burn of itself, as it were, (although at 
 first kindled by the baker) and was ever ready to burn whatever 
 was brought to it, and even now was all red-hot, burning; on 
 continually ; and Satan, who had stirred it, gave it just this re- 
 spite, //-ow; the time when he had kiteaded the dough ■\ until the 
 leaven which he had put into it, had fully worked, and the 
 whole was ready for the operation of the fire. 
 
 The world is full of such men now, ever on fire, and paus- 
 ing only from sin, until the flatteries, whereby they seduce 
 the unstable, have worked and penetrated the whole mind, and 
 victim after victim is gradually leavened and prepared for sin. 
 
 5. In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick 
 tvith bottles of wine [or, with heat from wine.^ Their holydays, 
 like those of so many Englishmen now, were days of excess. 
 The day of their king was probably some civil festival ; his 
 birthday, or his coronation-day. The Prophet owns the king, 
 in that he calls him our king; he does not blame them for keep- 
 ing the day, but for the way in which they kept it. Their 
 festival they turned into an irreligious and anti-religious ca- 
 rousal ; making themselves like the brutes which perish, and 
 tempting their king first to forget his royal dignity, and then 
 to blaspheme the majesty of God. 
 
 He stretchedout his hand with scorners, as it is said*, ffitie 
 is a mocker {or scoffer) . Drunkenness, by taking oft' all power 
 of self-restraint, brings out the evil which is in the man. The 
 scorner orsco/fer is one who neither fears God nor regards man'-', 
 but makes a jest of all things, true and good, human or divine. 
 Such were these ciu-rupt princes of the king of Israel ; with 
 these he stretched out the hand, in token of his good fellowship 
 Avith them, and that he was one with them. He withdrew his 
 hand or his society from good and sober men, and stretched it 
 out, not to punish these, but to join with them, as men in drink 
 reach out their hands to any whom they meet, in token of their 
 sottish would-be friendliness. With these, the king drank, 
 jested, played the bufi"oon, praised his idols, seoft'ed at God. 
 The flattery of the bad is a man's worst foe. 
 
 G. I^or thei/ hare made ready their heart like an oreu. He 
 gives the reason of their bursting out into open mischief; it 
 
 O'SWO - i-iBND my3 3 The E. V. wlw ceaseth from raising, 
 
 and the E. M. the raiser will cease, me.in the same thing. 
 
 he stretched out his hand with senrners. „S'^,''Tcm 
 
 C H It I ST 
 
 For they iiave H made ready their heart "'^- '"^- 
 like an oven, whiles they lie in wait : their ""■■■ "'''''"'''• 
 baki^r sleepeth all th(; niglit ; in the morn- 
 ing it l)uriietli as a flaming fire. 
 
 7 Tliey are all hot as an oven, and have ^"'f""' 
 
 was ever stored up within. They made ready, lit. brought near 
 their heart. Tiieir heart was ever brought niu:h to sin, even 
 while the occasion was removed at a distance from it. '■ The 
 oren is their heart ; the fuel, their corrupt affections, and incli- 
 nations, and evil coiK-upisccncie, with which it is filled ; their 
 haker,\\\eiT own evil will and imagination, which stirs up uhat- 
 ever is evil in them." The Projdiet then pictures how, while 
 they seem tor a while to rest from sin, it is but whilst thei/ 
 lie in wait ; still, all the while, they made and kept their iii-arts 
 ready, full of fire for sin and passion ; any l)reathiiig-time 
 from actual sin was no real rest ; the heart was still all on fire ; 
 i)i the morning, right early, as soon as the occasion came, it 
 burst forth. 
 
 The same truthis seen, where the tempter is without. .Such, 
 whether Satan or his agents, having lodged the evil thuught 
 or desire in the soul, often feign themselves asleep, as it were, 
 " letting the fire and the fuel which they had inserted, work 
 together," that so the fire pent-inmightkindle more thorough- 
 ly and fatally, and the heart being filled and penetrated with 
 it,might burst out of itself, as soonas the occasion shcuild come. 
 7. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their 
 judges. Plans of sin, sooner or later, through God's over- 
 ruling providence, bound back upon their authors. The wis- 
 dom of God's justice and of His government shews itself the 
 more, in that, without any apparent agency of His own, the 
 sin is guided by Him, through all the intricate mazes of hu- 
 man passion, malice, and cunning, back to the sinner's bosom. 
 Jeroboam, and the kings who followed him, had coiTupted the 
 people, in order to establish their own kingdom. They had 
 heated and enflamed the people, and had done their work 
 completely, for the Prophet says. They are all hot as an oven ; 
 none had escaped the contagion ; and they, thus heated, burst 
 forth and, like the furnace of Xebuciiadnezzar, devoured not 
 only what was cast into it, but those who kindled it. The 
 heathen observed, that the " artificers of death perished by 
 their own art." 
 
 Probably the Prophet is describing a scene of revelry, de- 
 bauchery, and scofiing, which preceded the murder of the un- 
 happy Zechariah ; and so fills up the brief history of the Book 
 of Kings. He describes a profligate court and a debauched 
 king; and him doubtless, Zechariah'^; those around him, de- 
 lighting him with their wickedness ; all of them habitual adul- 
 terers ; but one secret agent stirring them up. firing them with 
 sin, and resting only, until the evil leaven had worked through 
 and through. Then follows the revel, and the ground why 
 they intoxicated the king, viz. their lying-in-wait. '• For.'' he 
 adds, " they prej)ared their hearts like a furnace, when they lie 
 in wait." The mention of dates, of facts, and of the connec- 
 tion of these together ; " the day of our king ;" his behaviour ; 
 their lying in wait; the secret working of one individual; 
 the bursting out of the fire in the morning; the falling of their 
 kings ; looks, as if he were relating an actual history. We 
 
 ■• Prov. XX. 1. The word is the same, i''? or pn^. 
 ^ See lutrod. p. 5. 
 
 N 
 
 i S. Luke xviii. 4.
 
 46 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 chrTst devoured their judges ; "^ all their kings'' 
 ""■ ''^°- are fallen : ' their is none among them tiiat 
 i'*2 kiiiKs 15. calleth unto me. 
 
 i A'l^ilnk 7.'"' 8 Ei)hraini,heMuith mixed himself among 
 " ^'^' '"''• '^''' the people ; Ephraini is a eake not turned. 
 
 know that Zechariah, of wlioiii lie is speaking, was slain 
 throiii;li cc>ns])iracy publicly in the open face of day, "before 
 all the people," no one hee(lins;-,no onercsistinii". Hosea seems 
 to supply the moral aspect of the liistory,how Zechariah fell in- 
 to this fjcncral contempt ; how, in him, all which was good 
 in the house of Jehu expired. 
 
 ^/l their kings have fallen. The kinjjdom of Israel, hav- 
 inijheen set up in sin, was, throujihout its whole course, unsta- 
 bleand unsettled. Jeroboam's house ended in his son ; that of 
 Baasha, who killed Jeroboam's son, Nadab, ended in bis own 
 son, Elali ; Omri's ended in his son's son, (iod havinjj delayed 
 the punishment on Ahab's sins for one generation, on account 
 of his partial repentance ; then followed Jehu's, to whose house 
 God, for his obedience in some thini;s, continued the kingdom 
 to the fourth gc)ier<itioii. With these two exceptions, in the 
 houses of Omri and Jehu, the kini^s of Israel either left no 
 sons, or left them to be slain. Nadab, Elah, Zimri. Tibni, Je- 
 horam, Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, l^ekah, were put to 
 death by those who succeeded them. Of all the kings of Is- 
 rael, Jeroboam, Baasha, Omri, Menahcm, alone, in addition 
 to Jehu and the three next of his house, died luitural deaths. 
 So was it written by God's hand on the house of Israel, a/l 
 their kings hare fit/len. The captivity was the tenth change 
 after they had deserted the house of David. Yet such was the 
 stupidity and obstinacy both of kings and people, that, amid 
 all these chastisements, none, either people or king, turned to 
 God and prayed Him todeliver them. Not even distress, amid 
 which almost all betake themselves to God, awakened any 
 sense of religion in them. There is none among them, that 
 calleth unto Me. 
 
 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people ; i. e. 
 with the heathen ; he mixed or mingled himself among or 
 with them, so as to corrupt himself^; as it is said -, thei/ were 
 mingled among the heathen and learned their works. God 
 had forbidden all intermarriage with the heathen-^, lest His 
 people should corrupt themselves : they thought themselves 
 wiser than He, intermarried, and were corrupted. Such are 
 the ways of those who put themselves amid occasions of sin. 
 
 Ephraim is (lit. is become) a cake (lit. o« the coals) not 
 turned. The Prophet continues the image*. Ephraim had 
 been mingled, steeped, kneaded up into one. as it were, with the 
 heathen, their ways, their idolatries, their vices. God would 
 amend them, and they, withholding themselves from His dis- 
 cipline, and not yielding themselves wholly to it, were but 
 spoiled. The sort of cake, to which Ephraim is here likened, 
 nggah \ lit. cirrular, was a thin pancake, to which a scorching 
 heat was applied on one side ; sometimesby means of hot char- 
 coal heaped upon it ; sometimes, (it is thought.) the fire was 
 within the earthen jar, around which the thin dough was fit- 
 ted. If it remained long unturned, it wa.s burnt on the one 
 side, while it f ontinued unbaked, doughy,reeking,on the other; 
 the fire spoiling, not penetrating it through. Such were the 
 people ; such are too numy so-called Christians ; they united 
 
 1 Thcword 773 is used not ofmingling only, hut of aniinglingwliicli involved confusion, 
 (as in the origin of the name ISahd, Gen. xi. 7,) or contamination, (as in hzT\.) 
 
 - Ps. cvi. 35. 2 Ex. xxxiv. 12-10. ■■ The word, /ia(/j Ming W, includes also 
 
 9 ' Strangers have devoured his strength, (, jf jffg ^ 
 and he knovveth it not : yea, gray hairs "''• ^^- 
 are f here !vnd there upon him, yet hel^n^ 
 
 th. 8. 7. 
 
 npr 
 
 ihlded. 
 
 knoweth not. 
 
 10 And the'" pride of Israel testifieth tOm„i,. 5.5 
 
 in themselves hypocrisy and ungodliness, outward peiform- 
 ance and inward lukewarmness ; the one overdone, but with- 
 outanywholesome effect on tbe other. The one was scorched 
 and black; the other, steamed, damp, and lukewarm ; the whole 
 worthless, spoiled irremediably, fit only to be cast away. The 
 fire of God's judgment, with which the people should have been 
 amended, made hut an outward impression ujjon them, and 
 reached not within, nor to any thorough change, so that they 
 were but the more hopelessly spoiled through the means which 
 God used for their amendment. 
 
 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knotueth it 
 not. Like Samson, when, for sensual pleasure, he had betrayed 
 the source of his strength, and God had departed from him, Is- 
 rael knew not how or wherein his alliances with the heathen 
 had impaired his strength. He thought his losses at the hand 
 of the enemy, |)assing wounds, which time would heal ; he 
 thought not of them, as tokens of God's separation from him, 
 that his time of trial was coming to its close, his strength de- 
 caying, his end at hand. Israel was not only incorrigible, but 
 past feeling'', as the Apostle says of the heathen. The marks of 
 wasting and decay were visible to sight and touch ; yet he him- 
 self perceived not what all saw except himself. Israel had 
 sought to strangers for help, and it had turned to his decay. 
 Pul and Tiglath-pileser had devoured his strength, despoiling 
 him of his wealth and treasure, the fiower of his men, and the 
 produce of his land, draining him of his riches, and hardly op- 
 j)ressing him through the tribute imposed upon him. Buf'like 
 men quite stupified. they, though thus continually gnawed up- 
 on, yet suft'ered themselves willinglyto be devoured, and seemed 
 insensible of it." Yet not only so, but the present evils were the 
 forerunners of worse. Greyliairs, themselves the effects of de- 
 clining age and tokens of decay, are the forerunners of death. 
 "'^Thy grey hairs are thy passing-bell," says the proverb. 
 
 The Prophet repeats, after each clause, he knoiveth not. He 
 knoweth nothing ; he knoweth not the tokens of decay in 
 himself, but hides them from himself; lieknowcthnotGod,Who 
 is the Author of them ; he knoweth not the cause of them, his 
 sins; he knoweth not the end and objectofthem, his conversion; 
 he knoweth not,wliat,since he knoweth not anyof these things, 
 will be the issue of them, his destruction. Men hide from 
 themselves the tokens of decay, whether of body or soul. And 
 so death, whether of body or soul or both, comes upon them 
 unawares. "-Looking on the surface, heimaginesthatallthings 
 are right with him, not feeling the secret worm which gnaws 
 within. The outwardgarb remains ; the rules of fasting are ob- 
 served ; the stated times of prayer are kept; but the heart is far 
 from Me, saith the Lord. Consider diligently what thou lovest, 
 what thou fearest, whereat thou rejoicest or art saddened, 
 and thou will find under the habit of religion a worldly mind ; 
 under the rags of conversion, a heart of perversion." 
 
 10. ^-ind the pride of Israel testifieth to his face. His pride 
 convicted him. All the afflictions of God humbled him not ; 
 yea, they but brought out his pride, which " ' kept him from 
 
 doubtless the meaning oi kneaded up with, 3 hhz, as in Lev. ii. 4, 5. &c. 
 
 •i Eph. iv. 19. " "■ '■'^' '■" *' '"■ *■•'— -■ — • 
 
 Proverb. 
 
 ing o{ kneaded up with, 3 7173, as m Lev. ii. 4, 5. &c. ' njy 
 
 ' lit. "Thy grey hairs are the proclaimer of thy death," an .\rabie 
 » S. Bern. Serm. 2. in cap. jej. § 2, 3. ' Poc.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 47 
 
 chrTst '"'^ face: and " tlicy do not return to tlu; 
 
 '■'''•• "'^"- Lord their («<»(1, n<»r seek liini tor all this. 
 
 ° cr'ii II 1^ ^ " Epliraini also is like a silly dove 
 
 pSet2KinRs witliout heart : ''they call to Egypt, they 
 
 ch.r,. Ki.& go to Assyria. 
 1 Lek^'ia!!'!.?; 12 When they shall i>;o, 'i I will spread 
 my net upon them ; I Avill bring- them 
 
 acknowledijiiiiX and rcpciitina^ of the sins which had hrou^ht 
 those evils upon him, and tVoni fnnii/ii^- to God (iiid seeking to 
 ///■«/ for remedy." Men complain of their'-fortune" or "fate" 
 or "stars," and ijo on the more obstinately, to hnild up wliat 
 God destroys, to prop up hy human means or human aid what, 
 by God'.s Providence, is failiufj; they venture more desperately, 
 in order to recover past losses, until the crash at last becomes 
 hopeless and final. 
 
 Nor seek Him for all this. God had exhausted all the 
 treasurcsof His severity, as, before, of His love. lie Himself 
 marvels at His incorrigible and contumacious servant, as He 
 says in Isaiah \ ffl']/ sliould ije he stricken antj more ? Ye will 
 revolt more and more. How is this ? It follows, because they 
 have no heart. 
 
 11. Ephraitn is lljecome^ like a silly dove. "There is no- 
 tliinc^ more simple than a dove," says the Eastern proverb. 
 Simplicity is f:;ood or bad. not in itself, but accordinu; to some 
 other qualities of the soul, jiood or evil, with which it is united, 
 to which it opens the mind. and which lead it to ji'ood or mislead 
 it to evil. The word- descriliesone, easily persuaded. open, and 
 so, one who takes God's word simply, obeys His Will, without 
 refineuient or subtlety or explaining;; it away; in which way it is 
 said ^, The Lord preserveth the simple ; or. on the other hand, 
 one who lets himself easily be led to evil, as the heathen said of 
 youth, that they were "like wax to be bent to evil." In this 
 way, it is said *, How long, ye simple ones, ivill ye love simpli- 
 city ? Our Lord uses this likeness of the dove, for i;ood ^, be 
 wise as serpents, simple, or harmless as doves. Ilosea speaks 
 of simplicity without wisdom ; for be adds, a silly dove without 
 understanding, (lit. icitlunit a heart,) whereby they should love 
 God's Will,and so should undcrstaiul it. Epbraim /»«■«»;('. he 
 says, like a silly dove. Nejiicctinc: God's calls, unmoved by 
 calamity or suftering;s,and not seeking to God/or all this which 
 He has done to recall them, they grew in fidly. Man is ever 
 growing in wisdom or in folly, in js^racc or in gracelessness. 
 This new stajije of folly lay in their Hying to Assyria, to help 
 them, in fact, against God ; as it follows, 
 
 They cull to Egypt, 
 and would help, they crt/Zef/ to Egypt whol-ould not, and «t^// 
 ^o ./S.S7//7V/ who would not. So God complains by Isaiah ", To 
 Me thou hast not called, O Jacob. This was their folly ; they 
 called not to God, Who had delivered them out of Egypt, ])ut, 
 alternately, to their two powerful ueigidKuirs. of whom Egypt 
 was a delusive promiser, not failing only, but piercing, those 
 who leant on it ; Assyria was a powerful oppressor. Yet what 
 else is almost the whole history of Christian states? The "ba- 
 lance of power," which has been the pride of the later policy of 
 Europe, wliich has been idolized as agod, to which statesmen 
 have h)oked, as a deliverance out of all their troubles ; as if it 
 were a sort of Divine Providence, regulating the aflairs of men, 
 and dispensing with the interference of God ; what is it Ijut 
 the self-same wisdom, which balanced Egypt against Assyria ? 
 
 M. 5. 2 nns 'Ps.cxvi. 6. •> Prov. i. 22. » S.Matt. x. 16. 
 
 ' Isai. xliii. 22. ?Ps. Iv. 6-8. 
 
 Instead oi' calling to God Who could 
 
 down as the foAvls of the heaven ; I will ch^rTst 
 chastise them, ' as their congregation hath ""'• "''"• 
 heard. ^ ' &r '"•'*• 
 
 13 Wo(! unto them! for they have fled &c." 2 Kings' 
 from me : f destruction unto them I^hJ^.V""- 
 because they have transgressed against 
 me : though " I have redeemed them,' Mic. c. 4. 
 
 12. When they go, (lit. ncrording as they go, in all circum- 
 stances of time or placn; or manner, when, wliitbersocver or 
 howsoever they shall go.) / irill spread My net upon I hem. so 
 as to surround and envelope tiiem on all sides and hold ilicm 
 down. The dove soaring aloft, witli speed like the storm- 
 wind ", is a jiicturc of freedom, indej»endcnce,impctuous,unhin- 
 dered, following on its own course; weak and timid, it trusts 
 in the skilfulness with which it guides its flight, to escape pur- 
 suit ; tbe«(7,witli itsthin slight meshes, betidvcns how weak in- 
 struments become all-sufiicient in the liands of the .Mmi'^litv • 
 the same dove, brought down from its almost \icwlcss beiglit, 
 fluttering weakly, helplessly, and hopelessly, under those same 
 meshes, is a picture of that same self-depeiulent spirit humi- 
 liated, overwhelmed by inevitable evils, against which it imjio- 
 tently struggles, from which it seems to see its escape, but bv 
 which it is held as fast, as if it lay motionless in iron. 
 
 As their congregation hath heard. Manifoldly had the 
 message of reward on obedience, and of punishment on disobe- 
 dience, conu'to Israel. It was spread throughout the law; it 
 fills the book of Deuteronomy ; it was concentrated in the 
 blessing and the curse on mount Ebal ami Gerizim ; it was jiut 
 into their mouths in the song of Moses ; it was inculcated by 
 all the prophets who had already i)rophesied to theni.and now 
 it was being enforced on that generation by Hosca himself. 
 Other kingdoms have fallen; but their fall, apart from Scrip- 
 ture, has not been the subject of prophecy. Their ruin has 
 come mostly unexpected, either by themselves or others. 
 
 1.'3. Jf'oe unto them, for they have Jled from Me. The 
 threatening rises in severity, as did the measure of their sin. 
 \Miereas '' Salvation belonged to God alone, and they only •' 
 abide under His shadow, «iio nuike Him their refuge, woe nmst 
 needs come on them who leave Him. ^^ They forsake their 
 own mercy. Tf'oe they draw upon themselves, who forget 
 God ; how nuich more then they, who wilfully and with a high 
 hand transgress against Him ! Destruction unto them, for they 
 have transgressed against Me. To be separated from God is the 
 source of all evils ; it is the "pain of loss" of God's Presence, in 
 hell; but destruction is more than this ; it is everlasting death. 
 
 Andl have redeemed them and they have spoken lies against 
 Me. The / and they are both emphatic in Hebrew '\ ■• / re- 
 deemed;" '-they s]M)ke lies." Svich is man's re(pntal of His (iod. 
 Oft as He redeemed, so often did they traduce Him. Such was 
 the history of the passage through tlie wilderness ; such, of the 
 period under the Judges ; such had it been recently, whenGod 
 delivered Israel bythehand of Jeroboam IF-. The word,///«ie 
 redeemed, deimtes " habitual oft-renewed deli\erance," •• that 
 He was their constant Kedeenu>r, frt)m A\'liom they had found 
 help, did still find it.aiul might yet lookto find it, if they did not, 
 by their ii! Itehaviour, stop the course of His favour towards 
 them^\" God's mercy overflowed their ingratitude. They 
 had spoken lies against Him, often as He had delivered them ; 
 He was still their abiding Redeemer. I do redeem them. 
 
 8 Ps. iii. S. ' lb. xci. 1, 2. '" Jon. ii.S. " nn rc.il disk ':]m 
 
 ^ 2 Kings xiv. 2.I-2/'. '^ Poc. 
 
 n2
 
 48 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 c i?iiTs T y^^ t^^y ^^"^'^ spoken lies against mc. 
 cir. 780. 24 t ^j^d ^],gy have not cried unto nie 
 
 'pt fa 31; "'with their lieart, when tliey liowled upon 
 Zech!'7!*5. their beds : they assemble themselves for 
 
 T/iei/ have spoken lies against 3Ic. Men speak lies ajj^aiiist 
 God, in tlit'ir hearts, tlieir words, their deeds, wlicnever they 
 harljoiir tlioiis^hts, speak words, or aet, so as to deny that God 
 is wliat lie is, or as to imply that He is not what He has de- 
 clared Hiniseit'to be. Whoever seeks any thinj^^ out of God or 
 ajrainst His VMll ; whoever seeks from man or from idols, or 
 from l'ortiine,or from his ownpowers.what ( Jod alone bestows ; 
 whoever acts as if God was not a g'ood God, ready to receive the 
 penitent, or a just God w)io will avenjje the holiness of His 
 laws and not clear the guilti/, does, in fact, speak lies against 
 God. Peojde, day by day, speak lies against (iod, against His 
 Wisdom, His Providence, His Justice, His (ioodncss. His Om- 
 niscience, when they are thinkinjj: of nothinij less. Jeroboam 
 spake lies against God, when he said,///e.«' he t hi/ gods, O Israel, 
 which hrought thee out of the land of Egypt, whereas God had 
 so often enforced upon thein\ the Lord redeemed you out of 
 the house ofhond)nen,froin the hand of Pharaoh king of Egi/jit ; 
 ~ the Lord thy God hrought thee out thence with a mighty hand 
 and stretched out arm. Israel spake lies against God, when he 
 %'OiiA'', these are my reicards ichich my lovers have given me, or 
 when they returned not to Him but called o)i Egypt, as though 
 Godwouldnot helpthem, Who said that He would, or as though 
 Egypt could help them, of whom God said that it should not. 
 Sometimes, they spoke out lies boldly, telling God's true pro- 
 phets that He had not sent them, or forbidding them to speak 
 in His Name ; sometimes covertly, as when they turned to 
 God, not sincerely but fcigncdly ; but always perversely. And 
 when God the Son came on earth to redeem them, then, still 
 more, they spoke lies against Him, all His life long, saying, He 
 deceivefh the people, niid alltheir other blasphemies, and "^vhen 
 He forgave them the sin of His death, saying, Eather, forgive 
 them, for they know not ichat they do, they persevered in speak- 
 ing lies against Him, and bribed the soldiers to speak lies 
 against Him," and themselves do so to this day. 
 
 14. u-lnd they have not cried unto Me tvith their heart, 
 when they liowled upon their beds, or, in the present time, they 
 cry not unto Me whoi they howl. They did cry, and, it may 
 be, they cried even unto God. At least, the Prophet does not 
 deny that they cried to God at aU ; only, he says, that they did 
 7iot cry to Him with their hearts. Their cries were wrung 
 from them by their temporal distresses, and ended in them, 
 not in God. There was no sincerityin their hearts, no change 
 in their doings. Their cry was a mere holding. The secret 
 conij)laint of the heart is a loud cry in the ears of God. The 
 impettu»usc/7/of impatient and unconverted suffering isamere 
 brutish howling. Their heart was set wholly on their earthly 
 wants ; it did not thank God for giving them good things, nor 
 cry to Him truly when He withheld them. 
 
 But, it may be, that the Prophet means also to contrast the 
 acts of the ungodly, private and public, amid distress, with 
 those of the godly. The godly man implores God in public and 
 in private. The prayeron the />«/, expresses the private prayer 
 of the soul to God, when, the world being shut out, it is alone 
 with Him. In place of this,there was the howling, as men toss 
 
 I Ex. XX. 2. Lev. xix. 36. xxiii. «. Num. xv. 41. Deut. v. 6, 15. 
 " Deut.vii. 8. add xiii. 5. xv. 15. xxiv. 18. ^ (.},. ii. 12. ■> Rup. 
 
 ' TiJ, when used of assembling, is always used of tumultuous assembling, as in Ps. Ivi. 
 6. lix. 3. cxl.2. Is. liv. 15. 
 
 corn and wine, and they rebel aj^ainst me. 
 15 Thous^h I II have bound and strenj;^th- 
 ened their arms, yet do they imaj^ine mis- 
 chief against me. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cjr. 780. 
 
 ckaftened. 
 
 fretfully and angrily on their beds, roar for pain ; but, instead 
 of conplaining ^jGod,complaino/Him,an(l are angry, not with 
 themselves, but with God. In place of the public j)rayer and 
 huniiliatioii, there was a mere tumultuous assembly, in which 
 they clanuuircd for corn and wine, and rebelled against God. 
 They assemble themselves ; Wt.they^ gather themselves tiimul- 
 tuously together. They rebel against Me j Wt. they turn aside 
 against Me. They did not only (as it is expressed el.sewhere) 
 " turn aside//'o«i God." They turn asldeagainst Me ", He savs, 
 dying, as it were, in the very face of God. This tumultuous 
 assembly was either some stormy civil debate, how to obtain 
 the corn and wine which God withheld, or a tumultuous cla- 
 mouring to their idols and false gods, like that of the priests 
 of Baal, when arrayed against Elijah on Mount Carmel; where- 
 by they removed the further from God's law, and rebelled with 
 a high hand against Him. 
 
 "' What is to cry to the Lord, but to long for the Lord ? But 
 if any one multiply prayers, crying and weeping as he may, yet 
 not with any intent to gain God Himself, but to obtain some 
 earthly or passing thing, he cannot truly be said to cry unto 
 the Lord, i. e. so to cry that his cry should come to the hear- 
 ing of the Lord. This is a cry like Esau's, who sought no 
 other fruit from his father's blessing, save to be rich and pow- 
 erful in this world. When then he saith, Tliey cried not to 
 Me in their heart, d^'c. he means, they were not devoted to Me, 
 their heart was not right with Me ; they sought not Myself, but 
 things of Mine. They howled, desiring only things for the 
 belly and seeking not to have Me. Thus they belong not to 
 the generation of those who seek the Lord, who .teek the face of 
 the God of Jacob ", but to the generation of Esau." 
 
 15. Though I have bound, rather, (as in the E. M.) And I 
 have chastened'*, I have strengthened their arms, and thej/ ima- 
 gine mischief against Me. God had tried all ways with them, 
 but it was all one. He chastened them in love, and in love 
 He strengthened them ; He brought the enemy upon them, (as 
 aforetime inthedaysofthe Judges,) and Hegavethem strength, 
 to repel the enemy ; as He raised up judges of old, and lately 
 had tiilfilled His promise which He made to Joash through 
 Elisha. But it was all in vain. Whatever God did, Israel was 
 still the same. All only issued in further evil. The Prophet 
 sums up in four words all God's varied methods for their re- 
 covei-y, and then sets over against them the one result, fresh 
 rebellion on the part of His creatures and His people. 
 
 They imagine or devise mischief against 3Ie. The order 
 in the Hebrew is emphatic, and against Me they devise evil ; 
 i. e. against 3Ie, Who had thus tried all the resources and 
 methods of Divine wisdom to reclaim them, they devise evil. 
 These are words of great condescension. For thecreatiire can 
 neither hurt not profit the Creator. But since God vouch- 
 safed to be their King, He deigned to look upon their rebel- 
 lions, as so many efforts to injure Him. AU God's creatures 
 are made for His glory, and on earth, chiefly man ; and among 
 men, chiefly those whom He had chosen as His people. In 
 that, then, they set themselves to diminish that glory, giving 
 
 ' Tins is in two words in Hebrew, '3 niD' 
 ^ Rup. ^ Ps.xxiv.G. ^ The two words a6ar,'^t<, hound, and issar "O*. chastened, 
 differ but by a letter in the Hebrew. Yet one is never put for the other. TheHeb.Comm. 
 whom the E. V. followed, did but guess from the context.
 
 CHAPTER Vlll. 
 
 49 
 
 Before 
 
 CJIRIST 
 
 cir. 7Si). 
 
 " cli. 11. 7. 
 » Vs.7S.i,7. 
 
 » ch. 9. 3, C. 
 
 Hi-h 
 
 16 " They return, hut not to tlie most 
 they lire like a (U;ceittul liow : 
 tlieir princes shall fall hy the sword for the 
 ^ ras^c of their tonu^ue : this shall be their 
 derision ' in the land of l<]i^ypt- 
 
 to idols ^, they, as far as in thcni lay, devised evil against Him. 
 Man would dethrone (iod, if he could. 
 
 16. T/iiy return, hut not to the most Hig/i. God exhorts 
 by Jeremiah -, 1/ thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, 
 return unto Me. They chang:cd, whenever they did change, 
 with a feigned, hypocritical conversion, but not to God, nor ac- 
 knowledging His Majesty. Man, until truly converted, tur)is 
 to and fro, nnstahly, hither and thither, changing from one evil 
 to another, from the sins of youth to the sins of age, from the 
 sins of prosperity to the sins of adversity ; but he remains him- 
 self unchanged. He turns, not to the most High. The Prophet 
 says this in three, as it were, broken words. They turn, '^ not 
 most High. The hearer readily filled up the broken sentence, 
 which fell, drop hy drop, from the Pi-ophet's choked heart. 
 
 TItey are like a deceitful bote, which, " howsoever the ar- 
 cher directs it, will not carry thcarrowrighthometotheniark," 
 but to other objects clean contrary to his will. "*God had, 
 as it were, bent Israel, as His own bow, against the tyranny of 
 the devil and the deceit of idolatry. For Israel alone in the 
 whole world cast aside the worship of idols, and was attached 
 to the true and natural Lord of all things. But they turned 
 themselves to the contrary. For, being bound to this, they 
 fought against God for the glory of idols. They became then 
 as a warped bow, shooting their arrows contrariwise." In 
 like way doth every sinner act, using against God, in the ser- 
 vice of Satan, God's gifts of nature or of outward means, 
 talents, or wealth, or strength, or beauty, or power of speech. 
 God gave all for His own glory ; and man turns all aside to do 
 honour and service to Satan. 
 
 Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their 
 tongue. The word, rendered ^ rage, is everywhere else used of 
 the wrath of God; here, of the wrath and foaming of man a- 
 gainst God. Jeremiahrelates how, the nearer their destruction 
 came upon Judah, the more madly the politicians and false 
 prophets contradicted what God revealed. Their tongue was 
 a sharp sivord. They sharpened their tongue like a sword ; and 
 the sword pierced their own bosom. The phrenzy of their 
 speech not only drew down God's anger, but was the instru- 
 ment of their destruction. They misled the people; taught 
 them to trust in Egypt, not in God ; persuaded them to believe 
 themselves, and to disbelieve God ; to believe, that the enemy 
 should depart from them and not carry them away captive. 
 They worked up the people to their will, and so they secured 
 their own destruction. The princes of Judah were especially 
 judged and put to death by Nebuchadnezzar'''. The like pro- 
 bably toolv place in Israel. In any case, those chief in power 
 are chief objects of destruction. Still more did these words 
 come true before the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Ro- 
 mans. They were maddened by their own curse, the rage of 
 their tongue against their Redeemer, His blood be on us and 
 on our children. Phrenzy became their characteristic. It was 
 the amazement of the Romans, and their own destruction. 
 
 This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. This, 
 i. e. all this, their boasting of Egypt, their failure, their de- 
 
 ' See Is. xlii. 8. 
 
 5 Dyi « Jer. Hi. 10. 
 
 ch. iv. 1. 
 ? XXX. 3, 5. 
 
 8 ch. Iviii. 1. 
 
 ^ S.Cyr. 
 « Ezck. xxxiii. S, 
 
 CH AFTER VI 1 1. 
 
 1, \2 Destruction is threatened for their impiety, 
 5 and idolatry. 
 the trun)j)et to f thy mouth 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.7(;i). 
 
 k3 shi 
 
 Ij ' ch.5.8. 
 tl'!\ Heb. 
 
 shall come '' as an eaj^Ie ai^ainst the fhymLuu 
 
 *> Dfut. 28. 49. Jer. 4. 13. Hab. 1. 8. 
 
 striiction, shall become their derision. In Egypt had tlicy 
 trusted ; to Egypt had they gone for succour ; in l>gypt should 
 they be derided. Su(-h is tlu! way of man. 'i"he world derides 
 those who trusted in it, sued it, courted it, served it, preferred 
 it to their God. Such are the wages, which it gives. So Isaiah 
 pro])hesied of Judah '', the strength of Pharaoh shall be your 
 shame, and the trust in the shadoic of JCgyjit your confusion. 
 They were all ashamed of a people that could )iot ftroflt them, 
 nor he an help nor profit, but a shiiine and also a re]iroach. 
 
 VIII. 1. The trumpet to thy mouth! So God bids the 
 prophet Isaiah**, Cry aloud, spare not, lift u]t thy voice like a 
 trumpet. The prophets, as watchmen, were set by God to give 
 notice of His coming judgments". As the sound of a war- 
 trumjtet would startle a sleeping people, so would (iod have 
 the Prophet's warning burst upon their sleep of sin. The 
 ministers of the Church are called to be'^watchnien^"." "They 
 too are forbidden to keep a cowardly silence, when the house 
 of the Lord is imperilled by the breach of the covenant or vi- 
 olation of the law. If fear of the wicked or false respect for 
 the great silences the voice of those whose oflice it is to cry 
 aloud, how shall such cowardice be excused ? " 
 
 He sliall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord. 
 The words "he shall come" are inserted for clearness. The 
 Prophet behfllds the enemy speeding with the swiftness of an 
 eagle, as it darts down upon its prey. The house of the Lord 
 is, most strictly, the Temple, as being the place which God liad 
 chosen to place His name there. Next, it is used, of the king- 
 dom of Judah and Jerusalem, among whom the Temple was ; 
 whence God says ^^, I hare forsaken My house, I have left 3Iine 
 heritage ; I have given the dearly-beloved of My soul into the 
 hands of her enemies, and ^-, What hath My beloved to do in 
 3Iine house, seeing she both wrought lewd)iess with many ? Yet 
 the title of God's house is older than the Temple ; for God Him- 
 self uses it of His whole people, saying of Moses ^^, My servant 
 Moses is not so,7vho is faithful in all Mine house. And even 
 the ten tribes, separated as they were fromtheTemple-worship, 
 and apostates from the true faith of God, were not, as yet, 
 counted by Him as wholly excluded from the house of God. 
 For God, below, threatens that removal, as something still to 
 Come;/o;- the iviekedncss of their doi/igs I will drive them out 
 of My house ^ '. The eagle then, coining down against or upon 
 the house of the Lord, is primarily Shalmaneser, who came 
 down and carried off the ten trilies. Yet since Hosea, in these 
 prophecies, includes Judah also, the house of the Lord is most 
 probably to be taken in its fullest sense, as including the whole 
 people of God, among whom He dwelt, and the Temple where 
 His Name was placed. The eagle includes then Neljuchadncz- 
 zar also, whom other prophets so calP=; and (since, all through, 
 the principle of sin is the same and the punishment the same) 
 it includes the Roman eagle, the ensign of their armies. 
 
 Because they have transgressed My covenant. "God, Whose 
 justice is always unquestionable, useth to make clear to men 
 its reasonableness." Israel had broken the covenant which 
 God had made with their fathers, that He would be to them a 
 
 Am. iii. G. '" Service for Ordering Priests. " Jer. xii. 7. '- lb. xi. 15. 
 
 " Num. xii. 7. " ch. ix. 15. '^ Ezek. xvii.3, 12. Jer. xlviii.^0. H.-.b.i.S. 
 
 O
 
 50 
 
 llOSEA, 
 
 c H lu s T liouse of the Lord, because ' they have trans- 
 "*•• '''"• gressed my covenant, and trespassed a- 
 
 " ch.6.7. • J. 1 
 
 ganist my uiav. 
 " Ih.lhl^' 2 '' Israel sliall cry unto me, My God, 
 •^ Tit. 1. 10. e ^yy know thee. 
 
 God, and they to Him a people. The covenant they had bro- 
 ken chiefly by idolatry and apostacy ; the laiu, by sins afjainst 
 tlieir nei!i:blHiur. In both ways they had rejected God ; tliere- 
 fore God rejected them. 
 
 2. Israel shall, cry unto Me, My God, we laiow Thee. 
 Or,according to tlicorder in the Hebrew, To Me shall they cry, 
 we know Thee, Israel, i. c. we, Israel, Thy people, know Thee. 
 It is the same plea which our Lord says tliat He shall reject 
 in the Day of Judgment ^ 3Iany shall say mtto Me in that 
 Day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy A^anie, and in 
 Thy Name cast out devils, and in Thy Name done many won- 
 derful works. In like way, when our Lord came in the flesh, 
 they said of God tlie Father, He is our God. But our Lord 
 appealed to tlieir own consciences -; It is My Father JFho 
 honoureth Me, of JVhom ye say. He is our God, hut ye hare not 
 knoirn Him. So Isaiah, when speakinc; of his own times, pro- 
 phesied of those of our Lord also "; This people dratceth nigh 
 unto Me with their mouth and honoureth 3Ie with their lips ; 
 hut their heart is far from Me. " God says, that tliey shall urge 
 this as a proof, that they know God, and as an argument to 
 move God to have respect unto them, viz. that they arc the seed 
 of Jacob, who was called Israel,because he prevailed with God, 
 and they were called by his name." As though they said, '■ we. 
 Thy Israel, know thee." It was all hypocrisy, the cry of mere 
 fear, not of love; whence God, using their own name of Israel 
 wliich they had pleaded, answers the plea, declaring what 
 Israel had become. 
 
 3. Israel has cast off the thing that is good, or (since the 
 word means " to cast ofl" with abhorrence") Israel hath cast <ff 
 and abhorred Good, both " Him who is Good" and " that which 
 is good." The word toh includes both. They rejected good in 
 rejecting God, "^Who is simply, supremely, wholly, universally 
 good, and good to all, the Author and Fountain of all good, so 
 that there is nothing simply good but God ; nothing worthy of 
 that title, except in respect of its relation to Him Who is good 
 and doing good =. So then whatsoever any man hath or enjoys 
 of good, is from his relation to Him, his nearness to Him, his 
 congruity with Him. " The drawing near to God is good to me. 
 All that any man hath of good, is from his being near to God, 
 and his being, as far as human condition is capable of, like unto 
 Him. So that they who are far from Him, and put Him far 
 from them, necessarily cast qfall that is good." 
 
 The enemy shall pursue kim. " Forsaking God, and forsaken 
 by Him, they must needs be laid open to all evils." Theenemy, 
 i. e. the Assyrian, shall pursue him. This is according to the 
 curse, denounced against them in the law, if they should for- 
 sake the Lord, and break His covenant, and not hearken to 
 His voice to observe to do His commandments''. 
 
 4. They have set np kings, but not by ME. God Himself 
 foretold to Jeroboam by Aliijah the prophet, that He would 
 rend the kingdoin out of the hands of Solonio7i,andgive ten tribes 
 to him,«;»/ would ^a^te him, and he should reign according to all 
 that his soul desired and should be king over Israel ^; and, after 
 the ten tribes had made Jeroboam king, God said by She- 
 
 > S.Matt. vii. 22. - S.John viii. 54. ^ S. Matt. xv.8. Is.xxix. 13. « Poc. 
 ' Ps. cxix. OS. 6 Ps. Ixxiii. 28. V Deut. xxviii. 15-25. 
 
 3 Israel hath cast off the tliinp; that is chhTst 
 good : the enemy shall pursue irini. *■"•• "''"• 
 
 4 '^ They have set up kings, but not by 13,1*25. 
 
 me : they have made princes, and I knew Meilihem, 
 
 it not : s of their silver and their gold „ l^^tn!"' 
 
 & h. 2. 
 
 maiah tlie prophet to Rehoboam and the two tribes ", Ye shall 
 not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel ; 
 return every man to his house ; for this thing is from Me. 
 
 Yet altliough here, as everywhere, man's self-will was over- 
 ruled by God's Will, and fulfilled it, it was not the less self- 
 will, I)oth in the ten tribes and in Jeroboam. It was so in 
 the ten tribes. For they cast off" Rehoboam, simply of their 
 own mind, because he would not lessen the taxes, as they 
 prescribed. If he would have consented to their demands, they 
 would liave remained his subjects ^". They set up kings, but 
 not bi/ or through God, Whom they never consulted, nor asked 
 His \\\\\ about the rules of the kingdom, or about its relation 
 to the kingdom of Judah, or the house of David. They re- 
 ferred these matters no more to God, than if there had been 
 no God, or than if He interfered not in the aflfairs of man. It 
 was self-will in Jeroboam himself, for he received the kingdom 
 (which Ahijali told him, he desired)noi from God, not enquiring 
 of him, how he should undertake it, nor anointed by Him, nor 
 in any way acknowledging Him, but from the people. And as^ 
 soon as he had received it, he set up rebellion against God, 
 in order to establish his kingdom, which he founded in sin, 
 whereby he made Israel to sin. 
 
 In like way, the Apostle say a^^, against Thy holy ChildJesus, 
 Whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, ivitli 
 the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for 
 to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before 
 to be done. Yet not the less did they sin in this Deicide ; and 
 the Blood of Jesus has ever since, as they imprecated on them- 
 selves, been on the Jews and on their children, as many as did 
 not repent. 
 
 As was the beginning of the kingdom of Israel, such was its 
 course. They made kings, but not from God. Such were all 
 their kings, except Jehu and his house. During 253 years, for 
 which the kingdom of Israel lasted, eighteen kings reigned over 
 it, out of ten different families, and no family came to a close, 
 save by a violent death. The like self-will and independence 
 closed the existence of the Jewish people. The Roman Em- 
 peror being afar off, the Scribes and Pharisees hoped, under 
 him, without any great control, to maintain their own autho- 
 rity over the people. They themselves, by their God forbid ! 
 ^- owned that our Lord truly saw their thoughts and purpose, 
 Tliis is the heir ; come let us kill Him, that the inheritance may 
 be ours. They willed to reign without Christ, feared the Hea- 
 then Emperor less than the holiness of Jesus, and in the words, 
 TFe have no king hut Ccesar, they deposed God, and shut them- 
 selves out from His kingdoin. 
 
 And I knew it not. " As far as in them lay, they did it vnXh.- 
 out His knowledge.-" They did not take Him into their coun- 
 sels, nor desire His cognizance of it, or His approbation of it. 
 If they could, they would have had Him ignorant of it, know- 
 ing it to be against His Will. And so in His turn, God knew 
 it not, owned it not, as He shall say to the ungodly, / know 
 you not ^^. 
 
 Of their silver and their gold have they made them idols. 
 
 8 1 Kings xi. 31, 37. » xii. 22-4. '" lb. -1. " Acts iv. 27- S. 
 
 '= S.Lultexx. 16. 
 
 " S. Malt. XXV. 12.
 
 CIIAl'TER VIII. 
 
 .)i 
 
 c hrTs t l^'J^ve they made them idols, that they may 
 
 "■•• """• be cut off. 
 
 5 ^[ Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast Hire 
 off; mine anger is kindled against them : 
 
 God liad imiltiplifd it to thoin, (as He said before^) and they 
 xinj^ratefullyaliusfd totlu'disliouourof tlic(]river,u'liat He j^ave 
 tliein to be used to Ilis glory. 
 
 T/iat the;/ tiKU/ he cut ()Jf^',\\i. tlidt he iiiai) he cut off'. The 
 whole people is s]tokeii of as one man, " one and all," as we 
 say. It is a fearful description of obstinate sin, that their very 
 object in it seemed to be their own destruction. They acted 
 with one will as one man, who liad, in all he did, this one end, 
 — to perish. " " As if on set purpose they would provoke de- 
 struction,and obstinately run themselves into it, although fore- 
 warned thereof." Holy Scripture speaks of that, as men's end, 
 at which all their acts aim. ' Thei/ see not, nor know, that they 
 inai/ be ashamed ; i. e. they blind themselves, as though their 
 whole object were, what they will bring upon themselves, tlieir 
 own shame. * They prophesy a lie in My Name, that I niight 
 drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the propliets that 
 propliisy unto you. This was the ultimate end of those false 
 prophecies. The false prophets of Judah filled them with false 
 hopes; the realandtrueendof those prophecies, that in which 
 they ended, was the ruin of those who uttered, and of those 
 who listened to them. We ourselves say almost proverbially, 
 " he goes the way to ruin himself;" not that such is the man's 
 own object, but that he obstinately chooses a course of conduct, 
 which, others see, must end in utter ruin. So a man chooses 
 destruction or hell, if he chooses those things which, according 
 to God's known law and word, end in it. Man hides from his 
 own eyes the distant future, and fixes them on the nearer ob- 
 jects which he has at heart. Godlifts the veil, and discovers 
 to him the further end, at which he is driving, which he is, in 
 fact, compassing, and which is in truth tlie end ; for his own 
 fleeting objects perish in the using; this and this alone abides. 
 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off. Israel had cast 
 ofFGod,his good. In turn, the Prophet says, the calf, which he 
 had chosen to be his god instead of the Lord liis God, has cast 
 him off. He repeats the word, by which he had described Is- 
 rael's sin, 5 Israel hath cast ojf and abhorred good, in order to 
 shew the connection of his sin and its punishment. '■ Thy 
 calf," whom thou madest for thyself, whom thou worshippest, 
 whom thou lovest, of whom thou saidst ^, Behold thy gods, 
 O Israel, tvhich brought thee up out of the land of Egypt ; 
 thy calf, in whom thou didst trust instead of thy God, it has 
 requited thee the dishonour thou didst put on thy God ; it hath 
 cast thee off us a thing abhorred. So it is with all men's idols, 
 which they make to themselves, instead of God. First or last, 
 
 I they all fail a man, and leave him poor indeed. Beauty fades ; 
 
 ' wealth fails ; honour is transfei'red to another ; nothing abides, 
 save God. Whence our own great poet of nature makes a 
 fallen favorite say, "had I but serv'd my God with half the 
 zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age have left me 
 naked to mine enemies." 
 
 Mine aiiger is kindled against them. Our passions are but 
 some distorted likeness of what exists in God without pas- 
 sion ; our anger, of His displeasure against sin. And so God 
 speaks to usafter the manner of men, and pictures His Divine 
 displeasure under the likeness of our human passions of anger 
 and fury, in order to bring home to us, what we wish to hide 
 
 1 ch. ii. 8. - Poc. 3 Is. xliv. 9. 
 
 ^Jer. xxvii. 15. ' ver. 3. n:i « 1 Kings xii. 28-31. ' Ps. ci. 5. 8 ig. j. 13. 
 
 '' liow long iritl it be ere they attain to ^ ^lil% f 
 iimocency ? "'• '""• 
 
 G For from Israel ica.s- it also : tl)e work- 
 man made it ; therefore it is- not God : but 
 
 from ourselves, the severe and awcful side of His Being, His 
 Infinite Iloliuess, and the truth, that He will indeed avenge. 
 He tells us, that He will surely ))unish ; as men, who are ex- 
 tremely incensed, execute their dis])kasiirc if they can. 
 
 J foil' long rrill it he ere they attain toitniorenry '' lit. haw 
 long will they not be ableinnocenc.y ? So again it is said, him 
 that hath an high look and a proud heart, I cannot ''; we supply, 
 suffer. N'ew moons and sabbaths I cannot ** ; our version adds, 
 away with, i. e. endure. So here probably. As they had v.ith 
 abhorrence cast off" God their good, so God says, they cannot 
 endure innocency ; but He speaks as wondering and aggriev- 
 ed at their hardness of heart and their obdurate holding out 
 against the goodness, which He desired for them. How long 
 7cill they not be able to endure innocency f " What madness this, 
 that when I give them place for repentance, they will not en- 
 dure to return to health of soul !" 
 
 G. For. This verse may assign the reasons of God's dis- 
 pleasure, mine anger is kindled ; or of Israel's impeniteney, 
 How long will it be ■' This indeed is only going a little further 
 back; for Israel's incorrigibleness was the ground oi'God's dis- 
 pleasiu'e. And they were incorrigible ; because they had them- 
 selves devised it ; for from Israel was it also. Those are es- 
 pecially incorrigible, who do not fall into error through igno- 
 rance, but who through malice devise it out of their own heart. 
 Such persons act and speak, not asseducedby others,but seduc- 
 ing themselves, and condemned by their own judgment. Such 
 were Israel and Jeroboam his king, who were not induced or 
 seduced by others to deem the golden calf to be God, but de- 
 vised it, of malicious intent, knowing that it was not God. 
 Hence Israel could be cured of the worship of Baal, for this 
 was brought from without by Jezebel ; and Jehu destroyed 
 Baal out of Israel. But of the sin of the calf they could not 
 be healed. In this sin all the kings of Israel were impenitent. 
 
 From Israel was it also. Their boast, that they were of 
 Israel, aggravated their sin. They said to God, ive, Israel, 
 know thee. So then their oflTence too, their brutishness also, 
 was from those who boasted themselves of bearing the name 
 of their forefather, Israel, who were the chosen people of God, 
 so distinguished by His favor. The name of Israel, suggest- 
 ing their near relation to God, and the great things whicli 
 He had done for them, and their solemn covenant with Him 
 to be His people as He was their God, should, in itself, have 
 made them ashamed of such brutishness. So S. Paul appeal- 
 eth to us by our name of Christians^, ie/ every one who nam- 
 eth the JVame of Christ depart from iniquity. 
 
 The leorknian made it, therefore it is not God. The work- 
 man was rather a god to his idol, than it to him ; for he made 
 it ; it was a thing made. To say that it was made, was to deny 
 that it was God. Hence the prophets so often urge this special 
 proof of the vanity of idols. No creature can be God. Nor 
 can there be anything, between God and a creature. "'" Every 
 substance which is not God is a creature ; and that which is 
 not a creature, is God." God Himself could not make a crea- 
 ture who should be God. The Arian heresy, which imagined 
 that God the Son could be a creature and yet an object of our 
 worship, or that there could be a secondary god, was folly ^^ 
 
 9 2 Tim. ii. 19. '" S. Auft. de Trin. i. 6. 
 
 I'SeeS. Atlianas.ogainstAriaiis,p.3.n.f.lO. u.l91.d.3Ul.c.411.b.423.m.Os!.Tr.
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 chrTst *^^<^ ^^^^ ^^ Samaria shall be broken in 
 - "''■ '"»• pieces, 
 
 iprov.22^8. y For 'they have sown the wind, and 
 tliey shall reap the whirlwind : it hath no 
 
 II Or, stand- 
 ini^ corn. 
 
 stalk : the bud shall yield no meal : if so be 
 
 as n'cU as blasphemy. They did not conceive wliut God is. 
 Thev had low, debased, notions of the Godhead. They knew 
 not tliat the Creator must be I'cmoved as infiiiitely above His 
 most exalted creature, as above the lowest. 
 
 Nor do the prophets heed any subtleties (such as the hea- 
 then alleged) that their idol nii<rht be indwelt by some influ- 
 ence. Since God dwelt not in it, any such influence could only 
 come from a creature, and that, an evil one. 
 
 The calf of Samaria shall he broken in pieces. The calves 
 were set up at Bethel and at Dan, but they were the sort of 
 tutelar deity of the ten tribes ; therefore tlicy are called the 
 calf of Samaria. They represented one and the same thing ; 
 whence they are called as one, the calf not '• calves." A thing 
 of nought it was in its origin, for it had its form and shape 
 from man ; a thing of nought it should be in its end, for it 
 should be hrukeii in pieces, or become chips, fragments, for fire^ 
 
 7. For the]/ hare soicn the trind, and tliey shall reap the 
 whirlwind. They shall reap, not merely as tliei/ have sown, 
 but with an avvcful increase. They sowed folly and vanity,and 
 shall reap, not merely emptiness and disappointment, but sud- 
 den, irresistible destruction -. They sowed the wind, and, as 
 one seed bringeth forth many, so the wind, " pcnn'd up," as it 
 were, in thisdestructive tillage, should "burst forth again, rein- 
 forced in strength, in mightierstoreand with greater violence." 
 Thus they reaped the ichirlwiml, yea, (as the word means) a 
 migltty whirhcind '. But the whirlwind which they reap doth 
 not belong to them ; rather they belong to it, blown away by it, 
 like chaff, the sport and mockery of its restless violence. 
 
 It hath no stalk. If their designs should for the time 
 seem to prosper, all should be but empty shew, disappointing 
 the more, the more it should seem to promise. He speaks of 
 three stages of progress. First, the seed should not send forth 
 the corn with the ear; it hath no stalk or standing corn ; even 
 if it advanced thus far, still the ear shoidd yield no meat ; or 
 should it perchance yield this, the enemy should devour it. 
 Since the yielding fruit denotes doing works, the fruit of God's 
 grace, the absence of the standing corn represents the absence 
 of good works altogether ; the absence of the meal, that no- 
 thing is brought to ripeness; the dcvouringhy the c?iemy, that 
 what would otherwise be good, is, through faulty intentions or 
 want of purity of pxirpose, given to Satan and the world, not to 
 God. '• * When hypocrites make a shew of good works, they 
 gratify therewith thelongingsof the evil spirits. For they who 
 do not seek to please God therewith, minister not to the Lord 
 of the field, but to strangers. The hypocrite, then, like a fruit- 
 ful but neglected " ear," cannot retain his fruit, because the 
 '•' car" of good works lieth on the ground. And yet he is fed 
 by this very folly, because for his good works he is honour- 
 ed by all, eminent above the rest ; men's minds are subject to 
 liim ; he is raised to high places ; nurtured by favours. But 
 then will he understand that he has done foolishly, when, for 
 the delight of praise, he shall receive the sentence of the re- 
 buke of God." 
 
 ' S'lme derive tlie word n'33ir from an Arabic root, lindled, others from a Talmudic 
 wovA. fnigmenL The word is tliesame as the Arabic Shehab, " that whereby fire is kindled," 
 fuel for (iic. The Talni. word may be no original word, but formed from the Heb. in tlie 
 sense which those writers conceived it to have in this place. 
 
 it yield, ^ the stran«,^ers shall swallow it up. (, i^jf^l^ t 
 
 8 ' Israel is swallowed up : now shall they ^■'"■■'i'''"- 
 be among the Gentiles "as a vessel where- 1 okgs.ir.o. 
 
 ■" .Ter. 22. 28. 
 & 48. 38. 
 ^ " 2 Kgs. 15. 19. 
 a o Jer. 2. 24. 
 
 in u no pleasure. 
 
 9 For " they are gone up to Assyria. 
 
 8. Israel is swallowed up. Not only shall all which they 
 have, be swallowed up by the enemy, but themselves also ; and 
 this, not at any distant time, but now. Now, at a time all but 
 present, ttiey shall he among the Gentiles, as a vessel wherein 
 is no pleasure, or, quite strictly, Now they have Iiecome, among 
 the Gentiles. lie speaks of what should certainly be, as though 
 it already were, .k vessel luherein is no pleasure, is what S. Paul 
 calls ^ a vessel to dishonour, as opposed to vessels to honour or 
 honourable uses. It is then some vessel put to vile uses, such 
 as people turn away from with disgust. Such has been the his- 
 tory of the ten tribes ever since ; sivalloived up, not destroyed ; 
 among the nations, yet not of them ; despised and mingled 
 among them, yet not united with them ; having an existence, 
 yet among that large whole,///e nations,vi\ whom their national 
 existence has been at once preserved and lost ; everywhere 
 had in dishonour; the Heathen and the Mohammedan have 
 alike despised, outraged, insulted, them ; avenging upon them, 
 unconsciously, the dishonour which they did to God. The 
 Jews were treated by the Romans of old as ofiiensive to the 
 smell, and are so by the Mohammedans of North Africa still. 
 " Never," says a writer of the fifth century ", "ha< Israel been 
 put to any honourable ofiice, so as, after losing the marks of 
 freedom and power, at least to have the rank of honourable 
 servitude ; but, like a vessel made for dishonourable offices, 
 so they have been filled with revolting contumelies." " The 
 most despised of those in servitude" was the title given by 
 the Roman historian to the Jews, while yet in their own land. 
 Wealth, otherwise so coveted, for the most part has not ex- 
 emptedthem fromdishonour,but exposedthem to outrage. In- 
 dividuals have risen to eminence in philosophy, medicine, fi- 
 nance ; but the race has not gained through the credit of its 
 members ; rather, these have, for the most part, risen to repu- 
 tation for intellect, amid the wreck of their own faith. When 
 Hosea wrote this, two centuries had passed, since the fame of 
 Solomon's wisdom (which still is venerated in the East) spread 
 far and wide; Israel was hated and envied by its neighbours,not 
 despised ; no token of contempt yet attached to them ; yet Ho- 
 sea foretold that it should shortly be; and, for two thousand 
 years,it has,in the main, been the characteristicof their nation. 
 9. For they are gone up to yissyria. The ground of this 
 their captivity is that wherein they placed their hope of safety. 
 They shall be presently swallowed up -.for they went to Assbur. 
 The Holy Land being then honoured by the special presence 
 of God, all nations are said to^'o up to it. Now, since Israel 
 forgetting God their strength and their glory, went to the 
 Assyrian for help, he is said to go up thither, whither he went 
 as a suppliant. 
 
 ^ icild ass alone by himself. "As the ox which knoiceth its 
 oicner,and the ass its Master's crib, represents each believer, of 
 Jew or Gentile ; Israel, who would not know Him, is called the 
 wild ass." The pere, or wild ass of the east, is "^ heady, unruly, 
 undisciplinable^,obstinate,ruiu»ing v,'ith swiftness far outstrip- 
 ping the swiftest horse '■', whither his lust, hunger, thirst, draw 
 
 - Hosea expressed this in four words ; nsp' .insai ijnt' nn. 
 3 The form .insia is intensive of ,1210. ■• S. Greg-. Mor. viii. 71. * 2Tira.ii. 20. 
 
 " Orosius App. Ruf. p. 431). Lap. ' Poc. '^ Pallas, Reisen iiL p. 511. " See Ker 
 Porter, Travels, i. p. 45". Its Hebrew names KT3 and perliaj-.s tivj are from sniftness.
 
 /.. 
 
 CIIAPTEIl VI I r. 
 
 53 
 
 <- „^,?'?''It. wild ass alone bv himself : I'^nliraim ■' liatli 
 '■■' ™" hired -j- lovers. 
 
 \i) Yea, though they have 
 the nations, now ' will 
 
 cir. 771. 
 P Isai. 30. fi. 
 Eze',, K;. 3:(, 
 34.- 
 
 J E,e''k.'i(^L*37. them, and they shall || sorrow 
 
 cli. 10. 10. II Or, be/^in. || Or, in a little, white, as Hag. 3. 6. 
 
 uiont^ 
 
 hired a- 
 I gather 
 I a little 
 
 for the burden of 'the k'uv^ of prinees. chkTst 
 11 IJeeaiise !']i)hraim liath made ma- "'" 
 
 . . .... ... 'Isai. 
 
 cir. 760. 
 
 , , , I II I t I • 'Isai. 10.8. 
 
 nv altars to sin, altars shall lie unto liim E/cU. 26.7. 
 
 ^ " . Dan. 2. ."57. 
 
 to sin. "ch. 12. 11. 
 
 12 I have written to hlin * tlie f^reat Ps. i i;t.' I's. 
 
 & 117.19,20. 
 
 liiin, without niltMirdircctioii, hardly to he tiiriicd asi(h" from 
 Ids ititciidt'd course." Ahliou^li often found in hands, one of- 
 ten hreaks away l)y liiinself, exposing; itself for a prey to lions, 
 whence it issaid, T/icwi/d ns.s is tlierK)n\s prei/ in tlicwildcrness^. 
 Wild as the Aral) was, a" wild ass's colt hy liiinself -" is to him 
 aproverb for one "siniiidar'^olistinate, pertinacious in hispur- 
 ])ose."' iSuch is man l)y nature '^; such, it was foretold to Ahra- 
 iiani, Fshmael would he', such, Israel ai^-ain became; ■•stuhl)oi-n. 
 heady, selfwilled, refusiiiii^ to he ruled by God's law and His 
 counsel, in which he ini!>ht find safety, and, of his own mind, 
 runninfj to the Assyrian," there to perish. 
 
 Ep/iriiii/i hath hired lovers or l<yves. The plural, in itself, 
 shews that they M'ere sinful loves, since God had said, a ni/iii 
 shall cleave iiiito /lis wife and they twain shall he one Jiesh. 
 These sinful loves or lovers she was not tempted by, but she 
 herself invited them ". It is a special and unwonted sin, when 
 woman, forsakinc; the modesty which God sives her as a de- 
 fence, becomesthc temptress. ''Likesucli abad woman, lurinjj 
 others to love her, they, forsjiking- God, to Whom as by cove- 
 nant of marriasi'c they oufjht to have cleaved, and on Ilim alone 
 to have depended, souf>-ht to make friends of the Assyrian, to 
 help them in their rebellions aa;ainst Him, and so put them- 
 selves to that charge (as sinners usually do) in the service of 
 sin, which in (iod's service they need not to have been at." 
 And yet that which God pictures under colours so oft'ensive, 
 what was it in human eyes ? The hire was presents of gold to 
 powerful nations, whose aid, humanly speaking, Israel needed. 
 iiut wherever it abandoned its trust in (jod, it adopted their 
 idols. " Whoever has recourse to human means, without con- 
 sulting God, or consulting whether He will, or will not bless 
 them, is guilty of unfaithfulness which often leads to many 
 others. He becomes accustomed to the tone of mind of those 
 whose protection he seeks, comes insensibly to approve even 
 their errors, loses purity of heart and conscience, sacrifices his 
 light and talents to the service of the powers, under whose sha- 
 dow he wishes to live under repose." 
 
 10. Yea, though thei/ have hired, or better, because or wlien 
 they hire among the heathen, noir will /gather them ; i. e. I will 
 gather the nations together. The sin of Israel should bring 
 its own punishment. He sent presents to the king of Assy- 
 ria, in order to strengthen himself against the Will of God ; 
 "he thought himself secured by his league made with them; 
 but he should find himself much deceived in his policy ;" he had 
 hired among them only ; now, ere long, very speedily, God Him- 
 self would gather them, i. e. those very nations, not in part, 
 but altogether, not for the helj) of Israel, hut for its destruc- 
 tion. As though a man would let out some water from a deep 
 lake ponded up, the water, as it oozed out, loosened more and 
 more the barriers which withheld it, until, at length, all gave 
 way, and the water of the lake was jioured out in one wide 
 wild waste, desolating all over which it swept. It may lie that 
 Assyria would not have known of, or noticed Israel, had not 
 Israel first invited him. 
 
 ' Ecclus. xiii. 19. -SeeinPoc. 3 fhe root in Arabic is the same as that here, -n:. 
 
 Poc. 4 Job xi. 12. s Gen. xvi. 12. * See Ezek. xvi. 33, 4. '' Is. x. S. 
 
 M Kings XV. 19, 20. 'x. l.xii. 11. '» 1 Kings xii. 30. " lb. xiii. 33,34. 
 
 u4nd they shall sorroic a little for the harden of the Idng of 
 jirinces. So great shall be flic biirdcn of t lie cajitixity hereaf- 
 ter that they shall then sorrow hut little for any burdens put 
 upon them now, and which they now feel so heavy. The king 
 of princes is tlu; king of Assyria, \vlio said ', y/re not my princes 
 altogether Aings '.' . The burden of which tliev coiii](laiiied will 
 then be the thousand talents of silver wliicii .Mcualicni aave to 
 l'ul,king of i\ssyria. to support him in his usurjiation. and in 
 order to pay which, he exacted the money of Israel, even of all 
 the mighty tnen of wealth, of each man /ifty shekels of silver *. 
 If we adopt the E. M., begin, we must render, and they shall 
 begin to be niinished through the burden of the king of the 
 princes, i. e. they shall be gradually reduced and liroiiglit low 
 through tlie exactions of the Assyrians, until in the end they 
 shall be carried away. This describes the gradual decav of 
 Israel, first through the exactions of Pul, then through the 
 captivity of Gilead by Tiglathpilescr. 
 
 1 1 . Because Kphraini hath made many at tars to sin. altars 
 shall indeed be unto him to sin, i. e. they shall be proved to 
 him to be so. by the punishment ^hich they shall dnwv upon 
 him. The Prophet had first shewn them their tolly in forsaking 
 God for the help of man ; now he shews them the folly of at- 
 tempting to '-secure themselves by their great shew and pre- 
 tences of religion and devotion in a false way." God had ap- 
 pointed one altar at Jerusalem. There He \\il]e(l the sacri- 
 fices to he ofiered, which He would accept, 'i'o multiply altars, 
 much more to set up altars against the one altar, was to mul- 
 tiply sin. Hosea charges Israel elsewhere with this multij)ly- 
 ing of altars, as a grievous sin. According to the multitude of 
 his fruit, he hath increased altars. Their altars are heaps in the 
 furrows of the field ". They pretended doubtless, that they did 
 it for a religious end, that they might thereon offer sacrifices 
 for the expiation of their sins and appeasing of God. They 
 endeavoured to unite their own self^vill and the outward ser- 
 vice of God. Therein they might deceive themselves ; but they 
 could not deceive God. He calls their act by its true name. 
 To make altars at their own pleasure and to ofter sacrifices up- 
 on them, under any pretence whatever, was to sin. So then, as 
 many altars as they reared, so often did they repeat their sin ; 
 and this sin should be their only fruit. They should be, but only 
 for sin. So God says of the two calves, This thing became a 
 sin 1", and of the indiscriminate (consecration of Priests (not of 
 the family of Aaron.) This thing became. >iiti untothe houseofJero- 
 hoaiii,even to cut it off and todestroyitfromthefaceoftheearth^^. 
 1'2. I have writtoi to him the great thinixs of My law : lit. 
 I write. Their sin then had no excuse of ignorance, (iod had 
 written their duties for them in the ten commandments with 
 His own Hand ; He had written them of old and manifoldly ^-, 
 often repeated and in divers manners. He wrote those mani- 
 fold things to thent [or for them] by Moses, not for that time 
 only, but that they might be continually before their eyes, as 
 if He were still writing. He had written to them since, in their 
 histories, in the Psalms. His words were still sounding in 
 
 '- TheE.V. translates the Kri.ormarginal correction. The meaning is much tlie same. 
 But the reading of tlie text,althougli often more dirticult, is almost always right Here, 
 •3- " ten thousand things,"as we say" a thousand times," i.e. manifoldly, againand again.
 
 54 
 
 IIOSKA, 
 
 chrTst thiiis>s of my law, hit I they wero rounti'd 
 
 rir. 7i'l>. 
 
 as a stranj:;*' thitii:;. 
 
 " z7ch!v?fi. 13 " il Thoy sacrifice flesh for the sa- 
 
 '' ?alrffiJs''of <Tifiees of mine otteriii<:;s, and eat it ; 
 
 TJ^sthe,^: ' />iit tlie Loan aeeepteth them not ; > now 
 
 « fc. u. w, will he rememher their ini({uity, and vi- 
 
 12. ch. 5. 6. & 9. 4. Amos 5. 22. y cli. 0. 0. Amos 8. 7. 
 
 their cars t"hroui:;h the tcarhinjjof tlic prophets. God did not 
 only irivc His hnv or rcvohition onrc for all. and so leave it. By 
 His Providence and hy His ministers He continually renewed 
 the knowledsje of it, so that those who ii;nored it, should have 
 no cx('use. This ever-renewed atjeney of (iod He expresses 
 hy the word, / write, what in suhstanee was lont;; airo written. 
 Wiiat (lod then wrote, were f/ici^renf things of His taio (as the 
 converted Jews, on the day of I'eiitecost, speak of t/ic great 
 or w(i)i(lcrft(l tilings of (iod \) or tlw manifohl things of His 
 law. as the zVpostle speaks o( the manifold ivisdoni of God'-, 
 and says that •' God at sundry times and in divers manners spake 
 in time past unto the fathers hy the proplirts. 
 
 Tliey were roanted asastrange thingliy them. These great, 
 or manifold things of God^s law. wliir-h ouii,ht to have Iteen 
 contiiHially before their eyes. in their mind and in their niouth\ 
 they, althouiih God had written them for them, eonnted as a 
 strange thing, a thinj^ ((uite foreign and alien to them, with 
 which they had no concern. Perhaps this was their excuse to 
 themselves, that it ■^vixa foreign to them. As Christians say 
 now, tiiat one is not to take God's laws so precisely ; that the 
 Gospel is not so strict as the law; that men.hefore the i^racc 
 of the Gospel, had to he stricter than with it ; that the liberty 
 of the Gospel is freedom, not from sin, I)ut from duty: that such 
 and such thini^s belonijed to the early Christians while they 
 were surrounded hy heathen, or to the first times of the Gos- 
 pel, or to the days wiien it was persecuted ; that riches were 
 dangerous, when people could scarcely have them, not now 
 when every one has them; that "vieelost half its evil, by losinij 
 all its £:rossncss'; " that the world was perilous, ■(\hen it was 
 the Christian's open foe. not now, when it would he friends 
 with us, and have us friends witli it ; that love not the world was 
 a precept for times when the world hated us, not now, when it 
 is all around us, and steals our hearts. So Jeroboam and Is- 
 rael too doubtless said, that those i)rohibitions of idolatry were 
 necessary, when the heathen were still in the land, or while 
 their forefathers were just fresh out of K^ypt ; that it was, 
 after all, God, Who was worshipped under the calves ; that 
 state-policy required it ; that Jeroboam was appointed by God, 
 and must needs carry out that appointment, as he best could. 
 With these or the like excuses, he must doubtless have ex- 
 cused himself, as thouii'h God's law were i;dod. but foreign to 
 them. God counts such excuses, not as a plea, I)ut as a sin. 
 
 13. 7V/CV saeri five Jlesh for the sacrifice of Mine offerings 
 and eat it ; but the Lord aeeepteth them not. As they rejected 
 (iod's law, so God rejected their ,?«r/v'/frw, which were not of- 
 fered accordini;- to His law. They doubtless thoup,ht much 
 of their sacrifices ; and this the Prophet perhaps expresses by 
 an intensive form ^ ; the sacrifices of My gifts, gifts, as though 
 they thouifht that they were ever ijivino;. God accounted such 
 sa<"rifices, not beine: hallowed by the end for which He institut- 
 ed them, as mere flesh. They offered flesh and ate it. Such 
 
 ' rk iii-yaXtia Tov Bioii Acts ii. 11. - Eph. iii. 10. ^ Heb. i. 1. 
 
 ■• Dcut. vi. 7-9. 5 Burke on the French Revolution. 
 
 * lanin is an intensive form from z.-^ gave. See above on iv. 18. 'I lie word occurs 
 here only, and was probably made by Hosea. 
 
 sit their sins : '■ they shall return to Ejj:ypt. ^. ^ff°\\ ,j. 
 
 14 'For Israel hath for«^otten "his Ala- "'■''''**■ 
 ker, and ' huildeth temples; and .ludah' ch™9.'3,6. ' 
 hath multiplied fenced eities : hut '' I wilh 'iW S2. i8. 
 send a fire upon his eities, and it shall de- i;^b."2.'io.' 
 vour the palaces thereor. d jer. 17. 27. 
 
 Amos 2. 5. 
 
 was the bef!:inning, and such the only end. He would not ac- 
 cept them. Nay, contrariwise, now.w^nv while they were offer- 
 ing' \\w. sacrifices, (iod uould shew in deed that He remembered 
 the sins, for which they were intended to atone. God seems 
 to man to forf;et his sins, when He forbears to punish them ; 
 to remember them, when He punishes. 
 
 7Viey shall return to Kgiipt. (iod had commanded them 
 to return no more to I'lrypt "' , of their own mind. But He had 
 threatened that, on their disobedience, the Lord would bring 
 them back to Kgijpt hi/ the wity tchereof He spake unto them, 
 Thou shall see it tio more again **. Hosea also foretells to them, 
 that they (i. e. many of them) should go to Egypt and perish 
 there '^ Thence also, as from Assyria, they were to be restor- 
 ed '". Most probably then, Hosea means to threaten an actual 
 return to Egypt, as we are told that some of the two tribes 
 did go there for refuge, against the express command of God". 
 The main part of the ten tribes were taken to Assyria, yet as 
 they were, even under Hoshea, conspiring with Egypt ^, such 
 as could (it is likely) took refuge there. Else, as future de- 
 liverance, temporal or spiritual, is foretold under the image of 
 the deliverance out of Egypt, so, contrai'iwise, the threat, they 
 shall return to Egypt, may be, in figure, a cancelling of the co- 
 venant, whereby God had promised that His people should 
 not return ; a threat of renewed bondage, like the Egyptian; 
 an abandonment of them to the state from which God once 
 had freed them and liad made them His people. 
 
 14. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker. God was his 
 Maker, not only as the Creator of all things, but as the xVuthor 
 of his existence as a people, as He saith ^■', hath He not made 
 them and established them ? 
 
 And buildeth temples; as for the two calves, at Bethel 
 and Dan. Since God had commanded to build one temple 
 only, that at Jerusalem, to build temples was in itself sin. The 
 sin charged on Ephraim is idolatry : that of Judah is self-con- 
 fidence^^; whence Isaiah blames them, that they were busy 
 in repairing the breaches of the city, and cutting oft" the sup- 
 plies of water from the enemy ; hut ye have nut looked unto 
 the 3Iaker thereof, neither had respect unto Him that fashioned 
 it long ago^'. Jeremiah also says, they shall impoverish the 
 fenced cities, wherin thou trustedst, with the sword "'. 
 
 But I will send a fire upon his cities. In the letter, the 
 words relate to .Tudah ; but in substance, the whole relates to 
 both. Botli had forgotten God ; both had ofiended Him. In 
 the doom of others, each sinner may read his own. Of the 
 eities of Judah, Isaiah says. i/(nir country is desolate. your cities 
 are burned with fire^''. and in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, 
 (some twelve years probably after the death of Hosea) Sen- 
 nacherib came up against all the cities of Judah and took tliem^'*; 
 and of .Jerusalem it is related, that Nebuchadnezzar " Awrw/ 
 the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses 
 of Jerusalem, and every great tna)i's house he burnt with fire. 
 
 7 Deut. xvii. IG. « lb. xxviii. 08. ' ch. ix. 3, 6. 
 
 "> ch. \i. 11. " Jer. xlii. xliii. '^ 2 Kings xvii. 4. 
 
 >■* Deut. xxxii. (5. " See Introd. p. 5. •* ch. xxii. 11. "' ch. v. 1". 
 
 , 1. /. 
 
 18 2 
 
 Kings xviii. 13. 
 
 i« lb. XXV. 8,9.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 55 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 760. 
 
 ch. 4. 12. 
 
 &5. 4,7. 
 
 CIlAI'TEIl IX. 
 
 Tlic disfres.s and riip/irifi/ of Israel for their 
 sins and idolatry. 
 
 REJOICE not, O Isnu'l, for joy, us 
 other people : for thou " hast gone ti 
 
 Man set them on fire ; God brought it to pass ; and in order to 
 teaeh us that He doetli all tliiiijrs, %\\''\\\% all good, overruling 
 all evil, saitli that He was the doer of it. 
 
 IX. 1. liejoiee not. () Israet.for/oi/. as oihcr peo/i/e; lit. re- 
 joiee not to exultation, so iXii to hound and leap for joy'. The 
 Prophet seems to come across tlie people in the midst of tlieir 
 festivity and mirth, and arrests them hy abruptly stopping it, 
 telling them, tliat they iiad no eause for joy. Hosea witnessed 
 days of Israel's prosperity under Jeroboam II. ; tiie land had 
 peaee under Menahem after the de{)arture of I'ul ; I'ekaii uas 
 even strong, so as, in his allianee \\\\\\ Rczin, to l)e an olijeet of 
 terror to Judah -, until Tiglatli-Fileser eame against him. At 
 some of these times, Israel seems to have given himself to ex- 
 uberant mirth, whether at harvest- time, or on any other ground, 
 enjoying the present, secure for the future. < )ii this rejoicing 
 Hosea breaks in with his stern, rejoiee not. " 'In His Pre- 
 sence is fulness of Joj/, true, solid, lasting joy." How then 
 could Israel joy; who had gone a tvhoring from his God f Other 
 nations might joy ; for they had no imminent judgment to fear. 
 Their sins had been sins of ignorance : none had sinned like 
 Israel. They bad not even * changed their gods which were no 
 gods. If othi'r people did not thank (iod for His gifts, and 
 thankedtheir idols, theyhadnot been taught otherwise. Israel 
 had been taught, and so his sin was sin against light. Whence 
 God says by Amos % You only have I known of all the families 
 of the earth ; therefore I will punish j/ou for all your iniquities. 
 "^ It was ever the sin of Israel to wish to joy as other nations. 
 So they said to Samuel, mahe us it Aing to judge us like all the 
 nations. And when Samuel told the people the word of God, 
 they have rejected Me that I should )iot reign over them,X\w\ still 
 said, Nay, hut tve will have a king over us, that we may he like 
 all the nations'' . This was the joy of the nations, to have an- 
 other king than God, and with this joy Israel wished to exult, 
 when it asked for Saul as king; when it followed Jeroboam ; 
 when it denied Christ before the presence of Pilate, saying. JFe 
 have no king hut Cersar. But the ])eople who received the law, 
 and professed the worship of God, might not exult as other 
 people who had not the knowledge of God, that, like them, it 
 should, after forsaking God, be allowed to enjoy temporal pros- 
 perity, like theirs. He says, rejoice not like the nations, viz. 
 for it is not allowed thee. Why ? for fhou hast gone a whoring 
 from thy God. The punishment of the adulteress who departs 
 by unfaithfulness from her husband, is other than that of the 
 harlot, who had never plighted her faith, nor had ever been 
 bound by the bond of marriage. Thou obtainedst God for thy 
 Husband, and didst forsake Him for another, yea, for many o- 
 thers, in the desert, in Samaria, even in Jerusalem, for the gold- 
 en calves, for Baal, and the other monstrous gods, and last- 
 ly, when, denying Christ, thou didst prefer Barabbas. Rejoice 
 not then, with the joy of the nations; for the curses of the law, 
 written against thee, allow thee not. ^ Cursed shall thou he in 
 the city, cursed in the field ; cursed thy basket and thy store ; 
 
 ' As in Job iii.22. - Is. vii. ^ Ps.xvi. 11. ■• Jer. ii. 11. * iii. 'J. ' Rup. 
 
 ^ 1 Sam. viii. ,"), 10,7, 19, 20. » Deut. xxviii. 10-19. » Ps. cv. 45. '" ii. 12. viii.9. 
 
 Ezek. xvi. 31, 34. Mic.i.7. "Rup. "- vii. 13. " The fact tliat Greelc or 
 
 whoring from tliy Ciod, tliou hiist loved cfnTsT 
 a ''reward || upon every eornfloor. cir. 760. 
 
 2 'The floor and the 
 not feed them, and thi; new wine shall fail" d'. 2.9, 12. 
 
 I y Or, winefut. 
 
 m her. I Lev. 25. 23. 
 
 3 They shall not dwell in ''the Lord's i^il/''*' 
 
 1 11 l" Jer. 44. 17. 
 
 Winepress sliali ch. 2. 12. 
 
 Or, in. Sfc. 
 
 cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and t lie fruit of thy land ; 
 the increase of thy kineand the flocks of thy sheep; cursed thou 
 in thy coining in and cursed thmi in thy going out. Other na- 
 tions enjoyed the fruit nf their own lalxoirs ; thou tookest the 
 laljours of others as a hire, to observe His laws'''." 
 
 Thou hast loved a reward [Wt.the hire^" of a harlotlow every 
 corn-floor. Israel had no heart, except for temporal prosperity. 
 This be loved, wheresoever he tVtund it ; ami so. oti every corn- 
 floor, whereon the fruits of the eartli were gathered for the 
 thresliing. he received it from his idols, as the hire, for whicli 
 be praised them "for the good things which lie bad received 
 from abetter Giver." ""Perverse love! Thou oughtest to love 
 God, to use His rewards. Thou lovedst the reward, despisedst 
 (iod. So tlien thou wenfcst a whoring from thy God, because 
 thou didst turn away tin- love wberewitli thou oughtest to love 
 God, to love the hire ; and this not sparingly, nor any how. but 
 on everr/ barn-floor, with avarice so Ijoundlcss and so deep, 
 that all the barn-floors could not satisfy thee." The iirst- 
 fruits. and the free-will ofiVring, they retained, turned them a- 
 way from the service of God, and offered them to their idols. 
 
 2. The floor and winepress shall not feed them. (Jod turn- 
 eth away whollyfrom the adulterous jjcople, andtelleth others, 
 how justly they shall be dealt with for this. " Because she 
 loved My reward, and despised Myself, the reward itself shall 
 be taken away from her." When the blessings of God have 
 been abused to sin. He. in mercy and judgment, takes them 
 away. He cut them ott", in order to shew that He alone. Who 
 now \i'ithbeld them, had before given them. When they 
 thought themsches most secure, when the corn was stored on 
 the floor, and the grapes were in the press, then God would 
 deprive them of them. 
 
 And the neiv wine shall fail in her or shall fail her; lit. 
 shall lie to her. It may be, he would say that as Israel had lied 
 to his (iod, ami Und spoke/i lies against IIim^-,i^o. \n re(|uital, 
 the fruits (»f tlie earth sbouhl disappoint her. and holding out 
 hopes which never came to pass, should, as it were, lie to her, 
 and, in the bitterness of her disa])pointment, represent to her 
 her own failure to her God. The Prophet teaches through the 
 M-orkings of nature, and gives, as it were, a tongue to them 1^. 
 
 3. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land. The earth is 
 the Lord's and the fulness thereof. Yet He had chosen the land 
 of Canaan, there to place His people ; there, above others, to 
 work His miracles ; there to reveal Himself; there to send His 
 Son to take our flesh. He had put Israel in possession of it, to 
 hold it under Him on condition of obedience. Contrariwise, 
 (iod had denounced to them again and again ;''//' thine heart 
 turn away, so that thou icilt not hear, but shall be drawn away, 
 ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thoupass- 
 est over Jordan to possess it. The fifth commandment, 'Mhe 
 first commandment with promise, still implies the same con- 
 dition, that thy days may be long in the land tvhich the Lord 
 thy Godgiveth thee. God makes the express reserve that the 
 
 Latin poets use tiic saii\e language without any moral reference is no reason why there 
 sliould l)e none such in a prophet's. The)/ spoke the language of earthly disappoint- 
 ment ; At declares the judgment of God. '•• Deut. XXX. 17, IS. '^ Eph. vi. 2.
 
 oG 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 CHilTsT lsi"<l ; ' '>»it Epliniiiii sliall n'turn to Eirypt, 
 cir. 7tin. .,,,,! ff],,.y sliall cat unclean tlii)i<i:s- "in As- 
 
 ■■ eh. 8. 13. . ■ 
 
 Ml. 5. syna. 
 
 t!y'pV"t's"it; 4 '' TlK'y shall not oflFer wine offerinf^.s to 
 
 o't'iiVi'um"-" the Lord, ' neither shall they be pleasing 
 
 age as bad as tliat. 
 f E/.ek.4. IS.Dan. 1.8. 8 2 Kings: 17.6. ch. 11. II. i-ch.S.^ i Jer.6. 20. ch.8. 13. 
 
 land is His. T/ic /and slmll not be sold for ever ; for the land 
 is Mine ; for ye are strangers and sojourners with 3'Ie '. It was 
 then an ag\i;;ravation of their sin, that they liad sinned in (icid's 
 land. It \vas to sin in His special Presence. To offer its 
 lirst-tViiits to idols, was to disown God as its Lord, and to own 
 His adversary. In reniovinif them, then, from His land, God 
 removed them from occasions of sin. 
 
 Jhit E])hraiin shall return to Egi/pt. He had i)rolien the 
 (covenant, whereon (iod had promised that they should not re- 
 turn there-. They had recourse to Ei^ypt asjainst the Will 
 of (jod. Airainst their own will, they should l)e sent hack 
 there, in hanishment and distress, as of old, and in se])aration 
 from their (Jod. 
 
 ^■ind they shall eat unelean things in ^/sst/ria. So in Eze- 
 kieP, The children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among 
 the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Not to eat things com- 
 mon or unclean was one of the marks which God had i;iven 
 them, wherehy He distinj:;uishe(l them as Ilis people. While 
 God owned them as His peoj)le, He would ])rotect them ai;ainst 
 such necessity. Tlie histories of Daniel, of Eleazar and tiie 
 Maccahees ■*, shew how sorely pious Jews felt the compulsion 
 to eat things unclean. Yet this douhtless Israel had done in 
 his own land, if not in other ways, at least in eating thinijs of- 
 fered to idols. Now then, throus-h necessity or constraint they 
 were to he forced, for their sustenance, to eat thinirs unclean, 
 sucii as were, to them, all thinj;s killed with the hlood in them ; 
 i. c. as almost all thinifs are killed now. They mIio had wil- 
 fully transijressed God's law, should now he forced to li\^e in 
 the hahitual hreach of that law in a matter which placed them 
 on a level with the heathen. People, who have no scruple a- 
 bout hreakini>" (lod'.s moral law, feel keenly the removal of any 
 distinction which ])la('es them al)ove others. Thev had been 
 as heathen; they should be in the coimition of heathen. 
 
 4. They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord. The 
 wine or drinh offering was annexed to all their burnt olferinijs, 
 and so to all their public sacrifices. The burnt offerina,- (and 
 with it the meal and the wine offering,) was the daily niorn- 
 ing and evenina,- sacrifice \ and the sacrifice of the Sabbath ^. 
 It was offered together with the sin offering on the first of the 
 month, the Passover, the feast of the first fruits, of trumpets, 
 of tabernacles, and the Day of Atonement, besides the special 
 sacrifices of that day ''. It entered also into private life *. The 
 drink offering accompanied also the peace offering'. As the 
 burnt offering on which the offerer laid his hand '", and which 
 was wholly consumed by the sacred fire wliich at first fell from 
 heaven, expressed the entire self-devotion of the offerer, that 
 he owed himself wholly to his God ; and as the peace ottering 
 was the expression of thankfulness which was at peace with 
 (iod ; so the outpouring of the wine betokened the joy, which 
 accompanies that entire self-oblation, thatthankfulness in self- 
 devotion of a so\il accepted by God. In denying, then, that 
 Israel should offer wine offerings, the Prophet says, that all the 
 
 ' Lev.xxv.23. - See ab. on viii. 13. 3 jy. i3_ 4 Dan. i.8. 2 Mace. vi. vii. ^ E.\. 
 xxix. 38-41. Num. xxviii. 3-8. « lb. 9. ^ lb. 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 21, 26, 7, 31). 
 
 Lev. i. Num. xv. 3, 10. « Num. xv. 8, 10. 
 
 unto liini : "^ their saerifiees .slifill hr unto ciuust 
 them as the bread of mourners ; all that eat "" ■ ^''"- 
 thereof shall be pollute<l : for their bread' "'"'■^- "' 
 ' for their soul shall not come into the house > Lev. 17. n. 
 of the Lord. 
 
 xxix. 11,1,2, 5,7, 8, 12-38. 
 
 '" Lev. 1. 4. " Hi. 4. 
 
 joy of their service of God, nay all their public service, should 
 cease. As he had before said, that they sliould hn for many 
 days without saerifice^^,HO now,he says, in fact, that they should 
 live without the prescribed means of pleading to (iod the A- 
 tonement to come. Whence he adds. 
 
 Neither shall they he pleasing to the Lord ; toi' they should 
 no longer have the means ])rescrii)ed for reconciliation HTtli 
 (iod '-. Such is the state of Israel now. (iod apj)ointed one 
 way of reconciliation with Hin)self, the Sacrifice of Christ. 
 Sacrifice pictured this, and pleaded it to Him, from the fall 
 until Christ W'uw^vM' appeared, once in the end of the world, to 
 put away si/i l,y the Sacrifice of Himself ^^. Soon after, when 
 time had been given to the Jews to learn to acknowledge Him, 
 all t)loody sacrifices ceased. Since tlien, the Jews have lived 
 without that means of reconciliation which God appointed. 
 It availed, not in itself, but as being appointed by God to fore- 
 shadow and plead that one Sacrifice. So He Who, by our 
 poverty and void, awakens in us the longing for Himself, 
 would through the anomalous condition, to which He has, by 
 the orderings of His Divine Providence, brought His former 
 j)eople, call forth in them that sense of need which would bring 
 them to Christ. In their half obedience, they remain under 
 the ceremonial law which He gave them, although He called 
 them, and still calls them, to exchange the shadow for the 
 substance in Christ. But in that theycannotfulfil the require- 
 ments of the law, even in its outward form, the law, which 
 they acknowledge, bears witness to them, that they are not liv- 
 ing according to the mind of God. 
 
 Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourn- 
 ers. He had said that they should not, sacrifice to God, when 
 no longer in the Lord's land. He adds that, if they should 
 attempt it, their sacrifices, so far from being a means of accep- 
 tance, should be defiled, and a source of defilement to them. 
 yill which was in the same tent or house with a dead body, was 
 unclean fur seven days^K The bread, which they ate then, was 
 defiled. If one unclean by a dead body touched bread or pot- 
 tage or any meat, it was unclean^". In ottering the tithes, a 
 man was commanded to declare, / have not eaten of if in my 
 mourni>ig^^. So wouldGod impress on thesoui the awefulness 
 of death, and man's sinfulness, of which death is the punish- 
 ment. He does not say, that they would offer sacrifices, but 
 that their sacrifices, if offered as Ciod did not command, would 
 defile, not atone. It is in human nature, to neglect to serve 
 God, when He wills it, and then to attempt to serve Him when 
 He forbids it. Thus Israel, affrighted by the report of the 
 spies''^, would not go up to the promised land, when God com- 
 manded it. When God had sentenced them, not to go up, but 
 to die in the wilderness, then they attempted it. Sacrifice ac- 
 cording to God's law. could only be ottered in the promised 
 land. In their captivity, then, it would be a fresh sin. 
 
 For their bread for their soul, or is for their soul, i. e.for 
 themselves; it is for whatever use they can make of it for this 
 
 ^- The word'z'""^ shall be pleasing, is most naturally understood of the persons of 
 whom it had just been said, they shall vol offer, not of the wirie for this is the object, not 
 the subject : and is in the singular, not the plural. ^^ Heb. ix. 20. ^■^ Num. xix. 14. 
 1* Hag. ii. 12, 13. "■ Deut. xxvi. 14. '7 Num. xiv.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 57 
 
 5 What will ye do in "■ the solemn day, 
 cir. 700. and in the day of the feast of the Lord ? 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 t Heh'.spoii. 6 For, lo, they are a^one because of f de- 
 
 vc'r/s. ' struetion : " Egypt shall i;-ather them up, 
 
 " 'fih.rMi Memphis shall bury them : || f the pleasant 
 
 be dt'siri'd, the nettle, S;c, f Heb. tlic desire. 
 
 life's iicc<ls, to support life. Notliiiijj of it would be adiiiitted 
 into the hoiisf of the Lord, ns ofl'ered tolliin or accepted by Hiui. 
 
 5. JFIiatwill j/e iloin the solemn day f ]Man is eoutent to 
 remain far from God.so tliat(iod do not shew hini.tliat He has 
 withdrawn Himself from him. Man would fainhavethe power 
 t)f drawing near to diid in time of calamity or when he him- 
 self likes. He would fain have God at his command, as it 
 were, not be at the command of God. God cuts off this hope 
 altoijether. He sinj^Ies out the e:reat festivals, which comme- 
 morated His prreat doings for His people, as though they had 
 110 more share in those mercies. The more solemn the day, 
 the more total man's exclusion, the more manifest God's with- 
 drawal. To one shut out from His service, the days of deep- 
 est religious joy became the days of deepest sorrow. Mirth is 
 turned into heaviness. To be deprived of the ordinary daily 
 sacrifice was a source of continual sorrow; how much more, in 
 t/iedai/s o/'their^7rt(/«f,v,s\in which they were hidden to rejoice 
 before the Lord, and " in which they seemed to have a nearer 
 and more familiar access to God." True, that having separat- 
 ed themselves from the Temple, they had no right to celebrate 
 these feasts, which were to be held in the place which God had 
 chosen to place His name there. Man, however, clings to the 
 shadow of God's service, when he has parted with the substance. 
 And so God foretold them before", that He would mahe all 
 their mirth to cease. 
 
 6. For lo, thei/ are gone because of destruction. They had 
 fled, for fear of destruction, to destruction. For fear of the 
 destruction from Assyria, they were fled away and gone to 
 Egypt, hoping, doubtless, to find there some temporary refuge, 
 until the Assyrian invasion should have swept by. But, as be- 
 fals those who flee from God, they fell into more certain de- 
 struction, 
 
 Egypt shall gather them wp, SIcmphis shall hury thon. 
 They had fled singly, in making their escape from the Assy- 
 rian. Egypt shallreceive them, and shallgat her them together, 
 hut only to one common burial, so that none should escape. 
 So Jeremiah says"\ They shall not be gathered nor /juried ; and 
 Ezekicl*, Thon shall not he hronght together, nor gathered. 
 Memphis is the Greek name for the Egyptian Mamphta, 
 whence the Hebrew Moph ° ; or Manuph, whence the Hebrew 
 Noph ^, It was at this time the capital of Egypt, whose idols 
 God threatens''. Its name, "the dwelling of Phta," the Greek 
 Vulcan, marked it, as a seat of idolatry ; and in it was the ce- 
 lebrated courtof Apis''. the original of Jeroboam's calf. There, 
 in the home of the idol for whom they forsook their God, they 
 should be gathered to burial. It was reputed to be the burial- 
 place of Osiris, and hence was a favourite burial-place of the 
 Egyptians. It once embraced a circuit of almost 19 miles °, 
 with magnificent buildings ; it declined after the building of 
 Alexandria ; its very ruins gradually perished, after Cairo rose 
 in its neighbourhood. 
 
 The 2jleasant])h\cc»for their silver, nettlesshall possess them. 
 
 places for their silver, " nettles shall possess j, jf jf/lx 
 them : thorns sliall he in their tabernacles. ""• "''°- 
 
 7 The days of visitation are eome, the'M.Kjijfsj. 
 days of recompent'o arc eome; Israel shaU p Kzc^k./ii!!,' 
 know it : the prophet is a fool, ■' the •{- spiri- Mi'c.2.ii. 
 
 f \{e\>. man of the spirit. Zeph..'i.4. 
 
 I Num. X. 10. 
 
 ■ cli. ii.ll. 
 
 ' viii. 2. ■• xxix.o. ^ here. 
 
 ^ Is. xix. 13. Jer. ii. IG. xliv. l.xlvi. 14. Ezek.xxx. ISsqq. " EzeV.l. c. 
 
 8 Herod, ii. 153. 9 Diod. Sic. i.51. l»ver.6. "Ani.vi.3. 
 
 '2 The form yapp in passive. It is used of one driven to distraction through distress, 
 
 The E.M. gives the same sense in different words; their sil- 
 ver shall he desired ; (as Oljadiah saifh '", his hidden treasures 
 were searched out) nettles shall inherit thctn. In either way, it 
 is a picture of utter desolation. 'J'he long rank grass or the 
 nettle, waving amid man's habitations, looks all the sadder, as 
 betokening that man once was there, and is gone. The deso- 
 late house looks like the grave of the departed. According to 
 either rendering, the silver which they once had treasured, 
 was gone. As they had inherited and driven out (the word is 
 one) the nations, whose land God had given them, so now net- 
 tles and thorns should inherit thon. These should be the only 
 tenants of their treasure-houses and their dwellings. 
 
 7. The days of visitation are ctnne. The false jtropiiets had 
 continually hood-winked thcpeople.promisingtheni.thatthose 
 days would never come. They hadjnitfar away the evil day ^^. 
 Now, it was not at hand only. In God's purpose, those days 
 were come, irresistible, inevitable, inextricable ; days in which 
 God would visit, what in Ilis long-suffering. He seemed to 
 overlook, and would recompense each according to his icorAs. 
 
 Israel shall know it. Israel would not know by believing 
 it; now it should knoic, by feeling it. 
 
 The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad. The true 
 Prophet gives to thefalsethe titlewhich they claimed for them- 
 selves, the prophet and the man of the spirit. Only the event 
 shewed what spirit was in them, not the spirit of God but a 
 lying spirit. The men of the world called the true proi)hets, 
 ?««f/, lit. maddened, f/;vY'e7j?«tff/^-, as Festus thought of S.Paul''; 
 Thou art beside thyself : much learning doth make thee mad. 
 Jehu's captains called Iiy the same name the young prophet 
 whom Elislia sent to anoint him. Wherefore came this mad fel- 
 low i/nto thee'^*? Shemaiah, the false prophet, who deposed 
 God's priest, set false priests to be ojfic.ersintheltouseofthe Lord, 
 to have an oversight as to every man who is mad and maketh 
 himself a prophet , calling Jeremiah both a false prophet and 
 a madman '=. The event was the test. Of our Lord Himself, 
 the Jews blasphemed, He hath a devil and is mad i*. And long 
 afterwards, " madness," "phrenzy" were among thc-iiames 
 which the heathen gave to the faith in Christ '^. As S. Paul 
 says, that Christ crucified was to the Greeks and to them that 
 perish, foolishness, and that the things of the Spirit nf God are 
 foolishness to the natural man,7ieither can he knoiv i\\em,because 
 they are spiritually discerned'^^. The man of the world and the 
 Christian judge of the same things by clean contrary rules, use 
 them for quitecontraryeiuls. Thcslaveof pleasure counts him 
 mad, who foregoes it; the wealthy trader counts him mad, who 
 gives awaj' profusely. 1 n these days, profusion for the love of 
 Christ has been counted a ground for depriving a man of the 
 care of his property. Oneortheother wmad. And worldlings 
 must count the Christian mad ; else they must own themselves 
 to be somostfearfully. IntheUayof Judgment. Wisdom says'^. 
 They, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall say 
 within themselves, This teas he whont we had sometimes in dtri- 
 
 (Deut. xxviii. 31.) and of loss of reason, 1 Sam. xxi. 1 C. 
 " 2KinKsix.ll. '^ Jer.xxix. 25, G. Tl 
 
 " Actsxxvi.24. 
 mgsix.ll. '■> jer. XXIX. :;o, ii. The word is the .same. 
 
 '« S. John X. 20. '' SeeTertul. Apol.l.p.4.andondeTest. An. p.l3G. 
 
 not. s. t. Oxf. Tr. " 1 Cor. i. 18, 23. ii. 14. '^ Wisd. v. 3-C.
 
 r)8 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 c ifiiTs T ^-^'^^ '"'^" *•' 1"'"'' f"i' tlie multitude of 
 cir. 7U0. thine ini<[uitv, and the s>Teat Imtred. 
 
 1 Jer.(i.l7. 
 Sr31.fi. 
 
 aTsi'?.'^'' ^vith my God: hut the pro])het is 
 
 8 The 1 uiitchninn of Ephraim was 
 th my God : but the pro])het is 
 a snare of a fowler in all his ways 
 
 sioit (tiid a proverb ofreproncli. We fools roimted his life mad- 
 ness, and /lis end to he without Iiononr. ILnu is he niiinhereil 
 anionfi' the ehildren of (lud, and his lot is amo/ig the siiints I 
 
 .For the niiittitiide of tliiiie iiiiijiiifi/ ami the great hatred. 
 The words stand at the close of the verse, as the reason of all 
 which had i;one hetbre. Their )nanifoldiniq?iiti/andthcirgreaf 
 hatred of God were the ground why the dai/s of visitation and 
 reeompenres\\ou\d come. They were tlie jjround also, why God 
 allowed such prophets to delude them. The words, the great 
 /;«/;•«/, stand quite undefined, so that they may sis^nify alike the 
 hatred of Ephraim aii^ainst God and ifood men and His true 
 prophets, or God's hatred of them. Yet it, most likely, means, 
 their £,Teat hatred, since of them theProphetusesit again in the 
 next verse. The sinner first neglects God; then, as the will of 
 God is hrought before him, he wilfully disobeys Him ; then, 
 when he finds God's Will irreconcileably at variance with his 
 own, or when God chastens him, he hates Him, and (the Pro- 
 phet speaks out plainly) hates Him greatly. 
 
 8. The ivatchman of Ephraim was tvith mi; God. These 
 words may well contrast the office of the true prophet with the 
 false. For Israel had had many true prophets, and such was 
 Hosea himself now. The true prophet was at all times with 
 God. He was with God, as holpen by God. watching or look- 
 ing out and on into the future by the help of God. He was 
 with God, as walking with God in a constant sense of His Pre- 
 sence, and in continual communion with Him. He was with 
 God, as associated by God with Himself, in teacliing, warning, 
 correcting, exhorting His people, as the Apostle says^, wc then 
 as ivorkers together with Him. 
 
 It might also be rendered in nearly the same sense, Ephra- 
 im teas a irutchman with my God, and this is more according 
 to the Hebrew words-. As though the whole people of Israel 
 had an office from God, " ' and God addressed it as a whole, 
 'I made thee, as it were, a watchman and prophet of God to the 
 neighbouring nations,that tlirough My Providence concerning 
 thee, and tiiy living according to the law, they too might re- 
 ceive the knowledge of JMe. But thou hast acted altogether 
 contrary to this, for thou hast become a snare to them."' 
 
 Yet perhaps, if so construed, it would rather mean, "Ephra- 
 im iii a watchman, besides my God," as it is said, * There is none 
 upon earth, that I desire with Thee, i. e. beside Thee. In God 
 the P.<alnii.st had all, and desired to have nothing w?Y/i, i. e. be- 
 sides God. Ephraim was not content with God's revelations, 
 but would himself be a seer, an espier of future events, the Pro- 
 phet says with indignation, together with my God. God, in 
 i'actjsufficed Ephraim not. Ahali hated God's prophet,because 
 he did not speah good crtiicernitig him, hut evil''. And so the 
 kings of Israel had court-prophets of their own, an establish- 
 ment, as it would seem, of four hundred and fifty prophets of 
 Baal,and four luuulredprophcts of Ashtaroth", which wasfilled 
 up again by new impostors", when, after the miracle of Mount 
 Carmel, Elijah, according to the law^, put to death the pro- 
 phets of Baal. Tliese false prophets, as well as those of Judah 
 in her evil days, flattered the kings who supported them, mis- 
 
 ' 2 Cor. vi. 1. - nsx not being in construction with Ephraim. 
 
 3 Tlicod. 1 Ps. ]xxi:i.25. M Kgs. xxii. 8, IS. •* lb. .wiii. 19. 
 
 in the house of his God. (, ul^W t 
 
 cir. 7'JO. 
 
 and hatred 
 
 'They have deeply eorrufited thnn 
 
 1 • 1 1 ,. ^,.. ... .. II Or, against. 
 
 .sclff.s, as m the days oi "(iibcali: ^fhcrrfdrc' isai.Si.6. 
 
 1 ... ,,.... , .„ ch.10.9. 
 
 he will remember their lOKiuity, he will" ju(is.iy.22. 
 Visit their sins. 
 
 led them, encouraged them in disbelieving the thrcatcnings 
 (if God, and so led to their destruction. By these means, the 
 bad priests maintained their hold over the people. They were 
 the Anti-(;hrists of theOld Testament, disputing the authority 
 of God, in Whose Name they i)r(jphesied. Ephraim encou- 
 raged their sins, as God saysof Judah by Jcrcmmh, 3fy peo^tle 
 love to hare it so °. It willed to be deceived, and was so. 
 
 "On searching diligently ancient histories," says S.Je- 
 rome," I could not find that any divided the Church, or seduced 
 ])cople from the house of the Lord,excej)t those who have been 
 set by God as priests and prophets, i.e. watchmen. These then 
 are turned into a snare, setting a stumbling-block everywhere, 
 so that whosoever entereth on their ways, falls, and cannot 
 stand in Christ, and is led away by various errors and crooked 
 paths to a precipice." " No one," says another great father ^°, 
 '•'doth wider injury tlian one who acteth perversely, while he 
 hath a name or an order of holiness." '•' God endureth no 
 greater prejudice from any than from priests, when He seeth 
 those whom He has set for the correction of others, give from 
 themselves examples of perverseness, when 7ve sin, who ought 
 to restrain sin. — What shall become of the flock, when the 
 pastors become wolves ? " 
 
 The i'iilse prophet is the snare of a fotrlcr in (lit. npon) all his 
 luays ; i. e. whatever Ephraim would do, wherever the people, 
 as a whole or any of them, would go, there the false prophet 
 beset them, endeavouring to make each and everything a means 
 of holding them back from their God. This they did, heiiig 
 hatred in the house of his God. As one says^\ lam (all) prayer, 
 because he was so given up toprayer that beseemed turned into 
 prayer ; his whole soul was concentrated in prayer ; so of these 
 it is said, they were hatred. They hated so intensely, that their 
 whole soul was turned into hatred; they were, as we say,hatred 
 personified; hatred was embodied in them, and they ensouled 
 with hate. They were also the source of hatred against God 
 and man. And this each false prophet was in the house of his 
 God ! for God was still his God, although not owned by him as 
 God. God is the sinner's God to avenge, if he will not allow 
 Him to be his God, to convert and pardon. 
 
 9. They have deeply corruj^ted themselves ; lit. they have 
 gone deep, they are corrupted. They have deeply immersed 
 themselves in wickedness ; have gone to the greatest depth 
 they could, in it; they are sunk in it, so that they could 
 hardly be extricated from it ; and this, of their own deliberate 
 intent ; they contrived it deeply, hiding themselves, as they 
 hoped, from God. 
 
 As in the days of Gibeah^ when Benjamin espoused the 
 cause oi the children of Belial who had wrought such horrible 
 brutishness in Gibeah towards the concubine of the Levite. 
 This they maintained with such obstinacy, that, through 
 God's judgment, the whole tribe perished, except six hundred 
 men. Deeply they must have already corrupted themselves, 
 who supported such guilt. Such corruption and such obsti- 
 nacy was their's still. 
 
 Therefoi'e he will remember their iniquity. God seemed 
 
 ' 2 Kgs. iii. 13. X. 19. 8 Deut.xiii. 5. xvii.5. 
 
 9 V. 31. i» S. Greg. Past. i. 2 ; in Ev.irg. Horn. xvii. 14. 
 
 " Ps.cix. 4.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 59 
 
 CH iiTsT ^^ ^ found Israel like j^rapos in the wil- 
 
 cir. 7fin. derness ; I saw your fathers as "the first- 
 
 " mIcJ^i.'' vipo in the fijjj tree ^ at her first time : 
 
 " ffin!'"^' hut they M-ent to y Baal-pcor, and ' se- 
 
 ' Ps""o(r2s.' parated tliemselves " unto that shame ; 
 
 » ch. 4. li. n Jer. 11. 13. See Judg. 0. 32. 
 
 for a time, as if He overlooked the guilt of liciijamiii in the 
 days of Gihcah ; for at first He allowed tlieai to be even vic- 
 torious over Israel. Yet in the cud. they were punished, 
 ahiiost to extermination, and Gibeah was destroyed. So uow, 
 although He bore long with Ephraini, He would, in the end, 
 shew that He remembered all, by visiting all. 
 
 10. I found Israel like gr(i/)es in the wilden/es.w God is 
 not said to find anything, as though He had lost it, or knew 
 not where it was, or came suddenly upon it, not experting it. 
 T/iei/ were lost, as relates to Him, when they Avere found by 
 Him. As our Lord says of the returned prodigal. This 3/i/ sun 
 was lost and is found^. He found them and made them plea- 
 sant in His own sight, "as grapes which a man finds miex- 
 peetedly. in a great terrible wilderness of fiery serpents and 
 drought-," where commonly nothing pleasant or refreshing 
 grows ; or as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her fresh time, whose 
 sweetness passed into a proverb, both from its own freshness 
 and from the long abstinence '. God gave to Israel both rich- 
 ness and pleasantness in His own sight ; but Israel, from the 
 first, corrupted God's good gifts in them. This generation 
 only did as their fathers. So S. Stephen, setting forth to the 
 Jews how their fathers had rebelled against Moses, and per- 
 secuted the prophets, sums up ; as your fathers did, so do ye^. 
 Each generation was filling up the measure of their fathers, 
 until it was full ; as the whole world is doing now '". 
 
 But they leent to Baal-Peor. They, the word is emphatic; 
 these same persons to whom God shewed such love, to whom 
 He gave such gifts, went. They left God Who called them, and 
 went to the idol, which could not call them. Baal-Peor, as 
 his name probably implies, was "the filthiest and foulest of the 
 heathen gods." It appears from the histoi-y of the daugh- 
 ters of Midian, that his worship consisted in deeds of shame ''. 
 And separated t heinselves unto\\\ciX shaine,i.Q.to^^iA-Veor, 
 v,-\\0'&e.n&\\\eoi Baal, Lord,\\etvLYi\?.\\\toBosheth, shame''. Holy 
 Scripturegives disgraceful names to the idols, (as abominations, 
 nothings, dungy things,vanifies, 2inc leanness^,) in order to make 
 men ashamed of them. To this shame they separated themselves 
 from God, in order to unite themselves with it. The Nazarite 
 separated himself from certain earthly enjoyments, and con- 
 secrated himself, for a time or altogether, to God ' ; these se- 
 parated themselves from God, and united, devoted, consecrated 
 themselves to shame. " They made themselves, as it were, Na- 
 zarites to shame." Shame was the object of their worship and 
 their God, ««f/ their abominations tvere according as they loved, 
 i.e. they had as many abominations or abominable idols, «*■ they 
 had loves. They multiplied abominations, after their heart's 
 desire J their abominations were manifold,becausetheirpassions 
 were so ; and their love being corrupted, they loved nothing but 
 abominations. Yet it seems simpler and truer to render it, and 
 tliey became ahominatiotts, like their loves; as the Psalmist says, 
 ^°They that tnak^e them are like unto them. "^^The object which 
 the will desires and loves, transfuses its own goodness or bad- 
 
 ' S.Luke XV. 32. = Deut.viii.1,5. 3 See Is. xxvni.4. 
 •• Actsvii.Sl. s Rev.xiv.lj. * Num. xxv. " as in 2Sam.xi.21. 
 ^ D'iips'. c'j'Sk, cWj, c"':':n all common names of idols ; (also, lix.l m: 2 Chr. xxix. 5. 
 " ' *- - - -■ - ^ ... — \ — :; 1 1 in t).- o 
 
 ' and their abominations were according ch^rTst 
 as they loved. "'• '^^^■ 
 
 11 .'h for Epliraim, their ii:l„ry shall fly" ^^^-1^;^ 
 away like; a hird, from the birth, and from Amos i.s. 
 the womb, and from the conception. 
 
 ' b in.T Ni: 
 
 5, l). p lb. 3. See on Am. ii. 11. 
 
 »» Ps. cxv. 8. 
 
 ncssintoit." Man first makes his god like hisown corrupt self, 
 or to some corruption in himself, and then, worshipping this 
 ideal of his own, he becomes tlie more corru])t through <'opying 
 that corruption. He makes his god in his own image and like- 
 ness, the essence and concentration of his own bad passions, 
 and then conforms himself to the likeness, not of (iod, but of 
 what was most evil in himself. Thus the Heathen made gods 
 of lust, cruelty, thirst for war ; and the worship of corrupt gods 
 reacted on themselves. They forgot that they were the ivorU of 
 their oivn hands, the conception of their own minds, and pro- 
 fessed to "do gladly'"" "what so great gods" bad done. 
 
 And more widely, says a father '', "what a man's love is. that 
 he is. Lovest thou earth ? thou art earth. Lovest thou (iod ? 
 What shall I say ? thou shalt be god." "' 'Nought else maketh 
 good or evil actions, save good or evil atfections." Love has a 
 transforming power over the soul, whicli the intellect has not. 
 "He who serveth an abomination is himself an abomination'''," 
 is a thoughtful Jewish saying. ''The intellect brings home 
 to the soul the knowledge on which it worketh, impresses 
 it on itself, incorporates it with itself. Love is an impulse 
 whereby he who loves is borne forth towards that which he 
 loves, is united with it, and is transformed into it." Thus in 
 explaining tlie words, Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His 
 3fouth '", the fathers say, " ^^ Then the Word of God kisseth us, 
 when He enlightcneth our heart with the Spirit of Divine 
 knowledge, and the soul cleaveth to Him and His Spirit is 
 transfused into him." 
 
 11. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fli/ away, like a bird. 
 Ephraim had parted with God, his true Glory. In turn, God 
 would quickly take from him all created glory, all which he 
 counted glory, or in which he gloried. AVhen man parts with 
 the substance, his true honour, God takes away the shadow, 
 lest he should content himself therewith, and notsee hissliame, 
 and, boasting himself to be something, abide in his nothingness 
 andpoverty andshame towhichhehad reduced himself. Fruit- 
 fubtess, and consequent strength, had been God's especial pro- 
 mise to Ephraim. His name, Ephraim, contained in itself the 
 promise of his future fruitfulness '». With this Jacob had 
 blessed him. He was to be greater than Manasseh, his elder 
 brother, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations^'K 
 Moses had assigned to him tens of thousands-", while to Ma- 
 nasseh he had promised thousands only. On this blessing 
 Ephraim had presumed, and had made it to feed his pride ; so 
 now God, in His justice and mercy, would withdraw it from 
 him. It should 7nakc itself wings', and fly away-'', with the 
 swiftness of a bird, and like a bird, not to return again to the 
 place, whence it has been scared. 
 
 From the birth. Their children were to perish at every 
 stage in which they received life. This sentence pursued them 
 back to the very beginning of life. First, when their parents 
 should have joy'in their biith, they were to come into the world 
 only to go out of it ; then, their mother's womb was to be itselt 
 
 " Lap. from Aq. '^ Ter. Eun. " S.Aug, in Ep. S. Joh. Tr. ii. 
 
 » S. Auf. Ep. 15 J. ad Macedon. § 13. amores, mores ; amours, mceurs. '^ Kimchi, 
 MS ill Poc. "^ Cant. i.2. '" S. Ambr. de Isaac, c. 3. Lap. 
 
 •s'G"n ■;'\52. " Ib.xlviii.lO. =o Deut.xxxiii. 17. -' Prov. xxiii. 5.
 
 GO 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 JieCore 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. "GO. 
 
 12 ' Thoui^h they brinj? up their children, 
 
 yet '■ will I bereave them, that there .shall 
 
 a D^if y^*" "ot he a man left : yea, ■= woe also to them 
 
 e Deu^sLir. when I ^ depart from them! 
 
 ch^f!(;!'' ^^' 13 Ephraim, ^ as I saw Tyrus, is planted 
 
 ' See I'Sa'm. 28. 15, IC. 8 See Ezek. 2G, & 27, & 28. 
 
 their c;rave ; then, stri(;ken with harrenness, the womb itself 
 was to refuse to conceive them. 
 
 " 1 The s'ory of Ephraim jiasses away, from the birth, tlie 
 womb, the conception, when the mind which before was, for 
 glory, half-deified, receives, through the just jiulji-ment of God, 
 ill re])ort for o;ood report, misery for glory, hatred for favor, 
 contempt for revei'cnce, loss for gain, famine for abundance. 
 Act is the birth ; intention, the iroml> ; thought, the conception. 
 The gton/ of Ephraim t\wn Jiies (twayfro)n the liirth, the worn Ij, 
 the conception, when, in those who before did outwardly live 
 nobly, and gloried in themselves for the outward propriety of 
 their life, the acts are disgraced, the intention corrupted, the 
 thoughts defiled." 
 
 12. Though they bring up children. God had threatened 
 to deprive them of children, in every stage before or at their 
 birth. Now, beyond this,hc tells them, as to those who should 
 escape this sentence. He would bereave them of them, or make 
 them childless. 
 
 That there shall not be a man left ; lit. from man. The brief 
 word may be filled up, as the E. V. has done, (by an idiom not 
 infrequent) 1) "from there being a man ;" or 2) from among 
 men ; as Samuel said to Agag", as thy sword has made tuomen 
 childless, so shall thy mother he childless among- ivomen ; or 3) 
 from becoming men, i.e. from reaching man's estate. The 
 Prophet, in any case, does not mean absolute excision, for he 
 says, they shall be wanderers among the nations, and had fore- 
 told, that they should abide, as they now arc, and be converted 
 in the end. But since their pride was in their numbers, he 
 says, that these should be reduced in every stage from con- 
 ception to ripened manhood. So God had forewarned Israel 
 in the law''. If thou wilt not obsei've to do all the tcordsofthis 
 laiv, — ye shall be left fetv in number, whereas ye were as the 
 stars of heaven for multitude. A sentence, felt the more by 
 Ephraim, as being the head of the most powerful division of 
 the peo{)le, and himself the largest portion of it. 
 
 Yea, [lit.yb?'] icoe also unto them, when I depart from them. 
 This is, at once, the ground and the completion of their misery, 
 its beginning and its end. God's departure was the source of 
 all evil to them ; as He foretold them*, / ivill forsake them, 
 and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, 
 and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they shall 
 say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us, because our 
 God is not among us ? But His departure was itself above all. 
 For the Prophet says also ; for woe also irnto them. This was 
 the last step in the scale of misery. Beyond the loss of the 
 children, whom they hoped or longed for, beyond the loss of 
 their present might, and all their hope to come, there is a fur- 
 ther undefined, unlimited, evil, woe to them also, when God 
 should withdraw, not His care and Providence only, but Him- 
 self also from them ; irhcn I depart from them. They had de- 
 parted and turned away, from or against God^ It had been 
 thcircharacteristic^ NowGod Himselfwouldrequite them,as 
 
 ' Julian. ToIet.inNali. Lap. 
 - ISam.xv.SS.D'B'jD, asherecnuD. acldPiov.xxx. 1 1. ' Deut. xxviii.58,62. 
 
 •• Ib.xxxi. 17. ^ Seeoiivii.iy. « Hos.iv.lC. The word in each place, is 
 
 virtually the same, iiD, written here ■.lis', and TD. ' Sns' is always used of planting 
 
 hi a pleasant phiee : ^ but E]>hraim shall j, Jl"^'^ 
 
 brinir forth his ehildren to the murderer. 
 
 ST 
 
 cir. 7W. 
 
 14 Give them, O Lord : what wilt thou lu.'i^s.'ir,. 
 
 < Luke ii. 29. 
 
 give? give them' a f >wiscarrying womb^-uXrAnT 
 and dry breasts. 
 
 casleth Hie 
 fruit. 
 
 they had requited Him. He would depart from them. ThiF 
 is the last state of privation, which forms the " punishment of 
 loss" in Hell. \Vhen the soul has lost (iod, what has it ? 
 
 13. E])hraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in ujUeasattt place; 
 or (better) as I saw (her) towards Tyre, or as I saw as to Tyre. 
 Ephraim stretched out, in her dependant tribes, towards or to 
 Tyre itself Like to Tyrus she was, "in her riches, her glory, 
 her pleasantness, her strength, her pride," and in the end, her 
 fall. The picture is that of a fair tree, not chance-sown, but 
 planted carefully by hand in a pleasant place 7. Beauty and 
 strength were blended in her. On the tribe of Joseph especi- 
 ally, Moses had pronounced the blessing** ; Blessed of the Lord 
 be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the deiv, and 
 for the deep tvhich couchcth ijcneath, and for the precious fruits 
 hr(night forth by the sun, and for the precious tilings put forth 
 by the moons (i. e. month by month) and for the chief thi)igs 
 of tlie ancient mountains, atidfor the precious thiiigs of the last- 
 ing hills and for the precious things of the earth and the fulness 
 thereof, and for the good pleasure of Him who divelt in the hush. 
 Beautiful are the mountains of Ephraim, and the rich val- 
 lies or plains which break them. And chief in beauty and in 
 strength was the valley, whose central hill its capital, Samaria, 
 crowned; tlie crown of pride to the drunkards of Ephraim, 
 whose glorious beauty is a fading Jloicer tvhich is on the head of 
 the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine'^. The bless- 
 ing of INIoses pointed perhaps to the time when Shiloh was the 
 tabernacle of Him.AA'ho once dwelt and revealed Himself in the 
 Bush. Now that it had exchanged its God for the calves, the 
 blessings which it still retained, stood but in the more aweful 
 contrast with its future. 
 
 But Ephraim shall bring foyth his children to the murder- 
 er ; lit. and Ephraim is to bring forth fyc. i. e. proud though 
 her wealth, and high her state, pleasantly situated and firmly 
 rooted, one thing lay before her, one destiny, she icas to bring 
 forth children only /or the murderer. Childlessness in God's 
 Providence is the appropriate and frequent punishment of sins 
 of the flesh. Pride too brought Peninnah, the adversary of 
 Hannah, low, even as to that which was the ground of her 
 pride, her children. ^^ The barren hath born seven, and she 
 that hath many children is waxed feeble. So as to the soul, 
 " pride deprives of grace." 
 
 14. Give them a mi scarry i7ig womb. The Prophet prays for 
 Israel, and debates with himself what he can ask for, amid this 
 their determined wickedness, and God's judgments. Since 
 Ephraim was to bring forth children to the murderer, then 
 it was mercy to ask for them, that they might have no chil- 
 dren. Since such are the evils which await their children, 
 grant them, O Lord, as a blessing, the sorrows of barrenness. 
 What God had before pronounced as a punishment, should, as 
 compared to other evils, be a mercy, and an object of prayer. 
 So our Lord pronounces as to the destruction of Jerusalem ^i. 
 Behold the days are coming, in tvhich they shall say. Blessed 
 
 witli choice of situation. See Ezek. xvii. 8, 22, 23. xix. 10. and in a bad soil, of set purposei 
 II). 13. See Jer. xvii. 8. Ps. i. 3. and in a figure, They who are planted in the house of the 
 icrd, Ps.xcii.1-1. s Deut.xxxiii. 13-16. s Is.xxviii.l. '»lSam.ii.5. 
 
 » S.Lukexxiii.29.
 
 CIIAPTEri IX. 
 
 Gl 
 
 chrTst ^^ ^^^ their Avickodncss ^ is in (iili^al: 
 
 cir. 700- fot- there I liated them: 'for the wieked- 
 
 ''&i2;ii! ness of their doings I will drive them out 
 
 I cii.1.6. ^^ mine house, I will love them no more : 
 
 mis. 1.23. "all their prinees arc revolters. 
 
 16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried 
 
 are the barren, (mil the wonihs that never hare, and the paps that 
 never gave surk. '• O unhappy fniitfiilness and fruitful un- 
 happiness, coniparpd with which, harrcnness, wliich among 
 them was accounted a curse, became blessedness." 
 
 15. Ail theirivickedness is in Gilgal. Gilgaf,ha\''ms; been 
 the scene of so many of God's mercies, had been, on that very 
 ground, chosenasapopular scene foridol-worship^. Anddoubt- 
 less, Ephraim still deceived himself, and thought Ihat his ido- 
 latrous worshij), in a place once so hallowed, would still lie ac- 
 ceptable with God. "There, where God of old was propiti- 
 ous. He would be so still, and whatever they did, should, even 
 for the place's sake, be accepted ; the hallowed place would 
 necessarily sanctify it." In answer to such thoughts, God says, 
 all their iric/cedness, the very chief and sum, the head from 
 which the rest flowed, their desertion of God Himself, what- 
 ever they hoped or imagined, all their wichedncss is there. 
 
 For there I hated them. " There, in the very place where 
 heretofore I shewed such great tokens of love to, and by My 
 gracious presence with, them, evoi there I have hated them and 
 now hate them." "He saith not, there was I angry, or dis- 
 pleased with them, but in a word betokening the greatest in- 
 dignation, I hated them. Great must needs be that wicked- 
 ness which provoked the Father of mercies to so great dis- 
 pleasure as to say, that He hated them ; and severe must needs 
 be those judgments which are as effects of hatred and utter 
 aversation of them, in Him." 
 
 For tlieiuickedness of their doings. The sin of Israel was 
 no common sin, not a sin of ignorance, but against the full 
 light. Each word betokens evil. The word doings expresses 
 great hold doings. It was the wickedness of their luicked ivorAs, 
 a deeper depth of wickedness in their wickedness, an essence 
 of wickedness, for which, God saith, I will drive them out of 
 ]SIy house, i. e. as before, out of His whole land ". 
 
 / will love them no more. So He saith, in the beginning" ; 
 I will have no more merer/ upon the house of Israel, hut I will 
 utterhj tahe them away. "'^This was a national judgment, and 
 so involved the whole of thcni, as to their outward condition, 
 n'hich they enjoyed as members of that nation, and making up 
 one body politic. It did not respect the spiritual condition of 
 single persons, and their relation, in this respect, to God." As 
 individuals, they were " not cut off from God's favour and to- 
 kens of His love, nor from the power of becoming members 
 of Christ, whenever any of them should come to Him. It only 
 struck them for ever out of that house of the Lord from which 
 they were then driven," or from hopes that that kingdom 
 should be restored, which God said. He would cause to cease. 
 
 All their princes are revolters. Their case then was utterly 
 hopeless. No one of their kings departed from the sin of Je- 
 roboam icho made Israel to sin. The political power which 
 should protect goodness, became the fountain of corruption. 
 "^None is there, to rebuke them that offend, to recal those 
 that err ; no one who, by his own goodness, and virtue, pacifying 
 God, can turn away His wrath, as there was in the time of 
 
 ■up, they shall l)(>ar no fruit: yea, "lh()\ii>li cii'kTst 
 they hriiig forth, yet uill I slay ccen f the "^- "'^'' 
 beloxcd fruit of their womh. ^ nlb.ae 
 
 17 My fiod will cast them away, because Ez[rk.\.2i. 
 they did not hearken unto him : and they 
 shall he " wanderers amonyr the nations. 
 
 ' ab. iv. 15. 
 " Hup. 
 
 = Sceab. viii. 1. 'i.G. ■• Poc. ss.Cyr. 
 
 7 Am. iv.'J. " Gen. iv. 12. The word ii: om: occurs in botii. 
 
 ■> neut.28. 
 G-KC5. 
 
 Moses." ""Askest thou, why God cast them out of His 
 house, why they were not received in the (hurcli or the house 
 of God? He saith to them, because tlicy are all revolters, 
 departers, i.e. because, before they were cast out visibly in 
 the body, they departed in mind, were far away in heart, and 
 therefore were cast out in the body also, and lost, what alone 
 they loved, the temporal advantages of the house of God." 
 
 1(). F/)hrni)n is smitten. The l'r(ipiiet, under the image of 
 a trce,repeats the same sentence of God upon Israel. 'I'he w(»rd 
 smitten is used of the smiting of the tree from above, especial- 
 ly by the visitation of God, as by blasting and mildew''. Yet 
 such smiting, although it falls heavily for the time, leaves 
 hope for the future. He adds then, their root is also ivithered, 
 so that the;/ should bear no fruit ; or if, perchance, while the 
 root was still drying up and not rpiite dead, any fruit be yet 
 found, yet will I slay, God says, tlie heloved fruit of their 
 womb, the desired fruit of their bodies, that which their souls 
 longed for. '•" So long as they have children, and multiply the 
 fruit of the womb, they think that they bear fruit, they deem 
 not that their root is dried, or that they have been severed by 
 the axe of excision, and rooted out of the land of the living; but, 
 in the anguish at the slaying of those they most loved, they 
 shall say, better had it been to have had no children." 
 
 17. My God hath cast them away. My God (he saith) as 
 if God were his God only who clave to him, not their's who 
 had, by their disobedience, departed from Him. My God. 
 "He had then authority from Him," Whom he owned and Who 
 owned him, and Who bade him so speak, as though God were 
 his God, and no longer their's. God casts them array, lit. de- 
 spises them, and so rejects them as an object of aversion to 
 Him, because they did not hearken to him. " God never for- 
 sakes unless He l)c first forsaken." When they would not 
 hearken, neither doing what God commanded, nor abstaining 
 from what He forbade, God at last rejected them, as worth- 
 less, wanting altogether to that end for which He created them. 
 
 Aird they shall be rcandcrers among the iiatioirs. This was 
 the sentence" of Cain 8; afrigitive and a vagabond shall thou 
 be in the earth. So God "had forewarned them*". The Lord 
 shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth 
 even unto the other end of the earth — and among these na- 
 tions shall thoujind no case, neither shall the sole of thy foot 
 have rest. 
 
 The words of the Prophet imply an abiding condition. He 
 does not saA% ther/ shall rrander, but, they shall be rcander-rrs^". 
 Such was to be "their lot ; such has been their lot ever since; 
 and such was not the ordinary lot of those large populations 
 whom Eastern conquerors transported from their own land. 
 Those conquerors took away with them into their own land, 
 portions of the people whom they conquered, for two ends. 
 When a people often rebelled, th'ey were placed where they 
 could rebel no more, among tribes more powerful than they, 
 and obedient to the rule of the conqueror. Or they were car- 
 ried oflj as slaves, to work in bricks, like Israel in Egypt". 
 
 9 Deut. xxviii. 64, 5. " Notnr, but Cii3 cmn v.'. 
 
 " This appears both from the sculptures of Nineveh in which multitudes ofworkmen, 
 
 R
 
 62 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 CH^rsT CHAPTER X. 
 
 cir. 740. Israel is reproved and threatened for timr jmjnely 
 
 and idolatry. 
 
 Their workmen, smiths, artificers, were especially taken to 
 labour on those j;;i!i,-antic works, the palaces and temples of 
 Nineveh or Babylon. 13ut, for both tliese purposes, the trans- 
 ported population liad a settled abode allotted to it, whether 
 in the capital or the provinces. Sometimes new cities or 
 villa.ijes were built for the settlers ^ Israel at first was so lo- 
 cated. Perhaps on account of the frequent rebellions of their 
 kingfs, the ten tribes were placed amid a wild, warlike, popu- 
 lation, in flic cities of the Medes". ^Vhen the interior of Asia 
 was less known, people thouc:ht that they were still to be found 
 there. The Jews fabled, that the ten tribes lay behind some 
 mig'hty and fabulous river, Sambatyon', or were fenced in by 
 mountains '. Christians thought tliat they might be found in 
 some yet unexplored part of Asia. Undeceived as to this,they 
 still asked whether theAfghans,or theYczidcs,orthenatiyesof 
 North America were the ten tribes, or whether they were the 
 Nestorians of Kurdistan. So natural did it seem, that they, 
 like other nations so transported, should remain as a body, 
 near or at the places, where they had been located by their con- 
 querors. The Prophet says otherwise. He says their abiding- 
 condition shall be, ther/ shall be wanderers among the nations, 
 wanderers among them, but no part of them. Before the fi- 
 nal dispersion of the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 "the Jewish race," Joscphus says', "was in great numbers 
 through the whole world, interspersed with the nations." 
 Those assembled at the day of Pentecost had come from all 
 parts of Asia Minor, but also from Parthia, Media, Persia, Me- 
 sopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, maritime Lybia, Crete, and Italy". 
 Wherever the Apostles went, in Asia or Greece, they found 
 Jews, in numbers sufficient to raise persecution against them. 
 S. James writes to those whom, with a word corresponding to 
 that of Hosea, he calls " the dispersion." James — to the 
 twelve in the dispersion ". The Jews, scoffing, asked, whether 
 our Lord would go to the dispersion among the Greeks ^. They 
 speak of it, as a body, over against themselves, to whom they 
 supposed that He meant to go, to teach them, when He said, 
 Ye shall seek 3te and shall not find Me. The Jews of Egypt 
 were probably the descendants of those who went thither, 
 after the murder of Gedaliah. The Jews of the North, as 
 well as those of China, India, Russia, were probably descend- 
 ants of the ten tribes. Fi'om one end of Asia to the other 
 and onward through the Crimea, Greece and Italy, the Jews 
 by their presence, bare witness to the fulfilment of the pro- 
 phecy. Not like the wandering Indian tribe, who spread over 
 Europe, living apart in their native wildness, but settled, a- 
 mong the inliabitants of each city, they were still distinct, 
 although with no polity of their own ; a distinct, settled, yet 
 foreign and subordinate race. "^Still remains unreversed this 
 irrevocable sentence, as to their temporal state and face of an 
 earthly kingdom, that they remain still wanderers or dispersed 
 among other nations, and have never been restored, nor are 
 in likeliliood of ever being restored to their own land, so as 
 to call it their own. If ever any of them hath returned thither, 
 
 of countenance antl form distinct from the Assyrians, are represented as working in chains, 
 and from the inscriptions of tlie kin^s. " I [Seimacherib] carried off into captivity a great 
 number of workmen. All the young active menofChaldaeaand Aramea, Manna, &c.wlio 
 had refused to submit to my government, I carried them all away, to make bricks for me." 
 (Bellino Cylinder in Fox Talljot'sAssyr. Texts, p. 9.) '* I carried them otf as slaves, and 
 compelled them to make bricks for me." (Cyl. of Esarhad. lb. p. 17.) "By the labour 
 of foreign slaves, my captives, wholiftedup their hands in the name ol the great gods, my 
 lords. I built thirty temples in Assyria and in — " (lb. p. IG.) 
 
 I 
 
 SIIAEL \s " II an empty vine, he bringeth 
 forth fruit unto himself: according to 
 
 Bcfoie 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 740. 
 
 Nah. 2.2. II Or, a vine emptying the fruit uliich it giveth. 
 
 it hath been but as strangers, and all, as to any propriety 
 that they should challenge in it, to hear the ruins and waste 
 heaps of their ancient cities to echo in their ears the Pro- 
 phet's words, ^" Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest ; 
 your ancestors polluted it, and ye shall never return as a 
 people thither, to iidiabit it, as in your former condition." 
 " Meanwhile Ephraim here is an example, not only to par- 
 ticular persons, that as they will avoid personal judgments, 
 so they take care faithfully to serve God and hearken unto 
 Him ; but to nations and kingdoms also, tliat as they will pre- 
 vent national judgments, so they take care tiiat God be truly 
 served, and the true religion maintained in purity and since- 
 rity among them. Ephraim, or Israel, held their land by as 
 good and firm tenure as any people in the world can theirs, 
 having it settled on them by immediate gift from Him Who is 
 the Lord of the whole earth, Wlio promised it to their fore- 
 fathers, Abraham and his seed forever '\, called therefore the 
 land which the Lord sware unto them^"; and which He had 
 promised them '^, the land of Promise ''. Who could have 
 greater right to a place, better and firmer right, than they had 
 to the Lord's land, by ///.? promise which never fails, and His 
 oath Who will not repent, confirmed to them ? Certainly, if 
 they had observed conditions and kept covenant with Him, 
 all tiie people in the world could never have driven them out, 
 or dispossessed them of it. But, seeing they revolted and 
 brake His covenant, and did not hearken to Him, He would 
 not suffer them longer to dwell in it, but drave and cast them 
 out of it, so that they could never recover it again, but con- 
 tinue to this day wandering among the nations, having no set- 
 tled place of their own, nowhere where they can be called a 
 people, or are for such owned. If God so dealt with Israel on 
 their disobedience and departing from His service, to whom 
 He had so particularly engaged Himself to make good to them 
 the firm possession of that land; how shall any presume on 
 any right or title to any other, or think to preserve it to 
 themselves by any force or strength of their own, if they re- 
 volt from Him, and cast off thankful obedience to Him ? The 
 Apostle cautioneth and teacheth us so to argue, if God spared 
 not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee, 
 and therefore warneth, be not high-minded, and presumptuous, 
 hutfear'^K" 
 
 X. 1. Israel is an empty vine, or, in the same sense, a Iti.vu- 
 riant vine ; lit. one which poiireth out, poureth itself out into 
 leaves, abundant in switches, (as most old versions explain it,) 
 luxuriant in leaves,emptyingitself in them, and empty of fruit; 
 like the fig-tree, which our Lord cursed. For the more a 
 fruit tree putteth out its strength in leaves and branches, the 
 less and the worse fruit it beareth. "^^ The juices which itought 
 to transmute into wine,it disperseth in the ambitious idle shew 
 of leaves and branches." The sap in the vine is an emblem 
 of His Holy Spirit, through Whom alone we can bear fruit. 
 His grace which was in me, says St. Paul, luas not in vain. It 
 is in vaiu to us, when we waste the stirrings of God's Spirit in 
 
 • " A city I built. City of Esarhaddon 1 called it. Men who were — , natives of the 
 land of [Caramania?] and of the sea of the rising sun, in that city I caused to dwell. 
 I appointed my secretaries to be magistrates over them." (Cyl. of Esarb. lb. p. 11. 
 et al.) ' 2 Kings xvii. 6. '' Jon. in Ex. xxxiv. 14. •• Peritsol Orchot 
 
 Olam. c. 4. 9. quoted by Basnage, Hist. d. Juifs. vi. 3. 3. _ ^ de B. J. vii. 33. 
 
 *• Acts ii. 9-11. 7 i-v TJ; oiaaTTopu S. James i. 1. ^ ciaff-n-opav. S. John vii. 35. 
 
 ' Poc. '" Mic. ii. 10. " Gen. xiii. 14, 15. Deut. xxxiv. 4. '- Num. xiv. 
 
 '3 Deut. ix. 28. " Heb. xi. 9. '^ Rom. xi. 20,21. >«S.Jer.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 7 10. 
 
 » ch.8.11. 
 
 & 12.11. 
 <= cli.8.4. 
 tHeb. 
 
 statues, or, 
 
 standing 
 
 images. 
 
 Or, He 
 
 the multitude of his fruit '' he hiith in- 
 creased the altars ; aeeordini^ to the j^ood- 
 ness of his land " they have made goodly 
 f images. 
 
 2 II Their heart is '' divided ; now shall 
 they he found faulty : he shall f hreak down 
 
 i their altars, he shall spoil their images. 
 
 hath divided their heart. ^ 1 Kings 18.21. Matt. G. 21. \ \li;\>. beliead. 
 
 feelings, aspirations,loiig;ings, transports, " which bloom their 
 hour and fadei." Like" the leaves, these feelings aid in ma- 
 turing- fruit ; when there arc leaves only, the tree is barren and 
 nigh tinto cursing, ivhose end is to he hurned '. 
 
 It hringeth forth fruit fur itself, lit. sctteth fruit to, or on 
 itself. Luxuriant in leaves, its fruit becomes worthless, and 
 is from itself to itself. It is uncultured ; (for Israel refused 
 culture,) pouring itself out, as it willed, in what it willed. It 
 had a rich shew of leaves, a shew also of fruit, but not for the 
 Lord of the vineyard, since they came to no size or ripeness. 
 Yet to the superficial glance, it was rich, prosperous, healthy, 
 abundant in all things, as was the outward state of Israel un- 
 der Jehoash and Jeroboam 11. 
 
 According to the multitude of his fruit, or, more strictly, 
 as his fruit was multiplied, he multiplied altars ; as his land 
 was made good, they made goodly their images. The more of 
 outward prosperity God bestowed upon them, the more they 
 abused His gifts, referring them to their idols ; the more God 
 lavished His mercies on them, the more profuse they were 
 in adoring their idols. The superabundance of God's good- 
 ness became the occasion of the superabundance of their wick- 
 edness. They rivalled and competed with, and outdid the 
 goodness of God, so that He could bestow upon them no good, 
 which they did not turn to evil. JNIen think this strange. 
 Strange it is, as is all perversion of God's goodness ; yet so it 
 is now. Men's sins are either the abuse of what God gives, 
 or rebellion, because He withholds. In the sins of prosperity, 
 wealth, health, strength, powers of mind, wit, men sin in a 
 way in which they could not sin, unless God continually sup- 
 plied them with those gifts which they turn to sin. The more 
 God gives, the more opportunity and ability they have to sin, 
 and the more they sin. They are evil, not only in despite of 
 God's goodness, but because He is good. 
 
 2. Their heart is divided between God and their idols, in 
 that they would not wholly part with either, as Elijah up- 
 braided them-'. How long halt ye between the two opinions? 
 When the heathen, by whom the king of Assyria replaced 
 them, had been taught by one of the priests whom the king 
 sent back, in order to avert God's judgments, they still pro- 
 pagated this division. Like Jeroboam, ''they became fearers 
 of the Lord, His worshippers, and made to themselves out of 
 their whole number (i. e. indiscriminately) priests of the high 
 places. They were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers 
 of their gods, according to the manner of the nations ivltom they 
 carried away from thence. — These nations were fearers of the 
 Lord, and they were servers of their idols, both their children 
 and their children's children. As did their fathers, so do thei/ 
 unto this day. This divided allegiance was their hereditary 
 vvorship. These heathen, as taught by one of the priests of 
 Israel, added the service of God to that of their idols, as Israel 
 had added the service of the idols to that of God. But God 
 rejecteth such half service ; whence he adds, noic, in a brief 
 
 1 Lyra Apost. N. 67. - Hcb. vi. 8. 
 
 3 1 Kings xviii. 21. •! 3 Kings xvii. 32, 33, 41. The form " n.x O'kt rn 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 u '•■ For now they shall say, AVe have no "''■ ^'"- 
 
 «cli.3. 4. 
 
 king, heeause we feared not the Lord; bi.ii.-,'. 
 what then should a king do to us ? ver?'?.' 
 
 4 They have spoken words, swearing 
 falsely in making u covenant : thus judg- 
 
 timc, all but ('ome, they shall be fotind faulty, lit. they shall be 
 guHt\i,'A\\\\\ Ijc convicted of guilt and shall bear it. Tliey 
 thought to serve at once God and Muiinnon ; Ijiit, in truth, they 
 served their idolsonly,whom they would not part with for God. 
 God Himself then would turn away all their worship, bad, and, 
 as they thought, good. jF/(',from Whom their heart was divid- 
 ed. He Himself, by His mighty power wliich no man can gain- 
 say, «/<«// break down their altars, lit. shall beheuil tlicni. As 
 they out of His gifts multiplied their altars and slew their 
 sacrifices upon them against His will, so now should the altars 
 themselves be demolished ; and tlie images wliich they had 
 decked with the gold which He had given, should, on account 
 of that very gold, tempt the spoiler, tlirough whom God would 
 spoil them. 
 
 He shall hreak down. He Himself'. The word is em- 
 phatic. ""God willcth not that, when the merited vengeance 
 of God is inflicted through man, it should be ascribed to man. 
 Yea, if any one ascribeth to himself what, by ])ermission of 
 God, he hath power to do against the people of God, he draw- 
 eth down on him the displeasure of God, and, at times, on 
 that very ground, can hurt the less '^." The Prophet then says 
 very earnestly. He Himself shall break, meaning us to under- 
 stand, not the lofty hand of the enemy, but that the Lord 
 Himself did all these things. 
 
 3. For now they shall say, we have no king. These are 
 the words of despair, not of repentance ; of men terrified by the 
 consciousness of guilt, but not coming forth out of its dark- 
 ness ; describing their condition, not confessing the iniquity 
 which brought it on them. In sin, all Israel had asked for 
 a king, when the Lord was their king ; in sin, Ephraim had 
 made Jeroboamking; insin,their subsequent kings were made, 
 without the counsel and advice of God ; and now, as the close 
 of all, they reflect how fruitless it all was. They had a king, 
 and yet, as it were, they had no king, since, God being angry 
 with them, he had no strength to deliver them. And now, 
 without love, the memory of their evil deeds crushes them be- 
 yond hope of remedy. Theygroanfor their losses, theirsuffer- 
 ings, their fears, biit do not repent. Such is the remorse of 
 the damned. All which they had is lost ; and what availed 
 it now, since, when they had it, they feared not God? 
 
 4. They have spoken words. The words which they spoke 
 were eminently words ; they were mere tcords, wliich had no 
 substance -^swearing falsely in making a covenant, lit. swearing 
 falsely, making a covenant, andjudgment springeth up as hem- 
 lock in thefim-ows of the field. '-^ There is no truth in words, 
 no sanctity in oaths, no faithfulness in keeping covenants, no 
 justice in giving judgments." Such is the result of all their 
 oaths and co\cnant<, that Judgment springeth »;;, yea, flou- 
 risheth ; but, what judgment ? Judgment, bitter and poisonous 
 as hemlock, flourishes, as hemlock would flourish on ground 
 broken up and prepared for it. They break up the ground, 
 make the furrows. They will not have any chance self-sown 
 
 expresses that they were habitual worshippers of God. 
 ' See Deut. xx.\ii. 26, 7. Is. x. 5 .-jqq. 
 
 r2 
 
 * Osoriiis. 
 
 ' Rup. 
 
 rvA 
 
 iV...
 
 64 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 Beforo 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 7-10. 
 
 ' Sec Dcut. 
 
 29. 18. 
 
 Amos 5. 7. 
 
 & G. 12. 
 
 Acts 8. 23. 
 
 Heb. 12. 15. 
 8 1 Kings 12. 
 
 ment springcth up 'as liemloek in the fur- 
 rows of the field. 
 
 5 The inliabitants of Samaria shall fear 
 because of " the calves of '' Beth-aven : for 
 the people thereof shall mourn over it, and 
 
 the ])riests thereof that rejoiced on it, 
 
 28, 29. 
 
 ch. 8. 5, 6. h ch. 4. 15. "|| Or, Chemavim, 2 Kings 23. 5. Zeph. 1. 4, 
 
 ' for the glory thereof, because it is depart- chkTst 
 ed from it. <=■■•• 74o. 
 
 G ft shall be also carried unto Assyria' \i^^2'.'^' 
 for a present to •'king Jareb : Ephrainu ^'|' jj J^; 
 shall receive shame, and Israel shall be 
 ashamed 'of his own counsel. ' ch.ii.o. 
 
 seed; they prepare the soil for liarvest, full, abundant, re- 
 gular, cleared of all besides. And what harvest ? Not any 
 wholesome plant, but poison. They cultivate injustice and 
 wickedness, as if these were to be the fruits to be rendered 
 to God from His own land. So Amos says \ IV /lave turned 
 juilgmoit into gall or ivormwood, and Ilabakkuk, Judgment 
 tvent forth perverted -. 
 
 5. The inhabitants of Samaria shaU fear because of [i. e.for'\ 
 the calvesof Bet h-aven. He calls them in this place cow-calves^, 
 perhaps to denote their weakness and helplessness. So far 
 from their idol beiuR'ablc to help them, theij shall be anxious 
 and troubled for their idols, lest these should be taken captive 
 from them. The Bethel (Himse of God) of the Patriarch 
 Jacob, was now turned into Beth-aven, the house of vanity. 
 This, from its old sacred memories, was a more celebrated 
 place of tiie calf-worship than Dan. Hosea then gives to the 
 calf of Bethel its precedence, and ranks both idols under its 
 one name, as calves of the house of vanity. 
 
 For tite people thereof shall mourn over it. They had set 
 lip the idols, instead of God ; so God calls them no longer His 
 people, but the people of the calf whom they had chosen for 
 their god ; as Moab was called * the people of Chemosh, its idol. 
 They had joyed in it, not in God; now they, its people 3ii\A Ms 
 priests, should mourn over it, when unable to help itself, much 
 less, them. Both their joy and their sorrow shewed that they 
 were without excuse, that they had gone willingly after the 
 king's commandment, ser^•ing it of their own free-will out of 
 love, not out of fear of the king, and, neither out of love or 
 fear, serving God purely. 
 
 For the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. The 
 true glory of Israel was God ; the Glory of God is in Himself. 
 The glory oft he calves, for whom Ephraim hadexchanged their 
 God, was something cpiite outward to them, the gold of which 
 they vrcre made, and the rich offerings made to them. Both 
 together became an occasion of their being carried captive. 
 They mourned, not because they had offended God by their 
 sin, but for the loss of that dumb idol, whose worship had been 
 their sin, and a\ hich had brought these heavy woes upon them. 
 Impenitent even under chastisement ! The Prophet docs not 
 mention any grief for "the despoiling of their country, the 
 burning of their cities, the slaughter of their people, their 
 shame ^'■' One only thing he names as moving them. Even 
 then their one chief anxiety was, not that God was departed 
 from them, but that their calf in which they had set their 
 glory, whereon they so franticly relied, on which they had la- 
 vished their substance, their national distinction and disgrace, 
 was gone. Without the grace of God men monrn, not their 
 sins, but their idols. 
 
 6. Jt shall be also carried ; [i.e. Itself '^ also shall be carried.] 
 Not Israel only shall be carried into captivity, but its god 
 also. The victory over a nation was accounted of old a vic- 
 tory over its gods, as indeed it shewed their impotence. 
 
 1 vi. 12. V. 7. 2 i. 4. 3 niSjy * Num. xxi. 29. s from Osor. « The itself, irN, is 
 emphatic. ? 1 Kgs. xx. 23, 28. 8 2 Kgs. xviii. 33-35. add xix. 10-13. » See ab. v, 13. 
 
 Hence the excuse made by the captains of Benhadad, tliat the 
 gods of Israel were gods of the hills, and not gods of the ral- 
 lies'', and God's vindication of His own Almightiness, which 
 was thus denied. Hence also the boast of Sennacherib by 
 Rabshakeh, * have any of the gods of the nations delivered at 
 all his land (nit of t lie hand of the Aiug of Assyria ? Where 
 are the gods of Ilamath and of ^rpad ? ivhere are the gods of 
 Sepharvaim, Ilena, and Ivah f have they delivered Samaria 
 out of mine hand? Who are they among all the gods of the 
 countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, 
 that the L(n-d should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand? 
 When God then, for the sin of His people, gave them into the 
 hand of their enemies. He vindicated His own glory, first by 
 avenging any insult offered to His worship, as in the capture 
 of the ark by the Philistines, or Belshazzar's insolent and 
 drunken abuse of the vessels of the temple ; or by vindicating 
 His servants, as in the case of Daniel and the three children, 
 or by chastening pride, as in Nebuchadnezzar, and explaining 
 and pointing His chastisement through His servant Daniel, or 
 by pro])hecy, as of Cyrus by Isaiah and Daniel. To His own 
 people. His chastisements were the vindication of His glory 
 which they 'had dishonored, and the close of the long strife 
 between the true prophets and the false. The captivity of the 
 calf ended its worship, and was its final disgrace. The de- 
 struction of the temple and the captivity of its vessels and of 
 God's people ended, not the worship, but the idolatries of Ju- 
 dah, and extended among their captors, and their captors' 
 captors, the Medes and Persians, the knowledge of the One 
 true God. 
 
 Unto ^-Issyriajfor a present to Aiug Jareb or to a hostile or 
 strifeful ' /ting. Perhaps the name Jareb designates the Assy- 
 rian by that which was a characteristic of their empire, love of 
 strife. The history of their kings, as given by themselves in 
 the newly-found inscriptions, is one warfare. To that same 
 king, to whom they sent for aid in their weakness, from 
 whom they hoped for help, and whom God named as what 
 lie knew and willed him to be to them, hostile, strifeful, and an 
 avenger, should the object of their idolatry be carried in tri- 
 umph ^^. They had trusted in the calf and in the Assyrians. 
 The Assyrian, to whom they looked as the protector of their 
 liberties, was to carry away their other trust, their god.^ 
 
 Fphraim shall receive shame. This shall be all his gain ; 
 this his purchase; this he had obtained for himself by his pride 
 and wilfulness and idolatry and ambition and wars ; this is 
 the end of all, as it is of all pursuits apart from God ; this he 
 shall receive from the Giver of all good, shame. ^-Ind Israel 
 shall be ashamed of Ids oicn counsel. Ephraim's special coun- 
 sel was that which Jeroboam took with the most worldly-wise 
 of his people, a counsel which admirably served their imme- 
 diate end, the establishment of a kingdom, separate from that 
 of Judali. It was acutely devised ; it seemed to answer its end 
 for 230 years, so that Israel, until the latter part of the reign 
 
 '" hiv is used of solemn stately processions, as of a royal bride, Ps. xlv. 15, 16. or a buri- 
 al. Job X. 19. xxi. 30, 32. and so of the lengthened train of presents, Ps. Ixviii. 30.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 c HilTs T 7 "^ 'I'ifor Samaria, !ioi* king- is cut off as 
 '■'''•• ^■*"- the foam upon f the water. 
 
 "■ ver. 3, 15. 
 t Ilib. 
 
 S " The high phiccs also of Aven, ° the 
 'ttcu'aier. siii of Isracl, shall he destroyed: Pthe 
 oDeut.ti?'2i. thorn and the thistle shall come up on 
 
 1 Kings 12. 30. p cli. 9. 6. 
 
 of Pekali, was stroiii;-, Jiululi, in comparison, weak. But it 
 was the sin wlicmcitk lie made Israel to sin, and for which God 
 scattered him anion^' the lieathcn. Ilis wisdom liecamc his 
 destruction and his shame. The jtolicy wliich was to establish 
 his family and his kingdom, destroyed his own family in the 
 next generation, and ultimately, his people, not by its failure, 
 but by its success. 
 
 7. Her /cinq- is cut ojf like foam (or, more probably, ' a 
 straw) on the [iit./«fr oftliel water. A bubble, or one of those 
 little shreds which float in countless numbers on the surface 
 of the water, give the same image of lightness, emptiness, 
 worthlessness, a thing- too light to sink, but driven impetu- 
 ously, and luiresisting-ly, hither and thitlicr, at the impulse of 
 the torrent which hurries it along. Such was the king, whom 
 Israel had set in the highest place, in whom it had trusted, in- 
 stead of (lod. So easily was Hoshea, their last king, swept 
 away by the flood, which broke in on Ephraim, from Assyria. 
 Piety is the only solidity ; apart from piety all is cm|)tiness. 
 
 8. The high places of Aven, i. e. of vanity or iniquity. He 
 had before called Bethel, house of God. by the name of Betli- 
 uven, house of vanity ; now he calls it Aven, vanity or iiti- 
 quifi/, as being the concentration of those qualities. Bethel 
 was situated on a hill, the mount of Bethel, and, from difl'erent 
 sides, people were said to s^o up " to it. The high place often 
 means the shrine, or the house of the high places. Jeroboam 
 had built such at Bethel^; many such already existed in his 
 time, so that, luhoever would, he consecrated as their priests '. 
 The high-place or shrine, is accordingly said to be built ', 
 broken down and burnt ". At times, they were tents, and so 
 said to be woven "', made oi garments of divers colours^. The 
 calf then, probably, became a centre of idolatry; many such 
 idol-shrines were formed around it, on its mount, until Bethel 
 became a metropolis of idolatry. This was the sin of Israel, 
 as being the soiu-ce of all its sins. 
 
 The thorn and the thistle shall cmne up upon their altars. 
 This pictures, not only the desolation of the place, as before'-', 
 but the forced cessation of idolatry. Fire destroys, down to 
 the root, all vegetable life which it has once touched. The 
 thorn, once blackened by fire, puts out no fresh shoot. But 
 now, these idol fires having been put out for ever, from amid 
 the crevicesof the broken altiirs, thornandthlstle^'' shouldgrow 
 freely as in a fallow soil. Where the victims aforetime went 
 up^^, or were ofi"ered, now the wild briars and thistles alone 
 should go up, and wave freely in undisputed ])ossession. Eph- 
 raim had multiplied altars, as God multiplied their ^ooffc; now 
 their altars should be but monuments of the defeat of idolatry. 
 They remained, but only as the grave-stones of the idols, once 
 worshipped there. 
 
 Tliey shall say to the mountains, cover us. Samaria and 
 Bethel, the seats of the idolatry and of the kingdom of Israel, 
 themselves both on heights, had both, near them, mountains 
 higher than themselves. Such was to Bethel, the mountain 
 
 ^ From the use of rrCip "shredding," Joel i. 7. and the Arab. " Josh. xvi. 1. 1 Sam. 
 xiii. 2. ab.iv. 13. Gen.xxxv. 1. Jiulg. i.22. lSam.x.3. 2Kgs. ii.23. 3 i Kgs.xii.3i. 
 
 •■ Ib.xiii.32,33. Mb.xi.7. « 2Kgs.xxiii.l5. ' Ib.r. 
 
 ^ Ezek.xvi.l6. ' ch.ix.O. '" Tlicse same two plants are named together 
 
 in the cursing of the ground for Adam's sin(Gen.iii.lS.) and there alone does the word, 
 
 theh- altars ; 'i and they shall say to the ^ j^'if^s r 
 mountains, Cover us ; and to the hills, "■• • ""'■ 
 
 r' II 1 Is. 2.19. 
 
 rail on us. luUcss.so. 
 
 !)'() Israel, thou hast sinned from the &9?g'.''''* 
 days of Gibeah : there they stood: " thel see^JuJg. 
 
 20. 
 
 on the East, where Al)raham built an altar to the Lord'- ; Sa- 
 maria was encircled by them. Both were proI;ably scenes of 
 their idolatries ; from both, the miseries of the dwellers of Be- 
 thel and Samaria could be seen. Samaria espc(;ially was in 
 the centre of a sort of aiupliitlieatre ; itself, the spectacle. Xo 
 help should those high phices now bring to them in their need. 
 The high hills round Samaria, when the tide of war had fill- 
 ed the valley around it, hemmed them in, the more hopeless- 
 ly. There was no way, either to break through or to escape. 
 The narrow passes, which might have been held, as flood 
 gates against the enemy, would then be held against them. 
 One only service could it seem, that their mountains could 
 then render, to destroy them. So should they be freed from 
 evils worse than the death of the body, and escape the gaze 
 of men upon their misery. "They shall wish rather to die, 
 than to see what will bring death." "They shall say to the 
 mountains on which they worshipped idols, fall on us, and 
 anticipate the cruelty of the Assyrians and the extreme mi- 
 sery of captivity." Nature al)hors anniliilation; man shrinks 
 from the violent marring of his outward form ; he clings, how- 
 ever debased, to the form which God gave him. What mi- 
 sery,thcn, when men long- for, what their inmost being shrinks 
 from ! 
 
 The words of the Prophet become a sort of proverbial say- 
 ing for misery, which longs for death rather than life. The 
 destruction of Samaria was the type of the destruction of Je- 
 rusalem by the Romans, and of every other final excision, 
 when the measure of iniquity was filled, and there was neither 
 hope nor remedy. This was the characteristic of the destruc- 
 tion of Samaria. They had been God's people ; they were to 
 be so no more. This was the characteristic of the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem, not by the Babylonians, after which it was 
 restored, but by the Romans, when they had rejected Christ, 
 and prayed. His Blood be on us and on our children. So will 
 it be in the end of the world. Hence our Lord uses thewords'^, 
 to forewarn of the miseries of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 when the Jews hid themselves in caves for fear of the Ro- 
 mans"; and S.John uses them to picture man's despair at 
 the end of the world '^ " I dread" says S. Bernard '% '•' the 
 gnawing worm, and the living death. I dread to fall into the 
 hands of a living death, and a dying life. This is the second 
 death, which never out-killeth, yet which ever killeth. How 
 would they long to die once, that they may not die for ever ! 
 They tcho say to the 7nountains,fall on tis, and to the hills, 
 cover us, what do they will, but, by the aid of death, either 
 to escape or to end death ? Thry shall seek death, but shall 
 not fi)id it, and shall desire to die, and death shall Jlee from 
 them, saith S. John '''." 
 
 9. O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah. 
 There must have been great sin, on both sides, of Israel as 
 well as Benjamin, when Israel punished the atrocity of Gibe- 
 ah, since God caused Israel so to be smitten before Benjamin. 
 
 translated thistle, occur. Hosca, probably, was using the words of Genesis, in that, as a 
 sort of proverb, lie joins these two, out of sixteen naniesof the class of plant whicii occur 
 in tlie Old Testament. " rh'J (whence ~h'J ul.ole burnt offeriug. lit. that which 
 
 ^orW; up j is also a sacrificial term. '2 Gen', xii. 8. " S". Lukexxiii.-"! , 
 
 " Jos.de B.J. vi. "J. 'Mlev.vi.lG. '" De corsid. v. 12. '' Rcv.ix.C.
 
 66 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 nT?^f°7l.r battle in Gibeah aj^ainst tbe children of ini- 
 
 <•''•■ 710. quity did not overtake them. 
 ' Drat. 28. G3. 10 ' It IS in my desire that I should ehas- 
 "'Ez;k!'23^i6,tisc them; and "the people shall be ga- 
 
 47. cli. 8. 10.' 
 
 Such sill had continued ever since, so that, although God, in 
 His long-suftcrini;-, had hitherto spared them, "it was not of 
 late only that they had deserved those judgments, although 
 now at last only, God intlieted them." There in Gibeah, thej^ 
 stood. Althougli smitten twice at Gibeah, and heavily chas- 
 tened, there they were .avengers of the sacrcdness of God's 
 law, and, in the end, theif stood ; chastened but not killed. 
 But now, none of the ten tribes took the side of God. Neither 
 zeal for God, nor the greatness of the guilt, nor fear of judg- 
 ment, nor the peril of utter ruin, induced any to set tlieni- 
 selves against sin so great. The sin devised by one, diffused 
 among the many, Avas burnt and branded into them, so that 
 they never parted with it '. The battle in Gibeah against the 
 children of iniquity did not overtahe them, i. e. it did not over- 
 take them then, but it shall overtake them now. Or if we ren- 
 der, (as is more probal)le,),s//«////o/ overtake //;t'«;,itwill mean, 
 not a battle like that in Gibeah, terrible as that was, shall now 
 overtake them ; but one far worse. For, although the tribe 
 of Benjamin was then reduced to six hundred men, yet the 
 tribe still survived and flourished again ; now the kingdom of 
 the ten tribes, and the name of Epliraim, should be utterly 
 blotted out. 
 
 10. It is in 3Ii/ desire that I should chastise them. God 
 doth not afflict willinghj, nor grieve the children of 7nen~. 
 Grievous then must be the cause of punishment, when God 
 not only chastens men, but, so to speak, longs to chasten them, 
 when lie chastens them without any let or hindrance from His 
 mercy. Yet so God had said'; It shall come to pass, thai as 
 the Lord rejoiced over t/ou to do ijou good and to multipli/ i/ou, 
 so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring 
 you to nought. God willed to enforce His justice, with no re- 
 serve whatever from His mercy. His whole mind, so to speak, 
 is to punish them. God is "witliout passions." Yet, in order 
 to impress on us the truth, that one day there will, to some, be 
 judgment without mercy*, He speaks as one, whose longing- 
 could not be satisfied, until the punishment were executed. So 
 He says", Iivill ease Me of Mine adversaries j '^ 3Iine anger 
 shall he accomplished and I will cause 3Iy fury to 7-est upon 
 them, and I will be comforted. 
 
 And the people shall be gathered against him. ''As all 
 the other tribes were gathered against Benjamin at Gibeah to 
 destroy it, so, although that war did not overtake them, now 
 against him, i. e. against Ephraim or the ten tribes, shall be 
 gathered divers )>eoples and nations, to destroy them." The 
 number gathered against them shall be as overwhelming, as 
 that of all the tribes of Israel against the one small tribe of 
 Benjamin. "^ As of old, they ought to have bound themselves 
 to extinguish this apostacy in its birth, as they bound them- 
 selves to avenge the horrible wickedness at Gibeah. But 
 since they bound themselves not against sin, but to it, God 
 says that He would gatlier Heathen nations against them, to 
 punish their obstinate rebellion against Himself. They who 
 will neither be drawn by piety, nor corrected by moderate 
 chastisements, must needs be visited by sharper punishments, 
 
 1 Osor. ' Lam.iii.,33. 3 Dcut.xxviii. 63. •> S.James ii. 13. 
 
 ' Is. i.21. ° Ezck.v. 13. 7 in that they have pointed Drnjiy not Dnuiv 
 
 iniquities. Another rendering before their two eyes, is altogetlier wrong. 1. It would, at 
 
 when they shall bind (, ^fi% T 
 
 thered against them, 
 themselves in their two furrows. 
 
 ] 1 And Ephraim u as "^ an heifer that 
 taught, and loveth to tread out the corn ; 
 
 transgressions J or, in their two habitations. 
 
 cir. 740. 
 
 • II Or, when I 
 is shall liimi 
 them Joy 
 their two 
 ' Jer. 50. 11. Mic.4. 13. 
 
 that some, who will not strive to the uttermost against the 
 mercy of God, may be saved." 
 
 IVhen they shall bind themselves in their two furrows. 
 They bind themselves, and Satan binds them to their sin. In 
 harmony and unity in nothing else, they will bind themselves, 
 and plough like two oxen together, adding furrow to furrow, 
 joining on line to line of sin. They who had thrown oft' the 
 light and easy yoke of God, who were ever like a restive, un- 
 tamed, heifer, starting aside from the yoke, would bind and 
 band themselves steadily in their own ways of sin, cultivat- 
 ing sin, and in that sin should destruction overtake them. 
 Men who are unsteady and uneven in every thing besides, 
 Avill be steadfast in pursuing sin ; they who will submit to no 
 constraint, human or Divine, will, in their slavery to their 
 passions, submit to any thing. No slavery is so heavy as 
 that which is self-imposed. 
 
 This translation has followed an old Jewish tradition, ex- 
 pressed by the vowels of the text '', and old Jewish authorities. 
 With other vowels, it may be rendered, lit. in their binding to 
 their two transgressions, which gives the same sense, '"because 
 they bound themselves to their two transgressions," or, pas- 
 sively, ichen they are bound, on account of their two transgres- 
 sions. The two transgressiojis may designate the two calves, 
 the sin of Israel, or the twofold guilt of fornication, spiritual, 
 and in the body ; the breach of both tables of God's law ; or 
 as Jeremiah says*, 3Iy people hat It committed two evils; they 
 have forsaken Me, the Fouittain of living tvaters, and heived 
 them out cisterns, broken cisterns, ivhich can hold no tvater, 
 " ' This could not be said of any other nation, which knew not 
 God. For if any such worshipped false gods, they committed 
 only one transgression ; but this nation, in which God was 
 known, by declining to idolatry, is truly blamed as guilty of 
 two transgressions ; they left the true God, and for, or against. 
 Him they worshipped other gods. For he hath twofold guilt, 
 who, knowing good, rather chooseth evil ; but he single, who, 
 knowing not good, taketli evil for good. That nation then, 
 both when, after seeing many wonderful works of God, it made 
 and worshippedonecalf in the wilderness; and when, forsaking 
 the house of David and the temple of the Lord, it made itself - 
 two calves; yea, and so often as it worshipped those gods of the 
 heathen ; and yet more, when it asked that Barabbas should 
 be released but that Christ should be crucified, committed two 
 transgressions, rejecting the good, electing the evil; ^^ setting 
 Hweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet ; setting darkness as light, 
 and light as darkness." 
 
 1 1. Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught and that loveth to 
 tread out the corn. The object of the metaphor in these three 
 verses seems to be, to picture, under operations of husbandry, 
 what God willed and trained His people to do, how they took 
 as much pains in evil, as He willed them to do for good. One 
 thing only they did which He willed, but not because He willed 
 it, — what pleased themselves. Corn was threshed in the East 
 chiefly by means of oxen, who were either driven round and 
 round, so as to trample it out with their feet, or drew a cylin- 
 
 least, be, D.T:'!;, not Dniry which means Wii'i'r/oHii/aJns. 2. Th'.'re is probably no such 
 rcadnig as cnij'y. tlie ' merely indicating a reading Dni:y withou: 5. Hiller. Arc. Cethib. 
 p. 233. s ii. 13. s Rup. "> Is. v. 20.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 «7 
 
 chrTst ''"^^ ' passed over upon f her fair neek : 
 cir.710. J ^yiii make Ephraiin to ride; Judah 
 
 f Heb. the beaut;/ of her neck. 
 
 dcr armed with iron, or harrow-shaped planks, set with sharp 
 stones whieli at the same time cut up tiie straw for proven- 
 der. Tlic trcadinfiT out the corn was an easy and hixnrious 
 service, since God had forhiddcn to muzzle theo.v^, whih; do- 
 ing it. It jticturcs then tiie sweet f^Tutle ways by Avhich God 
 wins us to Ilis service. Israel wouhl serve thus far; for slie 
 liked the service, she teas accustomed to it, and she loved it, hut 
 she would do no more. She waxed fat and kicked". 
 
 "^Thc heifer when accustomed to the labour of treadinpj 
 out the corn, mostly, even unconstrained, returns to the same 
 labour. So themindof the unii;odly, devoted to the slaveries 
 of tliis world, and accustomed to tlie fatisjues of temporal 
 thinjjs, even if it may have leisure for itself, liastens to sub- 
 ject itself to earthly toils, and, inured to its miserable con- 
 versation, seeks the renewal of toil, and will not, thous^h it 
 may, cease from the yoke of this world's slavery. This yoke 
 our Lord would remove from the necks of His disciples, say- 
 incf ■*, Take heed, lest at any time i/our hearts he overcharged 
 with cares of this life, and that Day come upon yon unawares. 
 And again. Come vnto Me, all ye who labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you." 
 " ^ Some, in order to appear somewhat in this world, overload 
 themselves M'ith earthly toils, and although, amid their labours, 
 they feel their strength fail, yet, overcome by love of earthly 
 things, they delight in their fatigue. To these it is said by the 
 Prophet, Ephraim is a heifer taught, and loving to tread out 
 the corn. They ask that they may be oppressed ; in rest, they 
 deem that they have lighted unto a great peril." 
 
 And I passed over her fair neck, handling her gently and 
 tenderly, as men put the yoke gently on a young untamed ani- 
 mal, and inure it softly to take the yoke upon it. Yet "•'to 
 pass over, especially when it is said of God, always signifies in- 
 flictions and troubles." To pass over sins, is to remit them ; to 
 pass over the sinner, is to punish him. I will make Ephraim 
 to ride, or I tvill make it, i. e. the yoke, to ride on Ephruim's 
 neck, as the same word is used for " "^ place the hand on the 
 bow;" or, perhaps better, I will set a rider on Ephraim, who 
 should tame and subdue him. Since he would not submit 
 himself freely to the easy yoke of God, God would set a ruler 
 upon him, who should be his master. Thus, the Psalmist 
 complains, ^Thoii hast made men to ride on our head, directing 
 us at their pleasure. 
 
 " " The beauty of the neck designates those who sin and take 
 pleasure in their sins. That passing over or ascending, said 
 both in the past and the future, Ijjassed, Iicill make to ride, sig- 
 nifies that ^hat He purposes is most certain. It expresses 
 that same vengeance as, ^"i'e are a stiff'necked people ; J will 
 cojne up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee. 
 The beauty of the neck here is the same as the ornament there, 
 when the Lord says, therefore now put off thy ornamoits from 
 thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. As long as the 
 sinner goes adorned, i. c. is proud in his sins, as long as he 
 stiffens his fair neck, self-complacent, taking pleasure in the 
 ills which he has done, God, in a measure, knows not what to 
 do to him ; mercy knows not how, apart from the severity of 
 judgment, to approach him ; and so after the sentence of the 
 judge, thou art a sti/^hecked people, t5"c. He gives the counsel 
 
 ' Deut. XXV. 4. " lb. xxxii. 15. 
 
 3 S. Greg. Mor. xx. 16. Rib. * S. Luke xxi. 34. * g. Greg. inEzek. 
 
 Horn. X. lb. * S. Jer. See Job ix. 11. xiii. 13. Ps. Ixxxviii. 17. Heb. Is. xxviii. 18. 
 ' DDnn 2 Kings xiii. 16. twice. 8 ps. Jxvi. 12. 
 
 shall plow, «;»//. Taeob shall break his elods. ^{'^["st 
 12 5' Sow to yourselves in righteousness, _2i!.-7f' : 
 
 y Prov. 11.18. 
 
 put off thine ornaments ^c. i. e. humble thyself in penitence, 
 that I may have mercy upon thee." 
 
 Judah shall plow, Jaroh shall break his clods. In the Will 
 of God, Judah and Israel were to unite in His servic!% Ju- 
 dah first, Jacolj, after liim, breaking the clods, which ^^•(lllld 
 hinder the seed from siiooting u]). Judah being mentioned 
 in the same incidental way, as elsewhere by Hosea, it may be, 
 that he would speak of what should follow on Ephraiin's chas- 
 tisement. " " When they shall see tliis, the two tribes shall no 
 longer employ themselves in treading out the corn, but shall 
 plow. To tread out the corn is to" act '"in hope of present 
 gain ; to plow, is to labour in that, which has no instant fruit, 
 but promiseth it hereafter, i. e. the fulfilment of God's com- 
 mands." ./rtfoZ/ will then be the remnant of the ten tribes, 
 who, at Hezekiah'sinvitation,out of Ephraim, iVIanasseh, Issa- 
 cliar, Asher, and Zebulun, joined in celebrating the passover 
 at Jerusalem, and subsequently in destroying idolatry '-. Ho- 
 sea had already foretold that Judahand Israelshall \w gathered 
 together, under one Hcad^^. Here, again, he unites theui in 
 one; preparing His way first in themselves, then, in others. 
 Judah is placed first; for to him was the promise in his fore- 
 father, the Patriarch, and then in David. Ephraim was to be 
 partaker of his blessings, by being united to him. The image 
 of the heifer has been dropped. He had spoken of them as 
 husbandmen ; as such he addresses them. 
 
 12. Soiu to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy ; lit, 
 in the proportion of mercy, wqX in proportion /o what you have 
 sown, nor what justice would give, but beyond all deserts, m 
 the proportion of mercy ; i. e. "according to the capacity and 
 fulness of the mercy of God; what becometh the mercy of God, 
 which is boundless," which overlooketh man's failings, and 
 giveth an infinite reward for poor imperfect labour. As our 
 Lord says ^*, Give, and it shall be given nnfo you ; good mea- 
 sure, pressed down, and shaken together andrunniug over, shall 
 men give into your bosom. "' ^^ If the earth giveth thee larger 
 fruits than it has received, how much more shall the requiting 
 of mercy repay thee manifold more than thou gavest!" Sowing 
 and reaping always stand over against each other, as labour 
 and reward, ^"//e that soweth sparingly shall reap also spa- 
 ringly ; and he which sotveth hountifully shall reap also boun- 
 tifully. And, 1^ whatsoever a tnan soiveth, that shall he also 
 reap. For he that sotveth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap 
 corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Sj/irif 
 reap life everlasting. In due season we shall reap, if ice faint 
 not. We are bidden to sow to ourselves, for ^'^ our goodness 
 reacheth not to God; our's is the gain,if we love God, the Foun- 
 tain of all good. This reward, according to mercy, is in both 
 worlds. It is in this world also. For "grace well used draws 
 more grace." God giveth ^rffce upon grace ^^ ; so that each 
 good deed, the fruit of grace, is the seed-corn of larger grace. 
 " If thou humble thyself, it stimulates thee to humble thyself 
 more. If thou prayest, thou longest to pray more. If thou 
 givest alms, thou wishest to give more." It is in the world to 
 come. For, says a holy man -", " our works do not pass away 
 as it seems, but each thing done in time, is sown as the seed of 
 eternity. The simple will be amazed, when from this slight 
 seed he shall see the copious harvest arise, good or evil, ac- 
 
 ' Rup. '" Ex. xxxiii. 5. ^ 
 
 11 Rib. 1= 2 Chron. XXX. xxxi. " i. 11. " S. Luke vi. 38. 
 
 1^ S. Ambr. de Naboth, § 7. Rib. •« 2 Cor.ix. G. i' Gal. vi. ", S, 9. i^ Ps. xvi.2. 
 15 S. John i. 16. -» S. Bern, de Conv. c. 8. Lap.
 
 68 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 CHiiTsT ''•^''^P in mercy; "break up your fallow 
 '='''• ^■^"- ffround : for it is time to seek the Loud, till 
 
 ' Jer. 4. 3. 
 
 cordiii!^ as the seed «-as." '•'Thou scckest two sheaves, rest 
 and i^lorv. They shall reap i^hn-y and rest, wiio have sown 
 toil and self-ahnscnient '." 
 
 Brcd/i nj) ]/()itr f(ill<jw graiijid. This is not tlie order of 
 husbandry. Tlic gTound was already plowed, harrowed, sown. 
 Now he bids lier anew, Break up your fulluio grituud. Tiie 
 Ciiurch breaks up her own fallow ground, when she stirs up 
 anew the decaying piety of her own members ; she breaks up 
 fallow ground, when, l)y preaching the Gospel of Christ, she 
 brings new people into flis fold. And for us too, one sowing 
 sufficeth not. It must be no surface-sowing. And "the soil 
 of our liearts must ever be anew cleansed ; for no one in this 
 mortal life is so perfect in piety, that noxious desires will not 
 spring up again in the heart, as tares in the well-tilled field." 
 For it is time to seek the Lord, laitil He come and rai/i rig/it- 
 eoiis/iess i/jioii i/oit, or better, until He sliall rome and teac/i 
 you righteousness. To rain rigldeousness is the same image 
 as Solomon uses of Christ ; - He shall come down like rain 
 upon the mmvn grass, as shoirers that tvater the earth, and 
 \&a,\a.\i,^ drop douui ye heavens from above and let the skies 
 pour do2vn righteousness. It cxj)resses in picture-language 
 how He, Who is our Bighteousuess, came down from heaven, 
 to give life to us, who were dried and parched nj) and wi- 
 thered, wlien the whole face of our mortal nature was as dead. 
 Yet there is nothing to indicate that the Prophet is here using 
 imagery. The Hebrew word is used very rarely in the mean- 
 ing, to rain ; in that of teaching, continually, and that, in ex- 
 actly the same idiom as here *. One office of our Lord was 
 to teach. Nicodemus owned Him, as a teacher sent from God^ 
 The Samaritans looked to the Messiah, as one who should 
 teach all things ^. The prophets foretold that He should teach 
 us His ways ', that He should be a rcitness unto the people -. 
 
 The Prophet bids them seek diligently ", and perseveringly, 
 "not leaving off or desisting," if they should not at once find, 
 but continuing the search, quite up to ^° the time when they 
 should find. His words imply the need of perseverance and 
 patience, which should stop short of notliing but God's own 
 time for finding. The Prophet, as is the way of the prophets, 
 goes on to Christ, who was ever in the prophets' hearts and 
 hopes. The words could only be understood improperly of 
 God the Father. God does not come. Who is everywhere. He 
 ever was among His people, nor did He will tobeamong them 
 otherwise than heretofore. No coming of God, as God, was 
 looked for, to teach righteousness. Rather, the time was com- 
 ing, when He would be less visibly among them than before. 
 Among the ten tribes, as a distinct people. He would shortly 
 be no more, eitlier by prophecy, or in worship, or by any per- 
 ceptible token of His Providence. From Judah also He was 
 about, although at a later period, to withdraw the kingdom 
 of David, and the Urim and Thummim, and the Shechinah, 
 or visible Presence. Soon after the Captivity, prophecy it- 
 self was to cease. But " the coming of Christ "the Patriarchs 
 and holy men all along desired to s"ee : Abraham saw it and 
 was glad". Jacob longed for it^^ rj-jjg ]^^y jjjjd ,.]jg p^^, 
 phets directed to it, so that there were always in Israel such 
 as waited for it, as appears by the example of old Simeon 
 and Joseph of Arimathaea, and those many prophets and right- 
 
 ' Id. Serm. tie S. Bened. § 11. lb. 2 Ps, Ixxii. G. 3 xlv. 8. 
 
 •> with accusal, of tliat which is taupht and dat. of the person, Deut. x.\xiii. 10. 
 s S. John iii. 2. « lb. iv. 25. 7 Is, ii. 3. » lb. Iv. 4. 
 
 he come, aud rain righteousness upon you. ciuust 
 1.3 "Ye have plowed wickedness, ve have "'■ ^^o- 
 
 " Juh4. 8. Prov'22.8. ch.8.7. Gal. 6. 7, 8. 
 
 eous men whom our Saviour speaks of". He that should 
 come seems to have been a known title for Him ; since John 
 Ba))tist sent two of his disciples, to say unto Him, ^Irt thou 
 He that shall come, or do ice look for anolher^^ ? " 
 
 The Projjhet saith then, "Now is the time to seek the 
 Lord, and ])repare for the coming of Christ ; for He, when He 
 cometh, will teach you, yea, will give you true righteousness, 
 whereby ye sliall be righteous before God, and heirs of His 
 kingdom." " '^ So God speaketh through Isaiah, keepyejudg- 
 ment and do justice, for 3Iy salvation is near to come, and My 
 righteousness to he revealed. In both places, men are warned, 
 to prepare the way to receive Christ, which was the office 
 assigned to the law. As S. Paul .saith, fFhereunto ivus the 
 law ? It was added because of transgressions. It ^^'as given to 
 restrain the passions of men by fear of punishment, lest they 
 should so defile themselves by sin, as to despise the mercy and 
 office of Christ, It was given to prepare our .';ouls by love of 
 righteousness and mercy to receive Christ, that He might en- 
 rich them with the Divine wealth of righteousness." " ^^ If Is- 
 rael of old were so to order their ways in expectation of Him, 
 and that they might be prepared for His coming ; and if their 
 neglecting to do this made them liable to such heavy judg- 
 ments, how much severer judgments shall they be worthy of, 
 who, after His Coming and raining upon them the plentiful 
 showers of heavenly doctrine, and abundant measure of His 
 grace and gifts of His Holy Spirit, do, for want of breaking 
 up the fallow ground of their hearts, suffer His holy word to 
 be lost on them. The fearful doom of such unfruitful Chris- 
 tians is set down by S. Paul^"." 
 
 The jiresent is ever the time to seek the Lord. ^^ Behold 
 now is the accepted time ; behold note is the Day of Salvation. 
 As Hosea says, // is time to seek the Lord till He come, so 
 S. Paul sa.\th,^^ unto them that look for Him, shall He appear 
 the second time, without sin, unto salvation. 
 
 13. Ye Jiave plowed wickedness. They not only did not 
 that which God commanded, but tlicy did the exact contra- 
 ry. They cultivated wickedness. They broke up their fallow 
 ground, yet to sow, not wheat but tares. They did not leave 
 it even to grow of itself, although even thus, on the natural 
 soil of the human heart, it yields a plenteous harvest ; but they 
 bestowed tlieh- labour on it, plowed it, sowed, and as they 
 sowed, so they reaped, an abundant increase of it. "They 
 brought their ill doings to a harvest, and laid up as in pro- 
 vision the fruits thereof." Iniquity and the results of iniquity, 
 were the gain of all their labour. Of all their toil, they shall 
 have no fruits, except the iniquity itself. " -° By the plowing, 
 sowing, eating the fruits, he marks the obstinacy of incor- 
 rigible sinners, who begin ill, go on to worse, and in the worst 
 come to an end. Then too, when the corrupted soul labours 
 with the purpose of a deed of sin, and resolves in its inmost 
 thoughts, bow it may bring the ungodly will into effect in 
 deed, it is like one plowing or sowing. But when, having 
 completed the work of iniquity, it exults that it has done ill, 
 it is like one reaping. When further it has broken out so far 
 as, in pride of heart to defend its sins against the law of God 
 prohibiting them, and goes on unconcerned in impenitence, 
 he is like one who, after harvest, eats the fruits stored up." 
 
 9 c-n w This is the force of ly. " S. John viii. 5C. 12 Gen. xlix. IS. 
 
 " S.Lukeii.25, S.Markxv.43. S.Matt. xiii. 17. " S.Hatt.xi.3. 
 
 •5 Osor. i" Toe. 17 Heb.vi.4-S. 'socor.vi.2. "Heb.ix.28. ^o Rup.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 69 
 
 chrTst i*<^"'PC(l iniquity; y(* liiivo eaten tlu^ fruit 
 cir.rii). of \\^^ . because thou didst trust in thy 
 
 way, in the multitude of thy niij^hty men. 
 
 U ''Tiicrefon^ shall a tumult arise a- chrTst 
 monjjj thy jx-ople, and all thy fortresses "r -'W- 
 shall he spoiled, as Shalman spoiled "^ Jietli-c oKi„gsi8. 
 
 31. & 19.13. 
 
 Ye Iiare eaten the fruit iif lies. Tlicy had l)i'('ii full of 
 lies^ ; they had lied against (j<id by hypocrisy- and idolatry ; 
 they had spoken lies ufrainst Iliiu'^ ; by denyinc: that Heiravc 
 tlicin what lie bestowed upon them, and ascribinfj; it to their 
 idols*. All iniquity is a lie. Such then should be //(e //•«// 
 which they tasted, on which they fed. It should not profit, 
 nor satisfy them. It should not merely be empty, as in the 
 case of those who are said U) feed idi ashes'^, but hurtful. 
 As Isaiah saith '^, the]/ eoueeive inisehief and bring forth ini- 
 quitij. They hateh eorkatriee' eggs, and weave the spider's 
 lueb ; he that eateth of their eggs clieth, and that whieh is crush- 
 ed, breaketh out into a viper. " Gain deceives, lust deceives, 
 irluttony deceives; they yield no true deliijht ; they satisfy 
 not, they disgust; and they end in misery of body and soul." 
 '• Bodily dclisjhts," says a father ", '' when absent, kindle a ve- 
 hement longing; when had and eaten, they satiate and dis- 
 gust the eater. Spiritual delights are distasteful, when un- 
 known ; when possessed, they are longed for ; and the more 
 those who hunger after them feed upon them, the more they are 
 hungered for. Bodily delights please, untasted ; when tasted, 
 they displease ; spiritual, when untasted, are held elieap ; when 
 experienced, they please. In bodily delights, appetite gene- 
 rates satiety ; satiety, disgust. In spiritual, appetite produc- 
 eth satiety; satiety, appetite. For spiritual delights increase 
 longing in the soul, v.'hile they satisfy. For the more their 
 sweetness is perceived, so much the more is that known which 
 is loved more eagerly. Unpossessed, they cannot be loved, 
 because their sweetness is unknown." 
 
 Because thou didst trust in thij way. Tliij way, i. e. not 
 God's. They forsook God's way, followed '• ways of wicked- 
 ness and misbelief." While displeasing God, they trusted in 
 the worship of the calves and in the help of Egypt and As- 
 syria, jHrt/i/Ho-^esA their arm, and departing from the living 
 God. So long as a man mistrusts liis ways of sin, there is 
 hope of his conversion amid any depths of sin. When be trusts 
 in his 7cai/s, all entrance is closed against the grace of God. 
 He is as one dead ; he not only justifies himself, but is self-jus- 
 tified. There is nothing in him, neither love nor fear, which 
 can be awakened. 
 
 14. Therefore shall a tumult arise a}nong thy people, lit. 
 ■peoples. Such was the immediate fruit of departing from God 
 and trusting in men and idols. They trusted in their own 
 might, and the multitude of their people. That might should, 
 through intestine division and anarchy, become their destruc- 
 tion. As in the dislocated state of the Roman empire under 
 the first emperors, so in Israel, the successive usurpers arose 
 out of their armies, ^///e multitude of their mighty ones, in whom 
 they trusted. The confused noise ^ oi war sliould first arise in 
 
 > cli. iv. ], 3. vii. 3. - v. 7- vi. 7.vii. IG. x. 4. ' vii. 13. ■'ii. 5, 12. 
 
 6 Is. xliv. 20. « lb. lix. 4, 5. 7 S. Greg, in Evang. Horn. 36. init. L. 
 
 ^ See Introd p. 2. ^ as in Am. ii. 2. 
 
 '" TDJI3 plural. The con-uption in some MSS. -pl"3 (sing.) and the rendering of the 
 old Versions (as of our own) in the singular, (with the same general sense,) illustrate the 
 peculiarity ot the idiom for which they substituted an easier, and nearly equivalent, phrase. 
 ^' The Etyniokigy ofniiZO, as oi Bvznih. 
 
 ^- expressed by the union of 73 with tlie genitive plur. and the sing, verb, which is very 
 rare. Is. Ixiv. 7. Nah. iii. 7. Prov. xvi. 2. have been cited as tlic only instances. 
 
 '^ 2 Kings xvii. 3. ^^ Eser occurs in £sfl7-haddon, Tiglath pilt'.scr and, probably, 
 
 is the srune as e:zar and ezer in Nebuchadnezzar, and Sharezer. It probably signifies 
 "help." A much stronger omission occurs proltably in the name of the parricide Sharezer, 
 2 Ivingsxix. 37. whose whole name was Nergal Sharezer. Merodach Baladan is probably 
 the Mardocempal of Ptol. Rawl. Herod, i. p.5U2. Chedorlaomer (Gen.xiv. 1. 9.) is very 
 
 the midst of their own peoples. They are spoken of not as one, 
 but as many ; jieojites^", not, as (lod willed tbcni to be, one pco- 
 ]de, for they liad no |ii-inciple of oneness or stability, who iiail 
 no legitimate succession, either of kings or of priests; who 
 had made kings, but not through God. Each successor had 
 the same riglit as his predecessor, the right of might, and fur- 
 nislied an example and precu'dent and sanction to tlie murder- 
 er of himself or of bis son. 
 
 All thy fortresses shall, he spoiled, lit. the whole of tin/ for- 
 tresses shall be wasted. lie speaks of tlic whole as one. Their 
 fenced cities, \vhich cut otV all ap])roacli^', should be one waste'-. 
 They bad forsaken God, their fortress and deliverer, and so 
 He gave up their fortresses to the enemy, so that all and each 
 of them were laid waste. The confusion, begun among them- 
 selves, prepared for destruction by the enemy. Of tliis he 
 gives one awefid type. 
 
 As Shalman spoiled (or wasted) Hcth-Arbel in the day of 
 battle. Shalman is, no doubt, Slialmancscr king of Assyria, 
 who came up against Hoshca, early in his reign, and he be- 
 came a servant to him and brought him a present ^^. Shalman 
 being the characteristic part of the name^', the I'roi)het pro- 
 bably omitted the rest, on the ground of the rhythm. Betli- 
 Arbel is a city, which tlie Greeks, retaining, in like way, only 
 the latter and characteristic half of the name, called Arbela ^'. 
 Of the several cities called Arbela, that celebrated in Grecian 
 history, was part of the Assyrian empire. Two others, one 
 '' i^in the mountain-district of Fella" and so on the East side 
 of Jordan, the other between Scpphoris and Tiberias '^, (and so 
 in Naphthali) must, together with the <'ountries in which they 
 lay, have fallen into the hands of the Assyrians in the reign of 
 Tiglatli-pileser, who took — Gilead and Galilee, all the land of 
 Najihtali^^, in the reign of Pekah. The whole country. East 
 of Jordan, being now in the hands of Shalmaneser, his natural 
 approach to Samaria was over the Jordan, through the valley 
 or plain of Jezreel. Here was the chief wealth of Israel, and 
 the fittest field for the Assyrian horse. Over the Jcjrdan then, 
 whence Israel itself came when obedient to God, whence came 
 the earlier instruments of God's chastisements, came doubt- 
 less the host of Shalmaneser, along the "great plain " of Es- 
 draelon. ."In that plain " also lay an ^^rAe/rt, " nine miles 
 from Legion ^"." Legion itself was at the Western extremity 
 of the plain, as Scythopolis or Bethshean lay at the East -". 
 It was about fifteen miles West of Nazareth -\ and ten miles 
 from Jezreel --. Beth-arbel must accordingly have lain some- 
 where in the middle of the valley of Jezreel. Near this xVrbela, 
 then, Israel must have sustained a decisive defeat from Shal- 
 maneser. For the Prophet docs not say only, that he spoiled 
 Beth-arbel, but that he did this in a day of battle. Here Hosea 
 
 probably the same as the Uuditrmapula of the Babylonian bricks, mapiila being omitted, 
 and Inomer. i. e. el-omcr " the ravager" being equivalent to the meaning oi abda Sfaclu 
 of the bricks, " waster of the West." See Rawl. Herod, i. -KSfi. 
 
 li as Beth Aven, (although on other grounds,) was called Aven (ver. 8.) Beth Baal ]Meon 
 is called morecommonlv Baal Meon but also Beth Meon. .and now Mnein or Mi/iin ; Gibjal 
 is probably called Belli Haggilgal, Neh.xii.20; Dil)lallinijn(ant:rKsrds Dililnlaijis lli-tli 
 Diblathaim, Jer. xlviii. 22 ^the people of Bellicar are called by Josephus (Ant. vi. 2. 2.) 
 Corrw\ ; Opiirnli is probably Betlile aplirali, Mic. i. 10 ; Bfth Millo, 2 Kings xii. 21 . Milh; 
 Beth Nimrn, noiv Nemiiu ; Belli Eden, now Eden ; Belh .izmmeth, Azmaveth ; Deth-el;ed- 
 haroldm, 2 Kings x. 12. Belheked, 14. in Eus. Baithakalh ; Beeshtcrah, (for Belh Ashtaruh) 
 -Ishtarotli. See all these in Ges. Lex. v. n-3 pp. 193—6. 
 
 "* Eus. Ononi. s. V. ■' Jos. B.J. i. 16. 2. Vit. 37.06. 's 2 Kings ::v. 29. 
 
 " Eus. I.e. -" Eus. (v.'l£(rpai';\) assigns these, as the two extremities. 
 
 -' Rcland, p. 873. " Itin. Hieros. p. 586. 
 
 S
 
 70 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 c H Ri s T ^^'^^^ ^" *'^^ *^'^y "^ battle : '' the mother 
 cir . 740. -yyag (lashed in pieces upon Iter children. 
 15 So shall Bethel do unto you because 
 ^}lfl'vUof of f your great wickedness : in a niornini? 
 c ^:;'.7."''- «= shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off. 
 
 i ch. 13. IC. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1 The i7igratitude of Israel unto God for his henefits. 
 5 His jiidf^ment. 8 God's merrif toward them 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 740. 
 
 w 
 
 HEN ' Israel was a child, th(;n I loved » <;ii. 2. 15. 
 him, and 'called my^son outof Egypt, c ex."'.^!^. 
 
 probably in the last years of his life, saw the fulfilment of his 
 own earlier prophecy ; and God brake the how of Israel in the 
 vallei/ of Jezreel^. 
 
 The mother was dashed to pieces on the children. It was 
 an ajrffravation of this barbarity, that, first the infants were 
 dashed against tiie stones before their mothers' eyes, then the 
 mothers themselves were dashed upon them. Syrians ^, Assy- 
 rians ^, Medes *, Babylonians ^, used this barbarity. India has 
 borne witness to us of late, how heathen nature remains the 
 same. 
 
 It may be that, in the name Befhurhcl, the Prophet alludes 
 to the name Bethel'^. As Betharhc/, i. e. the house, or it may 
 be, the idolatrous temple of .-irhel, rescued it not, but was ra- 
 ther the cause of its destruction, so shall Bctliel. The holy 
 places of Israel, the memorials of the free love of God to their 
 forefathers, were pledges to them, the children of those fore- 
 fathers, that, so long as they continued in the faith of their 
 fathers, God, the Unchangeable, vvould continue those same 
 mercies to them. When they termed Bethel, the house of God, 
 into Bethaven, house of vanity, then it became, like Betharbe), 
 lit. house of ambush of God, the scene and occasion of their 
 desolation. 
 
 15. So shall Bethel do unto you. God M'as the Judge, 
 Who condemned them so to suffer from the enemy. Tlie As- 
 syrian was the instrument of the wrath of God. But, in order 
 to point out the moral government of God, the Prophet says, 
 neither that God did it,nor that the Assyrian did it,but Bethel, 
 once the Ixouse of God, now the place where they dishonored 
 God, because of your great wickedness, lit. the loickedness of 
 your wickedness. In their wickedness itself, there was an 
 essence of wickedness, malice within malice. 
 
 In a jnorning shall the king of Israel be cut off. Hoshea 
 was cut off finally, leaving neither root nor branch. His 
 kingdom perished ; he left no memorial. Like the morning, 
 he seemed to dawn on the troubles of his people : he sinned 
 against God; and in «7Hon»'H^, the kingdom, in the multitude 
 0/ whose mighty men he trusted, «•«« cut off t'ov ever. 
 
 XI. 1. IVhen Israel was a child, then I loved him. God 
 loved Israel, as He Himself formed it, ere it corrupted it- 
 self. He loved it for the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, as He saith ^, JacoZ* have I loved, hut Esau have I 
 hated. Then, when it was weak, helpless, oppressed by the 
 Egyptians, afflicted, destitute, God loved him. cared for him, 
 delivered him from oppression, and called him out of Egypt. 
 " ^ When did He love Israel ? When, by His guidance, Israel 
 regained freedom, his enemies were destroyed, he was fed with 
 food from heaven, he heard the voice of God, and received the 
 law from Him. He was unformed in Egypt ; then he was in- 
 formed by the rules of the law, so as to be matured there. He 
 was a child in that vast waste. For he was nourished, not by 
 solid food, but by milk, i. e. by the rudiments of piety and right- 
 eousness, that he might gradually attain the strength of a 
 man. So that law was a schoolmaster, to retain Israel as a 
 child, by the discipline of a child, until the time should come 
 when all, who despised not the heavenly gifts, should receive 
 
 'chi.5. 22 Kgs. viii. 12. ^ here and xiii. ult. ■• Is. .xiii. 16. * PE.cxxxvii.8,9. 
 
 the Spirit of adoption. The Prophet then, in order to shew 
 the exceeding guilt of Israel," says, " fVhen Israel tuas ti child, 
 (in the wilderness, for then he was born when he bound him- 
 self to conform to the Divine law, and was not yet matured) / 
 loved him, i. e. I gave him the law, priesthood, judgments, pre- 
 cepts, instructions ; I loaded him with most ample Itenefits ; I 
 preferred him to all nations, expending on him, as on My chief 
 heritage and peculiar possession, much watchful care and 
 pains." 
 
 I called My son out of Egypt, as He said to Pharaoh*, 
 Israel is My son, even My firstborn ; let My son go, that he may 
 serve Me. God chose him out of all nations, to be His pecu- 
 liar people. Yet also God chose him, not for himself, but be- 
 cause He willed that Christ, His only Son, should after the 
 flesh be born of him, and for, and in, the Son, God called His 
 people. My son. "'■'The people of Israel was called a son, as 
 regards the elect, yet only for the sake of Him, the Only-Be- 
 gotten Son, Begotten, not adopted, Who, after the Jlesh, was 
 to be born of that people, that, through His Passion, He might 
 bring many sons to glory, disdaining not to have them as bre- 
 thren and co-heirs. For, had He not come, V/ho was to come, 
 the Well Beloved Son of God, Israel too could never, any more 
 than the other nations, have been called the son of so great a 
 Father, as the Apostle, himself of that people, saith^*^. For we 
 were, by nature, children of wrath, even as others." 
 
 Since, however, these words relate to literal Israel, the peo- 
 ple whom God brought out by Moses, how were they fulfilled 
 in the infant Jesus, when He was brought back out of Egypt, 
 as S. Matthew teaches us, they were^^ ? 
 
 Because Israel himself was a type of Christ, and for the sake 
 of Him Who was to be born of the seed of Israel, did God call 
 Israel, My son ; for His sake only did He deliver him. The 
 two deliverances, of the whole Jewish people, and of Christ 
 the Head, occupied the same position in God's dispensations. 
 He rescued Israel, whom He called His son, in its childish 
 and infantine condition, at the very commencement of its be- 
 ing, as a people. His true Son by Nature, Christ our Lord, 
 He brought up in His Infancy, when He began to shew forth 
 His mercies to us in Him. Both had, by His appointment, 
 taken refuge in Egypt : both were, by His miraculous call, to 
 ]\Ioses in the bush, to Joseph in the dream, recalled from it. 
 S. Matthew apparently rpiotes these words, nOt to prove any- 
 thing, but in order to point out the relation of God's former 
 dealings with the latter, the beginning and the close, what re- 
 lates to the body, and what relates to the Head. He tells us 
 that the former deliverance had its completion in Christ, that 
 in His deliverance was the full solid completion of that of Is- 
 rael; and that then indeed it might, in its completest fulness, 
 be said. Oat of Egypt have I called My Son. 
 
 When Israel was brought out of Egypt, the figure took 
 place ; when Christ was called, the reality was fulfilled. The 
 act itself, on the part of God, was prophetic. When He deli- 
 vered Israel, and called him His firstborn. He willed, in the 
 course of time, to bring up from Egypt His Only-Begotten 
 Son. The words are prophetic, because the event which they 
 
 « Osor. 7Ma!.i.2. s Ex. iv. 23, 3. ' Rup. w Eph. ii. 3. " ii. 15.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 71 
 
 chrYst ^ *'^* *^'*^y called them, so they Avent 
 cir. 710. from them :'' they sacrificed unto Baalim, 
 
 4 2 Kings 17.. 
 
 le.cilfl.is. and burned incense to graven images, 
 e Deut'.r.'si.s; 3 * I taught Ejjhraim also to go, taking 
 
 32.10, 11, 12. Is. 10.3. 
 
 speak of, was prophetic. "They speak of Israel as one eoUeo- 
 tive body, and, as it were, one person, (billed by God 3Ij/ 
 son, viz. by adoption, still in the years of iiinoccncy, and 
 beloved by Cod, called of God out of Eijyi)! by Moses, as 
 JesiiSj His true Son, was by tlic Ana;el.'' 'I'lie followiniij ver- 
 ses are not prophetic, because in them the I'ropliet no loiiijcr 
 speaks of Israel as one, but as composed of the many sinful 
 individuals in it. Israel was a prophetic people, in regard to 
 this dispensation of God towards him ; not in regard to his 
 rebellions and sins. 
 
 2. As tlu'i/ vnlJed them, so they went from them. The 
 Prophet changes his tone, no longer speaking of that one first 
 call of God to Israel as a whole, whereby He brought out 
 Israel as one man. His one son ; which one call he obeyed. 
 Here he speaks of God's manifold calls to the people, through- 
 out their whole history, which they as often disobeyed, and 
 not disobeyed only, but went contrariwise. They called them. 
 Whether God employed RIoses, or the judges, or priests, or 
 kings, or prophets, to call them, it was all one. Whenever or 
 by whomsoever they were called, they turned away in the op- 
 posite direction, to serve their idols. They proportioned and 
 fitted, as it were, their disobedience to God's long-suffering. 
 "^Then chiefly they threw off obedience, despised their ad- 
 monitions, and worked themselves up the more franticly to a 
 zeal for the sin which they had begun." They, God's messen- 
 gers, called'; so, in like manner, they went aicay from them. 
 They sacrificed unto Baalim, i. e. their many Baals, in which 
 they cherished idolatry, cruelty, and fleshly sin. So "-when 
 Christ came and called them manifoldly, as in the great day 
 of the feast, Jf any man thirst, let him come unto Me and 
 drink, the more diligently He called them, the more diligently 
 they went away from Him, and returned to their idols, to the 
 love and possession of riches and houses and pleasures, for 
 whose sake they despised the truth." 
 
 3. / taught Ephraim also to go, lit. and I set Eo/traim on 
 his feet; \.c. while they were rebelling, I was helping and 
 supporting them, as a nurse doth her child, teaching it to go 
 with little steps, step by step, "accustoming it to go by little 
 and little without weariness;" and not only so, but tahi)ig 
 them hy their arms ; or it may be equally translated. He took 
 them in His arms, i. e. God not only gently taught them to 
 walk, but, when they were wearied, He took them up in His 
 arms, as a nurse doth a child when tired with its little attempts 
 to walk. Such was the love and tender care of God, guiding 
 and upholding Israel in His ways which He taught him, 
 guarding him from weariness, or, if wearied, taking him in 
 the arms of His mercy and refreshing him. So Moses says '^, 
 In the wilderness thou hast seen, hoiv that the Lord thy God 
 bare thee, as a man doth hear his son, in all the way that ye 
 went, until ye came unto this place ; and he expostulates with 
 God, * Have I conceived all this people ? have I hegotten litem, 
 that Thou shoiddest say unto me. Carry tliem in thi/ hosom,as a 
 nursing father heareth his sucking child, unto the land wliicli 
 Thou sivarest unto their fathers ? ""Briefly yet magnificentlv 
 doth this place hint at the wondrous patience of God, whereof 
 
 ■* Num. xi. 12. 
 
 > Osor. 
 
 ^ IvLip. 
 
 2 Rib. 3 Deut. i. 31. 
 
 •^ Actsxiii.18. ? Deut. xxxii. 10. 
 
 3 S. Jer. 
 
 Tjefore 
 
 CUKI.ST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 them by tlieir arms; but they knew not 
 
 that M heal(!d tliem. 
 
 4 I drew them with cords of a man,' ^''•^^•-''• 
 with bands of love : and e I was to them asu Lev.ao. 13. 
 
 Paul too speaks, "for forty years sneered He their vumners 
 in the wilderness. For as a nursing father bcarctb paticntly 
 with a child, who hath not yet come to years of iliscrction, 
 and, although at times lie In; moved to strike it in returr), 
 yet mostly lie sootbetii its crliildisii follies witli blandishments, 
 and, ungrateful though it be, carries it in his arms, so the 
 Lord God, Whose are these words, patiently bore with the un- 
 formed people, ignorant of the spiritual mysteries of the king- 
 dom of heaven, and although He slew the bodies of manv of 
 them in the wilderness, yet the rest He soothed with many 
 and great miracles, leading them nhout and instructing them 
 (as Moses says) keeping them as the apple of His eye''}' 
 
 But they knew not that I healed them. They laid it not to 
 heart, and therefore what they knew with their understanding 
 was worse than ignorance. "« I Who was a Father, became a 
 nurse, and Myself carried My little one in My arms, that he 
 should not be hurt in the wilderness, or scared by heat or 
 darkness. By day I was a cloud; by night, a colun'in of fire^ 
 that I might by My light illumine, and heal those whom I had 
 protected. And when they had sinned and had made the calf, 
 I gave them place for repentance, and they knev,- not that I 
 healed them, so as, for forty years, to cJose'the wound of ido- 
 latry, and restore them to their former health." 
 
 " '■> The Son of God carried us in His arms to the Father, 
 when He went forth carrying His Cross, and on the wood of 
 the Cross stretched out His arms for our redemption. Those 
 too doth Christ carry daily in His arms, whom He continually 
 entrcateth, comforteth, preserveth, so gently, that with much 
 alacrity and Avithout any grievous hindrance they perform 
 every work of God, and with heart enlarged run, rather than 
 walk, the way of God's commandments. Yet do these need 
 great caution, that they be clothed with great circumspection 
 and humility, and despise not others. Else Christ would say 
 of them. They knew not that I healed them." 
 
 4 I drew them luith the cords of a man. "^"Wanton heifers 
 such as was Israel, are drawn with ropes ; but although Eph- 
 raim struggled against Me, I would not draw him as a beast, Ijut 
 I drew him as a man (not a servant, but a son) irith cords of 
 love." "Love is the magnet of love." " " The first and chief 
 commandment of the law, is not of fear, but of love, because 
 He willeth those whom He conimandeth, to be sons rather 
 than servants." "^-Our Lord saith, JVb >nan comet h unto Me, 
 except the Father JVlio hath sent Me. draw him. He did not 
 say, lead him, but draic him. This violence is done to the heart, 
 not to the body. Why marvel ? Believe and thou coniest; love 
 and thou art drawn. Think it not a rough and uneasy vio- 
 lence: it is sweet, alluring; the sweetness draws thee. Is not a 
 hungry sheep drawn, when the grass is shewn it ? It is not, I 
 ween, driven on in body, but is bound tight by longing. So do 
 thoutoo come to Christ. Do not conceive of long journeyings. 
 When thou belicvest, then thou comest. For to Him Who is 
 everywhere, men come by loving, not by travelling." So the 
 Bride saith, i^t/nac jhc and I will run after Thee. " How sweet," 
 says S. Augustine, when converted 1*, "did it at once become to 
 me, to want the sweetnesses of those toys; and what I feared to 
 
 » Dior,. 10 Lap. " Rib. 
 
 '= S.Aug.Scrm.81.onN.T.§2.0xf.Tr. 3 Cant.i.4. 
 
 S2 
 
 " Conf.i:;.!.
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 CHuTsT t^'^y that f take ofF the yoke on their jaws, 
 
 "t-^io- and ^ I hiid meat unto them. 
 I v^M^^^f- 5 % ' He shall not return into the land 
 < Scechfii.i3.of Es>ypt, hut the Assyrian shall he his 
 k 2Kingsi7. hing, '■ heeause they refused to return. 
 
 13,11. 
 
 be parted from, was now a joy to part with. For 'J'liou didst 
 cast tlicni forth from mc, Thoii true and hi_e;hcst Sweetness. 
 Tlion castodst tlieni forth, and for them enteredst in Thyself, 
 sweeter than all pleasure, thon^li not to flesh and hlood; 
 briichter than all li;;ht.hut more hidden than all depths; hi^dier 
 than all honour, hut not to the hifjh in their own coneeits." 
 
 " 1 Christ (Iretr us also 7i<it/i the cords of a iikui, when for us 
 He became Man, our flesh, our Brother, in order that by teach- 
 ing:, suffering-, dyiiic: for us, lie n)i!;ht in a wondrous way bind 
 and draw us to Himself and to God; that He niij^bt redeem the 
 earthly Adam, might transform and make him lieavenly;" 
 "- R-ivinii- us ineffaiile tokens of His love. For He givcth Him- 
 self to us for (uir Food ; He giveth ns sacraments ; by Baptism 
 and repentance He conformetli us anew to original righteous- 
 ness. Hence He saitb^, /, if I he lifted up from the earth, shall 
 draw all men unto nie ; and Paul *, / live by the faith of the Son 
 of God. Wild loved mc and gave Himself for mc. This most lov- 
 ing drawing, our dulness and weakness needeth, who ever, 
 without grace, grovel amidst vile and earthly things." 
 
 " All the methods and parts of God's government are twined 
 together, as so many twisted cords of love from Him, so or- 
 dered, that they ought to draw man with all bis heart to love 
 Him again." "^INIan, the image of the Mind of God, is im- 
 pelled to zeal for the service of God, not by fear, but by love. 
 No band is mightier, nor constrains more firmly all the feel- 
 ings of the mind. For it holdeth, not the body enchained, 
 while the mind revolteth and huigeth to break a\vay, but it so 
 bindeth to itself the mind and will, that it should will, long 
 for, compass, nought beside, save how, even amid threats of 
 death, to obey the commands of God. Bands they are, but 
 bands so gentle and so passing sweet, that we must account 
 them perfect freedom and the highest dignity." 
 
 u^nd I was to them as thet/ that tahe off (lit. that lift up) 
 the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. Thus ex- 
 plained, the words carry on the description of God's goodness, 
 that He allowed not the yoke of slavery to weigh heavy upon 
 them, as He saith ^, / am the Lord your God, Which brought 
 you out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not he their bond- 
 men, and I hare broken the bands of yimr yoke, and made you 
 go upright ; and Godappealeth to them', JVhercin have I wea- 
 ried thee f testify against Me. 
 
 But the words seem more naturally to mean, I teas to them, 
 in their sight, I was regarded by them, as they that lift up the 
 yoke on their jaws, i. e. that raise the yoke, (not being already 
 upon them) to place it over their jaws. " For plainly the yoke 
 never rests on the jaws, but only passed over them, either 
 when put on the neck, or taken off." This, God seemed to 
 them to be doing, ever placing some new yoke or constraint 
 upon them. And I, God adds, all the while rvas placing meat 
 before them ; i. e. while God was taking all manner of care 
 of them, and providing for them all things richly to enjoy. 
 He was regarded by them as one who, instead of laying food 
 before them, was lifting the yoke over their jaws. God did 
 them all good, and they thought it all hardsliip. 
 
 6 And the sword shall ahide on his cities, chiust 
 and shall consume his hranches, and dc- <:>r.74a. 
 vour than, 'because of their own counsels, ThVybe- 
 
 7 And my i)eo{de are licnt to "'l)ack- ^r^^ 1" s^i- 
 sliding from me : " though they called them I'Su'io!"; 
 
 " Jer. 3. 6, &c. & 8. 5. ch. 4. 16. •, ■" ch. 7. 16. '^ 
 
 3 S.Joh;ivii.32, 
 
 Rup. Lap. 
 •" Gal.ii.20. 
 
 ' Dion. 
 Osor. 
 
 ' Lev. xxvi. 13. 
 
 5. He shall not return to Egypt. Some had probably 
 returned already to Egypt ; the rest were looking to Egypt for 
 help, and rebelling against the Assyrian, (whose servant their 
 king Hosbeahad become,) and making alliance with So king 
 of Egypt. The Prophet tells them, as a whole, that they shall 
 not return to Egypt to which they looked, but sliould have 
 the Assyrian for their king, whom they would not. They re- 
 fused to return to God, Who lovingly called them; therefore, 
 what they desired, they should not have ; and what they feared, 
 that they should have. They would not have God for their 
 king; therefore the Assyrian should be their king, and a worse 
 captivity than that of Egypt should bel'all them. For, from 
 that they were delivered ; from this, now hanging over them, 
 never should they be restored. 
 
 G. And the sword shall abide on his cities, lit. shall light, 
 shall whirl down upon. It shall come with violence upon 
 them as a thing whirled with force, and then it shall alight 
 and abide, to their destruction ; as Jeremiah says*, « luhirl- 
 wind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, a grievous whirlwind ; 
 it shall fall grievously [lit. whirl down] on the head of the 
 wicked. As God said to David, after the murder of Uriah ^, 
 Nou' therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, so 
 as to Israel, whose kings were inaugurated by bloodshed. By 
 God's appointment, "blood will have blood." Their own 
 sword first came down and rested upon them ; then the sword 
 of the Assyrian. So after they had killed the Holy One and 
 the .Just, the sword of the Zealots came down and rested up- 
 on them, before the destruction by the Romans. 
 
 And shall consume his hranches, i. e. his mighty men. It 
 is all one, whether the mighty men are so called, by metaphor, 
 from the branches of a tree, or from the ])ars of a city, made 
 out of those branches. Their mighty men, so far from escap- 
 ing for their might, should be the first to perish. 
 
 And devour them, because of their own counsels. Their 
 counsels, wise after this world's wisdom, were without God, 
 against the counsels of God. Their destruction then should 
 come from their own wisdom, as it is said^". Let them fall by 
 their own counsels, and Job saith ^^, He taketh the wise in their 
 own craftiness, and the coliuselofthe cunningiscarried headlong^ 
 i. e. it is the clean contrary of what they intend or plan ; they 
 purpose, as they think, warily; an unseen power whirls their 
 scheme on and precipitates it. And his own counsel shall cast 
 him dotvn ^'-; and above ; ^^ Israel shall be ashamed through his 
 own counsels. Hoshea's conspiracy with So, which was to have 
 been his support against Assyria, brought Assyria against 
 him, and his people into captivity. 
 
 7. And My people are bent to backsliding from Me, lit. are 
 hung to it ! as we say, "a man's whole being hangs on a thing." 
 A thing hung to or on another, sways to and fro within cer- 
 tain limits, but its relation to that on which it is hung, re- 
 mains immoveable. Its power of motion is restrained within 
 those limits. So Israel, so the sinner, however he veer to and 
 fro in the details and circumstances of his sin, is fixed and 
 immoveable in his adherence to his sin itself. Whatever else 
 
 2Sam.xii.lO. 
 
 Mic.vi. 3. 
 '0 Ps.v.lO. 
 
 8 Jer.xxiii. 19. 
 " V.13. " Ib.xviii.;. " ch.x.6.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 73 
 
 ch'^ri'st ^^ ^'^^ most Hij^li, f none at all Avoukl ex- 
 "^•7^»- »h. him. 
 
 thcr'thrf' 8 ° How shall I jrive thee up, Ephraim ? 
 o jefofz."'' Jiow shall I deliver l;hoe, Israel? How shall 
 pGenat s. 1 make thee as I'Adniah? how shall I set 
 
 ueut.29."23.thee as Zehohn? imine heart is turned with- 
 
 Amos 4. il. t Deut. 32. 3G. Is. 63. 13. Jer. 31. 20. 
 
 in ine, niy repentini:;s arc kindled toi^ether. ch in st 
 
 9 I will not exeeute the fiereeness of "'■ "'"• 
 mine ani^er, I will not return to destroy 
 Ephraiin : 'for I (an God, and not man ;r Num. 23. 19. 
 the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I MafW'*' 
 will not enter into the city. 
 
 Israel did, on one tliinij liis wliolo 1)('iiin-, as a nation, depended, 
 on bac/ii:lidiiii^' or aversion' tVoni Cod. 'J'he jiolitieal exis- 
 tence of Israel, as a separate kini^doni, depended on his wor- 
 ship of the calves, f/ic xiji wlicrcirilli Jeroboam made Israel to 
 sin. Tliis was the t!,round of their - rcfitsinv; lo return, that, 
 throii2;h Iiabitual sin, they were no long-er in their own power: 
 they were lixcd in evil. 
 
 TluiKgli tliey cdllcd them to the most High, lit. called him. 
 As one man, the prophets called Israel; as one man, Israel re- 
 fused to return ; none at all woidd exalt Him, lit. together he 
 e.valfeth Him not. 
 
 8. Hoiv shall Igii'e thee up, Ephraiin? "^God is infi- 
 nitely just and infinitely merciful. Tiie two attributes are so 
 united in Him, yea, so one in Him Who is always One, and in 
 Whose counsels there is no variableness, jtor shadoic of turn- 
 ing, that the one doth not ever thwart the proceeding of the 
 other. Yet, in order to shew that our ills are from our own 
 ill-deserts, not from any pleasure of His in infUctini; ill, and 
 that what mercy He sheweth, is from His own goodness, not 
 from any in us, God is represented in this empassioned ex- 
 pression as in doubt, and (so to say) divided betwixt justice 
 and mercy, the one pleading against the other. At the last, 
 God so determines, tliat both should have their share in the 
 issue, and that Israel should be both justly punished and mer- 
 cifully spared and relieved." 
 
 God pronounces on the evil deserts of Israel, even while He 
 mitigates His sentence. The depth of the sinner's guilt re- 
 flects the more vividly the depth of God's mercy. In saying, 
 Itow shall I make thee as Admah f how shall I set thee as Ze- 
 boim ? He says, in fact, that they were, for their sins, wor- 
 thy to be utterly destroyed, with no trace, no memorial, save 
 that eternal desolation like the five cities of tJie plain, of which 
 were Sodom and Gomorrah, which God^ hath set forth for an 
 example, suffering the vengeance of eternal /ire. Such was their 
 desert. But God says, with inexpressible tenderness, Jlli/ie 
 heart is turned within 3Ie lit. upon 3Ie or against Me, so as to 
 be a burden to Him ; as we say of the heart, that it is " hea- 
 vy." God deigneth to speak as if His love was heavy, or a 
 weight upon Him, while He thought of the punishment which 
 their sins deserved. 
 
 3Iy heart is turned. "° As soon as I had spoken evil against 
 thee, mercy prevailed, tenderness touched IMe ; the tenderness 
 of the Father overcame the austerity of the Judge." 
 
 3Iy repentings are kindled together, or 3Ii/ strong compas- 
 sions " are kindled, i. e. with the heat and glow of love ; as the 
 disciples say'^. Did not our hearts hum within us? and as it 
 is said of Joseph, his hoicels did yearn *' (lit. luere hot) towards 
 his brother ; and of the true mother before Solomon, her hoivels 
 yearned^ (E. M. tvei-e hot) upon her son. 
 
 Admah and Zeboim were cities in the same plain with Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, and each had their petty king'". In the his- 
 tory of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, they are 
 
 ' The Rabbins observe that nniCD is used in an evil sense oi aversion from God, naiE'n 
 of conversion to Him. - ver. 5. ^ poc. * S.Jude?. * Kup. 
 
 ^ The word 'Sinj is an intensive. 7 S. Luke xxiv, 32. 
 
 not named, but are included in the general title those cities and 
 all the plain ". The more then would Hosea's hearers think of 
 that place in Moses where he does mention them, and wlicre he 
 threatens them with the like eiul ; '-when the stranger shall 
 see, that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burn- 
 ing, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groieetk 
 tJicrein, like the overthrow (f Sodom and (iomorrah, Admah and 
 Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath. 
 Such was the end, at which all tiieir sins aimed ; such the 
 end, which God had held out to them ; but His strong com- 
 passions were kindled. 
 
 9. / will not execute the fierceness of 3Iine anger. It is the 
 voice of mercy, rejoicing over jitdgment. Mercy prevails in 
 God over the rigour of His justice, that though He will not 
 sutler them to go utterly unpunished, yet He will abate of it, 
 and not utterly consume them. 
 
 / will not return to destroy Ephraim. God saith that He 
 will not, as it were, glean Ephraim, going over it again, as man 
 doth, in order to leave nothing over. As it is in Jeremiah '^, 
 They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel, as a vine. 
 Turn back thine hand, as a grapegatherer into the baskets ; and, 
 Ifgrapegatherers come to thee, would they not leave some glean- 
 ing-grapes ? but I have made Esau hare '*. 
 
 For 7 am Gnd and not man, " '^ not swayed by human pas- 
 sions, but so tempering His wrath, as, in the midst of it, to 
 remember mercy; so punishing the iniquity of the sinful cliil- 
 dren, as at once to make good His gracious promises which 
 He made to their forefathers." " ^^ Alan punishes, to destroy ; 
 God smites, to amend." 
 
 The Holy One in the midst of thee. The holiness of God is 
 at once a ground why He punishes iniquity, and yet does not 
 punish to the full extent of the sin. Truth and faithfulness are 
 part of the holiness of God. He, the Holy One Wiio was in the 
 midst of them, by virtue of His covenant with their fathers, 
 would keep the covenant which He had made, and for their 
 fathers' sakes would not wholly cut them oiF. Yet the holi- 
 ness of God hath another aspect too, in virtue of which the 
 unholy cannot profit by the promises of tiie All-Holy. " I 
 will not," paraphrases S. Cyril, " use unmingled wrath. I will 
 not give over Ephraim, wicked as he has become, to entire 
 destruction. Why ? Do they not deserve it ? Yes, He saith, 
 but I am Gad and not man, i. e. Good, and not suffering the 
 motions of anger to overcome Me. For that is a human pas- 
 sion. Why then dost Thou yet punish, seeing Thou art God, 
 not overcome with anger, but rather following Thine essential 
 gentleness ? I punish. He saith, because I am not only Good, as 
 Godjbut Holy also.hatinginiquity,rejecting the polluted, turn- 
 ing away from God-haters, converting the sinner, purifying 
 the impure, that he may again be joined to Me. AVe, then, if 
 we prize the being with God, must, with all our might, fly from 
 sin, and remember what He said. Be ye holy, for I aui holy." 
 
 And I will not enter the city. God, Who is everywhere, 
 
 ' Gen. xliii. 30. ^ 1 Kings iii 26. The word is the same in all three places Torj. 
 
 >» Gen. xiv. 2. " lb. xix. 2o. i- Deut. xxix. 22, 3. >3 vi. V. 
 
 '•• lb. xlix. 9, 10. 15 Poc. '6 S. Jer,
 
 74 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 10 'I'^^y ^^'"'^ ^^"^^'^ ''^^**''' *^^ '^"^" ■ ' '^^ 
 
 cir. 740. s\u\\\ roar like a lion : when he shall 
 ' ioef 3. ii;. roar, then the children shall tremble * from 
 
 Amos 1. 2. ^i,„ ,,. , .4- 
 
 «zech.8.7. the west. 
 
 11 They shall tremble as a bird out of 
 
 speaks of Himself, as present to its, ivlien He shews that pre- 
 seiK^e in acts of judii'iient or of mercy. He visited His j)eople 
 in Eiiyjit, to deliver them; He visited Sodom and (-oniorrha 
 as a jiidi;c, makinj;- known to iis that He took eoi;nizaiieeof 
 their extreme wiekedness. God says, that He would not enter 
 the citf/, as He did the cities of the plain, when He overthrew 
 them, because He willed to save them. As a Judge, He acts 
 as though He looked away from their sin, lest, seeing their 
 city to be full of wickedness. He should be compelled to punish 
 it. "Mwill not .smite indiscnminately,as man doth,wh(),when 
 Ti'roth, bursts into an offending city, and destroys all. In this 
 sense, the Apostle says^, Hutli God cast uway His people? 
 God forbid ! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abra- 
 ham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast awaj/ His 
 2Jeople,whom He foreknew. Wlial saith the ansirer of God to 
 Elius f I have reserved to Myself seven thousand men, who have 
 not hmved the knee to Baal. Even so then, at this present time 
 also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 
 God then was wroth, not witli His people, but with unljclief. 
 For He was not angered in such wise, as not to receive the 
 remnant of His people, if they were converted. No Jew is 
 therefore repelled, because the Jewish nation denied Christ ; 
 but whoso, whether Jew or Gentile, denieth Christ, he him- 
 self, in bis own person, repels himself." 
 
 10. They shall walk after the Lord. Not only would God 
 not destroy them all, but a remnant of them should tval/c after 
 the Lord, i. e. they shall believe in Christ. The Jews of old 
 understood this of Christ. One of them saith ^, " this point- 
 eth to the time of their redemption." And another % "' Al- 
 though I v.ill withdraw from the midst of them My Divine 
 Presence for their iniquity, and remove them out of their own 
 land, yet shall there be a long time in which they shall seek 
 after the Lord and lind Him." This is what Hosea has said 
 before^, that they should abide many days withoitt a Aitigand 
 without a prince, and luithout a sacrifice ; — afterward shall the 
 children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and Da- 
 vid their king. " ^ AVhercas now they fled from God, and ivalk- 
 cd after other gods, after the imagiitution of their evil hearts, 
 after their Men devices'', then. He jiromises, they shall walk 
 after God the Lord, following the will, the mind, the command- 
 ments, the example of Almighty God. As God says of Da- 
 vid, He kept My commandments, and walked after Me ivith all 
 /lis heart'' ; and Mieah foretels that many nations shall say, 
 we will icalk in His paths'^." They shall /o//o!f» after Him, 
 Whose Infinite perfections none can reach ; yet they shall/o/- 
 low after, never standing still, but reaching on to that which 
 is unattainable ; by His grace, attaining the more by imitat- 
 ing what is inimitable, and stopping short of no perfection, un- 
 til, in His Presence, they be perfected in Him. 
 
 He shall roar like a lion. Christ is called the Lion of the 
 tribe of Jndah '". His roaring is His loud call to repentance, 
 by Himself and by His Apostles. Tlie voice of God to sin- 
 ners, altliough full of iove, must be full of awe too. He calls 
 them, not only to flee to His mercy, but to Jlee from the ivrath 
 
 > Rup. 
 
 ' Rom. xi. 1, 2, 4, 5. ' Tanchum.in Poc. ■" Kimchi. ^ Hcs. iii. 4, 5. 
 s Poc. ' Hos, vii. 13. Jer. vii. 'J. iii. 17. xviii. 12. 
 
 Ei?y])t, "and as a dove out of the land of chrTst 
 Assyria : " and I will place tlu;m in their ""• ^^- 
 houses, saith the Lord. "th.r^'u. 
 
 12 y Ephraim eouipasseth me about with ' f;?*!-.^' 
 lies, and the house of Israel with deceit irch! 12'. k' 
 
 to come. He shall call to them with a voice of Majesty and 
 command. 
 
 fVhen He shall roar, the rliildren shall tremble from the 
 West, i. e. they shall come in haste and fear to God. '"' His 
 word is jxnverfnl, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing 
 even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints 
 and marrow. Wlience those whose hearts were pricked at 
 the preaching of St. Peter, said to him with trembling '-, Men 
 and brethren what shall we do f So did the preaching of judg- 
 ment to come terrify the world, that from all places some did 
 come out of the captivity of the world and did Hy to Christ ^^." 
 He says, from the West ; i'or from the JFest have most come in 
 to the Gospel. Yet the Jews were then about to be carried 
 to the East, not to the West ; and of the West the prophets 
 had no human knowledge. But the ten tribes, although car- 
 ried to the East into Assyria, did not all remain there, since, 
 before the final dispersion, we iind Jews in Italy, Greece, Asia 
 Minor; whither those who had been restored to their own land, 
 would not have anew exiled themselves. In these, whenever 
 they WQYi: converted, this prophecy was fulfilled. 
 
 1 1. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt. The West 
 denoted Eurojie ; Egypt and Assyria stand, each for all the 
 lands beyond them, and so for Africa and Asia; all together 
 comprise the threequarters of theworld,whence converts have 
 chiefly come to Christ. These are likened to birds, chieflv for 
 the swiftness with which they shall thenhastetothecallofGod, 
 who now turned away the more, the more they were called. 
 The dove, especially, was a bird of Palestine, proverbial for 
 the swiftness of its flight, easily afi"righted, and flying the more 
 rapidly, the more it was frightened, and returning to its cot 
 from any distance whither it might be carried ; whence Isaiah 
 also says of the converts ^', fHio are these that jiy as a cloud, 
 and as the doves to their windoivs ? '• The Hebrews," says S. Je- 
 rome, " refer this to the coming of the Christ, Who, they hope, 
 will come ; we shew that it hath taken place already. For 
 both from Egypt and AssjTia, i. e. from East and West, from 
 North and South, have they come, and daily do they come, 
 who sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 
 
 ^nd I will place them in their houses. Their houses may 
 be their own particidar Churches, in the one Church or House 
 of God ^\ In this house, God says, that He will make them to 
 dwell, not again to be removed from it, nor shaken in it, but 
 in a secure dwelling-place here, until they be fitted to be re- 
 moved to everlasting habitations. '• ^^ Iji their houses, i. e. in 
 the mansions ])repared for them. For from the beginning of 
 the world, when He created our first parents, and blessed them, 
 and said, Increase and multiply and replenish the earth, He 
 prepared for them everlasting /io«Ae* or mansions. Whereof 
 He said, just before His Death, In 3Iy Father's house are tnany 
 mansions, and in the last Day He will say, Come ye blessed of 
 My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world. 
 
 12. Ephraim compasseth Me about tvith lies. Having 
 spoken of future repentance, conversion, restoration, he turns 
 
 '» Rev. V. 5. " Heb. iv. 12. '= Acts ii. 37. 
 
 '^ 1 Tim. iii. 15. " Rup. 
 
 3 1 Kings xiv. 8. » iv. 2. 
 '■> Poc. n Is.lx.S.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 /o 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. "to. 
 
 with the 
 7nost lioltj. 
 
 but .Tudah yet rulotli witli Cod, and is 
 faithful II witli the saints. 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 1 yl reproof of Ephraim, Jiidah, and Jacoh. 3 By 
 
 former for'orirs lie cxlmrtcth to repentance. 7 
 Ejj/iraiin'a sins provoke God. 
 
 jiPHRAIM ''feedetli on wind, and fol- ^-jf^Y^T 
 jj loweth aft(?r the east wind : \\v daily _ "'" ■ "-^- 
 inereaseth lies and desolation; 'and theyi- •ikhiVi?. t. 
 do make a (covenant with the Assyrians, )^'i'.\\^' 
 and ''oil is carried into Eu:;y])t. " Jv-nrl;"' 
 
 2 ''The Loiii) hath also a controversy Mic!"o.'2. 
 
 back to those around liiin, ami (loclarcs why they ean have no 
 share in that restoration. Nothini;- about thcni was true, li" 
 ever tliey approaclied (iod, it was ivith lies. "'God, beiufi; in- 
 finite, cannot really l)e com/xtsscd a/xinf." The; I'ropiiet so 
 speaks, to dcscril)e the "f^reat multitude td'those who tiius lied 
 to God, and the multitude and mauifolduess of tiieir lies. 
 Wherever God looked, in all parts of their kini!:doni,in all their 
 doings, all which He could see was lyiui^ to Himself." All was, 
 as it were, one throni;: of lies, heaped on one another, jost- 
 ling' with one another. Such is the world now. "Their sin 
 was esj)ccially a lie, because they sinned, not through igno- 
 rance, hut through malice." Their chief lie was the setting 
 up of the worship of the calves, with a worldly end, yet with 
 pretence of religion towards God ; denying Him, the One true 
 God, in that they joined idols with Him, yet professing to 
 serve Him. And so all their worship of God, their re{)en- 
 tance, their prayers, their sacrifices, were all one lie. For one 
 lie underlay all, penetrated all, corrupted all. All half-belief 
 is unbelief; all half-rejientancc is unrepentance, all half-wor- 
 ship is unworship ; and, in that each and all give themselves 
 out for that Divine whole, whereof they are but the counterfeit, 
 each and all are lies, wherewith men, on all sides, encompass 
 God. From these wrong thoughts of God all their other de- 
 ceit flowed, while yet "they deceived, not Him but themselves, 
 in that they thought that they could deceive Him, Who can- 
 not be deceived." AVhen Christ came, the house of Israel 
 surrounded Him with lies, the scribes and lawyers, the Pha- 
 risees and Sadducees and Herodians, vying with one anotlier, 
 fioiv t/ici/ might entangle Him in His talk". 
 
 But Jinlah yet ruleth with God. Ephraim had cast off the 
 rule of God, the kings and priests whom He had appointed, 
 so that his whole kingdom and polity was without God and 
 against Him. In contrast with this, Judah, amid all his 
 sins, was outwardly faithful. He adhered to the line of kings, 
 from whom was to spring the Christ, David's Son but Da- 
 vid's Lord. Heworshipped with the priests whom God had ap- 
 pointed to offer the typical sacrificcs,until He should come,///e 
 High Priest for ever, after the order of 3Ielchisedck,V^'\\o should 
 end those sacrifices by the Sacrifice of Himself. Thus tar 
 Judah ruled ivith God ; he was on the side of God, maintained 
 the worship of God, was upheld by God. So Abijah said to 
 Jeroboam ■', The Lord is our God, and we hare not forsaken 
 Him, and the priests u'hich minister unto the Lord are the sons 
 of Aaron, and the Leviles wait upon their business. For tue 
 keep the charge of the Lord our God, hut ye hare forsaheii 
 Him, a-id behold God is teith us for our Captain, &;c. 
 
 And is faithful jvith the saints ; or [better perhaps, with 
 the E. M.] with the All-Holy. The same plural is used of God 
 elsewhere*; and its use, like that of the ordinary name of God, 
 is founded on the mystery of the Trinity. It does not teach 
 it, but neither can it be accounted for in any other way. This 
 faithfulness of Judah was outward only, (as the upbraiding of 
 the Prophet to Judah testifies.) yet did it much favor inward 
 
 ' Poc. = S. Matt. xxii. 15. 3 2Chron.xiii.lO-12. 
 
 * D'imp Josh.xxiv.19. and in Prov.xxx.3. whereour translators too render it «Ae ioiy. 
 
 holiness. The body without the soul is dead ; yet the life, even 
 when seeming to be dying out, might be brought back, when 
 the body was there; not, when it too was dissolved. Hence 
 Judah had many good kings, Israel none. Yet, in that he 
 says, y('< ruleth luith God, he shews that a time was coming 
 when Judah too would he, not ruith God but against Him, 
 and it too would be cast off. 
 
 ^\\.\. Ephraim feedeth on 7rind, and fol/ou-elh after the 
 east u'ind. The East wind in I'alestine, c-oming from Arabia 
 and the far East, over large tracts of saiuly waste, is pandi- 
 ing, scorching, destructive to vegetation, o])pressive to man, 
 violent and destructive on the sea^, and, by land also, having 
 the force of the whirlwind. " The East wind rarrieth him 
 away and he dcparteth, and as a whirheind hurleth him out 
 of his jilare. In leaving God and following idols, Ephraim 
 fed on what is unsatisfying, and chased after what is destnu-- 
 tive. If a hungry man were U> feed on leind, it wotdd be lii,'lit 
 food. If a man could overtalcc the East wind, it were liis 
 destruction. Israel "'/«/ on wind, when he sought by gifts to 
 win one who could aid him no more than the wind ; he chas- 
 ed the East wi)td, wiieii, in place of the gain which he sought, 
 he received from the ])atron whom he had adopted, no slight 
 loss." Israel sought for the scorching wind, when it could be- 
 take itself uiuler the shadow of God. "^The scorching wind is 
 the burning of calamities, and the consuming fire of atfiiction." 
 
 He inereaseth lies, and desolation. Unrepented sins and 
 their punishment are, in God's government, linked together; 
 so that to multiply sin is, in fact, to multiply desolation. Sin 
 and punishment are bound together, as cause and effect. ^lan 
 overlooks v.iiat he does not see. Yet not the less does he 
 ^treasure up wrath against the Day of wrath and rerelation of 
 the righteous Judgment of God. "■'^ Lying will signify false 
 speaking, false dealing, false belief, false opinions, false wor- 
 ship, false pretences for color thereof, false hopes, or relying 
 on things that will deceive. In all these kinds, was Ephraim 
 at that time guilty, adding one sort of lying to another." 
 
 They do make a covenant with the Assyrians and oil is 
 carried into Egypt. Oil was a chief product of Palestine, 
 whence it is called^ a land of oil olire ; and o// with balm was 
 among its chief exports to Tyre^". It may also include precious 
 ointments, of which it was the basis. As an export of great 
 value, it stands for all other presents, which Hoshea sent to 
 So, king of Egypt. Ephraim, threatened liy (jod, looked first 
 to the Assyrian, then to Egypt, to strengthen itself. Having 
 dealt falsely with God, he dealt falsely with man. First, he 
 made covenant with Shalmaneser. king of Assyria ; then, find- 
 ing the tribute, the price of his help, burdensome to him, he 
 broke that covenant, by sending to Egypt. Seeking to make 
 friends out of God, Ephraim made the more powerful, the 
 Assyrian, the more his enemy, by seeking the friendship of 
 Egypt ; and God executed His judgments through those, by 
 whose help they had hoped to escape them. 
 
 2. The Lord hath also a controversy tuith Judah, and leill 
 
 ^ Ps. xlviii. 
 '< S.Cyr. 8 Rom.ii.5. 
 
 *^ Job xxvii. 21. See Jer. xviii. 17. 
 9 Deut.viii.S. '" Ezek.xx\ii.l". Seeab. ij.8.
 
 70 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 725. 
 
 tHeb. 
 
 . visit upon. 
 
 « Gen. 25. 2G. 
 
 with .Tiulah, and will f punish Jacob 
 accordinii; to liis ways ; according? to his 
 doina;s will lie reconiijenso him. 
 
 :i ^ He took his brother '" by 
 the heel in the womb, and by his 
 
 strenj^th he f ^ had power with (Jod 
 
 4 Yea, he had power over the anj^el, _JdliI!£: 
 
 Br-forp 
 CHRIST 
 
 and ])revailed : he wept, and made sup- a fn-'i^MeTot, 
 plication unto him : he found him in '^ iHmJ'e'if 
 Beth-el, and there he .spake with us ; i d'mJi.i'i4,&ic- 
 
 f Gen. 28. 12, 19. & 35. 9, lo! 15. 
 
 punish J(icol). The i;uilt of Jiulali was not open apostasy, 
 nor liad he filled up the measure of his sins. Of him, then, 
 God saith only, that He had a controversi/ irilh liini, as our 
 Lord says to /he ^4>igel of fhe Church of Persia iiio.s^, I have a 
 few thi)igs against thee. Repent, or else I will rome auto thee 
 quirhli/, and fight against thee with the sword (f Mij numtlt. 
 Of Ephraim, whose sin was complete, He says, that the Lord 
 is to piuiish. God had set His mind, as we say, on punish- 
 inji- him ; He had (so to speak) set Himself to do it -. Jacob, 
 like Israel, is here the name for the chief ])art of Israel, i.e. the 
 ten tribes. Our Lord uses the same gradation in speakinp; of 
 ditrcrent de£;rees of evil-speaking^ ; JFhosoerer of you is angri/ 
 juithoat a cause, shall he in danger of the judginoit ; and who- 
 soever shall say to his h rot her, Kara, shall be in danger of the 
 council; hut whosoever shall SO]/, Tliou fool, shall he in danger 
 of hell-fire. "^The justice of God falls more severely on those 
 who degenerate from a holy parent, than on those who have no 
 incitement to good from the piety of their home." To amplify 
 this,"^Thc Prophet explains whatgood things Jacob received, 
 to shew both the mercy of God to Jacob, and the hardness of 
 Ephraim towards God. While Jacob was yet in his mother's 
 womb, he took his brother by tlie heel, not by any strength of 
 his own, but by the mercy of God, Who knows and loves those 
 whom He hath predestinated." 
 
 3. He took his brother by the heel in the womb. Whether 
 or no the act of Jacob was beyond the strength, ordinarily 
 given to infants in the womb, the meaning of the act was be- 
 yond man's wisdom to declare. Whence the Jews para- 
 phrased, '•''Was it not predicted of your father Jacob, before 
 he was born,that he should become greater than his brother? " 
 Yet this was not fulfilled until more than 50() years after- 
 wards, nor completely until the time of David. These gifts 
 were promised to Jacob out of the free mercy of God, antece- 
 dent to all deserts. But Jacob, thus chosen without desert, 
 shewed forth the power of faith ; By his strength he had power 
 with God. "''The strength by which he did this, was God's 
 strength, as well as that by which God contended with him ; 
 yet it is well called his, as being by God given to him. Yet 
 he had power xvith God, God so ordering it, that the strength 
 which was in Jacob, should put itself forth with greater force, 
 than that in the assumed body, whereby He so dealt with Ja- 
 cob. God, as it were, bore the office of two persons, shewing 
 in Jacob more strength than He put forth in the Angel." 
 " By virtue of that faith in Jacob, it is related that God could 
 not prevail against him. He could not, because He would 
 not overthrow his faith and constancy. By the touch in the 
 hollow of his thigh. He but added strength to his faith, shew- 
 ing him AVho it was Who wrestled with him, and that He 
 willed to bless him." For thereon Jacob said those words 
 which have become a proverb of earnest supplication 8, Iivill 
 not let Thee go, except Thou bless me, and, I have seen God, face 
 to face, and my life is preserved. " ^ He was strengthened by 
 the blessing of Him Whom he overcame." 
 
 4. He wept and made supplication unto Him. Jacob's 
 
 ' Rev. ii. 13,16. 2 xheforceof^. 3 S.Matt.v.22. ■• Osor. 
 
 ^ S.Jer. 6 Jon. ' Poc. 8 Gen. xxxii.26,30. 
 
 ^ S. Jcr. 10 Implorare est lletu rogare. Imploro is fonned from ploro, 
 
 weeping is not mentioned Ijy Moses. Hosea then knew more 
 than Moses related. He could not have gathered it out of Mo- 
 ses ; for Moses relates the words of earnest suppli(-ation ; yet 
 the tone is that of one, by force of earnest energy, wresting, 
 as it were,the blessing from God, not of one weeping. Yet Ho- 
 sea adds this, in harmony with Moses. For "vehement de- 
 sires and earnest petitions fretjuently issue in tears." " >" To 
 implore means to ask with tears." " Jacob,learning,thatGod 
 Himself thus deigned to deal with him, might well out of 
 amazement and wonder, out of aweful respect to Him, and in 
 earnest desire of a blessing, pour out his supplication with 
 tears." Herein he became an image of Him Ifho, in the 
 days of Ills Jiesh, offered up prayers and s}ippUcations, with 
 strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him 
 from death, and was heard in that He feared^^. 
 
 "i-Tliis which he saith, he prevailed, subjoining, he ivept and 
 made supplication, describes the strength of penitents ; for in 
 truth they are strong by weeping earnestly and praying per- 
 severingly for the forgiveness of sins, according to that. From 
 the days of .John the kingdom of heaven suff'ereth violence, and 
 the violent take it by force. Whosoever so imitates the Pa- 
 triarch Jacob, who wrestled with the Angel, and, as a conquer- 
 or, extorted a blessing from him, he, of whatever nation he be, 
 is truly Jacob, and deserveth to be called Israel." "*Yea, here- 
 in is the unconquerable might of the righteous, this his won- 
 drous wrestling, herein his glorious victories, in glowing long- 
 ings, assiduous prayers, joyous weeping. Girt with the might 
 of holy orison, they strive with God, they wrestle witii His 
 judgment, and will not be overcome, until they obtain from 
 His goodness all they desire, and extort it, as it were, by force, 
 from His hands." 
 
 He found him in Bethel. This may mean either that "God 
 found Jacob," or that " Jacob found God ;" which are indeed 
 one and the same thing, since we find God, when He has first 
 found us. God/o?/»f/,i.e.made Himself known to Jacob twice 
 in this place; first, when he was going towards Haran,when he 
 saw the vision of the ladder and the angels of God ascending 
 and descending, and the Lord stood above it and said, /am the 
 Lord God of Ahra](um and the God of Isaac ; and Jacob first 
 called the place Bethel ; secondly, on his return, in this vision 
 of the Angel who wrestled with him. Both revelations of God 
 to Jacob are probably included in the words. He fimnd him iii 
 Bethel, since, on both occasions, God did find him, and come 
 to him, and he found God. In Bethel, where God found 
 Jacob, Israel deserted Him^ settingup the worship of the calves ; 
 yea, he deserted God the more there, because of God's mercy 
 to his forefather, desecrating to false worship the place which 
 had been consecrated by the revelation of the true God ; and 
 choosing it the rather, because it had been so consecrated. 
 
 And there He spake tvith zts. For what He said to Jacob, 
 He said not to Jacob only, nor for Jacob's sake alone, but, in 
 him. He spake to all his posterity, both the children of his body 
 and the children of his faith. Thus it is said ^^, There did we 
 rejoice in Him, i. e. we, their posterity, rejoiced in God there, 
 
 which relation is retained in the French Implorer, pleurer, pleurs. So we have cry{i. e. 
 weep) and oy on him. [R. Glouc] cry unto, 
 
 1' Heb.v. 7 1- Rup. "Ps.l::vi. G.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 U 
 
 Before 
 
 C H K I S T 
 
 cir.72o. 
 
 5 Ev^cn tlic Lord God of hosts 
 
 the 
 
 Loud 
 
 i.y 
 
 his 
 
 memorial. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 725. 
 
 •> Ex. 3. l.'i 
 
 where He so delivered our forefathers, and, ^ Levi also, who 
 receiveth tithes, paid tithes in ^-1 bra ham, for he teas yet in the 
 loins of his father, tuhen Melchizedek met him. And S. Paul 
 saith, that what was said to Abraham, ther(fore if teas imputed 
 to him for righteousness, was not written for his sake atone, 
 hut for US also, to whom it shall he imjinted, if ire believe on 
 Him that raised up ,Tesas our hord from the dead-. 'J'here He 
 spake with us,liow,in ourneeds, we should seek and find Him. 
 In loneliness, apart from distractions, in faith rising in pro- 
 portion to our fears, in persevering prayer, in earnestness, 
 which " elings so fast to God, that if God would cast us into 
 Hell, He should, (as one said) Himself go with us, so should 
 Hell not he Hell to us," God is sought and found. 
 
 5. Even the Lord God of Hosts, the Lord i^ His memorial. 
 The word, here as elsewhere, translated and written Lord, is 
 the special and, so to say, the proper Name of God. that 
 which He gave to Himself, and which declares His Being. 
 God Himself authoritatively explained its meaning. When 
 Moses enquired of Him. what he should say to Israel, when 
 they should ask him, irhat is the A^ame of the God of their 
 fathers. Who, he was to tell them, had sent him to them ^, 
 God said, I AM THAT I AM ; thus shall thou say, I AM 
 (EHYeH) liath sent me unto you ; and God said again unto 
 Moses, Thus shall thou say loito the children of Israel ; The 
 Lord [lit. HE IS, YelleVeH *,] the God of your fathers, the 
 God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath 
 sent me unto you ; This is 3Iy Name for ever, and this is My 
 memorial unto all generations. I AM, expresses Self-exis- 
 tence ; He Who Alone IS. I AM THAT I AM, expresses His 
 Unchangeahleness,the necessarvattribute of the Self-existent, 
 Who, since He IS, ever IS all which He IS. "To Be," says 
 
 5. Augustine^, "is a name of unchangeableness. For all things 
 which are changed, cease to be what they were, and begin to 
 be, what they were not. True Being, pure Being, genuine 
 Being, no one hath, save He Who changeth not. He hath 
 Being to Whom it is said, Thou shall change them a)id thei/ 
 shall be changed, but Thou art the Same. Wha't is, I AM THAT 
 I AM, but, 1 am Eternal ? What is, I AM THAT I AM, save, 
 I cannot be changed ? No creature, no heaven, no earth, no 
 angel, nor Power, nor Throne, nor Dominion, nor Princijja- 
 lity. This then being the name of eternity, it is somewhat 
 more, that He vouchsafed to him a name ofmercy, lam the God 
 of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. That, He is 
 in Himself; this, to us. If He willed only to be That which He 
 is in Himself, what should we be ? Since Moses understood, 
 when it was said to him, 1 AM THAT I AM, HE Who IS hath 
 sent me unto you, he believed that this was much to men, he 
 saw that this was far removed from men. For whoso hath un- 
 
 ' Heb.vii. 9, 10. - Rom. iT.23,4. 3 Ex. iii. 13-15. 
 
 < .11.T "HE IS," from an olil verb nvT " is," which exists in Chalilee and Syriac, and 
 which in Hebrew became .Tn, as mn ''lives" (wlieiice the name of Eve n-.n) became n'n. 
 The old form remained in poetic language in the Imperative (Gen. xxvii. I'J. Job xxxvii. 
 
 6. Is.xvi.4.) and in the Participle, Eccl. ii. 22.Neh. vi.C. The root nn must have been 
 almost out of use in the time ot Moses, since the word is explained in Exodus by the use 
 of the verb n'n, not by mn. The vowels, by which tlic consonants are to be pronounced, 
 must remain uncertain. It might be pronounced Yiht'eh (like ."i^n^) or Vehcveh (after the 
 analogy of ncp;) or less probably, Yehveh likensn;. Another pronunciation, Yahavehox 
 Yahveh, might stem to be favoured by Theodoret's statement, tliat the Samaritans pro- 
 nounced it I ABE (QusBSt. 15. in Exod.); but on the other liand the Samaritans, like the 
 Galileans, had probably a broader pronunciation tlian the Jews. 
 
 ^ Serm. 7. § 7. ^ The popular pronunciation Jclwrah, is altogether a mistake. 
 
 When a word in the text is not read by the Jews, (and this ceased to be read before the 
 vowels were written) tlie vowels belong, not to the word itself, but to another, which is to 
 be substituted for it. Those placed under this word, mn', vary. They direct mostly, 
 
 derstood,as he ought, That which IS, and which truly IS, and, 
 in whatever degree, bath even transiently, as by a lightning 
 flash, been irradiated by the light of the One True Essence, 
 sees himself far below, in the utmost farncss of removal and 
 unlikeness." This, the Self-existent, the Uiujliangcable, was 
 tlu" meaning of God's ancient Name, by whi(;li He was known 
 to the Patriarchs, altiiougb they bad not in act seen His I'n- 
 changeableness ; for theirs was a life of faith, hoping for what 
 they saw not. The word, HI'] IS, when used of Him Ijy His 
 (rreatures, expresses the same which He says of Himself, I AM. 
 This He willed to be His memorial for ever ; this tlit; way in 
 which He willed that we should believe in Him and think of 
 Him as HE Who IS, the Self-existing, the Self-Same. 
 
 The way of pronouncing tliat Name is lost '"'. The belief has 
 continued, wherever the Lord is named. For by the Lord we 
 mean the Unchangeable God. That belief is contradicted, when- 
 ever people use the name Jehovah, to speak of God, as though 
 the belief in Him under the Old Testament ditferetl from that 
 of the New. PerhajjS God allowed it to be lost, that people 
 might not make so familiar with it, as they do with the word 
 Jehovah, or use it irreverently and anti-Christianly, as some 
 now employ other ways of pronouncing it. The Jews, even 
 before the time of our Lord, ceased ordinarily to pronounce it. 
 In the translations of the Old Testament, and in the Apo- 
 crypha,the words,"the Lord," were substituted for it. Jewish 
 tradition states, that in later times the Name was pronounced 
 in the Temple only, by the priest, on pronouncing the bless- 
 ing commanded by God in the law'. On the great Day of 
 atonement, it was said that the High Priest pronounced it ten 
 times ^, and that when the people heard it, they fell on their 
 faces, saying, " Blessed be the glorious name of His kingdom 
 for ever and cver°." They say, however, that in the time of 
 Simeon the Just [i.e. Jaddua^'',] who died about B.C. 322. the 
 High Priests themselves disused it, for fear of its being pro- 
 nounced by some irreverent person ^^ 
 
 Our Lord Himself sanctioned the disuse of it, (as did the 
 inspired Apostles yet more frequently,) since, in quoting places 
 of the Old Testament in which it occurs. He uses instead of it, 
 the Name, /Ae Lord'^-. It stands, throughout the Old Testa- 
 ment, as the Name which speaks of God in relation to His 
 people, that He ever IS ; and. since He ever IS, then He IS un- 
 changeably to us, allAvhich He ever was. The Same, yesterday 
 and to-day and for ever^^. 
 
 He then Who appeared to Jacob, and Who, in Jacob, spake 
 to all the posterity of Jacob, was God ; whether it was (as al- 
 most all the early fathers thought^',) God the Son,^Vho thus 
 appeared in human form to the Patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, 
 and in the time of the Judges, under the name of the Angel of 
 
 that the word Adonai, Lord, is to be read for it. But if tliis has just occurred, other vowels 
 are placed, directing that it should be read Elohim, God. The placing of the vowels under 
 the word are an indication, not that they are to be usedwiih the word, but that they are not to 
 be used with it. The vowels of a textual reading, when there is also a marginal reading, are 
 always to be supplied by conjecture. It is better to own ignorance, how this Name of 
 God is pronounced, than to use the name Jehovah, which iscertainly wrong, or any other 
 which can only be conjectural. The subject is fully discussed in the disputations, edited 
 by Keland, Decas Exercit. de nom. Jeh., esp. those of Drusius, Amama and Buxtorf. 
 
 7 Num. vi. 24-26. see Massechcth Sota in Aiuaraa, 1. c. p. 173. 
 
 8 Massecheth Yoma, f. S'J. p. 2. ib. p. 177. ' Ljb. prec. 356. 2. Drus. lb. p. 51. 
 10 Drus. Tetr. c. 10.ib.59. " Maim. Yad Chazaka, c. 14. § 10. 
 
 Ib. 174. Drus. p. 5'J. '- S. Matt. iv. 7. from Deut. vi. 16, and S. Matt. xxii. 44. 
 
 from Ps. ex. 1. " Heb. xiii. 8. 
 
 n See Bp. Bull, Def. Fid. Nic.i. 1.3-S. 12. ii. 4.5. Tertullian dePnEScr.§ 13. p. 447. 
 note. Oxf. Tr. [p.403. ed.2.] S.Athan. deConc. Arim.p. 120. note q. Orat.l. e. Arian. 
 pp. 235. 418. notch. Oxf.Tr.
 
 78 
 
 riOSEA, 
 
 G 'Therefore turn thou to thy God 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 c\r.72r>. i^^efip mercy and Judgment, and ''wait on 
 
 Mic.n'.s. thy God continually. 
 
 II o^, r,",-^' 7 ^ H<^ i^' II i^ merchant, ' the balances of 
 
 Ezek. u;?3. deceit arc in his hand : helovethto || oppress. 
 
 ' Prov. 11.1. Amos 8. 5. || Or, deceive. 
 
 the Lord, or whether it was the Father. God Almighty thus 
 accustomed man to see tlie form of ]Man. and to know and be- 
 lieve that it was God. He it was, the Projihet explains, the 
 Lord, i- e. the Self-existent, the Unchaniieahle, Who tvas, and 
 is and is to come'^, Who Alone Is, and from Whom are all 
 thinjjs, ''-the Fullness of Being;both of His own, and of all His 
 creatures, the boundless Ocean of all which is, of wisdom, of 
 glory, of love, of all good." 
 
 The Lord of Hosts, i. e. of all things visible and invisible, 
 of the angels and heavenly spirits, and of all things animate 
 and inanimate, which, in the history of the Creation, are called 
 the host of heaven and earth ^, the one host of God. This was 
 the way in which He willed to be had in mind, thought of, re- 
 membered. On the one hand then, as rchites to Ephraim's sin, 
 not by the calves, nor by any other created thing, did He will 
 to be represented to inen's minds or thoughts. On the other 
 hand, as relates to God's mercies, since Hc,\Mio revealed Him- 
 self to Jacob, was the Unchangeable God, Israel had no cause 
 to fear, if he returned to the faith of Jacob, whom God there 
 accepted. Whence it follows ; 
 
 6. 2'hercfore turn thou to thy God [lit. j4nd thou, thou shalt 
 turn so as to lean on thy God*.] And thou, unlike, he would 
 say, as thou art to thy great forefather, now at least, turn to thy 
 God ; hope in Him, as Jacob hoped; and thou too shalt be 
 accepted. God was the Same. They then had only to turn 
 to Him in truth, and they too would find Him, such as Jacob 
 their father had found Him, and then trust in Him continually. 
 3Icrry and judgment include all our duty to our neighbour, 
 love and justice. The Prophet selects the duties of the second 
 table, as Micali also places them first °, FFhat doth the Lord 
 require of thee, hut to do justly and love mercy, and walk hum- 
 bly with thy God ? and our Lord chooses those same command- 
 ments, in answer to the rich young man, who asked Him, 
 What shall I do, in order to enter into life " ? For men cannot 
 deceive themselves so easily about tlicir duties to their neigh- 
 bour, as about their duty to God. It was in love to his neigh- 
 bour that the rich young man failed. 
 
 Thou shalt turn, i. e. it is commonly said, thou oughtest to 
 turn ; as our's has it, turn. But it may also include the pro- 
 mise that, at one time, Israel shall turn to the Lord, as S. Paul 
 says, so shall all Israel be saved. 
 
 And tuait on thy God., continually. If they did so, they 
 should not wait in vain. '"This word, continually, hath no 
 small weight in it, shewing with what circumstances or pro- 
 perties their waiting or hope on God ought to be attended; 
 tliat it ought to Ijc on Him alone, on Him always, without 
 doubting, fainting, failing, intermission or ceasing, in all oc- 
 casions and conditions which may befall them, without ex- 
 ception of time, even in their adversity." "Turn to thy God," 
 he saith, " wait on thy God," as the great ground of repent- 
 ance and of trust. God had avouched them for His peculiar 
 people ^, and they had avouched Him for their only God. He 
 I then was still their God, ready to receive them, if they would 
 return to Him. 
 
 8 And Ephraim said, " Yet I 
 become rich, I have found me out 
 
 stance : || in all my labours they shall "u'"'''''' 
 
 .,,,1 Before 
 •^""' CHRIST 
 
 find none 
 zvcre sin. 
 
 miquity in me f 
 
 ev. 3. 17 
 
 that""''""""' 
 
 punishment of iniquity in whom is sin 
 
 labours suf- 
 fice m€ not '. 
 he sliall have 
 f Heb. uhich. 
 
 ' Gen. ii. 1. 
 
 1 Rev. i. 4, 8. 
 
 2 Lap. 
 <! S.Matt. xix. 17. 
 
 7 Poc. 
 
 7. He is a merchant, or, indignantly, A merchant, in whose 
 hands are the balances of deceit ! How could they love»;cr«^ 
 and justice, whose trade was deceit, who weighed out deceit 
 with their goods ? False in their dealings, in their weights and 
 measures,and,by taking advantage of the necessities of others, 
 oppressive also. Deceit is the sin of weakness, oppression is 
 the abuse of power. Wealth does not give the power to use 
 naked violence, but wealthy covetousness manifoldly grinds 
 the poor. W^hen for instance, wages are paid in necessaries 
 priced exorbitantly, or when artizans are required to buy at a 
 loss at their masters' shops, what is it but the union of deceit 
 and oppression ? The trading world is full of oppression, 
 scarcely veiled by deceit. He loveth to oppress. Deceit and 
 oppression have, each, a devilish attractiveness to those prac- 
 tised in them ; deceit, as exercising cleverness, cunning, skill 
 in overreaching, outwitting ; oppression, as indulging self-will, 
 caprice, love of power, insolence,and the like vices. The word 
 merchant, as the Prophet spoke it, was Canaan '; merchants 
 being so called, because the Canaanites or Phoenicians were the 
 then great merchant-people, as astrologers were called Chal- 
 deans. The Phosnicians were, in Homer's time, infamous 
 for their griping in traflSc. They are called "gnawers^"" 
 and " money-lovers ''." To call Israel, Canaan, was to deny to 
 him any title to the name of Israel, "reversing the blessing of 
 Jacob, so that, as it had been said of Jacob, Thy name shall he 
 called no more Jacob, but Israel, he would in fact say, ' Thy 
 name shall be called no more Israel, but Canaan'; as being, 
 through their deeds, heirs, not to the blessings of Israel but 
 to the curse of Canaan." So Ezekiel saith ^^, Thy father ivas J 
 an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. 
 
 8. And Ephraim said. Yet am I become rich, lit. / am 
 simply rich. As if he said, 'The only result of all this, with 
 which the prophets charge me, is that / am become rich : and 
 since God thus prospers me, it is a sure proof that He is not 
 displeased with me, that no iniquity can he found in me ;' the 
 ordinary practical argument of men, as long as God withholds 
 His punishments, that their ways cannot be so displeasing to 
 Him. With the men of this world, with its politicians, in 
 trade, it is the one decisive argument : " I was in the right, for 
 I succeeded." " It was a good speculation, for he gained thou- 
 sands." " It was good policy ; for, see its fruits." An answer, 
 at which the heathen laughed, "the people hisses me, but I, I, 
 safe at home, applaud myself, when the coin jingles in my 
 chest ^^." The heathen ridiculed it; Christians enact it. But 
 in truth, the fact that God does not punish, is often the evi- 
 dence of His extremest displeasure. 
 
 They shall fijid none iniquity in me, that were sin. The 
 
 merchants of Ephraim continue their protest ; ' In all the toil 
 
 of my hands, all my buying and selling,my bargains, contracts, 
 
 they can bring no iniquity home to me,' and then, in a tone 
 
 of simple innocence, they add, that were sin, as though they 
 
 could not do, what to do were sin. None suspect themselves 
 
 less, than those intent on gain. The evil customs of other 
 
 traders, the habits of trade, the seeming necessity for some 
 
 8 Deut. xxvi. 17, 18. ' ]]!a. 
 
 '0 Philostratus in Grot. " Od. xiv. 283. xv. 413. '= xvi. 3. '3 Hor. Sat. i. 1. G6.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 79 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 72r>. 
 
 " ch. 13. '1. 
 
 9 And " I that am the Lord thy God 
 _ from the land of Eijypt ° will yet make tJiee 
 
 ° Lev. 23. 42, 43. Neli. 8. 17. "Zech. M. Ifi. 
 
 frauds, the conventional nature of others, the minutenes.s of 
 others, with their frequent repetition, blind the soul, until it 
 sees no sin, while, with every smallest sale, " they sell their 
 own souls into the har^-ain '." 
 
 9. A)id J, the Lord tinj God from the Uuid of Egypt. 
 God, in few words, comprises wliolc centuries of blessings, all, 
 from the going out of Egypt to that very day, all the miracles 
 in Egypt, in the wilderness, under Joshua, the Judges ; one 
 stream of benefits it had been, which God had poured out upon 
 them from first to last. The penitent sees in one glance, how 
 God had been ///,s- God. from his birth till that hour, and how 
 he had all along offended (iJod. 
 
 Will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles. The feast of 
 tabernacles was the yearly remembrance of God's miraculous 
 guidance and support of Israel through the Avilderness. It 
 was the link, which bound on their deliverance from Egypt to 
 the close of their j)ilgrim-life and their entrance into their rest. 
 The passage of the Red Sea, like Baptism, was the beginning 
 of God's promises. By it Israel was saved from Egypt and 
 from bondage, and was born to be a people of God. Yet, be- 
 ing the beginning, it was plainly not the completion ; nor 
 could they themselves complete it. Enemies, more powerful 
 than they, had to be dispossessed ; the great and terrible wilder- 
 7iess, the fiery serpents and scorpions, and the land of exceeding 
 drought, ichere icas no zvater'^, had to be surmounted; no food 
 was there, no water, for so vast a multitude. It was a time 
 of thevisible Presence of God. He promised^; I send an Angel 
 hefore thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the 
 ]}lace ivliich I have prepared. He brought them forth ivater 
 out of the rock of Jiint, and fed them tcith Manna which, He 
 says, thy fathers knew not *. Thy 7-aiment, He appeals td 
 them, waxed not old, nor did thy foot swell these forty years ^ ; 
 thy shoe is not waxen old ripon thy foot ; ye have not eaten 
 bread, neither have ye drunk ivineor strong drink, that ye may 
 know that I am the Lord your God ''. It was a long trial-time, 
 in which they were taught entire de])endance upon God ; a 
 time of sifting, in which God proved His faithfulness to those 
 who persevered. Standing there between the beginning and 
 the end of the accomplishment of God's promise to Abraham 
 and to them, it was a type of His whole guidance of His peo- 
 ple at all times. It was a pledge that God would lead His 
 own, if often by a way ivhicli they knew not ^, yet to rest, with 
 Him. The yearly commemoration of it was not only a thanks- 
 giving for God's past mercies ; it was a confession also of their 
 present relation to God, that here tee have no continuing city * ,• 
 that they still needed the guidance and support of God ; and 
 that their trust was not in themselves, nor in man, but in 
 Him. This they themselves saw. '• "^ When they said, " Leave 
 a fixed habitation, and dwell in a chance abode,' they meant, 
 that the command to dwell in tabernacles was given, to teach 
 us, that no man must rely on the height or strength of his 
 house, or on its good arrangements, though it abound in all 
 good; nor may he rely on the help of any man, not though he 
 were lord and king of the whole earth, but must trust in Him 
 by Whose word the worlds were made. For with Him alone is 
 power and faithfulness, so that, whereinsoever any man may 
 place his trust, he shall receive no consolation from it, since in 
 
 ' South's Sermons. 
 6 lb. 4. 
 
 : Dcut. viii. 15. ^ Ex. xxiii. 20. ■• Deut. viii. 15, IC. 
 lb. xxix.5, 6. 7 Is. xlii. 10. 
 
 to dwell in tabernacles, 
 the solemn feast. 
 
 as in the days of chrTst 
 
 God alone is refuge and trust, as it is said. Whoso putteth his 
 trust in the Lord, mercy enibraceth him on every side, and, / 
 will say unto the Lord, my Itefuge and nty Fortress, my God, 
 in Him will I trust." 
 
 The feast of 'J'abernacles was also a yearly thanksgiving for 
 the mercies with wliicli (Jrxl bad croivned the year. The joy 
 must have been even the greater, since it followed, by five days 
 only, after the mournful day of Atonement, its rigid fast from 
 evening to evening, and its confession of sin. Joy is greater 
 when ushered in by sorrow: sorrow for sin is the condition of 
 joy in God. The Feast of Taljcrnacles was, as far it could 
 be, a sort of Easter after Lent. At the time \^lien Israel re- 
 joiced in the good gifts of the year, God bade them express, 
 in act, their fieeting condition in this life. It must have been 
 a striking confession of the slight tenure of all earthly things, 
 when their kings and great men, their rich men and those 
 who lived at ease, had all, at the command of (Jod, to leave 
 their ceiled houses, and dwell for seven days in rude booths, 
 constructed for the season, pervious in some measure to the 
 sun and wind, with no fixed foundation, to be removed when 
 the festival was passed. " Because," says a Jewish writer^", 
 "at the time of the gathering of the increase from the field, 
 man wishes to go from the field to his house to make a fixed 
 abode there, the law was anxious, lest on account of this fix- 
 ed abode, his heart should be lifted up at liavinir found a sort 
 of palace, and he should wax fat and kick. Therefore it is 
 written, all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths. Who- 
 so begins to think himself a citizen in tliis world, and not a 
 foreigner, him God Ijiddeth, leaving his ordinary dwelling, to 
 remove into a temporary lodging, in order that, leaving these 
 thoughts, he may learn to acknowledge that he is only a stran- 
 ger in this world and not a citizen, in that he dwells as in a 
 stranger's hut, and so should not attribute too much to the 
 shadow of his beams, but dtvell under the shadow of the Al- 
 mighty." 
 
 Every year, the law was publicly read in the feast. Ephra- 
 im was living clean contrary to all this. He boasted in his 
 wealth, justified himself on the ground of it, ascribed it and 
 his deliverance from Egypt to his idols. He would not keep 
 the feast, as alone God willed it to be kept. While he exist- 
 ed in his separate kingdom, it could not be. Their political 
 existence had to be broken, that they might l)e restored. 
 
 God then conveys the notice of the impending punishment 
 in words which promised the future mercy. He did not, then, 
 make them to dwell in tabernacles. For all their service of 
 Him was out of their own mind, contrary to His Will, dis- 
 pleasing to Him. This, then, " I will yet make thee dwell in 
 tabernacles," implies a distant mercy, beyond and distinct from 
 their present condition. Looking on beyond the time of the 
 Captivity, He says that they shall yet have a time of joy, as 
 in the days of the solemn feast. God would give them a new 
 deliverance, but out of a new captivity. 
 
 T'he feast of Tabernacles typifies this our pilgrim-state, the 
 life of simple faith in God, for flhich God provides ; poor in 
 this world's goods, but rich in God. The Church militant 
 dwells, as it were, in tabernacles ; hereafter, we hope to be 
 received into everlasting habitations in the Church triumphant. 
 
 8 Heb. xiii. H. comp. xi.9, 10. ^ ' Menorat Hammaor,f. Z?, col. 2. in Daclis 
 
 Succa, pp. 52", 8. '" R. Sal. Ephv. Keli Yakar in Lev. 1. c. in Dacbs, p. 540. 
 
 T 2
 
 80 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 10 P I luive also s])okcn by tlic prophets, 
 <=■■•• '"-'"'• and I have multiplied visions, and used 
 p 2 Kings 17. similitudes, t by the ministry of the pro- 
 
 t Heb. !,„ , . 
 
 thchmul. pntlS. 
 
 'tti: 11 1/.* there iniquity in Gilead ? 
 
 ' &bf'i5°' surely they are vanity : they sacrifiee 
 
 iTX^'"^' buUoeks in ' Gilgal : yea, 'their altars 
 
 • ch. 8. il. &10. 1. 
 
 10. / liare also sjioAcii hy ilie propliets, lit. upon the pro- 
 phets, the revelation eoniinc; down from heaven upon them. 
 Somewhat like this, is what Ezckiel says, tlie hand of the Lord 
 was strong upon me^. God declares, in what way He had 
 been their God from the land, of Egypt. Tiieir ii^noraiiee of 
 Him was without excuse; for He had ever taught them, al- 
 though they ever sought the false prophets, and persecuted the 
 true. He taiiifht them continually and in divers ways, if so be 
 any impression mijjht be made upon them. He tauf:;ht them, 
 either in plain words, or in the visions which He multiplied to 
 the propliets ; or in the similitudes or parables, which He taught 
 through their ministry. In the vision, God is understood to 
 have represented the things to come, as a picture, to the pro- 
 phet's mind, "-whether the picture were presented to his bodi- 
 ly eyes, or impressed on his imagination, and that, either in a 
 dream, or without a dream." The similitude, which God says 
 that He repeatedly, continually, used -^j seems to have been the 
 parable, as when God compared His people to a vine, Him- 
 self to the Lord of the vineyard, or when He directed His 
 prophets to do acts which should shadow fortli some truth, as 
 in the marriage of Hosea himself. God had said to Aaron, 
 that He would tlius make Himself known by the prophets. * //' 
 there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, icill make Myself 
 knownunto him in a vision, and tvill speak unto him in a dream. 
 My servant Bloses is not so, xvlio is faithful in all My house. 
 fVith him tvill I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and 
 not in dark speeches. The dark speech in Moses answers to 
 the similitude of Hosea; the risio?i and dream in Moses are 
 comprehended in visions, as used by Hosea. The prophet Joel 
 also says % your old men shall dream dreams, your young men 
 shall see visions. So little ground then have they, who speak 
 of the visions of Daniel and Zechariah, as if they belonged to 
 a later age. " <= I have instructed," God saitli, '-men of God, to 
 form thee to piety, enlightening their minds with manifcdd 
 knowledge of tlie things of God. And because the light of Di- 
 vine wisdom could no otherwise shine on men placed here be- 
 low in the prison-house of the body, I had them taught through 
 figures and corporeal images, that, through them,"they might 
 rise to the incorporeal, and receive some knowledge of Di- 
 vine and heavenly things. And thou, how didst thou requite 
 Me ? How didst thou shew thy teachableness ? It follows ;" 
 1 1. Is there iniquity in Gilead ? The Prophet asks the ques- 
 tion, in order to answer it the more peremptorily. He raises 
 the doubt, in order to crush it the more impressively. Is there 
 iniquity in Gilead ? Alas, there was nothing else. ' Surely they 
 are vanity, or, strictly, they have become merely vanity. As he 
 said before, they become abominations like their love. " For such 
 as men make their idols, or conceive their God to be, such they 
 become themselves. As then hewho worships God with a pure 
 heart, is made like unto God, so they who worship stocks and 
 stones, or who make passions and lusts their idols, lose the 
 
 ' iii. M, etc. - Vac. 
 
 3 Such is tlie force of the Jleb. ns-iN. ^ Num. xii. 0-8. » ii. 2S. « Osor. 
 
 are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. c^hTst 
 
 12 And Jaeob ' fled into the eountry of '"••^-■'"^- 
 Syria, and Is/ael " served for a wife, and ' neu't.^26.^5. 
 for a wife he kept sheep. " 2»"' ^^' ^^' 
 
 13 "And by a prophet the Loim broui^ht "su&i's. 3. 
 Israel out of Ej^ypt, and by a prophet was il'oi.'n! 
 he preserved. *'''=• ^•^- 
 
 mind of men and become like the beasts iihich perish." In Gil- 
 gal they hare sacrificed o.ven. Gilead represents all the coun- 
 try on its side, the East of Jordan ; Gilgal, all on its side, the 
 West of Jordan. In both, God had signally shewn forth His 
 mercies ; in both they dishonoured God, sacrificing to idols, 
 and offering His creatures, as a gift to devils. 
 
 Yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field. Their 
 altars are like the heaps of stones, from «hich men clear the 
 ploughed land, in order to fit it for cultivation, as numerous, 
 as profuse, as worthless, as desolate. Their altars they were, 
 not God's. Tiiey did, (as sinners do,) in the service of devils, 
 what, had they done it to God, would have been accepted, re- 
 warded, service. Full often they sacrificed oxen ^; they threw 
 great state into their religion ; they omitted nothing which 
 should shed around it an empty shew of worship. They mul- 
 tiplied their altars, their sins, their ruins; many altars over 
 against His one altar; '""rude heaps of stones, in His sight; and 
 such they should become, no one stone lieing left in order upon 
 another." In contrast with their sins and ingratitude, the Pro- 
 phet exhibits two pictures, the one, of the virtues of the Pa- 
 triarch whose name they bore, from whom was the beginning 
 of their race ; the other, of God's love to them, in that begin- 
 ning of their national existence, when God brought those who 
 had been a body of slaves in Egypt, to be His own people. 
 
 12. j^nd Jacob fled into the country of Syria. Jacob chose 
 poverty and servitude rather than marry an idolatress of Ca- 
 naan. He knew not whence, except from God's bounty and 
 Providence, he should have bread to eat, or raiment to put on ' ; 
 with his staff alone he passed over Jordan ^*'. His voluntary 
 poverty, bearing even unjust losses ^\ and 7-epaying the things 
 which he 7iever took, reproved their dishonest traffic ; his trust- 
 fulness in God, their mistrust ; his devotedness to God, their 
 alienation from Him, and their devotion to idols. And as the 
 conduct was opposite, so was the result. Ill-gotten riclies end 
 in poverty; stable wealth is gained, not by the cupidity of man, 
 but by the good pleasure of God. Jacob, having become tivo 
 bands, trusting in God and enriched by God, returned from Sy- 
 ria to the land promised to him by God ; Israel, distrusting 
 God and enriching himself, was to return out of the land which 
 the Lord his God had given him, to Assyria, amid the loss of 
 all things. 
 
 13. By a prophet was he preserved, or kept. Jacob kept 
 sheep out of love of God, sooner than unite himself with one, 
 alien from God ; his posterity was kept like a sheep by God, 
 as the Psalmist said ^-, lie led His people like sheep by the hand 
 of 3Ioses and Aaron. They were kept from all evil and want 
 and danger, by the direct power of God ; kept from all the 
 might of Pharaoh in Egypt and tiio Red Sea, '"^ not through 
 any power of their own. but by the ministry of a single ])rophet; 
 kept, in that great and terrible wilderness'^^, wherein were /?ery 
 serpents and scorpions and drought, icltere was no water, but 
 
 " The force of w^i. ^ Vac. « Gen. xxviii. 20. 
 
 i» lb. xxxii. 10. " lb. xxxi. 39. ■= Ps. Ixxvii. 20. " Deut. viii. 15.
 
 CHAPTER XI If. 
 
 81 
 
 ciPrTst ^"^ '^ Ephraim provolvcd him to ani:;or 
 
 "''■ ^-^- f most bitterly : therefore shall he leave his 
 
 n-'l's.'' ■ f blood upon him, 'and his "reproach shall 
 
 bi/ternesscs. his L/Ortl rctum unto liiiu. 
 
 ^ Moods. See C H A I'TIC II X 11 1 . 
 
 ifj- 24.7,8. 1 Ephrainis g/oiy, hij rcusuiL <if iduliitri/, vanish- 
 
 » Dan. 11.18. " Deut. 28. 37. 
 
 what God broui-lit out of the rock of flint ; no Ijrcad, but what 
 He sent theui from heaven." '• AH tliis, God did for them hi/ 
 a single I'niplut ; tliey had many itrophets, early and late, 
 callina; upon them in the name of God, but they would not 
 hearken unto tliem." 
 
 14. Epliraiin prox'okrd the Lord most hiltcrh/, lit. 7ritli 
 bitternesses, i.e. witli most heinous sins, such as are most griev- 
 ously displeasing to God, and were a most bitter requital of 
 all His goodness. Wherefore lie shall leave [or, cast'] his 
 blood [lit. bloods'] upon him. The plural bloods^ expresses the 
 manifoldness of the bloodshed. It is not used in Holy Scrip- 
 ture of mere guilt. Ephraim had shed Ijlood profusely, so tluit 
 it ran like water in the laud -. He had sinned with a high 
 hand against God, in destroying man, made in the image of 
 God. Amid that bloodshed, had been the blood not of the in- 
 nocent only, but of those whom God sent to rebuke them 
 for their idolatry, their rapine, their bhjodshed. Jezebel cut 
 (yff the prophets oftheLord^, as far as in her lay, with a com- 
 plete excision. Ephraim thought his sins past; they were out 
 of bis sight ; he thought tiiat they were out of God's also ; but 
 they were laid up with God ; and God, the Prophet says, would 
 cast them down upon him, so that they would crush him. 
 
 And his reproach shall his Lord return unto him. For 
 the blood which he had shed, should his own blood be shed ; for 
 tiie reproacheswhich be had in divers ways cast against God or 
 brought upon Him, he sliould inherit reproach. Those who 
 rebel against God, bring reproach on Him by their sins, re- 
 proach Him by their excuses for their sins, reproach Him in 
 those whom He sends to recall them from their sins, reproach 
 Him for chastening them for their sins. All who sin against 
 the knowledge of God, bring reproach upon Him by acting 
 sinfully against that knowledge. So Nathan says to David ^, 
 Thou hast given much occasion to the enemies of God to blas- 
 pheme. The reproachful words of the enemies of God are but 
 the echo of the opprobrious deeds of His unfaithful servants. 
 The reproaehis therefore, in an especial manner,^/ie/r reproach 
 who caused it. All Israel's idolatries had this aggravation. 
 Their worsbipof the calves orof Baal or of anyothergodsof the 
 nations, was a triumph of the false gods over God. Then, all 
 sin must find some plea for itself, by impugning the wisdom or 
 goodness of God who forbad it. Jeroboam, and Ephraim by 
 adhering to Jeroboam's sin,reproaehed God.asthough the go- 
 ing up to Jerusalem was a hard service. It is too much for 
 you to go up to Jerusalem ; Heboid tliy gods, O Israel, which 
 brought ttiee up out of the land of Egypt. •' '" It was an open in- 
 jury and reproach to God, to attribute to dead lifeless things 
 those great and wonderful things done by Him for them." All 
 the reproach, which they, in these ways, brought, or cast, 
 upon God, he says, his Lord shall return or restore to them. 
 Their's it was ; and He would give it back to them, as He says^, 
 Them that honour Me, I luill honour ; and they that despise Me, 
 
 ^ D'OT. When David said to tlie Amalokitc, Thij hJoods he upon thi/ head, 2 Sam. i. IG. it 
 was the liloodguiltiTiess in slaving Sanl, which he had imputed to himself. When the 
 spies said, his blood [sing.] be upon his head, (Josh. ii. 10.) they meant, let liiniself and no 
 other be guilty of the loss of his life. 
 
 eth. .') Coil's anger for their unkindness. 9 A nll'^^W-v 
 promise ff God's mem/. \') A judgment for cir. 725. 
 
 rebellion. 
 
 WHEN Ephraim spake tremblini^, he 
 exalt(Ml himself in Israel ; but ' when" 2. Kings 17. 
 he offended in IJaal, he died. 
 
 in, 18. 
 
 ch. 11.2. 
 
 shall be lightly esteemed. Truly shame and reprrjach have 
 been for centuries the portion of G(ul's unfaithful ])eople. To 
 those who are lost. He gives back tiieir reprcjach, in that they 
 rise to re/)roiiehes'^ uiidevrrlas/ijig abhorrence*^. It is an aggra- 
 vation of tliis misery, tliat He Who shall give baeic to him liis 
 reproach, bad been his God. Since his <'»V;r/ was against him, 
 will) could be for iiiui ? '•' For whither should we go for refuge, 
 save to Him ? If we find wrath witii Him, with whom should 
 we find ruth ? " Epliraini did not, tiie sinner will not, allow 
 God to be Itis God in worship and service and love ; but whe- 
 ther he willed or no,(iod would remain his Lord. He was, and 
 might still have been their Lord for good ; tliey would not 
 have Him so, and so they should find Him still their Lord, 
 as an Avenger, returning their own evil to them. 
 
 XIII. I. If'hcn Epitraiin spalce trembling, i.e. probably 
 '•'there was troubling.'' "'•'IZphraim was once very aweful, so 
 as, while he spake, the rest oFtb.- tribeswere ready to tremble." 
 The I^rophet contrasts two conditions of Ephraim, of prospe- 
 rity, and destruction. His prosperity he owed to the unde- 
 served mercy of God, Wbo blessed him for Joseph's sake ; his 
 destruction, to his own sin. There is no period recorded, «'/ieH 
 Ephraim spake tremblingly, i. e. in humility. Pride was his 
 characteristic, almost as soon as he had a separate existence 
 as a tribe i". Under Joshua, it could not be called out, for Eph- 
 raim gained honour, when Joshua, one of themselves, became 
 the captain of tlie Lord's people. Under the Judges, their 
 pride appeared. Yet God tried them, by giving them their 
 hearts' desire. They longed to be exalted, and He satisfied 
 them, if so be they would thus serve Him. They had the chief 
 power, and were a terror to Judali. He exalted himself, (or 
 perhaps he was exalted.) in Israel ; but xchen he offended in Baal, 
 he died ; lit. and he offended in Baal and died. He abused the 
 goodness of God ; his sin followed as a consef[uence of God's 
 goodness to him. God raised him, and he offended. Tiie al- 
 liance with a king of Tyre and Sidon, which brought in the 
 worship of Baal, was a part oftlie worldly policy of the kings of 
 Israeli^ _/,,. ,y ,7 /,„,/ |J^.^.j^ f, /i^rht thing for him to walk in the 
 sins of Jeroboam the son of Xebat, he took to wife the daugh- 
 ter of Ethhaal, king of the Zidonians, and woit and served Baal 
 and icorshijiped him. The twenty-two years of Abab's reign 
 established the worship. The prophets of Baal became 450 ; 
 the prophets of the kindred idolatry of xVshtoreth, or Astarte, 
 became 400; Baal had bis one central temple, large and mag- 
 niiicenti-, a rival of that of God. The prophet Elijah thought 
 tlie apostacy almost universal; God revealed to him that He 
 had reserved to Himself seven thousand in Israel. Yet these 
 were all the knees which had not bowed to Baal, and every 
 mouth which had not kissed him'^^. 
 
 And died. Death is the penalty of sin. Ephraim died 
 spiritually. For sin takes away the life of grace, and sepa- 
 rates from God, the true life of "the soul, the source of all life. 
 
 - Seeab. iv.2.v.2. 3 1 Kings xviii. 4. •< 2Sam.xii.l4. sg.Cyr. 
 
 •■ lSam.ii.30. ' Dan. xii. 2. « The word isthe same as in Is. lxvi.21. 
 
 » Bp. Hall. '" See on v. 5. " 1 Kings xvi. 31. see Introd. p. 2. 
 
 12 2 Kings X. 21,22, 25. " 1 Kings xix. IS.
 
 82 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 ciirTst 2 And now f they sin more and more, 
 
 cir.725. and '^have made them molten images of 
 
 '^muno'lZ. their silver, and idols according to their 
 
 "a'sfif" own understanding, all of it the work of 
 
 the craftsmen : they say of them, Let || the j, ^ iffg^ 
 men thut sacrifice *= kiss the calves. "■"•725. 
 
 3 Therefore they shall be ^as the morn-"^X',"/«"? 
 ing cloud, and as the early dew that i)asseth'^ \^"''''* ^^' 
 
 i ch'. 0. 4. 
 
 He '■ died more truly, than he wlio is dead and at rest." Of 
 this death, our Lord says \ Let the dead hiiry their dead ; and 
 S. Paul - She who Uveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. 
 He died also as a nation and kingdom, being sentenced by God 
 to cease to be. 
 
 2. yiitd nmv they sin more and more. Sin draws on sin. 
 This seems to be a third stage in sin. First, under Jeroboam, 
 was the worship of the calves. Then, nnder Ahab, the wor- 
 ship of Baal. Thirdly, the multiplying of other idols % pene- 
 trating and pervading the private life, even of their less weal- 
 thy people. The calves were of gold ; now, they made them 
 molten images of their silver, perhaps plated with silver. In 
 Egypt, the mother of idolatry, it M^as common to gild idols, 
 made of wood, stone, and bronze. The idolatry, then, had be- 
 come more habitual, daily, universal. These idols were made 
 of their silver ; they themselves had had them molten out of 
 it. Avaricious as they were'', they lavished their silver, to 
 make them their gods. According to their own understanding, 
 they had had them formed. They employed ingenuity and in- 
 vention to multiply their idols. They despised the wisdom 
 and commands of God Who forbad it. The rules for making 
 and colouring the idols were as minute as those, which God 
 gave for His own worship. Idolatry had its own vast system, 
 making the visible world its god and picturing its operations, 
 over against the worship of God its Creator. But it was all, 
 their own understanding. The conception of the idol lay in its 
 maker's mind. It was his own creation. He devised, what 
 his idol should repi'esent ; how it should represent what his 
 mind imagined ; he debated with himself, rejected, chose, 
 changed his choice, modified what he had fixed upon ; all ac- 
 cording to his own understanding. Their own understanding 
 devised it ; the labour of the craftsmen completed it. 
 
 All of it the work of the craftsmen. What man could do 
 for it, he did. But man could not breathe into his idols the 
 breath of life; there was then no spirit, nor life, nor any efflu- 
 ence from any higher nature, nor any deity residing in them. 
 From first to last it was all man's ivork ; and man's own wis- 
 dom was its condemnation. The thing made must be infe- 
 rior to its maker. God made man, inferior to Himself, but lord 
 of the earth, and all things therein ; man made his idol of the 
 things of earth, which God gave him. It too then was inferior 
 to its maker, man. He then worshipped in it, the conception 
 of his own mind, the work of his own hands. 
 
 They say of them. Strictly, Of them, (i. e. of these things, 
 such things as these,) they say, Let the men that sacrifice kiss 
 the calves. The prophet gives the substance or the words of 
 Jeroboam's edict, when he said. It is too much for you to go up 
 to Jerusalem, behold thy gods, O Israel. ' \Mioevcr would sa- 
 crifice, let him do homage to the calves.' He would have calf- 
 worship to be the only worship of God. Error, if it is strong 
 enough, ever persecutes the trutli, unless it can corrupt it. 
 Idol-worship was striving to extirpate the worship of God, 
 which condemned it. Under Ahab and Jezebel, it seemed to 
 have succeeded. Elijah complains to God in His own imme- 
 diate j)resence ; the children of Israel have forsahen Thy cove- 
 nant, thrown dotun Thine altars, u)ul slain Thy Prophets with 
 
 1 S.Matt.viii.23. = lTim.v.6. 
 
 '■> See2Kingsxvii.y, lU. ^ Abovcxii.7,8. 5 1 Kingsxix. 10, 14. o lb. IS. and here. 
 
 the sword ; and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life, to 
 take it away ^ Kissing was an act of homage inthe East, done 
 upon the hand or the foot, the knees or shoulder. It was a to- 
 ken of Divine honour, whether to an idol " or to God ''. It was 
 performed, either by actually kissing the image, or when the 
 objectcouldnotbe approached, (as themoon)kissingthe hand*, 
 and so sending, as it were, the kiss to it. In the Psalm, it 
 stands as a symbol of worship, to be shewn towards the In- 
 carnate Son, when God should make Him King upon His holy 
 hill of S ion. 
 
 3. Therefore they shall he as the morning cloud. There is 
 often a fair show of prosperity, out of God ; but it is short- 
 lived. "The third generation," says the heathen proverb,"never 
 enjoys the ill-gotten gain." The highest prosperity of an un- 
 godly state is often the next to its fall. Israel never so flou- 
 rished, as under Jeroboam II. Bright and glistening with 
 light is the early dew ; in an hour it is gone, as if it had never 
 been. Glowing and gilded by the sun is the morning cloud; 
 while you admire its beauty,its hues have vanished. The chaff' 
 lay in one heap on the Jloor with the wheat. Its owner casts 
 tlie mingled chaff and wheat against the strong wind ; in a xao- 
 \\\QnX,\tis driven by tJie wind out of the floor . While every grain 
 falls to the ground, the chaff, light, dry, worthless, unsubstan- 
 tial, is hurriedaIong,unresisting, the sport of the viewless wind, 
 and itself is soon seen no more. The smoke, one, seemingly 
 solid, full, lofty, column, ascendeth, swelleth, welleth, vanish- 
 eth''. In form, it is as solid, when about to be dispersed and 
 seen no more, as when it first issued out of the chimney. "'"It 
 is raised aloft, and bythatveryuplifting swells intoavast globe; 
 but the larger that globe is, the emptier; for from that unsolid, 
 unbased, inflated greatness it vanisheth in air, so that its very 
 greatness injures it. For the more it is uplifted, extended, dif- 
 fused on all sides into a larger compass, so much the poorer it 
 becometli, and faileth,and disappeareth." Such was the pros- 
 perity of Ephraim, a mere show, to vanish for ever. In the 
 image of the chaff] the Prophet substitutes the whirlwind for 
 the wind by which the Easterns used to winnow, in order to 
 picture the violence with which they should be whirled away 
 from their own land. 
 
 While these four emblems, in common, picture what is fleet- 
 ing, two, the early dew and the morning cloud, are emblems of 
 what is in itself good, but passing ^' ; the two others, the chaff 
 and the smoke, are emblems of what is worthless. The dew 
 and the cloud were temporary mercies on the part of God 
 which should cease from them, " good in themselves, but to 
 their evil, soon to pass away." If the dew have not, in its brief 
 space, refreshed the vegetation, no trace of it is left. It gives 
 way to the burning sun. If grace have not done its work in 
 the soul, its day is gone. Such dew were the many prophets 
 vouchsafed to Israel; such was Hosea himself, most brilliant, 
 but soon to pass away. The chaff was the people itself, to be 
 carried out of the Lord's land ; the smoke, " its pride and its er- 
 rors, whose disappearance was to leave the air pure for the 
 household of God." "^-So it is written^^; As the smoke is driven 
 away, so shalt thou drive them away ; as wax melteth before the 
 /ire,soshall the ungodly perish before the presence of God; and in 
 
 " Ps. ii.l2. 3 Job xxxi. 20, 2". 
 
 sS.Auj. i» Id.iiiPs. xxxvi.S.ii.§12. " llup. i: Dion. '^ rs.ixvi:i.2.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 83 
 
 chrTst ^^^"7' ^•^'^ t'^^ chaff that is driven witli the 
 
 '^''•- ^-^- whirlwind out of tlic floor, and as the 
 
 ' Dan. 2. 35. gij^^j-g q^j; ^f ^\^^, ehininey. 
 
 Is. 43. 11. 4 Yet ^I am the Lord thv God from the 
 
 ch. 12. 9. •' 
 
 land of Ef^ypt, and thou shalt know no <i:;od 
 
 ^ &'i5."2i.' but me : for ° tliere is no saviour beside me. 
 
 Proverbs^; j4s tlie whirlwind jxtsscth, so is tlie wirAcd }io more ; 
 l)nt the righteous is an everlftsfi/ig foundation. Wlio altliouf;li 
 they live and flourish, as to the life of the body ; yet spiritually 
 theydic,yea,and are brought to uothinc;; forbysiu man became 
 a nothing-. Virtue makes man iipright and stable ; vice, emp- 
 ty and unstable. Whence Isaiah says", /he trivked are like the 
 troubled sea, which cannot rest ; and ,)ob •'' ; J/iniquiti/ be in thi/ 
 hand,2>ut it far atcai/ ; then .shall thou he steadfast." 
 
 4. Yet, [lit. and] 7 am the Lord thi/ God from the land of 
 Egypt. God Mas still the same God Who had sheltered them 
 with His providence, ever since He had delivered them from 
 Egypt. He had the same power and will to help them. There- 
 fore their duty was the same, and their destruction arose, 
 not from any change in Him, but from themselves. " God is 
 the God of the luigodly, by creation and general Providence." 
 
 ^tid tlioii shall [i. c. oughtest to] know no God but Me, 
 for [lit. and] there is not a Saviour hut ME. " To be God and 
 Lord and Saviour are incommunicable properties of God. 
 Wherefore God often claimed these titles to Himself, from the 
 time He revealed Himself to Israel. In the song of Moses, 
 which they were commanded to rehearse. He says *, See now 
 that I, I am He, and there is no God with Me : I kill, and I 
 make alive ; I wound, and I heal ; neither is there any that can 
 deliver out of My hand. Isaiah repeats this same ^, Is there a 
 God besides Met yea, there is no God; I know not any ; and 
 " There is no God else besides Me, a just God and a Saviour ; 
 there is none else. Look unto 3Ie and he ye saved ; for I am 
 God and there is none else ; aiuP, / am the Lord, that is My 
 Name ; and My glory ivill I not give to another ; neither My 
 praise to graven images. " ^ That God and Saviour is Christ ; 
 God, because He created ; Saviour, because, being made Man, 
 He saved. Whence He willed to be called Jesus, i. c. Saviour. 
 Truly beside Him, there is no Saviour ; neither is there salva- 
 tion in any other ; for there is none other name under heaven, 
 given among men, whereby we must be saved^." "It is not 
 enough to recognise in God this quality of a Saviour. It must 
 not be shared with any other. Whoso associates with God any 
 power whatever to decide on man's salvation makes an idol, 
 and introduces a new God." 
 
 5. I did knoiv thee in the ivilderness. " God so knew them, 
 as to deserve to be known by them. By hwiving them, PIc 
 shewed how He ought to be acknowledged by them." As ive 
 love God, because He first loved tis, so we come to know and 
 own God, having first been owned and known of Him. God 
 shewed His knowledge of them, by knowing and providing 
 for their wants ; He knew them in the tcilderness, in the land 
 of great drought, where the land yielded neither food nor water. 
 He supplied them with the bread from heaven and with water 
 from the flinty rock. He knew and owned them all by His 
 Providence ; He knew in approbation and love, and fed in body 
 and soul those who, having been known by Him, knew and 
 owned Him. " « No slight thing is it, that He, Who knoweth 
 all things and men, should, by gracie, know us with that know- 
 
 1 Prov. .X. 25. 
 * Deut. xxxii. 39. ^ xliv. S. 
 
 - Is.lvii.20. 
 « xlv. 21, 2. 
 
 3 xi. 14, 15. 
 
 xlii.8. 8 Rup. ' Actsiv. 12. 
 
 .5 ^ '' I did know thee in the wilderness, chrTst 
 in the land of f j^rcat droui^ht. 
 
 Before 
 H RIS 
 cir. 72"). 
 
 ''Aceordinj^ to their pasture, so were &'32.i6.'' 
 they filled; they were filled, and their' J.^'i/iV^- . 
 heart was exalted; therefore 'have they t Deu;%°''it''' 
 forgotten me. 
 
 14. & 32. 15. 
 1 ch. 8. 14. 
 
 ledge according to which He says to that one true Israelite, 
 Moses '", thou hast found grace i)t ISIy sight, and I know thee liy 
 name. This we read to have; been said to that one ; but what 
 lie says to one. He says to all, whom now, before or since that 
 time, He has chosen, being foreknown and predestinate; for He 
 wrote the names of all in the book of life. \\\ these elect arc 
 known in the ivilderness, in tTic land of loneliness, in the wil- 
 derness of this world, where no one evei- saw God, in the soli- 
 tude of the heart and the secret of hidden knowledge, where 
 God alone, beholding the soul tried by temptations, exercises 
 and proves it,and accounting it, when running lawfully, worthy 
 of His knowledge, professes that He knew it. To those so 
 known, or named. He Himself saith in the Gospel, rejoice, be- 
 cause your nanu's are irrittoi in heaven^^." 
 
 6. According to their pasture, so were they filled. "* He im- 
 plies that their way of being ////«/ was neither good nor praise- 
 worthy, in that he says, theif ivere filled, according to tlieir 
 pastures. What or of what kind were these their pastures ? 
 What they longed for, what they murmured for, and spoke evil 
 of God. For instance, when they said, who tvill give usjlesh to 
 eat f We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely. 
 Our soulisdried up, because oureyes see nothing but this inanna^-. 
 Since theydesired such things in such wise, and, desiring, were 
 filled with them to loathing, well are they called ' their pas- 
 tures.' For they sought God, not for Himself, but for them. 
 They who follow God for Himself, things of this sort are not 
 called their pastures, but the word of God is their pasture, ac- 
 cording to that^^, Man shall not live by bread alone.but by every 
 word, wliichproceedeth out of the mouth of God. These words, 
 according to their pastures, convey strong blame. It is as if he 
 said, 'in their eating and drinking,theyreceived theirwhole re- 
 ward for leaving the land of Egypt and receiving for a time the 
 law of God.' It is sin, to follow God for such pastures. Blam- 
 ing such in the Gospel, Jesus saith ^', Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you,ye seek Me, not because ye saiv the miracles, but because ye 
 did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labour not for the meat 
 which perisheth,but for thatwhich endureth untoeverlasting life. 
 In like way, let all think themselves blamed, who attend the al- 
 tar of Christ, not for the love of the sacraments which they ce- 
 lebrate, but only to live of the altar. This fulness is like that 
 of which the Psalmist says^°. The Lord gave them their desire 
 and sent leanness withal into their bones. For such fulness of 
 the belly generates elation of spirit ; such satiety produces 
 forgetfulness of God." It is more difficult to bear prospe- 
 rity than adversity. They who, in the waste howling wilder- 
 ness, had been retained in a certain degree of duty, forgat God 
 altogether in the good land which He had given them. Whence 
 it follows ; 
 
 They were filled, and their heart iras e.ralted ; therefore have 
 they forgotten Me. For they owned not that they had all from 
 Him, therefore they were puffed up with pride, and forgot Him 
 in and by reason of His gifts. This was the aggravation of 
 their sin, with which Hosea often reproaches them i". They 
 
 10 Ex. xxxiii. 1". " S. Luke x. 20. 
 
 1= Xum.xi.l-G. "Deut.viii.3. " S.John vi.2C,27. '^Ps.cvi.lo. "ii.5.iv.?
 
 84 
 
 HOSE A, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 7 Therefore "^ I will be unto them as a' caul of their heart, and there will I devour 
 
 cir.725. lion: as "a leopard by the way will I ob 
 serve them : 
 
 8 I will meet them " as a bear that ?.v be- 
 
 m Lam. 3. 10. 
 
 ch. 5. 14. 
 n Jer. 5. G. 
 o 2 Sam. 17. 8, 
 
 Prov. ir. 12. 
 
 Hefore 
 C H 111 S T 
 
 them hke a lion : + the wild beast shall tear "'•7^»- 
 
 I'lClll- Ihe beast of 
 
 ^ O Israel, Pthou hast destroyed thy-pProv!o.'32. 
 
 reaved of her n-helps, and will rend the self ; i but in me f ?.y thine help. 
 
 1 ver. 4. 
 
 ch. 14. 1. 
 Mai. 1. 9. ;• 
 f Heb. in thy help. 
 
 abused God's gifts, (as Christians do now) a2:ainst Himself, 
 and did tlic more evil, the more irood God was to them. God 
 had forewarned them ot'tliis periP, Jf^licn thou slialf have eaten 
 and he full, licware lest thou forget the Lord which hronght thee 
 forth out of the land of Egypt , from the house of hondage. He 
 pictured it to them with the sonir of Moses ~ ; Jeshitrnn waxed 
 fat and lucked; thoti art teaxen fat ; thou art grown thick ; thou 
 art covered with fatness; then lie forsook Godtrhich made him; — 
 thou hast forgotten God that formed thee. Tliey acted (as in 
 one way or other do most Christians now,) as tlioutcli (iod liad 
 commanded what He foretold of their evil deeds, or what He 
 warned them against, ^^^.s- their fat hers did, so did thei/. * Titcij 
 walked in the statutes of the heathen, ivhoni the Lord cast out 
 from hefore the children of Israel, and of the kingsof Israelwhich 
 thei/ made. They wrought rcicked things to provoke the Lord 
 to anger. And the Lord testified against Israel and against 
 ,Iudah hy all the prophets and hy all the seers, saying, turn ye 
 from your evil ways. And tlici/ hearkened not, and hardened 
 their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe 
 in the Lord their God. '•' = The words are true also of those rich 
 and ungrateful, whom God hath tilled with spiritual or tem- 
 poral goods. But they, being in honour, and having no under- 
 standing, abuse the gifts of God, and, becoming unworthy of 
 the benefits which they have received, have their hearts up- 
 lifted and swollen with pride, despising others, glorying as 
 though they had not received, and not obeying the commands 
 of God. Of such the Lord saith in Isaiah, / have nourished 
 and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me." 
 
 7 . I will be unto them as a lion. They liad waxen fat, 
 were full; yetitwas,tobecome themselvesaprey. Thcirwcalth 
 which they were proud of, «hich they abused,allured theirenc- 
 mics. To cut off all hopes of God's mercy, He says that He 
 will be to them, as those creatures of His, which never spare. 
 The fierceness of the lion, and the swiftness of the leopard, to- 
 gether pourtray a speedy inexorable chastisement. But what 
 a contrast ! He Who bare Israel in the wilderness like a Father, 
 Who bare them on eagles' wings. Who drew them with the 
 cords of a man, with bands of love. He, the God of mercy and of 
 love, their Father, Protector, Defender, Avenger, He it is Who 
 will be their Destroyer. 
 
 8, As a bear bereaved of her whelps. The Syrian bear is 
 fiercer than the brown bears to which we are accustomed. It 
 attacks flocks'', and even oxen^. The fierceness of the she- 
 bear, bereaved of her whelps, became a proverb *. "'They who 
 have written on the nature of wild beasts,say that none is more 
 savage than the she-bear, when she has lost her whelps or lacks 
 food." It blends wonderfully most touching love and fierce- 
 ness. It tenderly protects its wounded whelps, reckless of its 
 life, so that it may bring them off, and it turns fiercely on their 
 destroyer. Its love for them becomes fury against their in- 
 surer. IVIucli more shall God avenge those who destroy His 
 sons and daughters, leading and enticing them into sin and de- 
 struction of body and soul. 
 
 liend the caul of [what encloses] their heart, i. e. the pcri- 
 
 I Deut.vi.11,12, add viii.ll,S:c. = Ib.xxxii. 15, IS. 3 Actsvii.51. ■< 2 Kings 
 xvii.8,11,13, 14. 'Rib. « 1 Sam.xvii. 34. 7 Plin.viii.54. » 2Sam.xvii.8, 
 
 cardium. They had closed their hearts against God. Their 
 punishment is pi(;tured by the rending open of the closed heart, 
 by the lion which is said to go instinctively straight to the 
 heart, tears it out, and sucks the blood'". Fearful will it be 
 in the Day of Judgment, when the sinner's heart is laid open, 
 with all the foul, cruel, malicious, defiled, thoughts uiiich 
 it harboured and concealed, against the Will of God. It is a 
 fearful thing to fall info the hands of the living God^^. 
 
 And there will I devour them. There, where they sinned, 
 shall they be punished. The wild beast shall tear them. What 
 God does. He does mostly through instruments, and what His 
 instruments do, they do fulfilling His Will through their own 
 blind will or appetite. Hitherto, He hadspoken,as being Him- 
 self their I'unisher, although laying aside, as it were, all His 
 tenderness; now, lest the thought, that still it was He, the God 
 of love Who punished, should give them hope. He says, the irild 
 beast shall devour them. He gives them up, as it were, out of 
 His own hands to the destroyer. 
 
 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help. 
 This is one of the concise sayings of Hosea, which is capable 
 of many shades of meaning. The five words, one by one, are 
 lit. Israel, thy destruction, for or thctt, in or against 3Ie, in or 
 against thy help. Something must be suppliedany way; the sim- 
 plest seems; O Israel, thy destruction is, that thou hast been, hast 
 rebelled against Me, against thyhelp^-. Yet,inwhateverwaythe 
 words are filled up, the general sense is the same, that God alone 
 is our help, we are the sources of our own destruction; and that, 
 in separating ourselves from God, or rebelling against Him Who 
 is our help until we depart from Him, Who Alone could be, and 
 Who if we return, will bc,our help. The sum of the meaning is, 
 all our destruction is from ourselves ; all our salvation is from 
 God. " '^ Perdition, reprobation, obduration, damnation, are 
 not,properlyand in themselves, from God,doomingtoperdition, 
 reprobating, obdurating, damning, but from man sinning, and 
 obduring or hardening himself in sin to the end of life. Con- 
 trariwise, predestination, calling, grace, are not from the fore- 
 seen merits of the predestinate, but from God, predestinating, 
 calling, and, by His grace, forecomingthepredestinate. Where- 
 fore although the cause or ground, why they are predestinated, 
 does not lie in the predestinate, yet in the not-predestinated 
 does lie the ground or cause why they are not predestinated." 
 
 "This saying then, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but 
 in 3Ie is thy help, may be thus unfolded; 
 
 Thy captivity, Israel, is from thee; thy redemption from Me. 
 
 Thy perishing is from thee ; thy salvation from Me. 
 
 Thy death from thee ; thy life from Me. 
 
 Thy evil from thee ; thy good from Me. 
 
 Thy reprobation from thee ; thy predestination from Me, 
 Who ever stand at the door of thy heart and in mercy knock. 
 
 Thy dereliction from thee ; thy calling from Me. 
 
 Thy misery from thee; thy bliss from Me. 
 
 Thy damnation from thee, thv salvation and beatifving 
 from Me." 
 
 For"'*manygood things doetliGod in man, which man doeth 
 
 Prov.xvii. 12. and here. ' S.Jer. 'o Seein Boch.iii. 2.pp. 740, 1. " Heb.x..31. 
 ''^ Rashi. '■* Lap, from Theologians on 1 p. q. 23. '•> S.Aug, c. 2 Epp.Pet.ii.21.Ib.
 
 CHAPTER Xlir. 
 
 85 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 c\r.7~6. 
 
 Bather, 
 
 fVkere is IJitf 
 king? King 
 Hoshea be- 
 ing then in prison. 2 Kings I. 
 
 10 II I will be thy kins>- : 'where is nnij 
 other that may save thee in all thy cities ? 
 and thy judges of whom ' thou saidst, Give 
 me a king and princes? 
 
 ' Deut. 32.^8. ch. 10.3. vcr. 4. » 1 Sam. 8.5, 19. 
 
 11 ' I gave thee a king in mine anger, cukTst 
 and took /</m away in my wrath. cir.725. 
 
 12 " The ini(|uity of Ephraim is hound ' & io"'i9.'& 
 
 up ; his sin is hid. ib'.rjh'.ro.s. 
 
 u Dcut. .32. 31. Job 1 1. 17. 
 
 not, but none doctli man, whicli God ciulucth not man to do." 
 ' I'riic first cause of the defect of f;race is from us ; but the first 
 cause of the gift of grace is from God." " - Rightly is God 
 called, not the Father of judgments or of vengeance, but the 
 Father of mercies, because from Himself is the cause and ori- 
 gin of His mercy, from us thecause of His judging or avenging." 
 
 " Blessed the" soul wiiich comprehcndeth this, not with the 
 understanding only, but with the heart. Nothing can destroy 
 us before God, but sin, the only real evil ; and sin is wholly from 
 us, God can have no part in it. But every aid to withdraw us 
 from sin, or to hinder us from falling into it, comes irom God 
 alone, the sole Source of our salvation. The soul then must 
 ever bless God, in its ills and its good ; in its ills, by confessing 
 that itself is the only cause of its suffering ; in its good, own- 
 ing that, when altogether unworthy of it, God prevented it 
 by His grace, and preserves it each instant by His Almighty 
 goodness." 
 
 " ^ No power, then, of the enemy could harm thee, unless, by 
 thy sins, thou calledst forth the anger of God against thee to 
 thy destruction. Ascribe it to thyself, not to the enemy. So 
 let each sinful city or sinful soul say, which by its guilt draws 
 ■on it the vengeance of God." 
 
 This truth, that in Him alone is help. He confirms by what 
 follows ; 
 
 10. Itvill be [lit. / tuoidd he\ thy King; JVhere is any other 
 that 8)C. Better, ^ Where noiv is tJiy king, that lie may save thee 
 in all thy cities ; and thy judges, of tvhum thou saidst,give me a 
 king and jjrinces. 
 
 As Israel was under Samuel, such it remained. Then it 
 mistrusted God, and looked tomanfor help, saying^. Nay, hut 
 we tuill have a king over us, that we also may he like other na- 
 tions, and that our king vuty Judge us, and go out before us, and 
 ,fight our battles. In choosing man, they rejected God. The 
 like they did, when they chose Jeroboam. In order to rid 
 themselves of the temporary pressure of Rehoboam's taxes, 
 they demanded anew /./;/§■ a)id princes. First they rejected 
 God as their king; then they rejected the king whom God ap- 
 pointed, and Him in His appointment. /;/ all thi/ cities. It 
 was then to be one universal need of help. They had chosen 
 a king to fight their battles, and had rejected God. Now was 
 the test, whether their choice had been good or evil. One cry 
 for help went up from all their cities. God would have heard 
 it : could man ? 
 
 " ^ This question is like that other '^, Where are their gods, 
 their rock in whom they trusted, which did eat the fat of their 
 sacrijices, and dri)ik the wine oj their drink offerings ? As there, 
 when no answer could be made. He adds. See now that I, I 
 am He, and that there is no god luith Me, so here He subjoins ;" 
 
 11. I gave thee a king in Mine anger. " ® God, when He is 
 asked for ought amiss, sheweth displeasure, when He giveth, 
 hath mercy, wlien He giveth not." " The devil was heard," 
 [in asking to enter into the swine] "the Apostle was not heard," 
 [when he prayed that the messenger of Satan mightdepartfrom 
 him.] '"God heard him w horn He purposed to condemn ; and 
 
 ' Aq. 1. 2. q. 112. a. 3. ad. 2.1b. - S. Bern. Serm. Sin Nat.Dotn. lb. 
 
 ' Lap. •• NIBN, which our Version renders u'liere ? never occurs alone .is an in- 
 
 terrogative, but always as subjoined to n'N, with which 'nn is identical and identified 
 by great Jewish autliorities, as Abulvalid. * 1 Sam. viii. 19. * Rup. 
 
 He heard not him whom He willed to heal." '""God, when pro- 
 ))itious, denietli what we love, when we love amiss; when wroth. 
 He giveth to the lover, what he loveth amiss. The Apostle saith 
 ])lainly, (iod i^arc tltcin over to their own hearts' desire. He gave 
 tliem then what they loved, lint, in giving, condemned them." 
 God did appoint Jeroboam, although not in the M'ay in which 
 Israel took liim. Jeroboam and Israeltook,asfrom themselves, 
 Avhat Godappointed; and, so taking it, marred God'sgift. Tak- 
 ing it to themselves from themselves, they maintained it for 
 themselves by human policy and sin. As was the beginning, 
 such was the whole course of their kings. The beginning was 
 rebellion ; murder, intestine commotion, anarchy, was the oft- 
 repeated issue. God was against them and their kings; but 
 He let them have their way. In His displeasure with them He 
 allowed them their choice ; in displeasure with their evil kings 
 He took them away. Some He smote in their own persons, 
 some in their posterity. So often as He gave them, so often 
 He removed them i\, until, in Hoshea, He took them away for 
 ever. This too explains, how what God gave in anger, could 
 be taken away also in anger. The civil authority was not a 
 thing wrong in itself, the ceasing whereof must be a mercy. 
 Israel was in a worse condition through its separate monarchy; 
 but, apart from the calf-worship, it was not sin. The changing 
 of one king for another did not mend it. Individual kings were 
 taken away in anger against themselves ; their removal brought 
 fresh misery and bloodshed. Nations and Churches and indi- 
 viduals may put themselves in an evil position, and God may 
 have allowed it in His anger, and yet, it may be their wisdom 
 and humility to remain in it, until God change it, lest He should 
 take it away, not in forgiveness, but in anger. "^- David they 
 neither asked for, nor did the Lord give him in His anger ; but 
 the Lord first chose him in mercy, gave him in grace, in His 
 supreme good-pleasure He strengthened and preserved him." 
 "''Let no one who suft'ercth fromawickedruler,accuse////« from 
 whom he suffereth ; for it was from his own ill deserts, that he 
 became subject to such a ruler. Let him accuse then his own 
 deeds, rather than the injustice of the ruler; for it is written, 
 I gave thee a king in 3Iine anger. Why then disdain to have 
 as rulers, those whose rule v»-e receive from the anger of God?" 
 "i*When a reprobate people is allowed to have a reprobate pas- 
 tor, that pastor is given, neither for his own sake, nor for that 
 of the people; inasmuch as he so governeth, and they so obey, 
 that neither the teacher nor the faught are found meet to at- 
 tain to eternal bliss. Of whom the Lord saith by Hosea, I gave 
 thee a king in 3/ine anger. For in the anger of God is a king 
 given, when the bad have a worse appointed as their ruler. 
 Such a pastor is thengiven,wlien he undertakes the rule of such 
 apeople,bothbeingcondemnedaliketoeverlastingpunishment." 
 12. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up (as in a bag or 
 purse, and so, treasured up), as Job saith, using the same word, 
 '°J/y transgression is sealed up in a bag, and Thou sewest iip 
 mine iniquity. His sin is hid, i. e. as people lay up hidden trea- 
 sure, to be brought out in its season. What Job feared for 
 himself, was to be the portion of Ephraim. All his sins should 
 
 ^ Deut. xxxii. 37-9. ^ Sent. 252. ap. S. Aug. App. T. x. p. 239. Lap. 
 
 5 Id.in P5.1xxxv.§9. '" Id.in Ps. xxvi. § 7. " Thewordsinx, npjt, express 
 
 this oft-renewed dealing of God. '- Rup. '^ S. Greg, in Job L. xxv. c. 20. Rib. 
 
 n Id. in 1 Reg. Lx. T. iii. pp. 215, 16. lb. '^ Job xiv. 17. truz as here inx. 
 
 U
 
 86 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 ch'rTst ^^ ^"^^^^ sorrows of a travailing woman 
 cir. 725. shall come upon him : he /.v > an unwise son; 
 
 ' h'v!lh%. for he should not " stay f long in the j)luce 
 
 '^IZn^^K^.oftho hrealdng forth of children. 
 
 + "!25?8!""'' 14 " I will ransom them from f the power 
 
 Ez'ek.V. 12. t Ileb. the hand. 
 
 be counted, laid by, heaped up. No one of them should escape 
 HisEyeWho secsall tbinfjs astbeypass, and\vith\Vhom,wben 
 past, they are present still. One by one, sins enter into tbe 
 treasure-house of wrath ; silently they are stored up, until the 
 measure is full; to be brought out and unfolded in the Great 
 Day. Ephraim thought, as do all sinners, that because God 
 doesnotpunisli at once,He never will. They think, eitliertbat 
 God will bear with them always, because He bears with them 
 so long ; or that He does not sec, does not regard it, is not so 
 precise aboutHislawsbeingbrokcn. '^Because sentence against 
 an evil ivork is not executed speedi/j/, tlierefure the. heart of the 
 sons (jfmeii is fully set in them to do evil. But God had fore- 
 warned them^; Is not thislaid up in store ivith3Ie, and sealed up 
 among My treasures ? To Me helongeth vengeance and recom- 
 pence ; their foot shall slide in due time : and'', These things hast 
 thou done, and I Aept silence ; and thou thoughtest icickedly that 
 I was altogether such an one as thyself; I will reprove thee, 
 and set litem in order before thine eyes. Unrejiented sin is an 
 evergrowing store of the wrath of God, bid out of sight in the 
 depths of the Divine judgments, but of which nothing will be 
 lost, nothing missing. ]\Ian treasures it up, lays it up in store 
 for himself, as the Apostle saith'; Despisest thou the riches of 
 His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not Anowing 
 that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ; but after 
 thyhardnessand impenitent heart treasurestiipunto thy self wrath 
 against the Day of ivrath and revelation of the righteous judg- 
 ment of God, TV hoiviU render to every man according tohisdeeds? 
 "^Sin is hidden, when it is laid open by no voice of confession ; 
 yea,whenitis covered with a shield of proud self-defence. Then 
 iniquity is bound up, so that it cannot be loosed or forgiven. 
 Contrariwise a holy man saith^, I acknowledged my sin unto 
 Thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my 
 transgressions unto the Lord ; and Thou forgavest the iniquity 
 of my sin. But these hide tlieir sin in the sight of men, and 
 since they cannot hide it in the sight of God, they defendit with 
 impenitenthearts,but the pangs of a travailing7coman,hcsiut]i, 
 shall come upon hint. For as a woman can conceal her concep- 
 tion for a time,but, at last, the travail-pangs betraying her, she 
 discloses what was concealed, so these can dissemble and con- 
 ceal for a time their sin, but in their time all the hidden things 
 of their hearts shall, with anguish, be revealed, according to 
 that''. There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, and 
 hid, that shall not he Icnozvn." 
 
 13. The sorrows of a travailing ivoman are come upon him. 
 The travail-pangs are violent, sudden, irresistible. A moment 
 before thcycome,all is seeminglyperfect health; they come,in- 
 creasein vehemence, and, if they accomplish not thatforwhich 
 they are sent, end in death, both to the mother and the child. 
 Such are God's chastisements. If they end not in the repent- 
 ance of the sinner, they continue on in his destruction. But 
 never is man more secure, than just before the last and final 
 throe comes upon him. " The false security of Israel, when 
 Samaria was on the point of falling into the hands of its ene- 
 
 I Eccl.viii.il. 2 Deut.xxxii.3.1, 5. 3Ps.l.21. ^ Rom. ii. 4-6. ^ B.wp. 
 ePs.xxxii. 5. ' S.Matt.x.2G. siThcss.v.S. 
 
 of the grave ; I will redeem them from ^hVi'st 
 death : '' O death, I will he thy plagues ; O "''■ ^'^- 
 grave, I will be thy destruction: "^repent- 54, m.^^' 
 ance shall he hid from mine eyes. " uom!^ii?29. 
 
 15 ^ Though "he he fruitful among his' Itti.vi 
 
 mies, was a picture of that of the Synagogue, when greater 
 evils were coming upon it. Never did the Jews less think that 
 the axe was laid to the root of the trees." This 1)lind pre- 
 sumption is ever found in a people whom God casts off. At the 
 endof the world, amid the a«et'ul signs, the fore-runners of the 
 Day of Judgment, people will be able to reassure themselves, 
 and say^. Peace and safety ; then sudden destruction comet h tip- 
 on them as travail upon a ivoman tcith child, and they shall not 
 escape. 
 
 The prophet first compares Israel to the mother, in regard 
 to the sufferings which are a j)icturc of the sudden over- 
 whelming visitations of God ; then to the child, on whose stay- 
 ing or not staying in the woml), the welfare of both depends. 
 He is a)i unwise son, for he should not stay long. Senseless 
 would be the child, which, if it had the power, lingered, hesita- 
 ted, whether to come forth or no. A^Miile it lingers, atone time 
 all but coming forth, then returning, the mothei"'s strength is 
 wasted,and both perish. Wonderful picture of thevaciljating 
 sinner,acted upon by the grace of God, but resisting it ; at one 
 time all but ready to pour out before his God the hidden bur- 
 thcnwhich oppresses him, at the next, withholdingit; impelled 
 by his sufferings, yet presenting a passive resistance; almost 
 constrained at times by some mightier pang, yet still withheld; 
 until, at the last, the impulses become weaker, the pangs less 
 felt, and he perishes with his unrcpented sin. 
 
 "'He had said, that the unwise cannot bring forth, that the 
 wisecan. He bad mcntionedrA/WreH,i.e. such as are not still- 
 born ; who come forth perfect into theworld. These, God saith, 
 shallby Hishelpberedeemed from everlasting destruction, and, 
 at the same time, having predicted the destruction of that 
 nation, Hegivc'^the deepest comfort to those who will to retain 
 firm faith in Him, not allowing them to be utterly cast down." 
 14. I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; lit. 
 from the haiul, i. e. the grasp of the grave, or of hell. God, by 
 His prophets, mingles promises of mercy in the midst of His 
 threats of punishment. His mercy overflows the bounds of 
 the occasion upon which He makes it known. He had sen- 
 tenced Ephraim to temporal destruction. This was unchange- 
 able. He points to that which turns all temporal loss intogain, 
 their eternal redemption. The words are the fullest which 
 could have been chosen. Theword rendered ra?«so???, signifies, 
 rescued them by the payment of a price ; the word rendered re- 
 deem, relates to one, who, as the nearest of kin, had the right 
 to acquire any thing as his own, by paying that price. Both 
 wordsjin their exactest sense, describe what Jesus did,buyingus 
 icith a price, a full and dear price, not of corruptible things, as of 
 silver and gold, but icith His precious lilood^^ ; and that, becom- 
 ing our near kinsman, by His Incarnation,ybr which cause He 
 is not ashamed to cull us brethren ^^, and little children '-. This 
 was never done by God at any other time, than when, out of 
 love for our lost world, ^'■He gave His Only Begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth inHimshould not perislihut have everlasting 
 life ; and He came to give His life a ransom for many ". Then 
 
 5 05or. 1" 1 Pet. i. 18,19. 
 
 13 S. Johuiii.lC, 
 
 " Heb. ii. 11. '= S.John xiii. 33. 
 
 n S. Malt. XX. 28. add 1 Tim. ii. 6.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 87 
 
 J, jj^|[°[<'g^ brethren, "an east wind shall come, the 
 cir. 725. ,vind of the Loun shall come up from the 
 
 ' Ez^k*' 17.' 10. wilderness, and his sprini;^ shall become dry 
 
 cii.^4. 1'i' «>»d his fountain shall be dried up : he shall 
 
 ^^^desJr"''' spoil the treasure of all f pleasant vessels. 
 
 Nah. 2. i). 
 
 only was man really delivered from the grrisp of the grave ; so 
 that the first death should onlyhc a freedom from eorniption,an 
 earnest, and, to fallen man, a necessary condition of immorta- 
 lity ; and the second death should have no poiuer over them ^. 
 Thenceforward "-death, the parent of sorrow,ministers to joy; 
 death, our dishonor, is employed to our glory ; the gate of Itell 
 is the portal to the kino;dom of heaven; the ])it of dcstn/c/ion 
 is the entrance to salvation; and that to man, a sinner." At no 
 other time, "^ were men freed from death and the grave, so as 
 to make any distinction between them and others subject to 
 mortality." The words refuse to be tied down to a temporal 
 deliverance. A little longer continuance in Canaan is not a 
 redemption from the power of the grave; nor was Ephraim so 
 delivered. Words of God " ' cannot mean so little, while they 
 express so much." Then and then alone were they, in their 
 literalmcaning, fulfilled, when God the Son /oo/i our flesh', /A«/, 
 through death, He might dcstrot/ him that had the power of death, 
 that is, the devil ; and deliver them who, through fear of death, 
 tvere all their lifetime siihject to bondage. 
 
 The Jews have a tradition wrapped up in their way, that this 
 was to be accomplished in Christ. ""I went with the angel 
 Kippod, and Messiah son of David went with me, until I came 
 to the gates of hell. When the prisoners of hell saw the light 
 of the Messiah, they wished to receive him, saying, this is he 
 who will bring us out of this darkness, as it is written, / xvill 
 redeem litem from the hand of lull." 
 
 "^ Not witliout reason is the vouchsafed mercy thus once and 
 again outspoken to us, / icill ransom them from the power of 
 the grave; I will redeem them from death. It is said in regard to 
 that twofold death whereby we all died in Adam, of the body and 
 of the soul." O death, I will he tin/ plagues ; O grave, I will he 
 thy destruction. So full is God's word, that the sense remains 
 the same, amid much diflFerencc of rendering. Christ was the 
 death of death, when He became subject to it ; the destruction 
 of the grave, when He lay in the tomb. Yet to render it in the 
 form of a question is most agreeable to the language^. Odeath, 
 zvhere are thy plagues ? O grave, where is thy destruction ? It is 
 a burst of triumph at the promised redemption, then fulfilled to 
 us in earnest and in hope, when Christ, being risen from the 
 dead, hecame the First-fruits of them that slept ^, and we rose in 
 Him. But the Apostle teaches us, that then it shall be al- 
 together fulfilled, when, at the last Day, this corruptible shall 
 have put on incorrupfion, and this mortal shall have put on im- 
 mortality'^^. Then shall death and hell deliver up the dead which 
 shall be in them, and themselves be cast into the lake of fire^'^. 
 "Then shall there be no sting of death; sorrow and sighing 
 shall flee away; fear and anxiety shall depart ; l-.ivs shall be 
 no more, and in place thereof shall be boundless pleasure, ever- 
 lasting joy, praise of the glory of God in most sweet harmony." 
 But now too, through death, the good man " ceases to die, and 
 begins to live;" he "^-dies wholly to the world, that he may 
 live perfectly with God; the soul returns to the Author of its 
 being, and is hidden in the hidden Presence of God." 
 
 ' Rev. XX. G. 2 s. Bern. Serm. 2(1 in Cant. Lap. ^ poc. 4 Davison on Prophecy. 
 5 Heb. ii. 14, IS. « Bereshitli Rabba, in Martin. Pug. Fid. f. 605, G. 
 
 7 Rup. 8 1,^,.^ is most naturally taken in the sense in which Hosea bad just used 
 
 it, as equivalent to n'K. As a verb, it would mean, / would be, which would not agree 
 
 10 
 
 slie 1 
 
 Samaria sliall l)ecome desolate; ' for 
 
 Before 
 CHR_I_ST 
 
 lath rclielled a5j;aiiist her God : - th(;y "'■ '-''■ 
 
 shall fall 1>y the sword : their intants shall " e^"'72u' 
 be dashed in pieces, and their women with/ 2Kln|s\8. ' 
 child shall be ripped up. « 2 icings 8. 12, 
 
 &15.IG. Is. 1.3.1c. cli.lO. 11, 15. Amos 1.13. Nah.3. lo'. 
 
 Death and hell had no j)ower to resist, and God says that 
 He will not alter Ilis sentence; Itepentuiice shall he hid from 
 Mine eyes ; as the Apostle says ^\ the gifts and culling of God 
 are ivithout repentance. 
 
 15. Tliougli [lit. ?<;/(('//] he [sha/l~\ be frul/ful among his bre- 
 thren. Fruitfulness was God's promise to E])hraim,and was ex- 
 pressed in liis name. It was fiiitilled, abused, and. in tlie height 
 of its fulfilment, was taken away. Ej>iiraim is pictured as a fair 
 and fruitful tree. An J£ast wind, so desolating in the East, and 
 that, no chance wind, but the wind of the Lord, a wind, sent by 
 God and endued by God with the power to destroy, shall come 
 ftp from the )r//f/e/-;/e.ss,parching,scorching,fiery,froni the burn- 
 ing sands of "Arabia the desert," from which it came, and shall 
 dry up the fountain lA'hiahc'in'j;. Deep were tlie roots of this 
 fair and flourisliing tree, great its vigour, ample and perpetual 
 the fountain of its waters, over which it grew and by which it 
 was sustained. He calls it "/i/s spring, his fountain," as though 
 this source of its life were made over to it, and made its own. 
 It teas planted by the neuter side ; but it was not of God's plant- 
 ing. The East wind from the Lord should dry up the deepest 
 well-spring of its waters, and the tree should wither. Such are 
 ungodly greatness and prosperity. While they are fairest in 
 show, their life-foiintains are drying up. 
 
 He shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels. He, em- 
 phatically^^jthe enemy whom the Prophet had ever in his mind, 
 as the instrument of God's chastisement on His people, andwho 
 was represented by the East wind ; the .Vssyrian, who came 
 from the East, to whom, as to the East wind, the whole coun- 
 try between lay open, for the whirlwinds of his armies to sweep 
 over in one straight course from the seat of his dominion. 
 
 16. Samaria shall becotne desolate, or shall bear her iniquity. 
 Her iniquity should now find her out, and rest upon her. Of 
 this, " desolation " was, in God's judgments, the consequence. 
 Samaria, "the nursery of idolatry and rebellion against God," 
 the chief in pride, should be chief in punishment. For she hath 
 rebelled against her God. It aggravated her sin, that He 
 against Whom she rebelled, was her own God. He Who had 
 chosen her to be His, and made Himself her God; Who had 
 shewed Himself Afr God'in the abundance of His loving-kind- 
 ness, from the deliverance out of Egypt to that day. This her 
 desolatioujit is again said,should be complete. Hope remains, 
 if the men of a generation are cut off; yet not only should these 
 fall by the sword; thosealreadybornwcreto be dashed in pieces; 
 those as yet unborn were to be sought out for destruction, even 
 in their mother's womb. Such atrocities were common then. 
 Elisha foretold to Hazacl that he would ^lerpetrate both cru- 
 elties^'; Shalmaneser dashed the young children in pieces '•', as 
 did the conqueror of No- Ammonia, and the Babylonians '^ after- 
 wards. The children of Amnion ripped up the women with child 
 in Gilead^^ and the usurper Menahem in Tiphsah and its 
 coasts-". Isaiahprophesiesthat Babylon should undergo,in its 
 turn, the same as to its children -\ and the Psalmist pronoun- 
 ces God's blessing on its destroyer who should so requite liim^**. 
 
 with the absolute declarationjust before, 7 will ransom. I trill redeem. ' 1 Cor. xv. 20. 
 i» lb. 51. " Rev. XX. 13, 14. 1= de dign. Div. .\ni. tin. ap. S. Bern. ii. 274. 
 
 " Rom. \-i. 20. " Ni.T '^ 2 Kingsviii. 12. i« Above x. 14. '7 Nah. iii. 10, 
 13 Ps. cxx.xvii. 9. " Am. i. 13. •<> 2 Kings xv. IC. ^i ^iii. 16. 
 
 u2
 
 88 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 725. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I An exhortation to repentance. 4 A promise of 
 God's hlessing. 
 
 Such was to be the end of the pride, the ambition, the able 
 policy,the wars,the oppressions, the hixury,the sclf-enjoynient, 
 and, in all, the rebellion of Samaria against tier God. She 
 had stood the more in opposition to God, the nearer she mifjht 
 have been to Ilim, and /jare her iniqniti/. As a city of God's 
 people, it was never restored. The spot, in its heathen colo- 
 nists, with which Assyrian policy repcopled it ', was still the 
 abode of a mingled rclijiion. Corruption chniii:, by inlieritance, 
 to its site. This too was destroyed by John Hyrcanus. " lie 
 effaced the marks that it had ever been a city-." It was rebuilt 
 by the Romans, after Ponipey had taken Jerusalem^'. Herod 
 reinclosed a circuit of two miles and a half of the ancient site ; 
 fortified it strong'ly, as a check on the Jews; repcopled it, partly 
 with some who had served in his wars, partly with the people 
 around ; gave them lands ; revived their idolatry by replacing 
 their poor temple by one remarkable for size and beauty, in an 
 area of a furlong and a half; and called the place Sebaste in 
 honour of his heathen patron, Augustus '. A coin of Nero, 
 struck there, bears the figure (it is thought) of its old idol, Ash- 
 ta^oth^ S. Jerome says, that S. John the Baptist was buried 
 there". Theheathen,whowereencouragcd in such desecrations 
 by Julian the Apostate",opened the tomb,burncdthe bones, and 
 scattered the dust ^. The city became a Christian see, and its 
 Bishops were present at the four first General Councils'. It is 
 now but a poor village, connected with the strongly-fortified 
 town of Herod by its heathen name Sebastieh, a long avenue of 
 broken pillars, and the tomb of the great Forerunner^". Of the 
 ancient capital of Ephraim, not even a ruin speaks. 
 
 The Prophet closes this portion of his prophecy, as other 
 prophets so often do, with the opposite eiul of the righteous 
 and the wicked. He had spoken of the victory over death, the 
 irrevocable purpose of God for good to His own; then he speaks 
 of utter final destruction. Then when the mercy of God shall 
 be shewn to the uttermost, and the victory over sin and death 
 shall be accomplished, then shall all the pomp of the world, its 
 riches, joys, luxuries, elegance, glory, dignity, perish, and not 
 a wreck be left behind of all which once dazzled the eyes of 
 men, for which they forsook their God, and sold themselves to 
 evil and the evil one. 
 
 XI V^. 1. O Israel, return \_noic, quite] Knto the Lord your 
 God. The heavy and scarcely interrupted tide of denunciation 
 is now past. Billow upon billow have rolled over Ephraim ; and 
 the last wave discharged itself in theoverwhelming,indiscrimi- 
 nating destruction of the seat of its strength. As a nation, it 
 was to cease to be. Its separate existence was a curse, not a 
 blessing; the offspring of rivalry, matured by apostaey; the 
 parent, in its turn, of jealousy, hatred, and mutual vexation. 
 
 But while the kingdom was past and gone, the children still 
 remained heirs of the promises made to their fathers. As then, 
 before. Rosea declared that Israel, after having long remained 
 solitary, should in the end seek the Lord and David their hing^"", 
 so now, after these manifold denunciations of their temporal 
 destruction, God not only invites them to repentance, but 
 foretells that they should be wholly converted. 
 
 Every word is full of mercy. God calls them by the name 
 of acceptance, which He had given to their forefather Jacob ; 
 
 ' 2 Kings xvii. 24. 
 2 Jos. Ant. 13. 10. 3. Mb. 14. 4. 4. and 5. 3. ■• lb. 15. 8. 5. 
 
 s Vailliiit, Num. Imp. p. 37U in Reland, Pal. p. 981. 
 • On Hos. i. 5. Obad.init. Mic. i. G. Onom. v. Semeron. 1 Misopog. p. Do. 
 
 o 
 
 iniquity 
 
 ISRAEL, 
 
 Cod : '' for 
 
 * return unto the Lord thy ch^r?st 
 thou hast fiillen hv thine '-•'■••"''• 
 
 Joel 2. 13. 
 
 • ch. 12.6. 
 >> ch. 13. 9. 
 
 O Israel. He deigns to beseech them to return ; return now ; 
 andtbatnot "towards" but quite ii]) to '^Himself,tlie rnchange- 
 able God, Whose mercies and promises were as immutaljle as 
 His Being. To Himself, the Unchangeable, God invites them 
 to return ; and that, as being still their God. They had cast 
 off their God; God had not cast off' His people whom He fore- 
 knew '*. 
 
 *' '* He entreats them not only to turn back and look toward 
 the Lord with a partial and imperfect repentance, but not to 
 leave off till they were come quite home to Him by a total and 
 sincere repentance andamendment." Ilebids them return quite 
 to Himself, the Unchangeable God, and their God. " Great is' 
 repentance," is a Jewish say ing^^, "which maketh men to rieach j! 
 quite up to the Throne of glory." 
 
 For thou hast fallen hi/ thine iniquity. "This is the first ray 
 of Divine light on the sinner. God begins by discovering to 
 him the abyss into which he has fallen," and the way by which 
 he fell. Their own iniquity it was, on which they had stumbled 
 and so had fallen, powerless to rise, except through His call. 
 Whose voice is with power ^^, and " Who giveth what He com- 
 mandeth." "i^Aseribe not thy calamity," He would say,"tothine 
 own weakness, to civil dissension, to the disuse of military dis- 
 cipline, to want of wisdom in thy rulers, to the ambition and 
 cruelty of the enemy, to reverse of fortune. These things had 
 not gone against thee, hadst not thou gone to war with the law 
 of thy God. Thou inflictedst the deadly wound on thyself; 
 thou destroyedst thyself. Not as fools vaunt, by fate, or for- 
 tune of war, but by thine iniquity hast thou fallen. Thy reme- 
 dy tlien is in thine own band, licturn to thy God." 
 
 " ^'^ In these words, hy thine iniquity, he briefly conveys, that 
 each is to ascribe tohimsdf the iniquityof all sin, of whatsoever 
 he has been guilty, not defendinghimse]f,as Adam did, in whom 
 we all, Jews and Gentiles,have sinned and fallen, as the'Apostle 
 says^',i^or we ivere hy nature the children of wrath, even asothers. 
 By adding actual, to that original, sin, Israel and every other 
 nation falleth. He would say then, O Israel, be thou first con- 
 verted, for thou hast need of conversion ;for thou hast fallen ; 
 and confess this very thing, that thou hast fallen hy thine in- 
 iquity ; for such confession is the beginning of conversion." 
 
 But wherewith should he return ? 
 
 2. Take witli you U'ords. He bids them not bring costly of- 
 ferings, that they might regain His favor ; not whole burnt of- 
 ferings of bullocks, goats or rams ; with which, and with which 
 alone, they had before gone to seek Him-"; not the silver and 
 gold which they bad lavished on their idols ; but what seems the 
 cheapest of all, which any may have, without cost to their sub- 
 stance ; ivords ; worthless, as mere words ; precious when from , 
 
 the heart ; words of confession and prayer, blending humility, 
 repentance, confession, entreaty and praise of God. Godseems 
 to assign to them a form, with which they should approach Him. 
 But with these words, they were alsoto turninwardly ; and turn 
 unto the Lord, with your whole heart, and not your lips alone. 
 "After ye shall be converted, confess before Him." 
 
 Take away all iniquity [lit. and pleadingly, Thou wilt take 
 away all iniquity.'] They had/(///('« hy their iniquities j before 
 they can rise again, the stumbling-blocks must be taken out of 
 
 s Thcod. H.E. ili.7. 
 9 See in Reland, p. 9S3. i" Stanley, Palestine, p. 245. " iii. 5. 
 
 1= Not Sn but iy. 13 Roni. xi. 2. '■• Poc. '^ Yoma, c. 8. in Poc. 
 
 16 Ps. xxi-x. 4. 1? Osor. i^ Riip. " Eph. ii 3. =» See ab. v. 6.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 89 
 
 CHiiTsT ^ Take with jou words, and turn to 
 
 '^"- "-^- the Lord : say unto hun, Take away all 
 
 gUi'egood. iniquity, and || receive us graciously: so 
 
 their way. Tlioy then, uiuiljle tliciiisclves to do it, must turn 
 to God, with Whom cTlone is jiower and mercy to do it, and say 
 to Hin), Take (itrai/ all uii(jnih/, acknowledtiinj;; that tiiey hud 
 r.ianitbhl iniciuities, and prayinj;- Him to forgive all, Idliv aicai/ 
 all. All iniquity ! " not only then the past, hut what we fear 
 for the future. Cleanse us from the past, keep us from the 
 future. Give us riji'litcousness, and preserve it to the end." 
 
 And receive M» graciousli/. [lit. <tnd receive good^.^ When 
 God lias forgiven and taken away inicpiity, He has removed all 
 hindrance to the influx of His grace. There is no vacuum in 
 His spiritual, any more than in His natural, creation. When 
 God's good Spirit is chased aAvay, the evil spirits enter the 
 house, which is emph/, sivcpf, and garnished - for them. When 
 God has forgiven and taken away man's evil. He pours into 
 him grace and all good. When then Israel and, in him, the 
 penitent soul, is taught to say, receive good, it can mean only, 
 the good which Thou Thyself hast given ; as David says, of 
 Thine oiiui we have given Thee ^. As God is said to " crown in 
 us His own gifts;" ("His own gifts," but "in us*;") so these 
 pray to God to receive from them His own good, which they 
 had from Him. For even the good, which God givcth to he in 
 us, He acccpteth in condescension and forgiving mercj', TVho 
 croxvneth thee in mercy and luving-hindness^. "They pray God 
 to accept their service, forgiving their imperfection, and mer- 
 cifully considering their frailty. For since our righteousnesses 
 are fit f hi/ rags, we ought ever humbly to entreat God, not to de- 
 spise our dutifulness, for the imperfections, wanderings, and 
 negligences mingled therewith. For exceedingly imperfect is 
 it. especially if we consider the majesty of the Divine Nature, 
 which shouldbe served, were it possible, with intinitereverence." 
 They plead to God, then, to accept what, although from Him 
 they have it, yet through their imperfection, were, but for His 
 goodness, unworthy of His acceptance. Still, since the glory 
 ofGod is the end of all creation, by askingHimto acccptit,they 
 plead to Him, that this is the end for wliich He made and re- 
 made them, and placed the good in them, that it might redound 
 to His glory. As, on the other hand, the Psalmist says", TFhat 
 profit is there in my blood, if I go dou'ii into the pit, as though 
 his own perishing were a loss to God, his Creator, since thus 
 there were one creature the less to praise Him. '■'■"'Take from 
 lis all iniquity, leave in us no weakness, none of our former 
 decay, lest the evil root should send forth a new growth of evil ; 
 and receive good ; for unless Thou take away our evil, wc can 
 have no good to offer Thee, according to that ^, depart from 
 evil, and do good." 
 
 So ivill ICC render the calves of our lips, lit. and tue would 
 \ fain repay, calves, our lips ; i. e. when God shall have forgiven 
 lis all our iniquity, and received at our hands what, through 
 His gift, wc have to offer, the good which through His good 
 Spirit we can do, then would we offers perpetual thank offer- 
 ing, our lips. This should be the substitute for the thank 
 off"erings of the law. As the Psalmist says ^, / ivill praise the 
 Name of God with a song, and magnify Him with thanks- 
 giving. This also shall please the Lord, better than a bullock 
 that hath horjis and hoofs. They are to bind themselves to per- 
 
 ' The rendering, /InrI receive us graciotislif, overlooks the contrast of the two clauses. 
 Israel is bidden to pray God, to take ntvai/, and to receive. On tlie two verbs, there folknv 
 two noinis, which stand naturally as the object of each; 3i!2 rpi H' urn. No one would 
 have doubted that 3iD np mem-iS, receive gccd, as just befoie, D'i;t inp means, take tvorcis 
 
 Before 
 
 will we render the calves of our lips, christ 
 3 ''Asshur shall not save us; Mve will ^ '^'■^■v-'^- 
 
 not ride upon horses; "^ neither will we say a ""r^jj'as^lc. 
 
 ch.5.1,'i.&12. 1. "Ucut.ir.ie. Pb.33.17. Is. 30. 2, If.. & 31. 1. ' ch.2.'l7.ve'r.8'. 
 
 ])etual thanksgiving. As the morning and evening sacrifice 
 were continual, so w;;s tlicir new offering to be coiitiiiiial. But 
 more. The material sacrifice, the bullock, was otfered, con- 
 sumed, and passed away. 'I'lieir lijts were offered, and remain- 
 ed; a perpetual thank offering, even a living sacrifice, living 
 on like the mercies for which they thanked ; giving forth their 
 "endless song" for never-ending,' mercies. 
 
 This to(j looks on to the Gospel, in which, here on earth, our 
 unending thanksgiving is beginning, in «liich a'so it was the 
 purj)ose of (iod to restore those of I][)hraiin who \\-ould return 
 to llim. "'0 Here we see the law extinguished, the Gospel esta- 
 blished. For wc see other rites, other gifts. So then the priest- 
 hood is also changed. For three sorts of sacrifices were of old 
 ordained by the law, with great state. Some signified the ex- 
 piation of sin; some expressed the ardor of piety; some, thanks- 
 giving. To those ancient signs and images, the truth of the Gos- 
 pel, without figure, corresponds. Prayer to God. to take away 
 all iniquiti/, contains aconfcssion of sin,andcxpri ssesour faith, 
 that wc place our whole hope of recovering our lost parity and 
 of obtaining salvation in the mercy of Christ. Receive good. 
 What other good can we ofi'er,than detestation of our past sin, 
 with burning desire of holiness? This is the burnt offering. 
 Lastly, we ivill repay the calves of our lips, is the promise of that 
 solemn vow, most acceptable toGod, whereby webindourselves 
 to keepin continualremembrance all thebenefits of God, and to 
 renderceaselcsspraiscto the Lord Who has bestowed on ussuch 
 priceless gifts. For the calves of the lips are orisons well-pleas- 
 ing unto God. Of which David says". Then shall Thou be 
 phased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings 
 and whole burnt offerings ; then shall they offer bullocks upon 
 Thine altar." 
 
 3. Asshur shall not save us. After prayer for pardon and 
 for acceptance of themselves, and thanksgiving for acceptance, 
 comes the promise not to fall back into their former sins. Trust 
 in man, in their own strength, in their idols, had been their be- 
 setting sins. Now, one by one, they disavow them. 
 
 First,they disclaimtrustinman,andmakingi-//e.'.7i their arm. 
 Their disclaimer of the help of the Assyrian, to whom they had 
 so often betaken themselves against the will of God, contains, 
 at once, that best earnest of true rcpentanee,the renewal of the 
 confession of past sins, and the promise to rely no more on any 
 princes of this world, of whom he was then chief. The horse, in 
 like way,is the symbol of any warlike strength of their own. As 
 the Psalmist says^'. Some put their trust in chariots and some 
 in horses, but tee ivill remember the name of the Lord our God ; 
 and ", a horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver 
 any by his great strength ; and Solomon^% The horse is prepared 
 for the day of battle, but salvation is of the Lord. War was al- 
 most the only end for which the horse wasusedamongthe Jews. , 
 If otherwise^ it was a matter of great and royal pomp. It was 
 part of a standing army. Their kingswereespecially forbidden 
 to multiply horses'^^to themselves. Solomon indeed,in his pros- 
 perity, broke this, as well as other commands of God. The pi- 
 ous king Hezckiah.althoughpossessedatone timeof large trea- 
 sure, so kept that command as to furnish matter of mockery to 
 
 but for the seeming difficulty, " what gcod had they ?'' - S. Matt, xii.44. 
 
 3 1 Chr. xxix. 14. ^ S. Aug. 'Ps. ciii.4. ^ xxx. i). ' S.Je-. 
 
 s Ps xxxvii. 2". ' Ixix. 30, 1. ><> Osor. " Ps. li. ult. '^ Jer. xvii. 5. 
 
 " Ps. XX. 7. " Ps. xxxiii. ir. i^ Prov. xxi. 31. 16 Dtut. xvii. 16.
 
 DO 
 
 HOSEA, 
 
 c H rTst '"^y more to the work of our hands, Ye are 
 
 <='■■■ "25- our gods : s for in thee the fatherless find- 
 
 '^^^"s!*- eth mercy. 
 
 I'jor. .-^G. 4^1 ^v'ill heal ''their haekslidiiig, I will 
 
 ch. ii.7. love them ' freely : for mine anger is turned 
 
 ' Eph. 1. 0. ex- 
 
 away irom Inni. 
 
 Rabsliakeli,the blaspheming; envoy of Assyria, that he had nei- 
 ther horses nor liorsenicn^. The horses bein<i;])roruredfroni 
 Egypt -, the commerce gave fresli occasion for idohxtry. 
 
 Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ye 
 are our gods. This is the tliird disavowal. Since it was folly 
 and sin to trust in the creatures which Cod had made, aj)art 
 from God, how much more, to trust in things which they them- 
 selves iiad made, instead of God, and ott'ensive lo God! 
 
 For in Thee [or, O Thou, in Wlwni] the fatherless findeth 
 mercy. He is indeed fatherless who hath not God for his 
 Father. They confess then, that they were and deserved to be 
 t\\\\?: fatherless and heljdess, a prey to every oppressor; but they 
 appeal to God by the title which lie had taken, tite Father of 
 the fatherless'-^, that lie would have mercy on them, who had 
 no lielp but in Him. '■ ' We promise this, they say, hoping in 
 the help of Thy mercy, since it bclongeth to Thee and is for 
 Thy Glory to have mercy onthepeople which believeth in Thee, 
 and to stretch forth Thine Hand, that they may be able to leave 
 their wonted ills and amend their former ways." 
 
 4. I will heal their hac/isliding. God, in answer, promises 
 to heal that wound of their souls, whence every other evil came, 
 their fickleness and unstcadfastness. Hitherto, this had been 
 the characteristic of Israel. ^ TFithin a ivhile they fur gut His 
 worlis, and would not abide His counsels. ^ They forgat what 
 He had done. Their heart was not luhole with Him ; neither 
 continued they steadfast in His covenant. They turned hack and 
 tempted God. They kept not His testimonies, hut turned back 
 and fell away like their forefathers, starting aside like a broken 
 .^ how. Steadfastness to the end is the special gift of the Gospel. 
 Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. The 
 gates of hell shall ?iot prevail against it ''. And to individuals, 
 Jesus,haviug loved His oirn, loved them unto the end^. In heal- 
 ingthat disease of unstcadfastness, Godhcalcdallbesidcs. This 
 He did to all, wheresoever or howsoever dispersed, who receiv- 
 ed the Gospel; this He doth still; and this He will do com- 
 pletely in the end, when all Israel shall be saved. 
 
 I will love them freely : i. e. as the word means, impelled'^ 
 thereto by Himself alone, and so, (as used of God) moved by 
 , His own Essential Bountifulness, the exceeding greatness of 
 His Goodness,largely,bountifully. GodlovesusfreelyinloYmg 
 us against our deserts, because lie is love ; He loves ns freely, 
 in that He freely became Man, and, having become IMan, freely 
 shed His Blood for the remission of our sins, freely forgave 
 our sins ; He loves ufi fi-eely, in giving us grace, according to 
 the good pleasure of His icill^'^, to become pleasingto Him, and 
 causing all good in us ; He loves asfreely, in rewarding infinitely 
 the good which we have from Him. '•" More manifestly here 
 spcaketh the Person of the Saviour Himself.promising His own 
 Coming to the salvation of penitents, with sweetly sounding 
 promise, with sweetness full of grace." 
 
 For Mine anger is turned away from him. As He says ^-, In 
 MywrathI smote thee; but inMy favor have I had mercy on thee. 
 
 '2 Kings xviii. 23. 2 1 Kings x. 2S. 
 
 _ Ps. Ixviii. 5. •• Rup. 5 Ps. cvi. 13. 6 pg. ixxviii. 12, 37, 42, 57, 58. 
 
 ' S. Matt, xxviii. 20. xvi. la. « S. Jolm xiii. 1. » nmj "> Eph. i. 5. 
 
 " Rup. '•: Is. Ix. 10. 13 ixxxv. 2, 3. " xiii. 15. i* Ps. Ixxii. G. 
 
 5 I will be as ^ the dew unto Israel : he 
 shall II grow as the lily, and f east forth his 
 roots as Lebanon. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 725. 
 
 k Job 29. 19. 
 Prov. 19. 12. 
 
 His branches f shall spread, and ' his ^ He'b.'»7rX.' 
 beauty sludl be as the olive tree, and » his i^ vtot^!^"' 
 
 & 128.3. 
 "■ Gen. 27. 27. Cant. 4. 11. 
 
 smell as Lebanon. 
 
 He doth not withhold only, or suspend His anger,but He taketh 
 it away wholly. So the Psalmist saith^'. Thou hast forgiven the 
 iniquity of Thy people ; Thou hast covered all their sin ; Thou 
 hast taken away all Thy ivrath ; Thou hast turned from the 
 fierceness of Thine anger. 
 
 5. 1 will be as the dew unto Israel. Before, He had said ",/«'5 
 spring shall become dry andhisfountain shall be dried up. Now 
 again He enlarges the blessing; their supply shall be unfail- 
 ing, for it shall be from God; yea, God Himself shall be that 
 blessing; I ivill be the dew ; descending on the moivn grass^', to 
 quicken and refresh it; descending. Himself, into the dried and 
 ])arched and sere hearts of men, as He saith, fVe tcill come unto 
 him (Old make Our abode in him ^'''. The grace of God,_like ilie 
 dew,is not given oncefor all, but is, day by day, waited for, and, 
 day by day, renewed. Yet doth it not pass away, like the fit- 
 ful goodness" of God's fonner people, but turns into thegrowth 
 and spiritual substance of those on whom it descends. 
 
 He shall grow as the lily. No one image can exliibit the 
 manifold grace of God in those who are His own, or the fruits 
 of that grace. So the Prophet adds one image to another, each 
 supplying a distinct likeness of a distinct grace or excellence. 
 The lily is the emblem of the beauty and purity of the soul in 
 grace ; the cedar of Lebanon, of its strength and deep-rooted- 
 ness, its immovablenessanduprightness; the evergreen rj/«i;e^ree 
 which "remaineth in its beauty both winter and summer," of 
 the unvarying presence of Divine Grace, continually supplying 
 an ever-sustained freshness, and issuing in fruit ; and the fra- 
 grance of the aromatic plants with which the lower parts of 
 Mount Lebanon are decked, of its loveliness and sweetness; 
 as a native explains this^\"he takes a second comparison from 
 jNIount Lebanon for the abundance of aromatic things and 
 odoriferous flowers." Such are the myrtles and lavender and 
 the odoriferous reed; from which '-"as you enter the valley 
 [between Lebanon and Anti-lebanon] " straightway the scent 
 meets you." All these natural things are established and well- 
 known symbols of things spiritual. The lilj-, so calledin Hebrew 
 from its dazzling whiteness, is, in the Canticles -°, the emblem 
 of souls in which Christ takes delight. The lily multiplies ex- ' 
 ceedingly-i; yet hath it a weak root and soon fadeth. The 
 Propliet, then,uniteth with these, plants of unfading green, and 
 deep root. The seed whicli had no root, our Lord says, %cith- 
 ered away --, as, contrariwise, St. Paul speaks of those, who are 
 rooted and grounded in love -^ and of being roofed and built tip 
 in Christ-^. The wide-spreading branches are an emblem of 
 the gradual growth and enlargement of the Church, as our 
 Lord says "% It hecometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come 
 and lodge in the branches thereof. The symmetry of the tree 
 and itsoutstretched arms express, at once, grace andprotection. 
 Of the olive the Psalmist says "'', / am like a gi-een olive tree in 
 the house of God ; and Jeremiah says-^. The Lord called thy 
 name a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit ; and of " fra- 
 grance" the spouse says in theCanticles-'',iecff?«e of the savour 
 
 i« S.John xiv. 23. ■"Abovevi.4. 
 
 13 R. Tanchum, in Poc. i' Tlieophr. Hist. Plant, x. 7. -» Cant. ii. 1. 2. 
 
 =' Plin. in Poc. - S. Matt. xiii. 6. =3 Eph. jii. 17. -''Col. ii.7. 
 
 ^ S. Matt. xiii. 32. =« Ps. lii. 8. ' 27 xi. IG. ^ i. 3.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 91 
 
 chrTst 7 "They that dwell under his shadow 
 "'^- "-^- shall return ; they shall revive «* the eorn, 
 ° olfbiol'om. Jind II grow as the vine : the || scent there- 
 ^'' """""'"'■ of shall be as the Avine of Lebanon. 
 
 of Thy goodointments,Tlii/ Name k asointment poured fort li ; iinA 
 the Apostle says ', tlnutlcs he to God, which maUeth vumifest 
 the savour of His Imowlcdgc hi/ us in crcrj/ place. Deeds of 
 eharity also are an odour of good smell " ; the prayers of the 
 saints also are sweet odours ^. All these are the fruits of the 
 Spirit of God Who says, I will he as the deiv unto Israel. Such 
 reunion of qualities, heing heyond nature, suggests the more, 
 that tliat, wherein they are all conihined, the future Israel, the 
 Church, shall flourish witli graces heyond nature, in their m£i- 
 iiifoldncss, completeness, unfading-ncss. 
 
 7. Thei/ that dwell under his shadoiv, i. e. the shadow of the 
 restored Israel, who had just heen described under the image 
 of a magnificent tree uniting in itself all perfections. "*They 
 that are under the shadow of the Church ai-e together under 
 the shadow of Christ the Head thereof, and also of God the 
 Father." The Jews,of old,explained it^,"theyshalldwellunder 
 the shadow of their Messias." These, he says, shall return,i.e. 
 they shall turn to be quite other than they had been, even hack 
 to Him, to Whom they belonged. Whose creatures they were, 
 God. Thei/ shall revive as tlie corn. Tiie words may be dif- 
 ferently rendered, in the same general meaning. The simple 
 words, Thei/ shall revive [Vit. give life to,orpreserve in life,'] corn, 
 have been filled up differently. Some of old, (whence ours has 
 been taken) understood it, t hey shall revive t\\c\wie\\cs,^ a,\\<}L so, 
 shall live, and that either as corn, (as it is said, shall groiv as 
 the vine) ; or by corn'' which is also very natural, since "bread 
 is the staff of life," and our spiritual Bread is the support of our 
 spiritual life. Or lastly, (of which the grammar is easier, yet 
 the idiom less natural) it hasheenrendered,///(7/A7ia//^'/t'e lifeto 
 corn, make corn to livc,bycultivating it. In all ways, the sense 
 is perfect. If we render, sliall revive as corn, it means, heing, 
 as it were, dead, they shall not only live again with renewed life, 
 but shall even increase. Corn first dicsinits outward form, and 
 so is multiplied; thefruit-bearingbranchesof the vine are prun- 
 ed and cut, and so theybearricherfruit. So through suffering, 
 chastisement, or the heavy hand of God or man, the Church, 
 being purified^yields more abundant fruits of grace. Or if ren- 
 dered, shall make corn to groiv, since the Prophet, all around, 
 is, under figures of God's workings in nature, speaking of His 
 workings of grace, then it is the same image, as when our Lord 
 speaks of those ivho receive the seed in an honest and true heart 
 and bring forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some 
 thirty^. Or if we were to render, shall produce life through 
 ivheat, what were this, but that seed-corn, which, for us and for 
 our salvation, was sown in the earth, and died, and brought 
 forth much fruit ; the Bread of life, of which our Lord says", I 
 am the Bread of life. Whoso eatcth of this bread shall live for 
 ever, and the bread which I will give is My Flesh, tvhich I will 
 give for the life of the luorld ? 
 
 The scent thereof ?,\\iiW be as the wine of Lebanon. The 
 grapes of Lebanon have been of the size of plums ; its wine has 
 been spoken of as the best in the East or even in the world i". 
 
 ' 2 Cor. ii. li. - Phil. iv. 18. 3 Rev. v. 8. 
 
 '' Poc. * Jon. 5 Kimchi. ' As the old versions, LXX. Vulg. Syr 
 
 8 S. Matt. xiii. 23. ' S. John vi. 48, 51. '» See in (Edmann, ii. 193. Germ, and 
 
 Maronites in Lap. " x. 1. '= Is. v. 2. 13 ;;. js. "ch.ii.5. '^ 2Cor. vi. 15. 
 
 '^ Is. Ixv. 24. '7 xiii. 7. '^ S. Jerome unilbrmly renders abies. The LXX. and 
 
 Syr. vary, rendering both cypressandpine. The SyriacJicrHMo{donbt)ess the same tree and 
 
 used sometimes lor it in the Peshito) is said by Bar Bahlul to be the Arabic Abuktd; and 
 
 8 Eidiraim .shall .say, "What have I to chuTst 
 do any more with idols ? '' I have heard ""''■ '2^- 
 
 him, and observed him : I am like a greeup jeV.ai.is 
 fir tree. i From me is thy fruit found." Jam- 1- 1; 
 
 Formerly Israel was as a luxuriant, but empty, vine, bringing 
 forth no fruit to God". God ^-looked that it should bring forth 
 gra/)es, and it brought forth wild grajies. Now its glory and 
 luxuriance should not hinder its bearing fruit,and that, tlie no- 
 blest of its kind, llicli and fragrant is the odour of graces, the 
 inspiration of the Spirit of God, and not fleeting, but abiding. 
 
 8. Ephraiiii shall say, what have I to do any more with 
 idols? So Isaiah foretells^''. The idols He shall utterly abolish. 
 Aforetime Ephraini said ol)stinately,in tlieniidstof God's chas- 
 tisements 1*; / will go after my lovers, who give me my bread 
 and my water, my wool and myjla.v, m ine oil a)id my drink. Now 
 she shall renounce them wholly and for ever. This is entire 
 conversion, to part wholly with everything which would dis- 
 pute the allegiance with God, to cease to look to any created 
 tiling or being, for what is the gift of the Creator alone. So 
 the Apostle says'=, ichat concord hath Christ with Belial? This 
 verse exhibits in few, vivid, words, converted Ephraim speak- 
 ing with God, and God answering; Ephraim renouncing his 
 sins, and God accepting him; Ephraim glorying in God's good- 
 ness, and God reminding him that he holds all from Himself. 
 
 / have heard and observed him. God answers the pro- 
 fession, and accepts it. /, (emphatic) I Slyself have lieard and 
 have answered, as He says ^'', Before thei/ cull, I tvill answer. 
 Whereas God, before, had hid His face from them, or had ob- 
 served^'' them, only as the object of His displeasure, and as ripe 
 for destruction, now He reverses this, and observes them, in 
 order to forccome the wishes of their hearts before they are ex- 
 pressed, towateh over them and siu'veyand provide for all their 
 needs. To this, Ephraim exulting in God's goodness,answers, 
 / am like a green fir tree, i. e. evergreen, ever-fresh. The be- 
 rosh, (as S. Jerome, living in Palestine, thought) one of the 
 large genus of the pine or fir, or (as others translated) the 
 cypress^^, was a tall stately tree", in whose branches the stork 
 could make its nest-"; its wood precious enough to be employed 
 in the temple -i ; fine enough to be used in all sorts of musical 
 instruments--;strong and pliant enoughto be used for spears-'. 
 It was part of the glory of Lebanon"^. A Greek historian says 
 that Lebanon "-hvas full of cedars and pines and cypresses, of 
 wonderful beauty and size." A modern traveller says, of "the 
 cypress groves of Lebanon;" "-''Each tree is in itself a study for 
 the landscape painter — some, on account of their enormous 
 stems and branches. — Would you see trees in all their splen- 
 dour and beauty, then enter these wild groves, that have never 
 been touched by the pruning-knife of art." This tree, in its 
 majestic beauty, tenacity of life, and undying verdure, winter 
 and summer, through the perpetual supply of sap, pictures the 
 continual life of the soul through the unbroken supply cf the 
 grace of God. Created beauty must, at best, be but a faint 
 image of the beauty of the soul in grace ; for this is from the 
 indwelling of God the Holy Ghost. 
 
 From 3Ie is thy fruit found. Neither the pine nor the cy- 
 press bear any fruit, useful for food. It is probable then that 
 
 this Ibn Baithar describes as "alarge tree with leaves like the tamarisk." Heidentifies it 
 also with the /ipa6u of Dioscorides, who mentions a second sort, "with leaves like the cy- 
 press, more prickly than the other." Pliny(xxv. 11) says that some called this "the Cretan 
 cypress." The bratum is commonly called the " Juniperus Sabina," which, however, is not 
 known to be a tall tree, although some of the Juniper tribe are. " Is. Iv. 13. -" Ps. 
 civ.l". =1 1 Kings V. 22,24. [S. 10. Eng.Jvi. 15, 34. "2Sam.vi.5. =3 Kah. ii. 3. 
 -< Is. xxxvii. 24. Ix. 13. -' Died. Sic. six. 5S. -^ Vande Velde Syr. andPal.ii.4/'5.
 
 92 
 
 IIOSEA, 
 
 chrTst ^ 'Who is wise, and he sliall under- 
 
 cir. 725. stand these things? prudent, and he shall 
 
 ' jli.Ti2.^" know them ? for " the ways of the Lord 
 
 Dan. ia.'io. Jolin S. -17. S; 18. 37. ' Prov. 10. 29. Luke 2. 3^1 2 Cor. 2. 10. 1 Pet. 2,7, 8. 
 
 here too the Prophet fills out one imaire by another and says 
 that restored Israel, the Church of God, or the .soul in grace, 
 should not only have hcauty and majesty, hut what is not, in 
 ;tlie way of nature, found united therewith, fruitfulness also. 
 From Me is tin/ fruit found ; as our Lord says ^, / am the vine, 
 i/e are the branches. Human nature, hy itself, can as little hear 
 fruit weU-pleasinj? to God, as the j)inc or cypress can hear fruit 
 for human use. As it were a miracle in nature, were these trees 
 to hrinj? forth such fruit, so, for man to hrinsr forth fruits of 
 grace, is a miracle of grace. The present-e of works of grace 
 attests the immediate working of God the Holy Ghost, as much 
 as any miracle in nature. 
 
 9. TVho is wise and lie shall understand these things ? The 
 Prophet says this, not of the words inwhich he had spoken, hut 
 of the substance. He docs not mean that his style was obscure, 
 or that he had delivered the message of God in a way difficult 
 to be understood. This would have been to fail of his object. 
 Nor does he mean that human acutcness is the key to the 
 things of God. He means that those only of a certain charac- 
 ter, those 7cise, through God, unto God, will understand the 
 things of God. So the Psalmist, having related some of God's 
 varied chastenings, mercies, and judgments, sums up -, fFho- 
 so is wise and ivill observe these things, even then shall under- 
 stand the loving-kindness of the Lord. So Asapli says that 
 God's dealings with the good and bad in this life were too hard 
 for him to understand, until he 7rent into the sanctuari/ of 
 God; then understood he their end''. In like way Daniel, at the 
 close of his prophecy, sums up the account of a sifting-time ', 
 3Iany shall be purified and made tuhite and tried, and the wick- 
 ed shall do ivickedly ; and none of the wicked shall understand, 
 but the ivise shall understand. As these say that the wise alone 
 understand the actual dealings of God with man, so Hosea 
 says, that the wise alone would understand what he had set 
 forth of the mercy and severity of God, of His love for man, His 
 desire to pardon. His unwillingness that any should perish. 
 His longing for our repentance, His store of mercies in Christ, 
 His gifts of grace and His free eternal love, and yet His rejec- 
 tion of all half-service and His final rejection of the impenitent. 
 7Fho is wise ? '"The word leho is always taken, not for what is 
 impossible, but for what is difficult." So Isaiah saitli '', TFho 
 hath believed our report, and to ivhoni is the Arm of the Lord re- 
 vealed? Few are wise with the ivisdom lehich is from above ; few 
 understand, because few wish to understand, or seek wisdom 
 from Him Who giveth to all men Uheralhj, and upbraidcth not ''. 
 The question implies also, that God longs that men should un- 
 derstand to their salvation. He enquires for them, calls to them 
 that they would meditate on His mercies and judgments. 
 As S. Paul says *, Behold the goodness and severity of God ; on 
 them which fell, severity ; hut toward thee, goodness, if thou 
 continue in His goodness. O the depth of the riches both of the 
 wisdom and knowledge of God ! hotv tmsearchable are His judg- 
 ments, and His ivays past finding out. Unsearchable to in- 
 tellect and theory ; intelligible to faith and for acting on. 
 
 And he shall understand, (i.e. that hemay tatderstaiuP) these 
 things. The worldly-wise of that generation too, doubtless, 
 
 ' S.John XV. 5. •- Ps. cvii. 43. 3 lb. Ixxiii. 16, 17. 
 
 ■i Dan. xii. 10. ' S. Jer. on Eccl. iii. 21. « liii. 1. 7 S. James i. 5. 
 
 « Horn. xi. 22, 33. ' The force of the abbreviated form, pi. "> jnj, the passive of 
 the [r which had just preceded. " S. John vii.l7. '- As in their degree, the 
 
 are right, and the just shall walk in chkTst 
 
 tliem : but the transgressors shall fall 
 therein. 
 
 <ir. 725. 
 
 thought themselves too wise to need tounderstand them; asthc 
 wise after this world counted the Cross of Christ foolishness. 
 
 Prudent. Pi'operly "giftc(/ with understanding," the form 
 of the word expressing, that he was endoiced with this under- 
 standing^'^, -ah a gift from God. And he shall know them. While 
 the wise of this world disbelieve, jeer, scoff, at them, in the 
 name of human reason, he who has not the natural quickness 
 of man only, but who is endued with the true wisdom, shall 
 knorv them. So our Lord says '^ Ifuny man will do His will, 
 he shall know of the doctrine luhether it is of God. The word, 
 wise, may specially mean him who contemplates these truths 
 and understands them in themselves, yet plainly so as to act 
 upon them ; and the word endued icith prudence, may specially 
 describe such as are gifted witli readiness to apply that know- 
 ledge to practice, in judgment, discrimination, act^-. By 
 uniting both, the Prophet joins contemplative and practical 
 wisdom, and intensifies the expression of God's desire that we 
 should be endowed with them. 
 
 For the ways of the Lord are right. If in the word, ways, 
 the figure is still preserved''', the Prophet speaks of the tvays,as 
 " direct and straight;" without a figure, as "just and upright." 
 
 The ways of the Lord are, what we, by a like figure, call 
 "the course of His Providence ;" of which Scripture says i*, His 
 ways arejudgment ; i= God, Llis ways are perfect ; ^^ the Lord is 
 righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His u'orks ; ''' Thy way 
 is in the sea, and Thy paths in the great ivaters, and Thy foot- 
 steps are not known ; ^*lo, these are parts of His luays, but how 
 little a portion is heard of Him, and the thunder of His power 
 icho can understand? ^'■' JFlio hath enjoined Him His luay, and 
 who can say. Thou hast ivrought iniquity ? These tvays of God 
 include His ordering for us, in His eternal wisdom, that course 
 of life, which leads most directly to Himself. They include, 
 then, all God's conimandments, precepts, counsels. His whole 
 moral law^, as well as His separate purjjose for each of us. In 
 the one way, they arc God's ways towards us; in the other, they 
 are God's ways for us. 
 
 The just shall ivalk in them. God reveals His ways to us,not 
 that we may know them only, but that we may do them. " The 
 end of moral science is not knowledge, but practice," said the 
 Heathen philosopher -". But the lite of grace is a life of pro- 
 gress. The word, way, implies not continuance only, but ad- 
 vance. He does not say, "they shall stand in God's ways," but, 
 theyshallwalk in them. Theyshallgo onintheni"upright,safe, 
 and secure, in great peace and witli nothing whereat to stum- 
 ble-^. In God's ways there is no stumblingbloek, and they who 
 walk in them, are free from those of which other ways are full. 
 Whereas, out of God's ways, all paths are tangled, uneven, 
 slippery,devious,fullof snares and pitfalls, GodmaketliHiswaj/ 
 straight, a royal highway, smooth, even, direct unto Himself. 
 
 Iiut[and^the transgressors shall fall therein.lit. shall stum- 
 ble thereon--. Transgi-essors, i. e. those who rebel against the 
 law of God, stumble in divers manners, not in, hut at -^the ways 
 of God. They stumble at God Himself, at His All-Holy Being, 
 Three and One ; they stumble at His attributes ; they stumble 
 at His Providence, they stumble at His acts; they stumble at 
 
 heathen too distinguish irofpia and (^po'i/ijo-is. '' i<i>' ishoth used of physical and 
 
 moral straightness. '•* Deut. xxxii. 4. Dan. iv. 37. '* Ps. xviii. 30. 
 
 i« Ih. cxlv. 17. '7 lb. Ixxvii. 1!). " Job xxvi. 14. >» ib. xxxvi. 23. 
 
 -" Aristot. Eth. i.3. =' Poc. - pg. cxix. 165. =3 As inNah. iii. 3. Prov. iv.l9.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 93 
 
 His iiitcrfcrcnre with them; thoystiimblcat Ilis rcquirciiiriits. 
 They rebel ajjainstHis coiniiiamlnHMits.asrecniiriiijjwhat they 
 like not; at Jlis prohibitions, as refusing uhat tlicy like. Tliey 
 stxiinble at His Wisdom, in ordcrinjij His own crealioii ; at His 
 Holiness, in punisbini;- sin ; but most ot'all, they stumble at His 
 Goodness and condescension. 'riieyhavcai;rcatcr(juarrehvith 
 His condescension than with all His other atfriljutes. They 
 have stumbled, and still stumble at (iod flic Son, beeomin;? 
 Man, and takin;^ our flesh in the Virj;in's womb ; they stumble 
 at the humility of the Crucifixion ; they stumble at His placinj^ 
 His Manhood at the Right Hand of God ; they stumble at the 
 simplicity, power, and condescension, which He uses in the Sa- 
 craments ; they stumble at His i^iving us His Flesh to eat ; they 
 stumble at His forgiving- sins freely, and again and again; they 
 stumble at His makingus members of Himself, without wait- 
 ing for our own wills; they stumble at His condescension in 
 using-our own acts, to the attainment of our degree of everlasting 
 glory. Every attribute, or gift, or revelation of God, which is 
 full of comfort to the believer, becomes in turn an occasion of 
 stumbling to the rebellious. Thv things which sliould have been 
 for Ids wealth, become to him an occasion of falling^. "They 
 cannot attemper their own wishes and ways to the Divine law, 
 because, obeying what they themselves affect, tlie law of their 
 members, they stumble at that other law, wiiich leadcth unto 
 life -." With this the Prophet sums up all the teaching of the 
 seventy years of his ministry. This is the end of all which he 
 had said of the severity and mercy of God, of the Coming of 
 Christ, and of our Resurrection in Him. This is to us the end 
 of all ; this is thy choice. Christian soul, to walk in God's ways, 
 or to stumble at them. As in the days when Christ came in the 
 
 "Ps.lxix. 22. = fiomSanct. 3 S. Luke ii. 31. ■• S. Julin ix. 39. s i Ep. ii. 7, 8. 
 
 I Flesh, so it is now ; so it will be to the end. So holy Simeon 
 ! prophesied, "^77//.v Child is set for the fill and rising (igninof 
 j many in Israel ; and our Lord said of Himself, ' For judgment 
 I inn ronir into this world, that thcij whirh see not might see, and 
 that tlieij which see might he made blind. And S. Peter '" ; Unto 
 yon which believe He in precious ; but unto them tvhich be disobe- 
 dient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made 
 the head of the corner, and a stone of stinnbliiig undrock of of- 
 fe)ice, to them which stumble iit the word, being disobcdioit . 
 Christ cruci/icd Mas unto the Jews a sfuinhling block, aud unto 
 the Greeks foolishness, but auto them irliich are railed both Jeics 
 and Greeks, Christ the Power of God, and the JFisdoin of Goil^'. 
 The commandment, ichich was ordained to life, Paul, when yet 
 unregenerate,/o?«/^/ to be imto death''. '"*Pray we then theE- 
 ternal Wisdom, that we may be truly wise and understanding, 
 and receive not in vain those many' good tilings uliicb Christ 
 has brought to the race of man. Let us cleave to Hini by that 
 faith, which workvth by love ; let us seek the Good, seek the 
 i\\i<X,seck the Lord while He may he fotind, and call upon Ilini 
 while He is near. Whatever God doeth towards ourselves or 
 others, let us account right ; for the ways of the Lord are 
 right, and that cannot be unjust, which pleaseth the Just. 
 Whatever He teacbetb, whatever Hecommandctb, let usbelieve 
 without discussion, and em!)race most firmly ; for ttiat cannot 
 be false, which the Truth bath taught. Let us walk in His 
 ways ; " for Christ Himself is the JVay unto Himself, the Life. 
 ""Look up to heaven; look down to Hell; live for Eternity." 
 "1° Weigh a thousand, yea thousands of years against eternity 
 what dost thou, weighing a finite, how vast soever, against 
 Infinity ? " 
 
 6 I Cor. i. 23, 21. '• Rom. vii. 10. 8 Rib. 9 Lap. >» S. Aug. in Ps. xxxvi. L.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 JOEL 
 
 The Prophet Joel relates iiothinc; of himself. He gives no 
 hints as to hinisclf,exccpt the one fact wliieh was necessary to 
 authenticate hisjiropliecy, that the word of the Lord came to 
 him, and that the book to whicli that statement is prefixed is 
 that "word of the Lord." The word of the Lord, which came to 
 Joel, son of Pethuel. Like Hosea, lie distinguished himself 
 from others of the same name, by the mention of the name of 
 his unknown father. But his whole book bears evidence, that 
 he was a prophet of Jerusalem. He was living in the centre 
 of thepiiblicworship of God: hespeakstotliepricsts as though 
 present, Coine ye, lie all night in .sackcloth'' ; he was, where the 
 solemn assenihly^', which he bids them /jroc/a/»z, would be held; 
 the hotise of the Lord'^, from which meat-offering and drinlc- 
 o/l'ering were cut off^lwas before his eyes. Whether for alarm'', 
 or for prayer ■=. he bids, i/ow ye the trumpet in Zio7i. The city ', 
 whichhe sees the enemyapproaching to beleaguerandenter,is 
 Jerusalem. Headdrcssesthef////(/?T»q/"Z/o?je; he reproaches 
 Tyre, Zidon, and Philistia, with selling to the Greeks the chil- 
 dreii of Zion and Jertisalem ^. God promises by him to bring 
 back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem '. Of Israel, in its 
 separated existence, he takes no more notice, than if it were 
 not. They may be included in the three places in which he 
 uses the name ; Ye shall Jamie that I am in the midst of Israel ; 
 I will plead fur 3Iy people and My heritage, Israel ; the Lord 
 will he the strength of Israel^; but, (as the context shews) only 
 as included, together with Judah, in the one people of God. 
 The promises to Judah, Jerusalem, Zion, with which he closes 
 his hook, being imply prophetic,nuist,sofar,remainthesame, 
 whomsoever he addressed. He foretells that those blessings 
 were to issue from Zion, and that the Church was to be found- 
 ed there. Yet the absence of any direct promise of the ex- 
 tension of those blessings to the ten tribes, (such as occur in 
 Hosea and Amos) implies that he had no office in regard to 
 them. 
 
 Although a prophet of Jerusalem, and calling, in the name 
 of God, to a solemn and strict fast and supplication, he was 
 no priest. He mentions the priests as a class to which he did 
 not belong ', the priests, the Lord's 7ninistcrs ; ye priests ; ye mi- 
 nisters of the altar ; ye 7ninisters of my God ; let the priests, the 
 
 »i. 13, 14. 'ii. 15-17. 'i.9. -i ii. 1. "^ ii. 13. ' ii. 9. b ii. 23. kiii. 4,6. 
 i iii. 1- , " ii- 27, iii. 2, IG. 1 i. 9, 13, ii. 17. ■" i. 14. " Joel iii. 10. 
 " rnp jn' dSbhtdi iko' [vid mm. Amos, since he opens liis propliecy witli tliese words, 
 omits llie 1 (and tliat alone,) with which Joel joins them on with what preceded. 
 
 ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, the. 
 place where they officiated. He calls upon them to proclaim 
 the fast, which he enjoined in the Name of God. Sanctify ye 
 a fast, call a .tolonn assembly ", he says to those, whom he had 
 just called to mourn, ye priests, ye 7ninisters of the altar. As 
 entrusted with a revelation from God, he had an authority 
 superior to that of the priests. While using this, he interfered 
 not with their own special office. 
 
 Joel must have completed his prophecy in its present form, 
 before Amos collected his prophecies into one whole. For A- 
 mos takes as the key-note of his prophecy, words with which 
 Joel almost closes his ; The Lord shall roar from Z>o)i, and ut- 
 ter His voice from Jerusalem °. Nor only so, but Amos inserts 
 at the end of his own prophecy some of Joel's closing words of 
 promise. Amos thus identified his own prophecy with that of 
 Joel. In the threateningwith which he opens it, he retains each 
 word of Joel, in the self-same order, although the words admit 
 equally of several different collocations, each of which would 
 have had an emphasis of its own". Thesymbolicblessing, which 
 Amos takes from Joel at the close of his propliecy the moun- 
 tains shall drop with new wine p, is found in these two prophets 
 alone; and the language is the bolder andmore peculiar,because 
 the word drop i is used of dropping from above, not of flowing 
 down. It seems as if the picture were, that the mountains of 
 Judffia, the mountains, instead of mist or vapour, should distil 
 that which is the symbol oi joy,wi?ie which maketh glad the heart 
 of matt ". The ground why Amos, in this marked way, joined 
 on his own book of prophecy to the book of Joel, must remain 
 uncertain, since he did not explain it. It may have been, that, 
 being called in an unusual way to the Prophetic office,he would 
 in this way identify hims<?lf with the rest of those whom God 
 called to it. A prophet, out of Judah but for Israel, Amos iden- 
 tified himself with the one prophet of Judah, whose prophecy 
 was committed to writing. Certainly those first wordsof Amos, 
 The Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jeru- 
 salem, pointed out to the ten tribes, that Zion and Jerusalem 
 were the place which God had chosen to place His Name there, 
 the visible centre of His government, whence proceeded His 
 judgments and His revelation. Others have supposed that bad 
 
 V Joel iv. 18. D-Di; omn isia" Am. ix. 13. OBy omn iB'isni. 
 
 1 ia:, Itn, are used of" the heavens," Jud.v.4, Ps.lxviii. 9; of "the fingers trickling," 
 Cant. V. 6, 13 ; " the lips dropping honey," Cant. iv. 11, Prov. v. 3 ; then of speech. 
 ■• Ps. civ. 15.
 
 JOEL. 
 
 95 
 
 men thou2;ht that the evil which Joel had foretold would not 
 come, and that the good may have looked anxiously for tlie ful- 
 filment of God's promises ; and that on that f;;n)und, Amos re- 
 jiewcd, hy way of allusion, hoth (iod's tlireats and |)romiscs, 
 therehy impressing on men's minds, what llahakKiik says in 
 plain terms", The vision is fur ihc^appoinlvd timc,midit hust- 
 eth to the end "; thoui^h it tuny, tvaitfor it ; for it will come, it 
 will not tarri/, or he heliitidhand ''. 
 
 However tliis mayhave been, suehmarked renewal ofthreat- 
 enings and promises of Joel by Amos, attests two things; 
 1) that Joel's prophecy must, at the time when Amos wrote, 
 have bc(;omepartofHolyScripture,aiid itsautlmritymust iiave 
 been acknowledged ; 2)"that its authority must have Ijcen ac- 
 knowledged by, and it must have been in circulation among, 
 those to whom Amos prophesied ; otherwise he would not have 
 prefixed to his book those words of Joel. For the whole force 
 of the words, as employed by Amos, depends upon their being 
 recognised by his hearers, as a renewal of the prophecy of 
 Joel. Certainly badmen jeered at Amos,as though his threat- 
 enings would not be fulfilled"'. 
 
 Since, then, Aniosprophesied during thetime,when Azariah 
 and Jeroboam II. reigned together, the book of Joel must have 
 been at that time written, and known in Israel also. Beyond 
 this, the brief, although full, prophecy of Joel afltords no clue 
 as to its own date. Yet probably it was not far removed from 
 that of Amos. For Amos, as well as Joel, speaks of the sin of 
 Tyre and Zidon and of the Philistines in selling the children of 
 Judah into captivity". And since Amos speaks of this, as the 
 crowning sin of both, it is perhaps likely that some signal in- 
 stance of it had taken place, to which both prophets refer. To 
 this,the fact that both prophets speakof the scourge of locusts 
 and drought y, (if this were so) would not add any further 
 evidence. For Joel wasprophesyingto Judah; Amos, tolsrael. 
 The prophecy of Joel mayindced subordinately, although very 
 subordinately at the most, include real locusts ; and such lo- 
 custs, if he meant to include them, could have been no local 
 plague,andso couldhardlyhavepassedoverlsrael. But Amos 
 does not speak of the ravages of thelocusts, by which, in addi- 
 tion to drought, mildew, pestilence, God had, when he prophe- 
 sied, recently chastened Israel, as distinguished above others 
 which God had sent upon this land. There is nothing there- 
 fore to identify the locusts spoken of by Amos with those which 
 Joel speaks of as an image of the terrible, successive, judg- 
 ments of God. Rather Amos enumerates, one after the other, 
 God's ordinary plagues in those countries, and says that all 
 had failed in the object for which God sent them, the turning 
 of His people to Himself. 
 
 Nor, again, does any thingin Joel's ownprophecy suggest any 
 particular date, beyond what is already assigned through the 
 relation which the book of Amos bears to his book. On the 
 contrary, in correspondence, perhaps, with the wide extent of 
 his prophecy, Joel says next to nothingof what was temporary 
 or local. He mentions, incidentally, in one place the drunk- 
 ards'^ of his people; yet in this ease too, he speaks of the sin as 
 especially aflTected and touched bythe chastisement, not of the 
 chastisement, as brought upon the sinner or upon the sinful 
 people by that sin. Beyond this one case, the Prophet names 
 neither sins nor sinners among his own people. He foretells 
 chastisement, and exhorts to repentance as the meansof avert- 
 ing it, but does not specify any sins. His prophecy is one de- 
 claration of the displeasure of God against all sin, and of His 
 
 "Hab. ii. 3. • iI'id'j ^ lit. ire(i(fte/;i, aswesay "pantcth,"ng;. ' viN" 
 
 " V. 18, vi. 3, ix. 10. » Jo. iii.4— 6. Am.i.U,9. 
 
 7 "drought," Joel i. 17, 20, Am.iv. 7,8; "locusts," Am. iv.9. ' i.5. 
 
 judgments consefjuent thereon, one promise of pardon upon 
 (earnest repentaiu'c ; and so, perhaps, what is individual lias, 
 fortlie most pari, been ])nrposely sup|)re>sed. 
 
 The notices in the boolc of JoeJ, which have been employed 
 to fix more precisely the date of the Proplic^t, relate 1) to the 
 proclamation (;f the solcnnn assc^mbly, which, it is supposed, 
 would \n\ enjoined thus autlioritativcly in a time when that in- 
 junc^tion would beobcyed; '2)to tiie mention of certain nations, 
 and the supposed omission of certain other nations, as ene- 
 mies of Judah. Both arguments have been overstated and 
 misstated. 
 
 1) The call to public liuTniliation implies, so far, times in 
 which the king would not interfere topreventit. But ordina- 
 rily, in Judaii, even bad and irreligious kings did not interfere 
 with ex traordinary fasts in times of publicdistress. Jehoiakim 
 did not; the king, who hesitated not to cut in shreds the roll 
 of Jeremiah's prophecies when three or four columns or cliap- 
 ters •■' had been read before him, and burnt it on the hearth by 
 which he was sitting. The fast-day, upon which that roll hail 
 been read in the ears of all the people, was an extraordinary 
 fast hefore the Lord, proclaimed to all the people in Jerusalem, 
 and to all the people that came from the cities of Jndah unto 
 Jerusalem *". This fasting day was not their annual fast, the 
 day of Atonement. For the day of Atonement was in the se- 
 venth month ; this, Jeremiah tells us, was /;/ flic ninth month ■=. 
 \Vhen such a king as Jehoiakim tolerated the ai)pointment of 
 an extraordinary fast, not for Jerusalem only, hut for all the 
 
 i people who came from the cities of Judah, we may well think 
 that no king of ordinary impiety would, in a time of such dis- 
 tress as Joel foretells, have interfered to hinder it. There 
 were, at most, after Athaliah's death, two periods only of de- 
 cided antagonism to God. The first was at the close of the 
 reign of Joash, after the death of Jehoiada, when Joash, with 
 the princes, gave himself to the idolatry of ,\shtarotii, and put 
 to death Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, upon whom the Spirit 
 of Gud came,iinA he foretold their destruction; Because ye have 
 forsahen tlieLord,HeIiathulsoforsakenyou'^. The period after 
 the murder of Zechariah was very short, ^s the year came 
 round, the Syrians came against them; and tehen they departed, 
 his own servants slew him". The only space, left uncertain, is 
 the length of time, during which the idolatry lasted, before 
 the murder of Zechariah. The second period, that in which 
 Amaziah fell away to the idolatry of the Edomites, silenced 
 the prophet of God, and was abandoned by him to his de- 
 structionf, was also brief, lasting probably some sixteen years. 
 
 2) The argument from the Prophefs mention of some ene- 
 mies of God's people ' and the supposed omission of other later 
 enemies, rests partly on a wrongconceptionof prophecy,partly 
 on wrong interpretation of the Prophet. On the assumption 
 that the Prophets did not speak of nations, as instruments of 
 God's chastisements on His people, until they had risen above 
 the political horizon ofJndah.it has been inferred that Joel 
 lived before the time when ,\ssyria became an object of dread, 
 because,mentioning other enemies of God*speople,hedoes not 
 mention Assyria, The assumption, which originated in un- 
 belief, is untrue in fact. Balaam prophesied the captivity 
 through Assyria'', when Israel was entering on the promised 
 land; he foretold also the destructionofAssyriaorthegreatem- 
 pireof the East through a powerwhoshouldcomefrom Europe'. 
 The prophet Ahijah torctold to Jeroboam 1, that the Lord would 
 root up Israel out of the good landwhichHegavetotheir fathers, 
 
 ■> Jcr.xxxvi.23, ^ Ib.9. •^ lb. 
 
 ■5 2 C.xxiv. 17-21. Mb,23,2j. ' lb. xxv. 14-16, 23, 
 
 Philistia, iii, 4, Egvpt and Edom, iii. 19. >> Nu. xxiv, 22, 
 
 X 2 
 
 E Tvre, Zidon, 
 i lb, 21,
 
 96 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 and would scatter them beyond the river^. Neitlicr in temporal 
 nor spiritual prophecy can wc discern the rules, by which, at 
 sundri/ tiines and in divers manners, God revealed Himself 
 through the Prophets, so that we should be able to reduce to 
 one strict method the manifold wisdom of God, and infer the 
 age of a prophet from the tenor of the prophecy which (Jod 
 put into his nioutli. 
 
 It is plain, moreover, from the text of Joel himself, that 
 God had revealed to him, that other more formidable enemies 
 than liadyet invaded J udah would hereafter come against it, 
 and that those enemies whomhespeaksof,he mentions only, as 
 specimens of hatred against God's people and of its j)unish- 
 ment. There can really be no question, that by the Northern ' 
 army,hemeansthc Assyrian, (iod foretellsalsobybimthecaj)- 
 turc of Jerusalem, and thepunishment of those who s'.«//c;rf/ 
 Israel, Mi) heritage, among the heathen, and divided My land ™. 
 Such words canonly be understood of an entire removal of Ju- 
 dah,whcrebyothcrs could comcandtakepossessionof his land. 
 In connection -.vith these great powers occurs the mention of 
 TyreSidon andPhilistia,petty yet vexatiousenemics, contrast- 
 ed with the more powerful. The very formula \\\X\\ which that 
 mention is introduced, shews that they arc named only inci- 
 dentally and as instances of a class, ^nd also ", what are ye to 
 Me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Phi list ia ? The 
 mighty nations were to come as lions, to lay waste ; these, like 
 jackals, made their own petty merchant gain. The mighty 
 divided the land ; these were plunderers and men-stealers. In 
 both together, he declares that nothing, either great or small, 
 should escape the righteous judgments of God. Neither shall 
 might save the mighty, nor shall the petty malice of the lesser 
 enemies of God be too small to be requited. But not only is 
 there no proof that Joel means to enumerate all the nations 
 who had hitherto infested Judah, but there is proof that he 
 did not. 
 
 One onlyhas been found to place Joel so carlyas the reign of 
 Jehoshaphat. But in his reign, after the death of Ahab, (B.C. 
 897,) Mua/j and ^Jtnmoi and with them others, a great midti- 
 tude", invaded Judah. Since then it is tacitly admitted, that 
 the absence of the mention of JVIoab and Amnion does not im- 
 ply that Joel prophesied before their invasion (B.C. 897,) nei- 
 ther is the non-mention of the invasion of the Syrians any ar- 
 gument that he lived before the end of the reign of Jehoash 
 (B.C. 840). Further, not the mere invasion of J udah, but the 
 motives of the invasion or cruelty evinced in it, drew down the 
 judgments of God. The invasion ofHazael was directed not a- 
 gainst Judah, but«^«//(*/ Gath^\ But a small company ofmen'^ 
 went up against Jerusalem ; and the Lord delivered a very great 
 company into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord 
 God of their fathers. They executed, wc arc told. Judgment 
 against Joash. Nor does it appear, that they, like the Assy- 
 rians,excecded the commission for which God employed them. 
 ■■ They destroyed all the princes of the people from among the 
 j)eople,thc prinecswho had seduced Joash to idolatry and were 
 the authors of the murder of Zechariah. * They conspired 
 against him, and sto7ied him (Zechariali) ivith stones at the 
 commandment of the king. Amos mentions, as the last ground 
 of God's sentence against Damascus, not this incursion, but 
 the cruelty of Hazael to Gilead '. The religious aspect of the 
 single invasion of Judah by this band of Syrians was very dif- 
 ferent from the perpetual hostility of the Philistines, or the 
 malicious cupidity of the Phoenicians. 
 
 "■IK-xiv. 15. ' ii. 20. "■ iii. 2. " DJl iv. 4 Heb. ;iii. 4Eng. o2C.xx.l,2. 
 
 p2K.xii.l7. 1 2 C.xxiv.24-. ' lb. 23 ; add 17, 18. ■ lb. 21. ' i. K. 
 
 « 2K.xiv. 7. 2C.xxv.il. ' 2 K.xiv.22.2C. xxvi. 2. wi.12. » 2C.xxviii. 17. 
 
 y See S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. i. 1. 2 Isaiah xiii. C. 
 
 Still less intelligible is theassertion, that Joel wouldnothave 
 foretold any punishment of Edom, had h(! lived after the time 
 when Amaziah smote 20,000 of them i)i the valley of salt, and 
 took Selah ", or Petra li.V.. H.'W. For Amos confessedly pro- 
 phesied in the reign of Azariah, the son of Amaziah. Azariali 
 recovered Elath also from Edom* ; yet Amos, in his time, fore- 
 tells the utter destruction of Bozra an dTeman". The victory of 
 Amaziah did not humble Edom. They remained the same em- 
 bittered foe. In the time of Ahaz, they again invaded Judah 
 and smote it and carried aivay a captivity ". Prophccydoes not 
 regard these little variations of con([uest or defeat. They do 
 not exhaust its meaning. It pronounces God's judgment a- 
 gainst the abiding character of the nation; and while that con- 
 tinues unchanged, the sentence remains. Its fulfilment seems 
 often to linger, but in the end, it does not fail nor remain be- 
 hind God's appointed time. Egypt and Edom moreover, in 
 Joel, stand also as symbols of nations or people like them- 
 selves. They stand for the people themselves, but they repre- 
 sent also others of the same character, as long as the struggle 
 between '• the city of God " and " the city of the devil >" shall 
 last, i. e. to the end of time. 
 
 There being then no internal indication of the date of Joel, 
 we cannot do better than acquiesce in the tradition, by which 
 his book is placed next to that of Hosea, and regard Joel as 
 the prophet of Judah, during the earlier part of Hosea's office 
 towards Israel, and rather earlier than Isaiah. At least, Isai- 
 ah, although he too was called to the prophetic office in the 
 days of Uzziah, appears to have embodied in his prophecy, 
 words of Joel, as well of Micah, bearing witness to the unity 
 of prophecy, and,amid the richness and fulness of his own pro- 
 phetic store, purposely borrowing from those, of whose minis- 
 tryGoddidnotwillthatsuch large fruit should remain. The re- 
 markable words % Near is the Day of the Lord, like destruction 
 fro)n the^-Jlmighty shall itcome, ls'd\ahinseTted,wordfor word% 
 from Joel'',includingthe remarkable alliteration, ceshod mish- 
 shaddai, ''like a jnighty destruction from the Almighty." 
 
 The prophecy of Joel is altogether one. It extends from his 
 own day to the end of time. He gives the key to it in a saying, 
 which he casts into the form of a proverb, that judgment shall 
 follow after judgment. Thenhedescribesthattirst desolation, 
 as if present, and calls to repentance''; yet withal he says ex- 
 pressly, that the Day of the Lord is not come, but is at hand*. 
 This he repeats at the beginning of the second chapter', in 
 which he describes the coming judgment more fully, speaks of 
 it, as comings, and, when he has pictured it as just ready to 
 break upon them, and God, as giving the command to the great 
 camp assembled to fulfil His word '', he calls them, in God's 
 Name, yet more earnestly to repentance ', and promises, upon 
 that repentance, plenary forgiveness andtherestoration of every 
 thing which God had withdrawn from them''. These promises 
 culminate in the first Coming of Christ, the outpouring of the 
 Spirit upon all flesh, and the enlarged gift of prophecy at the 
 same time amongthesonsanddaughtersof Judah'. Upon these 
 mercies to His own people, follow the judgments upon His and 
 their enemies, reaching on to the second Coming of our Lord. 
 
 An attempt has been made to sever the prophecy into two 
 discourses, of which the first is to end at c. ii. 17, the second is 
 to comprise the remainder of the book". That scheme severs 
 what is closely united, God's call to prayer and His promise 
 that He will answer it. According to this severance of the 
 prophecy, the first portion is to contain the exhortation on the 
 
 « NU'nt'mK'^ mn" cvnnp Isaiah has omitted the " and" only. Other correspondences, 
 as the useoln3~a Is.lxv.S. Jo.ii.l4, and that between Is. xiii. 10 and Jo. ii. 31, which is an 
 agreement in substance not of words, have no force of proof. '^ Joel i. 15. "^1.4, "^i.S, sqq. 
 
 '\. 15. 'ii.l. Bii.2 10. I'ii. 11. ■ ii. 12-17. "^ ii. 18-27. ' ii.2S, 29. " Ewald, p.65.
 
 JOEL. 
 
 97 
 
 part of God, without any promise; the second is to contain an 
 historical relation that (iod aiisucred, without sayiui^ what lie 
 answered. The notion was c;rounded on uiihelief, that God 
 absolutely foretold, that He would, beyond the way of nature, 
 bring, what He would, upon repentance, as <'crtaiiilv remove. 
 It is rested on a mere error in i;raniniar ". The ^riininiatical 
 form was probably chosen, in order to express iiow instanta- 
 neously God would hearken to real vvp(.'utuncv, t/iat f/ir Lord is 
 Jealous for His land. The words of prayer should not yet have 
 escaped their lips, when (iod answered. As He says, "^-Ind it 
 shall be, before thcij shall eall, I will answer ; while they are yet 
 speaki)ig, I will hear. Man has to make up his mind on a pe- 
 tition; with God, hearing- and answering are one. 
 
 The judgments upon God's pcojtle, described inthe two first 
 chapters of Joel, cannot be limited to a season of drought and 
 a visitation of locusts, whether one or more, i) The prophet 
 includes all which he foretells, in one statement, which, both 
 from its form and its preternatural character, has the aj)pear- 
 ance of a proverbial saying p. It does stand, as a summary. 
 For he draws the attention of all to ////.vi ; Hear tiiis, ye old 
 men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath tills 
 been in your days? S)C. He appeals to the aged, whethcr 
 they had heard the like, and bids all transmit it to their pos- 
 terity '. The summary is given in a very measured form, in 
 three divisions, each consisting of four words, and the four 
 words standing, in each, in the same order ^ The first and 
 third words of the four are the same in each ; and the fourth 
 of the first and second four become the second of the second 
 and third four, respectively. Next to Hebrew, its force can 
 best be seen in Latin ; 
 
 Residuum erucfe comedit locusta; 
 
 Residuumque locustae comedit bruchus ; 
 
 Residuumque bruchi comedit exesor. 
 The structure of the words resembles God's words to Elijah', 
 whose measured rhythm and preciscordcr of words may again 
 be best, because most concisely, exhibited in Latin. Each di- 
 visioncontains fivewordsinthe same order; and here,the first, 
 second,and fourth words of each five remain the same,and the 
 Proper name which is the fifth in the first five becomes the 
 third in the second five ". 
 
 Profugum gladii Hazaelis occidct Jehu; 
 
 Profugumque gladii Jehu occidet Elisha. 
 
 In this case, we see that the form is proverbial, because the 
 slaying by Elisha is different in kind from the slaying by Jehu 
 and Hazael, and is the same of which God speaks byHosea', / 
 hewed them by the Prophets ; I slew them by the words of My 
 mouth. But so also is it with regard to the locust. Except by 
 miracle, what the Prophet here describes, would not happen. 
 He foretells, not only that a scourge should come, unknown in 
 degree and number,before or afterwards,inPalestine,but that 
 four sorts of locusts should come successively, the later de- 
 stroying M'hat the former left. Now this is not God's ordi- 
 nary way in bringing this scourge. In Hisordinary Providence 
 different sorts of locusts do not succeed one another. Nor 
 would it be any increase of the infliction, anything to record or 
 forewarn of. At times, by a very rare chastisement, God has 
 brought successive flights of the same insect from the samecom- 
 
 » Forms, like \i%, K3p;i are only used of the past, when a past has been already expressed 
 or implied, as, in English, we may use a present in vivid description, in which the mind, 
 as it were, accompanies and sees the action, although past. Trie past having once been 
 expressed, we might say "and he goes" &c. without ambiguity. But the form being rela- 
 tive, it must be understood of the same time, as that which has preceded. Here the time, 
 which has preceded, is future. So also then is the word. The same form is used of the 
 future, H OS. viii. 10, Am. ix.6, Is. ix. 5, 10. 13. Hosv. Einl.ii.2C2. 
 
 Is. Ixv. 24. P i.4. 1 i. 2. ' i.3. 
 
 nion birthplace; and generally, where the female locustsdeposit 
 tiicir eggs and die, unless a moist winter or man's forethovight 
 destroy the eggs, the brood which issues from them in the next 
 spring, being as voracious as the full grown locusts, but crawl- 
 ing through the land, docs, in that immediate ncigiibourliood, 
 destroy tlic ]iro(lucc of the second year, more fatally tlian the 
 parent bad that of tlic preceding. This however is, at most, 
 the ravage of two stages of the same insect, not four su<-ces- 
 sive scourges, the three last destroying what the former hacFi 
 spared. AVhat the Prophet predicted, if taken literally, was. 
 altogether out of the order of nature, and yet its literal ful- 
 filment has not the character of a miracle ; for it adds nothing 
 to the intensity of what is predicted. The foi-m of his predic- 
 tion is proverbial; and this coincides^ itii the other indications 
 that the Prophet did not intend to speak of mere locusts. 
 
 1) In order to bringdown this summaryof the Prophet to the 
 level of an ordinary event in (jod's ordinary Providence, a the- 
 ory has been invented, that he is not here speaking of difterent 
 sorts of locusts, but of the same locust in different stages of its 
 growth, from the time when it leaves the egg, until it attain.s 
 its full developement and its wings. According to the inventor 
 of this theory", the first, the, i,'«::rtW( {the palmer-u'ortn of our 
 version) was to be the migratory locust, which visits Pales- 
 tine (it was said) chieflyin Autumn; the second,rt;-/)p/i,(the ordi- 
 nary name of the locust) was to stand for the young locust, as it 
 first creeps out of the shell ; the yeleh (translated ca/iherworm) 
 was to be the locust, in whatwas supposed to he the third stage 
 of developement ; the chasil (translated caterpillar) was to be 
 the full-grown locust. According to this form of the theory^ 
 the gazam was to be the same as the chasil, the first as the last;, 
 and two of the most special names of the locust, gazam and 
 chasil, were, without any distinction, to be ascribed to the full- 
 grown locust, of one and the same species. For, according to 
 the theory, the gazam was to be the full grown locust which 
 arrived by flight and deposited its eggs; the arbeh,yelek, chasil, 
 were to be three chief stages of developement of the locusts 
 which left those eggs. So that the c/m*//, although not the same 
 individual, was to be exactly the same insect as the gazam, Q.i\(ii 
 at the same stage of c-xistence, the full grown locust, the gryl- 
 lus migratorius with wings. But while these two,more special, 
 names were appropriated to the self-same species of locust, in 
 the same, its full-grown, stage (which in itself is unlikely, 
 when they are thus distinguished from each other) one of 
 the two names which remained to describe (as was supposed) 
 the earlier, (so to speak) infantine or childish'^ stages of its de- 
 velopement, arbeh, is the most general name of locust. This 
 was much as if, when we wished to speak of a " colt" as such, 
 we were to call it "horse," or were to use the word "cow" 
 to designate a " calf." For, according to this theory, Joel, 
 wishing to mark that he was speaking of the pupa, just 
 emerged from the e^%, called it " arbeh," the most common 
 name of the locust tribe. 
 
 This theory then was tacitly modified >. In the second form 
 of the theory, which is more likely to be introduced among 
 us, gazam was to be the locust in its first stage ; arbeh was to ^ 
 be the second, instead of the first ; yelek was to to be the last 
 but one ; chasil was, as before, to be the full-grown locust. 
 
 • nn-K.i ^:k cij.t in' 
 
 '^'on.T S=K pV.i vn ' IK.xix.l". 
 
 " (ii.T n-a' 7Nin jina ubaan 
 I'iS'-'jK ntJ' Hin' 3inD c'rci.ii ' vi. 5. 
 » CredneronJoeli. +. p. 102. followed by Scholzonly. » The expression of Van der 
 Hceven, Handbook of Zoology i. 273, to convey the idea of growth, rather than of change, 
 y Gesenius(Thesaur. p. 1257. v.nnnx) tacitly corrects Credner. Maurer,Ewald,Umbreit,
 
 08 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 Tliis theory escaped one difficulty, tliat of making the ^az«?n 
 and c/idsil full grown locusts of tlic same species. It added 
 anotlicr. Tiie three nioultings which it assumes to he repre- 
 sented hy the arheli, yiick, and gazuiii, correspond neither with 
 the actual moults of the locust, nor with those which strike the 
 eye. Some observers have noticed four moultings of the lo- 
 cust, after it had left the egg". Sonic write, as if there were 
 yet more ". But of marked changes which the eye of the ob- 
 server can discern, there are two only, that hy which it passes 
 from the larva state into the pujia, and that by which it passes 
 from the pupa to the full grown locust. The (/tree names, 
 arbitrarily adapted to the natural history of the locust, corre- 
 spond neither with t\ic/oii7- actual, nor with the two noticeable 
 changes. 
 
 But even these terms larva and pupa, if taken in their po- 
 pular sense, would give a wrong idea of the moults of the lo- 
 cust. The ('hanges with which we are familiar under these 
 names, take place in the locust, before it leavesthe egg''. '•'^The 
 pupa arc equally capable of eating and moving with the larvae, 
 which they resemble except in having rudiments of wings or of 
 wings and elytra:" having in fact "complete wings, only folded 
 up longitudinally and transversely, and inclosed in membranous 
 cases." "Thepupajof theorthoptcra" [to which the locust be- 
 longs] "resemble the perfect insect, both as to shape and the 
 organs for taking their food, except in not having their wings 
 and elytra fully developed." 
 
 These changes regard only its outward form, not its habits. 
 Its voracity begins almost as soon as it has left the egg. The 
 first change takes place "a few days ''" after they are first in 
 motion. "They fast, /or a short tiine^^," before each change. 
 But the creature continues, throughout, the same living, de- 
 vouring, thing ''. From the first, "creeping and jumping in tlie 
 same general direction, they begin their destructive march''." 
 The change, when it is made, takes place " in seven or eight 
 minutes" by the creaturedisengaging itself fromitsformer out- 
 ward skin^ All the changes are often completed in six weeks. 
 In the Ukraine, six weeks after it has left the egg, it has wings 
 and flies aways. In the warmer climateof Palestine, the Change 
 v/ould be yet more rapid. "They attain their natural size,"Nie- 
 buhr saysof those inAlosul'',"with astonishing rapidity." "Tis 
 three weeks," says LeBruyn'," before they can use their wings." 
 
 But 2) the Prophet is not writing on " natural history," nor 
 noticing distinctions observable only on minute inspection. 
 He is foretelling God's judgments. But, as all relate, who 
 have described the ravages of locusts, there are not three, 
 four, or five, but two stages only, in which its ravages are at 
 all distinct, the unwinged and the winged state. 
 
 3) Probaljly, only in a country which was the birthplace of 
 locusts, and where consequently they would, in all the stages 
 of their existence, he, year by year, before the eyes of the peo- 
 ple, would those stages be marked by diflFcrent names. Arabia 
 was one such birthplace, and the Arabs, living a wild life of na- 
 ture, have invented, probably beyond any other nation, words 
 with very special physical meanings. The Arabs, who have a- 
 
 I Belustigungen T. ii. 
 
 follow Gesenius ; yet EwaUl thinks that the gaziim, ych'Ii, chasil, need not belong to the 
 proper locust tribe arhch, (which is in fact an abandonment of the tlieory). 
 
 « Thomson, The Land and the book, ii. p. 104. Rccsel Insecten Belustii 
 Heuschrecken § 7. 8. pp. G9, 70. Van dcr Hoeven. i. 4. 
 
 » " Aprsis plusieiirs mues." Nouvean Diet, d' hist, natiir. 1817. viii. 4-10. The Enclyco- 
 pSdie Methodique v. Criquct (lb. p. 70G) says that the number was not ascertained. 
 >> Owen Invertebrata Lect. IS. pp. 424,435, 6. 
 
 c SeeSpence and Kirby, Introd. to Entomol. iii. 210, 1. Van der Hccvcn, i.p. 273. 
 
 ^ Thomson, I.e." No sootier were any of tliem Imtehed, than they immediately collected 
 themselves together, each of them forming a compact body of several hundred yards in 
 square, which, marchmg afterwards directly forward, climbed over trees walls and houses, 
 eat up every plant in their way, am! let nothing escape them." Shaw, Travels p. 257. 
 
 ' Tliis is a character of the whole of the hemoptera and orthoptera. The developement 
 
 bove fifty names for difTerent locusts,or locusts under different 
 circumstances, as they distinguished the sexes of the locust by 
 diflcrent names, so they did three of its ages. "J VV'hen it came 
 forth out of its f)gg,itwas called do/ja; whenitswings appeared 
 and grew, it was called. i,'/(«?/^/irt ; and this, when they jostled 
 one another; and when their colours appeared, the males be- 
 coming yellow, the females black. then they were calledje/-«f/." 
 This is no scientific description ; for the wings of the locust are 
 not visible, until after the last moult. But in the language of 
 other countries, where this plague was not domestic, these dif- 
 ferent stages of the existence of the locust are not marked by 
 a special name. The Syrians added an epithet "the flying," 
 "the creeping," but designated by the "creeping" the chasil as 
 well as the T/e/eA-'^, which last the Chaldees render by (parecha) 
 "the flying." In Joel wheretheyhad to designatethe fourkinds 
 of locust together, they were obliged, like our own version, in 
 one case to substitute the name of another destructive insect ; 
 in another, they use the name of a diff'erent kind of locust, the 
 /.sar/4u?-o, or tsartscro, the Syrian and Arabic way of pronounc- 
 ing the Hebrew /ic/a/A-a/ '. In Greek theBfioO;!^;o9and 'ATTeXa^ot 
 have been thought to he two stages of the unwinged, and so, 
 unperfected, locusts. But S. Cyril™ and Theodorct'" speak of 
 the Bpovxo'i as having wings; Aristotle" and Plutarch" speak of 
 tlie eggs of the ArTeXaySoj. 
 
 4) The Prophet is speaking of successive ravagers, each de- 
 vouring what the former left. If the theory of these writers 
 was correct, the order in which he names them, would be the 
 order of their developement. But in the order of their deve- 
 lopement, they never destroy what they left in their former 
 stages. From the time when they begin to move, they march 
 right onward " creeping and jumping, all in the same general 
 direction p." This inarch never stops. They creep on, eating 
 as they creep, in the same tract of country, not in the same 
 spot. You could not say of creatures (were we afflicted with 
 such,) who crawled for six weeks, devouring, over two counties 
 of England, that in their later stage they devoured what in 
 their former they left. We should speak of the plague "spread- 
 ing" over two counties. We could not use the Prophet's 
 description, for it would not be true. This mere march, how- 
 ever destructive in its course, does not correspond with the Pro- 
 phet's words. The Prophet then must mean something else. 
 When the locust becomes winged, it flies away, to ravage other 
 countries. So far from destroying what, in its former condi- 
 tion, it left, its ravages in that country are at an end. Had it 
 been ever so true, that these four names, gazam, arbeh, yelelc, 
 c/iffs//,designated four stagesof heingof theone locust,of which 
 stages.§-«s«?ji was thefirst,cAaA77thelast, then, to suit this theory, 
 it should have been said, that^a;:a)«, the young locust, devour- 
 ed what the chasil, by the hypothesis the fuU grown locust, left, 
 not the reverse, as it stands in the Prophet. For the young, 
 when hatched, do destroy in the same place which their pa- 
 rents visited, when they deposited their eggs; but the grown lo- 
 cust does not devastate the country which he wasted before he 
 had wings. So then, in truth, had the Prophet meant this, he 
 
 isattended with no loss of activity or diminution of voracity." Owen, p. 423. " The whole 
 life of the orthopterous insect from the exclusion [from the egg] to flight, may be called 
 an active nymphhood." Ib.43(i. ^ Shaw, lb. HeisspcaKingofthelastand chief 
 
 change to the winged state. s About mid- April '* tliey hatch and leap all about, being 
 six weeks before they can fly." de Beauplan, Ukraine, in Churchill's Voyages i. GOO. 
 
 I" Descr. de r Arab. p.i49. ' Travels, p. 179. i Demiri, quoted liyBochart. iv. 1. 
 
 ^ In Joel i. 2, ii. 25, the Syriac renders the arbeh, h-amtso porecho(the flying locust), and 
 the j/elek, A-amhorfsoc/jf/o, (the creeping locust). Inl K.viii.37 and 2C. vi. 28, it renders 
 chasil hy dsochelo, creeping. In Ps. ]xxviii.46, it renderschasilhy/camtso, locust, and or- 
 beh, by 'dsochelo,creeper. In Ps. cv. Zi, it rcndersarJe/i.by kamtsoon\y [as also in2C.vi.] 
 and yeleh again by dsochelo. 
 
 1 fc'js Deut. xxviii. 42. ■" on Nah. iii. 16, quoted by Bochart, iii. 262. 
 
 " Hist. Anim. v. 29. lb. " de Isid. ib. p Thomson. 1. o.
 
 JOEL. 
 
 00 
 
 woTild have spoken of two creatures, not of four ; and of those 
 two he would have spoken in a different order from tiiat of tliis 
 hypothesis. 
 
 5) Palestine notbeintf an ordinary brcedinj^ place of the lo- 
 custs, the locust arrives there hy flight. Ac(H)rdii)s;]y, on this 
 j^round also, the first mentioned would be the winjjed, not the 
 crawline:, locust. G) The use of these names of the locust, else- 
 where in Holy Scripture, contradic'ts the theory, that, they 
 desiijnate different stages of growth, of the same creature. 
 a) The arbeli is itself one of the four kinds of locust, allowed to 
 be eaten, having subordinate species, "i The locust (arbeh) 
 after his kind, and the bald lorttst (sol'am the devourer) after 
 his kind, and the beetle (chargol, Wt.the springer) after his kind, 
 and the grasshopper (chagah, perhaps, t he overs hadower) after 
 his kind. It is to the last degree unlikely, that the name arbeh, 
 which is the generic name of the most common sort of the 
 ivinged locust, should be given to one imperfect, iinwinged, 
 stage of one species of locust. 
 
 b) Thecreeping,unwingcd, insect, which has just come forth 
 fi'om the ground, wouldmore probably be called by yetanother 
 name for "locust," gob, gohai, "the creeper," than by that 
 oi gazam. But though such is probably the etymology oi gob, 
 probably it too is winged ^ 
 
 c) Some of these creaturesheremcntioned by Joel are named 
 together in Holy Scripture as distinct and winged. Thcarbeh 
 and chasit, are mentioned together ' ; as are also the arbek and 
 thcyelek^. The arbeh,t\\c i/clek,ax\A the rhasil, are all together 
 mentioned in regard to the plague of Egypt ", and all conse- 
 quently, as winged, since they were brought by the wind. The 
 prophet Nahum also speaks oiXhcyelek, as sjioiling andjieeing 
 away ". According to the theory, the yelek, as well as the ar- 
 beh, ought to be unwinged. 
 
 Nor, again, can it be said, the the names are merely poetic 
 names of the locust. It is true that arbeh, the common name 
 of the locust, is taken from its number ; the rest, gazam, yelek, 
 chasil, are descriptive of the voracity of that tribe. But both 
 the arbeh and the chasil occur together in the historical and so 
 in prose books. We know of ninety sorts of locusts", and 
 they are distinguished from one another by some epithet. It 
 would plainly be gratuitousto assimie that the Hebrew names, 
 although epithets, describe only the genus in its largest sense, 
 and are not names of species. If moreover these names were 
 used of the same identical race, not of different species in it, 
 the saying would the more have the character of a proverb. 
 We could not say, for instance, " what the horse left,the steed 
 devoured," except in some proverbial meaning. 
 
 This furnishes a certain probability that the Prophet means 
 something more under the locust, than the creature itself, al- 
 though this in itself too is a great scourge of God. 
 
 ii. In the course of the description itself, the Prophet gives 
 hints, that he means, under the locust, a judgment far greater, 
 an enemy far mightier.than the locust. Theschintshave been 
 put together most fully, and supported in detail by Hengsten- 
 berg", so that here they arc but re-arranged. 
 
 1) Joel calls the scourge, whom he describes, ^/le Northern or 
 Northman. But whereas the Assyrian invaders of Palestine 
 did pour into it from the North, the locusts, almost always, by 
 a sort of law of their being,make their inroads there from their 
 birth-place in the south ■ . 
 
 2) The Prophet directs the priests to pray, O Lord give not 
 Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over 
 
 1 Lev. xi. 22. r Nah. iii. 17. => 1 Kings viii. 37, 2 Chr. vi. 2S, Ps. Ixxviii. 46. 
 
 • Nah. iii. Iti, 17,Ps. cv. 34. "Ps.l.c. ' iii. IC. '' EnclycopedieMetliodique Hist. 
 
 Nat. Insectes, T. vi. v. Criqiict pp. 209-33. " Cliristol. iii. 352-58. ed. 2. 
 
 y Seeonii. 2U,p. 123. Mi. 17. " See on ii. 20, p. 124. ^ \.G. >: ii. 18. J 1J i. (i. 
 
 them '. Bntthereis plainly no connection between the desola- 
 tion caused by locusts, and the people being given over to a 
 heathen con(|ueror. 
 
 .■i)Tbe Pro|)het speaks of, or alludes to, the agent, as one re- 
 sponsible. It is not likely that.of an irrational scourge of God, 
 the Prophet would have assigned asagroundof itsdcstruction, 
 he hath magnified to do"; words used of human pride wliich 
 exceeds the measure appointed to it by God. i)n the other 
 hand, when (iod says, a nation is come up upon 3Iy land''; then 
 will the Lord be jenhnts fur His land'^^, the words Ijclong ra- 
 ther to a heathen invader of God's land.wlio disputcdwitJi His 
 l)eople the possession of tlieland whi(;li He had given them, 
 than to an insect, whi(;h was simply carried, without volition 
 of its own, by the wind. With this, falls in the use of tlic title 
 people, goi'^, used often of heathen, not (as is 'am' J of irration- 
 al creatures. 
 
 4) After the summarywhichmentionssimply differentkinds 
 of locusts, the prophet speaks oi' fire, Jlanie, drought ', which 
 shew that he means something beyond that j)lague. 
 
 5) The imagery.even where it hassomeeorrespondcncewitb 
 what is known of locusts, goes beyond any mere plague of lo- 
 custs, a) People are terrified at their approach ; but Joel says 
 not people, but peoples e, nations. It was a scourge then, like 
 those great conquering Empires, whom God made the ham- 
 mer of the whole earth^\ b) The locusts darken the air as they 
 come; but the darkening of the sun and moon, the withdraw- 
 ing of the shining of the stars' (wliich together are incomijati- 
 ble) are far beyond this,and are symbols elsewhere of the trem- 
 bling of all things before the revelation of the wrath of God."^ 
 c) Locusts enter towns and are troublesome to their inhabit- 
 ants'; but the fields are the scenes of their desolation, in towns 
 they arc destroyed™. These in Joel are represented as taking 
 the city, Jerusalem', symbols of countless hosts, but as mere 
 locusts, harmless. 
 
 6) The effects of the scourge are such as do not result from 
 mere locusts, a) The quantity used for the meat-offering and 
 drink-offering ° was so small, that even a famine could not oc- 
 casion their disuse. They were continued even in the last 
 dreadful siege of Jerusalem. Not materials for sacrifice, but 
 sacrificers wercwanting". b) God •>ays, I will restore the years 
 luhich the locust hath eaten^. But the locust, being a passing 
 scourge, did not destroy the fruits of several years, only of 
 that one year, c) The beasts of the field are bidden to rejoice, 
 because the tree beareth her fruit i. This must be metaphor, 
 for the trees arc not food for cattle, d) The scourge is spoken 
 of as greater than any which they or their fathers knew of, 
 and as one to be ever remembered ■■ ; but Israel had many 
 worse scourges than any plague of locusts, however severe. 
 God had taught them by David, It is better to fall into the 
 hands of God, than into the hands of men. 
 
 7) The destruction of this scourge of God is described in a 
 way, taken doubtless in its details from the destruction of lo- 
 custs, yet, as a whole, physically impossible in a literal sensed 
 
 8) The Day of the Lord, of which he speaks, is identical with 
 the scourge which he describes, but is far beyond any plague 
 of locusts. It includes the captivity of Judah ', the division of 
 their land'',its possession by strangers, since it is promised that 
 these are no more to pass through her''. It is a day of utter de- 
 struction, such as the Alinigiity alone caninflict. It shall come 
 like a mighty destruction from the yllmighfy^^ . 
 
 Attempts have been made to meet some of these arguments; 
 
 e Dy. f i. 19, 20. sii. C. l'Jer.1.23. i ii. 10. ^ Is. xiii.lO. 
 
 1 See on ii. 9, p. 117. " Niebuhr, Descr. de 1' Arabic, p. 149. " 1.9. 
 
 ° Hengst. from Jos. B. J.C, 2, 1. P ii. 25. i ii. 22. ' i. 2, 3, ii. 2. 
 
 ^Seeonii. 20. • iii. 1. " iii. 2. 'iii. 17. " i. 15
 
 100 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 but these attempts for themostpart onlyiHiistrate tlic strength 
 of the nrsiinients, which they try to remove. 
 
 I. 1) Norlltcni has been taken in its nat\iral sense, and it has 
 been asserted, contrary to the fact, tliat h)eusts did come from 
 the North into I'ah'stine^ ; or it lias been said^, that the loensts 
 were tirst driven from their Ijirthphiee in Arabia Deserta 
 throniih Palestine to the North, and then brought back again 
 into Palestine yVw/i the North; or that Northern meant that 
 part of the whole body of locnsts which occupied the Northern 
 j)arts of Palestine', Jndea lying to the extreme south. 
 
 But an incidental flight of locusts, which should have en- 
 tered Palestine from the North, (which they arc not recorded 
 to have done) would not have been called " the Northern." 
 The object of sucli a name would be to describe the locale of 
 those spoken of, not a mere accident or anomaly. Still less, 
 if this ever happened, (of which there is no proof) would a 
 swarm of locusts be so called, which had first come from the 
 South. The regularity, with which the winds blow in Pales- 
 tine, makes such a bringing back of the loc\ists altogether 
 improbable. The South wind blows chietly in March; the East 
 wind in Summer, the North wind mostly about the Autumnal 
 equinox. But neither would a body so blown to and fro, be the 
 fearful scourge predicted by the Prophet, nor would it have 
 been called the N^orthern. The / of the word fsephoiii, like our 
 erii in Northp^v/, designates that which is spoken of,not as com- 
 ing incidentally from the North, l)ut as having an habitual re- 
 lation to the North. A flight of locusts driven back, contrary 
 to continual experience, from the North, would not have been 
 designated as the A'orthern, any more than a Lowlander who 
 passes some time in tlie Highlands would be called a High- 
 lander, or a Highlander,passing into the South, would be called 
 a "Southron." With regard to the third explanation, Joel was 
 especially a proplict of Judah. The supposition that, in pre- 
 dicting the destruction of the locusts, he spoke of the Northern 
 not of the Southern portion of them, implies that he promised 
 on the part of God, as the reward of the humiliation of Judah, 
 that God would remove this scourge from the separated king- 
 dom of the ten tribes, without anypromise as to that part which 
 immediately concerned themselves. Manifestly also, //ieiX'f;;-//;- 
 crn does not, by itself, express the Northern part of a whole. 
 
 It is almost incredible that some have understood by the 
 NorlIier)i,Xhos,e driven towards the North, and so those actually 
 in the South"; and I icill remoi'e f<tr from yon the Norther)i, "I 
 will remove far from you who are in the South, the locusts 
 who have come to you from the South, whom I will drive to 
 the North." 
 
 2) Instances have been brought from other lands, to which 
 locusts have come from the North. This answer wholly mis- 
 states the point at issue. The question is not as to the direc- 
 tion which locusts take, in other countries, whither God sends 
 them, but as to the quarter from which they enter Judea. The 
 direction which they take, varies in different countrics,but is on 
 one and the same principle. It is said by one observer, that 
 they have power to fly against the wind*". Yet this probably 
 is said only of light airs, when they are circling round in pre- 
 paration for their flight. For the most part, they are carried 
 by the prevailingwind, sometimes, if God so wills, to their own 
 destruction, but, mostly, to othercountriesasascourge. "When 
 they can fly, they go," relates Beauplan "= of those bred in the 
 
 » Abcn Ezra, Kimclii, followed by Lightfoot, Chron. V. T. i. 94. Cast. Scholz. 
 
 y Crcdner. » Bochart (Hicroz. 1'. ii. L. iv. c. 5.), Lively. ° Jun. Treni. Justi. 
 
 ****They fly liisli and q uick, even against the wind.or in circles; but often so low.tbat one, 
 riding through them, can see nothing before him, and is often hit in the face.*' Schlatter, 
 Bruchstucke aus einigen Reisen nach d. sudl. Russland, p. 320. 
 
 <^ Description of Ukraine in Churchdl's voyages, i. COO, 
 
 Ukraine," wherever the wind carries them. If the North-east 
 wind prevails,whentheyfirst take flight.it carries them all into 
 the Black Sea ; but if the wind blows from any other quarter, 
 they go into some other country, to do mischief." Licbtcn- 
 sfein writes'', "They never deviatefromthe straight line. so long 
 as the same wind blows." Niebuhr says, "' I saw in Cairo a yet 
 more terrible cloud of locusts, which came by a South-west 
 windiind so from the desert of Libya." "'In the night of Nov. 
 10, IJG^.a great cloud passed over Jidda with a West wind, con- 
 sequently over the Arabian gidf which is very broad here." Of 
 two flights in Indiawhich Forbes witnessed, he relates^', "Each 
 of these flightswerebroiiglitbyan East wind; theytook a West- 
 erly direction, and. without settling in the country, probably 
 perished in thegulf of Canibay." Dr. Thomson who had spent 
 '25 years in the Holy Land.saysin illustration of David's words, 
 ^ I am tossed np and down like the locust, "'This refers to the 
 flying locust. I have had frequent opportunities to notice, how 
 these squadrons are tossed up and down, and whirled round 
 andround bythe ever-varying currentsoftheniountain winds." 
 Morier says, " '' The South-east wind constantly brought with 
 it innumerable flights of locusts,"' l)ut also "'a fresh wind from 
 the South-west which had brought them, so completely drove 
 them forwards that notavestigeofthemwastobeseentwohours 
 afterwards." Theseweredifferent kinds of locusts,the first "at 
 Bushire," having "legs andbody of alight ycUowand wings spot- 
 ted brown ';" the second at Shiraz (which "the Persians said 
 came from the Germesir,") being "larger and red." 
 
 The breeding country for the locust in South-western Asia, 
 is the great desert of Arabia reachingtothePersiaiigulf. From 
 this, at God's command, the East wind brought the locusts'" to 
 Egypt. They are often carried by a West or South-west wind 
 into Persia. " I have often in spring," relates Joseph de S. An- 
 gelo", "seenthesun darkened by very thick clouds (so to say)of 
 locusts, which cross the sea from the deserts of Arabia far into 
 Persia." In Western Arabia, Burckhard " writes, " the locusts 
 areknown to come inv.ariablyfromtheEast," i.e. fromthesame 
 deserts. The South wind carries them to the different coun- 
 tries Northward. This is so general, that Hasselquist wrote ; 
 "pThelocusts appear to be directed — inadirect meridian line by 
 keepingnearlyfrom South toNorth,turning very little either to 
 the East or West. They come from the deserts of Arabia,take 
 their course on through Palestine, Syria, Carmania, Natolia, 
 go sometimes through Bithynia. They never turn from their 
 course,for example, to the West, wherefore Egypt is not visited 
 by them, though so near their usual tract. Neither do they turn 
 to the East, for I never heard that Mesopotamia or the confines 
 of the Euphrates are ravaged by them." And Volneyreports,as 
 the common observation of the natives i; " The inhabitants of 
 Syria remarked that the loeustsonlycanie after over-mild win- 
 ters, and that they always came from the deserts of Arabia." 
 Whence S.Jeronie,himself an inhabitant of Palestine,regarded 
 this mention of the North as an indication that the prophet in- 
 tended us to understand iinder the name of locusts, the great 
 Conquerors who did invade Palestine from the North. ""^Ac- 
 cording to the letter, the South wind, rather than the North, 
 hath been wont to bring the flocks of locusts, i.e. they come not 
 from the cold but from the heat. But since he was speaking of 
 the Assyrians,iinder the image oflocusts, therefore he inserted 
 the mention of the North, that we may understand, not the ac- 
 
 ii Travels in S. Africa, c. xlvi. p. 251. ' Descr. de 1' Arabie, p. 148. 
 
 ' lb. p. 1 1'J. Of the other flights, which Niebuhr mentions, he does not specify whe- 
 ther thev came with or without wind. lb. s ii. 273, 4. >> Ps. cix. 23. 
 ' The Land and the Book, T.ii. 101). k 2nd. Journey, p. 43. ' lb. OS. "Ex.x.lS. 
 " Gazoph. Pers. v. Loeusta, quoted by Ludolf Conim. in Hist. .'Eth. pp. 175, 6. 
 " Notes, ii. 90. p Travels, pp. 446, 7. i Voyages en Syrie, i. 277, 8. ' in Joel ii. 20.
 
 JOEL. 
 
 101 
 
 tual locust, which hath hccn wont to come from the South, hut 
 under the locust, the Assyrians and ('iialdccs." 
 
 On the same jijround,tliat the h)cnsts came to Palestine from 
 the South, they were hrouiiht from Tartary, (the l)recdini^-])lace 
 of the locust thence called the Tartarian locust) l)y an ICast or 
 South-east witid to the rkraine. ""'J'heyiiencrallycomc [to the 
 Ukraine] from towardsTartary, which happens in adrys|)rin!:;; 
 IbrTartary and the countries I'^ast of it, as Circassia, IJazza and 
 MingTelia,areseldomfrcefromthcm. The vermin heinji- driven 
 by an East or South-east wind come into the Ukraine." To 
 the coasts of Barhary or to Italy for the same reason they come 
 from the South; to Upper Eiiypt from Arabia; and to Nubia 
 from the North', viz. from Upper Ei!:ypt. "In the summer of 
 177H," Chenier says of Mauritania", there "were seen, comina; 
 from the South, clouds of locusts which darkened the sun." 
 Strabo states, that, '-^the strons^ S.W.orW. winds of the vernal 
 equinox drive them toijether into the country of Acridophas;!." 
 To the Cape of Good Hope they come from the North, whence 
 alone thev could come"'; to Seneccal they come with the wind 
 from the East\ "They infest Italy," Pliiiysaysy, "chiefly from 
 Africa;" whence of course, they come to Spain also^ Shaw 
 writes of those in Barbary ^; "Their first appearance was to- 
 wards the latter end of March, the wind having; been for some 
 time Southerly." "As the direction of the marches and flight 
 of them both," [i.e. both of the young brood and their parents, 
 their "marches" before they had wings, and their "flight" 
 afterwards] "was always to the Northward, it is probable that 
 they perished in the sea." 
 
 All this, however, illustrates the one rule of their flight, 
 that they come with the wind from their birthplace to other 
 lands. On the same ground that they come to Italy or Bar- 
 hary from the South, to the Ukraine or Arabia Felix from the 
 East, to Persia from the South or South-west, to Nubia or to 
 the Cape, or Constantinople sometimes, from the North, they 
 cametoJudeafromthe South. The word" Northern" describes 
 the habitual character of the army here spoken of. Such was 
 the character of the Assyrian or Chaldean conquerors, who are 
 described oftentimes, in Holy Scripture, as coming "out of the 
 North," and such was not the character of the locusts, who, if 
 described by the quarter from which they habitually came, 
 must have been called " the Southern." 
 
 3) The third mode of removing the evidence of the word 
 "Northern," has been to explain away its meaning. But in no 
 living, nor indeed in any weU-known language, would any one 
 have recourse to certain or uncertain etymology, in order to 
 displace the received meaning of a word. Our "North" origi- 
 nally meant "narrowed, contracted;" the Latin "Septcntrio- 
 nalis" is so called from the constellation of the Great Bear ; yet 
 no one in his right mind, if he understood not how anything 
 was, by an English author, called "Northern," would have re- 
 course to the original meaning of the word and say " North- 
 ern " might signify" hemmed in," or that " septentrionalis" or 
 septentrionel meant "' belonging to the seven plowers," or 
 whatever other etymology might be given to septentrio. No 
 moreshould they,because they did not or would notunderstand 
 the use of the word tsephuni, have had recourse to etymolo- 
 gies. Tsaphan^ as uniformly signifies the North, as our word 
 " North" itself. Tseplwni signifies Northern, the i having the 
 same ofiice as our ending em in A^ortliern, The word Tsaphan 
 originally signified ///(/; then, laid up ; and, it may be, that 
 the North was called tsaphon, as the hidden, "shrouded in dark- 
 
 • Beauplan, lb. i.599. ' Burckhardt,Notes,ii.89,90. » SurlesMaures,iii.495, 
 " Spanman, p.3(i6. « Adansson.Voyage, p. 88. 
 
 » xvi.4. 12. Kr. 
 xi. 35.Liv. xlii. 10. 
 
 y Hist. Nat. 
 « Asso y del Rio. von der Heuechrecken, ed. Tychsen. 
 
 » Nat. Hist, of Algiers and Tunis. Travels, pp. 25C, 8. 
 
 ness." But to infer from that etymology, that tsep/ioiii here 
 may signify the hider'', "that whicdi obs(!ures the rays (d'the 
 sun," is, apart from its grammatical incorrectness, much the 
 same argument as if we were to say that Northern meant, that 
 whi(di "narrows, contracts, hems in," or "is fast hound." 
 
 E(}ualiy capricious and arbitrary is the coining of a new 
 Hebrew word to siihstitiitc for the word Iscjihrini ; as one'', first 
 reading it /.si/i/)niii, supposes it to mean captain, or main army, 
 because in Arabic or Aramaic, tsaphpha means " set things in 
 a row," "set an army in array," of whir;h root there is no tracie 
 in Hebrew. Stranger yet is it to identify the well-known He- 
 brew word Tsitphon with the Greek tv^wv, and tsepliani with 
 Ti/</)&)yt/co9 ; and l)ecaiise Typhon was, in Egyptian mythology, 
 a princ-iple of evil, to infer that tsephuni meant a destroyer''. 
 Another'', who would give to tseplioni the meaning of "Barba- 
 rian," admits in fact the prophetic character of the title ; since 
 the Jews had as yet, in the time of Joel, no external foe on 
 their North border ; no one, except Israel, as yet invaded them 
 from the North. Not until the Assyrian swept over t licm, was 
 the Nortliern any special enemy of Judali. Until tlic- time of 
 Ahaz, Syria was the enemy, not of Judali, but of Israel. 
 
 This varied straining to get rid of the plain meaning of the 
 word tlic Northern, illustrates the more the importance of the 
 term as one of the keys of the prophecy. 
 
 One and the same wind could not drive the same body of lo- 
 custs, to perish in three difterent, and two of them 0]>posite, di- 
 rections. Yet it is clear that the Prophet speaks of them as one 
 and the same. The locusts are spoken of as one great army, (as 
 Godhad before called theniB,) with front and rear. The resource 
 has been to say that the van and rear were two different bodies 
 of locusts, destroyed at different times, or to say that it is only 
 Hebrewparallelism. In Hebrewparallelism, each portion of the 
 verse adds something to the other. It does not unite things in- 
 compatible. Nor is it here the question of two but of three di- 
 rections, whither this enemy was to be swept away and perish. 
 
 But Joel speaks of them first as one whole, Iicilt drive him 
 into a land barren and desolate, the wastes South of Judah, and 
 then of the front and rear, as driven into the two seas, which 
 bound Judah on the East and West. The two Hebrew words, 
 panaiv vesopho^, his front and his rear, can no more mean two 
 bodies, having no relation to one another and to the whole, 
 than our English words could, when used of an army. 
 
 II. Equally unsuccessful are the attempts to get rid of the 
 proofs, that the invader here described is a moral agent. In 
 regard to the words assigned as the ground of his destruction, 
 for he hath magnified to do, 1) it has been denied, contrary to 
 the Hebrew idioni and the context, that they do relate to mo- 
 ral agency, whereas, in regard to creatures, the idiom is used of 
 nothing else, nor in any other sense could this be the ground 
 why God destroyed them. Yet, that this their pride was the 
 cau'seof theirdcs'truction,is marked by the word/or. 2(Strange 
 to say) one has been found who thougiit that the Prophet spoke 
 of the locusts as moral agents. 3) Others have applied the 
 words to God, again contrary to the context. For God speaks 
 in this same verse of Himself in the first person, of the enemy 
 whom He sentences to destruction, in the third. "And /will 
 remove far off" from you the Northern army, and /will drive 
 him into a land barren and desolate. Ids face towards the East- 
 ern sea, and his rear towards the Western sea, and his stink 
 shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath 
 magnified to do." Joel does not use rapid transitions. And 
 
 l> IIDS " Justi.Maurer, adopted by Gesenius sub V. Maurer, in his commentary of 
 
 1838, suggested two vet more impiobable etymologies. ^ Ewald. "VanCoUn 
 
 and Meier would als'o alter the text." Hengst. ' Hitzig on Joel ii. 20. 
 
 « Umbreiton Joel, lb. sii. 11. k isci v:s ib,
 
 102 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 rapid transitions, when used, arc never without nieanins:. A 
 saered writer who has l)ccn siieakinij-ot'Ciod.docs often, in holy 
 fervor, turn suddenly to address God; or, havini;- upbraided a 
 sinful people,he tiirn's away from them, and speaks,iiot to tliem 
 any more but o/theni. IJut it is unexampled in Holy Scrip- 
 ture, that in words in the mouth of (iod, God should speak of 
 Himself lirst in the first person, then in the third. 
 
 ni. Instead of "///«/ lite hcdUioi s/ioiitd rule over tltcm" they 
 render. " Tluit the lieatlieii sh<jiilil]v^y at them" But besides this 
 place, the phrase occurs tifty times in the Hebrew Bible, and in 
 every case means indisputably "rnle over'." It is plainly con- 
 trary to all rules of lanf^nia^e, to take an idiom in the iifty-first 
 case, in a sense wholly diifcrent from that which it has in the 
 other fifty. The noun also sii^nifyinjjj "pi-overb," is derived 
 from a root entirely distinct from the vci'b to ride ; the verb 
 which Ezekiel jjcrhaps formed (as verbs arc formed in Hebrew) 
 from the noun, is never used except in connection, direct or im- 
 plied, with that noun''. The idiom "became a proverb," "make 
 a proverb of," is always expressed, not by the verh but, by the 
 noun with some other verb, as "became, j;ive, set, place'." It is 
 even said™, I wi/l make him desoUite to a proverb, or shall take 
 It]) a parable against him^, but in no one of these idioms is the 
 verb used. 
 
 IV. The word"jealousy"is used twenty times in the Old Tes- 
 tament, of that attribute in God, whereby He does not endure 
 the love of His creatures to be transferred from Him, or divided 
 with Him. Besides this place, it is used by the Prophets tifteen 
 times, of God's love for His people, as shewn aijainst the Hea- 
 then who oppressed them. 1 n all the thirty-five cases it is used 
 of an attribute of Almii^hty God towards His rational crea- 
 tures. And it is a violation of the uniform usasic of Holy Scrip- 
 tiire in a matter which relates to the attributes of Almip;hty 
 GodandHis relation to the creatures which He liasmade,to ex- 
 tend it to His irrational creation. It is to force on Holy Scrip- 
 ture an unauthorized statement as to Almiiility God. 
 
 Of these hints that the prophecy extends beyond any mere 
 locusts, live are given in the space of four verses at the close of 
 that part of the prophecy, and seem to be condensed there, 
 as a key to the whole. Joel began his prophecy by a sort of sa- 
 cred enigma or proverb, which waited its explanation. At the 
 close of the description of God's judgments on His people, 
 which he so opened, he concentrates traits which should in- 
 dicate its fullest meaning. He does not exclude sutfering by 
 locusts, lire, drought, famine, or any other of God's natural 
 visitations. But he indicates that the scourge, which he was 
 chieily foretelling, was man. Three of these hints combine to 
 sliew that Joelwas speaking of Heathen scourges of God's peo- 
 ple and Church. The mention of the Northern fixes the pro- 
 phecy to enemies, of whom Joel had no human knowledge, but 
 by whom Judah was carried away captive, and who themselves 
 were soon afterwards destroyed, while Judah was restored. 
 Not until after Joel and all his generation were fallen asleep, 
 dida king of Assyria come up against Israel, nor was the North 
 a quarter whence men would then apprehend danger. Pal 
 came up against Menalicni, king of Israel, at the close of the 
 reign of Uzziali. The reign of Jotham was victorious. Not 
 until invited by his son Ahaz, did Tiglath-pilescr meddle with 
 the affairs of Judah. In yet another reign, that of Hezekiah, 
 was the first invasion of Judah. Sennacherib,first the scourge 
 of God, in his second invasion blasphemed God, and his army 
 perished in one night, smitten by the Angel of God. 
 
 ' n'jc-o k Thcpliraseisteo'jcbinGoftlieplacesiiiEzekiel. Inthe7th,Ezek.xvi.44. 
 a proverb is spoken ot. It is used by no other ot the sacred writers. In this sense it coiTes- 
 pondswith the Arab. moWia/n, Syr. jncWo^ Mashal,7a;f,occursinPhcEnicianonly,and,(as 
 Ges. pointed out)in the Greek /5 a <ri Xtts. 1 n'n Deut.xxviii. 37.1Kgs. ix.7. Ps. Ixix. 
 
 It seems then probable, that what Joel describes was pre- 
 sented to him in the form of a vision, the title whiidi he gives 
 to bis pro])bec,y. There, as far as we can imagine what was 
 exhibited Ijy God to His prophets, he saw before him the land 
 wasted and desolate ; pastures and trees burned up by fire ; the 
 channels of the rivers dried up ; the barns broken down as use- 
 less, and withal, the locusts, such as he describes them in the 
 second chapter, advancing, overspreading the land, desolating 
 all as they advanced, marching in the wonderful oi'der in which 
 the locust presses on, iiuhjmitablc, unbroken, unhindered ; as- 
 saulting the city Jerusalem, mounting the walls, possessing 
 themselves of it, entering its houses, as victorious. But withal 
 he knew, by that same inspiration which spread tliis scene be- 
 fore his eyes, that not mere locusts were intended, and was in- 
 spired to intermingle in his description expressions which fore- 
 warned his people of invaders yet more formidable. 
 
 It maybe added, that S.John, in the Revelation, notonlyuses 
 the symbol of locusts as a type of enemies of God's Church and 
 people, whetheractualpersecutors or spiritual foesorboth,but, 
 in three successive verses of his description,he takes from Joel 
 three traits of the picture. The shapes of the locusts were like 
 unto horses prepared unto battle ; their teeth were as the teeth of 
 lions ; the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of 
 many horses running to battle". It seems probable, that as 
 j S.John takes up anewthej)rophecies of the01dTestament,and 
 embodies in his prophecy their language, pointing on to a ful- 
 filment of it in the Christian Church, he does, by adopting the 
 symbol t)f the locusts, in part in Joel's own words, express that 
 hehimself understood the Prophet to speak of enemies, beyond 
 the mere irrational scourge. 
 
 The chief characteristic of the Prophet's style is perhaps its 
 simple vividness. Every thing is set before our eyes, as though 
 we ourselves saw it. This is alike the character of the de- 
 scription of the desolation in the first chapter ; the advance of 
 the locusts in the second ; or that more aweful gathering in the 
 valley ofJehoshaphat, described in the third. The Prophet adds 
 detail to detail; each, clear, brief, distinct, a pictureinitself.yet 
 adding to the effect of the whole. We can, without an effort, 
 bring the whole of each picture before our eyes. Sometimes 
 he uses the very briefest form of words, two words, in his own 
 language, sufficing for each feature in his picture. One verse 
 consists almost of five such pairs of words p. Then, again, the 
 discourse iiows on in a softand gentle cadence,like one of those 
 longer sweeps of an zEolian harp. This blending of energy and 
 softness is perhaps one secret, why the diction also of this Pro- 
 phet has been at all times so winning and so touching. Deep 
 and full, he pours out the tide of his words, with an unbroken 
 smoothness, carries all along with him, yea, like those rivers 
 of the new world, bears back the bitter, restless billows which 
 oppose him, a pure strong stream amid the endless heavings 
 and tossings of the world. 
 
 Poetic as Joel's language is, he does not much use distinct 
 imagery. For his whole picture is one image. They are God's 
 chastenings through inanimate nature, picturing the worse 
 chastenings through man. So much had he, probably, in pro- 
 phetic vision, the symbol spread before his eyes, that he likens 
 it in one place to that which it represents, the men of war of 
 the invading army. But this too adds to the formidableness 
 of the picture. 
 
 Full of sorrow himself, he summons all with him to repen- 
 tance, priests and people,old and young,bride and bridegroom. 
 
 12. |m 2Chr. vii.20. Jer. xxiv. 9. rsn Jobxvii.6. D'b Ps.xliv. 15.. " 'narn Ezek. 
 
 xiv. ti. combining the two, " I will make him a desolation and a proverb." ° 7^0 tvff^ 
 Mic. ii. 4. Hab. ii. 0. » Rev. ix. 7-9. Joel ii. 4. i. G. ii. 5. Pi. 10. In one of 
 
 them For, is added. Other pairs of words in Hebrew occur i. 11,12,14,17. ii. 9, 15, 16.
 
 JOEL. 
 
 Yet his very call, let the hridegroom go forth out of his chnmher, 
 and the bride out of her rto.set, shews how tenderly he felt for 
 those, whom lie called from the solaces of nuitual alfectioii to 
 fastiniraiuhvee|»iiic;and,!;irdiii£iwithsacUclotli. Vet more ten- 
 der is the summons to all Isracl'i, Laiiient like a virgin girded 
 with xdeAc/oth for the hnslxuid of her youth. The tenderness 
 of his soul is evinced hy his Iinu:erinff over the desolation which 
 he foresees. It is like one, countinj;; over, one hy one, the losses 
 he endures in the privations of others. Niiture to him ''seemed 
 to mourn;" he had a feelin!:; of sympathy with the hrutc cattle 
 which in his ears mourn soa;rievonsly ; and, if none else w()uld 
 mourn for their own sins, he himself would nmurn to Him \W\w 
 is full of compassion and mercy. lie announces to the poor 
 cattle the removal of the woe, Fear not, fear ye not^. Few pas- 
 sages in Scripture itself are more touchinc:,tlian when, having 
 represented (iod as marshalling His creatures for the destruc- 
 tion of His people, and just ready to give the word, having ex- 
 pressed the great terrihlencssofthe Day of the Lord, and asked 
 ivho van abide it ? he suddenly turns, urJ)id noiu too^, and calls 
 to repentance. 
 
 Amid a wonderful heaiity of language, he employs words not 
 found elsewhere in Holy Scripture. In one verse, he has three 
 such words '. The degree to which the prophecies of Joel re- 
 appear in the later prophets has been exaggerated. The sub- 
 jects of the prophecy recur ; not, for the most part, the form in 
 which they were delivered. The sul»jects could not but recur. 
 For the truths, when once revealed, became a part of the hopes 
 and fears of the Jewish Church ; and the Prophets, as preach- 
 ers and teachers of their people, could not hut repeat them. 
 But it was no mere repetition. Even those truths which, in 
 one of their bearings, or, again, in outline were fully declared, 
 admitted of subordinate enlargement, or of the revelation of 
 other accessory truths, which tilled up or determined or limit- 
 ed that first outline. And as far as anything was added or de- 
 termined by any later pro]ihet, such additions constituted a 
 fresh revelation by him. It is so in the case of the wonderful 
 image, in which, taking occasion of the fact of nature, that 
 there was a fountain under the temple ", which carried off" the 
 blood of the sacrifices, and, carrying it off, was intermingled 
 with that blood, the image of the All-atoning Blood, Joel 
 speaks ol' a fountain flowing forth from the House of the Lord 
 and watering tlie valley of Shittim, whither by nature its 
 waters could not flow. He first describes the holiness to be 
 bestowed upon IMount Zion ; then, how from the Temple, the 
 centre of worship and of revelation, the place of the shadow 
 of the Atonement, the stream should gush forth, which, pour- 
 ing on beyond the bounds of the land of Judah, should carry 
 fertility to a barren and thirsty land. (For in such lands the 
 shittah grows.) To this picture Zechariah " adds the perma- 
 nence of the life-givingstream and its perennial flow,?;/ summer 
 and in winter shall it be. Ezekiel, in his full and wonderful 
 expansion of the image", adds the ideas of the gradual increase 
 of those waters of life, their exceeding depth, the healing of all 
 which could be healed, the abiding desolation where those 
 waters did not reach; and trees, as in the garden of Eden, yield- 
 ing food and health. He in a manner anticipates our Lord's 
 prophecy, ye shall he fishers of men. S.John takes up the 
 image ", yet as an emblem of such fulness of bliss and glory, 
 that, amid some things, which can scarcely be understood ex- 
 cept of this life, it seems rather to belong to life eternal. 
 
 ii.8. 'ii. 21, 22. » ii. 12. ' i. 16. " Seeoniii. 18. ' xiv. 8. 
 
 " xlvii. 1-12. I Rev. xxii. 1-5. y xxxix. 29. ' "On the Gentiles also is ;)o!i»frfoK« 
 £KK8XuTai)thegiftoftheHolyGliost,"Actsx.45;" theloveofGo(lispoiiredout(£K,Ktyi;Tai) 
 in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who hatli been given to us," Horn. v. 5. « li. 33. 
 
 Indeed, as to the great imagery of Joel, it is much more adopt- 
 ed and enforced in the Xew Testament than in the Old. The 
 image of the locust is taken up in tlie Revelation ; that of the 
 '■ pouring out ot'tiic Spii'it" (for this too is an image, how large- 
 ly (Jod would bestow Himself in the times of the Gospel) is 
 adopted in the Old Testament by Ezekiel i', yet as to the Jews 
 only; in the New by St. Feter and St. Faul^ Of those con- 
 densed images, under which Joel spealvs of the wickedness of 
 the whole earth ripened for destruction, the iiai'vest and the 
 wine-treading, that of the harvest is employed liy Jereniiair' as 
 to [»al)ylon, that of tluMvine-]iress is enlarged Ijy Isaiah''. The 
 harvest is so employed hy our Lord'= as to exjilain tlie imagery 
 of Joel; and in that great embodiment of Old Testament jtro- 
 phccy,the Revelation'', St. John expands the image of the wine- 
 press in the same largeness of meaning as it is usimI by Joel. 
 
 The lai'gen(!ss of all tiiese declarations remains peculiar to 
 Joel. To this unknown I'rophet, whom in his writings we can- 
 not but love, but of whose history, condition, rank, parentage, 
 birth-place, nothing is known, nothing beyond his name, save 
 the name of an unknown father, of whom moreover God has 
 allowed nothing to remain save these few chapters, — to him 
 God reserved the prerogative, first to declare the out-pouring 
 of the Holy Ghost upon all flesh, the perpetual aiiidimj of the 
 Church, the final struggle of good and evil, the last rebellion 
 against God, and the Day of Judgment. The Day of tin- Lord, \ 
 the great and terrible day, the belief in which now forms part | 
 of the faith of all Jews and Christians, was a title first revealed J 
 to this unknown Prophet. 
 
 The primaeval prophecy on Adam's expulsion from Paradise,^\ 
 had been renewed to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solo- 
 mon. In Abraham's seed were all nations of the earth to be 
 blessed'^; the obedience "^ of the nations was toberendered to Shi- 
 lob the Peacemaker"'; the nations were to rejoice with the ])eo- 
 ple of God''; God's anointed king was from Mount Zion to have 
 the heathen for His inheritance'; David's Son and David's Lord 
 was to be a king and priest for ever after the order of .Mclchi- 
 zedek''; the peoples were to be willing in the Day of His pow- 
 er. All nations were to serve Him '. This liad been prophesied 
 before. It was part of the body of belief in the time of Joel. 
 But to Joel it was first foreshewn that the Gentiles too should 
 be filled with the Spirit of God. To him was first declared 
 that great paradox, or mystery, of faith, which, after his time, 
 prophet after prophet insisted upon, that wjiile deliverance 
 should be in Mount Zion, while sons and daughters, young and 
 old, should prophecy in Zion, and the stream of God's grace 
 should issue to the barren world from the Temple of the Lord, 
 those in herwhoshouldbedeliveredshould be a remnant only"". /, 
 
 Marvellous faith, alike in those who uttered it and those who 
 received it ; marvellous, disinterested faith ! The true worship 
 of God was, by the revolt of the ten tribes, limited to the two 
 tribes, the territory of thelargestofwhich wasbutsome hi) miles 
 long, and not 30 miles broad ; Benjamin added but 12 miles to 
 the length of the whole. It was but 12 miles from Jerusalem 
 on its Southern Border to Bethel on its Northern. They had 
 made no impression beyond their own boundaries. Edom, their 
 "brother", was their bitterest enemy, wise in the wisdom of 
 the world", but worshipping false gods". Nay they themselves 
 still borrowed the idolatries of their neighbours K Beset as 
 Judah was by constant wars without,deserted by Israel, the im- 
 mediate band of worshippers of the one God within its narrow 
 
 l> lxiii.l-6. c S.Matt.xiii.39. *xiv.l8-20. ' Gen.xxii. 18. ' Such must be the 
 nieaninp of nnp' in the other place in which it occurs, Prov. XXX. 1", as it isofthecorrespond- 
 in" Arabic root. Onkelos so understood it. e Gen.xlix.lO. ■• Deut.xxxii.43. ' Ps.ii. 
 
 k Ps.cx. 1 Ps.lxxii.ll. ■» ii.32. » Obad.S. Jer.xlix.7. ° 2 Clir.xxv.14,20. p lb. 
 
 Y 2
 
 104 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 borders thinned by those who fell away from Ilim, Joel fore- 
 told, not as unecrtainly, not as anticipation, or hope, or lonjij- 
 inj;-, but absolutely and distinctly, tiiat God wouid pour out 
 His Spirit ujion aU Jiisli ; and tliattbe liealini;- stream should 
 issue fortjj from Jerusalem. Eight centuries rolled on, and it 
 
 was not accomplished. He died, of Whom it was said, we trust- 
 ed that it liiid heen He ITIio slioulil lidve redeemed Israel^; -dnA 
 it was fulfilled. Had it failed, justly would the Hebrew Pro- 
 phets have been called fanatics. The words were too distinct 
 to be explained away. It could not fail; for God had said it. 
 
 Before CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 800. j jiipl^ declaring sundry judgments of God, ex- 
 
 horteth to observe them, 8 and to mourn. 14 He 
 
 prescriheth a fast for complaint. 
 
 fl^IIE word of the Lord that came to 
 _J_ Joel the son of Pethuel. 
 2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, 
 ch. 2. 2. all ye inhahitants of the land. " Hath this 
 
 Chap. I. Ver. I. The word of the Lord that came to Joel. 
 Joel, likeHosea, mentions the name of his father only, and then 
 is silent about his extraction, his tribe, his family. He leaves 
 even the time when he lived, to be jjuessed at. He would be 
 known only, as the instrument of God. The word of the Lord 
 came to him -, and he willed simply to be the voice which ut- 
 tered it. He was "content to live under the eyes of God, and, 
 as to men, to be known only in whatconcerned their salvation." 
 But this he declares absolutely, that the Word of God came to 
 him ; in order that we may ffive faith to his prophecy, beini^ well 
 assured that what he predicted, would come to pass. So the 
 Saviour Himself says, "il/// words shall not pass away ^. For 
 truth admits of nothinc; false, and what God saith, will cer- 
 tainly be. For He conjirmeth the ivord of His servant, andper- 
 formeth the counsel of His messengers *. The Prophet claimeth 
 belief then, as speaking, not out of his own heart, but out of the 
 mouth of the Lord, speakinfj in the Spirit." Joel sisjnifies. The 
 Lord is God. It owns that God Who had revealed Himself, is 
 alone the God. The Prophet's name itself embodied the truth, 
 which, after the miraculous answer to Elijah's pi'ayer, all the 
 people confessed, The Lord He is the God, The Lord He is the 
 God. Pethuel signifies, " persuaded of God." The addition of 
 his father's name distinguishedthe Prophetfrom others of that 
 name, as the son of Samuel, of kins; Uzziah, and others. 
 
 2. Hear this, ye old men. By reason of their age they had 
 knov.n and heard much ; they had heard from their fathers, and 
 their fathers' fathers, much which they had not known them- 
 selves. Among the people of the East, memories of past times 
 were handed down from generation to generation, for periods, 
 which to us would seem incredible. Israel was commanded, so 
 to transmit the vivid memories of the miracles of God. The 
 Prophet appeals to the old men, to hear, and, (lest, any thing 
 should seem to have escaped them) to the whole people of the 
 land, to give their whole attention to this thing, which he was 
 about to tell them, and then, reviewing all the evils which each 
 had ever heard to have been inflicted by God upon their fore- 
 fathers, to say whether this thing had happened in their days 
 or in the days of their fathers. 
 
 3. Tell ye your children of it. In the order of God's good- 
 nessjgeneration was to deelaretogeneration the wonders ofHis 
 love. ^ He established a testimony i)i Jacob, and appointed a 
 
 1 S. Luke xxiv. 21. ^ gee on Hos. i. 1. 3 g. M^tt. xxiv. 35. ■• Is. xliv. 26. 
 
 6 Ps.lxxviii. 5-7. « Deut. iv. '.). add. vi. fi, 7. xi. 19. ^ lb. vi. 20-24. 
 
 8 Lev. xi. 22. nmn [the ordinary name] Sjnn " hopper," Cvi>D "devourer," (these two 
 occur in that placed Lev. only) and 3OT so called, it is thought, from veiling the sun in 
 itsflight. SI Diet, de r Hist. Natur. V. Criquet. '>'-'The GryllusTartaricus is 
 
 almost twice as large as the ordinary locust" [gryllus gregarius.l Clarke, Travels,!. 437. 
 ISeauplan speaks ol those which, for several years, he observed in the Ukraine, as being "as 
 thick as a man's linger and twice as long." Churchill, i.COO. 
 
 been in your days, or even in the days ciFrTst 
 of your fathers ? "'"• ^"- 
 
 3 ""Tell ye your children of it, and let your ■" Ps. 78. 4. 
 children tell their children, and their chil- 
 dren another generation. 
 
 4 ^f That which the palmerworm hoXh' ^Cl.it '^' 
 left hath the locust eaten ; and that which ^ ^^'^M^'of 
 the locust hath left hath the cankerworm tlZ^""" 
 
 laiv in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should 
 make thou /nioirn to their children, that the generation to come 
 might know them, the children which should be born, who should 
 ariic and declare them to theirchildren that they might — not for- 
 get the works of God. This tradition of thankful memories 
 God, as the Psalmist says, enforced in the law *; Take heed to 
 thyself Jest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, but 
 teach them thy soils and thy sons' sotis. This was the end of the 
 memorial acts of the ritual, that their sons might enquire the 
 meaning of them, the fathers tell them God's wonders '. Now 
 contrariwise, they are, generation to generation, to tell co7i- 
 ccrning i^,this message of unheard-of woe and judgment. The 
 memory of God's deeds of love should have stirred them to 
 gratitude ; now He transmits to them memories of woe, that 
 they might entreat God against them, and break off the sins 
 which entail them. 
 
 4. That which the pjalmerworm hath left, bath the locust 
 eaten. The creatures here spoken of are different kinds of lo- 
 custs, so named from their number or voracity. ^Ve, who are 
 free from this scourge of God, know them only by the generic 
 nameof locusts. But the law mentions several sorts of locusts, 
 each after its kind, which might be eaten* In fact, above 
 eighty different kinds of locusts have been observed ®, some of 
 which are twice as large as that which is the ordinary scourge 
 of God^". Slight as they are in themselves, they are mighty in 
 God's Hand ; beautiful and gorgeous as they are.floating in the 
 sun's ^aysl^ they are a scourge, including other plagues, fa- 
 mine, and often, pestilence. 
 
 Of the four kinds, here named by the Prophet, that rendered 
 locust is so called from its multitude, (whence Jeremiah says'-, 
 they are more numerous than the locust ;) and is, probably, the 
 creature which desolates whole regions of Asia and Africa. 
 The rest are named from their voracity, the '• gnawer," "lick- 
 er," "consumer ;" but they are, beyond doubt, distinct kinds of 
 that destroyer. And this isthecharacteristic of the Prophet's 
 threatening, that he foretells a succession of destroyers, each 
 more fatal than the preceding ; and that, not according to the 
 order of nature. For in all the observations which have been 
 made of the locusts, even when successive flights have deso- 
 lated the same land, they have always been successive clouds 
 of the same creature. 
 
 " "The gryllus Migratorius hasred legs, andits inferior wings havealivelyred colour, 
 which gives a bright fiery appearance to the animals when fluttering in the sun's rays." 
 Clarke, i.4.'58. Schlatter has much the same description, Bruchstuckeauseinigen Reisen 
 naclulemsudlichenRusslan<l,A.D.lS20-2S.p.32(!.inErsch,Eiicycl.v. Heuschreckenziige, 
 p. 315. Those mentioned by Fr. Alvarez as the great scourge of ^Ethiopia were diilerent. 
 They had yellow under-wings. which also reflected the sun's rays, c. 32. 
 
 '- xlvi. 23. nannDm. Sec Jud.vi.5. vii. 12. Ps.cv. 34. Nah.iii.15. It is a proverb in 
 Arabic also.
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 m 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST eaten; and that Avliicli the cankerworm 
 cir.soo. imtii left hath the caterpillar eaten. 
 
 5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weo]) ; 
 and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, he- 
 
 cause of the new wine; ^for it is cut oflF (ji^'jJ'JisT 
 from your mouth. cir.8iio. 
 
 I* or 'a nation is come up upon mye soi'rov.so. 
 land, strong, and without nundjer, '^ whose tu.t'i'n 25. 
 
 ' Kev. 9. 8.' 
 
 Over and above the fact, then, that locusts are a heavy chas- 
 tisement from God, tliese words of .Joel form a sort of sacred 
 proverb. 'J'liey are the e]iitome of bis wliolt; ])ro])liecy. It is 
 t/ii.s wbieli be bad called the old men to bear, and to say wbe- 
 tbertbey liadkiiownaiiytbiiijL^ like //li.s; tbatscoiiri;e came after 
 scouri>:e,judirnuMit after jiidjiineut, until man yielded or |ierisb- 
 ed. Tbevisitationof locusts was oneof the punishments threa- 
 tened in the law, T/ioii sliall rurrij much seed out into the field, 
 (ind.shatf irafhcrhuf little in ; for t he locust shut I consume i t^ . It 
 was one of God's ordinary punishments for sin, in that country, 
 like famine, orpestilence. or blight. or mildew,or murrain, or(in 
 this) potato disease. Sohunon, accordiufrly, at tlie dedication 
 of the Temple mentions the locust among the other plagues, 
 which he thensolemnly entreated God to remove, when individ- 
 uals or the whole people should spread forth their hands in pe- 
 nitence towards that house-. But the characteristic of this 
 prophecy is the successiveness of the judgments, each in itself 
 desolating, and the later following quick upon the earlier, and 
 completing their destructiveness. The judgments of God are 
 linked together by an invisible chain, each drawing on the 
 other; yet, at each link of the lengthening chain, allowing 
 space and time for repentance to break it through. So in the 
 plagues of Egypt, God, executing His judgments upon them hy 
 little and little, gave them time for repentance^ ; yet, when Pha- 
 raoh hardened his heart, each followed on the other, until he 
 perished in the Red Sea. In likeway God sa\A*,him that escap- 
 eth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay ; and him that escapeth 
 from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. So, in the Revela- 
 tion, the trumpets are sounded^, and the vials of the wrath of 
 God Sive poured out upon the earth, one after the other^. Actual 
 locusts were verylikelyoneof the scourges intended by the Pro- 
 phet. They certainly were not the whole ; but pictured others 
 fiercer, more desolating, more overwhelming. The proverbial 
 dress gained and fixed men's attention on the truth, which, if it 
 had been presented to the people nakedly, they might have 
 turned from. Yet as, in God's wisdom, what is said general- 
 ly, is often fulfilled specially, so here there were four great in- 
 vaders which in succession wasted Judah ; the Assyrian, Chal- 
 dsean, Macedonian and Roman. 
 
 Morally, also, four chief passions desolate successively the 
 human heart. " '^ For what is designated by the palmertrorm, 
 which creeps with all its body on the ground, except it be lust, 
 which so pollutes the heart which it possesses, that it cannot 
 rise up to the loveof heavenlypurity? What is expressed bythe 
 /oc!M/, which flies byleaps,except vain glory which exalts itself 
 with empty j)resumptions ? What is typified by the canker- 
 j(;or»i, almost the whole of whose bodyis gathered into its belly, 
 except gluttony in eating? What but anger is indicated by mil- 
 dew, which burns as it touches ? What the palmerworm then 
 hath left the locust hath eaten, because, when the sin of lust has 
 retired from the mind, vain glory often succeeds. For since it 
 is not now subdued bythe love of the flesh, itboasts of itself,asif 
 it were holy through its chastity. And that which the locust 
 hath left, the cankerworm hath eaten, because when vain glory, 
 which came, as it were, from holiness, is resisted, either the ap- 
 
 ' Deut. xxviii. 38. - 1 Kings viii. 37,8. 
 
 3 Wisd. xii. 10. •" 1 Kings xix. 17. ' Rev. viii. ix. xi. 15. ^ lb. xvi. 
 
 ; S.Gi-ef.Mor.xxxiii.65.p.014.Oxf.Tr. » Id.CG. » Prov. xxx. 25,6. 
 
 petite, or some ambitious desires are indulged in too immode- 
 rately. For the mind «hicli knows not fJod, is led the more 
 fu^rcely to any object ofamltitioii, in proportion as it is not re- 
 strained by any love of liiiimm praise. 'J'lial which the canker- 
 worm hath left, the mildew consumes, because ^vlien the glut- 
 tony of the belly is restrained by abstinence, the impaiience of 
 anger holds fiercer sway, which, like mildew, eats up the har- 
 vest by burning it, because tlie flame of impatience withers the 
 fruit of virtue. When then some vices succeed to others, one 
 plague devours the field (d" the mind, while another leavo it." 
 
 5. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep. All sin >tupelies the 
 sinner. All intoxicate the mind, bribe and pervert tlie judg- 
 ment, dull the conscience, blind the soul and make it insensi- 
 ble to its own ills. All the passions, anger, vain glory, andti- 
 tion, avarice and the rest are a spiritual drunkenness, inebri- 
 ating the soul, as strong drink doth tlic body. '• " 'I'liev are 
 called drunkards, who, confused witli the love of this world, feel 
 not the ills which they suft'er. What then is meant bv, Awake 
 ye drunkards and iceep, but, ' shake otfthe sleep of vour insen- 
 sibility,and oppose by watchful lamentations the manyplagues 
 of sins, which succeed one to the other in the devastation of 
 your hearts?'" God arouses those who will be aroused, by with- 
 drawing from them the pleasures wherein they offended Him. 
 Awake, the Prophet cries, from the sottish sUnnber <d' your 
 drunkenness ; awake to weep and howl, at least when your 
 feverish enjoyments are dashed from your lips. Weeping for 
 things temporal mayawakentothe fearof losing things eternal. 
 
 6. For a nation is come up upon my land. He calls this 
 scourgeof God a h«//om, giving them the title most used inlloly 
 Scripture, of heathen nations. The like term, people, folk, is 
 used of the ants and the conies^, for the wisdom witlnvhieh God 
 teaches them to act. Here it is used, in order to include at once, 
 the irrational invader, guided by a Reason above its own, and 
 the heathen conqueror. This enemy, he says, is come up (for 
 the land, as being God's land, was exalted in dignity, above 
 other lands.) itpon3Iy land, i.e. the Lord's /«/»/'". hitherto own- 
 ed and protected as God's land, a land which, Moses said to 
 them ^1, the Lord thy God caret h for ; the eyes of the Lord thy 
 God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even un- 
 to the end of the year. Now it was to be bared of God's pro- 
 tection, and to be trampled upon by a heathen foe. 
 
 Strong and without number. The figure is still from the lo- 
 cust, whose numbers are wholly countless by man. Travellers 
 sometimes use likenesses to express their number, as clouds 
 darkening the sun'- ordischargingflakesof snow^^; some grave 
 writers give it up,asho})eless. "^^Theirniultitude is incredible, 
 whereby they cover the earth and fill the air; they take away 
 the brightness of the sun. I say again, the thing is incredible 
 to one who has not seen them." "It would not be a thing to be 
 believed, if one had not seen it." " On another day, it was be- 
 yond belief: they occupied a sj)ace of eight leagues [about 24 
 English miles.] I do not mention the multitude of those with- 
 out wings, because it is incredible." '• '° When we were in the 
 Seignory of Abriginia,in a place called Aquate, there came such 
 a multitude of locusts, as cannot be said. They began to ar- 
 
 ■0 Hos. ix. 3. " Deut. xi. 12. 1= See on ii. 10. 
 
 " Clarke's Travels, I.e. p. 437. Beauplan, Ukraine, in Churchill, i. 591'. I.ichtcnstein, 
 c. 46. " Fr. Alvarez do Preste Joan, das Iiidias, c. 32. '* lb. c. C3.
 
 loa 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst *<^^t^' "^^ ^^^^ *^^*'^ ^^ ^ '*^"' ^"^ ^^ ^^^^^^ 
 cir. 800. the cheek teeth of a i?i-cat lion. 
 
 7 He hath « laid my vine waste, and chuTst 
 f barked my fig tree : he hath made it clean "^- **""• 
 
 K Is. 5. G. -f- lieh. \Aiii mi/ Jff^ tree for a barking- 
 
 rive one day about tcroe [nine] and till ni^ht they ceased not 
 to arrive ; and when they arrived, they hestowed themselves. 
 On the next day at tlie liour of prime they bej,'an to depart, 
 and at midday there was not one, and there remained not a 
 leaf on the trees. At this instant others bepan to come, and 
 stayed like the others to the next day at the same hour ; and 
 these left not a stick with its bark, nor a jjreen herb, and thus 
 did they five days one after another ; and the people said that 
 they were the sons, who went to seek their fathers, and tliey 
 took the road towards the others which had no win^-s. After 
 they were ^one,we knew the breadth which they had occupied, 
 and saw the destruction which they had made, it exceeded 
 three leagues [nine miles] wherein there remained no bark on 
 the trees." Another writes of South Africa ^ ; " Of the innu- 
 merable multitudes of the incomplete insect or larva of the lo- 
 custs, which at this time infested tliis part of Africa, no ade- 
 quate idea could l)e conceived without havinj^ witnessed them. 
 For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river, 
 and eif:;hty or ninety miles in lenfjth, an area of 16, or 1800 
 square miles, the whole surface mif>ht literally be said to be 
 covered with them. The water of the river was scarcely visi- 
 ble on account of the dead carcases which floated on the sur- 
 face, drowned in the attempt to come at the weeds which grew 
 in it." " - The present year is the third of their continuance, 
 and their increase has far exceeded that of a geometrical pro- 
 gression whose whole ratio is a million." A writer of repxita- 
 tion says of a " column of locusts" in India ; " ^ It extended, 
 we were informed, 500 miles, and so compact was it when on 
 the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun ; so 
 that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tomljs, 
 not more than 200 yards distant, were rendered quite in- 
 visible." In one single neighbourhood, even in Germany, it 
 was once calculated that near 17,000 ,(X)0 of their eggswere col- 
 lected and destroyed *. Even Volney writes of those in Syria^, 
 "the quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to any one 
 who has not seen it himself; the ground is covered with them 
 for several leagues." "The steppes," saysClarke'',an incredu- 
 lous traveller, "were entirely covered by their bodies, and their 
 numbers falling resembled flakes of snow, carried obliquely by 
 the wind, and spreading thick mists over the sun. IMyriads 
 fell over the carriage, the horses, the (b-ivers. The Tartars told 
 us, that persons had been suffocated by a fall of locusts on the 
 steppes. It was now the season, they added, in which they be- 
 gan to diminish." "^It was incredible, that their breadth was 
 eight leagues." 
 
 Strong. The locust is remarkable for its long flights. 
 " Its strength of limbs is amazing ; when pressed down by the 
 hand on the table, it has almost power to move the fingers*." 
 
 1 Barrow, S. Africa, p. 257. - Ib.SriS. ^ Major Moorin Kirby on Entomology, 
 Letter vi. •• l(j,C"JU, 'J05. They were collected near Droschen. Halt a peck was founci 
 to contain 39, 272. Erscli, HeuschreckcnzLige, p. 314. Beauplan says (lb.) " wheresoever 
 they come, in less than 2 hours they crop all they can, which causes great scarcity of 
 provisions ; and if the locusts remain there in Autumn when they die, after laying at 
 least 300 eggs apiece, which hatch next spring, if it be dry, then the country is 300 times 
 worse pestered." * Voyage en Syrie, i. 277. 
 
 <• Travels, c. 18. i. 437. " At Vienna they were half an hour's journey in breadth, but, 
 after 3 hours, though they seemed to Hy fast, one could not yet see the end of the column." 
 Philosophical Transactions, T. 40. p. 30. " In Cyprus, in going in a chaise 4 or 5 miles, 
 the locusts lay swarming above a foot deep in several parts of the high road, and thousands 
 were destroyed by the wheels of the carriage driving over them." Kussell, Nat. Hist, of 
 Aleppo, ii. 229. " I have seen them at night when they sit to rest them, that the roads 
 were 4 inches thick of thcni one upon another, so that the horses would not trample over 
 them, but as tliey were put on with much lashing — the wheels of our carts and the feet of 
 our horses bruising tliose creatures, there came from them sucli a stink, as not only offended 
 ihe nose but the brain." Beauplan, 51)9, 000. " This placestands on a high hill, whence 
 
 IVhose teeth are the teeth of a lion. The teeth of the locust 
 are said to be " harder than stone." "'■'They appear to be cre- 
 ated for a scourge ; sinc-e to strength incredible for so small a 
 creature, they add saw-like teeth admirably calculated to eat 
 up all the lierhs in the land." Some near the Senegal, arc de- 
 scribed as "'"quite brown, of the thickness and length of a fin- 
 ger, and armed with two jaws, toothed like a saw, and very 
 powerful." Tlie Prophet ascribes to them the sharp or promi- 
 nent eye-teeth of the lion and lioness, combining strength with 
 number. The ideal of this scourge of God is completed by 
 blending numbers, in which creaturesso small only could exist 
 together,with the strengthof the fiercest. "'^Weak and short- 
 lived is man, yet when God is angered against a sinful people, 
 what mightypower does He allow to man against it ! " " And 
 what more cruel than those who endeavour to slay souls, turn- 
 ing them from the Infinite and Eternal Good, and so dragging 
 them to the everlasting torments of Hell ? " 
 
 7. He hath laid my vine waste, and harked my fig tree. 
 This describes an extremity of desolation. The locusts at first 
 attack all which is green and succulent; when tliis has been 
 consumed, then they attack the bark of trees. " '- When they 
 have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, con- 
 suming first the leaves, then tliebark." "''A day or two after 
 one of these bodies were in motion, others were already hatch- 
 ed to glean after them, gnawing off' the young I)ranches and 
 the very bark of such trees as had escaped before with the 
 loss only of their fruit and foliage." "^*They carried deso- 
 lation wherever they passed. After having consumed herbage, 
 fruit, leaves of trees, they atta<'ked even their young shoots 
 and their hark. Even the reeds, wherewith the huts were 
 thatched, though quite dry, were not spared." "i= Every 
 thing in the country was devoured; the bark of figs, pome- 
 granates, and oranges, bitter hard and corrosive, escaped not 
 their voracity." The eff'ects of this wasting last on for many 
 years '''. 
 
 He hath made it clean hare, "i" It is sufficient, if these ter- 
 rible columns stop half an hour on a spot, for everything grow- 
 ing on it, vines, olive trees, and corn, to be entirely destroyed. 
 After theyhave passed, nothing remains butthelargebranches, 
 and the roots which, being under ground, have escaped their 
 voracity." " ^^ After eating up the corn, they fell upon the 
 vines, the pulse, the willows and even the hemp, notwithstand- 
 ing its great bitterness." " ^^ They are particularly injurious 
 to the palm trees ; these they strip of every leaf and green 
 particle, the trees remaininglike skeletons withbare branches." 
 "-"The bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals 
 could not have been long on the spot. — They sat by hundreds 
 on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres." 
 
 large tracts and many places could be seen all yellow with locusts." Fr. Alvarez, c. 32. 
 " The face of the country is covered with them for many miles." Forbes, ii. 273. " In 
 Senegal, they come almost every three years, and when they have covered the ground, they 
 gnaw almost every thing, and are in such numbers as to shadow the heaven for xii [Ita- 
 lian] miles. If they came every year, all would be consumed and desert. I have seen 
 them sometimes fly in a troop over the sea; their number was almost infinite." Aluiseda 
 ca da Mosto, Navig. c. 13. "The locusts cover the ground, so that it can scarcely be seen." 
 LeBruyn.Lev. 252. ' Alvarez, c. 32. ^ Clarke, i. 438. 
 
 ' Morier, 2nd. Journey, p. 99. '" ,\dansson, Voyage au Senegal, p. 88. " Rup. 
 
 '- Jackson's Travels to Morocco ap. Kirby. '^ Shaw's Travels, p. 257. '■* Adansson, lb. 
 
 '= Chenier, RecherchesHistoriquessurlesMaures,iJi.496. "Theydestroyed the leaves 
 and bark of the olive." Dr. Freer, in Russell's Aleppo, p. 230. 
 
 " " The wine of Algiers, before the locusts in 1723 wasted the vineyards, was, in flavour 
 not inferior to the best Hemiitage. Since that time the wine has nmch degenerated and 
 has not yet (1732) recovered its usual qualities." Shaw, p. 227. ^^ Constitutionnel, 
 
 May 1841, of locusts in Spain in that year. K. '* Phil. Trans. 1(586. T.xvi. p. 14S. 
 
 19 Burckhardt,Notes,ii. 90. 'o Lichtenstein.Trav.in S..4fr.c.46.p.251.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 107 
 
 c H lu s T ^^^'^f ^"d cast it away ; the branches therc- 
 cir.soQ. of jji-g made white. 
 
 Y/ie hr/inr/irs titercof are viade ivliite. "'The country did 
 not seem to be burnt, buttobeniu('hcoveredwitlistio\v,tliroui;li 
 the whiteness of the trees und the dryness of the licrbs. It 
 pleased fiod that the fresii crops were already tvathered in." 
 The vi/ieh tin; well-known symbol of (Jod's jx'ople-; the fiti: 
 too, by reason of its sweetness, is an emldcm of Ills Cliureli 
 and of each soul in her, brin<;:ini>; forth the fruit of ij-raec'^ 
 When then God says,//e /lat/i laid ISIij vine waste. He sugg;ests 
 to us, that He is not speaking chieily of the visible tree, but 
 of that which it represents. The locusts, accordinpcly, are 
 not eliiedy the inse<!ts, which bark the actual trees, but every 
 enemy which wastes the heritag;e of God, which He calls by 
 those names. His vineyard, the Jewish people, was outwardly 
 and repeatedly desolated by the Chaldteans, Antiochus Epi- 
 phanes, and afterwards by the Romans. The vineyard, which 
 the Jews had, was, (as Jesus foretold,) let out to otltei- husliand- 
 men, when they had killed Him ; and, thenceforth, is the Chris- 
 tian Church, and, subordinately each soul in her. "*Heathen 
 and heretical Emperors and heresiarchs wasted often the 
 Church of Christ. Anti-Christ shall waste it. They who have 
 wasted her are countless. For the Psalmist says. They who 
 hate me without a cmfse are 7nore than the hairs of my head''." 
 "^The nation which conieth up against the soul, are the 
 princes of this world and of darkness and spiritual wicked- 
 ness in high places, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, of 
 whom the Apostle Peter saith, Our adversary the devil, as a 
 roaring lion,walketh about seeking tvhoni he may devotir''. If 
 we give way to this nation, so that they should come up in 
 us, forthwith they will make our vineyard where we were 
 wont to make ivine to gladden the heart of man^, a desert, and 
 bark or break our iig tree, that we should no more have in us 
 those most sweet gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it enough 
 for that nation to destroy the vineyard and break the fig tree, 
 unless it also destroy whatever there is of life in it, so that, its 
 whole freshness being consumed, the switches remain white 
 and dead, and that be fulfilled in us. If they do these things in 
 a green tree, ichat shall be done in the dry ?^" "'"The Church, 
 at least a part of it, is turned into a desert, deprived of spiri- 
 tual goods, when the faithful are led, by consent to sin, to for- 
 sake God. The fig tree is harked, when the soul which once 
 abounded with sweetest goods and fruits of the Holy Ghost, 
 hath those goods lessened or cut off. Such are they who, hav- 
 ing begun in the Spirit^^, are perfected by the flesh." 
 
 "^-By spirits lying in wait, the vineyard of God is made a de- 
 sert, when the soul, replenished ndth fruits,is wasted with long- 
 ing for the praise of men. That people harks the fig tree of 
 God, in that, carrying away the misguided soul to a thirst for 
 applause, in proportion as it draws her on to ostentation, it 
 strips her of the covering of humility. 3faking it clean bare, it 
 despoils it, in that, so long as it lies hidden in its goodness, it 
 is, as it were, clothed with a covering of its own, which protects 
 it. But when the mind longs that what it has done should be 
 seen by others, it is as though the fig tree despoiled had lost the 
 bark that covered it. And so, as it follows, The branches 
 thereof are made ivhite ; in that liis works, displayed to the ej'es 
 of men, have a bright shew ; a name for sanctity is gotten, 
 when good actions are published. But as, upon the bark being 
 
 ' Fr. Alvarez, c. 33. = Ps. Ixxx. 8, 14. Cant. ii. 13, 15. Hos. x. 1. Is. v. 1-7. xxvii. 2. 
 3 Hos. ix. 10. S. Matt. xxi. 19. S. Luke xiii. 0, 7. •• Rib. * Ps. Ixix. 4. 
 
 6 S.Jer. 7 1S.Pet.v.8. sPs.civ.lS. « S.Luke xxiii. 31. 'o Dion. 
 
 8 ^ ^ Lament like 
 sackcloth for ' the husband of lier youth 
 
 I viririn irirdcd with (jh,[°[st 
 
 cir. 800. 
 l'rov.2. 17. Jer. 3.4. 
 
 Is. ii. Vi. 
 
 removed, the branches of the tig tree wither, so observe that 
 the deeds of the arrogant, jiaradcd before human eyes, wither 
 through the very act of seeking- t<i please. Therefore the mind 
 which is betrayed through hoaslfiihiess is rigiitly called a fig 
 Iree barked, in tiiat it is at once fair to the eye, as being seen, 
 and within a little of witiiering, as being bared of the cover- 
 ing of the bai-k. Within, then, must our deeds be laid up, if we 
 look to a reward of our deeds from Ilim Who seeth within." 
 
 8. Lament like a virgin. The Prophet addresses the con- 
 gregation of Israel, as one espoused to (iod ' = ; " Lantcnl th(m, 
 daughter of Zion," or the like. lie bids her liiiiieiit, with the 
 bitterest of sorrows, as one who, in her \iri;in vears, was just 
 knit into one with the husband of her youtii, and then at once 
 was,by God's judgment,on the very day of her espousal, ere yet 
 she ceased to be a virgin, parted by death. The mourning 
 which God commands is not one of conventional or becoming 
 mourning, but that of one who has ])ut away all joy from her, 
 and takes the rough garment of penitence, girding the hair- 
 cloth upon hcr,envelopiiig and cml)racing,an<l therewith, \vear- 
 ing the whole frame. The haircloth was a coarse, rough, form- 
 less, garment, girt close round the waist, afflictive to the flesh, 
 while it expressed the sorrow of the soul. God regarded as a 
 virgin, the people which He had made holy to Himself"; He 
 so regards the soul which He has regenerated and sanctified. 
 The people, by their idolatry, lost Him Who was a Husband to 
 them; the soul, by inordinate affections, is parted from its God. 
 "1' God Almighty was the Husband of the Synagogue, having 
 espoused it to Himself in the Patriarchs and at the giving of 
 the law. So long as she did not, through idolatry and other 
 heavy sins, depart from God, she was a spouse in the intesj:rity 
 of mind, in knowledge, in love and worship of the true God." 
 " '° The Church is a Virgin ; Christ her Husband. By prevail- 
 ing sins, the order, condition, splendour, worship of the Church, 
 are, through negligence, concupiscence, avarice, irreverence, 
 worsened, deformed, obscured." "The soul is a virgin by its 
 creation in nature ; a virgin by privilege of grace ; a virgin also 
 by hope of glory. Inordinate desire maketh the soul a har- 
 lot; manly penitence restoreth to her chastity; wiseinnocence, 
 virginity. For the soul recovereth a sort of chastity, when 
 through thirst for righteousness, she undertakes the pain and 
 fear of penitence ; still she is not as yet raised to the eminence 
 of innocence. — In the first state she is exposed to concupis- 
 cence ; in the second, she doth works of repentance ; in the 
 third, bewailing her Husband, she is filled with the longing 
 for righteousness ; in the fourth, she is gladdened by virgin 
 embraces and the kiss of Wisdom. For Christ is the Husband 
 of her youth, the Betrother of her \drginity. But since she 
 parted from Him to evil concupiscence, she is monished to re- 
 turn to Him by sorrow and the works and garb of repentance." 
 " ^' So should every Christian weep who has lost Baptismal 
 grace, or has fallen back after repentance, and, deprived of the 
 pure embrace of the Heavenly Bridegroom, embraced instead 
 these earthly things which are as dunghills^^, having been 
 brought up in scarlet, and being in honour, had no understand- 
 ing'^'^. Whence itis written-",/c^ tears run down like a river day 
 and night ; give thyself no rest. Such was he who said-^; rivers 
 of waters run doivn mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law" 
 
 '1 Gal. iii. 3. '^ S.Greg, on Job L. viii. § S2. " The Hebrew 'Vx is feminine- 
 n Jer. ii.2. '^ Rup. 'S Hugo de S. Vict. '' Dion. 
 
 "Lam. iv, 5, " Ps. xlix, 12, 20, =» Lam. ii. 18. =' Ps.cxix.l36.
 
 lOS 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. SOU. 
 
 k ver. 
 ch. i 
 
 13. 
 
 :. 11. 
 
 I .Ter. 12. 11. 
 S:14.2. 
 
 » Is. 24.7. 
 ver. 12. 
 
 II Or, ashamed. 
 
 ■■ Jer.14.3,4. 
 
 9 ^ The meat offcrini!,- and the drink offer- 
 ing is fut off from thi; house of the Lord ; 
 the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn. 
 
 10 Tiie field is wasted, ' the land mourn- 
 eth ; for the corn is wasted : " the new wine 
 is II dried up, tlie oil lani^uisheth. 
 
 11 "Be ye ashamed, O ye hushandmen ; 
 howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and 
 
 9. T/ie meat off^'ering and the drink offering is cut off". The 
 meat oftering and drink offerin;;: %\'cre part of every sacrifice. 
 If the materials for these, the corn and wine, ceased, through 
 locusts or drought or the wastings of war, the sacrifice must 
 hecome mangled and imperfect. The priests were to mourn 
 for the defects of the sacrifice ; they lost also their own suh- 
 sistence, since the altar was, to them, in place of all other in- 
 heritance. The meat and drink offerings were cmhlems of the 
 materials of the Holy Eucharist, hy which Malachi foretold 
 that, when God had rejected the offering of the Jews, there 
 should he a pure offering among the heathen ^. When then 
 Holy Communions hecome rare, the meat and drink offering 
 are iiterally cut oft' from the house of the Lord, and those who 
 are indeed priests, the ministers of the Lord, should mourn. 
 Joel foretells that, however love should wax cold, there should 
 ever be such. He foresees and foretells at once, the failure, 
 and the grief of the priests. Nor is it an idle regret which he 
 foretells, but a mourning unto their God. " ^ Both meat offer- 
 ing and drink offering hath perished from the house of God, 
 not in actual substance but as to reverence, because, amid the 
 prevailing iniquity there is scarcely found in the Church, who 
 should duly celebrate, or receive the Sacraments."' 
 
 10. The field is wasted, the land mourneth. As, when God 
 pours out His blessings of nature, all nature seems to smile and 
 be glad and, as the Psalmist says, to shout for joy and sing^, so 
 when He withholds them, it seems to mourn, and, by its mourn- 
 ing, to reproach the insensibility of man. Oil is the emblem of 
 the abundant graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of the 
 light and devotion of soul given by Him, and spiritual gladness, 
 and overflowing, all-mantling charity. 
 
 1 1. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen. The Prophet dwells 
 on and expands the description of the troubles which be had 
 foretold, setting before their eyes the picture of one universal 
 desolation. For the details of sorrow most touch the heart, 
 and he wished to move them to I'epentance. He pictures them 
 to themselves ; some standing aghast and ashamed of the fruit- 
 lessness of their toil, others giving way to bursts of sorrow, 
 and all things around waste and dried. Nothing was exempt. 
 Wheat and barley, wide-spread as they were (and the barley 
 in those countries, "more fertile^" than the wheat,) perished 
 utterly. The rich juice of the vine, the luscious sweetness of 
 the fig, the succulence of the ever-green pomegranate, the ma- 
 jesty of the palm tree, the fragrance of the Eastern apple, ex- 
 empted them not. All, fruitbearing or barren, were dried up ; 
 for joy itself, and every source of joy was dried up from the 
 sons of men. 
 
 All these suggest a spiritual meaning. For we know of a 
 spiritual harvest, souls born to God, and a spiritual vineyard, 
 the Church of God ; and spiritual hushandmen and vinedressers, 
 those whom God sends. The trees, with their various fruits, 
 
 I i. 11. 
 
 = IlujodeS.V. A.D. 1120. 
 
 s HugodeS.V. 
 
 3 Ps. l.w. 13. 
 
 * S. Jer. 
 
 for the barley ; because the harvest of the ch u"rsT 
 field is perished. "'■•• '^"^- 
 
 12 ° The vine is dried up, and the fij^ tree " »«"■■ lo. 
 languisheth ; the pomej^ranate tree, the 
 palm tree also, and the apple tree, even 
 all the trees of the field, are Avithered : be- 
 cause I' joy is withei-ed away from the sons ' j'r.^^."?. 
 
 c See Ps. 4. 7. 
 
 of men. i^.g.a. 
 
 were emblems of the faithful, adorned with the various gifts 
 and graces of the Spirit. All well-nigh were dried up. Wasted 
 without, in act and deed, the sap of the Spirit ceased within ; 
 the true labourers, those who were jealous for the vineyard of 
 the Lord of hosts were ashamed and grieved. " ^Husbandmen 
 and vinedressers are priests and preachers ; hushandmen, as in- 
 structors in morals, vinedressers, for that joy in things eternal, 
 which they infuse into the minds of the hearers. Hushand- 
 men, as instructing the soul to deeds of righteousness ; vine- 
 dressers, as exciting the minds of hearers to the love of wis- 
 dom. Or, husbandmen, in that by their doctrine they uproot 
 earthly deeds and desires ; vinedressers, as holding forth spiri- 
 tual gifts." The vine is the richness of divine knowledge ; the 
 fig the sweetness of contemplation and the joyousness in things 
 eternal." The pomegranate, with its manifold grains contain- 
 ed under its one bark, may designate the variety and harmony 
 of graces, disposed in their beautiful order. "The palm, ris- 
 ing above the world." '• '' Well is the life of the righteous lik- 
 ened to a palm, in that the palm below is rough to the touch, 
 and in a manner enveloped in dry bark, but above it is adorn- 
 ed with fruit, fair even to the eye ; below, it is compressed by 
 the enfoldings of its bark ; above, it is spread out in amplitude 
 of beautiful greenness. For so is the life of the elect, despis- 
 ed below, beautiful above. Down below, it is, as it were, en- 
 folded in many barks, in that it is straitened by innumerable 
 afflictions. But on high it is expanded into a foliage, as it were, 
 of beautiful greenness by the amplitude of the rewarding." 
 
 Because joy is withered aiuay. " ^ There are four sorts of 
 joy, a joy in iniquity, a joy in vanity, a joy of charity, a joy of 
 felicity. Of the first we read. Who re/oice to do evil, and de- 
 light i7i t he frowardness of the wicked'' . Of the second. They 
 take the timbrel and harp, cmd rejoice at the sound of the or- 
 gan *. Of the third. Let the saints he joyful in glory '. Of the 
 fourth, Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will he still 
 praising Thee^^. The joy of charity and the joy of felicity 
 wither from the sons of men, when the virtues aforesaid failing, 
 there being neither knowledge of the truth nor love of virtue, 
 no reward succeedeth, either in this life or that to come." 
 
 Having thus pictured the coming woe, he calls all to repent- 
 ance and mourning, and those first, who were to call others. 
 God Himself appointed these aSlictive means, and here He 
 '■ gives to the priest a model for penitence and a way of entreat- 
 ing mercy." "^Heinvitesthepriestsfirsttorepentance,through 
 whose negligence chiefly the practice of holiness, the strictness 
 of discipline, the form of doctrine, the whole aspect of the 
 Church was sunk in irreverence. Whence the people also pe- 
 rished, hurrying along the various haunts of sin. Whence Jere- 
 miah says. The kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the 
 world tvould not have believed that the adversary and the enemy 
 should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem, For the sins 
 
 ' S. Greg, on Job L. xix. § 49. 
 
 7 Prov. ii. 14. 
 '» lb. Ixxxiv. 4. 
 
 8 Job xxi. 12. 9 Ps. cxlix. 5i
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 109 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 « Jer. 4. 8. 
 ver. 8. 
 
 13 1 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye 
 priests : howl, ye ministers of the altar : 
 come, lie all nis^ht in sackcloth, ye minis- 
 ver. 9. ters of my God : for ' the meat off'erinj^ and 
 
 • 2Chr.20.3,4. the drink oiFerini; is withholden from the 
 
 ch.2. 15, 16. , ,. ^, , 
 
 • Lev. 23. 31,. housc oi your God. 
 
 relir^lt° 14 ^ * Sanctify ye a fast, call 'a || solemn 
 
 of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests that have shed 
 the blood of the Just in the midst of her, they have luandered us 
 blind men in the streets,they havepolluted themselves with blood^. 
 
 13. Gird yourselves, i. e. with hairctloth, as is elsewhere ex- 
 pressed^. The outward afflicttion is an expression of the in- 
 ward grief, and itself excites to further grief. This their 
 garment of affliction and penitence, they were not to j)ut off 
 day and night. Their wonted duty was, to offer up sacrifice 
 for their own sins and the sins of the people ^, and to entreat God 
 for them. This their office the Prophet calls them to discharge 
 day and night ; to come into the court of the Temple, and there, 
 
 ■ where God shewed Himself in majesty and mercy, lie all night 
 prostrate before God, not at ease, but in sackcloth. He calls 
 to them in the Name of his God, Ye ministers of my God; of 
 Him, to Whom, whosoever forsook Him, he himself was faith- 
 ful. "*The Prophets called the God of all, their own God, 
 being united to Him by singular love and reverential obedi- 
 ence, so that they could say, God is the strength ofmx; heart and 
 7ny portion for ever ^." He calls Him, further, their God, {your 
 God) in order to remind them of His special favor to them, and 
 their duty to Him Who allowed them to call Him their God. 
 
 14. Sanctify ye a fast. He does not say only, " proclaim," 
 or "appoint a fast," but sanctify it. Hallow the act of absti- 
 nence, seasoning it with devotion and with acts meet for re- 
 pentance. For fasting is not accepted by God, unless done in 
 charity and obedience to His commands. " ^ Sanctify it, i. e. 
 make it an offering to God, and as it were a sacrifice, a holy 
 and blameless fast." " '' To sanctify a fast is to exhibit absti- 
 nence of the flesh, meet towards God, with other good. Let 
 anger cease, strife be lulled. For in vain is the flesh worn, if 
 the mind is not held in from evil passions, inasmuch as the 
 Lord saith by the Prophet*, Xo ! in the day of yoi/r fast you find 
 your pleasures. The fast which the Lord approveth, is that 
 which lifteth up toHim hands full of almsdeeds, which is passed 
 with brotherly love, which is seasoned by piety. What thou 
 subtractest from thyself, bestow on another, that thy needy 
 neighbour's flesh may be recruited by means of that which 
 thou deniest to thine own." 
 
 Call a solemn assembly. Fasting without devotion is an 
 image of famine. At other times the solemn assembly was for 
 festival-joy. Such was the last day of the feast of the Pass- 
 over ^ and of Tabernacles '°. No servile work was to be done 
 thereon. It was then to be consecrated to thanksgiving, hut 
 now to sorrow and supplication. "*The Prophet commands 
 that all should be called and gathered into the Temple, that 
 so the prayer might be the rather heard, the more they were 
 who offered it. Wherefore the Apostle besought his disciples 
 to pray for him, that so what was asked might be obtained 
 the more readily through the intercession of many." 
 
 Gather the elders. Age was, by God's appointment ^^, had 
 
 ' Lam. iv. 13, 14. - Is. xxii. 12. Jer. iv. 8. vi. 26. 
 
 s Heb.vii.27. ■• Dion. ^ Ps.lxxiii.26. « S.Cyr. ? S.Greg. in Ev. 
 
 Horn. 10. 8 Is. Iviii. 3. ' Deut. xvi. 8. '" Lev. xxiii. 36. Num. xxix. 35. 
 
 2Chr.vi).0. Neh. viii. 18. " Lev.xix.32. '^ Ex. iii.l6. iv. 29. comp.Deut.xxxi.28. 
 
 assembly, gather the elders an^Z "all the chkTst 
 
 inhal)itants of the land into the house "' ■ ^'ft- 
 
 of the Lord your God, and cry unto the " 2chr.20.13. 
 Lord. 
 
 15 ''Alas for the day! for ^ the day of ' Jer. so. 7. 
 
 ,, , . , ■^ J J Is. 13. 6, 9. 
 
 the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction ch. 2. 1. 
 from the Almighty shall it come. 
 
 in great reverence among the Hebrews. When first God sent 
 Moses and Aaron to His people in Egypt, He bade them collect 
 the elders of the people'- to declare to them their own mission 
 from God; through them He conveyed! be ordinance of the Pass- 
 over to the whole congregation' *; in tiieir presence was the first 
 miracle of bringing water from the rock pcrfoniied "; tlien He 
 commanded Moses to choose seventy oftliein, to appear before 
 Him before He gave the law'"; tlicn to bear Moses' own burden 
 in hearing the causes of the people, bestowing His .Spirit upon 
 them'^ The elders of each city were clothed witb judicial au- 
 thority '^ In the expiation of an uncertain murder, the elders 
 of the city represented the whole city "*; in the offerings for the 
 congregation, the elders of the congregation represented the 
 whole '°. So then, here also, they are summoned, chief of all, 
 that "the authorityand exampleof their grey hairs might move 
 the young to repentance." " ^'^ Their %ge, near to death and ri- 
 pened in grace, makes them more apt for the fear and worship 
 of God." All however,/jr/f.sYs,e/r/e7-.s,and the inhabitants. or peo- 
 ple of the land~^, were to form one band, and were,with one heart 
 and voice, to cry iinto God; and that, in the house of God. For 
 so Solomon had prayed, that God would in Heaven His dwell- 
 ing place, hear whatever prayer and supplication might there be 
 made by any man or by all His peoiile Israel" ; and God had pro- 
 mised in turn,-3 1 have hallowed this house which thou hast built, 
 to put 3fy narne there for ever, and Mine eyes and 3Iine heart 
 shall be there perpetually. God has given to united prayer a 
 power over Himself, and "prayer overcometh God-*." The 
 Prophet calls GoA,your Gof/,shewing how ready Hewastohear; 
 but he adds, cry nnto the Lord ; for it is not a listless prayer, 
 but a loud earnest cry, which reacheth to the throne of God. 
 
 15. Alas for the day '.for the Day of the Lord is at hand. 
 The judgment of God, then, which they were to deprecate, was 
 still to come. "*A11 times and all days are God's. Yet they 
 are said to be our days, in which God leaves us to our own free- 
 dom, to do as we will," and which we may use to repent and turn 
 to Him. " Whence Christ saith-% O Jerusalem — if thou hadst 
 known in this thy day the things ivhich belong unto thy peace. 
 That time, on the conti-ary, is said to be God's Day, in which 
 He doth any new, rare, or special thing, such as is the Day of 
 Judgment or vengeance." All judgnient in time is an image 
 of the Judgment for eternity. " The Day of the Lord" is, then, 
 each "day of vengeance in which God doth to man according 
 to His WiU and just judgment, inflictlngthe punishment which 
 he deserves, as man did to Him in his day, manifoldly disho- 
 nouring Him, according to his own perverse will." ThatDayw 
 at hand; suddenly to come. Speed then must be used to pre- 
 vent it. Prevented it may be by speedy repentance before it 
 comes ; but when it does come, there will be no avoiding it ; for 
 
 .ds a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. The 
 name the Almighty or God Almighty is but seldom used in Holy 
 
 13 Ex. xii. 3. 21. " Ex. xvii. 5. add xviii. 12. 
 
 '* lb. xxiv. 1. 9. '* Num. xi. 16 sqq. ^' Deut.xix. 12. xxii. 15. xxv. 7. 
 
 >8 lb. XXI. 3-0'. " Lev. iv. 15. ix. 1. ■•' S. Jer. => Jer. i. 18. '^ 1 Kinss viii. 39. 
 23Ib.ix.3. =" Tert. deorat. §29. p. 321.0. T. » S Luke xix. 42. 
 
 Z
 
 110 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst 1^ '^ "*** *''*^ '"•^^^ *^"* **^ before our 
 cir. so(). eyes, yea, ''joy and gladness from the house 
 
 c,7.&:i(;, ot our dod ? 
 
 t Heb.^i^rfins. 17 Tlic f Seed is rotten under their clods, 
 the garners are laid desolate, the barns are 
 broken down ; for the corn is withered. 
 
 » Hos.4.3. 18 How do "the beasts gi*oan ! the herds 
 
 Scripture. God revealed Himself by this Name to Abraham, 
 when renewinij to him the promise which was beyond nature, 
 that he should be a father of many nations, when he and Sarah 
 were old and well .stric/ceii in age. He said, / atn God Al- 
 7nighti/ ; tvalk before 3fe and he thou perfect^. God Almig^hty 
 uses it aji^ain of Himself in renewing the blessinsf to Jacob -; and 
 Isaac and Jacob use it in blessing in His Name'. It is not 
 used as a mere name of God, but always in reference to His 
 might, as in the book of Job which treats chiefly of His pow- 
 er'*. In His days of judgment God manifests Himself as the 
 All-mighty and All-just. Hence in the New Testament, it oc- 
 curs almost exclusively in the Revelations, which reveal His 
 judgments to come^ Here the words form a sort of terrible 
 proverb, whence they are adopted from Joel by the prophet 
 Isaiah *. The word desfnicfion, shod, is formed from the same 
 root as Almighti/, Shuddai'' . It shall come as might from the 
 Mighty. Only, the word might is always used of" might " put 
 forth to destroy, a mighty destruction. He says then, in fact, 
 that that Day shall come, like might put forth by the Almighty 
 Himself, to destroy His enemies, irresistible, inevitable, un- 
 endurable, overwhelming the sinner. 
 
 16. Is not the meat cut ojf'hefore our eyes ? The Prophet 
 exhibits the immediate judgment, as if it were already fulfilled 
 in act. He sets it in detail before their eyes. " When the 
 fruits of the earth wei-e now ripe, the corn now calling for the 
 reaper, and the grapes fully ripe and desiring to be pressed out, 
 they were taken away, when set before their eyes for them to 
 enjoy." Yea, joy a7id gladness from the house of our God. The 
 joy in the abundance of the harvest was expressed in one uni- 
 versal thanksgiving to God, by fathers of families, sons, daugh- 
 ters, menservants, maidservants, with the priest and Levite. 
 All this was to be cut oft' together. The courts of God's house 
 were to be desolate and silent, or joy and gladness were to be 
 turned into sorrow and wailing. 
 
 "^ So it befel those who rejected and insulted Christ. The 
 Bread of life rFhich came down from Heaven and gave life to 
 the ivorUP, the corn of ivheat, which fell into the ground and 
 died, and brought forth much fruit ^'^, that spiritual tvine which 
 knoweth how to gladden the heart of ma)i, was already in a 
 manner before their eyes. But when they ceased not to in- 
 sult Him in unbelief. He, as it were, disappeared from their 
 eyes, and they lost all spiritual sustenance. All share in all 
 good is gone from them. J^oy and gladness have also gone 
 fro7n the House which they had. For they are given up to de- 
 solation, and abide without king or prince or sacrifice^^. Again, 
 the Lord said ^-, 3Ian shall not live by bread alone, but by every 
 tvord ivhich comet h forth out of the Mouth of God. The word 
 
 1 Gen. xvii. 1-6. 16-21. xviii. 10-14. Rom. iv. 17-21. 
 
 5 Gen. XXXV. 11. 3 Gen. xxviii. 3. xliii. 14. xlviii.3. xlix. 25. 
 
 * In the book of Job, it occurs 31 times ; else it is used twice by the heathen Ruth, 
 
 i. 20, 1 ; twice by Balaam, Num. xxiv. 4, 16; twice by Ezekiel of God revealing Himself 
 
 in Majesty, i. 24-. x. 5 1 and twice in the Psalms, of God putting forth His might, Ixviii. 15. 
 
 or protecting, xci. 1. 6 Eight times, else only in 2 Cor. vi. 18. referring 
 
 to the O. T. « xiii. 6. 7 i^i, nei, This last is from an old root, 
 
 117 i. q. ■ni!'. 8 s.Cyr. « S.John vi. 48, 51. 'o lb. xii. 24. >'Hos.iii.4. 
 
 '= S.Matt. iv. 4. '3 2 Cor.iii. 15. " Prov. x. 3. 
 
 of cattle are perplexed, because they have chrTst 
 
 no pasture ; yea, the flocks of sheep are "'■ *^- 
 made desolate. 
 
 19 O Lord, ''to thee will I cry : for "the ^ P8.60.15. 
 
 fire hath devoured the || pastures of the ch.'2.'3. ' 
 
 wilderness, and the flame hath burned all (J/„^"/' 
 the trees of the field. 
 
 of God then is food. Tliis hath i)een taken away from the Jews; 
 for they understood not the writings of Moses, but to this day 
 the veil is iqion their heart^K For they hate the oracles of Christ. 
 All spiritual food isperished,not in itself but to them. To them, 
 it is as though it were not. But the Lord Himself imparts to 
 those who believe in Him a right to all exuberance of joy in the 
 good things from above. For it is written '*, The Lord will not 
 suffer the soul of the righteous to famish ; but He thrusts away 
 the desire of the vjicked." 
 
 17. The seed is rotten under the clods. Not only was all 
 to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the fu- 
 ture. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known 
 to God, was dried up, and so decayed. The garners lay deso- 
 late, nay, were allowed to go to ruin, in hopelessness of any 
 future harvest. 
 
 18. How do the beasts groan ! There is something very pi- 
 tiable in the cry of the brute creation, even because they are in- 
 nocent, yet bear man's guilt. Their groaning seems to the Pro- 
 phet to be beyond expression. Hoiv vehemently do they groan! 
 The herds of cattle are perplexed, as though, like man, they 
 were endued with reason, to debate where to find their food. 
 Yea, not these only, but the flocks of sheep, which might find 
 pasture where the herds could not, these too shall bear the 
 punishment of guilt. They suffered by the guilt of man ; and 
 yet so stupid was man, that he was not so sensible of his own 
 sin for which they sufl"ered, as they of its effect. The beasts 
 cried to God, but even their cries did not awaken His own 
 people. The Prophet cries for them ; 
 
 19. O Lord, to Thee luill I cry. This is the only hope left, 
 and contains all hopes. From the Lord was the infliction ; 
 in Him is the healing. The Prophet appeals to God by His 
 own Name, the faithful Fulfiller of His promises. Him Who 
 Is, and Who had promised to hear all who call upon Him. Let 
 others call to their idols, if they would, or remain stupid and 
 forgetful, the Prophet would cry unto God, and that earnestly. 
 
 For the fire hath devoured the pastures. The gnawing of 
 locusts leaves things, as though scorched by fire^^; the sun and 
 the East wind scorch up all green things, as though it had been 
 the actual contact of fire. Spontaneous combustion fre- 
 quently follows. The Chaldees wasted all before them with fire 
 and sword. All these and the like calamities are included un- 
 der the fire, whose desolating is without remedy. What has 
 been scorched by fire never recovers. " ^^ The famine," it is 
 said of Mosul, "was generally caused by fire spreading in dry 
 weather over pastures, grass lands, and corn lands, many miles 
 in extent. It burnt night and day often for a week and some- 
 times embraced the whole horizon." 
 
 1^ See on ii. 3. '^ Ainsworth, ii. 127. " The whole of the mountain is thickly covered 
 with dry grass which readily takes tire, and the slightest breath of air instantly spreads the 
 conflagration far over the country. The Arabs who inhabit the valley of the Jordan in- 
 variably put to death any person who is known to have been even the innocent cause of 
 firing the grass, and they have made it a public law among themselves, that even in the 
 height of intestine warfare, no one shall attempt to set his enemy's harvest on fire. One 
 evening at Tabaria, I saw a large fire on the opposite side of the lake, which spread with 
 great velocity for two days, till its progress was checked by the Wady Feik." Burck- 
 hardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 331,2. See also Thomson, i. 529.
 
 CHAPTER IF. 
 
 Ill 
 
 CH hTst 20 The beasts of the field ■' cry also unto 
 "'*•• ^'^"- thee : for "the rivers of waters are dried 
 
 d Job 38. 41. 
 
 Ps. ioi.2i. "Pi «in<l th(^ fire hath devoured the pastures 
 e iKMigsir.T. of the wilderness. 
 *"* '• CHAPTER n. 
 
 1 He sheweth unto Zion the terribleness of God's 
 judgment. V2 lie exiiarteth to repentance, \bpre- 
 scriheth a fust, 18 promiseth a Ijlessing thereon. 
 
 20. The beasts of the field cry also unto Thee. "^ There is 
 an order in those distresses. First he ))oints out tlic insensate 
 thinf^s wasted; then tlioseafflieted, which iiave sense only; then 
 those endowed with reason ; so that to the order of calamity 
 there may be consorted an order ofpity, sparing first the crea- 
 ture, then tiic tliini;s sentient, then thinijs rational. The Crea- 
 tor spares the creature; theOrdainer,thins;;s sentient; the Savi- 
 our.thc rational." Irrational creatures joined withtheProphet 
 in his cry. The beasts of the fieldcry to God, though tiiey know 
 it not ; it is a cry to God, Who compassionates all which suffers. 
 God makes them, in act, a picture of dependence u])on His Pro- 
 vidence, '• seeking to It for a removal of their sufferings, and 
 supply of their wants." So He saith -, theyoinig lions roar after 
 their prey, and seek their meat from God, and ■', He giveth to the 
 beast his food and to the yoaug ravens that cry. and *, JVhopro- 
 videthfor the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God. 
 If the people would not take instruction from him, he "bids 
 them learn from thebeasts of the field how to l)chave amid these 
 calamities, that they should cry aloud to God to remove them." 
 
 II. I. The Prophet begins anew in this chapter, first deli- 
 neating in greater detail the judgments of God ; then calling 
 to repentance. The image reaches its height in the capture of 
 Jerusalem by the Babylonians, itself an image only of worse 
 judgments, first on the Jews by the Romans ; then on particu- 
 lar Churches; then of the inflictionsthrough Anti-Christ; lastly 
 on the whole world. "^The Prophet sets before them the great- 
 ness of the coming woe, of the approaching captivity, of the de- 
 struction imminent, in order to move tlie people to terror at the 
 judgment of God, to compunction, to love of obedience. This 
 he does from the manifoldness of the destruction, the quality of 
 the enemy, the nature of the victory, the weight of the misery, 
 the ease of the triumph, the eagerness for ill, the fear of the be- 
 sieged princes, the sluggishness of the besieged people. He 
 exhorts ail in common to prostrate themselves at the feet of 
 the Divine judgment, if so be God would look down from His 
 dwellingplace, turn the storm into a calm, and at length out of 
 the shipwreck of captivity bring them back to the haven of 
 consolation." "^ It is no mere prediction. Everything stands 
 before them, as in actual experience, and before their eyes." 
 Things future afifcct men less; so he makes them, as it were, 
 present to their souls. "°He will not let them vacillate about 
 repentance, but bids them, laying aside all listlessness, set 
 themselves courageously to ward oiF the peril, by running to 
 God, and effacing the charges against them from their old 
 sins by ever-renewed amendment." 
 
 Bloiv ye the trumpet. The trumpet was wont to sound 
 in Zion, only for religious uses ; to call together the congrega- 
 tions for holy meetings, to usher in the beginnings of their 
 months and their solemn days with festival gladness. Now in 
 Zion itself, the strong-hold of the kingdom, the Holy City, the 
 place which God chose to put His Name tbere, which He had 
 
 1 Hugo de S. v. » Ps. civ. 21. 
 
 3 Ps.cxlvii. 9. ■• Job xxxviii. 41. 5 S. Cyr. MPet. iv.l7. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 B" 
 
 21 He comforleth Zion with present, 28 and 
 future blessings. 
 
 lOW yv. the || trumpet in Zion, and 
 sound an alarm in my holy moun- 
 tain : let all the inhal)itants of the hmd 
 tremble : for Hhe day of the Lord cometh, 
 for it is nii^h at hand ; 
 
 2 -i A day of darkness and of ^rloominess, ' ^j™™ ^- ^®' 
 
 ■ Jer.4.5. 
 ver. 1.5. 
 
 I Or, cornet. 
 ■■ Num.10. 
 5,9. 
 
 ■ ch. 1.1.5. 
 Obad. 15. 
 Zeph. 1.14, 
 1.5. 
 
 promised to establish, the trumpet was to be used, only for 
 sounds of alarm and fear. Alarm (;ould not penetrate there, 
 witiiout having pervaded the whole land. With it, the whole 
 human hope of Judali was gone. 
 
 Sound an alarm in My holy mountain. He repeats the warn- 
 ing in varied expressions, in order the more to imjiress men's 
 hearts and to stir tiiem to repentance. Even the holi/ moun- 
 tain of God was to echo with alarms; the holinc-s, once; be- 
 stowed upon it, was to be no security against the judgments of 
 God ; yea, in it rather were those judgments to begin. So St. 
 Peter saith''. The time is come, that judgment must begin at the 
 house of God. The alarm being blown in Zion, terror was to 
 spread to all the inhal)itants of the land, who were, in fear, to 
 repent. The Church of Christ is foretold in prophecy under 
 the names of Zion and of the holy mountain. It is the stone 
 cut outivithout hands, U'hich became a great mountain, and filled 
 the whole earth''. Of it, it is said", Come ye and let us go up to 
 the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ! 
 And St. Paul says, j/e are come unto ntount Zion anil unto the ci- 
 ty of the living GoiP. The words then are a rule for all times. 
 The judgments predicted by Joel represent all judgments unto 
 the end ; the conduct, prescribed on their approach. is a pattern 
 to the Church at all times. "'"In this mountain we must wail, 
 considering the failure of the h\\tMvL\,\n\v\\\ch,ini(juity abound- 
 ing, charity wax'cth cold. For now (A.U. 1450) the state of the 
 Church is so sunken, and you may see so great misery in her 
 from the most evil conversation of many, that one m ho burns 
 with zeal for God, and truly loveth his brethren, must say with 
 Jeremiah '1, Let mine eyes run doivn tvith tears night and day, 
 and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is 
 broken with a great breach." 
 
 Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. "i°We should be 
 troubledwhen we hear thewords of God,rebuking,threatening, 
 avenging, as Jeremiah saith'-, my heart within me is broken, all 
 my bones shake, because of the Lord a)id because of the rcords of 
 His holiness. Good is the trouble which shaketh carnal peace, 
 vain security, and the rest of bodily delight, when men, weigh- 
 ing their sins, are shaken with fear and trembling,and repent." 
 
 For the Day of the Lord is at hand. The Day of the Lord 
 is any day in which He avengeth sin, any day of J\ulgment, 
 in the course of His Providence or at the end; the day of Je- 
 rusalem from the Chaldecs or Romans, the day of Anti-Christ, 
 the day of general or particular judgment, of which St. James 
 says'^, Tlie coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Behold the Judge 
 staiuleth before the door. "'Well is that called the day of the 
 Lord, in that, by the Divine appointment, it avengeth the 
 wrongs done to the Lord through the disobedience of His 
 people." 
 
 2. A day of darkness and of gloominess. "'"A day full of 
 miseries ; wherefore he accumulates so many names of terrors. 
 There was inner darkness in the heart, and the darkness of tri- 
 
 » Heb. xii.22. 
 
 Dau.ii.34,5. 
 '» Dion. 
 
 z2 
 
 " xiv. 1". 
 
 8 Is.u. 3. 
 " xxiii.9. 
 
 " T. S, 9.
 
 112 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst ^ *^*y ^f clouds and of thick darkness, as 
 
 ™- 8»»- the morninu; spread upon the mountains : 
 
 ' ve;.^5,n,25. " a great people and a strong ; Hhere hath 
 
 f Ex! 10. I'l" ' 
 
 bulation without. Theyhid themselves in dark places. There 
 was thecloudbetweeiiGodaiidtliem; sothat tlicywere not pro- 
 tected nor heard by Him, of which Jeremiah saith', T/iou /ut.st 
 covered T/n/se/f with a cloud, t/i'if our prai/ers should not pa.ss 
 through. There was thewhirhvind oftempestwitliin and with- 
 out, taking awayall rest,traiH|uiHityand peace. Whence Jere- 
 miah hath", A whirl wi)id of the Lord is gone forth in fury, it 
 shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of 
 the Lord shall not return, until He have e.ve.cuted it." ^The 
 Day of the Lord too shall come as a thief in the night. Clouds 
 and darkness are round about Him *. 
 
 A day of clouds and of thick darkness. The locusts are but 
 the faint shadow of the coniinc^ evils, yet as the first harbinjijers 
 of God's successive judiiincnts, the imai!;ery,even in this picture, 
 is probably taken from them. At leastthere is nothinc; in which 
 writers, of every character, are so agreed, as in speakinjj of lo- 
 custs as clouds darkening the sun. "^These creatures do not 
 come in legions, but in whole clouds, 5 or 6 leagues in length 
 and 2 or 3 in breadth. All the air is full and darkened when 
 theyfly. Though the sun shine ever so bright, it is no brighter 
 than when most clouded." "^In Senegal we have seen a vast 
 multitude of locusts shadowing the air ; for they come almost 
 everythree years,and darken the sky." '"^AboutHo'clockthere 
 arose above us a thick cloud, which darkened the air, depriving 
 us of the rays of the sun. Every one was astonished at so sud- 
 den a change in the air, which is so seldom clouded at this sea- 
 son ; but we soon saw that it was owing to a cloud of locusts. It 
 was about 20 or 30 toises from the ground [120-1 80 feet] and 
 covered several leagues of the country, when it discharged a 
 shower of locusts, who fed there while they rested, and then re- 
 sumed their flight. This cloud was brought by a pretty strong 
 wind; itwasallthemorning passing theneighbourhood,andthe 
 same wind, it was thought, j)recipitated it in the sea." "*They 
 take off from the place the light of day, and a sort of eclipse is 
 formed." "^Inthe middle of Apriltheir numberswere so vastly 
 increased, that in the heat of the day they formed themselves 
 intolargebodies,appearcd like a succession of clouds and dark- 
 ened the sun." "'"On looking up, we perceived an immense 
 cloud, here and there semi-transparent, in other parts quite 
 black, that spread itself all over the sky, and at intervals sha- 
 dowed the sun." The most unimaginative writers have said 
 the same ;"" When theyfirst appear,a thick dark cloud is seen 
 very high in the air, which, as it passes, obscures thesun. Their 
 swarms were so astonishing in all the steppes over which we 
 passed in this part of our journey [the Crimea,] that the whole 
 face of nature might have been described as concealed by a liv- 
 ing veil." '"-When these clouds of locusts take their flight to 
 surmount some obstacle, or traverse more rapidly a desert soil, 
 one maysay,to the letter,thatthe heavenis darkened by them." 
 
 As the morning spread tipon the moiattains. Some have 
 thought tliis too to allude to the appearance which the inha- 
 bitants of Abyssinia too well knew, as preceding the coming of 
 the locusts'^. Asoinbre yellowlight is cast on the ground,from 
 
 ' Lam.iii.44. ' xxiii.l9. ' 1 Tliess. v. 2. ■• Ps. xcvii. 2. 
 
 ' Bfauplan, Ukraine, I.e. p. 599. 6 Aluise, da c^ da MostoNavig. c. 13. 
 
 I Adansson, Voyage au Senegal, p. 87. 8. » Nieuhoft', Cliina, p. 377. 
 
 » Shaw, p. 256. '» Morier, Second Journey, p. 98. 
 
 II Clarke.i.c. IS.p. 137. i' Volney,i.277. " While I wasat Salein Morocco, after 
 midday the sun was darkened, we knew not why, until we saw very many kinds of locusts, 
 exceeuinggreat." H.Anania oi Fez,in Lud.Coinm. p. 176. "The waggons passed directly 
 
 not been ever the like, neither shall be any ^ ,fff;'^.f 
 more after it, even to the years f of many '^"■^*^»- 
 
 generations. 
 
 f Heb.o/^ene- 
 
 ration and 
 
 generation. 
 
 the reflection, it was thought, of their yellow wings. But that 
 appearance itself seems to be peculiar to that country, or per- 
 haps to certain flights of locusts. The image naturally de- 
 scribes, the suddenness, universality of the darkness, when 
 men looked for light. As the mountain-tops first cratch the 
 gladdening rays of the sun, ere yet it riseth on the plains, and 
 the light spreads from height to height, until the whole earth 
 is arrayed in light, so wide and universal shall the outspread- 
 ing be, but it shall be of darkness, not of light ; the light it- 
 self shall be turned into darkness. 
 
 A great people and a strong. The imagery throughout 
 these verses is taken from the flight and inroad of locusts. 
 The allegory is so complete, that the Prophet compares them 
 to those things which are, in part, intended under them, war- 
 riors, horses and instruments of war ; and this, the more, be- 
 cause neither locusts nor armies are exclusively intended. 
 The object of the allegory is to describe the order and course 
 of the Divine judgments ; how they are terrific, irresistible, uni- 
 versal, overwhelming, penetrating everywhere, overspreading 
 all things, excluded by nothing. The locusts are the more 
 striking symbol of this, through their minuteness and their 
 number. They are little miniatures of a well-ordered army, 
 unhindered by what would be physical obstacles to larger crea- 
 tures, moving in order inimitable even by man, and, from their 
 number, desolating to the uttermost. " What more countless 
 or mightier than the locusts," asks S. Jerome, who had seen 
 their inroads, " which human industry cannot resist ? " " It is 
 a thing invincible," says S. Cyril, " their invasion is altogether 
 irresistible, and suffices utterly to destroy all in the fields." Yet 
 each of these creatures is small, so that they would be power- 
 less and contemptible, except in the Hands of Him, Who brings 
 them in numbers which can be wielded only by the Creator. 
 Wonderful image of the judgments of God, Who marshals and 
 combines in one, causes each unavailing in itself, but working 
 together the full completion of His inscrutable Will. 
 
 There hath not been ever the like. The courses of sin and 
 of punishment are ever recommencing anew in some part of 
 the world and of the Church. The whole order of each, sin 
 and punishment, will culminate once only, in the Day of Judg- 
 ment. Then only will these words have their complete fulfil- 
 ment. The Day of Judgment alone is that Day of terror and 
 of woe, such as never has been before, and shall never be again. 
 For there will be no new day or time of terror. Eternal pu- 
 nishment will only be the continuation of the sentence adjudg- 
 ed then. But, in time and in the course of God's Providential 
 government, the sins of each soul or people or Church draw 
 down visitations,which are God's final judgments there. Such 
 to the Jewish people, before the Captivity, was the destruction 
 of the Temple, the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 and that Captivity itself. The Jewish polity was never again 
 restored as before. Such, to the new polity after the Capti- 
 vity, was the destruction by the Romans. Eighteen hundred 
 years have seen nothing like it. The Vandals and then the 
 
 through them, before which they rose up in a cloud which darkened the air on each 
 side." )5arrow,S.Al'r. i.242. "A.D.1668, there were, in thewholecountryof Cyprus, such 
 numbers of locusts, that wlien they flew, they were like a dark cloud, through which the rays 
 of the sun could scarcely penetrate." Le Bruyn, Lev.c. 72. "The swarm had exactly the ap- 
 pearance of a vast snow-cloud hanging on the slope of a mountain from which the snow 
 was falling in very large flakes." Lichtenstein, c. 46. " The air at a distance had tb^ 
 appearance of smoke." Forskal,p.8. " See on ver. 6,
 
 CPIAPTER II. 
 
 113 
 
 chrTst "^ ^ -^ ^^'^ devoureth before them; 
 "'"■ '^""- and behind them a flame burneth : the 
 
 If ch. 1.19, 20. 
 
 Mohammedans swept over the Churches of North Africa, eacli 
 destructive in its own way. Twelve centuries have witnessed 
 one unbroken desolation of the Church in Africa. In Con- 
 stantinople, and Asia Minor, Palestine, Persia, Churches of 
 the Redeemer became the mosques of the false prophet. Cen- 
 turies have flowed by, yet we see not oitr sif^ns, iteitlter is there 
 (uii/(im(mgus,tliaf IciKiireth how loiiff^. Wealtliy. i)usy, restless, 
 intellectual, de;;raded, London, sender forth of missionaries, 
 but, save in China, the larg-est heathen city in the world ; con- 
 verter of the isles of the sea, but thyself unconverted ; fullest of 
 riches and of misery, of civilization and of savaj^e life, of re- 
 finements and debasement; heart, whose pulses are felt in 
 every continent, but thyself diseased and feeble, wilt thou, in 
 this thy day, anticipate by thy conversion the Day of the Lord, 
 or will It come upon thee, as hath never heeu the like, nor shall 
 be, for the years of many generations ? Shalt thou win thy lost 
 ones to Christ, or be thyself the birthplace or abode of Anti- 
 Christ ? O Lord God, Thou laioivest. 
 
 Yet the words have fulfilments short of the end. Even of 
 successive chastisements upon the same people, each may have 
 some aifp;ravation peculiar to itself, so that of each, in turn, 
 it may be said, in tJiat respect, that no former visitation had 
 been like it, none afterwards should resemble it. Thus the 
 Chaldseans were chief infierceness,AntiochusEpiphanes in his 
 madness against God, the Romans in the completeness of the 
 desolation. The fourth beast which Daniel saw was- dreaaful 
 and terrible and strong exceedingly, and it was diverse from all 
 the beasts that were before it. The persecutions of the Roman 
 Emperors were in extent and cruelty far beyond any before 
 them. They shall be as nothing, in comparison to the deceiv- 
 ableness and oppression of Anti-Christ. The Prophet, how- 
 ever, does not say that there should be absolutely 7ione like it, 
 but only not/or the years of many generations. The words tinto 
 generation and generation elsewhere mean /or ever; here the 
 word "years " may limit them to length of time. God, after 
 some signal visitation, leaves a soul or a people to the silent 
 workings of His grace or of His Providence. The marked in- 
 terpositions of His Providence, are, like His extraordinary mi- 
 racles, rare ; else, like the ordinary miracles of His daily ope- 
 rations, they would cease to be interpositions. 
 
 3. A fire devoureth before them S)C. Travellers, of differ- 
 ent nations and characters, and in different lands, some un- 
 acquainted with the Bible words, have agreed to describe un- 
 der this image the ravages of locusts. "^They scorch many 
 things with their touch." '•* Whatever of herb or leaf they 
 gnaw,is,as it were, scorched by fire." "^Wherever they come, 
 the ground seems burned, as it were with fire." " ^ Wherever 
 they pass, they burn and spoil every thing, and that irreme- 
 diably." "' I have myself observed that the places where they 
 had browsed were as scorched, as if the fire had passed there." 
 '• ^ They covered a square mile so completely, that it appeared, 
 at a little distance, to have been burned and strewn over with 
 brown ashes. Not a shrub, nor a blade of grass was visible." 
 '" A few months afterwards, a much larger army alighted and 
 gave the whole country the appearanceof havingbeenburned." 
 '• Wherever they settled, it looks as if fire had devoured and 
 burnt up every thing." " ^° It is better to have to do with the 
 
 iPs. lxxiv.9. = Dan. vii. r-19. 3 pUn. xi. 35. ■• Lud. Hist ^th. i. 13. 
 
 ' Alvarez, c. 32. ' Villamont, Voyage, p. 22(3. 7 Le Bruyn, Lev. c. 72. 
 ' Barrow, S. Afr. i. 242. " According to all accounts, wherever the swarms of locusts 
 arrive, the vegetables are sometunes entirely consumed and destroyed, appearing as if 
 
 land u" as ''the f^arden of Eden before chIust 
 
 tlieni, 'and beliind them a desoUite wil(h'r- 
 
 l- Oen.2.8.&13. 10. Is.",!. 3. 
 
 cir. 800. 
 1 Zech.r.U. 
 
 Tartars, than with these little destructive animals ; you would 
 think that fire followstheir track, "are the descriptionsof their 
 ravages in Italy, .^'^thiopia, the Levant, India, S. .Africa. The 
 locust, itself th(^ image of God's judgments, is desc,ril)cd as an 
 enemy, invading, as they say,"withfireandsword,"" breathing 
 fire," wasting all, as he advances, and leaving behind him tbe 
 l)lii(^kness of ashes, and burning villages. "" WHiatsoevcr he 
 seizeth on, he shall consiinu- as a devouring flame and shall 
 leave nothing whole behind him." 
 
 lYie land is as the garden of Eden before them. In outward 
 beauty the land was like that Paradise of God, where lie pla- 
 ced our first parents; as were Sodom and Goinorrha. before God 
 overthrew them^-. It was like a gardeii enclosed and ]irotected 
 from all inroad of evil. They sinned ; and like our first parents, 
 forfeited its bliss. A fruitful lujtd God maheth barren, for the 
 u'ickedness of them that dwell therein ^■'. Ezekiel foretells the 
 removal of the punishment,in connection with the Gospel-pro- 
 mise of '* anew heart and a, neiv spirit. Tiiey sluill sau. This 
 land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden. 
 
 And behind them a desolate wilderness. The desolation 
 caused by the locust is even more inconceivable to us, than their 
 numbers. We have seen fields blighted ; we have known of 
 crops, of most moment to man's support, devoured ; and in one 
 year we heard of terrific famine, as its result. We do not 
 readily set before our eyes a whole tract, embracing in extent 
 several of our counties, in which not the one or other crop was 
 smitten, but every green thing was gone. Yet such was the 
 scourge of locusts, the image of other and worse scourges in 
 the treasure-house of God's displeasure. A Syrian writer re- 
 lates ^^, " A.D. 1(X)4, a large swarm of locusts appeared in the 
 land of Mosul and Bagdad, and it was very grievous in Shiraz. 
 It left no herb imr even leaf on the trees, and even gnawed the 
 the pieces of linen which the fullers were bleaching: of each 
 piece the fuller gave a scrap to its owner : and there was a fa- 
 mine, and a cor [about two quarters] of wheat was sold in Bag- 
 dad for 120 gold dinars, [about £54]-." and again ", '■' when it 
 [thelocustof A.D.784,] hadconsumed thewhole tractof Edessa 
 and Sarug, it passed to the W. and for three years after this 
 heavy chastisement there was a famine in the land." '•''^ We 
 travelled five days through lands wholly despoiled : and for the 
 canes of maize, as large as the largest canes used to prop vines, 
 it cannot be said how they were broken and trampled, as if 
 asses had trampled them ; and all this from the locusts. The 
 wheat, barley, tafos^*, were as if they had never been sown ; the 
 trees without a single leaf; the tender wood all eaten : there 
 was no memory of herb of any sort. If we had not been ad- 
 vised to take mules, laden with barley and provisions for our- 
 selves, we should have perished of hunger, we and our mules. 
 This land was all covered with locusts without wings, and they 
 said that they were the seed of tho,<e who had all gone, who had 
 destroyed the land." '• ^^ Everjwhere, where their legions 
 march, verdure disappears from the country, like a (curtain 
 which is folded up; trees and plants stripped of leaves, and re- 
 duced to their branches and stalks, substitute, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, the dreary spectacle of winter for the rich scenes of 
 spring." " Happily this plague is not very often repeated ; for 
 there is none which brings so surely famine and the diseases 
 
 tliey had been burnt up bv fire." Span-man, i. 367. ' Forbes, ii. 274. 
 
 w Volnev, i. 17". " S. Jer. ^ Gen. xiii. 10. 
 
 '3 Ps. cvii. Zi. » Ezek. xxxvi. 2G, 35. is Barhebr. Chron. Syr. p. 214. '^ lb. 
 p. 134. '' Alvarez, c. 33. '* One of the best iEthiopian grains.' ''•' Vobey, i. 277.
 
 114 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst "^^^5 y^^' '"^^^ nothing shall escape them. 
 cir. 800. 4 krpije appearance of them is as the 
 
 ' Rev. 9. 7. 
 
 Before 
 
 appearance of horses ; and as horsemen, en hist 
 so shall they run. "'"■ **""• 
 
 which follow it." "' Desolation and famine mark their pro- 
 i^ress; allthe expectations of theliusbandmanvanish;his fields, 
 which' the risinfj sun beheldcovcrcd with luxuriance, arc before 
 evenins: a desert ; the produce of his j^^ardcn and orciiard are 
 alike destroyed; for where these destructive swarms aliji:ht, not 
 a leaf is left upon the trees, a blade of jirass in the pastures, nor 
 an ear of corn in the field." ""In 1654 a f,n-eat multitude of lo- 
 custs came from the N. W. to the Islands Tayyovvan and For- 
 mosa, which consumed all that grew in the fields,so that above 
 eig^ht thousand men perished by famine." "^ They come some- 
 times in sucii i)rodii;ious swarms, that they darken the sky as 
 they pass by, and devour all in those parts where they settle, 
 so tiiat the inhabitants are often obliged to change their habi- 
 tations for want of sustenance, as it has happened frequently 
 in China and the Isle of Tajowak." "*The lands, ravaged 
 throughout the Wcst,produced noharvest. The year 1780 was 
 still more wretched. A dry winter produced a new race of lo- 
 custs which ravaged what had escaped the inclemency of the 
 season. The husbandman reaped not what he had sown, and 
 was reduced tohave neither nourishment, seed, nor cattle. The 
 people experienced all the horrors of famine. You might see 
 them wandering over the country to devour the roots ; and, 
 seeking in the bowels of the earth for means to lengthen their 
 days, perhaps they rather abridged them. A countless num- 
 ber died of misery and bad nourishment. I have seen coun- 
 trymen on the roads and in the streets dead of starvation, 
 whom others were laying across asses, to go bury them. Fa- 
 thers sold their children. A husband,in concert with his wife, 
 went to marry her in some other province as if she were his sis- 
 ter, and went to redeem her, when better off. I have seen wo- 
 men and children rnn after the camels, seek in their dung for 
 some grain of indigested barley and devour it with avidity." 
 Yea, (Did nothing shall escape them ; or (which the words 
 also include) none shall escape him, lit. and also there shall be 
 no escaping as to him ovfrom him. The word", being used else- 
 where of the persons who escape, suggests, in itself, that we 
 I should not linger by the type of the locusts only, but think of 
 enemies more terrrible,who destroynotharvesfs only,but men, 
 bodies or souls also. Yet the pictureof devastation is complete. 
 No creature of God so destroys the whole face of nature, as 
 does the locust. A traveller in the Crimea uses unconsciously 
 the words of the Prophet^; " On whatever spot they fall, the 
 whole vegetable produce disappears. Nothing escapes them, 
 from the leaves of the forest to the herbs on the plain. Fields, 
 vineyards, gardens, pastures, every thing is laid waste ; and 
 sometimes the only appearance left is a disgusting superfi- 
 cies caused by their putrifying bodies, the stench of which 
 is sufficient to breed a pestilence." Another in S. Africa 
 says '', " When they make their appearance, not a single field of 
 corn remains unconsumed by them. This year the whole of 
 the Sneuwberg will not, I suppose, produce a single bushel." 
 "^They had [for a space 80 or 90 miles in length] devoured 
 every green herb and every blade of grass ; and had it not been 
 for the reeds on which our cattle entirely subsisted while we 
 skirted the banks of the river, the journey must have been dis- 
 
 1 Forbes, c. 22. ii. 273. 2 Nieuhoff, 2nd. Erab. to China, p. 29. 
 
 3 Nieuhofl', Voyage in Churchill, ii. 359. ■< Chenier, iii. 496-8. 
 
 * no'Va as " captivity " for " captives." ^ Clarke, i. 428, 9. ' Barrow, i. 24S, 9. 
 8 lb. 257. 9 lb. 242. i" Le Bruyn, c. 4<i. " Ps. xcvii. 3. 
 
 " Is. Ixvi. 15, 16. 13 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. n 2 Pet. iii. 10. i^ 1 Thess. iv. 17. 
 
 " S. Matt. xiii. 41. i? S. Luke xvii. 27, 8, 30. '^ Rev. xviii. 7, 8, 17. 
 
 continued, at least in the line that had been proposed." "°Not 
 a shrub nor blade of grass was visible." The rapidity with 
 which they complete the destruction is also observed "^ " In 
 two hours, they destroyed all the herbs around Rama." 
 
 All this which is a strong, but true, image of the locusts is 
 a shadow of God's other judgments. It is often said of God ^', 
 A fire goeth before Him and burnetii up His enemies 07i every 
 side. ^'-The Lord will come with fire ; bijfire will the Lord plead 
 with all flesh. This is saidof the Judgment-day,asin S. Paul ^^, 
 The Lord Jesus shall he revealed from lieaven with His mighty 
 angels, in flaming fire taking vengea?ice on them that know not 
 God, anil that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 That aweful lurid stream of fire shall burn up the earth and all 
 the works that are therein^''. All this whole circuit of the globe 
 shall be enveloped in one burning deluge of fire ; all gold and 
 jewels, gardens, fields, pictures, books, " the cloud-capt towers 
 and gorgeous palaces, shall dissolve, and leave not a rack be- 
 hind." The good shall be removed beyond its reach ; for they 
 shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air ^ '. But all whicli 
 is in the earth and those who are of the earth shall be swept 
 away by it. It shall go before thearmy of the Lord, the Angels 
 whom^" the Son of Man shall send forth, to gather out of His 
 kingdom all things that shall offend and them that do iniquity. 
 It shall hum after them. For it shall burn on during the Day 
 of Judgment until it have consumed all for which it is sent. 
 The land will he a garden of Eden before it. For they will, 
 our Lord says, be eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, 
 building, marrying and giving in marriage '"; the world will be 
 glorifying itself and living deliciously,t'a]l of riches and delights, 
 when it shall he utterly burned withjire, and in one hour so great 
 riches shall come to nought ^'^. And after it a desolate wilder- 
 ness, for there shall be none left. And none shall escape. For 
 our Lord says '^, they shall gather all things that offend; the an- 
 gels shall come forth and sever theiuicked frotu among the just, 
 and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. 
 
 4. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, 
 " If you carefully consider the head of the locust," says The- 
 odoret, a Bishop in Syria, "you will find it exceedingly like 
 that of a horse." Whence the Arabs, of old-" and to this day -', 
 say ; " In the locust, slight as it is, is the nature often of the 
 larger animals, the face of a horse, the eyes of an elephant, the 
 neck of a bull, the horns of a deer, the chest of a lion, the beUy 
 of a scorpion, the wings of an eagle, the thighs of a camel, the 
 feet of an ostrich, the tail of a serpent." 
 
 5. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains 
 shall they leap. The amazing noise of the flight of locusts is 
 likened by those who have heard them, to all sorts of deep 
 sharp rushing sounds. One says"-, " their noise may be heard 
 six miles off." Others, " -^ within a hundred paces I heard the 
 rushing noise occasioned by theflight of so manymillions of in- 
 sects. When I was in the midst of them, it was as loud as the 
 dashing of thewaters occasioned bythe mill-wheel." "-* While 
 passing over our heads, their sound was as of a great cataract." 
 "25 ^Yg heard a noise as of the rushing of a great wind at a dis- 
 tance." "-^ In flying they make a rushing rustling noise, as 
 
 >« S. Matt. xiii. 41, 49, 50. -o Demiriin Bochart, ii.iv.4. 
 
 "' The Arabs remarked to Niebuhr, the likeness to the horse, the lion, the camel, the 
 serpent, the scorpion ; and foremost that of the head to the horse's. Descr. de I' Arabic, 
 p. 153. -2 Remigius, ad loc, *'as they relate," he adds, " into whose 
 
 country they have been often wont to come." 32 Liclitenstein, c. 4fi. ^i Forskal, 
 p.81. 2= Morier, 2nd Joumey,p.9S. *« Nieuhoff, 2nd. Emb. p. 29.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 115 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. SOO. 
 
 ' Rev. 9. 9. 
 
 ■n ver. 2. 
 
 5 ' Like the noise of cluvriots on tlie 
 .tops of mountains shall they leap, like the 
 noise of a flame of tire that devoureth the 
 stuhhle, " as a stron<^ people set in battle 
 array. 
 
 when a strong wind blowsthrouith trees." "^Thcyctausea noise, 
 like the rushing; of a torrent." To add another vivid deserijt- 
 tion^, "When a swarm is advaneini;-, it seems as thoufjh brown 
 clouds were risina: from the horizon, wliich, as they approaeli, 
 spread more and more. They cast a veil over the sun and a 
 shadow on the earth. Soon you see little dots, and observe a 
 whizzing: and life. Nearer yet, the sun is darkened ; you hear 
 a roaring and rushing: like gushing water. On a sudden you 
 find yourself surrounded with locusts." 
 
 IJAe the noise of aflame of fire that devoureth the stuhhle. 
 The sharp noise caused by these myriads of insects, while feed- 
 ing-, has also been noticed. "^You hear afar the noise whicli 
 they make in browsing on the herbs and trees, as of an army 
 which is foragingwithout restraint." "* Whentheyalight upon 
 the ground to feed, the plains are all covered, and they make a 
 murmuring noise as they eat, when in two hours they devour all 
 close to the ground." "^The noise which they make in devour- 
 ing, ever announces their approach at some distance." '"'They 
 say,that not without a noise is their descent on the fields efl"ect- 
 ed, and that there is a certain sharp sound, as they chew the 
 corn, as when the wind strongly fanneth a flame." 
 
 Their noise, Joel says, is like the noise of chariots. Whence 
 St. John says'', the sound of their ivings was as the sound of ma- 
 ny horses rHshi)ig to battle. Their sound should be like the 
 sound of war-chariots, bounding in their speed ; but their in- 
 road shouldbe, where chariots could not go and man's foot could 
 rarely reach, ou the fops of the mountains^. A mountain range 
 is,next to the sea, the strongest natural protection. Mountains 
 have been a limit to the mightiest powers. The Caucasus of old 
 held in the Persian power; on the one side, all was enslaved, 
 on the other, all was fearlessly free^. Of late it enabled a few 
 mountaineers to hold at bay the power of Russia. The pass 
 of Thermopylae, until betrayed, enabled a handful of men to 
 check theinvasion of nearly twomillions. Themountain-ridges 
 of Spain were, from times before our Lord, the last home and 
 rallying-place of the conquered or the birth-place of deliver- 
 ance^°. God had assigned to His people a spot, central here- 
 after for theconversion of theworld, yet whcre,meantime, they 
 \&yei\ye.\o^eAa.nAs\\c\tcve:Aamidthe7nountainsvf\nc\\HisRight- 
 Hand purchased^^. The Syrians owned that their God was the 
 God of the hills^~ ; and the people confessed^^, as the hills are 
 round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people. 
 Their protection was a symbol of His. But His protection 
 withdrawn, nothing should be a hindrance to those whom He 
 should send as a scourge. The Prophet combines purposely 
 things incompatible, the terrible heavybounding of thescythed 
 chariot, and the light speed with which these (lountless hosts 
 should in their flight bound over the tops of the mountains, 
 where God had made no path for man. Countless in number. 
 
 The strong- 
 
 boundless in might, are the instruments of God. 
 
 ' Forbes, ii. 273. - Schlatter. Pliny says (probably of some smaller sort which 
 
 reached Italy.) " they fly with such clashing of wings, that they are believed to be other 
 large winged creatures." xi. 35. ^ Volney,i. 17". ■• Beauplan,i.599. ^ Chenier, iii.S2. 
 
 ^ S. Cyr. ' Rev. ix. 9. » It should be read, Like the noise ofc/mriols, on or 
 
 over the taps of mountains shall they leap. ' Herod, iii. ',)/. '<* See Alison's Hist, of 
 Europe, c. 53. beg. >' Ps. lxxviii.54. '= 1 Kings xx. 23. '^Ps.cxxv. 2. 
 
 '■* Fr. Alvarez, c. 32. *' In this part and in the whole seignory of Prester John, there 
 is a very great plague of locusts, wnich destroy every fresh green thing most grievously. 
 
 6 Before their face the people shall be chrTst 
 much jiained : " all faces shall j^ather "''•• ^'^- 
 t blackness. "i^-^^^: 
 
 7 They shall run like mii^hty men ; they ^^ifCi^: 
 shall climb the wall like men of war ; and 
 
 est national defences give no security. Where then is safety, 
 save in fleeing from God disi)leased to God appeased? 
 
 0. Before their face the peojile shall be much pained. The 
 locust being such a scourge of (iod, good reason have men to 
 be terrified at tlieir appntach ; and tiiose are most terrified who 
 have most felt the infliction. In Abyssinia, some province of 
 which was desolated every year, one relates ", " When the lo- 
 custs travel, the people know of it a day before, not be(;ause 
 they see them, but they see the sun yeUow and the ground yel- 
 low, through the shadow which they cast on it (tiicir wings 
 being yehow) and forthwith the people become as dead, saving, 
 'we are lost, for the Ambadas (so tlieycall them) are coming.' 
 I will say what I have seen three times ; the first was at Barva. 
 During three years that we were in this land, we often heard 
 them say, ' such a realm, such a land, is destroyed by locusts : ' 
 and when it was so, we saw this sign, the sun was yellow, and 
 the shadowon the earth the same,and the whole people became 
 as dead." "■ The Captain of the place called Coiberia came 
 to me with men. Clerks, and Brothers [Monks] to ask me, for 
 the love of God, to help them, that they were all lost through 
 the locusts." "1^ There were men, women, children, sitting 
 among these locusts, [the young brood] as stupified. I said 
 to them ' why do you stay there, dying? Why do you not 
 kill these animals, and avenge you of the evil which their pa- 
 rents have done you ? and at least when dead, they will do you 
 no more evil.' They answered, that they had no courage to 
 resist a plague which God gave tliem for their sins. W^e found 
 the roads full of men, women, and children, (some of these on 
 foot, some in arms) their bundles of clothes on their heads, re- 
 moving to some land where they might find provisions. It was 
 pitiful to see them." Burkhardt relates of S. Arabia, " ^°The 
 Bedouins who occupy the peninsula of Sinai are frequently 
 driven to despiar by the multitudes of locusts, which consti- 
 tute a land-plague. They remain there generally for forty or 
 fifty days, and then disappear for the rest of the year." Pliny 
 describes their approach, " ^'they overshadow the sun, the na- 
 tions looking up with anxiety, lest they should cover their 
 lands. For their strength suffices, and as if it were too little 
 to have passed seas, they traverse immense tracts, and over- 
 spread them with a cloud, fatal to the harvest." 
 
 All faces shall gather blackness. Others, of high authority, 
 have rendered, shall tvithdraw [their] beauty^^. But the word 
 signifies to collect together, in order that what is so collected 
 should be present, not absent i^; and so is very difi'erent from 
 another saying, the stars shall withdratv theirshining-". He ex- 
 presses how the faces contract a livid colour from anxiety and 
 fear, as Jeremiah says of the Nazarites -', Their visage is darker 
 than blackness. "--The faces are clothed with lurid hue of com- 
 ing death ; hence they not only grow pale, but are blackened." 
 A slight fear drives the fresh hue from the clieek : the livid hue 
 
 Their multitude is past belief, they cover the ground and fill the air ; they take away the 
 brightness from the sun. I say again, it would not be a thing to be believed, if one had 
 not seen it. They are not general m all the realms everj' year ; for if they were, the land 
 would be desert, according to the destruction which they make ; but in one year they are 
 in one part ; in another year, in another ;— sometimes in 2 or 3 parts of tliese provinces." 
 
 'Mb.c.33. ■ 16 Burckhardt, Notes,ii. 91. i7N.H.xi.35. 
 
 '* Abulwalid, Aben Ezra, see Poc. '^ Jos. Kimchi, lb. -" IBDK (ii.lO.iii. 15.) 
 The Mcir had also needed to be expressed. -' Lam. iv.S. see Margin. — Oros.
 
 IIG 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst t^'^^T *'i'^^^ march everyone on his ways, 
 "'•■ ■"""'■ and tliey sluiU not break their ranks : 
 
 8 Neitlier shall one thrust another ; 
 
 I'Oincs only "'itli the deepest terror. So Isaiah says' ; they look 
 amazed one to the other ; faces of flame are their faces. 
 
 7. They shall not like 7n>ghti/ nieti. They arc on God's 
 mcssajje, and they linger not, hut rejoice to run their course". 
 '• The iicij^lit of walls cannot hinder the charge of the mighty ; 
 they enter not by the gates bnt over tlic walls '," as of a city 
 taken by assault. Men can mount a wall few at a time ; the 
 locusts scale much more steadily, more compactly, more deter- 
 minately, and irresistibly. The picture unites the countless 
 multitude, (!ondensed march, and entire security of the locust 
 with the might of warriors. 
 
 21iei/ shall march every one on his tvays. There is some- 
 thing aweful and majestic in the well-ordered flight of the 
 wingedlocusts, or their march while yet unwinged. "This," 
 says S. Jerome, "we have seen lately in thisprovincc [Palestine.] 
 For when the hostsof locusts came, and filled the air between 
 heaven and earth, they flew, by the disposal of God ordaining, 
 ill such order, as to hold each his place, like the minute pieces 
 of mosaic, fixed in the pavement by the artist's hands, so 
 as not to incline to one another a hair's breadth." " You may 
 see the locust," says Theodoret, "like enemies, both mount- 
 ing the walls, and marching on the roads, and not allowing 
 itself to be dispersed by any violence, but making the assault 
 by a sort of concert." "It is said," says S.CyriJ, "that they go 
 in rank, and fly as in array, and are not severed from each 
 other, but attend one on the other, like sisters, nature infus- 
 ing intotliem this mutual love." "*Tlieyseemed tobe impelled 
 by one common instinct, and moved in one body, which had the 
 appearance of being organised by a leader." "^ There is some- 
 thing frightful in the appearance of these locusts proceeding 
 in divisions,some of which are a league in length and 200 paces 
 in breadth." ""They continued their journey, as if a signal had 
 been actually given them to march." So, of the young brood 
 it is related ; "^ In June, their young broods begin gradually to 
 make their appearance; no sooner were any of them hatched 
 than they immediately collected themselves together, each of 
 them forming a compact body of several hundred yards square, 
 which, marcliing afterwards directly forward, climbed over 
 trees, walls and houses, ate up every plant in their way, «?*(/ 
 let nothing escape them." " ^They seemed to march in regular 
 battalions, crawling over every thing that lay in their passage, 
 in one straight front." So the judgments of God hold on their 
 course, each going straight to that person for whom God in the 
 aweful wisdom of His justice ordains it. No one judgment or 
 chastisement comes by chance. Each is directed and adapted, 
 weighed and measured, by Infinite Wisdom, and reaches just 
 that soul, for which God appointed it, and no other, and strikes 
 upon it with just that force which God ordains it. As we look 
 on, God's judgments are like a heavy sleet of arrows ; yet as 
 each arrow, shot truly, found the mark at which it was aimed, 
 so, and much more, does each lesser or greater judgment, sent 
 by God, reach the heart for which He sends it and pierces it 
 just as deeply as He wills. 
 
 'xiii. 8. 2 Ps xix.S. ' S.Jer. < Morier, p. 98. ' Constitutionnel,1841. 
 
 ^ Pliilos. Trans. xlvi.'J.p.ST. ^ Shaw, p. 237. ^ Morier.p. 100. » Nieuhoff.2nd. 
 Enib. p. 29. 1" Sparrman, Cape of G. Hope, i. .366. " Barrow, p. 258. 12 Phil. Trans. 
 
 " Shaw, l.c.p.2i7. "Schlatter. '^ Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 103. 
 
 10 "Theinhabitantsof Asia,as well as Europe, sometimes take the field against locusts 
 with all the dreadful apparatus of war. The Bashaw of Tripoli in Syria, some years ago, 
 raised 4000 soldiers against these insects, and ordered those to be hanged who refused to 
 
 they shall walk every one in his path : and f^^^^\\ 
 ii'lien they fall upon the || sword, they shall "'■ ^"" 
 not be wounded. 
 
 Or, dart. 
 
 8. When thei/ fall upon the sword [lit. among the darts'] 
 they shall not he wounded. It may be that the Prophet would 
 describe how the locust seems armed as in a suit of armour. 
 As one says, ""Their form was wondrous; they had a sort of 
 gorget round their neck like a lancer, and a helm on their head, 
 such as soldiers wear." But, more, he exhibits tlieir indomi- 
 tableness and impenetrableness, how nothing (checks, nothing 
 retards, nothing makes any impression upon tiiem. "'"They 
 do not suff'er themselves to be impeded by any obstacles, but 
 fly boldly on, and are drowned in the sea when they come to it." 
 " " When on a march during the day, it is utterly impossible 
 to turn the direction of a troop, which is generally with the 
 wind." "'-The guard of the Red Town attempted to stop their 
 irruption into Transylvania by firing at them; and indeed when 
 the balls and shot swept through the swarm, they gave way 
 and divided ; but having filled up their ranks in a moment, they 
 proceeded on their journey." And in like way of the young 
 swarms; "'^Thcinhabitants, to stop theirprogress, made trench- 
 es all over their fields and gardens and filled them with water ; 
 or else, placing in a row great quantities of heath, stubble, and 
 such like combustible matter, they set them on fire on the ap- 
 proach of the locusts. But all this was to no purpose, for the 
 trenches were quickly filled up, and the fires put out by infi- 
 nite swarms, succeeding one another ; whilst the front seemed 
 regardless of danger, and the van pressed on so close, that a 
 retreat was impossible." " '* Like waves, they roll over one 
 another on and on, and let themselves be stopped by nothing. 
 Russians and Germans try many means with more or less suc- 
 cess against them, when they come from the waste against the 
 cornlands. Bundles of straw are laid in rows and set on fire 
 before them ; they march in thick heaps into the fire, but this 
 is often put out thro' the great mass of the animals and those 
 advancing from behind march away over the corpses of their 
 companions, and continue the march." "'^ Their number was 
 astounding ; the whole face of the mountain was black with 
 them. On they came like a living deluge. We dug trenches, 
 and kindled fires, and beat and burned to death heaps upon 
 heaps,but the effort wasutterlyuseless. Wave after wave roll- 
 ed up the mountain side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches 
 and hedges, those behind covering up and bridging over the 
 masses already killed. After a long and fatiguing contest, I 
 descended the mountain to examine the depth of the column, 
 but I could not see to the end of it." " It was perfectly appall- 
 ing to watch this animated river, as it flowed itp the road and 
 ascended the hill." Both in ancient and modern times,armies 
 have been marched against them '^ ; but in vain, unless they 
 destroyed them, before they were full-grown. 
 
 Since the very smallest of God's judgments are thus irrever- 
 sible, since creatures so small cannot be turned aside, since we 
 cannot turn away the face of one of the least of our Master's 
 servants, since they are each as a ma7i ofinight'^'' (so he calls 
 them, it is the force of the word rendered each) what of the 
 greater ? what of the whole ? 
 
 go." Hasselq. p. 447. " In Cyrenaica, there is a law to wage war with them thrice in the 
 year ; tirst crusning the eggs, then the young, then when full grown ; whoso neglects this, 
 lies under the penalty of a deserter. At Lemnos too a certain measure is tilled, which 
 each is to bring of these creatures killed, to the magistrates. In Syria too, they are com- 
 pelled, under military command, to kill them." Plin. xi. 35. " The marches cannot 
 be stopped ; only quite early, during the dew, when the locust can neither fly nor hop, 
 they must be killed in masses." Ersch, 34. " laj 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ii: 
 
 CHiiTsT ^ '^''•^y s^^'^^1 •*"» ^f> ^^'^ f'*^ i" the city ; 
 cir. 800. they shall run upon the wall, they shall 
 
 9. T/uy sh(tll run to and fro in the city. " The city" is 
 questionless Jcrusaleiii. So to the i^oiiuuis, " the city" meant 
 Rome ; to the Athenians, Athens ; anioni;; ourselves, "town" or 
 "the city" are idiomatic names for the \viiole of r^oiidon or "the 
 city of London." I u W'ales " town" is, with tiie country-peo- 
 ple, the neiji'hlxiurinji; town with which alone they are familiar. 
 There is no anihitc'iity in the livinij laiifjuai^e. In Guernsey, 
 one who should call Port St. Pierre by any other name than 
 "the town," would Ix'tray himself to be a stranjjer. In Hosca, 
 and Amos, prophets for Israel, the city is Samaria ^ In Solo- 
 mon' and the prophets of Judah^, the city is Jerusalem; and 
 that the more, because it was not only the capital, but the cen- 
 tre of tiie worship of the One True God. Hence it is called the 
 city of God'', the city of the Lord^, then the city of the Great 
 King^, the lioly city"' ; and God calls it tlie city I have chosen 
 out of all the trihes of Israel*, the city of righteousness^. So our 
 Lord spake'", ^o ye into the city, and perhaps, '' tarry ye in the 
 city. So do His Evangelists ^-, and so does Josephus i^. 
 
 All around corresponds with this. Joel had described their 
 approach; they had come over "the tops of the mountains," 
 those which protected Jerusalem ; and now he describes them 
 scaling: '^ the wall," "mounting the houses," " entering Me 
 windows," " running to and fro in the city." Here the de- 
 scription has reached its height. The city is given over to those 
 who assault it. There remaineth nothing more, save the 
 shaking of the heaven and the earth. 
 
 They shall enter in at the ivindou's. So in that first great 
 judgment, in which God employed the locust. He said, ^^ They 
 shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see 
 the earth ; and they shall fill thy houses, ajid the houses of all 
 thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians. "^^ For no- 
 thing denies a way to the locusts, inasmuch as they penetrate 
 fields, cornlands, trees, cities, houses, yea, the retirement of 
 the bed-chambers." " Not that they who are victors, have the 
 fear which thieves have, but as thieves are wont to enter 
 through windows, and plunder secretly, so shall these, if the 
 doors be closed, to cut short delay, burst with all boldness 
 through the windows." "i^We have seen this done, not by ene- 
 mies only, but often by locusts also. For not only flying, but 
 creeping up the walls also, they enter the houses through the 
 openings for light." "i'' A.D. 784, there came the flying locust, 
 and wasted the corn, and left its offspring ; and this came forth 
 and crawled, and scaled walls and entered houses by windows 
 and doors ; and if it entered the house on the S. side, it went out 
 on the N. ; together with herbs and trees it devoured also wool- 
 len clothing, and men's dresses." Modern travellers relate the 
 same. "^^ They entered the inmost recesses of the houses, were 
 found in every corner, stuck to our clothes and infested our 
 food." " ^^ They overwhelm the province of Nedjd sometimes 
 to such a degree, that having destroyed the harvest, they pene- 
 trate by thousands into the private dwellings, and devour 
 whatsoever they can find, even the leather of the water-vessels." 
 "-" In June 1646, at Novogorod it was prodigious to behold 
 them, because they were hatched there that spring, and being 
 as yet scarce able to fly, the ground was all covered, and the 
 
 1 Hos. xi. 9. Am. iii. 6. ■ Ps. Ixxii. 16. Prov. i. 21. viii. 3. 3 Mic. vi. 9. 
 
 Lam. i. 1, &c. Ezck. vii. 23. xxxiii. 21. ^ Ps. xlvi. 4. xlviii. 1, 8. Ixxxvii. 3. 
 
 * Ps. ci. 8. Is. Ix. 14. « Ps. xlviii. 2. S. Matt. v. 35. ' Is. xlviii. 2. Iii. 1. 
 
 Neh. xi. 1, 18. Dan. ix. 24. 3 1 Kings xi. 32. <> Is. i. 26. '» S. Matt. xxvi. 18. 
 S. Mark xiv. 13. S. Luke xxii. 10. " S. Luke xxiv. 49. Important MSS. omit 
 
 "Jerusalem." « S. Matt. xxi. 17, 18. xxviii. 11. S. Mark xi. 1, 19. S. Luke xix. 41. 
 Acts vii. 58. S. John xix. 20. '^ Ant. x.31, no mention of Jerusalem having im- 
 
 ellnib up upon the houses ; they shall " en- 
 ter in at the windows i like a thief. 
 
 Before 
 
 C II HIST 
 
 cir. SfKJ. 
 
 " Jer. 9. 21. •■ John 10. 1. 
 
 air so full of them, that I could not eat in my chamber with- 
 out a candle, all the houses being lull of them, even the stables, 
 barns, cliambers, garrets, and cellars. I caused caniion-jtowder 
 and sulphur to be burnt, to expel tiiem, but all to no purpose. 
 For when the door was opened, an infinite number came in, and 
 the others went fluttering about; and it was a troublesome 
 thing when a man went abrr)ad, to !)e hit on the face by those 
 cniatures, oti the nose, cy<'s, or cheeks, so that tliere was no 
 opening one's mouth, but some would get in. ^ Ct all this was 
 nothing ; for when we were to eat, they gave us no respite ; and 
 when we went to cut a piece of meat,' we cut a locust with it, 
 and when a man oi)ened his mouth to put in a mor'^el.he was 
 sure to chew one of them." The Fastern windows, not being 
 glazed but having at most a lattice-work =', presente.i no obsta- 
 cle to this continuous inroad. All was one streau) of infesting, 
 harassing foes. 
 
 As the windows are to the house, so are the senses and 
 especially the sight, to the soul. As the strongest walls and 
 battlements and towers avail not to keep out an enemy, if 
 there be an opening or chink through which be can make his 
 way, so, in vain is the protection of God's Providence or His 
 Grace--,if the soul leaves thesenses unguarded to admit unchal- 
 lenged sights, sounds, touches, which may take the soul pri- 
 soner. "-^Z>('«M,says Jeremiah-*,«i?f;Y'//( through the icindoiv. 
 Thy window is thy eye. If thou seest, to lust, death hath en- 
 tered in; if thou hearest enticing words, death hath entered in; 
 if softness gain possession of thy senses, death has made his 
 way in." The arrow of sin is shot through them. "'-^When 
 the tongue of one introduces the virus of perdition, and the 
 ears of others gladly drink it in, death enters in ; while with 
 itching ears and mouth men minister eagerly to one another 
 the deadly draught of detraction, death enters in at the tvin- 
 dotvs." "-^ Eve had not touched the forbidden tree, except she 
 had first looked on it heedlessly. With what control must we 
 in this dying life restrain our sight, when the mother of the 
 living came to death through the eyes ! The mind of the 
 Prophet,which had beenoften lifted up to see hidden mysteries, 
 seeing heedlessly another's wife, was darkened," and fell. "To 
 keep purity of heart, thou must guard the outward senses." 
 An enemy is easily kept out by the barred door or window, who, 
 having entered in unawares, can only by strong efi'ort and 
 grace be forced out. " It is easier," said the heathen philo- 
 sopher-'', "to forbid the beginnings of feelings than to control 
 their might." 
 
 Like a thief, i. e. they should come unawares, so as to take 
 men by surprise, that there should be no guarding against 
 them. As this is the close of this wonderful description, it 
 may be that he would, in the end. describe the suddenness and 
 inevitableness of God's judgments when they do come, and of 
 the final judgment. It is remarkable that our Lord, and His 
 Apostles from Him adopt this image of the Prophet, in speak- 
 ing of the coming of the Day of Judgment and His own. Be- 
 hold I come as a thief. This know, that if the goodman of the 
 house had knoivn ichat hour the thief would come, he would have 
 ivatched. Be ye therefore ready also ; for the Son of man com- 
 
 mediately preceded. HecallsManasseh's mother ■iro\iTK,"a citizen, " i.e. of Jerusalem. 
 
 '■• Ex. X. 5, 6. '* S. Jerome, ad loc. " Theod. ad loc. 
 
 •^ Barh. Chron. SjT. p. 134. '* Morier, p. 100. " Burckhardt. Notes, ii. 90. 
 
 ->' Beauplan, p. 599. -' S. Jerome, in Ezek. xli. 10. n5"K and Q'n.T are both 
 
 derived from "twisting" and so reticulating. -- from Lap. on Jer. --' S. Ambr.de 
 fug. Ssc. § 3. -' ix.21. -^ S. Bern, in Cint. S. 24. -* from S. Greg, on 
 
 Job L. xxi. §4. -" Sencc. Ep. 96. L. 
 
 A a
 
 118 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. SOU. 
 
 10 ^The earth shall quake before them ; 
 the heavens shall tremble: 'the sun and 
 the moon shall be dark, and the stars 
 
 1 Ps. 18. 7. 
 
 ' Is. 13. 10. 
 
 ^er!3i^^'^' shall withdraw their shining 
 
 ch.'s. 15. Matt. 2+. 29. 
 
 eth at (in hour when ye think not. Yourselves know perfectly 
 that the Dai/ of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 
 Ye are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you as 
 
 a thief ^. 
 
 10. The earth shall quake before them. "Not," says S. 
 Jerome, "as thousli locusts or enemies had power to move the 
 heavens or to shake the earth ; but because, to those under 
 trouble, for their exceeding: terror, the heaven seems 'o fall 
 and the earth to reel. But indeed, for the multitude of the lo- 
 custs which cover the heavens, sun and moon shall be turned 
 into darkness, and the stars shall withdraw their shining, while 
 the cloud of locusts interrupts the light, and allows it not to 
 reach the earth." Yet the mention of moon and stars rather 
 suggests that something more is meant than the locusts, wlio, 
 notflying by night except when they cross the sea, do not ob- 
 scure either. Rather, as the next verse speaks of God's im- 
 mediate, sensible. Presence, this verse seems to pass from the 
 image of the locusts to the full reality, and to say that hea- 
 ven and earth should shake at the judgments of God, before He 
 appeareth. Our Lord gives the same description of the fore- 
 runners of the Day of Judgment - ; there shall he sigyis in the 
 sun and in the moon and in the stars; and upon the earth 
 distress of nations with perplexity ; the sea and the tvaves roar- 
 ing, men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after 
 those things which arc coming on the earth ; for the powers of 
 heaven shall he shaken. 
 
 ] 1. And the Lordshall utter His voice. The Prophet had 
 described at length the coming of God's judgments, as a mighty 
 army. But lest amid the judgments, men should (as they often 
 do) forgot the Judge, he represents God, as commanding this 
 His army, gathering, ordering, marshalling, directing them, 
 giving them the word, when and upon whom they should pour 
 themselves. Their presence was a token of His. They should 
 neither anticipate that command, nor linger. But as an army 
 awaits the command to move, and then, the word being given, 
 rolls on instantly, so God's judgments await the precise mo- 
 ment of His Will, and then fall. The voice of the Lord is else- 
 where used for the thunder ; because in it He seems to speak in 
 majesty and terror to the guilty soul. But here the voice re- 
 fers, not to us, but to the army, which He is imaged as mar- 
 shalling; as Isaiah, referring perhaps to this place, says. The 
 Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle^. God had spoken, 
 and His people had not obeyed; now He speaks not to them any 
 more, but to their enemies. He calls the Medes and Persians, 
 My sanctified ones, My mighty ones *, when they were to exer- 
 cise His judgments on Babylon; and our Lord calls the Romans 
 His armies. He sent forth His armies and destroyed those mur- 
 derers and burned up their city'. Then follow as threefoldground 
 of terror. For His camp is very great. All the instruments 
 wherewith God punishes sin, are pictured as His one camp, 
 each going, as He commands, TFho bringelh forth the host of 
 heaven by number: He calleth them all by names, by the greatness 
 of His might, for that He is strong in power ; not one faileth^. 
 For he is strong, that executeth His word, or, /or it (His camp) 
 is strong, executing His word. Weak though His instruments 
 
 1 Rev. xvi. 15. (add iii. 3.) S. Matt xxiv. 43,44-. S. Luke xii. 39. 1 Thess. v. 2. 2 Pet. iii. 10. 
 ' S. Luke xxi. 25, 6. 
 
 11 'And the Lord shall utter his voiee ciuiTsT 
 
 cir. SOO. 
 
 before ' his army : for liis camp is very . 
 
 great : " for he is strong that executeth ' iZ'H'i^' 
 
 his word: for the ^ day of the Lord is.^^^^l'^' 
 
 » Jer. 50. 31. Rev. 18.8. ' Jer.30.7. Amos .5.18. Zeph.'l. 15. 
 
 be in themselves,they are mighty,whcn they do His commands, 
 for He empowers them, as S. Paul saith, / can do all things 
 through Christ instrengthening mc"^ . For the Day of the Lord 
 is great, great, on account of the great things done in it. As 
 those are called evil days, an evil time, in which evil comes ; as 
 it is called an acceptable time, in which we may be accepted ; so 
 the Day of God's judgment k great and very terrible, on ac- 
 count of the great and terrible acts of His justice done in it. 
 Who can abide it ? The answer is implied in the question. 
 " No one, unless God enable him." 
 
 This is the close of the threatened woe. The close, so much 
 beyond any passing scourge of any created destroyer, locusts or 
 armies, suggests the more what has been said already, that the 
 Prophet is speaking of the whole aggregate of God's judgments 
 unto the Day of Judgment. 
 
 " '' The Lord saith, that He will send an Angel with the sound 
 of a trumpet, and the Apostle declares that the resurrection of 
 the dead shall take place amid the sound of a trumpet. In 
 the Revelation of John too, we read that the seven Angels re- 
 ceived seven trumpets, and as they sounded in order, that was 
 done wliich Scripture describes. The priests and teachers ac- 
 coniingly are here bidden to lift up their voice like a trumpet in 
 Zion, that is, the Church,that so aU the inhabitants of the earth 
 may be troubled or confounded, and this confusion may draw 
 them to Salvation. ByMe Day of the Xojv/, understand the Day 
 of judgment, or the day when each departcth out of the body. 
 For what will be to all in the Day of judgment, this is fulfilled in 
 each in the day of death. It is a day of darkness and gloominess, 
 a day of clouds and of thick darkness, because everything will 
 be full of punishment and torment. Thcgreat and strong peo- 
 ple of the angels will come, to render to each according to his 
 works ; and as the rising morn first seizes the mountains, so 
 judgment shall begin with the great and mighty, so that mighty 
 men shall be mightily tormented ^. There hath not been ever the 
 like, neither shall be any more after it. For all evils, contain- 
 ed in ancient histories and which have happened to men, by in- 
 undation of the sea, or overflow of rivers, or by pestilence, dis- 
 ease,famine,wild beasts, ravages of enemies,cannot be compar- 
 ed to the Day of judgment. A fire devoureth, or consumeth be- 
 fore this people, to consume in us hay,ivood, stubble. Whence it 
 is said of God i", thy God is a consuming fire. And after him a 
 jiame hurneth, so as to leave nothing unpunished. Whomso- 
 ever this people toucheth not, nor findethin him what is to be 
 burned, shall be likened to the garden of God, and the paradise 
 of pleasure, i. e. of Eden. If it burn any, it will reduce this (as it 
 were) wilderness to dust and ashes, nor can any escape its fury. 
 For they shall run to and fro to torture those over whom they 
 shall receive power, like horsemen flying hither and thither. 
 Their sound shall be terrible, as chariots hurrying along level 
 places, and upon the tops of the mountains they shall leap, long- 
 ing to torment all who are lofty and set on high in the Church. 
 And since before them there is a devouring fire, they will destroy 
 everything, as the fire devoureth the stubble. They shall come 
 to punish, as a strong people in battle array. Such will be the 
 fear of all, such the conscience of sinners, that none shall shine 
 
 3Is. xiii. 4. "lb. 3. ' S. Matt. xxii. 7. ' Is. xl. 26. JPhU.iv. 13. * S.Ja. 
 « Wisd. vi. 6. '0 Deut. iv. 24.
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 119 
 
 c H rTs t i?»*e»t and very terrible ; and ? who can 
 
 '"■^ '^- abide it ? 
 
 y Nuni.2-1'. 23. 
 Mai. 3. 2. 
 
 12 ^ Therefore also now, saith the 
 
 or have any brifjhtncss of joy, but his face shall be turned into 
 darkness. They shall not turn aside, in fulfilling the office en- 
 joined them, hut each shall carry on the jtunishnients on sin- 
 ners entrusted to him. — At thcprcseneeofthat people, ^//e ear//i 
 shall quake and the heuveiis tremble. For heave)] ami earth 
 shall pass away, hut the word of the Lord shall end are for ever. 
 The sun and moon also shall not endure to see the punishments 
 of the miserable, and shall remove and, tor brifiht liirht. shall be 
 shrouded in terrible darkness. The stars also shall withdraw 
 their shhiiiig, in that the holy also shall not without fear beliold 
 the presence of the Lord. Amid all this, The Lord shall utter 
 His voice before His army. For as the Babylonians, in punish- 
 ing Jerusalem, are called the army of God, so the evil anf^els (of 
 whom it is written^ He cast upon them the fierceyiess of His an- 
 ger, wrath, and indignation, and troitlile, by sentling evil angels 
 umons; them) are called the army of God and His camp, in that 
 they do the Will of God." 
 
 The Day of the Lord is great and terrible, of which it is 
 written elsewhere '^j to ivhat end do ye desire the Day of the 
 Lordf it is darkness and not light, and very terrible, and few 
 or none ca)i abide it, but will furnish some ground of severity 
 against himself. 
 
 12. Therefore [^And']noiualso. Allthis being so,one way of 
 escape there is, true repentance. As if God said^, "All this I 
 have therefore spoken, in order to terrify you by My threats. 
 Wherefore turn unto Me with all your hearts, and shew the pe- 
 nitence of your minds by fasting and weeping and mourning, 
 that, fasting now, ye may be filled hereafter; weeping noiv, ye 
 may laugh hereafter : mourning now, ye may hereafter be com- 
 forted'^. And since it is your wont to rend your garments in 
 sorrow, I command you to rend, not them but your hearts 
 which are full ofsin, which, likebladders. unless they be opened, 
 will burst of themselves. And when ye have done this, return 
 unto the Lord your God, whom your former sins alienated from 
 you ; and despair not of pardon for the greatness of your guilt, 
 for mighty mercy will blot out mighty sins." 
 
 "^The strict Judge cannot be overcome, for He is Omnipo- 
 tent ; cannot be deceived, for He is Wisdom ; cannot be cor- 
 rupted, for He is Justice ; cannot be sustained, for He is Eter- 
 nal ; cannot be avoided, for He is everywhere. Yet He can be 
 entreated, because He is Mercy ; He can be appeased, because 
 He is Goodness; He can cleanse, because He is the Fountain 
 of grace ; He can satisfy, because He is the Bread of life ; He 
 can soothe, because Heis the Unction from above; He can beau- 
 tify, because He is Fulness ; He can beatify because He is Bliss. 
 Turned from Him, then, and fearing His Justice, turn ye to 
 Him, and flee to His Mercy. Flee from Himself to Himself, 
 from the rigour of Justice to the Bosom of Mercy. The Lord 
 Who is to be feared saith it. He Who is Truth enjoins what is 
 just, profitable, good, ttirn ye to Me Sfc." 
 
 Turn ye even to Me, i. e. so as to return quite fo^ God, not 
 balting.not turning half way,not in some things only, but from 
 all the lusts and pleasures to which they had turned from God. 
 "'' Turn quite to Me, He saith, with all your heart, with your 
 whole mind, whole soul, whole spirit, whole affections. For I 
 am the Creator and Lord of the heart and mind, and therefore 
 
 > Pe.lxxviu.49. 
 
 2 from Am. V. IS. a S.Jer. 
 * Hugo de S. V. 
 
 * S. Luke vi. 21. S. Matt. v.l. 
 
 Lorin, 'turn ye even to me with all your chrTsi 
 heart, and M-ith fa.stinf^, and with weepinj^, '•'*"• ^"'- 
 
 d..i . ' .ler. i. 1. 
 
 With mourninur : Hos. 12.6. 
 
 &14.1. 
 
 will, that that whole should Ije given, yea. given back, to Mc, 
 and endure not that anv part of it be secretly stolen rnmi Mc to 
 be given to idols, lusts or ap])etites." " Jt often iinppens with 
 some people," says S. Gregory '*, " that they stoutly gird them- 
 selves ui> to encounter some vices, but neglect to overcome 
 others, and while they never rouse themselves up airainst these, 
 they arc re-establishing against themselves, even those which 
 they had subdued." Others, " in resolve, aim at right course^, 
 but arc ever doubling back to their wonted evil ones, and be- 
 ing, as it were, drawn out without themselves, they return bac^k 
 to themselves in a round, desiring good ways, but never for- 
 saking evil ways." In contrast to these half conversion^;, he 
 bids us turn to God witli our whole inmost soul, so that all our 
 affections should be fixed on God, and all within us. bv a strong 
 union, cleave to Him ; for "in whatever degree <jur affections 
 are scattered among created things, so far is tlic conversion of 
 the heart to God impaired." " Look diligently," says S. Ber- 
 nard ^, " what thou lovest, what thou fearest, wherein thou re- 
 joicest or art saddened, and under the rags of conversion thou 
 wilt find a heart perverted. The whole heart is in these four 
 affections; and of these 1 think wemust understand that saving, 
 turn to the Lord icith all thy heart. Let then thy love be con- 
 verted to Him, so that thoti love nothing whatever save Him- 
 self, or at least for Him. Let thy fear also be converted unto 
 Him ; for all fear is perverted, whereby thou fearest anything 
 besides Him or not for Him. So too let thy joy and sorrow 
 equally be converted unto Him. This will Ije, if thou onlv 
 grieve or joy according to Him." "^There is a conversion with 
 the whole heart, and another with a part. The conversion with 
 the whole heart God seeketh, for it suffices to salvation. That 
 which is partial He rejecteth, for it is feigned and far from sal- 
 vation. In the heart, there are three powers, reason, will, me- 
 mory ; reason, of things future ; will, of things present ; memo- 
 ry, of things past. For reason seeks things to come ; the will 
 loves things present; memory retains things past. Reason il- 
 lumines ; will loves ; memory retains. When then the reason 
 seeks that Highest Good and finds, the will receives and loves, 
 the memory anxiously keeps and closely embraces, then the 
 soul turns with the whole heart to God. But when the reason 
 slumbers and neglects to seek heavenly things,- or the will is 
 tepid and cares not to love them, or the memory is torpid and 
 is careless to retain them, then the soul acts false, falling first 
 into the vice of ignorance, secondly into the guilt of negligence, 
 thirdly, into the sin of malice. In each, the soul acts false; 
 else ignorance would be expelled by the light of reason, and 
 negligence be excluded by zeal of will, and malice be quench- 
 ed by diligence of memory [of Divine things]. Reason then 
 seeking begetteth knowledge ; will embracing producetli love; 
 memory holding fast, edification. The first produceth the 
 light of knowledge ; the second, the love of righteousness ; the 
 third preserveth thetreasure of grace. This is that conversion 
 of heart, which God requireth ; this is that, which sufEceth to 
 salvation." 
 
 ^nd with fasting. "'"In their returning to Him. it is re- 
 quired in the first place, that it be with the heart in the inward 
 man, yet so that the outward man is not left unconcerned, but 
 
 « The force ofny. See on Hos.xiv. 2. ' Lap. 
 ' Serm. 2. de Quadr. Lap. 
 
 Aa 2 
 
 9 on Job vii. § 35. 34. p. 390. O. T 
 '0 Poc.
 
 120 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst ^^ ^^"*^ M-end your heart and not '•your 
 
 c'""- 80"- garments, and turn unto the Lord your 
 
 ^I's^irf' God: for he is ''gracious and niereilul, 
 
 i- Gen. 37. 34. 2Sam. 1.11. Jol) 1.2(1. ' Ex.Xi.ti. Ps. 80. 5, 15. Jonali 4. 2. 
 
 liath his part also, in performance of such things whereby he 
 may express, how tlie inward man is really aifected ; and so by 
 the concurrence of both is true conversion made up. IFit/i 
 fasting, whicli shall make for the humbling of the iieart, which 
 pamperintc of the flesh is apt to puff up and make insensible 
 of its own condition, and forg:etful of God and His service, as 
 Jeshuruii who, being waxed fat, kicked, and forsook the God 
 which made him and light/i/ esteemed the God of his salvation ^. 
 To waitine^then on God's service and prayer, it is usually join- 
 ed in Scripture, as almost a necessary accompaniment, called 
 for by God, and by holy men practised." 
 
 j^nd with weeping and with niom-ning ; i. e. by beating - on 
 the breast, (as the word orijjinally denoted,) as the publican 
 smote npon his breast ^,and all the people that came together to 
 that sight [of Jesus on the Cross], beholding the things which 
 icere done, smote their breasts^. "^These also, in themselves 
 signs of errief, stir up in the heart more grief, and so have their 
 effects on the person himself, for the increase of his repent- 
 ance, as well as for shewing it." " It also stirs up in others like 
 passions, and provokes them also to repentance." '"'These 
 things, done purely and holily, are not conversion itself, but 
 are excellent signs of conversion." '"We ought to tiuni in 
 fasting, whereby vices are repressed and the mind is raised. 
 We ought to turn in lueeping, out of longing for our home, out 
 of displeasure at our faults, out of love to the sufferings of 
 Christ, and for the manifold transgressions and errors of the 
 world." "What avails it," says S. Gregory**, "to confess ini- 
 quities,if the affliction of penitence follow not the confession of 
 the lips ? For three things are to be considered in every true 
 penitent, conversion of the mind, confession of the mouth, and 
 revenge for the sin. This third sort is as a necessary medicine, 
 that so the imposthume of guilt, pricked by confession, be puri- 
 fied by conversion,and healed by themedicine ofaffliction. The 
 sign of true conversion is not in the confession of the mouth, 
 but in the affliction of penitence. For then do we see that a sin- 
 ner is well converted, when by a worthy austerity of affliction 
 he strives to efface what in speech he confesses. Wherefore 
 John Baptist, rebuking the ill-converted Jews who flocked to 
 him says, O generation of vipers — bring forth therefore fruits 
 worthy of repentance." 
 
 Vi.Andrend your heartsatid7totyourgarments,\.e.7ioty our 
 garments only^. The rending of the clothes was an expression 
 of extraordinary uncontrollable emotion, chiefly of grief, of ter- 
 ror, or of horror. At least, in Holy Scripture it is not men- 
 tioned as a part of ordinary mourning, but only upon some sud- 
 den overpowering grief, whether public or private '". It was 
 not used on occasion of death,unlesstherewere something very 
 grievous about its circumstances. At times, it was used as an 
 outward expression, one of deep grief, as when the leper was 
 commanded to keep his clothes rent", or when David, to ex- 
 press his abhorrence at the murder of Abner, commanded all 
 thepeoplewith him,rendyour clothes; Ahabused it, with fasting 
 and haircloth, on God's" sentence by Elijah and obtained a mi- 
 tigation of the temporal punishment of his sin; Jeremiah mar- 
 
 ' Deut. xxxi). 15. " lEO 
 * Mom. ap. I'oc. ^ Dion. 
 Oxf. Tr. ^ SeeonHos.vi.G. 
 
 ^ S.Luke xviii.l3. Mb. xxiii.48. ^ Poc. 
 
 >* in 1 Reg. L. vi. c. 2. § 33. See Tertullian Note K. 
 '" The instances are ; Gen. xxxvii. 29, 31. xliv. 13. 
 
 l.iv. 19_ 5n_ 9 Sam i 9 11 ii'i 5(1 i-;;; IQ 1^ 
 
 slow to anger, and of great kindness, and chrTst 
 rej)enteth him of the evil. cir. 8f)o. 
 
 14 ''Who knoweth if he will return and 2sltn.i2.2"2. 
 
 2 Kings 19. 4. Amos5.15. Jonah 3. 9. Zeph. 2. 3. 
 
 Num. xiv. 6. Josh. vii. 6. Jud. xi. 35. 1 Sam. iv. 12, 25. 2 Sam. i. 2, il. iii. 31. xiii. 19 31 
 IV. 32. 1 Kmgs XXI. 27. 2 Kings, v. 7, S. vi.30. xi. 14. xviii. 37. xix. 1. xxii. 11, 19. Ezr, 
 
 vels that neither the king, Jehoiakim, nor any of his servants, 
 rent their garments^-, on reading the roll containing the woes 
 which God had by him pronounced against Judah. The holy 
 garments of the priests were on no occasion to be rent'^; (pro- 
 bably because the wholeness wasasymbolof perfection, whence 
 care was to be taken that the ephod should not accidentally be 
 rent^^) so that the act of Caiaphas was the greater hypocrisy^\ 
 He used it probably to impress his own blasphemous accusa- 
 tion on the people, as for a good end, the Apostles Paul and 
 Barnabas rent thcir^*' clothes, when they heard that, after the 
 cure of the impotent man, the priest of Jupiter with the peo- 
 ple would have done sacrifice unto them. Since then Apos- 
 tles used this act, Joel plainly doth not forbid the use of such 
 outward behaviour, by which their repentance might be ex- 
 pressed, but only requires that it be done not in outward shew 
 only, but accompanied with the inward affections. "'The 
 Jews are bidden then to rend their hearts rather than their 
 garments, and to set the truth of repentance in what is inward, 
 rather than in what is outward." But since the rending of 
 the garments was the outward sign of very vehement grief, it 
 was no commonplace superficial sorrow, which the Prophet en- 
 joined, but one which should pierce and rend the inmost soul, 
 and empty it of its sins and its love for sin. ^' Any very griev- 
 ing thing is said to cut one's heart, to "cut him to the heart." 
 A truly penitent heart is called a broken and a contrite heart. 
 Such a penitent rends and " rips up by a narrow search the re- 
 cesses of the heart, to discover the abominations thereof," and 
 pours out before God "the diseased and perilous stuff" pent 
 up and festering there, " expels the evil thoughts lodged in it, 
 and opens it in all things to the reception of Divine grace. 
 This rending is no other than the spiritual circumcision to 
 which Moses exhorts. Whence of the Jews, not thus rent in 
 heart, it is written in Jeremiah ^^ All the nations are uncircum- 
 cised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart. 
 This rending then is the casting out of the sins and passions." 
 
 And turn unto the Lord your God. God owns Himself as 
 still their God, although they had turned and were gone from 
 Him in sin and were alienated from Him. To Him, the true. 
 Unchangeable God, if they returned, they would find Him still 
 their God. Return, ye backsliding children, I will heal your 
 backsliding, God saith by Jeremiah ^^; Behold, Israel answers, 
 we corne unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord our God. 
 
 For He is very gracious and very merciful. Both these 
 words are intensive-". All the words, very gracious, very merri- 
 ful, sloiv to anger and of great kindness, are the same and in 
 the same order as in that revelation to Moses, when, on the 
 renewal of the two tables of the law, the Lord descended in the 
 doted and proclaiined the name of the Lord-^. The words are 
 frequently repeated, shewing how deeply that revelation sunk 
 in the pious minds of Israel. They are, in part, pleaded to God 
 by Moses himself--. David, at one time, pleaded them all to 
 God -^ ; elsewhere he repeats them of God, as in this place -*. 
 Nehemiah, in praising God for His forgiving mercies, prefixes 
 the title, God of pardons-'', and adds, a7id Thou forsakedst 
 
 ix.3, 5. Esth. iv. 1. Job i. 20. ii.l2. Jer.xli.5. " Lev.xiii.45. The word is not, as 
 here, snp, but ens, used only in Leviticus. '- Jer. xxxvi. 24-. " Lev. x. 6. xxi. 10. 
 
 " Ex. xxviii. 32. xxxix.'23. '^ S. Matt. xxvi. 65. S. Mark xiv. 63. '« Acts xiv. 14. 
 
 17 Poc. and Dion. i* ix. 26. i" iii. 22. =» pjn, Dm. " Ex. xxxiv. 5, 6. 
 
 " Num. xiv. 18. ^ Ps. Ixxxvi. 15. ■' Ps.ciii.8.cxlv.8. =* Neh.ix.l7.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 121 
 
 CHRIST i*epcnt, and leave ° a blessing behind him ; 
 "''"• '^'"'- even ' a meat offering and a drink offering 
 
 Hag.\ 19. unto the Loiin your fJod ? 
 K Num. 10. 3. i^ % ^' Bh)\v the trumpet in Zion, '' sane- 
 t ch!'i.'i4. tify a fast, call a solemn assembly : 
 
 t/iern tiot ; as Joel, for the special object here, adds, and repetit- 
 eth Him of f lie evil. A Psalmist, and Hezekiah in his mcssaj^e 
 to Isaiah, and Nehcniiali in the course of that same prajcr, re- 
 peat the two words of intense mercy, very gracious and verj/ 
 luercifiil^, which are used of God f>uly, except once by that 
 same Psalmist", with the express object of shewinsr; how tlic 
 good man conformcth himself to God. The word very gra- 
 cious expresses God's free love, whereby He shewcth Himself 
 good to us ; vert/ merciful expresses the tender yearniiiic of His 
 love over our miseries ^ ; great kindness, expresses God's ten- 
 der love, as love. He first says, that God is slow to anger or 
 long-suffering, enduring long the wickedness and rebellion of 
 man, and waiting patiently for the conversion and repentance 
 of sinners. Then he adds, that God is abundant in kindness, 
 having manifold resources and expedients of His tender love, 
 whereby to win them to repentance. Lastly He is repentant 
 of the evil. The evil which He foretells, and at last inflicts, is 
 (so to speak) against His Will, Who willeth not that any should 
 perish, and, therefore, on the first tokens of repentance. He re- 
 penteth Him of the evil, and doeth it not. 
 
 The words rendered, of great kindness, are better rendered 
 elsewhere, abundant, plenteous in goodness, mercy'''. Although 
 the mercy of God is in itself one and simple, yet it is called 
 abundant on account of its divers effects. For God knoweth 
 how in a thousand ways to succour His own. Whence the 
 Psalmist 'pra.yf^, According to the multitude of Thy mercies, turn 
 Thou unto me". ^Jccording to the multitude of Thy tender mer- 
 cies, do away mine offences ". 
 
 \A. Wlio knoiveth if He will return. God has promised 
 forgiveness of sins andof eternal punishment to those who turn 
 
 j to Him with their whole heart. Of this, then, there could be 
 no doubt. But He has not promised either to individuals or 
 to Churches, tiiatHc will remit the temporal punishment which 
 
 ' He had threatened. He forgave David the sin. Nathan says, 
 The Lord also hath put away thy sin. But he said at the same 
 time, the stvord shall never depart from thy house'' ; and the tem- 
 poral punishment of his sin pursued him, even on the bed of 
 death. David thoughtthat the temporal punishmentof his sin, 
 in the death of the child, might be remitted to him. He used 
 thesame form of words as Joel^, I said,%vho can tell \\\\eX\\Gr God 
 will be graciotis unto me, that the child may live? But the child 
 died. The king of Nineveh used the like words*, fFho ca7i tell 
 if God will return and repent and turn away from His fierce an- 
 
 [ ger, that we perish not ? And he was heard. God retained or 
 
 I remitted the temporal punishment, as He saw good for each. 
 This of the Prophet Joel is of a mixed character. The bless- 
 ing which they crave, he explains to be the meat offering and 
 the drink offering, which had been cut off or withholden from 
 the house of their God. For " ^^ if He gave them wherewith to 
 serve Him,'' after withdrawing it, it was clear that "He would 
 accept of them and be pleased with their service." Yet this docs 
 not imply that He would restore all to them. A Jewish writer^^ 
 notes that after the Captivity, "the service of sacrifices alone 
 returned to them," butthat "prophecy, [soonafter,] theark,the 
 
 1 Ps. cxi. 4. 2 Chr. xxx. 9. Neh. ix. 31. "- Ps. cxii. 4. 
 
 3 See on Hos. ii. 19. •• Ex. xxxiv. 6. Ps. Ixxxvi. lo.ciii. 8. ^ Ps.xxv. 7,10. 
 
 «Ps. li. 1. 7 2 Sam. xii. 13, 10. 8Ib.22. a Jon.iii.9. '" Poc. 
 
 IG Hather the people, ' sanctify the con- chiust 
 gregation, '' assemble the elders, 'gather the "'''• ^'"- 
 children, and those that suck the l)reasts : ^^[^'''^^' 
 "'let the brid(!groom go forth of his ehain-i'2Chr.2o.i3. 
 her, and the bride out of her closet. "icor.y.s. 
 
 Urim and Thummim, and the other things [the fire from hea- 
 ven] were wanting tliere." As a pattern, however, to all times, 
 God teaches them to ask first what I)cloiigs to His kingdom 
 and His righteousness, and to leave the rest to Him. So long 
 as the means of serving Him were left, there was lio])e of all. 
 Where theSaci-ament of tlicBody and IJlood of Clirist (whereof 
 the meat offering and the drink (ffering were symbols) remains, 
 there are "'^ the pledges of His love," the earnest of all other 
 blessing. 
 
 He says, leave a blessing behind Him, speaking of God as one 
 estranged, who had been long al)sent and wlut returns, giving 
 tokens of His forgiveness and renewed good-pleasure. God of- 
 ten visits the penitent soul and, by some sweetness witli which 
 the soul is bathed, leaves a token of His renewed Presence. 
 God is said to repent, not as though He varied in Himself, but 
 because He deals variously with us, as we receive His inspira- 
 tions and follow His drawings, or no. 
 
 \b. Before, he had, in these same words ^\ called to re- 
 pentance, because the Day of the Lord was coming, was nigh, 
 a day of darkness, Sfc. Now ^'', because God is gracious and 
 merciful, sloiv to anger and plenterms in goodness, he again ex- 
 horts. Blow ye the trumpet ; only the call is more detailed, that 
 every sex and age should form one band of supjtliants to the 
 mercy of God. "^"IVIost full aljolition of sins is then obtained, 
 when one prayer and one confession issueth from the whole 
 Church. For since the Lord promiseth to the pious agreement 
 of two or three, that He will grant whatever is so asked, what 
 shall be denied to a people of many thousands, fulfilling toge- 
 ther one observance, and supplicating in harmony through 
 One Spirit?" "We come together," says Tcrtullian^'' of Chris- 
 tian worship, "in a meeting and congregation as before God,as 
 though we would in one body sue Him by our prayers. This 
 violence is pleasing to God. 
 
 16. Sanctify the congregation. "'"Do what in you lies, by 
 monishing, exhorting, threatening, giving the example of a 
 holy life, that the whole people present itself holy before its 
 God," "Idlest your prayers be hindered, and a little leaven cor- 
 rupt the whole lump." 
 
 Assemble the elders. " '" The judgment concerned all ; all 
 then were to join in seeking mercy from God. None were on 
 any pretence to be exempted; not the oldest, whose strength 
 was decayed, or the youngest who might seem not yet of 
 strensrth." The old also are commonly freer from sin and 
 more given to prayer. 
 
 Gather the children. "'"He Who feedeth the young ravens 
 when they cry, will not neglect the cry of poor children. He 
 assigns as a reason, why it were fitting to spare Nineveh, the 
 ^^ six-score thousand persons that could not discern between their 
 right hand and their left." The sight of them who were involv- 
 ed in their parents' punishment could not but move the parents 
 to greater earnestness. So when Moab and Amnion '^, a great 
 multitude, came against Jehoshaphat, he proclaimed a fast 
 throughout all Judah, and Judah gathered themselves together 
 to ask help of the Lord ; even out of all the cities of Judah, they 
 
 " Abarb. in Poc. 
 " ii. l.i. 14. '< S.Jer. ' 
 
 >6 Apo). c. S9. p. 80. Oxf. Tr. '' Lap. 
 
 ^- Communion Sen'ice. 
 S. Leo Serm. 3. de jej. 7 mens. § 3. Lap. 
 'S Jon. iv. 11. " 2 Chr. xx. 1-4, 13. 
 
 ■^ ^ y^ ^ ^"^ \ "^^
 
 122 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800 
 
 17 Let the priests, the ministers of the 
 
 _LoRD, weep "between the poreh and the 
 
 Matt.' 23. 35. altar, and let them say, ° Spare thy people, 
 
 i2^Dout! y. O Lord, and give not thine heritage to re- 
 
 (I OrVw'tc proaeh, that the heathen should || rule 
 
 a byword against them. 
 
 came fn seek the Lord. And all Judah was standing before the 
 Lord., their little ones also, their wives, and their children. So 
 it is desfribed i II thebook of Judith, how "'with j^reat vchcnicii- 
 cy did they humble their souls, hotli they and their wives and 
 their children — and every man and woman and the little rhild- 
 ren — fell before the temple, and cast ashes upon their heads 
 and spread out their sackcloth before the Face of the Lord." 
 Let the bridegroom go forth. He says not even, the mar- 
 ried, or the newly married, he wlio had taken a new wife, but 
 he uses the special terms of the marria2,e-day, hridegroom and 
 hride. The new-married man was, durinjij a year, exempted 
 from ffoina; out to war, or from any duties which mij^ht /»•«.?« 
 upon him". But notbinii- was to free from this common af- 
 fliction of sorrow. Even the just newly married, althoujajh it 
 were the very day of tlie bridal, were to leave the niarriag;e- 
 chamber and join in the common austerity of repentance. 
 It was mockery of God to spend in delights time consecrated 
 by Him to sorrow. He says ', /// that day did the Lord God 
 of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and 
 to girding with sackcloth. And behold joy and gladness — sitre- 
 ly this inigtdty shall not be purged Jrom you till ye die, saith 
 the Lord God of Hosts. Whence, in times of fasting or pray- 
 er, the Apostle suggests the giving up of pure pleasures*, that 
 ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. 
 
 " ' He then who, by chastisement in food and by fasting and 
 alms, says that he is doing acts of repentance, in vain doth 
 he promise this in 7.-ords,unless he go forth out of his chamber, 
 and fulfil a holy anJ pure fast by a chaste penitence." 
 
 17. Let the priests, the ministei-s of the Lord, ireep between 
 the porch and the altar. The porch in this, Solomon's Temple, 
 was in fact a tower, in front of the Holy of Holies, of the same 
 breadth with the Temple, viz. 20 cubits, and its depth half its 
 breadth, viz. 10 cubits^jand itsheight 120 cubits, thewholeoier- 
 laid luithin icith pure gold ''. The brazen altar for burnt-oSer- 
 ings stood in front of it^. The altar was of brass, twenty cubits 
 square ; and so, equal in breadth to the Temple itself, and ten 
 cubits high ^. The space then between the porch and the altar 
 was inclosedon those twosides'"; it became an inner part of the 
 court of the Priests. Through it the priests or the high priest 
 passed, whenever they went to sprinkle the blood, typifying 
 the Atonement, before the veil of the tabernacle, or for any 
 other office of the tabernacle. It seems to have been a place 
 of prayer for the priests. It iS' spoken of as an aggravation 
 of the sins of those 25 idolatrous priests, that here, M-here 
 they ouglit to worship God, they turned their backs toward the 
 Temple of the Lord, to worship the sun'^ Here,in the exercise 
 of his office, Zechariah was standing'^, when the Spirit of God 
 came upon him and he rebuked the people and they stoned 
 him. Here the priests, with their faces towards the Holy of 
 Holies and the Temple which He had filled with His Glory, 
 were to weep. Tears are a gift of God. In holier times, so 
 did the priests weep at the Holy Eucharist in thought of the 
 
 ' iv.9-11. 2 Deut. xxiv. 5. a Is. xxii. 12-14. ■• 1 Cor. vii. 5. ' S.Jer. 
 
 MKingsvi.S. 7 2 Chr. iii. 4. «Ib.viii.l2. 'Ib.iv.l. '"lb. vii. 7. 
 
 '1 Ezek. viii. 16. '= 2Chr. xxiv.20, l.S.Matt. xxiii.35. " Amalar.de Eccl. 
 
 Off. iii. 22. " Ex. xxxii. 12. Num. xiv. 13-16. Deut. ix. 28, 9. '' Josh. vii. 9. 
 
 15 Ps. Ixxiv. Ixxix. cxT. '7 Ezek. xx. o. xxxvi. 21-3. " See Introd. to Joel, p. 102. 
 
 over them: p wherefore should they say chhTst 
 among the people, Where f* their God ? "''•'^"- ^ 
 
 18 ^ Then will the Lord ''be jealous for &79.T0. 
 his land, "^and pity his people, Mk.'r.'io. 
 
 19 Yea, the Lord will answer and sav '&?''' ^' ^'*' 
 
 ' Deut. 32. 36. 
 
 ■8.2. 
 Is. 60.10. 
 
 Passion and Precious Death of our Lord Jesus, which we then 
 plead to God, that they bore with them, as part of their dress, 
 linen wherewith to dry their tears ''. 
 
 And let them say. A form of prayer is provided for them. 
 From this the worda, spare ns,gnod Lord, spare thy people, enter 
 into the litanies of the Christian Church. 
 
 And give not thine heritage to reproach. The enmity of 
 the heathen against the Jews was an enmity against God. God 
 had avouchedthemasHis peopleandHis property. Their land 
 was an heritage froniGod. God, in thatHe had separated them 
 from the heathen, and revealed Himself to them, had made them 
 His especial heritage. Moses'*, then Joshua'°,the Psalmists'', 
 plead with God, that His own power or will to save His people 
 would be called in question, if He should destroy them, or give 
 them up. God, on the other hand, tells them, that not for any 
 deserts of theirs, but for His own Name's sake. He delivered 
 them, lest the Heathen should be the more confirmed in their 
 errors as to Himself '^. It is part of true penitence to plead to 
 God to pardon us, not for anything in ourselves, (for we have 
 nothing of our own but our sins) but because we are the work 
 of His hands, created in His image, the price of the Blood 
 of Jesus, called by His Name. 
 
 That the heathen should rule over them. This, and not the 
 rendering in the margin, use a byword against them, is the uni- 
 form meaning of the Hebrew phrase. It is not to be supposed 
 that the Prophet Joel would use it in a sense, contrary to the 
 uniform usage of all the writers before him Nor is there any 
 instance of any other usage of the idiom in any later writer'^ 
 "The aenigma which was closed," says St. Jerome, "is now 
 opened. For who that people is, manifold and strong, describ- 
 ed above under the name of the palmerworni. the locust, the can- 
 ker-worm and the caterpillar, is now explained more clearly, 
 lest the heathen rule over them. For the heritage of the Lord 
 is given to reproach, when they serve their enemies, and the 
 nations say. Where is their God, Whom they boasted to be 
 their Sovereign and their Protector ? " Such is the reproach 
 ever made against God's people, when He does not visibly pro- 
 tect them, which the Psalmist says was as a sword in his 
 bones '** ; his tears were his meat day and, iiight while they said 
 it. The Chief priests and scribes and elders fulfilled a prophecy 
 by venturing so to blaspheme our Lord-", He trusted in God ; 
 let Him deliver Him now, if He tuill have Him. 
 
 18. Then tuill the Lord he jealous for His land. Upon re- 
 pentance, all is changed. Before, God seemed set upon their 
 destruction. It was His great army which was ready to de- 
 stroy them ; He was at its head, giving the word. Now He is 
 full of tender love for them, which resents injury done to them, 
 as done to Himself. The word might more strictly perhaps 
 be rendered, ^«f/ the Lord isjealous'^^. He would shew how in- 
 stantaneous the mercy and love of God for His people is, re- 
 strained while they are impenitent, flowing forth upon the first 
 tokens of repentance. The word, jealous for, when used of 
 
 " Ps.xlii. 3, 10;addPs.lxxix.lO. CXT. 2. Mic. vii. 16. 20 S. Matt.xrvii. 
 
 43, from Ps. xxii.8. -' It is not an absolute past. For the 1 conper- 
 
 sive only denotes a past, by connecting tlie word with some former past, as we could say 
 in vivid description of the past, '* then he goes." But here no past has preceded, except 
 the prophetic past mixed with the future, in the description of the inrcaa of this scourge.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 123 
 
 ciFrTst unto his people, Behold, I will send you 
 cir. SUP, "eorn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be 
 
 MaL 3. 10, 'satisfied therewith: and I will no more 
 ■ ■ make you a reproach among the heathen : 
 
 igf ^" ■ 20 But ' I will remove far off from you 
 
 God, jealous for My holy Name i, jealous for Jerusalem-, is 
 used, when God resents evil which iiad been actually inflicted. 
 
 19. lu'ill nonl i/oii corn, fyc. This is the bei!;iiiningol' the 
 reversal of the threatened judi^nients. It is clear from this, 
 and still more from what follows, that the chastisements actu- 
 ally came, so that the repentance described, was the conse- 
 quence, not of the exhortations to repentance, but of the chas- 
 tisement. What was removed was the chastisement which 
 had burst upon them, not when it was ready to burst. What 
 was given, was what had before been taken away. So it ever 
 was with the Jews ; so it is mostly with the portions of the 
 Christian Church or with individuals now. Seldom do they 
 take warning of coming woe ; %vhen it has begun to burst, or 
 has burst, then they repent and God gives them back upon re- 
 pentance what He had withdrawn or a portion of it. So the 
 Prophet seems here to exhibit to us a law and a course of God's 
 judgments and mercies upon man's sin. He takes away both 
 temporal and spii'itual blessings symbolised here by the corn 
 and wine and oil; upon repentance He restores them. "^Over 
 and against the wasting of the land, he sets its richness ; 
 against hunger, fulness ; against reproach, unperilled glory ; 
 against the cruelty and incursion of enemies, their destruction 
 and putrefaction ; against barrenness of fruits and aridity of 
 trees, their fresh shoots and richness; against thehunger of the 
 word and thirst for doctrine, he brings in the fountain of life, 
 and the Teacher of righteousness ; against sadnesses, joy ; 
 against confusion, solace ; against reproaches, glory ; against 
 death, life ; against ashes, a crown." " O fruitful and manly 
 penitence ! O noble maiden, most faithful intercessor for sins ! 
 A plank after shipwreck ! Refuge of the poor, help of the mi- 
 serable, hope of exiles, cherisher of the weak, light of the blind, 
 solace of the fatherless, scourge of the petulant, axe of vices, 
 garner of virtues. Thou who alone bindest the Judge, pleadest 
 with the Creator, con querest the Almighty. While overcome, 
 thou overcomest; while tortured, thou torturest ; while wound- 
 ing,thou healest ; while healthfully succumbing,thou triumph- 
 est gloriously. Thou alone, while others keep silence, mount- 
 est boldly the throne of grace. David thou leadest by the hand 
 and reconcilest; Peter thou restorest; Paul thou enlightenest ; 
 the Publican, taken from the receipt of custom, thou boldly in- 
 sertest in the choir of the Apostles ; Mary, from a harlot, thou 
 bearest aloft and joinest to Christ ; the robber nailed to the 
 cross, yet fresh from blood, thou introducest into Paradise. 
 What more ? At thy disposal is the court of heaven." 
 
 ^nd Iivill no more make you a reproach. All the promises 
 of God are conditional. They presuppose man's faithfulness. 
 God's pardon is complete. He will not. He says, for these of- 
 fences, or for any like offences, give them over to the heathen. 
 So after the Captivity He no more made them a reproach unto 
 the heathen, until they finally apostatized, and leaving their 
 Redeemer, owned no king but Cajsar. They first gave them- 
 selves up ; they chose Caesar rather than Christ, and to be ser- 
 vants of Caesar, rather than that He should not be crucified ; 
 and so God left them in his hands, whom they had chosen. 
 
 ' Ezek. xxxix. 25. - Zech. i. 14. viii. 2. ' Hugo de S. Victor. ■> See Introduction 
 toJoel, p. 101. »Gen. xiv. 3. 'S.Jer. 7 Gen. lb. Num. xxxiv. 3, 12. s D^m 
 
 "the northern army, and will drive him cj^^,ffs-j. 
 into a land barren and desolate, with his '^"- ^'"^- 
 
 laee ''toward the east sea, and his hinder i i^x'k.'i^'is. 
 part y toward the utmost sea, and his stink, f)'cu't'.ii;li. 
 shall come up, and his ill savour shall 
 
 20. j4iid I rvill remove far off' from i/ou the northern army. 
 God speaks of the human ageiitunder the figure oftiie locusts, 
 which perish in the sea ; yet so as to shew at on(;e, that He did 
 not intend the loc^ust itself, nor to describe the mode in whir-li 
 He should overthrow the human oppressor. He is not speak- 
 ing of the locust itself, for th<' Northern is no name for the lo- 
 cust which infested Palestine, since it came from the South ; 
 nor would the dcstructi(inofthe locust he in two ojiposite seas, 
 since they are uniformly driven hy the wind into the sea. upon 
 whose waves they alight and perish, but the wind would not 
 carry them into two opposite seas ; nor would the locust pe- 
 rish in a barren and desolate land, but would fly furtiier ; nor 
 would it be said of the locustthat he was destroyed, //<-«/««' /le 
 had done great things''. ButHerepresents to us. how this ene- 
 my should be driven quite out of the hounds of His ]ieople, so 
 that he should not vex them more, but perisli. The imagery 
 is from the Holy Land. The JEast sea is the Dead Sea, once 
 the fertile nale ofSiddim^,'"^\n whichseawere formerly Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, until Godoverthrew them." 
 This, in the Pentateuch, is called the salt sea'', or the sea of 
 the plain, or desert^, explained in Deuteronomy and Joshua to 
 be fhesa/f sea'-'; Ezekiel calls it the East sea^", and in Numbers 
 it' is said oVit^^ , your srnit li border shall be the salt sea eastward. 
 The utmost, or rather, the hinder sea^- (i. e. that which is be- 
 hind one who islookingtowardstheEast whose Hebrew name^' 
 is from ''fronting" you) isthe Mediterranean, "on whose shores 
 are Gaza and Ascalon, Azotus and Joppa and Ca-sarea." The 
 land barren and desolate, lying between, is the desert of Ara- 
 bia, the southern boundary of the Holy Land. The picture 
 then seems to be, that the Northern foes filled the whole of 
 Judaea, in numbers like the locust, and that God drove them 
 violently forth, all along the bounds of the Holy Land,into the 
 desert, the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean. S. Jerome relates 
 a mercy of God in his own time which illustrates the image; 
 but he writes so much in the language of Holy Scripture, that 
 perhaps he only means that the locusts were driven into the 
 sea, not into both seas. "In our times too we have seen hosts 
 of locusts cover Judaea, which afterwards, by the mercy of the 
 Lord, when the priests and people, between the porch and the 
 altar, i. e. between the place of the Cross and the Resurrec- 
 tion prayed the Lord and said,4/j«/-e Thy people, a wind arising, 
 were carried headlong into the Eastern sea, and the utmost sea." 
 Alvarez relates how, priests and people joining in litanies to 
 God, He delivered them from an exceeding plague of locusts, 
 which covered 24 English miles, as He delivered Eg\-pt of old 
 at the prayer of Moses. '""When we knew of this plague being 
 so near, most of the Clerks of the place came to me, that 1 
 should tell them some remedy against it. I answered them, 
 that 1 knew of no remedy except to commend themselves to 
 God, and to pray Him to drive the plague out of the land. I 
 went to the Embassador and told him that to me it seemed 
 good that we should make a procession with the people of the 
 land and that it might please our Lord God to hear us ; it seem- 
 ed good to the Embassador ; and, in the morning of the next 
 
 iii.l7. iv. 49. Josh.iii. 16.xii.3. xv. 25. xviii. 19, also in 2 Kings xiv. 25. ' Deut. iii. 
 Josh. iii. xii. '" xlvii. IS. "xxxiv.3. " Dent. xi. 24. xxxir. 2. "Dip "c.32.
 
 124 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 :hrTst ^o'"^ "P' because f he hath done j,a-eat 
 
 cir.800. 
 
 _thin 
 
 irs. 
 
 t Heb. he hath magnified to do. 
 
 day, we collected the people of the place and all the Clergy; 
 and we took our Altar-stone, and those of the place theirs, and 
 our Cross and theirs, singing- our litany, we went forth from 
 the Church, all the Portuguese and the greater part of the peo- 
 ple of the place. I said to them that they should not keep 
 silence, hut should, as we, cry aloud saying in their tongue 
 Zio marinos,i.e.in our's, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. 
 And with this cry and litany, we went tlirough an open wheat- 
 country for the space of one third of a league. — It pleased our 
 Lord io hear the sinners, and while we were turning to the 
 place, because their [the locusts'] road was toward the sea 
 whence they had come, there were s() many after us, that it 
 seemed no otherwise than that they sought to break our ribs 
 and heads with blows of stones, such were the blows they 
 dealt us. At this time a great thunderstorm arose from to- 
 ward the sea, which came in their face with rain and hail, 
 which lasted three good liours ; the river and brooks filled 
 greatly ; and when they had ceased to drive, it was matter of 
 amazenient,that the dead locusts onthebankof the great river 
 measured two cubits high ; and so for the rivulets, there was a 
 great multitude of dead on theirbanks. Onthe next day in the 
 morning there was not in the whole land even one live locust." 
 And his stink shallcome up. Theimagc is still from the lo- 
 cust. It,being such a fearful scourge of God,every individual 
 full of activity and life i-cpeatcdcountlessly in the innumerable 
 host, is, at God's will and in His time, cast by His word into the 
 sea, and when thrown up by the waves on the shore, becomes in 
 a few hours one undistiuguishable, putrifying, heaving mass. 
 Such does human malice and ambition and pride become, as 
 soon as God casts aside the sinful instrument of His chastise- 
 ment. Just now,a world to conquer could not satisfy it ; supe- 
 rior to man, independent, it deems, of God. He takes away its 
 breath, it is a putrid carcase. Such was Sennacherib's army ; 
 in the evening inspiring terror ; before the morning, he is not ^. 
 They tvere all dead corpses ". 
 
 The likeness stops here. For the punishment is at an end. 
 The wicked and the persecutors of God's people are cut off, 
 the severance has taken place. On the one side, there is the 
 putrefying mass; on the other,thejubileeof thanksgiving. The 
 gulf is fixed between them. The offensive smell of the corrup- 
 tion ascends ; as Isaiah closes his prophecy, the carcases of tlie 
 wicked, the perpetual prey of the worm and the fire, shall he an 
 ahhorring to all flesh. The righteous behold it, but it reaches 
 them not, to hurt them. In actual life, the putrid exhalations 
 at times have, among those on the sea-shore, produced a pes- 
 tilence, a second visitation of God, more destructive than the 
 first. This, however, has been but seldom. Yet what must 
 have been the mass of decay of creatures so slight, which could 
 produce a wide-wasting pestilence ! What an image of the 
 numbers of those who perish, and of the fetidness of sin ! S. 
 Augustine, in answer to the heathen who imputed all the cala- 
 mities of the later Roman Empire to the displeasure of the 
 gods, because the world had become Christian, says ^, " They 
 themselves have recorded that the multitude of locusts was, 
 
 ' Is.xvii.ll. - lb. xxxvii. 36. 3 de Civ. Dei. iii. 71. fin. He 
 
 is referring, doubtless, to Julius Obsequens, a heathen writer, (de prodig. c. xc.) "Im- 
 mense armies of locusts m Africa, wliich, cast by the wind into the sea, and thrown up 
 by tlie waves, through the intolerable smell protluced a grievous pestilence to the 
 cattle ; and of man it is related that 800,0(10 perished through this plague." Orosius 
 says, " In Numidia, 800,000 perished; on the sea coast, especially that near Carthage 
 and Utica, it is said that more than 200,000 perished. In Utica itself, 30,000 soldiers, 
 placed as a guard for all Africa, were destroyed. At Utica in one day, at one gate, more 
 
 21 ^ Fear not, O hind ; he ^4ad and re- chrTst 
 joice : for the Lord will do great thuigs. cr-soo- _ 
 
 even in Africa, a sort of prodigy, while it was a Roman pro- 
 vinc^e. They say that, after the locusts had consumed the 
 fruits and leaves of trees, they were cast into the sea, in a vast 
 incalculable cloud, which having died and being cast back 
 on the shores, and the air being infected thereliy, suc;h a 
 pestilence arose, that in the realm of JNIasinissa alone SW, (XHJ 
 men perished, and many more in the lands on the coasts. 
 Then at Utica, out of 30,000 men in tiic prime of life who 
 were there, they assert that 10 only remained." S. Jerome 
 says of the locusts of Palestine*; "when the shores of both 
 seas were filled with heaps of dead locusts which the waters 
 had cast up, their stench and putrefaction was so noxious as 
 to corrupt the air, so that a pestilence was produced among 
 both beasts and men." Modern writers say% "The locusts not 
 only produ(!e a famine, but in districts near the sea where they 
 had been drowned, they have occasioned a pestilence from the 
 putrid effluvia of the immense numbers blown upon the coast 
 or thrown up by the tides." "^ We observed, in May and 
 June, a number of these insects coming from the S. directing 
 their course to the Northern shore ; they darken the sky like 
 a thick cloud, but scarcely have they quitted the shore before 
 they who, a moment before, ravaged and ruined the country, 
 cover the surface of the sea with their dead bodies,to the great 
 distress of the Franks near the harbour, on account of the 
 stench from such a number of dead insects,driven by the winds 
 close to the very houses." "^AU the full-grown insects were 
 driven into the sea by a tempestuous N. W. wind, and were 
 afterwards cast upon the beach, where, it is said, they formed a 
 bank of 3 or 4 feet high, extending — a distance of near 50 En- 
 glish miles. It is asserted that when this mass became putrid 
 and the wind was S. E. the stench was sensibly felt in several 
 parts of Sneuwberg. The column passed the houses of two oi 
 our party, who asserted that it continued without any interrup- 
 tion for more than a month." "*The South and East winds 
 drive the clouds of locusts with violence into the Mediterra- 
 nean, and drown them in such quantities that when their dead 
 are cast on the shore, they infect the air to a great distance." 
 Wonderful image of the instantaneousness, ease, complete- 
 ness, of the destruction of God's enemies ; a mass of active life 
 exchanged, in a moment, into a mass of death. 
 
 Because he hath done great things ; lit. (as in the E. M.) be- 
 cause he hath magnified to do, i. e. as used of man, hath done 
 proudly. To do greatly^, or to magnify Himself^", when used 
 of God, is to display His essential greatness, in goodness to 
 His people, or in vengeance on their enemies. Man's great 
 deeds are mostly deeds of great ambition, great violence, 
 great pride, great iniquity ; and so of him, the words he mag- 
 nified himself^^, he did greatly^'--, mean, he did ambitiously, 
 proudly, and so offended God. In like way great doings, when 
 used of God, are His great works of good ^^; of man, his great 
 works of eviP*. "^^Man has great deserts, but evil." To speak 
 great things ^^ is to speak proud things : greatness of heart^'' is 
 pride of heart. He is speaking then of man who was God's in- 
 strument in chastening His people ; since of irrational, irre- 
 
 than 1500 of their corpses were carried out." (v. 11.) 
 
 ii. 373. ' Hasselquist, p. 445. ' Barrow, S. Afr. p. 
 
 ad loc. 5 Forbes, 
 
 239. s Volney, i. 
 
 278. 9 ii.21. Ps. cxxvi. 2,3. 1 Sam.xii. 21. i» Ezek. xxxviii. 23. "Is.x.15. 
 
 Dan. xi. 36, 37. '^ Lam. i. 9. Zeph. ii. 8. Dan. viii. 4, 8, 11, 25. 
 
 '3 nMy Ps. ix. 12. Ixxvii. 13. Ixxviii. 11. ciii. 7. Is. xii. 4; D'SVsro Ps. Ixxvii. 12. 
 
 Ixxviii. 7. H rMy Ps. cxli. 4. 1 Sam. ii. 3. Ezek. xiv. 22, 23. xx. 43. xsi. 29. 
 
 Zeph. iii. 11 ; D-'jSvD Jer. iv. 18. xi. 18. xxi. 14, see Hos. xii. 2. '» S. Aug. 
 
 '« Ps. xii. 3. Dan. vii. 8, 11, 20. '? Is. ix. 9. x. 12.
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 12.") 
 
 c H K?s T 22 Be not afraid, '■ ye beasts of the field : 
 . '^'''- ^""^ for "the i)astures of tlie wilderness do 
 
 ' ch. 1. 18, 20. . r 4.1 ■ 1 .^1 1 1- •.. 4.1 
 
 «zech.8. 12. spring, tor the tree l)earetlj her Iruit, the 
 
 'fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. 
 
 23 Be glad then, ye children of Zion, 
 
 responsible creatures, a term which involves moral fault, would 
 not have been used, nor would a moral fault have been set down 
 as the g;round why God destroyed them, 'i'be destruction of 
 Sennacherib orllolofernes have been assij^nedas tlie fulfilment 
 of this prophecy. They were part of its fulfilment, and of the 
 great law of God which it de(!lares,that instruments, which He 
 employs, and ^vho exceed or accomplish for their own ends, 
 the oftiee which He assigns them. He casts away and destroys. 
 
 21. Fear not, O laud. Before, they were bidden to trem- 
 ble \ now they are bidden, /ear tiot ; before, to turn in weeping, 
 fasting and mourning ; now ,tohound for joy and rejoice; before, 
 the land mourned ; now, the land is bidden to rejoice. The 
 enemy had done great things ; now,the cause of joy is, that God 
 had done great things ; the Almightiness of God overwhelming 
 and sweeping over the might put forth to destroy. It is better 
 rendered, ///e Lord hath done great things. If Joel includes 
 herein God's great doings yet to come, he speaks of them as, 
 in the purpose of God, already in being; or he may, in this 
 verse, presuppose that this new order of God's mercies has be- 
 gun, in the destruction of the Heathen foe. 
 
 22. The reversal of the whole former sentence is continu- 
 ed up to man. The beasts of the field groaned, were perplexed, 
 cried unto God ; now they are bidden, be not afraid ; before, 
 the pastures of the ivilderness were, devoured by fire ; now, they 
 spring with fresh tender life ; before, the fig tree was tvithei-ed, 
 the vine languished ; now, they should yield their strength, put 
 out their full vigour. For God was reconciled to His people; 
 and all things served them, serving Him. 
 
 23. He glad then and rejoice in the Lord your God. AU 
 things had been restored for their sakes ; they were to rejoice, 
 not chiefly in these things, but in God ; nor only in God, but 
 in the Lord their God. For He hath given you the former rain 
 moderately. The word rendered moderately should be rendered 
 unto righteousness ; the word, often as it occurs, never having 
 any sense, but that of righteousness, whether of God or man. 
 The other word moreh, rendered the former rain, confessedly 
 has that meaning in the latter part of the verse, although yoreh 
 is the distinctive term for latter rain -. Moreh mostly signi- 
 fies a teacher'^, which is connected with the other ordinary 
 meanings of the root, torah,law,S)C. The older translators then 
 agreed in rendering, of righteousness, or unto righteousness*, in 
 which case the question as to moreh, is only, whether it is to be 
 taken literally of a teacher, or figuratively of spiritual blessings, 
 as we say, "the dew of His grace." Even a Jew paraphrases, 
 "^ But ye, O children of Zion, above all other nations, be glad 
 and rejoice in tlie Lord your God. For in Him ye shall have 
 perfect joy, in the time of your captivity. For He will give you 
 an instructor to righteousness; andHeis theking IMessias,which 
 
 ' shall teach them the way in which they shall walk, and the do- 
 ings which they shall do." The grounds for so rendering the 
 word are; l)such is almost its uniform meaning. 2)The righte- 
 ousness spoken of is most naturally understood of righteous- 
 ness in man ; it is a condition which is the result and object of 
 God's gifts, not the Righteousness of God. But "He hath given 
 
 ' ii. 1 . 2 Deut. xi. 14. Jer. v. 2+. 
 
 ' 2 Kings xvii. 28. Job xxxvi. 22. Prov. v. 13. Is. ix. 15. xxx. 20. (twice) Hab. ii. 18. 
 * Jon. " has restored to you your instructor (or instructors) in righteousness;" Vulg. 
 
 and '' reioiee in the Lord vour God : for he ,. ,?^iT,,.^ 
 
 •' • U 11 K 1 S 1 
 
 hath given you || the former rain f mode- tir.soo. 
 
 ratidy, and he 'will cause to come down '^.'';.*'j|y'- 
 for you ''the rain, tlie former rain and tlie ./■'';•',•'*; 
 
 •^ ' /cch. 10. 7. 
 
 latter rain in the first month. W Or, nteachenf 
 
 righteousness. 
 t Heb. according to righlrmisvess. ' Lev. 2fi. 4. Deut. 11. H. & 28. 12. " Jam. .0. 7. 
 
 ymi the early rain unto righte«nisnes.s," i.e. that ye 
 rigliteous, is an unwonted expression. 3) There is a great em- 
 phasis on the word'', wliich is iidt used in tlic later part ofthe 
 verse, where rain, (wliether actual, or synilxilical of spiritual 
 blessings) is spoken of. 4) The following words, and lie mak- 
 eth the rain to desrend fur you, according to the establisiied He- 
 brew idiom", relates to a separate action, later, in order of time 
 or of thought, than tlie former. But if the former word ntm-eli 
 signified early rain, both would mean one and the sam<' thing. 
 We should notsay,"ne givethyou tliefornier rain to righteous- 
 ness, and then He maketh the rain, the former rain and the 
 latter rain to descend;" nor doth the Hebrew. 
 
 It seems then mo.st proliahle, that the rrophet jirefixes to all 
 the other promises, that first all-containing promise of the 
 Coming of Christ. Such is the wont ofthe Prophets, to go on 
 from past judgments and deliverances, to Him AVho is the cen- 
 tre of all this cycle of God's dispensations, the Son manifest in 
 the Flesh. He had been promised as a Teacher when that in- 
 termediate dispensation of Lsrael began, the Prophet like un- 
 to Moses. His Coming old Jacob looked to, / have longed for 
 Thy salvation, O Lord. Him, well known and longed for by 
 the righteous of old, Joel speaks of as the subject of rejoicing, 
 as Zechariah did ai'terwunh, Itejoice greatly , daughter of Zion ; 
 behold thy King connih unto thee. So Joel here, E.vult and 
 joy in the Lord thy God ; for He giveth, or will give thve, the 
 Teacher unto righteousness, i. e. the result and object of Whose 
 Coming is righteousness; or, as Daniel says, to bring in ever- 
 lasting righteousness ; and Isaiah, By His knotvledge, i. e. by the 
 knowledge of Him, shall My righteous Servant justify many, 
 i. e. make many righteous. How His coining siiould issue in 
 righteousness, is not here said. It is presupposed. But Joel 
 speaks of His Coming, as a gift, He shall give you ; as Isaiah 
 says, unto us a Son is given ; and that, as the Teacher, as Isaiah 
 says *, / have given Him a witness to the peoples, a Prince and 
 a Commander unto the peoples ; and that, /or righteousness. 
 
 "It is the wont of the holy j)rophets," says S.Cyril, "on 
 occasion of good things prtnnised to apart or a few, to intro- 
 duce what is more general or universal. And these are the 
 things of Christ. To this then the discourse again proceeds. 
 For when was ground given to the earth to rejoice? When did 
 the Lord do mighty things, but when the Word, being God, 
 became Man, that, flooding all below with the goods from 
 above. He might be found to those who believe in Him, as a 
 river of peace, a torrent of pleasure, as the former and latter 
 rain, and the giver of all spiritual fruitfulness r" 
 
 The early rain and the latter rain. '"'■' He multiplies words, 
 expressive of the richness of the fruits of the earth, that so we 
 may understand how wondrous is the plenteousness of spiritual 
 goods." Being about to speak of tlie large gift of God the 
 Holy Ghost as an out-pouring, he says here that "^''the large- 
 ness ofthe spiritual gifts thereafter should be as abundant as 
 the richest temporal blessings" hitherto, when God disposed 
 all things to bring about the fruitfulness which He had promis- 
 ed. The early and latter rain, coming respectively at the seed- 
 
 " teacher of righteousness ;" LXX. "the foods unto righteousness;" followed by Syr. and 
 
 Arab. * Abarb. in Poc. so also Jon. and, (following him,) Rashi, K. Japhet. 
 
 6 .-mon nu ? The l conv. » Is. Iv. -i-. » Kib. "* Lap. 
 
 B b
 
 120 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 24 And the floors sliall be full of wheat, 
 
 Before 
 f H R T S T 
 
 "■^- 800- an<l the fats shall overflow with wine 
 
 and oil. 
 
 time and tlie harvest, represent the beijinning and the com- 
 pletion ; and so, by the analojLfy of earthly and spiritual sow- 
 ing, growth and ripeness, they represent ^ preventing and per- 
 fecting grace ; the inspiration of good purposes and the gift of 
 final perseverance, which brings the just to glory consum- 
 mated ; the principles of the doctrine of Chi-ist and the going on 
 unto perfection -. 
 
 In the first month. This would belong only to the latter 
 rain, which falls about the first month, Nisan, or our April, the 
 former rain falling about 6 months earlier, at their seed time ^. 
 Or, since this meaning is uncertain*, it may be, at the first'-', 
 i. e. as soon as ever it is needed, or in contrast to the more ex- 
 tensive gifts afterwards ; or, as at the first ", i. e. all shall, upon 
 their penitence, be restored as at first. These lesser variations 
 leave the sense of the whole the same, and all are supported 
 by good authorities. It is still a reversal of the former sen- 
 tence, that, whereas afore therivers of water were dried up, now 
 the rains should come, each in its season. In the first month, 
 and at the beginning, ex\yTcss the same thought, the one with, 
 the other without, a figure. For no one then needed to be told 
 that the latter rain, if it fell, should fall in the first inonth,v.'\nc\\ 
 was its appointed season for falling. If then the words had 
 this meaning, there must have been this emphasis in it, that 
 God would give them good gifts punctually,instantly,at man's 
 first arid earliest needs, at the first moment when it would be 
 good for him to have them. j4s at the beginning, would ex- 
 press the same which he goes on to say, that God would bestow 
 the same largeness of gifts as He did, before they forfeited His 
 blessings by forsaking Him. So He says", / luill restore thy 
 judges as at the first, and thr/ counsellors as at the beginning ; 
 and ^, She shall sing there as in the dai/s of her youth, and as hi 
 the day ivhen she come up out of the land of Egypt ; and^, then 
 shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the 
 Lord, as in the days of old atid as in the former years. Likeness 
 does not necessarily imply equality '°, as in the words ^i, The 
 Lord thy God ivill raise up unto thee a Prophet like unto me ; 
 and ^-, that they may be one, even as We are One. The good 
 things of the Old Testament had a likeness to those of the 
 New, else the law would not have been even the shadow of good 
 things to come ^^; they had not equality, else they would have 
 been the very things themselves. ""Christ is the whole de- 
 light of the soul, from Whom and through Whom there com- 
 eth to those who love Him, all fulness of good and supply of 
 heavenly gifts, represented in the early and latter rain, and the 
 full floor ofu'heaf, and the fats overfloiuing with wine and oil. 
 It is true also as to the fulness of the mysteries. For the 
 living water of Holy Baptism is given us as in rain ; and as in 
 corn, the Bread of Life, and as in wine the Blood." Before, 
 the barns were brolien down, since there was nothing to store 
 therein. As other parts of the natural and spiritual husband- 
 ry correspond, and our Lord Himself compares His gracious 
 trials of those who bear fruit, with the pruning of the vine^^; 
 it may be that the vat wherein the grape or the olive, through 
 pressure, yield their rich juice, is a symbol of the tribulations 
 through which we must enter the kingdom of God'^^. " " The 
 
 ' Dion. Castr. Lap. 2 Hcb.vi. 1. 3 See on Hos. vi. 3. 
 
 * In the known cases, where, /» the first, 1»-Nn3, stands for in the first month, (Gen. \'iii. 
 '".. Num. IX. 5. Ezek.xxix.17. xlv. 1«, 21) this is marked in the sentence itself. 
 
 ' S. Jer. R. Tanchum, in Poc. 
 
 7 Is. i. 2U. Rib. 
 
 « Abarb. R. Tanch. LXX. Syr. \n\%. 
 8 Hos. ii. 15. 
 
 25 And I will restore to you the years chrTst 
 'that the locust hath eaten, the canker- ""■ ^"'- 
 worm, and the caterpiller, and the palm- ' '^ ■'■^' 
 
 holy mind, placed as if in a winefat, is pressed, refined, drawn 
 out pure. — It is pressed by calamity; refined from iniquity, 
 purified from vanity. Hence are elicited the groans of pure 
 confession ; hence stream the tears of anxious compunction ; 
 hence flow the sighs of pleasurable devotion ; hence melt the 
 longings of sweetest love ; hence are drawn the drops of purest 
 comtemplation. Wheat is the perfecting of righteousness ; 
 wine, the clearness of spiritual understanding ; oil, the sweet- 
 ness of a most pure conscience." 
 
 25. Arid I luill restore to you the years that the locust hath 
 eaten. The order in which these destroyers are named not be- 
 ing the same as before, it is plain that the stress is not on the 
 order, but on the successiveness of the inroads, scourge after 
 scourge. It is plain too thattheydidnotcomein the same year, 
 or two years, but year after year; for he says, not^/ear, butin 
 the plural, years. The locusts, although not the whole plague 
 intended, are not excluded. '"* As the power of God was shewn 
 in the plagues of Egypt by small animals, such as the cyni- 
 phes, gnats so small as scarce to be seen, so also now," in crea- 
 tures so small "is shown the power of God and weakness of 
 man. If a creature so small is stronger than man, why are 
 eartJi and ashes proud ?" The locusts, small as they are, are 
 in God's hands a great army, (and from this place probably, 
 Mohammed*^ taught his followers so to call them) and mighty 
 empires are but " -''the forces of God and messengers of His 
 Providence for the pimishing of" His people "by them," the 
 rod of His Anger ; and when they have done their commission 
 and are cast away by Him, they are as the vilest worms. 
 
 "i^Since then after repentance God promises such richness, 
 what willNovatussay, who denies repentance, or that sinners 
 can be re-formed into their former state, if they but do works 
 meet for repentance ? For God in such wise receives penitents, 
 as to call them His people, and to say, that they shall never be 
 confounded, and to promise, that He will dwell in the midst of 
 them, and that they shall have no other God, but shall, with 
 their whole mind, trust in Him Who abides in them for ever." 
 
 Through repentance all which had been lost by sin, is re- 
 stored. In itself deadly sin is an irreparable evil. It deprives 
 the soul of grace, of its hope of glory ; it forfeits heaven, it 
 merits hell. God, through Christ, restores the sinner, blots 
 out sin, and does away with its eternal consequences. He re- 
 places the sinner where he was before he fell. So God says by 
 Ezekiel "^ ; If the wicked will turn from all the sins which he 
 hath committed and keep all My statutes, and do that which is 
 lauful and right, tie shall surely live, he shall not die ; all his 
 transgressions that he hath committed shall 7iot be mentioned un- 
 to him ; and^^, as for the wickedness of the wicked, he sliall not 
 fall thereby in the day that he turnethfrom his tvickedness. God 
 forgives that wickedness, as though it had never been. If it 
 had never been, man would have all the grace, which he had be- 
 fore his fall. So then also, after he has been forgiven, none of 
 his former grace, no store of future glory, will be taken from 
 him. The time which the sinner lost, in which he might have 
 gained increase of grace and glory, is lost for ever. But all 
 which he had gained before, returns. All his lost love returns 
 
 'Mal.iii. 4. i" Rib. " Deut. xviii. 15. 
 
 1- S.John xvii. 22. 's Heb. x. 1. '* S. Cyr. '» S. John xv.2. 
 
 '* Acts xiv. 22. •' Hugo de S. V. " S. Jer. '» Mohammed probabli? had it 
 from the apostate Jew who helped him in composing the Goran. -" Abarb. in Poc. 
 
 =' xviii. 21,22. =* lb. xxxiii. 12.
 
 CHAPTEIl If. 
 
 127 
 
 c H rTs T ^^^''^''"'' ^'"y g>*eat army wliicli I sent 
 "''■ ^"o- umoni^ you. 
 
 sLev. 2d. 5. 20 And ye shall scat in plenty, and be 
 See Lev. ' Satisfied, and praise the name of the Ijord 
 Mic^e. !♦. your God, that hath dealt wondrously 
 
 with j-ou : and my people shall never be 
 
 ashamed. 
 
 throuffh penitence ; all his past attainments, which were before 
 accepted by God. arc accepted still for the sanicglory. "Form- 
 er works which were deadened by sins followinj;^, revive throuifli 
 repentance'." Tlie ])enitent bcg^ins anew God's service, but he 
 is not at the beginninj^ of that service, nor of his preparation 
 for life eternal. If the grace which he had before, and the glo- 
 ry corresponding to that grace, and to his former attainments 
 through that grace, were lost to him, then, although eternally 
 blessed, he would be punished eternally for forgiven sin, which, 
 God has promised, should not he remenihered. God has also 
 promised to reward all which is done in the body-. AVhat is 
 evil, is effaced by the Blood of Jesus. What, through His 
 Grace, was good, and done for love of Himself, He rewards, 
 whether it was before any one fell, or after his restoration. 
 Else He would not, as He says He will, reward all. And who 
 would not believe, that, after David's great fall and great repen- 
 tance, God still rewarded all that great early simple faith and 
 patience, which He gave him ? Whence writers of old say, '"It 
 is pious to believe that the recovered grace of God which de- 
 stroys a man's former evils, also reintegrates his good, and that 
 God, when He hath destroyed in a man what is not His, loves 
 the good which He implanted even in the sinner." "^Godis 
 pleased alike with the virtue of the just, and the meet repen- 
 tance of sinners, which restored to their former estate David 
 and Peter." " Penitence is an excellent thing which recalleth 
 to perfection everydefect." "^God IcttetliHis sunarise onsin- 
 ners,nor doth He less than before,give them, most large gifts of 
 life and salvation." Whence, since the cankerworm, &c. are 
 images of spiritual enemies, this place has been paraphrased ; 
 "^ I will not allow the richness of spiritual things to perish, 
 which ye lost through the passions of the mind." Nay, since 
 nonecan recover without the graceof God andusing that grace, 
 the penitent, who really rises again by the grace of God, rises 
 with larger grace than before, since he has both the former 
 grace, and, in addition, this new grace, whereby he rises. 
 
 26. And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. It is of tJie 
 punishment of God, when men eat and are not satisfied'^; it is 
 man's sin, that they are satisfied, and do not praise God, but 
 the more forget Him*. And so God's blessings become a curse 
 to him. God promises to restore His gifts, and to give grace 
 withal, that they should own and thank Him. 
 
 Who hath dealt wondrously with you, "First, wonderfully 
 He afflicted and chastened them, and then gave them wonder- 
 ful abundance of all things, and very great and miraculous con- 
 solation after vehement tribulation, so that they might truly 
 say. This is the change of the Right Hand of the Most High." 
 
 And Mil people shall nei'ei- he ashamed. " " So that they per- 
 severe in His service. Although he incur temporal confusion, 
 yet this shall not last for ever, but the people of the predesti- 
 nate, penitent, and patient in adversity, will be saved for ever." 
 
 ' Gloss in Ep. ad Heb. - 2 Cor. v. 10. 3 de ver. et fals. poenit. c. 14. 
 
 * Gloss on Lev. vii, init. * S. Aug. Ep. 153, ad Macedon. § 7. ' Gloss hie. 
 
 The above passages are quoted by Medina, de pcenit. q. 8. wlio uses these arguments. 
 
 ' See Hos. iv. 10. * Hos. xiii. G. '•' Di ■- - ■ -- •• ■ -- 
 
 )ion. '" Deut. xxxi. 17. 
 
 ii.l7. 
 
 27 " And yc shall know that I am'm the c h'h7st 
 midst of Israel, and that ^l am the liOitn ""■ »^"'- 
 your God, and none else : and my people i" Lev^2o!'ii. 
 shall never be ashamed. 2«,' 2^r28'. "'^' 
 
 28 ^[ ' And it shall come to pass after- "22'. EiJk.ly. 
 ward, that I "'will pour out my sj)irit upon 1 if'ff;,. 
 all flesh ; "andyoursonsand"yourdau<?hters Acmi'f?.'^' 
 
 "' Zecli. 12. in. .John 7. 39. " Is. .11. 13. <> Acts 21. 9. 
 
 27. And ye shall hioiu that I am in the midst of Israel. 
 God had foretold their rebellions. His forsaking them, the 
 troubles which should _//«(/ them, and that they should say'^^, 
 Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among 
 us ? It had been the mockery of the Heathen in their dis- 
 tress '1, fFhere is their Godl' " Now, by the fulfilment of His 
 promises and by all God's benefits, tliey should know that 
 He was among them by special grace as His own peculiar peo- 
 ple." Still more was this to be fulfilled to Christians, in whose 
 heart He dwells by love and grace, and of whom He says. 
 Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there 
 will I be in the midst of them. In the highest sense, God was 
 in the midst of them, in that "'- God the Son, e(|ual to God the 
 Father as touching His Godhead, did, in the truth of human 
 nature, take our flesh. This to see and know, is glory and 
 bliss inetiFable. Therefore He repeats, and by repeating", con- 
 firms, what He had said. And My people shall never be ashamed. 
 Yea, glorious, magnified, honoured, shall be the people, to 
 whom such a Son was promised, and of whom He was born. 
 Glorious to them is that which the Apostle saith, that lie took 
 not on Him the nature of Angels, but He took the seed of Abra- 
 ham, and this glory shall be eternal." 
 
 28. And it shall come to pass afterward. After the pu- 
 nishment of the Jews through the Heathen, and their deliver- 
 ance; after the Coming of the Teacher of righteousness, was 
 to follow the outpouring of the Spirit of God. 
 
 I will pour out My Spirit on all Jiesh. "'-This which lie 
 says, on all flesh, admits of no exception of nations or persons. 
 For before Jesus was glorified. He had poured His Sjiirit only 
 on the sons of Zion, and out of that nation only were there 
 Prophets and wise men. But after He was glorified by His 
 Resurrection and Ascension, He made no difterence of Jews 
 and Gentiles, but willed that remissionof sins should be preach- 
 ed to all alike." 
 
 All Jiesh is the name of all mankind. So in the time of 
 the flood, it is said all flesh had corrupted his way : the e?id 
 of all Jiesh is come before Me. JMoses asks, who of all Jiesh hath 
 heard the voice of the Lord God, as we have, a?id lived f So 
 in Job ; i)i Whose Hand is the breath of all flesh of man. If 
 He set His heart upon man. if He gather to Himself his spirit 
 and his breath, all flesh shall perish togetlier. And David; 
 Thou that hearest prayer, to Thee shall all Jiesh come; let all Jiesh 
 bless His Holy A'ame for ever and ever^^. In like way speak 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah'*. The words all Jiesh 
 are in the Pentateuch, and in one place in Daniel, used, in a 
 yet wider sense, of every thing which has life'^ ; but, in no one 
 case, in any narrower sense. It does not include every indivi- 
 dual in the race, but it includes the whole race, and indivi- 
 duals throughout it, in every nation, sex, condition, Jetc or 
 Gentile, Greek or Barbarian, i. e. educated or uneducated, rich 
 
 '2 Rup. " Gen. vi. 12, 13. Deut. v. 26. Job xii. 10. xxxiv. 14, 15. Ps. Ixv. 
 
 2.cxlv. 21. " Ie. xl.5. G. xlix. 2G. Ixvi. 16, 23, 24. Jer. xxv. Sl.xxxii. 2". xlv. 5. 
 
 Ezek. XX. 4S. xxi. 4, 5. Zech. ii. 13. '* Gen. vi. 17, 19. vii. 15, 16, 21. viii, 
 
 17. ix. 11, 15,16,17. Lev.xvii, 14. Nura.xviii. 15. Dan.iv. 12;probabIv Ps. cxxxvi.io 
 
 Bb2
 
 128 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. SUO. 
 
 shall prophesy, your old men shall dream 
 
 or poor. 
 
 bond or 
 
 1 
 
 free, male or female. As all were to be one 
 in C/irist Ji'sns ', so on all was to be poured the Holy Spirit, 
 the Bond Wiio was to bind all in one. He names our nature 
 from that whicii is the lowest in it./Z/c //r.s/(,witli the same con- 
 descension with which it is said, T/ic IFord was made Jlesli", 
 whence we speak of the Iiiruniution of our Blessed Lord, i. e. 
 '• His takiuiT on Him our Flesh." He humbled Himself to take 
 our flesh ; He came, as our Physician, to heal our flesh, the seat 
 . of our concupiscence. So also God the Holy Ghost vouchsafes 
 \ to dwell in our flesh, to sanctify it and to heal it. He,WhomGod 
 saith He will pour out on all flesh, is the Sj)irit of God, and God. 
 He does not say that He will pour out graces, or j?ifts, ordinary 
 or c.Ktraordinary, influences, communications, or the like. He 
 says, Ih'HI pour out 3fi/ Spirit; as S.Paul says,ktiowi/e7iot that 
 ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelletli in i/ou^? 
 Ye are not in t/iejie.sh hut in the Sjilrit. if xo he that the Spirit 
 of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
 Christ, he is none of His*. It is said indeed, o?/ the Gentiles al- 
 so was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, but the gift of 
 tlie Holy Ghost was the Holy Ghost Himself, as it had been 
 just said, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word'. 
 It is said, the love of God is shed ahroad in our hearts hi/ the 
 Holy Ghost, which is given ns^ ; but tlie Holy Ghost is first 
 given, and He poureth out into the soul the love of God. As 
 God the Word, when He took human nature, came into it per- 
 sonally, so that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt hodily in it'' ; 
 so, really, although not personally, " doth the Holy Spirit, and 
 so the whole Trinity, enter into our mind, by sanctification, 
 and dwelleth in it as in His throne." No created being, no 
 Angel, nor Archangel could dwell in the soul. " * God Alone 
 can be poured out into the soul, so as to possess it, enlighten 
 it, teach, kindle, bend, move it as He wills," sanctify, satiate, 
 fill it. And " as God is really present with the blessed, when 
 He sheweth to them His Essence by the beatific vision and 
 light of glory, and communicates it to them, to enjoy and pos- 
 sess ; so He, the Same,is also in the holy soul, and thus ditfus- 
 eth in it His grace, love, and other divine gifts." At the mo- 
 ment of justification, "the Holy Ghost and so the whole Holy 
 Trinity entereth the soul as His temple, sanctifying and as it 
 were dedicating and consecrating it to Himself, and at the 
 same moment of time, although in the order of nature subse- 
 quently. He communicates to it His love and grace. Such is 
 the meaning of. IVe tuill come unto him. and make Our abode with 
 hiyn. This is the highest union of God with the holy soul ; and 
 greater than this can none be given to any creature, for by it we 
 become partakers of the divine Nature, as S. Peter' saith. See 
 here, O Christian, the dignity of the holiness whereunto thou 
 art called and with all zeal follow after, preserve, enlarge it." 
 This His Spirit, God says, I will pour, i. e. give largely, as 
 though He would empty out Him Who is Infinite, so that there 
 shouldbe no mcasureof His giving,save our capacity of receiv- 
 ing. So He says of converted Israel i", / have poured out My 
 Spirit upon the house of Israel, and'^, / will pour out upon the 
 house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spi- 
 rit of grace and supplicatioii. 
 
 And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. This 
 cannot limit what he has said, that God would pour out His 
 
 > Gal. iii. 2S. ' S. Aug. Ep. 140. c. 4. Lap. 3 i Cor. iii. 16. * Rom. viii. 9, 10. 
 s Acts X. 44, 45. » Rom. v. 5. 7 Col. ii. 9. a Lap. 9 2 S. Pet. i. 4. 
 
 1" Ezek. xxxix. 29. " Zech. xii. 10. '2 Rup. " S. Luke i. 48. " lb. 67 sqq. 
 iMb.ii. 3G,38. " lb. i. 12-45. " Acts xxi. 9. '8 lb. xi. 28. xxi.lO, 11. 
 
 dreams, your youiif^ men shall see visions : ch rist 
 
 cir. bOO. 
 
 Spirit upon all flesh. He gives instances of that out-pouring, 
 in those miraculous gifts, which were at the first to be the 
 tokens and evidence of His inward Presence. These gifts 
 were at the first bestowed on the Jews only. The highest were 
 reserved altogether for them. Jews only were employed as 
 Apostles and Evangelists ; Jews only wrote, by inspiration of I 
 God, the oracles of God, as the source of the faith of the whole | 
 world. "^-The Apostles were sons of Israel; the Mother of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and the other women who abode at the 
 same time and prayed with the Apostles, were daughters. 
 S. Luke mentions, All these were persevering ivith one accord 
 in prayer with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and His 
 brethren. These sons and daughters of the Sons of Zion, hav- 
 ing received the Spirit, prophesied, i. e. in divers tongues they 
 spoke of the heavenly mysteries." In the narrower sense of 
 "^foretelling the future,the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin'*, Za- 
 charias '* and Anna ^'', Elizabeth '*■, the virgin daughters of 
 Philip 1", Agabus '*, S. John in the Apocalypse," Simeon i^, and 
 S. Paul also oftentimes -" prophesied. At Antioch, there were 
 cert'Axn prophets-'^ ; and —the Holy Ghost in every city witness- 
 ed, saying, that bonds and aJfUctio)ts aivaited him in Jerusalem. 
 "But it is superfluous." addsTlieodoret-^ after giving some in- 
 stances, "to set myself to prove the truth of the prophecy. For 
 down to our times also hath this gift been preserved, and there 
 are among the saints, men who have the eye of the mind clear, 
 who foreknow and foretell many of the things which are about 
 to be." So the death of Julian the Apostate, who fell, as it 
 seemed, by a chance wound in war with the Persians was for- 
 seen and foretold-*; and S.Cyprian foretold the day of his 
 own martyrdom and the close of Decian persecution, which 
 ended through the death of the Emperor in a rash advance 
 over a morass, when victory was gained -\ The stream of 
 prophecy has been traced down through more than four cen- 
 turies from the Birth of the Redeemer. One of the Bishops 
 of the Council of Nice was gifted with a jirophetic spirit-^. 
 
 Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young meii 
 shall see visions. "*God often attempers Himself and His ora- 
 cles to the condition of men, and appears to each, as suits his 
 state." It may then be, that to old men, while sleeping by 
 reason of age. He appeared most commonly in dreams ; to 
 young men, while watching, in visions. But it is so common 
 in Hebrew, that each part of the verse should be filled up from 
 the other, that perhaps the Prophet only means, that their old 
 and young should have dreams and see visions, and both from 
 God. Nor are these the highest of God's revelations; as He 
 says, that to the prophet He would make Himself A/jom-'m in a vi- 
 sion and would speak in a dream, but to Moses mouth to mouth ; 
 even apparently, and not in dark speeches ; and the similitude 
 of the Lord shall he behold-''. 
 
 The Apostles also saw waking visions, as S.Peter at Joppa-^; 
 (and that so frequently, that when the Angel delivered him, he 
 thought that it was one of his accustomed visions-*,) and S.Paul 
 after his conversion, and calling him to Macedonia; and the 
 Lord appeared unto him in vision at Corinith, revealing to him 
 the conversions which should be worked there, and at Je- 
 rusalem fortelling to him the witness he should bear to Him 
 at Rome. In the ship, the Angel of the Lord foretold to him 
 
 '9 S. Lukeii.27-33. =» Actsxx. 29, 30.2Thess. ii. 3-12. 2Tim. iii. 1,4. 1 Tim. iv. 1. 
 
 =' Actsxiii.l. "Ib.xx.23. ssadloc. 2< Theodoiet H.E. iii. 18,19. 26 See Pref. to 
 S. Cyprian's Epistles and Ep. xi. p. 27. note k. Oxf. Tr. ^6 §_ Greg. Naz. Oral. 18. in 
 (un. patr. § 12. " Num. xii. 6, 8. -^ Acts x. 10 sqq. xi. 5 sqq. 25 lb. xij, g. 

 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 129 
 
 29 And also upon Pthe servants and 
 upon the handmaids in those days will I 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 n 1 Cor. 12. 13. ^ • •- 
 
 Gal. 3. 28. pour out my spn-it 
 
 Col.' 3.' 11." 
 
 his own safety, and that God had jjivcn him all who sailed 
 with hini^. Ananias ^and Cornelius ''also received revelations 
 throui;:h visions. But all these were only revelations ofsinjijle 
 truths or faets. Of a hia;hcr sort seems to be that revelation, 
 whereby our Lord revealed to S. Paul Himself and His Gos- 
 pel which S. Paul was to preach, and the wisdom of God, and 
 the glories of the world to come, and the conversion of the 
 Gentiles ; and when he was caught up to the third heaven, and 
 abundance of revelations were vouchsafed to him*. 
 
 29. And also upon the servants. God tells beforehand that 
 He would be no respecter of persons. He had said, that He 
 would endow every age and sex. He adds here, and every con- 
 dition, even that of slaves, both male and female. He does 
 not add here, that they shall prophesy. Under the law, God 
 had provided for slaves, that, even if aliens, they should by 
 circumcision be enrolled in His family and people ; that they 
 should have the rest and the devotion of the sabbath; and share 
 the joy of their great festivals, going up with their masters 
 and mistresses to the place which God appointed. They were 
 included in one common ordinance of joy ; Ye shall rejoice he- 
 fore the Lord your God, ye and your sons and your daughters, 
 and [lit.] your men slaves and your women slaves, and the Le- 
 vite which is wit hiny our gates^. In the times before the Gos- 
 pel, they doubtless fellunder the contempt in which the Pharisees 
 held all the Jess educated class ; These people who knoweth not 
 Me/rtJt; (i.e. according to theexplanation of their schools) wcMrs- 
 ed. Whence it was a saying of theirs, "* Prophecy doth not re- 
 side except on one wise and mighty and rich." As then else- 
 where it was given as a mark of the Gospel, the poor have the 
 Gospel preached unto them, so here. It was not what the Jews 
 of his day expected; for he says, And on the servants too. But 
 he tells beforehand, what was against the pride both of his own 
 times and of the time of its fulfilment, that^ God chose the fool- 
 ish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath cho- 
 sen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are 
 inighty ; and base things of the tvorld and things tvhich are de- 
 spised hath God chosen, and things which are 7iot, to bring to 
 nought things that are, that no Jlesh should glory in His pre- 
 sence. The prophetic word circles round to that wherewith 
 it began, the all-containing promise of the large out-pouring 
 of the Spirit of God ; and that, upon those whom the carnal 
 Jews at all timeswould least expect to receive it. It began with 
 including the heathen ; / ivill pour out My Spirit on all flesh ; 
 it instances individual gifts; and then it ends by resting on the 
 slaves ; atid on these too in those days will I pour out My Spirit. 
 The order of the words is significant. He begins, / luill pour 
 out My Spirit upon all flesh, and then, in order to leave the 
 mind resting on those same great words, he inverts the order, 
 and ends, and upon the servants and upon the handmaidens I 
 will pour out My Spirit. It leaves the thoughts resting on the 
 great words, / will pour out My Spirit. 
 
 The Church at Rome, whose faith tvas spoken of throughout 
 the ivhole world^, was, as far as it consisted of converted Jews, 
 made up of slaves, who had been set free by their masters. 
 For such were most of the Roman Jews, "'who occupied that 
 
 ' Actsix. 12. xvi. 6,7, 9. xviii. 9. xix. 21. xxiii. 11. xxvii. 24. 
 
 Mb.ix.lO. 3ib.x.3. •• Gal.i. 12, 10. ICor. ii. 7. Eph.iii. 3. 2Cor. 
 
 xii. 1-7. 5 Gen. xvii. 23, 27. Ex. xx. 10. Deut. xii. 12, 18. xvi. 11, 14. 6 Moreh 
 
 Nebochim,ii. 32.inPoc. 7 1 Cor. i. 27-30. « Rom. i. S. 9 philo leg. 
 
 ad Caium, p. 1014. ed. Paris. >» Dion. " Ps. cxvi. 16. '2 Gen. xxvi. 2*. 
 
 80 And il will shew wonders in the chrTst 
 heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, "■'•• ^O- 
 and piUars of smoke. 
 
 1 Matt. 24. 29. 
 Mark 13. 24. 
 Luke21. 11,25. 
 
 large section of Rome beyond the Tiber." Mo-t of these, Philo 
 says, "having been made freemen, were Roman citizens. For 
 having been brought as captives to Italy, set free by their pur- 
 chasers, without being compelled to change any of 'their coun- 
 try's rites, they had their synagogues and asseml)led in tliem, 
 especially on the sabbath." 
 
 S. Peter, in declaring that these words began to be fulfilled 
 in the Day of Pentecost, (juotes them with two lesser differ- 
 ences. I wit I pour out of My Spirit, and upon .M y servants and 
 My handmaidens. 'I'he words declare something in addition, 
 but do not alter the meaning, and so S. Peter quotes them as' 
 they lay in the Greek, which jirobably was the langua!,^e known 
 by most of the mixed multitude, to whom he spake on the day 
 of Pentecost. The words, / will pour out Mi/ Spirit, express 
 the largeness and the fulness of the gift of I'lini, "J" Who is 
 Very God, Unchangeable and Infinite, Who is given or |)oured 
 out, not by change of place but by the largeness of His Pre- 
 sence." The words, I will pour out of My Spirit, express in 
 part, that He Who is Infinite cannot be contained by us who 
 are finite; in part, they indicate, that there should be'a distri- 
 bution of gifts, although worked by One and the Same Spirit, 
 as the Prophet also implies in what follows. Again, the words, 
 the servants and the handmaidens, mark the outward condition ; 
 the words My servants and My ha?ulmaidens,dcc\an that there 
 should be no difference between bond and free. The servants 
 and handmaidens should have that highest title of honour, that 
 they should be the servants of God. For what more can the i 
 creature desire ? The Psalmist says to God 'i, Lo I am Thy 
 servant and the son of Thine handmaid ; and God gives it as 
 a title of honour to Abraham and Moses and Job and David 
 and Isaiah'-, and Abraham and David call themselves the ser- 
 vants of God '3, and S. Paul, S. Peter, and S. Jude, servants of 
 Jesus Christ '*, and S. James, the servant of God '^ ,• and the 
 blessed Virgin, the handmaid of the Lord'^^ ; yea, and our Lord 
 Himself, in His Human Nature is spoken of in prophecy as 
 ^'^ the Servant of the Lord. 
 
 30. And I will shew wonders. Each revelation of God pre- 
 pares the way for another, until that last revelation of His love 
 and of His wrath in the Great Day. In delivering His people 
 from Egypt, the Lord shewed signs and ivonders, great and 
 sore, upon Egypt '^ Here, in allusion to it. He says, in the 
 same words''', of the new revelation, I will shew, or give, luon- 
 ders, or rcondrous signs, (as the word includes both wonders 
 beyond the course and order of nature, and portending other 
 dispensations of God, of joy to His faithful, terror to His ene- 
 mies. As when Israel came out of Egypt, -^^ the pillar of the 
 cloud was a cloud and darkness to the camp of the Egi/ptians, 
 but gave light by 7iight to the camp of Israel, so all God's work- 
 ings are light and darkness at once, according as men are, who 
 see them or to whom they come. These wonders in heaven and 
 earth "began in"the first Coming and" Passion of Christ,gi-ew 
 in the destruction of Jerusalem, but shall be perfectly fulfilled 
 towards the end of the world, before the final Judgment, and 
 the destruction of the Universe." At the birth of Christ, there 
 was the star which appeared unto the wise men, and the inulti- 
 
 Num.xii.7,S- Jo5h.i.2. 2 Kings xxi. 8. Job i. 8. ii. 3. xlii. 7,8.2 Sam. vii. 5, &c. Is. 
 XX. 3. "Gen. xix. 19. Ps. Ixxxvi.2, 4. » Rom. i. 1. Gal. i. 10. 2 S. Pet. i. 1. 
 
 S.Judel. IS S.Jani.i. l.alsoTit. i. 1. '6 S. Luke i. 38, 48. '" Is. -xlii. 1. 
 xlix. 6. Hi. 13. Zcch iii. S. Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 4. xxxvii. 24, 5. '« Deut. vi. 22. 
 
 •9 D-nori nniN " jm Deut. d'heid 'nnai Joel. ='•' Ex. xiv. 19, 20.
 
 130 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 cbrTst ^1 ''The sun sliall be turned into dark- 
 
 "''••'^°"- ness, and tlie moon into blood, ' before tlie 
 
 ' ch/s^.i'i5.' great and the terrible day of the Lord come. 
 
 ver. io.'Matt. 2t. '29. Mark 13. 24. Luke 21. 25. Rev. 6. 12. • Mai. 4. 5. 
 
 32 And it shall eome to pass, that 'who- chrTst 
 soever shall call on the name of the Loro "'"■ ^"^■ 
 
 shall be delivered : for " in mount Zion and [ {^""^."/j,''*' 
 
 & 59. 20. Obad. 17. Rom.'ll.'26. 
 
 tilde of the heuvenlij host, whom the slieplierd.s saw. At His 
 Atoniiiiif Deatli, the xiai nuts darkened, there was tlie three 
 hours' darkness over the whole hiiid ; and on eartli ttie veil of 
 the temple iviis rent in twain from the tuji to the hotttmi, and 
 the earth did yuaAe. and the roc/cs rent, and the graves were open- 
 ed^ : and the Bh)od and water issued from the Saviour's side. 
 After His Resurrection, there was the vision of Angels, terrihle 
 to the soldiers who watched the sepulchre, comfortiiif^ to the 
 women who souc^ht to honour Jesus. His Resurrection was a 
 sign on earth, His Ascension in earth and heaven. But our 
 Lord speaks of sijjns both in earth and heaven, as well before 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, as before His second Cominf!:. 
 With regard to the details, it seems probable that this is an 
 instance of what we may call an inverted parallelism, that hav- 
 ing mentioned generally that God would give signs in 1 ) heaven 
 and 2) earth, the Prophet first instances the signs in earth, and 
 then those in heaven. A veryintellectual Jewishcxpositor- has 
 suggested this, and certainly it is frequent enough to be, in con- 
 ciser forms, one of the idioms of the sacred language. In such 
 case, the blood and fire and pillars of smoke, will be signs in 
 earth ; the turning of the snn into darkness and the moon into 
 blood will be signs ijt heave)i. When foretelling the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, the Day of vengcance,which fell with such accu- 
 mulated horror on the devoted city, and has for these 1800 
 years dispersed the people of Israel to the four winds, our Lord 
 mentions first the signs on earth, then those inheaven. Action 
 shall arise against station, and kingdom against kingdom, a7id 
 great earthquakes shall be in divers jilaees, and fa?nines, and 
 pestilences ; and fearful sights and great signs shall there he from 
 heaven^. Before the Day of Judgment our Lord also speaks of 
 both*; 1) there shall he signs in thesun andin themoon and in the 
 sta7's ; 2) and upon the earth distress of nations with perple.vili/ ; 
 the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for 
 fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the 
 earth ; for the potcers of heaven shall he shaken. 
 
 The Jewish historian relates signs both in heaven and in 
 earth, before the destruction of Jerusalem ^. " A star stood 
 like a sword over Jerusalem ; " " a light which, when the peo- 
 ple were assembled at the Passover at 9 at night, shone so 
 brightly around the altar and the temple, that it seemed like 
 bright day, and this for half an hour ; the Eastern door of the 
 temple, which 20 men scarcely shut at eventide, stayed with 
 iron-bound bars, and very deep bolts let down into the thresh- 
 hold of one solid stone,was seen at 6 o'clock at night to open of 
 its own accord ; chariots and armed troops were seen along the 
 whole country, coursing through the clouds, encircling the ci- 
 ties ; at the feast of Pentecost, the priests entering the tem- 
 ple by night, as their wont was for worship, first perceived a 
 great movement and sound, and then a multitudinous voice, 
 'Let us depart hence.' " These signs were authenticated by 
 the multitude or character of those who witnessed them. 
 
 31. Before the great and terrible Day of the Lord come. 
 " ^ The days of our life are our days wherein we do what we 
 please ; that will be the Day of the Lord, when He, our Judge, 
 shall require the account of all our doings. It will be s.reat, lie- 
 cause it is the horizon of timeand eternity; the last day of time, 
 the beginning of eternity. It will put an end to the world,guilt, 
 
 1 S. Lukexxiii.44, 5. S. Matt, xxvii. 45, 51,52. 2 Aben Ezra. 
 
 3 S. Luke xxi. 10, 11. * III. 25, 26. s Jos. de hell. Jud. vi. 5. .5; also in 
 
 Euseb. H. E. iii. 8. " Lap. i Hugo de S. V. s §_ Basil in Ps. xxxiii. § 8. Lap. 
 
 deserts,good or evil. It will be ^r^/i, because in it great things 
 will be done. Christ with all His Angels will come down, and 
 sit on His Throne ; all who have ever lived or shall live, shall 
 be placed before Him to be judged ; all thoughts, words, and 
 deeds shall be weighed most exactly ; on all a sentence will be 
 passed, absolute, irrevocable throughout eternity; the saints 
 shall be assigned to heaven, the ungodly to hell ; a great gulf 
 shall be placed between, which shall severthom for ever, so that 
 the ungodly shall never see the godly nor heaven nor God ; 
 but shall be siiut up in a prison for ever, and shall burn as long 
 as heaven shall be heaven, or God shall be God." ""^That Day 
 shall be great to the faithful, terrible to the unbelieving; great 
 to those who said. Truly this is the Sou of God ; terrible to 
 those who said. His blood be upon us and upon our children." 
 "** When then thou art hurried to any sin, think on that terri- 
 ble and unendurable judgment-seat of Christ, where the Judge 
 sits on His lofty Throne, and all creation shall stand in awe at 
 His glorious Appearing and we shall be brought, one by one, 
 to give account of what we have done in life. Then by him 
 who hath done much evil in life, there will stand terrible an- 
 gels. — There will he the deep gulf, the impassable darkness, 
 the lightless fire, retaining in darkness the power to burn, but 
 reft of its rays. There is the empoisoned and ravenous worm 
 insatiablydevouring and never satisfied, inflicting by its gnaw- 
 ing pangs unbearable. There that sharpest punishment of 
 all, that shame and everlasting reproach. Fear these things ; 
 and, instructed by this fear, hold in thy soul as with a bridle 
 from the lust of evil." 
 
 32. IVIiOsoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord. To 
 call upon the Name of the Lord, is to worship Him, as He IS, 
 depending upo7i Him. The Name of the Lord, expresses His 
 True Beiug,That which He IS. Hence so often in Holy Scrip- 
 ture, men are said to call on the Name of the Lord, to bless 
 the Name of the Lord, to praise the Name of the Lord, losing 
 praises to His A'ame, to make mention of His Name, to tell of 
 His Name, to know His Name ^ ; but it is very rarely said I will 
 praise the Name of God^^. For the Name rendered the Lord, 
 expresses that He IS, and that He Alone IS, the Self-Same, 
 the Unchangeable; the Name rendered Godis not the special 
 Name of God. Hence as soon as men were multiplied and the 
 corrupt race of Cain increased, men began, after the birth of 
 Enos, the son of Seth, to call upon the Name of the Lord^^,\. e. 
 in public worship. Abraham's worship, in the presence of the 
 idolatries of Canaan, is spoken of, under the same words, he 
 called upon the Name of the Lord^". Elijah says to the pro- 
 phets of Baal, ca//j/e on the name of your gods, and Iwill call on 
 the N'aine of the Lord^^. Naaman the Heathen says of Elisha^*, 
 I thought that he would come out to me, and stand and call on 
 the Name of the Lord his God. Asaph and Jeremiah pray 
 GqA.^'" ; Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not 
 known Thee, and upon the kingdoms, SJamilics i^v?}^ which have 
 not called upon Thy Natne ; and Zephaniah foretells the con- 
 version of the Heathen '^, that they may all call upon the Name 
 of the Lord, to serve Him tvith one consent. 
 
 To call tlien upon the Nnne of the Lord implies right faith, 
 to call upon Him as He IS ; right trust in Him leaning upon 
 Him ; right devotion, ««illing upon Him as He has appointed ; 
 
 5 TXr ']rn\ -pt> n-j3DN, m'DiK, mitt, .tuin. " cc nn 'jSn ,xil. " c:'3 nip 
 
 ><• Fs. Ixix. 31. Heb. " Gen. iv.2(j. '- lb. xii. 8. xiii. i. xxi. 33. xxvi. 25. 
 
 " 1 Kings xviii. 21. '< 2 Kings v. 11. '* Ps. Ixxix. G. Jer. x. 25. '^ iii. 9.
 
 CHAPTER Iir. 
 
 131 
 
 chrTst '" Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the 
 """• ^''"- Lord hath said, and in " the remnant 
 
 Jei-.si. 7.' whom the Lord shall call. 
 &5;3,7%. CHAPTER III. 
 
 & ii.'s," 7. ' 1 God's judgments against the enemies of his people. 
 
 riftht life, ourselves wlio call upon Him beinjif, or beeomiuf;: by 
 His Grace, what He wills. They ra/f not upon the Lord, liut 
 upon some idol of their own imagining;-, who call u])on IJim, 
 as other than He has revealed Himself, or remainiiie: them- 
 selves other than those whoni He has declared that He will 
 hear. For sucii deny the very primary attribute of God, His 
 truth. Their God is not a God of truth. But whosoever shall 
 in true faith and hope and charity have in this life worshipped 
 God, shall he delivered, i. e. out of the midst of all the horrors 
 of that Day, and the horrible damnation of the ungodly. The 
 deliverance is by way of escape (for such is the meaning; of the 
 word ^,) he shall he made to escape, slip Ihroitgh (as it were) 
 perils as imminent as they shall be terrible. Our Lord uses 
 the like word of the same Day-, Watch ye therefore and pray 
 always, that ye may he accounted worthy to escape all these 
 things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of 
 man. Those who so call upon Him in truth shall be heard in 
 that day, as He says ', Ask and it shall be given you ; What- 
 soever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it yon. 
 "''That calling on God whereon salvation depends, is not 
 in words only, but in heart and in deed. For what the heart 
 believeth, the mouth confesseth, the hand in deed fiiltilleth. 
 The Apostle saith ^, A'o man can say that Jesus is the Lord, 
 bat by the Holy Ghost ; yet this very saying must be weighed 
 not by words,but by theatfections. Whence we readof Samuel, 
 And Samuel among those ivho call upon His Name, and of Mo- 
 ses and Aaron", These called upon the Lord, and He heard them. 
 For in JUount Zion — shall be deliverance. liepentance 
 and reinission of sins were to be preached in the Name of Jesus, 
 in all nations, beginniiig at Jerusalem '. There was, under 
 the Old Testament, the centre of the worship of God ; there 
 was the Church founded; thence it spreadover the whole world. 
 The place **, ivhither the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, 
 unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the Naine of 
 the Lord, where God had set His Name, where alone sacrifice 
 could lawfully be offered, stands, as elswhere, for the whole 
 Church. Of that Church, we are in Baptism all made mem- 
 bers, when we are made members of Christ, children of God, 
 and heirs of heaven. Of that Church all remain members, 
 who do not, by viciousness of life, or rejecting the truth of God, 
 cast themselves out of it. They then are members of the soul 
 of the Church, who, not being members of the visible Com- 
 munion and society, know not, that in not becoming members 
 of it, they are rejecting the command of Christ, to Whom by 
 faith and love and in obedience they cleave. And they, being 
 members of the body or visible Communion of the Church, are 
 not members of the s(ml of the Church, who, amid outward pro- 
 fession of the faith, do, in heart or deeds, deny Him Whom in 
 words they confess. The deliverance promised in that Day, 
 is to those who, being in the body of the Church, shall by 
 true faith in Christ and fervent love to Him belong to the soul 
 of the Church also, or who. although not in the body of the 
 Church shall not, through their own fault, have ceased to be 
 in the body, and shall belong to its soul, in that through faith 
 and love they cleave to Christ its Head. 
 
 ' bSd> 2 S. Luke xxi. 36. 3 s Matt.vii. 7.S. Jolinxvi.23. ^HuRodeS.V. 
 
 p.artlyfrom S. Jer. *lCor. xii. 3. ''Ps.xcix.fi. " S. Luke xxiv. 47. ^ Ps. cxxii.4. 
 
 « S.Mark xiii. 31. '<> Deut.xxxii.W. " S.Matl. vii.U. '- Is. x. 20; add 21, 22. 
 
 9 (Jod will be known in his judgment. 18 His ^^^^^\\ t 
 blessing u])on the Church. cir. Sfw. 
 
 FOR, behold, "in tJiose days, and i" "Ezekl^al/n. 
 that time, when I shall brinj^ again 
 tlie captivity of .Tudah and Jerusalem, 
 
 As the Lord hath said, by the Prophet Joel himself. Tiiis 
 which he had said, is not man's word, but (iod's; and what 
 God had said, shall (;crtainly be. They then who have feared 
 and loved (iod in this their day, shall not need to fear Him 
 in that Day, for He is the (Jncliangeable God ; as our Blessed 
 Saviour says'-'; Heaven anil earth .shall pass airay, but My words 
 shall not pass aivuy. (iod bad said of both Jews and (ientiles, 
 united in one '"; llcjoice. () ye stations, with His jieople.for He 
 will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance 
 to His adversaries, and will be merciful to His land and unto 
 His people. 
 
 A)id in the remnant. While foretelling His mercies in 
 Christ, God foretells also, that ^^ few they be that find them. 
 It is evermore a remnant, a residue, a body ivliich escapes ; and 
 so here, the mercies should be fulfilled, literally, i)i the fugi- 
 tives, in those who flee from the wrath to come. All i)ro- 
 phecy echoes the words of Joel; all history exemplifies them. 
 Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariab, all 
 foretell with one voice, that a remnant, and a remnant only, 
 shall be left. Inthose earlierdispensations of God, in thcflood, 
 the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha ; in His dealings with 
 Israel himself at the entranceinto the promised land,thereturn 
 from the Captivity, the first preaching of the Gospel, the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, aremnant only was saved. It is said 
 in tones of compassion and mercy, that a rennunit should be 
 saved. Tlie remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, to 
 the Mighty God^-. The Lord of hosts shall be for a croivn of 
 glory tothe residueof His people'^^. The Lord shall set His Hand 
 to recover the remnant (if His people rvhirh shall be left^*. I 
 will gather the remnant of My Jiock out of all countries ivhither 
 I have driven theni^'. Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, 
 save Thy people, the remnant oflsrael^^. Yet Iivill leave a rem- 
 nant, that ye may have some that escape the sivord among the 
 nations^''. Therein shall be left a remnant which shall be 
 brought forth^^. 1 7vill surely gather the remnant of Israel ''. 
 Who is a God like Thee, thatpardoneth iniquity, and passeth by 
 the transgression of the reinnant of His heritage-^? The rem- 
 nant of Israel shall not do iniquity"^. The residue of the people 
 shall not be cut off from the city-K It is then a summary of the 
 declarations of the Prophets,"when S. Paul siiys,-^,Evenso,at 
 this present time also, there is a remnant according to the elec- 
 tion of grace. Israel hath not obtained tluit which he seeketh 
 for ; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 
 And so the Prophet says here ; 
 
 JFhom the Lord shall call. He had said before, whosoever 
 shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be delivered. Here 
 he says, that they who should so c«//o« Gor/, shall themselves 
 have been first called by God. So S. Paul-', to them that are 
 sanctijied in Christ Jesus, called to be Saints, with all that in 
 every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. It 
 is all of grace. God must first call by His grace ; then we obey 
 His call, and call upon Him; and He has said-', call upon Me 
 in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shall 
 glorify Me. God accounts our salvation His own glory. 
 
 III. 1 . For, behold. The Prophet, by the word, for, shews 
 
 vi 9-13 &'c. " lb. xxviii. 5. » lb. xi. 11, add 16. '^ Jer. xxiii. 3. '« lb. xxxi. 7. 
 1' Ezek. vi. 8. '-^ lb. xiv. 22. ''■' Mic. ii. 12 ; add iv. 7. v. 3, 7, S. -" Ih. vii. 18. 
 ■-' Zeph. lii. 13, add ii. 9. -- Zech. xiv. 2. ^ Som. xi. 5, 7. --• 1 Cor. i. 2. "-^ Ps. 1. 15.
 
 132 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 800. b Zech. 14. 2, 3,4, 
 
 2 M will also leather all nations, and 
 
 that he is about to explain in detail, what he had before spo- 
 ken of, in sum. By the word, helioUl, he stirs up our minds 
 t\ir soinethinij- i,ncat, which he is to set before our eyes, and 
 which we should not be prepared to expect or believe, unless 
 he solemnly told us. Behold. As the detail, then, of what 
 ffoes before! the prophecy contains all times of future judj;- 
 ment on those who should oppose God, oppress His Church 
 and people, and sin ajtainst Him in them, and all times of His 
 blessinic upon His own people,until the Last Day. And this it 
 ffivcs in imagery, partly describing nearer events of the same 
 sort, as in the punishments of Tyre and Zion, such as they 
 endured from kings of Assyria, from Nebuchadnezzar, from 
 Alexander ; partly using these. His earlier judgments, as re- 
 presentatives of the like punishmentsagainst the like sins unto 
 the end. 
 
 In those days and in that time. The whole period of which 
 the Prophet had been speaking, was the time from which God 
 called His people to repentance,to the Day of Judgment. The 
 last division of that time was from the beginning of the Gos- 
 pel unto that Day. He fixes the occasion of which he speaks 
 by the words, ivhen I shall bring again the captivity ofJudah 
 and Jerusalem. This form was used, before there was any 
 general dispersion of the nation. For all captivity of single 
 members of the Jewish people had this sore calamity, that 
 it severed them from the public worship of God, and exposed 
 tliem to idolatry. So David complains, thei/ have driven me 
 out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, say- 
 ing, go serve other gods^. The restoration then of single mem- 
 bers, or of smaller bodies of captives, was, at that time, an un- 
 speakable mercy. It was the restoration of those shut out 
 from the worship of God ; and so was an image of the deliver- 
 ance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
 of the sons of God ", or of any return of those who had gone 
 astray, to the Shepherd and Bishop o/ their souls'^. The gi'ie- 
 vous captivity of the Jews, now, is to Satan, whose servants 
 they made themselves, when they said, we have no king hut 
 CcEsar ; His Blood be upon us and upon our children. Their 
 blessed deliverance will be from the paver of Satan unto God *. 
 It is certain from S. Paul '", that there shall be a complete con- 
 version of the Jews, before the end of the world, as indeed 
 has always been believed. This shall probably be shortly be- 
 fore the end of the world, and God would here say, "when I 
 shall have brought to an end the captivity of Judah and Je- 
 rusalem, i. e. of that people to whom were the promises^, and 
 shall have delivered them from the bondage of sin and from 
 blindness to light and freedom in Christ, then will I gather 
 all nations to Judgment." 
 
 2. 1 will gather all nations and bring them drncn to the val- 
 ley of Jehoshuphat . It may be that the imagery is furnished by 
 that great deliverance which God gave to Jehoshaphat, when 
 ximmon and Moah and ILdom come against him, to cast God's 
 jicople mtt of H\» possession, which He gave thcn\ to inherit'^, and 
 Jehoshaphat appealed to God, Oour God, wilt Thou not juilge 
 them ? and God said, the battle is not your' s but God's, and God 
 turned their swords every one against the other, and none es- 
 caped. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the 
 valley of Berar-hah (blessing) ■,for there they blessed the Lord *. 
 So, in the end. He shall destroy Anti-Christ, not by human aid, 
 
 ' I Sam.xxvi. 19. ' Roin.viii.Sl. '-^ 1 S. Pet. ii. 25. 
 
 < Actsxxvi.18. sRom.xi. 26. » jb. ix. 4. 7 2 Clir. xx. 11. 8 ij,. 24, 2G. 
 9 Ep. 108. ad Eustoch. § 11. "> Jos. Ant. ix. 1. 3. i' Robins. Pal. iii. 275. 
 
 '- in Seetzen's map (Ritter, Erdk. xv. 635), Wolcott, Excurs. to Hebron, p. 43. 
 
 will bring them down into " the valley christ 
 
 « 2 Chr. 20. 2B. ver. 12. <="■• >^>- 
 
 but by the breath of His mouth, and then the end shall come 
 and He shall sit on the throne of His glory to judge all nations. 
 Then shall none escape of those gathered against Judah and 
 Jerusalem, but shall be judged of their own consciences, as 
 those former enemies of His pcoj)le fell by their own swords. 
 That valley, however, is nowhere called the valley of Jeho- 
 shaphat. It continued to be called the valley of Berachah, the 
 writer adds, to this day. And it is so called still. Caphar 
 Barucha, "the village of blessing," was still known in that 
 neighbourhood in the time of S. Jerome'; it had been known 
 in that of Josephus '". S. W. of Bethlehem and E. of Tekoa 
 are still 3 or 4 acres of ruins", bearing the name Bereikut'-, 
 and a valley below them, still bearing silent witness to God's 
 ancient mercies, in its but slightly disguised name, " the val- 
 ley of Bereikut " (Berachah). The only valley called the valley 
 of Jehoshaphat^^, is the valleyofKedron, lying between Jerusa- 
 lem and the Mount of Olives, encircling the city on the East. 
 There Asa, Hezckiah, and Josiah cast the idols, which they 
 had burned**. The valley was the common burying-place for 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem*". There was the garden whither 
 Jesus oftentimes resorted with His disciples ; the7-e was His 
 Agony and Bloody Sweat ; there Judas betrayed Him ; thence 
 He was dragged by the rude officers of the High Priest. The 
 Temple, the token of God's Presence among them, the pledge 
 of His accepting their sacrifices which could only be oflPered 
 there, overhung it on the one side. There, under the rock on 
 which that temple stood, they dragged Jesus, as a lamb to the 
 slaughter^^. On the other side, it was overhung by the Mount 
 of Olives, whence He beheld the city and wept over it, because 
 it ktiew not in that its day, the thi7igs which belonged to its 
 peace ; whence, after His precious Death and Resurrection, 
 Jesus ascended into Heaven. There the Angels foretold His 
 return *', This same Jesus which is taken up from you i7ito hea- 
 ven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into 
 heaven. It has been a current opinion, that our Lord should 
 descend to judgment, not only in like manner, and in the like 
 Form of Man, but in the same place, over this valley of Jeho- 
 shaphat. Certainly, if so it be, it were appropriate, that He 
 should appear in His Majesty, where, for us. He bore the ex- 
 tremest shame; that He should judge there, vrheve for us. He 
 submitted to be judged. " He sheweth," says S. Hilary **, " that 
 the Angels bringing them together, the assemblage shall be in 
 the place of His Passion ; and meetly will His Coming in glory 
 be looked for there, where He won for us the glory of eterni- 
 ty by the sufferings of His humility in the Body." But since 
 the Apostle says, rve shall meet the Lord in the air, then, not 
 in the valley of Jehoshaphat, but oi;er it, in the clouds, would 
 His throne be. " *' Uniting,as it were,Mount Calvary and Oli- 
 vet,the spot would be well suited to that jugdment wherein the 
 saints shall partake of the glory of the Ascension of Christ and 
 the fruit of His Bloodand Passion,and Christshall take deserv- 
 ed vengeance of His persecutors and of all who would not be 
 cleansed by His Blood." 
 
 God saith, Iwillgather all natio}is,o{ the gathering together 
 of the nations against Himunder Anti-Christ,because He over- 
 rules all things, and while they, in their purpose, are gathering 
 themselves against His people and elect, He, in His purpose 
 secret to them, is gathering them to sudden destruction and 
 
 '^ Euseb. Onom. KoiXas 'Icuirai^oT. " 1 Kings xv. 13. 2 Chr. xxx. 14. 2 Kings 
 
 xxiii.6, 12. '» Williams, H. C.ii. 523. Thomson, The Land, &c.ii. 481. Josephus 
 
 places the death ofAthaliah in that valley. Ant. ix. 7.3. "> Is. liii.7. " Acts 1. 11. 
 
 >a in S. Matt. 0.25. " Suarez.inS. p. q. 59.artG.disp. 53.sect3.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 133 
 
 CHiusT Jehoshaphat, and ''will plead with them 
 cir. 800. there for my people and for my heritaj^e 
 
 * Ezekfs's!!^. Israel, whom they have seattered among 
 
 the nations, and parted my land. 
 ' Nah.'s. 10. 3 And they have ' cast lots for my peo- 
 
 judgment, and tvill bring them down ; for their pride shall be 
 brought down, and themselves laid low. Even .levvish writers 
 have seen a mystery in the word, and said, that it hinteth "the 
 depth of God's judgments," that God " would dcseend with 
 them into the depth of judgment V' "a most exact judgment 
 even of the most hidden things." 
 
 His very Presence there would say to the wicked, "^In this 
 place did I endure grief for you ; here, at Gethsemane, I poured 
 out for you that sweat of water and Blood ; here was I betray- 
 ed and taken, bound as a robber, dragged over Cedron into 
 the city ; hard by this valley, in the house of Caiaphas and then 
 of Pilate, I was for you judged and condemned to death, 
 crowned with thorns, buffeted, mocked and spat upon ; here, 
 led through the whole city, bearing the Cross, I was at length 
 crucified for you on Mount Calvary ; here, stripped, suspend- 
 ed between heaven and earth, with hands, feet, and My whole 
 frame distended, I offered Myself for you as a Sacrifice to God 
 the Father. Behold the Hands which ye pierced ; the Feet 
 which ye perforated ; the Sacred prints which ye anew im- 
 printed on My Body. Ye have despised My toils, griefs, suf- 
 ferings ; ye have counted the Blood of My covenant an unholy 
 thing; ye havechosen to follow your own concupiscences rather 
 than Me, My doctrine and law ; ye have preferred momentary 
 pleasures, riches, honours, to the eternal salvation which I 
 promised ; ye have despised Me, threatening the fires of hell. 
 Now ye seeWhoni ye have despised; now ye see that My threats 
 and promises were not vain, but true ; now ye see that vain and 
 fallacious were your loves, riches, and dignities ; now ye see 
 that ye were fools and senseless in the love of them ; but too 
 late. Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
 devil and his angels. But ye who believed, hoped, loved, wor- 
 shipped Me, your Redeemer, who obeyed My whole law ; who 
 lived a Christian life worthy of Me ; who lived soberly godly 
 and righteously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and 
 this My glorious Coming, Come ye blessed of My Father, in- 
 herit the kingdom of heaven prepared for yo\i from the founda- 
 tion of the world. — And these shall go into everlasting fire ; hut 
 the righteous into life eternal. Blessed he whoso continually 
 thinketh or foreseeth, provideth for these things." 
 
 And will plead with them there. Woe to him, against whom 
 God pleadeth ! He saith not, "judgeth" hut pleadeth, making 
 Himself a party, the Accuser aswell as the Judge. "^Solemn is 
 it indeed when Almighty God saith, I will plead. He that hath 
 ears to hear let him hear. For terrible is it. Wherefore also 
 that Day of the Lord is called great and terrible. For what 
 more terrible than, at such a time, the pleading of God with 
 man ? For He says, / luill plead, as though He had never yet 
 pleaded with man, great and terrible as have been His judg- 
 ments since that first destruction of the world by water. Past 
 are those judgments on Sodom and Gomorrha,on Pharaoh and 
 his hosts, on the whole people in the wilderness from twenty 
 years old and upwards, the mighty oppressions of the enemies 
 into whose hands He gave them in the land of promise; past 
 were the four Empires ; but now, in the time of Anti-Christ, 
 there shall be tribulation, such as there had not been from the 
 
 ' Rashi and Abarbanel in Poc. - abridged from Lap. 3 froni Rup. 
 
 < Rom.ix.6. 5Gal.vi.l6. «Zech.ii.8. 7ActsU.4. » S. Matt. xxv. 34,35. » Poc. 
 
 ! pie; and have given a boy for an harlot, chrTst 
 and sold a girl for wine, that they might <'"• ^oo- 
 drink. 
 
 4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, 
 f O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of 'Amos. 1.0,9. 
 
 beginning of the world. But all these are little, compared with 
 that great and tcrrihic Day ; and so He says, I will plead, as 
 though all before had not been, to plead." 
 
 God maketb Himself in suctli wise a party, as not to con- 
 demn those unconvicted; yet the pleading has a separate awe- 
 fulness of its' own. God impleads, so as to allow Himself to 
 be impleaded and answered ; but there is no answer. He will 
 set forth what He had done, and bow we have recjuited Him. 
 And we are without excuse. Our mcniories witness against 
 us ; our knowledge acknowledges His justice ; our fMUiscience 
 convicts US; our reason condemns us; all unite in pronouncing 
 ourselves ungrateful, and God holy and just. For a sinner to 
 see himself, is to condemn himself; and in the Day of Judg- 
 ment, God will bring before each sinner his whole self 
 
 For My people. '-^ God's people are the one true Israel, 
 princes ivith God,t\ie whole multitude of the elect, foreordained 
 to eternal life." Of these, the former people of Israel, once 
 chosen of God, was a type. As St. Paul says*. They are not all 
 Israel which are of Israel ; and again ^, As many as walk ac- 
 cording to this rule of the Apostle's teaching, ^>e«ce be on them 
 and mercy, and upon the Israel of God, i.e. not among the Ga- 
 latians only, but in the whole Church throughout the world. 
 Since the whole people and Church of God is one, He lays down 
 one law, which shall be fulfilled to the end ; that those who, for 
 their own ends, even although therein the instruments of God, 
 shall in any way injure the people of God, shall be themselves 
 punished by God. God makes Himself one with His people. 
 He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of My eye^. So our 
 Lord said, '' Saul, Saul, w/iy persecutest thou Me ? and in the 
 Day of Judgment He will say^, Iivas an hungred and ye gave 
 7ne no meat. Forasmuch as ye did it not unto one of (lie least 
 of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me. " ^By calling them 
 My heritage. He shews that He will not on any terms part with 
 them or suffer them to be lost, but will vindicate them to Him- 
 self for ever." 
 
 TFho7nthey havescattered amongthenations. Such was the 
 offence of the Assyi-ians and Babylonians, the first army, which 
 God sent againt His people. And for it, Nineveh and Baby- 
 lonperished. "^'^Yet he does not speakof that ancient people,or 
 of its enemies only, but of allthe elect both in that people and in 
 the Church of the Gentiles, and of all persecutors of the elect. 
 For that people were a figure of the Church, and its enemies 
 were a type of those who persecute the Saints." The disper- 
 sion of God's former peopleby the heathen was renewed in those 
 who persecuted Christ's disciples /ro?n city to city, banished 
 them, and confiscated their goods. Banishment to mines or 
 islandswere the slightestpunishmentsof the early Christians'^. 
 
 3. And they have cast lots. They treated God's people as 
 of no account, and delighted in shewing their contempt to- 
 wards them. They chose no one above another, as though all 
 alike were worthless. They cast lots, it is said elsewhere'',M/>- 
 on their honourable men, as a special indignity, above eapti\'ity 
 or slavery. A girl they sold for an evening's revelrj', and a 
 boy they exchanged for a night's debauch. ' 
 
 4. Yea, and ivhat have ye to do ivith Me ? lit. and also, what 
 
 >» Rib. " seeTertull. Apol. c. 12.p.30. Oxf. Tr. S.Cypr.Ep. x.l.xi. l.ix. 3. 
 
 xxii. xxxi. xxxvii. 2. 3. xxxix.l. Ixxvi. 2. p. 304. n. y. '2 Ivab. iii. 10. 
 
 C C
 
 134 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 chrTst Palestine? swill ye render me a recom- 
 cir. 8(10. pence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly 
 
 "u'le'f'ii. (i'id speedily will I return your recom- 
 pence upon your own head ; 
 
 are t/e to Me? The words, ^«rf also, shew that this is something 
 additional to the deeds of those before spoken of. Those, in- 
 stanced before, were great oppressors, such as dispersed the 
 former people of God and divided their land. In addition to 
 these, God condemns here another class, those who, without 
 having power to destroy, harass and vex His heritage. The 
 words, what arc ye to Me? are like that other phrase ^, ivhat 
 is there to thee a7id me? i. e. what have we in common ? These 
 words, what are ye to Me ? also declare, that those nations had 
 no part in God. God accounts them as aliens, what are ye to 
 Me ? Nothing. But the words convey, besides, that they 
 would, unprovoked, have to do with God, harassing His people 
 without cause. They obtruded themselves, as it were, upon 
 God and His judgments ; they challenged God ; they thrust 
 themselves in, to their destru(;tion, where they had no great 
 temptation to meddle, nothing, but inbred nifilice, to impel 
 them. This was, especially, the character of the relations of 
 Tyre and Zidon and Philistia with Israel. They were allotted 
 to Israel by Joshua, but were not assailed^. On the contrary, 
 the Zidonians are counted among those who oppressed Israel, 
 and out o/ whose hand God delivered him, when he cried to 
 God^. The Philistineswere the unwearied assailants of Israel 
 in thedaysof the Judges, andSaul.andDavid*; during40 years 
 Israel was given into the hands of the Philistines, until God de- 
 livered them by Samuel at Mizpeh. When David was king of 
 all Israel, the Philistines still acted on the offensive, and lost 
 Gatli and her towns to David in an offensive war^. To Jeho- 
 shaphat some of them voluntarily paid tribute ^ ; but in the 
 reign of Jchoram his son, they, with some Arabians, marauded 
 in Judah, plundering the king's house and slaying all his sons, 
 save the youngest ''. This is the last event before the time of 
 Joel. They stand among the most inveterate and unprovoked 
 enemies of God's people, and probably as enemies of God also, 
 hating the claim of Judah that their God was the One God. 
 fnilye render Me a recompence ? Men never want pleas 
 for themselves. The Philistines, although the aggressors, had 
 been signallydefeated by David. Men forget their own ^vrong- 
 doings and remember their sufferings. It may be then, that 
 the Philistines thought that they had been aggrieved when 
 their assaults were defeated, and looked upon their own fresh 
 aggressions as a requital. If moreover, as is probable, they 
 heard that the signal victories won over them were ascribed by 
 Israel to God,and themselves also suspected, that thcscmighty 
 Gods^were thecause of theirdefeat,theydoul3tless turned their 
 hatred against God. Men, when they submit not to God chas- 
 tening them, hate Him. This belief that they were retaliating 
 against God, (not, of course, knowing Him as God,) fully cor- 
 responds with the strong words, "will ye render Me a recom- 
 pence^}" Julian's dying blasphemy, "Galilean, thou hast con- 
 quered,"correspondswith the efforts of his life against the gos- 
 pel, and implies a secret consciousness that He Whose religion 
 he was straining tooverthrowwi/^'A/ be,What he denied Him to 
 be,God. The \^hras&^°siciftly,\it. lightly, and speedily, denotes 
 
 ' Josh. xxii. 24, cSrc. S. Matt. viii. 29, &c. - Zidon, Josh. xix. 28. xiii. 6. see Judg. i. 
 31 .iii. 3. Tyre, Josh. xix. 21). the PhiUstines, Josh. xiii. 2, 3. xv. 45-7. xix. 43. see Jud. 
 iii.3. ■• judg. X. 12. ■> lb. xiii. 1. 1 Sam. iv. xiii. xvii. xxiii. 1. xxx. xxxi. 
 
 6 2 Sam.v. 17-ciid. viii. 1. 1 Chr. xviii. 1. 2 Sam. xxi. 18. xxiii. 9-lU. « 2 Chr. 
 
 xvii. U. _ 7 2 Chr. xxi. ir,, 17. xxii. 1. » 1 Sam. iv. 7, 8. « tej, n-mlcred 
 
 recompense^ is used, although rarely, of one who " begins good or evil," but, as united witli 
 the word dSip repnt/, make good^ it can only denote requited. 
 
 5 Because ye have taken my silver and (, y ju" t 
 my 5>;old, and have carried into your tern- "'• ""'*• 
 pies my goodly f pleasant things: ^df^rabie: 
 
 6 The children also of Judah and the ^^''"•"•^s- 
 
 the union of easiness with speed. The recompence is returned 
 upo7i their head, coming down upon them from God. 
 
 h. Ye have taken My silver and My gold. Not the silver and 
 gold of the temple, (as some have thought.) At least, up to the 
 Prophet's time, they had not done this. For the inroad of the 
 Philistines in the reignof Jeboram was,apparently,a mere ma- 
 rauding expedition, in which they slew and plundered, but are 
 not said to have besieged or taken any city, much less Jeru- 
 salem. God calls the silver and gold which He, through His 
 Providence, had bestowed on Judah, My gold and silver; as 
 He said by Hosea.^^, S'heknewnotthaf /multiplied her silver and 
 gold, whereof she made Baal ; and by Haggai^^, The silver is 
 Mine, and the gold is Miite, saith the Lord of Hosts. For thej' 
 were His people, and what they had, they held of Him ; and the 
 Philistines too so accounted it, and dedicated a part of it to 
 their idols, as they had the ark formerly, accounting the vic- 
 tory over God's people to be the triumphof their idolsoverGod. 
 6. The children also, Yit.And the sons of Judah and the sons 
 of Jerusalem have ye sold to the sons of the Greeks. This sin of 
 the Tyrians was probably old and inveterate. The Tyrians, as 
 they were the great carriers of the world's traffic, so they were 
 slave-dealers, and, in the earliest times, men-stealers. The 
 Greek ante-historic tradition exhibits them, as trading and 
 selling women, from both Greece ^' and Egypt i*. As their 
 trade became more fixed, they themselves stole no more, but, 
 like Christian nations, sold those whom others stole or made 
 captive. Ezekiel speaks of their trade in tlie souls of men^'^ 
 with Greece on the one side, and Tubal and Mesech near the 
 Black Sea on the other. The beautiful youth of Greece of both 
 sexes were sold even into Persia^^. In regard totheMoschi 
 and Tibareni, it remains uncertain, whether they sold those 
 whom they took in war (and,like the tribes of Africa in modern 
 times, warred the more, because they had a market for their 
 prisoners,) or whether, like the modern Circassians, they sold 
 their daughters. Ezekiel however says,»(e?«,so that he cannot 
 mean, exclusively, women. From the times of the Judges, Is- 
 rael was exposed in part both to the violence and fraud of Tyre 
 and Sidon. The tribe of Asher seems to have lived in the open 
 country among fortified towns of the Zidonians. For where- 
 as of Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zabulon, it is said that 
 the old inhabitants of the land divelt atnong them^'', of Asher it 
 is said, that they dicelt among the Cajiaanites, the inhabitants 
 of the land^^, as though these were the more numerous. And 
 not only so, but since they did Jiot drive out the inhabitants of 
 seven cities, Accho, Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helhah, Aphek, Re- 
 hob, they must have been liable to incursions from them. The 
 Zidonians were among those who oppressed Israel^^. Sisera's 
 army came from their territory, (for Jabin was king of Hazor,) 
 and Deborah speaks of a damsel or two, as the expected prey 
 of each man in the whole multitude of his host. An old pro- 
 verb, mentioned B. C. 427, implies that the Phoenicians sent 
 circumcised slaves into the fields to reap their harvest -°, But 
 there were no other circumcised there besides Israel. 
 
 '« It recurs Is. V. 26. "ii.S. >= ii.8. 
 
 " Herod, i. 1. Eurip. Helen. 190. Movers quotes these and the following authorities 
 Phcenic. Alterthum.c. 4. p.71. '■• Herod, ii. 54-. '» xxvii. 13. '^ Bochart Phaleg, 
 111. 3. p. 154. 17 Judg. i. 21, 27, 29, 30. "Ib.31,2. '9 Judg. v.30. see iv.3. 7, 13, 15, Iti. 
 
 -<» "Cuckoo; ye circumcised, to field." The Cuckoo's note was, in Pha'nicia, the sig- 
 nal for harvest, (.■\ristoph. Av. 505-7,) and those sent out, with a term of contempt, to 
 gatlicr it, were " circumcised."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1.?.') 
 
 chrTst children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto 
 f the Grecians, that ye niii^ht remove them 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 * f^s'o/ke far from their border 
 
 Grecians, 
 
 7 Behold,''! Avill raise them out of the j, jj^'^'^Pg ^ 
 place whillicr yehave sold thcjii, and will re- ""• ^^- 
 turn your recompence upon your own head : *" ^^%*fi"' *'' 
 
 Jer. 23. 8. 
 
 But the I'liccnician slave-trade was also pr()ljal)ly, even in 
 the time of the Judijes, exereiscd aixaiiist Israel. In Joel and 
 Amos, the Philistines and Tyrians appear as comljined in the 
 traffic. In Amos, the Philistines are the robhers of men ; the 
 Phcenicians arc the receivers and the sellers ^. Heathen na- 
 tions retain for centuries the same inherited character, tiie 
 same natural nol)leness, or, still more, the same natural vices. 
 The Phoenicians, at the date of the Judi^^es, are known as dis- 
 honest traders, and that, in slaves. The IMiilistines were then 
 also inveterate oppressors. On one occasion, t/te ctiptiviti/ of 
 the land coincided with the fjreat victory of the Philistines, 
 when Eli died and the ark of God was taken. For these two 
 dates are fjivcn in the same place as the dose of the idolatry of 
 Micah's jjraven image. It endured unto the captivity of the 
 land" and, and all the time that the house of God was at Shilah, 
 whence the ark was removed, never to return, in that battle 
 when it was taken. But the captivity of the land is not merely 
 a subdual, whereby the inhabitants would remain tributary or 
 even enslaved, yet still remain. A captivity implies a removal 
 of the inhabitants ; and such a removal could not have been the 
 direct act of the Philistines. For dwelling; themselves in the 
 land only, they had no means of removing the inhabitants 
 from it, except by selling them ; and the only nation, who could 
 export them in such numbers as would be expressed by the 
 words a captivity of the land, were the Zidonians. Probably 
 such acts were expressly prohibited by the brotherly covenant^ 
 or treaty between Solomon and Hiram King of Tyre. For A- 
 mos says that Tyre forgot that treaty, when she sold wholesale 
 the captive Israelites whom the Philistines had carried ott". 
 Soon after Joel, Obadiah speaks of a captivity at Sepharad, or 
 Sardis*,i\\& capital of the Lydian empire. TheTyrian mer- 
 chants were the connecting link between Palestine and the 
 coasts of Asia-minor. The Israelites must have been sold thi- 
 ther as slaves, and that by the Phoenicians. In yet later times 
 the Tyrian merchants followed, like vultures, on the rear of 
 armies to make a prey of the living,as the vultures of the dead. 
 They hung on the march of Alexander as far as India". In 
 the wars of the Maccabees, at Nicanor'sproclaniation, a thou- 
 sand ^ merchants gathered to the camp of Gorgias '' tvith silver 
 and gold, very much, to buy the children of Israel as slaves, and 
 with chains^ wherewith to secure them. They assembled in 
 the rear of the Roman armies, "^seeking wealth amid the clash 
 of arms, and slaughter, and fleeing poverty through peril." 
 Reckless of human life, the slave-merchants commonly, in 
 their wholesale purchase of captives, abandoned the children 
 as difficult of transport, whence the Spartan king was praised 
 for providing for them ^". 
 
 The temptation to Tyrian covetousness was aggravated by 
 the ease with which they could possess themselves of the Jews, 
 the facility of transport, and, as it seems, their value. It is 
 mentioned as the inducement to slave -piracy among the Cili- 
 cians. "The export of the slaves especially invited to mis- 
 deeds, heing most gainful ; for they were easily taken, and the 
 market was not so very far off and was most wealthy ^^ 
 
 1 Am. i. 6, 9. - Judg. xviii. 30, 31. ^ gee on Am. i. 9. ■'See on Ob. 20. 
 
 * Arr. Expeil. vi. 22. 8. * 2 Mace. viii. 34. " 1 Mace. iii. 41. ^ Jos. Ant. 
 
 xii. 7- 3. and 1 Mace, see Eng. Marg. ' S. Jer. on Ezek. xxvii. 16. '" Xenoph. 
 .\gesil. i. 21. " Strabo xiv. 5. 2. '- Deut. xxviii. 08. Glycas says that Adrian sold 
 4 Jews for a modius [two gallons] of barley. Ann. iii. p. 1-lS. M. " 2 Kgs. v. 2. 
 
 '* Herod, iii. 134-. '^ Ninety being offered for a talent, this would be the number 
 whose sale would bring in 2000 talents. 
 
 The Jewish slaves a])pear also to have been valued, until 
 those times after the taking of Jerusalem, when they had be- 
 come demoralised, and there was a plethora of them, as God 
 had predicted '-. The post occupied by the little maid who 
 waitcilon A'rtam«?i'A-?<;?/6'''',wasthatof afavouriteslave,as Greek 
 tradition represented Grecian maidens to liave])een an object 
 of coveting tothcMvife of the Persian .Monarch ". The damsel 
 '>/• //CO for the wives of each man in .(abin's host ai)pear as a va- 
 luable part of the spoil. The wli(jlesale jiricc at which Xicanor 
 s(!t the Jews his expected prisoners, and at which he hoped to 
 sell some lHO,U(XJ^%sliewstheextentof thethentraffie and their 
 relative value. £'2. 1 4.v. 9(/. as the average price of each of nine- 
 ty slaves /// Judea, im])lies a retail-price at the pla(;e of sale, a- 
 bove the then ordinary price of man. Tills wholesale price for 
 what was expected to be a mixed multitude of nearly "iOO.tXXJ, 
 (for "^''Nicanor undertook to make so much money of the 
 captive Jews as should defray the tribute of 'JOOO talents which 
 the king was to pay to the Romans,") was nearly 5 times as 
 much as that at which Carthaginian soldiers were sold at the 
 close of the first Punic war ^". It was two-thirds of the retail 
 price of a good slaveat Athens^*, or of that at which.about B.C. 
 ;^40, the law of Greece prescribed that captives sh<iul(l be re- 
 deemed " ; or of that, (which was nearly the same) at which the 
 Mosaic law commanded compensation to be made tor a slave 
 accidentally killed -". The facility of transport increased the 
 value. For, although Pontus supplied both the best and the 
 most of thcRonian slaves -'. yet in the war with IVIithridates, a- 
 mid a great abundance of all things, slaves were sold at 3s. 3d.-- 
 The special favours also shewn to the Jewish ea])tives at Rome 
 and Alexandria shew the estimation in which they were held. 
 At Rome, in the reign of Augustus,""^ the large section of Rome 
 beyond the Tiber was possessed and inhabited by Jews, most of 
 them Romancitizens,havingbeenbrouglitascaptives into Italy 
 and made freedmen by their owners." On whatever ground 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus'redeemed 100,000 Jews whom his father 
 had taken and sold-^.the fact can hardlybe without foundation, 
 or his enrolling them in his armies, or his employing them in 
 public offices or about his own person. 
 
 Joel lived before the historic times of Greece. But there 
 are early traces of slave-trade carried on by Greeks -\ Accord- 
 ing to Theopompus, the Chians, first among the Greeks, ac- 
 quired barbarian slaves in the way of trade -°. The Ionian mi- 
 gration had filled the islands and part of the coasts of Asia Mi- 
 nor with Greek traders about two centuries before Joel, B.C. 
 1069 -''. Greeks inhabited both the coasts and islands between 
 Tyre and Sardis, whither we know them to have been carried. 
 Cyprus and Crete, both inhabited by Greeks and both in near 
 intercourse with Phoenicia, were close at hand. 
 
 The demand for slaves must have been enormous. For wives 
 were but seldom allowed them; and Athens, .i^gina, Corinth 
 alone had in the days of their prosperity 1,330,000 slaves-*. At 
 the great slave-mart at Delos, 10,000 were brought, sold, re- 
 moved in a single day^^ 
 
 That ye might remove thon far from their border. The 
 
 'G 2Macc. viii. 10. '" ISDenarii.i.e.lls. .3ii. Liv. xxi.41. BoeckhEcon.of Ath.i.92. 
 
 IS Boeckh i. 91. " Aristot. Eth. v. 7. 1. -" Ex. xxi. 30. -' Polyb.iv. SS. 
 
 ■■ Plutarch Lucull. § 14. ^ Philo Leg. ad Caium Opp. ii.5t">8. -^ Jcs. Ant.xii. 2. 
 and 4. ■' Movers quotes instances from Samos. Lesbos, Ephesus, Miletus, p. 81. 
 
 ■-« In Athena-us vi.SS. p. 574. Mov. " Ens. Chron. ii. SO-1-18. =* Athens, 
 
 400,000. (Ctesicles in Atlien. vi. 103,) Corinth, 460,000. (Tiniaeus ib.) ^gma, 470,000. 
 (Aristot. ib.) 
 
 c c2
 
 13G 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 8 And I will sell your sons and your 
 
 daughters into the hand of the children of ci^kTst 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 Philistines hoped thus to weaken the Jews, by selling their 
 fighting men afar, whence they could no more return. There 
 was doubtless also in this removal an anti-religious malice, in 
 that the Jews clung to their land, as ttie Lord's land, the land 
 given by Him to their fathers ; so that they, at on(!e, weakened 
 their rivals, aggravated and enjoyed their distress, and seemed 
 again to triumph over God. lyre and Sidon took no active 
 share in making the Jews prisoners, yet,partaking in the profit 
 and aiding in the disposal ofthecaptives,they became, accord- 
 ing to that true proverb " the receiver is as bad as the thief, " 
 equally guilty of the sin, in the sight of God. 
 
 7. Behold Iwill raise them. If this promise relates to the 
 same individuals who had been sold, it must have been fulfilled 
 silently ; as indeed the return of captives to their own land,un- 
 less brought about by some historical event,belongs not to his- 
 tory, but to private life. The Prophet, however, is probably 
 predicting God's dealings with the nations, not with those in- 
 dividuals. The enslaving of these Hebrews in the time of Jo- 
 ram was but one instance out of a whole system of covetous 
 misdeeds. The Philistines carried away captives from them 
 again in the time of Ahaz i, and yet again subsequently- ; and 
 still more at the capture of Jerusalem '. 
 
 8. / luill sell your sons. God Himself would reverse the 
 injustice of men. The sons of Zion should be restored, the 
 sons of the Phcenicians and of the Philistines sold into distant 
 captivity. Tyre was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and then by 
 Alexander, who sold "more than 13,000"of theinhabitantsinto 
 slavery*; Sidon was taken and destroyedby Artaxerxes Ochus, 
 and it is said, above 40,000 of its inhabitants perished in the 
 flames \ The like befell the Philistines ^ The Sabaeans are 
 probably instanced, as being the remotest nation in the oppo- 
 site direction, a nation, probably, the partner of Tyre's traffic 
 in men, as well as in their other merchandise, and who (as is 
 the way of unregenerate nature) would as soon trade in Ty- 
 rians, as tvith Tyrians. The Sabaeans were, like the Phoeni- 
 cians, a wealthy merchant people, and, of old, united with 
 them in the trade of the world, the Sabaeans sending forth 
 their fleets across the Indian Ocean, as the Tyrians along the 
 Mediterranean. Three fathers of distinct races bore the name 
 Sheba ; one, a descendant of Ham, the other two, descended 
 from Shem. The Hamite Sheba was the son of Raamah, the 
 son of Cush ^, and doubtless dwelt of old in the country on the 
 Persian gulf called by the name Raamah*. Traces of thename 
 Sheba occur there, and some even after our era^. The She- 
 miteSabaeans,were,some descendants of Sheba,thetenthson of 
 Joktan^" ; the others from Sheba, the son of Abraham and Ke- 
 turahi'\ The Sabaeans, descended from Joktan, dwelt in the 
 S. \V. extremity of Arabia, extending from the Red Sea to the 
 Sea^-ofBabel-mandeb. The country is still called "ard-es-Se- 
 ba^^," " land of Saba ;" and Saba is often mentioned by Arabic 
 writers ^*. To the Greeks and Latins they were known by the 
 
 ' 2 Chr. xxviii. 18. - Ezek. xvi. 27, 57. ^ lb. xxv. 15. ■• Diod. Sic. xvii. 4R. Arrian 
 says 30,000. ii. 24. ^ j)iod. xvi. 45. 6SeeonZeph.ii.4-7. 7Gen.x.7. ' Regma, Steph. 
 Byz. sub V. .TDyn is pronounced 'Vly}ia by the LXX. " Regma," Vulg. ^ In the names 
 "The promontory oVAiTaiiw,ox 'Aaaliwv" in Ptolemy vi.7, and Marcian Heracl. p. 16. 
 " The black mountains called 'Aaajiuiv" Ptol. lb." a very great mountain, called Sa/Jo'r," 
 at the entrance of the Persian gulf. (Arrian. Peripl.p.20)Batra5flt'es or halrasahbes a city 
 in Pliny, (vi. 28. 32.) Sabis, a river in Camiania on the opposite side of the Persian gulf. 
 (Mela iii. 8.) Dionysius Perieg. also places the Sabae next to the Pasargadae, v. 1069. see 
 Bochart,iv.7. "Gen. x. 28. "lb. xxv. 3. '^Plin. vi.28.32. « Cruttenden in Journ. 
 Geogr. Soc. 1838. viii. 268. '< See De Sacy below, 'i Philostg.ii. 6. lii. 4.(Arr.) Peripl. 
 p. 13. Marcian 13. Plin. vi. 28.32. '* Authorities referred toby Soiuthi, quoted byFresnel 
 Lettre iv, in Journal Asiatique T. v. p. 612. Fresnel says that the grammatical forms most 
 resemble ^thiopic, although it is richer than Arabic both in consonants and vowels, and 
 has more Hebrew roots than ordinary Arabic. lb. 533, sqq. De Sacy observed that the 
 
 name of one division of the race (Himyar) Homeritae^^ Their 
 descendants still speak an Arabic,acknowledged by thelearned 
 Arabs to be a distinct language from that which, through Mo- 
 hammed, prevailed and was dlff'used ^^ ; a " species '^ " of Ara- 
 bic which they attribute "to the times of (tlie Prophet) Hud 
 [perhaps Eber] and those before him." It belonged to them 
 as descendants of Joktan. Saba'ans are mentioned, distinct 
 from both of these, as " ^"dwelling in Arabia Felix, next be- 
 yond Syria, which they frequently invaded, before it belonged 
 to the Romans." These Sabaeans probably are those spoken 
 of as marauders by Job ^^ ; and may have been descendants 
 of Keturah. Those best known to the Greeks and Romans 
 were, naturally, those in the South Western corner of Arabia. 
 The account of their riches and luxuries is detailed, and, al- 
 though from dift'erent authorities "", consistent ; else, almost 
 fabulous. One metropolis is said to have had 65 temples ^^, 
 privateindividuals had more than kingly magnificence^-. Ara- 
 bic historiansexpandedinto fable the extent and prerogatives^* 
 of their Paradise lands, before the breakingoftheartificialdike, 
 made for the irrigation of their country -*. They traded with 
 India, availing themselves doubtless of the Monsoon, and per- 
 haps brought thence their gold, if not also the best and most 
 costly frankincense -^. The Sheba of the Prophet appears to 
 have been the wealthy Sheba near the Red Sea. Indeed, in ab- 
 sence of evidence to the contrary, it is natural to understand 
 the name of those best known. Solomon unites it with Seba^^, 
 (the iEthiopianSabae.) The known frankincense-districts are 
 on the S. W. corner of Arabia -7. The tree has diminished, 
 perhaps has degenerated, through the neglect consequent on 
 Mohammedan oppression, diminished consumption, change of 
 the line of commerce ; but it still survives in those districts ^^ ; 
 a relic of what is passed away, Ezekiel indeed unites the 
 merchants of Sheha and Raamah ^^, as trading with Tyre. 
 The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants ; 
 with the chief of all spices and ivith all precious stones and gold 
 they occupied in thy fairs. It may be that he joins them to- 
 gether as kindred tribes ; yet it is as probable that he unites 
 the two great channels of merchandise. East and West, Raa- 
 mah on the Persian Gulf, and Sheba near the Red Sea. Hav- 
 ing just mentioned the produce of Northern Arabia as poured 
 into Tyre, he would, in this case, enumerate North, East, and 
 West of Arabia as combined to enrich her. Agatharcides 
 unites the Sabaeans of S. W. Arabia with the Gerrhaeans, who 
 were certainly on the Persian Gulf*". "No people," he says''', 
 " is apparently richer than the Sabaeans and Gerrhaeans, who 
 dispense forth everything worth speaking of from Asia and 
 Europe. These made the Syria of Ptolemy full of gold. These 
 supplied the industry of the Phcenicians with profitable im- 
 ports, not to mention countless other proofs of wealth." 
 Their caravans went to Elymais, Carniania; Charrae was their 
 emporium ; they returned to Gabala and Phoenicia ^^. Wealth 
 
 difference was one of language, (not of dialect only.) Acad. d. Inscr. T. 48. p. 509. note. 
 
 '7 Soiuthi lb. i8Strabo,xvi.4. 21. i' Job i. 15. Bochartiv.9. -» Agatharcides (p. 61,) 
 Strabo from Metrodorus and Eratosthenes, (xvi. 4. 19.) Diodorus " from memoirs in the 
 Alexandrian library or eye witnesses." iii. 38. 47. The account of their natural productions 
 is exaggerated, yet with a mixture of truth, e. g. as to a very venomous sort of serpent. 
 
 ii Thomna. Plin. vi. 28. 32. Movers, p. 300. - Geogr. Vet. Scriptt. Min. T. i. p. 
 
 64, 5. Oxon. '■^ See Kazvini, the Turkish Jehan-numa from older writers, Masudi, in 
 de Sacy Mem. de I'Acad. d. Inscr. T. 48. p. 506, note, 629. -* De Saclb. " see Hit- 
 ter's Diss. Erdk. xii. 356-372. Strabo however(quoted there p.364)says, that most cosria 
 came from India ; " the best frankincense is that near Persia." -^ Ps. Ixxii. 10. 
 
 -1 Theophr. Hist. Plant, ix. 4. Agartharc. p. 61-4, 5. Eratosthenes in Strabo xvi. 4. 4. 
 
 -^ Capt. Haines in Geogr. Soc. ix. 154. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia. Survey in Bom- 
 bay Geogr. Soc. 1839. p. 55. quoted Ritter, Erdk. xii. 259, 60. 29 xxvii. 22. 30 Ptol.vi. 7. 
 Strabo, xvi. 3. 3. 3i Juba in Plin. H. N. xu. 18. n. 40.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 137 
 
 c hrTs t JnfJfi'ij fin<l they shall sell them to the 
 cir. 800. i Sabeans, to a peoijle Mar off: for tlie 
 
 ' Ezek. 23. 42. w i , , ... 
 
 kjer.e. 20. LoRP hatli spoken tf. 
 8%, lo.'" ' 9 ^ ' Proclaim ye this among the Gen- 
 Ezek.'is'. 7. tiles ; f Prepare war, wake up the mif^hty 
 Sanctify. nicH, let all the men of war draw near ; 
 let them come up : 
 
 is the parent of Ivixury and effeminacy. At the time of our 
 Lord's Coniinp, the softness and effeminatiy of the Sabaeans 
 became proverl)ial. The " soft Sabaeans" is their charac- 
 teristic in the Roman poets ^ Commerce, navigation, gold- 
 mines, being then carried on by means of slaves, and wealth 
 and luxury at that time always demanding domestic slaves, the 
 Sabaeans had need of slaves for both. They too had distant co- 
 lonies-, whither the Tyrians could be transported, as far from 
 Phoenicia, as the shores of the ^Egean are from Palestine. 
 The great law of Divine Justice ^, as I have done, so God hath 
 requited me, was again fulfilled. It is a sacred proverb of 
 God's overruling Providence, written in the history of the 
 world and in men's consciences. 
 
 9. Proclaim ye this amoyig the Gentiles. God having be- 
 fore said that He would gather all nations, now, by a solemn 
 irony, bids them prepare, if, by any means, they can fight a- 
 gainst Him. So in Isaiah*; Associate yourselves, O ?/e people, 
 and ye shall be broken in pieces ; and give ear, all ye of far coun- 
 tries ; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; gird 
 yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; take counsel to- 
 gether, audit shall come to nought ; speak the word, and it 
 shall not stand ; for God is with us. 
 
 Prepare, lit. hallow, war. To hallow war was to make it 
 holy, either in appearance or in truth, as the prophet bade 
 them, sanctify a fast, i. e. keep it holily. So God calls the 
 Medes, whom He employed against Babylon ^, My sanctified 
 ones, and bids ^, sanctify the nations against her ; and the ene- 
 mies of Judah encourage themselves '', sanctify ye ivar against 
 her ; and Micah says, that whosoever bribed not the false pro- 
 phets, fhey sanctify war against him^, i. e. proclaim war against 
 him in the Name of God. The enemies of God, of His people, 
 of His truth, declare war against all, in the Name of God. 
 The Jews would have stoned our Lord for blasphemy, and, at 
 the last, they condemned Him as guilty of it. ^He hath spok- 
 en blasphemy . JVhat further need have we of witnesses ? be- 
 hold, now ye have heard His blasphemy . And He foretold to 
 His disciples ^'', Whosoever killethyou, will think that he doeth 
 God service. St. Stephen was persecuted for speaking ^^ blas- 
 phemous words against Moses and agaiitst God, this holy place 
 and the law. St. Paul was persecuted for ^^ persuading men to 
 ivorship God contrary to the laiu and pollntir^g this holy place. 
 Anti-Christ shall set himself up as God, ^^ so that he, as God, 
 sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 
 Heretics and unbelievers declaim against the Gospel, as 
 though it, and not themselves, were opposed to the holiness 
 and Majesty and love of God. The Gnostics of old spake 
 against the Creator in the Name of God. Arians affected re- 
 verence for the the glory of God ^*, being, on their own mis-be- 
 lief, idolaters or polytheists ^^ The ApoUinarians charged the 
 Church with ascribing to our Lord a sinful soul, as though 
 
 ' Virg. Georg. i. 57. also Metrodorus in Strabo xvi. 4. 19. See other authorities in Smith, 
 Diet, of Geogr. Art. Saba, p.8G2. - Agatharc. p. Gi. 'Judg. i.7. * viii, 9. 10. see 
 also Ezek. xxxviii. 7-end. *Is. xiii.3. 'Jer. li. 27. "lb. vi.4. ^ Slic. iii. 5. 
 
 »S.Matt.xxvi.65. i» S.John xvi. 2. " Acts vi. 11, 13. i- lb. xviii. 13. xxi. 28. 
 xxiv. 6. 13 2 Thess. ii. 4. » See Alius Thalia in S. Ath. Counc. of Arim. § 15. p. 94. 
 
 10 " Beat your plowshares into swords, (, ^f j/" s t 
 and your || prunin<^-hooks into spears : " let ™- ^^- 
 the weak say, 1 am stronj^. "Mrc.'^^.l.*' 
 
 11 "Asseml)le yourselves, and come, all ',! zech?"it.'8. 
 ye lieathen, and leather yourselves together y ol\f,le 
 round about : tliither || cause p thy mighty M^jf^jot"" 
 
 P Ps. 103. 20.' 
 Ua. 13.3. 
 
 ones to come down, O Lord. 
 
 the soul must needs be such^", and themselves held the God- 
 head to have been united to a soulless, and so a brute, nature. 
 Maniclueans accused her of making God the Author of evil, 
 and themselves, as do Pantheists now, invented a god who 
 sinned". Novatians and Donatists accused the Church of' 
 laxity. Pelagians charged her with denying the perfectibility 
 of man's nature, themselves denying the grace whereby it is 
 perfected. Mohammed arrayed the truth of tlie Tnity of God 
 against His Being in Three Persons, and fought against the 
 truth as Idolatry. Some now array "Theism," i.e. truths 
 as to God which they have stolen from Holy Scripture, against 
 the belief in God as He has revealed Himself Indeed, no 
 imposture ever long held its ground against truth, unless it 
 masked itself under some truth of God which it perverted, 
 and so hallowed its war against God in the Name of God. 
 
 TFake up the tnighty me7i; arouse them, as if their former 
 state had been a state of sleep ; arouse all their dormant pow- 
 ers, all within them, that they may put forth all their strength, 
 if so be they may prevail against God. 
 
 Let allthe menoftvar draw near, as if to contend, and close, 
 as it were, with God and His people^^, as, on the other hand, 
 God says^^, / will come near to you to Judgment. Let them 
 come up into His very Presence. Even while calling them to 
 fulfil this their vain purpose of striving with God,the Prophet 
 keeps in mind, into Whose Presence they are summoned, and 
 so calls them to come up, as to a place of dignity. 
 
 10. Beat your ploughshares into swords. Peace had been 
 already promised, as a blessing of the gospel. In His days, 
 foretold Solomon ■°, shall the righteous flourish, and abundance 
 of peace, so long as the moon endureth. And another-'. He mak- 
 eth thy borders peace. Peace within with God flows forth in 
 peace with man. Jtighteousness and peace kissed each other--. 
 Where there is not rest in God, all is unrest. And so, all which 
 was needful for life, the means of subsistence, care of health, 
 were to be forgotten for war. 
 
 Let the weak say, lam strong. It is one last gathering of 
 the powers of the world against their Maker ; the closing scene 
 of man's rebellioh against God. It is their one universal ga- 
 thering. None, however seemingly unfit, was to be spared 
 from this conflict ; no one was to remain behind. The hus- 
 bandman was to forge for war the instruments of his peace- 
 ful toil ; the sick was to forget his weakness and to put on a 
 strength which he had not, and that to the uttermost. But 
 as weakness is, in and through God, strength, so all strength 
 out of God is weakness. Man may say, I ant strong ; hut, 
 against God, he remains weak, as it is said, that iceak man-^ 
 from the earth may no more oppress. 
 
 11. Once more all the enemies of God are summoned to- 
 gether. Assemble yourselves-*, (Others inthesame senserender, 
 Hasteye,) and come, all ye heathen, round about ,\it. fromround 
 
 Oxf.Tr. S. Ath. ag. Ar. i. 28. p. 221. and the full note f. i^ lb. p. 191. n. d. p. 205.301.C. 
 310.h.411.b.423.m.n. "i Seein S. Ath. p. 221. n. f. O. T. 17 See S. Aug. Conf. 
 Note at the end. " See 1 Sara. x\ii.41. 2 Sam. x. 13. " Mai. iii. o.see Is.xli.l. 1.8. 
 
 2» Ps. Ixxii. 7. -1 lb. cxlvii. 14. s= lb. Ixxxv. 10. ^ Ps. x. IS.ruit. 
 
 21 The word ehv occurs here only. The E.V. follows the chief authorities.
 
 138 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 12 Let the heathen be wakened, land 
 
 d about. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 "■•■ ^'<"»- come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat : for 
 'Prse. 13. there will I sit to 'judge all the heathen 
 
 & 98. 9. & 
 
 HO. fi. roun 
 
 IS.2.4.&3. 13. Mic.4.3, 
 
 about, i.e. from every side, so as to compass and hem in the 
 people of God, and then, when the net had been, as it were, 
 drawn closer and closer round them, and no way of escape is 
 left, the Prophet prays God to send His aid ; thither cause Tliy 
 might}) ones to come dotvii, O Lord. Ag:ainst the mighty ones 
 of the earth, or the weak who say they are mighty, (the same 
 word is used throug;hout,) there come down the mighty ones of 
 God. The mighty ones of God, whom He is prayed to cause 
 to comedown, i.e. from heaven, can be no other than the mip:hty 
 angels, of whom it is said, they are mighty in stre7igth^ (still 
 the same word,) to whom God gives charge over^ His own, to 
 keep them in all their ways, and one of whom, in this place, 
 slew' one hundred and fourscore and Jive thousand of the As- 
 syrians. So our Lord saith*. The Son of man shall send forth 
 His Angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things 
 that offend, and them that do iniquity. 
 
 12. Let the heathen be wakened. This emphatic repeti- 
 tion of the word, awaken, seems intended to hint at the great 
 awakening, to Judgment^, when they ivho sleep in the dust of 
 the earth shall awake, being wwrtA-ewerf from the sleep of death. 
 Another word is used oi awakening'^. On the destruction of 
 Anti-Christ it is thought that the general Judgment will fol- 
 low, and all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the 
 Son of Man and shall come forth''. They are bidden to came 
 up into the valley of Jehoshapliat, "*for to come into the 
 Presence of the most High God, may well be called a coming 
 up." For there ivill I sit to judge all the heathen roundabout, 
 (again Vit.from round about,) from every side, all nations from 
 all the four quarters of the world. The words are the same 
 as before. There all nations froin every side were summon- 
 ed to come, as they thought, to destroy God's people and he- 
 ritage. Here the real end is assigned, for which they were 
 brought together ; for God would sit to judge them. In their 
 own blind will and passion they came to destroy ; in God's se- 
 cret overruling Providence, they were dragged along by their 
 passions, — to be judged and to be destroyed. So our Lord 
 says', When the Son of Man shall come in His Glory, and all 
 the holy Angels tvith Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His 
 Glory and before Him shall be gathered all nations. Our Lord, 
 in that He uses words of Joel, seems to intend to direct our 
 minds to the Prophet's meaning. What follows are nearly 
 His own words ; 
 
 13. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. So Jesus 
 saith, let both groiv together until the harvest, and in the time 
 of the harvest I will say to the reapers. Gather ye together the 
 tares and hind them in bundles to hurii them ; and this He ex- 
 plains ^°, The harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers 
 are the Angels. He then Who saith, put ye in the sickle, for 
 the harvet,t is ripe, is the Son of Man, Who, before He became 
 the Son of Man, was, as He is now, the Son of God, and spake 
 this and the other things by the Prophets; they to whom He 
 speaketh are His reapers, the Angels ; and the ripeness of the 
 
 'Ps.ciii.20. 2Ib. xci.ll. ' 2 Kingsxix.35. < S.Matt. xiii.41. * This same word 
 is used Job xiv. 12. Even Abarbanel understands this of the Resurrection; see in Poc.on 
 ver.ll. 6 J"pn, also Job lb. Ps. xvii. 15. Is. xxvi.19. Dan.xii.2. 7 S. John v. 27-y. 
 
 8 Poc. 9 S. Matt. XXV. 31, 2. '" lb. xiii. 30,39. n Is. xvii. 5. Jer. ii. 33. 
 
 " Lam. i. 15. Is. Ixiii. 3. Rev. xix. 15. " Is. xvii. 6. Judg. viii. 2. Mic. vii. 1. 
 
 "Ps.lxxx. 12. 15 Poc. '«Gen.vi.l2,13. "rGen.xv.16. '8 S.Matt.xxiii.32,35. 
 
 "Dion. =» As Gen. xiv. in, ;),v,i,p,7s,i.e./u//(i/p!/s, nothing but pits; 2 Kings iii. 16, 
 
 13 « Put ye in the sickle, for ' the harvest ^ ^^1% ^ 
 is ripe : come, get you down ; for the " press '■"""• **""■ 
 is full, the lats overflow ; for their wicked-' Reil'iVisf 
 
 • 18 
 
 ness IS great, . je^. 51. 33. 
 
 Hos. 6. II. » Is. 63. 3. Lam. 1. 15. Rev. 14. 19, 20. 
 
 harvest is the maturity of all things here, good and evil, to 
 be brought to their last end. 
 
 In itself, the harvest, as well as the vintage, might describe 
 the end of this world, as to both the good andthebad, in that 
 the wheat is severed from the chaff and the tares, and the 
 treading of the winepress separates the wine which is stored 
 up from the husks which arc cast away. Yet nothing is said, 
 here of storing up aught, either the wheat or the wine, but 
 only of the ripeness of the harvest, and that the fats over/low, 
 because their wickedness is great. The harvest is sometimes, 
 although more rarely, used of destruction ^^ ; the treading of 
 the winepress is always used as an image of God's anger''; 
 the vintage, of destru(;tion '' ; the plucking off the grapes, of 
 the rending away of single lives or souls '*. It seems proba- 
 ble then, that the ripeness of the harvest and the fulness of the 
 vats are alike used of the ripeness for destruction, that "'Hhey 
 were ripe in their sins, fit for a harvest, and as full of ^vick- 
 edness as ripe grapes, which fill and and overflow the vats, 
 through the abundance of the juice with which they swell." 
 Their ripeness in iniquity calls, as it were, for the sickle of 
 the reaper, the trampling of the presser. 
 
 For great is their tvickedness. The whole world is flooded 
 and overflowed by it, so that it can no longer contain it, but, 
 as it were, cries to God to end it. The longsuffering of God 
 no longer availed, but would rather increase their wickedness 
 and their damnation. So also, in that first Judgment of the 
 whole world by water, when alljlesh had corrupted his way 
 upon the earth, God said, the e7id of alljlesh is before Me^^ ; and 
 when the hundred and twenty years of the preaching of Noah 
 were ended without fruit, thejiood came. So Sodom was then 
 destroyed, when not ten righteous could be found in it ; and 
 the seven nations of Canaan were spared above four hundred 
 years, because the iniquity of the Amoriteswasnot yet full^'^ ; 
 and our Lord sajs^^fjill ye up the measure of your fathers, — 
 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the 
 earth. So " '^ God condemneth each of the damned, when he 
 hath filled up the measure of his iniquity." 
 
 14. The Prophet continues, as in amazement at the great 
 throng assembling upon one another, multitudes, multitudes, 
 in the valley of decision, as though, whichever way he looked, 
 there were yet more of these tumultuous masses, so that there 
 was nothing beside them. It was one living, surging, boiling, 
 sea: throngs upon throngs, mere throngs-"! The word rendered 
 7?»<//(7Mf/essuggests,besides,the thoughtof the hum and din-' of 
 these masses throngingonward, blindly, to their own destruc- 
 tion. They all tumultuously rage together, and imagine a vain 
 thitig, against the Lord and agaitist His Christ-^; but the place 
 whither they are gathered, (although they know it not,) is the 
 valley of decision, i. e. of " sharp, severe, judgment." The 
 valley is the same as that before called the valley of Jehosha- 
 phat ; but whereas that name only signifies Godjudgeth, this 
 further name denotes the strictness of God's judgment. The 
 
 ditches, ditches, i. e.full of ditches. By another idiom, it has been taken to mean that 
 the multitudes were of two sorts ; whence Abarbanel explains it, " a multitude of living, 
 and a multitude of dead," in Poc. Others, the good and the bad. 
 
 -' The word .TCn (whence JiDn)is identical with our /i«m; then, "noise." and, among 
 othtrs, "the hum of a multitude ;" then, a multitude even apart from that noise. It is 
 used of the throng of alarge army, Judg. iv. 7, Dan. xi. 11, 12, 13 ; of whole peoples, 
 Ezek. xxxii. 12, 16, 18, 20, 22, 26. "^ Ps. ii. 1, 2.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 139 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 800. of 
 
 14 Multitudes, multitudes, in 'the valley 
 II decision : for ^ the day of the Lord is 
 
 near in the valley of decision. 
 
 15 The *= sun and the moon shall be 
 
 » ver. 2. 
 Or, con- 
 cisioju or, 
 threshing, 
 
 ' ch.' 2! 10,31. darkened, and the stars shall withdraw 
 
 » Jer. 25. 30. 
 ch. 2.11. 
 Amos 1. 2. jg rpjjg j_^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ , ^^^^^ ^^^ ^f ^i^n, 
 
 their shininj^. 
 
 and utter his voice from Jerusalem : and „ ,?&I^^ „ 
 
 ■^ C il K I a T 
 
 •' the heavens and the earth shall shake : "hnt cir.soo. 
 the liORi) ivill he the f dope of his people, e js^li.W 
 and th(! strength of the childnm of Israel. ^„/r,,;;a,>" 
 17 So ''shall ye know that I am the d :[' tlr 
 Lord your God dwellinjL^ in Zion, "my holy' obad.Vo.^^' 
 mountain: then shall Jerusalem be f holy,f HebJ'io^iwM. 
 
 word signifies " cut," then " derided ;" then is used of severe 
 punishment, or destruction decided and decreed ^, by God. 
 
 For the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. 
 Their gathering against God shall be a token of His coming 
 to judge them. They come to fulfil their own ends ; but His 
 shall be fulfilled on them. They are left to bring about their 
 own doom ; and lieing abandoned by Him, rush on the more 
 blindly because it is at hand. When their last sin is commit- 
 ted, their last defiance of God spoken or acted against Him, it 
 is come. At all times, indeed, the Lord is at hand". It may 
 be, that we are told, that the whole future revealed to us innst 
 shortly come to pass^, in order to show that all time is a mere 
 nothing, a moment, a dream, when it is gone. Yet here it is 
 said, relatively, not to us, but to the things foretold, that it is 
 near to come. 
 
 15. The sun and the moon shall be darkened. This may 
 be, either that they shall be outshone by the brightness of the 
 gloryof Christ, or that they themselves shallundergo a change, 
 whereof the darkness at the Crucifixion was an image. An an- 
 cient writer says*; "As in the dispensation of the Cross the sun 
 failing, there was darkness over all the earth, so when the sign 
 of the Son of man appearcth in heaven, in the Dayof Judgment, 
 the light of the sun and moon and stars shall fail, consumed, 
 as it were by the great might of that sign." And as the fail- 
 ure of the light of the sun at our Lord's Passion betokened the 
 shame of nature at the great sin of man, so, at the Dayof Judg- 
 ment, it sets before us the awefulness of God's judgments, as 
 though "^it dared not behold the severity of Him Who judgeth 
 and returneth every man's work upon his own head ;"as though 
 " * every creature, in the sufferings of others, feared the judg- 
 ment on itself." 
 
 16. The Lord shall roar out of Zion. As in the destruc- 
 tion of Sennacherib, when he was now close upon his prey, 
 and shook his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, 
 the hill of Jerusalem, the Lord of hosts lopped the hottgh tvith 
 terror, and the high ones of stature were hetcn doum, cmd the 
 haughty were humbled'^, so at the end. It is foretold of Anti- 
 Christ, that his destruction shall be sudden ^, Then shall that 
 Wicked one be revealed, tv horn the Lord^ shall co7isumewith the 
 spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy tvith the bi-ightness of His 
 Coming. And Isaiah saith of our Lord', He shall smite the 
 earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His 
 lips shall He slay the wicked. When the multitudes of God's 
 enemies were thronged together, then would He speak w\th 
 His Voice of terror. The terrible voice of God's warnings is 
 compared to the roaring of a lion ^'^. The lion hath roared, who 
 will 7iot fear f the Lord hath spokeii, who can but prophesy ? 
 Much more, when those words of awe are fulfilled. Our Lord 
 then. The Lion of the tribe ofJudah i'. Who is here entitled by 
 the incommunicable Name of God, I Am, shall utter His awe- 
 
 ^ destruction determi7jed, Is. x. 22; dcstrjiction, and that determined, Is. X. 23, xxviii. 
 
 22. Dan. ix. 27 ; tiiat which is decreed of desolations, i. e. the desolations decreed, lb. 2t>. 
 
 2 I'hii. iv. 5. 3 Kev. i. 1. ■" Orig. 'Tr. 30. in S. Matt. '■> S. Jer. <■ Hnpo de S. V. 
 
 " is. X. 32, 3. « 2 Thess. ii. 8. » Is. xi. 4. '" Am. iii. 8. " Kev. v. 5. 
 
 ful Voice, as it is said'-; The Lord Himself shall descend from 
 heaven with a shout, tvith the i^oice of the Arvliangel and with 
 the Trump of God ; and He Himself says, '^ The hour is coming, 
 in the ivhich all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and 
 shall ctnne forth, they that have done good unto the Resurrection 
 of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of 
 damnation. 
 
 And shall utter His voice from Jerusalem, i. e. cither from 
 His Throne aloft in the air above the holy city, or from the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, out of the midst of the tens of thousands 
 of His holy angels^', and saints'% who shall come with Him. So 
 terrible shall that voice be, that the heavens ayul the earth shall 
 shake, as it is said^", the heavens shall pass away with a great 
 noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth 
 also and the tvorks that are therein shall be burned tip ; and 
 " '^ heaven shall open for the coming of the saints," and hell 
 shall be moved at the coming^^ of the evil. "^''Nor shall it be 
 a slight shaking of the earth at His Coming, but such that all 
 the dead shall be roused, as it were from their sleep, yea, the 
 very elect shall fear and tremble, but, even in their fear and 
 trembling, shall retain a strong hope. This is what he saith 
 forthwith. The Lord tvill be the hope (or place of refuge) of His 
 people, and the strength (or strong hold) of the children of Is- 
 rael, i.e. of the true Israel, the whole people of the elect of God. 
 All these He will then by that His Majesty at once wonder- 
 fully terrify and strengthen, because they ever hoped in God, 
 not in themselves, and ever trusted in the strength of the 
 Lord, never presumed on their own. Whereas contrariwise 
 the false Israelites hope in themselves, while, going about to 
 establish their oivn righteousness, they submitted themselves not 
 to the righteousness of God-'^. The true Israel shall trust much 
 more than ever before ; yet none can trust then, who, in life, 
 had not trusted in Him Alone. 
 
 17. God Himself wondrously joins on His own words to 
 those of the Prophet, and speaks to His own people; so (lit. 
 cmd] ye shall knotv, by experience, by sight, face to face, what 
 ye now believe, that I am the Lord your God, dtvelling in Zion, 
 My holy mountain. So He saith in the second Psalm ^', Then 
 shall he speak unto them (the enemies of His Christ) in His 
 tvrath, (Did vejr them in His sore displeasure ; And I have set 
 My king on My holy hill of Zion ; and --, Behold the tabernacle 
 of God is tvith men, atid He tvill dwell tvith them, and they shall 
 be His people, and God Himself shall he with them, their God, 
 dwelling with them and in them, by an unvarying, blissful, hal- 
 lowing Presence, never withdrawn, never hidden, never shad- 
 ed, but ever shining upon them. Your God, your own, as much 
 as if possessed by none besides,filling all with gladness, yet ful- 
 ly possessed byeach,as though there were none besides, so that 
 each may say, Thou art my Portion, O Lord"^; my Lord, atid 
 my God'*, as He saith, I am thy exceeding great Reward^'. 
 
 1= 1 Thess. iv. 16. " S. John v. 28. 29. '* S. Mait. xvi. 27. xxv. 31. S. Mark viii. 
 38. 2 Thess. i. 7. '^ Zech. xiv. 5. Jiide 14. i« 2 Pet. iii. 10. '< Lvr. Lap. 
 
 i9Is. xiv. 9. '9 Rup. =»Rom. X. 3. =' Ps. ii. 0. fi. ™ Rev. xxi. 3. 
 
 23 Ps. cxix. 57. Lam. iii. 24. =■" S. John xx. 28. =' Gen. xv. 1.
 
 140 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 c h^rTs t ^"^ there shall no ^ strangers pass through 
 cir. 800. i^gj. any more. 
 
 ' Is. 35. 8. & 52. 1. Nah. 1. 15. Zech. 14. 21. Rev. 21. 27. 
 
 ^nd Jerusalem shall he holy, lit. holiness as S. John saith^, 
 He carried me aiom/ in the S}iirit to a great a?id high mountain, 
 and shelved me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending 
 out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. 
 
 And there shall no stranger pass through her any more. 
 JFithout, says S. John^, are dogs and sorcerers, andiuhoremon- 
 gers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and 
 muketh a lie. None alien from her shall pass through her, so 
 as to have dominion over her, defile or oppress her. 
 
 This special promise is often repeated. ^It shall be called 
 the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it. ^Hence- 
 forth there shall no more come into thee the micircumcised and 
 the tmclean. ^The wicked shall no more pass through thee 
 ^Jn that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house 
 of the Lord of hosts. ''And there shall in no wise enter into it 
 any thing that defileth. These promises are, in their degree 
 and in the image and beginning, made good to the Church here, 
 to be fully fulfilled when it shall bc^ a glorious Church, not 
 having spot or turinkle or any such thing, but holy and without 
 blemish. Here they do not pass through her, so as to over- 
 come ; the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. However 
 near, as hypocrites, they come to her, they feel in themselves, 
 that they are not of her ^ There they shall be severed from 
 her for ever. "^^ Heretics came, armed with fantastic reasons 
 and deceitful arguments ; but they could not pass through her, 
 repelled by the truth of the word, overcome by reason, cast 
 down by the testimonies of Scripture and by the glow of 
 faith." They fell backwards to the ground before her. They 
 ^^go out from her, because they are not of her. They who are 
 not of her can mingle with her, touch her sacraments, but 
 their power and virtue they partake not. They are inwardly 
 repelled. 
 
 18. And it shall come to jiass in that Day. After the de- 
 struction of Anti-Christ,there will, itseems,still be a period of 
 probation, in which the grace of God will abound and extend 
 more and more widely. The Prophet Zechariah, who con- 
 tinues on the image of the living ivaters going out from Jertisa- 
 lem^^, places this gift after God had gathered all nations against 
 Jerusalem, andhad visibly andmiraculously overthrown them 1'. 
 But in that the blessings which he speaks of, are regenerating, 
 they belong to time ; the fulness of the blessing is completed 
 only in eternity ; the dawn is on earth, the everlasting bright- 
 ness is in heaven. But though the prophecy belongs eminent- 
 ly to one time, the imagery describes the fulness of spiritual 
 blessings which God at all times diffuses in and through the 
 Church ; and these blessings, he says, shall continue on in her 
 for ever ; her enemies shall be eut off for ever. It may be, that 
 Joel would mark afresh beginning and summarybyhis words. 
 It shall be in that Day. The prophets do often begin, again 
 and again, their descriptions. Union with God, which is their 
 theme, is one. Every gift of God to His elect, except the bea- 
 tific vision, is begun in time, union with Himself, indwelling, 
 His Spirit flowing forth from Him into His creatures, His love, 
 knowledge of Him, although here through a glass darkly. 
 The promise cannot relate to exuberance of temporal bless- 
 
 1 Rev. xxi. 10, 11. ' 2lb. xxii. 15. ^Is. xxxv.8. ^Ib.lii. 1. 
 Zech. end. 7 Rev. xxi. 27. ^ Eph. v. 27. « I S.John ii. 19. 
 
 s Nah. i. 15. 
 
 '» Hugo Vict. 
 
 " 1 S. John ii. 19. 12 Zech. xiv. 8. " lb. 2-4. » on Is. xli. 19. 
 
 '5 12 els long. Thcophr. plant, iv. 3. " Jos. Ant. iii. 6. ^^ Veil. Pat. ii. 66. 
 
 '8 Ex. Ixxv. 5, 10, 13, 23, 28, xxvi. 15, 20, 32, 37. xxvii. 1, 6. xxx. 1. xxxv. 7, 24. 
 
 ixxvi.20, 31, 36. xxxvii. 1, 4, 10, 15, 25, 28. xxxviii. 1, 6. Deut. x. 3. '9 S. Jer. 
 
 18 ^ And it shall come to pass in that chrTst 
 day, that the mountains shall ^ drop down "'■''• **""• 
 
 B Amos 9. 13. 
 
 ings, even as tokens of God's favour. For he says, a fountain 
 shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the 
 valley ofShittim. But the valley ofShittim is on the other side 
 Jordan, beyond the Dead Sea, so that by nature the waters 
 could not flow thither. The valley of Shittim or acacia trees 
 is a dry valley; for in such the Easten Acacia, i. e. the santor 
 sandal wood grows. " It is," says S. Jerome ^*, " a tree which 
 grows in the desert, like a white thorn in color and leaves, not 
 in size. For they are of such size, that very large planks '^ are 
 cut out of them. The wood is very strong, and of incredible 
 lightness and beauty. They do not grow in cultivated places, 
 or in the Roman soil, save only in the desert of Arabia." It 
 does not decay ^^ ; and when old becomes like ebony ^^. Of it 
 the Ark of God was made, its staves, the table of Shewbread, 
 the tabernacle and its pillars, the altar for burnt ofitrings, and 
 of incense '*. The valley is about six miles from Livias^*, seven 
 and a half beyond the Dead Sea^". It was the last station of 
 Israel, before entering the land of promise-^, whence Joshua 
 sent out the spies--; where God turned the curse of Balaam 
 into a blessing-^; and he prophesied of the Star which should 
 arise out of Israel, even Christ *** ; where Israel sinned in Baal 
 Peor, and Phineas turned aside His displeasure ^^ 
 
 The existence of a large supply of water under theTemple is 
 beyond all question. WhiletheTemplewas still standing, men- 
 tion is made of a " -^ fountain of ever-flowing water under the 
 temple,"as wellaspools and cisterns for preserving rain-water. 
 One evidently well acquainted with the localities says -^,"The 
 pavement has slopes at befitting places, for the sake of a flush 
 of water which takes place in order to cleanse away the blood 
 from the victims. For on festivals many myriadsof animals are 
 sacrificed. But of water there is an unfailing supply, a copious 
 and natural fountainwithingushingover,an(itherebeingniore- 
 over wonderful underground-receptacles in a circuit of five fur- 
 longs, in the substructure of the temple, and each of these hav- 
 ing numerous pipes, the several streams inter-communicating, 
 and all these closed up below and on the sides. — There are also 
 many mouths towards the base, invisible to all except those to 
 whom the service of the temple belongs. So that the manifold 
 blood of the sacrifices being brought together are cleansed by 
 the gush [of water down] the slope." This same writer relates 
 that, more than half a mile from the city, he was told to stoop 
 down and heard the sound of gushing waters underground. 
 The natural fountain, then, beneath the temple was doubtless 
 augmented by waters brought from a distance, as required for 
 the "divers washings" both of the priests and other things, and 
 to carry off the blood of the victims. Pools near the temple are 
 mentioned by writers of the third and fourth century -^ ; and O- 
 mar, on the surrender of Jerusalem, A. D. 634. was guided to 
 the site of the ancient temple (whereon he built his Mosk) by 
 the stream of water whichissued througha water-channelfrora 
 it-'. Whencesoever this water was derived, whether from a pe- 
 rennialspringbeneaththetemple itself,orwhether brought thi- 
 ther from some unfailing source without, it afforded Jerusalem 
 an abundant supply of water. Much as Jerusalem suffered in 
 sieges by famine, and its besiegers by thirst, thirst was never 
 
 -" Josh. Ant. v. 1. 1. -1 Num. xxxiii. 49. ^ Jos. ii. 1. 23 Num. xxiii. xxir. 
 
 Mic. vi. 5. 24 Num. xxiv. 17. -^ lb. xxv. 1, 7,11. ^^ fonsperennisaquie.Tac. Hist. 
 
 V. 12. "'' Aristeas in App. ad Joseph, ed. Hav. p. 112. 
 
 '^ The Bourdeaux Pilgrim and Philostorg. ap. Phot. vii. 14. Itin. Hieros. p. 152. 
 quoted in Williams' full account of the waters of the Holy City and their connection. 
 Holy City, ii. 466 sqq. "' Williams, H. C. i. 216. Arabic authorities.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 141 
 
 new wine, and the hills shall flow witli 
 milk, ''and all the rivers of Jiidah shall 
 f flow with waters, and ' a fountain shall 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 !■ Is. 30. 25. 
 
 f Heb. go. 
 
 ' Ps. 4e. 4. Ezek. 47. 1. Zech. 1 !■. 8. Rev. 22. 1.' 
 
 any part of the sufferings of those within ^. The superfluous 
 water was and still is (tarried off underijround, to wliat is now 
 " tlie fountain of the Virijin ~," and thence aii;-ain, throui;;h the 
 rock, to the pool of Siloani ■'. Thence it carried fertility to tlie 
 fjardens of Siloiini. in Joel's time donhtless f/ic /ciiig'sgar(/r/is\ 
 still "° a verdant spot, refresliini; to the eye in the heat of sum- 
 mer, while all around is parched and dun." The hlood of the 
 victims flowed into the same brook Kidron, and was a known 
 source of fertility, before the land was given to desolation. 
 The waters of Kidron. as well as all the waters of Palestine, 
 must have been more al)undant formerly. Isaiah speaks of it, 
 ns flou'i >ig soft / //' ; Josephus'',of the"abundant fountain;" an of- 
 ficial report ^, of the "fountain gushing forth with abundance of 
 water." Still its fertilising powers formed but one little oasis, 
 where all around was arid. It fertilised those gardensfive miles 
 from the city. but the mid-space was waterless^, thirsty,mourn- 
 fuP". Lowerdown,thc rivulet threaded its way to the Dead Sea, 
 through a narrow ravine which became more and more wild, 
 where St. Saba planted his monastery. "A howlingwilderness, 
 sterndesolation, stupendous perpendicularcliffs,terrilicchasms, 
 oppressive solitude" are the terms by which one endeavours 
 to characterise"the heartof thissterndesertof Juda^a^i." Such 
 continues to be its eharacter,in the remaining half of itscourse, 
 until it is lostinthe DeadSea,andis transmutedintoitssaltness. 
 Its valley bears the name of desolation, Wady en Nar ^-, "valley 
 of fire." No human path lies along it. The Kidron flows along 
 "^-a deep and almost impenetrable ravine,"" in a narrow chan- 
 nel between perpendicular walls of rock, as if worn away by the 
 rushing waters ' vtween those desolate chalky hills." That 
 little oasis of vci dure was fit emblem of the Jewish people, itself 
 bedewed by the stream which issued from the Temple of God, but, 
 like Gideon's fleece, leavingall around dry. It made no sensible 
 impression out of, or beyond itself. Hereafter, t/ie stream^^,the 
 Siloah, whose streamlets i. e. the artificial fertilising divisions^*, 
 made glad the city of Gof/,should make the wildest, driest, spots 
 of our mortality like the garden of the Lord. Desolation should 
 becomebright and gay; the parched earth should shoot up fresh 
 with life ; what was by nature barren and unfruitful should 
 bring forth good fruit; places heretofore stained by sin should 
 be purified ; nature should be renewed by grace ; and that, be- 
 yond the borders of the promised land, in that world which 
 fliey had left, when Joshua brought them in thither. This, 
 which it needs many words to explain, was vivid to those to 
 whom Joel spoke. They had that spot of emerald green before 
 their eyes, over which the stream which they then knew to issue 
 from the Temple trickled in transparent brightness, conducted 
 by those channels formed by man's diligence. The eyes of the 
 citizens of Jerusalem must have rested with pleasure on it 
 amid the parched surface around. Fresher than the gladliest 
 freshness of nature, brighter than its most kindled glow, is the 
 renewingfreshness of grace; andthis,issuing from mount Zion, 
 was to be the portion not of Judaea only, but of the world. 
 
 The vision of EzekieP^, which is a comment on the prophecy 
 of Joel, clearly belongs primarily to this life. For in this life 
 only is there need for healing ; in this life only is there a desert 
 
 ' Williams H. C. ii. 453, 4. - lb. 408. Robinson i. 344. 
 
 3 Robinson i. 231, 2. 338,9. ■" 2 K. xxv.4. Jer. xxxix.4.1ii. 7. Neh. iii. 15. Williams 
 8.477. 5 Williams li. 456. « viii. 6. ? B.J. v. 4.1. ** in Eus. Prap. Ev. ix. 36. 
 
 come forth of the house of the Lord, and chhTst 
 shall water ^ the valley of Shittim. "r. soo. 
 
 10 ' Egypt shall he a desolation, and 1 uTg.l^&c. 
 
 Williams ii.464. 
 
 5 Timochares in Eus. ix. 35. Williams ii.478. 
 
 land to be made fruitful; death to be changed into life; death 
 and life, the healed and unhealed, side by side ; life, where the 
 stream of G(»d's grace reacheth, and death and barrenness, 
 where it reaclieth not. The fishers who spread their nets a- 
 
 ; mid the fish, exceeding man\j,i\.vv^ an enddcm which waited for 
 
 j and received its explanation from the parables of our Lord. 
 
 [ In the Revelation, above all, the pcace,glory.holiness, vision 
 of God, can only be fulfilled in the sight of God. Yet here too 
 the increase of the Church, and the healing of the nations""', 
 belong to time and to a state of probation, not of full fruition. ' 
 But then neither can those other symbols relate to earthly 
 things. 
 
 The mountains shall drop doivn new wine, lit. trodden out. 
 What is ordinarily obtained by toil, shall be poured forth spon- 
 taneously. And the hills shall Jloiu with mil/c, Wt.Jloir niil/c, 
 as though they themselves, of their own accord, gushed forth 
 into the good gifts which they yield. fFine ever new, and 
 ever renewing, sweet and gladdening the heart ; mil/c, the em- 
 blem of the spiritual food of childlike souls, of purest know- 
 ledge, holy devotion, angelic purity, heavenly pleasure. And 
 these shall never cease. These gifts are spoken of, as the 
 spontaneous, perpetual flow of the mountains and hills ; and 
 as the fountain gushes forth from the hill or mountain-side in 
 one ceaseless flow, day and night, streaming out from the hid- 
 den recesses to which the waters are supplied by God from 
 His treasure-house of the rain, so, day and night, in sorrow 
 or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, God pours out, in the 
 Church and in the souls of His elect, the riches of His grace. 
 All the rivers, lit. channels'^'', of Judah shall fioiv ruith ivater. 
 Every channel, however narrow and easily drying up, shall 
 
 flow with water, gushing forth unto everlasting life ; the love 
 of God shall stream through every heart ; each shall be full 
 according to its capacity, and none the less fuU, because a 
 larger tide pours through others. How much more, " i^ in those 
 everlasting hills of heaven, the heavenh/ Jerusalem, resting on 
 the eternity and Godhead of the Holy Trinity, shall that long 
 promise be fulfilled of the land flowing with milk and honey, 
 where God, through the beatific vision of Himself, shall pour in- 
 to the blessed the torrent of pleasure, the unutterable sweetness 
 of joy and gladness unspeakable in Himself; and all the rivers 
 of Judah i. e. all the powers, capacities, senses, speech of the 
 saints who confess God, shall flow with a perennial stream of 
 joy, thanksgiving, and jubilee, as of all pleasure and bliss." 
 
 19. Egypt shall he a desolation. Egypt and Edom re- 
 present each a different class of enemies of the people of God, 
 and both together exhibit the lot of all. Egypt was the power- 
 ful oppressor, who kept Israel long time in hard bondage, and 
 tried, by the murder of their male children, to extirpate them. 
 Edom was, by birth, the nearest allied to them, but had, from 
 the time of their approach to the promised land, been hostile 
 to them, and shewed a malicious joy in all their calamities". 
 Their land, in which Egypt and Edom shed the innocent hlood 
 of the children of Judah, may either be Edom, Egypt, or Juda;a. 
 If the land was Juda-a, the sin is aggravated by its being God's 
 land, the possession of which they were disputing witli God. 
 
 " Strabo xvi. c. 2. § 36. 40. p. 761, 3. W. ii. 453. " Thomson ii. 435. 431. 
 
 12 Robinson i. 531. " Ps xivi. 4. " nba '' Ezek. xlvii. 1-12. '6 Rev.xxi. 
 24-26. xxii. 21. >? ysx is from Lap. " Ob. 10-14. Ez. xxv. 12. xsxv. 15. xxxvi. 
 5. Lam. iv. 22. Ps. cxxxvii. 7. See on Am. i. 11. 
 
 nd
 
 14-2 
 
 JOEL, 
 
 If it was Efjypt and Edom, then it was probably the blood of 
 those who took refuge there, or, as to Edom, of prisoners de- 
 livered lip to them ^ 
 
 This is the first prophecy of the humiliation of E^ypt. 
 Hosea had threatened, that Egypt should be the grave of those 
 of Israel who should flee there ^. He speaks of it as the vain 
 trust, and a real evil to Israel ^ ; of its own future he says no- 
 thing. Brief as Joel's words are, they express distinctly an 
 abiding condition of Egypt. They are expanded by EzekieP; 
 particular ciiastisements are foretold by Isaiah ^, Jeremiah ", 
 Ezekiel ", Zechariah ^. But the three words of Joel », Egypt 
 shall become desolation, are more comprehensive than any pro- 
 phecy, except those by Ezekiel. They foretell that abiding 
 condition, not only by the force of the words, but by the con- 
 trast with an abiding condition of bliss. The words say, not 
 only " it shall be desolated," as by a passing scourge sweep- 
 ing over it, but "it shall itself ^ja^s over into that state ;" it shall 
 become what it had not been i"; and this, in contrast with the 
 abiding condition of God's people. The contrast is like that 
 of the Psalmist ^1, i/e turneth a fruitful land into barreiiness 
 for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He turneth the 
 wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water- 
 Springs. Judah shouldoverflow with blessing,and the streams 
 of God's grace should pass beyond its bounds, and carry fruit- 
 fulness to what now was dry and barren. But what should 
 reject His grace should be itself rejected. 
 
 Yet when Joel thus threatened Egypt, there were no human 
 symptoms of its decay ; the instruments of its successive over- 
 throws were as yet wild hordes, (as the Chaldees, Persians, and 
 Macedonians,) to be consolidated thereafter into powerful em- 
 pires,or (asRomc) hadnot the beginnings of being. The"^-con- 
 tinuous monumental history of Egypt" went back seven cen- 
 turies before this, to about 1520, B.C. They had had a line 
 of conquerors among their kings, who subdued much of Asia, 
 and disputed with Assyria the country which lay between 
 theni^^. Even after thetime of Joel,theyhad great conquerors, 
 as Tirhaka; Psammetichus won Ashdod back from Assyria^*, 
 Neco was probably successful against it, as well as against Sy- 
 ria and king Josiah ; for he tookCadytis on hisreturn'^^^ from his 
 expedition against Carchemish^"; Pharaoh Hophra, or Apries, 
 until he fell by his pride i", renewed for a time the prosperity 
 of Psammetichus ^^; the reign of Amasis, even after Nebuchad- 
 nezzai-'s conquest, was said to be "the most prosperous time 
 which Egypt ever saw ^^ ;" it was still a period of foreign con- 
 quest-", and its cities could be magnified into 20,000. The Per- 
 sian invasion was drawn upon it by an alliance with Lydia, whi- 
 ther Amasis sent 120,000 men-^ ; its, at times, successful strug- 
 gles against the gigantic armies of its Persian conquerors "^ be- 
 token great inherent strength ; yet it sank for ever, a perpetual 
 desolation. "Rent, twenty-three centuries ago, from her na- 
 tural proprietors," says an unbelieving writer -^, " she has seen 
 Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Georgians, 
 and at length, the race of Tartars, distinguished by the name 
 of Ottoman Turks,establish themselves in her bosom." " The 
 system of oppression is methodical ;" " an vmiversal air of mi- 
 sery is manifest in all which the traveller meets." "-* Mud- 
 walled cottages are now the only habitations, where the ruins 
 
 1 See on Amos i. 9. = ix. C. 3 vii. 11, 12, 16. viii. 13. ix. 3. xi. 5. ■< xxix. 9-12. 15. 
 
 » xix. XX. 'i xlvi. 7 xxix-xxxii. * x. 11. 'J .Tnn .TCCr'j miO 
 
 '" Such is the force of S n'n. " Ps.cvii. 33-5. '= Sir G. Wilkinson Hist. Notice of 
 Eg. in Rawl. Herod, ii. 354. " See lb. pp. 35fi-377. " Herod, ii. 157. '» lb. 159. 
 
 '6 2 Kgs. xxiii. 29. '7 Ezek. xxix. 3. '» Herod, ii. ICl and p. 248. n. 8. Rawl. 
 
 '9 Her. ii. 177. "" lb. 182. -' Cyrop.vi. 2. 10. vii. 1. 30-45. "•■'- Sir G. Wilkinson 
 in note in Rawl. Herod, ii. p. 393. ^ Volney Voyage c. 6. alsoc. 12. 18. quoted by Keith. 
 
 ''' Keith on Propliecy, Egypt, p. 500-3. -= Descript. de 1' Egypte (Col. Jacotin) 
 Etat Modeme. T. ii. P. ii. p. 571. ed. tol. -^ Gtn. xlvii. 6. 11. ■' Etat de 1' Eg. 
 from the Arabic. De Sac. Abdal. p. 595. 
 
 of temples and palaces abound. The desert covers nianyexten- 
 sive regions, whi<'h once raised Egypt among the chief of the 
 kingdoms." The desolation of Egypt is the .stranger, because 
 exceeding misrule alone could have effected it. 
 
 Egypt, in its largest dimensions, has been calculated to con- 
 tain 123,527 square miles or 79,057,339 acres, and to be three 
 fourths of the size of France '^ The mountains which hem in 
 Upper Egypt, diverge at Cairo, parting, the one range,due East, 
 the other N. W. The mountains on the West sink into the 
 plains ; those on the East retain their height as far as Suez. 
 xVbout 10 miles below Cairo, the Nile parted, inclosing within 
 the outside of its seven branches, that triangle of wondrous 
 fertility, the Delta. A network of canals, formed by the stu- 
 pendous industry of the ancient Egyptians, inclosed this tri- 
 angle in another yet larger, whose base, along the coast, was 
 235 miles, in direct distance about 181. East of the Eastern- 
 most branch of the Nile, lay the land of Goshen, formerly, at 
 least for cattle, the good of the land ^*', a part, at least, of the pre- 
 sent esh-Sharkiyyeh, second in size of the provinces of Egypt, 
 but which, A.D. 1375, yielded the highest revenue of the state-^. 
 On theWestern side of the Nile, and about a degree South of 
 the apex of the Delta, a stupendous work, the artificial lake 
 of Moeris-^,inclosing within masonry 64 J square miles of water, 
 received the superfluous waters of the river, and thus at once 
 prevented the injury incidental on any too great rise of the 
 Nile, and supplied water during six months for the irrigation 
 of 1724 square miles, or 1,103,375, acres-'. The Nile which, 
 when it overflowed, spread like a sea over Egypt^", encircling 
 its cities like islands, carried with it a fertilising power, at- 
 testedbyall, but which, unless so attested, would seem fabulous. 
 Beneath a glowing heat, greater than its latitude will account 
 for, the earth, supplied with continual moisture and an ever-re- 
 newed alluvial deposit which supersedes all need of" dressing" 
 the soil, yields, within the year, three harvests of varied pro- 
 duce '^ This system of canalising Egypt must have been of 
 very early antiquity. That giant conception of the water-sys- 
 tem of lake Moeris is supposed to have been the work of Am- 
 menemhes, perhaps about 1673, B.C.^''. But such a giant plan 
 presupposes the existence of an artificial system of irrigation 
 which it expanded. In the time of Moses, we hear incidentally 
 of the strea7ns of Egypt, the canals ^^ (that is, those used for irri- 
 gation), and the ponds '*, the receptacles of the water which was 
 left when the Nile retired. Besides these, an artificial mode of 
 irrigation by tlte foot ^'' is mentioned, now no longer distinctly 
 known, but used, like the present plans of the water-wheel and 
 the lever'^, to irrigate the lands for the later harvests. This 
 system of irrigation had, in the time of Joel, lasted probably 
 forabove 1000 years. The Egyptians ascribed the first turning 
 of the Nile to their first king, Menes % of fabulous antiquity. 
 But while it lasted in any degree, Egypt could not become 
 barren except by miracle. Even now it recovers, whenever 
 water is applied. "Wherever there is water, there is fertility." 
 "38'pjjg productive powers of the soil of Egypt are incalculable. 
 Wherever water is scattered, there springs up a rapid and 
 beautiful vegetation. The seed is sown and watered, and 
 scarcely any other care is requisite for the ordinary fruits of 
 the earth. Even in spots adjacent to the desert and which 
 
 -8 This is the interesting discovery of M. Linant de Bellefonds, Memoire sur le lacde 
 Mceris.1843. -^ 967,948 feddans. The feddan, an Arabic acre(i.q. pD) varied at dif- 
 ferent times. M. Linant counts it at 4200 metres 83 centimetres carres, 1 ^ Eng. Acre. 
 Col. Jacotin estimates it at 5929 metres carres, a little under 1 J Eng. .'Cere, 1.42577. 
 (Descr. de I' Eg. lb. 573). Mr Lane states it at l-j'j Eng. Acre a little before 183fj,"more 
 at an earlier period," (i. 158) less than an acre now (ii. 371). ^^ Herod, ii. 97. 
 
 ■" Lane Egypt ii. 26. ^- Lepsius Kcenigsbuch d. alten ^gypt. Syiiopt. Tafeln_p. 5. 
 
 ^ DIK", the Egyptian word lOT, "ditch" or "river." "' " ' '" " 
 
 xi. 40. 36 Sackiyeh and shadoof. See Lane ii. 24. 
 Report on Egypt. 1840. p. 12. 
 
 ^ Ex. vii. 19. viii. 1. 35 Deut. 
 37 Herod, li. 4.99. » Bowring
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 143 
 
 seem to be taken possession of by the sands, irrijjation brinijs 
 rapidly forth a variety of careen herbs and plants." For its 
 first (trop, there needed but to cast tiie seed, and have it trod- 
 den in by cattle ^ 
 
 Nothing then could desolate Eg^ypt, except man's abidina: 
 neglifience or oppression. No passing storm or inroad could 
 annihilate a fertility, which poured in upon it in ever-rcncwini:; 
 richness. For 1000 years, the Nile had brought to Egypt un- 
 abated richness. The Nile overflows still, but in vain amid de- 
 population, and grinding, uniform, oppression. Not the coun- 
 try is exhausted, but man. 
 
 "If," says Mengin-, "it is true that there is nocountry richer 
 than Egypt in its territorial productions, still there is perhaps 
 no one whose inhabitants are more miserable. It is owing 
 solely to the fertility of its soil and the sobriety of its cultiva- 
 tors, that it retains the population which it still has." The 
 marked diminution of the population had begun before the 
 Birth of our Lord. "Of old," says Diodorus', "it far exceeded 
 in denseness of population all the known countries in the world, 
 and in our days too it seems to be inferior to no other. For 
 in ancient times it had more than 18,000 considerable villages 
 and towns, as you may see registered in the sacred lists. In 
 the time of Ptolemy Lagus more than 30,000 were counted, a 
 number which has continued until now. But the whole peo- 
 ple are said of old to have been about seven millions, and in 
 our days not less than three*." A modern estimate supposes 
 that Egypt,if cultivated to theutmost, would, in plentiful years, 
 support eight millions^. It is difficult to calculate a popula- 
 tion where diflferent ranks wish to conceal it. It has been 
 guessed however that, two centuries ago, it was four millions ; 
 that, at the beginning of this century, it was two millions and 
 a half; and that, in 1845, it was 1800, 000^. The great dimi- 
 nution then had begun 1900 years ago. Temporary causes, 
 plague, small-pox, conscription, have, in this last century, a- 
 gain halved the population ; but down to that time, it had sunk 
 to no lower level than it had already reached at least 18 centu- 
 ries before. The land still, for its fruitfulness,continues to sup- 
 ply more than its inhabitants consume; it yields over and above 
 cotton', for strangers to employ. Yet its brilliant patches of 
 vegetation are but indications how great the powers implanted 
 in it. In vain "the rising Nile overflows (as it is thought) a 
 larger proportion of the soil^" than heretofore ; in vain has 
 the rich alluvial deposit encroached upon the gradual slope of 
 the desert ; in vain, in Upper Egypt has a third been added 
 since about the time of the Exodus. Egypt is stricken. Canals 
 and even arms of the Nile were allowed to choke up. Of the se- 
 ven branches of the Nile, two only, at first artificial, remain^. 
 " The others have either entirely disappeared or are dry in 
 summer." The great Eastern arm, the Pelusian, is nearly 
 effaced, "i°buried almost wholly beneath the sands of the de- 
 sert." "'^The land at the mouth of the canal which represents 
 it, is a sand waste or a marsh." "^-There is now no trace of 
 vegetation in thewhole Pelusian plain. Onlyone slight isolated 
 rise has some thickets on it, and some shafts of columns lie on 
 
 > Herod. ii.l4. and Sir G.Wilk. Rawl. Herod, ii. 18. ' Hist.de 1' Eg. ii. 342. 
 
 ' i. 31. He wrote, in part, 20 B. C. i. 44. ^ Only one late MS. omits the word 
 
 TpiaKoaiwv, making the sense, that the number was still no less than seven millions. It 
 has no weight against the greater authority of MSS. * Lane's Eg>'pt i. 27. ^ Sir G. 
 Wilkinson Modern Egypt i. 257. M. Jomard (Descr. de 1' Eg. ii. 2. p. .364.) sets it at 
 2,422,200. 7 100,000 balesofacvrt. eachinoneyear. Lanei. 28. " Wilkinson Anc. 
 Eg. i. 218, 9. ' Wilkinson mod. Eg. i. 403. '" Malus sur I'etat anc. et mod. des Pfo- 
 vincesOrient.delaBasseEg. Descr. Eg. ii.p.SOo. " Hitter Erdk.i. 824.0. '=Ib.S27. 
 
 " Malus lb. p. 310. " Col. Jacotin in Descr. de 1' Eg. M. ii. p. 576. '■' Andreossy 
 inDescr. Eg. M.i. pp. 261sqq. i5Ib.§4. '? Hitter i. 821. >« Le Pere lb. ii. 1. 471. 
 
 " Athen. i. CO. pp. 76,7. Dim!. Strab. xvii. 1. 14, 15. Ritteri.871. =» LeP^re lb. ii. 2. 
 4S2. =1 Id. ib. ii. p. 10. 22 lb. 7. -^ 474. 24 square leagues. Col. Jacotin ii. 2. p. 577. 
 
 "' from the Arabic list published by De Sacy at the end of his Abdallatif, p. 597-704. 
 
 the sand." ""Inthe midst of aplain the most fertile, they want 
 the barest necessaries of life." The sand of the desert, which 
 was <;hecke(l by tin; river and by the reeds on its banks, has 
 swept over lands no longer fertilised. " '* The sea has not been 
 less destructive. It has broken down the dikes, wherewith 
 man's labour held it in, and has carried barrenness over the 
 productive lands, which it converted into lakes and marshes." 
 A glance at the map of Egypt will sliew how widely tlie sea 
 has burst in, where land once was. On the East, the salt lake 
 Menzalch, (itself from W. N. W. to S. E. about .'jO miles long, 
 and above 10 miles from N. to S.) at)sorbs two more of the 
 ancient arms of the Nile, the Tanitic and the Mendesian ". 
 The Tanitic branch is marked by a deeper channel below the 
 shallow waters of the lake '". The lake of Burlos " '•■ occupies 
 from E. to W. more than half the basis of the Delta." Further 
 Westward are a succession of lakes, Edkou, Madveli (above 
 I2i miles) Mareotis (37i miles). "i^The ancient Delta has lost 
 more than half its surface, of which one-fifth is covered with 
 the waters of the lakes Mareotis, Madyeh, Edkou, Bourlos,and 
 Menzaleh,sad effects of the carelessness of the rulers or rather 
 spoilers of this unhappy country." Even when the lake Mare- 
 otis was, before the English invasion in 1801, allowed nearlv to 
 dry up, it was but an unhealthy lagoon ; and the Mareotic dis- 
 trict, once famous for its wine and its olives and papyrus ", 
 had become a desert. So far from being a source of fertilitv, 
 these lakes from time to time, at the low Nile, inundate the 
 country with salt water, and are " surrounded by low and bar- 
 ren plains -''." 
 
 TheancientpopulousnessandcapabilitiesoftheWesternpro- 
 vince are attested by its ruins. "^'The ruins which the French 
 found every where in the military reconnaissances of this part 
 of Egypt attest the truth of the historical accounts of the an- 
 cientpopulationoftheProvince,nowdeserted;" "--so deserted, 
 thatyou can scarce tell the numbers of ruined cities frequented 
 only by wandering Arabs." 
 
 According to a calculation lower than others, | of the land 
 formerly tilled in Egypt has been thrown out of cultivation, i.e. 
 not less than 1,763, 895 acres or 2755y^square miles -^. And 
 this is not of yesterday. Towards the end of the 14th cen- 
 tury, the extent of the land taxed was 3,034,179 feddans ^, 
 i. e. 4,377,836iiacres or 6840^square miles. The list of lands 
 taxed by the Egyptian government in 1824 yields but a sum of 
 1,956,340 feddans -'% or 2, 822, 171 acres or 4409 square miles. 
 Yet even this does not represent the land actually cultivated. 
 Some even of the taxed land is left whollv, some partiallv, un- 
 cultivated 2^ In an official report", 2,000,"0(X) feddans are stat- 
 ed to be cultivated, when the overflow of the Nile is the most 
 favourable, i. e,4-only of the estimated cultivable amount. The 
 French, who surveyed Egypt minutely, with a view to future 
 improvement, calculated that above 1,000,000 feddans (1,012, 
 887) might be proximately restored by the restoration of the 
 system of irrigation, and nearly l,tK'X),000 more (942,810) 
 by the drainage of its lakes, ponds and marshes, i. e. nearly as 
 much again as is actually cultivated. One of the French sur- 
 
 =5 Mengin Hist.de V Eg. ii. 343. 
 
 -* Sir G. Wilkinson, says, " The land N . and S. of the canal, particularly round Men- 
 zaleh, is little productive, and in parts perfectly barren. The increase of uitre in the 
 soil seems to doom to destruction even that which is still deserving of cultivation. Some 
 land scarcely repays the labour of tilling and fome has been found so unproductive that, 
 lliougk rated/or taxation and annualli/ panhig t!rdeli,'n has been left uncultivated." Mod. 
 Eg. 1. 441, 2. Attain, of the province of IJehnesa ; "The land for tlie most part lies 
 fallow, for three inonths before the inundation, partly from the indolence of the people, 
 and partly from the want ot hands to cultivate." ii. 30. 
 
 =7 " When the Nile rises from 23 to 24 coudees, 2,000,000 feddans are cultivated. But 
 often the Nile does not rise above 19 coudees, and the inundation is not permanent e- 
 noogh to produce the effect desired. Egypt is calculated to have 3.500,000 leddans of 
 cultivable land, if cultivation were pushed to its greatest extent." Bowriiig Report p. 13. 
 
 Dd2
 
 144 
 
 JOEL. 
 
 chrTst "" Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for 
 ™- ^""- the violence uf^uinst the children of Judah, 
 
 »Jer. 49. 17. Ezek. 25. 12, 13. Amos 1.11. Obad. 10. 
 
 veyors sums up his account of the present state of Efjypt * ; 
 " without canals and tlicir dykes, Egyjit, ceasing; to 1)C vivified 
 throus'iout, is only a corpse which the mass of the waters of 
 its river inundates to superfluity, and destroys through ful- 
 ness. Instead of those ancient cultivated and fertile plains, 
 one only finds, here and there, canals filled up <u' cut in two, 
 whose numerous ramifications, crossing each other in every 
 direction, exhibit only some scarcely distinguishable traces 
 of a system of irrigation ; instead of those villages and popu- 
 lous cities, one sees only masses of bare and arid ruins, rem- 
 nants of ancient habitations reduced to ashes; lastly, one finds 
 only lagoons, miry and pestilential, or sterile sands which 
 extend themselves, and unceasingly invade a land which the 
 industry of man had gained from the desert and the sea." 
 
 Yet this is wholly unnatural. In the Prophet's time, it was 
 contrary to all experience. Egypt is alike prolific in its peo- 
 ple and in the productions of the earth. The Egyptian race 
 is still accounted very prolific ^. So general is this, that the an- 
 cients thought that the waters of the Nile must have some pow- 
 er of fecundity ^. Yet with these powers implanted in nature 
 unimpaired, the population is diminished, the land half-desert. 
 No one doubts that man's abiding misgovernment is the cause 
 of Egypt's desolation. Under their native princes, they were 
 happy and prosperous *. Alexander,some of the Ptolemies, the 
 Romans,saw,atleast,the value ofEgypt. The great conception 
 of its Greek conqueror, Alexandria, has been a source of pros- 
 perity to strangers for above 2000 years. Prosperity has ho- 
 vered around Egypt. Minds, the most different, are at one in 
 thinking that, with a good government, internal prosperity and 
 its far-famed richness of [iroduction might at once be restored. 
 Conquerors of varied nations. Persians, Macedonians, Romans, 
 Greeks, Arabs, Georgians, Tartars, or Turks have tried their 
 hands upon Egypt. Strange that selfishness or powerlessness 
 for good should have rested upon all ; strange that no one 
 should have developed its inherent powers ! Strange contrast. 
 One long prosperity, and one long adversity. One scarcely 
 broken day, and one troubled night. And that doom foretold 
 in the midday of its prosperity, by those three words, Egypt 
 shall he a desolation. 
 
 Edom shall be a desolate wilderness. Edom, long un- 
 known, its ancient capital, its rock-dwellings, have been, with- 
 in these last forty years, anew revealed. The desolation has 
 been so described to us, that we have seen it, as it were, with 
 our own eyes. The land is almost the more hopelessly deso- 
 late, because it was once, artificially, highly cultivated. Once 
 it had the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven from a- 
 hove ' : it had ^ cornfields and vineyards in abundance, and 
 wells of water ; its vegetation, its trees, and its vineyards, at- 
 tracted the dew by which they were supported. " Petra,"says 
 Strabo', "liesin a spot precipitous andabruptwithout,butwith- 
 in possessed of abundant fountains for watering and horticul- 
 ture." The terrace-cultivation, through which each shower 
 which fallsis stored to theuttermost. clothing with fertility the 
 mountain-sidcs,leavesthosesteep sides themorebare, when dis- 
 used. " We saw," says a traveller ^ "many ruined terraces, 
 the evidences and remains of a flourishing agriculture, which, 
 in the prosperous days of Edom and Petra, clothed many of 
 
 ' Le PJre Memoire sur les lacs et les deserts de la basse Egypte in Deser. de 1' Eg. 
 Mod. ii. l.p.481. ^ Bowring p.5. Lane i. 195. 3 Aristotle and Aristobulus in 
 
 Strabo xv. 1 . § 22. Plin. vii. 3. and others. -i Wilkinson Anc. Eg. c. 3. end. 
 
 » Gen. xxvii. 39. * Nu. .\x. 1','. ^ xvi. i. 21. 
 
 because they have shed innocent blood in 
 their land. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 these now sterile mountains with fertility and beauty. — Fields 
 of wheat and some agricultural villages stillcxistinthe eastern 
 portion of Edom ; but, with very slight exceptions, the country 
 is blighted with cheerless desolation and hopeless sterility. 
 The hill-sides and mountains, once covered with earth and 
 clothed with vineyards, are now bare rocks. The soil, no 
 longer supported by t(!rraccs and sheltered by trees, has been 
 swept away by the rains. The various contrivances for irriga- 
 tion, which even now might restore fertility to many consider- 
 able tracts, have all disappeared. Sand from the desert, and 
 the debris of the soft rock of the mountains, cover the valleys 
 which formerlysmiled with plenty." Now" ^the springs have 
 been dried up to such an extent, as to render the renewal of the 
 general fertility of Edom [well nigh] impossible. In places 
 along the course of the stream, reeds and shrubs grow luxuri- 
 antly, oleanders and wild figs abound, and give proof that a 
 little cultivation would again cover the rock, and fill the cliffs 
 with the numberless gardens which once adorned them. The 
 tracesof formerfertilityareinnumerable; every spot capable of 
 sustaining vegetable life was carefully watered and cultivated. 
 There are numerous grooves in the rocks to carry rainwater to 
 the little clefts in which even now figs are found. Every spot 
 capable of being so protected has been walled up, however 
 small the space gained, or hoM'ever difficult the means of se- 
 curing it. The ancient inhabitants seem to have left no ac- 
 cessible place untouched. They have exhibited equal art and 
 industry in eliciting from the grand walls of their marvellous 
 capital whatever the combination of climate irrigation and 
 botanical skill could foster in the scanty soil afforded them. 
 The hanging gardens must have had a wondrous effect among 
 the noble buildings of the town when it was in all its glory." 
 This desolation began soon after the captivity of Judah and 
 Edom's malicious joy in it. ForMalachi appeals to Judah, 
 that whereas God had restored him. He had ^" laid the moun- 
 tains and the lieritage of Esau waste for the jackals of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 Yet Edom was the centreof the intercourse of nations. Oc- 
 cupying, as it did in its narrowest dimensions, the mountains 
 between the S. end of the Dead Sea and the iElanitic gulf,it lay- 
 on the direct line between Egypt and Babylonia. A known 
 route lay from Heroopolis to Petra its capital, and thence to 
 Babylon^i. Elath and Ezion-geber discharged through its val- 
 ley, the Arabah,thewealth which they receivedbyseafrom India 
 or Africa. Petra was the natural halting-placeof the caravans. 
 ••TheNabat8eans,"saysPliny^-,"inclosePetra, in a valley of ra- 
 ther more than two miles in extent, surrounded by inaccessible 
 mountains, through which astream flows. Here the two roads 
 meet of those who go to Palmyra of Syria, and of those who 
 come from Gaza." Eastward again, he says^^ "they went from 
 Petra to Fora, and thence to Charax" on the banks of the 
 Tigris, near the Persian gulf. Yet further the wealth of Ara- 
 bia Felix poured by a land-route through Petra. "^* To Petra 
 and Palestine, Gerraeans andMinaeans and all the neighbour- 
 ing Arabs brought doVi-n from the upper country the frankin- 
 cense, it is said, and all other fragrant merchandise." Even 
 after the foundation of Alexandria had diverted much of the 
 stream of commerce from Leuce Come, the iElanitic gulf, and 
 
 8 Clin T. ii. pp. 15. 55. Keith p. 30S. 9 Lord C. Hamilton Journal in Keith lb. 
 Idum»a pp. 338, 9. see also Count Portalis lb. p. 332. '» Mai. i. 3. 
 
 " Strabo xvi.4. 2. >2 yi. '28. u lb. » Agatharcidesp. 57 in Geogr.Min. 
 
 i ed. Oxon, quoted in Vincent's Periplusii. 262.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 145 
 
 20 But .Tudah shall || dwell " for ever, 
 and Jerusalem from generation to ge- 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 800. 
 
 ^AmS'is. neration. 
 
 Petra to Myos Hormus ^ on the Ei2:yptian side of the Red Sea, 
 the Romans still connected Elatli and Petra with Jerusalem l)y 
 a g^reat road, of which portions are still extant", and fi'uarded 
 theintercourscbyniilitarystations''. Of these routes, that from 
 Arabia Felix and from Ef;:yj)t to Babylonia had i)robal)iy l)e('n 
 used for above KJOO years l)efore the time of Joel. Elatli and E- 
 zionjjeber were well-known towns at the time of the Exodus'. 
 The intercourse was itself comi)lex and manifold. The land 
 exports of Arabia Felix and the contmcrce of Elath necessa- 
 rily passed throui;h Edom,and thence radiated to Effypt, Pales- 
 tine, Syria. The withdrawal of the commei'cc of Esjypt would 
 not iilone have destroyed that of Petra, while Tyre, Jerusalem, 
 Damascus still received merchandise through her. Tothem she 
 was the natural channel ; the piljjrim-route from Damascus to 
 Mecca lies still by Petra. In Joel's time, not the slightest 
 shadow was cast on her future. Then Babylon destroyed her 
 for a time ; but she recovered. The Babylonian and Persian 
 Empires perished ; Alexander rose and fell; Rome, the master 
 alike of Alexandria and Petra, meant Petra still to survive. 
 No human eye could even then tell that it would be finally de- 
 solate ; much less could any human knowledge have foreseen 
 it in that of Joel. But God said by him, Edom shall he a de- 
 solate wilderness, and it is so ! 
 
 As, however, Egypt and Edom are only instances of the 
 enemies of God's people and Church, so their desolation is only 
 one instance of a great principle of God's Government, that ^ 
 i/te friumphhig of the wicked is short, and thejoi/ of the uiigod- 
 ly for a moment ; that, after their short-lived office of fulfilling 
 God's judgment on His people, the judgment rolls round on 
 themselves, and fhey that hate the righteous shall be desolate ''. 
 
 20. Judah shall dwell for ever. Not earthly Judah, nor 
 earthly Jerusalem ; for these must come to an end, together 
 with the earth itself, of whose end the Prophets well knew. 
 It is then the one people of God, the true Judah, the people 
 who praise God, the Israel, which is indeed Israel. Egypt 
 and Edom and all the enemies of God should come to an end; 
 but His people shall never come to an end. The gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against her. The enemy shall not destroy her ; 
 time shall not consume her ; she shall never decay. The peo- 
 ple of God shall abide before Him and through Him here, and 
 shall dwell with Him for ever. 
 
 21. For I luill cleanse her blood that I have not cleansed. 
 The word rendered cleansed'^ is not used of natural cleansing, 
 nor is the image taken from the cleansing of the body. The 
 word signifies only to pronounce innocent, or to free from guilt. 
 Nor is blood used of sinfulness generally, but oidy of the actual 
 guilt of shedding blood. The whole then cannot be an image 
 taken from the cleansing of physical defilement, like the words 
 in the prophet Ezekiel *, then washed I thee with water; yea, I 
 thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee. Nor again can 
 it mean the forgiveness of sins generally, but only the pro- 
 nouncing innocent the blood which had been shed. This, the 
 only meaning of the words, falls in with the mention of the 
 innocent blood, for shedding which, Egypt and Edom had been 
 condemned. The words are the same. There it was said, be- 
 cause they have shed innocent blood; dam naki ; here, I ivill 
 
 ' Strab. xvi. 4. 2+. - Robins. Pal. ii. IGl. 3 Rcland p. 230. ■> Deut. ii. 8. 
 
 "Jobx.'i.S. 6 l's.xxxiv.21. 'Wpi ^xvi.S. 9 vi. 10. 11. '» Poc. " Heb. xii. 22. 
 
 21 For I will " eleanse their blood tltat chrTst 
 
 fir. 800. 
 
 I hav(; noteleansed : p ]| 
 eth in Zion. 
 
 ver. 17. Rev. 21. 3. 
 
 for the Lord dwell- 
 
 » Is. 4.4-. 
 P Ezek. 48. 35. 
 II Or, even I the Lord that dwelletn in Zion. 
 
 pronounce iiinocent their blood, wi/c/cethi dunnim. How, it is 
 not said. But the sentence on Egypt and Edom ex|)!airis how 
 (Jod would do it, by punishing those who shed it. jl'or in that 
 He punishes the shedding of it, He declared the //Ayor/ innocent, 
 whose shedding He punished. So in the Kevclat ion it is said '•', 
 f saw mider the altar the souls of them that were slain for the 
 ivord of God, and for the testimony which they held, and they 
 cried with a loud voice, saying. How long, O Lord, holy and 
 true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our lilood on them that 
 di/jcll on the earth i' '""'i'hen, at the last judirment. when the 
 truth in all things shall be made manifest, He siiall d"(lare the 
 blood of His pet)ple, who clave to Him and His truth, which 
 blood their enemies thought they iiad shed justly and de- 
 servedly as the blood of guilty persons, to have indeed been in- 
 nocent, by absolving them from eternal destruction to whicdi 
 He shall then adjudge their enemies for shedding of it." 
 
 For [lit. and^ the Lorddwelteth in Zion. He closes with 
 the promise of God's abiding dwelling. He speaks, not simply 
 of a future, but of an ever-abiding present. HeWlio IS,the un- 
 changeable God, "i°the Lord, infinite in power and of eternal 
 Being, Who gives necessary being to all His puri»oses and pro- 
 mises," dwelleth now in^' Mount Zion, the city of the livingGod, 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, now by grace and the presence of His 
 Holy Spirit, hereafter in glory. Both of the Church militant 
 on earth and that triumphant in heaven, it is truly to be said, 
 that the Lord dwelleth in them, and that, perpetually. Of the 
 Church on earth will be verifiedwhatour SaviourChristsaith'-. 
 lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world ; and 
 of its members S. Paul saith, that they are of the Imnsehold of 
 God, an holy temple in the Lord, in irho/n they are huilded to- 
 gether for an habitation of God through the Spirit ^'. Of the 
 Church triumphant, there is no doubt, that He doth and will 
 there dwell, and manifest His glorious Presence for ever, in 
 Whose Presence is the fulness of joy, and at His Right Hand 
 there are pleasures for evermore^*. It is an eternal dwelling of 
 the Eternal, varied as to the way and degree of His Presence 
 by our condition, now imperfect, there perfected in Him ; but 
 He Himself dwelleth on for ever. He, the Unchangeable, dwell- 
 eth unchangeably; the Eternal, eternally. 
 
 "1= Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city of God ^'^. 
 Jerusalem, our mother, we thy children now groan and weep 
 in this valley of tears, hanging between hope and fear, and, a- 
 mid toil and" conflicts, lifting up our eyes to thae and greeting 
 thee from far. Truly glorious things are spoken of thee. But 
 whatever can be said, since it is said to men and in the words 
 of men, is too little for the good things in thee, which neither 
 eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of 
 man ^T. Great to us seem the things which we suflTer ; but one 
 of thy most illustrious citizens, placed amid those sufferings, 
 who knew something of thee, hesitated not to say ^^ Our light 
 affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far 
 7nore exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We will then re- 
 joice in hope, and by the waters of Bahylon, even while we sit 
 and tveep, we will remember thee, O Zion. If I forget thee, O 
 Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning. Let my 
 tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee, 
 
 add Gal. iv. 2r.. Rev.iii. 12. xiv. 1. xxi. 2. 10. '= S.Matt. xxviii. 20. " Eph.ii. 19, 
 •21,2. uPs. xvi. 12. 'i Rib. « Ps. l.xxxvii. 3. i?lCor.ii. 9. 's 2 Cor. iv. 17.
 
 146 
 
 JOEL. 
 
 if I prefer not Jerimilem (ihnve my chief Joy'^. O blesf5e(l longed- 
 for day, when wc shall enter into the (;ity of the saints, Wiose 
 li^htistlieLumh, where t/ie Kiiigis seen in His l/etinh/, where 
 (ill tears are wiped off from the eyes of the saints, and there shall 
 he no more death neither sorroiu nor pain ; for the former things 
 have passed away ". How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord 
 of Hosts ! Ml/ sold longeth, yea faintcth for the conrts of the 
 Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God^. 
 When shall I come and'ajipear before God*? when shall I see 
 that Father, Whom I ever loni;- for and never see, to Whom,out 
 of this exile, I cry out, Our Father, ivhich art in Heaven f O 
 true Father, ^ Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ^Father of 
 mercies and God of all comfort ! When shall I see the TFord, 
 
 ' Ps. cxxxvii. 
 3 Ps. Ixxxiv. 1, 2. 
 
 = Rev. xxi. S.?. Is. xxxiii. 17. Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
 ■• Ps. xlii. 2. ^ Rom. xv. 6. S;c. 
 
 Vi/ho was in the beginning with G«/, and Who /.s God''? When 
 may I kiss His saercd Feet, piereed for ine, put my moutli to 
 His sacred Side, sit at His Feet, never t<j depart from them ? 
 O Face, more Glorious than the sun ! Blessed is he, who 
 beholdeth Thee, wlio hath never ceased to say**, J shall see Him, 
 but not now ; I shall behold Him, but not nigh. When will the 
 day come, when, cleansed from the; defilement of my sins, I 
 shall, " u'ith unveiled face, behold the glory of the Lonl, and see 
 the sanctifying Spirit, the Author of all good, through Whose 
 sanctifying we are cleansed, that '" we may be like Him, and 
 see Him as He is? '^ Blessed are all they that dwell in Thy house, 
 O Lord, they shall ever praise Thee ; for ever shall they be- 
 hold Thee aiid love Thee," 
 
 6 2 Cor. !..•?. 
 9 Nu. xxiv. 17. ■' 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 7 S.Joh.i. 1. 
 '" 1 Joh. iii. 2. " Ps. Ixxxiv. 4.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 AMOS. 
 
 ""He ffho made, one by one, the hearts of men, and undei-- 
 staiideth all their ivurks, knowing the hardness and contrari- 
 ousness of the heart of Israel, reasoneth with them not through 
 one Prophet only, but, employing as His ministers many, and 
 those, wondrous men, both monisheth them and foretelleth the 
 things to come, evidencing through the harmony of many the 
 truthfulness of their predictions." 
 
 As the contradiction of false teachers gave occasion to 
 S.Paul to speak of himself, so the persecution of the priest of 
 Bethel has brought out such knowledge as we have of the life 
 of Amos, before God called him to be a prophet. /, he says "', 
 %vas 710 prophet, neither was la prophet's son. He had not re- 
 ceived any of the training in those schools of the prophets 
 which had been founded by Samuel, and through which, amid 
 the general apostacy and corruption, both religious knowledge 
 and religious life were maintained in the remnant of Israel. 
 He was a herdsman, whether (as this word would naturally 
 mean ") a coivherd or (less obviously) a shepherd. He was a- 
 mong the herdsmeii of Tekoah; among them, and, outwardly, as 
 they, in nothing distinguished from them. The sheep which 
 he tended (for he also kept sheep) may have been his own. 
 There is nothing to prove or to disprove it. But any how he 
 was not like the king of Moab, "a sheep-master '^," as the 
 Jews, following out their principle, that '"prophecy was only 
 bestowed by God on the rich and noble," wish to make him. 
 Like David, he was following the sheep^, as their shepherd. 
 But his employment as a gatherer (or, more probably, a cul- 
 tivator) of sycamore fruit, the rather designates him, as one 
 living by a rural employment for hire. The word, probably, 
 designates the artificial means by which the sycomorefruit was 
 ripened, irritating,scraping, puncturing, wounding its. Amos 
 does not say that these w ere his food, but that one of his em- 
 ployments was to do a gardenei*'s office in maturing them. A 
 sort of gardener then he was, and a shepherd among other 
 shepherds. The sheep which he fed were also probably a 
 matter of trade. The breed of sheep and goats, nakad, from 
 keeping which his peculiar name of shepherd, naked, was de- 
 rived, is still known by the same name in Arabia; a race, small, 
 
 • Theod. "i vii. 1-1. <: ip3 being used always of the "ox" or "herd," in contrast 
 with the " Hocks" of slieep or goats, and the name being derived from "ploughing." 
 
 J Theternnpu isusedof thekingof Moab 2 K.iii. ■!. " See on Joel ii. 29. ' vii. 15. 
 He took me [Ksn •muD. s KviX,tov. LXX. vellicans, S. Jer. See Theophr. iv. 2. Dioscor. 
 L.i. Plin. xni.7. in Bochart ii. 311. p. 384. The Hebrew word dSu( from dSd" a fig" or 
 sycomore in Arab, and ^thiop.) signifies only "employed about figs" or sycomorcs. 
 
 thin, short-legged, ugly, and stunted. It furnished a proverb, 
 "viler than a nakad ;" yet the wool of the sheep was acrcountcd 
 the very best. The goats were found especially in Bahrein. 
 Among the Arabs also, the shepherd of these sheep was known 
 by a name derived from them. They were called "nakad;" 
 their shepherd "nokkad''." 
 
 The prophet's birthplace, Tekoah, was a town which, in the 
 time of Josephus and of S. Jerome, had dwindled into a "vil- 
 lage'," "a little village-i," on a high hill, twelve miles from 
 Jerusalem, "Which," S.Jerome adds, "we see daily." "It 
 lay," S. Jerome says '', " six miles southward from holy Beth- 
 lehem where the Saviour of the world was born, and beyond 
 it is no village save some rude huts and moveable tents. Such 
 is the wide waste of the desert which stretchcth to the Red Sea, 
 and the bounds of the Persians.Ethiopians, and Indians. And 
 no grain whatever being grown upon this dry and sandy soil, 
 it is all full of shepherds,in order,by the multitude of theflocks, 
 to make amends for the barrenness of the land." From Tekoah 
 Joab brought the ivise woman ', to intercede for Absalom ; 
 Rehoboam built it"; i.e. whereas it had been before (what it 
 afterwards again became) a village, and so was not mentioned 
 in the book of Joshua, he made it a fortified town toward his 
 South-Easternborder. The neighbouring wilderness wascalled 
 after it". Besides its sycomores,its oil was the best in Judah". 
 War and desolation have extirpated both, from this as well as 
 from other parts of Palestine?. Its present remains are Chris- 
 tian, "') ruins of 4or5acres." It, as well as so many other places 
 near the Dead Sea, is identified by the old name, slightly va- 
 ried in pronunciation, Theku'a, as also by its distance from 
 Jerusalem '. In the sixth century we hear of a chapel in me- 
 mory of the holy Amos at Tekoa % where the separated monks 
 of the lesser laura of S. Saba communicated on the Lord's day. 
 The wide prospect from Tekoa embraced both the dead and the 
 living, God's mercies and His Judgments. To the South-East 
 "'the view is bounded only by the level mountains of Moab, 
 with frequent bursts of the Dead Sea, seen through openings 
 among the rugged and desolate mountains which intervene." 
 On the North, the Mount of Olives is visible, at that time dear 
 
 •> See Arabic authorities in Bochart L. ii.c. 34. pp.442, 3. and Freytag Lexicon. 
 ' Josephi Vit. § 75. > S. Jer. on Jerem. vi. I. k Praef. ad Amos. ' lSam.siv.2. 
 ■" 2 C. xi. C. " 2 C. XX. 20. 1 Mace. ix. 33. ■> Menachot viii. 3. in Reland p. 102'J. 
 P See Keith land of Israel c. 3. 4. 5. Stanley Palestine p. 120. Robinson i. 552. 
 I) Robinson i.4S(). ' Ritter Erdk.xv. p.ij2!). » Vita S. Sabae in Cotelre. Ecc. 
 
 Grasc. Mon.iii. p.' 
 
 ' Rob. lb.
 
 148 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 / 
 
 to sifflit, as overhanginc: the place, wliicli fJod had chosen to 
 place His Xame there. Tekdah, however, althoiitfli tlie hirth- 
 jilaee, was not tlie abode of the prophet. He was miiong the 
 herdsmen from Teko(ih'\ then- emph>yiiiei)t, as sheplierds, lead- 
 ing them"away//vj?" Tekoah. In tlie wilds of the desert while 
 he was folloAving his sheep, God saw him and revealed Him- 
 self to him, as he had to Jacob and to Moses, and said to him, 
 Go prophesy unto My people Israel. And as the Apostles left 
 their nets and their father, and INIatthew the receipt of cus- 
 tom, and followed Jesus, so Amos left his sheep and his cul- 
 tivation of syeomores, and appeared suddenly in his shepherd's 
 dress at the royal but idolatrous "' sanctuary, the temple of the 
 state, to denounce the idolatry sanctioned by the state, to 
 foretell the extinction of the Royal family, and the captivity of 
 tlie people. This, like Hosea, he had to do in the reign of the 
 mightiest of the sovereigns of Israel, in the midst of her un- 
 clouded prosperity. Bethel was but twelve miles Northward 
 from Jerusalem", as Tekoah was twelve miles towards the 
 South-East. Six or seven hours would sutiice to transport the 
 shepherd from his sheep and the wilderness to that fountain of 
 Israel's corruption, the high places of Bethel, and to confront 
 the inspired peasant with the priests and the prophets of the 
 state-idolatry. There doubtless he said, '' the sanctuaries of Is- 
 rael shall be laid waste ; and tliere,like the former man of God, 
 while standing over against //(p (///«>•, he renewed the prophe- 
 cy against it, and prophesied that in its destruction it shoidd 
 involve its idolatrous worshippers y. Yet although he did de- 
 liver a part of his prophecy at Bethel, still, like his great pre- 
 decessors Elijah and Elisha, doidjtless he did not confine his 
 ministry there. His summons to the luxurious ladies of Sa- 
 maria, whose expenses were supported by the oppressions 
 of the poor ^, was questionless delivered in Samaria itself. 
 The call to the heathen to look down into Samaria from the 
 heights which girt in the valley out of which it rose ", thence 
 to behold its din and its oppressions, to listen to the sound of 
 ifs revelries and the wailings of its oppressed, and so to judge 
 between God and His people, would also be most effectively 
 given within Samaria. The consciences of the guilty inha- 
 bitants to whom he preached, would people the heights around 
 them, their wall of safety, as they deemed, between them and 
 the world, with heathen witnesses of their sins, and heathen 
 avengers. The Prophet could only know by inspiration the 
 coming destruction of the house of Jeroboam and the captivity 
 of Israel. The sins which he rebuked, he probably knew 
 from being among them. As S. Paul's spirit teas stirred in 
 him at Athens, when he saiv the citi/ wholli/ ^iven to idolatry '', 
 so that of Amos must have been stirred in its depths by that 
 grievous contrast of luxury and penury side by side, which he 
 describes in such \dvidness of detail. The sins which he re- 
 bukes are those of the outward prosperity especially of a ca- 
 pital, the extreme luxury % revelries'', debauchery % of the 
 rich, who supported their own reckless expenditure by op- 
 pression of the poor', extortion s, hard bargains with their 
 necessities '', perversion of justice ', with bribing ^, false mea- 
 sures ', a griping, hard-fisted, and probably usurious sale of 
 corn ™. In grappling with sin, Amos deals more with the de- 
 tails and circumstances of it than Hosea. Hosea touches the 
 centre of the otfence; Amos shews the hideousness of it in the 
 details into which it branches out. As he is everywhere gra- 
 phic, so here he points out the events of daily life in which the 
 sin shewed itself, as the vile price or, it may be, the article 
 
 " pipnD ' vii. 13. " Euseb. sub v. » vii. 9. 
 
 y ix. 1. ^ iv. 1. " Sec on iii. !). n Acts xvii. in. c iii. 12, 15, iv. 1. v. 11. vi. 4-C>. 
 ^ ii. 8. iii. 9. « ii. 7. ' ii. 7. 8. iii. 9. iv. 1. v. 11. vi. 3. viii. 4-6. K iii. 10. 
 
 ' ii. 7. V. 7. 12. 
 
 " ii. 6. V. 12. 
 
 of luxury, the pair ofsa7idals^, for which the poor was sold, 
 or the refuse of wheat (he invents the word) wliich they sold, 
 at high prices and with short measure to the poor ". 
 
 According to the title whi<;h Amos prefixes to his prophecy, 
 his office fell within the '25 years, during which Uzziali and Je- 
 roboam 1 1. were contemporary, B.C. 809-/84. This falls in with 
 the opinion alntady ex[)ressed p, that the bloodshed mentioned 
 by Hosea in the list of their sins, was rather blood shed pcditi- 
 cally in their revolutions after the death of Jeroboam II., than 
 individual murder. For Amos, while upbraiding Israel with 
 the sins incidental to political prosperity and wealth, (such as 
 was the time of Jeroboam II.) docs not mention bloodshed. 
 
 It has been thought that the mention of the earthquake, 
 two years before which Amos began his prophecy, furnishes 
 us with a more definite date. That earthquake must have been 
 a terrible visitation, since it was remembered after the cap- 
 tivity, two centuries and a half afterwards. Ye shall Jiee, says 
 Zechariahi, as of a thing which his hearers well knew by re- 
 port, as ye fled before the earth(jnake in the days of Uzziah king 
 of Judah. Josephus connects the earthquake with Uzziah's 
 act of pride in offering the incense, for which God smote him 
 with leprosy. He relates it as a fact. "^ Meanwhile a great 
 earthquake shook the ground, and, the temple parting, a bright 
 r;iy of the sun shone forth, and fell upon the king's face, so 
 that forthwith the leprosy came over him. And before the 
 city, at the place called Eroge, the Western half of the hill was 
 broken off and rolled half a mile to the mountain Eastward, 
 and there stayed, blocking up the ways and the king's gar- 
 dens." This account of Josephus, however, is altogether un- 
 historical. Not to argue from the improbability, that such 
 an event as the rending of the temple itself should not have 
 been mentioned, Josephus has confused Zechariah's descrip- 
 tion of an event yet future with the past earthquake imder 
 Uzziah. Nor can the date be reconciled with the history. 
 For when Uzziah was stricken with leprosy, ^ Jot ham, his son, 
 teas over the king's house, pidging the people of the land. But 
 Jotham was only twenty-five years at his father's death, when 
 he himself began to reign '. And Uzziah survived Jeroboam 
 26 years. Jotham then, who judged for his father after his 
 leprosy, was not born when Jeroboam died. Uzziah then 
 must have been stricken with leprosy some years after Jero- 
 boam's death ; and consequently, after the earthquake also, 
 since Amos, who prophesied in the days of Jeroboam, pro- 
 phesied ttvo years before the earthquake. 
 
 An ancient Hebrew interpretation "^ of the prophecy of Isa- 
 iah % within threescore and Jive years shall Ephraiin be broken, 
 that it be no more a peojjle, assumed that Isaiah was foretell- 
 ing the commencement of the captivity under Tiglath-Pileser 
 or Sargon, and since the period of Isaiah's own prophecy to 
 that captivity was not 65 years, supposed that Isaiah counted 
 from a prophecy of Amos ^, Israel shall surely he led captive out 
 of his oiu)i land. This prophecy of Amos they placed in the 
 25th year of Uzziah. Then his remaining 2/ years, Jotham's 
 16, Ahaz 16, and the six first of Hezekiah would have made up 
 the 65. This (calculation was not necessarily connected with 
 the error as to the supposed connection of the earthquake and 
 the leprosy of Uzziah. But it is plain from the words of Isa- 
 iah, in yet ^ threescore and five years, that he is dating from the 
 time when he uttered the prophecy ; and so the prophecy re- 
 lates, not to the imperfect captivity which ended the kingdom 
 of Israel, but to that more complete deportation under Esar- 
 
 1 viii. 5. ™ viii. 5. 6. ° ii. 6. viii. 6. ° v\n. 6. 
 
 P See Introd. to Hos.p. 5. i aiv. 5. ' Ant. ix. 10. » 2 C. xxvi. 21. 
 
 « lb. xxvii. 1. 1 in Euseb. & S. Jer. ad loc. found also in Rashi, Aben Ezra, 
 
 Abarbenel. ' vii. 8. " vii. 11. 17. » Tiya
 
 AMOS. 
 
 119 
 
 haddon y, when the ten tribes ceased to be any more a people 
 (Ahaz 14, Hezekiah 29, iManasseb 22, in all G5)." Neither then 
 does this fix the date of Amos. 
 
 Nor docs the comparison, \vhi(;h Amos l)ids Israel make be- 
 tween his own borders, and those (ifCalneh, Haniath and Gath, 
 determine the date of the propbei'.y. Since Uzziali brake down 
 the walls of Gath ', and Haniath was recovered by .leroboam 
 II. to Israel", it is probable that the point of comparison lay 
 between the present disasters of these nations, and those with 
 which Amos threatened Israel, and which tlii! rich men of Is- 
 rael practically did not believe. For it folhjws '', ye that put 
 far away the evil, day. It is probable then that Calne (the very 
 .incient city " which subsequently became Ctesiphon,) on the 
 other side of the Euphrates, had lately suffered from Assyria, 
 as Gath and Hamath from Judah and Israel. But we know 
 none of these dates. Isaiah speaks of the Assyrian as boast- 
 injy that Cahio was «.s- Carc/temish'', Hamath as ^rpad, Sa- 
 maria as Damascus. But this relates to times lonjj subsequent, 
 when Hamath, Damascus, and Samaria, had fallen into the 
 hands of Assyria. Our present knowled2:e of Assyrian history 
 gives us no clue to the event, which was well known to those to 
 whom Amos spoke. 
 
 Although, however, the precise time of the prophetic office 
 of Amos cannot thus be fixed, it must have fallen within the 
 reign of Jeroboam, to whom Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, ac- 
 cused him '". For tliis whole prophecy implies that Israel was 
 in a state of prosperity, ease, and security, whereas it fell into 
 a state of anarchy immediately upon Jeroboam's death. The 
 mention of the entering in of Hamath^ as belonging to Israel 
 implies that this prophecy was after Jeroboam had recovered 
 it to Israel S; and the case, pride, luxury, which he upbraids, 
 evince that the foreign oppressions'' had for some time ceased. 
 This agrees with the title of the prophecy, but does not limit 
 it further. Since he prophesied while Uzziah and Jerobo- 
 am II. reigned together, his prophetic office must have fallen 
 between B.C. 809 and B.C. 784, in the last 25 years of the reign 
 of Jeroboam II. His office, then, began probably after that of 
 Hosea, and closed long before its close. He is, in a manner 
 then, both later and earlier than Hosea, later than the earliest 
 period of Hosea's prophetic office, and long earlier than the 
 latest. 
 
 Within this period, there is nothing to limit the office of 
 Amos to a very short time. The message of Amaziah, the 
 priest of Bethel, implies that Amos' words of woe had shaken 
 Israel through and through. ' Amos hath conspired against thee 
 in the midst of the house of Israel ; the land is not able to hear 
 all his words. It may be that God sent him to the midst of 
 some great festival at Bethel, as, at Jeroboam's dedication- 
 feast, He sent the prophet who afterwards disobeyed Him, to 
 foretell the desecration of the Altar, which Jeroboam was con- 
 secrating, in God's Name, against God. In this case, Amos 
 might, at once, like Elijah, have been confronted with a great 
 concourse of the idol-worshippers. Yet the words of Amaziah 
 seem, in their obvious meaning, to imply that Amos had had a 
 more pervading influence than would be produced by the deli- 
 very of God's message in one place. He says of the land, i. e. 
 of all the ten tribes generally, it is not able to bear all his words. 
 The accusation also of a conspiracy probably implies, that 
 some had not been shaken only, but had been converted by 
 the words of Amos, and were known by their adhei-ence to him 
 and his belief. 
 
 Amos seems also to speak of the prohibition to God's pro- 
 
 7 Ezr. iv. 2. 2 Chr. xxxiii. 11. 2 Kgs. xvii. 24. ' 2 Chr. x.xvi. 6. » 2 Kgs. xiv. 28. 
 ^Am. vi. 3. cGen. X. 10. ''Is. x. 9. ' vii. 10, 11. ' vi. 14. e 2 Kgs. xiv. 25. 
 
 phets to prophesy, as something habitual, beyond the one op- 
 position of Aniazial), which he rebuked on the spot. / raised 
 Uj) of i/(nir sons for j/rophets ; but ye cominanded the projihets, 
 saying, l'ro])li(sy not^. Nor, strictly speaking, was Amos a 
 son of l']piiraini. The series of images in the .'ird chapter - 
 seem to be an answer to an ol>jcction, why did lie ]iro]diesy 
 among them ? I'eoiile, he would say, were not, in tlie tilings 
 of nature, surprised that the eflc(;t followed the cause. God's 
 (command was the cause; his pr()])h(!sying, the effect'. Then 
 they put away from I hem the evil day "', forgetting future evil 
 in present luxury ; or they jirofcsscd that (hxI was with them ; 
 "the LoKi), the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have 
 spo/tcn " ; " or trusting in their half-service of God and His ima- 
 gined Presence among them, they jeered at Amos's prophecies 
 of ill, and professed to desire the ]>ayof the Lord, with which 
 he threatened them ; they said that evil should not reach them ; 
 fF'oc unto you that desire the J)ay of the Lord ! to what end is 
 it to yon " '' All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, 
 which say, the evil shall not overtahe nor jirerent us^'. They 
 shewed also in deed thiit they hated those who publicly re- 
 proved themi; and Amos, like Ilosea, declares that they are 
 hardened, so that wisdom itself must leave them to themselves '. 
 All this implies a continued intercourse between the ])rophet 
 and the people, so that his office was not discharged in a few 
 sermons, so to say, or inspired declarations of God's ])iirpose, 
 but must have been that of a Pastor among them during a 
 course of years. His present book, like Hosea's, is a summary 
 of his prophecies. 
 
 That book, as he himself subsequently gathered into one his 
 prophetic teaching, is one well-ordered whole. He himself, 
 in the title, states that it had been spoken before it was writ- 
 ten. For in that he says, these are the words which in pro- 
 phetic vision he saic, two years before the earthrjuahe, this por- 
 tion of his prophecies must have preceded his writings by those 
 two years at least. That terrible earthquake was probably the 
 occasion of his collecting those prophecies. But that earth- 
 quake doubtless was no mere note of time. Had he intended 
 a date only, he would probably have named, as other j)rophets 
 do, the year of the king of Judah. He himself mentions earth- 
 quakes % as one of the warnings of God's displeasure. This 
 more destructive earthquake was probaltly the first great to- 
 ken of God's displeasure during the prosperous reign of Jero- 
 boam II., the first herald of those heavier judgments which 
 Amos had predicted, and which brake upon Israel, wave after 
 wave, until the last carried him away captive. For two years, 
 Israel had been forewarned ; now the beginning, of sorrows^ had 
 set in. 
 
 Amos, at the beginning of his book, (as has been already 
 noticed) joins on his book with the book of the prophet Joel. 
 Joel had foretold, as instances of God's judgments on sin, how 
 He would recompense the wrongs, which Tyre. Zidon. Philis- 
 tia and Edom had done to Judah, and that He would make 
 Egypt desolate. Amos, omitting Egypt, adds Damascus, Am- 
 nion and JMoab, and Judah itself. It may be, that he selects 
 seven nations in all, as a sort of whole (as that number is so 
 often used), or that he includes all the special enemies of the 
 Theocracy, the nations who hated Israel and Judah, because 
 they were the people of God, and God's people itself, as far as 
 it too was alienated from its God. Certainly, the sins de- 
 nounced are sins against the Theocracy or government of God'. 
 It may be, that Amos would exhibit to them the truth, that 
 God is no respecter of persons ; that He, the Judge of the whole 
 
 i lb. 26. ' vii. 10. ^ ii. 11, 12. ' iii. 3-8. " vi. 3. " v. 14. » v. 18. p ix. 10. 
 1 V. 10. ' v. 13. ' iv. 11. ' S. Matt. xxiv. 8. ' See below in the Commentary. 
 
 E e
 
 150 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 oiu-th, punishes every sinful nation ; and that he would, hy this 
 declaration of God's judgments, prepare them for the truth, 
 from whieh sinful man so shrinks ;— that God punishes most, 
 where He had most shewn His light and love ''. The thunder- 
 clmuTof God's judgments, having passed over all the nations 
 round about, Syria and Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Amnion, Moab, 
 and even diseharged the fire from heaven on Judah and Jeru- 
 salem, settles at last on Israel. The s\immary which closes 
 this circle of judgments on Israel, is fuller in regard to t/teir 
 sins, since they were the chief objects of his mission. In that 
 summary he gathers in one the sins with which he elsewhere 
 upbraids them, and sets before them their ingratitude and 
 their endeavours to extinguish the light which God gave them. 
 
 Our chapters follow a natural division, in that each, like 
 those of Hosea, ends in woe. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th are dis- 
 tinguished by the three-fold summons, Hear ye f/iis tvord. In 
 each, he sets before them some of their sins, and in each pro- 
 nounces God's sentence upon them. Therefore thus saith the 
 Lord God; Therefore thus will I do nnto thee, O Israel ; 
 Therefore the Lord, the God of liosts, the Lord, saith thtis^. 
 On this follows a two-fold woe, TFoe unto yon that desire f ; 
 TFoe to them that are at ease^ ; both which sections alike end 
 in renewed sentences of God's judgment ; the first, of the fi- 
 nal captivity of Israel beyond Damascus ; the second, of their 
 nearer afflictions through the first invasion of Tiglath-pileser °. 
 In the 7th chapter he begins a series of visions. In the two 
 first, God forgives, at the intercession of the prophet ''. The 3rd 
 vision God interprets, that He would forgive no more"=. On 
 this followed the prohibition from Amaziah to prophesy, and 
 God's sentence against him. In the Sth chapter, Amos resumes 
 (as though nothing had intervened), the series of visions, upon 
 which Amaziah had broken in. He resumes them exactly 
 where he had been stopped. Amaziah broke in, when he de- 
 clared that God would not pass by the liouse of Israel any 
 more, but would desolate the idol-sanctuaries of Israel and 
 bring a sword against the house of Jeroboam. The vision in 
 which Amos resumes, renews the words ''-, I will not again pass 
 by them any more, and foretells that the songs of the idol-tem- 
 ple should he turned into bowlings. The last chapter he heads 
 with a vision, that not only should the idol-altar and temple 
 be destroyed, but that it should be the destruction of its wor- 
 shippers ^. Each of these visions Amos makes a theme which 
 he expands, both ending in woe ; the first, with the utter de- 
 struction of the idolaters of Israel ^ ; the 2nd, with that of the 
 sinful kingdom of Israel s. With this he unites the promise to 
 the house of Israel, that, sifted as they should be among the 
 nations, not one grain should fall to the earth ''. To this he, 
 like Hosea, adds a closing promise, the first in his whole book, 
 that God would raise the fallen tabernacle of David, convert 
 the heathen, and therewith restore the captivity of Israel, a- 
 mid promises, which had already, in Joel, symbolised spiritual 
 blessings'. 
 
 Amos, like Hosea, was a prophet for Israel. After the 2nd 
 chapter in which he includes Judah in the circle of God's vi- 
 sitations, because he had despised the law of the Lord^, Amos 
 only notices him incidentally. He there foretells that Jeru- 
 salem should (as it was) be burned with fire. Judah also must 
 be included in the words, '"against the tchole family which 
 God brought up out of the land of Egypt," and woe is pronounc- 
 ed against those who are at ease in Zion ". Else, Israel, the 
 house of Israel, the virgin of Israel, the sanctuaries of Israel, 
 
 ' iii. 2. » iii. 11. iv. 12. V. Ifi. asbefore, ii. 14. y v. IS. ' vi. 1. « See on vi. 11. 
 bvii. 3, 6. "^ Ib.8. "l viii. 2. » ix. 1. ' viii. 14. s ix. 8. l" lb. 9. ' lb. 13. 
 'ii. t, 5. 1 iii. 1. ■» vi. 1. ° iii. 9, 12, 13, 14. iv. 1, 4, 5, 12. v. 1,4, 6, 15,25, 
 
 Jacob, the house of Jacob, and (in the same sense) the highplu- 
 ees of Isaac, the house of Isaac ; the house of Joseph, the remnant 
 of Joseph, the nffliction of Joseph, the mountain, or the moun- 
 tains of Samaria, Samaria itself. Bethel", oc(!ur interchange- 
 ably as the object of his prophecy, Aniaziah's taunt, that his 
 words, as being directed against Israel and Bethel, would be 
 acceptable in the kingdom of Judah, implies the same ; and A- 
 mos himself declares that this was his (commission, go, pro- 
 phesy unto My people Israel. In speaking of the idolatry of 
 Beersheba, he uses the word, pass not over to Beersheba ", ad- 
 ding the idolatries of Judah to their own. The word, pass ?wt 
 over, could only be used by one prophesying in Israel. It must 
 have been then the more impressive to the faithful in Israel, 
 that he closed his prophecy by the promise, not to them pri- 
 marily, but to the house of David, and to Israel through its 
 restoration. Amos, like Hosea, foretells the utter destruc- 
 tion of the kingdom of Isr.ael, even while pronouncing that God 
 would not utterly destroy the house of Jacob p, but would save 
 the elect in it. 
 
 The opposition of Amaziah stands out, as one signal instance 
 of the manifold cry. Prophesy not, with which men sought to 
 drown the Voice of God. Jeroboam left the complaint unheed- 
 ed. His great victories had been foretold to him by the Pro- 
 phet Jonah ; and he would not interfere with the Prophet of 
 God, although he predicted, not as Amaziah distorted his 
 words, that Jeroboam should die by the sword, but that the house 
 of Jeroboam i should so perish. But his book is all comprised 
 within the reign of Jeroboam and the kingdom of Israel. He 
 was called by God to be a prophet there ; nor is there any, the 
 slightest, trace of his having exercised his oflSce in Judah, or 
 having retired thither in life. 
 
 A somewhat late tradition places Amos among the many 
 prophets, whom, our Lord says. His people slew. The tradi- 
 tion bore, "that after he had been often beaten (the writer 
 uses the same word ' which occurs in Heb. xi. 35) by Amaziah 
 the priest of Bethel, the son of that priest, Osee, broke his 
 temples with a stake. He was carried half-dead to his own 
 land, and, after some days, died of the wound, and was buried 
 with his fathers." But the anonymous Greek writer who re- 
 lates it, (although it is in itself probable) has not, in other 
 cases, trustworthy information, and S. Jerome and S. Cyril of 
 Alexandria knew nothing of it. S. Jerome ^ relates only that 
 the tomb of Amos was still shewn at Tekoa, his birthplace. 
 
 The influence of the shepherd-life of Amos appears most 
 in the siiblimest part of his prophecy, his descriptions of the 
 mighty workings of Almighty God '. With those aweful and 
 sudden changes in nature, whereby what to the idolaters was 
 an object of worship, was suddenly overcast, and the day made 
 dark with night, his shepherd-life had made him familiar. The 
 starry heavens had often witnessed the silent intercourse of 
 his soul with God. In the calf, the idolaters of Ephraim wor- 
 shipped "nature". Amos then delights in exhibiting to them 
 his God, Whom they too believed that they worshipped, as the 
 Creator of "nature," wielding and changing it at His Will. 
 All nature too should be obedient to its Maker in the punish- 
 ment of the ungodly ', nor should any thing hide from Him ". 
 The shepherd-life would also make the Prophet familiar with 
 the perils from wild beasts which we know of as facts in Da- 
 vid's youth. The images drawn from them were probably re- 
 miniscences of what he had seen or met with". But Amos liv- 
 ed, a shepherd in a barren and for the most part treeless wild, 
 
 vi. 1, 6, 8, 14. vii. 2, 5, 8, 9, 16, 17. viii. 2, 14. ix. 7, 8, 9. "v. 5. p ix. 8-10. « Tii.9. 
 
 ■■ Tv/iiravi(ra^, Auct. de vit. Proph. ap. S. Epiph. ii. 145. ■ de loc. Hebr. T. iii. 206. 
 
 ed.Vall. < iv. 13. V. 8. ix. 5, 6. » viii. 8. » ix. 2, 3, 5. » iii. 4, 5, 12. v. 19.
 
 AMOS. 
 
 101 
 
 not as a husbandman. His was not a oountry of corn, nor of 
 cedars and oaks; so that iinaiijcsfroin stately trees y, a licavy- 
 ladeu wain ^, or the siftinij of corn ", were not tlie direct re- 
 sults of his life amid sights of nature. The diseases of corn, 
 locusts, drought, which, the l^rophet says, God had sent a- 
 mong them, were inflictions which would be felt in the corn- 
 countries of Israel, rather Ihan in the wilderness of 'I'ckoah. 
 The insensibility for whi(;h he upliraids Israel was, of course, 
 their hardness of heart amid their own sutfcrings '' ; the judg- 
 ments, with which he threatens tlicm in God's Name', can 
 have no bearing on his shepherd-life in his own land. 
 
 Even S.Jerome, while laying down a true principle, inad- 
 vertently gives as an instance of the images resulting from 
 that shepherd-life, the opening words of his book, which arc 
 in part words of the Prophet Joel. " It is natural," he says, 
 " that all who exercise an art, should speak in terms of their 
 art, and that each should bring likenesses from that wherein 
 he hath spent his life. — Why say this ? In order to shew, that 
 Amos the Prophet too, who was a shepherd among shepherds, 
 and that, not in cultivated places, or amid vineyards, or woods, 
 or green meadows, but in the wide waste of the desert, where 
 were witnessed the fierceness of lions and the destruction of 
 cattle, used the language of his art, and called the aweful 
 and terrible Voice of the Lord, the roaring of lions, and com- 
 pared the overthrow of the cities of Israel to the lonely places 
 of shepherds or the drought of mountains." 
 
 The truth may be, that the religious life of Amos, amid 
 scenes of nature, accustomed him, as well as David, to ex- 
 press his thoughts in words taken from the great picture- 
 book of nature, which, as being also written by the Hand of 
 God, so wonderfully expresses the things of God. When his 
 Prophet's life brought him among other scenes of cultivated 
 nature, his soul, so practised in reading the relations of the 
 physical to the moral world, took the language of his para- 
 bles alike from what he saw, or from what he remembered. He 
 was what we should call "a child of nature," endued with pow- 
 er and wisdom by his God. Still more mistaken has it been, to 
 attribute to the Prophet any inferiority even of outward style, 
 in consequence of his shepherd-life. Even a heathen has said, 
 " words readily follow thought ;" much more, when thoughts 
 and words are poured into the soul together by God the Holy 
 Ghost. On the contrary, scarcely any Prophet is more glow- 
 ing in his style, or combines more wonderfully the natural and 
 moral world,the Omnipotence and Omniscience of God ''. ' Vi- 
 sions, if related, are most effectively related in prose. Their 
 efficacy depends, in part, on their simplicity. Their meaning 
 might be overlaid and hidden by ornament of words. Thus 
 much of the book of Amos, then, is naturally in prose. The 
 poetry, so to speak, of the visions of Amos or of Zechariah is 
 in the thoughts, not in the words. Amos has also chosen the 
 form of prose for his upbraidings of the wealthy sinners of Is- 
 rael. Yet, in the midst of this, what more poetic than the 
 summons to the heathen enemies of Israel, to people the heights 
 \ about Samaria, and behold its sins''? What more graphic 
 i than that picture of utter despair which dared not name the 
 I Name of God^? What bolder than the summons to Israel to 
 1 come, if they willed, at once to sin and to atone for their sins? 
 What more striking in power than the sudden turn •■, " You 
 only have I known : therefore I will punish you for all your ini- 
 quities ? or the sudden summons ', '• because I will do this un- 
 to thee," (the silence, what the this is, is more thrilling than 
 words) " prepare to meet thy God, O Israel ?" Or what more 
 
 T. 7-9. 
 
 y ii. 9. 
 = vii. 1-3. 
 
 ' ii. 13. 
 1 iv. 13. 
 
 » ix. 9. 
 oiii. 9. 'vi. 9,10. 
 
 8 iv. 4. 
 
 pathetic than the close of the picture of the luxurious rich, 
 when, having said, bow tlicy hcapcil luxuries one on another, 
 he ends with what they did not do''; t/ici/ are not grieved for 
 the afflictioiis of Joseph ? 
 
 S. Augustine selects Amos, as an instance of unadorned e- 
 loquence. Having given instances from S.Paul, he says', 
 "These things, when they arc lauglit by professors, are ac- 
 counted great, bought at a great prirx-, sold amid great boast- 
 ing. I fear these dis(;ussions of mine may savour of the like 
 boasting. Hut 1 have to do with men of a spurious learning, 
 who thiidi meanly of our writers, not because they have not, 
 but because tliey make no shew of the eloquence which these 
 prize too highly. — 
 
 " I sec that I must say something of the eloquence of the 
 prophets. And this I will do, chiefly out of the book of that 
 prophet, who says that he; was a shepherd or a cowherd, and 
 was taken thence by God and sent t<) prophesy to His people. 
 
 " When then this peasant, or peasant-prophet, reproved the 
 ungodly, proud, luxurious, and therefore most careless of bro- 
 therly love, he cries aloud, JVoe to them that are at ease in 
 Zioji, Sfc. Would they who, as being learned and eloquent, 
 despise our prophets as unlearned and ignorant of elocution, 
 had they had aught of this sort to say, or had they to speak 
 against such, would they, as many of them as would fain not 
 be senseless, wish to speak otherwise ? For what would any 
 sober ear desire more than is there said ? First, the inveigh- 
 ing itself, with what a crash is it hurled as it were, to awaken 
 their stupified senses !" 
 
 Then, having analysed these verses, he says, "How beautiful 
 this is, and how it affects those who, reading, understand, there 
 is no use in saying to one who does not himself feel it. More 
 illustrations of the rules of rhetoric may be found in this one 
 place, which I have selected. But a good hearer will not be 
 so much instructed by a diligent discussion of them, as he will 
 be kindled by their glowing reading. For these things were 
 not composed by human industry, but were poured forth in 
 eloquent wisdom from the Divine mind, wisdom not aiming at 
 eloquence, but eloquence not departing from wisdom." " For 
 if, as some most eloquent and acute men could see and tell, 
 those things which are learned as by an art of rhetoric, would 
 not be observed and noted and reduced to this system, unless 
 they were first found in the genius of orators, what wonder if 
 they be found in those also, whom He sends. Who creates ge- 
 nius ? Wherefore we may well confess that our canonical wri- 
 ters and teachers are not wise only but eloquent, with that elo- 
 quence which beseems their character." 
 
 S. Jerome, in applying to Amos words which S. Paul spake 
 of himself™, mde in speech hut not in knoicledse, doubtless was 
 thinking mostly of the latter words ; for he adds, "For the same 
 Spirit W^ho spake through all the Prophets, spake in him." 
 Bp. Lowth says happily", "Jerome calls Amos, rude in speech 
 but not in know/edge, implying of him what Paul modestly pro- 
 fessed as to himself, on whose authority many have spoken of 
 this Prophet, as though he were altogether rude, ineloquent, 
 unadorned. Far otherwise ! Let any fair judge read his writ- 
 ings, thinking not who wrote them, but what he uTote, he will 
 think that our shepherd was in no wise behind the very chief- 
 est Prophets ; in the loftiness of his thoughts and the magnifi- 
 cence of his spirit, nearly equal to the highest, and in the 
 splendour of his diction and the elegance of the composition 
 scarcely inferior to any. For the same Divine Spirit moved 
 by His Inspiration Isaiah and Daniel in the court, David and 
 
 >> iii. 2. 
 I Dedoctr. Christ, iv. 7. n. 15-21. 
 
 ' iv. 12. 
 ™ 2 Cor.xi. 6. 
 
 k vi. 6. 
 " de S. Poe$i Hebr. Prsel. xxi. 
 
 Ee2
 
 152 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 Aiuos by the slicepfold ; ever elioosiiig fitting!: interpreters (if 
 His Will and sometimes perfeetiiij;- praise out of the mouth of 
 babes. Of some He useth the eloqiieiiee; others He niaketh 
 eloquent." 
 
 It has indeed l)een noticed that in regularity of structure he 
 has an elej;ance jieeuliar to himself. 'J he strophaic form, in- 
 to which he has cast the heavy prophecies of the two first 
 chapters adds much to their solemnity; the recurring- "burden" 
 of the fourth", Yet have ye 7iot retnnted unto Me, saith the 
 Lord, gives it a deep pathos of its own. Indeed no other pro- 
 phet has bound his prophecies into one, with so much care as to 
 their outward form, as this inspired shepherd. Amos (to use 
 human terms) was not so much the poet, as the sacred orator. 
 One of those energetic turns which have been already in- 
 stanced, would suffice to stamp the human orator. Far more, 
 they have shaken through and through souls steeped in sin 
 from the Prophet's time until now. It has been said of human 
 eloquence, " he lightened, thundered, he commingled Greece." 
 The shepherd has shaken not one country, but the world ; not 
 by a passing earthquake, but by the awe of God which, with 
 electric force, streamed through his words. 
 
 Some variation of dialect, or some influence of his shepherd- 
 life on his pronunciation, has been imagined in Amos. But it 
 relates to five words only. In three, his orthography dift'crs 
 by a single letter from that found elsewhere in Hebrew. In 
 two cases, the variation consists in the use of a different sibi- 
 lant P; the 3rd in the use of a weaker guttural''. Besides 
 these, he uses a softer sound of the name Isaac % which also 
 occurs in Jeremiah and a Psalm ; and in another word, he, in 
 common with two Psalms, employs a root with a guttural', in- 
 stead of that common in Hebrew which has a strong sibilant. 
 la four of these cases, Amos uses the softer form; in the 5th, 
 we only know that the two sibilants were pronounced differ- 
 ently once, but cannot guess what the distinction was. The 
 two sibilants are interchanged in several Hebrew words, and 
 on no rule, that we can discover'. In another of the sibilants, 
 the change made by Amos is just the reverse of that of the 
 Ephraimites who had only the pronunciation of s for sh ; "sib- 
 boleth " for " shibboleth." But the Ephraimites could not 
 pronounce the sh at all; the variation in Amos is limited to a 
 single word. The like variations to these instances in Amos 
 are also found in other words in the Bible. On the whole, 
 we may suspect the existence of a softer pronunciation in the 
 South of Judaa, where Amos lived; but the only safe infer- 
 ence is, the extreme care with which the words have been 
 handed down to us, just as the Prophet spoke and wrote them. 
 
 It has been noticed already that Amos and Hosea together 
 shew, that all the Mosaic festivals and sacrifices, priests, pro- 
 phets, a temple, were retained in Israel, only distorted to calf- 
 worship". Even the third-year's tithes they had not ventur- 
 ed to get rid of ''. Amos supplies some yet more minute traits 
 of ritual ; that they had the same rules in regard to leaven "'; that 
 their altar too had horns (as prescribed in the law), on which 
 
 ° iv. 6, 8,9,10,11. P a) crDBin for what would elsewhere be Cicon V. 10. (the actual 
 form does not occur elsewhere), b) l-cD for q^i'D vi. 10. i suriD for aj'riD vi. 8. The 
 use of the common word cxns. from yns, and nniN probably from Tin i. q. my, are instan- 
 ces of the like change within the language itself, from its earliest times. Isaiah probably 
 uses c:k (xix. 10) for c:v (Job xxx. 25). SkJ for SjlJ is used by Isaiah, (lix. 3, Ixiii. ?,',) 
 Zephaniah (iii. 1) and Jeremiah (Lam. iv. 14) as well as after' the captivity by Malachi 
 (i. 7, 12) Ezra (ii. (i2) Nehemiah (vii. 64). ' pnl:" for pns'. Am. vii. 9, ](i. "The verb, 
 pns, from which pns' is formed, occurs twice only out of the Pentateuch (Jud. xvi. 25, 
 Kz. xxiii. 32). The form which Amos and Jeremiah (xxxiii. 2G)use, (as also Ps. cv. <)) is 
 from the verl), as it was subsequently written, irni?. » p-yD from a root piy i. q. pis 
 
 whence npyi Ps. Iv. 4. npyiD Ps. Ixvi. 11. ' trj;D occurs four times in Job for Dj;3, but 
 
 contrariwise J'Dn (Job xxiv. 2) forrt'n; ni£?inHiis. ix. 12 forniD ; ins in Mic. iii. 4, Lam. 
 iv. 4 for D1S ; ino and -pa passim ; -no and rmb, 3ce in Kings ; :ib' 2 S. i. 22. and ysr 
 1 K. xviii. 27 for jid; -[ia Ex. xxxiii. 22 ; else^:D Ex. xl. 3, xxv. 20 &c. CEV'D 1 K. xviii. 
 21 and z^fi'a Job iv. 13, xx. 2; nyn and -iia ; HEO and ntxi Is iii. 17, v. 7. " Introd. to 
 
 llosea, p.2. " lb. » iv. 5. 
 
 the blood of the sacrifices was to be sprinkled", they had the al- 
 tar-bowls^ whence the blood of the vir^tim was sprinkled % such 
 as the princes of the congregation otlered in tli(; time of Moses", 
 and their rich men, at times at least, jihindcred to diink wine 
 from. They had also true Nazarites, raised up among them, 
 as well as true prophets ; and they felt the weight of the influ- 
 ence of these Religious against them, since they tried by fraud 
 or violence to make them break their vow ''. Amos, while up- 
 braiding their rich men for breaking the law between man and 
 man, presupposes that the law of Moses was, in this respect 
 also, acknowledged among them. For in his words, "they 
 turn aside the way of the meek '^," "they turn aside the poor 
 in the gate '," " they take a ransom '^ " (from the rich for their 
 misdeeds), he retains the peculiar term of the Pentateuch ; 
 as also in that, "on clothes laid to pledge they lie down by 
 every altar;" "who make the Ephah small'." "Balances of 
 deceits" are the contrary of wliat are enjoined in the law, 
 " balances of right ''." In upbraiding them for a special impu- 
 rity, forbidden in principle by the law ', he uses the sanction 
 often repeated in the law, "''to profane My Holy Name." 
 In the punishments which he mentions, he uses terms in which 
 God threatens those punishments. The two remarkable 
 words, rendered "blasting and mildew'," occur only in Deu- 
 teronomy, and in Solomon's prayer founded upon it ", and in 
 Haggai " where he is referring to Amos. In the words, ""as 
 God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha," the peculiar term and 
 form of Deuteronomy, as well as the threat, are retained. 
 The threat, " Ye have built houses of hewn stone, and ye shall 
 not dwell therein ; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye 
 shall not drink the wine thereof;" but blends and enlarges 
 those in Deuteronomy p. The remarkable term describing 
 their unrepentance is taken from the same''. So also the i- 
 mage of " gall and wormwood '," two bitter plants, into which 
 they turned judgment and righteousness. There are other 
 verbal reminiscences of the Pentateuch, interwoven with the 
 words of Amos, which presuppose that it was in the memory 
 of both the Prophet and his hearers in Israel". Indeed, after 
 that long slavery of four hundred years in Egypt, the tradi- 
 tions of the spots, hallowed by God's intercourse with the Pa- 
 triarchs, probably even their relation to "Edom Hheir bro- 
 ther," must have been lost. The book of Genesis did not em- 
 body popular existing traditions of this sort, but must have 
 revived them. The idolatry of Beersheba ", as well as that of 
 Gilead, alluded to by Hosea, as also Jeroboam's choice of Be- 
 thel itself for the calf-worship ", imply on the part of the ido- 
 laters a knowledge and belief of the history, which they must 
 have learned from the Pentateuch. Doubtless it had been a 
 part of Jei'oboam's policy to set up, over-against the exclusive 
 claim for the temple at Jerusalem, rival places of traditionary 
 holiness from the mercies of God to their forefathers, much 
 as Mohammed availed himself of the memory of Abraham, to 
 found his claim for an interest in Jerusalem. But these tra- 
 ditions too must have been received by the people not de- 
 
 " iii. 14. See Ex. xxvii. 2. xxix. 12. Lev. iv. 25. » vi. 6. 
 
 2 ^-!\n is only used of such a bowl ; and its meaning "a vessel for sprinkling,^^ agrees 
 herewith. Its employment by the rich, when it had once been desecrated to idolatry, is 
 nothing strange ; far less, than the use of chalices to adorn the side-boards of rich English, 
 when Church-plate had been plundered in England or Spain. » Nu. vii. 13 sqq. 
 
 b ii.l2. ' ii. 7. v. 12. ion See Ex. xxiii. 6. Deut. xvi. 19. xxiv. 17. xxvii. 19. 
 
 >' V. 12.TE='np'7: Nu.xxxv. Sl.TBrinpnx'?. « ii.8. D''73n DnJ3 S». SeeEx. xxii.26,7. 
 
 ' viii. 5. See Deut. xxv. 14, 15. 5 Am. lb. I" Lev. xix. 36. ' Deut. xxiii. 1. 
 
 k "S^p DS* riN S'rnS ii. 7. Lev. xx. 3. ' psnB', ppT. iv. 9. Deut. xxviii. 22. 
 
 '" 1 K. viii. 37. " ii. 17. " iv. 11. Deut. xxix. 23. moyi mo nasnoD P v. 11. 
 Deut. xxviii. 30, 39. i ny CP3!? nS iv. C,8, 9, 10. See Deut. iv. 29. ' vi. 12, 
 
 from Deut. xxix. 18. njyS occurs alone, in the same image. Am. v. 7andPKT in Hos. X. 4. 
 They are used together as an image of the bitter draught of affliction (Jer. ix. 15, xxiii. 15, 
 Lam. iii. 19, and njyS Lam. iii. 15) and of the bitter end of sin. Prov. v. 4. Not elsewhere. 
 
 » Seeii. 2, 10, ll.iii. 2. vi. l.vii. le.ix.B, 12. • i. 11. " v. 8. The above 
 
 instances are selected from Hengstenberg, Auth. d. Pent. i. 83-104.
 
 AMOS. 
 
 153 
 
 rived from them. They were notbroui>ht with tliem from E- 
 j^ypt. The people, enslaved, deijTaded, sciisiiarr/cd, idolalry- 
 lovinj;:, had no hearts to (-hcrish the meniorii's ofthc imre re- 
 ligion of their i;reat forefathers, who worshipped tiie iin-imaj;:- 
 ed Sclf-existini; (iod. 
 
 As Amos employed the lanjijuage of the I'eiitateueh and 
 cited the book of Joel, so it seems more j>rohahl(;,that in the 
 
 burden of his first pro|)heeies, "" I will send a fire \ipon and 
 
 it shall devonr the palaecs of " he took the well-known 
 
 words of Ilosea", and, by their use, gave an unity to their 
 propheeies, tlian that IIosea,who uses no language except that 
 of the Pentateuch, should, in the one place where he employs 
 this form, have limited the '• burden " of Amos to the one case 
 of Judah. Besides, in Hosea, the words, declaring the de- 
 struction of the cities aiul])alaces of Judah, stand in immedi- 
 ate connection with Judah's wrong temper in building them, 
 whereas in Amos they are insulated. Ueside this, the lan- 
 guage of the two prophets does not bear upon each othei', ex- 
 cept that both have the term " "^balances of deceit," which was 
 originally formed in contrast with what God had enjoined in 
 the law, "balances of right," and which stands first in the Pro- 
 verbs of Solomon y. 
 
 Of later prophets, Jeremiah renewed against Damascus the 
 prophecy of Amos in his own words ; only, the memory of Ha- 
 zael having been obliterated perhaps in the destruction under 
 Tiglath-Pileser, Jeremiah calls it not after Hazael, but by its 
 own name and that of Benhadad\ The words of Amos had 
 once been fulfilled, and its people had been transported to Kir. 
 Probably fugitives had again repeopled it, and Jeremiah in- 
 tended to point out, that the sentence pronounced through A- 
 mos was not yet exhausted. On the like ground probably, 
 when upbraiding Amnion forthelike sins and for that forwhich 
 Amos had denounced woe upon it, its endeavour to displace 
 Israel", Jeremiah used the words of Amos, their king shall go 
 into captivity, — and his princes together^'. In like way Haggai 
 upbraids the Jews of his day for their impenitence under God's 
 chastisements, in words varied in no essential from those of 
 Amos <^. The M'ords of Amos, so repeated to the Jews upon 
 their restoration, sounded, as it were, from the desolate heri- 
 tage of Israel, Siii no more, lest a luorse thing happen unto thee. 
 
 Other reminiscences of the words of Amos are only a part of 
 the harmony of Scripture '^, the prophets in this way too indi- 
 cating their unity with one another, that they use the words, 
 the one of the other. 
 
 The might of his teaching at the time, the state-priest Ama- 
 ziah impressed on Jeroboam. Contemptuous towards Amos 
 himself, Amaziah admitted the truth to Jeroboam. The land 
 is not able to hear all his tcords. Doubtless, as the Jews were 
 mad against S. Stephen, not being able to resist the ivisdom and 
 Spirit by which he spake % so God accompanied with power His 
 
 ' i. 4, 7, 10, 12, ii. 2, 5. It is slightly varied in i. 14. " Hos. viii. 14. « Hos. xii. 8. 
 [7Eng.] Am. viii. 5. y Prov. xi. 1. xx. 23. « Jer. xlix. 27. » Am. i. 13. Jer. xlix. 1. 
 
 •> Am. i. 15. Jer. xlix. 3. Jeremiah retains the idiom nSi33 iSrr, only adding "his 
 priests," before the words " and his princes." He retains also the characteristic word 
 njmn Am. i. 14, and for B'n 'B!!,-!, njnsn c'x^. = Am. iv. 9. Hagg. ii. 19. 
 
 *^ Sucii are, the use of the words of Amos ii. 14 in Jer. xlvi. 6 ; the use of the idiom 
 oi A.mas, I take up a lamentation n'puyhv Km(''. 1.) three times by Ezekiel, xxvii. 2, 
 xxviii. 12, xxxii. 2 j tlie use of the image, a brand plucked out of the burning, Am. iv. 11, 
 Zech. iij. 2. 
 
 servant's words to His ])eoplc. 'i'liey had already seen (iod's 
 words fiiliillcd against tht; hctuses of Jcrcdioani I., of liaasha.of 
 Alial). That same dunm was now renewed against /he house of 
 Jfrotiodiii, and wit hit t lie pniplieey of the dispersion of the ten 
 tribes ', which Ilosea contemporaneously foretold f. The two 
 prophets of Israel confirmed one anotiier, but also left them- 
 selves no escape. They staked the wli(de reputation of their 
 prophecy on this definite; issue. W'e know it to have been ful- 
 filled onthehouse of Jeroboam ; yet the house of Jeroboam was 
 fii'mer than any hefor<' or after it. A\'e know of the unwonted 
 (uijitivity of tli(! ten triljcs. Had they not been carried eajitive, 
 ])rophecy w(uild have come to shame; and such in proportion is 
 its victory. I'^ach step was an instalment, a pledge, of what fol- 
 lowed. The death of Zeehariah, Jeroljoam's son, was the first 
 step in the fulfillment of the whole ; then probably, in the inva- 
 sion of Pul against Menahem '', followed the doom of Amaziah. 
 God is not anxious to vindicate! His word. He does not, as to 
 Shebna ', or Amaziah, or the false proplu'ts Ahab, ZedekiahJ or 
 Shemaiah'', or Pashur' or other false i)ropliets"'. At times, as 
 in the caseofHananiah", Scripture records the individual ful- 
 filment of God'sjudgments. Mostly, it passes by unnoticed the 
 execution of God's sentence. The sentence of the criminal. un- 
 less reprieved, in itself imj)lies the execution". Tlie fact im- 
 pressed those who witnessed it; the record of the judgment suf- 
 fices for us. 
 
 Then followed, under Tiglath-pileser, the fulfilment of the 
 prophecy as to Damascus!", and Gilead i. Under Sargon was 
 fulfilled the prophecy on the ten tribes ^ That on Judah'yet 
 waited 133 years, and then was fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar. 
 A few years later, and he executed God's judgments foretold by 
 Amos on their enemies, Moab, Amnion, Edom, Tyre'. "Kings 
 of Egypt, Assyria, and the Macedonian Alexander fulfilled in 
 succession the prophecy as to Philistia. So various were the 
 human wills, so multitudinous the events, which were to bring 
 about the simple words of the shepherd-prophet. Amos fore- 
 tells the events ; he does say, why the judgments should come ; 
 he does not foretell " when," or "through whom : " but the 
 events themselves he foretells absolutely, and they came. Like 
 Jocl,he foretells the conversion of the Heathen and anticipates 
 so far the prophecies of Isaiah, that God would work this 
 through the restoration of the house of David, when fallen. 
 Strange comment on human greatness, that the royal line was 
 not to be employed in the salvation of the world, until it was 
 fallen ! The Royal Palace had to become the hut of Nazareth, 
 ere the Redeemer of the world could be born. Whose glory and 
 kingdom were not of this world,Who came, to take from us no- 
 thing but our nature,that He might sanctify it, our misery,that 
 He might bear it for us. Yet flesh and blood could not fore- 
 see it ere it came, as flesh and blood could not believe it, when 
 He came. 
 
 " Acts vi. 10. f V. 27. vii. 8, 9, 17. s Hos. i. 6. ix. 17. i" 2 Kgs. xv. 19. 
 
 i Is. xxii. 17, 18. J Jer. xxix. 20-22. " lb. 32. ' lb. xx. 6. " lb. xiv. 15. ° lb. 
 
 xxviii. 17. " A recent writer "on the interpretation of Scripture" (Essays and Reviews, 
 p. 343.) ventures to give this(.\mos vii. 10-17)asone of three instances inproofthat "'the 
 failure of propliecy is never admitted in spile of Scripture and of history." Certainly, no 
 Cliristian thinks that God's word can have failed. But unless the execution of God's 
 sentence on one of the many calf-priests of Bethel is necessarily matter of history, it 
 has rather to be shewn why it should be mentioned, than why it was omitted, 
 p i. 5. 1 vi. 14. ' V. 27. vii. S, 9, 17. ix. 8. ' ii. 5. < i. 9. ii. 3. " i. 6-8.
 
 154 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1 ^mos sheiuetk God's judgment upon Syria, 
 6 upon the Fhilisti7ies, 9 upon Tyrus, 1 1 upon 
 Edom, 13 upon Ammon. 
 
 THE Avords of Amos, " who was among 
 the herdmen of ''Tekoa, which he saw 
 ,u^'"i"i"'"' eoncernitiff Israel " in the days of Uzziah 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 « ch. 7. 14. 
 
 Chap. I. ver. 1. The ivords of Amos, who was among the herd- 
 men. "Amos begins by settinc; forth bis own notbingness, 
 and withal tbe great grace of bis Teacber .and Instructor, the 
 Holy Spirit, referring all to His glory." He, like David, Pe- 
 ter, Paul, Matthew, was one of t/ie weak things of the world, 
 ichom God chose to confound the titighty. He was himself a 
 herdsman only atnong herdsvioi ; but tlic words which be spake 
 were not liis own. They were words wliicb he saw, not with 
 eyes of flesh, but " with that vision wherewith words can be 
 seen, tbe seer's vision in tbe mind." They were words coti- 
 cerning, or rather upon Israel, heavy words coming upon the 
 heavy transgressions of 1 srael. The Hebrew word saiu ^ is not 
 of mere sight, but of a vision given by God. Amos only says 
 that they were his words, in order immediately to add, that 
 they came to him from God, that he himself was but tbe hu- 
 man organ through which God spake. 
 
 Two years before the earthquake. This earthquake must 
 plainly have been one of the greatest, since it was vividly in 
 men's memories in the time of Zechariah, and Amos speaks of 
 it as " the earthquake." The earthquakes of the East, like 
 that of Lisbon, destroy whole cities. In one, a little before 
 the birth of our Lord, " - some ten thousand were buried under 
 tbe ruined houses." This terrific earthquake (for as such 
 Zechariah describes it) was one of the preludes of that displea- 
 sure of God, which Amos foretold. A warning of two years, 
 and time for repentance, were given, before the earthquake 
 should come, the token and beginning of a further shaking of 
 both kingdoms, unless they should repent. In effect, it was 
 the first flash of the lightning which consumed them. 
 
 2. The Lord will roar. Amos joins on his prophecy to 
 the end of Joel's, in order at once in its very opening to attest 
 tbe oneness of their mission, and to prepare men's minds to 
 see, that his own prophecy was an expansion of those words, 
 declaring tbe nearer and coming judgments of God. Those 
 nearer judgments, however, of which be spake, were but tbe 
 preludes of tbe judgments of the Great Day which Joel fore- 
 told, and of that last terrible voice of Christ, the Lion of the 
 tribe of Judah, of Whom Jacob prophesies; He couched. He 
 lay iloum as a lion, and as a young lion ; who shall raise Him 
 up'^i' God is said to utter His awefiil voice from Zion and 
 Jerusalem, because there He had set His Name, there He was 
 present in His Church. It was, as it were, His own place, 
 wliich He bad hallowed by tokens of His Presence,although the 
 heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. In 
 the outset of his prophecy, Amos warned Israel, that there, 
 not among themselves in their separated state, God dwelt. 
 Jeremiah, in using these same words towards Judah, speaks 
 not of Jerusalem, but of heaven ; * The Lord shall roar from 
 on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation. The pro- 
 
 ' mn, whence njn seer, pm, )nn, vision. = Jos. Ant. xv. 5. 2. 3 Gen. xlix. 9. 
 
 •• Jer. XXV. .30. '« Is. ii. 3. » The mention of the head of Carmcl marks out that 
 the Mount Carmel is meant (see ix. 3, i K. xviii. 42) not the town Carmel (now Kurmul) 
 in the south of Judah, lying around the head and sides of a valley of some width and 
 depth. The whole plain around it is high, and it seems probable that a district 
 was called by its name (1 Sam. xxv. 2,7, 2 C. xxvi. 10), but the hill of Main is 
 
 king of Judah, and in the days of ^ Jero- chrYst 
 boam the son of Joash king of Israel, ""■ ^^^- 
 two years before the ' earthquake. \ tili nie. 
 
 2 And he said, The Lord will f roar from 'Jer 26.30. 
 
 Joel 3. Ih. 
 
 Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem ; 
 and the liabitations of the shepherds shall 
 mourn, and the top of s Carmel shall wither. ' \t^:^' ' 
 
 phecy is to the ten tribes or to the heathen : God speaks out of 
 tbe Church. He utteretb His Voice out of Jerusalem, as He 
 saitli, '' Out of Zion shall go forth the laiu, and the word of the 
 Lord from Jerusalem, "where was the Temple and the wor- 
 ship of God, to shew that God was not in the cities of Israel, 
 i. e. in Dan and Bethel, where were the golden calves, nor in 
 the royal cities of Samaria and Jezreel, but in the true religion 
 which was then in Zion and Jerusalem." 
 
 And the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn. Perhaps, 
 with a feeling for the home which he had loved and left, the 
 Prophet's first thought amid the desolation which he pre- 
 dicts, was towards his own shepherd-haunts. The well-known 
 Mount Carmel* was far in tbe opposite direction in the tribe 
 of Asber. Its name is derived from its richness and fertility, 
 perhaps " a land of vine and olive yards ^." In S. Jerome's 
 time, it was "* thickly studded with olives, shrubs and vine- 
 yards." " Its very summit of glad pastures." It is one 
 of the most striking natural features of Palestine. It ends a 
 line of hills, eighteen miles long,by a long bold headland reach- 
 ing out far into the Mediterranean, and forming the South 
 side of tbe Bay of Acco or Acre. Rising 1200 feet above the 
 sea^, it stands out "like some guardian of its native strand;" 
 yet withal, it was rich with every variety of beauty, flower, 
 fruit, and tree. It is almost always called " the Carmel," 
 " tbe rich garden-ground." From its neighbourhood to the 
 sea, heavy dews nightly supply it with an ever-renewed fresh- 
 ness, so that in mid-summer it is green and flowery i". Travel- 
 lers describe it, as " ^' quite green, its top covered with firs 
 and oaks, lower down with olives and laurels, and everywhere 
 excellently watered." "There is not a flower," says Vande 
 Velde^-, "that I have seen in Galilee or on tbe plains along 
 the coasts, that I do not find here again on Carmel. It is still 
 the same fragrant lovely mountain as of old." " ^^Its varied 
 world of flowers attracts such a number of tbe rarer varico- 
 loured insects that a collector might for a whole year be richly 
 employed." " It is a natural garden and repository of herbs." 
 Its pastures were rich, so as to equal those of Bashan ^'. " It 
 gives rise to a number of crystal streams, the largest of which 
 gushes from the spring of Elijah." It had abundant supplies 
 in itself. If it too became a desert, what else would be spar- 
 ed ? ^^ If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be 
 done in the dry ? All, high and low, shall be stricken in one 
 common desolation ; all the whole land, from the pastures oj 
 the shepherds in the South to Mount Carmel in the North. 
 And this, as soon as God had spoken. He spake, and it was 
 made. So now, contrariwise. He uttereth His Voice, and Car- 
 mel bath languished. Its glory hath passed away, as in the 
 twinkling of an eye. God hath spoken the word, and it is gone. 
 What depended on God's gifts, abides ; what depended on 
 
 only 200 feet above the plain. Robinson, i. 433. ' did lit. " a rich and fertile 
 
 laiitl" (as in Arabic) is used of the olive-^orrffn Jud. xv, 7, as well as of the more 
 ordinary vineyard. 701D is probably a collective fiom it. 8 jn Jgj.^ jy^ og^ 
 
 9 Scliubert in Ritter, xvi. 721. Porter says 1750. (Handb. 371). " Thomson, The 
 Land, &c. ii. 231. " O. v. Richter. 12 i. 317 8. 
 
 13 Jer. 1. 19. Nah. i. 4. "< S. Luke xxiii. 31.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 l.j.j 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.787. 
 
 3 Thus saitli the Lord ; For three 
 
 man, is gone. There remains a wild Ijeauty still; but it is the 
 beauty of natural luxuriance. "All," says one who explored its 
 depths ^ " lies waste ; all is a wilderness. TIk; utmost fertility 
 is here lost forman, useless toman. The vineyardsof Carmel, 
 where arc they now ? Behold the long rows of stones on the 
 ground, the remains of tin; walls ; they will tell you that here, 
 where now with diffieulty you force your way through the 
 thick entangled copse, lay, in days of old, those incomparable 
 vineyards to which Carmel owes its name." 
 
 3. The order of God's threatenings seems to have been 
 addressed to gain the hearing of the people. The punishment 
 is first denounced upon their enemies, and that, for their sins, 
 directly or indirectly, against themselves, and God in them. 
 Then, as to those enemies themselves, the order is not of 
 place or time, but of their relation to God's people. It begins 
 with their most oppressive enemy, Syria; then Philistia, the 
 old and ceaseless, although less powerful, enemy ; then Tyre, 
 not an oppressor, as these, yet violating a relation which they 
 had not, the bonds of a former friendship and covenant ; ma- 
 licious also and hardhearted through covetousness. Then fol- 
 low Edom, Amnion, Moab, who burst the bonds of blood also. 
 Lastly and nearest of all, it falls on Judah, who had the true 
 worship of the true God among them, but despised it. Every 
 infliction on those like ourselves finds an echo in our own 
 consciences. Israel heard and readily believed God's judg- 
 ments upon others. It was not tempted to set itself against 
 believing them. How then could it refuse to believe of itself, 
 what it believed of others like itself? " Change but the name, 
 the tale is told of thee "," was a heathen saying which has al- 
 most passed into a proverb. The course of the prophecy con- 
 victed them, as the things written in Holy Scripture for our 
 etisamples convict Christians. If they who ^ sbined tuithoiU laic, 
 perished luithout law, how much more should they who have 
 sinned in the law, he judged by the law. God's judgments 
 rolled round like a thunder-cloud, passing from land to land, 
 giving warning of their approach, at last to gather and centre 
 on Israel itself, except it repent. In the visitations of others, 
 it was to read its own ; and that, the more, the nearer God 
 was to them. Israel is placed the last, because on it the de- 
 struction was to fall to the uttermost, and rest there. 
 
 For three tra?isgressions and for four. These words ex- 
 press, not four transgressions added to the three, but an ad- 
 ditional transgression beyond the former, the last sin, where- 
 by the measure of sin, which before was full, overflows, and 
 Gods wrath comes. So in other places, where the like form 
 of words occurs, the added number is one beyond, and most- 
 ly relates to something greater than all the rest. So, *//<? shall 
 deliver thee in six troubles ; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch 
 thee. The word, yea, denotes, that the seventh is some heavier 
 trouble, beyond all the rest, which would seem likely to break 
 endurance. Again ^, give a portion to seven, and also to eight. 
 Seven is used as a symbol of a whole, since on the seventh day 
 God rested from all which He had made, and therefore the num- 
 ber seven entered so largely into the whole Jewish ritual. All 
 time was measured by seven. The rule then is ; " give with- 
 out bounds ; when that whole is fulfilled, still give." Again in 
 that series of sayings in the book of Proverbs ^, the fourth is, 
 in each, something greater than the three preceding. There 
 are three things that fl?-e 7jever satisfied^ yea, four things say 7iot, 
 
 ' Van de Velde, i. 318. 2 Horace. »Rom.ii.l2. < Job v. 19. » Eccl. xi. 2. 
 « XXX. 7 lb. 15, 16. 8 lb. 29-31. » lb. 21-23. i" lb. 18, 19. " lb. vi. 16-19. 
 
 transf^ressions of '' Damascus, || and for chrTst 
 
 >■ Is. 8. 4. & 17. 1. Jer. 49. 23. Zech. 9. 1. || Or, yea, for four. ""'• ^^^- 
 
 it is enough ^. The other things cannotbe satisfied; the fourth, 
 fire, grows fiercer by being fed. Again **, There he three things 
 which go well ; yea, four are comely in going. The moral ma- 
 jesty of a king is obviously greater than the rest. So '■'the 
 handmaid which displacelli her mistress is more intolerable and 
 overbearing than the otiicrs. The art iuid coiircalnicnt of 
 man in approaching a maiden is of a subtler kind tiiau things 
 in nature which leave no trace of themselves, the eagle in the 
 air, the serpent on the rock, the ship in its pathway through 
 the wavcs"\ Again^i, Sowing discord among brethren, has an 
 especial hatefulness, as not only being sin, but causing wide- 
 wasting sin, and destroying in others the chief grace, love. 
 Soul-murder is worse than bodily murder, and requires more 
 devilish art. 
 
 These things. Job says ^', worketh God ttvice and thrice with 
 ?nan, to bring back his soul from the pit. The last grace of God, 
 whether sealing up the former graces of those who use them, 
 or vouchsafed to those who have wasted them, is the crown- 
 ing act of His love or forbearance. 
 
 In heathen poetry also, as a trace of a mystery which they 
 had forgotten, three is a sacred whole ; whence •• thrice anil 
 fourfold blessed" stands among them for something exceeding 
 even a full and perfect blessing, a super-abundance of blessings. 
 
 The fourth trangression of these Heathen nations is alone 
 mentioned. For the Prophet had no mission to them ; he only 
 declares to Israel the ground of the visitaticm which was to 
 come upon them. The three transgressions stand for a whole I 
 sum of sin, which had not yet brought down extreme punish- 
 ment ; the fourth was the crowning sin, after which God would 1 
 no longer spare. But although the fourth drew down His i 
 judgment, God, at the last, punishes not the last sin only, but 
 all which went before. In that the Prophet says, not, /or the[\ 
 fourth, but/or three transgressions and for four, he expresses at 
 once, that God did not punish until the last sin, by which the 
 iniquity of the sinful nation became /mW^, and that, then. He 
 punished for all, for the whole mass of sin described by the 
 three, and for the fourth also. God is long-suffering and rea- 
 dy to forgive ; but when the sinner finally becomes a vessel of 
 wrath'^^,\ie punishes all the earlier sins, which, for the time,He 
 passed Ijy. S in adds to sin, out of whichi^ grows ; it^duES not 
 o vershadow the form er jTns^itaoe s~noroblite rate^them, but 
 increases the mass ot guilt, wnich God punishes. When the. 
 Jews slew the Son, there^^ came on them all the righteous blood\ 
 shed upon the earth, fromthebloodof righteous Ahelunto the blood 
 of Zacharias, son of Barachias. All the blood of all the pro- 
 phets and servants of God under the Old Testament came upon 
 that generation. So each individual sinner, who dies impeni- 
 tent, will be punished for all which, in his whole life, he did or 
 became, contrary to the law of God. Deeper sins bring deeper 
 damnation at the last. So St. Paul speaks^^ of those who trea^ 
 sure up to themselves wrath against the Day of wrath and reve- 
 lafio7i of the righteous Judgment of God. As good men, by the 
 grace of God, do, through each act done by aid of that grace, 
 gain an addition to their everlasting reward, so the wicked, by 
 each added sin, add to their damnation. 
 
 Of Damascus. Damascus was one of the oldest cities in 
 the world, and one of the links of its intercourse. It lay in the 
 midst of its plain, a high table-land ^'' of rich cultivation, whose 
 breadth, from Anti-libanus Eastward, was about half a degree. 
 
 '- xxxiii. 29. " Gen. xv. 16. '< Rom. ix. 22. is s. Matt, xxiii. 35. R. S. Luke 
 xi. 50,1. '^ Rom. ii. 5. '' " 2200 feet above the sea." Porter, Fiye years in Dam. i. 26.
 
 156 
 
 AMOS 
 
 On the W. and N. its plain lay slieltorod under the ranjce of 
 Anti-libanus; on tlie East, it was pnitecfed hy tlie siTcat desert 
 which intervened between its oasis-territory and tlie Euphra- 
 tes, hnniediately, it was bounded by the thi-ee lakes which 
 receive the surplus of the waters which enrich it. Tiie Bara- 
 da [the " cold"] havinir joined the Fijeh, (the traditional Fhar- 
 par^j a name which well desii:;natcs its tumultuous course"), 
 runs on the N. of. and throuiih, the city, and then chiefly in- 
 to the central of the three lakes, the 15ahret-el-kibliyeh, [the 
 " South " lake ;] thence, it is supposed, but in part also di- 
 rectly. Into the Bahret-csh-Shurkiyeh [the "East" lake']. 
 The 'Awaj [the "crooked "] (perhaps the old Amana, "the ne- 
 ver-failinj;," in contrast with the streams which are exhaust- 
 ed in irrigation) runs near the old South boundary of Damas- 
 cus^ separating- it probably from the Northern p«(Ssessions of 
 Israel beyond Jordan, Baslian (in its widest sense), and Jetur 
 or Itursea. The area has been calculated at 23G square geo- 
 graphical miles ^ This S]iace rather became the centime of its 
 dominions, than measured their extent. But it supported a 
 population, far beyond what that space would maintain in Eu- 
 rope. Taught by the face of creation around them, where the 
 course of every tiny rivulet, as it burst from the rocks, was 
 marked by a rich luxuriance'', the Damascenes of old availed 
 themselves of the continual supply from the snows of Hermon 
 or the heights of Anti-libanus, with a systematic diligence', 
 of which, in our Northern clime, as we have no need, so we 
 have no idea. " Without the Barada," says Porter > " the city 
 could not exist, and the plain would be a parched desert ; but 
 now aqueducts intersect every quarter, and fountains sparkle 
 in almost every dwelling, while innumerable canals extend 
 their ramiiications over the vast plain, clothing it with ver- 
 dure and beauty. Five of these canals are led off from the 
 river at different elevations, before it enters the plain. They 
 are carried along the precipitous banks of the ravine, being in 
 some places tunnelled in the solid rock. The two on the 
 Northern side water Salahiyeh at the foot of the hills about a 
 mile from the city, and then irrigate the higher portions of 
 the plain to the distance of nearly twenty miles. Of the three 
 on the S. side, one is led to the populous village Daraya, five 
 miles distant ; the other two supply the city, its suburbs, and 
 gardens." The like use was made of every fountain in every 
 larger or lesser plain. Of old it was said, "° the Chrysorrhoas 
 [the Barada] "is nearly expended in artificial channels." 
 "^''Damascus is fertile through drinking up the Chrysorrhoas 
 by irrigation." Fourteen names of its canals are still given i'; 
 and while it has been common to select 7 or 8 chief canals, 
 the whole have been counted up even to 70^". No art or la- 
 bour was thought too great. The waters of the Fijeh were 
 carried by a great aqueduct tunnelled through the side of the 
 perpendicular cliff^^. Yet this was as nothing. Its whole 
 plain was intersected with canals, and tunnelled below. 
 "I'The waters of the river were spread over the surface of 
 the soil in the fields and gardens : underneath, other canals 
 were tunnelled to collect the superfluous water which perco- 
 lates the soil, or from little fountains and springs below. The 
 stream thus collected is led off to a lower level, where it comes 
 
 • G.WiUiainp. Ibn Haukal says, "the river of Damascus rises under a Christian 
 cliurch, called al-Fijat. It unites with the river, called Barada." in Abulf. Tab. Syr. p. 15. 
 The Fijeh is " pure sweet and limpid" (Rob. ii. 476); the Barada is undrinkable, produc- 
 ing goitre. (G. Will, in Smith Geogr. Diet. v. Damascus.) - Unsteady and in pari 
 headlong motion, is the central meaning of the Arabic " pharphara ;" "parting asunder, 
 and so night," of the Arabic "pharra." On the bursting forth of the Fijeh, see Porter, Five 
 years, i. 200. " lb. 375-82. Jnum. of Sacr. Lit. 1853. July. Oct. ■• Five vears 
 i. 26. 318. 321. 389. ii. 13. 247, 8. £■ Ih. 27. « ""Nothing can be conceived 
 more dreary than the ravines near Damascus, except when streams flow through tliem, 
 which are always fringed with green." Ld. Lindsay, Holy Land, p. 330. See Porter, Five 
 years, i. 324. 280. ? " Every stream that descended from the hills (in the upper valley 
 
 to the surface. ""The whole plain is filled with these sin- 
 gular aijucducts, some of them running for 2 or.'{ miles under- 
 ground. Where tlie water of one is difi'using life iind verdure 
 over the surface, another branch is collecting a new supply." 
 " In former days these extended over the whole plain to the 
 lakes, thus irrigating the fields and gardens in every part of it." 
 
 Damascus then was, of old, famed for its beauty. Its white 
 l)uildings, embedded in thedeep greenof itsengirdlingorchards, 
 were like diamonds encircled by emeralds. They reach nearly 
 to Anti-libanus "'Westward, "''and extend on both sides of the 
 Barada some miles Eastward. They cover an area at least 
 25 [or 30] miles in circuit, and make the environs an earthly 
 Paradise." W^hence the Arabs said '*, " If there is a garden of 
 Eden on eartii, it is Damascus ; and if in Heaven, Damascus 
 is like it on earth." But this its beauty was also its strength. 
 '■ The river," says William of Tyre^", "having abundant water, 
 supplies orchards on both banks, thi(;k-set with fruit-trees, and 
 flows Eastward by the (iity wall. On the W. and N. the city 
 was far and wide fenced by orchards, like thick dense woods, 
 which stretched four or five miles towards Libanus. These 
 orchards are a most exceeding defence ; for from the density 
 of the trees and the narrowness of the ways, it seemed difficult 
 and almost impossible toapproachthecity on that side." Even 
 to this day it is said-", "The true defence of Damascus consists 
 in its gardens, which, forming a forest of fruit-trees and a la- 
 byrinth of hedges, walls and ditches, for more than 7 leagues in 
 circumference, would present no small impediment to a IMus- 
 sulman enemy." 
 
 The advantage of its site doubtless occasioned its early 
 choice. It lay on the best route from the interior of Asia to 
 theMediterranean,toTyre,andeven to Egypt. Chedorlaomer 
 and the four kings with him, doubtless, came that way, since 
 the first whom they smote were at Ashteroth Karnaim-' in Jau- 
 lan or Gaulonitis, and thence they swept on Southward, along 
 the west side of Jordan, smiting, as they went, first the Zuzim, 
 (probably the same as the Zamzummim--) in Ammonitis ; then 
 the Emim in the plabi of Kiriathaim in Moab"', then the Ho- 
 rites in Mount Seir unto Elparan (probably Elath on the Gulf 
 called from it.) They returned that way, since Abraham over- 
 took them at Hobah near Damascus-^. Damascus was already 
 the chief city, through its relation to which alone Hobah was 
 known. It was on the route by which Abraham himself came 
 at God's command from Haran (Charrae of the Greeks) whether 
 over Tiphsach ("the passage," Thapsacus) or any more North- 
 ern passage over the Euphrates. The fact that his chief and 
 confidential servant whom he entrusted to seek a wife for Isaac, 
 and who was, at one time, his heir, was a Damascene-% implies 
 some intimate connexion of Abraham with Damascus. At 
 the time of our era, the name of Abraham was still held in ho- 
 nour in the country of Damascus-^; a village was named from 
 him "Abraham's dwelling;" and a native historian Nicolas-' 
 said, that he reigned in Damascus on his w^ay from the country 
 beyond Babylon to Canaan. The name of his servant " Elie- 
 zer" "my God is help," implies that at this time too the ser- 
 vant was a worshipper of the One God. The name Damascus 
 probably betokened the strenuous -'*, energetic character of its 
 
 of the Barada) was made available to the irrigation of long slips of green which marked its 
 course." lb. p. 332. See Porter, Five years, i. 21. 277,8,0.321.358.375. ii.276. 306, 7. and 
 accounts of canals i. 23, 372. 376. 321. 393. ii. 14. 16. 247. (at Lebweh ii. .322.) and aque- 
 ducts i. 329. in Hauran ii. 29. 77. >* lb. 27, 8. ' Strabo xvi. 2. 10. "' Plin. v. IS. 16. 
 
 " Wilson, Lands of the Bible, ii. 325. note. '^ Hajji Chalifa, See Ritter's Diss. Erdk. 
 xvii. p. 1303sqq. " lb. 257. " Five years, i. 394,5. See further i. 159, 162.371. ii. 11. 
 [54. 205. of Hauran] 248, 9. 358. •* Porter, Handbook, p. 497. '» Five vears, i. 27. 
 17 lb. 29, add pp. 152,3. " in R. Pethakiah in Journ. As. 1831. viii. 388, and'ibn Batuta 
 in Ritter, xvii. 1346, with much more. " xvii. 3. =" Ali Bey travels, ii. 282. ^iGen. xiv. 
 5,6. "Deut. ii. 20. =3 ib.9,11. =< Gen. xiv. 15. == Gen.xv. 2, 3. -« Jos. Ant.i.7.2. 
 
 -' L. iv.ap. Jos. ibid. -^ Dimashko, Damshako, " swift, readv, strenuous." Arab.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 157 
 
 chrTst ^^^^f I ^^'i^l ""t II turn away the punish- 
 
 cir. 787. 
 . Or, convert it, or, let it be quiet : and so ver. 0, &c. 
 
 founder. Like the other names connected with Aram in the 
 Old Testament \ it is, in conformity with the common descent 
 from Aram, Aramaic. It was no part of the territory assij^ned 
 to Israel, nor was it molested by tiiem. Judij^ing, probably, of 
 David's defensive conquests by its own policy, it joined the o- 
 ther Syrians who attackedDavid,was subdued.fiarrisonedjand 
 became tributary-. It was at that time probably a subordi- 
 nate power, whether on the f^round of the personal eminence 
 of Hadadezer king of Zobah, or any other. Certainly Hadad- 
 ezer stands out conspicuously; the Damascenes are mentioned 
 only subordinalely. Consistently with this, the first mention 
 of the kinfjdom of Damascus in Scripture is the dynasty of Re- 
 zon son of Eliada', afuffitive servant of Hadadezer, who form- 
 ed a maraudinfj band, then settled and rei£:ned in Damascus^. 
 Before this. Scripture speaks of the people only of Damascus, 
 notof theirking^s. Itsnative historian admits that the Damas- 
 cenes were, in the time of David, and continued to be, the ag- 
 j;;ressors, while he veils over their repeated defeats, and repre- 
 sents their kings, as having reigned successively from father 
 to son, for ten generations, a thing unknown probably in any 
 monarchy. "*A native, Adad, having gained great power, be- 
 came king of Damascus and of the rest of Syria, except Phoe- 
 nicia. He, having carried war against David, king of Juda?a, 
 and disputed with him in many battles, and that finally at the 
 Euphrates where he was defeated, had the character of a most 
 eminent king for prowess and valour. After his death, his de- 
 scendants reigned for ten generations, each receiving from his 
 father the name [Hadad] together with the kingdom, like the 
 Ptoleniiesof Egypt. Thethird,having gained thegreatest pow- 
 er of all, seeking to repair the defeat of his grandfather, war- 
 ring against the Jews, wasted what is now called Samaritis." 
 They could not brook a defeat, which they had brought upon 
 themselves. Rezon renewed, throughout the later part of So- 
 lomon's reign, the aggression of Hadad. On the schism of the 
 ten tribes, the hostility of Damascus was concentrated against 
 Israel who lay next to them. Abijam was in league with the 
 father of Benhadad^. Benhadad at once broke his league with 
 Baasha at the request of Asa in his later mistrustful days^,and 
 turned against Baasha'. From Omri also Benhadad I. took 
 cities and extorted A<ree^9,probablyaDamascus-quarter,in Sa- 
 maria itself^. Benhadad II. had thirty tivo vassal kings^, (de- 
 pendent kings like those of Canaan,each of hisown city and lit- 
 tle territory,) and led them against Samaria,intendingto plun- 
 der iti'',and,on occasion of the plundering,probably to make it 
 his own or to destroy it. By God'shelpthey weretwicedefeat- 
 ed; thesecondtime,when they directly challenged the powerof 
 God ^^, so signally that, had not Ahab been flattered by the ap- 
 peal to his mercy '^, Syria would no more have been in a con- 
 dition to oppress Israel. Benhadad promised to restore the 
 cities which his father had taken from Israel, and to make an 
 Israel-quarter in Damascus ^'. If this promise was fulfilled, 
 Ramoth-Gilead must have been lost to Syria at an earlier pe- 
 riod, since, three years afterwards, Ahab perished in an at- 
 tempt, by aid of Jehoshaphat against the counsels of God, to 
 recover it^*. Ramoth-Gilead being thus in the hands of Syria, 
 all North of it, half of Dan and Manasseh beyond Jordan,must 
 
 1 as Aram Naharaim. Aram Beth Rehob, Aram Maachah, Padan Aram, Hamath, Tad- 
 mor, Tiphsach, &c. The Araliicform of the name Mabug [Hierapolis], Manbej, is pro- 
 bably the original ; so that Hitzig is wrong as to the three which he assumed to be proofs 
 of a non-Semitic origin of the cities on this line of traffic, (quoted by Ritter, xvii.1337.) 
 3 2 Sam. viii. 5, 6. ' 1 Kgs. xi. 23, 24. ■* Nicolaus, Damasc. Hist. iv. in 
 
 Jos. Ant. vii.2. 2. ' 1 Kgs. xv. 19. « 1 Chr. xvi. 2-7. ? lb. and 1 Kgs. xv.20. 
 
 ment thereof; 'because they have threshed ch^iuIt 
 
 ' 2 Kings 10. 33. & 13. 7. — '^'' ' '' 
 
 also have been conquered by .Syria. Except the one great siege 
 of Samaria, which brought it to extremities and which God 
 dissipated by a panic which lU- infused into the; Syrian army"', 
 Benhadad and Hazacl encouraged only marauding expeditions 
 against Israel during the 14 years of Ahaziah and Jehoram. 
 Benhadad was, according to the Assyrian inscriptions, de- 
 feated thrice, Hazael twice, by Shalmanubar king of Assyria^*. 
 Benhadad appears to have acrted on the oflcnsive, in alliance 
 withthckingsofthe Hittites,tlieHaniatliifcs aiulPbaMiiciansi"; 
 Hazacl was attacked alone, driven to take' refuge in Anti-liba- 
 nus,and probably became tributary'^. Assvrian chronicles re- 
 late only Assyrian victories. The brief notice, that through 
 Naaman ^^ the Lord gave deliverance to ^SV/r/c/, probably refers 
 to some signal check which Assyria received through him. For 
 there was no other enemy, from whom Syria had to be deliver- 
 ed. Subsequently to that retreat from Samaria, he even lost 
 Ramoth'^ to Jehoram after abattlebefore it-",in which Jehoram 
 was wounded. It is a probable conjecture -^ that Jehu, by his 
 political submission to Assyria, drew on himself tlie calamities 
 which Elisha foretold. Hazael probably became the instrument 
 of God in chastening Israel, while he was avenging Jehu's sub- 
 mission to a power whom he dreaded and from whom he had 
 suflfiered. Israel, having lost the help of Judah, became the ea- 
 sier prey. Hazael not only took from Israel all East of Jordan-^, 
 but made the whole open country unsafe for the Israelites to 
 dwell in. Not until GoAgave Israel a saviour, could they dwell 
 in their tents as heforetime-^. Hazael extended his conquests to 
 Gath^*, intending probably to open a connecting line with E- 
 gypt. TVith a small company of men he defeated a large army 
 of Judah-\ Joash king of Judah bought him off, when ad- 
 vancing against Jerusalem, with every thing of gold, conse- 
 crated or civil, in the temple or in his own treasures -'■. Jeho- 
 ash recovered from Benhadad 111. the cities this side Jordan ^; 
 Jeroboam II., all their lost territories and even Damascus and 
 Hamath-^. Yet after this, it was to recover its power under 
 Rezin, to become formidable to Judah, and, through its aggres- 
 sions on Judah, to bring destruction on itself. At this time, 
 Damascus was probably, like ourselves, a rich, commercial, as 
 well as warlike, but not as yet a manufacturing-' nation. Its 
 wealth, as a great emporium of transit-commerce, (as it is now) 
 furnished it with sinews for war. The white wool^", in which 
 it traded with Tyre, implies the possession of a large outlying 
 tract in the desert, where the sheep yield the whitest wool. It 
 had then doubtless, besides the dense population of its plain, 
 large nomadic hordes dependant upon it. 
 
 I will not turn away the punishment thereof ; lit. J will ?wt 
 turn it back. What was this, which God would not turn back ? 
 Amos does not express it. Silence is often more emphatic than 
 words. Not naming it, he leaves it the rather to be conceived 
 of by the mind, as something which had been of old coming 
 upon them to overwhelm them, which God had long stayed 
 back, but which, since He would now stay it no longer, would 
 burst in, with the more terrific and overwhelming might, be- 
 cause it had been restrained before. Sin and punishment are 
 by a great law of God bound together. God's mercy holds back 
 the punishment long, allowing only some slight tokens of His 
 
 8 1 Kgs. XX. 3i. ' lb. 1, 2-1. I" lb. 6, 7. " lb. 22-23, 23. i= lb. 31, 32. 
 '3 lb. 34. '■> 1 Kgs. xxii. '* 2 Kgs. vii. G. '« See Rawl. Herod, i. 464. '? lb. Dr. 
 Hincks, Dubl. Univ. Mag. Oct. lSo3. pp. 422, 5,6. 's 2 Kgs. v. 1. '» lb. ix. 14, 15. 
 -0 lb. viii. 29. =' Rawl. Herod, i. p. 4C5. - o Kgs. x. 32, 33. "^ lb. xiii. 5. 
 =< lb. xii. 17. ■' 2 Chr. xxiv. 23, 24. -^ 2 Kgs. xii. 18. " lb. xiii. 25. 
 
 =s Xb. xiv. 28. -^ See on iii. 12. so Ezek. xxvii. 18. 
 
 Ff
 
 158 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst Gilead Avith thrcshins? instruments of 
 
 ""■ "^"- iron : 
 '' & 49^27f ■ 4 ^ But I will send a fire into the house 
 
 ver. 7,"lO, 12. ch. 2. 2,6. 
 
 displeasure to show themselves, that the sinful soul or people 
 may not he unwarned. When He no hunger withholds it, the 
 law of His moral p)vernment liolds its eoursc. " Seldom ','' 
 said heathen experience," hath punislimcnt with lin{,^eringfoot 
 parted with the miscreant, advancing before." 
 
 liecaiixe they have threshed Gi/ead 7vilh threshing iustru- 
 ments of iron. The instrument, St. Jerome relates licre, was 
 "a sort of wain, rolling on iron wheels beneath, set with teeth ; 
 so that it both thresiied out the grain and bruised the straw and 
 cut it in pieces, as food for the cattle, for lack of hay." A simi- 
 lar instrument, called by nearly the same name", is still in use 
 in Syria and Egypt. Elisha had foretold to Hazael his cruelty 
 to Israel^; Their strong holds thou wilt set on fire, mid their 
 young men ici/t thou slaij vitli the sword, and wilt dash their 
 children, and rip 7ip their women with child. Hazael, like others 
 gradually steeped in sin, thought it impossible, but did it. In 
 the days of Jehu*, Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel 
 from Jordan Eustu'ard ; all the land of Gilead,the Gaditesand 
 the Renhcnites and the Majtassites, from ^roer which is by the 
 river Arnon,even Gilead and Bashan ; in those of Jehoahaz, Je- 
 hu's son ^, lie oppressed them, neither did he leave of the people 
 to Jehoahaz hut fifty horsemen and ten chariots, aiul ten thousaiul 
 footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and hail made 
 (hem like the dust hy threshing. The death here spoken of, 
 although more ghastly, was probably not more severe than 
 many others ; not nearly so severe as some which have been 
 used by Christian Judicatures. It is mentionedinthe Proverbs, 
 as a capital punishment " ; and is alluded to as such by Isaiah '. 
 David had had, for some cause unexplained by Holy Scripture, 
 to inflict it on the Ammonites'^. Probably not the punish- 
 ment in itself alone, but the attempt so to extirpate the people 
 of God brought down this judgment on Damascus. 
 
 Theodoret supposes the horrible aggravation, that it was 
 thus that the women with child were destroyed with their chil- 
 dren, "casting the aforesaid women, as into a sort of threshing- 
 floor, they savagely threshed them out like ears of corn with 
 saw-armed wheels." 
 
 Gilead is here doubtless to be taken in its widest sense, in- 
 cluding all the possessions of Israel, E. of Jordan, as, in the ac- 
 count of Hazael's conquests,«// the land of Gilead* is explained 
 to mean, all which was ever given to the two tribes and a half, 
 and to include Gilead proper, as distinct from Basan. In like 
 way Joshua relates ^, that ^Ae children of Reuben and the chil- 
 dren of Gad and the half tribe of 3Ianasseh returned to go into the 
 country of Gilead, to the land of their possessions. Throughout 
 that whole beautiful tract, including 2 A degrees of latitude, Ha- 
 zael had carried on his war of extermination into every peaceful 
 village and home, sparing neither the living nor the unborn. 
 4. And I will send a fire on the house of Hazael. 'Hhcfire 
 is probably at once material fire, whereby cities are burned in 
 war, since he adds, it shall devour the palaces of Benhadad,iind 
 also stands as a symbol of all other severity in war, as in the 
 ancient proverb^", a fire is gone out from Heshbon,aJlamefrom 
 the city of Sihon ; it hath consumed Ar of Moab, the lords of the 
 high places of A Dion ; and again of the displeasure of Almighty 
 God, as when He says ^i, a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and it 
 
 ' Horace. ' Nauraj, probably a corruption from tlie Heb. JilD. The pin and the 
 
 pinniD are plainly tlie same. See the last woodcut in Thomson, The Land, ii. 315, and 
 \\ ilkmson, ii. I'JO. 3 2 Kgs. viii. 12. "lb. x. 32, 3. * lb. xiii. 7. » xx. 26. 
 
 7 xxviii. 28. « 2 Sam.xii. 31. 1 Chr. xx. 3. 
 
 of Hazael, which shall devour the pala- 
 ces of Bcnhadad. 
 
 5 I will break also the 'bar of Damas- 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 1 Jer. 51. 30. 
 Lam. 2. ». 
 
 shall burn unto the lowest hell. For the fire destroys not the 
 natural buildings only, but the house of Hazael, i. e. his whole 
 family. In these prophecies, a sevenfold vengeance by fire is 
 denounced against the seven people,an imageof the eternal fire 
 into which all iniquity shall be cast. 
 
 The palaces of Bcnhadad. Hazael, having murdered Ben- 
 liadad his master and ascended his throne, called his son after 
 his murdered master, probably in ordertoconnect hisown house 
 with the ancient dynasty. Benhadad, i. e. son or worshipper of 
 the idol Hadad, or " the sun," had been the name of two of 
 the kings of the old dynasty. Benhadad III. was at this time 
 reigning. The prophet foretells the entire destruction of the 
 dynasty founded in blood. The prophecy may have had a ful- 
 filment in the destruction of the house of Hazael, with whose 
 family Rezin, tlie king of Syria in the time of Ahaz, stands in 
 no known relation. Defeats, such as those of Benhadad III. 
 by Jeroboam II. who took Damascus itself, are often the close 
 of an usurping dynasty. Having no claim to regard except suc- 
 cess, failure vitiates its only title. The name Hazael, "whom 
 God looked upon,"implies a sort of owning of the One God,like 
 Tab-el, " God is good," El-iada', "whom God knoweth," even a- 
 niid the idolatryinthe names,Tab-Rimmon,"good is Rimmon;" 
 Hadad-ezer, " Hadad is help ;" and Hadad, or Benhadad. Bad 
 men abuse every creature, or ordinance, or appointment of 
 God. It may be then that, as Sennacherib boasted ^-, am I now 
 come up without the Lord against this haul to destroy it f the 
 Lord said unto me. Go up against this land and destroy it ; so 
 Hazael made use of the prophecy of Elisha, to give himself out 
 as the scourge of God, and thought of himself as one "on whom 
 God looked." Knowledge of futurity is an aweful gift. As 
 " Omniscience alone can wield Omnipotence," so superhuman 
 knowledge needs superhuman gifts of wisdom and holiness. 
 Hazael seemingly hardened himself in sin by aid of the know- 
 ledge which should have been his warning. Probably he came 
 to Elisha, with the intent to murder his master already formed, 
 in case he should not die a natural death ; and Elisha read him 
 to himself. But he very probably justified himself to himself 
 in what he had already purposed to do, on the ground that 
 Elisha had foretold to him that he should be king over Sy- 
 ria ^', and, in his massacres of God's people, gave himself out as 
 being,what he was, the instrument of God. "Scourges of God" 
 have known themselves to be what they were, although they 
 themselves were not the less sinful, in sinfully accomplishing 
 the Will of God '*. We have heard of a Christian Emperor, 
 who has often spoken of his " mission," although his "mission" 
 has already cost the shedding of much Christian blood. 
 
 5. / icill also break the bar of Damascus. In the East, 
 every city was fortified ; the gates of the stronger cities were 
 cased in iron, that they might not be set on fire by the enemy ; 
 they were fastened within with bars of brass^^ or iron i^. They 
 were flanked with towers, and built over, so that what was na- 
 turally the weakest point and the readiest access to an enemy 
 became the strongest defence. In Hauran the huge doors and 
 gates of a single stone 9 and 10 feet high ^'', and 1 \ foot thick i*, 
 arc still extant,and"i^the place for the ponderous bars,"propor- 
 tioned to such gates," may yet be seen." The walls were loos- 
 
 5 Josh. xxii. 9. I" Nu. xxi. 28. " Deut. xxxii. 22. '= Is. xxxvi. 10. 
 
 " 2 Kgs. viii. 13. " See on Hos. i. 4. " 1 Kgs. iv. 13. '« Ps. cvii. 16. Is. xlv. 2 ; 
 comp.Is. xlviii. H. Jer. Ii. 30. ■' Bnrckhardt's Syria, 90. quoted in Five years, ii. 201. 
 IS pjyg years, ii. 196.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 159 
 
 Before 
 
 C H K I S T 
 
 cir.787. 
 
 cus, and cut off the inhabitant from 
 
 ened with the battcrini^-ram, or scaled l)y mounds: tlie stroiifj; 
 p:ate was seldom attaekcd; but, when a hreaeli was made, was 
 thrown open from within. 'i"he hrci/aiii^ oF /he hur laid open 
 the city to the enemy, to jjo in and out at his will. Tlio M-hole 
 strenfifth of the kinicdom of Damascus lay in the capital. It 
 was itself the seat of empire and was the empire itself. Clod 
 says then, that He Himself would shiver all tlieir means of re- 
 sistance, whatever eo\ild hinder tiie inroad of the enemy. 
 
 And rut off the i)ili(iliiliuit fr(i)n the plain of Avoi ; Xxt.from. 
 the vale of vdiiitj/, the Bik'ah beini^ a broad vale between hills i. 
 Here it is doubtless the rich and beautiful valley, still called 
 el-bukaa by the Arabs, La Boquea by William of Tyre ", lying; 
 between Lebanon and Anti-libanus, the old Ccele-Syria in its 
 narrowest sense. It is, on hiijb i;round, the continuation of 
 that Ions: deep valley which, alone; the Jordan, the Dead sea, 
 and the Arabab, reaches to the Red Sea. Its extreme length, 
 from its Southern close at Kal'at-esh-sliakif to Hums (E- 
 mesa) has been counted at 7 days journey"'; it narrovvs towards 
 its Southern extremity, expands at its Northern, yet it cannot 
 any how be said to lose its character of a valley until 10 miles 
 N. of Riblab ^ ]Midway,on its hig;best elevation about 38()0 feet 
 above the sea^ was Baalbek, or Heliopolis, whither the Eg;yp- 
 tian worship is said to have been broug'ht of old times from 
 their "(nty of the sun ^." Baalbek, as the ruins still attest, 
 was full of the worship of the sun. But the whole of that 
 beautiful range, "'a magnificent vista," it has been said, "car- 
 peted with verdure and beauty," " ^a gem lying deep in its val- 
 ley of mountains," was a citadel of idolatry. The name Baal- 
 Hermon connects Mount Hermon itself, the snow-capt height 
 wliicb so towers over its S. E. extremity, with the worship of 
 Baal or the sun, and that, from the time (d'tbe Judges'. The 
 name Baal-gad connects the valleij of Lehanon,\. e. most pro- 
 bably the S.end of the greatvalley, with the same worship, ante- 
 rior to Joshua^". The name Baalbek is probably an abbrevia- 
 tion of the old name. Baal-bik'ah^i,"Baalof the valley,"in con- 
 trast witli the neighbouring Baal-hermon. "^-The whole of 
 Hermon was girded with temples." " ^^ Some eight or ten of 
 them cluster round it," and, which is more remarkable, one is 
 built"''to catch the first beams of thesunrising over Hermon;" 
 and temples on its opposite sides face towards it, as a sort of 
 centre^". 1 n S. Jerome's time, the Heathen still reverenced a 
 celebrated temple on its summit ^°. On the crest of its cen- 
 tral peak, 3000 feet above the glen below, in winter inaccess- 
 ible, beholding far asunder the rising and the setting sun on 
 the Eastern desert and in the Western sea, are still seen the 
 
 ' Etymologically, it would mean " cleft." It docs mean a valley, as contrasted with 
 hills, Deut. viii. 7. xi. 11. Is. xl. 4. xli. 18. Ixiii. 14. Ezek. iii. 22,3. It is used of the 
 "valley of the Chebar," incontrastwiththeAiHof TeZ-Abib. As united with proper names, 
 it answers to our " vale," a hroad valley between hills ; as" the vale of Me^iddo," " of Je- 
 richo," " of Mizpeh," " under Hermon," (Jos. xi. 8, 3.) probably the upper part of the 
 valley of the Jordan above the lake Merom (v. 7), along the course of the river Has- 
 bany -, the" vale of Lebanon" being probably the Southern pattof the great Bik'ah, where 
 Baal-gad lay under Hermon (lb. xi. 17), and east of Lebanon (lb. xui. 5). So also pro- 
 bably the " vale of Dura." (Dan. iii. 1.) A long valley, though broad, if seen from a 
 height, looks like a cleft. Iti Arabic, the original force ot the root is altogether lost. In 
 nouns, we have, in ditierent forms, the varying meanings assigned, beka, " a plateau : " 
 bak'a, "low ground, where water stagnates;" baki'a, "a plain." See FreytagLex. Burck- 
 hardt mentions " a broad valley called El Bekka [Bek'a] N. and N. E. of Ssafout[near 
 Amman] at the foot of the mountain on which it stands." Syria, 3()2. - xviii. 17. 
 
 ' Berggren, Guide Franc, .^rab. p. 458. in Ritter, xvii. 154. ■* The " end of the cen- 
 tral ridge of Anti-lebanon." Porter, Handb.p.57S. * See V.deVelde, Memoir, p. 175. 
 ^ (Lucian) de Syria Dea § 5. Macr. Sat. i. 23. Robins, iii. 518. ' Robins, iii. 493. 
 8 lb. 504. J Jud. iii. 3. '" Jos. xi. 17. xii. 7. xiii. 5. 
 
 " The older Eastern names often re-appear, when the Greek names, which their con- 
 querors gave, passed away with themselves. This is not a revival of the old name, but a 
 continuance of it. During the reign of their conquerors, we hear from t\tem the names 
 whi.;h they gave. When they are gone, we hear from the Easterns the old Eastern 
 
 the plain of Aven, and him that hold- 
 
 I Or, liikuth-min. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 foundations of a circular wall or ring of large stones, a rude 
 temple, within which aiiotlicr offJrecian art was siil)sef(uent- 
 ly built '7. '-On three other peaks of the Ant i-libaniis range 
 are ruins of grciitaMti(niity'\" " '"The BukAa and its liorders 
 are full(d"the like buihiirigs." " Lebanon, Anti-lebanon and the 
 valleys between are thronged with ancient temples- ." Some 
 indeed were Grecian, butothersSyro-l'lia'iiician. 'J'he Grecian 
 temples were ])r()bably the revival of Syro-I'lifenician. The 
 "-hnassive substructions of Baalbek are conjectured to have 
 been those of an earlier temple." The new name Ilcliojmlis 
 only substituted the name of the object of worship the sun) 
 for its title Lord. The Ileatlien emperors woidd not have 
 lavished so much and such wondrous cost and gorgeous art on 
 a temple in C(ele-Syria, had not its Pagan celebrity recom- 
 mended it to their superstition or their jjolicy. On the W. 
 side of Lebanon at Afca, (Apheca) was the temple of Venus at 
 the source of theriver Adonis--,a centre of the most hateful Sy- 
 rian idolatry, "-^ a school of misdoing for all profligates." At 
 Heliopolis too,men "-'shamelessly gave their wives and daugh- 
 ters to shame." Theoutburstof Heathenism there in tiie reign 
 of Julian the Apostate" shows how deeply rooted was its ido- 
 latry. Probably then, Amos pronounces the sentence of the 
 people of that whole beautiful vale, as vallci/ of vatiiti/ or ini- 
 quiti/"''', being wholly given to that worst idolatry which de- 
 graded Syria. Here, as the seat of idolatry, the chief judg- 
 ments of God were to fall. Its inhabitants were to be cut off, 
 i.e. utterly destroyed; on the rest, captivity is the only sentence 
 pronounced. The Assyrian nionarchs not unfrcquently put 
 to death those who despised their religion -'', and so may here- 
 in have executed blindly the sentence of God. 
 
 From the house of Eden, a Proper, but significant, name, . 
 " Beth-Edcn,"i.e."houseof pleasure." Thename.like the Eden 
 of Assyria-^, is, in distinction from man's first home,])ronounc- 
 ed eden, not eden -". Two places near, and one in. the Bik'ah 
 have, from similarity of name, been thought to be this " house 
 of delight." 1 . Most beautiful now for situation and climate, is 
 what is probably misjironounced Ehden ; a Maronite Village 
 "2°of 4 or 500 families,on the side of a rich highly-cultivated val- 
 ley" near Beshirrai on the road from Tripolis to the Cedars. 
 Its climate is described as a ten months spring^'; " the hills are 
 terraced up to their summits ;" and every place full of the rich- 
 est, most beautiful, vegetation ; "grain is poured out into the 
 lap of man. and wine into his cup without measure." "The 
 slopes of the valleys, one mass of verdure,are yet more produc- 
 tive than thehills; thesprings of Lebanon gushing down.fresh, 
 
 name which lived on among them. The name Baalbek re-appears in the tenth century 
 in Mohammedan writers (lioh. iii. 524.). But in none but Pagan times would a pag.m 
 name have been given to it. '-' Kobins. iii. 432. " Porter, Handb. 451. 
 
 i* Porter, 452. Stonebenge is said to be built so that thefirst rays of the sun on the longest 
 day fell through the entrance on the altar. '^ lb. 457. Rob. iii. 417,8. 
 
 '5 Euseb. Onom. v. ' Aipixwv. " It is said that on its summit there is a celebrated tem- 
 ple, which is the object of reverence to the Heathen towards Paneas and Libanus." S.Je- 
 rome. S. Hilary also mentions the reverence to Hermon. (or, as he says, worship of it,) uo 
 to his day. in Ps. 133. Ileland, 323. '^ Porter, 454-. 18 lb. and p. 451 . 
 
 " At Kula't ISustra, 1000 feet above " the road, " is a gri.upe of ruined temples, simple in 
 form, and rude in style." Add Rob. iii. 4U.5. " Rob. iii. 4.38. -» lb. 417. 
 
 21 lb. 520. --" Rob. iii. CM. -^ Eus. Vit. Const, iii. 55. lb. -< lb. iii. 58. 
 
 -5 Soz. V. 10. Theod. H. E. iii. 7. Rob. iii. 52. "' It has been conjectured, 
 
 that with the w orship of tlie sun, the Egyptian name for Heliopolis. On, (Light) may 
 have been brought from Egypt, and that, as Ezekiel calls the Heliopolis of Egypt, Jven, 
 vaniiif, for " On," (xxx. 17} and Hosea calls " Beth.el," " Bethaven," (iv. 15. x. 5) so 
 Amos may have called this " the valley of vanity " " for the valley of On." But this is 
 mere conjecture. There is no trace of tlie name " On" in the whole tract. Baalbek must 
 have been an ancient name. -' See authorities in Rawl. Herod, i. 495. -'' 2 Kgs. 
 xix. 12. Is. xxxvii.l2. Ezek. xxvii. 23. =' ^i; not jji'. ^o irby and Mangles, 
 
 Travels in Syria, p. G+. ^' Ritter, Erdk. xvii. lioO. from Roth, Reisein v. Schubert, iii. 
 300 I andM.ib. "It seemed as though the spring never left this country." DelaRoque. 
 
 ?f2
 
 IGO 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst ^th the sceptre from || the house of 
 "■•• 787. Eden : and '" the people of Syria shall 
 
 II Or, lieth-cden. ™ Fulfilled, 2 Kings 16. 9. 
 
 cool and iiu'lodious in every direetiou \" The wealthier fa- 
 milies ofTrij)oli still resort there for summer, " the climate be- 
 ing: tempered bytheproximityof the snow-mountains,the most 
 luxuriant veji;;etation favoured by the soft airs from the sea^." 
 It is still counted "Hhe Paradise of Lebanon." 2. Bcit-el- 
 Janne,lit. "house of Paradise,"isan Arabic translation of Beth- 
 Eden. It "lies under the root of Libanus, [Hermon] gushing- 
 forth clear water, whence," says William of Tyre ^ "it is called 
 'house of pleasure.'" It lies in a narrow valley, where it widens 
 a little, about f of an hour from the plain of Damascus ^, and 
 about 27 miles" from that city on the way from Banias. "^Nu- 
 merous rock-tombs, above and around, bear testimony to the 
 antiquity of the site." It gives its name to the Jennani (Para- 
 dise-river), one of two streams which form the second great 
 river near Damascus, the Awadj. 3. The third, the Paradisus 
 of the GreckSjOne of the three towns of Laodicene*, agrees only 
 accidentally with the Scripture name, since their Paradisus 
 signifies not an earthly Paradise, but a hunting-park. For this 
 the site is well suited ; but in that country so abounding in wa- 
 ter, and of soil so rich that the earth seems ready, on even 
 slight pains of man, to don itself in luxuriant beauty, what 
 probably is the site' of the old Paradisus, is hopelessly barren'". 
 Beth-eden may have been the residence of one of the subordi- 
 nate kings under the king of Damascus, who was to be involved 
 in the ruin of his suzerain ; or it may have been a summer-resi- 
 , dence of the king of Damascus himself, where, in the midst 
 of his trust in his false gods, and in a Paradise, as it were, of 
 delight, God would cut him off altogether. Neither wealth 
 nor any of a man's idols protect against God. As Adam, for 
 sin, was expelled from Paradise, so the rulers of Damascus 
 from the place of their pleasure and their sin. 
 
 ^4)1(1 the people of Syria shall go into captivity. Syria or 
 Aram perhaps already included, under the rule of Damascus, 
 all the little kingdoms on this side of the Euphrates, into which 
 it had been formerly sub-divided. At least, it is spoken of as 
 a whole, without any of the additions which occur in the earlier 
 history, Aram-beth-rehob, Aram-zobah, Aram-Maachah. Be- 
 fore its captivity Damascus is spoken of as the head of Syria '\ 
 
 Into Kir. Kir has been identified I) with the part of Iberia 
 near the river Kur'- which unites with the Araxes, not far from 
 the Caspian, to the North of Armenia ; 2) a city called by the 
 Greeks Kourena^'orKourna on the river Mardus'* in Southern 
 Media;3, acity, Karine'^,the modern Kerend'". Thefirst isthe 
 
 ' Lord Lindsay, Holy Land, p. .355 more fully. - Ritter, ib. 3 Wilson, Lands of the 
 Bible, p. 394. -i xxi. 10, in Gesta Dei per Francos, pp. 1002, .3. He calls it Bedegene. 
 
 * Burckhardt, Syria, pp. 45-7. ^ See Burckhardt, corrected in Five years,!. 313. ^ Por- 
 ter, Handb. p. 449. ^ Ptol. v. 16. 20. ' A monument at its site " near the source of the 
 Orontes" (Straboxvi.2.19.)hashunting-sceneson its four sides. G. Williams, in Smith's 
 Geogr. Diet. v. Orontes. ") " A more dreary and barren situation could scarcely be ima- 
 gined. There is no stream or fountain within miles of it, and the inhabitants were wholly 
 dependant upon wells and cisterns for supply of water." Porter, Handb. p. 577. " Is. 
 vii. 8. '•- Dion. L. :!0. Boch. Phal. iv. 32. '^ptol.vi. 2. '< Boch. Phal. iv. 32. i* Vitr. 
 on Is. xxii. 6. « Ritt. Erdk. ix. .359. 391. '' See in Rawl. Herod, i. 464. 470.473. 475. 
 481.484. 's Is. xxxvii. 38. " The subdual of Armenia by Esarhaddon is mentioned in 
 the cuneiform Inscr.,Rawl. Herod, i. 481. =» See Ritter, x. 584 sqq. 21 Moses Choren. 
 i. 9. Ih. " Gen. X. 11. See Introd. toNahum. -3 Xen. An. iv. 6. Armenia is probably 
 i. q. 'JOilhar-minni, "mountain of Minni," (i. q. Minyas) a name of one portion of Ar- 
 menia (Jer. li. 2"). Aram has only the m in common with Minni. -* A son of Kemuel, 
 Gen. xxii. 21 ; and son of Shemer, 1 Chr. vii. .34. 
 
 -'5 The theory that Aram means " highland," Canaan " lowland," 1) ignores that, in the 
 Bible, thev are the names of men, not of lands. 2) It is contrary to the facts, as they 
 appear in Holy Scripture. The borders of Canaan e.xtended from Zidon Southwards to 
 Gaza, and thence to the S. of the Dead Sea (Gen. x. 19) and, according to their own 
 coins, included Landicea ad Libanum (Ges. Thes. s. v.). Damascus (2400 feet above the 
 sea), the highest place in Aram, was lower than Jerusalem (2010) or Bethlehem (2704) or 
 Raniah(28U0)orHebron(3029) (See V.deVeldeMcmoir,p.l76-80),andthecommon names 
 
 i?o into captivity " unto Kir, saith the 
 Lord. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 ^ ch. 9. 7. 
 
 most likely, as the most known; the Kur is part probably of tiie 
 j)resent name Kurgistan, our " Georgia." Armenia at least, 
 which lay on the South of the River Kur, is frequently men- 
 tioned in the cuneiform inscriptions, as a country where the 
 kings of Assyria warred and conquered '7. The two parricide 
 sons of Sennacherib are as likely to have fled'* to a distant por- 
 tion of their father's empire,as beyondit. Their flight thither 
 may have been the ground of Esarhaddon's war against it ''. 
 It has at all times afi"orded a shelter to those expelled from 
 others' lands-". The doraestic,thoughlate,traditions of theAr- 
 menians count as their first inhabitants some who had fled out 
 of Mesopotamia to escape the yoke of Bel, king of Babylon -'. 
 Whatever be the value of particular traditions, its mountain- 
 valleys form anaturalrefugeto fugitives. Onoccasion of some 
 such oppression, as that from which Asshur fled before Nim- 
 rod", Aram may have been the first of those who took shelter 
 in the mountains of Armenia and Georgia, and thence spread 
 themselves, where we afterwards find them, in the lowlands 
 of Mesopotamia. The name Aram however is in no way con- 
 nected with Armenia, which is itself no indigenous name of 
 that country, but was probably formed by the Greeks, from a 
 name which they heard -^. The name Aram, "lofty," obvious- 
 ly describes some quality of the son of Shem, as of others 
 who bore the name-*. Contrariwise, Canaan, (whether or no 
 anticipating his future degraded character as partaking in the 
 sin of Ham) may signify " crouching." But neither has Aram 
 any meaning of " highland," nor Canaan of " lowland," as 
 has of late been imagined ^^. 
 
 From Kir the forefathers of the Syrians had, of their own 
 will,been brought by the good all-disposingProvidenceof God; 
 to Kir should the Syrians, against their will, be carried back. 
 Aram of Damascus had been led to a land which, for its fer- 
 tility and beauty, has been and is still praised as a sort of Pa- 
 radise. Now, softened as they were by luxury, they were to be 
 transported back to the austerethoughhealthy climate, whence 
 they had come. They had abused the might given to them by 
 God, in the endeavour to uproot Israel ; now they were them- 
 selves to be utterly uprooted. The captivity which Amos fore- 
 tells is complete;acaptivityby which(asthewordmeans''^) the 
 land should be bared of its inhabitants. Such a captivity he 
 foretells of no other, except the ten tribes. He foretells it ab- 
 solutely of these two nations alone "'', of the king and princes 
 of Ammon -^, not of Tyre, or the cities of Philistia, or Edom, 
 
 of Aram, "plain of Aram,"" field of Aram, "(Padan Aram, Sedeh Aram,) "Aram between 
 the two rivers," (Aram Naharaim) all agree in describing a flat country. Aram Naharaim 
 or Mesopotamia is only about 435 Eng. feet above the sea (408 Fr. feet Ritter, viii. 16) i. e. 
 i of the height of Jerusalem. Heights are spoken of once in connection with Aram(/ro™ 
 Aram, from the mounlauis of the East Nu. xxiii. 7) and Mesopotamia is boimded on the 
 N. by Mt. Masius, but it is itself a plain. 3) The root from which the word Canaan is de- 
 rived has in no case the sense of physical depression. Its very varied Arabic meanings 
 centre in that of " contracted ;" thence "bowed," bowed towards, " i.e. was submissive," 
 " wasftfw/upona thing." In Hebrew it is used of wares"compressed,"" packed together;" 
 ofbowing down an enemy, or one'sself in submission. 4) For the real lowland of Canaan, 
 that near the coast (from Joppa to Gaza) there is a specific term , nSBB', " the low," which 
 occurs in the first detailed descriptions of Canaan in Joshua, isthe received Hebrew word, 
 thence passed into Greek, n ££<J»j\a 1 Mace. xii.38,of which Eusebius says "and it is yet 
 called Sephela. This is tlie whole low country, N. and \V. around Eleutheropolis." (O- 
 nom. See Reland, p. .307, add 372) whence the Carthaginians carried it to Spain, (Seville) 
 with many other names (See Movers, Phoenic. iii. 640,1.). It is used also of that same 
 part of Palestine by Arabic authors. 
 
 The idea then that Canaan is used for lowland, as contrasted with Aram, highland, is 
 contrary to the fact (in that Aram mostly was low, Canaan, high), contrary to the meaning of 
 the word (which is never used in this sense, for which another word is employed), contrary' to 
 the simple sense of Scripture, where the names are originally those of the fathers of the races 
 who lived in those countries. "* n^j. -' See below as to Israel, or its rich men, 
 
 V. 5, 27.vi. 7. vii. 11, 17. ^s i. 15.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 101 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 6 ^ Thus saith the Lord ; For three 
 
 or Amnion, or Moab. Tlie punishment did not reach Syria in 
 those days, but in those of Rezin who also oppressed Jinhiii. 
 The sin not beinij cut otfjthepunishnienttiio was iianded (h>wn. 
 Tiglath-pileser carried them away, alxmt fifty years after tiiis, 
 and slew Rezin'^. In regard to these two nations, Amos fore- 
 tells the captivity absolutely. Yet at this time, there was no 
 human likelihood, no ground, except of a Divine knowledge, 
 to predict it of these two nations especially. They went into 
 captivity too long after this for human foresight to predict it ; 
 yet long enough before the captivity of Judah for the fulfilment 
 to have impressed Judah if they would. The transportation 
 of whole populations, which subsequently became part of the 
 standing policy of the Persian and of the later Assyrian Em- 
 pires, was not, as far as we know, any part of Eastern policy 
 at the time of the prophet. Sesostris, the Egyptian conquer- 
 or, some centuries before Amos, is related to have brought to- 
 gether "^many men," " a crowd," from the nations whom he 
 had subdued, and to have employed them on his buildings and 
 canals. Even this account has received no support from the 
 Egyptian monuments, and the deeds ascribed by the Greeks 
 to Sesostris have been supposed ^ to be a blending of those of 
 two monarchs of the xix. Dynasty, Sethos I. and Raamses II., 
 interwoven with those of Ousartesen III. (Dynasty xii.) and 
 Tothmosis III. (Dyn. xviii.) But the carrying away of any 
 number of prisoners from fields of battle is something altoge- 
 ther different from the political removal of a nation. It had in 
 it nothing systematic or designed. It was but the employment 
 of those whom war hadthrowninto their hands, as slaves. The 
 Egyptian monarchs availed themselvesof this resource, to spare 
 the labour of their native subjects in their great works of utility 
 or of vanity. But the prisoners so employed were but a slave 
 population, analogous to those who, in other nations, laboured 
 in the mines or in agriculture. They employed in the like way 
 the Israelites,whom they had received peacefully. Their earli- 
 er works were carried on by native labour*. After Tothmosis 
 III., in whose reign is the first representation of prisoners em- 
 ployed in forced labour", they could, during their greatness, 
 spare their subjects. They imported labour, not by slave trade, 
 but through war. Nubia was incorporated with Egypt ^, and 
 Nubian prisoners were, of course, employed, not in their own 
 country but in the Northof Egypt; Asiatic prisoners in Nubia'^. 
 But they were prisoners made in a campaign, not a popula- 
 tion ; a foreign element in Egyptian soil, not an interchange 
 of subject-populations. Doubtless, the mixed multitude^, 
 which tuent up ivith Israel from Egypt, were in part these Asi- 
 atic captives, who had been subjected to the same hard bond- 
 age. The object and extent of those forced transportations by 
 the later Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians were altogether 
 different. Here the intention was to remove the people from 
 their original seat, or at most to leave those only who, from 
 their fewness or poverty, would be in no condition to rebel. 
 The cuneiform inscriptions have brought before us, to a great 
 extent, the records of the Assyrian conquests,as given by their 
 kings. But whereas the later inscriptions of Sargon, Senna- 
 cherib, Esarhaddon, mention repeatedly the deportation of po- 
 
 ' 2 Kgs. xvi. 9. - Herod, ii. 107,8. 
 
 3 Brugsch, Hist, del' Eg. c. S.p. 153. ■• See lb. p. 35, 51, 2, 68, 9. The first men- 
 tion which we have as yet of numerous captives is in the victory in Mesopotamia bv Toth- 
 mosis I. (lb. 90.) » See in Brugsch, p. 100. « lb. pp. 8, 9. ' Ib.'p. 154. 
 
 s Ex. xii. 38. s Fox Talbot, Assyrian texts translated, p. 22, 24, &c. 
 
 '" So also the Egyptian inscriptions, in remarkable conformity with the account given 
 by the priests to Germanicus, " There were read also the tributes imposed on the nations, 
 
 transgressions of " Gaza, and for four, 1 chkTst 
 
 » 2 Chr. 28. 18. Is. U. 29. Jer. 47. 4, 5. Ezek. 25. 15. Zeph. 2. 4. <='■•■ "^7. 
 
 puIations,the earlier annalsofAsshurdanipal or Asshurakbbal 
 relat(! the carrying offof soldiers only as prisoners, and woiiien 
 as captives'-'. Tiiey mciitiini also receiving slaves as tribute. the 
 number of oxen and sbeep, tin; goods and possessi<jns and the 
 gods of the people which they carry off'". Else the king relates, 
 how he crucified or ini]»aled or put to death'-' men at arms or 
 the people generally, but in no one of his expeditions does he 
 mention any deportation. Often as modern writers iis.sume, 
 that the transportation of nations was part of the lifrcdifary 
 policy of the Monarchs of Asia, no instances l)efore tbi- jicrioil 
 have been found. It appears to have been a later jiolicy, fir»t 
 adopted by Tiglatb-pileser towards Damascus and East and 
 North Palestine, but foretold by the Prophet long before it was 
 adopted. It was the result probably <if experience, that they 
 could not keep these nations in dependence upon tlicniselvcs 
 while they left them in their old abodes. As far as our know- 
 ledge reacheSjthe prophet foretold the removal of these people, 
 at a time when no instance of any such removal had occurred. 
 6. Gaza was the Southernmost city of the Philistines, as 
 it was indeed of Canaan ^i of old, the last inhabited place at 
 the beginning of the desert, on the way from Phrenicia to E- 
 gypt'-. Its situation was wonderfully chosen, so that, often as 
 a Gaza has been destroyed, a new city has, if even after long 
 intervals, risen up again in the same immediate neighbour- 
 hood^-'. The fragments of the earlier city became materials 
 for the later. It was first Canaanite ^^ ; then Philistine ; then, 
 at least after Alexander, Edomite^* ; after Alexander Janneus, 
 Greek^^; conquered by Abubekr the first Khalif, it became A- 
 rabian ; it was desolated in their civil wars, until the Crusa- 
 ders rebuilt its fort'^; then again, jMohammedan. In the earli- 
 est times, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ga- 
 za was the S. angle of the border of the Canaanites, whence 
 it turned to the S. of the Dead Sea. Even then it was known 
 by its name of strength, 'Azzah "the strong," like our '• Fort." 
 For a time, it stood as an island-fort, while the gigantic race 
 of the Awim wandered, wilder probably than the modern Be- 
 daween, tcp to its very gates. For since it is said^". the Aivim 
 dwelt in open villages^^ as far as Gaza, plainly they did not 
 dwell in Gaza itself, a fortified town. The description assigns 
 the bound of their habitations, up to the furthest town on the 
 S.E., Gaza. They prowled around it, infested it doubtless,but 
 did not conquer it, and were themselves expelled by the Caph- 
 torim ^''. The fortress of the prince of Gaza is mentioned in 
 the great expeditionofTothmosisIII.^^as the conquestofAsh- 
 kelon was counted worthy of mention in the monuments of 
 Raamses II -°. It was strengthened doubtless by giving re- 
 fuge to the Anakim, who, after Joshua had expelled Xhemfmm 
 Hebron and neighbouring cities, and the nwiaitains of Judah 
 and Israel, remained in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod-^. Its 
 situation, as the first station for land-commerce to and from E- 
 gypt, whether towards Tyre and Sidon. or Damascus and the 
 upperEuphrates,ortowards Petra.probablyaggrandised it ear- 
 ly. Even when the tide of commerce has been diverted into 
 other channels, its situation has been a source of great profit. 
 Afertile spot,touchingupou atrackthrough adesert,it became 
 
 the weight of silver and gold, the number of arms and horses, and gifts to the temples, 
 ivory and incense, and what quantity of corn and all utensils each nation paid, on a scale 
 not less magnificent than is now prescribed by the violence of the Parthians or the power 
 of the Romans." Tac. Ann. ii. 00. "Gen.x.l9. '- Arr. ii. 27. " See further on 
 Zeph.ii.4. '* .Alexander repeopled it from its own neighbourhood. i» Jos. Ant. 
 xvii.11.4. 16 Will. Tyre. xvii. 12. '' Deut.ii.23. '* t:-in "9 Brugsch, Hist, 
 de r Eg. p. 96. -" lb. p. 146. =' Josh. xi. 21-23.
 
 162 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 CHinsT ^^'" ""* *"**" away the punishment there- 
 cir. 787. of; because they || carried away captive 
 
 ^iedlh'em tlic wliole captivity, v to deliver them up 
 TJXe' toEdom: 
 
 captivity, 2 Cluon. 21. 16, 17. Joel 3. 6. P ver.9. 
 
 a mart for caravans, even those which passed, on the pilp^rim- 
 route to Wckka, uniting traffic with their reliijion. Where the 
 five cities are named together as unconqiiered,Gaza is mention- 
 ed first, then Ashdod ^ Samson, after he liad betrayed his 
 strengtli, was brought down to Gaza -, probably as being their 
 strongest fortress, although the furthest from thevalle]/ of So- 
 rek^, where he was ensnared. There too was the vast tem- 
 ple of Dagon, which became tlie burying-place of so many of his 
 worshippers. In Solomon's reign it was subject to Israel*. 
 After the Philistine inroad in the time of Ahaz ^, and their 
 capture of towns of Judah in the south and the low country, 
 Shephelah •*, Hezekiah drove them back as far as Gaza', with- 
 out apparently taking it. Its prince was defeated by Sargon ', 
 whose victory over Philistia Isaiah foretold". Sennacherib 
 gave to its king, together with those of Ascalon and Ekron i", 
 "• fortified and other towns which " he "• had spoiled," avowed- 
 ly to weaken Judah ; "so as to make his (Hezekiali's) country 
 small;" probably also as a reward for hostility to Judah. 
 Greek authors speak of it, as "a very large city of Syria ^'," 
 " a great city i-." Like other cities of old, it was, for fear of 
 pirates, built at some distance from the sea (Arrian says "2| 
 miles").but had a port called, like that of Ascalon^^, Maiuma^*, 
 which itself too in Christian times became a place of im- 
 portance ^^. 
 
 Because they carried away the rchole captivity ; lit. a com- 
 plete captivity; completc.but for evil; a captivity in which none 
 were spared, none left behind ; old or young, woman or child ; 
 but a whole population (whatever its extent) was swept 
 away. Such an inroad of the Philistines is related in the 
 time of Jehoram ^^. 
 
 To deliver thein up to Edom ; lit. to shut them up to Edom, 
 in the power of Edom, their bitter enemy, so that they should 
 not be able to escape. nor be restored. Thebands,evenif notthe 
 land, of Edom were already dyed in the blood of Jacob ^' their 
 brother. "Any whither but there," probably would cry the 
 crowd of helpless captives. It was like driving the shrinking 
 flock of sheep to the butcher's shambles, reeking with the gore 
 of their companions. Yet therefore were they driven there to 
 the slaughter. Open markets there were for Jewish slaves in 
 abundance. "Sell us, only not to slaughter." "Spare the grey- 
 headed ; " " spare my child," would go up in the ears of those, 
 who, though enemies, understood their speech. But no ! Such 
 was the compact of Tyre and Philistia and Edom against the 
 people of God. Not one was to be spared ; it was to be a com- 
 plete cujjtivity ; and that, to Edom. The bond was fulfilled. 
 Whoso stoppcth his ears at the cry of the poor, he too shall cry 
 and shall not be heard '**. Joel mentions the like sin of the Phi- 
 listines and Phosnicians, and foretold its punishment ". That 
 in the reign of Jehoram is the last which Scripture mentions, 
 but was not therefore, of necessity or probably, the last. Holy 
 Scripture probably relates only the more notable of those bor- 
 der-raids. Unrepented sin is commonly renewed. Those 
 
 ' Josh.xiii.3. 2 Jud.xvi.21. ^ lb. 4. Its situation was marked in S. Jerome's 
 
 time, by a "village" named from it " Capharsorech," village of Sorech, " N. of Eleuthe- 
 ropolis near Saraa [Zorah Jud. xiii. 2.] whence Samson was." de loc. Hebr. ■• 1 K.iv.21. 
 
 ' 2Chr.xxviii.l8. « Seeab. p. UiU.note 25. 7 2 Kgs. x\'iii. 8. " Raw). Her. i. 473. 
 from Cuneif. Inscr. Sxiv.29. '" Cuneif. Inscr. in Layard.Nin. & B. p. 144. '• Plut. 
 Alex. 25. '-'Arr.l.c. Mela (i. ll)calls it " large and well fortified." '» See Reland, 
 ]). 530, and note 2. " lit. " Place on the sea " (in Egyptian), QuatremJre in Ritt. xvi. CO. 
 
 7 iBut I will send a fire on the wall of cifuTsT 
 Gaza, which shall devour the palaces "''"• ''^^- 
 thereof: 
 
 8 And I will cut off the inhabitant ' from 'ie?h.'l.'5%. 
 
 strong Philistine fortresses must have given frequent, abun- 
 dant opportunity for such inroads; as now too it is said in Ara- 
 bia, " the harvest is to the stronger ; " and while small protect- 
 ed patches of soil in Lebanon, Hauran, &c. are cultivated, the 
 open fertile country often lies uncultivated '^'', since it would be 
 cultivated only for the marauder. Amos renews the sentence 
 of Joel, forewarning them that, though it seemed to tarry, 
 it would come. 
 
 7. But ; lit. and. Thus had Gaza done, and thus would 
 God do ; / ivill send a fire upon Gaza. The sentence on Gaza 
 stands out, probably in that it was first in power and in sin. It 
 was the merchant-city of the five; the caravans parted from it 
 or passed through it; and so this sale of the Jewish captives was 
 ultimately efl'ected through them. First in sin, first in punish- 
 ment. Gaza was strong by nature and by art. "The access 
 to it also," Arrian notices -^, " lay through deep sand." We do 
 not hear of its being taken, except in the first times of Israel 
 under the special protection of God -^, or by great conquerors. 
 All Philistia, probably, submitted to David ; we hear of no spe- 
 cial conquest of its towns-'. Its siege cost Alexander 2 months^, 
 with all the aid of the engines with which he had taken Tyre, 
 and the experience which he had there gained. The Egyptian 
 accounts state, that when besieged by Tothmosis III. it capitu- 
 lated^*. Thenceforth, it had submitted neither to Egypt nor 
 Assyria. Yet Amos declared absolutely, that Gaza should be 
 destroyed by fire, and it was so. Sennacherib first, then, after 
 Jeremiah had foretold anew the destruction of Gaza, Ashkelon, 
 and the Philistines, Pharaoh Necho smote Gaza -^. Yet who, 
 with human foresight only, would undertake to pronounce the 
 destruction of a city so strong ? 
 
 8. And Iiuill cut off' the inhabitant from Ashdod. Ashdod, 
 as well as Ekron, have their names from their strength ; Ash- 
 dod, "the mighty," like Valentia; Ekron, " the firm-rooted." 
 The title of Ashdod implied that it was powerful to inflict as to 
 resist. It may have meant, "the waster." It too was emi- 
 nent in its idolatry. The ark, when taken, was first placed in 
 its Dagon-temple-^; and, perhaps, in consequence, its lord is 
 placed first of the five, in recounting the trespass-ofl'erings 
 whichthey sent to the Lord-*. Ashdod(Azotus in the N. T. now 
 a village, Esdud or Shdood-^,) lay 34 or 36 miles from Gaza*", 
 on the great route from Egypt Northward, on that which now 
 too is most used even to Jerusalem. Ashkelon lay to the left 
 of the road, near the sea, rather more than half-way. Ekron 
 ( Akir, now a village of 50 mud-houses '\) lay a little to the right 
 
 ,of the road North-ward from Gaza to Lydda (in the same lati- 
 tude as Jamnia, Jabneel) on the road from Ramleh to Beit Jib- 
 rin (Eleutheropolis). Ekron,the furthest from the sea,lay only 
 15 miles from it. They were then a succession of fortresses, 
 strong from their situation, which could molest any army, 
 which should come along their coast. Transversely, in regard 
 to Judah, they enclosed a space parallel to most of Judah and 
 Benjamin. Ekron, which by God's gift was the Northern line 
 
 'SSoz. V.3. >s 2 Chr. xxi. 16. '7 Joel iii. 19. " Pr. xxi. 13. '» iii. 4, 6. 
 -° See e.g. Five years in Damasc.ii. 175. -'I.e. -- Jud. i. 1, 2, 18. 23 2 Sam. viii. 1. 
 ■* Jos. Ant. xi. 8. 4. Artian's description of the siege implies a longer time. 
 •^ " He entered this place by combat by force and by convention," Karnac Inscr. in 
 Brugsch, p. 96, after Birch. "« Jer. xlvii. 1. =" 1 Sam. v. 1-7. ^8 Jb. yj. 17, 
 
 ■'> Kinnear, Kairo. &c. p. 214. Ali bey, " Zedoud." Travels, ii. 208. Ritt. xvi. 90. 
 '" Reland,p.G(J8. fromltin. Anton, and Hieros. and Diod. Sic. ^i Porter, Handb. 275
 
 CHAPTER [. 
 
 103 
 
 CHRIST Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre 
 cir.787. from Ashkelon, and I will » turn mine hand 
 
 • Ps. 81. 14. 
 
 of Judah ^, is about the same latitude as Raniah in Benjamin; 
 Gaza, the same asCarmel (Kurmul). From Gaza laya straifi^ht 
 road to Jerusalem ; but Ashkelon too, Ashdod, and I'^ikrou lay 
 near the heads of valleys, which ran uj> to the hill-couMtry near 
 Jerusalem'-. This system of rieh valleys, in which, either by 
 artificial irrijjationor naturalabsorption,thestreamswhieli ran 
 from themountainsof. I lulali westward fertilised the corn-fields 
 of Philistia, afibrdcd equally a ready approach to Philistine 
 marauders into the very heart of Judah. The Crusaders had 
 to crown with castles the heijrhts in adistant circle around Ash- 
 kelon^, in order to restrain the incursions of the Mohamme- 
 dans. On such occasions doubtless, the same man-stealinac 
 was often practised on lesser scales, which here, on a largjer 
 scale,draws down the sentenceof God. Gath,much further in- 
 land, probably formed a centre to which these maritime towns 
 conver!::ed, and united their system of inroads on Judah. 
 
 These five cities of Philistia had each its own petty king: 
 (Seren, our "axle"). But all formed one whole; all debated and 
 acted tog;ether on any great occasion ; as in the plot against 
 Samson ^, the sacrifice to Dagon in triumph over him, where 
 they perished ^ ; the inflictions on account of the ark"; the 
 great attack on Israel, which God defeated, atMizpeh; the bat- 
 tle when Saul fell, and the dismissal of David^. The cities divi- 
 ded their idolatry also, in a manner, between them, Ashdod be- 
 ing the chief seat of the worshipof Dagon^,Ashkclon,of thecor- 
 responding worship of Derceto ^° the fish-goddess, the symbol 
 of the passive principle in re-production. Ekron was the seat 
 of tiie worship of Baalzebub and his oracle,whenee he is called 
 "the god of Ekron^i." Gaza, even after it had become an abode 
 of Greek idolatry and had seven temples of Greek gods, still re- 
 tained its worshipof its godMarna ("our Lord") as the chief ^-. 
 It too was probably " nature ^^," and to its worship they were 
 devoted. All these cities were as one ; all formed one state ; 
 all were one in their sin; all were to be one in their punishment. 
 So then, for greater vividness, one partof the common infliction 
 is related of each, while in fact, according to the wont of Pro- 
 phetic diction, what is said of each is said of all. King and 
 people were to be cut off from all ; all were to be consumed 
 with fire in war; on all God would, as it were, turn {Yit. br>)ig 
 hack) His Hand, visiting them anew, and bringing again the 
 same punishment upon them. In truth, these destructions 
 came upon them, again and again, through Sargon, Hezekiah, 
 Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, the Maccabees. 
 
 Ashdod. Uzziah about this time hi-ake down its walls and 
 built cities about ^* it, to protect his people from its inroads. 
 It recovered, and was subsequently besieged and taken by Tar- 
 tan, the Assyrian General under Sargon^'' (about B.C. 716). 
 Somewhat later, it sustained the longest siege in man's know- 
 ledge, for 29 years, from Psanimetichus ^^ king of Egypt (about 
 B.C.635). Whence probably, Jeremiah,wliile he speaks of Ash- 
 
 ' Josh. XV. 11. - Aslikelon.atthelieadoi'WadiSimsim whichjoinsontothe Wadyel 
 Hasyand drains all the country round Beit Jibiin and Tel-es-Safieh(Rob.ii..l8,9)\vhicli 
 reaches on beyond Ajjar (Ritt. xvi. 08) near Yarmuth. Ashdod, at the head ofthe val- 
 ley called from it, meeting the valley ofAshkelon at Beit Jibrin. (Ritt.91.) Ekron near the 
 Wady-es-Surar, the trunk ofthe system of valleys in N. Philistia, reaching on into the 
 mountains of Judah, and rainifying greatly. (Ritt. 102, 3.) 
 
 3 viz. Blanche Garde, Tel-es-Satieh. (Robinson, ii. 31,32.) South of this, Beit-Jibrin 
 (Eleutheropolis) on the road from Gaza; (Rob. ii. 28, 9. This was fortified by the Turks 
 probably to restrain Bedaween incursions, as late as A.D . 1551. Robins. lb. 25.) Castellum 
 Arnaldi at Beit Nube on the Raraleh road to Jerusalem, (Ritter, xvi. 92, 3) and Ibelin 
 (Jamnia, orYebna) on the North. (Rob. lb. 66. note 6.) ■• Jud.xvi. 5, 8, 18. 
 
 * lb. 23, 27,30. 61Sam.v.8,ll.vi.4,12,16,lS. 7 Ib.vii.7. « Ib.xxxi. 2,6, 7. 
 lChr.xii.l9. » Seep. 162. i" Herod.i. 105. Diod.ii. 4. " 2 Kgs. i.2,3, 16. 
 
 '= Vit. S. Porph. Gaz. c. 9. (in Act. Sanct. t. 655.) Rel. p. 793. See also S. Jer. in Is. 
 
 au^ainst Ekron: and 'the remnant of the cinu'sT 
 Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. "'■ ''w. 
 
 ' Jer. 47. 4. Ezek. 25. 16. 
 
 on, Gaza, Ekron, mentions the remnant of Ashdod^'' only, 
 t, after the captivity.it seems to have been the first I'hilistine 
 
 kelon, 
 
 Yet,afrertne cap 
 city, so thatthe Philistines were called Ashdodites '^ and their 
 dialect Aslidodite ''. 'I'licy were still hostile to the Jews"*. The 
 war,iii which Judas Maccaba-us sjioiled Ashdod and r)ther i'hi- 
 listine ('ities-", was a defensive war against a war of extermi- 
 nation. "Thenationsroundal)out-'," it is said at the beginning 
 ofthe ac'count of that year's('am|)aign, "thought to destroythe 
 generation of Jacob that was among them, and thereiiiion they 
 began to slay and destroy the people." Jonatlian, the brother 
 of Judas, " set fire to Azotns and the cities round about it --," 
 after a battle under its walls, to which his enemies had chal- 
 lenged bin). The temple of Dagon in it was a sort of citadel ". 
 
 Ashkelon is mentioned as a place of strength, taken by the 
 great conqueror,RaamsesIl. Its resolute defence and capture 
 are represented, with its name as a city of Canaanites, cm a 
 monument of Karnae-*. Its name most naturally siirnifies, 
 "hanging." This suits very well with the site of its present ru- 
 ins, which "hang" on the side of the theatre or arc of hills, 
 whose base is the sea. This, however, probably was not its an- 
 cient site-^ Its name occurs in the wars of the Maecabees,but 
 rather as submitting readily"''. Perhaps the inhabitants had 
 been changed in the intervening period. Antipater, the E- 
 domite father of Herod, ('ourted, we are told-'', "the Arabs and 
 the Ascalonites and the Gazitcs." "Towards the Jews their 
 neighbours, the inhabitants ofthe Holy Land," Philo says-** to 
 the Roman emperor, "the Ascalonites have an irreconcilable a- 
 version, which will come to no terms." This abiding hatred^' 
 burst out at the beginning of thewarwith theRomans,in which 
 Jerusalem perished. The Ascalonites massacred 25(J(J Jews 
 dwelling among themS". The Jews "fired Asealon and ut- 
 terly destroyed Gaza'^^" 
 
 Ekron was apparently not important enough in itself, to 
 have any separate history. We hear of it only as given by Alex- 
 ander Balas " with the borders thereof in possession-^-" to Jo- 
 nathan the Maceabee. The valley of Surar gave the Ekron- 
 ites a readier entrance into the centre of Judaea, than Asealon 
 or Ashdod had. In S.Jerome's time, it had sunk to ''a very 
 large village." 
 
 The residtie of the Philistijies shall perish. This has been 
 thought to mean the rest ^% i. e. Gath, (not mentioned by name 
 any more as having ceased to be of any account^*) and the 
 towns, dependent on those chief cities ^°. The common (and, 
 with a proper name, universal^") meaning of the idiom is, the 
 remnant, those who remain over after a first destruction. The 
 words then, like those just before, / iril/ bring again My hand 
 agaijtst Ekron, foretell a renewal of those first judgments. 
 The political strength which should survive one desolation 
 should be destroyed in those which should succeed it. In tacit 
 contrast \\\t\\ the promises of mercy to the remnant of Judah'", 
 
 17. Ep.adLa-t. " See Movers, Phcen.i. pp. 062.3. " 2 Chr.xxvi. 6. i^Is.xx.l. 
 
 " Herod, ii. 157. '' Jer. xxv. 20. i«Xeh.iv.7. "Ib.xiii.24. =<> IMacc.v.OS. 
 
 =ilb.l,2. ™ lb. x.82,4. =3 ib. 83. =J Brugsch, Hist.del'Eg. p. IW. 
 
 -» Seeoii Zeph.ii.4. =« 1 Mace. x.86. xi.OO. =7 Jos. Ant.xiv. 1. 3. 
 
 ■-^Leg. adCai.p.l021. Rel.p.5S7. =» Jos. B. J. iii. 2.2. 3o lb. ii. 18.5. 
 
 " Ib.l. This occurred first, unless the account be a summary. ^- 1 Mace. x. 89. 
 
 3^ as in Jer. xxsix.3. Nell. vii. 72. ^* See on ."Vni. ri. 2. ^5 So S. Jer. Theod. 
 
 '^ as,"theremn.intof Judah," Jer.xl.l5.xUi.l5.xliv.2S ; "the remnant of Jerusalem," 
 Jer. xxiv. 8 ; "the remnant of Israel," Is.xlvi.3. Jer. vi. ".•.xxxi.7. Ez.ix. S.^Iic. ii. 12 ; 
 " of Jacob," Mic. v. 6, 7,(7,8 Eng.); " the remnant of the house of Judah," Zeph. ii. 7; 
 " the remnant of Mme inheritance," 2 K. xxi. 14 ; " of My flock," Jer. xxiii. 3 ; " the rem- 
 nant which is left," Is. xxxvii. 4 ; "go forth a remnant," lb. 32; "of .Moab," Is. xv. 9; 
 "of Philistia," Is. xiv. .30; and in Amos himself, "the remnant of Joseph," v. 15; "the 
 remnant of Edom,"ix. 12. '" See ab. on Joel ii. 32.
 
 164 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst 9 % Thus saith the Lord; For three 
 _cirw87_ transgressions of " Tyrus, and for four, 1 
 
 " Jer"47^4. ^ill Hot tum away the punishment thereof; 
 ?7^ &■"? ' ''^ ^ because they delivered up the whole cap- 
 
 X ^T'g^' ''^' tivity to Edom, and remembered not f the 
 
 1^ Hei). /;,,• j,i-otherly covenant ; 
 
 coverintit or , , , i- c 1 c, o 1 1 1A 
 
 brethre,,, 2 Sam. 5. 11. 1 K.nss 5. 1. & 9. 11-14. 
 
 Amos foretells that judgement after judgment should fall upon 
 Philistia, until the Philistines ceased to be any more a people ; 
 
 as thev did. , . , . , 
 
 9. The last crowning sin, for which judgment is pronounc- 
 ed on Tvrc, is the same as that of Philistia, and probably was 
 enacted" ill concert with it. In Tyre, there was this aggrava- 
 tion, that it was a violation of a previous treaty and friendship. 
 It was not a covenant only, nor previous friendliness only ; but 
 a specific covenant, founded on friendship which they forgat 
 and brake. If they retained the memory of Hiram's inter- 
 course with David and Solomon, it was a sin against light too. 
 After David had expelled the Jebusites from Jerusalem i, Hi- 
 ram king of Tiire sent messengers to David, and cedar-trees and 
 carpenters anil masons; and tliei/ hnilt David a house. The Phi- 
 listines contrariwise invaded him -. This recognition of him 
 by Hiram was to David a proof, that the Lord had established 
 him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for 
 His people Israel's sake. Hiram seems, then, to have recog- 
 nised something super-human in the exaltation of David. Hi- 
 ram icas ever a lover of David *. This friendship he continued 
 to Solomon, and recognised his God as the God. Scripture 
 embodies the letter of Hiram = ; Because the Lord hath loved His 
 people. He hath made thee king over them. Blessed he the Lord 
 God of Israel, that made heaven and earth,who hath given toDa- 
 vid a wise son — that he inight build an house for the Lord. He 
 must have known then the value which the pious Israelites 
 attached to the going up to that temple. A later treaty, of- 
 fered by Demetrius Nicator to Jonathan, makes detailed pro- 
 vision that the Jews should have "^the feasts and sabbaths and 
 new moons and the solemn days and the three days before the 
 feast and the three days after tbe feast, as days of immunity 
 and freedom." The three days before the feast were given, that 
 they might go up to the feast. Other treaties guarantee to the 
 Jews religious privileges^. A treaty between Solomon and Hi- 
 ram, which should not secure any religious privileges needed 
 by Jews in Hiram's dominion,is inconceivable. But Jews were 
 living among the Zidonians ^. The treaty also, made between 
 Hiram and Solomon, was subsequent to tbe arrangement by 
 which Hiram was to supply cedars to Solomon, and Solomon 
 to furnish the corn of which Hiram stood in need ^. The Lord 
 gave Solomon wisdom, as He promised him^°; and, as a fruit of 
 that wisdom, there rvas peace bettveen Hiram and Solomon ; and 
 they two made a covenant^^. The terms of that covenant are 
 not there mentioned ; but a covenant involves conditions. It 
 was not a mere peace; but a distinct covenant, sanctioned by 
 religious rites and by sacrifice^^. This brotherly covenant Tyre 
 remembered not, when they delivered up to Edom a complete 
 captivity, all the Jews who came into their hands. It seems, 
 then, that that covenant had an especial provision against sell- 
 ing them away from their own land. This same provision other 
 
 i2Sam.v.ll. 2Ib.l7. 3ib.l2. ■'IKgs.v.l. ^ iChr.n.U. Hiram ariswered 
 in writing, which he sent to Solomon. ^ 1 Mace. x. 34, Jos. Ant. xiii. 2.3. ^ 1 Mace. 
 xi. 34. Jos. Ant. xiii. 4. 9. renewed to Simon, 1 Mace. xiii. 35-40. * See on Joeliii.6. 
 
 9 lKgs.v.7-11. '"lb. 12. 11 Pi'iDimD- 12 Straboxii.3,4. "This too is said 
 that the Milesians who first founded Heraclea constrained the Mariandyni.who possessed 
 it before, to act as serfs, and to be liable even to be sold by them, id^ not befjond their bor- 
 ders(for they covenanted as to this), in likeway as the so-called Mnoan-union became serfs 
 
 10 y But I will send a fire on the wall chkTst 
 of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces "'''■ "^^- 
 
 . 1 e ' ver. 4, 7, &c. 
 
 thereoi. . js. 21! li. 
 
 11 •[[ Thus saith the Lord; For three 3erA9.'s,&c. 
 transgresions of ''Edom, and for four, 1 fs^'iV^'^'' 
 will not turn away the punishment thereof; fj^^'i.'v/.' 
 
 Chad. l,&c. Mai. 1.4. 
 
 people made ^^ for love of their country or their homes ; the 
 Jews, for love of their religion. This covenant Tyre remem- 
 bered not, but brake. They knew doubtless why Edom sought 
 to possess the Israelites ; but the covetousness of Tyre fed the 
 cruelty of Edom, and God punished the broken appeal to 
 Himself. 
 
 1 0. I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre. Tyre had long 
 ere this become tributary to Assyria. Asshur-dan-ipal {about 
 B.C.9;30,) records his "'^taking tribute from the kingsof all the 
 chief Phoenician cities, as Tyre, Sidon, Biblus and Aradus." 
 His son Shalmanubar records his taking tribute from them in 
 his21st yeari* (about880, B.C.),as did Ivalush U\.^'%and after 
 this timeTiglath-pileserll.'^, the samewho tookDamascus and 
 carried off its people, as also the East and North of Israel. The 
 Phoenicians had aided Benhadad in his unsuccessful war or 
 rebellion against Shalmanubar^', but their city had received no 
 hurt. There was nothing, in the time of Amos, to indicate any 
 change of policy in the Assjrian conquerors. They had been 
 content hitherto with tribute from their distant dependencies ; 
 they had spared them, even when in arms against them. Yet 
 Amos says absolutely in the name of God, Iivill send afire upon 
 the wall of Tyre, and the fire did fall, first from Shalmancser 
 or Sargon his successor, and then from Nebuchadnezzar. The 
 Tyrians (as is men's wont) inserted in their annals their suc- 
 cesses, or the successful resistance which they made for a time. 
 They relate that "i^Elulseus, king of Tyre, reduced the Kit- 
 tia?ans (Cypriotes) who had revolted. The king of AssjTia in- 
 vaded all Phoenicia, and returned, having made peace with all. 
 Sidon and Ace and old Tyre, and many other cities revolted 
 from the Tyrians, and surrendered to the king of AssjTia. 
 Tyre then not obeying, the king returned against them, the 
 Phoenicians manning 60 ships for him." These, he says, were 
 dispersed, 500 prisoners taken ; the honour of Tyre intensified. 
 " The king of Assyria, removing, set guards at the river and 
 aqueducts, to hinder the Tyrians from drawing water. This 
 they endured for 5 years, drinking from the wells sunk." The 
 Tyrian annalist does not relate the sequel. He does not ven- 
 ture to say that the Assyrian king gave up the siege, but, hav- 
 ing made the most of their resistance, breaks off the account. 
 The Assyrian inscriptions say,that Sargon tookTyrei',and re- 
 ceived tribute from Cyprus, where a monument has been found, 
 bearing the name of Sargon ^°. It is not probable that a mo- 
 narch, who took Samaria and Ashdod, received tribute fromE- 
 gypt, the " Chief of Saba," and " Queen of the Arabs," over- 
 ran Hamath, Tubal, Cilicia, Armenia, reduced Media, should 
 have returned baffled, because Tyre stood out a blockade for 
 5 years. Since Sargon wrested from Tyre its newly-recovered 
 Cyprus, its insular situation would not have protected itself. 
 Nebuchadnezzar took it after a thirteen years siege ^^ 
 
 11. Edom. God had impressed on Israel its relation of 
 
 to the Cretans, and the Penestae to the Thessalians," quoted by Movers, Phoen. ii. 1. 
 
 fp. 313, 4. who so interprets Amos. ■' Rawl. Herod. T. i. Ess. vii. § 11. from Cuneiform 
 nscr. n Rawl. lb. §14. p. 463. i^ Rawl. lb. § 19. p. 467. i^ Rawl. § 22. p. 470. 
 17 Rawl. § 15. p. 464. i' Menander in Jos. Ant. ix. 14. 2. 19 Rawl. 
 
 § 24. p. 474. 20 " The statue of Sargon, now in the Berlin Museum, brought 
 
 from Idalium, commemorates the Cyprian expedition." Rawl. lb. -i Ezek.xxvi. 
 
 7-12, see on Is. xxiii.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1G5 
 
 brotherhood to Edom, Moses expressed it to Edom liiiiiscU', 
 and, after the suspicious refusal of Edom to iillow lsi-acl to 
 march on the hiiiiiway throuj^h his territory, he speaks as 
 kindly of him -, as before ; And tvheii we parsed /ii/from our bre- 
 thren, the children of Esau. It was the unkiudncss (d' worldly 
 politics, and was forffiven. The relitjious love of the I'^iryptiaii 
 and tbeEdomitcwas.on distinct 2;rounds,made part of thelaw. 
 ^ Thou xha/t not ahhor an Edoniite ; for he is thy brother : t/ioit, 
 shult not althor an Ei^}/}tlhui ; because thou wast aslrani^erin 
 his land. Thenrandchild of auEijyptian or of ariEdoniitewas 
 religiously to become as an Israelite*. Not a footof Edoni- 
 ite territory was Israel to appropriate, however provoked. It 
 was God's ijift to Edom, as much as Canaan to Israel. ^ They 
 shall be afraid of you, and ye shall take cvceeding heed to your- 
 selves. Quarrel not with them, for Iwillgive you of their land, 
 no, not so much as the treading of the sole of the foot ; for I have 
 given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession. From this time 
 untilthat of Saul, there is no mentionof Edom ; only that the 
 Maonites and the Amalekites, who oppressed Israel ", were 
 kindred tribes with Edom. The inereasinc; strength of Israel 
 in the early days of Saulseemstohaveoccasioned a conspiracy 
 against him, such as Asaph afterwards complains of '^; They 
 have said, come cmd let us cut them (iff' from being a nation, that 
 the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they 
 have consulted together with one consent, they are confederate 
 against Thee ; the tabernacles of Edom and the Ishmaelites ; of 
 Moah and the Hagarenes ; Gehal and Ammon and Amalek ; the 
 Philistines with tlie inhabitants of Tyre ; Assur also is joined 
 with them ; they have been an arm to the children of Lot. Such 
 a combination began probably in the time of Saul. ^ He fought 
 against all his enemies on every side; against 3Ioah, and against 
 the children of Amman, and against the king of Edom, and a- 
 gainst the Philistines. They were his enemies, and that, round 
 about, encircling Israel, as hunters did their prey. Edom, on 
 the S. and S. E. ; 3Ioah and Amnion on the East ; the Syrians 
 of Zohah on the N. ; the Philistines on the W. enclosed him 
 as in a net, and he repulsed them one by one. Whicliever way 
 he turned, he tvorsted ^ them. It follows^", he delivered Isi-ael 
 out of the hands of them that spoiled them. The aggression was 
 from Edom, and that in combination with old oppressors of 
 Israel, not from SauP\ The wars of Saul and of David were 
 defensive wars. Israel was recovering from a state of depres- 
 sion, not oppressing. The valley o/sa//'", where David defeat- 
 ed the Edomites, was also doubtless within theborders of Judah, 
 since the city of salt was^^; and the valley of salt was probably 
 near the remarkable " mountain of salt," 5^ miles long, near 
 the end of the Dead Sea^*, which, as being Canaanite, belonged 
 to Israel. Itwas also far north of Kadesh, which was the utmost 
 boundary o'i'E.Aom^'''. From that Psalm too of mingled thanks- 
 giving and prayer which David composed after the victory, in 
 the valley ofsalt^^, it appears that, even after that victory, Da- 
 vid's army had not yet entered Edom. i'' Who will bring me 
 into the strong city ? who will lead me into Edom ? That same 
 Psalm speaks of grievous suffering before, in which God had 
 cast them o^'and scattered them ; made the earth tremble and 
 cleft it ; so that it reeled^^. Joab too had returned from the 
 war in the North against the Syrians of Mesopotamia, to meet 
 the Edomites. Whether in alliance with the Syrians, or tak- 
 ing advantage of the absence of the main army there, the 
 Edomites had inflicted some heavy blow on Israel ; a battle in 
 
 ' Nu. XX. li. thus saith thy brother Israel. - Deut.ii.8. ' lb. xxiii. 7. 
 
 < Ib.8. *Ib.ii.4,5. « Jud. vi. 3.x. 12. 7 Ps. lxxxiii.4-8. » 1 Sam.xiv.47. 
 9 ji'pT 10 ver. 48. " as has often been carelessly assumed. '^ 2Sam. viii. 13. 
 '3 Josh.xv.62. n Robinson, ii. 108,9. '=■ Nu. xx. 10. '« Ps.lx. title, iv Ib.9. 
 '8 lb. 1-3, 10. 19 lChr.xviii.l2. 2" lb. 1,5,9-12. 2' 2 Sam. viii. 14. 
 
 which Abishai slew 18,000 men" had been indecisive. The 
 I'ydoniites were re|Milsed by the rajtid coiintcrniarch of .loab. 
 The victory, according to the I'salm, was still incomplete-". 
 David |»ut garrisons in Edonr^, to restrain them from further 
 outbreaks. Joab avenged the wrong of the Edomites, con- 
 formably to his character--; but the fact that the captain of 
 the host ha<l to go np to Iniry the slain "'■'', shews the extent of 
 the deadly blow, ^^•llich he so fearfully avenged. 
 
 The store; set by the king of ICgyjit on Iladad, the Edomite 
 prince who tied to him -^, shews how gladly I'^gypt employed 
 Edom as an enemy to Israel. It has been said that he rebelled 
 and failed-". Else it remained under a dependant king ap- 
 pointed by Judah, for 1 \ century "''. One attempt against J u- 
 dah is recorded -", when those of Mount Seir eomhined with 
 Moab and Amnion against .lehoshajihat after his defeat at Ra- 
 moth-gilead. They had penetrated beyond Ihigedi-'', on the 
 road which Arab marauders take now-", towards the wilder- 
 ness of Tekoa, when God set them against one another, and 
 they fell by each other's hands '*''. But Jehosliaphat's ])rayer 
 at this time evinces that Israel's had been a defensive warfare. 
 Otherwise, he could not have appealed to God '■',///(■ children of 
 Amnion and Moab and mount Seir, whom Thou woiildest not let 
 Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egyjtt, hut they 
 turned from them, and destroyed them not, behold, they reirard 
 Its, to come to cast us out of Thy possesssion, which Thou hast 
 giveii us to inherit. Judah held Edom by aid of garrisons, as 
 a wild beast is held in a cage, that they might not injure them, 
 but had taken no land from them, nor expelled them. Edom 
 sought to cast Israel out of God's land. Revolts cannot be 
 M'ithout bloodshed ; and so it is perhaps the more probable, 
 that the words of JoeP-,/or the violence against the children of 
 Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in tlieir land, re- 
 late to a massacre of the Jews, when Esau revolted from Jebo- 
 ram^'. We have seen, in the Indian Massacres, how every 
 living being of the ruling power may, on such occasions, be 
 sought out for destruction. Edom gained its independance, 
 and Jehoram, who sought to recover his authority, escaped 
 with his life by cutting through the Edomite army by night^*. 
 Yet in Amaziah's time they were still on the offensive, since 
 the battle wherein he defeated them, was again in the valley 
 of salt ^'. Azariah, in whose reign Amos prophesied, regain- 
 ed Elath from them, the port for the Indian trade ^^. Of the 
 origin of that war, we know nothing ; only the brief words as 
 to the Edomite invasion against Ahaz ^^, and yet again liad 
 the Edomites come, and smitten in Judah, and carried captive a 
 captivity, attest previous and, it may be, habitual invasions. 
 For no owe such invasion had been named. It may probably 
 mean, " they did yet again, what they had been in the habit 
 of doing." But in matter of history, the prophets, in de- 
 claring the grounds of God's judgments, supply much which it 
 was not the object of the historical books to relate. They are 
 histories of God's dealings with His people, His chastisements 
 of them or of Hissinful instruments in chastising them. Rare- 
 ly, except when His supremacy was directly challenged, do 
 they record the ground of the chastisements of heathen na- 
 tions. Hence, to those who look on the surface only, the wars 
 of the neighbouring nations against Israel look but like the 
 alternations of peace and war, victory and defeat, in modern 
 times. The Prophets draw up the veil, and shew us the se- 
 cret grounds of man's misdeeds and God's judgments. 
 
 -^ IKgs.xi.lC. -■> lb. 15. It should be rendered, not, a/Vt-r Ac Aads/nin, but, anrfA* 
 slew See. -■' 1 Kgs.xi. 14-20. "'" Jos. Ant. viii. 7. 6. •' 1 Kps. xxii. 47. 2 Kgs. 
 iii Usqq. =7 2 Chr. xx. 10. =Mb.2,16,20. s'Rob.i.oOS. 30 ver. 22-24. 
 
 3' lb. 10,11. 32 iii. 19. 33 Kgs. viii. 20-22. 34 Jb. 21. 3^ lb. xiv.7 
 
 2 Chr. XXV. 11, 14. 36 2 Chr. xxvi. 2. '7 lb. xxviii. 17.
 
 166 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 gBef"j%^ because he did pursue 'his hrother 
 
 "■•• 787. u ^yjjj^ (.jjg sword, and f did cast off 
 
 ' Deut'li"; all pity, ' and his anger did tear per- 
 
 Mai. 1.2. ** 2 Clir. 28. 1*7. + Heh. corrttptrd his compassiotis, <^ Ezek,35. 5, 
 
 petually, jvnd he kept his wrath for ever : 
 12 But 'I will send a fire upon Teman,. 
 which shall de»'our the palaces of Bozrah. " ^''*'^-^''<'- 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 BrcuKsc he did pursue his hrother. The characteristic sin 
 of Eduni, and its punisliment are one main subject of the pro- 
 nliecy of Obadiali, inveterate malice contrary to the hiw of 
 kindred. Eleven hundred years had ])asscd since the birth of 
 their forefathers, Jacoband Esau. But, with God, eleven hun- 
 dred years had not worn out kindred. He Who willed to knit 
 together all creation, men and anircls, in one in Christ', and, as 
 a means of union-, made of one blood all nations of men for to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth,\iiicd allsorts ofways to impress 
 this idea of brotherhood. fFe forget relationship mostly in the 
 third generation, often sooner; and we think it strange when a 
 nation long retains the memories of those relationships". God, 
 in His law, stamped on His people's minds those wider mean- 
 ings. To slay a man was to slay a hrother*. Even the outcast 
 Canaan was a brother' to Shcm and Ham. Lot speaks to the 
 men of Sodom amidst their iniquities, ?««/ brethren^ ; Jacob so 
 salutes those unknown to hini^. The descendants of Ishmael 
 and Isaac were to be brethren ; so were those of Esau and Ja- 
 cob*. The brotherhood of blood was not to wear out, and there 
 was to be a brotherhood of love also'. Every Israelite was a 
 brother'"; each tribe was a brother to every other''; the force 
 of the appeal was rcmenbered, even when passion ran high '-. 
 It enters habitually into the Divine legislation. Thou shall o- 
 pen thy hand ivide unto thy hrother^"^ ; if thy hrother, a Hebrew, 
 sellhinuelfto thee^^ ; thou shall not see t hy brother'' s oxorhis sheej) 
 go astray and hide thyself from them '^ ; if thy hrother be tva.reti 
 poor, then shall thou relieve him, though a stranger and a so- 
 journer, that he may live icith thee^^. In that same law,Edom's 
 relationship as a brother was acknowledged. It was an abid- 
 ing law that Israel was not to take Edom's land, nor to refuse 
 to admit him into the congregation of the Lord. Edom too 
 rememberedthe rclation,but to hate him. The nations around 
 Israel seem to have been little at war with one another, bound 
 together by common hatred against God's people. Of their 
 wars indeed we should not hear ; for they had no religious in- 
 terest. They would be but the natural results of the passions 
 of unregenerate nature. Feuds there doubtless were and fo- 
 rays, but noattemptsatpermanentconquestor subdual. Their 
 townsremainin their ownpossession'^. Tyredoesnotinvade 
 Philistia; nor Philistia, Tyre orEdom. Butallconibineagainst 
 Israel. The words, did pursue his brother with the sword, ex- 
 press more than is mentionedin thehistorical books. Topur- 
 sue is more than to fight. They followed after, in order to de- 
 stroy a remnant, and cast off all pity, lit. and more strongly, 
 corrupted his compassions, tendernesses. Edom did violence to 
 his natural feelings, as Ezekiel, using the same word, says of 
 Tyre, corr7tj)ting^^ his u>isdom,'\.c. pervertingitfrom the endfor 
 whichGodgaveit, and so destroying it. Edom "steeled him- 
 self,"as we say, " against bis better feelings," "his better na- 
 ture, ""deadened" them. But so they do not liveagain. Man 
 is not m aster of the life anddeatb of hisfeelings, any more than 
 of his natural existence. He can destroy; hecannot re-create. 
 And he does, so far, corrupt, decay, do to death, his own feel- 
 ings, whenever, in any signal instance, he acts against them. 
 
 1 Eph. i. 10. 2 Acts xvii. 2G. 3 as the Scotch. * Gen. ix. 5. 
 
 Mb. 25. «Ib.xix. 7. Mb. xxix. 4. " ib. xvi. 12. xxv. 18. Mb. xxvii. 
 
 29, 37. "' Ex. ii. 11. iv. 18; the king and his people, Deut. xvii. 20. 1 Chr. xxviii. 2. 
 
 " Deut. X.9. xviii. 2. Jud. xx.20,28. '- 2 Sam.ii.2C. " Deut.xv. 11. "lb. 12. 
 
 '' lb. xxii. 1-4. " Lev. x.xv. 35-39. add Lev. xix.l7. Deut. xxiv. 7, 10, 11. 
 
 Edom was not simply unfeeling. He destroyed all his tender 
 yearnings^'^ over suffering, such as God has put into every hu- 
 man heart, until it destroys them. Ordinary anger is satis- 
 fied and slaked by its indulgence ; mali(^e is fomented and fed 
 and invigorated by it. Edom ever, as occasion came, gratified 
 his anger ; his anger did tear continually ; yet, though raging as 
 some wild ravening animal, without control, he kept his tvrath 
 for ever, not within bounds, but to let it loose anew. He re- 
 tained it when he ought to have parted with it, and let it loose 
 when he ought to have restrained it. 
 
 " What is best, when spoiled, becomes the worst," is pro- 
 verbial truth. "-"As no love wellnigh is more faithful than 
 thatof brothers, so no hatred, when it hath once begun, is more 
 unjust, no odium fiercer. Equality stirs up and inflames the 
 mind; the shame of giving way and the love of pre-eminence 
 is the more inflamed, in that the memory of infancy and what- 
 ever else would seem to gender good will, when once they are 
 turned aside from the right path, produce hatred and con- 
 tempt." They were proverbial sayingsof Heathenism, "fierce 
 are the wars of brethren -\" and "they who have loved ex- 
 ceedingly, they too hate exceedingly-'. "--The Antiochi, the 
 Seleuci, the Gryphi, the Cyziceni, when they learnt not to be 
 all but brothers, but craved the purple and diadems, over- 
 whelmed themselves and Asia too with many calamities." 
 
 12. But ^And I, in Rly turn and as a consequence of these 
 sins] will send a fire upon Teman. " Teman," say Eusebius 
 and S. Jerome-',"was a country of the princes of Edom, which 
 had its name from Teman son of Eliphaz, son of Esau-*. But 
 even to this day there is a village, called Teman, about 5 (Eu- 
 sebius says 15) miles from Petra, where also is a Roman gar- 
 rison,from which place was Eliphaz, king of the Themanites." 
 It is, however, probably the district which is meant, of which 
 Bozra was then the capital. For Amos when speaking of ci- 
 ties, uses some word toexpress thh,asthe palaces of Be7ihadad, 
 the tuall of Gaza, of Tyrus, of Rahbah ; here he simply uses the 
 nameTeman.as hedoesthoseof Moabandjudah. Amosdoes 
 not mention Petra, or Selah ; for Amaziah had taken it, and 
 called it Joktheel, " which God subdued," which name it for 
 some time retained '°. 
 
 Bozrah (lit. which cuts off approach) is mentioned,as ear- 
 ly as Genesis-*, as the seat of one of the elective kings who, in 
 times before Moses,reignedover Edom. It lay then doubtless 
 in Idumea itself, and is quite distinct from the Bozrah of Hau- 
 ran or Auranitis, from which S. Jerome also distinguishes it^^, 
 "There is another Bosor also, a city of Esau, in the mountains 
 of Idumea, of which Isaiah speaks." There is yet a small vil- 
 lage of the likename (Busaira"the little Bozrah") which "ap- 
 pears," it is said,-^ " to have been in ancient times a consider- 
 able city, if we may judge from the ruins which surround the 
 village." It has now " some 50 houses, and stands on an ele- 
 vation, on the summit of which a small castle has been built." 
 The name however, " little Bozrah," indicates the existence 
 of a " great Bozrah," with which its name is contrasted, and 
 is not likely to have been the placeitself -*. Probably the name 
 
 " On Moab and Edom see on ii. 1 . 
 
 '8 Ez. xxviii. 17. 19 VDm nnr ^^ F. Petrarch. Dial. ii. 45. Bas. 
 
 15.54. Lap. -' in Arist. Pol. vii. 7. Lap. -' Plut. de frat. amore. lb. 
 
 -•I de locis Hebr. ^ Gen. xxxvi. 11, 15. -^ 2 Kgs. xiv. 7. '^ xxivi. 33. 
 
 •'' Burckhardt, Syria, 407. ^ as has been assumed since Robinson, ii. 167.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 167 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 13 % Thus saith the Lord ; For three 
 
 was a common one, "the stroiit^ plac^e" of its ncifjhlxtiir- 
 hood^. The Bozrah of Edom is eitlier tliat little villai;;e, or 
 is wholly l)lotted out. 
 
 13. Anvnon. Those who receive their existence nndcr cir- 
 cumstances, in any way like those of the first forefathers of 
 RIoab and Amnion, are known to be under physical as well as 
 intellectual and moral disadvanta^jcs. Apart from the worst 
 horrors, on the one side reason was stupefied, on tiie other 
 it was active in sin. He wiio imprinted His laws on natui'C, 
 has annexed the penalty to the infraction of those laws. It is 
 known also how, even under the Gospel, the main character 
 of a nation remains uncdianajed. The basis of natural cliarac- 
 ter,upon which jsjrace has to act,remains, under certain limits, 
 the same. Still more in the unchanjifing East. Slave-dealers 
 know of certain hereditary sjood or evil qualities in non-Chris- 
 tian nationsinwhomtheytrattic. What marvel then thatAni- 
 moii and Aloab retained the stamp of their orii;;in,in a sensual 
 or passionate nature? Their choice of their idols g;rew out of this 
 original character and aggravated it. They chose them gods 
 like themselves, and worsened themselves by copying these idols 
 of their sinful nature. The chief god of the fierce Amnion was 
 Milchom or Molech, the principle of destruction, who was ap- 
 peased with sacrifices of living children, given to the fire to de- 
 vour. Moab, besides its idol Cheniosh,hadthedegrading wor- 
 ship of Baal Peor-, re-productiveness the counterpart of de- 
 struction. And, so, in fierce or degrading rites,they worship- 
 ped the power which belongs to God, to create, or to destroy. 
 Moab was the seducer of Israel at Shittim-. Am mon, it has been 
 noticed, shewed at different times a peculiar wanton ferocity'. 
 Such was the proposal of Nahash tothemen of Jabesh-Gilead, 
 when offering to surrender''', that I inai/ fhrusf out all yoiirright 
 eyesand lay it^orareproach nntoall Israel. Suchwasthe insult 
 to David's messengers of peace, and the hiring of the Syrians 
 in an aggressive war against D€avid^ Such, again, was this war 
 of extermination against the Gileaditcs. On Israel's side, the 
 relation to Moab and Amnion had been altogether friendly. 
 God recalled to Israel the memory of their common descent, 
 and forbade them to war against either. He speaks of them 
 bythe nameof kindness, //je children of Lot, the companion and 
 friend of Abraham. * / will not give thee of tlicir land for a 
 possession, because I have given it unto the children of Lot for 
 a possession. Akin by descent, their history had been alike. 
 Each had driven out a giant tribe; Moab, the Emim ; Amnion, 
 the Zamzunimim^. They had thus possessed themselves of 
 the tract from the Arnon, not quite half way down the Dead 
 Sea on its East side, to the Jabbok, about halfway between 
 the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee ^. Both had been expell- 
 ed by the Amorites, and had been driven, Moab, behind the 
 Arnon, Ammon, behind the strong border ^ of the upper part 
 of the Jabbok, what is now the Nahr Amman, " the river of 
 
 ' i. " Bezer in the wilderness " or " plain" in Reuben opposite to Jericho, one of the 
 cities of refuse. (Deut.iv.43. Josh.xx.8.) ii. Bosor, a " strong and great city" of Gi- 
 ]ead.(l Mace. v. 215, •'!<;. .Vnt.xii. 8.4.) iii. Besara. on theconfinesof Ptoleinais,2J miles 
 from Geba (Jos. Vit. § 24.) iv. Bozrah of Moab, (Jer. xlviii. 24.) The Bostra which the 
 Romans rebuilt, 24 miles from Edrei, which became theMetropolis of .Arabia, and, in Ara- 
 bic times, of Hauran, (see the description of the remains. Porter, Five years,ii. 14-0 sqq.) 
 lay too far North to be any ol these. It is probably a corruption of n'inB't'3, "house of 
 Ashtoretb"inManasseh(Jos.xxi.27. seeReland.v.lSostra p.()ti6.);and Bosorra(distinct 
 from Bosor, IMacc. v. 2(j, 28.) may be another corruption of the name. • Nu. xxv. 1-3. 
 
 3 Grote in Smith, Bibl. Diet. V. Amnion. ■• lSam.xi.1-3. 
 
 ' 2 Sam. x. 1-fi. « Deut. ii. 9, 19. 7 lb. 10,11,20, 1. 
 
 8 Nu. xxi. 23-30. Ofthis.Moabhadthepart fromthe.\rnon totheN.oftheDeadSea, 
 inc\uAmg the plains of Afoab {2>tiDrri2-ii!)i. e.lhe partofthevalley of the Jordan on theE. 
 side, opposite to Jericho, the subsequent possession of Reuben. Gilead, to the S. and E. 
 of the Jabbok had belonged to Amnion, whence it is said that Moses gave to the 2^ tribes 
 
 ] transgressions of ' the children of Ammon, 
 
 Before 
 CH RIST 
 « Jer.49.1,2. Ezck 25.2. Zeph.2.«. '■•''•■ "^7- 
 
 Amnion," Eastward. Tlic whole at' what became the inheri- 
 tance of the 2J tribes, was in the liaiids of the Ainf)rites, and 
 threatened very nearly their remaining possessions ; since, at 
 Aroer that is before llahbah '", the Amorites were already over 
 against the capital of Amnion ; at the Arnon they were but 2^ 
 hours" from Ar-Moab, the remaining ca|>ital of Moab. Israel 
 then, in destroyingtheAmorites,liadl)eenatoticeaveniringand 
 rescuingMoai) and Amnion; and it is so far a token of friendli- 
 ness at this time, that, after the victory at I^drei, tlie great iron 
 bedstead oiO^WAii \)\i\ce{\inltrilibiih»f the childre7t of Amnion}^. 
 Envy, jealousy, and fear, united them to hire Balaam to curse 
 Israel", althougli tliekingof Moabwasthechiefactor inthis'*, 
 as he was in the sediictionof Israeltoidolatry'\ I'robablv Mo- 
 ab was then, and continued to be, the more iiiHueiitial or the 
 more powerful, since in their first invasion of Israel, the Am- 
 monites came as the alliesof Eglonkingof Moab. He gathered 
 unto him the cliildrenof Ainmoii a)id Anialek'^'. And thcy.serr- 
 ('(/ Egloii. Yet Ammon's subsequent oppression must have 
 been yetmoregrievous,sinceGodreniinds Israelof llisdtdiver- 
 ingthemfrom the Aninionitcsi'',not from Moab. There we find 
 Amnion under a king, and in league witli the Philistines''', 
 crashing and crushing^'^ for 18 years all the children of Israel 
 in Gilead. The Ammonites carried a wide invasion acrossthe 
 Jordan against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim -", until they 
 were subdued by Jephthah. Moab is not named; but the king 
 of Amnion claims as my land~^, thewhole which. Moaband.Vm- 
 nion had lost to the Amorites, and they to Israel, //v>;// Arnon 
 unto Jahhok and unto Jordan"^. The range alsoof Jephthah's 
 victories included probably all that same country from the Ar- 
 non to the neighbourhood of Rabbah of Amnion--. The Am- 
 monites,subdued then, were again on the offensive in the fierce 
 siege of Jabesh-Gilead and against Saul -^. Yet it seems that 
 they had already taken from Israel what they had lost to the 
 Amorites ; for Jabesh-Gilead was beyond the Jabbok -' ; and 
 Mizpeh of Moab, whither David went to seek the king of Mo- 
 ab-% was probably no other than the Ranioth-Mizpeli -'of Gad, 
 the Mizpeh-" whence Jephthah wentover to fight tiie Ammon- 
 ites. With Hanan,kingof Amnion, David sought to remain at 
 peace, on account of some kindness, interested as it probably 
 was, which his father Nahashhad shewn him, when persecuted 
 by Saul-*. Itwasonlyafter repeated attempts to bring an over- 
 whelming force of theSyriaiis against David,that Rabbah was 
 besieged and taken, andthat aweful punishmentinflicted. The 
 severity of the punishment inflicted on Moab and .Vmmon, in 
 that two thirdsof the fightingnienof Moabwereput to death^', 
 and fighting men of the cities of Ammon'-" were destroyed by a 
 ghastly death, so difiereiit from David's treatment of the Phi- 
 listines or the various Syrians, implies some extreme hostility 
 on their part, from which there was no safety except in their 
 destruction. Moab and Ammon were still united against Je- 
 
 the land unto the border of the children o/y/mmon. (Jos. xiii. 10.) i. e. Westward, and yet 
 half the land of the children of Ammon, (lb. 25.) i.e. what they had lost to the .•Vmorites. 
 
 '■> Nu. xxi.24. i» Jos. xiii.23. 'i Porter, Handb. 302. >2 Deut. iii. 11. 
 
 " Ib.xxiii.4-. '< Nu. xxii-xxiv. >» Ib.xxv. 1-3. •« Jud.iii. 13. '^Ib.x.ll. 
 
 IS lb. 7. 19 isiTHsjni Ib.S. The two alliterate and equivalent words are 
 
 joined as intensive. -" Ih.'.l. -' Ih.xi.13. " lb. ?j3. He smote them from Aroer 
 to Minnith, (Minnith was "4 miles from Heshbon on the way to Philadelphia," i.e. Rab- 
 bah) twenty cities and unto Abel-keramim "7 (Eus.6.) miles from Rabbah." S. Jer. If 
 Aroer is here the best known, tiiat by tiie Arnon, the account describes one line from the 
 Arnon to a little beyond Heshbon and then to a place near the Jabbok. 
 
 -3 Seeaboveonver.il. -^ " 6 miles from Pella on a hill towards Gerasa" (-ferash). 
 8. Jer. de loc. Hebr. Both places were beyond the Jabbok. The name Jabesh,"dry," still 
 survives in the valley }'aifs,(the .\rabic pronunciation) which, with its brook.ends in 
 the Jordan 7 or S geogr. miles N. of the Jabbok. •' 1 Sam. xxii. 3. 
 
 =« Josh.xiii.26. 27 Jud.xi.29. =s2Sam.x.2. "Ib.viii.2. 30ib.xii.3i. 
 
 og2
 
 1G8 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 cir.787. niskmrut thereof; beeause they have || "^rip- 
 
 " <icnfo«11«L P»^<' up the women with eliild of Gilead, 
 sJeT'ig/'*" "^that they might enhirge their border: 
 
 14 But I will kindle a fire in the wall of ch rTst 
 
 Ij U.>T>K»V. .>«^l :*- <.U^.1I ,1 „ ii,„ 1 cir. 7«7. 
 
 Ilabbah, and it shall devour the palaees 
 thereof, 'with shouting in the day of battle, "" aslm'.fi^y. 
 with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind : Ez^yfit^. 
 
 1 (;h.2.2. 
 
 hoshaphat \ and with Nebuchadnezzar against Jehoiakim -, 
 whom they had before soiiafht to stir up ag:ainst the kinj? of 
 Babylon '. Botli profited for a time by tlie distresses of Israel, 
 magnifying themselves against lier l)order*,iu\d taking posses- 
 sion ofher eities^, after the 2i tribes has been carried away by 
 Tiglath-pileser. Both united in insulting Judah,and (as it ap- 
 pears from Ezekiel ") out of jealousy against its religious dis- 
 tinction. When some of the scattered Jews were reunited un- 
 der Gedaliab, after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, it was a king of Amnion, Baalis, who instigated Jo- 
 hanan to murder him''. When Jerusalem was to be rebuilt af- 
 ter the return from the captivity, Ammonites and INIoabites **, 
 San/iaUat the Horonite (i.e. out of Horonaim, which Moab had 
 taken to itself^,) and Tohiah the servant, the Ammonite, svere 
 chief in the opposition to it. They helped on the persecution 
 by Antiochus'". Their anti-religious character,which shewed 
 itself in the hatred of Israel and the hire of Balaam, was the 
 groundof the cxclusionof both from admission into the congre- 
 gationof the Lordfor ever^'^. The seduction of Solomon by his 
 Ammonite and Moabite wives illustrates the infectiousness of 
 their idolatry. While he made private chapels for all An- 
 strange wives, to hum incense and sacrifice to their gods ^^, the 
 most stately idolatry was that of Chemosh and JNIolech, the 
 abomination of Moab and Amnion '^. For Ashtoreth alone, 
 besides these, did Solomon build high-places in sight of the 
 temple of God, on a lower part of the Alount of Olives ^*. 
 
 The)/ have ripped np the women with child in Gilead. Since 
 Elisha prophesied that Hazael would be guilty of this same 
 atrocity,and sinceGileadwasthe scene of his chief atrocities^^, 
 probably Syria and Amnion were, as of old, united against Is- 
 rael in a war of extermination. It was a conspiracy to displace 
 God's people from the land which He had given them, and 
 themselves to replace them. The plan was effective ; it was, 
 Amos says, executed. They expelled and inherited Gad^^. 
 Gilead was desolated for the sins for which Hosea rebuked it ; 
 "blood had blood." It had been tracked with blood ^'' ; now 
 life was sought out for destruction, even in the mother's 
 womb. But, in the end, Israel, whose extermination Amnion 
 devised and in part effected, survived. Amnion perished and 
 left no memorial. 
 
 That they might enlarge their harder. It was a horror, 
 then, exercised, not incidentally here and there, or upon a 
 few,or in sudden stress of passion, butupon system and in cold 
 blood. We have seen lately, in the massacres near Leba- 
 non, where male children were murdered on system, how me- 
 thodically such savageness goes towork. Amassacre,here and 
 there, would not have enlarged their border. They must have 
 carried on these horrors then, throughout all the lands which 
 they wished to possess, making place for themselves by anni- 
 hilating Israel, that there might be none to rise up and thrust 
 them from their conquests, and claim their old inheritance. 
 
 1 2Chr. XX. 2 2 Kgs. xxiv. 2. 3 jer. xxvii. 3. ••Zeph. ii.8. ' On Am- 
 mon see below. When Isaiah prophesied, Moab was in possession of all the cities of Reu- 
 ben, Is. xv.xvi. « Ez.xxv.2.8. ' Jer.xl. 11-14. xli. 10. » Neh.ii. 10, 19. iv. 1-3. 
 
 » Is. XV.5. Jer. xlviii.3,5,34. i" IMacc.v.fj. " Deut.xxiii.3. '-lKgs.xi.8. 
 
 '3 Solomon's worship of Ashtoreth as well asof Milcom is mentioned lK.xi.5. The 
 high places of Chemosh andMolech are alone mentionedthere ver. 7; that of Ashtoreth 
 is mentioned in the account of its defilement by Josiah. i'' 2Kgs. xxiii.l3. '^ Ab. 3. 
 
 IS Jer. xlix. 1. '7 SeeonHos. vi.8.p.42. '^ Deut. iii.ll. '« Polyb.v.71.4. 
 
 Such was the fruit of habitually indulged covetousness. Yet 
 who beforehand would have thought it possible ? 
 
 14. I will kindle a fire in the wall of liabhah. Rabliah, 
 lit. the great, called by Moses^* liabhah of the children of Ain- 
 mon, and by later Greeks, Rabat hammana^'^ , was a strong city 
 with a yet stronger citadel. Ruins still exist, some of which 
 probably date back to these times. The lower city "^°lay in a 
 valley bordered on both sides by barren hills of flint," at \ au 
 hour from its entrance. It lay on a stream, still called by its 
 naincMoyet or Nahr Amman, "waters" or "river of Animon," 
 which ultimately falls into the Zurka (the Jabbok.) "^' On the 
 top of the highest of the Northern hills," where at the diver- 
 genceof two valleysitabuts upon tberuinsof the town, "stands 
 the castle of Amnion, a very extensive rectangular building," 
 following the shape of the hill and wholly occupying its crest. 
 " Its walls are thick, and denote a remote antiquity ; large 
 blocks of stone are piled up without cement, and still hold to- 
 gether as well as if they had been recently placted ; the greater 
 partof thewall is entire. Within the castle are several deep cis- 
 terns." There are remains of foundations of awall of the low- 
 er city at its Eastern extremity*^^. This lower city, as lying on 
 a river in a waterless district, was called the city of waters''-^, 
 which Joab had taken when he sent to David to come and be- 
 siege the Upper City. In later times, that Upper City was 
 resolutely defended against Antiochus the Great, and taken, 
 not by force but by thirst -*. On a conspicuous place on this 
 castle-hill, stood a large temple, some of its broken columns 3i 
 feet in diameter-% probably the Grecian successor of the tem- 
 ple of its idol IMilcliom. Kabbah, the capital of Amnion, can- 
 not have escaped, when Nebuchadnezzar, "-^in the 5th year 
 of his reign, led an army against Coele-Syria, and, having pos- 
 sessed himself of it, warred against the Ammonites and Mo- 
 abites, and having made all these nations subject to him, in- 
 vaded Egypt, to subdue it." Afterwards, it was tossed to and 
 fro in the desolating wars between Syria and Egypt. Ptolemy 
 II. called it from his own surname Philadelphia -'', and so pro- 
 bably had had to restore it. It brought upon itself the attack 
 of Antiochus III. and its own capture, by its old habit of ma- 
 rauding against the Arabs in alliance with him. At the time 
 of our Lord, it, with " Samaria, Galilee and Jericho," is said 
 by a heathen^* to be"inhabitedbya mingled raceof Egyptians, 
 Arabians and Phoenicians." It had probably already been 
 given over to the children of the East, the Arabs, as Ezekiel had 
 foretold-'. In early ChristiantimesMilchom was stillworship- 
 ped there under its Greek name of Hercules ^''. Trajan re- 
 covered it to theRomanempire^i,and in the 4thcenturyit,with 
 Bostra^-, was still accounted a "vast town most secured by 
 strong walls," as a frontier fortress "to repel the incursions of 
 neighbouring nations." It was counted to belong to Arabia'^. 
 An Arabic writer says that it perished before the times of Mo- 
 hammed, and covered a large tractwith its ruins^^ It became 
 
 Steph.Byz. 2» Burckhardt, Syria, 357, 8. =' lb. 359, 60. and see plan p. 357. 
 
 " Buckingham, Trav. Ritter, XV. 1150. *» 2Sam.xii.27. -* Polyb. I.e. A prisoner 
 shewed how the access of the garrison to the water might be cut off. -'> Burckhardt, 360. 
 
 26 Jos. Ant. X. 9. 7. =^ S. Jer. in Ezek. xxv. ^s Strabo, xvi. 2. 3i. Ritt. 1156. 
 
 -5 xxv. 4. 30 Coins from Trajan to Commodus, see authorities, Ritt. 1157. 
 
 3' Amm.xiv.S.13. a: nanj Oerasa," lb. ^3 s. Epiph. Synops. L. ii.adv. 
 
 H<er. p. 397. Anaceph. p. 145. Reland, 612. ^ Abulfeda,(who, at Hamath, must 
 
 have known it, as lying on the pilgrim-road to Mecca) Tab. Syr. p. 91.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 109 
 
 ctrRTsT ^^ -^"^^ ''their kinf:^ shall go into cap- 
 
 ""■ '^~- tivlty, he and his princes to<«;ether, saith 
 
 the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1 God's ivrath against Moab, 4 upon .Tudah, 
 
 9 God romplnineth of their 'Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 nntlianlitulness. 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 G and upon Israel. 
 
 ri^HUS saith the Lord : For three trans- 
 X gressions of "Moal), and for four, I* jcr?'48* ^®' 
 will not turn away the punishment thereof; zeph!2. s. ' 
 
 a station of piljjrinis to Mecca, and then, till now, as Ezckiel 
 foretold \ a stal)lv for cjimel.s and a roarhhig place for Jtochs. 
 
 I will Aindle a fire in the wall. 1 1 may l)C that the jirophet 
 means to speak of some conflaijratioii from witliin, in that he 
 says not, as elsewhere -, / will semi a fire apon, hut, / will Ain- 
 dle a fire in. But the nhoutiiig is the hattle-cry ' of the victori- 
 ous enemy, the cheer of exultation, anticipatinc; its capture. 
 That onslauj;;ht was to he resistless*, sweepinii;, like a whirl- 
 wind, all hefore it. The fortress and walls of Rabbah were to 
 yield before the onset of the enemy, as the tents of their cara- 
 vans were whirled flat on the aground before the eddyinp;' of 
 the whirlwinds from the desert, buryinc;' all beneath them. 
 
 15. And their king. The king was commonly, in those 
 nations, the centre of their energy. When he and his princes 
 were gone into captivitt/, there was no one to make head a- 
 gainst theconqueror,andrenew revolts. Hence,as a first step 
 in the subdual, the reigning head and those who shared his 
 counsels were removed. Amnion then, savage as it was in act, 
 was no ill-organised horde. On the contrary,barren andwaste 
 as all that country now is, it must once have been highly cul- 
 tivated by a settled and laborious people. The abundance of 
 its ruins attests the industry and habits of the population. 
 " The whole of the country," says Burckhardt ^, " must have 
 been extremely well cultivated, to have afforded subsistence to 
 the inhabitants of so many towns." " The low hills are, for the 
 most part, crowned with ruins." Of the " ^ thirty ruined or 
 deserted places, which including Amman," have been even late- 
 ly " counted East of Assalt "(the village which probably repre- 
 sents Ramoth-Gliead, "about 16miles West of Philadelphia'^" 
 i. e. Amman,) several are in Ammonitis. Little as the country 
 has been explored, ruinsoflargeand important towns have been 
 found S.S.E. and S. of Amman ^. Two hours S.E. of Amman, 
 Buckingham relates ^," an elevation opened a new view before 
 us, in the same direction. On a little lower level, was a still 
 more extensive track of cultivated plain than that even which 
 we had already passed — Throughout its whole extent were 
 seen ruined towns in every direction, both before, behind, and 
 on each side of us ; generally seated on small eminences ; all at 
 a short distance from each other ; and all, as far as we had yet 
 seen, bearing evident marks of former opulency andconsidera- 
 tion. Tiiere was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could 
 reach ;but my guide, who hadbeen over every part of it, assured 
 me that the wliole of the plain was covered with tiie finest soil, 
 and capable of being madethe most productive corn landin the 
 world — For a space of more than thirty miles there did not ap- 
 pear to me a single interruption of hill, rock or wood, to impede 
 immediate tillage. The great plain of Esdraelon, so justly cele- 
 brated for its extent and fertility,isinferiorin both to this plain 
 of Belkah. Like Esdraelon, it appears to have been once the 
 seat of an active and numerous population ; but in the former 
 the monuments of the dead only remain, while here the habita- 
 
 1 Ezek. XXV. 5. See Lord Lindsay, 278-82. Porter, Handb, 304,5. Lord C. Hamilton's 
 Journal in Keith on Prophecy, 270,1. - i. 4, 7, 10, 12. ii. 2, 5. ' Job xxxix. 25. i 
 
 Jer. XX. 16. Zeph. i. 16, &c.' ^ The etymol. ofnBiD. ' Svria, 357. ( See also 
 
 Porter, Hdb. 307.) « Keith, c. 6. end. 27+. Ofthe 30 in Dr. Sm'ith's list (Robinson 
 App. iii. 168. ed. i.)several are clearly W. of Amnion, in Gilead, several are not in the 
 maps; some areclearlvin Ammonitis. " Ens. Onom. Our copiesof S.Jerome have by 
 mistake, East. " 6 hours "Porter,307. See 309. and Ritter, XV. 1136-8. » Buckingham, ' 
 p. 83-96. 
 
 tions ofthe living are equallymingled with the tombs ofthe de- 
 parted, all thickly strewnovcr every })art ofthe soil from which 
 they drew their sustenance." Nor docs tiic crown, ui a talent 
 of gold weight, with precious stones '", belong to an uncivilised 
 pciiple. Such iiordes too depend on the will and guidance of 
 their single Sheikh or head. Thiswas a hereditarykingdom ". 
 The kingsof Amnu)n had tlicir constitutional advisers. These 
 were they who gave the evil and destructive counsel to insult 
 the embassadors of David. Evil kings have evermori; evil 
 counsellors. It is ever the curse of such kings to have their 
 own evil, reflected, anticipated, fomented, eiUK^tcd by bad ad- 
 visers around them. ^-Jland in hand the wicked shall not he 
 unpunished. They link together, but to drag one another into 
 a common destruction. Together they had counselled against 
 God; king and princes together, thvy should go into captiriti/. 
 There is also doubtless, in the word Malcham, a suliordinate 
 allusion to the god whom they worshipped under tlie title Mo- 
 lech or Malchom. Certainly Jeremiah seetns so tohaveunder- 
 stood it. For, having said of Moab, ^' Chemosh shall go into 
 captivity, his priests and his princes together, he says as to 
 Ammon, in the self-same formula and almost in the words of 
 Amos ; 1* 3/alchani shall go into captiviti/, his priests and his 
 princes together. Zephaniah^^ alsospeaks ofthe idol under the 
 same name Malcham, " their king." Yet since Ammon had 
 kings before this time, and just before their subdual by Xe- 
 buchadnezzar, and king Baalis'" was a murderer, it is hardly 
 likely that Jeremiah too should not have included him in the 
 sentence of his people, of whose sins he was a mainsj)ring. 
 Probably, then, Amos and Jeremiah foretell, in a comprehen- 
 sive way, the powerlcssness of all their stays, human and ido- 
 latrous. All in which they trusted should not only fail them, 
 but should be carried captive from them. 
 
 n. I. Moab. The relation of Moab to Israel is only ac- 
 cidentally different from that of Ammon. One spirit actuated 
 both, venting itself in one and the same way, as occasion 
 served, and mostly together ^''. Besides those more formalin- 
 vasions, the history of Elisha mentions one probably of many 
 inroads of bands of the Moabites. It seems as though, when 
 the pear ottered in, and with it the harvest, the hands of the Mo- 
 abites entered in ^^ too, like the Midianites and Amalekites and 
 the children of the East ^'^ in the time of Gideon, or their suc- 
 cessors the Bedaweens, now. This their continual hostility 
 is related in the few words of a parenthesis. There was no oc- 
 casion to relate at length an uniform hostility, which was as 
 regular as the seasons ofthe year, and the year's produce, and 
 the temptation to the cupidity of iMoab,when Israel was weak- 
 ened by Hazael. 
 
 Because he burnedfhebo7iesofthe king ofEdoyn. Thedeed 
 herecondemned,isunknown. Doubtless it wasconnected with 
 that same hatred of Edom. which the king of Moab shewed, 
 when besieged by Israel. Menareoften more enraged against 
 
 3 lb. 85. '" 2 Sam. xii. 30. " lb. x. 1. '- Pr. .xi. 21. " xlviii. 7. 
 
 » xlix. 3. nn- nK-i vjn3 -p' nSi33 c?>d .\m. nn- i-m Kin nVi:3 cSTi l^n. They 
 use the same idiom and words.includmg the word iSn.not NS- which Jeremiiih hasxxix. 16. 
 xlviii. 7. S. Jerome here renders Chemosh, and so did the Greek copies which Theodoret 
 used. An. Svm. and Syr. 
 
 15 i. 5. ■ 16 Jer. xl. 14. '? See on i. 13. >9 2 Kgs. xm. 20. lit. 
 
 And the bands of Moab were wont to come in, (the force of IKS') as the year came in (M). 
 
 '9 Jud. vi. 3, 4, 11.
 
 170 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst 'because he'' burned the bones of the king 
 cir. 78r. of Edom into lime : 
 
 2Kgs.3.27. 2 But I will send a fire upon INIoab, and 
 
 a friend or ally who has made terms with one whom they hate 
 or fear, than with the enemy himself. Certainly, ?r//e» the Idug 
 of Moah saw t/itif the hattlewustoDsore for ///w\his fury was di- 
 rected personally against the kinif of Edom. lie took ivith liini 
 700 eliosen men /o cut tliroiiu;lt to tlie king of Kilom.and theij 
 could not. Escape was not their object. They souf;ht not to 
 cut through the Edomite contintcent into the desert, hut to the 
 king of Edom. Then he took his eldestsoii,\.c. prohably the el- 
 dest son of tliekinj2:of Edom -whom he captured, and offered 
 him up as a hurnt offering on the wall. Such is the simplest 
 structure of the words ; He strove to cut through to the king 
 of Edom, and they C(mld not, and he took his eldest son, ^'c, and 
 there ivas great indignation against Israel. That indignation 
 too on the part of Edom (for there was no other to be indignant 
 against Israel) is best accounted for,if this expedition, under- 
 takenbecausciNIoab had rebelled .against Israel, had occasioned 
 the sacrifice of the son of the kingofEdom,who took part in it 
 only as a tributary of Judah. Edom would have had no spe- 
 cial occasion to be indignant with Israel, if, on occasion of an 
 ordinary siege, the king of Moah had, in a shocking way, per- 
 formed thenational idolatryofchild-sacrifice. That hatred the 
 king of Moah carried beyond the grave,hatred which the hea- 
 then too held to be unnatural in its implacableness and unsa- 
 tiableness. The soul being, after death, beyond man's reach, 
 tliehatred,ventedupon his remains. is a sortof impotentgrasp- 
 ing at eternal vengeance. It wreaks on what it knows to be 
 insensible, the hatred with which it would pursue, if it could, 
 the living being who is beyond it. Its impotence evinces its 
 fierceness, since, having no power to wreak any real revenge, 
 it has no object but to shew its hatred. Hatred, which death 
 cannot extinguish, is the beginning of the eternal hate in hell. 
 With this hatred Moah hated the king of Edom, seemingly be- 
 cause he had been,thougbprobably againsthis will, on the side 
 ofthe people of God. It was then sin against the love of God, 
 and directed againstGod Himself. Thesingleinstance, which 
 we know, ofany feud between Moab and Edom was, when E- 
 dom was engaged in a constrained service of God. At least 
 there are no indications ofany conquest of each other. The 
 Bozrah of Moab, being in the Mishor, the plain ^, is certainly 
 distinct from the Bozrah of Edom, which Jeremiah speaks of 
 at the same time, as belonging to Edom*. Each kingdom, E- 
 domand Moab, had its own strong city, Bozrah, at one and the 
 same time. And if " the rock," which Isaiah speaks of asthe 
 strong hold of Moab ^, was indeed the Petra of Edom, (and the 
 mere name, in that country of rock-fortresses is no strong, yet 
 is the only, proof,) they won it from Judah who had taken it 
 from Edom, and in whose hands it remained in the time of 
 Amos ^, not from Edom itself. Or, again, the tribute 7nai/ 
 have been only sent through Petra, as the great centre of com- 
 merce. Edom's half-service gained it no good, but evil ; Mo- 
 ab's malice was its destruction. 
 
 1 2 Krs. Hi. 2fi, 7. ' Josephus understands it of the king of MoaVs own son; but then 
 he misses the force of every expression. He supposes that tlie king of Moab tried to cut 
 his way to escape only, and explains the great iiidicnation against Israel, ofthe compas- 
 sion of Israel himself( Ant. ix.:i. 2.) Theodoret supposes that the Moabites took the king of 
 Edom [i. e. the heir apparent] prisoner, and so sacrificed hira. ' Jer. xlviii. 21, 24. 
 
 ■< lb. xlix.13. =Is. xvi. 1. « 2 Kgs. xiv. 7. See ab. on i. 12. 7 ad Ep. ^g. § 19, in 
 S. Ath. Hist. Tracts, p. 117. Oxf. Tr. >* Besides the following, there is a Kuryetem, 
 abouthalf-way between Damascus and Palmyra (See Five years, i. 252 sqq.ii. 358.) and a 
 Kureiyph '• in a broad valley at the S. W. base of the Jebel Hauran,"near the Roman Bos- 
 tra with "remains of remote antiquity." Ib.ii. 191. 8. add Burckhardt, Syria, 103, 4. 
 
 it shall devour the palaces of " Kirioth : and ^ ^^li\% t 
 Moab shall die with tumult, '' with shout- "'■ '^■ 
 
 Jer. 48. 41. 
 
 inf^, and with the sound of the trumpet id ch?i.iV 
 
 The proverb, "speak good only ofthe dead," shews what re- 
 verence human iiaturcdictates,not tocondcmn those who have 
 been before their Judge, unless He have already openly con- 
 demned them. " Death," says S. Athanasius '' in relating the 
 death of Arius on his perjury, " is the common end of all men, 
 and we ought not to insult the dead, though he be an enemy ; 
 for it is uncertain whether the san^e event may not happen to 
 ourselves before evening." 
 
 2. It shall devour the palaces of Kerioth ; lit. the cities, i. e. 
 a collection of cities. Itmayhavereceivedaplural form upon 
 some enlargement,as Jerusalemreceiveda dual form, as a dou- 
 ble city. The name is, in different forms, very common ". In 
 the plain, or high downs of Moab itself, there were both Kir- 
 iathaim, " double city " and Kerioth '; in Naphthali, a Kiria- 
 thaim '", or Kartan ^^; in Judah, the Kerioth ^^ whence the 
 wretched Judas has his name Iscariot ^'; in Zebulon, Kartah ^* 
 also, which reappears as the Numidian Cirta. Moab had also 
 a Kiriath-huzoth '^, " city of streets," within the Arnon^^. 
 This alone was within the proper border of Moab, such as the 
 Amorites had left it. Kerioth and Kiriathaim were in the 
 plain country which Israel had won from the Amorites, and 
 its possession would imply an aggression of Moab. Jero- 
 boam II. had probably at this time, brought Moab to a tem- 
 porary submission ^^ ; but Israel only required fealty and tri- 
 bute of Moab ; Moab appears, even before the captivity of 
 the 24 tribes, to have invaded the possessions of Israel. Ke- 
 rioth was probably a new capital, beyond the Arnon, now 
 adorned with palaces and enlarged, as " Paris, Prague, Cra- 
 cow ^^," London, are composed of different towns. In S. Je- 
 rome's time, it had probably ceased to be^^. 
 
 Shall die tuith tumult. Jeremiah, when prophesying the 
 destruction of Moab, designates it by this same name sons of 
 tumult"^. A jlame shall devour the corner of Moab and the 
 crown of the sons of tumult. And probably herein he explains 
 the original prophecy of Balaam ^i, shall smite the corners of 
 Moab, and destroy all the children of tuimtlt". Ac they had 
 done, so should it be done to them ; tumults they caused, in 
 tumult they should perish. 
 
 After the subdual of Moab by Nebuchadnezzar,it disappears 
 as a nation, unless indeed Daniel in his prophecy-^, Edom and 
 Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon shall escape out 
 of his hand [Antiochus Epiphanes,] means the nations them- 
 selves, and not such as should be like them. Else the inter- 
 marriage with Moabitish women -* is mentioned only as that 
 with women of other heathen nations M-hich had ceased to be. 
 The old name, Moabitis, is still mentioned ; but the Arabs had 
 possessed themselves of it, and bore the old name. Alexan- 
 der Jannteus " subdued ■'," we are told, " ofthe Arabians, the 
 Moabites and Gileadites," and then, again, when in difficulty, 
 made it over, with its fortified places, to the king ofthe Ara- 
 bians"^. Among the cities which Alexander took from the king 
 
 « Jer. xlviii. 23, 24. i" 1 Chr. vi. 76.(61. Heb.) " Josh. xxi. 32. 12 Josh. xv. 25. 
 
 13 nnp e"N " Josh. xxi. 34. 1= Nu. xxii. 39. "> Balak met Balaam at 
 
 a citi/ of Moah in the border of Arnon, and then returned apparently to Kiriath-Huzoth. 
 
 '' See on vi. 14. '* Lap. " Kiriathaim was, according to S. Jerome in his time 
 " a Christian village called Coraiatha, 10 milesW. of Medaba, near Baare" [perhaps the 
 valley so called, near MachEprus, Jos. B. J. vii.fi. 3. Ritter, xv. 582.] Of Kerioth he only 
 says, " in the country of Moab, as Jeremiah writes." The present Korriath lies under 
 the Jebel Attarus, S. W. of Medeba, by the streamlet el Wal. Ritter, Ih. and map in Ro- 
 binson. -" xlviii. 45. -' Nu. xxiv. 17. -' re* i. q. puB'. 23 ^j^ 4i_ s*Ezr. ix. 1. 
 
 =^ Jos. Ant. xiii. 13. 5. 26 it. 14. 2.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 171 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 3 And I will cut off " the judc;e from the 
 midst thereof, and Avill slay all the princes 
 
 j'er.'^!;/'^' thereof with him, saith the Lord. 
 
 4 ^ Thus saith the Lord; For three 
 transcfressions of Judah, and for four, I 
 
 of the Arabians^, are cities throughout Moab, both in that 
 part in which they had succeeded to Israel, and their proper 
 territory S. of the Anion ". 
 
 A)id I will, cut off' the judge. The titlejMf/^e (shophct) 
 is nowhere used absohitely of a kinjr. Holy Scripture speaks 
 in several j)laccs of all t lie judges of the eurtli^. Hosea ', un- 
 Aer judges, includes Icings and princes, as judging the people. 
 The word judge is always used of one invested with the high- 
 est, but not regal authority, asof all the judges from the death 
 of Joshua to Samuel. In like way it (Sufetes) was the title 
 of the chief magistrates of Carthage^, with much the same 
 authority as the Roman Consuls^. The Plia>nician histories, 
 although they would not own thatNebuchadnczzar conquered 
 Tyre, still own that, after his thirteenyears'siege^, Baal reigned 
 10 years, and after him ;W^c5were set up, one for two months, 
 a second for ten, a third, a high-priest, for three, two more for 
 six,andbetweenthese one reigned for a year. After his death, 
 they sent for Merbaal from Babylon, who reigned for four 
 years, and on his death, they sent for Hiram his brother who 
 reigned for twenty. The judges then exercised the supreme 
 authority, the king's sons having been carried away captive. 
 Probably, then, when Jeroboam II. recovered the old territory 
 of Israel, Moab lost its kings. It agrees with this, that Amos 
 says, the princesthereof,lit.lier princes,!. e. the princes of Moab, 
 not as of Amnion, his princes,!, e. the princes of the king. 
 
 4. For three tra7isg7-essions of Judah, Sfc. "^Here too there 
 is no difference of Jew and Gentile. The word of God, a just 
 judge, spareth no man's person. Whom sin joins in one, the 
 sentence of the Judge disjoins not in punishment." ^^s many 
 as have sinned luithout laiv, shall also perish ivithout law, and 
 as many as have siyined in the law, shall be judged by the laiv. 
 "^^Those other nations, Damascus andthe rest, heupbraids not 
 for havingca*^ away the law of God,aiid despisedHis cornmand- 
 ments ; for they had not the written law, but that of nature 
 only. So then of them he says, that they corrupted all their 
 compassions — and the like. But Judah, who, atthat time,had 
 the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had re- 
 ceived the law and commandments and judgments and pre- 
 cepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, 
 for that it had cast aside His laiv and not kept His command- 
 ments ; wherefore it should be punished as it deserved. And 
 since they rejected and despised these, then, in course, their 
 lies deceived them, i.e. their idols;" lies on their part who made 
 them and worshipped them for the True God, and lies and ly- 
 ing to them, as deceiving their hopes. For an idol is nothing 
 in the tvorld^^, as neither are all the vanities in the world where- 
 of men make idols, but they deceive by a vain shew, as though 
 they were something. "i^They would not have been deceived 
 by their idols, unless they had first rejected the law of the Lord 
 and not done His commandments." They had sinned with a 
 high hand, despising and so rejecting the law of God ; and so 
 He despised and rejected them, leaving them to be deceived by 
 the lies which they themselves had chosen. So it ever is with 
 
 ' xiv. l.l.comp. xiii.lo,'!. - Medabaand Livias N.ofthe Arnon; Agalla[EgIaim] 
 "8milesS.ofit"(Eus.);Zoar, near the South of the Dead Sea; Oronae [Horonaim] on 
 Edom's boundary. Is. xv.5. ^ Jobix.24. Ps. ii. 10.cxlviii.il. Pr. viii. 16. Is. il. 23 
 
 will not turn away ihe pnnishmpnt thereof; ^ iff^TgT 
 'because they have despised the law of the ""■ 7W- 
 Lord, and have not kept his command- '^^^NehJ^ 
 inents, and » their lies caused them to iirr,t^^";t\t 
 '' after the which their fathers have walked : ^l^' 
 
 >■ Ezek. 20. 13, IC, 18, 24, 30. 
 
 man. Man must either'-/o?'('God's/c/M' and hate and abhor lies, 
 or he will despise God's law and cleave to lies. He first in act 
 despises God's law, (and whoso does not keep it, despises it,) 
 and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, 
 which becomes his God. He first chooseswilfully his own lie, 
 i. e. whatever he chooses out of (iod, and then his own lie de- 
 ceives him. So, morally,liars at last believe tbeniselves. So, 
 whatever false maxim anyone has adopted against his consci- 
 ence, whether in belief or practice, to justify what he wills a- 
 gainst the Will of God, or to explain away what God reveals 
 and he mislikes, stifling andlying to his conscience, in the end 
 deceives his conscience, and at the last, a man believes that to 
 be true, which, before he had lied to his conscience, he knewto 
 be false. Tlie Prophet uses a bold word in speaking of man's 
 dealings with his God, despises. Man carries on tiie scqicnt's 
 first fraud. Hath God indeed said ? Man would not willingly 
 own, that he is directly at variance with the Mind of God. 
 Man, in his powerlessness, at war with Omnipotence, and, in 
 his limited knowledge, with Omniscience ! It were too silly, 
 as well as too terrible. So he smoothes it overto h\mse\i,lyi)'ig 
 to himself " God's word must not be taken so precisely;" 
 " God cannot have meant;" " the Author of nature would not 
 have created us so, if He had meant;" and all the other ex- 
 cuses, by which he would evade owning to himself that he is 
 directly rejecting theMindof God andtrampling it under foot. 
 Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God, and 
 did not keep it; then, he despised it. On the one side was God's 
 Will, His Eternal Wisdom, His counsel for man for good ; on 
 the other, what debasements ! On the one side were God's 
 awefulthreats,ontheother,Hisexceeding promises. Yet man 
 chosewhatever hewilled,lyingto himself,and acting asthough 
 God had never threatenedor promised or spoken. This ignor- 
 ing of God's known Will and law and revelation is to despise 
 them, as effectually as to curse God to Hisface'^^. This rejec- 
 tion of God was hereditary. Their lies were those after which 
 their fathers w«/A-«/,in Egypt and from Egypt onwards, in the 
 wilderness^*, "^"makingtheimage of the calfof Egyptandwor- 
 shippingBaalpeor andAshtoreth andBaalini." Evil acquires 
 a sort of authority by time. Men become inured to evils, to 
 which they have been used. False maxims, undisputed, are 
 thought indisputable. They are in possession ; and " posses- 
 sion" is held a good title. The popular error of one generation 
 becomes the axiom of the next. The descent of the image of 
 the great goddess Diana from Jupiter,OT of the Coran, becomes 
 a thing which cannot be spoken against^^. The lies after which 
 the fathers tvalked deceive the children. The children canon- 
 ise the errorsof their fathers." Human opinion is as dogmatic 
 as revelation. The second generation of error demands as 
 implicit submissionasGod's truth. The transmissionof error 
 against Himself,God says, aggravates its evil, does not excuse 
 it. "^''Judah is the Church. In her the Prophet reproves who- 
 soever, worshipping his own vices and sins, cometh to have 
 that as a god by which he is overcome ; as St. Peter saith ^^, 
 
 ■* xiii. 10. ^ Liv. xxviii. 37. Phcenic. Inscr.in Ges. Lex. ^ Liv.xxx. 7. ^ Jos.c. 
 Ap.i.21. s Rup. 9 Rom. ii. 12. '» S.Jer. "lCor.viii.4. '= Ps.cxix. 163. 
 "Jobii.S. » See on V. 25, 6. '» Acts xix. 35.6. " 2Pet.ii. 19.
 
 172 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 c H lu ST ^ ' ^"* ^ ^^'''^ '^^"'' '^ ^''*' "I^"" .Tudah, and 
 cir- 787. ;t shall devour the ])aluees of Jerusalem. 
 
 'ho;.^8:ii; 6 f Thus saith the Lord; For three 
 
 transgressions of Israel, and for four, I 
 
 will not turn away the punishment thereof; 
 
 Whereby a man is overcome, of the same is he hrongitt i?i boyid- 
 age. Tlie covetous worshippeth Mammon ; the lylutton, his 
 belly ^; tlie impure, Baalpeor: she who, living in pleasure, is 
 dead w/iile she liveth ", the ])leasure in which she liveth." Of 
 sucli idols the world is full. Every fair form, every idle ima- 
 gination, everythini;: whioli c:ratifies self-love, passion, pride, 
 vanity, intellect, sense, each the most refined or the most de- 
 based, is such a lie, so soon as man loves and regards it more 
 than his God. 
 
 5. I will send afire upon Judah. All know now, how Je- 
 rusalem, its temple, and its palaces perished by fire, first by 
 Nebuchadnezzar, then by the Romans. Yet some two centu- 
 ries passed, before that first destruction came. The ungodly 
 Jews flattered themselves that it would never come. So we 
 know that i\ fiery stream'^ will issue and come forth from Him ; 
 a fire that cons^nneth to destruction * all who, whether or no 
 they are in the body of the Church, are not of the heavenly 
 Jerusalem ; dead members in the body which belongs to the 
 Living Head. And it will not the less come, because it is not 
 regarded. Rather, the very condition of all God's judgments 
 is, to be disregarded and to come, and then most to come, 
 when they are most disregarded. 
 
 6. 7. For three transgressions of Israel, and for four. In Is- 
 rael, on whom the Divine sentence henceforth rests, the Pro- 
 phet numbers four classes of sins, running into one another, 
 a^,aUL!aiuijlii, since all grievous sins contain many in one, yet 
 in some degree distinct. 1) Perversion of justice; 2) oppres- 
 sion of the poor ; 3) undeanness ; 4) luxury with idolatry. 
 
 They sold the righteous for silver. It is clear from the 
 opposite statement, that ice may buy the poor for silver and the 
 >?e«////o?-o 7;ff/?-o/'A7(OM,that the Prophet is not speakingof judi- 
 cial iniquity, butofactualbuying and selling. The lawallowed 
 a Hebrew who was poor to sell himself", and a Hebrew to buy 
 him until the year of release ; yet this too vAt\\ the express re- 
 serve, that the purchaser was forbidden to serve himself with 
 him with the service of a slave, hut as a hired servant and a so- 
 journer shall he be ivith thee ". The thief who could not repay 
 what he stole, was to be sold for his theft ''. But the law gave 
 no power to sell an insolvent debtor. It grew up in practice. 
 The sons and daughters of the debtor*, or his wife and chil- 
 dren'-', nay even the sons of a deceased debtor^", were sold. Ne- 
 hemiah rebuked this sharply. In that case, the hardness was 
 aggravated by the fact that the distress had been fomented by 
 usury. But the aggravation did not constitute the sin. It 
 I seems to be this merciless selling by the creditor, which Amos 
 Irebukes. The righteous is probably one who, without any 
 blame, became insolvent. The pair of shoes, i. e. sandals, ex- 
 press the trivial price, or the luxury for which he was sold. 
 They had him sold /or the sake of^'^ a pair of sandals, i. e. in 
 order to procure them. Trivial in themselves, as being a mere 
 sole, the sandals of the Hebrew women were, at times, costly 
 I and beautiful i-. Such a sale expressed contempt_£^;_nmJi, 
 made in the image of God, that he was sold either for some 
 ^worthless price, or for some needless adornment. 
 
 'Phil.iii.I9. 3 1Tim.v.6. ^Dan.vii.lO. •< Job.^xxi.l2. 
 ' In Lev.xxv. 39. Deut. xv. 12. IDDJ should be rendered, according to the first sense 
 of the conjugation, ««/iimsr//, not, leio/d. ^ Lev. xxv. 39, 40. " Ex.xxii. 2, 3. 
 
 ' Neh. V.5. ' S. Matt, xviii.25. '» 2 Kgs. iv. 1. " "naya 
 
 heeause ''they sold the righteous for silver, c^kTst 
 and the poor for a pair of shoes ; '="'• 787. 
 
 7 That pant after the dust of the earth ' ^^-l^l.^- 
 on the head of the poor, and ^ turn aside' is. 10.2. 
 
 , ch. 5.12. 
 
 the way of the meek : ■" and a man and his «. Ezek. 22. 11. 
 
 7. That punt after the dust of the earth ; lit. the punters ' 
 with indignation. Not contcntwith having rent from him the 
 little hereditary property which belonged to each Israelite, 
 these creditors grudged him even the dust, which, as a mourn- 
 er, he strewed on his head^^, since it too was earth. Covetous- 
 ness,when it has nothingto feed it, craves for what is absurd or 
 impossible. What was Naboth's vineyard to a king of Israel 
 with his ivory palace '? What was Mordecai's refusal to bow 
 to one in honor like Hainan? What a trivial gain toamillion- 
 naire? The sarcasm of the Prophet was the more piercing, be- 
 cause it was so true. Men covet things in proportion, not to 
 their worth, but to their worthlessness. No one covets what 
 he much needs. Covetousness is the sin, mostly not of those 
 who have not, but of those who have. It grows with its gains, 
 is the less satisfied, the more it has to satisfy it, and attests 
 its own unreasonableness, by the uselessness of the things it 
 craves for. 
 
 And turn aside the way of the meek. So Solomon said'*, A 
 wicked man tuketh a bribe out of the bosom, to pervert the tvays 
 of judgment. God had laid down the equality of man, made in 
 His own image, and had forbidden to favor either poor'" or 
 rich'^. Amos calls these by different names, which entitled 
 them to human syinYtat]i\;poor,depi-essed,loivly ; poor, in their 
 absolute condition; dep7-essed^'^, as having been brought low; 
 lotuly, as having the special grace of their state, the wonderful 
 meekness and lowliness of the godly poor. But all these qua- 
 lities are so many incentives to injury to the ungodly. They 
 hate the godly, as a reproach to them; because ^^heis cleati con- 
 trary to their doings, his life is not like other men's; his ways are 
 of another- fashion. Wolves destroy, not wolves, but sheep. 
 Bad men circumvent, not the bad, but the good. Besides the 
 easiness of the gain, there is a devilish fascinating pleasure to 
 the bad, to overreach the simple and meek, because they are 
 such. They love also to turn aside the way of the meek, by 
 '"'turning them from whatistruly right and good;" orfromthe 
 truth; or again tothwart them in alltheirways and endeavours, 
 byopen injustice or by perverting justice. Every act of wrong 
 prepares the wayfor the crowningact; and so the turning aside 
 the ivay of the meek foreshadowed and prepared for the unjust 
 judgment of Him Who was the Meek and Lowly One^"; the 
 selling the righteous for a trifling sum prepared for the sell- 
 ing^' the Holy One cmd the Just for the thirty pieces of silver. 
 " " Contrariwise, whoso is truly wise, cordially venerates the 
 humble and abject, the poor and simple, and prefers them in 
 his own heart to himself, knowing that God has ^* chosen the 
 poor, and the weak thi7igs of the world, and things despised, and 
 thi?igs which are not; and that Christ hath likened Himself to 
 such, saying in the Psalm, ^* I am poor and sorrotcful." 
 
 The saine damsel. Tliis is not expressly forbidden by the 
 law, except in the case of marriage, the father being forbidden 
 to marryhis son'swidow,and the sonto take his father'swidow 
 to wife-*. Abominations, unless they had become known to Is- 
 rael in Egypt, were not expressly forbidden, but were included 
 in the one large prohibition, which, as our Lord explains, for- 
 
 12 Cant.vii. 1. Ez.xvi.lO. Judithxvi.9. 
 
 " Jobii.l2. " Pr.xvii. 23. nmiN nionWith thesameimageasherelB'TTi. 
 
 '' Ex.xxiii.3. '« lb. 6. "? Si 's \Visd.ii.l2,15. "S.Cyr. «» S.Matt.xi.29. 
 =' Actsiii.l4. 23 Dion. =3 i Cor. i. 27, 8. " Ps.lxix.29. ^' Lev. xviii. 8, lo.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 i^o 
 
 ch^rTst f^t'it'J* ^vill S'^ '" unto the same 
 cir. 787. profane uiy lioly niuno : 
 
 maid, " to 
 
 Or, 1/puTt^ 
 
 woman. 8 And they lay themselves down upon 
 
 " Lev. 20. 3. Ezek. 30. 20. Rom. 2. 21. 
 
 clothes "laid to pledi^c Pby every altar, 
 and they drink tiie wine of || the eondeinn- 
 ed in the house of their ^od. 
 
 II Or, such as have fined, or, mulcted. 
 
 Before 
 ClI RIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 " Ex. 22. 26. 
 p Ezek. 2;j. 41. 
 1 Cor. 8. 10. & 10. 21. 
 
 biulc evc'ryoffpnce,bearinf;' upon it. Israt'l iiiiist have so under- 
 stood the law. since x^nios could ujihraid tlieni with this, uhicli 
 is not forhidden hy the letter of the law, as a wilful insult to 
 the Majesty of (Jod. Reverence was due from the son to the 
 fatherjCxaniple from the father to the son. lUit now the father 
 was an cxam]tle of evil to the son ; and the son siniu'd in a way 
 which had no tcmjttation except its irr<!verence. Men, sated 
 I with onlinary sin, seek incitement to sin, in its very horrors. 
 Probably this sin was eonunitted in connexion with their idol- 
 worsiiip'. Tlic sin of niarryinj;; the father's widow was /or«?- 
 cution not so muck as luuiied anidug the Gentiles" ; it was un- 
 known, as seeminn-ly Icftalisini;- what was so unnatural. Op- 
 pression of tlie poor, wrons^inj:^ the riiihteous, perverting the 
 way of the meek, laid the soul open for any abomination. 
 
 Toprofane Mi/ Holy Name, i. e. as called upon them, as the 
 people of God. God had said, i/e sitall keep Mij commandments 
 and do them ^. /am the Lord, and ye shall not defile My Holy 
 Name. For I will be sanctified among the children of Israel. I 
 am the Lord fFho sanctify you. The sins of God's people are a 
 reproach upon Himself. They brini;' Him, so to say, in contact 
 with sin. They defeat the object of His creation and revelation. 
 He created man in His Image, to bear His likeness, to have one 
 will with Himself. In effect, through sin, He has created re- 
 bels, deformed, unlike. So long as He bears with them, it seems 
 as if He were indifferent to them. Those to whom He has not 
 revealed Himself, must needs think that He takes no account 
 of what He permits unnoticed. Israel, whom God had separat- 
 ed from the Heathen, did, by mingling with the Heathen and 
 learning their tvorks*, allwhich in them lay,to/>?'q/'«weHis Holy 
 Name. They acted as if they had no other purpose than to de- 
 file it ^. Had such been their object, they could not have done 
 it more effectually, they could not have done otherwise. In de- 
 liberate sin men act, at last, in defiance of God, in set purpose 
 to dishonour Him. The Name of God has ever since been blas- 
 phemed, on account of the sins of the Jews, as though it were 
 impossible that God should have chosen for His own, a peo- 
 ple so laden tvith iniquities^. Nathan's words to David^, Thou 
 hast given gi-eat occasion to the eiiemies of the Lord to blaspheme, 
 have been fulfilled till this day. How much more. Christians, 
 who not only are called "the people of God," but bear the name 
 of Christ incorporated in their own. Yet have we not known 
 IMohammedans flee from our Christian capital, in horror at its 
 .sins ? " He lives like a Christian," is a proverb of the Polish 
 Jews, drawn from the debased state of morals in Socinian Po- 
 land. T he religion of Christ has no such enemie s -is <''l"''s- 
 tians . " ^ As the devout, by honouring God, shew that He is 
 Holy,Great, Most High, Who is obeyed in holiness.fear and re- 
 verence, so the ungodly, by dishonouring God, exhibit God as 
 far as in them lies, as if He were not Holy. For they act so as 
 if evil were well-pleasing to Him, and induce others to disho- 
 nour Him. Wherefore the Apostle saith ; the Name of God is 
 hlas2)hemed among the Ge7itilest hrough you'^ ; and byEzekiel the 
 
 ' SeeonHoseaiv. 14. =lCor.v.l. 3 Levit.xxii.31,32.addlb.xx.3.xviii.21. 
 xxi.6. ■• Ps. cvi. 35. * See on Hos.viii. 4. * Is.i.4. ' 2Sam. xii. 14. ^ j3ion_ 
 
 'Roni.ii.24. "> Ezek. xxxvi. 23. "Ib.xiii.l9. '- nana x''^""'- "'^3, as 
 
 well as aSois' is used of the outside cloak, Gen. xxxix. 12, 13, 15. It is the more generic 
 name, like our "clothes," except that it is chiefly used of large raiment and evenof the out- 
 side covering, in which the ark, the table ofshew-bread. ^'c. were covered in the journeys 
 in the wilderness (E. V. cloth) Nu. iv.6,11,13: and of the bed- coverings of the great. 
 ISam.xix.lS, 1 Kgs.i.l. It is used also of state robes, 1 Kgs.xxii.lO. 2 Chr. xviii.9. 
 
 Ijord saith oftentimes. Ye have jirofaned My Holy Name. And 
 I will sanctify My great Name which was profaned among the 
 heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them ^'\ The de- 
 vout th(!n are said to magnify, sanctify, exalt God ; the un- 
 righteous to profftne^^, despise, God." 
 
 8. They lay t\n'\usc\vcs doirii. T hey condensed sin. By 
 a sort of economy in the toil of sinning, they blciidcd many sins 
 in one; idolatry, sensuality, cruelty, and, in all, the express 
 breach of God's commandments. The clnthes here are doubt- 
 less th(! sameasthe raiment in thelaw,the largcenfoldingcloak, 
 which by day was wrapped over the long loose shirt'-, the poor 
 man's only dress besides, and by night was his only bedding ''. 
 God had expressly commanded'^, Jf the man be poor, thou shall 
 not sleep tvith his pledge ; in any case thou shnll deliver him the 
 pledge again, when the sun goeth doii-n. that he mai/ sleep in his 
 ow)i raiment, and bless thee ; and it shall be righteousness to thee 
 before the Lord thy God. Here the garments laid to ])ledge are 
 treated as_tLe entire ])roperty of the creditors. They stretch '° 
 their listlesslength along uponthem in theiridol-feastsAz/pi't-ry 
 altar. Ezekiel speaks oi' astately A«/,upon which they sat, and 
 a table prepared before it^''. Isaiah; Upon a lofti/and high motm- 
 tain hast thou set uji thy bed; even thither wentest thou up to offer 
 sacrifice; — thou hast enlarged thy bed; thou hast loved their bed; 
 thouprovidedst rooni^''. In luxury and state then, and withal in 
 a shameless publicity, they lay on the garments of the despoiled 
 by every altar. The multiplication of altars ^^ was, in itself, sin. 
 By each of these multiplied j)laces of sin. they committed fresh 
 sinsof luxury and hard-heartedness, (perhaps, from the charac- 
 ter of the worshipof nature, yet grosser sins,) anddrinkthe ivine 
 of the condemned, or (as theE.M. more exactly) the amerced, 
 those whom, unjustly, persons in any petty judicial authority 
 had amerced, expending in revelry and debauchery in the idol's 
 temple what they had unjustly extorted from the oppressed. 
 There is no mask too transparent to serve to hide from himself 
 one who does not wish to see himself. Nothing serves so well 
 as religion for that self-deceit, and the less there is of it, or the 
 more one-sided it is, the better it serves. For the narrower it 
 iSjthelessriskofimpingingon the aweful reality of God's truth; 
 and half a truth as to God is mostly, a lie which its half-truth 
 makes plausible. So this dreadful assemblage of cruelty, a- 
 varice, malice,mockeryof justice, unnatural debauchery, hard- 
 heartedness, was doubtless smoothed over to the conscience of 
 the ten tribes by that most hideous ingredient of all, that the 
 house of their god was the place of their ill-purchased revelry. 
 Men do not serve their idols for nothing; this costly senice 
 at Bethel was not for nouglit. They did all these things; but 
 they did something for "the Deity" or '• Nature" or '-Ashto- 
 retii;" and so "theDeity" was to be at peaccwith them. Amos, 
 with wonderful irony, marks the ghastly mixture of sin and 
 worship, //;e?/rf;Y/?iA- thewine of the amerced — where? in thehouse 
 of their God, condemning in five words '^ their luxury, oppres- 
 sion, perversion of justice, cruelty, profaneness, unreal service 
 
 It is the word commonlyuscdin the plur.-il of "rending the clothcs;"n'7CB' being used Gen. 
 xxxvii. 34. xliv. 13. Josh. vii. 6. and ITD lS3m.iv.l2; else DnJ3. whether of kines or 
 others. It is the word used of " washing the clothes," except in Ex. xix. 10, 14. where 
 nteis' is used. >3 Ex.xxii.26, 7. '■• Dcut.xxiv. 12, 13. '^ la", .-0.1 is not used 
 elscwhereofstretchingouttheperson,butitisuF.edintrans.of" turning aside, "Is. XXX. 11. 
 Job xxiii. 11. Ps. cxxv. 5 : andncD (like KXi'^jj, nXivia from KXtVtu) is a place where one 
 reclines at fulllength, bed, sofa, litter, or bier. '* xxiii.+l. '< Ivii. 7, 8. 
 
 '8 Hos.viii.ll. x.l. xii.ll. " cthSn n'3 in'j' D'!n:y jn. 
 
 Hh 

 
 174 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst ^ H ^^^ destroyed I the •) Ainorite be- 
 cir. 787. fore theiH, 'whose height wan like the 
 
 " Deut ■ 2 ^3if' height of the cedars, and he was strong 
 
 Josh.' 24. 8.' ' Num. 13. 28, 32, 33. 
 
 and real apostacy. Whathanl-lieartcdiics.s to thewilfully-for- 
 gotten poor is conipeiisatcd by a little Church-s-oing ! 
 
 9. Yet [iind I] I (Eiiiphatie) destroi/ed. Such were their 
 doing's ; such their worship of their God. And what had God 
 done ? what was it, which they thus requited ? 
 
 The Amorite. These, as one of the mightiest of the Cana- 
 anite tribes, stand in Moses for all. Moses, in rehearsing to 
 them thegoodnessof God and their backsliding, reminds them, 
 how he had said^. Ye haveconie to the moimtain of the Amoritex, 
 which the Lord your God giveth yon; and that they, using this 
 same word, said-. Because the Lord hateth us, He hath /jroiight 
 Z)S forth out of the land of Egyjit, to give us mto the haiid of the 
 Amorite to destroy us. The aged Joshua, in rehearsing God's 
 great deeds for Israel, places first by itself the destructionof the 
 Amorite before them, with theuse of thissame idunn,^ Ihrought 
 you into the land of the Amorites ivhich dwelt on the other side of 
 Jordan — and I destroyed them lyefore you. The Amorites were 
 descended from the 4th son of Canaan ■*. At the invasion of 
 Chedorlaomer, a portion of tliem^ dwelt at Hazezon-Tamar or 
 Engedi, halfway on the W. side of theDead Sea. and at Hebron 
 near it''. Their corruption had not yet reached its height, and 
 the returnof Israel was delayed to the four hundredth year,Zie- 
 cause the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet full "'. ^^'hen Is- 
 rael returned, the Amorites, (togetherwith the Hittites and the 
 Jebusites) held the hill country^, Jerusalem, Hebron, Gibeon^, 
 and, on the skirts of the mountains Westward i", Jarmuth, La- 
 chish, andEglon^i. They dwelt on the sideof the JordanWest- 
 ward^-, besides the two kingdoms which they had formed East 
 of Jordan, reaching to Mount Hermon^'' and Baslian up to the 
 territory of Damascus. Afterwards a smallremnant remained 
 only in the portion of Dan, and in the outskirts of Judah, from 
 the South of the Dead Sea, Maaleh Akrabbim (Scorpion-pass) 
 and Petra ^*. Those near Idumea were probably absorbed in 
 Edom ; and the remnant in Dan, after becoming tributary to 
 Ephraim i*, lost their national existence perhaps among the 
 Philistines, since we have thenceforth only the single notice 
 in the days of Samuel, after the defeat of the Philistines, thei-e 
 was peace Ijetweeii Israel and the Amorites^'". 
 
 TFhose height was like the height of the cedars. The giant 
 sons of Anak were among the Amorites at Hehron^^ (called for 
 a timeKiriath Arba^7 from their giant father) Debir,Anah, and 
 the mountains of , Judah and Israel ^'^. The valley of llephaim^^, 
 S.W. of Jerusalem, connects this giant race with the Amorites, 
 as does the fact that Og, king of the Amorites in Basan,.was of 
 the remnant of the Rephaim"'^. Basan and Argob were, in Mo- 
 
 I Deut.i.an. 2 lb. 27. ^ Josh. x.xiv. 8. nD'JDD DTcrm— -iDun pN ^K Josh. 
 D3':ed -TCNn ns ■mEB'n '33x1 Am. Moses has the same idiom ot God's act on belialf of 
 Ammon and Edom. Deut. ii. 21, 22. ■• Gen. x. 16. * 3E".i TCNn " those Amorites 
 who dwelt." 6 ib.xiv. 7,]3.conip.xiii. 18. 2Chr. XX.2. ? lb. xv. in. s jsj^ ^iii 
 29. Deut. i. 7, 44. 9 2Sam.xxi.2. 10 Jarmuth, 10 miles N. of Eleutheropolis 
 (Beth Jabrin) ; Eglon, 10 miles 'West ; and Lachish, 7 miles S. Eus. S. Jer. 
 
 II Josh. X. 3,5. I2 1b. V. 1. iSDeut. iii. 8. '< Jud. i. 35,(j. '= 1 Sam. vii. 14 
 i'Nu.xui.22. '!' Josh. xiv.l5.xv.l3, 14. I8 1b.xi.21. i5 2Sam.v.l8 
 =» Deut. 111. 11. Josh, xii.4. xiii.l2. 21 Deut.iii. 13. 22 Josh, xvii.15,18. 
 23 Gen. XV. 20,1. ^-i Nu. xiii. 32. =5 The idea of physical height does not exist 
 
 in the root amar in any Semitic language. In the only word alleged in Hebrew, it has 
 been interred from the context, rather than from any knowledge as to the word itself, that 
 ■l"DK (which occurs in Is. xvii. 0,9. only)signifies uppermosl hramh. The Vulg. however 
 Chald. and Saadia render it "branch" only, in which case TEN would be equivalent to 
 the Syriac 'Aniiro. The LXX. alone has fitTtu'ipou. Even it TDK have the meaning "up- 
 permost," this would probably be by way of metaphor Irom the Arabic £»»> (from which 
 Aben Ezra derives it) as we speak of " a commanding height," and so would not imply that 
 the idea of physical elevation ever existed in the root. 2) If the woid had had themean- 
 
 as the oaks ; yet I "destroyed his fruit from 
 aI)ove, and his roots from beneath. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 U) Also' I brought you up from the' Mai.' 4".!. 
 
 « Ex.12. 51. Mic.6. 4. 
 
 ses' time, still caWcA t he laud of Ilephaim-^ . TheRephaim,with 
 the Perizzites, dwelt still in woody mountains near Ephraim ; 
 whence, on the complaint that the lot of the sons of Joseph was 
 too narrow, Joshua bade liis tribe to expel them"-. TheRepha- 
 im are mentioned between thcPerizzites and the Amorites*',in 
 God's first promise of the land to Abraham's seed, and perhaps 
 some intermixture of race gave the giant stature to the Amo- 
 rites. It is clear from Amos that the report of the spies,ffW the 
 people that we saw in it were men of stature-^, was no exaggera- 
 tion, nor did Joshua and Caleb deny this. The name of the A- 
 niorite-^ is probablyconnectedwith "commanding," describing 
 some quality of their forefather, which descended to his race. 
 
 Whose height was like the height of cedars. Giant height 
 is sometimes a cause of weakness. Amos, in a degree like Ho- 
 sea-^, combines distinct images to make up the idea of state- 
 liness and strength. The cedar is the ideal of Eastern trees for 
 height -^, stretching forth its arms as for protection. " ** It 
 growethtoan exceeding height, and with increasing time ever 
 riseth higher." The oak has its Hebrew name from strength^^ 
 The more majestic the tall strength of the Amorite, the more 
 manifest that IsraeF" gat not the land in possession by their ow7i 
 sword, who had counted themselves, in sight of the Amorite, «*• 
 grasshoppers ^^ God, Who gave him that strength, took it 
 away, as we say, " root and branch," leaving him no shew a- 
 bove, no hope of recovered life below 2-. Having compared 
 each Amorite to a majestic tree, he compares the excision of 
 the whole nation to the cuttingdown of that one tree^^,so swift, 
 so entire, so irrecoverable. Yet the destruction of the Amo- 
 rite, a mercy to Israel in the purpose of God, was a warning 
 to Israel when it became as they. God's terrors are mercies 
 to the repentant; God's mercies are terrors to the impenitent. 
 '* Ye shall keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not 
 commit any of these ahominatio7is, was the tenure upon which 
 they held the Lord's land, that the land spue not you out also, 
 when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. 
 
 lU. Also I (lit. And I, I, emphatic ; thus and thus did ye 
 to Me ; and thus and thus, with all this mercy from the first, 
 did /to you,) / brought you up from the land of Egypt. It is 
 the language in which God, in the law, reminded them of that 
 great benelit, as a motive to obedience ^^ ; I brought thee forth 
 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; only there, 
 since God had not as yet brought them up into the land which 
 He promised them, but they were yet in the wilderness, He 
 says, broitght them forth; here, brought them up^^, as to a 
 place of dignity. His own land. 
 
 ing of height, it would describe the high stature of the forefather of the tribe and the tribe 
 itself, as Rephaim from Rapha'(tall),Enakim from Anak (long-necked). We use the word 
 " heights," but we should not infer that "high" meant" a dweller on heights," a "moun- 
 taineer." 3) This meaning, which writers of late have, one after the other, ascribed to 
 *TCN, would obviously have been expressed by the word Tn, as derived from the com- 
 mon Hebrew word for mountain, nn. (Perhaps this does exist 2Sam. xxiii. 11, 33.*) 
 4) The word (even if it had the meaning,) would not be characteristic of the Amorites, since 
 the Jebusites and the Hittites and the Rephaim equally dwelt in the mountains ; and the 
 Amorites did not dwell in the mountains only. "The apparent object of this unlikely in- 
 ference from imagined etymology is to find a meaning for the names of the Canaanite na- 
 tions, expressive of some local circumstance. But as to the names of the sons of Canaan 
 as also that of Canaan himself, the attempt obviously fails as to all enumerated in Gen.x. 
 15-18. The Perizzites, who are perhaps persons " living in the open country," are not 
 there mentioned. 26 See ab. p. 90. 27 Is. ii. 13. Ezek. xvii. 22. xxxi. 3. 1 Kgs. iv. 
 33. 2 Kgs. xiv. 9. 2S Comm. in Is. ii. 13. ap. S. Basil. Opp. 29 p^^ froft, Shx i. q. Sn 
 as the Latin, "robur." 30 Ps. xliv. 3. ^i fju. xiii. 33. ^2 See Hos. ix. 16. Job 
 xviii. 16. Ezek. xvii. 9. ^3 Dion. ^ Lev. xviii. 2«, 28. 3= Ex. xx. 2. Deut. v. 6. 
 vi. 12. 36 In tije Pentateuch, DTSD pKD ynKxin ; here, msD pKD DMiK "n'^y.i-
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 175 
 
 c H rTs t ^^"'^ ^^ En^ypt, and " led you forty 
 cir. 787. years throuirh the wilderness, to possess 
 the land of the Aniorite. 
 
 " Deut. 2 
 
 &8. 2. 
 
 ^tid ledy<nifortyyearsfhr<n(irhthc wilderness. These ivrc 
 the very words ofthe i.nv', and reminded tliem of so iiiaiiy he- 
 nefits duriusithe course ofthose/rj/7;/ //^//'.v, which tlie law re- 
 hearsed ; the daily siijt|ily of manna, the water from the rock, 
 the deliverance from the serpents and othei- jtcrils, the mani- 
 fold forgivenesses. To he led forty years tlirougli theivikler- 
 Jze.M, alone, had heen no kindness, hut a punishment. It was a 
 blending: of hoth. The ahidinf^in the wilderness waspunish- 
 mcntor austere mercy, keeping:; them ))ack from thelandwhich 
 theyhad shewn themselves un((ualified to enter; God's leadinir 
 them was, His condesc-endinfj mercy. The words, taken from 
 the law, must have re-awakened in the souls of Israelites the 
 memory of mercies which they did notniention,howthat same 
 book relates-. He found Idm in a desert land, and iii the waste 
 howling ivilderness ; He led him ahont ; He instructed hiui ; He 
 kept him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone did lead him. 
 ^In the tci lderness,where thonhast seen how that the Lordtliy God 
 bare thee, us a man doth hear his son, in all the way that ye went 
 until ye came to this place ; or that minute tender care, men- 
 tioned in the same place ^, yotir clothes are not waxen old upon 
 you, and thy shoe is not wa.ven old upon thy foot. But unless 
 Israel had known thelaw well,thewordswould only have heen 
 very distantly su£:g;estive of mercy, that it must have been well 
 with them even in the wilderness, since God led them. They 
 had then the law in their memories, in Israel also*,but distort- 
 ed it or neglected it. 
 
 II. ^nd I raised up of your sons for Prophets. Amos 
 turns from outward mercies to inward, from past to present, 
 fr om ni iracles of pow er to miracles of grace. God's past mer- 
 cies live on ui those ot to-day; the mercies of to-day are the 
 assurance to us that we have a share in the past ; His miracles 
 of grace are a token that the miracles of His power are not our 
 condemnation. God had, from the time of Moses, raised up 
 prophets. Eldad andMedad^were images of those, whom God 
 would raise up beyond the bounds of His promise. The di- 
 vine Samuel wasan Ephrathite^; Ahijah the Shilonite, i. e. of 
 Shiloh in Ephraim, lived on to old age'' in the kingdom ofthe 
 ten tribes after their schism, the witness against the apostacy 
 of Jeroboam*, yet acknowledged by the king whose rise and of 
 the destruction of whose house he prophesied'^. Jehu, son of 
 Hanani, was the prophet of both kingdoms'; Micaiah, son of 
 Imlah,was well known to Ahah,as prophesying evil concerning 
 /«■?«'" continually ;unknowu to Jehoshaphat'i. That wondrous 
 pair, marvellous for superhuman sanctity and power among 
 the marvellous miracles of God, Elijah and Elisha, were botli 
 sotis of Israel, whom God raised up; Elijah the Tishhite^", born 
 doubtless at Thisbe, a village of Naphthali^^, and one of the 
 sojourners^* in Gilead; Elisha of Abelmeholah ^*, on the West 
 side ofthe valley ofthe Jordan^^. And even now He had rais- 
 ed up to them of their own sojis, Hosea and Jonah. Their pre- 
 sence was the presence of God among them, Who, out ofthe 
 
 • Deut. xxix. 4. [5. Enp.] only sli^litly transposing the ■QTDa. In Deut. DDnx i^w 
 13103 riyv D'ymK ; here, njic o-ynn nmD3 DDr»t ^Sl(^l 2 Deut. xxxii. 10,12. 
 
 ^ lb. i. 31. * See Introd. to Amos p. 152. ' Nu. xi. 2G-9. « 1 Sam. i. 1. 
 
 7 1 Kgs. xiv. 2, 4. 8 lb. 7.14.. XV. 29. » Ih.xvi. 1, 7,12. 2Chr. xix. 2.xx.34. 
 
 >" 1 Kgs. xxii. 8, 18. " lb. 7. '- lb. xvii. 1. " Tob. i. 2. See Reland, 1035. 
 Eus. and S'. Jer. mention the village Thisbe. '■' '3nnD. '= 1 Kgs. xix. 16. 
 
 '* See l.Kgs. iv. 12. Eus. and S. Jer. say, " it is now a village, in the valley of the 
 Jordan, 10' miles South of Scythopolis [Betlishean] and is now called Betbmaela [our 
 copies of Jerome have Betbaula]. There is also [a little village S. Jer.] Abelmea, on the 
 way from Neapolis [Nablus] to Scythopolis." " 1 Sam. 1. 11. 
 
 •s y\j 19 Coffee, though invented for vigils, was adopted as a compensation for 
 
 11 And I raised up of your sons for (.ifR"J''j;T 
 
 propliets, and of your young men for '■' ''•■ ^^^- 
 
 " Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O" judg.'is'.o'. 
 
 ordinary way ofIIisProvidence,rrt?.sefZ them up and filled them 
 with His Spirit; and where the Presen(-e of (iod is, if there is 
 fear, yet tlierc is also hope. 
 
 yfnd ofy/nir young men for Nazarifes. The Nazarite was 
 a fruit ofthe grac(^ of (iod in its moral and religious workings, 
 superhuman in holiness and self-denial, as the Prophets were 
 of that samegrace,conferring su]ierliuman wisdom and know- 
 ledge also. Of both, (Jod says, I raised up, teaching that both 
 alike, holiness of life and superhuman wisdom, were His own 
 special gift to each individual. His own creation. G(»d sun-ey- 
 ed His people, called, and raised n)i,hy His grace, out of tbe 
 crowd, those soulswhicbres]iondedtollis call. The life ofthe 
 Nazarites was a continual protest against the self-indulgence 
 and worldliness of thepeople. It wasa life above nature. Un- 
 less any prophet, like SamueF^, was also a Nazarite, they had 
 no special office except to live that life. Their Tde taught. 
 Nay, it taught in one way the more, because tlu'v had no spe- 
 cial gifts of wisdom or knowledge,noth)ng to disting\ii>h them 
 from ordinary men, except extraordinary grace. They were 
 an evidence, what all might do and be, if they used the grace 
 of God. The power ofthe grace of God shews itself the more 
 wondrously in those who have nought besides. The essence 
 ofthe Nazarite life, as expressed by its name ^', was " separa- 
 tion," separation from things of the world, with a view to God. 
 The separation was not, necessarily, for more than a limited 
 time. In such case, it answered to the strictness ofthe Chris- 
 tian Lent. It was a considerable discipline for a time. In 
 those simpler days,when luxury hadnot been so busy^',the ab- 
 solute prohibition of anything fermented-", whether from the 
 grape or any other substance-', orvinegarmadeofeither.or any 
 liquor or refreshing food or drink, made in any way from the 
 grape, fresh or dry,its husks or its kernels, whileit cut off every 
 evasion, involved the giving up not only every drink, in any 
 way exciting or stimulating, but very much also, which was re- 
 freshing. Water, which in the Easthas seldom the freshness of 
 ours, was their only drink. This, which to individuals may be 
 an easy rule, would not be so in the main. T hose only thin ly 
 an undeviating- rule slight, who have never tried one, ii oi:,:-^ 
 t hemselves on system to conquer self-will. _ Such a rule woul d 
 not De acted upon, except for God. Thelong never-shorn hair 
 was probably intended to involve the neglect of personal ap- 
 pearance. Yet this was the body only ofthe vow ; its soul was 
 the dedication to God. The Nazarite not only separated him- 
 self from " those earthly tilings ; he separated himself to the 
 Lord-': heconsecrated tot he Lord the daysofhisseparation-K- all 
 the days of his separation he was holy to the Lord-': the separa- 
 tion of his God was upon his kead-^.' The vow was a great and 
 singular thing. U hen man or woman shall voic a special vow 
 of a Nazarite"''. The ritual of the Nazarite likened him to the 
 priest. Giving him no priestly office, it yet even intensified 
 some of the rules of the priesthood. The priest was to abstain 
 
 Mohammed's prohibition of wine. See tbe history in de Sacy, Chrest. Arab. T. i. p. 412. 
 ed. 2. 20 isfu. vi. 3, 4. -' The strong drink (13!?) was the more comprehensive, be- 
 cause it was undefined. S. Jerome enumerates, as prohibited under it, " every inebriat- 
 itip drink, whether made of barley, or juice of apples, or when honey is decocted into 
 a sweet barbarian drink, or liquor is expressed from the date, or when water is colour- 
 ed and thickened by boiled fruit." (Ep. ad Nepotian.) Accordingly beer, cider, mead 
 (oii/ojxtXi) or " dibs," datewine, and any other fermented liquor, of whatever, (like our 
 British wines,) it might he made, was forbidden. 
 
 "Nu. vi. 3. =3 lb. 2, 5,6. --lib. 12. ^-'Ih.S. =« lb. 7. 
 
 -' lb. 2. ™ -m -rah n^B". In Lev. xxvii. 2. the E.V. renders the same word and form, 
 •™ kVb', make a singular vow. 
 
 Hh 2
 
 176 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 ye children of Israel ? saith the Lord. 
 
 12 But ye gave the Nazarites wine to 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 from wine and strong drink, only u>hni he went into the taher- 
 nacle of the congregtitioii, tliat he n)ip;lit put di/f'erence between 
 holy and iinholi/, and teach Israel the statntes of the Lord^ : the 
 Nazarite,soh>n!;- as he remained such. The ])riest niip:ht defile 
 himself for certain very near dead"; the hijjh priest alone and 
 the Nazarite, neither for father nor mother^: and that for the 
 kindred reason; the hin-h \n\c&t Jiecausethe croiunofthe anoint- 
 ing oil of hix God was upon him ; the Nazarite, hecaiise the con- 
 secration of his God was apon his head! His consecrated hair 
 was called hy the self-same name* as the mitre of the priest. 
 It appears to have been woven into.s-ei;e«/or/«^, itself anumher 
 of consecration. If his consecration came to an end,thathair 
 was minified with the sacrifice", and on his hands alone, be- 
 sides the priest's at his consecration, was part of the offerings 
 laid''. All Israel was. in God's purpose, akingdom of priests'^; 
 and, among them, the Nazarite was brought yet nearer, not to 
 thepriest's office, but to his character. This must havediffus- 
 ed itself indefinitely through the outward and inward life. 
 Further strictness probably lay in the spirit of the vow. The 
 outward appearance of the Nazarites appears to have been 
 changed by their abstemiousness ^. Her Nazarites tvere purer 
 than S710W ; they leere whiter than milk. Their countenance 
 had that transparent i" purity, which sometimes results from a 
 pure abstemious life; as S. Athanasius is said to have been 
 "bloodless." S.John Baptist, the counterpart of Elijah, ate 
 only of the food of the wilderness, locusts and wild honey ; his 
 clothing was the hair cloth'^ Of S.James the Just it is relat- 
 ed with reference to the Nazarite vow; "i-He was holy from 
 his mother's womb; wine and .strong drink he drank not. nor 
 ate any living thing ; the razor came not up upon his head ; he 
 anointed him not with oil, and he used not a bath." Nazarites 
 there had been in the most disorganised times of Israel. The 
 historiesof Samson and Samuel stand over against one another, 
 as Nazarites who. the one forfeited, the other persevered in, 
 his vocation. Elijah's ascetic character is asifhehadbeenone 
 of them, or deepened the linesof their rule. Ahaziah's ungod- 
 ly messengers described him contemptuously as a man. lord of 
 hair, as though he had nothing but his propliet's broad man 
 
 tie of hair, and the leathern girdle about his loins 
 
 The Re- 
 
 chabites, although Kenites by origin ", had been enrolled in 
 the people of God, and had received a rule from their father, 
 uniting with the abstinence of the Nazarites, a mode of life 
 which kept them aloof from the corruptions of cities ^'. The 
 rules of their Nomadic life were consecrated to God, for He 
 says 1", There sf'.all not be cut off from Jonadab, the so)i of Re- 
 chab, a man standing before Me for ever, i. e. as the servant of 
 God. God uses as to them the term which marks the service 
 of the Levites''', Priests^^, and Prophets^^. Jonadab, the au- 
 thor of their rule, was plainly an ascetic, through whose pre- 
 sence Jehu hoped to cast a religious character over his ambi- 
 tious execution of God's command -". But the value which 
 the artful, though impetuous-', bloodstained, captain attached 
 to the presence of the ascetic shews the weight which they 
 
 iLev.x.9-11. 2 Lev.xxi.1-3. 3 jl,. 11,12. Nu.vi.7. ■• inNu. vi.l9. 
 
 * .Iud.xvi.1.3. 6 Nu.vi.lS. Mb.li). ^Ex.xix.e. 9Lam.iv.7. 
 
 '» TheLXX.rendem^lEx. xxx..'54.bycia<J>ai/.is:. " S. Lukei. 15. vii..33. S. Matt. 
 
 iii.4. '- HcgesippusinEus.H.E.ii.23. " 2 Kps.i. 8. The mention of the girdle 
 
 shews that the Itair was the "garment of hair," (Zech. xiii. 4. Heb. xi. 37) not the Na- : 
 
 zarite's liair. '< 1 Chr.ii..55. •» Jer.xxxv. 7,9. '^ ib. 19. i7Deut.x.8. | 
 
 18 Jud.xx.28. " 1 Kgs.xvii.l. =» 2 Kgs.x.15,16, 23. Jehonadab, before- 
 
 hand, was ]iresent to observe if there wire any worshippers of God, in Baal's temple; 
 his influence was not with the Baal-worshippers, but with the vacillating people. 
 
 2' lb. ix. 20. ■■ See Introduction to Hosea p. 6. Obadiah saved the lives of an 
 
 had with the people. Strange sight it must have been, the e- 
 nergeti(^ warrior in his coat of mail, and the ascetic, as ener- 
 getic, in his hair-cloth. Deeper far the contrast within. But 
 the more marvelloustlie contrast, the more it attests the influ- 
 ence which the unwoi'ldly asi'ctic had over the world. Like 
 the garb of the prophets, their appearance was a standing re- 
 buke to a life of sense. Like the patriarchs, it professed that 
 they were strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. They who 
 sought nothing of the world or of time, were a witness to the 
 belief in their eternal home. The Nazarites must now have 
 been a numerous body.since Amos speaks of them, as a known 
 class, like the prophets, of whose numbers we hear incidental- 
 ly-^. Yet the memoryof these, who,amid the general corrup- 
 tion, were, each in his own sphere, centres of pure faith and 
 life, is embalmed in these few words only. So little reason is 
 there to think that God's commands were neglected by all, be- 
 cause their observance is not related. Amos appeals publicly 
 to the people that the fact was so, that God had raised up Na- 
 zarites as well as prophets among them. He had His little 
 Jlock^^, His .seven thousand"*, who escaped the eye even of Eli- 
 jah. The gift of the Nazarites was a special favor to Israel, as 
 a memorial what the grace of Godcould do for man, what man 
 could do, with the grace of God. His raising np Nazarites, 
 out o///(e/r7/r>;/«g?;<e«,menintheir first bloom of unmarried ^% 
 virgin -'', life, their picked "very chosen men-''," such as fur- 
 nished the prime of their warriors-*. strengthened that teach- 
 ing. Even now, one devoted to God in his youth is a wit- 
 ness for God, leaven of the world around him. But the Na- 
 zarite had also to bear an outward mark for good, to be sin- 
 gular. His appearance bespoke that he liadcliosenGod. His 
 vow was not only a living up to the law; it lay beyond the law, 
 the free-will offering of those whom God called. At an age, 
 when so many do things unlawful, to gratify passion, these ab- 
 stained even from things lawful. "Canst thou not do what 
 theseyouthsand these maidenscan?orcan theyeither inthem- 
 selves, and not rather in the Lord their God?" was St. Augus- 
 tine's upbraiding of himself-^, on the eve of his conversion, in 
 thought of those who were living a devoted virgin life. 
 
 Is it not even thus? It were enough that God, the Truth, 
 said it. But He condemns not, without giving space for 
 excuse or defence. So He describes the Day of Judgment^". 
 The books were opened, — and the dead were judged out of those 
 thingsnddchweretvritten in thebooks. according to their woi-ks^^. 
 Now, in the time of grace, thequestionasks, what, written un- 
 der the picture of Christ crucified, once converted a sinner; 
 "This have I done for thee : What doest thou for Me?" What 
 did they? What had they done ? What would they do? 
 
 1 2. But ye gave the Nazariteswine to drink; Wt. and, (this, 
 on their part, was the consequence of what God did for them) 
 ye caused the Nazarites to drink tvine. God appointed; Israel 
 strove to undo His appointment. Godraised up AMzarites,as 
 a testimony to them; they sought to make His servants break 
 their vow,in orderto rid themselves of that testimony. Their 
 
 hundred prophets. 1 Kgs. xviii.4. -' S. Luke xii. 32. -* IKgs.xix. 18. 
 
 -^ Ruth iii. 10. (in ii. 9. where there was no emphasis, mya is used) Is. Ixii. 5. 
 
 -'' Hence joined with nSin3 "virgin," Deut. xxxii. 25. 2 Chr. xxxvi. 1". Jer. li. 22. 
 and in theplur. Ps. Ixxviii. (i3. cxlviii. 12. Is. xxiii. 4. Jer. xxxi. 13. Lam. i. 18. ii. 21. 
 Zech. ix. 17. and by Amos himself, viii. 13. -' nin3 is, by its form , intensive, not 
 
 '* chosen" only, but " greatly chosen." It is nowiiere used without emphasis. 
 
 -^ Hence in the idiom " shall slay their young men with the sword," Sic. 2 Kgs. 
 viii. 12. Jer. xi. 22. xv. 8. xviii. 21. &c. EzeK. xxx. 17. and in the remaining place in 
 Amos iv. 10. -^ Conf. viii. 27. p. 152. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 •^ S. Matt. XXV. 24-30. 41-5. xxii. 11. ^1 Rev. xx. 12.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 177 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 drink ; and commanded the proi)hcts, ^ say- 
 
 in<^, Prophesy not. 
 
 r Is. 30. 10. Jer. 11. 21. ch. 7. 13, Ki. Mic. 2. 6. 
 
 pains to destroy it, is a stronfif proof of its power. The world 
 is mad a^'aiiist true reliji'ion, because it feels itself r-ondeiiined 
 by it. Men set themselves ai^ainst relii^ioii and the reliiiions. 
 the Church or the l'riestho(»d, only when and because; th(!y feel 
 their power on God's side aifainst them. What men despise, 
 they do not oppose. "They kill us, they do not despise us," 
 were true words of a Freiu'h priest, as to the "reiicn of reason" 
 in the first French revolution. Had the men in power not re- 
 spected the Nazarites, or felt tluit the people respected them, 
 they would not have attempted to corrujit or to force them to 
 break their vow. The word, cditsie them to drink, does not ex- 
 press whether they used (!onstraint or seduirtion. Israel's eon- 
 sciences supplied it. Yet since they persecuted the prophets and 
 put them to death, it seems likely that Amos means that they 
 used violence, either by forcinic the wine into their mouths, as 
 the swine-flesh was forced into the mouth of Eleazar ', and, in 
 the Decian persecution an infant was made to cat of the idol- 
 oblation -, or by threat of death. 
 
 And cnmmanded the prophets, sai/ing, Prophesj/ not. God 
 had commanded the prophets to prophesy. Israel issued and 
 laid upttn them his commands aijainst the commands of God. 
 The more God reveals His Will, the directer and more determi- 
 nate the opposition of those who will not yield. God's perse- 
 verance in tryinarto win them irritates them; they oppose grace, 
 and are ana^ered at not beinc; let alone. This large statement 
 of Amos means much more than the prohibition of Amazi- 
 ah to himself^. Jeroboam I. was prevented only by miracle* 
 from seizing the prophet who denounced the altar at Bethel. 
 Ahal), during the famine foretold by Elijah, sought him every- 
 where to destroy him % and Jezebel, after the miracle at Car- 
 mel and the death of her prophets, swore by her gods to do so ". 
 Ahab's last act was to imprison Micaiah ''', the son of Inilah, for 
 prophesying his death, when adjured by himself to speak truly. 
 Ahaziah, his son, undeterred by the fire from heaven which de- 
 stroyed two captains, each with his fifty, sent yet a 3rd to take 
 Elijah, when he prophesied that the king would not recover 
 from his sickness*. Jehoram, his 2nd son, swore by God to 
 destroy Elisha^, laying the evils of the siege to the Prophet, 
 as the Romans did the evils of their decaying empire to the 
 Christians. Micah and Isaiah, a little later, speak of such 
 opposition, in Jndah, ashabituaU"; much more in Israel, where 
 the opposition to God"s law was more fundamental, and where 
 God's prophets had been ail-but exterminated. Even Asa. in 
 his degenerate days, imprisoned Hanani for prophesyinn- that 
 he would hare wars^^ ; Joash slew Zechariah son of Jehoiada'-; 
 Amaziah silenced the prophet who rebuked him'^,.^r///(o«wi«(/e 
 of the king's counsel ? forbear. fVhi/ shouldest thou he smitten ? 
 Jchoiakim sent even into Egypt to fetch Uriah and slew him ^^ 
 Jeremiah's life was one continuous encounter with false accu- 
 sations '% contradictions by false prophets'", hatred '', mock- 
 ery^^, persecution^", imprisonment-", attempts to destroyhim'-'. 
 The complaint was, as here, witerefore dost thou prophesi/ -- ? 
 What, when our Lord gives it as the characteristic of Jerusa- 
 
 ' 2Macc. vi. 18. - S. Cyprian on the lapsed § Ifi. p. ICO. 0x1. Tr. 3 vii. 13. 
 
 * \ Kgs. \m. 1. ^ lb. xviii. 10-12. « lb. xix. 2, ;i. '' lb. xxii. 26 7. 
 
 8 2Kijs. i. y-13. 9Ib.vi.31. '» Mic. ii. 6. Is. xxx. 10,11. " 2Chr.xvi.7,10. 
 
 " lb. xxiv. 20, 1. " lb. XXV. 15, 16. " Jer. xxvi. 20.3. 'Mb.xx.lO. 
 
 xxxvii. 13. xxxviii. 4. 'O lb. xxiii. 17 sqq. xxvii. 9,10, 1 1-16. xxviii. xxix. 
 
 >7 lb. XV. 10. li* lb. xvii. 15. xx. 7, S. xxiii. 33. " lb. xvii. IS. -» lb. xx. 2. 
 xxxii. 3. xxxiii. 1. xxxvii. 15-21. xxxviii. fi-13. -^ lb. xi. 18-21. xviii. 18,20-23. 
 
 xxvi. 8 sqi|. xxxvi. 26. -- lb. xxxii. 3. "' S.Matt. xxiii. 37. A airoicTfii'oKcro 
 
 Toys TTpo^t'iTa^ Kai \ldo/3oXouo'o. 
 
 13 '■ Beliold, II T am pressed under you, ^ j/^r^s t 
 as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves, '-'''• '''^^- 
 
 ■ Is.l.n. II Or, / tuill press your plare, as aca7-t full of sheaves preiseth. 
 
 Icni -', that she was "the slayer of the prophets, the stoner of 
 those sent unto her-" Tiicy would not have slain the prophets, 
 if they could lia\-e >ilcni-cd them. .Menare loth to go to extre- 
 mities uitb (rod ; they will make an armistific with Him : their 
 awe of holiness makestbeminwardly shrink from laying hands 
 on it. Like the wolf in thefablc.tliey must have a plea against 
 it ; and that pica against those who liavtr the truth is (jbstina- 
 cy-^. If the Christians would have abstained from converting 
 the world, they would not hav(! been persecuted. The Chief- 
 priests at first sought siniplv to silence the A|)ustles -'; then 
 they enforced I heir coninumd with scourges-''; then persecuted 
 themand the Christians to death-''. Direct contumacy toGod's 
 known voice and silencing His messenger, is a last stage of 
 obduracy and malice, which leaves (iod no further avenue to the 
 soul or the jx'ople. His means of grace are exhausted, when 
 the soul or iicople not only deaden His voice within, but ob- 
 struct it without. One who. through vehemence of his pas- 
 sions, refuses to hear, is within the reach of the grace of God, 
 afterwards. He who stifles God's word to others has nujstly 
 hardened his heart deliberately and maliciously in unlove to 
 man, as well as contemptofGod. HenceGodspeaks.asthough 
 this brought the day of grace to a close. 
 
 13. Behold, I am pressed under j/ou. God bore Hispeople, 
 as the wain bears the sheaves. Yet/ourselves have seen, He said 
 to them by Moseii-^,how Ihare i/ouoneagle'swings, and hroufrht 
 you unto Mi/self. -'•• Thou hast seeu how the Lord thy God bare 
 thee, as a man doth hear his son, in all theivay that yeivent, un- 
 til ye came into tliisplare. And by Isaiah ■*, He bare them and 
 carried them all the days of old ; and*\ udiich are home by Me 
 from thebelly. which are carriedfrom the womb. \ow,He speaks 
 of Himself as wearied by them, as by Isaiah'-, thou hast wearied 
 Me with thine iniquities ; and by Malachi'^,.ye have wearied the 
 Lord : yet ye say, wherewith have we wearied Him ? His long- 
 suflFering was, as it were, worn out by them. He was straitened 
 under tiiem, as the wain groansunder the sheaves with which 
 it is over-full. The words arc literally, Behold I, I [empahtic, 
 /, your God, of Whom it would seem impossible] straiten my- 
 self [i.e. of My own Will allow Myself to be straitened] under 
 you^*,as the iv'ain full for itself, i.e.' as full as ever it can contain, 
 is straitened, groans, as we say. God says, (the word in He- 
 brew is half active) that He allows Himself to be straitened, 
 as in Isaiah He says. / am weary to bear, lit.. " I let Myself 
 be wearied." fVe are simply passive under weariness or op- 
 pressiveness : God endures us, out of His own free condescen- 
 sion in enduring us. But it follows, that when He shall cease 
 to endure our many and grievous sins, He will cast them and 
 the sinner forth from Him. 
 
 14-16. Israel relied, against God, on his own strength. 
 Have we not, they said->\ taken to us horns by our own strength ? 
 Amos tells them then, that every means of strength, resistance, 
 flio-ht, swiftness of foot, of horse, place of refuge, should fail 
 them. Three times he repeats, as a sort of dirge, he shall not 
 deliver himself. 
 
 '-* SeeonTert.despect. l.p.lS9.n.f. Oxf. Tr. -' Actsiv. 18,21. =« Ib.v.-lO. 
 
 27 Ib.vii.57-y. viii.l-+.ix. 1, 2. xii. 1-3. xxii. 4,5. =sEx.xix.4. =«Deut.i.31. 
 
 3" Ixiii. 51. sixlvi.o. 3; ^liii. 21. ^3 H. 17. 34 jhe E.M. (rives as a 
 
 choice, the rendering. " I will press your place, as a cart full 0.' sheaves pressetli." But 
 1 ) nnn never occurs as the first object of a verb. In Job xxxvi. 20. xl. 12. it sunds abso- 
 lutely, as with the intr.ins. verb, llab. iii. 7. 2) Nor is the object pressed down omitted. 
 as if "press down under you," could stand for " press you down." 3) Nor is the slight 
 track made by a two-wheeled cart (such as is used in the East and in many mountainous 
 countries) likelv to be an image of tlie utter crushing of a people. 3i vi. 13.
 
 178 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst 14 "Therefore the flii?ht shall perish 
 cir.787. from the swift, and the strong- shall not 
 
 strengthen his force, '' neither shall the 
 
 " Jer. 9. 23. 
 ch. y. 1, &c. 
 
 \u%kmI'- mighty deliver f himself : 
 soul, or, life. jg ^^1^^^^ shall hc Stand that handleth 
 the bow ; and he that is swift of foot shall 
 c Ps.33. 1/. not deliver himself: " neither shall he that 
 ^ Heh rideth the horse deliver himself. 
 
 16 And he that is f courageous among 
 
 strong of 
 his heart. 
 
 Therefore the flight (probably />/rtte of flight'^ ) .shall perish. 
 They had despised God, as Wxeir place of refuge", so the place 
 of refuge should perish from the swift, as thouijh it were not. 
 He shoiikl flee amain, but there would be no place to flee unto. 
 God alone renews strength : therefore the strong man should not 
 strengthen his force or might, should not be able to gather or 
 " collect his strength ^," as we say. Fear should disable him. 
 The handler of the how *, and who by habit is a skilled archer, 
 although himself out of the immediate reach of the enemy, and 
 able, unharmed, to annoy him and protect the fugitives, shall 
 not stand'". Panic should overtake him. The mighty man, 
 thejleet of foot should not deliver, yea, the horseman should not 
 deliver himself; yea, he who, among the 7nighti/, was strongest of 
 his heart, fimi-souled among those of mightiest prowess, shall 
 flee aivay naked,!, e. bared of all,armour^ or dress, which might 
 encumber his flight in that day, which the Lord made a day of 
 terror. His own day. 
 
 Saith the Lord. Probably lit. the secret utterance'' of 
 the Lord. Amos, more than Hosca, uses this special authen- 
 tication of his words'^, which is so common in Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. He claims a knowledge, which 
 those around him had not, and ratifies it by the express appeal 
 to the direct, though secret, revelation of God ; what those 
 who were not of God, would deny ; what they who were of God, 
 would believe. 
 
 III. 1. Amos, like Hosea, rebukes Israel directly, Judah 
 indirectly. He had warned each nation separately. Now, ere 
 he concentrates himself on Israel, he sums up what he had be- 
 fore said to Judah and Israel, in the Person of God. " Ye have 
 been alike in Rly gifts to you, alike in your waste of them and 
 your sins : alike ye shall be in your punishment." What was 
 said to Israel was said also to Judah : what was directed first 
 to the former people, belongs to us, the later. What Jesus said 
 to the Apostles, He said also to the Church, and to single souls, 
 ' What I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch. 
 
 1. Hear ye this ivord. With that solemn threefold call, so 
 frequent in the Old Testament, he summons them thrice ^^, as 
 in tlie Name of the Holy Trinity, to hear God's words. "^^The 
 Prophet, at the outsetof the chapter,rouses the hearers to anx- 
 ious consideration. For the words of the most High God are 
 to be heard, not with a superficial, unawed, wandering mind, 
 but with reverence, fear, and love." 
 
 That the Lord hath spoken against (and upon ^^^ yoti, (com- 
 ing down//-o»! heaven ^^, both upon and against them) the ichole 
 ^family which I brought up from the land of Egypt. To Abra- 
 ham God had said ^*, in thee shall all the families of the earth be 
 
 • So 013D probably means in the same idiom, Job xi. 20. Ps. cxlii. 5. Jer. xxv.35. 
 
 2 DUO IS so used as to God, 2Sam.xxii. 3. Ps. lix. 17. Jer. xvi. 19. ^ So Prov. 
 
 xxiv.o. * Asin Jer. xlvi.'J. pD TBn. ' As Jer. xlvi. 21. Nah.ii. S. ^ AsLivy 
 Epeake of persons "unarmed and naked," iii. 23; or S. Peter is said to be " naked,"bel'ore he 
 had girt on his upper garment, (tire wi/tijc) S. Joh. xxi. 7 ; and Virgil directs his husband- 
 men to "plough and sow naked," Georg, i. 229. i. e. unencumbered with the upper dress. 
 
 the mighty shall flee away naked in that chrTst 
 day, saith the Lord. ''"■'^^''- 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 The necessity of God's j'ttdgmoit against Israel. 
 9 The publication of it, with the causes thereof. 
 
 EAR this word that the Lord hath 
 
 H 
 
 spoken against you, O children of 
 Israel, against the whole family which I 
 
 blessed. So now, in withdrawing that blessing from them. He 
 takes it away from them, family by family i°. He includes 
 them, one and all, and Judah also, since all had been brought 
 out of Egypt. 
 
 '2. Youonly have I knoiunof all the families of the earth ; there- 
 fore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Such is the one 
 law of God. The nearer any is brought unto God, the worse 
 is his fall, and, his trial over, the more heavily is he punished. 
 Nearness to God is a priceless, but an aweful,gift. The intens- 
 est blessing becomes, by the abuse of free will, the most dread- 
 ful woe. For the nearer God places any one to His own light, 
 the more malignant is the choice of darkness instead of light. 
 The more clearly any one knows the relation to God, in which 
 God has placed him, the more terrible is his rejection of God. 
 The more God reveals to any, what He IS, His essential per- 
 fections. His holiness and love, the more utter, fearful malig- 
 nity it is, to have been brought face to face with God, and to 
 have in deed said to Him, "On Thy terms I will have none of 
 Thee." The angels who sinned against fullest light, had no 
 redemption or repentance ; but became devils. ^^He took not 07i 
 Him the 7tature of angels. ^^ The angels which kept not their first 
 estate, hut left their oivn habitations. He hath reserved in ever- 
 lasting chaitis U77der darkness unto the judgment of the great 
 Day. Of the former people, when their first day of grace was 
 past, Daniel says ^^ ; under the ivhole heaven hath not been done, 
 as hath been done upon Jerusalem. Begin, God saith in Eze- 
 kieP', at My sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men 
 which were before the house. So our Lord lays down the rule of 
 judgment and punishment hereafter -'^ : the servant which knew 
 his Lord's tvill, and prepared not himself, neither did according 
 to His will,shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew 
 not, and did coynmit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with 
 few stripes. For unto tvhomsoever much has been given, of him 
 shall much be required, and to whojn men have committed much, 
 of him they will ask the more. The time is come,says S. Peter ^^, 
 that judgment must begin at the house of God. 
 
 Yon only I have knoivn. Such care had God had of Is- 
 rael, so had He known them, and madeHimself known to them, 
 as if He had, in comparison, disregarded all besides, as He re- 
 mained unknown by them. Knowledge, among men, is mutu- 
 al, and so it seemed as if God knew not those, of whom He was 
 not known. Knowledge, with God, is love, and so He seemed 
 not to have known those,to whom, although i/e left not Himself 
 tvithout witness -", He had shown no such love -^. Whence our 
 Lord shall say to the wicked -*, / never knew you ; and con- 
 trariwiseHe say s^^, I am the good Shepherd ajid know J/j/sheep, 
 
 7 From the Arab. ^ At the end of the sentence, here and iii. 13, 15. iv. 3,5,6,8,9, 
 10, 11. ix. 8, 12; in the middle, iii. 10. vi. 8, 14. viii. 3, 9, 11. ix. 7, 13. » S. Mark 
 
 xiii.37. '0 iii. l.iv. l.v 1. "Dion. '^ o^V '3 Heb.xii.25. »Gen.xii.3. 
 
 '5 Zech. xii.l2. i^Heb.ii.lH. '?S.Jude6. 's ix.l2. iMx.6. 
 
 -■> S.Lukexii.47, 8. J' 1 Ep.iv.l7. - Actsxiv.l7. "SeeonHos. 
 
 xiii.5.p.83. 24 s.Matt.vh.23. ^^ S.John x. 14. see 2 Tim. ii. 19.
 
 CIIAITER III. 
 
 179 
 
 Before 
 
 C H K I S T 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 [. broujvht up from the land of Es-ypt, sayinu^, 
 2 ''You only have I known of all the fa- 
 
 &?o.i5'.' nillies of the earth : ''therefore I will f pu- 
 
 Ps.147.19,20. • I <• 11 
 
 » See Dan. y. Hish you tor all your iniquities. 
 Matt. 11. 22. 3 Can two walk toj^ether, exeept they 
 
 Luke 12. 47, 1 1 •v 
 
 Horn. 2. 9. beaj^reed? 
 
 1 Pet. 4. 17. 
 tHeb. 
 visit upon. 
 
 4 Will a lion roar in the forest, when he 
 
 and am known 0/ Mine. "^ Myriads of cities and lands are 
 there under the whole heaven, and in them countless multi- 
 tudes; but you alone have 1 chosen out of all, made Myself 
 known and visible among you by many miracles, chosen you 
 out of a bitter unbearable i)ondaire, trained you by My law to 
 be well-pleasinj;: to Me, fenced you with protection, brouf^ht 
 you into the land promised to your fathers, enlightened you 
 with prophecies." " ^ Not, I deem, as though in the time of 
 Israel and of the Old Testament, there were not, in the whole 
 world, some good men and predestinated; but because God did 
 not then choose any nation or whole people, save the children 
 of Israel. For itwasmeet that that people, of which God willed 
 to be Incarnate, should bedistinguished by some special grace." 
 
 Therefore I will punish you. " ^ To despise God and to 
 neglect theLord'sWill procurethdestructiontothose who have 
 known Him or been known of Him, and been spiritually made 
 His own." " I made you My own people, friends, sons. As a 
 Father, I cherished, protected, exalted, you. Ye would not 
 have Me as a Father, ye shall have Me as a Judge." " ^ As 
 Israel has, in its elect, been glorious above all, so, in the repro- 
 bate, has it been made viler than all, both before God and be- 
 fore men." How much more Christians, and, among Chris- 
 tians, priests ! It has of old been believed, that the deepest 
 damnation will be that of ungodly priests, i^ - ^^"^ 
 
 Yet since almost all punishment in tiiislife is remedial, the 
 saying admits another meaning that God would leave no sin 
 unchastened in those whom He had made His own. Both are 
 true meanings, fulfilled at different times. God chastens in 
 proportion to His love, in the Day of grace. He punishes, in 
 proportion to the grace and love despised and trampled upon 
 without repentance, in eternity. Here, "* the most merciful 
 Physician, cutting away the cancrous flesh, spareth not, that 
 He may spare; He pitieth not, that He may the more pity. For 
 whom the Lord loveth He chastenefh, and scourgeth every son 
 tvhom He receiveth." Hence the prayer', " R urn, cut,hei-e; and 
 s pare for ever." Contrariwise, " ^ we should esteem any sinner 
 the more miserablc,when we see him left in his sin,unscourged. 
 Whence it is said ^, The tumin i j nwmj of the simple shall slay 
 th eni, an d the prosperity of fools shall destroy theni. For whoso 
 tii?7ieth atvay trom God and is prosperous, is thenearer to per- 
 dition, the more he is removed from the severity of discipline." 
 "8 This is the terrible, this the extreme case, when we are no 
 longer chastened for sins, when we are no more corrected for 
 ofltnding. Forwhen wehave exceeded the measure of sinning, 
 God, in displeasure, turneth away from us His displeasure." 
 "^When you see a sinner, affluent, powerful, enjoying health, 
 with wife and circle of children, and that saying is fulfilled, 
 ^^ They are 7iot in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued 
 like other men, in him is the threat of the Prophet fulfilled, / 
 will not visit." 
 
 3. Sacred parables or enigmas must have many meanings. 
 
 ' S. Cyr. 2 Dion. ^ Rup. * S. Jerome in Ezek. vii. Sanct. in Hos. iv. 14. 
 ' Ap. S.Aug. Bp.Andrewes, Prayers. ' S.Greg. iiiEzek.L. i. Hom.xii. 18. 
 
 ! hatli no prey ? will a youn«:j Hon f cry out 
 of Ills den, if he hav(; taken nothini;^ ? 
 
 5 Can a bird fall in a snare upon the 
 earth, where no ^m is for him ? shall one 
 take uj> a snare from the earth, and have 
 taken nothini;^ at all ? 
 
 6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, 
 
 Ik'fore 
 
 C H 11 1 S T 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 Heb. ~ 
 
 Ifive forth 
 Ills voice. 
 
 Tbcy are cast on the mind, to quicken it and rouse it by their 
 very mystery. They arc taken from objects whicli in diff"ercnt 
 lights, represent different things, and s(» suggest them. This 
 series of brief [(arables have, all of tbeni, this in conimon, that 
 each thing sjioken of is alternately cause and effect, and where 
 the one is found, there must be the other. From tli(- effect you 
 can certainly infer the cause, without which it could not be,and 
 from the cause you may be sure of the effect. Then, further, / 
 all the images are of terror and peril to the objects spoken ofV 
 The Prophet impresses upon their minds both aspects of these 
 things; "evil will not befall, unless it has been prepared;" 
 '• signs of evil will not shew themselves, unless the evil be at 
 hand." The bird will wA fall without the snare ; if the snare 
 rises and so shews itself, the bird is as good as taken. As sure- 
 ly then (the Prophet would say) as the roaring of the lion, the 
 rising of the snare, the alarm of the trumpet, betokens immi- 
 nent peril, so surely does the warning Voice of God. The lion 
 hath roared ; u'ho will not fear ? Again, as surely as these are 
 the effects of their causes, so surely is all infliction sent by 
 Him Who Alone has power over all things, and is the Cause of 
 all. Shall there he evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done 
 it ? Again,as these tokens are given before the evil comes, and 
 the God of nature and of grace has made it a lawin natui-e,that 
 what is fearful shouldgive signs of coming evil. so has He made 
 it a law of His own dealings, not to inflict evil, without having/ 
 fore-announced it. Surely the Lord God will do nothing, hut 
 He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets. As no- 
 thing else is by chance, nor happens without cause, much less 
 the acts of God. The lion or young lion when they roar, the 
 bird when it falls to the ground, the snare when it rises, the 
 trumpet's sound, all have their cause and ground : shall not 
 then much more the acts and works of God? Shall evil happen 
 in the city, and have no ground in the Cause of all causes, God 
 in His righteous judgments ? As there is fear, whenever there 
 are tokens and causes of fear, so fear ye now and watch, lest 
 the fear overtake you and it be too late. The first words then, 
 3. Can \_fVilP\ two ivalk together, except they he agreed? 
 are at once a general rule for all whicli follows, and have dif- 
 ferent bearings according to those its several aspects. And, 
 before all these, it is an appeal at once to the conscience which 
 feels itself parted from its God ; "so neither will God be with 
 thee, unless thou art agreed and of one mind with God. Think 
 not to have God with thee, unless thou art with God;" as He 
 saith ^'^, / ivill not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff- 
 necked people, lest I consume thee in the way ; and '-, if ye icalk 
 contrary unto Me, then will I also tealk contrary unto you, and 
 will punishyou yet seven times far your sins. And on the other 
 hand '^, They shall walk with Me in tvhite, for they are worthy. 
 " "God cannot be agreed with the sinner who justifies himself. 
 "^ God Who rebukcth, and Israel who is rebuked, are two. 
 God saith. We are not agreed, in that Israel, when rebuked, 
 
 ■Pr.i.32. * Grig. Hom.viii. 5.inEx. XX. S. » S. Jer. in Hos. iv. 14. S. 
 
 '• Ps. lxxiii.5. " Ex. xxxiii. 3. '2 Lev. xxvi. 23, 4. »■■) Rev. iii. 4. "Lap.
 
 180 
 
 AMOS 
 
 c h^rTs t ^'"^ *''^ people 
 cir. 787. be evil in a city, 
 
 II Or, not run 
 
 not be afraid ? " shall there 
 and the Lord hath not 
 
 together 
 ' Is. 45. 7. 
 
 done it 9 
 
 Or, and shall not the LORD do somewliat 'i 
 
 hearetli not Me, God, rebuking. Herein we are not agreed, 
 that 1 rebuke, Israel justifieth himself. Lo, for so many years 
 since Jeroboam made the golden calves, have I sent Prophets, 
 and none agreeth, for no one king departed from the sin of 
 Jeroboam. So then I came Myself, God made Man, rebuking 
 and reproving; hut^ i/c are they which justify yourselves before 
 men, and, being sick, yc say to the Physician, we need Thee 
 not." " - So long as thou confessest not thy sins, thou art in 
 a manner litigating with God. For what displcaseth Him, thou 
 praisest. Be at one with God. Let what displcaseth Him, 
 displease thee. Thy past evil life displcaseth Him. If it please 
 thee, thou art disjoined from Him ; if it displease thee, by con- 
 fessing thy sins, thou art joined to Him.'' So He awakens 
 and prepares the soul for tlie following words of awe. 
 
 In connection with what follows, the words are also the Pro- 
 phet's defence of his Mission. Israel sttid to the Prophets, 
 Prophesy not '^, or, Tlie Lord our God hatli not sent thee ^, be- 
 cause, while it disobeyed God, the Prophets must speak con- 
 cerning it not good, hut evil. Amos prepares the way for his an- 
 swer ; ye yourselves admit, that two will not walk together, un- 
 less they he agreed. The seen and the unseen, the words of 
 the Prophets and the dealings of God. would not meet together, 
 unless the Pro])hets were of one mind with God, unless God 
 had admitted them into His counsels, and trere agreed with 
 them, so that tbeir words should precede His deeds, His deeds 
 confirm His words by them. 
 
 Then, further, each question by itself suggests its own 
 thought. Amos had already,in repeating Joel's words, spoken 
 of God's Voice, under the image of a lion roaring^. Hosea had 
 likened Israel to a silly dove, without heart'' ; on the other hand, 
 he had likened God's loud call to re])cntance to the roaring of 
 the lion, the conversion of Israel to the return of the dove to its 
 home ''. As the roaring of the lion causeth terror, for he send- 
 eth forth his terrible roar when he is about to spring on his 
 prey ^ so God threatens by His Prophets, only when He is a- 
 bout to punish. Yet the lion's roar is a warning to escape. 
 God's threatening is a warning to betake them to repentance, 
 and so to escape from all fear, by fleeing from their sins. If 
 the season is neglected, wilt thou rescue the prey from the 
 lion's grasp, or thyself from the wrath of God ? 
 
 Again,the bird taken in the snare is the image of those drawn 
 down from heaven, where our conversation is"^ and the soul 
 may rise free towards its God, " i" drawn up by the Spirit to 
 high and heavenly things." Such souls, being allured by the 
 things of earth, are entangled and taken by Satan ; as, on the 
 otlier hand,///e soul .escaped as a bird out of the snare ofthefowl- 
 er^^, is a soul, set free by Christ and restored to Heaven. 
 
 In the last likeness, the Prophet comes nearer to the people 
 themselves, and the trumpet is, at once, the well-known token 
 of alarm among men, and of the loud voice of God. wakening 
 them to repentance^- and still oftener, warning them of the 
 approach of judgment i^, or summoning man before Him'*. 
 "1^ God's Voice will not always be a still small voice, or whis- 
 pered only among the Angels,or heard as from the ground. It 
 will be heard terribly in the whole world." " ^^ Whatever is 
 
 ' S. Luke xvi. 15. = S. Aug. in Ps. Ix.w. Lap. 3 See ab. on ii. 12. 
 
 * Jer. xliii. 2. s ;_ 2. Hos. xi. 10. (add v. 14. vi. 1. xiii. 7.) Jer. xxv. 30. 
 
 6vii.ll. 7x1.10,11. 8 Boch. Hieroz. i. lii. 2. » Phil. iii. 20. 
 
 '» Art. xvii. " Ps. cxxiv. 7. '- Is. Iviii. 1. Joel ii. 15. 
 
 7 Surely the Lord Gou will do nothing, chrTst 
 but ''he revealeth his secret unto his ser- t^ir. 7w7. 
 vants the prophets. ^&T8.V.^' 
 
 Ps. 25.14. John 15. 15. 
 
 said in Holy Scripture is a trumpet threatening, and with loud 
 voice sinking intothe hearts of believers. If weare righteous, 
 we are called by the trumpet of Christ to bliss. If we are sin- 
 ners, we know that we are to suffer torment." Is there evil in 
 tlie citi/ and the Lord hath not done itf Evil is of two sorts, 
 evil of sin, and evil of punishment. There is no other; for 
 evil of nature, or evil of fortune, are evils, by God's Pi"ovidence, 
 punishing the evil of sin. '"^Evil, which is sin, the Lord 
 liath not done ; evil, which is punishment for sin, the Lord 
 bringeth." The Providetice of (iod governing and controlling 
 all things, man doth ill which lie wills, so as to suffer ill which 
 he wills not. Only, evil which is by God's Providence the pu- 
 nishment of sin is in this life remedial, and through final im- 
 penitence alone becomes purely judicial. 
 
 "i^Refer not. the Prophet would say, the ills which ye suf- 
 fer and will suffer, to any other causes, as men are wont to do. 
 God, in His displeasure, sends them upon you. And that ye 
 may know this the more certainly, whatever He shall send He 
 wili first reveal to tlie Prophets and by them ye shall be fore- 
 warned. See then that ye despise not my words, or the words 
 of the other prophets. Men ascribe their sufi'erings to fortune, 
 accident, any cause, rather than the displeasure of God. The 
 intemperate will think any thing the cause of their illness ra- 
 ther than their intemperance. Men love the things of the 
 world, and cannot and will not be persuaded that so many evils 
 are brought on them by the things which they love. So then 
 God explains through the prophets the punishment which He 
 purposes to bring on men." 
 
 7. Surely the Lord God will do [For the Lord God doeth] 
 itothing,hat He revealeth Uis secret unto His servants the pro- 
 phets. So our Lord saith^^, ^-liid notu I have told you before it 
 come to pass, that, luhen it is come to pass.yemay believe. While 
 it is yet a secret counsel within Himself, He admitteth to it His 
 servants the prophets. The same word signifies"secret-°" and 
 "secret counsel with a friend." So "^^ God revealed to Noah 
 that He would bring the deluge, and to Abraham and Lot, that 
 He would destroy the cities of the plain, and to Joseph the 7 
 years' famine in Egypt, and to Moses its plagues, and to Moses 
 and Joshua all the chastisements of His people, and to Jonah 
 the destruction of Nineveh, that they who heard of the com- 
 ing punishment, might either avoid it by repentance, or, if they 
 should despise it, might be more justly punished. And so now 
 the Lord is about to reveal through Amos, His servant and 
 prophet, what Hewilleth to do to the 10 tribes, that forsaking 
 their idols and turning to Him, they mightbe freed from the im- 
 pending peril: which is of the great mercy of God. Hefore- 
 telletb evil to come, that He may not be compeUed to inflict it. 
 For He Who forewarneth, willeth not to punish sinners." 
 
 "-- So He inflicted not on Egypt any plagues by the hand of 
 Moses, but He first forewarned Pharaoh and the Egyptians by 
 him; nor the sufferings by the Ammonites, Midianites and Phi- 
 listines, related in the book of Judges, but He foremonished 
 Israel by Joshua -^; nor did He inflict on the Jews that destruc- 
 tion by Titus and the Romans, but He foremonished them by 
 Christ-* and the Apostles. So neither will He bring that last 
 
 " Is. xviii. 3. Jer. iv. 5. vi. 1. Ez. xxxiii. 2-6. Hos. v. 8. viii. 1. Rev. viii. 
 » ICor. XV.52. IThess. iv. 16. 's Rup. leS.Jer. '< S. Aug.c. Adim.26. 
 >3 Rib. 19 S. Johnxiv.29. eomp. lb.xiii.I9. =• niD. used here. ='S.Jer. 
 
 2= Lap. =3 Jos. xxiii. 12-16. xxiv. 19, 20. =« S. Luke xix. 42-41.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 181 
 
 8 "The lion liath roared, who will not 
 fear? the Lord (Jod hatli spoken, "^who can 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 ' Acts 4. 20. hut prophesy ? 
 
 &5.20,29. ICor. 9. 16. 
 
 9 % Puhlish in the palaces at Ashdod, chrTst 
 and in the palaces in the land of E<.;;ypt, <:ir.7S7. 
 and say, Assemble yourselves upon the 
 
 destructi(ni on theworld.withoiithaviiiii'firHt sent the Prophets 
 and Anjjels. who. souiuliiiir with the seven trumpets, sliall pro- 
 claim it ti(roui;hout tiic world'." 
 
 8. T/ie Lion hath roared : rvlio will nnt fear ? The Lord 
 God Aaf/t spolieti : who can hut pro]>Iiesy ? i. e. there is cause 
 for you to fear, when tlie Lord roarethfrom Zhm ; but if ye fear 
 not, God's propliets dare not but fear. So S.Paul saitli-, 7ie- 
 cessity is laid k/kdi ijie ; yea, woe is inito me if I preach not the 
 Gospel! Forifldothisthiiigutilliiigh/, I Imve areward; hut 
 if against my n'ill,a dispcnsatio)iofthe Gospel is committed iDito 
 me ; and SS. I'eter and John^, whether it be right in the sight of 
 God to hearkeii tuttoyou morethanunto God,judgeyel For we 
 cannot ]))(t spealithethingsudiichtue have seen and heard. Moses 
 was not excused, tboujjh slow of speech ; nor Isaiah, thouifii of 
 polluted lips; nor Jeremiah, because he was <i child ; hut God 
 said*. Say not, I am a child ; for thou shall go to all that I 
 shall send thee, and whatsoever Iconimand thee, thou shall speak. 
 And Ezekiel was bidden^, he not rebellious, like that rebellious 
 house. And when Jeremiah would keep silence, he saith^. His 
 Word was in mine heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, 
 and I xvas weary ivith forbearing and I could not stay. 
 
 9. Puhlish [ye, they are tlie words of God, conimisslon- 
 insjHispropliets,] /h [_"ii] the palaces of Ashdod, \\.c.on the Hat 
 roofsof their high buildings, whence all can hear] and in \on'\ the 
 palaces in the land of Egypt. "^ Since ye disbelieve, I will ma- 
 nifest to Ashdodites and Egyptians the transgressionsof which 
 ye are guilty." Amos had already pronounced God's sen- 
 tence on the palaces of Ashdod and all Philistia, for their sins 
 against Himself in His people**. Israel now, or a little later, 
 courtedEgypt'. Tofriendthen andto foe, to those whomthey 
 dreaded and those whomthey courted, Godwouldlay open their 
 sins. Contempt and contumely from an enemy aggravate suf- 
 fering: man does not help whom he despiseth. They were all 
 ashamed of a peo])leivhocouldnot profit them, saith Isaiah'^sub- 
 sequently, of Egypt in regard to Judah. From those palaces, 
 already doomed to destructionfortheir sins, the summons was 
 to go, to visit Samaria,and see her sins, amid grace which those 
 people had not. As our Lord says^', It shall be more tolerable 
 for Sodom and Gomorrha in the Day of Judgment, than for 
 that city. Shame towards man survives shame towards God. 
 What men are not ashamed to do, they are, apart from any con- 
 sequences, ashamed to confess that they have done. Nay, to 
 avoid a little passing shame, they rush upon everlasting shame. 
 So God employs all inferior motives, shame, fear,hope of things 
 present, if by any means He can win men, not to offend Him. 
 
 Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, i. e. 
 those surrounding it. Samaria was chosen with much human 
 wisdom for the strong capital of a small people. Imbedded in 
 mountains, and out of any of the usual routes'-, it lay, a moun- 
 tain-fastness in a rich valley. Armies might surge to and fro 
 in the valley of Jezreel, and be unconscious of its existence. 
 The way from that great valley to Samaria lay, every way, 
 
 ' Rev.viii.2. = 1 Cor. ix. 16, 17. ' Actsiv. 19, 20. -iJer. i. 7. ^ n.S,. 
 
 « XX.9. 7 Theod. ' See on i. 6-8. « Hos. vii. 11. xii. 1. >0xxx.5. 
 
 " S. Matt. X. 15. '2 Even the route from Beisan [Beth-shean] and Zerin [Jez- 
 
 reel] to Ramleh and Egypt lay N. of Samaria, passing through the valley of Yabud to 
 Ferasin and Zeita. (Rob.iii. 122-4.) '^ Maundrell "passed through narrow val- 
 
 leys for four hours," before he reached Caphar Arab, taking the road to the left of Arab 
 ( Arrabeh) and Rama and " over Selee." pp. 77, 8. " The way from Sanur to Jenin ran uni- 
 formly througli a narrow wadi(" a sort of defile," Wilson, Lands, &c. ii. 8-1.), opening into 
 
 through deepatidoftennarrowingva]leys''',down whichthe ar- 
 mies of Samaria might readily pour, ijut which, like 'J'hermo- 
 pyla', might be liehl by a liaii(iful of men against a large host. 
 Tiie broad vale near tliehill of i)()than'*,along which the blind- 
 ed Syrian army followed Elisha to Samaria, contracts into 
 "a narrow valley'"," before it reaches Samaria. The author of 
 the book of Judith, who knew well the country, speaks of" the 
 passages of theliill-country"nearD(jthaim,"by" which "there 
 was an entrance into Juda-a, and it was easy to stop them 
 thatwould come up. because thepassagewasstrait for two men 
 at the most'"." "'^A series oflongwinding ravines open from 
 the mountains to the plain; these were the passes so often de- 
 fended by the ' horns of Joseph, the ten thousands of Ephraim. 
 and the thousands of Manasseh' against the invaders from the 
 North." Within these hiy "'»the wide rocky raitiparf which 
 fenced in Samaria from tlicN. "'^Thefine round swelling bill 
 of Samaria, now cultivated to the top, [about 1 100 feet above 
 the sea-", and 300 from its own valley-',] stands alone in the 
 midst of a great basin of some two hours [or .5 miles] in dia- 
 meter surrounded by higher mountains on every side." "--The 
 view from its summit presents a splendid panorama of the fer- 
 tile basin and the mountains around, teeming with large vil- 
 lages, and includes not less than 2.5 degrees of the Mediterra- 
 nean." Such a place,outofreach,in those days, from the neigh- 
 bouring heights, was well-nigh impregnable,exccpt by famine. 
 B\it its inhabitants must have had handed down to them the 
 memory, how those heights had once been peopled, while their 
 valleys were thronged with rt/////e ArM/,s-'*of Benhadad,his cha- 
 riots and his horsemen ; and the mountains, in which they had 
 trusted to shut out the enemy, were the prison-walls of their 
 famished people. From those heights, "-*the Syrians could 
 plainly distinguish thefamishinginhabitants of the city. The 
 adjacent circle of hills were so densely occupied, that not a man 
 could push through tobringprovisions to thebeleaguered city." 
 The city, being built on the summit and terraced sides of the 
 hill, unfcnced and unconcealed by walls which, except at its 
 base, w'ere unneeded, lay open, unsheltered in every part from 
 the gaze of the besiegers. The surrounding hills were one 
 large amphitheatre, whence to behold the tragedy of Israel-^, 
 and enemies were invited to be the spectators. They could 
 see its famine-stricken inhabitants totteralong those open ter- 
 races. Sin had brought this chastisement upon them. God 
 had forgiven them then. When God Who had, by His Pro- 
 phet, foretold their relief then -^, now by His Prophet called a- 
 new those enemies of Samaria to those same heights to behold 
 her sins, what could this mean but that He summoned them to 
 avenge what He summoned them to behold ? It was no figure 
 of speech. God avenges, as He comforts, not in word, but in 
 deed. The triumph of those enemies David had especially de- 
 precated-^. Tell it not in Gat h, puhlish it not in the streets of As- 
 kelon; lest the daughtersofthePhilistinesreJoice, lest the daugh- 
 ters of the uncircumised triumph. To these Israel was to be 
 
 the plain of Esdraelon." (V. de Velde, i. 367. Rob. ii. 314.) '■• " A huge hill, cover- 
 
 ed over with ruins." V. de Velde, i. 364. '^ lb. 370. '^ iv. 7. This was pro- 
 
 bably a proverbial expression. "' Porter, Hdb. 350. "Almost all travellers arc 
 
 compelled to draw conclusions from the well-known descent from Sebaste through Sanur 
 to Jenin. But the general nature of the ground cannot be doubted." Stanlev, Pal. 246. 
 
 IS V. de V.373. '» Rob. ii.304. =" Poole, in V. de Velde, Memoir, 178. 
 
 -1 Porter, 314. -= Rob. ii. 307. » 2 Kg';, vi. 24. « V. de Velde, i. 377 
 
 ■' Mont. -s 2 Kgs. vii. 1, 2. « 2 Sara. i. 20. 
 
 I i
 
 182 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 Or, op- 
 pressions. 
 
 s Jer. 4. 22. 
 
 mountains of Samaria, and behold the 
 ijreat tumults in the midst thereof, and 
 the II oppressed in the midst thereof. 
 10 For they « know not to do right, 
 
 a o-azint>--stock. They were like the woman set in the midst^, 
 amid one enciiclina; sea of accusing iiLSulting; faces, with none 
 to pity, none to intercede, none to shew mercy to them who 
 had sfuwed no mercy. Faint image of tlie shame of that Day. 
 when not men's deeds only, hnt " the secrets of all hearts shall 
 he revealed, and^ thei/ shall hegin to say to the niountains, Fall 
 on us, and to the hills. Cover us ; and of that shame there will 
 be no end; for it is everlasting^. 
 
 And behold the great tnmults,'i. e.thc alarms, restlessness, 
 disorders and confusion of a people intent on gain; turning 
 all law upside down, the tumultuous noise of the oppressors 
 and oppressed. It is the word which Solomon uses^, Better is 
 little ivith the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and tu- 
 mult tlierewith, the tumults and restlessness of continual 
 gaining. And the oppressed, or better (as in the E.M.) the op- 
 pressions'^, iXxe. manifold ever-repeated acts by which men were 
 crushed and trampled on. 
 
 1)1 the midst ^Aereo/, admitted within her, domiciled,reign- 
 ing there, in her very centre, and never departing out of her, 
 as the Psalmist says'. Wickedness is in the midst thereof ; deceit 
 a7id guile depart not from her streets. Aforetime, God spared 
 His people, that His Name^ should not be polluted before the 
 heathen, among whojn they were, in whose sight I made Myself 
 knoiun unto them inbringingthemforthont of the land of Egypt. 
 Now He summons those same heathen as witnesses that Israel 
 was justly condemned. These sins, being sins against the 
 moral law, the Heathen would condemn. Men condemn in 
 others, what they do themselves. But so they would see that 
 God hated sin, for which He spared not His own people, and 
 could the less triumph over God, when they saw the people 
 whom God had established and protected, given up to the 
 king of Assyria. 
 
 10. For [ami] they know 7iot to do right. They have not 
 known'' , they have lost all sense andknowledge,how to do right 
 (lit. what is straight-forward^°)hccci\\se they had so long ceased 
 to do it. It is part of the miserableblindness of sin, that, while 
 the soul acquires a quick insight into evil, it becomes, at last, 
 not paralysed only to do good, but unable to perceive it. So 
 Jeremiah says^^, they are wise todo evil, hut to do good they have 
 no knowledge. Whence of the Christian S.Paul says, I would 
 have yon wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning 
 evil^^. People, step by step, lose the power of understanding 
 either good or evil, the love of the world or the love of God. 
 Either becomes " a strange language" to ears accustomed to 
 the so7igs of Zion or the din of the world. When our Lord and 
 God came to His own, they said, ^^ we know that God spake unto 
 Moses: as for this man, we hioiv iiot ivhence He is. And this 
 blindness was wrought by coveteousness which blindeth the 
 eyes even of the wise^*, as he adds ; 
 
 Who store [lit. with indignation, the storers^^] with violence 
 and robbery. They couldnotunderstandwhat was right, while 
 they habitually did what was wrong. They stored up, as they 
 deemed, the gains and fruits ; the robbery and injustice they 
 saw not, because they turned away from seeing. But what is 
 
 ' S. Johnviii.S. =Rom.ii.l6. 3 S. Luke xxiii. 30. <Dan. xii.2. 
 
 * Pr. XV. Ifi. " As in Job xxxv. 9. Eccl. iv. 1. The word, like our oppressions, 
 
 is a passive, made active by its use as an abstract. 7 Ps. Iv. 11. 8 Ezek. XX. 9. 
 
 « i»T kS 10 nna: " iv. 22. 
 
 saith the Loiin, who store up violenee ci?rTst 
 and II robbery in their palaees. cir.isi. 
 
 11 Therefo'-e thus saith the Lord God ;1! 2Kings'i7. 
 •'An adversary there .shall he even round io,ii. ''''' 
 
 stored up, is not what wastes away, but what abides. Who 
 doubts it? Then, what they treasured, were not the perishing 
 things of earth, but, in truth, the sins themselves, as a^'' treasure 
 of wrath against the Day of wrath atid revelation of the righ- 
 teous Judgment of God. Strange treasure, to be so diligently 
 accumulated, guarded, multiplied ! Yet it is, in fa(-t, all which 
 remains. ^'^ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is 
 }iot rich towards God. He adds, as an aggravation, in their pa- 
 laces. Deformed as is all oppression, yet to oppress tliepjoor, to 
 increase his riches^**, has an unnatural hideousness of its own. 
 What was wrung from the poor, laid up i7i palaces ! Yet 
 what else is it to cheapen luxuries at the cost of the wages 
 of the poor ? 
 
 1 1 . Therefore thus saith the Lord God. There was no hu- 
 man redress. The oppressor was mighty, but mightier the A- 
 venger of the poor. Man would not help; therefore God would. 
 An adversary there shall be, eve7i rou7id about the land ; lit. A7t 
 e7ie7ny, a7id aroimd the hmd ! The Prophet speaks, as see- 
 ing him. The abruptness tells how suddenlythat enerayshould 
 come, and Aew^'in the whole land on all sides. What an unity 
 in their destruction ! He sees one e7ie7ny, and him every 
 where, all rtro?<?2«/,encircling,encompassing,aswith a net,their 
 whole land, narrowing in, as he advanced, until it closed a- 
 round and upon them. Thecorruptionwasuniversal,so should 
 be the requital. 
 
 And he shall bring down thy strength from [i.e. away from) 
 thee. The word bring dotvn implies a loftiness of pride which 
 was to be brought low, as in Obadiah^**, the7ice tvill I bri7ig thee 
 dow7i ; and in Isaiah ^i, / ivill bri7ig down their stre7igth to the 
 earth. But further, their strength was not only, as in former 
 oppressions, to be broiight doiv7i, hnt forth from thee. Thy pa- 
 laces shall be spoiled ; those palaces, in which they had heaped 
 up the spoils of the oppressed. Man's sins are,in God's Provi- 
 dence, the means of theirpunishment. -- Woe to thee that spoil- 
 est a7id [i.e. whereas] thou wert 7iot spoiled, and dealest treache- 
 rously, a7id they dealt 7iot treacherously ivith thee ! whe7i thou 
 perfectest spoili7ig, thou shall be spoiled ; whe7i thou accomplish- 
 est dealing treacherously, theyshalldeal treacherously with thee. 
 Their spoiling shouldinvite the spoiler, their oppressions should 
 attract the oppressor, and they, with all which they held to be 
 their strength, should go forth into captivity. 
 
 "23 qif^g i^Qfd yjiii i)g justified i7i His sayi7igs, and in His 
 works, when He executeth judgment on us a7id shall be 
 cleared, even by the most unjust judges, whe7i He is judged^. 
 He cites the Ashdodites and Egyptians as judges, who were 
 witnesses of His benefits to this people, that they might see 
 how justly He punished them. And now the hardened Jews 
 themselves, Turks and all Hagarenes, might be called to behold 
 at once our iniquities, and the mercies of the Lord, that ive are 
 7iot co7isu7ned~'\ If these were gathered on the mountains of 
 Samaria, and surveyed from aloft our sins, who worship Mam- 
 mon and Vain-glory and Venus for God, doubtless the Name 
 of God would through us be blasphemed among the heathen. 
 ' Imagine yourselves withdrawn for a while to the summit of 
 
 '- Rom.xvi. 19. " S.Johnix. 29. " Ex. xxiii.S. '^ msun, as before 
 
 (ii. 7) D'Ssai. '6 Rom. ii. 5. '? S. Luke xii. 21. '^ Pr. xxii. 16. " i? 
 
 20ver. 4. ^i is. iiiii.6. ^^ jb. xxxiii. 1. =3 Rib. "Ps. li.4. 
 
 " Lam. iii. 22.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 183 
 
 chrTst about the land; and he shall hnny; down 
 cir.787. thy strenj^th from thee, and thy palaces 
 
 shall be spoiled. 
 
 sonic lofty mountain,' says the blessed martyr Cyprian i, 'view 
 thence the face of things, as they lie bcncatli you, yourself free 
 from contact of eartli, cast your eyes hither and thitlier, and 
 mark the turmoils of this billowy world. You too, recalled to 
 self-remembrance, will pity the world; and, made more thank- 
 ful to God, will conn^ratulate yourself with deeper joy that you 
 have escaped it. See thou the ways obstructed by bandits, the 
 seas infested by pirates, war diffused everywhere by the camp's 
 bloodstained fierceness : a world reckinf? with mutual slaugh- 
 ter; and homicide, a crime in individuals, called virtue when 
 wrought by nations. Not innocencebut the scaleof its ferocity 
 gains impunity for guilt. Turn thy eyes to the cities, thou 
 wilt see a peopled concourse more melancholy than any soli- 
 tude.' This and much more which he says of the life of the 
 Gentiles, how it fits in with our's,any can judge. What great- 
 er madness than that men, called to lieaveiily thrones, should 
 cling to tritics of earth ? immortal man glued to passing, pe- 
 rishable things ! men, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, 
 for lucre wrong their brethren, redeemed by the same Price, the 
 same Blood ! No marvel then, that the Church is afflicted, 
 and encompassed by unseen enemies, and her strength drawn 
 down from her spoiled houses." 
 
 "Samaria is also every soul, which willeth to please man by 
 whom it thinketh it may be holpen, rather than God, and, 
 boasting itself to be Israel, yet worshippeth the golden calves, 
 i.e. gold, silver, honors, and pleasures. Let men alien from the 
 light of the Gospel survey its tmmdts, with wiiat ardor of mind 
 riches, pleasures are sought, how ambition is served, how rest- 
 less and disturbed the soul is in catching at nothings, how 
 forgetful of God the Creator andof heavenly things and of itself, 
 how minded, as if it were to perish with the body! What tu- 
 mults, when ambition bids one thing, lust another, avarice 
 another, wrath another, and, like strong winds on the sea, 
 strong, unbridled passions strive together ! They know not 
 to do right, bad ends spoiling acts in themselves good. They 
 treasure tip violence, whereas they ought to treasure up grace 
 and charity against that Day when God shall judge the secrets 
 of men. And when they ascribe to themselves any benefits of 
 the Divine mercy, and any works pleasing to God, which they 
 may have done or do, what else do they than store up rohhery f 
 So then the powers of the soul are spoiled, when truths as to 
 right action, once known and understood by the soul, fade and 
 are obscured, when the memoryretaineth nothing useful, when 
 the will is spoiled of virtues and yields to vicious affections." 
 12. ^s the shepherd taketh [rather, rescueth-] out of the 
 moiith of the lion two legs [properly, the shank, the lower part 
 of the leg belowthe knee, which in animals is dry, and bone only 
 and worthless] or apiece [the tip] of an ear, so [i. e. so few and 
 
 1 ad Don. Treatises, p. 5. Oxf. Tr. - The uniform meaning of S's.t with |D, as also 
 of theNiphal. '■' The LXX. Aq. Symm. Tlieod. Syr. Ch. S.Jer. retain "Damascus" 
 as a proper name. Of late, it lias become a fashion to render it, "and in the damask of a 
 coucn." But 1) the fact that Ezekiel(xxvii. IS) speaks of wine and while wool, (the raw 
 materi al)as the exportsof Damascus to Tyre, seems a decisiveproof, that themanufactures, 
 for which Damascus has in modern times been so celebrated, did not exist tliere then. 
 2) It does notappear that the manufacture, which in modern European languages is called 
 from the city, " damask" or the like, is so called in Arabic. There has been a two- tuld er- 
 ror in comparing an Arabic word, a) The word which, though foreign, had been natural- 
 ised in Arabia before Mohammed, was " Diniakso." This occurs in old poets [Amrulkeis 
 v.lO.Ham. pp.265,6. 556.]. Scholiasts or Lexica mention corruptions of this i"midakso," 
 " dikamso," *' dimkaso," but no trace of these has yet been obsei ved in the actual language. 
 The alleged forms, Dimssako, Dimssako, Dimasko, (which alone would have corres- 
 ponded with the Hebrew word) have no existence, except in error. See Frey t. Lex. Arab. 
 ii.67. The word** dimakso" is probably, from its ditl'erent forms, a corrupted and foreign 
 
 12 Thus saith the Lord; as the shep- chrTst 
 herd f taketh out of the mouth of the lion "'■■7«'7- 
 
 two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the^ "«i 
 
 delivereth. 
 
 weak, so bared and spoiled, a mere remnant,] shall the children 
 of Israel lie taken out [ratlier, rescued -] that now dwell at ease 
 ni Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in JJamascus^', in a couch, 
 or, rather in Damascus, a couch. Now, that soft, ntunded, ob- 
 long, hill of Samaria, was one large luxurious couch, in which 
 its rich and great rested securely, proj)ped and (Hishioiicduji on 
 both sides, in, what is still the place of dignity, the corner of a 
 bed, or 'Divan,' i.e. the inner (corner where the two sides meet. 
 Damascus also, which Jerof)oam had won for Israel, was a 
 canopied couch to them, in which they stayed themselves. It 
 is an image of listless ease and security, like that of those 
 whom the false prophetesses lulled into careless stupidit v as to 
 their souls; sewing pillows to all armlioles, or wrists ^, wliercon 
 to lean in a dull inertness. In vain ! C)f all tiio^e who then 
 dwelt at ease and in luxury, the Good Shepherd Him self sliould 
 rescue from the lion, (the enemy, in the first instance the As- 
 syrian,) a small remnant, in the sight of the enemy and (tf man 
 of little account, but precious in the sight of God. Tlie ene- 
 my would leave them perhaps, as not worth removing, just as, 
 when the lion has devoured the fat and the strong, tiie shep- 
 herd may recover from him some slight piece of skin or extre- 
 mity of the bones. Amos then, as well as Joel% preaches that 
 same solemn sentence, so repeated throughout the prophets, 
 a remnant only sltall be saved. So doubtless it was in the cap- 
 tivityof the ten tribes, as in the rest. So it was in Judah, when 
 certain of the poor of the land only were left for vinedressers and 
 for husband7nen^. In tlie Gospel, 7iot many wise men after tlie 
 flesh, not many mighty, not many noble irere called', but God 
 chose tlie poor of this world, rich in faith'': and the Good Shep- 
 herd rescued from the mouth of the lion those whom man de- 
 spised, yet who had ears to hear. After the destruction of Je- 
 rusalem by the Romans, a poor remnant only escaped. "^The 
 spirit of prophecyforesawboth captivities, the endwhereof was 
 to confirm the faith, not in one place only but in all the earth, 
 and so a slight remnant was rescued from the mouth of the lion, 
 i.e. from the slaughter of the destroyers, and permitted to live, 
 that through them, as a witness and monument, the justice of 
 God might be known from age to age, and the truth of the 
 Scriptures might be everywhere borne about by them, still wit- 
 nessing to Christ the Son of God, Who is known by tiie law and 
 the prophets. Hapless remnants, so taken out for the good of 
 others, not their own!" As these remnants of the animal shew 
 what it was which the lion destroyed, yet are of no further pro- 
 fit, so are they now a memorial of what they oiice were, what 
 grace through their sins they have lost. 
 
 "i^Many souls will perish, because they trust in their own 
 strength, and no more call on God to have mercy on them than 
 if they could rise of themselves and enter the way of salvation 
 
 word. But the corruption has no near relation to the name of the city, Dimashko. It 
 would have been strange that Arabs, speaking the same, and Hebrews, a kindred dialect, 
 should have corrupted the name, as Europeans have not. ^Cor does any native Scholiast 
 connect Dimakso with the citv Damascus. t)The meaning of this word Dimakso. was not 
 "manufactured," but **rau' silk." Freyt.from Kam. Dj. It is silk "thread," which can be 
 " twisted." Amrulk. *' raw white silk or what is like it in whiteness and softness."' Abulala 
 in Tebriz. Scholl.ad Ham. p. 506. The garment made of it was called, in the }»assive parti- 
 ciple, *' modamkaso," i. e. made of*' dimakso," The punctuation of the Hebrew word is 
 certainly varied here, P^9^, for what is elsewhere and in Amos himself (i. 3, 5. v. 27.) 
 piJ'Di. Yet there are two other variations in pronouncing the name, pt'Din 1 Clir. xviii. 5. 
 psiiyn 3 Kgs. xvi. 10. It may have been pointed so by those who, like Aben Ezra, guess- 
 ed from the context, that pen:n2 was i. q. nNDl. On the other hand, verj- old and very 
 accurate MS S. have here too the usual punctuation. See De Rossi. ■> Ezek.xiii.lS. 
 
 5 See on Joel ii. 32. p. 131. « 2 Kgs. xxv. 12. Jer. lii. 16. ?lCor.i.26. 
 
 8 S.Jam.ii.5. » Rup. '» Rib. 
 
 ii2
 
 184 
 
 AIMOS, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.787. 
 
 I Or, on the 
 bed's feet. 
 
 children of Israel be taken out that dwell 
 in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and 
 II in Damascus in a couch. 
 
 13 Hear ye, and testify in thehouse of Ja- 
 cob, saith the Lord God, the God of hosts, 
 
 without God. Tlicy trust in the power of their friends, or 
 the friendship of princes, or the doctrines of philosophers, and 
 repose in them as in a couch of Damascus. But Christ the 
 Good Shepherd will rescue out of the mouth of the lion, who 
 goet/i about seeAiiig wliom lie muy devour, what is last and of 
 least esteem in this world, who have any thinfj whereby the 
 Good Shepherd can liold them. The legs sifjnify the desire 
 to go to hear the Word of God ; the extremity of the car, that 
 obedience was not wholly lost. For if any begin even in part 
 to obey the word of God which he hath heard, God, of His fa- 
 therly mercy, will help him and lead him on to perfect obe- 
 dience. The legs also denote desire ^, whereby, as by certain 
 steps, the soul approachetii to God or dejiarteth from Him. 
 Yet if a soul would be saved, desires sutiice not ; but if to these 
 obedience to the heavenly commands be added, it shall be res- 
 cued from the mouth of the lion." 
 
 13. Hear ye and testify ye in [rather unto or against-^ the 
 hoicse of Israel; first hear yourselves, then testify, i.e. solemnly 
 protest, in the Name of God ; and hear witness unto and against 
 them, so that the solemn words may sink into them. It is of 
 little avail to /cs/Z/y, unless we first hear ; nor can man hear wit- 
 ness to what he doth not know; nor will words make an im- 
 pression, i. e. leave a trace of themselves, be stamped in or on 
 men's souls, luiless the soul which utters them have first heark- 
 ened unto them. 
 
 Saith the Lord God of hosts. " So ^thundcreth, as it were, 
 the authority of the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of the 
 shejdierd. Foretelling and protesting the destruction of the 
 altar of Bethel, he sets his God against the god whom Israel 
 had chosen as theirs and worshipped there, the Lord God of 
 hosts, against *the similittide of a calf that euteth hay. Not I, 
 a shepherd, but so spcaketh my God against your god." 
 
 14. Ill the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel 
 upon him, I will also visit [t(]jon'\ the altars of Bethel. Israel 
 then hoped that its false worship of " nature" would avail it. 
 God says, contrariwise, that when He should punish, all their 
 false worship, so far from helping them, should itself be the 
 manifest objectof His displeasure. Again God attests, at once. 
 His long-suffering and His final retribution. Still had He 
 foreborne to punish, being slow to anger and of great goodness ; 
 but when that day, fixed by the Divine Wisdom, should come, 
 wherein He should vindicateHis own holiness, by enduring the 
 sin no longer, then He would visit their traiisgressioiis, i. e. all 
 of them, old and new, forgotten by man or remembered, upon 
 them. Scripture speaks of " visiting offences upon" because, 
 in God's Providence, the sin returns upon a man's own head. 
 It is not only the cause of his being punished, but it becomes 
 part of his punishment. The memory of a man's sins will be 
 ])art of his eternal suffering. Even in this life, "remorse," as 
 distinct from repentance, is the "gnawing" of a man's own 
 conscience for the folly of his sin. Then also God would visit 
 upon the false worship. It is thought that God visits less 
 speedily even grave sins against Himself, (so that man does 
 not appeal falsely to Him and make Him, in a way, a partner 
 
 ' S. Ureg. on Job L. vi. n. 25. ' As in Deut. viii. 19, / testify against you this day 
 that ye shall ntterly perish ; Ps. 1. 7, hear, O Israel, and I will te'siify a^'ainst thee ; I am 
 God, thy God. Conip. Ps. Ixxxi. S. I ivill testify unto thee. ^ FromRiip. ■* Ps. cvi. 20. 
 
 14 That in the day that I shall i| visit the chkTIt 
 transj^ressions of Israel uj)on him I will also "'*'• ^^^- 
 visit the altars of Beth-el : and thehornsof the urUTfyr. 
 altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground. 
 
 15 And I will smite 'the winter house » Jer. 36. 22. 
 
 of his offence,) than sins against His own creature, man. It 
 may be that, All-Merciful as He is, He bears the rather with 
 sins, involving corruj)tion of the truth as to Himself, so long 
 as they are done in ignorance, on account of the ignorant 
 worship'-' of Himself, or the fragments of truth which they con- 
 tain, until the evil in them have its full sway in moral guilt". 
 ""Wonderful istlic patienceof God in enduringallthosecrimes 
 and injuries which appertain directly to Himself; wonderful 
 His waiting for repentance. But the deeds of guilt which vio- 
 late human society, faith, and justice, hasten judgment and pu- 
 nishment, and, as it were, with a most effectual cry call upon 
 the Divine Mind to punish, as it is written, ^The voice of thy 
 brother's blood rrieth unto Me from the ground, And now cursed 
 art thou, &;c. If then upon that very grave guilt against God 
 Himself there be accumulated these other sins, this so in- 
 creases the load, that God speedily casts it off. However long 
 then Israel had, with impunity, given itself to that vain, alien 
 worship, this evinced the patience, not the approval, of God. 
 Now, wiien they are to be punished for the fourth transgres- 
 1 sion, they will be punished for the first, second and third, and 
 I so, most grievously; when brought to punishment for their 
 other sins, they should suffer for their other guilt of impiety 
 and superstition." 
 
 And the horns of the altar. This was the one great altar^ 
 for burnt offerings, set up by Jeroboam, in imitation of that of 
 God at Jerusalem, whose doom was pronounced in theact of its 
 would-be consecration. He had copied faithfully its outward 
 form. At each corner, where the two sides met in one, rose 
 the horn, or pillar, a cubit high^", there to sacrifice victims^^, 
 there to place the blood of atonement '-. So far from atoning, 
 they themselves were the unatoned,?m of Jeroboam whereby ^' 
 he drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a 
 great sin. These were to be cut off, hewn down, with violence. 
 A century and a half had passed, since the man of God had pro- 
 nounced its sentence. They stiU stood. The day was not yet 
 come; Josiah was still unborn ; yet Amos, as peremptorily, re- 
 news the sentence. In rejectingthese, whereon theatonement 
 was made, God pronounced them outof covenantwith Himself. 
 Heresy makes itself as like as it can to the truth, but is there- 
 by the more deceiving, not the less deadly. Amos mentions 
 the altars of Bethel, as well as the altar. Jeroboam made but 
 one altar, keeping as close as he could to the Divine ritual. 
 But false worship and heresy ever hold their course, develop- 
 ing themselves. They never stand still where they began, 
 but spread, like a cancer^*. It is a test of heresy, like leprosy, 
 that it spreads abroad^^, preying on what at first seemed 
 sound. The oneness of the Altar had relation to the Unity of 
 God. In Samaria, they worshipped, they kneiu not tchat^^, not 
 God, but some portion of His manifold operations. The many 
 altars, forbidden as they were, were more in harmony with 
 the religion of Jeroboam, even because theywere against God's 
 law. Heresy developes, becoming more consistent, by having 
 less of truth. 
 
 15. And I will smite the winter house with the summer 
 
 5 Actsxvii.23,30.xiv.l6. eRom.i. ? Mont. 8 Gen. iv.lO.ll. » 1 Kgs. xii. 33,3. 
 
 xiii. 1-5. "^ The size under the second temple. ^^ Ps. cxviii. 27. *- Ex.xxix.l2. 
 
 13 2Kgs.xvii.21. '^ 2Tim. ii. 17. i^Lev.xiii. '« S. Johniv. 22.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 185 
 
 nunToT with ''the summer house; and 'the houses 
 
 C H 11 1 o 1 
 
 cir. 787. of ivory shall perish, and the iijreat houses 
 
 ' /icrngs^s!" shall have an end, saith the Lord. 
 
 39. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1 He repruvelh Israel for oppression, 4for idolatry, 
 6 and for their incorrigihleness. 
 
 lionse. Upon idolatry, there follow luxury and pride. " So 
 wealthy were they," s'ay.s S. Jerome, " as to possess two sorts 
 of houses, the iriiiter house hciu'j; turned to the South, thesimi- 
 vier house to the North, so that, aecordiue: to the variety of the 
 seasons, they niijiht temper to them the heat and eold." Yet of 
 these luxuries, (so nuieh more natural in the East, where suni- 
 nu-r-heat is so intense, and there is so little provision ajjainst 
 eold) the only instanee expressly recorded, besides this place, 
 IS the winter hoiise^ oi ic\\o\i\k\m. In Greece - and Roine\ 
 the end was attained, as with us, by North and South rooms 
 in the same house. These, which Amos rebukes, were like our 
 town and country houses, separate residences, since they were 
 to be destroyed, one on the other. Ivory houses were houses, 
 pannelled, or inlaid, with ivory. Such a palace Ahab built*. 
 Even Solomon /// all his glory had but an ivory throne °. Else 
 ivory palaces ^ are only mentioned, as part of the symbolical 
 jjlory of the Kinj;^ of fjlory, the Christ. He adds, and the great 
 [or many ''] houses shall have an end, saith the Lord. So pros- 
 perous were they in outward shew, when Amos foretold their 
 destruction. The desolation should be wide as well as miijhty. 
 All besides should pass away, and the Lord Alone al)ide in 
 that Day. "^What then shall we, if we would be rij;;ht-minded, 
 learn hence ? How utterly nothintf will all earthly brijihtness 
 avail, all wealth, glory, or oujiht besides of luxury, if the love 
 of God be wanting^, and righteousness be not prized by us ! 
 For treasures of wickedness jirojit nothing ; hut righteousness 
 delivereth from death '." 
 
 IV. I. Hear ye this, ye kine of Bashan. The pastures of 
 Bashan were very rich, and it had its name probably from its 
 richness of soiP". The Batanea of later times was a province 
 only of the kin£>;dom of Bashan, which, with half of Gilead, was 
 given to the half tribe of Manasseh. For the Bashan of Og in- 
 cluded Golan^^, (the capital of the subsequent Gaulonitis, now 
 Jaulan) Beeshterah^- (or Ashtaroth^^,) very probably Bostra^*, 
 and Edrei'^, in Hauran or Auranitis ;the one on its S. border, 
 the other perhaps on its Northern boundary towards Tracho- 
 nitis 1". Its Eastern extremity at Salkah ''," (Sulkhad i») is the 
 Southern point of Batanea (now Bathaniyyeh) ; Argob, or Tra- 
 chonitis ^^, (the Lejah) was its N. Eastern fence. Westward it 
 reached to Mount Hermon-'^. It included the subsequent divi- 
 sions, Gaulonitis, Auranitis, Batanea, and Trachonitis. Of 
 thesethemountainrangeon the N. W. of Jaulan is still "-'every 
 where clothed with oak-forests." The Ard-el-Bathanyeh,"^-the 
 country of Batanea or Bashan, is not surpassed in that land for 
 the beauty of its scenery, the richness of its pastures, and the 
 extent of its oak-forests." " The Arabs of the desert still pas- 
 ture their flocks on the luxurant herbage of the Jaulan -^." 
 Its pastures are spoken of by Micah -* and Jeremiah -'. The 
 
 ' Jer. xxxvi. 22. Eglon, king of Moab, had only" a cool upper room." mpon n''?!; Jud. 
 iii. 24'. - Xen. Mem. iii. 8. 9. ' Pall, "dere rust. i. 8. •'1 Kgs. xxii. 39. 
 
 ' lb. X. 18. ^ Ps xlv. 8. 7 As the same words t:'3i D'ra are translated, 
 
 Is. V. 9. 8S. Cyr. ^Pr. x.2. »> In Arab, "a soft smooth Eoil." On 
 
 the richness of the Ard-el-Bathanyeh, see Five years, ii. 52, 7, 8, 60, 71, 82, 14G, 9; on 
 Jaulan, Port. Hdb.4(il, 4. " Deut.'iv. -13. 12 Josh. xxi. 27. 
 
 '3 1 Clir. vi. 71. " See ab. on i. 12. '* Deut. i. 4. '« Five years, ii. 220-3. 
 
 '7 Deut.iii.10.Jos.xiii.il. is Five years, ii. IS 1-S. " Szalkhat" Burckh. Syr.99. 
 
 H 
 
 EAR this word, ye "kine of Bashan, chrTst 
 that are in the mountain of Samaria, 
 
 Before 
 H R 1 S 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 which oppress the poor, which crush the Ezekt'aari 
 needy, which say to their uiasters, Bring', 
 and let us drink. 
 
 2 ''The Ijord fJon hath sworn hy his ho-o ps.s'j. 35. 
 liness, that lo, the days shall come upon 
 
 animals fed there were among the strongest and fattest 26. 
 Hence the male animals became a proverb for the mighty on 
 the earth "^,the bulls furnished a type for tierce, unfeeling, ene- 
 mies "*". Amos however speaks oi lane ; not, as David, of hulls. 
 He upbraids them not for fierceness, but for a more delicate 
 and wanton unfeclingness,the fruit of luxury, fullness of bread, 
 a life of sense, which dcstroyalltenderncss.dull the mind,"ban- 
 ker out the wits," deaden the spiritual sense. 
 
 The female name, hine, may equally brand the luxury and ef- 
 feminacy of the rich men, or the cruelty of the rich women, of 
 Samaria. He addressesthese kine in both sexes. b<jthmaieand 
 female-'*. The rej)roachful name was then probably intended 
 to shame both ; men, who laid aside their manliness in the deli- 
 cacy of luxury ; or ladies, who put off the tenderness of woman- 
 hood by oppression. The chai-acter of the oppression was the 
 same in both cases. It was wrought, not directly by those who 
 revelled in its fruits, but through the seduction of one who had 
 authority over them. To the ladies of Samaria, their lord was 
 their husband, as the busljand is so called ; to the nobles of Sa- 
 maria, he was their king, who supplied their extravagances and 
 debaucheries by grants, extorted from the poor. 
 
 JFIiicli oppress, lit. the oppressing ! The word expresses 
 that they habitually oppressed and crushed the poor. They 
 did it not directly ; ]>erhaps they did not know tliat it was done; 
 they sought only, that their own thirst for luxury and self-in- 
 dulgence should be gratified, and knew not, (as those at ease 
 often know not now,) that their luxuries are continually watered 
 by the tears of the poor, tears shed, almost unknown except by 
 the Maker of both. But He counts wilful ignorance no excuse. 
 " He who doth through another, doth it himself," said the 
 heathen proverb. God says, they did oppress, were continually 
 oppressing"'^ those in loiv estate^^, and crushing the poor 'a word 
 is used expressing the vehemence with which they crushed'^- 
 them.) They t77«/(e£/them, only through the continual demand 
 of pleasures of sense, reckless how they were procured ; hri7ig 
 and let us drink. They invite their husband or lord to joint 
 self-indulgence. 
 
 2. The Lord God hathszrorn hy His holiness. They had 
 sinned to jirofane His Holy Xame^^. God swears by that holi- 
 ness which they had profaned in themselves on whom it was 
 called, and which they had caused to be profaned by others. 
 He pledges His own holiness, that He will avenge their un- 
 holiness. " ^*In swearing by His holiness, God sware by Him- 
 self. For He is the supreme uncreated Justice and Holiness. 
 This justice each, in his degree, should imitate and maintain 
 on earth, and these had sacrilegiously violated and over- 
 thrown." 
 
 Hays shall come [lit. are among'] upon you. God's Day 
 
 19 Five years, ii. 2C8-72, 240-3. -« Deut. iii. 8. Josh. xii. 5. xiii. 11. 1 Chr. v. 23. 
 
 =' Five years, ii. 259. - lb. 267 ; add 57, 8, 67, 133. -3 Porter. Hdb. 460, 2. On 
 the Jebel Hauran, see Burckh. Syr. 309. =•" vii. 14. =* Jer. 1. 19. -i! Deut. xxxii.l4. 
 
 "' Ez. xxxix. 18. -' Ps. xxii. 12. -'" Hear ye,!/'""' Lord, upon yow, they shall 
 take you," are masculine ; "that oppress, that crush, that say,i/rar posterity, ;/e shall go out, 
 each helore her, and i/e shall be cast forth," feminine. 3u xhe force of the participles 
 nipc'V'"', nini'^'i. "" C''?i 2- I'iT 33 See on ii. 7. ^■i From Lap. who 
 
 applies it to princes and judges.
 
 186 
 
 AaiOS, 
 
 chrTst yo"» that he will take you away Mvith 
 
 cir.7S7. 
 
 hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. 
 
 ' Ha'b^i.is: 3 And ^ye shall go out at the breaches, 
 ■1 Ezek. 12. 5, gygj.y ^^jy ^t fjiat wkich is before her ; and 
 
 and eternity are ever coming. He reminds them of their con- 
 tinual approach. He says not only that they will certainly 
 come, but they are ever coming. They are holdinj^ on their 
 steady course. Each day which passes, they advance a day 
 closer upon the sinner. Men put out of their minds what 2vill 
 come ; t\\cy put far the evil <lai/. Therefore God so often in 
 His notices of woe to come ', hringjs to mind, that those days 
 are ever coming^ ; they are not a thing which shall be only; 
 in God's purpose, they already are ; and with one uniform 
 steady noiseless tread are coming upon the sinner. Those dai/s 
 shall come iipoti you, heavily charged with the displeasure of 
 God, crushing you, as ye have cruslied the poor. They come 
 doubtless, too, unexpectedly upon them, as our Lord says, 
 and so that day come upon you loiaivares. 
 
 He [i.e. one] will tukeyou away. In the midst of their se- 
 curit}', they should on a sudden be taken away violently from 
 the abode of their luxury,as the fish, when liooked-,is lifted out 
 of the water. The image pictures^ their utter helplessness, the 
 contempt in which theywould be had,the ease with which they 
 would be lifted out of the flood of pleasures in which they had 
 immersed themselves. People can be reckless, at last, about 
 themselves, so that their posterity escape, and they themselves 
 survive in their offspring. Amos foretells, then, that these 
 also should be swept away. 
 
 3. Ye shall go out through the breaches. Samaria, the 
 place of their ease and confidence, being broken through, they 
 should go forth one by one, eachstraight he/ore her , looking nei- 
 ther to the right nor to the left, as a herd of cows go one after 
 the other through a gap in a fence. Help and hope have va- 
 nished, and they hurry pell-mell afteroneanother,reckless and 
 desperate, as the animals whose life of sense they had chosen. 
 
 ^ndye shall cast them into thepalace, or, better, (since no- 
 thing has been named which they could cast) cast yourselves*. 
 The word may describe the headlong motion of the aninial,and 
 the desperate gestures of the hopeless. They should cast 
 themselves from palace to palace, from the palace of their lux- 
 uries to the palace of their enemies, from a self-chosen life of 
 sensuousness to be concubines in the harem. If the rulers are 
 still included, it was reserved for the rich and noble to become 
 eunuchs in the palace of their Assyrain or Babylonian con- 
 querors, as Isaiah foretold to Hezekiah ^. It is another in- 
 stance of that great law of God ^, wheretvithal a man sinneth, 
 by the same shall he be tormented. They had lived in luxury 
 and wantonness ; in luxury and wantonness they should live, 
 but amid the jealousies of an Eastern harem, and at the ca- 
 price of their sensual conquerors. 
 
 The word however rendered, to the palace'', occurring only 
 here, is obscure. The other most probable conjecture is, that 
 it is a name of a country, the mountains of Monah, i. e. perhaps 
 
 1 1 Sam. ii. 31. Is. xxxix. 6. Jer. vii. 32. ix. 25. xvi. 14. xix. fi. xxiii. b, 7. xxx. 3 
 xxxi. 27-31, 38. xxxiii. 14. xlviii. 12. xlix. 2. li. 47, 52. [Ges.] Am. viii. 11. 
 
 ■ The fem.niTD, nili, were probably used to distinguish the artiiicial hook from the 
 actual thorns, dtd, d-js. 3 See Hab. i. 15. Ezek. xxix. 4, 5. ■> njnjSiy.l is ren- 
 
 dered actively by the rigid Aquila, and so pointed in ail collated MSS. but one. It is ren- 
 dered passively by the LXX ; impersonally, by Jon. " they shall carry you captive ; " 
 both as paraphrases. The Hiphil is used of a person's own actions, in regard to certain 
 qualities, their acting on themselves. ^ Is. xxxix. 7. ' Wisd. xi. llj. 
 
 ^ njiDinn. Kimchi accounts ]iDin to be only a stronger pronunciation of pDlN.' It is 
 some objection to this,thatAmoslivetimeswrotetheword initsordinary way. Yetthere 
 
 II ye shall cast them into the palace, saith 
 the Lord. 
 
 4 ^ " Come to Beth-el and transgress ; 
 at "^Gilgal multiply transgression; and 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.787. 
 
 the palace. ' Ezek. 20. 39. 
 
 Or, ye 
 shall cast 
 away the 
 things (tf 
 t Hos. 4. 1.0. & 12. U.ch. 5. 
 
 Armenia. This would describe accurately enough the country 
 to which they were to be carried ; beyond Damascus; the cities 
 of the 3Iedes. The main sense is the same. They should be 
 cast forth from the scene of their pleasures and oppression, to 
 to be themselves oppressed. The whole image is one, which 
 an inspired prophet alone could use. The reproof was not from 
 man, but from God, unveiling their sins to them in their true 
 hideousness. Man thinks nothing of being more degraded 
 than the brutes, so that he can hide from himself, that he is so. 
 4 Come to Gilgal and transgress. Having foretold their 
 captivity, the prophet tries irony. But his irony is in bidding 
 them go on to do, what they were doing earnestly, what they 
 were set upon doing, and would not be withdrawn from. As 
 Micaiah in irony, until adjured in the name of God, joined 
 Ahab's court-priests, bidding him go up to llumoth-Gilead^, 
 where he was to perish ; or Elijah said to the priests of Baal *, 
 Cry aloud, for he is a god j or our Lord ^", Fill ye up then the 
 measure of your fathers ; so Amos bids them do all they did, in 
 their divided service of God, but tells them that to multiply 
 all such service was to multiply transgression. Yet they were 
 diligent in their way. Their offerings were daily, as at Jeru- 
 salem ; the tithes of the third year ^^ for the poor was paid, as 
 God had ordained ^-. They were punctual in these parts of the 
 ritual, and thought much of their punctuality. So well did 
 they count themselves to stand with God, that there is no men- 
 tion of sin offering or trespass offering. Their sacrifices were 
 sacrifices of thanksgiving and free will qfferiiigs, as if out of ex- 
 uberance of devotion, such as David said that Zion would of- 
 fer, when God had been favourable and gracious unto her '^. 
 These things they did ; they proclaimed and published them, 
 like the hypocrites whom our Lord reproves, sounding a trum- 
 pet before them^*, when they did alms ; proclaiming these pri- 
 vate offerings, as God bade proclaim the solemn assemblies. 
 For so ye love. They did it, because they liked it, and it cost 
 them nothing, for which they cared. It was more than most 
 Christians will sacrifice, two fifteenths of their yearly income, 
 if they gave the yearly tithes, which were to be shared with 
 the poor also. But they would not sacrifice what God, above 
 all, required, the fundamental breach of God's law, on which 
 their kingdom rested, the sin tuhich Jeroboam made Israel to 
 sin. They did what they liked ; they were pleased with it, and 
 they had that pleasure for their only reward, as it is of all which 
 is not done for God. 
 
 But amid this boastful service, all was self-will. In little 
 or greatjthe calf-worship at Bethel, or the use of leaven in the 
 sacrifice, they did as they willed. The Prophet seems to have 
 joined purposely the fundamental change, by which Jeroboam 
 substituted the worship of nature for its God, and a minute al- 
 teration of the ritual, to shew that one and the same temper, 
 
 is abundant analogy for the change of n and K. Most of the old Versions regard the word 
 asaproper Name, simple or compound; "' the mountains of Armenia," Ch. Syr. Symm.; 
 " the hill of Romman or Remman," LXX. ; Armon i. e. Armenia, S. Jer. as if njo i. q. 
 ':d. " The hill Mona," Theod. in S. Jerome. To that also the article is an objection. 
 Another Greek rendering, " to a lofty mountain," is obviously a conjecture. 
 
 8 1 Kings xxii. 15. ' lb. xviii. 27. '" S. Matt, xxiii. 32. 
 
 '1 So E. V. rightly, according to the idiomatic use of DB', "days," for one circle of 
 days, i. e. a year. Lev. xxv. 29. Jud. xvii. 10. 1 Sam. xxvii. 7. &c. To " bring tithes 
 every three days," would be too strong an irony, as being a contradiction. 
 
 '2 Deut. xiv. 2S. x.Kvi. 12. " Ps. li. 18, 19. » S. Matt. vi. 2.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 187 
 
 chrTst ^I'l''"?? your sacrifices every inornini^, 
 cir.787. iianf/ your tithes after f three years : 
 
 5 ' And f offer a sacrifice of thanksij^iviniij 
 
 8 Num. 28. 
 3,4. 
 
 t Heb.' wirrr ' with Icavcn, and prochiiin and piddish 
 
 years of Jays. ' Lev. 7. 13. &• 23. 17. Uvh. njfir hi/ limning. 
 
 self-will, reigned in all, dictatccl all tliey did. The use of lea- 
 ven in the things sacrificed was forbidden, out of a symbo- 
 lic reason, i. e. not in itself,but as representing? something; else. 
 The Eastern leaven, like that used in France, consistins? of 
 what is sour, had the idea of decay and corruption connected 
 with it. Hence it was unfit to be oftered to God. For what- 
 ever was the object of any sacrifice, whether of atonement or 
 thanksijiving-, perfection in its kind was essential to the idea 
 of ofFerinij. Hence it was expressly forbidden^ JVo meat of- 
 fering, which ye shall hring unto the Lord, shall he made with 
 leaven ; for ye shall hum no leaven in an offering of the Lord 
 7iiade hy fire. At other times it is expressly commanded, that 
 unleavened hread should be used. In two cases only, in which 
 the offcrinc; was not to be burned, were offerings to be made 
 of leavened bread, l)the two loaves of first-fruits at Pentecost", 
 and 2) an offering with which the thank offering was accom- 
 panied, and which was to be the priest's^. The special meat 
 offering of the thank offering was to be without leaven*. To 
 offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven was a direct in- 
 fringement of God's appointment. It proceeded from the 
 same frame of mind, as the breach of the greatest. Self-will 
 was their only rule. What they willed, they kept; and what 
 they willed, they brake. Amos bids them then go on, as they 
 did, in their wilfulness, breaking God's commands of set pur- 
 pose, and keeping them by accident. 
 
 "^This is a most grave mode of speaking, whereby He now 
 saith, 'Come and do so and so,' and He Himself Who saith this, 
 hateth those same deeds of their's. He so speaketh, not as 
 willing, but as abandoning; not as inviting, but as expel- 
 ling; not in exhortation, but in indignation. He subjoins then, 
 (as the case required,) for so ye loved. As if He said, ' I there- 
 fore say, cojne to Bethel where is your god, your calf, because 
 so ye loved,tinA hitherto ye have come. I tlierefore saj,ti-a7is- 
 gress, because ye do transgress, and ye will to transgress. I 
 say, come to Gilgal, where were idols '' long before Jeroboam's 
 calves, because ye come and ye will to come. I say, multiply 
 transgression, because ye do multiply it, and yet will to multi- 
 ply it. I say, bring your sacrifices, because ye offer them and 
 ye will to offer them, to whom ye ought not. — I say, offer a 
 sacrifice of thanksgiving with leave?!, because ye so do, and 
 ye wiU to do it, leavened as ye are with the old leaven of ma- 
 lice and wickedness, against the whole authority of the holy 
 and spiritual law, which forbideth to offer in sacrifice any 
 thing leavened. This pleaseth your gods, that ye be leavened, 
 and without ''the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 
 To them then sacrifice the sacrifice of thanksgiving with lea- 
 ven, because to Me ye, being sinners, cannot offer a seemly 
 sacrifice of praise. And so doing, proclaim and publish the 
 free offerings, for so ye do, and so ye will to do, honoring the 
 sacrifices wliich ye offer to your calves with the same names, 
 whereby the authority of the law nameth those which are 
 offered unto Me ; burnt off'erings, and peace offerings ; and 
 proclaim them ^ ivith the sound of trumpet aiul harp, luith tim- 
 brel and dancing, with strings and organ, upon the well tuned 
 cymbals and the loud cymbals, that so ye may be thought to 
 
 ' Lev. ii. 11 ; add vi. 17. " lb. xxiii. 17. ^ lb. vii. 13, 14. " lb. 12. 
 
 ' Rup. « Jud.m.l9. E. M. 7 1 Cor. v. 8. 8 Ps. d. 9 S.Johnxiii.27. 
 
 ■^ th(! fr(!e offerinij^s : ' for f tliis liketh vou, O „ ,?^% „ 
 ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. '-'■•• ''^'- 
 
 ^[ And I also have iriven you cleanness' |l7"^^'®' 
 of teeth in all your cities, and want ofi prHi.\"2?' 
 
 f Heh. so ye love. 
 
 have sung louder and stronger than the tribe of Judah or the 
 house of David in the; temple of the Lord, because ye are 
 more.' All these things are said, not witli the intention of one 
 willing, but with the indignation of One forsaking, as in 
 many other instances. As that wliicli the same Lord said to 
 His betrayer^; what thou doest, do iiui'hiy. And in the Re- 
 velations 10 we read. He that is mijnst, let him he unjust still ; 
 and he that is ^filthy, let him be filthy still. These things, 
 and the rest of the like sort,are notthe wordsof one command- 
 ing, or, of His own Will, conceding,butpermitting and forsak- 
 ing. For He ivas not ignora7it, (JFisdoin saith ^'^J that they 
 were a naughty generation, and their malice tvas inbred, and 
 that their cogitation never would be changed." 
 
 Proclaim nndpublish thefreeofferings. " '^Account much 
 of what ye offer to God, and think that ye do great things, 
 as though ye honoured God condignly, and were under no ob- 
 ligation to offer such gifts. The whole is said in irony. For 
 some there are,who appreciatemagnificently thegifts and ser- 
 vices which they offer to God, and think they have attained to 
 great perfection, as though they made an adequate return to 
 the Divine benefits, not weighing the infinite dignity of the 
 Divine Majesty, the incomparable greatness of the Divine be- 
 nefits, the frailty of their own condition and the imperfection 
 of their service. Against whom is that which the Saviour 
 saith 1^, When ye shall have done all those things ivhich are com- 
 manded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, lue have done 
 that ivhich tvas our duty to do. Hence David saith i*, all things 
 come of Thee, and of Thine own have lue given Thee." 
 
 6. A)id I, I too^'-' have given you. Such had been their 
 gifts to God, worthless, because destitute of tliat which alone 
 God requires of His creatures, a loving, simple, single-hearted, 
 loyal obedience. So then God had but one giftwhich He could 
 bestow, one only out of the rich storehouse of His mercies, 
 since all besides were abused, — chastisement. Yet this too is 
 a great gift of God, a pledge of His love, Who willed not that 
 they should perish; an earnest of greater favours, had they 
 used it. It is a great gift of God, that He should care for us, 
 so as to chasten us. The chastisements too were no ordinary 
 chastisenients,but thosewhich God forewarnedin the law,that 
 Hewould send, and,if they repented,He would, amid the chas- 
 tisements, forgive. This famine God had sent everywhere, in 
 all their cities, and in all their places, great and small. Israel 
 thought that its calves, i. e. nature, gave them these things. 
 She did not knoiv, God saith, that I gave her crjrn and wine 
 and oil ; but said, These are my rewards that my lovers have 
 given me^^. In the powers and operations of '"nature," they 
 forgat the God and Author of nature. It was then the di- 
 rect corrective of this delusion, that God withheld those pow- 
 ers and functionsof nature. Somight Israel learn, if it would, 
 the vanity of its worship, from its fruitlessness. Some such 
 great famines in the time of Elijah and Elisha^" Scripture re- 
 cords ; but it relates them, only when God visibly interposed 
 to bring, or to remove, or to mitigate them. Amos here 
 speaks of other famines, which God sent, as He foretold in 
 the law, but which produced no genuine fruits of repentance. 
 
 '"xxii.ll. " xii. 10. '= Dion. " S.Luke xvii. 10. " 1 Chr. xxix. U. 
 
 '^ 'JN Dji emphatic. i^ Hos. ii. 8, 12. '' 1 Kgs. xvii. xviii. 2 Kgs. viii. 1-6.
 
 188 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst bread in all your ])laces : "yet have ye not 
 
 "''• '^'- returned unto nie, saith the Lord. 
 
 Jel-rs'. 3.' 7 And also I have withholden the rain 
 
 Hag. 2.17. from you, when there taere yet three 
 
 months to the harvest : and I caused it to 
 
 rain upon one city, and caused it not to 
 
 rain upon another city : one piece was 
 
 rained upon, and the piece whereupon it 
 
 rained not withered. 
 
 8 So two or three cities wandered unto 
 
 And ye returned not xnto Me. lie says not, that they " re- 
 turned not at all," but that they returned not wholly, (jnite 
 back to God^. Nay, the emphatic saying, ye did not return 
 quite to Me, so as to reach Me, implies that they did, after 
 a fashion, return. Israel's worship u-as a half, halting-, wor- 
 ship. But a half-worship is no worship ; a half-repentance is 
 no repentance ; repentance for one sin or one set of sins is no 
 repentance, nnless the soul repent of all which it can recall 
 wherein it displeased its God. God does not half-forgive ; 
 so neither must man half-repent. Yet of its one fundamental 
 sin, the worship of nature for God, Israel would not repent. 
 x\nd so, whatever they did was not that entire repentance, 
 upon which God, in the law, had promised forgiveness ; re- 
 pentance which stopped short of nothing but God. 
 
 7. Audi, I too^ have withholden the rain. S.Jerome, 
 dwelling in Palestine, says, that "this rain, when three 
 months yet remained until harvest, was the latter rain, of the 
 very greatest necessity for the fields of Palestine and the 
 thirsty ground, lest, when the blade is swelling into the crop, 
 and gendering the wheat, it should dry up through lack of 
 moisture. The time intended is the spring, at the end of A- 
 pril, whence, to the wheat-harvest, there remain three months 
 May, June, July." "God withheld the rain that they might 
 endure, not only lack of bread, l)ut burning thirst and penu- 
 ry of drink also. For in these places, where we now live, 
 all the water, except small fountains, is of cisterns ; and if 
 the wrath of God should witlihold the rain, there is greater 
 peril of thirst than of hunger, such as Scripture relates to have 
 endured for three years and six months in the days of the 
 propliet Elijah. And lest they should think that this had 
 befallen their cities and people, by a law of nature, or the in- 
 fluence of the stars, or the variety of the seasons, He says, 
 that He rained upon one city and its fields, and from another 
 withheld the rain." 
 
 This was a second visitation of God. First, a general fa- 
 mine, in all their cities ; secondly, a discriminating visitation. 
 "Nature" possesses no discrimination or power over her sup- 
 plies. Seeming waste is one of the mysteries of God in nature ; 
 * to cause it to ruin on the earth where no ?nan is ; on the wil- 
 derness wherein there is no man. Ordinarily too, God ^ tna/c- 
 eth His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth 
 rain on the just and on the unjust. But God does not enslave 
 Plimself, (as men would have it) to His own laws. Amos ap- 
 peals to them, that God had dealt with them, not according 
 to His ordinary laws ; that not only God had given to one city 
 
 1 ny ; seeon Joel ii. 12, and Introd. to Am. p. 152. - 1 Kgs. xviii. 21. 3 'djk dji. 
 
 ■> Job xxxviii. 26. » S. Matt. v. 45. « Such is the common force ot npSn, 
 
 "the portion ofground.belonginKto one." Deut. xxxiii.21. Ruthii.S.iv. 3. 2 Sam. xiv. 
 .30, 1.2 Kgs. ix. 21, 25. 7 Thomson, The Land, ii. C6. s Ps. lix. 15. cix. 10 ; 
 
 of one blind, Lam. v. 14. 9 Dent, xxviii. 22. '" nuin(here, and Pr. xxv. 7.) 
 
 one city, to drink water : but they were not (, jf rj § t 
 satisfied: "yet have ye not returned unto_2iliZ?L_ 
 me saith the Loru. " Tl'*' '"' 
 
 9 "I have smitten you with blasting and" Hag.''2^i'7?'' 
 mildew: || when your gardens and your " ^,'j("„^rf^ 
 vineyards and your fig trees and your olive ''£iis'%l''did 
 trees increased, Pthe palmerworn devour- 'l^l^^[l".' 
 ed them: yet have ye not returned unto" ^"2.25*' 
 me, saith the Lord. 
 
 10 1 have sent among you the pestilence 
 
 the rain which He had withheld from another, but that He 
 had made the same difference as to smaller pieces of ground, 
 the inherited portio7is of individuals". Some such variations 
 have been observed in Palestine now'. But this would have 
 been no indication of God's Providence, had not the consci- 
 ences of men responded to the Prophet's appeal, and recog- 
 nised that the rain had been given or withholden according to 
 the penitence or impenitence, the deeper or more mitigated 
 idolatry, the greater or less sinfulness of the people. We 
 have, then, in these few words a law of God's dealing with 
 Israel. God, in His word, reveals to us the meaning of His 
 daily variations in the workings of nature ; yet, hardly even in 
 such instances, as men can scarcely elude, do they think of 
 God the Creator, rather than of "nature," His creation. 
 
 8. Two or three cities waiidered unto one city. Those then 
 who were punislied, were more than those who were repriev- 
 ed. The word wandered,\\t. trembled, expresses the unsteady 
 reeling gait of those exhausted, in quest of food^ They stag- 
 gered through weakness, and uncertain, amid the general 
 drought, whither to betake themselves. This was done, not in 
 punishment but to heal. God paused, in order to give them 
 opportunity to repent; in deed. His long-suffering only shew- 
 ed to themselves and to others, that they would not : and ye 
 returned not unto Me, saith the Lord. 
 
 9. / have smitten you ivith blasting ; lit. a?j exceeding 
 scorchi7ig, such as the hot East wind produced, and «?« exceed- 
 ing ?H;7f/e!<;,a blight, in which the ears turn untimely a pale yel- 
 low, and have no grain. Both words are doubly intensive. 
 They stand together in the prophecy of Moses ^, among the 
 other scourges of disobedience ; and the mention of these 
 would awaken, in those who would hear, the memory of a long 
 train of other warnings and other judgments. 
 
 TFhen your gardens — increased ; better, as E.M. themul- 
 titude^'^ of your gardens. The garden of the East united the 
 orchard^', herb^^, and flower garden. It comprised what was 
 necessary for use as well as what was fragrant. It furnished 
 part of their support^^. Its trees^*, as well as the garden^' ge- 
 nerally, being mostly watered artificially, it was beyond the 
 reach of ordinary drought. The tree, planted by the channels 
 of luaters^^, was an image of abiding freshness and fertility. 
 Yet neither would these escape God's sentence. On these 
 He sent the locust, which,in a fewhours,leaves all, flower, herb 
 or tree, as dead ^^. 
 
 10. / have sent anwng you the pestilence after the inanner 
 of Egypt ; i. e. after the way in which God had dealt with E- 
 
 is i. q. N311. The word and the construction are probably the same as in Eccl. i. 16. 
 
 '■ Jobviii.16. Cant.iv.13, 14. vi. 11. '= Ueut.xi. 10. Cant. iv. 14. vi. 2. 
 
 '3 .\m.ix. 14. Jer.xxix.5, 28. » Eccl. ii. 6. '!■ Cant. iv. 15. Ecclus. 
 
 xxiv. 30. " Ps. i.3. Jer. xvii.8 ; add Is.lviii. 11. Jer. xxxi. 12,contrariwise 
 
 Is. i. 30. 1' See oq Joel i. 7. p. 106.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 189 
 
 c H r"?s t il '' ^^^^^ the manner of Ejj^ypt, : your 
 
 cir. 787. young men have I shiin with tin; 
 
 1 Ex. 9. 3, 6. sword, fund luive taken away your 
 
 & 12. 29. I 1 T 1 1^1 ^ • 1 X- 
 
 Deut.28.27, liorscs ; autl i have nuide tin; stuik oi 
 
 60. , 
 
 Ps. 78.50. your camps to come up unto your nos- 
 
 f Heb. with the captivity of your horses, 1 Kiiins 13. 7. 
 
 gypt^. God had twice promised, when the memory of the 
 plagues whieh He sent on Egyi)t was still fresh-, ifthonwilt di- 
 tigeittlji Itcdrkvn to tlic vaicc of titf hord tlnj God, — I will, put 
 none of the diseases ii/)oii t/iee wliirli I /tare /troinr/it upon the 
 Egyptians. Contrariwise, diod had forewarned tiiem in tiiat 
 same proplieey of Moses, tiiat, if they disol)eyed Ilini^, He will 
 bring upon thee all the diseases of Hgi/pt which thou wast afraid 
 of, and thei/ shall cleave nuto thee. Egypt was, at times, sub- 
 ject to great visitations of the jilague^: it is said to be its birth- 
 place'. Palestine was, by nature, healthy. Hence, and on 
 account of the terribleness of the scourge, God so often speaks 
 of it, as of His own special sending. He had threatened in 
 the law ; ^ / will send a pestilence upon you ; ^ the Lord thy God 
 will make the pestilence cleave unto you. Jeremiah says to 
 the false prophet Hananialr^; The prophets that have been be- 
 fore me and before thee of old prophesied both against many 
 countries and against great kingdoms, of war and of evil and 
 of pestilence. Amos bears witness that those visitations came. 
 Jeremiah* and EzekieP" prophesied them anew, together 
 with the sword and with famine. Israel, having sinned like 
 Egypt, was to be punished like Egypt. 
 
 And have taken away your horses ; lit. as E. M. tvith the 
 captivity of your horses. After famine, drought, locusts, pes- 
 tilence, followed that worst scourge of all, that through man. 
 The possessions of the plain of Jezreel, so well fitted for caval- 
 ry, probably induced Israel to break in this respect the law of 
 Moses. Hazael left to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen and ten 
 chariots and ten thousand footmen ; for the king of Syria had 
 destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing. 
 Their armies, instead of being a defence, lay unburiedon the 
 ground, a fresh source of pestilence. 
 
 1 1 . 1 have overthrown some of you. The earthquake is pro- 
 bably reserved to the last, as being the rarest, and so the most 
 speciial, visitation. Frequent as earthquakes have been on the 
 borders of Palestine, the greater part of Palestine was not on 
 the line, which was especially shaken by them. The line, 
 chiefly visited by earthcjuakes, was along the coast of the Me- 
 diterranean or parallel to it, chiefly from Tyre to Antioch and 
 Aleppo. Here were the great historical earthquakes, which 
 were the scourges of Tyre,Sidon, Beirut, Botrys, Tripolis, La- 
 odicea on the sea ; which shattered Litho-prosopon, prostrat- 
 
 1 "pT" way" with the gen. is either act. " the way of a man," i. e. his way of acting, deal- 
 ing, ic. or pass. " the way in which he is dealt with or it fares witli him," as in Is. x. 2 1. 
 Gen.xxxi. 35. - Ex. xv. 2(;. Deut. vii. 15. ■' Deut. xxviii. CO, add 27. 
 
 ■* " A violent plague used formerly to occur about once in 10 or 12 years. It was al- 
 ways less frequent at Cairo than at Alexandria." Sir G. Wilk. Hdb. Eg. p. 7. 
 
 * Prosp. Alp.rer. ^g. i. 19. Win. " Lev. xxvi. 25. ' Deut. xxviii. 21. 
 
 8 xxviii. 8. « xiv. 12. xxix. 17,18. xxxiv. 17. '» v.12, vi. ll,&c. 
 
 " See authorities in Ritter, Erdk. xvi. 731. xvii. 37. 119. 225. 2-19. 33-1-0. 3G5. 4^7. 599. 
 600, 7. 83«. 925. 1034. 1155-7. 04. 74, 5. 83, 8. 1200. 1504. 1054, 68. 1711, 35. 44. 52, 6. 
 The terrible earthquakeof 1837 which reached the interior of Palestine from Tyre to Beth- 
 lehem and Hebron, and Northward to Beirut, Cyprus and Damascus (auth. in Ritter, 
 XV. 20+. 30.3. xvi. 210, 28. 047. xvii. 334, 5. 305, 400.1 was, from its extent, exceptional. 
 250, 000 perished at Antioch in one earthquake whicn destroyed Beirut, Biblos with all 
 its inhabitants, and Sidon in part. Ritt. xvii. 437, 8. '- Ritter, xvii. 1315. 
 
 1^ S. Jer. on Is. xv. '* The Hauran, besides being basaltic, has on 
 
 the East a very remarkable volcanic country, occupying 2 degrees of latitude (32-34) 
 and 1^ longitude, " surpassed perhaps in extent, but scarcely in intensity by any 
 like formation in the world." See Wetzstein, [its discoverer] Reiseberichtdes Hauran, 
 p. 6-20, and woodcuts of extinct volcanoes. 
 
 '» Baronius, Pagi, Fleuri, Tillemont, the Univ. Hist. (Mod.) only mention the following 
 earthquakes as afflicting Palestine, i. an earthquake on Julian's attempt to rebuild the 
 
 trils : 'yet have ye not returned unto chkTst 
 me, saith the Lord. "'''• ~^'- 
 
 11 I have overthrown some of you,. Gen.'i9.24, 
 as God overthrew 'Sodom and Gomor- is'.'i.s. 19. 
 rah, ^ and ye were as a ftrebrand plucked t zech.ij. 2! 
 
 Jude23. 
 
 ed Baalbek and Hamath, and so often afflicted Antioch and 
 Al»!ppo", while Daniasctis was mostly sjiared'-. Eastward it 
 may have readied toSafed,Tiberias,and tiie Hauran. Ar-Mo- 
 ab perished by an earthquake in the childhood of .S. .Icrome'''. 
 But, at least, the evidence of cartlnpiakcs, except perhaps in 
 the ruinsof tliellaurani',is slighter. Earthquakes there have 
 been (although fewer) at Jerusalem. Yet on the whole, it 
 seems truer to say that the skirts of Palestine were subject to 
 destructive earthquakes, than to affirm this of central I'ales- 
 tine'^ The earthquake must have been the more terrible, be- 
 cause unwonted. One or more terrible earth(|uakes, over- 
 throwing cities, must have been sent, before that, on occasion 
 of which Amos «rollected his prophecies. For his projihecies 
 were uttered two years before that earth(juake ; and this earth- 
 quake had preceded his prophecy. / overthreir, God says, 
 among you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. He uses 
 the word, especially used by Moses and the prophets of that 
 dread overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, when they were 
 turned, as it were, ujjside down. The earthquake is at all 
 times the more mysterious,because unseen, unannounced, un- 
 looked for, instantaneous, complete. The ground under a 
 man's feet seems no longer secure; his shelter is his destruc- 
 tion; men's houses become their graves. Whole cities must 
 have been utterly overthrown, for He compares the overthrow 
 wrought amongthem, to the overthrowof the cities of the plain. 
 Other visitations have heralds sent before them. War, pes- 
 tilence, famine, seldom break in at once. The earthquake at 
 once, buries, it may be, thousands or tens of thousands, each 
 stiffened (if it were so) in that his last deed of evil ; eai-h house- 
 hold with its own form of misery; each in its separate vault, 
 dead, dying, crushed, imprisoned ; the remnant indeed " sur- 
 viving," for most whom they loved were gone. So he says ; 
 
 ylnd ye, who escaped, luere as a firebrand, plucked out of 
 the burning. Once it had been green, fresh, fragrant, with 
 leaf or flower : now, scorched, charred, blackened, all but con- 
 sumed. In itself, it was fit for nothing, but to be cast back 
 into the fire whence it had been rescued. Man would so deal 
 with it. A re-creation alone could restore it. Slight emblem 
 of a soul, whose freshness sin had withered, then God's severe 
 judgment had half-consumed ; in itself, meet only for the ever- 
 lasting fire, from which yet God withdraws it. 
 
 temple, A.D. 363. (from Ruf. H . E. i. 38, 9.) ii. a sliock only, A.D. .394. (from S. Jer. c. 
 Vigil.) iii.*'strong shocks," A.D. 033. (from Elniacin p. 19.) iv. a severe one " in Pa- 
 lestine and Syria" (locality undetined) A.D. 058, from Theophanes ; [A.D.050. Theoph. 
 i.531.] V. " in Palestine round the Jordan and throughout Syria," A.D. 74*5. (Bar. i. 
 Pag. ii.) also from Theoph. "manv thousands, yea, countless, perished ; Churches and 
 monasteries fell in; and chiefly in the desert of the Holy City." (Theoph. A. 738. i. 051. 
 ed. Class. Paul.Diac. L.xxii. Bibl. Patr. xii.311.) vi. "no slight one," A.D. 756. (Bar. 
 XV.) from thesame. [A.D. 748. i. 002. Class.] vii. a severe earthquake at Ramleh and its 
 vicinity, A.D. 1066, radiating along the coast Southwards, from Renaud. Hist. Patr. Al. 
 433. Von Raumer (Palest. 91. ed. 4.) quotes Vitriaco, who speaks chiefly of the sea-coast, 
 and speciHes Tyre (in Gesta Dei p. 1097.); a shock A.D. 1105, another A. 1114, de- 
 structive in Cilicia and Antioch (Ib.419,124,010.)rrequentshocksat Nablus, A.1120.(Ib. 
 824.) The list of earthquakes given by Von Hoft in his Chronik der Erdbeben vom 
 J. 3160 vor bis 1759 unserer Zeitrechnung in his Gesch. d. Verand. d. Erdoberfl. (T. iv. 
 122-430.) (as extracted forme) adds, at most, one only affecting Palestine (in common with 
 Syria), A.D. 1182, but does not name the authority. (That of 1.353, 4, is not related to 
 have affected Palestine.) Cedrenus also only adds one A.D. 532,3, " pervading the whole 
 world and lasting 40 days." He mentions .\rabia, Palestine, .Mesopotamia, Antioch as 
 suttering by it. (i. 074. ed. Bekk.) Abulfaraj (Hist. Dyn.) adds none. The list in Ber 
 ryat. Collection Academique T. vi. pp. 4S8-075, adds one, A.D. 650, " in Syria, Persia 
 especially in Judsea ; but without naming any authoritv." 
 
 Kk
 
 190 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 out of the burning: "yet have ye not 
 returned unto me, saith the Lord. 
 
 12 Therefore thus will I do unto thee, 
 O Israel : and because I will do this un- 
 to thee, =' prepare to meet thy God, O 
 Israel. 
 
 13 For, lo, he that fornieth the moun- 
 tcho.s. tains, and createth the || wind, ^and de- 
 • De^ut!*'32. 13. chireth unto man what is his thought, 
 
 &33.'29. - ... 
 
 Mic. 1. 3. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 " ver. 6. 
 
 » SeeEzek. 
 13.5. & 23. 
 30. Luke 
 
 14.31,32. 
 II Or, spirit. 
 y Fs. 13U. 2. 
 
 Dan. 2. 28. 
 
 ^ that maketh the morning darkness, " and 
 
 12. Therefore thus tvill I do unto thee. God say.s more 
 by His silence. He had enumerated successive scourges. 
 Now, with His hand uplifted to strike, He mentions none, 
 but says, thus. '• ^ So men too, loth to name evils, which they 
 fear and detest, say, God do so to me, and more also. God 
 using the language'of men," " = having said, thus will I do 
 unto thee, is silent as to what He will do; that so, Israel 
 hanging in suspense, as having before him each sort of pu- 
 nishment (which are the more terrible, because he imagines 
 them one by one), may indeed repent, that God inflict not 
 what He threatens." 
 
 Prejiare to meet tlnj God, in judgment, face to face, final 
 to them. All the judgments which had been sent hither- 
 to were but heralds, forerunners of the judgment to come. 
 He Himself was not in them. In them. He passed no sen- 
 tence upon Israel. They were medicinal, corrective ; they 
 were not His final sentence. Now, having tried all ways of 
 recovering them in vain, God summons them before His 
 tribunal. But although the judgment of the ten tribes, as a 
 whole, was final,to individuals there was place for repentance. 
 God never, in tliis life, bids people or individuals prepare to 
 meet Him, without a purpose of good to those who do prepare 
 to receive His sentence aright. He saith not then, "come and 
 hear your doom," hwt, prepare to meet thj/ God. It has hope 
 in it, to be bidden to prepare ; yet more, that He Whom they 
 were to prepare to meet, was their God. It must have recur- 
 red full often to the mind of the ten tribes during their unre- 
 storcd captivity of above seven centuries before the Coming of 
 ourLord; aperiod as long as thewhole existenceof Rome from 
 its foundation to its decay ; as long as our history from our 
 king Stephen until now. Full oft must they have thought, 
 " we have not met Him yet," and the thought must have 
 dawned upon them ; 'It is because He willed to do thus with 
 us, that He bid us prepare to meet Him. He met us not, when 
 He did it. It was then something further on; it is in the Mes- 
 siah that we are to meet and to see Him.' '^"Prepare to meet 
 thy God, receiving with all eagerness the Lord coming unto 
 thee." So then, in this further sense which lay in the words, 
 "Mie (as did Hosea at the end) exhorts the ten tribes, after 
 they had been led captive by the Assyrians, not to despond, 
 but to prepare to meet their God, i. e. to acknowledge and re- 
 ceive Christ their God, when the Gospel should be preached 
 to them by the .4postles." "^God punisheth, not in cruelty, 
 but in love. He warns then those whom He strikes, to under- 
 stand what He means by these punishments, not thinking 
 themselves abandoned by God, but, even when they seem most 
 cast away and reprobate, rousing themselves, in the hope of 
 God's mercy through Christ, to call upon God, a.nA prepare to 
 
 ' Rib 2 S.Jer. 
 
 treadeth upon the high places of the ^ h'IiYs t 
 earth, i' The Lord, The God of hosts, «•* "^- ^^^- 
 
 , . !> 18.47.4. 
 
 his name. jer. lo. le. 
 
 CHAPTER V. &Vc.^ 
 
 1 A lamentation for Israel. 4 An exhortation 
 
 to repentance. 21 God rejecteth their hypocritical 
 
 service. 
 
 HEAR ye this word which I * take up • Jer. 7. 29. 
 against you, even a lamentation, O &2i'.2.' 
 house of Israel. 
 
 meet their God. For no one's salvation is so desperate, no one 
 is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh to 
 him by holy inspirations, to bring back the wanderer to Him- 
 self. Thou therefore, O Israel, whoever thou art, who didst 
 once serve God, and now servest vilest pleasures, when thou 
 feelest God coming to thee, prepare to meet Him. Open the 
 door of thy heart to that most kind and benevolent Guest, 
 and, when thou hearest His Voice, deafen not thyself: flee 
 not, like Adam. For He seeketh thee, not to judge, but to 
 save thee." 
 
 13. For lo. He that formeth the mountains. Their God 
 whom they worshipped was but nature. Amos tells them,Who 
 their God is. Whom they were to prepare to meet. He de- 
 scribes Him as the Creator of that, which to man seems most 
 solid, to go furthest back in times past. Before the everlast- 
 ing mountains were, God IS ; for He made them. Yet God is 
 not a Creator in the past alone. He is a continual Worker. 
 Andformeththeivi7id,ihat finest subtlestcreature,alone invisi- 
 ble in this visible world; the mostimmaterialof thingsmaterial, 
 the breath of our life, the image of man's created immaterial 
 spirit, or even of God's uncreated presence, the mildest and 
 the most terrific of the agents around us. But the thought 
 of God, as a Creator or Preserver without, afi'ects man but 
 little. To mau, a sinner, far more impressive than all ma- 
 jesty of Creative power, is the thought that God knows his 
 inmost soul. So he adds ; atid declareth unto man ivhat is his 
 thought, i.e. his meditation, before he puts it into words. God 
 knows our thoughts more truly than we ourselves. We dis- 
 guise them to ourselves, know not our own hearts, wish not 
 to know them. God reveals us to ourselves. As He says ^, 
 1'he heart is deceitful above all thiiigs ; — who can know it ? I, 
 the Lord, search the heart ; I try the reins, even to give every 
 man according to his ivays and according to the fruit of his 
 doings. Man's ownconscience tellshim thatGod's knowledge 
 of his inmost self is no idle knowledge. ^ If our heart condemn 
 us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all thijigs. 
 
 That maketh the morning darkness. If the light become 
 darkness, hotu great that darkness ! From the knowledge of 
 man's heart, the Prophet goes on to retribution. Morning is 
 the symbol of all which is beautiful, cheering, radiant, joyous 
 to man; darkness efl^aces all these. Their God, he tells them, 
 can do all this. He can quench in gloom all the magnificent 
 beauty of His own creation, and make all which gladdened the 
 eyes of man, "one universal blot." And treadeth upon the high 
 places of the earth. He treadeth them, to tread them under. 
 He humbleth all which exalteth itself. " God walketh, when 
 He worketh. He is without all, within all, containeth all, 
 worketh all in all. Hence it is said. He ivalketh on the wings 
 
 Jer. xvii. 9, 10. 
 
 < IS.Johniii. 20.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 191 
 
 c h^rTs t 2 ^^^*^ virgin of Israel is fallen ; she shall 
 cir. 787. no niore rise: she is forsaken upon lurr 
 land ; there is none to raise her up. 
 
 3 For thus saith the Lord God ; The 
 city that went out hi/ a thousand shall 
 leave an hundred, and that which went 
 
 of the wintP; He walketh on the heights of the .sea": He wulh- 
 etli on the circuit of Heaven ''. 
 
 Such was He, Wlio made IIinis('lfV//e;> Gotl, Tlie Author of 
 all, the Upholder of all, the Subduer of all which exalted it- 
 self, Who stood in a special relation to man's thou£:hts, and 
 Who punished. At His command stand all the hosts of hea- 
 ven. Would they have Him for thcni, or against them ? 
 Would they he at peace with Him, before they met Him, face 
 to face ? 
 
 V. 1. In order to impress Israel the more, Amos bcjrins 
 this his third appeal by a dirge over its destruction, mourninjj 
 over those who were full of joy, and thou2;ht themselves safe 
 and enviable. As if a livinp^ man, in the midst of his pride 
 and luxury and buoyant recklessness of heart, could see his 
 own funeral procession, and hear, as it were, over himself the 
 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' It would give 
 solemn thoug'hts, even though he should impatiently put them 
 from him. So must it to Israel, when after the tide of vic- 
 tories of Jeroboam II., Amos said, Hear this wordwhich I am 
 lifting up, cis a heavy weight, to cast it down against or tipon 
 you, a funeral dirge, O house of Israel. Human greatness is 
 so unstable, human strength so fleeting, that the prophet of 
 decay finds a response in man's own conscience, however he 
 may silence or resent it. He would not resent it, unless he 
 felt its force. 
 
 "*Amos, an Israelite, niourneth over Israel, as Samuel over 
 Saul ^, or as Isaiah says ^, / will weep bitterly ; labour not 
 to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my 
 people ; images of Him who wept over Jerusalem." '• So are 
 they bewailed, who know not why they are bewailed, the more 
 miserable, because they know not their own misery." 
 
 2. She hath fallen, she shall rise no more, the virgiti of 
 Israel ; she hath been dashed down upon her land, there is ti07ie 
 to raise her up. Su(;h is the dirge, a dirge like that of David 
 over Saul and Jonathan, over what once was lovely and migh- 
 ty, but which had perished. He speaks of all as past, and 
 that, irremediably. Israel is one of the things which had been, 
 and which would never again be. He calls her tenderly, the 
 virgin of Israel, not as having retained her purity or her fealty 
 to God ; still less, with human boastfulness, as though she had 
 as yet been unsubdued by man. For she had been faithless to 
 God, and had been many times conquered by man. Nor does 
 it even seem that God so calls her, because He once espoused 
 her to Himself. For Isaiah so calls Babylon. But Scripture 
 seems to speak of cities, as women, because in women tender- 
 ness is most seen; they are most tenderly guarded; they, when 
 pure, are most lovely; they, when corrupted, are most debased. 
 Hence " ^ God says on the one hand, ^ / remember thee, the love 
 of thine espousals ; on the other'. Hear, thou harlot, the word of 
 the Lord. When He claims her faithfulness He calls her, 
 betrothed." Again, " ^ Avhcn He willeth to signify that a city 
 or nation has been as tenderly loved and anxiously guarded, 
 whether by Himself or by others. He calleth it virgin, or 
 when He would indicate its beauty and lovely array. Isaiah 
 
 > Pf. civ. 3. 2jobix.8. 3 lb. xxii. 14. 
 
 ■• from Dion. * 1 Sam. xv. 35. ' Is. xxii. 4. 1 from Rib. ^ Jer, ii. 2. 
 
 forth hji an liundred shall leave ten, to the chrTst 
 
 house; of Isnicl 
 
 cir.787. 
 
 4 ^[ For thus saith the Lord unto the 
 
 house of Israel, ''Seek ye me, ''and yet 2Chr.i5.2. 
 
 •' Jer. 29. 13. 
 
 snail live : ver.o. 
 
 c Is 56 3 
 
 5 Uut seek not *Beth-cl, nor enter intoj ch'.4.'4.' 
 
 saith ^'', co7ne doivn and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Haby- 
 lon,\.c.\\\o\\ who livedst beforeinalldclicacies.like avirgin un- 
 der the slicltcr of her home. For it follows, /■>/• Ihoushalt no 
 more be called tender and delicate.'^ iNJore pitiable, for their 
 tenderness and delicacy, is the distress of women. And so 
 he pictures her as already fallen, dashed (the word imitates 
 the sound ^i) to the earth upon her own ground. An army 
 may be lost, and the nation recover. She was dashed down 
 upon her oicn ground. In the abode of her strength, in the 
 midst of her resources, in her innermost retreat, she should 
 fall. In herself, she fell powerless. And he adds, she has )w 
 one to raise her rep ; none to have ruth upon her ; image of the 
 judgment on a lost soul, when the terrible sentence is spoken 
 and none can intercede! She shall not rise again. As slic 
 fell, she did not again rise. The Prophet Iieholds beyond the 
 eighty five years which sep<arated the prosperity under Jero- 
 boam II. from her captivity. As a people, he says, she should 
 be restored no more; nor was she. 
 
 3. The city that went out by a thousand, (i.e. probably 
 that sent out a thousand fighting men, as the word ivent out 
 is often used for, tuent out ^~ to fight,) shall have Wt. shall retain, 
 an liundred. She was to be decimated. Oiily,the tenth alone 
 was to be reserved alive; the nine-tenths were to be destroyed. 
 And this, alike in hirger places and in the small. The city 
 that went forth an hundred shall retain ten. Smaller places 
 
 escjipe for their obscurity, the larger from their strength and 
 situation. One common doom was to befall all. Out of all 
 that multitude, one tithe alone was to be preserved, " " de- 
 dicated to God," that remnant which God always promised 
 to reserve. 
 
 4. Seek ye Me and ye shall live; lit. see A- 3Ie and live. 
 Wonderful conciseness of the word of God, which, in two 
 words 1^, comprises the whole of the creature's duty and his 
 hopes, his time and his eternity. The Prophet uses the two 
 imperatives, inoneing both, man's duty and his reward. He 
 does not speak of them, as cause and effect, but as one. 
 Where the one is, there is the other. To seek God is to live. 
 For to seek God is to find Him, and God is Life and the source 
 of life. Forgiveness, grace, life, enter the soul at once. But 
 the seeking is diligentseeking^*. " ^^It is not to seek God any- 
 how, but as it is right and meet that He should be sought, 
 longed for, prayed for,Who is so great a Good, constantly, fer- 
 vently, yea, to our power, the more constantly and fervently, 
 as an' Infinite Good is more to be longed for. more loved than 
 all created good." The object of the searcli is God Himself. 
 Seek Me, i. e. seek God for Himself, not for anything out of 
 Him, not for His gifts, not for anything to be loved with Him. 
 This is not to seek Him purely. All is found in Him, but by 
 seeking Him first, and then lo\nng Him in all, and all in Him. 
 And ye shall live, first by the life of the body, escaping the 
 enemv; then by the life of grace now, and the life of glory 
 hereafter,as in that of the Psalmist^*,5^o?<r heart shall live who 
 seek God. 
 
 5. But [And'] seek not Bethel. Israel pretended to seek 
 
 9 Ezek. xvi. 35. '» Is. xlvii. 1. " nszi 
 
 12 See in Ges. Thes. v. k:-. " mi 'yarn » m '5 Dion. '* Ps. Ixix. 32^ 
 
 Kk2
 
 192 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRI ST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 = ch. 8. 14. 
 ' Ilos. 4. 15. 
 
 & 10. 8. 
 8 ver. 4. 
 
 Gili^al, and pass not to ^Bcershoba: for 
 Gilgal shall surely ji^o into captivity, and 
 ^ Beth-el shall come to nought. 
 
 6 s Seek the Lord, and ye shall live ; 
 lest he break out like fire in the house of 
 
 God in Bethel. Aiuos sets the two seekiiif^s, as ineonipatiljle. 
 The ^od, worshipped at Bethel, was not the One God. To 
 seek God tiiere was to lose Iliin. " Seek not God," he would 
 sav, " iiiid a phantom, which will lead from God." 
 
 ^■i 11(1 puss not to Beers/ichfi. Jeroboam I. pretended that 
 it was too much for Israel to jjo up to Jerusalem. And yet Is- 
 rael thoui,dit it not too much to i,M> to the extremest point of 
 Tudah towards Iduma'a\ perhaps, four times as far South 
 of Jerusalem, as Jerusalem lay from Bethel. For Beershcha 
 is thou£:ht to have lain some thirty miles South of Hebron", 
 which is twenty two miles South of Jerusalem ■'; while Bethel 
 is but twelve to the Nortli. So much pains will men take in 
 self-willed service,and yet not see that it takes away theexcusc 
 for neglectins^ the true. At Becrsheba, Abraham * called itpun 
 the jiame of the Lord, the ererlasthig God. There God reveal- 
 ed Himself to Isaac and Jacob ^ There, because He had so 
 revealed Himself, Judah made a place of idolatry, which Israel, 
 seekins: nouijht besides from Judah, sought. Beersheba was 
 still a town ^ or larj^e village " in the time of S. Jerome. Now 
 all is swept away, except ''"some foundations of ruins," spread 
 over J of a mile, "with scarcely one stone upon another'." 
 The wells alone remain ^", with the ancient names. 
 
 Gilgal shall siirelij go into captivity. The verbal allusions 
 in the Prophets are sometimes artificial ; sometimes, they de- 
 velope the meaning of the word itself, as when Zephaniah 
 says^i, Ekron [probably X\\c firm-rooting^ shall he uprooted ; 
 sometimes, as here, the words are connected, although not the 
 same. In all cases, the likeness of sound was calculated to fix 
 them in men's memories. It would be so, if one with autho- 
 rity could say,"Paris perira^-," "Paris shall perish," or "Lon- 
 don is undone." Still more would the words, Hag-gilgal 
 galo yigleh, because the name Gilgal still retained its first 
 meaning, the great rolling^'', and the word joined with it had 
 a kindred meaning i*. Originally it probably means, " swept 
 clear away." God first rolled awai/ the reproach of Egypt ^'■' 
 from His people there. Then, when it made itself like the 
 heathen, it should itself be rolled clear away^". Gilgal was 
 originally in Benjamin, but Israel had probably annexed it 
 to itself, as it had Bethel and Jericho ^^, both of which had 
 been assigned by Joshua to Benjamin ^''. 
 
 And Bethel shall come to nought. Hosea had called Be- 
 thel, God's house, by the name of Betharen ^^ Vanity-house. 
 Amos, in allusion to this probably, drops the first half of the 
 name, and says that it shall not merely be house of vanity, but 
 Aven, vanity itself. " By sin the soul, which was the house or 
 temple of God, becomes the temple of vanity and of devils." 
 
 6. Seeh ye the Lord and ye shall live ; lit. seek the Lord 
 and live ; being united to Him, the Fountain of life. He re- 
 impresses on them the one simple need of the creature, 
 see/c God, the one true God as He revealed Himself, not as 
 worldly men, or the politicians of Jeroboam's court, or the 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. 8. 13.7. - Robiniron.i. 206. Eus. and S.Jer. have twenty. 3 Euseb. 
 S. Jer. V. Arbo. < Gen. xxi. 33. Mb. xxvi. 23, 4.>:lvi. 1. i^ S. Jer. Qu.ad 
 
 Gcn.xxi. .30. 7 de loc. Helir. » Van de Velde, ii. 127. ' Robinson, i. 204. 
 
 "> There are now seven wells, 2 large and separate from the other 5. But Moses speaks 
 of one well only, dug by Abraham and reopened by Isaac. Gen. xxi. 30. xxvi. 18, 32, 3. 
 
 " ii. 4. '* instanced by Mercier here. '^ Tlie article is prefixed to proper names, 
 which are still in a degree appellatives. » nSj and SVj both from a biliteral root, 9:. 
 
 Joseph, and devour iV, and there he none to ^ h kTst 
 quench it in Beth-el. "■•• 787- 
 
 7 Ye who '' turn judgment to wormwood, '■ «''• 6. 12. 
 and leave off righteousness in the earth, 
 
 8 Seek him that maketh the ' seven ' & ss^'au 
 
 calf-priests, fabled of Him. See/c Him. For in Him is all; 
 without Him, nothing. 
 
 Lest He break out like fire in Bethel. Formerly the Spirit 
 of God came vehemently down ■'' upon Samson -^ and Saul -- 
 and David-', to fit them as instruments for God; as did the 
 Evil spirit, when God departed from Saul-*. So now, unless 
 they repented, God Himself would suddenly shew His power- 
 ful Presence among them, but, as He had revealed Himself to 
 be -'", The Lord tfiy God is a consuming Fire. And devour it, 
 lit. and it [the fire] shall devour, and there be 7ione to quench it 
 in {better,/or] Bethel. Bethel, the centre of their idol-hopes, 
 so far from aiding them then, shall not be able to help itself, 
 nor shall there be any to help it. The fire of God kindles 
 around it, and there is none to quench it for her-^. 
 
 "-'The whole place treateth of mercy and justice. The 
 whole ground of men's punishment, calamities, condemnation 
 is ascribed to their own fault and negligence, who neglect the 
 deliveranceoften promised and offeredthem by God,and-* love 
 darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Who- 
 ever is not saved, the whole blame lies in their own will and 
 negligence and malice. God, Who "^willeth not that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Himself 
 unsought, seeks, entreats, ceases not to monish, exhort, set 
 before them their guilt, that they may cease to prepare such 
 evil for themselves. But they neither give Him entrance, nor 
 hear His entreaties, nor admit the warnings of theDivine mer- 
 cy, which if they neglect, they must needs be made over to 
 His justice. The goodness of God is wanting to no one, save 
 those who are wanting to themselves. Wherefore, having of- 
 ten besought them before, He invites them yet again to sal- 
 vation, putting forth that His Name, so full of mysteries of 
 mercy ; Seek tlie Lord and live," seek Him Who IS, the Un- 
 changeable. He Who had willed their salvation, still willed 
 it, for He changes not ™. " He adds threatenings, that those 
 whom He calls to life. He might either allure by promises, or 
 scare from death through fear of the impending evil." 
 
 7. Ye who turn. Those whom he calls to seek God, were 
 men filled with all injustice, who turned the sweetness of jus- 
 tice into the bitterness of wormwood '^. Moses had used gall 
 and xuormu'ood as a proverb '-; lest there he among you a root 
 that beareth gall and wormwood ; the Lord tvill not spare 
 him, but then tlie anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall 
 smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in 
 this book shall lie upon him. The word of Amos would remind 
 them of the word of Moses. 
 
 And leave off'righteotisnessititheearth ;he.tteT,and set righ- 
 teousness to rest on the ground^^. They dethroned righteous- 
 ness, the representative and vice-gerent of God, and made it 
 rest on the ground. The little horn, Daniel says'*, should cast 
 truth to the ground. These seem to have blended outrage with 
 insult, as when the Lord our Righteousness^' took our flesh, 
 
 'sjosh.v.9. " SeeTn^J^J Jer.li. 25. '? 1 Kgs. xvi. .34. '^ josh, xviii.21,22. 
 
 " iv.lS.x.S. 20 The same word is used in all these places. '-' Jud. xiv. fi, 19. xv. 14. 
 
 '- 1 Sam. X. 0. xi. 6. =3 lb. xvi. 13. -< lb. xviii. 10. •-' Deut. iv. 24. 
 
 26 as in Jer. iv. 4. " Mont. =» S. John iii. 19. ■•> 2 S. Pet. iii. 9. 3o Maj. ;;;_ fj_ 
 
 2' S.Jer. 22 Deut. xxix. 18, £0. ^ n"3.i is used of casting forth, Nu. xix. 9, • 
 
 casting violently to the ground. Is. xxviii. 2; casting into a furnace, Ez. xxii. 20. Vet or- 
 dinarily it has the simple meaning "placed, made to rest." '^ viii. 12. 3^ Jer. xxiii. 6.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 193 
 
 chrTst stars and Orion, and turncth the shadow 
 cir. 787. Qf death into the niornin<r, ''and niaketh 
 
 ' joi, M^li'I" the day dark with night : that ' ctdleth for 
 
 ch.g.U 
 
 they put on Him the scarlet ro/)i% (ind the. crown of thorns updii 
 His Head, nnd liowed the knee hefore Hhn, iind mocked Iliin, 
 and then cruci/ied Him. Tliey "deposed" lier, "set lier 
 down," it may be, with a mock make-believe deference, as 
 men now-a-days, in civil terms, depose God, ignoring; Him 
 and His right over them. They set her on the ground, and so 
 left her, the image of God. This they did, not in one way only, 
 but in all the ways in which they could. He does not limit it 
 to the righteousness shewn in doing justice. It includes all 
 transactions between man and man, in whicli right enters, 
 all buying and selling, all equity, all giving to another his 
 due. All the bands of society were dissolved, and righteousness 
 was placed on the ground, to betrampled on by all in all things. 
 8. Seek Him that makcth the seven stars. Misbelief ef- 
 faces the thought of (lod as He Is. It retains the name God, 
 but means something quite different from the One True God. 
 So men spoke of " the Deity," as a sort of First Cause of all 
 things, and did not perceive that they only meant to own 
 that this fair harmony of things created was not (at least as 
 it now exists,) self-existent, and that they had lost sight of 
 the Personal God Who had made known to them His Will, 
 Whom they were to believe in, obey, fear, love. " The Deity" 
 was no object of fear or love. It was but a bold confession 
 that they did not mean to be Atheists, or that they meant intel- 
 lectually to admire the creation. Such confessions, even when 
 not consciously Atheistic, become at least the parents of 
 Atheism or Pantheism, and slide insensibly into either. For 
 a First Cause, who is conceived of as no more, is an abstrac- 
 tion, not God. God /s the Cause of all causes. All things are, 
 and have their relations to each other, as cause and effect, be- 
 cause He so created them. A "Great First Cause,"who is only 
 thought of as a Cause, is a mere fiction of man's imagining, 
 an attempt to appear to account for the mysteries of being, 
 without owning that, since our being is from God, we are re- 
 sponsible creatures whom He created for Himself, and who 
 are to yield to Him an account of the use of our being which 
 He gave us. In like way, Israel had probably so mixed up 
 the thought of God with Nature, that it had lost sight of 
 God, as distinct from the creation. And so Amos, after 
 appealing to their consciences, sets forth God to them as the 
 Creator, Disuoser of all things, and the Just God, who re- 
 dresseth man's violence and injustice. The seve7i staj-s, lit. 
 the heap, are the striking cluster of stars, called by Greeks and 
 Latins the Pleiades^ which consist of seven larger stars,and in 
 all of above forty. Orion-, a constellation in one line with the 
 Pleiades, was conceived by the Arabs and Syrians also, as a 
 gigantic figure. The Chaldee also renders, the " violent " or 
 "the rebel." The Hebrew title Cesil, fool, adds the idea of 
 an irreligious man, which is also the meaning of Nimrod, 
 rebel, lit. "let us rebel." Job, in that he speaks of the 
 bands of Orion ', pictures him as " bound," the " belt " being 
 the hand. This falls in with the later tradition, that Nim- 
 rod, who, as the founder of Babel, was the first rebel a- 
 
 • -TO*D (i. q. Arab, koumah, "heap,") is rendered -irXsidSa by Symni. Tbeod. here; by 
 the LXX. Aq.and S. Jer. in Job xxxviii.31 ; by the LXX. also Job ix. 9 (the two names 
 'ApKToupoi/ and TrXtidoa, being transposed). The Syr. and Ch. retain tlie Hebrew word, 
 which tlie Arab, transl. in Job renders "Thorayya," " little multitude," the Arabic name 
 of the Pleiades. " Aqnila and S. Jerome here, S. Jer. in Job ix. 9, the LXX. in 
 
 Is. xiii. 10 and Job xxxviii. 31, render, " Orion." The Ch. in Job has XTSi ; its plural 
 
 the waters of the sea, and pourotli them 
 out upon the face of the earth : '" The 
 Loim is his name : 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 "'ch.4. 13. 
 
 gainst God*, was represented by the easterns in their group- 
 ing of the stars, as a giant chained'', the same con>lcilati(jn 
 wliit'h we <'all Orion. 
 
 ^■Ind turncth the shallow of death into the morning. This 
 is no mere alternation of night and day, no "kindling" of "each 
 day out of night." The shadow of death is strictly the darkness 
 of death, or of the grave ". It is used of darkness intense as 
 the darkness of the grave '', of gloom **, or moral benightening^ 
 which seems to cast the shadow of death over the soul, of dis- 
 tress which is as the foreniniici- of death '", or of things, hidden 
 as the grave, which God alone can l)ring to light ". The word 
 is united with darkness, physical, moral, mental, hut always as 
 intensifying it, beyond any mere darkness. Amos first sets 
 forth the power of God, then His goodness. Out of every ex- 
 tremity of ill, God can, will, does, deliver. He Who said, let 
 there he light and there u'us tight, at once changeth any di'])th 
 of darkness into light, the death-darkness of sin into the dawn 
 of grace, the hopeless night of ignorance into the day-star from 
 on high, the night of the grave into the eternal morn of the 
 Resurrection wiiich knoweth no setting. But then on impe- 
 nitence the contrary follows ; 
 
 ^nd maketh the dai/ dark with night ; lit. and darkeneth dai/ 
 into flight. As God withdraws the shadow of death, so that 
 there should be no trace of it left, hut all is filled with His 
 light, so, again, when His light is abused or neglected, He so 
 withdraws it, as, at times, to leave no trace or gleam of it. 
 Conscience becomes benighted, so as to sin undoubtingly : 
 faith is darkened, so that the soul no more even suspects the 
 truth. Hell has no light. 
 
 That calleth for theicaters of the sea. This can be no other 
 than a memory of the flood, luhen the waters jirevailed over the 
 earth^". The Prophet speaks of nothing partial. He speaks of 
 sea and earth, each, as a whole, standing against the other. 
 God calleth the waters of the sea and poureth them over tlie face 
 of the earth. They seem ever threatening the land, Init for 
 Him 15 which hath placed the sand for the hound of the sea, that 
 it cannot pass it. Now God calls them, and pours them over 
 the face, i. e. the whole surface. The floi)d. He promised, 
 should not again be. But it is the image of that universal de- 
 struction, wiiich shall end man's thousands of years of rebel- 
 lion against God. The words then of Amos, in their simplest 
 sense, speak of a future universal judgment of the inhabi- 
 tants of' the earth, like, in extent, to that former judgment, 
 when God brought in the flood upon tJie world of the ungodli/ i*. 
 
 The words have been thought also to describe that daily 
 marvel of God's Providence, how, from the salt briny sea, 
 which could bring but barrenness, He, by the heat of the Sun, 
 draws up the moisture, and discharges it anew in life-giving 
 showers on the surface of the earth. God"s daily care of us, 
 in the workings of His creatures, is a witness ^= of His relation 
 to us as our Father ; it is an earnest also of our relation, and so 
 of our accountableness, to Him. 
 
 The Lord is His name. He, the One Self-existent Un- 
 
 here ; in Isaiali, the Heb. word. The Syr. here and in Job has " jaboro" (the Heb. 1C1. 
 Mightv, Gen. x. 8). The Arab, in Job, the same. ' xxxviii. 31. •■ Gen. x. 9, 10. xi.4-y. 
 Josephi'!s(Arcli.i.4. 2.)doesbutdevelope Genesis. '" Chron. Pasch. p. 30. ^ Jobiii. 5. 
 X.21, -'i.xxxiv. a. xxxviii. 17. Ps.xxiii.4. Jer. xiii. 16. ~' Job xxviii. 3. * Ib.xxiv. 17. 
 ' 9 I's'Tx 2. (1 Heb.) '" Job .xvi. lU. Ps. xliv. 19. cvii. lu, 14. Jer. ii. G. xiii. 10. 
 
 11 Job xii. 22. 12 Gen. vii. 24. 13 Jer. v. 22. » 2 S. Pet. ii. 5. 1^ Acts sir. 17.
 
 ]94 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 ch'^r^st ^ TliJit strenj?theneth the f spoiled a- 
 cii.787. gainst the stronj!^, so that the spoiled shall 
 
 tHeb. .;.«;. ^.^^jjjg aijainst the fortress 
 "18.29.21. 10 "They hate him that rebuketh in the 
 »i Kings 22. 8. gate, and they "abhor him that speaketh 
 uprightly. 
 
 changeable God, who revealed Himself to their forefathers, 
 and forbade them to worship Him under any form of their 
 own device. 
 
 9. That strengtheneth the spoiled, (lit. spoil E. M.) probably 
 That maketh devastation to smile on the strong^. The smile, 
 in anger, attests both the extremity of anger, and the consci- 
 ousness of the ease, wherewith the offence can be punished. 
 They were strong in their own strength ; strong, as they deem- 
 ed, in their /or/?TSA- ; "- strong with an evil strength, like one 
 phrenzied against liis physician." But their strength would 
 be weakness. Desolation, when God willed, would smile at 
 all which they accounted might, and would come against the 
 fortress, which, as they deemed, cut off'^ all approach. 
 
 10. The;/ hate him that relmketh. The gate is the well- 
 known place of concourse, where just or, in Israel now, unjust 
 judgment was given ■*, where all was done which was to be 
 done publicly ^ Samaria bad a large area'' by its chief gate, 
 where two kings could hold court, and the 400 false prophets 
 and the people, in great numbers, could gather '^, and a mar- 
 ket could be held ^. Josiah brake down an idol-shrine, which 
 was in one of the gates of Jerusalem ^. The prophets seized 
 the opportunity of finding the people together, and preached 
 to them there. So it was even in the days of Solomon'". IFis- 
 dom crieth without ; she nttereth her voice in the streets ; she cri- 
 eth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates, 
 in the cit;/ she uttereth her words. How long, ye simple ones, 
 will ye love simplicity ? ^'c, and again '', She standeth in the 
 top of high places, by the ivay, in the meeting of the paths. She 
 crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coining in at 
 the doors; Unto you, O men, Icall,S;c. Jeremiah mentions two 
 occasions, upon which God bade him reprove the king and 
 people in the gates of Jerusalem '-. There doubtless Amos 
 and Hosea reproved them, and, for reproving, were hated. As 
 Isaiah says ^', they lay a S7iare for him that reproveth in the 
 gate. They sinned publicly, and therefore they were to be re- 
 buked publicly. They sinned in the gate by injustice and op- 
 pression, and therefore were to be rebuked before all, that 
 others also 7night fear^*. 
 
 And they abhor him that speaketh uprightly ,VA. perfectly . 
 The prophets spoke perfectly, "i^for they spoke the all-perfect 
 word of God, of which David says i". The law of the Lord is 
 perfect, co7iverting the soul." " Carnal eyes hate the light of 
 truth, which they cast aside for execrable lies, closing to them- 
 selves the fountain of the Divine mercy ^^." " - This is the sin 
 which hath no remission ; this is the sin of the strong and 
 mighty, who sin not out of ignorance or weakness, buit with 
 impenitent heart proudly defend their sin, and hate him that 
 rebuketh and abhor him ivho daretli to speak perfectly, i. e. not 
 things which please them, but resisting their evil." This, like 
 
 ' The E. V. has followed a conjecture of Jon. and Kimchi, founded on the context 
 of Job ix. 27, X. 20. Aquila, 6 findiuii/, and S.Jerome, subridens, agree with the 
 Arabic use, which suit? all the places in Heb. " smiled, was gladdened, was cheered." 
 Others here, " made to dawn," from the Arab. - Rup. 
 
 3 The force of isiD. -i Deut. xxv. 7. Job v. 4. xxxi. 21. 2 Sam. xv. 2. 
 
 Pr. xxu. 22. Is. xxix. 21. ' Ruth iv. 1, 11. 6 pj ?! Kgs. xxii. 10. 
 
 2 Chr. xviii. 9. «2Kgs. vii. l. 'lb. xxiii.8. 'o Pr. i. 20-22. 
 
 " lb. viii. 2-4. i; xvii. 19. xix. 2. 
 
 Before 
 
 11 Forasmuch therefore as your tread- christ 
 ing /.y upon the poor, and ye take from '■'''"•^^^- 
 him burdens of wheat : p ye have built hous-" ^t^'.sw'. 
 es of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell Zepi,!'ii'i3. 
 in them; ye have planted f pleasant vine- ^ Heb! ^"''' 
 yards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. l/Ztirf. 
 
 all other good of God and evil of man, met most in and against 
 Christ. "^Who is he who rebuked in the gate or who spake 
 perfectly? David rebuked them, and sjtake much perfectly, and 
 so they hated him and said ^'', what portion have we in David, 
 or ivhat inheritance have we in the son of .Jesse ? Him also who 
 spake these very words, and the other prophets they hated and 
 abhorred. But as the rest, so this too, is truly and indubi- 
 tably fulfilled in Christ, rebuking justly and speaking perfect- 
 ly. He Himself saith in a Psalm ^^, They that sat in the gate 
 spake against Me, wherefore, when He had said '^, he that hat- 
 eth Me, hateth My Father also, and, now they have both seen 
 and hated both Me and My Father, He subjoined, that the word 
 might be fulfilled that is written in their law, they hated Me 
 without a cause. Above all then, we understand Christ, Whom 
 they hated, rebuking in the gate, i. e. openly and in public ; as 
 He said ^°, / spake openly to the world, and in secret have I 
 said nothing. He alone spake perfectly, fFho did no sin, nei- 
 ther ivas guile fou7id in His mouth^^. In wisdom also and doc- 
 trine. He alone spake perfectly, perfectly and so wonderfully, 
 that the queers of the chief priests and Pharisees who were sent 
 to take Him, said, Never man spake like this Man ^"." 
 
 "-^ It is a great sin to hate him who rebuketh. especially if 
 he rebuke thee, not out of dislike, but out of love, if he doth 
 it between thee and him alone -*, if, taking with him a brother, 
 if afterward, in the presence of the Church, so that it may be 
 evident that he does not blame thee out of any love of detrac- 
 tion, but out of zeal for thine amendment." 
 
 11. Forasmuch therefore, (since they rejected reproof, he 
 pronounces the sentence of God upon them,) as your treading 
 is upon the poor. This expresses more habitual trampling on 
 the poor, than if he had said, ye tread upon the poor. They 
 were ever trampling on those who were already of low and de- 
 pressed condition. And ye take from him burdens of wheat, 
 presents of ivheat. The word always signifies presents, volun- 
 tary -', or involuntary -^, what was carried, offered, to anyone. 
 They received tvheat from the poor, cleansed -^, winnowed, and 
 sold the refuse"'*, requiring what it was wrong to receive, 
 and selling what at the least it was disgraceful not to give. 
 God had expressly forbidden to -^ lend food for interest. It 
 may be that, in order to evade the law, the interest was call- 
 ed a present. 
 
 Ye have built houses of hewn stone. The houses of Israel 
 were, perhaps most commonly, built of brick ^" dried in the sun 
 only. At least, houses built of hewn stone, like most of our's, 
 are proverbially contrasted with them, as the more solid with 
 the more ordinary building. ^^ The ivhite bricks are fallen 
 dowti, and we will build tvith heivn sto7ies. And Ezekiel is bid- 
 den to dig through the wall of his house ^^. Houses of stone 
 there were, as appears from the directions as to the unhealthy 
 
 13 xxix. 21. » 1 Tim. v. 20. i^ Lyr. « Ps. xix. 7. 
 
 1" 1 Kgs. xii. 16. IS Ixix. 12. i' S. John xv. 23-25. =» lb. xviii. 20. 
 
 =' 1 S. Pet. ii. 22. -- S. John vii. 45, 6. -^ S., Jer. -^ S. Mattxviii. 
 
 15-17. -» of the " mess " sent, Gen. xliii. 34, 2 Sam. xi. 8 ; of the gifts of one 
 
 superior in rank, Esth. ii. IS, Jer. xl. 5. 26 of a contribution appointed by Divine 
 
 law, 2 Chr. xxiv. 6-9, Ez. xx. 40. The masc. sii'D is used, of tribute, 2 Chr. xvii. 11, 
 
 -I Such is •)2 as distinct from nan, the name of the grain, " wheat." 2S Am. viii. 6. 
 
 -^ Lev. XXV. 37. Deut. xxiii. 19. ^o c'j3^> 3i Is. ix. 10. 32 xii. 5, 7.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 195 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 « ch. 2.6. 
 II Or, a 
 
 ransom, 
 ' Is. 29. 21. 
 
 ch. 2. 7. 
 
 12 For I know your manifold transj^res- 
 sions and your mij^hty sins : i they afflict the 
 just, they take || a bribe, and they 'turn 
 aside the poor in the gate _/rom their right. 
 
 accretions, called the leprosy of the house ^. It may be, how- 
 ever, that their houses of lieiun stone, had a smoothed surface, 
 like our "ashlar." Any how, the sin of luxury is not simply 
 measured by the thiniis themselves, but by their relation to 
 ourselves and our condition also ; and wrong is not estimated 
 by the extent of the gain and loss of the two parties only, but 
 by the injury inHieted. Tliesc men, who built houses, luxuri- 
 ous for them, had wrung from the poor their living, as those 
 do, who beat down the wages of the poor. Therefore they 
 were not to take possession of what was their own ; as Ahal), 
 who by murder possessed himself of Naboth's vineyard, for- 
 feited his throne and his life. God, in the law, consulted 
 for the feeling which desires to enter into the fruit of a man's 
 toil. When they should go to war, they were to proclaim, 
 - ivhat man is there tlutt hath built a new house, and hath 
 not dedicated it f let him go and return to his house, lest he die 
 in the battle, and another man dedicate it. And what man is 
 he that hath planted a vineyard and hath not eaten of it ? let 
 him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and 
 another man eat of it. Now God reversed all this, and with- 
 drew the tender love, whereby He had provided it. Tlio 
 words, from their proverbial character, express a principle 
 of God's judgments, that wrong dealing, whereby aman would 
 secure himself or enlarge his inheritance, destroys both. Who 
 poorer than our Lord, bared of all upon the Cross, of Whom 
 it had been written, ^ They persecuted the pour helpless man, 
 that they might slay him who urns vexed at the heart, and of 
 whom the Jews said *, Come let us kill Him, that the inheri- 
 tance may he our's f They killed Him, they said ^, lest the Bo- 
 mans take away our place and nation. The vineyard was tak- 
 en from them ; their place destroyed, their nation, dispersed. 
 
 12. For I knoiu ; lit. I have knoivn. They thought that 
 God did not know, because He did not avenge; as the Psalmist 
 says, * Thy judgments are far above out of his sight. Men who 
 do not act witla the thought of God, cease to know Him, and 
 forget that He knows them. Your manifold transgressions ; 
 lit. many are your transgresssions and mighty your sins. Their 
 deeds, they knew, were mighty, strong, vigorous, decided. 
 God says, that their sins were so, not many and great only, 
 but mighty, strong, "^issuing not out of ignorance and infir- 
 mity, but out of proud strength:" ^'■^ strong in the oppres- 
 sion of the poor and in provoking God," and bringing down 
 His wrath. So Asaph says of the prosperous '^ ; Pride encom- 
 passeth them, as a chain; they are corrupt, they speak oppression 
 wickedly ; they speak from on high. 
 
 They ajflict the just, lit. afflicters of the just, i.e. such as 
 habitually afflicted him; whose habit and quality it was to afflict 
 him. Our version mostly renders the word enemies. Origi- 
 nally, it signifies quieting, pe7-secutingenemies. Yet it is used 
 also of the enemies of God, perhaps such as persecute Him in 
 His people, or in His Son when in the flesh. The unjust hate 
 the just, as is said in the book of Wisdom i*^; The tingodly said. 
 Therefore let us lie in tvait for the righteous, because he is not 
 for our tur7i, and is clean contrary to our doings : he upbraideth 
 us with our offending the latv. Heprofesseth to have the know- 
 
 1 Lev. xiv. 34-48. « Deut. xx. 5, 6. 3 Ps. cix. 15. 
 
 < S.Matt. xxi. 38. * S.John xi. 48. ^ Ps. x. 5. 7 Rup. ^ Hug. 
 
 » Pa. Ixxiii. 6, 8. '» ii. 1, 12-15. " Actsiii. 14. '" Num. xxxv. 22, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 13 Therefore * the prudent shall keep si- 
 lence in that time ; for it is an evil time. 
 
 14 Seek good, and not evil, that ye may' ''''''■ ^" 
 live : and so the Lord, the God of hosts, 
 
 ledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. 
 He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us 
 even to behold ; for his life is not as other men's, his ways are of 
 another fashion. So when the Truf li and Righteousness came 
 into the world, the Scril)es and Pliarisecs liiitcd Ilim because 
 He reproved them, denied^^ and crucilied the Holy one and 
 the ,/ust,anddesircd a murderer to he granted unto them, haters 
 and eneiniesof the Just, and preferring to Him the unjust. 
 
 That take a bribe, lit. a ransom. It may be that, contrarv 
 to the law, which forbade, in these same words '=, to take any 
 ransom for the life of a murderer, they took some ransom to 
 set free rich murderers, and so, (as we have seen fr)r many 
 years to be tiie effect of unjust acquittals,) blood was shed with 
 impunity, and was shed the more, because it was disregarded. 
 The word,however,is used in one place apparently of any bribe, 
 through which a man connives at injustice^'. 
 
 13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time. 
 The time may be either the time of the obduracy of the 
 wicked, or that of the common punishment. For a time maybe 
 called evil, whether evil is done, or is suffered in it, as Jacob 
 says ^*, Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. 
 Of the first, he would perhaps say, that the oppressed poor 
 would, if wise, be silent, not complaining or accusing ; for, in- 
 justice havingthe mastery,com])laintwouldonlybringon them 
 fresh sufferings. And again also he may mean that, on ac- 
 count of the incorrigibleness of the people, the wise and the 
 prophets would be silent, because the more the people were 
 rebuked, the more impatient and worse they became. So our 
 Lord was silent before His judges,as had been foretold of Him; 
 for since they would not hear. His speaking would only in- 
 crease their condemnation i=. If I tell you, ye will not be- 
 lieve ; and if I also ask you, ye will not answer Me, nor let Me 
 go. So God said by Solomon ^^ : He that reproveth a scorner 
 get teth himself shame, and he that rebuketh a ivicked man getteth 
 himself a blot. And our Lord bids'^, Give not that ichich is 
 holy unto dogs, and cast not your pearls before swine. They 
 hated and rejected those who rebuked them^'*. Since then 
 rebuke profited not, the prophets should hold their peace. It 
 is a fearful judgment, when God withholds His warnings. In 
 times of punishment also the prudent keep silence. Intense 
 affliction is dumb and openeth not its mouth, owning the hand 
 of God. It may be too, that Amos, like Hosea i^, expresses the 
 uselessness of all reproof, in regard to the most of those whom 
 he called to repentance, even while he continued earnestly to 
 rebuke them. 
 
 14. Seek good arid 7iot evil, i.e. a)id seek not evil-". Amos 
 again takes up bis warning, seek not Bethel ; seek the Lord. 
 Now they not only did evil, but they sought -i it diligently : 
 they were diligent in doing it, and so, in bringing it on them- 
 selves ; they sought it out and the occasions of it. Men 
 '•--cannot seek good without first putting away evil, as it is 
 written -', cease to do evil, learn to do ivell." Ye cannot serve 
 God and Mammon. He bids them use the same diligence in 
 seeking good which they now used for evil. Seek it also whol- 
 ly, not seeking at one while good, at another, evil, but wholly 
 
 nSDinpnn^". " 1 Sam. xii. 3. » Gen. xlvii.9. "^ S.Luke xxii. 67,8. 
 
 i«Pr. ix.7. 17 S,.Matt. vii. 6. 's ver. 10. >3iv. 4, 17. -» ^ih im- 
 
 plying the verb. 21 rn. » S.Jer. =Is.i.lO, 17.
 
 19G 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 CHRIST ^'*^^1 ^^ ^^"'*^* y*^"' '^^ y^ '^^'^'^ spoken. 
 cir.7S7. 15 1 Hate tlie evil, and love the good, 
 
 "Ps'.'m.h." and establish judgment in the gate: "it 
 Romi-''i ™»y ^^ ^^^^^ *'^^ Lord God of hosts will 
 
 '2Kin'si9'4 ^^ gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. 
 JoeiTii.' ■ iQ Therefore the Lord, the God of 
 
 good, and Iliin Who is Good. " He seckcth good, who believ- 
 eth in Ilini Who saith \ I am the i^ood Shejtiierd." 
 
 That ye may live, in Him Who is the Life ; and xu the 
 Lord, the God oj hosta, shall he with //oh, by His holy Presence, 
 grace and protection, as ye have spoken. Israel looked away 
 from the sins whereby he displeased God, and looked to his 
 half-worship of God as entitling him to all which God had pro- 
 mised to full obedience. '--They gloried in the nobleness of 
 their birth after the flesh, not in imitating the faith and lives of 
 the patriarchs. So then, because they were descended from 
 Abraham, they thought that God must defend them. Such 
 were those Jews, to whom the Saviour said '% If ye were Abra- 
 ham's seed, ye would do the works of Abraham; and His fore- 
 runner *, think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham 
 for our father.'" They wished that God should abide with 
 them, that they might = abide in the land, but they cared not to 
 abide with God. 
 
 \b. Hate the evil and love the good. Man will not cease 
 wholly to seek evil, unless he luite it ; nor will he seek good, vm- 
 less he love it. " * He hateth evil, who not only is not over- 
 come by pleasure, but hates its deeds ; and he loveth good, 
 who, not unwillingly or of necessity or from fear, doth what is 
 good, but because it is good." " ^ Evil of sin must be hated, 
 in and for itself; the sinner must not be hated in himself, but 
 only the evil in him." They hated him, who reproved them ; 
 he bids them hate sin. They set doum righteousness on the 
 ground ; he bids them, establish, lit. set up firmly, judgment in 
 the gate. To undo, as far as any one can, the effects of past 
 sin, is among the first-fruits of repentance. 
 
 It may he that the Lord God of Hosts tvill be g7'aaioiis. 
 "'He speaks so, in regard of the changeableness and uncer- 
 tainty, not in God, but in man. There is no question but that 
 God is gracious to all who hate evil and love good ; but He 
 doth not always deliver them from temporal calamity or cap- 
 tivity, because it is not for their salvation. Yet had Israel 
 hated evil atid loved good, i^crchance He would have delivered 
 them from captivity, although He frequently said, they should 
 be carried captive. For so He said to the two tribes in Jere- 
 miah *, Amend your ivays, and your doings, and I tvill cause 
 you to dwell in this place." But since God knew that most of 
 them would not repent, He saith not, tvill he gracious unto Is- 
 rael, but, unto the remnant of Joseph, i. e. ^ the remnant, accord- 
 ing to the election of grace; such as had been the seven thousand 
 who hoived 7iot the knee unto Baal ; those who repented, while 
 the rest tvere hardened. He says, Joseph, not, Ephraim, in or- 
 der to recall to them the deeds of their father. Jacob's bless- 
 ing on Joseph descended upon Ephraim, but was forfeited by 
 Jeroboam's sin loherewith he made Israel to sin. "^"Joseph 
 in his deeds and sufferingswas atypeof Jesus Christ,in Whom 
 the remnant is saved." A remnant, however only, should be 
 saved; so the Prophet says; 
 
 >S.Johnx.ll. 2 Dion. 3 S. John viii. 39. * S. Matt, iii.9. ' Ps.xxxvii.3. 
 
 8 S.Jer. "Dion. » vii. 3. 'Rom. xi. 4,5. i» Rup. " Is. xxiv. 21. '= The 3m 
 might be a 'broad' street (-n-XaTtia) as Gen. xix. 2, Jud. xix. 15, 17, 20, but. contrasted 
 with nisin. It is probably tlie "broad place" near the gate. " This is the Hebrew 
 
 construction. TheE.V.hasfolloweaKimchiin assuminga transposition,which is,how- 
 
 hosts, the liord, saith thus; Wailing .s/mZ/ chrTs' 
 
 he in all streets ; and they shall say in all — ""■ ''^'^- 
 
 the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall 
 
 call the husbandman to mourning, and 
 
 y such as are skilful of lamentation to ' Jer. 9. 17. 
 
 wailing. 
 
 16. Therefore the Lord, the God of Hosts, the Lord. For 
 the third time in these three last verses Amos again reminds 
 them, by Whose authority he speaks. His Who had revealed 
 Himself as/ yi^Tl/, the Self-existent God, God bynatureandof 
 nature, the Creator and Ruler and Lord of all. visible or in- 
 visible, against their false gods, or fictitious substitutes for the 
 true God. Here, over and above those titles, HE IS, i. e. HE 
 Alone IS, the God of Hosts, God of all things, in heaven and 
 earth, the heavenly bodies from whose influences the idola- 
 ters hoped for good, and the unseen evil beings ^^ who seduced 
 them, he adds the title, which men most shrink from. Lord. 
 He Who so threatened, was the Same who had absolute power 
 over His creatures, to dispose of them, as He willed. It costs 
 men nothing to own God, as a Creator, the Cause of causes, 
 the Orderer of all things by certain fixed laws. It satisfies 
 certain intellects, so to own Him. What man, a sinner, 
 shrinks from, is that the God is Lord, the absolute disposer 
 and Master of his sinful self. 
 
 IVailing in all streets, lit. broad places, i. e. market-places ^-. 
 There, where judgments were held, where were the markets, 
 where consequently had been all the manifold oppressions 
 through injustice in judgments and in dealings, and the wail- 
 ings of the oppressed, wailing should come on them. 
 
 They shall say in all the highways, i. e. streets, alas .' alas 1 
 our, woe, woe. It is the word so often used by our Lord ; ivoe 
 unto you. This is no imagery. Truth has a more aweful, 
 sterner, reality than any imagery. The terribleness of the 
 prophecy lies in its truth. When war pressed without on 
 the walls of Samaria, and within was famine and pestilence, 
 woe, woe, woe, must have echoed in every street ; for in every 
 street was death and fear of worse. Yet imagine every 
 sound of joy or din or hum of men, or mirth of children, hush- 
 ed in the streets, and woe, woe, going up from every street of a 
 metropolis, in oneunmitigated, unchanging, ever- repeatedmo- 
 notonyof grief. Such were the present fruits of sin. Yetwhat 
 a mere shadow of the inward grief is its outward utterance ! 
 
 And they shall call the hushandtnan to mourning. To cul- 
 tivate the fields would then only be to provide food for the 
 enemy. His occupation would be gone. One universal sor- 
 row would give one universal employment. To this, they 
 would call those unskilled, with their deep strong voices ; they 
 would, by a public act, proclaim trailing to ^^ those skilful in 
 lamentation. It was, as it were, a dirge over the funeral of 
 their country. As, at funerals, they employed minstrels, both 
 menand women^*,who,by mournful anthems and the touching 
 plaintiveness of the human voice, should stir up deeper depths 
 of sorrow, so here, over the whole of Israel. And as at the 
 funeral of one respected or beloved, they used exclamations 
 of woe^^, ah my brother I and ah sister, ah lord, ah his glory, so 
 Jeremiah bids them ^'', call and make haste, and take up a wail- 
 ing for us, that our eyes may run dotv7i with tears : for a voice 
 
 ever, only as much as to say that the two idioms are equivalent, as they are. To " call 
 the husl)andman to niourning," or to " proclaim mourning to the husbandman" mean the 
 same thing, though the Hebrew words can grammatically only mean the last. ^* 2 Chr. 
 XXXV. 25. The word skilful is masculine, 'jm', so in S. Matt. ix. 23. '* in 1 Kgs. 
 
 xiii. 29. Jer. xxii. 18. Amos uses a shorter form, found here only, i.i in. " ix. 17-i'J.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 197 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 • fix. 12. 12. 
 Nah. 1. 12. 
 
 17 And in all vineyards shall he wail- 
 ing : for "■ I will pass through thee, saith 
 the Lord. 
 
 o/watliiig f.s /ward out ofZion. How are we .spoiled! " ' In joy, 
 men loni; to impart their joys to others, and exliort tliem to 
 joy witli them. Our Lord sanctions this, in speakinj^' of the 
 Good Shej>herd, Wlio calU-ci His friends and neif;lihoiirs to- 
 flfether, rejoice ivith Me, for I have found the ahecp wliicli J luid 
 lost. Nor is it any thinj; new, that, when we have reeeivcd 
 anyfjreatbencfit from God, we call even theinanimatecreation 
 to thankand praise God. So didDavid ofttimes and thethree 
 children. So too in sorrow. When any tliinjjadverse has he- 
 fallen us, we invite even senseless thinjj^s to i-rieve with us, as 
 though our own tears sufficed notfor sogreat a sorrow." The 
 same feeling makes the rich now clothe those of their house- 
 hold in mourning, which made those of old hire mourners, 
 that all might he in harmony with their grief. 
 
 17- yind in alt vineyards shall be luailing. All joy should 
 be turned into sorrow. Where aforetime was the vintage- 
 shout in thankfulness for the ingathering, and anticipating 
 gladness to come, there, in the source of their luxury, should 
 be wailing, the forerunner of sorrow to come. It was a vin- 
 tage, not of wine, but of woe. 
 
 For I will pass through thee. In the destruction of the 
 firstborn in Egypt, God did not pass through but passed over 
 them, and they kept, in memory thereof, the feast of the Pass- 
 over. Now God would no longer pass over them and their 
 sins. He says, I will pass through thee, as He then said^, / 
 will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite 
 all the firstborn of the land of Egypt — and against all the 
 gods of Egypt I tvill execute judgment. As God says by Ho- 
 sea ', / luill not enter the city, i. e. He would not make His Pre- 
 sence felt, or take cognizance, when to take cognizance would 
 be to punish, so here, contrariwise, He snys, I tvill pass through, 
 taking exact and severe account, in judgment. S. Jerome 
 further says, " so often as this word is used in Holy Scripture, 
 in the person of God,itdenotespunishment,that He would not 
 abide among them, but would pass through and leave them. 
 Surely, it is an image of this, that, wlien the Jews would have 
 cast our Lord headlongfromthebrowof the hill whereon their 
 city was built. He passed through the midst of them'*', so that 
 they could not see Him nor know Him, and so tvent His way. 
 And this, when He had just told them, that none of the widows 
 of Israel were fed by Elias, or the lepers cleansed by Elisha, 
 save thewidowofSarepta,andNaamantlieSyrian. So should 
 their leprosy cleave to them, and the famine of the word of 
 God and of the oil of the Holy Spirit abide among them, 
 while the Gentiles were washed by His laver and fed with the 
 bread of life." 
 
 18. Woe unto yon that desire [for yourselves^'] the Day of 
 the Lord. There were mockersin those days^, as there are now, 
 and as there shall be in the last. And as the scoffers in the 
 last days^ shall say, fVhere is the promise of His coming ? so 
 these said '', let Him make speed and hasten His icork, that we 
 may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel dratv 
 nigh and come, that we may knoiv it. Jeremiah complained *; 
 they say unto me, where is the tvord of the Lord f let it come 
 now ! And God says to EzekicF, Son of man, ivhat is that pro- 
 verb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, the days are pro- 
 longed, and every vision faileth ? The vision that he seeth is 
 
 1 from Sanct. ' Ex. xii. 12. ' xi. 9. ■< s. Luke iv. 30. 
 
 ' The force of D-lNTiB. « 2S. Pet.iii.3,4, S. Jude 18. 7Is.v.l9. Sxvii.lS. 
 
 18 "Woe unto you that desire the day of j, jf^YsT 
 tlie Ijoro ! to what end is it for you ? '' the ""■ ''^'- 
 day of the Lord is darkness, and not light." jer?'i7.'i5. 
 
 i" Jer. 30. 7. Joel 2. 2. Zeph. 1. 15. Ezek. 12. 22,' 27. 2 Pet. 3. 4. 
 
 for VKiuy days, and he proplu-sicth of the times far off'. " They 
 would shew their courage and strength of mind, by longing 
 for the Day of the Lord, w liicli th(; projiliets forctcdd, in which 
 (Jod was to shew forth His power on tli(^ disobedient." '-'"Lcit 
 it come, what these prophets threaten till they arc hoarse, let 
 it (;ome, let it come. It is ever held out to us, and never 
 comes. We do not believe that it will come at all, or if it do 
 come, it will not be so dreadful after all ; it will go as it came." 
 It may be, however, that they who scoffed at Amos, doked 
 tlieir unbelief under the form of desiring the good days, which 
 God had promised by Joel afterwards. "" There is not," they 
 would say, " so much of evil in the captivity, as there is of 
 good in what the Lord has jjromised afterwards." Amos 
 meets the hypocrisy or the s(!off, by the appeal to their con- 
 sciences, /o what end isit toyoii? They had nothing in com- 
 mon with it or with God. Whatever it had of good, was not 
 for such as them. The Day of the Lord is darkness, and not 
 light. Like the pillar of the cloud between Israel and the 
 Egyptians, which betokened God's Presence, every day in 
 which He shews forth His Presence, is a day of light and dark- 
 ness to those of different characters. The prophets foretold 
 both, but not to all. These scoffers either denied the Coming 
 of that day altogetlier,or denied its terrors. Either way, they 
 disbelieved God, and, disbelieving Him, would have no share 
 in His promises. To them, the Day of the Lord would be un- 
 mixed darkness, distress, desolation, destruction, without one 
 ray of gladness. The tempers of men, their belief or disbelief, 
 are the same, as to the GreatDay of the Lord, the Day of Judg- 
 ment. It is all one, whether men deny it altogether or deny 
 its terrors. In either case, they deny it, such as God has or- 
 dained it. The words of Amos condemn them too. The Day 
 of the Lord had already become thename for every day of judg- 
 ment, leading on to the Last Day. The principle of all God's 
 judgments is one and the same. One and the same are the 
 (diaracters of those who are to be judged. In one and the 
 same way, is eacdi judgment looked forward to, neglected, pre- 
 pared for, believed, disbelieved. In one and the same way, our 
 Lord has taught us, will the Great Day come,as the judgments 
 of the flood or upon Sodom, and will iind men prepared or un- 
 prepared, as they were then. Words then, which describe the 
 character of any day of Judgment, do, according to the Mind 
 of God the Holy Ghost, describe all, and the last also. Of 
 this too, and that chiefly, because it is the greatest, are the 
 words spoken, JFoe unto you, u'ho desire, amiss or rashly or 
 scornfully or in misbelief the Day of the Lord, to what end 
 is it for you ? The Day of the Lord is darkness and not light. 
 "1^ Tliis sounds a strange woe. It had not seemed strange, 
 had he said, ' Woe to you, who fear not the Day of the Lord.' 
 For, 'not to fear,' belongs to bad, ungodly men. But the good 
 may desire it, so that the Apostle says '', I desire to depart and 
 to be with Christ. Yet even their desire is not without a sort 
 of fear. Yov^'^ who can say, I have made my heart clean? Yet 
 that is the fear, not of slaves,but of sons ; nor hath it torment'^', 
 for it hath^'^ strong consolation through hope. When then he 
 says, fFoe unto you that desire the Day of the Lord, he rebuk- 
 eth their boldness, ^' who trust in themselves, that they are righ- 
 teous." "At one and the same time," says S.Jerome, "the 
 
 » xii. 22, 27. '" from Lap. " S. Jer. " Rup. " Phil. i. 23. 
 i-" Prov. XX. 9. " 1 s. John iv. 18. '« Heb. vi.l8,Rom.v.2. '7 S.LukexTiii.9. 
 
 l1
 
 198 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 Before jg c ^g jf ^ ^^11 (lid fleo froiM a lion, and 
 
 ar. 787. a bear met him; or went into the house, 
 ^ jer.4S.4j. ^^^j leaned his hand on the wall, and a 
 serpent bit him. 
 
 20 Shall not the day of the Lord be 
 darkness, and not light ? even very dark, 
 and no brightness in it ? 
 
 21 ^ "^ I hate, I despise your feast days, and (;H'i[''"sT 
 ''I will not II smell in your solenm assemblies. _J!lil^- 
 
 22 f Though ye offer me burnt offerings '^ITii 
 
 confidence ofllic proud is shaken off, wlio, in order to appear 
 rif>hteous before men, are wont to loni,^ for tlie Day of Judg-- 
 nient and to say, 'Would tliat the Lord would come, would that 
 we niii;ht he dissolved and be with Christ,' imitating the Pha- 
 risee, who spake in the GospeP, God, I thank Thee, that I am 
 not «« otltcr men are. For the very fact, that they desire, and 
 do not fear, the Day of the Lord, shews, that they are worthy 
 of punishment, since no man is tvithout sin ^, and the stars are 
 not pure in His sight '^. And He * concluded all under sin, 
 that He might have mercy upon all. Since, then, no one can 
 judge concerning the Judgment of God, and we are to ^^Ve «c- 
 count of every idle word^, and Job offered sacrifices^ dixWy for 
 his sons, lest they should have thought something perverse- 
 ly against the Lord, what rashness it is, to long to reign 
 alone^! — In troubles and distresses we are wont to say, 'would 
 that we might depart out of the body and be freed from the 
 miseries of this world,' not knowing that, while we are in this 
 flesh, we have place for repentance ; but if we depart, we shaU 
 hear tliat of the prophet, '^ in hell who luill give Thee thanks ? 
 That is the sorrow of this world^, which worketh death, 
 wherewith the Apostle would not have him sorrow who had 
 sinned with his father's wife ; the sorrow whereby the wretch- 
 ed Judas too perished, who, sicallowed zq) with overmuch sor- 
 row^", joined murder ^^ to his Betrayal, a murder the worst of 
 murders, so that where he thought to find a remedy, and that 
 death by hanging was the end of ills, there he found the lion 
 and the bear, and the serpent, under which names I think that 
 different punishments are intended, or else the devil himself, 
 who is rightly called a lion or bear or serpent." 
 
 19. ^s if a man did flee from a lion. The Day of the 
 Lord is a day of terror on every side. Before and behind, 
 without and within, abroad under the roof of heaven, or un- 
 der the shelter of his own, everywhere is terror and death. 
 The Syrian bear is said to have been fiercer and more savage 
 than the lion. For its fierceness and voracity ^-, God made 
 it, in Daniel's vision, a symbol of the empire of the Medes. 
 From both lion and bear there might be escape by flight. 
 When the man had leaned his hand trustfully on the wall of 
 his own house, cmd the serpent hit him, there was no escape. 
 He had fled from death to death, from peril to destruction. 
 
 20. Shall not the Day of the Lord be darkness ? He had 
 described that Day as a day of inevitable destruction, such as 
 man's own conscience and guilty fears anticipate, and then 
 appeals to their own consciences," is it not so, as I have said?" 
 Men's consciences are truer than their intellect. However 
 they may employ the subtlety of their intellect to dull their 
 conscience, they feel, in their heart of hearts, that there is a 
 Judge, that guilt is punished, that they are guilty. The soul 
 is a witness to its own deathlessness, its own accountableness, 
 its own punishableness^"'. Intellect carries the question out of 
 
 1 S. Lukexviii.il, 12. -2Chr.vi.36. sjobxxv.S. •• Gal. iii. 22, 
 
 Rom. xi. a2. ^ S. Matt, xii.36. « Job i. 5. ' 1 Cor. iv. 8. 
 
 sps. vi.5. ' 2Cor.vii. 10. '"Ih. ii.7. " S. Matt, xxvii. 3-5. 
 
 ''Prov,21.27. 
 16. 
 
 and your meat offerings, I will not aceept Hoil^.^'^i. 
 them : neither will I regard the || peace of-[| hV.'stfeU^' 
 ferings of your fat beasts. ^i.''"'* 
 
 23 Take thou away from me the noise' mic! 6.^6,7. 
 
 II Or, thank offering!. 
 
 itself into the region ofsurmisingand disputings. Conscience 
 is compelled to receive it back into its own court, and to give 
 the sentence, which it would fain withhold. Like the god of 
 the heathen fable, who changed himself into all sorts of forms, 
 but when hewasstillheldfast,gave,at the last, the true answer, 
 conscience shrinks back, twists, writhes, evades, turns away, 
 but, in the end, it will answer truly, whenit must. TheProphet 
 then, turns quick round upon the conscience, and says, "tell 
 me, for you know." 
 
 21. I hate, I despise your feasts, Israel clave to its heart's 
 sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the 
 calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. It 
 had its/i?a«^.s- of solemn /o!/ ^*, and the restraint of its solemn as- 
 semblies^^, which all were constrained to keep,abs'aining from 
 all servile work. They off'ered tvhole burnt offerings, the to- 
 ken of self-sacrifice,in which the sacrificer retained nothing to 
 himself, but gave the whole freely to God. They offered also 
 peace offerings, as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls 
 at peace with God. What they ofi'ered, was the best of its 
 kind, /«//«/ beasts. Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instru- 
 mental music ! What was wanting, Israel thought, to secure 
 them the favour of God ? Love and obedience. If ye love Me, 
 keep My commandmoits. And so those things, whereby they 
 hoped to propitiate God, were the object of His displeasure. 
 / hate, I despise, I will not accept with good pleasure ^^■, I will 
 not regard, look towards, / will not hear, will not smell. The 
 words, / will not smell, reminded them of that threat in the 
 law 1^, / will make your cities luaste and bring your sanctuaries 
 tmto desolation, and I ivill not sjnell the savour of your sweet 
 odours. In so many ways does God declare that He would not 
 accept, or endure, what they all the while were building upon, 
 as grounds of their acceptance. And yet so secure were they, 
 that the only sacrifice which they did not offer, was the sin or 
 trespass offering. Worshipping "nature," not a holy. Person- 
 al, God, they had no sense of unholiness, for which to plead 
 the Atoning Sacrifice to come. Truly each Day of Judgment 
 unveils much self-deceit. How much more the Last ! 
 
 23. Take thou away from Me, lit. /rom upon Me, i.e. from 
 being a burden to Me, a weight on Me. So God says by Isai- 
 ah^*, your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hat- 
 eth ; they are a burden upon Me; I am weary to bear them. 
 Theirso?/^s and hymns werebutaconfused,tumultuous,?joMe'', 
 since they had not the harmony of love. 
 
 For [And] the melody of thy viols I will not hear. Yet the 
 nebel, probably a sort of harp, was almost exclusively conse- 
 crated to the service of God, and the Psalms were God's own 
 writing. Doubtless they sounded harmoniously in their own 
 ears ; but it reached no further. Their melody, like much 
 Church-music, was for itself, and ended in itself. "-"Let Chris- 
 tian chanters learn hence, not to set the whole devotion of 
 
 '" Dan. vii. 5. " See Tertullian'.i short but remarkable treatise " of thewiness 
 
 of the soul," p. 132-42. Oxf. Tr. " m. '* may lit. restraint. is .ns-w 
 
 1? Lev. xxvi. 31. " i. 14. '« jion s" Lap.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 109 
 
 chkTst of thy sonj^s ; for I will not hear the inelo- 
 
 "■•• 787- dy of thy viols. 
 ' Mic'c! 8. 24 B But let ju(l<>jment f run down as wa- 
 
 ^ "^ •" • ters, and riujhteousness as a mighty stream. 
 
 Psalmody in a good voice, subtlety of modulation and rapid 
 intonation, &c, quaverinc: like birds, to tickle tbc cars of tlie 
 curious, take them off to themselves and away from prayer, lest 
 they hear from God, / will, not hear the ruelodi/ of tliy viols. 
 Let them learn that of the Apostle ', / tuill siiti^ with the Spi- 
 rit, and I will sing with the understundins; also." "" If the 
 Psalm prays, pray ; if it sorrows, sorrow ; if it is glad, rejoice ; 
 if full of hope, hope ; if of fear, fear. For whatever is therein 
 written, is our mirror." "^How many are loud in voice, 
 dumb in heart ! How many lips are silent, but their love is 
 loud ! For the ears of God are to the heart of man. As the 
 ears of the body are to the mouth of man, so the heart of man 
 is to the ears of God. Many are heard with closed lips, and 
 many who cry aloud are not heard." " " * God says, I will not 
 hear, as He says ^, praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sin- 
 ner, and ^, to the ungodly saith God, what hast thou to do, to 
 declare My statutes i' and^, he that turneth away his ear from 
 hearing the latv, even his prayer shall be abomination. It is 
 not meant hereby that the wicked ought wholly to abstain 
 from the praise of God and from prayers, but that they should 
 be diligent to amend, and know that through such imperfect 
 services they cannot be saved." The Prophet urges upon 
 them the terribleness of the Day of Judgment, that they might 
 feel and flee its terribleness, before it comes. He impresses on 
 them the fruitlessness of their prayers, that, amending, they 
 might so pray, that God would hear them. 
 
 24. But \^And'] let judgment run dotun [lit. »-o// E.M.] like 
 wafer. The duties of either table include both ; since there is 
 no true love for man without the love of God, nor any real 
 love or duty to God without the love of man. Men will ex- 
 change their sins for other sins. They will not break them off 
 unless they be converted to God. But the first outward step 
 in conversion, is to break off sin. He bids them then let judg- 
 ment, which had hitherto ever been perverted in its course, 
 roll on like a mighty tide of ivaters, sweeping before it all 
 hindrances, obstructed by no power, turned aside by no bribery, 
 but pouring on in one perpetual flow, reaching all, refreshing 
 all, and righteousness like a mighty [or ceaseless] stream. The 
 word ethan may signify strong or perennial. Whence the se- 
 venth month, just before the early rain, was called the inonth 
 Ethanim ^, i. e. the month of the perennial streams, when they 
 alone flowed. In the meaning perennial, it would stand tacit- 
 ly contrasted with streams tchichfail or lie ^. True righteous- 
 ness is not fitful, like an intermitting stream, vehement at one 
 time, then disappearing, but continuous, unfailing. 
 
 25. Have ye offered [better. Did ye offh-] unto 3Ie sacrifices 
 and offerings ? Israel justified himself to himself by his half- 
 service. This had been his way from the first. ^^ llicir heart 
 was not whole ivith God, neither abode they in His covenant. 
 He thought to be accepted by God, because be did a certain 
 homage to Him. He acknowledged God in his own way. God 
 sets before him another instance of this half-service and what 
 it issued in ; — the service of that generation which He brought 
 out of Egypt, and which left their bones in the wilderness. 
 The idolatry of the ten tribes was the revival of the idolatry 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xiv. 15. ^ S. Aug. in Ps. xxx. £narr. iv. Pp. 263. Oxf. Tr.] L. 
 
 3 S. Aug. in Ps. cxix. [n. 9. T. v. p. 470. O. T.] L. * Dion. 
 
 ' Ecclus. XV. 9. * Ps. ■ " ■ " " 
 
 25 •■ Have ye offered unto me sacrifices ^.^f/Tl™ 
 
 •^ l./ H K 1 o T 
 
 and offerings in tlie wilderness forty years^ <='''■ ">^7. 
 () house of Israel ? ' ^:S::^:ll: 
 
 26 But ye have borne || the tabernacle' of fl.ti.'Ac^; 
 
 7.42,43. Sce'ls.43.23. \\ Or, Sin-ulk your king. ' 1 Kings 11. 33. 
 
 . 1. 16. ^ Prov. xxviii. 9. ^1 Kgs. viii. 2. 
 
 5 3i:n 
 
 of the wilderness. The ten tribes owned as the forefathers of 
 tiieir worship those first idolaters". They identified them- 
 .selves with sin which they did not commit.' By approving it 
 and copying it, they made that sin tlicirown. As the Cliurch 
 of God in all times is one and the same, and ilosea says of 
 God's vision to .lacob '^ there He spake with us, so that great 
 opposite camp,the city of the devil, has a continuous existence 
 through all time. These idolaters ware filling up the measure 
 o/ their forefathers, and in the end of those forefathers, who 
 perished in the wilderness where they sinned, they might be- 
 hold their own. As God rejected the divided .service of their 
 forefathers, so He would their's. 
 
 God does not say that they did not offer sacrifice at all, but 
 that they did notoifer unto Him. The unto Me is emphatic. 
 If God is not served wholly and alone. He is not served at all. 
 "i^He regardeth not the offering, but the will of the offerer." 
 Some sacrifices were offered during the thirty eight vcars and 
 a half, after God had rejected that generatitm, and let't them to 
 die in the wilderness. For the rebellion of Korali and his com- 
 pany was a claim to exercise the priesthood, as Aaron was ex- 
 ercising it^*. When atonement was to be made, the live coals 
 were already on the altar^^ These, however, were not the 
 free will offerings of the people, but the ordinance of God, per- 
 formed by the priests. The people, in that they went after 
 their idols, had no share in nor benefit from what was offered 
 in their name. So Moses says "', they sacrificed to devils, not to 
 God ; and Ezekiel'^, Their heart went after their idols. Those 
 were the gods of their affections, whom they chose. God had 
 taken them for His people, and had become their God. on the 
 conditionthattheysliouldnot associate other gods with Him'^. 
 Had they loved God Who made tliem.they would have loved 
 none besides Him. Since they choseother gods, these were the 
 objects of their love. God was, at most, an object of their fear. 
 As He said by Hosea^', their bread is for themselves, it shall not 
 enter into the house of the Lord, so here He asks, and by ask- 
 ing denies it, Didye offer unto Me f Idolatry and heresy feign 
 a god of their own. They do not own God as He has revealed 
 ed Himself; and since they own not God as He is, the god 
 whom they worship, is not the true God. but some creature of 
 their own imaginings, such as they conceive God to be. Anti- 
 Trinitarianism denies to God His essential Being, Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost. Other heresies refuse to own His awefiil 
 holiness and justice ; others, the depth of His love and con- 
 descension. Plainly, their god is not the one true God. 
 So these idolaters, while they associated with God gods of 
 cruelty and lust, and looked to them for things which God in 
 His holiness and love refused them, did not own God, as the 
 One Holy Creator, the Sole Disposer of all things. 
 
 But ye have borne [lit. yind ye bare] the tabernacle of your 
 Moloch \[it. your king, whence the idol Aloloch had its name.]. 
 He assigns tbereason, why he had denied that they sacrificed 
 to God in the wilderness. Did ye offer sacrifices unto Me. and 
 ye bare f i.e. seeing that ye bare. The two were incompatible. 
 Since they did carry about the tabernacle of their king, they did 
 not really worship God. Hewhom they chose as "their king," 
 
 Jer. XV. 18, Dn Is. Iviii. 11. '» Ps Ixxviii. 3". " See Introd.to Hos.p. 2. 
 
 IS xii.4. See ab.p. 70. '^ s. Jer. n Num. xvi. 5, 9, 10. '^ lb. 46. 
 
 >6 Deut. xxxii. 17. " xx. Hi. is Jjx. xx. 2-5. '^ ix. 4.see ab. p. 56. 
 
 Ll2
 
 200 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 FrTs t your Moloch and Chiun yourimages,the star 
 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 787. 
 
 was their ^od. The tabernacle or tent was probably a little 
 portable shrine, such as Demetrius the silversmith and those 
 of his craft made for the little statues of their goddess Diana ^ 
 Such are mentioned in Egyptian idolatry. "They carry 
 forth," \v(i are told-, ''the image in a small shrine of gilt wood." 
 Oft/unr Moloch, and Chiun. Thetwoclanses must be read 
 separately, the tabernacles of Moloch [stri(!tly, of your /c>ng,~\ 
 and Chinnyourimai^es. The twoclauses,//it'/«/ipr«f/c/6" of your 
 king, and Chiun your images^, are altogether distinct. They 
 correspond to one another, but they must not be read as one 
 whole, in the sense, the tabernacle of your king and of Chiun 
 your images. The rendering of the last clause is uncertain. 
 God has so utterly abolished the idols*, through whom Satan 
 contested with Him the allegiance of His people, that we have 
 no certain knowledge, what they were. There may be some 
 connection between the god whom the Israelites in the wil- 
 derness worshipped as their king, and him whose worship So- 
 lomon, in his decay, brought into Jerusalem, the god whom 
 the Ammonites worshipped as the king, Hanirnnlech, or, as he 
 is once called, Molech'-", and three times Milchoni ^ (perhaps an 
 abstract, as some used to speakof "//ie Deity"). He is mostly 
 called Hummolech, the Ammonite way of pronouncing what 
 the Hebrews called Haninielech,the king. But since the name 
 designates the god only as the king, it may have been given 
 to different gods, whom the heathen worshipped as their chief 
 god. In Jewish idolatry, it became equivalent to BaaF, lord; 
 and to avert his displeasure, the Hebrews (as did the Cartha- 
 ginians, a Phoenician people, down to the time of our Lord *,) 
 burnt their own children, their sons and their daughters, alive 
 to him. Yet, even in these dreadful rites, the Carthaginian 
 worship^ was more cold-blooded and artificial than that of 
 Phoenicia. But whether the king, whom the Israelites wor- 
 shipped in the wilderness, was the same as the Ammonite Mo- 
 lech or no, those dreadful sacrifices were then no part of his 
 worship ; else Amos would not have spoken of the idolatry, 
 as the carrying about his tabernacle only. He would have de- 
 scribed it by its greatest offensiveness. The king was a title 
 also of the Egyptian Deity, Osiris i", who was identified with 
 the sun, and whose worship Israel may probably have brought 
 with them, as well as that of the calf, his symbol. Again, most 
 of the old translators have retained the Hebrew word Chiyyun^^, 
 either regarding it as a proper name, or unable to translate it. 
 Some later tradition identifies it with the planet Saturn ^-, 
 which, under a different name, the Arabs propitiated as a ma- 
 levolent being 1^. In S. Ephrem's time, the heathen Syrians 
 worshipped "the child-devouring Chivan^*." Israel, however, 
 did not learn the idolatry from the neighbouring Arabs, since 
 it is not the Arab name of that planet ^^ In Egyptian, the 
 
 ' Acts xix. 24. s Herod, ii. C3. ' D3dSd niDD nn 
 
 dd-d'^s P'd riKi 
 
 " Is. ii. 18. 5 The idol, called Molech, 1 Kgs. xi. 7. had been called Milchom, lb. 5. 
 
 '^ 1 Kgs. xi. 5, 33, 2 Krs. xxiii. 13. Wer. xix. 5. xxxii. 35. »" Even to the 
 
 days of a Proconsul under Tiberius." TertuU. Apol. 9. pp. 20, 1. Oxf. Tr. and note k. Ges. 
 quotes 3 Pha-nician inscriptions, attesting the Punic child-sacritices to Baal.Thes.p.7y5. 
 
 * As described Diod. XX. 14'. The Rabbins, however, speak of the sacrifices to Molech 
 in exactly the same way, Carpzoff', Ant. 87. 48i. '" Plutarch. Is. et Os. c. 10. 
 
 " The Syr. writes Chevon\ion. Chiun ; Aq. and Symm. in S. Jer. Chion. Tlie Rephan 
 of the LXX. may be only a dift'erent way of writing Chevan, the Greek translator, here as 
 elsewhere, substituting T for D ; or it may be an Egyptian equivalent. 
 
 '2 In Persian, in the Dabistan, it is said, " The image of Keiwan was of black stone." 
 Lee's Lex. v. nis-K. The Bundchesh, in enumerating the planets, places Kivav, the fifth, 
 as does the Codex Nasora'us (ed. Norb. p. .54.) but all these are comparatively modern. 
 The Copt-Arabic list of planets, which explains Rephan by the Arabic Zochal i. q. Sa- 
 turn, may very prohablv have its name Rephan from the Greek. '^ Poc. spec. Hist. 
 Arab. p. 103. 120. ed. White. n Senn. Sadv. Ha;r. 0pp. Syr. ii. 458. '* The Ka- 
 moos explains the Persian Kaivan by the .Arabic name Zochal. '^ " The Coptic name 
 
 of your j?od, which ye made to yourselves. (, h kTs t 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 name of Chunsu,oneof the I2gods whoseverallyweretliought 
 to preside over the \'2 months, appears in an abridged form, 
 Chuns or Chon ^'. He was, in their mythology, held to be 
 " the eldest son of Ammon '^ ;" his name is said to signify, 
 " 18 power, might ;" and he to be that ideal of might, worship- 
 ped as the Egyptian Hercules ''•'. The name Chun extended 
 into Phoenician -" and Assyrian -• proper names. Still Chim is 
 not Cliiyyun ; and the fact that the name was retained as Chon 
 or Chun in Phoenicia (where the worship was borrowed) as well 
 as in Assyria, is a ground for hesitating to identify with it the 
 word Chiyyun, which has a certain likeness only to the abridg- 
 ed name. S. Jerome's Hebrew teacher on the other hand 
 knew of no such tradition, and S. Jerome renders it image^^. 
 And certainly it is most natural to render it not as a name, but 
 as a common noun. It may probably mean, the pedestal ^^, the 
 basis of your images. The prophet had spoken of their images, 
 as covered over with their little shrines, the shrines of your 
 king. Here he may, not improbably, speak of them, as fast- 
 ened to a pedestal. Such were the gods, whom they chose for 
 the One true God, gods, carried about, covered over, fixed to 
 their place, lest they should fall. 
 
 The worship was certainly some form of star-worship, since 
 there follows, the star of your god. It took place after the 
 worship of the calf. For S. Stephen, after having spoken of 
 that idolatry says -■*, Then God turned and gave them up to 
 ivorship the host of heaven, as it is written in the hook of the 
 prophets. Upon their rebellions, God at last gave them up to 
 themselves. S. Stephen calls the god whom they worshipped, 
 Rephan, quoting the then existing Greek translation, " having 
 regard," S. Jerome says, "to the meaning rather than the 
 words. This is to be observed in all Holy Scripture, that 
 Apostles and Apostolic men, in citing testimonies from the Old 
 Testament, regard, not the words, but the meaning, nor do 
 they follow the words, step by step, provided they do not de- 
 part from the meaning." 
 
 Of the special idolatry there is no mention in Moses, in like 
 way as the mention of the worship of the " goat ^%" a second 
 symbol of the Pantheistic worship of Egypt ~^, is contained 
 only incidentally in the prohibition of that worship. After the 
 final rebellion, upon which God rejected that generation. Holy 
 Scripture takes no account of them. They had failed God ; 
 they had forfeited the distinction, for which God had created, 
 preserved, taught them, revealed Himself to them, and had, by 
 great miracles, rescued them from Egypt. Thencefoi'th that 
 generation was cast aside unnoticed. 
 
 JVhich ye made to yourselves. This was the fundamental 
 fault, that they ynade it for themselves. Instead of the taber- 
 nacle, which God, their king, appointed, they bare about the 
 
 Paschons or Pachon is resolved into Pa-chons, "thatofChonsor Chonsou; the name of the 
 god who, accordingto the monuments, presided over this month." Brugsch, Eg. p. 162. 
 
 1? Birch, from slab in the Brit. M us. (quoted by Bunsen, JEg. Stelle, i. 460.) 
 
 1* Birch, lb. ^^ " They say that Hercules isin ./Egyptian called Chon, x'"''."Etym. 
 M.See Sir G.Wilk.inRawl. Herod, ii. 78. note. "The Egyptians called Hercules Chon." 
 L. Girald[Opp. ii. 327-] fromXenophan. Antioch. Drus. buttheauthority given is wrong. 
 
 -" Sanc/<o«iathon, C/(«nasun. Movers, Phoen. i. 291. -' ChinzemsN-p, Cnmeladan 
 pK-Vx-pD in Ptol. Id. ib. --' Theodotion also translates it as a noun. "^ p'3 frompD. 
 
 -•' Acts vii. 42. •' DTyB" Lev. xvii. 7. rendered in the E. V. "devils ; " butTi'i? 
 
 lit. "the hairy," is the Hebrew nameof the goat, as hircus from hirtus,hirsutus. The name 
 for "devils "in the Pentateuch is clo Deut. xxxii. 17. Jeroboam endeavoured fruitlessly 
 to revive the worship. He made him priests for the high places and the Seirim and 'Aga^ 
 lim which he had made. (2 Chr. xi. 15.) Seirim is doubtless to be taken in its literal sense, 
 " he goats," as '/Igalim, with which it is joined, is of "calves." 
 2' Pan, or Mendes, worshipped under the goat, was nature in one great aggregate, the old- 
 est of their gods,according to themselves( Herod, ii. 145. add 46), as bemg.in fact. the princi- 
 ple of life, apart from its Author. In Egyptian idolatry, the goat was accounted a special 
 manifestation of that principle.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 201 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 27 Therefore will I cause you to go 
 
 tabernacle of Mm whom they took for their king ; and for the 
 service which He fjave, they chose new f^/x/s^ for tlieniselves. 
 Whereas God made tliein for Himself, tiiey made for them- 
 selves gods out of their own mind. All idolatry is self-will, 
 first choosing a god, and then enslaved to it. 
 
 27. Therefore [,//»/] this heing so. such having been their 
 way from the i)eginning until now, ?r/// I cjni.se you to go into 
 captivity beyond Damascus. Syria was t!ie most powerful ene- 
 my by whom God had heretofore chastened them -. From Sy- 
 ria He had recently, for the time, delivered them, and had 
 given Damascus into their hands *. That day of grace had 
 been wasted, and they were still rebellious. JSloiv God would 
 bi'ing against them a mightier enemy. Damascus, the scene 
 of their triumph, should be their pathway to captivity. God 
 would cause them to go info captivity, not to Damascus, whence 
 they might have easily returned, but beyond it, as He did, in- 
 to the cities of the Medes. But Israel had, up to the time of 
 Amos and beyond it, no enemy, no war, beyond Damascus. Je- 
 hu had probably paid tribute to Shalmanubar king of As- 
 syria, to strengthen himself ■*. The Assyrian monarch had 
 warred against Israel's enemies, and seemingly received some 
 check from them ^ Against Israel he had shewn no hostility. 
 But for the conspiracy of one yet to be born in private life, 
 one of the captains of Israel Avho, by murder, became its 
 sovereign, it might have continued on in its own land. The 
 Assyrian monarchs needed tribute, not slaves ; nor did they 
 employ Israel as slaves. Exile was but a wholesale imprison- 
 ment of the nation in a large but safe prison-house. Had they 
 been still, they were more profitable to Assyria, as tributa- 
 ries in their own land. There was no temptation to remove 
 them, when Amos prophesied. The temptation came with 
 political intrigues which had not then commenced. The then 
 Assyrian monarch, Shamasiva, defeated their enemies the Sy- 
 rians, united with and aiding the Babylonians ^ ; tliey had then 
 had no share in the opposition to Assyria, but lay safe in their 
 mountain-fastness. It has been said, "'Although the king- 
 dom of Israel had, through Jeroboam,recovered its old borders, 
 yet careless insolence, luxury, unrighteousness, must bring the 
 destruction of the kingdom which the Prophet foretells. The 
 Prophet does but dimly forebode the superior power of Assy- 
 ria." Solomon had declared the truth*, liigftteousness exalte'th 
 a nation, but sin is a reproach to any peop/e. But there are 
 many sorts of decay. Decay does not involve the transporta- 
 tion of a people. Nay, decay would not bring it. but the con- 
 trary. A mere luxurious people rots on its own soil, and would 
 be left to rot there. It was the little remnant of energy, poli- 
 tical caballing, warlike spirit, in Israel, which brought its ruin 
 from man. Idolatry, " insolence, luxury, unrighteousness," 
 bringdown the displeasure of God, not of man. Yet Amos fore- 
 told, that God would bring the destruction through man. 
 They were,too, no worse than their neighbours, nor so bad ; not 
 so bad as the Assyrians themselves, except that, God having re- 
 vealed Himself to them, they had more light. The sin then, 
 the punishment, the mode of punishment, belong to the Divine 
 revelation. Such sins and worse have existed in Christian 
 nations. They were in part sins directly against God. God 
 reserves to Himself, how and when He will punish. He has 
 annexed no such visible laws of punishment to a nation's sins, 
 that man could, of his own wisdom or observation of God's 
 
 iJud. V. 8. 2 2 Kgs.xiii. 7. ^ lb. xiv. 25. 28. 
 
 •• See Introd. to Hosea, p. 2. » See ab. on i. 4. « Rawl. Herod, i. 466, 
 
 into captivity ''beyond Damascus, saith 
 
 k 2 Kings 17. 6. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 ways, foresee it. They through whom He willed to inflict it, 
 and whom Amos pointed out, were not provoked \)y those sins. 
 'I'bcre was no connection between Israel's present sins, and As- 
 syria's future vengeance. No Eastern despot cares for the op- 
 pressions of his subje(;ts, so that his own tribute is collected. 
 Seethe whole rang(! of Mobanimedan rule now. As far too 
 as we know, neither Assyria nor any other power had hither- 
 to punished rebellious nations l)y transporting tlieni '■' ; and cer- 
 taiidy Israel had not yet rebelled, or meditated rebellion. He 
 only Wlio controls the rebellious wills of men, and through 
 their self-will works out His r)wn all-wise Will and man's pu- 
 nishment, could know the future of Israel and Assyria, and how 
 through the pride of Assyria He woidd bring down the pride 
 of Samaria. 
 
 It has been well saidbyathoughtfulobserver of the world's 
 history, " Whosoever attempts to prophesy, not being inspired, 
 is a fool." We English know our own sins, many and grievous; 
 we know of a vast reign of violence, murder, blasphemy, theft, 
 uncleanness, covetousness, dishonest dealing, unrighteousness, 
 and of the breach of every commandment of God : we know 
 well '"now of an instrument in God's Hands, not far oft", like 
 the Assyrian, but within two hours of our coast; armaments 
 have been collected; aharbour is being formed; our own coast 
 openly examined ; iron-sheeted vessels prepared ; night-signals 
 provided; some of our own alienated population organised; 
 with a view to our invasion. We recognise the likelihood of 
 the invasion, fortify our coast, arm, not as a profession, but 
 for security. Our preparations testify, how wide-spread is 
 our expectation. No one scarcely doubts that it wiU be. Yet 
 who dare predict the issue ? Will God permit that scourge 
 to come ? will he prevail ? What would be the extent of our 
 sufferings or loss r how would our commerce or our Empire be 
 impaired? Would it be dismembered? Since no man can 
 affirm any thing as to this which is close at hand, since none 
 of us would dare to affirm in God's Name in regard to any 
 one stage of all this future, that this or that would or would 
 not happen, then let men have at least the modesty of the 
 magicians of Egypt, and seeing in God's prophets these ab- 
 solute predictions of a future, such as their own wisdom, un- 
 der circumstances far more favourable, could not dare to 
 make, own ; '^ This is the finger of God. Not we alone. We 
 see all Europe shaken ; we see powers of all sorts, heaving to 
 and fro ; we see the Turkish power ready to dissolve, stayed 
 up, like a dead man, only by un-Christian jealousies of Chris- 
 tians. Some things we may partially guess at. But with all 
 our means of knowing what passes everywhere, with all our 
 knowledge of the internal impulses of nations, hearing, as we 
 do, almost every pulse which beats in the great European sys- 
 tem, knowing the diseases which, here and there, threaten 
 convulsion or dissolution, no one dare stake his human wis- 
 dom on any absolute prediction, like these of the shepherd of 
 Tekoa as to Damascus ^ and Israel. To say the like in God's 
 Name, unless inspired, we should know to be blasphemy. God 
 Himself set the alternative before men. ^-Let all the nations be 
 gat/iered together, and let the people be assembled : ivlio among 
 them that can declare this, and sheiv former t/iings ? Let them 
 bring forth their witnesses, that tlxey may be justified : or let 
 them hear, and say. It is truth. 
 
 S. Stephen, in quoting this prophecy, substitutes Babylon 
 
 from Cuneif. Inscr. ' De Wette, Ein!. § 232. ^ prov. xiv. 34. 
 
 9 See ab. on 1. 5. pp. 160, 1. '» Written in 1S60. " Ex. viii. 19. '3 Is. sliii. 9.
 
 202 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 !HrTst *^he Lord, 'whose name is The God of 
 
 "^•7^^- hosts. 
 
 ' ch. 4. 13. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1 The ivantotiness of Israel, 7 shall be plagued 
 with desolation, 12 and their iticorrigibleness. 
 
 w 
 
 for Damascus, as indeed the cities of the Medes were further 
 than Babylon. Perhaps he set the name, in order to remind 
 them, tliat as God had broiitjht Al)rahani ' out of the land of 
 the Chaldeans, leaving the idols which \\\i< fathers had served", 
 to serve God only, so they, serving idols, were carried back, 
 whence Abraham had come, forfeiting, with the faith of Abra- 
 ham, the promises made to Abraham ; aliens and outcasts. 
 
 Saith the Lord Jhe Lord of hosts, the Lord of the heaven- 
 ly hosts for whose worship they forsook God ; the Lord of the 
 hosts on earth, whose ministry He employs to punish those 
 who rebel against Him. "^ For He hath many hosts to exe- 
 cute His judgments, the hosts of the Assyrians, the Medes 
 and Persians, the Greeks and Romans." All creatures in hea- 
 ven and in earth are, as He says of the holy Angels, * minis- 
 teus of His, that do His pleasure. 
 
 VI. 1. fFoe to them, that are at ease. The word ^ always 
 means such as are recklesslyat their ease, the careless ones, such 
 as those whom Isaiah bids, '^rise up, tremble, he troubled ; for 
 many days and years shall ye he troubled. It is that luxury and 
 ease, which sensualize the soul, and make it dull, stupid, hard- 
 hearted. By one earnest, passing word, the Prophet warns 
 his own land, that present sinful ease ends in future woe. 
 ^ TVoe unto them that laugh now : for they shall mourn and 
 weep. "^ He foretells the destruction and captivity of both 
 Judah and Israel at once ; and not only that captivity at Ba- 
 bylon, but that whereby they are dispersed unto this day." 
 Luxury and deepest sins of the flesh were rife in that genera- 
 tion ^, which slew Him Who for our sakes became poor. 
 
 jdnd trust in the mountain of Samaria, not in God. Sa- 
 maria was strong", resisted for three years, and was the last 
 city of Israel which was taken. The king of Assyria came up 
 throughout all the land andtvent up to Sam aria , and besieged it^'^. 
 Benhadad, in that former siege, when God delivered them^^, 
 attempted no assault, but famine only. 
 
 Which arenamedthe chief of the natio7is ; lit. the named of 
 the chief of the nations, i. e. those who, in Israel, which by the 
 distinguishing favour of God was chief of the nations, were 
 themselves, marked, distinguished, named. The Prophet, by 
 one word, refers them back to those first princes of the con- 
 gregation, of whom Moses used that same word^-. They 
 were heads of the houses of their fathers ^^, renoumed of the 
 congregation, heads of thousands in Israel^*. As, if any one 
 were to call the Peers, " Barons of England," he would carry 
 us back to the days of Magna Charta, although six centuries 
 and a half ago, so this word, occurring, at that tinie^^, here 
 only in any Scripture since Moses, carried back the thoughts 
 of the degenerate aristocracy of Israel to the faith and zeal 
 of their forefathers, what they ought to have been, and what 
 they were. As Amalek of old was/irst of the nations^^ in its 
 
 • Acts vii. 4. 2 Josh, x.xiv. 14. 3 Rup. 4 Ps_ ciii. 21. * D'Mtii? 
 
 * Is. xxxii. U-11. 7 S. Luke vi. 25. ^ See S. Johnviii. 9, Rom. ii. 21-2i, 
 S. Luke xi. 39, 42, S. Matt, xxiii. 1+, 23, 26. ' See ab. on iii. 9. >» 2 Kgs. xvii. o. 
 
 "lb. vii. 6. '2 Num. i. 17. " lb. 4. " lb. 16. !=■ The phrase of Num. 
 
 i. 17. occurs only in the books of Chronicles (1 Chr. xii. 31, xvi. 41, 2 Chr. xxvlii. 15, 
 
 xxxi. 19) and Ezra (viii. 20) as taken from the Pentateuch. See Hengst. Auth. d. 
 
 Pent. i. 97. 16 Nu. xxiv. 20. " Ex. xvii. 8-16. So Onk. S. Jer. Pseud-Jon. 
 
 X. 9. "xxvii. 23. =» Gen. x. 10. =' See ab. Introd. p. 119. =2 s. Jer. 
 
 OE no them that 
 
 Zion, and trust in the mountain of 
 
 are at ease in chkTst 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 • Luke 6. 24. 
 , are 
 
 Samaria, which are named ^ \\ chief of the y or,i 
 nations, to whom the house of Israel came ! b ex"T9.5. 
 
 2 " Pass ye unto -^ Calneh, and see ; and I TJTit"' 
 from thence go ye to " Hamath the great 
 
 • 2 Kings 18. 34. 
 
 "1 Is. 10. 9. 
 Taken 
 cir. 794. 
 
 enmity against the people of God ^'', having, first of all, shewn 
 that implacable hatred, whi(;h Amnion, Moab, Edoni, evinc- 
 ed afterwards, so was Israel first of ttations, as chosen by 
 God. It became, in an evil way, first of nations, i.e. distin- 
 guished above the heathen, by rejecting Him. 
 
 To whom the Itouse of Israel came, or have come. They were, 
 like those princes of old, raised above others. Israel cawe to 
 them for judgment; and they, regardless of duty, lived only 
 for self-indulgence, effeminacy, and pride. S. Jerome renders 
 in the same sense, " that enter pompously the house of Israel," 
 lit. enter for themselves, as if they were lords of it, and it was 
 made for them. 
 
 8. Pass over to Calneh. He bids them behold,East, North, 
 and West, survey three neighbouring kingdoms, and see whe- 
 ther God had not, even in the gifts of this world, dealt better 
 with Israel. Why then so requite Him ? Calneh, (which 
 Isaiah calls Calno ^'^, Ezekiel, Canneh i',) was one of the four ci- 
 ties, built by Nimrod in the land of Shinar-", the beginning of 
 his kingdom. From that time, until this of Amos, no men- 
 tion of it occurs. It, probably, was more than once conquered 
 by the Assyrians-^, lying, as it did, on the Tigris, some 40 miles 
 perhaps from Babylon. Hence it was said, under its new name 
 Ctesiphon--, to have been built, i. e. rebuilt, by the Macedoni- 
 ans-2, and again by the Parthians -*, whose " ^^ kings made it 
 their winter residence on account of its good air." It was a- 
 new destroyed by Severus"*, rebuilt by Sapor II. in the 4th 
 Century-''. Julian's generals held it impregnable-*, being built 
 on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Tigris -'. It 
 became the scene of repeated persecutions of Christianity^'' ; 
 Nestorianism was favoured^!. A centre of Persian luxury, it 
 fell at once and for ever before Omar^-, and the Persian empire 
 perished with it. It was replaced by the neighbouring Bag- 
 dad. The history illustrates the tenacity of life in those well- 
 chosen sites, and the character of the place, of whose conquest 
 Sennacherib boasted, with whicli Amos compared the land 
 of Israel. 
 
 Go thence to Hamath the great, originally, a Canaanite 
 kingdom^*. The entrance to it was assigned as the Northern 
 border of Israel ^*. In David's time its king was at war with 
 the king of Zobah^% and made presents to David on his sub- 
 dual. In Solomon's time it had fallen under the power of the 
 king of Zobah, whence it was called Hamath-zobah. Solomon 
 won it from him, incorporated it with Israel, and built towns 
 in its territory^^. The " Hamathites" were, under their own 
 king, united with Benhadad, the Hittites, and the Phoenicians 
 in their war with Shalmanubar,and defeated by hini^^. Ezekiel 
 speaks of the border of Damascus and the coast of Hamath^^, 
 as of places of like importance ; and Zechariah ^*, of their joint 
 subdual by Alexander. To judge from the present site, it in 
 
 here. S. Ephr. Jon. -^ Procop. B. Pers. ii. 28. 2* Plin. vi. 26. n. 30. 
 
 It certainly existed before, Polyb. v. 46. -^ Strabo, xvi. 1. 26. wlio speaks of it as 
 
 existing already. "^ Dio Cass. Ixxv. Sev. 9. ^^ Mirkhond, Hist. d. Sass. in De Sacy, 
 Mem. sur la Perse, p. 316. "^ Amm. xxiv. 7. 1. -' Kinneir, Geogr. Mem. of 
 
 the Persian Empire, p. 252. '" Ass. B. O. i. 185 sqq. iii. 2. Iii. sqq. Acta Mart. 
 
 31 Ass. iii. 2. Ixxxvii. ^- Abulf. i. 233-5. Ritt. x. 172. ^j Gen. x. 18. 
 
 '< Num. xxxiv. 7, 8. Josh. xiii. 5. 35 3 Sam. viii. 9, 10. 36 Chr. viii. 3, 4. 
 
 3? Cuneit. Inscr. in Rawl. Her. i. 463, 4. 3s Ezek. -xlvii. 16, xlviii. 1. 39 Lx. ]. 2. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 203 
 
 chrTst *^^" so down to ^Gath of the Philistines: 
 "''• ^^^- s he tlu'ji better than these kin<?(lonis ? or 
 8 Nah'.s.'a' ' their border jj^reater than your border ? 
 i cKb'.ll'X' 3 Ye that ''put far away the 'evil day, 
 
 9. 10. 
 
 some respects resembled Samaria. It lay in a narrow oval 
 valley of the Orontes ; its citadel on a nmnd hill in the centre. 
 The city rises up the steep sides of the hills which inclose it^. 
 Vast water-wheels-, some of a diameter of 67^, 80,90 *, feet, 
 raise the water of the Orontes to su|tply, by aid of aqueducts, 
 the upper city, or to water the neii^^hbourina; f>;ardens. " ^The 
 Western part of its territory is the granary of Northern Syria." 
 Even when Antiochus Epiphanes called it after himself Epi- 
 phania, its inhabitants called it after its old name ^. Mention 
 occurs of it in the crusades '. In the 13th century it had its 
 own well-known prince^; and has still a population of some 
 30,0009. 
 
 Gath [^Winepress] nmst, from its name, have been situat- 
 ed in a rich country. It lay on the confines of Judea and Phi- 
 listia ; for Rehoboam fortified it as a border-fortress ^". It 
 had been contrariwise fortified by the Philistines against Ju- 
 dah, since, when David took it out of the hand of the Philis- 
 tines, it had the title ^^ methegammah, " bridle of the mother 
 city," or metropolis. It had at that time daughter toivns ^• 
 dependent upon it. It must also have been near Micah's 
 birthplace, Moresheth Gath, i. e. Moresheth of Gath, which in 
 S. Jerome's^^ time was "a small village near Eleutheropolis," 
 [Bethgabrin.] Of Gath itself S.Jerome says, "^*It is one 
 of the five cities of Philistia, near the confines of Judea, and 
 now too a very large village on the way from Eleutheropolis 
 to Gaza." Eusebius says ^^, " about the 5th milestone from 
 Eleutheropolis to Diospolis" [Lydda]. Since the Philistines 
 carried the Ark of God from Ashdod to Gath, and thence to 
 Ekron^^, it seems likely that Gath lay nearer to Ashdod than 
 Ekron, although necessarily more inland than either, since 
 it was a border-city to Judah. The Tel-es-Safiyeh corres- 
 ponds with these conditions, lying at the entrance of the 
 Shephelah, about 5 miles from Beit-Jibrin on the road to 
 Lydda, [Ludd]. It "'^ rises about 100 feet above the Eastern 
 ridge which it terminates, and perhaps 200 over the plain 
 which terminates its Western base. The ruins and subterra- 
 nean reservoirs shew that it is a site of high antiquity, great 
 strength, and importance." Gath had at this time probably 
 been taken by Uzziah who broke down its ivall^^ ; and since 
 it is not mentioned with the other four Philistine cities, whose 
 sentence is pronounced by Amos ^* himself, Zephaniah ^"j and 
 Zechariah ^^, it is probable that it never recovered. 
 
 Be they better than these kingdoms f The prophet seems 
 purposely to say less than he might, in order that his hear- 
 ers might have to supply the more. Calneh, Hamath, Gath, 
 had not been more guilty against God than Ephraim, yet pro- 
 bably they had all been conquered : Gath by Judah ; Hamath 
 by IsraeP^ himself; Calneh by Assyria. Both Shalmanubar 
 
 ' Col. Squire, in Walpole Mem. 323-5. ^ Seetzen puts them at 230. Nachlass, 
 
 i. 13-15. in Ritt. xvii. 1012. Burckhardt (Syria, 146.) says, " about a dozen" supply the 
 city itself. 
 
 3 Squire, I.e. "at least 70 feet," Burckh. I.e. * Thomson, The Land, ii. 278. 
 
 ' Burckh. 147. « Jos. Ant. i. 6.2. S. Jer. Qu. in Gen. x. 15. ' Ritter, 1033. 
 
 8 Abulfeda. ' Burckhardt, lb. »» 2 Chr. xi. 8. "2 Sam. viii. 1, 
 
 comp. IChr. xviii. 1. '2 nTOD 1 Chr. lb. '-^ Praef. ad Mic. '^ In Mic. i. 10. 
 
 '* V. PtO (in Joshua) where he explains it to be the place where the Enakim dwelt, i.e. 
 the Phihstine Gath. Under "the Kings" v. TiS6a, " whither the Philistines removed the 
 Ark from Ashdod, "he says, "there is yet a very large village called Giththa, on the road 
 
 between Antipatris and Jamnia. And another, Geththaim." This, which Eusebius 
 
 found probably in some other authority, would make Gath the most Northern of the 
 
 ^ and cause ' the 
 near ; 
 
 4 That lie upon beds of ivory, 
 II stretch themselves upon their couches, y or 
 
 seat of violence to come chrTst 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 J k ch. 5. 12. 
 and ver. 12. 
 
 Ps. 94. 20. 
 habita 
 
 Or, abound with superfluities. 
 
 tion. 
 
 and Shamasiva conquered in Babylonia^'; and Shamasiva 
 "-* declares that he took above 2(i() towns" in Babylonia. 
 Amos, then, upbraids Israel for their ingratitude, both as to 
 the original gift of their good land, and its contiimance. The 
 Heathen had suffered ; t/ici/, t\ni guiltier, bad been spared; yet 
 still they acted no otherwise than these Heathen. 
 
 ""■' What spacious, what wide border have we, boundless 
 as the life of God and eternity! " "-"Our hopes and the bounds 
 of our bliss are measured, not like those of the w<jrldly and 
 ungodly, by the limits of a petty time or by this dot of earth, 
 but by the boundless space of eternity and of heaven ; so that 
 we may say confidently to the ungodly, Is not our border wider 
 than your border f" 
 
 3. Ye that put far away. Vroh&XAy ivith aversion-'. They 
 bade that day as it were, be gone. The Hebrew idiom ex- 
 presses, how they would put it off, if they could ; as far as in 
 them lay, they assigned a distance to it-^, although they could 
 not remove the day itself. The evil day is that same day of 
 the Lord, which the scoffers or misbelievers professed to long 
 for-'. The thought that the Lord has a Day, in which to judge 
 man, frets or frightens the irreligious, and they use different 
 ways to get rid of it. The strong harden themselves against 
 it, distort the belief in it, or disbelieve it. The weak and vo- 
 luptuous shut their eyes to it, like the bird in the fable, as if 
 what they dread would cease to be there, because they cease 
 to see it. 
 
 And cause the seat [lit. the session, sitting'] of violence to 
 come near. They dismissed the thought of the Day of account, 
 in order that they might sin with less fear. They put from 
 them the judgment of God, that they might exercise violenci; 
 over His creatures. Men do not put away the thought of God, 
 except to invite His Enemy into their souls. But therewith, 
 they brought near another seat of violence, not their own, but 
 upon them. They brought near what they wished to put 
 away, the day, in which, through the violence of the Assyrians, 
 God would avenge their own. "^°Let them consider this, who 
 put no bound to their sins. For the more they obey their 
 own will, the more they hasten to destruction ; and while they 
 think they draw nigh to pleasures, they draw nigh to ever- 
 lasting woes." 
 
 4. That lie upon beds (i. e. sofas) of ivory, i. e. probably in- 
 laid with ivory. The word might, in itself, express either the 
 bed, in which they slept by night, or the Divan, on which the 
 Easterns lay at their meals; and stretchthemselves, \\\.. are pour- 
 ed ont'^^, stretching their listless length, dissolved, unnerved,in 
 luxuryand s\oX,\\,upon their couches, perhaps under an awning'-: 
 and eat the lambs, probably /a^^erf lambs^^, out of thejtock, cho- 
 sen, selected out of it as the best, and calves out of the midst of 
 
 Philistine towns, and near the sea, which is inconsistent with its being near Moresheth 
 and a frontier-town of Judah. '« 1 Sam. v. 8, 10. '^ Porter, Hdb. 253, 4. 
 
 '8 2 Chr. xxvi. 6. '» i. 7, 8. =» ii. 4. =• ix. 5. -- See bel. ver. 14. 
 
 -3 Cuneif. Inscr. in Rawl. Her. i. 464. -* lb. 466. ^ Rib. " Lap. 
 
 -7 As in nil from niJ, i. q.m]. In the other place where it occurs. Is. Ixvi. 5, it is 
 united with hatred, " expelled with aversion." In 2 Kgs. xxii. 21, Cheth. lOJ is used of 
 Jeroboam driving the people away from following God. ^ The force of S. 
 
 -^ ch. v. 18. 3** Rib. 31 j\^s in Arab, and Sjt. In Heb. it is used of a vine pouring 
 itself out, in luxuriance, Ezek.xvii. 6 ; of a curtain overlapping, Ezek xxiv. 12, 13; of a 
 head-dress hanging over, Ezek. xxiii. 15 ; of wisdom poured away and gone, Jer. xlix. 7. 
 
 32 my like the Arab. 'arsh. See Judith xvi. 23. 3^ As in Deut. xxxii. 14, 
 
 Ps. xxxvii. 20, 1 Sam. xv. 9, Jer. Ii. 40.
 
 204 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 ciniTsT ^"*^ ^^^ ^''^ Iambs out of the flock, and 
 _^i!lZ^i;^the calves out of the midst of the stall; 
 5 ■" That II chant to the sound of the 
 
 "■ Is. 5. 12. 
 II Or, quaver. 
 
 the stall ; i. e. the place where they were tied up (as the word ^ 
 means) to be fatted. They were stall-fed, as we say, and these 
 people had the best chosen for them. 
 
 "^ He shews how they draw nigh the seat o/violence. They 
 lay on beds or couches of ivory, and expended thereon the 
 money wherewith their poor brethren were to be fed. Go now, 
 I say not into the houses of nobles, but into any house of any 
 rich man, see the gilded and worked couches, curtains woven 
 of silk and gold, and walls covered with gold, while the poor 
 of Christ are naked, shivering, shrivelled with hunger. Yet 
 stranger is it, that while this is everywhere, scar(!e anywhere 
 is there who now blames it. Noiv 1 say ; for there were for- 
 merly. ' Ye array,' S. Ambrose says ', " walls with gold, men 
 ye bare. The naked cries before your door and you neglect 
 him ; and are careful with what marbles you clothe your pave- 
 ment. The poor seeketh money, and bath it not ; man asketh 
 for bread, and thy horse champcth gold. Thou delightest in 
 costly ornaments, while others have not meal. What judge- 
 ment thou heapest on thyself, thou man of wealth! Miserable, 
 who hast power to keep so many souls from death, and hast 
 not the will ! The jewel of thy ring could maintain in life a 
 whole population.' If such things are not to be blamed now, 
 then neither were they formerly." 
 
 6. That cliant to the voice of the li/re, accompanying the 
 voice of the lyre with the human voice, giving vocal expression 
 and utterance to what the instrumental music spoke without 
 words. The word, which Amos alone uses in this one place, 
 describes probably *a hurried flow of unmeaning, uncon- 
 sidered words, in which the rhythm of words and music was 
 every thing, the sense, nothing ; much like most glees. The 
 E. M. " quaver " has also some foundation in the root, but does 
 not suit the idiom so well, which expresses that the act was 
 something done to the voice of the h/re, accompanying the mu- 
 sic, not altering the music itself. In fact, they would go toge- 
 ther. An artificial, elFeminate music which should relax the 
 soul, frittering the melody, and displacing the power and ma- 
 jesty of divine harmony by tricks of art, and giddy, thought- 
 less, heartless, soulless versifying would be meet company. 
 Debased music is a mark of a nation's decay, and promotes it. 
 The Hebrew music seems to have been very simple ; and sing- 
 ing appears to have been reserved almost exclusively for so- 
 lemn occasions, the Temple-service, or the greeting of vic- 
 tory ^ Singing men and singing u'o^nen were part of the 
 state of David and Solomon ^. Else the music at the feasts of 
 the rich appears rather to be mentioned with blame ''. Songs 
 they had*; but the songs, for which the Hebrew exiles were 
 celebrated, and which their Babylonian masters required them 
 to sing, the songs of Zion ^, were the hymns of the temple, the 
 Lord's song. 
 
 And invent to themselves instrrimeiits ofmnsic. The same 
 pains, which David employed on music to the honour of God, 
 
 ' P3TD 2 Rib. 3 de Nabuthe, c. 13. ■• The central meaning of the Arabic root is 
 "anticipating another;" then hurry, negligence, excess, inadvertence in act, and, in 
 speech, exaggeration in praise, and (conj. iii.j " got the first word," " spoke precipitately, 
 the tongue outrunning the sense." Abu'l W alid applies this last meaning, that " tliey, 
 poured out words and measured out defilements." He says also that the corresponding 
 Arabic participle is used of those " who extemporise poetry, i. e. sing extempore without 
 thought." See the Arabic in Ges. ^ 1 Sam. xviii. 7. ' 2 Sam. xix. So, 
 
 Eccl. ii. 8. 7 Is. V. 12, xxiv. 9. 8 pr. xxv. 20. ' Ps. cxxxvii. 3, 4. 
 
 '" It is commonly used with abstract nouns as nuB'no, .ijn, pn, nDiD, devices, evil, va- 
 
 vlol, and invent to themselves instruments chrTst 
 
 of musick, " like David ; 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 G That drink || wine in bowls, and J or, inbowu' 
 
 of wine. 
 
 they employed on their light, enervating unmeaning music, 
 and, if they were in earnest enough, justified their inventions 
 by the example of David. Much as people have justified our 
 degraded, sensualising, immodest dancing, by the religious 
 dancing of Holy Scripture ! The word can mean no other 
 than devised^". David then did devise and invent instruments 
 of music for the service of God. He introduced into the Tem- 
 ple-service the use of the stringed instruments, the kinnor, (the 
 ti^re) and the 7iehel (the harp) in addition to the cymbals. 
 Whence these, in contrast with the trumpets, are called thein- 
 struments of David ^^. Probably, in adapting them to theTem- 
 ple-service, he, in some way, improved the existing instru- 
 ment ; having been, in early youth, remarkable for his skill 
 upon the harp ^^. As he elevated the character and powers of 
 the, perhaps rude, instrument which he found, and fitted it to 
 the service of God, so these men refined it doubtless, as they 
 thought, and fitted it for the service of luxury and sensuality. 
 But what harm, they thought, in amending the music of 
 their day, since so did David ? 
 
 6. That drink wine in boivls (lit. as E. M. drink i7i howls, 
 lit. sprinkling vessels, of wine). The word is elsewhere used 
 only of the howls, out of which the blood of the sacrifice was 
 sprinkled. Probably Amos was referring to the first offering 
 of the Princes in the wilderness, with whom he had already 
 tacitly contrasted these Princes i'. They had shewn zeal for 
 God in offering the massive silver bowls for the service of the 
 tabernacle : the like zeal had these princes for the service of 
 their own god^*, their belly. It may be too, (since misbelief 
 and sensuality are necessarily irreverent) that they used for 
 their revels vessels which had at one time been employed in 
 sprinkling the blood of their idol-sacrifices. There was no ad- 
 ditional desecration in it. The gold and silver vessels of the 
 Temple were consecrated by being offered to God, by His hal- 
 lowing of the Temple through His Presence, by being used in 
 the typical sacrifices. The gold and silver, creatures of God, 
 were desecrated by being employed in idol-worship, of which 
 indeed sensuality was a part. Their employment in this lux- 
 ury was only a continuance of their desecration, which it did 
 but illustrate. It is nothing incredible, since among Chris- 
 tians, the fonts of the Church have been turned into horse- 
 troughs by sects who disbelieved in Baptism. The vessels 
 were, probably, large, since those offered for the tabernacle 
 weighed 70 shekels. Private luxury vied with the fictitious 
 sanctuary, which aped the sanctuary of God, Perhaps Amos 
 would express the capacity of these vessels by saying, that 
 drink in bowls of wine. Like swine in the trough, they im- 
 mersed themselves in their drink, " ^^ swimming in mutual 
 swill." 
 
 All this they did, he expresses, habitually. He speaks of 
 these their acts in a form expressing an ever-renewed present, 
 the putters off, the lyers on couches of ivory, the out-stretched, 
 
 nity, or with ^ and the inf. ; but always in the meaning of" devising," "inventing." It is 
 used of those gifted by God " to devise devices," i. e. as it is explained, to work in gold 
 and in silver and in brass and in setting of stones. Ex. xxxi. 4, 5. It is used also of war- 
 like machines, and their inventor; as our Engineer, Engine comes from ingeniura. 
 An embroiderer, who needed continual invention, is called SCin ; his work, the work of 
 an inventor (see Ex. xxvi.l.E. M. &c.) S. Jerome's rendering," like David, they think 
 that they have instruments of music," does not suit the Hebrew idioms. 
 
 " 2 Chr. xxix.26, comp. 25. and 1 Chr. xv. 16, 19-21, 2i. '2 1 Sam. xvi. 16. 18,23. 
 
 '^ Hengst. Autb. d. Pent. p. 99. See ab. p. 152. » Phil. iii. 19. '» Thomson, Autumn.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 205 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 anoint themselves with the chief 
 
 the eating, the drinking, men whose lives were spent in nothing 
 else; the vohiptuarics, sensualists, "c:oo(l-fellows" of Israel. 
 
 Anoint themselves with the chie/ointnients. Anointinjj the 
 body was a sort of nceessary > in the hot climate of the East, 
 for bodily liealth. Not to anoint the body was the exception, 
 as in niournini!;-. But necessaries become a vehicle for luxury. 
 For health, olive-oil sufficed ■'. For the service of (jod, a rich 
 ointment was appointed, to which odorous substances, myrrh, 
 cinnamon, the odoriferous reed, and cassia' ijjave a scent emble- 
 matic of the fra!;;rance of holiness. In order to separate what 
 was sacred from ordinary uses, God forbade, on pain of death, 
 to imitate this ointment, or pour it on tlie jiesli of man ^ 
 Luxury vied with reliijion, and took to itself either the same, 
 or ointment more costly. They anointed themselves with the 
 chief [kind] of ointments^ ; those which held the first, hifthest 
 rank amoni;;' them. Nothing better or so good was left for 
 what they thought to be the service of God, as, in times a lit- 
 tle past, any thing was thought good enough for a Church, 
 nothing too good for a dwelling-house. Gorgeous adornments 
 of man's house were thought splendour and good taste and 
 fit employment of wealth ; slight adornment of the house of 
 God was thought superstition. 
 
 But [And] they are not grieved [lit. grieve not themselves'',] 
 admit no grief'', shut out all grief, /or the affliction [lit. hreacli] 
 o^ Joseph. The name of the Patriarch. Ephraim's father, re- 
 called his suffering from his brethren. ^His brethren cast him 
 into a pit without water ^, probably an empty leaking well, 
 (much as was that into which Jeremiah i" was cast,) damp, 
 fetid, and full of loathsome creatures. They ^^ saiu the an- 
 guish of his soul when he besought them, and would not hear. 
 But what did they? ^-Thei/ sat down to eat bread. So did 
 these rich men deal with all their brethren,all Ephraim. They 
 suffered not in, or with, any suffering, present or future, of in- 
 dividuals or the whole. " Cast off thought," '• cast off care," 
 is the motto of sensualists and of the worldly ; " seize joyous 
 the present hour, and leave the future," said the heathen ". 
 This was the effect of their luxury and life of sense. The 
 Prophet recounts, they stretched themselves listlessly, ate 
 choice food, sang glees, drank deep, anointed themselves with 
 the very best ointment, and grieved not themselves for any 
 sufferings of their own flesh and blood. It followed, of ne- 
 cessity, from the rest. Luxury shuts out suffering, because 
 any vivid knowledge of or dwelling upon sufferings must needs 
 4isturb its ease. Selfish wealth persuades itself that there is 
 no suffering, lest it should be forced to think of it; it will think 
 distress either too little, so that it can relieve itself, or so great 
 that it cannot be relieved ; or it will philosophise upon distress 
 and misery, as though it were best relieved by its own luxuries. 
 Any hoAV it will not know or hear of its details, it will not ad- 
 mit grief. "^^Mereilessness is the own daughter of pleasure." 
 ^° This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom : pride, fulness of 
 bread, and careless ease had she and her daughters ; and the 
 hand of the poor and needy she strengthened not. "Seest thou," 
 says S. Chrysostome^^, "how he blames a delicate life ? For 
 in these words he accuses not covetousness, but prodigality 
 only. And thou eatest to excess, Christ not even for need ; 
 thou various cakes. He not so much as dry bread; thou drink- 
 est choice wine, but on Him thou hast not bestowed so much 
 as a cup of cold water in His thirst. Thou art on a soft, em- 
 
 ' 2Chr. xxviii.lo. = 2 Sam. xiv. 2. 3 jjeut. xxviii.40. ■• Ex. xxx. 23-S. 'lb. 
 S2,3. 6 o-JDE* n'sinT 7i'?njN'7 « from Sanct. ' Gen.xxxvii. 24. >» Jer. xxxviii.6. 
 
 ointments : ° but they are 
 
 not griev- 
 
 » Gen. 37. 25. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 broidered bed; He is perishing with the cold. Be then the 
 ban(piets clear from covetousness, yet they are accursed, 
 because, while thou doest all beyond thy need, to Him thou 
 givest not even His need; and that, living in luxury on what 
 is His ! " 
 
 And yet what was this luxury, which the Prophet so con- 
 demns? What, in us, were simplicity. What scarce any one 
 thought of diminishing, while two millions, close by, were 
 wasting away by famine's horrors ; — chairs or sofas inlaid, fat 
 lamb or veal; wine ; perfumes; light music. The most deli- 
 cate ingredient of those perfumes, cinnamon, enters into our 
 food. "Looking at our times," says a writer at the close of 
 the 16th century'^, "I marvel at the sparcness of the ancients, 
 and think that it would be well with us, if any above the poor 
 were content with what were, of old, delicacies to kings and 
 nobles. Happy were these times, if they could imitate even 
 what the prophets blame in nobles. — In the Gospel, ^/(t Ki7ig 
 Who 7)iade a marriage feast for His Son said, I have prepared 
 My diniier, My oxen and fallings are killed, aiid all things 
 are ready; come unto the marriage^**. When a fatted calf 
 was killed for a feast, it was thought the best cheer, as when 
 Abraham entertained Angels, or in that feast of the Father 
 Who, when He had received back His son, said ^'\ bring hither 
 the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry : for this 
 My son was dead and is alive again. So then the Prophet ac- 
 cuses the nobles of luxury,because they ate fat oxen and lambs. 
 For the table of Solomon, the wealthiest of monarchs, there 
 were brought /«(' o.ven, and oxen out of the pastures, sheep, be- 
 sides hart and roebuck andfallowdeer and fatted fnvls-". Now 
 whatever is produced in sea or earth or sky, men think to be 
 born to satisfy their appetites. Who could recount the mani- 
 fold forms of food and condiments, which all-inventing glut- 
 tony has devised ? Books had to be written ; no memory 
 sufficed. In this ocean, wealthiest j)atrimonies have discharg- 
 ed themselves and disappeared. Among the Romans, Fabius, 
 for devouring his patrimony, was called Gurges [whirlpool]. 
 Were this the practice now, he would have many great men 
 surnamed from him, who, poor through gluttony, prey on 
 the patrimonies of the poor, retain the property of the rich 
 against their wills, and live on whatisanother's. — It were little 
 to consume whole patrimonies in luxury, were it not that the 
 virtues and nerves of the mind were also consumed and vices 
 of all sorts crept in.— Shame to copy the luxury of Heathen, 
 and despise their care for maintaining temperance. — We need 
 not old examples. Such was the frugality of our Spaniards, 70 
 years ago, before they adopted foreign manners, that the rich 
 had but mutton, roast and boiled, at their tables, nobles alone 
 had poultry. Well were it then, if, in matter of food, we 
 did only, what the Prophet in his time blamed." Spain has 
 sunk under its luxury to a third-rate power. What c^an await 
 England ? What can await it, when the Prophet's blame were 
 praise, and Dives is the pattern and ideal of the charity of 
 most of us, and luxury, vanity, and self-indulgence are held to 
 be the best way of ministering to the poor? Marvellous "imi- 
 tation of Christ!" Once, to forsake all was to follow Christ. 
 Now, to possess all, heap up all, to expend nothing save on 
 self, and to shew mercy on the poor by allowing them to mi- 
 nister to our luxuries, is, according to the new philosophy of 
 wealth, to be the counterfeit of Christian charity. 
 
 " Gen.xlii.21. '2xxxvii.25. " Hor. "Lap. •'Ez.xvi.49. •« Horn 
 48.inS.Matt. '7 Ribera. 's S. Matt. xxii. 2,4. " S.Luke xv. 23,4. =» 1 Kgs.iv. 23 
 
 ]\Im
 
 206 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrTst ^*^ ^"** *^'^ t affliction of Joseph. 
 cir.787. 7 ^ Tlierefore now shall they go cap- 
 
 t Heb. irrac;,. ^j^.g with the first that go captive, and 
 the banquet of them that stretched 
 themselves shall be removed. 
 
 "T^'r^l-^';,'}; 8 PThe Lord God hath sworn by him- 
 
 HcD.C.13,17. '' 
 
 self, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I 
 
 7. Therefore now [i. e. shortly] shall they go captive 
 with the first [at the head] of those who go captive. They 
 had souirht eminence ; they should have it. " ' Ye who are 
 first in riches, shall, the first, endure the yoke of captivity, as 
 it is in EzekieP, begin from Mi/ sanctuary, i.e. from the de- 
 struction of the Temple which is holy. For ^mighty men shall 
 he mightily tormented ; and*, to whom men have committed 
 much, of him they will ask the 7iiore." 
 
 And the banquet, \^To\)ilh\y ,t lie screech. The root,radsakh, 
 whose consonants contain most of those of oxu" screech, siijni- 
 fies the loud sharp cry, which the mind cannot control, either 
 in revelry or distress. Here it is probably, the drunken 
 scream, or reckless cry of revelry, whose senseless shrillness 
 is more piercina:, in its way, than the scream of distress, of 
 which Jeremiah ^ uses it. For it is the scream of the death 
 of the soul. Amos seems to have purposely joined together 
 similar harsh sibilants or guttural sounds, in order the more 
 to express the harshness of that scream of luxurious self-in- 
 dulgence. Mirdsakh serukhim, tke screech of the outstretched. 
 Of this he says, it shall depart, and for ever. In that very 
 day all his thoughts perish ^. It shall depart ; but by what 
 should it be replaced to those to whom it was their god and 
 their all ? On earth, by siege, pestilence, death or captivity : 
 after death, bv hell to the unrepentant. 
 
 8. The Lord God, He Who alone IS and VA^ho Alone hath 
 power, ha/h sworn by Himself lit. by His soul ; as our self 
 comes from the same root as soul. " ^ So God saith in Isaiah ^, 
 Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth ; 
 not that God hath a soul, but that He speaks after the way 
 of human feelings. Nor is it any marvel that He condescends 
 to speak of Himself, as having a soul, seeing He speaks of 
 Himself as having the other members, feet, hands, bowels, 
 which are less precious than the soul. In God the Father, 
 the head, hands, and the rest are not members, but by these 
 words a diversity of powers is expressed. So also by the soul 
 is intended not a substance, but the inward affections, and the 
 seat of thought whereby God indicates His Will." In truth, 
 it is one and the same condescension in Almighty God, to use 
 of Himself any words taken from our nature, our thoughts, 
 acts, feelings, as those taken from the members of the body. It 
 is a yet greater condescension that God should confirm the 
 truth of His word by an oath. For we call God to witness, 
 lest, by reason of the vast reign of falsehood among men, we 
 should be thought not to speak true. But for God to act as 
 though He needed the assurance of an oath in order to be be- 
 lieved, is more condescending, than for Him to speak as though 
 He had a soul or limbs, such as He gave to man. Yet God, 
 ^willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of His promise 
 the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath. He 
 sware by Himself saying, surely blessing I will bless thee. 
 Notu, when Israel had, by apostacy, forfeited that blessing, 
 and a portion of it was to be withdrawn from him, God af- 
 
 1 S. Jer. Six. 6. 3Wisd.vi.6. ■• S. Lukexii. 48. ' xvi. 5. <! Ps. cxlvi. 4. 
 ^ i. U. 8 Heb. VI. 17, 13, 11. « Am. viii. 7. '» Ps. xlvii. 4. " Lev. xxvi. 19. 
 
 abhor 'i the excellency of Jacob, and chhTsi 
 hate his palaces : therefore will I deliver *='''■ ^'^^- 
 up the city 'vith allf that is therein. ' Ezek.'^'.2i. 
 
 9 And it shall come to pass, if there ^ h •.i^; ^' 
 remain ten men in one house, that they Sw/!"' 
 shall die. 
 
 10 And a man's uncle shall take him up, 
 
 firms by an oath that rejection of Israel. If the words, by 
 His soul, are emphatic, they relate to those attributes in God 
 of which man's holy affections are an image. God's love, jus- 
 tice, righteousness, holiness, were concerned, to vindicate the 
 oppressed and punish the oppressor. To these He appeals. 
 Our oaths mean, " As God is true, and as He avenges untruth, 
 this which I say is true." So God says, " As I am God, this 
 is true." God then must cease to be God, if He did not hate 
 oppression. 
 
 / abhor the excellency of Jacob. The word excellencij 
 is used of the Majesty of God Himself; then, since man's re- 
 lation to God is his only real greatness, God speaks of Him- 
 self as the Excellency of Jacob'' ; then of that excellency which 
 God had given to Jacob '". That excellency of their strength, 
 He had forewarned them in the law, that He would breuk^^. 
 Now that Israel took as his own what he held from God, his 
 excellency became pride ^-, and God says, / abhor it, as a thing 
 loathsome and abominable, and hate his palaces. For they had 
 been built, adorned, inhabited, filled with luxury, in the midst 
 of, and out of, oppression and hard-hearted exaction. He calls 
 them Jacob, perhaps as Hosea does ^', to remind them of the 
 poverty and low estate of their forefather, out of which God 
 had raised them, and the faithfulness of their forefather in it, 
 in contrast with their luxury and unfaithfulness. 
 
 Therefore [And] I will deliver up ; originally, shut up ^*, 
 then, shut up iii the hands of^'", so that he should have no es- 
 cape. Here, where the enemy is not spoken of, it may mean, 
 that God shut up the city, so that there should be no going 
 out or coming in, in the straitness of the siege, whereupon 
 follows the fearful description of the ravages of the pestilence. 
 The city is, what was to them, above others, the city, the place 
 of their luxury pride and boast, where lay theu- strength, 
 Samaria. 
 
 9. If there shall remain ten men. He probably still de- 
 nounces the punishment of the rich inhabitants of the palaces, 
 since in these only, of old, would there be found teyi men. They 
 died, it seems, at once, and so probably through the plague, 
 the common companion of the siege. The Prophet had before 
 compared them to Sodom. It may be, that, in this mention 
 of ten men, he tacitly refers to the history of that destruction. 
 Then God promised, not to destroy the city, if there were ten 
 righteous in it". Here were ten left, not in one city, but in 
 one house. Had God forgotten His loving-kindness ? No ! 
 but, in Samaria, not even ten who remained over, and so had 
 survived after the chastisement had begun, turned to God. All 
 then were to be taken or destroyed. The miseries of its three 
 years' siege by Shalmaneser may be filled up from those of its 
 earlier siege by Benhadad^^, or from those of Jerusalem. The 
 sufferings of a siege are in proportion to the obstinacy of the 
 defence; and Samaria resisted for twice the time in which Je- 
 rusalem was reduced by famine at its first captivity. 
 
 10. And a man's uncle — and he that burneth him — lit. aiid 
 
 " Hence pm is used of pride, Pr. xvi. 18. 8fc. >3 xii. 12. 
 
 xiii.4,5,aic. 1* withT3or(Am.i.6,9)S. '« Gen. xviii. 32. 
 
 " Lev.xiv.23, 
 '? 2Kgs. vi.24-29.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 207 
 
 chrTst ^"^^ ^^^ that burnoth liim, to nriiiij out the 
 ■ "''• ^^' • bones out of the house, and sliall sav unto 
 
 him that is by the sides of the house, Li 
 
 there yet ant/ with thee ? and he shall say, 
 
 ' ch. 5. 13. No. Then shall he say, ' Hold thy tonjj^ue : 
 
 l\ Or. they ° for || we HKiy uot make mention of the 
 
 will not. or. p a^i t 
 
 have not. name ot the J jord. 
 
 titere sluUl take him up his uncle and his hunter, i.e. his uncle 
 who, as his next of kin, had the rare of his interment, was 
 himself tlie hnrner. Burial is the natural followinfif out of the 
 words, (tntit thou art and unto dust tliou sIkiII return. The com- 
 mon huryin^'-places (su(;h as we find in the history of the Pa- 
 triarchs) were the natural expression of the helief in the Re- 
 surrection. The bodies rested tos:ether, to be raised tofjcther. 
 The heathen burned the bodies of Christian martyrs, and scat- 
 tered their ashes in mockery of the Resurrection ^ The hea- 
 then noticed that it was matter of piety with the Jews ""to 
 Ijury rather than to burn bodies." The only exceptions are the 
 history of Saul, and this place. Both were cases of enierjjency. 
 The men of Jabesh-Gliead doubtless burnt the bodies of Saul 
 and his sons^, for fear the Philistines might disinter them, if 
 buried, and renew their insults upon them. The Israelites 
 still buried what would not be disturbed or could be conceal- 
 ed — the bones. David solemnly buried their remains in the 
 sepulchre of Kish, Saul's father*. So probably here also, it 
 is mentioned as an aggravation, that one who loved ^ them, had 
 to burn their bodies. He does not say, why : but mentions it, 
 as one feature of the common suffering. Parents, brothers, 
 all, gone, a man's uncle was his "burner." There was no 
 other interment than this, the most alien from their affec- 
 tions and religion. It may have been on account of the ex- 
 treme infection (the opening of a forgotten buryiug-place of 
 those who died of the plague of London produced a vir\i- 
 lent disease, though li century had elapsed), or from the de- 
 lay of burial, when, death reigning all round, there had been 
 none to bury the dead. 
 
 He who is by the sides, i. e. the furthest part, of the house. 
 He was the one surviver of the ten, and he too, sick. The 
 question. Is there yet any tcith thee ? enquires whether there 
 was any one, alive, to succour, or dead, to burn ? There was 
 none. All, even the bodies, had now been removed ; one only 
 remained, of all the hum, din, and throng, in that abode of 
 luxury, one only in the e.vtremify of its untenanted chambers. 
 Probably the sick man was going to speak of God. The uncle 
 breaks in upon his No ! with Hush ! for me may not make men- 
 tion of the Name of the Lord. Times of plague are, with the 
 most,times of religious despair. They who had not feared (lod 
 in their prosperity, do nothing but fear Him then. Fear, with- 
 out love, turns man more away from God. He feels then the 
 presence and power of God Whom he had forgotten. He owns 
 Him as the Author of his miseries; but, not having known 
 Him before, he knows Him now in no other relation. The 
 words then, for not to he mettfioned is the Name of the Lord, 
 are very probably the voice of despair. " It is useless to name 
 Him now. We did not name His Name in life. It is not for us 
 to name it now, in death." It might be the voice of impatient 
 aversion, which would not bear to hear of God, the Author of 
 its woe ; or it might be the voice of superstition, which would 
 
 ' Seee. g. Ep. Eccl. Vienn. et Lugd. fin. Eus. H. E. v. 1. 
 » Tac. Hist. V. 5. 3 1 Sam. end. ■• 2 Sam. xxi. 12-14. 
 
 ' The name of the uncle is from " love " (in) ; probably, the one most loved out of the 
 
 11 For, behold, 'the Loun eommandoth, ^ jf'][''"sT 
 
 "and h(! will smite th(; j^reat house with <;ir. rs?^ 
 
 II breaches, and the little house with clefts. »ch.3?i5.' 
 
 12 ^ Shall horses run upon the rock ? droppingi. 
 will one plow there with ox(hi ? for " ye ' """j/"; *" 
 have turned judirment into fi^all, and the 
 
 fruit of rif^hteousness into hemlock : 
 
 not name God's Name, for fear of bringing fresh evil upon it- 
 self. All these grounds for not naming the Name of God and 
 others yet worse, recur, again and again, under the pressure 
 of a general sudden destruction. Sucli times bring out the 
 soul to light, its it is. Souls, whi(;h have sinned away the grace 
 of (iod and an; beyond its reacth, pass unobserved amid the 
 thronging activity of ordinary life. They are arrested then. 
 They must choose then or never. Their unchanged aversion 
 from God, then, unveils what they had Ijeen before. They 
 choose once more,deliberately,in the faceof God's judgments, 
 what they had habitually chosen before, and, by the dreadful 
 nakedness of their choice of evil, become now unmitigatedly 
 evil. The Prophet gives one instance ofthis utter misery of 
 body and soul, because detail of misery sets the whole calamity 
 more before men's eyes. In one picture, they see all. The 
 words, or what the words imply, that, in extreme calamity, men 
 mention not the Name of God, come true in different minds 
 out of different characters of irreligion. 
 
 It has also been thought, that the brief answer, hiish '. 
 closes the dialogue. The uncle asks, is there yet with thee ? 
 He answers, Ahne. The other rejoins Husli ! and the Prophet 
 assigns the ground ; for the Name of the Lord is not to he 
 named. If men have not sought God earlier, they have, when 
 His hand is heavy upon them, no heart, nor time, nor thought, 
 nor faith to seek Him. 
 
 11. The Lord commandeth and He u'ill smite. "^If He 
 commandeth,how doth He smite ? If He sniiteth,how doth He 
 command? In that thing which He commands and enjoins His 
 ministers, He Himself is seen to smite. — In Egypt the Lord 
 declares that He slew the first-born, who, we read, were slain 
 by the destroyer''." The breaches denote probably the larger, 
 the cleft the smaller ruin. The greater pile was the more 
 greatly destroyed. 
 
 12. The two images both represent a toil, which men 
 would condemn as absurd, destructive, as well as fruitless. 
 The horse's hoofs or his limbs would be broken ; the plow- 
 ing-gear would be destroyed. The Prophet gains the atten- 
 tionby the question. What then? they ask. The answer 
 is implied by the /or, which follows. Ye are they, who are 
 so doing. As absurd is it to seek gain from injustice and op- 
 pression, to which God had annexed loss and woe, temporal 
 and eternal. More easy to cliange the course of nature or 
 the use of things of nature, than the course of God's Provi- 
 dence or the laws of His just retribution. They had changed 
 the sweet laws of fast ice and equity into the ga/l of oppression, 
 and the healthful //■;<// of righteousness, whereof thi'x had re- 
 ceived the seed from God, into the life-destroying poison of 
 sin. Better to have ploughed the rock tcith o.ven for food ! 
 For now, where they looked for prosperity, they found not 
 barrenness, but death. 
 
 Others * understand the question as the taunt of unbelievers, 
 
 immediate household, "as ra-nn, eeios from ^61105, amita from amata." Ges. It is 
 not used of relationship or friendship generally, l)ut only of the highest object of the 
 soul's love, God. Cant, and Is. v. 1. « S. Jer. ' Ex. xii. 23. * Sanct. 
 
 M m 2
 
 208 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 c H rTs t 1*^ Y^ which rejoice in a thini^ of nought, 
 ""■ ^^^- Avhich say. Have we not taken to us horns 
 by our own strength ? 
 y Jer. 5. 15. 14 But, bchold, y I will raise up against 
 
 trusting in the strength of Samaria, that wlien horses should 
 run on their rocky eminence, or the oxen plough there, then 
 might an enemy look for gain from investing the hill of Sa- 
 maria. " Shall things which arc against nature be done ? " 
 " Yes," the Prophet then would answer, "for ye have done 
 against nature yourselves. Ye have changed justice, the so- 
 lace of the oppressed, into wormwood, the bitterness of oppres- 
 sion. Well may what ye think above the laws of physical na- 
 ture be done, when ye have violated the laws of moral nature. 
 Well may the less thing be done, your destruction, secure as 
 by nature ye seem, when ye have done the greater, violating 
 the laws of the God of nature." Amos, however, when he 
 refers to the sayings of the unbelievers, distinguishes them 
 from his own. 
 
 13. TF/to rejoice (lit. the rejrjicers ! Amos, as is his wont, 
 speaks of them with contempt and wonder at their folly, the 
 rejoicers ! much as we say, the cowards ! the renegades !) in 
 a thing of nought, lit. a non-thing, {no-whit, nought) not merely 
 in a thing valueless, but in a non-thing, that has no existence 
 at all, as nothing has any substantial existence out of God. 
 This )ion-thing was their power, strength, empire, which 
 they thought they had, but which was soon to shrivel away 
 as a scroll. 
 
 TVhich say, (as before, the sayers ! they who have tliis say- 
 ing habitually in their mouth ;) have we not taken to ourselves 
 horns ? The horn is the well-known symbol of strength which 
 repels and tosses away what opposes it, as the bull doth its 
 assailant. Moses, in his blessing, had used this symbol, of 
 the strength of the tribe of Joseph, and, as being a blessing, 
 he spoke of it, as the gift of God^. His glory is like the first- 
 ling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of bujf'alos ; 
 with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the 
 earth ; and they are the fen thousands of Ephraim, and they 
 are the thousands of lilanasseh. To this blessing, doubtless, 
 Zedekiah the false prophet referred -, when he made him horns 
 of iron, and said to Ahab, Thus saith the Lord, with these shall 
 thou push the Syrians, nntil thou hast co7isumed them. The 
 Psalmist said, through Thee will we push down our enemies, as 
 withahorn^; and adds. For I will not trust in my how, neither 
 shall my sword save me. For Thou hast saved us front our 
 enemies. Israel ascribed God's gift to himself. He had been 
 repeatedly and greatly victorious ; he had conquered every 
 enemy, with whom he had of old been at strife ; he ascribed 
 it to himself, and forfeited it. J3y our own strength, he said, 
 instead of, hy the help of God ; as if we were to ascribe our In- 
 dian victories to our generals or our armies, and to substitute 
 self-praise for Te Deums on days of thanksgiving. 
 
 "•'The sinner rejoiceth in a non-thing. Sin is a no7i-thing 
 I) as being a thing of nought, i. e. vain and valueless. 2) Its 
 pleasure is fleeting; whence the Psalmist says^, all the men, 
 whose hands are mighty, have found nothing. 3) Sin brings the 
 sinner to nothing,!. e.destructionanddeath, temporal and eter- 
 nal. 4) Sin is the privation of good ; but privation is a mere 
 negative ; i.e. nothing. 5) Sin deprives of God Who is All and 
 
 ' Deut. xxxiii. 17. 
 2 1 Kgs. xxii. 11. HenRst. Auth. d. Pent. i. 101. 131. 3 m]l Ps, xliv. 6-7. 
 
 ■• from Lap. ^ Ps. Ixxvi. 5. ' See ab. p. 77. 7Rom.xvi. 27. " 1 Tim. 
 
 vi. 15. 3Ib. IG. '» Is. xxxvii. 20. "Rev.xv. 4. '2 S. Luke xviii. 19. 
 
 you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the chkTst 
 Lord tlie God of hosts ; and they shall af- ""■ ''^^• 
 
 flict you from tlie ^enterinir in of Hemath 'Num.s*. 8. 
 
 . ,, . - . -. P 1 KingsS. 65. 
 
 11 Or, valley. 
 
 unto the 11 river of the wilderness. 
 
 the Creator of all. 6) Sin is nothing, because it cleaves to and 
 joys in creatures and opposes them and prefers them to the 
 Creator. For creatures, compared to the Creator, are sha- 
 dows of things, not the very things, and so are nothing. For 
 the Being and Name of God is, I AM that I AM ^, i. e. I Am 
 He Who Alone have true, full, solid, eternal, infinite. Being; 
 but creatures participate from Me a shadow of their true be- 
 ing ; for their being is so poor, brief, fleeting, unstable, perish- 
 ing,that, compared to Mine, they may rather be said, not to be, 
 than to be. So then as creatures have no true being, so nei- 
 ther have they true good, but only a shadow of good. — So al- 
 so as to truth, wisdom, power, justice, holiness and other attri- 
 butes. These have in God their real being; in creatures a sha- 
 dow of being only. Whence God is called in Scripture Alone 
 Wise?, Alone Mighty*, Alone Immortal', Alone Lord^", Alone 
 Holy'\ Alone Good'^; because He Alone has true, full, un- 
 created and infinite Wisdom, Power, Goodness, &c. But the 
 sinner, in that he delights in creatures not in the Creator, de- 
 lights in a shadow, a nothing, not in the true Being. But, be- 
 cause these shadows of creatures amid the dimness of this life 
 appear great to man in his blindness, (as the mountains, at 
 sunset, cast broad and deep shadows,) he admires and pursues 
 these shadows, like the dog in the fable, who, seeing the sha- 
 dow of the meat in the water, magnified in the water, snatch- 
 ed at it, and so lost the meat and did not attain the shadow. 
 
 Lord, dispel our darkness, lighten our eyes, that we may love 
 and seek, not the shadows of honors, riches, and pleasures, 
 which, like meteors, dazzle here on earth our mind's eye, but 
 may, with fixed gaze, behold, love, and compass the real ho- 
 nors,riches, pleasures themselves, which Thou hast from eter- 
 nity laid up and prepared in heaven for those who love Thee." 
 
 14. But [For,] — itivas a non-thing, a non-existent thing, 
 a phantom, whereat they rejoiced ; — for behold I raise up a na- 
 tion. God is said to raise up, when, by His Providence or 
 His grace. He calls forth those who had not been called be- 
 fore, for the office for which He designs them. Thus, He rais- 
 ed up judges^', deliverers", prophets^', Nazarites^^, priests^'', 
 kings'*, calling each separately to perform what He gave 
 them in charge. So He is said to raise tip even the evil minis- 
 ters of His good Will, whom, in the course of His Providence, 
 He allows to raise themselves up aloft to that eminence, so of- 
 ten as, in fulfilling their own bad will, they bring about, or are 
 examples of. His righteous judgment. Thus God raised up 
 Hadadas an adversary^^ to Solomon, and again Rezon"" ; and 
 the Chaldees-'. So again God says to Pharaoh, For this have 
 
 1 raised thee up "-, to shew in thee My poiver. So here He 
 says, / ivill raise up against you a nation, and they shall af- 
 
 jlict you from the entering in of Hamath. Israel, under Jero- 
 boam II., had recovered a wider extent of territory, than had, 
 in her Northern portion, belonged to her since the better days 
 of Solomon. Jeroboam-* recovered Damascus and Hamath, 
 which belonged to Judah, unto Israel. He restored, as God 
 promised him by Jonah, the coast of Israel from the entering 
 of Hamath unto the sea of the plain. The entering of Hamath 
 
 13 Jud. ii. 16-18. 
 '•i lb. iii. 9-15. '^ Am. ii. 11, Jer. xxix. 15, and of the Prophet like Moses 
 
 Deut. xviii. 15. '^ Am. ib. 17 1 Sam. ii. 35. '^ 2 Sam. vii. 8. '» 1 Kgs. xi. 14. 
 -» lb. 23. =' Hab. i. 6. - Tmayn Ex. ix. 16. '^ 2 Kgs. xiv. 28, 25. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 209 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 797. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 Thejudgme7its of the grasshoppers, 4 and of the 
 fire, art diverted hy the prayer of Amos. 7 Hy ili<^ 
 wall of a pUimhlinc is signified the re/'ectio?i of Is- 
 
 expres^scs the utmost Northern boundary promised to Israel'. 
 But this does not in itself express whether Maniath itself was 
 included. Ilamath however, and even Damascus itself, were 
 incorporated in the bounds of Israel. The then f;:reat 
 scourge of Israel had become part of its strength. S(mth- 
 ward, Ammon and even Moah, had been taken into its bor- 
 ders. All the <'ountry on the other side of Jordan was 
 their's from Hamath and Damascus to the South of the Dead 
 Sea, a space includini;; four degrees of Latitude, as much as 
 from Portsmouth to Durham. Amos describes the extension 
 of the kiiisjdoni of Israel in the self-same terms as the Book 
 of Kinijs ; only he names as the Southern extremity, the 
 rii'er of the niilderness, instead of the sea of the wilder/iess ^. 
 The sea of the wilderness, i. e. the Dead Sea, mi2,ht in itself be 
 either its Northern or its Southern extremity. The word 
 used by Amos, defines it to be the Southern. For his use of 
 the name, river of the wilderness, implies 1) that it was a 
 well-known boundary, a boundary as well known to Israel on 
 the South ^, as the entering in of Hamath was on the North. 
 2) As a boundary-river, it must have been a river on the East 
 of the Jordan, since Benjamin formed their boundary on the 
 "West of Jordan, and mountain passes, not rivers, separated 
 them from it. 3) From its name, river of the wilderness, or the 
 Arahah, it must, in some important part of its course, have 
 flowed in the 'Arabah. The 'Arahah, (it is now well known,) 
 is no other than that deep and remarkable depression, now 
 called the Ghor, which extends from the lakeof Gennesareth 
 to the Red Sea *. The Dead Sea itself is called by Moses too 
 the sea of the Arahah ^, lyiuf;^, as it does, in the middle of that 
 depression, and dividing it into two, the valley of the Jordan 
 above the Dead Sea, and the Southern portion which extends 
 uninterrupted from the Dead to the Red Sea; and which also 
 (although Scripture has less occasion to speak of it) Moses calls 
 the 'Arahah °. A river, which fell from Moab into the Dead 
 Sea without passing through the Arabah, would not be called 
 " a river of the Arabah," but, at the most " a river of the sea 
 of the Arabah." Now.besides the improbability that the name, 
 the river of the Arabah, should have been substituted for the 
 familiar names, the Arnon or the Jabbok, the Arnon does not 
 flow into the Arabah at all, the Jabbok is no way connected 
 with the Dead Sea, the corresponding boundary in the Book 
 of Kings. These were both boundary-rivers, the Jabbok 
 having been the Northern limit of what Moab and Ammon lost 
 to the Amorite ; the Arnon being the Northern border of 
 Moab. But there is a third boundary-river which answers 
 all the conditions. Moab was bounded on the South by a ri- 
 ver, which Isaiah calls the brook of the willou's,l!iaha.l Ha'ara- 
 bim''^, across which he foretells that they should transport 
 for safety all which they had of value. A river, now called in 
 its upper part the Wadi-el-Ahsa,and then the Wadi-es-Satieh, 
 which now too "**has more water than any South of theYerka" 
 [Jabbok], "divides the district of Kerek from that of Jebal, 
 the ancient Gebalene " (i. e. Moab from Idumaea). This river, 
 
 ' Num. xxxiv. 8. - 2 Kgs. nmy.i D' is ran khSd 
 
 Am. nmyn ^m ly ncn koSd 
 
 ^ This altogether excludes tlie Kidron (which Geseiiiiis would make it). Indeed the 
 
 Kidron is 1) no border-river at all, flowing w/Wjin Judah. 2) It does not belong to the 
 
 Arabah at all, flowing from Jerusalem, mostly through deep perpendicular defiles, to the 
 
 racl. \() Ama::iah roinplaiiiethof Amos. \A Amos „ Rpfore 
 
 ' •' CHRIST 
 
 shewcth his calling, ](')and A maziali's judgment. 
 
 THUS hath the I^ord God shewed 
 unto ine ; and, behold, he formed 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 after flowing from East to West and so forming a Southern 
 boundary to Moab, turns to the North in the Ghor or Arabah, 
 and flows into the S. extremity of the Dead Sea". This river 
 then, answering to all the conditions, is doubtless that of 
 which Amos spoke, and the boundary, which Jeroboam re- 
 stored, included Moa!) als((, (iis in the most ])rov[)(.rous times 
 ot Israel,) sin(;c Moab's Southern border u;is now his border. 
 Israel, thc^n, had no enemy, NVest of the Euphrates. Their 
 strength had also, of late, been increasing steadily. Jehoash 
 had, at the promise of Elisha, thrice defeated the Syrians, 
 and recovered cities which had been lost, ])robably on tlie 
 West also of Jttrdan. in the heart of the kingdom of Israel. 
 What Jehoash had begun. Jeroboam II., during a reign of 
 forty one years, continued. Prophets had foretold and defined 
 the successes of both kings, and so had marked them out the 
 more to be the gift of God. Israel ascribed it to himself; and 
 now that the enemies, whom Israel had feared, were sub- 
 dued, God says, / will raise up an enemy, and they shall af- 
 flict thee from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the 
 tvilderness. The whole scene of their triumphs should he one 
 scene of affliction a nd woe. This was fulfilled after some forty 
 five years, at the invasion of Tiglath-pileser. 
 
 VII. The visions of this chapter continue the direct pro- 
 phecy of the last. That closed in the prophecy of the affliction 
 of Israel through the Assyrian : this foretells three gradations, 
 in which it took place. 7'hat spoke of a recovery of Israel af- 
 ter its extreme depression under Hazael ; the first of these vi- 
 sions exhibit it as a field shorn to the ground, shooting out 
 anew, but threatened with a fresh destruction. The chastise- 
 ments are three-fold. Two, at the intercession of Amos, stop 
 short of utter destruction; the 3rd was final. Each also in- 
 creased in severity. Such were the three invasions of the As- 
 syrians. Pul, invited by Menahem, amid civil war, to esta- 
 blish him on his throne, exacted only a heavy fine. Tiglath- 
 pileser, called in by Ahaz against Pekah, carried off the in- 
 habitants of the East and North of Israel ; the invasion of 
 Shalmaneser ended the empire and its idolatry. 
 
 1 . And behold He formed (i. e. He was form ing) . Th e very 
 least things then are as much in His infinite Mind, as what we 
 count the greatest. He has not simply made "lawsof nature," 
 as men speak, to do His work, and continue the generations 
 of the world. He Himself was still framing them, giving theip 
 being, as our Lord saith, My Fattier worketh hitherto, and I 
 ivork '°. The same power of God is seen in creating the lo- 
 cust, as the Universe. The creature could as little do the 
 one as the other. But further. GoA\ya.> framing Xhcm for a 
 special end, not of nature, but of His moral government, in 
 the correction of man. He was framing the locust, that it 
 might, at His appointed time, lay waste just those tracts 
 which He had appointed to them. God. in this vision, opens 
 our eyes, and lets us see Himself, framing the [)unishment for 
 the deserts of the sinners, that so when hail, mildew, blight, 
 caterpillars, or some other hitherto unknown disease, (which. 
 
 Dead Sea (see ab. p. 141). 3) It falls into the W. side of the Dead Sea, not into its North. 
 
 ern extremity. ■* Burckh. Syr. 441, 2. Rob. ii. 186, 7. ' Deut. iii. 17, iv. 49. 
 
 ^ lb. ii. S, 9 (translated plain). See more fully Stanley, Pal. 487- ' Is. xv. 7. 
 
 8 Burckh. lb. 401. ' See Van de Velde's map or Kiepert's 
 
 in Porter's Hdbook, or Robinson's map. '" S. John v. 17.
 
 210 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 cir,787. 
 
 Or, green 
 worms. 
 
 c h'rTs t II grasshoppers in the beghininji^ of the 
 shooting up of the latter growth ; and, lo, 
 it was the latter growth after the king's 
 mowings. 
 
 2 And it came to pass, that when they 
 had made an end of eating the grass of 
 the hind, then I said, O Lord Goo, for- 
 give, I beseech thee : * H by whom shall 
 Jacob arise ? for he is small. 
 
 « Is. 51.19. 
 
 ver.6. 
 ll Or, who 
 
 of (or, lor,) 
 
 Jacob shall 
 
 stand ? 
 
 because we know it not, we call by the name of the crop which 
 it annihilates), waste our crops, we may think, not of secon- 
 dary causes, but of our Judge. "^ Fire and hail, sitoiv and va- 
 pours, atonni/ wind, fulfil His word ~, in striking sinners as He 
 wills. To be indignant with these, were like a dog who bit 
 the stone wherewith it was hit, instead of the man who threw 
 it. "^He who denies that he was stricken for his own fault, 
 what does he but accuse the justice of Him Who smiteth ? " 
 
 Grasshoppers, i. e. locusts. The name may very possibly 
 be derived from their creeping* simultaneously, in vast multi- 
 tudes, from the ground, which is the more observable in these 
 creatures, which, when the warmth of spring hatches the 
 eggs, creep forth at once in myriads. This first meaning of 
 their name must, however, have been obliterated by use (as 
 mostly happens), since the word is also used by Nahum of a fly- 
 ing locust ^. 
 
 The kitig's mowings must have been some regalia, to meet 
 the state-expenses. The like custom still lingers on, here and 
 there, among us, the "first mowth" or "first vesture," that 
 with which the fields are first clad, belonging to one person; 
 the pasturage afterwards, or " after-grass," to others. The 
 hay-harvest probably took place some time before the corn- 
 harvest, and the /rt^/('/-o/-«,M,"after-grass,"(lekesh) probably be- 
 gan to spring up at the time of the latter rain (malkosh). Had 
 the grass been mown after this rain, it would not, under the 
 burning sun of their rainless summer, have sprung up at all. 
 At this time, then, upon which the hope of the year depended, 
 in the beginning of the shootiyig up of the latter grass, Amos 
 saw, in vision, God form the locust, and the green herb of the 
 land (the word includes all, that which is for the service of 
 man as well as for beasts,) destroyed. Striking emblem of a 
 state, recovering after it had been mown down, and anew over- 
 run by a numerous enemy ! Yet this need but be a passing 
 desolation. Would they abide, or would they carry their ra- 
 vages elsewhere? Amos intercedes with God, in words of that 
 first intercession of Moses, /or^/we now^. By luhom, he adds, 
 shall Jacob arise ? lit. JFho shall Jacob arise ? i. e. who is he 
 that he should arise, so weakened, so half-destroyed? Plainly, 
 the destruction is more than one invasion of locusts in one 
 year. The locusts are a symbol, (as in Joel,) in like way as 
 the following visions are symbols. 
 
 3. The Lord repented for this. God is said to repent, to 
 have strong compassion upon or over'' evil, which He has either 
 inflicted *, or has said that He would inflict ^, and which, upon 
 i-epentance or prayer, He suspends or checks. Here, Amos 
 does not intercede until after the judgment had been, in part, 
 inflicted. He prayed, when in vision the locust had made anend 
 of eating the grass of the land, and when the fire had eaten up a 
 
 'Lap. 2 Ps.cxlviii. 8. ^ g. Greg.on JobL.xxxii. c.4. L. ■■ from the Arab, 
 jabaa. * See Pref. to Joel, p. 99. ' Num.xiv. 19. ^ ^ly Dfll ' Deut. xxxii. 3C, 
 IChr. xsi. 15. ' Ex. xxxii. 13, Joel ii.l3, Jon.iii. 10, Jer. xviii.8. i" Job xxxviii. 11. 
 
 Before 
 CHHIST 
 
 dr. 787. 
 
 3 '' The Ijord repented for this : It shall 
 not be, saith the Lord. 
 
 4 tThus hath the Lord God shewed 'J^rss'!^- '•^• 
 unto me : and, behokl, the Lord God call- Iti^^l;"^: 
 ed to contend by fire, and it devoured the 
 
 great deep, and did eat up a part. 
 
 5 Then said I, O Lord God, cease I be- 
 seech thee: "by whom shall Jacob arise ? ' ver. 2, 3. 
 for he is small. 
 
 part. Nor, until Israel had suffered what these visions foretold, 
 was he small, either in his own or in human sight, or in rela- 
 tion to his general condition. The this then, of "which God 
 repented and said, it shall not he, is that further undefined evil, 
 which His first infliction threatened. Evil and decay do not 
 die out, but destroy. Oppression does not weary itself out, 
 but increases. Visitations of God are tokens of His displea- 
 sure, and, in the order of His Justice, rest on the sinner. Ful 
 and Tiglath-pileser. when they came with their armies on Is- 
 rael, were instruments of God's chastening. According to the 
 ways of God's Justice, or of man's ambition, the evil now 
 begun, would have continued, but that God, at the prayer of 
 the Prophet, said i". Hitherto shall thou come, and no further. 
 4. God called to contend by fire ; i. e. He called His people 
 to maintain their cause with Him by fire, as He says ^^, I will 
 /j/frtf/iu judgment jciV/i //?'?« [fiog] with [\. e. by^ pestilence and 
 blood; and, ^- by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with 
 alljlesh ; and, ^^ The Lord standeth up to plead and standeth to 
 judge the people. !Man, by rebellion, challenges God's Om- 
 nipotence. He will have none of Him ; he will find his own 
 happiness for himself, apart from God and in defiance of Him 
 and His laws ; he plumes himself on his success, and accounts 
 his strength or wealth or prosperity the test of the wisdom of 
 his policy. God. sooner or later, accepts the challenge. He 
 brings things to the issue, which man had chosen. .He enters 
 intojudgmeyit^*' with him. If man escapes with impunity, then 
 he had chosen well, in rejecting God and choosing his own 
 ways. If not, what folly and misery was his short-sighted 
 choice ; short-lived in its gain ; its loss, eternal ! Fire stands 
 as the symbol and summary of God's most terrible judgments. 
 It spares nothing, leaves nothing, not even the outward form 
 of what it destroys. Here it is plainly a symbol, since it de- 
 stroys the sea also, which shall be destroyed only by the fire 
 of the Day of Judgment, when ^''the elements shall melt with 
 fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall 
 be burned tip. The sea is called the great deep, only in the 
 most solemn language, as the history of the creation or the 
 flood, the Psalms and poetical books. Here it is used, in 
 order to mark the extent of the desolation represented in 
 the vision. 
 
 And did eat up a part, rather lit. the portion^^ , i.e. probably, 
 the definite /jor/?o?i fore-appointed by God to captivity and de- 
 solation. This probably our Version meant by a part. For 
 although God calls Himself the Portion of IsraeP'.and of those 
 who are His^*, and reciprocally He calls the people the Lord's 
 portion^^, and the land, the portion-^ of God's people ; yet the 
 land is nowhere called absolutely the portion, nor was the 
 country of the ten tribes specially the portion, given by God. 
 
 » Ezek. xxxviii. 22. 
 
 '5 2S. Pet.iii. 10. ^ 
 
 18 Ps. XVI. 5, Ixxiii. 26 &c. Jer. x. 16 
 
 1= Is.lxvi.16. '3Ib.iii.13. nib.l4&c. 
 
 '6 pSnnrK '7 Deut. xxxii. 9, Jer. x. 16, Zech.ii. 12. 
 
 '9 Jer. xii. 10. =» Mic. ii. 4. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 211 
 
 chrTst ^ "^^^ Lord repented for this : This also 
 ""■ ''^~- shall not be, saith the Ijord God. 
 
 7 % Thus he shewed me : and, behold, 
 the Lord stood upon a wall made by a 
 plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. 
 
 8 And the Lord said unto me, Amos, 
 what seest thou? And I said, A plumb- 
 
 Rather God exhibits in vision to the Prophet, tlie ocean burned 
 up, and t/ie portion ot" Israel, upon wbieli His judgments were 
 first to fall. To this Amos points, as tlie jmrtion. God knew 
 the portion, which Tijjlath-Pileser would destroy, and, when 
 he came and had (uirricd captive the East and North of Israel, 
 the pious in Israel would recognise the second, more desolat- 
 ing scourge, foretold by Amos ; they would own that it was at 
 the prayer of the Prophet that it was stayed and went no fur- 
 ther, and would await what remained. 
 
 5. G. As our Lord repeated the same words in the Garden, 
 so Amos interceded with Godwith words, all but one^, the same, 
 and with the same plea, that, if God did not help, Israel was 
 indeed helpless. Yet asecondtimeGodsparcd Israel. Tohu- 
 man sight, what so strange and unexpected, as that the As- 
 syrian and his army, having utterly destroyed the kingdom of 
 Damascus, and carried away its people, and having devoured, 
 like fire, more than half of Israel, rolled back like an ebb-tide, 
 swept away to ravage other countries, and spared the capital ? 
 And who, looking at the mere outside of things, would have 
 thought that that tide of fire was rolled back, not by anything 
 in that day, but by the Prophet's prayer some 47 years be- 
 fore ? IMan would look doubtless for motives of human policy, 
 which led Tiglath-pileser to accept tribute from Pekah, while 
 he killed Rezin; and while he carried oft' all the Syrians of Da- 
 mascus, to leave half of Israel to be removed by his successor. 
 Humanly speaking,it was a mistake. He " scotched " his ene- 
 my only, and left him to make alliance with Egypt, his rival, 
 who disputed with him the possession of the countries which 
 lay between them. If we knew the details of Assyrian policy, 
 we might know what induced him to turn aside in his con- 
 quest. There were, and always are, human motives. They do 
 not interfere with the ground in the mind of God, Who directs 
 and controls them. Even in human contrivances, the wheels, 
 interlacing one another, and acting one on the other, do but 
 transmit, the one to the other, the motion and impulse which 
 they have received from the central force. The revolution of 
 the earth around its own centre does not interfere with, ra- 
 ther it is a condition of its revolving round the centre of our 
 system, and, amidst the alternations of night and day, brings 
 each several portion within the influence of the sun around 
 which it revolves. The afi^airs of human kingdoms have their 
 own subordinate centres of humanpolicy,yet even thereby they 
 the more revolve in the crircuit of God's appointment. In the 
 history of His former people God gives us a glimpse into a 
 hidden order of things, the secret spring and power of His 
 wisdom, which sets in motion that intricate and complex ma- 
 chinery which alone we see, and in the sight of which men 
 lose the consciousness of tlie unseen agency. While man 
 strives with man, prayer, suggested by God, moves God, the 
 Ruler of all. 
 
 7. Stood upon [rather oi^er"] a wall made by a plumbline ; 
 
 ' T^n, cease iforrho forgive. 
 3 Dion. i Ex. xxxiii. 12, 17, 
 
 2 This lies in the words hj) 3S]. 
 s 2 Tim. ii. 19. « Lam. ii. 
 
 line. Then said the fjord, IJehold, ''I will chkTst 
 set a plumblin(! in tin; midst of my people "'■ ''^^- 
 Israel ; "= I will not ajrain pass by them any ^ tuil!^'"^' 
 more • I"' -^' '7. 
 
 1) ^And the hij^h places of Isaac shall e^^.^'lJ-l-^- 
 be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel ,j^gp'';jfj^^ 
 shall be laid waste ; and ^ I will rise aijainst ?7; 2';.23.' 
 
 ' " & 40. l.ch.6. 
 
 f Fulfilled, 2 Kings 15. 10. 
 
 5. & 8. 14. 
 
 lit. a v'ft/f of a phniiljline, i.e. (as our's has it) 7)tfi(le straight, 
 perpendicuhir, In/ it. The wall had been tnadc Inj a lead or 
 plumhline ; by it, i.e. according to it, it should be destroyed, 
 (iod had made it upright, He had given to it an undeviating 
 rule of right. He had watched over it, to keep it, as He made 
 it. Now He stood over it, fixed in His purpose, to destrov it. 
 He marked its inequalities. Yet this too in judgment. ' He 
 destroys it by that same rule of right wlicrewitii He bad built 
 it. By that law, that right, those Providential leadings, that 
 grace, which we have received, by the same we are judged. 
 
 8. Amos'? "^Hc calls the Prophet by name, as a familiar 
 friend, known and approved by Him, as He said to Moses*, / 
 know thee hy name. For" the Lord knoweth them that are His. 
 What seest thou ? God had twice heard the Prophet. Two 
 judgments upon His people He had mitigated, not upon their 
 repentance, but on the single intercession of the Prophet. 
 After that, He willed to be no more entreated. And so He ex- 
 hibits to Amos a symbol, whose meaning He does not explain 
 until He had pronounced their doom. The plumhline was 
 used in pulling down, as well as in building up. Whence Je- 
 remiah says°, The Lord hath piir/iosed to destroy the wall of 
 the daughter of Zion ; He hath stretched out a line; He hath 
 not withdrawn His hand from destroying; ; therefore He made 
 the rampart and wall to lament : and Isaiah '' ; He s/iall stretch 
 out itpon it the line of wasteness^ and the stone of emptiness* : 
 and God said of Judah ^, / ivill stretch over Jerusalem the line 
 of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahah. Accor- 
 dingly God explains the vision, 2?e/(o/f/ I will set, i.e. shortly, 
 [lit. am setting] a plumhline in the midst of My people Israel. 
 The wall, then, is not the emblem of Samaria or of any one 
 city. It is the strength and defence of thewhole people, what- 
 ever held it together, and held out the enemy. As in the vi- 
 sion to Belshazzar, the word Tekel, He weighed, was explain- 
 ed-", Thou art weighed in the balances and art found tvant- 
 ing, so God here applies the plumbline, at once to convict 
 and to destroy upon conviction. In this Judgment, as at the 
 Last Day, God would not condemn, without having first made 
 clear the justice of His condemnation. He sets it in the midst 
 of His people, shewing that He would make trial of all, one by 
 one, and condemn in proportion to the guilt of each. But 
 the day of grace being past, the sentence was to be final. / 
 ivill not pass by them, lit. / ivill not pass over [i. e. their trans- 
 gressions] to them^^ any more, i.e. I will no more forgive them. 
 
 9. The high places of Isaac. He probably caQs the ten 
 tribes by the name of Isaac, as well as of Israel, in order to con- 
 trast their deeds with the blameless, gentle piety of Isaac, as 
 well as the much-tried faithfulness of Israel. It has been 
 thought too that he alludes to the first meaning of the name 
 of Isaac. His name was given from the joyous laughter at 
 the unheard-of promise of God, to give children to those past 
 age ; their high-places should be a laughter, but the laughter 
 
 ' Is. xxxiv. 11, 
 9 2Kgs.xxi.l3. 
 
 8 in3 mn as in Gen. i. 
 '0 Dan. V. 27. 
 
 as in nii.i;.
 
 212 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 ch'rTst*'^^ house of Jeroboam with the sword. 
 
 "■■■ 787. 10 ^ Then Aiiiaziah 'tlie priest of Beth- 
 
 " i^Kings i;;. j,| ggjjj ^fy i Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, 
 
 i 2 Kings 14. ^jHos hath conspired against thee in the 
 
 of mockery ^. The sanctiiuries were perha])S the two great 
 idol-tciiiples at Bethel and Dan, over against tlie one suttc- 
 ttiari/ of God at Jerusalem ; the high places were the shrines 
 of idolatry, especially where God had shewn mercy to the Pa- 
 triarchs and Israel, but also all over the land. All were to be 
 wasted, because all were idolatrous. 
 
 I trill rise against the liuuse of Jeroboam with the sword. 
 God speaks after the manner of men, who, having been still, 
 arise against the object of their enmity. He makes Himself 
 so far one with the instruments of His sentence, that, what 
 they do. He ascribes to Himself. Jeroboam II. must, from his 
 military success, have been popular among his people. Sucv 
 cessful valour is doubly prized, and he had both valour- and 
 success. God had saved Israel hy his hand'^. A weak succes- 
 sor is often borne with for the merits of his father. There 
 were no wars from without, Mhich called for strong military 
 energy or talent, and which might furnish an excuse for su- 
 perseding a faineant king. Ephraim had no ambition of fo- 
 reign glory, to gratify. Zechariah, Jeroboam's son, was a 
 sensualist*; but many sensualists have, at all times, reigned 
 undisturbed. Shalluni who murdered Zechariah was simply 
 a conspirator ^ ; he represented no popular impulse, and was 
 slain himself a month *" after. Yet Amos foretells absolutely 
 that the house of Jeroboam should perish by the sword, and 
 in the next generation his name was clean put out. 
 
 10. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, was probably the high- 
 priest, in imitation of the High Priest of the order of Aaron 
 and of God's a])pointment. For the many high places around 
 Bethel required many idol-priests ; and a splendid counterfeit 
 of the ritual at Jerusalem, which should rival it in the eyes of 
 Israel, was part of the policy of the lirst Jeroboam. Amaziah 
 was at the head of this imposture, in a position probably of 
 wealth and dignity among his people. Like Demetrius the sil- 
 versmith'', he thought that the craft whereby he had his wealth 
 was endangered. To Jeroboam, however, he says nothing 
 of these fears. To the king he makes it an alfair of state. He 
 takes the king by what he expected to be his weak side, fear 
 for his own power or life. Amos hath conspired against thee. 
 So to Jeremiah ^ the captain of the zvard said. Thou fullest 
 away to the Chaldceans. And the princes'; Let this man he put 
 to death, for thus he tueakeneth the hands of the men of war that 
 remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking 
 such words unto them : for this man seeketh not the welfare of 
 this people, hut the hurt. And of our Lord they said to Pilate, 
 ^"7/" thou let this Man go, thou art not Ccesar's friend. TVhoso- 
 ever 7naketh himself a king, is an enemy to Ccesar. And of the 
 Apostles '^ ; thesemen, being Jeivs, docrceedingly trouble otir city , 
 and teach customs which are not laufulforus to receive, neither 
 to observe, being Romans ; and, ^- these that have turned the 
 world upside doivn are come hither also — and these all do con- 
 trary to tite decrees of Ccesar, sayi7ig that there is another king, 
 Jesus. And so the heathen, who were ever conspiring against 
 the Roman Emperors, went on accusing the early Christians 
 as disloyal to the Emperors, factious, impious, because they did 
 
 ' So the LX.X, and, from them, S. Cyril and Theodoret. 
 2 2 Krs. xiv. 28. imuj personal bravery. 3 lb. 27. •* See on Hos. vii. 7. 
 
 p. 45, ami Introd. p. 5. '2 Kgs. xv. 10. « lb. 13, 14. ^ Acts xix. 
 
 ' Jer. xxxvii. 13. » lb. xxxviii. 4. '» S.John xix. 12. 
 
 midst of the house of Israel: the land is cjfi(°[sT 
 
 not able to bear all his words. 
 
 11 For thas Amos saith, Jeroboam shall 
 die by the sword, and Israel shall surely 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 not offer sacrifices for them to false gods, but prayed for them 
 to the True God''. Some doubtless, moved by the words of 
 Amos, had forsaken the state-idolatry, reformed their lives, wor- 
 shipped God with the Prophet ; perhaps they were called in 
 contempt by his name, "Amosites" or " Judaizers," and were 
 counted as his adherents, not as the worshippers of the one true 
 God, the God of their fathers. Whence Amaziah gained the 
 plea of a conspiracy , of which Amos was the head. For a con- 
 spiracy cannot be of one man. The word, by its force, signi- 
 fies " banded'*;" the idiom, that he "banded" others "toge- 
 ther against"" the king. To us Amaziah attests the power of 
 God's word by His Prophet ; the land, i. e. the whole people, is 
 not able to bear his words, being shaken through and through. 
 
 11. For thus Amos saith. Amos had said. Thus saith the 
 Lord ; he never fails to impress on them, Whose words he is 
 speaking. Amaziah, himself bound up in a system of false- 
 hood and imposture, which, being a creature-worship, gave 
 itself out as the worship of the true God, believed all besides 
 to be fraud. Fraud always suspects fraud; the irreligious think 
 devotion, holiness, saintliness to be hypocrisy: vice imagines 
 virtue to be well-masked vice. The false priest, by a sort of 
 law of corrupt nature, supposed that Amos also was false, and 
 treats his words as the produce of his own mind. 
 
 Jeroboam shall die by the siuord. Amos had not said this. 
 The false prophet distorts the last words of Amos, which were 
 yet in his ears, and reports to Jeroboam, as said of himself, 
 what Amos had just said of his house. Amos was opposed to 
 the popular religion or irreligion of which Jeroboam was the 
 head, to the headship over which he had succeeded. Jerobo- 
 am, like the Roman Emperors, was High Priest, Pontifex Max- 
 imus, in order to get the popular worship under his control. 
 The first Jeroboam had himself consecrated the calf-priests'=. 
 Amos bore also the message from God, that the reprieve, given 
 to the house of Jehu, would not be extended, but would end. 
 Amaziah would act on the personal fears of the king, as though 
 there had been some present active conspiracy against him. 
 A lie, mixed with truth, is the most deadly form of falsehood, 
 the truth serving to gain admittance for the lie, and colour it, 
 and seeming to require explanation, and being something to 
 fall back upon. Since thus much is certainly true, why should 
 not the rest be so ? In slander, and heresy which is slander 
 against God, truth is used to commend the falsehood ; and 
 falsehood, to destroy the truth. The poison is received the 
 more fearlessly because wrapt up in truth, but loses none of its 
 deadliness. 
 
 And Israel shall surely be led away captive. This was a 
 suppression of truth, as the other was a falsification of it. 
 Amaziah omits both the ground of the threat, and the hope of 
 escape urged and impressed upon them. On the one side he 
 omits all mention of what even such a king as Jeroboam would 
 respect, the denunciation of oppression of the poor, injustice, 
 violence, robbery, and all their other sins against man. On 
 the other hand, he omits the call to repentance and promises 
 on it, seek ye the Lord and live. He omits too the Prophet's 
 
 " Acts xvi. 20, 1. '■- Ib.xvii. 6, 7. 
 
 ■3 Tertul. Apol. § 28-38. pp. 68-80. Oxf. Tr. ad Scap. § 2. pp. 143, 4. lb. n -mp bound. 
 1= Sy -vp " banded against, conspired." 1 Sam. xxii. 8, 13, 1 Kgs. xv. 27, xvi. 9, 16, 
 2 Kgs. X. y, xiv. 19, XV. 10, 15, 25, xxi. 23. So also TJ^, crmp
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 213 
 
 c h^rTI t ^^ ^^'^ away captive out of their own land. 
 "'■ ''^'^- 12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O 
 
 thou seer, go, flee thee away into the 
 land of Judah, and there eat bread, and 
 
 "■ ch. 2. 12. 1 ., 
 
 > 1 Kings 12. prophesy there : 
 
 II Or, ^^' '' l'{ ** liiit prophesy not again any more 
 
 t h:^'"'"''- at Beth-el : i for it is the king's || chapel 
 
 llZ'^n'.'" and it is the f king's court. 
 
 intercession for his people, and selects the one prophecy, which 
 could a:ive a mere political character to the whole. Suppres- 
 sion of truth is a yet suhtlcr character of falsehood. Hence 
 witnesses on oath are required to tell, not the truth only, but 
 the whole truth. Yet in daily life, or in accusation of others, 
 in detraction, or evil-speaking, men daily act, as though sup- 
 pression were no lie. 
 
 12. Jeroboam apparently took no account of the false 
 priest's message. Perhaps the memory of the true prophecies 
 of Elisha as to the successes of his father, and of Jonah as to 
 his own, fulfilled in his own person and still recent, inspired 
 him with a reverence for God's prophets. To know his mo- 
 tive or motives, we must know his whole character, which we 
 do not. Amaziah, failing of his purpose, uses his name as far 
 as he dares. Seer, go flee thee. He probably uses the old title 
 for a prophet, in reference to the visions which he had just re- 
 lated. Perhaps, he used it in irony alsoi. 'Thou who seest, as 
 thou decmest, what others see not, visionary ! visionist I'' flee 
 thee, i. e. for thy good ; (he acts the patron and the counsellor;) 
 to the land of J^udah, and there eat bread, and there prophesy. 
 Worldly men always think that those whose profession is re- 
 ligious make again of godliness. "He is paid for it," they say. 
 "Whose bread I eat, his song I sing." Interested people can- 
 not conceive of one disinterested ; nor the worldly, of one un- 
 worldly ; nor the insincere, of one sincere. Amaziah thought 
 then that Amos, coming out of Judah, must be speaking in the 
 interests of Judah ; perhaps, that he was in the pay of her king. 
 Any how, prophecies, such as his against Israel, would be ac- 
 ceptable there and be well paid. The words are courteous, 
 like so much patronising language now, as to God or His re- 
 velation. His Prophets or His Apostles, or His Divine word. 
 The words are measured: the meaning blasphemy. Perhaps, 
 like the Scribes and Pharisees afterwards, he feared the people^. 
 "* Seeing that there were many among the people who heard 
 him gladly, he dared not do him any open wrong, lest he should 
 offend them." 
 
 13. // is the king's chapel ; better, as in the E. M., saiic- 
 tuary*. It is the name for ^Ae sawc;j<rtr?/ of God ^ Let them 
 make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Ye 
 shall reveretice My sanctuary : I am the Lord^. It is most of- 
 ten spoken of as. The sanctuary'' ; elsewhere, but always with 
 emphasis, of reverence, sanctity, devotion, protection, it is call- 
 ed His sanctuary ; My sanctuary ; Thy sanctuary ; the sanc- 
 tuary of the Lord, of God, of his God*'; whence God Himself is 
 called a Sanctuary^, as a place of refuge. In three places only, 
 is it called the sanctuary of Israel; her sanctuary. God, 
 in His threat to cast them off, says^", I will bring your sanc- 
 tuaries to desolation ; Jeremiah laments ^^, the heathen have 
 entered into her sanctuary ; he says^", the place of our sanctu- 
 
 ' " Either in irony, in that he lies throughout, or because seeing, S:c." (as below) S. Jer. 
 
 - S.Matt.xxi.26, Actsv.26. » s.Jer. 
 
 * tn^a 5 Ex. XXV. 8. « Lev. xix.30,xxvi.2. 7 npD.T 
 
 68 times. In reference to the time before it was built, it is called a sanctuary, Ex.xxv. 8, 
 
 14 ^[ Then answered Amos, and said to ch^r'^'^st 
 Amaziah, I rc«.v no prophet, neither loa.v 1 c"''^'- 
 
 a prophet's son ; " but I was an herdman, °'i.Kings20. 
 
 and a gatherer of || sycomore fruit : I ^'X""* 
 
 15 And the Lord took mef as 1 f<>l- „ et 'i' i! zech 
 
 lowed the flock and the Ijord said 
 
 13. 5. 
 Or. 
 
 unto me, Go, prophesy unto my peo- ^^^l^'^ 
 pie Israel. 
 
 behind. 
 
 ary is a glorious high throne from the beginning, inasmuch as 
 God was enthroned there. In this case too it, is the sanctua- 
 ry for Israel, not a mere j)r()perty o/ Israel. The sunrluary of 
 God could not be called the sanctuary of any man. One man 
 could not so appropriate the sanctuary. God had ordained 
 it for Himself. His Presence had sanctified it. Heresy, in 
 unconsciousness, lets out more truth than it means. A high 
 priest at Jerusalem could not have said this. He knew that 
 the temple was the sanctuary of God, and could not have call- 
 ed it the king's sanctuary. The sanctuary at Bethel had no 
 other sanction, than what it had from the king. Jeroboam 
 I. consecrated it and its priests ^^ ; and from him it and they 
 had their authority. Amaziah wished to use a popular plea 
 to rid himself of Amos. Bethel was the king's sanctuary and 
 the house, not of God, but of the kingdom, i. e. the house, which 
 had the whole royal sanction, which with its worship was the 
 creature of royal authority, bound up in one with the kingdom, 
 and belonging to it. Or it maybe, a royal house^*, (not a palace, 
 or court, for the king's palace was at Samaria, but) a royal tem- 
 ple, the state-Church. So the Arians betrayed their world- 
 liness by dating one of their Creeds from the Roman Consuls of 
 the year, its month and day, " i^thereby to shew all thinking 
 men, that their faith dates, not of old but now." Their faith 
 was of yesterday. " They are wont to say." says St. Jerome, 
 "the Emperor communicates with us, and, if any one resist 
 them, forthwith they calumniate. 'Actest thou against the 
 Emperor ? Despisest thou the Emperor's mandate ? ' And 
 yet we may think, that many Christian kings who have per- 
 secuted the Church of God, and essayed to establish the Ari- 
 an impiety in the whole world, surpass in guilt Jeroboam 
 king of Israel. He despised the message of a false priest, nor 
 would he make any answer to his suggestions. But these,with 
 their many Amaziah-priests, have slain Amos the prophet 
 and the priest of the Lord by hunger and penury, dungeons 
 and exile."' 
 
 14. I was no prophet. Theorder of the words is emphatic. 
 No prophet I, and no prophet's son I ; for a herdsman I, and 
 dresser of sycamores. It may be, Amos would meet, for the peo- 
 ple's sake, Amaziah's taunt. He had a living, simple indeed, 
 yet that of the prophets was as simple. But chicfiy he tells 
 them of the unusual character of his mission. He did not be- 
 long to the order of the prophets, nor had he been educated in 
 the schoolsof the prophets,nor had he anyhuman training. He 
 was thinking of nothing less; he was doing the worksof his call- 
 ing, till God took him from following the flock, and gave him his 
 commission. "^^He premises humbly what he had been, what 
 he had been made, not by merits, but by grace, that he had 
 not assumed the piophetic office by hereditary right, nor had 
 he begun to prophesy out of his own mind, but, being under the 
 
 2 Chr. XX. 8. ^ In all, 23 times. ' Is. viii. 14, Ezek.xi. 16. "> Lev.xxvi.31. 
 11 Lam. i. 10. " Jer. xvii. 12. 
 
 13 1 Kings xii. 31-3. " It has not the art. asnWDin'3 has, Esth.i.9. 
 
 IS S. Ath. Counc.Arim. Sel.§3.Treat. ag. Arian. p.76.0xf.Tr. i' Rup. 
 
 > n
 
 214 
 
 AIMOS, 
 
 c hrTst 1^ 1[ ^<*^ therefore hear thou tlie word 
 
 c'^r.7S7. of the Loiin : Thou sayest, Prophesy not 
 
 " Ezek. 21.2. airainst Israel, and "drop not thy word 
 
 Mic 2. 0. * 
 
 against the house of Isaac. 
 
 " fri^ii^fi ^^ ^ Therefore thus saith the Lord ; i Thy 
 
 f'^l'i^- ' Avife shall he an harlot in the city, and thy 
 
 h'""/i"' ^^^^ ^"*^ ^^^y daughters shall fall by the 
 
 Zech. k 2. s^vord, and thy land shall be divided by 
 
 line ; and thou shalt die in a polluted land : 
 
 and Israel shall surely go into captivity 
 
 forth of his land. 
 
 necessity of obeyinjc:. he had fulfilled the grace and the coni- 
 inand of God Wlio inspired and sent Him." Twice he repeats, 
 The Lord took me ; tlie Lord said imto me ; inculcatinjj that, 
 what Amaziah forbade, God hade. All was of God. He had 
 but obeyed. "^Asthen theApostles,when theScribes andPha- 
 risees forbade them to teach in the Name of Jesus, answered, 
 -We must obey God rat Iter than man, so Amos, when forbid- 
 den by the idol-priests to prophesy, not only prophesies, shew- 
 ing; that he feared God bidding;, more than their forbidding;, 
 but he boldly and freely denounces the punishment of him who 
 endeavoured to forbid and hinder the word of God. "^Hea- 
 ven thundered and commanded him to prophesy; the frog 
 croaked in answer out of his marsh, prophesy no more." 
 
 16. Amaziah then was in direct rebellion and contradic- 
 tion against God. He was in an office forhidden by God. 
 God's word came to him. He had his choice; and, as men do, 
 when entangled in evil courses, he chose the more consciously 
 amiss. He had to resign his lucrative office and to submit 
 to God speaking to him through a shepherd, or to stand in 
 direct opposition to God, and to confront God ; and in silenc- 
 ing Amos, he would silence God. But, like one who would ar- 
 rest the lightning, he draws it on his own head. Amos con- 
 trasts the word of Amaziah, and the word of God; '■^^ Hear thou 
 the word of the Lord ; Thou sayest ; prophesy not agai7ist Is- 
 rael. Therefore thus saith the Lord. Not only will I not cease 
 to prophesy against Israel, but I will also prophesy to thee. 
 Hear now thine own part of the prophecy." 
 
 Drop not. The form of expression, (not the word) is pro- 
 bably taken from Moses*. 3Iy doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
 my speech shall distil as the dew ; as the stnall rain upon the 
 tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Micah speaks 
 of the word as used by those who forbade to prophesy, as 
 though the prophecy were a continual wearisome dropping. 
 God's word comes as a gentle dew or soft rain, not beating 
 down but refreshing; not sweeping away, like a storm, but 
 sinking in and softening even hard ground, all but the rock; 
 gentle, so as they can bear it. God's word was to men, such 
 as they were towards it ; dropping like the dew on those who 
 received it; wearing,to those who hardened themselves against 
 it. It drops in measure upon the hearts which it fertilises, be- 
 ing adapted to their capacity to receive it. And so contrariwise 
 as to the judgments with which God's prophets are charged. 
 "^Thc prophets do not discharge at once the whole wrath of 
 God, but, in their threatenings, denounce little drops of it." 
 
 17. Thy ivife shall be a harlot. These were, and still are, 
 among the horrorsof war. His own sentence comes last, when 
 
 1 S.Jer. 2 Acts V. 29. ' Rup. ■< Deut.xxxii.2. 
 
 5 The recent horrors about Mount Lebanon have renewed this description, shewing 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ] By a haslc.t of summer fruit is shewed the 
 propinquity of Israel's end. 4 Oppression is re- 
 proved. 1 1 A famine of the tuord threatened. 
 
 THUS hath the Lord God shewed un- 
 to nie : and behold a basket of sum- 
 mer fruit. 
 
 2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou ? 
 And I said, A basket of summer fruit. 
 Then said the Lord unto me, " The end is ' ^zek 7. 2. 
 
 he had seen the rest, unable to hinder it. Against his and her 
 own will, she should suffer this. "^ Great is the grief, and in- 
 credible the disgrace, when the husband, in the midst of the 
 city and in the presence of all, cannot hinder the wrong done 
 to his wife^. For the husband had rather hear that his wife 
 had been slain, than defiled." What he adds, thy daughters 
 (as well as his sons) shall fall by the sxcord, is an unwonted 
 barbarity, and not part of the Assyrian customs, who car- 
 ried off women in great numbers, as wives for their soldiery''. 
 Perhaps Amos mentions the unwonted cruelty, that the event 
 might bring home the more to the minds of the people the 
 prophecies which relate to themselves. When this had been 
 fulfilled before his eyes,'" Amaziah himself, who now gloried in 
 the authority of the priesthood, was to be led into captivity, 
 die in a land polluted by idols, yet not bctore he saw the peo- 
 ple whom he had deceived,enslavedandcaptive." Amos closes 
 by repeating emphatically the exact words, which Amaziah 
 had alleged in his message to Jeroboam ; and Israel shall sure- 
 ly go into captivity forth of his land. He had not said it be- 
 fore in these precise words. Now he says it, without reserve 
 of their repentance, as though he would say, "Thou hast pro- 
 nounced thine own sentence ; thou hast hardened thyself 
 against the word of God; thou hardenest thy people against the 
 word of God ; it remains then that it should fall on thee and 
 thy people." "^How and when the prophecy against Amaziah 
 was fulfilled. Scripture does not relate. He lies hid amid the 
 mass of miseries^." Scripture hath noleisure to relateallwhich 
 befalls those of the viler sort. "The majesty of Holy Scrip- 
 ture does not lower itself to linger on baser persons," whom 
 God had rejected. 
 
 VIII. 1. Thus hath the Lord God shelved me. The sen- 
 tence of Amaziah pronounced, Amos resumes just where he 
 left off, before Amaziah broke in upon him. His vehement 
 interruption is like a stone cast into the deep waters. They 
 close over it, and it leaves no trace. Amos had authenticated 
 the third vision ; Thus hath the Lord God shewed me. He re- 
 sumes in the self-same calm words. The last vision declared 
 that the end was certain ; this, that it was at hand. 
 
 A basket of summer fruit . The fruit was the latest harvest 
 in Palestine. When it was gathered, the circle of husbandry 
 was come to its close. The sight gives an idea of complete- 
 ness. The symbol, and the word expressing it, coincide. The 
 fruit-gathering (kaits), like our "crop," was called from "cut- 
 ting." So was the word, end, "cutting-off," in kets. At har- 
 vest-time there is no more to be done for that crop. Good 
 or bad, it has reached its end, and is cut down. So the har- 
 
 how the wrong to the Christian woman was a devilish triumph over the helpless relation. 
 ' Fox Talbot, Ass. tests. '• See above, Intiod. p. 153.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 215 
 
 c H rTs t ^^^^ upon my people of Israel ; ^ I will not 
 cir. 787. again pass by them any more. 
 
 c cii'.'s.'as. 3 And *= the songs of the temple f shall 
 
 ^fimiihowt. t)e bowlings in that day, saith the Lord 
 
 Gon : thn'c .shall be many dead bodies in 
 
 <"ch.c.9, 10. every plaee ; ''they shall cast them forth 
 
 bf silent, t with silence. 
 ' Prov.^so.M. 4 % Hear tbis, O ye that * swallow up 
 
 vest of Israel was come. The whole course of God's provi- 
 dences, mercies, chastciiin.e;s, visitations, instructions, warn- 
 ings, inspirations, were completed. fFltaf could have been 
 done more to My vineyard, God asks^, that I have not done in 
 it f "To the works of sin, as of holiness, there is a beginning, 
 progress, completion ;" a " sowing of wild oats," as men speak, 
 and a ripening in wickedness ; a maturity of men's plans, as 
 they deem ; a maturity for destruction, in the sight of God. 
 There was no more to be done. Heavenly influences can but 
 injure the ripened sinner, as dew, rain, sun, but injure the ri- 
 pened fruit. Israel was ripe, but for destruction. 
 
 3. The sottgs of the temple shall be bowlings, lit. shall 
 hoivP. It shall be, as when mirthful music is suddenly broken 
 in upon, and, through the sudden agony of the singer, ends in 
 a shriek or yell of misery. When sounds of joy are turned in- 
 to wailing, all must be complete sorrow. They are not hush- 
 ed only, but are turned into their opposite. Since Amos is 
 speaking to, and of, Israel, the temple is, doubtless, here the 
 great idol-temple at Bethel, and the songs were the choral mu- 
 sic, with which they counterfeited the temple-music, as ar- 
 ranged by David, praising (they could not make up their minds 
 which,) Nature or "the God of nature," but, in truth, worship- 
 ping the creature. The temple was often strongly built and 
 on a height, and, whether from a vague hope of help from God, 
 (as in the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans,) or from some 
 human trust, that the temple might be respected, or from con- 
 fidence in its strength, or from all together, was the last refuge 
 of the all-but-captive people. Their last retreat was often the 
 scene of the last reeling strife, the battle-cry of the assailants, 
 the shrieks of the defenceless, the groans of the wounded, the 
 agonised cry of unyielding despair. Some such scene the Pro- 
 phet probably had before his mind's eye; for he adds; 
 
 There shall be inany dead bodies, lit. Many the corpse in 
 every place. He sees it, not as future, but before him. The 
 whole city, now so thronged with life, " the oppressor's wrong, 
 the proud man's contumely," lies before him as one scene of 
 death ; every place thronged with corpses; none exempt ; at 
 home, abroad, or, which he had just spoken of, the temple ; no 
 time, no place for honourable burial. They, lit. he casts forth, 
 hush 1 Each casts forth those dear to him, as ^dung on the 
 face of the earth. Grief is too strong for words. Living and 
 dead are hushed as the grave. "Large cities are large soli- 
 tudes," for want of mutual love ; in God's retribution, all their 
 din and hum becomes anew a solitude. 
 
 4. Hear ye this, ye that siualloiv (or, better in the same 
 sense, //(«; pant for) the needy ; as Job says^, the hireliiis; 
 pantethfor the evening. They panted for the poor, as the wild 
 beast for its prey : and that to make the poor or (better, as 
 the Hebrew text,) the meek'", those not poor only, but who, 
 through poverty and affliction, are poor i/t spirit aho, to fail. 
 The land being divided among all the inhabitants, they, in 
 
 ' Is. V. i. - M'n our "yell " or " howl," "ululo." 3 jgr. viii. 2, &c. 
 
 * vii. 2. s The E. V. has followed the correction of the Kri. The textual reading 
 
 the needy, even to make the poor of the (. ^".^[^^ 
 land to fail, V 
 
 ST 
 cir. 787. 
 
 5 Saying,'When will the 11 new moon bell ''.\"'»"?*-,. 
 
 •' "' " ■ >.eh. 13. lo, 
 
 gone, that we may sell corn ? and ^ the sab- i<^- 
 bath, that we may f set forth wheat, ''' mak- « Mic.'{i!^o"ii. 
 ing the ephah small, and the slu^kcl great, vcrt'ip^the 
 and f falsifying the balances by deceit ? Jec'el^Uos. 
 
 6 That we may buy the poor for '' silver, h ch.'2'o. 
 
 order to lay field to field^, had to rid themselves of the poor. 
 They did rid themselves of tiieni by oppression of all sorts. 
 
 5. IFheu will tite new moon be gone ■' They kept their fes- 
 tivals, though weary and ini|)atient for their close. They kept 
 sabbath and festival with their bodies, not with their minds. 
 The Psalmist said', IVhen shall I come to appear before the 
 presence of God? These said, perhaps in their hearts only 
 which God reads to them, 'when will tiiis service b(! over, that 
 we may be our own masters again r ' They loathed the rest of 
 the sabbath, because they had, thereon, to rest from their 
 frauds. He instances the netv moons and .'sabbaths, because 
 these, recurring weekly or monthly, were a regular hindrance 
 to their covetousness. 
 
 The ephahwas ameasurecontaining72Romanpintsor near- 
 ly Ira English Bushel; the shekel was a fixed weight, by which, 
 up to the time of the Captivity*, money was still weighed ; 
 and that, for the price of bread also^. They increased the 
 price both ways, dishonestly and in hypocrisy, paring down 
 the quantity which they sold, and obtaining more silver by fic- 
 titious weights; and weighing in uneven balances. All such 
 dealings had been expressly forbidden by God ; and that, as 
 the condition of their remaining in the land which God had 
 given them^". Thou shall not have in thy bag divers iceights, 
 a great and a small. Thou shall not have in thy house divers 
 measures, a great and a small. But thou shall have a perfect 
 and just weight ; a perfect ami fust measure shall thou have, 
 that thy days may he lengthened iu the land which the -Lord 
 thy God giveth thee. Sin in wrong measures, once begun, is 
 unbroken. All sin perpetuates itself. It is done again, be- 
 cause it has been done before. But sins of a man's daily oc- 
 cupation are continued of necessity, beyond the simple force 
 of habit and the ever-increasing dropsy of covetousness. To 
 interrupt sin is to risk detection. But then how countless the 
 sins, which their poor slaves must needs commit hourly, when- 
 ever the occasion comes! And yet. although among us human 
 law recognises the Divine law and annexes punishment to 
 its breach, covetousness sets both at nought. When human 
 law was enforced in a city after a time of negligence, scarcely 
 a weight was found to be honest. Prayer went up to God on 
 the sabbath, and fraud on the poor went up to God in every 
 transaction on the other six days. We admire the denuncia- 
 tions of Amos, and condemn the make-believe service of God. 
 Amos denounces us, and we condemn ourselves. Righteous 
 dealing in weights and measures was one of the conditions of 
 the existence of God's former people. What must then be 
 our national condition before God, when, from this one sin, so 
 many thousand, thousand sins go up daily to plead against 
 us to God ? 
 
 6. That u'e may buy, or, indignantly. To buy the poor .' lit. 
 the afflicted, those in low estate. First, by dishonesty and op- 
 pression they gained their lands and goods. Then the poor 
 
 is almost always the best. 6 Ig. y. 8. ' Ps. xlii. 2. ^2 Sam. xviii. li, 
 
 1 Kings sx. 3y, Jer. xxxii. 9. ' Is. Iv. 2. '» Deut. xxv. 13-lc. 
 
 Nn2
 
 21G 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 ' ch. 6. 8. 
 
 » Hos. 8. 13. 
 & 9. 9. 
 
 1 Hos. 4. 3. 
 
 and the needy for a pair of shoes ; yea, and 
 sell the refuse of the wlieat ? 
 
 7 The Lord hath sworn by ' the excel- 
 lency of Jacob, Surely '' I will never forget 
 any of their works. 
 
 8 ' Shall not the land tremble for this, 
 and every one mourn that dvvelleth there- 
 
 were obligfed to sell themselves. The slijjht price, for which a 
 man was sold, shewed the more contempt for the image of God. 
 Before', he said, the needy were sold for a pair of scntdals ; 
 here, that they were bought for them. It seems then the more 
 likely that such was a real price for man. 
 
 [^>id sell, the refuse [lit. the fulling'] of wheat, i.e. what fell 
 throuijh the sieve, either the bran, or the thin, unfilled, f;;rains 
 which had no meal in them. This they mixed up larjn;ely with 
 the meal, making- a gain of that which they had once sifted 
 out as worthless ; or else, in a time of dearth, they sold to men 
 what was the food of animals, and made a profit on it. In- 
 fancy andinexperience of cupidity,which adulteratedits bread 
 only with bran, or sold to the poor only what, although unnou- 
 rishing, was wholesome ! But then, with the multiplied hard- 
 dealing, what manifoldness of the tvoe ! 
 
 7. By the excellency ofJucob, i. e. by Himself Who was its 
 Glory, as Samuel calls Him -//;e Strength or the Glory of Is- 
 rael. Amos had before said, God swure by His Holiness, and 
 by Himself or His soul. Now, in like way. He pledges that 
 Glory wherewith He was become the glory of His people. He 
 reminds them, JFho was the sole Source of their glory ; not 
 their calves, but Himself, their Creator ; and that He would 
 not forget their deeds. I luill not forget any, lit. all ; as David 
 and S. Paul say, all flesh, all living men, shall not be justified, 
 i. e. none, no one, neither the whole nor any of its parts. 
 Amos brings before the mind all their doings, and then says 
 of all and each, the Lord will not forget them. God must 
 cease to be God, if He did not do what He sware to do, punish 
 the oppressors and defraudcrs of the poor. 
 
 8. Shall not the land tremble for this f "^ For the greater 
 impressiveness, he ascribes to the insensate earth sense, in- 
 dignation, horror, trembling. For all creation feels the will of 
 its Creator." It shall rise up wholly as a flood, lit. like the ri- 
 ver. It is the Egyptian name for river*, which Israel brought 
 with it out of Egypt, and is used either for the Nile, or for one 
 of the iirt\1\cial trenches, derived from it. ^nd it shall be cast 
 out and droicned, lit. shall toss to and fro as the sea, and sink ° 
 as the river of Egypt. The Prophet represents the land as \ 
 heaving like the troubled sea. As the Nile rose, and its cur- 
 rents met and drove one against the other, covered and 
 drowned the whole land like one vast sea,and then sank again, 
 so the earth should rise, lift up itself, and heave, and quake, 
 shaking oflFthe burden of man's oppressions, and sink again. 
 It may be, he would describe the heaving, the rising and fall- 
 ing, of an earthquake. Perhaps, he means that as man forgat 
 all the moral laws of nature, so inanimate nature should be 
 freed from its wonted laws, and shake out its inhabitants or 
 overwhelm them by an earthquake, as in one grave. 
 
 ' ii. 6. =1 Sam. xv. 29. ' Lap. * in", the same as the Memph. iaro, "I1K3 i. q. 
 TK'D is the old reading, as appeared from Ecclus. xxiv. 27. ^ Tlie kethib rtpm is pro- 
 bably a 2nd ptculiarity as to a guttural in Amos (See ab. p. 152), as a ditl'erent pronuncia- 
 tion of what stands in tlie kri, n]ipm. ' Is. vii. 6. ? lb. 2. 
 
 8 2 Kgs. XV. 29. s lb. 30. "o lb. xvii. 1-9. " Hom. 2 on the Statues, § 2. 
 
 '2 Hitzig says, "Since the sun was to set at noonday, and since, just before, mention 
 was made of the death of Jeroboam" [rather of the destruction of tlic house of Jeroboam, 
 
 in ? and it shall rise up wholly .as a flood ; ch kTst 
 
 and it shall be cast out and drowned, "as "'■ ''^'^' 
 by the flood of Egypt. 
 
 9 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 saith the Lord God, ° that I will cause the " ^oh 5. i4. 
 
 ' Is. 13. 10. 
 
 sun to ijro down at noon, and I will darken &59. 9, n 
 
 " ' Jer. 15. 9. 
 
 the earth in the clear day : Micah 3. 6, 
 
 "ch. 9.5. 
 791. 
 
 10. 
 
 9. I will cause the sun to go down. Darkness is heaviest 
 and blackest in contrast with thebrightestliglit; sorrow is sad- 
 dest, when it comes upon fearless joy. God commonly, in His 
 mercy, sends heralds of coming sorrow; very few burst suddenly 
 on man. Now, in the meridian brightness of the day of Israel, 
 the blackness of night should fall at once upon him. Not on- 
 ly was light to be displaced by darkness, but then, when it was 
 most opposite to the course of nature. Not by gradual decay, 
 but by a sudden unlooked-for crash, was Israel to perish. Pe- 
 kah was a military chief; he had reigned more than seventeen 
 years over Israel in peace, when, together with Rezin king of 
 Damascus, he attempted to extirpate the line of David, and 
 to set a Syrian, one son of Tabeal^, on his throne. Ahaz was 
 weak, with no human power to resist ; his heart ivas moved, 
 and tlie heart of his people, as the trees of the forest are moved 
 ivith the wind''. Tiglath-pileser came upon Pekah and carried 
 oflFthe tribes beyond Jordan *. Pekah's sun set, and all was 
 night with no dawn. Shortly after, Pekah himself was mur- 
 deredby Hoshea^, as hehad himself murdered Pekahiah. After 
 an anarchy of nine years, Hoshea established himself on the 
 throne ; the nine remaining years were spent in the last con- 
 vulsive efforts of an expiring monarchy, subdual to Shalmane- 
 ser, rebellious alliance with So, king of Egypt, a three years' 
 siege, and the lamp went out'". 
 
 ^nd I tuill darken the earth at noon-day. To the mourn- 
 er "all nature seems to mourn." "Not the ground only," says 
 S. Chrysostome in the troubles at Antioch", "but the very 
 substance of the air, and the orb of the solar rays itself seems 
 to me now in a manner to mourn and to shew a duller light. 
 Not that the elements change their nature, but that our eyes, 
 confused by a cloud of sorrow, cannot receive the light from 
 it's rays purely, nor are they alike impressible. This is what 
 tlie Prophet of old said mourning. Their sun shall set to thou 
 at noon, and the day shall be darkened. Not that the sun was 
 hidden, or the day disappeared, but that the mourners could 
 see no light even in midday, for the darkness of their grief." 
 No eclipse of the sun, in which the sun might seem to be 
 shrouded in darkness at midday, has been calculated which 
 should have suggested this image to the Prophet's mind. It 
 had been thought, however, that there might be reference to 
 an eclipse of the sun which took place a few years after this 
 prophecy, viz. Feb. 9. 784, B.C. the year of the death of Jero- 
 boam II '". This eclipse did reach its height at Jerusalem a 
 little before mid-day, at 1 P 24" A.M. '3. An accurate calcula- 
 tion, however,shews that, although total in Southern latitudes, 
 the line of totality was, at the longitude of Jerusalem or Sa- 
 maria, about 1 1 degrees South Latitude, and so above 43 de- 
 grees South of Samaria, and that it did not reach the same la- 
 
 vii. 9, the mention of his own death being merely a distortion of Amaziah], " we have to 
 think of the total Eclipse which took place in the year of his death, Feb. 9. 784, which 
 reached its centre at Jerusalem about 1." '^ "9 A. M. Greenwich time, or 
 
 at 111". 24" A. M. Jerusalem time." Letter of the Rev. Robert Main, Radclift'e Obsen-er 
 and President of the Itoyal Astron. Soc. Upon my enquiringas to thefacts of this eclipse 
 to which Hitzig had drawn attention, Mr. Main kindly directed Mr. Quirling his First As. 
 sistant to compute under his own superintendence the circumstances of the Eclipse of 7&i,
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 217 
 
 chrTst ^^ -^^^^ ^ ^^''^ turn your feasts into 
 
 £l£iI?Z:_ mourninsi,", and all your sonj^s into lamen- 
 
 JeV. 48!"37'. tation ; ° and I will brinj^ up sackcloth 
 &'27.'3i/ ■ upon all loins, and baldness upon every 
 
 titudc as Samaria until near the close of the eclipse, about 64 
 degrees West of Samaria in the Easternmost part of Thibet ^ 
 "-The central eclij)se commenced in the Southern Atlantic 
 Ocean, passed nearly exactly over St. Helena ■', reached the 
 continent of Africa in Lower Guinea, traversed the interior of 
 Africa, and left it near Zanzibar, went throui!,li the Indian 
 Ocean and entered India in the Gulf of (iainbay, passed be- 
 tween Aijra and Allahabad into Thibet and reached its end on 
 the frontiers of China." The Eclipse then would hardly have 
 been noticcableatSamaria,certainlyveryfar indeed fronibeina; 
 an eclipse of such magnitude, as could in anydegree correspond 
 with tlie expression, Itvill cause the sun to go down at uooii. 
 Archbishop Ussher suggests, if true, a different coincidence. 
 "* There was an eclipse of the sun of about 10 digits in the 
 Julian year 3923 (B.C. 791,) June 24, in the Feast of Pentecost; 
 another, of about 12 digits, 20 years afterwards, 3943, B.C. 771, 
 Nov. 8, on the Day of the Feast of Tabernacles ; and a third 
 of more than 1 1 digits, on the following year 3944, May 5, on 
 the Feast of the Passover. Consider whether that prophecy of 
 Amos does not relate to it, I will cause the sun to go doivn at 
 noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day, and I will 
 turn your feasts into mourning. Which, as the Christian Fa- 
 thers have adapted in an allegorical sense to the darkness 
 at the time of our Lord's Passion in the feast of the Passover, 
 so it may have been fulfilled, in the letter, in these three great 
 eclipses, which darkened the day of the three festivals in which 
 all the males were bound to appear before the Lord. So that 
 as, among the Greeks, Thales, first, by astronomical science, 
 predicted eclipses of the sun ^, so, among the Hebrews, Amos 
 first seems to have foretold them by inspiration of the Holy 
 Spirit." The eclipses, pointed out by Ussher, must have been 
 the one total, the others very considerable ''. Beforehand, one 
 should not have expected that an eclipse of the sun, being itself 
 a regular natural ph2enonienon, and having no connection with 
 the moral government of God, should have been the subject 
 of the Prophet's prediction. Still it had a religious impres- 
 siveness then, above what it has now, on account of that wide- 
 prevailing idolatry of the sun. It exhibited the object of their 
 false worship, shorn of its light and passive. If Archbishop 
 Ussher is right as to the magnitude of those eclipses in the 
 latitude of Jerusalem, and as to the correspondence of the days 
 of the solar year, June 24,Nov. 8,May5,in those years,with the 
 days of the lunar year upon which the respective feasts fell, it 
 would be a remarkable correspondence. Still the years are 
 somewhat arbitrarily chosen,thesecondonly B.C. 771, (on which 
 the house of Jehu came to an end through the murder of the 
 weak and sottish Zechariah,) corresponding with any marked 
 event in the kingdom of Israel. On the other hand, it is the 
 
 B. C. Feb. 9. winch had "originally been calculated by Pingre (Mem. de 1' Acad, des Inscr. 
 vol.52inwhich the year is given 7S3 B. C. In I'Art de verifier les Dates, T. i. the years 
 are a!) altered by one nnit. to make them agreewith the mode of reckoning in ordinary chro- 
 nology). Mr. QuirUng, employing Hansen's lunar tables and Hansen's and Olufsen's so- 
 lar tables, found, that on the given day, there was an eclipse, which would however be very 
 small fur Palestine,andthat the apparent diameters of the sun and moon were so nearly equal 
 that at no place could the totality be of more than 40'. duration. The general conjunction 
 was at9>'. A. M. (Greenwich time, i.e. 111". 24™. Jerusalem time), of Feb. 9. and the Geo- 
 centric Semi-diameters of the Sun and Moon were ItV 7". 25. and 1(V 0". 88. at Greenwich 
 noon." "Pingre's calculation must have been tolerably accurate; forhe gives 11^ A.M. 
 Paris time." * Mr. Main has kindly furnished mewith a detailed account of the path 
 of the central eclipse from uhich the following statements are taken. ** It began — 10'^ 13' 
 lat. 347°49' long, at 19i» !"■ (7'' 1" A. M.) Greenwich Time, and ended at, +32°35'lat. 
 100° 42' long, at 22'' 32" (10'' 32">) Gr. Time." Samaria is 32° 15' lat. 35° 14' long. " The 
 
 head ; '' and I will make it as the mournini^ ^ n'^ursT 
 of an only son, and the end thereof as a '^'''- '"''<'■ 
 bitter day. " zeci^Jfio. 
 
 11 ^ Behold, the days come, saith the 
 
 more likely that the words, / luill cause the sun to go down 
 at tioon, are an image of a sudden reverse, in that Micali also 
 uses the words as an image ", the sun shall go down ujion the 
 prophets and the diiif shall he dark u])oh [or, oi;er\ them. 
 
 19. / will turn your feasts into mourning. He recurs to 
 the sentenc(! which be had pronounced **, beture he described 
 the avarice and oppression which brought it down. Hosea 
 too had foretold," 1 will cause all her mirth to cease, her feast- 
 days, t^"C'. So Jeremiah describes ^", the joy of our heart is ceas- 
 ed ; our dance is turned into mourning. The book of Tobit 
 bears witness how these sayings of Amos lived in tin; hearts 
 of the captive Israelites. The word of (iod seems ol'tentimes 
 to fail, yet it timis those who are His. I rcmemhered, he 
 said '^ that prophecy of ./It/ios, your feasts shall he turned into 
 mourning. 
 
 The correspondence of these words with the miracle at our 
 Blessed Lord's Passion, in that the earth teas- darkened in the 
 clear day, at noon-day, wm noticed by the earliest Fathers'-, and 
 that the more, since it took place at the Feast of the Passover, 
 and, in punishment for that sin, ihevv feasts were turned ijito 
 9nouruing,]n the desolation of their country and the cessation 
 of their worship. 
 
 / 7vill bring up sackcloth (i. e. the rough coarse hair- 
 cloth, which, being fastened with the girdle tight over the 
 loins^'jWas wearing to the frame) and baldness ujujit every head. 
 The mourning of the Jews was no half-mourning, no painless 
 change of one colour of becoming dress for another. For the 
 time, they were dead to the world or to enjoyment. As the 
 clothing was coarse, uncomely, dis_ ressing, so they laid aside 
 every ornament, the ornament of their hair also (as English 
 widows used, on the same princi])le,to cover it). They shore 
 it off; each sex, what was the pride of their sex ; the men, their 
 beards; the women, their long hair. The strong words, Zia/rf- 
 ness, is balded^*, shear^', hew off^^,e7ilarge thy baldness^'', are used 
 to shew the completeness of this expression of sorrow. None 
 exempted themselves in the universal sorrow; on every head 
 came up baldness. 
 
 And I u-ill make it (probably, the whole state and condi- 
 tion of things, everything, as we use our it) as the mourning 
 of an only so7i. As, when God delivered Israel from Egypt, 
 there was not. among the Egyptians, a house tchere there was 
 not one dead ^'*, and one universal cry arose from end to end of 
 the land, so now too in apostate Israel. The whole mourn- 
 ing should be the one most grievous mourning of parents, over 
 the one child in whom they themselves seemed anew to live. 
 
 A?id the end thereof as a bitter day. Most griefs have a 
 rest or pause, or wear themselves out. The end of this should 
 be like the beginning, nay, one concentrated grief, a whole day 
 
 path of the central eclipse was— 14 lat. 30° G' long. ;— 10 lat. 3S° 14' long." - M r. Main's 
 fetter. ^ Every place here mentioned was '• rigorously computed " by Mr. Quirling. 
 
 ■* Usserii Annales, A. M. 3213. p. 45. fol. [Prof. Dentin has verified Ussher's statement 
 as to the eclipse Nov. 8. 771 B. C.,and calculatedthat it was visible inPalestine at 12.55. 
 P. M. Dr Stanley, (J. Ch. ii. 3(i3.) who reports this, supposes, in the way of his school, 
 that Amos might be alluding to a past event, contrary' to the date Am. i. 1, according to 
 which he prophesied not later than 784 B.C. Ed. 2.1 * See Rawl. on Herod, i. 74. 
 
 T. i. p. 212. * Mr. Main tells me that, in the old mode of marking eclipses.the whole was 
 divided into 12 digits, so that eclipses of 12 digits were total ; those ot II and 10, large. 
 
 ? Mic.ii.C D'o'ijnH'C'CE'.inMi Am.cct?nT((3m. Sver.3. ^ii.ll. '"Lam. v. 15. 
 
 '1 Tub. ii. 0. '- S. Iren. iv. ;S,'i. 12. Tert. in Marc. iv. 42. S. Cypr. Test. ii. 23. p. 58. 
 Oxf. Tr. S. Cvril, Cat. xiii. 25. Eus. Dem. Ev. x.6. " See ab. Joel i. 8,13. pp. 107, 
 109. '■' Jer. xvi. 6. '* m Mic. i.l6,Jer. vii. 29. "^ 1~J (Is xv. 2, Jer. xlviii. 37) 
 although less strong than jnJ, is harsher than the ordinary n?:. '^Mic.l.c. '^ Ex. xii.30.
 
 218 
 
 AMOS. 
 
 chrTst ^'^^^ ^""' ^^^^ ^ ^^''^ ^^"^^ ^ famine in the 
 
 "ir. 787. land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst 
 
 « 1 Sam. 3. 1. for Water, but <' of hearing the words of 
 
 Ps. 74. a , . J 
 
 Ezek. 7. 26. the IjOBD : 
 
 12 And they shall wander from sea to 
 sea, and from the north even to the 
 east, they shall run to and fro to seek 
 
 of bitter irrief summed up in its close. It was to be no pass- 
 ing trouble, but one wbioh sbould end in bitterness, an unend- 
 ing sorrow and destruction; image of the undying death in hell. 
 
 11. Not a famine for bread. He does not deny that there 
 should be bodily famine too ; but this, grievous as it is, would 
 be less grievous than the famine of which he speaks, the fa- 
 mine of the u'ord of the Lord. In distress we all go to God. 
 "iThey who now cast out and despise the prophets, when 
 they shall see themselves besieged by the enemy, shall be tor- 
 mented with a great hunger of hearing the word of the Lord 
 from the mouths of the prophets, and shall find no one to light- 
 en their distresses. This was most sad to the people of God; 
 ^ive see not otir tokens ; there is not one prophet more ; there is 
 not one with us who miderstandeth, hoiv long '. " Even the pro- 
 fane, when they see no help, will have recourse to God. Saul, 
 in his extremity, '^enquired of the Lord, and He answered him 
 not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Jero- 
 boam sent his wife to enquire of the prophet Ahijah about his 
 son's health*. They sought for temporal relief only,and there- 
 fore found it not. 
 
 12. They shall wander, lit. reel. The word is used of the 
 reeling of drunkards, of the swaying to and fro of trees in the 
 wind, of the quivering of the lips of one agitated, and then of 
 the unsteady seeking of persons bewildered, looking for what 
 they know not where to find. From sea to sea, from the sea of 
 Galilee to the Mediterranean, i.e. from East to West, and 
 from the North even to the sitnrising, round again to the East, 
 whence their search had begun, where light should be, and 
 was not. It may be, that Amos refers to the description of 
 the land by Moses, adapting it to the then separate condition 
 of Ephraim, ^your South border shall be from the extremity of 
 the Salt sea (Dead sea) Eastward — and the goings oiet of it shall 
 be at the sea, and for the Western border ye shall have the great 
 sea for a border. And this shall be your North border — and 
 the border shall descend and shall reach to the side of the sea of 
 Chinnereth Easticard. Amos docs not mention the South, be- 
 cause there alone, where they might have found, where the 
 true worship of God was, they did not seek. Had they sought 
 God in Judah, instead of seeking to aggrandise themselves by 
 its subdual, Tiglath-pileser would probably never have come 
 against them. One expedition only in the seventeen years of 
 his reign was directed Westward ^, and that was at the peti- 
 tion of Ahaz. 
 
 The principle of God's dealings, that, in certain conditions 
 of a sinful people, He will withdraw His word, is instanced in 
 Israel, not limited to it. God says to Ezekiel^, I will make 
 thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, and thou shalt be 
 dumb ; and shalt not be to them a reprover ; for it is a rebelli- 
 ous house ; and Ezekiel says ^, Destruction shall come upon de- 
 struction, and rumour shall be upon rumour, and they shall seek 
 a vision from the prophet, and the laiv shall perish from the priest 
 
 ' Ril'. " Ps. Ixxiv. 9. 3 ISam. xxviii. 6. •! 1 Kings xiv. 2, 3. 
 
 ' Num. xxxiv. 3-12. « Rawl. Herod. i.470. 1 Ezek. iii. 26. » vii. 26. 
 
 » from S. Chrys. in Is. vi. l.Hom. 4. T. vi. p. 130. 
 
 the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. ch^'j'st 
 
 13 In that day shall the fair virgins and ""'• ^^^- 
 young men faint for thirst. 
 
 14 They that 'swear by "the sin of Sa-^ oeut.g. 21. 
 maria, and say. Thy God, O Dan, liveth ; %et W9.'2. 
 and, The f manner ' of lieer-sheba liveth ; & 19.' 9, 23. 
 even they shall fall, and never rise up again 
 
 & 24. 14. 
 • ' ch. 5. 5. 
 
 and counsel from the ancients. " 'God turns away from them, 
 and checks the grace of prophecy. For since they neglected 
 His law, He, on His side, stays tiie prophetic gift. And the 
 word rvas precious in those days, there iras no open vision, i. e. 
 God did not speak to them through the I'rophets; He breathed 
 not upon them the Spirit through which they spake. He did 
 not appear to them, but is silent and hidden. There was si- 
 lence, enmity between God and man." 
 
 13. In this hopelessness as to all relief, those too shall 
 fail and sink under their sufferings, in whom life is freshest 
 and strongest and hope most buoyant. Hope mitigates any 
 sufferings. When hope is gone, the powers of life, which it 
 sustains, give way. They shall faint for thirst, lit. "shall be 
 mantled over, covered^V' 'is, in fact, one fainting seems to feel 
 as if a veil came over his brow and eyes. Thirst, as it is an in- 
 tenser suffering than bodily hunger, includes sufferings of body 
 and mind. If even over those, whose life was firmest, a veil 
 came, and they fainted for thirst, what of the rest? 
 
 14. TVhosivear, \\X.the sweuring,t\\e,y v{\\o habitually swear. 
 He assigns, at the end, the ground of all this misery, the for- 
 saking of God. God had commanded that all appeals by oath 
 should be made to Himself, Who alone governs the world, to 
 Whom alone His creatures owe obedience, Who alone revenges. 
 ^1 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve Him and swear 
 by His Name. On the other hand Joshua warned them 1^, 
 Neither make mention of the name of their gods nor cause to 
 stcear by them nor serve them. But these sware by the siyi of 
 Samaria, probably the calf at Bethel, which was nigh to Sa- 
 maria and the centre of their idolatry, whence Hosea calls it 
 thy calf^^. Thy calf O Samaria, hath cast thee off. The calf 
 of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. He calls it the guilt of 
 Samaria, as the source of all their guilt, as it is said of the 
 princes of Judah using this same word^*, they left the house of 
 the Lord God of their fathers, and served idols, atid ivrath came 
 upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. And say, thy 
 god. O Dan ! liveth, i. e. as surely as thy god liveth ! by the life 
 of thy god ! as they who worshipped God said, as the Lord liv- 
 eth ! It was a direct substitution of the creature for the Crea- 
 tor, an ascribing to it the attribute of God ; as the Father hath 
 life in Himself ^^. It was an appeal to it, as the Avenger of 
 false-swearing, as though it were the moral Governor of the 
 world. 
 
 The manjier of Beersheba liveth ! lit. the way. This may 
 be, either the religion and worship of the idol there, as S. Paul 
 says, J persecuted this way unto the death^^, whence Moham- 
 med learnt to speak of his imposture, as " the way of God." 
 Or it might mean the actual icay to Beersheba, and may sig- 
 nify all the idolatrous places of worship in the way thither. 
 They seem to have made the way thither one long avenue of 
 idols, culminating in it. For Josiah, in his great destruction 
 of idolatry ", gatheredallthe priests from thecities of Judah, and 
 
 10 The metaphor occurs both in Heb. and Arab. " Deut. vi. 13, x. 20. 
 
 12 Josh, xxiii. 7. 13 Hos. viii. 5, 6. » 2Chr.xxiv.l8. i^ S.John v. :i6. 
 
 "« Acts xxii. 4, add ix. 2, xix. 9, 23. 17 2 Kings xxiii. 8.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 219 
 
 chrTst chapter IX. 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 '1 The certainty of the desolation. 11 The re- 
 storing of the tabernacle of David. 
 
 I SAW the Lord stanclinj^ upon the al- 
 tar: and he said, Smite the 11 lintel of 
 
 chapiter, i i i i 
 
 or, imop. the door, that the posts may shake : and 
 
 II Or, wound .. .iiiiifi 
 
 them. " cut them m the head, all or them : and 
 
 Hab.V.13. I will slay the last of them with the 
 
 defiled the high-places, u'here the priests sacrificed from Gehah 
 to Beerslieha: ()nly,this may perhaps simply describe the whole 
 territory of Judah from North to South. Any how, Beersheba 
 stands for the fjod worshipped there, as, whoso siuare hy the 
 Temple, sware, our Lord tells us^, bii it and hy Him that dtvell- 
 eth therein. 
 
 IX. \ . I saw the Lord. He saw God in vision ; yet God no 
 more, as before, asked him what he saw. God no longer shews 
 him emblems of the destruction, but the destruction itself. 
 Since Amos had just been speaking of the idolatry of Sama- 
 ria, as tlie g:round of its utter destruction, doubtless this vi- 
 sion of such utter destruction of the place of worship, with 
 and ujion the worshippers, relates to those same idolaters and 
 idolatries-. True, the condemnation of Israel would become 
 the condemnation of Judah, when Judah's sins, like Israel's, 
 should become complete. But directly, it can hardly relate 
 to any other than those spoken of before and after, Israel. 
 The altar, then, over^ which Amos sees God stand, is doubtless 
 the altar on which Jeroboam sacrificed, the altar wliich he set 
 up over-asfainst the altar at Jerusalem, the centre of the calf- 
 worship, whose destruction the man of God foretold on the 
 day of its dedication. There where, in counterfeit of the sa- 
 crifices which God had appointed, they offered would-be-aton- 
 ing sacrifices and sinned in them, God appeared, standing, to 
 behold, to judge, to condemn, ^ttd He said, smite the lintel, 
 lit. the chapter, or capital, probably so called from crowning 
 the pillar with a globular form, like a pomegranate. This, 
 the spurious outward imitation of the true sanctuary, God 
 commands to be stricken, that the posts, or probably the thresh- 
 holds. may shake. The building was struck from above, and 
 reeled to its base. It does not matter, whether any blow on 
 the capital of a pillar would make the whole fabric to shake. 
 For the blow was no blow of man. God gives the command 
 probably to the Angel of the Lord, as, in Ezekiel's vision of 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, the charge to destroy was given 
 to six men*. So the first-born of Egypt, the army of Senna- 
 cherib, %vere destroyed by an Angela An Angel stood with 
 his sword over Jerusalem", when God punished David's pre- 
 sumption in numbering the people. At one blow of the hea- 
 venly Agent the whole building shook, staggered, fell. 
 
 And cut tliem in the head, all of them''. This may be either 
 by the direct agency of the Angel, or the temple itself may be 
 represented as fallingon the headof the worshippers. As God, 
 through Jehu, destroyed all the worshippers of Baal in the 
 house of Baal, so here He foretells, under a like image, the de- 
 struction of all the idolaters of Israel. He had said, they that 
 swear by the sin of Samaria — shall fall and never rise up again. 
 Here he represents the place of that worship, the idolaters, 
 
 ' S. Matt, xxiii. 21. - S. Jer. Theod. understand it of" the altar" at Jerusalem. 
 
 3 not, i/pon._ -1 Ezek. ix. 2. * Ex. xii. 23, 2 Kgs. xix. 34, 5. « 2 Sam. xxiv. 
 1, 15, Ui. " Otliers render, break them. i. e. the capitals, in pieces o>; the head of all of 
 them ; but ysa signifies cut, wound, rather than break ; and the plural 0-, is more naturally 
 referred to the same objects as d1>3, than to the singular -msj. s i.\. 9. 9 2 Kings 
 
 sword : '' he that fleeth of them shall not flee „ B?!<>re 
 
 C HRI ST 
 
 away, and he that escapeth of them shall not '^'^•"S7- ^ 
 be delivered. ^ch.2.M. 
 
 2 "^Thoui^h they dij;^ into hell, thence "= p»- i39. 8. 
 shall mine liand take them ; ''thoujrh thev '' J"!' 20.0. 
 
 ,. , , ' !-i J Jcr. 51.53. 
 
 eliml) up to heaven, thence will I bring obad.4. 
 them down ; 
 
 3 And though they hide themselves 
 in the top of Carmel, I will search and 
 
 as It seems, crowded there, and the command given to destroy 
 thein all. All Israel was not to be destroyed. Not the least 
 grain was to full upon the earth^. Those then here represented 
 as destroyed to the last man, must be a distinct class. Those 
 destroyed in the temple must be the worshippers in the tem- 
 ple. In the Temple of God at Jerusalem, none entered except 
 the priests. Even the space between the porch and the altar 
 was set apart for the priests. But heresy is necessarily ir- 
 reverent, because, not worshipping the One God, it had no 
 Object of reverence. Hence the temple of Baal was full from 
 end to end^, and the worsliippers of the sun at Jerusalem 
 turned their backs toward the Innple, and worshipped the sun 
 towards the East, at the door of the Temple, between the porch 
 and the altar^". The worshippers of the calves were com- 
 manded to hiss ^1 them, and so must have filled the temple, 
 where they were. 
 
 A/id I will slay the last of them. The Angel is bidden to 
 destroy those gathered in open idolatry in one place. God, 
 by His Omniscience, reserved the rest for His own judgment. 
 All creatures, animate or inanimate, rational or irrational, 
 stand at His command to fulfil His will. The mass of idola- 
 ters having perished in their idolatry, the rest, not crushed in 
 the fall of the temple, would fain flee away, but fie thatjieeth 
 shall not flee, God says, to any good to themselves ^- ; yea, al- 
 though they should do what for man is impossible, they should 
 not escape God, 
 
 2. Height or depth are alike open to the Omnipresent 
 God. The grave is not so aweful as God. The sinner would 
 gladly dig through into hell, bury himself, the living among 
 the dead, if so he could escape the sight of God. But thence, 
 God says, 31y hand shall take them, to place them in His pre- 
 sence, to receive their sentence. Or if, like the rebel angels, 
 they could place their throne amid the stars^'^ of God, thence will 
 I bring them doivu, humbling, judging, condemning. 
 
 3. He had contrasted heaven and hell, as places impossi- 
 ble for man to reach ; as David says, ^^ If J ascend into heaven, 
 Thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold Thee. Now, of 
 places in a manner accessible, he contrasts Mount Carmel, 
 which rises abruptly out of the sea, with depths of that ocean 
 which it overhangs. Carmel was in two ways a hiding place. 
 1) Through its caves (some say 1000^% some 2000) with which 
 it is perforated, whose entrance sometimes scarcely admits a 
 single man ; so close to each other, that a pursuer would not 
 discern into which the fugitive had vanished ; so serpentine 
 within, that, " 10 steps apart," says a traveller i", "we could 
 hear each others' voices.but could not see each other." "^'Car- 
 mel is perforated by hundredfold greater or lesser clefts. Even 
 in the garb of loveliness and richness, the majestic Mount, 
 
 X.2I. "> Ezek.viii. 16, xi. 1. " Hos. xiii. 2. '- the force of on'?. "Is. 
 
 xiv. 12-14. '^ Ps. cxxxix. 8. '* " The caves in Carmel are exceeding many. 
 
 especially on the VV. It is said above lOOfl. In cue part, there are 400 close together." v. 
 Richter, 65. " more than 2000," Mislin, Les Saints Lieux, ii. 46. in Smith's Bibl. Diet. 
 16 Schuiz, Leit. d, Hochstens, v. 186. Paulus, Reisen, vii. 43. '< v. Schubert, iii. 205.
 
 220 
 
 A]MOS, 
 
 chrTst t*^^ t^^^*" **"* t^i^"<^*''' ^"*^ though they 
 cir. "sr. be hid from my sight in the hottom of 
 the sea, thence will I command the ser- 
 pent, and he shall hite them : 
 
 4 And though they go into captivity 
 
 «Lev. 20. 33^ before their enemies, ' thence will I com- 
 
 Ezek.5.'i2.' maud the sword, and it shall slay them : 
 
 and ' I will set mine eyes upon them for ^ h iff st 
 evil, and not for good. "'■ ''^'^• 
 
 I Lev. 17. 10. 
 
 5 And the Lord God of hosts is he jir. 44.11. 
 that toucheth the land, and it shall ^melt, « Mici-*- 
 ■"and all that dwell therein shall mourn : i" cii. 8. 8. 
 and it shall rise up wholly like a flood ; and 
 shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. 
 
 by its clefts, caves, and rocky battlements, excites in the 
 wanderer who sees them for the first time, a feeling of min- 
 gled wonder and fear. — A whole army of enemies, as of na- 
 ture's terrors, could hide themselves in these rock-clefts." 2) 
 Its summit, about 1800 feet above the sea\ "is covered with 
 pines and oaks, and lower down with olive and laurel trees-." 
 These forests furnished hiding places to rol)l)er-hordes^ at 
 the time of our Lord. In those caves, Elijah probably at times 
 was hidden from the persecution of Ahab and Jezebel. It 
 seems to be spoken of as his abode*, as also one resort of Eli- 
 sha\ Carmel, as the Western extremity of the land, project- 
 ing into tlie sea, was the last place which a fugitive would 
 reach. If he found no safety there, there was none in his 
 whole land. Nor was there by sea; 
 
 yitid though the]/ he hid [rather, hide themselves] from My 
 sight in the bottom of the sea, thence ivill I co7nmand the serpent. 
 The sea too has its deadly serpents. Their classes are few; 
 the individuals in those classes are much more numerous than 
 those of the land-serpents^. Their shoals have furnished to 
 sailors tokens of approaching land". Their chief abode, as 
 traced in modern times, is between the Tropics''. The ancients 
 knew of them, perhaps in the Persian gulf or perhaps the Red 
 Sea 8. All are "'highly venomous" and "i^yery ferocious." 
 "^'The virulence of their venom is equal to that of the most 
 pernicious land-serpents." All things, with their will or with- 
 out it through animal instinct, as the serpent, or their savage 
 passions, as the Assyrian, fulfil the will of God. As, at His 
 command, the fish whom He had prepared, swallowed Jonah, 
 for his preservation, so, at His comjnand, the serpent should 
 come forth from the recesses of the sea to the sinner's greater 
 suffering 
 
 4. Cffjo//i'?7?/, at least, seemed safe. The horrors of war 
 are over. Men enslave, but do not commonly destroy those 
 whom theyhave once been at the pains to carry captive. Amos 
 describes them in their misery, as going willingly, gladly, in- 
 to captivity before their enemies, like a flock of sheep. Yet 
 thence too, out of the captivity ,GoA would command the sword, 
 and it should slay them. So God had forewarned them by Mo- 
 ses, that captivity should be an occasion, not an end, of slaugh- 
 ter. ^- / will scatter yon among the heathen, and tvill draw out 
 a sword after you. ^'^^nd ainong these nations shall thou find 
 no ease — and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou 
 shall fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of 
 
 > V.de Velde, Mcm.177. ^ Rjchter, 6fi. ' Strab. 16. 2. 2S. 
 
 *1 Kings xviii. HI. 5 2Kingsii. 25, iv.25. « Cantor, in Zoolog. Trans. T.ii. n. 
 xxi.p. .306. 7 "Intertropical, or near the tropics, between 90 and 230 degree long, meri- 
 dian of Ferro." Schlegel, Essai sur la physion. d. serpens, p. 491. Cantor, ib. Orr i " The 
 HydroTihula? are found exclusively in the seas of the warmer parts of the Eastern He- 
 misphLie, on the coasts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Some of them occur as far 
 South as the coasts of N. Zealand and Australia. A few are found occasionally in salt- 
 water tanks and canals, but they usually confine themselves to the Ocean, andrarely ascend 
 beyond the mouths of rivers.— They are exceedingly venomous and are regarded with 
 great dread by the fishermen in whose nets thev are' not unfrequently caught." Circle 
 of the Sciences, T. iii. p. HI. Dr. RoUeston (Linacre Professor at Oxford) who kindly 
 supplied me with these facts informs me that up to this time thehydrophidsehaveonly been 
 found "in the Indian and the Pacific and the seas which are their dependencies;" but he 
 drew my attention to the extreme warmth ot the Red Sea and the causes of that warmth. 
 
 « " It IS in great measute from the statements of the Ancients, that the presence of the 
 Uydrophidas in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf has been asserted; which may well be, 
 
 thy life. The book of Esther shews how cheaply the life of 
 a whole nation was held by Eastern conquerors ; and the book 
 of Tobit records, how habitually Jews were slain and cast out 
 unburied^*. The account also that Sennacherib^^ avenged 
 the loss of his army, and in his wrath killed many, is altogetlier 
 in tiie character of Assyrian con([uerors. Unwittingly he 
 fulfilled the command of God, I will command the sword and 
 it shall slay tnem. 
 
 I will set mine eyes upon them for evil. So David says, 
 1^ The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are 
 open to their prayers. The Face of the Lord is against them 
 that do evil, to root out the remembrance of them from off' the 
 earth. The Eye of God rests on each creature which He hath 
 made, as entirely as if He had created it alone. Every mo- 
 ment is passed in His unvarying sight. But, as man sets his 
 eye on man, watching him and with purpose of evil, so God's 
 Eye is felt to be on man in displeasure, when sorrow and ca- 
 lamity track him and overtake him, coming he knows not how, 
 in unlooked-for ways and strange events. The Eye of God 
 upon us is our whole hope and stay and life. It is on the Con- 
 fessor in prison, the Martyr on the rack, the poor in their suf- 
 ferings, the mourner in the chamber of death, for good. What 
 when everywhere that Eye, the Source of all good, rests on His 
 creature only for evil ! and not for good, he adds ; 7iot, as is the 
 wont and the Nature of God ; not, as He had promised, if they 
 were faithful ; not, as perhaps they thought, for good. He ut- 
 terly shuts out all hope of good. It shall be all evil, and no 
 good, such as is hell. 
 
 5. And Who is He Who should do this ? God, at Whose 
 command are all creatures. This is the hope of His servants ; 
 whence Hezekiah begins his prayer, Lord of hosts, God of Is- 
 rael^''. This is the hopelessness of His enemies. That touch- 
 eth the land or earth, and it shall melt, rather, hath melted. 
 His Will and its fulfilment are one. ^* He spake, and it was ; 
 He commanded and it stood fast. His Will is first, as the 
 cause of what is done ; in time they co-exist. He hath no need 
 to put forth His strength ; a touch, the slightest indication of 
 His Will, sufficeth. If the solid earth, how much more its in- 
 habitants ! So the Psalmist says, ^' The heathen raged, the 
 kingdoms icere moved ; He uttered His voice, the earth ytielted. 
 The hearts of men melt when they are afraid of His Presence ; 
 human armies melt away, dispersed ; the great globe itself 
 shall dissolve into its ancient chaos at His Will. 
 
 although their observations need confirmation from further researches." Schlegel, p. 490. 
 The accuracv of Plinvvs statement as to their venom, which modern enquiry has confirm- 
 ed, (Schlegel,?. 4-8S. Dumeril, Erpetologie vii. 1316-18. Cantor, p. 303, 6, 9, 10, U.Orr, 
 above) shews that he must have known the creature. " The most beautiful kind of snake 
 in the world is that which lives in the waters too; they are called hydri ; inferior in ve- 
 nom to none of the serpents." N. H. xxix. 4. 22. More than half of the Red Sea is within 
 the tropics, and it is, from it's narrowness perhaps and the hot winds which blow over it 
 from the deserts, one of the warmest seas : but it has been very little examined. Burck- 
 hardt says (Syria, +49) of the Gulfof Akaba, "the sands on the shore everywhere bore the 
 impression of the passage of serpents, crossing each other in many directions. Ayd [an 
 Arab fisher] told me that serpents were very common in these parts, that the fishermen 
 were very much afraid of them." But these must have been land serpents. It is possible 
 that both the Hebrews and Plinv knew of them through the commerce with India. 
 
 « Cantor, p. 303. '» "Id. 307. " Id. 309. '= Lev. xxvi. 33. 
 
 >3 Deut. xxviii. 65, 6. " Tob. i. 17, ii. 3. '^ lb. i. 18. '« Ps. xxxiv. 15, 16. 
 17 Is. xxxvii. 16. IS Ps. xxxiii. 9. '» Ps. xlvi. 6.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 221 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 787. 
 
 II Or, 
 
 spheres. 
 •f Heb. 
 
 ascensions. 
 ■ Ps. 104. :i, 13. 
 II Orbuudte. 
 k ch. 5. 8. 
 ' ch. 4. 13. 
 
 6 It is he that hulhleth his || f' stories in 
 the heaven, and hath founded his || troop 
 in the earth ; he that ^ caUeth for the wa- 
 ters of the sea, and poureth them out up- 
 on the face of the earth: 'The Lord is 
 his name. 
 
 6. He that bidldcth His stories. The %Vord commonly 
 means steps, nor is there any reason to alter it. We read of 
 the third heaven^, the heavens of heavens''' ; i. e. heavens to 
 which this heaven is as earth. They are different ways of ex- 
 pressinc; the vast unseen space which God has created, divid- 
 ed, as we know, throiii^h the distance of the fixed stars, into 
 countless portions, of which the lower, or further removed, 
 are but as steps to the Presence of the Great Kinir, where, 
 above all heavens^, Christ sitteth at the Rig^ht Hand of God. 
 It conies to the same, if we suppose the word to mean upper 
 chambers*. The metaphor would still signify heavens above 
 our heavens. 
 
 ylnd hath founded His troop [lit. hand ^] in the earth ; pro- 
 bably, /«z<«f/«/ His arch upon the earth, i. e. His visible heaven, 
 which seems, like an arch, to span the earth. The whole then 
 describes " all things visible and invisible ;" all of this our solar 
 system, and all beyond it, the many gradations to the Throne 
 of God. "^ He AsWy bid Ideth His stories in the heavens, when 
 He raiseth up His saints from things below to heavenly places, 
 presiding over them, ascending in them. In devout wayfarers 
 too, whose conversation is in Heaven'^, He ascendeth, sublime- 
 ly and mercifully indwelling their hearts. In those who have 
 the fruition of Himself in those Heavens, He ascendeth by the 
 glory of beatitude and the loftiest contemplation, as He walk- 
 eth in those who walk, and resteth in those who rest in Him." 
 
 To this description of His power, Amos, as before ^, adds 
 that signal instance of its exercise on the ungodly, the flood, 
 the pattern and type of judgments which no sinner escapes. 
 God then hath the power to do this. Why should He not? 
 
 Are 7/e not as children of the Ethiopiaiis unto Me, O children 
 of Israel! Their boast and confidence was that they were 
 children of the Patriarch, to whom God made the promises. 
 But they, not following the faith nor doing the deeds of Is- 
 rael, who was a prince tvifh God, or of Abraham, the father of 
 the faithful, had, for Beiie Israel, children of Israel, become as 
 Sene Cushiim, children of the Ethiopiaiis, descendants of Ham, 
 furthest off from the knowledge and grace of God, the un- 
 changeableness of whose colour was an emblem of unchange- 
 ableness in evil. ** Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leo- 
 pard his spots ? then jnay ye also do good, that are accustomed 
 to do evil. 
 
 Have I not brought up [Did I not bring ?<p] Israel out of 
 the land of Egypt ? Amos blends in one their plea and God's 
 answer. God, by bringing them up out of Egypt, had pledg- 
 ed His truth to them to be their God, to protect and preserve 
 them. True ! so long as they retained God as their God, and 
 kept His laws. God chose them, that they might choose Him. 
 By casting Him off, as their Lord and God, they cast them- 
 selves off and out of God's protection. By estranging them- 
 selves from God, they became as strangers in His sight. His 
 act in bringing them up from Egypt had lost its meaning for 
 them. It became no more than any other event in His Pro- 
 
 ' 2 Cor. xii. 2. - Deut. x. 14, 1 Kings viii. 27, Ps. cxiviii. 4. ' Eph. iv. 10. 
 
 * as if mSyD were the same as rvSy. * It is used of "a bunch of hyssop" 
 
 (Ex. xii. 22) ; " bands oi a yoke" (Is. Iviii. 6); "a band of men" (2 Sam. ii. 25); hence in 
 Arab. Ijad signihesan arch, as firmly held together, as our apse is from the Greek Uir-rm. 
 
 7 Are ye not as chihlren of the Etliio- cuhTst 
 pians unto me, () (;hihlren of Israel? saitli '>^''- 
 the Lord, Have not I })rouirht up Israel 
 out of the land of E«^yj)t ? and the •" Phi- " Jtr-47.4. 
 listines from " Caphtor, and the Syrians " i^>™t- 2. 23. 
 from " Kir? ■> ch. i.s. 
 
 vidence, by which Me brought up the Philistines from Cujiiitor, 
 who yet were aliens from Him, and the Syrians from Kir, who, 
 He had foretold, siiould he carried back tliither. 
 
 This immigration of the Pliilistines from Caphtor must have 
 taken place before the return of Israel from Egypt, ['or Mo- 
 ses says'". The Caphtorim,u'ho came forth from (laphtor, had 
 at this time destroyed the Avvim ivho dwelt in villages unto 
 Gazah, and dwelt in their stead. An entire! <-liang(! in their 
 affairs had also taken place in the four centuries and a half 
 since the days of Isaac. In the time of Abraham and Isaac, 
 Philistia was a kingdom ; its capital, Gerar. Its king had a 
 standing army, Phichol being the captain of the host " .-he had 
 also a privy councillor, Ahuzzath ^■. From the time after the 
 Exodus, Pbilistia had ceased to be a kingdom, Gerar disap- 
 pears from history ; the power of Philistia is concentrated in 
 five new towns, Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Ekron, with 
 five heads, who consult and act as one i''. The Caphtorim 
 are in some sense also distinct from the old Philistines. They 
 occupy a district not co-extensive with either the old or the 
 new land of the Philistines. In the time of Saul, another Phi- 
 listine clanisnientioned,theCherethite. TheAmalekites made 
 a marauding inroad into the South country of the Chere- 
 thites 1* ; whiclvimmediately afterwards is called '^ the land of 
 the Philistines. Probably then, there were different immi- 
 grations of the same tribe into Palestine, as tliere were dif- 
 ferent immigrations of Danes or Saxons into England, or as 
 there have been and are from the old world into tiie new, 
 America and Australia. They were then all merged in one 
 common name, as English, Scotch, Irish, are in the United 
 States. The first immigration may have been that from the 
 Casluhim, oid of tuhom came Philistiin ^^■, a second, from the 
 Caphtorim, a kindred people, since they are named next to the 
 Casluhim 1^, as descendants of Mizraim. Yet a third were 
 doubtless the Cherethini. But all were united under the one 
 name of Philistines, as Britons, Danes, Saxons, Normans, are 
 united under the one name of English. Of these immigra- 
 tions, that from Caphtor, even if (as seems probable) second 
 in time, was the chief; which agrees with the great accession 
 of strength, which the Philistines had received at the time 
 of the Exodus; whence the Mediterranean had come to be 
 called by their name, the sea of the Philistines '^^ ; and, in Mo- 
 ses' song of thanksgiving, the inhabitants of Philistia are nam- 
 ed on a level with all the iidiahitaids of Canaan '^ ; and God led 
 His people by the way of JNIount Sinai, in order not to expose 
 them at once to so powerful an enemy ^°. A third immigra- 
 tion of Cherethini, in the latter part of the period of the Judges, 
 would account for the sudden increase of strength, which they 
 seem then to have received. For whereas heretofore those 
 whom God employed to chasten Israel in their idolatries, were 
 kings of Mesopotamia, Moab, Hazor, Midian, Amalek, and the 
 children of the East-', and Philistia had, at the beginning of 
 the period, lost Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron ^-, to Israel, and 
 
 « Dion. '• Phil. iii. 20. 8 y. S. ' Jer. xiii. 23. 
 
 '» Deut. ii.23. " Gen. xxi. 22, xxvi. 26. " lb. xxvi. 26. '3 See above, 
 
 on i. 6-8. '* 1 Sam. xxx. 14. '^ lb. 16. 16 Gen. x. 14. >7 lb. 
 
 >8 Ex. ixiii.31. " lb. xv. 14, 15. =» lb. xiu. 17. =' Judg. ui.— x.5. ■^- Ib.i. IS. 
 

 
 222 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chrYst ^ Behold, p the eyes of the Lord God 
 ''^'- are upon the sinful kini^dom, and I ■' will 
 
 « jfr! 30.11. destroy it from off tlie face of the earth; 
 okid.iti'/i?; s^^''"n that I will not utterly destroy 
 the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. 
 
 9 For, lo, I will command, and I will f sift 
 
 \ Heb. cause 
 to move. 
 
 was repulsed by Shamj^ar, thenceforth, to the time of David, 
 they became the great scourge oflsrael on the West of Jordan, 
 as Amnion was on the East. 
 
 The Jewish traditions in the LXX, the Vulgate, and three 
 Targums, agree that Caphtor was Cappadocia, which, in that 
 it extended to the Black Sea, might be called I,sea-coa.st,\\t. 
 "habitable land\" as contrasted with the sea which washed 
 it, whether it surrounded it or no. The Cherethites may have 
 come from Crete, as an intermediate resting-place in their 
 migrations. 
 
 8. Behold the eyes of the Lord are upo7i the sinful king- 
 dom. The sinful kingdom may mean each sinful kingdom, as 
 St. Paul says ^, God will render unto every man according to 
 his deeds, — unto them who do not obey the truth but obey nn- 
 righteous7tess, tribnlation and aiiguish iipon every soul of in an 
 that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. His 
 JEyes are on the sinful kingdom, whatsoever or wheresoever it 
 be, and so on Israel also: and I will destroy it from off' the face 
 of the earth. In this case, the emphasis would be on the," I 
 will not utterly destroy." God would destroy sinful kingdoms, 
 yet Israel, although sinful, He would not utterly destroy, but 
 would leave a remnant, as He had so often promised. Yet per- 
 haps, and more probaI)ly, the contrast is between the king- 
 dom and the house of Israel. The kingdo?n, being founded in 
 sin, bound up inseparably with sin, God says, / ivill destroy 
 from off the face of the earth, and it ceased for ever. Only, 
 with the kingdom. He says, lunllnot utterly destroy the house 
 of Jacob, to whom were the promises, and to whose seed, who- 
 soever were the true Israel, those promises should be kept. So 
 He explains; 
 
 9. For lo .' I ti'ill command .'lit. lo ! see, I am commanding 
 He draws their attention to it,as something which shall shortly 
 be; and inculcates that He is the secret disposer of all which 
 shall befall them, ^nd I will sift the house of Israel among all 
 nations. Amos enlarges the prophecy of Hosea, they shall be 
 wanderers among the nations. He adds two thoughts ; the vi- 
 olence with which they shall be shaken, and that this their un- 
 settled life,to and fro, shall be not among the nations only,butm 
 all nations. In every quarter of the world, and in well-nigh 
 every nation in every quarter, Jews have been found. The 
 whoie earth is, as it were, one vast sieve in the Hands of God, in 
 which Israel is shaken from one end to the other. There has 
 been one ceaseless tossing to and fro, as the corn in the sieve 
 is tossed from side to side, and rests nowhere, till all is sifted. 
 Each nation in whom they have been found has been an in- 
 strument of their being shaken, sifted, severed, the grain 
 from the dirt and chaff. And yet in their whole compass, 7iot 
 the least grain, no solid corn, not one grain, should full to 
 the earth. The chaff and dust would be blown away by the 
 air; the dirt which clave to it would fall through; but 7io one 
 grain. God, in all these centuries, has had an eye on each soul 
 of His people in their dispersion throughout all lands. The 
 righteous too have been shaken up and down, through and 
 
 Before 
 
 the house oflsrael amonj^ all nations, like christ 
 as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not ^'^^- 
 the least f j?rain fall upon the earth. + Heb.,^o;«. 
 
 10 All the sinners of my people shall die 
 by the sword, "^ which say. The evil shall' ch. 6.3. 
 not overtake nor prevent us. 
 
 = Rom. ii. 6-9. 
 
 ' 'M from IK. 
 '^ Rom. xi. 1, 2, 5. 
 
 < Rib. 
 
 ^ Heb. xii.l2. 
 
 through ; yet not one soul has been lost, which, by the help of 
 God's Holy Spirit, willed truly and earnestly to be saved. Be- 
 fore Christ came, they who were His, believed in Him Who 
 should come ; when He came, they who were His were con- 
 verted to Him ; as S. Paul saith ', Hath God cast away His peo- 
 ple ? God forbid ! For I also am aw Israelite, of the seed of 
 Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin — God hath not cast away 
 His people which He forek7ietv — At this present time also there 
 is a 7'em7ia7it, according to the electioti of grace. 
 
 "*What is here said of all, God doth daily in each of the 
 elect. For they are the ivheat of God, which, in order to be laid 
 up in the heavenly gcu-ner, must be pure from chaff and dust. 
 To this end He sifts them by afflictions and troubles, in youth, 
 manhood, old age, wheresoever they are, in whatsoever occu- 
 pied, and proves them again and again. At one time the elect 
 enjoyeth tranquillity of mind, is bedewed by heavenly refresh- IL 
 meats, prayeth as he wills, loveth, gloweth, hath no taste for " 
 ought except God. Then again he is dry, expcrienceth the 
 heaven to be as brass, his prayer is hindered by distracting 
 thoughts, his feet are as lead to deeds of virtue, his haiids hang M 
 doivn, his k7iees &re feeble ^, he dreads death ; he sticks fast, Ian- 
 guishes. He is shaken in a sieve, that he may mistrust self, 
 place his hope in God, and the dust of vain-glory may be sha- 
 ken off. He is proved, that it may appear whether he cleave to 
 God for tlie reward of present enjoyment, or for the hope of 
 future, for longing for the glory of God and for love of Him- 
 self. God suffereth him also to be sifted by the devil through 
 various temptations to sin, as he said to the Apostle, Simo7i, lo ' 
 Satan hath desired you, to sift you as tvheat *. But this is the 
 power of God, this His grace to the elect, this the devil attain- 
 eth by his sifting, that the dust of immoderate self-love, of vain 
 confidence, of love of the world, should fall off: tliis Satan ef- ; 
 fecteth not, that the least deed which appertaineth to the in- 
 ward house and the dwelling which they prepare in their souls 
 for God, should perish. Rather, as we see in holy Job, virtues 
 will increase, grow, be strengthened." 
 
 10. All the sinners of My people shall perish. At the last, 
 when the longsuffering of God has been despised to the ut- 
 termost, His Providence is exact in His justice, as in His 
 love. As not 07ie g7'ai7i should fall to the earth, so not one 
 sinner should escape. " ^ Not because they sinned aforetime, 
 but because they persevered in sin until death. The iEthio- 
 pians are changed into sons of God, if they repent ; and the 
 sons of God pass away into ^Ethiopians, if they fall into the 
 depth of sin." 
 
 TVhich say. The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us. 
 Their security was the cause of their destruction. They pe- 
 rished the more miserably, being buoyed up by the false confi- 
 dence that they should not perish. So it was in both destruc- 
 tions of Jerusalem. Of the first, Jeremiah says to the false 
 prophet Hananiah*, Thus saith the Lord, Thou hast broke7i 
 the yokes of tvood ; but thou shall make for them yokes of iro7i ; 
 and to Zedekiah ^, Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, 
 
 S.Jer. 
 
 6 S. Lukexxii.31. 
 8 Jer. xxviii. 13. » lb. xxxviii. 20, 23 ; add xxtu. 9, 10, 19.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 223 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 787. 
 
 11 ^ ' In that day will I raise up the ta- 
 
 • Acts 15. 16, 17. 
 
 which T sjjca/e unto thee ; so shall it be well icnto thee, and thy 
 soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth— thou shall not 
 escape out of their hand, hut shall he tahen hi/ the hand of the 
 king of liahy Ion, a)id thou shnlt hum tliis eily with fire. At. 
 the second, while tlic Christ'uuis (iiiiiidfiil of our Lord's words) 
 fled to Pella, the Jews were, to the last, cncouraijed by their 
 false prophets to resist. "Tiic cause of this destruction," at 
 the burninfij of the temple, says their own historian^, "was a 
 false prophet, who on that day proclaimed to those in the city, 
 'God commands to f>;o up to the temple, to receive the signs of 
 deliverance.' There were too, at that time, anionj!: the people 
 many prophets suborned by the tyrants, bidding them await the 
 help from God, that they might not desert,and that hope might 
 prevail with those, who were above fear and restraint. Man is 
 soon persuaded in calamity. And when the deceiver promises 
 release from the evils which are upon him, the suflTcrer gives 
 himself wholly np to hope. These deceivers then and liars 
 against God at this time mispersuaded the wretched people, 
 so that they neither regarded, nor believed, the plain evident 
 prodigies, which foretokened the coming desolation, but, like 
 men stupified, who had neither eyes nor mind, disobeyed the 
 warnings of God." — Then, having related some of the prodi- 
 gies which occurred, he adds"; — ''But of these signs, some they 
 interpreted after their own will, some they despised, until they 
 were convicted of folly by the capture of their country and 
 their own destruction." So too now, none are so likely to pe- 
 rish for ever, as they tvho say, The evil shall not overtake us. 
 "I will repent hereafter." " I will make my peace with God 
 before I die." " There is time enough yet." " Youth is for plea- 
 sure, age for repentance." "God will forgive the errors of youth, 
 and the heat of our passions. " Any time will do for repent- 
 ance ; health and strength promise long life ;" " I cannot do 
 without this or that now." " I will turn to God. only not yet." 
 " God is merciful and full of compassion." Because Satan 
 thus deludes thousands upon thousands to their destruction, 
 God cuts away all such vain hopes with His word, ^11 the sin- 
 tiers of My people shall die ivhich say, the evil shall not overtake 
 nor come upon us. 
 
 11. In that day I will raise up. Amos, as the prophets 
 were taught to do, sums up his prophecy of woe with this one 
 full promise of overflowing good. For the ten tribes, in their 
 separate condition, there was no hope, no future. He had pro- 
 nounced the entire destruction of the kingdom of Israel. The 
 ten tribes were, thenceforth, only an aggi-egate of individuals, 
 good or bad. They had no separate corporate existence. In 
 their spiritual existence, they still belonged to the one family 
 of Israel ; and. belonging to it, were heirs of the promises 
 made to it. When no longer separate, individuals out of its 
 tribes were to become Apostles to their whole people and to 
 the Gentiles. Of individuals in it, God had declared His judg- 
 ment, anticipating the complete exactness of the Judgment 
 of the Great Day. ^11 the si7mers of His people should die an 
 untimely death by the sword ; not one of those who were the 
 true grain should perish with the chafl". 
 
 He now foretells, how that salvation, of those indeed His 
 own, should be efl'ected through the house of David, in whose 
 line Christ was to come. He speaks of the house of David, 
 not in any terms of royal greatness ; he tells, not of its palaces, 
 
 1 Joseph. B. J. 6. 5. § 2. 3. ' lb. § 4. 3 Jon. iv. 5, Gen. xxxiii. 17. 
 
 ■• from ^:D i. q. fta. 5 Gen. xxxiii. 17. ' 2 Sam. xi. 11. 7 Is. i. g, 
 
 Job xxvii. 18. 8 Lev. xxiii. 43. 9 lb. 40, see on Hos. xii. 9. p. 79. lo Ps. xviii. 11, 
 
 bernacle of David that is fallen, and f close 
 
 t Heb. hedge, or, wait. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 787. 
 
 but of its ruins. Under the word tabernacle, he probably 
 blends the ideas, that it should be in a poor condition, and yet 
 that it should be the means whereby God should protect liis 
 people. The surrah, tabernacle, (translated booth in Jonah 3), 
 was originally a rude hut, formed of intertwined'^ branches. 
 It is used of the cattle-shed % and of the rough tents u.sed by 
 soldiers in war^ or by the watchman in the vineyard", and 
 of those wherein God made the children of Israel to dwell, 
 tchen He brought them oat of the laud of ICgi/pt ". The name 
 of the feast of Tabernacles, Succoth, as well" as the rude tem- 
 porary huts ^ in which they were commanded to dwell, asso- 
 ciated the name with a state of outward poverty under God's 
 protection. Hence, perhaps, the word is employed also of the 
 secret place of the Presence of God i". Isaiah, as well as Amos, 
 seems, in the use of the same word i', to hint that what is poor 
 and mean in man's sight would be, in the Hand- of God, an 
 effectual protection. This hut of David was also at that time 
 iohe fallen. When Amos prophesied, it had been weakened 
 by the schism of the ten tribes, but Azariah, its king, was 
 mighty 1-. Amos had already foretold the destruction of the 
 palaces of Jerusalem by fire ^^. Now he adds, that the abiding 
 condition of the house of David should be a state of decav 
 and weakness, and that from that state, not human strength, 
 but God Himself should raise it. / ^vill raise up the hut of 
 David, the fallen. He does not say, of that time, "the hut 
 that is fallen," as if it were already fallen, but the hut, the fall- 
 en '*, i. e. the hut of which the character should then be its* fall- 
 ing, its caducity. So, under a different figure, Isaiah prophe- 
 sied, There shall come forth a rod out of the stump '' of Jesse, 
 and a Branch shall put forth from its roots. When tlie trunk 
 was hewn down even with the ground, and the rank grass had 
 covered the stump, that rod and Branch should come forth 
 which should rule the earth, and to which the Gentiles should 
 seek ". From these words of Amos, " the Son of the fallen," 
 became, among the Jews, one of the titles of the Christ. Both 
 in the legal and mystical schools the words of Amos are al- 
 leged, in proof of the fallen condition of the house of David, 
 when the Christ should come. " Who would expect," asks 
 one 17, " that God would raise up the fallen tabernacle of Da- 
 vid ? and yet it is said, I will raise up the tabernacle of David 
 zvhich is fallen down. And who would hope that the whole 
 world should become one band? as it is written '*, The/i Iicill 
 turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon 
 the name of the Lord, to serve him ivith one shoulder. This 
 is no other than the king Messiah." And in the Talmud'^; 
 "R. Nachman said to R. Isaac; Hast thou heard when 'the 
 Son of the fallen' shall come? He answered, Who is he? R. 
 Nachman ; The Messiah. R. Isaac ; Is the Messiah so called ? 
 R. Nachman ; Yes ; In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of 
 David ivhich is fallen down." 
 
 Andclose up, lit. ivall up, the breaches thereof. Thehouse 
 of David had at this time sustained breaches. It had yet 
 more serious breaches to sustain thereafter. The first great 
 breach was the rending oft' of the ten tribes. It sustained 
 breaches, through the Assyrians ; and yet more when itself 
 was carried away captive to Babylon, and so many of its re- 
 sidue fled into Egypt. Breaches are repaired by new stones; 
 the losses of the house of David were to be filled up by acces- 
 
 Job xxxvi. 20. " Is. iv. 6. " 2 Chr. xxvi. 6-15. » u. 5. '■< tVew 
 
 1= !/u Is. xi.l. '6 lb. 10. '" Bereshith Rabba S. 88. fin. quoted bv Schoettg. 
 
 ! loe. gen. n. 18. p. 70. '^ Zepb. iii. 9. " Sanhedr. f. 9ii. 2. Scboeitg. de Mess. p. Iti. 
 
 oo2
 
 224 
 
 AMOS, 
 
 chr'^ist "P ^^^^ breaches thereof; and I will raise 
 
 787. 
 
 ' Obad. 19. 
 
 up his ruins, and I will build it as in the 
 days of old : 
 
 12 ' That they may possess the remnant 
 
 sions from the Gentiles. God Himself should close up the 
 breaches ; so should they remain closed ; and the gates of hell 
 should not prevail against the Church which He builded. 
 Amos heaps on one another the words iniplyinji destruction. 
 A. hut and that falling ; breaches ; ruins ; (lit. his ruinated, his 
 destructions) . But he also speaks of it in a way which ex- 
 cludes the idea of //(f hut o/'7>«?;?V/, beings "the royal Dynasty" 
 or " the kinjj^dom of Judah." For he speaks of it, not as an ab- 
 stract thiiifj, such as a kingdom is, but as a whole, consisting 
 of individuals. He speaks not only oi the hut of David, but 
 of" their (feni.) breaches," " his ruins," that God would " build 
 her up," " that tliei/ (masc.) may inherit ; " using apparently 
 this variety of numbers and genders ', in order to shew that he 
 is speaking of one living whole, the Jewish Church, now rent 
 in two by the great schism of Jeroboam, but which should be 
 reunited into one body, members of which should win the 
 Heathen to the true faith in God. "I will raise up," he says, 
 "the tabernacle of David, the fallen, and will wallup///e//brea- 
 ches," [the breaches of the two portions into which it had been 
 rent] and I will raise up his ruins [the "ruinated places" of 
 David] and I will build her [as one whole] as in the days of 
 old, [before the rent of the ten tribes, when all worshipped as 
 one], that they," (masc.) i. e. individuals who should go forth 
 out of her, '• may inherit, &c." 
 
 12. That they may possess, rather, inherit, the remnant of 
 Edom. The restoration was not to be for themselves alone. 
 No gifts of God end in the immediate object of His bounty and 
 love. They were restored, in order that they, the first objects 
 of God's mercies, might win others to God ; not Edom only, hut 
 all nations, upon whom, God says, 3Iy i\7(we is called. Plainly 
 then, it is no temporal subjugation, nor any earthly kingdom. 
 The words, upon ivhom the tiame is called, involve, in any case, 
 belonging to, and being owned by, him whose name is called 
 upon them. It is said of the wife bearing the name of the 
 husband and becoming his, let thy name he called upon us". 
 When Jacob specially adopts Ephraim and Manasseh as his 
 own, he says, let my name he named upon them, and the 7iame 
 of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac^. In relation to God, the 
 words are used of persons and of places especially appropriat- 
 ed to God ; as the whole Jewish Church and people, His Tem- 
 ple*, His Prophets ^ the city of Jerusalem^ by virtue oftbeTem- 
 ple built there. Contrariwise, Isaiah pleads to God, that the 
 Heathen rvere never called by Thy Name''. This relation of 
 being called by the Name of God, was not outward only, nor 
 was it ineffective. Its characteristics were holiness imparted 
 by God to man, and protection by God. Thus Moses, in his 
 blessing on Israel if obedient, says^. The Lord shall establish 
 thee an holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn to thee, if 
 thou shall keep the commandme7tts of the Lord thy God, and 
 walk in His tvays; and all the people of the earth shall see that the 
 Name of the Lord thy God is called upon thee, and they shall 
 fear thee. And Jeremiah says to God', Thy word was unto 
 me the joy and rejoicing of my heart ; for Thy 7iame was called 
 upon me, O Lord God of Hosts. 
 
 ' Hengstenbcrg, Christologie, i. 447, 8. ed. 2. 
 - Is. iv. 1. 3 Gen. xlviii. 16. * 1 Kings viii. 43, Jer. vii. 10, 11, 14, 30, 
 
 xxxiv. 15. s Jer. xv. 16. 6 Dan. ix. 18, 19. 7 Is. Ixiii. 19. 
 
 of "Edom, and of all the heathen, f which chrTst 
 are called by my name, saith the Lord "^''- 
 that doeth this. ] ueh!' ' ' 
 
 13 Behold, ^ the days come, saith the mj^'am'j"" 
 
 • Lev. 26. 5. 
 
 is called. 
 
 Israel then, or the Jewish Church, was to inherit, or 
 take into itself, not Edom only, but all nations, and that, by 
 their belonging to God. Edom, as the brother of Israel and 
 yet his implacable enemy, stands as a symbol of all who were 
 alien from God, over against His people. He i^nys, the residue 
 of Edojn, because he had foretold the destruction which was 
 first to come upon Edom^"; and Holy Scripture everywhere 
 speaks of those who should be converted, as a remnant only. 
 The Jews themselves are the keepers and witnesses of these 
 words. Was it not foretold ? It stands written. Is it not ful- 
 filled ? The whole world from this country to China, and from 
 China round again to us, as far as it is Christian, and as, year 
 i)y year, more are gathered into the fold of Christ, are the in- 
 heritance of those who were the seed of Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob. 
 
 S. James quoted these words in the Council of Jerusalem, to 
 show how the words of the Prophet were in harmony with 
 what S. Peter had related, how^^ God at the first did visit the 
 Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Na7ne. He quotes 
 the words as they stood in the version which was understood 
 by the Gentiles who came from Antioch. In it the words are 
 paraphrased, but the meaning remains the same. The Greek 
 translators took away the metaphor, in order, probably, to 
 make the meaning more intelligible to Greeks, and paraphras- 
 ed the Hebrew words, imagining other words, as like as might 
 be to the Hebrew'-. They render,"that the residue of men may 
 seek, and all the nations upon whom My name is called." 
 The force of the prophecy lies in these last words, that " the 
 Name of God should be called upon all nations." S.James, 
 then, quoted the words as they were familiar to his hearers, 
 not correcting those which did not impair the meaning. The 
 so doing, he shews us incidentally, that even imperfection of 
 translation does not empty the fulness of God's word. The 
 words, " shall seek the Lord," although not representing any 
 thing expressed here in the original, occur in the correspond- 
 ing prophecy of Isaiah as to the root of Jesse''\ Li that day 
 there shall shall be a root (i. e. a sucker from the root) of Jesse, 
 which shall sta7idfor a7i ensig7i of the people, a7id to it shall the 
 Gentiles seek. It may be, that S. James purposely uses the 
 plural, the words of the prophets, in order to include, together 
 with the Prophet Amos, other prophets who had foretold the 
 same thing. The statements, that the Jewish Church should 
 inherit the Gentiles, that the Name of God should be called 
 upon the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles should seek the Lord, 
 are parts of one whole ; that they should be called, that they 
 should obey the call, and, obeying, be enrolled in the one fa- 
 mily of God. 
 
 13. Behold the days are coming. The Day of the Lord 
 is ever coming on; every act, good or bad, is drawing it on: 
 every thing which fills up the measure of iniquity or which 
 "hastens the accomplishment of the number of the elect;" 
 all time hastens it by. The ploughma7i shall overtake the reap- 
 er and the treader of grapes hi7/i that sotueth seed. The image 
 is taken from God's promise in the law^*; Your threshing shall 
 
 ' Deut. xxviii. 9, 10. ' 1. c. •» See ab. 106. 
 
 11 Acts XV. 14. '2 As though there had stood mx for Dnn ; and im' for i^"*, 
 
 the difference in each case lying in one letter. '^ Is. xi. 10. " Lev. xxvi. 5.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 225 
 
 c H rTs t ^0^'^ ^^^^^ tlic plowman shall overtake the 
 ''^'^- reaper, and the treader of ii^rapes him that 
 etVfor'th^' f soweth Seed ; ' and the mountains shall 
 o°rt ■ ■ drop II sweet wine, and allthe hills shallmelt. 
 14 "^ And I will bring again the captivity 
 
 new wine. 
 Jer. 30. 3. 
 
 reach unto the I'infai^e, and the vintage shall reach unto the 
 solving time ; which is the order ot'iifi^riculture. The harvest 
 should be so copious that it shouhl not be threshed out until 
 the vintaije : the vintaj^e so larji^e, that, instead of endinjj, as 
 usual, in the middle of the 7th month, it should continue on 
 to the seed-time in November. Amos appears purposely to 
 have altered this. lie describes what is wholly beyond nature, 
 in order that it mitfht the more appear that he was speak- 
 in?; of no mere fjifts of nature, hut, under natural emblems, of 
 the abundance of giftsofp^race. The ploughnum, \vhohreak» 
 up the fallow giound, shall overtake, or throng, the reaper. 
 The ploughman might throng, or Join o}t to the reaper, either 
 following upon him, or being followed by him ; either prepar- 
 ing the soil for the harvest which the reaper gathers in, or 
 breaking it up anew for a fresh harvest after the in-gathering. 
 But the vintage falls between the harvest and the seed-time. 
 If then by the ploughmen thronging on the reaper, we under- 
 stand that the harvest should, for its abundance, not be over 
 before the fresh seed-time, then, since thevintage is much near- 
 er to the seed-time than the harvest had been, the words, he 
 that treadeth out the grapes, him that soweth the seed, would 
 only say the same less forcibly. In the other way, it is one 
 continuous whole. So vast would be the soil to be cultivated, 
 so beyond all the powers of the cultivator, and yet so rapid and 
 unceasing the growth, that seed-time and harvest would be 
 but one. So our Lord says ^, Sai/ not ye, There are yet four 
 months, and tYien comet h harvest ? Behold, I say unto you. Lift 
 up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white already 
 to harvest. Four months ordinarily intervened between seed- 
 time and harvest. Among these Samaritans, seed-time and 
 harvest were one. They had not, like the Jews, had teachers 
 from God ; yet, as soon as our Lord taught them, they believed. 
 But, as seed-time and harvest should be one, so should the 
 vintage be continuous with the following seed-time. The 
 treader of grapes, the last crowning act of the year of cultiva- 
 tion, should join on to him that soweth (lit. draweth forth, 
 soweth broadcast, scattereth far and wide the) 5e«/. All this 
 is beyond nature, and so, the more in harmony with what went 
 before, the establishment of a kingdom of grace, in which the 
 Heathen should have the A'ame of God called upon them. He 
 had foretold -to them, how God would send famiiie on the 
 land, tiot a famine of hread, nor a thirst for water, but of hear- 
 ing the tvords of the Lord. Now, under the same image, he de- 
 clares the repeal of that sentence. He foretells, not the fulness 
 only of God's gifts, but their unbroken continuance. " ^ All 
 shall succeed one another, so that no day should be void of 
 corn, wine, and gladness." And they shall not follow only 
 on one another, but shall all go on together in one perpetual 
 round of toil and fruitfulness. There shall be one unceasing 
 inpouring of riches ; no break in the heavenly husbandry ; la- 
 bour shall at once yield fruit ; the harvest shall but encourage 
 fresh labour. The end shall come swiftly on the beginning ; 
 the end shall not close the past only, but issue forth anew. 
 Such is the character of the toils of the Gospel. All the works 
 of grace go on in harmony together ; each helps on the other ; 
 
 ' S. John iv. 35. 
 »viii. 11, 3S. Jer. ■> Rup. * See ab. p. 94, 5, 1«. « njjjicnn 
 
 of my i)eople of Israel, and * they shall chrTst 
 
 l)iiild th<; waste eities, and inhabit them : "i^'- 
 
 and they shall plant vineyards, and drink fccloi'. 
 
 the win(! thereof; they shall also make 3^30. 
 gardens, and eat the fruit of them. 
 
 in one, the fallow-ground of the heart is broken up ; in another, 
 seed is sown, the beginning of 11 holy conversation ; in another, 
 is the full richness of the ripened fruit, in advanced holiness 
 or the blood of Martyrs. And so, also, of the nlini^ters of 
 Christ, some are adapted especially to one office, some to 
 another ; yet all together carry on ilis one work. All, too, 
 Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, shall meet together in one; 
 they who, before Christ's Coming. '• ' sowed the seed, the pro- 
 mises of the Blessed Seed to come," and they who enterrd into 
 their labours, not to displace, but to complete them ; all shall 
 rejoice together in that Seed which is Christ. 
 
 And the mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills 
 shall melt. Amos takes the words of Joel, in order t() iden- 
 tify their prophecies^, yet strengthens the image. For instead 
 of saying, the hills shall /low with milk, he says, they shall melt, 
 dissolve themselves '. Such shall be the abundance and super- 
 abundance of blessing, that it shall be as though the hills dis- 
 solved themselvesin the rich streamswhieh theypoiireddown. 
 The mountains and hills may be symbols, in regard either to 
 their height, or their natural barrenness or their difficulty of 
 cultivation. In past times they were scenes of idolatry ^. In 
 the time <)f the Gospel, all should be changed ; all should be 
 above nature. All should be obedient to (iod ; all. full of the 
 graces and gifts of God. What was exalted, like the Apostles, 
 should be exalted not for itself, but in order to pour out the 
 streams of life-giving doctrine and truth, which would refresh 
 and gladden the faithful. And the lesser heights, the hills, 
 should, in their degree, pour out the same streams. Every 
 thing, heretofore barren and unfruitful, should overflow with 
 spiritual blessing. The mountains and hills of Judaea, with 
 their terraced sides clad with the vine, were a natural symbol 
 fruitfulness to the Jews, but they themselves could not think 
 that natural fruitfulness was meant under this imagery. It 
 would have been a hyperbole as to things of nature : but what, 
 in natural things, is a hyperbole, is but a faint shadow of the 
 joys and rich delights and glad fruitfulness of grace. 
 
 14. And 1 7vill bring again the captivity of My people. 
 Where all around is spiritual, there is no reason to take this 
 alone as earthly. An earthly restoration to Canaan had no 
 value, except as introductory to the spiritual. The two tribes 
 were, in a great measure, restored to their own land, when 
 Zachariah, he'ing^ /illeil xvith the Holy Ghost, prophesied, as 
 then about to be accomplished, that God hath visited and re- 
 deemed His people, and hath raised up a hor>i of salvation to 
 us in the house of His servant David, as He spake by the mouth 
 of His holy prophets — that ive, being delivered from lite hands 
 of our enemies, might serve Him icithout fear, in holiness and 
 righteousness before Him. So our Lord said ' ; i/e shall know 
 the truth, and the truth shall rnake you free. — Ifhosoever com- 
 mitteth sin, is the servant of sin. — Jf the So)i shall make you 
 free, ye shall he free indeed. And Saint Paul ^", The law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of 
 sin aiul death. 
 
 And they shall build the waste [rather shall build waste'^^l 
 cities. "As they who are freed from captivity and are no longer 
 
 " See above, p. 30. 
 8 S.Luke i. 68-70,4,5. « S. Johnviii.32,4,6. '« Rom. viii.?. " There is no article.
 
 220 
 
 AMOS. 
 
 chrTst ^^ ^"*1 ' ^^"'^ I^'^"* *^^'^"™ "P**" *'"'''* 
 ''^''- land, and'' they shall no more be pulled 
 
 b Is. 60. 21. Jer. 32.41. Ezek. 34. 28. Joel 3. 20. 
 
 in fear of the enemy, hiiild cities and plant vineijanls and fjar- 
 dens," so shall these unto God. " This," says one of old -, 
 "needs no exposition, since, throughout the world, amid the 
 desert of Heathendom, which was hcfore deserted by God, 
 Churchesof Christ have arisen, which, for the firnmessof faith, 
 may be called cities, and, for the ajladness of /(0/;eH7(/cA7?^«/l:- 
 <■//i not asliamed, vineyards, and for the sweetness of charity, 
 g'ardens ; wherein they dwell, who have builded them through 
 the word ; whence they drink the wine of gladness, who form- 
 ed them by precepts ; whence they eat fruits, who advanced 
 them by counsels, because, as he who reapeth, so he too who 
 hitildcth such cities, and he who phinteth such vineyards, and 
 he who niaketh such gardens, receivetli wages and gathereth 
 fruit nnto life eternal"." 
 
 15. ^nd J trill plant them upon their otvti land. The 
 promises and threatenings of God are, to individuals, condi- 
 tional upon their continuing to be of that character, to which 
 God annexes those promises or threats. '"The God of all 
 often jtromises, when those who receive the promises, by joy- 
 ing in iniquity hinder those promises from taking eflect. At 
 times also He threatens heavy things, and they who for their 
 offences were the objects of those threats, being, through fear 
 of them, converted, do not in act experience them." The two 
 tribes received some little shadow of fulfilment of these pro- 
 mises on the return from Babylon. They nwre planted in their 
 own land. The non-fulfilment of the rest, as well as the evi- 
 dent symbolic character of part of it, must have shewn them 
 that such fulfilment was the beginning, not the end. Their 
 land was the Lord's haul ; banishment from it was banish- 
 ment from the special presence of God, from the place where 
 He manifested Himself, where alone the typical sacrifices, the 
 appointed means of reconciliation, could be offered. Restora- 
 tion to their own land was the outward symbol of restoration 
 to God's favour, of which it was the fruit. It was a condition 
 of the fulfilment of those other promises, the Coming of Him 
 in Whom the promises were laid up, the Christ. He was not 
 simply to be of David's seed, according to the flesh. Prophecy, 
 as time went on, declared His Birth at Bethlehem, His revela- 
 tion in Galilee, His Coming to His Temple, His sending forth 
 His law from Jerusalem. Without some restoration to their 
 own land,thcse things could not be. Israel was restored in the 
 flesh, that, after the flesh, the Christ might be born of them, 
 where God foretold that He should be born. But the tempo- 
 ral fulfilment ended with that Event in time in which they were 
 to issue, for whose sake they were ; His Coming. They were 
 but the vestibule to the spiritual. As shadows, they ceased 
 when the Sun arose. As means, they ended, when the end, 
 whereto they served, came. There was no need of a temporal 
 Zion, when He Who was to send forth His law thence, had 
 come and sent it forth. No need of a Temple when He Who 
 was to be its Glory, had come, illumined it, and was gone. No 
 need of one of royal birth in Bethlehem, when the Firginhad 
 
 Rup. 
 
 ' S. John iv. 36. 
 
 3 Theod. 
 
 up out of their land whieli I have giv- q h^hTs t 
 en them, saith the Lord thy God. 787. 
 
 conceived and home a Son, and Gcjd had been with us. And so 
 as to other prophecies. AH which were bound to the land of 
 Judah, were accomplished. As the true Israel expanded and 
 embraced all nations, the whole earth became the land of God's 
 people. Palestine had had itsj)rerogatives,becauseGod mani- 
 fested Himself there, was worshipped there. When God's peo- 
 ple was enlarged, so as to inherit the heathen, and God was wor- 
 shipped everywere, His land too was everywhere. His pro- 
 mises accompanied Hispeople,andthesewereinall lands. His 
 words then, I will plant them upon their own land,and they shall 
 no more he pulled up out of their land which I have given them, 
 expanded with their expansion. It is a promise of perpetu- 
 ity, like that of our Lord; Lo ! I am with you alivay, even to 
 the end of the world. The gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 the Church, the people of God. The worldmay gnash its teeth; 
 kings may oppress; persecutors may harass; popular rage 
 may trample on her; philosophy may scoff ather; unbelief may 
 deny the promises made to her; the powers of darkness may 
 rage around her ; her own children may turn against her. In 
 vain ! "'She may be shaken by persecutions, she cannot be 
 uprooted ; she may be tempted, she cannot be overcom.e. For 
 the Lord God Almighty,the Lord her God, hath promised that 
 He will do it. Whose promise is the law to nature." 
 
 Saith the Lord thy God. "^ O Israel of God, O Catholic 
 Church, to be gathered out of Jews and Gentiles, doubt not, he 
 would say, thy promised happiness. For thy God Who loveth 
 thee and Who from eternity hath chosen thee, hath command- 
 ed me to say this to thee in His Name." "^ He turneth too 
 to the ear of each of us, giving us joy, in His word, saith the 
 Lord thy God." " * They too who are plants which God hath 
 planted, and who have so profited, that through them many 
 daily profit, shall he planted upon their own ground, i. e. each, 
 in his order and in that kind of life which he has chosen, shall 
 strike deep roots in true piety, and they shall be so preserved 
 by God, that by no force of temptations shall they be uprooted, 
 but each shall say with the holy prophet*, /am like a green 
 olive tree in the house of God ; I trust in the mercy of God for 
 ever and ever. Not that every tree, planted in the ground of 
 the Church militant, is so firm that it cannot be plucked up, 
 but many there are, which are not plucked up, being protect- 
 ed by the Hand of Almighty God. O blessed that land, where 
 no tree is plucked up, none is injured by any worm, or decays 
 through any age. How many great, fruitbearing, trees do we 
 see plucked up in this land of calamity and misery ! Blessed 
 day, when we shall be there, where we need fear no storm ! " 
 Yet this too abideth true; none shall he plucked up. Without 
 our own will, neither passions within, nor temptations without, 
 nor the malice or wiles of Satan, can pluck us xip. None can 
 he plucked up, who doth not himself loose his hold, whose root 
 is twisted round the Rock, which is Thou, O Blessed Jesu. 
 For Thou hast said ', they shall 7iever perish, neither shall any 
 pluck them out of My Hand, 
 
 <S.Jer. 
 
 sRib. 
 
 6 P6.1ii.9. 
 
 ? S. John X. 28.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 The silence of Holy Scripture as to the Prophet Obadiah 
 stands in remarkable contrast with tlie anxiety of men to 
 know something; of him. It were even waste labour to ex- 
 amine the combinations, by whicii, of old, the human mind 
 tried to justify its longing to know more of him, than God had 
 willed to be preserved. Men go over them with the view of 
 triumphing in the superior sagacity of later days, and slaying 
 the slain. It was a good and pious feeling which longed to 
 know more of the men of God, whose prophecies He has pre- 
 served to us, and, with this view, looked about whether they 
 could not identify their benefactor (such as each Prophet is) 
 with some one of whom more details are recorded. Hence 
 they hoped that Obadiah might prove to have been the faith- 
 ful protector of the prophets under Ahab, or the son of the 
 Shunamite, whom Elijah recalled to life, or the Obadiah whom 
 Jehoshaphat sent to teach in the cities of Judah '^ or the Le- 
 vite who was selected, with one other, to be the overseer set 
 over the repair of the temple in the reign of Josiah ''. Fruit- 
 less guesses at what God has hidden ! God has willed that 
 his name alone and this brief prophecy should be known in 
 this world. Here, he is known only as Obadiah, " worshipper 
 of God V 
 
 Yet these guesses of pious minds illustrate this point, that 
 the arranger of the Canon had some other ground upon which 
 he assigned to Obadiah his place in it, than any identification 
 of the Prophet with any other person mentioned in Holy Scrip- 
 ture. For whereas, of the Obadiahs, of whom Holy Scripture 
 mentions more than the name, two lived in the reign of Ahab, 
 one after the captivity of the ten tribes, the Prophet is, by the 
 framer of the Canon, placed in the time of Uzziah and Jero- 
 boam II., in which thoseplaced beforeand after him, flourished. 
 Moderns, having slighted these pious longings, are still more 
 at fault in their way. German criticshaveassigned to the Pro- 
 phet dates, removed from each other by above 600 years ; just 
 as if men doubted, /ro/n internal evidence, whether a work were 
 written in the time of William the Conqueror, or in that of 
 Cromwell; of S.Louis, or Louis XVIII; or whether Hesiod 
 was a contemporary of Callimachus, and Ennius of Claudian ; 
 or the author of the Nibelungen Lied lived with Schiller. Such 
 difference, which seems grotesque, as soon as it is applied to 
 any other case, was the fruit of unbelief. Two or rather three 
 
 « 2 Chr. xvii. 7. i" lb. xxxiv. 12. 
 
 « Obadiah is " worshipper of the Lord ; " Abdi, or Abdiah, " the serrant of the Lord." 
 
 great facts are spoken of in the prophecy, the capture of Je- 
 rusalem, and a two-fold punishment of Edom consequent on 
 his malicious triumpli over his brother's fall ; tlie one through 
 Heathen, the other through the restored Jews. The punish- 
 ment of Edom the Prophet clearly foretells, as yet to come ; 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, which, according to our version 
 is spoken of as past, is in reality foretold also. Unbelief denies, 
 all prophecy. Strange, that unbelief, denying the existence 
 of the jewel — God's authentic and anthenticated voice to man 
 — should trouble itself about the age of the casket. Yet so it 
 was. The prophets of Israel used a fascinating power over 
 those who denied their inspiration. They denied prophecy, 
 but employed themselves about the Prophets. Unbelief,deny- 
 ing prophecy, had to find out two events in history, which 
 should correspond with these events in the Prophet, a capture 
 of Jerusalem, and a subsequent, — it could not say, conse- 
 quent, — suffering on the part of Edom. And since Jerusalem 
 was first taken under Shishak king of Egypt, in the 5th year 
 of Rehoboam, B.C. 970, and Josephus relates"^, that B.C. 301, 
 Ptolemy Lagus treacherously got possession of it under plea 
 of offering sacrifice, treated it harshly, took many captive from 
 the mountainous part of Judfea and the places round Jerusa- 
 lem, from Samaritis, Gerizim, and settled tliem all in Egypt ; 
 unbelieving critcism had a wide range, in which to vacillate. 
 And so it reeled to and fro between the first and last of these 
 periods, agreeing that Obadiah did not prophesy, and disa- 
 greeing as to all besides. Eichhorn % avowedly on his princi- 
 ple of unbelief, that God's prophets, when they spoke of detail- 
 ed events, as future, were really describing the past, assumed 
 that the last five verses were written in the time of Alexander 
 Janneus, two centuries later than the latest, about B. C. 82'. 
 As though a Hebrew prophet would speak of one, detestable 
 for his wanton cruelty b, as a Saviour ! 
 
 The real question as to the age of Obadiah turns upon two 
 points, the one external, the other internal. The external is, 
 whether in regard to those verses which he has in common 
 with Jeremiah, Obadiah gathered into one, verses which lie 
 scattered in Jeremiah, or whether Jeremiah, in renewing the 
 prophecies against Edom, incorporated verses of Obadiah. 
 The question, internal to Obadiah, is, whether he speaks of 
 the capture of Jerusalem in the prophetic or the real past, and 
 
 i Ant. xii. 1. 1. • Einl. ins A. T. iv. § 570. 
 
 ' i. e. three years before his death. Jos. .\jit. xiii. 15.4. s See Jos. lb. xiii. 14. and 15.
 
 228 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 (as detennining; this), whether he reproves Edom for past ma- 
 lite at the capture of Jerusalem, or warns him against it in 
 the future. 
 
 The English version in the text supposes that Obadiah re- 
 proves for past sin. For it renders ; Thou ahouldest not have 
 looked OH the day of thy lirother, in the day wlien he became a 
 stratiiirr ; neither shonldest thou have rejoiced over the children 
 of Judah in the day of their destruction ; neither shouUlest thou 
 have spoken proudly in the day of their distress ''. The English 
 margin gives the other, as a probable rendering, do not behold, 
 8fc. But it is absolutely certain that al with the future for- 
 bids or deprecates a thing future. In all the passages, in which 
 a/occurs in theHebrewBible',it signifies"do not." We might 
 as well say that " do not steal " n)eans " thou shouldest not 
 have stolen," as say that veal tereh, and do not look, means 
 " thou shouldest not have looked." It is true that in a vivid 
 form of question, belonging to strong feeling, the soul going 
 back in thought to the time before a tiling happened, can speak 
 of the past as yet future. Thus David says ^, The death of 
 fools shall ylbner die f while mourning over his bier ; or Job, 
 having said to God, why didst Thou bring me forth from the 
 womb ? places himself as at that time and says ^ (literally), / 
 shall expire, and eye shall not see me ; as if I had not been, I 
 shall be ; from the womb to the grave I shall he carried. He 
 contemplates the future, as it would have been, had he died 
 in the birth. It was a relative future. We could almost, un- 
 der strong emotion, use our " is to " in the same way. We 
 could render, Is Abner to die the death of fools ? But these 
 cases have nothing to do with the uniform idiom ; " do not." 
 We must not, on any principle of interpretation, in a single 
 instance, ascribe to a common idiom, a meaning which it has 
 not,because the meaning whichithas,does not suit us. There 
 is an idiom to express this. It is the future with la, not 
 with al. 
 
 It agrees with this, that just before ™, where our version ren- 
 ders, thou wert as one of them, the Hebrew (as, in our Bibles, 
 is marked by the Italics) has only, thou as one of them 1 not 
 expressing any time. The whole verse expresses no time as to 
 Edom. In the day of thy standing on the other side, in the day 
 of strangers carrying captive his might, and strangers entered 
 his gates and cast lots on Jerusalem, thou too as one of thon. 
 
 This too is a question not of rhetoric, but of morals. We 
 cannot imagine that Almighty God, Who warns that He may 
 not strike, would eight times repeat the exhortation, — a repe- 
 tition which in itself has so much earnestness, "do not," "do 
 not," " do not," in regard to sin which had been already end- 
 ed. As to past sin, God exhorts to repent, to break it off, not to 
 renew it. He does not exhort to that which would be a con- 
 tradiction even to His own Omnipotence, not to do what had 
 been already done. 
 
 According to the only meaning, then, which the words bear, 
 Edom had not yet committed the sin against which Obadiah 
 warns him, and so Jerusalem was not yet destroyed, when the 
 Prophet wrote. For the sevenfold °, the day of thy brother, 
 (which is explained to be the day of his calamity), the day of 
 their destruction, the day of distress, the mention whereof had 
 just preceded, can be no other than the day when stra7/gers 
 carried away his strength, and foreigners entered his gates, 
 and casts lots on Jerusalem. But no day was the day of utter 
 destruction to Jerusalem, except that of its capture by Ne- 
 
 i" ver. 12, and so in ver. 13, 14. ' Calasio's Concordance furnishes 207 instances. 
 
 l" 2 Sam. iii. 33. ' Job x. 18. 19. " ver. 11. » ver. 12-14. 
 
 » 1 Kings xiv. 25-27. P 2 Kings xxiv. 2 Chr. xxxvi. 6, 7. 1 2 Chr. xxxvi. 10. 
 
 ■■ 2 Kings xiv. 13. ■ Der Prophet Obadia, pp. 4. sqq. ' Jer. xiviii. 29, 30, 
 
 from Is. xvi.6; Jer. xiviii. 31, from Is. xv. 5, xvi. 7, 11 ; Jer. xiviii. 32, from Is. xvi. 8, 
 9. 10; Jer. xiviii. 31-, from Is. xv. 4-6 ; Jer. xiviii. 3ij, from Is. xvi. 11, xv. 7; Jer. xiviii. 
 
 bucbadnezzar. Its capture by Shishak°, or by the Chaldees 
 under!' Jehoiakim and Jeboiachin 'i, left it uninjui-cd ; Jeho- 
 ash, when he bad defeated Amaziah, broke down a part of its 
 walls only'. 
 
 The relation of Oljadiah to Jeremiah agrees with this. This 
 argument in proof of that relation has been so carefully drawn 
 out by Caspari % that little is needed except clearly to exhibit 
 it. Few indeed, I should think, (unless under some strong 
 contrary bias), could read the five first verses of Obadiah in 
 the book of the Prophet himself, and, as they occur, scattered 
 in the 49th chapter of Jeremiah, and not be convinced that 
 Jeremiah reset the words of Obadiah in his own prophecy. 
 
 This is, in itself, probable, because Jeremiah certainly in- 
 corporated eight verses of Isaiah in his prophecy against Mo- 
 ab ', and four of the same Prophet in his prophecy against 
 Babylon ", in addition to several allusions to his prophecies 
 contained in a word or idiom, or mode of expression". In like 
 way, he closes his prophecy against Damascus, with a verse 
 from the prophecy of Amos against it '; and he inserts a verse 
 of Amos against Amnion in his own prophecy against that 
 people >". This is the moreremarkable, because the prophecy 
 of Amos against each people consists of three verses only. 
 This, of course, was done designedly. Probably in renewing 
 the prophecies against thosenations, Jeremiah wished to point 
 out that those former prophecies were still in force ; that they 
 had not yet been exhausted ; that the threatenings of God 
 were not the less certain, because they were delayed; that 
 His word would not the less come true, because He was long- 
 suffering. The insertion of these former prophecies, longer or 
 shorter, are a characteristic of Jeremiah's prophecies against 
 the nations, occurring, as they do, in those against Babylon, 
 Damascus, Moab, Ammon, and therefore probably in that 
 also against Edom. 
 
 The eight verses, moreover, common to Obadiah and Jere- 
 miah form one whole in Obadiah ;in Jeremiah they are scat- 
 tered amid other verses of his own, in precisely the same way 
 as we know that he introduced verses of Isaiah against Moab. 
 But besides this analogy of the relation of the prophecy of Je- 
 remiah to that of Isaiah, it is plainly more natural to suppose 
 that Jeremiah enlarged an existing prophecy, adding to it 
 words which God gave him, than that Obadiah put together 
 scattered sayings of Jeremiah, and yet that these sayings,thus 
 severed from their context, shonld still have formed as they 
 do, one compact connected whole. 
 
 Yet this is the case as to these verses of Obadiah. Apart, 
 for the time, from the poetic imagery, the connection of 
 thought in Obadiah's prophecy is this ; 1) God had command- 
 ed nations to come against Edom, 2) determining to lower it ; 
 3) it had trusted proudly in its strong position ; 4) yet God 
 would bring it down ; and that, 5) through no ordinary spoil- 
 er, but 6) by one who should search out its most hidden trea- 
 sures ; 7) its friends should be its destroyers ; 8) its wisdom, 
 and 9) might should fail it, and 10) it should perish, for its 
 malice to its brother Jacob ; the crowning act of which would 
 beat the capture of Jerusalem ; (11-14) but God's day was at 
 hand, the heathen should be requited ; (15, 16) the remnant of 
 Zion, being delivered, would dispossess their dispossessors, 
 would spread far and wide ; (17-20) a Saviour should arise out 
 of Zion, and the kingdom should be the Lord's. (21) 
 
 Thus, not the eight verses only of Obadiah, five of which 
 
 37, from Is. xv. 2, 3 ; also Jer. xiviii. 43, 44, from Is. xxiv. 17, 18. " Jer. 1. Ifi, from 
 Is. xiii. 14 ; Jer. 1. S9, from Is. xiii. 21. 20 ; and Jer. 1. 40, from Is. xiii. 9. » Jer. 
 
 1. 2. refers to Is. xlvi. 1 ; Jer. 1. 8, to Is. xiviii. 20 ; Jer. 1. 23, to Is. xiv. 6, 4 ; Jer. 1. 25, 
 to Is. xiii. 5 ; Jer. 1. 34, to Is. xlvii. 4 ; Jer. 1. 38, to Is. xliv. 27 ; Jer. li. 11, to Is. 
 xiii. 17. ' Jer. xhx. 27- from Am. i. 4. J Am. i. 15, in Jer. xlix. 3, 
 
 besides the allusion in ver. 2. nonSo nyiin, and nrisn vk2.
 
 OJJADIAH. 
 
 229 
 
 reciir in Jeremiah, and three others, to which he alludes, stand 
 in close connection in Obadiah, but they form a part of one 
 well-arranged whole. The connection is sometimes very close 
 indeed; as when, to the proud question of Esau, /«/ 7/oride?// 
 arets^, ivho will lirinir vie down to the irroiaiil? (iod answers, 
 though than pi arc thij nest anto/ig tlic xtars, inish.sliaiii oride«/'', 
 thence will I lirina; thee down. 
 
 Jeremiah, (intlie contrary, the mourneramonirtheprophets, 
 isplaintive.even inhis prophcc-ics against the enemicsof(iod's 
 people. Even in this prophecy he minifies words of tender- 
 ness'^; Leave thi/fathndesa children, J will ])reserve them alive ; 
 and let thy ividows tni.sf in Me. Jcrcmiali, accordini;;ly, has 
 a succession of strikinj!^ pictures; but the connection in him 
 is rather one of oratory than of tliouj^ht. His object is to im- 
 press; he (/of.v impress, by an accumulation of iinasres of terror 
 or desolation. Closeness of thouii^ht would not aid his object, 
 and he neji^lects it, except when he retains the order of Oba- 
 diah. But plainly it is most probable, that that is theoritrinal 
 form of the prophecy, where the order is the sequence of 
 thought. That sc(|uence is a characteristic, not of these 
 verses only of Obadiah, but of tlie wliole. The whole twenty 
 one verses of the Prophet pursue one connected train of 
 thought, from the beginning to the end. No one verse could 
 be displaced, without injuring that order. Thoughts flow on, 
 the one out of the other. But nothing is more improbable 
 than to suppose that this connected train of thought was 
 produced by putting together thoughts, which originally 
 stood unconnected. 
 
 Theslightvariations alsoin these verses,astheystand in the 
 twoprophets,are characteristic. Wherever thetwoprophets 
 in any degree vary, Obadiah is the more concise, or abrupt; 
 Jeremiah, as belongs to his pathetic character, the more flow- 
 ing. Thus Obadiahbegins, Thus saith the Lord God.of Edam. 
 A report we have heard from the Lord, and a messenger antong 
 the heathen is sent ; Arise and let us arise against her to ha file. 
 The words. Thus saith the Lord God, of Ed om, declare that the 
 whole prophecy which follows came from God ; then Obadiah 
 bursts forth with what he had heard from God, A report tve 
 have heard from the Lord. The words are joined in meaning ; 
 the grammatical connection, if regarded, would be incorrect. 
 Again, in the words, ive have heard, the Prophet joins his peo- 
 ple with himself. Jeremiah substitutes the more precise, / 
 have heard, transposes the words to a later part of the pro- 
 phecy, and so obviates the difliculty of the connection : then 
 he substitutes the regular form, shaluach, for the irregular, 
 shulldch ; and for the one abrupt sentence, Arise, and arise we 
 against her to battle, he substitutes the Hebrew parallelism, 
 Gather ye yourselves and come against her ; and arise to battle. 
 Next, Obiidiah has. Behold ! small have I made thee among the 
 nations; despised art thou exceedingly. Jeremiah connects the 
 verse with the preceding by the addition of the particle/w, 
 and makes the whole flow on, depending on the word, / have 
 made. For behold ! small have I made thee among the heathen, 
 despised aimmg men. Obadiah, disregarding rules of parallel- 
 ism, says ; The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee, dweller in 
 rock-clefts, his lofty seat ; who says in his heart, ivho will bring 
 me down to the earth ? Jeremiah with a softer flow ; Thy 
 alarmingness hath deceived thee, the pride of thy heart ; dweller 
 in the clefts of the rock, holding the height of a hill. Obadiah 
 
 » pN 'mv -D ver. 3. >> iniN cjm ver. 4. " xlix. 11. ^ xlix. 7, comp. 
 
 ii. I*, viii. 19, XIV. ly, xviii. 14, 20, xxii. 2S, xxx. 6, xxxi.20, xlix. 1. ' xlix.S, comp. 
 xlix. 30, xlviii. 6. ' xlix. 13, comp. xxiv. i), xxv. 9, 18, xxix. 18, xlii. 18, xliv. 12, 
 
 22, besides other accumulations as in vii. 3+, xxii. 5. or lesser degrees of accumulation, 
 fulness of language being a characteristic of Jeremiah. e xlix. 17, comp. xviii. 16, 
 
 has very boldly; Though thou exalt as tlie eagle, a^d (hough 
 amid stars set thy nest, thence will 1 bring thee down, saith 
 the Lord. Jeremiah contracts this, omits an idiom, for bold- 
 ness, almost alone in Hebrew, veini bein cocabim sim, and 
 though amid stars set, and has only, trhen thou exaltest, as an 
 eagle, thy nest, thence will I bring thee ilown, saith the Lord, 
 wiiere also, through the omission of the wonls •' amid stars," 
 the word " themu!" has, in Jeremiah, no exact antecedent. 
 In like way Jeremiah smooths down the abrupt appeal, // 
 thieves had come to thee, if spoilers of the night (how art thou 
 cut oif'l) will they not steal their enough ? If grajte-gatherers 
 had come to thee, will they not leave gleanings? Jeremiah 
 changes it into two even half-verses ; If grajie-gatherers had 
 come to thee, will they not leave gleanings ? If thieves bi/ night, 
 they had spoiled their enough. Again, for the 5 bold words of 
 Obadiah, eik nechphesu Esau, nib'u niatsniunaiv, lit. hojv are 
 Esau outsearched, sought out his hidde/i places, Jeremiah sub- 
 stitutes. For I have laid hare Esau ; I have discovered his hid- 
 den places, and he cannot be hid. 
 
 Again, even an English reader of Jeremiah will have notie- 
 edtbat Jeremiah has many idioms or phrases orimages, which 
 he has pleasure in repeating. They are characteristic of his 
 style. Now, in these verses which Obadiah and Jeremiah 
 have in common, there is no one idiom which occurs elsewhere 
 in Jeremiah ; whereas, in the other verses of the proj)liecy of 
 Jeremiah against Edom, in which they are, as it were, inlaid, 
 thereare several such, so to say, favouriteturnsofexpressions. 
 As such, there have been noticed, the short abrupt questions 
 with which Jeremiah opens his prophecy against Edom''; Is 
 tvisdom 7iomore in Teman} the hurried imperatives accumu- 
 lated on one another% Flee, turn, dwell deeji; the accumula- 
 tion of words expressive of desolation f; Bozrah shall become 
 a desolation, a reproach, a waste and a curse ; and all her cities, 
 perpetual wastes ; the combination of the two strong words, 
 shall be stupified, shall hiss, in amazement at her overthrow; 
 ^ Every one who goeth by her shall be stupefied [we say "struck 
 dumb"] and shall hiss at all her plagues. Such again are the 
 comparison to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah''; the 
 image of " the lion coming up from the pride of Jordan';" 
 the burden of these prophecies, ■" the day of the destruction of 
 Edom and time of his visitation. ' TFherefore hear ye the coun- 
 sel of the Lord against Edom and His purposes which He has 
 purposed towards Teman. Then also, whole verses are re- 
 peated in these prophecies ^. 
 
 Out of 16 verses of which the prophecy of Jeremiah against 
 Edom consists, four are identical with those of Obadiah ; a 
 fifth embodies a verse of Obadiah's ; of the eleven which re- 
 main, ten have some turns of expression or idioms, more or 
 fewer, which recur in Jeremiah, either in these prophecies 
 against foreign nations, or in his prophecies generally. Now 
 it would be wlioljy improbable that a prophet, selecting verses 
 out of the prophecy of Jeremiah, shoukl have selected pre- 
 cisely those which contain none of Jeremiah's characteristic 
 expressions ; whereas it perfectly fits in with the supposition 
 that Jeremiah interwove verses of Obadiah with his own pro- 
 phecy, that in verses so interwoven there is not one ex- 
 pression which occurs elsewhere in Jeremiah. 
 
 One expression, which has been cited as an exception, if it 
 is more than an accidental coincidence, the rather confirms 
 
 xLx. 8, 1. 13, Lam. ii. 15. from the vision, 1 Kings ix. 8, also Ezek. xxvii. 36, Zeph. 
 ii. 15. l" xlix. IS, comp. 1. 40. " xlix. 19, comp. i. 44. k xlix. 8. 
 
 comp. xlvi. 21, 1. 27, 31, xlviii. 44, vi. 15, x. 15. 1 xlix. 20 repeated 1.45. niayrp 
 
 3iyn occurs more in Jeremiah than in any other Book; xi. 19, xviii. 11, 18,xxix. ll;- 
 xlix. 30. " xlix. 18 repeated xlix. 33, 1. 40, li.43;and xlix. 22 inxlviiLJO, 1.
 
 230 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 this. Obadinli, in one of the earlier verses which Jeremiah 
 has notliere eniph)ye(l, says, To the border have setU thee forth 
 the 7IICII of thy covenant ; the men of thy peace hnve deceived thee, 
 have prevailed (iguinst thee; thy bread [i.e. the men of thy 
 bread, tliey who ate liread with thee] have laid a snare under 
 thee. In the middle of this threefold retribution for theirmis- 
 dcalingto their brother Judah, there oecur the words, thetnen 
 of thy peace, wliieh arc probably taken from a Psalm of Da- 
 vid ". But the word hishshiuchu, " have deceived thee,'" corre- 
 sponds to the word hishshiechu" in v. 3. " deceived thee hath the 
 pride of thy heart." The deceit on the jiart of their allies was 
 thcfiniit and consequence of their self-deceit through the pride 
 of their own heart. The verse in Obadiah then stands in con- 
 nection with the precedinji', and it is characteristic of Oba- 
 diah to make one part of his prophecy bear upon another, to 
 shew the connection of thoughts and events by the connection 
 of words. The taunting words against Zedckiah, which Je- 
 remiah puts into the nu>uth of the women left in the house, 
 when they should be brought before the king of Babylon's 
 princes, Thy friends, lit. the wen of thy peace, have .set thee 
 on, hissithuca i*, and have prevailed against thee, may very pro- 
 bably be a reminiscence of the words of Obadiah (although 
 only the words, men of thy peace, are the same) : but they 
 stand in no connection with any other words in Jeremiah, as 
 those of Obadiah do with the previous words. 
 
 The pro])liecy of Jeremiah in which he incorporated these 
 words of Obadiah, itself also speaks of the destruction of Je- 
 rusalem as still future. For he says to Edom i, Lo ! they whose 
 judgment teas not to drink the cap, shall indeed drink it ; and 
 shalt thou be unpunished ? Thou shalt not be unpunished ;for 
 thou shalt indeed drink it. It is plainly wrong (as even our 
 own Version has done) to render the self-same expression 
 shut ho yishtu as past, in the first place, have assuredly drunk- 
 en, and as future in the second, Ai shatho tishteh^.forthoushalt 
 surely drink of it. Since they must be future in the second 
 place, so must they also in the first. Jeremiah too elsewhere 
 contrasts, as future, God's dealings with His own people and 
 with the nations, in this self-same form of words. ^ Thus 
 saith the Lord of hosts. Ye shall certainly drink ; for lo ! I be- 
 gin to bring evil on the city lultich is called by My JVame, and 
 shall ye be utterly unpmiished f Ye shall not be unpunished ; 
 for I ivill call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the 
 earth, saith the Lord of hosts. The form of words, ^ hinneh 
 bair anochi mechel leharea', in itself requires, at least a 
 proximate future, (for hinneh with a participle always de- 
 notes a future, nearer or further) and the words themselves 
 were spoken in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. 
 
 In that same fourth year of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah received 
 from God the command to write in that roll which Jehoiakim 
 burnt when a little of it had been read to him", all the words 
 that I have spoken unto thee against Israel and against Judah 
 andagainst all the nations, from the day I spake untothee,from 
 the days of Josiah even unto this day. After Jehoiakim had 
 burnt the roll, that same collection was renewed, at God's 
 conin)and, icith many like ivords". Now immediately upon 
 this, follows, in the book of Jeremiah, the collection of prophe- 
 cies against the foreign nations, and in this collection three 
 contain some notice that they were written in that 4th year of 
 Jehoiakim, and only the two last, those against Elam and 
 
 " Ps. xli. 10. ° iN'E'a, -pn"!?". P Tin'on Jer. xxxviii. 22. Qxlix. 12. 
 
 ' inB" inp, nmn ins' 'D. ' xxv. 28, 2y. ' rinS bnD '3:n- Tj;3 .iin 
 
 " XXV. 1. ''xxxvi.1,2. " Jer. li. 60-1. "Ib.eOjGS. ? Is. xxii. 6, 
 
 Ezek. xxxii.21. ^ Jir. xlvi. 10, 20, 24, xlvii. 2. o Jer. xlvi. 2, 13, 26, xlix. 28, 30. 
 t" Jer. xlviii. 10, xlix. 22. c Jer. xlvi. 2. ''■ lb. 13. ' xlvii. 1. 
 
 Babylon, which may have been added to the collection, bear 
 any later date. The ])roplie('y against Babylon is at its dose 
 marked as wholly by itself"'. For Seraiah is bidden, when he 
 hadcome to Babylon, and had made an eml of reading the book, 
 to bind a stone u|)on it, and cast it into the Kuphrates, and say. 
 Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again front the evil 
 which I bring upon her. These chaj)ters then as to Babylon, 
 although connected with the ])receeding in that they are pi'o- 
 phecies against enemies of God's people, are marked as in one 
 way detached from them, a book " by themselves. And in con- 
 formity with this, they are stated, in the beginning, to have 
 been written in the 4th year of Zedekiah. In like way, the 
 prophecy against Elam, which was uttered in the beginning 
 of the reign of Zedekiah, was occasioned probably by misdeeds 
 of that then savage people, serving, as they did, in the army 
 of the Chaldees y against Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar 
 took Jehoiakim captive to Babylon. It is distinguished from 
 the earlier prophecies, in that Elain was no inveterate enemy 
 of God's people, and the instrument of his chastisement was 
 not to be Babylon. 
 
 Those earlier prophecies (ch. xlvi-xlix. 33.) against Egypt, 
 Philistia (including Tyre and Zidon), Moab, Amnion, Edom, 
 Damascus, Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, all have this in 
 common ; 1) that they are directed against old and inveterate 
 enemies of God's people ; 2) they all threaten destruction from 
 one source, the North ^, or Nebuchadnezzar himself, either 
 naming^ or describing him ''. They are then probably one 
 whole, a book of the visitations of God upon His enemies 
 throughNebuehadnezzar. But the first of the two prophecies 
 against Egypt relates to the expedition of Pharaoh Neeho 
 against Assyria, the utter overthrow of whose vast army at 
 the Euphrates he foretells. That overthrow took place at 
 Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim'^. The next pro- 
 phecy against Egypt relates to the expedition of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar against it, which followed immediately on the defeat 
 of Pharaoh'^. The third prophecy against Philistia was, be- 
 fore Pharaoh smote Gaza"; but this was probably on his 
 march against Assyria in that same fourth year of Jehoiakim, 
 before his own power was broken for ever. 
 
 But since the prophecy of Obadiah was anterior to that of 
 Jeremiah, it was probably long anterior to it. For Jeremiah 
 probably incorporated it, in order to shew that there was yet 
 a fulfilment in store for it. And with this it agrees, that Oba- 
 diah does employ in his prophecy language of Balaam, of a 
 Psalm of David, of Joel and Amos, and of no later prophet. 
 This could not have been otherwise, if he lived at the time, 
 when he is placed in the series of the Minor Prophets. Had 
 he lived later, it is inconceivable that, using of set purpose, 
 as he does, language of Joel and Amos, his prophecy should 
 exhibit no trace of any other later writing. The expressions 
 taken from the book of Joel are remarkable, considering the 
 smallextent of bothbooks. Such are undoubtedly the phrases; 
 it, Jerusalem, shall be holiness, kodesh ^ ; In motint Zion there 
 shall be a remnant s ; For near is the Day of the Lord ^ ; 1 
 will return thy recompense upon thy head ', the phrase yaddu 
 ^orrtZ i' for " cast lots." These are not chance idioms. They 
 are not language of imagery. They are distinguished in no 
 poetical or rhetorical manner from idioms which are not used. 
 They are not employed, because they strike the senses or the 
 
 ' erifi .T,ni Ob. 17. tnp dSs-it nn'm Joel iv. 17. s ■■ib''S n'nn p'x inni Ob. 17. 
 
 ncSa n'nn DWiTii )i'!i inz "3 Joel. lii. 5. •> Dim ^3 Sv " or nnp -d Ob. 15. 
 
 pin.T PBV3 •' Dv 3np "3 Joel i. 15. ' -pto:^ 3ii!" iroi Ob. 15. D3B'Kn3 u:hai yvtt 
 
 Joel iv. 4. 03t?iin3 D3'7DJ 'n3!?,-n iv. 7. ^ 'jiii it Ob. 11, Joel iv. 3 ; else only in 
 
 Nah. iii. 10. Elsewhere with Siu there are united m', y^t/Ti, h'sn, |nj, 'ran not T!'. 
 
 I
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 231 
 
 imaijination. One prophet does not l)orro\v the imacrery of 
 another. They are part ot'thc relij;:ious hini;uaif(! of'|ir(iiili('f'y, 
 in which wlien rcliirious truth had once Ix'cii enilxidicd, the 
 prophets handed it on from one ^feneration to anotiier. 'J'licsc 
 words were like some notes of a hived and familiar melody, 
 which hrouiiht hack to the soul the whole strain, of which 
 they were a part. Tlic Dni/ of the Lord havinj:; heen des<n-ib- 
 ed in sucli awefiil majesty by Joel, them^eforth the sayinfr, 
 near is the Dai/ of the Lord, repeated in his own simple words, 
 conveyed to the mind all those (!ircTimstances of awe, with 
 which it was invested. In like way the two words, it shall b 
 /;o//«pw, su>>:fjested all that fulness of the outpourinj;: of God's 
 Spirit, the sole Source of holiness, with which the words 
 were associated in Joel; they are full of the Gospel promise, 
 that the Church should he liot holy only, hnt the depository 
 of holiness, the appointed instrument throup;h which God 
 would diffuse it. Equally characteristic is that other expres- 
 sion ; In 3Ioiait Sioti sliall he a remnant. It gives promi- 
 nence to that truth, so contrary to flesh and hlood, which S. 
 Paul had to develope, that '/// were not Israel who were of Is- 
 rael^. It presented at once the positive and negative side 
 of God's mercies, that there would be salvation in Mount Zion, 
 hut of a remnant only. So, on the other side, the use of the 
 idiom mechamas achica Yaakoh, repeated but intensified from 
 that of Joel, mechamas bene Yehudah, continued on the wit- 
 ness against that abiding sin for which Joel had foretold the 
 desolation of Edom, his violence towards his brother Jacob. 
 
 The promise in Amos of the expansion of Jacob, that they 
 may inherit the residue of Edom, atid all nations upon whom 
 My Name is called, is, in like way, the basis of the detailed 
 promise of its expansion in all directions, E. W. N. S. which 
 Obadiab, like Amos, begins with the promise, that the people 
 of God should inherit EAom : A )id the South shall inherit Mount 
 Esau, and the plain the Philistines. Amos, taking Edom as a 
 specimen and type of those who hated God and His people, 
 promises that they and all nations should become the inheri- 
 tance of the Church. Obadiah, on the same ground, having 
 declared God's sentence on Edom, describes how each portion 
 of the people of God should be enlarged and overspread be- 
 yond itself. 
 
 While thus alluding tothewordsof Amos, Obadiah further 
 embodies an expression of Balaam, to which Amos also refers. 
 Balaam says, Edom shall be an heritage (yereshah), Seir also 
 shall be aii heritage to his eneynies ; and Jacob shall do valiant- 
 ly ; and one out of Jacob shall have domiyiion, and shall destroy 
 the remnant (sarid) out of the city. The union of these two de- 
 clarations of Balaam (one only of which had been employed 
 by Amos) cannot be accidental. They lie in the two adjacent 
 verses in each. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the 
 house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble, a7id they 
 shall burn them, and devour them; and there shall be no rem- 
 nant (sarid) to the house of Esau ; for the Lord hath spohen it ; 
 and the south shall inherit (yereshu) the mount of Esau. In 
 the fourth verse, also, Obadiah has an idiom from the pro- 
 phecy of Balaam, which occurs nowhere besides ; strong is 
 thy dwelling, and place (vesim kin7iecha) in the rock thy nest.™ 
 This infinitive here is a very vivid but anomalous construc- 
 tion. It cannot be by accident, that this idiom occurs in these 
 two places alone in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 This employment of prophetic language of earlier prophets 
 is the more remarkable, from the originality and freshness of 
 Obadiah's own diction. In his 21 verses he has several words 
 
 'Rom.ix.G. n> Num. xxiv. 21, Ob. 4. 
 
 ° pTB, our " fork," where two ways part, v. 14, T^^ssD v. 6, Soij v. 0, niiD v. 7, U'^ 
 
 which occtir nowhere else". They are mostly simple words 
 and iiiHcctions of words in use. Still they were proliably 
 framed by Mii; I'rophct himself. One, who himself adds to the 
 store of words in a language, has no occasion to borrow them 
 of another. Obadiah adopts that other prophetic language, 
 not as needing it to (express his own meaning, but in order 
 to give to it afresh force and bearing. 
 
 But on the same ground, on which Obadiah employs the 
 language of prophets who li\ed itcfore him, he would have 
 used the words of later propliets, had he lived later. 
 
 The framing of single words or forms is the least part of 
 the originality of f )badiah's style. Vividness, connectedness, 
 power, arc characteristics of it. As it begins, >-o it continues 
 and ends. It has no lircaks, nor intcrrujitions. Thought fol- 
 lows on thought, as wave rolls u|)on wave, hut all niar>halled 
 to one end, marching on, column after column, to the goal 
 which God hath appointed for them. Each verse grows out 
 of that which was before it, and carries on its thought. The 
 cadence of the words in the original is a singular blending of 
 pathos and strength. The pathos of the cadence; consists in a 
 somewhat long sustained measure. in which the Prophet duells 
 on the one thought which he wishes to inijircss ; the force, in 
 the few brief words in which he sums up some sentence. That 
 lengthened flow will have struck even an English reader ; the 
 conciseness can only be seen in Hebrew. Those .5 words, how 
 are Esau outsearched ! outsought his secret places! have been 
 already alluded to. Other sucli instances are, Ein tebunak bo 
 with which v. 7- closes ; gam attah ceachad mehem, " thou too 
 as one of them," v. II ; caasher 'asi/ha, ye'aseh lac after the 
 long exhortation in v. 12-14. or the H words vehaiu celo haiu, 
 which close the description in v. 16, IJ. or those three which 
 so wonderfully sum up the whole prophecy, vehayethah ladonai 
 hammeluchah, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Even the 
 repetition which occurs in the Prophet, adds to the same ef- 
 fect, as in the two brief words, beyom nochro. beyom ohdam, be- 
 yoin zarah, beyom eidam, beyom eido, with which he closes 
 each clause of the exhortation against malicious joy in the 
 calamity of their brother. The characteristic, vivid detail in 
 description, and. in the midst of it, great conciseness without 
 sameness, occurs throughout Obadiah. 
 
 It would then be the more strange, that a prophecy so brief 
 and so connected as that of Obadiah should have been severed 
 into two (one part of which is to belong to some earlier pro- 
 phet, the other is to have been written after the destruction 
 of Jerusalem), but that the motive of this disruption of the 
 prophecy is apparent. " The oracle on Edom preserved under 
 the name of Obadiah can,'' says one", " in its present form, be 
 of no earlier date than the Babylonish Captivity. The de- 
 struction and entire desolation of Jerusalem is here describ- 
 ed ; the Prophet himself wrote among the exiles." It cannot 
 be of any earlier date, according to this writer, because, in his 
 belief, there cannot be any certain prediction of details of the 
 future, or any knowledge of that future, beyond those dim 
 anticipations' which man's own conscience and the survey 
 of God's ordinary Providence may suggest ; a cannot, which 
 presupposes another cannot, that God cannot reveal Himself 
 to His creatures. 
 
 But then this writer also could not altogether escape the 
 impression, that great part of this prophecy must belong to a 
 period long before the captivity. The only way of reconciling 
 these contradictions, this must of external evidence, and this 
 cannot of anti-doctrinal prejudice, was to divide in twain this 
 
 V. 16, 1JI3J, searched out, v. 6, are words peculiar in this sense to Obadiah : y^B I2n v. 3 
 occurs onlv in Cant. ii. 14. " Ewald Proph. i. 398. 
 
 p p 2
 
 232 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 Hvins^ whole, and to assign to the earlier period sueh portions 
 
 relatinj? to Edoni, as eontained no allusion to the destruction 
 
 of Jerusalem. This then is done;. "Further investii^ation," 
 
 the writer proceeds, " shews, that the later prophet employed 
 
 a fragment of an earlier prophet as to Edom. Alore than half 
 
 of what is now extant, i. c. v. 1-10. half of v. 17- and v. lIS. hy 
 
 their contents, languajj^e, and colouring, indicate very clearly 
 
 such an earlier prophet ; and moreover, about the same time 
 
 Jeremiahemployed the earlier fragment, in that very muchout 
 
 of verses 1-9. recurs in Jeremiah, but nothing of the words 
 
 which belongniost visibly to the later prophet, 1 1-lt), 19-'21." 
 
 i. Now, plainly, as Jeremiah is not here to tell us, why he did 
 
 incorporate in his prophecy certain verses, and did not refer to 
 
 certain other verses of Obadiah, it is, in the last degree, rash 
 
 to make a positive inference from the mere fact of his not em- 
 
 ployingthose verses.that he had them not to employ. Hedoes 
 
 embody in his prophecy the five first verses of Obadiah, and 
 
 there the correspondence between the two Prophets almost 
 
 ceases. The f/ioiiff/if of ver. 6, but not one word of it recurs 
 
 in Jeremiah p ; to ver. 7- there is no allusion whatever ; of 
 
 ver. 8. again, the thought is retained, but only o7ie tuord, and 
 
 that, in a form altogether diff"erent i. This eighth verse is the 
 
 last in Obadiah, to which Jeremiah refers. Ewald then has 
 
 to manufactnre his " earlier prophet" out of those five first 
 
 verses, which Jeremiah does embody ; of other two, of which 
 
 the thought only recurs in Jeremiah; and five more ^, to whi(rh 
 
 there is. in Jeremiah, no allusion whatever; andhaving culled 
 
 these ad libitum out of the whole chapter, he argues against 
 
 the non-existence of the rest on the ground that Jeremiah 
 
 does not employ them, whereas Jeremiah equally does not 
 
 employ five of those, the existence of which at that same time 
 
 Ewald acknowledges, and to two others Jeremiah alludes but 
 
 very distantly. Since Jeremiah's not alluding to five of these 
 
 verses, does not prove, according to Ewald, that they did not 
 
 then exist, neither does his not employing the remainder 
 
 prove it as to them. 
 
 ii. Jeremiah assigns no ground for the punishment of Edom, 
 except his pride ; nor does he, in any of those prophecies as to 
 those lesser nations, foretell anything as to the future of Ju- 
 dah. This was not assigned to him, as his subject here. He 
 does in the prophecies against Egypt and Babylon ; for those 
 were the great dynasties, on whom, in human eyes, the exis- 
 tence of Judah depended. There he foretells, that God would 
 7nake a full end o/all the nations u'hither He had driven them, 
 but not of Jacob His servant ^ The future lot of Judah, as a 
 whole, did not depend on those little nations. It may be on 
 thisground, that Jeremiah foretells their destruction and the 
 restoration of Moab and Amnion', and is silent as to Judah. 
 Again, the immediate punishment of all these petty nations 
 through Nebuchadnezzar was the subject of Jeremiah's pro- 
 phecy, not ulterior suftering at the hands of Judah. Now 
 these subjects, the violence of Esau against his brother Jacob, 
 as the ground of Edom's punishment ", the future enlargement 
 of Jacob ", and an ulterior retribution on Edom "^ through Ju- 
 dah, occupy most of those verses of Obadiah, to which there 
 is no allusion in Jeremiah. This accounts (if there were any 
 need to account for it) for the absence of allusion to almost 
 
 !• Jer. xlix. 10. q Shall I not destroy (Trann) the wise ? Ob. 8 ; 7s wisdom perished ? 
 n-an Jer. xlix. 7. '7-9, 10, 17, 'iS. •• Jer. xlvi. 27, 8; see also 1. i-S, 19, 20, 28, 
 
 3a, 4, li. 5, 6, 10, 45. ' xlviii. -17, xlix. 6. ^ 10-lK In 15, 16, Obadiah, having re- 
 
 hearsed the oflence, repeats the sentence. ' 17-21. " 18. » Hos. i. 4, Am. v. 
 
 27. ab. p. 201, vi. 7, ix. 9. J Hos. ix. 1". ab. pp. 61, 2 ; Am. ix. 9. '■ ver. 20. 
 
 » " CPaRaU occurs three times in Cuneiform Inscriptions in a list of Asiatic na- 
 tions alter ARMIN between KaTaPaTUK (Cappadocia) and laUNA(Ionia), Niebuhr 
 Reiseli. T. ii. Tab. xxxi. I. 12. p. 152, in the Epitaph of Darius at Nakshi Rustam 
 1. 28. before Ionia, in Col. 1 of the Inscription of Bisutun, 1.15." After it had been decy- 
 
 all of Obadiah to which Jeremiah does not allude, both as to 
 the part which Euald accounts for in his way, and as to most of 
 that part which he leaves unaccounted for. 
 
 Uut altogetht r, it must be said, that God's Prophets em- 
 ])loy freely, as God taught them, what they do cmj)loy of the 
 former Prophets. 'I'hey do not copy them in a mechanical 
 way, as if they were simply re-writing a work which lay be- 
 fore them, so that we should have to account for anything 
 whi(^h they did not think good to repeat. In making the like 
 use of Isaiah's prophecy as to Moab, Jeremiah makes no refe- 
 rence to the five first verses. 
 
 iii. So far from " writing among the exiles," Obadiah im- 
 plies that the Captivity had not yet commenced. He speaks 
 of Judah and Benjamin, as in their own land, and foretells that 
 they shall enlarge themselves on all sides. Hosea and Amos 
 had, at that time, prophesied the final destruction of the king- 
 dom ^ of Israel and the dispersion y of the ten tribes. In con- 
 formity with this, Obadiah foretells to the two tribes, that they 
 should occupy the vacated places of the land of promise. In 
 contrast with this enlargement of Judah and Benjamin, he 
 speaks of those already in captivity,and prophesies their resto- 
 ration. He speaks of two bodies of present exiles,"the captivi- 
 ty of this host of the children of Israel," " the captivity of Je- 
 rusalem which is at Sepharad." Of these he probably says% 
 The captiviti/ of this host of the children of Israel which are 
 among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, atid the captivity of 
 Jerusalem which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the 
 South. Both these sets of captives must have been limited 
 in number. Those of Jerusalem at Sepharad or Sardis % the 
 capital of the Lydian empire, could only have been such as 
 were exported by means of the slave trade. The only public 
 settlement of Jews there, was in times long subsequent, about 
 B.C. 200, when Antiochus the Great, in order to check the 
 seditions in Lydia and Phrygia, '"'removed thither at much 
 cost 2000 Jewish families out of Mesopotamia and Babylonia, 
 with their goods," on account of their tried faithfulness and 
 zealous service to his forefathers. This removal, accompanied 
 with grants of land, exemption from tribute for ten years, per- 
 sonal and religious protection, ruas a continuation of the com- 
 menced dispersion ; it was not a captivity. They were the de- 
 scendants of those who might have returned to their country, 
 if they would. They were in the enjoymeut of all the tem- 
 poral benefits, for which their forefathers had bartered their 
 portion in their own land. There was nothing peculiar why 
 they should be singled out as the objects of God's promise. 
 Jews were then dispersing everywhere, to be the future dis- 
 ciples or persecutors of the Gospel in all lands. Seleucus 
 Nicator, a century before, had found Jews in Asia and Lower 
 Syria, and had given them like privileges with the Macedo- 
 nians and Greeks whom he settled there. Jews had shared his 
 wars. Alexander had, at Alexandria, bestowed like privileges 
 on the Egyptian Jews "=. In such times, then, there was no 
 captivity at Sepharad ; no Lydian empire; nothing to distin- 
 guish the Jews there, from any others who remained willing- 
 ly expatriated. 
 
 On the other side, the place which the Prophet assigns to 
 those captives on their return is hut a portion of Judah, the 
 
 phered. De Sacy identified theCPRD of the Inscriptions with the "Sepharad "of Oba- 
 diah. ( Burnout, Memoire surdeux Inscriptions Cuneifornies,lS36. p. 147.) Then Lassen 
 (Hall. Encyclop. v. Persepolis, S. iii. Vol. 17. p. 36.) identified CRPD with SaRDis, 
 the Greeks omitting the II or ph, and adding, according to their wont, their termination 
 to the Asiatic name. S . Jerome's Hebi ew instructor told him that it meant the " Bos- 
 phorus:"but this ?nau have been his own conjecture, the letters " sphr" occurringinboth; 
 and ifhe took in the Prepos. 3, he had " bsphr" as the ground of his conjecture, taking in 
 then which he ought not, and leaving: out the T which he ought to have accounted for. 
 >" Jos. .\nt. xii. 3. 4. <= Josephus(.'Vnt.xii. 3. 1.) contrasts them with the JKOiKiffBEio-ii;.
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 233 
 
 cities of the South, which he docs not represent as unpeopled. 
 In like way, whether the words as to Israel are rendered, 
 "which are among- the C(mfi(tn'iles as far us Z(irr/ih>t//i," or, 
 " shall possess the Canaunites as far as Zarephal/i," in either 
 case the Prophet must be speakinij: of a very limited number. 
 Had he been speaking in reference to the ten tribes or their 
 restoration, he would not have assiji^ned their territory, 
 "Ephraim, Samaria, Gilea<l," to the two tribes, nor would he 
 have assig:ned to them so small a tra(!t. 'I'his limited number 
 of captives exactly airrees with the sttate ofthiiif^s, sup])osinp 
 Obadiah to have lived, when, aecordine; to his place in the 
 Canon, he did live, near the time of Joel. For Joel denounces 
 God's judgments on Tyre, Zidon and I'hilistia for selling un- 
 to the Grecians the children of Judah and Jerusalem. These 
 captives, of whom Obadiah speaks, were some probably yet 
 unsold, at Sarcpta,and some at Scpliarad or Sardis among the 
 Grecians. On the other hand, it is inconceivable that Oba- 
 diah would have contrasted the present captivity, "//(/s cap- 
 tivity of the (ihildren of Israel," "the captivity of Jerusalem 
 which is in Sepharad," with Judah and Benjamin in their anci- 
 ent possessions, had Judah and Benjamin been, when hewrote, 
 themselves in captivity in Babylon, or that he would have pro- 
 phesied concerningsome little fragment of Israel, that it should 
 be restored, and would have passed over the whole body of the 
 ten tribes, if, whenheprophesiedjithadbeenincaptivity. Nor 
 
 is there again anylikelihood,thatby "this captivity of Jerusa- 
 lem ill Scpliarad," Obadiab means any captives. among wlioui 
 he liimself was, (wbicii is the whole ground-work of this tlieo- 
 ry of Ewald) for, in that case, he would probably have ad- 
 dressed the (;onsolation and the promise of return to them (as 
 do tb(! other prophets) and not have spoken o/tlieni only. 
 
 A few years hence, ami this theory will be among the tilings 
 which liav(! been. The connection of thought in Obadiah is 
 too close, the cliaracferistics of his style occur too uniformly 
 throughout bis brief prophecy, to adiiiit of its being thus dis- 
 located. Nowhere, throughout his prophecy, can one word or 
 form be alleged, of which it can even be said, that it was used 
 more frequently in later Hebrew. All is one original, uni- 
 form, uniti d whole. 
 
 " Obadiab," says Hugh of S.Victor, "is simple in language, 
 manifold in meaning; few in words, abundant in thoughts, ac- 
 cording to that, ' the wise man is known by the fewness of 
 his words.' He directeth his prophecy, according to the let- 
 ter, against Edom; allegorically, he inveighs against the 
 world; morally, against tlie flesh. Bearing an image of the 
 Saviour, he hinteth at His Coming through Whom the world 
 is destroyed, through Whom the flesh is subdued, through 
 Whom freedom is restored." "Among all the prophets," 
 says another ">," he is the briefest in number of words ; in the 
 grace of mysteries he is their equal." 
 
 d Isii lib. alleg. S. Scr. 
 
 ABO^joa .cao-tfefl'neA tieo //M 
 
 PLAN OF THE RUINS OF PETRA AND ITS ENTRANCES. From Laborde, seep. 235.
 
 234 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 Before 1 The destruction of Edum, .'} for their pride, 
 cir.587. \{) and for their wro7ig unto Jucob. \7 The sal- 
 
 vation and victory of Jacob. 
 
 Isai. 21. 11. 
 & 31. .5. 
 Ezek. 25. 
 12, 13, 11. 
 Joel 3. 19. Mai. 
 
 'HE vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the 
 
 1.3. 
 
 Lord God '^ concerning 
 
 !• Jer. 49. l+,&c. 
 
 Edo 
 
 ni: 
 
 We 
 
 Vbr. I . The vision of Obadiah, i. e. of the worshipper of God. 
 The Prophet would be known only by that wliich his name 
 imports, that he worshipped God. He tells us in this double 
 title, throuifh whom the prophecy came, and from Whom it 
 came. His name authenticated the prophecy to the Jewish 
 Church. Thenceforth he chose to remain wholly hidden. He 
 entitles it a vision, as the prophets were called seers^, although 
 he relates, not the vision which he saw, but its substance and 
 meaning,-. Probably the future was unfolded to him in the 
 form of sights spread out before his mind,or which he sj)oke in 
 words given to him by God. His language consists of a suc- 
 cession of pictures, which he may have seen, and, in his pic- 
 ture-language, described. ""As prophecy is called the word, 
 because God spake to the prophets within, so it is called vi- 
 sion, because the prophets saw, with the eyes of the mind and 
 by the light wherewith they are illumined, what God will- 
 eth to be known to them." The name expresses also the 
 certainty of their knowledge. '' ^ Among the organs of our 
 senses, sight has the most evident knowledge of those things 
 which are the object of our senses. Hence the contemplation 
 of the things which are true is called vision, on account of the 
 evidence and assured certainty. On that ground the prophet 
 was called seer.'" 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom. This second 
 title states, that the whole which follows is from God. What 
 immediately follows is said in Obadiab's own person ; but all, 
 whether so spoken or directly in the Person of God, was alike 
 the word of God. God spake in or by the prophets, in both 
 ways, since * prophert/ came not by tlie ivill of man, but holy 
 men of Godspahe asthey were movedby the Holy Ghost. Oba- 
 diah, in that he uses, in regard to his whole prophecy, words 
 which other prophets use in delivering a direct message from 
 God, ascribes the whole of his prophecy to God, as immedi- 
 ately as other prophets did any words which God commanded 
 them to speak. The words are a rule for all prophecy, that all 
 comes directly from God. 
 
 fFe have heard a rumour, rather, a report; lit. a heari^ig, 
 a thing heard, as Isaiah says ^, TVho hath believed our report ? 
 A report is certain or uncertain, according to the authority 
 from whom it comes. This report was certainly true, since 
 it was from the Lord. By the plural, ive, Obadiah may have 
 associated with himself, either other prophets of his own day 
 as Joel and Amos, who, with those yet earlier, as Balaam and 
 David, had prophesied against Edom, or the people, for whose 
 sakes God made it known to him. In eithercase.the Prophet 
 does not stand alone for himself. He hears with " the goodly 
 company of the Prophets ;" and the people of God hear in 
 him, as Isaiah says again ^, that which I have heard from the 
 Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you. 
 
 And an ambassador is setit among the heathen. The a7n- 
 hassador is any agent, visible or invisible, sent by God. Hu- 
 man powers, who wish to stir up war,send human messengers. 
 All things stand at God's command, and whatever or whom- 
 soever He employs, is a 7nessenger from Him. He uses our 
 
 1 1 Sam. ix.9. = Rib. 
 
 3 Comm. in Is. § 8. ap. S. Basil, i. 383. ■< 2 S. Pet. i. 21. ^ liii.l. « xxi. 10. 
 
 have heard a rumour from the Lonn, and chrTst 
 an ambassador is sent among the hea- "'■ '''^^- 
 then, Arise ye, and let us rise up against 
 licr in battle. 
 
 2 Behold, I have made thee small among 
 
 language to us. He may have employedan angel, as He says''. 
 He sent evil angels among them, and as, through the permis- 
 sion given to a lying spirit^, He executed His judgments on 
 Ahab, of his own free will believing the evil spirit, and dis- 
 believing Himself. So ^God sent an evil spirit between Abi- 
 melech and the men of Shechem, allowing His rebellious .spirit 
 to bring about the punishment of evil men, by inflaming yet 
 more the evil passions, of which they were slaves. Evil spi- 
 rits, in their malice and rebellion, while stirring up the lust 
 of conquest, are still God's 7nessetigers, in that He overrules 
 them ; as, to St. Paul i", the thorn in thejlesh, the 77iessenger of 
 Satan to buffet him, was still the gift of God. It was give7i 
 77ie, he says. 
 
 Arise ye a7id let ns rise. He who rouseth them, says, Arise 
 ye, and they quickly echo the words, and let us arise. The 
 will of God is fulfilled at once. While eager to accomplish 
 their own ends, they fulfil, the more, the purpose of God. 
 Whether the first agent be man's own passions, or the evil 
 spirit who stirs them, the impulse spreads from the one or 
 the few to the many. But all catch the spark, cast in among 
 them. The summons finds a ready response. Arise, is the 
 command of God, however given ; let us arise, is the eager 
 response of man's avarice or pride or ambition, fulfilling im- 
 petuously the secret will of God ; as a tiger, let loose upon 
 man by man, fulfils the will of its owner, while sating its own 
 thirst for blood. So Isaiah hears ^^ the 7ioise of a multitude i7i 
 the mountai/ts, like as of a great people, a tumultuous 7ioise of 
 the kingdo7ns of 7iatio7is gathered together. The Medes and 
 Persians thought at that time of notiiing less, than that they 
 were instruments of the One God, Whom they knew not. But 
 Isaiah continues; The Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the 
 battle ; and, when it was fulfilled, Cyrus saw and owned it^^. 
 
 2. Behold, I ha7!e made thee small. God,having declared 
 His future judgments on Edom, assigns the first ground of 
 those judgments. Pride was the root of Edom's sin, then 
 envy; then followed exultation at his brother's fall, hard- 
 heartedness and bloodshed. All this was against the disposi- 
 tion of God's Providence for him. God had 7nade him small, 
 in numbers, in honor, in territory. Edom was a wild mountain 
 people. It M^as strongly guarded in the rock-girt dwelling, 
 which God had assigned it. Like the Swiss or the Tyrolese of 
 old, or the inhabitants of Mount Caucasus now, it had strength 
 for resistance through the advantages of its situation, not for 
 aggression, unless it were that of a robber-horde. But low- 
 ness, as men use it, is the mother either of lowliness or pride. 
 A low estate, acquiesced in by the grace of God, is the parent of 
 lowliness ; when rebelled against, it generates a greater inten- 
 sity of pride than greatness, because that pride is against na- 
 ture itself and God's appointment. The pride of human great- 
 ness, sinful as it is. is allied to a natural nobility of character. 
 Copying pervertedly the greatness of God, the soul, when it 
 receives the Spirit of God, casts off the slough, and retains 
 itsnobilitytransfiguredby grace. The conceit of littleness has 
 the hideousness of those monstrous combinations, the more 
 
 s Judg. ix. 23. 
 
 Ps. Ixxviii. 49. 
 
 '» 2 Cor. xii. \ 
 
 8 1 Kings xxii. 21-23. 
 
 11 Is. xiii. 4. 12 Ezr. i, 1, 2.
 
 OBADIAII. 
 
 235 
 
 chrTst ^^^^ hcatlion : thou art ijrcatly despisofl. 
 <=''•■ ■''^'- 3 'll The pride of thine heart hatli 
 
 hideous, because unnatural, not a corruption only but a dis- 
 tortion of nature. Edoni never attempted any tliinj? of mo- 
 ment by itself. T/iaii art grealh/ despised. Weakness, in it- 
 self, is neither des])icai)le nor dcsjiiscd. It is des])ised only, 
 when it vaunts itself to be, what it is not. God tells Edoni 
 what, amid its pride, it was in itself, despicable ; what it would 
 thereafter be, despised ^. 
 
 3. The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee. Not the 
 strength of its mountain-fastnesses, strong though they were, 
 deceived Edom, but the pride of his heart. That strength was 
 but the o<;casion which called forth the pride. Yet it was 
 strong in its abode. (iod,asit were, admits ittothem. Dwell- 
 er in the clefts of the rocks, the loftiness of his habitation. 
 "The whole Southern country of the Edomites," says S. Je- 
 rome, "from Eleutheropolls to Petra andSelah (which are the 
 possessions of Esau), hath minute dwellings- in caves ; and 
 on account of the oppressive heat of the sun, as being a south- 
 ern province, hath underground cottages." Its inhabitants, 
 whom Edom expelled^, were hence called Horites, i. e. dwell- 
 ers in caves. Its chief city wascalled Selah or Petra, "rock." 
 It was a city single of its kind amid the works of man. "* The 
 eagles placed their nests in the rocky caves at a height of se- 
 veral hundred feet above the level of the valley." "^The power 
 of the conception which would frame a range of mountain- 
 rocks into a memorial of the human name, which, once of no- 
 ble nameandhighbepraised, sought, through might of its own, 
 to clothe itself with the imperishableness of the eternalWord, 
 is here the same as in the contemporary monuments of the 
 temple-rocks of Elephantine or at least those of the Egyptian 
 Thebes." The ornamental buildings, so often admired by tra- 
 vellers, belong to a later date. Those nests in the rocks, piled 
 over one another, meeting you in every recess, lining each 
 fresh winding of the val]ies,aseach opened on the discoverer ^, 
 often at heights, where (now that the face of the rock and its 
 approach, probably hewn in it, have crumbled away ^) you can 
 scarcely imagine how human foot ever climbed^, must have 
 been the work of the first hardy niountaineers,whose feet were 
 like the chamois. Such habitations imply,not an uncivilised, 
 
 linisatonceapassiveparticipleand anadjective. - habitatiunculas. 3Deut.ii.12. 
 ■• Schubert, Reise, ii. 428. ed. 2. * "The most striking feature of the place consists, 
 not in tlic fact tliat there are occasional excavations and sculptures, like lliose above 
 described, but in tlie innumerable multitude of such excavations along the whole coast 
 of perpendicular rocks, adjacent to the main area, and in all the lateral vallies and 
 chasms." Uob.ii. i;59. "What remains are the mere debris ofwhat the precipices once 
 presented to view. — Many of the excavations are so difficult to reach and some are such 
 mere wall or surface, that it appears as if the whole front of the rock, to a considerable 
 depth, had fallen. The conduits, cisterns, flights of steps scattered over tiie rocks and 
 among the precipices, indicate a larger number of rock-dwellings than remain now, very 
 peat as that number is. — A s he pointed up two or three ravines, counting the holes in a 
 single rock-face, and reminded me, how small a proportion these bore to the whole, I was 
 indeed astonished." IVIiss Mart. Eastern Life, in. 2, 3. " I do not doubt that by calcula- 
 tion of all in the outlying ravines, you might count up thousands, but in the most po- 
 pulous part that I could select, 1 could not number in one view more than tilty, and ge- 
 nerally much fewer. It is these immense ramifications, rather than their concentrated 
 effect, tliat is remarkable ; and this, ofcourse, can no more be seen in one view, than all 
 the streets of London." Stanley, 88. ^ Martin, ab. note 5. She speaks also 
 
 of "short and odd staircases, twisting hither and thitlier among the rocks," iii. 19. "little 
 flights of steps scattered over the slopes." ii. .^19. "Wherever youreyes turn along the ex- 
 cavated sitles of the rocks.yon see steps often leading to nothing, or to something wliich lias 
 crumbled away ; often with theirtirststepswoniaway,so that they are now inaccessible," 
 Stanley, 91. " the thousand excavations " beyond, lb. 90. " There [in the Sik] they are 
 most numerous, the rock is honey-combed with cavities of all shapes and sizes." lb. 91. 
 7 " Had then the ancient buildersof these rockworks wings like the eagle, with which 
 they raised themselves to tiio-^e perpendicular precipices?" " W'honow, even with the feet 
 of the chamois, could climb after them?" V. Schubert, ii. 429. Miss Martineau uses the 
 sameimage of wings. Eastern Life, ii. 320, iii. 20. * Burckhardt, Syr. p. 427. 
 
 " On the left side of the river," he adds, " is a risingground extending westwards for near- 
 ly^ of an hour, entirely covered with similar remains. In the riglit bank, where the 
 ground is more elevated, ruins of the same description are also seen." 
 
 dcoeivod thee, thou that dwcllost in 
 tlie clefts " of the rock, whose habita- 
 
 Before 
 C H II 1 S T 
 
 cir.587. 
 
 ' 2 Kings 14. 7. 
 
 only a hardy, active, people. In those narrow vallies, so 
 scortrhod by a southern sun, they were at once the; coolest sum- 
 mer (hvellings, and, amid the dearth of fire-wooil. tlie wannest 
 in winter. '^I'lie duellings of tlit,' living and the sepulchres 
 of the dead were, apparently, hewn out in the same soft red- 
 saiulstone-rock, and perhaps some of the dwellings of the ear- 
 lier rock-dwellers were converted into graves by the Nabata>- 
 ans and their su<;cessors who lived in the valley. The central 
 space has traces of other human habitations. "^'J'he ground 
 is covered with heaps of hewn st(tnes, foundations of Idiildings 
 and vestiges of paved streets, all clearly indicating that a large 
 city once existed here." "'•'They occupy t\\d miles in circum- 
 ference, affording room in an oriental citv for ;^(), or 4().0(H) in- 
 habitants." Its theatre held "i^above'liOOO." Probably this 
 city belonged altogether to the later, Nabataan, Roman, or 
 Christian times. Itse.xistenceillustratestheextentoft he anci- 
 ent city of the rock. The whole space, rocks and vallies, im- 
 bedded in the mountains which girt it in, lay invisible even from 
 the sunimitof Mount Ilor^^. So nestled was it in its rocks, that 
 an enemy could only know of its existence, an army could only 
 approach it, through treachery. Two known approaches '- 
 only, from E. and W., enter into it. The least remarkable is 
 described as lying amid "^'wild fantastic mountains," " rocks 
 in towering masses," " over steep and slippery passes," or 
 "winding in recesses below." Six^' hours of such passes led to 
 the Western side of Petra. The Greeks spoke of it as two 
 days' journey fromtheir "world^^." Approach how you would, 
 the road lay through defiles '°. The Greeks knew but of "'"one 
 ascent to it, and that," (as they deemed) "made by hand;" 
 [that from the E.] The Mohammedans now think the Sik 
 or chasm, the two miles of ravine by which it is approached, 
 supernatural, made by the rod of Moses when he struck the 
 rock '^. Demetrius, "the Besieger 'V'^^t theheadof 8000 men, 
 (the 4000 infantry selected for their swiftness of foot from the 
 whole army-") made repeated assaults on the place, but "^those 
 within had an easy victory from its commanding height." 
 "^' A few hundred men might defend the entrance against a 
 large army." Its width is described as from 10 to 30 feet ^^, 
 
 9 Robins, ii. 136. i" 3000. Burckhardt, lb. " more than 3000." Rob. ii. 134. 
 
 n Stanley, 87. " Petra itself is entirely shut out by theintervening rocks. — The great fea- 
 ture of the mountains of Edom is the mass of red bald-headed sandstone rocks, intersect- 
 ed, not by valleys but by deep seams. In the heart of these rocks, itself invisible, lies 
 Petra." See Woodcut. '- In regard to the brook of Wadi Musa, Robinson 
 
 says, "no one could tell in what direction the waters, when swollen, find their way through 
 the clifl's. This only is certain that the Wady does not, as Wady Musa. extend down 
 to the Arabah." ii. 137. Dr. \Vilson(lS't7)says'," the water found a subterraneous exit by 
 the passage through the rocks on the W. side of the valley, through which they now flow." 
 Lands, &c. i. 30G. Any way, it was a passage impassable by man. '^ Martineau, 
 
 ii. 317, 8. She continues, "A little further on we stopped in a hollow of the hills.— Our path, 
 ourvery narrow path. lay over these whitish hills, now up, now down, and then and then 
 again we were slipping and jerking down slopesof gaudyrock. For nearly an hourlonger 
 we were descending the pass, down we went and still down, at length we came upon the 
 platform above the bed of the torrent; near which stands the only edifice in Petra." lb. 
 319,20. i-* lb. ii. 316-19. '' -riji oiKovixivny. " The place was 
 
 strong in the extreme, but unwalled, and two days journey, &c." Diod. Sic. xix. 95. 
 
 1' See the accounts in Burckhardt. Svria, 421. Lahor'de, c. 8-10. Eng. Tr. Lindsay, 
 pp. 220-30. Irby and M . c. 8. Rob. ii. 107. Stanley, 87, 98. '? Diod. Sic. xix. 97. 
 
 " The corrosion of the surface of the rock by time and w eather has so much the appear- 
 ance of architectural intention, that it is at first difficult in Petra itselt to distinguish the 
 worn from the chiselled face of the precipices." Mart.iL317. " One sti iking feature of 
 the whole scenery is, that not merely the excavations and buildings, but the rocks them- 
 selves are in a constant state of mouldering decay. You can scarcely tell where excava- 
 tion begins or decay ends." Stanley, 88. '* Stanley, 89. " Poliorcetes. 
 
 -" Diod. lb. 96. =' Burckhardt, 434. "The footing is extremely bad, and the 
 
 passage so completely commanded from the sides, and so obstructed by huge masses of 
 sandstone that had rolled down from above, that it was obvious a very small force would 
 be capable of holding it against a great superiority of nimibers." Captains Irby and M. 
 C.8. -- Mart. iii. 11. "The width is not more than just sufficient for the 
 
 passage of two horsemen abreast, the sides are in all parts perpendicular." I. & M. p. 127.
 
 236 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 chrTst *io" ish'igh ; '' that saith in his heart, Who 
 cir. 587. gijj^ii bring me down to the ground ? 
 
 •» Isai. 14. 13, 14, 15. Rev. 18. 7. 
 
 "1 a rent in amountain-wall, a mag^nificent gorgje, a niileanda 
 half long:, winding- like the most flexible of rivers, between 
 rocks almost precipitous, but that they overlap and crumble 
 and crack, as if they would crash over you. The blue sky 
 only just visible above. The valley opens,but contracts ajjain. 
 Then it is honey-combed with cavities of all shapes and sizes. 
 Closing: once more, it opens in the area of Petra itself, the tor- 
 rent-bed passing now throug;h absolute desolation and silence, 
 thougjh strewn with the fragments which shew that you once 
 entered on a splendid and busy city, gathered along in the 
 rocky banks,asalongthe quaysof some greatNorthern river." 
 Beyond this immediate rampart of rocks, there lay between 
 it and the Eastern Empires that vast plateau, almost unap- 
 proachable by an enemy who knew not its hidden artificial 
 reservoirs of waters. But even the entrance gained, what 
 gain besides, unless the people and its wealth were betrayed 
 to a surprise ? Striking as the rock-girt Petra was, a gem in 
 its mountain-setting, far more marvellous was it, when, as in 
 the Prophet's time, the rock itself was Petra. Inside the 
 defile, an invader would be outside the city yet. He might 
 himself become the besieged, rather than the besieger. In 
 which of these eyries along all those ravines were the eagles 
 to be found ? From which of those lairs might not Edom's 
 lion-sons burst out upon them? Multitudes gave the invaders 
 no advantage in scaling thosemountain-sides,where,observed 
 themselves by an unseen enemy, they would at last have to 
 fight man to man. What a bivouac were it, in that narrow 
 spot, themselves encircledbyan cnemyeverywhere,anywhere, 
 and visibly nowhere, among those thousand caves, each larger 
 cave, may be, an ambuscade ! In man's sight Edom's boast 
 was well-founded; but what before God? 
 
 T/i(if saitli in his heart. The heart has its own language, 
 as distinct and as definite as that formed by the lips, mostly 
 deeper, often truer. It needeth not the language of the lips, 
 to offend God. As He answers the heart which seeks Him, 
 so also He replies in displeasure to the heart which despises 
 Him. JFho shall h-ing me dotvn to the earth f Such is the 
 language of all self-sufficient security. " Can Alexander fly ? " 
 answered the Bactrian chief from another Petra. On the se- 
 cond night he was prisoner or slain -. Edom probably, un- 
 der his Who? included God Himself, Who to him was the God 
 of the Jews only. Yet men now too include God in their de- 
 fiance, and scarcely veil it from themselves by speaking of 
 " fortune" rather than God ; or, if of a coarser sort, they do 
 not even veil it, as in that common terrible saying, " He 
 fears neither God nor devil." God answers his thought ; 
 
 4. Though thou esaltthyaeW [or, thy nest] like the eagle. 
 The eagle builds its nest in places well-nigh inaccessible to 
 man. The Edomites were a race of eagles^. It is not the 
 language of poetry or exaggeration ; but is poetic, because so 
 true. ^7td though thou set thy nest in the stars. This is men's 
 language, strange as it is. "*I shall touch the stars with my 
 crown;" "I shall strike the stars withmy lofty crown;" "since 
 I have touchedheavenwithmy lance." As Job says ', Though 
 his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reacheth 
 unto the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever, like his oivn dung. 
 And Isaiah to the king of Babylon, the type of Anti-Christ 
 and of the Evil one^. Thou hast said in thy heart, I will exalt 
 
 • Stanley, 89-91. = Q. Curt. vii.41. 2. L. Arr. iv.l8. 19. 
 
 ■1 See p. 235. ■• Ovid, Horace, Lysimachus in Plutarch de fort. Alex. L. ii. Lap. 
 
 4 " Though thou exalt tlty-self as the ea- 
 gle, and though thou "^set thy nest among 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 587. 
 
 « Job20.6. Jer.49. 16.& 51. 53. Amos 9. 2. ' Hab. 2. 9. 
 
 my throne above the stars of God ; thy pomp is brought down 
 to the grave, the worm is spread under thee, and the worms co- 
 ver thee. "'The heathen saw this, il^sop, when asked, what 
 doeth God ? said, 'He humbles the proud and exalts the hum- 
 ble.' And another*, 'Whommorning'sdawnbeholdethproud, 
 The setting sun beholdeth bowed.'" 
 
 "^They who boast of being Christians, and are on that ground 
 self-satisfied, promising themselves eternal life, and thinking 
 that they need not fear Hell, because they are Christians and 
 hold the faithof the Apostles, while their lives are altogether 
 alien from Christianity, are such Edomites,pridingthemselves 
 because they dwell in clefts of the rocks. For it sufliceth not 
 to believe what Christ and the Apostles taught, unless thou do 
 what they commanded. — These spiritual Edomites, from a 
 certain love or some fear of future torments, are moved by 
 grief for sin, and give themselvesto repentance, fastings, alms- 
 giving, which is no other than to enter the clefts of the rocks ; 
 because they imitate the works of Christ and the holy Apos- 
 tles who are called rocks, like those to whom John said^", Oye 
 generation of vipers, who hath learned you to Jlee from, the 
 wrath to come? But, since they have no humility,they become 
 thereby the more inflated with pride, and the more of such 
 works they do, the more pleasures they allow themselves, and 
 become daily the prouder and the wickeder. The pride then 
 of their heart deceiveth them, because they seem in many 
 things to follow the deeds of the holy, and they fear no ene- 
 mies, as though they dwelt in clefts of the rocks. They ex- 
 alt their throne, in that, through the shadow of lofty deeds, 
 they seem to have many below them, mount as high as they 
 can, and place themselves, where they think they need fear 
 no peril. But to them the Lord saith. Though thou exalt thy- 
 self, as the eagle, — thence will I bring thee down. For, how- 
 ever exalted they be, and however they seem good and great, 
 they are brought down to the ground and out from the caverns 
 of the rocks, wherein they deemed that they dwelt securely, 
 in that they lapse into overt shameful sin ; whence aU per- 
 ceive, what they were then too, when they were thought to 
 be righteous. And striking is it, that they are compared to 
 eagles. For although the eagle fly aloft, yet thence it looks 
 to the earth and the carcases and animals which it would 
 devour, as Job writes of it^^. She divelleth and abideth upon the 
 rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From 
 thence she seeketh t he prey ; her eyes behold afar off' ; her young 
 ojies also suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is she. 
 So these, while they pretend perfection, never turn their eyes 
 away from earthly goods, always casting them on honors, or 
 wealth, or pleasure, without which they count life to be no 
 life. Well too is it called their we*-^. For, toil how they may, 
 in seeking an assured, restful, security of life, yet what they 
 build, is a nest made of hay and stubble, constructed with 
 great toil, but lightly destroyed. This security of rest they 
 lose, when they are permitted, by the just judgment of God, 
 to fall into uncleanness, ambition or foulest sins, and are de- 
 prived of the glory which they unjustly gained, and their folly 
 becomes manifest to all. Of such, among the Apostles, was the 
 traitor Judas. — But the rich too and the mighty of this world, 
 although they think that their possessions and what, with 
 great toil, they have gained, when they have raised them- 
 
 ^ XX. 6, 7. 
 8 Sen. Here. fur. lb. » Rib. 
 
 « xiv. 13, 11. 
 
 i» St. Matt. iii. 7. 
 
 7 Lap. 
 
 » Job xxxix. 28-30.
 
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 23S 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 CHiiTsT *''<^ stars, thenoe will I brini? thee down, 
 "■•■ '^'- saith the Lord, 
 
 ' Jer. 49. 9. 5 If ^ thicvcs Came to thee, if robbers by 
 
 nijjjht, (liow art thou cut off!) would they 
 
 not have stolen till they had enoui!;h ? if the 
 
 Deut. 21. 21. urape-mxtherers came to thee, ^ would thev 
 
 Is. 17.0. * % '' „ ^ ^ 
 
 not leave || some grapes ? 
 
 6 How are the things of Esau searched 
 
 & 24. 13. 
 I Or, 
 gleanings ? 
 
 selves above others, are most firm, it is but that nest which 
 they have placed among the stars, soon to be dissipated by 
 wind and rain." 
 
 5. If thieves came to thee. The Prophet describes their 
 future punishment, by contrast with that which, as a maraud- 
 ing people, they well knew. Thieves and robbers spoil only 
 for their petty end. They take what comes to liand ; what 
 they can, they carry off. Shortness of time, difficulty of trans- 
 port, necessity of providing for a retreat, limit their plunder. 
 When they have gorged themselves, they depart. Their plun- 
 der is limited. The grnpe-gatherer leaves gleanings. God pro- 
 mises to His own people, under the same image, that they 
 should have a remnant left ^. Gleaning grapes shall he left in 
 it. It shall be, as gleaning grapes, ivhen the vintage is done. 
 The Prophet anticipates the contrast by a burst of sympathy. 
 In the name of God, he mourns over the destruction which 
 he fore-announces. He laments over the destruction, even of 
 the deadly enemy of his people. Hotv art thou destroyed ! So 
 the men of God are wont to express their amazement at the 
 greatness of the destruction of the ungodly. ^ Hoiv are they 
 brought into desolation as in a moment ! ^ How hath the op- 
 pressor ceased! How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer 
 son of the morning .' * How is the hammer of the whole earth 
 cut asunder and broken .' hotv is Babylon become a desolation 
 amotig the nations ! ° How is Sheshach taken ! How is the 
 praise of the whole earth surprised ! 
 
 6. Hoiv are the things of Esau searched out ! lit. How are 
 Esau outsearched 1 i.e. Esau, as a whole and in all its parts 
 and in all its belongings, all its people and all its property, one 
 and all. The name Esau speaks of them as a whole ; the plu- 
 ral verb, are outsearched, represents all its parts. The word 
 signifies a diligent search and tracking out, as in Zephaniah ^, 
 / will search out Jerusalem with candles, as a man holdeth a 
 light in every dark corner, in seeking diligently some small 
 thing which has been lost. The hidden things, i. e. his hid- 
 den treasures, ai-e sought up. The enemy who should come 
 upon him, should make no passing foray, but should abide 
 there, seeking out of their holes in the rocks, themselves and 
 their treasures. Petra, through its rocky ramparts, was well 
 suited, as Nineveh in the huge circuit of its massive walls 
 was well built, to be the receptacle of rapine. And now it was 
 gathered, as all rapine is, first or last, for the spoiler. It was 
 saff» stored up there, to be had for the seeking. No exit, no 
 way of escape. Edom, lately so full of malicious energy, so 
 proud, should lie at the proud foot of its conqueror, as passive 
 as the sheep in this large shamble, or as the inanimate hoards 
 which they had laid up and which were now tracked out. Soon 
 after Obadiah's prophecy, Judah, under Ahaz, lost again to 
 
 1 Is.xvii.6,xxiv. 13. " Ps.Ixxiii. 19. ' Is. xiv. 4, 12. ■'Jer. 1.23. * lb. li. 41. 
 
 « i.l2. ' 2Kingsxiv.6. " lb. xiv. 22. « The Hebrew text has D'Dnx, which the 
 E.V. renders Syrians, but which isnot thephiral ofrnx. The Kri corrects D-ann, which 
 would indeed be the plural of Dhk, but which is nowhere used for Edoniitcs. It might 
 have the meaning, however, that single " Edomites" (not, " the children of Edom" nation- 
 
 out ! hnni are his liidden things sought up ! ^ if^^\% t 
 
 7 All the men of thy confederacy have "''• "'*^- 
 
 brousirht thee even to the border : •{- ' the + Heb. 
 
 ~ ' tlie men oj 
 
 men that were at peace with thee have de- , uiy peace. 
 
 * _ ^ ' Jer. 38. 22. 
 
 ceived thee, and prevailed ajjrainst thee ; t He'). 
 
 ' ^ the men of 
 
 ■fthei/ that eat thy bread have laid a wound tin/ bread. 
 under thee : ^ there is none understanding " jl. ^'^' "' 
 II in him. " O'."/"- 
 
 Syria, Elath', which it had now under Uzziah recovered*. 
 The Jews were replaced, it is uncertain whether by Edomites 
 or by some tribe of Syrians'. If Syrians, they were then 
 friendly ; if Edomites, Elath itself must, on the proximate cap- 
 tivity of Syria, have become the absolute possession of Edom. 
 Either way, commerce again poured its wealth into Edom. 
 To what end? to be possessed and to aggrandize Edom, thought 
 her wealthy and her wise men ; to be searched out and plun- 
 dered, said the word of God. And it was so. 
 
 7. ^11 the men of thy confederacy have brought t/iee even 
 to the border. Destruction is more bitter, when friends aid 
 in it. Edom had all along with unnatural hatred persecut- 
 ed his brother, Jacob. So, in God's just judgment, its friends 
 should be among its destroyers. Those confederates were pro- 
 bably Moab and Amnion, Tyre and Zidon, with whom they 
 united to resist Nebuchadnezzar^", and seduced Zedekiah to 
 rebel, although Moab, Amnion, and Edom turned against him^^. 
 These then, he says, sent them to the border. " ^^ So will they 
 take the adversary's part, that, with him, they will drive thee 
 forth from the borders, thrusting thee into captivity, to gain 
 favour with the enemy." This they would do, he adds, through 
 mingled treachery and violence. The men of thy peace have 
 deceived, have prevailed against thee. As Edom turned peace 
 with Judah into war, so those at peace with Edom should use 
 deceit and violence against them, being admitted, perhaps, as 
 allies within their borders, and then betraying the secret of 
 their fastnesses to the enemy, as the Thessalians dealt toward 
 the Greeks at Thermopylae. It was to be no common deceit, 
 no mere failure to help them. The men of thy bread have laid 
 a wound (better, a snare^^) under thee. Perhaps Obadiah 
 thought of David's words ^*, mine own familiar friend, in whom 
 /trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against 
 me. As they had done, so should it be done to them. They 
 that take the sword, our Lord says i% shall perish by the sword ; 
 so they who shew bad faith, are the objects of bad faith, as Isai- 
 ah says ^*. The proverb which says, " there is honour among 
 thieves," attests how limited such mutual faith is. It lasts, 
 while it seems useful. Obadiah's description relates to one and 
 the same class, the allies of Edom ; but it heightens as it goes 
 on ; not confederates only, but those confederates, friends ; not 
 friends only, but friends indebted to them, familiar friends ; 
 those joined to them through that tie, so respected in the East, 
 in that they had eaten of their bread. Those banded with them 
 should, with signs of friendship, conduct them to their border, 
 in order to expel them ; those at peace should prevail against 
 them in war ; those who ate their bread should requite them 
 with a snare. 
 
 There is none understandi7ig ?'« him. The brief words com- 
 
 ally) settled there. The Kri is, however, but a conjectural correction ; the reading of the 
 text has, in its favour, the general presumption everywhere in favour of the textual and 
 harder reading. Tlie LXX and Vulg. render "Edomites." '» Jer. xxvii. 3 
 
 " Zeph. li. 8, Ezeli.xxv. '2 Theod. '•'' mo from lit (a softer form probably of nis in a 
 like meaning). " Ps. xli. 9. '^ S.Matt. xxvi. 52. '« Is. xxxiii. I. See ab. p. 1S2.
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 239 
 
 chrTst ^ 'Shall I not in that day, saith the 
 '='''• '^^- Lord, even destroy the wise mm out of 
 K^'o. u.'^"-Edoni, and understandinj; out of the mount 
 
 Jer.49.7. of EsaU ? 
 
 >° Ps. 76. 5. 
 
 Amos2.1fi. 
 " Jer. 49. 7. 
 
 9 And thy mij^hty "' men, O " Teman, shall 
 
 prise both cause and effect. Had Edom not been without un- 
 derstandins;, be bad not been tbus betrayed ; and wlien betray- 
 ed in bis security, be was as one stuj)efied. Frule and self-con- 
 fidence betray man to bis fall ; wben be is fallen, self-confi- 
 dence betrayed passes readily into despair. In tbe sudden 
 shock, tlie mind collapses. Men do not use the resourceswbicb 
 they yet have, because what they bad overvalued, fails them. 
 Undue confidence is tbe parent of undue fear. The Jewish 
 historian relates, bow, in the last dreadful siesre, wben the out- 
 er wall bej:;aBt to g:ive way, " ^ fear fell on tbe tyrants, more ve- 
 hement than tbe occasion called for. For, before tbe enemy 
 bad mounted, they were paralysed, and ready to flee. You 
 might see men, aforetime stouthearted and insolent in their 
 impiety, crouching;: and tremblinp^,so tbat,wickcd as they were, 
 the change was pitiable in tbe extreme. — Here especially one 
 might learn the power of God upon the ungodly. For tbe ty- 
 rants bared themselves of all security,and,of theirown accord, 
 came down from the towers, where no force, but famine alone, 
 could have taken them. For those three towers were stronger 
 than any engines." 
 
 8. S/iall I 7iot 271 that day even destroy the wise out of 
 Edom f It was then no common, no recoverable, loss of wis- 
 dom ; for God, the Author of wisdom, bad destroyed it. The 
 heathen had a proverb, '• whom God willetb to destroy, he first 
 dements." So Isaiah foretells of Judah-, The tvisdom oftheh- 
 ivise shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall 
 he hid. Edom was celebrated of old for its wisdom. Elipbaz, 
 the chief of Job's friends, tbe representative of human wisdom, 
 was a Temanite ^. A vestige of tbe name of tbe Shuhites, 
 whence came another of bis friends, probably still lingers 
 among the mountains of Edom *. Edom is doubtless included 
 among the 5o».s of the East^,w'\\o%& -wi^Aom is set as a counter- 
 part to that of Egypt, tbe highest human wisdom of that pe- 
 riod, by which that of Solomon would be measured. Sulo- 
 mon^s ivisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East 
 country and all the wisdom of Egypt. In Barucb, they arc 
 still mentioned among the chief types of human wisdom. ^ // 
 (wisdom) hath not been heard of in Chanaan, neither hath it 
 been seen in Theman. The Agarenes that seek luisdoni upon 
 earth, the merchants of Merun and of Theman, the authors of 
 fables and searchers-out of understanding, none of these have 
 known the way of wisdom, or remember her paths. Whence 
 Jeremiah '', in using these words of Obadiab, says. Is wisdom 
 no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent ? is 
 their wisdom vanished? He speaks, as though Edom were a 
 known abode of human wisdom, so that it was strange that 
 it was found there no more. He speaks of the Edomites 
 as prudent, discriminating*, full of judgment, and wonders 
 that counsel should have perished from them. They had it 
 eminently then, before it perished. They thought themselves 
 wise; they were thought so; but God took it away at their 
 utmost need. So He says of Egypt, '/ will destroy the coun- 
 sel thereof. The counsel of the ivise counsellors of Pharaoh is be- 
 
 1 Jos. B. J. vi.8. 4. 
 
 xxix. 14. 
 
 3 Job iv. 1, 
 
 ' ' Jos. B. J. VI. 8. 4. - XXIX. l-J. -JOUIV. 1. 
 
 * " SsiVihan, a ruined place in the S. mountains of the Ghoeyr." Burckh. Syr. p. 414. 
 >• 1 Kings iv. 30. « Bar. iii. 22, 3. ? xlix. 7. » O-n 
 
 be dismayed, to the end that everyone of the (, h h""st 
 mount of Esau may he cut off by slaughter. '■•■■•• "'^7. 
 
 10 ^ For thy violence against thy bro- " y"'!!?.?^' 
 
 er Jacob shame shall cover 
 I' thou slialt l)e cut off for ever. 
 
 ther Jacob shame shall cover thee, and ^"^■'■^s-iz 
 
 35. r>. 
 
 Amos 1. 11. 
 P Ezck. 3.5. 9. 
 Mai. 1. 4. 
 
 come brutish. How say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the 
 wise, the son of ancient kings ? Where arc I hey ? u'ho are thy 
 wise :' and let them tell thee now, and let them know, what the 
 Lord of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt. And of Judab, i" / 
 will make void the counsel of Jitdah and Jerusalem in this place. 
 The men of the world think that tbey hoUi their wisdom and 
 all God's natural gifts, indeiiendently of the Giver, (iod.by 
 the events of His iiatural Providence, as here bv His word, 
 shews, through some sudden withdrawal of their wisdom, that 
 it is His, not their's. Men wonder at the sudden failure, tbe 
 flaw in tbe well-arranged plan,theone over-confident actwhich 
 ruins the whole scheme, the over-sbrewdness which betrays 
 itself, or the unaccountable oversight. They are amazed that 
 one so shrewd should overlook this or that, and think not that 
 He, in Whose Hands are our powers of thought, supj)lied not 
 just that insight, whereon tbe whole depended. 
 
 9. And thy mighty, O Teman, shall be dismayed. The 
 heathen, more religiously than we, ascribed panic to the im- 
 mediate action of one of their gods, or to Nature deified, Pan, 
 i. e. the Universe: wrong as to the being whom they ignorantly 
 icorshipped ; right, in ascribingittowbat they thought a Divine 
 agency. Holy Scripture at times discovers tbe hidden agency, 
 that we may acknowledge God's Hand in those terrors which 
 we cannot account for. So it relates, on occasion of Jona- 
 than's slaughter of the Philistine garrison,i^ there was a trem- 
 bling in the host and in the field, and among all the people : the 
 garrison and the spoilers, they also trembled, and the earth 
 (juakcd, so it became a trembling fro7n God. or (in our conimon 
 word.) a panic from God. All then failed Edom. Their allies 
 and friends betrayed them ; God took away their wisdom. 
 Wisdom was turned intowitlessness,and courage into coward- 
 ice ; to the etid that every one from mount Esau may be cut 
 off by slaughter. Tbe Prophet sums up briefly God's end in 
 all tins. The immediate means were man's treachery, man's 
 violence, tbe failure of wisdom in tbe wise, and of courage in 
 the brave. The end of all, in God's Will, was their destruction. 
 1" All things work together to good to those who love God, and 
 to evil to those who bate Him. 
 
 By slaughter, lit. from slaughter, may mean either the im- 
 mediate or the distant cause of their being cut off, either the 
 means which God employed ^^, that Edom was cut ott' by one 
 great slaughter by the enemy ; or that which moved God to 
 give them over to destruction, their own slaughter of their bre- 
 thren, tbe Jews, as it follows ; 
 
 10. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob. To Israel 
 God had commanded^^. Thou shall not abhor an Edomite ; for he 
 is thy brother. — The children that are begotten of them shall 
 enter into the congregation of the Lord in their third genera- 
 tion. Edom did the contrary to all this. T'iolence includes 
 all sorts of ill-treatment, from one with whom "niigbt is right," 
 because it is in the potver of their hand ^^ to do it. This they 
 bad done to the descendants of their brother, and him, their 
 twin-brotber, Jacob. They helped tbe Cbaldaeans in his over- 
 
 3 Is. xix. 3, 11, 12. '» Jer. xix. 7. " 1 Sam. xiv. 15. 
 
 '2 Rom. viii. 28. ^ as in Gen. ix. 11, all flesh shallno more be cut off by D mJ 
 
 the waters of the flood. " Deut. .xxiii. 7, S. [S, 9 Heb.J »^ Mic. ii. 2. 
 
 Qq2
 
 240 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 11 In the day that thou stoodest on the 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 "■•■ '^'- other side, in the day that the strangers 
 
 II Or, carried 
 
 atony his 
 
 substance. 
 4 Joel. 3. 3. 
 
 Nah. 3. 10. 
 
 II Or, do not 
 
 earried iiwuy captive his forces, and fo- 
 subsiaiice. j-gjo-ners entered into his jrates, and 'i cast 
 lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as 
 behold, *c. one of them. 
 
 Ps.22.17. ]2 But II thou shouldest not have 'look- 
 it 54. / . ■* I! 
 & 59. 10. Mic. 4. 11. & 7. 10. 
 
 throw, i-cjoiced in liis calainity, thought tliat, by thi.s coopera- 
 tion, they had seeured themselves. ^Vl)at, when from those 
 same Clialdecs. those same cahamities. which they had aided to 
 inflict on their brother, came on themselves, wlien. as they had 
 betrayed him, they were themselves betrayed ; as they had ex- 
 ulted in his overthrow, so their allies exulted in their's ! The 
 shame of which the Prophet spake, is not the healthful distress 
 at the evil of sin, but at its evils and disappointn)ents. Shame 
 at the evil which sin is, works repentance and turns aside the 
 ang^er of God. Shame at the evils which sin brings, in itself 
 leads to further sins, and endless, fruitless, shame. Edom had 
 laid his plans, had succeeded ; the wheel, in God's Providence, 
 turned round and he was crushed. So Hosea said\ they 
 shall he ashamed throiigh their own counsels ; and Jeremiah -, 
 we lie dotni in our shame and our confusion covereth us ; and 
 David ', let mine adversaries he clothed with shame, and let 
 them cover themselves with their own confusion as tvith a man- 
 tle. As one, covered and involved in a cloak, can find no way 
 to emerge ; as one, whom the waters cover *, is buried under 
 them inextricably, so, wherever they went, whatever they did, 
 shame covered them. So the lost shall rise to shame and ever- 
 lusting contempt ^. 
 
 Thou shalt he cut off for ever. One word expressed the 
 sin, violence ; four words. over against it, express the sentence ; 
 shame encompassing, everlasting excision. God's sentences 
 are not completed at once in this life. The branches are lop- 
 ped off; the tree decays; the axe is laid to the root; at last 
 it is cut down. As the sentence on Adam, in the day that thou 
 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,w^s fulfilled, although Adam 
 did not die. until he had completed 930 years ^, so was this on 
 Edoni, although fulfilled in stages and by degrees. Adam bore 
 the sentence of death about him. The 930 years wore out 
 at last that frame, which, but for sin, had been immortal. So 
 Edom received this sentence of excision, which was, on his 
 final impenitence, completed, although centuries witnessed 
 the first earnest only of its execution. Judah and Edom stood 
 over against each other. Edom ever bent on the extirpation of 
 Judah. At that first destruction of Jerusalem, Edom triumph- 
 ed, Saze her, raze her, even to the ground. Yet, though it 
 tarried long, the sentence was fulfilled. Judah, the banished, 
 survived ; Edom, the triumphant, was, in God's time and after 
 repeated trials, cut off for ever. Do we marvel at the slowness 
 of God's sentence ? Rather marvel we, with wondering thank- 
 fulness, that His sentences, on nations or individuals, are slow, 
 yet stand we in awe. because, if unrepealed, they are sure. 
 Centuries, to Edom, abated not their force or certainty; length 
 of life changes not the sinner's doom. 
 
 11. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side. The 
 time when they so stood, is not defined in itself, as a past or fu- 
 ture. It is literally ; In the day of thy standing over against, 
 i. e. to gaze on the calamities of God's people ; in the day of 
 
 ' X. 6. 5 iii. 25. 3 Ps. cix. 29. * Ex. xv. 10. ' Dan. xii. 2. 
 
 ' Gen. V. 5. ' S. Aug. de lib. arb. iii. 4. s gee Introd. to Obad. p. 228. 
 
 Before 
 
 ed on ' the day of thy brother in the day c h k i s t 
 that he became a stranujer ; neither should- ""■ ''^- 
 est thou have ' rejoiced over the children ' um'7. ' 
 of Judah in the day of their destruction ;' i"wv.\-^.r>. 
 neithershouldest thou have f spoken proud- MicV.'b.^^ 
 ly in the day of distress. ^ ^ag«iM 
 
 13 Thou shouldest not have entered into "'" """'"'■ 
 
 strangers carryingaivay his strength,\. a. the strength of thy bro- 
 ther Jacob, of whom he had just spoken, and foreigners entered 
 \ into his gates, and cast lots on Jerusalem, thou too as one of 
 j them. One of them they were not. Edom was no stranger, 
 I no alien, no part of the invading army; he whose strength they 
 '■ carried away, was, he had just said, his brother Jacob. Edom 
 ' burst the bonds of nature, to become what he was not, as one 
 of them. He purposely does not say, thou too wast (hayitha) as 
 of them ; as he would have said, had he wished to express 
 what was past. Obadiah seeing, in prophetic vision, the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, and the share which the Edomites took 
 thereat, describes it as it is before his eyes, as past. We see 
 before us, the enemy carrying off all in which the human 
 strength of Judah lay, his forces and his substance, and casting 
 j lots on Jerusalem, its people and its possessions. He de- 
 scibes it as past, yet not more so, than the visitation itself 
 which was to follow, some centuries afterwards. Of both, he 
 speaks alike as past ; of both, as future. He speaks of them 
 as past, as being so beheld in His mind in Whose Name he 
 I speaks. God's certain knowledge does not interfere with 
 j our free agency. "' God compelleth no one to sin ; yet fore- 
 I seeth all who shall sin of their own will. How then should 
 I He not justly avenge what, foreknowing. He does not com- 
 pel them to do ? For as no one, by his memory, compelleth 
 1 to be done things which pass, so God, by His foreknowledge, 
 doth not compel to be done things which will be. And as 
 man remembereth some things which he hath done, and yet 
 hath not done all which he remembereth ; so God foreknow- 
 eth all things whereof He is Himself the Author, and yet is 
 not Himself the Author of all which He foreknoweth. Of 
 those things then, of which He is no evil Author, He is the 
 just Avenger. 
 
 [ 12-14. But thou shouldest not, rather it means, and can only 
 j mean *, (as in the E. M.) yind look not (i. e. gaze not with plea- 
 sure ') on the day of thy brother in the day of his becoming a 
 stranger^'^ ; and rejoice not over the children of Judah in the day 
 of their destruction ; and enlarge not thy mouth in the day of 
 distress. Muter not into the gate of My people in the day of 
 their calamity ; look not, thou too, on his affliction in the day 
 of his calamity ; and lay not hands on his substance in the 
 day of his calamity ; And stand not on the crossway, to cut off 
 his fugitives ; and shut not up his remnants iyi the day of dis- 
 tress. Throughout these three verses, Obadiah uses the fu- 
 ture only. It is the voice of earnest,emphatic, dehortation and 
 entreaty,not to do what woulddispleaseGod,and what, if done, 
 would be punished. He dehorts them from malicious rejoic- 
 ing at their brother's fall, first in look, then in word, then in 
 act, in covetous participation of the spoil, and lastly in mur- 
 der. Malicious gazing on human calamity, forgetful of man's 
 common origin and common liability to ill, is the worst form 
 of human hate. It was one of the contumelies of the Cross 
 
 ' as in Mic. vii. 10. '" Others, of his strange vnkeard of calamity. Others 
 
 of his being rejected as a stranger by God, as 1 Sam. xxiii. 7 ; estranged as Jer. zix. 4. Ei-
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 241 
 
 c im I s T ^^^^ S^^^ of my people in the day of their 
 
 ^filiiEL- calamity ; yea, thou shouldest not have 
 
 looked on their affliction in the day of their 
 
 calamity, nor have laid hfuid.s- on their 
 
 lOrjorces. || substanec in the day of their eahimity. 
 
 14 Neither shouldest thou have stood in 
 the crossway, to cut off those of his that 
 did escape ; neither shouldest thou have 
 
 they gaze, they look v:\X\\]oyi(po7i Mc^. The rejoicitjg over them 
 was doubtless, as ainonij savages, accompanied with grimaces-. 
 Then follow words of insult. The enlarging the mouth is ut- 
 tering a tide of large words, here against the peoj)lo of God ; 
 in Ezekiel, against Himself: Thus vith your mouth ye have 
 enlarged against Me and have mulitplied your words against 
 Me. I have heard. Thereon follows Edom's coming yet clos- 
 er, entering the gate of God's people to share the conqueror's 
 triumphant gaze on his calamity. Then, the violent, busy, 
 laying the hands on the spoil, while others of them stood in 
 cold blood, taking t\\e fork where the ways parted, in order to 
 intercept the fugitives before they were dispersed, or to shut 
 them up with the enemy, driving them back on their pursuers. 
 The Prophet beholds the whole course of sin and persecution, 
 and warns them against it, in the order, in which, if commit- 
 ted, they would commit it. Who would keep clear from the 
 worst, must stop at the beginning. Still God's warnings ac- 
 company him step by step. At each step, some might stop. 
 The warning, although thrown away on the most part, might 
 arrest the few. At the worst, when the guilt had been con- 
 tracted and the punishment had ensued, it was a warning for 
 their posterity and for all thereafter. Some of these things 
 Edom certainly did, as the Psalmist prays*. Remember, O 
 Lord, to the ehildren of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, 
 Lay hare, lay hare, even to the fouudafioti in her. And EzekieP 
 alluding to this language of Obadiah ^, because thou hast had a 
 perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel 
 by the force of the stvord in the time of their calainity, in the time 
 that their iniquity had an end, therefore, as I live, saith the 
 Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pur- 
 sue thee ; sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue 
 thee. Violence, bloodshed, unrelenting, deadly hatred against 
 the whole people,alongingfortheir extermination, had been in- 
 veterate characteristics of Esau. Joel and Amos had already 
 denounced God's judgments against them for two forms of 
 this hatred, the murder of settlers in their own land or of those 
 who were sold to them ''. Obadiah warns them against yet a 
 third, intercepting their fugitives in their escape from the 
 more powerful enemy. Stand not in the crosstvay. Whoso 
 puts himself in the situation to commit an old sin, does, in fact, 
 will to renew it, and will, unless hindered from without, cer- 
 tainly do it. Probably he will, through sin's inherent pow- 
 er of growth, do worse. Having anew tasted blood, Ezekiel 
 says, that they sought to displace God's people and remove 
 God Himself*. Because thou hast said, these two nations and 
 these two cotmtries shall be mine, and ire will possess it, tchereas 
 the Lord was there, therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I 
 will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine 
 envy, which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them. 
 
 ther of these meanings suits the word "ID3 Job xxxi. 3, rejer-lion, reprobation, or, as ours 
 strange calamity. Any how it is not mere calamity, as neither is it in Arabic. 
 ' Ps. xxii. 17. ' as in Ps. xxxv. 19, xxxviii. 16. ^ Ez. xxxv. 13. ■• Ps. cxxxvii. 7. 
 
 II delivered up those of his that did remain chrTst 
 in the day of distress. cir. 787. 
 
 15 " For the day of the Ijoim is near up- " v'Z'li'^'f' 
 on all th(> lieathen : ^ as thou hast done, it° ^mH^^' 
 shall \h) i\mw unto thee : thy reward shall' Hab^fgj^- 
 return upon thine own head. cir. 585. 
 
 IG y For as ye have drunk upon my " 2r& 49^!'2. 
 holy mountain, so shall all the heathen iPet^^ln. 
 
 15. For the day of t lie Lord is near upon all the heathen. 
 The Prophet once more enforces his warning by preaching 
 judgment to come. The day of the Lordwus alrca'dv known \ 
 as a day of judgment upon all nations, in wiiich God would 
 fudge all the heathen, especially for their outrages against His 
 people. Edom might hope to escape, were it alone threaten- 
 ed. The Prophet announces one great law of God's retribu- 
 tion, one rule of His righteous judgment, ^s thou hrisf done, 
 it shall he done unto thee. Heathen justice owned this to 
 be just, and placed it in the mouth of their ideal of justice^". 
 Blessed he, says the Psalmist", that recompenses unto thee the 
 deed which thou didst to us. Blessed, because he was the instru- 
 ment of God. Having laid down the rule of God's judgment, 
 he resumes his sentence to Edom, and speaks to all in him! 
 In the day of Judah's calamity Edom made itself as one of 
 them. It, Jacob's brother, had ranked itself among the ene- 
 mies of God's people. It then too should be swept away in 
 one universal destruction. It takes its place with them," un- 
 distinguished in its doom as in its guilt, or it stands out as their 
 representative, having the greater guilt, because it had the 
 greater light. Obadiah, in adopting Joel's words^-, thy reward 
 shall return upon thine own head, pronounces therewith on 
 Edom all those terrible judgments contained in the sentence 
 of retribution as they had been expanded by Joel. 
 
 16. For as ye have drunk. Revelry always followed hea- 
 then victory; often, desecration. The Romans bore in tri- 
 umph the vessels of the second temple, Nebuchadnezzar car- 
 ried away the sacred vessels of the first. Edom, in its ha- 
 tred of God's people, doubtless regarded the destruction of Je- 
 rusalem, as a victory of polytheism (the gods of the Babyloni- 
 ans, and their own god Coze), over God, as Hyrcanus, in his 
 turn, required them, when conquered, to be circumcised. 
 God's holy inountain is the hill of Zion. including mount Mo- 
 riah on which the temple stood. This they desecrated by 
 idolatrous revelry, as, in contrast, it is said that, when the 
 heathen enemy had been destroyed, mount Zion should he ho- 
 liness '^ Brutal, unfeeling, excess had been one of the sins on 
 which Joel had declared God's sentence, 1* they cast lots on My 
 people ; they sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Hea- 
 then tempers remain the same; under like circumstances, thev 
 repeat the same circle of sins,ambition,jealousy,cruelty,blood- 
 shed, and, when their work is done, excess, ribaldry, profane- 
 ness. The completion of sin is the commencement of punish- 
 ment. As ye, he says, heathen yourselves and as one of the 
 heathen, have drunk in profane revelry, on the day of vour bro- 
 ther's calamity, upon My holy mountain, defiling it, so shall all 
 the heathen drink continually. But what draught ? a draught 
 which shall never cease, continually ; yea, they shall drink on, 
 and shall stvalloiv down, a full, large, maddening draught, 
 
 5 xxxv. 5, 6. * DTK nyn ver. 5. referring to the thrice repeated DTK cr3, n-K Di'3. 
 
 Ob. 13. ' Joel iii. ifl, Am.i. 6, 9, 11. » Ez. xxxv. 10. 11. ' Joe), i. 15, ii. 1, 31. 
 
 '» Rhadamanthus Arist. Eth. v. 5. " Ps. cxxxvii. 8. '^ ijj. 7. 13 ver. 17. » iii. 3.
 
 242 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 drink continiiully, yea, they shall drink, 
 
 whereby Ihcy siiall reel and perish, and they sIkiU he as ffiottf(/i 
 t/iei/ had never heen. "'For whoso dcaveth not to Iliin Wlio 
 saithjiAM.is not." The two cups ofexcess and of God's wrath 
 are not altog-etlier distinrt. They are joined, as eause and 
 effect, as beginning and end. Wlioso drinketli the draui^ht 
 of sinful j)leasure, whether excess or other, drinUeth therewith 
 the cup of God's ang:er, consuming: him. It is said of tlie Ba- 
 bvU>n of the world, in words very like to these ;- All niitunis 
 have drank of the wineaf her fornieatioiis — reward her as she has 
 rewarded you ; in the eup whieh she hath filled, fill la her doahle. 
 All nations arc, in the first instance, all who had been lcaf,nied 
 against God's people ; but the wide term, all wa^/ows, compre- 
 hends all, who, in time, become like them. It is a rule of 
 God's justice for all times. At each and at all times, God re- 
 quites them to the uttermost. The continuous drinking is 
 fulfilled in each. Each drinketh the cup of God's anger, till 
 death and in death. God employs each nation in turn to give 
 that cup to the other. So Edom drank it at the hand of IJa- 
 bylon, and Babylon from the Medes, and the Medes and Per- 
 sians from the Macedonians, and the Macedonians from the 
 Romans, and they from the Barbarians. But each in turn 
 drank continuously, until it became as though it had never 
 been. To swallow up, and be swallowed up in turn, is the 
 world's history. 
 
 The details of the first stage of the excision of Edom are 
 not given. Jeremiah distinctly says that Edom should be sub- 
 jected to Nebuchadnezzar'. Tims saith the Lord ; make thee 
 bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, and send them to 
 the king of Edom, and to the king of 3Ioab, and to the king of 
 the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrns, and to the king of Zi- 
 don.by the hand of themessengers whieh eonieto Jerusalem un- 
 to Zedekiah king of Judah, and command them to say to their 
 masters, — I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar kingof Babylon, 3Iy servant . Holy Scripture gives 
 us both prophecy and history; but God is at no pains to clear, 
 either the likelihood of His history, or the fulfilment of His pro- 
 phecies. The sending of messengers from these petty kings 
 to Zedekiah looks as if there had been, at that time, a plan to 
 free themselves jointly, probably by aid of Egypt, from the tri- 
 bute to Nebuchadnezzar. It may be that Nebuchadnezzar 
 knew of this league, and punished it afterwards. Of these six 
 kings, we know that he subdued Zedekiah, the kings of Tyre 
 Moab and Amnion. Zion doubtless submitted to him, as it 
 had aforetime to Shalmaneser*. But since Nebuchadnezzar 
 certainly punished four out of these six kings, it is probable 
 that they were punished for some connnon cause, in which 
 Edom also was implicated. In any case, we know that Edom 
 was desolated at that time. Malachi, after the captivity, when 
 upbraiding Israel for bis unthankfulness to God, bears witness 
 
 ^ Gloss. - llev. xviii, 3, 6. ^ xxvii. 2-4, 6, ■* Menatider in Jrs. Ant. ix. 14. 2. 
 
 »Mal.i. 2, 3. "Ant. X. 9. 7. ' Mai. i. 4. « g^e i„trod. to Malachi. " Diod. 
 Sic. xix. 94-8. "> See 1 Mace. v. 24-27, ix. 35. Jos. Ant. xii. 8. 3. xiii. 1. 2. Aretas 
 of Petra aided the Romans 3, B. C. against Jews and Idumaeans. lb. xvii. 10. 9. 
 
 " Straho's words are, " The Idumaeans are Nabataeans, but in a sedition having been 
 expelled thciice," [i.e. from the country ol'the Nabataeans,] " they, &c." The identifying 
 of the Edomites and Nabathseans is a slight error in a Greek. 
 
 12 The Arabian historians assert that the Nabathseans were Syrians ; the Syrian writers 
 equally claiming ihem as Syrians. Tliis was first established out of the original unpub- 
 lished writers l)y Quatremi^re (Nouveau Journal Asiatique, 1835. T. xv. reprinted, Me- 
 moire sur les Kabateens,) followed and illustrated by Larsow (de Dialect, ling. Syriac. 
 reliquiis, Berlin, 1S41 .) and supplemented by Chwolson (die Ssabier, ii. 1. T. i. p. 697-711 . 
 and T. ii. 103. 844.) Their descendants who, according to the Arabic lexicographers, con- 
 tinued to live in "the marshes between the two Iraks," (Djauh. and Kani. in Quatr. 
 p. 54, remained heathen (See Chwols. i. 821, 2. ii. (J29, (Jli4,0). Whence the Syrians used 
 the name Arnioio, (as distinct irom Oromoio) " Aramaean," to signily both " Nabathaean," 
 
 and they shall 
 
 Be 'ore 
 
 swallow down, and they christ 
 
 II Or, sup up. cir. 787. 
 
 that Edom had been made utterly desolate ^. / have loved Ja- 
 eob, and Ksau I have hated, and laid his mountains and his lie- 
 ritage waste for the jackals of the wilderness. The occasion of 
 this desolation was doubtless the march of Nebuchadnezzar 
 against Egypt, when, JosepJins relates, he subdued Moab and 
 Ammon *. Edom lay in his way from Moab to Egypt. It is 
 probable, anyhow, that he then found occasion (if lie bad it 
 not) against the petty state, whose submission was needed to 
 giv^e him free passage between the Dead Sf^a and the (iulf of 
 Akaba, the important access which Edom had refused to Is- 
 rael, as he came out of Egypt. There Edom was sent forth to 
 its borders, i. e. misled to abandon its strong fastnesses, and so, 
 falling into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, it met with the 
 usual lot of the conquered, plunder, death, captivity. Mala- 
 chi does not verbally allude to the prophecy of Obadiah ; for his 
 office related to the restored pco|)le of God, not to Edom. But 
 whereas Obadiah had pro])hesied the slaughter of Edom and 
 the searching out of his treasures, Malachi appeals to all the 
 Jews, their immediate neighbours, that, whereas Jacob was 
 in great degree restored through the love of God, Edom lay 
 under His enduring displeasure ; his mountains were, and were 
 to continue to be ', a waste ; he was impoverished ; his places 
 were desolate. Malachi, prophesying towards ^415 B.C., fore- 
 told a further desolation. A century later, we find the Naba- 
 thffans in tranquil and established possession of Petra, having 
 there deposited the wealth of their merchandise, attending 
 fairs at a distance, avenging themselves on the General of An- 
 tigonus, who took advantage of their absence to surprise their 
 retreat, holding their own against the conqueror of Ptolemy 
 who had recovered Syria and Palestine ; in possession of all 
 the mountains around them, whence, when Antigonus, des- 
 pairing of violence, tried by falsehood to lull them into secu- 
 rity, they transmitted to Petra by fiery beacons the tidings of 
 the approach of his army ^. How they came to replace Edom, 
 we know not. They were of a race, wholly distinct ; active 
 friends of the Maccabees'", while the Idunijeans were their 
 deadly enemies. Strabo relates'', that the Edomites "were ex- 
 pelled from the country of the Nabathseans in a sedition, and 
 so joined themselves to the Jews and shared their customs." 
 Since the alleged incorporation among the Jews is true, al- 
 though at a later period, so may also the expulsion by the 
 Nabathaeans be, although not the cause of their incorporation. 
 It would be another instance of requital by God, that ^' the 
 men of their confederacy brought them to their border, the men 
 of Xhe'vc peace prevailed against them." A mass of very varied 
 evidence establishes as an historical certainty, that the Naba- 
 thaeans were of Aramaic'", not of Arabic, origin. They were 
 inhabitants of Southern Mesopotamia, and, according to the 
 oldest evidence short of Holy Scripture, were the earliest in- 
 
 and" heathen." (Bar All, Lex. MS. sub v. See Larsow, p. 9-16.) Blau (in Zeitschr. d. 
 Deutsch.Morg.Ges. 1855, pp. 235,6.) contends that the Nabathsans of Petra were Arabs, 
 on the following grounds; 1) the statements of Diodorus (xix. 94), Strabo (xvi. 2.34. lb. 4. 
 2 & 21), Josephus (Ant. i. 12, 4.), S. Jerome and some later writers. 2) The statement 
 of Suidas (A.D. 980.) that Dusares, an Arab idol, was worshipped there. 3) The Arabic 
 name of Aretas, king of Petra. 4) Arabic names of places, near Petra. Four such are 
 alleged ; Arhidela (if the same as this Ghurundel) 18 hours from Petra ( Porter. Handb. p. 
 58) ;AV.ir/a, (site unknown) ;/if«aia, a degree North. (Ptol. in Reland,463). Elji, close to Pe- 
 tra. Piut as to 1) Diodorus, who calls the Nabathseans Arabs, says that they wrote Sy. 
 riac ; Strabo calls the Edomites Nabatliaeans, and the inhabitants of Galilee, Jericho, Phi- 
 ladelphia and Samaria, " a mixed race of Egyptians, Arabians and Phoenicians" (§ 34), 
 and speaks of " Nabatbaean Arabia" as a distinct coimtry (xvii. 1. 21). Josephus, and 
 S. Jerome (Qu. in Gen. 25. 13) following him, include the whole country from the Eu- 
 phrates to Egypt, and so some whose language was Aramaic, .-is to 2) Dusares, though at 
 first an Arab idol, was worshipped far and wide, in Galatia, Bostra, even Italy (See coins 
 in Eckhel,Tanini, inZoegade Obelise, pp. 205-7, and Zoega himself, p. 205). As to 3)
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 243 
 
 chrTst ^^^^^ be as tlious^h they luul not been. 
 cir.787. 17 ^ zi3„t „po„ inoxint Zion 'shall he 
 
 ^Amos^i^s! II (leliveranee, || and there shall be holiness ; 
 
 II Or, they that escape. || Or, it shall be hoi;/, Joel 3. 1". 
 
 and the house of Jacob shall possess their 
 possessions. 
 
 18 And the house of Jacob '' shall be a zech.'i2!*6. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 787. 
 
 habitants, before the invasion of theCbaldpeans^. Their coun- 
 try, Irak, "extended leni;tb\vays' from Mosul or Nineveh to 
 Abadan, and in breadth from Cadesia lo Ilulvan." Syrian 
 writers claimed that thcir's was tiie prima'val ianjjuaffe-'; Mo- 
 hammedan writers, who deny this, admit that tiieir lani!;uai;e 
 was Syriac K A k-arned Syriac writer^ calls the three Chal- 
 dee names in Daniel, Shadrach, Mcshach. Abednego, Nal)a- 
 thipan. The survivine: words of their lanifuase are mostly Sy- 
 riac «. Mohammedan writers suppose them to be descended 
 from Aram son of Shem 7. Once they were a powerful nation, 
 with a biiihly cultivated language *. One of their books, writ- 
 ten before the destruction of Nineveh and Babylon ', itself 
 mentions an ancient literature,specifically on agriculture, me- 
 dicine, botany, and, that favourite study of the Chaldajans, as- 
 trolojry, '• the mysteries," star-worship and a very extensive, 
 elaborate, system of symbolical representation '". But the 
 Chaldees conquered them ; they were subjects of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, and it is in harmony with the later policy of the East- 
 ern Monarchies, to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar placed them 
 in Pctra, to hold in check the revolted Iduma;ans ^i. Diodo- 
 rus^- relates that the Nabathaeans there "wrote in Si/riac" a 
 letter of remonstrance to Antigonus. " A tribe of Babyloni- 
 ans" were still, in the 6th century, "at Karak-Moab^^," 60 
 jjeoffraphical miles from Petra. Any how, B.C. 312, Edom 
 had lonir been expelled from his native mountains. He was 
 not there about B.C. 420, the age of Malachi. Probably then, 
 after the expulsion foretold by Obadiah, he never recovered 
 his former possessions, but continued his robber-life along the 
 
 the kings named by Josephus, (see the list in Vincent's Commerce, ii. 273-0) Arethas, 
 Malchus, Obodas, may be equally Aramaic, and Obodas lias a more Aramaic sound. 
 Anyhow the Nabathseans, if placed in Petra by Nebucliadnezzar, were not conquerors, 
 and may have received an Arab king in the four centuries between Nebuchadnezzar and 
 the first Aretas known at Petra. What changes those settled in Samaria underwent! 
 As to 4) the names of places are not altered by a garrison in a capital. Our English 
 names were not changed even by the Norman conquest ; nor those of Samaria by the 
 Assyrian. How many live on till now ! Then of the four names, none occurs until after 
 the Christian era. There is nothing to connect them with the Nabathaeans. They may 
 have been given before or long after them. 
 
 1 " The Nabathseans. who were inhabitants of the country of Babel before the Chaldas- 
 ans.*" Babylonian Agric. quoted by Makrizi. Quatreni&re, p. 61. Chwolson, ii. 600. 
 
 " Yacut in Notices et Extraits, ii. 446. " Masudi says; The inhabitants of Nineveh 
 formed a part of those whom we callNabitsor Syrians, vvlio form one people and speak 
 one language. That of the Nabits differs only in a few letters, but the basis of the lan- 
 guage is the same" (Quatr. p. 59). "The Chaldees" [he means NabathEcans] "are an an- 
 cient people who dwelt in Irak and Mesopotamia; of them were the Nimrods, kings of 
 the earth after the deluge; and of them wasBakhtnasr (Nebuchadnezzar) and their tongue 
 was Syriac, and they did not disuse it, until the Persians came upon them and subdued 
 their kingdom." (Hajji. Khal. pp. 70, 1.) 
 
 3 The Syrian Theodorus, quoted in the Alfehrest, says that "it was in this language that 
 God spake to Adam." " Adam and his children spoke Syriac ; some say, NabathEean," 
 (Ikhwan-alsafa, Quatr. 01.) " The primitive language which Adam spoke was that now 
 used by the Chaldees ; for Abraham was Chaldee by birth, and the language which he 
 learnt of liis fathers is that still used among us Syro-Chaldees." (Patriarch Michael, 
 Chron. lb. 91.2.) 
 
 * " The Syri,ic writing is that of the Nabathaeans and Chaldees. Ignorant men main- 
 tain that it is the primitive writing, on account of its great antiquity, and that it is used 
 by the most ancient people ; but it is an error." Ibn. Khaldun, lb. 92. 
 
 * Abulfaraj, p. 74. " Nebuchadnezzar gave Hananiah.Mishael, and Azariah, Naba- 
 thsan names, Shadrach, &c. * Words of the Nabathasan dialect are preserv- 
 ed both in Syriac and Arabic Lexica. On those in Syriac see Quatr. 104 sqq, Lar- 
 sow, p. 15-26. The Arabic are given by Golius and Freytag. ' Masudi, 
 (from Quatr. translation, p. 56.) "Among the sons of Mash, son of .\ram, son of Shem, 
 son of Noah, isNabit, from whom are sprung all the Nabathfeans and their kings." " Na- 
 bit, son of Mash, having fixed his residence at Babel, his descendants seized all Irak. 
 These Nabathseans gave kings to Babel, who covered the land with cities, introduced civi- 
 lisation, and reigned with unequalled glory. Time has taken away their greatness and 
 empire ; and their descendants. in a state of dependance and humiliation, are now dispersed 
 in Irak and other provinces." " After the deluge, men settled in different countries, as the 
 Nabathaeans who founded Babel, and the sons of Ham who settled in the same country 
 under Nimrod." " The Chald;Eans are the same as the Syrians, formerly called Naba- 
 thceans" (lb. p. 59). " The Nimrods were the kings of the Syrians, whom the Arabs call 
 Nabathaeans." "The Nabatlisans say that Iran was theirs, that the country belonged to 
 
 Southern borders of Judab, unchanged by God's punishment, 
 the same deadly enemy of Judali. 
 
 \J. liiit [yjiirt] upon [/;;] 3Ii/iint Zi/»i s/ial/ /)!• deliverd/ire, 
 or, (1)1 c.srajied rvmndut^ditfl tlicrv [diul ;7] shall he hiiliiicss. The 
 sifting times of the Churcli are the tritiiii|)li of tin; world ; the 
 judgment of the world is the restoration of the Cliurch. In 
 the triumph of the world, the lot was cast on Jerusalem, her 
 sons were carried captive and slain, her holy places were de- 
 secrated. On the destruction of the nations, Mount Zion rises 
 in calm majesty, as before ; a remiiaitf is replaced there, after 
 its sifting ; it is again holiness ; not holy only, but a channel of 
 holiness ; and the house of Jtu-oh shall possess their possessions ; - 
 (lit. inherit their inheritances,) either their own former posses- 
 sions, receiving and inheriting from the enemy, what they had 
 lost ; or the inheritances of the nations. For the whole world 
 is the inheritance of the Church, as Jesus said to the Apostles, 
 sons of Zion, ^''Go t/e and teach all nations, hajifi-Ang them in 
 the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 
 ^° Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture. Holiness is its title-deeds to the inheritance of the world, 
 that holiness, which was in the upper chamber in Mount Zicni, 
 the presence of God the Holy Ghost, issuing in holy teach- 
 ing, holy Scriptures, holy institutions, holy Sacraments, holy 
 lives, 
 
 18. Having given, in summary, the restoration and expan- 
 sion of Judah, Obadiah, in more detail, first mentions a further 
 chastisement of Edom, quite distinct from the former. In the 
 first, for which God summoned the heathen, there is no men- 
 
 them, and that they once possessed it, that their kings were the Nimrods, of whom was 
 the Nimrod in tlie time of Abraham, and that Nimrod was the name of their kings" (lb. 
 5S1 ; that Iran was named from them, Arian-shehr, land of lions, arian (plur. of aria) " sig- 
 nifying in Nabathaean, lion." lb. "The last king who fell before Ardeshir (Alexander) 
 was a king of the Nabathaans, who lived in the towns of Irak." lb. 00. 
 
 8 In the 13th century, there were still three chief dialects of Syraic, 1) Aramsan, the 
 dialect of Edessa.Haran, and Mesopotamia. 2)Palestine,thatof Damascus, Lebanon, and 
 the rest of inner(i.e. proper) Syria. 3)The Chaldee-Nabathasan, that of the mountain- 
 eers of Assyria, and the villages of Irak. (Abulfaraj, Hist. Arab. p. 70.) Of these the Na- 
 bathaean was once the purest; afterwards, it appearstohave been comiptedby contact with 
 the proper Chaldseans, and (as is the wont in mountainous districts and among peasants) 
 was debased among an uneducated people. Theodorus the Syrian says, "This language 
 is the most elegant of the Syriac dialects— The inhabitants of Babel spoke it. W'hen God 
 confounded the languages, and men dispersed in different countries, the language of the 
 inhabitants of Babel remained unchanged. As for the Nabath^an spoken in villages, it is 
 a corrupt Syriac and full of vicious idioms." (in Arab. Hist. Quatr. 95.) Barhebraus says, 
 " Syriac, more than any other language, being spread over countries far apart, under- 
 went changes so great, that those who speak different dialects of it do not understand each 
 other, but require an interpreter, as if they spoke foreign languages. The dialects are 
 three, that of Syria, that of Palestine, and that of the Easterns. This, more than the 
 rest, has adopted verv anomalous forms, and assimilated itself to the Chaldee. The Sy- 
 riac is spoken at Ede'ssa, Melitene, Marde ; of those who use the Eastern, the Nestorian 
 Christians are conspicuous." (Gramm. Syr. Quatr. 97.) 
 
 " In the Fehrest ( A.D. 987) it is said that Nabathaean was purer than Syriac, and that 
 the people of Babylon spoke it, but that the Nabathsan spoken in villages was inelegant 
 Syriac." H. Khal.p.71.ed. Plug. " The people of Suwad [Babylonia] spoke Synac,and 
 letters were written in a peculiar dialect, Syro-Persic." (Ibn Mocanna, lb. 70.) 
 
 9 Quatr. 45, 6. " The temples of Babylon were still standing." Id. Ibn VVahshiyyah 
 the Chaldajan, who states that he translated the " Nabathaean Agriculture into Arabic 
 from Chaldee," ascribed to it a fabulous antiquity, (ap. Makrizi in Chwols. i. 699.) Ibn 
 Awwam, who used it largely, says that it was "built on the words of the greatest wise, and 
 mentions their names and numbers." (p. 8, 9. Chw. i. 706.) " It was adapted to the climate 
 of Babylon especially, and to countries with a similar climate." Ssagrit,its original author 
 ap. Ibn Awwam, i.p. 82. (Chw. i. 699.) 
 
 '" QuatremSre, p. lOSsqq. Chwols. i. 107. " The Chaldaeans, before them the Syri- 
 ans, and in their time tlie Nabathaans, gave themselves eagerly to the study of magic, as- 
 trology, and talismans." IbnKhald.inQuatr.til. "Chwolson states that he has found in 
 the fragments of these different writings, very lofty speculations on philosophy and natural 
 history, and a ver>' remarkable political and social legislation. Libraries are mentioned ; 
 all the branches of religious and profane literature, history, biography, &c. appear there 
 very developed." Renan, Hist. d. Langues Semit.iii. 2. T. i. p. 239. 
 
 " I find this same conjecture in QuatremSre. '- xix. 96. 
 
 " Steph. Byz.v. 'AiapouiroXit. quoted by QuatremSre, p. 87. " S.Matt. 
 
 xxviii. 19. '^ S. Mark xvi. 15.
 
 244 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 chrTst ^'*^' ""^' t^'^ house of .Tost'ph a flame, and 
 
 "'•• '^^- the house of Esau for stubble, and they 
 
 shall kindle in them, and devour them; 
 
 and there shall not be any remaining of the 
 
 tion of Judah, the desolation of whose holy City, Jerusalem, 
 for the time, and their own captivity is presupposed. In the 
 second, which follows on tlie restoration of its remnant, there 
 is no mention of licathen. Ohadiah, whose mission was to Ju- 
 dah, gives to it the name of the whole, f/ie house of .Jacob. It 
 alone had the true worship of God, and His promises. Apart 
 from it, there was no oneness witli the faith of the fathers, no 
 foreshadowing sacrifice for sin. Does the house of Joseph ex- 
 press the same in other words ? or docs it mean, that, after that 
 lirst destruction of Jerusalem, Ephraim should he again unit- 
 ed with Judah? Asaph unites, as one, the sons of Jacob and Jo- 
 seph^, Israel and Joseph-; Israel, Jacob, Joseph''. Zechariah* 
 after the captivity, speaks of the house of Judah and the house 
 of Joseph, as together forming one whole. Amos, about this 
 same time, twice speaks of Ephraim ^ under the name of Jo- 
 seph. And although Asaph uses the name of Joseph, as Oba- 
 diah does, to designate Israel, including Ephraim, it does not 
 seem likely that it should be used of Israel, excluding those 
 whose special name it was. Wiiile then Hosea and Amos fore- 
 told the entire destruction of the kingdom of Israel, Obadiah 
 foretells that some should be there, after the destruction of 
 Jerusalem also, united with them. And after the destruction 
 of Samaria, there did remain in lsrael,of the poor people, many 
 who returned to the worship of God. Hezekiah invited Eph- 
 raim and Manasseh to the passover", from Beersheba to Dan'', 
 addressing them as the remnant, that arc escaped out of the 
 hands of the kings of Assyria^. The more part mocked'^; yet 
 divers of Asher Manasseh and Zabulon^^, came from the first, 
 and afterwards many of Ephraim and Issachar as well as Ma- 
 nasseh and Zabu/on^^. Josiah destroyed all the places of idola- 
 try in BetheF- andthe cities of Samaria^^, of Manasseh and Eph- 
 raim and Simeon even unto A^aphtali^*. Manasseh, Ephraim, 
 and all the remnant of Israel gave money for the repair of the 
 temple, and this was gathered by the Levites ivho kept the 
 doors 1^. After the renewal of the covenant to keep the law, 
 Josiah removed all the atjominations out of all the countries, that 
 pertained to the children of Israel and made all found in Israel 
 to serve the Lord their God '*. 
 
 The heathen colonists were placed by the king of Assyria in 
 Samaria and the cities thereof^'', probably to hold the people 
 in the country in check. The remnant of the house of Joseph 
 dwelt in the open country and the villages. 
 
 And the house of Esau for stubble. At some time after the 
 first desolation by Nebuchadnezzar, Esau fulfilled the boast 
 which Malachi records, we will return and build up the deso- 
 late places^^. Probably during the oppression of Judah by An- 
 tiochus Epiphanes, they possessed themselves of the South of 
 Judah, bordering on their own country, and of Hebron i', 22 
 miles from Jerusalem '-", where Judah had dwelt in the time of 
 Nehemiah =^ Judas Maccabajus was reduced to- fortify Beth- 
 zur, lit. house of the rock, (20 miles only from Jerusalem-^) 
 that the people might have a defence against Idumcea. Mare- 
 sha and Adoraim, 25 miles S. W, of Jerusalem, near the road 
 
 > Ps. Ixxvii. 15. 2 ps. ixxx. 1. 3 Ps.lxxxi. 4,5. •< x. 6. ' v. 15, vi. 6. 
 
 «2Chr. XXX. 1. 7 lb, 5. » lb, 6. 8 lb, II), '» lb. 11, " lb. 18. '= 2 Kings 
 xxiii, 15, '3 lb. 19. " 2 Chr. xxxiv, 6, 's ii,_ 9_ le jb, .33, 17 2 Kings xvii, 21, 
 
 '3 Mal.i. 4. 19 1 Mace. y. C5. 2» Eus, V.'A/jkui. 2' Neh, xi, 25, - 1 Mace, 
 iv,61. 23 Eus. 2< Jos, Ant. xiii. 15,4, =* lb, v. 1, 22. 26 1 Mace. v. 3. 27 lb. 65. 
 
 28 Ib,xi.05,6. 29ib.xiv.33. a» lb. xiii.53. si Ant. xiii.9.1. 32lb.xv.7,9. 
 
 house of E.sau ; for the Lord hath spoken it. ^ h ^'[^sx 
 
 19 And then of the south "shall possess "*"• '^''- 
 the mount of Esau ; '' and they of the plain dz^,h° 2.7^' 
 the Philistines : and they shall possess the 
 
 to Gaza, were cities of Idumaea-'. The whole of Simeon was 
 absorbed in it -'. Edom was still on the aggressive, when Ju- 
 das Maccabaeus smote them at Arrabatene. It was "-"because 
 they beset Israel round about," that "Judas fought against 
 the children of Esau in Idumea at Arrabatene and gave them 
 a great ovcrthow." His second battle against them was in 
 Judaea itself He " ^' fought against the children of Esau in 
 the land towards the South, where he smote Hebron and her 
 daughters, and pulled down its fortress and burned the towns 
 thereof round about." About 20 years afterwards, Simon had 
 again to recover Bethzur-*, and again to fortify it, as still 
 lying on the borders of Judah-'. Twenty years later, John 
 Hyrcanus, son of Simon ^"j "^^ subdued all the Edomites, and 
 permitted them to remain in the country, on condition that 
 they would receive circumcision, and adopt the laws of the 
 Jews." This they did, continues Josephus ; "and henceforth 
 becam« Jews." Outwardly they appear to have given up 
 their idolatry. For although Josephus says, "^-the Edomites 
 account [not, accounted] Koze a god," he relates that, after 
 this forced adoption of Jewish customs, Herod made Costobar, 
 of the sacerdotal family, prefect of Idumsea and Gaza ^^. Their 
 character remained unchanged. The Jewish historian, who 
 knew them well, describes them as " '' a tumultuous disorderly 
 race, ever alive to commotions, delighting in change, who went 
 to engagements as to a feast :" " •''* by nature most savage for 
 slaughter." 3, B.C. they took part in the sedition against the 
 Romans^", using, as a pretext probably, the Feast of Pentecost, 
 to which they went up with those of Galilee, Jericho, the coun- 
 try beyond Jordan, and " the Jews themselves." Just before 
 the last siege of Jerusalem, the Zealots sent for them, on pre- 
 text that the city was betrayed to the Romans. "All took 
 arms, as if in defence of their metropolis, and, 20,000 in num- 
 ber, went to Jerusalem ^^." After massacres, of which, when 
 told that they had been deceived, they themselves repented, 
 they returned ; and were, in turn, wasted by Simon the Ge- 
 rasene. "^'He not only destroyed cities and villages, but wast- 
 ed the whole country. For as you may see wood wholly bared 
 by locusts, so the army of Simon left the country behind 
 them, a desert. Some things they burnt, others they razed." 
 After a short space, " he returned to the remnant of Edom, 
 and, chasing the people on all sides, constrained the many to 
 iiee to Jerusalem ^^." There they took part against the Zea- 
 lots^',"were a great part of the war*"" against the Romans, and 
 perished, "^Vivals in phrenzy" with the worst Jews in the time 
 of that extreme, superhuman, wickedness. Thenceforth their 
 name disappears from history. The "greater part" of the 
 remmant of the nation had perished in that dreadful extermi- 
 nating siege; if any still survived, they retained no known na- 
 tional existence. Arabian tradition preserves the memory of 
 three Jewish Arab tribes, none of the Edomites. 
 
 19. And they oithe South shall possess tlie mount of Esait. 
 The Church was now hemmed in within Judah and Benjamin. 
 They too were to go into captivity. The Prophet looks be- 
 
 33 Id, B, J,iv, 4. 1. 3< lb, iv, 5, 1, 35 Ant, xvii, 10, 2, 36 B, J. iv. 4. 2. 
 
 It would seem from Josephus that their fighting men were already reduced to this num- 
 ber, '*The princes of the Idum^sans sped like madmen round tlie nation, and proclaim- 
 ed the expedition throughout. The multitude was assembled, earlier than was command- 
 ed, and all took arms," &c. 37 lb, iv, 9, 7, The Edomites were again in possession 
 ot Hebron. SimoQ took it. 3s ib, 10. 39 ib. n. m lb. vi, 8. 2, -"i lb. vu. 8. 1.
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 245 
 
 chrTst fi^l*^^ ^^ Ephraim, and the fields of Sama- 
 '='''• "^7. ria : and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 
 
 20 And the captivity of this host of the 
 
 children of Israel shall possess that of the 
 
 ' 9 w"^" ^^' Canaanites even ■' unto Zarephath ; and the 
 
 yond the captivity and the return, and tells how that original 
 promise to Jacob' should be fulfilled ; T/ti/ seed shall he as the 
 dust of the earth, and thou shalt break forth to the West, and 
 to the East, and to the North, and to the South ; and in thee 
 and in th?/ seed shall all the families of the earth he blessed. 
 Hosea and Amos had, at this time,prophesied the final destruc- 
 tion of the kingdom of Israel. Obadiah describes Judah, as 
 expanded to its former bounds including Edom and Philistia, 
 and occupying the territory of the ten tribes. The South -, i.e. 
 they of the hot and dry country to the South of Judah bor- 
 dering on Edom, shall possess the mountains of Esau, i. e. his 
 mountain country, on which they bordered. And the plain, 
 they on the West, in the great maritime plain, the shephelah, 
 should spread over the country of the Philistines, so that the 
 sea should be their boundary; and on the North, over the coun- 
 try of the ten tribes, the fields of Ephraiyn and the fields of Sa- 
 maria. The territory of Benjamin being thus included in Ju- 
 dah, to it is assigned the country on the other side Jordan ; 
 and Benjamin, Gilead. 
 
 20. And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, 
 [it must, I believe, be rendered',] which are among the Canaan- 
 ites, as far as Zarephath, and the captivity of Jernsalem which 
 is iti Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the South. Obadiali 
 had described how the two tribes, whose were the promises to 
 the house of David, should spread abroad on all sides. Here 
 he represents how Judah should, in its turn, receive into its 
 bosom those now carried away from them; so should all again 
 be one fold. 
 
 Zarephath (probably " smelting-house," and so a place of 
 slave-labour, pronounced Sareptain S. Luke*) belonged to Si- 
 don^, lying on the sea^ about half-way ^ between it and Tyre*. 
 These were then, probably, captives, placed by the Tyrians for 
 the time in safe keeping in the narrow plain ' between Leba- 
 non and the sea, intercepted by Tyre itself" from their home, 
 and awaiting to be transported to a more distant slavery. 
 These, with those already sold to the Grecians and in slavery 
 at Sardis, form one whole. They stand as representatives of 
 all who, whatever their lot, had been rent off from the Lord's 
 land, and had been outwardly severed from His heritage. 
 
 21. yi7id saviours shall ascend on Mount Zion. The body 
 should not be without its head ; saviours there should be, and 
 those, successively. The title was familiar to them of old. 
 1' The children of Israel cried unto the Lord, Who raised them 
 up a saviour, a7id he saved them. And the Lord gave unto Is- 
 rael a saviour^^, in the time of Jehoahaz. Nehemiah says to 
 God^*, According to Thy manifold mercies, Thou gavest than 
 
 ' Gen. xxviii. 14. ^ 311 ' The difficulty arises from the necessity of supplying 
 something to fill up the construction of O'W^ "VX lit. winch the Canaanites. Our trans- 
 lation, following the Latin, has, shall possess that of the Canaanites. In this sense, we 
 should have expected D'WdS ivk TR, that which belongs to the Canaanites, the object 
 having, in all the preceding instances, been marked by the PK and D'lyiD le'N not being the 
 Hebrew for " that which belongs to." On the other hand, the Hebrew accent, the pa- 
 rallelism, and the uniform use of the accusative here, point to the rendering, "which are 
 among the Canaanites" which is thut of the Cbaldee, while the construction is that of 
 the LXX. and Syr. Sntb" 'jaS nin Vnn rhi\ corresponds with ahtn-f n^:i; the ii?k 
 IlB-a ny O'lyiD witli nTSOa ICH ; and then the'remaindfr, " shall inherit the'cities of the 
 South," DJ}n iy iikib'T, is the predicate of both, in exact correspondence with the pre- 
 vious clauses. Hence the Chaldee has supplied 3 before D'jyi3, from the corresponding 
 
 captivity of Jerusalem, || which is in Se- chrTst 
 pharad/ shall possess the cities of the south. ""• '**"• 
 
 21 And "'saviours shall come up on mount " ^lltms that 
 Zion to judi^e the mount of Esau ; and the sepharld? 
 '' kini^dom shall be the LoRo's. s i Tim. 4. i6. Jamfs. 20! 
 
 >■ i's. 22. 28. Uan. 2.44. &7.14,27.Zech. 14.9. Lukf 1.33. Rev. 11.15. & 19.6. 
 
 savio7irs, who should save them from the hands of their enemies. 
 So there should be tberctiftcr. Sucii wen; Judas Mac(;aba;us 
 and his brothers, and Hyrcanus, Alexander, Aristobulus. 
 They arc said to ascend as to a place of dignity, to ascend on 
 Mount Zion ; not to go up thithen/;«rf/, but to dwell and abide 
 »j" it, which aforetime was defiled, which now was to be holy. 
 He ends, as he began, with Mount Zion, the holy hill, where 
 God was pleased to dwell'^ to reveal Himself. In botli, is the 
 judgment of Esau. Mount Zion stands over against Mount 
 Esau, God's holy mount against the mountains of human 
 pride, the Church against the world. And with this agrees 
 the office assigned, which is almost more than that of man. 
 He began his prophecy of the deliverance of God's people. In 
 Mount Zion shall he an escapedremiiant ; he ends,.sa?'?o;/r.v shall 
 ascend on Mount Zion : be began, it shall he holiness ; he closes, 
 and the kingdom shall he the Lord's. To judge the mount of 
 Esau. Judges, appointed by God, judge His people ; savi- 
 ours, raised up by God, deliver them. But once onlydoes Eze- 
 kiel speak of man's judging another nation, as the instrument 
 of God. ^^ I, the Loril, have spoken it — and I ivill do it ; I will 
 not go hack, neither ivill I spare, neither will I repent ; ac- 
 cording to thy ways and according to thy doings shall they 
 judge thee, saith the Lord God. But it is the prerogative of 
 God. And so, while the word saviours includes those who, 
 before and afterwards, were the instruments of God in saving 
 His Church and people, yet all saviours shadowed forth or 
 back the one Saviour, Who alone has the office of Judge, in 
 Whose kingdom, and associated by Him with Him, ^~' the saints 
 shall judge the world, as He said to His Apostles'*. 3/e?<'/^/cA have 
 folloived Me, /w the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit 
 in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon ttvelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the last words must 
 at all times have recalled that great prophecy of the Passion, 
 and of its fruits in the conversion of the Heathen, from which 
 it is taken, the twenty second Psalm. The outward incorpo- 
 ration of Edom in Judah through Hyrcanus was but a sha- 
 dow of that inward union, when the kingdom of God was es- 
 tablished upon earth, and Edom was enfolded in the one king- 
 dom of Christ, and its cities, whence had issued the wasters and 
 deadly foes of Judah, became the sees of Christian Bishops. 
 And in this way too Edom was but the representative of others, 
 aliens from and enemies to God, to whom His kingdom came, 
 in whom He reigns and will reign, glorified for ever in His 
 Saints, whom He has redeemed with His most precious Blood. 
 And the kingdom shall he the Lord's. Majestic, compre- 
 hensive simplicity of prophecy! All time and eternity, the 
 
 TiBDa, andrendcrs," which are in the land of the Canaanites." *vr.26. ' 1 Kingsxvii.O. 
 
 " Phocas, Loc. Sanct. in Reland, 985. 
 
 ? Russegger, Reisen, iv. 145. note. " Sarafend," in which the old name is nearly pre- 
 served, (Reland, ib.) is a little inland. It is 4i hours both from Tyre and Sidon. (Russ. 
 145,6.) The maps are wrong. Id. 
 
 8 Jos. Ant. viii. 13. 2. ' " Its breadth is nowhere more than ^ an hour, except 
 
 around Tyre and Sidon, where the mountains retreat somewhat further. In some places 
 they approach quite near to the shore." Rob. ii. 473. 
 
 '" In the term, " the Canaanites as far as Zarephath," the starting-point is naturally 
 the confines of Canaan and Israel, and so Zarephath is the furthest point N. ot Judah. 
 
 " Judg. iii. 9, 15. '2 2 Kings xiii. 5. " Neh. ix. 27. " not Sit nor ^Ji but 3. 
 
 15 Ps. ii. G, Ixviii. 16. '» Ezek.xxiv. 14. '? 1 Cor. ri. 2. is S.Matt.xix.2S. 
 
 R r
 
 24G 
 
 OBADIAH. 
 
 strugs:Ies of time and the rest of eternity, are summed up in 
 those'threc words'; Zion and Edom retire from sight; hoth are 
 eomprehended in that one kinjjdom, and God is <tll in all". 
 The strife is ended; not that ancient strife only between tiie 
 evil and the good, the oppressor and the oppressed, the sub- 
 duer and the subdued ; but the whole strife and disobedience of 
 the creature towards the Creator, man against his God. Out- 
 ward prosperity had passed away, since David had said the 
 great words ^, the Icingdom is the Lord's. Dark days had come. 
 Obadiah saw on and beyond to darker yet, but knits up all his 
 prophecy in tliis; the kingdom shall he the Lord's. Daniel saw 
 what Obadiah foresaw, the kingdom of Judah also broken ; yet, 
 as a captive, he repeated the same to the then monarch of the 
 world, *the hammer of the whole earth, which had broken in- 
 pieces the petty kingdom of Judah, and carried captive its peo- 
 ple^; the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom,ivhich shall ne- 
 ver be destroyed. Zechariah saw the poor fragments which 
 returned from the captivity and their poor estate, yet said the 
 same ^ ; The Lord shall be king over all the earth. All at once 
 that kingdom came ; the fishermen, the tax-gatherer and the 
 tcntmaker were its captains ; the scourge, the claw, thongs, 
 rack, hooks, sword, fire, torture, the red-hot iron seat, the 
 cross, the wild-beast,not employed, but endured, were its arms; 
 tiie dungeon and the mine, its palaces ; fiery words of truth, 
 its ''sharp arrows in the hearts of the King's enemies ; for One 
 
 * 1 Cor, XV. 28. 
 
 3 Ps. xxii. 28. ■• Jer.1.23. 
 
 ' Dan. ii. 4-1, add vii. 14, 27. 
 
 spake by them, Whose Word is with power. The strong sense 
 of the Roman, the acuteness of the Greek, and the simplicity 
 of the Barbarian, cast away their unbelief or their misbelief, 
 and joined in the one song**, the Lord God Omnipotent reign- 
 eth. The imposture of Mohammed, however awefully it rent 
 off countless numbers from the faith of Christ, still was 
 forced to spread the worship of the One God, Who, when the 
 Prophets spake, seemed to be the God of the Jews only. Who 
 could foretell such a kingdom, but He Who Alone could found 
 it. Who Alone has for these eighteen centuries preserved, and 
 now is anew enlarging it, God Omnipotent and Omniscient, 
 Who waked the hearts which He had made, to believe in Him 
 and to love Him? ^Blessed peaceful kingdom even here, in 
 this valley of tears and of strife, where God rules the soul, 
 freeing it from the tyranny of the world and Satan and its 
 own passions, inspiring it to know Himself, the Highest Truth, 
 and to love Him Who is Love,and to adore Him Who is Infinite 
 Majesty ! Blessed kingdom, in which God reigns in us by 
 grace, that He may bring us to His heavenly kingdom, where is 
 the manifest vision of Himself, and perfect love of Him, bliss- 
 ful society, eternal fruition of Himself; " "'where is supreme 
 and certain security, secure tranquillity, tranquil security, 
 joyous happiness, happy eternity, eternal blessedness, blessed 
 vision of God for ever, where is perfect love, fear none, eter- 
 nal day and One Spirit in all !" 
 
 ^ Zech.xiv. 9. 
 'Ps. xlv. 3. 8Rev. xix.6. « from Lap. '" Medit. c.37.ap. S. Aug. vi.p. 125.App. 
 
 View of the Rocks of Petra from Aaron's Tomb.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 JONAH. 
 
 The Prophet Jonah, who was at once the author and in part 
 the subject of the book which bears his name, is, beyond ques- 
 tion, the same who is related in the book of Kings * to have 
 been God's messenger of comfort to Israel, in the reign of Je- 
 roboam n. For his own name, in English "Dove," as well 
 as that of his father, Amittai, "The Truth of God," occurs no- 
 where else in the Old Testament ; and it is wholly improbable 
 that there should have been two prophets of the same name, 
 sons of fathers of the same name, when the names of both son 
 and father were so rare as not to occur elsewhere in the Old 
 Testament. The place which the Prophet occupies among the 
 twelve agrees therewith. For Hosea and Amos, prophets 
 who are known to have prophesied in the time of Jeroboam, 
 and Joel, who prophesied before Amos, are placed before him; 
 Micah, who prophesied after the death of Jeroboam and Uz- 
 ziah, is placed after him. 
 
 A remarkable and much-misunderstood expression of the 
 Prophet shews that this mission fell in the later part of his life, 
 at least after he had already exercised the prophetic office. 
 Our translation has, Jonah rose up to jiee from the presence of 
 the Lord. It has been asked'', "How could a Prophet imagine 
 that he could flee from the presence of God ? " Plainly he 
 could not. Jonah, so conversant with the Psalms, doubtless 
 knew well the Psalm of David % TFhither shall I go from Thy 
 Spirit, and whither shall I flee from Thy presence? He could 
 not but know, what every instructed Israelite knew. And so 
 critics should have known that such could not be the meaning. 
 
 ' 2Kings xiv. 25. *• Davidson, in Home's Introd. ii. 958. ^ Ps. cxxxix. 7. 
 
 ^ It is 'JsSd, not '3BD. But .11.T ':bS and mv 'jbSd, which correspond to one another, 
 have very definite meanings, ."nn' ^ith is " before the Lord; " rnn- 'jbSd is " from being 
 before the Lord." ni.T 'M? is used in a variety of ways, of the place where God specially 
 manifested Himself, the tabernacle, or the temple. With verbs, it is used of passing ac- 
 tions, as sacrificing (with different verbs, Ex. xxix. 11, Lev. vii. 1-7, 2 Chr.vii. 4) ; of sprmk- 
 ling the blood (Lev. iv. Ifi, &c. often); entering HisPresence (Ex. xxxiv. 34, Lev. xv. 14); 
 drawing near (Ex. xvi. 9) ; rejoicing in His Presence (2 Sam. vi. 5, 21 , &c.) ; weeping before 
 Him(Judg. XX. 23); or of abiding conditions, as walking habituallv (Ps.iv.l4); dwelling 
 (Is. xxiii.18) ; or standing, as His habitualMinister,as theLevites (Deut. x. 8, 2Chr. xxix. 
 ll,Ezek.xliv.l5);ora prophet (iKingsxvii.l, Jer. xvi. 19): or thepriestor theNazarite 
 (see ab. p. 176. col. 1). In correspondence with this, mn" ']B7D signifies " from before the 
 Lord." It is used in special reference to the tabernacle, as of the fire which went forth 
 from the Presence of God there (Lev. ix. 24, x. 2); theplague (Num. xvii. 11 Heb. [xvi. 
 46Eng.]);the rods brought out(Num. xvii. 24 Heb. [10 Eng.]); or the shewbread removed 
 thence (1 Sam. xxi. 6). And so it signifies, not that one fled/rom God, but that he remov- 
 ed from standing in His Presence. So Cain went out from the Presence of God (':bSd. 
 Gen. iv. 10) ; and of an earthly ruler it is said, a man " went forth out of his presence " 
 [Gen. xli. 4G, xlvii. 10 tie.] ; and to David God promises, " there shall not be cut ofi' to 
 thee a man from before Me," i.e. from standing before Me," (')B7Dl Kings viii. 25, 2 Chr. 
 
 The words are used, as we say, " he went out of the king's 
 presence," or the like. It is literally, he rose to flee from be- 
 ing in the Presence of the Lord, i. e. from standing in His Pre- 
 sence as His Servant and Minister"*. Then he must have so 
 stood before ; he must have had the office, which he sought to 
 abandon. 
 
 He was then a prophet of Israel, born at Gath-hepher, "a 
 small village" of Zabulon', which lies, S.Jerome says, "two 
 miles from Sepphorim which is now called Diocaesarea, in the 
 way to Tiberias, where his tomb also is pointed out." His tomb 
 was still shewn in the hills near Sipphorim in the 12th century, 
 as Benjamin of Tudela' relates; at the same place, "8on arocky 
 hill 2 miles East of Sepphuriah," is still pointed out the tomb of 
 the Prophet, and " Moslems and the Christians of Nazareth 
 alike regard the village (el-Meshhad) as his native village." 
 The tomb is even now venerated by the Moslem inhabitants. 
 
 But although a prophet of Israel, he, like Daniel afterwards 
 or his great predecessor Elisha, had his mission also beyond 
 the bounds of Israel. Whenever God brought His people into 
 any relation with other people. He made Himself known to 
 them. The mode of His manifestation varied; the fact remain- 
 ed uniform. So He made Himself known to Egypt through 
 Joseph and Moses ; to the Philistines at the capture of the ark ; 
 to the Syrians by Elisha; to Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar 
 by Daniel, as again to Darius and Cyrus. The hindrances 
 interposed to the edict of Darius perpetuated that knowledge 
 among his successors. Yet further on, the High Priest Jad- 
 
 vi. 16 ; comp. Is. xlviii. 19, Jer. xxxiii. 18. of Israel) and David prays, " Cast me not 
 away from 1 by presence," lit. " fi-om before Thee" (Ps. 11. 11). Aben Ezra noticed the dis- 
 tinction in part, " And as I have searched in all Scripture, and I have not found the word 
 ma used otherwise than united with the word 'JBO, as in Ps. cxxxix. 7 and Judg. xi, 3, 
 and in the prophecy of Jonah I have not found that he fled ":SD, ' from the face of 
 the Lord ' but 'JbSd. ' from before the Presence of the Lord ; ' and it is written, ' As the 
 Lord liveth, if/ore (CAom I stand '(1"3bS). And so, on the other hand, it is always 'aVo. And 
 so it is, ' And Cain went out "jb'jd from before the presence of God ' — And it is written 
 ' to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the fissures of the cliff from the fear ("nn'? 
 ins 'JBO) of the Lord ' (Is. ii. 21). and (in Jonah) it is written, to go with them from the 
 Presence 'JB^D'unS of the Lord (Jon. i. 3), and the wise will understand." In one place 
 (IChr. xix. 18) 'ate is used, not with rra (of which alone Aben Ezra speaks) but with 
 OU. The idiom also is difterent, 1) since the two armies had been engaged face to face, (as 
 Amaziah said, ' Let us look one another in the face,' 2 Kings xiv. 8, and the like idioms,) 
 but 2)chiefly, in that .Tin" 'IBte is, by the force of the term, contrasted with the other 
 idiom .TIiT'JbS. and therefore cannot be a mere substitute for *JBO. « Josh. xix. 13. 
 
 ' p. 44. 2. ed. Asher. % Porter, in Smith, Bibl. Diet. p. 656. v. Gath-hepher. A 
 
 Jewish traveller, A. D. 1637, places the tomb at Caphar Kena (*yp^ " There is buried 
 Jonah son of A mittai, on the top of a hill in a beautiful Church of the Gentiles," in Het- 
 tinger Cippi Hebr. pp. 71,5. 
 
 R r 2
 
 248 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 dua shewed to Alexander the prophecy of Daniel '"'that a 
 Greek should destroy the Persian Empire." For there is no 
 ground to question the account of Josephus. The mission 
 then of Jonah to Nineveh is in harmony with God's other 
 dealings with heathen nations, although, in God's manifold 
 wisdom, not identical with any. 
 
 To Israel the history of that mission revealed that same 
 fact which was more fully declared by S. Peter'; I perceive that 
 God is no respecter of persons ; but in every nation lie that fear- 
 eth Him and tvorketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. 
 This righteous judgment of God stands out the more, alike 
 in the history of the mariners and of the Ninevites, in that 
 the character of both is exhibited advantageously, in compa- 
 rison with that of the Prophet. The Prophet brings out the 
 awe, the humanity, the earnestness of the natural religion, 
 and the final conversion of the sailors, and the zealous repen- 
 tance of the Ninevites, while he neglects to explain his own 
 character, or, in the least, to soften its hard angles. Rather, 
 with a holy indifference, he has left his character to be hard- 
 ly and unjustly judged by those who, themselves sharing his 
 infirmities, share not his excellences. Disobedient once, he 
 cares only to teach us what God taught him for us. The ma- 
 riners were spared, the Hebrew Prophet was cast forth as 
 guilty. The Ninevites were forgiven : the Prophet, rebuked. 
 
 That other moral, which our Lord inculcated, that the hea- 
 then believed and repented with less light, the Jews, amid so 
 much greater light, repented not, also lay there, to be drawn 
 out by men's own consciences. "To the condemnation of Is- 
 rael," says S.Jerome'', "Jonah is sent to the Gentiles, because, 
 whereas Nineveh repented, Israel persevered in his iniquity." 
 But this is only a secondary result of his prophecy, as all Di- 
 vine history must be full of teaching, because the facts them- 
 selves are instructive. Its instructiveness in this respect de- 
 pends wholly upon the truth of the facts. It is the real repen- 
 tance of the Ninevites, which becomes the reproach of the im- 
 penitent Jew or Christian. 
 
 Even among the Jews, a large school, the Cabbalists, (al- 
 though amid other error,) interpreted the history of Jonah as 
 teaching the resurrection of the dead, and (with that remark- 
 able correctness of combination of different passages of Holy 
 Scripture which we often find) in union with the prophecy of 
 Hosea. "'The fish's belly, where Jonah was enclosed, signifies 
 the tomb, where the body is covered and laid up. But as 
 Jonah was given back on the third day, so shall we also on the 
 third day rise again and be restored to life. As Hosea says '", 
 On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His 
 sight." Talmudic Jews " identified Jonah with their Messiah 
 ben Joseph, whom they expected to die and rise again. The 
 deeper meaning then of the history was not, at least in later 
 times, unknown to them, a meaning which entirely depended 
 on its truth. 
 
 The history of his mission, Jonah doubtless himself wrote. 
 Such has been the uniform tradition of the Jews, and on this 
 principle alone was his book placed among the prophets. For 
 no books were admitted among the prophets but those which 
 the arranger of the Canon believed (if this was the work of 
 the great synagogue) 6r (if it was the work of Ezra) kfiew, to 
 have been written by persons called to the prophetic office. 
 Hence the Psalms of David, (although many are prophetic, 
 and our Lord declares him to have been inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost",) and the book of Daniel, were placed in a separate class, 
 
 >> Ant. xi. 8. 5. Justin alludes to the meeting, xi. 10. > Acts x. 3-1, 5. •'injon.i.l. 
 
 ' Menasseh B. Israel deresurr.mort. e.5. p. 3G. from " the divine Cahbalists who, from 
 
 the history of J onah, prove, by way of allegory, the resurrection of the dead." lb. p. 34. 
 
 °> vi. 2. (Eng.) see ab. p. 38. ■■ See in Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, ii. 726. 
 
 because their authors, although eminently endowed with pro- 
 plietic gifts, did not exercise the pastoral office of tlic Prophet. 
 Histories of the Prophets, as Elijah and Elisha, stand, not un- 
 der their own n^.mes, but in the books of the proj)hcts who 
 wrote them. Nor is the book of Jonah a history of the Pro- 
 phet, but of that one mission to Nineveh. Every notice of the 
 Prophet is omitted, except what bears on that mission. The 
 book also begins with just that same authentication, with 
 wliich all other prophetic books begin. As Hosea and Joel 
 and Micah and Zephaniah open. The word of the Lord that 
 came unto Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah, and other prophets 
 in other ways ascribe their books not to themselves, hut to 
 God, so Jonah opens, ylnd the word of the Lord came unto Jo- 
 nah, the son of Amittai, saying. This inscription is an inte- 
 gral part of the book ; as is marked by the word, saying. As 
 the historical books are joined on to the sacred writings be- 
 fore them, so as to form one continuous stream of history, by 
 the and, with which they begin, so the book of Jonah is ta- 
 citly joined on to other books of other prophets by the word, 
 and, with wliich it commences''. The words, The word of the 
 Lord came to, are the acknowledged formi in which the com- 
 mission of God to prophesy is recorded. It is used of the com- 
 mission to deliver a single prophecy, or it describes the whole 
 collection of prophecies, with which any prophet was entrust- 
 ed"^; The luord of the Lord which came to Micah or Zepha- 
 niah. But the whole history of the prophecy is bound up with, 
 and a sequel of those words. 
 
 Nor is there anything in the style of the Prophet at vari- 
 ance with this. 
 
 It is strange that, at any time beyond the babyhood of cri- 
 ticism, any argument should be drawn from the fact that the 
 Prophet writes of himself in the third person. Manly criti- 
 cism has been ashamed to use the argument, as to the com- 
 mentaries of Caesar or the Anabasis of Xenophon*. However 
 the genuineness of those works may have been at times ques- 
 tioned, here we were on the ground of genuine criticism, and 
 no one ventured to use an argument so palpably idle. It has 
 been pointed out that minds so different, as Barhebraeus, the 
 great Jacobite historian of the East', and Frederick the Great 
 wrote of themselves in the thii-d person ; as did also Thucydi- 
 des and Josephus ', even after they had attested that the his- 
 tory, in which they so speak, was written by themselves. 
 
 But the real ground lies much deeper. It is the exception, 
 when any sacred writer speaks of himself in the first person. 
 Ezra and Nehemiah do so ; for they are giving an account, 
 not of God's dealings with His people, but of their own dis- 
 charge of a definite office, allotted to them by man. Solomon 
 does so in Ecclesiastes, because he is giving the history of his 
 own experience ; and the vanity of all human things, in them- 
 selves, could be attested so impressively by no one, as by one 
 who had had all which man's mind could imagine. 
 
 On the contrary, the Prophets, unless they speak of God's 
 revelations to them, speak of themselves in the third person. 
 Thus Amos relates in the first person, what God shewed him 
 in vision""; for God spoke to him, and he answered and plead- 
 ed with God. In relating his persecution by Amaziah, he 
 passes at once to the third ; ^ Amaziah said to Amos ; Then 
 answered Autos and said to Amaziah. In like way, Isaiah 
 speaks of himself in the third person, when relating how God 
 sent him to meet Ahaz?; commanded him to walk three years, 
 naked and barefoot% Hezekiah's message to him, to pray for 
 
 " S. Matt, xxii.43, S.Markxii. 36. P See more on Jon. i. 1. i Gesenius.Thes. v. "ai 
 ' Mic. i. 1, Zeph. i. 1. ' SeeHengstenb. Auth. d.Pent. ii. 167-9. ' Hengst. ii. 170, 
 
 from Ass. B. O. li. 248 sqq. ' B. J. ii. 20. 4, 21, iii. 4, 6, 7, & 8. " Am. vii. 
 
 1-8, viii. 1, 2, ix. 1. » lb. vii. 12, 14. 7 Is. vii. 3. • lb. %x. 2, 3. 
 
 I
 
 JONAH. 
 
 249 
 
 his people, and his own prophetic answer; his visit to He- 
 zekiah in the king^'s sickness, his warninf;; to him, his prophecy 
 of his recovery, the sijjn which at God's connnand Isaiah f^avc 
 him, and the means of healinfi^ he appointed ". .leremiali, the 
 mourner over his people more than any other prophet, speaks 
 and complains to his God in the midst of his prophecy. In 
 no other prophet do we see so much the workinj;s of his inmost 
 soul. Such souls would most use the first person ; for it is in 
 the use of the first person that the soul jtours itself forth. In 
 relating: of himself in the third person, the Prophet restrains 
 himself, speaks of the event only. Yet it is thus that Jeremi- 
 ah relates almost all which befell him; Pashur's smiting him 
 and putting him in the stocks''; the gathering of the people 
 against him to put him to death, his hearing before the princes 
 of Judah and his deliverance<^ ; the contest with Hananiah, 
 when Hananiah broke off the symbolic yoke from his neck 
 and prophesied lies in tlie name of God, and Jeremiah fore- 
 told his death'', which followed ; the letters of Shemaiah 
 against him, and his own prophecy against Shemaiah •= ; his 
 trial of the Rechabites and his prophecy to them'; the writing 
 the roll, which he sent Baruch to read in God's house, and its 
 renewal when Jehoiakim had burnt it, and God's concealing 
 him and Baruch from the king's emissaries B; his purpose to 
 leave Jerusalem when the interval of the last siege gave him 
 liberty''; the false accusations against him, the designs of the 
 princes to put him to death, their plunging him in the yet 
 deeper pit, where was no water but mire, the milder treatment 
 through the intercession of Ebedmclech ; Zedekiah's inter- 
 course with him' ; his liberation by Nebuzaradan, his choice to 
 abide in the land, his residence with Gedaliah'' ; Johanan's hy- 
 pocritical enquiring of God by him and disobedience', his being 
 carried into Egypt"', the insolent answer of the Jews in Egypt to 
 him and his denunciation upon them". All this, the account of 
 which occupies a space, many times larger than the book of 
 Jonah, Jeremiah relates as if it were the history of some other 
 man. So did God teach His prophets to forget themselves. 
 Haggai, whose prophecy consists of exhortations which God 
 directed him to address to the people, speaks of himself, sole- 
 ly in the third person. He even relates the questions which he 
 put to the priests and their answers still in the third person"; 
 " then said Haggai;" "then answered Haggai." Daniel relates 
 in the third person, the whole which he does give of his histo- 
 ry ; how when young he obtained exemption from the use of the 
 royal luxuries and from food unlawful to him ; the favour and 
 wisdom which God gave himP; how God saved him from death, 
 revealing to him, on his prayer, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar 
 and its meaning ; how Nebuchadnezzar made him ruler over 
 the whole province of Babylon i; how he was brought into Bel- 
 shazzar's great impious feast, and interpreted the writing on 
 the wall; and was honoured^; how, under Darius, he persevered 
 in his wonted prayer against the king's command, was cast 
 into the den of lions, was delivered, and prosperedin the reign 
 of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian^. When Da- 
 niel passes from history to relate visions vouchsafed to him- 
 self, he authenticated them with his own name, / Daniel'^. 
 It is no longer his own history. It is the revelation of God by 
 him. In like way, S. John, when referring to himself in the 
 history of his Lord, calls himself the disciple whom Jesus lov- 
 ed. In the Revelations, he authenticates his visions by his own 
 
 > Is. xxxvii. 2, 5, 6, 21, xxxviii. 1, 4, 21. *> Jer. xx. 1, 3. " lb. xxvi. 7, 8, 12, 24. 
 
 d xxviii. 5, 6, 10, 12, 15. « xxix. 27, 29, 30. ' xxxv. f xxxvi. 1, 4,5, 26, 27,32. 
 
 i" xxxvii. 2-6,12-21. ' xxxviii. 1, 6, 12-28, xxxii.2-5. t xl. 2-6. i xlii. 
 
 ■» xliii. n xliv. 15, 20, 24. o Hagg. i. 1, 3, 12, 13, ii. 1, 10, 13, 14, 20. P Dan. i. 
 6-end. Q ii. 13-27, 46, 47, 49. ' v. 12, 13, 17, 29. » ch. vi. « vii. 1,5, 28, viii. 1 , 
 15, 27, ix. 2, x. 2, 7, xii. 5. " Rev. i.9, xxi. 2, xxii. 8. ' 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. 
 
 * lb. 7. I 1 Cor. i». 3. T " We heed not," says Rosenmuller, Praef. c. 7. " the 
 
 name; "^ I John. Moses relates how God commanded him to 
 write tilings which he wrote, in the third p('rsr)n. S. I'aul. 
 when lie has to speak of his overpowering revelations, says", 1 
 knew a in<ni in Christ. It seems as if he could not speak of 
 them as vouchsafed to himself. He lets us sec that it was him- 
 self, when he speaks of the humiliations", which God saw to be 
 necessary for him. To ordinary men it would be conceit or 
 hypocrisy to write of themselves in the third person. They 
 would have the appearanceof writingimpartially of themselves, 
 of abstracting themselves from themselves, when, in reality, 
 they were ever present to themselves. The men of God were 
 writing of the things of God. They had a God-given indiffer- 
 ence how they themselves would be thought of by man. They 
 related, with the same holy unconcern, their ])raise or their 
 blame. Jonah has exhibited himself in his infirmities, such 
 as no other but himself would have drawn a Pro])het of God. 
 He has left his cliaracter, unexplained, nnsoftcncd ; he has left 
 himself lying under God's reproof; and told us nothing of all 
 that whicli God loved in him, and which made him too a cho- 
 sen instrument of God. Men, while they measure Divine 
 things, or characters formed by God, by what would be natural 
 to themselves, measure by a crooked rule. " If is a verj/ small 
 thing, says S. Paul, that I should he judged of you, or of man's 
 judgment. Nature does not measure grace ; nor the human 
 spirit, the Divine. 
 
 As for the few words, which persons who disbelieved in mira- 
 cles selected out of the book of Jonah as a plea for removing 
 it far down beyond the period when those miracles took place", 
 they rather indicate the contrary. They are all genuine He- 
 brew words or forms, e.xcept the one Aramaic name for the 
 decree of the king of Nineveh, which Jonah naturally heard in 
 Nineveh itself. 
 
 A writer^ equally unbelieving, who got rid of the miracles 
 by assuming that the book of Jonah was meant only for a mo- 
 ralising fiction, found no counter-evidence in the language, 
 but ascribed it unhesitatingly to the Jonah, son of Amittai, 
 who prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II. He saw the no- 
 thingness of the so-called proof, which he had no longer any 
 interest in maintaining. 
 
 The examination of these words will require a little detail, 
 yet it may serve as a specimen (it is no worse than its neigh- 
 bours) of the way in which the disbelieving school picked out 
 a few words of a Hebrew Prophet or section of a Prophet, in or- 
 der to disparage the genuineness of what they did not believe. 
 
 The words are these ; 
 
 1) The word sephinah, lit. "a decked vessel." is a genuine He- 
 brew word from sa;j/(rt7j, "covered, ceiled V The word was 
 borrowed from the Hebrew, not by Syrians or Chaldees only 
 but by the Arabians, in none of which dialects is it an original 
 word. A word plainly is original in that language in which it 
 stands connected with other meanings of the same root, and 
 not in that in which it stands isolated. Naturally too, the term 
 for a decked vessel would be borrowed by inland people, as the 
 Syrians, from a notion living on the sea shore, not conversely. 
 This is the first occasion for mentioning a decked vessel. It is 
 related that Jonah went in fact " below deck," tvas gone down 
 into the sides of the decked vesel. Three times in those verses ^, 
 when Jonah did not wish to express that the vessel was deck- 
 ed, he uses the common Hebrew word, oniyyah. It was then 
 
 opinion of those who thinii that Jonah himself committed to writing in this book what 
 befel himself, since ve do jiot admit that any real history is contained in it." " Former- 
 ly, when people saw in the book of Jonah pure history, no one doubted that the Prophet 
 Jonah himself wrote his wondrous lot." Bertholdt, Einl. § 564. » Paulus, 
 
 Memorabil. St. 6. p. 69. " JiJO " cover " occurs in Talmudic (as derived 
 
 from the Hebrew)notin Chald. In Arabic it means "planed," smoothed, swept the earth, 
 not " ceiled." So our deck is from the Dutch dekken, to cover. ' i. 3, 4, 5.
 
 250 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 of set purpose that he, in the same verse, used the two words, 
 otiiyyak and sephinah. 
 
 '2) Mnllach is also a genuine Heb. word from meladi, salt sea, 
 as dXteu? from a\? "salt," then (masc.) in poetry " brine." It is 
 formed strictly, as other Hebrew words denoting an occupa- 
 tion ■=. It does not occur in earlier books, because " seamen" 
 are not mentioned earlier. 
 
 3) Itab hucliobel, "chief of the sailors," "captain." Rah is 
 Phojnician also, and this was a Pha?nician vessel. It does not 
 occur earlier, because "the captain of a vessel" is not mention- 
 ed earlier. One says "''it is the same as sar, chiejiy in later He- 
 brew." It occurs, in all, only four times, and in all cases, as 
 here, of persons not Hebrew; Nebuzaradan, rwA Tahbac/iim", 
 captain of the guard ;" rab Sarisim', "chief of the eunuchs ;" 
 col rab baitho^, "every officer of his house." Sar, on the other 
 hand, is never used except of an office of authority, of one who 
 had a place of authority given by one higher. It occurs as 
 much in the later as in the earlier books, but is not used in the 
 singular of an inferior office. It is used of military, but not of 
 any inferior secular, command. It would probably have been 
 a solecism to have said sar hachobel, as much as if we were to 
 say "prince of sailors." Chobel, which is joined with it, is a 
 Hebrew not Aramaic word. 
 
 4) Ribbo, "ten thousand," they say, " is a word of later He- 
 brew." Certainly neither it, nor any inflection of it occurs in 
 the Pentateuch, Judges, Samuel, Canticles, in all which we 
 have the word rebabali. It is true also that the form ribbo 
 or derivative forms occur in books of the date of the Captivity, 
 as Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah''. But it also oc- 
 curs in a Psalm of David", and in Hosea'' who is acknow- 
 ledged to have prophesied in the days of Jeroboam, and so 
 was a contemporary of Jonah. It might have been, accord- 
 ingly, a form used in Northern Palestine, but that its use by 
 David does not justify such limitation. 
 
 5) 37//('aiAsAa//i,"thought,purposed," is also an old Hebrew 
 word, as appears from its use in the number eleven i, as the 
 first number which is conceived in thought, the ten being num- 
 bered on the lingers. The root occurs also in Job, a Psalm ", 
 and the Canticles. In the Syriac, it docs not occur ; nor, in 
 the extant Chaldee, in the sense in which it is iised in Jo- 
 nah. For in Jonah it is used of the merciful thoughts of God ; 
 in Chaldee, of the evil thoughts of man. Besides, it is used in 
 Jonah not by the Prophet himself, but by the shipmaster, 
 whose words he relates. 
 
 6) The use of the abridged forms of the relative she for asher, 
 twice in composite words beshellemi^,beshelli°,{i\ie fuller form, 
 baasher lemi^, also occurring) and once in union with a noun 
 shebbin'i. 
 
 There is absolutely no plea whatever for making this an in- 
 dication of a later style, and yet it occurs in every string of 
 words, which have been assumed to be indications of such style. 
 It is not Aramaic at all, but Phoenician"^ and old Hebrew. In 
 Phoenician, esh is the relative, which corresponds the more 
 with the Hebrew in that the following letter was doubled, as 
 in the Punic words in Plautus, sy/lohom, siddoberiin^, it en- 
 ters into two Proper names, both of which occur in the Pen- 
 
 ' n^ ^ See Gesen. 1254. « 2 Kings xxv. 8. ' Dan. i. 3. s Esth. i. 8. 
 
 I" In 1 Chron. xxix. 7. twice, Daniel once, Ezra twice ; Neliemiah thrice. ' D'nian 
 Ps. Ixviii. 18. k viii. 12 Ch. ' Tify 're'y So A.E. Kim. "> Ps. cxivi. 4. 
 
 » i. 7. ° i. 12. P i. 8. 1 iv. 10. (2) ■■ Ges. Tlies. p. 1845. after Quatrem^re, 
 Journ. Asiat. 1828. pp.15, sqq. Journ. d. Savans, 1838. Oct. In Arattiaic it is 1, n, iin, 
 " Every one skilled herein knows now, that in Punic ifK is the relative pronoun." Roed. 
 lb. Add. Em. 113. » Plaut. Paenul. v. 1. 4. (i. See Ges. « Gen. iv. 18. 
 
 » Ex. vi. 22, Lev. x. 4 ; also in Daniel and Nehemiah. » Gen. vi. 3. 
 
 " Hence perhaps in the song of Deborah, Judg. v. 7. ' Judg. vi. 17, 
 
 2 Kings vi. 11. Two of the instances in tlie Lamentations are words in the mouth of the 
 neathen, Lam. ii. 15, 16. y i. 6 (2), 7 (2), ii. 7, 17, iii. 1, 2, 3, 4 (4), 5, 7, iv. 1, 2 (2), G, 
 
 tateuch, and one, only there, Methmhael\ "a man of God," and 
 J/w/(«e/", the same as Michael, "who is like God?"lit. "Who 
 is what God is }" Probably, it occurs also in the Pentateuch 
 in the ordinary language". Perhaps it was used more in the 
 dialect of North Palestine". Probably it was also the spoken 
 language", in which abridged forms are used in all languages. 
 Hence perhaps itsfrequent use in the Song of Solomon^, which 
 is all dialogue, and in which it is employed to the entire ex- 
 clusion of the fuller form ; and that, so frequently, that the in- 
 stances in the Canticles are nearly { of those in the whole Old 
 Testament^ In addition to this, half of the whole number of 
 instances, in which it occurs in the Bible, are found in another 
 short book,Ecclesiastes. In a book, containing only 222 verses, 
 it occurs 66 times". This, in itself, requires some ground for 
 its use, beyond that of mere date. Of books which are really 
 later, it does not occur in Jeremiah's prophecies, Ezekiel, Da- 
 niel, or any of the 6 later of the Minor Prophets, nor in Nehe- 
 miah or Esther. It occurs once only in Ezra"", and twice in 
 the first book of Chronicles % whereas it occurs four times in 
 the Judges'*, and once in the Kings ^, and once probably in 
 Job^ Its use belongs to that wide principle of condensation 
 in Hebrew, blending in one, in different ways, what we express 
 by separate words. The relative pronoun is confessedly, on 
 this ground, very often omitted in Hebrew poetry, when it 
 would be used in prose. In the Canticles Solomon does not 
 once use the ordinary separate relative, asher. Of the 19 in- 
 stances in the Psalms, almost half, 9, occur in those Psalms of 
 peculiar rhythm, the gradual Psalms b ; four more occur in 
 two other Psalms *", which belong to one another, the latter of 
 which has that remarkable burden,/or His mercy endurethfor 
 ever. Three are condensed into a solemn denunciation of Ba- 
 bylon in another Psalm'. Of the ten Psalms, in which it oc- 
 curs, four are ascribed to David, and one only, the 137th, has 
 any token of belonging to a later date. In the two passages in 
 the Chronicles, it occurs in words doubly compounded "=. The 
 principle of rhythm would account for its occurring four times 
 in the five chapters of the Lamentations ^ of Jeremiah, while in 
 the 52 chapters of his prophecies it does not occur once. In 
 Job also, it is in a solemn pause ^ Altogether, there is no 
 proof whatever that the use of she for asher is any test of the 
 date of any Hebrew book, since 1) it is not Aramaic, 2) it occurs 
 in the earliest, and 3) not in the latest books : 4) its use is idio- 
 matic, and nowhere except in the Canticles and Ecclesiastes 
 does it pervade any book. Had it belonged to the ordinary 
 idiom at the date of Ezra, it would not have been so entirely 
 insulated as it is, in the three instances in the Chronicles and 
 Ezra. It would not have occurred in the earlier books in 
 which it does occur, and would have occurred in later books 
 in which it does not. In Jonah, its use in two places is pe- 
 culiar to himself, occurring nowhere else in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. In the lirst, its Phoenician form is used by the Phoe- 
 nician mariners; in the 2nd it is an instance of the spoken lan- 
 guage in the mouth of the Prophet, a native of North Pales- 
 tine, and in answer to Phoenicians, In the third instance, 
 (where it is the simple relative) its use is evidently for con- 
 densation. Its use in any case would agree with the exact 
 
 v. 2, 8, 9, vi. 5 (2), 6 (2), viii. i, 8, 12. « It occurs in all, I believe, 132 times, 
 
 apart from its use as entering into the two proper names. Of these 29 are in the Can- 
 ticles, GO in Ecclesiastes, 19 in the Psalms, 1 in Genesis, 1 in Job, 4 in Judges, 1 in Kings, 
 i in Lamentations, 1 in Ezra, 2 in Chronicles. » Eccl. i. 3, 7, 9 (+), 10, 11 (2), 14, 
 
 17, ii. 9, 11 (2), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 (3), 19 (2), 20, 21 (2), 22, 24, 26, Ui. 13, 14, 15, 18, 
 22, iv. 2, 10, V. 4, 14 (2), 15 (2), 17, vi. 3, 10 (2), vii. 10, 14, 24, viii. 7, 14, 17, ix. 5, 12 
 (2), X.3, 5, 14, 16, 17,xl3,8, xii.3,7, 9. k viii. 20. "= 1 Chr. v. 20. D.TDJjr, 
 
 xxvii. 27. OB-Dap. ^ V. 7, vi. 17, vii. 12, viii. 26. ' 2 Kings vi. 11. m^jod. 
 
 f xix. 29, ending with \nt>. 8 Ps. cxxii. 3, 4, cxxiii. 2, cxxiv. 1, 6, cxxix. 6, 7, 
 
 cxxxiii. 2, 3. '' cxxv. 2, 8, 10, cxxxvi. 23. ' cxxxvii. 8 (2), 9. The remaining 
 
 are Ps. cxliv. 15. K^B and cxlvi. 3,5. ^ ii. 15, 16, iv. 19, v, 18,
 
 JONAH. 
 
 251 
 
 circumstances of Jonah, as a native of North Palestine, con- 
 versing with Phoenician mariners. The only plea of argument 
 has been gained by arguing in a circle, assuming without any 
 even plausible ground that the Song of Solomon or Psalms of 
 David were late, because they had this form, and then using 
 it as a test of another book being late ; ignoring alike the ear- 
 lier books which have it and the later books which have it not, 
 and its exceptional use (except in the Canticles and Ecclesi- 
 astes,) in the books which have it. 
 
 7) It is difficult to know to what end the use ofmanah, "ap- 
 point"' or "prepare," is alleged, since it occurs in a Psalm of 
 David". Jonah uses it in a special way as to acts of God's 
 Providence, "preparing" before, what He wills to employ. Jo- 
 nah uses the word of the "preparing" of the fish, the palm- 
 christ, the worm which should destroy it, the East wind. He 
 evidently used it with a set purpose, to express what no other 
 word expressed equally to his mind, how God prepared by His 
 Providence the instruments which He willed to employ. 
 
 8) There remains only the word used for the decree of the 
 king of Nineveh, taam. This is a Syriac word ; and accord- 
 ingly, since it has now been ascertained beyond all question, 
 that the language of Nineveh was a dialect of Syriac, it was, 
 with a Hebrew pronunciation", the very word used of this 
 decree at Nineveh. The employment of the special word is a 
 part of the same accuracy with which Jonah relates that the 
 decree used was issued not from the king only, but from the 
 king and his tiobles, one of those minute touches, which oc- 
 cur in the writings of those who describe what they have seen, 
 but supplying a fact as to the Assyrian polity, which we should 
 not otherwise have known, that the nobles were in some way 
 associated in the decrees of the king. 
 
 Out of these eight words or forms, three are naval terms, 
 and, since Israel was no seafaring people, it is in harmony with 
 the history, that these terms should first occur in the first pro- 
 phet who left the land of his mission by sea. So it is also, 
 that an Assyrian technical term should first occur in a pro- 
 phet who had been sent to Nineveh. A fifth word occurs in 
 Hosea, a contemporary of Jonah, and in a Psalm of David. 
 The abridged grammatical form was Phoenician, not Aramaic, 
 was used in conversation, occurs in the oldest proper names, 
 and in the Northern tribes. The 7th and 8th do not occur in 
 Aramaic in the meaning in which they are used by Jonah. 
 
 In truth, often as these false criticisms have been repeated 
 from one to the other, they would not have been thought of at 
 all, but for the miracles related by Jonah, which the devisers 
 of these criticisms did not believe. A history of miracles, such 
 as those in Jonah, would not be published at the time, unless 
 they were true. Those then who did not believe that God 
 worked any miracles, were forced to have some plea for say- 
 ing that the book was not written in the time of Jonah. Pre- 
 judices against faith have, sometimes openly, sometimes ta- 
 citly, been the ruling principle on which earlier portions of 
 Holy Scripture have been classed among the later by critics 
 who disbelieved what those books or passages related. Ob- 
 viously no weight can be given to the opinions of critics, whose 
 criticisms are founded, not on the study of the language, but 
 
 ' The word occurs in Arabic also in this sense, which is a primary meaning of the root 
 and allied to its use is the transposed Greek form, fifiw. ■» Ps. Ixi. 8. » Dy5 for njjo.' 
 
 " Mr. G.Vance Smith, Prophecies concerning Nineveh p. 257, who however (p. 294,) 
 rightly rejects their grounds, the occurrence of the words discussed above,as inadequate. 
 The only other ground is their unbelief. p Einl. § 237. ' Hall. A. L. Z. 1813 n 
 23. p. 180. 'Propheten,p.559. ■ Kl. Pronh. Jonah, § 6. ' Goldhorn, Excurse 
 
 zum B. Jonah, pp. 16 sqq. " Rosenmuller, Pro!, in Jon. § 7. » De Wette. 
 
 » Mailer, in Memorabilien, P. vi. pp. 146 sqq. » Bertholdt,{564. r Jahn, Einl. 
 §129. • Maurer, Praef. in Jon. p. 426. « Ges. and Ew. above, Umbreit tacitly 
 
 drops it out of " the twelve." *• ^"M i. 4; the word describing how the wind " swept 
 
 on unbelief. It lias recently been said, ""the joint decision 
 of (icsenius, De Wette and Hitzig ouglit to be final." A foint 
 decision certainly it is not. For De Wette places the book of 
 Jonah before the captivity?; Gescniusi and EwaW, when pro- 
 phecy had long ceased ; Ewald, partly on account of its mira- 
 cles, in the Ml century, B.C.; and Hitzig, with his wonted wil- 
 fulness and insulatcdncss of criticism, built a theory that the 
 book is of Egyptian origin on his own mistake that the Icilcaion 
 grew only in Egypt, and placed it in the '2nd century, B.C., the 
 times of the Maccabees'. The interval is also filled up. Every 
 sort of date and contradictory grounds for those dates have 
 been assigned. So then one places the book of Jonah in the 
 time of Sennacherib', i.e. of Hezekiah ; another under Josiah"; 
 another before the Captivity"; another towards the end of the 
 Captivity.after the destructionof Nineveh by Cyaxares"; a fifth 
 lays chief stress on the argument that the destruction of Ni- 
 neveh is not mentioned in it'; a sixths prefers the time af- 
 ter the return from the Captivity to its close ; a seventh doubt- 
 ed not, "from its argument and purpose, that it was written be- 
 fore the order of prophets ceased%" others of tiie same school 
 are as positive from its arguments and contents, that it must 
 have been written after that order was closed ". 
 
 The style of the book of Jonah is, in fact, pure and simple 
 Hebrew, corresponding to the simplicity of the narrative and 
 of the Prophet's character. Although written in prose, it has 
 poetic language, not in the thanksgiving only, but whenever it 
 suits the subject. These expressions are peculiar to Jonah. 
 Such are, in the account of the storm, "The Lord cast"^ a strong 
 wind," "the vessel thought" to be broken," "the sea shall be 
 silenf^ " (hushed, as we say) i. e. calm ; "the wind was advanc- 
 ing and storming'," as with a whirlwind ; [the word is used as 
 to the sea by Jonah only,] "the men ploughed" or "dug'" [in 
 rowing] " the sea s^oorfs from its raging." Also "let man and 
 beast clothe themselves^ with sackcloth," and that touching 
 expression, "son of a night', it [the palma Christi] came to be- 
 ing, and son of a night [i. e. in a night] it perished." It is in 
 harmony with his simplicity of character, that he is fond of 
 the old idiom, by which the thought of the verb is carried on 
 by a noun formed from it. "The men feared a great fear V 
 "It displeased Jonah a great displeasure^," " Jonah Joi/ed a 
 great /oy "." Another idiom " has been observed, which oc- 
 curs in no writer later than the judges. 
 
 But in the history every phrase is vivid and graphic. There 
 is not a word which does not advance the history. There is 
 no reflection. All hastens on to the completion, and when 
 God has given the key to the whole, the book closes with His 
 words of exceeding tenderness, lingering in our ears. The 
 Prophet, with the same simplicity and beginning with tlie 
 same words, says he did not, and he did, obey God. The book 
 opens, after the first authenticating words. Arise, go to Nine- 
 veh, that great city, and cry against it ; for their luickedness is 
 come up before Me. God had bidden him arise"; the narra- 
 tive simply repeats the word,^«(Z Jonah arose^, — but for what? 
 to flee in the very opposite direction from being before the 
 Lord "i, i.e. from standing in His Presence, as His servant and 
 minister. He lost no time, to do the contrary. After the mi- 
 
 along," as we say ; Jonah also uses it of casting out, along, from the vessel, i. 5, 12, 15. 
 
 ' n3Pn i. 4, the only place where it is used of lifeless things. ■• pnd i. 11, 12. used of 
 themenin the vessel, Ps. cvii.30; of ceasing of strife, Prov.xxvi. 20. ' ij;DilSi.Ti. 11, 13. 
 
 ' inn "jEquorarare." Virg. vEn.ii.780. Ov. Trist. i.2, 76. e issns— oy i. 15. 
 
 i" iD3n' iii. 8. ' n^'i-p iv. 10. ^ i. 10, 16. .ikt mi" ' iv. 1. .isn jn' 
 
 "> lb. 6. nnoe nac: » ly with the inf. (for tiyn) iv. 2. coll. Jud. iii. 26. (Delitzch 
 
 in Zeitschr. f. Luth.Theol. 1840. p. 118.) But two passagesdo not furnish an induction. 
 ,13TT for "inv iv. 11. (mentioned ib.) cannot prove anything, since it occurs, 2 Chr. xxv. 9. 
 
 o Dip P Dpi. more expressive in the original, as being the first word in the clause ; 
 
 " The liord said, Arise; Andarose Jonah," to do the contrary. 4 See ab. p. 247.
 
 252 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 racles, by which he had been both punished and delivered, the 
 history is resumed with the same simple (lij;nity as before, in 
 the same words ; the disobedience beini: noticed only in tlie 
 word, « second time. And the tvord of the Lord came to Jo- 
 nah a second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, 
 and cry unto it thut'cry ivhich I say unto thee. This time it 
 follows, And Jonah arose and tcent to Nineveh. 
 
 Then in the history itself we follow the Prophet step by step. 
 He arose to flee to Tarshish, went down to Joppa, a perilous, 
 yet the only sea-port for Juda!a^ He finds the ship, ;;«?/*■ its 
 fare, (one of those little touches of a true narrative); God sends 
 the storm, man does all he can ; and all in vain. The character 
 of the heathen is brought out in contrast with the then sleep- 
 ing conscience and despondency of the Prophet. But it is all 
 in act. They are all activity; he, simply passive. They pray, 
 (as they can) each man to his gods ; he is asleep : they do all 
 they can, lighten the ship, the ship-master rouses him, to pray 
 to his God, since their own prayers avail not ; they propose 
 the lots, cast them; the lot falls on Jonah. Then follow their 
 brief accumulated enquiries; Jonah's calm answer, increasing 
 their fear; their enquiry of the Prophet himself, what they are 
 to do to him; his knowledge that he must be cast over; the 
 unwillingness of the Heathen; one more fruitless effort to save 
 both themselves and the Prophet ; the increasing violence of 
 the storm ; the prayer to the Prophet's God, not to lay inno- 
 cent blood to them, who obeyed His Prophet ; the casting him 
 forth; the instant hush and silence of the sea; their conver- 
 sion and sacrifice to the true God — the whole stands before us, 
 as if we saw it with our own eyes. 
 
 And yet, amid, or perhaps as a part of, that vividness, there 
 is that characteristic of Scripture-narratives, that some things 
 even seem improbable, until, on thought, we discover the rea- 
 son. It is not oii a first reading,thatmost perceive the natural- 
 ness either of Jonah's deep sleep, or of the increase of the ma- 
 riners' fear, on his account of himself. Yet that deep sleep 
 harmonises at least with his long hurried flight to Joppa, and 
 that mood with which men who have taken a wrong step, try 
 to forget themselves. He relates that he teas gone doivn ', i. e. 
 before the storm began. The sailors' increased fear surprises 
 us the more, since it is added, " they knew that he had fled 
 from before the presence of God, Itecause he had told them." 
 One word explained it. He had told them, from Whose ser- 
 vice he had fled, but not that He, against Whom he had sin- 
 ned, and Who, they would think, was pursuing His fugitive, 
 was "the Maker of the sea," whose raging was threatening 
 their lives. 
 
 Again,the history mentions only, that Jonah was cast over; 
 that God prepared a fish to swallow him ; that he was in the 
 belly of the fish three days and three nights; that he, at the end 
 of that time, prayed to God out of the fish's belly, and at the 
 close of the prayer was delivered. The word "prayed" obvi- 
 ously includes "thanksgiving" as the act of adoring love from 
 the creature to the Creator. It is said that Hannah prayed^; 
 but her hymn, as well as Jonah's does not contain one pe- 
 tition. Both are the outpouring of thanksgiving from the 
 soul, to which God had given what it had prayed for. As, be- 
 fore, it was not said, whether he prayed, on the ship-master's 
 upbraiding, or no, so here nothing is said in the history, ex- 
 cept as to the last moment, on which he was cast out on the 
 
 » 1 Kings V. 9, 2 Chron. ii. 16, and after the captivity, Ezr. iii. 7. 
 
 • i.5. '1 Sam. ii. 1. " ii. 3. ' " In the fish's belly, he prays as tranquilly 
 a-i if on land," says even Jahn, as an objection. Einl. § 12t). * S.Matt. xiii. 52. 
 
 « Jon.ii.5, PB.lxix.2. y Jon. ii. 3, Ps. xlii. 8. ' Jon. ii. 2, Ps. cxx. 1. 
 
 ' Ps. xx.\i. 22.'n-im i- Jon. ii. 4. [5] -nciJi ^ Ps. cxlii. cS. Jii. 7.(8). 
 
 ♦ Ps. xx-xi. 7. f ii. 9. 6 'yiKP pnD ii. 3 ; nnj of the currents of the sea, -1 ; 
 
 dry ground. The prayer incidentally supplies the rest. It is 
 a simple thanksgiving of one who had prayed, and had been 
 delivered. "/ cried unto the Lord, and He heard me. In the 
 first mercy, he saw the earnest of the rest. He asks for no- 
 thing, he only thanks. But that for which he thanks is the 
 deliverance from the perils of the sea. The thanksgiving cor- 
 responds with the plain words, that he prayed out of thejish's 
 belly. They are suited to one so praying, who looked on in 
 full faith to the future completion of his deliverance, although 
 our minds might rather have been fixed on the actual peril. 
 It is a thanksgiving of faith, but of stronger faith than many 
 moderns have been able to conceive '. 
 
 The hymn itself is a remarkable blending of old and new, 
 as our Lord says ■" ; Therefore is the kingdom of heaven like a 
 householder, ivho bringeth out of his treasure new and old. The 
 Prophet teaches us to use the Psalms, as well as how the holy 
 men of old used them. In that great moment of religious life, 
 the well-remembered Psalms, such as he had often used them, 
 were brought to his mind. What had been figures to David or 
 the sons of Korah,as^, the waters are come in even unto my soul; 
 ^all Thy hilloivs and Thy waves passed over me, were strict re- 
 alities to him. Yet only in this last sentence and in one other 
 sentence which doubtless had become a proverb of accepted 
 prayer, ^I cried out of my trouble unto the Lord aiid He heard 
 me, does Jonah use exactly the words of earlier Psalms. Else- 
 where he varies or amplifies them according to his own special 
 circumstances. Thus, where David said, "the waters are come 
 in, even unto my soul," Jonah substitutes the word which de- 
 scribed best the condition from which God had delivered him, 
 "The water compassed me about, even to the soul." Where Da- 
 vid said% " I am cut o/ffvom before Thine eyes," expressing 
 an abiding condition, Jonah, who had for disobedience been 
 cast into the sea, uses the strong word, "^I am cast out from 
 before Thine eyes." David says, " I said in my haste;" Jo- 
 nah simply, " I said ; " for he had deserved it. David said "^, 
 "when my spirit was overwhelmed" or "fainted within me," 
 Thou kneivest my path;" Jonah substitutes, "When my soul 
 fainted within me, I remembered the Lord^ ;" for when he re- 
 belled, he forgat Him. David said, ""I hate them that obsen'e 
 lying vanities ;" Jonah, who had himself disobeyed God, says 
 mournfully, "'They that observe lying vanities, /orsaAe their 
 own mercy" i. e. their God, Who is Mercy. 
 
 Altogether, Jonah's thanksgiving is that of one whose mind 
 was stored with the Psalms which were part of the public 
 worship, but it is the language of one who uses and re-casts 
 them freely, as he was taught of God, not of one who copies. 
 No one verse is taken entirely from any Psalm. There are 
 original expressions everywhere?. The words, "I went down 
 to the cuttings-ofi" of the mountains," " the sea-weed bound 
 around my head ;" " the earth, its bars around me for ever ; " 
 perhaps the coral reefs which run along all that shore'', vividly 
 exhibit him,sinking, entangled, imprisoned, as it seemSjinextri- 
 cably ; he goes on; we shouldexpectsome further description of 
 his state; but he adds, in five simple words', Thou broughtest up 
 my life from corruption, OLordmy God. Words, somewhat like 
 these last, occur elsewhere^, thou hast brought up my soul from 
 hell, agreeing in the one word " brought up." But the ma- 
 jesty of the Prophet's conception is in the connection of the 
 thought; the sea- weed was bound round his head as his grave- 
 
 vteh van "jiD, 6 ; nm ^sp 7 ; o^iy!? nyn rrrra px.i, lb. my mon, 8. h " Consi- 
 
 derable quantities of coral are found in the adjacent sea." W. G. Browne, writing of J alia, 
 Travels, p. 360. " Coral-reefs run along the coast as far as Gaza, which cut the cables 
 in two, and leave the ships at the mercy of the storms. None lie here on the coast, 
 which is fuller of strong surfs (brandings,) and unprotected against the frequent West 
 winds." Ritter, ii. 399. ed. 1. . ' 'n^N .Ti.T "n nrara ^yni 1 Ps. xxx.S.
 
 JONAH. 
 
 253 
 
 clothes ; the solid hars of the deep-rooted earth, were around 
 him, ami — God brouji^ht him up. At the close of the thiinks- 
 giving'. Salvation is the Lord's, tiie delivci-aiK^e is completed, 
 as though God had only waited for this act of <'omplete faith. 
 
 So could no one have written, who had not himself been de- 
 livered from such an extreme peril of drowning, as man c-ould 
 not, of himself, escape from. True, that no inuige so well ex- 
 presses the overwhelmedness under affliction or temptation, 
 as the pressure of storm by land, or being overHooded by the 
 waves of the sea. Human poctryknowsof" a sea of troubles," 
 or "the triple wave of evils." It expresses how we are simply 
 passive and powerless under a trouble, which leaves us neither 
 breath nor power of motion ; under which we can be but still, 
 till, by God's mercy it passes. " We are sunk, overhead, deep 
 down in temptations, and the masterful current is sweeping 
 in eddies over us." Of this sort are those images which Jonah 
 took from the Psalms. But a description so minute as the 
 whole of Jonah's would be allegory, not metaphor. What, in 
 it,is most descriptive of Jonah's situation ^ as "binding of the 
 sea-weed around the head, the sinking down to the roots of the 
 mountains, the bars of the earth around him," are peculiar to 
 this thanksgiving of Jonah ; they do not occur elsewhere; for, 
 except through miracle, they would be images not of peril 
 but of death. 
 
 The same vividness, and the same steadydirection to its end, 
 characterises the rest of the book. Critics have wondered', 
 why Jonah does not say, on what shore he was cast forth, 
 why he does not describe his long journey to Nineveh, or 
 tell us the name of the Assyrian king, or what he himself did, 
 when his mission was closed. Jonah speaks of himself, only 
 as relates to his mission, and God's teaching through him ; he 
 tells us not the king's name, but his deeds. The description 
 of the size of Nineveh remarkably corresponds alike with 
 the ancient accounts and modern inv^estigations. Jonah de- 
 scribes it as "a city of three days' journey." This obviously 
 means its circumference ; for, unless the city were a circle, 
 (as no cities are,) it would have no one diameter. A person 
 might describe the average length and breadth of a city, but 
 no one who gave any one measure, by days or miles or any 
 other measure, would mean any thing else than its circumfer- 
 ence. Diodorus (probably on the authority of Ctesias) states 
 that ""it was well-walled, of unequal lengths. Each of the 
 longer sides was 150 furlongs ; each of the shorter, 90. The 
 whole circuit then being 480 furlongs [60 miles] the hope of 
 the founder was not disappointed. For no one afterwards 
 built a city of such compass, and with walls so magnificent." 
 To Babylon "Clitarchus and the companions of Alexander in 
 their writings, assigned a circuit of 365 furlongs, adding that 
 the number of furlongs was conformed to the number of days 
 in the year"." Ctesias, in round numbers, calls them 360°; 
 Strabo, 385 p. All these accounts agree with the statement of 
 Strabo, "Nineveh was much larger than Babylon i." The 60 
 miles of Diodorus exactly correspond with thethreedays' jour- 
 ney of Jonah. A traveller of our own at the beginning of the 
 17th century, J. Cartwright, states that with his own eyes he 
 traced out the ruinous foundations, and gives their dimen- 
 sions. "^It seems by the ruinous foundation (which I thorough- 
 ly viewed) that it was built with four sides, but not equal or 
 
 * See below on ii. 5, 6. ' Hitzig, Jona, §3. Jahn added, as the current objections, the 
 omissions, "what vices prevailed in Nineveh," [it is incidentally said, " violence," iii. 8] 
 how Jonah brought home to the inhabitants the sense of their guilt ; by what calamity, 
 earthquake, inundation or war, the city was to perish; whether, in the general repentance, 
 idolatry was abolished." § 126. 4. All mere by-questions, not affecting the main issue, 
 God's pardoning mercy to the penitent heathen ! •" ii. 3. So too Q. Curtius v. 4. 
 
 " Diod. ii. 7. » in Diod. 1. c. Pxvi. 1.5. fl Ib.3. 
 
 square. For the two longer sides had cafdi of them (as we 
 guess) l.')0 furlongs, the two shorter sides ninety furlongs, 
 whicii amounteth to four hundred and eighty furlongs of 
 ground, whicii makes tiireest^ore miles, accounting eight fur- 
 longs to an Italian mile." No one of the four great mounds, 
 wlii(;h lie around the site of ancient Nineveh, Ninirud, Kou- 
 yunjik, Kborsabad, Karamless, is of sufficient moment or ex- 
 tent to be identified with the (dd Nineveh. But they are con- 
 nected together by the sameness of tiieir remains. Togetiicr 
 tiiey form a parallelogram, and this of exactly the dimen- 
 sions assigned by Jonah. "Trom the Northern extremity 
 of Kouyunjik to Nimrud,is about 18 miles, the distance from 
 Nimrud to Karamless, about 12; the opposite sides, the same." 
 "A recent trigonometrical survey of the country by Captain 
 Jones proves, I am informed," says Layard ', " that the great 
 ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karandess, and Kiiorsabad form 
 very nearly a perfect parallelogram." 
 
 This is perhaps also the explanation, how, seeing its cir- 
 cumference was three days' journey, Jonah entered a day's 
 journey in the city and, at the close of the period, we find him 
 at the East side of the city, the opposite to that at which he 
 had entered. 
 
 His preaching seems to have lasted only this one day. He 
 went, we are told, one day's journey in the city. The 1 .50 sta- 
 dia are nearly 19 miles, a day's journey, so that Jonah walked 
 through it from end to end, repeating that one cry, which 
 God had commanded him to cry. We seem to see the soli- 
 tary figure of the Prophet, clothed (as was the prophet's dress) 
 in that one rough garment of hair cloth, uttering tlie cry which 
 we almost hear, echoing in street after street, "od arbaim yom 
 venineveh nehpacheth," "yet forty days and Nineveh over- 
 thrown." The words which he says he cried and said, belong 
 to that one day only. For on that one day only, was there 
 still a respite oi' forty days. In one day, the grace of God pre- 
 vailed. The conversion of a whole people upon one day's 
 preaching of a single stranger, stands in contra.st with the 
 many years during which, God says", Anice the day that your 
 fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt mito this day, I 
 have sent unto you all My servants the prophets, daily rising 
 up early and sending them, yet they hearkened not unto Me. 
 Many of us have wondered what the Prophet did on the other 
 thirty nine days; people have imagined the Prophet preach- 
 ing as moderns would, or telling them his own wondrous story 
 of his desertion of God, his miraculous punishment, and, on 
 his repentance, his miraculous deliverance. Jonah says no- 
 thing of this. The one point he brought out was the conver- 
 sion of the Ninevites. This he dwells on in circumstantial 
 details. His own part he suppresses ; he would be, like S. 
 John Baptist, but the voice of one crying in the wild waste of 
 a city of violence. 
 
 This simple message of Jonah hears an analogy to what we 
 find elsewhere in Holy Scripture. The great preacher of re- 
 pentance, S. John Baptist, repeated doubtless oftentimes that 
 one cry", Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
 Our Lord vouchsafed to begin His own office with those self- 
 same wordsy. And probably, among the civilised but savage 
 inhabitants of Nineveh, that one cry was more impressive than 
 any other would have been. Simplicity is always impressive. 
 
 ' Mr. John Cartwright, The Preacher's Travels, Nineveh, c. 4. Lord Oxford's Collec- 
 tion, i. 745. London, 1745, abridged in Purchas, T. ii. p. 1435. ■ Layard, Nineveh, 
 P. 2. c. 2. T. ii. 247 note. ■ Ninev. and Bab. p. 640. Capt. Jones, 
 although treating Ctesias' account as fabulous, states " the entire circuit is but 61j 
 Englisli miles." Topography of Nineveh, Joum. As. Soc.T. xv.p.303. See Plan, p. 254. 
 
 " Jer. vii. 25, add 13, xi. 7, xxv. 3, 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19, xxxii. 33, xxxv. 14, 15, 
 xliv. 4. » S. Matt. iii. 2. ? lb. iv. 17, S. Mark i. 15. 
 
 S S
 
 MAPOFTHE ENVIRONS 
 OF NINEVEH. 
 
 KEDUCUDfROM THE TRICONOMETRICAL SURV£Y 
 MADE BY FELIX JONES, INDIAN NAVY, 
 AWED BYJ.M.HYSLOP.M. O.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO JONAH. 
 
 255 
 
 They were four words which God caused to be written on the 
 wall amid Belshazzar's impious revelry ' ; Mcne, ineiie, tekel, 
 upliursin. We all remember tlic touehii)!? history of Jesus 
 the son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who, " "four years before 
 the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and afHu- 
 ence," burst in on the people at the feast of tabernacles with 
 one oft-repeated cry, " A voice from the East, a voice from 
 the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem 
 and the temple, a voice on the brideji^rooms and the brides, 
 a voice on the whole people ;" how he went about through all 
 the lanes of the city, repeating;, day and nijiht, this one cry ; 
 and when scourged until his boneswere laid bare, echoed every 
 lash with "woe, woe, to Jerusalem," and continued as his daily 
 dirge and his one response to dailygood or ill-treatment, "woe, 
 woe, to Jerusalem." The magistrates and even the cold Jose- 
 phus thought that there was something in it above nature. 
 
 In Jerusalem, no effect was produced, because they had 
 filled up the measure of their sins and God had abandoned 
 them. All conversion is the work of the grace of God. That 
 of Nineveh remains, in the history of mankind, an insulated in- 
 stance of God's overpowering grace. All which can be pointed 
 out as to the book of Jonah, is the latent suitableness of the 
 instruments employed. WeknowfromtheCuneiform Inscrip- 
 tions that Assyria had been for successive generations at war '' 
 with Syria. Not until the timeof Ivalush or Pul% the Assyrian 
 monarch, probably, at the time of Jonah's mission, do we find 
 them tributary to Assyria. They were hereditary enemies of 
 Assyria,and probablytheir chief opponents on theNorth East. 
 The breaking of their power then, under Jeroboam, which 
 Jonah had foretold, had an interest for the Assyrians ; and 
 Jonah's prophecy and the fact of its fulfilment may have 
 reached them. The history of his own deliverance, we know 
 from our Lord's own words, did reach them. He ivas a sign '^ 
 unto theNi7ievites. The word, under which he threatenedtheir 
 destruction, pointed to a miraculous overthrow. It was a 
 turning upside down% like the overthrow of the five cities of 
 the plain which are known throughout the Old Testament f, 
 and still throughout the Mohammedan East, by the same 
 name, "almoutaphikat?, the overthrown." 
 
 The Assyrians also, amidst their cruelties, had a great re- 
 verence for tlieir gods, and (as appears from the inscriptions) 
 ascribed to them their national greatness ''. The variety of 
 ways in which this is expressed, implies a far more personal 
 belief, than the statements which we find among the Romans, 
 and would put to shame almost every English manifesto,or the 
 speeches put into the mouth of the Queen. They may have 
 been, then, the more prepared to fear the prophecy of their 
 destruction from the true God. Layard relates that he has 
 "known a Christian priest frighten a whole Mussulman town 
 to repentance, by proclaiming that he had a Divine mission to 
 announce a coming earthquake or plague'." 
 
 These may have been predisposing causes. But the com- 
 pleteness of the repentance, not outward only, but inward, 
 "turning from their evil way," is, in its extent, unexampled. 
 
 The fact rests on the authority of One greater than Jonah. 
 Our Lord relates it as a fact. He contrasts people with peo- 
 ple, the penitent heathen with the impenitent Jews, the in- 
 
 "Dan.v.25. » Jos. de B. J. vi. 5. 3. ■> See above on Am. i. 3. p. 157. "= Rawl. 
 Herod, i. 466, 7. 'i S.Luke xi. 30. e asJudg. vii. 13, Jobix.5, xxviii.9. 'Gen. 
 xix.21, 25, Deutxxix. 23, Am.iv.ll, Jer.xx. 16, Lam.iv. 6. e from Cor.ix.71, 
 
 liii. 63, Ixix. 9. •> Thus in one inscription, " Ashur, the giver of sceptres and crowns, 
 the appointer of sovereignty ;" "the gods, the guardians of the kingdom of Tiglath- 
 pileser, gave government and laws to my dominions, and ordered an enlarged frontier to 
 my territory; ' "they withheld the tribute due to Ashur my Lord ; " the exceeding fear of 
 the power of Ashur, my Lord, overwhelmed them ; my valiant servants (or powerful arms) 
 to which Ashurthe Lord gave strength." " In the service of my Lord Ashur;" "whom Ash- 
 
 ferior messenger who prevailed, with Himself, Whom His own 
 received not. ^The nien of Nineveh shall rise vp with this 
 generation and shall condemn it, because thcij repented at the 
 preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 
 
 Tbe chief subject of tlie repentance of tbe Nincvitcs agrees 
 also remarkably with tbeir character. It is mentioned in the 
 proclamation of the king and his nobles, "let thcni turn every 
 one from liis evil way and from the violence that is in tlieir 
 hands." Out of tbe whole catalogue of their sins, conscience 
 singled out ?'/o/e«re. This incidental notice, contained in the 
 one word, exactly corresponds in substance witli tbe fuller de- 
 scription in the Prophet Nahum, "'Woe to the bloody city ; it 
 is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not." ""'The 
 lion did tear in pieces enough for "his whelps, and strangled 
 for his lionesses,and filled his holes with prey and bis dens with 
 ravin." ""Upon whom hath not thy wickedness [ill-doing] 
 passed continually?" "The Assyrian records," says Layard'', 
 "are nothing but a dry register of military campaigns, spoli- 
 ations and cruelties." 
 
 The direction, that the animals also should be included in the 
 common mourning, was according to the analogy of Eastern 
 custom. When the Persian general Masistius fell at the Init- 
 tle of PlatsaP, the "whole army and Mardonius above all. made 
 a mourning, shaving themselves, and the horses, and the beasts 
 of burden, amid surpassing wailing — Thus the Barbarians 
 after their manner honoured Masistius on his death." Alex- 
 ander imitated apparently the Persian custom in his mourn- 
 ing for Hephffistion i. The characteristic of the mourning in 
 each case is,that they include the animals in that same mourn- 
 ing which they made themselves. The Ninevites had a right 
 feeling, (as God Himself says) that the mercies of God were 
 over man and beast'; and so they joined the beasts with them- 
 selves, hoping that the Creator of all would the rather have 
 mercy on their common distress. ^ His tender mercies are over 
 all His ivorks: ^Thou, Lord, shall save both man and beast. 
 
 The name of the king -cannot yet be ascertained. But since 
 this mission of Jonah fell in the later part of his prophetic 
 office, and so probably in the latter part of the reign of Jero- 
 boam or even later, the Assyrian king was probably Ivalush 
 III. or the Pul of Holy Scripture. Jonah's human fears would, 
 in that case, have been soon fulfilled. For Pul was the first 
 Assyrian Monarch through whom Israel was weakened : and 
 God had foreshewn by Amos that through the third it would 
 be destroyed. Characteristic, on account of the earnestness 
 which it implies, is the account that the men of Nineveh pro- 
 claimed the fast, before tidings reached the king himself. 
 This is the plain meaning of the words ; yet on account of the 
 obvious difficulty they have been rendered, and word had come 
 to the king'^. The account is in harmony with that vast extent 
 of thecity,as of Babylon,of which "nhe residents related that, 
 after the outer portions of the city were taken, the inhabitants 
 of the central part did not know that they were taken." It 
 could scarcely have occurred to one who did not know the fact. 
 
 The history of Jonah, after God had spared Nineveh, has 
 the same characteristic touches. He leaves his own charac- 
 ter unexplained, its severity rebuked by God, unexcused and 
 unpalliated. He had some special repugnance to be the mes- 
 
 ur and Ninep have exalted to the utmost wishes of his heart ; " " the great gods, guardians 
 of my steps," &c. Journ. Asiat. Soc. 1860.xviii.pp. 164,8, 170, 4,6,(and others 172,8, ISO, 4) 
 192, 8,206,10, 14, and Rawl. Herod, i. 457, 587, and note 7. > Kinev. and Babyl. p. 632 
 note. k s.Matt.xii.41. 'iii. 1. " ii. 12. ■> iii. 19. » Nineveh and Bab. p. 631. 
 
 P Herod, ix. 24. Plutarch Aristid. c. 14 ; see Rawlinson's note on Her. T. iv. p. 401. 
 
 1 Plutarch Alex. c. 72. "he commanded to shave all the horses and mules, as mourn- 
 ing." 'Seeon Joeli.20,p. HI. • Ps. cxlv. 9. tlb.xxxvi.7. " The Vulg. has 
 rightly, "et pervenit." Lapide explains this wrongly, " id est, quia pervenerat." The E. V. 
 smooths the difficulty wrongly by rendering, "forword came." i Herod, i. 191. 
 
 s s2
 
 256 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 sender of mercy to the Ninevitcs. For this cause, he says to 
 God, I fied before to Tarshisli ; for I knew that Thou art a mer- 
 ciful God, ami repentest Thee of the evil. The circuinstaiices 
 of his time exphviu that ici)iifi:iiance. He had ah-eady heen 
 empkiyed to prophesy the partial restoration of the boundaries 
 of Israel. He was the contemporary of Hosea who foretold 
 of his people, the ten tribes y, they shall not dwell in the Lord's 
 land, they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. God, in giving 
 him his commission to e;o to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, 
 and cry agaiiist it, assigjned as the reason, for its wickedness is 
 come lip before Me ; words which to Jonah would suggest the 
 memory of the wickedness of Sodom and its destruction. 
 Jonah was a Prophet, but he was also an Israelite. He was 
 commanded by God to call to repentance the capital of the 
 country by which his own people, nay the people of his God, 
 wei-e to be carried captive. And he rebelled, /re know more 
 of the love of God than Jonah ; for we have known the love 
 of the Incarnation and the Redemption. And yet, were it 
 made known to us, that some European or Asiatic people were 
 to carry our own people captiveout of our land,more than would 
 be willing to confess it of themselves, (whatever sense they 
 might have of the awefulncss of God's judgments,and whatever 
 feelings belonging to our common humanity,) would still in- 
 wardly rejoice to hear, that such a calamity as the earthquake 
 at Lisbon befell its capital. It is the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion and the implanted love of country. Jonah's murmuring 
 related solely to God's mercy shewn to them as to this Avorld. 
 For the Ninevitcs had repented, and so were in the grace of 
 God. The older of us remember what aweful joy was felt when 
 that three days' mortal strife at Leipzig at length was won, in 
 which 107,000 were killed or wounded^; or when out of 647,000 
 men who swept acrossEurope (a masslargerthan thewholepo- 
 pulation of Nineveh) only "85,000 escaped ; 125,000 were slain 
 in battle, 132,000 perished by cold, fatigue and famine \" A 
 few years ago, how were Sebastopol and the Kriniea in men's 
 mouths, although that war is reputed to have cost the five na- 
 tions involved in it 700,000 lives, more, probably, than all the 
 inhabitants of Nineveh. Men forget or abstract themselves 
 from all the individual sufferings, and think only of the result 
 of the whole. A humane historian says of the battle of Leip- 
 zig'', "a prodigious sacrifice, but one which, great as it was, hu- 
 manity has no cause to regret, for it delivered Europe from 
 French bondage,and the worklfromrevolutionary aggression." 
 He says on the Russian campaign of Napoleon I "^j "the faith- 
 ful throughout Europe repeated the words of the Psalm, 
 Efflavit Deus et dissipantur." 
 
 Look at Dr. Arnold's description of the issue of the Russian 
 campaign. '""Still the flood of the tide rose higher and higher, 
 and every successive wave of its advance swept away a king- 
 dom. Earthly state has never reached a prouder pinnacle, 
 than when Napoleon in June, 1812, gathered his army at Dres- 
 den, that mighty host, unequalled in all time, of 450, 000, not 
 men merely but, effective soldiers, and there received the ho- 
 mage of subject kings. And now, what was the principal ad- 
 versary of this tremendous power ? by whom was it checked, 
 resisted, and put down ? By none, and by nothing but the di- 
 rect and manifest interposition of God. I know no language 
 so well fitted to describe the victorious advance to Moscow, 
 and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as the language of 
 the prophet with respect to the advance and subsequent de- 
 struction of the host of Sennacherib. When they arose 
 early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses, ap- 
 
 y ix. 3. ' Alison, Hist, of Europe, c. 81. T. xii. p. 255. > lb. c. 73. T. xi. 199 ; c. 74. 
 ib.229. 'Alison, I.e. = Alis.xi.213. 'i Lecture iU. pp. 177-9. '"Words of the 
 
 plied almost literally to that memorable night of frost in which 
 20,(J00 horses perished, and the strength of the French army 
 was utterly broken. Human instruments no doubt were em- 
 ployed in the remainder of the work, nor would 1 deny to Ger- 
 many and to Russia the glories of that great year 181.'?, nor to 
 England the honour of her victories in Spain or of the crown- 
 ing victory of Waterloo. But at the distance of thirty years 
 those who lived in the time of danger and remember its mag- 
 nitude, and now calmly review what there was in human 
 strength to avert it, must acknowledge, I think, beyond all 
 controversy, that the deliverance of Europe from the dominion 
 of Napoleon was effected neither by Russia nor by Germany 
 nor by England, but by the hand of God alone." Jonah pro- 
 bably pictured to himself some sudden and almost paiidess de- 
 struction, which the word, overthrown, suggested, in which the 
 whole city would be engulphed in an instant and the power 
 which threatened his people, the people of God,broken at once. 
 God reproved Jonah ; but, before man condemns him, it were 
 well to think, what is the prevailing feeling in Christian na- 
 tions, at any signal calamity which befalls any people who 
 threaten their own power or honour; — we cannot, in Chris- 
 tian times, say, their existence. "Jonah," runs an old tra- 
 ditional saying among the Jews', "sought the honour of the 
 son [Israel], and sought not the honour of the Father." 
 
 An uninspired writer would doubtless at least have brought 
 out the relieving points of Jonah's character, and not have 
 left him under the unmitigated censure of God. Jonah tells 
 the plain truth of himself, as S. Matthew relates his own deser- 
 tion of his Lord among the Apostles, or S. Mark, under the 
 guidance of S. Peter, relates the great fall of the great Apostle. 
 
 Amid this, Jonah remains the same throughout. It is one 
 strong impetuous will, bent on having no share in that which 
 was to bring destruction on his people, fearless of death and 
 ready to give up his life. In the same mind he gives him- 
 self to death amid the storm, and, when his mission was ac- 
 complished, asks for death in the words of his great prede- 
 cessor Elijah, when he fled from Jezebel. He probably justi- 
 fied his impatience to himself by the precedent of so great a 
 prophet. But although he complains, he complains to God of 
 Himself. Having complained, Jonah waits. It may be that 
 he thought, although God did not execute His judgments on 
 the 40th day, He might still fulfil them. He had been accus- 
 tomed to the thought of the long-suffering of God, delajing 
 even when He struck at last. "Considering with himself," says 
 Theodoras, "the greatnessof the threat,he imaginedthatsome- 
 thing might perchance still happen even after this." The pa- 
 tience of God amid the Prophet's impatience, tlie still, gentle 
 inquiry, (such as He often puts to the conscience now,) Doest 
 thou well to be angry f and his final conviction of the Prophet 
 out of his own feelings towards one of God's inanimate crea- 
 tures, none would have ventured to picture, who had not 
 known or experienced it. 
 
 In regard to the miracles in Jonah's history, over and above 
 the fact, that they occur in Holy Scripture, we have our Lord's 
 own word for their truth. He has set His seal on the whole 
 of the Old Testament f; He has directly authenticated by His 
 own Divine authority the physical miracle of Jonah's preser- 
 vation for three days and nights in the belly of the fish s, and 
 the yet greater moral miracle of the conversion of the Nine- 
 vitcs ^. He speaks of them both, as facts, and of the stay of 
 Jonah in the fish's belly, as a type of His own stay in the heart 
 of the earth. He speaks of it also as a miraculous sign '. 
 
 Rabbles of blessed memory." Kim. on Jon. i. ' S. Luke xxiv. 24. e S. Matt. xii. 40. 
 " lb. 41, S.Luke xi. 32. ' S. Matt. xii. 38-40, S. Luke xi. 16, 29, 30.
 
 JONAH. 
 
 257 
 
 The Scribes and Pharisees, unable to answer His refutation 
 of their blasphemy, imputing His niiraclesto Bcolzehul), ask- 
 ed of Him a nnraculous sign' from Heaven. Prol)ahly, they 
 meant to ask that one sign, for which tliey were always crav- 
 ing. Confounding His tirst Comingwith His second, and inter- 
 preting, according to their wishes, of His first Coming all 
 which the prophets foretold of the Second, they were ever 
 looking out for that His Connng in glory juitk the clouds of 
 heaven^, to humble, as they thought, their own as well as His 
 enemies. Our Lord answers, that this their craving for a sign 
 was part of their faithlessness. An evil and adiiUerous gene- 
 ration seeketh after a sign : and there shall no sign he given 
 them, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas. He uses three times 
 their own word sign. He speaks of a miraculous sign, the sign 
 of Jonas, a miracle which was the sign of something beyond 
 itself. ^ For as Jonas ivas three days and three nights in the 
 whale's belli/, so shall the Son of 31 an be three days and three 
 nights in the heart of the earth. He gave them the sign from 
 earth, not from Heaven ; a miracle of humility, not of glory ; 
 of deliverance from death, and, as it were, a resurrection. A 
 sign, such as Holy Scripture speaks of, need not at all times 
 be a miraculous, but it is always a real sig7i. Isaiah and his 
 sons, by real names, given to them by God, or the prophet by 
 his walking barefoot, or Ezekiel by symbolic acts, were signs; 
 not by miraculous but still by real acts. In this case, the Jews 
 asked for a miraculous sign ; our Lord promises them a mi- 
 raculous sign, although not one such as they wished for, or 
 which would satisfy them; a miraculous sign, of which the mi- 
 raculous preservation of Jonah was a type. Our Lord says, 
 '""Jonah ^vas three days and three nights in the whale's belly," 
 and no one who really believes in Him, dare think that he 
 was not. 
 
 It is perhaps a part of the simplicity of Jonah's narrative, 
 that he relates these great miracles, as naturally as he does the 
 most ordinary events. To God nothing is great or small ; 
 and the Prophet, deeply as he feels God's mercy, relates the 
 means which God employed, as if it had been one of those 
 every day miracles of His power and love, of which men think 
 so little because God worketh them every day. 
 
 God prepared a great fish, he says, God prepared a palm- 
 christ ; God prepared a luorm ; God prepared a vehement East 
 luind. Whether Jonah relates God's ordinary or His extraor- 
 dinary workings. His workings in the way in which He up- 
 holdeth in being the creatures of His Will, or in away which 
 involves a miracle, i. e. God's acting in some imusual way, Jo- 
 nah relates it in the same way, with the same simplicity of 
 truth. His mind is fixed on God's Providence, and he re- 
 lates God's acts, as they bore upon God's Providential deal- 
 ings with him. He tells of God's preparing the East Wind 
 which smote the palmchrist, in the same way in which he 
 speaks of the supernatural growth of the palmchrist, or of 
 God's Providence, in appointing that the iish should swallow 
 him. He mentions this, which was in the order of God's Provi- 
 dence; he nowhere stops to tell us the " how." How God 
 converted the Ninevites, how He sustained his life in the fish's 
 belly, he tells not. He mentions only the great facts them- 
 selves, and leaves them in their mysterious greatness. 
 
 It is not strange, the heathen scofi'ers fixed upon the physi- 
 cal miracles in the history of Jonah for their scorn. They 
 
 k ar\iii'iov. ' Dan. vii. 13, 14, S. Matt. xvi. 27, xxiy. 30, xxvi. 64, S. Luke xxi. 27, 
 1 Thess. iv. 16, Rev. i. 7. *" k^to9. ° ktjtw^t). ° ^iX^lvdi xe Kuva's 
 
 T£ Koi liTTOTi M^'SoK 'i\f\Tui K^Tos. Oil. xli. 37. P Hist. Aniiti. iii. 20. T. ii. ioS. 
 
 <i de alim. fac. iii. 37. T. iv. 349. Sostratus in Athen. vii. 66. says that "the Pelamus 
 (a tunny) when exceeding large is called /cfiTos." •" Lex. V. Kapxapia";, • Halieut. 
 i. 360-382. ' The ^iiyatva, \<S/zi/t| or Xdfiia (our " lamia") Kirrpititii, yaXto's, 
 
 could have no appreciation of the great moral miracle of the 
 conversion of a whole Ilcathcii city at the voice of a single 
 unknown Propiict. Such a conversion is unexampled in the 
 whole revelation of Cod to man, greater in its immediate ef- 
 fe(;ts than the mirartle of the Day of Pentecost. Before this 
 stupendous power of God's grace over the unruly will of sa- 
 vage, y(!t educated, men. the ])hysical miracles, great as tliey 
 are, shrink into nothing. Tiie wielding and swaying of half 
 a million of human wills, and turning them from Satan to God, 
 is a power of grace, as much above and beyond all changes of 
 the unresisting physical creation, as the spirits and intelli- 
 gences which God has created are higher than insentient mat- 
 ter. Physical miracles are a new exercise of the creative pow- 
 er of God : the moral miracles were a sort of first-fruit of the 
 re-creation of the Gentile world. Physical miracles were the 
 simple exercise of the Will of God ; the moral miracles were, 
 in these hundreds of thousands. His overpowering grace, pour- 
 ing itself into the heart of rebellious man and re-creating it. 
 As many souls as there were, so many miracles were there, 
 greater even than the creation of man. 
 
 The miracles too are in harmony with the nature around. 
 The Hebrews, who were, at this time, not a maritime pectple, 
 scarcely knew probably of those vast monsters, which our ma- 
 nifold researches into God's animal kingdom have laid open 
 tons. Jonah speaks only of rt^rea;;?.sA. The Greek word", 
 by which the LXX translated it, and which our Lord used, is, 
 (like our " cetacea " which is taken from it,) the name of a ge- 
 nus, not of any individual fish. It is the equivalent of the 
 great fish of Jonah. The Greeks use the adjective", as we do, 
 but they also use the substantive which occurs in S. Matthew. 
 This designates a class which includes the whale, but is never 
 used to designate the whale. In Homer °, it includes "dolphins 
 and the dog." In the natural historians, (as AristotleP.) it 
 designates the whole class of sea-creatures which are vivipa. 
 rous, "as the dolphin, the seal, the whale;" Galen i adds the 
 Zygffina (a shark) and large tunnies ; Photius says that " the 
 Carcharias," or white shark, " is a species of it '." Oppian ' 
 recounts, as belonging to the Cete, several species of sharks • 
 and whales", some with names of land animals^, and also 
 the black tunnies''. jElian enumerates most of these under 
 the same head^ Our Lord's words then would be rendered 
 more literally, iri the fish's belly % than in the trhale's belly. 
 Infidels seized eagerly on the fact of the narrowness of the 
 whale's throat ; their cavil applied only to an incorrect render- 
 ing of modern versions. Fish, of such size that they can swal- 
 low a man whole, and which are so formed as naturally to 
 swallow their prey whole, have been found in the Mediterra- 
 nean. The white shark, having teeth merely incisive, has no 
 choice, except between swallowing its prey whole, or cutting 
 off a portion of it. It cannot hold its prey, or swallow it 
 piecemeal. Its voracity leads it to swallow at once all which 
 it can ''. Hence Otto Fabricius relates", "its wont is to swallow 
 down dead and, sometimes also, living men, which it finds in 
 the sea." 
 
 A natural historian of repute relates*, " In 1758 in stormy 
 weather a sailor fell ovei'board from a frigate in the Mediterra- 
 nean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and 
 crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he forth- 
 with disappeared. Other sailors had leapt into the sloop, to 
 
 aKat/Gia^, \i1oi, piifii, and probably the irapSa'Ki^. " The tpCtraXot^ (i. q. physeter 
 
 Linn.) and •n-p^o-Tt?. ^ Xiwit, irapiaXt^^ ^-ptd5, ijaiva, yaXto^, trtcvfjivoi. 
 
 y ptXai'dui'wv. '■ de animal, ix. 49. • S. Matt. xii. 40. ■> " It swallows 
 
 ever\-tliing without chewing." P. du Tertre, Hist, des Antilles, ii. 203. 
 
 ^ Fauna Gronlandica, p. 129. ^ Miiller, Vollstandige Natursystem des 
 
 Ritters Karl von Linn6. Th. iii. p. 268, quoted by Eichhorn, Einl. T. iv. § 574.
 
 258 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 liclp their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a j2;un 
 whicli stood on the deck discliarf,^ed at tlie fish, which struck it 
 so, that it cast out the saih)r which it had in its throat, who was 
 taken up, alive and little injured, hy the sloop which had now 
 come up. The fish was harpooned, taken up on the trii;ate, 
 and dried. The captain made a present of the fish to the sai- 
 lor who, hy God's I'rovidcnce.had heen so wonderfully preserv- 
 ed. The sailor went round Europe exhihitinii; it. He came 
 to Franconia, and it was publicly e.xhihited here in Erlani^en, 
 as also at Nurnberfi and other places. The dried fish was de- 
 lineated. It was 20 feet long-, and, with expanded fins, nine 
 feet wide, and weighed 3924 pounds. From all this, it is pro- 
 bable that this was the fish of Jonah." 
 
 This is hy no means an insulated account of the size of this 
 fish. Blunienhach *= states, "the white shark, or Canis carcha- 
 rias, is found of the size of 10,000 lbs, and horses have been 
 found whole in its stomach." A writer of the 16th century 
 on " the fish of Marseilles '" says, " they of Nice attested to 
 me, that they had taken a fish of this sort, approaching to 
 40U0 lbs weight, in whose body they had found a man whole. 
 Those of Marseilles told something similar, that they had once 
 taken a Lamia (so they still popularly call tiie Carcharias) and 
 found in it a man in a coat of mail [loricatus.]" Rondelet 
 says, "^sometimes it grows to such size, that, placed on a car- 
 riage, it can hardly be drawn by two horses. 1 have seen one 
 of moderate size, which weighed 1000 lbs, and, when disem- 
 bowelled and cut to pieces, it had to be put on two carriages." 
 " I have seen on the shore of Saintonge a Lamia, whose mouth 
 and throat were of such vast size, that it would easily swallow 
 a large man." 
 
 Richardson'', speaking of the whitesharkin N. Anierica,says 
 that they attain the length of 30 feet, i. e. a 3rd larger than 
 that which swallowed the sailor whole. Lacepede speaks of 
 fish of this kind as "more than 30 feet long '." "The contour," 
 he adds'', "of the upper jaw of a requin of SOfeet, is about 6feet 
 long; its swallow is of a diameter proportionate." 
 
 "'In all modern works on Zoology, we find 30 feet given 
 as a common length for a shark's body. Now a shark's body 
 is usually only about eleven times the length of the lialf of its 
 lower jaw. Consecjuently a shark of 30 feet would have a 
 lower jaw of nearly six feet in its semicircular extent. Even 
 if such a jaw as this was of hard bony consistence instead of 
 a yielding cartilaginous nature, it would qualify its ])OSsessor 
 for engulphingoneofourownspeciesmost easily. The power 
 which it has, by virtue of its cartilaginous skeleton, of stretch- 
 ing bending and yielding, enables us to understand how the 
 shark can swallow entire animals as large or larger than our- 
 selves. Such anincidentisrelatedtohave occurred A. D. 1802, 
 on the authority of a Captain Biovvn, who found the body of 
 a woman entire with the exception of the head within the sto- 
 mach of a shark killed by him at Surinam ™." 
 
 In the Mediterranean there are traces of a yet larger race, 
 now extinct". "" However large or dangerous the existing race 
 may be, yet from the magnitude of the fossil teeth found inMal- 
 
 ' Naturgesch. v. Squalus, Carcharias. ' P. Gyll. de Gall, et Lat. nom. pise. 
 
 Massil. c. y9. A.D. 1535. e de piscib. xiii. 12, referred to by Bochart. 
 
 ^ Fauna Boreali-Americana, p. 289. i Lacep. Hist, des Poissons, i. p. 1S9. 
 
 _ ^ lb. p. rjl. " We have ascertained, from several comparisons, that tlie contour of one 
 side of the upper jaw, measured from the angle of the two jaws to the summit of the upper 
 jaw nearly eciuals -jijth of the animal. One ought not then to be surprised, to read in 
 Rondelet and others authors, that large requins can swallow a man whole." 'MS. 
 
 statement furnished me by Dr. Rolleston, Linacre Prof. Oxford. "" BufTon, ed. C. 
 
 Sonnini, Poissons, iii. p. 31-1. Ed. 1803. » This appears from the following statement 
 with which Prof. Phillips has kindly furnished me. " The earliest notice of them which 
 has met my eye is in Scilla's very curious work, La vana Speculazione disingannata. 
 Napoli, 1070. Tav. iii. tig. 1. gives a fair view of some of tiieir teeth which, are stated 
 to have been found in 'un Sasso di Malta' ; he rightly enough calls them teeth of Lamia 
 (i. e. Shark) petrified. Mr. Bowerbank, in Reports of the Brit. Association, 1851, gives 
 
 ta and elsewhere, some of which measure 4i inches from the 
 point to the base, and (i inches from the point to the angle, the 
 animal, to which they belonged, must have much exceeded the 
 present species in size." "The mouth of a fish of this sort," 
 says BlochP, "is armed with 400 teeth of this kind. In the 
 Isle of Malta and in Sic^ily, their teeth are found in great num- 
 bers on the shore. Naturalists of old took them for tongues 
 of serpents. They are so compact that, after having remain- 
 ed for many centuries in the earth, they are not yet decaved. 
 The quantity and size of those which are found proves that 
 these creatures existed formerly in great numbers, and that 
 some were of extraordinary size. If one were to (calculate 
 from them what should, in proportion, be the size of the throat 
 which should hold such a number of such teeth, it ought to be 
 at least 8 or 10 feet wide. In truth, these fish are found to 
 this day of a terrific size. — This fish, celebrated for its voracity 
 and courage,is found inthe Mediterranean and in almost every 
 Ocean. It generally keeps at the bottom, and rises only to 
 satisfy its hunger. It is not seen near shore, except when it 
 pursues its prey, or is pursued by the mulari, which it does not 
 venture to approach, even when dead. It swallows all sorts 
 of aquatic animals, alive or dead, and pursues especially the 
 sea-calf and the tunny. In its pursuit of the tunny, it some- 
 times falls into nets, and some have been thus taken in Sardi- 
 nia, which weighed 400 lbs and in which 8 or 10 tunnies were 
 found still undigested. It attacks men wherever it can find 
 them, whence the Germans call it 'menschen-fresser' (men- 
 eater.) Gunner' speaks of a sea-calf 'of the size of an ox, which 
 had also been found in one of these animals : and in another a 
 reindeer without horns, which had fallen from a rock.' This 
 fish attains a length of 25-30 feet. Miiller' says that one was 
 taken near the Islandof St. Margueritewhich weighed 15001bs. 
 On opening it, they found in it a horse, quite whole; which had 
 apparently been thrown overboard. M. Briinniche says' that 
 during his residence at Marseilles, one was taken near that 
 city, 15 feet long, and that two years before, two, much larger, 
 had been taken, in one of which had been found two tunnies 
 and a man quite dressed. The fish were injured, the man 
 not at all. In 1700 there was exhibited at Berlin a requin 
 stuffed, 20 feet long, and 9 in circumference, where it was 
 thickest. It had been taken in the Mediterranean. Its vora- 
 city is so great, that it does not spare its own species. Leem" 
 relates, that a Laplander, who had taken a requin, fastened it 
 to his canoe ; soon after, he missed it. Some time after, having 
 taken a larger,he found in its stomach the requin which he had 
 lost." "^The large Australian shark (Carcharias glaucus), 
 which has been measured after death 37 feet long, has teeth 
 about 2f inches long." 
 
 Such facts ought to shame those who speak of the miracle 
 of Jonah's preservation through the fish, as a thing less credi- 
 ble than any other of God's miraculous doings. There is no 
 greater or less to Omnipotence. The creation of the Universe, 
 the whole stellar system, or of a fly, are alike to Him, simple 
 acts of HisDivine Will. He spa/ce,a?idit ivas ?. What to men 
 
 measures of these teeth, and estimates of the size of the animal to which they belonged. 
 His specimens are from Suffolk, from the Red Crag, where sharks' teeth, of several sorts, 
 and a vast variety of shells, corals, &c. are mixed with some remains of mostly extinct 
 mammalia. The marine races are also for the most part of extinct kinds. These depo- 
 sits in Suffolk and Malta are of the later Tertiary period ; specimens derived from 
 them may be found on the shores no doubt, but there is also no doulit of their original 
 situation being in the stratified earth-crust. The living sharks to which the fossil animal 
 may have most nearly approached are included in the genus Carcharias, the teeth being 
 beautifully serrated on the edges." " Stark, Animal kingdom, p. 305. P Hist, des 
 Poissons, iv. 31. § xi. i Physeter Macroceplialus, Linn. The Spermaceti whale. 
 
 r Diet, des Anim. iii. p. fiSS. Schrift. dcr Dront. Gesellsch. T. ii. p. 299. 
 « L.S. T. iii. p. 267. ' Pise. Mass. p. 6. " Lappl. p. 150. 
 
 « Prof. Phillips, MS. letter. He adds, " but our fossil shark's teeth are 4^ to even 5 
 inches long. Its length has been inferred to have reached 65 feet." ? Ps. xxxiii. 9.
 
 JONAH. 
 
 2')J) 
 
 seem the g:reatest miracles or the least, are alike to Him, the? 
 mere Let it be of His All-Holy Will, actinj^ in a (iiffcrent way 
 t'oroneand thesanie end, the instrnctionof the iiitelliijent crea- 
 tures which He has made. Each and all subserve, in their 
 several places and occasions, the same end of the manifold 
 Wisdom of God. Each and all of these, which to us seem in- 
 terruptions of His ordinary workings in nature, were from the 
 beginninfi^;, before He had created anythinf^, as much a part of 
 His Divine purpose, as the creation of the Universe. They 
 are not disturbances of His laws. Nijjht does not disturb day 
 which it closes, nor day ni«jht. No more does any work wliich 
 God, before the creation of the world, willed to do, (for, '■known 
 unto God are all, His tvays from the beginning of the world,) 
 interfere with any other of His workin2fs. His workin!;;s in 
 nature, and His working^s above nature, form one harmonious 
 whole. Each are a part of His ways ; each is essential to the 
 manifestation of God to us. That wonderful order and sym- 
 metry of God's creation exhibits to us some effluences of the 
 Divine Wisdom and Beauty and Power and Goodness ; that 
 reg^ularity itself sets forth those other foreknown operations 
 of God, whereby He worketh in a way different from His ordi- 
 nary mode of working in nature. "They who know not God, 
 will ask," says S. Cyril% "howwas Jonah preserved in the fish ? 
 how was he not consumed ? how did he endure that natural 
 heat, and live, surrounded by such moisture, and was not 
 rather digested ? For this poor body is very weak and perish- 
 able. Truly wonderful was it, surpassing reason and wonted- 
 ness. But if God be declared its Author, who would any more 
 disbelieve? For God is All-powerful, and transmouldeth easi- 
 ly the nature of things which are, to what He willeth, and no- 
 thing resisteth His ineffable WiU. For that which is perish- 
 able can at His Will easily become superior to corruption ; and 
 what is firm and unshaken and undecaying is easily subjected 
 thereto. For nature, I deem, to the things which be, is, what 
 seemeth good to the Creator." S. Augustine well points out 
 the inconsistency, so common now, of excepting to the one or 
 the other miracle, upon grounds which would in truth apply 
 to many or to all. '"'The answer" to the mockery of the Pa- 
 gans, "is that either all Divine miracles are to be disbelieved, 
 or there is no reason why this should not be believed. For we 
 should not believe in Christ Himself that He rose on the third 
 day, if the faith of the Christians shrank from the mockery of 
 Pagans. Since our friend does not put the question, Is it to be 
 believed that Lazarus rose on the 4th day, or Christ Himself 
 on the third day, I much marvel that he put this as to Jonah 
 as a thing incredible, unless he think it easier for one dead to 
 be raised from the tomb, than to be preserved alive in that 
 vast belly of the fish. Not to mention how vast the size of 
 marine creatures is said to be by those who have witnessed 
 it, who could not conceive what numbers of men that stomach 
 could contain which was fenced by those ribs, well known to 
 the people at Carthage, where they were set up in public? — how 
 vast must have been the opening of that mouth, the door, as 
 it were, to that cave." "But, troth, they have found in a Divine 
 miracle something which they need not believe ; viz. that the 
 gastric juice whereby food is digested could be so tempered 
 
 2 Acts XV. 18. » on Jon. c. 2. beg. ' Ep. 102. q.6. § 31. 
 
 " Elkeroa is the reading of Erasmus and Victorius, who used MSS. and do not mention 
 any conjecture. The Benedictines substituted iiArion, their MSS. having 5icfia. In 
 S.Jerome, Ep. ad Aug. Ep. 112. n. 22. their MSS. liadciceznm or KTjKijajU. Iftiiis is right, 
 S. Jerome must have meant Chaldee by Syriac, the word being retained in Jonathan. 
 Only if S. Jerome had meant that the " Syriac" word was the same, one should liave 
 thought that he would have said so. The Peshito has probably been corrupted out of 
 the LXX. 4 on Jon. iv. 6. = Robinson, i. 553. ' Dioscor. iv. 164. 
 
 B Diosc. ib. Galen Lex. Hipp. p. 82 ; also Paul. yEgin. vii. 297. i" Herod, ii. 94. 
 
 ' XV. 7. ^ Samuel B. Hophni.A.D. 1054, ap. Kim. Resh Lachish(2nd 
 
 cent. Wolf, Bibl. H. ii. 881, 2 coll. &44.) says that " the oil of Kik " (forbidden in the 
 
 as not to injure tlie life of man. How still less cre(lil)le would 
 tlicy deem it, that those three men, cast into the furnace by 
 the impious king, walked up and down in the mirlst of the fire! 
 If then tliey refuse to believe ani/ miracles of God, they nmst 
 b(! answered in another way. But they ought not to ((uestion 
 any o)ie, as though it were iiuTedible, but at once all which 
 are as,or even more, marvellous. Hewho|)roposedthese(jues- 
 tions, let him be a Christian now, lest, while he waits first to 
 finish the (piestions on the sacred books, he come to the end 
 of his life, before he have i)assed from death to life. — Let him, 
 if he will, first ask questions such as he asked concerning 
 Christ, and those few great questions to which the rest are 
 subordinate. But if he think to finish all such questions as 
 this of Jonah, before he becomes a Christian, he little appre- 
 ciates human mortality or his own. For they arc countless ; 
 not to be finished before accepting the faith, lest life be finish- 
 ed without faith. But, retaining the faith, they are subjects 
 for the diligent study of the faithful ; and what in them be- 
 comes clear is to be communicated without ai'rogancc, what 
 still lies hid, to be borne without risk to salvation." 
 
 The other physical miracle of tlie rapid production of the 
 Palma Christi, which God created to overshadow Jonah, was 
 plainly supernatural in that extreme rapidity of growth, else 
 in conformity with the ordinarycharacterof that plant. "The 
 kikaion, as we read in the Hebrew,called kikeia [or, Elkeroa^] 
 in Syriac and Punic," says S. Jerome'^, "is a shrub with broad 
 leaves like vine-leaves. It gives a very dense shade, supports 
 itself on its own stem. It grows most abundantly in Pales- 
 tine, especially in sandy spots. If you cast the seed into the 
 ground, it is soon quickened, rises marvellously into a tree, 
 and a few days what you had beheld a herb, you look up to, 
 a shrub. — The kikaion, a miracle in its instantaneous exis- 
 tence, and an instance of the power of God in the protection 
 given by this living shade, followed the course of its own na- 
 ture." It is a native of all North Africa, Arabia, Syria, India. 
 In the valley of the Jordan it still grows to a " large size, and 
 has the character," an eyewitness writes^ "of a perennial tree, 
 although usually described as a biennial plant." "^ It is of 
 the size of a small figtree. It has leaves like a plane, only lar- 
 ger, smoother.and darker." The name of the plant isof Egyp- 
 tian origin, kiki; which Dioscorides and Galen identify with 
 the crotonS; Herodotus with the Silicyprion '', which, in the 
 form seselicyprion, Dioscorides mentions as a name given to 
 the kiki or kroton^; Pliny' with the Ricinus also (the Latin 
 name for the croton), our Palma Christi ; Hebrews *= with the 
 Arabic Elkeroa, which again is known to be the Ricinus. The 
 growth and occasional perishing of the Palma Christi have 
 both something analogous to the growth and decay related 
 in Jonah. Its rapidity of growth is remarked by S. Jerome 
 and Pliny, who says, "'in Spain it shoots up rapidly, of the 
 height of an olive, with hollow stem," and branches '. 
 
 "'AH the species of the Ricinus shoot up quickly, and yield 
 fruit within three months, and are so multiplied from the seed 
 shed, that, if left to themselves, they would occupy in short 
 space the whole country." In Jamaica, """it grows with sur- 
 prising rapidity to the height of 15 or 16 feet." Niebuhr says", 
 
 Mishnah Shabbath, c. 2. to be used for lights on the sabbath) is the kikaion of Jonah, 
 (Kim.) "The oil of Kik" is the tXatov kikivov of Galen (Lex. Hipp. p. 58) the " oleum 
 cicinum" of Pliny (xxiii. 4). Resh Lachish identified the kikaion with the Alekeroa' 
 (Boch. Ep. ad Morin. Geogr. S. p. 918) which Ibn Baithar uses to trauslate the kiki, 
 KpoTwv (boch. Hieroz, ii. 21). R. Nathan, Maimonides on Tr. Sliabbatb, c. 2. n. 1, and 
 " some " in Bartenora, (lb.) also explain it of the keroa. R. Bar Bar Channach, (early 
 3rd cent. Wolf, ib. SSO. coll. 879) identifies it with the Zelulibah (Kim.) which a»ain is 
 explained to be the Elkeroa' (respons. Geonim in Boch. Hieroz. ii. 24. p. 42. ed. Leipz.) 
 and whose oil is called "oil of keroa" i.e. the castor or croton oil (Buxt. Lex. Talm. v. 
 wSAs.) ' Rimiph. Herb. Amboin. vi.46. T. iv. p. 92. "^ Liong's 
 
 Jamaica, T. iii. p. 712. " Descr.de 1' Arab. p. 130.
 
 RICINUS CORBIUNIS. flora gr^ca, Tom : ix. Tab. 952.
 
 JONAH. 
 
 261 
 
 " it has the appearance of a tree. Each braneh of the kheroa 
 has only one leaf, with (j, 7, or !^ indentures. This plant was 
 near a stream which watereditadcqiiately. At the end of Oct. 
 1765, it had, in !j months, ji^rown about 8 feet, and bore, at once, 
 flowers and fruit, f^reen and ripe." This ra])idity of t^rowth 
 has only a sort of likeness to the miracle, which (juickened in 
 a way far above nature the powers implanted in nature. The 
 destruction may have been altoifcthcr in the way of nature, ex- 
 cept that it happencdat that |)recise moment, when it was to be 
 a lesson to Jonah. "° On warm days, when a small rain falls, 
 black caterpillars are generated in jijreat numbers on this plant, 
 which, in one night, so often and so suddenly cut off its leaves, 
 that only their bare ribs remain, which I have often observed 
 with much wonder, as though it were a copy of that destruction 
 ofoldat Nineveh." TheRicinus of IndiaandAssyriafurnishes 
 food to a different caterpillar from that of AmboynaP, but the 
 account illustrates the rapidity of the destruction. The word 
 "worm" is elswhere also used collectively, not of a single worm 
 only, and of creatures which, in God's appointment, devour 
 the vine'. There is nothing in the text, implying that the 
 creaturewas one which gnawedthestemrather than the leaves. 
 The peculiar word, smote^, is probably used, to correspond with 
 the mention of the sun smiting*' on the head of Jonah. 
 
 These were miracles, like all the other miracles of Scripture, 
 ways, in which God made Himself and His power known to us, 
 shewing Himself the Lord of that nature which men worship- 
 ped and worship, for the present conversion of a great people, 
 for the conviction of Israel, a hidden prophecy of the future 
 conversion of the heathen, and an example of repentance and 
 its fruits to the end of time. They have no difficulty except 
 to the rebelliousness of unbelief. 
 
 Other difficulties people have made for themselves. In a 
 plank-roofed booth such as ours, Jonah would not have need- 
 ed the shadow of a plant. Obviously then, Jonah's booth, 
 even if we knew not what it was, was not like our's. A Ger- 
 man critic has chosen to treat this as an absurdity. ""Al- 
 though Jonah makes himself a shady booth, he still further 
 needs the overshadowing kikaion." Jonah however, being an 
 Israelite, made booths, such as Israel made them. Now we 
 happen to know that the Jewish succah, or booth, being formed 
 of the interlaced branches of trees, did not exclude the sun. 
 We know this from the rules in the Talmud as to the con- 
 struction of the Succah or "tabernacle" for the feast of Ta- 
 bernacles. It lays down", " A Succah whose height is not ten 
 palms, and which has not three sides, and which has more sun 
 than shade [i.e. more of whose floor is penetrated by light 
 through the top of the Succah, than is left in shade], is pro- 
 fane." And again ", " Whoso spreadeth a linen cloth over the 
 Succah, to protect him from the sun, it is profane." "''Whoso 
 raiseth above it the vine or gourd or ivy, and so covers it, 
 it is profane ; but if the roof be larger than they, or if one cut 
 them,they are lawful." "' With bundles of straw,and bundles 
 of wood, and bundles of faggots, they do not cover it ; and all 
 these, if undone, are lawful." " == They cover it with planks 
 according to R. Joutah ; and R. Meir forbids ; whoso putteth 
 upon it one plank of four palms' breadth it is lawful, only he 
 must not sleep under it." Yet all held" that a plank thus 
 broad was to overlap the booth, in which case it would not 
 cover it. The principle of all these rules is, that the rude hut, 
 
 " Rumph. lb. p. 94. i" Sir W. Hooker kindly pointed this out to nie, referring to a 
 description and picture of the caterpillar, or silk-worm, the Phalsena Cynthia or the Ar- 
 rindy silk-worm, in the Linn. Trans. T. iii. p. 42. He also kindly pointed out to me the 
 drawing of the Ricinus in the Flora Grseca, T. ix. Tab. 952, given on a reduced scale on 
 the opposite page, as the best representation of the Palma Christi. i nySm^, as 
 
 we say," the worm " which preys on the dead body, Is. xiv. 11 (and thence the uiorm which 
 
 in which they dwelt during the feast of Tabernacles, was to be 
 a shade, syni Ixjlising G(»d's overshadowing them in tlu; wilder- 
 ness; the Suc(;ah itself, not iuiy thing adscititious, was to be 
 tJH^ir shade; yet it was hut an imperfet^t prr>tection, and was 
 indeed intended so to be, in order to symbolise their pilirrim- 
 state. Hence the contrivances among those who wished to be 
 at ease, to protect themselves; and hence the inconvenience 
 which God turned into an instruction to Jonah. Even "the 
 Arabs," F^ayard tells us'' in a Nineveh summer, "struck their 
 black tents and lived in sheds, constructed of reeds and grass 
 along the banks of the river." "The heats of summer made it 
 impossible to live in a white tent." Layard's resource of a 
 " recess, cut into the bank of the river where it rose perpen- 
 dicularly from the water's edge, screening the front with reeds 
 and boughs of trees, and covering the wliole with similar 
 materials," corresponds with the hut of Jonah, covered by 
 the Kikaion. 
 
 No heathen scoffer, as far as we know, when he became ac- 
 quainted with the history of Jonah, likened it to any heathen 
 fable. This was reserved for so-called Christians. Some hea- 
 then mocked at it, as the philosophers of Mars'-hill mocked at 
 the resurrection of Christ''. "Thissort(jf question" [about Jo- 
 nah], said a heathen, who professed to be an enquirer, " 1 have 
 observed to be met with broad mockery by the pagans'*." They 
 mocked, but they did not insult the history by likening it to any 
 fable of their own. S. Jerome, who mentions incidentally that 
 "''Joppa is the place in which, to this day, rocks are pointed 
 out in the shore, where Andromeda, being bound, was once on 
 a time freed by the help of Perseus," doejs not seem aware that 
 the fable could be brought into any connection with the history 
 of Jonah. He urges on the heathen the inconsistency of be- 
 lieving their own fables, which besides their marvellousness 
 were often immoral, and refusing to believe the miracles of 
 Scripture histories ; but the fable of Andromeda or of Hesione 
 do not even occur to him in this respect. ""^I am not ignorant 
 that to some it will seem incredible that a man could be preserv- 
 ed alive 3 days and nights in the fish's belly. These must be 
 either believers or unblievers. If believers, they must needs 
 believe much greater things, how the three youths, cast into the 
 burningficryfurnace,wereinsuchsortunharmed,thatnot even 
 the smell of fire touched their dress ; how the sea retired, and 
 stood on either side rigid like walls, to make away for the peo- 
 ple passing over ; how the rage of lions, aggravated by hunger, 
 looked, awestricken, on its prey, and touched it not, and many 
 like things. Or if they be unbelievers, let them read the 15 
 books of Ovid's metamorphoses, and all Greek and Latin story, 
 and there they will see — where the foulness of the fables pre- 
 cludes the holiness of a divine origin. These things they believe, 
 and that to God all things are possible. Believing foul things, 
 and defending them by alleging the unlimited power of God, 
 they do not admit the same power as to things moral." In 
 Alexandria and in the time of S. Cyril, the old heathen fables 
 were tricked up again. He alludesthen to Lycophron's version 
 of the story of Hercules s, in order, like S. Jerome, to point 
 out the inconsistency of believing heathen fables and reject- 
 ing Divine truth. "We," he says, " do not use their fables to 
 confirm things Divine, but we mention them to a good end, in 
 answer to unbelievers, that their received histories too do not 
 reject such relations." The philosphers wished at once to 
 
 diethnot. lb. Ixvi. 24). "W ny'jin, the cochineal grub," kermez. ' Deut. xxviii. 39. 
 
 » T|ni Jon. iv. 7. ' lb. 8. " Hitzig, Kl. Proph. p. 160. • Massecheth Succa, 
 i. 1. Dachs Succa, p. 1. " lb. § 3. p. 30. « § 4. p. 29. r § 5. p. 4y. 
 
 •■ § 6. p. 51. » Yom tob and Rashi on Gem. Succah, f. 14. 2. ^ Ninev. i. 123. 
 
 = Acts xvii. 32. ■> in S. Aug. Ep. 102. See ab. p. 259. « on Jon. i. 3. 
 
 ' on Jon. ii. 2. b on Jon. ii. beg. T. iii. p. 3"6. 
 
 Tt
 
 262 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 defend their own fables and to attack the Gospel, Yet it was 
 an unhappy argumentuni ad hominem. Modern infidelity 
 would find a likeness, where there is no shadow of it. The 
 two heathen fables had this in common ; that, in order to avert 
 the anger of the j<ods, a vire:in was exposed to be devoured by 
 a sea-monster, and delivered from death hy a hero, who slew 
 the monster and married the princess whom he delivered. 
 This, as given by S.Cyril, was a form of the fable, long sub- 
 sequent to Jonah. The original simple form of the story was 
 this, '""Apollo and Poseidon, wishing to make trial of the inso- 
 lence of Laomedon, appearing in the likeness of men, pronnsed 
 for a consideration to fortify Pergamus. When they had for- 
 tified it, he did not pay them their hire. Wherefore Apollo 
 sent a pestilence, and Poseidon a sea-monster, cast on shore 
 by the ilood-tide, who made havock of the men that were in 
 the plain. The oracle said that tiiey should be freed from 
 these misfortunes, if Laomedon would set his daughter He- 
 sione as food for the monster; he did r-o set her, binding her to 
 the rocks near to the plain; Hercules, seeing her thus expos- 
 ed, promised to save her, if he might have from Laomedon the 
 horses, which Zeus had given in compensation for the rape of 
 Ganymede. Laomedon saying that he would give them, he 
 slew the monster and set Hesione free." 
 
 This simple story is repeated, with unimportant variations, 
 by Diodorus Siculus', Hyginus i', Ovid', Valerius Flaccus™. 
 Even later, the younger Philostratus,depicting the story,has no 
 other facts". An old icon represents the conflict in a way in- 
 consistent with the later form of the story ". 
 
 The story of Andromeda is told by Apollodorus p, in part in 
 the very same words. The Nereids were angered by Cassiope 
 the mother of Andromeda, for boasting herself more beautiful 
 than they. Then follows the same history, Poseidon sending 
 a flood-tide and a sea-monster ; the same advice of the oracle ; 
 the setting Andromeda in chains, as food for the sea-monster ; 
 Perseus' arrival, bargain with the father, the killing of the sea- 
 monster, the deliverance of Andromeda. Fable as all this is, 
 it does not seem to have been meant to be fable. Pliny relates, 
 "iM. Scaurus, when /Edile, exhibited at Rome, among other 
 marvels, the bones of the monster to which Andromeda was 
 said to have been exposed, which bones were brought from 
 Joppa, a city of Judaea, being 40 feet long, in height greater 
 than the ribs of the Indian elephant, and the vertebrae a foot 
 and a half thick." He describes Joppa as "seated on a hill, 
 with a projecting rock, in which they shew the traces of the 
 chains of Andromeda^" Josephus says the same^ Pau- 
 sanias relates, '"the country of the Hebrewsnear Joppa sup- 
 plies water blood-red, very near the sea. The natives tell, that 
 Perseus, when he had slain the monster to which the daughter 
 of Cepheus was exposed, washed ofi^ the blood there." Mela, 
 following perhaps his Greek authority", speaks in the present^, 
 "an illustrious trace of the preservation of Andromeda by 
 Perseus, they shew vast bones of a sea-monster." 
 
 But, whether the authors of thesefables meant them for mat- 
 ters of fact, or whether the fables had any symbolical mean- 
 ing, they have not, in any form which they received until long 
 after the time of Jonah,any connection with the book of Jonah. 
 
 I" Apollodorus, iii. 4.1. Mv. 42. k Fab. 89. i Metam. iv. 202-15. 
 
 " Argon, ii. 451 — 546. " Imag. 12. ° in Chosil. and in Beyer, Spicil. 
 
 Antiq. p. 154. It represents Hercules laurel-crowned and bene comatus. Fabric, ad 
 Sext. Empiric. p. 270. P ii. 43. iN.H.ix.S. ' lb. v. 13. ' B. J. 
 
 iii.9. 3. ' iv. 35. " So Voss conjectures. 'i. 11. " Euripides (in 
 
 Plutarch de and. poet.) speaks of the animal as " rushing from the Atlantic sea.' (Fragm. 
 Androm.T. ix. p. 45. ed. Matth.). Tacitus, in giving the heathen notions of the origin 
 of the Jews, says, '*mo5i think that they are offspring of Ethiopians, whom, when Cepheus 
 was king (of jtthiopia) fear and hatred compelled to change their abode." (Hist. v. 2.) 
 Ovid stiU placed the scene in iEthiopia, (Met. iv.668.) and ascribed the Oracle to Amnion. 
 (670.) ' i. 2. 35. ed. Kr. y v. 13. » v. 19. • Lucian, de dea Syra, attests 
 
 The history of Andromeda has in common with the hook of 
 Jonah, this only, that, whereas Apollodorus and the ancients* 
 placed the scene of her history in ^Ethiopia, writers who lived 
 some centuries after the time of Jonah removed it to Joppa, 
 the seaport when<;e Jonah took ship. "There are some," says 
 Strabo", speaking of his own day, "who transfer yT'itbiopia to 
 our Phoenicia, and say that the matters of Andromeda took 
 place at Joppa; and this, not out of ignorance of places, but ra- 
 ther in the form of a myth." The transfer, doubtless, took 
 place in the 800 years which elapsed between Jonah and Strabo, 
 and was occasioned perhaps by the peculiar idolatry of the 
 coast, the worship of Atargatis or Derceto. Pliny, at least, 
 immediately after that statement about the chains of Andro- 
 meda at Joppa, subjoins, "^The fabulous Ceto is worshipped 
 there." Ceto is doubtless the same as "Derceto," of which 
 Pliny uses the same epithet a little afterwards^. "There," at 
 Hierapolis," is worshipped the prodigious Atargatis, which the 
 Greeks call Derceto." The Greeks appear (as their way was), 
 on occasion of this worship of Ceto, to have transferred here 
 their own story of Andromeda and the Cetos. 
 
 Ceto, i. e. Derceto, and Dagon were the corresponding male 
 and female deities, under whose names the Philistines worship- 
 ped the power which God hasimplanted in nature to reproduce 
 itself. Both were fish-forms, with human hands and face. 
 Derceto or Atargatis was the Syriac Ter'to, whose worship at 
 Hierapolis or Mabug had a far-known infamy, the same alto- 
 gether as that of Rhea or Cybele ^ The maritime situation 
 of Philistia probably led them to adopt the fish as the symbol 
 of prolific reproduction. In Holy Scripture we find chiefly the 
 worship of the male god Dagon, lit. "great fish." He had 
 temples at Gaza ", and Ashdod % whither all the lords of the 
 Philistines assembled. Five other places are named from his 
 worship, four near the sea coast, and one close to Joppa itself"". 
 But in later times the name of the goddess became more pro- 
 minent, and, among the Greeks, exclusive. Atargatis or Der- 
 ceto had, in the time of the Maccabees, a celebrated temple at 
 Carnion '^, i. e. Ashteroth Carnaim in Gilead, and, according to 
 Pliny, at Joppa itself. This furnished an easy occasion to the 
 Greeks to transfer thithertheir story of the Cetos. The Greeks 
 had peopled Joppaf,before Simon retookitfrom Antiochus. In 
 Jonah's time,it was Phoenician. Itwasnotcolonised by Greeks 
 until 5 centuries later. Since then Andromeda is a Greek 
 story which they transferred to Joppa with themselves, the ex- 
 istence of the Greek story, at a later date, can be no evidence 
 for "a Phoenician legend," ofwhichtherationalistshavedream- 
 ed, nor can it have any connection with Jonah who lived half 
 a millennium before the Greeks came, eight hundred years be- 
 fore the story is mentioned in connection with Joppa. 
 
 With regard to the fables of Hercules, Diodorus Siculus 
 thought that there was a basis of truth in them. The story 
 of Hercules and Hesione, as alluded to by Homer and told by 
 Apollodorus, looks like an account of the sea breaking in upon 
 the land and wasting it ; a human sacrifice on the point of be- 
 ing off^ered, and prevented by the removal of the evil through 
 the building of a sea-wall. Gigantic works were commonly at- 
 tributed to superior agency, good or evil. In Homer, the men- 
 
 the celebrity of this dreadful worship ; among the Syrians S. James of Sarug attests its 
 prevalence in Haran(Ass. B. O. i. 328.) and Bardesanes, in Syria generally with its spe- 
 cial enormities, (in Cureton, Spicil. Syr. p. 32 Syr. p. 20 Gr.1 Diodorus Sic. [ii-4.] men- 
 tions the woman's face and fish-body of Derceto. '' Juag. xvi. 23. "^ 1 Sam. 
 V. 1. 1 Mace. X. 83, xi. 4. <i 1] Dethdagon (" temple of Dagon ") in the S. W. 
 of Judah (Josh. xv. 41.) and so, near Pnihstia; 2) Another, in Asher also near the sea ; 
 3) Caphar Dagon (" village of D.") *' a very large villagebetween Jamnia and Diospolis." 
 (Kuseb. Onom. sub v.) 4) Beit Dejan [Beth Dagon] about 6 miles N. W. of Ramlah 
 (Robinson, Bibl. R. ii. 232 ; see map) accordingly distinct from Caphar Dagon, and 4j 
 hours from Joppa ; 5) Another Beit Dejan, E. of Nablus. (lb. 282.) 
 
 e 2 Mace. xii. 26. ' 1 Mace. x. 75, xiv. 31.
 
 JONAH. 
 
 263 
 
 tion of the sea-wall is prominent. "^He led the way to the 
 lofty wall of mouiulcd earth of the divine Hercules, which the 
 Trojans and Minerva made for him, tiiat, eludinj; the sea-mon- 
 ster, he might escape, when lie rushed at him from the hcach 
 towards the plain." In any case a monster, wliicii came up 
 from tlie sea and wasted the land, is no fish ; nor has the story 
 of one who destroyed such a monster, any hearing on that of 
 one whose life God preserved by a fish. Nor is the likeness 
 really mended by the later version of the story, originating in 
 an Alexandrian ^, after the book of Jonah had been translated 
 into Greek at Alexandria. The writer of the Cassandra, who 
 lived at least five centuries after Jonah, represents Hercules as 
 "a lion, the offspring of three nights, which aforetime the jag- 
 ged-tootheddogof Triton lapped up in hisjaws; and he,a living 
 carver of his entrails, scorched by the steam of a cauldron on 
 the fireless hearths, shed the bristles of his head upon the 
 ground, the infanticide waster of my country." In that form 
 the story re-appears in a heathen philosopher' and an Alex- 
 andrian father ^, but, in both, as borrowed from the Alexan- 
 drian poet. Others, who were unacquainted with Lycophron, 
 heathen' and Christian™ alike,knew nothing of it. One Chris- 
 tian writer, at the end of the 5th century", a Platonic philo- 
 sopher, gives an account, distinct from any otlier, heathen or 
 Christian, probably confused from both. In speaking of mar- 
 vellous deliverances, he says ; " °As Hercules too is sung " [i. e. 
 in Greek poetry], "when his ship was broken, to have been 
 swallowed up by a ketos, and, having come within, was preserv- 
 ed." In the midstof the 1 1 th century after our Lord,some wri- 
 ters on Greek fable, in order to get rid of the very offensive 
 story of the conception of Hercules, interpreted the word of 
 Lycophron which alludes to it, of his employing, in the de- 
 struction of the monster, three periods of 24 hours, called 
 ''nights" from thedarkness in which he was enveloped. Truly, 
 full often have those wordsof God been fulfilled, that ^men shall 
 turn uivciy their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto 
 fables. Men, who refused to believe the history of Jonah, al- 
 though attested by our Lord, considered -^neas Gazseus, who 
 lived about 13 centuries after Jonah, to be an authentic witness 
 of an imaginary Phoenician traditioni, 13 centuries before his 
 own time; and that, simply on the ground that he has his name 
 from Gaza; whereas he expressly refers, not to Phoenician 
 tradition but to Greek poetry. 
 
 Such are the stories, which became a traditional argument 
 among unbelieving critics' tojustify their disbelief in miracles 
 accredited by our Lord. Flimsy spider-webs, which a critic 
 of the same school brushes away % as soon as he has found some 
 
 B II. XX. 144-8. i" " Lycophron the obscure," if it was his work, lived un- 
 
 der Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 2s3-2-i7. Niebuhr, following and justifying an old Sclio- 
 liast, (Kl.hist. Scbrift. i. 438-50) places the writer of the Cassandra not earlier than I'JO, 
 B.C . on the ground of allusions to Roman greatness (1226-82. 14+0-51 .) which he thinks 
 inconsistent in a friend of Ptolemy's. Welcker(die Griech.Trag. p. 1259-62) thinks both 
 passages interpolated. ' SextusEmpiricus, (about 3rd century) adv. Gramm. 
 
 1.12. p. 255. ^ S. Cyril Al. quoting Lycophron. Later Greek writers, as Isaac 
 
 Comnenus(A.D.1057,)add to Homer's fable, that Hercules leapt armed into the jaws of 
 the monster.and so cut him up (de praeterm.abHom. in AUat. ExctrptaVar.p. 274.), The 
 EmpressEudocia(A.D. 1067. &c.) adds the new and false interpretation oi-Tpiiairipo^ 
 (Violet, in VilIoison,Anecd.i. 31-4.), but also the old explanation (Ih. p. 211). These,as al- 
 so Theophylact(A.D. 1077,) and Sextus, shew by their relation their acquaintance with 
 Lycophron. ^ See p. 262. 1. A scholiast on Homer (II. xx. 245) having given the 
 
 story, adds " The history is in Hellanicus." But 1 ) had this history been in Heilanicus, 
 it would have been known to writers (as Apollodorus &c.) who used Hellanicus. 2)It is 
 only a general statement, tliat the history in the main was in Hellanicus, not extending 
 to details. 3) " Such statements as, ' thus relates Pherecydes,' ' The history is in Acusila- 
 us,' do not always exhibit the account of the writers whom he quotes, but he frequently 
 interweaves a history out of many authors, and inserts what he had read elsewhere." See 
 Sturz, Hellanici Fragni. n. xxvi. ed. Cant. Forbiger de Lycophr. 1827. p. 16. Porphyry 
 speaks of the " Barbarian customs of Hellanicus," as, " a mere compound of the works of 
 Herodotus and Damasus ; " in Eus. Priep. Ev. x. 3. ■" Not Theodorus or The- 
 
 odoret, or S. Jerome (fond as he is of such allusions), nor the early author of the Orat. 
 ad GrEBCos in S. Justin, although referrmg to the fables on Hercules. ■> jEneas 
 
 Gazaeus. See Gall. T. x. Proleg. c. 12. » Gall. x. 045. or p. 37. ed. Boiss. 
 
 P2Tim. iv.l. <i Friederichsen, Jonas, p. 311.2, &c. ' Bauer, Rosenmiiller, 
 
 other expedient, as flimsy, to serve his purpose ! The majes- 
 tic simplicity of Holy Scripture; and its moral greatness stand 
 out the more, in (;oiitrast with the unmeaning fables, with which 
 men have dared, amid much self-applause, to compare it. A 
 more earnest, but misled, mind, even while unhappilydisbeliev- 
 ing the miracle of Jonah, held the comparison, on ground of 
 " reason, ludicrous ; hut not the less frivolous and irreverent, 
 as applied to Holy Scripture'." 
 
 It was assumed by those who first wrote against the book of 
 Jonah, that the thanksgiving in it was later than Jonah, "a 
 cento from the Psalms." They objected that it did not allude 
 to the history of Jonah. One critic repeated after the other ", 
 that the Psalm was a " mere cento" of Psalms. However un- 
 true, nothing was less doubted. A later critic felt that the 
 Psalm must have been the thanksgiving of one delivered from 
 great peril of life in the sea. "The images," he says '•', " are 
 too definite, they relate too exclusively to such a situation, to 
 admit of being understood vaguely of any great peril to life, as 
 may Psalms 18 and 42, (which the writer may have had in his 
 mind) or Psalm 124." Another, to whom attention has been 
 recently drawn, maintained the early date of tiie thanksgiving, 
 and held that it contained so nmch of the first part of Jonah's 
 history, that that history might be founded on the thanksgiv- 
 ing". This was one step backward towards the truth. It is 
 admitted that the thanksgiving is genuine, is Jonah's, and re- 
 lates to a real deliverance of the real Prophet. But the thanks- 
 giving would not suggest the history". Jonah thanks God for 
 his deliverance from the depths of the sea, from which no man 
 could be delivered, except by miracle. He describes himself, 
 not as struggling with the waves, but as sunk beneath them to 
 the bottom of the sea, whence no other ever rose^. Jonah 
 doesnot tell God, how He had delivered him. Who does? He 
 rehearses to God the hopeless peril, out of which He had de- 
 livered him. On this the soul dwells ; for this is the ground 
 of its thankfulness. The delivered soul loves to describe to 
 God the death out of which it had been delivered. Jonah 
 thanks God for one miracle ; he gives no hint of the other, 
 which, when he uttered the thanksgiving, was not yet com- 
 pleted. The thanksgiving bears witness to a miracle; but 
 does not suggest its nature. The history supplies it. 
 
 It is instructive thatthewriterwho,disbelievingthe miracles 
 in the book of Jonah, "restores his history^" by effacing them, 
 has also to "restore the history''" of the Saviour of the world, 
 by omitting His testimony to them. But this is to subject 
 the revelation of God to the variations of the mind of His crea- 
 tures, believing what they like, disbelieving what they dislike. 
 
 Gesenius, DeWelte, Bertholdt, Gramberg (Religions-Id. ii. 510). Knobel.(Prophetismus, 
 ii. 372.) Goldhorn, Friederichsen, Forbiger, &c. ' "What has the myth of Per- 
 
 seus, rightly understood, and with no foreign ingredients, in common with the history 
 of Jonah, but the one circumstance, that a sea-creature is mentioned in each ? And how 
 difl'erent the meaning ! Neither the myth of Perseus and Andromeda, nor the fully 
 corresponding myth of Hercules and Hesione, can serve either to confirm the truth of 
 the miracles in the book of Jon.ih" [as though the truth needed support from a fable], 
 " nor to explain it as apopular heathen tradition, inasmuch as the analogy is too distant 
 and indefinite to explain the whole. Unsatisfactory as such parallels are as soon as we 
 look, not merely at incidental and secondary points, but at the central point to be compar- 
 ed," &c. Baur (in Illgen Zeitschr. 1S37 p. 101.) followed by Hitzig. Winer also rejects it. 
 ' "In classical philology we should simply add, ' to think this in earnest were ludicrous;' 
 ' but not the less frivolous and irreverent,' we may well add in the criticism of Scripture." 
 Bunsen, Gottin d. Gesch. 1.354. Eichhorn would not decide which was taken from the 
 other. Einl. 577. ed. 1. ° Eichhorn, De Wette, Rosenmuller, Bertholdt, Hitzig, 
 
 Maurer, S.c. (Eichhorn admits the beautv of the Psalms emplo\ed.) » Ewald 
 
 Poet. Buch. d. A. Test. i. 122. " Bunsen, lb. i.35y sqq. _ » The 
 
 heathen ode in praise of the god of the waters which appears in jElian (Hist. Anim. 
 xii.45) about 220, A.D.(Fabr. Bibl.Gr. iv. 21. 1.) contains the whole fable about Arion 
 (B.C. 025, or 615,) being thrown overboard treacherously and borne to shore on the backs 
 of dolphins. The ode then did not suggest the fable (as Bunsen makes it) ; for it con- 
 tains it. Tlie Dolphin, playing as it does about vessels, was a Greek symhol of the sea; 
 and the human figure upon it a votive offering for a safe arrival. Welcker gives 6 fables 
 of persons, dead or alive, brought ashore by Dolphins. (Welcker. Kl. Scbriit. i. 90, 1 .) The 
 symbol was turned by the fertile Greek into the myth. r Bunsen, in his Epitome of the 
 thanksgiving, omitted the characteristic part of it, p. 36-4. •■ Bunsen, ib. 372. " lb. 379. 
 
 T t 2
 
 264 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 Our Lord Himself attested that this miracle on Jonah was 
 an iniag:e of His own entombment and Resurrcetion. He has 
 (compared the preaehinj,'- of Jonah with His own. He com- 
 pares it as a real history, as He does the cominfj: of the Queen 
 of Sheba to hear tlie w'isdom of Solomon. Modern writers 
 have lost sight of the principle, that men, as individuals, amid 
 their infirmities and sins, are but types of man ; in their his- 
 tory alone, their office, their sufferings, can they be images of 
 their Redeemer. God pourtrayed doctrines of the Gospel in 
 the ritual of the law. Of the offices of Christ and, at times, His 
 history. He gave some faint outline in offices which He institut- 
 ed, or persons whose history He guided. But they are types 
 only,in thatwhich is of God. Even that which was good in any 
 was no type of His goodness; nay, the more what is human 
 is recorded of them, the less they are types of Him. Abraham 
 who acted much, is a type, not of Christ, but of the faithful. 
 Isaac, of whom little is recorded, except his sacrifice, becomes 
 the type of Christ. Melchisedek, who comes forth once in 
 that great loneliness, a King of Righteousness and of peace, a 
 Priest of God, refreshing the father of the faithful with the 
 sacrificial bread and wine, is a type, the more, of Christ's ever- 
 lasting priesthood, in that he stands alone, without father, 
 without known descent, without known beginning or end, ma- 
 jestic in his one office, and then disappearing from our sight. 
 Joseph was a typeof our Lord, not in his chastityorhispersonal 
 virtues but in iiis history ; in that he was rejected by his bre- 
 thren, sold at the priceof a slave, yet, with kingly authority,re- 
 ceived, supported, pardoned, gladdened, feasted, his brethren 
 who had sold him. Even so the history of Jonah had two as- 
 pects. It is, at once, the history of his mission and of his own 
 personal conduct in it. These are quite distinct. The one is 
 the history of God's doings in him and through him ; the other 
 is the account of his own soul, its rebellions, struggles, convic- 
 tion. As a man, he is himself the penitent ; as a Prophet, he 
 is the preacher of repentance. In what was human infirmity 
 in him, he was a picture of his people, whose cause he espous- 
 ed with too narrow a zeal. Zealous too for the honour of God, 
 although not with God"s all-enfolding love, willing that that 
 honour should be vindicated in his own way, u nwilli ng tojje 
 God's instrument on God's terms, yet silenced and subdued at 
 last, he was the image and lesson to those who murmured at 
 S.Peter's mission to Cornelius, and who, only when they heard 
 how God the Holy Ghost had come down upon Cornelius' 
 household, held t/teir peace a»id gluri/ied God, saying, then hath 
 God to the Gentiles also granted repentance unto life ^. What 
 coinciding visions to Cornelius and S. Peter, what evident 
 miracles of power and of grace, were needed after the Resur- 
 rection to convince the Jewish converts of that same truth, 
 which God made known to and through Jonah ! The conver- 
 
 >> Acts xi. 18. 
 
 sion of the Gentiles and the saving of a remnant only of the 
 Jews are so bound together in the prophets, that it may be 
 that the repugnance of the Jewish converts was founded on an 
 instinctive dread of the same sort which so moved Jonah. 
 It was a superhuman love, through which S. Paul contemplat- 
 ed their fall as the riches of the Geiitiles'^. 
 
 On the other hand, that, in which Jonah was an image of 
 our Lord, was very simple and distinct. It was where Jonah 
 was passive, where nothing of his own was mingled. The 
 storm, the casting over of Jonah, were the works of God's 
 Providence; his preservation through the fish was a miracle 
 of God's power ; the conversion of the Ninevites was a mani- 
 fold miracle of His grace. It might have pleased God to send 
 to convert a heathen people one whoni He had not so deliver- 
 ed ; or to have subdued the will of the Prophet whom He sent 
 on some other mission. But now sign answers to sign, and 
 mission shadows out mission. Jonah was first delivered from 
 his three days' burial in that living tomb by a sort of resur- 
 rection, and then, whereas he had previously been a Prophet 
 to Israel, he thenceforth became a Prophet to the heathen, 
 whom, and not Israel, he converted, and, in their conversion, 
 his, as it were, resurrection was operative. The correspon- 
 dence is there. We may lawfully dwell on subordinate details, 
 how man was tempest-tost and buffeted by the angry waves 
 of this perilous and bitter world; Christ, as one of us, gave 
 His life for our lives, the storm at once was hushed, there is a J 
 deep calm of inward peace, and our haven was secured. But 1 
 the great outstanding facts, which our Lord Himself has point- 
 ed out, are, that he who had heretofore been the Prophet of 
 Israel only, was, after a three days' burial, restored through 
 miracle to life, and then the heathen were converted. Our i 
 Lord has set His seal upon the facts. They were to Israel a " 
 sacred enigma, a hidden prophecy, waiting for their explana- 
 tion. They were a warning, how those on whom God then 
 seemed not to have pity, might become the object of His pity, 
 while they themselves were cast out. Now the marvellous 
 correspondence is, even on the surface, a witness to the mira- 
 cle. Centuries before our Lord came, there was the history 
 of life preserved by miracle in death and out of death ; and 
 thereupon the history of heathen converted to God and ac- 
 cepted by Him. Is this, even a doubting mind might ask, 
 accidental coincidence? or are it and the other like resem- 
 blances, the tracing of the finger of God, from Whom is all har- 
 mony. Who blends in one all the gradations of His creation, 
 all the lineaments of history. His natural and His moral world, 
 the shadow of the law with the realities of the Gospel ? How 
 should such harmony exist, but for that harmonising Hand, 
 Who "binds and blends in one" the morning and evening of 
 His creation ? 
 
 « Rom. xi. 12.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 265 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1 Jonah, sent to Nineveh, jieeth to Tar ahish. A He 
 is heivrayed hy a tempest, 1 1 throivn into the 
 sea, }"/ and swallowed by ajish. 
 
 Chap. I. ver. 1. Nmv the ivord of the Lord, lit. And, 8fc. This 
 is the way in which the several inspired writers of the Old 
 Testament mark that what it was given tlicm to write, 
 was united on to those sacred books which God had given to 
 others to write, and formed with them one continuous whole. 
 The word, And, implies tiiis. It would do so in any language, 
 and it does so in Hebrew as much as in any other. As neither 
 we, nor any other people, would, without any meaning, use the 
 word. And, so neither did the Hebrews. It joins the four first 
 books of Moses together; it carries on the history through 
 Joshua, Judges, the books of Samuel and of the Kings. After 
 the captivity, Ezra and Nehemiah begin again where the his- 
 tories before left off; the break of the captivity is bridged over; 
 and Ezra, going back in mind to the history of God's people 
 before the captivity, resumes the history, as if it had been of 
 yesterday,^//f/ in the first year of Cyrus. It joins in the story 
 of the book of Ruth before the captivity, and that of Esther 
 afterwards. At times, even prophets employ it, in using the 
 narrative form of themselves, as Ezekiel, And it was iti the 
 thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, 
 and I luas in the captivity hy the river of Chebar, the heavens 
 opened and I satv. If a prophet or historian wishes to detach 
 his prophecy or his history, he does so; as Ezra probably began 
 the book of Chronicles anew from Adam, or as Daniel makes 
 his prophecy a whole by itself. But then it is the more ob- 
 vious that a Hebrew prophet or historian, when he does begin 
 with the word. And, has an object in so beginning; he nses 
 an universal word of all languages in its uniform meaning in 
 all language, to join things together. 
 
 And yet more precisely; this form. And the word of the Lord 
 ameto — sayi7jg,occ\\v& over andover again, stringingtogether 
 the pearls of great price of God's revelations, and uniting this 
 new revelation to all those which had preceded it. The word. 
 And, then joins on histories with histories, revelations with 
 revelations, uniting in one the histories of God's works and 
 words, and blending the books of Holy Scripture into one Di- 
 vine book. 
 
 But the form of words must have suggested to the Jews 
 another thought, which is part of our thankfulness and of our 
 being, ^then to the Gentiles also hath God given repentance unto 
 life. The words are the self-same familiar words with which 
 some fresh revelation of God's Will to His people had so often 
 been announced. Now they are prefixed to God's message to 
 the heathen, and so as to join on that message to all the other 
 messages to Israel. Would then God deal thenceforth with the 
 heathen as with the Jews ? Would they have their prophets ? 
 Would they be included in the one family of God ? The 
 mission of Jonah in itself was an earnest that they would; for 
 God, Who does nothing fitfully or capriciously, in that He had 
 begun, gave an earnest that He would carry on what He had 
 begun. And so thereafter, the great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremi- 
 ah, Ezekiel, were prophets to the nations also; Daniel was a 
 prophet among them, to them as well as to their captives. 
 But the mission of Jonah might, so far, have been something 
 exceptional. The enrolling his book, as an integral part of 
 the Scriptures, joining on that prophecy to the other prophe- 
 
 1 Acts xi. 18. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 TOW the word of the Lord came chrTst 
 unto " II Jonah the son of Amittai "'■''■ "''"■ 
 
 sayinjr, 
 
 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that "^ great city ^^1^' 
 
 b Gen. 10. 11,12. ch. 3.2,3. & 4. 11 
 
 "2Ki]iKsl.l.25. 
 ■ Called, 
 Matt. 12. 39, 
 
 cies to Israel, was an earnest that tlicy were to be parts of 
 one system. But then it would Itc significant also, that the 
 records of God's proi)lic(-ics to the Jews, all embodied the ac- 
 counts of their impenitence. Here is inserted among them an 
 account of God's revelation to the heathen, and their repent- 
 ance. "^So many propiiets had been sent, so many miracles 
 wrought, so often had captivity Iiccn forcannounced to them 
 for the multitude of their sins, and they never repented. Not 
 for the reign of one king did they cease from the worship of 
 the calves ; not one of the kings of the ten tribes departed 
 from the sins of Jeroboam? Elijah, sent in the Word and Spirit 
 of the Lord, had done many miracles, yet obtained no aban- 
 donment of the calves. His miracles effected this only, that 
 the people knew that Baal was no god, and cried out, the 
 Lord He is the God. Elislia his disciple followed him, who 
 asked for a double portion of the Spirit of Elijah, that he 
 might work more miracles, to bringback the people. — He died, 
 and, after his death as before it, the worship of the calves con- 
 tinued in Israel. The Lord marvelled, and was weary of Is- 
 rael, knowing that if He sent to the heathen they would hear, 
 as He saith to Ezekiel. To make trial of this, Jonah was cho- 
 sen, of whom it is recorded in the hook of Kings that he pro- 
 phesied the restoration of the border of Israel. When then he 
 begins by saying, And the tvord of the Lord came to Jonah, pre- 
 fixing the word And, he refers us back to those former things, 
 in this meaning. The children have not hearkened to what 
 the Lord commanded, sending to them by His servants the 
 prophets, but have hardened their necks and given themselves 
 up to do evil before the Lord and provoke Him to anger ; and 
 therefore the wordofthe Lord came to Jonah, saying. Arise and 
 go to Nineveh that great city, and preach unto her, that so 
 Israel may be shewn, in comparison with the heathen, to be 
 the more guilty, when the Ninevites should repent, the child- 
 ren of Israel persevered in unrepcntance." 
 
 Jonah the son of Amittai. Both names occur here only 
 in the Old Testament, Jonah signifies " Dove," Amittai, " the 
 truth of God." Some of the names of the Hebrew Prophets so 
 suit in with their times, that they must either have been given 
 them prophetically, or assumed by themselves, as a sort of 
 watchword, analogous to the prophetic names, given to the 
 sons of Hosea and Isaiah. Such were the names of Elijah 
 and Elisha, " The Lord is my God," " my God is salvation." 
 Such too seems tobethatof Jonah. The "dove" is everywhere 
 the symbol of "mourning love." The side of his character 
 which Jonah records is that of his defect, his want of trust 
 in God, and so his unloving zeal against those, who were to 
 be the instruments of God against his people. His name per- 
 haps preserves that character by which he willed to be known 
 among his people, one who moaned or mourned over them. 
 
 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. The Assyrian 
 history, as far as it has j'et been discovered, is very bare of 
 events in regard to this period. We have as yet the names 
 of three kings only for 150 years. But Assyria, as far as we 
 know its history, was in its meridian. Just before the time of 
 Jonah, perhaps ending in it, were the victorious reigns of 
 Shalmanubar and Shamasiva ; after him was that of Ivalush 
 
 2 Rup.
 
 266 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 chrTst ^^^ ^^y against it; for ■= their wickedness 
 cir.780. jg come up before me. 
 
 " Gen. 18. 20, 21. Ezra 9. 6. Jam. 6. 4. Rev. 18. 5. 
 
 I 
 
 or Pul, the first aggressor upon Israel. It is clear that this 
 was a time of Assyrian greatness : since God calls it that great 
 city, not in relation to its extent only, but its power. A large 
 weak citv would not have been called a ^rea< city unto God^. 
 
 And cry against it. The substance of that cry is recorded 
 afterwards, but God told to Jonah now, what message he was 
 to crv aloud to it. For Jonah relates afterwards, how he 
 exposulated now with God, and that his expostulation was 
 founded on this, that God was so merciful that He would not 
 fulfil the judgment which He threatened. Faith was strong 
 in Jonah, while, like Apostles '■ the sons of thunder," before 
 the Day of Pentecost, he knew not " what spirit he was of." 
 Zeal for the people and, as he doubtless thought, for the glo- 
 ry of God, narrowed love in him. He did not, like Moses, 
 pray^, or else blot me also out of Thy book, or like St. Paul, de- 
 sire even to be an anathema from Christ^ for his people's sake, 
 so that there might be more to love his Lord. His zeal was di- 
 rected, like that of the rebuked Apostles, against others,and so 
 it too was rebuked. But his faith was strong. He shrank 
 back from the office, as believing, not as doubting, the might of 
 God. He thought nothing of preaching, amid that multitude 
 of wild warriors, the stern message of God. He was willing, 
 alone, to confront the violence of a city of 600, 000, whose cha- 
 racteristic was violence. He was ready, at God's bidding, to 
 enter what Nahum speaks of as a den of lions ; *The dwelling 
 of the lions and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the 
 lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for 
 his lionesses. He feared not the fierceness of their lion-nature, 
 but God's tenderness, and lest that tenderness should be the 
 destruction of his own people. 
 
 Their wickedness is come up before Me. So God said to 
 Cain, ^ The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the 
 ground : and of Sodom ", The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is 
 great, because their sin is very grievous ; the cry of it is come 
 up unto Me. The wickedness is not the mere mass of human 
 sin, of which it is said^, the ivhole tvorld lieth in wickedness, but 
 evil-doing * towards others. This was the cause of the final 
 sentence on Nineveh, with which Nahum closes his prophecy, 
 upon whom hath not thy w'ickedness passed continually ? It 
 had been assigned as the ground of the judgment on Israel 
 through Nineveh. '^ So shall Bethel do untoyou, on accoimt of 
 the u'ickedness of your wickedness. Itwas the ground of the de- 
 struction by the flood. ^^ God saw that the wickedness of man 
 was great upon the earth. God represents Himself, the Great 
 Judge, as sitting on His Throne in heaven. Unseen but AU- 
 seeing, to Whom the wickedness and oppressiveness of man 
 against man goes up, appealing for His sentence against the 
 oppressor. The cause seems ofttimes long in pleading. God 
 is long-suffering with the oppressor too, that if so be, he may 
 repent. So would a greater good come to the oppressed also, 
 if the wolf became a lamb. But meanwhile, "^^ every iniqui- 
 ty has its own voice at the hidden judgment seat of God." 
 Mercy itself calls for vengeance on the unmerciful. 
 
 3. But [And] Jonah rose up to flee — from the presence of 
 the Lord; Yit.from being before the Lord ^^. Jonah knew well, 
 that man could not escape from the Presence of God, Whom 
 he knew as the Self-existing, He Who alone IS, the Maker of 
 
 2 Ex. xxxii. 32. 3 Rom. ix. 3. * Nah. ii. 11, 12. 
 
 * xyiii. 20, 21. _ ? 1 S. John v. 19. « nTi is almost always 
 
 3 But ^ Jonah rose up to flee unto Tar- 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 shish from the presence of the Lord, and "^- 7^- 
 
 ■l ch.4. 2. 
 
 Jon.iii. 3. 
 s Gen. iv. 10. 
 
 evil, sufiered or inflicted. 
 
 9 Hos. X. 14, 15. 
 
 '" Gen. vi. 5. 
 
 heaven, earth and sea. He did not^ee then from His presence, 
 knowing well what David said, ^'^ whit her shall J go from Thy 
 Spirit? or luhithcr shall I flee from Thy presence? Jf I take the 
 wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 
 sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand 
 shall hold me. Jonah fled, not from God's Presence, but from 
 standing before him, as His servant and minister. He refus- I 
 ed God's service, because, as he himself tells God afterwards ", 
 he knew what it would end in, and he misliked it. So he 
 acted, as men often do, who mislike God's commands. He 
 set about removing himself as far as possible from being under 
 the influence of God, and from the place where he could ful- 
 fil them. God bid him go to Nineveh, which lay North-East j 
 from his home ; and he instantly set himself to flee to the then | 
 furthermost West. Holy Scripture sets the rebellion before us 
 in its full nakedness. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah, 
 go to Nineveh, and Jonah rose up ; he did something instant- 
 ly, as the consequence of God's command. He rose up, not 
 as other prophets, to obey, but to disobey ; and that, not slowly 
 nor irresolutely, but to flee, from standing before the Lord. 
 He renounced his office. So when our Lord came in the Flesh, 
 those who found what He said to be hard sayings, went away 
 from Him, and lualked no more with Him ^^. So the rich young 
 man luent away sorrowful, ^^ for he had great possessions. They 
 were perhaps afraid of trusting themselves in His Presence ; 
 or they were ashamed of staying there, and not doing what He 
 said. So men, when God secretly calls them to prayer, go and 
 immerse themselves in business ; when, in solitude, He says to 
 their souls something which they like not, they escape His 
 Voice in a throng. If He calls them to make sacrifices for 
 His poor, they order themselves a new dress or some fresh 
 sumptuousness or self-indulgence ; if to celibacy, they engage 
 themselves to marry forthwith ; or, contrariwise, if He calls 
 them not to do a thing, they do it at once, to make an end 
 of their struggle and their obedience ; to put obedience out of / 
 their power ; to enter themselves on a course of disobedience. 
 Jonah, then, in this part of his history, is the image of those 
 who, when God calls them, disobey His call, and how He deals 
 with them, when He does not abandon them. He lets them 
 have their way for a time, encompasses them with difficulties, 
 so that they shall "^'' flee back from God displeased to God 
 appeased." 
 
 " i^The whole wisdom, the whole bliss, the whole of man lies 
 in this, to learn what God wills him to do, in what state of 
 life, calling, duties, profession, employment. He wills him to 
 serve Him." God sent each one of us into the world, to fulfil 
 his own definite duties, and, through His grace, to attain to 
 our own perfection in and through fulfilling them. He did 
 not create us at random, to pass through the world, doingwhat- 
 ever self-will or our own pleasure leads us to, but to fulfil His 
 Will. This Will of His, if we obey His earlier calls, and seek 
 Him by prayer, in obedience, self-subdual, humility, thought- 
 fulness, He makes known to each by His own secret draw- 
 ings, and, in absence of these, at times by His Providence or 
 human means. And then, ""to follow Him is a token of pre- 
 destination." It is to place ourselves in that order of things,! 
 that pathway to our eternal mansion, for which God created ) 
 
 " S. Greg. Mor. v. 20. '^ Not " *aD but 'JsSd; see Introd. p. 247. 
 
 '3 Ps. cxxxix. 7, 9, 10. " iv. 2. '* S. John vi. 68. '^ S. Matt. xix. 22. 
 
 '7 S. Aug. in Ps.lxx. " from Lap, " Bourdaloue.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 2G7 
 
 c H^R^sT ^^^"t down to * Joppa ; and he found a ship 
 
 cir. 780. e Josh. 19. 46. 2Chr. 2. 16. Acts 9. 36. 
 
 US, and which God created for us. So Jesus says ^, My sheep 
 hear My voice and I knoru them, and they follow Me, and I 
 give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither 
 shall any mau pliic/c them out of My Hand. In these ways, 
 God has foreordained for us all the gjraces which we need ; 
 in these, we shall l)o free from all temptations which niifjht be 
 too hard for us, in which our own special weakness would be 
 most exposed. Those ways, which men choose out of mere 
 natural taste or fancy, are mostly those which expose them to 
 the jjreatest peril of sin and damnation. For they choose them, 
 just because such pursuits flatter most their own inclinations, 
 and give scope to their natural strength and their moral weak- 
 ness. So Jonah, misliking a duty, which God gave him to 
 fulfil, separated himself from His service, forfeited his past 
 calling, lost, as ftir as in him lay, his place among " the good- 
 ly fellowship of the prophets," and, but for God's overtaking 
 grace, would have ended his days among the disobedient. As 
 in Holy Scripture, David stands alone of saints, who had been 
 after their calling, bloodstained ; as the penitent Robber stands 
 alone converted in death; as S. Peter stands singly, recalled 
 after denying his Lord ; so Jonah stands, the one Prophet, 
 who, having obeyed and then rebelled, was constrained by the 
 overpowering Providence and love of God, to return and serve 
 Him, 
 
 "'^ Being a Prophet, Jonah could not be ignorant of the 
 mind of God, that, according to His great Wisdom and His 
 unsearchable judgments and His untraceable and incompre- 
 hensible ways. He, through the threat, was providing for the 
 Ninevites that they should not suffer the things threatened. 
 To think that Jonah hoped to hide himself in the sea and 
 elude by flight the great Eye of God, were altogether absurd 
 and ignorant, which should not be believed, I say not of a pro- 
 phet, but of no other sensible person who had any moderate 
 knowledge of God and His supreme power. Jonah knew all 
 this better than any one, that, planning his flight, he changed 
 his place, but did not flee God. For this could no man do, ei- 
 ther by hiding himself in the bosom of the earth or depths of the 
 sea or ascending(if possible) with wings into the air,or entering 
 the lowest hell, or encircled with thick clouds, or taking any 
 other counsel to secure his flight. This, above all things and 
 alone, can neither be escaped nor resisted, God. When He 
 willeth to hold and grasp in His Hand, He overtaketh the swift, 
 bafBeth the intelligent, overthroweth the strong, boweth the 
 lofty, tameth rashness, suhdueth might. He who threatened 
 to others the mighty Hand of God, was not himself ignorant of 
 nor thought to flee, God. Let us not believe this. But since 
 he saw the fall of Israel and perceived that the prophetic grace 
 would pass over to the Gentiles, he withdrew himself from the 
 office of preaching, and put off" the command." " ^ The Pro- 
 phet knoweth, the Holy Spirit teaching him, that the repent- 
 ance of the Gentiles is the ruin of the Jews. A lover then of 
 his country, he does not so much envy the deliverance of Ni- 
 neveh, as will that his own country should not perish. — Seeing 
 too that his fellow-prophets are sent to the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel, to excite the people to repentance, and that Ba- 
 laam the soothsayer too prophesied of the salvation of Israel, 
 he grieveth that lie alone is chosen to be sent to the Assyrians, 
 
 ' S. John X. 27, 28. - S. Greg. Naz. Apol. pro fuga, prope fin. 3 S. Jer. on Jon. i. 3. 
 
 * Id. on i. 4. ' Gen. x. 4. « Ps. Ixxii. 10. Strabo iii. 2. 14. ? Jer. x. 9. 8 gzek. 
 
 xxvii. 12, 25. ' Pliny (iii. 3) speaks of Carteia as so called by the Greeks j in iv. 36, 
 
 going to Tarshish : so he paid the fare 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 the enemies of Israel, and to that greatest city of the enemies 
 where was idolatry and ignorance of God. Yet more he feared 
 lest they, on occasion of his preaching, being converted to re- 
 pentance, Israel should be wholly forsaken. For he knew by 
 the same Spirit whereby the preaching to the Gentiles was 
 entrusted to him, that the house of Israel would then perish; 
 and he feared that what was at one time to he, shouldtakeplace 
 in his own time." " *The flight of the Prophet may also be re- 
 ferred to that of man in general who, despising the commands 
 of God, departed from Him and gave himself to the ^^ orld, 
 where subsequently, through the storms of ill and the wreck of 
 the whole world raging against him, he was (;ompellcd to feel 
 the Presence of God, and to return to Him Whom he had fled. 
 Whence we understandjthat those thingsalso which men think 
 for their good, when against the Will of God, are turned to de- 
 struction; and help not only does not benefit those to whom 
 it is given, but those too who give it, are alike crushed. As 
 we read that Egypt was conquered by the Assyrians, because 
 it helped Israel against the Will of God. The ship is emperil- 
 led which had received the emperilled ; a tempest arises in a 
 calm ; nothing is secure, when God is against us." 
 
 Tarshish, named after one of the sons of Javan', was an 
 ancient merchant-city of Spain,once proverbial for its wealth^ 
 which supphed Judaea with silver^, Tyre with all manner of 
 riches, with iron also, tin, lead**. It was known to the Greeks 
 and Romans, as (with a harder pronunciation) Tartessus;but 
 in our first century, it had either ceased to be, or was known 
 under some other name'. Ships destined for a voyage, at that 
 time, so long, and built for carrying merchandise, were natu- 
 rally among the largest then constructed. Ships of Tarshish 
 corresponded to the " East-Indiamen " which some of us re- 
 member. The breaking of ships of Tarshish by the East zvind^" 
 is, on account of their size and general safety, instanced as a 
 special token of the interposition of God. 
 
 ^nd went doivn to Joppa. Joppa, now Jaffa, was the 
 one well-known port of Israel on the Mediterranean. Thi- 
 ther the cedars were brought from Lebanon for both the first 
 and second temple^^. Simon the Maccabee " ^- took it again 
 for a haven, and made an entrance to the isles of the sea." It 
 was subsequently destroyedby theRomans,as a pirate-haven^'. 
 At a later time, all describe it as an unsafe haven. Perhaps 
 the shore changed, since the rings, to which Andromeda was 
 fabled to have been fastened, and which probably were once 
 used to moor vessels, were high above the sea. Perhaps, like 
 the Channel Islands, the navigationwas safe to those who knew 
 the coast, unsafe to others. To this port Jonah went down 
 from his native country, the mountain district of Zabulon. 
 Perhaps it was not at this time in the bauds of Israel. At 
 least, the sailors were heathen. He went down, as the man 
 who fell among the thieves, is said to have^o?2e down from Je- 
 rusalem to Jericho ^*. He luent dorcn from the place which 
 God honoured by His Presence and protection. 
 
 And he paid the fare thereof. Jonah describes circum- 
 stantially, how he took every step to his end. He went down, 
 found a strong-built ship going whither he wished, paid his 
 fare, embarked. He seemed now to have done all. He had 
 severed himself from the country where his oflice lay. He 
 
 he identifies Gades, the Carthaginian Gadir.with the Roman Tartesus. Strabo says,"some 
 call the present Karteia, Tanessus." (I.e.) i" Ps. xlviii. ". " 2 Chr. iii. 16. Ezr. 
 ii. 7. '* 1 Mace. xiv. 5. »3 Jos. B. J. iu. 9. 3, and Strabo xvi. 2. 28. » S. Luke x. 30.
 
 268 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 chrTst thereof, and went down into it, to go with 
 cir- 780. then^ unto Tarshish ' from the presence of 
 
 ' Gen. 4. 16. -i j 
 
 Job 1. 12. the LiORD. 
 
 ?Ps^io7.25. 4 % But "the Lord f sent out a great 
 
 ^^as^forth. wind into the sea, and there was a mighty 
 
 had no further step to take. Winds and waves would do the 
 rest. He had but to be still. He went, only to be brought 
 back again. 
 
 "1 Sin brings our soul intoniuch senselessness. For as those 
 overtaken by heaviness othead and drunkenness, are borne on 
 simply and at random, and, be there pit or precipice or what- 
 ever else below them, they fall into it unawares; so too, they 
 who fall into sin, intoxicated by their desire of the object, know 
 not what they do, see nothing before them, present or future. 
 Tell me, Flcest thou the Lord ? Wait then a little, and thou 
 shalt learn from the event, thatthou canst not escape the hands 
 of His servant,thesea. For as soonasheembarked,it too rous- 
 ed its waves and raised them up on high; and as a faithful ser- 
 vant, finding her fellow-slave stealing some of his master's pro- 
 perty, ceases not from giving endlesstrouble to those who take 
 him in, until she recover him, so too the sea, finding and re- 
 cognising her fellow-servant, harasses the sailors unceasingly, 
 raging, roaring, not dragging them to a tribunal but threat- 
 ening to sink the vessel with all its men, unless they restore 
 to her, her fellow-servant." 
 
 " 2 The sinner arises, because, will he, nill he, toil he must. 
 If he shrinks from the way of God, because it is hard, he may 
 not yet be idle. There is the way of ambition, of covetous- 
 ness, of pleasure, to be trodden, which certainly are far hard- 
 er. 'We wearied ourselves^,' say the wicked, 'in the way of 
 wickedness and destruction,yea, we have gone through deserts 
 where there lay no way; but the way of the Lord we have not 
 known.' Jonah would not arise, to go to Nineveh at God's 
 command ; yet he must needs arise, to flee to Tarshish from 
 before the Presence of God. What good can he have who flee- 
 eth the Good ? what light, who willingly forsaketh the Light ? 
 He goes dorvn to Joppa. Wherever thou turnest, if thou de- 
 part from the Will of God, thou goest down. — Whatever glory, 
 riches, power, honours, thou gainest, thou risest not a whit ; 
 the more thou advancest, while turned from God, the deeper 
 and deeper thou goest down. — Yet all these things are not had, 
 without paying the price. At a price and with toil, he ob- 
 tains what he desires ; he receives nothing gratis, but, at great 
 price purchases to himself storms, griefs, peril. There arises 
 a great tempest in the sea, when various contradictory pas- 
 sions arise in the heart of the sinner, which take from him 
 all tranquillity and joy. There is a tempest in the sea, when 
 God sends strong and dangerous disease, whereby the frame 
 is in peril of being broken. There is a tempest in the sea, 
 when, thro' rivals or competitors for the same pleasures, or 
 the injured, or the civil magistrate, his guilt is discovered, he 
 is laden with infamy and odium, punished, withheld from his 
 wonted pleasures. * They who go doivii to the sea of this world, 
 atid do Ijiisiness in mighty luaters — their soul melteth aivay be- 
 cause of trouble ; they reel to and fro and stagger like a drunk- 
 en man, and all their wisdom is swallowed up" 
 
 6. But [^nd] the Lord sent out [lit. cast along^. Jonah 
 had done his all. Now God's part began. This he expresses 
 
 1 S. Chrys. Horn. 5. de Pcenit. n. 3. T. ii. p. 312. ^ Rib. ' Wisd. v. 7. 
 
 * Ps. cvii. 23-7. ^ Lap. « B. J. iii. 9. 3. In the Ant. xv. 9. 6. he says 
 
 that Herod made the port of Csesarea, "between Dora [in Manasseh] and Joppa, snaall 
 
 tempest in the sea, so that the ship was chrTst 
 f like to be broken. "'■•• 7^- 
 
 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and ^ mluiiut to 
 cried every man unto his god, '' and cast h soAcis27. 
 forth the wares that were in the ship into ^^''^'^'•^^■ 
 
 by the word, And. Jonah took his measures, and now God 
 takes His. He had let him have his way, as He often deals 
 with those who rebel against Him. He lets them have their 
 way up to a certain point. He waits, in the tranquillity of 
 His Almightiness, until they have completed their prepara- 
 tions ; and then, when man has ended. He begins, that man 
 may see the more that it is His doing. "^He takes those who 
 flee from Him in their flight, the wise in their counsels, sin- 
 ners in their conceits and sins, and draws them back to Him- 
 self and compels them to return. Jonah thought to find rest 
 in the sea, and lo ! a tempest." Probably, God summoned 
 back Jonah, as soon as he had completed all on his part, and 
 sent the tempest, soon after he left the shore. At least, such 
 tempests often swept along that shore, and were known by 
 their own special name, like the Euroclydon ofl'Crete. Jonah 
 too alone had gone down below deck to sleep, and, when the 
 storm came, the mariners thought it possible to put back. Jo- 
 sephus says of that shore, " ^ Joppa having by nature no ha- 
 ven, for it ends in a rough shore, mostly abrupt, but for a 
 short space having projections, i. e. deep rocks and clifi's ad- 
 vancing into the sea, inclining on either side towards each 
 other (where the traces of the chains of Andromeda yet shewn 
 accredit the antiquity of the fable,) and the North wind beat- 
 ing right on the shore, and dashing the high waves against 
 the rocks which receive them, makes the station there a har- 
 bourless sea. As those from Joppa were tossing here, a strong 
 wind (called by those who sail here, the black North wind) 
 falls upon them at daybreak, dashing straightway some of the 
 ships against each other, some against the rocks, and some, 
 forcing their way against the waves to the open sea, (for they 
 fear the rocky shore — ) the breakers towering above them, 
 sank." 
 
 The ship was like [lit. thoughf] to be broken. Perhaps Jo- 
 nah means by this very vivid image to exhibit the more his 
 own dulness. He ascribes, as it were, to the ship a sense of its 
 own danger, as she heaved and rolled and creaked and quivered 
 under the weight of the storm which lay on her, and her masts 
 groaned, and her yard-arms shivered. To the awakened con- 
 science every thing seems to have been alive to God's displea- 
 sure, except itself. 
 
 5. A7id cried, every ma7i unto his God. They did what 
 they could. "'Not knowing the truth, they yet know of a 
 Providence, and, amid religious error, know that there is an 
 Object of reverence." In ignorance they had received one 
 who ofifended God. And now God, Whom they ignorantly wor- 
 shipped^, while they cried to the gods, who, they thought, dis- 
 posed of them, heard them. They escaped with the loss of 
 their wares, but God saved their lives and revealed Himself to 
 them. God hears ignorant prayer, when ignorance is not 
 wilful and sin. 
 
 To lighten it of them, Wt. to lighten from against them, to 
 lighten what was so much against them, what so oppressed 
 them. " ' They thought that the ship was weighed down by its 
 
 towns on the sea-shore, witli bad harbourage, on account of the strong blasts from the 
 South-West, which, accumulating the sea-sand on the shore, admit of no quiet moorage, 
 but merchants must mostly ride at anchor out at sea." ' S. Jer. » Acts xvii. 23.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 269 
 
 Bcforc- 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 7,sn. 
 
 ' 1 Sam. 124. 3. 
 
 ' Ps. 107. 28. 
 ' Joel 2. 14. 
 
 the sea, to lij^hten it of tlieni. But Jonah 
 was gone down ' into the sides of tlie sliip ; 
 and he lay, and was fast asleep. 
 
 6 So the shipmaster eame to him, and 
 said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleep- 
 er ? arise, '' call upon thy God, ' if so be that 
 
 wonted ladina:, and they knew not that tlie whole weij^ht was. 
 that of the t'lifjitive Pro[)het." " ' T/ic .sv///orv cast forth their 
 wares, but the ship was not lif^htened. For the whole weight 
 still remained, the hody of the Prophet, that heavy burden, not 
 from the nature of the body, but from the burden of sin. For 
 nothing is so onerous and heavy as sin and disobedience. 
 WheneealsoZechariah- represented it under the image of lead. 
 And David, describing its nature, said'', my tvickednesses are 
 gone over iiii/ head ; as a heavi/ burden they are too heavy for 
 me. And Christ cried aloud to those who lived in many sins *, 
 Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I 
 will refresh you." 
 
 Jonah was gone doivn, probably before the beginning of 
 the storm, not simply before the lightening of the vessel. He 
 could hardly have fallen asleep then. A heathen ship was a 
 strange place for a prophet of God, not as a prophet, but as 
 a fugitive ; and so, probably, ashamed of what he had com- 
 pleted, he had withdrawn from sight and notice. He did not 
 embolden himself in his sin, but shrank into himself. The 
 conscience most commonly awakes, when the sin is done. 
 It stands aghast at itself; but Satan, if he can, cuts off its re- 
 treat. Jonah had no retreat now, unless God had made one. 
 
 j^nd was fast asleep. The journey to Joppa had been 
 long and hurried; he had^erf. Sorrow and remorse complet- 
 ed what fatigue began. Perhaps he had given himself up to 
 sleep, to dull his conscience. For it is said, he lay down and 
 was fast asleep. Grief produces sleep ; whence it is said of the 
 Apostles in the night before the Lord's Passion, when Jesus 
 rose up from prayer and was come to His disciples. He found 
 them sleeping for sorroiv^. "^ Jonah slept heavily. Deep 
 was the sleep, but it was not of pleasure but of grief; not of 
 heartlessness, but of heavy-heartedness. For well-disposed 
 servants soon feel their sins, as did he. For when the sin has 
 been done, then he knows its frightfuliiess. For such is sin. 
 When born,itawakens pangs in the soulwhich bare it, contrary 
 to the law of our nature. For so soon as 7ve are born, we end 
 the travail-pangs; but sin, so soon as born, rends with pangs 
 the thoughts which conceived it." Jonah was in a deep sleep, 
 a sleep by which he was fast held and bound"; a sleep as deep 
 as that from which Sisera never woke^. Had God allowed 
 the ship to sink, the memory of Jonah would have been that 
 of the fugitive prophet. As it is, his deep sleep stands as an 
 image of the lethargy of sin. " * This most deep sleep of Jo- 
 nah signifies a man torpid and slumbering in error, to whom it 
 sufficed not to flee from the face of God, but his mind, drowned 
 in a stupor and not knowing the displeasure of God, lies 
 asleep, steeped in security." 
 
 6. What meanest thou? or rather, wAa? aileththee? [lit. 
 what is to thee?~\ The shipmaster speaks of it (as it was) as 
 a sort of disease, that he should be thus asleep in the common 
 peril. The shipmaster, charged, as he by office was, with 
 the common weal of those on board, would, in the common 
 
 > S. Chrys. Ih. 
 2 V. 7. ' Ps. xxxviii. 4. < S.Matt. xi. 28. ' S.Luke xxii. 45. 
 
 ' The Hebrew form is passive, mu. 7 The same word is used Judg. iv, 21. 
 
 God will think upon us, that we ))erish not. phrTot 
 7 And tiiey said every one to his fellow, ''"■ '^^- 
 
 Come, and let us "cast lots, that we may mjosh. 7.14, 
 know for whose cause this evil is upon us, i^sam. 10. 
 So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon i4.4i",43. 
 
 Tnn-.Vi Prov. 10.33. 
 
 tjonan. Acts 1.20. 
 
 peril, have one common prayer. It was the Prophet's office to 
 call the heathen to prayers and to calling upon God. (iod re- 
 proved the Scribes and Pharisees by the mouth of the children 
 who cried Hosanna'^ ; Jonah by the shipmaster; David by 
 AbigaiP"; Naanian by his servants. Now too he reproves 
 worldly priests by the devotion of laymen, sceptic intellect by 
 the sim])licity of faith. 
 
 If so be that God ivill think upon us, [lit. for US'] i.e. for 
 good; as David says", / am ])oor and needy, the Lord thinketh 
 upon [lit. /or] me. Their calling upon their own gods had 
 failed them. Perhaps the shipmaster had seen something spe- 
 cial about Jonah, his manner, or his prophet's garb. He does 
 not only call J<inah's God, ///// God. as Darius says to Daniel 
 thy God^-. but also the God, acknowledging the God Whom Jo- 
 nah worshipped, to be the God. It is not any heathen prayer 
 which he asks Jonah to ofitr. It is the prayer of the crea- 
 ture in its need to God Who can help ; but knowing its own 
 ill-desert, and the separation between itself and God, it knows 
 not whether He will help it. So David says '', Remember 7iot 
 the sins of my youth nor my transgressions ; according to Thy 
 mercy remember Thou me for Thy goodness' sake, O Lord. 
 
 "^The shipmaster knew from experience, that it was no com- 
 mon storm, that the surges were an infliction borne down from 
 God, and above human skill, and that there was no good in 
 the master's skill. For the state of things needed another 
 Master Who ordereth the heavens, and craved the guidance 
 from on high. So then tliey too left oars, sails, cables, gave 
 their hands rest from rowing, and stretched them to heaven 
 and called on God." 
 
 7. Come, and let tis cast lots. Jonah too had probably 
 prayed, and his prayers too were not heard. Probably, too, 
 the storm had some unusual character about it, the suddenness 
 with which it burst tipon them, its violence, the quarter whence 
 it came, its whirlwind force. "^They knew the nature of the 
 sea, and, as experienced sailors, were acquainted with the 
 character of wind and storm, and had these waves been such 
 as they had known before, they would never have sought by 
 lot for the author of the threatened wreck, or, by a thing un- 
 certain, sought to escape certain peril." God, Who sent the 
 storm to arrest Jonah and to cause him to be cast into the 
 sea, provided that its character should set the mariners on 
 divining, why it came. Even when working great miracles, 
 God brings about, through man, all the forerunning events, 
 all but the last act, in which He puts forth His might. As, in 
 His people, he directed the lot to fall on Achan or on Jona- 
 than, so here He overruled the lots of the heathen sailors to 
 accomplish His end. "* We must not,on this precedent, forth- 
 with trust in lots, or unite with this testimony that from the 
 Acts of the Apostles, when Matthias was by lot elected to the 
 Apostolate, since the privileges of individuals cannot form a 
 common law." "Lots," according to the ends for which they 
 were cast, were'* for i) dividing; ii) consulting; iii) divining. 
 
 9 S.Jer. 
 9 S. Matt. xxi. IS. '» 1 Sam. xxt. 32-34. " Ps. xl. 17. 
 
 " Dan. vi. 20. '^ Ps. xxv. 7. " Aquin. 3. 2. q. 95. art. 8. 
 
 U U
 
 270 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 8 Then said thcv unto him, "Tell us, we 
 
 Bffore 
 CHRIST 
 
 "'■ '>^o pray thee, for wliose cause this evil ts upon 
 
 n Josh 
 IS am 
 
 A4.%. US ; What is thine occupation ? and whence 
 comest thou ? what is thy country ? and of 
 what people art thou ? 
 
 i.) The lot for dividinir is not wrong if not used, 1) " ^ without 
 any necessity ; for this would be to tempt God:" 2) "if^ in case 
 «f necessity, not without reverence of God, as if Holy Scrip- 
 ture were used for an earthly end," as in determining!: any se- 
 cular matter by opening the Bible^: 3) for objects which ought 
 to be decided otherwise, (as, an office ought to be giv«n to 
 the fittest:) 4) in dependence upon any other than God. ^ The 
 lot is cast info the lap, hut the whole disjwsiiig of it is the 
 Lo7-(Ps. So then they are lawful "*in secular things which 
 cannot otherwise be conveniently distributed," or " ^ when 
 there is no apparent reason why, in any advantage or disad- 
 vantage, one should be preferred to another." S. Augustine 
 even allows* that, in a time of plague or persecution, the lot 
 might be cast to decide who should remain to administer the 
 Sacraments to the people, lest, on the one side, all should be 
 taken away, or. on the other, the Church be deserted, ii. The 
 lot for consulting, i. e. to decide what one should do, is wrong, 
 unless in a matter of mere indifference, or under inspiration 
 of God, or in some extreme necessity where all human means 
 fail. iii. The lot for divining, i. e. to learn truth, whether of 
 things present or future, of which we can have no human 
 knowledge, is wrong, except by direct inspiration of God. 
 For it is either to tempt God Who has not promised so to reveal 
 things, or, against God, to seek superhuman knowledge by 
 ways unsanctioned by Him. Satan may readily mix himself 
 unknown in such enquiries, as in mesmerism. Forbidden 
 ground is his own province. i 
 
 God overruled the lot in the case of Jonah, as He did the sign I 
 which the Philistines sought. '"'He made the heifers take the | 
 way to Bethshemesh, that the Philistines might know that the 
 plague came to them, not by chance,but from Himself." "*The 
 fugitive (Jonah) was taken by lot, not by any virtue of the lots, 
 especially the lots of heathen, but by the Will of Him Who 
 guided the uncertain lots." "^The lot betrayed the culprit. 
 Yet not even thus did they cast him over; but,even while such a 
 tumult and storm lay on them, they held, as it were, a court in 
 the vessel, as though in entire peace, and allowed him a hear- 
 ing and defence, and sifted every thing accurately, as men who 
 were to give account of their judgment. Hear them sifting all 
 as in a court. — The roaring sea accused him ; the lot convicted 
 and witnessed against him, yet not even thus did they pro- 
 nounce against him — until the accused should be the accuser 
 of his own sin. The sailors, uneducated, untaught, imitated 
 the good order of courts. When the sea scarce allowed them 
 to breathe, whence such forethought about the Prophet ? By 
 the disposal of God. For God by all this instructed the Pro- 
 phet to be humane and mild, all but saying aloud to him ; ' Imi- 
 tate these uninstructed sailors. They think not lightly of one 
 soul, nor are unsparing as to one body, thine own. But thou, 
 for thy part, gavest up a whole city with so many myriads. 
 They, discovering thee to be the cause of the evils which be- 
 fel them, did not even thus hurry to condemn thee. Thou, 
 
 1 Aquin. 1. c. 2 From S. Aug. Ep. 55. ad inquis. Januar. 
 
 3 Prov. xvi.33.^ ■* Less, dejustit. &c. ii.43. Dub. 9. L. =■ id. quoting 
 
 S. Aug. dedoctr. Xt. i. 28. " It any have a superfluity which ought to be given to such as 
 
 have not, and cannot be given to two, and two come to you, of whom neither is to be 
 
 preferred to the other from want or any urgent necessity, you cannot do any thing more 
 
 9 And he said unto them, I am an He- 
 brew; and I fear || the Lord, the God of hea- 
 ven, " which hath made the sea and the 
 dry land. 
 
 10 Then were the men f exceedingly ^"eaiyi 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 II Or, JK- 
 110 f^^ II. 
 
 o Ps. 141). 6. 
 Act* 17. 24. 
 . with 
 
 having nothing whereof to accuse the Ninevites, didst sink 
 and destroy them. Thou, when I bade thee go and by thy 
 preaching call them to repentance, obeyedst not ; these, un- 
 taught, do all, compass all, in order to recover thee, already 
 condemned, from punishment.'" 
 
 8. Tell us, for whose cause [lit. /or what to whom.'\ It may 
 be that they thought that Jonah had been guilty toward some 
 other. The lot had pointed him out. The mariners, still fear- 
 ing to do wrong, ask him thronged questions, to know why 
 the anger of God followed him; ivhat hast thou done to whom ? 
 ivhat thine occupation ? i. e. either his ordinary occupation, 
 whether it was displeasing to God ? or this particular business 
 in which he was engaged, and for which he was come on 
 board. Questions so thronged have been admired in human 
 poetry, S. Jerome says. For it is true to nature. They think 
 that some one of them will draw forth the answer which 
 they wish. It may be that they thought that his country, or 
 people, or parents, were under the displeasure of God. But 
 perhaps, more naturally, they wished to "know all about him," 
 as men say. These questions must have gone home to Jonah's 
 conscience. What is thy business ? The office of Prophet 
 which he had left. Whence comest thou ? From standing be- 
 fore God, as His minister. What thy country ? of what people 
 art thoic ? The people of God, whom he had quitted for hea- 
 then ; not to win them to God, as He commanded; but, not 
 knowing what they did, to abet him in his flight. 
 
 What is thine occupation ? They should ask themselves, 
 who have Jonah's office to speak in the name of God, and 
 preach repentance. " 1° What should be thy business, who 
 hast consecrated thyself wholly to God, whom God has loaded 
 with daily benefits? who approachest to Him as to a Friend? 
 What is thy business ? To live for God, to despise the things 
 of earth, to behold the things of Heaven," to lead others hea- 
 venward. 
 
 Jonah answers simply the central point to which all these 
 questions tended ; 
 
 9. I am an Hebrew. This was the name by which Israel 
 was known to foreigners. It is used in the Old Testament, only 
 when they are spoken of by foreigners, or speak of themselves 
 to foreigners, or when the sacred writers mention them in con- 
 trastwith foreigners'^. So Joseph spoke of his land'-, and the 
 Hebrew midwives'^, and Moses' sister'*, and God in His com- 
 mission to Moses '^ as to Pharaoh, and Moses in fulfilling it'*. 
 They had the name, as having passed the river Euphrates, 
 "emigrants." The titlemightserve to remindthemselves,that 
 they were strangers and pilgrims^'^ , whose fathers had left their 
 home at God's command and for God, " '^passers by, through 
 this world to death, and through death to immortality." 
 
 And I fear the Lord, i. e. I am a worshipper of Him, most 
 commonly, one who habitually stands in awe of Him, and so 
 one who stands in awe of sin too. For none really fear God, 
 none fear Him as sons, who do not fear Hira in act. To be 
 
 just than choose by lot, to which that should be given which cannot be given to both." 
 also in Aquin. 1. c. " Ep. 228. ad Honorat. n. 12. ' Lap. 8 s_ j^f _ 
 
 9 S. Chrys. lb. p. 313. '» Sanch. " In all 32 times in the O. T. 
 
 11 Gen. xl. 15. " Ex. i. 19. " lb. ii. 7. '^ lb. iii. 18, vu. 16, ix. 1. 
 
 " lb. V. 3. " Heb. xi. 13.
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 271 
 
 chrTst afj'^J^l^ and said unto him, AVhy hast thou 
 '='''• ^^°- done this ? For the men knew tliat he fled 
 
 from the presence of the Lord, hecause he 
 had told them. 
 
 11 f Then said they unto him, What 
 
 afraid of God is not to fear Him. To be afraid of God keeps 
 men away from God ; to fear God draws them to Flim. Here, 
 however, Jonah probably meant to tell them, that the Object 
 of his fear and worship was the One Self-existing God, He 
 Who alone IS, Who made all things, in Whose hands are all 
 things. He had told them before, that he had ^cAfrom being 
 before the Lord. They had not thought anything of this, for 
 they thought of the Lord, only as the God of the Jews. Now 
 he adds, that He, Whose service he had thus forsaken, was 
 the God of heaven, Who made the sea and dry land, that sea, 
 whose raging terrified them and threatened their lives. The 
 title, the God of heaven, asserts the doctrine of the creation of 
 the heavens by God, and His supremacy. Hence Abraham 
 uses it to his servant ^, and Jonah to the heathen mariners, 
 and Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar^ ; and Cyrus in acknowledging 
 God in his proclamation^. After his example, it is used in 
 the decrees of Darius * and Artaxerxes ^, and the returned ex- 
 iles use it in giving account of their building the temple to the 
 Governor^. Perhaps, from the habit of intercouse with the 
 heathen, it is used once by Daniel ^ and by Nehemiah *. Mel- 
 chisedek, not perhaps being acquainted with the special name, 
 the Lord, blessed Abraham in the Name of God, the Possessor 
 or Creator of heave?! and earth ^, i. e. of all that is. Jonah, by 
 using it, at once taught the sailors that there is One Lord of 
 all, and why this evil had fallen on them, because they had with 
 them himself, the renegade servant of God. " ^^ When Jonah 
 said this, he indeed feared God and repented of his sin. If 
 he lost filial fear by fleeing and disobeying, he recovered it by 
 repentance." 
 
 10. Then were the men exceedingly afraid. Before, they had 
 feared the tempest and the loss of their lives. Now they fear- 
 ed God. They feared, not the creature but the Creator. They 
 knew that what they had feared was the doing of His Al- 
 mightiness. They felt how aweful a thing it was to be in His 
 Hands. Such fear is the beginning of conversion, when men 
 turn from dwelling on the distresses which surround them, 
 to God Who sent them. 
 
 Why hast thou done this ? They are words of amazement 
 and wonder. Why hast thou not obeyed so great a God, 
 and how thoughtest thou to escape the hand of the Creator ? 
 " 1" What is the mystery of thy flight ? Why did one, who fear- 
 ed God and had revelations from God, flee, sooner than go to 
 fulfil them ? Why did the worshipper of the One true God 
 depart from his God ?" "^^ A servant flee from his Lord, a son 
 from his father, man from his God !" The inconsistency of be- 
 lievers is the marvel of the young Christian, the repulsion of 
 those without, the hardening of the unbeliever. If men really 
 believed in eternity, how could they be thus immersed in 
 things of time ? If they believed in hell, how could they so 
 hurry thither ? If they believed that God died for them, how 
 could they so requite Him ? Faith without love, knowledge 
 without obedience, conscious dependence and rebellion, to be 
 favoured by God yet to despise His favour, are the strangest 
 
 shall we do unto thee that the sea f may chrTst 
 be calm unto us ? for the sea || ■)- wrought, "'^- 7so- 
 and was tempestuous. ^ hl''!iieZ"'' 
 
 12 And he said unto them, p Take me up, |{""^,';, 
 and cast me forth into the sea ; so shall the """^^""f 
 
 ' more tem- 
 
 f Heb. went. f John 11. M). pestuous. 
 
 ' Gen. xxiv. 7. 
 « Rzr. vi. 9. 10. 
 
 ' Dan. ii. 37, 44. 
 ' lb. vii. 12, 21, 23. 
 
 s 2 Chr. xxxvi. 23, Ezr. i. 2. 
 
 « lb. V. 11, 12. 7 ii. 18. 
 
 marvels of this mysterious world. All nature seems to cry 
 out to and against the unfaithful (Christian, irhi/ hast thou dime 
 this ? And what a rchy it is ! A scoffer has lately said truly, 
 " ^' Avowed scepticism (!annot do a tenth part of the injury to 
 practical faith, that the constant spectacle of the huge mass 
 of worldly unreal belief does." It is nothing strange, that the 
 world or unsanctified intellect should reject the (iospcl. It is 
 a thing of course, unless it be converted. But, to know, to be- 
 lieve, and to disobey ! To disobey God, in the nann; of God. 
 To propose to halve the living Gospel, as the woman who 
 had killed her child ^^,and to think that the poorquivcring rem- 
 nants would be the living Gospel any more ! As though 
 the Will of God might, like those lower forms of His animal 
 creation, be divided endlessly, and, keep what fragments we 
 will, it would still bealiving whole, a vessel of His Spirit! .Such 
 unrealities and inconsistencies would be a sore trial of faith, 
 had not Jesus, Who ^*kneiu ivliat is in man, forewarned us that 
 it should be so. The scandals against the Gospel, so contrary 
 to all human opinion, are but a testimony the more to the 
 Divine knowledge of the Redeemer. 
 
 11. What shall we do unto thee? They knew him to be 
 a prophet ; they ask him the mind of his God. The lots had 
 marked out Jonah as the cause of the storm; Jonah had him- 
 self admitted it, and that the storm was for his cause, and came 
 from his God. "^^ Great was he who fled, greater He Who re- 
 quired him. They dare not give him up ; they cannot conceal 
 him. They blame the fault ; they confess their fear ; they ask 
 him the I'emedy, who was the author of the sin. If it was 
 faulty to receive thee, what can we do, that God should not 
 be angered ? It is thine to direct ; ours, to obey." 
 
 The sea ivrought and was tempestuous, lit. tvas going and 
 whirling. It was not only increasingly tempestuous, but, like 
 a thing alive and obeying its Master's Will, it was holding on 
 its course, its wild waves tossing themselves, and marching on 
 like battalions, marshalled, arrayed for the end for which they 
 were sent, pursuing and demanding the runaway slave of God. 
 " " It was going, as it was bidden ; it was going to avenge its 
 Lord ; it u'as going, pursuing the fugitive Prophet. It was 
 swelling every moment, and, as though the sailors were too 
 tardy, was rising in yet greater surges, shewing that the ven- 
 geance of the Creator admitted not of delay." 
 
 12. Take me up, and cast me into the sea. Neither might 
 Jonah have said tliis, nor might the sailors have obeyed it, 
 without the command of God. Jonah might will alone to 
 perish, who had alone ofi'ended ; but, without the command of 
 God, the Giver of life, neither Jonah nor the sailors might 
 dispose of the life of Jonah. But God willed that Jonah 
 should be cast into the sea, whither he had gone for refuge, 
 ihat^^ wherewithal he had sinned, by the same also he might be 
 punished as a man ; and, as a Prophet, that he might, in his 
 three days burial, prefigure Him Who, after His Resurrec- 
 tion, should convert, not Nineveh, but the world, the cry of 
 whose wickedness went up to God. 
 
 8 i 4 5, ii. 4, 20. » Gen. xiv. 19. '" Dion. " S. Jer. 
 
 n In the Times. '^ 1 Kings iu. 26. " S. John ii. 25. '* Wisd. xi. 16. 
 
 u u2
 
 272 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 chrTst ^^^ ^^ ^^^"^ ""^'^ y^"' ^**'* ' ^now that 
 cir- 780- for my sake this great tempest is upon 
 
 you. 
 iHeh. digged. 13 Nevertheless the men f rowed hard 
 iProv. 21.30. to bring it to the land; ''but they could 
 not : for the sea wrought, and was tempes- 
 tuous against them. 
 
 14 Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, 
 
 For I Atiow that for my sake. "^ In that he says, / know, 
 he marks that lie had a revelation ; in that he says, this great 
 storm, he marks the need which lay on those who cast him in- 
 to the sea." 
 
 13. The men rowed hard, lit. dug. The word, like our 
 "ploughed the main," describes the great efforts which they 
 made. Amid the violence of the storm, they had furled their 
 sails. These were worse than useless. The wind was off shore, 
 since by rowing alone they hoped to get back to it. They put 
 their oars well and firmly in the sea, and turned up the water, 
 as men turn up earth by digging. But in vain ! God willed it 
 not. The sea went on its way, as before. In the description 
 of the deluge, it is repeated,- the waters increased and bare 
 up the ark, and it was tiffed up above the earth ; the waters in- 
 creased greatly upon the earth ; and the ark went iipon the face 
 of the waters. The waters raged and swelled, drowned the 
 whole world, yet only bore up the ark, as a steed bears its ri- 
 der : man was still, the waters obeyed. In this tempest, on the 
 contrary, man strove, but, instead of the peace of the ark, the 
 burden is, the violence of the tempest ; the sea wrought and was 
 tempestuous against them. "^The Prophet hadpronounced sen- 
 tence against himself, but they would not lay hands upon him, 
 striving hard to get back to land, and escape the risk of blood- 
 shed, willing to lose life rather than cause its loss. O what a 
 change was there. The people who had served God, said. Cru- 
 cify Him, Crucify Him ! These are bidden to put to death ; the 
 sea rageth ; the tempest commandeth ; and they are careless 
 as to their own safety, while anxious about another's." 
 
 14. Wherefore \^And\ they cried unto the Lord. They cried 
 no more each man to his god, but to the one God, Whom Jo- 
 nah had made known to them ; and to Him they cried with 
 an earnest, submissive,cry, repeating the words of beseeching, 
 as men do in great earnestness ; tve beseech Thee, O Lord, let us 
 not, we beseech Thee, perish for the life of this man (i. e. as a 
 penalty for taking it, as it is said, * we tvillslay him for the life 
 of his brother, and, ^ life for life.) They seem to have known 
 what is said, ^ your blood of your lives tuill I require ; at the 
 hand of every beast tuill I require it and at the hand of nian ; 
 at the hand of every mail's brother ivill I reqtiire the life of man. 
 Whuso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; 
 
 for in the image of God made He man. "^ Do not these words 
 of the sailors seem to us to be the confession of Pilate, who 
 washed his hands, and said, I can clean from the blood of this 
 Man? The Gentiles would not that Christ should perish; they 
 protest that His Blood is innocent." 
 
 ylnd lay not upon us innocent blood ; innocent as to them, 
 although, as to this thing, guilty before God, and yet, as to 
 God also, more innocent, they would think, than they. For, 
 strange as was this one disobedience, their whole life, they now 
 knew, was disobedience to God ; his, but one act in a life of 
 
 ' Alh. M. 
 * 2 Sam. xiv. 7. 
 
 2 Gen. vii. 17, 18. ' S. Jer. 
 
 ' Deut. xix. 21. « Gen. ix. 5, 6. 7 1 S. Pet. iv. 18. 
 
 and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we chhTst 
 beseech thee, let us not perish for this "'■ ^^"- 
 man's life, and 'lay not upon us innocent' Deut. 21. 8. 
 blood : for thou, O Lord, " hast done as it ' p* "s. 3. 
 pleased thee. 
 
 15 So they took up Jonah, and cast him 
 forth into the sea : ' and the sea f ceased ' Luke^8 \i 
 from her raging. 
 
 t Heb. stood. 
 
 obedience. If God so punishes one sin of the holy, ''where shall 
 the ungodly and sinner appear f Terrible to the awakened 
 conscience are God's chastenings on some (as it seems) single 
 oflence of those whom He loves. 
 
 For Thou, Lord, [Who knowest the hearts of all ?nen,'\ hast 
 done, as it pleased Thee. Wonderful, concise, <H>nfession of 
 faith in these new converts ! Psalmists said it*, Whatsoever 
 God willeth, that doeth He in heaven and in earth, in the sea 
 and in all deep places. But these had but just known God, 
 and they resolve the whole mystery of man's agency and God's 
 Providence into the three simple words ^, as [Thou] willedst 
 [Thou] didst. "^That we took him aboard, that the storm 
 ariseth, that the winds rage, that the billows lift themselves, 
 that the fugitive is betrayed by the lot, that he points out what 
 is to be done, it is of Thy'Will. O Lord." "^ The tempest itself 
 speaketh, that Thou, Lord, hast done as Thou iviUedst. Thy 
 Will is fulfilled by our hands." " ^ Observe the counsel of God, 
 that, of his own will, not by violence or by necessity, should 
 he be Ccast into the sea. For the casting of Jonah into the sea 
 signified the entrance of Christ into the bitterness of the Pas- 
 sion, which He took upon Himself of His own Will, not of ne- 
 cessity. ''* He teas offered up, and He willingly subynitted Him- 
 self. And as those who sailed with Jonah were delivered, so 
 the faithful in the Passion of Christ. ^' Ifj/e seek Me, let these 
 go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled ivhich Jesus 
 spake. Of them ivhich Thou gavest Me, I have lost none." 
 
 15. They took up Jonah. " ^ He does not say, 'laid hold 
 on him', nor 'came upon him' but lifted him ; as it were, bear- 
 ing him with respect and honour, they cast him into the sea, 
 not resisting, but yielding himself to their will." 
 
 The sea ceased [lit. stood] from his ragitig. Ordinarily, the 
 waves still swell, when the wind has ceased. The sea, when 
 it had received Jonah, was hushed at once, to shew that God 
 alone raised and quelled it. It stood still, like a servant, when 
 it had accomplished its mission. God, Who at all times saith 
 to it, ^- Hitherto shall thou come and 710 further, and here shall 
 thy proud ivaves be stayed, now unseen, as afterwards in the 
 Flesh, ^^ rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great 
 calm. "^ If we consider the errors of the world before the 
 Passion of Christ, and the conflicting blasts of divers doctrines, 
 and the vessel, and the whole race of man, i. e. the creature of 
 the Lord, emperilled, and, after His Passion, the tranquillity of 
 faith and the peace of the world and the security of ail things 
 and the conversion to God, we shall see how, after Jonah was 
 cast in, the sea stood from its raging." '"Jonah, in the sea, 
 a fugitive, shipwrecked, dead, saveth the tempest-tost vessel; 
 he saveth the heathen, aforetime tossed to and fro by the 
 error of the world into divers opinions. And Hosea, Amos, 
 Isaiah, Joel, who prophesied at the same time, could not amend 
 the people in Judaea; whence it appeared that the breakers 
 
 ' Ps. cxxxv. 6, cxv. 3. 
 
 " S. John xviii. 8, 9. 
 
 ' nTy nsBn tijkd 
 " JoD xxxviii. 11. 
 
 "I Is.liii. 7. 
 " S. Matt. TiU. 26.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 273 
 
 IG Then the men "feared the 
 
 Lord exceedingly, and f offered a 
 
 "Am5.il.' sacrifice unto the Lord, and made 
 
 Before 
 
 C H H 1 S T 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 iHeh.sacri- 
 Jicea a sacri- v^'^va* 
 Jice unto the LORD, and vowed vovia. 
 
 could not be calmed, save by the death of [Him typified by] the 
 fugitive." 
 
 16. And the menfearedthe Lord with u great fear ; because, 
 from the tranquillity of the sea and the ceasinijof the tempest, 
 they saw that the I'rophet's words were true. This j>reat mi- 
 racle completed the conversion of the mariners. God had re- 
 moved all human <'ause of fear ; and yet, in the same words as 
 before, he says, thei/ feared a great fear ; but he adds, the Lord. 
 It was the g'reat fear, with which even the disciples of Jesus 
 feared, when they saw the miracles which He did, which made 
 even Peter say, ^Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O 
 Lord. Events full of wonder had throns^ed upon them; thing^s 
 beyond nature, and contrary to nature; thinji^s which betoken- 
 ed His Presence, Who had all things in His hands. They had 
 seen wind and storm fulfilli)ig His word", and, forerunners of 
 the fishermen of Galilee, knowing full well from their own ex- 
 perience that this was above nature, they felt a great awe of 
 God. So He commanded His people, Thou shalt fear the 
 Lord thy God^,fur thi/ good always^. 
 
 And offered a sacri fiee. Doubtless, as it was a large decked 
 vessel and bound on a long voyage, they had live creatures on 
 board, which they could offer in sacrifice. But this was not 
 enough for their thankfulness; they vowed vows. They pro- 
 mised that they would do thereafter what they could not do 
 then; "^that they would never depart from Him Whom they 
 had begun to worship. ' This was true love, not to be con- 
 tent with aught which they could do, but to stretch forward 
 in thought to an abiding and enlarged obedience, as God 
 should enable them. And so they were doubtless enrolled 
 among the people of God, first-fruits from among the hea- 
 then, won to God Who overrules all things, through the dis- 
 obedience and repentance of His Prophet. Perhaps, they 
 were the first preachers among the heathen, and their account 
 of their own wonderful deliverance prepared the way for Jo- 
 nah's mission to Nineveh. 
 
 17. Now the Lord had [lit. And the Lord'\ prepared. 
 Jonah (as appears from his thanksgiving) was not swallowed 
 at once, but sank to the bottom of the sea, God preserving 
 him in life there by miracle, as He did in the fish's belly. 
 Then, when the sea-weed was twined around his head, and 
 he seemed to be already buried till the sea should give up her 
 dead, God prepared the fish to swallow Jonah. "^God could as 
 easily have kept Jonah alive in the sea as in the fish's belly, 
 but, in order to prefigure the burial of the Lord, He willed 
 him to be within the fish whose belly was as a grave." Jonah, 
 does not say what fish it was ; and our Lord too used a name, 
 signifying only one of the very largest fish^. Yet it were no 
 greater miracle to create a fish which should swallow Jonah, 
 than to preserve him alive when swallowed. "*The infant 
 is buried, as it were, in the womb of its mother ; it cannot 
 breathe, and yet, thus too, it liveth and is preserved, wonder- 
 fully nurtured by the will of God." He Who preserves the em- 
 bryo in its living grave can maintain the life of man as easily 
 without the outward air as with it. The same Divine Will pre- 
 serves in being the whole creation, or creates it. The same Will 
 
 1 S. Lukev. 8. 
 2 Ps. cxiviii. 8. 3 Deut. vi. 13. ♦ lb. 24. ' S. Jer. « Dion. 7 See ab. Introd. p. 257. 
 
 17 % Now the Lord had prepared chkTst 
 a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And '^Jr. rso. 
 ^ Jonah was in the f helly of the fish'&1":f "• 
 
 Luke 11. .10. 
 f Heb. bowcli. 
 
 three days and three nights. 
 
 of God keeps us in life by breathing this outward air, Which 
 preserved Jonah without it. Ilow long will men think of God, 
 as if He were man, of the Creator as if He were a creature, as 
 though creation were but one intricate piece of machinery, 
 which is t(» go on, ringing its regular changes until it shall be 
 worn out, and God were shut up, as a sort of mainspring within 
 it. Who might be allowed to be a primal Force, to set it in mo- 
 tion, but must not be allowed to vary what He has once made ? 
 " We must admit of the agency of God," say these men ^ when 
 they would not in name be Atheists, '-once in the beginning 
 of things, but must allow of His interference as sparingly as 
 may be." Most wise arrangement of the creature, if it were 
 indeed the god of its God ! Most considerate provision for 
 the non-interference of its Maker, if it could but secure that 
 He would not interfere with it forever! Acute physical ])lii- 
 losophy, which, by its omnipotent word, would undo the Acts of 
 God ! Heartless, senseless, sightless, world, which exists in 
 God, is upheld by God, whose every breath is an effluence of 
 God's love, and which yet sees Him not, thanks Him not, 
 thinks it a greater thing to hold its own frail existence from 
 some imagined law, than to be the object of the tender per- 
 sonal care of the Infinite God, Who is Love ! Poor hoodwink- 
 ed souls, which would extinguish for themselves the Light of 
 the world, in order that it may not eclipse the rushlight of 
 their own theory ! 
 
 And Jonah was in the helly of the fish. The time that 
 Jonah was in the fish's belly was a hidden prophecy. Jonah 
 does not explain nor point it. He tells the fact, as Scripture 
 is wont. Then he singles out one. the turning point in it. 
 Doubtless in those three days and nights of darkness, Jonah, 
 (like him who after his conversion became S. Paul,) meditated 
 much, repented much, sorrowed much, for the love of God, 
 that he had ever offended God, purposed future obedience, 
 adored God with wondering awe for His judgment and mercy. 
 It was a narrow home, in which Jonah, bv miracle, was not 
 consumed ; by miracle, breathed; by miracle, retained his sen- 
 ses in that fetid place. Jonah doubtless, repented, marvelled, 
 adored, loved God. But, of all, God has singled out this one 
 point, how, out of such a place, Jonah thanked God. As He 
 delivered Paul andSilas from the prison. when they prayed with 
 a loud voice to Him, so when Jonah, by inspiration of His 
 Spirit, thanked Him, He delivered him. To thank God. only 
 in order to obtain fresh gifts from Him. would be but a refined, 
 hypocritical form of selfishness. Such a formal act would not 
 be thanks at all. We thank God, because we love Him. be- 
 cause He is so infinitely Good, and so good to us, unworthy. 
 Thanklessness shuts the door to His personal mercies to us, 
 because it makes them the occasion of fresh sins of our's. 
 Thankfulness sets God's essential Goodness free (so to speak) 
 to be good to us. He can do what He delights in doing, be 
 good to us, without our making His Goodness a source of 
 harm to us. Thanking Him through His grace, we become 
 fit vessels for larger graces. " '" Blessed he who, at every gift 
 of grace, returns to Him in Whom is all fulness of graces : to 
 Whom when we shew ourselves not ungrateful for gifts receiv- 
 
 ' Westminster Review. 
 
 8 S. Cyr. 
 '" S. Bern. Serm. 27. c. pessim. vit. ingratitud. i. 1142.
 
 274 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.780. 
 
 * Ps. 120. 1. 
 
 & 130. 1. 
 
 & 142. 1. 
 
 Lara. 3. 65, 
 
 5B. 
 II Or, 
 
 out of mine 
 
 affliction, 
 >> Ps. 05. 2. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 1 The prayer of Junali. \0 He is delivered from 
 thejish. 
 
 THEN Jonah prayed unto the Lord his 
 God out of the fish's belly, 
 2 And said, I "cried ||by reason of mine 
 affliction unto the Lord, ^ and he heard me ; 
 
 ed, we make room in ourselves for g;race, and become meet for 
 receiving yet more." But Jonah's was that special character 
 of thankfulness, which thanks God in the midst of calamities 
 from which there was no human exit ; and God set His seal 
 on this sort of thankfulness, by annexing this deliverance, 
 which has consecrated Jonah as an image of our Lord, to his 
 wonderful act of thanksgiving. 
 
 II. 1. Then [And'] ^owrtZ/pj-r/^/ef/, i. e. when the three days 
 and nights were passed, he uttered this devotion. The word 
 'prayed includes thanksgiving, not petition only. It is said of 
 Hannah that she prayed^ ; but her canticle is all one thanks- 
 giving without a single petition. In this thanksgiving Jonah 
 says how his prayers had been heard, but prays no more. God 
 had delivered him from the sea, and he thanks God, in the 
 fish's belly, as undisturbed as in a Church or an oratory, secure 
 that God, Who had done so much, would fulfil the rest. He 
 called God, his God, Who had in so many ways shewn Himself 
 his, by His revelations, by His inspirations, by His chastise- 
 ments, and now by His mercy. " ^ From these words, Jonah 
 prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, we per- 
 ceive that, after he felt himself safe in the fish's belly, he de- 
 spaired not of God's mercy." 
 
 2. I cried by reason of mine affliction, or, out of qffHiction 
 which came to me. So the Psalmist thanked God in the same 
 words, though in a different order ^ ; To the Lord in trouble 
 to me I called, and He heard me. He called, and God heard 
 and answered. "^ He does not sny, I call, hut I called ; he 
 does not pray for the future, but gives thanks for the past." 
 Strange cause of thankfulness this would seem to most faith, 
 to be alive in such a grave ; to abide there hour after hour, and 
 day after day, in one unchanging darkness, carried to and fro 
 helplessly, with no known escape from his fetid prison, except 
 to death ! Yet spiritual light shone on that depth of darkness. 
 The voracious creature, which never opened his mouth save to 
 destroy life, had swallowed him, to save it. "-What looked like 
 death, became safe-keeping," and so the Prophet who had fled 
 to avoid doing the Will of God and to do his own, now willed 
 to be borne about, he knew not whither, at the will, as it seem- 
 ed, of the huge animal in which he lay, but in truth, whither 
 God directed it, and he gave thanks. God had heard him. 
 The first token of God's mercy was the earnest of the whole. 
 God was dealing with him, was looking on him. It was enough. 
 
 Out of the belly of hell cried I. The deep waters were as 
 a grave, and he was counted among the dead *. Death seemed 
 so certain that it was all one as if he were in the womb of hell, 
 not to be re-born to life until the last Day. So David said *, 
 The bands of death compassed me round about ; and, * Thou 
 hast drawn my life out of hell. The waters choked his speech ; 
 but he cried with a loud cry to God Who knew the heart. 
 / cried ; Thou heardest. The words vary only by a kindred 
 letter '', Shivva'ti, Shama'ta. The real heart's-cry to God ac- 
 
 ' 1 Sam. ii. 1. » S. Jer. 3 See Introd. p. 252. 
 
 * Ps. IxTXTiii. 4. ' lb. xviii.6. « lb. xxx. 3. " nvar •nyar 8 Xert. 
 
 deOrat. §17. p. Sll.Oxf. Tr. » S. Aug.in Ps. 30. EnaiT.4. § lU: see others referred 
 
 out of the belly of \\ hell cried I, and thou 
 heardest my voice. 
 
 3 " For thou hadst cast me into the deep, 
 in the f midst of the seas ; and the floods 
 compassed me aijout : ^ all thy billows and 
 thy waves passed over me. 
 
 4 'Then I said, 1 am cast out of thy 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 II Or, 
 the grave, 
 Is. 14.9. 
 
 e I'b. 88. I>. 
 
 ■f Heb. heart. 
 
 i Ps. 42.7. 
 
 • Ps. 31. 22. 
 
 cording to the mind of God and His hearing are one, whether, 
 for man's good, He seem at the time to hear or no. 
 
 "* Not of the voice but of the heart is God the Hearer, as 
 He is the Seer. — Do the ears of God wait for sound ? How 
 then could the prayer of Jonah from the inmost belly of the 
 whale,through the bowels of so great a creature, out of the very 
 bottomless depths, through so great a mass of waters, make 
 its way to Heaven ? " " ^ Loud crying to God is not with the 
 voice but with the heart. Many, silent with their lips, have 
 cried aloud with their heart ; many, noisy with their lips, could, 
 withheartturnedaway,obtain nothing. If then thou criest, cry 
 within, where God heareth." " ^^Jonah cried aloud to God out 
 of the fish's belly, out of the deep of the sea, out of the depths 
 of disobedience ; and his prayer reached to God, Who rescued 
 him from the waves, brought him forth out of the vast crea- 
 ture, absolved him from the guilt. Let the sinner too cry 
 aloud, whom, departing from God, the storm of desires over- 
 whelmed, the malignant Enemy devoured, the waves of this 
 present world sucked-under ! Let him own that he is in the 
 depth, that so his prayer may reach to God." 
 
 3. For Thou hadst [didst] cast me into the deep. Jonah 
 continues to describe the extremity of peril, from which God 
 had already delivered him. Sweet is the memory of perils 
 past. For they speak of God's Fatherly care. Sweet is it to 
 the Prophet to tell God of His mercies ; but this is sweet only 
 to the holy; for God's mercy convicts the careless of ingrati- 
 tude. Jonah then tells God, how He had cast him vehement- 
 ly forth into the eddying^^ depth, where, when Pharaoh's army 
 sank like a stone'^'^, they never rose, and that, in the heart or cen- 
 tre of the seas, whence no strong swimmer could escape to 
 shore. The floods or flood, [lit. river,] the sea with its cur- 
 rents, surrounded him, encompassing him on all sides ; and, 
 above, tossed its multitudinous waves, passing over him, like 
 an army trampling one prostrate under foot. Jonah remem- 
 bered well the temple-psalms, and, using their words, united 
 himself with those other worshippers who sang them, and 
 taught us how to speak them to God. The sons of Korah ^^ 
 had poured out to God in these self-same words the sorrows 
 which oppressed them. The rolling billows ^* and the break- 
 ers ^^, which, as they burst upon the rocks, shiver the vessel 
 and crush man, are, he says to God, TAme, fulfilling Thy Will 
 on me. 
 
 4. I am cast out of Thy sight, Wt. from before Thine eyes. 
 Jonahhad wilfully withdrawn from standing in God's presence. 
 Now God had taken him at his word, and, as it seemed, cast 
 him out of it. David had said in his haste, / am cut off'. Jo- 
 nah substitutes the stronger word, / ain cast forth ^^, driven 
 forth, expelled, like the mire and dirt ^^ which the waves drive 
 along, or like the waves themselves in their restless motion ^^, 
 or the heathen (the word is the same) whom God had driven 
 out before Israel i', or as Adam from Paradise ^°. 
 
 to on Tert. 1. c. p 310. n. t. "> S. Greg, in Ps. 6. Poenit. L. " nhva 
 
 " E.T. XT. 5, add 10. " Ps. xlii. 7. " T'J " "P^Pa " See Introd. p. 252. 
 1? Is. Ivii. 20. '8 lb. >» Ex. xxxir. 11, and Piel often. so Gen. iii. 21.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 275 
 
 CHiiTsT sight, yet I will look again ^ toward thy 
 cir. 780. ijoiy temple. 
 
 gp^'eafi.'^^" 5 The » waters compassed me about, 
 Lam.3.64. ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ soul : the depth closed me 
 
 round about, the weeds were wrapped 
 about my head. 
 + "?^ „ 6 1 went down to the f bottoms of the 
 
 cuttings off. ' 
 
 mountains ; the earth with her bars was 
 
 Yet [On/j/] I will look again. He was, as it were, a cast- 
 away, cast out of God's siglit, unheeded by Him, his prayers 
 unheard; the storm unabated, until he was cast forth. He 
 could no longer look with the bodily eye even towards the land 
 where God shewed the marvels of His mercy, and the Tem- 
 ple where God wasworshippedcontinually. Yetwhat hecould 
 not do in the body, he would do in his soul. This was his only 
 resource. " If I be cast away, this one thing will I do, I will 
 still look to God." Magnificent faith ! Humanly speaking, 
 all hope was gone, for, when that huge vessel could scarcely 
 live in the sea, how should a man ? when God had given it no 
 rest, while it contained Jonah, how should He will that Jonah 
 should escape ? Nay, God had hidden His Face from him ; yet 
 he did this one, this only thing ; only this, " once more, still / 
 will add to look to God." Thitherward would he look, so long 
 as his mind yet remained in him. If his soul parted from him, 
 it should go forth from him in that gaze. God gave him no 
 hope, save that He preserved him alive. For he seemed to him- 
 self forsaken of God. Wonderful pattern of faith which gains 
 strength even from God's seeming desertion ! " I am cast ve- 
 hemently forth from before Thine eyes ; yet this one thing will 
 I do ; mine eyes shall be unto Thee, O Lord." The Israelites, 
 as we see from Solomon's dedication-prayer,/irff_ye</ totvard the 
 temple^, where God had set His Name and shewn His glory, 
 where werethesacrificeswhichforeshadowed the Great Atone- 
 ment. Thitherward they looked in prayer, as Christians, of 
 old, prayed towards the East, the seat of our ancient Paradise, 
 where our Lord shall appear unto them that look for Him, a 
 second time imto salvation^. Toward that Temple then he 
 would yet look with fixed eye* for help, where God, Who fills 
 heaven and earth, shewed Himself to sinners reconciled. 
 
 5. The waters compassed me about eveii to the soul. Words 
 which to others were figures of distress, *the waters have come 
 even ^o Me soj</, were to Jonah realities. Sunk in the deep seas, 
 the water strove to penetrate at every opening. To draw 
 breath, which sustains life, to him would have been death. 
 There was but a breath between him and death. The deep en- 
 compassed me, encircling, meeting him whithersoever he turn- 
 ed, holding him imprisoned on every side, so that there was 
 no escape, and, if there otherwise had been, he was bound mo- 
 tionless, the weed tuas wrapped ai-ound my head, like a grave- 
 band. The weed was the well-known sea-weed, which, even 
 near the surface of the sea where man can struggle, twines 
 round him, a peril even to the strong swimmer, entangling 
 him often the more, the more he struggles to extricate him- 
 self from it. But to one below, powerless to struggle, it was as 
 his winding-sheet. 
 
 6. / went dowti to the bottoms, [lit. Me cuttings qff"\ of the 
 mountains, the " roots " as the Chaldee^ and we call them, the 
 
 I 1 Kings viii. 29, 30, 35, &c. 
 ' Heb. ix. 28. ' Sk a'zn is," look intently towards," as Moses at the bush, 
 
 Ex. iii. 6. ■• Ps. Ixix. 2. See ab. Introd. p. 252. ' Jon. here. 
 
 ' "The road is very dangerous ; fur the bottom is a mere bank of rocks, which extend the 
 
 about me for ever: yet hast thou brought chrTst 
 up my life ''from || corruption, O Lord '^'''- ^'^o- 
 
 my IrOd. \\ Or, the pit. 
 
 7 When my soul fainted within me I re- 
 membered the Lord : ' and my prayer came ' p^- is- c 
 in unto thee, into thine holy temple. ^ 2 Kings 17. 
 
 8 They that observe ^ lying vanities for- Ps. 31.6. 
 
 , . f -^ ^ Jer.lO.S. 
 
 sake their own mercy. &16. i9. 
 
 hidden rocks, whi(!h the mountainspush out,as it were,into the 
 sea, and in which they end. Such hidden rocks extend along 
 the whole length of thatcoast*. Thesewerehisdungeon-walls; 
 the earth, her bars, those long submarine reefs of rock, his pri- 
 son-bars, tvere arontid him for ever : the sea-weeds were his 
 chains : and, even thus, when things were at their uttermost, 
 Thou hast brought up mylifefrom corruption,X,o wlii(-h his Ijody 
 would have fallen a prey, had not God sent the fish to deliver 
 him. The deliverance for which he thanks God is altogether 
 past : Thoic hroughtest me up. He calls the Lord, my God, be- 
 cause,being the God of all,Hewas especially his God, for whom 
 He had done things of such marvellous love. God loves each 
 soul which He has made with the same infinite love with which 
 He loves all. Whence S. Paul says of Jesus ^, JFho loved me 
 and gave Himself for me. He loves each, with the same undivi- 
 ded love, as if He had created none besides ; and He allows each 
 to say. My God, as if the Infinite God belonged wholly to each. 
 So would He teach us the oneness of union between the soul 
 which God loves and which admits His love, and Himself. 
 
 7. When my soul fainted, lit. xvas covered, wit Inn wie, was 
 dizzied, overwhelmed. The word is used of actual faintness 
 from heat *, thirst ", exhaustion 1°, when a film comes over the 
 eyes, and the brain is, as it were, mantled over. The soul of the 
 pious never is so full of God, as when all things else fade from 
 him. Jonah could not but have remembered God in the tem- 
 pest ; when the lots were cast ; when he adjudged himself to be 
 cast forth. But when it came to the utmost, then he says, / 
 remembered the Lord, as though, in the intense thought of God 
 then, all his former thought of God had been forgetfulness. 
 So it is in every strong act of faith, of love, of prayer ; its 
 former state seems unworthyof the name of faith, love, prayer. 
 It believes, loves, prays, as though all before had been forget- 
 fulness. 
 
 ^nd my prayer came in unto Thee. No sooner had he so 
 prayed, than God heard. Jonah had thought himself cast 
 out of His sight ; but his prayer entered in thither. His holy 
 temple is doubtless His actual Temple, whitherward he pray- 
 ed. God, Who is wholly everywhere but the whole of Him 
 nowhere, was as much in the Temple as in heaven ; and had 
 manifested Himself to Israel in their degree in the Temple, as 
 to the blessed saints and angels in heaven. 
 
 8. They that observe lying vanities, i. e. (by the force 
 of the Hebrew form i^,) that diligently watch, pay deference 
 to, court, sue, vanities of vanities, vain things, which prove 
 themselves vain at last, failing the hopes which trust in them. 
 Such were actual idols, in which men openly professed that 
 they trusted. Such are all things in which men trust, out of 
 God. One is not more vain than another. All have this 
 common principle of vanity, that men look, out of God, to 
 
 whole length of the coast. It is thought that the sharp rocks which pierce to the surface 
 
 of the sea are the remains of the Isle Paria, mentioned by Pliny v. 31." Mislin, Les 
 
 Saints Lieux, ii. 137. ' Gal. ii. 20. " Jon. iv. 8. ' Am. viii. 13. 
 
 '» Is. Ii. 20. " 0-07
 
 276 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 9 But I will ' sacrifice unto thee with the 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. voice of thanksiriving ; I will pay that that 
 
 1 Ps. 60. 14, 23. S: 116. 17, 18. Hos. 11. 2. Heb. 13. 15. 
 
 that which has its only existence or permanence from God. 
 It is then one a:eneral niaxini, including all men's idols, idols 
 of the flesh, idols of intellect, idols of ambition, idols of pride, 
 idols of self and self-will. Men observe them, as fjods, watch 
 them,hanfc upon them, never lose sight of them, guard them 
 as though they could keep them. But what are they? /j/'iig- 
 vanities, breath and wind, which none can gras]> or detain, 
 vanishing like air into air. And what do they who so ohserve 
 them ? All 'AWke forsake their own mercif ; \. e. God, " Whose 
 property is, always to have mercy," and Who would be Mercy 
 to them, if they would. So David calls God, my Mercy i. 
 Abraham's servant and Naomi praise God, that He hath not 
 forsaken His mercy'. Jonah does not, in this, exclude him- 
 self. His own idol had been his false love for his country, 
 that he would not have his people go into captivity, when 
 God would ; would not have Nineveh preserved, the enemy of 
 his country ; and by leaving his office, he left his GoA, forsook 
 his own Mercy. See how God speaks of Himself, as wholly 
 belonging to them, who are His. He calls Himself their own 
 Mercy. "^He saith not, they who do vanities, (for *vanify of 
 vanities, and all things are vanity) lest he should seem to con- 
 demn all, and to deny mercy to the whole human race ; but 
 they who observe, guard vanities, or lies ; they, into the affec- 
 tions of whose hearts those vanities have entered ; who not 
 only do va7iities, but who guard them, as loving them, deem- 
 ing that they have found a treasure — These /onsnA-e their own 
 Mercy. Although mercy be offended, (and under Mercy we 
 may understand God Hinisc]f,for Godis ^gracious and full of 
 compassion ; slow to anger and of great mercy,) yet He doth 
 not forsake, doth not abhor, those who guard vanities, but 
 awaiteth that they should return : these contrariwise, of their 
 own -wiW, forsake Mercy standing and offering Itself." 
 
 9. But \_u-ind'] with thevoiceof thanksgiving ivill I [would 
 I fain'] sacrifice unto Thee; what I have vowed, livouldpay. He 
 does not say, Iiuill; for it did not depend upon him. Without 
 a further miracle of God, he could do nothing. But he says, 
 that he would never more forsake God. The law appointed 
 sacrifices of thanksgiving*; these he would offer, not in act 
 only, but with words of praise. He would pay what he had 
 voiced, and chiefly himself, his life which God had given back 
 to him, theobedienceof his remaining life, in all things. For 
 ''he that keepeth the laiv hringeth offerings enough; he that 
 taketh heed to the commatidments off'ereth a peace-offering. 
 Jonah neglects neither the outward nor the inward part, nei- 
 ther the body nor the soul of the commandment. 
 
 Salvation is of [lit. to] the Lord. It is wholly His ; all be- 
 longs to Him, so that none can share in bestowing it ; none can 
 have any hope, save from Him. He uses an intensive form, as 
 though he would say, strong mighty salvation *. God seemsof- 
 ten to wait for the full resignation of the soul, all its powers 
 and will to Him. Then He can shew mercy healthfully, when 
 the soul is wholly surrendered to Him. So,on this full confes- 
 sion, Jonah is restored. The Prophet's prayer ends almost in 
 promising the same as the mariners. They made vows; Jonah 
 says, I will pay that I have vowed. Devoted service in thecrea- 
 ture is one and the same, although diverse in degree ; and so, 
 that Israel might not despise the heathen, he tacitly likens the 
 act of the new heathen converts and that of the Prophet. 
 
 I have vowed. » Salvation is of the Lord. ^ ^^ff^ .j, 
 10 5[ And the Lord spake unto the «'■•■ 78"- 
 
 ■1 Ps. 3.8. 
 
 ' S. Jer. 
 
 > Ps. cxliv. 2. 
 * Eccl. i. 2. 
 
 2 Gen. xxiv. 27, Ruth ii. 20. 
 6 Ps. cxlv. 8. ' Ler. vii. 12-15. 
 
 1 1 . y^ud trie Lord spake unto the fish. ' ff^ind and storm 
 fulfil His word. The irrational creatures have wills. God 
 had commanded the Prophet. and he disobeyed. God, in some 
 way, commanded the fish. He laid His will upon it, and the 
 fish forthwith obeyed; a pattern to the Prophet when Here- 
 leased him. "'"God'sWill, that anythingsliould be completed, 
 is law and fulfilment and hath the power of law. Not that 
 Almighty (Jod commanded the fish, as He doth us or the 
 Holy Angels, uttering in its mind what is to be done, or in- 
 serting into the heart the knowledge of what He chooseth. 
 But if He be said to command irrational animals or elements 
 or any part ofthe creation, thissignifieththe law and r-oinmand 
 of His Will. For all things yield to His Will, and the mode 
 of their obedience is to us altogether ineffable, but known to 
 Him." "Jonah," says S.Chrysostome,"^' fled the land, and fled 
 not the displeasure of God. He fled the land, and brought a 
 tempest on the sea : and not only himself gained no good from 
 flight, but brought into extreme peril those also who took him 
 on board. When he sailed, seated in the vessel, with sailors 
 and pilot and all the tackling, he was in the extremes! peril: 
 when, sunk in the sea, the sin punished and laid aside, he en- 
 tered that vast vessel, the fish's belly,he enjoyed great fearless- 
 ness; that thou mayestlearnthat,as no ship availeth to one liv- 
 ing in sin, so when freed from sin, neither sea destroyeth, nor 
 beasts consume. The waves received him, and choked him 
 not ; the vast fish received him and destroyed him not ; but 
 both the huge animal and the element gave back their deposit 
 safe to God, and by all things the Prophet learnt to be mild and 
 tender, not to be more cruel than the untaught mariners or 
 wild waves or animals. For the sailors did not give him uj) 
 at first, but after manifold constraint; and the sea and the 
 wild animal guarded him with much benevolence, God dispos- 
 ing all these things. He returned then, preached, threatened, 
 persuaded. saved, awed, amended, stablished, through that one 
 first preaching. For he needed not many days, nor continu- 
 ous exhortation ; but, speaking those words, he brought all 
 to repentance. Wherefore God did not lead him straight from 
 the vessel to the city ; but the sailors gave him over to the sea, 
 the sea to the vast fish, the fish to God, God to the Ninevites, 
 and through this long circuit brought back the fugitive; that 
 He might instruct all, that it is impossible to escape the Hands 
 of God. For come where a man may, dragging sin after him, he 
 will undergo countless troubles. Thoughnianbe not there,na- 
 ture itself on all sides will oppose him with great vehemence." 
 "^" Since the elect too at times strive to be sharp-witted, it is 
 well to bring forward another wise man, and shew how the 
 craft of mortal man is comprehended in the Inward Counsels. 
 For Jonah wishedtoexercise aprudent sharpness of wit, when, 
 being sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites, in that he 
 feared that, if the Gentiles were chosen, Judaea would be for- 
 saken, he refused to discharge the oflice of preaching. He 
 sought a ship, chose to flee to Tarshish ; but forthwith a tem- 
 pest arises, the lot is cast, to know for whose fault the sea was 
 troubled. Jonah is taken in his fault, plunged in the deep, 
 swallowed by the fish, and carried by the vast beast thither 
 whither he set at naught the command to go. See how the 
 tempest found God's runaway, the lot binds him, the sea re- 
 ceives him,the beast encloses him,and,because he sets himself 
 
 ' Ecclus. XXXV. 1. ' .iryiP' « Ps. cxlviii.8. 
 
 '" S. Cyr. on Jon. ii.init. " Horn, on the Statues, v. 6. " S.Gres;. Mor. vi.31.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 277 
 
 chhTst ^^^' ^"'^ ** vomited out Jonah upon the 
 —1—- dry land. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 ] Jonah, sent again, preachetk to the Ninevites. 
 5 Upon their repentance, 10 God repenteth. 
 
 against obeying his Maker, he is carried a culprit by his pri- 
 son-house to the place whither be bad been sent. When God 
 commanded, man would not minister the ])ropbecy ; when 
 God enjoined, the beast cast forth the Prophet. The Lord 
 then taketh the wise in their ow?i rraftiness, when He bringeth 
 back to the servi(!e of His own Will, that whereby man's will 
 contradicts Him." "i.lonah, fleeing from the perils of preach- 
 ing and salvation of souls, fell into peril of his own life. When, 
 in the ship, be took on himself the peril of all, he saved both 
 himself and the ship. He fled as a man ; be exposed himself 
 to peril, as a prophet." "^Let them think so, who are sent 
 by God or i)y a superior to preach to heretics or to heathen. 
 When God calleth to an office or condition whose object it is 
 to live for the salvation of others, He gives grace and means 
 necessary or expedient to this end. For so the sweet and care- 
 ful ordering of His Providencerequireth. — Greater peril await- 
 eth us from God our Judge, if we flee His calling as did Jonah, 
 if we use not the talents entrusted to us to do His Will and to 
 His glory. We know the parable of the servant who buried 
 the talent, and was condemned by the Lord." 
 
 ^■Ind it vomited out Jonah. Unwilling, but constrained, it 
 cast him forth, as a burden to it. "^Froni the lowest depths 
 of death. Life came forth victorious." "*He is swallowed by 
 the fish, but is not consumed ; and then calls upon God, and 
 (marvel!) on the third day is given back with Christ." "^What 
 it prefigured, that that vast animal on the third day gave back 
 alive the Prophet which it had swallowed, no need to ask of us, 
 since Christ explained it. As then Jonah passed from the 
 ship into the fish's belly, so Christ from the wood into the 
 tomb or the depth of death. And as he for those emperilled 
 in the tempest, so Christ for those tempest-tost in this world. 
 And as Jonah was first enjoined to preach to the Ninevites, 
 but the preaching of Jonah did not reach them before the fish 
 cast him forth, so prophecy was sent beforehand to the Gen- 
 tiles, but did not reach them until after the resurrection of 
 Christ." "* Jonah prophesied of Christ, not so much in words 
 as by a sufi^ering of bis own; yet moreopenly than if he had pro- 
 claimed by speech His Death and Resurrection. For why was 
 he received into the fish's belly, and given back the third day, 
 except to signify that Christ would on the third day return 
 from the deep of hell ?" 
 
 S. Irenjeus looks on the history of Jonah as the imaging 
 of man's own history. "'As He allowed Jonah to be swallowed 
 by the whale, not that he should perish altogether, but that, 
 being vomited forth, he might the more be subdued to God, 
 and the more glorify God Who had given him such unlooked- 
 for deliverance, and bring those Ninevites to solid repentance, 
 converting them to the Lord Who would free them from death, 
 terrified by that sign which befel Jonah (as Scripture says of 
 
 t\itm, They turned every man from his evil way, &)C ) so 
 
 from the beginning, God allowed man to be swallowed up by 
 that vast Cetos who was the author of the transgression, not 
 that he should altogether perish, but preparing a way of sal- 
 vation, which, as foresignified by the word in Jonah, was 
 
 ' Lap. from S. Chrys. ^ from Lap. 3 s.Jer. 
 
 < S. Greg. Naz. 1. c. * S. Aug. Ep. 102. q. (5. n. 34. « de Civ. Dei, xviii. 30. 2. 
 
 AND the word of t 
 Jonah tlie secon( 
 
 the Lord came unto chrTst 
 id time, sayinji^, ch.im. 
 
 2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great 
 city, and preach unto it the preachinjj that 
 I bid thee. 
 
 formed for those who had the like faith as to the Lord as Jo- 
 nah, and with liim confessed, I/ear the Lord,8fc.that so man, 
 receiving from (iod unlooked-for salvation, might rise from the 
 
 dead and glorify God, &c This was the longsufferiiigof 
 
 God, that man might pass through all, and acknowledge his 
 ways; then, coming to the resurrection and knowing by trial 
 from what he had been delivered, might lie for ever tli;inkful to 
 God, and, having received from Him the gift of incorruption, 
 might love Him more (for he to whom much is forgiven, lovetli 
 mu(;b) and know himself, that he is mortal and weak, and un- 
 derstand the Lord, that He is in such wise Mighty and Immor- 
 tal, that to the mortal He can give immortality and to the 
 things of time eternity." 
 
 in. 1. ^4nd the word of the Lord came a second time to 
 Jonah. "8 Jonah, delivered from the whale, doubtless went 
 up to Jerusalem to pay his vows and thank God there. Per- 
 haps he hoped that God would be content with this his pu- 
 nishment and repentance, and that He would not again send 
 him to Nineveh." Any how he was in some settled home, per- 
 haps again at Gathhepher. For God bids him, Arise, go. 
 " " But one who is on his way, is not bidden to arise and go." 
 God may have allowed an interval to elapse, in order that 
 the tidings of so great a miracle might spread far and wide. 
 But Jonah does not supply any of these incidents ^". He does 
 not speak of himself^", but of bis mission only, as God taught 
 him, 
 
 2. Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and preach [or cry'] 
 unto it. God says to Jonah the self-same words which He had 
 said before; only perhaps He gives him an intimation of His 
 purpose of mercy, in that He says no more, cry against her, 
 but cry unto her. He might cry against one doomed to de- 
 struction ; to cry unto her, seems to imply that she bad some 
 interest in, and so some hope from, this cry. The preaching 
 that I bid thee. This is the only notice which Jonah relates 
 that God took of his disobedience, in that He charged him 
 to obey exactly what He commanded. " ^^ He does not say 
 to him, why didst thou not what I commanded ? " He had ri- 
 buked him in deed ; He amended him and upbraided him not. 
 " ^' The rebuke of that shipwreck and the swallowing by the 
 fish sufficed, so that he who had not felt the Lord command- 
 ing, might understand Him, delivering." Jonah might have 
 seemed unworthy to be again inspired by God. But ^vhom 
 the Lord loveth. He chasteneth ; whom He chasteneth. He 
 loveth. " ^^The hard discipline, the severity and length of the 
 scourge, were the earnests of a great trust and a high des- 
 tination." He knew him to be changed into another man, 
 and, by one of His most special favours, gives him that same 
 trust which he had before deserted. " ^ As Christ, when risen, 
 commended His sheep to Peter, wiser now and more fervent, 
 so to Jonah risen He commends the conversion of Nineveh. 
 For so did Christ risen bring about the conversion of the hea- 
 then, by sending His Apostles, each into large provinces, as 
 Jonah was sent alone to a large city." " ^^ He bids him de- 
 clare not only the sentence of God, but in the self-same words ; 
 
 7 iii.ao.p. 213. ed. Mass. L. 
 » Castr. 11 See Introd. p. 253. " S. Jer. 
 
 X X 
 
 ' Lap. 
 '- from Sanch. 
 
 13 Mont.
 
 278 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nine- 
 
 veh, according to the word of the Lord. 
 
 ^ soclfui: Now Nineveh was an f exceeding great 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 Ps. 3(i. 6. & 
 80. 10. 
 
 city of three days' journey 
 
 not to consider liis own estimation or the ears of his hearers, 
 nor to niiiiicle sootliing- with severe words, and convey the 
 message in,ffeniously, but with all freedom and severity to de- 
 clare openly what was commanded him. This plainness, 
 thous^h, may he, less acceptable to people or princes, is oft- 
 times more useful, always more approved by God. Nothing 
 should be more sacred to the preacher of God's word, tlian 
 truth and simplicity and inviolable sanctity in delivering it. 
 Now alas, all this is chanired into vain show at the will of 
 the multitude and the breatli of popular favour." 
 
 3. And Jonah arose and went, unto Nineveh, as ready to 
 obey, as before to disobey. Before, when God said those 
 same words, he arose andjied ; now, he arose and tvent. True 
 conversion shews the same energy in serving God, as the un- 
 converted had before shewn in serving self or error. Saul's 
 spirit of fire, which persecuted Christ, gleamed in S. Paul like 
 lightning through the world, to win souls to Him. 
 
 Nineveh was an exceeding great city ; lit. great to God, i.e. 
 what would not only appear great to man who admires things 
 of no account, but what, being really great, is so in the judg- 
 ment of God Who cannot be deceived. God (//(/ account it 
 great, Who says to Jonah, Should not I spare Nineveh that great 
 city, which hath more than six score thousand that cannot dis- 
 cern between their right hand and their left ? It is a different 
 idiom from that, when Scripture speaks of the mountains of 
 God, the cedars of God. For of these it speaks, as having their 
 firmness or their beauty from God as their Author. 
 
 Of three days' Journey, i. e. sixty miles in circumference. 
 It was a great city. Jonah speaks of its greatness, under a 
 name which he would only have used of real greatness. Varied 
 accounts agree in ascribing this size to Nineveh ^. An Eastern 
 city enclosing often, as did Babylon, ground under tillage, the 
 only marvel is, that such a space was enclosed by walls. Yet 
 this too is no marvel, when we know from inscriptions, what 
 masses of human strength the great empires of old had at their 
 command, or of the more than threescore pyramids of Egypt -. 
 In population it was far inferior to our metropolis, of which, 
 as of the suburbs of Rome of old, " ^ one would hesitate to 
 say, where the city ended, where it began. The suburban 
 parts are so joined on to the city itself, and give the spectator 
 the idea of boundless length." An Eastern would the more 
 naturally think of the circumference of a city, because of 
 the broad places, similar to the boulevards of Paris, which 
 encircled it, so that men could walk around it, within it. 
 "*The buildings," it is related of Babylon, "are not brought 
 close to the walls, but are at about the distance of an acre 
 from them. And not even the whole city did they occupy with 
 houses ; 80 furlongs are inhabited, and not even all these con- 
 tinuously, I suppose because it seemed safer to live scattered 
 in several places. The rest they sow and till, that, if any fo- 
 reign force threaten them, the besieged may be supplied with 
 food from the soil of the city itself." Not Babylon alone was 
 spoken of, of old, as '• ^ having the circumference of a nation 
 rather than of a city." 
 
 4. yind Jonah begem to enter the city a day's journey. Per- 
 
 > See ab. Introd. pp. 253, 4. ■ G7. Lepsius. 
 
 s Dionys. Hal. T.i. p. 219. L. ■> Q. Curt. v. 4. ^ Aristot. Polit. 
 
 iii. 2. " You cannot judge whether a city is one or no by there being walls. For it 
 would be possible to carry one wall round Peloponnesus ; and perhaps Babylon is some- 
 
 4 And Jonah began to enter into the chrTst 
 city a day's journey, and " he cried, and ""■ '*''• 
 said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be 
 overthrown. 
 
 ' See Deut. 
 
 18. 22. 
 
 haps the day's journey enabled him to traverse the city from 
 end to end, with his one brief, deep cry of woe ; Yet forty 
 days and Nineveh overthroivn'". He prophesied an utter over- 
 throw, a turning it upside down ^. He does not speak of it as to 
 happen at a time beyond those days. The close of the forty 
 days and the destruction were to be one. He does not say 
 strictly, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown, but, 
 Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown. The last of those 
 forty days was, ere its sun was set, to see Nineveh as a thing 
 overthroivn. Jonah knew from the first God's purpose of 
 mercy to Nineveh ; he had a further hint of it in the altered 
 commission which he had received. It is perhaps hinted in 
 the word Yet. " ^ If God had meant unconditionally to over- 
 throw them. He would have overthrown tiiem without notice. 
 ye/,always denotes some long-suffering of God." But, taught 
 by that severe discipline, he discharges his office strictly. He 
 cries, what God had bidden him to cry, without reserve or ex- 
 ception. The sentence, as are all God's threatenings until the 
 last, was conditional. But God does not say this. That sen- 
 tence was now within forty days of its completion ; yet even 
 thus it was remitted. Wonderful encouragement, when one 
 Lent sufficed to save some six hundred thousand souls from 
 perishing! Yet the first visitation of the Cholera was checked 
 in its progress in England, upon one day's national fast and 
 humiliation ; and we have seen how general prayer has often- 
 times at once opened or closed the heavens as we needed. 
 "A few years ago," relates S. Augustine^, " when Arcadius 
 was Emperor at Constantinople (what I say, some have heard, 
 some of our people were present there,) did not God, willing 
 to terrify the city,and,byterrifying,to amend, convert, cleanse, 
 change it, reveal to a faithful servant of His (a soldier,it is said), 
 that the city should perish by fire from heaven, and warned 
 him to tell the Bishop ! It was told. The Bishop despised it 
 not, but addressed the people. The city turned to the mourn- 
 ing of penitence, as that Nineveh of old. Yet lest men should 
 think that he who said this, deceived or was deceived, the day 
 which God had threatened, came. When all were intently ex- 
 pecting the issue with great fears, at the beginning of night 
 as the world was being darkened, a fiery cloud was seen from 
 the East, small at first, then, as it approached the city, gradu- 
 ally enlarging, until it hung terribly over the whole city. All 
 fled to the Church ; the place did not hold the people. — But 
 after that great tribulation, when God had accredited His 
 word, the cloud began to diminish and at last disappeared. 
 The people, freed from fear for a while, again heard that they 
 must migrate, because the whole city should be destroyed on 
 the next sabbath. The whole people left the city with the Em- 
 peror ; no one remained in his house. — That multitude, hav- 
 ing gone some miles, when gathered in one spot to pour forth 
 prayer to God, suddenly saw a great smoke, and sent forth a 
 loud cry to God." The city was saved. "What shall we 
 say?" adds S.Augustine. "Was this the anger of God, or rather 
 His mercy ? Who doubts that the most merciful Father will- 
 ed by terrifying to convert, not to punish by destroying ? As 
 the hand is lifted up to strike, and is recalled in pity, when he 
 
 thing ot this sort, and every city which had the circumference of a nation rather than 
 
 ofa city, at the taking of which tljey say that some parts of the city did not hear ot it 
 
 lor three days." « Introd. 'p. 253. 7 lb. p. 255. 8 Cast , 
 
 ' de excid. urb. c. C. (L.) add Paul. Diac. L. 13.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 279 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 t Matt. 12.41. 
 Luke 11.32. 
 
 5 ^ So the people of Nineveh ^ believed 
 God, and proclaimed a fast, and |)ut on 
 sackcloth, from the i^reatest of them even 
 to the least of them. 
 
 who was to be struck is terrified, so was it done to that city." 
 Will any of God's warninijs now move our };^reat Babylon to 
 repentance, that it be not ruined ? 
 
 5. ^nd f/ic pct)/j/r of Niiwi'eh believed God ; strictly, believ- 
 ed in God. To liclicvc in God expresses nioi-c heart-beliet', than 
 to believe God in itself need convey. To believe GodisXo be- 
 lieve what God says, to be true; to believe in or on Gr>(/ expresses 
 not belief only,but that belief restinir in God,trustinji: itself and 
 all its concerns with Ilini. It combines h(jpe and trust with 
 faith, and love too, since, without love, there cannot be trust. 
 They believed then the |)reachinc; of Jonah, and that He, in 
 Whose Name Jonah spake, had all power in heaven and earth. 
 But they believed further in His unknown mercies; they cast 
 themselves upon the sfoodness of the hitherto nnlaiown God. 
 Yet they believed in Him, as tlie Supreme God, the oljject of 
 awe, the God (Elohim ', Haelobim -), althoujjh they knew Him 
 not, as He Is^, the Self-Existent. Jonah does not say how 
 they were thus persuaded. God the Holy Ghost relates the 
 wonders of God's Omnipotence as common every-day thins^s. 
 They are no marvels to Him Who wrou£:ht them. He com- 
 manded and they ivere done. He spake with power to the 
 hearts which He had made, and they were turned to Him. 
 Any human means are secondary, utterly powerless, except in 
 His hands Who Alone doth all thinijs throuii;h whomsoever He 
 doth tiiem. Our Lord tells us XhcitJo)i(ih himself «'«.< a sis^n 
 unto the Ninevites*. Whetiier then the mariners spread the 
 history *. or howsoever tiie Ninevites knew the personal his- 
 tory of Jonah, he, in his own person and in what befell him, 
 was a sisjn to them. They believed that God, Who aveng^ed 
 his disobedience, would avenge their's. They believed per- 
 haps, that God must have some great mercy in store for 
 them, Who not only sent His Prophet so far from his own 
 land to thetn who had never owned, never worshipped Him, 
 but had done such mighty wonders to subdue His Prophet's 
 resistance and to make him go to them. 
 
 ^nd proclaimed a fust and put on sackcloth. It was not 
 then a repentance in word only, but in deed. A fast was at 
 that time entire abstinence from all food till evening ; the hair- 
 cloth was a harsh gannent,irritating and afflictive to the body. 
 They who did so, were (as we may still see from the Assyrian 
 sculptures) men of pampered and luxurious habits, uniting 
 sensuality and fierceness. Yet this they did at once, and as it 
 seems, for the 4U days. They proclaimed a fast. They did not 
 wait for the supreme authority. Time was urgent, and they 
 would lose none of it. In this imminent peril of God's dis- 
 pleasure, they acted as men would in a conflagration. Men 
 do not wait for orders to put out a tire, if they can, or to pre- 
 vent it from spreading. Whoeverthey were whoproclaimed it, 
 whether those in inferior authority, each in his neighbourhood, 
 or whether it spread from man to man, as the tidings spread, 
 it was done at once. It seems to have been done by acclama- 
 tion, as it were.one common cry outof the one common terror. 
 For it is said of them, as one succession of acts, the men of 
 
 1 iii.5,8. 2 lb. 9. 
 
 ■* m.l* occurs once only in this cliapter, of God speaking to Jonah, iii. 1. •* See ab. 
 pp. 256, 7. * Dion, suggests tliis as a conjecture. Aben Ezra quotes the same from 
 
 R. Jesua. Kimchi says the same. <• Mont. ? It is, the word, -ain. s See 
 
 Lex. of the Old or New Testament v. "im, tiros, pijua. So in Arab. Aram. jEthiop. 
 
 6 For word came unto the kini>- of Nine- ^ ,P^[°fs ^ 
 veh, and he arose from his throne^ and he "'■ ^^- 
 
 laid his rohc; from him, and covered him 
 
 with sackcloth, "and sat in ashes. -^ Job 2.8. 
 
 Nitievch believed in God, and proclnhne.d a fast, and put on 
 sackcloth from their threat to their little, every age, sex, con- 
 dition. '"'\V^ortliy of admiration is tliat cxcr-cding celerity and 
 diligence in taking coiinscj, wbicii, altlidugii in the same city 
 with the king, perceived that they must provide for the com- 
 mon and imminent (•alainity, not waiting to ascertain labori- 
 ously the king's pleasure." In a city, (51) miles in cin-umfer- 
 ence, some time must needs be lost, before the king could be 
 approached ; and we know, in some measure, the forms re- 
 quired in approaching Eastern monarchs of old. 
 
 6. For word came, rather, ^-/iid t lie matter" came, i.e. the 
 "whole account," as we say. The tvord, word, throughout Holy 
 Scripture, as in so many languages, stands for that whicii is 
 reported of*. The whiAc account, viz. how this stranger, in 
 strange austere attire, had come, what had happened to him 
 before he came, how he preached, how the people had Ix'lieved 
 him, what they had done, as had just been related, cmne to 
 the ki/ig. The form of words implies that what Jonah relates 
 in this verse took place after what had been mentioned before. 
 People are slow to (;arry to sovereigns matters of distress, 
 in which they cannot help. This was no matter of peril from 
 man, in which the counsel or energy of the king could be of use. 
 Any how it came to him last. But when it came to him, he 
 disdained not to follow the example of those below him. He 
 was not jealous of his prerogative, or that his advice had not 
 been had; but, in the common peril, acted as his subjects had, 
 and humbled himself as they did. Yet this king was the king 
 of Nineveh, the king, whose name was dreaded far and wide, 
 whose will none who disputed, prospered. " *" He who was 
 accounted and was the greatest of the kings of the earth, was 
 not held back by any thought of his own splendour, greatness 
 or dignity, from fleeing as a suppliant to the mercy of God, 
 and inciting others by his example to the same earnestness." 
 The kings of Assyria were religious, according to their light. 
 They ascribed all their victories to their god, Asshur ^. When 
 the king came to hear of One Who had a might, such as he 
 had not seen, he believed in Him. 
 
 ^nd he arose from his throne. He lost no time ; he heard, 
 and he arose. ''^ It denotes great earnestness, haste,diligence." 
 And he laid his robe from him. This was the large costly up- 
 per garment, so called from its amplitude 1°. It is the name 
 of the goodly Babylonian garment '^ which Achan coveted. As 
 worn by kings, it was the most magnificent part of their dress, 
 and a special part of their state. Kings were buried as they 
 lived, in splendid apparel ^- ; and rich adornments were buried 
 with them '^ The king of Nineveh dreads no charge of pre- 
 cipitancy nor man's judgement. " ''He exchanges purple, gold, 
 gems for the simple rough and sordid sackcloth, and his throne 
 for the most abject ashes, the humblest thing he could do. ful- 
 filling a deeper degree of humility than is related of the peo- 
 ple." Strange credulity, had Jonah's message not been true ; 
 strange madness of unbelief which does not repent when a 
 Greater than Jonah cries ^^, Repent ye,f or the kingdom of hea- 
 
 Ges. adds Pers. and Genu." Sache from " sagcn," " Ding." ' Cuneiform Inscrip- 
 
 tions. See ab. p. 255. n. h. '" mx. It expresses size, not magnificence, since a wide 
 garment of hair, sucii as tlie prophets afterwards wore, (Zech. xiii. 4, i Kings ii. 1-3, 14) 
 was so called. Gen. xxv. 25. " Josh. vii. 21. '- Jos. Ant. xvii. S. 3. 
 
 '3 Id. XV. 3. 4. xvi. 7. 1. '^ S. Matt. iv. 17. 
 
 X X 2
 
 280 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 c h^rTs t 7 '' -^"^^ ^® caused it to be proclaimed 
 
 '=''•• "'^»- and f publislied throuj^h Nineveh by the 
 
 ^ Joei'^i. 15.' ^' decree of the king and liis f nobles, sayinc^, 
 
 tHeb.^rrai I-'Ct neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, 
 
 taste any thinj? : let them not feed, nor chkTst 
 drink water : "'■ ^^'- 
 
 8 But let man and beast be covered 
 with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto 
 
 ven is at hand. Stranffe garb for the king, in the eyes of a lux- 
 iirioTis age ; acceptable in His Wlio said ', if the mighti/ works 
 which hare been donein i/oii had lieen dtmeiii Ti/re and Sidon, titer/ 
 would have repented long ago in saiAclolh and ashes. "^Many 
 wisli to repent, yet so as not to part witli their luxuries or the 
 vanity of titeir dress, like the Greek who said he would 'like to 
 he a philosopher, yet in a few things, notaltogether.' To whom 
 we may answer, 'delicate food and costly dress agree not with 
 penitence ; and that is no great grief which never comes to 
 light.'" "^It was a marvellousthing, that purple was outvied 
 by sackcloth. Sackcloth availed, what the purple robe avail- 
 ed not. What the diadem accomplished not, the ashes ac- 
 complished. Seest thou, I said not groundlessly that we should 
 fear, not fasting but drunkenness and satiety ? For drunken- 
 ness and satiety shook the city through and through, and 
 were about to overthrow it ; when it was reeling and about to 
 fall, fasting stablished it." " * The king had conquered ene- 
 mies by valour ; he conquered God by humility. Wise king, 
 who, for the saving of his people, owns himself a sinner rather 
 than a king. He forgets that he is a king, fearing God, the 
 King of all; he remembereth not his own power, coming to 
 own the power of the Godhead. Marvellous ! VVhile he re- 
 membereth not that he is a king of men, he beginneth to be a 
 king of righteousness. The prince, becoming religious, lost 
 not his empire but changed it. Before, he held the princedom 
 of military discipline ; now, he obtained the princedom in hea- 
 venly disciplines." 
 
 7. And he caused it to he proclaimed and piihlished through 
 Nineveh ; lit. And he cried and said, Sfc. The cry or proclama- 
 tion of the king corresponded with the cry of Jonah. W^here 
 the Prophet's cry, calling to repentance, had reached, the pro- 
 clamation of the king followed, obeying. J8i/ the decree of the 
 king and his nobles. This is a hint of the political state of 
 Nineveh, beyond what we have elsewhere. It was not then 
 an absolute monarchy. At least, the king strengthened his 
 command by that of his nobles, as Darius the Mede sealed the 
 den of lions, into which Daniel was cast, with the signet of his 
 lords as well as his own *, that the purpose might not be changed 
 concernitig him. 
 
 Let neither man nor beast, Sfc. "^ Are brutes too then to 
 fast, horses and mules to be clothed with sackcloth ? Yes, he 
 says. For as, when a rich man dies, his relatives clothe not 
 only the men and maidservants, but the horses too with sack- 
 cloth, and, giving them to the grooms, bid that they should 
 follow to the tomb,intoken of the greatnessof thecalamity and 
 inviting all to sympathy, so also when that city was about to 
 perish, they clad the brute natures in sackcloth, and put them 
 under the yoke of fasting. The irrational animals cannot, 
 through words, learn the anger of God; let them learn through 
 hunger, that the infliction is from God : for if, he says, the city 
 should be overthrown, it would be one grave of us the inhabi- 
 tants and of them also." It was no arbitrary nor wanton nor 
 careless act of the king of Nineveh to make the dumb animals 
 share in the common fast. It proceeded probably from an in- 
 distinct consciousness that God cared for them also^ and, that 
 
 ' S. Matt. xi. 21. 
 « Rib. 3 s. Chrys. Horn. v. de Poenit. n. 4. ii. 314. * S. Maximus in Jon, Bibl. 
 
 thei/ were not guilty. So the Psalmist looked on God's care 
 of His creatures as a fresh ground for man's trust in Him", O 
 Lord, Thou preservest man and beast : How excellent is Thy 
 loving-kindness, () Lord, therefore the children of men jiut their 
 trust under the shadow of Thy wings. As our Lord teaches that 
 God's care of the sparrows is a pledge to man of God's minute 
 unceasing care for him, so the Ninevites felt truly that the cry 
 of the poor brutes would be heard by God. And God confirm- 
 ed that judgment, when He told Jonah of the much cattle^, as 
 a ground for having pity on Nineveh. The moanings and low- 
 ings of the animals, their voices of distress, pierce man's heart 
 too, and must have added to his sense of the common misery. 
 Ignorance or pride of human nature alone could think that 
 man's sorrow is not aided by these objects of sense. Nature 
 was truer in the king of Nineveh. 
 
 8. Let ma7i and beast be covered with sackcloth. The gor- 
 geous caparisons of horses mules and camels was part of 
 Eastern magnifi<;ence. Who knows not how man's pride is 
 fed by the sleekness of his stud, their "well-appointed" trap- 
 pings ? Man, in his luxury and pride, would have everything 
 reflect his glory, and minister to pomp. Self-humiliation 
 would have everything reflect its lowliness. Sorrow would 
 have everything answer to its sorrow. Men think it strange 
 that the horses at Nineveh were covered with sackcloth, and 
 forget how, at the funerals of the rich, black horses are chosen 
 and are clothed with black velvet. 
 
 A?id cry unto God mightily, " with might which conquer- 
 eth judgement." A faint prayer does not express a strong de- 
 sire, nor obtain what it does not strongly ask for, as having 
 only half a heart. 
 
 And let them turn,every man from his evil way. "^See what 
 removed that inevitable wrath. Did fasting and sackcloth 
 alone ? No, but the change of the whole life. How does this 
 appear ? From the Prophet's word itself For he who spake 
 of the wrath of God and of their fast, himself mentions the 
 reconciliation and its cause. And God saw their works. 
 What works ? that they fasted ? that they put on sackcloth ? 
 He passes by these, and says, that every erne turned from his 
 evil luays, and God repented of the evil ivhich He had said that 
 He would do unto them. Seest thou, that not the fast pluck- 
 ed them from the peril, but the change of life made God pro- 
 pitious to these heathen. I say this, not that we should dis- 
 honour, but that we may honour fasting. For the honour of a 
 fast is not in abstinence from food, but in avoidance of sin. 
 So that he who limiteth fasting to the abstinence from food 
 only, he it is, who above all dishonoureth it. Fastest thou ? 
 Shew it me by its works. 'What works ?' askest thou ? If you 
 see a poor man, have mercy ; if an enemy, be reconciled; if a 
 friend doing well, envy him not ; if a beautiful woman, pass on. 
 Let not the mouth alone fast ; let eyes too, and hearing and 
 feet, and hands, and all the members of our bodies. Let the 
 hands fast, clean from rapine and avarice ! let the feet fast, 
 holding back from going to unlawful sights ! let the eyes fast, 
 learning never to thrust themselves on beautiful objects, nor 
 to look curiously on others' beauty ; for the food of the eye is 
 
 Pair. T. vl. f. 28. 
 
 ' Dan. vi. 17. 
 Ps. xxxvi. 6, 7. 
 
 S. Chrys. on the Statues, Horn. iii. 4. 
 
 * iv. ult.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 2S1 
 
 c H rTs t ^^^^ ' y^^' " ^^* them turn every one from 
 '='''• ^^"- . his evil way, and from ' the violence that is 
 in their hands. 
 
 9 i* Who can tell if God will turn and re- 
 
 « Is. 58. 0. 
 ' Is. 59. 6. 
 K2Sani. 12.22 
 Joel 2. 14. 
 
 je^azinf;. — Let the car too fast ; for the fast of tlic cars is not to 
 hear detractions and calumnies. Let the nioutli too fast from 
 foul words and reproaches. For what hoots it, to ahstaiii from 
 hirds and fish, wliile we hitc and devour our brethren ? The 
 detractor preys on his brotlicr's flesh." 
 
 He says, each from /lis evil wai/, because, in the a^eneral mass 
 of corruption, each man has his own special heart's-sin. All 
 were to return, but by forsaking, each, one by one, his own ha- 
 bitual favourite sin. 
 
 jiud from the violence. Fiolence is singled out as the spe- 
 cial sin of Nineveh, out of all their evil tuny ; as the Angel saith\ 
 tell His disciples and Peter. This was the giant, Goliath-sin. 
 When this should be effaced, the rest would give way, as the 
 Philistines fled, when their champion was fallen to the earth 
 dead. That is /« their hands, lit. in their pahns -, the hollow of 
 their hand. The hands being the instruments alike of using 
 violence and of grasping its fruits, the violence cleaves to them 
 in both ways, in its guilt and in its gains. So Job and David 
 say ^, tvhile there was no violence in nn/ hands ; and Isaiah *, the 
 work of wickedness is in their hands. Repentance and restitu- 
 tion clear the hands from the guilt of the violence: restitution, 
 which gives back what was wronged ; repentance, which, for 
 love of God,hates andquitsthesins,of which it repents. "Keep 
 the winning, keep the sinning." The fruits of sin are temporal 
 gain, eternal loss. We cannot keep the gain and escape the 
 loss. Whoso keeps the gain of sin, loves it in its fruits, and 
 will have them, all of them. TheHebrewshad a saying,"'Who- 
 so hath stolen a beam, and used it in building a great tower, 
 must pull downthewholetowerandrestorethe beam to its own- 
 er," i. e. restitution must be made at any cost. " He," they 
 say^, "who confesses a sin and does not restore the thing 
 stolen, is like one who holds a reptile in his hands, who, if he 
 were washed with all the water in the world, would never be 
 purified, till he cast it out of his hands ; when he has done this, 
 the first sprinkling cleanses him." 
 
 2. ffho ran tell if God will turn and repetit ? The Nine- 
 vites use the same form of words, which God suggested by 
 Joel to Judah. Perhaps He would thereby indicate that He 
 had Himself put it into their mouths. " ^ In uncertainty they 
 repented, and obtained certain mercy." "*It is therefore 
 left uncertain, that men, being doubtful of their salvation, 
 may repent the more vehemently and the more draw down on 
 themselves the mercy of God." " ^ Most certain are the pro- 
 mises of God, whereby Hehaspromised pardon to the penitent. 
 And yet the sinner may well be uncertain whether he have 
 obtained that penitence which makes him the object of those 
 promises, not a servile repentance for fear of punishment, but 
 true contrition out of the love of God." And so by this uncer- 
 tainty, while, with the fear of hell, there is mingled the fear 
 of the loss of God, the fear of that loss, which in itself involves 
 some love, is, by His grace, turned into a contrite love, as the 
 tprrified soul thinks fFho He is, Whom it had all but lost. 
 Whom, it knows not whether it may not lose. In the case of 
 the Ninevites.the remission of the temporal and eternal punish- 
 ment was bound up in one, since the only punishment which 
 
 pent, and turn away from his fierce anger, ^ ^f^^''^' 
 that we perish not ? 
 
 ST 
 cir. 780. 
 
 10^'' And God saw their works, that Anios7..'i[6. 
 they turned from their evil way ; and God 
 
 > S. Mark xvi. 7. 
 
 < Is. lix. 6. 
 
 2 D.TSDn 
 * in Kimchi, 
 
 3 Jobxvi. 17, 1 Chr. xii. 17. 
 ' in Merc. 
 
 (Jod iiad threatened was temporal. and if this was forgiven, that 
 forgiveness was a token that His displeasure iiad ceased. 
 
 '""They know not the issue,yet they neglect not repentance. 
 They are uiiac(|iiaintcd with the iiictiiod of tiieloviiig-kin.lness 
 of (iod, and tlicy are chaiiged amid iiiiccrtaintv. They had 
 no other Nincvites to look to,uiio lia(lrc|iciitc(l and been saved. 
 They had not read the Proi)li('ts nor heard tlie Patriarchs, 
 nor l)enefited by counsel, nt>r |)artaken of instruction, nor had 
 they persuaded themselves that they should altogether propi- 
 tiate God by repentance. For the threat did not contain this. 
 But they doubted and hesitated about tins, and yet repented 
 with all carefulness. What account then sliall we give, when 
 these, who had no good hopes held out to tiicm as to the issue, 
 gave evidence of such a change, and thou, who mayest be of 
 good cheer as to God's love for men, and hast many times re- 
 ceived many pledges of His care, and hast heard the Prophets 
 and Apostles, and hast been instructed by the events them- 
 selves, strivest not to attain the same measure of virtue as 
 they? Great then was the virtue too of these men,l)ut much 
 greater the loving-kindness of God ; and this you may see from 
 the very greatness of the threat. For on this ground did He 
 not add to the sentence, 'but if ye repent, I will spare,' that, 
 casting among them the sentence unconditioned. He might in- 
 crease the fear, and, increasing the fear, might impel them the 
 more speedily to repentance." "'^ That fear was the parent of 
 salvation ; the threat removed the peril ; the sentence of over- 
 throw stayed the overthrow. New and marvellous issue ! The 
 sentence threatening death was the parent of life. Contrary 
 to secular judgment, the sentence lost its force, when passed. 
 In secular courts, the passing of the sentence gives it validity. 
 Contrariwise with God, the pronouncing of the sentence made 
 it invalid. For had it not been pronounced, the sinners had 
 not heard it : had they not heard it, they would not have re- 
 pented, would not have averted the chastisement, would not 
 have enjoyed that marvellous deliverance. They fled not the 
 city.as we do now [from the earthquake], but, remaining,esta- 
 blishedit. It was a snare, and they made it a wall : a quick- 
 sand and precipice, and they made it a tower of safety." 
 
 ""Was Nineveh destroyed? Quite the contrary. It arose 
 and became more glorious, and all this intervening time has 
 not eff"aced its glory, and we all yet celebrate it and marvel 
 at it, that thenceforth it has become a most safe harbour to 
 all who sin, not allowing them to sink into despair, but call- 
 ing all to repentance, both by what it did and by what it 
 gained from the Providence of God, persuading us never to de- 
 spair of our salvation, but living the best we can, and setting 
 before us a good hope, to be of good cheer that the end will any 
 how be good." "i- What was Nineveh ? Thet/ ate, they draiik : 
 thei/ bought, they sold ; they planted, they huilded ; they gave 
 themselves up to perjuries, lies, drunkenness, enormities, cor- 
 ruptions. This was Nineveh. Look at Nineveh now. They 
 mourn, they grieve, are saddened, in sackcloth and ashes, in 
 fastings and prayers. Where is that Nineveh ? It is over- 
 thrown." 
 
 1 0. And God saw their works. " ^^ He did not then first see 
 
 ' S. Aug. inPs. 50. L. s s. Jer. « in Lap. i" S. Chn's. on Statues, Horn. v. n.G. 
 " Ib.n. 5. i: S.Aug. Serm.361.de res. n. 20. " Rup.
 
 2S2 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 78n. 
 
 repented of the evil, that he had said that 
 
 them ; He did not then first see their sackcloth when they co- 
 vered themselves with it. He had seen them lonj? hcfore Fie 
 sent the Prophet thither, while Israel was slayinj^ the prophets 
 who announced to them the captivity whi<'h hiuifi^ over them. 
 He knew certainly, that if He were to send the prophets far off 
 to the Gentiles with such an announcement, they would hear 
 and repent." God saw them, looked npon tliem, approved 
 them, accepted the Ninevites not for time only, but, as many 
 as persevered, for eternity. It was no common repentance. 
 It was the penitence, which our Lord sets forth as the pattern 
 of true repentance before His Coming. ^ The men of Nineveh 
 shall rise in jiulgenient with this generation a7i(l shall condenDt 
 it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold 
 a greater than Jonah is here. They believed in the One God, 
 before unknown to them ; they huml)led themselves ; they were 
 not ashamed to repent pul)licly ; tiiey tised great strictness 
 with themselves ; but, what Scri])ture chiefly dwells upon, their 
 repentance was not only in profession, in belief,in outward act, 
 but in the fruit of genuine works of repentance, a changed life 
 out of a changed heart. God sum their ivorks, that theii turned 
 from their evil way. Their whole way and course of life was 
 evil; they broke off, not the one or other sin oidy, butall their 
 whole evil way. "-The Ninevites, when about to perish, ap- 
 point them a fast ; in their bodies they chasten their souls with 
 the scourge of humility ; they put on hairclotii for raiment ; 
 for ointment they sprinkle themselves with ashes ; and, pros- 
 trate on the ground, they lick the dust. — They publish their 
 guilt with groans and lay open their secret misdeeds. Every 
 age and sex alike applies itself to offices of mourning; all 
 ornament was laid aside ; food was refused to the suckling, 
 and the age, as yet unstained by sins of its own, bare the weight 
 of those of others ; the dumb animals lacked their own food. 
 One cry of unlike natures was heard along the city-walls ; 
 along all the houses echoed the piteous lament of themourners; 
 the earth bore the groans of the penitents; heaven itself echoed 
 with their voice. That was fulfilled ; ^ The prayer of the hum- 
 ble pierceth the clouds." "*The Ninevites were converted 
 to the fear of God, and laying aside the evil of their former 
 life, Ijctook themselves through repentance to virtue and right- 
 eousness, with a course ofpenitence so faithful, that they chang- 
 ed the sentence already pronounced on them by God." "°As 
 soon as prayer took possession of them, it both made them 
 righteous, and forthwith corrected the city which had been 
 habituated to live with profligacy and wickedness and law- 
 lessness. More powerful was prayer than the long usage 
 of sin. It filled that city with heavenly laws, and brought 
 along with it temperance, lovingkindness, gentleness and care 
 of the poor. For without these it cannot abide to dwell in the 
 soul. Had any then entered Nineveh, who knew it well before, 
 he would not have known the city ; so suddenly had it sprung 
 back from life most foul to godliness." 
 
 yind God repented of the evil. This was no real change 
 in God ; rather, the object of His threatening was, that He 
 might not do what He threatened. God's threatenings are 
 conditional, ''unless they repent," as are His promises,'" if they 
 endure to the end^." God said afterwards by Jeremiah^, At 
 what itistant I shall speak concerning a nation and concern- 
 ing a kingdom, to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, 
 
 > S. Matt. xii.41. 
 - S. Amb. de Pcenit. c. 6. L. 3 Ecclus. xxxv. 17. •• S. Chrys. 
 
 Horn, quod nemo laeditur nisi aselpso. ' de precat. i. inter dub. S. Chrys. T. ii. 7S1. 
 
 he would do unto them ; and he did it not. 
 
 Bi'fnre 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 7W. 
 
 if that nation, against whom I had pronounced, turn from their 
 evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. 
 
 " ^ As (iod is unchangeable in nature, so is He unchangeable 
 in Will. For no one can turn back His thoughts. For though 
 some seem to have turned l)ack His thoughts by their depre- 
 cations, yet this was His inward thought, that they should be 
 able by their deprecations to turn back His sentence, and that 
 they should receive from Him whereby to avail with Him. — 
 When then outwardly His sentence seemeth to be changed, in- 
 wardly His counsel is unchanged, because He inwardly order- 
 eth each thing unchangeably, whatsoever is done outwardly 
 with change." "^It is said that He repented, because He 
 changed that which He seemed about to do, to destroy them. 
 In God all things are disposed and fixed, nor doth He anything 
 out of any sudden counsel, which He knew not in all eternity 
 that He should do ; but, amid the movements of His creature 
 in time, which He governeth marvellously. He, not moved in 
 time, as by a sudden will, is said to do what He disposed by 
 well-ordered causes in the immutability of His most secret 
 counsel whereby things which come to knowledge, each in its 
 time. He both doth when they are present, and already did 
 when they were future." " ^"^ God is subject to no dolour of 
 repentance, nor is He deceived in anything, so as to wish to 
 correct wherein He erred. But as man, when he repenteth 
 willeth to change what he has done, so when thou hearest 
 that God repenteth, look for the change. God, although He 
 calleth it 'repenting,' doth it otherwise than thou. Thou 
 doest it, because thou hast erred ; He, because He avengeth 
 or freeth. He changed the kingdom of Saul when He repented. 
 And in the very place, where Scripture saith. He repenteth, it 
 is said a little after. He is not a man that He should repent. 
 When then He changes His works through His unchangeable 
 counsels, He is said to repent, on account of the change, not 
 of the counsel, but of the act." S. Augustine tliinks that 
 God, by using this language of Himself, which all would feel 
 to be inadequate to His Majesty, meant to teach us that all 
 language is inadequate to His Excellences. " ^^ We say these 
 things of God, because we do not find anything better to say. 
 I say, 'God is just,' because in man's words I find nothing 
 better ; for He is beyond justice. It is said in Scripture, God 
 is just and loveth justice. But in Scripture it is said, that 
 God repenteth, ' God is ignorant.' Who would not start back 
 at this ? Yet to that end Scripture condescendeth healthfully 
 to those words from which thou shrinkest, that thou shouldest 
 not think that what thou deemest great is said worthily of 
 Him. If thou ask, 'what then is said worthily of God?' one 
 may perhaps answer, that 'He is just.'. Another more gifted 
 would say, that this word too is surpassed by His Excellence, 
 and that this too is said, not worthily of Him, although suit- 
 ably according to man's capacity: so that, when he would 
 prove out of Scripture that it is written, God is just, he may be 
 answered rightly, that the same Scriptures say that God re- 
 /jenteth ; so, that, as he does not take that in its ordinary mean- 
 ing, as men are wont to repent, so also when He is said to be 
 just, this does not correspond to His supereminence, although 
 Scripture siiid this also well, that, through these words such 
 as they are, we may be brought to that which is unutterable.' 
 ■' Why predictest Thou," asks S. Chrysostome ^~," the terrible 
 
 « S. Matt. X. 22. 7 xviii.7, 8. 
 
 » S. Greg. Mor. xvi. n. 46. « S. Aug. in Ps. cv. n. 35. '» Id. in Ps. 
 
 cxxxi. n. 18. " Id. Serm. 341. n. 9. '= De poenit. Horn. v. n. 2. T. ii. p. 311 L.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 283 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Jonah, repining at God's mercy, 4 is reproved 
 by the type of a gourd. 
 
 things which Thou art about to do? That I may not do what 
 I predict. Wherefore also He threatened hell, that Tie may 
 not bring to hell. Let words terrify you tliat ye may !)(■ freed 
 from the anguish of deeds." " ^ Men tlircatcn imnishment 
 and inflict it. Not so God; but contrariwise, IIi> hotli pre- 
 dicts and delays, and terriiies with words, and leaves nothing 
 undone, that He may not bring what He threatens. So He 
 did with tiie Ninevites. He bends His bow, and brandishes 
 His sword, and prepares His spear, and inflicts not the blow. 
 Were not the Prophet's words bow and spear and sharp sword, 
 wlien he ^vaA, yet forty days a?td Nineveh shall be destroyed f 
 But He discharged not the shaft ; for it was prepared, not to 
 be shot, but to be laid up." 
 
 "" When we read in the Scriptures or hear in Churches the 
 word of God, what do we hear but Christ? And behold a 
 greater than ,/onas is here. If they repented at the cry of one 
 unknown servant, of what punishment shall not we be worthy, 
 if, when the Lord preacheth, Whom we have known through 
 so many benefits heaped upon us, we repent not ? To them 
 one day sufficed; to us shall so many months and years not 
 suffice ? To them the overthrow of the city was preached,and 
 40 days were granted for repentance : to us eternal torments 
 are threatened, and we have not half an hour's life certain." 
 And He did it )iot. God willed rather that His prophecy 
 should seem to fail, than that repentance should fail of its 
 fruit. But it did not indeed fail, for the condition lay ex- 
 pressed in the threat. " Prophecy, " says Aquinas-^ in refer- 
 ence to these cases, "cannot contain anything untrue." For 
 " prophecy is a certain knowledge impressed on the under- 
 standing of the Prophets by I'evelation of God, by means of 
 certain teaching. But truth of knowledge is the same in the 
 Teacher and the taught, because the knowledge of the learner 
 is a likeness of the knowledge of the Teacher. And in this 
 way, Jerome saith that ' prophecy is a sort of sign of Divine 
 foreknowledge.' The truth then of the prophetic knowledge 
 and utterance must be the same as that of the Divine know- 
 ledge, in which there can be no error. — But although in the 
 Divine Intellect, the two-fold knowledge [of things as they 
 are in themselves, and as they are in their causes,] is always 
 united, it is not always united in the prophetic revelation, 
 because the impression made by the Agent is not always ade- 
 quate to His power. Whence, sometimes, the prophetic re- 
 velation is a sort of impressed likeness of the Divine Fore- 
 knowledge, as it beholds the future contingent things in them- 
 selves, and these always take place as they are prophesied : 
 as, Behold, a virgin shall conceive. But sometimes the pro- 
 phetic revelation is an impressed likeness of Divine foreknow- 
 ledge, as it knows the order of causes to effects ; and then at 
 times the event is other than is foretold, and yet there is 
 nothing untrue in the prophecy. For the meaning of the 
 prophecy is, that the disposition of the inferior causes, whe- 
 ther in nature or in human acts, is such, that such an effect 
 would follow"(as in regard to Hezekiah and Nineveh)," * which 
 order of the cause to the effect is sometimes hindered by other 
 things supervening." "The Will of God," he says again ^," be- 
 ing the first, universal Cause, does not exclude intermediate 
 causes, by virtue of which certain effects are produced. And 
 
 > 2. 2. q. 171. art. 6. 
 
 ' Id. in Ps. vii. 
 
 * lb. q. 174. art. 1. 
 
 2 Rib. 
 
 P. q. 19. art. 7.concl. 
 
 BUT it displeased 
 oeedingly, and he 
 angry. 
 
 Jonah ex- 
 was very 
 
 lirfore 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.7S0. 
 
 since all intermediate causes are not adequate to the power of 
 the First Cause, there are many things in the Power, Know- 
 ledge, and Will of God, which are not contained in the order 
 of the inferior causes, as the resurrection of Lazarus. Whence 
 one, looking to the inferior causes, might say, ' Lazarus will 
 not rise again : ' whereas, looking to the First Divine Cause, 
 he could say, 'Lazarus will rise again.' And each of these 
 God willeth, viz. that a thing should take place according to 
 the inferior cause: which shall not take place, according to 
 the superior cause, and conversely. So that (iod sometimes 
 pronounces that a thing shall be, as far as it is contained in the 
 order of inferior causes (as according to the disposition of na- 
 ture or deserts), which yet doth not take place, because it 
 is otherwise in the superior Divine cause. As when He fore- 
 told Hezekiah, ^ Set thy house in order, for thou shall die 
 and not live ; which yet did not take place, because from eter- 
 nity it was otherwise in the Knowledge and Will of (iod which 
 is unchangeable. Whence Gregory saith', 'though God chang- 
 eth the thing. His counsel He doth not change.' When then 
 He saith, I will repent^, it is understood as said metaphori- 
 cally; for men, when they fulfil not what they threatened, seem 
 to repent." 
 
 IV. 1 . And Jonah was displeased exceedingly. It was an 
 untempcred zeal. The Prophet himself records it as such, and 
 how he was reproved for it. He would, like many of us, govern 
 God's world better than God Himself. Short-sighted and pre- 
 sumptuous ! Yet not more short-sighted than those who, in 
 fact, quarrel with God's Providence, the existence of evil, 
 the baffling of good, "the prison-walls of obstacles and trials," 
 in what we would do for God's glory. What is all discontent, 
 but anger with God ? The marvel is that the rebel was a pro- 
 phet! "'What he desired was not unjust in itself, thattheNine- 
 vites should be punished for their past sins, and that the sen- 
 tence of God pronounced against them should not be recalled, 
 although they repented. For so the judge hangs the robber 
 for theft, however he repent." He sinned, in that he disputed 
 with God. Let hiin cast the first stone, who never rejoiced 
 at any overthrow of the enemies of his country, nor was glad, 
 in a common warfare, that they lost as many soldiers as we. 
 As if God had not instruments enough at His Will ! Or as if He 
 needed the Assyrians to punish Israel, or the one nation, whose 
 armies are the terror of Europe, to punish us, so that if they 
 should perish, Israel should therefore have escaped, though 
 it persevered in sin, or we ! 
 
 And he was very angry, or, it may be, very grieved. The 
 word expresses also the emotion of burning grief, as when 
 Samuel was grieved at the rejection of Saul, or David at the 
 breach upon Uzzah^^. Either way, he was displeased with what 
 God did. Yet so Samuel and David took God's doings to 
 heart; but Samuel and David were grieved at God's judg- 
 ments ; Jonah, at what to the Ninevites was mercy, only in re- 
 gard to his own people it seemed to involve judgment. Scrip- 
 ture says that he was displeased, because the Ninevites were 
 spared; but not, why this displeased him. It hasbeen thought, 
 that it was jealousy for God's glory among the heathen, as 
 though the Ninevites would think that God in Whose Name he 
 spake had no certain knowledge of things to come ; and so that 
 
 * Is. xxxviii. 1. 
 8 Jer. xviii. 8. 
 
 Lap. 
 
 ■ Mor. xs. 32. n. 63. 
 
 "> 3 Sam. ri. 8, 1 Clir. xiii. 11.
 
 J84 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 cnilTsT 2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and 
 <="■ 780- said, I pray thee, O liOim, teas not this n)y 
 
 a ch. 1.3. 
 
 l> Ex. 34. 6. 
 Ps. 86. 5. 
 Joel 2. 13. 
 
 sayins;;, when I was yet in my country? 
 Therefore I " fled before unto Tarshish ; 
 for I knew that thou art a '' gracious God, 
 and merciful, slow to anger, and of great 
 kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 
 
 his fault was mistrust in God's Wisdom or Power to vindicate 
 His own honour. But it seems more likely, that it was a mis- 
 taken patriotism, which idolized the well-hein;^ of his own and 
 God's people, and desired that its enemy, the appointed instru- 
 mentofitschastiscment, should he itsclfdcstroyed. Scripture 
 heina; silent about it,we cannot know certainly. Jonah, under 
 God's inspiration, relates that God pronounced him wronc;. 
 Havintc incurred God's reproof, he was careless about men's 
 judgement, and left his own character open to the harsh judge- 
 ments of men; teaching us a holy indifference to man's opinion, 
 and, in our ignorance, carefulness not to judge luikindly. 
 
 2. ^iid he prai/ed iinfo the Lord. Jonah, at least, did 
 not niurnuir or complain of God. He complained to God of 
 Himself. He expostulates with Him. Shortsighted indeed 
 and too wedded to his own will ! Yet his will was thewell-bcing 
 of the people whose Prophet God had made him. He tells 
 God, that this it was,which he had all along dreaded. He soft- 
 ens it, as well as he can, by his word, I pray Thee, which ex- 
 presses deprecation and submissiveness. Still he does not 
 hesitate to tell God that this was the cause of his first rebel- 
 lion. Perilous to the soul, to speak without penitence of for- 
 mer sin ; yet it is to God that he speaks, and so God, in His 
 wonderful condescension, makes him teach himself. 
 
 Iknetu that Thou art a gracious God. He repeats to God 
 to the letter His own words by Joel.^ God had so revealed 
 Himself anew to Judah. He had, doubtless, on some repen- 
 tance which Judah had shewn, turned away the evil from 
 them. And now by sending him as a preacher of repentance, 
 He implied that He would do the same to the enemies of his 
 country. God confirms this by the whole sequel. Thence- 
 forth then Israel knew, that to the heathen also God was in- 
 tensely, infinitely full of gracious and yearning love-, nay (as 
 the form rather implies ^) mastered (so to speak) by the might 
 and intensity of His gracious love, slow to anger and delaying 
 it, gi-eat in loving-tenderness, and abounding in it ; and that 
 towards them also, when the evil is about to be inflicted, or 
 has been partially or wholly inflicted, He will repent of it and 
 replace it with good, on the first turning of the soul or the 
 nation to God. 
 
 3. Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseechThee my life from 
 me. He had rather die, than see the evil which was to pome 
 upon his country. Impatient though he was, he still cast him- 
 self upon God. By asking of God to end his life, he, at least, 
 committed himself to the sovereign disposal of God. "* See- 
 ing that the Gentiles are, in a manner, entering in, and that 
 those words are being fulfilled, ^ They have moved 3Ie to jea- 
 lousy with that which is not God, and J will move them to jea- 
 lousy with those which are 7iot a people, I tvill provoke them to 
 anger with a foolish nation, he despairs of the salvation of Is- 
 rael, and is convulsed with great sorrow, which bursts out into 
 
 1 ii. 13. " |13n Dim, Ijotli intensives. See on Joel ii. 13. 3 Ij, that both words, 
 pw, Oim, althougii adjectives, partake of the passive form. * S.Jer. ^ Deut. xxxii. 21. 
 
 6 Rom. ix. 3-5. ' Posid. vit. S. Aug. » 3'n',i, do well, is used almost adverbially of 
 " doing a thing very periectly," and by a deep irony in one place of doing evil very per- 
 
 3 <= Therefore now, O Lord, take, I be- ^ '^ll''l\ i- 
 
 seech thee, my life from me ; for '' it is bet- '■' ''"• ^^- 
 
 ter for me to die tlian to live. °i'v«."»f ''^■*" 
 
 4 ^ Then said the Lord, || Doest thou II or, 
 well to be angry ? greaiiy 
 
 5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat 
 on the east side of the city, and there made 
 
 words and sets forth the causes of grief, saying in a manner, 
 ' Am I alone chosen out of so many prophets, to announce de- 
 struction to my people through the salvation of others ? ' He 
 grieved not, as some think, that the multitude of nations is 
 saved, but that Israel perishes. Whence our Lord also wept 
 over Jerusalem. The Apostles first preached to Israel. Paul 
 wishes to become an anathema for his " brethren who are Isra- 
 elites, u'hose is the adoption and the glory and the covenant, and 
 the giving of the law and the service of God, a)id the promises, 
 whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the Jlesh, 
 Christ came." Jonah had discharged his office faithfully now. 
 He had done what God commanded ; God had done by him 
 what He willed. Now, then, he prayed to be discharged. So 
 S. Augustine in his last illness prayed that he might die, be- 
 fore the Vandals brought suffering and devastation on his 
 country ^. 
 
 4. ^nd the Lord said, Doest thou ivell ^ to be angry ? God, 
 being appealed to, answers the appeal. So does He often in 
 prayer, by some secret voice, answer the enquirer. There is 
 right anger against the sin. Moses' anger was right, when he 
 broke the tables^. God secretly suggests to Jonah that his an- 
 gerwasnot right, as our Lord instructed'" S. JamesandS.John 
 that theirs was not. The question relates to the quality, not 
 to the greatness of his anger. It was, not the vehemence of 
 his passionate desire for Israel, which God reproves, but that 
 it was turned against the Ninevites. " ^^ What the Lord says 
 to Jonah, he says to all, who in their office of the cure of souls 
 are angry. They must, as to this same anger, be recalled in- 
 to themselves, to regard the cause or object of their anger, and 
 weigh warily and attentively whether they do ivell to be angry. 
 For if they are angry, not with men but with the sins of men, 
 if they hate and persecute, not men, but the vices of men, they 
 are rightly angry, their zeal is good. But if they are angry, 
 not with sins but with men, if they hate, not vices but men, they 
 are angered amiss, their zeal is bad. This then which was said 
 to one, is to be watchfully looked to and decided by all, Doest 
 thou ivell to be angry ? " 
 
 5. So Jonah luent out of thecity^^. The form of the words 
 implies (as in the Eng. V.), that this took place after Jonah was 
 convincedthat God would spare Nineveh ; and since there isno 
 intimation that he knew it by revelation, then it was probably 
 after the 40 days. "^^The days being now past, after which it 
 was time that the things foretold should be accomplished, and 
 His anger as yet taking no eSect, Jonah understood that God 
 had pity on Nineveh. Still he does not give up all hope, and 
 thinks that a respite of the evil has been granted them on their 
 willingness to repent, but that some effect of His displeasure 
 would come, since the pains of their repentance had not 
 equalled their offences. So thinking in himself apparently, 
 he departs from the city, and waits to see what will become 
 
 fectly (see bel. Mic. vii. 3), but it is nowhere used, of a passion or quality existing (pas- 
 sively) in a strong degree. The E. V. then is right. The E. M. art thou greatly angry 1 
 (therenderingoftheLXX)is against the language. ' Ex. xxxii. 19. '" S. Luke ix. 55. 
 " Rup. I'^Somerender, contrary to grammar, "And Jonah had gone, &c," '^S.Cyr^
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 285 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 under it in the 
 what would 
 
 II Or, 
 
 palmcrist, 
 t Heb. 
 
 Kikajon , 
 
 him a booth, and sat 
 , shadow, till he might see 
 become of the city. 
 
 6 And the Lord God prepared 
 a II f gourd, and made it to come 
 up over Jonah, that it might be a 
 shadow over his head, to deliver him 
 
 of them." " He expected " apparently " that it would either 
 fall by an earthquake, or be burned with fire, like Sodom." 
 "Monah, in that he built him a tabernacle and sat over 
 against Nineveh, awaiting what should happen to it, wore a 
 different, foresignifyingcharatrter. For he prefigured the car- 
 nal people of Israel. For these too were sad at the salvation 
 of the Ninevites, i. e. the I'edemption and deliverance of the 
 Gentiles. Whence Christ came to call, not tiie righteous but 
 sinners to repentance. But the overshadowing gourd over 
 his head was the promises of the Old Testament or those of- 
 fices in which, as the Apostle says, there was a shudoiv of 
 good tithigs to come, protecting them in the land of promise 
 from temporal evils ; — all which are now emptied and faded. 
 And now that people, having lost the temple at Jerusalem and 
 the priesthood and sacrifice (all which was a shadow of that 
 which was to come) in its captive dispersion, is scorched by a 
 vehement heat of tribulation, as Jonah by the heat of the sun, 
 and grieves greatly ; and yet the salvation of the heathen and 
 the penitent is accounted of more moment than its grief, and 
 the shadow which it loved." 
 
 6. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, [« palmchrist, 
 E. M. rightly.] ""God again commanded the gourd, as he 
 did the whale, willing only that this should be. Forthwith it 
 springs up beautiful and full of flower, and straightway was a 
 roof to the whole booth, and anoints him so to speak with joy, 
 with its deep shade. The Prophet rejoices at it exceedingly, 
 as being a great and thankworthy thing. See now herein too 
 the simplicity of his mind. For he was grieved exceedingly, 
 because what he had prophesied came not to pass ; he rejoiced 
 exceedingly for a plant. A blameless mind is lightly moved 
 to gladness or sorrow. Yon will see this in children. — For as 
 people who are not strong, easily fall, if someone gives them 
 no very strong push, but touches them as it were with a lighter 
 hand, so too the guileless mind is easily carried away by any- 
 thing which delights or grieves it." Little as the shelter of 
 the palm-christ was in itself, Jonah must have looked upon 
 its sudden growth, as a fruit of God's goodness towards him, 
 (as it was) and then perhaps went on to think (as people do) 
 that this favor of God shewed that He meant, in the end, to 
 grant him what his heart was set upon. Those of impulsive 
 temperaments are ever interpreting the acts of God's Provi- 
 dence, as bearing on what they strongly desire. Or again, 
 
 1 S.Aug. Ep. 102. q. 6. n.35. - S. Cyr. 3 The root enn signifying lo cm?, then to 
 caiin(o,*'plougn," then, passive, tohe c«?o^ from hearing or intercourse, "deaf,"'*duinb," 
 (as in the Arab, and Ka)0os from KOTTTtiijand thence "silent, "(as wespeakof one voluntarily 
 " dumb," i. e. silent), tlie meaning silent has been derived from this last sense ; that of 
 vehement comes eil\\vr directly from the root, (aswespeakofa "cutting" wind, although 
 our cutting winds are cold), or from " deafening" (Kim.), as we speak of " a deafening 
 noise," and as strong winds do hinder hearing ; or, as matter of fact, from the strong dry 
 winds in Autumn, in whicii way n'B'nn is derived directly from cnn earing (i.e. plough- 
 ing) time, Ex. xxxiv. 21. The English Version "vehement," lies more in the direct mean- 
 ing of the root, than "silent," and agrees with the description, although not what one, 
 unacquainted with Eastern nature, would expect. Next to this, the harvest or autumn 
 wind seems perhaps the most probable. ^ Layard, Nineveh, (1846) c. 5. i. 123. 
 
 5 Nin. and Bab. [1850] pp. 364, 5. « Rich's Koordistan, i. 125, add 133. "Just 
 as the moon rose about 10, an intolerable pufTof wind came from the N.E. All were im- 
 mediately silent as if they had felt an earthquake, and then exclaimed in a dismal tone, 
 ' the Sherki is come.' 'This was indeed the so much dreaded Sherki, and it has conti- 
 
 from his grief. So Jonali f was ex- chrTst 
 cceding glad of the gourd. "''• '•^- 
 
 7 lUit (iod i)renared a worm when t Heb. rc- 
 
 ^ * * joicea with 
 
 the morning rose the next day, and it s'<'<''J'>y- 
 smote the gourd that it withered. 
 
 8 And it came to pass, when the sun 
 
 did arise, that God prepared a || vehe- II or,«7en<. 
 
 they argue, 'God throws this or that in our way; therefore 
 He means us not to relinquish it for His sake, biit to have it.' 
 By this sudden miraculous shelter against the burning As- 
 syrian sun, which God provided for Jonah, He favoured his 
 waiting on there. So Jonah may have thought, interpreting 
 rightly that God willed him to stay; wrongly, whyHe so willed. 
 Jonah was to wait, not to see what he desired, but to receive, 
 and be the channel of the instruction which God meant to 
 convey to him and through him. 
 
 7. IFIten the morning rose, i. e. in the earliest dawn, be- 
 fore the actual sunrise. For one day Jonah enjoyed the re- 
 freshment of the palm-christ. In early dawn,it still promised 
 the shadow ; just ere it was most needed, at God's command, 
 it withered. 
 
 8. God prepared a vehement^ [E. M. following the Chal- 
 dee,«//«j/, i.e. sultry] East wind. The winds in the East, blow- 
 ing over the sand-deserts, intensely increase the distress of 
 the heat. A sojourner describes on two occasions an Assy- 
 rain summer. "^The change to summer had been as rapid as 
 that which ushered in the spring. The verdure of the plain 
 had perished almost in a day. Hot winds, coming from the 
 desert, had burnt up and carried away the shrubs. — The heat 
 was now almost intolerable. Violent whirlwinds occasionally 
 swept over the face of the country." ""The spring was now 
 fast passing away; the heat became daily greater; the corn 
 was cut; and the plains andhills put ontheir summer-clothing 
 of dull parched yellow. The pastia-e is u'ithered, the herbage 
 faileth ; the green grass is not. It was the season too of the 
 
 Sherghis, or burning winds from the South, which occasion- 
 ally swept over the face of the country, driving in their short- 
 livedfury every thingbefore them. — Weall went below [ground] 
 soon after the sun had risen, and remained there [in the tun- 
 nels] without again seeking the open air until it was far down 
 in the Western horizon." The "Sherghi" must be rather the 
 East-wind, Sherki, whence Sirocco. At Suliinania in Koor- 
 distan (about 2idegreesE.of Nineveh,andJ of adegree South) 
 "^the so much dreaded Sherki seems to blow from any quar- 
 ter, from E. to N.E. — It is greatly feared for its violence and 
 relaxing qualities," "^hot. stormy and singularly relaxing and 
 dispiriting." Suffocating heat is a characteristic of these ve- 
 hement winds. Morier relates at Bushire ; "^A gale of wind 
 blew from the Southward and Eastward with such violence, 
 
 nued blowing ever since with great violence from the E. and N. E. the wind being heated 
 like our Bagdad Saum, but I think softer and more relaxing. This wind is the tenor 
 of these parts." lb. 105. "The extraordinary prevalence of the Sherki or Easterly 
 wind this year, renders this season intolerably hot and relaxing. They had not had 3 
 days together fiee from this wind since the begi::ningof the summer." lb. 271. "In the 
 summer the climate is pleasant, except when the Easterly wind blows, which it does with 
 prodigious violence sometimes for 8 or 10 days successively. The wind is hot and relax- 
 ing in summer, and what is very curious, itisnotfelt at the distance of 2 or 3 hours." lb. 
 113. " This is asserted by every one in the country." lb. 125. ? lb. ii. 35. 
 
 8 2nd journey, p. 43. He continues, "Again from the 23rd to the 25th, the wind blew 
 violently from the S. E. accompanied by a most suffocating heat, and continued to blow 
 with the same strength until the next day at noon, when it suddenly veered round to the 
 N. W. with a violence equal to what it had blown from the opposite point." And again 
 (p. 97) " When there was a perfect calm, partial and strong currents of air would arise 
 and form whirlwinds, which produced high columns of sand all over the plain. They 
 are looked upon as the sign ufgreat heat. Their strength was very various. Frequently 
 
 Y y
 
 286 
 
 JONAH, 
 
 chrTst "^^"^ ^^^^ wind; and the sun beat upon 
 "■^- 7S0. the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and 
 wished in himself to die, and said, " It is 
 better for me to die than to live. 
 
 ' vcr. 3. 
 
 Doest thou ch'k'ist 
 
 9 And God said to Jonah, 
 well to be anj^ry for the gourd ? And he 
 
 that tliiec of our larg:est tents were leveled with the ground. 
 The wind brouffht with it sueh hot currents of air, that we 
 thought it might be the precursor of the Samoim described by 
 Chardin. but upon enquiry, we found that tlie autumn was 
 generally the season for that wind. The ^S'rt/« wind commits 
 great ravages in this district. It blows at night from about 
 niidniglit to sunrise, comes in a hot blast, and is afterwards 
 succeeded by a cold one. About 6 years ago, there was a sani 
 during the summer months which so totally burnt up all the 
 corn, then near its maturity, that no animal would eat a blade 
 of it, nor touch any of its grain." 
 
 T/ie siin beat upon the heiid of Jonah. "^Few European 
 travellers can brave the perpendicular rays of an Assyrian 
 sun. Even the well-seasoned Arab seeks the shade during 
 the day, and journeys by night, unless driven forth at noon- 
 tide by necessity, or the love of war." 
 
 He wished in himself to die. [lit. he asked as to his soiil, 
 to die]. He prayedfor death. Itwas stillthesamedependance 
 upon God, even in his self-will. He did not murmur, but 
 prayed God toend his life here. When men are already vexed 
 in soul by deep inward griefs, a little thing often oversets pa- 
 tience. Jonah's hopes had been revived by the mercy of the 
 palmchrist; theyperishedwithit. Perliapshe had before him 
 the thought of liis great predecessor, Elijah, how he too wished 
 to die, when it seemed tliat his mission was fruitless. They 
 differed in love. Elijah's preaching, miracles, toil, sufferings, 
 seemed to him, not only to be in vain, but (as they must, if 
 in vain), to add to tlie guilt of his people. God corrected 
 him too, by showing him his own short-sightedness, that he 
 knew not of the seven thousand ivho had not bowed their knees 
 unto Baal, who were, in part, doubtless, the travail of his 
 soul. Jonah's mission to his people seemed also to be fruit- 
 less ; his hopes for their well-being were at an end ; the tem- 
 poral mercies of which he had been the Prophet, were ex- 
 hausted ; Nineveh was spared ; his last hope was gone ; the 
 future scourge of his people was maintained in might. The 
 soul shrinks into itself at the sight of the impending visitation 
 of its country. But Elijah's zeal was for his people only and 
 the glory of God in it, and so it was pure love. Jonah's was 
 directed against the Ninevites, and so had to be purified. 
 
 9. Doest thou well to be angry ? "^See again how Al- 
 mighty God, out of His boundless loving-kindness, with the 
 yearning tenderness of a father, almost disporteth with the 
 guileless souls of the saints ! The palmchrist shades him : the 
 Prophet rejoices in it exceedingly. Then, in God's Provi- 
 dence,the caterpillar attacks it, the burning East-wind smites 
 it, shewing at the same time how very necessary the relief of 
 its shade, that the Prophet might be the more grieved, when 
 deprived of such a good. — He asketh him skilfully, was he 
 very grieved ? and that for a shrub ? He confesseth, and this 
 becometh the defence for God, the Lover of mankind." 
 
 / do luell to be angry, unto death. " ^ Vehement anger 
 
 they threw down our tents." Burckhardt, when professedly lessening the general im- 
 pression as to these winds,sa)s,"Theworst eflect[ot'lheSemouni"aviolentS.E.wind"] 
 IS that it dries up the water lu the skins, and so far endangers the traveller's safety.— In 
 one morning I of the contentsof a lull water-skni was evaporated. I always observed the 
 whole atmosphere appear as it in a state ol comhustion ; the dust and sand are carried high 
 into the air.wliich assumes a reddish or blueish or yellowish tint, according to the na- 
 ttire and colour of the ground, from which the dust arises. The Semoum is not always 
 
 said, II 
 death. 
 
 cir. 780. 
 
 I do well to be angry, even unto " Jm vmi</y 
 
 angry ? 
 II Or, / am 
 greatly angrt/. 
 
 leadeth men to long and love to die, especially if thwarted and 
 unable to remove the hindrance which angers them. For then 
 vehement anger begetteth vehement sorrow, grief, despon- 
 dency." We have each, his own palm(dirist;andourpalnHrhrist 
 has its own worm. "*ln Jonah, who mourned wjien he had 
 discharged his office, we see those who, in what they seem to 
 do for God, either do not seek the glory of God, but some end 
 of their own, or at least, think that glory to lie wliere it does 
 not. For he who seeketli the glory of God, and not his own^ 
 things, but those of Jesus Christ, ought to will what God hath 
 willed and done. If he wills aught else, he declares plainly 
 that he sought himself, not God, or himself more than God. — 
 Jonah sought the glory of God wherein it was not, in the 
 fulfilment of a prophecy of woe. And choosing to be led by 
 his own judgment, not by God's, whereas he ought to have 
 joyed exceedingly, that so many thousands, being dead, were 
 alive again, being lost, were found, he, when there was joy in 
 heaven among the angels of God over so many repenting sin- 
 ners, was afflicted with a great ciffliction and was angry. This 
 ever befals those who wish that to take place, not what is best 
 and most pleasing to God, but what they think most useful to 
 themselves. Whence we see our very great and common er- 
 ror, who think our peace and tranquillity to lie in the fulfil- 
 ment of our own will, whereas this will and judgment of our 
 own is the cause of all our trouble. So then Jonah prays and 
 tacitly blames God, and would not so much excuse as approve 
 that, his former flight, to ///»« Whose eyes are too pure to behold 
 iniquity. — And since all inordinate affection is a punishment 
 to itself, and he who departeth from the order of God hath no 
 stability, he is in such anguish, because what he wills, will not 
 be, that he longs to die. For it cannot but be that his life, 
 who measures every thing by his own will and mind, and who 
 followeth not God as his Guide but rather willeth to be the 
 guide of the Divine Will, should be from time to time trou- 
 bled with great sorrow. But since the merciful and gracious 
 Lord hath pity on our infirmity and gently adnionisheth us 
 within, when He sees us at variance with Him, He forsakes 
 not Jonah in that hot grief, but lovingly blames him. — How 
 restless such men are, we see from Jonah. The palmchrist 
 grows over his head, and he was exceediyjg glad of the pahn- 
 christ. Any labour or discomfort they bear very ill, and being 
 accustomed to endure nothing and follow their ownwill,they 
 are tormented and cannot bear it, as Jonah did not the sun. 
 If any thing, however slight, happen to lighten their grief, 
 they are immoderately glad. Soon gladdened, soon grieved, 
 like children. They have not learned to bear any thing mo- 
 derately. What marvel then that their joy is soon turned into 
 sorrow ? They are joyed ovcra palmchrist, which soon grcen- 
 eth, soon drieth, quickly falls to the ground and is trampled 
 upon. — Such are the things of this world, which, while pos- 
 sessed, seem great and lasting ; when suddenly lost, men see 
 how vain and passing they are, and that hope is to be placed, 
 
 accompanied by whirlwinds:initslessviolentdegreeitwillblow for hours with littleforce, 
 although with oppressive heat ; when the whirlwind raises the dust, it then increases seve- 
 ral degrees in heat. In the Semoum at Esne, the thermometer mounted to 121° in the 
 shade, but the air seldom remains longer than aquarter of an hour in that state, or longer 
 than the whirlwind lasts. The most disagreable effect of the Semoum on man is, that it 
 stops perspiration, dries up the palate, and produces great restlessness." Travels in Nubia, 
 pp. 2U4,5. 1 Layard, Nin. and Bab. 366. » S. Cyr. 3 Lap. "Rib. °Phil. ii. 21. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 287 
 
 c H rTst 1^ Then said the Lord, Thou hast || had 
 "''"• ^^"- pity on the gourd, for the wliicrh thou hast 
 
 \\ Or, spared. i. i i "i •,, i j -^ 
 
 not laboured, neither inadest it j^row ; 
 ^Beh.tvas whieh f eame up in a niuht, and perished 
 
 the son of . , ' ' & ' 1 
 
 the night, in a night : 
 
 not in them but in their Creator, Who is Unchangeable. It 
 is then a great dispensation of God towards us, wiien those 
 things in wiiicii we took especial pleasure are taken away. 
 Nothing can man have so pleasing, green, and, in appearance, 
 so lasting, which has not its own worm prepared by God, 
 whereby, in the dawn, it may be smitten and die. The change 
 of human will or envy disturbs court-favour ; manifold acci- 
 dents, wealth ; the varying opinion of the people or of the 
 great, honours ; disease, danger, poverty, infamy, pleasure. 
 Jonah's palmchrist had one worm ; our's, many ; if other were 
 wanting, there is the restlessness of man's own thoughts, 
 whose food is restlessness." 
 
 10. Thou liadst pity on the palmchrist. In the feeling of 
 our common mortality, the soul cannot but yearn over decay. 
 Even a drooping dower is sad to look on, so beautiful, so frail. 
 It belongs to this passing world, where nothing lovely abides, 
 all things beautiful hasten to cease to be. The natural God- 
 implanted feeling is the germ of the spiritual. 
 
 1 1 . Should I not spare ? lit. have pity and so spare. God 
 waives for the time tiie fact of the repentance of Nineveh, and 
 speaks of those on whom man must have pity, those who ne- 
 ver had any share in its guilt, the 120,000 children of Nineveh, 
 "1 who, in the weakness of infancy, knew not which hand, the 
 right or the left, is the stronger and fitter for every use." He 
 Who would have spared Sodom for ten^s sake, might well be 
 thought to spare Nineveh for the r20,000's sake, in whom the 
 inborn corruption had not developed into the malice of wilful 
 sin. If these 120,000 were the children under three years old, 
 they were \ (as is calculated) of the whole population of Ni- 
 neveh. If of the 600,000 of Nineveh all were guilty, who by 
 reason of age could be, above 4 were innocent of actual sin. 
 
 To Jonah, whose eye was evil to Nineveh for his people's sake, 
 God says, as it were, "^ Let the spirit which is willing say to 
 the Jlesh which is iveak, ' Thoit grievest for the palmchrist, 
 that is, thine own kindred, the Jewish people ; and shall tiot I 
 spare Nineveh that great city, shall not I provide for the sal- 
 vation of the Gentiles in the whole world, who are in igno- 
 rance and error ? For there are many thousands among the 
 Gentiles, who go after - dumb idols even as they are led, not 
 out of malice but out of ignorance, who would without doubt 
 correct their ways, if they had the knowledge of the truth, if 
 they were shewn the difference between their right hand and 
 their left, i. e. between the truth of God and the lie of men.'" 
 But, beyond the immediate teaching to Jonah, God lays down 
 a principle of His dealings at all times, that, in His visitations 
 of nations. He, ^ the Father of the fatherless and judge of the 
 widows, takes especial account of those who are of no account 
 
 » Rup. =lCor. xii. 2. 3 Pa. Ixviii. 5. ■< Ga). iii. 27. 'Lap. 
 
 11 And should not I spare Nineveh, chhTst 
 •^that great eity, wherein are more than '^'''- '''•*"• 
 sixseon; thousand p(;rsons ''that eannot ' "^^^^ 2%. 
 discern hetween their right hand and their ' De"'i-39. 
 left hand ; and aho much '' cattle ? "■ £^45; 9.' 
 
 in man's sight, and defers the impending judgment, not for the 
 sake of the wisdom of the wise or tlie courage of the brave, but 
 for the helpless, weak, and, as yet, innocent as to actual sin. 
 How nmch more may we think that He regards those with pity 
 who have on tliem n(»t only the recent uiieffaced traces of their 
 Maker's Hands, but have been reborn in the linage of Christ 
 His Only-Begotten Son ! Tlie infants (•Jothed with Christ* 
 must be a special treasure of the Church in the Ryes of God. 
 
 " '' How much greater the mercy of God than that even of a 
 holy man ; how far better to flee to the judgment-seat of God 
 than to the tribunal of man. Had Jonah been judge in the 
 cause of the Ninevites, he would have passed on them all, al- 
 though penitent, the sentence of death for their past guilt, 
 because God had passed it before tiieir repcutaiice. So David 
 said to God ; " Let us full now i/ito the hand of the Lord ; for 
 His mercies are great ; and let me not fall into the hand of man. 
 Whence the Church professes to God, that mercy is the cha- 
 racteristic of His power; ''^ O God, who shewest Thy Ahuighty 
 power most chieflyin shewing mercyand pity, mercifully grant 
 unto us such a measure of Thy grace, that we, running the way 
 of Thy commandments, may obtain Thy gracious promises, and 
 be made partakers of Thy heavenly treasure."' 
 
 "Again, God here teaches Jonah and us all to conform our- 
 selvesinall things to the Divine Will, that, when He command- 
 eth any work, we should forthwith begin and continue it with 
 alacrity and courage ; when He bids us cease from it, or de- 
 prives it of its fruit and effect, we should forthwith tranijuilly 
 cease, and patiently allow our work and toil to lack its end and 
 fruit. For what is our aim, save to do the Will of God, and 
 in all things to confirm ourselves to it? But now the Will 
 of God is, that thou shouldest resign, yea destroy, the work 
 thou hast begun. Acquiesce then in it. Else thou servest not 
 the Will of God, but thine own fancy and cupidity. And here- 
 in consists the perfection of the holy soul, that, in all acts 
 and events, adverse or prosperous, it should with full resig- 
 nation resign itself most humbly and entirely to God, and ac- 
 quiesce, happen what will, yea, and rejoice that the Will of 
 God is fulfilled in this thing, and say with holy Job, The Lord 
 gave, The Lord hath taken away ; blessed he the Name of the 
 Lord — S. Ignatius had so transferred his own will into the 
 Will of God, that he said, ' If perchance the society, which I 
 have begun and furthered with such toil, should be dissolved 
 or perish, after passing half an hour in prayer, I should, by 
 God's help, have no trouble from this thing, than which none 
 sadder could befall me.' The saints let themselves be turned 
 this way and that, round and round, by the Will of God, as a 
 horse by its rider." 
 
 ' 2 Sam. xxiv. 14. ' Collect for the eleventh Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 Yy2
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 MICAH. 
 
 Micah, or Micaiah, the Morasthite, was so called, probably, 
 in order to distinguish him from his great predecessor, Mi- 
 caiah, son of Imlah, in the reign of Ahab. His name was 
 spoken in its fuller form, by the elders of the land whose 
 words Jeremiah has preserved. And in that fuller form his 
 name is known, where the Greek and Latin translations of 
 the Scriptures are used *. By the Syrians, and by the Jews '' 
 he is still called, as by us, Micah. The fullest and original 
 form is Micaiahu, "who is like the Lord?" In this fullest 
 form, it is the name of one of the Levites sent by Jehoshaphat 
 to teach the people '^, as also of the mother of king Asa**, (the 
 same name serving sometimes both for men and women). 
 Then according to the habit of abridging names, in all coun- 
 tries, and especially those of which the proper name of the 
 Lord is a part, it is diversely abridged into Micaihu, Micahu ", 
 whence Micah is readily formed, on the same rule as Micaiah 
 itself from Micaiahu. The forms are all found indifferently. 
 The idolatrous Levite in the time of the Judges ', and the son 
 of Imlah s, are both called in the same chapter 3Iicaihu and 
 Micah ; the father of one of Josiah's officers is called Micaiah 
 in the book of Kings '', Micah in the Chronicles '. 
 
 The Prophet's name, like those of Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, 
 Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, was significant. Joshua's, we know, 
 was changed of set purpose ''. The rest seem to have been 
 given in God's Providence, or taken by the Prophets, in or- 
 der to enunciate truths concerning God, opposed to the idola- 
 tries or self-dependance of the people. But the name of Mi- 
 cah or Micaiah, (as the elders of the land ' called him on a so- 
 lemn occasion, some 120 years afterwards) contained more 
 than teaching. It was cast into the form of a challenge. 
 Who is like the Lord ? The form of words had been im- 
 pressed on Israel by the song of Moses after the deliverance 
 at the Red sea". In the days of Elijah and that first Mi- 
 caiah, the strife between God and man, the true Prophet and 
 the false, had been ended at the battle of Ramoth-Gilead ; it 
 ceased for a time, in the reigns of Jehu and his successors, 
 because in consequence of his partial obedience, God, by Eli- 
 sha and Jonah, promised them good : it was again resumed, 
 as the promise to Jehu was expiring, and God's prophets had 
 
 « Mix<"'as is used by the LXX in Jer. xxvi. 18 and Micah i. 1, as also in the other 
 places where the name occurs, except Neh. xi. 1", 22, where for KIT! they have Mixa. 
 Josephus calls both prophets Mixai'as, Micah son of Imlah, Ant. 8. 14. 5. and our pro- 
 phet, Ant. 10. 6. 2. The Vulgate uses for both, Michaeas. >> They substituted niD in 
 the Kri in Jeremiah. = 2 Chr. xvii. 7. '' lb. xiii. 2. « lb. xviii.8. Keth. 
 
 ' (Typ Jud. xvii. 1, 4; ny"D 5, 8, 9, 10. 
 
 anew to proclaim a message of woe. ITast thou found me, 
 O miyie enemy " ? and, "/ hate him, for he doth not prophesy 
 good concerning me, but evil, Ahab's words as to Elijah and 
 Micaiah, were the types of the subsequent contradiction of 
 the false prophets to Hosea and Amos, which closed only with 
 the destruction of Samaria. Now, in the time of the later 
 Micaiah, were the first dawnings of the same strife in Judah, 
 which hastened and brought about the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem under Zedekiah, which re-appeared after the Captivity p, 
 and was the immediate cause of the second destruction under 
 the Romans i. IMicah, as he dwells on the meaning of names 
 generally, so, doubtless, it is in allusion to his own, that, at 
 the close of his prophecy, he ushers in his announcement of 
 God's incomparable mercy with the words ', TVliu is a Godlike 
 unto Thee f Before him, whatever disobedience there was to 
 God's law in Judah, there was no systematic, organised, op- 
 position to His prophets. There is no token of it in Joel. 
 From the times of Micah it is never missing. We find it in 
 each prophet (however brief the remains of some are), who 
 prophesied directly to Judah, not in Isaiah only, but in Ha- 
 bakkuk' and Zephaniah '. It deepened, as it hastened towards 
 its decision. The nearer God's judgments were at hand, the 
 more obstinately the false prophets denied that they would 
 come. The system of false prophecy, which rose to its height 
 in the time of Jeremiah, which met and thwarted him at 
 every step ", and deceived those who wished to be deceived, 
 was dawning in the time of Micah. False prophecy arose in 
 Judah from the self-same cause whence it had arisen in Israel, 
 because Judah's deepening corruption drew down the prophe- 
 cies of God's displeasure, which it was popular to disbelieve. 
 False prophecy was a gainful occupation. The false prophets 
 had men's wishes on their side. They had the people with 
 them. My people love to have it so'^,sa.\AGoA. They forbade 
 
 : Micah to prophesy ^ ; prophesied peace ^, when God foretold 
 evil ; prophesied for gain % and proclaimed war in the Name of 
 
 , God"" against those who fed them not. 
 
 At such a time was Micah called. His name which he him- 
 self explains, was no chance name. To the Hebrews, to whom 
 names were so much more significant, parts of the living lan- 
 
 s WO'D 1 Kings xxii. 9, 2 Chr. xviii. 7 ; nj'D 2 Chr. xviii. 14. i" 2 Kings xxii. 12. 
 1 2 Chr. xxxiv. 20. 1^ Num. xiii. 16. ' Jer. xxvi. 17, 18. "> Ex. xv. 11. 
 
 " 1 Kings xxi. 20. » lb. xxii. 8, 18. P Neh. vi. 14. i See ab. pp. 222, 3. 'vii. 18. 
 • i. 5, ii. 1. « i. 12 ° See Jer. v. 13, 31, vi. 13-17, viii. 10-12, xiv. 13-16, xx. 1-6, 
 j xxiii. 9-end, xxvi. 7, 8, 11, xxvii. 14-18, xxviii, xxix. 8, 9, 21-32. » Jer. v. 31. 
 
 y ii. 6. ' iii. 5. • iii. 11. ^ iii. 5. see note.
 
 MICAH. 
 
 289 
 
 ^ac^c, it recalled the name of his jrrcat proderessor, his stand- 
 ing? alone ajjainst all the prophets of Aliab, his prophecy, his 
 suflFerinp;, his evidenced truth. The truth of prophecy was set 
 upon the issue of the battle before Ranioth-fJilead. In the 
 presence of Jehoshaphat, kin^ of Judali, as well as of Ahab, 
 the 400 prophets of Ashtaroth had promised to Ahab the prize 
 he lonjjed for. One solitary, discriniinatinjr voi«-e was heard 
 amid that clamorous multitude, forewarninfi: Ahab that he 
 would perish, his people would be scattered. On the one side, 
 was that loud triumphant chorus of " all the propliets, Go up to 
 Ramoth-Gilead, and prosper ; for the Lord shall deliver it into 
 the king's hand. On the other, one solemn voice, exhibitina: 
 before them that sad spectacle which the morrow's sun should 
 witness '', / satv all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep 
 that have not a shepherd, and the Lord said, these have no mas- 
 ter, let them return every man to his house in peace. Micaiah 
 was smitten, imprisoned, and, apparently, ended his ministry, 
 appealing from that small audience of the armies of Israel and 
 Judah to the whole world, which has ever since looked back 
 on that strife with interest and awe ; ^ Hear ye peoples, each 
 one of them. God, who g:uided the archer shootinp; at a ven- 
 ture'', fulfilled the words which He had ])ut into the Prophet's 
 mouth. God's word had found Ahab, although disguised ; Je- 
 hoshaphat, the emperilled '^, returned home, to relate the issue. 
 The conflict between God's truth and idol falsehood was doubt- 
 less long remembered in Judah. And now when the strife 
 had penetrated into Judah, to be ended some IJO*" years after- 
 wards in the destructionof Jerusalem, another Micaiah arose, 
 his name the old watchword, IVho is like the Lord f He 
 prefixed to his prophecy that same summons ' to the whole 
 world to behold the issue of the conflict, which God had once 
 accredited and, in that issue, had f!;iven an earnest of the vic- 
 tory of His truth, there thenceforth and for ever. 
 
 The prophet was born a villajier, in Moresheth Gath, " a vil- 
 Iag:e^", S.Jerome says; ("a little village'"', in S.Jerome's 
 own days), " East of Eleutheropolis," where what was " ' for- 
 merly his grave," was " now a church." Since it was his birth- 
 place and his burial-place, it was probably his home also. In 
 the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the elders of the land'^ 
 speak of him with this same title, the Morasthite. He lingers, 
 in his prophecy, among the towns of the maritime plain (the 
 Shephelah) where his birthplace lay. Among the ten places 
 in that neighbourhood", which he selects for warning and for 
 example of the universal captivity, is his native village, " the i 
 home he loved." But the chief scene of his ministry was 
 Jerusalem. He names it in the beginning of his propbecy, 
 as the place where the idolatries, and, with the idolatries, all 
 the other sins of Judah were concentrated. The two capitals, i 
 Samaria and Jerusalem, were the chief objects of the word of 
 God to him, because the corruption of each kingdom stream- j 
 ed forth from them. The sins which he rebukes are chiefly | 
 those of the capital. Extreme oppression", violence among 
 the rich p, bribing among judges, priests, prophets i ; building 
 up the capital even by cost of life, or actual bloodshed ' ; spo- 
 liation ° ; expulsion of the powerless, women and children from 
 their homes ' ; covetousness " ; cheating in dealings " ; pride J. 
 These, of course, may be manifoldly repeated in lesser places 
 of resort and of judgment. But it is Zion and Jerusalem which 
 are so built up with hlood^ ; Zion and Jeriisalejn, which are, on 
 that ground, to be ploived as afield '■ ; it is the city, to which the 
 Lord's voice crieth %• whose rich men are full of violence p ; it is 
 
 = 1 Kings xxii. 12. '• lb. 17. Mb. 28. '34. s 30-3. l" from the be- 
 ginning of Jotham's reign. ' Hengst. Christ, i. 475. i Onom. ' Prief. to Mic. 
 ' Ep. 86. ad Eustoch. Epitaph. Paulae § 14. i. 698. ■" Jer. xxvi. 17, 18. 
 
 ° i. 11-15. » iii. 2,3, ii. 2. P vi. 12. t iii. 11 ; judges and priests, vii. 3. 
 
 the daughter of Zion^, which is to go forth nut of the rili/ and 
 go to Jiahylon. Especially, they are the heads and |)riiices of 
 the people*^, whom he upbraids for perversion of justice and 
 for oppression. Even the good kings of Judah seem to have 
 been powerless to restrain the general c-orruption. 
 
 Micah, according to tlie title which he prefixed to his pro- 
 phecy, was called to the prophetic office somewbat latc^r than 
 Isaiah. His ministry began later,and ended earlier. For IJz- 
 ziah, in whose reign Isaiah began to prophesy, was dead before 
 Micali was called to his office ; and Mii-ah probably was called 
 away early in the reign of Hezckiah, whereas some of the chief 
 public a(;ts of Isaiah's ministry fell in the IJth and 18th years 
 of the reign of Hezckiah. Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, had 
 doubtlessbeen withdrawn totbeir rest. Hosea alone,in "grey- 
 haired might," was still protesting in vain against the deepen- 
 ing corruptions of Israel. 
 
 The contents of Micah's prophecy and his relation to Isaiah 
 agree with the ins(rription. His prophecy has indications of 
 the times of Jotham, perhaps also of those of Ahaz; one sig- 
 nal prophecy, we know historically, was uttered in the reign 
 of Hezckiah. 
 
 It is now owned, well nigh on all hands, that the irrcat pro- 
 phecy, three verses of which Isaiah prefixed to his 2nd cliaj)- 
 ter, was originally delivered by Micah. But it appears from 
 the context in Isaiah, that he delivered the prophecy in that 
 2nd chapter, in the reign of Jotham. f )ther languaire of .Mi- 
 cah also belongs to that same reign. No one now thinks that 
 Micah ado])ted that great prophecy from Isaiah. The prophe- 
 cy, as it stands in Micah, is in close connection with what |ire- 
 cedes it. He had said ^, the mountain of the house shall he as 
 the high places of the forest ; he subjoins instantly God's re- 
 versalof that sentence, ?« the latter days. ^ And in the last days 
 it shall be that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be 
 established on the top of the nuninfains, and peoples shall flow 
 unto it. He had said, Zion shall be ploived us a field, and Je- 
 rusalem shall become heaps ; he adds forthwith, in reversal of 
 this', the laiv shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the 
 Lord from Jerusalem. The two sentences are joined as close- 
 ly as they can be ; Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusa- 
 lem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house shall 
 become high places of a forest ; and it shall be. in the last days, 
 the mountain of the house of the Lord shall he (abidingly «) esta- 
 blished on the top of the mountains. Every reader would un- 
 derstand, that the elevation intended, was spiritual, not phy- 
 sical. They could not fail to understand the metaphor; or 
 imagine that the Mount Zion, on part of which, (Mount .Mo- 
 riah,) the house of the Lord stood, should be physically placed 
 on other hills. But the contrast is marked. The promise is 
 the sequel of the woe ; the abiding condition is the reversal of 
 the sentence of its desolation. Even the words allude, the one 
 to the other ■'. 
 
 In Isaiah, there is no such connection. After the first chap- 
 ter and its summary of rebuke, warning, thieatening, and fi- 
 nal weal or woe resting on each class, Isaiah, in his second 
 chapter,begins hisprophecy anewwith a fresh title'; The word 
 that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jeru- 
 salem ; and to this he prefixes three verses from Micah's pro- 
 phecy. He separates it in a marked way from the preceding 
 summary, and yet connects it with some other prophecy by 
 the word, And'. He himself marks that it is not in its ori- 
 ginal place here. So then, in the prophet Micah, the close 
 
 ■• iii. 10 ; bloodshed also, vii. 2. » ii. 8. 'ii.g. " ii. 2. »vi.lO, 11. 
 
 y ii. 3. ' iii. 12. « vi. 9. •> iv. 10. = iii. 1, 9, 11. vi. 12, vii. 3. ii iii. 12. 
 « iv. 1. ' iv. 2. « It is not [jHs; butpjj-.v.T. i" The .Tn'n'3 -n iv. 1. to the 
 n'3mn iii. 12 j the .t.t to the n'.in. Hengst. ' ii. 1. ' ii 2.
 
 290 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 connection with the foregoinja: marks that it is in its oripnal 
 place ; Isaiah marked purposely that in his prophecy it is not. 
 
 But Isaiah's prophecy heloiip:s to a time of prosperity ; such 
 as Judah had not, after the reii>:n of Jotham. It was a time 
 of great warlike strength, diffused through the whole land. 
 The land was full ^, without end,of gold, siIver,chariots, liorses, 
 of lofty looks and haughtiness. The images which follow ' 
 are shadows of the Day of Judgment, and extend beyond Ju- 
 dah ; but the sins rebuked are the sins of strength and might, 
 self-confidence, oppi'cssion, manifold female luxury and bra- 
 very"". Isaiah prophesies that God would take away their 
 strength". Then they still had it. Judah trusted not at 
 that time in God nor in foreign alliances, but in self. Yet, 
 from the timeof Ahaz, trust in foreign help infected them to 
 the end. Even Hezekiah, when he received the messengers 
 of jMerodach-baladan ", fell into the snare ; and Josiah pro- 
 bably lost his life, as a vassal of Assyria i". This union of in- 
 herent strength and unconcernedness about foreign aid is an 
 adequate test of days anterior to Ahaz. 
 
 But since Isaiah prefixed to a prophecy in the days of Jo- 
 tham this great prophecy of Micah, then Micah's prophecy 
 must have been already current. To those same days of 
 strength it belongs, that Micah could prophesy as a gift, the 
 cutting offi oi' homes and chariots, the destruction of cities and 
 strong towers, all, in which Judah trusted instead of God. The 
 prophecy is a counterpart of Isaiah's. Isaiah prophesied a 
 day of Judgment, in which all these things should bercmoved ; 
 Micah foretold that their removal should be a mercy to those 
 who trust in Christ. 
 
 On the other hand, the utterdislocation of society, the burst- 
 ing of all the most sacred bands which bind man to man to- 
 gether, described in his last chapter ', perhaps belong most to 
 the miserable decay in the reign of Ahaz. The idolatry spo- 
 ken of also belongs probably to the time of Ahaz. In Jo- 
 tham's time% the people sacrificed and burned incense still in 
 the high places ; yet, under a king so highly praised ', these are 
 not likely to have been in Jerusalem. But Micah, in the very 
 head of his prophecy, speaks of Jerusalem " as the centre of 
 the idolatries of Judah. The allusion also to child-sacrifices 
 belongs to the time of Ahaz, who sacrificed sons of his own ", 
 and whose sacrifice others probably imitated. The mention of 
 the special idolatry of the time, >" the statutes of Omri are 
 kept, and all the works of the house of Ahah, belong to the same 
 reign, it being recorded of Ahaz especially % he walked in the 
 luays of the kingsof Israelandmadealsomolten images for Baa- 
 lim ; the special sin ofthe house of Ahab. That character too 
 which he describes, that, amid all that idolatry, practical ir- 
 religion, and wickedness, they leant upon the Lord, and said. 
 Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon iis^ ; was 
 just the character of Ahaz. Not until the end of his reign was 
 he so embittered by God's chastisements, that he closed His 
 temple ''. Up to that time, even after he had copied the brazen 
 altar at Damascus, he still kept up a divided allegiance to God. 
 Urijah, the high Priest, at the king's command, offered the 
 saci'ifices for the king and the people, while Ahaz used the 
 brazen altar, to enquire by ". This was just the half-service 
 which God by Micah rejects. It is the old history of man's 
 half-service, faith without love, which provides, that what it 
 believes but loves not, should be done for it, and itself enacts 
 what it prefers. Urijah was to offer the lawful sacrifices for 
 the king and the people ; Ahaz was to obtain knowledge of 
 
 ^ Is. ii. 7, 11. I 12-21. ■» iii. 16, 23. " iii. 1-3. 
 
 Is. xxxix. P 2 Kings xxiii. 29, 2 Chr. xxxv. 20-22. i Mic. v. 10, 11, 14. 
 
 ■• YU. 5 6. "2 Kings xv. 35. ' 2 Kings xv. 34, 2 Chr. xxvii. 2, 6. 
 
 the future, such as he wished in his own way, a lying future, 
 by lying acts. 
 
 Micah renewed under Hezekiah the prophecy ofthe utter 
 destrucrtion of Jerusalem, which he had pronounced under Jo- 
 tham. The prophets did not heed repeating themselves. Elo- 
 quent as they were, they are the more eloquent because elo- 
 quence was not their object. Even our Lord, with Divine 
 wisdom, and the more, probably, because He had Divine wis- 
 dom, repeated in His teaching the same words. Those words 
 sank the deeper, because often repeated. So Micah repeat- 
 ed doubtless oftentimes those words, which he first uttered in 
 the days of Jotham ; Zion shall be jilowed like a field and Je- 
 rusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as 
 the high places of the forest. Often, during those perhaps thir- 
 ty years, he repeated them in vain. At the last, they wrought 
 a great repentance, and delayed, it may be for 136 years, the 
 destruction which he was constrained to foretell. Early in 
 the days of Jehoiakim, about 120 years afterwards, in the pub- 
 lic assembly when Jeremiah was on trial for his life, the el- 
 ders of the land aaid explicitly, that the great conversion at 
 the beginning ofthe reign of Hezekiah, nay, of that king him- 
 self, was wrought by the teaching of Micah. '^ Then rose up, 
 says Jeremiah, certain of the elders of the land, and spake to 
 all the assembly of the people, saying, 31icah the 3forasthite 
 prophesiedin the days of Hezekiah ki)ig of Judah, saying, Thus 
 saith the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like afield, and 
 Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain ofthe hoiise, as 
 the high places of the forest. Did Hezekiah king of Judah, and 
 all Judah, put him at all to death ? Did he not fear the Ixtrd, 
 atid besought the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil 
 which He had pronounced against them f 
 
 It may have been that single prophecy which Micah so de- 
 livered ; some have thought that it was his whole book. Je- 
 remiah, at God's command, at one time uttered single pro- 
 phecies ; at another, the summary of all his prophecies. This 
 only is certain, that the prophecy, whether these words alone 
 or the book containing them, was delivered to all Judah, and 
 that God moved the people through them to repentance. 
 
 The words, as they occur in Jeremiah, are the same, and in 
 the same order, as they stand in Micah. Only in Jeremiah 
 the common plural termination is substituted forthe rarerand 
 poetic form used by Micah ■=. The elders, then, who quoted 
 them, probably knew them, not from tradition, but from the 
 writtenbook ofthe Prophet. But those elders speakof Micah, 
 as exercising his prophetic office in the days of Hezekiah. 
 They do not say, he prophesied, which might have been a sin- 
 gle act; but he was prophesying, hayah nibhah, a form of speak- 
 ing which is only used of an abiding, habitual, action. They 
 say also, "he was habitually prophesying, and he said," i. e. as 
 we should say, "in the course of his prophesying in the days of 
 Hezekiah, he said." Still it was to all the people of Judah that 
 he said it. The elders say so, and lay stress upon it by repeat- 
 ing it. Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him 
 at all to death ? It must have been then on some ofthe great 
 festivals, when all Judah was gathered together, that Micah 
 so spake to them. 
 
 Probably, shortly afterwards, in those first years of Heze- 
 kiah, Micah's office on earth closed. For, at the outset and in 
 the summary of his prophecy, not incidentally, he speaks of 
 the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the 4th year 
 of Hezekiah, as still to come ; and however practical or par- 
 
 » i. 5. » 2 Kings xvi. 3, 2 Chr. xxviii. 3. 
 
 y vi. 16. ' 2 Chr. xxviii. 2. ' iii. 11, vi. 6. ''2 Chr. xxriii. 22-24. 
 
 = 2 Kings xvi. 15. ^ Jer. xxvi. 17-19. ' D"y for !"»■
 
 MICAH. 
 
 291 
 
 tial idolatry continued, such idolatry as he throutjhout des- 
 cribes, did not exist after the rcforniaticn hy HezeUiah. This 
 conversion, then, of the kinfj and of some consi(h'ral)le part of 
 Judah was probably the closinjj;' harvest of his life, after a 
 long seed-time of tears. So God allowed His servant to dvpurt 
 in peace. The reformation itself, at least in its fulness, took 
 place after the kinj^dom of Samaria had come to an end, since 
 Hezckiah's niessenj^ers could, unhindered, invite all Israel to 
 join in his jrreat Passover. Pn»bal)ly, then, Micah lived to 
 see the first dawninijs only of the first reformation which God 
 wroug'ht by his words. 
 
 At the conimen(!emcnt, then, of Hezekiah's reign he collect- 
 ed the substance of what God had tauijht l)y him,re-easting it, 
 so to speak, and retaining of his spoken prophecy so much as 
 God willed to remain for us. As it stands, it belongs to that 
 early time of Hezekiah's reign, in which the sins of Ahaz still 
 lived on. Corruption of manners had been hereditary. In 
 Jotham's reign too, it is said expressly, in contrast with him- 
 self, the people tvere still doing corrupt li^. Idolatry had, un- 
 der Ahaz, received a fanatic; impulse from the king, who, at 
 last, set himself to close the worship of God =. The strength 
 of Jotham's reign was gone ; the longing for its restoration 
 led to the wrong and destructive policy, against which Isaiah 
 had to contend. Of this Micah says, such should not be the 
 strength of the future kingdom of God. Idolatry and op- 
 pression lived on ; against these, the inheritance of those for- 
 mer reigns, the sole residuum of Jotham's might or Ahaz' po- 
 licy, the breach of the law of love of God and man, Micah con- 
 centrated his written prophecy. 
 
 This book also has remarkable symmetry. Each of its three 
 divisions isawhole,beginningwith upbraiding for sin, threat- 
 ening God's judgments, and ending with promises of future 
 mercy in Christ. Thetwo later divisions begin againwith that 
 same characteristic, Hearye''\ with which Micah had opened 
 the whole. The three divisions are also connected,as well by 
 lesser references of the later to the former, as also by the ad- 
 vance of the prophecy. Judah could not be trusted now with 
 any simple declaration of God's future mercy. They supposed 
 themselves, impenitent as they were and with no purpose of re- 
 pentance, to be the objects of God's care,and secure from evil. 
 Unmixed promise of good would but foment this irreligious 
 apathy. Hence on the promises at the end of the first por- 
 tion ', and their king shall pass before them and the Lord at 
 the head of them, he turns abruptly ^, And I said, Hear, I pray 
 yon. Is it not for yon to knoiu judgment ? The promise had 
 been to Jacob and the remnant of Israel '. He renews his 
 summons to the '' heads of Jacob and the princes of the house 
 of Israel. In like way, the last section, opening with that 
 wonderful pleading of God with His people, follows upon 
 that unbroken declaration of God's mercies, which itself is- 
 sues out of the promised Birth at Bethlehem. 
 
 There is also a sort of progress in the promises of the three 
 parts '. In the first, it is of deliverance generally, in language 
 taken from that first deliverance from Egypt. The 2nd is ob- 
 jective, the Birth of the Redeemer, the conversion of the Gen- 
 tiles, the restoration of the Jews, the establishment and nature 
 of His kingdom. The third is mainly subjective, man's repen- 
 tance, waiting upon God, and God's forgiveness of his sins. 
 
 Throughout, themetropolis is chieflyaddressed,as the main 
 seat of present evil ^ and as the centre of the future bless- 
 
 ' 2 Chr. xxvii. 2. k lb. xxviii. 22-25, xxix. 7. '' ch. iii-v. and vi, vii. 
 
 ' ii. 12. k iii. 1. ' Hengst. Christ, i. 477, 8. «> See ab. p. 289. ■■ iv. 2, 7, 8. 
 
 ° iv. 1, 2. P iv. 6, 7, vii. U, 12. '. i. 11, 14-16, ii. 4, 5, 10, 
 
 (utter abiding destruction of Jerusalem) iii. 12, iv. 10, v. 3. ' ii. 12, 13, 
 
 iv. 6, 7, 10, vii. 11,12, 15. • Carpz. Introd. p. 365. in Hav. ii. 364. 
 
 ' Is. X. 24-34, xiv. 25, xxx. 31, xxxi. 8, 9, xxxvii. 6, 7, 21-35, Mio. v. 5, 6. 
 
 ings ; where the reign of the long-promised Ruler should be " ; 
 whcnfH- the revelation of (Jod sho\il(i go forth to the heathen"; 
 wiiitii<!rtliescatteredaiid(lisj)erse(l ix'opleshouldhc gathcredp. 
 
 Throughout the j)rophccy also, Mii'ah upbraids the same 
 (rlass of sins, wrong (jcaliiig of man to man, oppression of the 
 poor hy the rich ">. 'i'hroughout, their future captivity and 
 dispersion are either predictedi, or assumed as the basis of the 
 predication of good'. Throughout, we see the contemporary 
 of the prophet Isaiah. Besides that great prediction, which 
 Isaiah inserted verbally from Micah, we see them, as it were, 
 side by side, in that city of (iod's visitation and of His mercy, 
 prophesying the same respite, the same place of c-aptivity and 
 deliverance fromit,the same ulterior mercies in Christ. '"The 
 more to establish the faith, God willed that Isaiah and Micah 
 should speak together, as with one mouth, and use such 
 agreement as might the more convic;t all rebels." Assyria 
 was then the monarchy of the world; yet both prophets pro- 
 mise deliverance from it'; both foretell the captivity in the 
 then subordinate Babylon " ; both, the deliverance from it S 
 Both speak in thelike way of the gathering together of God's 
 people from lands y, to some of which they were not yet dis- 
 persed. Isaiah prophesied the Virgin-Birth of Iminanuel '; 
 Micah, the Birth at Bethlehem of Him JVhose goings forth 
 have been of old, from everlasting^. Both speak in the like 
 way of the reverence for the Gentiles tliereafter for her'', by 
 reason of the presence of her God. Even, in outward man- 
 ner, Micah, representing himself, as one who tveut mourning 
 and wailing, stripped and naked "^, is a sort of forerunner of the 
 symbolic acts of Isaiah **. Micah had this also common with 
 Isaiah, that he has a predominance of comfort. He is brief 
 in upbraiding % indignant in casting back the pleas of the false 
 prophets \ concise in his threatenings of woe k, save where he 
 lingers mournfully over the desolation '', large and flowing in 
 his descriptions of mercy to come '. He sees and pronounces 
 the coming punishment, as absolutely certain; he does not call 
 to repentance to avert it ; he knows that ultimately it will 
 not be averted ; he sees it irrespectively of time, and says that 
 it will be. Time is an accident to the link of cause and efiPect. 
 Sin consummated would be the cause ; punishment, the effect. 
 He spoke tothosewho knewthat Godpardoned on repentance, 
 who had lately had before them that marvellous instance in 
 Nineveh. He dashes to the ground their false security, by 
 reason of their descent from Jacob ^, of God"s Presence among 
 them in the Temple ' ; the multitucle of their offerings amid 
 the multitude of their sins ■". He rejects in God's name, their 
 false, outward, impenitent, penitence; and thereby the more 
 implies that He would accept a true repentance. Tliey knew 
 this, and were, for a time, scared into penitence. But in his 
 book, as God willed it to remain, he is rather the prophet of 
 God's dealings, than the direct preacher of repentance to in- 
 dividuals. Yet he is the more an evangelic preacher, in that 
 he speaks of repentance, only as the gift of God. He does not 
 ignore that man must accept the grace of God ; but, as Isaiah 
 foretells of the days of the Gospel, the idols He shall utterly 
 abolish ", so Micah first foretells that God would abolish all 
 wherein man relied out of God, all wherein he prided himself", 
 every form of idolatry p, and subsequently describes the future 
 evangelic repentance, submission to, and waiting upon God 
 and His righteousness i ; and God's free plenary forgiveness ^ 
 
 Micah's rapid unprepared transitions from each of his main 
 
 " Is. xxxix. 6, Mic. iv. 10. » Is. xlviii. 20, Mic. ib. ? Is. xi. 11 sqq. 
 
 Mic. vii. 12. • vii. 14. » v. 2 Eng. (1 Heb.) k Is. xlix. 23,Mic. vii. 17. 
 
 Hav.ib. ' i. 8. see note. 'i Is. xx. 2, 3. = i. 5, ii. 1, 2, 9-11. 
 
 ' ii. 7, 11, iii. 5-7. « ii. 3, 10, iii. 4, 12, vi. 13-16, vii. 4, 13. i" i. 10-16, ii. 4, 5. 
 
 ' iv, V, vii. 7-20. *ii. 7. ' iii. 11. " vi. 6, 7. " Is.ii. IS. 
 
 »v. 9, in » V. 11-13. ivii. 8, 9. ' lb. 18, 19.
 
 292 
 
 INTEODUCTION TO 
 
 themes to another, from iii)hraiaiiit;- to threatcniiiir, from threat- 
 ening to mercy and then hack again to upbraiding, is proba- 
 bly a part of that same vivid perception of tlie connection of 
 sin, chastisement, forgiveness, in tiie will and mind of God. 
 He sees them and sjieaks of tlieni in the natnral sequence in 
 which they were exhibited to him. He connects most com- 
 monly the sin with the punishment l)y the one word, tlierc- 
 /bre% because it was an object with him to sliew the connec- 
 tion. The mercies to come he subjoins either suddenly with- 
 out any conjunction ', or with the simple tnid. An English 
 reader loses some of the force of this simplicity by the para- 
 phrase, which, for the simple copula, substitutes the inference 
 or contrast, therefore, then, hut, notwithstdudhig^, which lie 
 in the .subjects themselves. An English reader might have 
 been puzzled, at first sight, by the mimotonous simplicity of 
 the, and, and, joining together the mention of events, which 
 stand, either as the contrast or the consequence of those which 
 precede them. The English version accordingly has consult- 
 ed for the reader or hearer, by drawing out for him the con- 
 trast or consequence which lay beneath the surface. But 
 this gain of clearness involved giving up so far the majestic 
 simplicity of the Prophet, who at times speaks of things as 
 they lay in the Divine Mind, and as, one by one, they would 
 be unfolded to man, without explaining the relation in which 
 they stood to one another. Micah knew that sufferings were, 
 in God's purpose, travail-pains. And so, immediately after 
 the denunciation of punishment, he adds so calmly, " " ylnd 
 in the last days it shall be;" ^' And thou, Bethlehem Eph- 
 ratah." Or in the midst of his descriptions of mercies, he 
 speaks of the intervening troubles, as the way to them. Noiv y 
 wliy dost thou cry aloud f — jjangs have taken thee, as a ivo- 
 man hi travail — be in pain — thou shall go even unto Baby- 
 lon ; there shall thou be delivered : or, ^ Therefore will He give 
 thee up until the time, S)C. i. e. because He has these good 
 things in store for thee, He will give thee tip, until the time 
 conies. 
 
 With this great simplicity Micah unites great vividness and 
 energy. Thus in predicting punishment, he uses the form of 
 command, bidding them, as it were, execute it on themselves" ; 
 Arise, depart : as, in the Great Day, our Lord shall say. De- 
 part, ye ctirsed. And since God does in us or by us what He 
 commands to be done, he uses the imperative to Zion, alike 
 as to her victories over God's enemies '', or her state of an- 
 xious fear '^. 
 
 To that same vividness belong his rapid changes of person 
 or gender; his sudden questions''; his unmarked dialogues. 
 The changes of person and gender occur in all Hebrew poetry ; 
 
 • Not i. G, vi. 13. but i. 14, ii. 3, 5, iii. fi, 12. ' ii. 12, iv. 13. n Therefore, 
 
 '.6, vi. 13, vii. 7; then., iii. 7, vii. 10; Imt, iii. 8, iv. 1, 4, 12, v. 2, vi. 16;/o)', iv. 5; not'with- 
 tlanding, vii. 13. ^ iv. 1, v. 2 (1 Hcb.), add vii. 7. J iv. 9. '■ v. 3. [2 Heb.] 
 
 > ii. 10, addi. 11,13, iv. 10. ^ iv. 13. c v. 1. (iv. 14 Heb.) 
 
 i\. 5, ii. 7, iii. 1, iv. 9, vi. 3,6, 10, 11, vii. 18. = i. 11. twice. ' i.2. twice ; 
 
 in i. 13. he returns to the 2nd. pers. e ii. 3. •> iii. 10 (5 words), vi. 11 
 
 (C wordsl ' v. 8, and vii. 13, (7 words). '' vii. 11 (7 words), vii. 15 
 
 (5 words). 1 V. 13 Heb. (5 words), v. 10 (6 words), v. 11 (7 words). "> Out of the 
 
 157 verses in Hosea's 11 last chapters. 111 contain fewer than 14 words each, 46 only 
 14 words or upwards ; out of46, of which the book of Nahnmconsists(excIuding tlie title) 
 14 only have more than 13 words ; out of 55 of Habakkuk, 17 only have more than 13. 
 
 ° In Micah,48out ofl04;in Joel,30out of72i in Obadiali, 10 out of 21. 
 
 ° There is less difference between a verse of 14 words, distributed 4-3, 43 and one of 11, 
 distributed 32, 42, than in a verse whose 10 words were distributed 32,32 or 323,2. 
 
 P The following summary ofthese lesser divisions, which are mostlymarkedby the He- 
 brew accents, may perhaps give some little idea of the rhythm. Only the degree of sub- 
 division must often be a matter of opinion or taste or ear. Thus, of 5 words which gram- 
 matically belong together, one might think that the cadence separated them into 3 and 2 ; 
 another might take thi-m all together. But this is a matter of detail only; the principle is 
 unmist.-ikeable. Again, words which have been artificially joined together in Hebrew by 
 the Makkeph, I have considered as 2 words, it each had a distinct idea. TluisBK, when 
 themeresign of the object, I have not counted; when it is the preposition, "with," I have 
 counted it. In the following list, the verses are ranged according to the number of the words 
 contained in each verse, beginning with the highest. The numbers on the right hand in- 
 
 all have their emphasis. He addresses the people or place as a 
 whole (fern.), then all the individuals in her'; or turns away 
 and speaks of it ' ; or, contrariwise, having spoken of the whole 
 in the third ]»erson, he turns round and drives the warning 
 home to individuals 8. The variations in the last verse of 
 cb. vi. are unexamjtled for rapidity even in Hebrew. 
 
 And yet the flow of his words is smooth and measured. 
 Without departing from the conciseness of Hebrew poetry, 
 his cadence, for the most part, is of the more prolonged sort, 
 as far as any can be called prolonged, when all is so concise. 
 In some 8 verses, out of 104, he is markedly brief, where con- 
 ciseness corresponds with his subject, as in an abrupt appeal 
 as to their sins '', or ;in energetic announcement of judgment' 
 or of mercy'', or in that remarkable prophecy of both', how 
 God would, in mercy, cut off all grounds of human trust. Else, 
 whereas in Nahum and Habakkuk, not quite J, and in the 
 eleven last Chapters of Hosea much less than J, of the verses 
 contain more than 13 words'", in Micah above ^ (as, in Joel, 
 nearly f ) exceed that number ". The verses are also distri- 
 buted in that ever-varying cadence, whereby, in Hebrew poe- 
 try, portions of their short sentences being grouped together, 
 the harmony of the whole is produced by the varied disposi- 
 tions ofthese lesser groups of 2, 3, 4, and but rarely 5 words ; 
 scarcely any two verses exactly corresponding, but all being 
 united by the blendino- of similar cadences. In Micah, as in 
 all Hebrew poetry, the combination of 3 words is the most 
 frequent, and this, sometimes by itself, sometimes in union 
 with the number 4, making the sacred number 7 ; or, with 2, 
 making a number which we find in the tabernacle, but which 
 dwells more in the hearts of the disciples of the Crucified. 
 The same exact rhythm seldom recurs, and that, naturally, 
 chiefly in the shorter verses, the longer admitting or requir- 
 ing more combinations. Wherever also there is more than 
 one pause in the verse, a further and very considerable varie- 
 ty of rhythm may be produced, even when the several clauses 
 of two verses contain the same number of words in the same 
 order. The difference of cadence is far more influenced by 
 the place, where the verse is divided, than by the exact num- 
 ber of words contained in it. The rhetorical force of the dis- 
 tribution of the words into the several clauses, depends mainly 
 upon the place of the Athnach or semicolon ". The same ex- 
 act rhythm, (in which both the same number of words occur 
 in the verse, and the verse is divided in the same place) recurs 
 only seven times in Micah, in verses capable of a variation. 
 The other four cases of repetition occur in short verses which 
 have one division only p according to the place where the main 
 division of the verse falls. 
 
 dicate the lesser divisions into which each verse may he distributed. The comma in each 
 set of numbers marks the place of the Athnach or semicolon. The Koman numerals 
 indicate how often any cadence is repeated, 
 w^nrric Numbcr of words m each lesser division, 
 
 333-122,43 4.32,3261 
 
 40,534 14333,44 
 
 221,423232 4433,34. 
 
 23333,33 333,3134 3333,44 4333,322 
 
 344,44 34,2253 32, W24 
 
 43,-3233 342,423 3232,44 
 
 444,32 3433,22 3,4343 2223,332 
 
 222,433 3433,3 33,4222 44,41 
 
 32,325 3333,3 432,33 43,233 43,323(ii) 134,133 43,332 3223,32 
 
 33,53 (ii) .34,-34 23122,22 4:3,43 432,-33 333,23 33,323 43,52 332,33 13,334 
 
 43,34 22,-3313 2222,-33 2222,51 
 
 43,33 3,442 332,32 1322,5 222,322 432,4 43,33 322,42 
 
 32,322 422,22 143,22 224,4 23,34 53,22 24,24 43,23 
 
 32,33 42,32 (ii) 33,32 23,33(ii) 24,32 33,23{ii) 4322 22,43 32,42 
 
 5,5 33,4 32,32(u) 323,2 32,23(ii) 22,33 2222,2 43,3 
 
 43,2 4,32 3,33 42,3 22,32 33,3 
 
 132,2 33,2 
 
 4,3(ii) 3,4(ii) 3,22 
 
 3,3(ii) 22,2. 
 
 3,2(ii) 
 
 Words 
 24 
 22 
 21 
 20 
 19 
 18 
 17 
 16 
 15 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 6
 
 MICAH, 
 
 293 
 
 His description of the destruction of the cities or villajjes 
 of Judah corresponds in vividness to Isaiah's ideal mareii of 
 Sennacherib i. Tlie flame of war spreads from phice to plac^e ; 
 but Micah relieves the sameness of the description of misery 
 by every variety which lanj^^uaije allows. He speaks of them 
 in his own person ^ or to them ; lie describes tlie calamity in 
 past' or in future', or by use of the imperative". The ver- 
 bal allusions are crowded tos;ethcr in a way unexampled else- 
 where. Moderns have spoken of them, as not after their taste, 
 or have apolog-ised for them. The mijjfhty Prophet, who 
 wrought a repentance greater than his great contemporary 
 Isaiah, knew well what would impress the people to whom he 
 spoke. The Hebrew names had definite meanings. We can 
 well imagine how, as name after name passed from the Pro- 
 phet's mouth, connected with some note of woe, all around 
 awaited anxiously, to know upon what place the fire of the Pro- 
 phet's word would next fall; and as at last it had fallen upon lit- 
 tle and mighty round about Jerusalem, the names of the places 
 would ring in their ears as heralds of the coming woe ; they 
 would l)e like so many monuments, inscribed beforehand witli 
 the titles of departed greatness, reminding Jerusalem itself of 
 its portion of the prophecy, that ^ evil should come from tlie 
 Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. 
 
 Wonderful must have been his lightning-flash of indigna- 
 tion, as, when the false prophet or the people had forbidden 
 God's word to be spoken, he burst upon them, ^ Tfiou, called 
 house of Jacob, shortened is God's Spirit ? Or these His doitigs f 
 And then follow the plaintive descriptions of the wrongs doneto 
 the poor, the peaceful ^, the mothers of his people and their lit- 
 tle ones. And then again the instantaneous dismissal,^ Arise 
 and depart. But, therewith, wonderful also is his tenderness. 
 
 To facilitate comparison, I subjoin a like analysis of the other prophets mentioned. 
 
 Hosea, eleven last chapters. 
 22 422253,4 3244,54 
 21 4433,34 5,242224 
 20 32,33324 3333,44 
 19 4343,32 3423,34 
 18 4,4334 332,2332 2232,423 44,3223 
 
 17 43,3322 3332,33 23,4323 3223,223 333,323 3223,43 3442,4 
 16 2323,24 32,3422 233,323 21214,24 3223,33 3232,33, 33,253 42,433 
 15 344,4 2323,23 3332,4 (ii) 223,242 333,33 
 14 43,43 44,33 5,432 44,42 43,232 324,32 422,42 33,2222 33,44 3224,3 33,53 
 
 4,442 32,333 14,333 
 13 33,43 (iii) 34,42 43,33 (ii) 4,333 4,54 34,33 323,32 223,33 22,234 33,34 
 12 4,44 432,21 33,33 (ii) 222,222 32,34 42,42 222,33 223,32 43,122 43,23 43,32 
 
 32,43 
 11 24,32 323,3 32,33 233,12 33,23 42,23 132,14 32,42 32,33 33,32 4,43 23,222 
 10 43,3 (ii) 33,4(ii) 3,34 32,32 (ii) 44,2 24,4 222,22 4,33 33,22 322,3 
 9 5,13 25,2 3,33 (ii) 33,3 (iii) 232,2 2,322 32,22 (ii) 32,4 22,23 22,32 (ii) 4,32 13,32 
 
 2,34 5,4 24,3 
 8 32,3 (ii) 23,3 (iv) 2222 224 (ii) 
 
 7 13,3 (iii) 4,3 (iii) 3,4 (ii) 2,23 22,3 2,32 23,2 31,3 33,1 14,2 
 
 4,2(ii) 3,3(iii) 13,2(ii) 
 
 3,2(vii)2111 113 
 
 25 
 
 24 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 19 
 
 18 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 19 
 18 
 
 Joel. 
 
 334,3534 
 
 322,144332 
 
 3544,223 
 
 423,4-123 
 
 5422,422 3335,43 
 
 16,42313 34,3433 
 
 224,443 
 
 22,4433 33,435 
 
 3332,42 245,33 353,33 1422,35 
 
 334,42 2242,6 44,44 
 
 22233,3 2432,22 22222,32 341,4 23,2323 333,33 34,36 
 
 53,33 334,4 36,23 1432,4 3332,3 
 
 34,33 3,55 33,34 
 
 44,4 34,23 2222,4 5,34 24,33 43,32, 32,223. 
 
 22,322 (ii) 223,22 2222.3 (ii) 32,33 3,224 32,43 222,5 4,331 44,3 223,22 2222,3 
 
 32,32 222,22 22,42 231,4 
 
 32,22(iii) 2,43 5,22 
 
 3,23 22,22 4,22 
 
 133 3,4 (ii) 3,22 22,3 
 
 3,3 (iv) 
 
 4333,323 . 
 
 4323,43 
 
 3332,133 34>344 4252,32 
 
 Obadiah. 
 
 Burning as are his denunciations against the oppressions of 
 the rich '', (words less vehement will not pierce hearts of stone) 
 there is an under-current of tenderness. His rebukes evince 
 not indignation only against sin, hut a tender sympathy with 
 the sufferers. " He is afflicted in the afflictions which he has 
 to denounce. lie yearns for his people "^ ; nay, until our Lord's 
 Coming, there is scarcely an ex|)ression of such yearning long- 
 ing: he hungers and thirsts for their good=. 
 
 God's individual care of His people, and of each soul in it, 
 had. since David's time ^ and even since Jacob », been likened 
 to the care of the shepherd for each single sheep. The Psalms 
 of Asaph'' must have familiarised the people to the image,as re- 
 lating to themselves as a whole, and David's deep Psalm had 
 united it with God's tender care of His own in, and over, death. 
 Yet the predominance of this image in Micah is a part of the 
 tenderness of the Prophet. He adopts it, as expressing, more 
 than any other natural image, the helplessness of the creature, 
 the tender individual care of the Creator. He forestalls our 
 Lord's words, / am the good shepherd, in his description of the 
 Messiah, gathering the remnant of Israel together, as the sheep 
 of Bozrah ' ; His people are as a flock, Uune and despised ^, 
 whom God would assemble; His royal seat, the tower of the 
 flock ^ ; the Ruler of Israel should .sten</ unresting, and feed 
 fhem"^; those whom He should employ against the enemies of 
 His people, are shepherds", under Him, the true shepherd. He 
 sums up his prayer for his people to God as their Shepherd ° ; 
 Feed Thy people with Thy rod, the flock of Thine heritage. 
 
 Directly, he was a Prophet for Judah only. At the begin- 
 ning of his book, he condemns the idolatries of both capitals, 
 as the central sin of the two kingdoms. The destruction of 
 Samaria he pronounces at once, as future, absolutely certain, 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 21 
 
 19 
 
 18 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 4242,32 
 
 5434 32422,3 
 
 334,23 
 
 43,43 
 
 332,23 42,34 4232,2 
 
 35,22 
 
 32,33 42,32 
 
 43,3 
 
 3,33 
 
 4,3 32,2 
 
 32 
 
 Nahum. 
 
 32232,72 
 
 2333,35 3233,41 
 
 32,337 
 
 34,2322 23,42131 
 
 323,43 33,522 22222,32 14123,4 
 
 44,33 (ii) 32221,13 3,2234 234,32 
 
 42,223 3332,2 323,32 
 
 33,33 32,34 322,32 (ii) 414,3 42,222 222,222 
 
 43,4 32,222 22,313 42,32 23,24 322,22 
 
 42,13 12,223 3,223 32,32 
 
 32,22(ii) 23,22 
 
 23,3 (li) 24,2 22,22 
 
 22,21 
 
 13,2 31,2 
 
 3,2 
 
 Habakkuk. 
 24 44,4444 
 20 4334,33 
 19 333,1423 
 18 43,254 3332,43 
 17 45,35 422,2232 54,41 333,53 
 
 15 34,41 332,322 33,234 34,233 43,41 13143,3 33333 333,42 
 14 43,322 332,33 33,41 
 13 32,422 33,13 23,44 
 12 323,22 ii) 33,33 (ii) 
 11 222,32 32,42 32,33 322,4 42,14 
 10 322,3 3,31 4,33 
 9 33,3 (ii) 4,5 21,3 42,3 23,4 
 
 8 311,3 22,4 3,32 
 
 7 3,4 (ii) 4,3 (ii) 
 
 6 3,3 [ivj 
 
 1 Is. X. 28-32. ' i. 8, 10. see note. 
 
 ' i. 12. y ii. 7. '8,9. « 10. 
 
 >= i.8, 9, ii. 1, 2, vii.5, 6. 'i i. 8-10, 16, iv. 9, 10. » vii. 1. 
 
 s Gen. xlix. 24. i" Ps. Ixxiv. 1, Ixxviii. 52, Ixxix. 13, Ixxx. 1 
 
 k iv. 6. 
 
 1 lb. 8. 
 
 ■» V. 4, [Eng. 3 Heb.] 
 
 •9,10,11,12. ta •11,13,16. 
 
 I" ii. 1, 2, iii. 1-3, 9-11, vi. 10-12, vii. 2, 3. 
 
 ' Ps. xxiii. 
 
 ' ii. 12. 
 
 - lb. 5. [4 Heb.] 
 Z Z 
 
 » vii. 14.
 
 294 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 ahidin jj p. There he leaves her, declares her wound incurable, 
 and passes forthwith to Jiuiah, to wliom, he says, that wound 
 should pass, whom that same enemy should reach i. Therc- 
 after, he mentions incidentally the infection of Israel's sin 
 spreading: to Judah \ Else, after that first sentence on Sama- 
 ria, the names of Jacoh (which he had g:iven to the ten trihes') 
 and Israel are api)ropriated to the kingdom of Judah ' : Judah 
 is mentioned no more, oidy her capital " ; even her king^s are 
 called t/ie Aiiigs of Israel'^. The ten trihcs are only included 
 in the general restoration of the wholcy. The future remnant 
 of the two tribes, to he restored after the captivity of Babylon, 
 are called by themselves the remnant of Jacoh ^ : the Messiah 
 to be born at Bethlehem is foretold as the ruler in Israel'^: the 
 ten tribes are called the remnant of His brethren, who were to 
 return to the children of Israel^, i.e. Judah. 
 
 This the more illustrates the g:enuineness of the inscription. 
 A later hand would have been unlikely to have mentioned either 
 Samai-ia or those earlier king^s of Judah. Each part of the 
 title corresponds to something: in the prophecy; the name 
 Micah is alluded to at its close ; his birthplace, the Moras- 
 thite, at its be£;inning;; the indications of those earlier reig^ns 
 lie there, althoug^h not on its surfaced The mention of the 
 two capitals, followed by the immediate sentence on Samaria, 
 and then by the fuller expansion of the sins and punishment 
 of Jerusalem, culminating: in its sentence'', in Micah, corres- 
 ponds to the brief mention of the punishment of Judah in 
 Amos the Prophet of Israel, and then the fuller expansion of 
 the sins and punishments of Israel. Further, the capitals, as 
 the fountains of idolatry, are the primary object of God's dis- 
 pleasure. They are both specially denounced in the course of 
 the prophecy; their special overthrow is foretold'^. The title 
 corresponds with the contents of the prophecy, yet the objec- 
 tions of modern critics shew that the correspondence does not 
 lie on the surface. 
 
 The taunt of the false priest Amaziah ^ to Amos may in it- 
 self suggest that propliets at Jerusalem did prophesy against 
 Samaria. Amaziah, any how, thouglit it natural that they 
 should. Both Isaiah and Micah, while exercising their office 
 at Jerusalem, had regard also to Samaria. Divided as Israel 
 and Judah were, Israel was not yet cut off. Israel and Ju- 
 hah were still, together, the one people of God. The prophets 
 in each had a care for the other. 
 
 Micah joins himself on to the men of God before him, as Isai- 
 ah at the time, and Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, 
 subsequently, employed words or thoughts of Micah s. Micah 
 alludes to the history, the laws, the promises, the threatenings 
 of the Pentateuch ; and that in such wise, that it is plain that 
 he had, not traditional laws or traditional history, but the 
 Pentateuch itself before him"". Nor were those books before 
 himself only. His book implies not an acquaintance only, but 
 a familiar acquaintance with it on the part of the people. The 
 title, the land of Nimrod ', the house of bondage ^, for Egypt, 
 
 Pi.6,7. ii.9. ■• i. 13. >i.5. « Jacoi, ii. 7, iii. 1,8, 9; 
 
 Israel, i. 14, 15, iii. 1, 8, 9, v. 1, 3, vi. 2. " See ab. p. 289. ' i. It. y Jacob, all 
 of thee, ii. 12 ; the remnant of Israel, ib. « v. 7, 8, [8,9 Heb.] » v. 2. (1 Heb.) 
 
 ^ Ib. 3. (2 Heb.) " See ab. p. 290. '^ iii. 12. « i. 6, 9, 12, iii. 10-12, 
 
 iv. 10. f See ab. p. 213. s See Caspari Micha, 449-455. •> See at length, in 
 
 Caspari, pp. 420-7, and below on the places. ' v. 6, (5 Heb.) from Gen. x. 8-12. 
 
 ^ Ti. 4, comp. Deut. rii. 8, xiii. 5, Ex. xiii. 3, 14, xx. 2, Else only in Josh. xxiv. 17, 
 
 the allusions to the miraculous deliverance from Egypt ', the 
 history of Balaam ; the whole summary of the mercies of God 
 from tlie Exodus to Gilgal '", tiie faithfulness pledged to Abra- 
 liam and Jac-ob ", would be unintelligible without the know- 
 ledge of tlie Pentateuch. Even single expressions are taken 
 from the Pentateuch ". Especially, the whole sixth chapter is 
 grounded upon it. Thence is the appeal to inanimate nature 
 to hear the <'ontroversy ; thence the men-ies alleged on God's 
 part ; the offerings on man's part to atone to God (except the 
 one dreadful superstition of Ahaz) are from the law ; the an- 
 swer on God's part is almost verbally from the law ; the sins 
 upbraided are sins forbidden in the law ; the penalties pro- 
 nounced are also those of the law. There are two allusions 
 also to the history of Joshua i", to David's elegy over Saul 
 and Jonathan i, and, as before said, to the history of Micaiah 
 son of Imlah in the book of Kings. Single expressions are 
 also taken from the Psalms' and the Proverbs'. In the de- 
 scriptions of the peace of the kingdom of Christ*, he appears 
 purposely to have reversed God's description of the animosity 
 of the nations against God's people ". He has also two cha- 
 racteristic expressions of Amos. Perhaps, in the image of 
 the darkness which should come on the false prophets^, he 
 applied anew the image of Amos, adding the ideas of spirit- 
 ual darkness and perplexity to that of calamity. 
 
 The light and shadows of the prophetic life fell deeply on the 
 soul of Micah. The captivity of Judah too had been foretold 
 before him. Moses had foretold the end from the beginning, 
 had set before them the captivity and the dispersion, as a 
 punishment which the sins of the people would certainly bring 
 upon them. Hosea presupposed it ^ ; Amos foretold that Jeru- 
 salem, like the cities of its heathen enemies, should be burned 
 with fire ^. Micah had to declare its lasting desolation «. 
 Even when God wrought repentance through him, he knew 
 that it was but for a time ; for he foresaw and foretold that the 
 deliverance would be, not in Jerusalem, but at Babylon'', in 
 captivity. His prophecy sank so deep, that, above a century 
 afterwards, just when it was about to have its fulfilment, it 
 was the prophecy which was remembered. But the sufferings 
 of time disappeared in the light of eternal truth. Above seven 
 centuries rolled by, and Micah re-appears as the herald, not 
 now of sorrow but of salvation. Wise men from afar, in the 
 nobility of their simple belief, asked, TVhereis he that is born 
 King of the Jews ? A king, jealous for his temporal empire, 
 gathered all those learned in Holy Scripture, and echoed the 
 question. The answer was given, unhesitatingly, as a well- 
 known truth of God, in the words of Micah. For thus it is 
 written in the Prophet. Glorious peerage of the two con- 
 temporary prophets of Judah. Ere Jesus was born, the Angel 
 announced the birth of the Virgin's Son, God luith us, in the 
 words of Isaiah. When He was born, He was pointed out as 
 the Object of worship to the first converts from the heathen, 
 on the authority of God, through Micah. 
 
 and Judg. vi. 8, also from the Pent. Casp. ' See on ii. 13, vi. 4, vii. 15. "> See 
 
 on vi. 4, 5. ■■ See on vii. 20. " As nbv ii. 13, nSyn vi. 4, ':th rht> Ib. 
 
 i-\2^ 'HP vii. 14, pK '^m vii. 17. Casp. P See on ii. 4, vi. 5. i i. 10. ' Casp. 
 
 428-30 ; see on ii. 1, iii. 2, 3, vii. 2. 7, 8, 10. • Casp. 430-2 ; see on vi. 9, 11. 
 
 ' iv. 3, Joel iii. 10. >* k'.t .ijn ny 'D ii. 3, Am. v. 13, and TBI ii. (>, 11, Am. 
 
 vii. 16. Casp. 443. ^ Mic. iii. 6, Am. viii. 9. J See ab. on Hos. 
 
 vi. 11. pp. 42, 3. ' ii. 5. « iii. 12. l" iv. 10.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 295 
 
 cnYriT CHAPTER I. 
 
 ■ — ^ 1 Micah sheweth the rvrath of God against Jacob 
 
 for idolatry. 10 He vxliortelli to niouruini^. 
 
 THE Avord of the Fjokd tlutt. came to 
 "Micah the IMorasthite in the days of 
 Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kintj^s of Jii- 
 
 Chap. I. Ver. 1. The word of the Lord that came to Micah — 
 which he satv. No two of the prophets authenticate their 
 prophecy in exactly tlie same way. They, one and all,liave the 
 same simple statement to make, that this which they say 
 is fro))i God, and throui^li them. A later hand, had it added 
 the titles, would have formed all upon one model. The ti- 
 tle was an essential part of the prophetic book, as indicating? to 
 the people afterwards, that it was not written after the event. 
 It was a witness, not to the prophet whose name it bears, but 
 to God. The prophet hare witness to God. that what he de- 
 livered came from Him. The event bare witness to the pro- 
 phet, that he said this truly, in that he knew what God alone 
 could know, — futurity. Micah blends in one the fncts, that 
 he related in words fciven himby God, what lie had seen spread 
 before him in prophetic vision. His prophecy was, in one, the 
 word of the Lord which came to him, and a siiyht which he saw. 
 
 Micah omits all mention of his father. His jjreat predeces- 
 sor was known as Mieaiah so?i of Lnlah. Micah, a villac^er, 
 would be known only by the name of his native villajre. So 
 Nahum names himself //;e Elkoshite ; Jonah is related to be a 
 native ofGath-hepher ; Elijah, the Tishbite, a sojourner in the 
 despised Gilead ^ ; Elisha, of Abelmeholah ; Jeremiah, of Ana- 
 thoth ; forerunners of Him, and taup^ht by His Spirit Who 
 willed to be born at Bethlehem, and, since this, althouf^h too 
 little to he counted among the thousands of Juduii. was yet a 
 royal city and was to be the birth-place of the Christ, was 
 known only as Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarene. No prophet 
 speaks of himself, or is spoken of, as born at Jerusalem, the 
 holy city. They speak of themselves with titles of lowliness, 
 not of e:reatness. 
 
 Micah dates his prophetic office from kinijs of Judah only, 
 as the only kin^s of the line appointed by God. Kings of Is- 
 rael are mentioned in addition, only by prophets of Israel. 
 HenamesSamaria first,because,its iniquity beingmost nearly 
 full, its punishment was the nearest. 
 
 2. Hear, all ye people, lit. hear, ye peoples, all of them. 
 Some 140, or 150 years had flowed by, since Mieaiah, son of 
 Imlah, had closed his prophecy in these words. And now they 
 burst out anew. From age to age the word of God holds its 
 course, ever receiving new fulfilments, never dying out, until 
 the end shall come. The signal fulfilment of the prophecy, to 
 which the former Mieaiah had calledattention in these words, 
 was an earnestof the fulfilmentof thispresent message of God. 
 Hearken, O earth, ajidall that therein is. The peoples or 
 nations are never Judah and Israel only : the earth and the ful- 
 ness thereof i& the well-known titleofthe whole earth- and all 
 its inhabitants. Moses^, Asaph*, Isaiah^, call heaven and 
 earth as witnesses against God's people. Jeremiah^, as Mi- 
 cah here, summons the nations and the earth. The contest 
 between good and evil, sin and holiness, the kingdom of God 
 
 ' 1 Kgs. xvii. 1. - In the two passages quoted for the contrary, Jer. viii. 16, Ezek. 
 xii. 19, the context shews that p.N is and can only be, /««(/, nut, earth, Jer. The snorting 
 of his horses is heard from Dan, and they came and devoured the land and the fulness there- 
 of ; where the land to which they ra»7!e could plainly be Judea only. In Ezekielit is not 
 even the land, but her land. Say nnto the people of the land ; Thus saith the Lord God of 
 
 dah, ''which he saw concernini^ Samaria ci?iiTst 
 and Jenisahnn. cir. 7r,B-72(;. 
 
 2 f Hear, all ye people; ■= hearken, f) j iiX^//,,J,r, 
 earth, and f all that therein is ; and let the fiufThem. 
 Lord God *be witness aj;ainst you, the" is!T.' 2?^' 
 fiord from '' his holy temple. 
 
 •' I's. 50. 7. Mal.S.rj. '■ Ps. 11. 4. Jonah 2. 7. Hab. 2. 20. 
 
 t H'^h. the 
 
 fulness 
 thereof. 
 
 and the kingdom of Satan, everywhere, hut most chiefly where 
 God's Presence is nearest, is a .spectacle to the ivorld, to angeh 
 and to men''. The nations an; witnesses of (jod against His 
 own people, so that these should not say. that it was for want 
 ol'faithfulness or justice or power **. but in His righteous judg- 
 ment, that He cast off'wliom He liiid ciiosen. So shall the 
 Day of Judgment reveal His righteousness'^. Hearken, O 
 earth. Tiie lifeless earth '" trembles at the Presence of God, 
 and so reproaches the dulness of man. By it he summons 
 man to listen with great reverence to the Voice of God. 
 
 ylnd let the Lord God be witness against you. Not in 
 words, but in deeds ye shall know, that 1 speak not of myself 
 but God in me, when, what I declare, He shall by His Presence 
 fulfil. But the nations are appealed to, not merely because 
 the judgments of God on Israelshouldbemade known toXhcm 
 by the Prophets. He had not yet spoken of Israel or Judah, 
 whereas he had spoken to the nations ; hear, ye peoples. It 
 seems then most likely that here too he is speaking to them. 
 Every judgment is an earnest, a forerunner, a part, of the fi- 
 nal judgment and an ensample of its principles. It is but " the 
 last great link in the chain," which unites God's dealings in 
 time with eternity. God's judgments on one imply a judg- 
 ment on all. His judgments in time imj)ly a Judgment be- 
 yond time. Each sinner feels in his own heart a response to 
 God's visible judgments on another. Each sinful nation may 
 read its own doom in the sentence on each other nation. God 
 judges each according to his own measure of light and grace, 
 accepted or refused. The Heathen shall be judged by the law 
 icritten in their heart^'^ ; the Jew, by the law of Moses and the 
 light of the prophets; Christians, by the law of Christ. The 
 wo7-d, Christ saith '-, that I have spoken, the same shall fudge 
 him at the last Day. God Himself foretold, that the heathen 
 should know the ground of His judgments against His peo- 
 ple ^^. ^11 nations shall say, wherefore hath the Lord done thus 
 unto this land ? What meaneth the heat of this great anger f 
 Then men shall say. Because they have forsaken the covenant 
 of the Lord God of t heir fathers which He made icith them. when 
 He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, ^'c. But in 
 that theheathen knew why God so punished His people, they 
 came so far to know the mind of God ; and God, Who at no 
 time" left Himself ivi thou t icifness, bore fresh tvitness to them, 
 and, so far as they neglected it, against them. A Jew, where- 
 ver he is seen throughout the world, is a witness to the world 
 of God's judgments against sin. 
 
 " '^^ Christ , the faithful JFitness. shall witness against those 
 who do j\\, for those who do well." 
 
 The Lord from Hisholy temple. Either that at Jerusalem, 
 where God shewed and revealed Himself, or Heaven of which 
 it was the image. As David says ^^, The Lord is in His holy 
 temple ; the Lord'sthrone isinheaven; andcontrasts His dwell- 
 
 the land of Israel, — that her land may be desolate from all the fulness thereof. ' Deut. 
 xxxii. 1. -iPs. 1. 7. * i. 2. « vi. 19. : 1 Cor. iv. 9. 
 
 8 Ex xxxii. 12, Num. xiv. 16, Josh. vii. 8, 9. ' Rom. ii. 5. "> Ps. cxiv. 7. 
 
 xcvii. 5. 11 Rom. ii. 12-15. 1= S. John xii. 48. "Deut. 
 
 xxix.24, 5. n Acts xiv. 1". i^ Dion. i^ Fs. xi. 4. 
 
 z z 2
 
 296 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrTst ^ ^'^^^ behold, 'the Lord cometh 
 
 ci r. 758-726. forth out of his » place, and will come 
 
 sPsTi/s down, and tread upon the ''hi<rh places 
 
 "&3tf- of the earth. 
 
 Amos 4. 13. 
 
 ing in heaven iind His coming down upon earth. ^ He bowed 
 the heavens also and came down ; and Isaiah, in like words'', 
 Behold, the Lord comet h out of His place to punish the inha- 
 bitants of the earth for their iniquiti/. 
 
 3. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth, i.e. (as we now say,) 
 is coming forth. Each day of judgment, and the last also, are 
 ever drawing nigh, noiselessly as the nightfall,but unceasing- 
 ly. Out of His Place. "'God is hidden from us, except when 
 He sheweth Himself by His Wisdom or Power or Justice or 
 Grace, as Isaiah saith *, Verily, Thou art a God Who hidest 
 Thyself. " He seenieth to be absent, wheii He doth not visibly 
 work either in the heart within, or in judgments without; to 
 the ungodly andunbelievingHeis absent,^/(7r aliove out of their 
 sight, when He does not avenge their scoff's, their sins, their 
 irreverence. Again He seemeth to go forth, when His Power 
 is felt. "'Whence it is said". Bote Thy lieavens, O Lord, and 
 come down ; and the Lord saith of Sodom '', I will go down now 
 and see, tvhetlier they have done altogether according to the cry 
 of it,wliich is come unto Me. Or, thePlace of the Infinite God 
 is God Himself. For the Infinite sustaineth Itself, nor doth 
 anything out of Itself contain It. God dwelleth also in light 
 unapproachable *. When then Almighty God doth not mani- 
 fest Himself, He abideth, as it Avere, in His own Place. When 
 He manifests His Power or Wisdom or Justice by their eff"ects, 
 He is said to go forth out of His Place, i. e. out of His hidden- 
 ness. Again, since the Nature of God is Goodness, it is pro- 
 per and co-natural to Him, to be propitious, have mercy and 
 spare. In this way, tlie Place of God is His mercy. When 
 then He passeth from the sweetness of pity to the rigour of 
 equity, and, on account of our sins, sheweth Himself severe 
 (which is, as it were, alien from Him) He goeth forth out of 
 His Place.''' " ^ For He Who is gentle and gracious, and Whose 
 Nature it is to have mercy, is constrained, on your account, 
 to take the seeming of hardness, which is not His." 
 
 He conies invisibly now, in that it is He Who punisheth, 
 through whatever power or will of man He useth ; He shews 
 forth His Holiness through the punishment of unholiness. 
 But the words, which are image-language now, shall be most 
 exactly fulfilled in the end, when, in the Person of our Lord, 
 He shall come visibly to judge the world. "^^ In the Day of 
 Judgment, Christ s/iall come down, according to that Nature 
 which He took,/7-owi His Place, the highest heavens, and shall 
 cast down the proud things of this world." 
 
 ^7id will come down ; not by change of place, or in Him- 
 self, but as felt in the punishment of sin ; and tread upon the 
 high places of the earth ; to bring dc.wn the pride of those ^^ 
 who " ^" being lifted up in their fiwn conceit and lofty, sinning 
 through pride and proud through sin, were yet created out 
 of earth. Yor^^ ivhy is earth and ashes prozid?" What seems 
 
 ' Ps. xviii. 9. ' xxvi. 21. 3 Dion. ■• xlv. 15. » Ps. X. 5. « Ps. cxiiv. 5, 
 Is. Ixiv. 1. 7 Gen. xviii. 21. 8 i Xiui. vi. 16. 9 S. Jer. i" S. Jer. Theoph. 
 
 " See Am. iv. 13, Job ix. 8. '" Rup. '3 Ecclus. x. 9. " 2 Cor. vi. 16, Rev. iii. 20. 
 
 15 Henderson here. "> See ab. p. 189. '' Deut. iv. 24. '*< Ixvi. 15. 
 
 " Hence some MSS. mentioned in De Rossi's cod. 319, have (as a conjecture) riyajni 
 " the hills." -« Sanch. =' See Ps. xcvii. 5. - See S. Hil. in Ps. Ivii. § 4. DDD is 
 used, as to natural objects, only of such melting wherebv the substance is wasted, ,is of 
 tnanna (Ex. xvi.21), wax(Ps. Ixviii. 3,&c.),or the body through disease (1 Sam. xxv. 
 .37) ; then, morally, chiefly of fear. -3 See Ges. Thes. sub v. from the Punic, Monum. 
 Phn-n. p. 418. " There are many waterfalls in Lebanon, one very near and to the N. of 
 the Damascus road. I have also seen one in Anti-libanus on the river Barada, a little 
 above Abil. The stream, named Sheba which springs from the perpetual snows of 
 
 4 And ' the mountains shall be molten 
 under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, 
 as wax before the fire, and as the waters 
 that are poured down f a steep place. 
 
 t Heb. a descent. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 758-726. 
 
 1 .ludg.5. 5. 
 Ps. 'SI. 5. 
 Is. 64. 1,2,3. 
 Amos 9. 5. 
 Hab.3.6,10. 
 
 mightiest and most firm, is unto God less than is to man the 
 dust under his feet. The high places were also the special 
 scenes of an unceasing idolatry. " God treadeth in the good 
 and humble, in that He dwelleth, walketh,feasteth in their 
 hearts ^*. But He treadeth upon the proud and the evil, in 
 that He casteth them down, despiseth, condemneth them." 
 
 4. And the tnountains shall be molten under Him. It has 
 been thought that this is imagery, taken from volcanic erup- 
 tions ^^ ; but, although there is a very remarkable volcanic dis- 
 trict just outside of Gilead^^, it is not thought to have been 
 active at times so late as these ; nor were the people to whom 
 the words were said, familiar with it. Fire, the real agent at 
 the end of the world, is, meanwhile, the symbol of God's anger, 
 as being the most terrible of His instruments of destruction : 
 whence God revealed Himself as a consimiing fire '^, and, at 
 this same time said by Isaiah^* ; For Ijehold, the Lord will come 
 with fire — to render His anger wit li fury, and His rebuke tuith 
 Jlames of fire. 
 
 And tlie valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire. It 
 seems natural that the mountains should be cleft ; but the val- 
 liesi',so low already! This speaks of a yet deeper dissolution; 
 of lower depths beyond our sight or knowledge, into the very 
 heart of the earth. " -" This should they fear, who will to be 
 so low; who, so far from lifting themselves to heavenly things, 
 pour out their affections on things of earth, meditate on and 
 love earthly things, and forgetful of the heavenly, choose to fix 
 their eyes on earth. These the wide gaping of the earth which 
 they loved, shall swallow : to them the cleft vallies shall open 
 an everlasting sepulchre, and, havingreceived them, shall ne- 
 ver part with them." 
 
 Highest and lowest, first and last, shall perish before Him. 
 The pride of the highest,kingsand princes, priests and judges, 
 shall sink and melt away beneath the weight and Majesty of 
 His glory ; the hardness of the lowest, which would not open 
 itself to Him, shall be cleft in twain before Him. 
 
 ^si««.r6e/bre//(e^re-',meltingaway before Him by Whom 
 they were not softened, vanishing into nothingness. Metals 
 melt, changing their form only ; wax, so as to cease to be ^^. 
 
 As the waters poured down (as a stream or cataract, so the 
 word means-') a steep place. Downto thevery edge,itis borne 
 along, one strong, smooth,unbroken current; then, at once, it 
 seems to gather its strength, for one great eff"ort. But to 
 what end ? To fall, with the greater force, headlong, scattered 
 in spray, foam and froth ; dissipated, at times, into vapour, or 
 reeling in giddy eddies, never to return. In Judaea, where the 
 autumn rains set in with great vehemence -*, the waters must 
 have been often seen pouring in their little tumultuous brook- 
 lets down the mountain side -^,hastening to disappear, and dis- 
 appearing the faster,the more vehemently they rolled along -^. 
 
 Mount Hermonis extremely rapid and h.is a very steep fall tothe Hasbeia which itjoins 
 in Merj-el-Huleh. The Jordan is a continual cataract between el-Hulehand the Lake of 
 Gennesarelh ;" (Rev. G. Williams, MS. letter) " a fall of 600 feet in about 10 miles. 
 On the Western bank, high above the rocky bed of the torrent, the water was running ra- 
 pidly down the steep inclnie towards the river, which could hardly be less than 150 feet 
 below us." (Id. Col. Church Chron. 1860. Jan. p. 30.). Porter describes the fall of the 
 river Adonis(Five years, ii. 295.) From the height at which the streams rise in the Leba- 
 non chain, there must be many greater or lesser falls. -^ Hence the Hebrew name CW, 
 " heavy rain," for which we have no one word, is used of the autumn and winter rain. Cant, 
 ii. 11. "^ I have seen this effect for above half an hour (15 miles)onthe mountaincoun- 
 try near the lakes iu a thunderstorm. -' " The decrease of the waters (swollen 
 
 by the rains in the mountains) is usually as rapid as their rise." Burckhardt, Syria,p. 161.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 297 
 
 ciulTsT ^ For the transp^rossion of Jacob /.? all 
 
 "■•• "sg-7^'^- this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. 
 
 What is- the trans<>^ression of Jacob ? Is 
 
 it not Samaria ? and what are the hij^h 
 
 Both iiiKifjes exhibit the inward emptiness of sinners, man's 
 utter helplessness before God. They need no outward impulse 
 t,otheir destruction. "^ Wax endureth not the nearnessof the 
 fire, and the waters arc carried hcadlontr. So all of the un- 
 godly, when the Lord conieth, shall be idissolved and disap- 
 pear." At the end of the world, they shall be gathered into 
 bundles, and cast away. 
 
 5. For ike trmisgressiou of Jacob is all this. Not for any 
 change of purpose in God ; nor,again,asthc effect of man'slust 
 of conquest. None could have any power against God's peo- 
 ple, unless it had been given him by God. Those mighty Mo- 
 narchies of old existed but as God's instruments, especially 
 towards His own people. God said at this time of Assyria, 
 ^ u4ss/iHr, rod of Mine anger, and the stafl'in his hand is Mine 
 indignation ; and ^, A^otu have I brought it to pass, that thou 
 shouldest he to lay waste defenced cities into ruitious heaps. 
 Each scourge of God chastised just those nations, which God 
 willed him to chasten ; but the especial object for which each 
 was raised up was his mission against that people, in whom 
 God most shewed His mercies and His judgments. * J ivill 
 send him against an ungodly nation and against the people of 
 My wrath will I give him a charge. Jacob and Israel, in this 
 place, comprise alike the ten tribes and the two. They still 
 bare the name of their father, who, wrestling with the Angel, 
 became a prince with God, Whom they forgat. The name 
 of Jacob then, as of Christian now,stamped as deserters, those 
 who did not the deeds of their father. IFhat, [rather fVho^ is 
 thetransgression of Jacob ? Who is its cause ? In whom does 
 it lie ? Is it not Samaria ? The metropolis must, in its own 
 nature, be the source of good or evil to the land. It is the 
 heart whose pulses beat throughout the whole system. As 
 the seat of power, the residence of justice or injustice, the 
 place of counsel, the concentration of wealth, whicli all the 
 most influential of the land visit for their several occasions, 
 its manners penetrate in a degree the utmost corners of the 
 land. Corrupted.it becomes a focus of corruption. Theblood 
 passes through it, not to be puriiied, but to be diseased. 
 Samaria, being founded on apostacy, owing its being to re- 
 bellion against God, the home of tliat policy which set up a 
 rival system of worship to His, forbidden by Him, became a 
 fountain of evil, whence the stream of ungodliness overflowed 
 the land. It became the impersonation of the people's sin, 
 " the heart and the head of the body of sin." 
 
 yi)id what [lit. fVho^^ are thehigh places of Judah? arethey 
 not Jerusalem ? Jerusalem God had formed to be a centre of 
 unity in holiness ; thither the tribes of the Lord were to go up 
 to the testimony of Israel ; there was the unceasing worship 
 of God, the morning and evening sacrifice; the Feasts, the 
 memorials of past miraculous mercies, the foreshadowings of 
 redemption. But there too Satan placed his throne. Ahaz 
 brought thither that most hateful idolatry, the burning chil- 
 dren to Moloch in the valley of the son of Hinnom^. There,'^/ie 
 made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. Thence, he 
 extended the idolatry to all Judah. ^And in every several 
 city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other 
 
 1 S. Jer. - Is. X. 5. ^ Jb. xxxvii. 26. 
 
 ^ lb. X. 6. » "O always relates to a personal object, and apparent exceptions may 
 
 be reduced to this. So AE. Kim. Tanch. Poc. ^ 2 Chr. xxviii. 3. ^ lb. 24. 
 
 s lb. 25. 9 lb. xxxi. 1, " Kings xvi. 10-16. 
 
 places of Judah ? are they not Jerusalem ? ^ ^l"l["W ^ 
 6 Therefore I will make Samaria ''as an <=!■•■ 758-726 . 
 heap of the field, and as j)lantinirs of a vine- 
 yard : and 1 will pour down the stones 
 
 k 2 Kings 19, 
 23. cli.3. 12. 
 
 gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers. 
 Hezckiah, in his rciormi}it'u)n,\\\t\i all Israel,"^ went out to the 
 cities of Judah, and braise the images in pieces and hewed down 
 the statues of Asherah, and threw down the high places ami the 
 altursout of all Judah and Benjaiiiin, as much as out of Ephra- 
 im and Manasseh. Nay,by a perverse intfTcliange, Aiiaz took 
 the brazen altar, consecrated to God, f(U' his own divinations, 
 and assigned to the worship of God the altar copied from 
 the idol-altar at Damascus, whose fashion pleased his taste '". 
 Since God and mammon cannot be served together. Jerusalem 
 was become one great idol-temple, in which Judah brought its 
 sin into the very face of God and of His worship. The Jfoly 
 C//?/haditself become sin, andthefountainorunholiness. The 
 one temple of God was the single protest against the idolatries 
 which encompassed and besieged it ; the incense went up to 
 God, morning and evening, from it ; from every head of every 
 streetof the city >i, and (since Ahaz had brought in theworsliip 
 of Baalim ^-, and tlie rites of idolatry continued the same,) from 
 the roofs of all their houses ^^, went up the incense to Biial ; a 
 worship which, denying the Unity, denied the Being of God. 
 
 6. Therefore [lit. And] I will make Samaria as an heap of 
 the field, and as plantings of a viyieyurd. "^The order of the 
 sin was the order of the punishment." Samaria's sins were 
 the earliest, the most obstinate, the most unbroken, bound up 
 with its being as a state. On it then God's judgments should 
 first fall. It was a crown of pride ^*, resting on the head of the 
 rich valleys, out of which it rose. Its soil is still rich ^'. " The 
 whole is now cultivated in terraces ^V' "to the summits i^." 
 Probably, since the sides of hills, open to the sun, were chosen 
 for vineyards, it had been a vineyard, before Shenier sold it 
 to Omri ^^. What it had been, that it was again to be. Its 
 inhabitants cast forth, its houses and gorgeous palaces were to 
 become heapsof stones, ^w/Z/t'/rf/ OK? " to make way for cultiva- 
 tion, or to become the fences of the vegetation, which should 
 succeed to man. There is scarce a sadder natural sight, than 
 the fragments of human habitation, tokens of man's labour or 
 his luxury, amid the rich beauty of nature when man himself 
 is gone. For they are tracks of sin and punishment, man's re- 
 bellion and God's judgment, man's unworthiness of the good 
 naturalgifts of God. A century or two ago, travellers '•-"speak 
 of the ground [the site of Samaria] as strewed with masses of 
 ruins." Now these too are gone. " ^^ The stones of the tem- 
 ples and palaces of Samaria have been carefully removed from 
 the rich soil, thrown together in heaps, built up in the rude 
 walls of terraces, and rolled down into the valley below." 
 "-1 About midway of the ascent, the hill is surrounded byanar- 
 row terrace of woodland like a belt. Higher up too are the 
 marks of slighter terraces, once occupied perhaps by the 
 streets of the ancient city." Terrace-cultivation has succeed- 
 ed to the terraced streets once thronged by the busy, luxu- 
 rious, sinful, population. 
 
 And I U'ill pour down the stones thereof into the valley, of 
 which it was the crest, and which it now proudly surveyed. 
 God Himself would cause it to be poured down (he uses the 
 word which he had just used of the vehemence of the ca- 
 
 11 Ezek. xvi. 31, 2 Chr. xxviii. 24. ■= lb. 2. 
 
 13 Jer. xxxii. 29. n Is. xxviii. 1. is Porter, Hdbook, p. 345. i' lb. 344. 
 
 17 Rob. ii. 304. 307. i* 1 Kings xvi. 24. is Is. v. 2. =" " Cotovicus in 
 
 the 16th, and Von Troilo in the l/lh ceutur)-." Rob. ii. 30/. note 1. =' Rob. ii. 304.
 
 298 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 c H^R*! ST thereof into the valley, and I will ' discover 
 cir.75s.726. jjjg foundations thereof. 
 
 ' ^^<'''- '3. 14. y ^^^j .^jj jj^g jrraven ima<?es thereof 
 
 " 12^' ^" ^' shall be beaten to pieces, and all the "^ hires 
 
 thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all 
 
 taract ^). "^ The whole face of this part of the hill suji^gests the 
 idea that the building's of the ancient city had been thrown 
 down from the brow of the hill. Ascending to the top, we 
 went round tlie whole summit, and found marks of the same 
 process everywhere." 
 
 j4)td Iwill discovert he foimdatiojis thereof. The desolation 
 is entire ; not one stone left upon another. Yet the very words 
 of threatening contain hope. It was to be not a heap only, but 
 the plantings of a vineyard. The heaps betoken ruin ; the 
 vineyard, fruitfulness cared for by God. Destroyed, as what 
 it was, and turned upside down, as a vineyard by the share, 
 it should become again what God made it and willed it to be. 
 It sliould again become a rich valley, but in outward desola- 
 tion. Its splendid palaces, its idol temples, its houses of joy, 
 should be but heaps and ruins, which are cleared away out of 
 a vineyard, as only choking it. It was built in rebellion and 
 schism, loose and not held together, like a heap of stones, ha- 
 ving no cement of love, rent and torn in itself, having been 
 torn both from God and His worship. It could be remade 
 onlyby being wholly unmade. Then shouldtheywho believed 
 be branches grafted in Him Who said, ^ / am the Fine, ye are 
 the branches. 
 
 7. .And all the graven images thereof shall he beaten to 
 pieces. Its idols in whom she trusts, so far from protecting 
 her, shall themselves go into captivity, broken up for the gold 
 and silver whereof they were made. The wars of the Assy- 
 rians being religious wars *, the idolatry of Assyria destroyed 
 the idolatry and idols of Israel. 
 
 And all the hires thereof shall be burned with fire. All 
 forsaking of God being spiritual fornication from Him Who 
 made His creatures for Himself, the hires are all which man 
 would gain by that desertion of his God, all employed in 
 man's intercourse with his idols, whether as bribing his idols 
 to give him what are the gifts of God, or as himself bribed by 
 them. For there is no pure service, save that of the love of 
 God. God alone can be loved purely, for Himself; offerings 
 to Him Alone are the creature's pure homage to the Creator, 
 going out of itself, not looking back to itself, not seeking it- 
 self, but stretching forth to Him and seeking Him for Him- 
 self. Whatever man gives to or hopes from his idols, man 
 himself is alike his object in both. The hire then is, alike what 
 he gives to his idols, the gold tv hereof he makes his Baal^, the 
 offerings which the heathen used to lay up in their temples, 
 and what, as he thought, he himself received back. For he 
 gave only earthly things, in order to receive back things of 
 earth. He hired their service to him, and his earthly gains 
 were his hire. It is a strong mockery in the mouth of God, 
 that they had these things from their idols. He speaks to 
 them after their thoughts. Yet it is true that, although God 
 overrules all, man does receive from Satan ^, the god of this 
 ivorld '', all which he gains amiss. It is the price for which he 
 sells his soul and profanes himself. Yet herein were the hea- 
 then more religious than the Christian worldling. The hea- 
 
 ' ver. 4. - Narrative of Scottish Mission, pp. 293, 4. in Henderson. 3 S. John xv. 6. 
 < See below Introd. to Nahuni. * See Hos. ii. 8. ab. p. 16. « S.Matt.iv. 9. 
 
 <2Coriv.4. s s.Jer. 9Rom.i.23. i« Hesiod.'E. k.'H. 354. L. "Pindar 
 
 the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for chrTst 
 she gathered it of the hire of an harlot and g'"-- 758-726. 
 they shall return to the hire of an harlot. ° ii'nW. 
 8 Therefore " I will wail and howl, " lo is.'oo.'2, 
 will go stripped and naked : p I will niakcp job'so. 29. 
 
 Ps. 102. 6. 
 
 then did offer an ignorant service to they knew not what. 
 Our idolatry of mammon, as being less abstract, is more evi- 
 dent self-worship, a more visible ignoring and so a more open 
 dethroning of God, a worship of a material prosperity, of 
 which we seem ourselves to be the authors, and to which we 
 habitually immolate the souls of men, so habitually that we 
 have ceased to be conscious of it. 
 
 And all the idols thereof will I lay desolate, lit. make a 
 desolation. They, now thronged by their worshippers, should 
 be deserted; their place and temple, a waste. He thrice re- 
 peats alt ; all her graven images, all her hires, all her idols; 
 all should be destroyed. He subjoins a threefold destniction 
 which should overtake them ; so that. whilethe Assyrian broke 
 and carried off the more precious, or burned what could be 
 burned, and, what could not be burned, nor was worth trans- 
 porting, should be left desolate, all should come to an end. 
 He sets the whole the more vividly before the mind, exhibiting 
 to us so many separate pictures of the mode of destruction. 
 
 For from the hire of a harlot she gathered them, a7id to 
 the hire of a harlot they shall return. '' *The wealtii and ma- 
 nifold provision which (as she thought) were gained by forni- 
 cation with her idols, shall go to another harlot, Nineveh ; so 
 that, as they went a whoring in their own land, they should 
 go to another land of idols and fornication, the Assyrians." 
 They ^ turned their glory into shame, changing the glory of the 
 incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible 
 man ; and so it should turn to them into shame. It sprung 
 out of their shame, and should turn to it again. " 111 got, ill 
 spent." Evil gain, cursed in its origin, has the curse of God 
 upon it, and makes its gainer a curse, and ends accursedly. 
 " Make not ill gains," says even a Heathen 1°, " ill gains are 
 equal to losses ;" and another ^^, " Unlawful sweetness a most 
 bitter end awaiteth." 
 
 Probably, the most literal sense is not to be excluded. The 
 degrading idolatrous custom,related of Babylon andCyprus^^, 
 still continued among the Babylonians at the date of the book 
 of Baruch ", and to the Christian era 1*. S. Augustine speaks 
 of it as having existed ^^ among the Phoenicians, and Theodo- 
 ret^'' says that it was still practised by some in Syria. The ex- 
 istenceof the idolatrous custom is presupposed by theprohibi- 
 tion by Moses^' ; and,in the time of Hosea self-desecration was 
 an idolatrous rite in IsraeP*. In the day of Judgment, when 
 the foundation of those who build their house upon the sand, 
 shall be laid bare, the riches which they gained unlawfuUyshall 
 be burned up ; all the idols, which they set up instead of God, 
 '•"the vain thoughts, and useless fancies, and hurtful forms 
 and images which they picture in their mind, defiling it, and 
 hindering it from the steadfast contemplationof divine things, 
 will be punished. They were the hire of the soul which went 
 astray from God, and they who conceived them will, with 
 them, become the prey again of that infernal host which is un- 
 ceasingly turned from God." 
 
 8. Thereforelwill \would''^'\ivail [properly beat^^,i. e. on the 
 
 Isthm. vii. 67, 8. L. >2 Herod, i. 199. " yj. 43. 14 Strabo. xvi. 1. 20. 
 
 '» dabant. de Civ. Dei iii. 10. " on this place. " Deut xxiii. 18. " See on Hos. 
 
 iv. 14. p. 31. 1' Dion. =» He thrice repeats the optative hdS'k nV?'!!) ,TIB0« 21 -ujo.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 299 
 
 chrTst ^ wailing like the dragons, and mourning 
 
 <="-75s-''2G. as the t owls, 
 
 terso/theiwt. 9 For || licr wound is incurable ; fori it 
 
 II Or, she is grievously sick of her wounds. 1 2 Kings 18. 13. Is. 1. 6, 7, 8. 
 
 breast] , and hmvl. ' Let me alone,' he would say, ' that I may 
 vent my sorrow in all ways of expressing sorrow, heatins: on 
 the breast and wailinj;:, usin^' all acts and sounds of'frricf.' It is 
 as we would say, 'Let mo mourn o«,'a mourninji: inexhaustible, 
 because the woe too and the cause of irricf was unceasinjif. 
 The Prophet becomes in words, probably in acts too, an ima2;c 
 of his people, doin<i; as they should do hereafter. He mourns, 
 because and as they would have to mourn, bearing chastise- 
 ment, bereft of all outward comeliness, an example also of re- 
 pentance, since what hedid were the chief outward tokens of 
 mourninfT. 
 
 / ivill [ivoukl'] go stripped [despoiled^] and naked. He 
 explains tlie acts, tliat they represented no mere voluntary 
 mourning. Not only would he, representing; them, go bared 
 of all garments of beauty, as we say"half-naked^ "hiitdespoi/ed 
 iilso, the proper term of those plundered and stripped by an 
 enemy. He speaksof his doing, what we know that Isaiah did, 
 byGod's command, representing in act what his people should 
 thereafter do. '" ^ VVouldest tliou that I should weep, thou 
 must thyself grieve the first." Micah doubtless went about, 
 not speaking only of grief, but grieving, in the habit of one 
 mourning and bereft of all. He prolongs in these words the 
 voice of wailing, choosing unwonted forms of words, to carry 
 on the sound of grief*. 
 
 I will make a ivailing like the dragons [jarkuls^^ and 
 mourning as the owls [ostriches ^] . The cry of both, as heard 
 at night, is very piteous. Both are doleful creatures, dwelling 
 in desert and lonely places. "The^ jackals make a lamentable 
 howling noise, sothattravellersunacquainted with them would 
 think that a company of people, women or children.were howl- 
 ing, one to another." " Its howl," says an Arabic natural his- 
 torian^, "is like the crying of an infant." "We heard 
 them ", says another', " through the night, wandering around 
 the villages, with a continual, prolonged, mournful cry." The 
 ostrich, forsaking its young i", is an image of bereavement. 
 " ^^ As the ostrich forgets her eggs and leaves them as though 
 they were not Iter's, to be trampled by the feet of wild beasts, 
 so too shall I go childless, spoiled and naked." Its skreech 
 is spoken of by travellers as " ^^ fearful, affrighting." "" Dur- 
 ing the lonesome part of the night they often make a doleful 
 and piteous noise. I have often heard them groan, as if they 
 were in the greatest agonies." 
 
 ""I will grieve from theheartoverthosewho perish, mourn- 
 ing for the hardness of the ungodly, as the Apostle \\aA^'^ great 
 heaviness and continual sorroiv in his heart for his brethren, 
 the impenitent and unbelieving Jews. Again he saith ^^, who 
 is weak and I am not iveak ? Who is offended, and I burn not ? 
 
 1 Barefoot is expressed in Hebrew by "^n". Since tiien Micah does not use the received 
 term for barefoot, and does use the word expressing "stripped," " despoiled," the E .V. is 
 doubtlessright, agreeing with theLatin againstthe LXX. and Syr. ^ See on Amos ii. 16. 
 p. 178. n.6. Seneca says; " Somethings, though not [exactly]true, are comprised under 
 the same word, for their likeness. So we call illiterate,one not al together uniiistructcd, but 
 who has not been advanced to higher knowledge, Sohewho has seen one inhabited and 
 in rags, says that he hadseen one 'naked.'" de benef, v.l3. Sanch. 3 Hor. A.P. 102,,3. 
 
 * fti? and n^'j'K carry on the sound of nS'^K. SSt, the textual reading, is doubtless 
 right, although without example ; ni'j'N has analogy with other words, but, common as 
 the word is, stands alone in the word itself. Each bears out the other. * The 
 
 In, which occurs only in the plural D'ln, is distinct from the |'jn, plur. D'j'in, although 
 they touch on each other, in that )'jn sing, is written D"Jn, Ezek. xxix. 3, and the po- 
 etic plur. of In, I'jn occurs in the text. Lam. iv, 3. The Syr. (and Chaldee, properly) and 
 Tanchum oftentimes render it "jackal." Pococke first, of moderns, brought out this 
 meaning. See his note here. ' The njy' n3 " female ostrich" (the Donn probably 
 
 is come unto Judah ; he is come unto the chrTst 
 
 cir. 758-726. 
 
 gat(! of my |)(;<)])le, even to Jerusalem. 
 
 10 ^f ' J)eclare ye it not at Gath, weep '2Sam. i. 
 
 20. 
 
 For by how much the soul is nobler than the body, and by 
 how much eternal damnation is heavier than any temporal 
 punishment, so much more vehemently should we grieve and 
 weep for the peril and perpetual damnation of souls, than for 
 bodily sickness or any temjxtral evil." 
 
 9. For her [Samaria's] womid^'', []\t. her wojznds, or strokes, 
 (the word is used especially of those inflicted by God '*,) each, 
 one by one,] is incurable. The idiom is used of infli(!tions on 
 the body politic^''' or the mind-", for which tlier(! is no remedy. 
 The u'onnds were very sick, or incurable, not in themselves or 
 onGod'spart, but on Israel's. The day of grace passes away at 
 last, when man has so steeled himself against grace, as to be 
 morally dead, having deadened himself to all capacity of re- 
 pentance. 
 
 For it is come unto [quite up to ^^ Judah ; he, [the enemy,] 
 /,s- come [lit. hath reached, touched,] to [quite up <o^'] the 
 gate of my people, even to [quite up /o-^] Jerusalem. "'^'ITie 
 same sin, yea, the same punishment for sin, which overthrew 
 Samaria, shall even come unto, quite up to Judah. Then the 
 Prophet suddenly changes the gender, and, as Scripture so 
 often does, speaks of the one agent, the centre and imperso- 
 nation of the coming evil, as sweeping on over Judah, quite up 
 to the gate of hK people, quite tip to Jerusalem. He does not 
 say here, whether Jerusalem would be taken -"; and so, it seems 
 likely that he speaks of a calamity short of excision. Of Is- 
 rael's wounds only he here says, that they are incurable ; he 
 describes the wasting of even lesser places near or beyond 
 Jerusalem, the flight of their inhabitants. Of the capital it- 
 self he is silent, except that the enemy reached, touched, struck 
 against it, quite up to it. Probably, then, he is here describ- 
 ing the first visitation of God, when -' Sennacherib came up 
 against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them, but Jeru- 
 salem was spared. God's judgments come step by step, leav- 
 ing time for repentance. The same enemy, although not the 
 same king, came against Jerusalem who had wasted Samaria. 
 Samaria was probably as strong as Jerusalem. Hezekiah 
 prayed ; God heard, the Assyrian army perished by miracle ; 
 Jerusalem was respited for 124 years. 
 
 10. Tell it not in Gath. Gath had probably now ceased 
 to be ; at least, to be of any account =*. It shows how Davnd's 
 elegy lived in the hearts of Judah, that his words are used as 
 a proverb, (just as we do now, in whose ears it is yearly read), 
 when, as with us, its original application was probably lost. 
 True, Gath, reduced itself, might rejoice the more maliciously 
 over the sufitrings of Judah. But David mentions it as a 
 chief seat of Philistine strength -5; now its strength was gone. 
 
 The blaspheming of the enemies of God is the sorest part 
 
 being the male ostrich) may be so called from [y, (Syr. glutton, like its Arabic name, 
 na'am) or from its shrill cry, ny. 1 Pococke, who had heard them in Syria, &c. 
 
 8 Demiri, in Bochart, iii. 12. T. iii. p. 181. ed. Leipz. " It howls by night only." Id. 
 
 9 Olearius, Itin. Mosc. et Pers. iv. 17. Boch. lb. p. 183. "* Job xxxLx. 10. " S. Jer. 
 12 Sandys' Travels, L.ii. fin. " Shaw, Travels, T. ii. p. 349. "Dion. 'SRom.ix.l. 
 1^ 2 Cor. xi. 29. '7 The construction of the E. V. is beyond question preferable to 
 
 that of the ji. M. It is the common emphatic idiom, in which the plural subject and sin- 
 gularpredicate are joined to express, tliat the thing asserted is true not only of all generally 
 but of eachindividually. 'SLev.xxvi. 21,Nu. xi. 33, Deut.xxviii.59, 61,&c. "Nah. 
 iii. ult Jer. xxx. 12, 15. -" Jer. x. 19, xv. 18. rnm in Nahum and Jer. xxx. 15. is ex- 
 actly equivalent to the PUN in Micah. In Jer. xxx. 12, J\2vH P13N stands parallel 
 with it. Isaiah (xvii. 11) has inJK 3K3. " IV in each of the three places. ^ ny in- 
 
 cludes the whole country, quite up to. It does not necessarilyinclude the place, quite upto 
 which it reaches. It does not, probably, 2 Kings xviii. 8. See above p. 162 col. 1. 
 25 2 Kings xviii. 13. >* See ab.on Am.vi. 2. p.203. "* Parallel with Ashkelon.
 
 300 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrYst y^ ""*^ ^^ ''^^^' '" ^^^'^ house of 1| Aphrah 
 cir. 758-726. s ^oU tliysclf in the dust. 
 "^''li?: 11 Pass ye away, |] thou f inhabitant of 
 
 Or;Lf«m< Saphir, having tliy ' shame naked : the in- 
 Hil;tL--'hahitant of || Zaanan came not forth in the 
 
 tress. ' Is. 20. 4. & 47. 2, 3. Jer. 13. 22. Nah. 3. 5. !| Or, the country of flocks. 
 
 of His chastisements. Whence David prays ^, let 7iot mine ene- 
 mies exult over me ; and the sons of Korah, " TVith a stvord 
 hi my hones, mine enemies reproach me, tuhile they say daily 
 unto me, where is //;// God ? and Ethan ■' ; Thon hast made all 
 his enemies to rejoice. Rememlier, Lord, the reproach of Thy 
 servant — wherewith Thi)te enemies have reproached, O Lord, 
 tt'herewith they have reproached the footsteps of Thine anointed. 
 It is liard to part with home, with country, to see all deso- 
 late, which one ever loved. But far, far above all, is it, if, in 
 the disjirace and desolation, God's honour seems to be injured. 
 The Jewish ])eople «'as then God's only home on earth. If ?7 
 could be extiniiuished, who remained to honour Him ? Vic- 
 tories over them seemed to their heathen neighbours to be 
 victories over Him. He seemed to be dishonoured without, 
 because they had first dishonoured Him within. Sore is it to 
 the Christian, to see God's cause hindered, His kingdom nar- 
 rowed, the Empire of Infidelity advanced. Sorer in one way, 
 because he knows the price of souls, for whom Jesus died. But 
 the world is now the Church's home. "The holy Church 
 throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee ! " Then, it 
 was girt in within a few miles of territory, and sad indeed it 
 must have been to the Prophet, to see this too hemmed in. 
 Tell it not in Gafh,to the sons of those who, of old, defied God. 
 
 IFeep not at all [lit. weepiitg*, weep 7iot^. Weeping is 
 the stillest expression of grief. We speak of " weeping in si- 
 lence." Yet this also was too visible a token of grief. Their 
 weeping would be the joy and laughter of God's enemies. 
 
 Lithe hotcse of yjplirah, [probably, In Bethleaphrah^ roll 
 thyself in the dust [better, as the text, I roll myself in dnst^]. 
 The Prophet chose unusual names, such as would associate 
 themselves with the meanings which he wished to convej', 
 so that thenceforth the name itself might recall the prophecy. 
 As if we were to say, "In Ashe I roll myself in ashes." 
 There was an Aphrah near Jerusalem ^. It is more likely 
 that Micah should refer to this, than to the Ophrah in Ben- 
 jamin^. He shewed them, in his own person, how they should 
 mourn, retired out of sight and hidden, as it were, in the dust. 
 "^Whatever grief your heart may have, let your face have no 
 tears ; go not forth, but, in the house of dust, sprinkle thyself 
 with the ashes of its ruins." 
 
 All the places thenceforth spoken of were in Judah, whose 
 
 ' Ps. XXV. 2. - Ps. xlii. 10. ^ Ps.lxxxix. 42, 50. 
 
 ^ The conjecture of Reland(Pal.p. 534) "in Acco weep not," as iflD3 were for lDy3, is 
 against the Hebrew idiom, and one of the many abuses of Hebrew parallelism, as if He- 
 brew writers were tied down to exactness of parallelism, and because the Prophet men- 
 tions the name of a city in twoclauses, he must in the third. The Prophet never would 
 have used one of the commonest idioms in Hebrew, the emphatic use of the Inf. Abs. 
 with the finite verb, unless he had meant it to be understood, as any one must understand 
 the three Hebrew words, 13Dn 'jn 1D3. The sacred writers wrote to be understood. It is 
 contrarj* to all principles of language, not to take a plain idiom in its plain sense. The 
 Verss. Vulg. Aq. Symni. so render it. The LXX.(from a reading in which, oi 'EtfaKcifx 
 orolh 'Ax'iV. Reiand made his oi iv 'Axuj) is lull of blunders. They render also lD3n 
 as if it were U3n, araiKoco/isiTE ; n'33, ig oikou; nisih Ku-ra yi\o>Ta. The vis but seldom 
 omitted in Hebrew. (Of the instances given by Gesenins,p.fl76, ^2 forH'3 is the Chal- 
 dee name of the idol ; '3 for 'y3, uncertain, at most: idS forlDV^" (Ps. xxvii. 8) wrong. 
 There remains then in, Hebrew, only the single pronunciation of Amos npirj for nypi?] 
 viii.8. See ab. p. 210. Robinson observes, "The Semitic letter y in particular, so unpro- 
 nounceable byother nations, has a remarkable tenacity. Of the very many Hebrew names, 
 contaiiiing this letter, which still survive in Arabic, our lists exhibit only two or three in 
 which it has been dropped; and perhaps none in which it has been exchanged for ano- 
 ther letter." (i. 255. n. 2.) His only instances are Jib forGibeon (where the whole syl- 
 lable has been dropped) 1.450 ; Jelbon for GUboa (ii. 316) ; Yafa for Yaphia Josh. xix.l2, 
 'doubtfu])ii. 342; and Endor(whichI doubt) ii. 360. Any how they are but three names, 
 
 mourninj^ of || Beth-ezel ; he shall receive 
 of you his standing. 
 
 12 For the inhabitant of INIaroth || waited 
 carefullv for good : hut" evil came down 
 from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 758-726. 
 
 II Or, a 
 
 place near. 
 II Or, was 
 
 grieved. 
 " Amos 8. 6. 
 
 sorrow and desolation are repeated in all. It is one varied 
 history of sorrow. The names of her cities, whether in them- 
 selves called from some gifts of God, as Shaphir, [beautiful; we 
 have FairiorA, i'««>field, i^rt)Vburn, FairW^ht,) or contrari- 
 wise from some defect, Maroth, liitterness (probably from 
 brackish water) Achzib, lying, (doubtless from a winter-tor- 
 rent which in summer failed) suggest, either in contrast or 
 by themselves, some note of evil and woe. It is Judah's his- 
 tory in all, given in difi^erent traits ; her " beauty " turned into 
 shame ; herself free neither to go forth nor to " abide ; " look- 
 ing for good and finding evil ; the strong (Lachish) strong 
 only to flee ; like a brook that fails and deceives ; her inheri- 
 tance (Mareshah) inherited ; herself, taking refuge in dens and 
 caves of the earth, yet even therefound,and bereft of her glory. 
 Whence, in the end, without naming Judah, the Prophet sums 
 up her sorrows with one call to mourning. 
 
 1 1 . Pass ye away [lit. Pass thou (fern.) away to or for your- 
 selves^, disregarded by God and despised by man] pass the 
 bounds of your land into captivity, thou inhabit ant of Shaphir, 
 having thy shame naked, [better, in nakedness, and sharne^"]. 
 Shaphir [fair] was a village in Judah, between Eleutheropolis 
 and Ashkelon ^\ There are still, in the Shephelah, two vil- 
 lages called Sawafir^^. It, once/«?>, should now go forth in 
 the disgrace and dishonour with which captiveswere led away. 
 
 The inhabitants of Zaanan came not forth. Zaanan 
 (abounding in flocks) was probably the same as Zenan of Ju- 
 dah, which lay in the Shephelah ^^. It, which formerly we/j^ 
 forth'^* in pastoral gladness with the multitude of its flocks, 
 shall now shrink into itself for fear. 
 
 The mourning of Beth-Ezel [lit. house of root, firmly root- 
 ed] shall take from you its standing^^. It too cannot help itself, 
 much less be a stay to others. They who have been wont to 
 go forth in fulness, shall not go forth then, and they who 
 abide, strong though they be, shall not furnish an abiding 
 place. Neither in going out nor in remaining, shall any thing 
 be secure then. 
 
 12. For the inhabitant of Maroth [bitterness] waited 
 carefully for good. She tvaited carefully ^* for the good which 
 God gives, not for the Good which God is. She looked, long- 
 ed for, good, as men do ; but therewith her longing ended. 
 She longed for it, amid her own evil, which brought God's 
 
 in which, in the transfer into another though cognate language, V has been dropped 
 at the end, and one at the beginning of a word, none in the middle. In fact also 
 Acco (Acre) was probably never in the possession of Israel. It is only mentioned in the 
 Old Testament, to say that Jsher did not drive out its inhabitants (3 udg. i. Zl). This in- 
 terpretation which has become popular, 1 ) violates the Hebrew idiom ; 2) implies a very 
 improbable omission of a " tenacious letter;" 3) is historically unnatural, in that the Pro- 
 phet would thus forbid Judah to weep in a city where there were none even of Israel. Yet 
 of late, it has been followed by Hitz. Maur.Umbreit, Ewald, thought probable by Gese- 
 nius and Winer, and adopted even by Dr. Henderson. ' The Kethib 'np^Dm is, as 
 usual, to he preferred to the correction, the Kri, 'P^sn-i. ^ R. Tanchum of Jerusa- 
 
 lem, here. 7 Josh, xviii. 23, 1 Sam. xiii. 17. * S. Jer. Rup. ' ddS n3V. 
 
 "• The construction, niPa my, is like pis rmj! meekness righteousness Ps. xlv. 5. nP3 is 
 the quality, s/iame. '' Onom. ^2 Scholz, Reisen, p. 255. Robinson, ii. 34, 
 
 says, " There are three villages of this name near each other." " There is yet a village 
 Suaphir, two hours S. E. of Ashdod." Schwartz(of Jerusalem) Das Heil. Land, p. 87. "a 
 Sapheria one hour N. W. of Led." [Lydda] (lb. p. 105.) " Josh. xv. 37, coll. 
 
 33. " There is a village Zanabra, 1. hour S. E. of Moresha." Schwartz, 74. n [kx, 
 whence pus, is itself probably connected with KS'. '^ I have preferred the division of 
 the Syr. and Vulg. because, if joined as in the E. V. the last clause has no definite sub- 
 ject, and there is no allusion to the meaning of Beth haezel. '^ Sin is used in the 
 senseof Vm, Gen.viii. 10, and in Hif. Jud.iii.25, in Pil. Job xxvi. 15, and in Hithpal. 
 Ps. xxxvii. 7. Here too it has the construction of 7n' with 7, as it has in Job xxvi, and
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 301 
 
 chrTst ^'^ ^ thou inhabitant of ^ Lachish, 
 __^il:i^^ bind the chariot to the swift beast: 
 
 ' 2 Kings 18. i • , i 
 
 14, 17. she ts the 
 
 bej^inninj^ 
 
 of the sin to 
 
 judgements upon lier. M(troth is mentioned here only in Holy 
 Scripture, and has not hccn identified. It too was probably 
 selected for its meaninj;. The inhabitant of bitternesses, she, to 
 whom bitternesses, or, it may he, rebellions ', were as the liome 
 in which she dwelt, which ever encircled her, in which she re- 
 posed, wherein she spent her life, ivai ted for good ! Stranjje 
 contradiction ! yet a contradiction, which the whole un-Chris- 
 tian world is continually enactinji; ; nay, from which Christians 
 have often to be awakened, to look for 2:ood to themselves, 
 nay, to pray for temporal good, while livinc; in bitternesses, 
 bitter ways, displeasing to God. The words are calculated 
 to be a religious proverb. " Living in sin," as we say, dwelling 
 in bitternesses, she looked for good .' Bitternesses ! for it is ^ an 
 evil thing and hitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, 
 and that My fear is not in thee. 
 
 But [i'or] evil came doivn from the Lord unto the gate 
 of Jerusalem. It came, like the brimstone andfire which God 
 rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but as yet to the gate of 
 Jerusalem, not upon itself. "^Evil came down upon them from 
 the Lord, i. e. /was grieved, /chastened, / brought the Assyri- 
 an upon them, and from 3Iy anger came this affliction upon 
 them. But it was removed, l\Iy Hand prevailing and mar- 
 vellously rescuing those who worshipped My Majesty. For the 
 trouble shall come to the gate. But we know that Rabshakeh, 
 with many horsemen, came to Jerusalem and ail-but touched 
 the gates. But he took it not. For in one night the Assyri- 
 an was consumed." The two for' s are seemingly co-ordinate, 
 and assign the reasons of the foreannounced evils *, on man's 
 part and on God's. On man's, in that he looked for what 
 could not so come, good : on God's, in that evil, which alone 
 could he looked for, which, amid man's evil, could alone be 
 good for man, came from Him. Losing the true Good, man 
 lost all other good, and dwelling in the bitterness of sin and 
 provocation, he dwelt indeed in bitterness of trouble. 
 
 O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to thestvift 
 beast [steed.'] Lachish was always a strong city, as its name 
 probably denoted, (probably " compact. ^ ") It was one of the 
 royal cities of the Amorites, and its king one of the five, who 
 went out to battle with Joshua*. It lay in the low country, 
 Shephelah, of Judah', between Adoraim and Azekah*, 7 Roman 
 miles S. of Eleutheropolis ', and so, probably, close to the hill- 
 country, although on the plain ; partaking perhaps of the ad- 
 vantages of both. Rehoboam fortified it. Amaziah fled to it 
 from the conspiracyat Jerusalem'", as aplace of strength. It, 
 with Azekah, alone remained, when Nebuchadnezzar had ta- 
 ken the rest, just before the capture of Jerusalem *K When 
 Sennacherib took all the defenced cities of Judah, it seems to 
 have been his last and proudest conquest, for from it he sent his 
 contemptuous message to Hezekiah'^. The whole power of 
 the great king seems to have been called forth to take this 
 
 as it has not in tlie sense of the E. M. " was grieved." Such an idiom as 31B^ 'rm, "to 
 be in pain for (lost) good," does not occur in Hebrew, and would be equivocal, since the 
 idiom is used for " longed for (expected) good." Sin also, " grieved," occurs only Jer. v. 3. 
 Usedofthe "writhing" of the birth-pangs, it is joined with no preposition; in the sense 
 "feared, ' it is joined only with the jD, ':£», "JbSd, of the object of fear. 
 
 1 D"n-o froni mD occurs Jer. 1. 21. - Jer. ii. 19. 
 
 ' S Cyr. •'3-11. s from the Arab. The bilitteral 
 
 root ^7 seems to have been an ononiato-poet. In Arabic the sense of "striking" oc- 
 curs ui ^DS, ndS, n^'j, n:h, id'?, idS, p'?, y^'?, ddS. Thence tlie idea of parts "impinging 
 on one another," " cleaving close to," in NsS, nD7, i:h, [griping, 13^,] ':dS; "cleaving close 
 together," "compact," in pS, tzh, y:^. These senses account for all the Arabic 
 
 the dauglitcr of Zion : for the trans- (, j^'^^J"^^ 
 grcssions of Israel were found in thee. "■•■ ''s"- 
 14 Therefore shalt tliou ^ give presents ' 2 ictngs**!!.' 
 
 li, 15, 16.' 
 
 Stronghold. The Assyrian bas-reliefs, the record of the con- 
 quests of Sennacherib, if (as the ac<'onipanying inscription is 
 dccyphercd,) they represent the taking (»f Lachish, exhibit it 
 as "''a city of great extent and importance, defended by dou- 
 ble walls with battlements and t(jwers. and by fortified out- 
 works. In no other s(;ulptures were so many armed warriors 
 drawn up in array against a besieged city. Against the iorti- 
 tications had been thrown up as many as ten banks or mounts 
 compactly built, — and seven battering-rams had already been 
 rolled up against the walls." Its situation, on the extremity 
 probably of the plain, fitted it for adeptOt of cavalry. The swift 
 steeds ", to which it was bidden to bind the chariot, are men- 
 tioned as part of the magnificence of Solomon, as distinct 
 from his ordinary horses ^'\ They were used by the posts of 
 the king of Persia i". They were doubtless part of the strength 
 of the kings of Judah, the cavalry in which their statesmen 
 trusted, instead of God. Now, its swift horses in whicli it 
 prided itself should avail but to flee. Probaljly, it is an ideal 
 picture. Lachish is bidden to bind its chariots to horses of 
 the utmost speed, which should carry them far away, if 
 their strength were equal to their swiftness. It had great 
 need; for it was subjected under Sennacherib to the conse- 
 quences of Assyrian conquest. If the Assyrian accounts re- 
 late to its capture, impalement and flaying alive'" were among 
 the tortures of the captive-people ; and awefully did Senna- 
 cherib, in his pride, avenge the sins against God Whom he 
 disbelieved. 
 
 She is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion. 
 "'^She was as the gate through which the transgressions of Is- 
 rael flooded Judah." How she came first to apostatise and to 
 be the infectress of Judah, Scripture does not tell us ". She 
 scarcely bordered on Philistia ; Jerusalem lay between her and 
 Israel. But the course of sin follows no geographical lines. 
 It was the greater sin to Lachish that she, locally so far remov- 
 ed from Israel's sin, was the first to import into Judah the 
 idolatries of Israel. Scripture does not say, what seduced 
 Lachish herself, whether the pride of military strength, or her 
 importance, or commercial intercourse, for her swift steeds, 
 with Egypt, the common parent of Israel's and her sin. Scrip- 
 ture does not give the genealogy of her sin, but stamps her as 
 the heresiarch of Judah. We know the fact from this place 
 only, that she, apparently so removed from the occasion of sin, 
 became, like the propagators of heresy, the authoress of evil, 
 the cause of countless loss of souls. Beginning of sin to — ,what 
 a world of evil lies in the three-" words ! 
 
 14. Therefore shalt thou give [bridal] presents to 3Ioresheth 
 Gath. Therefore! since Judah had so become a partaker of Is- 
 rael's sins, she had broken the covenant,whereby God had given 
 her the land of the Heathen, and she should part with it to 
 aliens. The bridal presents, lit. the dismissals, were the dowry-^ 
 
 words, beginning with ih. The only Hebrew roots, so beginning, are isS, took, and iJ^S. 
 6 Josh. X. 3. 7 lb. XV. 33. 39. 8 2Chr.si.9. 
 
 9 Onom. '« 2 Kgs. xiv. 19. n Jer. xxxiv.7. 
 
 12 Is. xxxvi. 1, 2. 13 Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 149. 
 
 '* The ef:>i was undoubtedly a swift horse, probably from its rapid striking of the earth. 
 (Arab.) The word is used of riding horses in Syr. Chald. Talm. Nasor. see Ges. " horses of 
 good breed and young," R. Jonah in Kim. lb. '=1 Kgs. iv. 28. Eng. (v. 8. Heb.) 
 
 16 Esther viii.' 10, 14. i' Layard, lb. and 150. « S. Jer. i' Rosenm. 
 
 and others from him, by mistake, attribute it to a supposed situation of Lachish, "lying 
 on the frontier of" Israel ; whereas it was part of the chain of fortified cities furthest re- 
 moved from Israel on the S. W. -" SroEH n'r»n 21 1 Kgs. ix_ ig. 
 
 3a
 
 302 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Before 
 
 C H R I ST 
 
 cir. 750. 
 
 to ]Moreshoth-«?ath : the houses of | 
 
 Ach- 
 
 zib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. 
 
 Vru{:i;,aue. 15 Yet will I 
 Ijol'i'-.tj. thee, O inhabitant 
 
 II Or, the gloiji of Israel shall come, ^-c. 
 
 bring 
 of 
 
 an heir unto 
 Mareshah : 1 1 he 
 
 witli which the father sent away ^ his daujjhter, to belong: to 
 another, her lord" or husl)an(i, never more to return. Mo- 
 reshcth, [lit. inheritance^ the i)ilteritanre wliich God ijave licr, 
 was to be parted with ; she was to be laden ' witli fcifts to 
 the enemy. Jndab should part witli her, and her own trea- 
 sure also. 
 
 77ie houses of Achzih shall he a lie. Aelizib, so called 
 probably from n winter brook (aehzab) was to beeome what its 
 name imported, a resource whieh should fail just in the time 
 of need, as the winter brooks in the droug-Jit of summer. 
 * TVilt Thonhenntome as a failing brook, waters tchich are not 
 sure? This Achzib, wliieh is recounted between Keilah and 
 Mareshah^, was probably one of the oldest towns of Pales- 
 tine, being: mentioned in the history of the Patriarch Judah *'. 
 After having: survived above 1000 years, it should, in time of 
 need, fail. The kings of Israel arc here the kings of Judali. 
 When this prophecy was to be accomplished, the ten tribes 
 would have ceased to have any political existence, tlie rem- 
 nant in their own land would have no head to look to, except 
 the line of David, whose g;ood king's had a care for them. 
 Micah then, having: prophesied the utter destruction of Sama- 
 ria, speaks in accordance with the state of thing:s which he 
 foresaw and foretold ^. 
 
 15. Yet will I bring an heir [the heir^, him whom God 
 had appointed to be the heir, Sennacherib] unto thee, O in- 
 habitant of Mareshah. Mareshah, (as the original form of its 
 name denotes ',) lay on the summit of a hill. " Its ruins only 
 were still seen," in the time of Eusebius and S. Jerome, "in the 
 second mile fromEleutherojJolis^'*." "^'Foundations still remain 
 on the south easternpart of theremarkable Tell, south of Beth- 
 Jibrin." Rchoboam fortified it also'^. Zerah thciEthiopian 
 had come to^"' it, probably to besiege it, when Asa met him, and 
 God smote the JiLthiopiansbefore hini,?« the valley ofZephathah 
 thereat. In the wars of the Maccabees, it was in the hands of 
 the Edomites". Its capture and that of Adora are mention- 
 ed'" as the last act of the war, before the Edomitcs submit- 
 ted to John Ilyrcanus, and were incorporated in Israel. It 
 was a powerful city '", when the Parthians took it. As IVIicah 
 writes the name, it looked nearer to the word "inheritance '"." 
 Mareshah (inheritance) shall yet havetheheir of God's appoint- 
 ment, the enemy. It shall not inherit the land, as promised to 
 the faithful, but shall itself be inherited, its people dispossessed. 
 While it, (and so also the soul now) held fast to God, they were 
 the heritage of the Lord, by His gifts and grace; when, of their 
 own free-will, those, once God's heritage, become slaves of sin, 
 they passed and still pass, against their will, into the posses- 
 sion of another master, the Assyrian or Satan. 
 
 He [i. e. the heir, the enemy] shall come imto Adullam, 
 
 ' Jud. xii. 9. '■ Sia ' '13 niTTiO Sv D'mSp lit. " bridal presents on Moresheth 
 
 Gath." Hiczig thinks that in niniD there is an allusion to ni5n>!D, "espoused;" but tins 
 would be a contradictory image, since the bridal-presents were given in espousing, not 
 to one already espoused, and they were to be given not to Gath but to the invader. 
 
 < Jer. XV. 18. ^ Josh. xv. 41. ^ in the unlengthened form 3'13 Gen. xxxviii. 5. 
 
 ^ See ab. Iiitrod. p. 303, 4. « gq.-, 9 nPniD (from fjn) Jos. xv. 44. '" Onom. 
 
 1' Rob. ii. 07, 8. '= 2 Chr. xi. 8. '^ lb. xiv. 9 sqq. » Jos. Ant. xii. 8. 6. 
 
 '• lb. xiii. 9. 1. 1^ lb. xiv. 13.9. '7 .ne'TD like ncnc In the Chron. it is spelled 
 as in Micah. '^ The Eng. Marg. has, in the same general sense, i/n/t).^rfK//amj7)nW 
 
 come the glory of Israel. '" Gen. xxxviii. 1. 12. 20. -» Jos. xii. 15. =1 lb. xv. 35. 
 
 " Eus. M S.Jer. =J2Chr. xi. 7. =» Neh. xi. 30. =« 2 Mace. xii. 38. 
 
 5? »ee S. Jer. ab. p. 235. =3 Rev. G. Williams, MS. letter. 
 
 shall come unto ''Adullam the glory of chrTst 
 
 Israel. '=' "■ "^o- 
 
 16 Make thee "bald, and poll thee fore job'ilzo. '' 
 thy '^ delicate children ; enlarge thy bald "' 
 
 ^ Lam. 4. 5. 
 
 Jer. ; 
 
 & 22. 12. 
 
 29. & 16.0. &47.5. &48.37. 
 
 thegloryoflsraeP^; i.e. he who shalldispossess Mareshah, «//«// 
 come quite unto A du 1 1 <im , where, as in a place of sid'ety, the glory 
 of Israel, all in which she gloried, should be laid up. Adullam 
 was a very ancient city, being mentioned in the history of the 
 patriarch Judah'*, a royal city"". It too lay in the Sheplielah-'; 
 it was said to be 10-- or 12^' miles East of Eleutheropolis ; but 
 for this, there seems to be scarcely place in the Shephelah. 
 It was one of the 15 cities fortified by Rchoboam-*; one of the 
 IG towns, in which (with their dependant villages) Judah 
 settled after the captivity '^ It contained the whole army 
 of Judas Maccabseus-''. Like Lachish, it had probably the 
 double advantages of the neighbourhood of the hills and of the 
 plain, seated perhaps at the roots of the hills, since near it 
 doubtless was the large cave of Adullam named from it. The 
 line of caves, fit for human habitation, which extended from 
 Eleutheropolis to Petra-^, began Westward of it. "-^The val- 
 ley which runs up from Eleutheropolis Eastward, is full of 
 large caves ; some would hold thousands of men. They are 
 very extensive, and some of them had evidently been inha- 
 bited." "-*The outer chamber of one cavern was 270 feet long 
 by 126 wide; and behind this were recesses and galleries, 
 probably leading to other chambers which we could not ex- 
 plore. The massive roof was sup))orted by misshajied pieces 
 of the native limestone left for that purpose, and at some 
 places was domed quite through to the surface, admitting both 
 light and air by the roof." The name of Adullam suggested 
 the memory of that cave, the refuge of the Patriarch David, 
 the first of their line of kings, in extreme isolation and peril of 
 his life. Thither, the refuge now of the remaining o-Zory of Is- 
 rael, its wealth, its trust, its boast, — the foe should come. And 
 so there only remained one common dirge for all. 
 
 16. Make thee bald, poll [lit. shear -'^'\ thee for thy delicatl 
 children. Some special ways of cutting the hair were forbid- 
 den to the Israelites, as being idolatrous customs, such as the 
 rounding the hair in front, cutting it away from the temples'", 
 or between the eyes ^'. All shearing of the hair was not for- 
 bidden '- ; indeed to the Nazarite it was commanded, at the 
 close of his vow. The removal of that chief ornament of the 
 countenance was a natural expression of grief, which revolts 
 at all personal appearance. It belonged, not to idolatry, but 
 to nature^'. Thy delicate children. Theehange was the more 
 bitter for those tended and brought up delicately. Moses 
 from the first spake of special miseries which should fall on 
 the tender and very delicate. Enlarge thy baldness ; outdo in 
 grief what others do; for the cause of thy grief is more than 
 that of others. The point of comparison in the Eagle might 
 either be the actual baldness of the head, or its moulting. If 
 it were the baldness of the head, the word translated eagle^*, 
 
 -' seeab. on Am. viii.lO.p. 217.C0I. 2. ^'' Lev. xix. 2". against Arab idolatry. See 
 Herod.iii. 8. ^i Deut.xiv. 1. 32 ag Jjjt2ig says. ^ See Job i. 20, early Greece, (II. 
 23, 4ti, 135 sqq. .\lcestis 429J non-Egyptian nations, (Herod, ii. 30.) Persians, (lb. ix. 
 24.) Scythians, (lb. iv. 71.) Thessalians, Macedonians (Plut. Pek)p.34.) 
 
 ^ The etymology, (Arab. nasara"tore with the beak,") belongs rather to the eagle with 
 its sharp, than to th'evulture with its long, piercing beak. (The Kanioos, Freytag's autho- 
 rity for rendering nasr vulture, only says " a bird," adding that it is the name of "the con- 
 stellation," i.e. Aquila. In UlugBegh Tab. Stell.49, 50. the okab and the nair both oc- 
 cur as names of the constellation. Kazwini in Ideler [Stemkunde p. 385] savs that the 
 'okab is three stars of the form ofthe flying nasr.) Leo Afr. [Descr. Afr. ix. 56.1 says that 
 " the largest species of eagle is called Nesir."2) Unlessncjfterbethe golden Eagle, there is 
 no Hebrew name for it, whereas it is still a bird of Palestine, and smaller eagles are mention-
 
 CHAPTER ri. 
 
 303 
 
 c n'lfrs T "^^^^ ^^ ^^^ etif^le ; for they are gone into 
 cir. 750. captivity from thee. 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 \ Against oppression. A. A lamentation. 7 A re- 
 
 altliou2,li mostly used of the Ea-ilc itselfl, iiii<;:!it here compre- 
 hend the V^iilture^ For entire hahliicss is so marked a feature 
 in the vulture, whereas the " bald-headed Eai;le " was proba- 
 bly not a bird of Palestine-. On the other hand, David, who 
 lived so loiii;' amonj; the rocks of Palestine, and Isaiah seem 
 to have known oferte(-ts of moulting upon the Eagle in pro- 
 ducine:, (althoni;;h in a less dei;ree than in other birds,) a tem- 
 porary dimiiuition of strength, which have not in modern times 
 been commonly observed. For David says ■', Thou sluilt re- 
 new, like the eagle, thy youth, vi'liich speaks of fresh strength 
 after temporary weakness ; and Isaiah *, They that trust in 
 the Lord shall put forth ^ fresh strength ; they shall put forth 
 pinion-feathers'' like eagles, comparing the fresh strengtli 
 which should succeed to that which was gone, to the eagle's 
 recovering its strong pinion-feathers. Bochart however says 
 unhesitatingly, "''At the beginning of spring, the rapacious 
 birds are subject to shedding of their feathers which we call 
 moulting." If this be so, the comparison is yet more vivid. 
 For the baldness of the vulture belongs to its matured strength, 
 and could only be an external likeness. The moulting of the 
 eagle involves some degree of weakness, with which he com- 
 pares Judah's mournful and weak condition amid the loss of 
 their children, gone into captivity^. 
 
 Thus closes the first general portion of the prophecy. The 
 people had cast aside its own Glory, God ; now its sons, its 
 pride and its trust, shall go away from it. 
 
 "'The eagle, laying aside its old feathers and taking new, is 
 a symbol of penitence and of the penitents who lay aside their 
 former evil habits, and become other and new men. True, but 
 rare form of penitence !" S. Gregory the Great thus applies 
 this to the siege of Rome by the Lombards. "^''That happen- 
 ed to her which we know to have been foretold of Judea by the 
 Prophet, enlarge thy baldness like the eagle. For baldness 
 befals man in the head only, but the eagle in its whole body; 
 for, when it is very old, its feathers and pinions fall from all its 
 body. She lost her feathers, wholost her people. Her pinions 
 too fell out, with which she was wont to fly to the prey ; for all 
 her mighty men, through whom she plundered others, perished. 
 But this which we speak of, the breaking to pieces of the city 
 
 ed in tlie same verse, Lev. xi. 13 ; viz. the ossifrage, Di3, and the black eagle, .TJIJJ, so called 
 from its strengtli, lilie the Valeria, of which Pliny says, " themelanEetos or Valeria, least in 
 size, remarkable for strength, blackish in colour." x.3. The samelist of unclean birds con- 
 tains also the vuUiire, m. Deiit. xiv. l.S, (as it must he, beinfr a gregarious bird. Is. xxxiv. 
 15.) in its ditierent species ;( Dent, ib.) the gier-eagle, {i.e. Geyer [vulture] eagle, gypaetos, 
 or vultur perenopterus, (Hasselquist, Forskal, Shaw, Bruce in Savigny p. 77.) partaking 
 of the character of both, (nm Lev. xi. 18. Deut. xiv. 17) together with the falcon (nxT 
 Lev. xi. 14.) and Art?^/r, with its subordinate species, (inro'? p) Lev. xi. IS. Deut. xiv. 15. 
 ^ In this case, iiesher, hAng a name taken from a quality common to birds of prey, 
 might at once he a generic term, corresponding to the modern term, (aves) rapaces, and 
 might also designate what all account the king of birds. Its Greek name a£Ti)s is doubt- 
 less the Hebrew, ts'y, (Bochart ii. 2. p. 170.) a generic name for birds of prey. The Gyp- 
 aetos forms a link between the vulture and the eagle. Seeing the prey atar, lofty flight 
 out of human sight, strength of pinion, building nests in the rocks, attributed in H. Scr. 
 to the neither, belong also to the vulture. The feeding on dead bodies belongs especially 
 to the vulture, although aflirmed of eagles also if the body be not decayed. The Arabic 
 nasr seems to comprise the vulture also. See in Boch. ii. 27. T. iii. p. 79 sqq. Leipz. 
 Savigny says, '* Nisr is a generic nanre which has always been translated Aquila, but now 
 the people and .Arabic naturalists use it to designate the great vulture." (Descr. del'Eg. 
 i. 73.) and of 'Okab. '*'Okab is a generic name, but it becomes specific for the small black 
 eagle which, properly speaking, is the 'Okab." (lb. 85.) ^ " fhe only ' bald- 
 
 headed Eagle' is an .\merican rather than an European species. Though it is not exclu- 
 sively of the new world, it is yet rarely seen in the old. and then chiefly in the Northern 
 latitudes." Dr. Rolleston, MS. letter, who kindly guided me to the modern authorities 
 quoted above. ^ pg. ciii. 5. 4 xl. 31. ^ 113 is''7n', "jSn to succeed to (as in Arab. 
 
 whence Chaliph) is used of the fresh shoots of grass, (Ps. xc. 5, C.) of the stump of a felled 
 tree, putting forth fresh suckers, Job xiv. 7. then, causatively, of the putting forth fresh 
 
 proof of i/ij'usllce and idolatry. 12 A promise 'V f. ,P'][''rc .r 
 restoring Jaroh. cir. 730. 
 
 W()I<: to them - tliat devise iniquity," ""'^■'■"• 
 and ''woi-k evil upon their beds V Ps.Si.i. 
 
 of Rome, we know has l)een done in all the cities of the world. 
 Sonii! were desolated by pestilence, others dev<iured by the 
 sword, others racked by famine, others swallowed by earth- 
 quakes. Despise we them with our whole heart, at least, when 
 brought to nought ; at least with the end of the world, let us 
 end our eagerness after tbe-worid. Follow we,\vlierein we can, 
 the deeds of the good." One whose ctjuinientaries S.Jerome 
 had read, tiius applies this V(!rse to the wlioli' liinnan race. 
 '■() soul of man ! O city, oiwe the mother of saints, which wast 
 formerly in Paradise, and didst enjoy the delights of ditfercnt 
 trees, and wast adorned most beautifully, now being cast down 
 from thy place aloft, and brought down unto lJabylon,and come 
 into a place of captivity, and having lost thy glory, make thee 
 bald and take the habit of a penitent ; and thou wiio didst fly 
 aloft like an eagle, mourn thy sons, thy offspring, which from 
 thee is led captive." 
 
 Chap. II. The Prophet had declared that evil should come 
 down on Samaria and Jerusalem for their sins. He had 
 pronounced them sinners against God ; he now speaks of 
 their hard unlovingness towards man, as (uir Blessed Lord in 
 the Gospel speaks of sins against Himself in His members, as 
 the ground of the condemnation of the wicked. The time of 
 warning is past. He speaks as in the person of the Judge, 
 declaring the righteous judgments of God, pronouncing sen- 
 tence on the hardened, but blessing on those who follow Christ. 
 The sins thus visited were done with a high hand ; first, with 
 forethought : 
 
 L TFoe, all woe, woe from God; "^Uhe woe of temporal 
 captivity ; and, unless ye repent, the woe of eternal damnation, 
 hangeth over you." fVoe to them that devise iniquity. They 
 devise it, "^-tliey are not led into it by others, but invent it out 
 of their own hearts." They plot and forecast and fulfil it 
 even in thought, before it comes to act. And work evil upon 
 their beds. Thoughts and imaginations of evil are works of 
 the soup3. Ujion their beds"^*, which ought to be the place of 
 holy thought, and of communing with their own hearts and 
 with God^^ Stillness must be filled with thought, good or bad; 
 if not with good, then with bad. The chamber, if not the 
 sanctuary of holy thoughts, is filled with unholy purposes and 
 
 s?rfni,'(/i, ill contr.ast with the exhaustion and utter stnmbling of the young and strong. In 
 Arab', conj. iv. one of its many special meanings is"put forth fresh feathers" after moulting. 
 
 6 Bochart ii. 1. T. ii. p. 745. So the LX.\ irTtpoi^yviWovcnv. S. Jer. assumentpennas. 
 So also Syr. Saad. n^iyn is used ofbringing flesh on the bones, (Ez. xxxvii.G.)puttingon 
 the figures of Cherubim on the veil, (2 Chr. iii. 14.) gold on a shield, (1 Kgs. x. 17.) dress, 
 2 Sam. i. 21. Am. viii. 10. The E. V. (lit. "they shall ascend a pinion [i.e. with a pi- 
 nion] like eagles,") would not be too bold, but for the correspondence of Ps.ciii.5. The 
 wordn^N, rendered Mi;n<rs E.V., is, in Ezek. xvii. 3, distinguished from the mi;h^ itself and 
 the plumage ; as is mix' Job xxxix. 13. In Ps. Ixviii. 14. nnax must be the pinion-fea- 
 thers, not" the pinions ; and so m2« in Ps. xci. 4. In Job xxxLx. 2G. thedenom. -on" 
 might mean the same, ( Boch. I b.) the first hemistich describing the acquiring the new lea- 
 thers, the 2nd the emigration of the hawks. The radical meaning of mx is strength. _ 
 
 ^ Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 1. p. 744, 5. The Kamoos quotes, among the 10 characteristics 
 of the.^nooA-', (the Rachma.Heb. c:m), "It flies in the time of shedding its feathers and is 
 not empeiilled in its young plumage, &c." Boch. ii. 26. T. iii. p. 57. Demetrius ConsU 
 
 certain states of moulting, you see in the plumage [of the royal eagle] the white at the baseof 
 the feathers. It is then called Faico Canadensis." (Regne Animal.) To this Grey adds, 
 that the names Melanaetos and Mogilnik (in Gmelin) only describe it when moulting. 
 (Cuvier Anim. Kingd. vi. 33.) So then the change at moulting is so great, that the royal 
 eagle, when moulting, has been thought to be four difi'erent species. 
 
 » In Greek also the loss of wealth by pillage is compared to moulting, not in Aristoph. 
 Av "84-fi. only, but in Philostratus, "he moults as to the wealth," p. 273. ' Lap. 
 
 10 inEzek.Hom. IS, fin. L. "Dion. i: Rup. Rib. i3Ps.hTii. 2. 
 
 n See Ps. xxxvi. 4. ^ ^ is lb. iv. -1. 
 O A .i
 
 304 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 c h'rTs t ^^^^<^" t'*^ morning is light, they practise it, 
 
 cir. -30. because ' it is in the power of their hand. 
 
 i fsali^a^" 2 And they covet "^ fieUls, and take them 
 
 by violence ; and houses, and take them 
 
 II O""' away: so thev 11 oppress a man and his 
 
 defraud. •' ' i i • 1 -i. 
 
 house, even a man and his heritage. 
 
 imafjinations. Man's last and first thousxhts, if not of ^ood, 
 are especially of vanity and evil. Tlie Psalmist says^, Lord, 
 have I not remembered T'liee in my bed. and thought upon Thee 
 ichen I iras u'riAiiiir ? These men tliouslit of sin on their hed, 
 and did it on wakincj. TVhen the morning is fight, lit. in the 
 tight of the Morning, i. e. instantly, shamelessly, not shrinking 
 from tlie liglit of day, not ignorantly, but knowingly, deli- 
 berately, in full light. Nor again through infirmity, but in 
 the wantonness of might, because it is in tlie potver of tlieir 
 hand-, as, of old, God said^, Tliis tliey begin to do, and now 
 nothing wilt be restrained from them which they have imagined 
 to do. "* Impiously mighty, and mighty in impiety." 
 
 * See the need of the daily prayer, "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to 
 keep lis this day without sin ;" and '"Almighty God, Who hast 
 brought us to the beginning of this day, defend us in the same 
 by Thy mighty power, that we may fall into no sin, &e." 
 The illusions of the night, if such be permitted, have no power 
 against the prayer of the morning. 
 
 2. And thvii covet fields and take them by violence, [i-end 
 them away^ and houses, and take them away. Still, first they 
 sin in heart, then in act. And yet, with them, to covet and 
 to rob, to desire and to take, are the same. They were prompt, 
 instantaneous, without a scruple, in violence. So soon as 
 they coveted, they took". Desired, acquired ! Coveted, rob- 
 bed! 'They saw, they coveted, they took,' had been their 
 past history. They did violence, not to one only, but, touched 
 with no mercy, to whole families, their little ones also ; they 
 oppressed a man and his house. They spoiled not goods only, 
 but life, a man and his inheritance ; destroying him by false 
 accusations or violence and so seizing upon his inheritance''. 
 Thus Ahab first coveted Naboth's vineyard, then, through 
 Jezebel, slew him; and "^they who devoured widoics' houses, 
 did at the last plot by night against Him of Whom they said. 
 Come, let us kill Him and the inheritance shall he our's ; and 
 ill the morning, they practised it, leading Him away to Pi- 
 late." ""Who of us desires not the villas of this world, for- 
 getful of the possessions of Paradise ? You see men join field 
 to field, and fence to fence. Whole places suffice not to the 
 tiny frame of one man." "i^Such is the fire of concupis- 
 cence, raging within, that, as those seized by burning fevers 
 cannot rest, no bed suffices them, so no houses or fields content 
 these. Yet no more than seven feet of earth will suffice them 
 soon. '1 Death only owns, how small the frame of man." 
 
 3. Such had been their habitual doings. They had done 
 all this, he says, as one continuous act, up to that time. They 
 were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers ofevil^^. It was 
 ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought ; 
 by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They 
 do it ''. But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was one un- 
 broken course of acting. And so he also uses the form, in 
 which the Hebrews spoke of uninterrupted habits, T/iey have 
 
 ^ Ixiii. G. _ - This phrase can have no other 
 
 meaning, Gen. xxxi. 29. Prov. iii. 27: nor the corresponding phrase with the negative, Deut. 
 xxviii. 32. Neh. v. 5. 3 Gen. xi. fi. ■> Rup. ' from Lap. 
 
 * The force of 17U1 non. 7 Comp. the woes. Is. v. 7. on oppression ; 8. covetou=iuss. 
 » Theoph. s S.Jer. 10 Rib. " Juv. Sat. x. 172, 3. '= yT^ya, jii) -arn. 
 
 3 Therefore thus saith the Lord; Bc-ch^rTst 
 hold, against " this family do I devise an "'■ ""*" 
 
 e Jer. 8. 3. 
 
 evil, from which ye shall not remove your 
 
 necks; neither shall ye go haughtily : "^ for ' ^"'^' ^- J^- 
 
 this time i.s evil. 
 
 4 ^ In that day shall one stake up a pa-' Hab.2. 6. 
 
 coveted, they have robbed, they have taken ^*. Now came God's 
 part. 
 
 Therefore, thus saith the Lord, since they oppress whole 
 families, behold I will set Myself against this whole family ^'^ ; 
 since they devise iniquity, behold I too. Myself, by Myself, in 
 My own Person, am devising. Very aweful is it, that Almighty 
 God sets His own Infinite Wisdom against the devices of man 
 and employs it fittingly to punish. ' I am devising no com- 
 mon punishment, but one to bow them down without escape ; 
 an evil from ivhich — He turns suddenly to them, ye shall not 
 remove your necks, neit her shally ego haughtily.' '""Pride then 
 was the source of that boundless covetousness," since it was 
 pride which was to he bowed down in punishment. The 
 punishment is proportioned to the sin. They had done all 
 this in pride ; they should have the liberty and self-will where- 
 in they had wantoned, tamed or taken from them. Like ani- 
 mals with a heavy yoke upon them, they should live in dis- 
 graced slavery. The ten tribes were never able to withdraw 
 their necks from the yoke. From the two tribes God removed 
 it after the JO years. But the same sins against the love of 
 God and man brought on the same punishment. Our Lord 
 again spake the woe against their covetousness'". It still shut 
 them out from the service of God, or from receiving Him, their 
 Redeemer. They still spoiled the goods^' of their brethren. In 
 the last dreadful siege, '"'^ there were insatiable longings for 
 plunder, searching-out of the houses of the rich ; murder of 
 men and insults of women were enacted as sports; they drank 
 down what they had spoiled, with blood." And so the pro- 
 phecy was for the third time fulfilled. They who withdraw 
 from Christ's easy yoke of obedience shall not remove from 
 the yoke of punishment ; they wlio, through pride, will not 
 bow down their necks, but make them stiff', shall be bent low, 
 that they go ?jof upright or haughtily any more. '^ The Lord 
 alone shall be exalted in that Day. For it is an evil time. 
 Perhaps he gives a more special meaning to the words of 
 Amos -", that a time o/moral evil will be, or will end in, a time, 
 full of evil, i. e. of sorest calamity. 
 
 4. Li that day shall one take zip a parable against you. 
 The mashal or likeness may, in itself, be any speech in which 
 one thing is likened to another ; 1) "figured speech ", 2) "pro- 
 verb," and, since such proverbs were often sharp sayings 
 against others, 3) " taunting figurative speech." But of the 
 person himself it is always said, he is 7nade, becomes a proverb-^. 
 To take up or utter such a speech against one, is, elsewhere, fol- 
 lowed by the speech itself ; -- Thou shall take up this parable 
 against the king of Babylon, and say. Sfc. "^ Shall not all these 
 take up a parable against him, and say, 8jc. Although then 
 the name of the Jews has passed into aproverb of reproach-*, 
 this is not contained here. The parable here must be the 
 same as the doleful lamentatioii, or dii'ge, which follows. No 
 mockery is more cutting or fiendish, than to repeat in jest 
 
 13 niB'y'. n inm I'ju ran. '* as in Am. iii. 1. p. 178. "> S. Luke 
 
 xvi. 13, 14. xi. 39. S. Matt, xxiii. 14. 23. 25. S. Mark xii. 40. U Heb. x. 34. 
 
 13 Jos. B. J. iv. 9. 10. add v. 1. is Is. ii. 11. 
 
 so V. 13. "1 Deut. xxviii. 37. 1 Kings ix. 7. 2 Chr. vii. 20. Ps. xliv. IS. Ixix. t2. 
 
 Jcr. xxiv. 9. Ezek. xiv. 8. " Is. xiv, i. -^ Hab. ii. G. ^ Jer. 1. c
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 305 
 
 c H^iiTs T i'^'^^^ a,2:ainst you, and '' lament f with a 
 cir. 730. doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly 
 
 """' ' '■ spoiled : ' he hath ehanj^ed the portion of my 
 
 t Heb. with 
 
 a lavH'jitation of lamentationn. 
 
 cli. 1.15. 
 
 words by whirh one bemoans himself. The dircje which Israel 
 should use of tliomselvcs in sorrow, tiic enemy shall take up in 
 derision, as Satan does doubtless the self-condemnation of the 
 damned. ''^Men do any evil, underijo any peril, to avoid 
 shame. God briiii;s before us that deepest and eternal shame," 
 the shame (tiid evcrlitsliitg coiilcnijit, in presence of Himself and 
 auijels and devils and the good -, that we may avoid shame by 
 avoiding evil. 
 
 And lament tvith a doleful lamentation. The words in 
 Hebrew are varied inflections of a word imitating the sounds 
 of woe. It is the voice of woe in all languages, because the 
 voice of nature. Shall wail a wail ofwoe'^. It is the funeral 
 dirgeoverthedead'^, or of the living doomed to die^; it is some- 
 times the measured mourning of those employed to call forth 
 sorrow^, or mourning generally''. Among such elegies, are 
 stillZion-songs^ (elegies over the ruinofZion,) and mournings 
 for the dead \ The word woe is thrice ^° repeated in Hebrew, 
 in diff'erent forms, according to that solemn way, in which the 
 extremcst good or evil is S])oken of; the threefold blessing, 
 morning and evening, with the thrice-repeated name of God^', 
 impressing upon them the mystery which developed itself, as 
 the Divinity of the Messiah and the personal agency of the 
 Holy Spirit were unfolded to them. The dirge which follows 
 is purposely in abru])t brief words, as those in trouble speak, 
 with scarce breath for utterance. First, in two words, with 
 perhaps a softened inflection '-, they express the utterncssof 
 their desolation. Then, in a threefold sentence, each clause 
 consisting of three short words, they say what God had done, 
 but name Him not, because they are angry with Him. God's 
 chastisements irritate those wliom they do not subdue ^^. 
 
 The portion of my people He changeth ; 
 
 How removeth He (it) as to me ! 
 
 To a rebel ^* our fields He divideth. 
 They act the patriot. They, the rich, mourn over "the portion 
 of my people" (they say) which they had themselves despoil- 
 ed : they speak, (as men do,) as if things were what they ought 
 to be : they hold to the theory and ignore the facts. As if, be- 
 cause God had divided it to His people, therefore it so remain- 
 ed ! as if, because the poor were in theory and by God's law pro- 
 vided for, they were so in fact ! Then they are enraged at God's 
 dealings. He removetli the portion as to me ; and to whom 
 giveth He our fields ? To a rebel ! the Assyrian, or the Chal- 
 dee. They had deprived the poor of their portion of the Lord's 
 land^'. And now they marvel that God resumes the possession 
 of His own, and requires from them, not the fourfold ^^ only of 
 their spoil, but His whole heritage. Well might Assyrian or 
 Chaldee, as they did, jeer at the word, renegade. They had 
 not forsaken their gods ; — but Israel, what was its whole his- 
 tory but a turning back ? ^''Hath a nation changed their gods, 
 which yet are no godsf But My people have changed their glory 
 for that which doth not profit. 
 
 1 Rib. = Ps. lii.6,7. Is. Ixvi.24. 3 n'nj -nj nni from the sounds, in pas- 
 
 sim, in in Am. V. 16. 'n Ezek. ii. 10. nn, i. q. T\r\n Ezek. xxx. 2. * Jer. xxxi. 15. 
 
 '" Ez. xxxii. 18. * Am. v. l(i. Jer. ix. 17, H'. ' 1 Sam. vii. 2. Jer. ix. 18. 
 
 ^ n'3i*3 Fiirst s. v. ^ TiDin Id. ^^ There is no plea for separating .Tn: 
 
 in the sense, "it lias been," like "fuit Ilium." By itself nM3 would rather be, "it came 
 to pass." TDK also, which follows, explains what the proverb and dirge is, as in Isaiah 
 and Habakkuk. The single word Ti'ni, actum est. is no dirge. The feminine and mascu- 
 line together make up a whole as in Is. iii. 1 ; or it might stand as a superlative, as in the 
 Eng. Marg. " Num. vi. 2-l-2(i. '-' vnii nni7 The -s for thei repeating the 
 
 people : how hath he removed it from me ! f, J'rTs t 
 II turning away he hatli divided our fields. . •='■■• '*"• 
 ') Therefore thou shalt have none that 
 
 |Or, instead 
 of restTrin^, 
 
 Such was the meaning in their lips. The word divideth 
 had the miu'e bitterness, because it was the reversal of that 
 first division at the entrance into Canaan. Tlicn, with the use 
 of this same word"*, the division of the land of the heathen 
 was appointed to them. Ezekiel, in his great symbolic vision, 
 afterwards i)rojdiesied the restoration of Israel, with the use of 
 this sanu! term '■'. Joel spoke of the partingof their land, un- 
 der this same term, as a sin of the heathen-". Now, they say, 
 God divideth our fields, not to us, but to the Heathen, whose 
 lands He gave us. It ituis a change of act : in impenitence, 
 they think it a change of purpose or will. IJut what lies in 
 that, we be utterly desjioiled? Despoiled of every thing; of what 
 they felt, temporal tilings; and of what tliey (lid not feel, spi- 
 ritual things. Despoiled of the land of promise, \\\i- good 
 things of this life, but also of the Presence of (iod in His Tem- 
 ple, the grace of the Lord, the image of God and everlasting 
 glory. Their portion was changed, as to themselves and \v\Xh 
 others. As to themselves, riches, honor, pleasure, their own 
 land, were changed into want, disgrace, suff"ering, captivity; 
 and yet more bitter was it to see others gain what they by their 
 own fault had forfeited. As time went on, and their trans- 
 gression deepened, the exchange of the portion of that former 
 people of God became more complete. Thecasting-off'ofthe 
 Jews was the grafting-in of the Gentiles. -^ Seeing ye Judge 
 yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lol ive turn to the Gen- 
 tiles. And so they who were'" no people, hevmnc the people of 
 God, and they who were His people, became, for the time,-' not 
 My people : and-' the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the 
 covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service of God, anil the pro- 
 mises, c^T[ie. to us Gentiles, since to us Christ Himself our God 
 blessed for ever came, and made us His. 
 
 How hath He removed. The words do not say what He 
 removed. They thought of His gifts, the words include Him- 
 self -^ They say How! in amazement. The change is so 
 great and bitter, it cannot be said. Time, yea eternity cannot 
 utter it. He hath divided our fields. The land was but the 
 outward symbol of the inward heritage. Unjust gain, kept 
 back, is restored with usury ; -^ it taketh away the life of the 
 owners thereof. The vineyard whereof the Jews said, the in- 
 heritance shall be ours, M'as taken from them and given to 
 others, even to Christians. So now is tliat awcful change 
 begun, when Christians, leaving God, their only unchanging 
 Good, turn to earthly vanities, and, for the grace of God which 
 He withdraws, have these only for their fleeting portion, until 
 it shall be finally exchanged in theDay of Judgment. '-''Son, 
 remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, 
 and likeicise Lazarus evil things ; but lunv he is comforted and 
 thou art tormented. 
 
 Israel defended himself in impenitence and self-righteous- 
 ness. He was already the Pharisee. The doom of such was 
 hopeless. The prophet breaks in with a renewed. Therefore. 
 
 sound 00. " See ab. on Am. vi. 10. p. 207. " nniiB', " backsliding, " oc- 
 
 curs Jer. xxxi. 22. and, of Ammon. xlix.4. This rendering is favoured by the contrast be- 
 tween the "h and the 3311?^?, and gives an adequate meaning to the V in the iiip'? ; whereas, 
 as part of the infinitive, it is superfluous, and unusual as superfluous. 
 
 1^ See on Hos. ix. .3. p. 55, 6, '^ Ex. xxii. 1. 2 Sam. xii. 6. S. Luke xix. S. 
 
 '7 Jer. ii. 11. '* Num. xxvi. 53, 55, 6. Josh. xiii. 7. .xiv. 5. xviii. 2. S. 10. xix. 51 
 
 "xlvii. 21. =11 iv. 2. [iii. 2. Eng.] =' Acts xiii. 4(!. - Rom. x. 19. 
 
 -3 Hos. i. 9. "^ Rom. ix.4,5. =^ r'C' is mostly transitive ; it was in- 
 
 transitive ii. 3, and is so (if not Kal) Prov. xvii. 13. •' Prov. i. 19." S. Luke xvi. 25.
 
 306 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRfsT shall I' cast a cord by lot in the congrega- 
 cir. 730. tiQfi of the Lord. 
 
 ^Deut. 32.8,9. 6 || f ' Prophcsy ye not, say thcij to them 
 that prophesy : they shall not prophesy to 
 
 I Or, 
 
 Prophesy 
 not as iht'y 
 
 them, that they shall not take shame. 
 
 ' Isai. 30. 10. Amos 2. 12. & 7. 16. 
 
 fironhesy. 
 
 t Heb.'flrop, ,i^c. Ezek. 21. 2. 
 
 7 ^ O thou that art named the house of chhTst 
 Jacob, is the spirit of the Lord || strniten- cir.730. 
 
 Or, 
 
 He had already prophesied that they should lose the lands 
 which they had unjustly ffotten, the land which they had pro- 
 faned, lie had described it in their own impenitent words. 
 Now on the impenitence he pronounces the judgment which 
 impenitence entails, that they should not be restored. 
 
 5. Therefore thou shnlt have no7ie that shall cast a cord hy 
 lot 171 the co)iffregatio)i oftlieLurd. Thou, in the first instance, 
 is the impenitent Jew of that day. God had promised l)y 
 Hosca^ to restore Judah ; shortly after, the I'rophet himself 
 foretells it ". Now he forewarns these and such as these, 
 that they would have no portion in it. They had ^ wei7/(er 
 part nor lot in this matter. They, the not-Israel tlien, were 
 the images and ensamples of the not-Israel afterwards, those 
 who seem to be God's people and are not; members of the 
 body, not of the soul of the Church ; who have a sort of faith, 
 but have not love. Such was afterwards the Israel after the 
 Jicsh, which was broken off, while the true Israel was restored, 
 passing out of themselves into Christ. Such, at the end, 
 shall be those, who, being admitted by Christ into their por- 
 tion, renounce the world in word not in deed. Such shall 
 have " * no portion for ever in the congregation of the Lord. 
 For^ nothing defiled shall enter there, nor whatsoever u'orketh 
 abomination or a lie, hut they which are trritten in the Lamb's 
 book of life." 
 
 The ground of their condemnation is their resistance to light 
 and known truth. These not only '' entered not in, themselves, 
 but, being hinderers of God's word, them that were entering in, 
 they hindered. 
 
 6. Prophesy ye not, say they to fhtvcithsX prophesy ; they 
 shall 7iot prophesy to them, that they shall not take shame. 
 The words are very emphatic in Hebrew, from their briefness. 
 Prophesy not ; they shall indeed prophesy ; they shall not pro- 
 phesy to these; shame shall not depart''. The people, the 
 false prophets, the politicians, forbade God and Micah to pro- 
 phesy ; Prophesy not. God, by Micah, recites their prohibition 
 to themselves, and forewarns them of the consequences. 
 
 Prophesy ye 7wt, lit. drop not. Amaziah and the God-op- 
 posing party had already given an ungodly meaning to the 
 word *. ' Drop not,' ' distil not,' thus unceasingly, these same 
 words, ever warning, ever telling of ' lamentation and mourn- 
 ing and woe ; prophesying not good concerning us, hut evil^°. 
 So their descendants commanded the Apostles ^' not to speak at 
 all or to teach in the Name of Jesus. ^- Did we notstraitlycom- 
 mandyou, that ye should not teach iji this Namef ^^ This man 
 ceasetli not to speak hlasjjhemous words against this holy place 
 and the law. God answers ; They shall certainly prophesy. 
 The Hebrew wordis emphatic^*. The Prophets had their com- 
 mission from God, and Him they must obey, whether Israel 
 ^^ivould hear or whet her they would forbear. Somust Micah and 
 Isaiah ^" now, or Jeremiah '^, Ezekiel, and the rest afterwards. 
 They shall not jtrophcsy to these. He does not say only. They 
 
 ' See on Hos. v. 11. p. 42, 3. - ii. 12. 3 Acts viii. 21. 
 
 < Rib. ^ Rev. xxi. 27. ' S.Lukexi.a2. ^ Poc. gives this distribution of the 
 
 words from Abulwalid v. "JEJ. s gee on Am. vii. 16. p. 214. ' Ezek. ii. 10. 
 
 10 1 Kingsxxii. 18. " Actsiv.l8.v.40. i=Ib.v.28. "ib.vi.13. » ps-o'. 
 
 1^ Kzek. ii. 5. 7. " xxTiii.9-14.22. '7 i. 7. 17.xxvi.lO-I5. •» Judg.vi.37. 
 
 ed ? are these his doings ? do not my ^h^tened^ 
 words do good to him that walketh f iip-+ "<^''- 
 rightly ? 
 
 shall not prophesy to them, but, to these ; i.e. they shall prophesy 
 to others who wouidreceive their words: God's word would not 
 be stayed ; they wlio would iicarken shall never be deprived of 
 their portion; but to these who despise, they shall not prophesy . 
 It shall be all one, as though they did not prophesy ; the soft 
 rain shall not bedew them. The barn-tlo<jr shall be dry, while 
 the fleece is moist"*. So God says by Isaiah ''•'; / icill also com- 
 mand the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. The dew of 
 God's word shall be transferred to others. But sushatne [lit. 
 sha/nes"", manifold shame,] shall not depart, but shall rest upon 
 them for ever. God would have turned away the shame from 
 them; but they, despising His warnings, drew it to themselves. 
 It was the natural fruit of their doings ; it was in its natural 
 home with them. God spake to them, that they might be 
 freed from it. They silenced His Prophets; deafened them- 
 selves to His words ; so it departed not. So our Lord says -^, 
 Now ye say, we see ; therefore your sin remaineth ; and S.John 
 Baptist --, The ivrath of God abideth on him. It hath not now 
 first to come. It is not some new thing to be avoided, turned 
 aside. The sinner has but to remain as he is; the shame en- 
 compasseth him already, and only departeth not. 'Yhe. wrath 
 of God is already upon him, and abideth on him. 
 
 7. O thou that art named the house of Jacob ; as Isaiah 
 says ■^, Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called Ijy the 
 name of Israel — which make mention of the God of Israel, not 
 in truth, -nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the 
 holy city, and. stay themselves upon the God of Israel. They 
 boasted of what convicted them of faithlessness. They relied 
 on being what in spirit they had ceased to be, what in deeds 
 they denied, children of a believing forefather. It is the same 
 temper which we see more at large in their descendants ; ^fFe 
 he Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any man ; hoiv 
 say est Thou, ye shall be made free ? -'' Abraham is our Father, 
 It is the same which S. John Baptist and our Lord and S. Paul 
 reproved. -^ Think not to say within yourselves, ice have Abra- 
 ham to our father. "^ If ye wej-e Abraham's children, ye would 
 do the works of Abraham. Noiv ye seek to kill Me, a Man that 
 hath told you the truth — This did not Abraham. -^He is not 
 a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which 
 is outward in the flesh. — Behold thou art called a Jew, and rest- 
 est in the laiv and makest thy boast of God, and knoivest His 
 TVill and approvest the things that are more excellent — SyC. 
 The Prophet answers the unexpressed objections of those who 
 forbad to prophesy evil. ' Such could not be of God,' these 
 said; 'forGodwaspledgedby His promises to the houseof Jacob, 
 It would imply change in God, if He were to cast off those 
 whom He had chosen.' Micah answers ; 'not God is changed, 
 but you.' God's promise was to Jacob, not to those who were 
 but named Jacob, who called themselves after the name of 
 their father, but did not his deeds. The Spirit of the Lord 
 ivas not straitened"^, so that He was less long-suffering than 
 
 " Is. V.6. -" nic^D as riyiE'', omnigeniE salutes, manifold salvation. -i S.John 
 ix.41. -2 Ib.iii. 3(i. s^xiviii.i. 24 S.John viii. 33. S'i lb.39. -« S. Matt. 
 iii.9. -7 S. John viii. S9, -JO. -^ Rom. ii. 17-28. -' rrn'nxp. (as in part Zeeh. xi. 
 8,)asopposedtoD"BN'p» (Ex.xxxiv. (j. itc. longanimis, longsuttering,)andi. q. D'Sk TXp 
 Prov.xx.l7.coU.£9.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 307 
 
 c if rTs t ^ Even f of late my people is risen up 
 
 "''•• ^'"'- as an enemy : ye j)ull off the robe f with 
 
 ^ ytlu'rdm,. the j^amiettt from them that pass by se- 
 
 f Hch. over 
 
 a^aiust a 
 
 garment. 
 II ijr, wives. 
 
 curely as men averse from war, 
 
 9 The II women of my people have ye 
 
 cast out from their pleasant houses ; from ^ j/''j["pg ,p 
 tJK^ir ehihlren have ye taken away my "''■ ^^^^- 
 lirlory for ever. 
 
 " Deut 1*' 
 
 10 Arise ve, and depart: for this fy not »L(v.i8.'25,' 
 your"' rest : because it is " polluted, it shall Jer.3. 2. 
 
 heretofore. These, which He threiitcned and of wliich tliey 
 eoniplained, were not His dnin^s, not what He of His own 
 Nature did, not what He h)ved to do, not His, as tiie Autiior 
 or Cause of them, hut theirs. God is Good, hut to tliose wiu» 
 can receive gfood, tlie upright in heart ^ God is only Loving 
 unto Israel. He is all Love ; iiothinc; hut" Love : all His ways 
 are Love; hut it follows, unto jr/zr// Israel, the true Israel, 
 the pure of heiirt. '' All the paths of the Lord are merctj and 
 truth ; hut to whom ? luito such as keep His covenant and His 
 testimonies. ' The merer/ of the Lord is from everlasting to 
 everlasting ; but unto them that fear Him. But, they becom- 
 ing: evil, His good became to them evil. Lig'ht, wholesome 
 and e:laddening; to the healthful, hurts weak eyes. That which 
 is straig:ht cannot suit or fit with the crooked. Amend your 
 crookedness, and God's ways will be straight to you. JJo 
 not Ml/ words do good? He doth s^axk^ good words and 
 comfortable words. They are not only good, hut do good. 
 * His word is with prncer. Still it is with those who tvulk up- 
 rightly ; whether those who forsake not, or those who return 
 to, the way of righteousness. God flattereth not, deceiveth 
 not, promiseth not what He will not do. He cannot'' speak 
 peace where there is no peace. As He saith, ^ Behold the good- 
 ness and severity of God ; on them ivhich fell, severity, but to- 
 tvards thee, goodness, if thou contiime in His goodness. God 
 Himself could not make a heaven for the proud or envious. 
 Heaven would be to them a hell. 
 
 8. JLve)i of late [fit. yesterday^. ~\ "^° He imputeth not past 
 sins, but those recent and, as it were, of yesterday." My peo- 
 ple is risen up vehement ly^^. God upbraideth them tenderly by 
 the title, 3Iine oiun people, && S. John complaineth^-, He came 
 unto His oivn, and His own received Him not. God became 
 not their enemy, but they arose as one man,- — is risen up, the 
 whole of it, as His. In Him they might have had peace and 
 joy and assured gladness, but they arose in rebellion against 
 Him, requiting Him evil for good, (as bad Christians do to 
 Christ,) and brought war uj)on their own heads. This they 
 did by their sins against their brethren. Casting off the love 
 of man, they alienated themselves from the love of God. 
 
 Ye pull off [stripoffviolently^^~\ the robe luith the garment, 
 lit. over against the cloak. The sahnah^* is the large enveloping 
 cloak, which was worn loosely over the other dress, and served 
 by night for a covering i\ Eder^^, translated robe, is probably 
 not any one garment, but the remaining dress, the comely, be- 
 coming i^,arrayof the person. These theystrippedviolentlyoff 
 from persons, peaceable, unoffending, off their guard, passing 
 by securely, men averse from U'ar^^ and strife. Thesetheystrip- 
 ped of their raiment by day, leaving them half-naked, and of 
 
 1 Ps. Ixxiii.l. = The force of IM. 3Ps.xxv.10. 
 
 < Ps. ciii. 17. S. Luke i. 50. 5 Zech. i. 13. 
 
 6 S.Liikeiv.32. 7 Jer. vi. 14. » Rom. xi. 22. 
 
 ' fenx is i. q. SiDnx, in Is. xxx. 33. '" S. Jer. " DDip', 
 
 in Isaiah (xiiv. 26. Iviii. 12. Ixi. 4.) transitive, but only of the raising up, rebuilding of 
 ruins. The use of CDip actively in that one sense is no ground for taking it so, wluTe 
 the idea is ditl'erent. To raise up an adversary is expressed by D'pn Mic. v. 4. Am. vi. 14. 
 1 Kings xi. 14. and so raising up evil also. '- i. 11, 
 
 1^ pBiyDn. This is intensive, as in Arabic, 
 '< riD^P here and Ex. xxii. S. i. q. nVoP, elsewhere. '* Deut. xxii. 17. 
 
 "• TtK occurs here only. Tiiere is no ground to identify it with the well-known rmtt. 
 It is not likely that the common garment should have been called, this once, by a difler- 
 ent name ; nor that tlie miN, a wide enfolding gaiment, (see on Jonah iii. C. p, 279, n, t),) 
 
 their covering for the night. So making war against God's 
 peaceful people, tlicy, as it were, made war against (iod. 
 
 9. 'The women of my people have ye cast out froi/i their 
 pleasant hoases, [lit. //v;//t her pleasant house,] each from her 
 home. These were probaldy the widows of those wlioni they 
 had stripped. Since the houses were their's, they were wi- 
 dows ; and so their spoilers were at war with those whom God 
 had committed to their sjjccial love, whom He had dcr'lared 
 the objec^ts of His own tender care, the widows and the father- 
 less. The widows they drove vehemently forth '•', as having no 
 portion in the inheritance whicii God had given them, as (jod 
 had driven out their enemies before them, each/ro?n her plea- 
 sant house, the home where she had lived with her husband 
 and children in delight and joy. 
 
 From {off-'] their 'lyonng-"] children have ye taken away 
 jSIy glory. Primarily, the glory, comeliness, was the fitting 
 apparel which God had given them-', and laid upon them--, 
 and which these oppressors stripped off i'vum them. But it 
 includes all the gifts of God, wherewith God would array them. 
 Instead of the holy home of parental care, the children grew 
 up in want and neglect, away from all the ordinances of God, 
 it may be, in a strange land. For ever. They never repented, 
 never made restitution ; but so they incurred tlie special woe 
 of those who ill-used the unprotected, the widow, and the fa- 
 therless. The words/or eirranticipate the punishment. The 
 punishment is according to the sin. They never ceased their 
 oppression. They, with the generation who should come after 
 them, should be deprived of God's glory, and cast out of His 
 land for ever. 
 
 10. Ariseye and depart. Go your way, as being cast out 
 of God's care and land. It matters not whither they went. 
 For this is not your rest. As ye have done, so shall it be done 
 unto you. As ye cast out the widow and the fatherless, so 
 shall ye be cast out; as ye gave no rest to those averse from 
 war, so shall ye have none. "^ He that leadcth into captivity 
 shall go into captivity ; he that killeth with the sword must be 
 killed ivith the sicord. The land was given to them as a tem- 
 porary rest, a symbol and earnest of the everlasting rest to 
 the obedient. So Moses spake-*, ye are )iot as yet come to the 
 rest ^'^ and the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. 
 But ivhen ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land ivhich the 
 Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when He giveth you 
 rest'^from your enemies round about, so that ye divell in safety 
 S,c. And Joshua -^, Remember theword trhich 3Ioses command- 
 ed you, saying. The Lord your God giveth you rest-^. But the 
 Psalmist had warned them, that, if they hardened their hearts 
 like their forefathers, they too would not enter into His rest-^. 
 
 should have been worn together with the .TcSb. '" This meaning seems to lie in the root: 
 comp. o-ToXii, array, apparel, dress. is '3ie' is doubtless an adjective form, distinct 
 
 from the participle '317, (Is. lix. 20.) like TID Jer. ii. 21. " pETJn is doubly intensive, 
 as the intensive form with the emphatic |, It is liie word used of God's driving out the 
 nations before Israel, (Ex. Jud. &c.)or of man being drivenout of Paradise, (Gen, iii. 24,) 
 Hagar being cast out, (Gen. xxi, 10,) The word itself, by its rough sound, expresses the 
 more of harshness ; and that as opposed to softness, .Tjiiyn. This is the same word as that 
 rendered delicate, i, 10. -» n^hhiv SiO 
 
 21 asHos. ii.ll.'UTl.H.Mich. 
 =2 Ez. xvi. 14. Id, » Rev, xiii, 10. =< Deut. xii. 0. 10. add 
 
 1 Kings viii.SG, -' "niEn 7N, the same word. -' mn 
 
 -■ i, 13, =s n-:D =3 Ps, xcv, 11. comp. ynnb Ps. 
 
 cxxxii. 8. TinuD 14.
 
 308 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Bi'fore 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 730. 
 
 II Or, walk 
 with the 
 wind, and lie falsely. 
 
 destroy you, even with a sore destructioi). 
 
 11 If a man || " walking in the spirit and 
 
 falsehood do lie, suyiug, 1 will prophesy 
 
 Ezek. 13. 3. 
 
 Because if is polliited{\it. because of W?, pollution'^'] by ido- 
 latry, by violence, by uncleaiiiicss. So Moses (iisiii<>; tlie same 
 word) says, tlie laml is tU-Jiled' by tbc aboniiiiatioiis of the liea- 
 tben ■ and warns tlieni, thiit tlie land spue ijon not out, when 
 you defile it, as it spued out the nations which were before you. 
 Ezckicl speaks oftbat defilement'^, as tbe f;;round why God ex- 
 pelled Israel'. It shall destroy you,even with a sore [lit. sharp~\ 
 destruction K It is a sore tbinj; to al)use tbe creatures of God 
 to sin, and it is unfit tbat we should use what we have abused. 
 Hence Holy Scripture speaks, as tbous;li even tbe inanimate 
 creation took part with God, made subject to vanity, nrjt wil- 
 lingly, and could not endure those who employed it against 
 His Will. 
 
 The words. Arise, depart ye, for this is not your rest, became 
 a sort of sacred proverb, spoken anew to the soul, whenever 
 it would find rest out of God. "'^We are bidden to think of 
 no rest for ourselves in any things of the world ; but. as it were, 
 arising from the dead, to stretch upwards, and walk after the 
 Lord our Goil,a.nd Siiy, My soul cleavetli hard after Thee. This 
 if we neglect, and will not bear Him Who saith. Awake thou 
 that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
 thee light, we shall indeed slumber, but shall be deceived and 
 shall not find rest ; for where Christ enligbtenetb not the ri- 
 sen soul, what seemeth to be rest, is trouble." All rest is 
 wearisome which is not in Thee, O our God. 
 
 11. Jf a man. walking in the spirit and falsehood, lit. in 
 spirit [not 3Iy Spirit] and falsehood,!, e. in a lying spirit ; such 
 as they, whose woe Ezekicl pronounces''', f Foe unto the foolish 
 j)rophets who wall; after their own spirit and ichat they have 
 not seen^ ; prophets out of their own hearts, wbo^ prophesied a 
 vision of falsehood, and a destruction and nottiingness^^; j)rophe- 
 sied falsehood; yea, prophets of the deceit of their hearts. These, 
 like the true prophets, ical/ced in spirit j as Isaiah speaks of 
 walking in righteousness i\ and Solomon of one ivalking in the 
 frowardness of the mouth ^~. Their habitual converse was in a 
 spirit, but of falsehood. If such an one do lie, saying, I will 
 jjrophesy uuto thee of wine and strong drink. Man's conscience 
 must needs have some plea in speaking falsely of God. The 
 false prophets had to please the rich men, to embolden them 
 in their self-indulgence, to tell them tbat God would not pu- 
 nish. They doubtless spoke of God's temporal promises to His 
 people, the \m.\A flowing with milk and honey. His promises of 
 abundant harvest and vintage, and assured them, that God 
 would not withdraw these, that He was not so precise about 
 His law. Micah tells them in plain words, what it all came 
 to; it was a prophesying of wine and strong drink. 
 
 He shall even be the prophet of this people, lit. and shall 
 be bedewing this people. He uses the same words, which 
 scorners of Israel and Judah employed in forbidding to pro- 
 phesy. They said, drop not ; forbidding God's word as a wea- 
 risome dropping. It wore away their patience, not theirbearts 
 of stone. He tells them, who might speak to them without 
 wearying, of tvhose words they would never tire, who might do 
 
 1 as pointed in most accnrate copies, without iVIetheg. - NDon Lev. xviii. 
 
 27. D3KDB2 28. 3 Ezek. xxxvi. 17. •• Ezck. xxxvi. IM. add Jer. ii. 7. 
 
 = This is the common rendering of ^3n. Others, with Sal. B. Mel. have understood 
 it of travail-pains, (Cant. viii. 5. Ps. vii. 15.) but this would have the opposite sense of 
 bringing forth, rc-birth, notof ejection. (See Is. Ixvi. 8.) The sharp bitter pang would ex- 
 press the pains of travail, not its fruitlessness or that they were cast out any whither. 
 Fruitlessness of travail-pangs is expressed, if intended, (as in Is. xxvi. 18.) 
 
 unto thee of wine and of strong drink ; he 
 shall even be the prophet of this people. 
 
 12 ^ •' I will surely assemble, O Jacob,pch. 4. 6,7. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 730. 
 
 habitually" what they forbade to God, — one who, in the Name 
 of (Jod, set them at ease in their sensual indulgences. Tiiis 
 is tbe secret of the success of every thing opposed to God and 
 Christ. Man wants a (iod. God has made it a necessity of 
 our nature to crave after Him. Spiritual, like natural, hunger, 
 debarred from or loathing wholesome food, must be stilled, 
 stifled, with what will appease its gnawings. Our natural 
 intellect longs for Him ; for it cannot understand itself with- 
 out Him. Our restlessness longs for Him ; to rest upon. Our 
 helplessness longs for Him, to escape from the unbearable pres- 
 sure of our unknown futurity. Our imagination craves for 
 Him; for, being made for the Infinite, it cannot be content 
 with the finite. Aching aftections long for Him ; for no crea- 
 ture can soothe them. Our dissatisfied conscience longs for 
 Him, to teach it and make it one with itself. But man does 
 not want to be responsible, nor to owe duty ; still less to be lia- 
 ble to penalties for disobeying. Tbe Christian, not the natural 
 man, longs that his whole being should tend to God. The na- 
 tural man wishes to be well-rid of what sets him ill at ea.se, not 
 to belong to God. And tbe horrible subtlety of false teaching, 
 in each age or country, is to meet its own favourite require- 
 ments, without calling for self-sacrifice or self-oblation, to 
 give it a god, such as it would have, such as might content 
 it. " 1* Tbe people willeth to be deceived, be it deceived," is a 
 true proverb. Men turn airay their ears from the truth^^ which 
 they dislike ; and so are turned unto fables w\\\(^\\ they like. 
 They who receive not the love of the truth, — believe a lie '^. If 
 men will not retain God in their knowledge, God giveth theyn 
 over to an undistinguishing niincP". They who would not re- 
 ceive our Lord, coming in His Father's Name, have ever 
 since, as He said, received them who came in their orvn ^*. Men 
 teach their teachers how they wish to be mistaugbt, and re- 
 ceive the echo of their wishes as the Voice of God. 
 
 12. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I tvill 
 surely gather the remnant of Israel. God's mercy on the pe- 
 nitent and believing being tbe end of all His tbreatenings, the 
 mention of it often bursts in abruptly. Christ is ever the Hope 
 as the End of ])rophecy, ever before the Prophets' mind. The 
 earthquake and fire precede tbe still small voice of peace in 
 Him. What seems then sudden to us, is connected in truth. 
 The Prophet had said ^', where was not their rest and how they 
 should be cast forth ; he saith at once how they should be ga- 
 thered to their everlasting rest. He had said, what promises 
 of the false prophets would not be fulfilled -°. But, despair 
 being the most deadly enemy of the soul, he does not take 
 away their false hopes, without shewing them tbe true mercies 
 in store for them. '^ Think not,' he would say, 'that I am 
 only a prophet of ill. The captivity foretold will indeed now 
 come, and God's mercies will also come, although not in the 
 way, which these speak of.' The false prophets spoke of world- 
 ly abundance ministering to sensuality, and of unbroken secu- 
 rity. He tells of God's mercies, but after chastisement, to the 
 remnant of Israel. But the restoration is complete, far beyond 
 
 6 S. Jer. ' Ezek. xiii. 3. 8 lb. 2. 17. 
 
 9 ,Jer. xiv. 14, ipts' jiin, as herenpBn nn. i" lb. xxiii. 26. 
 
 add npe- d'odj xxvii. lU, U, 16. ornps'^ Jer. xxix. 9. npc mcSn -m: lb. xxiii. 32. 
 
 '1 xxxui. 15. mpns ^S,^. '- ns nwpy I'jin Pr. vi. 12. elsewhere with 3. 
 
 " The force of n'BD n'n. " Populus vult decipi, decipiatur. 
 
 15 2 Tim.iv. 4. '« 2 Thess. ii. 11. 12. '7 Rom.i. 28. 
 
 '3 S. John V. 43. " ver. 10. -o ver. 11.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 309 
 
 chhTst fillofthoo; I will suroly i«;atlier the reiii- 
 
 "''"• ^^Q- nant of Israel ; I will put them tojj^ether ''as 
 
 the sheep of Ilozrah, as the flock in the 
 
 ' Ezek. 30. 37. midst of their fold : 'they shall make j^reat 
 
 noise by reason of the multitude (j/'men. 
 
 their then coiulitioii. lie Iiad foretold the desohitioii of Sa- 
 maria \ the captivity of Jiuhdi-; lie foretells the restoration 
 of ^/// Jdcol), as one. The iiiianes are partly taken (as is the 
 Proplicts' wont,) from that first deliverance from E^ypt''. 
 Then, as the iniajie of the future growth under persecution, 
 God multiplied His people exceedinftiy'^; then ^ tlw Lord went 
 before tliem In/ day in <i pillar of a rionil to lead them the tvay ; 
 then God Ijroiiglit Ihe/ii lip'' ont of the house of bondage"' . But 
 their future prison-house was to be no laiul of (ioshen. It 
 was to be a captivity and a dispersion at once, as Ilosea had 
 already foretold*. So he speaks of them emphatically', as a 
 great throns>', assembling Iivill assemble, O Jacob, all of thee ; 
 gathering I will gather the remnant of Israel. The word, 
 which is used of the gatherinsf of a flock or its lambs ^'', be- 
 came, from Moses' prophecy ^\ a received word of the gather- 
 ing- of Israel from the dispersion of the captivity ^-. There- 
 turn of the Jews from Babylon was but a faint shadow of the 
 fulfilment. For, ample as were the terms of the decrees of 
 Cyrus ^^ and Artaxerxes ^*, and widely as that of Cyrus was dif- 
 fused '% the restoration was essentially that of Judah, i. e. Ju- 
 dah Benjamin and Levi ^^ : the towns, whose inhabitants re- 
 turned, were those of Judah and Benjamin ^"^ ; the towns, to 
 which they returned, were of the two tribes. It was not a 
 gathering of all Jacob ; and of the three tribes who returned, 
 there were but few gathered, and they had not even an earth- 
 ly king, nor any visible Presence of God. The words began 
 to be fulfilled in the tnani/ ^^ tens of thousands who believed at 
 our Lord's first Coming ; and all Jacob, that is, all who were 
 Israelites indeed, the remnant according to the election of 
 grace^^, were gathered within the one fold of the Church, 
 under One Shepherd. It shall be fully fulfilled, when, in the 
 end, the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel 
 shall be saved"". ^11 Jacob is the same as the retnnant of Is- 
 rael, the true Israel which remains when the false severed it- 
 self oflF; all the seed-corn, when the chaffwas winnowed away. 
 So then, whereas they were now scattered, then, God saith, / 
 will put them together [in one fold] as the sheep of Bozrah, 
 which abounded in sheep-', and was also a strong city of 
 Edom--; denoting how believers should be fenced within the 
 Church, as by a strong wall, against which the powers of dark- 
 ness should not prevail, and the wolf should howl around the 
 fold, yet be unable to enter it.and Edom and the heathen should 
 become part of the inheritance of Christ -^. ^Is a flock in the 
 midst of their fold, at rest,"-*like sheep, still and subject to their 
 shepherd's voice. So shall these, having one faith and One 
 Spirit, in meekness and simplicity, obey the one rule of truth. 
 Nor shall it be a small number;" for the place where they shall 
 
 ' i.6. =i. 16. ii.4. 3 Hengst. Christ, i. 499. 
 
 •• Ex.i. 12. 5 Ib.xiii. 21. « Ex. iii.8, 17. Lev. xi. 45. The people 
 
 went up. Ex. xiii. IS. add xii. 3S. i. 10. " See lielow, vi. 4. * See on Hos. 
 
 vi. 11. p. 42, 3. ix. 17. p. fil, 2. » qoss nos. ya-s ■,-=?■ '" Is. xl. 11. xiii. 14. 
 
 " Deut. XXX. 3, 4. see Neh. i. 9. '^ See below, iv. 6. Ps. cvi. 47. cvii. 3. Is. xi. 
 
 12. xliii. .5. liv. 7. Ivi. S. Zeph. iii. 19, 20. Jer. xxiii. 3. xxix. 14. xxxi. 8, 10. xxxii. 
 37. Ezek. xi. 17. XX. 34, 41.xxviii. 25. xxxiv. 13. xxxvii. 21. xxxviii. S.xxxix.27. Zech. 
 X. 10. 13 Ezr. i. 2-4. » vii. 13. '» lb. i. 1. '« lb. i. 5. 
 
 ii. 1. iv. 1. X. 7, 9. .losephus, who alone mentions that Ezra sent a copy of Artaxerxes' 
 letter to him, " to all those of his nation who were in Media," and that " many of them, 
 taking their property, came to Babylon, longing for the return to Jerusalem," adds, 
 " but the whole people of Israelites [i. e. the great mass] remained where they were." 
 
 1.3 The breaker is come up before them : chkTst 
 they have broken up, and have passed ""■ ''^'^- 
 throuf^h the f^ate, and are <^one out by it : 
 and 'their k'm<j; shall pass before them," iios. 3. 5. 
 ' and the Loiiu on the head of them. t is. 52. 12. 
 
 be gathered shall be too narrow to contain them, as is said 
 in Isaiah ; (iiie place to me, that I iiiai/ dwell -'\ 
 
 The// shall make great iioise (it is the same word as our 
 hum, " tlu! hum of men,") bij reason of the multitude of men. 
 He explains his image, as does Ezekiel -''', yind ye are My 
 flock, the flock of Mi/ pasture ; men are ye ; I, your Cod, saith 
 the Lord God: and, "^ ^-Js a flock of holy things, as the flock of 
 Jerusalem in her solemn feasts ; so shall the iraste cities befall 
 of a flock of mot, and they shall know that I am the Lord. 
 So many shall they be, that " throughout the whole world they 
 shall make a great and public sound in praising fiod, filling 
 Heaven and the green pastures of Paradise with a mighty hum 
 of praise;" as St. John saw "^ a great multitude ivhich no man 
 could number, ""Svith one luiited voice jjraising the Good 
 Shepherd, Who smoothed for them all rugged |)laces, and 
 evened them by His Own Steps, Himself tiie Guide of their 
 way and the Gate of Paradise, as He saith, / am the Door ; 
 through Whom, bursting through and going before, being also 
 the Door of the way, the flock of believers shall break through 
 //. But this Shepherd is their Lord and King." Not their 
 King only, but the Lord God ; so that this, too, bears witness 
 that Christ is God. 
 
 13. The Breaker is come vp (gone up) before them ; they 
 liave broken up, (broken through"'^) and have passed the gate, 
 and have gone forth. The image is not of conquest, but of 
 deliverance. They break through, not to enter in but to/;«i-.s 
 through the gate and go forth. The wall of the city is or- 
 dinarily broken through, in order to make an entrance ■^", or to 
 secure to a conqueror the power of entering in^' at any time, 
 or by age and decay ''-. But here the object is cxjiressed, to 
 go forth. Plainly then they were confined before, as in a pri- 
 son ; and the gate of the prison was burst open, to set them 
 free. It is then the same image as when God says by Isaiah ^' ; 
 I H'ill say to the N^orth, give up ; and to the South, Hold not 
 back, or ■^^ Go ye forth of Babylon, Say ye, the Lord hath re- 
 deemed His servant Jacob ; or, with the same reminiscence 
 of God's visible leading of His people out of Egypt, ^^ Depart 
 ye, depart ye ; for ye shall not go out with haste, nor yet by 
 flight, for the Lord God shall go before you, and the Grjd of 
 Israel will be your rereward ; or as Hosea describes their re- 
 storation^'' ; Then shall the children of Judah and the children 
 of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one Head, 
 and they shall go up out of the land''\ Elsewhere, in Isaiah, 
 the spiritual meaning of the deliverance from the prison is 
 more distinctly brought out, as the work of our Redeemer^*. 
 I will give Tliee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the 
 Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bri?ig out the j}risoners from 
 
 Ant. xi. 5. 2. *' Ezr. ii. Neh. vii. i® ^uptaocs Acts xxi. 20. '^ Rom, 
 
 xi. 5. 20 lb. xi. 25, C. =' Is. xxxiv. 6. - See ab. on Am. i. 12. 
 
 p. 106, 7. 23 See ab. on Am. ix. 12. p. 224. =* Rup. -' xlix. 20. 
 
 26 xxxiv. 31. 27 lb. xxxvi.38. 23 Rev. vii. 9. 
 
 2' pa is to break fhrongh, as, enemies surroundingone, 2 Sam. v. 2U. 1 Chr. xiv. 11. 
 break in ■pieces so ;is to scatter, Ps. Ix. 3. break through or down a wall, (see reterences in 
 30, 31,33.)andwith3,"burstMpon,"ofGod's inflictions, Ex. xix. 22, 24.2 Sam.vi. 8. Ps. 
 cvi. 29. 1 Chr. xiii. 11. xv. 13. 30 ps. i^xx. 13. Ixxxix. 41. Is. v. 5. Neh. ii. 13. 
 
 3' Prov. XXV. 28. 2 Kgs. xiv. 13. 2Chr.xxv.23.XKvi.fi. 32 o Chr. xxxii. 5. 
 
 33 xliii. 6. 3j II,. xlviii. 20. ^ Iii. 11,12. ixsn, as here iMS' ; .ind c3'js'?.t;S.t 
 
 corresponding to DD'JbS nSy. 36 ; ]^i_ (;;_ 2. Heb.) 3; p 
 
 reference to Egj'pt, (see ab. p. 12.) as here rhy. 3S is_ jjlii. 6, i 
 
 3b
 
 .'{lU 
 
 MICAII, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 The cruelly of the princes. 5 The falsehood of 
 the prophets. 8 The security of them both. 
 
 the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house ; 
 and \ //((' Spirit of the Lord (lod is upon 3Ie, hcrnnse the Lord 
 hath anointed Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
 opening of the prisoiWo tlicin that arc bound. 
 
 From this passaa^e, the " Rreaker-throufjh " was one of the 
 titles of tlie Christ, known to the Jews ", as One Who should be 
 "^froni below and from above " also ; and from it they believed 
 that "* captives sliould come up from Gehenna, and the She- 
 chinali,"or the Presence of God, "at their head." '"^ He then, 
 Who shall break the way, the King- and Lord Who shall go up 
 before them, shall be the Good Shepherd, Who puts them to- 
 gether in the fold. And this He doth w?ien, as He saith, ''He 
 putteth forth His own sheep, (aid Hegoeth before them, and the 
 sheep follow Him, for they know His J'uice. How doth He go 
 before them but by suffering for them, leaving them an exam- 
 ple of suffering, and opening the entrance of Paradise ? The 
 Good Shepherd gocth up to the Cross, ' and is lifted up from 
 the earth, laying down His Life for His sheep, to draw all men 
 unto Him. Hegoeth «7), trampling on deatii by His Resurrec- 
 tion ; Hegoeth up above the heaven of heavens, and sitteth on 
 the Ilight Hand of the Father, opening the way before tiieni, 
 so that the flock, in their lowliness, may arrive where the Shep- 
 herd went before in His Majesty. And when He thus breaketh 
 through and opcneth the road, they also break through and 
 pass through the gate and go (nit by if, by that Gate, namely, 
 whereof the Psalmist saith **, This is the Gate of tlte Lord ; the 
 righteous shall enter into It. What other is this Gate than 
 that same Passion of Christ, beside which there is no gate, no 
 Avay whereby any can enter into life? Through that open 
 portal, which the lance of the soldier made in His Side when 
 crucified, and there came thereout Blood and Water, they shall 
 pass and go through, even as the children of Israel passed 
 through the Red Sea, which divided before them, when Pha- 
 raoh, his chariots and horsemen, were drowned." " ^ He will 
 be in their hearts, and will teach and lead them ; He will shew 
 them the way of salvation, '^'^guiding their feet into the way of 
 peace, and they shall pass through the strait and narrow gate 
 which leadeth unto life ; of which it is written^i, Enter ye in at 
 the strait gate; because strait is the gate and narrow is the ivay 
 which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. And their 
 King shall pass before them, as He did, of old, in the figure of 
 the cloud, of which Moses said ^-, If Thy Presence go not, carry 
 lis not up hence; and wherein shall it be knoivn that I have found 
 grace iti Thy sight, I and Thy people, is it not in that Thougoest 
 up with us? and as He then did when He passed out of this 
 world to the Father. And the Lord on (that is, at) the head of 
 them, as of His army. "^For the Lord is His A^ame, and He 
 is the Head, they the members ; He the King, they the peo- 
 ple ; He the Shepherd, they the sheep of His pasture. And 
 oi t\\\s passing through He spake ^^, By Me if any man enter 
 in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. 
 For a man entereth in, when, receiving the faith, he becomes 
 a sheep of this Shepherd, m\A goeth out, when he closeth this 
 present life, and then findeth the pastures of unfading, ever- 
 
 ' Is. Ixi. 1. Huls. Theol. Jud. pp. 143, 144. 
 
 3 R. Mos. Hadilars. in Mart. Puj. Fid. p. 432. It is interpreted of the Messiah in 
 
 the Bereshith Kabba, § 4-8. f. 47. 2. (Scbottg. de Mess. p. 61.) the Echa Rabbathi.f. CO. 2, 
 
 (lb. p. 69.) the Pesikta Rabbathi, f.fiO. 1, (lb. p. 1.35.) and the Midrash Mishle, ad c.vi. 
 
 l.(Ib. ad loc. p. 212.) So also Jonathan, Rashi, Tanchum, Abarbanel in Poc. 
 
 ■• Quoted by Pearson on tlie Creed, art. 6, note y. s Rup. 
 
 A 
 
 ND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads chrTst 
 ofJacob, and ye princes of the liouseof "■••7io. 
 Israel; "/* it not for you to know judgment? ' JtT. 5. 4, 5. 
 
 lasting life;" "^passing from this pilgrimage to his home, 
 from faith to sight, from labour to reward." Again, as de- 
 scribing the Christian's life here, it speaks of progress. 
 "^' Whoso shall have entered in, must not remain in the state 
 wherein he entered, but must go forth into the pasture ; so 
 that, in entering in should be the beginning, \\\ grjing forth 
 and finding pasture, the perfe(tting of graces. He who en- 
 tereth in, is contained within the bounds of the world; he 
 who goeth forth, goes, as it were, beyond all created things, 
 and, counting as nothing all things seen, AvaW find jjusture 
 above the Heavens, and shall feed upon the Word of God, and 
 say '^, The Lord is my Shepherd, (and feedeth me,) / can lack 
 nothing. But this going forth can only be through Christ; 
 as it foUoweth, atid the Lord at the head of them." Nor, 
 again, is this in itself easy, or done for us witliout any effort 
 of our own. All is of Christ. The words express the close- 
 ness of the relation between the Head and the members ; and 
 what He, our King and Lord, doth, they do, because He 
 Who did it for them, doth it in them. The same words 
 are used of both, shewing that what they do, they do by 
 virtue of His Might, treading in His steps, walking where He 
 has made the way plain, and by His Spirit. AVhat they do, 
 they do, as belonging to Him. He breaketh through, or, ra- 
 ther, in all is the Breaker-through. They, having broken 
 through, jHtss on, because He passeth before them. He will 
 ^^ break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of 
 iron. He breaketh through whatever would hold us back or 
 oppose us, all might of sin and death and Satan, as Moses 
 opened the Red Sea, for ^^ a way for the ransomed to pass over ; 
 and so He saith, ^^/ will go before thee, I ivill break i7i pieces 
 the gates of brass, and cut iti sunder the bars of iron, and I 
 will give thee the treasures of darkiiess, and hidden riches of se- 
 cret places. So then Christians, following Him, the €«;;/«/« 
 of their salvation, strengthened by His grace, must burst the 
 bars of the flesh and of the world, the chains and bonds of evil 
 passions and habits, force themselves through the narrow way 
 and narrow gate, do violence to themselves, '^'^ endure hardness, 
 as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. The title of our Lord, the 
 Breaker-through-'^, and the saying, they break through, toge- 
 ther express the same as the New Testament doth in regard 
 to our being partakers of the sufl'crings of Christ. ~^ Joint 
 heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer tvith Him, that we may 
 he also glorified together. "-If we be dead with Him, we shall 
 also live with Him ; if we suffer, uw shall also reign with Him. 
 -^ Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in thejiesh — arm 
 yourselves likeivise with the same mind. 
 
 The words may include also the removal of the souls of the 
 just, who had believed in Christ before His Coming, into Hea- 
 ven after His Resurrection, and will be fully completed when, 
 in the end. He shall cause His faithful servants, in body and 
 soul, to enter into the joy of their Lord. 
 
 Chap. IIL ver. 1. Atid I said. God's love for us is the great 
 incitement, constrainer, vivifier of His creature's love. Mi- 
 cali had just spoken of God's love of Israel; how He would 
 
 «S.Johnx.4. 7 lb. 15. xii.32. 8 Ps. cxviii. 20. 9 Dion. 
 
 '» S.Lukei.79. " S.Matt. vii.l3, 14. i^ Ex.xxxiii. 15, 16. 
 
 "S.Johnx.g. n S.Jer. i= Ps. xxiii. 1. 
 
 "Is. xlv. 2. '7 Ib.Ii.lO. 18 ib.xlv.2, 3. " 2Tim. ii. 3. 
 
 *" pD. It is from the same word as Pharez, Judah's son, whose birth was typical. 
 
 Gen. xxxviii. 29. =' Rom. viii. 17. - 2Tim.ii. 11, 12. ^^IPet.iv.l.
 
 CHAPTER ITI. 
 
 311 
 
 cuiusT ^ VVho hate the j^ood, and love the evil; 
 
 cir. 710. ■tvlio pliu'k off theu* skill from oil" them, and 
 
 their flesh from off their hones ; 
 
 tps. 14.4. 3 Who also ''eat the flesli of my people, 
 
 and flay their skin from off tliem ; and they 
 
 gather them into one fold nnder One Shepherd, guard them, 
 lead them, remove all difiiculties before them, be Himself their 
 Head and enaljle them to follow Him. He turns then to them. 
 These are God's doings; this, (iod has in store for you here- 
 after. Even when merey itself shall require (chastisement, He 
 doth not cast off for ever. The desolation is but the forerun- 
 ner of future mercy. What then do ye ? The Prophet a])peals 
 to them, class by class. There was one general corruption 
 of every order of men, through whom Judah could be pi"e- 
 served, princes^, prophets", priests^. The salt had lost its sa- 
 vour ; wherewith could it he seasoned? whereby could the de- 
 caying mass of the people be kept from entire corruption ? 
 
 Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the 
 house of Israel. He arraigns them by the same name, under 
 which He had first promised mercy. He had first promised 
 mercy to all Jacob and the rein/ta/it of Israel. So now he 
 upbraids the heads of Jacob, and the princes of the house of Is- 
 rael, lest they should deceive themselves. At the same time 
 he recalls them to the deeds of their father. Judah had suc- 
 ceeded to the birthright, forfeited by Reuben, Simeon and 
 Levi; and in Judah all the promises of the Messiah were laid 
 up. But he was not like the three great Patriarchs, the fa- 
 ther of the faithful, or the meek Isaac, or the much-tried Jacob. 
 The name then had not the reminiscences, or force of appeal, 
 contained in the titles, seed of Abraham, or Isaac, or Israel. 
 
 Is it not for you to know judgment ? It is a great increase 
 of guilt, when persons neglect or pervert what it is their spe- 
 cial duty and office to guard ; as when teachers corrupt doc- 
 trine, or preachers give in to a low standard of morals, or 
 judges pervert judgment. The princes here spoken of are so 
 named from judging, "deciding*" causes. They are the same 
 as the rulers, whom Isaiah at the same time upbraids, as be- 
 ing, from their sins, rulers of Sodom ^, whose ^ hands were full 
 of blood. They who do not right, in time cease, in great mea- 
 sure, to know it. As God withdraws His grace, the mind is 
 darkened and can no longer see it. So it is said of Eli's sons, 
 they ^ were sons of Belial, they kneiu not the Lord ; and, ' Into 
 a malicious soul TFisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in a body 
 that is subject unto sin. Such "'attain not to know the judg- 
 7nents of God which are a great deep : and the depth of His 
 justice the evil mind findeth not." But if men will not knoiv 
 judgment by doing it, they shall by suffering it. 
 
 2. Who hate the good and love the evil; i. e. they hate, for 
 its own sake, that which is good, and love that which is evil. 
 The Prophet is not here speaking of their hating good men, 
 or loving evil men, but of their hating goodness and loving 
 wickedness^". " ' It is sin not to love good ; what guilt to hate 
 it ! it is faulty, not to flee from evil, what imgodliness to love 
 it ! " Man, at first, loves and admires the good, even while he 
 doth it not ; he hates the evil, even while he does it, or as soon 
 as he has done it. But man cannot bear to be at strife with 
 his conscience, and so he ends it, by excusing himself and tell- 
 ing lies to himself. And then, he hates the truth or good 
 
 • 1-4. 2 5-7. 3 n. 
 
 * ('sp from nsp, "cut, decWe," whence Cadhi. ^ The word is the same, Is. i. 10. 
 
 « lb. 15. 7 1 Sam. ii. 12. s Wisd. i. 4 » S. Jer. '<> This appearsfrom 
 tlie Kethib njn. 
 
 ST 
 cir. 710. 
 
 break their bones, and chop them in pieces, ch kTj 
 as for the pot, and ''as flesh within the cal 
 
 (h'nn ° Kzek. 11.3,7. 
 
 "*""• •" l'». 18.41. 
 
 4 Then -i shall they cry unto the Lord, u^llh^' 
 but he will not hear them: he will even z^h.'y.is; 
 
 with a bitter hatred, because it disturbs the darkness of the 
 false peace with which he would envelojic himself. At first, 
 men love only the pleasure connected with the evil ; then they 
 make wliom they can, evil, because; goodness is a rcproarh to 
 them : in the end, tlicy love (!vil for its own sake". Heathen 
 morality too distinguished between the incontinent and the un- 
 priiicipled^-, the man who sinned under force of temptation, 
 and the man who had lost the sense of right and wrong. 
 " ^^ Every one that doeth evil, hateth the light. Whoso l()ngeth 
 for things unlawful, hateth the righteousness wliicb rcbuketh 
 and punisheth '*." 
 
 fVho pluck off their skin from off them, and their jlesh 
 from off' their bones. He had described the Good Shepherd; 
 now, in contrast, he describes those who ought to be " shep- 
 herds of the people," to feed, guard, direct them, but who 
 were their butchers ; who did not shear them, but flayed them ; 
 who fed on them, not fed them. He heaps up their guilt, act 
 by act. First they flay, i. e. take away their outer goods ; then 
 they break their bones in pieces, the most solid parts, on which 
 the whole frame of their body depends, to get at the very 
 marrow of their life, and so feed themselves upon them. 
 And not unlike, though still more fearfully, do they sin , who 
 first remove the skin, as it were, or outward tender fences of 
 God's graces ; (such as is modesty, in regard to inward purity; 
 outward demeanour, of inward virtue ; outward forms, of in- 
 ward devotion ;) and so break the strong bones of the sterner 
 virtues, which hold the whole soul together; and with them 
 the whole flesh, or softer graces, becomes one shapeless mass, 
 shred to pieces and consumed. So Ezekiel says '^ ; IFoe to the 
 shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves ; should not the shep- 
 herds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat and ye clothe you with 
 the wool, ye kill them that are fed, ye feed not thejiock. The 
 diseased have ye not strengthened, &)C. 
 
 4. Then shall they cry unto the Lord. Then. The Pro- 
 phet looks on to the Day of the Lord, which is ever before his 
 mind. So the Psalmist, speaking of a time or place not ex- 
 pressed, says, ^'' There ivere they in great fear. He sees it, points 
 to it, as seeing what those to whom he spoke, saw not. and the 
 more awefully, because he saw, with super-human and so with 
 certain vision, what was hid from their eyes. The then was 
 not then, in the time of grace, but when the Day of grace should 
 be over, and the Day of Judgment should be come. So of 
 that day,when judgment should set in, God says in Jeremiah^^, 
 Behold I will bring evil upon them which they shall not he able 
 to go forth of, and they will cry unto Me, and I ivill not hear- 
 ken unto them. And David ^^, They cried and there was none to 
 save ; unto the Lord, and He answered them not. And Solo- 
 mon^'; Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall 
 cry himself and shall not be heard. And St. James ^, He shall 
 havejudgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy. The 
 prayer is never too late, until judgment comes -^; the day of 
 grace is over, when the time of judgment has arrived. " They 
 shall cry unto the Lord, and shall not be heard, because they 
 
 ^1 Rom. i. 32. '- The aKparij'! and aKoXatrroi of Aristotle, ^3 S. John iii. 20, 
 
 '^ Dion. •* xxxiv. 2-4. add 5-10. 
 
 16 Ps. liii. 5. '" si. 11. '» Ps. xviii. 41. 19 prov. sxi. 13. =» ii. 13. 
 -' See ah. on Hos. v. 6. p. 34, 5. 
 
 3 B 2
 
 J12 
 
 MIC AH, 
 
 C H RI ST ^^'^'^^ ^"^ ^'-^^^ ^™'" *^^'^™ ^* *'^''^* *''"^' ^^ *^^^^ 
 
 cir. 710. i^ave beliaved themselves ill in their doinj^s. 
 
 ' E'el^- k"' 1,V 5 f Thus saith the Loan <= coneerninir the 
 prophets tlmt make my people err, that 
 
 & 22. 25 
 
 too did not hear tliosc who asked tlieni, and the Lord shall 
 turn His Face from them, because they too turned their face 
 from those who prayed them." 
 
 He will even hide His Face. lie will not look in mercy 
 on those who would not receive His look of grace. Your sinx, 
 He says by Isaiah, liave Itid His fave from you, tlmt He liear- 
 eth wit. b what will that turning; away of the Face be, on 
 which lianii's eternity ! 
 
 As. There is a proportion between the sin and the punish- 
 ment. 1 As I have done, so God hath reyuited ine. Tlwij have 
 behaved themselves ill in their doings, lit. have made their deeds 
 evil. The word rendered doings is almost always used in a bad 
 sense, mighfi/ deeds, and so deeds with a his>;h hand. Not igno- 
 rantly or ne£,lia:ently, nor throujih human frailty, but with set 
 purpose they applied themselves, not to amend but to corrupt 
 their dol/igs, and make them worse. God called to them by all 
 His prophets, make good your doings" ; and they, reversinc; it, 
 used dili2:ence to make their doings evil. " ^ All this they shall 
 suffer, because they were not rulers, but tyrants ; not Prefects, 
 but lions; not masters of disciples, but wolves of sheep; and 
 they sated themselves with Hesh and were fattened, and, as sa- 
 orifices for the slauiihter, were made ready for the punishment 
 of the Lord. Thus far aijaiust evil rulers ; then he turns to the 
 false prophets and evil teachers, who by flatteries subvert the 
 people of God, promisine; them the knowledge of His word." 
 5. The prophets that make My people err, flattering them 
 in their sins and rebellions, promising that they shall go un- 
 pimished, that God is not so strict, will not put in force the 
 judgments He threatens. So Isaiah saith ' ; O my people, they 
 ivhich lead thee, mislead thee; and", the leaders of this people 
 are its misleaders, and they that are led of them are destroyed. 
 And Jeremiah^, The prophets have seen for thee vanity and fol- 
 ly ; and they have not discovered thine iniquity to turn aivay thy 
 captivity, and have seen for thee false burdens and causes of ba- 
 nishment. No error is hopeless, save what is taught in the 
 Name of God. 
 
 That bite with their mouths. The word'' is used of no other 
 biting than the biting of serpents. They were doing real, se- 
 cret evil irhile they cry,\. e. proclaim peace ; they bit, as ser- 
 pents, treacherously, deadlily. They fed, not so much on the 
 gifts, for which they hired themselves to * speak peace when 
 there was no peace, as on the souls of the givers. So God 
 says by Ezekiel ', Will ye pollute JSle among My people for 
 handfuls of barley and for jneces of bread, to slay the souls that 
 should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, 
 by your lying to My peo}}le that hear your lies ? Because with 
 lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have 
 not made sad ; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that 
 he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him 
 life — therefore ye shall see no more vanity nor divine divinations. 
 It was with a show of peace that Joab slew Abner and Ama- 
 sa, and with a kiss of peace Judas betrayed our Lord. 
 
 And he that putteth not into their mouths, they prepare 
 ivar against him, lit. and (i. e. forthwith ; it was all one ; bribes 
 
 ' Judg. i. 7. "As the Jews speak ' measure for measure'." Poc. from Abarb. 
 2 Jer. XXXV. 15. DD-'^i'yD U'ti-.T; here, nn'S'jyo ijnn ^ St. Jer. ■• iii. 12. 
 
 = ix. 16.(15, Heb.) 6 Lam.ii. 1-t. ' -pj Gen. xlix. 17. Num. xxi. 8,9. Prov. xxiii. 32. 
 Eccl. X. 8, 11. Am. v. ly. ix. 3. Hence, Kimchi, " While they proclaim peace, and 
 
 f bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace ; and ^. h ^Tst 
 8 he that putteth not into their mouths, they <'^^-'!^»- 
 even prepare war against liim : 'tuft.Wz. 
 
 6 ''Therefore night skali be unto you,'!^^.^*- 
 
 ^ Is. 8. 20, 22. Ezek. 13. 23. Ze'ch. 13. 4. 
 
 refused, war proclaimed,) they sanctify war against him. Like 
 those of whom Joel prophesied '*', they proclaim war against 
 him in the Name of God, by the authority of (iod which they 
 had taken to themselves, speaking in His Name \\\m had 
 not sent them. So when our Lord fed the multitude, they 
 would take Him by force and make Him a king ; when their 
 hopes were gone and they saw that His Kingdom ivas not of 
 this world, tlieysaid, Crucify Him, crucify Him. Much more 
 tlie Pharisees, who, because He rebuked their covetousness, 
 their devouring widows' houses, their extortion and excess, 
 their making their proselytes more children of hell than 
 themselves, said. Thou blasphemest. So, when the masters 
 of the possessed damsel whom St. Paul freed, ^' saiu that the 
 hope of their gains teas gone, they accused him, that he exceed- 
 ingly troubled their city, teaching customs not lawful to be re- 
 ceived. So Cliristians were persecuted by the Heathen as 
 " '" hating the hiuiian race," because they would not partake 
 of their sins; as "^^atheists," because they worshipped not their 
 gods; as "1* disloyal" and "public enemies," because they 
 joined not in unholy festivals ; as '' unprofitable," because they 
 neglected things not profitable but harmful. So men are now 
 called '• illiberal," who will not make free with the truth of 
 God ; " intolerant." who will not allow that all faith is mat- 
 ter of opinion, and that there is no certain truth ; " precise," 
 "censorious," who will not connive at sin, or allow the levity 
 which plays, motlilike, around it and jests at it. The Church 
 and the Gospel are against the world, and so the world which 
 they condemn must be against them ; and such is the force of 
 truth and holiness, that it must carry on the war against them 
 in their own name. 
 
 (5. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have 
 a vision. In the presence of God's extreme judgments, even 
 deceivers are at length still ; silenced at last by the common 
 misery, if not by awe. The false prophets had promised peace, 
 light, brightness, prosperity ; the night of trouble, anguish, 
 darkness, fear, shall come upon them. So shall they no more 
 dare to speak in the Name of God, while He was by His judg- 
 ments speaking the contrary in a way which all must hear. 
 They abused God's gifts and long-suffering against Himself: 
 they could misinterpret His long-suflering into favor, and 
 they did it : their visions of the future were but the reflections 
 of the present and its continuance ; they thought that because 
 God was enduring. He was indiff"erent, and they took His go- 
 vernment out of His Hands, and said, that what He appeared 
 to be now. He would ever be. They had no other light, no 
 other foresight. When then the darkness of temporal cala- 
 mity enveloped them, it shrouded in one common darkness of 
 night all present brightness and all sight of the future. 
 
 " ^' After Caiaphas had in heart spoken falsehood and a pro- 
 phecy of blood, although God overruled it to truth which he 
 meant not, aU grace of prophecy departed. '^^The law and the 
 prophets prophesied until John. The Sun of Righteousness 
 went down over them, inwardly and outwardly, withdrav\-ing 
 the brightness of His Providence and the inward light of 
 
 flatter the people, it is as if they bit it with the teeth." So A.E. also andTanch.in Poc. 
 » Ezek. xiii. 10. ' lb. la, 22, 23. '» See ab. on .Joel iii. 9. p. 157. " Acts xvi. 
 19-21. 1- Tertullian, Apol. c. 10. and note k. Oxf. Tr. '3 ib. c. 35. ad Scap c 2. 
 "lb. 42, -13. 15 Rup. 16 s.Matt.xi. 13.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 c H lu's T 1 1^*^^ y^ shall not have a vision ; and it shall 
 
 cir. 710. be (lark unto you, f that ye shall not divine ; 
 
 t neh.from i j^j^j ^]^^, j^^p ^\y^i\\ „•„ (\()^vi] over the i)ro- 
 
 a vistuii. ~ * 
 
 t Heh.from phets, and the day shall he dark over 1 hem. 
 
 divining* I ' J 
 
 ' Amos & 9. 7 T\wn shall the seers he ashamed, and 
 the diviners eonfonnded : yea, they shall all 
 
 sinning against the hretliren, and wounding the 
 
 grace." So Christ Himself forewarned ; '^Wallc ivhileye have 
 the light, lest darkness eomeupon you. And so it has remain- 
 ed ever since. - The veil has been on their hearts. The lifijht 
 is in all the world, hnt they see it not ; it arose to liji^hten the 
 Gentiles, hut tiiey iralk on still in darkness. As opposed to 
 holiness, truth, knowledge, Divine cnliji;htening of the mind, 
 hright j;ladness, contrariwise darkness is falsehood, sin, error, 
 blindness of soul, ignorance of Divine things, and sorrow. In 
 all these ways, did the Sun go down over them, so that the 
 darkness weighed heavily upon them. So too the inventors of 
 heresies pretend to see and to enter into the mysteries of 
 Christ, yet find darkness instead of light, lose even what they 
 think they sec, fail even of what truth they seem most to hold ; 
 and they shall be in night and darkness, being c«i< into outer 
 darkness 
 iceak conscience of those for whom Christ died. 
 
 7. They shall cover their lips, lit. the hair of the upper lip * 
 This was an action enjoined on lepers ^, and a token of mourn- 
 ing''; a token then of sorrow and uncleanness. With their lips 
 they had lied, and now they should cover their lips, as men 
 dumb and ashamed. F'or there is no answer of God, as these 
 deceivers had pretended to have. When all things shall come 
 contrary to what they had promised, it shall be clear that God 
 did not send them. And having plainly no answer of God, 
 they shall not dare to feign one then. "^Then not even the 
 devils shall receive power to deceive them by their craft. The 
 oracles shall be dumb; the unclean spirit shall not dare to de- 
 lude." " * All this is spoken against those who, in the Church 
 of Christ, flatter the rich, or speak as men-pleasers, out of 
 avarice, ambition, or any like longing for temporal good, to 
 whom that of Isaiah^ fitteth; the leaders of this people [they 
 who profess to lead them aright^ mislead them, and they that 
 are led of them are destroyed." 
 
 8. .i^nd truly I, [lit. contrariwise /,] i. e. whereas they shall 
 be void and no word in them, I am full of [or filled with) pouter 
 by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and might. The 
 false prophets^" walked after theiroivn spirit. Their only power 
 or influence was from without, from favouring circumstances, 
 from adapting themselves to the great or to the pcojde, going 
 along with the tide, and impelling persons whither they wish- 
 ed to go. The power of the true prophet was inherent, and 
 that by gift of the Spirit of the Lord ^i. And so, while adverse 
 circumstances silenced the false prophets, they called forth the 
 more the energy of the true, whose power was from Him in 
 W^hose Hands the world is. The adverse circumstances to the 
 false prophets were God's judgments ; to the true, they were 
 man's refractoriness, rebellion, oppressiveness. A'oiv was the 
 time of the false prophets ; notv, at a distance, they could 
 foretell hardily, because they could not yet be convicted of 
 untruth. When troidjle came, they went into the inner cham- 
 ber to hide 1- themselves. Micah, amid the wild tumult of the 
 
 1 S.John xii. 35. = 2 Cor. iii. 15. ^ 1 Cor. viii. 12. 
 
 < Kim. * Lev. xiii. 45. « Ezek. xxiv. 17, 22. 7 S. Jer. 8 Dion. 
 
 ' iii.l2. '» Ezek. xiii. 3. " The use of nx before "nn only, shews plainly 
 
 that the objects of the verb are muj, •.;E»Si n3, and that the rs is "with"" " through," as 
 in Gen. iv. 1. i^ 1 Kgs. xxii. 25. '^ Ps. Ixv. 7. " S. Luke .xxiv. 49. 
 
 eover their flips; ''for there is no answer chkTst 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 of God. 
 
 8 ^f But truly I am full of power hy the+ J];;^; ,,.^ 
 spirit of the Lord, and of judi^ment, and'' {^';;„'^^'j<''j, 
 of inii^ht, 'to deelare unto .laeob his trans- ' is. 58. i. 
 i^ression, and to Israel his sin. 
 
 people^^, was fearless, upborne by Him who controls, stills, or 
 looses it, to do His Sovereign Will. 
 
 I am filled with power. So our Lord bade His Apostles ^*, 
 Tarryyv, until ye be endued with jioiver from on hi gh:"^'^ ye shall 
 receive ptnver, after thai the Holy Ghost is come ujion yon; and'" 
 thei) were alljilledwith the floli/ Ghost. The three gifts, pow- 
 er^ judgment, might, arc the fruits of the One Spirit of (iod, 
 through Whom the Prophet was filled with them. Of these, 
 power is always strength residing in the ptn-soii, whether it be 
 the powe?-^^ or might of wisdom '•* of Almighty (iod Himself, or 
 poiverwhich He imparts" or implants-". But it isahvayspower 
 lodged in the person, to be put forth by him. Here, as in 
 St. John Baptist -^ or the Apostles ^', it is Divine power, given 
 through God the Holy Ghost, to accomplish that for which he 
 was sent, as St. Paul was endued with might--, casting doivn 
 imaginations and every high thing that e.valteth itself against 
 the knoiuledge (f God, and bringing into captivity er-ery thought 
 to the obedience of Christ. It is just that, which is so wanting 
 to human words, which is so characteristic of the word of 
 God, power. Judgment is, from its form "', not so much dis- 
 cernment in thehuman being, as "the thing judged," pronounc- 
 ed by God, the righteous judgment of God, and righteous 
 judgment in man conformably therewith-*. It was what, he 
 goes on to say, the great men of his people abhorred-', equity. 
 With this he was filled. This was the substance of his message, 
 right judgment to be enacted by them, to which he was to 
 exhort them, or which, on their refusal, was to be pronounced 
 upon them in the Name of God the .Judge of all, and to be 
 executed upon them. Might is courage or boldness to deliver 
 the message of God, not awed or hindered by any adversaries. 
 It is that holy courage, of which St. Paul speaks -^, that utter- 
 ance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, 
 to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an 
 ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly, as I 
 ought to speak. So too, after the Apostles had been -''straitly 
 threatened that they should speak no tnore in the JVame of Jesus, 
 all, having prayed, were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake 
 the word of God with boldness. " -" Whoso is so strengthened 
 and arrayed, uttereth fiery words, whereby hearers' hearts are 
 moved and changed. But whoso speaketh of his own mind, 
 doth good neither to himself nor others." 
 
 So then, of the three gifts, power expresses the Divine 
 might lodged in him ; Judgment, the substance of what he had 
 to deliver; ruight or courage, the strength to deliver it in face 
 of human power, persecution, ridicule, death. 
 
 " -^ These gifts the Prophets know are not their own, but are 
 
 from the Spirit of God. and are by Him inspired into them. 
 
 Such was the spirit of Elijah, unconquered, energetic, 1ncry, 
 
 of whom it is said, ^° Then stood up Elias as fire, and his tvord 
 
 burned like a lamp. Such was Isaiah ^^, Cry aloud, spare not, 
 
 lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew My people their 
 
 '5 Acts i. 8. '^ lb. ii. i. 17 Ex. xv. 6. xxxii. 11. Num. xiv. 17, &:c. 
 
 '* Job xxxvi. 5. " Deut. viii. 18. Judg. xvi. 5. 9. 19. 2o Deut. viii. 17. and passim. 
 21 S. Luke i. 17. -j 2 Cor. x. 5. 23 BEeTi "-^ As in Prov. i. 3. Is. i. 21. v. 7. 
 
 25 ver. 9. 26 Eph. vi. 19, 2t). " Acts iv. 18, 31. 
 
 28 Dion. 29 Lap. ^o Ecclus. xlviii. 1. " Iviii. 1.
 
 314 
 
 MICA 1 1, 
 
 c hrTst ^ ^^^'^^ *^^*'^' ^ l'™y y*^"' ^^ lieads of the 
 cir. -i(). yionse of Jacob, and princes of the house 
 
 of Israel, that abhor judgment, and per- 
 vert all equity. 
 
 transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Such was 
 Jeremiah 1 ; Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord ; lam 
 wean/ ofholdini^ in. I have set thee for a trier among Mt/ peo- 
 ple, a stro)ig fort ; and thou slialt l<now and try tlieir ways. 
 Such was .lohu Ba])tist, who said,- O generation of vipers, who 
 hath warned yon to Jlee from t/ie tvrath to coine f Sucii was 
 Paul, who, when he ^ reasoned of temperance, righteousness and 
 /ndgment to come, made Fehx tremhlc, thouiih unhclieviiin' 
 and uni;:odIy. Such were the Apostles, who, when they had 
 received the Holy Spirit, * brake, with a niii::]ity hreath, sln])s 
 and kiuRs of Tarshish. Such will he Eiias and Enoch at the 
 end of the world, strivins; aijainst Anti-Clirist, of whom it is 
 said^, Jf any man wifl hurt tlicm, fire proceedeth out of their 
 moutli and devoureth their enemies." 
 
 9. Hear this, I pray you. The Prophet discharcfcs upon 
 them thatjudgment, whereof, Ijy the Spirit of God, he was full, 
 and which they abhorred ; j'udginent ajrainst their perversion 
 of judijnient. He rehukcs the same classes as hefore ^, f/ie 
 lieads and fudges, yet still more sternly. They abhorred judg- 
 ment, he says, as a thing; loathsome and abominable'^, such 
 as men cannot bear even to look upon ; they not only dealt 
 wronscly, hut they perverted, distorted, all equity : " * that so 
 there should not remain even some slijjht justice in the city." 
 Jll equity ; all of every sort, ricfht, rectitude, uprightness, 
 straight-forwardness^, whatever was right by natural con- 
 science or hy God's law, they distorted, like the sophists mak- 
 ing the worse appearthe better cause. Naked violence crushes 
 the individual; perversion of equity destroys the fountain- 
 head of justice. The Prophet turns from them in these words, 
 as one who could not bear to look upon their misdeeds, and 
 who would not speak to them; they pervert; building; her 
 heads, her priests, her prophets ; as Elisha, but for the presence 
 of Jehoshaphat, would not look on Jehoram, nor see him i°. 
 He first turns and speaks of them, as one man, as if they were 
 all one in evil ; 
 
 10 They build up [lit. building, sing.l Zio7i tvifh blood. 
 This may be taken literally on both sides, that, the rich built 
 their palaces, " with wealth gotten by bloodshed ^, by rapine of 
 the poor, by slaughter of the saints," as Ezekiel says ^^, her 
 princes in the midst tliereof are like ivolves, to slied blood, to 
 destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. Or by blood he may mean 
 that they indirectly took away life, in that, through wrong 
 judgments, extortion, usury, fraud, oppression, reducing wages 
 or detaining them, they took away what was necessary to sup- 
 port life. So it is said ^- ; 7'he bread of the needy is their life, 
 tie tliat defraudeth him tliereof is a man of blood. Me that 
 takefh away his nei g hljour'' s living slayetli him, and he that 
 defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a bloodshedder. Or it may 
 be, that as David prayed to God, ^^Build Thou the walls of 
 Jerusalem, asking Him thereby to maintain or increase its 
 well-being, so these men thought to promote the temporal 
 prosperity of Jerusalem by doings which were unjust, oppres- 
 
 'vi. 11, 27. - S. Matt. iii. 7. 3 Acts xxiv. 25. •• Ps. xlviii. 8. 
 
 5 Rev. xi.5. 'lii. 1. V D'DynD, one of the two strongest Hebrew words to 
 
 express abomination, comp. nnyin. <* S. Jer. 
 
 ' Frequent as the ailj. IK", "riglit, upright," is, the abstract .TiB" occurs here only in the 
 O.T.Tlie original force is "straight, ""even, "and hence "straiglit-forw'ardness, rectitude." 
 The idea of "evenness" (which Ges. denies) belonged to the root in early times, the names 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 10 -"They build up Zion with "f blood, 
 and Jerusalem with inicpiity. 
 
 11 "The heads thereof judge for reward, TE'ieif.V.'a?. 
 and 1' the j)riests thereof teach for hire, and x^l',hhll'. 
 
 t Heb. bloods. « Is. 1. 23. Ezek. 22. 12. Hos. 4. 18. ch. 7. ». P Jer. «. 13.' 
 
 sive, crushing to their inferiors. So Solomon, in his dege- 
 nerate days, made the yoke upon his people and his service 
 grievous^*. So ambitious monarchsby large standing-armies 
 or filling their exchequers drain the life-blood of their people. 
 The physical condition and stature of the poorer population 
 in much of France was lowered permanently by the conscrip- 
 tions under the first Ein])cror. In our wealthy nation, the 
 term poverty describes a condition of other days. We have 
 had to coin a new name to designate the misery, offspring of 
 our material prosperity. From our wealthy towns, (as from 
 those of Flanders,) ascends to heaven against us " ^" the cry of 
 'pauperism' i. e. the cry of distress, arrived at a condition of 
 system and of power, and, by an unexpected curse, issuing from 
 the very developement of wealth. The political economy of 
 unbelief has been crushed by facts on all the theatres of 
 human activity and industry." Truly we build np Zion tvitli 
 blood,when we cheapen luxuries and comforts at the price of 
 souls, use Christian toil like brute strength, tempt men to dis- 
 honesty and women to other sin, to eke out the scanty wages 
 which alone our selfish thirst for cheapness allows, heedless of 
 every thing save of our individual gratification, or the com- 
 mercial prosperity, which we have made our god. Most awe- 
 fully was Zio)i built with blood, when the Jews shed the inno- 
 cent Blood, that ^^ t tie Romans m'l^ht not takeaway their place 
 and nation. But since He has said^^, Inasmuch as ye did it not 
 unto one of the least oftliese My brethren, ye did it not unto Me, 
 mui,^'* Saul, Saul, icliy persecutest tliou Me? when Saul was per- 
 secuting Christ's members, then, in this waste of lives and 
 of souls, we are not only wasting the Price of His Blood in 
 ourselves and others, but are anew slaying Christ, and that, 
 from the self-same motives as thosewho crucifiedHim. ^'^IVhen 
 ye sin against the members, ye sin against Christ. Our com- 
 mercial greatness is t/ie price of His Blood "". In the judg- 
 ments on the Jews, we may read our own national future ; in 
 the woe on those through whom the weak brother perishes for 
 whom Christ died-^, we,if we partake or connive at it, may read 
 our own. 
 
 11. The heads thereof judge for reivard. Every class was 
 corrupted. One sin, the root of all evil-^, covetousness, en- 
 tered into all they did. It, not God, was their one end, and 
 so their god. Her heads, the secular authority, who "' i-«^ to 
 fudge according to the law, judged, contrary to the law, for 
 retvards. They sat as the representatives of the Majesty of 
 God, in Whose Name they judged, W^hose righteous Judgment 
 and correcting Providence law exhibits and executes, and 
 they profaned it. To judge for rewards was in itself sin, for- 
 bidden by the law "*. To refuse justice, unless paid for it, 
 was unjust, degrading to justice. The second sin followed 
 hard upon it, to judge luijustly, absolving the guilty, condemn- 
 ing the innocent, justifying the oppressor, legalising wrong. 
 
 And her priests teach for hire. The Lord was tlie jmrtion 
 and inheritance -^ of the priest. He had his sustenance as- 
 
 of thet\vo "plains," Sharon, and Mishor'm Reuben (Deut. iii. 10. iv. 43.) being formed 
 
 from it. 
 
 2 Kgs. iii. 14. 
 
 11 xxii. 27. 1- Ecclus. xxxiv. 21, 22. " Ps. li. 18. 
 
 16 S. John xi. 4S. 
 
 '■0 S.Matt. xxvii.6. 
 
 -^ Ex. xxiii. S. 
 
 " 1 Kgs. xii. 4. 15 Lacordaire, Conferences, T. ii. p. 300. 
 17 S. Matt. XXV. 45. i>< Acts ix. 4. " 1 Cor. viii. 12. 
 
 21 1 Cor. viii. 11. - i Tim. vi. 10. =' Acts xxiii. 3, 
 
 Deut. xvi. 19. -5 Num. xviii. 20. Deut. xviii. 2.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 115 
 
 ch'^rTst *'^^ prophets thereof divine for money: ''yet 
 cii.710. will they lean upon the Loiin, fund say, 
 
 1 Is. 48. 2. Jer. 7. 1. Rom. 2. 17. \ Heb. sayhig. 
 
 h- not the I^ord among us? none evil can chrTst 
 come upon us. "'*"• '^^''- . 
 
 signed him by Go(l,aii(l, tliorcwitli, the duty to ^ puf rli/fcretire 
 behueen lioh/ and iiiiholi/, anil Jiclwccii clean ami n/ir/caii, itiid 
 to teach all the sfati/fcs, whicli (iod had coininiuided. Their 
 lips were to /icep Aiioirleil^e'-. This then, whicli they were 
 bound to gwe, they sold. But "' whereas it is said to the lioly, 
 * Freeh/ i/e have received, freeltj give, these, producing tlie 
 answer of (iod upon the reeeij)t of money, sold the graee of 
 the Lord for a covetous price." Probably too, their sin co- 
 operated with and strengthened the sin of the judges. Au- 
 thorised interpreters of the law, they, to please the wealthy, 
 probably misinterpreted the law. For wicked judges would 
 not have given a price for a righteous interpretation of the 
 law. The civil authorities were entrusted by God with power 
 to execute the law ; the priests were entrusted by Him with 
 the knowledge to expound it. Both employed in its perversion 
 that which (iod gave them for its maintenance. The princes 
 obtained by bribery the misjudgment of the priests and en- 
 forced it; the priests justified the injustice of the Princes. 
 So Arian Bishops, themselves hirelings ^, by false expositions 
 of Scripture, countenanced Arian Emjierors in the oppression 
 of the faithful. " ^ They propped up the heresy by human pa- 
 tronage ;" the Emperors '"'bestowed on" them their " reign of 
 irreligion." The Arian Emperors tried to efface the Council 
 of Nice by councils of Arian Bishops^. Emperors perverted 
 their power, the Bishops their knowledge. Not publicly only 
 but privately doubtless also, these priests taught falsely 
 for hire, lulling the consciences of those who wished to de- 
 ceive themselves as to what God forbade, and to obtain 
 from His priests answers in His Name, which might explain 
 away His law in favor of laxity or sin. So people now try to 
 get ill-advised to do against Giod's will what they are bent on 
 doing; only they get ill-advised for nothing. One who re- 
 ceives money for giving an irresponsible opinion, places him- 
 self in proximate peril of giving the answer which will please 
 those who pay him. "°It is Simony to teach and preach the 
 doctrine of Christ and His Gospel, or to give answers to 
 quiet the conscience, for money. For the immediate object 
 of these two acts, is the calling forth of faith, hope, charity, 
 penitence, and other supernatural acts, and the reception of 
 the consolation of the Iloly Spirit ; and this is, among Chris- 
 tians, their only value. Whence they are accounted things 
 sacred and supernatural ; for their immediate end is to things 
 supernatural ; and they are done by man, as he is an instru- 
 ment of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 " ^^ Thou art permitted, O Priest, to live^^, not to luxuriate, 
 from the altar. '- The tnmith of the ox which treadeth out the 
 com'is not muzzled. Yet the Apostle ^^ abused not the lihcrti/, 
 but ^"^haviiig food and raiment, wdiS thereivith content; ^'"lahoiir- 
 ing night and day, that he might not be chargeable to anybody. 
 And in his Epistles he calls God to witness that he ^lived ho- 
 lily atid without avarice in the Gospel of Christ. He asserts 
 this too, not of himself alone but of his disciples, that he had 
 sent no one who would either ask or receive anything from 
 the Churches'^. But if insome Epistles he expressespleasure, 
 and calls the gifts of those who sent, the ^race^^ of God, he ga- 
 
 ' Lev. X. 10, 11. add Deut. xvii. 10, 11. xxxiii. 10. Hag. ii. 11 sqq. 
 
 ■ Mai. ii. 7. ^ S. Jer. •> S. Matt. x. 8. ^ S. Atli. ag. Arians, i. 8. p. 191. 
 
 and n. c. Oxf. Tr. i* Id. ii. 43. p. 3«. 7 Comic. Arim. § 3. p. 77. 
 
 » Pusey's Councils oftiieClHircli, p. 118-180, S:c. ' Less de Justit.ii.35. deSi- 
 momaDub.13. p. 389. L. '"S. Jer. "ICor. ix. 13. '= lb. 9. " ib. 18. 
 
 thers not for himself but for the '^^ poor saints at Jerusalem. 
 \\\\\.X\\e^(' poor saints were they who of the Jews first believed 
 in (Ihrist, and, being cast out byparents, kinsmen, connections, 
 had lost their possessions and all their goods, the priests of 
 the temple and the j)eople destroying them. Let such poor 
 receive. But if on plea of the poor, a few houses are enrich- 
 ed, and we eat in gold, glass and china, let us either with 
 our wealth change our iiabit, or let not the habit of poverty 
 seek the riches of Senators. What avails the habit of po- 
 verty, while a whole crowd of poor longs for the contents (jf 
 our purse ? Wherefore, _/>>/• our sake who are such, icho build 
 up Zion with blood and Jerusalem by iniquity, iv ho judge for 
 gifts, give anstoers for reivards, divine for money, ixnA thereon, 
 claiming to ourselves a fictitious sanctity, say. Evil will -not 
 come upon us, hear we the sentence of the [.lOrd which follows. 
 Sion and Jerusalem and the mountain of the temple, i. e. the 
 temple of Christ, ,?//«//, in the consummation and the end, 
 when -"love shall iva.v cold and the faith shall be rare-', Zie/j/o;/;- 
 ed as a field and become heaps as the high places of a forest ; so 
 that, where once were ample houses and countless heaps of 
 corn, there should only be a poor cottage, keeping up the 
 show of fruit which has no refreshment for the soul." 
 
 Tiie three places, Zion, Jerusalem, the Temple, describe the 
 whole city in its political and religious aspects. Locally, 
 Mount Zion, which occupies the South-West, "had upon it 
 the Upper city," and "was by much the loftier, and length- 
 ways the straighter." Jerusalem, as contrasted with Zion, 
 represented the lower city, "--supported" on the East by 
 Mount Acra, and including the valley of Tyropoeon. South 
 of Mount Acra and lower than it, at the South Eastern cor- 
 ner of the city, lay Mount ]Moriah or the Mount of the Lord's 
 House, separated at this time from IMount Acra by a deep 
 ravine, which was filled up by the Asmonaean princes, who 
 lowered Mount Acra. It was joined to the N. E. corner of 
 IMount Zion by the causeway of Solomon across the Tyro- 
 poeon. The whole city then in all its parts was to be desolated. 
 
 ^nd her prophets divine for money. The word rendered-', 
 diviiie, is always used in a bad sense. These prophets then 
 were false prophets, her prophets and not God's, which divined, 
 in reality or appearance, giving the answer which their em- 
 ployers, the rich men, wanted, as if it were an answer from 
 God. -* Yet they also judge for rewards, who look rather 
 to the earthly than to the spiritual good ; they teach for 
 hire, who seek in the first place the things of this world, instead 
 of teaching for the glory of God and the good of souls, and 
 regarding earthly things in the second place only, as the sup- 
 port of life. 
 
 And say. Is not the Lord among us ? And after all this, 
 not understanding their sin, as though by their guilt they 
 purchased the love of God, they said in their impenitence, 
 that they were judges, prophets, priests, of God. They do 
 all this, and yet lean on the Lord; they stay and trust, not in 
 themselves, but in God ; good in itself, had not they been evil ! 
 And say, Is not the Lord among us ? 7ione evil can [shall] come 
 upon us. So Jeremiah says-% Trust ye not in lying words 
 
 " 1 Tim. vi. 8. '^ 1 Thess. ii. 6. 2 Thess. iii. 8. le 1 Thess. ii. 10. 
 
 i< 2 Cor. xii. 17, 18. J^ lb. viii. 6. 7. " Rom. xv. 26. -o S. Matt xxiv. 12. 
 
 21 S. Luke xviii. 8. -- Jos. B. J. v. 4. 1. ^ In Prov. xvi. 10. (quoted as an 
 
 exception) it is used of that penetrating acuteness which is like a gift of divination; as we 
 speak of "divining a person's thoughts, purposes," &c, ^ From Dion. ^ vii. 4.
 
 316 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 eir. 710. 
 
 MICAIl, 
 
 12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake he 
 
 ' j)lo\ve(l as a fiehl, " and Jerusalem shall he- ^ jf in s t 
 
 ' Jer. 2C. 18. ch. 1. fi. • Ps. 79. 1. cir. 710. 
 
 ■raying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, The 
 temple (if the Lord are these. " ^ He called them li/hig tvords, 
 as being- ofttimes repeated by the false prophets, to entice the 
 credulous people to a false security" aj^ainst the threatciiini;s 
 of God. As tliouii'li God could not forsake His own ])eoplc, 
 nor cast away Zion which He had chosen for an habitation for 
 Himself, nor profane His own holy place ! Vet it was true that 
 God was among them, in the midst of them, as our Lord was 
 amonj;: the Jews, thou£fh they knew Him not. Yet if not in 
 the midst of His people so as to hallow, God is in the midst 
 of them to punish. But what else do we than these Jews did, 
 if we lean on the Apostolic line, the possession of Holy 
 Scripture, Sacraments, pure doctrine, without setting our- 
 selves to gain to God the souls of our Heathen population ? or 
 what else is it for a soul to trust in having been made a 
 member of Christ, or in any gifts of God, unless it be bring- 
 ing forth fruit luith patience ? "-Learn we too hence, that all 
 trust in the Merits of Christ is vain, so long as any wilfully 
 persist in sin." ""Know we, that God will be in us also, if we 
 have not faith alone, nor on this account rest, as it were, on 
 Him, but if to faith there be added also the excelling in good 
 works. Yor faith without works is dead. But when with the 
 riches of faith works concur, then will God indeed be with 
 us, and will strengthen us mightily, and account us friends, 
 and gladden us as His true sons, and free us from all evil." 
 
 12. Therefore shall Zion for your sake [for your sake shall 
 Zion] be plowed as a field. They thought to be its builders ; 
 they were its destroyers. They imagined to advance or se- 
 cure its temporal prosperity by bloods ; they (as men ever do 
 first or last,) ruined it. Zion might have stood, but for these 
 its acute, far-sighted politicians, who scorned the warnings of 
 the prophets, as well-meant ignorance of the world or of the 
 necessities of the state. They taught, perhaps they thought, 
 that for Zion^s sake they, (act as they might,) were secure. 
 Practical Antinomians ! God says, that, /o?- their sake, Zion, 
 defiled by their deeds, should be destroyed. The fulfilment 
 of the prophecy was delayed by the repentance under Heze- 
 kiah. Did he not, the elders ask ^, fear the Lord and be- 
 sought the Lord, and the Lord rejjented Him of the evil which 
 He had pronounced against them ? But the prophecy re- 
 mained, like that of Jonah against Nineveh, and, when man 
 undid and in act repented of his repentance, it found its ful- 
 filment. 
 
 Jerusalem shall become heaps, [lit. of ruins *,] and the 
 mountain of the house. Mount Moriah, on which the house of 
 God stood, as the high places of the forest, lit. as high places of 
 a forest. It should return wholly to what it had been, before 
 Abraham offered up the typical sacrifice of his son, a wild and 
 desolate place covered with tangled thickets ^. 
 
 • Sanch. 
 pervert, subvert." 
 
 2 J.H.Mich. 
 
 ^ Gen. xxii. 13. "jas 
 
 3 Jer. xxvi. 10. 
 
 6 Lam. V. 18. 
 
 * ["y frorn my, "distort, 
 
 7 !dV.: 
 
 8 Neh. 
 
 ii. 17. 9 lb. iv. 2. [iii. 34. Heb.] '" lb. 10. [iv. 4. Heb.] " 1 Mace, 
 
 iv. 38. '2 S. Matt, xxiii. 32. >3 lb. xxvii. 25. 
 
 " Joseph. B.J. vii. I. 1. li lb. vi. 9. 1. i« Nat. Hist. v. 14. 
 
 17 Phny says of Engedi, " Below these was the town Engadda, second only to Jeru- 
 salem in fertility and palm-groves, now a second funeral pile." [bustuni] N. H. v. 18. 
 See at length in Deyling de JEhss Capit. Grig, in his Obss. sacr. v. 436-41)0. and on the 
 whole subject Lightfoot, Chronicon de Excidio urb. Hieros. Opp. ii. 13t) sqq. Tillenionl, 
 Hist.d.Emp.T.i. RuinedesJuifs;T.ii. Revokes des Juifs; Munter, d. Jud. Krieg unt. 
 Traj. u. Hadr. (translated in Dr Robinson's Bibl. Sacr. T. iii. 1st series)who, however, gives 
 too much weight to very late authorities; Jost, Gesch. d. Judtn, B. xii. 
 IS Ep. 129. ad Dard. fin. 
 
 *^ The Talmud speaks of R. Jose (who lived before Hadrian) " praying in one of the 
 ruins of Jerusalem," but only when on a journey. Berachoth, f. 3. The context implies 
 
 The prophecy had a first fulfilment at its first capture by 
 Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah mourns over it; ''Because of the 
 mountain of Zion which is desolate, foxes rvalk [habitually^] 
 upon it. Nehcmiah said, ^ Ye see the distress that wr are in, how 
 .Jerusalem lieth waste ; and Sanballat mocked at the attempts 
 to rebuild it, as a thing impossible ; '■'/fill they revive the stones 
 out of the heaps of dust, and these too, burned ? and the builders 
 complained ; ^"The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed 
 [lit. sinkefh under them], and there is much dust, and we are not 
 able to build the wall. In the desolation under Antiochus 
 again it is related ; ^^they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the 
 altar profaned, and the gates burned up, and shrubs growing in 
 the courts, as in a forest or in one of the mountains. AVhen, by 
 the shedding of the Blood of the Lord, they ^■filled up the mea- 
 sure of their fathers, and called the curse upon themselves, 
 ^^His Blood be upon us and upon our children, destruction came 
 upon them to the uttermost. With the exception of three tow- 
 ers, left to exhibit the greatness of Roman prowess in destroy- 
 ing such and so strong a city, they " ^^ so levelled to the ground 
 the whole circuit of the city, that to a stranger it presented 
 no token of ever having been inhabited." He " effaced the rest 
 of the city," says the Jewish historian, himself an eyewitness ^'. 
 The elder Pliny soon after, A.D. "if . speaks of it, as a city 
 which had been and was not. "^^ Where was Jerusalem, far 
 the most renowned city, not of Judsea only, but of the East," 
 " 1'' a funeral pile." With this corresponds S. Jerome's state- 
 ment, "18 relics of the city remained for fifty years until the 
 Emperor Hadrian." Still it was in utter ruins i'. The tole- 
 ration of the Jewish school at Jamnia-" the more illustrates 
 the desolation of Jerusalem where there was none. The Tal- 
 mud -1 relates how R. Akiba smiled when others wept at see- 
 ing a fox coming out of the Holy of holies. This prophecy 
 of Micah being fulfilled, he looked the more for the prophecy 
 of good things to come, connected therewith. Not Jerusalem 
 only, but well-nigh all Judaea was desolated by that war, in 
 which a million and a half perished -^, besides all who were 
 sold as slaves. "Their country to which you would expel 
 them, is destroyed, and there is no place to receive them," 
 was Titus' expostulation -' to the Antiochenes, who desired 
 to be rid of the Jews their fellow-citizens. A heathen histo- 
 rian relates how, before the destruction by Hadrian, "-*many 
 wolves and hyaenas entered their cities howling." Titus how- 
 ever having left above 6000-' Roman soldiers on the spot, a 
 civil population was required to minister to their wants. The 
 Christians who, following our Lord's warning, had fled to 
 Pella-^, returned to Jerusalem-', and continued thereuntil 
 the second destruction by Hadrian, under fifteen successive 
 Bishops -8. Some few Jews had been left there -^ ; some very 
 probably returned, since we hear of no prohibition from the 
 
 that they were utter ruins. -" Gittin, f. 56. Jost, iii. 184. Anhang, p. 165. 
 
 "' Maccoth, fin. ''^ Josephus' numbers. ^ Jos. B.J. vii. 5. 2. 
 
 "* Dio Ixix. 14. 
 
 25 " The tenth legion and some troops of horse and companies of foot." (Jos. lb. vii. 
 1. 2.) The legion was 6000 men; the troop, 64; the companv. 100. 
 
 =« Eus. H. E. iii. 5. 27 g. Epiph. de Mens. c. 15. p. 171. 
 
 28 Eus. H. E. iv. 5. " from written documents." 
 
 2' Josephus makes Eleazar say in the siege of Masada, " Jerusalem has been plucked 
 up by the roots, and the only memorial of it remaining is the camp of those who took it, 
 still seated on its remains. Hapless eklers sit by the dust of the temple, and a few wo- 
 men preserved by the enemy for the foulest insolence." B. J. vii. 8. The statement of 
 S. Epiphanius (de Mens. 15. p. 170.) "in that part of Zion which survived after the deso- 
 lation, there were both parts of dwellings around Zion itself and seven synagogues which 
 alone stood in Zion as cabins, one of which survived till the time of Bishop Maximus and 
 theEmperorCon5tantine,asahut in a vineyard," is remarkably contirmed by theindepen-
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 317 
 
 chrTst co«"e heaps, 
 
 cir. 710. t ch. 4. 2. 
 
 and 'the luountaiii of the 
 
 Romans, until after the fanatic revolt under Bar-eochcba. 
 But the fact that when towards the close of Trajan's rclscn 
 they burst out simultaneously, in one wild frenzy ', upon the 
 surroundini; Heathen, all aloiii;;' the coast of Africa, Libya, 
 Cyrene, Etiypt, the Thebais, Mesopotamia, Cyprus-, there 
 was no insurrection ir: Judani, implies that there were no 
 great numbers of Jews there. Jiuhea. aforetime the centre 
 of rebellion, contributed nothing'' to that wide national insur- 
 rection, in which the carnasre w^as so terrible, as thouirh it 
 had been one convulsive eflFort of the Jews to root out their 
 enemies*. Even in the subsequent war under Hadrian, Oro- 
 sius speaks of them, as " ^ layinj;- waste the province of Pales- 
 tine, once their own" as thouf;li they had gained j)ossession 
 of it fronj without, not by insurrection within it. The Jews 
 assert that in the time of Joshua Ben Chananiah (under Tra- 
 jan) "the kingdom of wickedness decreed that the temple 
 should be rebuilt^." If this was so, the massacres towards 
 the end of Trajan's reign altered the policy of the Empire. 
 Apparently the Emperors attempted to extinguish the Jew- 
 isli, as, at other times, the Christian faith. A heathen Author 
 mentions the prohibition of circumcision^. The Jerusalem 
 Talmud - speaks of many who for fear became niicircxmcised, 
 and renewed the symbol of their faith "^when Bar Cozibah 
 got the better, so as to reign 2 \ years among them." The 
 Jews add, that the prohibition extended to the keeping of the 
 sabbath and the reading of the law ^". Hadrian's city, iElia, 
 was doubtless intended, not only for a strong position, but also 
 to efface the memory of Jerusalem by the Roman and Hea- 
 then city which was to replace it. Christians, when persecut- 
 ed, suffered ; Jews rebelled. The recognition of Barcocheba, 
 who gave himself out as the Messiah", by Akibah^- and " all 
 the wise [Jews] of his generation^'," made the war national. 
 Palestine was the chief seat of the war,but not its source. The 
 Jews throughout the Roman world were in arms against their 
 
 dent Latin statement of the Bourdeaux pilgrim. " Within the wall of Zion appears the 
 place where David had his palace ; and of seven synagogues, which were there, one only 
 has remained, the rest are ploughed and sowed." Itin. Hieros. p. 592. ed. VVess. Optatus 
 also mentions the 7 synagogues, (iii. 2. Edd. before Dupin, and all MSS. but one. See p. 
 53.) Before the destruction there are said to have been 480. Echa Rabbathi, f. .52. col. 2. 
 f. 71. col. 4. 1 sub uno tempore, quasi rabie efferati. Ores. L. vii. B. P. vi. 
 
 437. "as if rekindled by some dreadful seditious spirit." Eus. H. E. iv. 2. - Oros. 
 
 Dio mentions Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus ; to these Eusebius adds Mesopotamia ; also in 
 S. Jer. Cbron. A.D. 117. ^ Abulfaraj (A.D. 1270.) mentions an invasion of Juda'a 
 
 by one whom the Egyptian Jews made tlieir king ; and whom " the Roman armies sought 
 and slew with some ten thousands of Jews every where." (Hist. Ar. p. 120. Cbron. Syr. 
 p. 56.) He is too late to be an authority; but his account equally implies that there was'no 
 rebellion i« Judaea. -i Dio speaks of their destroyitig 220,000 Romans and Greeks 
 
 in Cyrene : committing much the same horrors in Egypt; destroying 240,000 in Cyprus. 
 Ixviii. 32. The Jews, ascribing this to Barcocheba, say that they destroyed "in Africa a 
 great multitude of Romans and Greeks like the sand on the sea-shore innumerable," and 
 in Egypt more than 200,000 men; and in Cyprus, so as to leave none. Zemach David, f. 
 27. 1. in Eisenmenger, Entd. Jud. ii. 655. (The coincidence is remarkable, but the state- 
 ment is too late to have any independent value.) Orosius says that " Libya was so deso- 
 lated through the slaughter of its peasants, that, had not Hadrian re-colonised it, it would 
 have remained empty." 1. c. 5 ). c. Sulpicius Severus in like way speaks of the 
 
 Jews " wishing to rebel, essaying to plunder Syria and Palestine." ii. 4. '• Bereshith 
 
 Rabba, c. 64. ^ Spartian Hadrian, c. 14. It was repealed by Antonine. SeeMunter, § 2(i. 
 
 * Yebamiuoth, f. 9. 1. and R. Nissim. (See in Lightfoot, Chron. 0pp. ii. 143.) Bera- 
 choth f. 16. 2. in Jost B. xii. Anhang n. 21. ' R. Nissim in Lightfoot, 1. c. '» Jost xii. 
 9. p. 228. " Eus. H. E. iv. 6. Zemach David, f. 27. in Eisenmenger, Entd. Jud. 
 
 ii. 654. " He was called Bar Cocheba, because he interpreted, as said of himself, a star 
 shall arise out of Jacob, Src. (Num. xxiv. 17.) Shalshalet bakkabbala (in De Voisin on 
 Martini, Pug. Fid. p. 265.) Sanbedrin, Chelek. (Mart. p. 320.) 1= "And R. Akibah 
 
 himself, when he .saw him, said of him. This is the king Messiah, as it is in tbe Echa 
 Rabbathi on the verse Lam.ii. 2." (lb.) "He applied Hagg. ii. 6, 7. to him "(quoting v. 7. 
 "/ will bring lite desire of the nations to Jerusalem "J Sanb. Chelek in Mart. See more 
 of him Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. i. n. ISOl. R. Bechai said, God revealed to him tilings unknown 
 to Moses. (lb.) See also Midrash Cant, in Mart. p. 320. Bartolocci, Bibl. Rabb. p. 274. 
 
 '■' Maiinon. Vad Chazaka, Sanliedrin, c. 11. in Alart. p. 873. " R. Akiba and all the 
 wise of his generation thought that he was the Messiah, until he was slain in his iniqui- 
 ties, and it was known that he was not." This was doubtless the ground of their death, 
 mentioned in the Avoda Zara. See p. 128 sqq. F. C. Ewald, trans. '^ " The 
 
 house as the hi<^h phiees of the forest. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 conquerors'*; and the number of fortresses and villages 
 whic'h they got possession of, and whic-h were destroyed by 
 the Romans'"', shews that their successes wcri' far beyond 
 Judtea. Their measures in Jnda-a attest the desolate condi- 
 tion of the country. They fortified, not towns, but '''«tlie 
 advantageous positions of the country, strengthened them 
 with mines and walls, that, if defeated, they might have places 
 of refuge, and communication among themselves underground 
 unperceived." For two years, (as appears from the coins 
 struck by Barcocheba"',) they had jiossession of Jerusalem. 
 It was essential to his claim to be a temporal .Mcs>iali. They 
 proposed, at least, to '•rebuild their temple''*"' and restore 
 their polity." But they could not fortify Jerusalem. Its siege 
 is just named '»; but the one place which obstinately resisted 
 the Romans was a strong city near Jerusalem =", known before 
 only as a deeply indented mountain tract, Bether-'. Proba- 
 bly, it was one of the strong positions, fortified in haste, at the 
 beginning of the war '^. 
 
 The Jews fulfilled our Lord's words -, / am come in My Fa- 
 ther's Name and ye receive Me not ; if another shall come in 
 his own name, him ye will receive. Their first destruction was 
 the punishment of their Deicide, the crucifixion of Jesus, the 
 Christ ; their second they brought upon themselves by accept- 
 ing a false Christ, a robber '-* and juggler -*. " 580,(J()(J are said 
 to have perished in battle-%" besides " an incalculable number 
 by famine and fire, so that all Judtea was made well-nii,^h a de- 
 sert." The Jews say that "^^no olives remained in Palestine." 
 Hadrian "-^destroyed it," making it " -^ an utter desolation" 
 and " effacing all remains of it." " We read =^" says 8t. Je- 
 rome 5", " the expedition of iElius Hadriauus against'the Jews, 
 who so destroyed Jerusalem and its walls, as, from the frag- 
 ments and ashes of the city to build a city, named from liim- 
 self,.Elia." At this time'' there appears to have been a formal 
 act, whereby the Romans marked the legal annihilation of ci- 
 
 Romans made no account of them at first, but when all Judaea was moved and all the 
 J ews throughout the world were set in commotion and conspired and publicly and private- 
 ly inflicted much evil on the Romans, and many foreigners helped them in hope of gain, 
 and the whole world was shaken, Hadrian sent his best general against them." Dio 
 Cass. Ixix. 13. '^ "50 fortresses of much account and i»85 very well-known vil- 
 
 lages." Dio C. (almost a contemporary) lb. 14. H" lb. 12. 
 
 1? De Saulcy, Numisniatique Judaiqiie, p. 156-70. The coins bear the inscription 
 "the 1st year of the redemption of Jerusalem," " the first " and "second ye.ar of the free- 
 dom of Jerusalem," Two of them are cast upon coins of Trajan and Vespasian. lb. p. 
 162. The Abbe Barthelemi ( App. to Bayer Num. Hebr. Sam. Vind. L. iii. p. ix-xi.) men- 
 tions four of Trajan's, recast by Barcocheba. Bayer mentions coins of the 3rd and 4th 
 year, but anonymous. (Num. Hebr. Sam. p. 171.) De Saulcy supposes these to belong 
 to the revolt against Vespasian, (p. 153, 4.) The title and the name "Simon" which 
 probably Barcocheba took, were doubtless intended to recall the memory of the Maccabees. 
 The Jerusalem Talmud speaks of money with the impress of Ben Coziba, ("son of a lie" as 
 the Jews changed bis name.) Lightfoot, Opp.ii. 143. MrVaux, keeperofthecoins, British 
 Museum, tells me that these coins (of which some are in the British Museum) are cer- 
 tainly genuine. See also Madden, p. 161-182. 
 
 ^^ S. Chrys.adv. Jud. v. 10. He does not apparently mean that they actually began it. 
 " Ens. Dem. Ev. ii. 38. vi. 18. The Samaritan Chronicle (c. 47. ed. Juynboll) gives 
 an account of a siege by Adrian in which it mixes up fables and facts belonging to the 
 siege of Titus, (which it omits,) but I do not see any traces of traditional fact. 
 ■" Eus. H. E.iv.6. 
 
 =1 The Rev. G.Williams, (Holy City, i. 209-13,) has at once identified jB</7ier with the 
 name, Me mountains of Bether, (Cant. ii. 17,) and ruins, " khirhetelyehiid," (ruins of the 
 Jews) neaUhe village still called Bittir near Jerusalem. ( See Robinson's or Kiepert's map.) 
 There are traces both of fortifications and excavations, such as Dio speaks of. Bether as 
 well as Bithrnn beyond Jordan (2 Sam. li. 29.) had their name from deep incisions. (See the 
 use of ini, -J?3, ini. Gen. xv. 10.) -- S. John v. 43. 
 
 -3 "given to murder and robbery." Eus. H. E. iv. 6. See Maimonides above, n. 13. 
 '■i S. Jer. Apol. 2. c. Ruf. §31. He pretended to breathe fire, a trick ascribed by Florus 
 iii. 19. to Eunus author of the servile war in Sicily. Vallars. ^ Diol. c. 
 
 -^ Talm. Jems. Pea 7 in Lightfoot, 1. c. -7 Appian de reb. Syr. 50. 
 
 " Jerusalem, which Ptolemy king of Egypt first destroyed ; then, when rebuilt, Vespasian 
 razed to the ground, and again Hadrian, in my time." ^ S. Chrys. 1. c. § 11. 
 
 2' S. Jerome then took this statement from written history. ^ in Joel i. 4. 
 
 3' The Mishnah places it after the capture of Bether. '' On the 9th of .\b, it was de- 
 creed against our fathers, that they should not enter the land; and the Temple was laid 
 
 3
 
 318 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 tics ; an art esteemed, at this time, one of most extreme scvc- 
 rityi. Wlien a city was to be built, its compasswas marlvedwitJi 
 a ploujjli ; the Ron'ians, wiiere tiiey wiik'd to unmake a city, did, 
 oil rare oeeasions, turn up its soil with the^)ioui;li. Ileneethe 
 saying:, ""A city with a plou!;ii is l)uilt, witii a |)loui;h over- 
 thiwn." The city so plounhed ibrt'eited all civil rij^hts^ ; it 
 was counted to have ceased to be. The symbolical act under 
 Hadrian a])pears to have been directed aijainst both the civil 
 and relijiious existence of their city, since tiie revolts of the 
 Jews were mixed up with their relij;ious hopes. The Jews re- 
 late that both the city ji^enerally, and the Temple, were plouffh- 
 ed. The ploujjhina; of the city was the last of those mourn- 
 ful memories, which made the month Ab a time of sorrow. 
 But the ploughina: of the temple is also especially recorded. 
 S. Jerome says, "*In this [the 5th Month] was the Temple 
 at Jerusalem burnt and destroyed, botli by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 and many years afterwards by Titus and Vespasian ; the city 
 Bether, whither thousands of Jews had fled, was taken ; the 
 Temple was ploughed, as an insult to the conquered race, by 
 Titus Annius Rufus." The Gemara says, " ^ When Turnus, 
 [or it may be " when Tyrant] Rufus ploughed the porch," 
 [of the temple.] Perhaps Hadrian meant thus to declare the 
 desecration of the site of the Temple, and so to make way for 
 the further desecration by his temple of Jupiter. He would 
 declare the worship of God at an end. The horrible desecra- 
 tion of placing the temple of Ashtaroth over the Holy Sepul- 
 chre ^ was probably a part of the same policy, to make the 
 Holy City utterly Heathen. The "Capitoline^" was part of 
 its new name in honor of the Jupiter of the Roman Capitol. 
 Hadrian intended, not to rebuild Jerusalem, but to build a 
 new city under his own name. " -The city being thus bared 
 of the Jewish nation, and its old inhabitants having been 
 utterly destroyed, and an alien race settled there, the Ro- 
 man city which afterwards arose, having changed its name, 
 is called .^lia in honor of the Emperor jElius Hadrianus." 
 It was a Roman colony '', with Roman temples, Roman am- 
 phitheatres. Idolatry was stamped on its coins ^. Hadrian ex- 
 chidedfrom it, on the North, almost the whole of Bezethaor 
 the new city, which Agrippa had enclosed by his wall, and, 
 on the South, more than half of Mount Zion^", which was 
 left, as Micah foretold, to be ploughed as a field. The Jews 
 themselves were prohibited from entering the Holy Land^^, so 
 that the heathen Celsus says, '"- they have neither a clod nor 
 a hearth left." .-Elia, then, being a new city, Jerusalem was 
 spoken of, as having ceased to be. The Roman magistrates, 
 even in Palestine, did not know the name ^^. Christians too 
 used the name JEWa ^^ and that, in solemn documents, as the 
 Canon of Nice ^'. In the 4th century the city was still called 
 .^lia by the Christians'^, and, on the first Mohammedan 
 
 desolate tbe first and second time; and Bether was taken; and the city was ploughed." 
 Taanith, c. 5. § 6. .Mishna, ii. p. 382. ed. Surenhus. Rashi regards this as a fulfilment 
 of Jer. xxvi. 18. and of this place. lb. p. 383. col. 2. Buxtorf quotes also Yotseroth, (Jew- 
 ish hymns,) c. Comm. f. 35. 1. for the fact. Lex. Rabb. p. 916. 
 
 ^ Seneca de clem. i. 26. Deyl. 2 Isidor. Ixxv. I. &c. 
 
 3 " If the usufnict [annual produce] be left to a city, and the plough be passed over 
 it, (as befel Carthage,) it ceases to be a city, and so by a sort of death it ceases to have the 
 usufruct." Modestinus in 1. Si usus fructus 21. fi'quibus modis usus fructus amittatur. L. 
 
 ■* On Zech. viii. Ifi, 17. S. Jerome has the same order as the Talmud. 
 
 ' Taanith, I.e. The Jerusalem Talmud has "the temple" for " the porch." 
 
 6 Eus. Vit. Const, iii. 26. Socr. i. 17. Soz. ii. 1. S.Jer. Ep. 58, ad Paul. §3. 
 
 t Col. /El. Capitol, i.e. Colonia jElia Capitolina. 8 Eus. H. E. iv. 6. 
 
 ' See Roman coins in De Saulcy, p. 171-187. from Hadrian, A.D. 136. to Hostilian, 
 A. D. 250. "> See Pierotti's excellent map of Jerusalem, (also re- 
 
 duced in his " Jerusalem explored." n. 3.) 
 
 " Eusebius, I.e. affirms this on the authority of Aristo of Pella, a contemporary ; Ter- 
 tullian says, " they are not peniiitted, even in the right of strangers, to greet their native 
 land so much as with the sole of their foot." (Apol. c. 21. p. 45. Oxf. Tr. and adv. Jud. 
 c. 13.) S.Jerome affirms tlie same, (on Is. vi. 11-13. and on Dan. ix. end.) Celsus urges 
 the fact of their total expulsion as a proof of God's breach of promise ; (in Orig. c. Cels. 
 viii, 69.) and Origen agrees as to the fact. S. Justin speaks of their expulsion (as a na- 
 
 coin '^in the Jth century, it still bore that name. A series 
 of writers speak of the desolation of Jerusalem. In the next 
 century Origen addresses a Jew, " '"^ If going to the earthly 
 city, Jerusalem, thou shalt find it overthrown, reduced to 
 dust and ashes, weep not, as ye now do." "'''' From that 
 [Hadrian's] time until now, the extremest desolation hav- 
 ing taken possession of the place, their once renowned bill of 
 Zion — now no wise diHtring from the rest of the country, is 
 cultivated by Romans, so that we ourselves have with our 
 own eyes observed the place ploughed by oxen and sown all 
 over. And Jerusalem, being inhabited by aliens, has to this 
 day the stones gathered out of it, all the inhabitant s. in our own 
 times too, gathering up the stones out of its ruins for their 
 private or public and common buildings. You may observe 
 with your own eyes the mournful sight, how the stones from 
 the Temple itself and from the Holy of holies have been taken 
 for the idol-temples and to build amphitheatres." "^" Their 
 once holy place has now come to such a state, as in no way 
 to fall short of the overthrow of Sodom." S. Hilary, who had 
 been banished into the East, says, "-'The Royal city of David, 
 taken by the Babylonians and overthrown, held not its queenly 
 dignity under the rule of its lords; but, taken afterwards and 
 burnt by the Romans, it now is not." S. Cyril of Jerusalem, 
 Bishop of the new town, and delivering his catechetical lec- 
 tures in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, pointed out to his 
 hearers the fulfilment of prophecy ; "--The place [Zion] is now 
 filled with gardens of encumbers." "If they [the Jews] plead 
 the captivity," says S. Athanasius ^^, " and say that on that 
 ground Jerusalem is not." "The whole world, over which they 
 are scattered," says S. Gregory of Nazianzum -*, "is one mo- 
 nument of their calamity, their worship closed, and the soil of 
 Jerusalem itself scarcely known." 
 
 It is apparently part of the gradual and increasing fulfil- 
 ment of God's word, that the ploughing of the city and of the 
 site of the Temple, and the continued cultivation of so large 
 a portion of Zion, are recorded in the last visitation when its 
 iniquity was full. It still remahiii ploughed as a field. "-°At 
 the time I visited this sacred ground, one part of it supported 
 a crop of barley, another was undergoing the labour of the 
 plough, and the soil, turned up, consisted of stone and lime 
 filled with earth, such as is usually met with in the founda- 
 tions of ruined cities. It is nearly a mile in circumference." 
 "-^On the S. E. Zion slopes down, in a series of cultivated 
 terraces, sharply though not abruptly, to the sites of the Kings' 
 gai'dens. — Here and round to the S. the whole declivities are 
 sprinkled with olive trees, which grow luxuriantly among the 
 narrow slips of corn." Not Christians only, but Jews also 
 have seen herein the fulfilment upon themselves of Micah's 
 words, spoken now " 26 centuries ago." 
 
 tion) after their defeat, (Dial. c. 110.) so that, when he speaks of Jerusalem only, (Apol. 
 i. 47.) it may have been that he spoke of it alone, as sutlicing for the prophecy which he 
 was explaining. The prohibition was subsequently limited to Jerusalem, with the well- 
 known concession to behold it without entering, one day in the year, to weep. Ilin. Hi- 
 eros. p. 591. S. Hil. on Ps. 58. § 7. S. Jer. on Zeph. i. 15, 16, S:c. Both S. Chrysostom 
 and S. Augustine speak of tlie .Jews, as excluded from Jerusalem. *' Dost thou for thy 
 sins. O Jew, remain so long out of Jerusalem ? " S. Chrys. adv. Jud. vi. 2. *' They were 
 excluded from the place where they crucified Christ : now that place is full of Christians 
 who praise Him ; it hath no Jew." S. Aug. in Ps. Ixii. n. 18. " Now thou seekest a Jew 
 in the city of Jerusalem, and findest not." in Ps. cxxiv. n. 3. ^- L. c. 
 
 '3 Eus. de mart. Pal. c. 1 1 . '< " In the suburbs of what is now jElia." Eus. 
 
 H.E.ii. 12. addvi. 20. demart. Pal. c.ll. (Deyl.) '*Can.vii. 
 
 ^^ *' From that [Hadrian's] time until now, it is called j^lia from the name of him 
 wlio conquered and destroyed it. " (S. Chrys. adv. Jud. v. 11. T. i. p. 643.) "Which is now 
 JE\ia. " S. Jer. Ep. 129. ad Dard. § 5. 
 
 '7 De Saulcy, p. 188. '^ jn Jos. Horn. xvii. 1. 0pp. ii. 438. 
 
 '9 Eus. Dem. Ev. viii. 8. p. 406. ^o ib. v. 23. p. 250. 
 
 -1 S. Hil. in Ps. 131. « 18. - Lect. xvi. 9. § 18, see Oxf. Tr. 
 
 -3 de Incam. n. 39. T. i. p. 81. Ben. ■* Orat. 6. § 18. Ben. 
 
 '' Richardson's Travels, p. 359. quoted by Keith on Prophecy, p. 257. 
 2« Porter, Hdbook, p. 92.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 319 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I The glory, 3 peace, 8 kingdom, 1 1 and victor;/ 
 of the church. 
 
 V. I. Silt [y/iid] ill tlic Inst days it shall come to pass. 
 God's promises, i;'oo(lncss, trutli, fail not. He witlidrawcth 
 His Presence from those wlio receive Him not, only to jjive 
 Himself to those who will receive Him. Mercy is tiie sequel 
 and end of chastisement. Micaii tlien joins on this i^rcat pro- 
 phecy of future mercy to the j)reccdinii; woe, as its issue in 
 the order of (lod's Will. And it shall he. He fixes the mind 
 to some ji^rcat tliinii; which shall come to pass ; it shall be. 
 Then follows, in marked reference to the preceding priva- 
 tions, a superahundance of mercy. For the mountain of the 
 house, which should he as a forest and which was left unto 
 them desolate, there is the mountain of the Lord's house esta- 
 blished ; ior the heap of dust and t lie ploughed field, there is the 
 flowing'-in of the Gentiles; for the night m\A darkness, \\\'At 
 there shall he no visioii, there is the fulness of revelation ; for 
 corrupt judgment, teaching, divining, a law from God Him- 
 self going forth through the world ; for the building of Jeru- 
 salem with blood, one universal peace. 
 
 In the last days, lit. the end ^ of the days, i. e. of those days 
 which are in the thoughts of the speaker. Politically, there 
 are many beginnings and many endings ; as many endings as 
 there are beginnings, since all human polity begins, only to end, 
 and to be displaced in its turn by some new beginning, which 
 too runs its course, only to end. Religiously, there are but 
 two consummations. AH time, since man fell, is divided into 
 two halves, the looking forward to Christ to come in humility ; 
 the looking forward to His Coming in glory. These are the 
 two events on which man's history turns. To that former peo- 
 ple the whole period of Christ's kingdom was one future, the 
 fulness of all their own shadows, types, sacrifices, services, 
 prophecies, longings, being. The end of their days was the 
 beginning of the new Day of Christ : the coming of His Day 
 was necessarily the close of the former days, the period of 
 the dispensation which prepared for it. The Prophets then 
 by the words, the end of the days, always mean the times of 
 the Gospel". The end of the days is the close of all which 
 went before, the last dispensation, after which there shall be 
 no other. Yet this too has last days of its own, which shall 
 close God's kingdom of grace and shall issue in the Second 
 Coming of Christ; as the end of those former days, which 
 closed the times of " the law," issued in His First Coming. 
 We are then at once living in the last times, and looking on 
 to a last time still to come. In the one way St. Peter speaks^ 
 of the last times, or the end of the times*, in which Christ was 
 manifested for us, in contrast icith thefoundations of the world, 
 before which He uhis foreordained. And St. Paul contrasts 
 God's ^speaking to the fathers in the Prophets, and at the end 
 of these days^ speaking to us in the Son; and of our Lord com- 
 ing ''at the end, consummation, of the times ^, to put atuay sins 
 
 ' Gesenius adduces, as the single instance in which nnnx is to mean "sequel," Is. xlvi. 
 10, where "the end" answers to "the beginning," mnx to n'fui. It is tlie end of the 
 year, Deut. xi. 12 ; the fTidot a person, Pr. v. 4, Ps. xxxvii. 37 ; ot a nation, Jer. xxxi. 17; ot 
 a thing, i.e. its issue, Pr. xxiii.32 ;"theenrfof the sea," Ps. cxxxix. 9. The phrase is ren- 
 dered rightly hy the Ch. N'Dl' "JIC. The ett' so-xhtou topi/ x/""""" of S. Paul S. Peter and 
 S. Jude is nearly the translation of D'D'n n'"inK3. 
 
 - Hos.iii.5. Is.ii. 2. Jer. xxiii. 2(J. xxx. 24. xlviii.47. xlix. 30. Ezek. xxxviii. 16. Dan. 
 x. H. Daniel uses it in Chaldee. (ii. 28.) Nebuchadnezzar's dream which he is interpreting 
 ended in the kingdom of Christ. On the Jewish agreement, see on Hos. iii.5. p. 25. n. 10. 
 
 3 1 Ep. i. 20. ■• According to the reading stt' iay^arov twu -xpouwii, preferred 
 
 by Alter and Tischendorf. = Heb. i. 1. 
 
 * tir' i<TX"'roii Tu)u iintpwv toutiuu, preferred by Griesbach, Matthiae, Scholz, Tisch. 
 
 ? Heb. ix. 26. * eiri avuTiXtin twii alwiiMu, comp. S. Matt. xiii. 40. xxiv. 3. 
 
 B 
 
 UT 'in the last days it shall come chuTst 
 to pass, that the mountain of the ""■ ^^°- 
 
 house of the Lord shall be established in Vzekirw'^' 
 
 Ezek. 17.22, 23 
 
 by the sacrifice of Himself ; and says that the things which be- 
 tel the Jews '■' were written for oar admonition, unto whom the 
 ends of the times'^^ [i.e. of those of tlic former people of whom 
 he had been speaking] are come; and St. John sjieaks of this as 
 ^' the last time. In the other way, they contrast the last days, 
 not with the times before them hut with their own, and then 
 plainly they are a last and distant j)art of this their own last 
 time. ^' The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times 
 some shall depart from the faith : " In the last days perilous 
 times shall come : i* There shall come at the end of the days scof- 
 fers : 15 They told yon that there should he mockers in the last 
 time. The Jews distributed all time between "this world" and 
 "the coming world"'," including under "the coming world " 
 the time of grace under the Messiah's reign, and the future 
 glory. To us the names have shifted, since this present 
 worldly is to us the kingdom of Christ, and there remains no- 
 thing further on this earth to look to, beyond what God has al- 
 ready given us. Our future then, placed as we are between the 
 two Comings of our Lord, is, of necessity, beyond this worW. 
 The mountai/i of the house of the Lord shall be [abidingly] 
 established. He does not say merely, it shall be established. 
 Kingdoms may be established at one time, and then come to an 
 end. He says, it shall be a thing established^'-'. His saying 
 is expanded hy Daniel ; ~" In the days of these kings shall the 
 God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall not be destroyed 
 for ever, and it shall abide for ever. The house cjf the Lord was 
 the centre of His worship, the token of His Presence, the 
 pledge of His revelations and of His abiding acceptance, pro- 
 tection, favor. All these were to be increased and conti- 
 nuous. The image is one familiar to us in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. People were said to go up "^ to it, as to a place of dig- 
 nity. In the Psalm on the carrying of the Ark thither, the 
 hill of God is compared to the many-topped mountains of Ba- 
 san^-, (the Hermon-peaks which bound I3asan,) and so declared 
 to be greater than they, as being the object of God's choice. 
 The mountain where God was worshipped rose above the 
 mountains of idolatry. Ezekiel, varying the image, speaks 
 of the Gospel as an overshadowing cedar -^ planted by God 
 tipon an high mountain and an eminent, in the mountain of the 
 height of Israel, under which should dwell all fowl of every 
 wing ; and, in his vision of the Temple, he sees this, the image 
 of the Christian Church, -* upon a very high mountain. Our 
 Lord speaks of His Apostles and the Church in them, as -'a city 
 set upon a hill which cannot be hid. The seat of God's worship 
 was to be seen far and wide ; nothing was to obscure it. It, 
 now lower than the surrounding hills, was then to be as on the 
 summit of them. Human elevation, the more exalted it is, 
 the more unstable is it. Divine greatness alone is at once 
 solid and exalted. The new kingdom of God was at once to 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. X. 11. 10 T-aTt\n Tan/ aiiuyoji'. H 1 Ep. ii. 18. 
 
 12 1 Tim. iv. 1. ttf MCTTf pots xpoyois. '^ 2 Tim. iii. 1. Iv irrxa'rai^ rjfxipati. 
 
 i"* 2 Pet. iii. 3. et' itrxaTou Ttov n^Epoii/, preferred by Griesb., Alter, Matthsei, Scholz. 
 
 •^ Jude 18. ill ECT'x"'''''' x/'oyu) or s-rr* iiTxtLTov Tou xpvifou, preferred by Scholz, Tisch. 
 
 ■6 nin cSy and Kin cW- See Schbttg. de Messia i. 2. 4. p. 23-27. 
 
 •7 S. Matt. xiii. -lu. Eph.i. 21. Tit. li. 12. 
 
 IS S. Mark X. 30. S. Luke xviii. 30. xx. 35. Eph. 1. c. Heb. vi. 5. Attention to this 
 language of Holy Scripture and the distant future which it looks on to, should have saved 
 misbelievers from imagining that Apostles erroneously expected a near end of the world. 
 
 '5 p3J n'.T, as in 1 Kgs.ii.45, of thethroneof David. "Itisan expression denoting con- 
 tinuance and perpetuity, that it shall continually remain on its settlement." Poc. from 
 Abarb. -f ii. 44. -> See on Hos. i. 11. p. 12. 
 
 ~ Ps. Ixviii. 16, 17. ■' xvii. 22, 23. " xl. 2. " S. Matt. v. 14. 
 
 3 c 2
 
 S20 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrTst t'i« top of the mountains, and it shall be 
 cir. no. exnlted above the hills; and people shall 
 
 flow unto it. 
 
 be exalted above the hills, and established on the top of the moun- 
 fniiis ; exalted, at once, above every tliinij human, and yet 
 established, stroiiii' as the mountains on wliich it rested, and 
 
 unassailahie. unconquerahle, seated secure aloft, l)et\veen hea- 
 ven whence it came and to which it tends, and earth, on which 
 it just rests in the sublime serenity of its majesty. 
 
 The imairc sets forth the supereminence of the Lord's House 
 above all tilings earthly. It does not define wherein that great- 
 ness consists. The flowing in of the nations is a fruit of it i. 
 The immediate object of their coming is explained to be,to 
 learn to know and to do tiie will of God -. But the newre- 
 vclation docs not form all its greatness. That greatness is 
 from the Presence of God, revealing and evermore teaching 
 His Will, ruling, judging, rebuking, peacemaking ^ "*The 
 motoitain of the Lord\s Honse was then exalted above the hills 
 by the bodilv Presence of Christ, when He, in the Temple built 
 on that mountain, spake, preached, worked so many miracles ; 
 as, on the same ground, Haggai saith ", the glo}-i/ of this lat- 
 ter hoicse shall be greater than the '^hn-y oi' the fontwr." '"^This 
 mountain, the Church of Christ, transcends all laws, schools, 
 doctrines, religions. Synagogues of Jews and Philosophers, 
 which seemed to rise aloft among men, like mountain-tops, 
 yea, whatever under the sun is sublime and lofty, it will over- 
 pass, trample on, subdue to itself." 
 
 Even Jews have seen the meaning of this figure. Their 
 oldest mystical book explains it ^. '■^And it shall be in the last 
 days, when namely the Lord shall visit the daughter of Jacob, 
 then shall the mountain of the house of the Lord be firmly esta- 
 blished, i.e. the Jerusalem which is above, which shall stand 
 firmly in its place, that it may shine by the light which is 
 above. (For no liglit can retain its existence, except through 
 the light from above.) For in that time shall the light from 
 above shine sevenfold more than before ; according to that *, 
 3Ioreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun ; 
 and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven 
 days, in the day that the Lord bincleth up the breach of His 
 people and healeth the stroke of their iv(mnd." Another, of 
 the dry literal school, says^, " It is well known that the house 
 of the Temple is not high. The meaning then is, that its fame 
 shall go forth far, and there shall return to it from all quar- 
 ters persons with ofterings, so that it shall be, as if it were on 
 the top of all hiUs, so that all the inhabitants of the earth 
 should see it." 
 
 Some I'^'interpret the mountain to be Christ, Who is called the 
 ifoc/f '\ on the confession of Whom, God-Man, the house of 
 the Lord, \. e. the Church is built^-, the precious Coi-ner-stone^^, 
 which is laid, beside which wo foundation can be laid^*; the 
 great ?ho«h/«/?j, of which UanieP^ prophesied. It is firmly 
 established, so that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against 
 the C//M/-cA. being built thereon ; exalted above hills and moun- 
 tains, i.e.al)ove all besides, greater or smaller, which has any 
 eminence; for He in truth is ^'^ highly exalted and hath a 
 Name above every name, being ^'^ at the Right Hand of God in 
 the heavenly places, far above all principality and poiver and 
 
 • iv.1,2. -iv. 2. Mv. 3, 4. •< Dion. ^ ii. 9. 
 
 « Lap. ' Zohar, f. 93. s is. xxx. 26. » Aben Ezra. 
 
 '» Tin. c. Jud. i. 3. Orig. c. Cels. ii. .33. S. Cypr. Test. ii. 18. Euseb. Eel. Proph. 
 iv. 1. p. 171. ed. Ox. S.Jerome bere, S.Aug, de Civ. D. xviii. 30. Ps. Basil on Is. 
 " ICor. X.4-G. '- S. Matt. xvi. 18. see Note Q. onTertull. p.492sqq. Oxf. Tr. 
 '3 Is. xxviii. 16. IPet.ii. e.Eph. ii. 2U. h ICor. iii. 11. 
 
 2 And many nations shall come, and dfiusT 
 say, Come, and let us go up to the moun-__£lLli2L_ 
 tain of the Lord, and to the house of the 
 
 inight a7id dominion, and every name that is named, not only iti 
 this world but also in that which is to come ; and all things are 
 under His Feet. And this for us, in that He, the Same, is 
 the Head over all things to the Church which is His Jiodi/, 
 the fulness of Him that fillet h all in all. "i^He is God and Man, 
 King and Priest, King of kings, and a Priest aljiding for ever. 
 Since then His Majesty reacheth to the Right Hand of God, 
 neither mountains nctr hills, Angels nor holy men, reach there- 
 to ; for '^ to which of the Angelssaid Godat any time, Sit thou on 
 My Right Hand?" 
 
 "-" Ah)ft then is the Church of God raised, both in that its 
 Head is in heaven and the Lord of all, and that, on earth, it 
 is not like the Temple, in one small people, but ~'^set on a hill 
 that it cannot be hid, or remain unseen even to those far from it. 
 Its doctrine too and life are far above the wisdom of this 
 world, shewing in them nothing of earth, but arc above ; its 
 wisdom is the knowledge and love of God and of His Son Je- 
 sus Christ, and its life is hid with Christ in God, in tliose who 
 are justified in Him and hallowed by His Spirit." In Him, 
 it is lifted above all things, and with the eyes of the mind 
 beholdeth (as far as may be) the glory of God, soaring on 
 high towards Him Who is the Author of all being, and, tilled 
 with Divine light, it owneth Him the Maker of all. 
 
 A lul people, [peoples, ivdt'wns,] shall Jiow unto \\\t.npon^ 
 it. A mighty tide should set in to the Gospel. The word-^ is 
 appropriated to the streaming in of multitudes, such as of old 
 poured into Babylon, the merchant-empress of the world ^^. 
 It is used of the distant nations who should throng in one con- 
 tinuous streaiii into the Gospel, or of Israel streaming together 
 from the four corners of the world"*. So Isaiah foretells-^, Thy 
 gates shall be open continually; they shall not he shut day nor 
 night ; that they may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, 
 and that their kings may be brought. These were to flow upon 
 it, perhaps so as to cover it, expressing both the multitude and 
 density of the throng of nations, how full the Church should 
 be, as the swollen river spreads itself over the whole champaign 
 country, and the surging flood-tide climbs up the face of the 
 rock which bounds it. The flood once covered the highest 
 mountains to destroy life ; this flood should pour in for the 
 saving of life. " -^ It is a miracle, if waters ascend from avalley 
 and flow to a mountain. So is it a miracle that earthly 
 nations should ascend to the Church, whose doctrine and life 
 are lofty, arduous, sublime. This the grace of Christ efFecteth, 
 mighty and lofty, as being sent from heaven. As then wa- 
 ters, conducted from the fountains by pipes into a valley, in 
 that valley bound up and rise nearly to their original height, 
 so these waters of heavenly grace, brought down into vallies, 
 i. e. the hearts of men, make them to bound up with them 
 into heaven and enter upon and embrace a heavenly life." 
 
 2. And many nations shall come. Isaiah -^ added the 
 word all to Micah's prophecy. So our Lord said, -* This 
 Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for 
 a ivitness unto all nations ; and the elect are to be gathered 
 out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues ~^. All 
 
 Dan. ii.35. '^ Phil. ii. 9. 
 
 19 Heb.i.13 
 
 =' S. Matt. V. 14. 
 =3 Jer. Ii. a. 
 
 -' Is. Ix. 11. add Rev __._^. 
 
 =3 S. Matt. xxiv. 14 
 
 17 Eph.i. 20-23. 
 
 'T from S. Cyr. 
 
 from Rup. 
 ely. 
 
 ~- i^n: (from -rj river, stream) is used only figurativ 
 •^ lb. xxxi. 12. It is used in these places onlv, and Is. li. 2. 
 IV. xxi. 25, 26. -« Laj). __ =7 Is. ii. 2. 
 
 =9 Rev. vii. 9.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 321 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of 
 
 nations shall Jlow into it. The all mifjlit be many or few. 
 Both prophets say tliat those all shoukl be many. Jndah 
 probably knew already of many. 'J'Ik- history of Genesis 
 g-ave tbem a wide-expandinp; knowledi^e of the enlarp^ement 
 of mankind after the th)0(l, in Euroj)e, Asia. Africa, as they 
 then existed in their nations. The sons of Japhet had al- 
 ready spread over the whole coast of our Western sea, and 
 far North; the Cimmerians', or Cwmry, Scandinavians-, 
 Carpathians'', (probably Celts,) Armenians*, (includiii!; the 
 kindred Phryjijians,) Scythians", Medes, lonians", iEolians'', 
 Iberians*, Cypriotes", Dardani'", Tybarenes'', Moschi'-, and 
 the Turseni ^', or perhaps the Thracians. On the East, the 
 sons of Shem had spread in Elam, Asshur, Arrapachitisi'; 
 they occupied the intervening^ tract of Aram ; in the N. W. 
 they reached to Lydia. Southward the sons of Joktan were in 
 Arabia. Micah's hearers knew how, of the sons of Ham, Cash 
 had spread far to the S. E. and S. from Babylonia to ^Ethiopia; 
 Egypt they remembered too well, and, beyond it, they knew 
 of the far-scattered tribes of the Libyans, who extended along; 
 the coast of Africa. Phoenician trade filled up this great out- 
 line. They themselves had, in Solomon's time, traded with 
 India^'; about this time, we know that they were acquainted 
 with the furthest East, China '^. Such was the sight before 
 the human mind of the Prophet ; such the extent of the na- 
 tions whom his people knew of. Some were the deadly enemies 
 of his people ; some were to be its conquerors. He knew that 
 the ten tribes were to be abidingly tuanderers among the na- 
 tions^'', despised by them'^; "a people, the strangers and so- 
 journers of the whole world '"." He knew many of those na- 
 tions to be sunk in idolatry, viciousness ; proud, contemptuous, 
 lawless; he saw them tixed in their idolatries. All people ivill 
 ivalk every one in the name of his god. But he saw what eye of 
 man could not see, what the will of man could not accomplish, 
 that He, Whom now Judah alone partially worshipped, would 
 turn the hearts of His creatures to Himself, to seek Him, not in 
 their own ways, but as He should reveal Himself at Jerusalem. 
 Micah tells them distinctly, that those who should believe 
 would be a great multitude from many nations. In like way 
 Isaiah expresses the great multitude of those for whom Christ 
 should atone. ""He bare the sin of ma?iy. ~^By knowledge of 
 Him shall My righteous Servant make many righteous. And 
 our Lord Himself says; "--The Son of man came to give His 
 life a ransom for many. "^ This is My Blood — ichich is shed 
 for many for the remission of sins. In Rlicah's time not one 
 people, scarcely some poor fragments of the Jewish people, 
 went up to worship God at Zion, to call to remembrance His 
 benefits, to learn of Him. Those who should thereafter wor- 
 ship Him, should be majiy natioiis. 
 
 And say, exhorting one another, in fervor and mutual 
 love, as Andrew exhorted his brother Simon, and Philip Na- 
 thanael, and the woman of Samaria those of her city, to come 
 to Christ : and so all since, who have been won by Him, by 
 word or example, by preaching or by deed, in public or in pri- 
 
 ' Gomer. - Ashkenaz, Scandinavia, Scanzia in Jornandes. Knobel, Volkertafel 
 d. Genesis, p. 35. 3 Kiphatli, from wliom also tlie Monies Riplijei are named. 
 
 * Togarraah. ' Magog. * Javan. 
 
 7 Elishah, AioXtls or AiXeit, Knobel ; Elis, Booh. iii. 4. 
 
 8 Tarshish. "Tarseis, whence the Iberians." Eus. (Tuch ad Ice.) 9 Chittim 
 l» Dodanim. " Tubal. i= Meshech. 
 
 ■^ Tiras, Tyrseni, (Tuch.) Thracians, Boch. iii. 2. Knob. n Arphaxad, Gen. x. 22. 
 
 '' As appears from the Tamul name for the peacock '?B Tarn, tdgai 1 Kgs. x. 22; the 
 
 Sanskrit or Malabar name for the ape, (jip kapi ; (lb. see Gcs.) which came with the crea- 
 
 his ways, and we will walk in his paths 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 71U. 
 
 vate, bear along with them others to seek Him Whom they 
 themselves have found. 
 
 Let us go up, leaving the lowness and carthliness of their 
 former conversation, and mounting upward on high where 
 Christ is, desiring righteousness, and athirst to know His ways. 
 
 To the house of the God of Jacob. 'I'liey sliall seek Ilim 
 as Jacob sought Mini, "-'who left his father's house and re- 
 moved into another land, was a man of heavy toils and serv- 
 ed for hire, but obtained special help from (iod, and, undis- 
 tinguished as he was, became most glorious. So too the 
 Church, leaving all Heathen wisdom, and having its conver- 
 sation in Heaven, and therefore persecuted and enduring many 
 hardships, enjoys now glory with God." 
 
 And He, i.e. the God of Jacob of Whom he had just spo- 
 ken, shall teach us of His ways. They do not go to God, be- 
 cause they know Him, but that they may know Him. They 
 are drawn by a mighty impulse to'ward's Ilim. Howsoever 
 attracted, they come, not making bargains with God, (as some 
 now would,) what they should be taught, that He should re- 
 veal to them nothing transcending reason, nothing exceeding 
 or contradicting their notions of God ; they do not come with 
 reserves, that God should not take away this or that error, or 
 should not disclose any thing of His incomprehensibleness. 
 They come in holy simplicity, to learn whatever He will con- 
 descend to tell them ; in holy confidence, that He, the Infallible 
 Truth, will teach them infallibly. They say, of His ways. For 
 all learning is by degrees, and all which' all creatures could 
 learn in all eternity falls infinitely short of His truth and Ho- 
 liness. Nay. in all eternity the highest creature ivhich He 
 has made and which He has admitted most deeply into the 
 secrets of His Wisdom will be as infinitely removed as ever 
 from the full knowledge of His Wisdom and His Love. For 
 what is finite, enlarged, expanded, accumulated to the utmost 
 degree possible, remains finite still. It has no proportion to 
 the Infinite. But even here, all growth in grace implies 
 growth in knowledge. The more we love God, the more we 
 know of Him ; and with increased knowledge of Him come 
 higher perceptions of worship, praise, thanksgiving, of the 
 character of faith, hope, charity, of our outward and inward 
 acts and relations to God, the unboundedness of God's love 
 to us and the manifoldness of the ways of pleasing Him, which, 
 in His love. He has given us. Since then the whole Chris- 
 tian life is a growth in grace, and even St. Paul, -'forgetting 
 those things ivhich are behind and reaching forth to those which 
 are before, pressed towards the mark for the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus, then St. Paul too was ever learning, in inten- 
 sity, what he knew certainly by revelation, of His wat/s. 
 Again, as each blade of grass is said to differ from another, 
 so, and much more, each soul of man which God has created 
 for Himself. No one ever saw or could imagine two human 
 beings, in whom the grace of God had unfolded itself in exactly 
 the same way. Each saint will have his distinct beauty around 
 the Throne. But then each will have learnt of His'ways, in 
 
 tures themselves; a Sanskrit name for elephant, ibha, in 0'iri:a ivory, lit. ''elephant's 
 tooth ; " (lb.) and a Malabar name for a wood, algum, valgu (ka.j^'ee Max M uller, Science 
 of language, p. 205. ed. 3. Ophir itself, (which is mentioned in connection with these 
 things,) Max Miiller identifies, beyond question, with the Abiria of Ptolemy above Pat- 
 talene ; the people, " called by Hindu Geographers Abhira and " the Ahirs " in " Mac- 
 murdo's account of the province of Cutch." lb. is Is. xlix. 12. see Gesenius 
 
 Thes. p. 948-50. i? See on Hos. ix. 17. p. 61, 2. >9 See on Hos! viii. 8. p. 52. 
 
 ■" S. Greg. Naz. Or._22. n. 2. 20 is. Uii. 12. 21 ib. n. 22 s. Matt. xx. 28. 
 
 =3 lb. xxvi. 28. add Rom. v. 15. 
 
 •* Theoph. 
 
 » Phil. iii. 13, 14
 
 322 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 cir. 710. t|t(> ^vord of the Lord from Jerusalem. 
 
 3 % And he shall judirt- 
 
 a different proportion or dcfrree. His frreatest saints, yea 
 His Apostles, liave been preeminent, the one in one f,n-ace, ano- 
 ther in another. St. John Baptist came as a pattern of repen- 
 tance, and contempt of self; St. Jolm the Evanjrelist, stands 
 out preeminent in deep tender l)urninc: personal love ; St. Paul 
 in zeal to spread the knonledi;:e of Christ Crucified ; St. Mary 
 Magdalene in loving penitence. Even the Blessed Virgin 
 herself, under inspiration, seems, in part, to speak of her 
 loii'h/ lowiiess'^, as that which God specially rei,^arded in her, 
 when He made her the Mother of Clod. Eternity only will 
 set forth the fulness of the two words -, He will teach us of 
 His U'cii/s. For eternity will shew, how in all ^wnrheth that 
 one (1)1(1 the self-same Spirit, iticidl/ii: to even/ >iifi?i severalh/ us 
 He will ; and how the countless multitude of the redeemed 
 have corres])onded to His g:ifts and drawings. " * The way of 
 the life to God-wards is one, in that it looketh to one end, to 
 please God ; but there are many tracks along it, as there are 
 many modes of life ; " and each several grace is a part of the 
 way to God. 
 
 And we will walk in His paths, "^by believing-, hoping, 
 loving, well-doing, and bearing patiently all trouble." " ^ For 
 it suliiceth not to believe, uidess we act as He commandeth, 
 and strive to enter on His ways, the strait and narrow path 
 tuhich leadeth unto life. He Himself then, when He had said, 
 ' Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Fa- 
 ther, and of the Son, and of the Hoh/ Ghost, added, teaching 
 them to observe all things whatsoever T have commanded i/oa." 
 They say too, we will walk, i. e. go on from strength to strength, 
 not stand still after having laboured for a while to do His 
 Will, but hold on to all His ways and to Himself Who is the 
 TVay, until they appear before the Lord in Zion. 
 
 For the lair, [lit. /«)r^] shall go forth from Zion. These 
 are the Prophet's words, declaring why the nations should so 
 flock to Zion. For he says, shall go forth, but the nations 
 were not gathered to Zion, until the Gospel was already gone 
 forth. He speaks of it as laiu simply, not the Jewish law as 
 sxich, but a rule of life^ from God. Man's better nature is ill 
 at ease, being out of harmony with God. It cannot be other- 
 wise. ' Having been made in His likeness, it must be distressed 
 by its unlikeness ; having been made by Him for Himself, it 
 must be restless without Him. What they indistinctly long- 
 ed for, what drew them, was the hope to be conformed by 
 Him to Him. The sight of superhuman holiness, life, love, 
 endurance, ever won and wins those without to the Gospel or 
 the Church. Our Lord Himself gives it, as the substance 
 of prophecy ^'', that repentance and remission of sins should be 
 preached in His A^ame among all nations beginning at Jeru- 
 salem. The image may be that of a stream, issuing forth 
 from Jerusalem ^^ and watering the whole world. " ^" The law 
 of the Gospel and the word of the Apostles, beginning from 
 Jerusalem, as from a fountain, ran through the whole world, 
 watering those who approached with faith." But in that it 
 went forth, it may be meant, that it left those from among 
 
 ' S.Lukei. 48. TaTrtiVttio-is in Prov. xvi. ]9. LXX. is, "lowliness." The whole 
 phrase tTrt/3\f\|/€y tTTt Tfji/ TaTTfiVaio-iy tTjs 5o('\tjs auTou, corresponds more to the use in 
 1 Kgs. (Sam.) i. 11. 2 Kgs. xvi. 12. 4 Kgs. xiv. 26. Neh. ix. 9. Ps. ix. 13. LXX. where the 
 prominent sense is low estate. Perhaps, as in VV- *^^ two meanings are blended. 
 
 2 VDiiD inv 3 1 Cor. xii.ll. ^ Tlieoph. * Dion. « Rup. 7 S.Matt.xxviii.end. 
 
 "* min, not rmnn. ^ .mn is always law, not, as some have said, "religion," 
 
 or "doctrine " generally. It is used without the article, in this sense, as rule of life, 
 \ Prov. vi. 23. xxviii. 4, 7, 9. xxix. 18.) such as the Heathen had not, (Lam. ii. 9.) but which 
 
 many people, 
 tions afar off 
 their swords 
 
 and rebuke strong na- 
 and they shall beat 
 
 b.-i 1 _ _ _, "Is. 2 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 into ^ plowshares, and 
 
 4. 
 Joel 3. 10. 
 
 whom it went forth, and'^^-^ZionwAii indeed desolate of the law 
 and Jerusalem bared of the Divine word." '"^The word of 
 God passed from Jerusalem to the Gentiles." "" For the sha- 
 dow was done away, and the types ceased, and sacrifices were 
 abolished, and every thing of Moses was, in the letter, brought 
 to a (dose." 
 
 He does not say here, tlir<>ugh whom God would so teach, 
 but he does speak of a direct teacliiiig of (iod. He does not 
 say only. "God will give us a law," or "will make a revela- 
 tion of Himself." He speaks of a Personal, direct, continuous 
 act of teaching by God, carried on upon earth, whether 
 the teacher be our Lord's word spoken once on earth, which 
 does not pass awai/^-', or God the Holy Ghost, as teaching in 
 the Church and in the hearts which receive Him. The words 
 which follow speak of a personal reign, as these speak of per- 
 sonal tea<;hing. 
 
 3. And He shall judge among many people and rebuke 
 strong nations afar off'. Hitherto, they had walked each in 
 their own ways^^ ; now, they sought to be taught in the ways 
 of God. Before, they had been lords of the world ; now they 
 should own a Judge higher than themselves. They were no 
 common, but mighty ^' nations, such as had heretofore been 
 the oppressors of Israel. They were to be many, and those 
 mighty, nations. He should "i*not only command, but re- 
 buke, not weak or petty nations only, but mighty, and those 
 not only near but afar." Rlohammed had moral strength 
 through what he stole from the law and the Gospel, and by 
 his owning Christ as the Word of God. He was a heretic, 
 rather than a heathen. Fearful scourge as he was, and as 
 his successors have been, all is now decayed, and no mighty 
 nation is left upon earth, which does not profess the Name 
 of Christ. 
 
 He shall rebuke them; for it was an office of the Holy 
 Ghost '' to reprove the world as to its sin, the righteousness of 
 Christ, the judgment of the prince of this tvorld. The Gospel 
 conquered the world, not by compromises or concordats, but 
 by convicting it. It alone could rebuke with power; for it was, 
 like its Author, all-holy. It could rebuke with efficacy; for 
 it was the word of Him Who knew what is i?i man. It could 
 rebuke with awe ; for it knew the secrets of eternal Judg- 
 ment. It could rebuke winningly; for it ki^ew"" the love of 
 Christ trhich passeth knowledge. Its martyrs suffered and 
 rebuked their judges ; and the world was amazed at the impo- 
 tence of power and the might of suffering. It rebuked the 
 enthroned idolatry of centuries ; it set in rebellion by its re- 
 bukes every sinful passion of man, and it subdued them. 
 Tyrants, whom no human power could reach, trembled before 
 its censures. Then only is it powerless, if its corrupted or 
 timid or paralysed ministers forfeit in themselves the power 
 of rebuke. 
 
 And they shall beat their spears into ploughshares. " All 
 things are made new in Christ." As the inward disquiet of 
 evil men makes them restless, and vents itself towards others 
 
 should be revealed to them, (here. Is. ii. 3. li. 4.) The .Tiin corresponds with the ini". 
 
 10 S.Luke xxiv. 47. i' Seeab. on Joel iii. 18. p. 240. '- Theod. "S.CjT. 
 
 » S.Jer. 15 S. Matt. xxiv. 35. i^ Is. liii. 6. 
 
 ■^ s'^v, which originally signified bound together, (coll. Arab.) thence used of the clos- 
 ing of the eyes. (Is. xxix. 10. xxxiii. 15.) included the idea of number. The secondary 
 idea of strength, (aswe use "well-knit,") is so prominent, that the idea of number, in the 
 verb, onlv occurs in Ps. xl. 13. Jer. xv. 8 ; in the adj. Num. xxxii. 1. '^ Rib. 
 
 15 S.John xvi. 8-11. =» Eph.iii. 19.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 323 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 II Or, sc;/thps. 
 
 their spears into || prunini>hooks : nation 
 shall not lift up a sword against 
 
 in envy, hatred, inalici(>nsncs«, wronfj, so tlic in\> ard ])('ace 
 whereof He saitli, Mi/ pcdce I i>irc luifo i/ou, .sliall, wlierever 
 it reaehcth, spread out abroad and, by the power of graee, 
 brine; to "hill nations unity, ])ea('e, and eoneord." All, being 
 brought under the one empire of Clirist, sliall be in liarinony, 
 one with the other. As far as in it lies, the (iospel is a (Jos- 
 pel of peace, and makes peace. Christians, as far as they obey 
 Christ, are at peace, both in themselves and with one another. 
 And this is what is here prophesied. The peace follows from 
 His rule. Where He judges and rebukes, there even the 
 mighty heat tlicir swords into plouglisltares. The universal 
 peace, amid which our Lord was born in the flesh, the first 
 which there had been since the foundation of the Roman em- 
 pire, was, in (Jod's Providence, a fruit of His kingdom. It 
 was no chance coincidence, since nothing is by chance. God 
 willed that they should be contemporaneous. It was fitting 
 that the world should be still, M-hen its Lord, the Prince of 
 peace, was born in it. That outward cessation of public strife, 
 though but for a brief time, was an image how Ilis peace 
 spread backwards as well as forwards, and of the jtcace which 
 through Him, our Peace, was dawning on the world. "-First, 
 according to the letter, before That Child was born to us, ^o)i 
 Whose shouhler the goveniment is, the whole world was full of 
 blood; people fought against people, kings against kings, na- 
 tions against nations. Lastly, the Roman state itself was torn 
 by civil wars, in whose battles all kingdoms shed blood. But 
 after that, at the time of the Empire of Christ, Rome gain- 
 ed an undivided empire, the world was laid open to the jour- 
 neys of Apostles, and the gates of cities were open to them, 
 and, for the preaching of the One God, one single empire was 
 formed. It may too be understood as an image, that, on re- 
 ceiving the faith of Christ, anger and unrestrained revilings 
 were laid aside, so that each putteth his /uitid to the plough 
 nndlooketh not buck, and, breaking in pieces the shafts of con- 
 tumelies, seeketh to reap spiritual fruit, so that, others labour- 
 ing, we enter into their labours ; and of us it is said, They 
 shall come with joy, bringing their sheaves*. Now no one 
 fighteth; for we read, 'Blessed are the peacemakers ; no one 
 learneth to " strive, to the subverting of the hearers. And every 
 07ie shall rest under his vine, so as to press out that ^ TFine 
 which gladdeneth the heart of man, under that ^Vine, whereof 
 the Father is the Husbandman; and under his figtree, gathering 
 the sweet ^fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, Joy, peace, and the 
 rest." 
 
 The fathers had indeed a joy, which we have not, that wars 
 were not between Christians ; for although " just wars are 
 lawful," war cannot be on both sides just ; very few wars have 
 not, on both sides, what is against the spirit of the Gospel. 
 For, except where there is exceeding wickedness on one side, 
 or peril of further evil, the words of our Lord would hold good, 
 in public as in private, ^"Isay unto you, that ye resist not evil. 
 
 This prophecy then is fulfilled 1) in the character of the 
 Gospel. "^^The lawof theGospelworketh and preserveth peace. 
 For it plucketh up altogether the roots of all war, avarice, am- 
 bition, injustice, wrath. Then, it teacheth to bear injuries, and, 
 
 1 Litany. - S. Jer. 
 
 3 Is. ix.6. ■> Ps. cxxvi. 6. * S. Matt. v. 9. « 2 Tim. ii. 14. 
 
 < Ps. civ. 15. s S. John. xv. 1. « Gal. v. 22. '» S. Matt. v. 39. 
 
 "Rib. 12 s. Matt. V. 39-42. "16.4.1-48. n Acts iv.32. '* TertuU. Apol. 
 c. 39. " For they themselves hate one another." "Fcrtheythemselvesareniore ready to 
 
 nati(»n, <^neitlier shall they learn war ,, J^^Tc 
 any more. 
 
 ST 
 cir. 710. 
 
 ■^ Ps. 72. 7. 
 
 so far from reipiiting tlicm, willeth that we be prepared to re- 
 ceive fresh wrongs. He saitli, ^-Jf any one smite thee on the 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also, Sfc. '■'' / sai/ unto i/ou, 
 Love your enemies, t^y;. For neither did flic old law give these 
 counsels, nor did it e.\])laiii so clearly tlu' |)recc|it implied in 
 tliem, nor bad it that wonderful and most cirn-acious example 
 of the patience and love of Christ, nor did it supply grace, 
 uhereby peace could be preserved; whereas now the first- 
 fruits of the Spirit are love, Joy, peace, lo)ig-st///eri/ig. gentleness, 
 goodness." 2) The prophecy has been fuHilled wit iiin and with- 
 out, among individuals or bodies of men, in body or mind, in 
 temper or in deed, as far as the Gospel has prevailed, "y/ie 
 multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one 
 mind; one, through One indwelling Spirit ; one, though a great 
 multitude, through one bond of love. "^-^See how these Chris- 
 tians love one another;" "see how ready they are to die for one 
 another," was, in the third century, a heathen proverb as to 
 Christian love. " ^'^ They love one another, almost before they 
 know one another." "^^Their first lawgiver has persuaded 
 them that they are all brethren." " We (which grieves you,)" 
 the Christian answered ^^ " so love one another, because we 
 know not liow to hate. We call ourselves ' brethren ' which 
 you take ill, as men who have one Father, God, and are sharers 
 in one faith, in one hope, coheirs." For centuries too, tliere 
 was, for the most part, public peace of Christians among them- 
 selves. Christian soldiers fought only, as constrained by the 
 civil law, or against Barbarian invaders, to defend life, wife, 
 children, not for ambition, anger, or pride. Christians could 
 then appeal, in fulfilment of the prophecy, to this outward, the 
 fruit of the inward, peace. "We," says an early martyr^'-', "who 
 formerly stained ourselves with mutual slaughter, not only do 
 not wage war with foes, but even, in order not to lie and de- 
 ceive those who consume us, willingly professing Christ, meet 
 death." "From the coming of the Lord," says another mar- 
 tyr™, "the New Testament, reconciling unto peace, and a life- 
 giving law, went forth into all lands. If then another law and 
 word, going forth from Jerusalem, produced such peace among 
 the nations which received it, and thereby rejiroved much peo- 
 ple of want of wisdom, then it would follow that the prophets 
 spake of some other. But if the law of liberty, that is, the 
 law of God preached by the Apostles, which went forth out of 
 Jerusalem to all the world, worked such a transformation, 
 that swords and spears of war He wrought into plough-shares 
 and pruning-hooks, instruments of peace, and now men know 
 not how to fight, but, when smitten, yield the other check, then 
 the prophets spake of no other, but of Him who brought it to 
 pass." "Even from this," says TertuUian -*, " you may know 
 that Christ was promised, not as one mighty in war, but as a 
 peace-bringer. Either deny that these things were prophesied, 
 since they are plain to see ; or, since they are written, deny 
 that they are fulfilled. But if thou mayest deny neither, thou 
 must own that they are fulfilled in Him, of Whom they are pro- 
 phesied." " Of old--," says St. Athanasius, "Greeks and Bar- 
 barians, being idolaters, warred with one another, and were 
 fierce towards those akin. For through their implacable war- 
 slay one another," are Tertullian's statements as to the contemporary condition of the Hea- 
 then, which their amazement at Christian love ratherconfirms. " Minut. Felix, 
 p. 81. ed. Ouz. '^ Lucian, de niorte Peregrin!, i. 507. ed. Graev. '* Min.F. 
 p. 312, 3. " S. Justin M. Apol. i. 39. ^ S. Iren. iv. .34. 4. 
 "1 adv. Marc. iii. 21. " de Incarn. Verbi Dei, c. 51, 2.
 
 324 
 
 MIC AH, 
 
 4 * But they shall sit every man un- 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 710. ^ 1 Kings 4. 25. Zech. 3. 10. 
 
 fare no one niiolit pass land or sea, tinarnied. Their whole life 
 was passed in arms ; the sword was to them for staff and stay. 
 They worshipped idols, saerificed to demons, and yet from their 
 reverence for idols they <'ould jcain no help to correct their 
 minds. But when they passed into the school of Christ, then, 
 of a truth, pricked in mind, they wondrously laid aside their 
 savage slaughters, and now think no more of things of war; 
 for now all peace and friendship are alone their mind's delight. 
 Who then did this. Who blended in peace those who hated one 
 another, save the Beloved Son of the Father, the common Sa- 
 viour of all, Christ Jesus, Who, through His love, endured all 
 things for our salvation ? For of old too, the peace which 
 should hold sway from Him was prophesied, (/lei/ shall heat 
 their swortls into ploughshares. Nor is this inc'redible, since 
 now too, the Barbarians with innate savageness, while they 
 yet sacrifice to their idols, are mad with one another, and can- 
 not for one hour part with their swords. But when they have 
 received the teaching of Christ, forthwith for ever they turn 
 to husbandry ; and, in lieu of arming their hands with swords, 
 stretch them out to prayer. And altogether, instead of war- 
 ring with one another, they arm themselves against the devil 
 and demons, warring against them with modesty and virtue 
 of soul. This is a token of the Godhead of the Saviour. For 
 what men could not learn among idols, this they have learned 
 from Him. Christ's disciples, having no war with one another, 
 array themselves against demons by their life and deeds of vir- 
 tue, chase them and mock their captain the devil, chaste in 
 youth, enduring in temptation, strong in toils, tranquil when 
 insulted, unconcerned when despoiled." 
 
 And yet later, S. Chrysostome says, "^Before the Coming- 
 of Christ, all men armed themselves and no one was exempt 
 from this service, and cities fought with cities, and every 
 where were men trained to war. But now most of the world 
 is in peace ; all engage in mechanical art or agriculture or 
 commerce, and few are employed in military service for all. 
 And of this too the occasion would cease, if we acted as we 
 ought and did not need to be reminded by afflictions." " "After 
 the Sun of righteousness dawned, so far are all cities and na- 
 tions from living in such perils, that thcy.know not even how 
 to take in hand any affairs of war. — Or if there be still any 
 war, it is far off at the extremity of the Roman Empire, not 
 in each city and country, as heretofore. For then, in any one 
 nation, there were countless seditions and multiform wars. 
 But now the whole earth which the sun surveys from the 
 Tigris to the British isles, and therewith Lybia too and Egypt 
 and Palestine, yea, all beneath the Roman rule, — ye know how 
 all enjoy complete security, and learn of war only by hear- 
 say." S. Cyril "" and Thcodoret ^ carry on this account into the 
 fifth century after our Lord's Coming. Christians then dur- 
 ing those four centuries could point to a present fulfilment of 
 
 ' in Ps. xliv. § 3. T. V. p. 186. = in Is.ii.n. 5. T. vi. p. 24, 5. 3 on Is. ii. 
 
 and here. J Is. lix. 1, 2. * R. Isaac, Munim. Fid. i. 5. 7. et all. 
 
 6 This is implied in the laws concerning them, as Ex. xxiii. 11. Lev. xix. 10. xxv. 
 3, 4. Deut. XX. (!, &c. comp. Num. xvi. 14. Deut. vi. 11.1 Sam. viii. 14-. xxii. 7- 2 Kgs. 
 xviii. 32. Ps. cvii. 37. Prov. xxxi. 16. J Neh. v. 4. Jer. xxxix. 10. s 3 Kgs. xviii. 32. 
 
 9 Ps. Ixxx. 8 sqq. Is.iii.l4. v. 1 sqq. xxvii. 2. Jer. ii. 21. xii. 10. Ezek. xv. xvii.5-10. 
 xix. 10. Hos. X. 1. '» The bunch of grapes appears on coins of Herod Archelaus, 
 
 Madden, Jew. Coinage, p. 94, 5. also of Tiberius. lb. p. 144. See De Saulcy, p. 134. 140, 1. 
 The golden vine, given by Alexander to the Romans is mentioned by Straho. (Jos. Ant. 
 14, 31.) The vine-tree stood at theporchof the Templeforreceiving'alms. MiddothS.S. 
 in Levy Jiid. Munz.p. 134. Madden,p.210. " Madden, p. 162, 4, 7, 8. 170, 2, 3, 7. 
 
 180. 206, 7,8,9. See also De Saulcy, p. 100, 1, 2, 4, .5, li, 7, &c. '- Deut. viii. 8. 
 
 " 2 Kgs. xviii. 32. '■• mm (iuname still in the East) from |Kn i. q. jjn. 
 
 der his vine and under his fig tree; chrTst 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 prophecy, when we, for our sins, can only speak of the past. 
 ^'fhc Liinrs hand is not shortened, tliat it eainiot sane : neither 
 Ills ear heavy, that it eannot hear ; hat our iHi<jitities have se- 
 parated lietivecn us, and our God, and our .v///.v have hid His 
 Face from us, that He will not hear. Those first Christians 
 could urge against the Jews the fulfilment of their prophecies 
 herein, where the Jews can now urge upon us their seeming 
 non-fulfilment ; " ^ In the time of king Messiah, after the wars 
 of Gog and Magog, there shall i)e peace and tranquillity in all 
 the world, and the sons of men shall have no need of weapons, 
 but these promises were not fulfilled." The proj)hecy is ful- 
 filled, in that the Gospel is a Gospel of peace and makes peace. 
 Christians, as far as they obey Christ, are at ])eace both in 
 themselves and with one another, 'i'he promises of God are 
 perfect on His part : He is faithful to them. But He so wills 
 to be freely loved by His intelligent creatures whom He form- 
 ed for His love, that He does not force our free-agency. We 
 can fall short of His promises, if we will. To those only who 
 will it, the Gospel brings peace, stilling the passions, quelling 
 disputes, banishing contentions, removing errors, calming 
 concupiscenc-e, soothing and repressing anger, in individuals, 
 nations, the Church ; giving oneness of belief, harmony of 
 soul, contentment with our own, love of others as ourselves; 
 so that whatever is contrary to this has its origin in some- 
 thing which is not of Christ nor of His Gospel. 
 
 4. But (And) they shall sit every man, under his vine and 
 under his Jig-tree. Palestine was a home of the vine and the 
 fig-tree. Vineyards were a common property, possessed by 
 all but the very poor'', or even by them'. The land was* a 
 land of hread and vineyards. The vine was the emblem of 
 the people, in Psalmists and Prophets^. The bunch of grapes 
 or the vine-leaf appear as characteristic emblems on Jewish 
 coins '", chiefly in the times of their revolts under Vespasian 
 and Hadrian '^ The fig is also mentioned as part of the cha- 
 racteristic fruitfulness of Palestine^-. It too was an univer- 
 sal property '^. Both formed natural arbours ; the fig had its 
 name probably from its length ^*, the vine from the arch made 
 by its drooping boughs ^^. Both formed, in those hot coun- 
 tries, a grateful shade. The vine, rising with its single stem, 
 was spread over trellis-work or by props, so as to enclose a 
 considerable space ^^. Even in Italy, a single vine shaded a 
 portico''. In Palestine it grew hy the walls of the house^^. 
 Rabbins relate how their forefathers sat and studied under the 
 fig-tree '', as Nathanael was doubtless meditating or praying 
 under one, when Jesus, being God, saw him -°. It exhibits a 
 picture of domestic peace, each family gathered in harmony 
 and rest under the protection of God, each content with what 
 they have, neither coveting another's, nor disturbed in their 
 own. Wine is explained in Holy Scripture to be an emblem of 
 gladness, and the fig of sweetness ^^. "-^For exceeding sweet 
 
 ^^ iD3i.q.]13. ^6 " We passed the evening, under a large vine, whose stem was about 
 1 5 foot in diameter. Its height was 30 feet; its branches had to be propped up; and so 
 it covered an arbour more than 50 feet wide and long. I remembered Slicah. I have 
 seen in this land the people living under both the fig and the vine ; the fig between Jerusa- 
 lem and Arimathea; the vine, here [Beitjin.] " Schulz. Leit. v. 285. in Paulus Reisen, 
 vii. 103. 1? Plin. N. H. xiv. 3. '*> Ps. cxxviii. 3. " " R. Haia and his 
 
 disciples — others say, R. Akiba, used to rise very early and sit and study under a fig- 
 tree." Bercshith Rabba in Winer Reallex. [wrong reference] -" S. John i. 48. 
 
 "' Jiid. ix. 11.13. " The rSll is the fig, distinguished for its more pcrlect sweetness, 
 so that none such can be found, save in the land of lsr.-iel." Mainionid. in Demai c. ii. § 
 1. in Cels. Hierob. ii. 369. " It is appropriated to the food of man." Id. de jure anni 7 et 
 jubil. c. V. §8. lb. Our Lord made it, as well as the grape, the figure of good fruit, which 
 an evil nature could not bear. S. JIatt. vii. 16. S.Luke vi. 44. 2- S. Cyr.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 none 
 
 shall 
 
 Before a n f1 
 CHRIST **"" 
 
 cir.710. for the mouth of the 
 
 make them afraid : 
 Lord of hosts 
 hath spoken it. 
 « jer. 2. 11. 5 For ' all people will walk every one 
 
 is the word of the Saviour, and it knoweth liow to sl'ifklen 
 man's licart; sweet also and full of joy is tlic hope of the fu- 
 ture, wherewith we are cnriehed in Clirist." 
 
 Such had been Israel's lot in the peaceful days of Solomon \ 
 the peace of whose times had already been made the imajj^e 
 of the Gospel"; the cominp of the Queen of t lie South froiti 
 the uttennost parts of the earth, to hear the wisdom of Soloniotr', 
 had made her kiiis,^tioin to be selected as an em])lcm of those 
 who should /«// down ijefore Christ and serve fliiii^. " ^ Such 
 is that most quiet fearlessness which the law of Christ bring- 
 eth, as being the law of charity, peace, and concord." 
 
 ^iid none shall make them afraid. " ^ Neither man, nor 
 devil ; for the Lord hath g;iven us power to ^ tread on serpents 
 and scorpions, and over all the potcer of the enemy, and said, 
 nothing shall hy any means hnrt you, and bade us, ^ fear not 
 them tvhich kill the body." Witness the might which He gave 
 to His Apostles and Martyrs. 
 
 For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it. The 
 Prophets often add this, when what they say, seems, for its 
 greatness, past belief. Yet it will be, because He hath spoken 
 it, the Lord Who changeth not, the Lord of Hosts, to Whose 
 commands all creatures are subject, Whose word is truth 
 with Whom to speak is to do. 
 
 5 For all people will ivalk, every one in the name of his 
 god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God. Hi- 
 therto unsteadfastness had been the very characteristic sin 
 of Israel. It was "^constant only in its inconstancy," ever 
 ^'^ falling aivay like their forefathers, starting aside like a bro- 
 ken bow. The heathen persevered in their worship, because 
 it was evil or had evil in it, not checking but feeding their 
 passions. Israel did not persevere in his, because it required 
 him to deny himself things unlawful. " Hath a nafio?i chang- 
 ed their gods ivhich are yet -no gods ? But 31y people have 
 changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Hence- 
 forth, the Prophet professeth for his people, the true Israel, 
 that he will be as steadfast in good, as the heathen in evil ; 
 so our Lord sets forth '^"the children of this world in their ge- 
 neration, as an example of wisdom to the children of light. 
 
 " ^^ They who are eager to go up into the mountain of the 
 Lord, and wish to learn thoroughly His ways, promise a ready 
 obedience, and receive in themselves the glories of the life 
 in Christ, and undertake with their whole strength to be 
 earnest in all holiness. 'For let every one,' hesaith, 'in 
 every country and city go the way himself chooseth, and pass 
 his life, as to him seemeth good ; but our care is Christ, and 
 His laws we will make our straight path ; we will walk along 
 with Him ; and that not for this life only, present or past, 
 but yet more for what is beyond. ^*It is a faithful sayiiig. 
 For they ivho now suffer with Hitn, shall walk with Him for 
 ever, and luith Him be glorified, and with Him reign. But 
 they make Christ their care, who prefer nothing to His love, 
 who cease from the vain distractions of the world, and seek 
 
 ' 1 Kings, iv. 25. = Ps. Ixxii. ^ s. Matt. xii. 42. ■• Ps. Ixxii. 10, 11. 
 
 5 Lap. « Theoph. 7 S. Luke x. 19. " S. Matt. x. 28. •> Kih. 
 
 i»Ps.!xxviii.57. "Jer.ii.ll. i- S. Lukexvi.8. " g.Cyr. » 2 Tim. ii.11,12. 
 Rom.viii.l7. Rev. iii.4. 'i- Gal. ii. 20. '« 1 Cor. ii. 2. '7 Astojcart- in Gnrf's 
 
 ttatutes, (Ezek. v. 6, 7. &'c, and seven other places) in Hisjndgwevts, (Ps. Ixxxix. 31. Ez. 
 zX2vi. 27. ) in His commandments, (2 Chr. xvii. i.) in His law, (Ps. Ixxviii. 10 &c.) in His 
 
 in tlie name of his j^od, and ^ wa will c,^'j[''{^st 
 walk in the name of the Lord our God "''• <'^"- 
 
 for ever and ever. t zech. lo. 12. 
 
 6 In that day, saith the Lord, ^will I as-* zefii,; a.'io.' 
 
 rather righteousness and what is pleasing unto Ilim, and to 
 e.\cel in virtue. Such an one was the divine Paul ; for he 
 writeth, ^'■' I am crucified with Clirist ; and now no longer J live, 
 but Christ livetli in me ; and again'", / determined lud to know 
 anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 
 
 To walk is so uniformly in II(dy Scripture used of a per- 
 son's moral or religious '• ways^''" (as we say), that tiie Prophet 
 here too is doul)tless speaking of the opposite religious ways 
 of the Heathen and of the future people of God. 'i'he name 
 was often, in Hebrew, expressive of the character; and, in re- 
 gard to God Himself, that Name which He vouchsafed to give 
 to Himself '**, expressed His Self-existence, and, as a result. 
 His Unchangeableness and His Faithfulness. Tiie names, by 
 which it was foretold that Christ should be called, express 
 both His Deity and attributes ^^ ; the human Name, which He 
 bare and vouchsafes to bear yet, was significant of His office 
 for us. Saviour -". To praise the Name of the Lord then, is to 
 praise Him in that character or relation which He has re- 
 vealed to us. "°^ He ivalketh in the Name of the Lonl. who 
 ordereth every act and motion worthily of the vocation wiicre- 
 with he is called, &\\A,~-rvhether he eateth or drinketh,doth all 
 to the glory of God." This promise hath its own reward ; for 
 it is /or ever aiul ever. They who walk in the Name of the 
 Lord, shall walk "'^before Him in the laud of the living, for ever 
 (md ever. Such walk on, with quickened stei)s, lingering not, 
 in the N^a7ueof the Lord our God, i.e. doing all things in His 
 Name, as His great Name requires, conformed to the holiness 
 and all other qualities which His Name expresseth. For ever 
 and ever, lit. /or ever and yet, or, more strictly still, /or that 
 u'hich is hidden and yet, which is the utmost thought of eter- 
 nity we can come to. Time indeed has no relation to eter- 
 nity ; for time, being God's creature, is finite ; eternity, being 
 the mode of the existence of God, is infinite. Still, practically 
 to us, our nearest conception of eternity, is existence, on and 
 on and on, an endless, unchanging, ever-prolonged future, lost 
 in distance and hidden from us, and then, and yet, an ever-to- 
 come ye/, which shall never come to an end. Well then may 
 we not faint, as tho' it were long to toil or to do without this 
 or that, since the part of our way which lies amid toils and 
 weariness is so short, and will soon be at an end ; what lies 
 beyond, in joy, is infinite in infinite joy, ever full and still 
 ever a yet to come. 
 
 The "Prophet says, lee will walk ; "-^uniting himself in long- 
 ing, hope, faith, to the sons of the New Testament, i. e. Chris- 
 tians, as his brethren, reborn by the grace of the same Christ;" 
 " -^ ministers of the Old, heirs "of the New Testament, because 
 they loved through that same faith whereby we love ; believ- 
 ing in the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of Christ yet 
 to be, as we believe in it, having been." 
 
 6. Li that day, i. e. in that day of Christ and of His Gos- 
 pel, of grace and salvation, the last days of which he had been 
 speaking. Hitherto he had prophesied the glory of Zion, 
 
 fear, (Neh. v. 9.)and, in the corresponding place in Isaiah, in thelight of the Lord. (Is. 
 ii.5.) see Ges. Thes. V. l^n. p. 378. and above on Mic. ii. 11. p. 3tiS. So again to mart 
 with Gorf, (Gen. V. 22.) or before God, (lb. xvii. 1.) orronfrori/ to God. (Lev. xxvi. 21.) 
 di. 5. p. 77. " Is. vii. 14. Immanuel, i. e. God with us; 
 
 IS ni.T See ab. on Hos. xii. 
 ix.6. Wonderful, Counsellor, Might}- God &c. 
 22 1 Cor. X. 31. a Ps.cxvi.9. ^^ Tir. 
 
 3d 
 
 =0 S. Matt. i. 21. =' Theoph. 
 
 "5 S. Aug. c. 2 Epp. Pelag. iii. -1.
 
 32G 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrTst semble her that lialteth, '' iind I will j^a- 
 cirwio- ther her that is driven out, and her that 
 
 t Ps. U7. 2. J 
 Ezek.34. 13. 1 
 &37. 21. 
 
 i ch 2. 12. 
 
 have afflicted ; 
 
 7 And I will make her that halted ' a 
 Iris's!' ^' remnant, and her that was cast far off 
 
 a stronj^ nation : and the Lord ^ shall f. h jfpgx 
 rei<«:n over them in mount Zion from '-''•• 7^^- 
 
 chiefly tlirough the coming-in of the Gentiles. Now he adds, 
 how the Jews shoidd, with them, be feathered by grace into 
 the one tbkl, in that h>ng last day of the Gospel, at the be- 
 ginning, in the course of it, and completely at the end ^. 
 
 Her that lialteth. The Prophet resumes the image of the 
 scattered flock, under which he had before- foretold their 
 restoration. This was no hope of his own, but His word 
 Who cannot fail. The course of events, upon which he is en- 
 tering, would be, at times, for their greatness and their dif- 
 ficulty, past human belief. So he adds straightway, at the 
 outset, saith the Lord. To halt is used of bodily lameness ', 
 and that, of a flock, worn out by its wanderings ^ It is used 
 also of moral halting', such as liad been a chief sin of Israel, 
 serving partly God, partly Baal''; God, with a service of fear, 
 Baal with a service of that counterfeit of love, sensuality. 
 So it was sick, both in body and soul, and driven out'' also, 
 and afflicted. 
 
 7. Andlier that was cast off'a strong natio)i. The prophe- 
 cy, that there should be a remnant, was depressing. Yet what 
 a remnant should it be ! A remnant, which should multiply 
 like the stars of heaven or the sand on the sea-shore. Israel 
 had never been a strong nation, as a kingdom of this world. 
 At its best estate, under David, it had subdued the petty na- 
 tions around it, who were confederated to destroy it. It had 
 never competed with the powers of this world. East or West, 
 Egypt or Nineveh, although God had at times marvellously 
 saved it from being swallowed up by them. Non>, the rem- 
 nant of Judah, which itself was but a remnant of the undi- 
 vided people, was to become a strong nation. So Isaiah pro- 
 phesied, ^A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one 
 a strong nation. Plainly not in temporal greatness, both 
 because human strength was not, and could not be, its cha- 
 racteristic, and because the Prophet had been speaking of 
 spiritual restoration. 
 
 " ^ Strong are they, whom neither torture nor allurements 
 can separate from the love of Christ." " Strong are they, 
 who are strong against themselves." Strong were they who 
 said'", ffe ought to obey God rather than men, and'\ TVho shall 
 separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or dis- 
 tress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sicord ? 
 Nay, in all these things ice are more than concjuerors through 
 Him that loved 7is. God does not only restore in the Gos- 
 pel ; He multiplies exceedingly. " '- 1 will so clothe her with 
 the spirit of might, that, as she shall be fruitful in number, 
 so shall she be glorious in victories, so that of her it shall be 
 
 'Rom.xi. 26. = ii. 12, 13. ' Gen. xxxii. 32. ■< Zepli. iii. 19. ^ pg, 
 
 XXXV. 15. xxxviii. 18. ' 1 Kings xviii. 21. The word is ditlerent here. ' nmi is 
 used with the same image of the dispersed flock, Zeph. iii. 19. Ez. xxxiv. 4. 16. and in'in 
 Jer. 1. 17. 8]x. 22. 9 Gloss. '"Actsv. 29. " Rom. viii. 35, 37. 
 
 1= Rup. 13 Cant. vi. 10. » Rev. v. 9, 10. '' de loc. Hebr. Arculf 
 
 A.D. 670 found "a Church of the Shepherds," a mile from Bethlehem. Early trav. 
 in Pal. p. 0. The Migdal Edar is mentioned also in the Mass. Shekalim c. 7. 4. " Of 
 the herds, in the space between Jerusalem and ' the tower of the flock ' and on both sides, 
 the males are for burnt-offerings, the female for peace-ofl'erings. R. Jehuda says, what- 
 ever male animals are found (there) tliirty days before the passover fit for it, are to be 
 used thereto." in Sepp Heil. Land ii. 470. '« Gen. xxxv. 21. 
 
 '' Ps. Jon. on Gen. xxxv. 21. " This is the place, where in the last days Messiah shall 
 be revealed." 
 
 18 Ophcl, like many other Hebrew Proper names, did not lose its original appellative 
 
 henceforth, even for ever. g^it 23. 
 
 Sf And thou, O tower of |1 the flock, EX/i'.'^f' 
 the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, \\^o7,'EdarT 
 
 Gen. 35. 21. 
 
 said'', fVho is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the 
 moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners ?" For, 
 not to name those, whose whole life is one warfare against invi- 
 sible enemies and the evil desires of the flesh, who shall count 
 the martyrs of Christ ? We know that that remnant and 
 strong nation owe wholly to grace all which they are, as they 
 themselves in the Revelations give thanks ;'^^Thou tvast slaijt 
 and hast redeemed lis to God hi/ Thy Blood, (nit of every kin- 
 dred and t(nigue and people and nation, and hast made us un- 
 to our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth ; 
 that same Lord, of Whom it is here said. 
 
 The Lord shall reign over them in Zion from henceforth even 
 for ever. The visible kingdom of God in Judah was often ob- 
 scured, kings, princes, priests, and false prophets combining 
 to encourage one another in rebellion against God. In the 
 captivity it even underwent an almost total eclipse by the over- 
 shadowing of earthly power, save when the Divine light flash- 
 ed forth for an instant in the deeds or words of power and 
 wisdom, related by Daniel. Henceforth, i. e. from the time, 
 when the law should go forth out of Zion, God should indeed 
 reign, and that kingdom sliould have no end. 
 
 8. And thou, O tou-er of the flock. " ' Tower of Ader,' 
 wliicli is interpreted 'tower of the flock,' about 1000 paces 
 (a mile) from Bethlehem," says St. Jerome '^ who lived there, 
 " and foresignifying [in its very name] by a sort of prophecy 
 the shepherds at the Birth of the Lord." There Jacob fed 
 his sheep "', and there (since it was hard by Bethlehem) the 
 shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, saw and 
 heard the Angels singing, " Glory to God in the highest, and 
 on earth peace, goodwill towards men." The Jews inferred 
 from this place that the Messiah should be revealed there"'. 
 Stronghold [Ophel'*] of the daughter of Zion. Ophel 
 was a strong place in the South of Jerusalem, the last which 
 the wall, enclosing Zion, reached, before, or as, it touched on 
 the Eastern porch of the temple '', with whose service it was 
 connected. We know that, after the captivity, the Nethinim, 
 who did the laborious service of the temple, dwelt there-°. It 
 lay very near to the priests' district'-'. It was probably, a 
 lower acclivity, "swelling out," (as its name seems to mean —,) 
 from tlie mountain of the temple. In the last war, it was held 
 together with " -' the temple, and the adjoining parts to no 
 slight extent, and the valley of Kedron." It was burnt -* before 
 the upper city was taken. It had been encircled by a wall of 
 old; for Jotham "-= built greatly upon its wall." Manasseh 
 " -^ encircled it," (probably with an outer wall) " and raised 
 
 meaning, and so in the places, where it occurs in the i)rose books, keeps the article: 
 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. xxxiii. 14. Neh. iii. 26, 7. xi. 21. and 2 Kings v. 24. in which last place 
 it may very possibly be a place in Samaria, named after that in Jerusalem. It occurs 
 without the art. here and Is. xxxii. I*, and in Josephus, 'OtjtXai. The E.V. retains the 
 1 word as a Proper name in the historical books, 2 Chron. and Neh. 
 
 I ly " -phe oldest wall was hard to be taken on account of the ravines, and the ridge above 
 ] them on which it was built. — On the West — tuming to the S. over the pool of Siioam, and 
 ; tiien againbending Eastward to Solomon's pool, and extending to a place which they call 
 Ophlas, it was joined on to the Eastern porcli of the temple." .Jos. B. .1. v. 4. 2. 
 
 -" Neh. iii. 21). xi. 21. -' lb. iii. 28. -- Like (umulus from lumeo. Fiirst. 
 
 It is used of a local tumour in Arab, and in Deut. xxviii. 27. 1 Sam. v. 6. 12. vi. 4. 5. 
 and of the swelling of pride. Num.xiv.44. Hab.ii.4. -■* by John. Jos, B. J. v. 6. 1. 
 
 -^ Together with " the archive, Acra, the Council-hall." lb. vi. 6. 3. after the destruc- 
 tion of the temple. lb. vi. 4. 5-7. "' 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. -^ Ih. xxxiii. 14.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 327 
 
 chrTst i*"to tliee shall it conic, even the first do- 
 
 cir. 710. minion ; the kinijjdoni shall come to the 
 
 daughter of Jerusalem. 
 
 1 Jei. s. 10. 9 Now why dost thou cry out 
 
 iv^'isi. 'si' aloud ? ' is there no kin<^ in thee ? is 
 
 & 5o?43^' thy counsellor perished ? for "" pangs 
 
 it exceedingly," i.e. apparentlj raised artificially the whole 
 level. 
 
 Yet, as a symbol of all .Tenisalcni, Ophcl is as remarkable, 
 as the " tower of the flock " is as to Bethlehem. For Ophcl, 
 altliough fortified, is no where spoken of, as of any account ^. 
 It is not even mentioned in the circuit of the walls, at their 
 dedication under Nchemiah ", probably as an outlying-, spot. 
 It was probably of moment chiefly, as giving an advantage 
 to an enemy who might occupy it. 
 
 Both then arc images of lowliness. The lonely Shepherd- 
 tower, for Bethlehem, the birthplace of David; Ophcl for Jeru- 
 salem, of which it was yet but an outlying part, and deriving 
 its value probably as an outwork of the temple, lioth sym- 
 bols anticipate the fuller prophecy of the littleness, which shall 
 become great in God. Before the mention of the greatness 
 of the d())iu)iimi to come, is set forth the future poverty to which 
 it should come. In lowliness Christ came, yet is indeed a 
 Tower protecting and defending the sheep of His pasture, 
 founded on earth in His Human Nature, reaching to Heaven 
 in His Divine; ^ a strung Toxver ; the righteotis runneth into 
 it, and is safe. 
 
 Unto thee shall it come ; (lit. unto thee shall it come *, and 
 there shall arrive &c.) He saith not at first what shall come, 
 and so raises the soul to think of the greatness of that which 
 should come. The soul is left to fill up what is more than 
 thought can utter. Unto thee, (lit. quite up to thee^.) No 
 hindrances should withhold it from coming. Seemingly it 
 was a great way oiF, and they in a very hopeless state. He 
 suggests the difficulty even by his strength of assurance. 
 One could not say, it shall come quite up to thee, of that which 
 in the way of nature would readily come to any one. But amid 
 all hindrances God's Might makes its way, and brings His 
 gifts and promises to their end. And there shall arrive. He 
 twice repeats the assurance, in equivalent words, for their 
 fuller assurance, ""to make the good tidings the gladder by 
 repeating and enforcing them." 
 
 The first or former, dominion. The word often stands, 
 as our, " former V' in contrast with the "later." It is not 
 necessarily the first, strictly ; and so here, not the dominion 
 of David and Solomon exclusively. Rather the Prophet is 
 placed in spirit in the later times when the kingdom should 
 be suspended, and foretells that the former dominion, i. e. that 
 of the line of David, should come to her, not in its temporal 
 greatness, but the line itself. So the Angel said, ^He shall 
 be great and shall he called the Son of the Highest, and the 
 Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, 
 and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever. 
 
 The [^] kingdom to the davghter of Jerusalem, i. e. a 
 kingdom, which should not be o/her, but which should come 
 
 1 Josephus calls it, " that which was called Ophlas." B. J. v. -k 2. vi. 6. 3. 
 
 - Neh. xii. 31-40. 3 Prov. xviii. 10. •• The Masorethes seem 
 
 rightly to have marked this by the accents. ^ !i*nP. ^ Rup. 
 
 ^ So, the former time, (Is. viii. 23.J deeds, (2 Chron. ixl 29. xvi. 11, xx. 34,) king, 
 (Num. xxi. 2B,) tables, (Ex. xxxiv. 1.) benefits, (Ps. Ixxxix. 50.) dm/s, (Dent. iv. 32, 
 X. 10.) kin^s, {Jet. xxxiv. 5,) prophets, {Zech. i. 4, vii.7. 12.) temple, (Ezr. iii. 12. Hagg. 
 ii. 3. 9.) SeeGes. Thcs. p. 1251. » S. Luke i. 32, 3. ' Rev. i. 0. '» S. Mark xi. 10. 
 
 have tak(!n thee as a woman in travail. chrTst 
 
 H) lie in pain, and lahour to hring forth, "^- "'"• 
 O daughter of /ion, like a woman in 
 travail : for now shult thou go fortli out 
 of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the 
 field, and thou shalt go even to IJahylon ; 
 
 to her ; not her's by right, but by His right, Who should me- 
 rit it for her, and, being King of kings, makes His own, 
 ^Aings and priests unto God and I/is Father. 
 
 The Jews themselves seem to have taken these words into 
 their own mouths, just before they rejected Him, wlien tliey 
 hoped that He would be a king, such as they wished for. 
 ^"Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cotneth in 
 the Name of the Lord. And in a distorted form, they held it 
 even afterwards '^ 
 
 9. Noiv. The prophet places himself in the midst of 
 their deepest sorrows, and out of them he promises comfort. 
 fFhy dost thou cnj out aloud f is there no King in thee ? is llnj 
 Counsellor perished^'- ? Is then all lost, because thou hast no 
 visible king, none to counsel thee or consult for thee '- ? Very 
 remarkably he speaks of their King and Counsellor as one, as 
 if to say, ' When all besides is gone, there is One Who abides. 
 Though thou be a captive, God will not forsake thee. When 
 thou iiadst no earthly king, '^^the Lord tliy God was thij King. 
 He is the First, and He is the Last. When thou shalt have 
 no other. He, thy King, ceaseth not to be.' "i*Thou shouldest 
 not fear, so long as He, Who counscUeth for thee, livcth ; 
 but He liveth for ever." Thy Counsellor, He, Who is called 
 ^^Ccnmsellor, Who counselleth for thee. Who counselleth thee, 
 will, if thou obey His counsel, make birth-pangs to end in joy. 
 
 For pa7igs have taken thee, as a woman in travail, resist- 
 less, remediless, doubling the whole frame, redoubled until 
 the end, for which God sends them, is accomplisiied, and then 
 ceasing in joy. The truest comfort, amid all sorrow, is in 
 owning that the travail-pains must be, but tliat the reward 
 shall be afterwards. "i^It is meet to look for deliverance 
 from God's mercy, as certainly as for punishment from our 
 guilt ; and that the more, since He who foretold both, willing- 
 ly saves, punishes unwillingly." So the prophet adds. 
 
 10. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, (lit. JFrithe 
 and burst forth,) as if to say, 'thou must suffer, but thy suf- 
 fering and thy joy shall be one. Thou canst not have the joy 
 without the s'uft'ering. As surely as thou suffcrest, thou shalt 
 have joy. In all sorrow, lose not faith and hope, and ^""^ thou 
 shalt be sorronful, but thy sorroiv shall be turned itito Joy.'' 
 "17 Good daughter, be very patient in the pangs, bear up 
 against your "sorrows," so "shall the birth be nigh. Yet for 
 the time she must go forth out of the city into captivity. And 
 thou shalt dwell in the field, houseless, under tents, as cap- 
 tives were wont to be kept, until all were gathered together 
 to be led a«ay ; a soi-e exchange for her former luxury, and 
 in requital of their oppression i*. 
 
 And thou shalt go even to Babylon. Not Babylon, but 
 AssjTia was the scourge of God in Micah's time. Babylon was 
 scareelyknown, afar country^''. 
 
 Yet Micah is taught of God to 
 
 " Targ. "And thou, O Messiah of Israel, who art hid on account of the sins of the 
 congregation of Israel, to thee the kingdom will come," giiing to 'jEJf the sense of 7si<, 
 (as in the LXX. Vulg. Aq. Symm. Syr.) and thence obtaining the sense "hidden," in re- 
 ference to their table that He was bom before the destruction of the temple and hidden 
 by God. '2 Comp. Hos.xiii.lO. 
 
 13 1 Sam. xii. 12. " Mont. '= Is. ix. 6. '« S. John xvi. 20. 
 
 17 S. Cyr. " Am. vi. Jlicah ii. S, 9. " 2 Kings xx. 14. 
 
 3 D 2
 
 328 
 
 MIC All, 
 
 c vnus T t'i6»'<^ *^'^^*^ *''"" '*•' delivered ; there 
 __:illi™:_ the Lord shall redeem thee from the 
 
 hand of thine enemies. 
 "Lam. 2.1C. 11 ^ " Now also Huuiy nations are ga- 
 thered as^ainst thee, that say, Let her be 
 ° ?h.^7.io: defiled, and let our eye " look upon Zion, 
 
 declare tliat thither shall the two tribes be carried captive, al- 
 thou^li tilt' tf" were carried cajjtivc by Assyria. Tltcre ' ahnlt 
 iliou be (li'/ivcred, tlicre the Lord sIkiII redeem titeefrotn the hiuid - 
 of thine e/ieijiies. (iod's judijmeiits, or purifying trials, or visi- 
 tation of His saints, h(dd their way, until tiieir end be reached. 
 They who sutler them cannot turn them aside ; they who in- 
 flict them cannot add to them or detain them. The prison- 
 house is the place of deliverance to Joseph and St. I'eter ; the 
 Red-sea to Israel ; the judjjes were raised up, when Israel was 
 miitchtily oppressed; Jabesh-Gilead was delivered when the 
 seventh day was conie^; the walls of Jerusalem were the end 
 of Sennacherib ; Judah should have Ions;- been in the very 
 hand and grasp of Babylon, yet must its clenched hand be 
 opened. 
 
 1 1. iVoff also. {And now.'] The prophet had already spo- 
 ken of the future before them, with this word Note. Then, 
 he distinctly prophesied the captivity to Babylon. Twice 
 more he begins anew ; as Holy Scripture, so often, in a mys- 
 tery, whether speaking of evil or of good, of deliverance or 
 of punishment, uses a threefold form. In these two, no men- 
 tion is made of the enemy, and so there is some uncertainty. 
 But the ctiurse must apparently be either backwards or for- 
 wards. They must either be two nearer futures before the 
 Captivity, or two more distant after it. This second gather- 
 ing might, in itself, either be that of the Assyrian hosts under 
 Sennacherib out of all the nations subject to him ; or that of 
 the many petty nations in the time of the Maccabees, who 
 took advantage of the Syrians' oppression, to combine to era- 
 dicate the Jews*. If understood of Sennacherib, the pro- 
 phet, having foretold the entire captivity of the whole people 
 to Babylon, would have prophesied the sudden destruction 
 of a nearer enemy, whose miraculous and instantaneous over- 
 throw sliould be the earnest of the destruction of Babylon 
 and of their deliverance from it. This would suit well with 
 the description, He shall gather them as sheaves to the floor, 
 and would correspond well with the descriptions in Isaiah. 
 On the other hand, whereas this description would suit any 
 other event, in which man gathered bis strength against God 
 and was overthrown, the following words, Arise and thresh, O 
 daughter of Zion &c, fit better with the victories of the Mac- 
 cabees, in which Israel was active, than with the overthrow 
 of Sennacherib, in which they were wholly passive, and God 
 did all for them, as Isaiah and Nahum foretell the same over- 
 throw ^ Then also, if the course of the description was back- 
 ward, 1 ) the captivity in Babylon, 2) the destruction of Sen- 
 nacheril), there is no earlier event to correspond with ^the smit- 
 ing of the judge of Israel on the cheek. The malice also of the 
 nations gathered against Zion suits better with the abiding 
 character of the petty nations, and of their hereditary envy 
 against Israel and its high claims. To Nineveh and Baby- 
 lon, Israel was but one little corner of ground, which rounded 
 their territory and connected them with Egypt. They dis- 
 
 1 See on Hos. ii. 15. - lit. "the hollow of the hand," and so " the grasp." 
 
 3 1 Sam. xi. 3. 10. 11. 4 i Mace. v. 1, 2. 
 
 !■ Is. X. 24-34. xiv. 24, 5. xvii. 12-1]. xxix. 7, 8. Nah. i. 10-13. « v. 1-4. Heb. 
 
 12 But they know not 
 thouj^hts of the Lord, neither un(h;r- g""<''" 
 
 P flip Before 
 IIIC CHRIST 
 
 stand they his counsel : for he shall'' Rom.n.sa. 
 jj^ather them ''as the sheaves into tliei is. 21.10. 
 
 floor. 
 
 ' Is. 41. 15, 
 JO. 
 
 13 ■■ Arise and thresh, O daughter of j^,.. 
 
 er.51. 33. 
 
 diained them, even while they sought to subdue them. Micah 
 describes the exultation of petty gratified rivalry. 
 
 That sdj/, let her he defiled. The bad have a keen eye 
 for the iialtings and inconsistencies and falls of God's people, 
 for which they are ever on the watch. Like Satan, they are 
 first tempters, then the accusers ; first desecrators, then sanc- 
 timonious justiciaries. God, in His judgment, leaves what 
 has been inwardly defiled to be outwardly profaned. ''If any 
 ma)i defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy ; for the 
 temple of God is holy, ichirh temjile are ye. ^Tlie faithful city 
 had become a harlot. '■'The land had become polluted by its 
 i)ih(ihitfiiits. Now it was to he j)olluted by the enemy. Its 
 seducers ask for the judgment of God. ' It has become like 
 us in its deeds; let it no more be distinguished from us by 
 the name of the people of God.' 
 
 And let our eye loolc upon Zion, with pleasure upon its 
 desolation, and feed itself with its misery, "i" Where the 
 eye, there love ; where the hand, there pain." I'TAey fjpened 
 their mouth wide against me: they said. Aha, Aha, our eye 
 hath seen. The world hates the Churcli ; Edom, Israel ; it 
 (■annot be satisfied with beholding its chastisements^-. The 
 sufferings of the Martyrs were the choice spectacle of the 
 Heathen. 
 
 ]'2. But they know not the tlioughts of the Lord, neither. 
 Tindcrstand they His counsel. The heathen did, for their own 
 ends, what God willed for His. The first step was the same ; 
 God willed that His people should be punished ; they willed 
 to punish them. But all which lay beyond, they saw not ; 
 that God willed (on their repentance) to pardon His own 
 people, but to punish themselves for their pride ^■' and cruel- 
 ty 1^ " 1° Almighty God corrects the elect through the repro- 
 bate, as with a rod ; after which He condemns the reprobate 
 eternally, as when the son has been disciplined, the rod is 
 cast into the fire." 
 
 For He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. The 
 multitude of the sheaves hinders not the threshing; the mul- 
 titude of God's enemies hinders not their destruction. They 
 think that they strengthen themselves, as they gather toge- 
 ther ; God sees them but as ripened and fitted for destruction, 
 gathered into one bundle together, to perish together. God 
 gathers them, not by constraint or force, but by giving free 
 scope to their own wayward wills, and overruling these to His 
 ends. 
 
 13. Arise (it may be,) from the dust in which they were 
 Ijdng, I will make thine horn iro7i, and I will make thy hoofs 
 brass. Threshing in the East is partly with oxen, partly mth 
 wheels of iron, or with planks set with sharp flints on an open 
 place made hard to tliis end. The Prophet joins another 
 image, with this and represents Judah as being by God en- 
 dued with strength, first as with a horn of iron ^^ to cast the 
 enemy to the ground, and then with hoofs of brass, wherewith 
 to trample them to dust, as the stubble and chaff". And I will 
 
 ' 1 Cor. iii. 17. « Is. i. 21. ' Jer. iii. 9. Ps. cvi. 38. Is. xxiv. 5. 
 
 1" Proverb in Lap. " Ps. xxxv. 21. '- Mic.vii. 10. Ob. 12. 
 
 " Is. X. 7. 12. " Zech. i. Id. ly. '^ Dion. '^ 1 Kings xxii. 11.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 329 
 
 chrTst ''^if*'^ • fo*' I ^^'11 maliC thine horn iron, 
 
 cir. 710. anfi I ^vill make thy hoofs brass : and 
 
 ' Dan. 2. 11. thon shalt "beat in pieees many peo- 
 
 ronsecrate titeir gain mtfo the Lard, i.e. to Myself; tlie Lord 
 gathered them into the floor by His I'rovideiiee ; tlie Lord 
 gave His peo])le strength to subdue tiieni ; and now, in His 
 own Person, He says, I will eonipletc My own work. 
 
 The very image of tlie "threshing" implies that this is no 
 mere destruction. While tlie stubble is beaten or bruised to 
 small pieces, and the chaff is far more than the wheat, and is 
 carried out of the floor, there yet remains the seed-corn. So 
 in the great judgments of God, while most is refuse, there 
 yet remains over, what is severed from the lost heap and whol- 
 ly consecrated to Him. \Miatever things were the object of 
 the "Cherem ' "' or "thing devoted to the Lord," could not be 
 redeemed, but must remain wholly the Lord's. If it had life, 
 it was to be put to death -. And so the use of the word here 
 may the rather shew, how those converted to God, and who 
 became gain, hallowed to Him, were to pass through death 
 to life, to die to themselves that they might live to Him : what 
 was evil was to be slain in them, that they themselves might 
 live. 
 
 The Israelites and God's dealings with them are ^ensaniples 
 of us upo7i whom the ends of the ivorld are come. And so the 
 whole section tits wonderfully with the condition of the single 
 soul. 
 
 She who haUeth is "*the soul, who would serve God, yet 
 not so as wholly to give up the service of the world, which it 
 had in Baptism renounced, who, after it had gone astray like 
 a lost sheep, and been scattered amid the manifoldness of 
 earthly things, was gathered again into the fold, to love One 
 only, long for One only, give itself to One," its Good Shep- 
 herd, and over it the Lord reigncth for ever, if, taught by ex- 
 jierience the deceitfulness of Satan's promises, and stung by 
 the sense of its own thanklessness and vileness, and conscious 
 of the peril of self confidence, it abideth more closely than 
 others with God. He shall gather her that is driven out, i.e. 
 " ^He shall restore her, from whom He had, for the time, with- 
 drawn His grace," and her that was q(flicted, trouble being 
 God's most effectual instrument, in recalling the soul to Him- 
 self. "^^OY the Lord raiseth them that are bowed doicn. ^-tnd 
 will make her that hulteth, a remnant, placing her among the 
 elect and holy, and her that ivas cast off strong ; for Christ 
 giveth oft to such souls great richness of Divine graces, so 
 that "'where sin ahoiinded, gj-ace should much more ahoiind." 
 "■ * To it, when enlightened and purified by affliction and by 
 repentance, it is promised, that its Lord, the Great King, shall 
 come to it, and again reign in it, which is the great bliss of 
 souls in grace. For then doth the soul really reign, when it 
 submits wholly to Christ, ^^'hom to serve is to reign, and so, 
 under Him, receives power to command its wrong desires, and 
 rule itself; " that great and wonderful power which the Evan- 
 gelist expresses in words so brief, *ZV; them gave He power 
 to become the sons of God. Thus He maketh it strung, so that 
 ^neither death, nor life.nor angehjior principalities^nor powers, 
 can separate it from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus 
 our Lord. Then, " he describes the condition of the soul 
 fluctuating between good and evil, called one way by God 
 through inward inspirations, and another way by the entice- 
 
 ' Lev. xxvii. 28. = lb. 29. ' 1 Cor. x. 11. 
 
 ■< Rib. = Dion. « Ps. cxlvi. 8. i Rom. v. 20. 
 
 pie: 'and I will consecrate their i?Jihi ^^ J'j^Ys t 
 
 unto the Lord, and their substance unto i^:"!^': 
 
 "the Lord of the whole earth. '&23.\a'' 
 
 " Zcrh.4. H. 8i6.5. & tt). 6, 9. 
 
 ments and habits of sin. And, wishing to follow God, yet 
 not to be without its sinful ph^asures, and knowing this to be 
 impossible, it is in anguish and hesitates. lUtr the prophet 
 justly rebukes, '■whi/ thus cri/ aloud, as though thou must be 
 led captive by the Devil, not knowing or unalilc to extricate 
 thyself? Hast thou no King, aided liy \\'hose power, thou 
 mayest fight against all enticements, habit, tlie flesh? Paul 
 felt this and cried aloud, '"/ see another law in my members, 
 ivarring against the law of my mind, and bringing nie into cap- 
 tivity to the lull' of sin which is in my members. O icretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me fr<nn the body of this 
 death'' You see his grief. But he despairs not. He knows 
 that he has a King. I thank God through Jesns ('iirist our 
 Lord. Or why grievcst thou, as if thou hadst no counsellor, 
 by whose counsels to free thee from these snares ? Thy Coun- 
 sellor 'u\AccA])erishedim the Cross, but for thy sake, that thou 
 mayest live. He died, to destroy him who hnth the power 
 of death. But He rose the third day and is still with thee; 
 at the Right Flandof the Father He still reigns Iiiiiuortal for 
 ever. See how many counsels He has left thee in the Gos- 
 pel, how many admonitions, whereby thou mayest lead a hap- 
 py and tranquil life. Now pain seizes thee like a woman in 
 travail. For such a soul travails, having conceived inspira- 
 tions from God, which it wishes to obey, but that the flesh, 
 overcome by concupiscence, resists, and so it never brings 
 forth, nor experiences that joy, whereof the Lord speaketh, 
 ^^fFhen she is delivered of the child, she rememberefh no more 
 the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. Where- 
 fore he adds; be in pain, for thou art indeed in travail; thou 
 wilt not cease to be in pain, until thou bring forth. Thou 
 wilt go forth &c. "^God, by a provision of His great mercy, 
 allows lukewarm souls, who will be at no pains to gain grace, 
 to fall into foulest sins, in order that, owning at last their 
 misery, they may cease to be lukewarm, and with great ardor 
 of soul may embrace virtue. For, warned by the result, they 
 understand that they themselves emboldened the tempter, 
 (for he chiefly attacks the lukewarm and remiss.) and they be- 
 come ardent in the conflict and in well-doing." AVherefore he 
 says, ///OK shalt go forth out of the city, that City of God, where- 
 of He is the Builder and 3Iaker^'^, which is gladdened by the ri- 
 ver of His Spirit ; "and it dwells in the open field, unprotected, 
 ready to be a prey, in the broad way of its own concupis- 
 cences, out of the narrow road which leadeth to life, and 
 goeth even to Babylon, the city of ' confusion,' in tumult and 
 din and unrest, and the distractions of this life. Yet even 
 there shall it be delivered, like the poor Prodigal, who came 
 to himself in a far country, when worn out by its hard service. 
 Even there it must not despair, but remember, with him, its 
 Father's house, its former home, the Heavenly Jerusalem. 
 Its pains within or without, whereby it is brought back, are 
 travail-pains. Though all is dark, it must not say, I have no 
 Cmaisellor. For its Redeemer's Name is "^"'Counsellor, "i*one 
 Counsellor of a thousand." "^Thine Intercessor never dies." 
 Out of the very depth of misery will the Divine Mercy draw 
 thee. Though thou seem held by the strong hand of the ene- 
 my, and he seems to triumph over thee and to jeer thee, 
 
 s S. John i. 12. ' Rom. viii. 38,9. " Rom. vii. 23, 24. " S. John xri. 21. 
 12 Heb. xi. 10. » Is. ix. 6. " Ecclus. vi. 6. '' Christian Year.
 
 330 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Bel'nre 
 CHRIST 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ""'• "'"• 1 The hirth of Christ. 4 His kingdom. 8 His 
 
 conquest. 
 
 N 
 
 ()W fi^'iither thyself in troops O 
 daughter of troops : he hath laid 
 
 ^Tliere, there so would tee liuve it, ice have devoured him, and 
 hosts of devils seek thy uttei' destruction, and thou seem to he 
 '^delivered over to tlieni to the destruction of t lie flesh ; yet is 
 it only that the spirit may he saved in the Dai) of the Lord. 
 Even Satan, when he is tormentinj^ souls, knows not the 
 thoughts of the Lord, nor 7inderstands His eointscls, how, hy 
 the very pain which he inflicts, God is hiddinj;- then), Itise 
 and "^look up to lieaven and Ions;- tor heavenly thiniis and 
 trample on all which they liad hitherto foully served, honor 
 or vain jflory or covctousness or lust ;" how He will e.valt their 
 horn in the Lord, make it strong as iron that they should do 
 all things through Christ instrengthcning them, and conquer 
 all through the mic^ht of Christ ; how He should bruise Satan 
 under their feet shorlli/, and they consecrate wholly to God 
 their whole strength, every power of soul and hody which hi- 
 therto had been the adversary's. 
 
 V. 1. A^ow gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops. 
 The daughter of troops is still the same who was before ad- 
 dressed, Judah. The word is almost always ^used of ^ bands 
 of men employed' in irregular, marauding, inroads." Judah 
 is (^n\\t\ciX daughter of troops, m\ account of her violence, the 
 robbery ami bloodshed within her% as Jeremiah says". Is 
 this house which is called hy My Name become a den of rob- 
 bers in your eyes ? She then wlio had spoiled^ should now be 
 spoiled ; she who had formed herself in bands to lay waste, 
 shall now be gathered thick together, in small bands *, unable 
 to resist in the open iield ; yet in vain should she so gather 
 herself; for the enemy was uj)on her, in her last retreat. 
 This description has obviously no fultilment, except in tlie 
 infliction by the Romans. For there was no event, before the 
 invasion by Sennacherib and accordingly in the ])r»>phet's 
 own time, in which there is any seeming fulfilment of it. But 
 then, the second deliverance must be tliat by the Maccabees ; 
 and this siege, which lies, in order of time, beyond it, must 
 he a siege by the Romans. With this it agrees, that where- 
 as, in the two former visitations, God promised, in the first, de- 
 liverance, in the second, victory, here the Prophet dwells on 
 the Person of the Redeemer, and foretells that the strength 
 of the Church should not lie in any human means °. Here too 
 Israel had no ki7ig, but a fudge only. Then the "gathering 
 in robber-bands " strikingly describes their internal state in 
 the siege of Jerusalem ; and although this was subsequent to 
 and consequent upon the rejection of our Lord, yet there is no 
 reason why the end should be separated from the beginning 
 since the capture by Titus was but the sequel of the capture 
 by Pompey, the result of that same temper, in which they 
 crucified Jesus, because He would not be their earthly king. 
 It was the close of the organic existence of the former people ; 
 after which the remnant from among them with the Gen- 
 tiles, not Israel after the flesh, were the true people of God. 
 
 ' Ps. XXXV. 25. 2 1 Cor. v. 5. ^ Rib. ■> i.e. except Job xxv. 3. 
 
 (where it is used of the armies of God) aiid Job xxix. 25. In Job xix. 5. it is used me- 
 taphorically of the "host" of evils sent against Job. S. Jerome renders " filia latronis," 
 ar.d says that Aq. Symm. Theod. and Ed. V. agree with that rendering. 
 
 •> ii. 8. iii. 2. &c. Hos. v. 10. « Jcr. vii. 11. comp. S. Matt. xxi. 13. ' Is. xxxiii. 1. 
 
 8 munn and im na are manifestly to be taken in corresponding senses. That of 
 " gathering in troops" is the only known sense of munn, Jer. v. 7, except that of "mak- 
 itig incisions in one's flesh," which is obviously irrelevant here. ' v. 8-15. '" Acts 
 xxiii.3. " St. John xix. 15. '- Dan. xii. 2. "iv.9. » n'jB'CDiv.8. '^ino v. 1. lleb. 
 
 siege against us : they shall 
 
 the judge of Israel with a rod upon the 
 
 cheek. 
 
 2 But thou, ^ Beth-lehem 
 
 ratah though thou be 
 
 mnifc Before 
 silliLi. CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710, 
 
 Lam. 3. .30. 
 
 Matt. 5. 3'J. 
 pi ^27.30. 
 
 J^pn-i, Matt. 2. 6. 
 
 little ••"''"7«- 
 
 He hath laid siege against ns. The Prophet, being born 
 of them, and for the great love he bore them, counts himself 
 among them, as St. Paul mourns over his brethren after the 
 flesh. They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the 
 cheek. So St. Paul said to him who had made himself high 
 ])riest, '" God shall smite thee, thou U'hitcdicall ; for sit test thou 
 to Judge me after the law, and cotinnandest me to be smitten 
 contran/ to the law. It is no longer "the king" (for they 
 had said, ^^ JFe have no King but Ccesar) but the judge of Is- 
 rael, they who against Christ and His Apostles gave wrong 
 judgment. As they had smitten contrary to the law, so were 
 the chief men smitten by Titus, when the city was taken. As 
 they had done, it was done unto them. To be smitten on the 
 face, I)ctokcns shame; to smite with the rod, betokens de- 
 struction. Now both shall meet in one ; as, in the Great 
 Day, the wicked ^- shall awake to shame and everlasting con- 
 tempt, and shall perish for ever. 
 
 2. But [And^ thou, Bethlehem Epihratuh. With us, the 
 chequered events of time stand in strong contrast, painful or 
 gladdening. Good seems to efface evil, or evil blots out the 
 memory of the good. God orders all in the continuous course 
 of His Wisdom. All lies in perfect harmony in the Divine 
 Mind. Each event is the sequel of what went before. So 
 here the Prophet joins on, what to us stands in such contrast, 
 with that simple. And. Yet he describes the two conditions 
 as bearing on one another. He had just spoken of the judge 
 of Israel smitten on the cheek, and, before^*, that Israel had 
 neither king nor counsellor ; he now speaks of the Ruler in Is- 
 rael, the Everlasting. He had said, how Judah was to be- 
 come mere bands of men ; he now says, how the little Bethle- 
 hem was to be exalted. He had said before, that the rule of 
 o/f/ was to come to the tower of tliejloek, the daughter of Je- 
 rusalem ; now, retaining the word^*, he speaks of the Ruler, 
 in Whom it was to be established. Before he had addressed 
 the tower offhejtock; now, Bethlehem. But he has greater 
 things to say now, so he pauses ^^, And thou ! People have 
 admired the brief appeal of the murdered Csesar, "Thou too, 
 Brutus." The like energetic conciseness lies in the words, 
 And thou I Bethlehem Ephratah. The name Ephratah is not 
 seemingly added, in order to distinguish Bethlehem from the 
 Bethlehem of Zabulon, since that is but once named'*', and 
 Bethlehem here is marked to be the Bethlehem Judali'^'^,\iy 
 the addition, too little to be among the thousands cf Judah. He 
 joins apparently the usual name, Bethlehem, with the old Pa- 
 triarchal, and perhaps poetic'^ name, i?;j/ir«/rt/^, either in refe- 
 rence and contrast to that former birth of sorrow near Eph- 
 ratah'^, or,(as is Micali'swont,)regardingthemeaningof both 
 names. Both its names were derived from " fruitfulness ;" 
 " House of Bread" and "fruitfulness;" and, despite of centu- 
 ries of Mohammedan oppression, it is fertile still -". 
 
 ''*■ As marked by tile accent, " double Garcsh." Casp. '^ Jos. xix. 15. ^^ Its name 
 in Jud. xvii. 7-9. xix. 1, 2.18. Kuthi. 1, 2. 1 Sam. xvii. 12. "* Ps. cxxxii.6. 
 
 " Gen.xxxv.19. xlviii.7. -" "The district country around Bethlehem aboundsin 
 fields, vineyards, hills, vailies.oliveyards, fig-trees, and is especially supported by wines 
 and corn." Quaresm. Elucid. Terrce S.ii.620. " Round the hill is fruitful garden and 
 corn land," Russegger iii. 79. "The terraces, admirably kept, and covered with rows of 
 luxuriant olives, intermixed with the iig and vine, sweep in graceful curves round the ridge, 
 regular as stairs." Porter Hdbook p.20U. "It is still oneof the best-cultivated and most fer- 
 tile parts of Palestine." Rev. G. Williams in Smith's Gr. andR.Geogr.AddVolneyii.298.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 331 
 
 Before c 
 CHRIST 
 
 "*•• "!"■ c 1 Sam. 23. 23. 
 
 among the '' 
 
 "1 Ex. 18. 25 
 
 thousands of Judah, 
 
 It had been rich in the fruitfuhicss of this workl; rich, thrice 
 rich, shouUl it he in spiritual fruitfiilness. '" Truly is Betli- 
 Ichcni, ' liouse ot" bread,' wliere was born-///e Bread of life, 
 which came down from heaven" "''Who with inward sweetness 
 refreshes tlie minds of the elect," ^.^iiffct's Bread, and '"Eph- 
 ratah, fruitfulness, whose fruitfulness is God," the Seed-corn, 
 stored wherein, died and hroi(<j;hf firth mich fruit, all which 
 ever was brouiiht forth to God in the whole world." 
 
 Though thou he little ujnoiii( the thouaands of Judah, lit. 
 small to he, \. e. too siiuill to he among &c. Each tribe was di- 
 vided into its thonsands, probably of fijjhtinix men, each thou- 
 sand havinc; its own separate head ^ But the thousand con- 
 tinued to be €i division of the tribe, after Israel was settled in 
 Canaan". The thousand of Gideon was the meanest in 3/anas- 
 seh''. Places too small to form a thousand by themselves were 
 united with others, to make up the number^. So lowly was 
 Bethlehem that it was not counted among the possessions of 
 Judah. In the division under Joshua, it was wholly omitted^. 
 From its situation, Bethlehem can never have been a consi- 
 derable place. It lay and lies. East of the road from Jerusa- 
 lem to Hebron, at six miles from the capitaP". It was "^'seated 
 on the summit-level of the hill country of Judica with deep 
 gorjies descendingEast to the Dead Sea and West to the plains 
 of Philistia," "2704 feet above the sea^-." It lay"i^on anarrow 
 ridge," whose whole length was not above a niile^^, swelling 
 at each extremity into a somewhat higher eminence, with a 
 slight depression between ^*. "'= The ridge projects Eastward 
 from the central mountain range, and breaks down in abrupt 
 terraced slopes to deep vallics on the N. E. and S." The 
 West end too '• '" shelves gradually down to the valley." It 
 ■was then rather calculated to be an outlying fortress, guard- 
 ing the approach to Jerusalem, than for a considerable city. 
 As a garrison, it was fortified and held by the Philistines ^^ in 
 the time of Saul, recovered from them by David, and was one 
 of the 15 cities ^^ fortified by Rehoboam. Yet it remained an 
 
 1 invit. S.Jer. Ep.ins. (levit. Paulse. n. 10. = S.Joh.vi. 48,51. ^ S.Greg. 
 Horn. 8. in Ev. ■• Ps. Ixxviii. 25. * Num. i. 16. x. 4. ^ Jos.xxii. 21. 
 
 30. ISam.x. 19. xxiii.23. 7Jud.vi.l5. 8AsinlChron.xxiii.il. 
 
 four brothers, not having many sons, were counted as one " house." Hengst. ^ Jos. 
 XV. The LXX interpolate it in Jos. XV. 59, i" Eus. S. Jer. de loc. Hcbr. " 6 miles 
 
 [in the 6th mile, S. Jer.] from jElia to the South, near the road which leadeth to He- 
 bron." Itin. Hieros. p. 598. " From Jerusalem, as you go to Bethlehem, on the high 
 road at 4 miles on the right is the monument where Rachel, Jacob's wife, was buried. 
 Thence 2 miles on the left is Bethlehem where our Lord Jesus Christ was born." "Two 
 parasangs," (6 miles) Benj. Tud. (i. 40. ii. 90.) " fi miles," Arculf, (Early travels in Pal. 
 p. 6.) Bernard (lb. 29.) Sa;, wulf, (lb. 44.) " 2 hours." Maundrell, (lb. 455.) Robinson. 
 (i. 470.) " Thomson, The land ii. 509. '^ van de Velde memoir p. ISO. " convent 
 at Bethlehem, 2704 Eng. feet." Russ. '3 Arculf m Early Travels in Palestine p. 6. 
 
 n Ritter Erdk. xvi. 285. and Russ. in n. 15. 
 
 '■' Porter's Hdbooki. 207. " It stands upon an eminence surrounded by small vallies 
 or depressions, devoted to tlie culture of the olive and vine." — " From this height there is 
 a pretty steep slope on both the North and Southern sides, particularly the former, the 
 two "Wadis or gorges which form its boundaries. On the flanks of these Wadis are the 
 principal gardens, vineyards, and plantations of olives and figs. They unite a little to the 
 E. of the town, and form what is called the Wadi-et-Taamarah from the village of Beit- 
 Taamr, in the neighbourhood." Wilson, Lands i. 394. " A narrow ridge, surrounded on 
 all sides by vallies." Arculf. lb. "On the N.the other side of the deep, abruptly-sink- 
 ing, valley, on the top of the hill, lay Bethlehem." V. Schubert ii. 493, coming from the 
 south. " it stands on the slope of a hill, of difficult ascent, at least by night. "Lord Lind- 
 say p. 240. "The first sight of Bethlehem has something strangely picturesque. It lies 
 quite on a bare simimit in the Jura limestone of Palestine, 2338 Paris feet above the sea. 
 The summit is divided by a shallow saddle-back. On the West side lies Bethlehem, on the 
 East the great monastery and Church, like a fortress over the precipice, which falls into 
 the deep valley." Russegger iii. 79. " The little city of David, seated on a lofty hill, 
 shines, like a brilliant crown, among the mountains of judah." Mislin. c. 32. iii. 6. From 
 one spot, you can see the Cluirch of Bethlehem, where our Saviour was bom ; the Church 
 of the Holy Sepulchre where He was buried; the Mount of Olives whence He ascended 
 to heaven." Id. lb. 
 
 IS Grove in Smith Diet, of Bib. " Towards the \V. the hill is higher than the village, 
 and then sinks down very gradually towards Wadi Ahmed." Rob. i. 470. 
 '7 2 Sam. xxiii. 14. " 2 Chron. xi. 6. "A low wall without towers sur- 
 
 i/ct out of thee shall he come 
 
 forth liefore 
 
 lUILU CHRIST 
 
 cir.710. 
 
 unimportant place. Its inhabitants are counted with those 
 of the neighbouring Nctophab, both before '•* and after-'* the 
 captivity, but both together amounted after tlie captivity to 
 17S)^' or 188^" only. It still does not appear among the pos- 
 sessions of Judah--. It was called acitv-', but the name in- 
 cluded even places whicii had only l"l) figlitimc men-'. In 
 our Ltu'd's times it is called a i'il//ige-'',3. citi/-'', or a strong 
 spot -''. The royal city would become a dm of thieves. Christ 
 should be born in a lowly village. " -^lli; Who had taken the 
 form of a servant, chose Bethlehem for His Birth, Jeru.saleni 
 for His Passion." 
 
 St. Matthew relates how the Chief Priest and Scribes in 
 j their answer to Herod's enquiries, where Christ should he 
 horn"^, alleged this prophe(;y. They gave the substance ra- 
 ther than the exact words, and with one remarkable varia- 
 tion, art not the least among the princes of Jndah. St. Mat- 
 thew did not correct their paraphrase, because it does not af- 
 fect the object for which they alleged the prophecy, the birth 
 of the Redeemer in Bethlehem. The sacred writers often 
 do not correct the translations, existing in their time, when 
 the variations do not affect the truth''". Both words are true 
 here. Micah speaks of Betlilehem, as it was in the sight of 
 men ; the chief priests, whose words St. Matthew approves, 
 speak of it as it was in the sight of God, and as, by the Birth 
 of Christ, it should become. "^^ Nothing hindered that Beth- 
 lehem should be at once a small village and the Mother-city 
 of the whole earth, as being the mother and nurse of Christ 
 Who made the world and conquered it." " ^- That is not the 
 least, which is the house of blessing, and the receptacle of 
 Divine grace." "^^He saith that the spot, although mean and 
 small, shall be glorious. And in truth," adds S. Chrysostom, 
 '' the whole world came together to see Bethlehem, where, 
 being born, He was laid, on no other ground than this only." 
 '• ^* O Bethlehem, little, but now made great by the Lord, He 
 hath made thee great. Who, being great, was in thee made 
 
 rounds the brow of the hill, and overlooks the vallev." Arculf. p. C. "scarcely a J- of an 
 hour." Ritter p. 281). " 1 Chron. ii. 54. ^''Neh. vii.26. -i Ezr. ii. 21,2. 
 
 22 l^^eh. xi. 25-30. ^^ Ruth i. 19. Ezr. ii. 1. with 21. Neh. \\\. 6. with 26. 
 
 -^ Am. v. 3. '^ S. John vii. 42. -^ S. Luke ii. 4. =7 jos. Ant. v. 2. 8. 
 
 (x<i/>"oK) "8 S. Leo de Epiph. Serm. 1. "^ S. Matt. ii. 4-6. 
 
 30 See ab. on Am. ix. 12. p. 224. Pococke has employed much learning to make this 
 passage verbally accord ivith the allegation of it by the chief priest recorded by S. Mat- 
 thew (NotiE misccll. on the Porta Mosis, Works i. 134-9.) He follows the eminent au- 
 thority of .\bulwalid (followed by R. Tanchum and a Hebr. Arab. Gloss.) in supposing 
 TVS, " little," to liave had the opposite sense of " great," and that it actually had that 
 meaning in Jer. xlviii. 4. Zech. xiii. 7. In neither of those passages, however, have 
 TVS, nys, that meaning, nor do the casesalleged of wordscontainingoppositemeanings bear 
 out such an one as this. For tlie two senses, although difl'ering at last, can be traced up 
 to one common source, which could not be done as to "I'l'S. Thus I) tnp, " holy, " is 
 used of idolatrous consecrations which were in fact horrible desecrations, (see ab. on Hos, 
 iv. 14. p. 31.) 2) B'S), "soul," is used of the "person," as we speak of " 1000 souls. 
 Thence the idiom nD trsi, lit. " the soul of one dead," Levi xxi. 11. Num. vi. 6; then in 
 one idiom iyDjSxDB, "defiled as to the dead," but irsi does not signify one alive or dead in- 
 differently . 3)Ti^, lit. "bent the knee," praj cd, includes prayers for evil as well as for good, 
 cursing as well as blessing. 4)nonlove, piety, hence perhaps, whatis forbidden by natu- 
 ral piety, (Lev.xx.l7.)anclareproach; (Prov. xiv ,34. lb. xxv. 10.) unless different roots 
 have accidentally coalesced, (see Fiirst Conc.lasin 73!?, to use"insight," hence wisdom, and 
 '^^D vacillate, hence folly, meet in one Syriac word ; or our let, "hinder," is from lata, 
 "slow;" /ail/an, "retard;" Goth. our/t'/, "allow," from "/f/n/i"!. q.lassen.) In .\rabicthis 
 is the more common on account of the severance of the different tribes who spoke it, be- 
 fore Mohammed united them into one, as the same word receives modifications in dif- 
 ferent languages of Europe. The meaning, " great" also, if it could be obtained for Tyx, 
 would still not yield the meaning desired. For nv.nS implies a comparison. It means 
 little to he in the thousands of Judah i. e. too little. I fvjs were rendered great, it would 
 still be " great to be among the thousands" S:c. i. e. too great to he. Chald. Lxx. Syr. 
 and the Latin in S. Aug. de Civ.D. xviii. 30. give another explanation, i7k little that thou 
 shouldest he. This does not agree better with the words in St. Matthew, and is against the 
 idiom. In this idiom l)Tys is not used, but mostly t;vs, or !?pj Is. xlix. 6. or pp 2 Sam. 
 vii. 19. 2) The person spoken to is alwavs expressed. 3i g. Greg. Naz. Orat. 18. 
 
 in patr. § 17. " S. Ambr. Ep. 70. § 11. 3: s. Chrys. Quod Christus 
 
 sit Deus § 3. i.561. ^ S.Bera. Serm.l. in Vig. Nativ. § 4. i. 703
 
 332 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 IS 
 
 to 
 
 chrTst ""to me that 
 '^''••""- Israel ; ^ whose goiiigs 
 
 e Gen. 49. 10. Is. 9. 6. ' Ps. 90. 2. Pro. 8. 22, 23. Jolin 1. 1 
 
 be '' ruler in 
 forth haiw 
 
 hccn from of old, from f everlast- (, ^"'^W 
 
 ST 
 cir. 710. 
 
 t Heh.thedaysofeterniti/. 
 
 little. What city, if it heard thereof, would not envy thee 
 that most precious Stable and the jjlory of that Crib? Thy 
 name is great in all the earth, and ti// generations ea/f tliee 
 blessed. ^ Glorious tilings are every where spoken of thee, thou 
 city of God. Every where it is sunc:, that this Maji is horn 
 in her, and the 3Iost High Hiinself shall stahlish her. 
 
 Out of thee shall He come forth to Me that is to he Ruler 
 in Israel [lit. shall (one) come forth to Me to be Ruler.'] Beth- 
 lehem was too small to be any part of the polity of Judah ; 
 out of her was to come forth One, Who, in God's Will, was to 
 be its Ruler. Tiie words to Me include both of Me and to Me. 
 Of Me, i.e. ""by My Power and Spirit," as Gabriel said, 
 ^ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that Holy Thing 
 which shall he horn of thee, shall be called the Son of God. To 
 Me, as God said to Samuel *, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth- 
 lehemite ; for I have provided Me a ki)ig among his sons. So 
 now, one shall go forth thence to Me, to do My Will, to My 
 praise and glory, to reconcile the world unto Me, to rule and 
 be Head over the true Israel, the Church. He was to go forth 
 out o/ Bethlehem, as his native-place^; as Jeremiah*' says, 
 His noble shall he from him, and his ruler shall go forth out of 
 the tnidst of him '' ; and Zechariah ^, Out of him shall come forth 
 the cornerstone ; out of him the nail, out of him the hattleh(nv, 
 out of him every ruler together. Before, IVIicah had said to the 
 toiver of Edar, Ophel of the daughter of Zion, the first rule 
 shall come to thee ; now, retaining the word, he says to Beth- 
 lehem, out of thee shall come one to he a ruler ^. The judge of 
 Israel had been smitten ; now there should go forth out of the. 
 little Bethlehem, One, not to be a judge only, but a Ruler. 
 
 IFhose goiiigs forth have hecnfromof old, from everlasting. 
 lit. from the days of eternity. Going forth is opposed to going 
 forth ; a going forth out of Bethlehem, to a going forth from 
 eternity ; a going forth, which then was still to come, (the 
 Prophet says,shall go forth,) to a going forth which had been 
 long ago, "I'' not from the world but from the beginning, not 
 in the days of time, but from the days of eternity. For ^^ in the 
 begiiming was the TFord, and the Word was with God, atul 
 the Word was God. The Same ivas in the beginning with God. 
 Li the end of the days, He was to go forth from Bethlehem ; 
 but, lest he should be tliought then to have had His Being, 
 the Prophet adds. His goings forth are from everlasting." 
 Here words, denoting eternity and used of the eternity of 
 God, are united together to impress the belief of the Eter- 
 nity of God the Son. We have neither thought nor words 
 to conceive eternity; we can only conceive of time lengthen- 
 ed out without end. " i^ True eternity is boundless life, all 
 existing at once," or "i^uration without beginning and with- 
 out end and without change." The Hebrew names, here 
 used, express as much as our thoughts can conceive or our 
 words utter. They mean literally,/roOT afore, (i. e. look back 
 as far as we can, that from which we begin is still " before,") 
 "from the days of that ivhich is hidden." True, that in eter- 
 nity there are no divisions, no succession, but one everlasting 
 
 > Ps. Ixxxvii. 3. 2 Thcopli. 3 s, Luke i. 35. 
 
 ISam. xvi. 1. * When KS' is used of actual descent, it is in relation to the ac- 
 
 tiJal parent, to " go forth out of the womb," " out of the loins," " out of the bowels," "out 
 
 ot thee" Gen. xlvj. 2C. Jol) i. 21. Jer. i. 5. Gen. xxxv. 11, xv, 4, xvii. 6.2 Kings xx. 18. 
 
 TO, 'VCD, •j('7nD, cmo, pao ks', i3t •«<(• « xxx. 21. ^ ns' mpD iSbo s x. 4. 
 
 '' i'B'D (v. 1. Heb.) refers back to nVBCOn iv. 8. i" Rup. " S. John i. 1. 2. 
 
 " now ; " one, as God, in whom it is, is One. But man can 
 only conceive of Infinity of space as space witlioiit bounds, 
 althougli God contains space, and is not contained by it ; nor 
 can we conceive of Eternity, save as filled out by time. And 
 so God speaks after tlie manner of men, and calls Himself 
 ^*the Ancient of Days, " ^^ being Himself the age and time of 
 all things ; before days and age and time," " the Beginning 
 and measure of ages and of time." The word, translated 
 from of old, is used elsewhere^" of the eternity of God. '^TVie 
 God of before is a title chosen to express, that He is before 
 all things which He made. ^^Diveller of afore is a title, form- 
 ed to shadow out His ever-present existence. Conceive any 
 existence afore all which else you can conceive, go back afore 
 and afore that ; stretch out backward yet before and before 
 all which you have conceived, ages afore ages, and yet afore, 
 without end, — then and tliere God was. That afore was the 
 property of God. Eternity belongs to God, not God to eter- 
 nity. Any words must be inadequate to convey the idea of 
 the Infinite to our finite minds. Probably the sight of God, 
 us He Is, will give us the only possible conception of eternity. 
 Still the idea of time prolonged infinitely, although we cannot 
 follow it to infinity, shadows our eternal being. And as we 
 look along that long vista, our sight is prolonged and stretch- 
 ed out by those millions upon millions of years, along which 
 we can look, although even if each grain of sand or dust on 
 this eartli, which are countless, represented countless mil- 
 lions, we should be, at the end, as far from reaching to eter- 
 nity as at the beginning. The days of eternity are only an 
 inadequate expression, because every conception of the hu- 
 man mind must be so. Equally so is every other, ^'^ From 
 everlasting to everlasting; '^'^from everlasting ; "^ to everlast- 
 ing; "-from the day, i. e. since the day was. For the word, 
 from, to our minds implies time, and time is no measure of 
 eternity. Only it expresses prseexistence, an eternal Exis- 
 tence backwards as well as forwards, the incommunicable at- 
 tribute of God. But words of Holy Scripture have their full 
 meaning, unless it appear from the passage itself that they 
 have not. In the passages where the words, /or ever, from 
 afore, do not mean eternity, the subject itself restrains them. 
 Thus /or ever, looking onward, is used of time, equal in du- 
 ration with the being of whom it is written, as ^', he shall be 
 thy servant for ever, i. e. so long as he lives in the body. So 
 when it is said to the Son-*, Thy throne, O God, is for ever 
 and ever, it speaks of a kingdom which shall have no end. 
 In like way, looking backwards, -^I will remember Thy ivon- 
 dersfrom old, must needs relate to time, because tliey are 
 marvellous dealings of God in time. So again-^, the heavens of 
 old, stand simply contrasted with the changes of man. But 
 -'God of old is the Eternal God. ^^He that abideth of old is 
 God enthroned from everlasting. In like manner the goings 
 forth here, opposed to a, going forth in time, (emphatic words 
 being moreover united together,) are a going forth in eternity. 
 The word,/ro?« of old, as used of being, is only used as to 
 the Being of God. Here too then there is no ground to stop 
 
 '= S. Anselm Monol. c. 24. L. " Rich. Vict, de Trin. ii. 4. L. » Dan. vii. 9. 
 
 '^ Dinnvs. de Div. Norn. c. 10. x. 5. ■* Hab. i. 12. '' Dip mSm Deut. xxxiii. "27. 
 So oSiy 'jN'Gen. xxi. 33. Ts. xl. 28. "> ny 3B" Ps. Iv. 20. '» nh^]l ^^ dSiid Ps. xc. 2. 
 ciii. 17. -" dSijidPf. xciii. 2. and of Divine Wisdom, or God the Son, Frov. viii.23. 
 
 =' 3B" oSivS Ps. ix. 8. xxix. 10. " Din Is. xliii. 13. -^ Ex. xxi. 6. "■' Ps. xlv. 6. 
 
 -^ Ib.lxxvii.l2. '-* lb. Ixviii. 31. -' Deut. xxxiii. 27. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 333 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 K ch. 4. 10. 
 
 3 Therefore will he i^ivo tlicm uj), until the 
 .time that ^ she which triivaileth hiitli brouj^ht 
 
 short of that nipaiiiiiij; and so it declares the eternal i,'-o/«_i,'-- 
 fortk, or (generation oF the Son. 'I'lie plural, goings forlli, 
 may here he used, eitlier as words ot" f;reat majesty ', "God," 
 " Lord," " Wisdom," (i. e. Divine') are plural ; or hecause the 
 Generation of the Son from the Father is an Eternal Gene- 
 ration, hefore all time, and now, tlioii2;h not in time, yet in 
 eternity still. As then the prophet saith, ''from the (Un/s of 
 eternity," althouf^h eternity has no parts, nor bejjinninjj, nor 
 "from," so he may say i(oi tigs for f/t, to convey, as we can re- 
 ceive it, a continual i;oini:;-forth. We think of Eternity as un- 
 ending', continual, time ; and so he may have set forth to us the 
 Eternal Act of the Goi/ig Forth of the Son, as continual acts. 
 The Jews understood, as we do now, that Micah foretold 
 that the Christ was to he born at Bethlehem, until they re- 
 jected Ilini, and were pressed by the argument. Not only 
 did the chief priests formally give the answer, but, supposing 
 our Lord to be of Nazareth, some who rejected II im, employ- 
 ed the argument against Him. - Some said, Shall. Christ 
 come out of Galilee ? Hath not the Scripture said, that Christ 
 cnmeth of the seed of David, and out of the toivn of Bethlehem, 
 where David was? They knew of two distinct things; that 
 Christ was 1) to be of the seed of David ; and 2) oat of the 
 town of Bethlehem. Christians urged them with the fact, 
 that the prophecy could be fulfilled in no other than in Christ. 
 " ^ If He is not yet born, who is to go forth as a Ruler out of 
 the tribe of Judah. from Bethlehem, (for He must needs come 
 forth out of the tribe of Judah and from Bethlehem, but we 
 see that now no one of the race of Israel has remained in the 
 city of Bethlehem, and thenceforth it has been interdicted* 
 that any Jew should remain in the confines of that coun- 
 try) — how then shall a Ruler be born from Judaea, and how 
 shall he come forth out of Bethlehem, as the Divine volumes 
 of the Prophets announce, when to this day there is no one 
 whatever left there of Israel, from whose race Christ could be 
 born? " The Jews at first met the argument, by affirming that 
 the Messiah was born at Bethlehem on the day of the de- 
 struction of the temple »; but Mas hidden for the sins of the 
 people. This being a transparent fable, the Jews had either 
 to receive Christ, or to give up the belief that He was to be born 
 at Bethlehem. So they explained it, "The Messiah shall go 
 forth thence, because he shall be of the seed of David who was 
 «mt of Bethlehem." But this would have been misleading 
 language. Never did man so speak, that one should he born 
 in a place, when only a remote ancestor had been born there. 
 Micah does not say merely, that His family came out of Beth- 
 lehem, but that ile Himself should thereafter come forth 
 thence. No one could have said of Solomon or of any of the 
 subsequent kings of Judah, that they sAo?<W thereafter come 
 
 ' D'hSk, 'UN, D'E-np, niD:n Prov. i. 20. ix. 1. 2 s. John vii. 41, 2. 3 Tert. c. Jud. 
 c. 13. R. Isaac, Chizzuk Eniunah, in Wagenseil tela ignea Sat. p. 278. tries to evade it. 
 
 ■■By Hadrian. See ab. on iii. 12. p. 318. Reland p. 647. understands this of a pro- 
 hibition to approach Bethlehem itself. ' See at lengtli Martini Piigio fidei ii. 6. f. 
 279, from the Jerusalem Talmud Berachoth [f. S.] and the old mystical bonks, Bereshith 
 Rabba on Gen. xxx. 41, and the Echa R. on Lam. i. Ifi. (These last passages have been 
 mutilated.) See also Schoettg. T. ii. p. 196. on Is. \\\\. 7. The fable of His conceal- 
 ment occurs in Jonath . on M icah iv. 8, (see ab. p. 327,) and inTrypho in S. Just. Dial.§ S. 
 
 * As in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17. '' Acts vii. 42. Rom. i. 24. 26. 28. 
 
 ' Is. vii. 14. The context requires, that the Mother here spoken of should be the 
 Mother of the Messias. For the Birth is spoken of before (v. 2.) and his brethren, vnn, 
 in this V. can be no other than the brethren of Him Who is so born. The evasion, that 
 it is only a figure for the end of the travail, gives an unmeaning sense, for it would 
 signify, " He shall give them up, until He cease to give them up." It is also contrary 
 to the idiom ; since in the O. T. travail pangs are an emblem of suHering, not of the 
 subseijuent joy, and Israel is spoken of, both before and after, unfiguratively ; " He shall 
 
 forth : then '' the remnant of his 
 shall return unto the children of Israel, 
 
 brethren chIIIt 
 
 cir. 710. 
 k ch. 4. 7. 
 
 forth frotn Bethlclicm. any more than they could now say, 'one 
 shall (Willie Idrtli iVdiii ('tunica,' of any liiture sovereign of the 
 line (if Napoleon I II, because the first Napoleon was a Corsi- 
 can ; or to us, 'one shall come out of Hanover,' of a succes- 
 sor to the present dynasty, born in England, because George 
 I. came from Hanover in 1714. 
 
 '•i. Therefore, since (iod has so appointed both to punish 
 and to redeem, He, (idd, or the Ruler '• Whdse goings forth 
 have been from of did from everlasting," Who is (Jdd with 
 (iod, shall give them up, i. e. withdraw His pn^tection and the 
 nearness of His VxiisK^xwii, giving them up 1) into the hands of 
 their enemies. And indeed the far greater part never return- 
 ed from the captivity, but remained, altlioiigli willingly, in the 
 enemy's land, outwardly shut out from the land of t'lie pro- 
 mise and the hope of their fathers". But also, 2} all were, more 
 than before, ''given up, to follow their own ways. God was 
 less visibly jiresent among them. Prophecy ceased soon after 
 the return from the captivity, and many tokens of the near- 
 ness of God and means of His communications with them, the 
 Ai-k and the Urim and Thummim were gone. It was a time 
 of paiise and waiting, wherein the fulness of God's gifts was 
 withdrawn, that they might look on to Him Who was to come. 
 Until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth, i. e. 
 until ^the Virgin who should conceive and bear a Son and call 
 His N'ame Emma7iuel, God tvith us, shall give birth to ///w 
 Who shall save them. And then shall be Redemption and joy 
 and assured peace. God provides against the fainting of 
 hearts in the long time before our Lord should come. 
 
 The)t [.:/;/?/.] There is no precise mark of time such as 
 our word then expresses. He speaks generally of what should 
 be after the Birth of the Redeemer. The remnant of His bre- 
 thren shall return unto the children of Israel. The children of 
 Israel are the true Israel, Israelites indeed^; they who are such, 
 not in name^'only, but indeed and in truth. His brethren are 
 plainly the brethren of the Christ; either because Jesus vouch- 
 safed to be born ^^ of the seed of David according to thejtesh, 
 and of them '- cts concerning the Jlesh Christ came, JVho is over 
 all, God blessed for ever ; or as such as He makes and accounts 
 and '^ is not ashamed to call, brethren, being sons of God by 
 grace, as He is the Son of God by nature. As He says, '* ffho- 
 soever shall do the will of jSh/ Father whicli is in Heaven, the 
 same is Mi/ brother and sister and mother; and, '-■ J/y brethren 
 are these who hear the word of God and do it. The residue of 
 these, the Prophet says, shall return to. so as to be joined with^^, 
 the children of Israel ; as Malachi prophesies, ^"/^e shall bring 
 hack the heart of the fathers to ^* the children, and the heart of 
 the children to '* the fathers. In the first sense, Micah foretells 
 the continual inflow of the Jews to that true Israel who should 
 
 give them up" and as " the children of Israel," so that a figurative mention of them in 
 between would be unsnited to the context. 
 
 9S. Johni. 47. n> Rom. ix.6. &c. " lb. i. 3. 
 
 >2Ib.ix.5. "Heb.ii.ll. » S. Matt. xii. 50. '^ S. Luke viii. 21. 
 
 16 "i,y stands in its first meaningof place,' where one thing moves to another, and so 
 abides on it ;" Ewald, in Hengst. who quotes 2 Chr. xxx. 9, " when you return to (Sy) 
 the Lord," and Mai. iii. 24. Heb. as to the religious meaning. So contrariwise, '* thev re- 
 turned to(Sy) the iniquities of their forefathers." (Jer. xi.lO.) In all the cases mentioned 
 by FUrst, (Cone. p. 1109-11,) the original idea "over" remains in some force ; " the 
 waters returned upon the Eg.," Ex. xiv. 26 : " and they returned uitto Pihahiroth (en- 
 camping there), Num. xxxiii. 7 ; " man would return /othe dust," (so as to dwell there.) 
 Job xxxiv. 15 ; " the dog returned to his vomit, (taking it up again,) Prov. xxvi. 11, 
 " the wind retumeth to its circuits," (so as to rest where it began,) Eccl. i. fi ; " My prayer 
 sliall return into my bosom," (so as to rest there, or, from God in blessing upon himself,) 
 Ps.xxxv. 13. In Neh.iv. 6. U'7V uii?n," return so as to be with us," the idiom is the same 
 as ill this place. '' Mai. iii. 24. Heb. I8 V» 
 
 3 E
 
 334 
 
 M[CAH, 
 
 chrTst ^ H "^'"^ ''*^ ^''^^* stand and || 'feed 
 
 "'■ 710- in the strength of the Ijoro, in the 
 
 l'?s'.'4o.'n. majesty of the name of the Lord his 
 
 & -i'J. io. Ezck. 3K 23. ch. 7. 14. 
 
 first be called. All in each ^feneration, who are the true 
 Israel, shall be converted, made one in (lirist, saved. So, 
 whereas, since Solomon, all had been discord, and, at last, 
 the Jews were scattered abroad every where, all, in the true 
 Prince of Peace, shall be one^. This has been fulfilled in 
 each generation since our Lord came, and shall be yet further 
 in the end, when they shall liaste and pour into the Cliurch, 
 and so afl Isr<ivl shall he saved ~. 
 
 But " ' the ])romise of God was not only to Israel after the 
 flesh, but fo «//" also that were afar off] even as many as the 
 Lord our God should callK All these may be called fhe remnant 
 of His brethren, even those that were, before, aliens from the 
 commomcealth of Israel and afar (iff, ^ but now, in Christ Jesus, 
 made one with them ; all, liretliren amona: themselves and to 
 Christtheir ruler. "^Havinfj taken on Him their nature in the 
 flesh. He is not ashamed to call them so, as the Apostle speak- 
 eth, eonfirmiuii' it out of the Psalm, where in the Person of 
 Christ he saith ", / will declare Thy name unto My brethren. 
 There is no reason to take the name, brethren, here in a 
 narrower sense than so to comprehend all ''//(e remnant whom 
 the Lord shall call, whether Jews or Gentiles. The word 
 " brethren " in its literal sense includes both, and, as to both, 
 the words were fulfilled. 
 
 4. ^nd He shall stand. The Prophet continues to speak 
 of personal acts of this Ruler Who was to be born. He was 
 not to pass away, not to rule only by others, but by Himself. 
 To stand is the attitude of a servant, as Jesus, .although God 
 and Lord of all, said of Himself, *//c shall come forth and serve 
 them ; ^The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister. He shall stand as a Shepherd^", to watch, feed, 
 guard them, day and night ; He shall stand, as St. Stephen 
 saw Christ ^htanding on the Right Hand of God, " '- to succour 
 all those who suff"er for Him." "^^For to sit belongs to one 
 judging ; to stand, to one fighting or helping." He shall stand, 
 as abiding, not to pass from them, as Himself saith, ^*Lo, I am 
 with you ahvay, even unto the end of the world: and He shall 
 feed His flock by His Spirit, His Word, His Wisdom and 
 doctrine, His example and life; yea by His own Body and 
 Blood ^^. They whom He feedeth ^^lack nothing. 
 
 In the strength of the Lord. He, Who feedeth them with 
 Divine tenderness, shall also have Divine might, His Father's 
 and His own, to protect them ; as He saith, ^''My slieep hear My 
 Voice, and I know them and they follow Me, neither shall any 
 man pluck them out of My Hand. My Father Which gave 
 them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them 
 out of My Father's Hand. I and My Father are One. With 
 authority, it is said'^. He commandeth even the unclean spirits 
 and they come out. His feeding or teaching also was ^^with 
 authority, and not as the scribes. 
 
 In the 3Iajesty of the Name of the Lord His God, as St. John 
 says -°, We beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begot- 
 
 ' SeeHoseai.il. Is. xi. 10. &c. 2 Rom. xi. 26. ^ Voc. ■< Acts ii. 39 
 
 5 Eph.ii.ia-lt. 6ps.xxii.22. 7 Joel ii. 32. s s. Luke xii. S"' 
 
 s S. Matt. XX. 2S. "> See Is. Ixi. 5. " Acts vii. 55. '2 Collect for 
 
 S. Stephen's Day. i3 g. Greg. Horn. 29. in Evang. n. 7. n S. Matt, xxviii. 20 
 i» S. John vi. i« Ps. xxiii. 1. 17 S. John x. 27-30. '8 S. Luke iv. 36' 
 
 WS. Matt.vn.29. ™ S. John i. 14. =1 S. Matt, xxviii. 18. =« s. John xvii. 11. 12. 
 23Theoph. 21 S. John XX. 17. Lipmann, in Nizzachon, objects, that, "as God, j 
 
 He has no God ; a.s Man, He is not (rem everlasting to everlasting," not knowing, as a Jew, j 
 the Divine Personality oC our Lord, whence, He being "not two but one Christ," (Ath. I 
 Creed), both the attributes of His Divine and Human Nature can be said of Him. (in Poc.) 
 
 God ; and they shall abide : for now (^jfif/sx 
 ^ shall he be great unto the ends of ""■ ''"^- 
 
 " Ps. 72. 8. 
 Is. 52. 13. 
 Zech.9. 10. Luke 1.32. 
 
 the earth. 
 
 ten of His Father ; and He saith, ~^^ II power is given uuto Me 
 in Iwaven and in earth ; so that the Divine Glory should shine 
 through the Majesty of His teaching, the poHcr of His Grace, 
 upholding His own, and the splendour of the miracles wrought 
 by Him and in His Name. Of the A^ame of the Lord; as He 
 saith again, -- Holy Father, keep through 7'hine own Name 
 those whom Th<m hast given Me, that they may be one us We 
 are. While I was with them in the world, I kept tliem in Thy 
 Name. "-^Whoever tiien is set to feed His flock must stand, 
 i. e. be firm and unshaken ; feed, not sell, nor slay ; and feed 
 in might, i.e. in Christ." His God, as our Lord Himself, as 
 Man, saith, ~*Unto 3Iy Father, and your Fat iter, and to My 
 God and your God. But that Majesty He Himself wields, as 
 no mere man can ; He Himself is invested with it. "-^To or- 
 dinary kings God is strength -", or gives strength "^ ; men have 
 strength in God ; this Ruler is clad in the strength of the Lord, 
 that same strength, which the Lord hath. Whose is strength. 
 Of Him, as Israel's King, the same is said as of the Lord, as 
 King of the whole earth -*; only that the strength of the Mes- 
 siah is not His own, but the Lord's. He is invested with the 
 strength of the Lord, because He is Man ; as Man, He can be 
 invested with the whole strength of the Lord, only because 
 He is also God." 
 
 And they shall abide (lit. sit, dwell) in rest and security 
 and unbroken peace under Christ their Shepherd and their 
 King ; they shall not wander to and fro as heretofore. " -^He, 
 their Shepiierd, shall stand ; they shall sit." "The word^" is 
 the more em|)hatic, because it stands so absolutely. This will 
 be a sitting or dwelling, which will indeed deserve the name. 
 The original promise, so often forfeited by their disobedience, 
 should be perfectly fulfilled; ^^ and ye shall dwell i)t your land 
 safely, and I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, 
 and none shall make you afraid. So Amos and Micah had 
 before promised.'" And this is the result of the greatness of 
 the promised Ruler, as the like promise of the Psalm is rested 
 on the iminutabilityof God^'^; Thou art the Same, and Thy 
 years shall have no end. The children of Thy servants shall 
 dwelP*, and their seed shall be established before Thee. For it 
 follows. 
 
 For noiv, (in the time which Micah saw as did Abraham 
 with the eye of faith,) now, in contrast to that former time of 
 lowliness. His life shall be divided between a life of obscu- 
 rity, and a life of never-ending greatness. 
 
 Shall He be great unto the [very ^'] ends of the earth, em- 
 bracing them in His rule, (as David and Solomon had fore- 
 told 2^,) and so none shall harm those whom He, the King of 
 all the earth, shall protect. The universality of protection 
 is derived from an universality of power. To David God says, 
 ^''Z have made thee a great itame, like the name of the great that 
 are in the earth. Of Uzziah it is said''^ His name ivent forth 
 far ; for he was marvellously helped, until he ivas strong ; but of 
 
 R. Tanclium owns, that the Ruler here spoken of can, for His greatness, be no other 
 than the Messiah. (lb.) 
 
 -= Casp. "^ Ps. xxviii. 7. cxl. 7. ^7 1 Sam. ii. 10. ^8 Ps. xciii. 1. 
 
 29 from Casp. 3o ys\ 3i Lev. xxvi. 5, 6. "comp. Hos. ii. 20. [18 Eng.] Is. 
 
 xiv. 30. xxxii. 18. Jer. xxiii. 8. Ezek. xxviii. 25, 6. xxxiv. 25, 28. xxxvii. 25. xxxviii. 
 8. Zech.xiv. 10,11." Casp. 
 
 32 Am. ix. l-t. Mic. iv. 4. Both use the same word as here. '^ ps_ ^ii. 27, 28. 
 
 3^ mys'. '''' ly. 36 ps_ \\_ g. " the ends of the earth for His possession ; " Ps. 
 
 Ixxii. ,S. "from the river unto (l]l) the ends of the earth." In both cases the pn 'OBK as 
 here. See " Daniel the Proph." p. 480. 37 2 Sam. vii. 9. 38 2 Chron. xxvi. 16. add Ib.b.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 335 
 
 5 And this man ' shall be the peace, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 c ii-.Tio. when the Assyrian shall come into our 
 
 is.'gfti!" land : and when he shall tread in our pa- 
 
 Zechg.lO. Luke 2. 14. Eph. 2. U. 
 
 the Messiali alone it is said, tliat His power should reaeh to 
 the ends oftlie eartii ; as God prophesies of Iliniself, that His 
 ^Name .should he i^rciif tiwiDii^ Ihc Ilciifhen. So (lahriel said 
 to His Mother, "This, VViioni she should hear, shall he i^rctit. 
 
 5. And this Man shall he the Peace. This, eniphatieally, 
 i.e. "This Same," as is said of Noah, ^ This same shall com- 
 fort us, or, in the sonj? of Moses, of the Lord, ^ This Same is 
 7)11/ God. Of Him he saith, not only that He hrini^s peace, 
 hut that He Himself ^ is that Peace ; as St. I'aul saith, <= He 
 is our Peace, and Isaiah calls Him "^ the Prince of peace, and 
 at His Birth the heavenly host procLaimed ^ peace on earth; 
 and He "^ preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them 
 that were nigh; and on leaving; the world He saith, ^^'Peace I 
 leave with you, My Peace I give unto yon. He shall he our 
 Peace, within hy His Grace, without hy His Protection. 
 " 11 Wouldest thou have peace with God, tiiine own soul, thy 
 neighbour ? Go to Christ Who is our Peace," and follow the 
 footsteps of Christ. "Ask peace of Him Who is Peace. Place 
 Christ in thy heart and thou hast placed Peace there." 
 
 When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and ivhen he 
 shall tread in our palaces. Assur stands for the most power- 
 ful and deadliest foe, "jjhostly and bodily," as the Assyrian 
 then was of the people of God. For since this plainly relates 
 to the time after Christ's coming, and, (to say the least,) after 
 the captivity in Babylon and deliverance i- from it, which it- 
 self followed the dissolution of the Assyrian Empire, the As- 
 syrians cannot be the literal people, who had long since ceased 
 to be^^. In Isaiah too the Assyrian is the type of Anti-Christ 
 and of Satan i*. As Christ is our Peace, so one enemy is chosen 
 to represent all enemies who ^^ve.r the Church, whether the hu- 
 man agents or Satan who stirs them up and uses them. "By 
 the Assyrian," says St. Cyril," he here means no longer a man 
 out of Babylon, but rather marks out the inventor of sin, Sa- 
 tan. Or rather, to speak fully, the implacable multitude of 
 devils, which spiritually ariseth against all which is holy, and 
 lights against the holy city, the spiritual Zion, whereof the 
 Divine Psalmist saith, Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou 
 city of God. For Christ dwelleth in the Church, and niaketh 
 it, as it were. His own city, although by His Godhead filling 
 all things. This city of God then is a sort of land and coun- 
 try of the sanctified and of those enriched in spirit, in unity 
 with God. When then the Assyrian shall come against our 
 city, i. e. when barbarous and hostile powers fight against the 
 saints, they shall not find it unguarded." The enemy may 
 tread on the land and on its palaces, i.e. lay low outward glory, 
 vex the body which is of earth and the visible temple of the 
 
 ^ Mai. i. 11. 1-1. ^ S. Luke i. S2. outos tvTai /ut'yas, 
 
 * Gen. V. 29. '' Ex. xv. 2. ^ The word "this" mi^/(/ grammatically be taken 
 
 as agreeing with " peace." " This [viz. this thing] shall be our peace," as Eccl. vi. 9, D3 
 Sdh nt, "this too is vanity ;" Ex. iii. 15, ^3T riT, "this is My memorial," i. e. ni is not ne- 
 cessarily personal. But this would not alter the sense. For, " this thing is our peace," 
 must necessarily refer to what had been said, viz, the greatness, majesty, tender care ol the 
 Messiali. It is most natural to take nt = ouT09, as a person, since a person was the sub- 
 ject of the verse before. ^ Eph. ii.l4. ' Is. ix. 6. * S. Luke ii. 14. 
 9 Eph. ii. 17. 1" S.John xiv. 27. " Lap. ''^ iv. 10. 
 " A disbeliever in prophecy writes, " II he would quote Micah as designating Bethle- 
 hem for the birthplace oftlie Messiah, be cannot shut his eyes to the fact tl;at the Deli- 
 verer to come from thence was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian." Dr. 
 Williams in Ess. and Rev. p. 68. Not "contemporary," unless it be certain that Psal- 
 mists and Prophets cannot identify themselves with the past and luture of their people. 
 The course of events interposed shews, that the deliverance was not to be contemporary. As 
 the Psalmist speaking of the passage ol the Red Sea, says, there did we rejoice in Him, {Vs. 
 Ixvi. 6.) making himseli one with them ; as Micah himsell', speaking of times after the de- 
 
 Before 
 
 laces, then shall we raise against him seven o h ii i s t 
 sheplierds, and eij^ht f principal men. ""'• ''"• 
 
 (» And they shall -j- waste the land of',,rLc'(.j 
 
 f Heb. eat up. oj men. 
 
 Holy Ghost, as he did St. Paul by the thorn in the flesh, the 
 minister of Satan to huffet him, or Job in mind body or estate, 
 but ^'' after that he has no more thai he can do ; he cannot hurt 
 the soul, because nothing <'an separate us from the lovcof Christ, 
 and i*" Christ Who is our Peace is in us ; and of the saint too it 
 may be said, ^* The enemy cannot hurt him. '■'Much as the 
 Church has been vexed at all times by persecutions of devils 
 and of tyrants, Christ has ever consoled her and given her peace 
 in the persecutions themselves : ""Who romfortelh us in all our 
 triliulation, that we mai/ he alile to comfort them ichic.h are in 
 any trouble, hy the comfort wherewith ive are comforted of God. 
 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation 
 also (iboiindeth hy Christ. The Apostles -^ departed from the 
 presence of the council, rejoicing that they ivere counted tuorthy to 
 suffer shame fn- His Name. And St. Paul writeth to the He- 
 brews, "ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully 
 the spoiling of y(mr goods, knowing that ye have in heaven a 
 better and more enduring substance. 
 
 Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds u)id eight 
 principal men (lit. anointed, although elsewhere used of hea- 
 then princes.) 
 
 The shepherds are manifestly inferior, spiritual, shepherds, 
 acting under the One Shepherd, by His authority, and He in 
 them. 'Yhc princes of men arc most naturally a civil power, ac- 
 cording to its usage elsewhere -^ The seven is throughout the 
 Old Testament a symbol of a sacred whole, probably of the 
 union of God with the world-*, reconciled with it ; eight, when 
 united with it, is something beyond it-^. Since then seven de- 
 notes a great, complete, and sacred multitude, by the eight he 
 would designate " an incredible and almost countless multi- 
 tude." " I'' So in defence of the Church, there shall be raised up 
 very many shepherds and teachers (for at no time will it be 
 forsaken by Christ;) yea by more and more, countlessly,so that, 
 however persecutions may increase, there shall never be want- 
 ing more to teach, and exhort to, the faith." 
 
 G. A)ul they shall waste, lit. feed on, and so eat up. They 
 who were shepherds of their own people, should consume their 
 enemies. Jeremiah uses the same image. "^ The shepherds 
 with their flocks shall co7ne unto her ; they shall pitch tents 
 against her round about ; they shall feed, each his space. So 
 Joshua and Caleb say, -^ They, (the inhabitants of Canaan,) 
 are bread for us. So it was said to St. Peter, -^ Arise, Peter, 
 kill and eat ; and what once was common, defiled and un- 
 clean, shall turn to the nourishment and growth of the 
 Church, and be incorporated into Clirist, being made part of 
 His Body. 
 
 solation of the land, (vii. 13.) says, " He will turn again. He will have compassion upon 
 Hs;"{Ib. vii. 19.) nay, as our Lord Himself says to the Apostles, " I am with you alway, 
 even to the end of the world," (S. Matt, xxviii. 20.) i. e. with them and their succes- 
 sors to the end of time; so Micah. who had sorrowed with his people in their sorrows, 
 (i. 8. 10.) here rejoices with them in a deliverance far away, after God should for a long 
 time have given them up, v. 3. and which he should not see. "Even L.Bauer translated, 
 'And if another As'ur,' comparing the passage of Virgil which Castalio had already quot- 
 ed, 'Alter erit turn T-phvs, et altera quie vehat Argo Delectos heroas." Hengst. 
 
 H Is. x. and including Babylon Ch. xiv. '^ .\cts xii. 1. '« S.Luke xii. 4. 
 
 17 Rup. IS Ps. Ixxxix. 22. "Rib. =" 2 Cor. i. 4, 5. => Acts v. 41. 25= x. 34. 
 
 -3 Jos. xiii. 21, Ps. Ixxxiii. 12, Ezek. xxxii. 30. The word stands rather in contrast 
 with n-B'D than as equivalent to it, since rem is always used of one, anointed by God, ntil, 
 unless it be in this place, never. -* See Bahr Symbolik, ii. 107. sqq. 
 
 -' See ah. on Amos i. 3. p. 155. This instance in Micah so far differs from the others, 
 that the tAvo numbers are not united with one substantive ; and, unless the shepherds and 
 We princpso/men be the same class of persons, (which scarcely seems probable,) they have 
 kindred, yet different, subjects "^ vi. 3. " Num. xiv. 9. =^ Actsx. 13. 
 
 3e2
 
 336 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 ■n Geii. 10. 
 
 8, 10, 11. 
 II Or, with her 
 
 own na/cfd 
 
 swords, 
 n Luke 1. 71. 
 
 Assyria with the sword and the land of 
 "'Nimrod || in the entrances thereof: thus 
 shall he " deliver us from the Assyrian, 
 when he conieth into our land, and when 
 lie treadeth within our borders. 
 
 ^7)d the land of Nimrod. Babylon, which should dis- 
 place Assyria, but sh<)\ild carry on its work of chastisinj? God's 
 people, is joined by Micab, as ])y Isaiah ^ as an object of His 
 judgment. In Isaiab, they are the actual Assyria- and Baby- 
 lon^ whose destruction is foretold, yet so as to shadow out re- 
 bellion ajjainst God in its intensest form, making itself inde- 
 pendent of. or measurinf!: itself ajjainst, God. Hence, proba- 
 bly, here alone in holy Scrii)ture, Babylon is called the land of 
 Nimrod, as indeed he founded it ■*, but therewith was the au- 
 thor of the tower of Babel also, which was built in rebellion 
 against God, whence his own name was derived °. AssjTia 
 then, and the world-empire which should succeed it, stand as 
 representing the God-opposed world. 
 
 Li the entrances thereof, [lit. in the ffntes thereof^.] The 
 shepherds of Israel shall not act on the defensive only, but 
 shah have victory over the world and Satan, carryinc: back 
 the battle into his own dominions, and overthrowiiiij- him there. 
 Satan's malice, so far from Inirting; the Church, shall turn to 
 its good. Wherein he hoped to waste it, he shall be wasted ; 
 wherein he seemed to triumph, he shall be foiled. So it has 
 been ever seen, how, under every persecution, the Church 
 grew. " "^ l^he more it was pressed down, the more it rose nj) 
 and flourished ; " " * Shivering the assault of the Pagans, and 
 strengthened more and more, not by resisting, but by endur- 
 ing." Yet all, by whomsoever done, shall be the work of Christ 
 Alone, enduring in martyrs, teaching in pastors, converting 
 through the Apostles of Heathen nations. Wherefore he 
 adds ; 
 
 Thus, [^nd] He shall deliver US from the Assyriaii. Not 
 they, the subordinate shepherds, but He, the Chief Shepherd 
 until the last eneiiii/ shall be destroyed and death shall be swal- 
 Imved up in victory, shall deliver, whether by them or by Him- 
 self as He often so doth, — not us only (the saying is the larger 
 because unlimited) but — He shall deliver, absolutely. W^ho- 
 soever shall be delivered. He shall be their deliverer ; all, whom 
 He Alone knoweth, Who Alone ' hnoiceth them that are His. 
 ^"Neither is there salvation in any other. ^^ Whoso glorieth, 
 let him glory in the Lord. Every member of Christ has part 
 in this, who, through the grace of God, "has power and 
 strength to have victory and to triumph against the devil, 
 the world, and the flesh" — not he, but the grace of God 
 which is with him ; and much more, all, whether Apostles or 
 Apostolic men, or Pastors, or Bishops and Overseers, who, 
 by preaching or teaching or prayer, bring those to the know- 
 ledge of the truth, who ^-sat in darkness and the shadotv of 
 death, and by whom ^^God translates us into the kingdom of 
 His dear Son. 
 
 7. And the remnant of Jacob. Micab i*, as well as Isa- 
 
 I Is. X. 5-3+, xiii— xiv. 27. 2 is. x. 12-15. » xiv. 1.3-15. ■• Gen. x. 10. 
 
 * Lit. " We will rebel." There is no other even plausible etymology. 
 
 ^ The E.V. has followed the analogy of the " Caspiee pylse," &c. and has paraphrased, 
 "openings" or "gates" by '* entrances," as if they were " the gates of the countiy;" which, 
 however, belongs only to narrow entrances, such as TherniopylEP. The rendering in the 
 E. M. " with their own drawn swords." (from Aq.andEd. v. A. E. and Kim.) is owing to a 
 slavish adherence to parallelism, nin'ns, \c." drawn swords," (Ps.lv. 22.) is fem. after the 
 analogy ot Din itself. The uniform meaning of nns '' opening," " door," "port,"" gate," is 
 plainly not to be deserted in a single case, on the ground of parallelism only. The 
 fem. aft', also belongs naturally to the land, her's, not their's, i. e. the people's. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 as a i\ew ''"■ ""^• 
 
 7 And "the remnant of Jacob shall be 
 in the midst of many people ' 
 from the Loan, as tlu; showers upon the" o'ut.'ss. 2. 
 j^rass, that tarrieth not for man, nor wait- ^"i/o^'g^.' 
 eth for the sons of men. 
 
 iah 1^, had prophesied, that aremnant only should return unto 
 the flighty God. These, though very many in themselves, 
 are yet but a remnant only of the unconverted mass ; yet this, 
 ^^'the remnant, icho shall be saved, who believe in Christ, ^'' the 
 little flock, of whom were the Apostles and their disciples, 
 shall be, in the )/iidst of many people, whom they won to the 
 faith, as John in Asia, Thomas in India, Peter in Babylon and 
 Rome, Paul well-nigh in the wlude world, what ? something 
 to be readily swallowed up by their multitude? No, but as 
 a dew from the Loi'd, as the showers from the grass, tvhich tar- 
 rieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. quickening 
 to life that, which, like soon-withered '" grass, no human cul- 
 tivation, no human help, could reach. 
 
 In the Gospel and the grace of Christ there are both, gen- 
 tleness and might; softness, as the dew, might as of « lion. 
 For " 1^ Wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily ; 
 and sweetly doth she order all things." The deiv is, in Holy 
 Scripture, a symbol of Divine doctrine. ""J/y doctrine shall 
 drop as the rain, 77iy speech shall distil as the dew, as the small 
 rainupon the tender herh,andasthe shoiuers upon the grass. The 
 dew comes down from heaven, is of heavenly not of earthly 
 birth, transparent, glistening with light, reflecting the hues 
 of heaven, gentle, slight, weak in itself, refreshing, cooling 
 the strong heats of the day-^, consumed itself, yet thereby pre- 
 serving life, falling on the dry and withered grass wherein 
 all nature droops, and recalling it to freshness of life. And 
 still more in those lands, where from the beginning of April 
 to the end of October ^^, the close of the latter and the begin- 
 ning of the early rain, during all the hot months of summer, 
 the life of all herbage depends upon the dew alone-^. Shoivers^ 
 are so called from the "multitude" of drops, slight and of no 
 account in themselves, descending noiselessly yet penetrating 
 the more deeply. So did the Apostles "^=bedewthe souls of 
 believers with the word of godliness and enrich them abun- 
 dantly with the words of the Gospel," themselves dying, and 
 the Church living the more through their death -*', quenching 
 the fiery heat of passions, and watering the dry and barren 
 soil, that it might bring forth fruits unto Christ. Yet, they 
 say -^, the excelleiici/ of the power was of God ajid 7wt of us, and 
 ^^ God gave the i/icz-ease. For neither was their doctrine ^^ of 
 ma7i 7ior by 7na7i ; but it came from heaven, the Holy Spirit 
 teaching them invisibly and making unlear7ied a7id ig7wrant 
 men 77iighty /m u'ord and deed. "'"Whence these and these 
 alone the Church of Christ looks up to, as furnishing the rule 
 of truth." "'^The herb, upon which this dewfalleth, grow- 
 eth to God without any aid of man, and flourisheth, and need- 
 eth neither doctrines of philosophers, nor the rewards or 
 praises of men." 
 
 S. Anton, in S. Athan. %-it. ej. c. 79. * S. Aug. de Ag. Christ, e. 12. and other 
 
 3 2Tim. ii. 19. '"Actsiv. 12. 
 
 fathers quoted TertuU. Apol. c. ult. n. a. Oxf. Tr. ^ 2Tim. ii. 19. '» Actsiv. 12 
 
 11 2 Cor. X. 17. 1= Ps. cvii.lO. 13 Col. i. 13. "iv. 7. I5x.21. « Rom 
 ix.27. 17 S.Lukexii.32. is nbll. See Ps.cii.5, 12, 2 Kingsxix.2(i, Is.xxxvii.27. 
 
 " Wisd. viii.l. 2o Ueut. xxxii. 2. 21 Ecclus. xviii. 16, xliii. 22. 
 
 " Called |n'N, because only *'perennial"streamsstill flowed. -^ On its importance 
 to vegetable lile, see Gen. xxvii. 28, Deut. xxxiii. 13, 28, Hag. i. 10, Zech. viii. 12. 
 
 -< D'TDi. It occurs Deut. xxxii. 2. Ps. Ixv. 11. (Heb.)lxxii.l), as especially refreshing. 
 
 -s S. Cvr. =« 2 Cor. iv. 12. -' lb. 7. =« 1 Cor. iU. 6, 7 
 
 •J9 Qj^[ \ 12. 2" R...^ 31 "Rih 
 
 30 Rup.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 aa7 
 
 c if rTs t ^ ^ -^"^ ^^^^ remnant of Jacob shall be 
 cir. 710. among the Gentiles in the midst of many 
 
 people as a lion among the beasts of the 
 
 forest, as a young lion among the flocks of 
 II Or, goals II sheep : who, if he go through, both tread- 
 
 eth down, and teareth in pieces, and none 
 
 can deliver. 
 
 9 Thine hand shall be lifted up upon 
 
 thine adversaries, and all thine enemies 
 
 shall be cut oft'. 
 
 8. ^4ml the remnant of Jacob shall he as a young lion. 
 " 1 What more unlike than the sweetness of the dew and the 
 fierceness of the lion ? What so different as the gentle shower 
 distilling; on the herh, and the savageness or vehemence of a 
 lion roaring among the flocks of sheep ? Yet both are ascrib- 
 ed to the renniant of Jacob. Why ? Because the Apostles of 
 Christ ai-e both tender and severe, tender in teaching and ex- 
 horting, severe in rebuking and avenging. How docs Paul 
 teach, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, 
 and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation ; noiu 
 then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech 
 you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to 
 God ! What sweeter than the dew of love, the shower of true 
 affection ? And so, on to that, " our heart is enlarged." They 
 are such drops of dew as no one could doubt came from ^the 
 Lord, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mer- 
 cies and the God of all comfort. Yet the same Apostle after 
 a little writes, '''This is the third time I arn coming to you. I 
 told you before and foretell you, and being absent notv I xvrite 
 to them ivhich heretofore have sinned and to all others, that if I 
 come again, I will not spare, since ye seek a proof of Christ 
 speaking in me. See the severity of a master, like the roaring 
 of a lion ainong the beasts of the forest. For such surely are 
 they whom he rebukes for the hincleanness and fornication and 
 lasciviousyiess ivhich they had committed. Was he not to such 
 as a lion^ ? Was not Peter such, when he rebuked Ananias 
 first and then Sapphira his wife, and they fell down and gave 
 up the ghost ? They tread doivn or ''cast dotun imaginations 
 and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge 
 of God ; as Christ Himself, Who spake in them, is both a 
 lamb and the ^ Lion of the tribe of Judah, and nothing is so 
 terrible as ^the wrath of the Lamb. 
 
 And none can deliver. " ^Tor as the Apostles past from 
 nation to nation, and trod down Heathenism, subduing it to 
 Christ, and taking within their net the many converted na- 
 tions, none could withdraw from the Apostles' doctrine those 
 whom they had converted." The Heathen world " ^'cried out 
 that the state is beset, that the Christians are in their fields, 
 their forts, their islands." "^^We are a people of yesterday, 
 and yet we have filled every place belonging to you, cities, 
 islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your 
 tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum ! We leave you your 
 temples only. We can count your armies, our numbers in a 
 single province will be greater." 
 
 9. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries. 
 The might of the Church is the Might of Christ in her, and 
 the glory of the Church is His from Whom it conies and to 
 
 1 Rup. ■ 2 Cor. V. 19— vi. 11. ' ib. i. 3. " lb. xiii. 1-3. * n,. xii. 21. 
 « See again 1 Cor. v. 2-5. ' 2 Cor. x. 5. » Rev. v. 5. » Ib. vi. 16. i" Dion. 
 
 10 'And it shall come to pass in that j, j^^j("pg^ 
 day, saith the Lord, that I will cut oft' thy "'■•■ ^^p- 
 horses out of the midst of thee, and I will ' " • • • 
 destroy thy cliariots : 
 
 Jl And I will cut off the cities of thy 
 land, and throw down all thy strong holds : 
 
 12 And I will cut ofi^ witchcrafts out of 
 thine hand and thou shalt have no more 
 
 ' soothsayers : r jg. o. e. 
 
 13 ^ Thy graven images also will I cut off, • zech. 13. 2. 
 
 Whom it returns. It is all one, whether this be said to Christ 
 or to the remnant of Jacob, i. c. His Church. Her enemies 
 are His, and hcr's only because they arc; His, and hate iicras 
 belonging to Him. They shall be cut off, either ceasing to be 
 His enemies, or ceasing to be, as Julian or Arius or Anti- 
 Christ, ^hvliom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His 
 Mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His Coming. 
 And in the end, Satan also, over whom Christ gave the Apos- 
 tles ^"^ power to tread on all the poiver of the Enemy, shall be 
 bruised under our fcet^''. 
 
 10. And it shall come to pass in that day, of grace in the 
 kingdom of Christ and of His Presence in the Apostles and 
 with the Church, I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of 
 thee. The greater the glory and purity of the Church, the 
 less it needs or hangs upon human aid. The more it is reft 
 of human aid, the more it hangs upon God. So God promises, 
 as a blessing, that He will remove from her all mere human 
 resources, both what was in itself evil, and what, although 
 good, had been abused. Most of these things, whose removal 
 is here promised, are spoken of at the same time by Isaiah, 
 as sin, or the occasion of sin, and of God's judgments to Ju- 
 dah. ^''Soothsayers, (the same word) horses, chariots, idols the 
 work of their hands ; high towers, fenced ivalls. "'"I will take, 
 from thee all arms wherewith, while unconverted, thou oppo- 
 scdst the faith," all which thou settest up as idols in place of 
 God. (Such are witchcrafts, soothsayers, graven images, ima- 
 ges of Ashtaroth.) "I will take from thee all outward means 
 and instruments of defence which aforetime were turned into 
 pride and sin ;" as horses and chariots. Not such shall be the 
 arms of the Church, not such her strongholds. A horse is a 
 vain thing to save a man. Her arms shall be the despised 
 Cross of shame ; her warriors, they who bear it ; their courage, 
 to endure in holy patience and meekness ; their might, the 
 Holy Spirit within them; their victories, through death, not 
 of others, but their Master's and, in His, their own. They 
 shall overcome the world,as He overcame it, and through Him 
 Alone and His Merits Who overcame it by sufl'ering. 
 
 1 1-15. I tvill cut off the cities of thy land. So God pro- 
 mised by Zechariah '^, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as toiuns 
 without tualls ; for I ivill be unto her a icall of fire round about. 
 The Church shall not need the temptation of human defence ; 
 for God shall fence her in on every side. Great cities too, as 
 the abode of luxury and sin, of power and pride, and, mostly, 
 of cruelty, are chiefly denounced as the objects of God's an- 
 ger. Babylon stands as the emblem of the whole city of the 
 world or of the devil, as opposed to God. "^The first city 
 was built by Cain ; Abel and the other saints had no continu- 
 
 " Apol.c.l.p. 2. Oxf. Tr. 
 19. >' Rom. xvi. 20. 
 
 12 Ib. c. 37. p. 78 
 's Is. ii. 6-8. 15. 
 
 13 2 Thess. ii. 8. 
 '7 Rib. Lap. 
 
 » S.Lnie 
 
 19 ii. 4, 5.
 
 338 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 c h'rYs t ""'I t% II standing imaj^es out of the midst 
 cir. 710. „f ti^pp . .j„,i tjjoii shalt 'no more worship 
 
 i' i/ZlT''- the work of thine hands. 
 
 14 And I will pluck up thy groves out 
 of the midst of thee : so will I destroy tliy 
 
 II Or.enemies. || citieS. 
 
 "Ps. 149.7. 15 And I will " execute vengeance in 
 2T'hess.i.8. anger and fury upon the heathen, such as 
 they have not heard. 
 
 trig- city^" here. Cities then will include "-all the tumults and 
 evil passions and ambition and strife and bloodshed, which 
 Cain brouijht in anion"- men. Cities are collectively called and 
 are Babylon, with wlioni, (as in the Revelations we hear a voice 
 from heaven saying), '^the kings of t/ie eurtli committed fornica- 
 tioii and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the 
 abundance of her delicacies ; and of which it is written, *And 
 a migliti; Angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast 
 it into the sea,sa)/ing, Thns until violence shall that great city, 
 Babylon, lie thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. 
 "Great rest then is promised to holy Zion i. e. the Church, when 
 the cities or strongholds of the land [strongholds, as they are, 
 of earthliness] shall be destroyed. For together with them 
 are included all objects of desire in them, with the sight where- 
 of the citizens of the kingdom of God, while pilgrims here, 
 are tempted; whereof the wise man saith, Jaunty of vanities, 
 all is vanity.'" The fulfilment reaches on to the Day of Judg- 
 ment, when the Church shall finally receive glory from the 
 Lord, and be ' without spot aiul icrinkle. All looks on to that 
 Day. The very largeness of the promise, which speaks, in its 
 fullest sense, of the destruction of things, without which we 
 can hardly do in this life, (as cities",) or things very useful to 
 the needs of man, (as horses,) carries us on yet more to that 
 Day when there will be no more need of any outward things ; 
 "-when the heavy body shall be changed, and shall have the 
 swiftness of angels, and shall be transported whither it wil- 
 leth, without chariots and horses ; and all things which tempt 
 the eye shall cease; and no evil shall enter; and there shall 
 be no need of divining, amid the presence and full knowledge 
 of God, and where the ever-present Face of God,\Anio is Truth, 
 shall shine on all, and nothing be uncertain or unknown ; nor 
 shall they need to form in their souls images of Him Whom His 
 own shall see as He Is ; nor shall they esteem any thing of self, 
 or the work of their own hands ; but God shall be All in all." 
 In like way, the woe on those who obey not the truth, also looks 
 on to the end. It too is final. There is nothing to soften it. 
 Punishments in the course of life are medicinal. Here no 
 mention is made of Mercy, but only of executing vengeance ; 
 and that, ivith wrath and fury ; and that, such as they have not 
 heard. For as eye hath not seen, nor heart conceived the good 
 things laid up in store for those who love God, so neither the 
 evil things prepared for those who, in act, shew that they 
 hate Him. 
 
 Ch. vi. The foregoing prophecy closed with the final cleans- 
 ing of the Church and the wrath of God resting on the wick- 
 ed, when, as St. Paul saith, '' The Lord Jesus shall he revealed 
 from heaven tvith His mighty angels, injiaming fire, taking ven- 
 
 ' Heb. xiii. 14. -Rim. 3 Rev. xviii. 3. <Ib. 21. s Eph. v. 27. 
 
 ' Inver.14.. .Ion. has"I will cutoffthy f?!c77;;>s,"whence E.M. But althouglni; stands 
 for -ly " enemy " 1 Sam. xxviii. 16, and plur. Ps. cxxxix. 20, (in both places with athx,) 
 here every object mentioned is ol things, betongivgxoiuiiah, its own.. ^ 2Thess. i. 7-10. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. chkTst 
 
 1 God's controversy for unkind ness, d for ignorance, ™- "^^'- 
 10 for injuttice, 16 and for idolatry. 
 
 HEAR ye now what the Lord saith ; 
 Ari.se; contend thou 11 before the H I?""- «""',• , 
 " " Deut. .i2. 1 . 
 
 mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Ps.50. i, 4. 
 
 •' Is. 1. 2. 
 
 2 "Hear ye, O mountains, ""the Lord's '' "o^. 12. 2. 
 controversy, and ye strong foundations'^ i'tl,i. 
 of the earth : for " the Lord hath a contro- uos'.^i 
 
 geance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gos- 
 pel of our Ijord ,/csus Christ : wito shall be punished with ever- 
 lasting destruction from the presence (f the Lord, and from the 
 glory of His power ; when He shall come to be glorified in His 
 Saints, and to be admired in all them that believe. The Pro- 
 phet here begins his third and last summons to judgment, in 
 the Name, as it were, of the All-Holy Trinity, against Whom 
 they had sinned. 
 
 1. Hear ye now what the Lord saith : If ye will not hear 
 the rebuke of man, hear now at last the word of God. "Arise 
 thou, Micah." The prophet was not willing to be the herald 
 of woe to his people ; but had to arise at the bidding of God, 
 that he might not ^be rebellirmslike that rebellious house. Stand 
 up ; as one having all authority to rebuke, and daunted by 
 none. He rouses the hearer, as shewing it to be a very grave 
 urgent matter, to be done promptly, urgently, without delay. 
 Contend thou before [better, as in E. M. with^] the mountains. 
 Since man, who had reason, would not use his reason, God 
 calls the mountains and hills, who ^"unwillingly, as it were, 
 had been the scenes of their idolatry, as if He would say, 
 "1^ Insensate though ye be, ye are more sensible than Israel, 
 whom I endowed with sense ; for ye feel the voice and com- 
 mand of God your Creator and obey Him ; they do not. I 
 cite you, to represent your guilty inhabitants, that, through 
 you, they may hear My complaint to be just, and own them- 
 selves guilty, repent, and ask forgiveness." "The altars 
 and idols, the blood of the sacrifices, the bones and ashes 
 upon them, with unuttered yet clear voice, spoke of the idola- 
 try and guilt of the Jews, and so pronounced God's charge 
 and expostulation to be just. Ezekiel is bidden, in like way, 
 to prophesy against the mountains of Israel^-, I ivill bring a 
 sicord upon you, and I will destroy your high places, and your 
 altars shall be desolate. " i' Lifeless nature without voice 
 tells the glory of God ; withfmt ears it bears what the Lord 
 speaks "." 
 
 2. Hear, ye strong [or, it may be, ye eiiduring^^ ,'\ foun- 
 dations of the earth. Mountains and rocks carry the soul to 
 times far away, before and after. They change not, like the 
 habitable, cultivated, surface of the earth. There they were, 
 before the existence of our short-lived generations ; there they 
 will be, until time shall cease to be. They have witnessed so 
 many vicissitudes of human things, themselves unchanging. 
 The prophet is directed to seize this feeling of simple nature. 
 'They have seen so much before me,' Yes ! 'then they have 
 seen all which befel my forefathers ; all God's benefits, all 
 along, to them and to us, all their and our unthankfulness.' 
 
 He will plead with Israel. God hath a strict severe judg- 
 
 ' Ezek. ii. 8. ' This is the uniform sense of 3n with TM as well as with DV. See 
 
 Num. XX. 13, Jud. viii. 1, Prov. xxv. 9, Is. xlv. 9, 1. 8, Jer. ii. 9, Neh. v. 7, xiii. 11, 17. 
 (all, in Furst Cone.) '» Rom. viii. 20. "Lap. '- Ezek. vi. 2-5. '3 Poc. 
 
 n Ps. xix. 3, S. Luke xix. 40. '=' D'MTk. See Ges. Lex. p. 644. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 339 
 
 CHRrsT versy with his people, and he will plead 
 cir. 710. with Israel. 
 
 ■i Jer. 2. 5,31. 3 O my pcoplc, "^ what have I done unto 
 thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? 
 
 e Ex. 12. 51. testify against me. 
 &2o.f.' 4 " For I brouglit thee up out of the land 
 
 Amos 2.10'. of Egypt, and redeemed thee oxit of the 
 
 ment^ with His people, and yet vouchsafes to clear Himself 
 before His creatures, to come down from His tlirone of glory 
 and place Himself on equal terms with them. He does not 
 plead only, but mutually (such is the force of the word) im- 
 pleads u'ith ^ His people, hears if they would say ausjht against 
 Himself, and then gives His own judgment^. But this wil- 
 lingness to hear, only makes us condemn ourselves, so that we 
 should be without e.vcuse before Him. We do owe ourselves 
 wholly to Him Who made us and hath given us all things 
 richly to enjoy. If we have withdrawn ourselves from His 
 Service, unless He dealt hardly with us, we dealt rebelliously 
 and ungratefully with Him. God brings all pleas into a nar- 
 row space. The fault is with Him or with us. He offers to 
 clear Himself He sets before us His good deeds, His Loving 
 kindness. Providence, Grace, Long-suffering, Bounty, Truth, 
 and contrasts with them our evil deeds, our unthankfulness, 
 despitefulnesSj our breach of His laws, and disorderings of 
 His creation. And then, in the face of His Goodness, He 
 asks, 'What evil have I done, what good have I left undone ? ' 
 so that our evil and negligences should be but a requital of 
 His. For if it is evil to return evil for evil, or not to return 
 good for good, what evil is it to return evil for His exceeding 
 good ! As He says by Isaiah, *JVhat could have been done more 
 to My vineyard and I have not done in it ? Wherefore, wheti 
 I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth ivild 
 grapes ? And our Blessed Lord asks ; ^ Many good works have 
 I shelved you from My Father. For which of those works do 
 ye stone Me? ^IFhich of you convinceth Me of sin ? And if 
 I say the truth, why do ye not believe 3Ie? Away from the 
 light of God, we may plead excuses, and cast the blame of 
 our sins upon our temptations, or passions, or nature, i. e. on 
 Almighty God Himself, Who made us. When His light 
 streams in upon our conscience, we are silent. Blessed if we 
 be silenced and confess to Him then, that we be not first si- 
 lenced in the Day of Judgment. "Righteous Job said, ^ I de- 
 sire to reason with God ; but when his eye saw Him, he said, 
 ^wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. 
 
 3. O My people. This one tender word^**, twice repeated^^, 
 contains in one a whole volume of reproof. It sets before 
 the eyes God's choice of them of His free grace, and the 
 whole history of His loving-kindness, if so they could be 
 ashamed of their thanklessness and turn to Him. 'Mine,' 
 He says, 'ye are by creation, by Providence, by great deliver- 
 ances and by hourly love and guardianship, by gifts of na- 
 ture, the world, and grace ; such things have I done for thee ; 
 what against thee ? what evil have I done unto thee ? ' '^"-Thy 
 foot didnot sivell these forty years, for He upbears in all ways 
 where He leads. fFherein have I ivearied thee ? for^^His com- 
 mandments are not grievous. Thou hast been iveary of Me, O 
 
 ' 31. 2 n^n; 3 Conip. Is. xliii. 26, Jer. ii. o, 6, 9. So '3 njy, " testify against 
 
 Me," (ver. 3.) is a judicial term, lit. ** answer against Me," i.e. '* answer judicial interroga- 
 tories," then generally " depose," "testify," Num. xxxv. 30, Deut. xix. 18, Job xv. ti, 
 Euth i. 21, Is. iii. 9, lix. 12, Jer. xiv. 7. 
 
 * Is. V. 4. 6 S. John X. 32. « lb. viii. 46. f Job i. 8. ii. 3, Ezek. xiv. 20. 
 
 and I sent before thee cifiiTsT 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 house of servants 
 
 Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 
 
 5 O my people, remember now what ^ Ba- &"23.'7.i ' 
 lak king of Moab consulted, and what Ba- DLut.'2:!.'4,5. 
 
 I .1 i- r) 1 I • i- Josh. 24.9, 10. 
 
 laam the son ot Beor answered him Irom Rev. 2. 14. 
 ^ Shittim unto Gilgal ; that ye may know ti'^^'i^! 
 '' the righteousness of the Lord. &5.'io! ' 
 
 'Judg. 5. 11. 
 
 Israel, God says by Isaiah ", / have not wearied thee with in- 
 cense ; thou hast wearied Me with thine ini<juities. 
 
 4. For I brought thee up out of the land of Fgypt, and re- 
 deemed thee out of the house of servants. What wert thou ? 
 What art thou ? Who made thee what thou art ? God re- 
 minds them. They tvere slaves ; they are His people in the 
 heritage of the heathen, and that by His outstretched arm. 
 God mentions some heads of the mercies which He Ii;id shewn 
 them, when He had made them His people, His redeinption 
 of them from Egypt, His guidance through the Hiiderness, 
 His leading them over the last difficulty to the promised land. 
 The use of the familiar language of the Pentateuch '" is like 
 the touching of so many key-notes, recalling the whole har- 
 mony of His love. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam together, are 
 Lawgiver, to deliver and instruct ; Priest, to atone ; and Pro- 
 phetess ^^ to praise God ; and the name of Miriam at once re- 
 called the mighty works at the Red Sea and how they then 
 thanked God. 
 
 5. Remember notu. The word translated now is a very 
 tender one, like our " do now remember " or " do remember,-' 
 beseeching instead of commanding. "^"I might command, but 
 I speak tenderly, that I may lead thee to own the truth." 
 What Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the 
 son of Beor answered him. God did not only raise up Moses, 
 Aaron, Miriam, out of their brethren, but He turned the curse 
 of the alien Balaam into a blessing ; and that, not for their 
 righteousness, (for even then they were rebellious,) but against 
 their deserts, out of His own truth and righteousness. Not 
 that the curse of Balaam could in itself have hurt them ; but, 
 in proportion to his reputation, it would have infused great 
 energy into their enemies, and its reversal must have struck 
 a great panic into them and into others. Human might hav- 
 ing failed in Sihon and Og, Balak sought superhuman. God 
 shewed them by their own diviner, that it was against them. 
 Even after they had seduced Israel, through Balaam's de\'il- 
 ish counsel, Midian seems to have been stricken by God with 
 panic, and not to have struck a blow 1*. 
 
 From Shittim unto Gilgal. The words are separated 
 by the Hebrew accent from what went before. It is then pro- 
 bably said in concise energy for, " Remember too from Shit- 
 tim to Gilgal," i. e. all the great works of God /row Shittim '', 
 the last encampment of Israel out of the promised land, where 
 they so sinned in Baal-peor, unto Gilgal, the first in the pro- 
 mised land, which they entered by miracle, where the Ark 
 rested amid the victories given them, where the Covenant was 
 renewed, and -" the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. Re- 
 member all, from your own deep sin and rebellion to the deep 
 mercy of God. 
 
 That ye may know the righteousness [righteous7i€sses'\ of 
 
 8 Job xiii. 3. » xlii. 5, 6. '» ty. " Here and v. 5. 
 
 '- Deut. viii. 4. "IS. John v. 3. " Is. xliii. 22-24. '^ cnsopjo itiSv.t see 
 Gen. !. 24. cn3V n'3 Ex. xiii. 3. 14, xx. 2, Deut. vui. 14, xiii. 10; and united, as here, 
 withmB, Deut. vii.8; xiii. 5. "Ex. xv.20. ''Dion. " Num. xxxi. 49. 
 
 '9 See on Hos. ix. 10. p. 59. and on Jo. iii. IS. p. 141. =» Jos. v. 9.
 
 340 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 c if hTs t ^ ^ Whcrewitli sliuU I come before the 
 "■•• ''"• TiORn, and how my sell' before the bif^b God ? 
 ] "a)rj shall I come before him with burnt offer- 
 ' l%T.h-:. in«,'s, with calves f of a year old ? 
 * Job." 29"; 7 'Will the Lord be pleased with thou- 
 ' Ifi'lVsr'^' sands of rams, or with ten thousands of 
 
 23. 10. ' 
 
 Jer. 7. 31. 
 
 & 19. 5. Ezek. 23. 37. 
 
 ^ rivers of oil ? ' shall I give my firstborn 
 
 the Lord ; His Faithfulness in pcrformins!: His promises to 
 Abraliain, Isaar, and Jacob. God spcaketh of His promises, 
 not as what tliey were in themselves, mere mercy, but as what 
 they became, through that g^racious and free promise, righte- 
 ousness, in that He had hound Himself to fulfil what He had, 
 out of mere grace, promised. So in the New Testament He 
 saith, ^Gtif/w not nnrighteous that He should forget your works 
 and /a/joiir which proceedeth of love ; and, -He is fnitliful and 
 just to forgive us otir sins. Alicah speaks, by a rare idiom, of 
 the righteousnesses^ of the Lord, e&ch act of mercy beinji^ a sepa- 
 rate effluence of His Righteousness. The very names of the 
 places sugffest the righteous acts of God, the unrighteous of 
 Israel. "*But we too, who desire with unveiled face to be- 
 hold the glory of the Lord, and have Abraham really for our 
 father, let us, when we have sinned, hear God pleading against 
 us, and reproving us for the multitude of His benefits. For 
 we too once served Pharaoh and the people of Egypt, labour- 
 ing in works of mire and clay ; and He redeemed us Who gave 
 Himself a Redemption for all ; that we, the redeemed of the 
 Lord ^, whom He redeemed out of the hand of the enemi/ and ga- 
 thered frorn the lands, might saif. His 7nerci/ enduretltfor ever. 
 He sent also before our face Closes, the spiritual Law, and 
 Aaron the High Priest, not bearing the typical Ephod and 
 Urim, but having in His Forehead the seal of holiness which 
 God the Father sealed; and Miriam, the foreshcwing of pro- 
 phets. Recollect we too what he thought against us who 
 willed to devour us, the true Balak, Satan, who laid snares 
 for us through Balaam, ttie destroyer of the people, fearing lest 
 we should cover his land and occupy it, withdrawing the 
 earthly-minded from his empire." 
 
 6, 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ? The peo- 
 ple, thus arraigned, bursts in, as men do, with professions that 
 they would be no more ungrateful ; that they will do any thing, 
 every thing — but what they ought. With them it shall be 
 but ''Ask and have." They wish only to know, tuith what they 
 shall come? They would he beforehand'' with Him, antici- 
 pating His wishes ; they would, with all the submission of a 
 creature, /;o?<;^, prostrate themselves before God; they acknow- 
 ledge His High Majesty, who dwelleth on high *, the most High 
 God, and would abase themselves'^ before His lofty greatness, 
 if they but knew, " how " or " wherewith." They would give 
 of their best; sacrifices the choicest of their kind, which should 
 be wholly His, whole-burnt-ofierings, ofi'ered exactly accord- 
 ing to the law'", bullocks of a year old ; then too, the next 
 choice offering, the rams ; and these, as they were offered for 
 the whole people on very solemn occasions, in vast multitudes, 
 
 ' Heb. vi. 10. 2 1 s, jcjjn i, ()_ 3 «pipis^ only occurs besides Jud. v. 11. 
 
 (bis) 1 Sam. xii. 7; thence TW"!», Dan. is. 16. Else only Ps. ciii. 6. '' From S. Jer. 
 
 ' Ps. cvii. 1-3. s D^i^ ' 7 IJ3X 8 Qi-ip ."n^K 9 The word occurs only 
 
 of one sinking, bowed down, amid persicutions, Ps. ivii. 7 ; of the " bowed down," whom 
 God raiseth up, Ps. cxlv.l4, cxlvi.8 ; and in Is. Iviii.5, of " ostentatious outward humi- 
 liation before God." Soprobably here, where alone the reflective occurs. '" Lev.ix.2,3. 
 
 " At Solomon's dedication, 22,0(1U oxen and 120,000 sheep, 1 Kings viii. 63 ; by Heze- 
 kiah, 2000 bullocks and 17,000 sheep, 2 Cliron. xxx. 2-1; by Josiah, 30,000 lambs and 
 
 for my transgression, the fruit of my f body ^ ^^"{^ t 
 
 for the sin of my soul ? cir^jio^^ 
 
 8 He bath '" shewed thee, O man,! 06^.10.^2. 
 
 what is good ; and what doth the Lord ho^s?c. r,! 
 
 require of thee, but "to do justly, ancL (jentis. 19. 
 
 to love mercy, and to fwalk humbly with^He'b./mml 
 
 ^ ble thyself 
 
 to walk. 
 
 thy God 
 
 thousands or ten thousands '^; the oil which accompanied the 
 burnt sacrifice, should fiow in rivers '- ; nay, more still ; they 
 would not withhold their sons, their first born sons, from God, 
 part, as they were, of themselves, or any fruit of tlieir otvtt 
 body. They enhance the offering by naming the tender rela- 
 tion to themselves ''. They would offer every thing, (even 
 what God forbade) excepting only what alone He asked for, 
 tiieir heart, its love and its obedience ^^ The form of their 
 offer contains this ; they ask zealously, "with ?t7/ff/ shall I 
 come." It is an outward offering only, a thing which they 
 would bring. Hypocritical eagerness ! a sin against light. 
 For to enquire further, when God has already revealed any- 
 thing, is to deny that He has revealed it. It comes from the 
 wish that He had not revealed what He has revealed. "'°Who- 
 so, after he hath found the truth, discusseth any thing further, 
 seeketh a lie." God had told them, long before, from the time 
 that He made them His people, what he desired of them ; So 
 Micah answers, 
 
 8. He hath shelved thee. Micah does not tell them noiv, 
 as for the first time; which would have excused them. He 
 says, He hath s/iewed thee ; He, about Whose mind and wiU 
 and pleasure they were pretending to enquire, the Lord tbe'ir 
 God. He /irtfZ shewn it to them. The law was full of it. He 
 shewed it to them, when He said, ^^ And now, Israel, what 
 doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy 
 God, to walk in all His tvays, and to love Him and to serve the 
 Lord thy God icith all thy heart and icith all thy soul, to keep 
 the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I com- 
 mand thee this day for thy good '? They had asked, "with ichat 
 outward thing^'' shall I come before the Lord;" the prophet 
 tells them, " what thing \sgood," the inward man of the heart, 
 righteousness, love, humility. 
 
 .^nd what doth tlie Lord require [search, seek'] of thee ? The 
 very word^^ implies an earnest search within. He would 
 say, "^^ Trouble not thyself as to any of these things, burnt- 
 offerings, rams, calves, without thee. For God seeketh not 
 thine, but thee ; not thy substance, but thy spirit ; not ram or 
 goat, but thy heart." "-°Thou askest, what thou shouldest 
 off"er for thee ? Off"er thyself. For what else doth the Lord 
 seek of thee, but thee ? Because, of all earthly creatures. He 
 hath made nothing better than thee, He seeketh thyself from 
 thyself, because thou hadst lost thyself." 
 
 To do judgment, are chiefly all acts of equity; to love 
 mercy, all deeds of love. Judgment, is what right requires; 
 mercy, what love. Yet, secondarily, " to do judgment " is to 
 pass righteous judgments in all cases ; and so, as to others, 
 
 kids for the paschal offerings and 3000 bullocks. Ib.xxxv. 7. '- Comp. Job 
 
 XX. 17, "rivers" (nn: as here) "of streams of honey and cream." Oil was used in all 
 meal-offerings which .iccompanied the bumt-offering. Lev. ii. 1, 2. 4-7, vii. 10. 12, and 
 so entered mto the daily sacrifice, Ex. xxix. 40, and all sacrifices of consecration, Ex. 
 xxix. 2, 23, Lev. vi. 15, 21, Num. viii. 8. " See Deut. xxviii. 53. » Cone. Chalc. 
 Act. 3. '* The enquiry, v. 7, was, WiU the Lord he pleased .' " nsrn. The subject of. 
 He hath shewn thee, is obviously that same Lord, i^ Deut. x. 12, 13. ■' nca, ti. 3b np, 8. 
 18 B-,1 19 Rup. 30 s. Aug. Serm. 43. ad loc.'§ 2.
 
 CIIAPTEIl VI. 
 
 341 
 
 Before 
 
 CH RIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 9 The Lord's voice erieth unto the 
 
 ^ judge not according to the appearance, hut judge righteous 
 Judgment ; andasto one's self also. Judf^c equitably and kind- 
 ly ofotliers, humbly of thyself. "- Jiidfje of thyself in tliy- 
 self without aeecptanee of thine own person, so as not to spare 
 thy sins, nor take pleasure in them, beeause lliou hast done 
 them. Neither praise thyself in what is i;-ood in thee, nor 
 aecuse God in what is evil in thee. For this is wroiij; jud;;- 
 ment, and so, not judfijnient at all. This thou didst, beinij 
 evil ; reverse it, and it will he right. Praise God in what is 
 good in thee ; accuse thyself in what is evil. So slialt thou 
 anticipate the judgment of God, as He saith, "^If we would 
 judge ourse/res, we should not he judged of the Lord." He add- 
 cth, love mercy ; being merciful, out of love, *not of necessity, 
 for God loveth a cheerful giver. These acts together contain 
 the whole duty to man, corresponding with and formed upon 
 the mercy and justice of God°. All which is due, any how 
 or in any way, is of judgment ; all which is free toward man, 
 although not free toward God, is of mercy. There remains, 
 tvalk huinhly with thy God ; not, how thyself only before Him, 
 as they had offered'', nor again tvalk with Him only, as did 
 Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job ; but walk humbly (lit. bow down ' 
 the going) yet still ivith thy God; never lifting up thyself, 
 never sleeping, never standing still, but ever walking on, yet 
 ever casting thyself doxvn ; and the more thou goest on in 
 grace, the more cast thyself down ; as our Lord saith, ^JVIien 
 ye have done all these things which are commanded you, say, 
 We are unprqfitable servants ; ive have done that which ivas our 
 duty to do. 
 
 It is not a "crouching before God" displeased, (such as they 
 had thought of,) but the himible love of the forgiven ; ivalk 
 humbly, as the creature with the Creator, but in love, ivith 
 thine own God. Humble thyself with God, Who humbled 
 Himself in the flesh ; icalk on with Him, Who is thy Way. 
 Neither humility nor obedience alone would be true graces ; 
 but to cleave fast to God, because He is thine All, and to boic 
 thyself doivn, because thou art nothing, and thine All is He 
 and of Him. It is altogether a Gospel-precept ; bidding us, 
 ^Be ye perfect, as your Father tvhich is in Heaven is perfect ; 
 ^"Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful ; and yet, in the 
 end, have ^' that same mind which was also in Christ ifesus,fVho 
 made Himself of no reputation. 
 
 The offers of the people, stated in the bare nakedness in 
 which Micali exhibits them, have a character of irony. But 
 it is the irony of the truth and of the fact itself. The creature 
 has nothing of its own to offer ; '- the blood of bulls and goats 
 cannot take away sin ; and the offerings, as they rise in value, 
 become, not useless only but, sinful. Such offerings would 
 bring down anger, not mercy. Micah's words then are, for 
 their vividness, an almost proverbial expression of the no- 
 thingness of all which we sinners could offer to God. ''^^We, 
 who are of the people of God, knowing that ^* in His sight shall 
 no man living be justified, and saying, ^^ I am a beast with Thee, 
 trust in no pleas before His judgment-seat, but pray; yet we put 
 no trust in our very prayers. For there is nothing worthy to 
 be offered to God for sin, and no humility can wash away the 
 stains of offences. In penitence for our sins, we hesitate and 
 
 ' S. John vii. 24. ^ S. Aug. 1. c. » 1 Cor. xi. 31. ■• 2 Cor. ix. 7. 
 
 * Ps. ci. 1. Ixi. 7. ' V. 6. ' n:^ yjsn. The root only occurs besides in 
 
 the form D'jjiJs Prov. xi. 2, where it is opposed to pride. In the Targg. Afel is = Heb. 
 n'3n. The noun is also used of liumility. The Arabic has no bearing upon it, all its 
 meanings being derived from the original " formed." 
 
 city, and || the man o/" wisdom shall see thy (>/,'';["[ g ^ 
 
 II Or, tlnj 7iame shall see thai ivhirh is. cir. 710. 
 
 say, WlierewitJi shall J come before the Lord? how shall I come, 
 so as to be admitted into familiar intercourse with my God? 
 One and the same spirit revolveth these things in each of us 
 or of tiiosc before us, wlio lKi\'e been jiricked to repentance, 
 ■what worthy olfering can 1 make to the Lord? ' This and 
 the like we revolve, as the Apostle saith ; ""'//V /cn(jiv not what 
 to pray for as we ought ; hut the Spirit itself maketh interces- 
 sion for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. ' Should I 
 offer myself wholly as alturnt-offeringtrt Ilim r If, understand- 
 ing spiritiiailyall the Levitical sacrifices,! should present them 
 in myself, and oifer my first-born, i. e. what is chief in me, my 
 soul, I should find tiotljiiig \vortliv of His greatness. Xcither 
 in ourselves, nor in ought cartlily, can we find any thing wor- 
 thy to be offered to reconcile us with God. For the sin of the 
 soul, blood alone is worthy to be offered; not the blood of 
 calves, or rams, or goats, but our own; yet our own too is not 
 offered, but given back, being due already i". The P.iood of 
 Christ Alone sufficeth to do away all sin." "'''The whole is 
 said, in order to instruct us, that, without the shedding of the 
 Blood of Christ and its Virtue and Merits, we cannot please 
 God, though we offered ourselves and all that we have, with- 
 in and without; and also, that so great are the benefits be- 
 stowed upon us by the love of Christ, that we can repay no- 
 thing of them." 
 
 But then it is clear that there is no teaching in this pas- 
 sage in Micah, which there is not in the law'". The develope- 
 ments in the Prophets relate to the Person and character of 
 the Redeemer. The law too contained both elements ; 1) the 
 ritual of sacrifice, impressing on the Jew the need of an Aton- 
 er; 2) the moral law. and the graces inculcated in it, obedi- 
 ence, love of God and man, justice, mercy, humility, and the 
 rest. There was no hint in the law, that half was accej)table 
 to God instead of the whole ; that sacrifice of animals would 
 supersede self-sacrifice or obedience. There was nothing, on 
 which the Pharisee could base his heresy. What Micah said, 
 Moses had said. The corrupt of the people offered a half-ser- 
 vice, what cost them least, as faith without love always does. 
 Micah, in this, reveals to them nothing new ; but tells them 
 that this half-service is contrary to the first principles of their 
 law. He hath shelved thee, O man, tvhat is good. Sacrifice, 
 without love of God and man, was not even so much as the 
 body without the soul. It was an abortion, a monster. For 
 one end of sacrifice was to inculcate the insutticicncy of all 
 our good, apart from the Blood of Christ ; that, do what we 
 would, -"«// came short of the glory of God. But to substitute 
 sacrifice, which was a confession that at best we were mise- 
 rable sinners, unable, of ourselves, to please God, for any ef- 
 forts to please Him or to avoid displeasing Him, would be a 
 direct contradiction of the law, antinomianism under the dis- 
 pensation of the law itself. 
 
 Micah changes the words of Moses, in order to adapt them 
 to the crying sins of Israel at that time. He then upbraids 
 them in detail, and that, with those sins which were patent, 
 which, when brought home to them, they could not deny, the 
 sins against their neighbour. 
 
 9. The voice of the Lord erieth unto the city, i. e. Jerusa- 
 
 8 S. Luke xvii. 10. « S. Matt. v. 48. '» S. Luke vi. 36. " Phil ii. 5, '. 
 
 "2 Heb. X. 4. '3 from S. Jer. S. C\T. Rup. Dion. n Ps. cxliii. 2. 
 
 15 lb. Ixxiii. 22. "> Rom. viii. 2(5. '7 Ps. cxvi. 8. '» Dion. 
 
 " Asissooftensaid,inordertodepreciatethelaw,e.g. in Dr. Stanley's J. Church p. 44S. 
 -» Rom. iii. 23. 
 
 3 F
 
 342 
 
 MICAII, 
 
 CHRIST "^'"^ • ^^^^' y^ *^® ''^^' ^"*^ ^'^^ '^'^^^ ^^^' 
 
 liefore 
 HRIS 
 cir.710. 
 
 pointed it. 
 
 1 Or, Is there 10 % \\ Are there yet the treasures of 
 ri'T"""' wickedness in the house of the wicked, and 
 'ZvkelTc- t'l^ t scant measure " that is ahominal)le ? 
 
 t neh'. measure of leanness, Amos S. 5. » Deut. 25. 13,— 16. Prov. 11. 1. & 20. 10, iV, 
 
 lem, as the metropolis of their wealth and their sin, the head 
 and lieart of their offending, Crietli, aloud, earnestly, intent- 
 ly, so that all niii^ht hear. So God says, ^Doth riot wisdom 
 ay ? and understanding put forth her voice f She crieth at 
 the gates, — laito you, O men, I cry, and my voice is to the sons of 
 men ; and Isaiah prophesied of St. John Baptist, as '^ the voice 
 of one crying in the wilderness ; and our Lord saith, ^He that 
 heareth you, heareth Me. And the man of wisdom shall see Thy 
 Name. The voice of God is in the hearing of all, but the ivise 
 only seeth the Name of God^ The word rendered wisdom 
 means, that which is^, and so, that which alone is, which 
 alone has any real solid being, because it alone abides, icis- 
 do)n, or counsel according to God. Such as are thus wise 
 shall see the Name of God, (as Jeremiah says to his genera- 
 tion ^, See ye the word of the Lord.) They shall see His power 
 and majesty and all which His Name expresses, as they are 
 displayed severally in each work of His : He shall speak to 
 them by all things wherein He is ; and so seeing Him now in 
 a glass darkly, they shall hereafter see all. His Glory, His 
 Goodness, His Love, Himself, /«ce to face. 
 
 Hear ye the rod, i.e. the scourge of the wrath of God. 
 The name and the image recall the like prophecies of Isaiah, 
 so that Micah in one word epitomises the prophecies of Isa- 
 iah, or Isaiah expands the word of Micah. ''The rod in thine 
 hand is My indignation ; ^As if the rod lifted up Him, Who is 
 not wood ; ^He lifteth up his rod against thee ; ^^Thou hast bro- 
 ken the rod (which is) on his shoulder ; ^^The Lord hath broken 
 the rod of the tvicked ; ^-whereon the grounded [i.e. fixed by 
 the decree of God] staff' shaU pass. 
 
 And Who hath appointed it, i.e. beforehand, fixing the 
 time and place, when and where it should come. So Jere- 
 miah says, ^^Hotv canst thou (sword of the Lord) be quiet, and 
 the Lord hath given it a charge to Ashkelon and to the sea- 
 shore ? there hath He appointed it. He Who has appointed it, 
 changeth not His decree, unless man changeth ; nor is He 
 lacking in power to fulfil it. He will surely bring it to pass. 
 All which can be thought of, of fear, terror, motives to re- 
 pentance, awe, hope, trust, is in that word Who. It is God; 
 hopes and fears may be infinite. 
 
 10. Are there^^ yet, still after all the warnings and long- 
 suffering of God, the treasures of unckedness in the house of the 
 wicked ? Treasures of wickedness are treasures gotten by 
 wickedness ; yet it means too that the wicked shall have no 
 treasure, no fruit, but his wickedness. He treasureth up trea- 
 sures, but of wickedness ; as St. James saith, ^^ Ye have heaped 
 treasure together for the last days, i. e. of the 7niseries that shall 
 
 ' Prov. viii. 1 3, 4. 2 Is. xl. 3. S. Matt. iii. 3. ^ s. Luke x. 16. 
 
 * This, the simplest, is the most energetic rendering. Other possible renderings of the 
 simple words, ti^B* nN"|; J"?'"}) come to the same. Such are, "And wisdom (i. e. wholly 
 wise) is he who regards Thy Name ; " or " Thy Name (i.e. Thou, such as Thy Name ex- 
 presses of Thee) behoUleth wisdom," i. e. the really wise, or religious ; or, "And wisdom 
 isit, that one regards Thy Name; or, with the change of a vowel (nxT for nxT), " and 
 wisdom is it, to fear Thy Name." In regard to the use of the abstract, wisdom, for the 
 concrete, Ihe wise, Poc. compares Prov. xiii. 6, " wickedness overthrows sin," i. e. the sin- 
 ner, and lb. xx. 1. ' wirie ' for o man of wine. He quotes also nhnp ton, Eccl. i. 2. in il- 
 lustration of the anomaly of gender, and vii. 8, 1DK' mna. 
 
 * There is no other even plausible etymology of n.Tin, than p;, whose 3rd radical ap- 
 pears in 'n'N in Daniel, and in Syriac, and in Vx'n'K, iteb. See " Daniel the Proph." p. 49. 
 
 11 II Sluill I count them pure with chrTst 
 1' the Avicked hahuiccs, and with the hair of cir. 710. 
 
 ,..-,,... ^ W Or, Shall 
 
 deceitiul weii^hts ? ibepure 
 
 12 For the rich men thereof are full of p Ho8.i'2.7. 
 violence, and the inhabitants thereof have 
 
 come upon them^^. Thewords stand over against oneanother ; 
 house of the wicked, treasures of wickedness ; as though the 
 whole house of the wicked wa» but a "treasure-house of wick- 
 edness." Therein it began ; therein and in its rewards it shall 
 end. Are there yet ? the Prophet asks. There shall soon 
 cease to be. The treasure shall be spoiled ; the iniquity alone 
 shall remain. 
 
 And the scant ephah (lit. " ephah of leanness" E. M.) which 
 is abominable ? Scant itself, and, by the just judgment of God, 
 producing scantness, emaciated and emaciating '^; as He says, 
 ^^Hegavetltem their desire, and sent leunyiess withal into their 
 soul ; and St. James ^'', it shall eat your Jiesh as it were fire. 
 Even a heathen said, "-"Gain gotten by wickedness is loss;" 
 and that, as being '■^abominable" or "accursed" or, one might 
 say, " bcwrathed -^," lying under the wrath and curse of God. 
 " -- What they minish from the measure, that they add to the 
 wrath of God and the vengeance which shall come upon them ; 
 what is lacking to the measure shall be supplied out of the 
 wrath of God." The Ephah was a corn-measure-^, containing 
 about six bushels ; the rich, in whose house it was, were the 
 sellers ; they were the necessaries of life then, which the rich 
 retailers of corn were selling dishonestly, at the price of the 
 lives of the poor-*. Our subtler ways of sin cheat ourselves, 
 not God. In what ways do not competitive employers use 
 the scant measure which is accursed f What else is all our com- 
 petitive trade, our cheapness, our wealth, but scant measure 
 to the poor, making their wages lean, full and overflowing 
 with the wrath of God? 
 
 11. Shall I count them pure? rather, (as E. M.) Shall I 
 bepure^^ ? The Prophet takes for the time their person and 
 bids them judge themselves in him. If it would defile me, 
 how are ye, with all your other sins, not defiled ? All these 
 things were expressly forbidden in the law. -'' Ye shall do no 
 unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in iveight or in mea- 
 sure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah andajusthin, 
 shall ye have ; and, -''Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers 
 weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine 
 house divers measures, a great and a small. For all that do 
 such things, and all that do unrighteousness are an abomination 
 unto the Lord thy God. Yet are not these things common 
 even now? 
 
 12. For the rich men thereof, i. e. of the city •^, are full of 
 violence. It had been little, had thieves and robbers lived by 
 violence, but now, (as Isaiah at the same time upbraids them,) 
 "^ her princes were become companions of thieves. Not the 
 poor out of distress, but the rich, out of wantonness and ex- 
 
 ^ Jer. ii. 31. add " Ex. xx. 18, and all the people saiv ni7ip the voices, or thundering!. 
 and, see the smell of my son, Gen. xxvii. 27." roc. ' Is. x. 5. 6 Jb. i5_ 
 
 « lb. 24. '" tb. IX. 3. Heb. " lb. xiv. 5. '= lb. xxx. 32. 
 
 " Jer. xlvii. 7. IS' is used in regard to time, 2 Sam. xx. 5. It is used of both time and 
 place in the Arab. Conj. iii. as in n^to, and the Syr. 
 
 " VK i. q. »•;, as in 2 Sam. xiv. 19, the k occurring together with the ' (here indicated 
 by the vowel) in Arab. Chald. Syr. Sam. Pers. and Heb. Wk See n. 5. 
 
 '^S.Jam. V. 3. " lb. 1. U See v. 14. 's Ps. cvi. 15. " v. 3. 
 
 20 Chilon in Diog. Laert. i. 4. =' nDiyi. "Rib. 23 Am. viii. 5. 2i Jt seems 
 
 necessary, I see, in so-called Christian London, to advertise in shops, that bread is of its 
 
 alleged weight. -' nri in Kal is only intransitive. 26 L^y. xix. 35, 3(j. 
 
 27 Deut. XXV. 13, 15, 16. add Prov. xi. 1. xvi. 11. xx. 10. 28 ver. 9. 29 is. ;. 23.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 343 
 
 c nins T spoken lies, and « their tongue is deceitful 
 cir. 710. in their mouth. 
 
 13 Therefore also will I ' make thee siek 
 
 * Jer. 9. 3, 5. 
 6,8. 
 
 prio7.'ir,' in smitinj^ thee, in making tlicc desolate 
 
 • Lev. 26. 26. 
 Hos. 4. 10. 
 
 because of thy sins. 
 
 14 'Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; 
 and thy castinu; down .shall he in the midst 
 
 ceeding covctousness and love of luxury, not only did wrong 
 but were filled, not so much with riches, as witli vio/ence. Vio- 
 lence is the very meat and drink wherewith they are filled, 
 yea, and wherewith they shall be filled, when it is returned 
 upon tlieir heads. 
 
 ^nd the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies. Fraud is 
 itself lying, and lying is its inseparable companion. " i Lying 
 foUoweth the gathering together of riches, and the hard wont 
 to lay up rielies hath a deceitful tongue." The sin. he saith, 
 is spread throughout all her inhabitants ; i. e. all of them, as 
 their wont, have spoken lies, and, even when they speak not.the 
 lie is ready ; their tongue is deceitful (lit. deceit) in their mouth. 
 It is deceit, nothing but deceit, and that, deceit which should 
 "^overthrow" and ruin others. One intent on gain has tiie 
 lie ever ready to be uttered, even when he speaks not. It 
 lurks concealed, until it is needed. 
 
 13. Therefore also ivill I, [lit. ^nd I too,] i. c. this dost 
 thou, and thus will I too do. " ^ As thou niadest sick the 
 heart of the poor oppressed, so will I, by My grievous and se- 
 vere punishments, 7nake thee sick," or jnake thy ivound incura- 
 ble, as in Nahum*, thy wound is grievous, lit. made sick. In 
 making thee desolate because of thy sins. The heaping up 
 riches shall itself be the cause of thy being waste, deserted, 
 desolate. 
 
 14. Thoti shah eat, hut not be satisfied. The correspon- 
 dence of the punishment with the sin shall shew that it is not 
 by chance, but from the just judgment of God. The curse of 
 God shall go with what they eat, and it shall not nourish 
 them. The word, //;fj«, is thrice repeated^. As God had just 
 said, / too, so here. Thou. Thou, the same who hast plun- 
 dered others, shalt thyself eaf, and not be satisfied ; " thoii shalt 
 sow, and not reap; thou shalt tread the olive, and thou shalt not 
 anoint thee with oil." " Upon extreme but ill-gotten abun- 
 dance, there followeth extreme want. And whoso," adds 
 one ", " seeth not this in our ways and our times is absolutely 
 blind. For in no period have we ever read that there was so 
 much gold and silver, or so much discomfort and indigence, 
 so that those most true words of Christ Jesus seem to have 
 been especially spoken of us, ' Take heed, for a inan^s life con- 
 sistetli not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." 
 And is not this true of us now? 
 
 Thy casting down shall be in the tnidst of thee. Where 
 thou hast laid up thy treasures, or rather thy wickedness, 
 there thou shalt sink down, or give way, from inward decay, 
 in the very centre of thy wealth and thy sin. They had said, 
 ^Is not the Lord in the midst of us ? None evil can come upon 
 us. Micali tells them of a different indweller. God had de- 
 parted from them, and left them to their inherent nothingness. 
 God had been their stay ; without God, human strength col- 
 
 • S. Jer. - n;OT from non. It is used of the tongue in Ps. lii. 4, ci. 7, cxx. 2, 8 ; 
 
 of a bow, Ps. lxxviii.'57,Hos. vii. 16. 3 Poc. ■> iii. ly. * nm once 
 
 in V. I*, twice in v. 15. *• Arias Montanus, a Spaniard. His Commentary on the 
 
 Minor Prophets was published at Antwerp 1571. ' S. Luke xii. 15. 8 jij. n. 
 
 of thee ; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt ^ h i["{y'r 
 
 not deliver ; and tliut which thou dcliverest "''■ ^^"- 
 
 will I give ii]> to the sword. 
 
 l^t 'rium sludt * sow, but thou shalt not' Deut. 28.38. 
 
 . 39. 40. 
 
 reap ; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou Amoss. ii. 
 shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet Hag.'i.'e. ' 
 wine, but shalt not drink wine. 
 
 lapses. Scarcely any destruction is altogether hopeless, save 
 that which cometh from within. Most storms pass over, tear 
 off boughs and leaves, ijut tiie stem remains. Inward decay 
 or excision alone are liumaiily irrecoverable, 'i'iic jKilitical 
 death of the people was, in God's hands, to be the instru- 
 ment of their regeneration. 
 
 Morally too, and at all times, inward emptiness is the fruit 
 of unrighteous fulness. It is disease, not strength; as even 
 Heathen proverbs said; "the love of money is a dropsy; to 
 drink increaseth the thirst," and "amid mighty wealth, poor;" 
 and Holy Scripture, " The rich He sendeth empty away. And 
 truly they must be empty. For what can fiH the soul, save 
 God ? " 1" This is true too of such as, like the Bishop of Sar- 
 dis, ^^have a name that they live and are dead," " '- such as do 
 some things good, feed on the word of God, but attain to no 
 fruit of righteousness ; " " wlio corrupt natural and seeming 
 good by inward decay; who appear righteous before men, are 
 active and zealous for good ends, but spoil all by some secret 
 sin or wrong end, as vain-glory or praise of men, whereby they 
 lose the praise of God. Their casting down shall be in the midst 
 of them. The meaning of the whole is the same, whether the 
 word be rendered casting down, i. e. downfall, (lit. sinking 
 down i\) or emptiness, especially of the stomach, perhaps from 
 the feeling of " sinking." 
 
 Thou shalt fake hold to rescue or remove to a safe place 
 from the enemy, those whom he would take from thee, but 
 shalt not wholly deliver ; and that which thou deliveresf for a 
 time, tvill I give up to the stvord, i.e. the children for whose 
 sake they pleaded that they got together this wealth ; as, now 
 too, the idols, for whose sake men toil wrongly all their life, 
 are often suddenly taken away. Their goods too may be said 
 to be given to the sword, i.e. to the enemy. 
 
 15. T/iou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap. Micah re- 
 news the thrcatenings of the law", which they had been ha- 
 bitually breaking. Those prophecies had been fulfilled be- 
 fore, throughout their history ; they had been fulfilled lately 
 in Israel for the like oppression of the poor ^'\ Their frequent 
 fulfilment spoke as much of a law of God's righteousness, pu- 
 nishing sin, as the yearly supply in the ordinary course of na- 
 ture spoke of His loving Providence. It is the bitterest pu- 
 nishment to the covetoiis to have the things which they co- 
 veted, taken awav before their eyes ; it was a token of God's 
 Hand, that He took them away, when just within their grasp. 
 The prophet brings it before their eyes, that they might feel 
 beforehand the bitterness of forgetting them. "i^They should 
 lose, not only what they gained unjustly, but the produce of 
 their labour.' care, industry, as, in agriculture, it is said that 
 there is mostly much labor, little fraud, much benefit." Har- 
 vest is a proverb for joy ; '^~' they joy before Thee according to the 
 
 9 S. Luke i. 53, comp. 1 Sam. ii. 5. '"Rib. "Rev. iii. 1. '= Dion. "It 
 
 possible, as Gcsenius conjectures, that na''(a i'lr. Xty.) is a transposed form of the Arab, om ; 
 
 more probably it mav be'trom tlie bi-litteral rer, which gave rise to the other forms, nis*, nniy. 
 
 '» Lev. xxvi. 10, i)eut. xxviii. 30. 33-41. '= Am. v. 11. '« Mont. '? Is. ix. 3_ 
 
 3p2
 
 an 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 c H rTst 16 t f'o'* II *''® statutes of "Omri are 'kept, 
 cir.710. and all the works of the house of ^ Ahab, 
 
 muc^kt'J' and ye walk in their counsels ; that I should 
 
 the^c. "livings 16. 25. 26. « Hos.5. 11. r 1 Kings 16.30,4-c.&21.25,26.2Kin.21.3. 
 
 foT/ in harvest ; ' wine maketh glad the heart of man, and oil is 
 to make him a cheerful vountenanee. But the harvest sliall he 
 turned into sorrow, -the oil and wine shall be taken away, 
 when all the labour had been employed. Yet, since all these 
 operations in nature arc adapted to he, and arc used as, sym- 
 bols of tbinjis spiritual, then the words which describe them 
 are adapted to be spiritual proverbs. Spiritually, "^ he soiveth 
 and rea'peth not, who *soweth to the Jlesh, and of the flesh reap- 
 eth corruption, thinejs corruptible, and inward decay and con- 
 demnation. He treadeth the olive, who, by shameful deeds 
 contrary to the law, ^griereth the Holt/ Spirit of God, and 
 therefore obtaincth not g;ladncss of spirit ; he maketh wi?te, 
 yetdrinketh not u'ine,w\\o teacheth others, not himself." They 
 too take hold but do not deliver, who for a while believe and 
 in time of temptation fall away, who repent for a while and 
 then fall l)ack into old sins, or in other ways bring no fruit to 
 perfection ; taking; up the Cross for a while and then weary- 
 ing; using religious practices, as, more frequent prayer or 
 tasting, and then tiring; cultivating some graces and then 
 despairing because they see not the fruits. These tread the 
 olive, but are not anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit of 
 grace, who '"'end by doing for the sake of man, what they 
 had thought to do out of the love for God, and abandon, for 
 some fear of man, the good which they had begun." 
 I 16. For the statutes of Omri are kept, rather, (like E. M. 
 
 he doth much keep.) And he doth keep diligently for himself. 
 Both ways express much diligence in eviF. To "keep God's 
 commandments" was the familiar phrase, in which Israel 
 was exhorted, by every motive of hope and fear, to obedience 
 to God. ^I knoiv him, God says of Abraham, that he ivill com- 
 mand his children and his household after him, and they shall 
 keep the way of the Lord, to do judgment and justice. This 
 was the fundamental commandment immediately after the 
 deliverance from Egypt upon their first murmuring. ^ The 
 Lord made there (at Marah) for them a statute and ordinance, 
 and said. If thou tvilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord 
 thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt 
 give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will 
 put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon 
 the Egyptians. In this character He revealed Himself on 
 Mount Sinai, as ^^ shewing mercy unto thousands of them that 
 love Me and keep My commandments. This was their cove- 
 nant, 1^ Thini hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God 
 and to walk in His ivays, and to keep His statutes and His com- 
 mandments and His judgments and to hearken unto His voice. 
 This was so often enforced upon them in the law, as the con- 
 dition upon which they should bold their land, if they kept 
 the covenant^-, the commandments^^, the judgments^*, the sta- 
 tutes'^, the testiinonies'^, the charge^'' of the Lord. Under 
 this term all the curses of the law were threatened, if they 
 '^hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord their God, to keep 
 HiscommandmentsandHis statutes tvhich He commanded them. 
 
 ' Ps. civ. 15. ' Comp. Is. xvi.9, 10, Jer. v. 17, xlviii. 37. ' Theoph. 
 
 " Gal. vi. 8. 5 Eph. iv. 30. « Rib. 7 In the constniction of the E. \. 
 
 (which is possible) the force of the union ol the sing, verb with the plural noun would he 
 that "the statutes 01 Omri. one and all, are kept diligently." 8 (jen xviii 19 
 
 9 Ex. XV. 2n, 26. i« lb. XX. 6. " Deut. xxvi. 1". " Fx. xix. 5'. the 
 
 words of this covenant, Deut. xxix. 0. '^ .Tison or mSQTl 'i\ or '« nisD Lev. xxii. 31 
 xxvi. 3, Deut. iv. 2, vi. 17, vii. 11, viii. 6, 11, x. 13, .xi. 1,8, 22,xiii. 6, Heb. 1<J. x'v. 5, xix.' 
 9, xxvii. 1, xxvin. 9, xxx. 10. '< -Brn'o Lev. xviii. 5, 26, xx. 22, Deut. vii. 1 1 , 
 
 make thee ''a || desolation, and the inhabi- chrTst 
 tants thereof an hissing : therefore ye shall ""■ ^^''- 
 bear the ^ reproach of my people. ' \^"\'j^,'».' 
 
 \ Or, astonishment. 
 
 ' Isai. 25.8. Jer. 51.51. Lam. 5.1. 
 
 Under this again the future of good and evil was, in Solomon, 
 set before the bouse of David ; of unbroken succession on 
 bis throne, W^ thou wilt keep My commandments ; but con- 
 trariwise, if ye or your children will not keep My command- 
 ments and My statutes, banishment, destruction of the temple, 
 and themselves to be -" a proverb and a byword among all peo- 
 ple. This was the object of their existence, ^' that titey might 
 keep His statutes and observe His laivs. This was the sum- 
 mary of their disobedience, ''■-they kept not the covenant of God. 
 And now was come the contrary to all this. They had not 
 kept the commandments of God ; and those commandments 
 of man which were the most contrary to the commandments 
 of God, they had kept and did keep diligently. Alas ! that 
 the Christian world should be so like them ! What iron habit 
 or custom of man, what fashion, is not kept, if it is against 
 the law of God ? How few are not more afraid of man than 
 God ! Had God's command run, Speak evil one of another, 
 brethren, would it not have been the best kept of all His com- 
 mandments ? God says, speak not evil; custom, the conver- 
 sation around, fear of man, say, speak evil ; man's command- 
 ment is kept ; God's is not kept. And no one repents or 
 makes restitution ; few even cease from the sin. 
 
 Scripture does not record, what was the special aggrava- 
 tion of the sin of Omri, since the accursed worship of Baal 
 was brought in by Ahab-^, his son. But, as usual, "like fa- 
 ther, like son." The son developed the sins of the father. 
 Some special sinfulness of Omri is implied, in that Athaliah, 
 the murderess of her children, is called after her grandfather, 
 Omri, not after her father, Ahab-*. Heresiarchs have a deep- 
 er guilt than their followers, although the heresy itself is com- 
 monly developed later. Omri settled for a while the kingdom 
 of Israel, after the anarchy which followed on the murder of 
 Elah, and slew Zimri, his murderer. Yet before God, he did 
 worse than all before him, and he walked iti all the ivay of Jero- 
 boam-'. Yet this too did not suffice Judah ; for it follows. And 
 all the doings of the house of Ahab, who again -^did evil in the 
 sight of the Lord above all that were before him and served 
 Baal ; Ahab, to whom none -^was like in sin, who did sell him- 
 self to ivork ivickedness in the sight of the Lord. These were 
 they, whose statutes Judah now kept, as diligently and accu- 
 rately as if it had been a religious act. They kept, not the sta- 
 tutes of the Lord, but the statutes of Omri ; they kept, as their 
 pattern before their eyes, all the doings of the house of Ahab, his 
 luxury, oppression, the bloodshedding of Naboth ; and they 
 tvalked onward, not, as God bade them, humbly luith Him, but 
 in their counsels. And what must be the end of all this ? 
 that I should make thee a desolation. They acted, as though 
 the very end and object of all their acts were that, wherein 
 they ended, their own destruction and reproach -^. 
 
 Therefore ye shall bear the reproach of My people. The 
 title of tlie people of God must be a glory or a reproach. 
 Judah had gloried in being God's people, outwardly, by His 
 
 viii. 1 1, xi. 1. IS nipn or DTH Lev. xviii. 5, 26, xx. 8, 22, Deut. iv. 40, vi. 17, vii. 11, 
 
 X. 13. xi. 1, xxx. 10. "> nny Deut. vi. 17. '' rrum Lev. xviii. 30, Deut. xi. 1. 
 
 '» Deut. xxviii. 15. '» 1 Kings ix. 4-6. =»Ib.7. => Ps. cv. 45. 
 
 " Ih.lxxviii.il. 23 The worship of Baal was the result of Ahab's marriage with 
 
 Jezebel, the daughter of one, whose name designates his devotedness to that idolatry, Eth- 
 baal, (i. e. "with the help of Baal.") And this marriage is spoken of as Ahah's act, not 
 's. i Kings xvi. 31. 24 2 Kings viii. 26. 2 Chrou. xxii. 2. -^ 1 Kings 
 
 his father' 
 xvi. 25, 26, 
 
 vings : 
 
 26 Ih. 30-33. 
 
 ^mgs 1 
 lb. xxi. 25. 
 
 ** See on Hos. viii, 4. p. 51
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 345 
 
 Before 
 
 CH KIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 The church, comjylaiiiing of her small number, 
 3 and the general corruption, b putteth hercont'i- 
 dence not in man, hut in God. 8 She triumpheth 
 over her enemies. 14 God comforteth her bypru- 
 
 covenaiit and protection ; tlicy wore onviod for tlic outward 
 distinction. Tlicy refused to l)e .so inwardly, ar.d ijavc tlieni- 
 selves to the liideous, desecratinij, worship of IJaal. Now 
 then what had l)een their pri(k', sliould l)e the ajuj^ravation of 
 their punishment. Now too we hear of people every where 
 zealous tV)r a system, which their deeds hclie. Faith, without 
 love, (such as their character had heen,) feels any insult to 
 the rehition to God, which by its deeds it diso;races. Thouirh 
 they had tiiemsclves nejjlected (Jod, yet it was a heavy bur- 
 den to them to bcur the triumph of the heathen over them, tliat 
 God was unable to help them, or had cast them off. ^ These 
 are the people of the Lord and are gone forth, out of His land. 
 • Wherefore should they say among the heathen, where is their 
 God ? ^ IVe are confounded, because we have heard reproach, 
 shame hath covered our fares, for stra)igers are come into the 
 sanctuaries of the Lord's house. * JVe are become a reproach 
 to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round 
 about us. ° Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a 
 scorn and derision to them that are round about ns. Thou 
 makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head 
 among the people. My confusion is daily before me, and the 
 shame <f my face hath covered me, for the voice of him that 
 slanderet h and blasphemeth, by reason of the enemy and the 
 avenger. 
 
 The words, the reproach of 3Iy people, may also include "^the 
 reproach wherewith God in the law ^ threatened His people 
 if they should forsake Him", which indeed comes to the same 
 thin^, the one being; the prophecy, the other the fulfilment. 
 The word hissing in itself recalled the threat to David's house 
 in Solomon ; *At this house, which is high, every one that passeth 
 by it shall be astonished and hiss. Micah's phrase became a 
 favourite expression of Jeremiah'. So only do God's pro- 
 phets denounce. It is a marvellous a^limpse into man's re- 
 ligious history, that faith, although it had been inoperative 
 and was trampled upon without, should still survive ; nay, that 
 God, Whom in prosperity they had forsaken and forgotten, 
 should be remembered, when He seemed to forget and to for- 
 sake them. Had the captive Jews abandoned their faith, the 
 reproach would have ceased. The words, ye shall bear the 
 reproach of My people are, at once, a prediction of their de- 
 served suffering for the profanation of God's Name by their 
 misdeeds, and of their perseverance in that faith which, up 
 to that time, they had mostly neglected. 
 
 Chap. VII. The Prophet's olfice of threatening woe is 
 now over. Here, out of love, he himself cryeth woe unto 
 himself. He hath ^"continual sorrow in heart for his people. 
 He bewails what he cannot amend, and, by bewailing, shews 
 them how much more they should bewail it, over whose sins he 
 sorrows; how certain the destruction is, since there is none 
 to stand in the gap and turn away the wrath of God, no " ten 
 
 ' Ezek. xxxvi. 20. - Joel ii. 17. See my Comm. p. 122. 3 Jer. \\, 55. 
 
 * Ps. Ixxix. 4. s Ps. xliv. 13-U>. ^ Rib. antl others in Poc. 
 
 '' Deut. xxviii. 36. * 1 Kgs. ix. 8. ' nij-iip Jer. li. 37. "iJlv'S Jer. xix. 8. 
 
 XXV. y, 18. xxix. 18. Else it is only used bv Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxix. 8. 
 
 '» Rom. ix. 2. " Rup. i^ Is. xxiv. 16. " lb. xv. 5. xvi. 11 
 
 " Joel i. 1,5. 15 Jer. xv. 10. 16 'VyH. The word occurs 
 
 besides only in Job x. 1.5. but it is tlie cry of nnture. Among the Greeks it is chiefly 
 of joy or triumph, but of sorrow too; in Latin chiefly of sorrow, "ululo," our, "howl." 
 
 mises, 16 by confusion of the enemies, 18 and by Before 
 , . . •' •' ' •'CHRIST 
 
 Ins mercies, cir. 710. 
 
 WOE i.s mc! for I am as f when thoyt Hcb. «e 
 have j^athered the summer fruits, of summer. 
 as " the grapegleanings of the vintage 
 
 & 24. 13. 
 
 righteous," for whose sake the city may be spared. " " These 
 words flow out of the fount of pity, because the good zeal, 
 wherewith the holy seem to speak severely, is never without 
 pity. They are wroth with the sins, they sympathise with the 
 sinner." So Isaiah mourned for the judgiiient, which he pro- 
 phesied against the world, ^-IFoe is me! he sorrowed even for 
 Moab^^; and Joel, ^^ Alas for the day! and Jeremiah, in that 
 exclamation of impassioned sorrow; ^''IFoe is me, my mother, 
 that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention 
 to the whole world ! 
 
 1. JFoe^'^ is me ! for lam, as when they have gathered the 
 summer fruits^'', as the grape-gleanings of the vintage. The 
 vineyard of the Lord of hosts, Isaiah said at the same time '*, 
 is the house of Israel, and the men of Jmlah His pleasant plants. 
 Isaiah said, ?7 brought forth wild grapes ; Micah, that there 
 are but gleanings, few and poor. It is as though Satan pressed 
 the vineyard of the Lord, and made the most his prey, and 
 few were left to those who glean for Christ; ^'^ the foxes have 
 eaten the grapes. Some few remain too high out of their reach, 
 or hidden behind the leaves, or, it may be, -"falling in the time 
 of gathering, fouled, sullied, marred and stained, yet left." 
 So in the gleaning there may be three sorts of souls ; -^ticoor 
 three in the topofthe uppermost bough,\vh\ch were not touched ; 
 or those unripe, which are but imperfect and poor; or those 
 who had fallen, yet were not wholly carried away. These too 
 are all sought with difficulty ; they had escaped the gatherer's 
 eye, they are few and rare ; it miglit seem at first sight, as 
 though there were none. There is no cluster to eat ; for the 
 vintage is past, the best is but as a sour grape which sets the 
 teeth on edge. 3Iy soul desired the Jirst-ripe fig-. These are 
 they which, having survived the sharpnes.s of winter, ripen 
 early, about the end of June ; they are the sweetest -- ; but he 
 longed for them in vain. He addressed a carnal people, who 
 could understand only carnal things, on the side which they 
 could understand. Our longings, though we pervert them, 
 arc God's gift. As they desired those things which refresh 
 or recruit the thirsty body, as their whole self was gathered 
 into the craving for that which was to restore them, so was 
 it with him. Such is the longing of God for man's conver- 
 sion and salvation ; such is the thirst of His ministers ; such, 
 their pains in seeking, their sorrow in not finding. " -^ There 
 Mere none, through whose goodness the soul of the prophet 
 might spiritually be refreshed, in joy at his growth in grace, 
 as St. Paul saith to Philemon, ""^refresh my boiuels in the Lord. 
 So our Lord saith in Isaiah, -'J said, I have laboured in vain, 
 I have spent my strength for nought and in vain. "''Jesus was 
 grieved at the hardness of their hearts. 
 
 ""^The first-ripe fig may be the image of the righteous of 
 old, as the Patriarchs or the Fathers, such as in the later 
 days we fain would see." 
 
 17 lit. as the gatherings of the fig-harvest. It is one of those concise comparisons, which 
 have to be filled up. In prose it would be, ' I am as one who, at the gatherings of the 
 fig-harvest, should still look for fruit on the trees." The meaning, " summer," E. M. is 
 doubtless a secondary sense of the word, resulting from the tact, that the main fig-har- 
 vest was about the summer solstice. 18 Is. V. 7. 1' Cant. ii. 15. 20 Poc. from 
 Tanch. =' Is. xvii. 6. « The bikkurah, boccore, Albacora. (Span.) See Shaw's 
 
 Travelsp.370. Its goodness was proverbial. See Hos. ix. 10, Is. xxviii. 4, Jer. xxiv. 2. 
 
 23 Dion. 2<Philem. 20. -=■ Is. xlix. -1. ^s g. Mark iii. 5. »? From Rib.
 
 346 
 
 lAlICAH, 
 
 Before 
 C H U 1 S T 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 Hos. 9. 10. 
 c Ps. 12. 1. 
 & 14. 1,3. 
 Is. 57. 1. 
 
 II Or, gndh,, 
 
 or, vwrcijuL 
 <> Hab. 1. 15. 
 
 " Hos. 4. 18. 
 ' Is. 1 23. 
 
 ch.3. 11. 
 t Heb. the 
 
 mischief of 
 
 his soul. 
 8 2 Sam. 23. 
 
 6,7. 
 
 Ezek. 2. f). 
 
 See Is. 55. 
 
 13. 
 
 there is no duster to eat : ^ my soul desired 
 the firstripe fruit. 
 
 2 The " II li^ood m«M is perished out of the 
 earth : and there is none upright anions^ 
 men : they all lie in wait for hlood ; '^ they 
 hunt every man his brother with a net. 
 
 S % That they may do evil with both 
 hands earnestly, Hhe prince asketh, "^and 
 the judge asketh for a reward ; and the 
 great man, he uttereth f his mischievous 
 desire : so they ^»'rap it up. 
 
 4 The best of them ^ is as a brier : the 
 
 2. The good \oT godly, or merciful, E. M.] man. The He- 
 brew word contains all. It is 'he who loveth tenderly and 
 piously ' God, for His own sake, and man, for the sake of 
 God. IVIercy was probably chiefly intended, since it was to 
 this that the prophet had exhorted S and the sins which he 
 proceeds to speak of, are against this. But imaginary love 
 of God without love of man, or love of man without the love 
 of God, is mere self-deceit. Is perished out of the earth, i. e. 
 by an untimely death ^. The good had either been withdrawn 
 by God//Y;«( the evil to co)ne\ or had been cut off by those 
 who laid wait for blood ; in which case their death brought a 
 double evil, through the guilt which such sin contracted, and 
 then, through the loss of those who might be an example to 
 others, and whose prayers God would hear. The loving and 
 upright, all, who were men of mercy and truth, had ceased. 
 They who were left, all lie in lu ait for blood, lit. bloods*, i.e. 
 bloodshedding ; all, as far as man can see ; as Elijah complains 
 that he was left alone. Amid the vast number of the wicked, 
 the righteous were as though tiiey were not. Isaiah, at the 
 same time, complains of the like sins, and that it was as 
 though there were none righteous ; ^ Your hands are defiled 
 with blood, and your fingers tvitli iniquiti/ ; your lips have spo- 
 ken lies, your to)tgue hath muttered perverseness. jVone calleth 
 for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. Indirectly, or directly, 
 they destroyed life ^. To violence they add treachery. The 
 good and loving had perislied, and all is now violence ; the 
 upright had ceased, and all now is deceit. They hunt every 
 man his brother tvith a net. Every man is the brother of every 
 man, because he is man, born of the same first parent, chil- 
 dren of the same Father : yet they lay wait for one another, 
 as hunters for wild beasts ^. 
 
 3. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, [lit. 
 upon evil both hands to do well,] i. e. " both their bands are 
 upon evil to do it well," or "earnestly^," as our translation 
 gives the meaning ; only the Hebrew expresses more, that 
 evil is their g^od, and their good or excellence is in evil. Bad 
 men gain a dreadful skill and wisdom in evil, as batan has; 
 and cleverness in evil is their delight. "^They call the evil 
 of their bands good." The prince asketh, and the judge asketh 
 (or, it may more readily be supplied, /«f/ge//i, doth that which 
 •s his ollice,) against right for a reward, (which was strictly 
 
 1 ion vi. 8. Ton vii. 2. " I2it. ' Is. Ivii. 1. where iitt is, in like way, used. 
 
 ■• See Hos. v. 2, and Mic. iii. 10, They build up Zion with bloods : Isaiah says in like 
 way, Your hands are full of bloods, i. 15. * Is. lix. 2, 3. ^ See ah. p. 314, on 
 
 iii. 10. ' Comp. Ps. xxxv. 7, Ivii. 7, cxI. 6, Jer. v. 26. 
 
 * 3B'5, like our, "do it well," can signify" doit thoroughly;" yet not so as to supersede 
 the idea ol'its being "done well" in the mind of the actor. The two cases cited to the 
 contrary, the thorough destruction of the calf, (Deut. ix. 21,) and of the house of Baal. 
 (2 Kings xi. 18,) were, of course, good acts. So to "search well." Deut, xvii. 4, xix. IS. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 most upright is .sharper than a thorn hedge : 
 the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation 
 cometh ; now shall be their perplexity. 
 
 5 ^'' Trust ye not in a friend, put ye" Jer. 9.4. 
 not confidence in a guide : keep the doors 
 
 of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy 
 bosom. 
 
 6 For ' the son dishonoureth the father, 
 the daughter riseth up against her mother. 
 
 the daughter in law against her mother in 
 law ; a man's enemies are the men of his 
 own house. 
 
 Ezek. 22. 7. 
 
 Matt. 10. 21, 
 
 35, 36. 
 
 Luke 12. 53. 
 
 &2I.16. 
 
 2Tim.3.2,3. 
 
 and the great man he uttereth his mischievous de- 
 
 forbidden i'', 
 
 sire, (or the desire of his soul.) Even the shew of good is laid 
 aside ; whatever the heart conceives and covets, it utters ; 
 — mischief to others and in the end to itself. The mischief 
 comes forth from the soul, and returns upon it. The elders 
 atid nobles in the city ^^, as well as Ahab, took part, (as one in- 
 stance,) in the murder of Naboth. The great man, however, 
 here, is rather the source of the evil, which he induces others 
 to eft'ect ; so that as many as there were great, so many sources 
 were there of oppression. AH, prince, judges, the great, unite 
 in the ill, and this not once only, but they are ever doing it ^-, 
 and so they wrap it up, (lit. twist ", intertwine it.) Things are 
 twisted, either to strengthen, or to pervert or intricate them. 
 It might mean, they strengthen it, that which their soul co- 
 vets against the poor, or they pervert \t, the cause of the poor. 
 
 4. The best of them is as a brier ; the gentlest of them is 
 a thorn, ^* strong, hard, piercing, which letteth nothing unre- 
 sisting pass by but it taketh from it, " robbing the fleece, 
 and wounding the sheep." The most upright, those who, in 
 comparison of others still worse, seem so, is sharper than a 
 thorn hedge, (lit. the upright, than a thorn hedge.) They are 
 not like it only, but worse, and that in all ways ; none is spe- 
 cified, and so none excepted ; they were more crooked, more 
 tangled, sharper. Both, as hedges, were set for protection ; 
 both, turned to injury. '• ^ So that, where you would look for 
 help, thence comes suflTering." And if such be the best, what 
 the rest? 
 
 The day of thy ivatchmen aiul thy visitation cometh. 
 ^A'hen all, even the good, are thus corrupted, the iniquity is 
 full. Nothing now hinders the visitation, which the ivatchmen, 
 or prophets, had so long foreseen and forewarned of. Noiv 
 shall be their perplexity i° ; 7tow, without delay ; for the day of 
 destruction ever breaketh suddenly upon the sinner. ^^fVhen 
 they say, peace and safety, then sudden destructioii cometh up- 
 on them. ' ^'ff^hose destruction cometh suddenly at an instant. 
 They had perplexed the cause of the oppressed ; they them- 
 selves were tangled together, intertwined in mischief, as a 
 thorn-hedge. They should be caught in their own snare; 
 they had perplexed their paths and should find no outlet. 
 
 .5. 6. Trust ye not in a friend. It is part of the perplex- 
 ity of crooked ways, that all relationships are put out of joint. 
 
 « S. Jer. '» Deut. xvi. 19. See ab. iii. 11. " 1 Kings xxi.8, 11. '2 The 
 
 force of the partic. VniB', IDI. '^ nJV, theverb, isa AV. \fy. What remains of the 
 
 root has the meaning of " twisted," (in nby, "a rope ") or "entangled," (in nij;, nhu " thick 
 boughs.") " The Heb. pin seems to have been different from the Arab, which is a 
 
 " solanum," (Cels. Hierob. ii.' 35.) but Prov. xv. 19, (where it occurs besides, shews 
 that it served as a hedge. '* In the Hebrew the two 
 
 words "mesucah," " thorn hedge," and "mebucah," "perplexity," are alike in sound. 
 
 's 1 Thess. v, 3. " See Is. xxx. 13. comp. 2 Pet. ii. 1, "swift destruction;" 
 
 I
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 k Isai. 8. 17 
 
 7 Therefore ' 
 Lord ; I will 
 
 I will look unto the 
 wait for the God of 
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 salvation 
 
 my 
 me. 
 
 my God will 
 
 347 
 
 hear '''•o'e 
 
 in,ai CHRIST 
 cir. 710. 
 
 Selfishness rends each from the other, and disjoints the whole 
 frame of s ociety. Passions and sin hreak every band of" 
 friendship, kindred, fjratitnde, natnre. "Every one seeketh 
 his own." Times of trial and of outward harass increase this; 
 so that God's visitations are seasons of the most frij^htful 
 recklessness as to every thing but self. So had God foretold ' ; 
 so it was in the siege of Samaria-, and in that of Jerusalem 
 both by the Chaldeans^ and by the Romans*. When the soul 
 has lost the love of God, all other is but seeming love, since 
 natural ajf'ection is fi'om Him, and it too dies out, as God 
 gives the soul over to itself". The words describe partly the 
 inward corruption, partly the outward causes which shall 
 call it forth. There is no real trust in any, where all are cor- 
 rupt. The outward straitness and perplexity, in which they 
 shall be, makes that to crumble and fall to pieces, which was 
 inwardly decayed and severed before. The words deepen, as 
 . they go on. First, the friend, or neighbour, the common band 
 of man and man ; then the guide, (or, as the word also means, 
 one familiar, united by intimacy, to whom, by continual in- 
 tercourse, the soul was used ;) then the wife who lay in the 
 bosom, nearest to the secrets of the heart ; then those to whom 
 all reverence is due, father and mother. Our Lord said that 
 this should be fulfilled in the hatred of His Gospel. He be- 
 gins His warning as to it, with a caution like that of the pro- 
 phet ; ^Be ye wise as serpents, and beware of men. Then He 
 says, how these words should still be true''. There never were 
 wanting pleas of earthly interest against the truth. He Him- 
 self was cut off', lest * the Romans should take away their place 
 and nation. The Apostles were accused, that they meant to 
 bring this Man's Blood upo)i the chief priests'; or as ^"ring- 
 leaders of the sect of the Nazarenes, pestilent fellows and mo- 
 vers of sedition, turning the ivorld upside doum, setters up of ano- 
 ther king ; troublers of the city ; commanding things unlauful 
 for Romans to practise ; setters forth of strange gods ; turning 
 atvay much people ; endangering not men's craft only, but the 
 honor of their gods ; evil doers. Truth is against the world's 
 ways, so the world is against it. Holy zeal hates sin, so sin- 
 ners hate it. It troubles them, so they count it, one which 
 troubleth Israel^^. TertuUian, in a public defence of Chi'istians 
 in the second century, writes," ^-Truth set out with being her- 
 self hated ; as soon as she appeared, she is an enemy. As 
 many as are strangers to it, so many are its foes; and the 
 Jews indeed appropriately from their rivalry, the soldiers 
 from their violence, even they of our own household from na- 
 ture. Each day are we beset, each day betrayed ; in our very 
 meetings and assemblies are we mostly surprised." There 
 was no lack of pleas, " '^A Christian thou deemest a man 
 guilty of every crime, an enemy of the gods, of the Emperors, 
 of law, of morals, of all nature;" "factious," "authors of 
 all public calamities through the anger of the heathen gods," 
 " impious," " atheists," " disloyal," " public enemies." The 
 
 Prov. i 
 
 ■^1, 
 
 ' cometh as a whirlwind," Ps. xxxv. S, " unawares.' 
 
 ' Deut. xxviii. 53. 
 
 2 2 Kings vi. 28. 3 Lam. iv. 3-16. " Jos. B. J. vi. 3. 8. 
 
 5 Rom. i. 28. « S. Matt. x. 16. 17. " lb. 21,35,36. s s.Jolin 
 
 xi. 48. « Acts V. 28. '» Acts xxiv. 6. xvi. 20, 21. xvii. 6, 7, 18. 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 12. " 1 Kings xviii. 17. '^ Tert. Apol. c. 7. p. 17. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 i» lb. c. 2. p. 7. O. T. c. 7. 38. 10. (and note k. Oxf. Tr.) 24, 28, 40, and notes e. f ; 
 ad Soap, c, 2. " Tert. ad Nat. i. 24. " The most atrocious calumnies against the 
 
 Christians," S. Justin M. says, " were invented and circulated from country to country 
 by the Jews." Apol. i.49. See also Dial c. Tryph. § 16. 108. Grig. c. Gels. vi. 27. 
 
 1^ S.Jer. >6 Dion. 'JlJohniv. 1. " S. Matt. xxiv. 12. " 2 Tim. iii. 2, 4. 
 
 2" nssK, intensive, (as in Ps. v. 4.) " will espy intently," as towards that which can be 
 
 ) dwi " 
 
 seen only by intent gazing; and with 3 pers. " so as to < 
 
 upon. 
 
 Jews, in the largest sense of the word fhry of their oum house- 
 hold, were ever the deadliest enemies of C^liristians, the in- 
 ventors of calumnies, the authors of persecutions. "What 
 other race," says ' ^ TertuUian, " is the seed-plot of our <-a!uin- 
 nies?" Then the Acts of the Martyrs tell, how Christians 
 were betrayed by near kinsfolk' for privntc interest, or for re- 
 venge, because they would not join in tilings unlawful. "^^So 
 many are the instances in daily life, [of thi? daii^litcr rising 
 against the mother] that we should rather mourn that they 
 are so many, than seek them out." — " I seek no examples, [of 
 those of a man's own household being bis foes] they are too 
 many, that we should have any need of witness." "i^'Yet 
 ought we not, on account of these ami like words of Holy 
 Scripture, to be mistrustful or suspicious, or ahvay to pre- 
 sume the worst, but to be cautious and prudent. For Holy 
 Scripture speaketh with reference to times, causes, persons, 
 places." So St. John saith, ^''Believe not every spirit, but try 
 the spirits, whether they are of God. 
 
 7. Therefore, (And,) when all these things come to pass 
 and all human help fails, /, for my part, n-ill look unto, (lit. 
 on) the Lord God, the Unchangeable. The prophet sets him- 
 self, /, with emphasis, against the multitude of the ungodly. 
 When all forsake, betray, fail, when ^* love is waxed cold, and 
 men, in the last days, shall be '^'^ lovers of their own selves, not 
 lovers of God, I, — he does not say, "will trust," but — luill, 
 " ^^ with the eye of the heart contemplating, loving, venerating 
 God most High, and weighing His mercy and justice," gaze 
 intently-'^ with the devotion of faith toward Him, though 1 see 
 Him not : yet so too I will rest in Him -^ and on Him, as the 
 eyes are wont to rest in trust and love and dependence, and 
 as, on the other hand, the Eyes of God -- espy into man and 
 dwell on him, never leaving him unbebeld. 1 will espy Him, 
 although from afar, with the eyes of the soul, as a watchman, 
 (the word is the same,) looking for His Coming and announc- 
 ing it to others ; and until He comes, Itvill trait ^I would waitl 
 with trust unbroken by any troubles or delay, as Job saith, 
 "'^Though He slay me, yet will I put my trust in Him. The 
 word is almost appropriated to a longing waiting f(jr God^. 
 For the God of my salvation. This too became a wonted title 
 of God^^, a title, speaking of past deliverances, as well as of 
 confidence and of hope. Deliverance and salvation are bound 
 up with God, and that, in man's personal experience. It is 
 not only, " Saviour God," but " God, my Saviour," Thou who 
 hast been, art, and wilt be, my God, my saving God. It is a 
 prelude to the name of Jesus, our Redeeming God. The Lord 
 will hear me. His purpose of waiting on God he had ex- 
 pressed wistfully. / u'ould wait-''; for man's longing trust 
 must be upheld by God. Of God's mercy he speaks confi- 
 dently, the Lord ivill hear me. He, Who is ever " more ready to 
 hear than we to pray." He has no doubts, but, as Abraham 
 said, -''the Lord will provide, so he, The Lord will hear me. 
 
 21 Comp. Ps. XXV. 15. cxxiii. 1. cxli. 8. =2 pg. ixvi. 7. a Job xiii. 15. 
 
 -^ '? aS'niN, as in Ps. xxxviii. 16, xiii. 6, 12, xliii. 5, cxxx. 5, 2 Kings vi. 33, Lam 
 iii. 24. ^n' is almost appropriated to one wlio so waitclh for God. Abs. Hifil, Lam 
 iii.21. Pi. Jobvi. 11, xiv. 14, Ps. Ixxi. 14. Vm, adj. Lam. iii. 26. and Prop. Name 
 " Waiter " on God, as expressed in SkW. Pi. with 7, Ps. xxxi. 25, xxxiii. 22, Ixix. 4; 
 with ^K, of God, Ps. cxxx. 7, cxxxi. 3 ; with S, of the word of God, Ps. cxix. 74, 81, 114, 
 147; of His mercy, Ps. xxxiii. IS, cxivii. 11; of Uisjudgments, Ps.cxix.4.i; of His Jrm. 
 Is. ii. 5; of His law, Is. xlii. 4. Transitively, Ps. cxix. 49. So r'jmn, abs. Pr. x. 28. Lam. 
 iii. 18; with S, Ps. xxxix. 8. '^ "Godof my salvation," ('1*",) Ps. xviii. 47,(2 Sam. 
 
 xxii. 47.) XXV. 5, xxvii. 9, Hab. iii. 18. " God, my s." Ps. Lxii. 8. " God of our s." Ps. 
 Ixv. 6, Ixxix. 9, Ixxxv. 5. " God of thy s." Is. xvii. 10. "God of his s." Ps. xxiv. 5. 
 "Rockofours."Ps. xcv. 1. 2« .nymn, optat. 27 Gen. xxii. 8, 14.
 
 348 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrTst ^ H ' Jit-joice not iij^ainst me, O mine 
 cir.710. enemy; "'when I full, I shall arise ; when 
 Lam! 4!'2ul sit in cUirkness, " the Lord shall be a light 
 
 m Ps ,37 "-l 
 
 Prov. 2+. ifj.unto me. 
 ° LanfJi^sg. 9 " i will bear the indignation of the 
 
 So, wlicn Jchosliaphat prayed, ' /Fe have no miff/if nt^ahist this 
 great cumpiuvi that cuuieth against ?/.v, neither Icikiw we what 
 to do, but nnr eyes are upon Tliee ; God answered by the pro- 
 phet, lie not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great mul- 
 titude ; for t lie battle is not yours, hut God's. Micah unites 
 with himself all the faithful as one, "in the unity of the spirit," 
 wherein all are one hand, lookinf!^, waitinsr, jjrayin;^ for His 
 Cominfjin His kingdom. "^ God is our only refuge and asy- 
 lum in things desperate, and rejoices to help in them, in order 
 to shew His supreme Power and Goodness especially to those 
 who believe, hope, and ask it. Therefore all mistrust and de- 
 spondency is then to be supremely avoided, and a certain hope 
 and confidence in God is to be elicited. This will call forth 
 the help of God assuredly, yea though it were by miracle, as 
 to Lot in Sodom, to Moses and the people from Pharaoh, to 
 David from Saul, to Hezekiahfrom Sennacherib, to the Mac- 
 cabees from Antiochus. This our proverbs express^, how 
 God aids, when there is least sign of it." 
 
 8. liejoire not against me, () mine enemy. The Prophet 
 still more makes himself one with the people, not only as 
 looking for God, but in penitence, as Daniel bewails * his own 
 sins and the sins of his people. The e)iemy is Babylon and 
 Edom ^ ; and then, in all times, (since this was written for all 
 times, and the relations of the people of God and of its ene- 
 mies are the same,) whosoever, whether devils or evil men, 
 rejoice over the falls of God's people, liejoire not ; for thou 
 hast no real cause; the triumphing of the ungodly, and the 
 fall of the godly, ^ is but for a monteut. TVheti I fall, I shall 
 arise; i}it.whe)i I have fallen, I have arisen ;) expressing both 
 the certainty and speed of the recovery. To fall ^ and to arise 
 is one. "*The fall of infirmity is not grave, if free from the 
 desire of the will. Have the will to rise. He is at hand Who 
 will cause thee to rise." "^Though I have sinned, Thou for- 
 givest the sin ; though I have fallen, thou raisest up ; lest they, 
 who rejoice in the sins of others, should have occasion to ex- 
 ult. For we who have sinned more, have gained more; for 
 Thy grace maketh more blessed than our own innocence." 
 
 IVhen I sit in darkness^ the Lord shall be a light unto me. 
 " i** He does not say ' lie,' but sit ; she was not as one dead, 
 without hope of life, but she sat solitary as a widow, helpless, 
 unable to restore herself, yet waiting for God's time. The 
 darkness of the captivity was lightened by the light of the 
 prophetic grace which shone through Daniel and Ezekiel, 
 and by the faithfulness of the three children, andthe brightness 
 of Divine glory shed abroad through them, when Nebuchad- 
 nezzar proclaimed to all people that their God was ^^God of 
 gods and Lord ofki^igs, and that none should ^' speak ayiy thing 
 amiss against Him. Still more when, at the close of the cap- 
 tivity, they were delivered from sorrow, trouble, bondage, 
 death, to joy, rest, freedom, life. Yet how much more in 
 Christ, (for Whom this deliverance prepared,) when ^'^the peo- 
 ple that walked in darhiess have seen a great light : they that 
 dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the 
 
 '2 Chron.xx.l2, 15. 2 Lap, 3 Deus ex niachina. ■• Dan. ix. 10. * Obad. 
 10. 12. Ps. cxxxvii. ". » Fs. xxx.5. 'i hsi is used of the fall of a people, Am. 
 
 y. 2, viii. 14, Is. xxi. 9, Jer. li. 8; of a king and his people, 2 Kings xiv. 10; of many 
 individuals, Is. viii. 15. In Prov. x.\iv. IG. it is used of the fall of the righteous, from 
 
 Lord, because I have sinned against chrTst 
 him, until he ])lead my cause, and execute '^"- ^^"^ 
 judgment for me : ^ hv will bring niepPs. a?. 6. 
 forth to the light, and I shall behold his 
 righteousness. 
 
 light shined. God is not only our light, as "^* restoring us ' 
 outwardly "to gladness, freedom, happiness, whereof lia-bt 
 is a symbol, as darkness is of sorrow, captivity, adversity, 
 death." Scripture speaks of God, in a dirccter way, as being 
 Himself our light. " The Lord is my light. "' The Lord shall 
 he unto thee an everlasting light. He calls Himself, ^''The 
 light of Israel. He is our light, by infusing knowledge, joy, 
 heavenly brightness, in any outward lot. He does not say, 
 "after darkness, comes light," hut when I shall sit in dark- 
 7iess, then, the Lord is light unto me. The sitting in darkness 
 is the occasion of the light, in that the soul or the people in 
 sorrow turns to Him Who is their light. In their sin, which 
 was so punished, they were turned away from the light. 
 
 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, berause I have 
 sinned against Him. This is the temper of all penitent.s, 
 when stricken by God, or under chastisement from Him. ^^It 
 is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good. ^^So let him 
 curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, curse David. Who 
 shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so ? ^^'He putteth his 
 mouth in the dust ; if so he there may be hope. The penitent 
 owns the just sentence of God, and, knowing that he deserves 
 far more than God inflicts, is thankful to endure it, until He 
 remove it, until He plead my cause and execute judgment for 
 vie,i.e. until God Himself think the punishments inflicted, 
 enough, and judge between me and those through whose hands 
 they come. The judgments which God righteously sends, 
 and which man suff'ers righteously from Him, are unrigh- 
 teously inflicted by those whose malice He overrules, whe- 
 ther it be that of evil men (as the Assyrian or the Chaldaean 
 or the Edomite) or of Satan. The close of the chastisements 
 of His people is the beginningof the visible punishment of their 
 misdeeds, who used amiss the power which God gave them 
 over it. Whence it is said, -^Daughter of Babylon, the wasted ! 
 blessed he that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. But all 
 is of the mercy of God. So He saith. He shall bring me forth 
 to the light of His Countenance and His favor and His truth. 
 Micah speaks in the name of those who were penitent, and 
 so were forgiven, and yet, in that they were under punish- 
 ment, seemed to lie under the wrath of God. For, although 
 God remits at once the eternal penalty of sin, yet we see 
 daily, how punishment pursues the forgiven sinner, even to 
 the end of life. The light of God's love may not, on grounds 
 which He knoweth, shine unchequered upon him. We should 
 not know the blackness of the offence of sin, and should never 
 know the depth of God's mercy, but for our punishment. The 
 indignation of God toward the penitent is an austere form of 
 His love. So then penitents may well say, in every grief or 
 sickness or visitation or disappointment, I irill bear the in- 
 dignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him. 
 He says, I shall behold His righteousness, because they had a 
 righteous cause against man, although not towards God, and 
 God in His just judgment on their enemies shewed Himself 
 as the righteous Judge of the world. 
 
 which he shall rise, in contrast with the stumbling (lSe'2') of the wicked, without recovery . 
 » S. Ambr. in Ps. 37. [38 Eng.] v. 15. ' lb. v. 47. "> Mont. " Dan. ii. +7. 
 'Mb. iii. 29. "Is. ix. 2. '■'Lap. 's pg. xxra. 1. '« Is. Ix. 19. >? lb. x. 17. 
 >8 1 Sam. iii. 18. '^ 2 Sam. xvi. 10. ™ Lam. iii. 29. =' Ps. cxxxvii. 8.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 349 
 
 c fuu s T ^^11 Then she that is mine enemy shall see 
 "''^■^"'- it, and i shame shall cover her which said 
 
 ' jl'dthon unto mo, 'Where is the Lord thy God? 'mine 
 7/'i,uZ''7,':iL eyes shall behold her: noAv f shall she he 
 Zc'X'"'' trodden down ' as the mire of the streets. 
 
 with shame. ' Ps. 42. 3, 10. & "'J. 10. & 115. 2. Joel 2. 17. ' cli. 4. 11. 
 
 IPs. 3.5. 26. t Heh. sheshall be for a tteadhig down. ' 2 Sam. 22. 13. Zccli. 10. 5. 
 
 11 In the day that thy ° walls are to be ciuust 
 built, in that day shall the decree be far_"'^"i"- 
 
 1 " A 
 
 mosU. II, 
 &c. 
 
 removed. 
 
 12 Jn that day </lso " lu; shall eome even* is. ii.ic. 
 to thee trom Assyria, and frotn the forti- ^ 27. 13. 
 
 ■' ' " •' Hos.ll. 11. 
 
 II Or, even to. 
 
 10. Theti [^Jnd] she that is mme enemy shall see it, mtd 
 shame shall cover her which said unto me, TVhere is He ', He (if 
 Whom thou boastcst, the Lord thy God ? The cause of her 
 gladness then is, that the bhisjilieniies of the enemy of God 
 were to cease. Tliis was the bitterest portion of her cup, 
 that they said daily, ' Where is now thy God f let Him come 
 and save thee ; ' as thoiis;h He could not, or as thoufjh He loved 
 her not, and she vainly presumed on His help. Even when 
 fallen, it was for His sake that she was hated. Who seemed to 
 be overcome in her: as He was hated in His Martyrs, and 
 they asked, "^ Where is the God of the Christians?" Now 
 the taunt was closed, and turned back on those who used it. 
 The wheel, which they had turned against her, rolled round 
 on themselves. They who had said, Let our eye look on Zi- 
 on, now were ashamed that their hope had failed. They had 
 longed to feed their sight on her miseries ; Zion had her reve- 
 rent gladness in gazing on ^ the righteousness of God. Ba- 
 bylon was trodden down by the JVIedes and Persians, and 
 they whom she had led captive beheld it. Daniel was in the 
 palace, when Belshazzar was slain. 
 
 The soul of one, who has known the cbastenings of God, 
 cannot but read its own history here. The sinful soul is at 
 once the object of the love of God and hath that about it 
 which God hates. God hates the evil in us, even while He 
 loves us, being, or having been, evil. He forgives, but chas- 
 tens. His displeasure is the channel of His good-pleasure. 
 Nathan said to David, *The Lord hath put aivay thy sin, but 
 also, the sword shall never depart from thy house. It is part 
 of His forgiveness to cleanse the soul with a "spirit of burn- 
 ing. " It seemeth to me," says St. Jerome, "that Jerusalem 
 is every soul, which had been the temple of the Lord, and had 
 had the vision of peace and the knowledge of Scripture, and 
 which afterwards, overcome by sins, hath fallen captive by its 
 own consent, parting from that which is right in the sight of 
 God, and allowing itself to sink among the pleasures of the 
 world." So then ""captive, and tortured, she saith to Ba- 
 bylon, i. e. the confusion of this world and the power of the 
 enemy wliicb ruletb over the world, and sin who lordeth it 
 over her, llejoice not against me, O inine enemy ; when I fall, I 
 shall arise;" "''from sin by repentance, and from tribulation 
 by the consolation of the Holy Spirit, Who, after weeping, 
 pourcth in joy. For ^the Lord helpeth them that are fallen, 
 and saith by the prophet, ^ Shall they fall and not arise?\\\d. ^'^, 
 I have no pleasure in the death of the u'icked; hut that the wick- 
 ed turn from his way and live. If L walk in darkness, the Lord 
 is my light! For although ^^ the rulers of the darkness of this 
 world have deceived me, and I ^^sit in darkness and in the sha- 
 dow of death, and ^'' my feet stumble upon the dark 7nountains, 
 yet ^*to them who sit in the region and shadow of death, light 
 is sprung up, and ^^light shineth in darkness, and ^'^the Lord is 
 my light, and my salvation; ivhom then shall I fear ? and I will 
 
 ' i'N. The pronoun is inserted emphatically. - Ep. of Churches of Vienne and 
 
 Lyons, in Eus. H. E. v. 1 fin, ^ inpnsi nxiK ver. 9, corresponding to nnnynTi, v. 10. 
 < 2Sam.xii. 10, 13. * Is. iv. 4. 6 g. Cyr. 'Dion. 
 
 » Ps. c.xlvi. 8. 9 jer. viii. i. 1° Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 speak to Him and will say, !• Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
 and a light unto my piith." " He draweth me from the dark- 
 ness of ignorance and from the l)]ack night of sin, and giveth 
 a clear view of future bliss, and brighfencth tiie verv inmost 
 soul within." "''Even if a mist li;ive r-onie upon nie and I 
 have been in darkness, I too sliall lind the light, i.e. Christ; 
 and the Sun of Righteousness arising on my mind shall make 
 it white." / ;('/// bear jiatiently, yet gladly, the indignation of 
 the Lord, "^all adversity, trial, tribulation, persecution, which 
 can happen in this life;" because I have sinned against Him, 
 " and such is the enormity of sin, ottered to the M.ijesty and 
 dishonouringthe Holiness of God, and such puiiislm'iciit doth 
 it deserve in the world to come, that if we weigh it well, we 
 shall bear with joy whatever adversity can befall us." "Tor 
 although for a short time I be out'of His Presence, and be 
 ^^given to an undistinguishing mind, yet, seeing I sufftr this 
 rejection justly, I will bear the judgment, for I am not chas- 
 tened in vain." ^'^All chastening for the present seemeth not 
 to he joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldetli the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised 
 thereby. "-"The soul, feeling that it bath sinned, and bath the 
 wounds of sins and is living in dead flesh and needs the cau- 
 tery, says firmly to tlie Physician, 'Burn my flesh, cut open 
 my wounds, all my imposthumes. It was my fault, that I 
 was wounded; be it my pain, to endure such sutt'crings and 
 to regain health.' And the true Physician shews to Iier, when 
 whole, the cause of His treatment, and that He did rightly 
 what He did. Then after these sufferings, the soul, being 
 brought out of outer darkness, saith, I shall behold His Right- 
 eousness, and say, -^Thou, O Lord, art upright ; Righteous are 
 Thy judgments, O God. But if Christ is -- made unto us wis- 
 dom and righteousness and sanctificatinn and redemption, he 
 who, after the indignation of God, saith that he shall see His 
 Righteousness, promiseth to himself the sight of Christ." 
 ""Then, having considered in her mind the grace of the right- 
 eousness in Christ and the overthrow of sin, the soul, in full 
 possession of herself, crieth out, Mine enemy shall see it S)C. 
 For, after that Christ came unto us, justifying sinners through 
 faith, the mouth of the ungodly One is stopped, and the Au- 
 thor of sin is put to shame. He hath lost his rule over us, and 
 sin is trodden down, like mire in the streets, being subjected to 
 the feet of the saints. But the blotting-out of sin is the Day 
 of Christ." " "° And, because the end of all punishment is the 
 beginning of good," God saith to the poor, penitent, tossed, 
 soul, " the walls of virtues shall he built up in thee, and thou 
 shalt be guarded on all sides, and the rule of thine oppressors 
 shall be far removed, and thy King and God shall come unto 
 thee, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of 
 God." "''All this shall be most fully seen in the Day of Judg- 
 ment." 
 
 II, 12. On this confession of unworthiness and trust the 
 
 " Eph. vi. 13. 
 '^ S.John i. 5. 
 's Rom. i. 28. 
 23 ICor.i. 30. 
 
 >= Ps. cvii. 10. 
 
 '^ Ps. xxvii. 1. 
 " Heb. xii. 11. 
 
 " Jer. xiii. 16. '^ Is. ix 2. 
 
 1? Ps. csix. 105. 
 -» S.Jer. =' Ps. cxix. 137. 
 
 3q
 
 3J0 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 chrTst ^'"^1 cities, and from the fortress 
 cir. 710. even to the river, and from sea 
 
 to sea, and from mount. lin to moun- 
 tain. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 mes.sajje of joy bursts in, with the abruptness ^and concise- 
 ness of Hosea or Naliuin : 
 
 yl (lay to linild tin/ fences ; [i. e. cometh ;] 
 
 That d(u/,f(ir s/ia/t he tlie decree ; 
 
 That d(u/, it/id he shall come f/aite to thee - ; 
 and there foUous, in a lon5:;er but still remarkably measured 
 and iiiterruj)tcd eadenec'*, the statement of the length and 
 breadth from which the people shall come to her; 
 
 Up to (Did from Assyria and the cities ofstroug-land [Egypt;] 
 
 Up to and from strong-land and even to river [Euphrates;] 
 
 And sea from sea, and moitntain to mountain. 
 
 It is not human might or strength which God promises to 
 restore. He had before predicted, that the kingdom of the 
 Messiah should stand, not through earthly strength *. He 
 promises the restoration, not of city walls, but of the fence 
 of the vineyard * of God, which God foretold by Isaiah that 
 He would break doivn^. It is a peaceful renewal of her es- 
 tate under God's protection, like that, with the promise where- 
 of Amos closed his prophecy ; '' In that day I irill raise tip 
 the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close tip the breaches 
 thereof. This decree, which he says shall be far away, might 
 in itself be the decree either of God or of the enemy **. The 
 sense is the same, since the enemy was but the in?.trument 
 of God. Yet it seems more in accordance with the language 
 of the prophets, that it should be the decree of man. For the 
 decree of God for the destruction of Jerusalem and the cap- 
 tivity of His people was accomplished, held its course, was 
 fulfilled. The destruction, captivity, restoration, were parts 
 of one and the same decree of God, of which the restoration 
 was the last acconiplished in time. The restoration was not 
 the removal, but the complete fulfilment, of the decree. He 
 means then probably, that the decree of the enemy, whereby 
 he held her captive, was to remove and be far off, not by any 
 agency of her's ^. The people were to stream to her of 
 themselves. One by one, shall all thy banished, captive, scat- 
 tered, children be brought quite home tcnto thee from all 
 parts of the earth, whither they have been driven, from As- 
 syria, and from strong-land. The name 3Iatsor, which he 
 gives to Egypt, modifying its ordinary dual name Mitsraim, 
 is meant, at once to signify "Egypt"'" and to mark the strength 
 of the country ; as, in fact, " " Egypt was on all sides by na- 
 ture strongly guarded." A country, which was still strong 
 relatively to Judah, would not, of itself, yield up its prey, 
 but held it struitly ; yet it should have to disgorge it. Isaiah 
 
 ' Hence the omission of the preposition ly before txa nv and D', and of any preposi- 
 tion in the last clause, n.in ini. - The three sentences, which besin with Di', 
 are manifestly each complete in itself. ^ Ver. 12 is divided into four clauses, 
 of which each consists of four words, and these in pairs; 
 
 " Yom hoo, ve'adeica yabo 
 
 lenimni asshur. ve'are ni.'itsor, 
 
 ooleminni niatsor, ve' ad nahar 
 
 veyam miyyam, vchar hahar. 
 
 * V. '.)-13. ' ^li is the wall of a vineyard, Num. xxii. 24, Is. v. .5, Ps. Ixxx. 13 ; 
 
 a wall pushed down,'Ps. Ixii. 4; one in which a serpent might lurk, Eccl. x. 8; a wall 
 with gaps in it, Ezek. xiii. 5, xxii.. 30; the wall of the court of the temple, lb. xlii.7 ; a 
 fence, Ezr.ix. B. It is no where used of "the wall of a city." Ti3 too is the wall of the 
 court of the temple, Ezek. xlii. 10; the wall of a vinevard, Prov! xxiv. 31. m,i3 is " a 
 sheepfold," Num.xxxii. 16, 24, 36, 1 Sam. xxiv. 4, Zeph. ii. 6; fences under which 
 locusts lodge, Nah. iii. 17; in the open field, Jer. xlix.3, Hos. ii.8. Heb.; fences,Ps. Ixxsix. 
 41. Heb. 6 Is. V. 5. ' ix. 11. 
 
 >* pn is used chiefly of a "statute" of God, either those positive laws given by Moses, 
 (its common use) or such laws as God has impressed upon the physical world, Job xxvi. 
 10, xxviii. 26, xxxviii. 10, 3.3,Prov.viii. 29, Jer. v. 22, xx.xi. 35, 6; of the time appoint- 
 ed by God for man's life, Job xiv.o, 13; a decree of God, Jobxxiii. 14, Ps. ii. 7, Zeph. 
 ii. 2 ; of a portion offood appointed by God, Job .xxiii. 12, Prov. xxx. 8, Ezek. xvi. 27; 
 by man, Gen. xlvii. 22, Prov. xxxi. 15 ; of a statute made by man, Gen. xlvii. 26, 1 Sam. 
 
 and Hosea prophesied, in like way, the return of Israel and Ju- 
 dah from Assyria and from Egypt'-. And from strong-land 
 even to the river [Euphrates] ; the ancient, widest, boundary of 
 the promised land '•' ; a)tdfrom sea to sea, and from mountain to 
 mountai/i. These last are too large to be the real boundaries 
 of the land. If understood geographically, it would be nar- 
 rowing those whi<-h had just been spoken of,from Egypt to the 
 Euphrates. Joel likens the destruction (jf the Northern army 
 to the perishing of locusts in the two opposite seas, the Dead 
 sea and the Mediterranean'*; but the Dead sea was not the 
 entire Eastern boundary of all Israel. Nor are there any 
 mountains on the South, answering to Mount Libanus on the 
 North. Not the mountains of Edom which lay to the South- 
 East, but the desert^^ was the Southern boundary of Judah. 
 In the times too of their greatest prosperity, Edom, Moab, 
 Amnion, Syria, had been subject to them. The rule of the 
 Messiah //-owi sea to sea had already been predicted by Solo- 
 mon ^'^, enlarging the boundaries of the promised land to the 
 whole compass of the world, from the sea, their bound west- 
 ward, to the further encircling sea beyond all habitable land, 
 in which, in fact, our continents are large islands '^. To this, 
 Micah adds a new description, /row; mountain to mountain. 
 including, probably, all subdivisions in our habitable earth, 
 as the words, sea to sea, had embraced it as a whole. For, 
 physically and to sight, mountains are the great natural di- 
 visions of our earth. Rivers are but a means of transit. The 
 Euphrates and the Nile were the centres of the kingdoms 
 which lay upon them. Each range of mountains, as it rises 
 on the horizon, seems to present an insuperable barrier. 
 No barrier should avail to hinder the inflow to the Gospel. 
 As Isaiah foretold that all obstacles should be removed'**, every 
 valley shall be exalted, and every motintain and hill shall be 
 made loiv, so Micah prophesies, from 7notintaiti to mountain 
 they shall come. 
 
 The words are addressed as a promise and consolation to 
 the Jews, and so, doubtless, the restoration of the Jews to 
 their own land after the captivity is foretold here, as Micah 
 had already foretold it '^. But is the whole limited to this ? 
 He says, with remarkable indefiniteness, //iere i/^a// eo/ne-". 
 He does not say, tvho " shall come." But he twice sets two 
 opposite boundaries, from which men should come; and, since 
 these boundaries, not being coincident, cannot be predicted 
 of one and the same subject, there must be two distinct in- 
 comings. The Jews were to come from those two countries, 
 
 XXX. 25 ; a custom, Jud. xi. .39, (Plur. Jer. x.\xii. 11, Ez. xx. 18.) : a task appointed by 
 man, Ex. v. 14. But in all cases the idea of " appointment," is prominent ; so that al- 
 though ph expresses the law of God determining the bounds of the sea or the term of 
 man's life, it cannot therefore signify a mere point in space or time, pn"! also, with which 
 it is united by alliteration, (probably to fix the words in men's memories.) is not to "ex- 
 pand," but to " be far off." Then also piji", corresponding to nijnV which implies a future, 
 must itself be a future, not a mere aorist'or vivid present. These three observations to- 
 gether exclude such renderings as, " the decree for thy restoration shall be promulged 
 far and wide ;" " the decree of God shall not be confined to Babylon but shall extend to 
 other countries." "In that day, the interval is distant;" (Ew.) " the bound set to her will 
 be far off," i. e. Israel shall be enlarged. 
 
 ^ This is conveyed by the simple neuter, pm*. " shall be far off." 
 
 '" As it certainly does in Isaiah at the same date,Is. xix. 6, xxxvii. 25, (2Kings xix. 24.). 
 
 " Diod. Sic. i. 31. '^ is. xi. 11. xxrii. 13. Hos. xi. 11. " Gen. xv. 18, 
 
 Ex. xxiii. 31, Deut. i. 7, xi. 24, Jos. i. 4, 1 Kings iv. 21, 24. ^ Joel ii. 20. 
 
 1= Ex. xxiii. 31, Num. xxxiv. 3, Deut. xi. 24. '* Comp. Ps. Ixxii. 8. See "Daniel 
 the Prophet" p. 479 sqq. '' See Aristot. deraundoc. 3. in "Daniel the Prophet," 
 
 p. 625. Strabo speaks as though Homer too knew the fact that the sea encircled the land, 
 " hinting at those in East and West, in that they were washed by the Ocean." 
 
 1* Is. xl. 4. '" Mic. iv. 10. -" kit, not, " they shall come; " nor again 
 
 is it, "he," Israel, " shall come," since they were to come to Israel, "there shall comedo 
 thee : " nor is it an individual, since one person could not come from all these places.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 351 
 
 13 II Notwithstandincr the land shall be 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST "" II x,«.,„.^...,..i...v....i^ 
 
 '='''• ^iQ- desolate beeause of them that dwell therein, 
 
 ' a'atf"' ^ for the fruit of their doinj^s. 
 
 hath been. ? Jer. 21. U. cli. ;i. 12. 
 
 whither its people were tlien to be carried captive or would 
 flee. From the boundaries of the world, the world was to 
 come. 
 
 Thus Micah embraces in one the prophecies, which are dis- 
 tinct in Isaiah, that not only God's former jtcoplc should ronic 
 from Kgj/jit (I ml ^/ssi/ria, but that Eirypt and Assyria them- 
 selves should lie counted as one with Israel i; and while, 
 in the first place, the restoration of I.sracl itself is foretold, 
 there follows that conversion of the world, which Mic^ah had 
 before promised -, and which was the object of the restoration 
 of Israel. This was fulfilled to Jews and heathen tO{::etlier, 
 when the (lfsper.sr(l of the Jews were feathered into one in 
 Christ, fhe Son of Dcivid according to tlieficsh, and the Gospel, 
 beginning at Jcrtisalem, was spread abroad anions all nations. 
 The promise is thrice repeatecl, // is the dai/, assuring the truth 
 thereof, as it were, in the Name of the All-Holy Trinity. 
 
 13. Notwithstanding [And'] the land (i. e. that spoken of, 
 the land of Judah) shall he desolate, not through any arbitrary 
 law or the might of her enemies, but through the sins of the 
 people, because of them that dwell therein, for the f rid t of their 
 doings. Truly "the fruit of //;?/?• doings," what they did to 
 please themselves, of their own minds against God. As they 
 sow, so sliall they reap. This sounds ahnost as a riddle and 
 contradiction beforehand ; "the walls built up," "the people 
 gathered in," and " the land desolate." Yet it was all fulfilled 
 in the letter as well as in spirit. Jerusalem was restored ; 
 the people was gathered, first from the captivity, then to 
 Christ ; and yet the land was again desolate through the fruit 
 of i\\e\T doings who rejected Christ, and is so until this day. 
 
 The prophet now closes with one earnest prayer ^ ; to which 
 he receives a brief answer, that God would shew forth Ilis 
 power anew, as when He first nmde them His people ^. On 
 this, he describes vividly the awed submission of the world to 
 their God^, and closes with a thanksgiving of marvelling 
 amazement at the greatness and completeness of the forgiv- 
 ing mercy of God *, ascribing all to His free goodness '. 
 
 14. Feed Thy people leith Thy rod. The day of final de- 
 liverance was still a great way off. There was a weary in- 
 terval before them of chastisement, suftei-ing, captivity. So 
 Micah lays down his pastoral office by committing his people 
 to Him Who was their true and abiding Shepherd. Who 
 that has had the pastoral office, has not thought, as the night 
 drew nigh in which no man can work, ' what will be after 
 him ? ' Micah knew and foretold the outline. It was for his 
 people a passing through the valley of the shadow of death. 
 Micah then commits them to Him, Who had Himself com- 
 mitted them to him, \Vho alone could guide them through it. 
 It is a touching parting with his people ; a last guidance of 
 those whom he had taught, reproved, rebuked, in vain, to Him 
 the Good Shej)hci-d Who led Israel like a flock. The rod is 
 at times the shepherd's staff*, although more frequently the 
 symbol of chastisement. God's chastisement of His people 
 is an austere form of His love. So He says, ^If his children 
 
 1 Is. xix. 23-25. 2 iv. 1-3. ' v. 14. ■• v. 15. ^ v. 16, 17. « v. 18, 19. 7 v. 20. 
 
 8 B3» Lev. xxvii. 32, Ps. xxiii. 4. ' Ps. Ixxxix. 31, 33. '» Deut. ix. 2fi, 29. 
 
 '1 1 Kinps viii. 51. '- Ps. Ixxix. 1. '3 Ps. Ixxiv. 1, 2. n Joel ii. 17, 
 
 '5 Ps. xciv. 5. '^ Is. Ixiii. 17. '^ S. John xiii. 1. '^ Bp.Andrewes 
 
 Preces quolid. Graec. p. 150. Tracts for tlie Times No. 88. p. 66. " Paradise for 
 
 the Christian Soul. On the Passion c. 5. -" Num. xxiii. 9. -' Deut. xxxiii. 28. 
 
 14 ^ II Feed thy people with thy rod, the dfif^sT 
 Hock of thine heritai^e, which dwell soli- ^''•- '"'■ 
 tarily in 'the wood, in the midst of Car-" Ps.'i^''y.' 
 
 ' Is. 37. 24. ch'.l.'i.' 
 
 forsake My law, I will visit their offences with a rod and their 
 sin with scourges : 7tevertlieless My loving-kindness will I not 
 utterly take from them. 
 
 ThrJIock of Thine inheritance. So Moses bud a})pcalcd 
 to God, '^"Destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance which 
 Thou, hast redeemed through Thy greatness — They are Thy 
 ]ieo})le and Thi)ie inheritance ; and Solomon, in his dedication- 
 prayer, that, on their repentance in their captivity, God would 
 forgive His people, "/«/• they he Thy peojile and Thine inheri- 
 tance which 'Thou liroughtest forth out of Egypt ; and Asaph, 
 ^~0 Lord, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance ; and 
 again, ^-'JVhy doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of 77(7/ 
 pasture ? Itemember the tribe of Thine inheritance which Thou 
 hast redeemed ; and Joel, ^^Spure Thy people and give not Thine 
 heritage toreproach; and a Psalmist, ^''They break in pieces Thy 
 people, O Lord, and afflict Thine heritage ; and Isaiah, ""'/^e- 
 tunt for thy seri'ants' sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance. 
 The appeal excludes all merits. Not for any deserts of tbeir's, 
 (for these were but- evil,) did the Prophets teach tliem to pray ; 
 but because they were God's property. It was His Name, 
 which would be dishonoured in them ; it was His work, which 
 would seemingly come to nothing; it was He, Who would be 
 thought powerless to save. Again, it is not God's way, to 
 leave half-done what He has begun. '^'^ Jesus, having loi'ed 
 His own which tvere in the rrorld, loved them unto the end. 
 God's love in creating us and making us His, is the earnest, 
 if we will, of His everlasting love. We have lieen the objects 
 of His everlasting thought, of His everlasting love. Though 
 we have forfeited all claim to His love, He has not forfeited 
 the work of His Hands ; Jesus has not forfeited the price of 
 His Blood. So holy men have prayed ; "^''I believe that Thou 
 hast redeemed me by Thy Blood : permit not the price of the 
 Ransom to perish." "'' O Jesu Christ, my only Saviour, 
 let not Thy most bitter Passion and Death be lost or wasted 
 in me, miserable sinner ! " 
 
 Which dwell solitarily, or alone. Micah uses the words 
 of Balaam, when he had been constrained by God to bless Is- 
 rael. -"TV/e ])eo])le shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned 
 among the nations. Moses had repeated them, -^ Israel shall 
 dwell in safety alone. This aloneness among other nations, 
 then, was a blessing, springing from God's being in the midst 
 of them --, the deeds which He did for them-'', the lawwhicb He 
 gave them-*. So Moses prayed, -''JFherein shall it be knoirn 
 here, that land Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? is 
 it 7tot in that Thou goest with lis f So shall ice be separated, 
 I and Thy people, from all the people that are on the face of 
 the earth. It was, then, a separate appeal to God by all His 
 former loving-kindness, whereby He had severed and elected 
 His people for Himself. 
 
 //; tJie wood, in the midst of Carmel. God -^turneth a 
 fruitful land into barrenness for the icickedness of them that 
 dwell therein. He turneth the tcilderness into a stcmding wa- 
 ter and dry ground into watersprings. Isaiah at the same 
 
 In both cases, as in Micah, }:a is used ; as also in Jer. xlix. 31, of Hazor dwelling in 
 security alone. TheidionniD 31?", " sit alone," is difl'erent. It occurs first of the sepa- 
 ration of the leper, "he shall sit alone, without the camp shall his dwelling be (IZBIO)," 
 Lev. xiii. 46; then of an individual in sorrow, Jer. xv. 17, Lam. iii. 28; and, in one case, of 
 the deserted citv personiiied, Lam.i. 1. — Ex. xxxiii. 16, Deut.iv. 7. ^ Ex. xxxiv. 
 10, Deut. iv. 34. " Deut. iv. 8. 33. -' Ex. xxxiii. 16. " Ps. cvii. 34, 5. 
 
 3g2
 
 352 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cii-. 710. 
 
 ' Ps. 68. 22. 
 Sr78.12. 
 
 niel : let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, 
 as in the days of old. 
 
 15 " According to the days of thy coming 
 
 time xised the like imajje, that '^Lebanon skull he turned into 
 a fruitful field [C-ArmcY], and t lie fruitful field [Carincl] shall 
 he esteemed as a forest". The wild forest was to be like the 
 rich domestic exuberance of Carmel ^. He would say, " Feed 
 Thy i)COj)le in Babylon, which is to them a wild iiomeless 
 tract, tiiat it may be to them as their own peaceful Carmel." 
 Without God, ail the world is a wilderness; with God, the 
 wilderness is Paradise. 
 
 Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead. The former words 
 were a prayer for their restoration. Gilead and Bashan were 
 the s:rcat pasture-countries of Palestine*, ""a wide table- 
 land, with undulating; downs clothed with rich i>:rass through- 
 out," where the cattle ranged freely. They were the first pos- 
 sessions, which God had bestowed upon Israel ; the first, 
 which they forfeited. JNIicah prays that God, Who protect- 
 ed them in their desolation, would restore and protect them in 
 the green ])asture wliere He placed them. They are a prayer 
 still to the Good ShepherdWlut /aid down His life for His sheep'', 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would feed His flock whom He 
 has redeemed, who have been given to Him as an inheri- 
 tance'^, the little fiuck^, to \y\nv\\ it is the Father's good plea- 
 sure to give the kingdom, which clcaveth to Him and shall be 
 heirswith Him". '-i^Christ feedeth His own with a rod, guid- 
 ing them gently, and repressing by gentle fears the tendency 
 of believers to listlessness. He hruiseth as rvith a rod of iron, 
 not them, but the rebellious disobedient and j)roud, who re- 
 ceive not the faith ; believers He instructs and forms ten- 
 derly, '^Yeeds them among the lilies, and leads them into good 
 pastures and rich places, namely the Divinely-inspired Scrip- 
 tures, making the hidden things thereof clear through the 
 Spirit to those of understanding, that they ^-mai/ grotv up un- 
 to Him in all things trhich is the Head, even Christ, with 
 minds well-fed and nourished and gladdened with all spiri- 
 tual deliglits. But the chosen and elect dwell solitarili/, be- 
 ing apart from the rest mIio think only of the things of earth, 
 and give themselves to the pleasures of sense. So then these, 
 having the mind at rest, freed from the vain and abominable 
 tumults, are placed apart as in a ivood and in a mountain. By 
 the wood you may understand, the rich and varied and solid 
 instruction (as it were trees and fiowers) both in doctrine and 
 life; by the mountaiji, what is high and lofty. For none of 
 the wisdom, accounted of in the Church, is low. They are 
 fed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old, rich pastures ; 
 for the mind of the iioly is beautified, delighting itself in the 
 contemplation of the inspired Scriptures, and filled, as it 
 were, with a certain inchness, and shares without stint all 
 excellence in thought or in deed ; and that, not for a brief 
 and narrow season, but for ever. For what gladdeneth the 
 flesh falleth therewith and fadeth and hasteth away like a 
 
 ' Is. xxix. 17. 2 3Ein'iV'^^Dn3."n. The phrase recurs Is. xxxii. 15, except 
 
 that the Kethib omits tlie article, which makes the contrast ot'ny and Sdid exactly the 
 same as in Micah. 3 See ah. on Am. i. 2. p. 154. 
 
 ■• Seeon Am.i. 3.p.l58, iv. 1. p. 185. » Rev. G. H. Palmer in Dr. Stanley 
 
 Pal. p. 320. See also Porter's Hamlbook p. 307 sq. " One can scarcely get over the 
 imprtssion that he is roaming through some p^nglish park. The graceful hills, the rich 
 vales, the luxuriant herhage, tlie bright wild-flowers, the plantations of evergreen oak, 
 pine, and arbutus, now a tangled thicket, and now sparsely scattered over the gentle 
 slope, as if intended to reveal its beauty, the little rivulets fringed with oleander &c — 
 suc-h are the features of the mountains of Gilead." p. 310. " The country from Jerash 
 to Wady Giles [Jabcsh Gilead] 8 hours, resembles in scenery that from es-Salt to Je- 
 rash. \Vc have the thickly wooded hills, the deep and fertile" valleys, and the luxuriant 
 
 out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto chrTst 
 lini marvellous tilings. '^""- ''^^- 
 
 IG ^ The nations ^ shall see and be con- >• is. 26. u. 
 
 shadow ; but the participation of the good things from above 
 and of the Spirit, stretchcth out along endless ages." 
 
 15. According to the days of thy coming out of the land 
 of Egypt. God answers the prayer, beginning with its clos- 
 ing words". Micah had prayed, "Turn Thy peoj)le like the 
 dai/s of old 1*;" God answers, "li/ce the days of thy coming '* out 
 of the land (f Egyjit.'" jNIicah had said, in the name of his 
 people, ^■'I shall behold His righteousness ; God answers, I will 
 make him to behold marvellous things. The word marvellous 
 things^'' was u.sed of God's great marvels in the physical 
 world ^'^, or the marvellous mercies of His Providence towards 
 individuals or nations'^, and especially of those great mira- 
 cles, which were accumulated at the deliverance from Egypt ^^, 
 and the entrance of the promised land ~" which was its com- 
 pletion. The reference to the Exodus must have led them to 
 think of actual miracles ; since, in regard to the Exodus, it is 
 used of nothing else. But there were no miracles at the re- 
 turn from the captivity. -^JFIien the Lord turned again the 
 captivity of Zion, said a Psalmist of the returned people, we 
 were like them that dream. The Lord hath done great things 
 for us ; ice are glad. Great things, but not miraculous. The 
 promise then kept the people looking onward, until He came, 
 " a Prophet mighty in tvord and deed, as to Whom St. Peter 
 appealed to the people, that He was -^ approved of God among 
 you by miracles and ivonders and signs, which God did by Him 
 in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know ; Who gave also 
 to them who believed on Him power to do -^greater ivorks 
 than He did, through His own power, because He went to His 
 Father ; and when they believed. He shetved to him, viz. to the 
 whole people gathered into the One Church, Jew and Gen- 
 tile, yet more marvellous things, things, every way more mar- 
 vellous and beyond nature than those of old, "^the unsearch- 
 able riches of Christ, the mystery which from the hegitumig of 
 the ivorld hath been hid in God. 
 
 16. The nations shall see. God had answered, what He 
 would give to His own people, to see. Micah takes up the 
 word -^, and says, what effect this sight should have upon the 
 enemies of God and of His people. The world should still 
 continue to be divided between the people of God and their 
 adversaries. Those who are converted pass from the one to 
 the other; but the contrast remains. Assyria, Babylon, 
 Egypt, pass away or become subject to other powers ; but the 
 antagonism continues. The nations are they, who, at each 
 time, waste, oppress, are arrayed against, the people of God. 
 When the Gospel came into the world, the whole world was 
 arrayed against it-*^. These then, he says, shall see, i.e. the 
 marvellous luorks of God, which God should sliew His people, 
 and be ashamed at, i. e. because of all their >night, their own 
 might. They put forth their whole might, and it failed them 
 
 pasturage in every part of it." p. 316. See also Thomson, The Land and the Book, i. 304. 
 
 1^ S. John X. 11, 15. 7 Ps. ii. 8. « S. Luke xii. 32. « Rom. viii. 17. 
 
 '0 S.C.vr. "Cant. vi. 3. 12 Eph. iv. 15. 13 Casp. 
 
 " dViv 'a'? ver. 14. ^hhs 'D'? ver. 16. The word oSiy is necessarily restrained to time, 
 in that it relates to man's past, and that, according to the context, a limited past, the time 
 of their coming out of Egypt. This does not interfere with its use as to eternity. See 
 ab. on Mic. v."2. p. 332. '' ver. 9. Casp. "> rrnthsi '7 Job v. 9. xxxvii. 5, 14. 
 
 1" Ps. ix. 2. xxvi. 7, Ixxi. 17, Ixxii. 18, S:c. ' " '« Ex. iii. 20, Jud. vi. 13, 
 
 Neb. ix. 17, Ps. Lxxviii. 4, 11, 32, cv. 2, 5, cvi. 7, 22. ™ Ex. xxxiv. 10. 
 
 Of the passage of the Jordan Jos. iii. 5. '-' Ps. cxxvi. 1, 3. - S. Luke 
 
 xxiv. 19. =3 Acts ii. 22. -* S. John xiv. 12. -^ Eph. iii. 8, 9. 
 
 -^ HxiiJ end of ver. 15 ; 5HT beg. of ver. 16. Casp. -? See ab. p. 347.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 353 
 
 Befcrre 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 <: Job 21. 5. 
 
 & 29. 9. 
 J Ps. 72. 9. 
 
 Is. 49. 23. 
 
 founded at all their might : Hhey shall lay 
 their hand upon their mouth, their ears 
 shall be deaf. 
 
 17 They shall lick the '' dust like a ser- 
 
 against the murvellmis might of God. Tlicy should array 
 might against might, and he dshmiicd at tlie faihirc otV/// their 
 viight^. Tlie word all is very einpiiatie; it implies that they 
 had put forth all, and that all had failed them, and proved 
 to be weakness. So tlie Heathen might was often put to 
 shame and gnashed its teeth, when it eould avail nothing 
 against the strength to endure whieh God gave to His mar- 
 tyrs. Its strength to infliet and to crush was baffled before 
 the hidden might of God's Spirit. They shall lay their hand 
 upon their vioiith. in token that they were reduced to silence, 
 having no more to say"; for He promised, '^I luill give you a 
 rnoKth and wisdoni, which all your adversaries shall not he ahle 
 to gainsay nor resist ; and they had to own, * indeed a notahle 
 miracle hath heen done by them, and we cannot deny it. Their 
 ears shall he deaf ; they shall be silent, as though they had 
 heard nothing, as if they were both dumb and deaf'. Yet it 
 seems too that they are wilfully deaf, shutting their ears out 
 of envy and hatred, that they might not hear what great things 
 God had done for His people, nor hear the voice of truth and 
 be converted and healed. '"^The nations and the Emperors 
 of the nations saw, Jews and Gentiles saw, and were asham- 
 ed at all their might, because their might, great as it was ac- 
 counted, upheld by laws and arms, could not overcome the 
 mighty works, which the Good Shepherd did among His peo- 
 ple or flock by His rod, i. e. by His power, through weak and 
 despised persons, the aged, or oftentimes even by boys and 
 girls. They were then ashamed at all their might wliich 
 could only touch the ''earthen vessel s,\)\iX. could not take away 
 the treasure which was in them. What shall I say of the 
 wisdom of those same nations ? Of this too they were asham- 
 ed, as he adds. They shall put their hands upon their mouths. 
 For, in comparison with the heavenly wisdom, which spake 
 by them and made their tongues eloquent, dumb was all se- 
 cular eloquence, owning by its silence that it was convicted 
 and confounded." 
 
 17- They shall lick the dust like a [the'\ serpent. To lick 
 the dust, by itself, pictures the extreme humility of persons 
 who cast themselves down to the very earth*. To lick it 
 "like the serpent" seems rather to represent the condition 
 of those who share the serpent's doom ^, whose lot, viz. earth 
 and things of earth, they had chosen". They shall move out 
 of their holes. or, hettcr, shall tremble, [i.e." come tremblingly,") 
 out of their close places ^", whether these be strong places or 
 prisons, as the word, varied in one voweP\ means. If it be 
 strong places, it means, that " ''■- the enemies of God's people 
 should, in confusion and tumultuously with fear, leave their 
 strong holds, wherein they thought to be secure, not able to 
 lift themselves up against God and those by Him sent against 
 
 1 This is the force olc'ia with ]p. p designates, as usual, the cause and source of the 
 shame ; and mostly with this aggravation, that they had trusted in it, and it had failed 
 them. See Hos. iv. 19, '* they shall be a^havied bemuse of their sacrifices ; x. 0, because of 
 their own counsel " (seeah. p)). C4, 72. on x. ti.) ; " Tliey shall be afraid and ashamed be- 
 cause of Ethiopia, their e.ipectation, and of Egypt, their glory, ^' Is. xx. 5; " because of the 
 oaks, which ye hare desired," lb. i. 29 ; " thou shall be ashamed because of Egypt, as thou 
 tvast ashamed because of Assyria," Jer. ii. 36;*' Moab shMhc ashamed because of Chemosh, 
 as the house of Israel icas ashamed because of Bethel their confidence, lb. xlviii. 13; add 
 xii. 13. The idiom itself, D1?'i3 D^'Jinip, ^^ ashamed because of their might," occurs in 
 Ezek. xxxii. 30, of the nations, winch had perished in war. In a few cases, the idiom 
 is used of the source of shame, where the idea of previous trust in tliem is less prominent, 
 as in Ezek. xxxvi. 32, Zeph. iii. 11. But here, this is involved in the subject itself, and 
 
 pent, "they shall move out of their holes chrTst 
 like II worms of the earth: "^they shall be, '■'^■'i"- 
 
 afraid of the Lord our God, and shall feary o^^^'eep- 
 beeause of thee. 
 
 zng things, 
 ' Jer. 33. y. 
 
 them." Like tvorms of the earth, lit. creeping things, or, as we 
 say, reptiles^^, contemptuously. They shall be afraid of, oi 
 rather come trembling to, the Lord our God; it is not said 
 their, but our God, AVlio hath dime so great things for us. ^Ind 
 shall fear because of [lit.//v;«j] Thee, O Lord, of Wliom they 
 had before said, Where is the Lord thi/ God f 
 
 It is doubtful, whether these last words express a "servile 
 fear," whereby a man turns away and flees /roOT^* the person 
 or thing which he fears, or whether they simply describe fear 
 of God^-'jthcfirst step towards repentance. In Hosea's words^*, 
 they shall fear towards tite Lord and His goodness, the ad- 
 dition, and His goodness, determines the character of the fear. 
 In Micah, it is not said that the fear brings them into any 
 relation to God. He is not spoken of, as becoming, any how, 
 their God, and Micah closes by a thanksgiving, for God's par- 
 doning mercy, not to them but to His people. 
 
 And so the Prophet ends, as he began, with the judgments 
 of God ; to those who would repent, chastisement, to the im- 
 penitent, punishment; "sentencing Samaria, guiltv and not 
 repenting ^," to perpetual captivity ; "to Jerusalem, guilty but 
 repenting, promising restoration. So from the beginning of 
 the world did God; so doth He; so shall He unto the end. 
 So did He shew Himself to Cain and Abel, who both, as we 
 all, sinned in Adam. Cain, being impenitent. He wholly cast 
 away ; Abel, being penitent," and through faith offering a bet- 
 ter sacrifice than Cain, and " bringing forth fruits ivcjrtlty fjf re- 
 pentance. He accepted. So He hath foreshewn as to the end^'. 
 " " And that we may know how uniformly our Judge so distin- 
 guisheth, at the very moment of His own Death while hang- 
 ing between the two thieves, the one, impenitent and blas- 
 pheming. He left ; to the other, penitent and confessing. He 
 opened the gate of paradise ; and, soon after, leaving the Jew- 
 ish people unrepentant. He received the repentance of the 
 Gentiles." Thus the Prophet parts with both out of sight; 
 the people of God, feeding on the rich bounty and abundance 
 of God, and His marvellous gifts of grace above and beyond na- 
 ture, multiplied to them above all the wonders of old time ; 
 the enemies of God's people looking on, not to admire, but 
 to be ashamed, not to be healthfully ashamed, but to be wil- 
 fully deaf to the voice of God. For, however to lay the hand 
 on the mouth might be a token of reverent silence, the deaf- 
 ness of the ears can hardly be other than the emblem of har- 
 dened obstinacy. What follows, then, seems more like the un- 
 willing creeping-forth into the Presence of God, when they 
 cannot keep away, than conversion. It seems to picture the 
 reprobate, who would not ^^ hear the Voice of the Son of God 
 and live, but who, in the end, shall be forced to hear it out of 
 their close places or prisons, i. e. the grave, and come forth in 
 
 is illustrated by Ezek. xxxii. 30. - See the use of the idiom in Jud. xriii. 19. 
 
 Job. xxi. 5,xxix. 9, xU 4, Prov. xxx. 32. '■> S. Lukexxi. 15. comp. Acts v. 29. 
 
 ■• Acts iv. 16. ^ As in Ps. xxxviii. 14, " I was as a man that heareth not, and 
 
 in whose mouth are no reproofs." * Ri'p. 
 
 7 2 Cor. iv. 7. * As in Ps. Ixxii. 9. Is. xlix. 23. ' Gen. iii. 14. Is. Ixv. 25. 
 
 10 So our Version renders the word in Ps. xviii. 45, 2 Sam. xxii. 46. il 1300 masc. 
 Is. xxiv. 22, xlii. 7, Ps. cxlii. S ; here and in Ps. xviii. 4<J,rTiJC>3 fem. 
 
 12 Poc. 1^ The idiom occurs besides only in Deut. xxxii. 24, with the variation 
 
 only of ID); for px. '■■ NTwith pPs.iii. 7, xxvii. 1, Joh v. 21. See Ges. Thes. 
 
 p. 804. " " '^ NTwithpisusedofafearof God.wherebyoneiskeptfromeril. 
 
 Lev. xix. 14. Yet also generally of fear of God, Ps. xxxiii. 8. '^ Hos. iii. 5. 
 
 '7 S. Matt. XXV. 13 s. John v. 25.
 
 354 
 
 MICAH, 
 
 CHiiTsT 1^ ^'Who is a Go*l like unto thee, that 
 
 ""■ 7i»- '■ pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the 
 
 I eVu.I]':. transgression of 'the remnant of his heri- 
 
 I chr4^7. &■ tage ? " he retaineth not his anger for ever, 
 
 k pL^io3.^9. because he delighteth in mercy. 
 
 Is.'s;. ie." Jer.3. 5. 
 
 fear when they shall ^ sai/ to the tnomitains. Full on us; and 
 to the hills, Cover us. Thus the Proj)het brings us to the close 
 of all things, the gladness and joy of God's people, the terror 
 of His enemies, and adds only the song of thanksgiving of all 
 the redeemed. 
 
 18. IFho is a God{and,as the word means, ^ 3Iighty God,} 
 like unto Thee? He saitli wot, -TVho hast made lieaven and 
 earth, the sea and all that tlierein is ; nor, ^ JFho telleth the 
 number of the stars ; and calleth them all by their names ; nor, 
 *JFho by His strength set teth fast the mountains and is girded 
 about with power ; but Who forgivest ! For greater is the 
 work of Redemption than the work of Creation. That jxir- 
 doneth, and beareth and taketh away also, and passeth by 
 the transgressio7i of the ronnant of His heritage, i. e. His heri- 
 tage, which is a remnant still when ^the rest are blinded ; and 
 this, not of its merits but of His mercy ; since it is not His 
 nature to retain His anger for ever ; not for any thing in them, 
 but because He delighteth in mercy, as He saith, '^7 ant merci- 
 ful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. "^ I am 
 He that blotteth oat thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and 
 will not remember thy sins. " * For although God for a time 
 is angry with His elect, chastening them mercifully in this 
 life, yet in the end He hath compassion on them, giving them 
 everlasting consolations." 
 
 Moses, after the completion of his people's deliverance at 
 the Red Sea, used the like appeal to God, in unminglcd joy. 
 Then the thanksgiving ran, "^glorioas in holiness, au'eful in 
 praises, doing wonders. Now, it ran in a more subdued, yet 
 even deeper, tone, taken from God's revelation of Himself 
 after that great transgression on Mount Sinai, ^"forgiving ini- 
 quity and transgression and sin. With this, Micah identified 
 his own name^i. This was the one message which he loved 
 above all to proclaim ; of this, his own name was the herald 
 to his people in his day. n7io is like the Lord, the Pardoner 
 of sin, the Redeemer from its guilt, the Subduer of its power ? 
 For no false god was ever such a claim made. The heathen 
 gods were symbols of God's workings in nature ; they were, 
 at best, representatives of His Government and of His dis- 
 pleasure at sin. But, being the creatures of man's mind, they 
 could not freely pardon, for man dared not ascribe to them 
 the attribute of a freely-pardoning mercy, for which he dared 
 not hope. IFho is a God like to Thee, mighty, not only to 
 destroy but to pardon ? is the wondering thanksgiving of 
 time, the yet greater amazement of eternity, as eternity shall 
 unveil the deep blackness of sin over-against the light of God, 
 and we, seeing God, as He Is, shall see what that Ho'iness is, 
 against which we sinners sinned. The soul, which is truly 
 penitent, never wearies of the wondering love, fFho is a God 
 like unto Thee ? 
 
 19. He will turn again. Who seemed to be turned away 
 from us when we were turned away from Him ^-. He ivill 
 
 > S. Lukexxiii.30,Rev. vi.16. ^E^. xx. 11. 3 Ps. cxlvii. 4. ■! Ps. Ixv. C. 
 
 s Rom. xi. 7. •> Jer. iii.l2. 7 Is. xliii. 25. « Dion. ^Ex. xv. 11. 
 
 i» yes; pi; Kr:, Ex. xxxiv. 7 ; Micah, dividing the clauses, inserted S^ nnv beioie VB*!!. 
 
 Cdsp. '1 See Introd. toMicah, ab. p. 288. '2 gee Jo. ii. 14. " Horn. xvi. 2U. 
 
 nib.vii. 14. 'Mb. iii.9. i« Gal. iii. 22. i? E.-3J, " footstool," 2 Chr. ix. 18. 
 
 19 He will turn again, he will have com- cH'i(''fsT 
 passion upon us ; he will subdue our ini- "*•• '"^"- 
 quities ; and thou will cast all their sins 
 
 into the depths of the sea. 
 
 20 'Thou wilt perform the truth to' y^s!''''^'^' 
 
 subdue, or trample muler foot, our worst enemy, our iniquities, 
 as He saith, ^'^He shall bruise Satan under your feet sitortly. 
 Hitherto, sinful passions had not rebelled only, Ijut had had 
 the mastery over us. Sin sulnlued man ; it was his lord, a 
 fierce tyrant over him ; he could not subdue it. Holy Scrip- 
 ture says emphatically of man under the law, that he was 
 sold under sin ^*, a slave under a hard master, oppressed, 
 weighed down, and unable to throw off the bondage. ^^fFe 
 have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all 
 under sin ; ^'^the Scripture hath concluded all under sin. Un- 
 der the Gospel, God, he says, would subdue sin " under us," 
 and make it, as it were, our " footstool ^^." It is a Gospel be- 
 fore the Gospel. God would pardon ; and He, not we, would 
 subdue sin to us. He would bestow, "I'^of sin the double 
 cure. Save us from its guilt and power." ^^A^ot I, but the 
 grace of God, ivliich tvas with me. 
 
 yind Thou wilt cast, — not, some (""" for it is impious to 
 look for a half-pardon from God") but — all their sins info the 
 depths"^ of the sea, so that as in the passage of the Red Sea 
 there was not one Egyptian left of those who pursued His 
 people, so neither shall there be one sin, which, through Bap- 
 tism and on Repentance, shall not through His free mercy be 
 pardoned. As they, which "- sank as lead in the mighty waters, 
 never again rose, so shall the sins, unless revived by us, not 
 rise against us to condemnation, but shall in the Day of Judg- 
 ment be sunk in the abyss of hell, as if they had never been. 
 
 20. ThoK wilt perforin the truth to Jacob and the mercy to 
 Abraham. What was free mercy to Abraham, became, wiien 
 God had once promised it. His truth. Abraham also stands 
 for all those, who in him and his Seed should be blessed, those 
 who were "^aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
 gers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, andivithout 
 God in the world, in no covenant or relation with God, as well 
 as those who were the children of the faith ; heathen, as well 
 as Jews. Jacob represents those who were immediately his 
 children, such of the children of Israel, as w^ere also the true 
 Israel and children of faithful Abraham. In both ways the 
 gift to Abraham was mercy, to Jacob, truth. So also St. Paul 
 saith-*, "Jesus Christ was a Minister of the circumcision for 
 the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, 
 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy." Yet 
 mercy andtruth^', together, are all the paths of the Lord; they 
 -^ )net together in Christ ; yea Christ Himself is full of Mercy 
 as well as -^ Truth : and woe were it to that soul to whom He 
 were Truth without mercy. " -^ For to be saved, we look not so 
 much to the truth of the Judge as to the mercy of the Re- 
 deemer." And mercy, in the counsel of God, reacheth wider 
 than truth ; for truth is given to Jacob, the father of one na- 
 tion, Israel ; but mercy to Abraham, ^^ the father of many na- 
 tions. Isaac, it may be, is not here mentioned, because all to 
 whom the blessing should come are already spoken of in Ja- 
 
 (as in Syr. Ch.) from the same root. " Hymn, " Rock of ages." " 1 Cor. xv. 10. 
 
 *" S. Amb. ap. Alb. -' niVKO doubtless is meant to refer back to M^isp Ex. xv. 5, 
 and so, to sugeest the image of tlie destruction at tbe Red Sea, and ^ts completeness. 
 
 " Ex. XV. 10. =3 Eph. ii. 12. ^ =■> Rom. xv. 8, 0. 2^ Ps. xxv. 10. 
 
 -* Ps. IxxxT. 10. "' S. Johni. 14. -^ Rup. ^9 (jen. xvii. 5, Rom. iv. 17.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 355 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.710. 
 
 '"Ps. 1U5. '.), 10. 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 am. 
 
 and the 
 " which 
 
 mercy to Abra- 
 thou hast sworn 
 
 unf<» our 
 of ohi. 
 
 fathers from the days 
 
 R<-for(- 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 710. 
 
 cob and Abrafiam ; in Jacob, all to whom the promise was 
 first made ; in Abraham, all nations of the world who should 
 be blessed in his Seed, throui;;b the merry oftiod overllowitiu; 
 the bounds of that covenant. Isaac is, in bis sacriiice, chiclly 
 a type of onr Lord Himself. 
 
 Whicli Tliun hast stvonj unto our fathers. ^Thut hi/ two 
 immutable things, in which it was impossihle/or God to lie, we 
 
 ■)night have a stro>ig consolation 
 
 From the days of old. " From eternity, in the counsel of 
 God ; in promise, from the foundation of the world, as is said 
 in the hymn of Zairharias^, As He sjiahe hy the month of His 
 holy Prophets, which have been since the icorld began. *The 
 inspired hymns of the Blessed Virjiin JMaiy and cf Zachariab 
 take up the words of the prophet, and shew that they are 
 already fulfilled in Christ, althouc:h they shall be more and 
 more fulfilled unto the world's end, as Jew and Gentile are 
 brought into His fold; '" He remembering His mercy, as He 
 spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever. ''To 
 perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember 
 
 His holy covenant, I lie oath ivhich He sivare to our father Abra- 
 lidui that He would grant unto us. 
 
 " I too," St. Jerome subjoins, "sealing the labour r>f my lit- 
 tle work by calling upon the Lord, will say at the close of this 
 tract, O (iod, who is like unto Thee ? Take away the ini(juity 
 of Thy servant, pass by the sin of my decayed soul, and send 
 not Thine anger nj)on me, nor rebuke me in Thy indignation ; 
 for Thou art full of pity and great are Thy nicrci(!s. Return 
 and have mercy upon me; drown mine iniijuities, and cast 
 them into the depth of the sea, that the bitterness of sin may 
 jierish in the bitter waters. Grant the truth wbirh Thou 
 didst promise to Thy servant Jacob, and the mercy which Thou 
 didst pledge to Abraham Thy friend, and free my soul, as Tiiou 
 didst sware to my fathers in the days of old ; "^As I live, saith 
 the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but 
 that the luicked turn from his way and live. Then shall mine 
 enemy see and be crowned with cmtfusion, who now saith 
 unto me, where is noiu thy God ? " Amen, Amen, O Good 
 Lord Jesu. 
 
 Heb. vi. 18. 
 
 Alb. 
 
 3 S. Luke i. 70. 
 
 * Poc. 
 
 5 S. Luke i. 51, 55. 
 
 « lb. 72-74. 
 
 7 Ezek. xxxiii. II. 
 
 Bethleheui fruni tlic Nortli.
 
 INTRODUCrrON 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 NAHTJM. 
 
 The prophecy of Naluim is both the complement and the 
 counterpart of the book of Jonah. When Moses had asked 
 God to sheu' him His glory, and God had promised to let 
 him see the outskirts of that glory, and to proclaim the 
 Name of the Lord before him, the Lord, we are told, passed 
 hy before him and proclaimed, ^Tlie Lord, the Lord God, mer- 
 ciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and 
 truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
 transgression and sin, and that will hy 7io means clear the guil- 
 ty, God proclaimed at once His mercy and His justice. 
 Those wondrous words echo along the whole of the Old Tes- 
 tament. Moses himself', David'=, other Psalmists'", Jeremiah^ 
 DanieF, Nehemiahs, plead them to God or rehearse some part 
 of them in thanksgiving. Joel repeated them as a motive to 
 repentance''. Upon the repentance of Nineveh, Jonah had re- 
 cited to God the bright side of that His declaration of Him- 
 self, '/ knew that Thou art a gracious God and tnerciful, sloiv 
 to anger and of great goodness, repeating to God His words to 
 Moses, and adding, and repenting of the evil. Nineveh, as ap- 
 pears from Nahum, had fallen back into the violence of which 
 it had repented. Nahum then, in reference to that declara- 
 tion of Jonah, begins by setting forth the aweful side of the 
 attributes of God. First, in a stately rhythm, which, in the 
 original, reminds us of the gradual Psalms, he enunciates the 
 solemn threefold declaration of the severity of God to those 
 who v/ill be His enemies. 
 
 ^ A jealous God and Avenger is the Lord: 
 
 An Avenger is the Lord, and lord of wrath ; 
 
 An Avenger is the Lord to His adversaries : 
 
 And a Reserver of wrath to His enemies. 
 Then, he too recites that character of mercy recorded by Mo- 
 ses, ^The Lord is sloiv to anger, and great in power. But an- 
 ger, although slow, comes, he adds, not the less certainly on 
 the guilty ; ^and tvill not at all clear the guilty. The iniquity 
 is full. As a whole, there is no place more for repentance. 
 Nineveh had had its prophet, and had been spared, and had 
 sunk back into its old sins. The office of Nahum is to pro- 
 nounce its sentence. That sentence is fixed. ^There is no 
 healing of thy bruise. Nothing is said of its ulterior couver- 
 
 » Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. * Num. xiv. 17, 18. ' Ps. Ixxxvi. 15, ciii. 8, cxiv. 8. 
 
 ^ Ps. cxi.4, cxii.4, cxvi. 5. = xxxii. 18, 19. ' ix. 4. b ix. 17. 
 
 ^ ii. 13. ' Jon. iv. 2. ii i. 2. • lb. 3. ■» iii. 19. 
 
 » i.8. "iii. 8. P Nah. ii. 11, 12. Q lb. iii. 1. ' IIj. i. g.pajpnn «;. 
 
 sion or restoration. On the contrary, Nahum says, " He will 
 make the place thereof an utter desolation. 
 
 The sins of Nineveh spoken of by Nahum are the same as 
 those from which they had turned at the preaching of Jonah. 
 In Jonah, it is, °the violence of their hatids. Nahum describes 
 Nineveh as ^a dwelling of lions, filled with prey and with ra- 
 vin, the feeding-place of young lions, where the lion tore enough 
 for his whelps ; ') a city of bloods, full of lies and robbery, from 
 which the prey departeth not. 
 
 But, amid this mass of evil, one was eminent, in direct an- 
 tagonism to God. The character is very peculiar. It is not 
 simply of rebellion against God, or neglect of Him. It is a 
 direct disputing of His Sovereignty. The prophet twice re- 
 peats the characteristic expression. What will ye devise so ve- 
 hemently ^ against the Lord? 'devising evil against the Lord ; 
 and adds, counsellor of evil. This was exactly the character 
 of Sennacherib, whose wars, like those of his forefathers, (as 
 appears from the cuneiform inscriptions ',) were religious 
 wars, and who blasphemously compared God to the local de- 
 ities of the countries, which his forefatiiers or himself had 
 destroyed ". Of this enemy Nahum speaks, as having " gone 
 forth;" out of thee (Nineveh) hath gone forth'^ one, devisiyig 
 evil against the Lord, a counsellor of Belial. This was past. 
 Their purpose was inchoate, yet incomplete. God challenges 
 them, 'What will ye devise so vehemently against the Lord? 
 The destruction too is proximate. The prophet answers for 
 God, "y//e Himself, by Himself, is already making an utter 
 end." To Jerusalem he turns, "^ And now I will break his 
 yoke from off thee, and will break his bonds asunder." Twice 
 the prophet mentions the device against God ; each time he 
 answers it by the prediction of the sudden utter destruction 
 of the enemy, while in the most perfect security. "While 
 they are intertwined as thorns, and swallowed up as their drink, 
 they are devoured as stubble fully dry ; and, '^If they be perfect, 
 unimpaired in their strength, and thus many, even thus shall 
 they be mown down. Their destruction was to be, as their 
 numbers, complete. With no previous loss, secure and at 
 ease, a mighty host, in consequence of their prosperitj', all 
 were, at one blow, mown down; "and he (their king, who 
 
 The verb is doubly intensive, both as Piel, and as having the intens. J. » i. 11. 
 
 ' See on " Daniel the Prophet" pp. IM, .i. . , ° Is. xxxvi. 18-20, xxxvii. 10-13. 
 
 i. il.tt;;;. 
 
 i.lO. 
 
 > i. 9. nyj m.T .i^s 
 
 >> i.l2. 
 
 » i. 13. nrjn.
 
 NAHUiM. 
 
 357 
 
 counselled against the Lord) s/nill jxiss away cind pcrisli. "Tlic 
 abiiiulaiicc of tlic wool in tlic IIih'cc is no liindriiiicc! to the 
 shears," nor of the fjrass to tiie scytlie, nor of tiu! Assyrian 
 host to the will of the Lord. After he, the eliief, had thus 
 passed ««'«//, Nahum foretells that remarkable death, in con- 
 nection with the house of his j;;'0(ls; ''■ Out of the house of thy 
 gods I will rut o/^' the grnveii iiimge and the mo/ ten image : I 
 
 ii'ill make thi/ gi 
 
 ■ There is no natural constnu^tioii of these 
 
 words, except, I will make it thy gnme'^. Judah too was, by 
 the presencre of the Assyrian, hindered from f^oinj^' uj) to wor- 
 ship at Jerusalem. The prophet bids proclaim peace to Je- 
 rusalem ; /{eep thy feasts — for the wicked shall no more pass 
 tlirough thee. It was tlien by the presence of the wicked, 
 that they were now hindered from keeping- their feasts, which 
 (!Ould be kept only at Jerusalem. 
 
 The prophecy of Nahum coincides then with that of Isaiah, 
 when Hezekiah prayed against Sennacherib. In the his- 
 tory°, and in the prophecy of Isaiah, the reproach and blas- 
 phemy and rage against God are prominent, as an evil design 
 against God is in Nahum. In Isaiah we have the messengers 
 sent to blaspheme'; in Nahum, the promise, that ///e j'o/ce 
 of thy messengers shall no more be heard. Isaiah prophesies 
 the fruitlessness of his attempt against Jerusalem s ; his dis- 
 graced return; his violent death in his own land''; Nahum 
 prophesies the entire destruction of his army, his own pass- 
 ing away, his grave. Isaiah, in Jerusalem, foretells how the 
 spontaneous fruits of the earth shall be restored to them ', 
 and so, that they shall have possession of the open corn- 
 country ; Nahum, living probably in the country, foretells the 
 free access to Jerusalem, and bids them to "^ keep their/e«A'/s, 
 and perform the voivs, which, in their trouble, they had pro- 
 mised to God. He does not only foretell that they may, but 
 he enjoins them to do it. The words, ' the emptiers have emp- 
 tied them out and marred their vinebranches, may relate to the 
 first expedition of Sennacherib, when. Holy Scripture says, 
 he '^ came up against all t lie fenced cities oj Judah and took 
 them, and Hezekiah gave him thirty talents of gold, and'dOO 
 talents of silver. Sennacherib himself says", "Hezekiah, king 
 of Judah, who had not submitted to my authority, forty-si.x 
 of his principal cities, and fortresses and villages depending 
 upon them of which I took no account, I captured, and car- 
 ried away their spoil. And from these places 1 captured and 
 carried off as spoil 200,150 people," &c. This must relate 
 to the first expedition, on account of the exact correspon- 
 dence of the tribute in gold, with a variation in the number 
 of the talents of silver, easily accounted for". In the first in- 
 vasion Sennacherib relates that he besieged Jerusalem. 
 "p Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem his capital city, 
 like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to fence 
 him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to 
 prevent escape." It is perhaps in reference to this, that, in 
 the second invasion, God promises by Isaiah ; iHe shall not 
 come into this city, and shall not shoot an arrow there ; and 
 shall 7iot present shield before if, and shall not cast up hank 
 against it. Still, in this second invasion also. Holy Scripture 
 relates, that ' the king of Assyria sent Rahshakeh from La- 
 chish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah ivith a great army. 
 
 c i. 14. ^ So Chald. Syr. S. Jer. and moderns, as soon as they have 
 
 no bias, e. g. Ros. Ew. It is not asah^ but sim ; i. e. not ttohTlv^ but Balyat ; not, in our 
 sense, I will "make a grave," but "I willsefor " make" something else, viz. the house 
 ot'his gods of which Nahum had just spoken, " to be his grave." 
 
 « 2 Kings xix. 4, 22-28. f Is. xxxvii.4, 23-29. s lb. 33, 34. 
 
 •> lb. 7. ' 2 Kings xix. 29, Is. xxxvii. 30. ^ Nah. i. 15, ii. 1. [2 Heb.] 
 
 ' lb. ii. 2. [3. Heb.] m 2 Kings xviii. 13, 14, Is. xxxvi. 1. 
 
 " DrHincks m Layard Nin. and Bab. pp. 143, 4. Sir H. Rawlinsnn, quoted ib. and 
 Rawl. Bampt. L. p. 141. "See Layard ib. pp. 144, 5. Rawl. B. L. p. 143. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Perhaps it is in regard to this second cN'itedition, that God 
 says, '■Though I liave af/l.lcled thee, I will ajjliit thee nij more ; 
 i. c. this second invasion should not desolate her, like that 
 first. Not that God al)solutely would not again afflict her, 
 but not now. The yoke of the .\ssyrian was then broken, 
 until the fresh sins of Manasseh drew down their own pu- 
 nishment. 
 
 Naliiim then was a prophet for Judah, or for that remnant 
 of Israel, which, after tin; ten tribes were carried captive, be- 
 came one with Judah, not in temporal sovereignty, but in 
 the one worship of God. His mention of Basan, Carmel and 
 Lebanon alone, as places lying under the; rebuke of God, per- 
 iiaps implies as])e(;ial interest in N(jrtliern Palestine. Judah 
 may have already become the name for the whole people of 
 God wiio were left in their own land, since those of the ten 
 tribes whii remained had now no separate religi(tus or poli- 
 ti(;al existence. The idol-centre of their worship was gone 
 into captivity. 
 
 With this agrees the old tradition as to the natne of the 
 birth-place of Nahum, the Elkoshile. '• .Some tiiink," says 
 St. .lerome', "that Elcesa.'us was the father of \aliiim, and, 
 according to the Hebrew tradition, was also a prophet ; 
 whereas Elcesi" is even to this day a little village in Galilee, 
 small indeed, and scarcely indicating by its ruins the traces 
 of ancient buildings, yet known to the Jews, and pointed out 
 to me too by my guide." The name is a genuine Hebrew 
 name, the El, with which it begins, being the name of God, 
 which appears in the names of other towns also, as, El'ale, 
 Eltolad, Elteke, Eltolem. The author of the shortlived 
 Gnosticheresy of the El cesaites, called Elkesai,elkasai,elxai, 
 elxaios, Elkasaios", probably had his name from that same 
 village. Eusebius mentions Elkese, as the place " whence was 
 Nahum the Elkessean." S. Cyril of Alexandria says, that El- 
 kese was a village somewhere in Judaea. 
 
 On the other hand Alciish, a town in Mosul, is probably 
 a name of Arabic origin, and is not connected with Nahum 
 by any extant or known writer, earlier than Masius towards 
 the end of the I6th century", and an Arabic scribe in 1713''. 
 Neither of tlicse mention tiie tomb. " The tomb," says Lay- 
 ard % "is a simple plaster box, covered with green cloth, and 
 standing at the upper end of a large chamber. Tiie house 
 containing the tomb is a modern building. There are no in- 
 scriptions, nor fragments of any antiquity near the place." 
 The place is now reverenced by the Jews, but in the 1 2th cen- 
 tury Benjamin of Tudela ^supposed his tomb to be at .\in Ja- 
 phata. South of Babylon. Were anything needed to invali- 
 date statements above 2000 years after the time of Nahum, 
 it might suffice that the Jews, who are the authors of this 
 story, maintain that not Jonah only but Obadiah and Jeph- 
 thali the Gileadite are also buried at Mosul i". Nor were the 
 ten tribes placed there, but " " in the cities of the Medes." 
 The name Capernaum, "the village of Nahum," is probably an 
 indication of his residence in Galilee. There is nothing in 
 his language peculiar to the Northern tribes. One very po- 
 etic word '', common to him with the song of Deborah, is not 
 therefore a "provincialism," because it only happens to oc- 
 cur in the rich, varied, language of two prophets of North Pa- 
 
 p Sir H. Rawl. transl. in B. L. ib. i xxxvii. 33. ' Ib. xxxvi. 2. 
 
 2 Kings xviii. 17. ' Nah. i. 12. « Pr«f. to Nah. » 'E\Kiatit, 
 
 'EX/cao-ai, (Theod. Hser. Fab. i. 27.) 'HXrao-ai, (Hippol. Philosoph. ix.4. &c) 'H.Vfai, 
 'HAgaios, 'EAKeo-o-aios, S. Epiph. Hasr. xix.5, xxx.SJiii. 1. 'EXxacraios or 'E\«<raios, 
 Method. Conviv. in Combef. Nov. Coll. p. 234. \. 
 
 « Assem. Bibl. Or. i. 525. r Ib. iii. 1. 352. ' Nin. i. 233. 
 
 » Travels i. 310. ed. .\sher. '' Niebuhr Voyage en .\rabie ii. 2S9, 90. 
 
 c 2 Kings xvii. 6. ^ n.Ti=in of the '' circling " of the forefeet of the 
 
 horse in his speed, Nah. iii. 2, Jud. v. 22. 
 
 3 H
 
 358 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 Icstinc. Nor docs tlie orcurrcnce of :i foreion title" interfere 
 with '• ])iirity of dietioii." It rather heloiigs to the vividness 
 of liis description. 
 
 The eoncjucst of No-Aininon or Thebes and the eaptivity 
 of its inliahitants, of whieii Nniinni s]ieaks, must have been 
 by Assyria itself. Certainly it was not from domestie distvir- 
 bances"f; for Naliuni says, that the people were carried away 
 captive «. Nor was it from the Ethiopians '' ; for Nahum 
 speaks of them, as her allies'. Nor from the Carthagini- 
 ans J; for the account of Ammianus'', tiiat " when tirst Car- 
 thage was beginningto expand itself far and wide, the Punic 
 generals, by an unexpected inroad, subdued the hundred- 
 gated Thebes," is merely a mistaken gloss on a statement of 
 Diodorus, that " ' Hanno took Hekatompylos by siege ; " a 
 city, according to Diodorus himself ", "in the desert of Li- 
 bya." Nor was it from the Scythians " ; for Herodotus, who 
 alone speaks of their maraudings and who manifestly exag- 
 gerates them, expressly says, that Psamnietichus induced 
 the Scythians by presents not to enter Egypt"; and a wan- 
 dering predatory horde does not besiege or take strongly- 
 fortiiied towns. There remain then only the Assyrians. Four 
 Kuccessive Assyrian Monarchs, Sargon, his son, grandson and 
 great grandson, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Asshur-bani-])al, 
 from B.C. 71H to about B.C. (JiJ7, conquered in Egypt r. The 
 hostility was first provoked by the encouragement given by 
 Sabacho the Ethiopian (Sab'C, in the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions, S b k, in Egyj)tian), the So of Holy Scripture '', to 
 Hoshea to rebel against Shalmaneser'. Sargon, who, ac- 
 cording to his own statement, was the king who actually took 
 Samaria', led three expeditions of his own against EgyiJt. 
 In the first, Sargon defeated the Egyptian king in the battle 
 of Raphia" ; in the second, in his seventh year, he boasts that 
 Pharaoh became his tributary '^; in a tiiird, which is placed 
 three years later, Ethiopia submitted to hiniy. A seal of 
 Sabaco has been found at Koyunjik, which, as has been con- 
 jectured % was probably annexed to a treaty. The capture of 
 Ashdod by the Tartan of Sargon, recorded by Isaiah % was 
 probably in the second expedition, when Sargon deposed its 
 king Azuri, substituting his brother Akhimit'' : the rebellion 
 of Ashdod probably occasioned the third expedition, in which, 
 as it seems, Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled, that Egyptians 
 and Ethiopians, young and old, should be carried captive by 
 the king of Assyria. The king of Ashdod, Yaman, is related 
 to have fled to Egypt, which was subject to Merukha or 
 JVIeroe; and to have been delivered up by the king of JNleroe 
 who himself fled to some unnamed desert afar, a march of 
 (it is conjectured) months ''. The king of Meroe, first, from 
 times the most distant, became tributary. '""His forefathers 
 had not" in all that period "sent to the kings my ancestors 
 to ask for peace and to acknowledge the power of IVIerodach." 
 The fact, that his magnificent palace, " one of the few remains 
 of external decoration," Layard says% "with which we are 
 acquainted in Assyrian architecture," "seems" according to 
 Mr Fergusson', "at first sight almost purely Egyptian," 
 implies some lengthened residence in Egypt or some capture 
 of Egyptian artists. 
 
 * TOBO, doubtless a Ninevite title, probably signifying "noble prince," from lO^B, as 
 Prof. Lee conjectured. Lee denies that it bears in Persian the meaning ascribed to it by 
 Bohlen. Richardson renders tdbsdr, " an elevated window ; " Viillers notes, " in otliers 
 it occurs not." Gesenius was satisfied with no explanation of those before him. 
 
 t Ewald's theory. s iii. 10. t Vitringa, Grot. ' iii. 9. J Heeren. 
 
 ■■ xvii. 4. 1 Excerpt, ex L. xxiv. T. ii. p. 565. m y. 18. T. i. p. 263. 
 
 1 Gesenius Lit. Zeit. 18H. n. 1. » i. 105. P See Rawlinson Five Empires ii.4U0-4S6. 
 
 1 Oppert, les rapports del' Eg. et del' Ass. p. 12. "■ xiD. IntheLXX, in difl'erent MSS. 
 2a;a, 2o/3a, 2a>/3a, 2ov0d ; in the Complut. Soutt, Vulg. Sua. Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawl. 
 Herod. « 2 Kings xvii. 4. > Layard Nin. and Bab. p. 618, Rawl. Herod, i. 472, 
 Five Empires ii, 406. " Rawl. Five Emp. ii. 414. « Rawl. lb. pp. 415, G. 
 
 Of .Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, Joscphus writes, " ? De- 
 rosas, the historian of the Chaldee attairs, mentions the king 
 Sennacherib, and tiiat he reigned over the Assyrians, and that 
 he warred agaiiist ail Asia and Egy|)t, saying as follows." 
 The passage of Berosus itself is wanting, wiiether Josephus 
 neglected to fill it in, or whether it has been subsequently 
 lost ; but neither Chaldee nor Egyptian writers record expedi- 
 tions vviiich were reverses; and although Berosus was a 
 Babylonian, not an Assyrian, yet the document, which he used, 
 must have been Assyrian. In the second expedition of Sen- 
 na(;herib, Ilabshakeh, in his message to Hezekiah, says, 
 '' Iiehi)ld tlioii triistest upon the staff of t/iis hruised reed, upon 
 Egypt. Tlie expression is remarkable. He does not speak 
 of Egypt, as a power, weak, frail, failing, but, passively, as 
 crushed^ by another. It is the same word and image which 
 he uses in his prophecy of our Lord, a bruised reed {kaneh 
 ratsuts) sliaU lie not break, i. e. He shall not break that which 
 is already bruised. The word implies, then, that the king 
 of Egypt had already received some decided blow before the 
 second expedition of Sennacherib. The annals of Senna- 
 cherib's reign, still preserved in his inscriptions, break off" in 
 the eighth of his twenty-two years '', and do not extend to 
 the time of this second expedition against Hezekiah'. Nor 
 does Holy Scripture say, in what year this 2nd expedition took 
 place. In this he defeated "™the kings of Egypt and the 
 king of Meroe at Altakou [Eltcke] andTamna [Timnatha]." 
 
 Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon appears for the time to 
 have subdued Egypt and Ethiopia, and to have held them as 
 kingdoms dependent on himself. " He acquired Egypt and 
 the inner parts of Asia," is the brief statement of Aby'denus ° : 
 (i. e. of Berosus.) "He established" (his son relates) "twenty 
 kings, satrajjs, governors in Egypt"," among which can be 
 recognised Necho, (the father of Psammetichus) king of 
 Memphis and Sais ; a king of Tanis, or Zoan (now San) ; 
 Natho (or, according to another copy, Sept),Hanes, Sebenny- 
 tus,Mendes,Bubastis,SiyoutorLycopolis,Chemmis,Tinis, and 
 No. These were all subordinate kings; for so he entitles each 
 separately in the list, although he sums up the whole, "p These 
 are the names of the Kings, Pechahs, Satraps who in Egypt 
 obeyed my father who begat me." Tearcho or Taracho himself, 
 "king of Egypt and Ethiopia''," was in like way subject to Esar- 
 haddon. The account of the revolt, which his son Asshur- 
 bani-pal quelled, implies also a fixed settlement in Egypt. 
 The 20 kings were involved in the rebellion through fear 
 of Taracho, but there is notice of other servants of Esarhaddon 
 who remained faithful and were maltreated by Taracho^ 
 Asshur-bani-pal says also, that he strengthened his former 
 garrisons'. One expedition of Esarhaddon (probably towards 
 the close of his reign, since he does not mention it in his own 
 annals which extend over eight years) is related by his son 
 Asshur-bani-pal. "'He defeated Tirhakah in the lower coun- 
 try, after which, proceeding Southwards, he took the city, 
 where the Ethiopian held his court," and assumed the title, 
 ""king of the kings of Egypt and conqueror of Ethiopia." 
 On another inscription in a palace built for his son, at Tarbisi, 
 now Shcrif-khan, he entitles himself " ^ king of the kings of 
 
 y Rawl. lb. pp. 41G, 7. '■ Rawl. Herod, i. 473 note 1. » xx. 1. >■ Inscription 
 in Oppert, les rapports de 1' Eg. &:c. p. 18. <: lb. p. 19. ^ lb. <• Nin. and Bab. p. 130. 
 
 f Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis restored, p. 223, quoted by Layard lb. Rawl. 
 Her. i. 474. s Ant. x. 1. 4. ''2 Kings xviu. 21. ' psi, " quassatum," Vnlg. 
 Gesenius says well, "It differs from n^B* in this, that pT signifies, 'broke, crushed,' 
 without severance of the parts; 13B? signifies, 'broke asunder.'" ^ Rawl. Her. i. 478. 
 
 1 See Rawl. i. 479, note 1. ™ Inscr. in Oppert Rapports pp. 26, 27. ° In Eus. 
 Chron. Arm. P. i. c. 9. " Inscr. in Opp.Ib. pp. 51, 53. P lb. p. 58. 
 
 1 lb. pp. 51, 62, 63. ' lb. p. 64. ' lb. pp. 58, 6S. ' Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 474, 5. 
 
 " lb. 475. He also entitles himself, "king of AssjTia, Babylon, Egypt, Meroe and 
 Ethiopia." Oppert Sargonides, p. 53. Rawl. lb. 484. ^ Inscript. Oppert Rapp. p. 41.
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 359 
 
 Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia." Wc do not, however, find tiie 
 addition, which ap]iears to reeiir ii|)on every coiniiiest of a 
 people not before conciiiered by Assyria, '•wiiieh the kiiiijs, 
 my fatliers, had not siihdiied." 'I'his achlition is so rei;iilar, 
 that the absence of it, in itself, involves a strong probaljility 
 of a previous conquest of the (rounti'y. 
 
 The subdual ap])arently was complete. They revolted 
 at the close of the reign of Esarliaddon (as his son Asshur- 
 hani-pal relates) from fear of 'I'arachoy rather than from any 
 wish of their own to regain in(lc]iendence. Asshnr-l)ani-pal 
 accordingly, after the defeat of Tai-aclio, forgave and restored 
 them \ Even the second treacherous revolt was out of fear, 
 lest Taracho shall return ', upon the withdrawal of the Assyrian 
 armies. This second rev(dt and perhajts a subsequent revolt of 
 Urdamanie '' a stepson of Taracho, who succeeded him, As- 
 shur-bani-pal seems to have subdued by his lieutenants', with- 
 out any necessity of marching in person against them. 
 Thebes was taken and retaken ; but does not appear to have 
 offered any resistance. Taracho, upon his defeat at Memjdiis, 
 fled to it, and again abandoned it as he had Memphis, and the 
 army of Asshur-bani-pal made a massacre in it ''. Once more 
 it was taken, when it had been recovered by Urdamanie'', 
 and then, if the inscriptions are rightly decyphered, strange 
 as it is, the carrying off of men and women from it is men- 
 tioned in the midstofthatof "great horses and apes." "Silver, 
 gold, metals, stones, treasures of his palace, dyed garments, 
 berom and linen, great horses, men male and female, im- 
 mense apes — they drew from the midst of the city, and 
 brought as spoils to Nineveh the city of my dominion, and 
 kissed my feet." 
 
 All of those kings having been conquerors of Egypt, the 
 captivity of No might equally have taken place under any of 
 them. All of them employed the policy, which Sargon ap- 
 parently began, of transporting to a distance those whom they 
 had conquered K Yet it is, in itself, more probable, that it was 
 at the earlier than at the later date. It is most in harmony 
 with the relation of Nahum to Isaiah that, in regard to the 
 conquest of Thebes also, Nahum refers to the victory over 
 Egypt and Ethiopia foretold by Isaiah, when Sargon's ge- 
 neral, the Tartan, was besieging Ashdod. The object of Isai- 
 ah's prophecy was to undeceive Judali in regard to its 
 reliance on Egypt and Ethiopia against Assyria, which was 
 their continual bane, morally religiously nationally. But the 
 prophecy goes beyond any mere defeat in battle, or capture 
 of prisoners. It relates to conquest within Egypt itself. For 
 Isaiah says, "sthe king of Assyria shall lead into captivity 
 Egj'ptians and Ethiopians, yoimg and old." They are not 
 their choice young men'', the flower of their army, but those 
 of advanced age and those in their first youth', such as are 
 taken captive, only when a population itself is taken captive, 
 either in a marauding expedition, or in the capture of a city. 
 The account of the captivity of No exactly corresponds with 
 this. Nahum says nothing of its permanent subdual, only of 
 the captivity of its inhabitants. But Esarhaddon apparently 
 did not carry the Egyptians captive at all ^. Every fact given 
 in the Inscriptions looks like a permanent settlement. The 
 establishment of the 20 subordinate kings, in the whole length 
 and breadth of Egypt, implies the continuance of the previ- 
 ous state of things, with the exception of that subordination. 
 
 ■ lb. 
 
 ' lb. p. 59. 
 
 p. 77. 
 
 y lb. p. 58. - ju. - lu. p. u3. ■- p. //. 
 
 •^ lb. 70. where he speaks of sapite-ya {'aiv) "my judges" pp. 77, 78. In another 
 inscription, however, Oppert observes that Asshurbanipal speaks, as if he had been 
 there in person, pp. 73-70. It lias been observed, long since, that the Assyrian 
 monarchs speak at times of what was done by their generals as done by themselves. 
 
 No itself appears as one of the cities settled apparently under 
 its native though triliutary king'. 
 
 In regard to the fulfilment of prophec^y, they who assume 
 as an axiom, or petitio jirincipii, that there can be no pro- 
 ]>liecy of distant events, have overlooked, that while they 
 think that, by assuming the later date, they bring Nahum's 
 jiropliccy of the capture of Ninevc^h nearer to its accomplish- 
 ment, tliey removt! in the same degree Isaiah's prophecy of 
 the captivity of ]']gyptians and ICtliiopians, young and old, 
 from ils accomplishment. "Young and old" an; not the 
 prisoners of a field of battle ; young and old of the Ethiopians 
 would not be in a city of lower Egypt. If Isaiah's projdiecy 
 was not fulfilled under Sargon or Sennacherib, it must j>ro- 
 bably hav(! waited for its fulfilment until this last subdual 
 by Asshin-banipal. For the policy of Ksarhaddon and also 
 of Asshurbanipal, until repeated rebellions wore his patience, 
 was of settlement, not of deportation. If too the prophecy of 
 Nahum were brought down to the reign of Asshurbanipal, 
 it would be the more stupendous. For the empire was 
 more cofisolidated. Nahum tells the conqueror, flushed 
 with his own successes and those of his father, that he 
 had himself no more inherent power than the <;ity whose 
 people he had carried captive. Thebes too, like Nineveh, 
 dwelt securely, conquering all, unreached by any ill, sea- 
 girt, as it were, by the mighty river on which she rested. 
 She too was strengthened with countless hosts of her own 
 and of allied people. Yet she fell. Nineveh, the prophet 
 tells her, was no mightier, in herself. Iler river was no 
 stronger defence than that sea of fresh water, the Nile; her 
 tributaries would disperse or become her enemies. The 
 Prophet holds up to her the vicissitudes of No-amon, as a 
 mirror to herself. As each death is a renewed witness 
 to man's mortality, so each marvellous reverse of temporal 
 greatness is a witness to the precariousness of other human 
 might. No then was an ensample to Nineveh, although its 
 capture was by the armies of Nineveh. They had been, for 
 centuries, two rivals for power. But the contrast had far 
 more force, when the victory over Egypt was fresh, than after 
 61 years of alternate conquest and rebellion. 
 
 But, any how, the state of Nineveh and its empire, as 
 pictured by Nahum, is inconsistent with any times of sup- 
 posed weakness in the reign of its last king : the state of 
 Judah, with reference to Assyria, corresponds with that 
 under Sennacherib but with none below. They are these. 
 Assyria was in its full unimpaired strength"". She still 
 blended those two characters so rarely combined, but actually 
 united in her and subsequently in Babylon, of a great mer- 
 chant and military people. She had, at once, the prosperity 
 of peace and of war. Lying on a great line of ancient traffic, 
 which bound together East and VVest, India with Phoenicia, 
 and with Europe through Phoenicia, both East and West 
 poured their treasures into the great capital, which lay as a 
 centre between them, and stretched out its arms, alike to the 
 Indian sea and the Mediterranean. Nahum can compare its 
 merchants only to that which is countless by man, the locusts 
 or the stars of heaven". But amid this prosperity of peace, 
 war also was enriching her. Nineveh was still sending out 
 its messengers (such as was Rabshakeh), the leviers of its 
 tribute, the demanders of submission. It was still one vast 
 
 This, however, scarcely appears here, where he says " I returned in safety to 
 Nineveh." p. 7C. ^ lb. 66, C8. 
 
 ' lb. p. 79. In p. 75 it is said that Urdamanie abandoned No and fled to Kipkip. 
 
 ' See on Am. i. 5. pp. 100, 1. s Is. xx. 4. >> D-nnn. ' D'jpn myj. 
 
 k Rawl. lb. 474, 4/5. 1 Rawl. lb. p. 485. i" i. 12. ii. 12. ■> iii. 16. 
 
 3 H 2
 
 am 
 
 INTRO UUC'J ION TO 
 
 lion-lair, its lions still gatlicrins in prey from the whole 
 earth", still desolatinjr, eoiilinimliy, unceasinj?ly, in all 
 directions I', and now, speeially, devising evil aj^^ainst God and 
 His i)eo])lci. I'pon tiiat people its yoke already pressed, tor 
 God promises to break it oil" from them ' ; the people was 
 already afflicted, for God says to it, Tlutni^^h I have aj/lirtcil 
 thee, i icill uffiirt thee no vuire^YVi. by this invader. The 
 solemn feasts of Judah were hindered throuf;h the presence 
 of unn'odly invaders; Belial, the connsellor of evil spoken of 
 under that name, already passing;: through her'. War was 
 around her, for he promises that one should publish peace upon 
 her mountains'. This was the forei>round of the picture. 
 This was the exact condition of thinjis at Hczekiah's second 
 invasion, just before the miraculous destruction of his army. 
 Sennacherib's yoke was heavy ; for he had exacted from 
 Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of 
 go/d'^ ; Hezekiah had not "^ fmo thunsand horsemen ; the grct/f 
 hosty of the Assyrians encircled Jerusalem. They summoned 
 it to surrender on the terms, that they should ])ay a new 
 tribute, and that Sennacherib, whenever it pleased him, 
 should remove them to Assyria \ 
 
 At no subsequent period were there any events correspond- 
 ing to this description. Manasseh was carried captive to 
 Babylon by Esarhaddon ; but probably this was no formi- 
 dable or resisted invasion, since the book of Kinj:;s passes it 
 over altoijether, the Chronicles mention only that the Assy- 
 rian generals took Manasseh prisoner in a thicket % accord- 
 ingly not in Jerusalem, and carried him to Babylon. Pro- 
 bably, this took place, in the expedition of Esarhaddon to 
 the West, when he settled in the cities of Samaria people of 
 different nations, his captives ^ The capture of Manasseh 
 was then, probably, a mere incident in the history. Since 
 he was taken among the thickets, he had probably fled, as 
 Zedekiah did afterwards, and was taken in his place of con- 
 cealment. This was simply personal. No taking of towns 
 is mentioned, no siege, no terror, no exaction of tribute, no 
 carrying away into captivity, except of the single Manasseh. 
 The grounds of his restoration are not mentioned. The 
 Chronicles mention only the religious aspect of his captivity 
 and his restoration, his sin and his repentance. But it 
 seems probable that he was restored by Esarhaddon, upon 
 the same system of policy, on which he planted subjects of 
 his own in Samaria and the country around Zidon, built a 
 new town to take the place of Zidon, and joined in the throne of 
 Edom one, brought up in his own palace. For, when restored, 
 Manasseh was set at full liberty to fortify Jerusalem ■■, as 
 Hezekiah had done, and to put '"^captains of war in all the 
 cities of Judah." This looks as if he was sent back as a 
 trusted tributary of Esarhaddon, and as a frontier-power 
 against Egypt. At least, sixty years afterwards, we find 
 Josiah, in the like relation of trust to Nebuchadnezzar, re- 
 sisting the passage of Pharaoh-Necho. However, the human 
 cause of his restoration must remain uncertain. Yet clearly, 
 in their whole history, there is nothing to correspond to the 
 state of Judaea, as described by Nalium. 
 
 A recent critic writes, '"iNahuni's prophecy must have 
 been occasioned by an expedition of mighty enemies against 
 Nineveh. —The whole prophecy is grounded on the certain 
 danger, to which Nineveh was given over; only the way in 
 which this visible danger is conceived of, in connection with 
 the eternal truths, is here theproperly prophptic." Ewald does 
 
 ■> ii. 12, 13. P iil. 19. q i. 9, 11. 'i.U. "1.12. ' i. l.?. " 2 Kings xviii. 14. 
 
 « 11). 23. y lb. 17. 2 lb. 31,32. » 2 Chron. .xs.viii. 11. The u?iiform meanin,' of 
 na"? is " took, took prisoner ; " of □'rnrr, " thorns ; " the singular only, nirr, in one of tlie two 
 places in Job, is*' a hook/' in the otlier it is a "thorn." "o"?, which occurs 120 times in 
 
 not exi)lain how the danger, to which "Nineveh was given 
 over" was certain, when it did not hap|)en. The explanation 
 must come to this. Nahum described a siege of Nineveh 
 and its issue, as certain. The description in itself might be 
 either of an actual siege, before the l'roj)iiet's eyes, or of one 
 lielield in the I'roj)het's mind. But obviously no mere man, 
 eiidou ed with mere human knowledge, would have ventured to 
 predict so certainly the fall of such a (rity as Nineveh, unless 
 it was "given over to certain danger.*' But according to the 
 axiom received in Ewald's school, Nahum, equally with all 
 other men, could have had (inly human prescience. Therefore 
 Nahum, proj)hesying the issue so confidently, must have pro- 
 l)liesiedwhenNinevehwasso"given over." 'i'he a priori axiom 
 of the school rules its criticism. INleanwhile the admission is 
 incidentally made, that a prophecy so certain, had it related 
 to distant events, was what no num, with mere human know- 
 ledge, would venture upon. Ewald accordingly thinks that 
 the pro[)hccy was occasioned by a siege of Phraortes ; which 
 siege Nahum expected to be successful; which however failed, 
 so that Nalium was mistaken, although the overthrow which 
 he foretold came to pass afterwards ! The siege, however, of 
 Nineveh by Phraortes is a mere romance. Herodotus, who 
 alone attributes to Phraortes a war with Assyria, has no 
 hint, that he even approached to Nineveh. He simply relates 
 that Phraortes "subdued Asia, going from one nation to ano- 
 ther, until, leading an army against the Assyrians, he perished 
 himself, in the 22nd year of his reign, and the greater 
 part of his army." It is not necessary to consider the non- 
 natural expositions, by which the simple descriptions of Na- 
 hum were distorted into conformity with this theory, which 
 has no one fact to support it. Herodotus even dwells on the 
 good condition of the Assyrian affairs, although isolated from 
 their revolted allies, and seemingly represents the victory as 
 an easy one. And, according to Herodotus, whose account is 
 the only one we have, Phraortes (even if he ever fought with 
 the Ninevites, and Herodotus' account is not merely the re- 
 casting of the history of another Median Frawartish who, ac- 
 cording to the Behistun Inscription, claimed the throne of 
 Media against Darius, and perished in battle with him'=) had 
 only an unorganised army. Herodotus says of Cyaxares, his 
 son, " ' He is said to have been more warlike far than his fore- 
 fathers, and he first distributed Asiatics into distinct bands,and 
 separated the spearmen and archers and horsemen from one 
 another, whereas, before, everything had alike mixed into one 
 confused mass." Such an undisciplined horde could have 
 been no formidable enemy for a nation, whom the monu- 
 ments and their history exhibit as so warlike and so skilled 
 in war as the Assyrians. 
 
 Another critics, then, seeing the untenableness of this theo- 
 ry, ventures (as he never hesitated at any paradox) to place 
 the prophet Nahum, as an eye-witness of the first siege of 
 Cyaxares. 
 
 Herodotus states that Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes, twice 
 besieged Nineveh. First, immediately after his father's death, 
 to avenge it*^; the second, after the end of the Scythian trou- 
 bles, when he took it ''. The capture of Nineveh was in the 
 first year of Nabopolassor B. C. 625. The accession of Cy- 
 axares, according to Herodotus, was B. C. 633. Eight years 
 then only elapsed between his first siege and its capture, and, 
 if it be true, that the siege lasted two years, there was an in- 
 terval of six years only. But, at this time, the destruction 
 
 the O . T., never means "dragged captive." The meaning ascribed to the words, "bound him 
 with chains," is wholly conjectural. idS does not mean " bound," nor D'mn "chains," 
 
 >> Ezr. iv. 2, 9, 10. <: 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14. J Ewald, Proph. i. 349. 
 
 » In Rawl. i. 409. < i. 103. s Hitzig, followed by Davidson, iii. 293. i" i. lOG.
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 361 
 
 of Nineveh was no longer a sul)jcct of joy to Jiuhih. Since 
 the captivity of Manassch. Jiuhili had had notiiiiif;: to fear 
 from Assyria; nor do we know of any oppression from it. 
 Holy Scripture mentions none. The Assyrian monuments 
 speak of expeditions against Ejjypt ; but there was no temp- 
 tation to harass Judah, which stood in the reh'ition of a 
 faithful tril)utary and an outwork ai^ainst Ei^ypt, aiul which, 
 when Nineveh fell, remained in the same relation to its eon- 
 querors,intowhosc suzerainty it passed, tOETctherwith the other 
 dependencies of Assyria. The relation of Josiah to Babylon 
 was the continuation of that of Manasseh to Esarhaddon. 
 
 The motive of this theory is explained by the words, '•'With 
 a confidence, which leaves room for no doubt, Nahum ex- 
 pects a siei;:c and an ultimate destruction of Nineveh. The 
 security of his tone, nay that he ventures at all to hope so 
 enormous a revolution of the existing state of things, must 
 find its explanation in the circumstances of the time, out of 
 the then condition of the world; but not till Cyaxares reigned 
 in Media, did things assume an aspect, corresponding to 
 this confidence." It is well that this writer doffs the cour- 
 teous language, as to the " hopes," " expectations," " infer- 
 ences from God's justice," and brings the question to the is- 
 sue, "there is such absohite certainty of tone," that Nahum 
 must have had either a Divine or a human knowledge. He 
 acknowledges the untenableness of any theory which would 
 account for the prophecy of Nahum on any human know- 
 ledge, before Cyaxares was marching against the gates of 
 Nineveh. Would human knowledge have sufficed then ? Cer- 
 tainly, from such accounts as we have, Nineveh might still 
 have stood against Cyaxares and its own rebel and traitorous 
 general, but for an unforeseen event which man could not 
 bring about, the swelling of its river. 
 
 But, as usual, unbelief fixes itself upon that which is mi- 
 nutest, ignores what is greatest. There are, in Nahum, three 
 remarkable predictions. 1) The sudden destruction of Sen- 
 nacherib's army and his own remarkable death in the house 
 of his god. 2) The certain, inevitable, capture of Nineveh, 
 and that, not by capitulation or famine, not even by the siege 
 or assault, which is painted so vividly, but the river, which 
 was its protection, becoming the cause of its destruction. 3) 
 Its utter desolation, when captured. The first, men assume 
 to have been the description of events past ; the second, the 
 siege, they assume to have been present ; and that, when hu- 
 man wisdom could foresee its issue; the third, they generalise. 
 The first is beyond the reach of proof now. It was a witness 
 of the Providence and just judgement of God, to those days, 
 not to our's. A brief survey of the history of Assyrian Em- 
 pire will shew, that the second and third predictions were be- 
 yond human knowledge. 
 
 The Assyrian Empire dated probably from the ninth cen- 
 tury before Christ. Such, it has been pointed out, is the con- 
 current result of the statements of Berosus and Herodotus. 
 Moses, according to the simplest meaning of his words, spake 
 of the foundation of Nineveh as contemporary with that of 
 Babylon. ^The begmning of the kingdom of Nimrod, he re- 
 lates, ivas Babel and Erech, and Accad and Cabieh, in the land 
 of Sttinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and buildcd 
 Nineveh. Oppressed probably and driven forth by Nimrod, 
 Asshur and his Semitic descendants went forth from the plain 
 
 ' Gen. X. in, 11. ' xra not N>; Ninn fr^n p. i n^vsH Gen. xxv. IS. 
 
 " Gen. X. 11, 12. " rhim tvx " Bar-Hebr. in Tuch de Nino urbe pp. 9, lu. 
 
 P Gen. ii. 14. There is no reason, with Keil, to disturb the rendering. nD"ip is most 
 naturally rendered Eastward, in the other three places ; Michmash was li.S.E. of 
 Bethaven (1 Sam. xiii. 5), but was not over-agabist it, being some four miles from it, 
 ill a valley. The battle which began at Michmash, passed over to BilUaven. (1 Sam. 
 
 of Shinar, the Babylonia of after-ages. Had Moses intended 
 to express (what some have thought), that Nimrod "went 
 forth out of that land to Assyria," he wctuld doubtless have 
 used the ordinary style of connected narrative; '^^ A)id he 
 went forth thence." He would probably also have avoided 
 ambiguity, by expressing that Nimrod " went forth to As- 
 shur','' using a form, which he employs a little later. As it 
 is, Moses has used a mode of speech, by which, in Hebrew, a 
 parenthetic statement would be made, and he has not used 
 the form, which occurs in every line of Hebrew narrative to 
 express a continued history. No one indeed would have 
 doubted that such was the meaning, but that they did not 
 see, how the mention of Asshur, a son of Shcm, came to be 
 anticipated in this account of the children of Ham. This is 
 no ground for abandoning the simple construction of the He- 
 brew. It is but the history, so often repeated in the changes 
 of the world, that the kingdom of Nimrod was founded on 
 the expulsion of the former inhabitants. Nimrod began his 
 kingdom ; "Asshur went forth." 
 
 It is most probable, from this same brief notice, that Ni- 
 neveh was, from the first, that aggregate of cities, which it 
 afterwards was. Moses says, " ^ And he builded Nineveh and 
 Rehoboth-Ir and Calach and Resen, between Nineveh and 
 Calach ; this is that great city °." This cannot be understood 
 as said exclusively of Nineveh ; since Nineveh was mentioned 
 first in the list of cities, and the mention of the three others 
 had intervened; and, in the second place where it is named, 
 it is only spoken of indirectly and subordinately; it is hardly 
 likely to be said of Resen, of whose unusual size nothing is 
 elsewhere related. It seems more probable, that it is said of 
 the aggregate of cities, that they formed together one great 
 city, the very characteristic of Nineveh, as spoken of in Jonah. 
 
 Nineveh itself lay on the Eastern side of the Tigris, oppo- 
 site to the present Mosul. In later times, among the Syrian 
 writers, Asshur becomes the name for the country, distinct 
 from Mesopotamia and Babylonia", from which it was se- 
 parated by the Tigris, and bounded on the North by Mount 
 Niphates. 
 
 This distinction, however, does not occur until after the 
 extinction of the Assyrian empire. On the contrary, in Gene- 
 sis, Asshur, in one place, is spoken of as Westr of the Hid- 
 dekel or Tigris, so that it must at that time have comprised 
 Mesopotamia, if not all on this side of the Tigris, i. e. Baby- 
 lonia. In another place, it is the great border-state of Ara- 
 bia on the one side, as was Egypt on the other. The sons of 
 Istimael, Moses relates i, dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that 
 is before Egypt, as thou goest to Assyria ; i. e. they dwelt on 
 the great caravan-route across the Arabian desert from Egypt 
 to Babylonia. Yet Moses mentions, not Babylon, but As- 
 shur. In Balaam's prophecy "^j Asshur stands for the great 
 Empire, whose seat was at one time at Nineveh, at another 
 at Babylon, which should, certuries afterwards, carry Israel 
 captive. 
 
 Without entering into the intricacies of Assyrian or Baby- 
 lonian history further than is necessary for the immediate 
 object, it seems probable, that the one or other of the sove- 
 reigns of these nations had an ascendency over the others, ac- 
 cording to his personal character and military energy. Thus, 
 in the time of Abraham, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, in his 
 
 xiv. 23.) The Philistines too were obriously facing Saul who was at Gilgal (1 Sam. 
 xiii. li). In Ezeli. xxxix. 11, the words " eastward o/ the sea," e^fiess that the carcases 
 were outside the promised land. In Gen. iv. 16, Cam was not one to linger over-against 
 the lost Eden. Probably he went Eastward, because then too the stream of population 
 went Westward. In Isaiah vii. 20 the king of Assyria is spoken of as beyond the river, 
 i. e. the Euphrates. i Gen. xxv. IS. ' Isum. xsiv. 2i
 
 302 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 expedition ajjainst the kincrs of Sodom and Coniorrha, took 
 witli him, as snhordinate allies, the kinj;;s of Shinar, (or Baby- 
 lon) and Ellasar, as well as Tidal Iciiity of nations, a kinj; pro- 
 I)ahly of Nomadic tribes. The expedition was to avenf;e the 
 rebellion of the petty kini^s in the valley of Siddim aiijainst 
 Chedorlaomcr, after they liad been for twelv«! years tributary. 
 But, altlioui;li the expedition elosed with the attaek on the 
 five kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and 
 Zoar, its extent on the East side of the Jordan from Ashte- 
 roth Karnaim in Basan to Elparan (perhaps Elath on the Red 
 Sea), and the defeat of the giant tribes, the Rephaim, Zuzim, 
 Emim, Ilorites, the Amalekites and the Aniorites in their se- 
 veral abodes, seems to imply one of those larger combinations 
 against the aggressions of the East, which we meet with in 
 later times'. It was no insulated conflict which spread over 
 nearly three degrees of latitude. But it was the king of 
 Eiam, not the king of Babylon or of Asshur, who led this 
 expedition ; and those other kings, according to the analogy 
 of the expeditions of Eastern monarclis, «ere probably de- 
 pendent on him. It has been observed that the inscrip- 
 tions of a monarch whose name partly coincides with that 
 of Chedorlaomcr, viz. Kudurmabuk, or Kudurmapula, shew 
 traces of a Persian influence on the Chaldee characters ; 
 but cuneiform decypherers having desponded of identifying 
 those nionarchs ', Chedorlaonier appears as yet only so far 
 connected with Babylon, that its king was a tributary 
 sovereign to him or a vice-king" like those of later times, of 
 whom Sennacherib boasts, '• Are not my princes altogether 
 kings ? " 
 
 Assyria, at this time, is not mentioned, and so, since 
 we know of its existence at an earlier period, it probably 
 was independent. Lying far to the North of any of the 
 nations here mentioned, it, from whatever cause or how- 
 ever it may have been engaged, took no share in the war. 
 Subsequently also, down to a date almost contemporary 
 with the Exodus, it has been observed that the name of 
 Asshur does not appear on the Babylonian inscriptions, 
 nor does it swell the titles of the king of Babylon^. A little 
 later than the Exodus, however, in the beginning of the 
 14th century B. C, Asshur and Egypt were already dis- 
 puting the country which lay between them. The account 
 is Egjqjtian, and so, of course, only relates the successes of 
 Egypt. Thothmes III, in his fortieth year, according to Mr 
 Birch, received tribute from a king of Nineveh ?. In another 
 monument of the same monarch, where the line, following on 
 the name Nineveh, is lost, Thothmes says that he '-"erected 
 liis tablet in Naharaina (Mesopotamia) for the extension of 
 the frontiers of Kami" [Egj^Jt]. Amenophis III, in the 
 same century, represented Asiatic captives % with the names 
 of Patana [Padan-Aram], Asuria, Karukamishi [Carche- 
 mish"] . "On another column are Saenkar (Shinar), Nahara- 
 ina, and the Khita (Hittites)." The mention of these conti- 
 guous nations strengthens the impression that the details of 
 the interpretation are accurate. All these inscriptions imply 
 that Assyria was independent of Babylon. In one, it is a co- 
 ordinate power: in the two others, it is a state which had 
 measured its strength with Egypt, under one of its greatest 
 conquerors, though, according to the Egyptian account, it 
 had been worsted. 
 
 • Sir H. Rawl. in Rawl. Herod, i. 41G. « " On the one hand the general 
 
 resemblance of Kudurmapula's legends to those of the ordinary Chaldoean nionarchs is 
 unquestionable ; on the other hand, it is remarkable that there are peculiarities in the 
 forms of the letters, and even in the elements composinR the names upon his bricks 
 which favour his connection with Elam." Sir H. Rawlinsou in Rawl. Herod, i. 430. 
 
 <■ Rawl. Five Empires i. 206. 
 
 Another account, which has been thought to be the first 
 instance of the extension of Babyhniian authority so far 
 northward, seems to me rather to im]ily the ancient self- 
 government of Assyria. '"'A record of Tiglathpileser I. de- 
 dares him to have rebuilt a temple in the city of Asi-hur, 
 which had been taken down (50 years previously, after it had 
 lasted for (541 years from the date of its first foundation 
 by Shamas-Iva, son (»f Ismi-Dagon." Sir 11. Rawlinson thinks 
 that it is probable (although only probable )'', that this Ismi- 
 Dagon is a king, whose name occurs in the brick-legends of 
 Lower Babylonia. Yet the Ismi-Dagon of the bricks does not 
 bear the title of king of Babylon, but of king of Nifier only**: 
 "his son," it is noticed, "does not take the titleof king; but of 
 governor of Hur"." The name Shamas-Iva nowhere occurs 
 in connection with Babylonia, but it docs recur, at a later 
 period, as the name of an Assyrian Monarch '. Since the 
 names of the Eastern kings so often continue on in the same 
 kingdom, the recurrence of that name, at a later period, makes 
 it even probable, that Shamas-Iva was a native king. There 
 is absolutely nothing to connect his father Ismi-Dagon with 
 the Ismi-Dagon king of Niffer, beyond the name itself, which, 
 being Semitic, may just as well have belonged to a native 
 king of Nineveh as to a king of Lower Babylonia. Nay, there 
 is nothing to shew that Ismi-Dagon was not an Assyrian 
 Monarch who reigned at Niffer ; for the name of his father is 
 still unknown ; there is no evidence that his father was ever 
 a king, or, if a king, where he reigned. It seems to me in 
 the last degree precarious to assume, without further evi- 
 dence, the identity of the two kings. It has, further, yet to 
 be shewn that Lower Babylonia had, at that time, an empire, 
 as distinct from its own local sovereignty. We know from 
 Holy Scripture of Nimrod's kingdom in Shinar, a province 
 distinct from Elymais, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and probably 
 Chaldfea. In Abraham's time, 190() B. C, we find again a king 
 of Shinar. Shinar again, it is supposed, appears in Egyptian 
 inscriptions, in the 14th century, B. C.S; and, if so, still dis- 
 tinct from Mesopotamia and Assyria. But all this implies a 
 distinct kingdom, not an empire. 
 
 Again, were it ever so true, that Shamas-Iva was a son of 
 a king in Lower Babylonia, that he built a temple in Kileh- 
 Shergat, as being its king, and that he was king, as placed 
 there by Ismi-Dagon, this would be no proof of the continual 
 dependence of Assyria upon Babylonia. England did not 
 continue a dependency of France, because conquered by 
 William of Normandy. How was Alexander's empire bro- 
 ken at once ! Spain under Charles the V. was under one 
 sovereignty with Austria ; Spain with France had, even of 
 late, alike Bourbon kings. A name would, at most, shew an 
 accidental, not a permanent, connection. 
 
 But there is, at present, no evidence implying a continued 
 dependence of Assyria upon Babylon. Two facts only have 
 been alleged; 1) that the cuneiform writing of inscriptions 
 at Kileh-Shergat, 40 miles South of Nineveh, has a Baby- 
 lonian character ; 2) that, on those bricks, four names have 
 been found of inferior Satraps. 
 
 But 1) the Babylonian character of the inscriptions would 
 show a dependence of civilisation, not of empire. Arts flou- 
 rished early at Babylon, and so the graven character of the 
 Inscriptions too may have been carried to the rougher and 
 
 ' lb. p. 447. y From statistical Tablet of Kamak, quoted by Layard Nin. and 
 
 Bab. c. xxvi. p. 631, Birch in Arch3?ologia Vol. xxxv. pp. 116-06. « lb. p. 630, note 1. 
 
 » lb. >> Sir H. Rawlinson from the Shergat Cylinders in Rawl. Herod. Ess. 
 
 vi. i. 433. note 1. ' lb. p. 456. note 5. ^ lb. p. 437. = lb. § 7. 
 
 f Sir H. Rawlins., Jouru. As. Soc. xvi. P. 1. Ann. Rep. p. xii. sq. Rawl. Herod, i. 
 p. 466. 8 Mr. Birch in Layard Nin. and Bab. p. 631.
 
 NAIIUM. 
 
 363 
 
 warlike North. The garniput, worked at Bal)ylon, was, in 
 the 15th century B. C, exported as far as Palestine, and was, 
 for its beauty, the object of Aciian's covetousness''. 
 
 2) In rcjjard to tiic satraps whose names are found on the 
 bricks of Kileh-Slifri;at, it does not appear, that they were 
 tributary to Balti/lon at all ; tiiey may, as far as it ajjpears, 
 have been simply inferior oMicers of tlie Assyrian (iinpin;. 
 Any how, the utmost which such a relation to IJabylon wonhl 
 evince, if ever so well established, would he a temporary de- 
 pendence of Kileh-Sherc^at itself, not of Nineveh or the Assy- 
 rian kinn-dom. Further, the evidence of the duration of the 
 dependen<!y would be as limited at its extent. Four satraps 
 would be no evidence as to this period of 7^0 years, only a 
 century less than has elapsed since the Norman conquest. 
 The early existence of an Assyrian kini;dom has been con- 
 firmed by recent cuneiform discoveries, which give the names 
 of 8 Assyrian kings, the earliest of whom is supposed to have 
 reigned about 3i centuries before the commencement of the 
 Assyrian Empire '. 
 
 The "empire," Herodotus says'', "Assyria held in Upper 
 Asia for 520 years ; " Berosus ', " for 526 years." The Cunei- 
 form Inscriptions give much the same result. Tiglath- 
 pileser'", who gives five years' annals of his own victories, 
 mentions his grandfather's grandfather, the 4th king before 
 him, as the king who " first organised the country of Assyria," 
 who "established the troops of Assyria in authority." The 
 expression, "established in authority," if it may be pressed, 
 relates to foreign conquest. If this Tiglathpileser be the 
 same whom Sennacherib, in the 10th year of his own reign, 
 mentions as having lost his gods to Rlerodach-ad-akhi, king 
 of Mesopotamia, 418 years before", then, since Sennacherib 
 ascended the throne about 703 B.C. °, we should have B.C. 
 1112 for the latter part of the reign of Tiglath-pileser I., and 
 counting this and the six preceeding reigns at 20 years each p, 
 should have about 1252 B.C. for the beginning of the Assyrian 
 empire. It has been calculated that if the 526 years, assign- 
 ed by Berosus to his 45 Assyrian kings, are (as Polyhistori 
 states Berosus to have meant) to be dated back from the 
 accession of Pul who took tribute from RIenahem, and so 
 from between B.C. 770 and B.C. 760, they carry back the be- 
 ginning of the dynasty to about 1290 B.C. If they be 
 counted, (as is perhaps more probable) from the end of the 
 reign of Pul% i.e. probably B.C. 747, "the era of Nabo- 
 nassar," the Empire would commence about 1273 B.C. 
 Herodotus, it has been shewn % had much the same date in 
 his mind, when he assigned 520 years to the Assyrian empire 
 in upper Asia, dating back from the revolt of the Medes. 
 For he supposed this revolt to be 179 years anterior to the 
 death of Cyrus B.C. 529 (and so, B.C. 708) -I- a period of 
 anarchy before the accession of Deioces. Allowing 30 years 
 for this period of anarchy, we have 738 B.C. + 520, i.e. 1258 
 B.C., for the date of the commencement of Assyrian empire 
 according to Herodotus. Thus, the three testimonies would 
 coincide in placing the beginning of that Empire any how 
 between 1258 and 1273 B.C. 
 
 But this Empire started up full-grown. It was the con- 
 centration of energy and power, which had before existed. 
 
 I" Josh. vii. 21. ' Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 291 ; comp. i. 212. k i. 95. ' Fragm. 11. 
 
 ■^ Rawl. Her. i. 457. " Dr. Hincks, from Bavian Inscription in LayardNin. and Bab. 
 pp. 212,3. "> His annals mention that, having expelled Merodach-baladan in the first 
 year of his reign, he set up Belib in Babylon (Hincks in Layard Bab. and Nin. 140,1) ; 
 out, in tlie Canon of Ptolemy, the date of Belib is B.C. 703. P Rawl. gives this as 
 
 the average of Assyrian reigns (Five Empires ii. 93.). Tlie whole calculation is his. An 
 interregnum of 20 years, carries the whole back to the date of Berosus 1273 B.C. 
 
 1 In Euseb. Chron. Arm. pp. 40, 1. ■■ 2 Kings xv. 19. ' Rawl. Herod, i. 407. 
 • Rawl. i. 458. " Layard N. and B. 207-12. 614. Rawl. 459. 
 
 Herodotus' expression is "rulers of Upper Asia." Tiglath- 
 pileser atti-ihiitcs to liiv forefather, that he " organised the 
 country," and " established the armies of Assyria in autho- 
 rity." The 2nd king of that list takes the title of " ruler over 
 the people of Bel »," i. e. Babylonia. The 4th boasts to have 
 reduced '• all the lands of the Magian world." Tiglath-pileser 
 I. claims to have conquered large parts of Cappadocia, Syria 
 from 'i'sukha to Canhemish, iMcdia and Muzr. According 
 to the inscription at liavian ", he sustained a reverse, and lost 
 his gods to a king of Mesopotamia, which gods were recovered 
 by Sennacherib from Babylon. Yet this exception the more 
 proves that conquest was the rule. For, had there been sub- 
 sequent successful invasions of Assyria by Babylonia, the 
 spoils of the 5th century backward would not have been alone 
 recovered or recorded. If the decyplieringof the Inscriptions 
 is to be trusted, Nineveh was the capital, even in the days of 
 Tiglath-pileser I. For Sennacherib brought the gods hack, 
 it is said, and put them in their places, i. e. proI)ably where he 
 himself reigned, at Nineveh. Thence then they were taken 
 in the reign of Tiglath-pileser. Nineveh then was his capi- 
 tal also. 
 
 Of an earlier portion we have as yet but incidental notices; 
 yet the might of Assyria is attested by the presence of Assy- 
 rian names in the Egyptian dynastic lists, whether the dy- 
 nasties were themselves Assyrian, or whether the names 
 came in through matrimonial alliances between two great 
 nations ^. 
 
 With few exceptions, as far as appears from their own an- 
 nals (and these are in the later times confirmed by Holy Scrip- 
 ture), the Assyrian Empire was, almost whenever we hear of it, 
 one long series of victory and rapine. It is an exception, if 
 any monarch is peaceful, and content to " repair the build- 
 ings >" in his residence, "leaving no evidence of conquest or 
 greatness." Tiglatlii-Nin, father of the warlike Asshur-i-dan- 
 ipal or Sardanapalus, is mentioned only in his son's monu- 
 ment, " " among his warlike ancestors, who had carried their 
 arms into the Armenian mountains, and there set up stelae to 
 commemorate their conquests." Civil wars there were, and 
 revolutions. Conquerors and dynasties came to an untimely 
 end; there was parricide, fratricide; but the tide of war and 
 conquest rolled on. The restless warriors gave no rest. Sar- 
 danapalus terms himself, "^the conqueror from the upper 
 passage of the Tigris to Lebanon and the great sea, who all 
 countries, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, 
 has reduced under his authority." His son, Shalmanubar 
 or Shalmaneser, in his thirty-five years of reign led, in person 
 twenty-three military expeditions. 20,000. 1 6,0tMJ, are the 
 numbers of his enemies left dead upon a field of battle with 
 Benhadad andHazael ''. Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, ISIedia, 
 Babylonia, Syria, Phoenicia % 15 degrees of longitude and 10 of 
 latitude, save where the desert or the sea gave him nothing to 
 conquer, were the range of his repeated expeditions. He 
 circled round Judiea. He thrice defeated Benhadad with his 
 allies (on several occasions, twelve kings of the Hittites). His 
 own army exceeded on occasions 100,000 fighting men. Twice 
 he defeated Hazael. Israel under Jehu, Tyre, Sidon, 24 kings 
 in Pontus, kings of the Hittites, of Chaldaea, 27 kings of Persia 
 
 ' Rawlinson's conjecture. Five Emp. ii. 335. The period is one of "obscurity," as Rawl, 
 says, but that very obscurity forbids our deciding, as he does, that it was one of " extraor- 
 dinary weakness and depression." 
 
 y Asshur-adan-akhi and tliree following kings. See Rawl. Her. i. 460. The accession 
 of Asshur-adan-akhi was placed bv some, referred to by Rawl. lb., at B.C. 1050 by him- 
 self at B. C. 950, Five Emp. ii. 291. ' Sir H. Rawl. lb. in Rawl. Her. i. 4t;0, n. 7. 
 
 " in Layard N. and B. pp. 3G1, 2. Rawl. p. 461. ^ Rawl. lb. 464, 5. « Nimrud 
 Obelisk translated by Dr. Hincks, in Dubl. Univ. Mag. Oct. l£o3. pp. 422, 5, 6. Rawl. 
 Her. i. 462.
 
 3G4 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 arc aiiionji; his tributaries '' ; " the shooting of his arrows struclc 
 terror," he says, " as far as the sea " [Indian Ocean] ; " he put 
 up his arrows in tlicir quiver at the sea of the settinii: sun." 
 His son Shauiasiva apparently suljdued lial)ylouia, and in 
 the \Vest conquered triltes near Mount Taurus, on the 
 North the countries borderinjj on Armenia to tlic South 
 and East, the Medes beyond INJount Zai;ros, and " '^ the Ziniri ' 
 in upper Luristan." His son Ivahish HI. or IV. received 
 undisturbed tribute from the kinndon)s which his fatliers 
 conquered, and ascribes to his g^od Asshur tlie i!:rant of 
 "Btlie kins;dom of liabyliui to his son." Thus "Assyria with 
 one hand a;rasj)ed IJabylouia; witli the otlier Pliilistia and 
 Edoni ; she held Media Proper, S. Armenia, possessed all 
 Upper Syria, includinc; Commap,ene and Amanus, bore 
 sway over all the whole Syrian coast from Issus to Gaza, 
 and from the coast to the desert." Ti2:lath-pileser II. and 
 Shalmaneser are known to us as conquerors from Holy Scrip- 
 ture ''. Tinlath-pilescr, we are told from the inscriptions, 
 warred and conquered in l^pper Mesopotamia. Armenia, Me- 
 dia, Babylonia, drove into exile a Babylonian prince, destroyed 
 Damascus, took tribute from a Hiram kiuR- of Tyre, and from 
 a Queen of the Arabs ^. And so it continued, until nearly the 
 close of the Monarchy. 
 
 The new dynasty which befjan with Sarj^on were even tcrcat- 
 er conquerors than their predecessors. Sarijon, in a reig:n of 
 seventeen or nineteen years, defeated the kins,'- of Elam, con- 
 quered in latbour beyond Elam, reijjned from Ras, a depen- 
 dency on Elam, over Poukoud (Pekod), Phcenicia, Syria, &c. 
 to the river of Ejjypt, in the far Media to the rising sun, in 
 Scythia, Albania, Parthia, Van, Armenia, Colchis, Tubal to the 
 Moschi : he placed his lieutenants as £,overnors over these 
 countries, and imposed tribute u]>on them, as upon Assyrians ; 
 lie, probably, placed Mcrodach-Baladan on the throne of Ba- 
 bylon, and after 12 years displaced him ; he reduced all Chal- 
 daea under his rule ; he defeated " Sebech (i. e., probably. So), 
 Sultan of E^-ypt, so that he was heard of no more ; " he re- 
 ceived tribute from the Pharaoh of Ea^ypt. from a Queen of 
 Arabia and from Himyar the Sabsean. To him first the kinc: 
 of Meroe paid tribute. He finally captured Samaria : he took 
 Gaza, Kharkar, Arpad and Damascus, Ashdod (which it cost 
 Psanimetichus 29 years to reconquer), and Tyre, (which re- 
 sisted Nebuchadnezzar for 13 years). He added to the Sa- 
 trapy of Parthia, placed a Satrap* or Lieutenant over Com- 
 masicne and Samaria, Kharkar, Tel-Garimmi, Gamgoum. Ash- 
 dod, and a king of his own choice over Albania. He seized 
 55 walled cities in Armenia, 11, which were held to be " inac- 
 cessible fortresses;" and 62 great cities in Commagene ; 34 
 in Media; he laid tribute on the " king of the country of ri- 
 vers." He removed whole populations at his will ; from Sa- 
 maria, he carried captive its inhabitants, 27,800, and placed 
 them in "cities of the Medes';" he removed those of Com- 
 magene to Elam ; all the great men of the Tibarcni, and the 
 inhabitants of unknown cities, to Assyria; Cammanians, whom 
 he had conquered, to Tel-Garimmi, a capital which he re- 
 built ; others whom he had vanquished in the East he placed 
 in Ashdod : again he placed " Assyrians devoted to his em- 
 pire" among the Tibareni; inhabitants of cities unknown to 
 us,in Damascus; Chaldaeans in Commagene''. "'The Comukha 
 
 ^ Dr. Hincks, Athensum N. 14"G. p. 174. Rawl. lb. Five Emp. ii. 360. e Rawl. 
 
 Herod, i. 4<j6. Five Emp. ii. 3M. ' Jer. xxv. 25. e Rawl. Her. i. 4(57, 
 
 Five Empires ii. 380. t Rawl. Her. i. 470. ' 2 Kings xrii. 6, xviii. 11. 
 
 k The above account of Sargon is taken from Oppert's Inscriptions Assyriennes 
 des Sareonidcs, p. lU— 40, extracted from the Annales de Philosophie Chretienne T. vi. 
 (5e serie). Oppert, p. 8, gives as the meaning of his name, "actual king," "roi de 
 fait." Sargon himself, if Oppert has translated him riglitly, gives as its meaning. 
 
 were removed from the extreme North to Susiana, and Ciial- 
 dieans were brought from the extreme South to supply their 
 |)lace." " Seven kings of latnan, seven days' voyage off in 
 the Western seas, whose names vvt-re unknown to the kings" 
 his "fathers, hearing of" his '•deeds, came i)efore" liim to Ba- 
 bylon with "presents;" as did the king of Asmoun, «lio dwelt 
 in the midst of the Eastern sea (the Persian gulf). He placed 
 his statue, "writing on it the glory of Asshur his master," in 
 the capital of Van, in Kikisim (Circesiuni) as also in Cyprus, 
 which h(! does not name, but where it has b(!en discovend 
 in this century "'. The Moscbian king, with his 3000 towns, 
 who had never submitted to the kings his predecessors, sent 
 his submission and tribute to him. 
 
 Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, says of himself, "Assour, 
 the great lord, has conferred on me sovereignty over the peo- 
 ples ; he has extended my dominion over all those who dwell 
 in the world. From the upper Ocean of the setting sun to 
 the lower Ocean of the rising sun, I reduced under my power 
 all wiio carried aloft their head." He defeated .Merodach Ba- 
 ladan and the king of Elam together"; took in one expedition, 
 ""79 great strong cities of the Chaldeans and 820 small 
 towns;" he took prisoners by hundreds of thousands; 200,150 
 in his first expedition against Hezekiah, from 44 great walled 
 cities which he took and little villages innumerable"; 208,000 
 from the Nabathseans and Hagarenes'': lie employed on his 
 great buildings 360,0<X) men, gathered from Chaldaa and Ara- 
 imea, from Cilicia and Armenia i ; he conquered populations in 
 the North, which "had of old not submitted to the kings my 
 brothers "^j" annexed them to the prefecture of Arrapachitis and 
 setup his image '^; he received tribute from the governor of 
 Khararaf, wasted the 2 residence-cities, 34 smaller cities of 
 Ispahara king of Albania, joining a part of the territory to 
 Assyria, and calling its city, Ilhinzas, the city of Sennacherib ' ; 
 he reduced countries of "Media, whose names the kings his bro- 
 thers had not heard '; he set a king, Toubaal, over the great and 
 little Sidon, Sarepta, Achzib, Acco, Betzitti, Mahalliba; the 
 kings of Moab, Edom, Bet- Amman, Avvad, Ashdod, submitted 
 to him'; he defeated an "innumerable host" of Egyptians at 
 Altakou" [Eltekc] ; sons of the king of Egypt fell into his hands; 
 he captured Ascalon, Bcne-Barak, Joppa, Hazor ^ ; put back at 
 Amgarron [Migron] the expelled king Padi, who had been sur- 
 rendered to Hezekiah "^ ; gave portions of the territory of Heze- 
 kiah to the kings of Ashdod, Migron, Gaza> ; he drove Mero- 
 dach-baladan again to Elam, captured his brothers, wasted 
 his cities, and placed his own eldest son, Assur-nadin, on the 
 throne of Babylon ^ ; took seven impregnable cities of the Tou- 
 kharri, placed like birds' nests on the mountains of Nipour^; 
 conquered the king of Oukkou in Dayi, among mountains 
 which none of his ancestors had penetrated ; took Oukkou 
 and 33 other cities''; attacked Elam, "crossing" the Persian 
 gulf " in Syrian vessels ^ ;" capturing the men, and destroying 
 the cities'"; in another campaign, he garrisoned, with prisoner- 
 warriors of his own, cities in Elam which his father had lost '^ ; 
 destroyed 34 large cities and others innumerable of Elam ". 
 His account of his reign closes with a great defeat of Elam, 
 whom the escaped Souzoub had hired with the treasures of 
 the temples of Babylon, and of 17 rebel tribes or cities, at 
 Khalouli, and their entire subdual''. He repeUed some Greeks 
 
 "righteous prince," ([S-ns') p. 38. ' Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 423. This 
 statement is not in Oppert's Inscriptions. 
 
 " Now in the Royal Musemn at Berlin. Layard Bah. p. CIS. 
 
 n Oppert Sarg. p. 41. " lb. p. 45. P Layard Bab. p. 141. 
 
 1 Rawl. Her. i. 476. ' Opp. pp. 42, 3. t lb. p. 43. • pp. 43, 4. 
 
 " p. 44. ' pp. 44, 5. r p. 45. « p. 46. » p. 47. 
 
 ii pp. 17, 8. <: pp. 43. i pp. 40-51.
 
 NAIIUiM. 
 
 365 
 
 in Cilicia, set up his image there, with a record of his deeds, 
 and Ijiiilt Tarsus, on the model of liahyhm '=. It lias been no- 
 ti<'('d, wliat a " iicon appreciation of the merits of a locality'^" 
 his selection of its site evinced. Tiie dcstru(;tioii of liis army 
 of 185,000 men. at the word of (iod, niinht well deter him 
 from ag^ain chalieufjina: the Almij;hty ; but we have seen, in 
 the wars of Napoleon I., that sucii losses do not break the 
 power of an empire, it was no vain boast of Sennacherib, 
 tiiat he had gathered all the earth, amt carried captive t lie gods 
 of the nations. The boast was true ; the application alone was 
 impious. God owned in him the instrument wliitdi lie had 
 formed, the rod of His a7iger. He condemned him, only be- 
 cause the axe boasted itself against Him Who hewed there- 
 with. A'ictorious, except when he fought against God, and 
 employed l)y God to tread down the people as the mire of the 
 streets s, Sennacherib was cut ofiF as God foretold, but left his 
 kingdom to a vic^torious son. 
 
 His son, Esarhaddon, takes titles, yet more lofty than those 
 of Sennacherib. He calls himself, '"' King of Assyria, Vicar 
 of Babylon. King of the Sumirs and Accads, King of Egypt 
 Meroe and Cush, who reigned from sunrising to sun-set, une- 
 qualled in the imposition of tributes." In Armenia, he killed 
 Adrammelech ', his half-brother, one of his father's murderers, 
 who fled to Armenia, probably to dispute thence his father's 
 crown. In every direction he carried his conquests further 
 than his powerful father ^. He speaks of conquests in the far 
 IMedia, '"where none of the kings, our fathers," had conquered, 
 whose kings bore well-known Persian names". 
 
 They and their subjects were carried off to Assyria. Others, 
 who ""had not conspired against the kings my fathers and 
 the land of Assyria, and whose territories my fathers had not 
 conquered," submitted voluntarily in terror, paid tribute and 
 received Assyrian governors. In the West, he pursued by sea 
 a king of Sidon who rebelled, divided the Syrians in strange 
 countries, and placed mountaineers, whom his bow had subdued 
 in the East, with a governor, in a castle of Esarhaddon which 
 he built in Syria. He warred successfully in Cilicia, Kliou- 
 bousna, and destroyed 10 large cities of the Tibareni and car- 
 ried their people captive; trod down the country of Masnaki, 
 transported rebels of Van ; he established on the Southern 
 shore that son of Merodach-baladan who submitted to him, 
 removing the brother who trusted in Elam, himself reigned in 
 Babylon", whither he carried ManassehP. He reconquered 
 "the city of Adoumou (Edom), (the city of the power of the 
 Arabs,) which Sennacherib had conquered, and carried off its 
 people to Assyria;" he named as Queen of the Arabs, Tabouya, 
 born in his palace; put the son of Hazaelonhis father's throne. 
 An expedition to " i a far country to the bounds of the earth 
 beyond the desert," Bazi (Buz), reached by traversing 140 far- 
 sakhs (?) of sandy desert, then 20 farsakhs (?) of fertile land and 
 a stony region, Khazi (Uz), looks like an expedition across 
 Arabia,and,if so, was unparalleled cxceptbyNushirvan. Some 
 of the other names are Arabic. Any how, it was a country, 
 whither none of his predecessors had gone; he killed 8 kings, 
 carried off their subjects and spoils. He conquered the 
 Gomboulou in their marshes. Twelve kings on the coast of 
 Syria whom he recounts by name, (Ba'lou king of Tyre, Ma- 
 nasseh kingof Judah, and thoseof Edom, Maan,Gaza,Ascalon, 
 Amgarron, Byblos, Aradus, Ousimouroun, Bet-Ammon, Ash- 
 
 <■ Polyliist. in Eus. Chr. i. c. 5, Abydcn. ib. c. 9. ' Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 4CG. s Is. x. 
 5-15, xxxvi. 18-20. t Oppert p. 53. ' Abyden. in Eus. Chron. Arm. p. 53. 
 
 ^ The murder then of Sennacherib was no sign of the decadence of the empire, but one 
 of the common fruits of the polygamy of Eastern monarchs. ' Oppert pp. 5(i, 7. 
 
 ■" Sitirparnaand Ipama. » Ib.Twoofthenamesagain, Rawl.observes(5Emp.ii.473), 
 are Aryan, Zanasana and Ramatiya; a 3rd is Arpis. " Babyl. tablet in Rawl. Her. i. 482. 
 
 dod) and 10 kings of Yatnan in the sea (Cyprus), — ^Egisthus 
 (Ikistousi). Kiiig(d' [(lalion (Idial), Pythagoras (i'itagoura) K. 
 of (yitium (Kittliimj, Ki — ,K. of Salamis (Silliimmi), Ittodagon 
 (" Dagon is with iiim," Itoudagon), K. of Paj)lios (Pa[)pa), 
 iMiryalus (Irieli), K. of Soli (Sillou), Damasou, K. of Curium 
 (Kiiri), Oiinagousou, K. of Limenion (Limini), Roumizu, K. 
 of Tamassus (Tamizzi,) Damutsi of Amti-Kliadasti, I'uhali of 
 Apbrodisium (Oiipridissa) ■■, — held their rule from him. 
 
 The names (jf tiie countries, irom which he brought those 
 whom he settled in Samaria, attest alike iiis strength and the 
 tiien weakness of two of the nations, whicii afterwards concur- 
 red to overthrow iiis empire. The colonists, accordingto their 
 own letters to Artaxerxes', comprehended, among others, Ba- 
 Ijylonians ; Archevitcs i.e. inlial)itaiits of ICrech, mentioned in 
 Genesis ', as,togetiier with I'aljcl, jnirt of the beginning of the 
 kingdom of Ninirod ; Susan< hites, i. e. inhabitants of .Susiana 
 orChusistau; Z)f/irt;.77f,s-, Daansm Herodotus", one ofthcwan- 
 deringPersiantribes,whosenanie(Taia) still exists'; Elamites^, 
 or the dwellers on the Persian gulf, bordering on Susiana; A- 
 pharsites or the Persians in their original abode in Parana, Pa- 
 rai9, now Farsistan. It seems also probable that the Aphar- 
 sachites^ are those more known to us as Sacae or Scythians, 
 whom Esarhaddon says that he conquered"; and that the A- 
 pharsacht hites (withthe same word^y;//«)-prefi.xed) are the Sit- 
 taceni on the Caspian. The Z)/?;n//es and the 7 arphelites are 
 as yet unidentified, unless the Tarpetes '' of the Pains Mseotis 
 near the Sittaceni,or thcTapiri " in Media be a corruption of 
 the name. The Samaritan settlers add. And the rest of the sta- 
 tions, whom the great and noble Asnapper carried captive, and 
 settled in the cities of Samaria and the rest on this side the river. 
 Under this general term, they include the Mesopotamian set- 
 tlers brought from Avvah and Sepharvaim, and those from 
 Hamath'', probably wishing to insist to the Persian Monarch 
 on their Persian, I\Iedian, or Babylonian descent. Tliey attest 
 at the same time that their forefathers were not willingly re- 
 moved but transported, carried into crile", and accordingly that 
 Esarhaddon, in whose reign they were removed, had power in 
 all these countries. The condensation also of settlers from 
 twelve nations in so small a space as the cities of Samaria (ana- 
 logous as it is to the dispersion of the Jews over so many pro- 
 vinces of their captors) illustrates the policy of these transpor- 
 tations, and the strength which they gave to the em])ire. Na- 
 tions were blended together among those foreign to them, with 
 no common bond except their relation to their conqueror. A 
 check on those around them, and themselves held in check by 
 them, they had no common home to which to return, no inte- 
 rest to serve by rebelling. Esarhaddon built 3(5 temples in As- 
 syria by the labour of foreign slaves, his captives, who wor- 
 shipped his gods f. 
 
 This collection of people of twelve nations in the cities of Sa- 
 maria represents moreover one portion only of the conquests 
 of Esarhaddon, and, for the most part, that furthest from Ju- 
 dsea. For the principle of the policy was to remove them far 
 from their own land. Ethiopian and Egyptian captives would 
 be placed, not here whence they could easily return, but, like Is- 
 rael in the cities of the Medes, whence they could find no escape. 
 
 The son of Esarhaddon, Asshurbanipal?II., yet further en- 
 larged and consolidated the conquests of his conquering father. 
 His expeditions into Egypt have been already dwelt upon ; 
 
 P 2 Chr. xxxiii. 11. ' Oppert p. oG. Raw). 5 Emp. ii. 470, 1. Oppert does not identify 
 the names of distances. ' Rawl. Her. i. 483,4. 5Emp.ii. 483. Oppenp. 58. » Ezr.iv.U. 
 
 'Gen.x.lO. "i. 125. ' Ritler Erdk.™.6(58. y Is. xxi. 2, xxii. 6. 'Ezr. v.fi. 
 Rawl. Journ.of Asiat. Soc. XV. p.lty. « Rawl. Her. i. 481. ' Strabo xl. 2.8. 11. i^ Id. 
 xl. 8. and 13. 2. li 2 Kgs. xvii. 24. ' "7:ri Ezr. iv. 10. ' Assyr. texts p. 10, Oppert p. 
 57, Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 482. « Or Asordanes, Lavard Nin. and B. p. 152. 
 
 8r
 
 366 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 his victories were easy, complete. Tirhaka, himself a f^rcat 
 conqueror, Ik'd into unknown deserts beyond reach of 
 pursuits. His step-son Urdaminie attempted to recover his 
 king-dom, was defeated at once, fled and his capital was taken. 
 In Asia, he took away the king of Tyre, who offended him; 
 made conquests beyond Mt. Taurus, where his fathers had 
 never Ijecn''; received an embassy from Gyj^es ; attached to As- 
 syria a tract of Minni or Persarmenia, took the cajiital of Min- 
 ni; took Shushan' and Badaca, slew their kinf^s, united Su- 
 siana to Babylonia; subdued anew Edom, Moab, Kedar, the 
 Nabathseans ; received the submission of the king of Urarda, 
 Ararat ''. While Assyria was extended wider than before, its 
 old enemies were more incorporated with it, or, at least, more 
 subdued; it was more at one within itself. Egypt, the great 
 rival Empire, had tried to shake off the yoke, but was sub- 
 dued; no people in Syria or the valley of the Euphrates stirred 
 itself; the whole tract within the Taurus, once so rife with ene- 
 mies, lay hushed under his rule : hushed were the Hittites, 
 Hamathitcs, the Syrians of Damascus, the Tibareni who had 
 once held their own against his father; war was only at the 
 very extremities, in Minni or Edom, and that, rather chastise- 
 ment than war ; Babylon was a tranquil portion of his empire, 
 except during the temporary rebellion of the brother, whom he 
 had placed over it, and whom he pardoned. His death, amid 
 the tranquil promotion of literature', when he had no more 
 enemies to conquer or rebels to chasten, left his empire at the 
 zenith of its power, some 22 years before its destruction. 
 Caino had become, as Sennacherib boasted™, like Carchemisli ; 
 Hamath like Ar pad; Samaria as Damascus. He° had removed 
 the hounds of t he people and gathered all the earth, as one gather- 
 eth eggs, left by the parent bird, undefended even by its im- 
 potent love. There was not a cloud on the horizon, not a to- 
 ken whence the whirlwind would come. The bas-reliefs attest, 
 that neither the energy nor the cruelty of the Assyrians were 
 diminished". 
 
 Of those twenty two years, we have nothing reliable except 
 their close. There was probably nothing to relate. There 
 would not be any thing, if Asshurbanipal had consolidated his 
 empire, as he seems to have done, and if his son and successor 
 inherited his father's later tastes, and was free from the thirst 
 of boundless conquest, which had characterised the earlier ru- 
 lers of Assyria. Any how, we know nothing authentic. The 
 invasion of Assyria by Phraortes, which Herodotus relates, is 
 held, on good grounds, to be a later historyof a rebellion against 
 Darius Hystaspes, adapted to times before the Medes became 
 one nation?. There was noreascn why it should not have been 
 recorded, had it taken place, since it is admitted to have been 
 a total defeat, in which Phraortes lost his life''. The invasion 
 of the Scythians, which is to have stopped the siege of Nine- 
 veh under Cyaxares, was reported in a manifestly exaggerat- 
 ed form to Herodotus. The 28 years, during which Herodo- 
 tus relates the Scythian rule to have lasted', is longer than the 
 whole of the reign of the last king of Assyria ; and yet, accord- 
 ing to Herodotus, is to have been interposed between the two 
 sieges of Cyaxares. And as its empire gave no sign of decay, 
 so far as we can trace its history within 22 years before its 
 destruction, so, with the like rapidity, did the empire rise, 
 which was to destroy it. The account which Herodotus re- 
 ceived, that the Medians had thrown off the yoke of Assyria 
 before Deioces% is in direct contradiction to the Assyrian in- 
 
 l" Rawl. remarks that the names are new. ' The name is spelt as in Daniel. 
 
 ' Rawl. 5 Emp.ii. 484-93. ' lb. 495, 6. "Is. x.9. ° lb. 13, 14. 
 
 » See plates in Layard Nin. and B. pp. 457, 8. Rawl. 5 Emp. iii. 504, and Layard 
 Monuments Ser. 2. PI. 47, 4'J. quoted lb. 
 P Rawl. Herod, i. 408, 9. Q Herod. 1.402. Mb. 106. 
 
 scriptions. This was,they state, the time,not of the revolt,but 
 of the conquest of Media. They are confirmed by Holy .Scrip- 
 ture, which says that the Assyrian king [Sargon] placed iu the 
 citiesofthe Medes^ his Israelitish captives. The utmost,which 
 Herodotus ascribes to Deioces howcver,is,that hcconsolidated 
 the six Median tribes and built a capital, Agbatana". It is an 
 union of wild hordes into one people, held together for the time 
 by the will of one man and by their weariness of mutual op- 
 pressions. Even according to their accounts, Cyaxares (about 
 B.C. 633, i. e. 8 years before the fall of Nineveh) first organised 
 the Median army; the Greeks, in the time of i^i^schylus, be- 
 lieved Cyaxares to have been the first of the Median kings '; 
 rebels in Media and Sagartia claimed the Median throne 
 against Darius, as descended from Cyaxares, as the founder of 
 the Monarchy y. 
 
 Further, the subsequent history supports the account of 
 Abydenus against Herodotus, that not the Medes, but the re- 
 bel general of the last Monarch of Nineveh was, with his Ba- 
 bylonian troops, the chief author of the destru('tion of Nine- 
 veh. The chief share of the spoil, where no motives of refined 
 policy intervene, falls to the strongest, who had chief portion 
 in the victory. " The Medes," says Herodotus, " took Nineveh, 
 and conquered all Assyria, except the Babylonian portions" 
 But Babylon was no spared province, escaping with its inde- 
 pendence as a gain. Babylonia, not Media, succeeded to the 
 Southern and Western dominions of the Assyrian empire, and 
 the place, where Nineveh had stood, Cyaxares retaining the 
 North. This was a friendly arrangement, since subsequently 
 too we find a Babylonian prince in the expedition of Cyaxares 
 against Asia Minor, and Medians assisting Nebuchadnezzar 
 against the king of Egypt ". Abydenus represents the Baby- 
 lonians and Medes, as equal '', but exhibits the rebel general, 
 as the author of the attack. " ■= After him [Sardanapal], Sarac 
 held the empire of Assyria, who, being informed of a horde of 
 mingled troops which were coming against him from the sea, 
 sent Busalossor [Nebopalassar] general of his army, to 
 Babylon. But he, having determined to revolt, betrothed to 
 hisson,Nebuchodrossor, Amuhea, daughterof Asdahag,prince 
 of the Medes, and soon made a rapid attack on Nineveh. King 
 Sarac, when he knew the whole, set the palace Evorita on fire. 
 Then Nebuchodrossor, attaining to the empire, encircled Ba- 
 bylon with strong walls." 
 
 The "horde of mingled troops" "from the sea" were pro- 
 bably those same Susians and Elymaeans, whom the Assyrians 
 had, in successive reigns, defeated. If the account of Hero- 
 dotus were true, the father of the Median Monarch had 
 perished in conflict with Assyria. The grandfather of the 
 Assyrian Monarch had himself reigned in Babylon. Assyria 
 ruled Babylon by viceroys to the end. It has been noticed 
 that Nahum mentions no one enemy who should destroy 
 Nineveh. True, for no one enemy did destroy her. 
 
 Even now its fall is unexplained. The conquests of its 
 Monarchs had not been the victories of talented individuals. 
 They were a race of world-wide conquerors. In the whole 
 history, of which we have the annals, they are always on the 
 aggressive. They exacted tribute where they willed. The 
 tide of time bore them on in their conquests. Their latest 
 conquests were the most distant. Egypt, her early rival, had 
 been subdued by her. The powers, which did destroy her, had 
 no common bond of interest. They were united, for one 
 
 » i. 95, 6. • 2 Kgs. xvii. 6. » Her. i. 101. 
 
 ^ Persae 761-4. 7 Behistun Inscr., quoted by Rawl. Her. i. 409. '■ i. 106. 
 
 » Rawl. Herod. i. 415, 6. •> Conf. Tobit xiv. 15. "Before he died, he heard of 
 
 the destruction of Nineveh, which was taken by Nahuchonosor and Ahasuerus." 
 t Euseb. Chron. P. I.e. 9.
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 367 
 
 rei^n, not by natural interests, but, as far as we see, by the 
 uuibition of two individuals. These crushed, at once and for 
 ever, tlie empire which for so many centuries had been tlie 
 ravager of the world. But who cotild have foreseen such a 
 combination and such results, save God, in Whose hands are 
 human wills and the fate of empires? 
 
 The fiery empire of conquerors sank like a tropic sun. Its 
 wrath had burned, unassuaged, "from" (in their own words) "the 
 rising to the setting sun." No gatliering cloud had temper- 
 ed its heat or allayed its violence. Just ere it set. in those 
 last hours of its course, it seemed, as if in its meridian. Its 
 bloodstained disk cast its last glowing rays on that field of 
 carnage in Susiana; then, without a twilight, it sank beneath 
 those stormy waves, so strangely raised, at once and for ever. 
 All, at once, was night. It knew no morrow. 
 
 Its fall is inexplicable still. It may have accelerated its own 
 destruction by concentrating the fierce Chaldees at Babylon. 
 It was weakened by the revolt of its own general, and with 
 him the defection of an army. Still, in those days, the city 
 of 1200 towers, each 200 feet high, its ordinary wall 100 feet 
 higli and of such breadth, that three chariots could drive on 
 it abreast '', could not be taken by mounds, except by some 
 most gigantic army with patience inexhaustible. Famine 
 could not reduce a city, which, in its 60 miles in circumference, 
 enclosed,like Babylon, space for "much cattle, and which could, 
 within itswalls, grow corn enough for its populationof 600,000. 
 With its perennial supply of provision, it might have laughed 
 to scorn a more formidable foe than the Medes, Elamites and 
 Babylonians, unaccustomed to sieges, except in as far as any 
 had fought in its armies, while the Ninevites possessed the 
 hereditary skill of centuries. Babylon, smaller than Nineveh', 
 was at rest amidst the siege of the more powerful grandson 
 of Cyaxares. Cyrus could only take it by stratagem ; Darius 
 Hystaspes, by treachery. Then, every Ninevite was a war- 
 rior. Their descendants, the Curds, are still among the 
 fiercest and most warlike people of Asia. The bas-reliefs, 
 which bear internal evidence of truth, exhibit a wonderful 
 blending of indomitable strength of will, recklessness of suf- 
 fering,inherentphysicalenergy,uninipaired by self-indulgence. 
 A German writer on art says ?, " You recognise a strong 
 thickset race, of very powerful frame, yet inclined to corpu- 
 lence, a very peculiar blending of energy and luxury. — The 
 general impression of the figures, whether men, women or 
 eunuchs, has uniformly something earnest and imposing." An 
 English writer says still more vividly ; " •■ All the figures in- 
 dicate great physical developement, animal propensities very 
 strongly marked, a calm, settled ferocity, a perfect noncha- 
 lance amidst the most terrible scenes; no change of feature 
 takes place, whether the individual is inflicting or experienc- 
 ing horrid sufferings. — The pictures are very remarkable as 
 indicating the entire absence of higher mental and moral 
 qualities : and the exuberance of brutal parts of man's nature. 
 At the same time there is not wanting a certain consciousness 
 of dignity and of inherent power. There is a tranquil energy 
 and fixed determination, which will not allow the beholder to 
 feel any contempt of those stern warriors." 
 
 How then could it fall ? The prophecy of Nahum describes, 
 with terrible vividness, a siege ; the rousing of its king from 
 a torpor of indolence; 'Ae remembereth his iiobles ; the orderly 
 advance, the confused preparations for defence; and then, 
 when expectation is strung, and we see besiegers and besieged 
 
 ■i Diod. Sic. ii. 3. 'Jon.iv.U. ' Strabo xvi. p. 757. « Kugler Kunst-Geschichte, 
 
 (2) p. 75, 6. in Strauss Nahum p. li. •> Edwards in Kitto Scr. Lands pp. 50, 1. 
 
 >ii.5,[6.] " ii.6,7. [7,8.] i Assyr. Texts p. 7. " Ass. B.O. ii. 112. 
 
 ■■ A.D. 835, 941, 988, 1211. Barh. p. 153. 188. 204. 50U. » lb. p. 153. 
 
 prepared for the last decisive strife, there is a sudden pause. 
 No human strength overthrows the city. ^ Tin: gates of the 
 rivers nhalL be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved, ^nd 
 it is decreed, she shall be led away captive. Ilcr captivity fol- 
 lows on tli(! opening of the gates of the rivers. The rivers, 
 ordinarily lier strength, were also her weakness. The annals 
 of Sennacherib relate, how he repaired a palace which had 
 been undermined by the Tigris. '"The small palace, which 
 was become very ruinous in every part, because the river Ti- 
 gris, during 16 years, had undermined and ravaged it, [I re- 
 paired.]" Dionysius, the Jacobite Patriarch, relates how in 
 his own time, A.D. 763, ""'the Tigris, overflowing, laid waste 
 all the towns around it, and especially Mosul" (opposite to 
 Nineveh). Barhebra!iis, in four difi'erent years, mentions the 
 destruction of houses in Bagdad through the- overflow of the 
 Tigris". He mentions also a city-wall, overthrown by an in- 
 undation, so that 3000 men were drowned in their houses". 
 Ives relatesP; "TheBishop (of Babylon) remembers tbat"about 
 1733 "the Euphrates and Tigris were so overflown, that tlic 
 whole (lountry between them appeared as one large sea. Over 
 all the plain between Bagdad and Hilla, people could pass only 
 in boats. The water flowed quite up to the glacis, the ditch 
 was full, the city also overflown, and the foundation of most 
 of the buildings hurt ; .300 houses were entirely destroyed. To 
 prevent as much as possible" the recurrence of such a calamity, 
 " the Turks now face the foundation-wall of their houses with a 
 composition of charcoal, ashes, and Demar (bitumen)." "Tiie 
 river Khosar," also, which would be swollen by the same causes 
 as the Tigris, " entered the city," says Ainsworth i, " by an 
 aperture in the wails on the East side, which appears to have 
 formed part of the original plan and to have been protected 
 by a gateway and walls, vestiges of which still remain." "The 
 Khausser," says Mr. Rich ■■, " is generally drawn off for ir- 
 rigating the cotton-plantations in the alluvial ground of tlie 
 river ; when it is much overflowed, it discharges itself into the 
 Tigris above the bridge." "'The Khausser now [Dec. 1. after 
 "very heavy tropical rain,"] discharges itself dire('t into the 
 Tigris, and brings an immense body of water." '"After rain, 
 it becomes an impetuous torrent, overflowing its banks anci 
 carrying all before it." " ' The stone-bridge was carried away 
 one night by the violence of the Khausser, on a sudden in- 
 undation." On a lesser swelling of the river, — "'the water- 
 wheels were removed " in precaution "and the bridge of boats 
 opened." Cazwini, the Arabic geographer, speaks of " " the 
 rivers of Nineveh." 
 
 Ctesias, being a writer of suspected authority, cannot safely 
 be alleged in proof of the fulfilment of prophecy. Yet in this 
 case his account, as it is in exact conformity with the obvious 
 meaning of the prophecy of Nahum, so it solves a real diffi- 
 culty, how Nineveh, so defended, could have fallen. It seems 
 certain that the account of the siege taken from him by Di- 
 odorus, is that of the last siege. It has been remarked'' thai 
 the only event of the siege, known from any other source, viz. 
 that the last Assyrian king, when he had learned the combi- 
 nation of the Medes and Babylonians against him, set fire to 
 his palace, is related also by Ctesias, Ctesias has also the same 
 fact, that the Babylonian revolt was recent ; the name of the 
 revolted general in Ctesias, Belisis, is the latter half of that gi- 
 ven to him by Abydenusy,Nebopalassar, omitting only the name 
 of the god, Nebo. The rest of the history is in itself proba- 
 ble. The success of the Assyrian monarch at first against 
 
 p Voyage 1773. p. 281. i Travels ii. 142, 3. ' Koordistan, ii.56. 
 
 • lb. p. &1. « Layard N. and B. p. 77. 
 
 » Quoted by Tuth de Nino urbe p. 9A. i Rawl. Her. i. 413. 
 
 f Abydenus in Ettsb. Chron. Can. P. i. c. 9. 
 
 3i2
 
 308 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 the combined armies, and the consequent revelry, arc that 
 same blendinj;- of fien^cncss and sensuality wliich is stamped 
 on all the Assyrian sculptures, eonliiiued to the end. The 
 rest of his relation, whieh, on account of the facts of nature, 
 which \ye know, but which, since they are gathered from 
 sources so various, Ctesias probably did not know, is, in itself, 
 probal)Ie, accounts for what is unaccounted for, and corre- 
 sponds with the words of Nahum. It is, " " Sardanapalus, see- 
 in<; the whole kinjrdom in the greatest danger, sent his three 
 sons and two daughters with much wealth to Paphlagonia to 
 Cotta the Governor,being the best-disposedof his subjects. He 
 himself sent by messengers to all his subjects for forces, and 
 prepared what was needed for the siege. He had an oracle 
 handed down from his forefathers, that no one should take 
 Nineveh, unless the river first became an enemy to the city. 
 Conceiving that this never would be, he held to his hopes, 
 purposing to abide the siege and awaited the armies to be 
 sent by his subjects." "The rebels, elated by their suc- 
 cesses, set themselves to the siege, but on account of the 
 strength of tlie walls, could in no wise injure those in the 
 city." " But these had great abundance of all necessaries 
 through the foresight of the king. The siege then being 
 prolonged for two years, they pressed upon it ; assaulting 
 the walls and cutting off those therein from any exit 
 into the country." " In the 3rd year, the river, swollen 
 by continuous and violent rains, inundated a part of the 
 city and overthrew 20 stadia of the wall. Then the king, 
 thinking that the oracle was fulfilled, and that the river was 
 plainly an enemy to the city, despaired of safety. And, 
 not to fall into the enemy's hands, he made an exceeding 
 great pile in the palace, heaped up there all the gold and 
 silver and the royal apparel, and having shut up his concu- 
 bines and eunuchs in the house formed in the midst of the 
 pile, consumed himself and all tlie royalties with them all. 
 The rebels, hearing that Sardanapalus had perished, possessed 
 themselves of the city,entering by the broken part of the wall." 
 
 Yet Nahum had also jjrophesied''; ''the fire shall devour 
 thy bars;" "fortify thy strong holds, there shall the fire de- 
 vour thee;" "I will burn her chariots in the smoke," and all 
 the ruins of Nineveh still speak from beneath the earth where 
 they lie interred, that, overthrown as they have been by some 
 gigantic ])Ower, fire consumed them within. "<^The palaces 
 of Khorsabad (Dur Sarjina) and Nimrud shew equal traces of 
 fire with those of Koyunjik." "''The recent excavations have 
 shown that fire was a great instrument in the destruction 
 of the Nineveh palaces. Calcined alabaster, masses of charred 
 wood and charcoal, colossal statues split through with the 
 heat, are met with in parts of the Ninevite mounds, and 
 attest the veracity of prophecy." "' It is evident from the ruins 
 that Khorsabad and Nimroud were sacked, and set on fire." 
 
 Yet this does not exhaust the fulness of the prophecy. Na- 
 hum not only foretold the destruction of Nineveh, that it 
 should be empty, void, waste, there is 710 healing of thy bruise, 
 but in emphatic words, that its site also should be a desola- 
 tion. TVith an overriuming Jiood He shall jnake the place 
 thereof (mekornah) a desolation^ This was then new in the 
 history of the world. Cities have remained, while empires 
 
 « In Diod. Sic. ii. 27. Diodonis has "Euphrates" in conformity with his own error, 
 that Nineveh was on that river. 
 
 •> iii. 13. li. ii. 14. "^ Rawl. Herod, i. 488. quoting " Layard Nin. and its Remains 
 
 i.l2.27,40.&c.Nin.andB. [of Niniriid] p. 351,357, 3511. &c. Vaux Nineveh and Ferse- 
 polis p.l'J(i-!t. Bona Letter ii. p.'JU. iii. p. 41. &c." "They [the luiman-headed bulls] had 
 Buftered, like all llwse previously discovered, from the fire." Lay. N. and B. p. 71. " It [the 
 wall] contained some fragments of calcined sculptured alabaster, evidently detached ft om 
 the bas-reliefs on the walls." lb. Add of Kouyunjik, Athenaeum N. 900. Jan. 25. 1845. 
 p. 99. J Rawl. lb. note 2. « Bonorai p.461. 'i.S. s Anab. iii. 4. 10. I" lb. 12. 
 
 passed away. Rome, Constantinople, Athens, Damascus, 
 Alexandria, Venice, abide, altliougb tiieir political might is 
 extinct. No or Thebes itself survived its capture by Sargon 
 and ayet later loss of its inhabitants nearly two centuries, when 
 the more fatal contjuest of Cambyses, and perhaps the rise of 
 Memphis perpetuated its destruction. Nahum foretells em- 
 phatically as to Nineveh, " He will make the place thereof an 
 utter consum|)tion." Not only would God destroy the then 
 Nineveh ; but the very ]ilace or site thereof should be an utter 
 desolation. There was, then, no instance of so great a city 
 passing away. Such had not been Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyp- 
 tian policy. It had become an established policy in Senna- 
 cherib's time to remove populations, not to destroycities. And 
 these two policies were incompatible. For a conqueror who 
 would remove jiopulations must have, whither to remove them. 
 Nineveh itself had conquered Babylon and Shushan, and the 
 cities of the Medes ; but had placed her own lieutenants in 
 them. The mere destruction of such a city as Nineveh was 
 " contrary to experience." Even later than this, Babylon, 
 notwithstanding its rebellions, was spared by its first conquer- 
 or, and survived to be the grave of its second, Alexander. 
 Xenophon describes Nineveh under the name of Mespila (of 
 which Mosul has been supposed to be a corruption) "ea wall, 
 void, large, lying against the city — the basement was of 
 polished stone, full of shells, its width 50 feet, its height 50 
 feet. Thereon was built a wall of brick, its breadth 50 feet, 
 the height l(X); the circuit was six farsangs," i. e. 22^ miles. 
 The shell remained; the tumult of life was gone. Its pro- 
 tecting bulwarks remained ; all, which they protected, had 
 disappeared. They had forgotten already on the spot 
 what it had been or by whom it had perished. "'' The Medes 
 inhabited it formerly. It was said that Media, a king's 
 wife, had fled thither, when the Medes were losing their 
 power through the Persians. The Persian king, besieging 
 this city, couhl not take it, either by time or force; but Zeus 
 made the inhabitants senseless, and so it was taken." 
 A little later, Alexander marched over its site to gain the 
 world, not knowing that a world-empire, like that which he 
 gave his life to found, was buried under his feet '. Gaugamela, 
 near which Darius lost his empire, must have been close to its 
 site. Yet three centuries, and history, not its mere neighbours 
 only, had forgotten when it had perished. Strabo says'', " It 
 was effaced immediately after the destruction of the Syrians." 
 Nearly two centuries later is Lucian's saying, " ' Nineveh has 
 perished, and there is no trace left where it once was." 
 Yet before this time, in the reign of Claudius, the Romans 
 had built a new Nineveh which they called by his name 
 " Ninive Claudiopolis." In the 6th century, it is mentioned 
 as a Christian see ™. Its episcopate was taken away, pro- 
 bably on account of its decline, early in the 9th century ; and 
 it was united to Mosul". It was still in being at the begin- 
 ning of the I4th century". Yet, in the I2th century, as a 
 whole, "Pit was desolate, but there were there many vil- 
 lages and castles." This was not the Nineveh of prophecy ; 
 but it too was swept away, and a few coins alone attest the 
 existence of the Roman city. " The city, and even the ruins 
 of the city," relates Gibbon i of the last victory of Heraclius, 
 
 * It is noticed, that Arrian alone mentions the name of Nineveh ; and he too speaks 
 of it, in relation to the course of the Tigris, not of the battle. "The lake, into which 
 the Tigris discharges itself, which, flowing by the city Ninus formerly a great and weal- 
 thy city, forms the country between it [Tigris] and the Euphrates." Ind. p. 197. ed. 
 Vail. i* xvii. 1. 3. ' Charon c. Sj. 
 
 ° See Ass. B. O. iii. 1. p. 104. ■■ Bv Josua Bar Nun Catholicus A. D. 820-824. 
 
 Ass. iii. p. 3-1-1, coll. p. 165. » Ebedjesu, who died A.D. 1318, (Ass. i. 539.) ivrott 
 
 to the Ninevites on the plague. Ass. iii. 1. 143. 
 
 P Benjamin Tud. p. 3J ed. Asher. i c. 4G.
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 369 
 
 "had Ions: since disappeared; the vacant space afTorded a 
 spacious field for the operation of the two armies." A line of 
 lofty mounds, on the East of J'if;:ris, lonu: drew hut a momen- 
 tary gaze from the passers-by ; a few cottajjes surmounted 
 the heaps, which entomijed the pahures of kin{i;s, who were 
 the terror of the East ; the plouf^h turned uj), unheeded, the 
 bricks, which recorded their deeds ; the tide of war swept 
 over it anew; the summer's sands acjain filled up '"'the stu- 
 pendous mass of brick-work, occasionally laid bare by the 
 winter rains." The eyes rested on nothinj^ hut '"^ the stern 
 shapeless mound, rising like a hill from the scorched plain." 
 '•'The traveller is at a loss to give any form to the rude 
 heaps, upon wbi<'h be is gazing. Those of whose works they 
 are the remains, unlike the Roman and the Greek, have 
 left no visible traces of their civilization or of their arts; 
 their influence has long since passed away. The scene 
 around him is worthy of the ruin he is contemplating; deso- 
 lation meets desolation ; a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder, 
 for there is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope, or 
 to tell of what has gone by. Those huge mounds of Assyria 
 made a deeper impression upon me, gave rise to more serious 
 thoughts and more earnest reflection, than the temples of 
 Baalbec and the theatres of Ionia." 
 
 In 1827, Buckingham still wrote': "we came in about an 
 hour to the principal mounds which are thought to mark the 
 site of the ancient Nineveh. There are four of these mounds, 
 disposed in the form of a square; and these, as they 
 shew neither bricks, stones, nor other materials of building, 
 but are in many places overgrown with grass, resemble the 
 mounds left by entrenchments and fortifications of ancient 
 Roman camps. The longest of these mounds runs nearly N. 
 and S. and consists of several ridges of unequal height, the 
 whole appearing to extend for four or five miles in length. 
 There are three other distinct mounds, which are all near 
 to the river, and in the direction of E. and W. — There are ap- 
 pearances of mounds and ruins extending for several miles 
 to the southward ; and still more distinctly seen to the North- 
 ward of this, though both are less marked than the mounds 
 of the centre. The space between these is a level plain, over 
 every part of the face of which, broken pottery, and the 
 other usual debris of ruined cities are seen scattered about." 
 " Mounds and smaller heaps of ruins were scattered widely 
 over the plain, sufficient to prove, that the site of the original 
 city occupied a vast extent." Niebuhr had ridden through 
 Nineveh unknowingly. "'I did not learn that I was at so 
 remarkable a spot, till near the river. Then they showed 
 me a village on a great hill, which they call Nunia, and a 
 mosque, in which the Prophet Jonah was buried. Another 
 hill in this district is called Kalla Nunia, or the Castle of 
 Nineveh. On that lies a village Koindsjug. At Mosul, 
 where I dwelt close by the Tigris, they showed me in addi- 
 tion the walls of Nineveh, which in my journey through I 
 had not observed, but supposed to be a set of hills." " It is 
 well known," begins an account of the recent discoveries ", 
 " that in the neighbourhood of Mosul, travellers had observed 
 
 ' Layard, Nineveh i. pp. 6, 7. ■ Travels ii. 49-52, 62. ' Reisebeschr. ii. 353. 
 
 ° W. S. V. Vaux in (ieopr. Diet. ii. 438. ' Arr. iii. 7. The same route was recom- 
 mended to Antiochus the great. Polyb. v. 51. Xenophon relates the scarcity in Cyrus' 
 advancing army on the Euphrates route, .\nab. i. 5. 4; Dio Cassius, the sufferings of 
 the army of Severus L. Ixxv. 1. 
 
 y Ezelc. xxvii.23. "Eden" (Ib.)ismentioned in 2 Kgs.xix. 12, as having been subdued 
 by Assyria; " Chalmad" remains unknown; "Sheba" spread too widely to the desert 
 oi' Syria (Strabo xvi. 4. 21.) for the mention of it to be any indication that those thus 
 grouped together did not live in the same direction. 
 
 ' Herod, i. 1. vii. 8y. and Rawlinson ib. and App. to B.vii. Essay 2.T. iv. pp. 2-11. sqq. 
 
 " Abulpharaj Hist. Dyn. p. 218 sqq. quoted by Tuch deNino urbep. 32. Col. Chesney 
 
 some remarkable mounds, resembling small hills, and that 
 Mr. Rich had, thirty years ago, called attention to one called 
 Kdi/uiijili, in which fragments of sculpture and pottery had 
 been frequently discovered." 
 
 And yet, humanly speaking, even if destroyed, it was proba- 
 ble before-hand, that it would not altogether perish. For a 
 town near its site was needed for purposes of commerce. 
 t)f the two routes of commerce from the Persian gulf to the 
 North by the Euphrates or by the Tigris, the Tigris-route 
 was free from the perils of the arid wilderness, through which 
 the line by the Euphrates passed. If, for the downward 
 course, the Euphrates itself was navigable, yet the desert 
 presented a difficulty for caravans rettirning upwards from 
 the Persian gulf. Arrian, who mentions the two lines of travel, 
 says that Alexander, having crossed the Euphrates at 
 Thapsacus, chose the less direct line by the Tigris, as '■ having 
 a better supply of all things, food for bis cavalry, and a less 
 scorching heat. The mention of Harari (afterwards Carrha') 
 Canneh, and Asshur in Ezekiel, (in one versed) seems to in- 
 dicate the continuation of the same line of commerce with 
 Tyre, which must have existed from pra-historic^ times (i. e. 
 from times of which we have no definite historic- account), 
 since there is no ground to question the statement of the 
 Phoenicians themselves in Herodotus, that they had come 
 from the Erythraean sea % i.e. the Persian gulf. The later hin- 
 drances to the navigation of the Tigris by the great dams 
 (probably for irrigation), were of Persian date ; but they 
 could have had no great efi'ect on the actual commerce ; since 
 for the greater part of the upward course on the Tigris line, 
 this also must, on account of the rapidity of the river,bave been 
 by caravans. The route was still used in the middle ages '. 
 " ''The ancient road and the modern one on the upper Tigris 
 follow, pretty nearly throughout, the same line, it being 
 determined by the physical necessities of the soil." In the 
 16th century, ""^from the head of the Persian gulf two 
 commercial lines existed : by one of them goods were carried 
 some way up the Euphrates, and then by land to Bir, Aleppo, 
 Iskenderun. By the other they followed the Tigris to Bagh- 
 dad and were carried by Diyar-Bekr and Sivas toTerabuzum. 
 [But Mosul was necessarily on the way from Baghdad to Diyar 
 Bekr]. Mosul still lies on the line of commerce, from the 
 Persian gulf, Basrah, Baghdad, Mosul, Mardin, Diyar-Bekr to 
 Iskenderun, the port of Aleppo ^, or Trebizond [Tarabuzum '.] 
 It still carries on some commerce with Kurdistan and 
 other provinces' [besides Diyar-Bekr and Baghdad]. Col. 
 Chesney, in 1850, advocated the advantages of extending the 
 line of commerce by British stations at Diyar-Bekr and 
 Mardin, in addition to and connection with those already 
 existing at Baghdad and Mosul s. There is, in fact, a consent 
 as to this. Layard writes; '""The only impediment be- 
 tween the Syrian coast and the Tigris and Euphrates 
 in any part of their course, arises from the want of 
 proper security. The navigation of the Persian gulf is, 
 at all times, open and safe ; and a glance at the map 
 will shew that a line through the Mediterranean, the port of 
 
 counts IMosul among the flourishing commercial centres in the time of Abu'l Abbas 
 A. D. 749. Expedition ii. 581. 
 
 ' Ainsworth Travels ii. 337- Tuch quotes also Campbell's Land journey to India p. 252, 
 that " the merchants still, from the nature of the country, go from the Persian 
 gulf to Armenia and Syria and thence again to Bagdad by the same route through Mosul 
 and Arbela, by which large bodies of men went formerly." 
 
 « Chesnev's Expedition ii. 589. '' Ib. ii. 595. ' Ib. 596. ' Ib. i. 21. 
 
 ? '"The Tigris being already provided with stations at Bagdad and Mosul — it only 
 requires another at Diyar BeKr, and the neighbouring town of Mardin. since the 
 connection of the former places with the countries about it would speedily cause a 
 revival of its ancient commerce." Chesney Expedition ii. C02. " Nin. and Bab. p. 469.
 
 370 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 Sucdia, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad, Biisrah, and the Indian 
 Orean to Bombay is as direct as can well be desired. With 
 those prospects, and with the incalculable advantages, which 
 a flourishing commerce and a safe and speedy transit through, 
 pei'haps. the richest portions of its dominions would confer 
 upon the Turkish empire, it would seem that more than 
 Eastern apathy is shown in not taking some steps, tending to 
 restore security to the country watered by the Tigris and 
 Euphrates." Ainsworth suggests a still wider commerce, of 
 which Mosul might be the centre. "' With a tranquil state 
 of the surrounding country, Mosul presents mercantile ad- 
 vantages of no common order. — There are several roads open 
 to Persia, across the mountains ; a transit from five to seven 
 days, and by which, considering the short distance and good 
 roads from Mosul to Iskenderun, British manufactures might 
 be distributed into the heart of Persia, in a time and at an 
 expense, which the line of Trebizond Erzrum and Tabriz, 
 that of Bushire and Baghdad, or the Russian line of Astra- 
 khan Bakhu and Mazenderan can never rival." 
 
 But although marked out by these advantages for continu- 
 ance, even when its power was gone, Nineveh was to perish and 
 it perished. Nor ought it to be alleged, that in other cases too, 
 " if the position of the old capital was deemed, from political or 
 commercial reasons, more advantageous than any other, the 
 population was settled in its neighbourhood, as at Delhi, not 
 amidst its ruins." For 1) there was, at the time of Nahum, no 
 experience of the destruction of any such great city as Nine- 
 veh ; 2) In the case of conquest, the capital of the conquering 
 empire became, ipso facto, the capital of the whole ; but 
 this did not, in itself, involve the destruction of the former. 
 Babylon, from having been the winter-residence of Cyrus, 
 became the chief residence of the Persian Emperor at the time 
 of Alexander, and continued to exist for many centuries, 
 after the foundation of Selcucia, although it ceased to be a 
 great city''. And this, notwithstanding its two rebellions 
 under Darius', and that under Xerxes'". There was no 
 ground of human policy against Nineveh's continuing, such as 
 Mosul became, any more than Mosul itself. It existed for 
 some time, as a Christian See. 
 
 The grandeur, energy, power, vividness of Nahum, na- 
 turally can be fuUy felt only in his own language. The force 
 of his brief prophecy is much increased by its unity. Nahum 
 had one sentence to pronounce, the judgements of God upon 
 the power of this world, which had sought to annihilate the 
 kingdom of God. God, in His then kingdom in Judah, and 
 the world, were come face to face. What was to be the issue ? 
 The entire final utter overthrow of whatever opposed God. 
 Nahum opens then with the calm majestic declaration of the 
 majesty of God; Who God is, against whom they rebelled ; 
 the madness of their rebellion, and the extinction of its chief: 
 (c. 1) ; then in detail, what was to come long after that first 
 
 • Travels ii. 127. * See Diet, of Greek and Rom. Geogr. i. 358. 
 
 ' Behistun Inscr. in Rawl. Herod, ii. 595-597. 608. ■" Ctesias Exe. Pers. 22. 
 
 " iii. 7. ° P- 556. P Davison on Prophecy, p. 3G9. i N. i. 7. 
 
 ' Nah. ii. 1. Di'jB' jj-ce'D tpdo -Sy^ Dinn hv n:n. Is. lii. 7. vaera hbtd 'Sn cmn Sy iim no 
 DiSb'. It seems to me impossible that Nahum, had he been adapting the words of Isaiah, 
 would have left out the tender ilNl .ID at the beginning, or the triumphant softly-flowing 
 continuation, lyrhtt l'?D p-sS -ON nyic" V'CISD 3iB le'SD at the end. 
 
 • The following, at least in form or idiom, stand alone in Nahum ; the condensed forms 
 ^^^.(though with analogies) i. 4 ; D'Niap i. 10 ; irtJi i. 12 ; ob, else noio as " yoke " i. 13 ; dSidi 
 masc. ii. 3; D'y^nn (denom. from nfyn) ii. 4; m^? lb. CTn? like ix(\ia, i\dT7i, 
 "abies," of the spear,) lb. iVynn "are quivered ; " verb too ojt.) lb, pp^pPUf'^ (form) ii. 5. 
 «!(ri;{form) lb. 553 ("covered way") ii. 6. 2>tm -'and it is decreed" ii. 8 (See Ib.)nciJ'f 
 (form, the meaning is determined by rt^j See lb.) lb. rt^qjlj ("moaning") lb. niBBJlip 
 
 overthrow, the siege and capture of Nineveh itself, (c.2.); then, 
 in wider compass, the overthrow of the whole j)Ower (c. ',i.) 
 It was to be the first instance, in the history of mankind, 
 of a power so great, perishing and for ever. Nahum's office 
 was not, as Jonah's, to the people itself. There is then no 
 call to repentance, no gleam of God's mercy towards them in 
 this life. Nineveh was to perish wholly, as the habitable 
 world had perished in the time of Noah. The only relief is 
 in the cessation of so much violence. There is no human joy 
 expressed at this destruction of the enemy of God and of His 
 people ; no sorrow, save that there can be no sorrow ; " " who 
 will bemoan her? whence shall I find comforters for her?" 
 
 In conformity with this concentration of Nahum's subject, 
 there is little in outward style or language to connect him 
 with the other Prophets. His opening (as already observed") 
 bears upon God's declarations of mercy and judgement ; but, 
 Nineveh having filled up the measure of its iniquities, he had 
 to exhibit the dark side of those declarations ; how much 
 lay in those words, " that will by no means clear the guilty." 
 "P Jonah and Nahum form connected parts of one moral 
 history, the remission of God's judgment being illustrated 
 in the one, the execution of it in the other: the clemency and 
 the just severity of the Divine government being contained in 
 the mixed delineation of the two books." His evangelic 
 character just gleams through, in the eight tender words, in 
 which he seems to take breath, as it were ; " Tob Yhvh 
 Iema6zbey6mtsarah,vey6deah chose bo,""GoodisGod(Yhvh), 
 refuge in day of trouble, and knowing trusters in Him i ; " 
 then again, in the few words, which I think Isaiah expanded, 
 "Lo on the mountains the feet of a good-tidings-bearer, peace- 
 proclaimer"^." Else there is only the mingled tenderness and 
 austereness of truth, which would sympathise w ith the human 
 being, but that that object had, by putting off all humanity, 
 alienated all which is man. "Who will bemoan her? 
 Whenceshalll seek comforters for thee ?" Who? and Whence? 
 None had escaped evil from her. " Upon whom hath not thy 
 wickedness passed continually? " 
 
 It is difficult for us, who have to gather up our knowledge 
 of the sacred language from the fragments which remain, in 
 which also the number of words forms and idioms, which 
 stand out singly here and there, seem but so many speci- 
 mens of lost treasure, to judge with any certainty, whether 
 any approximation of idiom, which we may observe, implies 
 any connection between the writers in whom it occurs. Na- 
 hum has, especially in his picture of the capture of Nineveh, 
 so many of those aira^ Xeyofieva, consisting often of slight 
 modifications ', his language is so rich and so original, that 
 one the more doubts whether in those idioms, in which he 
 seems to approximate to other prophets, the expressions in 
 common do not belong to the common stock of the language ; 
 and that the more, since mostly" part of the idiom only co- 
 incides, the rest is different ^. As for the so-called Syriasms 
 
 (form and metaphor; Kal once Ps. Ixviii. 26) lb. [na?^ masc. plur. lb. K'n "C'D ii. 9. 
 njiDn (like "apparatus") ii. 10. npa and ngflD "void" and, as to the form, .ip^no (a 
 fern. part, used as an abstract ; elsewhere is only the act. part, kal, p7^3 Is. xxiv. l)ii. 11. 
 p"3 "shaking" (of knees) lb. p3nt3, form, ii. 13. (else Nif. 3 Sam. xvii. 23; noun, pj05 
 Job vii. 15) ]e]!2 'myn (prajgii. idioni) ii. 14. p"i3 (in this sense) iii. 1. im (the verb) iii. 2. 
 (noun, .TiiTi, Jud. v. 22.) nyp (i. q. rrnyj iii. 5. Df^'^ (only instance of etymol. meaning) 
 iii. 6. 'KT (as, " spectacle ") lb. ipi?"i (part. pass. fem. as noun Is. xl. 19) iii. 10. "tSsn.T (of 
 oppressive number) iii. 15. Dijfp iii.l7. IPBJ iii. 18. nn^ iii. 19. 
 
 " The correspondence is complete between Jo. ii. 6. iniffl isDp D':s ^3. and Nah. ii. 11, 
 insB is3p dSj '3S. 
 
 « Dr. Henderson (in addition to Nah. ii. 1, Is. lii. 7 see note r.) connects a) Tiy "jci* 
 mii^. nh^ Nah. i. 8 and nffji mn rhz i. 9 with ijjTi "joy Is. viii. 8 and ni^y— .TyTnji nh^ Is. x_ 
 23; b) .iS^aDl npi3Di npn N. ii. 11, with Piff^iat po.T ppn Is. xxiv. 1. c) D':nD Sd"! n'jni'm ii."
 
 NAHUISI. 
 
 '.71 
 
 or other peculitirities of language which Hitzij? would have 
 to be evidences of a later date^, and from some of which 
 others would infer that Nahuni lived at Nineveh itself, " the 
 
 11, nhrhn D'lfiD inSo Is. xxi. 3. But in a) no]) nSo is an idiom used not in Is. only but in 
 Jeremiah (5 times) in Ezekiel (twice) Zeplianiiili and Nehemiah. It is then an ordi- 
 nary Hebrew idiom. The peculiarity of Isaiah, that in both ph-ices (Is. x. 23, xxviii. 22) 
 he adds nsnmi, does not occur in Nahum. Nahum also has not the verb "jn?*, which 
 Isaiah uses in 5 ph^ces ; Isaiah does not use the noun 1^:^, wlilcli Naiium has, and v/liicl» 
 occurs in a Psalm of David (xxxii. 6). Nahum too speaks of a flood which shall pass over 
 and overwhelm ; Isai.ih, of a man who should pass over and pass away. In b) there is only 
 in common, th.it Isaiah joins the two like-soundinj; words ppl and phi as active verbs (of 
 which, the word common to the two prophets must be older than the Prophet Nahuni 
 (comp. "Balak" in the Pent.). Nahum unites two nouns, one from a different root pn, 
 the other a pass, intens. part. nufaD, as an abstract noun. The gradual lengthening of the 
 alliterate form occurs in Nahum only. Two of the three words in Nahum are aw. Key. 
 c) The mention of n'jn^n, "great writhing anguish," in connection with the loins, is 
 more remarkable, since n'^nSn occurs in those places only and Ez. xxx. .-I. !((with the same 
 constr. with 3) ; yet rii^j^D (although not nSnVn) occurs with li'inDi Ps. Ixvi. 11. It may 
 then only be an accidental coincidence of the same term. 
 
 O. Strauss thinks that d) Nah. i. 13 is from Is. x. 27; e) iii. 5 from Is. xlvii. 2. 3; 
 f) Nah. iii, 7 from Is. li. 19. But in d and e there is no characteristic word the same; in 
 Nah. i. 13 there is only the common imagery of breaking the yoke. Bto masc. occurs in 
 Nahum only ; nnoiD pni in Ps. ii. 3 (of men rebelling) and Jerem. 3 times. It is then a 
 common idiom. In f there is the correspondence of the idiom '^h !»• T> in Is. (which also 
 occurs Jer. XV. 5) in N. n^ lu' 'D, but with the difference that in Is. God speaks of the heavi- 
 ness of a sorrow which He will comfort; Nahum speaks of desohation which none can 
 comfort. The construction of ni] with S occurs Job ii. 11, xlii. 11, Jer. xvi. 5, xxii. 
 10, xlviii. 17 1 in .lob and Ps. Ixix. 21 ni: is united with en]. Tlie expression seems then to 
 belong to the common stock of the language ; the idiom T]9n]K 'O "Who (in what charac- 
 ter) shall I comfort thee ? " is peculiar to Isaiah. 
 
 Hitzigfurther would have it, that, "dhd^j occurs in N. iii. 10 exactly as in Is. xxiii. 9 
 alone besides; " whereas the only correspondence is, that Isaiah has the idiom, "honoured 
 of earth," "all honoured of earth," j-iN '1353 ; Nahum has, with the affix, "her honoured," 
 rt'i33i as Ps. cxiix. 8. en';!??]. 
 
 y Of the forms or words, which Hitzig would make characteristic of a later time 
 
 l).TTj;¥' i. 3 is only orthographically different from the more common, .ttVP ; yet not 
 only does mjli(> occur Job ix. 17, and the masc. t]!^, Is. xxviii. 2, but the verb is written 
 with b in the same meaning Ps. 1. 3, Iviii. 10, Job xxvii. 21. 
 
 2) N^sp occurs in Jos. xxiv. 19, the oldest book next to the Pentateuch, and having 
 much in common with it (see on Dan. p. 312 note 2), and in no later book, njp occurs 
 5 times in the Pentateuch ; this form KJp (not K\3p) survived in the Chaldee. 
 
 3)12"!!} iii. 18, is simply Nif. from U\S, a word as old as the Pentateuch, since the river, 
 Pishon, I'lK'S, is derived from it. Hitzig obtains his "pronunciation" by making it kal, 
 CB), a word not extant in Ileb. 
 
 4) "The form of the suffix of the 2nd person, ii. 14," njjNf'D, which has been urged 
 by all writers on his side, is the more singular ground of argument, because it turns 
 entirely on the vowels, which only represent a tradition of the expiring language. 
 Gesenius calls it " an especial fomi, which perhaps ought properly to be pronounced nj, 
 as masc, out of which the ptmctuator first made nj., in order in some sort of way to 
 indicate the feminine" (Lehrg. p. 216). Written n?3><^g, it is only the full and original 
 form of the pronominal affix, .13 (from njw for npN), as it is found in the Penta- 
 teuch, a;;!< Gen. iii. 9, npr Ex. xiii. 16, npnk Ex. xxix. 35. Nahum chose it probably as 
 a fuller form. It occurs in a Psalm of David, cxxxix. 5, at the close, ,1333, and in Jer. xxix. 
 25, n3D?'51 : as also with the verb, njiy^; 1 Kgs. xviii. 44, and, in the pause, ns-isjB Prov. 
 ii. 11, nSNJTD:, 1 Kings xviii. 10. Mss. have, some nSDnSo (19 De Rossi, 3 bv correction, 
 and 3 early Edd. De R.) "many have nxsha ;" 3 of De R. and 3 or 4 in the first 
 instance, had tlie regular npDK'ra. The messengers were the king's messengers (Is. 
 xxxvi. 2. 12. 13, xxxvii. 4. 6. 9. 17. 24.) and so the masculine form is in its place. 
 Punctuators probably (as Ges. conjectured) wished to assimilate it to the preceeding 
 feminines; Ewald lays down that n?. is a dialectic difference (p. 638 note) and uses 
 it as an argument for Nahum's living near Nineveh (Proph. i. 350). Davidson (iii. 301.) 
 follows Hitzig. 
 
 6) "The form of the suffix of the 3rd person, i. 13, ii. 4. comp. Hab. iii. 10." The 
 form n lies nearer to the original mn, than the contracted 1 ; it also occurs in the word 
 (nj'3^, 14 times in the Pentateuch (in Gen. 8 times, Levit. 5 times. Dent, once) ; it occurs 
 most (Ges. observes, Lehrg. p. 213) in words ending in .\, as nN"i3 10 times (3 in Levit.) 
 wnjc 7 times (5 in Gen. Ex. Lev.) \rhll in Ps. i. Ezek. twice, Jerem. once ; wps in Gen. 
 4 times, Exod. twice. Job tivice : although njji absolutely occurs 3 times only, (nyi is the 
 rule : it occurs 114 times, of which 42 are in the Pentateuch. The form in also occurs in 
 TOjV? Jud. xix. 21, in-iV Job xxv. 3. It is united with the plur. noun in ITiifiN Prov. 
 xxix. 18, and )nyi for irry-i 1 Sam. xxx. 26, Job xlii. 10 ; also (nn; Hab. iii. 10, i.tj'j; Job 
 xxiv. 2S. It is obviously used by Nahuni for its more stately sound. 
 
 6) "The meaning of V31 iii. 6," is one attributed to it by Hitz. only. 
 
 wish has been father to the thouffht." One only solid j^ound 
 there wonid he why Nahum should not have written his 
 prophecy, when, ai'cording to all history, it could alone have 
 
 7) " AsPilpel occurs more and more in later times, son^ci^ii. ll,{comp.\>pfnni; ii.5) 
 only occurs in Is. xxi. 3, Ez. xxx. 4. 9." Pilpel is formed on exactly the same principle, 
 as the other rarer intensive conjugations, the doubling of those letters of the root, most 
 capable of being doubled. In 73^3, it occurs from Genesis downwards. The use of the 
 word nSrijn Ijy two contemporaries, Isaiah and Nahum, was nothing remarkable. 
 
 8) " .So, plainly SiC ii. 3 could only in later times be used transitively, otherwise than as 
 united with m3!!'." Why? If 311? is transitive in the phrase, n)3f sis', "restore the 
 captivity" of Jacob, the corresponding phrase, I'm! nx 35* is but a variation of the 
 phrase, such as would naturally occur in any original writer. 3".c is transitive, also in 
 Ps. Ixxxv. 5, and Ezek. xlvii. 7, (since if intrans., as Abulwalid pointed out, it would 
 have been 'n)ai not 'J3',ir3) if not in Num. x. 36. Gesenius also pointed out that the 
 corresponding Arab yjT is both transitive, and intransitive, so that the useof the causative 
 conj. yj"iN is dialectic, according to Djauhari, or less pure (.See Lane sub v. T. i. p. 10.38). 
 It is consistent in Hengst. to deny the transitive meaning of 315 altogetlicr, but not to 
 make any idiomatic difl'erence between nat^ 35* and pKj yf, as belonging to different 
 dates. 
 
 9) ".•nii-D (ii. 2) in the sense of munitio, first occurs in the Chronicles." In the 
 Chronicles, the phrase is different. The idiom is a slight variation of the old masc, 17 
 iisn Ps. xxxi, 22. Ix, 11 (which the Chronicles too has, 2 C. viii. 5). The Chronicles, on 
 whatever ground, mostly adopt the feminine form in speaking historically of the fortified 
 cities built in Judah; once in the sing. rriisD "^j; 2 C. xiv. 5; else with two plurals 
 nniso ny, 2 C. xi. 10. 23. xii. 4. xiv. 6. xxi. 3. In one place only, having ended a verse, xi. 
 10, " and in Benjamin rti«p llj," the writer begins the next, (omitting the ly) " and 
 he strengthened nniscnnx." Nor is there any thing characteristic of a later period in 
 the use of the feminine ; and, any how, since the Chronicles were compiled after the 
 captivity, probably by Ezra, the use of the same form could have proved nothing, 
 as to whether a book were written 85 years, sooner or later, before the captivity. 
 
 " Also the Hebrew of Nahum is in part impure ; XS3 iii. 17, is probably not Semitic" 
 It probably is Semitic (see above p. 358) and Assyrian. The occurrence of what pro- 
 bably is a title of an Assyrian commander, not only fits the times of Nahum, when Assy- 
 rian invasions had begun, but the occurrence of an official title, (like that of " Pechah " 
 elsewhere, see Daniel the Prophet pp. 570, 571,) without any Syriasms, belongs to Na- 
 hum's time and life in Palestine. When three officers of Hezekiah understood Assyrian 
 (Is. xx.xvi. 11.), there is nothing surprising in the mention of an Assyrian title. Pechah 
 is also an Assyrian title, occurring in the Inscriptions in the plural "pahati," Oppert 
 Rapports p. 51. 52. 53. 57. 65. 74. " Tartan," in Isaiah and 2 Kings, is also probably an 
 Assyrian title, since Rabsaris, ' ' Chief of the Eunuchs," Rab-shakeh, Chief-cupbearer," 
 (with which Tartan is united in 2 Kings xviii. 17) are names of officers. Yet no satis- 
 factory etymology has been found for " Tartan." 
 
 10) " 13D, iii. 4, stands in Arabic meaning." The coincidence with Arabic would have 
 proved nothing ; but Nahum uses "CD in its common meaning. In Arabic also it signi- 
 fies " deceived," not (as Hitzig would have it) " meshed." 
 
 11) " inj, ii. 8, in Syriac meaning." sni, not in Syriac only, but in Arabic, signifies to 
 be "violently out ofbreath;" but this, which is its only meaning which could be brought to 
 bear on this passage, does not suit it, whereas that suggested by the Hebrew itself does. 
 In Nahum it is evidently a modification of the biliteral jn, in the same sense as niT which 
 is used of the low moaning of the dove, Is. xxxviii. 14, lix. 11 ; and the subst. .njj 
 " moaning" is united with D'yp and 'n (for "nj) Ezek. ii. 10. Another modification of 
 the bilitteral is 3':n Ps. v. 2, xxxix. 4. 
 
 12) "and im too, iii. 2 (only besides in the song of Deborah Jud. v, 22) is probably 
 equally only a Syriasm ; " i.e. supposing its meaning to be derived from -ai " circle," the 
 substitution of n for 1 occurs oftenest in Aramaic. In the root Tn itself however, the 
 nearest correspondence of Hebrew with any Semitic dialect is not with the Syriac but 
 with the Arabic; nn "generation" and the Arab, nni 'prolonged time," but also the 
 period of life (see Lane p. 923) ; whereas the Syr. Him only signifies " a mill." But 
 Hitzig himself sets aside these last, with the observation, "these appearances however 
 are sufficiently explained, if the home of Deborah was also Nahum's country, a border- 
 country towards Syria, inhabited in part by non-Israelites." 
 
 13) Hitzig makes neither 311:1 the Queen's name and so Assjlian, nor nnSs, although he 
 has his own fantastic meaning for each, derived from misapplication of the Arabic. The 
 alleged Syriasm in nnSs rests on an odd ground-work. The Syriac word K"17Shas 
 not been found in any Syriac author ; in one of three Syro-Arab. Lexica (Bar-Bahlul's) 
 it is explained by the Arabic word, " fuladso." This in its turn is interpreted by the 
 Persian, which again has, in Viillers, no Persian etymology. On the other hand the 
 Arabic " faladsa " " cut, " conj. ii. " cut to pieces," does give a good etymology for any 
 sharp instrument, as the "scythe" of a scj-thed chariot. 
 
 Yet this is the evidence on which Davidson tells the unlearned (Introd. iii. 301), " The 
 language is pure and classical with a few exceptions, as 3^3 to mourn, ii. 8, "vn iii. 2, 
 nnSs ii. 4, which are Syriasms. — These Syriasms cannot well be explained by tho 
 native locality of the prophet, which was towards the border-land of Syria and inhabited
 
 372 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO NAHU.M. 
 
 any interest for Judah, lon^ before the event itself, viz. if 
 He to Whom all, past and future, arc present, could not or 
 did not declare beforehand things to come\ If there be 
 
 in part by people who were not Israelites, because other prophets of the Northern king- 
 dom do not use Syriac words or idioms. They imply intimate contact with a people 
 beyond Palestine." Yet Jnj docs not, in this sense, exist beyond Palestine ; irr\ was, in 
 the time of the Judges, used within it, and the Arabic does give an etymology for 
 nn"?!;, natural and adequate, which Syriac does not. The only difficulty is, that the 
 Arabic word for "steel" is not a pure Semitic form, like the Hebrew, but a Persian, 
 "fuladso" or"faludso." Yet the Arabic has also the genuine Arabic form "mafludso" 
 "formed of steel," of a sword. The direct connection of nnSs with "fuladso" or 
 *'faludso" must be given up, since it seems that the direct connection of the Arabic 
 faladsa and. fuladso oi faludso must be abandoned. For Prof. F. Justi whose judgement 
 Prof. Max Mtiller kindly obtained for me says; "TheArabic /ii/0^50 must be borrowed 
 from the Persian piilddo, not conversely (as Freytag and ViiUers also assume in their 
 Lexica) ; for Persian retains the/ in Arabic words which it adopts, but Arabic changes a 
 Persian p into/, because it has no p. So Arabic again changes a Persian d, especially 
 between or after vowels, always into ds. The relation of the Arabic fuladso, faludso, with 
 the root faladsa is consequently only apparent, whence the derivation of r'n^s from -\h^ 
 is also shewn to be untenable, especially since this Hebrew root is not evidenced but 
 assumed." Yet as relates to the Hebrew 1^3, since the Heb. i is often interchanged with 
 
 prophecy, tlic sie_^e of Nineveh mij^ht be as vividly pre- 
 sented to the Prophet's mind, as if he saw it with his bodily 
 eyes ". 
 
 the Arab, ds ("which in some Arab, dialects is pronounced rf " Ges.), the etym. from the 
 Arabic/nZnrfsn, " cuts," lies nearer to it than any other, designating a sharp instrument. 
 It is remarkable that the Heb-Arab. Lexicogr., Abraliam li. David and Abulwalid, were 
 not aware of any connected Arabic root, lioth regarding nSs as inverted from tbS. The 
 Syr. Nri'alifSD "spark" or" sparks "(which Ew. compares, Proph. ii. p. 11) is too 
 remote, uisulated, uncertain, not being connected with any known root, and being written 
 also tin'Dia'71. See Dr. P. Smitli's Lex. Syr. s. v. " The Arab. Sn3 "(lb.) must be a mis-print. 
 
 ' " Did Nahum predict the downfall of Nineveh a century before the event? If he 
 was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, he did so. He prophesied, say some, about the 
 1 1th year of Hezekiah and graphically painted the overthrow of Assyria's metropolis. 
 The interval consists of about one hundred years. Is not the analogy of Prophecy 
 violated here ? If a specific event be foretold long before it happened, what becomes of 
 the canon or principle that prophecy presents nothing more than the prevision of 
 events in the immediate future ? [Dr. Ds. italics] The principle in question is almost 
 axiomatic." [Introd. iii. 298.] It passes for an axiom in the school, whose results 
 Dr. Davidson gives to the English ; i. e. it is a petitio principii applied to each 
 prophecy in turn. 
 
 " " Nahum must have seen this peril with his own eyes." Ewald Proph. i. 349." 
 
 OUTER DEFENCES OF NINEVEH AS THEY NOW ARE. From Layard. 
 " He will make an utter end of the place thereof." — Nah. i. 8.
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 373 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Majesty of God itt goodness to his people, 
 and severity against his enemies. 
 
 1. The/jiirden^. "-Tlicwnrd 'massa' [burden] is never placed 
 in the title, save when the vision is heavy and full of burden 
 and toil." 0/ Nineveh. The iirophecy of Naliuni asain is very 
 stern and aweful. Nineveh, after haviiifi: " repented at the 
 preachinji^ of Jonah," ajiain fell baek into the sins whereof it 
 had repented, and added this, that, beinjj employed by God 
 to chasten Israel, it set itself, not to inHict the measure of 
 God's displeasure, but to uproot the chosen people, in whom 
 was promised the birth of Christ ^. It was then an Antichrist, 
 and a type of him yet to come. Jonah's mission was a call 
 to repentance, a type and forerunner of all God's messages 
 to the world, while the day of ii;race and the world's proba- 
 tion lasts. Nahuni, "the full of exceedinc; comfort," as his 
 name means, or '' the comforter" is sent to* reprove the world 
 of Judgement. He is sent, prominently, to pronounce on 
 Nineveh its doom when its day of grace should be over, and 
 in it, on the world, when it and ^ all the ivorks therein shall he 
 burned up. In few words he directly comforteth the people of 
 God"; else the comfort even to her is indirect, in the destruc- 
 tion of her oppressor. Besides this, there is nothing of 
 mercy or call to rej)entance, or sorrow for their desolation^; 
 but rather the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God 
 on her and on the evil world, which to the end resists all 
 God's calls and persecuteth His people. The book of Jonah 
 proclaimeth God, a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger 
 and of great kindness, JVho repenteth Him of the evil. Na- 
 huni speaketh of the same attributes, yet closes with, and will 
 not at all acquit the wicked. " ''The Merciful Himself, Who is 
 by Nature Merciful, the Holy Spirit, seemeth, speaking in the 
 prophet, to laugh at their calamity." All is desolation, and 
 death. The aggression against God is retorted upon the 
 aggressor; one reeling strife for life or death; then 
 the silence of the graveyard. And so, in its further mean- 
 ing, "-the prophecy belongs to the close of the world and the 
 comfort of the saints therein, so that whatsoever they see in 
 the world, they may hold cheap, as passing away and perish- 
 ing and prepare themselves for the Day of Judgement, when 
 the Lord shall be the Avenger of the true Assyrian." 
 
 • So, beyond question, Niro should be rendered. Since N'H'J is no where used of mere 
 speaking, it is betorehand improbable that nbt? should mean " speech ;" and this, apart 
 from the consideration that "the speech of Babylon, Damascus, Egypt, Moab, Tyre, 
 Dumah, " the valley of vision," "the desert of the sea," " Nineveh," would be an in- 
 expressive expression for a speech concerning them. For, in one place only, (Is. xxi.13.) 
 is it expressed that the burden is upon (3) Arabia. Else prepositions are only used to 
 determine the relation of NtC with the object (3, Zech.ix.l.Sy, Ib.xii.l.Sn, Mai. i.l.) when 
 that object is already separated from Ntso ; " the burden of the word of the Lord upon " 
 lb. xis'J, "lift up" when used alone for VlpKOT "lifted up" [the voice], is always used of "loud 
 speaking," Is. xlii. 3, 11, Job xxi. 12, and so Is. iii. 7, "loudly protest." Eleven times in 
 Isaiah (xiii. 1, xiv. 28, xv. 1, xvii. l,xix.l,xxi.l, 11, 13, xxii.l, xxiii. 1, xxx. 6.) in Ezek. 
 xii. 10, Hab.i.l, Mai. i. l.KbD is followed by a heavy prophecy, as it is here. Zech. ix. 
 
 1, also is a heavy prophecy against those whom Alexander would conquer; Zech. xii. 
 
 2, begins with a heavy prophecy against Judah and Jerusalem. Prov. xxx, xxxi, are 
 rebukes ; in Prov. xxxi, it is expressly added, " wherewith his mother admonished him.' ' 
 The blasphemy also, rebuked by Jeremiah (xxiii. 33, 34, 36), presupposes that the 
 meaning of k^, at which tliey mocked, was a heavy prophecy. " What fresh burden has 
 God for us? " they asked mockingly, not believing that the evil which Jeremiah prophesied 
 would come. In regard to the use of KST) (1 C. xv. 22, 27,) where the E. V. has, " for song," 
 if it related to the voice at all, it must (like the "on Alamoth," "on Sheminith" w. 20, 21, 
 which probably designate two notesof music, "treble" and the " octave,"" bass") have 
 signified some character of voice, as " alto," according to the meaning of Ni?3, "lift up." 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 THE burden *of Nineveh. The book cm'rTst 
 of the vision of Nuhum the Elkoshite. — '-l^i™.-^ 
 2 il God /.y ''jealous, and ' the Lord reveng- [J fh^Th/Lord 
 
 IK a jealous God, and a revenger, i'i^c. 
 •: Deut. 32. 35. Ps. 94. 1. Isa. 69. 18. 
 
 >> Ex. 20. 5. & 34. 11. Deut. l. 21. Josh. 21. lU. 
 
 So our Lord sets forth the end of the world as the com- 
 fort of the elect. IFlien these thiitgs hegin to come to pass, then 
 lookup and lift up your heads, for your reilemjition dratveth 
 nigh*'." This is the highest fulfilment of the ]iro|)hecy; for 
 "then will the wrath of God against the wicked be fully seen, 
 Who now patiently waiteth for them for mercy." 
 
 The hook of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. "^He first 
 defines the object of the prophecy, whereto it looks ; then states 
 who spake it and whence it was;" the human instrument 
 which God employed. The fuller title. " The hook of the vision 
 of Nahum," (which stands alone) probably expresses that it was 
 not, like most prophecies, first delivered orally, and then col- 
 lected by the proj)het, but was always (as it is so remark- 
 ably) one whole. " The weight and pressure of this ' burden' 
 may be felt from the very commencement of the book." 
 
 God is Jealous and the Lord revengeth. Rather (as the 
 E. M.) ^"^ God very jealous and avenging is the Lord. The 
 Name of God, YHVH, "He Who Is," the ITnchangeable, 
 is thrice repeated, and thrice it is said of Ilim that He 
 is an Avenger. It sheweth both the certainty and great- 
 ness of the vengeance, and that He Who intlicteth it, is 
 the All-H(dy Trinity, \Vho have a care for the elect. God's 
 jealousy is twofold. It is an intense love, not bearing 
 imperfections or unfaithfulness in that which It loves, and 
 so chastening it ; or not bearing the ill-dealings of those 
 who would injure what It loves, and so destroying them. 
 To Israel He had revealed Himself, as a '^ Jealous God, 
 visiting iniquity but shewing mercy ; here, as jealous for 
 His people against those who were purely His enemies and 
 the enemies of His people'-, and so His jealousy burneth to their 
 destruction, in that there is in them no good to be refined, 
 but only evil to be consumed. 
 
 The titles of God rise in awe ; first, intensely jealous ^^ and 
 an Avenger ; then, an Avenger and « Lord of wrath ; One 
 Who hath it laid up with Him, at His Command, and the 
 more terrible, because it is so ; the Master of it, (not, as man, 
 mastered by it") ; havingit, to withhold or to discharge; yet 
 so discharging it, at last, the more irrevocably on the finally 
 
 But, considering (as Hengstenberg has noticed, Christol. on Zech. ix. 1.) the useof Kffl 
 in places where it can only mean " burden " as also throughout Num. iv. (19, 2-1, 2", 31, 
 32, 47, 49,) it seems probable, that in 1 C. xv. too, it signifies "bearing" (as in E. M. 
 "carriage"). For the " bearing the ark "is spoken of immediately afterwards as a matter 
 of much skill. "When God helped the Levites, the bearers of the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord," "mnpiK w:(lC.xv. 2G); and the writer speaks ofthe dress of "all the Levites 
 who bare the ark" ''and the singers" v. 27, as two classes. Even Bertheau defends this 
 meaning, and solidly. In Lam. ii. 14, Ki^ pixs'n is united with C'-rg "expulsions." 
 The context seems to require more than is in the rendering, "sayings of vanity," which 
 would be less strong th an Ki?* • ^ tin " have seen for thee vanity.' ' "The burdens of vanity,' ' 
 which the false prophets prof«.«sed to see, would be hea\-y prophecies against the enemy, 
 that they should be driven from the land of Israel. Comp. Zedekiah's enquiry, 
 Jer. xxi. 1, 2, and Hananiah's prophecy Jer. xxviii. 2. II. 
 2 S. Jer. 3 Rup. 4 s. John xvi. 6, 8. ^ o Pet. iii. 10. « i. 15. 
 
 1 As in Jerem. iii. 12, viii. 18, 21. » S. Luke xxi. 28. « S. Cyr. On the prophet, 
 and his country which S. Cyril says, he had "learned by tradition to be expressed by the 
 addition, the Elkoshite," see the Introduction p. 357. '" KJB ''N is used as an attribute 
 of God Ex. XX. 5. xxxiv. 14. Dt. iv. 24. v. 9. vi. 15, as is n'up Sx, the form used here, Jos. 
 xxiv. 19. It is observed that, in prose, ''« is almost uniformly used with an adj. yhv 7K, 
 nir htt, pini Dim '?k, kiui '^n: Sn, ti Sk, or a noun 'kt "jk, c'My 'jk, mjn Sn. 
 
 " Ex. XX. 5, 6. '= See Zech. i. 14. " The form K^ip being intensive. " .-cn Sya 
 occurs once only besides, and that, of man, Pt. xxix. 22 ; but 1« Sv3 also Pr. xxii. 24. 
 
 3 K
 
 3/4 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 c H rTs t '^tli ; the Lord revengetli , and f is furious ; the 
 ""• 713- Lord will take vengeance on his adversa- 
 
 t Heb. that hath fury. 
 
 impenitent. And this He says at the last, a»i Aveuger to ^ His 
 adversaries, (lit. " those who hem and narrow Him in"). 
 The word avenged^ is almost appropriated to God in the Old 
 Testament, as to puiiislinicnt which He inflicts, or at 
 least causes to be inflicted^, whether on individuals*, or 
 upon a people, (His own ^ or their enemies^), for their 
 misdeeds. In man it is a defect'. Personal vengeance is 
 mentioned only in characters, directly or indirectly censured, 
 as Samson 8 or SauP. It is forbidden to man, punished in 
 him, claimed by God as His own inalienable right. ^" Fett- 
 geatice is 3Ii7ie and requital. ^^ T/iou shalt not avenge nor 
 keep tip against the children of My people. Yet it is spoken 
 of, not as a mere act of God, but as the expression of His 
 Being. ^^ Shall not My soul be avenged of such a nation as 
 this ? 
 
 And a Rcserver of wrath for His enemies, the hardened and 
 unbelieving who hate God, and at last, when they had finally 
 rejected God and were rejected by Him, the object of His aver- 
 sion. It is spoken after the manner of men, yet therefore is the 
 more terrible. There is that in God, to which the passions of 
 man correspond; theyare a false imitation of something whicli 
 in Him is good, a distortion of the true likeness of God, 
 in which God created us and which man by sin defaced. 
 "1' Pride doth imitate exaltedness : whereas Thou Alone art 
 God exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, but honours 
 and glory? whereas Thou Alone art to be honoured above all 
 and glorious for evermore. The cruelty of the great would 
 fain be feared ; but who is to be feared but God Alone, out of 
 Whose power what can be wrested or withdrawn, when, or 
 where, or whither, or by whom ? The tendernesses of the 
 wanton would fain be counted love : yet is nothing more ten- 
 der than Thy charity; nor is aught loved more healthfully 
 than that Thy truth, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosi- 
 ty makes semblance of a desire of knowledge; whereas Thou 
 supremely knowest all. Yea, ignorance and foolishness it- 
 self is cloked under the name of simplicity and uninjurious- 
 ness : because nothing is found more single than Thee ; and 
 what less injurious, since they are his own works which in- 
 jure the sinner? Yea, sloth would fain be at rest ; but what 
 stable rest besides the Lord? Luxury affects to be called plenty 
 and abundance ; but Thou art the fullness and never-failing 
 plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality pre- 
 sents a shadow of liberality : but Thou art the most overflow- 
 ing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many 
 things; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for 
 excellency : what more excellent than Thou ? Anger seeks 
 revenge : who revenges more justly than Thou ? Fear 
 startles at things unwonted or sudden, which endanger things 
 beloved, and takes fore-thought for their safety ; but to Thee, 
 what unwonted or sudden, or who separateth from Thee 
 what Thou lovest ? Or where but with Thee is unshaken 
 safety ? Grief pines away for things lost, the delight of its 
 
 ' Dpj with S p., only besides Ez. xxv. 12. 3 Op3 ^ >Ju. xxxi. 2, 3. Ps. cxlix. 9. 
 Hence almost the same as, pu^jshed by law, Ex. xxi. 20. 21. •• Gen. iv. 16. 24. 
 
 1 Sam. xxiv. 12. 2 Sam. iv. 8. 2 Kgs. ix. 7. Jer. xi. 20. xv. 15. xx. 12. ^ Lev. xxvi. 
 25. Ps. xcix. 8. Ez.xxiv.8. « Deut.xxxii.41, 43. Ps.xviii. 48. Is. xxxiv. 8. xxxv. 4. 
 xlvii. 3. lix. 17. Ixi. 2. Ixiii. 4. Mi. v. 14. Jer. xlvi. 10. 1. 15. 28. li. 6. 11. 36. Ezek. xxv. 
 14. 17. '' Dpino, a self-avenger, Ps. viii. 3. xliv. 17. It is punished by God 
 
 Ezek. xxv. 12, 15, being moreover unjust ; Jer. xx. 10. 12. Lam. iii. 60. coll. 61. 
 
 > Jud. XV. 7.XVJ. 20. » 1 Sam. xiv. 24. xviii. 25. Else only historically Pr. vi. 34. 
 
 ries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. 
 3 The Lord t.v '^slovv to anger, and ^great in 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 ■• Ex. 34. 6, 7. Neh. 9. 17. Ps. 103. 8. Jonah 4. 2. ' Job 9. 4. 
 
 desires ; because it would have nothing taken from it, as no- 
 thing can from Thee. Thus doth the soul seek without Thee 
 what she findeth not pure and untainted, till she returns to 
 Thee. 1'hus all pcrvei-tedly imitate Thee, who remove far 
 from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by 
 thus imitating Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all 
 nature; whence there is no place, whither altogether to retire 
 from Thee." And so, in man, the same qualities are good or 
 bad, as they have God or self for their end. " ^*The joy of the 
 world is a passion. Joy in the Holy Spirit or to joy in the Lord 
 is a virtue. The sorrow of the world is a passion. The 
 sorrow according to God which worketh salvation is a virtue. 
 The fear of the woi"ld which hath torment, from which a man 
 is called fearful, is a passion. The holy fear of the Lord, 
 which abideth for ever, from which a man is called reveren- 
 tial, is a virtue. The hope of the world, when one's hope 
 is in the world or the princes of the world, is a passion. 
 Hope in God is a virtue, as well as faith and charity. Though 
 these four human passions are not in God, there are four 
 virtues, having the same names, which no one can have, save 
 from God,fromtheSpiritof God." In man theyare "passions," 
 because man is so far "passive" and sufi'ers under them, and, 
 through original sin, cannot hinder having them, though by 
 God's grace he may hold them in. God, without passion and 
 in perfect holiness, has qualities, which in man were jealousy, 
 wrath, vengeance, unforgivingness, a " rigor of perfect justice 
 towards the impenitent, which punisheth so severely, as 
 though God had fury;" only, in Him it is righteous to punish 
 man's unrighteousness. Elsewhere it is said, '° God keepeth 
 not for ever, or it is asked, ^^will He keep for ever? and He 
 answers, ^" Return, and I tcill not cause Mine anger to fall upon 
 you ; for I am merciful, saith the Lord, I rvill not keep for 
 ever. Man's misdeeds and God's displeasure remain with 
 God, to be eff^aced on man's repentance, or ^^/»y his hardness 
 and impenitent heart man treasureth up unto hitnself wrath 
 in the day of wrath atid of the revelation of the righteous Judge- 
 ment of God, Who will reward each according to his works. 
 
 3. The Lord is slow to anger. Nahum takes up the words 
 of Jonah ^^ as he spoke of God's attributes towards Nineveh, 
 but only to shew the opposite side of them. Jonah declares 
 how God is sloiu to anger, giving men time of repentance, and 
 if they do repent, repenting Him also of the evil ; Nahum, that 
 the long-suffering of God is not slackness, that He is long- 
 sujf'ering to usivard, not willing that any should perish, but 
 that all should come to repentance. 
 
 And stro7igin potver'°. Divine long-suffering goes along with 
 Divine power. God can be long-suffering, because He can, 
 whenever He sees good, punish. His long-suffering is a token, 
 not of weakness, but of power. He can allow persons the 
 whole extent of trial, because, when theyare past cure, He can 
 end it at once. -^ God is a righteous judge, strong and patient, 
 and Godwratheth — every day. The wrath cometh only at the 
 
 Esth. viii. 13. David thanks God for keeping him from it towards Nabal 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 33. 
 
 "> Deut. xxxii. 35, comp. Ps. xciv. 1. i' Lev. xix. 18. '^ Jer. v. 9. 29. ix. 9. 
 
 " S. Aug. Conf. B. ii. n. 13. 14. » Rup. '* Ps. ciii. 9. The idiom v^'}n) ie1 stands 
 alone. le Jer. iii. 5. " lb. 12. is Rom. ii. 5. 6. '9iv.2. ™ The full form 
 nD S'nit, Cheth, belongs probably to the stately character of Nahum. The like occurs 
 only in Ps. cxlv. 8. icn Vn?. 21 Ps. vii. 11. " The word expresses 
 
 continuously present action, oyi. The Isx added strong and patient to bring out 
 the meaning. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 375 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 fPs. 18.7, &c. 
 
 & 97. 2. 
 
 Hab. 3.5, 11, 
 
 12. 
 « Ps. 106. 9. 
 
 Lsa. 50. 2. 
 
 Matt. 8. 20. 
 •> lsa. 33. 9. 
 
 power, and will not at all acquit the ivtckcd : 
 "^the Lord hutli his way in the whirlwind 
 and in the storm, and the clouds are the 
 dust of his feet. 
 
 4 s He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it 
 dry, and drieth up all the rivers : *" Bashan 
 
 last, but it is ever present with God. He cannot but be dis- 
 pleased with the sin ; and so the Psahnist describes in the 
 manner of men the jEfradual approximation to its dischariic 
 ^ If he (the sinner) will not return [from evil or to God], 
 He u'ill tuliet His sword; He hath trodden His hoiv and 
 directed it : He hath prepared for him instruments of death ; 
 He hath made His arrows burning. We see the arrow with 
 unextiniruishable fire, ready to be discharp,ed, waiting for the 
 final decision of the wicked, wliether he will repent or not, but 
 that still the Day of the Lord will come^. He will not 
 at all acquit^. The words occur originally in the great 
 declaration of God's attributes of mercy by Moses, as a 
 necessary limitation of them * ; they are continued to God's 
 people, yet with the side of mercy predominant ^ ; they are 
 pleaded to Himself^; they are the sanction of tlie third 
 commandment^. He icill not acquit of His own will, apart 
 from His justice. So He saith *, I can of Mine own self 
 do nothing, i. e. (in part), not as unjust judges, who call good 
 ei'il and evil good, following their own will, not the merits 
 of the case; but, «s / hear, I judge, and My judgement is 
 just. He cannot even have mercy and spare unjustly, nor 
 without the lowliness of penitence. Even if it be Jerusalem, 
 over which He wept, or His companion, His oxvn familiar 
 friend^. He, Who is no accepter of persons, cannot of mere 
 favour forgive the impenitent. 
 
 The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm. 
 The vengeance of God comes at last swiftly, vehemently, fear- 
 fully, irresistibly. When they say. Peace and safety, then 
 sudden destruction cometh upon them ^'*, and all creation stands 
 at the command of the Creator against His enemies. He 
 shall take to Him His jealousy for complete armour, and make 
 the creature His weapon, for the revenge of His enemies ^^, 
 
 And the clouds are the dust of His feet. Perhaps the ima- 
 gery is from the light dust raised by an earthly army, of which 
 Nahum's word is used ^^. The powers of heaven are arrayed 
 against the might of earth. On earth a little dust, soon to 
 subside ; in heaven, the whirlwind and the storm, which sweep 
 away what does not bow before them. The vapours, slight 
 in outward seeming 1^, but formed of countless multitudes 
 of mist-drops, are yet dark and lowering, as they burst, and 
 resistless. "The Feet of God are that power whereby He 
 trampleth upon the ungodly." So it is said to the Son, «^// 
 Thoii on My Right Hand until I make Thine enemies Thy 
 footstool. Tempests have also, without figure, been used to 
 overthrow God's enemies ^^ 
 
 4. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry ^^, delivering His 
 
 • lb. 12. 13. = 2 Pet. iii. 9, 10. ^ „fy kS npsi * E.x. xxxiv. 7. The Samaritan 
 Pentateuch characteristically changes the words into 7\fT iS npjl "the innocent shall be 
 held guiltless by Him." * Jer. xxx. 11. xlvi. 28. 6 Nu. xiv. 18. 
 
 ' Ex. XX. 7. Deut. V. 11. 8 John v. 30. » Ps. Iv. 14. i» 1 Thess. v. 3. 
 
 " Wisdom V. 17. '- Ezek. xxvi. 10. '^ pjn occurs six times in the O.T. It is 
 by itself "light dust" Ex. ix.9. De. xxviii. 21. Is. v. 24, but has pt added Is. xxix. 5. 
 
 " Ex. xiv. 27. Josh. x. 11. Judges v. 20. I Sam. ii. lO.and vii. 10. 2 Sam. xxii. 15. 
 
 ■5 The contracted form, inifj:] is again for empliasis. The like contraction vn occurs in 
 Lam. iii. 53. njn lb. 33. Dn*:i 2 Chr. xxxii. 30. Kri. '« Ps. cvi. 9. '" \Visd. xii. 9. 
 
 '8 Is. Ivii. 20. 19 Josh. ii. 11. »» Hos. xiv. 7, Cant. iv. 11. 
 
 3 
 
 lanj^uishcth, and Carmel, and the flower of ^ .P?fTc^ 
 Lebanon languisheth. ""■ ^^^- 
 
 5 ' The mountains quake at him, and '' the ' Judg.'s.'s. 
 
 Ps 97 5 
 
 hills melt, and 'the earth is burned at his mic. i'.V. 
 
 '2 Pet. 3. 10. 
 
 presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell 
 therein. 
 
 people, as He did from Pharaoh ^''', the type of all later oppres- 
 sors, and of Antichrist. His word is with potcer ; to destroy 
 them at once with one rough rcord'^T. The restlessness of the 
 barren and troubled sea is an image of the wicked'*. And drieth 
 up all the rivers, as He did Jordan. His coming shall be far 
 more terrible than when all the hearts of the inhabitants of 
 the land did melt ^'\ Bashan languisheth and Carmel ; and the 
 flower of Lebanon languisheth. Bashan was richest in pas- 
 tures ; Carmel, according to its name, in gardens and vine- 
 yards; Lebanon. in vines also and fragrant flowers =", but chiefly 
 in the cedar and cypress ; it had its name from the whiteness 
 of the snow, which rests on its summit. These mountains 
 then together are emblems of richness, lasting beauty, fruit- 
 fulness, loftiness ; yet all, even that which by nature is not, 
 in the variety of seasons, wont to fade, dries up and withers 
 before the rebuke of God. But if these things are done in a 
 green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? All freshness, 
 beauty,comeliness, shew of outward nature,shall fade as grass; 
 all ornament of men's outward graces or gifts, all mere shew 
 of goodness, shall fall off" like a leaf and perish. If the glory 
 of nature perishes before God, how much more the pride of 
 man ! Bashan also was the dwelling-place of the race of 
 giants, and near Libanus was Damascus; yet their inhabitants 
 became as dead men and their power shrank to nothing at the 
 word of God. 
 
 5. The moimtai7is quaked at Him, and the hills melted, 
 as of their own accord. The words are a renewal of 
 those of Amos-i. Inanimate nature is pictured as endowed 
 with the terror, which guilt feels at the presence of God. 
 All power, whether gi-eater or less, whatsoever lifteth itself 
 up, shall give way in that Day, which shall be - upon all the 
 cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all 
 the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains, and 
 upon all the hills that are lifted up. And the earth is 
 burned [rather lifteth itself up-^] ; as in an earthquake it 
 seems, as it were, to rise and sink down, lifting itself as 
 if to meet its God or to flee. What is strongest, shaketh ; 
 what is hardest, melteth ; yea, the whole world trembleth 
 and is removed. " -* If," said even Jews of old, " when 
 God made Himself known in mercy, to give the law 
 to His people, the world was so moved at His Presence, how 
 much more, when He shall reveal Himself in wrath !" The 
 words are so great that they bear the soul on to the time, 
 when the heaven and earth shall flee away from the Face of 
 Him Who sitteth on the throne, and the elements shall melt 
 ivith fervent heat"'. And since all judgements are images 
 
 -' Am. ix. 13. :jiDn.T occurs besides only in Ps. cvii. 26, of the heart of man through 
 terror. Delitzsch (on Hab. p. 156) supposed that the hithpael orhithpalel conveyed " the 
 operation of an outward cause, completing itself within the subject, as it were in continued 
 vibrations," alleging Ew. Lehrb. 124 a, coll.ypnnn Mic. i. 4, pyinn Ps. xviii. 8, yinni, 
 ^^lan.^ Is. xxiv. 19, ^p'^pnn Jer. iv. 24, but there is no groimd for making the form at once 
 passive and reflective ; and it is less vivid. 
 
 =- Is. ii. 13, 14. 23 xB.] intrans. as Ps. I.xxxix. 10, 1'^j msia, of the sea. With 
 
 this agrees the constr. VJBO "from His Presence," as the cause of its fear. The 
 E. V. " is burned " is taken from Rashi. 
 
 ^ Jon. « Rev. xx. 11 ; 2 Pet. iii. 10. 
 
 k2
 
 376 
 
 NAHUiM, 
 
 r.iP^fT.r 6 Who can stand before his indiifna- 
 
 ""•• "1'^- tion ? and '" who can -f abide in the fierceness 
 
 t Heb.^'iw of his anger? "his fury is poured out like 
 
 "ifev.16.1. fire, and the rocks are thrown down by 
 
 Iiim. 
 
 of the Last, and the awe at tokens of God's Presence is a 
 shadow of tlie terror of that cominc;, he adds, 
 
 6. JFho (fill stand before His indignation ? This question 
 appeals to our own consciences, that we cannot'. It antic'i- 
 pates the self-conviction at every day of God's visitation, the 
 forenmneis of the last. The word rendered " indignation " is 
 reserved almost exclusively to denote the wrath of God". 
 "^Who can trust in his own righteousness, and, for the abun- 
 dance of his worksorconsciousncssof his virtues, not be in need 
 of mercy? Enter not iiito/iidgciiient with Tin/ serraiif, (J Lord, 
 for in Tin/ sight shall no man living he justified ; and in Job it is 
 said truly, Behold He put no trust in His servants, and His 
 Angels He charged with folly. How much less in them that 
 dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which arc 
 crushed before the moth*} It were needless now to prove, 
 that man's own deserts suffice to no one, and that we arc not 
 saved but by the grace of God, for all hare sinned and come 
 short of the glory of God^. Wherefore he saith, before His 
 indignation, standing face to Face before Him in wrath." 
 
 lit. in the Face of: guilt cannot look in the face of man, 
 how much less, of God. The bliss of the righteous is the 
 punishment of the wicked, to behold God face to Face. For 
 "5 whoso trusteth in his own works deserveth His indignation, 
 and thinking he standcth, righteously does he fall." 
 
 His fury is poured out^ //Ae/iVe, sweeping away, like a tor- 
 rent of molten fire, him who presumcth that he can stand 
 before His Face, as He did the cities of the plain '', the image 
 of the everlasting fire, which shall burn up His enemies on 
 every side**, ^rtnd rocks are Ihroioi down. The rocks arc like 
 so many towers ^ of nature, broken down and crushed by Him 
 Wt. from Him. It needeth not any act of God's. He wills and 
 it is done. Those who harden themselves, are crushed and 
 broken to pieces, the whole fabric they had built for them- 
 selves and their defences, crumbling and shivered. If then 
 they, whose hearts are hard as rocks, and bold against all 
 peril, and even Satan himself, whose '" heart is as firm as a 
 stone, yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone, shall be 
 crushed then, who shall abide ? 
 
 7. The Lord is good : a stronghold in the day of trouble. 
 "Good and doing good," and full of sweetness ; alike good 
 and mighty ; Good in giving Himself and imparting His 
 goodness to His own; yea'' none is good, save God; Himself the 
 stronghold wherein His own may take refuge; both in the trou- 
 bles of this life, in which '^ He will not suffer us to be tempted 
 above that tee are able, and in that Day, which shall hem them 
 in on every side, and leave no place of escape except Himself. 
 
 .^nd He knoiveth them that trust in Him ; so as to save 
 them ; as Rahab was saved when Jericho perished, and Lot 
 
 * As in Jo. ii. 11, Mai. iii. 2 ; renewed Rev. vi . 17. ^ The noun oyj (used here) occurs 
 21 times in the O. T.; of men only once; the verb Dyj occurs I'-i times, 5 times only of 
 man's anger. ^ Rup. ^ Job iv. 18, 19. * Rom. iii. i3. « inj is used of the pouring out 
 of God's wrath, Jer. vii. 20, xlii. 18, 2 Chr. xii. 7 (as more commonly "pis'); here its native 
 meaning is brought out the more, by adding B'KD. 7 Gen. xix. '^ Ps. xcvii. 3. 1. 3, Ixviii. 
 3, xviii. 8. ' cm (not in the dialects) is used 34 times of the " breaking down " of walls, 
 buildings, a statue, altar, shrine; in Ps. Iviii. 7. only, of the teeth of lions, and, by meta- 
 phor, of men in Ps. Iii. 7, Job xix. 10. Three times it is used ellipticallv. '" Job xli. lil. 
 
 " S. Luke xviii. 19. '2 1 Cor. x. 13. >' yni- " Ps. i. 6. '' Ps. xxxvii.18. " S. J oha 
 
 7 "The Lord ?*.y good, a |1 strong hold in eifaTsx 
 the day of trouble ; and i' he knoweth thcin "'*'• ^'•''- 
 
 o 1 Chr.l6.»l. 
 Ps. IfW. .5. 
 
 that trust in him. 
 
 8 'iBut with an overrunning flood he lim.V. 25. 
 will make an utter end of the place thereof, " I's. 1. «;. 
 
 ' ' 2 Tim. 2. 19 
 
 1 Dan. 9. 26. & 11. 10, 22, 40. 
 
 out of the midst of the overthrow and Hezekiah from the host 
 of Sennacherib. He knoiveth them with an individual, ever- 
 present, knowledge''. lie says not only," He shall own them," 
 but He ever knoiveth them. So it is said ; '* The Lord Inioweth 
 the ivay of the righteous, '^ The Lord Icnoweth the days of the up- 
 right; and our Lord says, ^^ I know My i/zcc/* ; and S. Paul, 
 ''' The Lord knoweth them that are His. God speaks of this 
 knowledge also in the past, of His knowledge, when things as 
 yet were not, / have known thee by name ; or of lovingkindness 
 in the past, ^* I knew thee in the wilderness, ^'^ you alone have 1 
 known of all the families of the earth, as contrariwise our Lord 
 says, that He shall say to the wiclted in the Great Day, -"J 
 never knew you. That God, being what He is, should take 
 knowledge of us, being what we are, is such wondrous conde- 
 scension, that it involves a purpose of love, yea, His love to- 
 wards us, as the Psalmist says admiringly. Lord, what is man 
 that Thini takest knowledge of him •' ? 
 
 Them that trust in Him. It is a habit, which has this re- 
 ward ; the trusters in Him ~~, the takers of refuge in Him. It is 
 a continued unvarying trust, to which is shewn this ever- 
 present love and knowledge. 
 
 Yet this gleam of comfort only discloseth tlie darkness of 
 the wicked. Since those who trust God are they whom God 
 knoweth, it follows that the rest He knoweth not. On this 
 opening, which sets forth the attributes of God towards those 
 who defy Him and those who trust in Him, follows the special 
 application to Nineveh. 
 
 8. But with an overrunning flood He will make an utter end 
 of the place thereof-^, i. e. of Nineveh, although not as yet 
 named, except in the title of the prophecy, yet present to 
 the Prophet's mind and his hearers, and that the more solemn- 
 ly, as being the object of the wrath of God, so that, although 
 unnamed, it would be known so to be. Image and reality, 
 the first destruction and the last which it pictures, 
 meet in the same words. Nineveh itself was over-thrown 
 through the swelling of the rivers which flowed round it 
 and seemed to be its defence -*. Then also, the flood is the 
 tide of armies, gathered from all quarters, Babylonians -=, 
 Medes, Persians, Arabians, Bactrians, which like a flood 
 should sweep over Nineveh and leave nothing standing. It 
 is also the flood of the wrath of God, in Whose Hands they 
 were, and Who, by them, should make a full end of it, lit. make 
 the place thereof a thing consumed, a thing which has ceased 
 to be. For a while, some ruins existed, whose name and 
 history ceased to be known ; soon after, the ruins themselves 
 were effaced and buried-^. Such was the close of a city, 
 almost coeval with the flood, which had now stood almost as 
 many years as have passed since Christ came, but which now 
 
 x.14.27. >7 2Tim. ii.l9. >8 Hos.xiii..5. •« Am. iii. 2. 2» S. Matt. vii. 23. =' Ps. cxliv. 8. 
 
 " It is the well known construction 13 'pin, in which, the verb being united with its object 
 by a preposition, (like our '* trust iii/"J tlie " in Hun " stands as gen. as marked by the 
 Stat, const. 'Dm, as it were "all trusters of Him," as '\2 -en '72 Ps. ii. 12, p 'pil ^D Ps. v. 12. 
 Elsewhere the art. is used to express the class, 13 C'Dn.T 2 Sam. x.\ii. 31 (Ps. xviii. 31.) 
 Ps. xxxiv. 23, -|3 DWnS, Ps. xxxi. 20. 13 D'pin^ Pr. xxx. 5. '3 noin.T Is. Ivii. 13. 
 
 -5 So Ezek. xi. 13, .xx. 17, ^:^ being the second object of the verb, " He made them aji 
 a thing consumed," or 'V'3 is used abs. as in v. 9. or with fiN Jer. v. IS. 
 
 ■i See on ii. 6. ■' Diod. Sic. ii. 25. 26 See ab. Introd. pp. 368, 369.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 377 
 
 cifiiTsT ^"*^ darkness shall pursue his enemies. 
 ""• "^- 9 'What do ye inia<nne aL^ainst tlie 
 
 ' Ps. 2. 1. ^ J r^ f^ 
 
 ' 1 Sam. 3. 12. LoRD ? " he Will Hiakc an utter end : afilic- 
 tion shall not rise up the second time. 
 
 defied God. Marvellous imapje of the evil world itself, which 
 shall flee away from the Face of Him Who sat on the throne ', 
 a7id there runs found no plucv for it. 
 
 And darkness s/tu/f pursue His enemies ; better, He simll pur- 
 sue His enemies into darloiess". Darkness is, in the O.T., the 
 condition, or state in which a person is, or lives ; it is not an 
 ag'ent, which pursues. Isaiah speaks of the '^ inlialntants of 
 dur/cness*, entering into darkness ; ' those who are in darkness. 
 The grave is nil ° darkness, ^ darkness, and tlie shadoiu of death. 
 Hence even Jews rendered, "* He shall deliver them to hell." 
 Into this darkness if; is said, God shall pursue them, as other 
 prophets speak of being; driven forth into darkness^. The 
 darkness, the motionless drear abode, to which they are 
 driven, anticipates the being: cast into the outer darkness, 
 where sliull be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "^"The ven- 
 geance of God on" those who remain "His enemies" to the 
 last, " ends not with the death of the body ; but evil spirits, 
 who are darkness and not light, pursue their souls, and seize 
 them." They would not hear Christ calling to them, "/Fc;//c, 
 while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. ^" They 
 are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the 
 ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. ^'' Thei/ loved dark- 
 ness rather than light. And so they were driven into the 
 darkness which they chose and loved. 
 
 9. The Prophet had in few words summed up the close of 
 Nineveh ; he now upbraids them with the sin, which should 
 bringitupon them, and foretells the dcstructionof Sennacherib. 
 Nineveh had, before this, been the instrument of chastising 
 Israel and Judab. Now, the capture of Samaria, which had 
 cast off God, deceived and emboldened it. Its king thought 
 that this was the might of his own arm ; and likened tlie 
 Lord of heaven and etirth to the idols of the heathen, and 
 said, 1* JFIto are they among all the gods of the countries, that 
 have. delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord 
 should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand ? He sent ^^ to re- 
 proach the living God and ^* defied the Holy One of Israel. His 
 blasphemy was his destruction. It was a war, not simply 
 of ambition, or covetousness, but directly against the power 
 and worship of God. 
 
 What icillye so mightily^"^ devise, imagine against the Lord? 
 He ^* Himself, by Himself, is already making an utter end. It 
 is in store ; the Angel is ready to smite. Idle are man's devices, 
 when the Lord doeth. i' Take counsel together, and it shall 
 come to nought ; speak the word, and it shall ?iot stand : for 
 
 ' Rev. XX. U. - So S. Jer. The punctuators marked this by the Makkef, ^^n-inr. 
 
 3Is. xlii. 7. ■• lb. xlvii. 5. * lb. xlix. 9. « Ps. Ixxxviii. 12. Job xvii. 13. 
 
 ' Job X. 21. 8 Jon. ' Is viii. 22.rr;p rhsm Jer. xxiii. 12. n? iSsji im: nhsKj 
 
 " in darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall therein." 
 
 '» Rup. 11 S.John xii. 35. 12 Job xxiv. 13. u S. John iii. 19. 
 
 n 2 Kings xviii. 35. i^ lb. xix. 16. ^^ See xix. 15-34. '7 The Hebrew form 
 
 is doubly emphatic, pitj'npi. The same construction occurs withS», *'towards," Hos.vii. 
 15. irjl3?'n' 7NI (in the same general sense as the stronger ^y Nah. i. 11, Dan. xi. 24), in 
 •ain' nsi ^>x Job xv. 25, rhn pi; "runneth at" i. e. against Him (God) lb. 26. ze/ri is 
 not simply "think," but "excogitated," "calculated" (Lev. 5 times), "devised" Pr. 
 xvi. 9 ; with S and inf. " to do evil to " Pr. xxiv. 8. In kal, also, nj-f u? 2pi} is used for 
 "devising against," alike with Sy Jer. xi. 19. xviii. 11. 18. xlix.30,and with Sn Jer. xlix. 
 20.1.45; andwitliSy inagoodsense, Jer.xxix.ll. nffn is used also of" thinking over" the 
 past, Ps. Ixxvii. 6. cxix. 59 ; with ^ and inf. "thinking over," in order to know, Ps. Ixxiii. 16 ; 
 with ace. p. "take account of" Ps. cxliv. 3, 2 Kgs. xii. 16; but in none of these cases 
 
 10 For while thct/ he folden to^^ether ' «.» ch'^rTst 
 thorns, "and while they are drunken us ""'• "^''- 
 drunkards, "they shall be devoured asu ch.TTi;'' ' 
 stubble fully dry. 
 
 God is with us. While the rich man was speaking comfort 
 to his soul as to future years, (lod was making an utter end. 
 Tliini fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee. 
 
 •" Affliction shall not rise up the second time : as he says 
 afterwards. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict 
 thee no niore"^. God, He had said, is good for u refuge 
 in the day of affliction ; now, personifying that affliction, 
 he says, that it should be so utterly broken, that it should 
 rise up no more to vex tiiein, as when a scriient's head 
 is, not wounded only but, crushed and trampled underfoot, 
 so that it cannot again lift itself up. The promises of God 
 are conditioned by our not falling back into sin. He saitli to 
 Nineveh, " God will not deliver Judah to thee, as He delivered 
 the ten tribes and Samaria." Judah repented under Heze- 
 kiah, and He not only delivered it from Sennacherib, but 
 never afflicted them again through Assyria. Renewal of sin 
 brings renewal or deepening of punishment. The new and 
 more grievous sins under JManasseh were punished, not 
 through Assyria but through the Chaldeans. 
 
 The words have j)assed into a maxim, " God will not punish 
 the same thing twice," not in this world and the world to 
 come, i. e. not if repented of. For of the impenitent it is said, 
 "destroy them with a double destruction. Chastisement here 
 is a token of God's mercy ; the absence of it, or prosperous sin, 
 of perdition ; but if any refuse to be corrected, the chastisement 
 of this life is but the beginning of unending torments. 
 
 10. For while they be folden together as thorns-^, i.e. as 
 confused, intertwined, sharp, piercing, hard to be touched, 
 rending and tearing whosoever would interfere with its tan- 
 gled ways, and seemingly compact together and strong; and 
 while they are drunken as tlieir dri7ik -^, not " drinkers ■' " only 
 but literally " drunken," swallowed up, as it were, by their 
 drink which they had swallowed, mastered, overcome, 
 powerless, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry -^, rapidly, 
 in an instant, with an empty crackling sound, unresisting, as 
 having nothing in them which can resist. Historically, the 
 great defeat of the Assyrians, before the capture of Nineveh, 
 took place while its king, flushed with success, was giving 
 himself to listlessness ; and having distributed to his soldiers 
 victims, and abundance of wine, and other necessaries for 
 banquetting, the whole army -^ was negligent and drunken." 
 In like way Babylon was taken amid the feasting of Belshaz- 
 zar-^; Benhadad was smitten, while"' drinking himself drunk 
 in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings 
 
 with hn. '8 The use of the pronoun in Heb. is again emphatic. i' Is. viii. 10. 
 
 -" Others have understood this, " affliction shall not rise up the second time," but shall 
 destroy at once, utterly and finally (comp. 1 Sam. xxvi. 8. 2 Sam. xx. 10.) ; but 1) the idiom 
 there, iS njiy n'?, "he did not repeat to him," as we say, "he did not repeat the blow," is 
 quite different : 2) it is said, "affliction shall not rise up," itself, as if it could not. The 
 causative of the idiom occurs in 2 Sam. xii. 11. njfn ;)'^y D'pp 'i^l " lo, I will cause evil to rise 
 up against thee." -i v. 12. -- Jer. xvii. 18. ^ DTD ny lit. "quite up to," so as altogether 
 to equal; asn-S^my, Jobxi. 7, ■Tiin"j3iy, 1 Chr. iv.27. ^ itjb, wine. Is. i.22. Hos. iv. 18. 
 
 ■'<• As elsewhere D'N3b, Deut. xxi. 20, Pr. xxiii. 20, 21, 'N3iD Cheth. Ez. xxiii. 42. 
 
 -6 xha is best united with ri'. mhs is used of ripe corn, Ex. xxii. 28. Dt. xxii. 9 ; but this 
 may be so called, from the ear being full. The idiom, in which K^Disjoined with the verb, 
 hSd Tinx 1X113 Jer. xii. 6, is different, being derived from a phrase, <N^3 5K1p "cr}- aloud, 
 fill," i. e. with a full voice, Jer. iv. 5. Schultens compares Arab. r<j}l te "he did and 
 filled " = did fully. For the iniagerj- of the devouring of the stubble by fire, see Is. v. 24 
 xlvii. 14. Jo. ii. 5. Ob. 18. =" Diod. Sic. u. 26. =9 Dan. v. 1-30. =9 1 Kings xx. IC.
 
 378 
 
 NAHUlVr, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 11 There is one come out of thee, ^that 
 imagineth evil against the Lord, f » wicked 
 
 1 2 Kings 19. „ 
 
 22, 23. counsellor. 
 ^.^um-ofBe'iiai. 12 Tluis saith thc Lord ; || Though they 
 woiid hav'e'^^ he quiet, and likewise many, yet thus " shall 
 
 heewatjienre, i i i ii 
 
 joshouid they they bc t cut dowH, whcn he shall "pass 
 
 have been * 
 
 many, and so should they have been shorn, and he should have passed away. 
 • 2 Kings 19. 35, 37. t Heb. shorn. « Isa. 8. 8. Dan. 11. 10. 
 
 that helped him. And so it may well be meant here too, that 
 Sennacherib's army, secure of their prey, were sunk in re- 
 velry, already swallowed up by wine, before they were swal- 
 lowed up by the pestilence, on the niicht when the Angel of 
 the Lord went out to smite them, and, from the sleep of re- 
 velry, they slept the sleep from which they shall not awake 
 until the judgrement Day. God chooseth the last moment of 
 the triumph of the wicked, when he is flushed by his suc- 
 cess, the last of the helplessness of the rigliteous, when his 
 hope can be in the Lord Alone, to exchanjje their lots. ^The 
 righfeotis is delii'ered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in 
 his stead. Spiritually, " " the false fullness of the rich of this 
 world, is real leanness ; the greenness of such grass (for all 
 flesh is grass) is rtal dryness. Marvellous words, fully dry. 
 For what is dryness but emptiness ? " They are perfected, 
 but in dryness, and so perfectly prepared to be burned up. 
 "The thorns had, as far as in tlicm lay, choked the good 
 seed, and hated the Seed-corn, and now are found, like stub- 
 ble, void of all seed, fitted only to be burned with fire. For 
 those who feast themselves without fear is ^ reserved the black- 
 ness of darkness for ever" 
 
 11. There is one come out of thee i. e. Nineveh, that imagin- 
 eth*, deviseth^, evil'', against the Lord, Sennacherib, ''the rod of 
 God's anger, yet who '' ineant not so," as God meant. "And 
 this was his counsel," as is every counsel of Satan, '• that they 
 could not resist him, and so should withdraw themselves from 
 the land of God, ^info a land like their oxim, but whose joy 
 and sweetness, its vines and its fig-trees, should not be from 
 God, but from the Assyrian, i. e. from Satan." 
 
 12. Though they be quiet and likeivise many, yet thus shall 
 they he cut down. lit. If they he entire ^, i. e. sound, unharmed, 
 unimpaired in their numbers, unbroken in their strength, 
 undiminished, perfect in all which belongeth to war; aiid 
 thus many, even thus shall they be mown doiun (or shorn), and 
 he passeth away^". With might outwardly unscathed, w?VAoz</ 
 hand^^, and thus many i. e. many, accordingly, as being un- 
 weakened ; as many as they shall be, sn shall they he mown 
 down ^^, and he, their head and king, shall pass away and 
 perish ^^. Their numbers shall be, as their condition before, 
 perfect; their destruction as their numbers, complete. It 
 
 1 Pr. xi.S. 2 Rup. 3Judel2, 13. 
 
 ■• Those who explain this of the past, render, " Out of thee, Judah, is gone away, 
 withdrawn, he who devised evil against the Lord." But a person is said to"go forth'out 
 of that which is his abode, from the city, gate, &c or, to war. In the exceptions, Is. xlix. 
 17, " thy destroyers and wasters shall go forth from thee," it is implied that they had long 
 sojourned there, and were to give place to the children, who should return. In Jer. xliii. 
 12, where it is said of Nebuchadnezzar, he shall go forth thence in peace, it is first said, 
 he shall set up his throne there and shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shep- 
 herd putteth on his garment ; i. e. he shall make it wholly his own, 
 
 ^ As Ps. XXXV, 4. vijn "^vn. 
 
 « Sy''?3 occurs 18 times, combined with [3, n3, 'J3, p'k, 'pjn, mx, iy, " a son, daughter, sons, 
 n'.an, men, witness." '3]'VV is a similar composition. Else it only occurs with 131 Ps. xli. 
 9,ci.3, and as an adj. De. xv. 9; as personal 2 Sam. xxiii. 6. Nah. ii. 1. also '2 IDN.T Job 
 xxxiv. 18. There is then no ground to take it here, or Ps. xviii. 5, and 2 Sam. xxii. 5, 
 with 'Sra, as signifying " destruction." ? Is. x. 5-7. ' Is. xxxvi. 16, 17. ' d^b' is used 
 
 througli. Though I have afflicted thee, I chi[Tst 
 will afflict thee no more. ""'• "'•^" 
 
 13 For now will I '' In-eak his yoke from " J«;g2. 20. & 
 off thee, and will burst thy bonds in 
 sunder. 
 
 14 And the Lord hath given a command- 
 
 is wonderful how much God says in few words ; and how 
 it is here foretold that, with no previous loss, a mighty host 
 secure and at ease, in consequence of their prosperity, all 
 arc at one blow mown down, like the dry grass before the 
 scythe, are cut oft" and perish ; and one, their king, passeth 
 aivay, first by flight, and then by destruction. As they had 
 shorn the glory of others^*, so should they be shorn and cut 
 down themselves. 
 
 Though I have afflictetl thee, I will afflict thee ^^ no more, 
 unless by new guilt thou compel Me. God always relieves us 
 from trouble, as it were with the words^", sin no more, lest a 
 worse thing come unto thee. In the end, afflictions shall be 
 turned into joy, and God shall wipe aivay all tears from their 
 eyes ; and there shall he no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, 
 neither shall there be any more pain ^''. 
 
 13. For tiow will I break his yoke from off' thee. God, lest 
 His own should despair, does not put them ofi^ altogether to 
 a distant day, but saith, now. Historically, the beginning of 
 the fall is the earnest of the end. By the destruction of Sen- 
 nacherib, God declared His displeasure against Assyria; the 
 rest was matter of time only. Thus Haman's wise men say 
 to him, 1^ If 3Iordecai be of the seed of the Jeius, before whom 
 thou hast begun to fall, thou shal.t not prevail against him, but 
 shall surely fall before him; as He saith in Isaiah, ^^Ituill break 
 the Assyrian in My land, and upon My mountains tread him 
 under foot ; then sliall his yoke depart from off them, and 
 his burden depart from off' their shoulders. "-•' In that He saith, 
 not ' I will loose,' ' will undo,' but ' I will break,' ' will burst,' 
 He sheweth that He will in such wise free Jerusalem, as 
 to pour out displeasure on the enemy. The very mode of 
 speaking shews the greatness of His displeasure against 
 those who, when for the secret purpose of His judgements 
 they have power given them against the servants of God, 
 feed themselves on their pimishments, and moreover dare to 
 boast against God, as did the Assyrian, "^ By the strength of 
 my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom." 
 
 14. yitid the Lord hath given a commandmeiit concerning 
 thee, O Assyrian. In the word " I have afflicted thee," the 
 land of Israel is addressed, as usual in Hebrew, in the feminine; 
 here, a change of gender in Hebrew shews the person ad- 
 
 of physical entireness, completeness, or mental integrity. In one place only, Gen. xxxiv. 21 , 
 <:fi!< D'pSp is doubtless rendered rightly "peaceable with us," as 'Dpi!' Ps. vii. 5, but not in 
 the frequent idiom oVf ih, 3^'?, whether with or without " cy, and never by itself. 
 
 '" So it seems better to render it, than, as in the E. V., and he shall pass through. The 
 word means alike " pass away '* " or pass through," but the act spoken of is later than 
 the cutting down of the army, and so probably the passing away, or flight of its king, to 
 his destruction or final passing away. " Dan. ii. 34. '^ m is used of sheep-shearing, 
 cutting oflf the hair in sorrow ; IJ is " mown grass, fleece cut." Here alone, it is a meta. 
 phor, like that of n^r. Is. vii. 20. " Comp. Ps. xlviii. 4. " Is. vii. 20. 
 
 '= njy "afflicted "relatively to God, is said of His chastisement of His people (Deut.viii. 
 2. 2Kgs. xvii. 20)or of individuals (Ps. Ixxxviii. 8. xc. 15. cii. 24. cxix. 75. Jobxxx. 11.) 
 but no where of the enemies of God, whose destruction moreover is here spoken of. It 
 cannot then refer to the Assyrian, as some have done. The double omission of the ' in !|rgy 
 was probably for the rhythm. 
 
 16 S. John V. 14. '7Rev.xxi.4. is Esth. vi. 13. I3 1s.xiv.25. 2u Rup. 2' Is. X. 13.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 379 
 
 ciFrTst '"6"* concerning thee, that no more of 
 
 "^- ^'^- thy name be sown : out of the house 
 
 of thy gods will I cut off the graven 
 
 e 2 Kin. 19. 37. image and the molten image: "l will 
 
 dressed to be different. "^ By His command alone, and the 
 word of His power, He eut off the race of tlie Assyrian, as 
 he says in Wisdom, of Ejjypt, ^ Thine Almighty word leaped 
 doum from Heaven, out of Thi/ royal throne ; as a fierce man 
 of war into the midst of a land of destruction, and lirought 
 Thine unfeigned cowmandtnent as a sharp sword, and standing 
 up filled all things with death," or else it may be, He fjavc 
 command to the Ang-els His Ministers. God commandcth 
 beforehand, that, when it cometh to pass, it may be known 
 '"that not by chance," nor by the will of man, "nor without 
 His judgement but by the sentence of God" the blow came. 
 
 No more of thy name be smvn, as Isaiah saith, *thc seed of evil- 
 doers shall never be renowned. He prophesies, not the im- 
 mediate but the absolute cessation of the Assyrian line. If 
 the prophecy was uttered at the time of Sennacherib's inva- 
 sion, seventeen years before his death, not Esarhaddon only, 
 but his son Asshurbanipal also, whose career of personal con- 
 quest, the last glory of the house of the Sargonides and of the 
 empire, began immediately upon his father's reign of thirteen 
 years, was probably already born. Asshurbanipal in this 
 case would only have been thirty-one, at the beginning of his 
 energetic reign, and would have died in his fifty-second year. 
 After him followed only an inglorious twenty-two years. 
 The prophet says, the Lord hath commanded. The decree as 
 to Allah's house was fulfilled in the person of his second son, 
 as to Jeroboam and Baasha in their sons. It waited its ap- 
 pointed time, but was fulfilled in the complete excision of 
 the doomed race. 
 
 Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off graven image 
 and molten image ^ ; as thou hast done to others ", it shall 
 be done to thee. "^And when even the common objects 
 of worship of the Assyrian and Chaldean were not spared, 
 what would be the ruin of the whole city ! " So little shall 
 thy gods help thee, that '"there shalt thou be punished, 
 where thou hopest for aid. Graven and molten image shall 
 be thy grave ; amid altar and oblations, as thou worsliippest 
 idols," thanking them for thy deliverance, "shall thy unholy 
 blood be shed," as it was by his sons Adrammelech and 
 Sharezer*. I tvi II make it ^^ thy grave ; "^what God maketh 
 remains immoveable, cannot be changed. But He "maketh 
 thy grave" in hell, where not only that rich man in the Gos- 
 pel hath his grave; but all who are or have been like him, 
 and especially thou, O Asshur, of whom it is written, ^^ Asshur 
 is there and all her company ; his graves are about him : all of 
 them slat?!, fallen by the sword. Whose graves are set in the 
 sides of the pit and her company is round about her grave : all 
 of them slain, fallen by the sivord, which caused terror in the 
 latid of the living. Graven and molten image, the idols which 
 men adore, the images of their vanity, the created things 
 which they worship instead of the true God (as they whose 
 god is their belly), in which they busy themselves in this life, 
 shall be their destruction in the Day of Judgement. 
 
 ' Alb. 2 Wisd. xviii. 15. 10. ' S. Jer. ■• xiv. 20. ' nDDDl Sos are so joined De. xxvii. 
 15. Jud. xvii. 3, 4, xviii. 14. ^ Is. xxxvii. 19. ' Rup. ' S. Jer. ^ ig. xxxvii. 38. 
 
 ^" He does not use the word nirj; " made," but 0*8* " appointed" it, set it to be. "There 
 I will make thv grave." Jon. Even Ew. has "making them thy grave." " Ez. xxxii. 
 22, 23. 12 S'rom Dion. " 1 Sam. ii. 30. n Ob. 2. i* lb. 3. '6 Dan. 
 
 v. 27. '7 So in Job's confession of himself, xl. 4, which, as addressed to God, 
 
 can only be said of his intrinsic worthlessness. It stands contrasted with those whom 
 
 for 
 the 
 
 thou art 
 mountains 
 
 yil,. Before 
 
 ^"^* CHRIST 
 
 make thy grave ; 
 
 If) Jichold ''upon the mountains the _i'!iZi5i_ 
 
 d Isa. 52. 7. 
 
 feet of him that hringeth good tid- Rom. I'o.'is. 
 ings, that publisheth peace ! O Judah, 
 
 For thou art vile. Thou honouredst thyself and dishonoiir- 
 edst God, so shalt thou be dishonoured ^-, as He saith,'' Them 
 that honour Me I will honour, and thci/ that despise Me shall he 
 lightly est eenu-d. So when lieliadsaid toEdom,' V//o;< w/Vj^'rm//// 
 despised, he adds the ground of it, '^ The pride of thine heart 
 hath deceived thee. For tluni art vile. Great, honoured, glori- 
 ous as Assyria or its ruler were in the eyes of men, the pro- 
 phet tells him, what he was in himself, being such in the eyes 
 of God, ligiit, empty, as Daniel said to Belsliazzar, '" Thou art 
 weighed in the balances, and found wantims, of no account, 
 vilely. 
 
 15. Behold upon the mountains, the feet of him that hringeth 
 good tidings, that publisheth peace. From mountain-top to 
 mountain-top by bea('on-fires they spread the gkid tidings. 
 Suddenly the deliverance comes, sudden its announcement. 
 Beholil ! Judah, before hindered by armies from going up to 
 Jerusalem, its cities taken ^*, may now again keep the feasts 
 there, and pay the vows, which " in trouble she promised ; " 
 for the tuicked one, the ungodly Sennacherib, is utterli/ cut off, 
 he shall no more pass through thee ; " the army and ffing and 
 empire of the Assyrians have perished." But the words of 
 prophecy cannot be bound down to tiiis. These large pro- 
 mises, which, as to this world, were forfeited in the next reign, 
 when Manassch was taken captive to Babylon, and still more 
 in the seventy years' captivity, and more yet in that until now, 
 look for a fulfilment, as they stand. They sound so absolute. 
 '• I will afflict thee no more," "the wicked shall no more pass 
 through thee," " he is utterly (lit. the whole of him) cut off," 
 Nahum joins on this signal complete deliverance from a 
 temporal enemy, to the final deliverance of the people of 
 God. The invasion of Sennacherib was an avowed conflict 
 with God Himself. It was a defiance of God. He would 
 make God's people, his ; he would cut it off, that it be no more 
 a people, and that the name of Israel may be no more in re- 
 membrance^'^. There was a more "evil counsellor" behind, 
 whose agent was Sennacherib. He, as he is the author of all 
 murders and strife, so has he a special hatred for the Church, 
 whether before or since Christ's Coming. Before, that he 
 might cut oft" that Line from whom the Seed of the woman 
 should be born, which should destroy his empire and crush 
 himself, and that he might devour the Child who was to be 
 born -°. Since, because her members are his freed captives, 
 and she makes inroads on his kingdom, and he hates them 
 because he hates God and Christ Who dwells in them. As 
 the time of the birth of our Lord neared, his hate became more 
 concentrated. God overruled the hatred of Edom or Moab, or 
 the pride of Assyria, to His own ends, to preserve Israel by 
 chastising it. Their hatred was from the evil one, because 
 it was God's people, the seed of Abraham, the tribe of Judah, 
 the line of David. If they could be cut off, they of whom 
 Christ was to be born according to the flesh, and so, in all 
 seeming, the hope of the world, were gone. Sennacherib then 
 
 God honours (13?N)1 Sam. ii. 30; inHif. "held cheap" (2 Sam. xix. 44, Ez. xxii. 7.) put 
 to dishonour, Ii. viii. 23. (contrasted withi'arn). In Gen. xvi. 4. 5, it is added "in the 
 eyes of" another; it is used of a thing 1 Sam. xviii. 23. 2 Kgs. iii. IS. The physical sense 
 "were lightened" (of the waters of the deluge Gen. viii. 11.) does not authorise the 
 interpretation of some, " art lessened in number ; " nor would this be a ground why God 
 should make its grave. 
 '8 2 Kings xviii. 13. " Pj. ;ixxiii. 4. » Rev. xii. 4.
 
 380 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 c h^rTs t t keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy 
 cir. 7i3^_ yo^yg . for t " the wicked shall no more 
 
 t Heb./,v7s<. ' 
 
 \Heb. Belial. «ver. 11,12. 
 
 was not a picture only, he was the agent of Satan, who used 
 his hands, feet, tongue, to blaspheme God and war against 
 His people. As then we have respect not to the mere agent, 
 but to the principal, and should address him through tliose he 
 employed (as Elislia said of the messenger who came to slay 
 him ^'is 7iof the sound of /lis master's feet belihid Itim f), so the 
 Prophet's words cliietly and most fully go to the instigator of 
 Sennacherib, whose very name he names, Belial. It is tiie 
 deliverance of the Church and the people of God which he 
 foretells, and tiianks God for. To the Church he says in tlie 
 Name of God, Though 1 have afflicted thee, I will afflict 
 thee no more ". The yoke which He will burst is the yoke of 
 the oppressor, of which Isaiah speaks, and which the Son, to 
 be born of a Virgin, "the Mighty God. the Prince of Peace," 
 was to break ^ ; the yoke of sin and the bands of flesiily pleasure 
 and evil habits, wherewith we were held captive, so that 
 henceforth we should walk upright, unbowed, look up to hea- 
 ven our home, and run the ivay of Thy commandynents 
 when Thou hast set my heart at liberty. Behold, then, 
 iipo7i the mountains, i. e. above all the height of this world, the 
 feet of him that bringeth good tidings, i. e. of remission of 
 sins and sanctification by the Spirit and the freedom and 
 adoption as sons, and the casting out of the Prince of this 
 wotM, that publishefh peace. OJudah, thou, the true people of 
 God, keep thy solemn feasts, the substance of the figures of 
 the law." " * He who is ever engaged on the words deeds and 
 thoughts of Him,Who is by nature Lord,the Word of God,ever 
 liveth in His days, ever keepeth Lord's days. Yea he who ever 
 prepareth himself for the true life and abstaineth from the 
 sweets of this life which deceive the many, and who chcrish- 
 eth not the mind of the flesh but chastens the body 
 and enslaves it, is ever keeping the days of preparation. 
 He too who thinketh that Christ our Passover was sacri- 
 ficed for us, and that we must keep festival, eating the 
 flesh of the Word, there is no time when he keepeth not 
 the Passover, ever passing over in thought and every word 
 and deed from the affairs of this life to God, and hast- 
 ing to His city. Moreover whoso can say truthfully, we 
 ' have risen together with Christ, yea and also, He hath 
 together raised us and together seated its in the heavenly 
 places in Christ, ever liveth in the days of Pentecost ; and 
 chiefly, when, going up into the upper room as the Apostles 
 of Jesus, hegiveth himself to supplication and prayer, that he 
 may become meet for the rushing mighty wind from heaven, 
 which mightily eff"aceth the evil in men and its fruits, meet too 
 for some portion of the fiery tongue from God." " ^ Such an 
 one will keep the feast excellently, having the faith in Christ 
 fixed, hallowed by the Spirit, glorious with the grace of adop- 
 tion. And he will off'er to God spiritual sacrifice, consecrating 
 himself for an odour of sweetness, cultivating also every kind 
 of virtue, temperance, continence, fortitude, endurance, 
 charity, hope, love of the poor, goodness, longsuftering: for 
 with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Every power of the 
 enemy,which before had dominion over him, shall pass through 
 no tnore, since Christ commanded the unclean spirits to de- 
 part into the abyss and giveth to those who love Him power to 
 resist the enemy, and subdue the passions, and destroy sin and 
 tread on serpents and scorpions and every power of the enemy." 
 
 pass throui^h thee; 'he is utterly cut 
 off. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 ' ver. 14. 
 
 ' 2 Kings vi. 32. 
 
 V. 12. 
 
 . 4. and 6. 
 
 And these feasts were to be kept " * in the spirit not in the 
 letter. For what availcth it to keep any feast without, un- 
 less there be the feast of contemplation in the soul ? " Where- 
 fore he adds, and pay thy vows, i. e. thyself, whom in Baptism 
 thou hast vowed:/or thefVicked One shall no morejxiss through 
 thee. " ^ For from what time, O Judah, Christ, by dying and 
 rising again, hallowed thy feasts, he can no longer puss through 
 thee. Thenceforth he perished wholly. Not that he has, in 
 substance, ceased to be, but that the deatli of the human race, 
 which through his envy came into this world, the two-fold 
 death of body and soul, wholly perishetl). Where and when 
 did this Belial perish? When died the death whicii he brought 
 ill, whence himself also is called Death ? When Christ died, 
 then died the death of our souls; and when Christ rose again, 
 then perished the death of our bodies. When then, (J Judah, 
 thou keepest thy feasts, remember that thy very feast is He, of 
 Whom thou sayest that by dying He coiujuered death and by 
 rising He restored life. Hence it is said, Belial shall no more 
 pass through thee. For if thou look to that alone, that Sen- 
 nacherib departed, to return no more, and perished, it would 
 not be true to say, Belial hath wholly perished ! For after 
 him many a Belial, such as he was, passed through thee, and 
 hurt thee far more. Pen^hance thou sayest, ' so long as Nine- 
 veh standest, how sayest thou, that Belial has wholly perished? 
 So long as the world standeth, how shall I be comforted, that 
 death hath perished ? For lo ! persecutors armed with death 
 have stormed, and besides them, many sons of Belial, of 
 whom Anti-Christ will be the worst. How then sayest thou, 
 that Belial has wholly perished ? ' It follows, the Scatterer 
 hath gone up before thee. To Judah in the flesh. Nebuchad- 
 nezzar who went up against Nineveh, was worse than Senna- 
 cherib. Who then is He Who went up before thee, and dis- 
 persed the world, that great Nineveh, that thou shouldest 
 have full consolation ? Christ Who descended. Himself as- 
 cended ; and as He ascended, so shall He come to disperse 
 Nineveh, i. e. to judge the world. What any persecutor doth 
 meanwhile, yea or the Devil himself or Anti-Christ, taketh 
 nothing from the truth, that Belial hath tvholly perished. The 
 prince of this tuorld is cast out. For nothing which they do, 
 or can do, hinders, that both deaths of body and soul are 
 swallowed up in His victory. Who hath ascended to heaven ? 
 Belial cannot in the members kill the soul, which hath been 
 made alive by the death of the Head, i. e. Christ; and as to the 
 death of the body, so certain is it that it will perish, that thou 
 mayest say fearlessly that it hath perished, since Christ the 
 Head hath risen." 
 
 Each fall of an enemy of the Church, each recovery of a 
 sinful soul being a part of this victory, the words may be ap- 
 plied to each. The Church or the soul are bidden to keep the 
 feast and pay their vows, whatever in their trouble they pro- 
 mised to God. '" It is said to souls, which confess the Lord, 
 that the devil who, before, wasted thee and bowed thee with 
 that most heavy yoke hath, in and with the idols which thou 
 madest for thyself, perished ; keep thy feasts and pay to God 
 thy voivs, singing with the Angels continually, for no more 
 shall Belial pass through thee, of whom the Apostle too 
 saith, JFhat concord hath Christ u'itk Belial? The words 
 too. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth 
 
 ■* Orig. c. Cels. viii. n. 
 
 6 S. Cyr. 
 
 Rup. 
 
 7 S. Jer.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 381 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 cir. 713. ] y/^g fearful and victorious arinlcs of God 
 
 II Or, Thr dh 
 
 pi'rser, or, 
 
 hammer. 
 
 • Jer. 50. 2 
 
 K Jer. .11.11, 
 
 12. ch. 3 
 
 dizain St Nineveh. 
 
 3. ~| I~E II Hliat daslu'tli in pieces is come 
 14. M i lip before thy lace 
 
 munition, watch the way, 
 
 '' keej) the 
 make t}uf 
 
 loins stron<«;, fortify thy power mij^litily. ciuiYsT 
 2 'For the Fjoiu) hath turned away _5'^- "'i^ 
 
 c Isa. 10. 12. 
 
 II the excellency of .Tacoh, as the excel- Jer. 2.0. 2'j. 
 
 1 /• I 1 <• ,1 ii i- I N f'r. ti"! pride 
 
 lency of Israel: lor 'the eniptiers hav(! „/ jamb as 
 
 II 1 I ^i • • ''"' 7'fitle of 
 
 eini)tie<I them out, and marred their vine jsrari. 
 
 , ' , i Ps. so. 12. 
 
 brandies. iios. lo. 1. 
 
 good ti(linc:s, that publisheth peace" belona:, in a degree, 
 to all preachers of tlie Gospel. " ' No one can preach peace, 
 who is himself below and deavetli to earthly things. For 
 wars are for the good things of earth. If thou wouldest 
 preacli peace to thyself and thy neighbour, be raised above 
 the earth and its goods, riches and glory. Ascend to the 
 heavenly mountains, whence David also, lifting up his eyes, 
 hoi)ed that his help wonld come." 
 
 C. II. Tiic Prophet, having foretold the destruction of Sen- 
 nacherib, and in him how the enemy of Judab is wholly cut 
 otl', goes on to describe the destruction of Nineveh, and with it 
 of his whole kingdom, and, under it, of Anti-Christ and Satan. 
 
 1. He tliitt daslieth in pieces, rather, the Dispcrser", tlie instru- 
 ment of God, whereby He should break her in jneces like a 
 j)otter\<i vessel, or should scatter her in all lands, is come up 
 against thy face, O Nineveh, i. e. either, over against thee'"^, 
 confronting her as it were, face to face, or directed against 
 thee*. From the description of the peace of Judab, the 
 Prophet turns suddenly to her oppressor, to whom, not to 
 Judah, the rest of the prophecy is directed. Jacob and Israel 
 are spoken of, not to ^. The destroyer of Nineveh went up 
 against the face of Nineveh, not in the presence of Judah and 
 Jacob, nho were far away and knew nothing of it. Keep the 
 munition. While all in Judah is now peace, all in Nineveh 
 is tumult. God Whom they had defied, saying that Hezekiah 
 could not ^ turn away the face of one captain of the least of 
 his servants, now bids them prepare to meet him whom 
 He would send against them. Gird up thy loins noiu, like a 
 man''. Thou who wouldest lay waste others, now, if thou 
 canst, kee]» thyself. The strength of the words is the 
 measure of the irony. They had challenged God ; He in turn 
 challenges them to put forth all their might. 
 
 Fence thy defences^, we might say. Their strong walls, 
 high though they were, unassailable by any then known skill 
 of besiegers, would not be secure. 
 
 The prophet uses a kindred and allusive word, that their 
 protection needed to be itself protected ; and this, by one con- 
 tinued watchfulness. JFatch, he adds, the way : espy out^ 
 (as far as thou canst), the coming of the enemy; strengthen 
 the loins, the seat of strength ^°. Elsewhere they are said to be 
 girded up for any exertion. Fortify thy strength exceedingly. 
 The expression is rare ^^ : commonly it is said of some part of 
 the human frame, knees, arms, or mind, or of man by God. 
 
 The same words are strong mockery to those who resist God, 
 good counsel to those who trust in God. Keep the munition, 
 for He TVho keepeth thee tuill not sleep ^- ; watch the way, by 
 which the enemy may approach from afar, for Satan approach- 
 
 • Theoph. - C'SD is a partic. used as a proper name. {"5P is indeed used as a noun = ["SS 
 as united with the sword and arrow, and so an instrument of war, hattle axe or the like 
 (Prov. XXV. 18.), like fao (Jer. li. 20.), used of Nebuchadnezzar by God. Yet the like 
 phrase p.5n n^j;^(Mic. ii. 13.) and the use itself of n^y, " went up," make it probable that an 
 agent is meant. |'*sn is always "dispersed;" the sense, "broke in pieces," occurs only in |T9 
 Jer. xxiii. 29, J'gsS Job. xvi. 12, j'ssnrt Hab. iii. 6, CD'nislsn Jer. xxv. 31, and in J'SJ, j-gj. 
 
 3 As Gen. xxxii. 23, i'3S 'jy nnyn ; Job iv. 15, ijSn' 'JB "jy nn. 
 
 •• As Ps. xxi. 13, nn'ja Vy [Ji^n, which is supported by the use of Sy rhy, " went up 
 against," as 2 Kgs. xvii. 3, xviii. 25, Jo. i. 6. ' ver. 2. Jon., Rashi, Kim., Abarb. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 eth, sometimes suddenly, sometimes very stealthily and subtly, 
 
 transforming himself into an angel of light. " '■' IVatch also the 
 wail by which thou art to go, as it is said, ^^ Stan<l j/e in the 
 ivar/s, and see, mid ask fur the old paths, where is the good way, 
 and walk therein ; so that, having stood in many ways, we 
 may come to that Way whicli saitli, I tint the fray." Then,^' 
 make thy loins strong, as the Saviour cominandcth His dis- 
 ciples. Let your loins he girded about '", and the Apostle says, 
 ^'' Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth ; for 
 nothing so strengthcnetli its the Truth. For ("hrist being the 
 Truth, whoso with his whole heart hath l)clieved in Christ, is 
 strong against himself, and hath power over the loins, the 
 seat of the passions. Then, since this warfare is hard, he adds, 
 be strong, fortify thy power mightily ; resist not listlessly, but 
 vehemently; and that, in His strength Who hath strength- 
 ened our nature, taking it to Himself and uniting it with the 
 Godhead. For without Him, strong though thou be, thou 
 wilt avail nothing. 
 
 2. For the Lord hath turned away (rather restoreth) the 
 excellency of Jacob, speaking of what should come, as already 
 come. For Nineveh falls, because God restores His people, 
 whom it had oppressed. The restoration of God's favour to 
 His Church is the season of His punishment of their enemies ; 
 as, again. His displeasure against her enemies is a token of 
 His favour to her. When Herod was smitten by God, '^ the 
 word of God grew and multiplied. A long captivity was 
 still before Judah, yet the destruction of the Assyrian was the 
 earnest that every oppressing city should cease^^. 
 
 The excellency of Jacob. The word, excellency, is used in 
 a good or bad sense ; bad, if man takes the excellency to him- 
 self; good, as given by God. This is decisive against a mo- 
 dern popular rendering; ''-"has returned to the excellency of 
 Jacob ;" for Scripture knows of no excellency of Jacob, except 
 God Himself or grace from God. Jacob, if separated from God 
 or left by Him, has no excellency, to which God could return. 
 
 ^s the excellency of Israel. Both the ten and the two tribes 
 had sutfered by the Assyrian. The ten had been carried cap- 
 tive by Shalmanezer, the two had been harassed by Sennache- 
 rib. After the captivity of the ten tribes, the name Jacob is 
 used of Judah only. It may be then, that the restoration of 
 God's favour is promised to each separately. Or, =' there 
 may be an emphasis in the names themselves. Their fore- 
 father bore the name of Jacob in his troubled days of exile ; 
 that of Israel was given him on his return -. It would then 
 mean, the afflicted people (Jacob) shall be restored to its ut- 
 most glory as Israel. The sense is the same. 
 
 For the emptiers have emptied them out. Their chastisement 
 
 would have it, that Judah is addressed. ' Is. xxxvi. 9. 7 Job. xl. 7. 
 
 8 n-i!i-p lii'j The Imp. n'lsi would have expressed a simple command; the Infin. says, 
 what has to be done. ' ."igj '" The use of the adj. ":ren " strong " Dan. vii. 7, 
 
 shows that the meaning of the root was not lost, though occurring only in the 
 adj. and mno. 
 
 " It occurs Prov. xxiv. 5. of the man of understanding, and Am. ii. 14, of what man 
 cannot do. '= Ps. cxxi. 3. >3 S. Jer. '■• Jer. vi. 16. 
 
 IS From S. Jer. '« Luke xii. 35. •' Eph. vi. 14. 
 
 '8 Actsxii.24. '« Is.xxxiii.l. s» Seeab.Intr.p.STl.n.S. 21 Sanct. =2 Gen.xxxii.28. 
 
 3 L
 
 382 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 ch^rTst ^ 'T'he shield of Ins iniirhty men is made 
 
 gir- 71 3. ej,gf]^ t]jg valiant men aye || in scarlet: the 
 
 Vor', dl'ed'^' ehariots shall be with || flaminjif torches in 
 
 IIOr'/'n/ the day of his preparation, and the fir 
 
 torches. 
 
 trees shall be terribly shaken. 
 
 4 The ehariots shall rage in the streets, 
 they shall justle one against another 
 
 is the channel of their restoration. Tinlike the world, their 
 emptiness is their fulness, as the fulness of the world is its 
 emptiness. The world is cast down, not to arise ; for ^ woe to 
 him that is alone when he falleth : for he hath not another to 
 help him up. The Church/rt//e//i, but to arise" ; the people is 
 restored, because it had borne chastening ^ ; for the Lord hath 
 restored the excellency of Jacob ; for the emjttiers have emptied 
 them out and marred their vinebranches*, i. e. its fruit-bear- 
 ing branches, that, as far as in them lay, it should not bear 
 fruit unto God ; but to cut the vine is, by God's grace, to 
 make it shoot forth and bear fruit more abundantly. 
 
 3, 4. Army is arrayed against army ; the armies, thus far, of 
 God against the army of His enemy ; all without is order ; all 
 within, confusion. The assailing army, from its compactness 
 and unity, is spoken of, both as many and one. The might is 
 of many ; the order and singleness of purpose is as of one. The 
 shield, collectively, not shields. His mighty men ; He, who was 
 last spoken of, was Almighty God, as He says in Isaiah ; ^ I 
 have commanded My consecrated ones ; I have also called My 
 mighty ones, them that rejoice in My highness. 
 
 Is reddened, either with blood of the Assyrians, shed in some 
 previous battle, before the siege began, or (which is the mean- 
 ing of the word elsewhere"), an artificial colour, the colour 
 of blood being chosen, as expressive of fiery fierceness. The 
 valiant men are in scarlet ; for beauty and terror, as, again 
 being the colour of blood ^. It was especially the colour 
 of the dress of their nobles^, one chief colour of the Me- 
 dian dress, from whom the Persians adopted their's ^. The 
 chariots shall be ivith flaming torches, literally with the fire of 
 steels^^, or of sharp incisive instruments. Either way the 
 words seem to indicate that the chariots were in some way 
 armed with steel. For steel was not an ornament, nor do the 
 chariots appear to have been ornamented with metal. Iron 
 would have hindered the primary object of lightness and speed. 
 Steel, as distinct from iron, is made only for incisiveness. In 
 either way, it is probable, that scythed chariots were already in 
 use. Against such generals, as the younger Cyrus '^ and Alex- 
 ander^-, they were of no avail ; but they must have been terrific 
 instruments against undisciplined armies. The rush and noise 
 of the British chariots disturbed for a time even Caesar's Roman 
 
 > Eccles. iv. 10. = Micah vii. 8. 3 Ez. xxxvi. 3, 6, 7. " See Ps. Ixxx. 13, 13. 
 
 6 Is. xiii. 3. s The form dikd is used five times in Exodus of the artificial colour 
 
 of the dyed ramskins. But there is no proof of any such custom as to the shields. If 
 reddened by actual hlcod, it must have been in a previous battle, since Nahum is thus far 
 describing the preparations, 'U'?n DV|. The gleaming of the brass of the shields in the 
 Eun (1 Mace. vi. 39) could hardly be called their being reddened. ' jElian V. H. vi. 6. 
 Val . Max. ii. 6. 2. ^ Xeno^hon (Cyrop. viii. 3. 3) implies that they were costly treasures 
 which Cyrus distributed. ^ Strabo xi. 13. 9. '" On nrhs see Introd. pp. 371, 3r2. 
 
 " At Cunaxa, Xen. Anab. i. 8. '" At Arbela, Arr. iii. 13, Q. Curt. iv. 51, and, upon 
 experience, by Eumenes, "baud ignarus pugnae," Liv. xxxvii. 41, Appian Syr. 33. 
 Diodorus (xvii. 58.) describes their terrible vehemence, when not evaded. Uneven 
 ground naturally disordered them. Tac. Agr. c. 3G. Vegetius iii. 24. 
 
 13 De bell. Gall. iv. 33, 34. 
 
 " Ctesias, who speaks of them as long prior (quoted by Diod. Sic. ii. 5.) is, on Persian 
 matters, much better authority than Xenophon who (Cyrop. vi. 1. as explained by 
 
 in the broad ways 
 
 like torches, they shall 
 
 lightnings. 
 
 t they shall seem j, ^ff'1% ^ 
 
 run 
 
 like the '■•''•• ^ 
 
 13. 
 
 t lleb. 
 their show. 
 
 Or, 
 
 gallants. 
 
 5 He shall recount his |1 worthies : they i 
 shall stumble in their walk ; they shall 
 make haste to the wall thereof, and the , „ ^ 
 
 ' t Heb 
 
 f defence shall be prepared. 
 
 covertngf or, 
 coverer. 
 
 troops ''. They were probably in use long before i*. Their use 
 among the aiKnent Britons ^^, Gauls ^^ and Belgians ^'', as also 
 probably among the Canaanites '^, evinces that they existed 
 among very rude people. The objection that the Assyrian 
 chariots are not represented in the monuments as armed with 
 scythes is an oversight, since those spoken of by Nahum may 
 have been Median, certainly were not Assyrian. In the day of 
 His preparation^'^, when He mustereth the hosts for the battle; 
 a7id the fir- frees shall be terribly shaken; i.e. fir-spears-" (the 
 weapon being often named from the wood of which it is made) 
 shall be made to quiver through the force wherewith they 
 shall be hurled. 
 
 The chariots shall rage (or madden ^^, as the driving of Jehu 
 is said to he furiously, lit. in inadness) in the streets. The 
 city is not yet taken ; so, since this takes place m the streets 
 and broad ivays, they are the confused preparations of the be- 
 sieged. They shall justle o?te against another, shall run rapidly 
 to and fro, restlessly ; their shoiv (E. 31.) is lihe torches, leaving 
 streaks of fire, as they pass rapidly along. They shall run ve- 
 hemently-^, like the lightnings, swift but vanishing. 
 
 5. He shall recount his tuorthies. The Assyrian king wakes 
 as out of a sleep, lit. " he remembers his mighty men -^ ; " they 
 stumble in their iralk, Wt. paths -^, not through haste only and 
 eager fear, but from want of inward might and the aid of God. 
 Those whom God leadeth stumble not ^\ " '" Perplexed every 
 way and not knowing what they ought to do, their mind wholly 
 darkened and almost drunken with ills, they reel to and fro, 
 turn from one thing to another, and in all" labour in vain. 
 
 They shall make haste to the tcalls thereof, and the defence 
 (lit. the covering) shall be prepared. The Assyrian monuments 
 leave no doubt that a Jewish writer -'' is right in the main, in 
 describing this as a covered shelter, under which an enemy 
 approached the city ; " a covering of planks with skins upon 
 them ; under it those who fight against the city come to the 
 wall and mine the wall underneath, and it is a shield over 
 them from the stones, which are cast from oif the wall." 
 
 The monuments, however, exhibit this shelter, as connected 
 not with mining but with a battering ram, mostly with a 
 sharp point, by which they loosened the walls "*. Another 
 covert was employed to protect single miners who picked out 
 
 Arrian, Tactic, c. 3.) attributes their invention to Cyrus. For Xenophon, who was a good 
 witness as to what he saw, shews himself ignorant of the previous history (See ab. p. 368.). 
 He himself quotes Ctesias as an authority (Anab. i. 8.). The exaggerations of Ctesias are 
 probably those of his Persian informants. 
 
 '^ Sil. Ital. xvii. 417, 418. Tac. Agric. 35, 3G. Mela iii. 6. Jornandes de reb. Goth. c. 2. 
 
 ^^ Mela iii. 6. '7 Lucan i. 426. S. Jerome in Is. ult. 
 
 1^ The use of a little iron, more or less, in strengthening the wheels &c., could hardly 
 entitle them to be called " chariots of iron." Jos. xvii. 16, 18. Jud. i. 19, iv. 3, 13. 
 
 '^ I'D! as in Jer. xlvi. 14, Ez. vii. 14, xxxviii. 7. ^ See on Hos. xiv. 8. p. 91. 
 
 -^ The words are adopted by Jeremiah xlvi. 9. 
 
 -'- I'ST Intensive from pi. -3 As iii. 18. Jud. v. 13. Neh.iii. 5. 
 
 ^ So the Heb. text. Their many ways may be opposed to the oneness of the army of 
 God (See v. 3.) =5 jg. ixiH. 13. =« S. Cyr. =r Kimchi. 
 
 -' See in Kawlinson's 5 Empires ii. 78. "All of them [the battering-rams] were 
 covered with a frame-work of ozier, wood, felt, or skins, for the better protection of those
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 383 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 6 The i?ates of the rivers shall hv 
 opened, and the palace shall he || dissolved. 
 
 7 And II Huzzah shall he || UmI away 
 captive, she shall he hrou<»;ht up, and 
 
 11 Or, molten, 
 11 Or, tliat 
 
 which was 
 
 established^ ^ . i . 
 
 or, Were MM her uiaids shall lead her as \vith the voice 
 
 a stand made. 
 II Or, discovered. 
 
 Before 
 
 of "^ doves, tahering upon their hreasts, ch'r" 
 8 But Nineveh is || of old hke a pool of. 
 
 ST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 single stones with a pick-axe ^ The Assyrian sculptures shew, 
 in the means employed against or in defence of their engines, 
 how central a jtart of the siege they formed-. Seven of them 
 are represented in one siege'. Tlie "rain^" is mentioned in 
 Ezekicl as the well-known and ordinary instrument of a siege. 
 
 Thus V. 3. des(!rihcs the attack ; v. 4, the defence ; the two 
 first clauses of v. 5, the defence ; the two last, the attack. This 
 quick interchange only makes the whole more vivid. 
 
 " ^ But what availeth it to huild the house, unless the Lord 
 build it? What helpeth it to shut the gates, which the Lord 
 unbarreth ? " On both sides is put forth the full strength of 
 man; there seems a stand-still to sec, what will be, and (<od 
 brings to pass His own work in His own way, 
 
 6. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace 
 shall be dissolved. All gives way in an instant at the will of 
 God; the strife is hushed ; no more is said of war and death; 
 there is no more resistance or bloodshed ; no sound except the 
 wailing of the captives, the flight of those who can escape, 
 while the conquerors empty it of the spoil, and then she is 
 left a waste. The swelling of the river and the opening made 
 by it may have given rise to the traditional account of Ctesias, 
 although obviously exaggerated as to the destruction of the 
 wall. The exaggerated character of that tradition is not 
 inconsistent with, it rather implies, a basis of truth. It is 
 inconceivable that it should have been thought, that walls, 
 of the thickness which Ctesias had described, were overthrown 
 by the swelling of any river, unless some such event as 
 Ctesias relates, that the siege was ended by an entrance 
 afforded to the enemy through some bursting-in of the river, 
 had been true. Nahuni speaks nothing of the wall, but simply 
 of the opening of the gates of the rivers, obviously the gates, 
 by which the inhabitants could have access to the rivers ^, 
 which otherwise would be useless to them except as a wall. 
 These rivers correspond to the rivers, the artificial divisions 
 of the Nile, by which No or Thebes was defended, or ^ the 7-ivers 
 of Babi/lon which yet was washed by the one stream, the 
 Euphrates. But Nineveh was surrounded and guarded by 
 actual rivers, the Tigris and the Khausser, and, (assuming 
 those larger dimensions of Nineveh, ^'hich are supported by 
 evidences so various') the greater Zab, which was "called "the 
 frantic Zab ' on account of the violence of its current." 
 contained (says Ainsworth ^°), when we saw it, a larger body 
 
 who worked the implement ; — some appear to have been stationary, others in early 
 times had six wheels, in the later times four only. Sometimes with the ram and its 
 framework was a moveable tower, containing soldiers, who, at once, fought the enemy 
 on a level and protected the engine." ' See picture in Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 82. 
 
 - " Fire was the weapon usually turned against the ram, torches, burning tow or other 
 inflammable substances being cast from the walls upon its framework." To prevent this 
 [its being set on fire], the workers of the ram were sometimes provided with a supply of 
 water ; sometimes they suspended from a pole in front of their engnie, a curtain of leather, or 
 some other non-inflammable substance. Inabas-relief(Layard's jl/onwmeH/iSeriesii. PI. 
 21.) where an enormous number of torches are seen in the air, every battering-ram is so 
 protected. Or the besieged sought to catch the point of the ram by a chain, drawing it 
 upwards; the besieger with metal hooks to keep it down." from Rawl. Ih. pp. 79. 80, re- 
 ferring further to Layard's Monuments, Series i. PI. 17, 19. ^ lb. p. 79. ■* Ezek. iv. 2. 
 
 ^ S. Jer. 6 Such explanations as "gates whereby the enemy poured 
 
 in as rivers" (Ros.), or "gates of Nineveh which was guarded by rivers" (Ew.) or, "of 
 the streets, where the inhabitants surged hke rivers" (Hitz.), are plainly not literal. 
 
 ' Ps. cxxxvii. 1. 8 See ab. Introd. to Jonah pp. 293, 294. 
 
 Kaswini, quoted by Tuch p. 35. '» Ainsw. Tr. ii. 327. 
 
 " The word, which occurs 18 times, is used of the melting of the earth at the voice or 
 
 water: yet they shall fle(^ away. Stand, ' i^^^y^^j"' 
 stand, .shall the,/ en/; hut none shall H ^^^/[-j;- 
 II look hack. 
 
 hath been. 
 Or, cause 
 them to turn. 
 
 of water than the Tigris, whose tributaries are not siipplied 
 by so many snow-mountains as those of the Zab." Ot these, 
 if the Tigris be now on a level lower than the ruins of Nineveh, 
 it may not have been so formerly. The Khausser, in its 
 natural direction, ran through Nineveh where, now as of old, 
 it turns a mill, and must, of necessity, have been fenced by 
 i(ates ; else any invader might enter at will; as, in modern 
 times, Mosul has its " gate of the bridge." A break in these 
 would obviously let in an enemy, and might the more paralyze 
 the inhabitants, if they had any tradition, tliat the river alone 
 could or would be their enemy, as Nahum himself i>rophesied. 
 Subsequently inaccuracy or exaggeration might easily re- 
 present this to be an overthrow of the walls themselves. It 
 was all one, in which way the breach was made. 
 
 The palace shall he dissolved. The prophet unites the be- 
 ginning and the end. The river-gates were opened ; what had 
 been the fence against the enemy became an entrance for 
 them : with the river, there poured in also the tide of the 
 people of the enemy. The palace, then, the imperial abode, 
 the centre of the empire, embellished with the history of its 
 triumphs, sank, was dissolved^\ and ceased to be. It is not 
 a physical loosening of the sun-dried bricks by the stream 
 which would usually flow harmless by; but the dissolution of 
 the empire itself " = The temple i."e. his kingdom was de- 
 stroyed." The palaces both of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik 
 lay near the Khausser i- and both bear the marks of fire ^^ 
 
 7. The first word should be rendered, ^nd it is decreed ; 
 She shall be laid bare. It is decreed^*. All this took place, 
 otherwise than man would have thought, because it was the 
 will of God. She (the people of the city, under the figure 
 of a captive woman) shall be laid bare^'% in shame, to her re- 
 proach ; she shall be brought up i«, to judgement, or from Nine- 
 veh as being now sunk low and depressed ; and iter maids, 
 the lesser cities, as female attendants on the royal city, and 
 their inhabitants represented as women, both as put to shame 
 and for weakness. The whole empire of Nineveh was over- 
 thrown by Nebopalassar. Yet neither was the special 
 shame wanting, that the noble matrons and virgins were so 
 led captives in shame and sorrow. They shall lead her, as 
 tvith the voice of doves, moaning, yet, for fear, with a subdued 
 
 voice 
 
 8. But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water i. e. of many 
 
 presence or touch of God, Ps. xlvi. 7. Nah. i..5. Am. ix 5 ; of the " melting away" of a 
 multitude, 1 Sam. xiv. 16 ; of all Philistia, Is. xiv. 31 ; (act.) of God working the dissoluUon 
 of one being Jobxxx.22, or of manv. Is. Ixiv. 6; of the hearts of people, melting for fear. 
 Ex XV 15 Jos. ii. 9, 24, Ps.lxxv. 4,"cvii. 26. Jer. xlix. 23, Ez. xxi. 20 : once only it is used 
 physically of water, of the clods softened by showers, Ps. Ixv. 11 ; and m the ideal image 
 " the hills shall melt," being dissolved, as it were, in the rich stream of the abundant 
 vintage Am ix 13 '" See above Introd. to Jonah p. 2oo. Asshurbampal, the 
 
 last CTe'at monarch of Assyria, builthis palace on the mound of Kouyunjik. (Rawl. 5 Emp. 
 ii 496) " The Khosr-su, which runs on this side of the Khorsabad rums, often overflows 
 its banks, and pours its waters against the palace-momid. The gaps, N. and S. of the 
 mound, may have been caused by its violence ' lb. i. 3o8. "See ab. p. 368 nc. 
 
 " This is the simple rendering of 3xri, Hof. of 3SJ. In Ch. 3V. firm, Uan. vi. \i; 
 " reliable " Dan. ii. 45, ™. 16 ; Nn-s- " certainly," Dan. ui. 24. 3y-p " ot a certjunty, 
 Dan ii 8. Also in Phcen.; Ges. Thes. p. 60. The retention of Huzzab as a 
 orouer name for the queen, is derived from R. Samuel Hannagid m Ibn Ezra. 
 The ground for this, alleged in Rashi, riz. the use of njiu Ps. xiv. 10, betrays its ongin. 
 Kimchi, with the same etymolog}-, explains it of the palace. , • , • i 
 
 'i The meaning of np''3 (a;r.) is determined by that of the active n^3, which is always 
 " laid bare," not " carne'd captive." " As in c. iU. 5. Is. xlvii. 2, 3. 
 
 3 L 2
 
 384 
 
 NAIIUM, 
 
 c h^rTs t ^ Take ye the spoil of silver, take the 
 
 "■'•• 7HJ- spoil of gold : || for there is none end of the 
 
 ^ 2^:fsl^::! store and glory out of all the t pleasant 
 
 fi'eh. vessels fumiture. 
 of desire. jQ t^j,g jg empty, and void, and waste: 
 
 Kisa. 13. 7, and tlie s heart nielteth, and 'the knees 
 
 •* Dan. 5. (). *, , ., , ..,,, 
 
 'Jer. 30. 0. snute together, 'and niucli pain is in all 
 kjoeio. c. loins, and ''the faces of them all gather 
 
 blackness. 
 ' i°'',*-,lVi- 11 Where is the dwelling of 'the lions, 
 
 Ezek.19.2-7. * ' 
 
 peoples ^ gathered from all quarters and settled there, her 
 imiltitiides being like the countless drops, full, untroubled, 
 with no ebb or How, fenced \\\,froin the dai/.s that she hath been, 
 yet even therefore stagnant and corrupted -, not " a fountain 
 of living waters," during tiOO years of unbroken empire; even 
 lately it had been assailed in vain ^ ; now its hour was come, 
 the sluices were broken ; the waters poured out. It was full 
 not of citizens only, but of other nations poured into it. An 
 old historian says*, "The chief and most powerful of those 
 whom Ninus settled there, were the Assyrians, but also, of 
 other nations, whoever willed." Thus the pool was tilled ; 
 but at the rebuke of the Lord they flee. Stand, stand, the 
 Prophet speaks in the name of the widowed city ; " shut the 
 gates, go up on tlie walls, resist the enemy, gather yourselves 
 together, form a band to withstand," but none shall look 
 back to the mother-city wliic'h calls them; all is forgotten, 
 except their fear; parents, wives, children, the wealth which 
 is plundered, home, worldly repute. So will men leave all 
 things, for the life of this world, ^^-lll that a man hath, will 
 he give for his life. Why not for the life to come? 
 
 9. Take ye the sjioil of silver, take the spoil of gold. Nine- 
 veh had not hearkened of old to the voice of the Prophet, but 
 had turned back to sin ; it cannot hearken now, for fear. He 
 turns to the spoiler to whom God's judgements assigned her, 
 and who is too ready to hear. The gold and silver, which 
 the last Assyrian king had gathered into the palace which he 
 fired, was mostly removed (the story says, treacherously) to 
 Babylon. Arbaces is said to have borne this and to have 
 removed the residue, to the amount of many talents, to Agba- 
 tana, the Median capital'^. For there is none end of the store. 
 Nineveh had stored up from her foundation until then, but at 
 last for the spoiler. '^ When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shall 
 be spoiled. Many ^perish and leave their luealth to others. 
 ^ The icealth of the sinner is laid up for tlie just. And glori/ out 
 of all the pleasant furniture, [lit. as in the Alargin," glory out of 
 all vessels of desire"] i. e. however large the spoil, it would 
 be but a portion only ; yet all their wealth, though more 
 than enough for the enemy and for them, could not save 
 them. Her " glory " was but a " weight " to weigh her down, 
 that she should not rise again ^°. Their wealth brought on 
 the day of calamity, availed not therein, although it could not 
 be drawn dry even by the spoiler. " " They could not spoil 
 so much as she supplied to be spoiled." 
 
 10. She is empty and void and waste. The completeness of 
 her judgement is declared first under that solemn number, 
 
 1 Rev. xvii. 1. 2 See Jer. xlviii. 11. 
 
 3 By Cyaxares Her. i. 106. « Ctesias ap. Diod. ii. 3. * Job ii. 4. 
 
 6 Diod. Sic. ii. 28. 7 Is. xxxiii. 1. 8 Ps. xlix. 10. 
 
 9 Pr. xiii. 22. _ 'O Zech. v. 8. Ex. xv. 10. " S. Jer. 
 
 '- See ab. p. 370, 371. hookah, oomehookah, oonubullakah. '^ Prov. xxxi. 17. 
 
 and the feedingplace of the young lions, (■^ifll''l%- 
 where the lion eeen the ohl lion, walked, and """■ "^'^^ 
 
 the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid ? 
 
 12 The lion did tear in pieces enough 
 for his whelps, and strangled for his lion- 
 esses, and tilled his holes with prev, and " f ^f^ ^9. 3. 
 his dens with ravin. i.ch.3. 5. 
 
 13 " Behold, I am against thee, saith 
 the Lord of hosts, and I will burn her 
 chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall 
 
 Three, and the three words in Hebrew are nearly the same ^^, 
 with tiie same meaning, only each word fuller than theformer, 
 as picturing a growing desolation ; and then under four heads 
 (in all seven) also a growing fear. First the heart, the seat of 
 courage and resolve and high purpose, melteth; then the knees 
 smite together,ire\nh\c:, shake, under the frame; then, much pain 
 is in all loins, lit. " strong pains as of a woman in travail," 
 writhing and doubling the whole body, and making it wholly 
 powerless and unable to stand upright, shall bow the very 
 loins, the seat of strength ^', and, lastly, the faces of them all 
 gather blackness^*, the fruit of extreme pain, and tlie token of 
 approaching dissolution. 
 
 1 1 . TFhere is the dwelling of tlie lions, and the feedingplace of 
 the young lions ? Great indeed must be the desolation, which 
 should call forth the wonder of the propliet of God. He asks 
 " where is it ? " For so utterly was Nineveh to be effaced, that 
 its place should scarcely be known, and now is known by the 
 ruins which have been buried, and are dug up. The messen- 
 gers of her king had asked, ^^ Where are the gods of Hamath 
 and of Arpad f of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah ? And now of 
 her it is asked, " ^A'here is Nineveh ? " It had destroyed 
 utterly all lands, and now itself is utterly destroyed. The 
 lion dwelt, fed, walked there, up and down, at will; all was 
 spacious and secure ; he terrified all, and none terrified him ; 
 he tore, strangled, laid up, as he willed, booty in store; but 
 when he had filled it to the full, he filled up also the measure of 
 his iniquities, and his sentence came from God. Nineveh 
 had set at nought all human power, and destroyed it; now, 
 therefore, God appeareth in His own Person. 
 
 13. Behold I, Myself, am against thee [lit. toivard thee'\. 
 God, in His long-sufiering, had, as it were, looked away from 
 him; now He looked towards ^^ him, and in His sight what 
 wicked one should stand ? Saith the Lord of hosts, Whose pow- 
 er isinfinite andHe changeth not, and all the armies of heaven, 
 the holy angels and evil spirits and men are in His Hand, 
 whereto He directs or overrules them. And I will burn her 
 chariots in the smoke. The Assyrian sculptures attest how 
 greatly their pride and strength lay in their chariots. They 
 exhibit the minute embellishment of the chariots and horses^^. 
 Almost inconceivably light for speed, they are pictured as 
 whirled onward by the two ^^ or, more often, three ^^ powerful 
 steeds with eye of fire -", the bodies of the slain -^ (or, in peace, 
 the lion --) under their feet, the mailed warriors, with bows 
 stretched to the utmost, shooting at the more distant foe. 
 Sennacherib gives a terrific picture of the fierceness of their 
 
 " See on Joel ii. 6. '» 2 Kings xviii. 34. 
 
 '6 As in Ps. xxxvii. 20. '? See Rawl. 5 Empires ii. 4-21. 's Ra„i. ib. 10. 11. 13. 
 ^^ Layard Monuments, Series i. Plate 18, 21, 23, 27, 28. 
 -" See a striking illustration in Rawl. ii. IS. (from IJoutcher.) 
 =' Layard Ser. i. 27. 28. ii. 45. 40. -' Rawl. Ib. 13. Layard Ninev. ii. 77. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 385 
 
 ^jj^^^l^g^ devour thy younj^ lions; 
 "'•• '^^'^- off thy prey from the 
 
 and I will cut 
 earth, and the 
 
 onslaujrht. "The armour, the arms, taken in my attacks, swam 
 in the bhxxl of my enemies as in a river; the war-chariots, 
 which destroy man and beast, liad, in their course, crushed 
 the bloody bodies and limbs '." All this their warlike pride 
 should be luit fuel for tire, and vanish in smoke, an emblem of 
 pride, swelling;, mountinj;; like a column towards heaven, dis- 
 appearinj^. Nota brand shall then be saved out of the biirnini?' ; 
 nothing half-<'onsumed ; but the fire shall burn, until there be 
 nothing left to consume, as, in Sodom and Gomorrha -, the 
 SJnokeof tlic roini/ri/ ivent up us the smoke of a furnace. And 
 the sword of the vengeance of God shall dev(nir the young 
 lions, his hope for the time to come, the flower of his youth ; 
 and I luill cut off t hi/ prey, what thou hast robbed, and so 
 that thou shouldcst rob no more, but that thy spoil should 
 utterly cease from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers 
 shall be no more heard, such as Rabshakeh, whereby they 
 insulted and terrified the nations and blasphemed God. 
 
 In the spiritual sense, Nineveh being an image of the world, 
 the prophecy speaks of the inroad made upon it through the 
 Gospel, its resistance, capture, desolation, destruction. First, 
 He that rnleth with a rod of iron, came and denounced ivoe 
 toil because of offences ; then His mighty ones' in His Name. 
 Their shield is red. the shield of faith, kindled and glow- 
 ing with love. Their raiment too is red, because they wash 
 it in the Blood of the Lamb, and conquer through the 
 Blood of the Lamb, and many shed their own blood /'or a ivit- 
 nesstothem. The day of His preparation is the whole period, 
 until the end of the world, in which the Gospel is preached, 
 of which the prophets and apostles speak, as the day of sal- 
 vation*; to the believing world a day of salvation ; to the un- 
 believing, of preparation for judgement. All which is done, 
 judgements, mercy, preaching, miracles,patience of the saints, 
 martyrdom, all which is spoken, done, suflfercd, is part of the 
 one preparation for the final judgement. The chariots, flashing 
 with light as they pass, are ^ the chariots of salvation, hear'm<j; 
 the brightness of the doctrine of Christ and the glory of Ilis 
 truth throughout the world, enlightening while they wound; 
 the " spears " are the word of God, slaying to make alive. 
 
 On the other hand, in resisting, the world clashes with it- 
 self. It would oppose the Gospel, yet knows not how ; is 
 "maddened with rage, and gnashes its teeth, that it can pre- 
 vail nothing ^." On the b7-oad icays which lead to death, 
 where TFisdom iittereth her voice and is not heard, it is hem- 
 med in, and cannot find a straight path ; its chariots dash one 
 against another, and yet they breathe their ancient fury, and 
 run to and fro like lightning, as the Lord saith, I beheld 
 Satan, as lightning, fall from Heaven'^. Then shall they re- 
 member their mighty ones, all the might of this world which 
 they ascribed to their gods, their manifold triumphs, whereby 
 in Heathen times their empire was established ; they shall 
 gather strength against strength, but it shall be powerless 
 and real weakness. While they prepare for a long siege, 
 without hand their gates give way ; the kingdom falls, the 
 world is taken captive by a blessed captivity, suddenly, una- 
 wares, as one says in the second century; '•^jNIen cry out 
 that the state is beset, that the Christians are in their fields, 
 in their forts, in their islands ! " These mourn over their 
 
 ' In Oppert Sargonides p. 51. The general accuracy of the decyphering is alone 
 presupposed. - Gen. xix. 28. ^ From Dion. 
 
 ■" Is. xlix. S. 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 
 Hahak. iii. 8. 
 
 6 S.Jer. 
 
 ? S. Luke X. 18. 
 
 voice of "thy messengers shall no more chrTst 
 l)e heard. «''•• 7i3. 
 
 ° 2 Kin. 18. 17, 19. & 19. 9, 23. 
 
 past sins, and beat their breasts, in token of their sorrow ; 
 yet sweeter shall be the plaint of their sorrow, than any 
 past joy. So they shall njiMirn as doves, and their mourning is 
 as melody and the voice of praise in the car of the iMOst 
 High. One part of the inhabitants of the world being thus 
 blessedly taken, the rest are fled. So in all nearness of God's 
 judgements, those who are not brought nearer, flee further. 
 ■• They Jlee, and look not back, and none heareth the Lord 
 speaking. Return, ye backsliding children, and I ivill heal 
 yintr backslidings'K So then, hearing not His Voice, stand, 
 stand, they flee away from His I'resence in Mercy, into dark- 
 ness for ever. Such is the lot of the inhal)itants of the world ; 
 and what is the world itself? The prophet answers what it 
 has been. A pool of water, into which ail things, the riches 
 and glory, and wisdom, and pleasures of this world, have 
 flowed in on ail sides, and which gave back nothing. All end- 
 ed in itself. The water came from above, and became stag- 
 nant in the lowest part of the earth. " ' For all the wisdom 
 of this world, apart from the sealed fountain of the Church, 
 and of which it cannot be said, the streams thereof make glad the 
 city of God nor are of those waters which, above the heavens, 
 praise the Name of tlie Lord, however large they may seem, 
 yet are little, and are enclosed in a narrow bound." " These 
 either are hallowed to God, like the spoils of Egypt, as when 
 the eloquence of S. Cyprian was won through the 'fishermen ^", 
 or the gold and silver are offered to Him, or they are left to 
 he wasted and burned up. All ivhich is in the world, the lust 
 of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the priile of life, all un- 
 der tlie su)i, remain here. "^^ If they are thine, take them with 
 thee, ir/ien he diet h, he shall carry nothing aicay, Ids glory 
 shall not descend after him'^-. True riches are, not "wealth, biit 
 virtues, which the conscience carries with it, that it may be 
 rich for ever." The seven-fold terrors i', singly, may have a 
 good sense '^, that the stony heart shall be melted, and the stiff" 
 knees, which before were not bent to God, be bowed in the 
 Name of Jesus. Yet more fully are they the deepening hor- 
 rors of the wicked in the Day of Judgement, when rnen's hearts 
 shall fail thnn for fear and for looking after those things 
 ivhich are coming on the earth^*, closing with the everlasting 
 confusion of face, the shame and everlasting contempt, to which 
 the wicked shall rise. As the vessel over the fire is not 
 cleansed, but blackened, so through the judgements of God, 
 whereby tlie righteous are cleansed, the wicked gather but 
 fresh defilement and hate. Lastly, the Prophet asks, IFhere is 
 the dwelli/ig of those lulio had made the ivorld a den of ravin, 
 ivhere the lion, even the devil who is a roaring lion, and all 
 Anti-Christs i°, destroyed at will ; where Satan made his dwell- 
 ing in the hearts of the worldly, and tore in pieces for his 
 whelps, i.e. slew souls of men and gave them over to inferior 
 evil spirits to be tormented, and filled his holes icith prey, the 
 pit of hell with the souls which he deceived '^ ? The question 
 implies that they shall not be. ^^ They ivhich have seen him 
 shall say, TPliere is he ? God Himself answers, that He Him- 
 self will come against it to judgement, and destroy all might 
 arrayed against God; and Christ shall ^'^smite the IVickedone 
 with the rod of His Mouth, and the '^'Ksharp two-edged sivord 
 out of His mouth shall smite all nations, and tite smoke of their 
 
 8 Tert. Apol. e. 1. and p. 3. not. 9. Oxf. Tr. 9 Jer. iii. 22. i» The Apostles. S. Aug. 
 '1 S. Bern, in Adv. Senn. 4. '= Ps. xlix. 17. I' v. 10. » S. Lukexxi. 2<j 
 
 '= 1 John ii. 18. '6 Dion. " Job xx. 7. 'S Is. xi. 4. " Rev. i. 16, xix. 15. 21
 
 386 
 
 NAIIUM, 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 1 The miserable rtihi of Nineveh. 
 
 ^ bloods"'" "^ ^^7^^^^ *** *'"^ ''' ' ''l""*'y <^ity ! it f* i 
 • E\ek!p 2 YY of lies «jk/ robbery; the pre 
 
 o. & 24, o, y, •'1 
 
 aU full 
 I'ey de 
 Hab.2.12. parteth not; 
 i-Jer. 47. 3. <o fhe noise of a whip, and*" the noise 
 of the rattlinj:^ of the wheels, and of the 
 
 torment ascendeth up for ever and ever^ ; and it should no 
 more oppress, nor "any messenger of Satan" go forth to 
 harass the saints of God. 
 
 C. III. The prophecy of the destruction in Nineveh is re- 
 sumed in a dirge over her; yet still as future. It pronounces 
 a woe, yet to come -. 
 
 1. JVoe to the bloody city, lit. city of bloods'^, i. c. of manifold 
 bloodshedding, built and founded in blood*, as the prosperity 
 of the world ever is. Murder, oppression, wresting of judge- 
 ment, war out of covetousness, grinding or neglect of the poor, 
 make it a city of bloods. Nineveh, or the world, is a city of the 
 devil, as opposed to the " city of God." " ^ Two sorts of love 
 have made two sorts of cities ; the earthly, love of self even to 
 contempt of God ; the Heavenly, love of God even to con- 
 tempt of self. The one glorieth in itself, the other in the 
 
 Lord. 
 
 Amid the manifold differences of the human race. 
 
 in languages, habits, rites, arms, dress, there are but two 
 kinds of human society, which, according to our Scriptures, we 
 may call two cities. One is of such as wish to live according 
 to the flesh ; the other of such as will according to the Spirit." 
 " Of these, one is predestined to live for ever with God ; the 
 other, to undergo everlasting torment with the devil." Of this 
 city, or evil world, Nineveh, the city of bloods, is the type. 
 
 It is all full of lies and robbery, better, it is all lie ; it is full 
 of robbery \rapine'\ . Lie includes all falsehood, in word or act, 
 denial of God, hypocrisy; towards man, it speaks of treachery, 
 treacherous dealing, in contrast with open violence or rapine ^. 
 The whole being of the wicked is one lie, towards God and 
 man; deceiving and deceived; leaving no place for God Who 
 is the Truth ; seeking through falsehood things which fail. 
 Man ^ loveth vanity and seeketh after leasing. All were gone 
 out of the way. " ^ There were none in so great a multitude, 
 for whose sake the mercy of God might spare so great a city." 
 It is full, not so much of booty as of rapine and violence. 
 The sin remains, when the profit is gone. Yet it ceaseth not, 
 but persevereth to the end ; the prey departeth i° not; they will 
 neither leave the sin, nor the sin them ; they neither repent, 
 nor are weary of sinning. Avarice especially gains vigour in 
 old age, and grows by being fed. The prey departeth not, 
 but continues as a witness against it, as a lion's lair is defiled 
 by the fragments of his prey. 
 
 2. The noise [lit. voice'] of the ivhip. There is cry against cry; 
 
 ' Rev. xiv. 11. 2 in, when signifying " woe," is always of future woe, as lies in the 
 word itself. It is used of classes of persons ib times ; against people, Samaria, Jeru- 
 salem or foreign nations, 13 times ; of the past only as to the wailings at funerals. 1 Kgs. 
 xiii. 30, Jer. xxii.18, xxxiv.5. 3 AsinE.M. The phrase occurs Ezek. xxii. 2, xxiv. 
 
 6. 9. So '1 VK, tJjN, n-a, " a man " (2 Sam. xvi. 7, 8. Ps. v. 7) " men " (Ps. xxvi. 9, Iv. 24, 
 lix. 3, cxxxix. 19, Pr. xxix. 10) " a house " (2 Sam. xxi. 1) " of bloods," guilty of mani- 
 fold bloodshed. •• Hab. ii. 12, Jer. xxii. 13. * S.Aug, de Civ. D. xiv. 28. Mb. c. 1. 
 
 ^ pis OTT. The verb is used of the merciless "tearing" of the lion, "rending and 
 there is no deliverer." Ps. vii. 3. 
 
 8 Ps. iv. 2. 9 jUb. 10 vv is intrans. except in Mic. ii. 3, 4. " Gen. iv. 10. 
 
 '2 rji of the chariots, Jer. xlvii. 3, of the warhorse, Job xxxix. 24, of the loud 
 tumult of battle, Is. ix. 4, Jer. x. 22. 
 
 '3 ip is used of the dancing of children. Job xxi. 11, of David before the ark, 
 1 Chr. XV. 29, of the satyrs. Is. xiii. 21. Even when used of the trembling of the 
 mountains before God, they are compared to living things, a calf, Ps. xxix. 6, rams. 
 
 pransini? horses, and of the jumping ch^rTst 
 chariots. "■''• ^^3. 
 
 3 The horseman lifteth up both f the + "'^''- '?' 
 bright sword and the glittering spear : J"J'^,^;,,°"f„ 
 and there i.s a multitude of slain, and a "/Witv^ur- 
 great number of carcases ; and tJiere is 
 none end of their corpses ; they stumble 
 upon their corpses : 
 
 the voice of the enemy, brought upon them through the voice of 
 the oppressed. Blood hath a voice which cricth^^ to heaven; 
 its echo or counterpart, as it were, is the cry of the destroyer. 
 All is urged on with terrific speed. The chariot-wheels 
 quiver^- in the rapid onset; the chariots bound, like living 
 things''; the earth echoes with the whirling swiftness'* of 
 the speed of the cavalry. The Prophet within, with the in- 
 ward ear and eye which heareth the inysteries of the King- 
 dom of God^^ and seeth things to come, as they shall come 
 upon the wicked, sees and hears the scourge coming, 
 with '^ a great noise, impetuously ; and so describes it as 
 present. Wars and rumours of wars are among the signs 
 of the Day of Judgement. The scourge, though literally 
 relating to the vehement onset of the enemy, suggests to 
 the thoughts, the scourges of Almighty God, wherewith He 
 chastens the penitent, punishes the impenitent ; the wheel, 
 the swift changes of man's condition in the roUing-on of time. 
 ''' O God, make them like a rolling thing. 
 
 3. The horseman lifteth up, rather, leading up '^ ; the flash of 
 the strord, and the lightning of the spear. Thus there are, in 
 all, seven inroads, seven signs, before the complete destruction 
 of Nineveh or the world; as, in the Revelations, aU the fore- 
 runners of the Judgement of the Great Day are summed up 
 under the voice of seven trumpets '^ and seven vials. " "" God 
 shall not use horses and chariots and other instruments of 
 war, such as are here spoken of, to judge the world, yet, as is 
 just. His terrors are foretold under the name of those things, 
 wherewith this proud and bloody world hath sinned. For so 
 all they that take the sword shall perish luith the sword ''." 
 They who, abusing their power, have used all these weapons 
 of war, especially against the servants of God, shall them- 
 selves perish by them, and there shall be 7iotie end of their 
 corpses, for they shall be corpses for ever : for, dying by an ever- 
 lasting death, they shall, without end, be without the true life, 
 which is God." ^nd there is a multitude of slain. Death fol- 
 lows on death. The Prophet views the vast field of carnage, 
 and every where there meets him only some new form of 
 death, slaiji, carcases, corpses, and these in rnultitudes, an op- 
 pressive heavy 7iumber, without end, so that the yet living 
 stu7nble and fall upo?i the carcases of the slain. So great the 
 multitude of those who perish, and such their foulness ; but 
 what foulness is like sin ? 
 
 Ps. cxiv.4.6. It is used also of the locusts Jo. ii. 5. [all]. Mostly, as here, it is in- 
 tensive. In Syr. Pa. is " danced ; " in Arabic the insulated iK'^iTi is used of " boimding as 
 a kid." See Lane s. v. 
 
 " The root only occursbesides Jud. v. 22. " Then smote [theearth] the horse-hoofs from 
 the whirlings, the whirlings [probably"whirling speed" im i. q. in] of his mighty ones "[i.e. 
 steeds. Jer. viii. 16. xlvii. 3. 1. 11.]. '* S. Matt. xiii. 11. 16. 
 
 1* 2 Pet. iii. 10. The words in Hebrew are purposely chosen witli rough sounds, 
 (r) " ra'ash, dohej-, merakkedah." 
 
 " Ps. Ixxxiii. 14. " This division is the more likely, hecause the 
 
 words stand very broken, mostly in pairs, describing, as it were, by the very order of the 
 words, the successive onsets, wherewith the destruction from God should break in upon 
 them. 
 
 '9 Rev. vi. viii. The foreboding cry " woe ! woe 1 " before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 an image also of the Day of Judgement, was also seven-fold. See above on c, ii. 10. 
 3» Rup. 21 s. Matt. xxvi. 52.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 387 
 
 chrTst ^ Because of the multitude of the 
 
 ""• ^^^- whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, 
 
 eisa.47.9 i2.cthe uilstress of witchcrafts, that sellcth 
 
 Rev. 18. 2, 3. . ' 
 
 natious throui^h her whoredoms, and 
 families through her witchcrafts. 
 
 5 '^ Behold, I am a«!jainst thee, saith the (, jf jfl^g ^, 
 Ijori) of hosts; and "1 uill <liscover tl)V - . "''.713 
 
 ikirts upon thy face, '^and I will shew the « isa.!?. 2,3. 
 nations thy nakedness, and the kin<i;doms Ezck. lo'se! 
 
 ,1 , Mic. 1.11 
 
 thy sliame. 
 
 ' Hab. 2. 10. 
 
 4. Because of the viultitude of the whoredmiis of the well- 
 favoured harlot. Tliore are timllitudes of slain, because! oftlic 
 multitude of whoredoms and love of tin- creature instead of 
 the Creator. So to Babylon Isaiali saitli, '''they [loss of 
 children and widowhood] shall come upon thee in their per- 
 fection /«;• the nuiltitudc of thy sorcreries, for tiie jvreat al>iin- 
 dance of thine enchantments." The actual use o{' e/ichant- 
 ments', for which liabylou was so infamous, is not elsewhere 
 attributed to the Asyrians. But neither is the word elsewhere 
 used figuratively ; nor is As.syria, in its intimate relation to 
 Babylon, likely to have been free from the longing', universal 
 in Heathendom, to obtain knowledg'e as to the issue of events 
 which would affect her. She is, by a rare idiom, entitled 
 "mistress^ of enchantments," havinjj them at her command, 
 as instruments of power. Mostly, idolatries and estrang;ement 
 from God are spoken of as tvhuredoms, only in respect of those 
 who, havinu: been taken by God as His own, forsook Him for 
 false sods. But Jezebel too, of whose offences Jehu speaks 
 under the same two titles*, was a heathen. And such sins 
 were but part of that larger all-comprehending; sin, that man, 
 being made by God for Himself, when he loveth the creature 
 instead of the Creator, divorceth himself from God. Of this 
 sin world-empires, such as Nineveh, were the concentration. 
 Their being was one vast idolatry of self and of the god of 
 this world. All, art, fraud, deceit, protection of the weak 
 against the strong^, promises of good*, were employed, 
 together with open violence, to absorb all nations into it. 
 The one end of all was to form one great idol-tcmple, of 
 which the centre and end was man, a rival worship to God, 
 which should enslave all to itself and the things of this world. 
 Nineveh and all conquering nations used fraud as well as 
 force, enticed and entangled others, and so sold and deprived 
 them of freedom ^. Nor are people less sold and enslaved, 
 because they have no visible master. False freedom is the 
 deepest and most abject slavery. All sinful nations or per- 
 sons extend to others the infection of their own sins. But, 
 chiefly, the " wicked world," manifoldly arrayed with fair 
 forms, and "beautiful in the eyes of those who will not think 
 or weigh how much more beautiful the Lord and Creator of 
 all," spreads her enticements on all sides, the lust of thefiesh, 
 and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, " her pomps and 
 vanities," worldly happiness and glory and majesty, and ease 
 and abundance, deceives and sells mankind into the power 
 of Satan. \t \?, caWgA ivell-favoured [lit. ^oorf o/^?Y/cf], be- 
 cause the world has a real beauty, nor, " ^ unless there were a 
 grace and beauty in the things we love, could they draw us to 
 them." They have their beauty, because from God ; then are 
 they deformed, when " 'things hold us back from God, which, 
 
 > Is. xlvii. 9. 2 D'5^5 (always plural) are spoken of as to Jezebel, 2 Kgs. ix. 
 
 22; Babylon, Is. 1. c. and as to be abolished by God in Judah ; Micahv. 11. Tliose who 
 used them, D*D9'5P, were employed by Pharaoh, Ex. vii. 11, and Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. 
 ii. 2; were strictly forbidden to Israel (Ex. xxii. 17. De. xviii. 10.); their employment 
 was one chief offence of Manasseh. (2 Chr. xxxiii. 6.) ^ n7J!.3 (fern.) only occurs 
 
 resides in 1 Kgs. xvii. 17, of the widow of Zarephath, who, as being a widow, was the 
 mistress of the house, and of the witch of Endor, as y\H rh]12, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7. 
 
 * 2 Kgs. ix 22. s 2 Kgs. xvi. 7-9, 2 Chr. xxviii. 20, 21. « Is. xxxvi. 16, 17. 
 
 7 See Joel iii. 3. The word "DO, as the act of selling, implies elsewhere, '* to part with 
 into the hands of another." This is imphed, even where (as in De. xxxii. 30, Ps. xliv. 13) 
 
 unless they were in God, were not at all." We di form tliem, 
 if we love them for our own sakes, not in Him; or for the 
 intimations they give of Him. " '" I'raisc; as to things iVml has 
 an intensity of blame. As if one would speak of a skilled 
 thief, or a courageous robber, or a clever cheat. So though 
 he calls Nineveh a well-favoured harlot, this will not be for 
 her praise, (far from it !) but conveys the iieavier condem- 
 nation. As the;/, when they would attract, use dainty bab- 
 blings, so was Nineveh a skilled artificer of ill-doing, well 
 provided with means to capture cities and lands and to per- 
 suade them what pleased herself." She selleth not natious 
 only hntfaiiulies, drawing mankind both as a mass, and one 
 by one after her, so that scarce any escape. 
 
 The adultery of the soul from God is the more grievous, the 
 nearer God has brought any to Himself, in priests wor>e tlian 
 in the people, in Christians than in Jews, in Jews than in Hea- 
 then ; yet God espoused mankind to Him when lie made him. 
 His dowry were gifts of nature. If this be adultery, how much 
 sorer, when betrothed by the Blood of Christ, aiid endowed 
 with the gift of the Spirit ! 
 
 .5. Behold I am against thee, saitli the Lord of Hosts. " ^^ I 
 will not send an Angel, nor give thy destruction to others; 
 
 I Myself will come to destroy thee." " i" She has not to 
 do with man, or war with man: He Who is angered 
 with her is the Lord of hosts. But who would meet God 
 Almighty, Who hath power over all, if He would war 
 against him?" In the Medes and Persians it was God who 
 was against them. Behold I am against thee, lit. towards 
 thee. It is a new thing which God was about to do. 
 Behold ! God in His long-suffering had seemed to overlook her. 
 Now, He says, / atn towards thee, looking at her with His 
 all-searching eye, as her Judge. Violence is punished 
 by suffering; deeds of shame by shame. All sin is a whited 
 sepulchre, fair without, foul within. God will strip off the 
 outward fairness, and lay bare the inward foulness. The 
 deepest shame is to lay bare, what the sinner or the world 
 veiled within. / will discover thy skirts^-, i. e. the long flowing 
 robes which were part of her pomp and dignity, but which 
 were only the veil of her misdeeds. Through the greatness of 
 thine iniquity have thy skirts been discovered, says Jeremiah 
 in answer to the heart's question, tchy have these things come 
 upon me? Upon thy face, where shame is felt. The consci- 
 ence of thy foulness shall be laid bare before thy face, thy eyes, 
 thy memory continually, so that thou shalt be forced to read 
 therein, whatsoever thou hast done, said, thought. / will 
 shew the nations thy nakedness, that all may despise, avoid, 
 take example by thee, and praise God for His righteous 
 judgements upon thee. The Evangelist heard much people 
 
 it is not expressed to whom they were sold. But here the nations were not, as nations, sold 
 by Assyria into the hands of others, but retained in its own power. Yet since "C? occurs 
 8U times throughout the O. T. in the one sense " sell," and its derivatives ~3p. "£??, nissPi 
 
 II times, it is against all idiom to assume that, in this one case, it meant ■" deceived '' (as 
 the Arab, nso with ace. p. and 3 of thg.) ; nor were the enchantments an instrument of 
 deceit ; the word then must here too retain its sense of depriring of liberty, " selling " to 
 slavery or death. * S. Aug. Conf. iv. 13. 
 
 9 "lb. X. 27 and iv. 12 and note m. lo S. C)t. " S. Jer. 
 
 12 Tj;^!? always plural, for their profuseness, as we speak of " robes." It is the word 
 used in the same image, Jer. xiii. 22. 20 ; Isaiah has the like, S^'c". Is. xlvii. 2.
 
 388 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 chrTst ® "'^'"^ ' ^^'^' ^^^^ abominahlc filth upon 
 cir. 713. thee, and ''niako thee vile, and will set 
 
 h Heb.^w.'ss. tliee as " a ga/ini^stoek. 
 
 7 And it shall come to pass that all they 
 1 Rev. 18. 10. tiiat look upon thee ' shall flee from thee, 
 ' Jer. 15. 5. ^ud say, Nineveh is laid waste : ^ who will 
 
 hi heaven sai/iiig Alleluia to God tliat He hath jadfred the 
 w/tofe ti'hirh did corrajit the earth with her foniiratioit '. And 
 Isaiali saith, Thei/ shall go forth and lootc upon the carcases 
 of the men that have travgressed against Me -. 
 
 6. And 1 ivill cast abominable filth upon thee, " ' like a 
 weight, that what thou wovildest not take liced to as sin, 
 thou niayest feel in punishment." Abominable things had 
 God seen* in lier doing;s ; with al)oniinablc thinjjs would He 
 punish her. Man would fain sin, and forp;et it as a thing 
 past. Godinahefhh'im to possess the iniquities of his r/onth'". 
 and hindeth them around him, so that they make him to 
 appear what they are, vile^. ' These things hast thou done and 
 I kept silence ; — / tvill reprove thee aJid set them in order before 
 thine et/es. And ivillset thee as a gazing-stork, that all, M'hile 
 they gaze at thee, take warning from thee*. ^ I mill cast 
 thee to the ground ; before kings will I give thee, for them to 
 gaze upon thee. "^^Whoso amendeth not on occasion of others, 
 others shall be amended on occasion of him." 
 
 7. All they that look upon thee sliall fiee from thee through 
 terror, lest they should share her plagues, as Israel did, when 
 the earth swallowed up Corah, Dathan and Ahiram ; and they 
 who 11 had been made rich Iji/ Babj/lon, stand afar ofl\ for tlie 
 fear of her torment. All they who look on thee. She was set 
 as a thing to be gazed at i-. He tells the eifect on the gazers. 
 Each one who so gazed'^^ at her should y?ee ; one by one, they 
 should gaze, be scared, flee ^*. Not one should remain. TFho 
 ivill bemoan her ? Not one should pay her the passing tribute 
 of sympathy at human calamity, the shaking of the head at 
 her woei\ Who had no compassion, shall find none. 
 
 8. Art thou better^'', more populous or more powerful, than the 
 populous No? rather than No-Amon, so called from the idol 
 Amnion, worshipped there. No-Amon, (or, as it is decyphered 
 in the Cuneiform Inscriptions, N^ia), meaning probably "the 
 portion of Amnion ^V' was the sacred name of the capital of 
 Upper Egypt, wliich, under its common name, Thebes, was far- 
 famed, even in the time of Homer, for its continually accruing 
 wealth, its military power, its 20,000 chariots, its vast dimen- 
 sions attested by its 100 gates i*. Existing earlier, as the 
 capital of Upper Egypt, its grandeur began in the 18th 
 dynasty, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, or Semitic con- 
 querors of Egypt. Its Pharaohs were conquerors, during 
 the 18th-20th dynasties, B.C. IJOG-lllO, about six centuries. 
 It was then the centre of a world-empire. Under a disguised 
 namei', its rulers were celebrated in Greek story also, for 
 their world-wide conquests. The Greek statements have in 
 some main points been verified by the decypherment of the 
 hieroglyphics. The monuments relate their victories in far 
 
 1 Rev. xix. 1. 2. 2 ]xvi. 24. 3 Alb. ■" Jer. xiii. 27. * Job xiii. 26. 
 
 6 Comp. Wisdom iv. 18. ^ Ps. 1. 21. s Comp. 2 Chron. vii. 20. » Ezek. 
 
 xxviii. 17. '» Ptol. Prov. ap. Alb. 11 Rev. xviii. 15. 
 
 12 -KT " T^^'^-'7? " Comp. Ps. xxxi. 11. Ixiv. 8. i5 Comp. Job xvi. 4, 5. 
 
 i« •3e-n, for -j-fn, asip-; Ps. Ixxii. 14, ns^'N Mic. i. 8. 
 
 17 As the LX.\. (from their acquaintance with Egypt) render, Hfpls'Afiixiiy. The 
 Coptic MSS.Martyrologies mention "the place of Amnion," (Jablonski Opp. i. 1C3) 
 and the Hieroglyphics. Lepsius, Chronol. d. JEg. i. 272. The common name Ap-t or 
 T-ap was the original of the name Thebes, by which it bee. me known to the West 
 through the Greeks. 
 
 bemoan her ? Avhence shall I seek com- f, y^ll°l% t 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 forters for thee ? 
 
 8 ' Art thou better than || f populous " No, ' Amos 6. 2. 
 that was situate amona: the rivers, that had , "o"; "'"i^- 
 the waters round about it, whose ramparts No/tmon. 
 
 ' ' "Jer. 4<j. 25. 
 
 u'us the sea, and her wall ivas from the sea ? 20. Ezek. 30. 
 
 ' 14,-lb. 
 
 Asia, and mention Nineveh itself among the people who paid 
 tribute to them. Tliey warred and conquered from the 
 Soiulan to Mesopotamia. A monument of Totlimosis 1.(1066 
 B.C.) still exists at Kerman, between the20th and 19th degrees 
 latitude, boasting, in language like that of the Assyrian 
 conquerors ; " All lands are subdued, and bring their tributes 
 for the first time to the gracuous god-"." "The frontier of 
 of Egypt," they say-^, "extends Southward to the mountain 
 of Apta (in Abyssinia) and Northward to the furthest dwell- 
 ings of the Asiatics." The hyperbolic statements are too 
 undefined for history-^, but widely-conquering monarchs could 
 alone have used them. "-^At all periods of history, the 
 possession of the country which we call Soudan (the Black 
 country) comprising Nubia, and which the ancients called by 
 the collective name of Kous [Cush] or --Ethiopia, has been an 
 exhaustless source of wealth to Egypt. Whether by way of 
 war or of commerce, barks laden with flocks, corn, hides, 
 ivory, precious woods stones and metals, and many other 
 products of those regions, descended the Nile into Egypt, to 
 fill the treasures of the temples and of the court of the 
 Pharaohs: and of metals, especially gold, mines whereof were 
 worked by captives and slaves, whose Egyptian name noub 
 seems to have been the origin of the name Nubia, the first 
 province S. of Egypt." "The conquered country of Soudan, 
 called Kous in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, was governed 
 by Egyptian princes of the royal family, who bore the name 
 of ' prince royal of Kous.' " 
 
 But the prophet's appeal to Nineveh is the more striking, be- 
 cause No, in its situation, its commerce, the sources of 
 its wealth, its relation to the country which lay between 
 them, had been another and earlier Nineveh. Only, as No 
 had formerly conquered and exacted tribute from all those 
 nations, even to Nineveh itself, so now, under Sargon and 
 Sennacherib, Nineveh had reversed all those successes, and 
 displaced the empire of Egypt by its own, and taken No 
 itself. No had, under its Tothmoses, Amenophes, Sethos, the 
 Ousertesens, sent its messengers^*, the leviers of its tribute, had 
 brought ofi^ from Asia that countless mass of human strength, 
 the captives, who (as Israel, before its deliverance, accom- 
 plished its hard labours) completed those gigantic works, 
 which, even after 2000 years of decay, are still the marvel of 
 the civilized world. Tothmosis I., after subduing the Sasou, 
 brought back countless captives from Naharina"^ (Mesopo- 
 tamia) ; Tothmosis III., in 19 years of conquests, (1603-1585 
 B. C.) " -^raised the Egyptian empire to the height of its great- 
 ness. Tothmosis repeatedly attacked the most powerful 
 people of Asia, as the Routen (Assyrians ?) with a number 
 
 '5 Il.ix.381-4,[all thewealth] "asmuchas comes to the Eg}-ptian Thebes, where most 
 possessions are laid up in the houses, which hath a hundred gates, and from each, 200 
 men go forth with horses and chariots." 
 
 1' Sesostris. Herod, ii. 102-110, and notes in Rawl. Her.^ Diod. i. 53-59, Strabo xv. 1. 
 6. xvi. 4. and 7. xvii. 1. 5. -" Brugsch Hist. d'Eg. p. 88. 
 
 2' lb. and (Tothmosis iii). p. 109. -- "Notwitlistanding the length of 
 
 the like texts, recording the victories gained by the Pharaohs, the liistorical subject is 
 treated as accessory, as an occasion of repeating, for the thousandth time, the same 
 formulas, the same hyperbolic words, the same ideas." Brugsch pp. 89. -^ Brugsch ib. 
 p. 89. 107. -' Nah. ii. 13. •' Brugsch p. 90. =« Ib. p. 104, the summary of pp. 95-103.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 389 
 
 of subordinate kinfrdonis, sucli as Asshur, Babel, Nineveh, 
 Siniiiir ; siicli as the Hcniciicn or Armenians, tbe Zahi oi- Pliii'- 
 nieiaiis. tiie Clieta or llitlites, and many more. We learn, 
 by the description of the olijeets oF tiie booty, sent to ICirypt 
 by land and sea, counted by number and weijfiit.many (;urious 
 details as to the industry of the conquered peoples of central 
 Asia, which do honour to the civilisation of that time, and 
 verify the tradition that tbe ICj^yjjtian kinf,^s set up stehe in 
 conquered countries. in memory of their victories, 'rothinosis 
 III. set up his stele in Meso|»otaniia, 'for having- enlarf;'ed the 
 frontiers of Eijypt.' " Amenopbis too is related to have 
 "Makeu the fortress of Nenii (Nineveh)." "' He returned 
 from the country of the hiijber llouten, where be had beaten 
 all bis enemies to enlariic the frontiers of the land of l']i;ypt:" 
 " 1 he took possession of tbe people of the South, and chastised 
 the people of tbe North : " "at Aljd-el-Kournab" he was repre- 
 sented as "-having' tor bis foot-sto<d tbe heads and backs of 
 five peoples of tbe S. and four j)eoples of tbe N. or Asiatics." 
 " - Ainouij the names of the peoples, who submitted to Ejjypt, 
 are the Nubians, the Asiatic shepherds, the inhabitants of Cy- 
 
 Erus and Mesopotamia." "^Tbe world in its lenotb and its 
 readth" is promised by the sphinx to Totbmosis IV. He is 
 represented as "*subduer of the nce^roes." Under Amenopbis 
 III., tbe Memnon of the Greeks, "^the E£;yptian empire ex- 
 tended Northward to Mesopotamia, Southward to the land of 
 Karou." He enlarired and beautified No, which had from him 
 the temple of Louksor, and bis vocal statue, " " all people 
 brinji'ini;- their tributes, their children, their horses, a mass of 
 silver, of iron and ivory from countries, tbe roads whereto we 
 know not." Tbe kins; Horus is saluted as "'the sun of the 
 nine people; icreat is thy name to tbe country of Ethiopia;" 
 "''the gracious god returns, having subdued tbe great of all 
 people." Setj I (or Sethos) is exhibited^, as reverenced by the 
 Armenians, conquering tbe Sasou, the " Hittites, Nabarina 
 (Mesopotamia), tbe Routen (Assyrians?) the Fount, or Arabs 
 in the S. of Arabia, the Amari or Amorites, and Kedes, per- 
 haps Edessa." Ranieses H, or tbe great ** (identified with the 
 Pharaoh of the Exodus i"), conquered the Hittites in the N. ; in 
 the S. it is recorded, "^Hhe gracious god, who defeated the nine 
 people, who massacred myriads in a moment, annihilated the 
 people overthrown in their blood, vet was there no other with 
 him." The 20th Dynasty (B. C. 1288-1110) began again 
 with conquests. " i- Ramescs III. triumphed over great con- 
 federations of Libyans and Syrians and tbe Isles of the 
 Mediterranean. He is the only king who, as tbe monuments 
 shew, carried on war at once by land and sea." Besides 
 many names unknown to us, the Hittites, Amorites, Circesium, 
 Aratiis, Philistines, Phoenicia, Sasou, Pount, are again recog- 
 nised. North South East and West are declai-ed to be tribu- 
 tary to bin!, and of the North it is said, "i^Tbe people, who 
 knew not Egypt, come to thee, bringing gold and silver, 
 lapis-lazuli, all precious stones." He adorned Thebes with 
 the great temple of Medinet-Abou^* and the Ramesseum ^'. 
 The brief notices of following Rameses' speak of internal pros- 
 perity and wealth: a fuller account of Ranieses XII. speaks 
 of his "^^being in Mesopotamia to exact the annual tribute," 
 how "the kings of all countries prostrated themselves before 
 
 >Ib. p. 111. 2 lb. 112. 3 Ou the sphinx of Gizeh lb. p. 113. 
 
 * In the Isle of Konosso near Philas lb. p. 114. * lb. pp. 114, 115. 
 
 « In Brugsch p. 110. 7 lb. pp. 124,125. « lb. pp. 128-132. 
 
 » lb. pp. 137 sqq. i" lb. p. 15(;. '1 lb. p. 158. 
 
 i=Ib. p. 183. I3 1b. p. 190. nib. p. 191. '^ lb. pp. 197, 198. 
 
 16 lb. p. 207. '^ lb. p. 210. '« 2 Kgs. xxiv. 7. " Brugsch p. 212. 
 
 ™ lb. pp. 2ai-227. => lb. p. 223. ■'- lb. p. 235. =•) lb. p. 241. 
 
 '* XV. 1. 6. He mentions him again for his extensive removals of people, which implies 
 extensive conquests, i. 3. 21. 
 * Joanne et Isambert, Itinfiraire de 1' Orient, p. 1039. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 bini. Mild the king of the country of Pifiiiclitcn Tit Ims l)een 
 coiijcctui'cd, Pagistan.or I'cliatana j prc-cutcd to liini tribute 
 and bis (iaiigbter." "'"lie is the last Pharaoh w bo goes to 
 .Mesopotamia, to collect the annual tributes of tbe petty 
 kingdoms of that country." On this side of tbe Eu[)hrates, 
 Egy])t still retained some possessions to the time of Necho; 
 for it is said, "''*'tbe kini,'- of I?abyIon bad taken from the 
 rivei- of ICgyj)t unto the river Ivqibrates all that pertained to 
 tbe king of Egypt." Thebes continued to be enibeliishcd 
 alike by "tbe high-priests of .Aniinon," wb(» displaced 
 tbe ancient line >'•', and kings of tbe Bubastite Dynasty, 
 Sesoncbis I. or Sisak -", Takelotbis II.-', and Sesoncbis 
 III 22 ']^\^f, Etbio])ian dynasty of Sabakos and Tearko 
 or Tirbaka in another way illustrates the imjKirfanr-e of 
 No. The ICthiopian eoiupierors r'bose it as their royal 
 city. Thither, in the time of Sabakos, Syria bron^'-bt it 
 tribute-'; thert? Tirkaka set up tbe records of his victories-'; 
 and great must have been the conqueror.wbom .Strabo put on a 
 line with Sesostris-^ Its site marked it out for a great 
 capital ; and as su(!h the I^thiopian con(|ueror seized it. The 
 hills on either side retired, encircling tbe plain, tbrouirb the 
 centre of which tbe Nib; brought down its wealth, i-onnecfing 
 it with the untold riches of the south. " -'Thev foi'nied a vast 
 circus, where tbe ancient metropolis ex])anded itself. ( )n tbe 
 West, tbe Lybian chain presents abrupt det-livities which 
 command this side of the plain, and which bend away above 
 Bab-el-molouk, to end near Kournab at tbe very bank of the 
 river. On tbe East, heights, softer and nearer, descend in 
 long declivities toward Louksor and Karnak. and their crests 
 do not approach tbe Nile until after Medaniout. an hour or 
 more below Karnak." '^I'he breadth of tbe valley, being about 
 10 miles '^, the city (of which, Strabo says, " 2? traces are now 
 seen of its magnitude, SO stadia in length") must have oc- 
 cupied tbe whole. "-''The fam city enii)raced tbe great 
 space, which is now comnu>nly called the plain of Thebes and 
 which is divided by the Nile into two halves, an Eastern and 
 a Western, the first bounded by the edge of tbe .\rabian 
 wilderness, tbe latter by tbe bills of the dead of tbe steep 
 Libyan chain." Tbe capital of Egypt, which was identified 
 of old with Egypt itself-^, thus lav under the natural guard- 
 ianship of the encircling hills which expanded to receive it, 
 divided into two by tbe river which was a wall to both. Tbe 
 chains of hills, on either side were themselves fenced in im 
 East and West by the great sand-deserts una])proacbable by 
 an army. The long valley of tbe Nile was the only access 
 to an enemy. It occupied apparently tbe victorious army of 
 Asshur-banipaP" "a month and ten days" to march from 
 Memphis to Thebes. "^^At Thebes itself there are still 
 remains of walls and fortifications, strong, skilfully con- 
 structed, and in good preservation, as there are also in 
 other Egyptian towns above and below it. The crescent- 
 shaped ridge of bills approaches so close to the river at each 
 end as to admit of troops defiling past, but not spread- 
 ing out or manoeuvring. At each of these ends is a small old 
 fort of the purely Egyptian, i. e. the .\nte-Hellenic period. Both 
 above and below there are several similar crescent sweeps 
 in the same chain of hills, and at each angle a similar fort." 
 
 26 Smith Bibl. Diet. v. Thebes. -7 xvii. 1.46. =« Brugsch Geogr. d. .\lt. jEg.p. 1/6. 
 
 29 " In old times Thebes [the Thebais] was called Egjpt." Herod, ii. 15. " Formerly 
 Egj'pt was called Thebes." Aristot. Meteor, i. 14. 
 
 '■"' Inscr. in Oppert, Rapports, pp. 74, 78. 85. 
 
 3' Miss Harris, the learned d.-.ugnter of a learned Egj-ptologist; "In several hierogly- 
 phical inscriptions and notably in a papyrus in Miss Harris' possession, partly deci- 
 phered by her father and herself, there are minute accounts of fortresses existing at 
 that date, aDuut the time of the Exodus, she supposes, and of their armaments and 
 garrisons." Thebes then was fortified, as well as IS'meveh, and Homer is confirmed by 
 the Hieroglvphical inscriptions. 
 
 3 M
 
 390 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 All successive nionarclis, dtirinjj more centuries than have 
 passed since our Lord came, sut-cessively beautified it. Every 
 thing is giijantic, bearing witness to the enormous mass of 
 human strength, which its victorious kings had gatlicred from 
 all nations to toil for its and their glorification. Wonderful 
 is it now in its decay, desolation, death ; one great idol-tem])le 
 of its gods and an apotheosis of its kings, as sons of its gods. 
 " ' What spires are to a modern city, what the towers of a 
 cathedral are to the nave and choir, that the statues of the 
 Pharaolis were to the streets and temples of Thebes. The 
 ground is strewed with their fragments ; the avenues of them 
 towered high above plain and houses. Three of gigantic size 
 still remain. One was the granite statue of Rameses himself, 
 who sat on the right side of the entrance to his palace. — The 
 only part of the temple or palace, at all in proportion to him, 
 must have been the gateway, which rose in pyramidal towers, 
 now broken down and rolling in a wild ruin down to the 
 plain." It was that self-deifying, against which Ezekiel is 
 commanded to prophesy; ^ Speak and say ; thus saith the 
 Lord God; Behold, 1 am agaiiist thee, Pharaoh khig of 
 Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, 
 which hath said, Mtj river is mine own, and I have made it 
 for myself. '"Every where the same colossal proportions 
 are preserved. Every where the king is conquering, ruling, 
 worshipping, worshipped. The palace is the temple. The 
 king is priest. He and his horses are ten times the size of 
 the rest of the army. Alike in battle and in worship, he is 
 of the same stature as the gods themselves. Most striking is 
 the familiar gentleness, with which, one on each side, they 
 take him by each hand, as one of tlieir own order, and then, 
 in the next compartment, introduce him to Amnion, and the 
 lion-headed goddess. Every distinction, except of degree, 
 between divinity and royalty is entirely levelled." Gigantic 
 dimensions picture to the eye the ideal greatness, which is 
 the key to the architecture of No. "^Two other statues 
 alone remain of an avenue of eighteen similar or nearly 
 similar statues, some of whose remnants lie in the field be- 
 hind them, which led to the palace of Amenophis III., every 
 one of the statues being Amenophis himself, thus giving in 
 multiplication what Rameses gained in solitary elevation." 
 "* Their statues were all of one piece." Science still cannot 
 explain, how a mass of nearly 890 tons ^ of granite was exca- 
 vated at Syene, transported ^ and set up at Thebes, or how 
 destroyed ''. 
 
 " ' The temper of the tools, which cut adamantine stone as 
 sharply and closely as an ordinary scoop cuts an ordinary 
 cheese, is still a mystery." Every thing is in proportion. The 
 two sitting colossi, whose "breadth across the shoulders is 
 eighteen feet, their height forty-seven feet, fifty-three above 
 the plain, or, with the half-buried pedestal, sixty feet, were 
 once connected by an avenue of sphinxes of eleven hundred feet 
 with what is now ' Kom-el-Hettdn,' or ' the mound of sand- 
 stone,' which marks the site of another palace and temple of 
 Amenophis III.; and, to judge from the little that remains, it 
 must have held a conspicuous rank among the finest monu- 
 
 Ezek. xxix. 3. ' Stanl. lb. p. xxxix. 
 
 ' Stanley Sin. and Pal. Introd. p. xxxviii. 
 
 < Wilkinson Anc. Eg. iii. 266. 
 
 5 1'^ about 887 tons, 5^ hundred weight." Wilkinson Mod. Eg. ii. 145. 
 n o "^^?, "'"^'i'*'^^' transported from the quarries of Syene at the first cataract, in latitude 
 24° 5 23 to Thebes and Heliopolis, vary in size from 70 to 93 feet in length. They are 
 of one single stone, and the largest in Egypt (that of the great temple at Karnak) I 
 calculate to weigh 297 tons. This was brought about 138 miles from the quarry to 
 where it now stands ; those taken to Heliopolis, more than 800 miles. The power, 
 however, to move the mass was the same, whatever might be the distance, and the me- 
 chanical skill which transported it five or even one, would suftice for any number of miles. 
 The two colossi of Amenophis iii., of a single block each, 47 feet in height, which contain 
 about 11,500 cubic feet, are made of a stone not known within several days journey 
 
 ments of Thebes. All that now exists of the interior are the 
 bases of its columns, some broken statues, and Syenitesphinxes 
 of the king, with several lion-headed figures of black granite^." 
 Thefour villages, where are the chief remaining temples, Kar- 
 nak, Luksor, Medinet-Abou, Kournah, form a great quadrila- 
 teral '", each of whose sides is about one and a half mile, and the 
 whole compass accordingly six miles. The avenue of six hun- 
 dred sphinxes, which joined the temple of Luksor with Karnak 
 must have been one and a half mile long" : owe of its obelisks is 
 a remarkable ornament of Paris. Mostly massiveness is the 
 characteristic, since strength and might were their ideal. Yet 
 the massive columns still preserved, as in the temple of Ra- 
 meses II. *^, are even of piercing beauty'-. And for the temple 
 of Karnak ! Its enclosure, which was some two miles in cir- 
 cumference ", bears the names of Monarchs removed from one 
 another, according to the Chronology, by above two thousand 
 
 years 
 
 i 14 " 15 
 
 A stupendous colonnade, of which one pillar only 
 
 remains erect, once extended across its great court, connect- 
 ing the W. gate of entrance with that at its extremity. The 
 towers of the Eastern gate are mere heaps of stones, poured 
 down into the (rourt on one side and the great hall on the 
 other; giant columns have been swept away like reeds before 
 the mighty avalanche, and one hardly misses them. And in 
 that hall, of IJO feet by 329 feet, 134 columns of colossal 
 proportions supported its roof; twelve of them, 62 feet high 
 and about 35 in circumference, and on each side a forest of 
 66 columns, 42 feet 5 in. in height. Beyond the centre-ave- 
 nue are seen obelisks, gateways and masses of masonry; 
 every portion of these gigantic ruins is covered with sculpture 
 most admirably executed, and every column has been richly 
 painted." 
 
 "1^ Imagine a long vista of courts and doorways and colon- 
 nades and halls ; here and there an obelisk shooting up out of 
 the ruins, and interrupting the opening view of the forest of 
 columns. — This mass of ruins, some rolled down in avalanches 
 of stone, others perfect and painted, as when they were first 
 built, is approached on every side by avenues of gateways. E. 
 and W., N. and S., these vast approaches are found. Some are 
 shattered, but in every approach some remain ; and in some can 
 be traced, besides, the further avenues, still in parts remain- 
 ing by hundreds together, avenues of ram-headed sphinxes. 
 Every Egyptian temple has, or ought to have, one of those 
 grand gateways, formed of two sloping towers, with the high 
 perpendicular front between." Then, over and above, is "their 
 multiplied concentration.— Close before almost every gateway 
 in this vast array were the colossal figures, usually in granite, 
 of the great Rameses, sometimes in white and red marble, of 
 Amenophis and of Thothnies. Close by them, were pairs of 
 towering obelisks, which can generally be traced by pedestals 
 on either side. — You have only to set up again the fallen 
 obelisks which lie at your feet; to conceive the columns, as they 
 are still seen in parts, overspreading the whole ; to reproduce 
 all the statues, like those which still remain in their august 
 niches, to gaze on the painted walls and pillars of the im- 
 mense hall, which even now can never be seen without a thrill 
 
 of the place ; and at the Memnonium is another of Rameses which, when entire, 
 weighed upwards of 887 tons, and was brought from E'Sooan to Thebes, 138 miles.' 
 Wilk. Anc. Eg. iii. 329, 330. ? See Wilk. Mod. Eg. u. lU. 
 
 8 Nozrani in Eg. and Syr. p. 278. « Wilkinson Mod. Eg. ii. 157, 158. 160. 162. 
 
 ^^ Joanne et Isambert, Itiner. de 1' Orient pp. 1039, 1010. 
 
 1' Two kilometres, Joan, et Isamb. p. 1000. 
 
 '- Memnonium. See Hoskins, Winter in upper and lower Eg. Frontispiece. 
 
 " 13 Stadia. (Diod. S. i. 40.) " It will be found to surpass the measurement of the 
 historian by at least two or three stadia." Wilkins. ii. 249. 
 
 " Osirtasen i, placed at 2803. B. C. to Tirhaka, 693. B. C, Wilkinson Mod. Eg. ii. 250. 
 252. 15 Lord Lindsay Letters on Egypt &c. pp. 98, 99. 
 
 " Stanley, Sinai and Pal. p. xli.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 391 
 
 c if rTs t ^ Ethiopia and Ej^ypt tvere her strength, 
 "'*'■ ^^^- and it was infinite ; Put and Lubini were 
 t Heb. in ihy f thy helpers. 
 
 10 Yettt'a*shecarried away, she went into 
 
 of awe, and you have ancient Thebes before you." And most 
 of those paintinjjs were records of their past might. " ' There 
 remained on the massive buildings Egyptian letters, recording 
 their former wealthiness; and one of the elder priests, bidden 
 to interpret his native language, related that of old 70(>, 000 of 
 military age dwelt there; and with that army king Rhamses 
 gained possession of Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians, 
 the Bactrian and Scythian ; and held in his empire the 
 countries which the Syrians and Armenians and neighbouring 
 Cappadociansinhabitjthe Bithynian also and Lycian to the sea. 
 There were read too the tributes imposed on the natives, the 
 weight of silver and gold; the number of arms and horses, 
 and the gifts to the temples, ivory and frankincense, and what 
 supplies of corn and utensils each nation should pay, not less 
 magnificent than are now enjoined by Parthian violence or 
 by Roman power." 
 
 That ivas situate lit. the dweller, she that dwelleth. Perhaps 
 the Prophet wished to express the security and ease", in which 
 she dwelt among the rivers. They encircled, folded round her, 
 as it were, so that she was a little world in herself, secluded 
 from all who would approach to hurt her. The Prophet's 
 word, rivers^, is especially used of the branches or canals of 
 the Nile, which is also called the sea*. The Nile passed 
 through No, and doubtless its canals encircled it. Egypt is 
 said by a Heathen to be " ^ walled by the Nile as an everlast- 
 ing wall." TVhose ratnpart was [rampart is] the sea. JFall 
 and rampart ^ are, properly, the outer and inner wall of a 
 city, the wall and forewall, so to speak. For all walls and all 
 defences, her enfolding walls of sea would suffice. Strong she 
 was in herself; strong also in her helpers. 
 
 9. Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength ; lit. Egypt was 
 strength'', and Ethiopia, and boundless. He sets forth first 
 the imperial might of No ; then her strength from foreign, 
 subdued power. The capital is a sort of impersonation of 
 the might of the state ; No, of Egypt, as Nineveh, of Assyria. 
 When the head was cut otF or the lieart ceased to beat, all 
 was lost. The might of Egypt and Ethiopia was the might 
 of No, concentrated in her. They were strength, and that 
 strength unmeasured by any human standard. Boundless was 
 the strength, which Nineveh had subdued : boundless, the 
 
 ' Tac. Ann. ii. 60. 
 
 2 In Zech. i. 11, this is brought out by the addition of the word ria;sV\ "and at rest;" 
 in Zech. vii. 7, by 7rhv\, " and tranquil." In Rev. xviii. 7, " I sit a queen," the addition, 
 " as a queen " points to the other meaning, of M\ " sat enthroned." 3 Yeorim. 
 
 •• Is. xviii. 2, xix. 5. In Arabic, the Nile is called "the sweet sea" in contrast with 
 " the salt sea," or " the encircling sea ; " a title given by Egyptian writers to the Medi- 
 terranean, as being connected with the Ocean. Egyptian writers mostly add an epithet 
 tohnj^K, to designate the sea, because 'injhtf, simply, is the Nile; as in India it is the 
 Ganges ; in Mesopotamia, the Euphrates. De Sacy Chrest. Arab. ii. 14, 15. ed. 2. The 
 " white Nile " is called " Bahr-el-Abiad," the " blue Nile " Bahr-el-Azrek, and the great 
 Ethiopian tributary to the Nile, the Albara, "Bahr-el-Aswad," "the black sea." Baker, 
 Nile tributaries, p. 91. inj^N is also used of the Tigris. Lane sub v. At Thebes, the Nile 
 is usually about half amile in width, but, at the inundation, overflo\ving the plain, especially 
 upon the western bank, for a breadth of two or more miles. Smith Bib. Diet. v. Thebes. 
 "When the Nile overflows the country, the cities alone appear, surmounting it, like the 
 islands in the .lEgean ; the rest of Egypt becomes a sea." Herod, ii. 97. " The water of the 
 Nile is like a sea." Plin. H. N. xxxv. 11. " Homer gives to the river, the name ' Ocean,' 
 because the Egyptians in their own language call the Nile, Ocean." Died. S. i. 96. 
 
 * Isocr. Busir. ap. Boch. Phal. i. 1. p. 7. 
 
 Before 
 
 captivity: "her young children also were ciirist 
 dashed in pieces "at the top of all the streets: - "f- ^i*- 
 
 and they '■ cast lots for her honourable men, isa. ii'iii 
 
 and all her great men were bound in chains. ° i a.n. i'vj'.' 
 
 p Joel :!. :i. 
 
 Obad. 11. 
 
 store^ which she had accumulated for the spoiler ; boundless^ 
 the carcases of her slain, ^nd it was infinite. "The people 
 that came up with the king out of Egvpt, were withou* 
 number 1"." The Egyptians connected with Thebes are 
 counted by a heathen author" at seven millions. Put or 
 Phut 1- is mentioned third among tlic sons of Ilani, after Cush 
 and Mizraini i'. They are mentioned with the Etliioi)ians in 
 Pharaoh's army at the Euphrates ", as joined with them in 
 the visitation of Egypt '^^ ; with Cush in the army of Gogi«; 
 with Lud in that of Tyre ^^ ; a country and river of that name 
 were, Josephus tells us i", " frequently mentioned by Greek 
 historians." They dwelt in the Libya, conterminous to the 
 Canopic mouth of the Nile'^ 
 
 yi7id Luhim. These came up against Judah in the army 
 of Shishak " against Rehoboam, and with the Ethiopians, 
 "a huge host" under Zerah the Ethiopian against Asa -'>. The 
 Ribou or Libou appear on the monuments as a people con- 
 quered by Menephthes^i and Rameses IIL^^ jj^gy were still 
 to be united with Egypt and the Ethiopians in the times of 
 Antiochus Epiphanes ^^ ; so their connection with Egj-pt was 
 not broken by its fall. Those unwearied enemies had become 
 incorporated with her; and were now her help. These were 
 (E. M.) in thy help; set upon it, given up to it-*. The pro- 
 phet appeals to No herself, as it were, " Thou hadst strength." 
 Then he turns away, to speak of her, unwilling to look on the 
 miseries which he has to pourtray to Nineveh, as the preludes 
 of her own. Without God, vain is the help of man. 
 
 10.^ Yet was she [also ^^] carried away, lit. She also became an 
 exile"^ band, her people were carried awav, with all the 
 barbarities of Heathen war. All, through whom she might 
 recover, were destroyed or scattered abroad; the young, 
 the hope of another age, cruelly destroyed"; her honour- 
 able men enslaved ^^^ all her great men prisoners. God's 
 judgements are executed step by step. Assyria herself was 
 the author of this captivity, which Isaiah prophesied in 
 the first years of Hezekiah when Judah was leaning upon 
 Egypt =^ It was repeated by all of the house of Sargon'", 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold fresh desolation by Nebuchad- 
 nezzar ". God foretold to His people ^-, I gave Egypt for thy 
 ransom, Ethiopia and Sebafor thee; and the Persian monarchs, 
 
 * Tn and .ip'in, joined Lam. ii. 8, .iDim Sn. It included the space between the two walls 
 (pomoerium) 2 Sam. xx. 15, 1 Kgs. xxi. 23. It is the whole circuit of the wall as con- 
 trasted with the palaces of Zion, in Ps. xlviii. 14, cxxii. 7. As is common in Hebrew 
 poetry, "wall and forewall," which together make one subject, are placed in the parallel 
 columns. " Murus et antemurale" S. Jer. on Is. xxvii. " the lesser wall, which is before 
 the greater," Rabb. ap. Kim. " the wall and the son of the wall." R. Chanina. lb. 
 
 7 Not lit. " her strength." It is nosv, not rajjiy; the abstract for the concrete, as np'N 
 Job xli. 6, .iiKS lb. 7. 8 ii. 10. ' iii. 3. mppN) in each. 
 
 '» 2 Chron. xii. 3. " Cato in Steph. Byz. ap. Boch. iv. 27. 
 
 " Translated Lybians Jer. xlvi. 9, Ez. xxx. 5, xxxviii. 5. '3 Gen. x. 6. '< Jer. 1. c. 
 
 '5 Ez. xxx. 5. 15 lb. xxxviii. 15. 17 lb. xxix. 10. '» Jos. Ant. i. 6. 2. 
 
 " See Ges. Thes. s. v. ■" 2 Chron. xvi. 8. coll. lb. xiv. 9. 21 B. C. 1341-1321 
 (Brugsch p. 172). =2 1288 B. C. lb. 186, 190, 191. =3 Dan. xi. 43. 
 
 ■* -miva noip Ps. xxxv. 2. -ilV3 Ex. xviii. 4. =* The word is emphatic ; " She 
 
 also," her young children also. The same word also is repeated. -^ .nJi^Jij might be 
 
 either " captivity " or " the captives." But aSlJj iV.T oicurs 5 times, nSu3 ti3, 3 times ; 
 but rh'\ih >^'>th neither. 
 
 5' See Hos. xiv. Is. xiii. 16. 2 Kgs. viii. 12. =8 See Joel iii. 3. !« See Is. xx. 
 
 3» See ab. pp. 364, 365. 3' Jer. xlvi. 25, 26. and Ezekiel xxx. 14-16. 32 Is. xliii. 3. 
 
 3 M 2
 
 392 
 
 NAHUJM 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 « Jer. 25.17,27 
 
 ch. 1. 10. 
 'Rev. 6. 13. 
 
 11 Tliou also shalt be i driinlcen : thou 
 shalt be liid, tliou also shalt seek strength 
 because of the enemy. 
 
 12 All thy strongholds shall he like 'fig 
 trees with the firstripe figs: if they be 
 
 who fulfilled prophecy in the restoration of Judah, fulfilled it 
 also in the conquest of Efrypt and Ethiopia. Both ])erhaps 
 out of human policy in part. But Canihyscs' wild hatred of 
 Egyptian idolatry fulfilled God's word. Ptolemy Latliyrus 
 carried on the work of Cambyses ; the Romans, Ptolemy's. 
 Canibyscs burnt its temples'^; Latliyrus its four-or five-storied 
 private houses"; the Roman Gallus levelled it to the ground ^ 
 A little after it was said of her, " * she is inhabited as so many 
 scattered villages." A little after our Lord's Coming, Ger- 
 nianicus went to visit, not it, but "^the vast traces of it." 
 "fi It lay overwhelmed with its hundred gates " and utterly 
 impoverished. No was powerful as Nineveh, and less an 
 enemy of the people of God. For though these often suffered 
 from Egypt, yet in those times they even trusted too much to 
 its help'. If then the judgements of God came upon No, how 
 much more upon Nineveh ! In type, Nineveh is the image 
 of the world as oppressing God's Church; No, rather of those 
 who live for this life, abounding in wealth, ease, power, and 
 forgetful of God. If, then, f/iei/ were punished, who took no 
 active part against God, fought not against God's truth, yet 
 still were sunk in the cares and riches and pleasures of this 
 life, what shall be the end of those who openly resist God ? 
 
 11. Thou also. As thou hast done, so shall it be done 
 unto thee. The cruelties on No, in the cycle of God's judge- 
 ments, draw on the like upon Nineveh who inflicted them. 
 Thou also 8 shalt be drunken with the same cup of God's 
 anger, entering within thee as wine doth, bereaving thee of 
 reason and of counsel through the greatness of thy anguish, 
 and bringing shame on thee', and a stupefaction like death. 
 Thou shalt he hid, a thing hidden ^^ from the eyes of men, «s 
 though thou hadst never been. Nahum had foretold her com- 
 plete desolation : he had asked, where is she ? Here he 
 describes an abiding condition; strangely fulfilled, as perhaps 
 never to that extent besides ; her palaces, her monuments, 
 her records of her glorious triumphs existed still in their place, 
 but hidden out of sight, as in a tomb, under the hill-like 
 mounds along the Tigris. Thou also shalt seek strength, or a 
 strong-hold from the enemy ^'^, out of thyself, since thine own 
 shall be weakness. Yet in vain, since God is not such to 
 thee 1^ " They shall seek, but not find." " For then shall it 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. i. 40. Strabo xvii. 1. 45. 
 destroyed shortly before Diodorns Sic. lb. 45, 46. 
 ground." S. Jer. Chron. Eus. A. 1989. < 
 
 s Juv. Sat. XV. 6. ' See Is. xxx. &c. 
 
 8 The two images are united in Ob. 10. 
 
 10 The force of the substantive verb with the pass. part, nc^sy 'nn, as in Zech. iii. 3 ; 
 as, with the act. part., it expresses continued action; Gen. i. 0, xxxvii. 2, De. ix. 7, 22, 
 24, xxviii. 29, 2 Sam. iii. 6, Job i. 14, Ps. x. 14, cxxii. 2, Is. xxx. 20. See Ew. Lcbrb. 
 n. 168.= 
 
 !'• a;iND iiyo, as Is. xxv. 4, afp "jrro, "a refuge from the storm." 
 
 12 i. 7. 13 S. Jas. ii. 13. '■• Cli3a DjJD'Jxn, as Cant. iv. 13, cnJDiBDy cm. 
 
 '5 See ab. p. 345 on Mic. v. 1. It is not here the specific word, niira, butoioa, " the 
 first-fruits," in the same sense, as in Nu. xiii. 20, O'aiy "ii33 " the first ripe grapes." 
 
 16 JW is used of this. Is. vii. 2 ; here, as in Am. ix. 9. Nif. i? S. Jer. 
 
 18 Rev. vi. 13. " Jer. 1. 37, li. 30. ■" S. Luke xxi. 26. 
 
 2' Freytag (sub v. 3K3) says that the Pyrenees are called in Arab. nunxSK Vaj " the 
 moimtain of gates," and that the PortK Caspia; are called JNirNVN 2N3. " BaD Bmaria" 
 is the name of a pass in Libanon to the Litany, Rittcr Erdii. xvii. 93. 94. 138. 218; 
 
 - They had been 
 
 ^ " She was destroyed to the 
 
 Strabo 1. c. ^ Tac. Ann. ii. 62. 
 
 8 BX-QJ takes up N'n-Da v. 10. 
 
 shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth cifn^fsT 
 of the eater. _!!!iii^ 
 
 13 Behold, 'thy people in the midst '^«v so. 37. 
 of thee arc women : the gates of thy 
 land shall be set wide open unto thine 
 
 be too late to cry for mercy, when it is the time of justice." 
 He shall have judgement without mere//, that hath shelved no 
 mercy ^■^. 
 
 12. ^Jllt In/strong-holds shall he like figtrees, with the first ripe 
 figs, hanging from them ^'; eagerly sought after ^^, to be con- 
 sumed. Being ripe, they are ready to fall at once ; if they be 
 shaken; it needeth but the tremulous motion, as when trees 
 wave in the wind ^^, they shall even fall into the mouth of the 
 eater, not costing even the slight pains of picking them from 
 the ground i'. So easy Is their destruction on the part of God, 
 though it cost more pains to the Babylonians. At the end of 
 the world it shall be yet more fulfilled'*, for then God will 
 use no human instrument, but put forth only His own Almighti- 
 ness ; and all strong-holds of man's pride, moral or spiritual, 
 shall, of themselves, melt away. 
 
 13. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women. 
 Fierce, fearless, hard, iron men, such as their warriors still 
 are pourtrayed by themselves on their monuments, they 
 whom no toil wearied, no peril daunted, shall be, one and all, 
 their xvho\e peoj)le,ivomen. So Jeremiali to Babylon, '"'^they 
 shallbecome, became, women." He sets it before the eyes. Be- 
 hold, thy people are wo?nen ; against nature they are such, not 
 in tenderness but in weakness and fear. Among the signs of 
 the Day of Judgement, it stands, 7nen's hearts failing them 
 for fear -". Where sin reigns, there is no strength left, no man- 
 liness or nobleness of soul, no power to resist. In the midst 
 of thee, where thou seemest most secure, and, if any where, 
 there were hope of safety. The very inmost self of the sinner 
 gives way. 
 
 To thine enemies (this is, for emphasis, prefixed) not for any 
 good to thee, but to thine enemies shall be set luide open the 
 gates of thy land, not, thy gates, i. e. the gates of their 
 cities, (which is a distinct idiom), but the gates of the land 
 itself, every avenue, which might have been closed against 
 the invader, but which was laid open. The Easterns '-', as well 
 as the Greeks and Latins--, used the word "gate" or "doors" 
 of the mountain-passes, which gave an access to a land, but 
 which might be held against an enemy. In the pass called 
 "the Caucasian gates," there were, over and above, doors 
 fastened with iron bars -^. At Thermopylse or, as the in- 
 
 "Bab-el-Howa" "gate of the winds"is said to be a mountain gorge (Ritter xviii. 849. 
 Buckingham gives the name to a gate of Bosra. Travels among Arabs ii. 200). Bab-eU 
 Mardin is the name of a mountain-pass in the Masius chain (Ritter xi. 263. 393. 464), 
 " a remarkable gap or notch in the chain of Mt. Masius, behind which is situated 
 the city of Mardin." Forbes on the Sinjar Hills, Mem. R. Geogr. Soc. 1839 p. 421. 
 The name ' ' Bab-el-mandeb " shews that the name " door " is given to narrow straits also, 
 as is that of Trii\ai (See Lidd. and Scott Lex. v. Ttv\-r\). The Arab. i^O only incidentally 
 illustrates the idiom, being, not a " gate " (as Rod. in Ges. Thes.) but " a gap, interstice, 
 hence a mountain-pass, an access to a country," and specifically " a border-country to- 
 wards an enemy," and in the idiom iJiiSn '38', " stopped the gap," like pB3 iDy Ez. xxii. 30. 
 The phrase, px.n ni'l?, recurs Jer. xv. 7. 
 
 " The KdtTTrmi ttuAoi (Strabo xi. 12. 13), the AiiSioi lb. xiii. 65). See further Lidd. and 
 Sc. 1. c.) the TTi/Am tt\% KiAiKtas Kal t^s Supi'os, Xen. Anab. i. 4. 14, the " Amanicae 
 Pylse" (Q. Curt. iii. 20). Pliny speaks of the "porta Caucasias"(H.N.Ti. ll)or "Iberiae" 
 (Albanise Ptol. v. 12.) lb. 15. 
 
 -3 " After these are the Caucasian gates (by many very erroneously called the Caspiaa 
 gates), avast work of nature, the mountains being suddenly interrupted, where are doors 
 S:c."Plin. H. N. vi, 11.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 393 
 
 enemies: the fire shall devour thy 'hars. 
 
 14 DraAV thee waters for the sieijre, 
 
 « Ps. 147. la. " ' 
 
 jer.51.30. " fortify thy stronu; holtls : go into clay, and 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 tread tlu; luorter, make strong the brickkiln. ^ jf r°i § ^ 
 
 1 ') There shall the fire devour thee ; the "'■ ^i'''- 
 sword shall cut thee off", it shall eat thee 
 
 habitants called them, Pylae^, "gates," the narrow pass 
 was further fiuardod by a wall -. Its name recalls the brilliant 
 history, how such ap'proaciies niijjht be held by a devoted 
 handful of lueu against almost countless multitudes. Of 
 Assyria, I'liiiy says, '•■' The Tigris and pathless mountains 
 encircle Adialiene." When those gates of the land gave way, 
 the whole land was laid open to its enemies. 
 
 The fire .shall devour thy bars. Probably, as elsewhere, the 
 bars of the gates, which were mostly of wood, since it is added 
 expressly of some, that they were of the iron * or brass ^ 
 "8 Occasionally the efforts of the besiegers were directed 
 against the gate, which they endeavoured to break open with 
 axes, or to set on fire by application of a torch. — In the hot 
 climate of S. Asia wood becomes so dry by exposure to the sun, 
 that the most solid doors may readily be ignited and con- 
 sumed." It is even remarked in one instance that the As- 
 syrians "''have not set fire to the gates of this city, as 
 appeared to be their usual practice in attacking a fortified 
 place." 
 
 So were her palaces buried as they stood, that the traces of 
 prolonged fire are still visible, calcining the one part and 
 leaving others which were not exposed to it, uncalcined. " ^ It 
 is incontestable that, during the excavations, a considerable 
 quantity of charcoal, and even pieces of wood, either half- 
 burnt or in a perfect state of preservation, were found 
 in many places. The lining of the chambers also bears certain 
 marks of the action of fire. All these things can be explained 
 only by supposing the fall of a burning roof, which calcined 
 the slabs of gypsum and converted them into dust. It would 
 be absurd to imagine that the burning of a small quantity of 
 furniture could have left on the walls marks like these which 
 are to be seen through all the chambers, with the exception 
 of one, which was only an open passage. It must have been 
 a violent and prolonged fire, to be able to calcine not only a 
 few places, but every part of these slabs, which were ten feet 
 high and several inches thick. So complete a decomposition 
 can be attributed but to intense heat, such as would be occa- 
 sioned by the fall of a burning roof. 
 
 " Botta found on the engraved flag-stones scoria and half- 
 melted nails, so that there is no doubt that these appearances 
 had been produced by the action of intense and long-sustained 
 neat. He remembers, besides, at Khorsabad, that when he 
 detached some bas-reliefs from the earthy substance which 
 covered them, in order to copy the inscriptions that were be- 
 hind, he found there coals and cinders, which could have 
 entered only by the top, between the wall and the back 
 of the bas-relief. This can be easily understood to have 
 been caused by the burning of the roof, but is inexplicable 
 in any other manner. What tends most positively to prove 
 that the traces of fire must be attributed to the burning 
 of a wooden roof is, that these traces are perceptible 
 only in the interior of the building. The gypsum also that 
 covers the wall inside is completely calcined, while the out- 
 side of the building is nearly every where untouched. But 
 
 1 Hevod.vii. 201. 2 lb. 176.208. 
 
 3 Plin. H. N. vi. 9. quoted by Tuch ii. 1. 
 
 ■• Ps. cvii. IG, Is. xlv. 2. ' 1 Kgs. iv. 13. 
 
 ^ Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 83. who relates how "the city of Candahar was ignited from tlie 
 outside by the Anghanees, and was entirely consumed in less than an hour." Note. 
 • lionomi Nin. p. 205. ed. 2. on Botta plate 93. See also lb. p. 221, 222. 225. 
 
 wherever the fronting appears to have at all suffered from fire, 
 it is at the bottom; thus giving reason to suppose that the 
 damage has been done by some burning matter falling out- 
 side. In fact, not a single bas-relief in a state to be removed 
 was»l"oun(l in any of the cliainbers, they were all pulverised." 
 The soiilwlii''h does not rightly close its senses against the 
 enti(^eniciits of the world, does, in fact, open them, and deatli 
 is come up into our windou's'\ and then " i'' whatever natural 
 good there yet be, which, as hurs, would hinder the enemy 
 from bursting in, 's consumed by the fire," once kindled, of 
 its evil passions. 
 
 14. Draw thee waters for the siege ; fort if i/ thy strovgliolds. 
 This is not mere mockery at man's weakness, when he would 
 resist God. It foretells that they shall toil, and that, heavily. 
 Toil is added upon toil. Nineveh did undergo a two years' 
 siege. IFuter stands for all provisions within. He bids 
 them, as before ^^ strengthen what was already strong; 
 .s7;w/5'/(oW.?,which seemed to "cut off" all approach. These 
 he bids them strengthen, not repairing decays only but making 
 them exceeding strong^"\ Go into clay. We seem to see all 
 the inhabitants, like ants on their nest, all poured out, every 
 one busy, every one making preparation for the defence. 
 Why had there been no need of it? What needed she of 
 towers and fortifications, whose armies were carrying war 
 into distant lands, before whom all which was near was 
 hushed ? Now, all had to be renewed. As Isaiah in his mock- 
 ery of the idol-makers begins with the forging of the axe, the 
 planting and rearing of the trees, which were at length to be- 
 come the idol 1*, Nahum goes back to the beginning. The 
 neglected hrick-kilu, useless in their prosperity, was to be 
 repaired; the clay i^, which abounded in the valley of the 
 Tigris'^, was to be collected, mixed and kneaded by treading, 
 as still represented in the Egyptian monuments. The con- 
 quering nation was to do the work of slaves, as Asiatic cap- 
 tives are represented, under their taskmasters ^', on the monu- 
 ments of Egypt, a prelude of their future. Xenophon still saw 
 the massive brick -wall, on the stone foundation i^. 
 
 Yet, though stored within and fenced without, it shall not 
 stand 1'. 
 
 15. There, where thou didst fence thyself, and madest such 
 manifold and toilsome preparation, shall the fire devour thee. 
 All is toil within. The fire of God's wrath falls and con- 
 sumes at once. Mankind still, with mire and clay, build 
 themselves Babels. They go into clay, and become themselves 
 earthly like the mire they steep themselves in. They make 
 themselves strong, as though they thought that their houses 
 shall continue for ever "", and say, ~^ Soul, take thine ease, eat, 
 drink and be merry. God's wrath descends. Thou fool, 
 this night thy soul shall be required of thee. It shall eat 
 thee up like the canker-worm. Wliat in thee is strongest, 
 shall be devoured with as much ease as the locust devours 
 the tender grass. The judgements of God, not only over- 
 whelm as a whole, but find out each tender part, as the 
 locust devours each single blade. 
 
 s lb. Sect. iv. c. 1, pp. 215-247. 
 9 Jer. ix. 21. '» S. Jer. 
 
 " Is. xliv. 12, sqq. 
 
 " ii. 1. " 2Chr. xi. 12. 
 
 '= "on and Bt) are united as s\iionYmes Is. xli. 2.^, 
 . ,.„..j„.i, 16 •Rawl. 5 Emp. i. 47C. 
 
 '^ IS. xiiv, Ii, sqq. ■" lijn anu o'D are uniiea as s\Tionymes is. x;i. :;.- 
 
 where the BT: is that which the potter treadeth, £5"j CDV liT. " "Rawl. 5 Emp. i. 47( 
 
 17 Wilk. Anc. Eg. ii. 99. is Aiiab. iii. 4, 4. " See Is. xxvii. 10, 11. 
 
 io Ps. xlix. 11. :i S. Luke xii. 19, 20.
 
 394 
 
 NAHUM, 
 
 chrTst"P l'^^*' ^*^^ cankerworm: make thyself 
 cir. 7ia. many as the cankerworm, make thyself 
 
 « Joel i. 4. •' , , , 
 
 many as the locusts. 
 
 MaAe t/n/se/f many as the cankerworm, as thoujijh thou 
 vvouldcst ccjual thyself in opi)rcssivc number ^ to those instru- 
 ments of the vengeance of God, f>;atliorinfj from all quarters 
 armies to help thee; yea, thouf^h thou make thy whole self- 
 one o])])rcssive multitude, yet it shall not avail thee. Nay, 
 He saith, thou hast essayed to do it. 
 
 1(3. ThoK hast multiplied thy merrhants above the stars of 
 Heaven; not numerous only hut glorious in the eyes of the 
 world, and, as thou deeniest, safe and inaccessible ; yet in an 
 instant all is gone. 
 
 The commerce of Nineveh was carried back to prsehistoric 
 times, since its rivers bound together the mountains of 
 Armenia with the Persian gulf, and marked out the line, by 
 which the distant members of the human family should supply 
 each others' needs. "Semiramis," they say\ "built other cities 
 on the Euphrates and the Tigris, where she placed emporia 
 for those who convey their goods from Media and Paraetacene. 
 Being mighty rivers and passing through a populous country, 
 they yield many advantages to those employed in commerce ; 
 so that the places by the river are full of wealthy emporia." 
 The Phoenicians traced back their Assyrian commerce (and as 
 it seems, truly) to those same pra-historic times, in which 
 they alleged, that they themselves migrated from the Persian 
 gulf. They commenced at once, they said *, the long 
 voyages, in which they transported the wares of Egypt and 
 Assyria. The building of " Tadmor in the wilderness ^ " on 
 the way to Tiphsach (Thapsacus) the utmost bound of 
 Solomon's dominions ", connected Palestine with that com- 
 merce. The great route for couriers and for traffic, extend- 
 ing for fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred miles in later times, 
 must have lain through Nineveh, since, although no mention 
 is made of the city which had perished, the route lay across 
 the two rivers^, the greater and lesser Zab, of which the 
 greater formed the Southern limit of Nineveh. Those two 
 rivers led up to two mountain-passes which opened a way to 
 Media and Agbatana; and pillars at the summit of the N. pass 
 attest the use of this route over the Zagros chain about 700 
 B. C ^ Yet a third and easier pass was used by Nineveh, as is 
 evidenced by another monument, of a date as yet undeter- 
 mined'. Two other lines connected Nineveh with Syria and the 
 West. Northern lines led doubtless to Lake Wan and the Black 
 Sea'". The lists of plunder or of tribute, carried off during 
 the world-empire of Egypt, before it was displaced by Assyria, 
 attest the extensive imports or manufactures of Nineveh '^ ; 
 
 • na;nn expresses more than mere number. 133 retains always the idea of weight 
 gravity or oppressiveness. We say "heavy haU " Ex. ix. 18, 24. It is used of the 
 plague of iiies, lb. viii. 20, and, as here, of the locusts, lb. x. 14 ; of the host, with 
 which Esau opposed Israel, Nu. xx. 20, (adding nijin T?i) ; of that sent with Rabshakeh 
 to Jerusalem, Is. xxxvi. 2. and of the great train of the Queen of Sheba, camels laden 
 with very much gold and precious stones, 1 Kgs. x. 2. njb occurs above iii. 3. of the heavy 
 mass of corpses. In Ex. ix. 3, it is used of a grievous pestilence (Gesenius' instances 
 Thes. s. v.). 
 
 - The two genders, iirnn, nD3n."i, are probably joined together, the more strongly to 
 express universality, as nffifC? [Ke'D, Is. iii. 1; and Nahum himself unites qno and njio in 
 two parallel clauses, ii. 13. 
 
 3 Diod. ii 11. ■• Herod, i. 1. * 1 Kgs. ix. 18. « lb. v. 4. (iv. 24.) 
 
 7 Herod, ii. 52. 8 See Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 180, 181. 9 lb. 181,182. '» lb. 182, 183. 
 
 " " Dishes of silver with their covers ; a harp of brass inlaid with gold ; 823 pounds of 
 
 perfumes " (Brugsch Hist, d' Eg. p. 100) ; " 10 pounds of true lapis lazuli, 24 pounds 
 
 of artificial lapis lazuli; vessels laden with ebony and ivory, precious stones, vases, (lb. 
 
 p. 203); besidesmany other articles, which cannot yet be made out. 
 
 16 Thou hast multiplied thy merehants cifiiTsT 
 above tlie stars of heaven : the canker- "'"■ ''^'^- — 
 
 •11 J /I 1 \\ Oi, tpreadeth 
 
 worm II spoiletl), and Heeth away. himseif. 
 
 the titles of "Assyrian nard, Assyrian amomum, Assyrian 
 odours, myrrh, frankincense '-, involve its trade with the spice- 
 conntrics : domestii; manufactures of iiers api)arently were 
 purple or dark-blue cloaks''', embroidery, brocades'^, and 
 these conveyed in chests of cedar; her metallurgy was on 
 principles recognised now ; in one practical point of combining 
 beauty with strength, she has even been copied'". 
 
 A line of commerce, so marked out by nature in the history 
 of nations, is not changed, unless some preferable line be dis- 
 covered. Empires passed away, but at the end of the l.'3th 
 century trade and manufacture continued their wonted course 
 and habitation. The faith in Jesus had converted the ancient 
 heathenism ; the heresy of Mohammedanism disputed with 
 the faith for the souls of men ; but the old material prosperity 
 of the world held its way. Mankind still wanted the pro- 
 ductions of each others' lands. The merchants of Nineveh 
 were to be dispersed and were gone : itself and its remembrance 
 were to be effaced from the earth, and it was so ; in vain was a 
 new Nineveh built by the Romans; that also disappeared; but so 
 essential was its possession for the necessities of commerce, 
 that Mosul, a large and populous town, arose over against its 
 mounds, a city of the living over-against its buried glories ; 
 and, as oar goods are known in China by the name of our 
 great manufacturing capital, so a delicate manufacture im- 
 posed on the languages of Europe (Italian, Spanish, French, 
 English, German) the name of Mosul '*. 
 
 Even early in this century, under a mild governor, an im- 
 portant commerce passed through Mosul, from India, Persia, 
 Kurdistan, Syria, Natolia, Europe'^. And when European 
 traffic took the line of the Isthmus of Suez, the communica- 
 tion with Kurdistan still secured to it an important and ex- 
 clusive commerce. The merchants of Nineveh were dis- 
 persed and gone. The commerce continued over-against its 
 grave. 
 
 Tlie cankerworm spoileth andfleeth away ; better, the locust 
 hath spread itself abroad (marauded) atid is Jiotim. The 
 prophet gives, in three words '*, the whole history of Nineveh, 
 its beginning and its end. He had before foretold its destruc- 
 tion, though it should be oppressive as the locust ; he had 
 spoken of its commercial wealth ; he adds to this, that other 
 source of its wealth, its despoiling warfares and their issue. 
 The heathen conqueror rehearsed his victory, " I came, 
 saw, conquered." The prophet goes farther, as the issue of 
 all human conquest, " I disappeared." The locust [Nineveh] 
 
 ■2 See Rawl. 5 Emp. ii. 191, 192. '3 nJiDp vhi Ez. xxvii. 24. » D-ora 
 
 '^ Layard Nin. and Bab. p. 191. 
 
 1^ "All those cloths of gold and of silk which we call 'muslins' (Mossulini) are of 
 manufacture of Mosul." Marco Polo, Travels c. 6. p. 37. ed. 1854. " The manufactures 
 from fine transparent white cotton, like the stuffs now made in India under that name 
 and like the bombazines manufactured at Arzingan, received in the following centuries 
 the name ' muslins ; ' but not the silk brocades interwoven with gold, which had their 
 name Baldachini from Baldak i. e. Bagdad, and perhaps were manufactured at that 
 time at Mosul, unless indeed this name " muslin " was then given to gold-brocades as 
 wares of Mosul." Ritter Erdk. x. 274, 275. "There is a very large deposition of merchan- 
 dise [at Mosul] because of the river, wherefore several goods and fruits are brought thither 
 from the adjacent countries, both by land and water, to ship them for Bagdad." RauwolTs 
 Travels P. 2, c. 9. p. 205. A. 15/3. Niebuhr still witnessed " the great traffic carried oa 
 there, as also linen manufactures, dyeing and printing [of stuffs]." 
 
 '" Olivier Voyage (1808) ii. 359. In 1706, one caravan, in which Niebuhr travelled, had 
 1300 camel-loads of gall-apples from Kurdistan. It supplied yearly 2000 centners of 
 them. Nieb. ii. 274. '^ lyi CM pS'.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 395 
 
 ch'uTst 17 ^Thy crowned are as the locusts, and 
 "''• ^'^- thy captains as the f^reat grasshoppers, 
 
 yRev.9.7. yyhich camp in the hedges in the crdd day, 
 but when the sun arisetii they He(! away, 
 and their phice is not known wlien; tliey arc. 
 
 spread itself aliroad (the word is always used of an inroad for 
 plunder 1), destroyiiij^ and wasting, everywhere: it left the 
 world a desert, and was gone ". Ill-gotten wealth makes 
 poor, not rieh. Truly tliey who traffic in this world, are more 
 in number than they who, seeking treasuie in Heaven, shall 
 slime as the stars for ever and ever. For iiiaiii/ are called, 
 but fezv are chosen. And when all the stars of lii^ht "shall 
 abide and praise God^, these men, though multiplied like 
 the locust, shall, like the locust, pass away, destroying and 
 destroyed. They abide for a while in the cliillness of this 
 world ; when the Sun of righteousness ariseth, they vanish. 
 This is the very order of God's Providence. As truly as lo- 
 custs, which in the cold and dew are chilled and stiffened, and 
 cannot spread their wings, fly aumt/ when the sun is hot and 
 are found no longer, so shalt thou be dispersed and thy place 
 not any more be known*. It was an earnest of this, when the 
 Assyrians, like locusts, had spread themselves around Jeru- 
 salem in a dark dai/ of trouble and of rebuke and of blas- 
 phemy ^, God was entreated and they were not. Midian 
 came lip like the grasshopper for multitude^. In the morn- 
 ing they had fled ''. What is the height of the sons of men ? 
 or how do they spread themselves abroad? " At the longest, 
 after a few years it is but as the locust spreadeth himself and 
 jieeth away, no more to return. 
 
 Y] . Thy crowned are as the locust, and thy captains as the 
 great locusts. What he had said summarily under metaphor, 
 the prophet expands in a likeness. The crowned ^ are pro- 
 bably the subordinate princes, of whom Sennacherib said', 
 Are not my princes altogether kings ? It has been observed 
 that the head-dress of the Assyrian Vizier has the ornament 
 which " 1° throughout the whole series of sculptures is the dis- 
 tinctive mark of royal or quasi-royal authority." " i' All high 
 officers of state, the crowned captains, were adorned with dia- 
 dems, closely resembling the lower band of the royal mitre, 
 separated from the cap itself. Such was that of the vizier, 
 which was broader in front than behind, was adorned with 
 rosettes and compartments, and terminated in two ribbons 
 with embroidered and fringed ends, which hung down his 
 back." Captain is apparently the title of some military 
 office of princely rank. One such Jeremiah '-, in a prophecy 
 in which he probably alludes to this, bids place over the 
 
 ■ Jud. ix. 44 bis, 1 Sam. xxiii. 27, xxvii. 8, 10, xxx. 1, 1 Chr. xiv. 9, 13, 2 Chr. 
 XXV. 13, xxviii. 18. The object, against which the attack is directed, is joined on 
 with ^K Jud. XX. 37, 1 Sam. xxvii. 8, 10, xxx. 1, or Sy, Jud. ix. 33, +1, 1 Sam. xxiii. 
 27, xxvii. 10; even as to the object of plunder, "camels" Job i. 17. The place (Hos. 
 vii. 1) or coimtry (1 Chr. xiv. 9, 13, 2 Chr. xxv. 13, xxviii. 18) is joined with 3, and 
 once (1 Sam xxx. 14) stands in the accus. The idiom 11:3 cb'b, " put off his clothes," is 
 distinct. The object of the verb is always added Lev. vi. 4, xvi. 23, 1 Sam. xix. 24, 
 Cant. v. 3, Ez. xxvi. 16, xliv. 19, Neh. iv. 17 ; except that, in Is. xxxii. 11, it is implied 
 by the context, " strip ye, make ye bare." Credner's theory then (followed by Ewald 
 Proph. iii. 14. ed. 2.) that pV' signifies the locust in its last moulting, which strips off the 
 involucra of its wings, is contrary to the use of ars, as well as to that of p'?'. See ab. on 
 Joel p. 99. Gesenius, under ec'd, contradicts the explanation which he had given under 
 p7' from Credner. 
 
 ^ lis is used of shortness of human life; "like a dream he flieth away," (liy) Job xx.8; 
 " and we fly away " nnyj), Ps. xc. 10. "Ephraim, like a bird, their glory flieth away," isiyn', 
 Hos. ix. 11, add Pr. xxiii. 5, oi unjust wealth. ^ Ps. cxlviii. 3. ■• See c. i. 8. 
 
 * Is. -xxxvii. 3. 6 Judg. vi. 4, 5, vii. 12. ? Judg. vii. 21. « The punctuation 
 
 ]8 ''Thy sliepherds shimher, () "khig (, hrTst 
 of Assyria : thy || nohles shall dwell in ""■ 7i3. 
 the (/n.st : thy ijcople is '' scattered ui)on ' f^^- is. i6. 
 
 •^ * ' ' J s. /o. 6. 
 
 tli(! mountains, and no man irathereth ° J^r. so. is. 
 
 " Ezek. 31.3, 
 
 til cm. &c. 
 
 II Or, valiant 
 •>! Kin.22. 17. ones. 
 
 armies of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz, to marshal them 
 against Babylon, against which he summons the cavalry like 
 the rough locust. Tiic captains arc likened to the great crifer- 
 pill(irs^\ either as chief in devastation, or as iiicliiding under 
 them the armies under their command, whr> moved at their 
 will. These and their armies now subsided into stillness for 
 a time under the chill of calamity, like the locust '"'whose na- 
 ture it is, that, torpid in the cold, they fly in the heat." The 
 stiffness of the locusts through the cold, when they lie motion- 
 less, heaps upon heaps, hidden out of sight, is a sfi-ikitig 
 image of the helplessness of Nineveh's mightiest in the day 
 of her calamity; then, by a difi"erent part of their history, he 
 pictures their entire disappearance. " '= Tlie locusts, are com- 
 monly taken in the morning when they are agghtmerated one 
 on another, in the places where they passed the night. As 
 soon as the sun warms them, they fly away." JFIten the sun 
 ariseth, they flee aiuay i", lit. it is chased away ^'. One and all ; 
 all as one. As at God's command the plague of locusts, which 
 He had sent on Egypt, M^as removed ^* ; there remained not one 
 locust in all the coasts of Egypt ; so the mighty of Nineveh 
 were driven forth, with no trace where they had been, where 
 they were. The wind carried them away " ; the wind passeth 
 over him and he is not, ami his place knoweth him no mrn-e"". 
 The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the un- 
 godly for a moment : though his excellency mount up to the 
 heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish 
 for ever ; they which have seen him shall say, where is he ? 
 He shall fly away, as a dream, and shall not be found ; neither 
 shall his place any more behold him"^. 
 
 Where they are. So Zechariah asks. Your fathers, where 
 are they " ? History, experience, human knowledge can 
 answer nothing. They can only say, where they are not. 
 God Alone can answer that much-containing word, Where- 
 they-^. They had disappeared from human sight, from their 
 greatness, their visible being, tiieir place on earth. 
 
 18. Thy shepherds, i. e. they who should counsel for the 
 people's good and feed it, and keep watch over their flocks 
 by night, hut are nowlike their master, the King of Assyria, 'dre 
 his shepherds not the shepherds of the people whom they care 
 not for ; these slumber, at once through listlessness and excess, 
 and now have fallen asleep in death, as the Psalmist says ^, 
 
 of TTJP is compared by Jewish grammarians too to "71? Ex. xv. 17 ; ^rn-xi Jo. i. 17. 
 ' Is. x. 8. '" Rawl. 5 Empires i. 115. " Gosse, Assyria p. 463, who remarks that 
 "the Ten Thousand in Xerxes' army," crossed the Hellespont " crowned with gar- 
 lands." Herod, vii. 55. ■- Jer. li. 27. On the word, td^o, see ab. p. 353. n. e. 
 
 '3 <31J 31J, doubtless the common superlative, like Dnny nay Gen. ix. 25. 
 
 » S. Jer. copied by S. Cyr. and Theod. 
 
 '* Casalis, on the proverb of the Bassouto, " locusts are taken in the heap." Etudes 
 sur la langue Sechuana p. 87. Paris 1842, referred to by Ewald ad loc. who also refers 
 to Ibn Babuta (in the Joum. As. 1843 March p. 240.) " The chase of locusts is made 
 before sunrise ; for then they are benumbed by the cold and cannot fly." 
 
 i"" rrii; U\\ " the cold day," (also Prov. xxv. 20), of course does not mean " night," (as 
 Hitzig&c) nor (as Ew. &c.) does tnysn mi mean any thing but " sunrise," of which it is 
 used 8 times besides. Gen. xxxii. 32, Ex. xxii. 2, Jud. ix. 33, 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, 2 Kgs. iii. 
 22, Ps. civ. 22, Eccl. i. 5, Jon. iv. 8; but the locusts, having been benumbed by a cold 
 day, plainly would not be warmed till the sunrise of the following day. '? "nij, passive. 
 13 Ex. X. 19. " Is. xli. 16. -0 Ps. ciii. 16. =' Job xx. 5-9. ^- Zech. i. 
 23 D.'S, contracted for dt .tk. -^ Ps. Ixxvi. 6, eras 103.
 
 396 
 
 NAHUISr. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 ^- '!''• hniiso : 
 
 10 There is no f liealini^ of thy 
 
 tliy wound is ij^rievous : ''{ill 
 
 that hear the bruit of thee shall clap 
 
 t Heb. 
 
 ■wrinkVirif^ . 
 ■= Mic. 1. 9. J Lam. 2. 15. Zeph. ii. 15. See Isa. 14. 8, &c 
 
 Thep have slept their sleep. The prophet speaks of the future, 
 as already past in effect, as it was in the will of God. All " the 
 shepherds of the peo])le'," all who could shepherd thcni, or 
 hold them tojicther, themselves sleep the sleep of death ; their 
 mighttj men dwelt^ in that abiding-place, where they shall 
 not move or rise ^, the ji^rave ; and so as Micaiah, in the vision 
 predictive of Ahab's death *, saw all Israel scattered on the 
 hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd, so the people of the 
 Assyrian monarch shall be scattered on the nionutalns, 
 shcpherdless, and that irretrievably; no man gathereth 
 them. 
 
 19. There is no healing [lit. dulling'] of thy bruise ; it can- 
 not be softened or mitigated ; and so thy wound is grievous 
 [lit. sick], incurable, for when the wound ever anew inflames, 
 it cannot be healed. The word, bruise, is the more expres- 
 sive, because it denotes alike the abiding wound in the body \ 
 and the shattering of a state, which God can heal ", or which 
 may be great, incurable ^. When the passions are ever anew 
 aroused, they are at last without remedy ; when the soul is 
 ever swollen with pride, it cannot be healed ; since only by 
 submitting itself to Christ, "broken and contrite" by hunii'- 
 lity, can it be healed. Nineveh sank, and never rose ; nothing 
 soothed its fall. In the end there shall be nothing to mitigate 
 the destruction of the world, or to soften the sufterings of the 
 damned. The rich man, being in torments, asked in vain 
 that Lazarus might dip the tip of his ^finger in ivater and 
 cool my tongue. 
 
 All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee, 
 for none can grieve at thy fall. 
 
 Nineveh sinks out of sight amid one universal, exulting, 
 exceeding joy 8 of all who heard the report of her. For 
 upon ivhom hath not thy wiekednesss passed continually ? 
 " In that he asketh, npo7i tchom hath not thy wickedness 
 passed continualli/ ? he affirmeth most strongly that his evil 
 did pass upon all continually." His ivickedness, like one 
 continual flood, which knew no ebb or bound, had p«S5ef^ 
 upon the whole world and each one in it ; now at length it 
 had passed away, and the ivhole earth is at rest, is quiet ; they 
 break forth into singing^. 
 
 It is not without meaning, that having throughout the 
 propbecy addressed Nineveh (in the feminine), now, in the 
 close ^o, the prophet turns to him in whom all its wickedness 
 is, as it were, gathered into one, the soul of all its evil, and 
 the director of it, its king. As Nineveh is the image of the 
 world, its pomps, wealth, luxury, vanity, wickedness, oppres- 
 sion, destruction, so its king is the image of a worse king, 
 the Prince of this world. "^^ And this is the song of triumph 
 of those, over whom his ivickedness has passed, not rested, but 
 they have escaped out of his hands. Nahum, 'the comforter,' 
 had rebuked the world of sin ; now he pronounces that 
 the prince of this world is judged. His shepherds are they 
 
 > Homer, psissini. 2 Comp. [SS'P Is. xxii. IG. 3 " xhey cannot rise " Rashi. 
 
 "It means the rest of death, and so 1,'Bi non mjv Ps. xciv. 6, pi?' -sivh ni3D Ps. vii. 6. " Sat. 
 Ben Mel. "are still and move not." A. E. * 1 Kgs xxii. 17. ' Lev. xxi. 19. 
 
 the hands 
 hath not 
 tinually ? 
 
 over thee : for upon 
 
 thy wickedness passed con- 
 
 whom Before 
 
 "'""" CHRIST 
 
 cir. 713. 
 
 who serve him, w1io/«y/ the flork of the slaughter, who guide 
 them to evil, not to good. These, when they slerj), as all 
 mankind, f/«r// there ; it is their aLiding-j)lace: their sheep 
 are scattered on the mountains, in the heights of their pride, 
 because they are not of the sheep of Christ; and since they 
 would not be gathered of Him, they are scattered, where 7ione 
 gathereth.'" "The king of Assyria (Satan) knoweth that 
 he cannot deceive the sheep, unless he have first laid the 
 shepherds asleep. It is ever the aim of the devil t<i lay asleep 
 souls that watch. In the Passion of the Lord, he weighed 
 down the eyes of the Apostles with heavy sleep, whom Christ 
 arouseth ^^, Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; 
 and again, JFhat J say unto you, I say unto all, watch ! 
 And no man gathereth them, for their shepherds themselves 
 cannot protect themselves. In the Day of God's anger, the 
 kings of the earth and the great men, and the rich men and the 
 chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and 
 every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of 
 the mountains^^. Such are his shepherds, and his sheep; but 
 what of bimself ? Truly bis bruise or breaking can not be 
 healed ; his wound or smiting is incurable ; that namely where- 
 by, when he came to Him in Whom he found iiothing^'^, yet 
 bruised His heel, and exacted of Him a sinner's death, his 
 own liead was bruised." And hence all who have ears to 
 hear, who hear not with the outward only, but with the inner 
 ears of the heart, clap the hands over thee, i. e. give to God 
 all their souls' thanks and praise, raise up their eyes and hands 
 to God in heaven, praising Him Who had bruised Satan under 
 their feet. Ever since, through the serpent, the evil and mali- 
 cious One lied, saying, ye shall not surely die, eat and ye shall be 
 as gods, hath his evil, continually and unceasingly, from one 
 and through one, passed upon all men. As the Apostle saith, 
 As by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, 
 and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned^^. 
 Upon ti'hom then hath not his sin passed? Who hath not 
 heen shapeji in iniquity? and whom did not his mot her conceive 
 in sin ? Yet, it passeth only, for the world itself also 
 passeth aivay, and we pass away from it, and all the evil 
 it can do us, unless we share in its evil, is not abiding, but 
 passing. This then is the cause, and a great cause, why 
 all that hear the bruit of thee should clap the hands over thee ; 
 because thee, whose ivickedness passed through one upon all. 
 One Man, Who Alonewas without sin, contemned andbruised, 
 while He freed and justified from wickedness them who hearing 
 rejoiced, and rejoicing and believing, clapped the hands over 
 thee. Yet they only shall be glad, upon whom his ivicked- 
 ness, although it passed, yet abode not, but in prayer and 
 good deeds, by the grace of God, they lifted up their hands 
 to Him Who overcame, and Wlio, in His own, overcometh 
 still, to Whom be praise and thanksgiving for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 ' Ps. Ix. 4, Is. XXX. 26. ' Jer. xxx. 12. * ']0 lypn, only here and Ps. xlvii. 2, 
 
 expressing joy. ' Is. xiv. 7. "' v. IS, 19. " S. Jer. Rup. 
 
 '■ S. Mat. xxvi. 41. " Rev. vi. 15. » S. John xiv. 30. '^ Rom. v. 12.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 Habakkuk is eminently the prophet of reverential, awe-filled 
 faith. T his is th e soul and cen tre of his prophec y. One 
 word alone he addresses! diret!lly~to his people. It is of mar- 
 vel at their want of faith. ^Behold among the heathen and 
 gaze attentively, and marvel, marvel ; fur I am working a 
 ivork in your days; ye tvill not believe, wlieti it is declared unto 
 you. He bids them behold, and gaze, for God is about to 
 work in their own days ; he bids them prepare themselves to 
 marvel, and marvel on ; for it was a matter, at which political 
 wisdom would stagger; and they, since they had not faith, 
 would not believe it. The counterpart to this, is that great 
 blessing of faith, which is the key-stone of his whole book, 
 '' the just shall live by his faith. 
 
 Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah that his treasures should 
 be carried to Babylon, his sons be eunuchs in the palace of its 
 king*^. He had foretold the destruction of Babylon and the 
 restoration of the Jews ''. Prophecy in Habakkuk, full as it 
 is, is almost subordinate. His main subject is, that which oc- 
 cupied Asaph in the 73rd Psalm, the afflictions of the righteous 
 amid the prosperity of the wicked. The answer is the same ; 
 the result of all will be one great reversal, the evil drawing 
 upon themselves evil, God crowning the patient waiting of 
 the righteous in still submission to His holy Will. The just 
 shall live by his faith, occupies the same place in Habakkuk, as 
 / knoiu that my Redeemer liveth, does in Job ■=, or Thou shall 
 guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me into glory, 
 in Asaph '. 
 j His first subject s is, faith struggling under the oppressive 
 sight of the sufferings of the good from the bad within God's 
 people ; the second '', the sufferings at the hands of those 
 : who are God's instruments to avenge that wickedness. The 
 ' third', that of his great hymn, is faith, not jubilant until 
 the end, yet victorious, praying, believing, seeing in vision 
 what it prays for, and triumphing in that, of which it sees no 
 tokens, whose only earnest is God's old loving-kindnesses to 
 His people, and His Name, under which He had revealed 
 Himself, " He Who Is," the Unchangeable. 
 
 The whole prophecy is, so to speak, a colloquy between 
 
 the prophet and God. He opens it with a reverential, earnest, 
 
 appeal to God, like that of the saints under the heavenly 
 
 f Altar in the Revelations '', How long ? The prophet had 
 
 ' i. 5. •> ii. 4. t Is. xxxix. 6, 7. ^ Is. xii. xiii. xlvii. « Job six. 25. 
 
 ' Ps. Ixxiii. 24. 
 
 I c. 1. 
 
 > c. iii. 
 
 prayed to God to end or mitigate the violence, oppres- 
 sions, strife, contention, despoiling, powerlessness of the law, 
 crookedness of justice, entrapping of the righteous by the 
 wicked '. God answers ", that a terrible day of retribution was 
 coming, that He Himself would raise up the Chaldees, as the 
 instruments of His chastisements, terrible, self-dependent, 
 owning no law or authority but their own will, deifying their 
 own power, sweeping the whole breadth of the land, possess- 
 ing themselves of it, taking every fenced city, and gathering 
 captives as the sand. This answers the one halfofllabak- 
 kuk's question, as to the prosperity of the wicked among 
 his people. It leaves the other half, as to the condition of 
 the righteous, unanswered. For such scourges of God swept 
 away the righteous with the wicked. Habakkuk then renews 
 the question as to them. But, as Asaph began by declaring 
 his faith, ^All-good is God to Israel, the true Israel, the pure 
 of heart, so Habakkuk, " Israel would not die, because He, 
 their God, is Unchangeable." ° Art not Thou of old, O Lord, 
 my God, my holy One? we shall not die ; Thou, O Lord, hast 
 set him [the Chaldee] for judgement, and Thou, O Rock, hast 
 founded him to chasten. Then he appeals to God, " Why then 
 is this ? Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil — icherefore 
 keepest Thou silence, whe7i the wicked devoureth him tvho is more 
 righteous than he ? " This closes the first chapter and the first 
 vision, in which he describes, with the vividness of one who 
 saw it before him, the irresistible invasion of the Chaldseans. 
 Israel was meshed as in a net ; should that net be emptied p ? 
 The second chapter exhibits the prophet waiting in silent ex- 
 pectation for the answer. This answer too dwells chiefly on 
 those retributions in this life, which are the earnest of futm-e 
 judgements, the witness of the sovereignty of God. But al- 
 though in few words, it does answer the question as to the 
 righteous, that he has abiding life, that he lives and shall live. 
 God impresses the importance of the answer in the words '', 
 IVrite the vision i. e. the prophecy, and make it plain on the 
 tables, whereon the prophet was wont to write % that he 7nay 
 run who reads it. He says also, that it is for a time fixed in 
 the mind of God, and that however, in man's sight, it might 
 seem to linger, it would not be aught behind the time '. Then 
 he gives tlie answer itself in the words, ' Behold his soul 
 which is puffed up is not upright in him; and the just shall 
 
 kRev.vi. 10. 1 i. 2-4. " lb. 6-11. ■" Ps. Ixxiii. 1. ° Hab. i- li2. 
 P lb. 17. — 1 ii. 2. ' BVlVn 7y • ii. 3. « ii. 4. 
 
 3 N
 
 398 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 live ht/ his fdith. The swelling!: pride and self-dependence of 
 the Clialdee stands in contrast with tlie trustful suhniissioii 
 of faith. Of the one God says, it lias no ground of uprigiit- 
 ness,and consequently will not stand hefore God; of faith, he 
 says, the righteous shall live hy it. But the life plaiidy is not 
 the life of the hody. For Habakkuk's ground of (complaint 
 was the world-wasting cruelty of the Chaldees. The woe on 
 the Chaldee which follows is even chiefly for bloodshed, in 
 which the righteous and the wicked are massacred alike. 
 The simple word, shall live, is an entire denial of death, a 
 denial even of any interruption of life. It stands in the same 
 fulness as those words of our Lord, " because I live, ye shall 
 live also. The other side of the picture, the fall of the Chal- 
 dees, is given in greater fulness, because the fulfilment of 
 God's word in things seen was the pledge of the fulfilment 
 of those beyond the veil of sense and time. In a measured 
 dirge he pronounces a five-fold woe on the five great sins of the 
 Chaldees, their ambition', covetousness", violence^, insolence^ 
 idolatry". It closes with the powerlessness of the Chaldee 
 idols against God, and bids the whole world be hushed before 
 the presence of the One God, its Maker, awaiting His sentence. 
 
 Then follows the prayer ""j that God would revive His tuork 
 for Israel, which now seemed dead. He describes the revival 
 as coming, under the images of God's miraculous deliverances 
 of old. The division of the Red Sea and the Jordan, the 
 standing-still of the sun and moon under Joshua, are images 
 of future deliverances ; all nature shakes and quivers at the 
 presence of its Maker, Yet not it, but the wicked were the 
 object of His displeasure. The prophet sees his people de- 
 livered as at the Red Sea, just when the enemy seemed ready 
 to sweep them away, as with a whirlwind. And, in sight of 
 the unseen, he closes with that wondrous declaration of faith, 
 that all nature should be desolate, all subsistence gone, every 
 thing, contrary to God's promises of old to His people, should 
 be around him, and I will rejoice in the Lord, I ivill exult for 
 joy in the God of my salvation. 
 
 This prophecy is not less distinct, because figurative. 
 Rather it is the declaration of God's deliverance of His 
 people, not from the Chaldees only, but at all times. The 
 evil is concentrated in one Evil one, who stands over against 
 the One anointed. Thou art gone forth for the salvation of 
 Thy j)eoj)le ; for salvation with Thine anointed One. Thou 
 crushedst the head out of the house of the wicAed One, laying 
 bare the foundation unto the neck, i. e. smiting the house, at 
 once, above and below ; with an utter destruction. It belongs 
 then the more to all times, until the closing strife between 
 evil and good, Christ and Antichrist, the avofio^ and the Lord. 
 It includes the Chaldee, and each great Empire which op- 
 poses itself to the kingdom of God, and declares that, as God 
 delivered His people of old, so He would unto the end. 
 
 It may be that Habakkuk chose this name to express the 
 strong faith, whereby he embraced the promises of God. 
 At least, it means one who " strongly enfolds "." 
 
 Perhaps too it is on account of the form in which his pro- 
 phecy is east, as being spoken (with the exception of that one 
 verse) to God or to the Chaldaean, not to his own people, that he 
 added the title of Prophet to his name. The burdeti ivhich 
 
 " S. John xiv. 19. ' ii. 5. 8. » ii. 9-11. r ii. 12-14. 
 
 » ii. 15-17. » ii. 18-20. ^ c. iii. 
 
 « There is no other form exactly like P'pjn. Yet it is manifestly intensive. It most 
 resembles the form 2r\2n» ' ' loved intensely.' ' This form, in loiBn, nyiSD. is changed into 
 TDteq, "ijisn. Equally piapjq might be pronounced Habakkuk, the second 1 being, as De- 
 litzsch suggested, merged in the p, for greater facility of pronunciation. The * is a form 
 like IpcRj, n'l-m^^pif', ■Tirn^?', psu;j ; yet it is impossible that the reduplication should be 
 meaningless, (as Ew. 157. a. p. 405. ed. 7.) 
 
 Hahukkuk the prophet did see^. For, however the name "pro- 
 phet " includes all to whom revelations from (jod came, it is 
 nowhere, in the Old Testament, added as the name of an office 
 to any one, who d'd not exercise the practical office of the Pro- 
 phet. Our Lord (|Uotes David as the Prophet', and God says 
 to Abimelech of Abraham ', He is a Prophet, and, in reference 
 to this, the Psalmist speaks of the Patriarchs, as Prophets «. 
 He reproved kings for their sakes, saying. Touch not Mine 
 anointed and do My prophets no harm, and Hosca speaks of 
 Moses as a prophet'', and St. Peter says of David', He being 
 a prophet. But the title is nowhere in the Old Testament 
 added to the name as it is here, Habakkuk the prophet, and 
 as it is elsewhere Samuel the prophet'', the prophet Gad', 
 Nathan the prophet ™, Ahijah the prophet ", the prophet Jehu •, 
 Elijah the prophet p, Elisha the prophet i, Shemaiah the pro- 
 phet % the prophet I ddo% the prophet Obed', Isaiah the pro- 
 phet ", Jeremiah the prophet*, Haggai the prophet', unless 
 any have exercised the prophetic office. The title of the 
 Prophet is not, in the Old Testament, added to the names of 
 Jacob or even of Moses or David or Solomon or Daniel, 
 although they all prophesied of Christ. 
 
 Since Holy Scripture often conveys so much incidentally, it 
 may be that a large range of ministerial office is hinted 
 in the words " write on the tables ;" for " the tables " must 
 have been well-known tables, tables upon which prophets 
 (as Isaiah) and probably Habakkuk himself was accus- 
 tomed to write. The writing of a few emphatic unexplained 
 words in a public place, which should arouse curiosity, or 
 startle passers-by, would be in harmony with the symbolical 
 actions, enjoined on the prophets and used by them. The 
 Mene, Mens, Tekel, Upharsin, had, from their mysterious- 
 ness, an impressiveness of their own, apart from the miracle of 
 the writing. 
 
 The words appended to the prophecy, to the chief singer, (as 
 we should say, "the leader of the band") with or on my 
 stringed instruments, imply, not only that the hymn became 
 part of the devotions of the temple, but that Habakkuk too 
 had a part in the sacred music which accompanied it. The 
 word so rendered, neginothai, could only mean jny stringed 
 instruments, or "my song accompanied with music," as 
 Hezekiah says ^, we will si7}g my songs on the stringed instru- 
 meiits, ne7iaggen neginothai. But in Habakkuk's subscription, 
 " To the chief musician binginothui," neginoth can have no 
 other meaning than in the almost identical inscription of 
 Psalms, " ^ To the chief musician binginoth," nor this any 
 other than with stringed instru7nents, " instruments struck 
 with the hand"." The addition, "with my stringed instru- 
 ments," shews that Habakkuk himself was to accompany his 
 hymn with instrumental music, and since the mention of /Ae 
 chief musician marks out that it was to form part of the temple- 
 service, Habakkuk must have been entitled to take part in the 
 temple-music, and so must have been a Levite. The Levitical 
 order then had its prophet, as the sacerdotal in Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel. The tradition in the title to Bel and the Dragon, 
 whatever its value, agrees with this ; " *■ from the prophecy of 
 Ambakum, son of Jesus, of the tribe of Levi." 
 
 This, however, does not give us any hint as to the time when 
 
 <l i. 1. add iii. 1. = S. Matt. xiii. 35. ' Gen. xx. 7. « Ps. cv. 14-15. 
 
 !> Hos. xii. 13. Acts ii. 30. k 2 Chr. xxxv. 18. ' 1 Sara. xxii. 5. 
 
 "> 1 Kgs. i. 32. ° 1 Kgs. xi. 29. " lb. xvi. 7, 12. P lb. xviii. 36. 
 
 i2Kgs. vi. 12. '2Chr. xii. 5. ■ lb. xiii. 22. • lb. xv. 8. 
 
 " 2 Kgs. xix. 2, XX. 1. ' Jer.xxviii. 6, xxxvi. 26, 2 Chr. xxxvi. 12. 
 
 « Ezr. v. 1, vi. 14. y Is. xxxviii. 20. • Ps. iv. vi. liv. Iv. Ixi. IxWi. Ixnri. 
 
 » Coll. 1 Sam. xvii. 16, 23, xviii. 10, xix. 9, 2 Kgs. iii. 15. 
 ^ Cod. Chis. of LXX from Origen's Tetraplar and the Syro-Hexaplar.
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 399 
 
 Habakkiik prophesied. For, bad as were the times of Ma- 
 nasseh and Anion, their idohitry etinsistcd in associatiii'^ idols 
 with God, settinj^ them up in His courts, brinpin},^ one even 
 into His temple"^, not in doing away His servi<;e. Tliey set 
 the two services, and the two opi/iions'^, side by side, addiiif^ 
 the false, but not abolisliinjs;^ the true, "consenting; to differ," 
 leavinj; to the worshippers of God their relijjion, while 
 forcinfjf them to endure, side by side, wliat seemed an addi- 
 tion, but what was, in fact, a denial. Hahakkuk then mif^ht 
 have been allowed to present his hymn for the temple-service, 
 while the kinjj placed in the same temple the statue of As- 
 tarte, and required its devil's worship to be carried on there. 
 The temple was allowed to f^o into some dejrree of decay, for 
 Josiah had it repaired; but we read only of his removinj; idols ", 
 not of his having- to restore the disused service of God. Of 
 Ahaz it is recorded, that ^ /le shut up the doors of the house 
 of the Lord, which Hezekiah had to open s. Nothing of this 
 sort is told of Manasseh and Amon. 
 
 Hahakkuk, however, has two hints, which determine his ac^e 
 within a few years. He says that the invasion of the Chaldseans 
 was to be in the days of those to whom he speaks ; in your 
 days^. Accordingly he must have spoken to adults, many of 
 whom would survive that invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, in 
 the 4th year of Jehoiakim B. C. 605. He can hardly have pro- 
 phesied before B. C. 645, about the close of Manasseh's reiian ; 
 for at this date, those who were 20 at the time of the prophecy, 
 would have been 60, at the time of its commenced fulfilment 
 at the battle of Carchemish. On the other hand, in that he 
 speaks of that invasion as a thing incredible to those to whom 
 he was speaking, he must have prophesied before Babylon 
 became independent by the overthrow of Nineveh, B. C. 625. 
 For when Babylon had displaced Nineveh, and divided the 
 Empire of the East with Media and Egypt, it was not a thing 
 incredible, that it would invade Judah in their own days, 
 although it was beyond human knowledge to declare that it 
 certainly would. The Babylonian Empire itself lasted only 
 eighty-nine years ; and, to human sight, Judah had as much 
 or more to fear from Egypt as from Babylon. The Median 
 Empire also might as well have swallowed up Judah for the 
 time, as the Babylonian. 
 
 The relation of Zephaniah to Hahakkuk coincides with this. 
 Zephaniah certainly adopted the remarkable words ', lit. 
 ^ Hush at the presence of the Lord God, from Habakkuk's fuller 
 form'. The Lord is in His holy temple ; hush at His presence 
 all the earth. 
 
 ' 2 Kgs. xxi. 7. ■'1 Kgs. xviii. 21. ' 2 Kgs. xxiii. 6. 
 
 ' 2 Chr. xxviii. 24. b lb. xxix. 3. i" i. 5. 
 
 > Dr. Davidson says, " Delitzsch [with many others] maintains from a comparison 
 of Hab. ii. 20, with Zeph. i. 7, that the former preceded the latter. — The premises are 
 by no means safe or valid" [and, following Umbreit,] " ' Be silent before the Lord God ' 
 (Zeph. i. 7.) sounds like a proverb : part of it having been already used by Amos (vi. 10)," 
 iii. 304, 305. Amos has only the single word on*' hush!" which is, of course no fragment 
 of a proverb. Nor was there any lack of expressions to bid men be still before their Maker. 
 Delitzsch (ad loc. p. 102.) puts together the following; Ps. xcvi. 9. pN.i-'?3Vj>)DlS'n ; xiv. 
 7. pit "Sin [iiK 'ib'jd 1 Chr. xvi. 30, pxH-S^ i'jsSd iS'n ; Ps. xxxiii. 8, pxri Sd ""d ikti, and 
 the Psalm of Asaph," ntapn norpK p nvD^n o'dwD; not to speak of other possible com- 
 binations, with DDT, cnnn, ncn (which is thought to be only a stronger pronunciation of 
 it. Kim. also explains on by pni.) When then a writer, who uses much the language of 
 those before him, has an idiom which occurs once besides in Holy Scripture, there 
 being many other expressions, which might equally have been used, any one unbiassed 
 would think that he adopted the language of the other. Stahelin admits the connection, 
 but inverts the argument, contrary to the character of both prophets. 
 
 ' Zeph. i. 7. I Hab. ii. 20. "> Zeph. ii. 13, sqq. 
 
 " flab. i. 8, 3T V '3XID nm VBD DIOJP iVjj seems to have suggested the like description of 
 the Chaldee cavalry, Jer. iv. 13, 1'ljm zr«¥p iVp, although, with the slight variation, which 
 he commonly used, Jeremiah has O'TfJD, after David probably on Saul and Jonathan, Diyp 
 
 3 
 
 But Zepiianiah prophesied under Josiah, before the de- 
 striu'tion of Nineveh B. C.625, which he foretold"'. Hahakkuk 
 was also, at latest, an earlier (;ontemporary of Jeremiah who, in 
 one place, at least, in his earlier prophecies, used his language", 
 as he does so often, of set purpose, that of the prophets before 
 him, in order to shew that the fulness of their pro]iliecies was 
 not yet exhausted. Hut Jeremiah began to pro]diesy in the 
 thirteenth yearof Josiah B.C. 620". Hahakkuk, on the other 
 hand, joins himself on with the old prophets and Psalms by 
 the employment of language of Isaiah i' and perhaps of Micah 'i, 
 by the use of language of Deuteronomy % and by the expansum 
 of a Psalm of Asaph in his own Psalm ', hut does not systema- 
 tically renew their prophecies like Jeremiah ' or Zephaniah". 
 
 The tuinistry then of Hahakkuk falls in the latter half of 
 the reign of Mauasseh or the earlier half of that of Josiah, 
 (for the reign of Amon, being of two years only, is too short 
 to come into account), and there is no decisive evidence for 
 either against the other. In the reign of Mauasseh, we are 
 expressly told, that there were prophets, sent to foretell a 
 destruction of Jerusalem as complete as that of Samaria, on 
 account of the exceeding wickedness, into which Manas.seh 
 seduced his people. The Lord spake by His servants, the pro- 
 phets, saying. Because Mauasseh king of Judah hath done 
 these abominations, and hath made Judah also to sin with his 
 idols, Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I 
 am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoso- 
 ever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch 
 over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the 
 house of Ahah ; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a num ivipeth a 
 dish, wiping it and turning it upside down ; and I ivill for- 
 sake the remnant of their inheritance, and deliver them into 
 the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and 
 spoil to all their enemies^. 
 
 The sinful great men of Manasseh's and Anion's court and 
 judicature are but too likely to have maintained their power 
 in the early years of the reign of Josiah. For a boy of eight 
 years old (at which age Josiah succeeded his father >) could, 
 amid whatsoever sense of right and piety, do little to stem the 
 established wrong and ungodliness of the evil counsellors 
 and judges of his father and grandfather. The sins, which 
 Jeremiah denounces, as the cause of the future captivity of 
 Jerusalem, are the very same, of which Hahakkuk complains, 
 '• oppression, violence, spoil ^" Jeremiah speaks, in the 
 concrete, of total absence of right judgement", as Hahakkuk, in 
 the abstract, of the powerlessness of the law ''. Zephaniah 
 
 l?p 2 Sam. i. 23, the remaining instance of this likeness, a-ij; "iKj recurs in Zeph. iii. 3, and 
 nbisf '3Nj in Jer. v. 6, only. Jer. xxii. 13, in the reign of Jehoiakim, is also a reminiscence 
 of H abakkuk ii. 12 ; and Jer. Ii. 58, in the 4th year of Zedekiah, of H ab. ii. 13. 
 
 ° Jer. i. 2, xxv. 3. 
 
 P Hab. ii. 14, is from Is. xi. 9 ; the form of Hab. i. 5, seems suggested by Is. xxix. 9; 
 the standing on the watch-tower Hab. ii. 1, occurs in Is. xxi. 8 ; the writing on tables 
 occurs in Is. viii. 1, xxx. 8, and Hab. ii. 2 ; the imagerj-, " he hath enlarged his desire 
 as hell," (ii?3J SioBiD 3>nin) Hab. ii. 5, was probably suggested by Is. v. 14, Bycj '^IK!' njTrin ; 
 the introduction of a SffO, Hab. ii. 6, as Is. xiv. 4, both over Babylon ; the union of "jSn 
 and lav Is. viii. 8, and Hab. i. 11 ; from Kiiper Jerem. p. 153. Havernick Symb. ad 
 defend, authentiam vat. les. c. xiii. — xiv. 23. p. 3" sqq. in Delitzch Hab. p. viii. 
 
 1 Hab. ii. 12. and Mic. iii. 10. ' From Deut. xxxii. xxxiii. See below. 
 
 • Ps. Ixxvii. 17-21, in Hab. iii. 10-15. « On the relation of Jeremiah to Obadiah 
 and Isaiah, see Introd. to Obad. ab. pp. 228-230. a See Introd. to 
 
 Zephaniah, below. » 2 Kgs. xxi. 11-14. J lb. xxii. 1, 2 Chr. xxxiv. 1, 
 
 ' ivy Dori Jer. vi. 7, as Hab. i. 3, ODm -(V; Zeph. speaks of .iciai Dcn, i. 9. 
 
 » Jer. vi. 19. "My law they have despised it;" v. 28. " they have not judged the 
 cause, the cause of the fatherless, and they prosper; and the judgement of the poor have 
 they not judged." 
 
 >> Hab. i. 4, " the law is chilled, and judgement will never go forth; for the wicked 
 encompassseth the just ; therefore judgement goeth forth perverted." 
 N 2
 
 400 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 pves tlic like picture of those earlier years under Josiali ". 
 But Habakkuk's description would not suit the later years of 
 Josiah, when judgement and justice were done. Did not thy 
 father, Jeremiah appeals to Jehoiakim '', eat and driiili, ami do 
 nidgement and justice, and then it was well with hint ; he judi^ed 
 the cmtse of the poor and needy, then it was well ivith him ; was 
 not this to know Me ? saith the Lord". But while there is no- 
 thing to preclude his having prophesied in either reign, the 
 earliest tradition places him in the close of the reign of Ma- 
 nasseh '. 
 
 Modern critics have assigned an earlier or later date toHa- 
 bakkuk, accordingly as they believed that God did, or did 
 not, reveal the future to man, that there was or was not, su- 
 perhuman prophecy. Those who denied that God did endow 
 His prophets withknowledge above nature, fell intotwo classes; 
 l)Such as followed Eichhorn's unnatural hypothesis, that 
 prophecies were only histories of the past, spoken of, as if 
 it were still future, to which these critics gave the shameless 
 title of "vaticinia post eventum^." These plainly involved 
 the prophets in fraud. 2) Those who laid down that each pro- 
 phet lived at a time, when he could, with human foresight, tell 
 what would happen. Would that those who count certainty, 
 as to even a near future, to be so easy a thing, would try their 
 hands at predicting the events of the next few years or months, 
 or even days'", and, if they fail, acknowledge God's Truth! 
 This prejudice, that there could be no real prophecy, ruled, 
 for a time, all German criticism. It cannot be denied, that 
 " the unbelief was the parent of the criticism, not the criti- 
 cism of the unbelief." It is simple matter of history, that 
 the unbelief came first; and, if men, a priori, disbelieved that 
 there could be prophecy, it must needs be a postulate of their 
 criticism, that what seemed to be prophecy could not have 
 belonged to a date, when human foresight did not suffice for 
 positive prediction, I will use the words of Delitzsch rather 
 than my own; 
 
 "'The investigation into the age of Habakkuk could be 
 easily and briefly settled, if we would start from the prejudice, 
 which is the soul of modern criticism, that a prediction of the 
 future, which rested, not on human inferences or on a natural 
 gift of divination, but on supernatural illumination, is impos- 
 sible. For since Habakkuk foretold the invasion of the Chal- 
 dees, he must, in such case, have come forward at a time, at 
 which natural acuteness could, with certainty, determine be- 
 forehand that sad event; accordingly in or after the time of 
 thebattleof Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim J 606 B. C. 
 In this decisive battle Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh 
 Necho, and it was more than probable that the king of Baby- 
 lon would now turn against Juda;a, since Jehoiakim, the son 
 of Josiah, had been set on the throne by Pharaoh Necho '', and 
 so held with Egypt. And this is in reality the inference of 
 modern critics. They bring the Chaldaeans so close under 
 the eyes of the prophet, that he could, by way of nature, foresee 
 
 ' Zeph. i. 9. where he too foretells the punishment of those, " which fill their masters' 
 nouses with violence and deceit, nDipi OCn " and iii. 1-4. ^ Jer. xxii.15, 16. 
 
 * Dr. Davidson rightly says, *' the spoiling and violence, there (i. 2, 3.) depicted, refer 
 to the internal condition of the theocracy, not to external injuries" (p. .305); but then 
 he contradicts himself and Jeremiah, when he says, (p. 30o) following Ewald (Proph. 
 ii. 30.), " The safest conclusion respecting the time of the prophet, is that he lived in the 
 time of Jehoiakim (GOlJ-GOl. B. C), when the kingdom of Judah was in a good moral condi- 
 tion, justice and righteousness having entered into the life of the people after Josiah's 
 reforms, and idolatry having almost disappeared." 
 
 ' " Seder Olam, from which Abarbanel, R. Dav. Ganz in Zemach David, p. 21, and 
 Rabbins drew their opinion." Carpzoff Introd. P. iii. p. 410. 
 
 B EichhornfEinl.) Bertholdt (Eml.) Justi Habakkuk neu iibersetzt l&ll. Wolf, der 
 Proph. Hab. &c. 18a2. 
 
 I" At every early stage of the great conflict (August 1870) it was remarkable how day 
 after day journalists professed themselves to be at fault, as to the most immediate future. 
 On one point only they were agreed that the war would be " long and severe." Then it 
 was thought that one month would see its beginning and its end. " The course of the 
 
 their invasion ; and so much the closer under his eyes, the 
 more deeply the prejudice, that there is no prophecy in the 
 Biblical sense of the word, has taken root in tbeni, and the 
 more consistently they follow it out. ' Habakkuk prophesied 
 under Jehoiakim, for,' so Jiiger expresses himself, 'since 
 Jehoiakim was on the side of the Egyptians, it was easy to 
 foresee, that^ ; Sfc' Just so Ewald; ""One might readily he 
 tempted to think, that Habakkuk wrote, while the pious king 
 Josiah was still living; but since the first certain invasion 
 of the Chaldaeans, of which our account speaks ", falls within 
 the reign ofking Jehoiakim, somewhat between 608-604 B. C. 
 we must abide by this date.' Hitzig defines the dates still more 
 sharply, according to that principle of principles, to which 
 history with its facts must adapt itself unconditionally. 
 'The prophet announces the arrival of the Chaldaans in 
 Judaea, as something marvellous.' Well then, one would ima- 
 gine, that it would follow from this, that at that time they had 
 not yet come. But no ! ' Habakkuk,' says Hitzig, 'introduces 
 theChaldaeans as a newphaenomenon, as yet entirely unknown ; 
 he prophesied accordingly at their first arrival into Palestine. 
 But this beyond question falls in the reign of Jehoiakim", In 
 Jehoiakim's fourth year, i. e. 606, they had fought the battle 
 at Carchemish; in 605 the Chaldcean army seems to Itaveheen on 
 its march; the writing of Habakkuk is placed most correctly in 
 the beginning of the year 604,' accordingly, at the time, when 
 the Chaldaeans were already marching with all speed straight 
 on Jerusalem, and (as Hitzig infers from Hab. i. 9.) after they 
 had come down from the North along the coast, were now 
 advancing from the West, when they, as Ewald too remarks 
 (resting, like Maurer on i. 2-4), '''already stood in the holy 
 land, trampling everything under foot with irresistible might, 
 and allowing their own right alone to count as right.' 
 Holding fast to that naturalist a priori, we go yet further. 
 In ii. 17, the judgement of God is threatened to the Chaldaean, 
 on account of the violence practised on Lebanon, and the 
 destruction of its animals. Lebanon is, it is said, the holy land; 
 the animals, its inhabitants: in iii. 14, 17, the prophet sees 
 the hostile hordes storming in : the devastation wrought 
 through the war stands clearly before his eyes. This is not 
 possible, \\n\css the Chaldaean were at that time already estab- 
 lished in Judaea. However, then, c. i. was written before their 
 invasion, yet c. ii., iii. must have been written after it. 
 'Wherefore,' says Maurer, ' since it is evident from Jer, xlvi. 2, 
 and xxxvi. 9, that the Chaldaeans came in the year B. C. 605, 
 in the 9th month of the 5th year of the reign of Jehoiakim, it 
 follows that c. i. was written at that very time, but c. ii. iii. 
 at the beginning of B. C. 604, the 6th of Jehoiakim.' 
 
 "Turn we away from this cheap pseudo-criticism, with its 
 ready-made results, which sacrifices all sense for historical 
 truth to a prejudice, which it seems to have vowed not to 
 allow to be shaken by any thing. It seeks at any cost to dis- 
 burden itself of any prophecy in Scripture, which can only 
 
 present war," says a journal not wanting in self-reliance, " has gone far to verify the 
 paradox, that nothing is certain but the unexpected. At any rate, nothing has happened 
 but the unforeseen. Neither king nor Emperor, neither French nor German govern- 
 ment or people had formed any anticipation of the events of the month now ending. 
 The French expected to invade Gennany, and they have been invaded themselves. 
 The Germans, though confident of ultimate success, expected a long and toilsome 
 conflict, w'hereas a month has brought them almost to the gates of Paris, The calcula- 
 tion of all parties as to the political effects of the war have been equally mistaken." 
 The Times, Aug. 31st. And yet men, who, with our full information, would not risk 
 a prediction as to the issue of things immediately before their eyes, think it so easy for 
 Jewish prophets, living in their own small insulated country, to foretell certainly that 
 Babylon would prevail over Egypt, when they knew either country only as their own 
 superior, and political sagacity and feeling was on the side of Egypt. 
 
 ' Der Proph. Habakkuk Einleit. pp. iv-vi. 
 
 J Jer. xlvi. 2. ^2 Kgs. xxiii. 34, 35. 
 
 • " Facile erat prasvidere fore ut &c."Jager de ord. proph. minor, chronol. ii. 18. sqq. 
 
 "> Proph. iii. 30. ed. 2. "2 Kgs. xxiv. 1. » lb. 2. P Proph. iii. 29. ed. 2.
 
 IIABAKKUK. 
 
 401 
 
 be explained throuf>;h supernatural ajjcncy ; and yet it attains 
 its end, ncitlicr elsewhere nor in our propliot. Chapter ii. con- 
 tains a predietion of the overtlirow of tlie ('liahhean empire 
 and of the sins wlierel)y that overthrow was efiected, which 
 has been so remarkably confirmed by hist(M'y even in details, 
 that that criticism, if it would be true to its principles, must 
 assume that it was written while Cyrus, advancinj; ai^ainst 
 Babylon, was employed in ituiiishing the river tJyndes by 
 dividing it off into 'AGO channels." 
 
 This major premiss, "thei'e can he no superhuman predic- 
 tion of the future," (in other words, " Almij^hty God, if He 
 knows the future, cannot disclose it ! ") still lurks under the 
 assumptions of that modern school of so-called criticism. It 
 seems to be held no more necessary, formally to declare it, 
 than to enounce at full length any axiom of Euclid. Yet it 
 may, on that very ground, escape notice, while it is the unseen 
 mainspring of the theories, put forth in the name of criticism. 
 "That Habakkuk falls at a later time," says Stilhelin, "is clear 
 out of his prophecy itself; for he speaks of the ChalcUcaus, and 
 the controversy is only, whether he announces their invasion, 
 as Knobel, Umbreit, Dclitzseh, Keili hold, or presupposes it, 
 as Ewald, Hitzig, E. Meier maintain. To me the first opin- 
 ion appears the right, since not only do i. 5. sqq. plainly 
 relate to the future, but the detailed description of the Chal- 
 deans points at something which has not yet taken place, at 
 something hitherto unknown, and the terror of the prophet 
 in announcing their coming, i. 12. sqq., recurs also iii. 1, 16, 
 17; and so, I think, that the time of Habakkuk's activity may 
 be placed very soon after the battle of Carcheniish, in the 
 first half of the reign of Jeboiakim, and so his prophecy as 
 contemporary with Jeremiah xxv." " Habakkuk," says De 
 Wette, " lived and prophesied in the Chaldee period. It is, 
 however, matter of dispute at what point of time in this period 
 he lived, i. 5. sqq. clearly points to its beginning, the reign 
 of Jehoiakini. Even eh. iii. seems to require no later point 
 of time, since here the destruction of Judah is not yet an- 
 ticipated. He was then Jeremiah's younger contemporary. 
 Rightly do Perschke, Ranitz, Stickel, Knobel, Hitzig, Ewald, 
 let the prophet prophesy a little before the invasion of the 
 Chaldeans in Judah, which the analogy of prophecy favours;" 
 for prophecy may still be human at this date, since so far it 
 foretells only, what any one could foresee. A prophet of God 
 foretells, these critics admit, an invasion which all could fore- 
 see, and does not foretell, what could not humanly be fore- 
 seen, the destruction of Jerusalem. The theory then is saved, 
 and within these limits Almighty God is permitted to send 
 His prophet. Condescending criticism ! 
 
 Mostly criticism kept itself within these limits, and used 
 nothing more than its axiom, " there was no prophecy." The 
 freshness and power of prophetic diction in Habakkuk de- 
 terred most from that other expedient of picking out some 
 
 <I Stahelin mixed up Delitzscli and Keil, who believed in superhuman prediction, and 
 Knobel &c. who denied it, joining himself on to the class in general and ignoring the 
 radical difterence. Dr. Davidson assumes the same principle. " As he mentions the 
 Chaldceans by name, and his oracle refers to them, he lived in the Chaldican period. 
 — The safest conclusion respecting the time of the prophet is that he lived in the time 
 ofjehoiakim (iOli-liOl. B. C." "Toput the prophet in Manasseh's reign is incorrect 
 because the Chalda?ans were not a people formidable to tlie Jews at that time." (In- 
 trod. iii. pp. 301, 30o.) And so Habakkuk, without superhuman knowledge, could not 
 foretell it! 
 
 ■■ " Thus the verb D7i3 occurs, only besides in the books of Kings and in Ezekiel." 
 Stahelin. " The diction is pure and classical. Yet he has some late words, as oh^ i. 10, 
 which appears only in Kings and Ez^el." Dr Davidson. The primitive form d'?13, 
 which is alleged, does not occur at all; only d''|3 Ez. xvi. 31..->nd o'rpm withi, "mock at," 
 2Kgs.ii.23,Hab.i.lO, Ez.xxii.5, as denominatives from dS,^ Ps. xliv. 11. Ixxix. 4. and 
 Jer. XX. 8. There is nothing to shew that it is a late word, though occurring for the 
 first time in the history of Elisha. In Aramaic, (not in Onk. or Jon.) it has the opposite 
 meaning, " praised." In tlie exceptions in Chaldee, Ges. seems rightly to conjecture, 
 
 two or three words as indieative of a later style. Stahelin 
 however says; "His language too, although o)i (he whole 
 pure and without Aramaisms," (truly so! since there is not 
 even an alleged or imagined Aramaism in his proi)hccy.) " still 
 betrays, in single eases, the later period." And then he 
 alleges that 1) one ferb' "only occurs besides in the books of 
 Kings and in l^zekicl ;" 2) another word "■"irilh the exriptioii 
 of A^ahio/i, only in Jeremiah and Malachi;" 3) "the image of 
 the cup of destiny only occurs in prophecies subsequent to 
 Jeremiah." Marvellous precision of criticism, which can in- 
 fer tlic date of a book from the facts, 1) that averh, formed from 
 a noun, occurs four times only in Hidy .Scripture, in 2 Kings, 
 Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, whereas the noitu from which it is 
 derived occurs in a Psalm, which fits no later time than 
 David's' ; 2) that a word, slightly varied in pronunciation 
 from a common Hebrew word", occurs only in Nahum, Ha- 
 bakkuk, Jeremiah, and Malachi, once in each, when that 
 word is the basis of the name of the river Pishon, mentioned 
 in Genesis, and Stahelin himself jtlaces Nahum in the reign 
 of Hezekiah ; or that 3) no prophet before Jeremiah speaks 
 of the image of the "cup of destiny %" whereas the portion 
 given by God for good '"or for ill ^, occurs under that same 
 image in Psalms of David and Asaph ; and if the question 
 is to be begged as to the date of Isaiah li. 17, 22, the cor- 
 responding image of " drinking wine of reeling," occurs in 
 a Psalm of David ^, and being " drunk, but not with wine " 
 is imagery of an earlier chapter in Isaiah ^ ; the image occurs 
 fully in Ubadiah\ 
 
 Such criticism is altogether childish. No one would tole- 
 rate it, except that it is adduced to support a popular and 
 foregone conclusion. It would be laughed to scorn, were 
 it used by believers in revelation. In the small remains of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures and language, an induction, if it is to 
 be of any value, must be very distinct. The largeness of Greek 
 literature enables critics to single out Homeric, Herodotean, 
 iEschylcan, Pindaric words. In Hebrew we meet with a-Ka^ 
 Xeyofieva in perhaps every prophet, in many Psalms ; but it 
 requires far more than the occurrence of the word in one 
 single place, to furnish any even probable inference, that it 
 was framed by the Prophet or Psalmist himself. Still less 
 can it be inferred safely that because, in the scanty remains 
 of Hebrew, a word does not occur before e. g. a certain 
 historical book, it did not exist before the date of that book. 
 Rather the occurrence of any word in language so simple as 
 that of the historical books, is an evidence that it did exist 
 and was in common use at the time. Poets and orators coin 
 words, in order to give full expression for their thoughts. 
 The characteristic of the sacred historians, both of the Old 
 and New Testament, is to relate the facts in most absolute 
 simplicity. It would be a singular "history of the Hebrew 
 language," which should lay down as a principle, that all 
 
 that it signifies ironical praise, as in Shem. rabba s. 27. In Ps. xliv. 14. KC^p is retained 
 for the Heb. D^jj. 
 
 " " CIS i. 8. with the exception of Nah. iii. 18, only besides in Jeremiah and Malachi." 
 Stahelin. "ra i. 8. in Jeremiah and Malachi besides;" Dr. Davidson ; who avoids 
 the absurdity of arguing relative lateness of diction from a word, occurring in Nahum, 
 by omitting tliis fourth instance, but therewith falsifying the facts before him. 
 
 ' Ps. xliv. 11. " pa (whence pas Gen. ii. 11.) an early varia- 
 
 tion of p3, a for J", as Rashi observes on Nah. iii. 18. 
 
 ' "The image of 'the cup of destiny' ii. 16, first occurs in the prophets afler Jere- 
 miah ; and Hab. ii. IG. itself seems to refer to Jerem. xlix. 12." Stahelin pp. 288, 289. 
 " The cup of judgement (ii. 10.) does not occur in the prophets before Jeremiah : whether 
 Habakkuk refers in ii. Hi. to Jer. xlix. 12. is doubtful, though Stahelin ventures to as- 
 sert it;" Dr. Davidson (iii. 303) acknowledging, as usual, the source of his statements, 
 where he dissents in one of them. 
 
 "David, Ps. xi. G.Asaph, Ixxv. 8. ^David. Ps. xvi.5. xxiii. 5. r Ps. Ix.5. [S.Eng.] 
 
 I Is. xxix. 9. » ver. 16. 
 
 o o o
 
 402 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 tliosc are later words, which do not liappen to occur hcfore 
 the books of Kings, Habakkuk, or any other ijroplict, whom 
 this criticism is pleased to rank among the hiter hooks. What 
 are we to do witli Habakkuk's own uTra^ Xeyo/x-evd ? Granted, 
 that he framed some of them, yet it is impossible that he 
 framed them all. As specimens of the results of such a 
 critiral principh', tiiat words, occurring for the first time in 
 any book, are cliaracteristitt of the date of tluit word, let us 
 only take roots beginning with s. Had then tiie Hebrew no 
 name for /lai/s (as distinct from hooks, pegs'',) before those 
 whom these critics would make late writers", as Ecclesiastes 
 and Isaiah xli ? Or had they none for ceiling a building before 
 t!ie book of Kings *•; although the ark had a third story% and 
 Lot speaks of "the shadow of my roof? " Or had they none 
 for a " decked vessel" before Jonah e, altiiough the Indian 
 names of Solomon's imports show that Oi)liir, whither his 
 navy sailed, was in India, Ophir itself being Abhira in the 
 province of Cutch''? Or had they no nauic for "divided 
 opinions" before Elijah"? Seed shed, which sprang up in the 
 second year, was known in the Pentateuch''; but that of the 
 third year would, on that hypothesis, remain unknown till 
 Hezekiah'; nor did the Hebrews express to "drag along the 
 ground," till Hushai", and, after him, Jeremiah. They had 
 no name for winter, as distinct from autumn, until the Can- 
 ticles ", and, but for the act of the Philistines in stopping 
 up ° Abraham's wells, it might have been said that Hebrew 
 had no word for this act, till the time of Jehoshaphat p. 
 
 Or as to the criticism itself, ohp is to be a later word, be- 
 cause, except in that Psalm of the sons of Corah, it oc- 
 curs first in the history of Elisha''. Perhaps it is so rare 
 (and this may illustrate the history of Elisha) because, as 
 used, it seems to have been one of the strongest words in 
 the language for " derision ; " at least the verb is used in 
 an intensive form only, and always of strong derision ^ But 
 then, did the old Hebrews never use derision ? Happy ex- 
 ception for one nation, if they never used it wrongly or had 
 no occasion to use it rightly ! Yet even though (by a rare 
 exception) Ewald allows the second Psalm to be David's, 
 (Job however being placed about the Jth century B. C.) the 
 evidence for ivh, as strong a word, would be of the time of 
 David ^ " Scorning " " scoffing," (unless Psalm i. be allowed 
 to be David's) did not begin till Solomon's time'. "Mock- 
 ing" was yet later". As belongs to a rude people, insult 
 was only shewn in acts, of which VVn is used'; and from 
 those simple times of the Patriarchs, they had no stronger 
 word than " to laugh at"^." For this is the only word used 
 in the Pentateuch \ 
 
 But to what end all this ? To prove that Habakkuk had 
 no superhuman knowledge of what he foretold ? Prophecy 
 
 >> 11, in'. 
 
 <^ ci?ca Is. xli. 7, Dnp;a 1 Chr. xxii. 3, niT?CD, 3er. x. 4,ni-ippp, 2 Chr. iii. 9. ni-iDf? 
 Eccl. xii. U. 
 
 ■i [33, 1 Kgs. vi. 9, JIBD 1 Kgs. vii. 3, 7, Jer. xxii. 14, Hagg. i. 4, (psD Dt. xxxiii. 21. 
 JEi? lb. 19, is i. q. pss). mn, " hold together," occurs 1 Kgs. vi. 6, 10, Ezek. xli. 6 ; 
 SVb lit. " overshadowed " Neh. iii. 15 ; t'^; occurs also 1 Kgs. vi. 5, C, 10. 
 
 <■ C-v*"??, Gen.vi. 16, as in 1 Kgs. vi. 8. Ez.xlii. 3. 
 
 ' n-ip Gen. xix. 8. as being "beamed." Conf. nip "laid beams," (met.) Ps. civ. 3. 
 else 2 Chr. xxxiv, 11, Neh. ii. 8, iii. 3, G; mip beam i Kgs. vi. 2, 5, 2 Chr. iii. 7. Cant. i. 
 17. n-iRp Eccl. X. 18. B nr;9 aw. Jon. i. 5. See ab. p. 249. 
 
 1" Seeab. onMicahiv.p. 321. 
 
 ' 1 Kgs. xviii. 21. As " branches," C'5!?B first occurs in Isaiah, (xvii. 6. xxvii. 10) and 
 the denom. IVD, lb. x. 33. and ni3;iD, niEiJlp in Ezek. xxxi. 5. G. 8. 
 
 k n'53 Lev. XXV. 5. 11. Else only with is'no or DW. 
 
 1 B'no 2 Kgs. xix. 29, D-nv. lb. xxxvii. 30. 
 
 " ano 2Sam. xvii. 13. Jer. xv. 3, xxii. 19, xlix. 20. So nnD " swept " occurs only 
 Ezek. xxvi. 4. TlCi Lam. iii. 40. but "jnD is used by Solomon Prov. xxviii. 3. 
 
 " inp Cant. ii. 11. " cnp Gen. xxvi. 1.5. 18. 
 
 p cnD 2 Kgs. iii. 19. 2."), 2Chr. xxxii.3. 4. Nil. of closing breaches in a wall, Neh. iv. 1. 
 
 1 2 kgs. ii. 23. ' Pih. Ez. xvi. 31. Hithp. 2 Kgs. 1. c, Uab. 1. c, Ez. xxii. B, who 
 
 occupies, as I said, a subordinate place in Hal)akkuk. He 
 renews the " burden " of fitrmer prophets, both upon his 
 own people and upon the Chahheans ; but he does not speak 
 even so definitely as they. His office is rather to enforce the 
 connection of sin and punishment : he presupposes the details, 
 whidi they had declared. Apart from those chapters, which 
 pseudo-criticism denies to Isaiah -% on account of the distinct- 
 ness of the temporal proi»hecies, Isaiah had, in plainest words, 
 declared to Hezekiah the carrying away of all the royal trea- 
 sures to l$al)\hin, and tliat his ort'spring should he eunuchs 
 there '•; JMicali bad declared not only the comj)letc desolation of 
 Jerusalem % but that the people should be " ^ carried to Baby- 
 lon, and l/tere delivered, t/iere redeemed from the hands of the 
 enemy." In the 13th year of Josiah, B. C. 028. and so, three 
 years before the fall of Nineveh, while Babylon was still de- 
 pendent on Nineveh and governed by a vice-roy, and while 
 Nabopolassar was still in the service of the king of Nineveh, 
 Jeremiah foretold, that " evilshuuld break fort li from the North 
 upon all the inhultitants of the land, and all the families of the 
 Idiigdoms of the North shall come and set every one his throne 
 at the entering of the gates of Jernsalem and against all tlie 
 walls thereof round about and against all the cities of Judah^ to 
 execute X\\e judgements of God agai)ist them for their wicked- 
 ness. This was his dirge over his country for twenty three 
 years*, ere yet there was a token of its fulfilment. Babylon 
 had succeeded to Nineveh in the AV^est and South-West, and 
 Judah had fallen to the share of Babylon ; but the relation of 
 Josiah to Nabopolassar was of a tributary sovereign, which re- 
 bellion only could disturb. The greater part of Nabopolas- 
 sar's 21 year's reign are almost a blank''. Chastisement had 
 conic, but from the South, not from the North. Eighteen 
 years had passed away, and Josiah had fallen, in resisting 
 Pharaoh-Necho in discharge of his fealty to the king of 
 Babylon. Pharaoh-Necho had taken away one king of Judah, 
 Jehoahaz, the people's choice, whose continued fealty to Ba- 
 bylon represents their minds, and had set up another, Je- 
 hoiakim. For three years Judah's new allegiance was allowed 
 to continue. Who, but God, could tell the issue of the con- 
 flict of those two great armies at Carchemish ? Egypt with 
 her allies, the Ethiopians, Phut and Lud, were come, rising 
 up like a flood ^, covering the earth with her armies, as her 
 rivers, when swollen, made her own land one sea. Necho 
 had apparently in his alliance all the kings of the countries 
 West of the Euphrates : for to them all, in connection with 
 Egypt and subordinate to her, does Jeremiah at that mo- 
 ment give to drink the cup of the wrath of God ; to ^ Pha- 
 raoh ki)ig of Egijpt, and his servants and his princes and 
 all his people, and all the mingled people [his auxiliaries] and 
 all the kings of the land of t/i, and all the kings of the land 
 
 has also np^p. '■ i)l\. Tlie verb occurs Ps. ii. 4, xxii. 8, lix. 9, Ixxx. 7, Prov. i. 26, 
 
 xvii. 5, XXX. 17. Job ix. 23, xi. 3, xxi. 3, xxii. 19, Is. xxxiii. 19. xxxvii. 22, Jer. xx. 7, 
 2 Chr. XXX. 10, Neh. ii. 19, iii. 33. i]h. Job xx.xiv. 7, Ps. cxxiii. 4, Hos. vii. 16, Ez. 
 xxiii. 32, xxxvi. 4. with D^iJ Ps. xliv. 19. l.xxix. 4. • J'^ part, occurs 14 times in Prov. 
 Ps. i. 1. and Is. xxix. 20. [•'? (the verb), Pr. ix. 12. B^)sh Hos. vi. 5. [■in'^nn Is. xxviii. 22. 
 j'-Sn Ps. cxix. 51, Pr. iii. 34, xiv. 9, xix. 28. " ^n.T Job xvii. 2, 1 Kgs. xviii. 27. 
 
 » SVynnwithaof the pers. Num.xxii.29, of Balaam's ass; 1 Sam. xx.xi. 4, Jer.xxxviii. 
 19, 1 Chr. X. 4, of apprehended insult from an enemy. 
 
 »■ pra Gen. xix. 14, xxi. 9. insult in act, lb. xxxix. 14, 17, revived from Genesis, Ez. 
 xxiii. 32, elsewhere pniJ. » The exact meaning of nscs' (Ex. xxxii. 25) is un- 
 
 certain. The E. V. " shame" follows most of the Heb. Intt., yet with an improbable 
 etymol. " Whisper" seemsthe most probable meaning of Job iv. 12. xxvi. 14, from which 
 that of "ill-report " is possible. The Arabic givesngthing nearer than " hurried in speech." 
 
 y Is. xiii. XIV. 1-23, xl. sqq. » Is. xxxix. 6, 7. ° Mic. iii. 12. <> lb. iv. 10. 
 
 = Jer. i. 14-16. ■• lb. xxv. 3. see also v. 15-17, vi. 1.22-25. x. 22. Also in the collection 
 of all his prophecies from the time of Josiah, which God bade him make in the 4th 
 year of Jehoiakim, Jer. xxxvi. 2.29, he provides them also with a saying against idolatry 
 (in Chaldee) for their use in their captivity in Ohald^a. x. 11. 
 
 ' Rawl. 6 Emp. iii. 484. ' Jer. xlvi. 8. 9. s lb. xxv. 19-24.
 
 IIABAKKUK. 
 
 403 
 
 of the Philistines and Ashlichm and Azzah and Ehron and the 
 remnant of Ashdod ; Edom and Moali and the children of Ani- 
 viun ; and all the /{in^s of Ti/ras, and all the Ainiis of Zidon and 
 the kings of the isle liei/ond the sea [probiiljly Cuplitor'', or Crete, 
 (tr Cyprus] Dedan and Tenia and J!iiz, a/id those whose hair 
 is shorn [Aral)iaiis '] and all the hings <f Araliia and all the 
 Icings of the mingled jieople that dwell in the desert, and all the 
 A-ings of Zi/nri [^ (Irsci'iulaiits of Abruliaiii ami Kcturali.] 
 It was a mif^hty tiathcrinj:;. Alt the kings of Elam, all 
 the kings of the 3Iedes, all the A-ings of the North far and 
 ?jmr, all was hostile to Babylon; for all were to drink of 
 the Clip beforcliaiid, at the hands of the kinj; of Babylon, 
 and then the king of Sheshach [Bal)y]on] was to drink 
 after them. Nccho was one of the most enterprisinc; mo- 
 narciis'. Nabopolassar had shewn no signs of enter])rise. 
 Nebuchadnezzar, the first and last conqueror of the Baby- 
 lonian empire, thoucfh the alliance with Media and his 
 father's empire had been cemented by his marriage, had, 
 as far as we know, remained inactive during 20 years of 
 his father's life '". He was as yet untried. So little did he 
 himself feel secure as to his inheritance of the throne, even 
 after his success at the head of his father's army, that his 
 rapid march across the desert, with light troops, to secure it, 
 and its preservation for him by the chief priest, are recorded 
 in a very concise history ". Neither Egypt nor Jehoiakim 
 foresaw the issue. Defeat taught neitiier. Two voices only 
 gave, in God's name, one unheeded warning. Pharaoh Ho- 
 phra, the Apries of Herodotus, succeeded Pharaoh Necho in 
 his self-confidence, his aggressions, his defeat. ''I am against 
 thee," God says °, " Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon 
 that licth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, 3Ii/ river 
 is tnine own and I have made it for myself." " It is said," re- 
 lates Herodotus P, "that Aprics believed that there was not a 
 god which could cast him down from his eminence, so firmly 
 did he think that he had established himself in his kingdom." 
 For a time, Nebuchadnezzar must have been hindered by 
 Eastern wars, since, on Jehoiakim's rebellion and perjury, he 
 sent only bands of the Chaldees, with hands of tributary na- 
 tions, the Syrians, IMoabites, Ammonites, against him i. But 
 not in his time only, even after the captivity under his son 
 Jehoiaehin and his men of might "■, the conviction that Nebu- 
 chadnezzar could be resisted, still remained in the time of 
 Zedekiah both in Egypt and Judah. Judah would have con- 
 tinued to hold under Babylonia that same position towards 
 Egypt which it did under Persia, only with subordinate kings 
 instead of governors. Apart from God's general promise of 
 averting evil on repentance, Jeremiah, too, expressly tells 
 Israel, " ^ If thou wilt put away thine abominations out of 
 My sight, thou shall not remove ;" '"Then will I cause you to 
 dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, 
 for ever and ever." And " in the beginning of the reign of 
 Jehoiakim "," " ' The Lord sent me to prophesy against this 
 house and against this city all the words which ye have heard. 
 Therefore now amend your ways and your doings and obey 
 the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent 
 Him of the evil that He hath pronoiaiced against you." 
 
 •> Jer. xlvii. 4. _ i Herod, iii. 8. ^ Gen. xxv. 2. 1 Chr. i. 32. (n?! for 'TOl) 
 
 ^ As shewn in his attempt lo make a canal across the istlmius of Suez (Herod, ii. 158.) 
 and in the circumnavigation of Africa. lb. iv. 42. 
 
 ™ The battle of Carcheniish was in the 4th of Jehoiakim. Jer. xlvi. 1. 2. 
 
 " Berosus in Joseph, c. Ap. i. ID. Opp. ii. 450. " Ezek. xxix. 3. P Herod, ii. Ifi. 
 
 1 2 Kgs. xxiv. 2. r lb. 14-1(5. = Jer. iv. 1. ' lb. vii. 7, add xvii. 
 
 25, 26. xxii. 2-5. " lb. xxvi. 1. » xxvi. 12. add ib. 2, 3. 
 
 " xxvii. 11. I XXXV. 15. y xxxviii. 1". ' Jer. xxxvii. 5. 
 
 « xxv. 11, 12. xxix. 10. b Jer. i. 18, 19, renewed xv. 20. 
 
 1= " Imperial muster rolls in Chambray Vol. i. App. No. 2." Alison Hist, of Europe 
 X. 629. 
 
 Still later, to Zedekiali, ""The nations that bring tluir neck 
 under the yoke of the king of Bai)ylon and serve him, them 
 will I let remai)i still in their otvn land, saith the Lord ; aiid 
 then shall till it and dwell therein." "'I have .sent unto you 
 all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending 
 them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way 
 and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve 
 them, and i/e shall direll in the land ivhich I have given to 
 yon and to T/mir fathers." Even on the very verge of tlie 
 capture of Jerusalem, Jeremiah promised to Zedekiah >; "If 
 thou wilt go forth to the king of Habylon's princes; — this city 
 shall not he hurned ivith fire." Pharaoh llojthra was still 
 strong enough to raise the siege of Jerusalem, when in- 
 vested by the Chaldiean army'. Jeremiali had the king, his 
 princes, his pro])liets, all the peo[)Ie of the land against him, 
 because he prophesied that Jerusalem should be burned with 
 fire, that those already taken captives should not return, until 
 the whole had been carried away, and the seventy years of 
 captivity were accomplished ''. The warning and the promise 
 of Jeremiah's inaugural vision had its aecomplisliinent. """I 
 have made thee a defeneed city, and an iron pillar, and brazen 
 walls, against the king of Judah, against the princes thereof 
 and against the people of the land ; and they shall fight against 
 thee, but they shall not prevail against thee ; for 1 am with 
 thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." Had it been matter of 
 human foresight, how was it, that all nations, all their poli- 
 ticians, all their wise men, all their prophets, all Judah, 
 kings, priests, princes, people, were blinded, (as in Him of 
 Whom Jeremiali was a shadow,) and Jeremiah alone saw ? 
 "Vatieinia post eventum" are, in one sense, easy; viz. to 
 imagine, after an event has taken place, that one could have 
 foreseen it. And yet who, after the retreat to Corunna, could 
 have foreseen the victories of the Peninsular war? Or, when 
 that tide of 647,000 men •= was rolling on towards Russia, 
 who could imagine that only a small fraction of those hosts 
 should return, that they should capture Moscow, but find it 
 a tomb ; and hunger and cold, reaching at last to 36 degrees 
 below Zero, should destroy more than the sword ? " "^ What 
 was the principal adversary of this tremendous power ? By 
 whom was it checked and resisted and put down ? By none 
 and by nothing but the direct and manifest interposition of 
 God." 
 
 The distinctness and perseverance of the prophecy are the 
 more remarkable, because the whole of the greatness of the 
 Chaldaean empire was that of one man, Assyria, in this one 
 case, overreached itself in its policy of transporting con- 
 quered populations. It had, probably to cheek tlie rebellions 
 of Babylon, settled there a wild horde, which it hoped would 
 neither assimilate with its people, nor itself rebel. Isaiah re- 
 lates the fact in simple words : '^ Behold the land of the Chal- 
 diEuns ; this people ivus not ; the Assyrian founded ^ it for 
 them that dwelt in the wilderness. This does not seem to me 
 necessarily to imply, that the wild people, for whom Assyria 
 founded it, were Chaldseans s or Curds, whom the king of As- 
 syria had brought from their Northern dwellings in the Cardu- 
 chaeau mountains'' near Armenia, where Sennacherib con- 
 
 <l Dr. .\rnold lect. on Hist. ii. 139. ^ Is. xxiii. 13. 
 
 ' Jon. unites Asshur with the preceding ix'k h'.t n7 cvn ni and so Syr. and Oxf. Arab. 
 .S. Jer. divides as the E. V., though with an opposite sense. " Talis populus non fuit." 
 The E. V. is from Kim. The rendering, " This people was not Asshur," i. e. no longer 
 Asshur, or not like Asshur, is very obscure ; and ID" is every where "grounded it, that 
 it might be," (Comp. Ps. civ. 8, Hab. i. 12. and the common use of Ta' "foimded a city, 
 building, temple,") not that it should cease to be. 
 
 s With this the only objection to the simple rendering falls away, that Jeremiah 
 speaks of tlie Chaldees, as an ancient nation. Jer. v. 15. 
 
 l" Xen. Cyrop. iii. 2. 7 and 12. .\nab. iv. 3. 4. v. 5. 9. vii. 8. 14.
 
 404 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 qucrod. Isaiah simply uses the name, tlie land of the 
 Chaldcmns, as docs Jeremiah ' after him, as the name of 
 Bahylonia; the n-ord />«/////''"'■", had it existed, mii,dit have 
 hceu substituted for it. Of this, he says, that // was not, i. e. 
 was of no account'', hut that ^Issnr foninted if for wild tribes, 
 whom he placed there. Whence he hroiitrht those tribes, Isaiah 
 does not say. iEschylus (although indeed in later times) as 
 well as Isaiah and Jeremiah, speak of the population of Ba- 
 bylon, as mingled of various nations ; and the language is too 
 large to be confined simply to its merchant-settlers. In yEs- 
 chylus ', "the all-mingled crowd," which "it sends out in 
 long array," are its military contingents. It is its whole 
 population, of which Isaiah and Jeremiah say, it will flee, 
 each to his own land. "" It [Babylon] shall be as a chased 
 roe, and as a sheep tvhich no man gatheretlt ; they shall, 
 every 7nan, turn to his ouni people, and Jiee every man to his 
 oivn land. For fear of the ojijiressing sword they shall turn 
 every one to his people : '^And they shall Jlee, every one to his 
 otvn land. 
 
 Thus Babylonia received that solid accession of strength 
 which ultimately made it a powerful people, sixty years be- 
 fore the beginning of the reign of Josiah ; its ancient and 
 new elements would take some time to blend : they did not 
 assume importance until the capture of Nineveh ; nor had 
 Judali any reason to dread any thing from them, until itself 
 rebelled, early in the reign of Jehoiakim. But 1 8 years before 
 the death of Josiah, while Judah was a trusted and faithful 
 tributary kingdom, Jeremiah foretold that evil should come 
 upon them from the North, i. e. as he himself explains it, from 
 the Chaldecs ". Even then if Habakkuk were brought down to 
 be a contemporary of Jeremiah, still in the I3th year of Jo- 
 siah, there was nothing to fear. Judah was not in the con- 
 dition of an outlying country, which Babylonian ambition 
 might desire to reduce into dependence on itself. It was 
 already part of the Babylonian empire, having passed into it, 
 in the partition with Assyria, and had no more to fear from 
 it, than any of the conquered nations of Europe have now 
 from those who have annexed them, unless they rebel. God 
 alone knew the new ambition of the kings of the smitten 
 and subdued Egypt, their momentary success, Josiah's 
 death, Judah's relapse into the old temptation of trusting in 
 Egypt — all, conditions of the fulfilment of Habakkuk's and 
 Jeremiah's prophecies. Edom, Moab, Amnion, Tyre, Zidon, 
 sent embassadors to Zedekiah, to concert measures of resis- 
 tance against Nebuchadnezzar p ; they were encouraged by 
 their i diviners, dreamers, enchanters, sorcerers, u'hich spake to 
 them, ye shall not serve the hing of Babylon. One alone told 
 them that resistance would but bring upon them destruction, 
 that submission was their only safety; there was prophecy 
 against prophecy', among these nations, in Jerusalem, in Ba- 
 bylon ^ ; the recent knowledge of the political aspect of Ba- 
 bylon deterred not the false prophets there ; all, with one 
 voice, declared the breaking the yoke of the king of Babylon: 
 Jeremiah only saw, that they were framing for themselves ' 
 yokes of iron. Had Jehoiakim or Zedekiah, their nobles, 
 and their people possessed that human foresight which that 
 
 • Jer. xxiv. 5, 1. 8. 25, li. 4; and, united with the name Babylon, xxv. 12, 1. 1. 45, 
 Ezek. xii. 13, as Isaiah does Chasilim alone, xlviii. 14, 20. k Coll. Cy nh 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 21, es kS Ps. xxii. 7. See the like in the Classics in Perizon. Orig. Bab. c. 
 vi. p. 70. siiq. and from liim in Vitr. 
 
 1 yEsch. Pers. 52, 5:i, 54. m Is.xiii. 14. n Jer. 1. 16. 
 
 o Tlure ought to be no question as to the identity of the invasion from the north, 
 Jer. i. 15, vi. 22, x. 22, ami Jeremiah's own summary of his prophecies from the 13th. 
 of Josiah, XXV. 3-11 when he names Nebuchadnezzar; only then there would be deli- 
 nite prediction. Hence the mare's nest as to the dread of the Scythians, who marched 
 
 j)seudo-critical school holds to be so easy, Judah had never 
 gone into captivity to Babylon. But He Who fashioneth the 
 heart of man knoweth alone the issue of the working of 
 those hearts, which He over-rules. 
 
 From the necessity of its case, the pseudo-critical sciiool 
 lowers down the words, in which Haiiakkuk declares the 
 marvellousness of the event which he foretells, and the un- 
 belief of his people. " Look well," he bids them, " marvel 
 ye, marvel on ; for I will work a work in your days which ye 
 will not believe, when it shall he told you." It is "some- 
 thing which had not hitherto been, something hitherto un- 
 known," says Stahelin ". Yet things hitherto unknown, are 
 not therefore incredible. " It is clear from the contents," 
 says Bleek', "that the Chaldecs had at that time already 
 extended to the West their expeditions of conquest and de- 
 struction, and on the other side, that this had only lately 
 ijegun and that they were not yet come to Judah and Jeru- 
 salem, so that here they were hitherto little known." "The 
 appearance of the Chaldecs as world-conquerors was, in 
 Judah, then a quite new phenomenon," says Ewald ". 
 " The description of the Chaldecs altogether is of such sort, 
 that they appear as a people still little known to the Jews," 
 says Knobel". "That which is incredible for the people con- 
 sists therein, that God employs just the Chaldecs, such as 
 they are described in what follows, for the unexpected chas- 
 tisement of Israel," says even Umbreity. 
 
 What was there incredible, that, when the king of Jerusa- 
 lem had revolted from Babylon, and had sided with Egypt, 
 its chief enemy, the Chaldaeans, should come against it? As 
 soon might it be said to be incredible that France should in- 
 vade Prussia, when its hundred thousands were on their 
 march towards the Rhine. During the reign of Manasseh 
 it was incredible enough, that any peril should impend from 
 Babylon ; for Babylon was still subordinate to Assyria : in 
 the early years of Josiah it was still incredible, for his thirty- 
 one years were years of peace, until Pharaoh Nccho disput- 
 ed the cis-Euphratensian countries with Babylon. When 
 the then East and West came to Carchemish, to decide 
 whether the empire should be with the East or with the 
 West, nothing was beyond human foresight hut the result. 
 Expectation lately hung suspended, perplexed between the 
 forces of Europe. None, the most sagacious, could predict 
 for a single day. Men might surmise ; God only could pre- 
 dict. For three and twenty years Jeremiah foretold, that the 
 evil would come from the North, not from the South. The 
 powers were well-balanced. Take Habakkuk's prophecy as a 
 whole — not that the Chaldaeans should invade J udaa, (which 
 in Jehoiakim's time was already certain) but that Eg\-])t should 
 be a vain help, and that the Chaldaeans should mesh its people 
 like the fishes of the sea, yet they should still have to disgorge 
 them, because God's judgement would come upon them also. 
 This too were incredible. Incredible it was to the kings, the 
 wise, the politicians, the political prophets of Judaea, that Je- 
 rusalem itself should be taken. Incredible it was, and there 
 was much human reason for the incredulity. Egypt and As- 
 syria had been matched during centuries. Until the Sargo- 
 
 dowTi the sea coast and returned, being bought off by Prammetichus, doing no harm 
 to Judah by this passing expedition. 
 
 P Jer. xxvii. 3. i lb. 9. ' Jer. v. 12-14. xiv. 14-16. xxiii. 16, 17, 21, 
 
 25-27, 30 sqq. xxvii. 14, 15-18, xxviii. » Jer. x.xix. 8, y, 15, 21, 21, sqq. 
 
 ' xxviii. 13, 14. " Einl. p. 218. 
 
 ' Einl. ins. A. T. pp. 545, 54fi. 
 
 " Die Proph. ii. 29. see also Delitzsch's quotation from him ah. p. 400. 
 
 * Die Proph. u. Hebr. ii. 292. Dr. Davidson's sentences are chiedy gleaned from him. 
 
 y Kl. Troph. p.28j.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO IIABAKKUK. 
 
 40.') 
 
 nides, Egypt had, during centuries, the unbroken ail vantage. 
 Hut the Sargonides had passed away. Yet Chahla-a liad not, 
 aU>ne, prevailed against Assyria. W'hy should the yet un- 
 tried Babylonian be so (lertain of success, when the whole 
 West of tlie Euphrates was banded together against him, and 
 fought within their own gi'ound ? 'lite Icings of Eluin and 
 the /cliiffs of the Medes^ were now, as under Cyrus, enemies (d' 
 Babylon. Babyh)n had enemies before and behind. But 
 God had raised U[» Nebiichiulnez/.ar to be the hmiDiier of the 
 whole earth'\ and had given those <;is-J']uphratensian lands 
 which leagued against him into the /iiind.s of Nehuehiidnezzur 
 the king of liahylon, My servant, God says '', and all nations 
 .shall serve him and his son and his son's son, until the very 
 time of his laud come ; and then ininiy nations and great kings 
 shall serve themselves of him. ^Vhenee this (•ond)iiiation of 
 almost supei'liuman but short-lived might, this certainty of 
 wide sway do\vn to the third generation, this certainty of 
 its cessation afterwards ? There was no time for decay. 
 Alexander's empire was yet more short-lived, but it was divi- 
 ded among his successors. Alexander had, by his genius, 
 founded his own empire, which the able generals, whom he 
 had trained, divided among themselves. In the Chaldflean 
 empire, we have an enterprising conspirator, who seizes an 
 occasion, but does little besides which is recorded, nothing 
 alone, nothing, besides that first grasp at power, for himself. 
 He appears oidy as the ally of Media "^i then a son, a world- 
 wide conqueror, with a genius for consolidating the empire 
 which he inherited, forming an impregnable city, which 
 should also be a province, filling his empire with fortresses '^, 
 but leaving none after him to maintain what he had so con- 
 solidated. By whom could this be foreknown save by Him, 
 with Whom alone it is, to root out and to pull down and to de- 
 stroy and to throiu dotvn, to build and to plant ''} 
 
 It has been common to praise the outside of Habakkuk's 
 
 <■ Jer. XXV. 25. » lb. 1. 23. i> lb. xxvii. 6. 7. " Herod, i. 74. 
 
 ^ See Daniel the Prophet pp. 118. 122, Rawl. 5 Empires iii. 496 sqq. ' Jer. i. 10. 
 
 ' The inost remarkable, have, of course, been singled out of old ; as, na:D, i. 9, B"B3y, 
 ii. 6, p'^P'P ii. IC. Others are partly emphatic forms, as yiyiD, ii. 7, or are in some way, 
 even though slight, peculiar to him. VijijD, i. 4 (not in the verb), incn.T i. 5. jn'n* ii. 
 
 prophecy, the purity of his language, the .sublimity of his ima- 
 gery. Certainly it is, humanly speaking, niagiiificcnt : his 
 nieasiirerl <'adi'nce is improsive in its simj)licity. He too has- 
 words and forms, whi(di are peculiar to him among the re- 
 mains of Hebr(!w '. But his emim;nce is rather the condensed 
 thought, expressed often in the sim[)lest words; as when,, hav- 
 ing carried on the tide <d' victory of the Clialda'an to its 
 height, every thing human subdue<i licl'orc him, all resistance 
 derided, he gathers u|) his fall and its cause in those eight 
 words, "BThen sweeps-hc-by, wind, and-j)asses, and-is-guilty; 
 this his-strength (is) his-god." Yet more striking is the reli- 
 gious greatness, in which he sums up the meaning of all tliis 
 oppressiveness of man. " '' Thou, Lord, hast placed him for 
 judgement, and, O Rock, hast founded him to correc-t." Or, 
 take the picture, prolonged relatively to his conciseness, of 
 the utter helplessness (d' (iod's pcMtple, niesbcd, hooked, drag- 
 ged in their net; their captors w(M-shi])ping X\h: instrument 
 of their success, revelling in their triumph, and then the sud- 
 den question, "' A'Ar/// they therefore empty their net]" He 
 waits to hear the answer from (Jod. Or, again, the antij)ho- 
 nal dirge of the materials of the blood-built city over him''. 
 Or the cutting off" of every stay, sustenance, hojie, promise of 
 God, and, amid this universal crash, what does he? It is 
 not as the heathen, "'fearless will the ruins strike him:" 
 but, ""And I," as if it were the continuance and consequence 
 of the failure of all human things ; " 1 would exult in the 
 Lord, I would bound for joy in the God of my salvation." 
 His faith triumphs most, when all, in human sight, is lost. 
 
 " III which Thou blessest is most good, 
 
 And uiiblest good is ill ; 
 And all is right which seems most wrong, 
 
 So it be Thy sweet Will." 
 
 17 (the form), .iddd ii. 18. ^>ilfn ii. 16. -nia, y^snn, iii. 6. iiyn iii. 9. nw^y iii. 14. nsp ii. 10. 
 nSsy ii. 4. ni] ii. 5. \V2n iii, 4. ui iii, 2. ensn ii. lU, D-nyD ii. 15, nn i. 8, P'£32 ii. 11. trssrs 
 ii, 7. Dm iii. 2, S^s quiver (of the lips) iii. 16, ion (of sea) iii. 15. They will recur for 
 notice in the Comm. t Hab. i. 11. i» lb. 12. ' lb. 17. 
 
 " ii. 11. ' Hor. Od. iii. 3. 8. " iii. 10. 
 
 'is not this GRE.4T BABYLON WHICH I HAVE MADE FOR MYSELF?" "THE PURPOSE OF THE LORD IS AGAIS3T BABYLON TO DESTROY 
 
 P P P
 
 406 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 Before CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 — ""' ''"''• 1 U/ifo Hdhakknk, complaining of the iiiiquihj of 
 
 the land, 5 i.s shewed the fearful vengeatice by the 
 
 Chaldeans. 12 He coniplaineth that vengeance 
 
 should be executed by them who are far worse. 
 
 Chap. I., Ver. 1. The burden^ which Hahakhuk the 
 prophet did see. The prophet's name signifies " strong em- 
 brace." The word in its intensive form is used both of 
 God's enfolding the soul in His tender supporting love ^, and 
 of man clinging and holding fast to Divine wisdom'. It 
 fits in with the subject of his j)rophecy, faith, cleaving fast 
 to God annd the perplexities of things seen. "*He who 
 is spiritually Habakkuk, cleaving fast to God with the 
 arms of love, or enfolding Him after the manner of one 
 liolily wrestling, until he be blessed, enlightened, and heard 
 by Ilim, is the seer here." "Let him who would in such 
 wise fervidly embrace God and plead with Ilim as a friend, 
 ])raying earnestly for the deliverance and consolation of 
 himself and others, but who sees not as yet, that his prayer 
 is heard, make the same holy plaint, and appeal to the cle- 
 mency of the Creator." " ^ He is called ' embrace ' either 
 because of his love to the Lord ; or because he engages in 
 a contest and strife and (so to speak) wrestling with God. 
 For no one with words so bold ventured to challenge God 
 to a discussion of His justice and to say to Him, "Why, in 
 human affairs and the government of this world is there so 
 great injustice ?" 
 
 The prophet. The title, the prophet, is added only to the 
 names of Hahakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah. Habakkuk may the 
 rather have added it to his name, because prominently he 
 expostulates with God, like the Psalmists, and does not 
 speak in the name of God to the people. The title asserts 
 that he exercised the pastoral office of the prophets, al- 
 though not directly in this prophecy*. 
 
 Did see. "'God multiplied visions, as is written*, and 
 Himself spake to the prophets, disclosing to them before- 
 hand what should be, and all but exhibiting them to sight, 
 as if already present. But that they determined not to speak 
 from their own, but rather transmit to us the words from 
 God, he persuades us at the outset, naming himself a Pro- 
 phet, and shewing himself full of the grace belonging there- 
 to." 
 
 2. O Lord, hoiv long shall I cry, lit. how long have I 
 cried so intensely to Thee ' ? For it is ever the cry of the 
 creature to Him Who alone can hear or help, its God^ 
 Of this cry the Prophet expresses that it had already 
 lasted long. In that long past had he cried to God and 
 no change had come. There is an undefined past, and this 
 still continues i", Hoiv long, as Asaph cries, Itow long hast 
 Thou been, and, it is implied, wilt Thou be wroth against 
 the prayer of Thy people t as we should say, hotv long shall 
 Thy wrath continue? The words which the Prophet uses 
 relate to domestic strife and wrong between man and 
 man; violence^^, iniquity, strife, contention^-, nor are any of 
 them used only of the oppression of a foreign enemy. He 
 
 • On the word burden see on Nah. i. 1. p. 373. n. 1. 
 
 - p3n Cant. ii. ('>. viii. 3. ^ Prov. iv. 8. ^ Dion. 
 
 ^ S. Jer. Abarbanel has the like, " He strengthens himself in pleading his cause with 
 God as to the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar as if he was joined with God for the cause 
 of his people. Pref. to Ezek. pp. 123, i, 124. 1. 
 
 6 Seeab. p. 298. _ 7 S. Cyr. » Hos. xii. 10. 
 
 9 yi?' only occurs in the intensive form, and always of the cry to God, e.xpressed 
 by Vk, or implied, except perhaps Job xxxv. 9. 
 
 efore 
 RI S 
 cir. 626. 
 
 • Lam. 3. 8. 
 
 THE burden which Habakkuk tlie pro- tH^iiTsT 
 phet did see. 
 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry, ^and 
 thou wilt not hear ! even cry out unto thee 
 of violence, and thou wilt not save ! 
 
 comj)lains too of injustice too strong for the law, and 
 the perversion of justice ^^. And on this the sentence is 
 pronounced. The enemy is to be sent for judgement and 
 corrections^. They are then the sins of Juilah which the 
 Prophet rehearses before God, in fellow-suft'ering with the 
 oppressed. God answers that they shall be removed, but 
 by the punishment of the sinners. 
 
 Punishment does not come without sin, nor does sin 
 endure without punishment. It is one object of the Old 
 Testament to exhibit the connection between sin and pu- 
 nishment. Other prophets, as commissioned by God, first 
 denounced the sins and then foretold the punishment of 
 the impenitent. Habakkuk appeals to God's justice, as 
 requiring its infliction. On this ground too this opening 
 of the prophecy cannot be a complaint against the Chal- 
 dees, because their wrong would be no ground of the pu- 
 nishment which the prophet denounced, but the punishment 
 itself, requiting wrong to man through human wrong. 
 
 " ' The prophet considers the person of the oppressed, en- 
 during the intolerable insolence and contumely of those 
 wonted to do wrong, and very skilfully doth he attest the 
 unutterable loving kindness of God. For he exhibits Him 
 as very forbearing, though wont to hate wickedness. But that 
 He doth not forthwith bring judgement on the ofi'enders, 
 he showed clearly, saying that so great is His silence and 
 long-suffering, that there needeth a strong cry, in that some 
 practise intolerable covetousness against others, and use an 
 unbridled insolence against the weak. For his very com- 
 plaints of God's endurance of evil attest the immeasurable 
 loving kindness of God." 
 
 " 'You may judge hence of the hatred of evil in the Saints. 
 For they speak of the woes of others as their own. So j^aith 
 the most wise Paul, ^'' ivho is weak and I am not weak? who is 
 offended, and J burn not ? and bade us ^* iveep with those tvho 
 weep, shewing that sympathy and mutual love are especially 
 becoming to the saints." 
 
 The Prophet, through sympathy or fellow-suffering with 
 the sufferers, is as one of them. He cries for help, as him- 
 self needing it, and being in the misery, in behalf of which 
 he prays. He says, Hotv long shall I cry? standing, as it 
 were, in the place of all, and gathering all their cries into 
 one, and presenting them before God. It is the cry, in 
 one, of all which is wronged to the God of Justice, of all 
 suffering to the God of love. "When shall this scene of 
 sin, and confusion, and wrong be at an end, and the har- 
 mony of God's creation be restored? How long shall evil 
 not exist only, but prevail?" It is the cry of the souls 
 under the altar^^, Hoiv long, O Lord, Holy and True, dost 
 Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell 
 on the earth ? It is the voice of the oppressed against the 
 
 1" ■BjjiB' njx-iy, as Ps. Ixxx. 6. pji?? 'np-iy and Exod. xvi. 2S. cnjND n\K—i)i and Ex. x. 3, 
 IJJND 'n?""il! [all.] ' " ish Don are united of individual 
 
 internal violence, Jer. \i. 7- xx. 8. Ez. xlv. 9. Am. iii. 10: even ^2t;■l ir Is. lix. 7. and IV 
 alone Ps. xii. 6. Job xxiv. i1. Pr. xxi. 7. xxiv. 2. Hah. ii. 17. nun 3i3 Hos. xii 2. teyi pn 
 occur Ps. Iv. 11, in Habakkuk's order; inverted in Ps. x. 7. pn, 7DV, Kii? occur in three 
 clauses in Is. lix. 4. tey, JIK, with nD-O Job xv. 35. 
 
 K i. 3. " i. 4. " i. 12. 
 
 1* 2 Cor. xi. 29. " Rom. xii. 15. '7 Rev. vi. 10.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 407 
 
 c if rTs t ^ Why dost thou shew mo iniquity, .in<l 
 "'*•■ *'^''- cause mc to behohl ij^rievance ? tor spoilini^ 
 and violence are betbrt; me : and tliere are 
 that raise up strife and contention. 
 
 oppressor; of the Church afj:ainst the world; weary of 
 heariiif? the fiOrd's Name blasi)h('iiif'd, of seciiifj wroiit? set 
 up on hifi^h, lioliiu'ss trampled under foot. It is in its 
 hij^hest sense His Voice, Wlio, to sanctify our lonf^in^s 
 for deliverance, said in the days of His Flesh, ' / cri/ in 
 the day time, but Thnn hcarcst not. 
 
 Even cry out aloud (it is the cry of anguish), "^We 
 cry the louder, the more we cry from the heart, even with- 
 out words ; for not the movinff of the lips, but the love of 
 the heart sounds in the ears of God." Even cry out unto 
 IViee. VVhetlier as an exclamation or a continuance of the 
 question, Hoiv long? the prophet feathered in one the pro- 
 longed cry of past and future. He had cried; he should 
 cry on, Fiolence'^. He speaks as if the one word, jerked 
 out, as it were, wrung forth from his inmost soul, was, 
 flolence, as if he said this one word to the God of Justice 
 and love. 
 
 3. TVhy dost Thou shew me iniquity, and cause mc to 
 behold, or rather, ffliy bcholdest Thou^ grievance? God 
 seemed to reverse what He had said by Balaam, ^ He hath 
 not beheld iniquity in Jacob, and hath not seen grievousness 
 in Israel; and in the Psalm, '"'Thou hast seen, for Thoic 
 [emph.] beholdest grievousness and wrong, to put it in 
 Thy hand," i. e. Thou layest it up in Thy hand, to cast it 
 back on the head of the evildoer. Now He seemed to be- 
 hold it and leave it unpunished, which yet Habakkuk says 
 to God below, He could not do ; ^ Thou canst not look upon 
 iniquity. What then did this mean ? What was the solu- 
 tion ? 
 
 All forms and shapes of sin are multiplied; oppressive 
 violence^, such as covered the earth before the flood, and 
 brought it down ; which Nineveh had to put away ^, and 
 it was spared; iniquity, i. e. what is unequal and contrary to 
 truth, falsehood ; grievance lit. burdensome wearisome toil; 
 spoiling, or open robbery; strife and contention, both throtigh 
 perversion of the law and, without it, through endless 
 jarrings of man with man. Sin recoils on the sinner. So 
 what he beholds is not iniquity only, but (in the same word) 
 vanity ; grievance ; which is a burden both to him who suf- 
 fers, and yet more to him who inflicts it. For nothing is 
 so burdensome as sin, nothing so empty as wickednesss. 
 And while to him who suffers, the suffering is temporal, to 
 him who inflicts it, it is eternal. And yet the prophet and 
 whoso prays against ungodliness, "^^must commiserate him 
 who doth wrong yet more, since they hurt what is most 
 precious, their own soul, and that eternally." All then is 
 
 ' Ps. xxii. 2. 2 Dion. 
 
 ■'' OOn pyw as RipK sn DDn Jer. xx. 8. orn pysn \!\ Job six. 7. [all of this construction] 
 
 * Since B'3n, occurring 67 times, is certainly no where else used causatively of its com- 
 mon meaning, behold, look, and Habakkuk himself uses it four times besides in that 
 meaning iB'in, "look,"i. 5. with Sn, i. 13. with Sv ii. 13. with acc.pers. i. 13. it is wholly 
 improbable that it should be used here of " causing to look ; " the more, since he has not 
 marked the supposed exceptional use by adding the affix, 'JSOn. There is no ground to 
 assume a causative of a causative. 
 
 ' Nu. xxiii. 21. « Ps. x. 14. 7 i. 13. » ODn Gen. vi, 11, 13. 
 
 9 Jonah iii. 8. ^ '" Theoph. 
 
 '' The Lxx. Syr. S. Jer. so divide ; yiyovf icpfiris Kal 6 koitiis AafiSdvfi, " et factum 
 est judicium et contradictio potentior.' So Tanchum. The E. V, has followed Jon. 
 Kim. Abcn Ezra. 
 
 '- am intrans., as in Ps. Ixxxix. 10 ; Nah. i. 5. 
 
 13 Ps. Ixxiii. 15, 12, 13. »< Eccl. vUi. 11. 
 
 4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judj^e- ,, y^^°{s t 
 mciit doth never f^o forth : for the '' wicked "'"• '^-"- 
 doth compass about the rij^hteous ; there- p//y''j"3 g;^ 
 fore II wronf^ judgement proceedeth. iJo'r,^trM(crf. 
 
 full of evil. Whithersoever the Prophet looks, some fresh 
 violence is before him; it confronts him on every side; strife 
 hath ariscn^^, conic up, exists wlici'c it was not before; con- 
 tention lifleth itself^" on high, liowing down ail besides. 
 
 4 Therefore, i. e. Because God seemed not to awake 
 to avenge His own cause, men promised themselves that 
 they might sin on with impunity. Sin produces sin, and 
 wrong, wrong; it spreads like an infectious disease, pro- 
 pagating itself, and eacli, to whom it reaches, adds to its 
 poison. At last, it reached those also, who should be in 
 God's stead to restrain it. The Divine law itself is silenced, 
 by the power of the wicked, by the sin of the judge, the 
 hopelessness of all. When all around is evil, even those not 
 yet lost are tempted to think ; " Why should I be other than 
 they? what evil befalls them? Why stand alone?" Even 
 a Psalmist^' speaks as if tempted to speak even as they. 
 These are the ungodly who prosper in the world; they in- 
 crease in riches ; verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, 
 a7id washed my hands in innocency ; and Solomon ^*, Because 
 sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, there- 
 fore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do 
 evil. 
 
 The laiu is slacked, lit. is chilled^'" (as we say, "is para- 
 lysed,") through lack of the fire of love. This is what our 
 Lord says, ^^Becaiise iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
 shall wax cold. The Divine law, the source of all right, be- 
 ing chilled in men's hearts, judgement, i. e. the sentence of 
 human justice, as conformed to Divine, doth never go forth^' . 
 Human sense of right is powerless, when there is not the 
 love of God's law. It seems ever ready to act, but ever 
 falls short, like an arrow from an unstrung bow. The man 
 seems ever about to do right; he judges, sees, aright; all 
 but does it; yet at last always fails. \t goes not forth. The 
 children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to 
 bring fort h ^^. 
 
 For the wicked doth compass about ^' the righteous, lay- 
 ing snares for him, as the Jews for our Lord; evil is too 
 strong for a weak will to do right, and overbears it, Pilate 
 sought in many ways, how he might deliver Jesus, yet at 
 last did deliver Him into their hands. 
 
 Therefore wrong judgemeyit proceedeth, lit. judgement pro- 
 ceedeth wrested 2°. He had said, " it never goes forth ; " 
 never, that is, in its true character; for, when it does go 
 forth, it is distorted. " ^ For gifts or favour or fear or hate 
 the guiltless are condemned and the guilty acquitted, as 
 saith the Psalmist, -^ How long will ye Judge unjustly and 
 
 '5 It is used of Jacob's heart, who could not believe the good tidings, Gen. xlv. 2fi ; 
 the numbing of the comfortless heart of the penitent through grief (N'if.) Ps. xxx%-iii. 
 9. The Psalmist, holding on in prayer, denies it of himself. Ps. xxi-ii. 3. They quote 
 " friget lex." 
 
 >* S. Matt. xxiv. 12. ^^ According to the uniform use of my>, 31 times 
 
 and ns] 6 times. This uniform usage cannot be overborne by the analogy of Is. xlii. 3. 
 ESUD N'si' ncuS, " He shall bring forth judgement to truth," as Sjt. here, "with sin- 
 cerity," Rashi, "according to truth." "* Is. xxxvii. 3. 
 
 '9 TnD.-i, "encompass for hostile end," as IB? Jud. xv. 43. Ps. xx.13. " The wicked," 
 I'ln is collective, as implied by the word "encompass." " The righteous " is, in con- 
 trast, determined, pn:i.T nx. 
 
 20 Spyo. The root occurs only in intensive forms ; in the verb here only ; crooked ways 
 are niVp'jpy Jud. v. 6. Ps. cxxv. 5. the Serpent is called pnSpy, Isa. .xxvii. 1, 
 21 Ps. Ixxxii. 2. 
 
 p p p 2
 
 408 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 c H kTs t '"^ If ' 1^<'1><»'<^ y*" amoni? the heathen, and 
 <=''•• ''^6- rej^ard, and wonder niarveUously ; for /will 
 kIuIIIu work a work in your days, triiicit ye will 
 not believe, though it be told you. 
 
 accept the perso)is of the ungodly ? " " ' Judgement goes forth 
 perverted in the seat of man's judgement (the soul), when, 
 I)ribed by the pleasures of sense, it leans to the side of 
 things seen, and the Ungodly one, the rebel angel, besets 
 and overpowers him who has the sense of right ; for it is 
 right that things seen should give way to things unseen; 
 -for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things 
 ivhich are not seen are eternal." Why then all this? and 
 how long ? Why does God bring it before him and He Who 
 is of purer eyes than to liehotd iniquity, behold grievance, 
 which His Holy Eyes could not endure ? Neither the Un- 
 seen Presence of God nor the mission of the Prophet checks. 
 If he rebuke, no one hearkened; if he intercedes for sinners, 
 or against sin, God made as thougii He would not hear. 
 God answers that, though to man's impatience the time 
 seems long, judgement shall come, aiul that, suddenly and 
 speedily. While the righteous is enquiring, how long ? and 
 the wicked is saying 2, My Lord delayeth His coining, He 
 is come, and seen in the midst of them. 
 ^ The whole tone ot the words suddenly changes. The 
 Jews flattered themselves that, being the people of God, 
 He would not fulfil His threats upon them. They had be- 
 come like the heathen in wickedness ; God bids them look 
 out among them for the instrument of His displeasure. It 
 was an aggravation of their punishment, that God, Who had 
 once chosen them, would now choose these whom He had 
 not chosen, to chasten them. So Moses had foretold ;* They 
 have moved 3Ie to jealousy by that ivhich is not God; they 
 have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will 
 move them to Jealousy with not-a-people, I will provoke them 
 to auger with a foolish nation. There were no tokens of 
 the storm which should sweep them away, yet on the hori- 
 zon. No forerunners yet. And so He bids them gaze on 
 among the nations, to see whence it should come. They 
 might have expected it from Egypt. It sliouhl come whence 
 they did not expect, with a fierceness and terriblcness which 
 they imagined not. Regard, look narrowly, weigh well 
 what it portends ; and wonder marvellously ; lit. be amazed, 
 amazed. The word is doubled ^, to express how amazement 
 should follow upon amazement ; when the first was pass- 
 ing away, new source of amazement should come ; for ^ / 
 tvill work a work in your days, luhich ye will not believe, 
 though it be told you. So incredible it will be, and so 
 against their wills! He does not say, "ye would not believe 
 if it were told you ;" much less, " if it were told you of 
 others ; " in which case the chief thought would be left un- 
 expressed. No condition is expressed. It is simply foretold, 
 what was verified by the whole history of their resistance 
 to the Chaldees until the capture of the city ; " Ye will not 
 
 < Theoph. 2 2 Cor. iv. 18. ^ s. Matt. xxiv. 48. " Deut. xxxii. 21. 
 
 ' As in Ps. cxviii. 11, 'jn^o Di ':i3D, Hos. iv. 18, nn i:nN, Zeph. ii. 1. iffipi nJiPipnn 
 If suggested by Is. xxix. 9, inDm laDnom " be perplexed and marvel," Habakkuk 
 clianged tlie phrase, preserving tlie alliteration. 
 
 '' The "I "is omitted in the Hebrew, probably for conciseness, as if it were the 
 finite verb. Del. quotes as omissions of the 3rd person, Ps. xxii. 29. Iv. 20 ; of the 
 second 1 Sam. ii. 24. vi. 3. Ps. vii. 10. Hah. ii. 10. Ewald adds " after n|ri Gen. xli. 1. 
 Ex. vii. 15."viii. 16, and without it, Ps. xxii. 29, xxxiii. 6. 7. Ixvi. 7- xcvi. 13. Lehrh. 
 p. 616. ed. 7. ' Jer. v. 12. » lb. xx. 7, 8. » Is. liii. 1. '« S. Matt. iii. 7. 
 
 6 For, lo, ^ II I raise up the Chaldeans, (.jf^'^","^^ 
 tlitit bitter and hasty nation, which siiall <:ir. 020. 
 inareh throuj^li the f breadth of the \-m\<\,\^^J;]-^^- 
 to possess the dvveHin<^plaees that art; not jj fj,',flj,\j 
 their's. ^ ^^^' '^"^""- 2 chr. W. 6. 
 
 believe, when it shall be told you." So it ever is. Man 
 never believes, that God is in earnest, until His judgements 
 come. So it was before the flood, and to Sodom, and Lot's 
 sons-in-law; so it was to Ahab and Jezebel; so as to this 
 destruction of Jerusalem by the Chahheans, and that which 
 is shadowed forth, by the Romans. So Jeremiah complained, 
 ^ They have belied the Lord, and said, it is not He ; neither 
 shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine, 
 and, ** / am in derision daily ; every one mocketh me. For 
 since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because 
 the word of the Lord was made a reproacn unto me, and a 
 derision daily ; and Isaiah, '■' ff^ho hath believed our report f 
 and St. John Baptist speaks as though it were desperate; 
 1" O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to Jiee from 
 the wrath to come? and our Lord tells them, '' Your house is 
 left unto you desolate. And yet they believed not, but de- 
 livered Him up to be put to death, lest that should be, which 
 did come, because they put Him to death. ^- If ive let Him 
 thus alone, all men will believe on Him ; and the Ronums 
 shall come, and take away both our place and nation. St. 
 PauP^, then, applies these words to the Jews in his day, be- 
 cause the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar 
 was an image of the destruction of the second (which by 
 Divine appointment, contrary to man's intention, took place 
 on the same day^*), and the Chaldfeans were images of the 
 Romans, that second Babylon, heathen Rome ; and both 
 foreshowed the worse destruction by a fiercer enemy, the 
 enemy of souls, the spiritual wasting and desolation which 
 came on the Jew first, and which shall come on all who 
 disobey the Gospel. So it shall be to the end. Even now 
 the Jews believe not, Whose work their own dispersion is; 
 His, Who by them was crucified, but Who hath ^^ all power 
 in heaven and in earth. The Day of Judgement will come 
 like a thief in the night to those who believe not or obey not 
 our Lord's words. 
 
 6. For lo. So God announces a future, in which His 
 Hand shall be greatly visible, whether more or less distant. 
 In His sight it is present. / raise up. God uses the freewill 
 and evil passions of men or devils to His own ends; and so 
 He is said to raise up ^'^ those whom He allows to be stirred 
 up against His people, since the events which His Provi- 
 dence permits, favour their designs, and it rests with Him to 
 withhold them. They lift themselves up for some end of 
 covetousness or pride. But there is a higher order of things, 
 in which God orders their actions to fulfil by their iniquities 
 His righteousness. The ChaUUcans, that hitter^'' and hasty ^^ 
 nation. "^"To its might and warlike boldness almost all the 
 Greeks who have written histories of the barbarians, wit- 
 ness." JFhich shall march through the breadth of the latid, 
 
 " lb. xxiii. 38. S. Luke xiii. 35. 
 '2 S. John xi. 48. " Some of the words as there quoted (from the then re- 
 
 ceived translation, the LXX.) differ ; the sense is the same. '^ Jos. de B. J. vii. 14. 
 1= S. Matt, xxviii. 18. 
 '^ D'pii is so used, 1 Kings xi. 14, 23. Am. vi. 14, and of evil (in the abstract) 2 
 Sam. xii. 11. Zech. xi. 16, as also I'Vn Ezek. xxiii. 22. 2 Chr. xxi. 16. and against 
 Babylon, Is. xiii! 17. xli. 2, 25. Jer. 1. 9. Ii. 1. 11. 
 
 '' "ID. In Jud. xviii. 25. 2 Sara. xvii. 8, the less concise PiU ID is used. 
 
 18 -ncj as Is. xxxii. 4. " S. Jer.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 409 
 
 c h"rTst 7 They are terrible and dreadful : || their 
 cir.626. judt^ement and their dignity shall proceed 
 them/imu of themselves. 
 ju7Mmc„i''if 8 Their horses also are swifter than the 
 
 these, (lud 111 i r» i i 
 
 thcmpthiiy leopards, and are more f heree than the 
 '\ iieb.'iharp. "eveninj? wolves: and their horsemen shall 
 
 « Jer. 5. 6. "Zeph. 3. 3. 
 
 rather, f/w earth, lit. "to the breadths of tlie earth," reaeh- 
 ing to its whole len<rth and breadth, all its dimensions ', 
 as in the deseription of Gotc and Magog, -the nutnher of 
 tvhnm is as the sand of the sea ; and they went up on the 
 breadth of the earth; unhindered, not pent up, but s[)reading 
 abroad, where they will, over the whole earth. All before 
 it, is one wide even plain whirh it overspreads and covers, 
 like a flood, and yet is not spent nor exhausted. To possess 
 the dwelling-places that are not theirs. As God's people had 
 done, so should it be done to them. Spoiling and violence 
 within ^ attract oppression from without. The overcharged 
 atmosphere casts down the lightning upon them. They had 
 expelled the weak from their dwelling*; others shall possess 
 theirs. Yet this scourge too shall pass by, since, although 
 the Chahhean did God's Will, he willed it not, but his own =. 
 The words, not theirs, lit. not to him [lo-lo'^] stand with 
 a mysterious fulness of meaning. The dwelling places not 
 being his by rights shall not remain his, although given to 
 him, while God wills. 
 
 7. Thei/ are terrible ' and dreadful. He describes them, 
 first in themselves, then in act. They are terrible, and strike 
 fear through their very being, their known character, before 
 they put it forth in act. Their judgement and their dignity 
 shall proceed of themselves. Judgement had goyie forth in 
 God's people wrested^; now shall it go forth against them at 
 the mere will of their master, who shall own no other rule 
 or Lord or source of his power. His own will shall be his 
 only law for himself and others. His elevation ^ too is, in 
 his own thought, from himself. He is self-sufficing; he 
 holds from no other, neither from God nor man. His dig- 
 nity is self-sustained ; his judgement irresponsible, as if there 
 were none ^"higher than he. He has, like all great world- 
 powers, a real dignity and majesty. He infuses awe. The 
 dignity is real but faulty, as being held independently of 
 God. This is a character of Anti-cbrist ", a lawless in- 
 solence, a lifting up of himself. 
 
 8. Their horses are stvifter [lit. lighter, as we say, "light 
 of foot"] than leopards. The wild beast intended is the 
 panther, the lightest, swiftest, fiercest, most blood-thirsty of 
 
 ' 'amo (plur.) occurs here only. Isaiah has " the fulness of the breadth of Thy 
 land, O Immanuel " viii. 8, and in the same sense v. 9. pK 'pm° ^^ " =11 the far places 
 of the earth." (also air.) - Rev. xx. 8. 9. 3 i. 2—4. 
 
 ■> Mic. ii. 9. * See Isa. x. 6, 7. 6 ,1, „!, 
 
 7 DVN occurs here only and Cant. vi. 4. 10. compared with the " bannered host," 
 but the root is common in no'x. ^ i. 4. 
 
 5 mi^ is not in itself, " sp//'-elcvation " (as Kim. " that he will exalt himself above 
 the nations") but simply " elevation ; " from God, Gen. iv. 7, or His Providence, lb. 
 xlix. 3, Ps. Ixii. 5. It is used of the majesty of God, Job xiii. 23. "' Eccl. v. 8. 
 
 II Dan. xi. 36. 2 Thess. ii. 4. 
 
 '- Oppian Cyneg. iii. 75. sq. '3 S. Cyr. See more fully in Daniel the Prophet p. 77. n. 3. 
 
 I* lit. sharp " acer." Tir (except of the scales of the crocodile .lob. xii. 22) is used else- 
 whereonlyof the sharpening of iron against iron (Hif.) Pr. xxvii. 17; (Hof.), of the sword 
 Ezek. xxi. 14, 15, 10. .Tin as an epithet of the sword (iv times). In Arabic Ti, conj. i. ii.iv. 
 X is to "sharpen ; " itiin, ■wrm "sharp, "of a knife, sword; nn met., "sharp of intellect" 
 &c. also of sword. '* Comp. Jer. v. 6. " Zeph. iii. 3. '" The horse and his 
 rider are regariled as one. Nahum had spoken of the cavalry in the armies against 
 Nineveh (Nah. iii. 2); in Judith they are numbered in the proportion of one tenth to 
 the footmen of Holofernes (Judith ii. 5, 15.). They were the more formidable to Judah 
 which had footmen only. Under Persian rule Babylonia was a great breeding place for 
 horses. Rawl. 5 Empires iii. 317. '* Deut. xxviii. 49, 50. pmiD occurs in both. 
 
 spread themselves, and their horsemen shall (. ^^"1% ^ 
 come from far; ^they shall Hy as the eagle "'■ ''•^•- 
 that hasteth to eat. /j;;*- '^• 
 
 9 They shall come all for violence : ||t their pj'Zl^ 
 faces shall sup uj) as the east wind, and they!^'";*/' 
 shall gather the caiitivity as the sand. fc:tli 
 
 t Heb. the ojiposition of their faces toward the eait. the eatt. 
 
 beasts of prey. "'=It runs most swiftly and rushes brave and 
 straight. You would say, when you saw it, that it is borne 
 through the air." "'Mt bounds exceedingly and is very exceed- 
 ingly light to spring down on whatever it ])ursues." More 
 _fierce^UhantheeveHingiuolves^'-,\.c. than they are when fiercest, 
 going forth to prey when urged to raliidn'ess bv biiiigcr the 
 wbtde day through. Such bad their own judges been "■', and 
 by such should they be punished. The horse partakes of the 
 fierceness of his rider in trampling down the foe'". Their horse- 
 men shall spread themselves [lit. widespread are their horse- 
 mew], and their horsemen from far shall come. Neither dis- 
 tance of march shall weary them, nor diffusion weaken them. 
 So should Moses' prophecy be again fulfilled. "^ The Lord shall 
 raise against thee a nation from far, from the ends of the earth, 
 as the eagle Jlieth; a nation whose tongue thou shall not under- 
 stand ; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard 
 the person of the old, nor show favour to the young. 
 
 They shall Jly as the eagle that hasteth [lit. hasting ^''*] to 
 eat, "-"not to fight, for none shall withstand; but with a course 
 like the eagle's, to whom all fowl are subdued, hasting but to 
 eat." Behold, Jeremiah says of Nebuchadnezzar-', /^e sA«// 
 Jly as an eagle and spread his tvings over Moah ; and, he re- 
 peats the words,-^ over Bozrah. Our pursuers, Jeremiah says-', 
 are stvifter than the eagles of the heavens. Ezekiel likens 
 him to -*rt great eagle with great wings full of feathers ; in 
 Daniel's visitm he is -*« lion with eagle's trings. 
 
 9. They shall come all for violence. Violence had been 
 the sin of judab "-^', and now shall be her punishment. It had 
 been ex^er before the prophet; all were full of it. Now should 
 violence be the very end, one by one, of all the savage horde 
 poured out upon them ; they all, each one of them"'', come for 
 violence. Their faces shall sup up-^ as the east wiud"^. " As at 
 the breath of the burning wind all green things dry up, so at 
 sight of these all shall be wasted." They shall sweep over 
 every thing impetuously, like the east wind, scorching, 
 blackening, blasting, swallowing up all, as they pass over, as 
 the East wind, especially in the Holy Land, sucks up all mois- 
 ture and freshness, ^iid they shall'gather the captivity [i. e. 
 the captives] as the sand, countless, as the particles which the 
 
 " ei} as partic. In the finite verb, it had been Pin' like 1C3' ii. 14, nSrr iii. 11. ne- 
 Job. ix. 26. Del. » S. Jer. 
 
 2' Jer. xlviii. 40. - lb. xlix. 22. ^ Lam. iv. 19. -* Ezek. xvii. 3. 
 
 25 Dan. vii. 4. =» v. 3. 4. ^ As iSd Ps. xxix. 9. Is. i. 23, ix. 16, Jer. vi. 13, 
 
 viii. 6. 10, XV. 10. rfyi Jer. xx. 7. 
 
 28 .ipJD, £ir. \(y. The sense " swallowing" is given by Jos. Kimchi, A. E., Rashi, 
 Ob. Sip., Menahem B. Saruk, taking oa) as i. q. IC], quoting Job xxxix. 24 or Gen. 
 xxiv. 17- Thence A. E- obtains the meaning "before, straight on," quoting Targ. 
 Abulwalid, followed by Tanchum, compares the Arab, en, " purposed," and thence de- 
 rives the meaning " direction." The Arab. ;3(appetivit, Fr.) signifies " approached " not 
 'desired.' Gesenius "the collection of their faces," i. e. all of them, invones the use ofa 
 St. Aev. to express, without emphasis, what is expressed every where by the common 
 word, 73. Synim. has 7rpdtroi|/iy, and so Syr- 
 
 -' nonp occurs else only in Ezek. xi. 1, and 16 times in c. xl-xlviii of the ideal city 
 and temple as " Eastwards." But except in the far-fetched explanation of Abarb. 
 (mentioned also by Tanchum) that they ravaged, not to settle, but to return home with 
 their booty, " Eastwards" would have no meaning. Yet " forwards" is just as insulated 
 a rendering as that adopted by J. and D. Kim., K. E., Rashi, Ob. Sip., Sal. B. Mel. 
 Arab Tr. (following Jon.) " the East-wind ;" .icip standing as a met. instead ofa simile 
 the n being regarded as paragogic, as in nS'^. So also SjTnm. Sve/ios Kaiauv. S Jer., 
 " ventus urens."
 
 4ia 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 /(U-v-vO-L-^ 
 
 c i^rTs t 10 ^"^^ *''*^y ^^'''^^^ ^^"^ "^ ^''*^ kinjj^s, and 
 cir- 020. tije pi-inecs shull be a seorii unto tliein : they 
 shall deride every stroni^ hold; for they 
 shall heap dust, and take it. 
 
 East wind raises, sweeping over the sand-wastes, where it 
 huries whole earavans in one deatli. 
 
 10. J lid tlu'ij [lit. //(', the word stands enij)hatieally, he, 
 alone against all the kings of the earth] shall sciiff' at the 
 kings and all their might, taking them away or setting 
 them lip at his pleasure and caprice, subduing them as 
 t!u)Ugh in sjjort^; and princes, (lit. grave and majestic) shall 
 be a scorn niitii them [/;///(] ^. So Nebuchadnezzar hound 
 Jehoiakim '' (« fetters to carry him to Bahylon ; then, on his 
 submission made him for three years a tributary king *, then 
 on his rebellion sent bands of Chaldees and other tribu- 
 taries against him^; and then, or when Nebuchadnezzar took 
 Jehoiachin, Jeremiah's prophecy was fulfilled, that he should 
 he huried U'ith the burial of an ass, dragged and cast forth 
 hei/ond the gates of Jerusalem^, his dead body cast out in the 
 day to the heat and in the night to the frost'^, then Nebu- 
 chadnezzar took away Jehoiachin ; then Zedekiah. He had 
 also many kings captive with him in Babylon. For on his 
 decease Evil-Merodach brought Jehoiachin out of his prison 
 after 27 years of imprisonment, and set his throne above the 
 throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon^. Daniel 
 says also to Nebuchadnezzar^, Thou, O king, art a king of 
 kings: fur the God of heaven hath given tliee a kingdom, 
 power and strength and glory. u4nd wheresoever the children 
 of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven 
 hath He given into thine hand and hath made thee ruler 
 over all. 
 
 They [hel shall deride every strong hold, as, aforetime, 
 when God helped her, Jerusalem laughed the Assyrian to 
 scorn ^" ; for they [//e] shall heap dust, and take it, as Nebu- 
 chadnezzar did Tyre, whose very name {Rock) betokened its 
 strength. " " He shall come to Tyre, and, casting a mound 
 in the sea, shall make an island a peninsula, and, amid the 
 waves of the sea, land shall give an entrance to the city." 
 
 The mount, or heaped-up earth, by which the besiegers 
 fought on a level with the besieged, or planted their engines 
 at advantage, was an old and simple form of siege, especially 
 adapted to the great masses of the Eastern armies. It was 
 used in David's time i- ; and by the Assyrians ^^, Egyptians ^*, 
 Babylonians ^=, and afterwards the Persians ^^. Here he des- 
 cribes the rapidity of the siege. To heap up dust and to 
 capture were one. 
 
 It needed no great means; things slight as the dust sufficed 
 in the hands of those employed by God. Portion by portion, 
 17 the King of Babylon took all that pertained to the king of 
 Egypt, from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates. 
 
 11. Then shall his mind change, or, better, Then he 
 
 1 Comp. Benhadad's drunken commands, 1 Kings xx. 18. 
 
 2 Comp. Job xli. 29. ^ 2 Chr. xxxvi. 6. Dan. i. 2. "2 Kings xxiv. 1. 5 lb. 2. 
 « Jer. xxii. 19. " lb. xxxvi. 30. On the one liand, the expression "slept with his 
 
 fathers" does not necessarily imply that Jehoiakim died a peaceful death, since it is used 
 of Ahab (1 Kings xxii. ICI) and Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 20, 22.) On the other, Jeremiah's 
 prophecy was equally fulfilled, if the insult to his corpse took place when Nebuchad- 
 nezzar took away j'ehoiachin three months after his father's death. See D<-uuel the 
 Prophet pp. 399, 402, -lOS. Josephus attributes both the death and disgrace to Nebuchad- 
 cezzar. Ant. x. fi. 3. » 2 Kgs. xxv. 27, 28. « Dan. ii. 37. 38. and iv. 22. 
 
 '0 Is. xxxviii. 22. » S. Jer. '= 2 Sam. XX. IS. 
 
 13 2 Kgs. xix. 32. H Ez. xvii. 17 
 
 '5 Jer. vi. 6. xxxii, 24, xxxiii. 4, Ezek. iv. 2, xxi. 22 [2" Heb.], xxvi. 8, 
 
 16 Herod, i. 1C2. 1? 2 Kings xxiv. 7. 
 
 11 Then shall 7«/.v mind chan«?e, and he cifaT.sT 
 shall pass over, and offend, s imputing this "'*'• "^''- 
 his power unto his j?od. ^ «Dan. 5, 4. 
 
 12 ^f •'.//*•/ thou not from everlasting, O 
 
 1" Ps. 90. 2. & 93. 2. Lam. 6. 19. 
 
 siveeps by^^, a wind^^, and passes-'^, and is guilty; this his 
 strength is his god. The victory was completed, all resis- 
 tance ended. He sweeps by, as his own Euphrates, when 
 over-filled by the swelling -'■ of all its tributary streams, 
 riseth up over all its banks, and overwhelms all where it 
 passes ; as a wind which sweepeth -^ over the desert : a?id 
 passes over all hounds and laws, human and Divine, and 
 is guilty and stands guilty before God, making himself as 
 God, This his power is his god. God had said to Israel, -^Itvill 
 be to thee God. The Chaldaean virtually said, this my strength 
 is to me my god. This Nebuchadnezzar's own words speak ; 
 ^* Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of 
 the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour 
 of my majesty ? And the statue which was to be worshipped, 
 was, very probably, of himself-^, as the intoxication of pride 
 has made other heathen kings or conquerors, Alexander or 
 Darius-^. Belshazzar said, -'^ / tvill be like the 3Iost High, and 
 the prince of Tyre said, ~^I am a god, and Anti-Christ shall ^^ 
 exalt himself above all that is called god, and, as God, sit in 
 the temple of God, shewing himself tliat he is god. Such is all 
 pride. It sets itself in the place of God, it ceases to think 
 itself His instrument, and so is a god to itself, as though its 
 eminence and strength were its own, and its wisdom the 
 source of its power ^"j and its will the measure of its great- 
 ness. The words, with a Divine fulness, express severally, 
 that the king shall sweep along, shall pass over all bounds 
 and all hindrances, and shall pass away, shall be guilty and 
 shall bear his guilt ^^ : and so they comprise in one his sin and 
 his punishment, his greatness and his fall. And so forty 
 years afterwards Nebuchadnezzar, ^^whom he would, he slew ; 
 and whom he would, he kept alive ; and whom he ivould, he 
 set up ; and ichom he would, he put down ; but when his heart 
 tvas lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed 
 from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him ; 
 '^'^ there fell a voice from heaven. The kingdom is departed from 
 thee; and Belshazzar, ^* in the same night that fie lifted up 
 himself against the Lord of heaven, was slain. 
 
 12. The prophet, having summed up the deeds of the 
 enemy of God in this his end, sets forth his questions anew. 
 He had appealed against the evil of the wicked of his peo- 
 ple ; he had been told of the vengeance by the Chaldseans. 
 ^^ But the vengeance is executed by them who are far worse. 
 How then ? The answer is, " Wait to the end, and thou 
 shalt see." What remains are the triumphs of faith ; the 
 second chapter closes with the entire prostration of the 
 whole world before God, and the whole prophecy with 
 joyous trust in God amid the entire failure of all outward 
 
 •s '\hn is used of the overflowing of a river, Is. viii. 8. of a wind chasing, lb. xxi. 1, of 
 the invisible presence of God passing by, Job ix. 11. or a spirit, lb. iv. 15. of the swift 
 passing of our days, like ship or eagle, lb. ix. 26. of idols utterly passing away, Is. ii. 
 is, of rain past and gone. Cant. ii. 11. It is, together with iiy. used of transgressing 
 God's law. Is. xxiv. 5. Itisalwaysintrans., except as piercing the temples of man Jud. v. 
 20, or himself Job xx. 24. '^ nn, i. q. nro, metaphor for simile, as Ps. si, 
 
 1. xxii. 14. (13 Eng.) xc. 4. Job xxiv. 5. Is. Ii. 12. &c. nn can hardly be i. q. im. 
 
 -" iny " pass over" (withlVn, as here,) Is. viii. 8. Nab. i. 8. Hab. iii, 10; " transgress," 
 passim ; ** pass away,' Ps. xxxvii. 6, Job xxxiv. 29, Nah. i. 12. 
 
 =1 Is. viii. 8. " lb. xxi. 1. ^ Ex. vi. 7. ^ Dan. iv. 30. 
 
 25 See Daniel the Prophet p. 443. 26 gge ib. p. 446. 27 Is. xiv. 14. 
 
 2S Ezek. xxviii. 2. 2' 2 Thess.ii. 4. 3" See Ezek. xxviii. 2-5. 3i ock includes both. 
 
 32 Dan. V. 19. 20, 3' Ib. iv. 31, 3j ib. v. 23, 30. ^ Heading of Chap. i.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 411 
 
 cifiiTsT '^ORD my God, mine Holy Ono? we shall 
 
 __='_■■• ^^15: not die. O Lord, ' thou hast ordained them 
 
 Ps/i^'isl'^for judj^ement; and, O f miirhty (Jod, thou 
 
 Is. 10. 5, C, 7. Ezck. 30. 25. f Ueb. nek, Dcut. 32. 4. 
 
 signs of hope. Here, like the Psalmists^ and Jeremiah^, 
 he sets down at the very hejjiniiiii};; liis enth-e trust in (Jod, 
 and so, in the name of all wlio at any time? sliall he j>er- 
 plexed about the order of (iod's jud^^enients, asks liow it 
 shall he, teaching us that th(! only safe way of en(|niring 
 into Cod's ways is by settinji; out with a livinjif eonvietion 
 that they ^ are mercy and truth. And so the address to (lod 
 is full of awe and confidence and inward love. For "*God 
 phuu'th the oil of mercy in the vessel of trustfulness." 
 
 Art not Thou (the word has always an emphasis) Thoti, 
 and not whatsoever or whosoever it he that is opposed to 
 'IMiee, (be it Nebuchadnezzar or Satan) frum evcrlnsling lit. 
 from before ^ ? Go back as far as man can in thoug'ht, 
 God was still before; and so, much more before any of His 
 creatures, such as those who rebel against Him. O Lord, 
 it is the Proper Name of God, " fVhivh is and Which was 
 and Which is to come, I AM, the Unchangeable ; wi/y God, 
 i. e., whereas his own niioht is (he had just said) the hea- 
 then's god, the Lord is his; 7nine Holy One: — one word, 
 denoting that God is his God, sufficeth him not, but he adds 
 (what does not elsewhere occur) mine Holy One, in every 
 way, as liallowing him and hallowed by him: "^VV^ho hal- 
 lowest my soul. Holy in Thine Essence, and Whom as in- 
 comparably Holy I worship in holiness." All-Holy in Him- 
 self, He becometh the Holy One of him to whom He im- 
 parteth Himself, and so, by His own gift, belongetb, as it 
 were, to him. The one word in Hebrew wonderfully iits in 
 with the truth, that God becomes one with man by taking 
 him to Himself. It is full of inward trust too, that he saith, 
 "»?// God, my Holy One," as S, Paul saith, ^ IFho loved me, 
 and gave Himself for me, i. e., as S. Augustine explains it, 
 "9Q Thou God Omnipotent, Who so carest for every one 
 of us, as if Thou caredst for him only ; and so for all, as if they 
 were but one." The title, my Holy One, includes his people 
 with himself; for God was his God, primarily because he 
 was one of the people of God; and his office was for and 
 in behalf of his people. It involves then that other title 
 which had been the great support of Isaiah", by which he 
 at once comforted his people, and impressed upon them 
 the holiness of their God, the holiness which their rela- 
 tion to their God required, the Holy One of Israel. Thence, 
 since Habakkuk lived, for his people with himself, on this 
 relation to God, as my God, my Holy One, and that God, 
 the Uncliaugeable ; it follows, "VFc shall not die ^^." There 
 
 ' Asaph, Ps. Ixxiii. Elhan Ps. Ixxvi. • Jer. xii. 1. 
 
 3 Ps. XXV. 10. •• S. Bern, de Aiinunt. Serm. 3. n. 3. ' See on Micah v. 2. 
 
 6 Rev. i. 8. 7 Dion. s Gal. ii. 9. 9 Conf. iii. 11. 
 
 '" Isaiah uses it in his prophetic answer to Hezekiah (2 Kgs xix. 22. Is. xxxvii. 23,) 
 also in the earlier chapters 12 times and "his holy One" (of Israel) x. 1"; in the 
 chanters xl-lxvi, 14 times, and " his holy One" your holy One" of or to Israel xlix. 
 7. xliii. 35. Else it occurs only in Ps. Ixxviii. 41 (Asaph's), Ixxxix. 19 (Ethan's), Ixxi. 
 22 [Anon., but in Book ii] and Jer. 1. 29, li. 5. 
 
 " The " tikkune sopherim" or so-called " corrections of the scribes" I think, ap- 
 pear to ahnost any one who examines them, not to imply any correction of the text of 
 Holy Scripture, but as meant to suggest what would have' come naturally into the mind 
 of the writer, unless for some reason he liad chosen what stands written. Thus here, 
 the obvious contrast to " Thou art of old ; " might be, (they would say) " Thou wilt 
 continue to be ; " " Thou wilt not die," man uSi ; but since it were unbefitting to speak 
 of death in regard to God, even in denying it, the prophet said ni3] kS, "we shall not 
 die." But no thoughtful Jewish critic could ever have believed that Habakkuk could 
 have said to God, Tlwii wilt not die. It would also, while irreverent to God, have 
 omitted the whole consolation to his people. Of Jewish Commentators, Kim., A. E., 
 Abarb. Tanch., do not think it wortli while to allude to the correction j Sal. B. Melech 
 
 iniquity :)J'„t'j. 
 
 k l'». 5. 5. 
 
 hast f established them for eorreetion. ^, ^f^[\ j, 
 
 1'6 ^ Thou art of purer eyes than to be- . '■"■ *^^- 
 hold evil, and canst not look on 
 
 II Or, grievance, 
 
 is no need of any mark of inference, "therefore we shall 
 not die." It is an infcrcncf, but it so lay in tliose titles 
 of (Jod, lie Is, My (iod. My Holy One, that it was a more 
 loving (•(infidcnce to say directly, ice shall not die. The 
 OIK! thought involved the other, (iod, the rnchangeahle, 
 had made Himself their (iod. It was impossible, then, that 
 He should cast them off or that they should j)erisb. JVe 
 shall not die, is the lightning thought of faith, which flashes 
 on the soul like all inspirations of (iod, founded on His 
 truth and word, but borne in, as it were, instinctively with- 
 out inference oti the soul, with the same contidcnce as tin; 
 Psalmist says^-. The Lord hath chastened me sore; but He 
 hath not given me over unto death; and Malaehi, '^/ am the 
 Lord, I change 7iot ; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. 
 "i*Thou createdst us from the beginning; by Thy mercy 
 we are in being hitherto." 'I'hy gifts and calling arc with- 
 out repentance^". " Did we look to his might; none of us 
 could withstand him. Look we to Thy mercy. Thine alone 
 is it that we live, are not slain by him, nor led to deeds 
 of death." O Lord, again he repeats the Name of (Jod, 
 whereby He had revealed Himself as their God, the Un- 
 changeable; Thou, whose mercies fail not, hast ordained them 
 for judgement, not for vengeance or to make a full end, 
 or for his own ends and pleasure, but to correct Thine own 
 ^^ in ?neasure, which he, exceeding, sinned'^. 
 
 And O mighti/ God [lit. hock]. It is a bold title. My 
 rock is a title much used by David '**, perhaps suggested by 
 the fastnesses amid which he passed his hunted life, to 
 express, that not in them but in His God was his safety. 
 Habakkuk purposely widens it. He appeals to (iod, not 
 only as Israel's might and upholder, l)ut as the sole Source 
 of all strength, the Supporter of all which is upheld ''^, and 
 so, for the time, of the Chalda'an too. Hence he continues 
 the simple image: Thou hast founded him. "-"Thou hast 
 made him to stand firm as the foundation of a building;" 
 to reprove or set before those who have sinned against Thee, 
 what they had done. Since then God was the Hock, Who 
 had founded them, from Him Alone had they strenirtli: \\hen 
 He should withdraw it, they must fall. How then did they 
 yet abide, who abused the power given them and counted 
 it their own ? And this the more, since 
 
 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil. The pro- 
 phet repeats his complaint, (as troubling thoughts are wont 
 to come back, after they have been repeUed,) in order to 
 
 mentions it, to reject it ; Rashi quotes it as the writing of the prophet. Several of the 
 18 Tikkune Sopherim are childish ; no one of value. The Clialdce follows the sug- 
 gestion, paraphrasing, " Thy word abideth for ever ; " the LXX, not. Ewald corrects 
 as the Chaldee. The Tikk. Soph, are given in buxtorf Lex. Chald. pp. 2G31, sqq. A. 
 glance will shew that they are no real corrections. 
 
 '- Ps. cxviii. 18. " Mai. iii. 6. " S. Jer. 
 
 '= Rom. xi. 29. i« Jer. x. 24. xxx. 11. '? See Isa. x. 5. xlvii. G. Zech. i. 15. 
 
 " Ps. xviii. 2. -K. xix. 15. xxviii. 1. Ixii. 6. 7. cxliv. 1. else only in Deut. xxxii. 1. Ps. 
 xcii. 15. anon. Else Moses speaks in his Song of "the Rock." "our Rock," "their 
 Rock," " Rock of his salvation," " the Rock who begat thee," [Deut. xxxii. 4, 31, 30. 
 15, 18.] and in reference to Deut. Ps. lx.\viii. 35, and Hannah, "there is no rock like 
 our God," 1 Sam. ii. 2, and David asks, "Who is a rock beside Thee?" 2 Sam. xxii. 31, 
 and calls Him "the Rock of Israel," 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, "the Rock of my strength" Ps. 
 Ixii. 8, and Ethan says that God entitled David to call Him " Rock of my salvation," 
 Ps. Ixxxix. 2G. and Asaph calls Him, "the Rock of my heart." Ps. Ixxiii. 26. Isaiah in 
 his song entitles God " the Rock of ages," Isa. xxvi. 4. also " the Rock of Israel," xxx. 
 29, " the rock of thy [Israel's] strength," xvii. 10. Else it occurs only in two anonj-mous 
 Psalms, "the rock of my refuge," Ps. xciv. 22, "of our salvation," xcv. 1. 
 
 '9 " Tliou Who art the Rock of all ages hast founded him to reprove by him all the 
 nations of the earth." Kim, i" Kim.
 
 412 
 
 MABAKKUK. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. G26. 
 
 IJer. 12. 1. 
 
 I Or, vwving. 
 
 'wherefore lookest thou upon them that 
 deal treaclierously, and hohlest thy tongue 
 when the wicked devouretli the man that is 
 more righteous than he ? 
 
 14 And makest men as the fishes of the 
 sea, as the || creeping things, that huce no 
 ruler oVer them ? i*a. lu.g. UMZ *^«^/ 7 
 
 answer it more strongly. All sin is hateful in God's sight, 
 and in His Holy Wisdom He cannot endure to look towards 
 inupdty. As man turns away from sickening sights, so 
 God's abhorrence of wrong is pictured by His not being 
 able to look towards it. If He looked towards them, they 
 must perish '. Light cannot co-exist with darkness, iire 
 with water, heat with cold, deformity with beauty, foulness 
 with sweetness, nor is sin compatible with the Presence of 
 God, except as its Judge and punisher. Thou canst not 
 look. There is an entire contradi(;tion between God and 
 unholiness. And yet, wherefore lookest Thou upon, viewest, 
 as in Thy full sight-, yea, as it would seem, with favour', 
 bestowing on them the goods of this life, honour, glory, 
 children, riches, as the Psalmist saith;* Behold these are 
 the ungodly, who prosper in the world, they increase in riches ? 
 Why lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, /widest 
 Thy tongue, puttest restraint', as it were, upon Thyself and 
 Thine own attribute of Justice, when the wicked dcvoureth 
 the man that is more righteous than he f ^ In God's sight no 
 man living can he justified ; and in one sense Sodom and 
 Gomorrah were less unrighteous than Jerusalem, and ^ it 
 shall be more tolerable for them in the day of Judgement, be- 
 cause they sinned against less light ; yet the actual sins of 
 the Chaldee were greater than those of Jerusalem, and Satan's 
 evil is greater than that of those who are his prey. To say 
 that Judah was more righteous than the Chaldean does not 
 imply any righteousness of the Chaldsan, as the saying that 
 * God ransomed Jacob from the hand of one stronger than he, 
 does not imply any strength remaining to Israel. Then, 
 also, in all the general judgements of God, the righteous too 
 suffer in this world, whence Abraham intercedes for Sodom, 
 if there were but ten righteous in it ; lest ** the righteous 
 be destroyed with the wicked. Hence God also spared Nine- 
 veh in part as having ^^ 7nore than si.vscore thousand persons 
 that cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
 hand, i. e. good from evil. No times were fuller of sin than 
 those before the destruction of Jerusalem, yet the fury of 
 the Assassins fell upon the innocent. And so the words, 
 like the voice of the souls under the Altar ^^, become the cry 
 of the Church at all times against the oppressing world, and 
 of the blood of the Martyrs from Abel to the end. Lord, how 
 long ? And in that the word Righteous ^- signifies both "one 
 righteous man," and the whole class or generation of the 
 righteous, it speaks both of Christ the Head and of all His 
 members in whom (as by Saul) He was persecuted. The 
 wicked also includes all persecutors, both those who slew 
 
 1 Ps. civ. 32. 
 
 "- The preposition ^tt is left out in tMs place, as if to make the contrast stronger. 
 God cannot endure to look towards ('?n) iniquity, and yet He does cot only this, but 
 teholdeth it, contemplatelh it, and still is silent. 
 
 3 So the word means mostly ; " regard favourably ; " except Ps. x. 14. where it is 
 said that God beheld ungodliness to avenge it. -* Ps. Ixxiii. 12. 
 
 » vrmn translated "keep silent" Ps. xxxv. 22. 1. 21. implies an acting on a per- 
 son's self. 6 Ps. cxliii. 2. '' S. Matt. x. 15. xi. 21. S. Mark vi. 11. S. Luke x. 12. 
 
 « ,ler. xxxj. 11. Del. » Gen. xviii. 23,. i" Jon. iv. 11. " Rev. vi. 10. 
 
 12 'Singular in Hebrew, yet so that it may tie used of many. '^ S. Jas. ii. 6, 7. 
 
 15 They "take up all of them with the ch^rTst 
 angle, they catch tliem in their net, and " " ■ '"'^- 
 gather them in their |1 drag : therefore they "" a,',o!,*4.^2.' 
 rejoice and are glad. \\Ot,fluenet. 
 
 16 Therefore " they sacrifice unto their 
 
 net, and burn incense unto their drag ; ° Deut. s. 17. 
 
 - 11 , , .... Isai. 10. 13. 
 
 because by them their portion ts rat, & 37. 24, 25. 
 
 the Lord Christ, and those who brought His servants before 
 judgement-seats, and blasphemed His Name'^, and caused 
 many to blaspheme, and slew whom they could not compel. 
 And God, all the while, seemeth to look away and to regard 
 not. 
 
 14. And makest men us the fishes of the sea, dumh, help- 
 less, in a stormy, restless element, no cry heard, but them- 
 selves swept away in shoals, with no power to resist, as the 
 creeping things, whether of the land (as it is mostly used), or 
 the sea '*. Either way it is a contemptuous name for the 
 lowest of either. That have no ruler over them; none to 
 guide, order, protect them, and so a picture of man deprived 
 of the care and providence of God. 
 
 15. They take up all of them [lit. he takefh up all of it] 
 the whole race as though it were one, with an angle ; they 
 catch them, [lit. he sweepeth it away] in their [his] net. One 
 fisherman is singled out who partly by wiles [as by the bait 
 of an angle], partly by violence, [the net or drag] sweeps 
 away^^ and gathers as his own the whole kind. ' Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and the Chaldaeans are herein a faint image of Satan, 
 who casts out his baits and his nets in the stormy sea of 
 this life, taking some by individual craft, sweeping others in 
 whole masses, to do evil ; and whoso hath no ruler, and will 
 not have Christ to reign over him ^^, he allures, hurries, 
 drags away as his prey. "^'^ Adam clave to his hook, and he 
 drew him forth out of Paradise with his net ; and covered 
 him with his drags, his varied and manifold deceits and 
 guiles. And by oiie tnany became siniiers, and in Adam we 
 all died, and all saints afterwards were with him alike cast 
 out of Paradise. And because he deceived the first man, he 
 ceaseth not daily to slay the whole human race." 
 
 16. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn in- 
 ce7ise unto their drag, [lit he sacrifices unto his &c.] Whatever 
 a man trusts in, is his god. If a man relies to compass his 
 end by his strength, or his wisdom, or his forethought, or his 
 wealth, his armies or navies, these his forces are his god. 
 So the Assyrian said, '^ J3y the strength of my hand I did it ; 
 and by my wisdom, for I am prudent ; and God answered. 
 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith ? 
 The coarse forms of idolatry only embody outwardly the 
 deep inward idolatry of the corrupt human mind. The idol 
 is '^'^ set up in the heart first. There have not indeed been 
 wanting savage nations, who in very deed worshipped their 
 arms ^° ; those of old worshipped spears as immortal gods -^ ; 
 Even now we are told of some North American Indians 
 "--who designate their bow and arrow as the only bene- 
 
 " Ps. civ. 25. 
 
 1^ The word 113, jjarar, expresses by its sound the grating noise of the pebbles on the 
 sea-shore. The word is singular, although it viiifht be a collective. 
 
 i« S. Luke xix. 1. 17 S. Jer. '" Is. x. 13. 15. '» Ezek. xiv. 4. 
 
 2' The Scythians. Herod, iv. 62. Lucian Jov. Tragffid. 42. p. 275, Amob. vi. § 11, 
 Mela ii. 1. Clem. Al. Protr. iv. p. 40, ed. Pott., Amm. Marc. xxvi. 2. The Quadi did the 
 same. Id. xvii. 12. fin. The chance discovery of one of these sacred swords of the 
 Scythian kings made Attila think himself " made prince of the whole world." Jordanes 
 de Get. orig. c. 35, from Priscus, a contemporary. -' Justin L. 43. c. 3. 
 
 -- Waitz die Indianer Nord- Americas 1867 p. 127. quoted by Ewald.
 
 CHAPTER II: 
 
 413 
 
 c h'rTs t ^"'^ their moat || f plenteous. j 
 
 cir. 02r .. 17 Shall they therefore empty their net, 
 
 \"i'J."fai!' Jiofl "ot spare eontiiiually to slay the na- 
 tions ? 
 
 CIIAPTKR II. 
 
 1 Unto Huhakknk, widthii^ fur an amswer, is 
 shewed that he must wait /;// faith. 5 The 
 jiidge))ie)it upon the Chaldean far nnsatiahleness, 
 9 for covetousness, 12 /or cruelty, 15 for drunk- 
 enness, 18 and for idolatrr/. 
 
 ficent deities wlioin tliey kiuiw." Amoiifr the eivilised Ro- 
 mans, the worship of the eagles, their staruhinls ', to whom 
 they did sacrifiec", was no otiicr nor better. The inward 
 idohitry is only a more subtle form of the same sin, the evil 
 spirit which shapes itself in the outward shew. Here the 
 idolatry of self is meant, which did not join creatnres with 
 CJod as objects of worship; but, denyinfc Him in practice 
 or misbelief, became a god to itself I So Habakkuk had 
 said, //*/.v his strength is his god. His idol was himself. 
 
 Because hij them their portion is fat, and their 7neat plen- 
 teous (lit. as "in E. M., well-fed). All the choicest things 
 of the world stood at his command, as Nebuchadnezzar 
 boasted*, and all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, 
 all the knowledge and wisdom and learning of the world, and 
 the whole world itself, were Satan's lawful prey ^ " '^ Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, as by a hook and meshes and line, swept into his 
 own land both Israel himself and other nations, encompass- 
 ing them. Satan, as it were, by one line and net, that of 
 sin, enclosed all, and Israel especially, on account of his 
 impiety to Christ. His food was ehoire. For Israel was 
 chosen above the rest, as from a holy root, that of the 
 fathers, and having the law as a schoolmaster, and being 
 called to the knowledge of the one true God. Yet he, hav- 
 ing this glory and grace, was taken with the rest. Thet/ be- 
 came his prey by error; but Israel, knowing Him Who is by 
 nature God, slaying ungodlily Him Who was by nature His 
 Begotten Son and Who came as Man, were taken in his 
 nets." 
 
 17. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare 
 continually to slay the nations? The prophet, like Isaiah 7, 
 stands at the very last point, before the fnry and desire of 
 the enemy was fulfilled. Men, like fish, were gathered to- 
 gether for a prey; he who had taken them was rejoicing 
 and exulting beforehand in his booty ; his portion and meat 
 were the choice of the earth ; the prophet looks on, as it 
 were, and beholds the net full; there is but one step more; 
 " Shall he empty it ? Shall he then devour those whom he 
 has caught? and so cast his emptied net again unceasingly, 
 pitilessly, to slay the nations ?" This question he answers 
 in the next chapter ; A Deliverer will come. 
 
 II. 1. / will stand [I would stand mow], as a servant 
 awaiting his master, upon my watch [or keep *], and set me 
 [plant myself firmly] upon the tower [lit. fenced place, but 
 
 ' See Tertull. Apol. c. 16 and note e. f. g. p. 38. Oxf. Tr. ' Joseph, de Bell. 
 Jud. vi. 32. . . , , ,. 
 
 ■' A heathen poet, wishing to express this irreverence, puts into a warrior s mouth this 
 prayer : " Now may my right hand, to me god, and the weapon which I brandish, be my 
 helper!" Virg. ^n. vii. ti48. add Stat. x. 545. iii. Mn, sq. So the Times said at the 
 beginning of the late war, "The French almost worshipped the mitrailleuse as a god- 
 dess." They idolised, it would say, their invention, as if it could do what God alone 
 could. ■• Dan. iv. 30. comp. 22. ^ S. Luke iv. 6. S. John xii. 31. Isa. xlix. 21. 
 
 ' S. Cyr. ' Isa. xviii. 4, 5. * lb. xxi. 8. •'ixa in the same 
 
 sense Jcr. li. 12. ' llence nB« " watchman," the " prophet" Isa. Hi. 8. Jer. 
 
 vi. 17. Ezek. iii. 17. xxxiii. 7. Kal ; of the prophets, Pih. Mic. vii. 4; of looking up 
 
 PART V. 
 
 I WILL 'stand upon my watch, and set 
 me upon the f tower, ''and will watch 
 to see what Ik; will say || unto me, and 
 what I shall answer || f when I am re|trovefl. 
 
 2 And the lioiu) answered me, and said, 
 " Write the vision, and make; it plain upon 
 tahles, that he may run that readeth it. 
 
 3 For ''the vision h yet for an appointed 
 time, but at the end it shall speak, and 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. fiaiS. 
 
 « Is. 21. 8, U. 
 
 f H eb. fenced 
 
 place. 
 '• I'o. Ki. 8. 
 II Or, in me. 
 II Or, when / 
 
 am arfrued 
 
 with. 
 f llcb. ujion my 
 
 reproof, or, 
 
 arf/uine. 
 ' Isai.H.'l. 
 
 iv 30. H. 
 J Dan. 10. 1 i. 
 
 & 11. 27, 35. 
 
 also one straitened and naiTOwly hemmed in], and will 
 watch (it is a title of th(! prophets'-', as espying, by God's ena- 
 bling, things beyond human ken); I will esjjy out, to see a 
 long way off, to see with the inward eye, iuh<it lie will say 
 unto me [lit. '"/«. wc] ; first revealing Himself in the pro- 
 phets "within to the inner man;" then, through them. 
 And wliat I s] ml I answer when I am rejirored^^, or, ujion my 
 complaint, lit. upon my reproof or arguing; which might 
 mean, either that others argued against him, or that he 
 had argued, pleaded in the name of others, and now listened 
 to hear what God would answer in him^-, and so he, as ta\ight 
 by God, should answer to his own plea. But he had so 
 pleaded with God, repeatedly, ^rhy is this ? He has given 
 no hint, that any ctnnplained of or reproved him. 
 
 "i^By an image from those who, in war and siege, have 
 the ward of the wall distributed to them, he says, / will 
 stand upon my watch." " ^ It was the wont of the Saints, 
 when they wislied to learn the things of God, and to receive 
 the knowledge of things to come through His voice in their 
 mind and heart, to raise it on high above distractions and 
 anxieties and all worldly care, holding and keeping it unoc- 
 cupied and peaceful, rising as to an eminence to lotik around 
 and contemplate what the God of all knowledge should make 
 clear to them. For He hateth the earth-bound and abject 
 mind, and seeks hearts which can soar aloft, raised above 
 earthly things and temporal desires." The prophet takes his 
 stand, apart from men and the thoughts and cares of this 
 world, on his lonely watch, as Moses on the rock, keeping 
 himself and kept by God, and planted firm, so that nothing 
 should move him, fenced around though straitened in '*, as 
 in a besieged camp committed to his ward, looking out from 
 his lofty place what answer God would give as to times long 
 distant, and what answer he should give first to himself, 
 and to those to whom his oflice lay, God's people. 
 
 2. The answer is, that it is indeed for a long time yet. 
 TFrite the vision, that it may remain for those who come 
 after and not be forgotten, and make it plain ^= tipon the 
 tables, whereon he was wont to write i"; and that, in large 
 lasting characters, that he may run that readeth it, that it 
 may be plain to any, however occupied or in haste. So 
 Isaiah too was bidden to write the four words, haste-prey- 
 speed-spoil. 
 
 3. For the vision is yet for an {the'] appointed time. ^^ Not 
 
 to God, Ps. V. 4 ; with 3 Mic. vii. 7. " S. Jer. " The Rahb. Kim. A. E. Rashi, 
 Tanch.'Sal. B. Mel., Abarb. take it as the E. V., probably thinking the other to be 
 too bold an expression towards God. '- See Num. xii. 6. and on Zech. i. 19. 
 
 13 Theod". '■* Symm. Theod. Aq. agree in this sense of narrowness. 
 
 1^ Etvinologically, "1K3 means "engrave," lit. rfiVir; like so many other words, which 
 come to mean "write," as ons i^jth :En, Dsn Ges. ; so ypd(peiv, cingraben, grahen, en- 
 grave, [Id.] but it only occurs as "make clear, explain," De. xxvii. 8. So Kim. &c. 
 
 '6 ni^ is a table or tablet, on which Isaiah too was bidden to write what was to 
 last, though in parallelism with a " book." Isa. xxx. 8. " the tablets which boys write 
 on." A. E. comp. Ezek. xvii. U. Jer. xxx. 2. 
 
 i< Ewald ad loc. ; but therewith the theory of a mere human foresight is abandoned. 
 
 Q Q Q
 
 414 
 
 IIAIJAKKUK. 
 
 c h^rTs t ""^ ^^^ ' t'iou!jfh it tarry, wait for it ; 
 "■•• sac, because it will " surely cuuii;, it will not 
 
 'Heb.10.37. t.^^,.y_ 
 
 for the present, but to dcvelope itself in tlie course of time, j 
 down to a season which (iod only knows ; as it is subsccjiient- 
 ly repeated, ^for tlw end is yet for lite apjioiiilcd time; "for it 
 is for the appointed time of the end ; and is explained, '•''for the 
 vision is yet for the dai/s; ''for it is for 7n(niy days; ^the house 
 of Israel' say. The vision that he seetk, in for many days and 
 lie propliesielh of the times far off; yet it shouhl haste to- 
 wards the end, towards its fnliilnient, so that, if it is not at 
 once fulfilled, it should he surely waited for. " ^ It shall cer- 
 tainly be; not in vain hath it been shewn, but as certainly to 
 be. For whatever hath been shewn to come and to be, will 
 come and be." 
 
 Bat at the end it shall speak'' [or it hreathcth, tiasteth to 
 the e«f/], not simply "to its own fulfilment," but to that 
 time of the end which should close the period assigned to 
 it, durius; which it should continually be puttinj!; itself forth, 
 it should come true in part or in shadow, gleams of it 
 shouhl here and there part the clouds, which, until the end, 
 should surround and envelope it. Being God's truth, he 
 speaks of it as an animate living thing, not a dead letter, 
 hut running, hasting on its course, and accom])lishing on 
 its way that for which it was sent. The M'ill aiul purpose 
 of (iod hasteth on, though to man it scemcth to tarry; 
 it can neither be hurried on, nor doth it linger; before the 
 appointed time it cometh not ; yet it hasteth towards it, and 
 will not be behindhand when the time comes. It does not 
 lie, either by failing to come, or failing, when come, of 
 any jot or tittle. Though it tarry or linger**, continually 
 appearing, giving signs of itself, yet continually delaying 
 its coming, wait for it ; because it will surely come, it iciil 
 not be behindhand'^, when the time comes. ^^ He cometh 
 (/ui(;Aly also, as He saith ; because " ^^ though the delay of His 
 Coming and of the fulfilment of the vision seem long, yet, in 
 comparison with eternity, it is very short. In His First 
 Coming, He taught why God pcrmitteth these things ; in the 
 Second, He shall teach by experience, how good it is for the 
 good to bear the persecution of the evil; whence S. Peter 
 also has to say, ^'- The Lord is not slack concerning His pro- 
 mise, as some men count slackness." The words sgeni to be- 
 long, in the first instance, to the vision itself; but the vision 
 had no other existence or fulfilment than in Him Who was 
 the Object of it, and Who, in it, was foreshadowed to the 
 mind. The coming of the vision was no other than His 
 Coming. The waiting, to which he exhorts, expresses the 
 religious act. so often spoken of, ^' of waiting for God, or His 
 counsel, or His promised time. The sense then is wholly the 
 same, when S. Paul uses the words of the Coming of our Lord 
 
 4 Behold, his soul icliich is lifted up is ch^rTst 
 not uprif^ht in him : but the 'just shall live "*•• ^^- 
 
 by his faith. UohnS. Se. Rom. 1.17. Gal. 3. U. Heb. 10. 38. 
 
 follows the Rabbins [Kim. Comm., A. E., Tanob., Rashi, Abarb.] so far in renderinj 
 ns; " speak." Yet in all the cases of both roots. niD, ns\ except Prov. xii. 17, nJiCN n's;, thi 
 root is used not of mere *' speaking" but of "breathing out" like i^trvtuiv airnkris (Act; 
 xi. 1.) " breathinp; out threatening." In five cases it occurs in the one idiom, " breathetl 
 
 ' Dan. xi. 27. /or it is for the appointed time, ib. 35. - Ib.viii. 19. 
 3 Ib. X. 1, 11. ^ Ib. viii. 26. ^ Ezek. xii. 27. ^ Theod'. 7 The E. V. 
 follows the Rabbins [Kim. Comm., A. E., Tanch., Rashi, Abarb.] so far in rendering 
 , . .. . .... T) :: ,- l.the 
 
 (Acts 
 
 „..,., „ _ J,. , breatheth 
 
 out lies," D'3i3 n'D', Pr. vi. 19, xiv. 5, 25, xix. 5, 9. In other idioms i'? n'3', Dn2 n's' Ps. x. 
 5, xii. <!, it is still used of puffing at "contemptuously." Else the Kal is used of the cool 
 air of the evening Cant. li. 17. iv. 6, and Hifil of " causing to blow," Ib. iv. 10. Else 
 it is only used (meta])h.) of blowing up, kindling, (as we say) stirring up a city to strife 
 Pr. xxix. 8, and blowing up the fire of the wrath of God, Ez. xxi. 36. ns^nri is used of the 
 deep sigh of agony Jer. iv. 31. andoinnB' Ps. xxvii. 12. "breathing forth violence "stands 
 united with " false witness " as in the Prov. If understood then of speaking, it would be 
 " breathing of the end " (V relating to the subject of the speech, as so often) which would 
 be much the same as, breatheth panting towards the end, (like h "jw, Eccl. i. 6.) 
 
 Himself, ^* Yet a little while, and He that shall come, tvill come 
 and will 7iot tarry. S. Paul, as well as Hahakkiik, is sj»caking 
 of our liord's Second Coming ; S. Paul, of His Coming in Per- 
 son, Ilabakkuk, of t lie ett'ects of that Coming '^; hut both alike 
 of the redressing of all the evil and wntng in the world's his- 
 tory, and the reward of the faithful o]ipressed. At His 
 First Coming He said, ^" Now is the judgement of this world; 
 now shall the prince of this world he cast out. He r-ame to 
 ^" put down the mighty from their seat, and to exult the humble 
 and meek; but much more in the Second, when ^^ He shall 
 come to judge the world with righteousness and the people 
 with His truth, and to ^' reward every man according to his 
 works. At all times He seemeth continually to linger, to give 
 signs of His Coming, yet He cometii not; when the appointed 
 season shall come. He shall be found not to be "later" than 
 His word. Yea, all time shall shrink up into a little moment 
 in the presence of a never-ending ever-present eternity. 
 
 "-"Having named no one expressly, he says, wait for him, 
 wait for him although delaying, and halt not in thy hope, 
 but let it be rooted and firm, even if the interval be extended. 
 For the God of all seemeth to suggest to the mind of the 
 Proi)het, that He who was foretold would surely come, yet to 
 enjoin on him to wait for Him on account of the interval. 
 He who believeth ]My word shall possess life, for this is the 
 reward of those who honour God, and a good reward of His 
 benevolence. He who admitteth faith and love to dwell in 
 his heart hath as a requital, un-aging life and forgiveness 
 of sins and sanctification by the Spirit." " -^He shall live ; for 
 -- God is not the God of the dead but of the living, " -^ JVhoso 
 liveth and believeth in 3le, shall never die." 
 
 If will not lie. God vouchsafes to speak of Himself, as 
 we should he ashamed to speak of one whom we love, teach- 
 ing us that all doubts question His truth. -* God is not a man, 
 that He should lie : hath He said and shall He not do it ? 
 "^ The strength of Israel shall neither lie nor repent. -^ God 
 that cannot lie, promised before tlie world began. Therefore 
 it follows, wait for Him, as Jacob says, "^ I have waited for 
 Thy salvation, O Lord. 
 
 4. Behold, his soul ivhich is lifted up [l\t. swollen ~^^ is not 
 upright in him. The construction is probably that of a con- 
 dition expressed abstdutcly. Lo, swollen is it, not upright is 
 his soul in him. We should say, 'His soul, if it be swollen-^, 
 puffed up, is not upright in him.' The source of all sin was 
 and is pride. It is esj)ecially the sin of all oppressors, of the 
 Chaldec, of Anti-Christs, and shall be of the Anti-Christ. It 
 is the parent of all heresy, and of all corruption and rejection 
 of the Gosjiel. It stands therefore as the type of all opposed 
 
 8 ncnDnn (no kal. ) seems to be compound of nn, no, loliii, wlni ? the answer of one pro- 
 crastinating. It occurs thrice in the Pent., twice in Judges, else only in 2 Sam. xv. 19, 
 in the propliets Is. xxix. 9, and in Ps. cxix. 00. of religious procrastinating. In Arab, 
 are the like forms HDnD and .ii.i:. " nnun n7 
 
 10 Rev. xxii. 7. " from Dion. '= 2 S. Pet. iii. 9. '^ Ps. .xxxiii. 20. 
 
 Isai. viii. 17. xxx. 18. Ixiv. 3. Zeph. iii. 8. Dan. xii. 12. Ps. cvi. 13. » Heb. x. 37. 
 
 1^ The vivid words, in themselves, rather express a personal agent ; what would be 
 figureas to the vision are simple words as to Him Who was foreshown. Whence the 
 Lxx change the gender and interpret the clause of a person, " He who shall come." 
 
 i« S. John xii. 31. '7 S. Luke i. 52. '» Ps. xlvi. 13. " S. Matt. xri. 27. 
 
 =0 S. Cyr. 21 Alb. - S. Matt. xxii. 32. ■■> S. John xi. 26. 
 
 =4 Nu. xxiii. 19. -^ 1 Sam. xv. 29. =« Tit. i. 2. 27 Gen. xUx. 18. 
 
 2'* rhpv^ See on jMicah iv. 8. p. 326, note 12. 
 
 2' In the Lxx ikv uiro(TTii\rirai. mn is used thus absolutely, the condition being im- 
 plied, Deut. xiii. 15, 10. In Ex. viii. 22. the future is used absolutely with p.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 415 
 
 to It. Of it he says, it is in its very inmost rore [iti hltn] 
 laclviiii;- in ii|trif;litncss. It (!an have no good in it, be(!ausc 
 it denies (ir»d, and (iod denies it His j^raee. And havin;^ 
 nothini;- u|irii;lit in it, heiny; eornipt in its very inmost be- 
 mp;, it <'ann()t stand or al)i(U'. (iod i;ives it no jiower to 
 stand. Tiie words stand in contrast witii the toihiwinL^, 
 the one speakin;;- <d" the eanse of death, the other <d" life. 
 Tiic soul, heinj;- swollen with pride, shuts out faith, and 
 with it the Presence of (Jod. It is all (Tooked in its very 
 inner self or heinij. S. i'aul i^ives the result, ' //" «?/»/ man 
 dfdw hack, nij/ soul liatli tio jilcasurc iti him. The prophet's 
 words describe the proud man who stands alo(d' from (jod, 
 in himself; S. I'aul, as lie is in the Eyes id" (iod. As that 
 which is swtdlen in nature cannot he straiii'ht, it is clean 
 contrary that the soul should be swollen with pride and yet 
 npriu'lit. Its moral life being destroyed in its very inmost 
 heart, it m\ist perish. 
 
 "-Plato saith, that properly is straight, which being ap- 
 plied to what is straight, touches and is touched every where. 
 Hut (iod is u])right, ^A'bom the upright soul touches and is 
 touclicd every Mliere; but what is not upright is bent away 
 from (jod. •' God is good unto Israel, the upright in heart. 
 ^ The upright love thee. ^ The war/ of the just is uprightness, 
 Thou, most Upright, dost weigh the path of the just." 
 
 But the just shall live hi/ his faith. Tiic accents em- 
 phasise the words". The just, by his faith he shall live. They 
 do not point to an union of the words, the just hi; his faith. 
 Isaiah says that Christ should /m,v///// maiti/ hy the knowledge 
 of Himself, but the exjiression, just by his faith, does not 
 occur cither in the O. or N. T. In fact, to speak of one really 
 righteous*' as being "righteous by his faith" would imply 
 that men could be righteous in some other way. Withimt 
 faith, S. Paul says at the commencement of his (^Id Testa- 
 ment pictures of giant faith, ^ it is impossible to please God. 
 Faith, in the creature which does not yet see God, has one 
 and the same principle, a trustful relying belief in its Crea- 
 tor. This was the characteristic of Abraham their father, 
 unshaken, unswerving, belief in God Who called him, whether 
 in leaving his own land and going whither he knew not, for 
 an end which he was never to see; or in believing the pro- 
 mise of the son through whom that Seed was to be, in Whom 
 all the nations of the world should be blessed; or in the 
 crowning act of otfering that son to God, knowing that he 
 should receive him back, even from the dead. In all, it was 
 one and the same principle. "' His belief ivas counted to him 
 for righteousness, though the immediate instance of that faith 
 was not directly spiritual. In this was the good and bad of 
 Israel. ^' The people believed. '- They believed the Lord and 
 His servant Moses. ^^ Then believed they His word, they sang 
 His praise. This contrariwise was tlieir blame. ^* In this ye 
 did not believe the Lord. ^° Ye rebelled agai)ist the command- 
 nient of the Lord your God, and believed Him not, nor heark- 
 ened to His voice. ^'^ They forgat God their Saviour; they 
 despised the pleasant land, they believed not His word. And 
 God asks, ^^ How long will it be, ere this people believe Me, for 
 all the signs which I have shoion among them ? ^* Anger came 
 upon Israel, because they believed not in God, and in His sal- 
 vation trusted not. ^'•' For all this they sinned still, and be- 
 lieved not His icondrous works. Even of Moses and Aaron 
 God assigns this as the ground, why they should not bring 
 His people into the land which He gave them, -^Because 
 
 « Heb. X. 30. " Alb. 3 Ps. Ixxiii. 1. ■• Cant. i. 4. 5 Is. xxvi. 7. 
 
 « .See Delilzsch. ^ pns" mjn3 Is. liii. 11. ^ As ^-^^i always is. ' Heb. xi. 6. 
 '» Gen. XV. 0. " Ex. iv. 31. '- lb. xiv. 31. " Ps. cvi. 12. 
 
 ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the cldld- 
 ren of Israel (at Meribah). This was the watchword of 
 .Tehoshaphat's victory, -' Believe in the Lord ytmr God and 
 ye shall be establisheil ; believe His prophets, so shall ye pros- 
 jier. This continued t<» \h'. one central saying <d' Isaiah. 
 It was his own commis>ion to his \){-i>\\U' ; -- Go and say to 
 this jieo/ile ; hear )/i' on, and understand not ; see ye on and 
 perceive not. In sight of the reje<-tion of faith, he spake 
 prominently of the loss upon uidjelief; ■'' If ye will not be- 
 lieve, surely ye shall not he established; and, -'' IFho hath 
 believed our report ? he premises as the attitude of his 
 ]ieo[de towards Ilim, the (Jentre of all faith, Jesus. Vet 
 still, as to the blessings of faith, having sjioken of Him, 
 -' Thus saith the Lord God, liehold, I lay in Zion for a 
 foundation, a stone, a tried slotie, a precious corner-stone, he 
 subjoins, he that believeth in Hirn shall not make haste. 
 
 So it had been the key-note of Habakkuk to his peo- 
 ple, Ye will not believe when it is declared unto you. Here 
 h(> is bid to declare contrariwise; the blessing on belief. 
 The just shall lire by his faith. The faith, then, of which 
 llal)akkuk speaks, is faith, in itself, but a real, true r;ontiding 
 faith. It is the one relation of the creature to the Creator, 
 unshaken tru.st. The faith may vary in chara<;tcr, accord- 
 ing as God reveals more or less of Himself, but itself is one, 
 a loving trust in Him, just as He reveals Himself. "^^By 
 this faith in God, each righteous person begins to live 
 piously, righteously, holily, peacefully and divinely, and 
 advanceth therein, since in every tribulation and misery, 
 by this faith and hope in God he sustains, strengthens, and 
 increases this life of the soul. He says then, the just lives 
 by faith, i. e., the unbelieving and unrighteous displeases 
 God, and consecjuently will not live by the true, right, 
 peaceful and hap|)y life of grace, present rii.'-liteoiisncss. and 
 future glory, because God is displeased witli him, and he 
 places his hopes and fears, not in God, but in men and 
 man's help and in created things. But the righteous who 
 believeth in God shall live a right, .sweet, quiet, happy, 
 holy, untroubled life, because, fixed by faith and hope in God 
 Who is the true Life, and in God's promises, he is dear to 
 God, and the object of His care. 
 
 " This sentence, the just shall live by faith, is universal, 
 belonging at once to Jews and Christians, to sinners who 
 are first being justified, as also to those who are already 
 justified. For the spiritual life of each of these begins, is 
 maintained and grows through faith. When then it is said, 
 the just shall live by his faith, tliis word, ///.■., marks the 
 cause, which both begins and preserves life. Tlu; just, be- 
 lieving and hoping in God, begins to live spiritually, to 
 have a soul right within him, whereby he pleases (iod ; and 
 again, advancing and making progress in this his faith and 
 hope in God, therewith advances and makes progress in 
 the spiritual life, in rightness and righteousness of soul, in 
 the grace and friendship of God, so as more and more 
 to please God." 
 
 Most even of the Jewish interpreters have seen this to be 
 the literal meaning of the Avords. It stands in ccmtrast with, 
 illustrates and is illustrated by the first words, his soul is 
 swollen, is not upright in him. Pride and independence of 
 God are the centre of the want of rightness ; a steadfast 
 cleaving to God, whereby the heart, as Abraham's, was stayed 
 on God, is the centre and cause of the life of the righteous. 
 
 n Deut. i. .32. '* lb. ix. 2.3. >« Ps. cri. 21, 24. '? Num. xiv. 11. 
 
 13 Ps. IxxWii. 21, 22. i' lb. 32. » Num. xx. 20. 5i 2 Chron. xx. 20. 
 
 -2 Isa. vi. 9. -3 lb. vii. 9. -» lb. liii. 1. -^ lb. xxviii. Ifi. =« Lap. in Rom. i. 1". 
 
 Q Q Q 2
 
 416 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 626, 
 
 IIABAKKUK. 
 
 5 % II Yea also, because he transgresseth 
 
 II Or, How much more. 
 
 But since this staycrliicss of faith is in evcrylliini^ the source 
 of the life of the rijtrhtcous, then tlie pride, whicli issues in 
 want of rijrhtness of the inmost soul, must he a state of death. 
 Pride estranfjes the soul from (iod, makes it self-surticin£:, 
 that it should not need God, so that he who is proud eaniu>t 
 come to God, to he hy Ilim made righteous. So contrari- 
 wise, since hy his faitli doth the righteous live, this must be 
 equally true whether he be just made righteous from un- 
 righteous, or whether that righteousness is growing, ma- 
 turing, being perfected in him. 
 
 This life begins in grace, lives on in glory. It is begun, in 
 that God freely justifies the ungodly, accounting and making 
 him righteous for and through the Blood of Christ ; it is 
 continued in faith which worketh hy love; it is perfected, 
 when faith and hope are swallowed up in h»ve, beholding 
 God. In the Epistles to the Romans ^ and the Galatians- 
 St. Paul applies these words to the first beginning of life, 
 when they who had before been dead in sin, began to live by 
 faith in Christ Jesus Who gave them life and made them 
 righteous. And in this sense he is called "just," although 
 before he comes to the Faith he is unjust and unrighteous, 
 being unjustified. For St. Paul uses the word not of what 
 he was before the faith, but what he is, when he lives by 
 faith. Before, not having faith, he had neither righteousness 
 nor life ; having faith, he at once has both ; he is at once Just 
 and lives hi/ his faith. These are inseparable. The faith by 
 which he lives, is a living iaiXh,^ faith which worketh hi/ love. 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews *, St. Paul is speaking of their 
 endurance in the faith, once received, whose faith is not 
 shaken by the trial of their patience. They who look on 
 beyond things present, and fix their minds steadfastly on 
 the Coming of Christ, will not sufi'er shipwreck of their 
 faith, through any troubles of this time. Faith is the foun- 
 dation of all good, the beginning of the spiritual building, 
 whereby it rests on The Foundation, Christ. Without faith 
 it is impossible to please God, and so the proud cannot please 
 Him. Through it, is union with Christ and thereby a divine 
 life in the soul, even a life ^ through faith in the Son of God, 
 holy, peaceful, self-possessed '', enduring to the end, being 
 ^ hept hy the power of God through faith unto salvation ready 
 to be revealed in the last time. 
 
 5. This general rule the Prophet goes on to apply in words 
 which belong in part to all oppressors and in the first in- 
 stance to the Chaldsean, in part yet more fully to the end and 
 to Anti-Christ. Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine 
 [or better, Yea, how much more, since tvine is a deceiver^], as 
 Solomon says,' /Fine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and 
 whosoever erreth thereby shall not be wise, and, ^° In the end it 
 biteth like a serpent and pierceth like an adder ; and Hosea, 
 
 iRom. i. 17. 2Gal. iii. 11. 3 lb. v. 6. " Heb. x. 38. 
 
 ' Gal. ii. 20. « S. Luke xxi. 19. ? 1 S. Pet. i. 5. 8 Jon. agrees 
 
 "as one errins through wine." Kim. A. E. Rashi, Abarb. Tanch. (in one explanation) 
 take it personally ; Kim. supplying nniy " drinker of wine: " A. E. and Tanch. regarding 
 p'asp'B'-K.quoling'TD Ez. ii. 8. and rhan Ps. cix. 4. which they explain in the same way. 
 
 9 Prov. XX. 1. '" lb. xxiii. 'M. " Hosea iv. U. '-oqK as in 
 
 1 Sam. xxiii. 3. Ezek. xxiii. 40. It adds to the previous sentence; whether we should 
 express it by how much more, if an affirmative had preceded ; or how much less, if a nega- 
 tive. The more or less lies in the relation of the sentences, not in the '3 IN. 
 
 '3 Q. Curt. V. 1. " See Daniel the Prophet p. 450. '» Xen. Cyrop. vii. 4, 5, 6. 
 
 ir. " When then he [Cyrus] heard that there was a feast in Babylon, in which all the 
 Babylonians drink and revel all the night, on this &c." lb. 11. on the drunken- 
 ness see lb. 9. 10. '? Herod, i. 19. 
 
 IS T.T, in the only other place, Pr. xxi. 24, stands in connection with 11 and j'?; in Chald. 
 it is " arrogant," (see instances in Levy Chald. Wort.) as in Nasor. (ap. Ges). The 
 
 by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth cii rTst 
 
 cir. 626. 
 
 '^ Whoredom and wine and neiu wine take away the heart. As 
 wine at first gladdens, then deprives of all reason, and lays 
 a man open to any deceit, so also pride. And whereas all 
 pride deceives, how much more'-, when men are either heated 
 and excited hy the abuse of (iod's natural gifts, or drunken 
 with prosperity and hurried away, as conquerors are, to all 
 excess of cruelty or lust to fiiliil their own will, and neglect 
 the laws of God and man. Literal drunkenness was a sin of 
 the Babylonians under the Persian rule, so that even a hea- 
 then says of Babylon, " '^ Nothing can be more corrui>t than 
 the manners of that city, and more provided with all to 
 rouse and entice immoderate pleasures;" and "the Baby- 
 lonians give themselves wholly to wine, and the things which 
 follow upon drunkenness." It was when flushed ^* with wine, 
 that Bclshazzar, with his princes his ivives and his concubines, 
 desecrated the sacred vessels, insulted God in honour of his 
 idols, and in the night of his excess "was slain." Pride 
 blinded, deceived, destroyed him. It was the general drunk- 
 enness of the inhabitants, at that same feast, which enabled 
 Cyrus, with a handful of men, to penetrate, by means of its 
 river, the city which, with its provisions for many years^' and 
 its impregnable walls, mocked at his siege. He calculated 
 beforehand on its feast "> and the consequent dissolution of 
 its inhabitants ; but for this, in the language of the hea- 
 then historian, he would have been caught " '^ as in a trap," 
 his soldiery drowned. 
 
 He is a proud man '*, neither keepeth at home. It is difficult 
 to limit the force of the rare Hebrew word rendered, ^'^keep 
 at home; for one may cease to dwell or abide at home 
 either with his will or without it; and, as in the case of 
 invaders, the one may be the result of the other. He who 
 would take away the home of others becomes, by God's 
 Providence, himself homeless. The context implies that the 
 primary meaning is the restlessness of ambition ; which 
 abides not at home, for his whole pleasure is to go forth to 
 destroy. Yet there sounds, as it were, an undertone, " he 
 would not abide in his home, and he shall not." We could 
 scarcely avoid the further thought, could we translate by a 
 word which does not determine the sense, " he will not 
 home," " he will not continue at home." The words have 
 seemed to different minds to mean either; as they may-". 
 Such fulness of meaning is the contrary of the ambiguity of 
 Heathen oracles : they are not alternative meanings, which 
 might be justified in either case, but cumulative, the one on 
 the other. The ambitious part with present rest for future 
 loss. Nebuchadnezzar lost his kingdom and his reason 
 through pride, received them back when he humbled him- 
 self; Belshazzar, being proud and impenitent, lost both 
 his kingdom and life. 
 
 Arab, only supplies in; " perseverance in litigation : " the meaning "prominence, swelling" 
 is assumed only. The Arab, ■nn-n (in Ges. Hitz.) is from iNn (med. 1) and signifies "a 
 sand-heap," not as heaped up, but as sinking asunder, " corruens," (the central meaning 
 of mri.) 
 
 " n'l], r\KZ, seems to be of the same root as ^/afoi, whence n^jnu "dweller in the house," 
 Ps. Ixviii. 13 ; nij, .ii) abode: n'Jl Pr. N. probably tlie same, and r\'«i also. The derived 
 sense " becoming'' (lit. "sit well on " "bene sedet alicui," Ges.) exists in niNj Ps. xciii. 5 ; 
 "beautiful," Cant. i. 10. Is. lii. 7; and in nil Jer. vi. i. It is the basis of Hif. inijx "will 
 praise Him." Either gives a good sense. The Vulg. takes the derived sense " decorabi- 
 tur." 
 
 21 A. E. Abarb. Tanch. Rashi, following Jon. take it of his privation of home. Kim. 
 either of the shortness of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, or his own being driven forthwith 
 the wild animals D.an. iv. 31-33. Del. illustrates the sense of forced "non-abiding" 
 hy\h' "jdPs.xUx. 13, " abideth not ;" pn ps' n'7 Pr. X. 30, "shall not inhabit the earth;" 
 iniJ II p^ Pr. ii. 21.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 417 
 
 cii^rTst •**' h'""<^? ^^lio onlari^oth his desire ^as hell, 
 
 "'*"• '''""• and if as (h'ath, and cannot be satisfied, 
 
 ""ifcao^'iG!"' l*"t gathereth unto him all nations, and 
 
 heajx'th unto iiini all jtcojdc : 
 "Mica. 4. (j yii^n not all these 'take up a para- 
 
 fF/io ciildrirftli /lis (/('.sire, lit. /lis sun/. Tlic soul be- 
 comes like wliiit if loves. The ambit ions man is, as we 
 say, "uU ambition;" the greedy man, '-ail appelite ;" the 
 cruel man, "all sax iifi^ery ; " the v.ain-jjlorious, "all vaiu- 
 ii:lory." The ruliuij passion absorbs the wbole beinff. It 
 is his end, the one object of his tlioui;hts, hopes, fears. 
 So, as we speak of '• larj^eness of heart," whi<'li can em- 
 brace in its affections all varieties of human interests, what- 
 ever affects man, and "largeness of mind" uncramped by 
 narrowinf;^ prejudices, the Prophet speaks of this "ambi- 
 tious man wideninj; his soul," or, as we should speak, " ap- 
 petite," so that the whole world is not too large for him 
 to lona: to grasp or to devour. So the Psalmist prays not 
 to be delivered into the murderous i/esire of bis enemies i, 
 (lit. t/u'ir sou/,) and Isaiaii, witii a metaphor almost too bold 
 for our language, - lie// /uit/i eit/ttrged /ler sou/, (uid opened 
 Iter mout/i /lei/ond medsiirc. It devours, as it were, first in 
 its cravings, then in act. 
 
 As /u'll, which is insatiable ". He saith, enlargeth ; for 
 as bell and the grave are year by year fuller, yet there is no 
 end, the desire en/arge/li and becometh wider, the more is 
 given to it to satisfy it. And [Af *] is [/liinself] as dcdt/i, 
 sparing none. Our poetry would speak of a destroyer as 
 being "like the angel of death;" his presence, as the pre- 
 sence of death itself. AVhere he is, there is death. He is 
 as terrible and as destroying as the death which follows 
 him. And cannot /jc satisfied. Even human proverbs say, 
 "'The love of money groweth as much as the money itself 
 groweth." "The avaricious is ever needy." ^Het/iat lotet/i 
 silver s/iaU not be satisfied tvit/i si/ver. For these fleeting 
 things cannot satisfy the undying soul. It must hunger 
 still; for it has not found what will allay its cravings ^ 
 
 But gat/ieret/i lit. A/id /lat/t gat/iered — He describes it, 
 for the rapidity with which he completes what he longs 
 for, as though it were already done, — unto /lim a// nations, 
 and /leapet/i unto /dm a// people. One is still the subject 
 of the prophecy, rising up at successive times, fulfilling it 
 and passing away, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Attila, Tinmr, 
 Genghizcban, Hunneric, scourges of God, all deceived by 
 pride, all sweeping the earth, all in their ambition and 
 wickedness the unknowing agents and images of the evil 
 One, who seeks to bring the whole world under his rule. 
 But shall it prosper? 
 
 6. S/ialt not all t/iese^ talie up a para/Ae against Iiim, and a 
 taunting proverb against Iiim) Nebu<hadnezzar gathered ^aW 
 people, nations, and languages, to vors/iip t/ie go/den image 
 w/dc/i /le /lad set u/i. The second Babylon, heathen Rome, 
 sought to blot out the very Christian Name; but mightier 
 
 1 Ps. xxvii. 12. Comp. Ps. xli. 3 [2 EnR.] Ezek. xxvi. 2". 2 Is. v. 14. 
 
 ' Prov. XXX. 15. ■> mil. It is not an unmeaning change as though 
 
 it belonged only to the simplicity of Hebrew construction; but emphatic, "and he." 
 ' Juv. Sat. xiv. 13i». ^ Eccl. v. 10. 
 
 ' S. Aug. Conf. and n. a. iv. 8. " cSj nW v. 6, referring to the Dijn bj, D-cyn Ss, v. 5. 
 
 9 Dan. iii. 4, 5. '" Rev. xviii. 20. " S. Cyr. 
 
 '2 The word B'azv naturally suggests the division into 3y and Oil which has been 
 adopted by .Syr. "cloud of mud," and S. Jer. doubtless from his Hebrew Instructor 
 "densum lutum," as A. E., ■!. and D. Kimchi, Rashi, Ab,irb., R. Tanchum ; Poc. Arab. 
 Vers, which is not Saadiah's (Hunt. 200.) R. Samuel Haimagid, Joshua, Japhet, (quoted 
 
 hie a<?ainst him, and a tauntinj^ proverb cifnTsx 
 af^ainst him, and say, || Woe to him that ci^r- 620. 
 inereascth that whirl, h- not bis! bow ""''"'" '■"• 
 loni^? and fo him that ladeth himself with 
 thiek clay ! 
 
 were the three children than the Kiiiir of Babylon; mightier, 
 virgins, martyrs, and children tliati Nero or Dccins. These 
 shall rejoice over Babylon, that '" God /lat/i avenged titem on 
 /ler, 
 
 IVoe to liim that increasetli IIkiI ir/iii/i is nut /iis\ 'JVulv 
 wealth ill-gotten by fraud or oppression, is not /lis, who win- 
 notli it, before he had it, nor when be hath it, but a woe. It 
 is not /lis ; the woe is his. IFoe unto /liin. He shall have no 
 j joy in what be gaincth, and what he bath be shall lose. How 
 long f What is the measure of thine impiety and greediness 
 and cruelty? Yet if these are like hell, without measure, 
 there remains another How long? How long will the for- 
 bearance of God endure thee, which thou art daily exhaus- 
 ting? 
 
 This is then the end of all. The conqueror sweeps to him 
 all nations and gathereth to him all peoples. To what end? 
 As one vast choir in one terrible varied chant of all those 
 thousand thousand voices, to sing a dirge over him of the 
 judgements of God which his ill-doings to them should bring 
 upon him, a fivefold Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe I Woe for its 
 rapacity ! Woe for its covetousness ! Woe for its oppres- 
 sion ! Woe for its insolence to the conquered! Woe to it 
 in its rebellion against God ! It is a more measured rhythm 
 than any besides in Holy Scripture ; each of the fivefold 
 woes comprised in three verses, four of them closing with the 
 ground, because, for. The opening words carry the mind 
 back to the fuller picture of Isaiah. But Isaiah sees Baby- 
 lon as already overthrown; Habakkuk pronounces the words 
 upon it, not by name, but as certainly to come, upon it and 
 every like enemy of God's kingdom. With each such fall, 
 unto the end of all things, the glory of God is increased 
 and made known. Having, for their own ends, been uncon- 
 scious and even unwilling promoters of God's end, they, when 
 they had accomplished it, are themselves flung away. The 
 pride of human ambition, when successful, boasts "woe to the 
 conquered." Since u'/ioni t/ie Lord /oret/i He c/iasteneth, the 
 ungodly saying of the licathen is reversed, and it stands, " Man 
 sympathises with the conquering side, God with the con- 
 quered." It is a terrible thought that men should have been 
 the instruments of God, that they should, through aml)ition or 
 other ends short of God, have pnnnoted His ends which they 
 thought not of, and then should be wetg/ied in t/ie balance 
 and found wanting, and themselves be flung away. 
 
 " '' Gentiles also departed from their worship under Satan, 
 and having deserted him who aforetime called them, ran unto 
 Christ. For Satan gathered what was not his; but Christ re- 
 ceived what was His. For, as God, He is Lord of all." 
 
 And to him t/iat ladeth himself with Ihic/i clay ^-. It is the 
 
 by A. E.) Sal. B.Mel., explaining it "abundance of clay." Kimchi (Shorashim) admits 
 the possibility of its being derived from E3y sub v., but himself saj-s it is a compound 
 word. Saadiah Ben Denan Lex. Heb.-.\rab. [Bodl. Or. 612.] alone positively derives 
 it from 03y. The objection that there are no compound appellatives in Hebrew is con- 
 trary to the evidence of such words as 'jySj, r^'hn, rj;|n(, and amid the predominance of 
 compound words, as Proper Names, it would be monstrous to assume that a Prophet 
 could not have compounded a word. On the other hand, the forms S"S:n, TX3, inffl, 
 •nss", are remarkable analogies in favour of its being a single word. It was probably 
 formed to suggest both thoughts, as it has.
 
 418 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. G26. 
 
 ' Isai. 33. 1. 
 
 7 Shall thoy not rise up suddenly tliat shall 
 bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, 
 and thou shalt be for booties unto them ? 
 
 8 ' Beeause thou hast spoiled many na- 
 
 character of these proverbs to say luiuih in few words, some- 
 times ill one, and more than appears. So the word trans- 
 lated thirli-clm/, as if it were two words, in another way 
 means in an intensive sense, "a stroiis; deep jdedffe." At 
 best ftokl and silver are, as they have been called, red and 
 white earth. " ' What are g;old and silver l)nt red and white 
 earth, whicii the error of man alone maketh, or acrcounteth 
 precious ? What are gems, but stones of the earth ? M'iiat 
 silk, but webs of worms?" These he "maketh heavy upon" 
 or " against himself" [so the words strictly mean]. "For 
 lie weighetli himself down \vith thick clay, wiio, by avarice 
 multiplying earthly things, hems himself in by the oppres- 
 siveness of his own sin, imprisons and, as it were, buries 
 the soul, and heaps up sin as he heaps up wealth." With 
 toil they gather what is not worthless only, but is a burden 
 upon the soul, weighing it down that it should not rise 
 Heavenwards, but should be bowed down to Hell. And so 
 in that other sense while, as a bard usurer, be heajis up 
 the pledges of those whom he oppresses and impoverishes, 
 and seems to increase his wealth, he does in truth increase 
 against himself a strong pledge, whereby not others are 
 debtors to him, but he is a debtor to Almighty God Who 
 careth for the oppressed. ^ He that gat her eth riches and not 
 by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days and at his 
 end shall he a fool. 
 
 7. Shall not they rise up suddenly that shall hite thee, 
 and aivake that shall vex thee? The destruction of the 
 wicked is ever sudden at last. Such was the flood', the 
 destruction of Sodom, of Pharaoh, of the enemies of God's 
 people through the Judges, of Sennacherib, Nineveh, Baby- 
 lon by the IVIedes and Persians. Such shall the end be*. As 
 he by his oppressions had pierced others (it is the word used 
 of the oppression of usury''), so sliould it be done to him. 
 "''The Medes and Persians who were before subject to the 
 Babylonian empire, and whose kings were subject to Ne- 
 buchadnezzar and bis successors, rose up and awaked, i. e., 
 stirred themselves up in the days of IJelsbazzar to rebel 
 against the successors of Nebm-hadnezzar which sat on his 
 throne, like a man who awaketh from sleep." Tlie words 
 awake, arise, are used also of the resurrection, when the 
 worm of the wicked gnaweth and dicth not''. 
 
 And thou shall be for booties unto them ? The common 
 phrase is modified to exjilain the manifoldness of the plun- 
 der^ which he should yield. So Jeremiah, ^ Chaldtca shall 
 he a spoil ; all that spoil her shall he satisfied, saith the 
 Lord. " '" VV^e may hear Him Who saith, ^^How can one enter 
 into a strong meal's house, and spoil his goods, except he first 
 bind the strong man ? and then he will spoil his house. For, 
 as soon as He was born of the holy Virgin, He began to 
 
 1 S. Bern. Serm. i. in Adv. - Jer. .wii. 11. 
 
 3 S. Luke xvii. 26. 27. " S. Matt. xxiv. 43. 44. xxv. 13. S. Luke xvii. 26—30, 
 
 xxi. 34. 35. 1 Thess. v. 3. 2 Pet. iii. 10. Rev. xvi. 16. 
 
 5 ^t: irx -ai hj lit. " every thing which sh.ill bite," De. xxiii. 20. ^vn (De. xxiii. 20. 
 21 bis) is properly a denom. from TjK'j, explained to be " what bites the giver and takes 
 something of his from him." Mezia tiO. b. in Del. The .13TD.1, v. 6. suggested min, and 
 this, favoured by the conception of the Chald:eans as a pitiless creditor, concentrated in 
 faiV, suggested TlfJ, (which is often united with n'a^n); and this suggested the remarkable 
 designation of those who were to execute the Divine retribution on the Chaldseans by the 
 word, D'DB'J. 6 Abarb. quoted by Del. 
 
 7 See Isaiah xiv. 11. Ixvi. 24. » niDiic'? n"n. Elsewhere sing. noro^. ' Jer. I. 10. 
 
 tions, all the remnant of the people shall dfif'^sT 
 spoil thee ; ''beeause of men's t blood, and ""■ """• 
 for the violence of the land, of the city, and t ueblVfoorf.. 
 of all that dwell therein. 
 
 spoil his goods. For the Magi came from the East — and 
 worshipped Him and honoured Him with gifts and became a 
 first-fruits of the Church of tlie (jlentiles. And being vessels 
 of Satiin, and the most lionoured of all his members, they 
 hastened to Christ." 
 
 8. Jircaiise, [or Fori. The I'ropbet assigns tlie reason of 
 the woes lie had just pronounced. Thou^- [enipli.], thou hast 
 spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil 
 thee. So Isaiah, ''* When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shall be 
 spoiled; when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, 
 they shall deal treacherously with thee. Boundless as liis con- 
 quests were, each remaining people, tribe, or family shall 
 be his foe. " '* Having subdued very many, thou shalt be 
 destroyed by few, and they who long endured tiiy tyranny, 
 arising as from sleep, shall compass thy destruction ; and 
 thou shalt pay the penalty of thy countless slaughters and 
 thy great ungodliness and thy lawless violence to cities 
 which thou madest desolate of inhabitants." Nothing was 
 too great or too little to escape this violence. 
 
 All the remnant. "'*As thou, invading, didst take away tlie 
 tilings of others, in like way shall what appertaineth to tiiee 
 be taken away by those who are left for vengeance." Jere- 
 miah foretold of Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zede- 
 liiah^^, (in ex|)ansioii of the prophecy in the reign of Jehoia- 
 kim^^); Thus saith the Lord of hrjsts, Behold, I will break tlie 
 bow of FJam, the chief of their might. And upo)i Flam I 
 will bring the four winds from the four quarters of the heavens, 
 and will scatter them towards all these tcinds, and there shall 
 be no natioTi whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. For 
 I will cause Elam to be dismayed before her enemies ; but it 
 shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring agaiyt 
 the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord. Elam is also counted 
 by Ezekiel'' among those who, together with Pharaoh, should 
 be brought down to the grave, with Asshur, 3Ieshech, Tubal, 
 Edom and all the Zid(mians, by the king of Babylon. They 
 were then all wliich remained"* of the nations which he had 
 conquered, who should be gathered against his house. Be- 
 cause of men^s blood and of the violence of i. e. to the land, as 
 the violence of, i. e. to^'^, Lebanon, and men's blood is their blood 
 which was shed. To land, city, and all dwellers therein. Land 
 or earth, city, are left purposely undefined, so that while 
 that in whicli the ofi'ence cuhninated should be, by the singu- 
 lar, specially suggested, tite violence to Judah and Jerusalem, 
 the cruelty condemned should not be limited to these. The 
 violence was dealt out to the whole land or earth, and in it, 
 to cities, and in each, one by one, to all its inhabitants. Ba- 
 bylon is called,-" the hammer of the whole earth ; -^a golden cup 
 in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken; ~~ a des- 
 troying mountain, which destroyeth the whole earth; the whole 
 
 1" See S. Cyr. " S. Matt. xii. 29 >- .inn "r. is Isaiah xxxiii. 1. » Theod. 
 
 1^ Jer. xlix. 34 — 39. ^^ The prophecies against the heathen nations 
 
 Jer. xlvi — li. were in the same order in the main as m Jer. xxv. 19 — 26, beginning with 
 Egypt and ending in Babylon, and containing between these, the Philistines (with Tyre 
 and Zidon incidentally), Moab, Amnion, Edom, Kedar, Hazor, Elam ; Elam being in 
 both cases the last before Babylon itself. '7 Ezek. xxxii. 17 — 32. 
 
 '8 As nSun D'un -in- Josh, xxiii. 12, nB'7a,T in- Ex. x. 5 ; [lai.T in'nK, oy.T in' nn, 2 Kings 
 xxv. 11; muB'jn DVi TTi' nx Jer. xxxix. 9. 
 
 " Hah. ii. 17, ccn is united with the gen. of the object. Gen. xvi. 5. Jud. ix. 24. 
 Jo. iv. 19. Ob. lU. Jer. li. 35 ; with that of the subject, Ps. vii. 17, Iviii. 3, Ezek. xii. 
 19. [all.] 20 Jer. 1. 23. -' lb. li. 7. ^2 lb. 25.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 419 
 
 9 ^ Woe to liim that ' || coveteth an evil 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 62e. covetousness to his house, that he may 
 
 lior.'^aincwi " sct his nest on liijj,-h, tliat he may be de- 
 ercd from llic -j- power of evil ! 
 10 Thou hast eonsuited shame to thy 
 
 '" Jer. 4i); 10. 
 
 Obad. t. 
 t Heb. palm of 
 
 the hand. 
 
 earth is at rest and is qulvt ', after IJabyloii, which tnade. it 
 to tremble", is oA'crfliroAvii. 
 
 So Satan liad by vioK'nce and deceit subdued tbc wbole 
 eartli, yet Clu'ist made liiiti a s]mm1 to tbose wlioni lie liad 
 spoiled, and tiie stront^ man was bound and liis j^oods spoiled 
 and liiniself trampled underfoot, ^'et liere as tbrou^jbout 
 the propiiets, it is a ''remnant" only uiiieb is saved. "■' Satan 
 too was spoiled by the remnant of the people, i. e. by those 
 justified by Christ and sanetificd in the Spirit. For the rem- 
 nant of Israel was saved." 
 
 9. IFoe to him that coveteth an evil r(tret(nisness to his house 
 [or, with aeeents, that coveteth covetousness (»r nnjiist i^ain, 
 an evil to his hoicse.] What man eoveteth seems ^ain, but is 
 evil to his house after him, destroying' both himself and hi.s 
 whole family or raee with him '. That he may set his ticst on 
 high, as an eaijle, to wliieli he had likened the Chaldee ^. 
 A heathen ealled " strony;holds, the nests of tyi-ants." The 
 nest was placed "on hij^b" which means also "heaven," as 
 it is said, *' though thou set fhj/ uest among the stars ; and the 
 tower of Babel was to '^ reach unto heaven; and the Anti- 
 Christ, whose symbol the King of Babylon is, says, ^ / will 
 exalt my throne above the stars of God. Babylon lying in a 
 large plain, on the sides of the Euphrates, the image of its 
 eagle's-nest on high must be taken, not from any natural 
 eminenee, but wholly from the works of man. Its walls, 
 audits hanging gardens were among "the seven wonders of 
 the world." Eye witnesses speak of its walls, encompassing 
 at the least 100 square miles', "^"and as large as the land- 
 graviat of HesseHombcrg ;" those walls, 335, or 330 feet high, 
 and 85 feet broad i^; a fortified palace, near 7 milp^ 'n cir- 
 e\nnferenee ; gardens, 4(K) Greek feet square, supporting at 
 an artificial height arch upon arch, of "at least 7^ feet," 
 forest trees ; a temple to its god, said to have heen at least 
 (iOO feet high. Had we, creatures of a day, no one above us, 
 Nebuchadnezzar's boast had been true ^-, Is not this great Ba- 
 bylon that I have hnilded for the house of the Kingdom hy the 
 might of my power and for the honour of my majesty? He 
 had built an eagle's nest, which no human arm could reach, 
 encircled by walls whieli laughed its invaders to scorn, which 
 no then skill could scale or shatter or mine. Even as one 
 sees in a picture the vast mounds which yet remain '', one can 
 hardly imagine that they were, brick upon brick, wholly the 
 work of man. 
 
 To be delivered from the hand [grasj/] of evil; that it 
 should not be able to reach him. Evil is spoken of as a 
 living power ^', M-hich would seize him, whose grasp he would 
 
 1 Is. xiv. 7. - lb. 10. 3 s, Cyr. •* ysnyun elsewhere stand, without an epithet, it 
 being itself evil, Prov. i. 19. xv. 27. Jer. vi. 13. viii. 10. and Ezek. xxii. 27. [all] 
 
 * i. 8. Comp. Jer. .\x. 10. o Obad. 4. ' Gen. xi. 4. » Is. xiv. 13. 
 
 ^ Herodotus, giving probably the extent of the outer wall, makes it a square 120 stades 
 each way, and so 50 miles in circuit [i. 17?]. Ctesias, giving probably the dimensions of 
 the inner-wall, makes the circumference 300 stades, il-42 miles, and so enclosing 100 
 square miles [Diod. Sic. ii. 7. sqq.]. 
 
 '" Rawl. 5 Empires iii. 340. i' It is remarkable that the larger dimensions are 
 
 the oldest, given by eye-witnesses. Rawlinson has pointed out one case in which the 
 later reduced the dimensions artificially, " softening down tlie cubits of Herodotus into 
 feet." 5 Empires iii. 348 note. Seethe wliole vivid description, lb. pp. 338 — 301. 
 
 '2 Dan. iv. 30. " See in Smith's Bible Diet. i. 1.52. Rawl. 5 Empires iii. 353. 
 
 568, 
 
 ' 'Jsp occurs in 10 other places with verbs signifying deliverance, [see Furst Cone. p. 
 .] and in all of Uving agents. '^ Ex. xx. 5. "^ Prov. xv. 2/. '^ Jer. vii. 19, 
 
 house hy eiittiiifif offinany people, and hast ^jfifi^x 
 sinncul (t^din.st thy soul. '■"■ ^^' 
 
 1 1 For the ston«! shall cry out of the \vall> 
 and th(^ || heam out of tin; timber shall faJe"in'g"' 
 
 " Or, witnfis 
 
 answer it. 
 
 aj^ahtit it. 
 
 defy. It was indeed a living power, since it was the Will of 
 Almighty God, Whose servant and instrument Cyrus was, to 
 chasten i'abylon, when its sins were full. Such was the 
 (■ouusci, « hat the result? The evil covetousness which he 
 M'rought, bi'ought on bim the evil, from which, in that nest 
 built by the bard toil of bis captives, he thought to deliver 
 himself. 
 
 10. Th(ni hast consulted shame to /hi/ house, the cutting 
 off many people, and sinning against thy sniil. The wicked, 
 whether out of passion or witii his wlude mind and deliberate 
 choice and will, takes that counsel, \v\\\r\\ certainly brings 
 shame to himself aiul his house, according to the law of (jod, 
 whereby He i" visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth generation of them that 
 hate ///;«, i.e. until by righteousness and restitution the curse 
 is cut oflT. *•' He that is greedi/ of gain trouhleth his oien house. 
 So Jeremiah says, '' Thus saith the Lord, Is it Me they are 
 j'e.vingf is it not themselves, for ^'^the caufusion of their faces? 
 1. e. with that end and object. H(dy Scripture overloidvs the 
 means, and places us at the end of all. Whatever the wicked 
 had in view, to satisfy ambition, avarice, passion, love of 
 pleasure, or the rest of man's immediate ends, all he was 
 doing was leading on to a further end, shame and death. He 
 was bringing about, not only these short-lived, but the lasting 
 ends beyond, and these far more tiian the others, since that 
 is the real end of a thing which al>ides, in which it at last 
 ends. He consulted to cut oif many people and was thereby 
 (though he knew it not) by one and the same act, guilty of 
 and forfeiting his own souP^. 
 
 11. Ihr the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam 
 out of the timber shall answer it. All things have a voice, in 
 that they are -". God's works speak that, for which He made 
 them. ~^The heavens declare the glory of God. --The valleys 
 are clad with corn, they laugh, yea, they sing ; their very look 
 speaks gladness. " ^ For the creation itself proclaims the 
 glory of the Maker, in that it is admired as well made. 
 Wherefore there are voices in things, although there are 
 not words." JMau's works speak of that in ///;//, out of 
 which and for which he made them. Works of mercy go up 
 for a memorial before (iod, and plead there ; great works, 
 wrought amid wrong and cruelty and for man's ambition and 
 pride, have a voice too, and cry out to God, calling down His 
 vengeance on the oppressor. Here the stojies of the wall, 
 whereby the building is raised, and the beam, the tye-beam, 
 out of the timber-\yorli-'^ wherewith it is finished, and which, 
 as it were, crowns the work, join, as in a chorus, a)tsiver- 
 
 ^^ Tv^2 jyoV. ^^ 1CS3 KiSn Prov. xx. 2. comp. irc: DCn lb. viii. 36. The contemporane- 
 ousness of the act is expressed by the participle ; the pronoun is omitted as in i. 5. 
 
 ^ The Arabs have an expression for it, '^Kn'jK |kdS, lit. " The tongue of the situation." 
 =' Ps. xix. 1. ■- lb. Ixv. 13. 
 
 ^ So the word is best understood, since the " beam" bears the same relation to the 
 " wood-work " as the " stone " to the " wall," i. e. is a part of it, CSD in Ch. signifying 
 "to bind." like nEJ Dan. iii. 20, 21, 23, 24. So Kim. The other sense given, that it is a 
 half-brick, such as is worked into the mode of building, called by us •' bricknogging," 
 whicli R. Tanchum of Jerusalem also knew in the East, seems imsuited here ; 1) because 
 it is speaking of magnificent building; tlie interlacing of brick with wood is for economy, 
 since the wood, interlacing the bricks, holds them together, though the wall be thin : 2) the 
 half-bricks naturally enter into this mode of building, but are neither the chief nor a 
 prominent part of it. 3) Neither is the woodwork apparently in such way one, that it
 
 420 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 ciPkTst ^2 ^Woo to liiin tliat hiiiUloth a town 
 _cw^m. ^vit|^ » | blooti, and stablislieth a city hy 
 
 "Jer. 22. 13. . . ., t 
 
 Ezck. 24.9. ini(|uityl 
 
 nIh -i l" 13 IJcliold, is it not of tlie Lord of hosts 
 ""enM.'ss.'' " tluit tlic pcople sliall labour in the very 
 
 Dig one anotlicr, and in a deep solemn wailini;', before God 
 and the Miiole world, tt)getlier eliant " Woe, Woe." Did 
 not tiie blood and groans of men cry out to God, specehless 
 thiMijs liave a voice to apj)eal to Him'. Ajyainst Belsliazzar 
 the M'all bad, to the letter, words to speak. 
 
 Each three verses t'orniinf;^ one stanza, as it were, of the 
 dirfic, the foUowinfj words are probably not direetly eon- 
 neeted with the former, as if the w<ie, M'bich follows, were, 
 so to speak, the ehant of these inanimate witnesses against 
 the Chaldaeans; yet they stand connected with it. The dirge 
 began with woe on the wrongful accumulation of wealth from 
 the conquered and oppressed people: it continues with the 
 selfish u;*e of the wealth so won. 
 
 12. Ifoe to III in that biiikleth a town tuith blood, niid 
 estahlisheth a citi/ hi/ inUjuity ! Nebucliadnezzar "-encircled 
 the inner city with three walls and the outer city also with 
 three, all of burnt brick. And having fortified the city with 
 wondrous works, and adorned the gates like temples, be 
 built another palace near the palace of bis fathers, surpass- 
 ing it in height and its great magnificence." He seemed to 
 strengthen the city, and to stablisb it by outward defences. 
 But it was built through cruelty to conquered nations, and 
 especially God's people, and by oppression, against His holy 
 Will. So there was an inward rottenness and decay in what 
 seemed strong and majestic, and which imposed on the out- 
 ward eye; it would not stand, but fell. Babylon, which had 
 stood since the flood, being enlarged contrary to the eternal 
 laws of God, fell in the reign of his son. Such is all em- 
 pire and greatness, raised on the neglect of God's laws, 
 by unlawful conquests, and by the toil and sweat and 
 hard service of the poor. Its aggrandisement and seemini 
 
 strength is its fa 
 
 Daniel's exhortation to Nebuchad- 
 
 nezzar, ^Redeem tin/ sins hij righteousness, iind thine iniquities 
 hy shewing mercy on the poor, implies that oppressiveness 
 had been one of liis chief sins. 
 
 13. Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that [thel peo- 
 ple [natio)is] shall lahoiir* in [for] the very fire [lit. to suffice 
 the fire] ? By God's appointment, the end of all their labour 
 is for the fire, what may suffice it to consume. This is the 
 whole result of their labour ; and so it is as if they had toiled 
 for this ; they built ceiled palaces and gorgeous buildings, 
 only for the fire to consume them. 
 
 And peoples shall weary themselves for very vanity. 
 They wearied themselves, and what was their reward ? What 
 had they to suffice and fill them ? Emptiness. This is from 
 the Lord of hosts, Whom all the armies of heaven obey and 
 all creatures stand at His command against the ungodly, 
 and in Whose Hand are all the hosts of earth, and so the 
 oppressor's also, to turn as He wills. 
 
 Near upon the first stage of the fulfilment, Jeremiah re- 
 inforces the words with the name of Babylon ; ^ Thus saith 
 
 can stand as a whole. Tanchum and Parchon adopt this rendering, and Rashi on Taanit 11 
 a (ap. Del.) not in his Comni.; .Symm. Theod. Syr. € have (ni^/Seir/ios, S. .Ter. in the same 
 sense, IfidpTOKTis. and LXX. KavdapoS' The other sense given does not account for the 
 wood " out of the timber," since it would rather be " out of the stone-work." S. Cyril 
 says, " the other versions have efSeff/ios |i'/\ou, so that they named the crown of the house 
 and the complexity of the wood, i.e., the band, KayBapos, because they as with many feet 
 supported the roof which lay upon it." 
 
 fire, and the peojjle sliall weary themselves cifiiTsT 
 II for very vanity ? '■'•■ ''-"■ 
 
 14 For th(! earth shall be filled |1 with liQr'iyw'. 
 the I' knowledire of the j,4ory of the Loud, '"ftt's^lZl 
 as the waters cover the sea. ' ^"^^ ^^' '■*■ 
 
 the Lord of hosts ! The broad walls of Babylon shall he 
 utterly destroyed, and her high gates shall be hurned with fire ; 
 and the people shall labour in vain [for vanity], and the folic 
 in [for] the fire, and they shall be weary. 
 
 14. For the earth sliall he filled with the /mowledge of 
 the glory of the Lord. Ilabakkuk modifies in a degree the 
 words of Isaiah which be embodies, marking that the 
 destruction of Babylon was a stage only towards the com- 
 ing of those good things which God taught His people to 
 long for, not their very coming. All the world should be 
 then full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, not, as 
 yet, wholly of Himself. '""When Babylon shall be over- 
 thrown, then shall the j)0wer of the might of the Lord be 
 known unto all. So shall the whole earth be filled with the 
 glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the bottom of the 
 sea. This as to the letter. But it is plain, that the Devil 
 also and Anti-Christ, and the perverse teaching of heretics, 
 build a city in blood ; i. e., their own Church, with the de- 
 struction of those whom they deceive But when 
 
 they fail in the fire, (either this fire which is felt, or con- 
 sumed in the fire of the devil their prince, or burned up with 
 the fire whereof the Lord says, / came to send a fire upon 
 the earth, and so brought back from their former course, 
 and doing penitence), the whole earth shall be filled with 
 the glory of the Lord, when, at the preaching of the Apos- 
 tles, their sound shall go out into all the ivorld, as waters ' 
 covering the sea, i. e., all the saltness and bitterness of the 
 world which Satan had rained down and the earth had 
 drunk, the waters of the Lord shall cover, and cause the ( 
 place of their ancient bitterness not to appear." " '' For the 
 Spirit of the Lord filled the earth, and when He filled it, the 
 earth teas filled with the /mowledge of the glory of the Lord, 
 
 so that unlearned and ignorant men became wise and elo- 
 quent, and earthly became heavenly, yea, they who were 
 earth became heaven, knowing the Glory of the Lord, de- 
 claring the Glory of God, not any how, but as waters cover 
 the sea. Great as must be waters, which would cover the 
 sea, or compared to which the sea were nothing, far greater 
 is the miracle, when the abundance of heavenly wisdom, 
 given to the simple, surpassed the sea, i. e., the wisdom of 
 all mankind." This verse being already a received image 
 of the spread of the Gospel ', it would of itself be understood 
 to include this also; but more generally, it declares how 
 upon all the judgements of God, a larger knowledge of Him 
 would follow. "^AU things are full of Christ, Who is the 
 Glory of the Father; wherefore also He said, ^^ I have glorified 
 Thee on earth, I have finished the work luhich Thou gavest me 
 to do." 
 
 15. From cruelty the Prophet goes on to denounce the 
 woe on insolence. TFoe unto him that giveth his neighbour 
 (to whom he owes love) drink [lit. that maketh him drink] ; 
 
 ' See S. Luke xix. 40. - Berosus Hist. Chald. L. iii. ap. Joseph. 
 
 Antiq. X. 11. and c. Ap. i. 20. 
 
 3 Dan. iv. 27. 
 ■• I'J" with 3 " labour upon " Josh. xxiv. 13, Isa. Ixii. 8. and boldly, of God, lb. xliii. 
 22. and Hif. "cause to labour with" Isa. xliii. 23. 
 
 * Jer. li. 58. « S. Jer. " Rup. 
 
 8 Isaiah xi. 9. « S. Cyr. »« S. John xvii. 4.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 421 
 
 ^ c H rTs t l'*^ H ^^"*^ ""^** ''■'" ^'''** givcth his neif^h- 
 
 "<■■ «^»- hour drink, that puttest tliy '"bottle to him, 
 
 iiios. -.5. .jj^^j jjj;i]j^j.j.j; /,j„^ (h'unlvcii also, that thou 
 
 'Gen. 9. 22. nuiycst ' lool< Oil tlicir iiiikcdncss ! 
 
 \\OT,mo,-ewiik iQ Thou art filh'd 11 with shame for irlory: 
 
 sitamt'. than " <-> i 
 
 u'itiijion,. s,i,.j„]. ^jjf,y nX^i) iind lot thy foreskin be 
 
 » Jer. 2o. 2(), ' •' 
 
 27. & 51. 57. uncovered: the cup of the Lord's rii^ht 
 hand shall be turned unto thee, and 
 
 that jiiiltcst ^ thij bottle " to him, uiul vidhcsf lihn tirunhen 
 also, '^ that thou nunfe.st look {gnze n'ilh devilish plcasi/rr] on 
 their na/cedness. This may either be of actual in.'iults (as 
 in the history of Noah), in kcepinc: eertainly with the cha- 
 racter of the later P.ahylonians, the last wantonness of un- 
 bridled power, niakini;: vile sport of those like himself (his 
 ticii^lilxiiir), or it may be drunkenness throui;h misery * where- 
 in they are bared of all their jjlory and brounht to the lowest 
 shame. Tiie iroe falls too on all, who in any way intoxicate 
 others with flattering? words or feif!:ned affection, mixing 
 poison under thinj^s pleasant, to brinj? them to shame. 
 
 16. ThoH art filled with shame for ^lori/. Oppressors 
 think to make themselves threat by brin^ina; others down, to 
 fill themselves with riches, by spoiling- others. They loved 
 shame % because they loved that, which brought shame; they 
 were filled with shame, in that they sated themselves with 
 shamefulness, which was their shame within, before, in the 
 just judgement of God, shame came on them from without. 
 ''^ Their i^lori/ was in their shame. They shall be filled, yea, 
 he says, tlie)/ are already filled''; they would satisfy, gorge 
 themselves, with all their hearts' desires ; they are filled to 
 the full, but leith shame instead oi glory which they sought, 
 or which they already had. From and for ^ a state oi' glory, 
 they were filled with contempt. 
 
 Drink thou also, and let thy foreskin he uncovered : thy 
 shame like those whom thou puttest to shame, only the greater 
 i|i being uncircunicised. The rup of the Lord's Right Hand 
 shall he turned \j-ound^ unto thee [or against thee^. It had 
 gone round the circuit of the nations whom God had em- 
 ployed him to chasten, and now, the circle completed, it 
 siiould be brought round to himself, ^ IFith what measure ye 
 mete, it shall he measured unto you, again. So Jeremiah 
 says, '" And the king of Shesharh shall drink after them ; 
 and of Rdom, i' To thee also shall the rup he brought round. 
 Thou, a man, madest man to drink of the cup of thine anger: 
 the cup shall be brought I'ound to thee, but not by man ; to 
 thee it shall be given by the Right Hand of the Lord, which 
 thou canst not escape; it shall be ^' the cup of the ivine of the 
 fierceness of the ivrath of Ahnighty God; as Asaph had said, 
 
 • ngp is rendered " approachmg to " "joining" by Tancli., A. E., Rashi Kim. Sal.B. 
 Mel. A barb. ; "pouring" Ch. Symm. Both senses exist in the verb; and the efTorts 
 of Ges. and Papenheini (ap. Del.) to reduce all the usages under either, force some. 
 
 ■- The E. V. has taken incn as irregular from njn " flask," with Kim., A. E.. Sal. ben 
 Mel. ; " poison," Ch. Abulw. ; " wrath," Rashi, Abarb. ; " flask " or " wriith," Tanch. 
 
 s njE" rjNi Tlie inf. abs. continuing tlie previous action of the finite verb, as in Gen. xli. 
 43. Is. ix. 20. Jer. xiv. 5, or after the inf. constr. 1 Sam. xxii. 13. xxv. 26. 33. Jer. vii. 
 18. 8:c. See in Ewald Lehrb. p. 839. ed. 7. ■* Isaiah xxix. 9. 
 
 * Hos. iv. 8. * Phil. iii. 19. " Vi'f has nowhere the reflective 
 meaning, " satiated himself with " (as Del.) ; it simply expresses a state. 
 
 » [Oincludes both. ' S. Matt. vii. 2. '" Jer. xxv. 26. " Lam. iv. 21. 
 
 '- Rev. xvi. 19. i' Ps. Ixxvi. 8. " ]'f'^P'? misiht be simply an intensive, modified 
 from pSp'-p, as lio from 3333, nin>-i!iq for nnsnsn, &-c. Ew. Lehrb. p. 408. It was re- 
 garded as a compound word bv S. Jerome's Hebrew instructor, " vomitus ignominiie," 
 the Midrash Ester Rabb. 121 i c. (in Del.) Kim. Sal. 15. Mel. as suggested by the men- 
 tion of the drinking, (as in Jer. xxv. 27.). Ibn Ezra, Tanchuni, Abarb. give both. 
 In any case, as in B'B3y, the word was probably framed to suggest the two words, into 
 which it is naturally resolved, '(hj N'p, like nxs «'p Is. xxviii. 8. and the image Is. xix. 
 14. The form is enlarged by Hab. from the previous pSp, but the doubling occurs in 
 PART V. 
 
 shameful spewing? shaU he. on thy j^'lory. ciuiTsT 
 
 17 For the vioh-nce of Lebanon shall "■••«^- 
 cover thee, and th<; spoil of beasts, iHiich 
 ma(h! them afraid, ' Ix'cause of men's bh)od, ' '"■•^• 
 and for the viob'nee of the land, of the city, 
 
 and of all that dwell therein. 
 
 18 ^ "What profiteth the graven imajre °ij-44.9,io. 
 tliat the maker thereof hath graven it ; the 
 
 '' There is a cup in the Lord's hand ; it is full of mixture, and 
 He poureth out therefrom ; hut the dregs thereof all the un- 
 godly of the earth shall suck them out, shall drink them. 
 
 And shameful spewing ^^ shall he on thy glory. " ' ' With the 
 shame of thy spewing shalt thou bring u|» all IIkmi hast 
 swallowed down, and from the hci:;lit of glory shalt thou be 
 brought to the \ifnio>t ills." The shame of the ungodly 
 Cometh forth from himself; the shame he put others to is 
 doubled upon himself; and the very means which he had 
 used to fill himself with glory and greatness, cover the glory 
 which by nature he had, with the deeper disgrace, so that he 
 should be a loathsome and revolting sight to all. Man veils 
 foul deeds under fair words; God, in His word, unveils the 
 foulness. 
 
 17. For tlie violence of Lehauon i. e., done to Lebanon, 
 whether the land of Israel of which it was the entrance and 
 the beauty '", or the temple ^'', both of which Nebuchadnezzar 
 laid waste ; or, more widely, it may be a symbol of all the 
 majesty of the world and its empires, which he subdues, as 
 Isaiah uses it, when speaking of the judgement on the world^'. 
 // shall cover thee, and the spoil [i. e.. s/)oiling, destruction j of 
 beasts [the inhabitants of Lebanon] ichich made them afraid, 
 or more simply, the wasting of u'ild beasts'^'' shall crush''" 
 i'Ae/n [selves]," i. e., as it is in irraticmal nature, that "the 
 frequency of the incursions of very mischievous animals be- 
 comes the cause that men assemble against them and kill 
 them, so their [the Chaldseans'] frequent injustice is the cause 
 that they haste to be avenged on thee=*." Having become 
 beasts, they shared their history. They spoiled, scared, laid 
 waste, were destroyed. "Whoso seeketh to hurt another, 
 hurteth himself." The Clialda'ans laid waste Judwa, scared 
 and wasted its inhabitants; the end of its plunder should 
 be, not to adorn, but to cover them, overwhelm them as in 
 ruins, so that they should not lift nji their heads again. Vio- 
 lence returns on 'the head of him who did it; they seem to 
 raise a lofty fabric, but are buried under it. He sums up 
 their past experience, what God had warned them before- 
 hand, what they had found. 
 
 18. What pro fiteth {hath profited"] the graven image, that 
 
 ^>pSp Nu. xxi. 5. '= S. Jer. " See Is. xxxvii. 24. and, as a symbol, Jer. xxii. 6, 
 
 23. Ez. xvii. 3; but it is used as a symbol of Sennacherib's army. Is. x. .'U. and the king 
 of Asshur is not indeed spoken of under the name as a synubol (in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but is 
 compared to it. '' See on Zech. xli. 1. >* Is. ii. 13. 
 
 15 niDri3 is used of beasts of prey, Deut. xxvii. 24. *> As in Is. vii. 8. and 
 
 nrirp Ps. Ixxxix. 40, Pr. x. 14, xiii. 3, xiv. 14, xviii. 7. 
 
 21 R. Tanchum. He had after Abulwalid, which Kimchi quotes and approves, ex. 
 plained the first part of the verse; " This is a likeness framed as to him. that he was like 
 a beast of prey which attacketh the animals in their lairs ; and Lebanon is mentioned on 
 account ot the multitude of animals in it. He says then, thy wrong to the inhabitants 
 of Lebanon shall overwhelm thee." He gives also the rendering, followed in the E. V., 
 but prefers his own. He gives the two ways of deriving jirn' from nnn and nTi. Rashi 
 follows the same construction. " The wasting of thy beasts and forces, because they 
 have wasted My people Israel, it shall crush them [selves]." 
 
 2: ^-yin r:D. Samuel warned them, " Serve the Lord with all your heart, and turn ye not 
 aside ; for [it would he] after vanities, which will not profit, nor deliver, for they are vain : " 
 and Jeremiah tells their past ; " their jirophets prophesied by Baal ; and after things "^iVk^ 
 which profit not, have tiiey gone." Elsewhere tne idol is spoken of as a thing, " wiiich 
 
 B R R
 
 422 
 
 IIABAKKUK. 
 
 chrTst molten image, ami a " teacher of lies, that 
 
 ""■ 626. -j- the maker of his work trusteth therein, 
 
 '^lecKio'.^to make ydunih idols? 
 
 l^ ^^otr"lf{Ts'" 19 AVoe unto him that saith to the wood, 
 
 y/r'iiTs. Awake; to the dumh stone, Arise, it shall 
 
 1 Cor. 'V2. 2. 
 
 the maker thereof hath graven it ? What did Baal and Ash- 
 tarotli profit you? What availed it ever hut to draw down 
 the wrath of God ? Even so neither shall it profit the Clial- 
 dffian. As their idols availed them not, so neither need 
 they fear them. Sennacherih and Nehuchadnezzar were 
 propagandists of their own helief and would destroy, if they 
 could, all other worship, false or true^: Nebuchadnezzar is 
 thought to have set up his own image-. Anti-Christ will 
 set himself up as God"'. We may take warning at least by 
 our own sins. If we had no profit at all from them, nei- 
 ther will the like profit others. This the Jews did, in the 
 main, learn in their captivity. 
 
 The molten image a7id teacher of lies. It is all one whe- 
 ther by teacher of lies we understand the idol *, or its priest ^. 
 For its priest gave it its voice, as its maker created its form. 
 It could only seem to teach through the idol-priest. Isaiah 
 used the title teacher of lies, of the false prophet '''. It is all 
 one. Zechariah combines them ; '' The teraphim hare spoken 
 vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have had false 
 dreams. 
 
 That the maker of his ivork trasteth therein. This was 
 the special folly of idolatry. The thing made must needs be 
 inferior to its maker. It was one of the corruptions of 
 idolatry that the maker of his own work should trust in what 
 was wholly his own creation, what, not God, but himself 
 created, what had nothing but what it had from himself^. 
 He uses the very words which express the relation of man 
 to God, " the Framer " and " the thing framed." ' O your 
 perverseness ! Shall the framer he accounted as clay, that 
 t/ie thing made should say of its 3Iaker, He made me not, 
 and the thing framed say of its Framer, He hath no hands ? 
 The idol-maker is " the creator of his creature," of his god 
 whom he worships. Agaiu the idol-maker makes dumh idols 
 [lit. dumh notliings'] in themselves nothings, and having no 
 power out of themselves ; and what is uttered in their name, 
 are but lies. And what else are man's idols of wealth, 
 honour, fame, which he makes to himself, the creatures of 
 his own hands or mind, their greatness existing chiefly in 
 his own imagination, before which he bows down himself, 
 who is the image of God? 
 
 19. But then the greater is the Woe to him who deceiv- 
 eth by them. The prophet passes away from the idols as 
 "nothings" and pronounces "woe" on those who deceive by 
 them. He ^'' first expostuhates with them on their folly, and 
 would awaken them. JFIiat hath it profited^^l Then on the 
 obstinate he denounces "woe." TFoe laito him that saith to 
 the wood, Awake ; to the dumh stone. Arise. Self-made blind- 
 ness alone could, in the light of truth, so speak ; but yet 
 more lies in the emphatic word, It. The personal pronoun 
 
 will not profit" (fut.) "My people hath changed its glory S'yV uSa for that which pro- 
 fitethnot," Jer. ii. 8. 11. So Isaiah, "Who hath formed a Rod, Wl" 'rhzh, not to profit." 
 Is. xUv. 9. 10. " The makers of a graven image are ail of them vanity, and their desirable 
 things iVyv 73 will not profit. " 
 
 1 2 Kgs. xviii. 33-35, xix. 12-18, xxv. 9, Is. x. 10, 11. See also Lectures on Daniel pp. 
 447-4-49 ed. 2. ^ Dan. iii. See Lectures on Dan. pp. 442. 3 2 Thess. ii. 4. Rev. 
 
 xiii. 15-17. " Abarb. Kim. ' AE. Tanch. « Is. ix. 14. ' Zech. x. 2. 
 
 8 In Hebrew this is made stronger by the sameness of tlie words, lis' ns' yotser yilsro 
 E. M. "fashioner of his fashion." Agam "dumb idols" are elilim illemim, the second 
 
 Before 
 
 teach! Behold, it fv laid over with j^old christ 
 and silver, ''and there is no breath at all in "'■ *'-"• 
 the midst of it. 
 
 20 IJut "the Lord is in his holy tem])le 
 
 » I's. 135. 17. 
 •I's. 11.4. 
 f Heb. hf it- 
 Ifiit nil the 
 
 f I' let all the earth keep silence before him. £'' '"^"'' 
 
 "> Zeph. 1. 7. Zecii. 2. 13. 
 
 Stands emphatically in Hebrew; He shall teach, lo, He (this 
 same of whom he speaks) this is It which shall teacli : It, 
 and not the living God. And yet this same It (the word is 
 again cmphatii;) he points, as with the finger, to it, behold. It 
 is laid over with, held fast hy '-, gold and silver, so that no 
 voice could escape, if it had any. And there is no breath at all 
 in the midst of it^^, lit. All breath, all which is breath, there 
 is none within it; he first suggests the thought, breath of 
 every sort, and then energetically denies it all '* ; no life of 
 any sort, of man, or bird, or beast, or creeping thing; '^nonc, 
 good or bad ; from God or from Satan ; none whereby it can 
 do good or do evil ; for which it should be loved or feared. 
 Evil spirits may have made use of idols : they could not give 
 them life, nor dwell in them. 
 
 The words addressed to it are the language of the soul in 
 the seeming absence or silence of God^*', but mockery as 
 spoken to the senseless stone, as Elijah had mocked the 
 Baal-priests'", peradventure tie sleepeth and must he awaked. 
 
 20. And now having declared the nothingness of all which 
 is not God, the power of man or his gods, he answers again 
 his own question, by summoning all before the Presence of 
 the Majesty of God. 
 
 And the Lord. He had, in condemning them, picttired 
 the tumult of the world, the oppressions, the violence, blood- 
 sheddings, covetousness, insolence, self-aggrandisement of 
 the then world-empire, and had denounced woe upon it; we 
 see man framing his idols, praying to the lifeless stones ; 
 and God, of Whom none thought, where was He ? These 
 were men's ways. "And the Lord," he joins it on, as the 
 complement and corrective of all this confusion. The Lord 
 is in His holy temple, awaiting, in His long-suffering, to 
 judge. The temple of God is where God enshrines Himself, 
 or allows Himself to be seen and adored. " God is wholly 
 every where, the whole of Him no where." There is no con- 
 trast between His temple on earth, and His temple in hea- 
 ven. He is not more locally present in heaven than in earth. 
 It were as anthropomorphic but less pious to think of God, 
 as confined, localised, in heaven as on earth ; because it 
 would be simply removing God away from man. Solomon 
 knew, when he built the temple, that the heaven and heaven 
 of heavens could not contain '* God. The holy temple, which 
 could be destroyed '^, towards which men were to pray -", was 
 the visible temple-', where were the symbols of God's Pre- 
 sence, and of the atoning Sacrifice ; but lest His presence 
 should be localised, Solomon's repeated prayer is, "-hear Thou 
 in heaven Thy dtvelling j)lace;^^hear Thou in heaven. There 
 is then no diflTerence, as though in earlier books the " holy 
 temple" meant that at Jerusalem, in the later, "the heavens." 
 In the confession at the offering of the third year's tithes, the 
 
 word only slightly varying from the first. ' Is. xxix. 16. 'O Rup. 
 
 " As in Ps. cxv. 5. 1 Cor. xii. 2. '- The meaning of C'an elsewhere. " Here it 
 
 means ' surrounds,' for that wliich encircles a thing, is as if it held it on every side." 
 Tanch. " Comp. Jer. x. 14 repeated Ii. 17. 
 
 '< As in the Hebraism of the N. T. oi StKaiu>OrtiT(Tai TrScra aap^ Rom. iii. 20. 
 
 'i Is. xli. 23. Jer. x. 5. ><^ Ps. rii. 7, xxxv. 23, xliv. 24. lix. 6, Is. Ii. 9. Del. 
 
 '7 1 Kgs. xviii. 26, 27. 
 
 '8 1 Kgs. viii. 27. " Ps. Ixxix. 1. -» Ps. v. 7. cxxxviii. 2. Jon. ii. 4. 
 
 :i 1 Kgs. viii. 29. 30, 35, 38, 42, W, 48. a lb. 30, 39, 43, 49. «s lb. 32, 34, 36, 45.
 
 CHAPTER iir. 
 
 423 
 
 Before 
 C H R 1ST 
 
 cir. caCi. 
 
 CHAl'TEIl in. 
 
 1 Huhakkulc in his prayer tremhleth nt God's niu- 
 Jcs/i/. VJ The coyijideiice of his fai/h. 
 
 PRAYER of IIa]):ikkuk the prophet 
 
 A' 
 
 ;^,l:^L,^t\. Ml upon Shl-ionoth. 
 
 to variable sotii^s, or, tunes, called hi llehrew, Shighnoth. 
 
 prayer is, ^ look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven ; 
 and David says, - the Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's 
 throne is in heaven ; and, ^ He heard my voice out of His tem- 
 ple — He bowed the heavens also and came down; and, * In 
 His teni])le doth every one say, (ilory. The simple words are 
 identiea! t,li()iii;li not in tlie sani(> order as those, in which 
 David, in tlie same contrast with the oppression of man, 
 iisliers in the judijcment and final retrihution to good and 
 bad, by dcelarini;- the unseen presence of God on His Throne 
 in heaven, beholding; and trying- the sons of men. 
 
 In His I'resence, all the mysteries of our being are solved. 
 The Lord is in His holy Tem/ile, not, as the idols in temples 
 made with hands, but revealing Himself in the visible tem- 
 ple, "^dwelling in the S(hi, by Nature and Union, as He saith, 
 ^ The Father Who dwelleth in Me doeth the works; in each 
 one of the bodies and souls of the Saints by His Spirit'', 
 In the Blessed, in glory; in the Heavens, by the more evi- 
 / dent appearance of His Majesty and the workings of His 
 Power ; " ^ every where by Essence, Presence, and Power, 
 for in Him ive live, and move, and have our being ; no where 
 as confined or inclosed." Since then God is in Heaven, be- 
 holding the deeds of men. Himself Unchangeable, Almighty, 
 All-holy, let all the earth keep silence before Him, lit. hush 
 before Him all the earth, waiting from Him in hushed still- 
 ness tlie issue of this tangled state of being. And to the 
 hushed soul, hushed to itself and its own thoughts, hushed 
 in awe of His Majesty and His Presence, before His face, God 
 speaks ^. 
 
 III. 1. A prayer ^° of Hahakknk. The prayer of the 
 prophet, in the strictest sense of the word, is contained in 
 the words of verse 2. The rest is, in its form, praise and 
 thanksgiving, chiefly for God's past mercies in the deliver- 
 ance from Egypt and the entering into the promised land. 
 But thanksgiving is an essential part of prayer, and Hannah 
 is said to have prayed, whereas the hymn which followed 
 is throughout one thanksgiving ^^. In that also these former 
 deliverances were images of things to come, of every de- 
 liverance afterwards, and, especially, of that complete Di- 
 vine deliverance which our Lord Jesus Christ wrought for 
 lis from the power of Satan ^■•', the whole is one prayer. 
 " Do, O Lord, as Thou hast done of old ; forsake not Thine 
 own works. Such were Thy deeds once; fulfil them now, 
 all which they shadowed forth." It is then a prayer for 
 the manifestation of God's power, and therewith the de- 
 struction of His enemies, thenceforth to the Day of Judge- 
 ment. " ^^ Having completed the discourse about Babylon, 
 
 > De. XKvii. 15. - Ps. xi. 4. ^ Ji,. xviii. 6. 9. * lb. xxix. 9. 
 
 » S. Jer. 6 s. John xiv. 10. 7 1 Cor. vi. 19. » Dion. » See S. Augustine's 
 words to his mother before her death, Conf. ix. 10. 
 
 "> Tephillotli is a title of the collection of DaWd's Psalms ending with Ps. Ixxii. 
 (lb. ver. 20.) Three of David's Psalms are entitled Tephillah, Ps. xvii. Ixxxvi. cxlii. 
 Moses' Psalm xc, and anonymous cii. " S'jsnni 1 Sam. ii. 1. '- 1 Cor. x. 11. 
 
 " S. Cyr. " Ps. vii. '» on Neginoth, Ps. iv. vi. Iv. Nehiloth, Ps. v. Gittith, 
 
 Ps. viii. Shoshannim, Ps. xlv. Mahalath, Ps. liii. '^ on Sheminith, Ps vi. 
 
 Alamoth Ps. xlvi. 1/ Perhaps "upon Muthlabben," Ps. ix "on Aiieleth 
 
 Shahar," Ps. xxii. "on Yonath-elem-rekokini." Ps. Ivi. 's j^_ Taiichum. 
 
 '^ Since nJ^ " erred " i.s common to Hebrew and Aramaic, it is improbable that 
 p'aEJ should be i. q. Syr. nn'ilD a " hymn of praise," from 'JD, besides that the Heb. o does 
 
 2 O Lord, I liuve heard f thy sjieech, chrTst 
 and was afraid : O Jjoan, || ''revive thy work "'*•• '''^'- 
 in the midst of the years, in tht; midst of ^ repur't'Ht, 
 the years make known; in wrath remem- n o*f ^"^'^*' 
 her mercy. ^vljk.a. 
 
 and having fore-announced most <!learly, that those who des- 
 troyed the boly city and carried Israel captive shall be se- 
 verely punished, he passes suitably to tin; mystery of (Jhrist, 
 and from the redemption which took place partially in one 
 nation, he carries on the discourse to that universal redemp- 
 tion, whereby the remnant of Israel, and no less the whole 
 world has been saved." 
 
 Upon A'higionoth. The title, Stuggaion, occurs but once 
 besides 1^ Upon, in the titles of the I'salms, is used with 
 the instrument ^% the melody'", or the first words of the 
 hymn, whose melody has been adopted'^. The two first 
 are mentioned by a Jewish ('oinnientator '*' with others, "in 
 his deliglit," or "his errors," in the sense, that (iod will 
 forgive them. This, which the versions and Jewish com- 
 mentators mostly adopt, would be a good sense, but is hardly 
 consistent with tlie Hebrew usage. Shiggaion of David, 
 as a title of a Psalm, innst necessarily describe tlie Psalm 
 itself, as 3Iidsmor of David, Michtam of David, Tephillah 
 of David, 3Jaschil of David. But Shiggaion, as a " great 
 error," is not a title : nor does it suit the character of the 
 Psalm, which relates to calumny not to error. It [irobably, 
 then, means a psalm with music expressive of strong emo- 
 tion, " erratic " or " dithyrambic." Habakkuk's title, on 
 Shigionoth [plur.] then would mean upon, or (as we should 
 say,) "set to" music of psalms of this sort ''■'. The number 
 " three " remarkably predominates in this psalm -", yet so 
 that long measures are succeeded by very short. 
 
 2. O Lord, I have heard i. e. with the inward ear of 
 the heart. Thy speech, (rather as E. AL Thy report, i. e. the 
 report of Thee-') i. e. what may be heard and known of 
 God, or, what he had himself heard--. The word contains 
 in one both that which God had lately declared to the Pro- 
 phet, the judgements of God upon the wicked of the peo- 
 ple, and upon those who, with their own injustice, wrought 
 on them the righteous judgements of God, and that the 
 work of the Lord would be wrought in His time for 
 those who in patience wait for it ; and also still more largely, 
 what might be heard of God, although, as it were, but a 
 little whisper of His greatness and of the Majesty of His 
 workings. 
 
 And ivas afraid, not "fearful" but afraid in awe, as a 
 creature, and amazed at the surpassing wonderfulness of the 
 work of God. Well may man stand in awe " -' at the Incarna- 
 tion of the Only Begotten Son, how earth should contain 
 Him uncontaincd by space, how a Body was prepared for 
 Him of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost, and all the works 
 
 not interchange with Syr. O. -" Ver. 6 has 15 words, in five combinations of 
 
 three words ; vv. 3 and 10 have 12 words, in four 3s : w. 4, 9, 19. have 9 words in three 
 3s : vv. 5, 12, 15 and IS have 6 words in two 3s : ver. 17 is divided into 4334.33 ; ver. 8 
 is 33332 ; ver. 1 1 is 4.33 ; ver. Ifi is 3332223. This forces itself on every reader. Del. 
 quotes the Meor Enaiin, i. 60, " The prayer of Habakkuk goeth on threes." 
 
 -' Except in the one phrase pK ycc* " hearing of ear " (Job xlii. 5. Ps. x^-iii. 45.) the 
 personal gen. after I'C? is that of the object," the report of Jacob," Gen xxix. 1.3. " of 
 Solomon," 1 Kgs. x. 1. 2Chron. ix. 1. "of TjTe, " Is. xxiii. 5 with the affix ^za there- 
 port of thee. Nu. xiv. 15, De. ii. 25. Nab. iii. 19. .il'rs' the report of her [wisdom] Job 
 xxviii. 22. 'yep the report of Me [God], Is. Ixri. 19. eye? the report of them. Jer. xxxvii. 
 5. 1. 43. '^ as nycsi Ob. 1. and thence Jer. xUx. 14. See on Uosea vii. 12. 
 
 a Theoph. ftom S. Cyr. 
 
 R R R 2
 
 424 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 \vlierel)y He sliall work tlic salvation of iiiaiikiiKl, llic Cross, 
 the Death, lU'suiTectioii and Ascension, unitinii' things oppo- 
 sfte, a Body with One ineoi-jjoreal, Deatli with Life. Hesur- 
 reetion with Death, a liody in Heaven. All is full of wonder 
 and awe." ">This is not a servile fear, hut a holy fear whieli 
 endureth for ever, not one which lore cdslcdi ant, hut which 
 it brini;eth in, wherein aniiels ])raise, dominions adore, powers 
 stand in awe at the Majesty of the Eternal (iod." 
 
 O Lord, revive Thy work. God's Word seems, often, as 
 it were, dead and cmne utterhi to an end for evermore^, while 
 it is holdin!»' t»n its own course, as all nature seems dead 
 for a \\hile, hut all is laid up in store, and ready to shoot 
 forth, as by a sort of resurrection. '"The Prophet proplie- 
 syins" prayeth, that it should come quickly, and prayinfi^ 
 prophesieth that it shall so (;ome." All God's dealings 
 with His people, His Church, each single soul, are part of 
 one great work, perfect in itself''; glory and majesty*; all 
 which the godly meditateth on'; which those busied with 
 their own plans, do not look to"; it is manifested in great 
 doings for them or with them, as in the Exodus the Psalmist 
 says, '^ We have heard with our ears, yea, our fathers have 
 told us ivhat tvork Thini didst in their days, in the times of 
 old; ^ They proved Me and saw My tvork ; with it He makes 
 His own glad'; after it has been withdrawn for a while, 
 He sheweth it to His servants^" ; it issues in judgements on 
 the ungodly, which men consider and declare^'. 
 
 The great work of God on earth, which includes all His 
 works and is the end of all, is the salvation of man through 
 Jesus Christ. This great work seemed, as it were, asleep, 
 or dead, as trees in winter, all through those 4000 years, 
 which gave no token of His Coming. Included in this great 
 work is the special work of the Hand of God, of which 
 alone it is said, God said. Let Us make man in Our Image 
 after Our Likeness ^~ ; and, we are the clay and Thou our 
 Potter, and we are all the ivork of Thy Hands ^^ ; and Thy 
 Hands have made me and fashioned me together round about^*, 
 — man; whom, being dead as to the life of the soul through the 
 malice of Satan, Christ revived by dying and rising again. 
 He was dead in trespasses and sins, and like a carcase pu- 
 trefying in them, and this whole world one great charnel- 
 house, through man's manifold corruptions, when Christ 
 came to awaken the dead, and they who heard lived ^'. 
 
 Again, the Centre of this work, the special Work of God, 
 that M^ierein He made all things new, is the Human Body 
 of our Lord, the Temple which was destroyed by Death, 
 and within three days raised up. 
 
 The answer to Habakkuk's enquiry, Hotv long? had two 
 sides. It had given assurance as to the end. The trial-time 
 would not be prolonged for one moment longer than the 
 counsel of God had foredetermined. The relief would come, 
 come; it would not he hehindhand. But meantime? There 
 was no comfort to be given. For God knew that deepening 
 sin was drawing on deepening chastisement. But in that 
 He was silent as to the intervening time and pointed to 
 patient expectation of a lingering future, as their only com- 
 fort, He implies that the immediate future was heavy. Ha- 
 hakkuk then renews his prayer for the years which had to 
 intervene and to pass away. Li the midst of the years, hefore 
 that time appointed^^, when His promise should have its full 
 fulfilment, before those years should come to their close, he 
 
 1 Rup. - Ps. Ixxvii. 8. ' De. xxxii. 4. * Ps. cxl. 3. 
 
 5 lb. Ixxvii. 3. cxliii. 35. « Is. v. 12. ' Ps. xliv. 2. n'^VD '?ys » Ps. xcv. 9. 
 9 lb. xcii. 3. '0 lb. xc. 6. " lb. Ixiv. 10. In all these cases sing. Ws. 
 12 Gen. i. 2G. 13 Is. Ixiv. 8. » Job x. 8. 
 
 prays; revive Thy work. The years include all the long 
 period of waiting for our Lord's first Coming before He 
 came in the Flesh; and now for His second Coming and the 
 restifulion of all things. In this long pei'iod, at times God 
 seems to bt; absent, as when our l.,ord was asleep in the boat, 
 while the tempest was raging; at times He bills the storm 
 to cease and there is a great calm. This, in those long in- 
 tervals, when Clod seems to be absent, and to leave all things 
 to time and chance, and love waxes cold, and graces seem 
 rare, is the prayer of Habakkuk, of Prophets and Psalmists, 
 of the C^hurch, '^''Return, we beseech Thee, O God of hosts, look 
 down from heaven, behold and visit this vine. '" O God, why 
 hast Thou cast us ojl for ever f IVhy withdrawest Thou Thy 
 hand, Thy right hand? For God is my king of old, rvorking 
 salvation in the midst of the earth. ^'^ Awake, awake, put on 
 strength, Thou Arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient 
 days, in the generations of old. Art thou not It which did 
 smite Rahab, didst wound the dragon ? Art thou not It tchlch 
 didst dry the sea, the waters of the great deep, tvhich didst 
 make the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass 
 over? '" Stir up Thy might and come, save us. -' Renew our 
 days, as of old. So our Lord taught His Chur<;h to pray 
 continually, whenever she prayed, Tliy kingdom come, long- 
 ing not for His final Coming only, but for the increase of 
 His glory, and the greater dominion of His grace, and His 
 enthronement in the hearts of men, even before its complete 
 and final Coming. In the midst of the years revive Thy work, 
 is the Church's continual cry. 
 
 1)1 the 7nidst of the years make knotvn, lit. Thou wilt 
 make known : in wrath Ttiou ivilt remember mercy ; and so 
 (as we use the w-ord wilt) the Prophet, at once, foretelleth, 
 expresseth his faith, prayeth. God had made known His 
 work and His power in the days of old. In times of trouble 
 He seems like a God who Jiideth Himself. Now, he prays 
 Him to shine forth and help ; make known Thy work, before 
 Thou fulfil it, to revive the drooping hopes of man, and that 
 all may see that Thy word is truth. Make Thyself known in 
 Thy work, that, when the time cometh to -- make an end of 
 sin by the Death of Thy Son, Thy Aweful Holiness, and the 
 love wherewith Thou hast -'^ so loved the world, may be the 
 more known and adored. 
 
 In wrath Tliou wilt remember mercy. So David prayed, 
 "^Remember Thy tender-mercies and Thy loving-kindnesses ; for 
 they are from old. Thou wilt remember that counsel for 
 man's redemption which has been from the foundation of 
 the world : for we seem in our own minds to be forgotten of 
 God, when He delayeth to help us. God remembereth niercy^= 
 in anger, in that in this life He never chastens without pur- 
 poses of mercy, and His Mercy ever softeneth His judge- 
 ments. His Promise of mercy, that the Seed of the woman 
 shall l)ruise the serpent's head, went before the sentence of 
 displeasure, -'' Dtist thou art, and unto dust shall tliou return. 
 " -' He reveals His wrath that He may scare us from sin and 
 so may not inflict it ; " and when at last He inflicteth it. He 
 hath mercy on the remnant who flee to His Mercy, that we 
 be not like Sodom and Gomorrha. -* While we were yet sin- 
 ners, and God was wToth, Christ died for us, and -' He saved 
 us, not for luorks ivhich we had done, hut out of His great 
 Mercy, and took away sin, and restored us to life and in- 
 corruption. 
 
 '» S. John V. 25. i« nyto i? Ps. Ixxx. 14. is lb. Ixxiv. 1, 11, 12. " Is. li. 9, 10. 
 =" Ps. Ixxx. 3. 2' Lam. v. 21. 2: Dan. ix. 24. 23 s. John iii. 16. 
 
 2J Ps. XXV. 6. ■'" S. Luke i. 54, 72. 20 Gen. iii. 19. 27 S. Jer. 
 
 =8 Rom. V. 8. 29 Tit. ui. 5.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 425 
 
 chrTst ^ ^'"^ came from || Teman, "^arul the 
 
 cir. 02(3. II Or, the south. 'Deut. 33. 2. Judg. G. 4. Ps. fi8. 7. 
 
 God had already promised by Micali, ' Acmrdins^ to the 
 days of thij vontiii!^ out of llic land of Eij^iij)!, I icill show him 
 marvellous lhhi!>s. Isaiah had often used the j;reat events 
 of tliat deliveranee as the symbols of the future. So non' 
 Ilabakkuk, in one vast panorama, as it were, without dis- 
 tinction of time or series of events, exhibits the future in 
 pictures of the past. In the description itself which follows, 
 he now speaks in tlie past, now in the futui'c; of which times 
 the future uiis;ht be a vivid present ; and the past a jirophetic 
 jiast. As a key to the wiiole, he says, God sluill romi-, in- 
 dieatinj;- that all which follows, however spoken, was a part 
 of that future. In no other way was it an answer to that 
 prayer. Revive Thij work. To foretell future deliverances in 
 plain words, had been a comfort; it would have promised a 
 continuance of that work. The unity and revival of the 
 work is expressed, in that the past is made, as it was, the 
 ima2,e of the future. That futui'e was to be wondrous, su- 
 ]»erhuman ; else the past miracles had been no imajije of it. 
 It was to be no jncre repetition of the future; and to mark 
 this, the images are exhibited out of their historical order. 
 
 3. God came (lit. shall come) from Teman. Gad shall 
 come, as He came of old, clothed with majesty and j)ower; 
 but it was not mere power. The centre of the whole picture 
 is, as Micah and Isaiah had prophesied that it was to be, a 
 new revelation; " IVie Unv shall go forth from Zion, and the 
 word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ^ / will give Thee for a 
 covenant to the pco/jle [Israel], /or « light of the Gentiles. So 
 now, speaking: of the new work in store, Habakkuk renews 
 the imaijery in the Song of Moses*, in Deborah's Song% 
 and in David"; but there the manifestation of His glory is 
 s))oken of wholly in time past, and Mount Sinai is named. 
 Habakkuk speaks of that coming as yet to be, and omits the 
 express mention of Mount Sinai, which was the emblem of 
 the law 7. And so he directs us to another Lawgiver, Whom 
 God should i-aise up li/ce unto Moses, yet with a law of life, 
 and tells how He Who spake the law, God, shall come in 
 likeness of our flesh. 
 
 ' Mic. vii. 15. " Is. ii. 3. Mic. iv. 2. ' Is. xliv. 5. 
 
 ■• Deut. xxxiii. 3. ^ Jud. v. .5. ' Ps. Ixviii. 7. 
 
 ' S. Cyr. ' Deut. xxxiii. 2. ^ mi is used in prose too, of the rising sun (with 
 B'OWn) Gen. xxxii. 32, Ex. xxii. 3, Jud. ix. 33, 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, 2 Kgs. iii. 22, Jon. iv. 8. 
 
 1" ysi.i is used of tlie light of the sun Job iii. 4, x. 22 ; of the manifestation of God 
 apart from any physical emblem Ps. 1. 2, Ixxx. 2, xciv. 1 ; and of God, favouring the 
 rouDsrlrif Ihc wirlicil. iuh x. 3. •' Muiiiit Paran is only mentioned in Deuteronomy 
 
 and Habakkuk, and was probably taken by Habakkuk from Moses, wlio himself knew 
 it. The witiict tn'ss of Ptiraii nmst have lainW. or S. of the itnUii'i-m'ssof Zin, which formed 
 the Southern border of Judah (Nu. xiii. 21. Josh, xv. l.). The history of Ishmael im- 
 plies that part of it Ijiy towards Egypt (Gen. xii. 21 .) ; that of Hadad the Edomite, shews 
 that it lay between Midian and Egypt (1 Kgs. xi. 18): but there being, (as far as it is 
 ascertained), no natural boundary between it and Ihe wilderness of Zin, the name Paran 
 is apparently used in a wider sense as comprehending the desert of Zin, whence Ka- 
 desh is placed both in Paran (Nu. xiii. 20.) and more commonly in Zin (Nu. xx. 1, 
 xxvii. 14, xxxiii. 30, 37, xxxiv. 4, Josh. xv. 3.), and the wilderness near it is also called 
 the wilderness of Kiidesh (Ps. xxix. 8.). The name of the tellderness of Zin does not occur 
 after Joshua ; and that of Paran may have extended over the whole desert cretaceous 
 plateau up to the borders of Edom, now called Badiet-et-Tih, the "wilderness of the 
 wanderings," whose Western extremity lies North of the crescent-shaped Jebel-et-Tih, 
 which separates it from the lower part of the peninsula. (See Map in Sinaitic survey.) 
 Hence Nabal is related to have fed his flocks in Piiran (1 Sam. xxv. 5.) and Eil- 
 paran " the terebinth of Paran," (Gen. xiv. G.) 61/ tlie tt'ilderness, the bound of the inroad 
 of Ciiedorlaomer, may have had its name from the wilderness. Mount Paran might be 
 anywhere connected with this wilderness on the West. "Mount Serbal is perhaps the 
 most striking mountain in the peninsula ; it rises abruptly to a height of more than 4000 
 feet above the valleys at its base, and its summit, a sharp ridge about three miles long, 
 is broken into a series of peaks varying little in altitude, but rivalling each other in the 
 beauty and grandeur of their outline. It is three miles from Wady Feiran ;" " in one 
 or two points from which its highest peak is visible." Ordnance Survey of Peninsula 
 of Sinai pp. 143, 141. " When seen from a distance Serbal presents a boldness of out- 
 line and an appearance of massive isolation which entitled it to rank as one of the grand- 
 est and most distinctive features of the peninsula." (Palmer's desert of the Exodus 
 p. 169.) What is now called Jebel Feiran is too low to be taken into account. It is 
 
 Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. 
 
 JIJ,. n.fore 
 
 ^*'^ CHRIST 
 cir. 026. 
 
 And the Ifoli/ One from Mount Paran. In the earliest 
 passage three places an; iiieiitioned, in which or from whiidi 
 th(! glory of (i((d was manifested; with this diliVTcnce how- 
 ever, that it is said, ** The Lord came from Sinai, but His 
 glory arose, as we should say dawned''' unto them from Seir, 
 and /lashed forth^" from Mount Paran ^'. Seir and Mount 
 Paran are joined togetluir by the symbol of tht; light which 
 dawned or shone forth from tlicm. In the second passage, the 
 Song of Deborah, .S>//- and the field of Kilom are the place 
 when(;e (iod came forth; Sinai melled^- at His jiresence. In 
 the (J8th I'salm the mention (d' I^doiii is dnippcd ; and the 
 march through the wilderness under the leading of God, is 
 alone mentioned, together with the shaking of Sinai. In 
 Habakkuk, the contrast is the same as in Moses; oidy Teman 
 stands in ])lace of Seir ^^. Teman and Mount Paran are 
 named prol)al)ly, as the two opposed boundaries of the 
 journeyings of Israel through the desert. They came to 
 Mount Sinai through the valley, now called Wady I'eiran '*or 
 Paran ; Edom was the bound of their wanderings to their 
 promised land '•■. God Who guided, fed, protected them from 
 the beginning, led them to the end. Between Paran also and 
 Edom or Teman was the gift of the Spirit to the seventy, 
 which was the shadow of tbt? day of Pentecost; there, was the 
 brazen serpent lifted up, the jdcture of the healing of the 
 Cross 1". ^" Mount Paran he near Kadesh, then Moses in the 
 opening of his song describes the glory of God as manifested 
 from that first revelation of His law on Mount Sinai; then in 
 that long period of Israel's waiting there to its final departure 
 for the promised land, when Mount Hor was <'onsecrated and 
 God's aweful Iltdiness declared in the death of Aaron. 
 
 He Who shall come, is (iod '^, the //o/// One (a proper 
 Name of God'"*). Perfect in Holiness, as God, the Son of 
 God, and as Man also all-holy, with a human will, always 
 exactly accompanying the Divine Will, which was 
 "the j)assion of His Heart 
 Those Three-and-thirty years." 
 
 but an eminence, rising on one side 810 feet above the Wady Feiran; on the other side, 
 795 feet, and above the sea 2800 ; so that in the same neighbourhood Mount Serbal is 
 above twice its heignt, 6443 feet above the sea at its highest peak. (Sinaitic Survey, 
 Mount Serbal, sections.) This mountain has this advantage, that it is connected with 
 Wady Feiran or Paran, through which Moses led Israel to Mount Sinai. The name 
 is remarkable, as having been given by Israel, since it has a Hebrew etymology, " the 
 beautiful " or " the leafy," and all travellers praise the richness of the vallev, even amid 
 the decay of fertility consequent on neglect. It has no Arabic etymology-. (See Palmer, 
 1. c. p. 20.) S. Jerome says, from his Hebrew teacher apparently, " Pharan is a place 
 near to Mount Sinai." ad loc. 
 
 The striking mountain of Edom had its own name Hor, wliich in the eleven placesin 
 which it is named in the Pentateuch is always called in.i vi "Hor, the mountain." Nu. 
 XX. 22, 23, 25, 27. xxi. 4. xxxii. 37, 38, 41. xxxiv. 7, 8. De. xxxii. 19. Prof. Palmer hav- 
 ing shewn Ain Gadis to be Kadesh (1. c. c. iv. p. 373. sqq.) says, " To one encamped in the 
 wilderness of Kadesh, i. e. in the open plaui into which Wady Gadis debouches, Jebel 
 Magrah would be always the most conspicuous object in tlie scene." (lb. p. 510.) This 
 is a plateau. 70 miles long and 40—50 miles broad, " projecting into the Tih, much as 
 the Tih projects into Smai." lb. p. 288, 9. 
 
 12 Jud. v. 4, 5. " As it stands connected with Edom, Ob. 9. Jer. lis. 7, 20, 
 
 21. with Dedan also, Jer. xhx. 8, Ezek. xxv. 13. " Sinaitic Sun-eye. 5. 149—155. 
 Ii Nu. XX. 14—20. Deut. ii. '' Rib. 
 
 '7 The sing, rn^n occurs 41 times in the book of Job ; else only 16 times in all the 
 O. T., and 8 times only of the true God, (twice in Moses' song Deut. xxxii. 15, 17 ; in a 
 Psalm of David, Ps. cxxxix. 19, of Asaph, 1. 22, .\non. Ps. cxiv. 7 ; in Proverbs xxs. 5, 
 here, and in Nehemiah's prayer, (in which there are so many reminiscences from the 
 Pentateuch. See in " Daniel "the Prophet" pp.356, 357.) Else it is used of the Godhead 
 ( Who is Gild e.ice/>t &c. in David Ps. xviii. 32, is there ani/ God besides Me ? Is. xliv. 
 8) ; " any God " including the true God Dan. xi. 3. And five times it is used of a fabe 
 god ; inHab. i. 11 ; three times in Dan. xi. 38, .39; and by Sennacherib 2 Chr. xxxu. 
 15. ' There is then no basis of induction as to its occurring in later Hebrew and poetic 
 books; since its use is mostly a peculiarity of the book of Job, the other 16 cases are 
 sporadic and in no one sense. 
 
 '!* Whence in the Hebrew, though the subject, it has no article, as in Is. si. 25, and 
 Job vi. 11.
 
 426 
 
 HAIiAKKUK. 
 
 c h^rTs t glo''y f^overed the heavens, and the earth 
 
 "'"'■ "-''• was full of his praise. 
 
 On this there follows a pause denoted by Selah \ (which 
 occurs thrice according to the mystery of tliat nunihcr,) tliat 
 the soul may dwell on the greatness of the majesty and mercy 
 of God. 
 
 Sc/(i/i. There is no doubt as to the general purport of the 
 word, tliat it is a musical direction, that there should be a 
 pause, the music probably (continuing alone, while the mind 
 rested on the thought, which had just been presented to it ; 
 our " interlude -." It is always placed at some pause 
 of thought, even when not at the end of a strophe, oi', as 
 twice in this hymn ^ at the end of the verse. S. Gregory 
 of Nyssa modifies this thought, supposing " Selah " to ex- 
 press a pause made by the writer, that "*while the psalmody, 
 M'ith which David's prophesying was accompanied, went on 
 in its course, another illumining of the Holy Spirit, and an 
 addition to the gift according to knowledge, came for the 
 benefit of those who received the prophecy, he, holding in 
 his verse, gave time for his mind to receive the knowledge 
 of the thought, which took place in him from the Divine 
 illumining." He defines it to be "a sudden silence in the 
 midst of the Psalmody for the reception of the illumining." 
 
 His Glori/ covered the hecwens, and the earth was full of 
 His praise. This is plainly no created glory, but anticipates 
 the Angelic Hymn, ° Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace, good-will toward men, or, as the Seraphim sing first, 
 glory to God in Heaven, ^Hobj Holy Hobj is the Lord God 
 of Sahaoth, and then, tlie whole earth is full of His glory; and 
 Uncreated Wisdom saith, ' / alone compassed the circuit of 
 Heaven, and tvalked in the bottom of the deep. Nor are they 
 our material heavens, much less this lowest heaven over our 
 earth, nor is His glory any lightning at Mount Sinai, but the 
 boundless Majesty ^ of God, which rules, encompasses, fills, 
 penetrates the orbs of heaven and all its inhabitants, and yet 
 is not enclosed nor bounded thereby. Those who are made 
 as the heavens by the indwelling of God He spiritually covers, 
 tilling " them with the light of glory and splendour of grace 
 and brightness of wisdom, as it saith, Is there any numher of 
 His armies, and upon luhoni doth not His light arise^^ ? and so 
 the earth was full of His praise, i. e. the Church militant 
 spread throughout the world, as in the Psalm, ^^ Tlie Lord's 
 name is praised from the rising np of tlie sun unto tlie going 
 down of the same, and, ^" O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is 
 Thy name in all the earth, JFho hast set Thy glory above 
 the heavens. 
 
 4. ^nd His Brightness, that wherein God dweUeth, ^^ the 
 
 1 It occurs here only besides the Psalms. It occurs thrice in Ps. iii. xxxii. Ixvi. 
 Ixviii. - Sidi|/o\/:ia in Lxx. Theod. Syram. Syr. 
 
 3 In Ps. Iv. 20. Ivii. 4. Hah. iii. 3, 9, alone, it is not at the end of the verse. Eight 
 Psalms only, out of 39 Psalms which have it, have not the title " For the chief musi- 
 cian," Ps. 32, 48, 5G, 82, 83, 87, 89, 143. 5 of these are "iiDiD ; 2, S'DBO (32 and 89), one 
 without any inscription (48). The most probable etymology seems to be .iVd, = V^D and 
 so our ' ' alto ; " whether the n be added to So or it be an imperative ivith paragogic n like 
 .ijpiK Ps. cxix. 117, nsjnB'] Is. xli. 23, although there is no extant instance of this im- 
 perative. There is equally no instance of the form from S'jD (as Ewald Ps. i 179, Lehrb. 
 §. 216. c. p. 544) since np? 1 Kgs. ii. 40, is only a Var. Read, for the received nm which 
 is borne out by n^ia Jos. xix. 13. * Tract 2 in Ps. Inscr. &c. T. i. p. 329. 
 
 = S. Luke ii. 14. * Is. vi. 3. ' Ecclus. xxiv. 5. ^ lin is used of 
 
 the Divine Majesty Job xxxvii. 22. Ps. viii. 2. xx. 30. with mn Ps. xcvi. 6. (1 Chr. xvi. 
 
 27,) civ. 1, cxi. 3, cxlv. 5, cxlviii. 11 ; ironically to man, as impossible for him, Job 
 
 xl. 10. It is used as imparted to the Messiah Ps. xxi. 0, or being in Him, Ps. xlv. 4. 
 
 9 Dion. 1" Job xxv. 3. " Ps. cxii. 3. '= lb. viii. 1. '3 Ezek. x. 4. 
 
 » Ps. xviii. 12. '= Ex. xix. 9, 16. xx. 21. "> lb. xxiv. 10. '7 S. John i. 14. 
 
 18 Is. ix. 2. " Theoph. =" Rup. =' Heb. i. 3. ^- Wisd. vii. 2.5. 
 
 33 Nicene Creed. "'' S. John i. 9. -» lb. xvii. 5. •<• S. Jer. Dion. 
 
 2/ nij Ex. xxxiv. 29. 30. 35. which is compared by Kim. Rashi, A. E. Abulw. Abarb. 
 
 4 And his brightness was as the light ; 
 he had || horns coming out of his hand : 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 626. 
 
 II Or, bright beams out of his side. 
 
 I 
 
 brightness of the Lord's glory, before which darkness fleeth", 
 was as the light, or us the sun. (Jut of tiie midst of the dark- 
 nes.S, wherewith God, as it were, ^Miid Himself, the lirightness 
 of the ina/iproachable Light wherein He dwetleth, gleams 
 forth"", briglit as the brightest light gathered into one, which 
 man knows of and wiiereon he cannot gaze. So amid the dark- 
 ness of the humiliation of His Presence in the flesh, ^"^ we beheld 
 His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father ; 
 and ^** the people that tvalked in darkness see a great light, "not 
 dim 1' nor weak, nor shadowed, like that of Aloses, but pure 
 unimaginable light of the knowledge of God." The Bright- 
 ness too of His Flesh was like the light of the Godhead on 
 Mount Tabor ; for the Godhead flashed through. " -" As often 
 as He did His marvellous works. He put fortli His Brightness 
 (tempered for His creatures, since they could not approach 
 the depth of His light, yet) us light to enlighten men to know 
 Him. Yet the Brightness issues from the Light, co-existing 
 with it, and in it, while issuing from it. And so the words 
 aptly express, how He Who is the -^ Brightness of the Father's 
 Glory anil the express Image of His Person, the ~^ Brightness 
 of the Eternal Light, the unspotted mirror of the Power of 
 God, and the Image of His Goodness, is as the Light from 
 Whom He is, ""'Light of Light," Equal to the Father by 
 Whom He was Begotten ; as S. John says, -* That was the 
 true Light, ivhich lighteneth every man that conieth into the 
 tuorld. As He prayeth, -'" Glorify Thou Me with Thine Own 
 Self with the Glory fVhich I had with Thee before the world 
 tvas. 
 
 He had horns coming out of His Hand. "-* Horns are every- 
 where in Holy Scripture the emblem of strength." It may be, 
 that here " rays " are likened to horns, as the face of Moses 
 is said, with the same image, to have " sent forth rays ^'" after 
 he had long been in the presence of God. So it may be a 
 mingled image of the Glory and might ; Light, which was 
 also might. But " horns," though they may be a symbol of 
 "light," are not of "lightning;" and the Hand of God is 
 used as an emblem of His Power, His protection. His bounty, 
 His constraining force on His prophets. It is nowhere used 
 of the side or sides -*. We have two images combined here ; 
 "horns" which in every other place in which they are used 
 as a metaphor, is an emblem of power; and "from the hand 
 of" which, wherever it is used of a person, means that the 
 thing spoken of had been in his hand or power really or 
 virtually"^. Both then combine in the meaning that the might 
 came forth from the directing agency of God Who wielded it. 
 
 Tanch. Abendana. Tliis is illustrated further by the use of "horns" as a hieroglyphic 
 for the sun, ChampoUion Grammar p. 359. in Ges. and unnp " horns" of the sun, Buxt. 
 (not in Levy). The title of Ps. xxii. inun rh'H Vi " according to the hind of the morn- 
 ing," may bear upon it, since Ninan kciV:n in the Jerus. Talm. (originally quoted by 
 Lightfoot, Hora; Hebr. on S. Mark xvi. 2) is used of the first rays of light, which 
 usher in the dawn, the rays appearing solid like horns. In Arab, too rqtiiy is a name of 
 the sun, though Arab, authorities differ about its use, and nhs'^k rhtc]) is the "sun at 
 the time called Nns," some part of the clear day. And Hariri uses "the horn of the 
 gazelle" nSmjlSK :")p (as explained by De Sacy) of those same first rays. But Kini. 
 gives as the meanings of .t?n .« hind (literally) or day-star, or sunrise. 
 
 -s As even Del. and Keil. T is used of the side of the river Ex. ii. 5, and with 
 the prepositions '?, Vn, ip, IV^ (See Ges.) but with p, once only /rojnWie side ofthecoantry 
 Nu. xxiv. 4 ; on whicli, see note 29. end. 
 
 -3 TD occurs in the O. T. with the gen. of the noun or pronoun, 197 times ; in the plural 
 Stimes. Of these, the greatest number are with verbs of delivering, h-:i7i,Jl ; yenn, 18; re- 
 deem, niB, 3,^NJ, 3; hroughtforlh,K'^^, 1 ; rescued, i>'^,l; guard, -CO,2;escape,i:ha,9,B'7S, 1 ; 
 Jlee, m3, 1 ; npS, took by force, 11 ; took, received, 22 ; took unawares from, SlJ, 2 ; re- 
 ceive and offer, 3'ip.i, 1 ; consecrate from, is"np.1, 1 ; sprinkled (blood), mi, 2 ; bought, n3p, / ;
 
 ciiAPTEri in. 
 
 427 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 626. 
 
 i Nah. 1. 3. 
 
 and there wa.s the Iiidinu^ of his power. 
 5 ' Before liiin went the pestilenee, and 
 
 When then did li<,'lit or iniijlit, wJiicli lay, as it wore, 
 before in the Hand of (Uh\, ;;<» fortii from it ? ' For //ic //find 
 of God is always symbolic of His mij;iit, wiiether put forth, 
 or for the time hiid up in it. Tlie form of tiie words re- 
 markably corresponds to those of Moses, in the preface to 
 the blessinj^ on the tribes, which llabakknk had in mind, 
 ^ From /^is rig/if lutiid was a //en/ /aw for tlicni, and S. Paul 
 says tliat the ji^lory of Moses' face which he received from 
 the Presence of God, was a symbol of the j^lory of the law. 
 - The mi)d.str(ttion of death ivrittcii and engraveit on atone was 
 glorioHs, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastli/ he- 
 hold the face of 3Ioses for the glory of his conntenanee. The 
 law, beinij fjjiven by God, had a majesty of its own. The 
 I'salnis bear witness to its power in (utnverting, enwiseninjy, 
 rejoicinjn;, enlii;'htening the soul''. They in whose heart it 
 was, none of their steps slidcd *. The whole 1 19th Psalm is 
 one varied testimony of its greatness and its power. It was 
 a c;uide on the way ; it was a schoolmaster unto Christ ^, by 
 Whom it was fulfilled. But itself bare witness of the greater 
 glory which should come forth from the Hand of God. ^ If 
 that which is done away tvere glorious, much more that tvhich 
 remaiiieth is glorious. "''The horn signifieth power, when it 
 is spoken of God the Father exhibiting to us God the Son : 
 * He hath raised up a horn of salvation for us, and again,* His 
 horn shall he exalted in honour. For all things which were 
 marvellously done were glorious. The Only-I3egotten came 
 then in our form, and, in regard to the Flesh and the Man- 
 hood, enduring the appearance of our weakness, but, as God, 
 invisible in might and easily subduing whom He willed." 
 
 And what has been the weapon of His warfare, where- 
 by He has subdued the might of Satan and the hearts 
 of men, but the horns of His Cross, whereto His Sacred 
 Hands were once fastened by the sharp nails, where was 
 the hiding of His Poiver, when His Almightiness lay hid in 
 His Passion '", and He was " a worm and no man ; a reproach 
 of men and the despised of the people ? Now it is the Sceptre 
 laid upon His Shoulder ^^, the ensign and trophy of His rule, 
 the Rod of His Strength '^^ terrible to devils, salvation to 
 man. In it lay His might, although concealed, as He said, 
 ^^/, if I he lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. 
 His Might was lodged there, although hidden. It was the 
 hiding-place of His power. The Cross was i= to the Jeics a 
 stumhling-hloik, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto 
 them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ Crucified 
 was the Power of God and the TFisdom of God. Through the 
 Cross was i°«// power given to Him both in Heaven and 
 earth. ^' There teas given Him dominion and glory and a 
 /cingdojn, that all people, nations, and languages should serve 
 Him. From Him shall go forth all power in earth ; by His 
 
 accept, nsn, 2 j give, ]r\i, 1 ; collect, ^Dx, 1 ; eat from, h^K, 1 ; rra. 2 ; drank, niiB*, 1 ; seek, 
 rpa, 7 ; require of, em, 5 ; judged and avenged, ES'J", 3 ; avenged, Dp3, 1 ; rend, Snp, 3 ; cause 
 to fall from, S'sn, 2 ; strike from, !\2n, 2 ; cut nffj'nmi, vrar\, 1 ; luo, 1 ; cast, "^a ; reproach 
 from, *nD"in ; btf writing from, 3n33, 1 ; letters Jram, m3N I ; officers appointed bij DTp3, 1. 
 streugtitenedjrom ttte hands nf God, 1. The verb was, nM. is expressed once; it lies in 
 the sentence thrice; once only it means from the side of a country, Nu. xxiv. 4. in which 
 there can be no ambiguity. 
 
 ' Deut. xxxiii. 2. 2 2 Cor. iii. 7. ' Ps. xix. 8. < lb. xxxvii. 31. 
 
 6 Gal. iii. 24 « 2 Cor. iii. 11. 7 S. Cyr. ^ s. Luke ii. 69. » Ps. c.xi. 9. 
 
 '» Is. liii. 3. " Ps. xxii. fi. 12 Is. ix. 6. " S. John xii. .32. » Ps. ex. 2. 
 
 "The words, Horns are in His Hands, shew the insignia of His kingdom, by which 
 liorns, pushing and thrusting the invisible and opposing powers, He drove theni away." 
 Euseb. Deni. Evang. vi. 1,"). Add S. Cyprian Ttst. ad Quirin. ii. 21. p. 57. Oxf. Tr. 
 "The horns in His Hands, what are they, but the trophv of the Cross? " S. Aug. de 
 Civ. Dei xviii. 32. '» 1 Cor. i. 23, 2i. w S. Matt, xxviii. 18. T Dan. vii. 14. 
 
 II ' hurninp; eoals went forth at his feet. cifuTsT 
 6 lie stood and measured the earth : he '-''''• '''^- 
 
 II Or, burning diseases, Deut. 32. 24. ' Ps. 18. 8. 
 
 Hands shall be given tlie vacant thrones in Heaven, as He 
 saith, "* To him that ovcrrometh will I grant to sit with Me in 
 JSIij Throne, even us I also overcame and am set down with 
 My I'alher in //is Throne. There too was the hiding of His 
 /'ower, in that there, in His Cross, is our shelter''-', and in 
 His pierced Side our hiding-place, where we may take refuge 
 from Satan and our sins; for therein is Power. -"Neither 
 shall any jiluch them init of My I/aud. Light ami darkness 
 ever meet in (iod. His inapproachable light is darkness to 
 eyes which would gaze on it. -' He covereth Himself with 
 Light as with a garment. His liglit is the very veil which 
 hideth Him. His Light is darkness to those who pry into 
 Him and His Nature; His darkness is light to flio-c wIm) bv 
 faith behold Him. \U\ emptied //imself ■- und hid Himself; 
 He hid the power of His (Jodhead in the weakness of the 
 Manhood, and so -^ He ff'ho commanded the light to shine 
 out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light 
 of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the /'"ace of Jesus 
 Christ. "-'In the Cross was for a while His might hidden, 
 when He said to His Father, "■' My soul is exceeding sorroiiful 
 even unto death, and. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from Me, and on the Cross itself, ^* Father, into Thy Hands I 
 commend My Spirit." 
 
 5. Before Him went [goeth'] the pestilence ; then to con- 
 sume His enemies. -^ / ruill send My fear before thee, and 
 icill destroy all the people, to irhom thou shiilt rome, and the 
 lightnings are a token tliat -'*/hey which hate //i in, flee before 
 Him, and the wicked perish at the Presence of God. So, on 
 His Ascension, Herod and Pilate were smitten by Him, and 
 Elymas and Simon Magus before His Apostles, and what- 
 soever hath lifted itself up against Him hath perished, and 
 Antichrist shall perish ^"^at the breath of His mouth, and all 
 the ungodly in the Day of Judgement. 
 
 And burning coals (rather, as E. M., burning fever ^''') irent 
 forth at His Feet, i.e., followed Him. Messengers of death 
 went as it were before Him, as the front of His army, and 
 the rear thereof was other forms of death ^'. Death and des- 
 truction of all sorts are a great army at His command, 
 going before Him as heralds of His Coming, (such as are 
 judgements in this world) or attendants ui)on Him, at tlie 
 Judgement when He appeareth ^-in His Kingdom, when 
 ^^ they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, 
 and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace 
 of fire. 
 
 6. He stood^, and measured^^ the earth. Joshua, after be 
 had conquered the land, nicted it out and divided it among 
 the people. He Who should come, should measure out the 
 earth in its length and breadth, that earth which Ilis glory 
 filleth. He stood, as S. Stephen saw Him, ••'' standing at the 
 
 '8 Rev. iii. 21. " As in the proper names, Ezr. ii. 61. Ilabaiah " whom God 
 
 hideth i. e., protecteth ; " Yelmbhah " hidden, protected." 1 Chron. vii. 34. Comp. Is. 
 xxvi. 20. 20 s. John x. 28. 21 Ps. civ. 3. 22 phu. y. 8. 
 
 23 2 Cor. iv. 6. 21 s. Jer. 2b s. Matt. xxvi. 38, 39. 
 
 26 S. Luke xxiii. 13. =7 Ex. xxiii. 2". 
 
 29 Ps. Ixviii. 1. 2. 29 lb. xi. 4. ^ Dg xxxii. 2. (where also it is sing., a-i 
 
 only besides in isi-i -33 Job v. 7.) So A. E. " Burning coals" is from Kim. Tanch. gives 
 as different opinions "sparks" or " arrows" or " pestilence;" but the meanings "sparks, 
 arrows," are ascribed only to the plur. Ps. Ixxvi. 4. Ixxxviii. 48. Cant. riii. 6. The cen- 
 tral meaning is probably " burning heat." 3i "Before Him is sent the angel 
 of death and His word goeth forth, a flame of fire." Jon. 32 o Tim. yi. 1. 
 
 3^ S. Matt. xiii. 51, 42. ^^ It is " a metaphor of his giWng victory to Israel." Tanch. 
 
 3= So Kim. A. E. Rashi. Tanch. Vulg. It is borne out by Hithpo. "extended him- 
 self, ' 1 Kgs xvii. 21. Bv an interchange of dentalsTO might be=EiD, and so Ch. LXX. 
 but in no other case do the two forms coexist in Hebrew. ^6 Acts \ii. 56.
 
 428 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 (.jBefcy^^^ beheld, and drove asunder the nations; 
 cir.020. (juul the I* everhisting mountains were scat- 
 
 ' Nail. 1. 5. « Gen. 49^26^ 
 
 Itis^ltt Iliind of God; and Isaiali saitli, ' The Lord standeth 
 up to ])lc(iil, (ti(d staiidetli to jndi:;(' the people. He liad not 
 nei'd to ico f'ortli, bnt, in the abode of His glory, He stood 
 and bclicld and with His Eye measured the earth, as His 
 own, whereas, before the Cross, it hiy under ^ the Prince of 
 this world, and he had said, ^it is delivered unto me, and unto 
 it'hoiiisoever I will , I i^ive it. He measureth it, and gave it 
 to His Apostles, "* ^/// jiower is given unto 3Ie in heaven 
 and in earth. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gos- 
 pel to every creature, and, ^ their sound is gone out into all 
 lands, and their words into the ends of the world. He mea- 
 suretli it also, surveying and weighing all who dwell therein, 
 their persons, qualities, deeds, good or bad, to requite th.ein, 
 as Judge of quick (Did dead; as David cast down Moab and 
 measured them with a line, ''to put to death and to keep 
 alive. 
 
 He beheld, and drove asunder the nations, or, made the 
 nations to tremble''. Wiicn Israel came out of Egypt and 
 God divided the Red sea before them, they sang, * The peo- 
 ple shall hear and be afraid ; terror shall take hold of the 
 inhabitants of Palestina ; the mighty men of IHoab, trembling 
 shall fake hold of them ; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall 
 melt awai/ ; fear and dread shall fall on them; by the great- 
 ness of Thy power they shall be still as a stone. Fear and 
 awe were to be renewed. All nearness of God brings terror 
 to sinful man. When the news came through the wise 
 men, that they had "^ seen in the East the star of Him Who 
 was horn, King of the Jews, not Herod the King only tvas 
 troubled, but all Jerusalem with him. Pilate ^^ was afraid 
 when he condemned Him : the High Priests wondered tchere- 
 unto this should grow, and expostulated, ^^ ye have filled 
 Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man's 
 blood upon us. Heathendom was as a beleaguered city, 
 mastered by an ubiquitous Presence, which they knew not 
 how to meet. "'-The state is beset: the Christians are in 
 their fields, in their forts, in their islands. Every sex, age 
 condition, and now even rank is going over to this sect." 
 The fierceness of the persecutions was the measure of their 
 fear. They put forth all human might to stamp out the 
 spark, lest their gods, and the greatness of the empire which 
 they ascribed to their gods, should fall before this unknown 
 power. 
 
 yJnd the everlasting mountains were scattered; the per- 
 petual hills did bow ; all power, great or small, gave way be- 
 fore Him. All which withstood was scattered asunder, all 
 which in pride lifted itself up was brought low, although be- 
 fore the coming of the Saviour it had ever gone with neck 
 erect, and none could humble its pride. There is something 
 so marvellous about those ancient mountains. There they 
 stood l)efore man was on the earth ; they are so solid, man 
 so slight; they have survived so many generations of man ; 
 they will long survive us; they seem as if they would stand 
 for ever; the apter symbol how nothing should stand be- 
 fore the might of God. To the greater pride the heavier lot 
 is assigned ; the mountains lifted orj high above the earth 
 and, as it were, looking down upon it, are scattered or 
 dispersed, as when a stone flieth in pieces under the stroke 
 
 1 Is. iii. 1.3. 2 1 Cor. ii. 5. ^ s. Luke iv. 6. -i S. Matt, xxviii. 18. S. Mark 
 
 xvi. 15. * Ps. xi.\. 4. ^ 2 Sara. viii. 2. ' in) being u.sed of outward leaping of the 
 locust, Lev. xi. 12, in), of the inward leaping of tlie heart, Job xxxvii. 1. either seems 
 admissible. The inward terror was the forerunner and often the instrument of the flut- 
 
 tered, the perpetual hills did bow : his ways j, ^f^W j 
 arc everhistin*^. '-'"'• ''^'''- 
 
 of the hammer. The "liills" are bowed down only; and 
 tliis may be the pride of man humliled under the yoke of 
 Christ. 
 
 His Ways are Everlasting. "Everlasting" is set over 
 against "everlasting." Tiie "everlasting" of the t-reature, 
 that which had been as long as creation had been, co-existing 
 witii its whole duration, its most enduring parts, are as 
 things past and gone ; the everlasting mountains, the hills of 
 eternity, have been scattered in pieces and l)owed, and are no 
 more. Over against these statids the ever-present eternity 
 of God. His u'ays are everlasting, ordered everlastingly, 
 existing everlastingly in the Divine Mind, and, when in 
 act among us, without change in Him. The prophet 
 blends in these great words, things seemingly contrary, 
 ways which imply progress, eternity which is uni-hangeable. 
 "'^God ever worketh, and ever resteth ; unchangeable, yet 
 changing all; He changeth His works, His purpose un- 
 changed." " ^* For Thou art Most High, and art not clianged, 
 neither in Thee doth to-day come to a close; yet in Thee it 
 doth come to a close ; because all such things also are in Thee. 
 For they had no way to pass away, unless Thou heldest 
 them together. And since Thy years fail not. Thy years 
 are one To-day. How many of our's and our fathers' 
 years have flowed away through Thy to-day ; and from it 
 received the measure and the mould of such being as they 
 had ; and still others shall flow away, and so receive the 
 mould of their degree of being. But Thou art still the 
 Same ; and all things of to-morrow, and all beyond, and all of 
 yesterday, and all behind it, Thou wilt do in this to-day, 
 Thou hast done in this to-day." 
 
 To these His goings, a highway is made by the breaking 
 down of all which exalted itself, as Isaiah had said, ^^ The 
 loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness 
 of men shall he made low, and the Lord Alone shall be exalted 
 in that day ; and, '^ 77/e voice of him that crieth in the ivilder- 
 ness. Prepare ye the ivay of the Lord, make straight in the 
 desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exulted, 
 and every mountain and hill shall be made low. 
 
 "''The Everlasting ways of the Everlasting God are 
 Mercy and Truth, — by these Ways are the hills of the world 
 and the proud demons, the princes of the darkness of this 
 world, bowed down, who knew not the way of mercy and 
 trutli nor remembered Its paths. What hath he to do 
 with truth, who is a liar and the father of it, and of whom 
 it is written, he abode not in the Truth ? But how far he is 
 from Mercy, our misery witnesseth, inflicted on us by him. 
 When was he ever merciful, who was a murderer from the 
 beginning? — So then those swelling hills were bowed Aown 
 from the Everlasting Ways, when through their own crook- 
 edness they sunk away from the straight ways of the Lord, 
 and became not so much ways as precipices. How much 
 more prudently and wisely are other hills bowed down and 
 humbled by these ways to salvation ! For they were not 
 bowed from them, as parting from their straightness, but 
 the Everlasting Ways themselves bowed down. May we 
 not now see the hills of the world bowed down, when those 
 who are high and mighty with devoted submission bow 
 
 ward dispersion. s Ex. xv. 15, IC. 'J S. Matt. ii. 1-3. i" S. John six. 8. 
 
 " Acts V. 24, 28. '2 Tertull. Apol. init. p. 2. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 » S. Aug. Conf. i. 4 p. 3. Oxf. Tr. » lb. 10. p. 6, 
 
 '5 Is. ii. 17. 
 
 16 lb. xl. 3. 
 
 '^ S. Bern, in Ps. Qui habitat. Serm. xi. 8.
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 429 
 
 ch'rTst 7 ^ ^^^ t^*' tents of || Ciishan || in ufflic- 
 ""■ '''^*'- tion : and the curtains of the land of Midiun 
 
 ]\ Or, Etiiiopia. !• 1 f,,„,,,I.l,, 
 llOr, anrfei <H<' tlCniDle. 
 
 ^!mnity. 8 VVus the LoRu displeased against the 
 
 themselves before the Lord, and worship at His Feet ? 
 Are they not bowed down, when from their own destructive 
 loftiness of vanity and cruelty, they are turned to the hum- 
 hie way of mercy and trutii ? " 
 
 7 / sail' (in prophetic vision '), f/ic tents of Cnshmi i)i 
 (lit. under) (ij/liitioii. On the Cominjjof the Lord there fol- 
 lows the visitation of those alien fr»nn Him'-. Cushan-Risha- 
 thaim was the first, whose ambition God overruled to 
 chasten His people'. It has been remarked*, that as lilm:; 
 of Armn-Ndluiritiin or North Mesopotamia, he was probably 
 sovereii2;n of the Aram, from which Balak kiuif of Moab, 
 allied with Midian, sent for Balaam to curse Israel. Midi/ui 
 was the last enemy who, at the very entrance of the pro- 
 mised land, seduced God's people into idolatry and foul sin 
 and lusts. Midian became then the object of the wrath of 
 God °. They were also amoni; the early oppressors of Israel, 
 leaving ^ tio sustenance for Israel, neither slieep nor ox nor ass, 
 driving them for refuge to dwell in t/ie dens and the moun- 
 tains, caves and fastnesses, consuming the produce of their 
 land like locusts, so that he whom God raised up as their 
 subduer, was threshing even in a wine-press to hide it from 
 them. Both the kingdom of Aram-Naharaim and Midian 
 disappear from history after those great defeats. Midian, be- 
 sides its princes, ''lost, by mutual slaughter, one hundred 
 and twenty thousand 7nen who drew sword. It left its name 
 as a proverb for the utter destruction of those who sought 
 to exterminate the people of God. * Do unto them as unto 
 the 3Iidia)tites ; — make them and their princes like Oreh and 
 Zeeh ; all their princes as Zehah and as Zalniunnah, who said, 
 let ics take to onrselres the houses of God in possession. It 
 was an exterminating warfare, which rolled back on those 
 who waged it. So Isaiah sums up an utter breaking-od" 
 «)f the yoke and the rod of the oppressor, as being '^as 
 in the day of 3Iidian. The same word, aven, is nothingness, 
 iniquity, and the fruit of iniquity, trouble^", (since iniquity 
 is emptiness and opposed to that which is, God and His 
 Goodness, and ends in sorrow) ; so then Cushan is seen 
 as lying as all sinners do, weighed down by and under what 
 is very "emptiness." Tents and curtains are emblems of 
 what shall pass away, under which the wicked shelter them- 
 selves from the troubles of this present life, as from heat and 
 rain, "but which >' in themselves decay, and are consumed by 
 fire." The curtains of 3Iidian tremble. The prophet uses 
 the present to shew that he was not speaking of any mere 
 past terror, but of that terror, which should still seize those 
 opposed to God. The word "wrath" "rogez" echoes through 
 the hymn^-; here the wicked tremble, "yir^'csu," under it, to 
 perish; afterwards the Prophet '■', to live. 
 
 8 ffas the Lord displeased against the rivers f The 
 
 • 1 Kgs xxii. 17. 2 As in Joel ii. iii. Mic. iv. 1 — 10 and iv. 11. 
 
 V. 1. V. i. &c. V. 15. 3 Jud. iii. 8—10. 
 
 ^ R. S. Poole in Smith's Bible Diet., Art. Cushan. Often as Cush or Ethiopia is 
 mentioned in the Old Testament, and in twelve of the sacred writers, Historians, 
 Psalmists, Prophets; from Genesis to Esther (Moses, Job, Chronicles, Esther, David 
 (Ps. Ixviii.), sons of Corah (Ps. Ixwvii.), Amos.Nahum, Zephajiiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 
 and Ethiopians by Daniel, it is uniformly Cusli not Cushan. Cush also is retained in 
 C)h. and Syr. and was the name in use in the time of Jusephus (Ant. i. 62.) One can- 
 not then doubt, that Jon. and the Talmud (Sauh. lOiJ in Delitzsch) were right in regard- 
 in!^ Cushan as designating him who is so called in the Holy .Scriptures, not Ethiopia, 
 which is never so called. Kiiu., Rashi, A. E., Abarb. follow the Targum. Only Tanchum, 
 
 PART V. 
 
 rivers? was tliine anger against the rivers? (. ^^^\ § t 
 UHLs thy wrath against the sea, ^ that thou "''■ ^'^- 
 didst ri(h' u|)on thine liorses and :| thy ''°'"'''** 
 
 chariots of salvation ? 
 
 20, 27. 
 Ps. (i8. 4. 
 & lUl. 3. 
 I Or, thy chariots were salvation 7 ver. 15. 
 
 Prophet asks the question thrice, as to the two miracles of 
 the dividing of (he Red Sea and the river Jordan, thereby the 
 more eartu-stly dcchiriiig, that (iod meant someubat by these 
 acts and beyond them, lie asks, as Daniel ^' and Zechariah '^■' 
 asked, what was the trutli of the things wliich tliey saw. 
 God's dealings with His former people were as mucdi ensam- 
 ples of what should be with us "', as the visions shewn to the 
 prophets. Hereafter too, there shall be ^^ signs in the sun, and 
 in the nioon, and in the stars ; and n/ton the earth distress of 
 nations, irith perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring ; there 
 shall be deepening plagues ujion the sea and the rivers and 
 f<nintains of waters; and every living soul in the sea shall 
 f/Ze^**. But God's purpose therein aforetime was not as to the 
 sea or the rivers, but for the salvation of His elect ; so shall it 
 be to the end. JMighty as may be the mighty waves of the sea 
 which lift themselves up against the Lord, mightier on high 
 is the Lord^'K "-"As Thou didst dry up the Jordan and the 
 Red sea, fighting for us; for Thou wert not wroth with the 
 rivers or the sea, nor could things without sense ollend Thee; 
 so now mounting Thy chariots, and taking Thy bow, Thou 
 wilt give salvation to Thy people; and the oaths wliich Thou 
 swarest to our fathers and tlie tribes, Thou wilt fulfil for 
 ever." 
 
 Thou didst ride upon Thy horses, as though God set His 
 army, -^the Hosts which do His pleasure, against the armies of 
 earth, as the Prophet's servant had his eyes opened to see, 
 "^ the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
 about Elisha. "-"Yet amidst so many thousands of horses and 
 chariots, there was no rider ; He was the Rider and Ruler of 
 those horses, of Whom the Psalmist says, -^ Thou that sittest 
 above the Cherubim, shew Thyself. With such horses and 
 such chariots was Elijah also taken up into Heaven." 
 
 And Thy chariots of salvation, lit. T'hy chariots are sal- 
 vation. Not, as in human armies, except as far as they are 
 the armies of God, to destruction. The end of God's armies, 
 His visitations and judgements, is the salvation cd" His elect, 
 even while they who are inwardly dead, perish outwardly 
 also. Nor, again, do they prepare for the deliverance for 
 which He intends them. With God, to will is to do. His 
 chariots are salvation. His help is preseiit help. His cha- 
 riots are the tokens and channels of His Presence to aid. 
 And so, they who bore His Name before the Gentiles, and 
 kings, and the children of Israel, chosen vessels to bear it, are, 
 in a yet fuller sense, His chariots, which are salvation. They 
 " -"are holy souls, upon which the word of God cometh, to save 
 them and others by them. -* / have compared thee, saith the 
 Spouse, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. How- 
 ever holy the soul, yet compared to God, it is like the chariot 
 of Pharaoh ; and a beast, yet still a beast, before Thee-^", Yet 
 
 identifying the two clauses, says " Cushan is one of the names of Midian or one of its 
 tribes, and it is also called Cush," Zipporah being identified with Moses' Cushite wife. 
 Nu. xii. 1. Even Ewald says. " The people. |t:nD, which can neither according to lan- 
 guage nor context stand for en :" though he guesses it to be a little people near Midian, 
 ad loc. ^ Nu. XXV. 17. 6 Jmi_ y-^ j^ jj_ 
 
 7 lb. viii. 10. s Ps. Ixxxiii. 9, 11, 12. 9 Is. ix. 4 
 
 1" Job V. 6. xxvi. 14; Jer. iv. 15. Hos. ix. 4. not in Ps. Iv. 4. nor (as Ges.) in Job 
 iv. 8. Ps.xxii. 8. Is. hx. 4. " S. Greg. Mor. viii. it. '-' ver. 2. » v. 16. 
 
 » vii. 10. '= c. 1. '* 1 Cor. x. 11, '7 S. Luke x.xi. 25. Rev. viii. 6. 
 
 '•< Rev. .xvi. 3 i» Ps. xciii. 4. ■« S. Jer. -'> Ps. ciii. 12. 
 
 22 2 Kgs vi. 15. 23 Ps. lixx, 1. 3< Cant. i. 9. ss Ps. Ixxjii. 23. 
 
 S S S
 
 ,430 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 chrTst ^ '^''y ''"^^ ^"^'^ made quite naked, ac- 
 «'■•• 620. cording- to tlie oatlis t)f tlie tribes, rrot thy 
 
 "rfLfrt™. word. Selah. ||'Tliou didst cleave the 
 7£Ztk. earth with rivers. 
 
 iPs. 78. 15, 16. & 105. 11. 
 
 such an one, as endowed with mijjht and ready obedience, and 
 swiftnes.s and nobleness to bear the word of God, and tbroufi;b 
 His mij;:ht Whom they bore, not their own, nor makinji^ it 
 their own, beariiiff down every thing which opposed itself. 
 "iThe oljject of the Prophet, is to shew that the second dis- 
 pensation is better and more glorious, and of incomparably 
 better things than the old. For of old He led Israel forth, 
 through the bodily service of Moses, changing into blood the 
 rivers of Egypt, and doing signs and wonders; then dividing 
 the Red Sea, and carrying over the redeemed, and choking in 
 the waters the most warlike of the Egyptians. But when the 
 Only-Begotten Word of (iod became Man, He withdrew the 
 whole human race under heaven from the tyranny of Satan, 
 not changing rivers into blood, nor pouring forth His anger 
 upon waters, nor dividing waves of the sea, nor bringing 
 destruction iipon men, but rather destroying the murderous 
 Serpent himself, and taking away the sin which had been in- 
 vented by him and for him, and loosing the unconquered 
 might of death, and calling all to the knowledge of God, 
 through the holy Apostles, who, running forth their course 
 under the whole Heaven and bearing about the Name of 
 Christ, were very rightly had in admiration. He saith then, 
 O Lord, most worthy to be heard are those things, of which 
 Thou hast Thyself been the Doer, and what Thou hast anew 
 wrought is far better than what Thou didst through Moses. 
 For Thou wilt not inflict wrath on rivers, nor shew Thy might 
 on the sea; not in these things will Thy Divine and marvel- 
 lous power gleam forth, but fhoti wilt ride upon Thi/ horses, 
 and Till/ cliariots are Sdlrafioti. What may these horses be ? 
 The Blessed Disciples, Apostles and Evangelists, they who 
 took on them wholly the yoke of all His Divine will, they, the 
 noble, the obedient, ready for all things, whatsoever should 
 please Him; who had Christ to sit upon them, whereof one is 
 the Blessed Paul, of whom Himself saith, - He is a chosen 
 vessel unto i\Ie, to hear My Name before the Gentiles. Of fiery 
 speed were these Horses, encompassing the whole earth ; so 
 then the chariots of God are said to he ten thousand times 
 ten thousand^. For countless, each in their times, and after 
 them, became leaders of the people, and subjected the neck 
 of the understanding to the yoke of the Saviour, and bare 
 about His Glory throughout the whole earth, and rightly 
 divided the word of truth, and subdued the whole earth, as 
 with the speed of horsemen." 
 
 His chariots are salvation; "^ for they ran not in vain, but 
 to save cities and countries and nations together, Christ over- 
 throwing the empires of devils, who, so to speak, divided 
 among tliemselves the whole earth, subduing its dwellers 
 to their own will." 
 
 9 Thi/ how was made quite naked. The word is repeated 
 
 ' S. Cyr. ■ Acts \jl. 15. 3 Ps. Jxviii. 17. 
 
 ^< nn;^, ace. ahs. as nJi n,-!!J Mic. i. 11., for the inf. abe. * Is. xxii. 6. 
 
 * ^ S. GrcK. Mor. .\i\. il. n.'ol, Comp. S. Aug. in Ps. lix. n. 6. 7 Ps. Ixiv. 7. 
 
 * S. Luke i. 73. The E. V. takes the common words mi'^tj and niBD in their common 
 senses, and -ck (which is a poetic word) agreeably to them, nyili?, "oath" occurs 27 
 times : tlie plur. niy3^ here and Ezek. xxi. 28. The other meaning, weeks, whicli occurs 
 9 times (chiefly of the " feast of weeks," four times in De. xvi.), is plainly irrelevant here, 
 niao occurs 24 times besides of the tribes of Israel ; twice only of the "rods" set against 
 that of Aaron (Ex. vii. 12, Nu.xvii. 21.). ifN" speech" is used of the "promise of God," 
 certJiinly Ps. Ixxvii. U. The construction 'is likewise easy, nitiDis the gen. of the obj. 
 after nij)3!p, and both in apposition with the preceding clause, and ■ctf with them. This 
 construction and meaning of moo niy3E', and meaning of X», and the construction with .O.B' 
 
 10 ''The mountains saw thee, and they cifuTsT 
 trembled : tlu; overflowing of tlu' water "^- '^^*'- 
 passed by : the deep uttered his voice, and jukg. 6.4,5. 
 ' lifted up his hands on hij^h. 
 
 ' Ex. 14. 22. Josh. 3. 16. 
 
 Ps. (*. 8. 
 & 77. 18. 
 & 114.4. 
 
 for emphasis. Lit. (In) nakedness* it was laid naked; the 
 sheath being laid aside and cast away, as Isaiah says, ^ Kir 
 laid hare the shield. The " bow represents the threat of the 
 vengeance of Almighty God, from which it is at length dis- 
 charged, if not turned aside; the longer the string is drawn, 
 the sharper issucth the arrow. So then the more the com- 
 ing of the day of judgement is delayed, the stricter is the 
 severity of the judgement then issuing. So long as judge- 
 ment is delayed, the bow seems laid up in its sheath. God's 
 judgements mostly strike suddenly '«s icith a swift arrow, 
 because men regard them not, coming from a bow at a 
 distance which they see not. His more signal judgements 
 He makes bare in sight of all. 
 
 According to the oath of [^to"] the tribes; ^the oath tchich 
 He sirare unto our father Abraham, which oath He often 
 renewed to Abrahani, Isaac and Jacob, and again to David'. 
 This oath, the word and promise of God, was the pledge of 
 the deliverance of His people, that they should be saved from 
 their enemies, ami from the hand of all that hate them. It lay, 
 as it were, covered and hid, so long as God completed it 
 not. Selah. A pause followeth, wherein to meditate on all 
 which is contained in the ivord or promise of God, which is 
 all time and eternity. 
 
 Thou didst cleave the earth irith [i. e., into] rivers. Sea 
 and river had become dry land for the passing through of 
 God's people ; again, the rock, struck by Moses' rod, was 
 split, so that rivers ran in the dry places. Until that Rock, 
 Which was Christ, was stricken, and ^*' out of His Side came 
 Blood and water, the whole world was desert and barren ; 
 then it was turned into streams of water, and " '^ now not 
 four but twelve streams went forth from the Paradise of 
 Scriptures." For from the One Fountain which is Christ, 
 there issue many streams, even as many as convey the 
 waters of His teaching, to trater the earth. 
 
 10 The mountains sair Thee, and they trembled, lit. they 
 tremble. While man is insensate, inanimate nature feels 
 and attests the presence of its Maker. // sate, it trembles. 
 To see, feel, tremble, were one. The Prophet does not follow 
 a bare order of events, or bind himself to miracles which 
 actually took place. The mountains tremble with earth- 
 quakes, or seem to be shaken by the thunders which they 
 re-echo. And so they are signs, how what is firmest and 
 closes up the way to man, trembles at the Presence of God. 
 Whatever is lifted up shall be bowed down before Him^-. But 
 the word trembled, is that used especially of travail 
 pangs i\ and so it may spiritually denote that "^*they who 
 conceive the fear of God shall bring forth unto salvation." 
 The overjlowing i. e., the impetuous, sweeping, flow, of the 
 water^^ (or of ivaters), such as in themselves would bear all 
 
 is that of Jon. followed by Kim. Rashi Abarb. Tanch. So also S. Jer. Only A. E. taking 
 niao as spears, explains, that " His spears were sworn to establish the word of God." 
 '' See Mic. end (ab. p. 354.) Ps. Ixxxix. 3. exxxii. 11. '" S. John xL\-. 24. 
 
 " S. Jer. '- See Zech. iv. 7. " The LXX. so translate, " shall be in birth-pangs." 
 '^ Theoph. '= Dni is used apparently both of the " flow of waters and their strong 
 current," as Tanch. explains it here ; or of a violent storm breaking upon a thing. Its 
 union with rain. Is. iv. (i, hail. Is. xxviii. 2. xxx. .30, the mountains, Job xxiv. 8, fits in 
 with or requires the meaning " stomi ; " its union with mighty overflowing (C'jas') waters 
 Is. xxviii. implies " a current ; " " a storm against a wall " Tp ml, Is. xxv. 4, might suit 
 eitlier ; the verb Droit, " hast swept them awav," Ps. xc. 5. implies " a flood : "the mention 
 of the clouds Ps. Ixxvii. 18, "a storm." Kim. Rashi, Abarb. explain it here of wate? 
 on the earth ; A. E. of waters descending.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 431 
 
 11 "Tlie sun nnd moon stood still in 
 iit tlu^ liirlit of thine 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 "■•• "^'^- their luihitation 
 
 1 ;"."'■ ^ ■ ^^' ° arrows they went, nnd at the shining of 
 thy glitterinj^ spear, 
 
 I 
 
 I Or, lliim 
 arrow- 
 walked hi the li^ht, 8fo. " Josh. 10. U.'P.s. 18. 14. & 77. 17, 18. 
 
 before them, pass hi/ harmless. The more they swell, the 
 more they cxpeiiil themselves, and pass away. "The whole 
 force of persecution, wiierewith they vexed 'J'hy people, at 
 sight of Thee passed away," like a torrent which rages and 
 disappears, and, by raging, the sooner wastes itself. 
 
 T/ie deep uttered his voice, (aid lifted up his hands ' on hisrh. 
 The noise of the waves, when (lod brought the strong East 
 wind over it and - rebiiA-ed it, was as a cry to (iod; the waves, 
 as they swelled, were like hands lifted np to Him, and 
 stricken one against the other. There is no distinct ground 
 against a slightly different rendering, ^ the deep uttered his 
 voice, the heiirht lifted up his hands i. e., to One yet higher, 
 Whom height and depth owned as their Lord and worshipped. 
 
 1 1 Sun and moon stood still in [as one act *, retiring into^ 
 their habitation. They withdrew, as it were, in the midst 
 of the great tempest, wherein ^ God cast down great stones 
 from heaven upon His enemies and they died; and the sun 
 stood still, and the moon stayed. The sun too withdrew itself 
 in the great darkness at the Crucifixion, as not bearing to 
 look upon the Death of its Maker, when the majesty of the 
 Sun of Righteousness was darkened o'er ; and signs in the 
 sun and in the moon there shall be to the end. 
 
 ^t the light of Thine arrows tliey went. ""There was 
 no need of the sun by day, nor of the moon by night; for 
 by the light of Thine arrows can the sons of men hold their 
 way." "^This is a mystical interpretation, as you see; this 
 is like the promise of the Most High ; ^ the sun shall he no 
 more for thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the 
 moon give light unto thee, and the Lord shall be to thee an 
 everlasting light." The judgements of God are a light to 
 His people, while they are the destruction of His enemies ; 
 in them they ^ learn righteousness. The arrows are God's 
 judgements, as they threaten and wound fi"om afar; the 
 shining of Thy glittering [lit. of the lightning of Thy] spear, 
 when close at hand. When all other light is withdrawn, 
 and the Sun, our Lord, is hardly beheld in the darkness 
 of the last days, and the moon, the Church, shall not give 
 her light, Christ not shining upon her as before, because 
 iniquity shall abound, and the love of many shall ivax cold, 
 and stars, many who seem to shine with the light of grace, 
 shall fall from heaven, His own shall walk on and advance 
 in holiness, '•^"from strength to strength^', from good to 
 better, from the way to their home," by the bright light 
 of the lightning of God's Judgements, wherein His glory ^^ 
 shall be manifested. Arrows and spears are part of the 
 spiritual armoury of God, wherewith the people are subdued 
 unto Him ; " '^ armoury, not wherewith He is girt but which 
 He giveth to those who are meet ; bright and as it were 
 full of lightning. For most transparent is virtue." They 
 went then at the light of Thine arrows ; " ^^ because to those 
 
 1 □n = BVt3 which stands as the ace. of direction with lifted up the eyes Is. xxxvii. 23. 
 xl. 26. - Ps. cvi. 9. ^ So S. Jer., Rashi, A. E. ; oh being a air. \fy., 
 
 one cannot say that it might not mean this. The metaphor would be dropped. 
 
 •• nny sing, with tlie asyndeton m" ezo; " Every word wliich needs S (to) at the be- 
 ginning has .1 at the end, i. e. the n replaces it.'' Rashi. Tanchum says the n is for 
 grandeur ; Kim. Sal. b. Mel. say it is like n in ny^. The " habitation " they explain 
 to be heaven, like f\]!a. ' Jos. x. 11-13. 
 
 « A. E. 7 Tanch. » Is. Ix. 19. » lb. xxvi. 9. '"Dion. " Ps. Ixxxiv. 7. 
 
 '- The word " shining " is the same as " brightness," v. 4. '3 S. Cyr. " Rup. 
 
 15 lyx 16 Jud. V. 4. Ps. Ixviii. 8 ; of the procession of the ark 2 Sam. vi. 13. It is 
 
 12 Thou didst march through the land chrTst 
 in indignation, "thou didst tliresh the hea- <-•'■•• cac- 
 then in ang(>r. '"■'lmo»V't 
 
 l.'{ Thou wentest forth for the salvation ^''^ 4'^- 
 
 who love sin virtue has no beauty, nor, as yet, any bright- 
 ness. Rut to those who know her she is nothing less than 
 lightning, brigiit and transparent, so that uhoso hath her 
 is easily known to all ai-oiind. 'i'lic di^ciph-s then, tir.<t 
 having the lightning of Tiiine arms, shall lead others also 
 to its Light. Admiring and conceiving in themselves those 
 virtues which are the; arms of Christ, they shine forth to 
 others, a gleam, as it were, of the bright flash of light in- 
 herent in those graces." "'^Thcy were ciilighfcMcd and be- 
 gan, by preaching, to send forth shining words of truth. 
 JJut those words are Thine arrows, shining arrows, shewing 
 by their light the way of life, and by their sharp point prick- 
 ing the hearts of people unto repentance." 
 
 12 Thou didst tread the earth in indignation. The word 
 tread ^' is used of very solemn manifestations of (iod '", of His 
 going to give to His own victory over their enemies'". Not the 
 land only, as of old, but the earth is the scene of Ilis judge- 
 ments ; the earth which was full of His praise, which He 
 meted om/^*, which contained the nations whom He chastened, 
 the whole earth. Thou dost thresh the heathen in anger. Not 
 then only, but at all times unto the end, distress of nations 
 and perplex-ity are among the shoots of the fig-tree, wliicli 
 betoken that the everlasting ^^ summer is nigh at hand. Jeru- 
 salem, when it had slain the Prince of Life, was given over 
 to desolation and counted like the heathen. It became the 
 synagogue, not the Church ; and so in the destruction of 
 Jerusalem (as it is an image of the destruction of the world) 
 was that again fulfilled, Thou dost march through the earth 
 in indignation. Thou dost thresh the heathen in anger, 
 
 13 Thou wentest forth. Even a Jew says of this place, 
 "-"The past is here used for the future; and this is frequent 
 in the language of prophecy; for prophecy, although it be 
 future, yet since it is, as it were, firmly fixed, they use the 
 past concerning it." The Prophet speaks again in the past, 
 perhaps to fix the mind on that signal going-forth, when 
 God destroyed Pharaoh, the first enemy who essayed to 
 destroy the chosen line. This stands at the bead of all 
 those dispensations, in which God put or shall put forth 
 His might to save His people or destroy their enemies. All 
 is with Him one everlasting pui'pose ; the last were, as it 
 were, embodied in the first : were it not for the last, the 
 first would not have been. Prophecy, in speaking of the 
 first, has in mind all the rest, and chiefly the chiefest and 
 the end of all, the full salvation of His people through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Thou wentest forth -'^, i. e., " '* Thou, the 
 Unseen God, gavest signs which may be seen of Thy Pre- 
 sence or coming to men." Thou wentest forth, not by change 
 of place, for Thou art not bounded; Thou art without change; 
 but by shewing Thy power, and doing something anew openly 
 for the salvation of Thy people, even for salvation with-- Thine 
 
 denied as to the idols, Jer. x. 5. '" " The voice of a treading" mys ^ip 2 Sam. v. Zi. 
 1 Chr. xiv. 15. '8 iii. 3, 6. •' S. Luke xxi. 25-31. -» Kimchi. -' Comp. 
 "]nNS3. "pl'yD Jud. v. 4. Ps. Ixviii. 8 of the great manifestation of God at Sinai ; so of the 
 judgement of the world, VDips? xt Is. xxvi. 21. -- The E. V. is 
 
 doubtless right. So Aquila, although a Jew, rendered, and the Sth Version. The Cth, a 
 Christian, translated, "Thou wentest forth to save Thy people through Jesus, Thy 
 Christ." So also the Vulgate and other old Jewish authorities. Rachmon (in ^lartini 
 Pug. Fid. f. 534.) notes " that the word eth means tcith, as in Gen. xxsra. 2. xxxix. 2." 
 For although it might be used to mark the object only after a verbal noun, it is not 
 likely that the construction would have been changed, unless the meaning were dif. 
 
 S S S 2
 
 432 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 c H^ifTs T ^^ ^^y pPf^plf* '*'*''" ^"^ salvation with thine 
 
 cir. lao. .tnointpil ; I'thou woundcst tlie lu-ad out 
 
 '&n.8!ii' of the house of tlie wit-kcd, f by diseover- 
 
 Ps. 68. 21. t Heb. making naked. 
 
 Arwinted. God, from tlie first, lielped His people throu;::h 
 single persons, Moses, Joshua, e.acli of the Jiulfjes, aecustom- 
 injr them to rceeivc (Icliveraiice hy one, ami to jj-ather toijether 
 ail their hopes in One. To Moses He said, ^ / wilL be with 
 thee, and to Joshua, * ^.9 / was with Moses, so I will he with 
 thee, and to Cyrus, * I will go before thee, preparinj? His people 
 to receive that nearer Presence with His t'hrist, of which 
 our Lord says : * lielievest thou not, that I ant in the Fdther, 
 and the Father in 3Ie ? lite Father that dwelleth in Me, He 
 doeth the works. "°Tlie Son of (iod, God Invisihle, became 
 Man, visible; and with Him, so going forth, the Holy Spirit 
 went forth to the salvation of His people, so as to fjive a visi- 
 ble sign of His Coming. For ujion His Christ Himself, Him 
 \Vho was anointed with the Holy (iliost*, He descended in a 
 bodily Shape, as a Dove. So He tve}it forth to the Salvation 
 of His people, i. e., to save His people with His Christ, our 
 Saviour ; " and again, on the Day of I'entccost, when that 
 other Comforter came, tVhom, He said, / will send unto you 
 from the Father, and in Whose Presence His own promise 
 was fulfilled, Lo, I am with you alivays, eve)i unto the end of 
 the world. His Presence was manifested both in the re- 
 mission of sins, and the parting of graces among all, and in 
 the "'signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the 
 Holy Ghost, wherewith God bare witness to the Apostles, 
 when ^they ivent forth, the Lord working with them, and 
 coutirming the luord with signs following. A going forth 
 to judgement, at the end of the world, is foretold in the like 
 image of warfare^. 
 
 Thou u'oundedst [criishedst'\ the head out of the house of tlie 
 wiclced. One wicked stands over against One anointed, as 
 in Isaiah, ^^ He shall smite the earth with the rod of His month, 
 and leith the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked ; 
 and David speaks of one, ^^ He shall smite the head over a 
 great land; and S. Paul speaks oi' ^- that Wicked, whom the 
 Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall 
 destroy with the brightness of His Coming. Him He shall 
 destroy at once from above and below; overthrowing his 
 kingdom from the foundation. From above, his head was 
 crushed in pieces ; from below, the house was razed from 
 its very foundations. So Amos said, ^^ The Lord said. Smite 
 the capital, and the lintel [threshold '*] strike, and wound them 
 in the head, all of them ; and with a different image, ^° / de- 
 stroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. First, 
 the head is struck off, crushed; then the house from the 
 foundations to its nec^k ; then as it were the headless walls. 
 The image of the neck may be the rather used to recall, that 
 
 ferent. HadeW been only the sign of the object, there was no occasion for inserting 
 it at all, and it would probably have been avoided, as only making the sentence am- 
 biguous, in that it may more obviously be taken in the sense adopted by Aq. and the 
 Vulgate and the E. V. The LXX and two early heretics who disbelieved the Divinity 
 of our Lord (Theodot. and Symm.) render " to save Thy Christs." The LXX is wrong 
 moreover, in that the Anointed is never used of the people, but of single persons only, 
 \vho were shadows of the Christ. ** Thine anointed'' is imderstood of one individual, 
 " the king of Judah," by A. E. " .Saul and David." by Rashi ; " Moses" by Abarb. ; 
 !' Hezekiah " by Tanch. ; but " Messiah Ben David " by Kim. Sal. b. Mel. 
 
 lEx. iii. 12. 2Josh. i. 5. 3 Is. xlv. 2. ■• S. John xiv. 10. 
 
 * Rup. « Acts X. 38. 1 Heb. ii. 4. 8 s. Mark xvi. 20. 
 
 9 Rev. xvii. 14. xix. 11. sqq. lo Is. xi. 4. " Ps. ex. 6. '= 1 Tliess. iv. 8. 
 
 1-' Am. ix. 1. '* The same word is usedZeph. ii. 14. Ps. cxxxvii. 7. '* Am. ii. 9. 
 
 "■ Dion. . '^ 2 Cor. ii. 11. 1 Cor. xii. 10. '" Ihe meaning "leaders, 
 
 prefects of soldiers'' has been obtained for ns by Ges. &c. by a misapplication of the 
 Arab, rs " distinguished " which in conj. ii. signifies " detined for a person," but only 
 in the idiom .TK"i3 'Sy ns " defined for me by his own counsel," which gains its meaning 
 only from the 'JV. That of the E. V. is furnished, in most places, by the passages 
 
 in<? the foundation unto the nock. Sehdi. chrTst 
 
 14 Thou <lidst strike throui^h witli his "'"■ "-"• 
 staves the head of his villages : they f came ^ ^empMuL,. 
 
 as the house of God is built of living stones, so the kingdom 
 of the evil one is made of living dead, who shall never cease 
 to exist in an undying death. The bruising of .Satan, the 
 head or prince of this evil world, is the deliverance of the 
 world. His head was bruised, when, by the Death of our 
 Lord, the Prince of this world was cast out ; he is crushed 
 (nit of tlie house of the wicked, v;\w\\e\er he. the strong man, is 
 bound and cast out, and "the soul of the sinner wliich had 
 been bis abode, becomes the house of God, and righteous- 
 ness dwelleth there and walketh in her." 
 
 " ^ Thou didst not leave any error or vice in the world 
 unshaken, either what was con(;ealed, like the foundation 
 of a house ; or that which was open, as the neck f)f the body 
 is open;" to the neck, where the destruction from above 
 ceased, so that nothing remained unsinitten. " = For they 
 being, by the fiery tongues which Thou shewedst without, 
 made fervent and strong, wise and eloquent, ceased not, 
 until they made known to all, what folly was this world's 
 wisdom, what sacrilege its sacred worship." "^"His secret 
 counsels He laid bare, as the Apostle says, ^^ JJ^^e are not 
 ignorajit of his devices; and, to another is given the discern- 
 ing of spirits." 
 
 14 Thou didst strike thrcnigh with his staves the head of 
 his villages^'*. The destruction comes not ujton himself only, 
 but upon the whole multitude of his subjects ; and this not 
 by any mere act of Divine might, but with his own staves, 
 turning upon him the destruction which he prepared for 
 others. So it often was of old. When the Midianites and 
 Amalekites and the children of the east^' wasted Israel in 
 the days of Gideon, -" the Lord set every jnan's sword against 
 his fellow, even throughout all the host ; and when God de- 
 livered the Philistines into the hand of Jonathan -^ ; so was 
 it with .Amnion 3Ioab and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, 
 at the prayer of Jehoshaphat and his army--. And so it 
 shall be, God says, at the end, of the army of Gog; every 
 man's sicord shall be against his brother"^, and Isaiah says, 
 -^ every ?nan shall eat thejlesh of his own arm, a.i\A Zechariah, 
 ^' a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and 
 they shall lay every man hold on the hand of his neighboiir, 
 and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neigh- 
 bour. So Pharaoh drove Israel to the shore of the sea, 
 in which he himself perished; Daniel's accusers perished in 
 the den of lions, from which Daniel was delivered unharmed-*; 
 and so Haman was hanged on the gallows which he prepared 
 for Mordeeai -^. So it became a saying of Psalmists, -* He 
 made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch ichich he 
 
 themselves. As in Ezek. xx.xviii. II, where "a land of nlns" is expanded into "where 
 they all dwell without wall ; and bar and double gates they have not ; " and Deut. iii. 5, 
 '* all these were fenced cities, with high wall, double gates and bar, besides cities of 
 ■nsn," and 1 Sam. vi. 18, " from the fenced city to the village of "nsn" and Zech. ii. 8. 
 " Jerusalem shall dwell as ni]"iD for the nmltitude of men and cattle therein ; and I, saith 
 the Lord, will be a wall of fire around." In Esther ix. 19, cities mtTSn are contrasted 
 with Shusban v. 18, and " the Perizzite," very possibly, was originally " paganus " 
 " one who dwelt in villages." This rendering is adopted by chief Jewish interpreters; 
 Kim. *' cities of the plain, which have no fort nor wall." So Abulw. Tanch. " land r" 
 Rashi, Abarb. "his cities and villages ; " A. E. keeps the word, but implies the mean- 
 ing, on Zech, ii. 8. Kim. Sal. b. Mel. obtained the sense of" forces" here, that they 
 " shall come in great numbers, and so dwell in Jerusalem, as DM"'S. who dwell in n>nD, 
 who spread in the whole place, who have no wall to enclose them." This explains Jon.- 
 '"the forces of Pharaoh," as hordes too large to be enclosed in walls, and perhaps the 
 LXX. auj-do-Toi. 19 Jud.vi.3, 4. :'' lb. vii. 22. '^i 1 Sam. xiv. 12, 16, 20. 
 
 -- 2 Chron. xx. 22, 23. -> Ezek. xxxviii. 21. -i Is. ix. 20. '^ Zech. xiv. 13. 
 
 2' Dan. vi. 24. 27 Esth. vii. 10. ^ Ps. vii. 5. add ix. 15, x. 2, xxxv. 8, 
 
 Ivii. 6, xciv. 23. cxli. 10. Prov. v. 22. xxvi. 27. Eccl. x. 8. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 433 
 
 chrTst ""*" ^^ ^ whirlwind to scatter me: their 
 
 "'■ ''^"- rejoieinjrrco* as to devour the i)oor secretly. 
 
 ' vlr/s.' ^^' 15 'iThou didst walk throiii.h the sea 
 
 made; /it's misritief shuU return upon his own head, and his 
 violent dealing shall come doum upon his own pate : and this 
 from above, sent down by (iod. The licathen too observed 
 that there was "no jiistcr law tlian tliat artificers of death by 
 their own art shoidd perish." 'I'his too befell biin, when lie 
 seemed to have all but jjjained his end. Thri/ raiiic [out] as 
 a whirlwind to scatter mc, with whirlwind foree, to drive 
 them asunder to all the quarters of the heavens, as the wind 
 scatters the particles of W-loud, or -as the stiihhle which 
 passeth away hi/ the wind of the wilderness. Pharaoh at the 
 WcA Sea or Sennacherib, sweep all before them. Pharaoh 
 said, •' / tcill pursue, J will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; 
 nil/ lust shall he safis/ied^ upon them ; I will draw my sword, 
 my hand shall destroy them. 
 
 Their rejoicing. It is no longer one enemy. The malice 
 of the members was concentrated in the head ; the hatred 
 concentrated in him was diffused in them. The readiness of 
 instruments of evil to fulfil evil is an incentive to those who 
 <'onceive it; those who seem to ride the wave are but carried 
 on upon the crest of the sur^ge which they first roused. They 
 cannot cheek themselves or it. So the anil)itious coneeiver of 
 mischief has his own guilt ; the willing instruments of evil 
 have theirs. Neither could be fully evil without the other. 
 Sennacherib had been nothing without those fierce warriors 
 who are pictured on the monuments, with individual fierce- 
 ness fulfilling his will, nor the Huns without Attila, or Attila 
 without his hordes whose teinpers he embodied. Satan 
 would be powerless but for the willing instruments whom he 
 uses. So then Holy Scripture sometimes passes from the 
 mention of the evil multitude to that of the one head, on earth 
 or in hell, who impels them ; or from the one evil head who 
 has his own special responsibility in originating it, to the evil 
 multitude, whose responsibility and guilt lies in fomenting the 
 evil which they execute. 
 
 Their rejoicing. He does not say simply "they rejoice 
 to," but herein is their exceeding, exulting joy. The wise of 
 this earth glories in his wisdom, the mighty man in his might, 
 the rich in his riches : the truly wise, that he understandeth 
 and knoweth God. But as for these, their exultation is con- 
 centrated in this, — savagery; in this is their jubilation ; this 
 is their passion. Psalmists and pious men use the word to 
 express their exulting joy in God: men must have an object 
 for their empassioned souls ; and these, in cruelty. 
 
 As it ivere to devour the poor secretly. From the general 
 he descends again to the individual, but so as now to set forth 
 the guilt of each individual in that stormy multitude which is, 
 as it were, one in its evil unity, when each merges his respon- 
 sibility, as it were, in that of the body, the horde or the mob, 
 in which he acts. Their exultation, he says, is that of the 
 individual robber and murderer, who lies wait secretly in 
 his ambush, to spring on the defenceless wanderer, to slay 
 him and devour his substance. Premeditation, passion, lust 
 of cruelty, cowardice, murderousness, habitual individual 
 savagery and treachery, and that to the innocent and de- 
 fenceless, are all concentrated in the words, their exultation 
 
 ' Job xxxvii. 11. - Jer. xiii. 24. add xviii. 17. Is, xli. 16. Del. 3 Ex. xv. 9. 
 
 ' lb. xiv. 3. ° Dion. ' Ps. xiii. 4. ' Ecclus. xxiii. 1. * D'3 ddit as 
 
 Ps. Ixxvii. 20, pnTD'3. ' Is. Ixiii. 13. '" Zecli. x. 11. " Acts xvii. 38. 
 
 '2 So Jon. Kim. (comparing Ex. xv. Sand Dion Ex. viii. 10.) Sal. b. Mel.Tanch. 
 
 witli thine horses, through the || heap of chrTst 
 great waters. ""■ ^^- 
 
 1() When I heard, ''my helly tremhled ; r iv Ho' 120. 
 
 Jer. 23. 9. 
 
 is, as it were, to devour the poor secretly, i. e. in their secret 
 haunt. 
 
 Pharaoh had triumphed over Israel. * They are entangled 
 in the land, tliv wllilernrss hath shut them in. He rejoiced 
 in havini,"- them wholly in his power, as a lion has his prey 
 in his lair, in secret, unknown to the Eyes of God Whom he 
 regarded not, with none to behold, none to deliver. ""They 
 gloried in oppressing the people of Israel, even as the cruel 
 man glories in secretly rending and afflicting the needy, 
 when without fear they do this cruelty, nor heed God be- 
 holding all as .Judge." The invisible' enemies too rejoice 
 very greatly in the ruin of our souls. '^ Lest mine enemy say, 
 I have prevailed against him : for if I he cast down, thei/ that 
 trouble me will rejoice at it. ' (J Lord and governour of all 
 my life, leave me not to their counsels and let me not fill hy 
 them. Yet God left them not in his hands; but even hrake 
 the head of Leviathan in pieces. 
 
 15 Thou didst walk through the sea icith Thine horses. 
 God Himself is pictured as leading them on the way, Him- 
 self at the head of their multitude, having, as Asaph" said of 
 old, '^ His path in the sea. So Isaiah, '■' IVho leddest them in 
 the depths ; and Zechariah, ^^ And he shall pass through the 
 sea. God was literally there ; for '^ in Him we live and move 
 and. have our lieing. He Who "is wholly everywhere but 
 the whole of Him nowhere" manifested His Presence there. 
 Such anthropomorphisms have a truth, which men's fa- 
 vourite abstractions have not. 
 
 Through the heap ^- of great waters, as of old, ^' the waters 
 stood as a hcaji, and He made the waters to stand as a heap. 
 The very hindrances to deliverance are in God's Hands 
 a way for His ends. The waves of the Red sea rose in 
 heaps, yet this was but a readier way for the salvation of 
 His people and the destruction of their enemies. " ^ God 
 prepareth ever a way for His elect in this present evil world, 
 and leadeth them along the narrow way which leadeth unto 
 life." 
 
 16 When I heard, better, / heard and &c. The pro- 
 phet sums up, resuming that same declaration with which 
 he had begun, / heard, I was afraid. Only now he ex- 
 presses far more strongly both his awe at God's judge- 
 ments and his hopes. He had just beheld the image of 
 the destruction of Pharaoh, the end of the brief triumphing 
 of the wicked and of the trials of God's people. But aweful 
 as are all the judgements of God upon the enemies of His 
 people, it was not this alone which was the object of his 
 terror. This was deliverance. It was the whole course of 
 God's dispensations, which he had heard; God's punishment 
 of His people for their sins, and the excision of their op- 
 pressors, who, in His Providence, fulfilling their own evil 
 end, executed His chastisements upon them. The deliver- 
 ances, which shadowed out the future, had their dark side, 
 in that they tvere deliverances. The whole course of this 
 world is one series of man's unfaithfulnesses or sins, God's 
 chastisements of them through their fellow-sinners, and His 
 ultimate overthrow of the aggressors. Those first three 
 
 (mentioning the opinion of others that it is " mud " but choosing the other.) ,\. E. chooses 
 the sense, " mud." Rashi paraphrases, " as the sand of the sea." For that of Ges., 
 " the boiling of the waters," there is absolutely no authority, 
 " Ex. XV. 8. Ps. Ixxviii. 13.
 
 434 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. G2(i. 
 
 my lips quivered at the voiee : rottenness 
 entered into my hones, and I treinided in 
 myself, that I mii^ht rest in the day of 
 trouhle : when he conieth up unto the peo- 
 
 centuries of ijlorious martyrdoms were, on the one side, the 
 malice and hatred of Satan and the world against the truth ; 
 on the other side, the prophets of tliose days tohl their peo- 
 ple that they were the ehastisenients of their sins. Future 
 deliverance implies previous chastisement of tliose delivered. 
 The prophet then, at the close, in view of all, for himself 
 and all whose perplexities he represented and pleaded before 
 God, chooses his and their portion. " Sutler here and rest 
 for ever!" "Endure here any terror, any failure of hopes, 
 yet trust wholly in God, have rest in the day of trouble and 
 sing- the endless song- ! " Again he casts himself back amid 
 all the troubles of this life. 
 
 / heard [i. c. that speech of God uttering judgements 
 to come] and my helli/^, the whole inward self, bodily and 
 mental, all his hidden powers, trembled", "vibrated" as 
 it were, " ^ in every fibre of his frame," at tlie wrath of God ; 
 my lips quivered* at the voiee of God, so that they almost 
 refused their office and could hardly fulfil the prophetic 
 duty and utter the terrors which he had heard; his very 
 strongest parts, the hones, which keep the whole frame of 
 man together, that he be not a shapeless mass, and which 
 remain unconsumcd long after the rest has wasted away 
 in the grave, rottenness entered into them, corruption and 
 mouldering eating into them ■' ; a?id I trembled in myself 
 [lit. under me^'\ so that he was a burden to himself and 
 sank unable to support himself, that I might rest in the 
 day of trouble. All up to this time was weariness and 
 terror, and now at once all is repose ; the prophet is car- 
 ried, as it were, over the troubles of this life and the decay 
 of the grave to the sweetness of everlasting rest^. I, the 
 same, suft'er these things, terror, quivering, rottenness in 
 the very hones themselves. / [lit.] who shall rest^ in the 
 day of trouble, /who had not rest until then, shall enter 
 into rest then in the very day of trouble to all who found 
 their rest in the world not in God, the day of judgement. 
 ' Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenesl, O Lord, and 
 teachest him in Thy law, that Thou mayest give him pati- 
 
 ' [03 is useA of the inward part of man, which "prepareth mischief," Job xv. 35; 
 the spirit whereof constrains one, lb. xxxii. 18; the chambers of which are searched 
 out l)y the spirit of man, as the lamp of God, Prov. xx. 27 ; as cleansed by stripes 
 lb. 30 ; wliere the words of the wise are s;uarded, lb. xxii. IS; which should not be filled 
 with the East wind. Job xv. 2, In the like way in the N. T. " from his belly, Kot\ia, 
 shall flow living waters," S. John vii. 38. In Arab, to? is the "inner meaning;" :b3 
 ** he knew the inner, the intrinsic, state of the case;" with 3 p., '"became intimate 
 with ; " conj. X. with ace, *' penetrated a thing." So also ipN2 Sx " that which is within," 
 of facts, thoughts, mind. See Lane. All are derivative senses, pi has nothing in 
 common wiih Ar. Sen, as Ges. 
 
 ' '* ragaz," twice repeated in this verse, takes up, as it were, "rogez " wrath v. 2. 
 
 3 Del. ■> SSs occurs of the tingling of the ear, 1 Sam. iii. 11. 2 Kgs xxi. 12. 
 
 Jer. xix. 3. " From the fear at the meaning of this sound which he has heard his lips 
 trembled in speaking, and he uttered their words with a trembling sound." Tanch. 
 
 ^ 2i>i (the root) is used of the decay of wood and of the bones, and Pr. x. 7, of " the 
 name of the wicked." ^ As 2 Sam. ii. 23. " he 
 
 died" as we say, " on the spot," sinking down dead, ' The very softness 
 
 of the original word nwx stands in contrast with the rigidness in the words tirgaz, rnkab, 
 regaz, tsarah. s nij is uniformly " rest." It is used of rest from labour, 
 
 from calaniities, [Is. xxiv. 7 Job iii. 21).] rest in a place, with 3, or o«{Sy) it; of the Holy 
 Spirit resting on a person (with Sj)). But its meaning is uniformly of rest, not of silence 
 as to a thing [as Ges.] nor does ti'nnn furnish any analogy, since this in itself signifies 
 " kept silence." ^ Nor can it mean " wait patiently for," for m 3'' rest " is the very op- 
 posite of " waiting for," hdh. which necessarily involves a degree, even if of subdued un- 
 rest. Then, too .ijn, nv}, ?n;, are used of waiting, looking for good, not for evil, 
 
 9 Ps. xciv. 12, 13. 
 
 1" Man. ap. App. S. Aug. T. vi. c. 21. 
 
 1' This is the simplest construction, and is that adopted by Kim. Abarb. In the ren- 
 dering " in the conung up of a people," the ^ would, as Tanchum observes, be super- 
 
 Bcfore 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. <i2<i. 
 
 pie, he will || invade them with his troops. 
 17 ^1 Althouufii the fitr tree sliall not 
 hlossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; "^'-^.tf'" 
 the lahour of the olive shall ffail, and the tHeb. /«. 
 
 ence in time of adversity, until the pit he digged up for the 
 ungodly. 
 
 " ^'J O my soul ; had wc daily to bear tortures, had we for a 
 long time to endure hell itself, that we might see Ciirist in 
 His glory and be tlie companion of His Saints, were it not 
 worth enduring all sorrow, that we might be partakers of 
 so exceeding a good, such exceeding glory ?" 
 
 When he comet h up unto the people, he shall invade them 
 ivith his troops, or, which is probably meant, ivhen he cometh 
 up who shall invade them ^^. It is a filling out of the day 
 of trouble ^^. However near the trouble came, he, under the 
 protection of God and in firm trust in Him, would be at 
 rest in Him. The troubles of God's prophets are not the 
 outward troubles, but the sins of their people which bring 
 those troubles, the offence against the majesty of God, the 
 loss of souls. Jeremiah was more at rest in the court of 
 the prison, than when all the people did curse him ^' for 
 telling them God's Truth. He who fears God and His 
 judgements betimes, shall rest in perfect tranquillity when 
 those judgements come. The immediate trouble was the 
 fierce assault of the Chaldees whose terror he had de- 
 scribed ; and this, picturing, as through the prophecy, all 
 other judgements of God even to the last, when devils shall 
 contend about the souls of men, as Satan did about the body 
 of Moses. 
 
 17 Although [lit. 7^0)-^'] the figtree shall not blossom. The 
 Prophet repeats his confidence in God, premising his know- 
 ledge that all human hopes should fail. I know, he says, all 
 stay and support shall fail ; he numbers from the least to the 
 greatest, the fruits of trees, the fig, vine and olive, for sweet- 
 ness, gladness, cheerfulness '% whereof the well-being of the 
 vine and figtree furnishes the proverbial picture of peace and 
 rest. These shall either not shoot forth, or shall at time of 
 fruit- gathering have no produce '", or having, as it were, la- 
 boured to bring forth fruit shall lie ^^, and fail : yet further 
 " the staff of life " itself shall fail ; the fields shall yield no 
 meat ; all the fields, as though they were but one ^*, shall 
 
 fluous, and Wil' would be more natural than inu". But the prophet would not need- 
 lessly make his language ambiguous. Had he meant, " in the coming up of a or tha 
 people," he would have used the common cy mSy'? or cy.T mSy'?. The construction of 
 rhy with S instead of hv, " to " for " against," is exceptional. But nSy occurs with the 
 equivalent Vm of the person, and in one case with S (as we say "go up to ") Gen. xliv, 
 24, 31. xlv. 9. Ex. xix. 3, il. x.xiii. 1, 12. xxxii. 30. Deut x. 1. Josh. x. 4, 6. Jud. iv. 5. 
 xii. 3. xvi. 5. (nS) 18. 1 Sam. vi. 20. x. 3, xiv. 9, 12. xxiii. 19. 2 Kgs. i. 11. xxii. 4, and 
 this, in a hostile sense Jud. xx. 23, 2 Sam. v. 19, Jer. xlix. 28, 31. DP also, is used 
 without the art. (as a sort of proper name) of the Jewish people. Is. xxvi. 11. xliv. 6. Tj 
 occurs Gen. xlix. 19. there also with ace; niun', our, " troop " (verb) Jer. x. 7. See also 
 Mic. iv. 14, p. 338. '- ms DV is a general term which occurs also Is. 
 
 xxxvii. 3, more commonly with 3. ms DV3, Ps. xx. 2, 1. 15, Pr. xxiv. 10, xxv. 19, Jer. xvi. 
 19, Ob. 12, 14, Nah. i. 7. Zeph. i. 15. as .Tis ny occurs Jer. x.xx. 7. Dan. xii. 1. ms rya, 
 Is. xxxiii. 2. Jer. xiv. 8. xv. 11 ; Tra DV3 Gen. xxxv. 3, Ps. hxxvii. 3, Ixxxvi. 7 ; nya 
 Dims Jud. X. 14. Dms nya Neh. ix. 27. There is no ground then to limit it to the 
 Chalda?an or Assyrian period. '■* Jer. xv. 10. 
 
 '< The adversative or exceptional force attributed to '3, always lies in the relation of 
 the two sentences, not in the *3 itself, which is always causative, " for " or " because." 
 
 '= Ps. civ. 15. "" Sl3' occurs here only of the produce of trees; 
 
 10 times of the earth itself directly; in Ps. Ixxvii. 1, its produce, as the result of 
 human culture, is n^l3', Dyj' ; and Job xx. 28 (n'3 ^"13'. ."iL-yD occurs here only of the 
 fruit, being an application of the common idiom *1D ni;*y. 
 
 '' c'na as Hos. ix. 2. '^ niov, (an old word Dent, xxxii. 32) with no 
 
 known etymology, is used, in three out of the four places in which it certainly occurs, in 
 relation to place: " fields of Gomorrha" Deut. 1. c. " f. of Kidron 2 Kgs. xxiii. 4." "f. of 
 Heshbon" Is. xvi. 8. It occurs in a fifth, (if, as is probable, the Kri is right,)" all the 
 fields unto the brook Kidron" i. e. reaching to it, Jer, xxxi. 40. As a collective, it is 
 joined with a sing, verb here, and Is. xvi. 8,
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 435 
 
 ctfa^rsT fit^^f's shall yield no moat; the flock shall 
 ''"■ "^''- be eut off from the fold, and there shall be 
 ' "isai^i/fo. no herd in the stalls : 
 &01.10. jg sYet I will 'rejoice in the Lord, I 
 
 will joy in the God of my salvation. 
 
 have one common lot, barrenness. Yet more ; the flocks 
 shall be cut oft'i from tlie fold; not those only, feedini? 
 abroad in fields and open plains, shall be driven away, 
 but they sliall be carried away by tlu; enemy from the 
 folds, where tiicy seemed |)enned securely; and not these 
 only, but //irre shall be ?io Iwrd iti the stalls", even tlic 
 stronijer aninuils shall utterly fail ; every help for labour, 
 or for clotliinf;-, or for food sliall cease; he speaks not of 
 j)rivation, partial failure, but of the entire loss of all things, 
 110 meat from the fields, tio herd in the stalls ; and what 
 then ? And I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the 
 God of my salvation. The words are very impressive, as 
 they stand in the Hebrew. " For," he says, " the fig-tree 
 shall not blossom, and there is no fruit in the vines, the la- 
 bour of the olive hath failed;" (the Prophet does not look 
 on, only to these things, but in his mind stands in the midst 
 of them^, they are done, and he amid them, feeling their 
 effects) "and the field liath yielded no food; the flock hath 
 been cut oft" from the fold, a)id there is no herd in the stall; 
 and /" — He relates it as the result of all which had gone be- 
 fore ; such and such was the state of fruit-trees, vintage, har- 
 vest, flocks and herds ; such was the aspect of all nature, 
 living or inanimate; all was barren, disappointing; all had 
 failed and was gone; and then at last he comes to himself, 
 and I ; what is he doing, when all nature and every seeming 
 hope is dead? thus and thus it is with them; and I — tuill 
 rejoice. He almost uses the expression as to the exultation 
 of the enemy, adopting the same word only in a softer form. 
 " Their exulting joy was " concentrated in this, "as to devour 
 the poor secretly;" he too had "exulting joy." There is a 
 joy against joy; a joy of theirs in the possession of all which 
 their rapacity covets, in the possession of all things : a 
 joy of his amid the privation of all things. He contrasts 
 the two joys, as David had of old; *the men of the tvorld, 
 whose portion is in this life, whose belly Thou Jillest with 
 Thy hid treasure; they are sated of children and leave their 
 substance to their babes : I, he adds, / shall behold Thy 
 Presence in righteousness, I shall be sated, in the atuakening, 
 with Thine image. So Habakkuk, / trill not rejoice only, but 
 shout for Joy ^ ; and not so only, but I will bound for Joy ; 
 and this not for a time only ; both words express a draw- 
 ing, yearning ^ of the soul, and this yet more and more, / 
 will shout for Joy and icould shout on; I will bound for Joy 
 and ivould bound cm. But whence the source of this mea- 
 sureless unutterable joy? In the Lord, the Unchangeable 
 God, fFho is and teas and is to come, I AM, (it is the 
 incommunicable Name) ; in the God of my salvation : it 
 is almost the Name of Jesus''; for JESUS is salvation, 
 and the Name means " the Lord is Salvation : " whence 
 
 ' 113 occurs intrans. here only. In Arab, also it is commonly used, but intrans. of 
 ** water whicli sunk" or retired. See Lane. - D'nsi, here only, but clear from the 
 
 context. In Buxtorfs instance, nana ."n^o " found it in a stall," the word is very probably 
 used in the sense ascribed it to here by tradition as '* well known in the language of the 
 ancient (doctors) who say in the sing. "ip3 nsi." Taiich. " House of oxen." Kim. " See 
 Mishnah Bava Bathra ii. .3. vi. 4." Munk on Tanch. The Arab, rsi *' chopped straw" 
 could hardly furnish a name for a stall. 
 
 ^ Tlie first future nisn nS, "shall not flourish" determines that all which follows is 
 future in act, though present to the prophet's mind. ■* Ps. xvii. 13, 15. 
 
 ' )^y, like oAo\ds,ai. It is used of exultation in the holiness of God, Ps. Ix. 8, cviii, 8. 
 
 19 The TiORD God is °my stren<?th, and chrTs 
 he will make my feet like ^h'mds feet, and__^Li?^ 
 he will mak(; me to ''walk upon mine hij^h Hofiam'. 22. 
 places, 'i'o the chief singer on my fstrinj^ed 33; "' 
 
 , , 7 Deut. 3 
 
 instruments. 
 
 18. 
 
 7 Deut. 32. 13. 
 & 33. 29. 
 t Heb. Negimlh, Ps. 4, title. 
 
 the words are here rendered even by a Jew ", " in God 
 the Author of my redemption," and yet more sweetly by a 
 father''', "in God my Jesus." In Him his joy begins, to Him 
 and in Him it flows back and on ; before he ventures, amid 
 all the desolation, to speak of joy, he names tlie Name of 
 God, and, as it were, stays himself in (Jod, is enveloped and 
 wra|>ped round in God; and I (the words stand in this 
 order) a7ul I in the Lord would shout for Joy. He (;omes, 
 as it were, and places himself quite close to (iod, so that no- 
 thing, not even his joy should be between himself and (iod; 
 "and /in the Lord." All creation, as it had failed, ceases 
 to be; all out of God: he speaks of nothing but himself 
 and God, or rather himself ?« God; and as He, (iod, (-omes 
 before his joy, as its source, so in Him does he lose him- 
 self, with joy which cannot be contained, nor expressed, nor 
 rest, but utters itself in the glad motions of untiring love. 
 I icould bound for Joy in 7ny Saving God. Truly all our joy 
 is, to be in Him in Whom is all Good, Who is all Goodness 
 and all Love. 
 
 IVic Lord God is my strength. The prophet does not 
 inwardly only exult and triumph in God, but he confesses 
 also in words of praise, that in Him he hath all things, that 
 He is All things in him. And as he had confessed the Fa- 
 ther, under the Name whereby He revealed Himself to 
 Moses, and the Son, "the Lord God of my salvation," so 
 he confesses ^'^ God the Holy Ghost, Who, in us, is our 
 strength. He is our strength, so that through Him, we 
 ca)i do all things ; He is our strength, so that without Him, 
 we can do nothing; He is our strength, so that when we put 
 forth strength, we put forth nothing of our own, we add 
 nothing of our own, we use not our own strength, of which 
 we have none, but we do use His ; and we have It ever ready 
 to use, as if it were our own. For it is not our own and it is 
 our own ; not our own, i. e., not from or of ourselves ; but 
 our own, since It is in us, yea He the Lord our God is cnir 
 strength, not without us, for He is our strength, but in us. 
 And so he says further, liow we can use it as our own. He 
 trill make my feet like hinds, which bound upward through 
 His imparted strength, and, when scared by ahirms here 
 below, flee fearless to their native rocks, spring from height 
 to height, and at last shew themselves on some high peak, 
 and standing on the Rock, look down on the whole world 
 below their feet and upward on high. Even so, ^^when at 
 the end of the world all shall fail, and the love of many shall 
 tra.v cold, and the Church, which is likened to the fig tree 
 the vine and the '- olive, shall yield no fruits, and sweetness 
 shall be corrupted by vanities, and the oil of mercy shall be 
 dried up, and lamps go out, and its promises shall fail and 
 it shall lie, having a show of goodness, but denying the power 
 
 before God, Ps. Ixviii. 5, God being the implied Object, Zeph. iii. 14. Ps. xxviii. 7. xc^'i. 
 12. cxlix. 5. of the evil in evil Jer. xi. 15. 1. 11, 11.39. Ps. xciv. 3. 
 6 This is the force of the optative '-hvf, •"ij":x. .tH',>« recurs in Ps. Ix. 8. cviii. 8. 
 " Jesus in Heb. !,'<»';, here it;. * Chald. The Syr. " God my Redeemer." LXX. 
 
 " God my Saviour." ^ S. Aug. de Civ. D. xviii. 32. " To me what some MSS. 
 
 have ; ' I will rejoice in God my Jesus,' seems better than what they have, who have not 
 set the Name itself, (but saving) which to us it is more loving and sweeter to name." 
 l» Rup. " Chiefly from Dion. Comp. S. Jer. 
 
 '-' S. Luke xiii. 6. Is.v, 1. xxi. 33. &c. Rom. xi. 17.
 
 436 
 
 IIABAKKUK. 
 
 of it ; in U'ords confessing God, and in works deni/ing Him ; 
 and tliroiiffh their own ncglii,^cnces, or the eareh-ssiiess of 
 pastors, the sheep <»f Christ shall perish from IJis very fold, 
 and they who should be strong; to lahour ' shall cease, God's 
 elect shall joy in Him, " beholdinjjj His f^oodness, and loving 
 Him in all things, and He will give them free affections, 
 and fervid longings of holy love, whereby they shall not 
 walk only, but run the uuii/ of His commandments and prevail 
 over the enemies of their salvation." 
 
 Yet though this strength is inward, and used by man, 
 still God Who gives it, Himself guides it. Not man shall 
 direct his oiun wai/s, but He will make me to walk (as on a 
 plain tuai/) upon my liigh places. Steep and slippery places 
 and crags of the rocks are but wai/s to the safe height above, 
 to those whom God makes to walk on them ; and since he 
 has passed all things earthly, what are his high places, but 
 the heavenly places, even his home, even while a pilgrim 
 
 here, but now at the end, much more his home, when not 
 in hope only, but in truth, he is raised n/i together, and made 
 to sit together in hearenli/ places in Christ ,/e.sus'} 
 
 And now what remains then, but that this song of praise 
 should be for ever ? And so it is not without meaning, iior 
 was of old thought to be so ', that there stand here, at 
 the end, words which elsewhere in the Psalms always stand 
 at the beginning. Nor is it any where else, " upon my 
 stringed instruments." To the chief singer on mi/ stringed 
 instrutnenls. To Him to Whom all praise is due, through 
 Whom we praise Himself, His Spirit [)leading in us, for us, 
 upon my stringed instruments. He Himself, providing, as it 
 were, and teaching the prelude of the endless song, and by 
 His Spirit, breathing upon the instrument which He has 
 attuned, and it giving back faithfully, in union with the 
 heavenly Choir with whom it is now blended, the Angelic 
 Hymn, " Glory to God in the Highest." 
 
 1 Cor. ix. 0,10. 
 
 ■- Eph. ii.fl. 
 
 3 It is commented upon as part of tlie text by S. Cyril and S. Jerome. 
 
 SITE OF BABYLON. 
 
 "Cast her up as heaps, destroy her utterly; let nothing of her be left." — Jeb. 1. 26. 
 "The vision is yet for the appointed time; though it tarry, wait for it;" 
 "Because it will surely come, it will not be behindhand."^Hab. ii. 3.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 Zephaniah was called to his office, at all events not long 
 after Habakkuk. As his time was near to that of Habak- 
 kuk, so his subject also was kindred. Both lived when, for 
 the sins of the reign of Manasseh, God had pronounced 
 upon Jerusalem an irreversible sentence of destruction. 
 The mission of both was not to the whole people whose 
 sentence was fixed, but to the individuals who would flee 
 from the wrath to come. Tiic form of Habakkuk's pro- 
 phecy was (as we might say) more subjective ; that of 
 Zephaniah, more objective. Habakkuk exhibits the victory 
 of faith in the oppressed faithful ; how it would hold to 
 God amid the domestic oppressions, amid the oppressions 
 of the Chaldees by whom those oppressions were to be 
 punished, and, when all shall seem to fail, should, in the cer- 
 tainty of its unseen life, joy in its God. The characteristic 
 of Zephaniah is the declaration of the tenderness of the love 
 of God for that remnant of Israel, ''the ajflieted and poor 
 people, whom God would leave in the midst of them. 
 
 Zephaniah has, like Habakkuk, to declare the judgement 
 on the world. He renews the language of Joel as to 
 " the day of the Lord," and points it to nations and in- 
 dividuals. He opens with the prophecy of one wide des- 
 truction of the land and all the sinners in it, its idolaters 
 and its oppressors, its princes, its royal family, its mer- 
 chants, its petty plunderers, who used rapine under colour 
 of their masters' name, and brought guilt on themselves 
 and them. Nothing is either too high or too low to escape 
 the judgements of God. But the visitation on Judah was 
 part only of a more comprehensive judgement. Zephaniah 
 foretells the wider destruction of enemies of God's peo- 
 ple on all sides : of Philistia, Moab, Amnion, on each side 
 of them, and the distant nations on either side, Ethiopia 
 (which then included Egypt) and Assyria. All these parti- 
 cular judgements contain principles of God's judgements at 
 all times. But in Zephaniah they seem all to converge in 
 the love of God for the remnant of His people. The nation 
 he calls ^ a nation not desired. Individuals he calls to God; 
 '^ it may he, ye shall he hid in the Day of the Lord's anger. 
 He foretells a sifting time, wherein God would take aivay the 
 proud among her'^ ; yet there follows a largeness of Gospel 
 promise and of love ", the grounds of which are explained 
 in the Gospel, but whose tenderness of language is hardly 
 surpassed even by the overwhelming tenderness of Uhe love 
 of Christ which passeth knowledge. 
 
 The prophet's own name "the Lord hath hid" corresponds 
 
 a Zeph. iii. 12. ^ ii. 1. " ii. 3. ^ iii. 11, 12. 
 
 « iii. 12-17. f Eph. iii. 19. B Ps. x.wii. 5. "MS" t r:Ea. 
 
 i Ps. xxxi. 19. 20. oasn. ^ Ps. Ixxxiii. 4 yTBi. ' 2 Chr. xxxiv. 3-7. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 with this. The Psalmist had said, using this same word, 
 "8lle shall hide me in His tabernacle in the day of evil: in 
 the secret of His tabernacle He shall hide me';" and, "O 
 how great is Thy goodness, which Tliou hast laid up^ for 
 them that fear Thee. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of 
 Thy presence from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them 
 secretly^ in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." '"'They 
 take counsel against Thy hidden ones." 
 
 The date which Zephaniah prefixed to his prophecy, has 
 not been disputed ; for no one felt any interest in deny- 
 ing it. Those who disbelieve definite prophecy invented for 
 themselves a solution, whereby they thought that Zcpha- 
 niah's prophecy need not be definite, even though uttered in 
 the time of Josiah; so the fact remained unquestioned. 
 
 The unwonted fulness with which his descent is given 
 implies so much of that personal knowledge whit^h soon 
 fades away, that those who speak of other titles, as having 
 been prefixed to the books, or portions of books of the pro- 
 phets, by later hands, have not questioned this. The only 
 question is, whether he lived before or in the middle of the 
 reformation by Josiah. Josiah, who came to the throne 
 when eight years old B.C. 641, began the reformation in the 
 twelfth year of his reign', when almost twenty; B.C. 630. 
 The extirpation of idolatry could not, it appears, be ac- 
 complished at once. The finding of the ancient copy of 
 the law, during the repairs of the temple in the eighteenth 
 year of his reign™, B.C. 624, gave a fresh impulse to the 
 king's efforts. He then united the people with himself, bound 
 all the people present to the covenant" to keep the law, 
 and made a further destruction of idols " before the solemn 
 passover in that year. Even after that passovcr some abomi- 
 nations had to be removed p. It has been thought that the 
 words, 1/ will cut (iff the remnant of Baal from this place, 
 imply that the worship of Baal had already in some degree 
 been removed, and that God said, that He would complete 
 what had been begun. But the emphasis seems to be rather 
 on the comj)leteness of the destruction, as we should say, 
 that He would efface every remnant of Baal, than to refer 
 to any effort which had been made by human authority to 
 destroy it. 
 
 The prophet joins together, / icill cut off the ronnaut of 
 Baal, the name of the Chemarim. The cutting off" //(e »a/«e 
 of the Chemarim, or idolatrous priests, is like that of Hosea% 
 / ivill fake away the 7iames of Baalim out of her mouth, and 
 they shall no more be remembered by their name. As the 
 
 m 2 Kgs xxii. 2 Chr. xxxif. 8-28. 
 2 Kgs xxiii. 4-20. 2 Chr. xxxiy. i 
 1 Zeph. i. 4. 
 
 "■ 2 Kgs xxiii. 3. 2 Chr. xx.xv. 31. 
 p 2 Kgs xxiii. 24. 
 ■■ Hos. ii. ir. 
 
 T T T
 
 438 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 cuttiii!!: off of the name of the Chemnrim means their beitifr 
 utterly obliterated, so, iirol)al)ly, does the cnttiji!^ off the 
 remnant of Baal. The worship of IJaal was cut otf, not 
 througli josiah, but (as Zephaniah prophesied) through 
 the captivity. Jeremiah asserts its coutinuance during liis 
 long prophetic otHce ^ 
 
 In the absence of any direct authority to the contrary, 
 the description of idolatry by Zephaniah would seem to be- 
 long to the period, before the measures to abolish it were 
 begun. He speaks as if everything were full of idolatry ', 
 the worship of Baal, the worshij) of the host of heaven upon 
 the housetops, swearing by Malcham, and probably the 
 clothing with strange apparel. 
 
 The state also was as corrupt " as the worship. Princes 
 and judges, priests and prophets were all alike in sin ; the 
 judges distorted the law between man and man, as the 
 priests profaned all which related to God. The princes 
 were roaring lions; the judges, evening wolves, ever fa- 
 mished, hungering for new prey. This too would scarcely 
 have been, when Josiah was old enough to govern in his 
 own person. Both idolatry and perversion of justice were 
 (Continued on from the reign of hi,s father Anion. Both, 
 when old enough, he removed. God Himself gives him 
 the praise, that he '■' did judgement and Justice, then it was 
 well with him ; he judged the cause of the poor and ueedi/, 
 then it was mell with him ; was not this to knoiv Me ? saith 
 the Lord. His conversion was in the eighth year of his 
 reign. Then, while he was yet young, he began to seek after 
 the God of David his father. 
 
 The mention of the king's children ", whom, God says. He 
 would punish in the great day of His visitation, does not 
 involve any later date. They might, any how have been 
 brothers or uncles of the king Josiah. But, more probably, 
 God declares that no rank should be exempt from the judge- 
 ments of that day. He knew too that the sons of Josiah 
 would, for their great sins, be then punished. The sun of 
 the temporal rule of the house of David set in unmitigated 
 wickedness and sorrow. Of all its kings after Josiah, it is 
 said, they did evil in the sight of the Lord ; some were dis- 
 tinguished by guilt ; all had miserable ends ; some of them 
 aggravated misery ! 
 
 Zephaniah then probably finished his course before that 
 12th year of Josiah, (for this prophecy is one whole) and 
 so just before Jeremiah was, in Josiah's 13th year, called to 
 his office, which he fulfilled for half a century, perhaps for 
 the whole age of man. 
 
 The foreground of the prophecy of Zephaniah remarkably 
 coincides with that of Habakkuk. Zephaniah presupposes 
 that prophecy and fills it up. Habakkuk had prophesied 
 the great wasting and destruction through the Chaldseans, 
 and then their destruction. That invasion was to extend 
 beyond Judab (for it was said he shall scoff at kings^), but 
 was to include it. The instrument of God having been 
 named by Habakkuk, Zephaniah does not even allude to 
 him. Rather he brings before Judah the other side, the 
 agency of God Himself. God would not have them forget 
 Himself in His instruments. Hence all is attributed to 
 God. y / ivill utterly consume all things from off' the land, 
 saith the Lord. I trill coiisume man and beast ; I tvill 
 consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, 
 
 ' Jer. ii. 8. vii. 9. xi. 13. xix. 5. xxxii. 29. ' i. 4. 5. ° iii. 3, 4. 
 
 ' Jer. xxii. 16, 16. * Seebel. on Zcph. i. 8. ' Hab. i. 10. 
 
 y Zeph. i. 2, 4, 8, 9, 13, 14, 17. ii. 5, 11, 12, 13. » i. 12. « ii. 12. 
 
 >> ii. 13-15. "^ ii. 9. 
 
 i Amm. Marcell. xxiii. 22. The Nines taken by Meherdates A.D. 59. was on tlie 
 
 unit the stuntlilinghlorks with the wicked, and I will cut 
 off man from the land, saith the Lord. I will also stretch 
 (tut Mine hand u/ion Judah; and I will cut off the remnant of 
 Haul. In the d(.y of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the 
 princes, S^c. In the same day also I will punish all those 
 Sfc. I will search ,/erusalem ivith candles. The great day 
 of the Lord is near, and I will bring distress upon H^c. O 
 Canaan, laud of the Philistines, I will even ilestrin/ thee. The 
 Lord will he terrible upon them. Ye Kthiojiians also, ye shall 
 he slain by 3Iy sword. And He will destroy Nineveh. The 
 wicked of the people had ' saiil in their heart. The Lord will 
 not do good, neither will He do evil. Zephaniah inculcates, 
 throughout his brief prophecy, that tiiere is nothing, good 
 or evil, of wiiicb He is not the Doer or Overruler. 
 
 But the extent of that visitation is co-extensive with that 
 prophesied by Habakkuk. Zephaniah indeed speaks rather 
 of the effects, the desolation. But the countries, whose 
 desolation or defeat he foretells, are the lands of those, 
 whom the Chaldaeans invaded, worsted, in part desolated. 
 Besides Judah, Zephaniah's subjects are Philistia, Woab, 
 Amnion, Ethiopia (which included Egypt), Nineveh. And 
 here he makes a remarkable distinction corresponding with 
 the events. Of the Ethiopians or Egyptians, he says only, 
 ""ye shall be slain by My sword. Of Assyria he foretells'' 
 tlie entire and lasting desolation ; the capitals of her palaces 
 in the dust; her cedar-work bare ; flocks, wild-beasts, pelican 
 and hedgehog, taking up their abode in her. Moab and 
 Amnion and Philistia have at first sight the two-fold, ap- 
 parently contradictory, lot ; the remnant of 3Iy people, God 
 says, '^ shall possess them ; the coast shall be for the remnant of 
 the house of Judah ; and, that they should be a perpetual 
 desolation. This also was to take pliice, after God had 
 brought back His people out of captivity. Now all these 
 countries were conquered by the Chaldaeans, of which at 
 the time there was no human likelihood. But they were 
 not swept away by one torrent of conquest. Moab and 
 Amnion were, at first, allies of Nebuchadnezzar, and re- 
 joiced at the miseries of the people, whose prophets had 
 foretold their destruction. But, beyond this, Nineveh was 
 at that time more powerful than Egypt. Human know- 
 ledge could not have discerned, that Egypt should suffer 
 defeat only, Nineveh should be utterly destroyed. It was 
 the wont of the great conquerors of the East, not to de- 
 stroy capitals, but to re-people them with subjects obedient 
 to themselves. Nineveh had held Babylon by viceroys ; in 
 part she had held it under her own immediate rule. Why 
 should not Babylon, if she conquered Nineveh, use the 
 same policy? Humanly speaking, it was a mistake that 
 she did not. It would have been a strong place against the 
 inroads of the ]Medo-Persian empire. The Persians saw 
 its value so far for military purposes, as to build some 
 fort there '^; and the Emperor Claudius, when he made it 
 a colony, felt the importance of the well-chosen situation \ 
 It is replaced by Mosul, a city of some "'20000 to 40000" 
 inhabitants. Even after its destruction, it was easier to re- 
 build it than to build a city on the opposite bank of the 
 Tigris. God declared that it should be desolate. The pre- 
 diction implied destruction the most absolute. It and its 
 palaces were to be the abode of animals which flee the pre- 
 sence of man; and it perished ?. 
 
 site of the old Ninos, on the other side of the Tigris. Tac. Ann. xii. 13. 
 
 <^ The existence of the Nineve Claudiopolis is attested by coins. See Vaux in Smith's 
 Diet, of Cireek and Roman Geogr. v. Ninus. 
 
 ' See Keith Johnstone, Diet, of Geography ed. 18G}, and ed. 1867. 
 8 See on Nahum, ab. pp. 368-3/0.
 
 ZEPIIAMAII. 
 
 439 
 
 Apjain, what loss likely than that I'hilistia, which had 
 had tlie rule over Israel, strong; in its almost ini[)r('i;iial)i(; 
 towns, three ot" whose five cities were named tor their 
 strength, (Jaza, strong; Ashdod, mighty; Ekron, dccp-root- 
 ing ; one ot" wiiich, Ashdod, aixiut tiiis very time, resisted for 
 29 years the whole powi-r of ICgypt, and endured tiie longest 
 siege of any city of ancient or modern times — wiiat, to hu- 
 man foresight, less likely, than that I'hilistia shoiihl come 
 under the power of the rciiDKiiit of the house of Jinlnli, «hen 
 returned from their captivity? Yet it i.s aiisolutely foretold''. 
 The sea-coast shall he for the remnant of the house of Jndah ; 
 they shall feed thereupon : in the houses of AshUelon they shall 
 lie down in the evening. For the Lord their (ioil shall visit 
 them, and restore their rajitivify. As nnlikely was it, that 
 RIoab and Ammon, who now had entered upon the territory 
 of the two and a half tribes beyond Jordan, should them- 
 selves become the possession of the remnant of Judah. Yet 
 so it was. 
 
 It is then lost labour, even for their own ends, when 
 moderns, who believe not definite prophecy, would find out 
 some enemy' whom Zephaniah may have had in mind in 
 foretelling this wide destruction. It still remains that all 
 that Zephaniah says beforehand was fulfilled. It is allowed 
 that he could not foretell this through any human foresight. 
 The avowed object in looking out for some power, formid- 
 able in Zephaniah's time, is, that he could not, by any 
 human knowledge, be speaking of the Chalda'ans. But 
 the words stand there. They were written by Zephaniah, 
 at a time when confessedly no human knowledge could have 
 enabled man to predict this of the Chalda;ans ; nay, no hu- 
 man knowledge would have enabled any one to predict so 
 absolutely a desolation so wide and so circumstantially de- 
 lineated. 
 
 That school however has not been willing to acquiesce in 
 this, that Zephaniah does not speak of the instrument, 
 through whom this desolation was effected. They will have 
 it, that they know, that Zephaniah had in his mind one, who 
 was not the enemy of the Jews or of Nineveh or of Moab 
 and Ammon, and through whom no even transient desola- 
 tion of these countries was effected. The whole argument is 
 a simple begging of the question. '"'The Egyptians cannot 
 be meant ; for the Cushites, who arc threatened ', themselves 
 belong to the Egyptian army "', and Psammetichus only be- 
 sieged Ashdod which he also took, without emblazoning ought 
 greater on his shield ". The Chaldseans come still less into 
 account, because they did not found an independent king- 
 dom until B. C. 625, nor threaten Juda>a until after Josiah's 
 death. On the other hand an unsuspicious and well-ac- 
 credited account has been preserved to us, that somewhere 
 about this time the Scythians overflowed Palestine too with 
 their hosts. Herodotus relates", that the Scythians, after 
 they had disturbed Cyaxares at the siege of Nineveh, turned 
 towards Egypt ; and when they had already arrived in Pales- 
 tine, were persuaded by Psammetichus to return, and in 
 their return plundered a temple in Ascalon." 
 
 It is true that Herodotus says that " a large Scythian 
 army did, under their king Madyes, burst into Asia in pur- 
 suit of the Cimmerians and entered Media, — keeping Mount 
 
 ^ ii. 7. ' The PJre Paul Pezron (Essai d'un Comm. lit. et hist, sur les proph^tes 
 
 1097) assumed tliree irruptions of tlie .Scytliians : the tirst prophesied by Amos and Joel ; 
 the second, in the reign ot' Josiah about ti.'il B.C.; the third, prophesied (he thinks) by 
 Ezek. xxxviii. xxxix. Baseless as all this is. the characteristic ot the late writers is not 
 the selection of the Scythians as the object of the prophecy (wliich were a thing indif- 
 ferent) hut the grounds alleged for that selection. 
 
 k Hitzig. ' ii. 12. ■» Jer. xlvi. 9. » Herod, ii. 157. 
 
 " lb. i. 105. P lb. i. 103, 104. i lb. 105. 
 
 Caucasus on tlic right." and that "the Medos ojtposcd and 
 fought (hem and, licitig ddcatcd. lost I heir rule''." 
 
 It is true alM» that Herodotus relates, that "'Mliey went 
 thence towards I'lgypt, and when they were in Palestine- 
 Syria, Psammetichus king of Ei^y])t, meeting them, turned 
 them by gifts and entreaties from going further; that «lien 
 
 ' in their return they w<Te in Ascalon, a (-ity of .Syria, where- 
 as most of the .Scytliians passed by without harming ought, 
 
 I some few of tln'in. being left behind, plundered the temple 
 of Venus Ourania." In this place also, it is true, Herodotus 
 
 j uses a vague expression, that "Mor 28 years the Scythians 
 ruled over Asia, and that all things were turned upside down 
 by their violence and contempt. I'or l)c>i(ies the triliutes, 
 they exacted fiom each «hat they laid upon each, and be- 
 side the tril)ute, tliey drove together ami toidv what each 
 had. And most of them Cyaxares and the .Medes entertaining 
 as guests, intoxicated and slew. And then the Medes re- 
 covered their empire and hecuine masters of what they held 
 hefore." 
 
 \ But, apart frotn the inconsistency of the period here as- 
 signed to their [>ower, with other history, it appears from the 
 account itself, that by "all Asia" Herodotus means '-all 
 upper Asia," as he expresses himself more accurately, when 
 relating the expedition of Uarius against them. "'Darius 
 wished to take revenge on the Scythians, because they first, 
 making an inroad into Media and defeating in battle those 
 who went against them, began the wrong. For the Scyth- 
 ians, as I have before said, ruled upper Asia for 2S years. 
 
 ] For, pursuing the Cimmerians, they made an inroad into 
 
 ; Asia, putting down the Medes from their rule; for these, 
 before the Scythians came, ruled Asia." The Asia then, 
 which Herodotus supposes the Scythians to have ruled, is 
 coextensive with the Asia which he supposes the Medes to 
 have ruled previously. But this was all in the North ; for 
 having said that "' Piiraortes subdued Asia, going from one 
 nation to another," he adds that, having brought Per.sia 
 under his yoke, "he led an army against those Assyrians 
 who had Nineveh, and there lost most of his army and his 
 own life." Apart then from the fabulousness of this supposed 
 empire, established by Phraortes", (Cyaxares having been the 
 real founder of the Median empire,) it is plain that, according 
 to Herodotus himself, the Asia, in which the Scythians plun- 
 dered and received tribute, were the lands North of Assyria. 
 The expedition against Egypt stands as an insulated pre- 
 datory excursion, the object of which having been mere 
 plunder, they were bought oft' by Psammetichus and re- 
 turned (he tells us) doing no mischief '^ in their way, except 
 that a few lingerers plundered a temple at Ascalon. It was 
 to INIedia that they first came; the Medes, whom they de- 
 feated; the Median empire to which they succeeded; Cyax- 
 ares and the Medes, who treacherously destroyed most of 
 them ; the Medes. whose empire was restored by the destruc- 
 tion of some, and the return of the rest to their own land. 
 With this agrees the more detailed account of the Scythians 
 by Strabo, who impeaches the accuracy of the accounts of 
 Herodotus "^. Having spoken of the migrations of leaders, 
 and by name, of "''Madyes the Scythian" (under whom 
 Herodotus states the irruption to have takeu place), he says, 
 
 ' i. 106. He uses the same wide expression as to Cyrus, after the defeat of Croesus. 
 "Having subdued him, he thus ruled over all Asia," (i. 130); whereas he had not 
 yet conquered Babylon. 
 
 • lb. i. 106. < iv. 4. 
 
 ° i. 102. See above p. 3i56. and Rawlinson Herod, quoted ib. 
 
 ^ afftrcoif. Her. 1. c. * *' More readily might we believe Homer and Hesiod 
 
 in their tales of heroes, and the tragic poets, than Ctesias and Herodotus and Hel- 
 lanicus and others of the same sort." xi. 0. 3. » i. 3. 21. 
 
 T T T 2
 
 440 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 "ytbc Sucre made tlie like inroad as the Ciiniiirrians and tlie 
 Trcrians, sonic lonj^a'r, sonu- nif;;h at hand; for tliey took 
 possession of Battriana, and a(((uirfd tiic best land of Arme- 
 nia, wliieli tiiey also left, named after them Saeasene, and ad- 
 vanced as far as to the Ca])i)adocians and especially those 
 on the Euxine, whom they now call of I'ontiis (Pontians). 
 But the fi^encrals of the Persians who were at the time tlierc, 
 attackinj^- them by nis;iit, while tiiey were makinji? a feast 
 upon the spoils, utterly extirpated them." The direction 
 which he says they took, is the same as that of the Cimme- 
 rians, whom Herodotus says that they f<tllovved. ''^The 
 Cimmerians, whom they also call Trerians, or some tribe of 
 them, often overrun the right side of the Pontus, sometimes 
 making!;' inroads on the Paj)hlau()nians, at others, on the 
 piii-yn-ians. Often also the Cimmerians and Trerians made 
 the like attacks, and tiiey say that the Trerians and Cohus 
 [their king] were, at last expelled by Madyes king- of the 
 [Scythians]." Strabo also explains, what is meant by the 
 tributes, of which Herodotus speaks. He is speakinjj of the 
 Nomadic tribes of the Scythians j^enerally : ""Tribute Mas, 
 to allow them at certain stated times, to overrun the country 
 [for pasturage] and carry off booty. But when tliey roamed 
 beyond the agreement, there arose war, and again reconcilia- 
 tions and renewed war. Such was the life of the nomads, 
 always setting on their neighbours and then being reconciled 
 again." 
 
 The Scythians then were no oljjeet of fear to the Jews, whom 
 they passed wholly unnoticed and probably unconscious of 
 tiieir existence in their mountain country, while they once 
 and once' only swept unharming along the fertile tracts on 
 the sea-shore, then occupied by the old enemies and masters 
 of the Jews, the Philistines. But Herodotus must also have 
 been misinformed as to the length of time, during which 
 they settled in Media, or at least as to the period durino- 
 which their presence bad any sensible effects. For Cyaxares, 
 whom be represents as having raised the siege of Nineveh, 
 in consequence of the inroad of the Scythians into JNIedia, 
 came to the throne, according to the numbers of Herodotus, 
 B. C. 633. For the reign of Cyaxares having lasted accord- 
 ing to him 40 years'", that of Astyages 35% and that of Cyrus 
 29'', these 104 vears, <;ounted back from the known date of the 
 death of Cyrus, B.C. .'329 or 530, bring us to B.C. 633 or 636 
 as the beginning of the reign of Cyaxares. But the invasion 
 of the Scythians could not have taken place at the first ac- 
 cession of Cyaxares, since, according to Herodotus, he had 
 already defeated the Assyrians, and was besieging Nineveh, 
 when tlie Scythians burst into Media. According to He- 
 rodotus, moreover, Cyaxares '"= first distributed Asiatics 
 into troops, and first ordered that each should be apart, 
 spearmen, and archers and cavalry; for before, all were 
 mixed pcle-mele together." Yet it would not be in a very 
 short time, that those who had been wont to fight in a 
 confused mass, could be formed into an orderly and dis- 
 ciplined army. ^Vc could not then, any how, date the Scy- 
 thian inroad, earlier than the second or third year of 
 Cyaxares. On the other hand the date of the capture of 
 Nineveh is fixed by the commencement of the Babylonian 
 Empire, Babylon falling to Nabopolassar. The duration of 
 that empire is measured by the reigns of its kings', of 
 whom, a(;cording to Ptolemy's Canon, Nabopolassar reigned 
 21 years; Nebuchadnezzar, (there called Nabocollasar) 43; 
 
 y xi. 8. 4. ' Prol. i. 3. 21. « xi. 8. 3. >■ Herod, i. 106. 
 
 ■■ lb. 130. J Ih. 211. ' lb. 103. 
 
 ' Bcrosus, in his Chaldaean history, agrees as to these dates, only adding 9 months 
 
 Evil-lMcrodach (Iluaroadam) 2; Ncriglissar (Niricassolassar) 
 4 ; Naljuiiahit (Nalionadius with whom his sr»n JJelshazzar 
 was co-regent) 17; in all HJ years; and it ends in an event 
 of known date, the capture of Babylon by ('yrus, B. C. 538. 
 'I'bc addition of the 87 years of the duration of the empire 
 to that date carries ns hack to the date assigned to the 
 capture of Nineveh by Nabopolassar in conjunction with 
 Cyaxares, B.C. 625. Tiie capture then of Nineveh was re- 
 moved by 8 or 9 years only from that, which Herodotus 
 gives as the time of the accession of Cyaxares, and since 
 the atta(;k upon Nineveh can hardly have been in his first 
 year, and the last siege proliably occupied two, the 28 years 
 of Scythian dominion would dwindle down into something 
 too inconsiderable for history. Probably they represent 
 some period from their first incursion into Media, to the 
 final return of the survivors, during which they marauded 
 in Media and Upper Asia. The mode, by which "the 
 greater part " (Herodotus tells \is) were destroyed, intoxi- 
 cation and subsequent murder at a banquet, implies that 
 their numbers were no longer considerable. 
 
 History, with the exception of that one marauding ex- 
 pedition towards Egypt, is entirely silent as to any excur- 
 sions of the Scythians, except in the North. No extant 
 document hints at any approach of theirs to any. country 
 mentioned by Zephaniab. There was no reason to expect 
 any inroad from them. With the exception of Bactriana, 
 which lies some 18 degrees East of Media and itself ex- 
 tended over some / degrees of longitude, the countries men- 
 tioned by Strabo lie, to what the kings of Assyria mention 
 as the far North, Armenia, and thence they stretched out 
 to the West, yet keeping mostly to the neighbourhood of 
 the Euxine. Considering the occasion of the mention of the 
 invasion of the Scythians, the relief which their invasion 
 of Media gave to Nineveh, it is even remarkable that there 
 is no mention of any ravages of theirs throughout Mesopo- 
 tamia or Babylonia. Zephaniab speaks, not of marauding, 
 but of permanent desolation of Assyria, Philistia, JMoab, 
 Amnion, and of destructive war also on Ethiopia. There 
 is no reason to think that the Scythians approached any 
 of these lands, except Philistia, which they passed through 
 unharming. The sacred writers mention even smaller na- 
 tions, by whom God chastised Judah in their times, hands 
 of tlie St/rintis, of Moah, of the children of A mm on, as well as 
 Assyria and Babylon. Ezekiel^, when he prophesies of the 
 inroad of Northern nations, Meshech and Tubal, Gomer and 
 and l^ogarmah, speaks of it as far removed in the future, 
 prophesies not their destroying but their own destruction. 
 
 It does not afl"ect the argument from prophecy, whether 
 Zephaniab did or did not know, through whom the events, 
 which he predicted, should be brought to pass. But, setting 
 aside the question whether he had from the prophecies of 
 Habakkuk and Isaiah, a human knowledge of the Chaldees, 
 or whether God instructed him, how what he foretold should 
 be accomplished, or whether God spread out before his mind 
 that which was to be, a])art from time, in prophetic vision, 
 Zephaniab did picture what came to pass. But it is an 
 intense paradox, when men, 2500 years after his date, assert, 
 not only that Zephaniah's prophecies had no relation to 
 the Chaldees, in whom his words were fulfilled, and 
 who are the objects of the prophecies of Habakkuk and 
 Jeremiah, but that they know, what must have been, and 
 
 for the son of Neriglissar, Laborosoarchod, in Jos. Ant. x. 11. combined with cont. 
 Apion. i. 20, and'Eus. Prap. Evang. Lx. 40. 
 
 8 Ezek. xxxviii. xxxix.
 
 ZErilANIAII. 
 
 441 
 
 (.as tlicy assert) wliat roas in the propliet's iniinl ; ami that 
 he liad in his mind, not tiuisc in wiioin his words were ful- 
 filled, hut others in whom they were not fulfilled, to whom 
 he does not allude in one simple trait, who left no trace 
 hehind them, and whose march alonji^ an enemy's tract on 
 the sea-coast was of so little account, that no contemporary 
 historian, nor Josephus, even alludes t(t it''. 
 
 It has heen already ohserved, that each j)rophet connects 
 himself with one or more of those hefore them. They use the 
 lanf;;'uaj;'e of their predecessors in some one or more sentences, 
 apparently with this precise ohjeet. They had overflowing' 
 fuhiess of words ; yet they chose some saying of the former 
 prophet, as a link to those hefore them. We have seen this in 
 Amos', then in Ohadiah ^, who uses the languatce of Balaam, 
 David, Joel, Amos ; of Jeremiah, in regard to ()l)adiah'; of 
 Micah to liis great predecessor, Micaiah, and Amos'"; of Jere- 
 miah, Hahakkuk, Zephaniah, Ezekicl to Micah"; of Nahum 
 to Jonah"; and of Isaiah (I think), to Nahum P; of Hahak- 
 kuk, to Isaiah and Micah i. It is in conformity with this, that 
 Zephaniah, even more than those hefore him, uses language 
 of earlier prophets. It arises, not (as people have heen 
 pleased to say) from any declension in the originality of pro- 
 phets at his date, but from his subject. It has been said, 
 '•' If any one desire to see the utterances of the prophets 
 in brief space, let him read through this brief Zephaniah." 
 The office of Zephaniah was not to forewarn of any instru- 
 ment of God's judgements. The destruction is prophesied, 
 not the destroyer. His jtrophecy is, more than those of most 
 other prophets, apart from time, to the end of time. He 
 prophesies of ichat shall be, not when it shall be, nor by 
 ■whom. He does not "expect" or "anticipate" or "fore- 
 bode ! " He absolutely declares the future condition of cer- 
 tain nations; but not the how of its coming to pass. If 
 Nineveh, Edom and Amnion had not been desolated, his pro- 
 phecy would have been falsified; each fulfilment became the 
 earnest of a larger fulfilment ; but all shall not be completed 
 until the earth and all tliat is therein shall be burned up. 
 
 It belongs to this character of Zephaniah, that he gathers 
 from other prophets before him, especially Isaiah, Joel, 
 Amos, Hahakkuk, expressions relating to, or bearing on, 
 judgement to come, or again to that his other great subject, 
 God's love for the remnant of His people; yet mostly in 
 fragments only and allusively. They were key-notes for 
 those who knew the prophets. Thus, in calling on man 
 to hushed submission before God, because a day of judge- 
 ment was coming, he blends into one versC Habakkuk's call, 
 ^ hush before the Lord, and the warning words of Isaiah, 
 Joel, Obadiah, ^ nigh is the daj/ of the Lord; the image 
 of the sacrifice, which God had commanded, and the re- 
 markable word, consecrated, of God's instruments. The allu- 
 sion is contained in single words, sacrifice, consecrated ; 
 the context in which they are embodied is dift'crent. The 
 idea only is the same, that Almighty God maketh, as 
 it were, a sacrifice to Himself of those who incorrigibly 
 
 *• The name 'S,Kv06TroKiz, wliieh Josephus says the Greeks gave to Bethshan, (Ant. 
 ]2. 8. 5) and whicli they alone can have given, is manifestly, as being Greek, too late 
 to contain any tradition as to tlie presence of the Scythians in Palestine, three centuries 
 before the Greeks, under Alexander, became ac^uaitited with Palestine. S. -Jerome 
 regarded it as a corruption of Siiccotli. He says on Gen. xxxiii, 17, " In the Hebrew 
 is read Sucoth {n3D). But there is to this day a city beyond Jordan into which this name 
 enters in part, Scythopolis." Quaestt. Hebr. ad Gen. [Opp. iii. 35S. ed. Vail.] quoted 
 by Reland, p. U'J2. 
 
 ' See ab. Introd. to Jpel p. 91. t See Introd. to Obadiah ab. pp. 230, 231. 
 
 1 lb. pp. 223-231. ■» See Introd. to Jlicah ab. p. 2U4. n lb. 
 
 o See Introd. to Nahum ab. p. 356. p lb. 370. n lb. 399. 
 
 ' i. 7. » Hab. ii. 20. ' Is. xiii. 6. Jo. i. 15. iv. 15. Ob. 15. The words 
 
 "DV are used of a day of God's judgements, Is. xiii. 9, Jo. ii. 1, 11, Am. v. 18, 20. Ezek. 
 
 rebel against Him, Else Isaiah draws out the image at 
 much length ; "^ sword of the Lord is full of bloods ; it is 
 smeared with fat, v'ith the blood of lambs and of goats ; with 
 the fat of kidueifs of rams : for the Lord halh a sacrifice in 
 limrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Kdom. Jere- 
 miah uses the image in c(|ual fulness of the overthrow of 
 l'hara(di-Nccho at the I'.uphrates; 'This is a day of the 
 Lord (iod of hosts, a day of vengeance, that lie may avenge 
 Him of His adversaries : and the sword shall devour, and it 
 shall be satiate and made drunk ivith blood ; for the Lord God 
 hath a sacrifice in the \^orth count n/ In/ the river Kufihrates. 
 Ezekicl expands it yet more boldly ". Zcj)lianiali drops 
 everything local, and condenses tin; image into the words. 
 The Lord halh prepared a sacrifice; He hath consecrated 
 His guests, adding the new bold image, that they whom 
 God employed w^iv^i, as it were, His invited guests', whom 
 He consecrated y thereto. 
 
 In like way, as to the day of the Lord itself, he accumu- 
 lates all words of terror from ditfereiit prophets ; from Joel 
 the words, ^« day of darkness and of gloominess ; a dai/ of 
 clouds and of thick darkness: to these he adds ■^ of shouting 
 and the sound of the trumpet, used by Amos in relation to the 
 destruction of Moab ; the two combinations, which precede, 
 occur, the one in a different sense, the other with a slightly 
 different grammatical inflexion, in Job*", 
 
 From Isaiah, Zephaniah adopts that characteristic picture 
 of self-idolising, which brings down God's judgements on 
 its pride ; (the city) "^ that dwelleth securely, that said in her 
 heart, I and no I besides. 
 
 Even where Isaiah says, '^ For a consumption and that 
 decreed, the Lord God of hosts makes in the midst of all the 
 earth and, slightly varying it, " For a consumption and that 
 decreed, I have lieard from the Lord God of hosts iqjon all 
 the earth, Zephaniah, retaining the two first words, which 
 occur in both places, says more concisely, ^ For a con- 
 sumption, nought but terror, rcill He make all the inhabitants 
 of the earth. Yet simple as the words are, he pronounced, 
 that God would not only bring a desolation uj/on the earth, or 
 in the midst of the earth, but would make its inhabitants 
 one consumption. Nahum had said of Nineveh,? icith an 
 overflowing Jlood He will make the place thereof an utter 
 consumption. The most forceful words are the simplest. 
 
 He uses the exact words of Isaiah. ^ From beyond the 
 rivers of Cash, than which none can he sim})ler. and employs 
 the word of festive procession, though in a different form ', 
 and liaving thus connected his prophecy with Isaiah's, all 
 the rest, upon which the prophecy turns, is varied. 
 
 In like way he adopts from Micah the three words'', her- 
 that-halteth, and-tcill-gather her-that-is-driven-out. The con- 
 text in which he resets them is quite diflferent. 
 
 It has been thought, that the words, ' / have heard the 
 reproach of Moab, may have been suggested by those of 
 Isaiah, who begins his lament over Moab, JFe have heard 
 of the pj-ide of Moab; but the force and bearing of the 
 
 xiii. 5. Mai. iii. 23, not with nnp. In Is. ii. 12, it is "S Di' or in Jo. ii. 1. subordinately. 
 
 " Is. xxxiv. f). ' Jer. xlvi. lU. "^ Ezek. xxxix. 17. ^ Zephaniah's 
 
 word. CNHp occurs besides only in 1 Sam. ix. 13. y Isaiah's word (xiii. 3.) 
 
 is "Khps ; Zephaniah's ti"!^::^. <■ '?Diri py cr rhzsi -pn a- Jo. ii. 2. Zcph. i. 15. 
 
 « nynni -.3':? Zepli. i. Hi. Am. ii. 2. i* nmcbi .in:b' Job x.\xviii. 27. .ipii'Di ^i• xv. 
 
 24. Zeph. has .sci ."nii. nm stands parallel with n^lsa Ps. xxv. 17. " Is. xlvii. S. 
 
 Zeph. ii. 15. Ill' 'DS.xi "Jti nnnS: .-ni.xn nsiV n3;;-,'.T > Is. x. 23. 
 
 ' lb. xxviii. 22. ' r\hi '3. He retains the simplest words, but substitutes ."iV.iSJ tk 
 (a word formed by himself) for the niimi of Isaiah. » Xah. i. 8. 
 
 t unr nnj'^-i^va'Zeph. iii. 10. Is. xviii. 1. ' pSav Zeph. V;!' Is. xviii.7. 
 
 k .-KipK nm:.ii nyVs.-n Mic. iv. 6. Zeph. iii. 19. ' 3kc rB-.n ■p;Er Zeph. ii. 8, 
 
 3N1D |in: uJ'O''^ Is. xvi. C.
 
 442 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 words is altoftethcr different, since it is God Who says, /I 
 luive hearil^ and so He will punish. 
 
 The combination"', the exuUers of pride, is common to him 
 with Isaiah: its meaning is uncertain; but it is manifestly 
 different in the two phu^es, since tiie one relates to God, the 
 other to man. 
 
 The words, " They shall build houses (Did shall not divell 
 therein ; thei/ shall plant vineyards and not drin/c the wine 
 thereof, are from the oriijcinal threat in Deuteronomy, from 
 which also the two words, "They-shall-walk as-the-blind, may 
 be a reminiscence, but with a conciseness of its own and with- 
 out the characteristic expressions of Deuteronomy, adopted 
 by other sacred writers : '' They shall grope at noonday, as 
 the blind gropeth in darkness. 
 
 Altogether these passages are evidence that Zephaniah is 
 of later date than the prophecies in which the like language 
 occurs ; and the fact that he does employ so much language 
 of his predecessors furnishes a strong presumption in any 
 single case, that he in that case also adopted from the other 
 sacred writer the language which they have in common. 
 
 It is chiefly on this ground, that a train of modern critics '' 
 have spoken disparagingly of the outward form and style of 
 Zephaniah. It has however a remarkable combination of ful- 
 ness with conciseness and force. Thus, he begins the enu- 
 meration of those upon whom the destruction should fall, 
 with the words, 'consuming I will consume all: to an enu- 
 meration co-extensive with the creation, he adds unexpect- 
 edly, 'and the stumblingblocks with the wicked, anticipating 
 our Lord's words of the Day of Judgement, ' they shall gather 
 the sttimblingbloeks and them that do iniquity: to the different 
 idolatries he adds those of a divided faith, '^swearers to the 
 Lord and swearers by Malcham ; to those who turned away 
 from God he adds those who were uuearnest in seeking 
 Him \ 
 
 Again, after the full announcement of the destruction in 
 the Day of the Lord, the burst, in those five words, "^ sift- 
 yourselves and-sift (on) nation tinlonged for, is, in sudden- 
 ness and condensation, like Hosea ; and so again, in five 
 words, after the picture of the future desolation of Nine- 
 veh, the abrupt turn to Jerusalem, ^ TFo rebellious and-defiled 
 (thou) oppressive city, and then follow the several counts of 
 her indictment, in brief disjointed sentences, first negatively, 
 as a whole ; each in three or four words ^, she-listened not to- 
 voice ; she-received not correction ; in-t he-Lord she-trusted not; 
 to-her- God she-approached not; then, in equally broken words, 
 each class is characterised by its sins ; ^ her-princes in-lier- 
 rnidst are roaring lions; her-judges evening wolves ; not gnatved- 
 tliey-bones on-t he-morrow ; her-prophets empty -babblers, men 
 of-deceits ; her-priests profaned holiness, violated law. Then 
 in sudden contrast to all this contumacy, neglect, despite 
 of God, He Himself is exhibited as in the midst of her ; the 
 witness and judge of all; there, where they sinned. " The- 
 Lord righteous in-her-ntidst ; He-doth not iniquity ; by-morn- 
 ing by-morning His-judgement He-giveth to-light; He-faileth 
 not; and then in contrast to the holiness and the judgements 
 of God, follows in four words, the perseverance of man in 
 his shamelessness, and — the fruit of all this presence and 
 
 "» TOs: •r'jy Is. xiii. 3. 711m tSj; Zeph. iii. 11. ° Zeph. i. 13. Deut. xxviii. 30, 39. 
 The words are more exact than in Micah vi. 14. Am. v. 11. 
 
 » DHiya idSh Zeph. i. 17. p Deut. xxviii. 29. 
 
 « Eichhorn, De Wette, Stahelin, and their followers. De Wetle however does orni, 
 *' In employing what is not his own, he is, at least, original in its expansion." Einl. 245. 
 note b. ' i. 2. » i. 3. ' S. Matt. xiii. 41. " Zeph. i. 5. 
 
 »i. 6. " ii. 1. lii.l. y iii. 2. ' lb. 3, 4. 
 
 » lb. 5. b lb. 17. ' iii. 2. ^ Jer. vii. 24^28. 
 
 * iii. 17. Some modem commentators take umbrage at the beautiful expression. 
 
 <loings of the Holy and Righteous God and Judge is, and-not 
 knowcth the wrong-doer shame. Zcplianiali uses the same 
 disjoining of the clauses in the description of Gcjd's future 
 manifestation ot His love towards them. Again it is the 
 same thought'', The-Lord thy-dod (is) in-thy-inidst ; but now 
 in love; mighty, shall-savc ; Ile-shall-rejoiee over-lhee tvith- 
 joy ; He-shall-kevp-silence in-His-lore ; lle-shall-rcjoire over- 
 tlice witli-jubilee. The single expressions arc alike condensed; 
 '^she-hearkened not to-voice, stands for wiiat Jeremiah says 
 at such much greater length, how God had sent all His 
 servants '' the prophets, daily rising up early and sending 
 them, hut they hearkened not unto 3Ie nor inclined their ear, 
 but /lardened their neck. The words 'shall-be-silent in-His- 
 loi'e, in their primary meaning, ex])ress the deepest human 
 love, but without the wonted image of betnjtbal. 
 
 ^ The whole people of Canaan reminds one of Hosea; ^the- 
 men-coagulated on-t lieir-lees is much expanded by Jeremiah'', 
 his word occurs before him in Job only and the song of 
 Moses'. Single poetic expressions are, that Moab should 
 become '' tlie possession of briars, the word itself being 
 framed by Zephaniah ; in the description of the desolation 
 of Nineveh, '« voice singeth in the window ; desolation is 
 on the threshold, the imagery is so bold, that modern criti- 
 cism has thought that the word voice which occurs in the 
 O. T. 328 times and with pronouns 157 times more, must 
 signify '• an owl," and desolation must stand for "a crow™." 
 Very characteristic is the word, ''He '' shall famish all the 
 gods of the earth," expressing with wonderful irony, the 
 privation of their sacrifices, wliich was the occasion of the 
 first Heathen persecutions of the Christians. 
 
 When then a writer, at times so concise and poetic as 
 Zephaniah is in these places, is, at others, so full in his de- 
 scriptions, this is not prolixity, but rather vivid picturing; 
 at one time going through all the orders of creation " ; at an- 
 other, different classes of the ungodly p ; at yet another, the 
 different parts of the scared woe-stricken city"!, to set before 
 our eyes the universality of the desolation. Those who are 
 familiar with our own great Northern poet of nature, will 
 remember how the accumulation of names adds to the vivid- 
 ness of his descriptions. Yet here too there is great force in 
 the individual descriptions, as when he pictures the petty 
 plunderers for their master, and Jill their masters' houses — not 
 with wealth but — with violence and fraud', all which remains 
 of wealth gained by fraud and extortion being the sins 
 themselves, which dwell in the house of the fraudulent to his 
 destruction. 
 
 In the strictly prophetic part of his oflRce, Jerusalem hav- 
 ing been marked out by JNlicah and Isaiah before him, as the 
 place where God would make the new revelation of Him- 
 self, Zephaniah adds, what our Lord revealed to the Sama- 
 ritan woman, ^ that Jerusalem should no longer be the abid- 
 ing centre of worship. ' They shall worship Him, every man 
 from his place, all the isles of the nations, is a prophecy which, 
 to this day, is receiving an increasing accomplishment. It 
 is a prophecy, not of the spread of Monotheism, but of the 
 worship of Him, to Whose worship at that time a handful of 
 Jews could with difficulty be brought to adhere, the deser- 
 
 Ewald alters, with the LXX, into vnn" which does not occur elsewhere. But the LXX 
 renders "shall renew thee" Ewald, "(God) becomes young (sich verjiinget) in His 
 love !" 
 
 f Zeph. i. 11. Comp. Hos. xii. 7. s i. 12. ''Jer.xlviii.il. ' Job x. 10. Ex. xv. 8. 
 
 '' ii. y. ' ii. 14. "■ "Sip nmst answer to the Ethiopian KKip yKau^ and our 
 
 eule (owl); and 3nn seems equal ^ly." Ewald Proph. ii. 25. ° See below on ii. 11. 
 
 » i. 3. P lb. 4-9. 1 lb. 10, 11. ' lb. 9. Amoshas the like idea (iii. 10) 
 
 but no word is the same except DDn. • S.John iv. 31. ' ii. U.
 
 ZEPHAxNIAH. 
 
 443 
 
 tion or corruption or assooi.ation of Whose worship with 
 idolatry Zephaniuli had to (h'lioiiiK'c and to forctfll its pii- 
 iiishnicnt. Tlie love whicli (iod should tiicii slicw to Ills own 
 is expressed iii words, un('<|iiali('d lor tenderness; and in con- 
 fbrniity to that love is the in<'reasinf^ jTrowtli of holiness, and 
 the stricter requirements of (iod's h«)ly jnstit-c. Aj^ain, Ze- 
 phaniah has a prelude to our IMessed L(U'd's words, "to whom 
 )tiHc/t is given, of hi/ji sltull much lie rvifiiircd, ov His Apostle's, 
 of the great awe in workini;- out our salvation '. I'roijress is 
 a characteristic and condition of the Christian life; " /Fe be- 
 seech ifou, that as i/e have received of i(s, how ye ought to walk 
 and to please God, i/e would abound more and more. Even so 
 Zephaniah bids* all the meek of the earth, ivho have wrought 
 Hisjudgemoits or law to seek dlligentli/ that meekness, which 
 had already (diaracterised them, and that, not in view of great 
 things, hut, if so he they might he saved; it may he that ye 
 may he hid in the day of the Lord's anger, as S. Peter saith, 
 y If the righteous scarcely he saved, where shall the ungodly and 
 the sinner appear? It is again remarkable, how he selects 
 meekness, as the characteristic of the new state of things, 
 which he promises. He anticipates the contrast in the Mag- 
 nificat, in which the lowest lowliness was rewarded by the 
 highest exaltation. As it is said there, 'He hath put down 
 the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and 
 meek, so the removal of the [n'oud from within thee, and the 
 " leaving of an afflicted and poor people ivithin thee %" is the 
 special promise by Zephaniah. 
 
 Little is said of the captivity. It is a future variously as- 
 sumed •'. Judah in the furthest lands, beyond the rivers of 
 Ethiopia, is the daughter of My dispersed'' ; the whole earth is 
 the scene of their shame''; their praises should be commensu- 
 rate with their shame, when I turn back your captivity be- 
 fore your eyes". But this turning away of their captivity is 
 the only notice, that their punishment should be the going 
 into captivity. The captivity itself is pre-supposed, as certain 
 and as known. So neither are there any images from tem- 
 poral exaltation. All pride should be removed, as utterly un- 
 
 » S. Luke xii. 48. ' Phil. ii. 12. » 1 Thess. iv. 1. » ii. 3. 
 
 y 1 S. Pet. iv. 18. ' S. Luke ii. 52. « Zepli. iii. 12. " lb. 13. 
 
 <: lb. 10. Ii lb. 19. " lb. 20. add.ii.7. ' lb. 11. 
 
 befitting God's holy presence : thou shall no more he haughty in 
 My holy tnounlain ^ 'i'lie words expressive of the abasement 
 of those within her are proportionahly strong, t'-'/y ajflirted 
 and poor. Some arc wont, in these days, to talk of (ilod's 
 prophets as patriots. They were such truly, since they loved 
 the land of the Lord with a Divine love. But what mere 
 "patriot" would limit his promises to the presence of "a 
 poor peoph; in a low estate," with an unseen presence of 
 (iod? Tlic description belongs to His kingrlom, which was 
 wo< of this u-orld'' : the only king whom Ze]ihaniab speaks of, 
 the king of Israel', is Almighty (iod. The blessing which he 
 promises, is the corresponding blessing of peace, '' Jhear thou 
 not ; tliou shall not see evil any more, none shall make them 
 afraid. But the words ^Let not thy hands be slack, imply 
 that they shall be aggressive on the world ; that they were 
 not to relax from the work which God assigned to them, the 
 conversion of the world. 
 
 xVn allusion to the prophet Joel' makes it uncertain whether 
 words of Zephaniah relate to the first Coming of our Lord, 
 or the times which should usher in the Second, or to both in 
 one; and so, whether, in accordance with his general cha- 
 racter of gathering into one all God's judgements to His 
 end, he is speaking of the first restoration of the one purified 
 language of faith and hope, when ™the 7nultitude of them that 
 believed were of one heart and of one soul, or whether he had 
 his mind fixed rather on the end, 7vhen " the fulness of the 
 Gentiles shall come in. The words also (since they may be 
 taken either way") leave it uncertain whether the Gentiles 
 are spoken of as bringing in the people of God, (as they 
 shall at the end) or whether the first conversion of the Jews, 
 even in the most distant countries, is his subject. 
 
 In any ease, Zephaniah had a remarkable otfice, to declare 
 the mercy and judgement of God, judgements both temporal 
 and final, mercies, not of this world, promised to a temper 
 not of this world, p the wisdom which is from above, pure, 
 peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
 fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 
 
 s lb. 12. 
 'iii.lG. 
 ^ Rnni. X 
 
 ,25. 
 
 1> S. John xviii. 3f>. 
 ' iii. 2. [iv. 2Heb.] 
 ^ See on Zoph. iii. 10. 
 
 ' Zeph. iii. 15. 
 ■° Acts iv. 32. 
 P S. James iii. 7. 
 
 ' I WILL MAKL KAIiUAH A STABLE FOR CAMELS, 
 
 AxD THE Ammonites a couching place for flocks." — Ezek. xxv. 4, 5. 
 
 See bel. p. 468.
 
 444 
 
 ZEl'HANIAII. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 630. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 God^s severe Judgement against Judalifur divers 
 
 sins. 
 
 THE word of the Lord which came unto 
 Zephiiniah the son of (vushi, the son 
 of Gedaliuh, the son of Aniiiriuh, the son 
 of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son 
 of Anion, king of Judah. 
 
 Chap. I., Ver. 1. The ivord of the Lord which came unto 
 Zcphaniah the son of Cnshi, the son of Gedaliuh, the son of 
 Amariah, the son of Hezekiah. It seems likely that more 
 forefathers of the JProphet are named than is the wont of 
 Holy Scripture, because the last so named was some one 
 remarkable. Nor is it impossible that Zephaniah should 
 have been the c;reat grandson of the king Hezekiah ; for al- 
 though Holy Scripture commonly names the one son only 
 wlio is in the sacred line, and although there is one genera- 
 tion more than to Josiah, yet if each had a son early, Ze- 
 phaniah might have been contemporary with Josiah. The 
 names seem also mentioned for the sake of their meaning; 
 at least it is remarkable how the name of God appears in 
 most. Zephaniah, "whom tiie Lord hid;" Gedaliah, "whom 
 the Lord made great;" Amariah, "whom the Lord pro- 
 mised;" Hezekiah, "whom the Lord strengthened." 
 
 2 / ivill utterly consume all things; better ull^. The 
 word is not limited to " things " " animate " or " inanimate " 
 or "men;" it is used severally of each, according to the 
 context ; liere, without limitation, of " all." God and all 
 stand over against one another; God and all which is not 
 of God or in God. God, he says, will utterly consume all 
 from (iff' the land [earth.] The prophet sums up in few 
 words "the subject of the whole chapter, the judgements of 
 God from his own times to the day of Judgement itself. 
 And this Day Itself he brings the more strongly before the 
 mind, in that, with wonderful briefness, in two words which 
 he conforms, in sound also, the one to the other, - he ex- 
 presses the utter final consumption of all things. He ex- 
 presses at once the intensity of action and blends their 
 separate meanings. Taking away I will make an end of all ; 
 and with this he unites the words used of the Aood, from 
 (iff t lie face of the earth^. Then he goes through the whole 
 creation as it was made, pairing man and beast, which Moses 
 speaks of as created on the sixth day, and the creation of 
 the fifth day, the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea; 
 and before each he sets the solemn word of God, / will end, 
 as the act of God Himself. The words can have no com- 
 plete fulfilment, until * the earth and the works that are there- 
 in shall be burned up, as the Psalmist too, having gone 
 through the creation, sums up, ^ Thou takest away their 
 breath, they die and return to their dust ; and then speaks of 
 the i-e-creation, * Thou sendcst forth Thy Spirit, they are 
 
 • Vd is used absolutely in a title of God, " Who malielh all," Sb nc'V, Is. xliv. 24 ; 
 "Thou canst do all," i. e. art AlmiRhty, Job xlii. 2 ; " Thou hast put all 73 njj?*, under 
 his feet," Ps. viii. 7 ; and of man, " mine eye hath seen all," Job xiii. 1 ; and personally, 
 gathering in one all which he liad said of God's doings, with ipti N7 " want not any 
 thing," De. viii. 9. nnn, igii "want of every thing," Jer. xliv. 18. De. xxviii. 48. 57; "all 
 were [lit. was] ashamed " (with sing, verb) tr'NSn 73 Is. xxx. 5. 
 
 - .So also Jeremiah viii. 13, in the same words, DS'CX rjiON. Rashi makes them one 
 word, supposing "iCN to be for '^psx. k. E. mentions those who thought that K in "jisx 
 was prefixed, as in cnx Is. xxviii. 28 ; but it is unnatural to assume a rare and irregular 
 form, when the word f]'D.x is the regular form from tiie common word ^jDK. 
 
 •* naixn signifies "earth," almost always in the phrase hdhkh ■'S ?y. always in the 
 phrase nmKn ':s '?>;?, unless they be limited by some addition, as " wliich the Lord 
 sware that He would give thee." noixi "a 'jy is thus used Gen. vi. 1, vii. 23, Ex. xxxiii. 
 
 2 I f will utterly consume all tltiiif^s ciTrTst 
 from oft" f the land, saitli the Lord. _ ='''Ji03.__ 
 
 3 " I will consume man and beast ; I will taidiig uwmi 
 consume the fowls of the heaven, and nnlmi"""' 
 the fishes of the sea, and ^ the || stumh- ^ j\'iwiand' 
 \\n*^ blocks with the wicked; and 1 will I EzeitfV. i9. 
 cut off" man fi'om off the land, saith the Mm 13^41' 
 Lord. , ""''"""'• 
 
 created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth, and, ^ O/ 
 old Thou hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the hea- 
 vens are the work of Thy hands ; they shall perish, but Thou 
 shall endure, yea, all of them shall tvux old like a garment ; 
 as a vesture shall Thou change them, and they shall be changed. 
 Local fulfilments there may, in their degree, be. S. Jerome 
 speaks as if he knew this to have been. "''Even the brute 
 animals feel the wrath of the Lord, and when cities have 
 been wasted and men slain, there cometh a desolation and 
 scarceness of beasts also and birds and fishes ; witness Hly- 
 ricum, witness Thrace, witness ray native soil," [Stridon, a 
 city on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia] "where, 
 besides sky and eartii and rampant brambles and deep 
 thickets, all has perished." But although this fact, which 
 he alleges, is borne out by natural history, it is distinct from 
 the words of the prophet, who speaks of the fish, not of rivers 
 (as S. Jerome) but of the sea, which can in no way be in- 
 fluenced by the absence of man, who is only their destroyer. 
 The use of the language of the histories of the creation and 
 of the deluge implies that the prophet has in mind a de- 
 struction commensurate with that creation. Then he fore- 
 tells the final removal of offences, in the same words which 
 our Lord uses of the general Judgement. * The Son of Man 
 shall send forth His Angels and they shall gather out of His 
 kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity. 
 
 3 The stumbling-blocks'^'' with the wicked. Not only shall 
 the wicked be utterly brought to an end, or, in the other 
 meaning of the word, gathered into bundles to be taken away, 
 but all causes of stumbling too; everything, through which 
 others can fall, which will not be until the end of all things. 
 Then, he repeats, yet more emphatically, / will cut off the 
 whole race of man^"^ from the face of the earth, and then he 
 closes the verse, like the foregoing, with the solemn words, 
 saith the Lord. All this shall be fulfilled in the Day of 
 Judgement, and all other fulfilments are earnests of the 
 final Judgement. They are witnesses of the ever-living pre- 
 sence of the Judge of all, that God does take account of 
 man's deeds. They speak to men's conscience, they attest 
 the existence of a Divine law, and therewith of the future 
 complete manifestation of that law, of which they are in- 
 dividual sentences. Not until the prophet has brought this 
 circle of judgements to their close, does he pass on to the 
 particular judgements on Judah and Jerusalem. 
 
 IG, Nu. xii. 3, De. vii. 6, xiv. 2, 2 Sam. xiv. 7, Is. xxiii. 17, Jer. xxv. 26, Ezek, 
 xxxviii. 20. .TOiNn '33 7yD " from the face of the earth" occurs, unlimited by the context. 
 Gen. iv. 14, vi. 7, vii. 4, viii. 8, Ex. xxxii. 12, De. vi. 15. 1 Sam. xx. 15. 1 Kgs xiii. 
 31. Jer. xxviii. Ifi. Am. ix. S. nain is used of cultivable land, and so nmnn 'ja ^>y is used 
 in connection with rain falling on the ground, 1 Kgs xvii. 14 ; but .ten .B 7ys suffers no 
 exception, unless it be restrained by an addition. 
 
 * 2 S. Pet. lii. 10. * Ps. civ. 29. « Ps. civ. 30. 
 
 7 lb. cii. 25. 8 s Jer. 9 S. Matt. xiii. 41. 
 
 1" niWiJ i. q. D'VcbD Jer. vi. 21, Ezek. xxi. 20. So Kim., Rashi, who limits it to 
 idolatry (as Ges.) without reason. They are the wicked generally, not one class of 
 them. In Is. iii. 6. (where alone the word occurs besides) it is used metaphorically 
 of the state, " this ruin." 
 
 " m«n nj(, as in the history of the creation, Gen. i. 27, or the flood, lb. vi, 7. vii. 21. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 445 
 
 4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 drjwo^ Judah, and upon all tlie inhahitants of 
 
 <: Fulfilled, 
 cir. 024. 
 
 Jerusalem ; and '1 will <'ut ott'the remnant 
 
 ■2 Kin. 23. 1, 5. 
 
 4 I will also stretch out 3Ii/ie Hand, as before on E^'vpt^ 
 Jiidiili had g-onc in tlie ways of lOjiypt and learned her sins, 
 and sinned worse tlian Ej;:yi)t ~. Tiie iiiii^lili/ Hand and 
 stretched-mit Ann, with whieli she had l)eon delivered, shall 
 be ai;ain strctr/icd oaf, yot not for lier hut ii/)on her, itpon all 
 the inluiliitauts of Jcriisalnii. In this threatened destnu-tion 
 of all, Judah and .Jerusalem are sinjfled out, because /Wi^f- 
 inenf shall •'' he-^iji at the hiiiise of (ioil. They who have 
 sinned aii:ainst the jn^reater );raee shall be most signally 
 punished. Yet the punishment of those whom God had so 
 chosen and loved is an earnest of the jjeneral judgement. 
 This too is not a partial but a general judgement " upon 
 all the inhabitants of Jerusalem." 
 
 And I will cat off the remnant of Banl, i. e. to the very 
 last vestige of it. Isaiah unites ^ name and residue, as equi- 
 valents, together with the proverbial, posteriti/ and de- 
 scendant '\ Zephaniah distributes them in parallel clauses, 
 "the residue^ of Baal and the name of the Chemarim." 
 Good and evil have each a root, which remains in the 
 ground, when the trunk has been hewn down. There is 
 '^ a remnant according to the election of grace, when the rest 
 have been blinded ; and this is a " holi/ seed to carry on the 
 line of God. Evil too has its remnant, which, unless dili- 
 gently kept down, shoots up again, after the conversion 
 of peoples or individuals. The ^ mind of the flesh remains 
 in the regenerate also. The prophet foretells the complete 
 excision of the whole remnant of Baal, which was fulfilled 
 in it after the captivity, and shall be fulfilled as to all which 
 it shadows forth, in the Day of Judgement. From this 
 place ; for in their phrenzy, they dared to bring the worship 
 of Baal into the very temple of the Lord ^". " ^^ Who would 
 ever believe that in Jerusalem, the holy city, and in the 
 very temple idols should be consecrated ? Whoso seeth 
 the ways of our times will readily believe it. For among 
 Christians and in the very temple of God, the abominations 
 of the heathen are worshipped. Hitches, pleasures, honours, 
 are they not idols which Christians prefer to God Him- 
 self?" 
 
 And the name of the Chemarim tvifh the priests. Of the 
 idolatrous priests^- the very name shall be cut off, as God 
 promises by Hosea, that He will !•' tahe aivaij the names of 
 Baalim, and by Zechariah, that He ^*tvill cut off' the names 
 of the idols out of the land. Yet this is more. Not the name 
 only of the Chemarim, but themselves with their name, their 
 posterity, shall be blotted out ; still more, it is God Who 
 cuts off all memory of them, blotting them out of the book 
 of the living and out of His own. They had but a name 
 before, ^^ that they were living, but were dead. " ^'^ The Lord 
 
 > Ex. vi. 6, De. iv. 34, v. 15, vii. 19. xi. 2, xxvi. 8, and thence Jer. xxxii. 21, Ps. 
 cxxxvi. 12. Isaiah had, in the same phrase, prophesied God's judtjements against Israel 
 in the burden V. 25, ix. 11, lli, x. 4. -Jer. ii. Ill, 11. ^ 1 S. Pet. iv. 17. Jer.xxv. 29. 
 
 ■• Is. xiv. 22. ' i::i [•:, which occur only together. Gen. xxi. 23, Job xviii. 19, Is. xiv. 22. 
 
 6 nN',y is not limited, like n'iNC', to that which remains over when a former or larger 
 part has ceased or is gone. It is mostly " the rest," after others who had been named, 
 yet still it may be the larger number; as, "the rest of those chosen," 1 Chr. xvi. 41 ; 
 "the rest of their brethren, the priests and the Levites," Ezr. iii. 9 (8. Eng.); "the 
 rest of the chief of the fathers," lb. iv. 3; " the rest of their companions," lb. 7; "the 
 rest of the people," Neh. x. 29, xi. 1., "the rest of Israel," lb. 2U; "the rest of 
 the Jews," Esth, ix. 16. So in Isaiah, "the rest of Syria" besides Damascus. Is. 
 .wiii. 3, and "the rest of the Spirit " Mai. ii. 15. (See lb.) ' Rom. xi. 5, 7. 
 
 s Is. vi. 13. ' tppdvTjfxa aapKds. '" 2 Kgs xxiii. 4. " Rib. 
 
 12 The chemarim is the name of idolatrous priests generally, (it occurs also 2 Kgs 
 
 PART V, 
 
 of Baal from this plaee, and the name of dfifpsT 
 ''the Chemarims with tiie priests ; "'*•■ "^"- 
 
 5 And them 'that worship the host of ' "R-nla's^io. 
 
 Jer. VJ. is." 
 
 shall take away names of vain glory, wrongly admired, out 
 of the (;iiurch ; yea, the very names of the priests with the 
 ])riests who vainly Hatter then)selves with tlu! name of 
 Bishops and the dignity of I'resbyters withctut their deeds. 
 Whence he markedly says, not, and the deeds of priests with 
 the priests, \)ut t\n' names ; who only Ijear the false name of 
 dignities, and with evil works destroy tlieir own names." 
 The /;/vV'.sAv are priests of the Lord, who live not like jiriests, 
 corrupt in life and doctrine and corrupters of God's people '^. 
 The judgement is pronounced alike on what was intrin- 
 sically evil, and on good which had corrupted itself into 
 evil. The title of priest is no where given to the priest 
 of a false God, witlnnit some mention in the context, im- 
 plying that they were idolatrous priests ; as the pri("-ts of 
 J)ag(>n "*, of the high-places as ordained by Jeroboam ''^, of 
 Baal -", of Bethel =•, of Ahab --, of those who were not gods ^^ 
 of On, where the sun was worshipped -K The priests then 
 were God's priests, who in the evil days of Manassch 
 had manifoldly corrupted their life or their faith, and «ho 
 were still evil. The priests of Judah, with its kings its 
 princes and the people of the land, were in Jeremiah's 
 inaugural vision enumerated as those, who shall, (iod says, 
 ■''fight against thee, but shall not prevail against thee. -^The 
 priests said not. Where is the Lord ? and they that handle the 
 law knew 3Ie not. In the general corruption, ~~ A wonderful 
 and horrible thing is eonrmitted in the land, the prophets pro- 
 phesy falsely, and the jn-iests bear rule at their hands''^ ; 
 -^ the children of Israel and the children of ,/udah, their kiyigs, 
 their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of 
 Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, have turned mito 3fe 
 the bach, and not the face. Jeremiah speaks specificallv of 
 heavy moral sins. ^" From the prophet even unto the priest 
 every one dealeth falsely ; '^ both prophet and priest are pro- 
 fane ; ^'~for the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, 
 that have shed the blood of the Just in the midst of her. And 
 Isaiah says of their sensuality; ■^^ the priests and the prophets 
 have erred th)-ough st?-ong drink; they are sicallowed up of 
 wine, they are out of the way through strong drink. 
 
 5 And them that irorshijt the host of heaven upon the [flat] 
 housetops. This was fulfilled by Josiah who destroyed ^*//(e 
 altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahax. 
 Jeremiah speaks as if this worship was almost universal, 
 as though well-nigh every roof had been profaned by this 
 idolatry. ^^The houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of Judah, 
 shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses 
 t(pon whose roofs they hare burned incense unto all the host of' 
 heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods. 
 ^^ The Chaldceans that ^fight against this city, shall come and 
 
 xxiii. 5. Hos. x. 5). In 2 Kings, where is the account of the first fulfilment of this 
 prophecy, they appear as priests of the idolatrous high-places, distinct from the priests 
 of Baal and of tlie himt nf heaven. The name is probably the Syriac name of " priest," 
 used in Holy Scripture of idolatrous priests, because the Syrians were idolaters. 
 See GeseniusOesch. d. Hebr. Sprache p. 58. In Chald. K"C13 is limited to idolatrous 
 priests. See Buxt. and Le\'y. '^ Hos. ii. 17. n Zech. xiii. 2. 
 
 15 Rev. iii. 1. •« S. Jer. '7 See Jer. ii. 8. v. 31. 
 
 13 1 Sam. V. 5. ■' 1 Kgs xiii. 2. 33, 2 Kgs xxiii. 20. 2 Chr. xi. 15. 
 
 -0 2 Kgs X. 19, xi. 18, 2 Chr. xxiii. 17. =■ Am. vii. 10. - 2 Kgs x. 11. 
 
 -3 2 Chr. xiii. 9. -' Gen. xli. 45-50. &c. The name " Potipherah," probably 
 
 belonging to " Phre," implies this. ^ Jer. i. 18, 19. -'6 lb. ii. 7. 8. 
 
 =7 jer. V. 30, 31. ^s Dht ^-j -^ Jer. x.\xii. 32, 33. 3" lb. vi. 13. viii. 10. 
 
 31 Jer. xxiii. 11. '2 Lam. iv. 13. M is. xxviii. 7. '' 2 Kgs xxiii. 12. 
 
 35 Jer. xix. 13. 36 Jb. xxxii. 29. 
 
 u u u
 
 446 
 
 ZEPIIAMAII. 
 
 Before 
 
 and them 
 
 c H R 1 s T 'it'aven upon the housetops ; 
 ■■• '■•• ««»• that worship and « that swear |1 by the 
 
 ' 1 Kin. 18. 21. 2 Kin. 17. 33, 41. « Isai. 48. 1. Hos. 4. 15. || Or, to the Lokd. 
 
 set fire on tliis city, and hum it with the houses, upon tvhose 
 roofs they hare (iff'erid incense unto Bout, and poured (nit drink- 
 iifleriiiii's to other gods, to proi'oke Me to anger. They wor- 
 shipped on the house-tops, jirobahly to hiive a eh'arer view of 
 that iiia!,Miifieent expanse of sky, ^ the moon and stars which 
 God had «;•(/«/;/('(/; tlie (jueen of /learen, whieii they worshipped 
 instead t>f Himself. There is sonicthinj:; so mysterious in 
 that eahn face of the moon, as it "ivalketii in beauty ; God 
 seems to have invested it with sueh delef!:atcd influence over 
 the seasons and the pi-oduee of the earth, that tliey stopped 
 short in it, and worshipped the creature rather than the 
 Creator. iNIuch as men now talk of "Nature," admire " Na- 
 ture," speak of its "laws," not as laws imposed u})oii it, 
 hut inherent in it, laws atifecting us and our well-being; 
 only not in their ever-varying vicissitudes, ^ doing tvliatsoever 
 God eominandeth them upon the face of the tvorld in the earth, 
 whether for correction, or for His land or for mercy! The 
 idolaters hcorshijiped and served the creature more than the 
 Creator, Jl'ho is h/essed for ever ; moderns c((ually make this 
 world their object, only they idolise themselves and their 
 discoveries, and worship their own intellect. 
 
 This worship on the house-tops individualised the public 
 idolatry ; it was a rebellion against God, family by family ; a 
 sort of family-prayer of idolatry. '•" Did we, say the mingled 
 multitude to Jeremiali, )iiahc our calces to worship tier, and 
 pour out our drink-ojferings unto her, ivithout our men f Its 
 family character is described in Jeremiah. "^ The children 
 gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women 
 knead the dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to 
 pour out drink-(>fferings unto other gods. The idolatry spread 
 to other cities. ^ fFe will certainly do, they say, as we have 
 done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the 
 cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem. The incense 
 went up continually as a memorial to God from the Altar of 
 incense in the temple: the roofs of the houses were so many 
 altars, from which, street by street and house by house, the 
 incense went up to her, for whom they dethroned God, the 
 queen of heaven. It was an idolatry, with which Judah was 
 especially besotted, believing that they received all goods of 
 this world from them and not from God. When punished 
 for their sin, tliey repented of their partial repentance and 
 maintained to Jeremiah that they were punished for ^ leav- 
 ing off to hum incense to the queen of heaven. 
 
 And them that worship the Lord, but with a divided heart 
 and service; that swear hy [rather *^o] the Lord, swear fealty 
 and loyal allegiance to llim, while they do acts which deny 
 it, in that they swear hy 3Iulcha7n, better [it is no appella- 
 tive although allied to one] their king^°, most probably, I 
 think, "Moloch." 
 
 This idolatry had been their enduring idolatry in the 
 wilderness, after the calves had been annihilated; it is the 
 worship, against which Israel is warned by name in the law^i; 
 then, throughout the history of the Judges, we hear of the 
 
 1 Ps. viii. 3. 5 Job xxxi. 2r.. 3 Jb. xxxvii. 12, 13. ^ Rom. i. 25. 
 
 " Jer. xliv. 19. » lb. vii. 18. ' 11). xliv. 17. *' Il>- 2, 15, IS. 
 
 » As in the E. M., conij). 2 Clir. xv. l-t. Is. xix. 18. xlv. 23. It can only mean this. 
 1" C3^0 as DJS^? Am. v. 2(1. and Djho Jer. xlix. 1, 3. where the E.V. too renders, 
 their kiiii!. On his worship see ah. 'p. 201). " Lev xviii. 21, xx. 2-4. 
 
 '■-' Always used with the article expressed or understood, 7y3n, ?i;-7, 7yJ3, unless the 
 specific name(Bael-berith. 13ael-zebub, liael-peor) is mentioned. 
 
 " Numid" 1 , 2, 3 in Ges. Thes. p. 705. " 1^=13, poiiy ap. Ges. 1. c. 
 
 li B''7y3.T in Judges, 1 Sam., 2 Kgs, 2 Chron., Jeremiah, Hosea. 
 
 Lord, and that swear ''])y Mah-ham ; ch'rTst 
 
 And ' them that are turned hack from """• "'^"- 
 
 kJosh. 23. 7. 1 Kin. 11.33. ' Isai. 1. 4. Jer. 2. 13, 17. & 15. 6. 
 
 kindred idolatry of Baal'-, the Lord (who was called also 
 "'■* eternal king " and from wliom individuals named them- 
 selves "son of [the] king," "servant of [the] king""), or the 
 manifold Baals'^ and Asbtaroth or Astarte. liut after these 
 had been removed on the ])rea('hiiig of SamueP", this idolatry 
 does not reappear in Judah until the; intermarriage of Je- 
 horam with the house of Aliab '^. The kindred and eijually 
 horrible worship of '* Molech, the abomination of the children 
 of Amman, was brought in by Solomon in his decay, and en- 
 dured until his high-place was defiled by Josiah ''■'. It is 
 probable then that this was their king-", of whom Ze|)lianiah 
 speaks, whom Amos -' and after him Jeremiah, called their 
 king ; but speaking of Amnion. Him, the king of Amnion, 
 Judah adopted as their king. They owned God as their king 
 in words; Molech they owned by their deeds; they worshipped 
 and sware fealty to the Lord and they sware hy their king ; 
 his name was familiarly in their mouths; to him they ap- 
 pealed as the Judge and witness of the truth of their words, 
 his displeasure they invoked on themselves, if they sware 
 falsely. " — Those in error were wont to swear by heaven, 
 and, as matter of reverence to call out, ' By the king and 
 lord Sun.' Those who do so must of set purpose and wil- 
 fully depart from the love of God, since the law expressly 
 says, -•' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him 
 alone, and swear hy His Name." 
 
 The former class who worshipped on the roofs were mere 
 idolaters. These worshipped, as they thought, the Lord, bound 
 themselves solemnly by oath to Him, but with a reserve, 
 joining a hateful idol to Him, in that they, by a religious 
 act, owned it too as god. The act which they did was in 
 direct words, or by implication, forbidden by God. The 
 command to sivear hy the Lord implied that they were to 
 swear by none else. It was followed by the prohibition to go 
 after other gods-*. Contrariwise to swear by other gods was 
 forbidden as a part of their service. ■'" Be very courageous 
 to keep and to do all that is written in the hook of the Lair 
 of Moses, tieither make mention of the name of their gods, tior 
 cause to swear hy them, neither serve them, hut cleave unto the 
 Lord your God. -^ Hcne shall I pardon thee for this ? Thy 
 children have forsaken Ale, and have sicorn by those who are no 
 gods. -' They taught My people to sivear hy Baal. They 
 thought perhaps that in that they professed to serve God, did 
 the greater homage to Him, professed and bound themselves 
 to be His, (such is the meaning of swear to the Lord) they 
 might, without renouncing His service, do certain things, 
 swear by their king, altliough in effect they thereby owned 
 him also as god. To such Elijah said, ~'^How long halt ye 
 between two opinions f If the Lord he God, folloiv Him ; hut 
 if Baal, then follow him ; and God by Jeremiah rejects with 
 abhorrence such divided service. -'' Ye trust in lying words, 
 which will not profit. JVill ye steal, murder, commit adultery, 
 swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other 
 gods, and come and stand before Me in this house, which is 
 
 •5 1 Sam. vii. 6. xii. 10. '7 2 Kgs viii. lfi-18. 2G, 27. 2 Chr. xxi. 6, 12, 13. xxii. 2-4. 
 18 1 Kgs xi. 7. '9 2 Kgs xxiii. 13, 14. 
 
 -" Molech is always an appellative, except 1 Kgs xi. 7- Else (hy a pronunciation 
 
 belonging probably to Amnion) it is ijpari Lev. xx. 5, or ^JE? Lev. xviii. 21, xx. 2, 4, 
 
 2 Kgs xxiii. 10, Jer. xxxii. 35. As' a proper name, it is M'tlcom, 1 Kgs xi. 5, 33, 
 
 2 Kgs xxiii. 13. -' See ah. on Amos i. 15. p. IfiU. - S. Cyr. -^ Dent. vi. 13. 
 
 j "'■ lb. vi. 13, 14, x. 30. comp. Is. Ixv. IG. Jer. iv. 2. "* Josh, xxiii. (i-8. comp. 
 
 Amos viii. 14. -' Jer. v. 7. "' lb. xii. 16. 
 
 1 2s 1 Kgs xviii. 21. =» Jer. vii. 8-10. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 447 
 
 ci^rTst ^^^^ Lord; and those that ■'have not soujjlit 
 
 "*•• "•^''- the Lord, nor (MHjuirc'd for him. 
 1 ihlb.' I -k 7 ' Ilokl thy peace at the presence of the 
 
 called hi/ Mi/ name, sai/ittg, JVe are delivered to do all these 
 abomiiialioits. And Ilosca, ^ Xeitlier go ye to Beth-aven, and 
 swear there, Tlie Lord liveth. 
 
 Such are Christians, "-who think tliat they ean serve to- 
 ft-ether tiie worhl and the J^ord, and please two masters, 
 (iod and iManiiiion; who, heiiii/; soldiers of Jesus Christ and 
 havinjx sworn fealty to Him, •' entmi^le themselves wi/h the 
 affairs of this life and offer the same iinafte to God and to 
 Ciusar." To sueh, God, \\Miom with their lips they own, is 
 not their God ; their idol is, as the very name says, their 
 /cinif, whom alone tliey please, displeasini^- and dishonouring; 
 God. We must not only fear, love, honour God, but love, 
 fear, honour all besides for Ilim Alone. 
 
 G ^Jiid them that are turned Itaih from [lit. ha^-e turned 
 themselves back from following aftcr^'\ the Lord. From this 
 half- service, the prophet goes on to the avowed neglect of 
 God, by such as wholly fall away from Him, not setting 
 His Will or law before them, but turning awai/ from Him. 
 It is their misery that they were set in the right way once, 
 l)ut themselves turned themselves bach, now no longer /o//oir- 
 ing God, but = their own lusts, drawn awai/ and enticed by 
 them. How much more Christians, before whose eyes 
 Christ Jesus is set forth, not as a Redeemer only but 
 as an Example that they should '^follow His steps '. 
 
 And those that have not sought the Lord, nor enquired 
 for Him. This is marked to be a distinct class. And those 
 who. These did not openly break with God, or turn away 
 overtly from Him ; they kept (as men think) on good terms 
 with Him, but, like the slothful servant, rendered Him a list- 
 less heartless service. Both words express diligent search'^. 
 God is not found then in a careless way. They who seek 
 Him not diligeiitli/^, do not tind Him. Strive, our Lord 
 says, ^ to enter in at the strait gate ; for niani/, I sai/ unto 
 i/ou, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. She who 
 had lost the one piece of silver, sought diligently ^'^, till she 
 had found it. 
 
 Thus he has gone through the whole cycle. First, that 
 most horrible and cruel worship of Baal, the idolatrous jjriests 
 and those who had the name oi' priests only, mingled with 
 them, yet not openly apostatising; then the milder form 
 of idolatry, the star-worshippers ; then those who would 
 unite the worship of God with idols, who held themselves 
 to be worshippers of God, but whose real king was their 
 idol; then those who openly abandoned God; and lastly those 
 who held with Him, just to satisfy their conscience-qualms, 
 but with no heart-service. And so, in words of Habakkuk 
 and in reminiscence of his aweful summons of the whole 
 world before God, he sums up ; 
 
 7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God. [lit. 
 Hush, in awe from the Face of God.] In the Presence of 
 God, even the righteous say from their inmost heart, ^^ / am 
 vile, what shall I ansiver Thee f I will lay mine hand upon 
 mi/ mouth. ^- Now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor 
 myself, and repent in dust and ashes. '^ Enter not intojudge- 
 
 'Hos. iv. 15. See at. p. 31. = S. Jer. 3 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4. 
 
 ■• .Such is the uniform use ofroj. Its common construction is with ninit ; with innD, 
 
 as here, Is. lix. 13 ; K;il, with p of pars., Ps. Ixxx. 1"J ; Nif. with jD of thing, 2 Sam i. 22. 
 
 sS.Jas.i.U. 6 1 S. Pet.ii.21. ' c'p3. intensive ; t;'"!7 of search below the surface. 
 
 8 S. Matt. ii. 8. » S. Luke xiii. 24. '"Ib.xv. 8. »iJob.\1.4. '= lb. xUi. 5, 0. 
 
 Lord Cod: "'for the day of the Ijokd is eiuiTsT 
 at hand: for "the Ijord hatli prepared a "'*•• ^'^"- 
 sacrifice, he hatli f hid his i^^ncsts. 
 
 "■ Isai. 13. 0. 
 
 n Isai. 31. 0. .'- 
 + W. 
 
 lO. III. Ezck.ay. 17. Kev. 19.17. 
 I'liiijied, 01 prepared. 
 
 ment irilh Thy servant, () Lord ; for in Thy sight shall no 
 man living he just i lied. How nuK'h more must the ^^ man 
 tvithoiit the wedding garment be speechless, and every false 
 plea, with which he deceived himself, melt away before the 
 Face of God! The voice of God's Judgement echoes in 
 every heart, ^''ive indeed Justly. 
 
 For the Day of the Lord is at haiiil. Zephaniah, as is 
 his wont, grounds this suminons, Mhicli he had renewed 
 from llal)akkuk, to hushed silence before God, on Joel's 
 prophetir; warning^", to shew that it was not yet exhausted. 
 A day of the Lord, of which Joel warned, had come and 
 was gone; but it was only the herald of many such days; 
 judgements in time, heralds and earnests, and, in their 
 degree, ])ictures of (he last which shall end time. 
 
 '"'^All time is (iod's, since He Alone is the Lord of time; 
 yet that is s])eeially said to be His tinu! when He doth any- 
 thing special. Whence He saith, ^^ My time is not yet come ; 
 whereas all time is His." The Day of the Lord is, in the 
 first instance, "'-the day of captivity and vengeance on the 
 sinful people," as a forerunner of the Day of Judgement, oi- 
 the day of death to each, for this tof) is near, since, com- 
 pared to eternity, all the time of this world is brief. 
 
 For the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice. God had re- 
 jected sacrifices, offered amid unrepented sin ; they were 
 ^'^ an ahomi nation to Him. When man will not repent and 
 offer himself as -''a living sacrifice, holy and arrr/itahle to God, 
 God, at last, rejects all other outward oblations, and the 
 sinner himself is the sacrifice and victim of his own sins. 
 The image was probably suggested by Isaiah's words, -' The 
 Lord hath a sacrijice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the 
 land of Idumea ; and Jeremiah subsequently uses it of 
 the overthrow of I'haraoh at the Euphrates, -- This is the 
 day of the Lord of Hosts j that He may avenge Him of His 
 adversaries ; for the Lord God hath a sacrifice iii the north 
 country hy the river Euphrates. -' The Lord hath made all 
 things for Himself, yea even the wicked for the day of evil. 
 All must honour God, either fulfilling the will of God and 
 the end of their own being and of His love for them, by 
 obeying that loving AVill with their own free-will, or, if they 
 repudiate it to the end, by suffering It. 
 
 He hath bid {Wt. sanc'ti_ fie d-*^^ His guests. God had be- 
 fore, by Isaiah, called the heathen whom He employed to 
 punisii 'Babylon, -'"• My sanctifed ones. Zephaniah, by giving 
 the title to' God's instruments against Judah, declares that 
 themselves, having become in deeds like the heathen, were as 
 heathen to Him. The instruments of His displeasure, not 
 they, were so far His chosen. His called -^ Jeremiah repeats 
 the saying, " Thus saith the Lord against the house of the 
 king of Judah ; — / have sanctijied against thee destroyers, a 
 man and his tveapons. That is, so far, a holy war in the pur- 
 pose of God, which fulfils His will ; whence Nebuchadnezzar 
 was --///.v servant, avenging His wrongs-'. "^"To be sancti- 
 fied, here denotes not the laying aside of iniquity, nor the 
 participation of the Holy Ghost, but, as it were, to be fore- 
 
 13 Ps. cxliii. 2. "S. Matt. xxii. 11,12. is S. Luke xxiii. 41. !« Joel i. 14. See 
 ab. p. lO'J. andii.l.p.lll. '7 Dion. "s S. John vii. 6. i' Is. i. 11-15. 
 
 -"Rom. xii. 1. 2' Is. xxxiv. 6. 2- Jer. xlvi. 10. =3 Prov. xvi. 4. -» See E. M. 
 :■' Is. xiii. 3. ■'> inj-ip. -7 Jer. xxii. 6, 7. -'' Ih- xxv. 'J. 
 
 :» See on Joel iii. 9. ab. p. 137 and Micah iii. 5. ab. p. 312. 2" S. Cyr. 
 
 u u u 2
 
 448 
 
 ZEI'IIANIAH. 
 
 Before 
 
 ^c'l^so. of jIjj. Lord's s;icrifi«'(', tliat I will f punish 
 
 ^ Zt "'"' "tlie princes, and tlic king's children, and all 
 
 - Jer. 39. 6. 
 
 ordained and clioscn to tiu' fiillihiK'nt of this end." That is 
 in a manner halh)\vcd, which is employed hy God for a holy 
 end, thou{,^li the instrument, its purposes, its aims, its pas- 
 sions, he in themselves unholy. There is an awe ahout 
 "the scourjies of (iod." As with the lifiiitninij and the 
 tornado, there is a certain presence of God with them, in 
 that throu!;h them His Uighteousness is seen; althoufjli they 
 themselves have as little of God as the n<i/id and storni 
 which fulfil His word. Those who were once admitted to 
 make ofleriiij^s to God make themselves sacrifices to His 
 wrath; these, still heathen and unijodly and in all besides re- 
 probate, are His Priests, because in this, although without 
 their will, they do His Will. 
 
 8 I will punish [lit. visit iipmi']. God seems oftentimes 
 to be away from His own world. Men plot, design, say, 
 in word or in deed, w/to is Lord over vs f God is, as it were, 
 a stranger in it, or as a man, who hath taken a journey into 
 a far rountri/. God uses our own language to us. / will 
 visit, inspecting, (so to say), examining, sifting, reviewing, 
 and when man's sins require it, allowing the weight of His 
 displeasure to fall upon them. 
 
 The princes. The prophet again, in vivid detail (as his 
 characteristic is), sets forth together sin and punishment. 
 Amid the general chastisement of all, when all should be- 
 come one sacrifice, they who sinned most should be punished 
 most. The evil priests had received their doom. Here 
 he begins anew with the mighty of the people and so goes 
 down, first to special spots of the city, then to the whole, 
 man by man. Josiah being a godly king, no mention is made 
 of him. Thirteen years before his death ', he received the 
 promise of God, because thine heart was tender, and thou hast 
 humbled thj/self before the Lord — / will gather thee unto 
 thi/ fathers, and thou shall be gathered unto tin/ grave in peace, 
 and thou shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this 
 place. In remarkable contrast to Jeremiah, who had to be, 
 in detail and continual pleading with his people, a prophet 
 of judgement to come, until those judgements broke upon 
 them, and so was the reprover of the evil sovereigns who 
 succeeded Josiah, Zephaniab has to pronounce God's judge- 
 ments only on the princes and the king's children. Jeremiah, 
 in his inaugural vision, was forewarned, that - the kings of 
 ,/udah, its princes, priests, and the people of the laud should 
 war against him, because he should speak unto them all 
 which God sln>uld command him. And thenceforth Jere- 
 miah impleads or threatens kings and the princes together^. 
 Zephaniab contrariwise, his office lying wholly within the 
 reign of Josiah, describes the princes again as '^roaring lions, 
 but says nothing of the king, as neither does INIicah \ in 
 the reign, it may be, of Jotham or Hezekiah. Isaiah speaks 
 of princes, as ^rebellious and cmnpanious of thieves. Jere- 
 miah speaks of them as idolaters '. They appear to have 
 had considerable influence, which on one occasion they em- 
 jiloyed in defence of Jeremiah **, but mostly for eviP. Zede- 
 kiah enquired of Jeremiah secretly for fear of them '''. 
 They brought destruction upon themselves by what men 
 
 1 2 Krs xxH. m. 20. = Jcr. i. 18. 3 lb. ii. 26, iv. 9, viii. 1, xxiv. 8, xxxii. 37. 
 
 xxxiv. 21 -I Zcph. iii. 3. 5 Mic. iii. 1, 9. 6 Js, i. 23. 7 Jer. xxxi. 32-31. xliv. 21. 
 » lb. xxvi. 11). ' lb. xxxvii. 15, xx.xviii. 4, 16. '" lb. xxxvii. 17. xxxviii. 14-27. 
 11 lb. xxxix. 6, lii. 25-27. '^ Is. xxxix. 7. See Daniel the prophet p. 16. 
 
 such as are elotlied with stranj^e apjjarel. cimust 
 
 In the same day also will I punish all ''"■ ^■^^- 
 those that leap on the threshold, which fill 
 
 jiraisc, their resistance to Ncltuchadnezzar, but itgainst the 
 declared miiul of God. Nebuchadnezzar unwittingly ful- 
 filled the prophet's word, when he ^^ slew all the nobles of 
 Judali, the eunuch who was over the war, and seven men of 
 thctii that were near the king's person, and the principal scribe 
 of the host. 
 
 ^■Ind the king's children. Holy Scripture mentions chief 
 persons oidy hy name. Isaiah had pro]ihesied the isolated 
 lonely loveless lot of descendants of Hezekiah who should be 
 eunuchs in the palace of the king of liabi/lon^^, associated only 
 with those intriguing pests of I']astern courts '', a lot in itself 
 worse than the sword (although to Daniel God overruled it 
 to good) and Zedekiah's sons were slain before his eyes and 
 his race extinct. Jchoiakim died a disgraced death, and 
 Jehoiachin was imprisoned more than half the life of man. 
 
 y4nd all such as are clothed trith strange ajqiarel. Israel 
 was reminded by its dress, that it belonged to God. It was 
 no great thing in itself; a hand of dark blue ^* npon the fringes 
 at the four corners of their garments. But the bintd of dark 
 blue was upon the high-priest's mitre, with the i)late en- 
 graved, ^'Holiness to the Lord, fastened upon it ; with a band 
 of dark blue also was tlie breastplate ^^ bound to the ephod of 
 the high-priest. So then, simple as it was, it seems to have 
 designated the whole nation, as '" a kingdom of priests, an holy 
 nation. It was appointed to them, ^**that ye may look upon it, 
 a/id roneniber all the commandments of the Lord and do them, 
 and that ye seek not after your own heart and your orvn eyes, 
 after which ye use to go a whoring; that ye inay remember 
 and do all My commandments, and he holy unto your God. 
 They might say, " it is but a hand of blue ; " but the hand of 
 blue was the soldier's badge, which marked them as devoted 
 to the service of their God; indifference to or shame of it in- 
 volved inditt'erence to or shame of the charge given them 
 therewith, and to their calling as a peculiar people. The 
 choice of the strange apparel involved the choice to be as the 
 nations of the world; ^^tvewill he as the heathen, as the families 
 of the countries. 
 
 All luxurious times copy foreign dress, and with it, foreign 
 manners and luxuries ; whence even the heathen Romans were 
 zealous against its use. It is very probable that with the 
 foreign dress foreign idolatry was imported-". The Babylo- 
 nian dress was very gorgeous, such as was the admiration of 
 the simpler Jews. -^ Her captains and rulers clothed in per- 
 fection, girded with girdles nj)on their loins, ivith flowing dyed 
 attire upon their heads. Ezekiel had to frame words to ex- 
 press the Hebrew idea of their beauty. Jehoiakim is reproved 
 among other things for his luxury--. Outward dress always 
 betokens the inward mind, and in its turn acts upon it. An 
 estranged dress betokened an estranged heart, whence it is 
 used as an image of the whole spiritual mind-^. "-^The 
 garment of the sons of the king and the apparel of princes 
 which we receive in Baptism, is Christ, according to that, 
 Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Put ye on bowels of 
 mercy, goodness, humility, patience, and the rest. AVherein 
 we arc commanded to be clothed with the new man from 
 
 1^ See lb. p. 21 , 22. " Nu. xv. 38. De. xxii. 12. 1= Ex. xxriii. 36. 
 
 16 lb. xxxix. 21. 17 lb. xix. 6. is Nu. xv. 39, -10. " Ezek. xx. 33. 
 
 2" Jon. Rashi anil S. Jer. connect it with idol.itry. -i Ezek. xxiii. 12, 15. 
 
 22 Jer. xxii. 11, 15. » Rom. xiii. 14, Col. iii. 12, Eph. iv. 24. 24 g. Jer. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 449 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 "'■•• fi^"- deceit 
 
 their masters' houses with violence and 
 
 heaven according to our Creator, and to ^ Uuj aside the 
 clothing of the old i/kdi villi his deeds. Wlicrcas tlicri we 
 ought to he (•h»tlic(l in such raiment, for mercy we put on 
 crueUy, for patience, impatience, for righteousness, ini(|uity; 
 in a word, for virtues, vic^es; for Christ, Anti(;hrist. Whence 
 it is said of sucli an one, "He is clothed leith cursing: as with 
 a garment. These tiie Lord will visit most manifestly at 
 His Coming." '"Thiidicst thou tliat hyjiocrisy is strange 
 apparel I' Of a truth. For what stranger apparel than 
 .sheeps' chtthing to ravening wolves? What stranger than 
 for him who * within is full of iniquity, to appear outwardly 
 righteous before men ? " 
 
 9 / will punish all those that leap (»i the threshold. 
 Neither hmguage nor history nor context allow this to be 
 understood of the idolatrous custom of Ashdod, not to tread 
 on the threshold 5 of the temple of Dagon. It had indeed 
 been a strange infatuation of idolatry, that God's people 
 should adopt an act of superstitious reverence for an idol in 
 the very instance in which its iu)thingness and the power of 
 the true God had been shewn. Nothing is indeed too brutish 
 for one who chooses an idol for the true God, preferring Sa- 
 tan to the good God. Yet the superstition l)elongcd appa- 
 rently to Ashdod alone ; the worship of Dagon, although 
 another form of untrue worship, does not appear, like that of 
 Baal, to have fascinated the Jews ; nor would Zephaniah, to 
 express a rare superstition, have chosen an idiom, which 
 might more readily express the contrary, that they " leapt 
 on the threshold," not over it'"'. They arc also the same per- 
 sons, who leap on the threshold, and who fill their masters' 
 houses with violence and deceit. Yet this relates, not to 
 superstition, but to plunder and goods unjustly gotten. As 
 then, before, he had declared God's judgements upon idol- 
 atry, so does he here upon sins against the second table, 
 whether by open violence, or secret fraud, as do also Habak- 
 kuk^, and Jeremiah*. All, whether open or hidden from 
 man, every wrongful dealing, (for every sin as to a neigh- 
 bour's goods falls uiuler these two, violence or fraud) shall 
 be avenged in that day. Here again all which remains is the 
 sin. They enriched, as they thought, their masters, by art 
 or by force ; they schemed, plotted, robbed ; they succeeded 
 to tlieir heart's wish; but, "ill-gotten, ill-spent!" They filled 
 their 7nasters' houses quite full ; but wherewith ? with violence 
 and deceit, which witnessed against them, and brought down 
 the judgements of God upon them. 
 
 10 ^ cry from the fish-gate. The fish-gate M'as probably 
 in the North of the wall of the second city. For in Nehemiah's 
 rebuilding, the restoration began at the sheep-gate^, (so 
 called doubtless, because the sheep for the sacrifices were 
 brought in by it) which, as being near the temple, was 
 repaired by the priests ; then it ascended Northward, by two 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 2i. - Ps. cix. 17. ^ Riip. < S. Matt, xxiii. 28. 
 
 * )rB3 is used 1 Sam. v. 4, 5, Ezek. ix. 3, x. 4, IS, xlvi. 2, xlvii. 1 ; elsewhere fp. 
 There is a trace of this explanation in tlie Chald., " who walk in the laws of the Philis- 
 tines," and in S. Jerome, doubtless from liis .Jewish teachers. Isaiah's reproof that they 
 kai^e sonfhsai/rrs like the P/iUisliiii's. ii. (i, is altogetlier different. 
 
 *> Sy jSt is, in the only other place. Cant. ii. 8, "bounding tm tlie mountains;" "bound- 
 ing over" (like our "leapt a wall") happens to be expressed by an ace, 2 Sam. xviii. 
 30, Ps. xviii. 30; "passing over" liad been expressed more clearly by hi! nrs, as in 
 Ez. xii. 23, 27. ' Hah. i. 2, 3. » Jer. v. 27. » Neh. iii. 1." i" lb. 2. 
 
 » lb. 3. 12 lb. 4-6. " Ih. 7, 8. '^ lb. 9-11. '^ jb. xii. 31-38. >" lb. ,39. 
 
 17 Zeeh. xiv. 10. is See ab. p. 318. isR. J.v. 42. ™ Ib.v. 32. 
 
 21 Pierotti, " Jerusalem explored" p. 32, from whom this account is taken. Sigiior Pie- 
 rotti's work is "the fruit of eight years of continual labour devoted to a study of the to- 
 pography of Jerusalem upon the spot, in which I have been constantly occupied in ex- 
 
 10 And it shall come to pass in that day, curTst 
 saith the Lord, tliut there shuU be the noise "'■ '^- 
 
 towers, the towers of Men h and Ilananeel; then two companies 
 7-epaircd some uiidcscriix'd part of Ihe wall'", and then another 
 company built the Jishgale^\ Four companies are tlien men- 
 \ tioned, who rei)aired, in order, to the old gate, which was 
 repaired by another company'-. Three more companies re- 
 paired beyond these ; ami they left Jerusalem unto the broad 
 wall^'\ After three more sections repaired by individuals, 
 tw(j others repaired a second nu-asured jiortion, anil the totcer 
 of the furnaces^*. This order is reversed in the account of 
 . the dedication of the walls. The people being divided'' into 
 , two great couijjunies of them that give thun/cs, some j)lace near 
 ' the tower of the furnaces was the central point, from which 
 both parted to encompass the city in o])p()>itc directions. In 
 this account, we liave two additional gates nicntioncd. the 
 gate of Kphraiin^^, between the broad icall and the old gate, 
 and the prison-gate, beyond the sheep-gate, from which tlic re- 
 pairs had begun. The gate of Jiphraim had obviously not 
 been repaired, because, for some reason, it had not bet'n de- 
 stroyed. Else Nehemiah, who describes the reliuildiugof the 
 wall so minutely, must have mentioned its rebuilding. It was 
 obviously to the North, as leading to Ephraim. I5ut the tower 
 of Ilananeel must have been a very marked tower. In Zecha- 
 riah Jerusalem is measured from North to South, ^''from 
 the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses. It was 
 then itself at the North-East corner of Jerusalem, where 
 towers were of most imj)ortance to strengthen the wall, and 
 to command the approach to the wall either way. The fish- 
 gate then, lying between it and the gate of Ephraim, nuist 
 have been on the North side of the city, and so on the side 
 where the Chaldsean invasions came ; yet it must have been 
 much inside the present city, because the city itself was en- 
 larged by Herod Agrippa on the North, as it was unac- 
 countably contracted on the South ^*. The then limits of 
 Jerusalem are defined. For Josephus thus (k'scribes the se- 
 cond wall. " " It took its beginning from that gate which 
 they called Gennath, which belonged to the first wall ; it only 
 encompassed the northern quarter of the city and reached 
 as far as the tower of Antonia." The tower of Antonia was 
 situated at the North-West angle of the corner of the temple. 
 The other end of the wall, the Gennath or garden gate, must 
 have opened on cultivated land ; and Josephus speaks of 
 the gardens on the N. and N. \V. of the city which were 
 destroyed by Titus in levelling the ground -°. But near the 
 tower of Hippicus, the North-^Veste^n extremity of the first 
 wall, no ancient remains have been discovered by excavation-'; 
 but they have been traced North, from "an ancient Jewish 
 semi-circular arch, resting on piers 18 feet higli, now buried 
 in rubbish." These old foundations have been traced at three 
 places-- in a line on the East of the Holy Sepulchre (which lay 
 consequently outside the city) up to the judgement gate, but 
 
 cavating and removing the rubbish accumulated over the place during so ni^ny centuries, 
 in retracing the walls, in examining the monuments and ancient remains, and'in penetra- 
 ting and traversing the conduits and vaults." — " I have," he says, " made excavations and 
 watched those made by others, have formed intimacies with the inhabitants of the countn-, 
 have sought for information on the spot, regardless of personal risk, have worked with 
 my own hands underground, and so have obtained much knowledge of that which lies 
 below the surface of the soil in Jerusalem." Jerusalem explored Pref. p. viii. 
 
 -'- 1) kt the meat-bazaar near the convent of S. Mary the Great. " In digging down to 
 the rock to lay the new foundations, 10 feet below the surface, I came upon large stones, 
 boldly rusticated and arranged in a manner that reminded me of the Phtenician work 
 of the time of Solomon." 2)on the East of the Church of the Resurrection. 3) "close 
 to the West of the \nf:f.f:nl judgement gate." " In digging down for the rock, I found, 
 18 feet below the surface, a fragment of a wall, resemblmg, in all respects, that first 
 described." lb. p. 33.
 
 450 
 
 ZEPHANIAIL 
 
 "■■■ '«"■ injr from the second, ;iiul ii great crashinjj 
 '2^'"-3*" from the hills. 
 
 not North of it'. The rine from West to East, i. e., to the 
 tower of Antonia, is marked i,-enerally I)y " very hir^e stones, 
 evidently of Jewish work, in the walls of houses, especially in 
 the lower parts-." They are chietly in the line of the Via 
 Dolorosa. 
 
 T/ie fislt-f^ute had its name probahly from a fish-market 
 (markets bein;,^ in the open places near the ^ates^) the fish 
 heinsf brought either from the lake of Tiberias or from 
 Joppa. Near it, the wall ended, which Manasseh, after his 
 restoration from Babylon \ Iniilt wilfioiit the citii of David, 
 OH the West side of Gihuii, in the valley. This, being un- 
 protected by its situation, was the weakest part of the city. 
 " ^ The most ancient of the three walls could be considered 
 as impregnable, as much on account of its extreme thick- 
 ness, as of the height of the mountain on which it was built, 
 and the depth of the valleys at its base, and David, Solomon 
 and the other kings neglected nothing to place it in this 
 state." Where they had made themselves strong, there 
 God's judgement should find them. 
 
 And a howling from the second city, as it is supplied 
 in Nehemiah, who mentions the prefect set over it". It 
 was here tliat Huldah the prophetess lived ^, who prophesied 
 the evils to come upon Jerusalem, after Josiah should be 
 gathered to his grave in peace. It was probably the lower 
 city, which was enclosed by the second wall. It was a second 
 or new city, as compared to the original city of David, on 
 Mount Moriah. On this the enemy who had penetrated 
 by the fish-gate would first enter; then take the strongest 
 part of the city itself. Gareb ^ and Bezetha were outside of 
 the then town ; they would then be already occupied by the 
 enemy before entering the city. 
 
 A great crashing from the hills. These are probably 
 Zion, and Mount Moriah on which the temple stood, and 
 so the capture is described as complete. Here should be 
 not a cry or howling only, but an utter destruction ^ Mount 
 Moriah was the seat of the worship of God ; on INIount 
 Zion was the state, and the abode of the wealthy. In hu- 
 man sight they were impregnable. The Jebusites mocked at 
 David's siege, as thinking tbeir city impregnable"^; but God 
 was with David and he took it. He and his successors for- 
 tified it yet more, but its true defence was that the Lord 
 was round about His people ^', and when He withdrew His 
 protection, then this natural strength was but their de- 
 struction, tempting them to resist first the Chaldseans, then 
 the Romans. Human strength is but a great crash, falling 
 by its own weight and burying its owner. "This threefold 
 cryi^, from three parts of the city, had a fulfihnent before 
 the destruction by tlie Romans. In the lower part of the 
 city Simon tyrannised, and in the middle John raged, and 
 there was a great crashing from the hills, i. e.^ from the 
 
 1 This appeared from excavations made in repairing the then Russian consulate, and 
 from "enquiries of all who in former years had built in this neighbourhood." Ih. 
 
 2 " These were found when the EfTendi Kadduti repaired and partly rebuilt the house 
 in the Via Dolorosa at the Sttitio?i of Veronica. A similar discovery was made by the 
 Mufti in fctrengthening his house at the Station of Simon of Cyrene, and by the Ertendi 
 Soliman Giari, opposite to the Mufti's house on the North. The Armenian Catliolic 
 monks requested me to examine and level a piece of land, at the Station of the first fall of 
 Christ ; wliich, as representative of his nation, he had just houglit. In the lower part of 
 the wall enclosing it on the north, very large stones and an ancient gate were found. In 
 the foundations of the Austrian hospice, laid in 1857, to the north of the Armenian pro- 
 perty, large stones were discovered, and also further to the East, in the new convent of the 
 Daughters of Sion," Pierotti pp. 33, 34. 
 
 11 'illowl, ye inliahitants of Maktesh, ch'rTst 
 for all the nu'reliant people are cut down; cir. 030. 
 all they that bear silver are cut oif. 
 
 4 Jam. 5. 1. 
 
 temple and citadel where was Eleazar, who stained the 
 very altar of the temple with blood, and in the courts of 
 the Lord made a pool of blood of divers corpses." "'^In 
 the assaults of an enemy the inhabitants are ever wont tr) 
 flee to the tops of tlic hills, thinking that tb(! difficulty of 
 access will be a hindrance to him, and will cut ott" the 
 assaults of the pursuers. But when God smiteth, and re- 
 (jnireth of the despisers the penalties of their sin, not the 
 most towered city nor impregnable circuits of walls, not 
 height of hills, or rough rocks, or pathless difficulty of 
 ground, will avail to the sufferers. Repentance alone saves, 
 softening the Judge and allaying His wrath, and readily 
 inviting the Creator in His inherent goodness to His ap- 
 ))ropriate gentleness. Better is it, with all our miglit to 
 implore that we may not offend Him. But since human 
 nature is prone to evil, and " in many things we all offend, 
 let us at least by repentance invite to His wonted clemency 
 the Lord of all, Who is by nature kind." 
 
 11 Hoivl, ye inliahitants of Blaktesh, lit. 3Iortar'^^, "in 
 which," S. Jerome says, "corn is pounded; a hollow vessel, 
 and fit for the use of medical men, in which properly ptisans 
 are wont to be beaten (or made). Striking is it, that Scrip- 
 ture saith not, ' who dwell in the valley or in the alley,' 
 but who dwell in the mortar, because as corn, when the 
 pestle strikcth, is bruised, so the army of the enemy shall 
 rush down upon you '^" The place intended is probably 
 so much of the valley of the Tyropoeon which intersected 
 Jerusalem from North to South, as was enclosed by the 
 second wall, on the North, and the first wall on the South. 
 The valley " ^'extended as far as the fountain of Siloam," 
 and united with the valley of Jehoshaphat a little below 
 Opbel. It was ""^full of houses," and, from its name as 
 well as from its situation, it was probably the scene of petty 
 merchandise, where the occasions in which men could and 
 did break the law and offend God, were the more conti- 
 nual, because they entered into their daily life, and were a 
 part of it. The sound of the pestle was continually heard 
 there ; another sound should thereafter be heard, when they 
 should not bruise, but be themselves bruised. The name 
 3Iaktesh was probably chosen to express how their false 
 hopes, grounded on the presence of God's temple among 
 them while by .their sins they profaned it, should be turned 
 into true fears. They had been and thought themselves 
 Milcdash, "a holy place, sanctuary;" they should be 3Ia/c- 
 tesh^^, wherein all should be utterly bruised in pieces. 
 
 " I*' Whoso considereth the calamities of that siege, and 
 how the city was pressM and hemmed in, will feel how 
 aptly he calls them the i/ihal/itants of a mortar ; for, as 
 grains of corn are brought together into a mortar, to the 
 end that, when the pestle descendeth, being unable to fly 
 
 3 See 2 Kgs vii. 1. Neh. xiii. 16, 19. " 2 Chr. xxxiii. 14. ' Jos. de B. J. v. 4. 2. 
 
 ^ Neh. xi.y, E. V. "was second over the city"on account of the absence of the article, 
 .njC'DTj;.! hv. I prefer taking it, as in a sortof apposition, as Ewald does, Lehrb. n. 287,1. 
 p. 734. ed. 8. '2 Kings xxii. 14. 2 Chr. xx.xiv. 22. It is called by Josephus SXAr;, 
 
 "another" city. Ant. XV. li,5. <* Jer. xx.xi. 39. ' Not, as some, "aery of destruction" 
 as in Is. XV. , 5. Isaiah has indeed the words 120 npyi "cry of destruction," but here 
 .ipys, nS'?', ni:? are plainly parallel to one another. '" 2 Sam. v. ti. " Ps. cxxv. 2. 
 
 '- From Kup. '^ S. Cyr. " S. James iii. 2. '^ Prov. xxvii. 22. It is also a 
 proper name in Jud. xv. 19, since Lehi in which it was situate (^73 "u:"**), was a proper 
 name, lb. and 9, and 14. "'S.Jer. '7 See Signer Pierotti's map. " Jos. B. J. v.4. 1. 
 
 ''J The two words do so occur iu an epistle of the Samaritans (Cellar. Epist. Sichemit. 
 p.25) Ges.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 451 
 
 ci?rTst ^^ -^"'^ '^ shall eome to p.ass at tliat 
 "^- """• time, that I will search Jerusalem with 
 
 candles, and punish the men that are 
 
 off, they may be bruised, so the people flowing together, 
 out of all the countries of .huliea, was narrowed in by a 
 sudden sicijc, and throuf^li tin- savau;(' <'riiclty of liic above 
 loaders of the sedition, was nniitterably tortured from with- 
 in, more than by the enemy without." 
 
 Iu)i- (til the mcrrhniit people [lit. the people of Cannmi^ 
 are cut down; i. e., "'they who in deeds arc like the people 
 of Canaan," aceordinij to tiiat, - Thou art of Cmiaau and 
 not of Jnildh, and, •' Thi/ father is an Amorite and thy mother 
 a Hittite. So our Lord says to the reprobate Jews, * Ye are 
 of i/onr father the devil. 
 
 All the;/ that hear [lit. "' all laden with] .silver are cut off. 
 The silver, wherewith they lade themselves, hcini"; f^otteii 
 amiss, is a load upon them, weighing them down until they 
 arc destroyed. 
 
 Vl I will search [lit. diligenth/]. The word is always 
 used of a minute diligent search, whereby places, persons, 
 things, are searched and sifted one by one in every corner, 
 until it be found whether a thing be there or no''. Hence 
 also of the searching out of every thought of the heart, 
 either by God^, or in repentance by the light of God ^. 
 
 Jerusaleni with candles: so that there should be no cor- 
 ner, no lurking-place so dark, but that the guilty should be 
 brought to light. The same diligence, which Eternal Wis- 
 dom used, to see/c and to save tliat ivhirh teas lost, " light- 
 ing a candle and searching diligenth/, till It find each lost 
 piece of silver, the same shall Almighty God use that no 
 hardened sinner shall escape. "'"What the enemy would 
 do, using unmingled phrenzy against the conquered, that 
 (lod fitteth to His own Person, not as being Ilimself the 
 Doer of things so foreign, but rather permitting that what 
 comes from anger should proceed in judgement against the 
 ungodly." It was an image of this, wlien, at the taking 
 of Jerusalem by the Romans, they " " dragged out of com- 
 mon sewers and holes and caves and tombs, princes and 
 great men and priests, who for fear of death had hid them- 
 selves." How much more in that Day when the secrets of 
 all hearts shall he revealed by Him Who ^~ seareheth the hearts 
 and reins, and to JVIiose Eyes '', which are like flaming Fire, 
 all things are naked and open ! The candles wherewith God 
 searcheth the heart, are men's own consciences '*, His Own 
 revealed word'", the lives of true Christians'^. These, through 
 the Ilcdy Ghost in each, may enlighten the heart of man, or, 
 if he takes not heed, will rise in judgement against him, and 
 shew the falsehood of all vain excuses. "'"One way of escape 
 only there is. If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. 
 I will search oaf my own ways and my desires, that He Who 
 shall search (nit ,/ernsalem with candles, may find nothing in 
 me, unsought and unsifted. For He will not twice judge the 
 same thing. Would that I might so follow and track out all 
 my ofi"ences, that in none I need fear His piercing Eyes, in 
 
 • Ch. - Hist, of Susannah 56. ^ Ezek. xvi. 3. See also on Hosea xii. 7, ab. p. 78. 
 
 ■• S. John viii. 44. ^ A passive adj. (V'ap from Vinp), As an act. adj. (^"Kp from 
 Sop) it would rather imply that they cast it on others. 
 
 '' Nif., of Esau by enemies Ob. G, Pih., for Laban's idols, Gen. xxxi.35; for Joseph's 
 cup, Ib.xliv. 12; for David in hiding places, 1 Sam. xxiii. 23; Ahab's house, 1 Kgs 
 XX. G; for worshippers of God in Baal's temple, 2 Kgs x. 23 ; in caves of Carmel, Am. 
 ix. 3, (See ab. pp. 219, 22(1) ; Divine wisdom Pr. ii. 4, God's ways, Ps. Lxxvii. 7. The 
 foun is intensive here. ? Pr. xx. 27. >* Lam. iii. 40. » S. Luke xv. 8. "> S. Cyr. 
 
 '1 S. Jer. See Jos. de B. J. vi. 94. vii.2 fin. >- Ps. vii. 9, xxvi. 2, Jer. xi. 20, 
 
 xvii. 10. XX. 12, Rev. ii. 23. '3 lb. i. 14. " Prov. xx. 27. '^ Ps. cxix. 104. Pr. vi. 23. 
 
 f settled on their h'cs : "that say in their (■ ,Pr7* 
 heart, Th(! Jiiuii) will not do j^ood, neither "'■<'^^»^ 
 will he do evil. 
 
 ST 
 
 ' Jer. 48. 11. Amos 6. 1. 
 
 • Ps. 94. 7. 
 
 f Hob. riirdedf 
 or, thicfit'ned. 
 
 none be ashamed at the light of His candles ! Now I am 
 seen, but I sec not. At hand is that Eye, to Whom all things 
 are open, altiiough Itself is nr>t o;>cn. Once '" / shall knoir, 
 even as I am knoirn. Now I know in part, but I am not 
 known in part, but wiitdlv."' 
 
 The men that are settled on their lees, stiffened and con- 
 tracted '-'. Tlic image is from wine which becomes harsh, 
 if allowed to remain upon the lees, unremoved. It is drawn 
 out by Jeremiah -", Moah hath heen at ease -^ from his i/onth, 
 and he hath settled on his lees, and hath iiof heen em/>tied from 
 vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into ea/ilirity ; therefore 
 his taste remained in him, and his scent is iiot changed. So 
 they upon whom no changes come, fear not (Jod—. The lees 
 are the refuse of the wine, yet stored up (so the word^^ 
 means) with it, and the wine rests, as it were, upon them. 
 So do men of ease rest in things defiled and defiling, their 
 riches or their pleasure, which they hoard up, on which they 
 arc bent, so that they " -' lift not their mind to things above, 
 but, darkened with foulest desires, are hardened and stif- 
 fened in sin." 
 
 That say in their heart, not openly scoffing, perhaps 
 thinking that they believe ; but people do believe as they 
 love. Their most inward belief, the belief «( their heart 
 and affections, what they wish, and the hidden spring of 
 their actions, is. The Lord irill not do good, neither will He 
 do evil. They act as believing so, and by acting inure them- 
 selves to believe it. They think of God as far away, -° Is 
 not God in the height of heaven ? And behold the height of the 
 stars, how high they are ! And thou sai/est, Jloir doth God 
 knotv? Can lie Judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds 
 are a covering to Him, that He seeth not ; and He walketh in 
 the circuit of heaven. -'' The ungodly in the pride of his heart 
 (tbinketh); He will not enr/uire; all his devices (speak). There 
 is no God. Strong are his ways at all times ; on high are 
 Thy judgements out of his sight. "'' They slay the iridow and 
 the stranger, and murder the fatherless, and they say. The 
 Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. 
 -^ Such things they did imagine and were deceived ; for their 
 otvn wickedness blinded them. As for the mysteries of God, 
 they knew them not. -^ Faith without works is dead. Faith 
 which acts not dies out, and there conies in its stead this 
 other persuasion, that God will not repay. There are more 
 Atheists than believe themselves to be such. These act as 
 if there were no Judge of their deeds, and at last come, 
 themselves to believe that God will not punish •'■". \\liat else 
 is the thought of all worldlings, of all who make idols to them- 
 selves of any pleasure or gain or ambition, but, " God will 
 not punish ? " " God cannot punish the [wrongful, selfish,] 
 indulgence of the nature which He has made." " God will 
 not be so precise." " God will not punish with everlasting 
 severance from Him, the sins of this short life." And they 
 
 2 Pet. i. 19. i« Phil. ii. 15. T S. Bern. Serm. 55 in Cant. 's 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 
 
 15* KSpis used in two cases of the (as it were) congealing of the waves when they stood 
 on an heap Ex. xv. 8 ; of the curdling into cheese Job x. 10. Jon. paraphrases " who 
 ate tranquil in their possessions." 'The Arabic authorities, Abulw. Tanch. David B. 
 Abr. agree in the sense ' congealed,' and do not call in the Arab. Sp which is primarily 
 " dried." then is used of the wrinkling of a cloth in drying, or of the face of the old, 
 not " contracted " as Ges. On Zech. xiv. 6, see ibid. 
 
 -o Jer. xlviii. 11. 21 epi. -- See Ps. Iv. 19. a D-cc" -* Dion. 
 
 :•' Job xxii. 12-14, -<^ Ps. x. 4, 5. -^ lb. xciv. 5, G. 
 
 a Wisd. ii. 21-22. ^ S. Jas. ii. 20. so Is. v. 19, Mai. ii. 17.
 
 452 
 
 ZEPIIANIAIl. 
 
 chrTst 1*^ Therefore their j?oods shall l)eeome ji 
 
 '^■^- "'^'>- booty, and their houses a desolation : they 
 
 '^™39"^' shall also build houses, but ^ not inhabit 
 
 Amos 5. 11, 
 
 see not that they ascribe to God, what He attributes to idols 
 i. e. not-ijods. ^ Do good or do evil, that irc i/iai/ he dismayed 
 and behold it together. " Be not afraid of them ; for they can- 
 not do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Tliese think; 
 not that God does pxtd ; for tliey ascribe their success to 
 their own diiiii'ence, wisdom, strentjth, and thank not God for 
 it. 'riiey think not that He sends them evil. For they defy 
 Ilim and His laws, and think that they shall j^o unpunished. 
 AVliat remains but that He should be as dumb an idol as 
 those of the heathen ? 
 
 13 Therefore their goods, lit. And their strength. It is 
 the simple sequel in God's Providence. It is a continued 
 narrative. Gtid will visit those who say, that God does not 
 interfere in man's aftairs, and, it shall be seen '^ whose words 
 shall stand, (iod's or t/ieir's. All which God had threatened 
 in the law shall be fulfilled. God, in the fulfilment of the 
 punishment, which He had foretold in the law^ would vindi- 
 cate not only His present Providence, but His continual 
 government of His own world. All which is strength to 
 man, shall the rather fail, because it is strength, and they 
 presume on it and it deceives them. Its one end is to he- 
 come a prey of devils. Riches, learning, rule, influence, 
 power, bodily strength, genius, eloquence, popular favour, 
 shall all fail a man, and he, when stripped of them, shall 
 be the more bared because be gathered them around bini. 
 "5 Wealth is ever a runaway and has no stability, but rather 
 intoxicates and inclines to revolt and has unsteady feet. 
 Exceeding folly is it to think much of it. For it will not 
 rescue those lying under the Divine displeasure, nor will it 
 free any from guilt, when God decreeth punishment, and 
 bringcth the judgement befitting on the transgressors. How 
 utterly useless this eagerness after wealth is to the ungodly, 
 he teacheth, saying, that their strength shall he a prey to 
 the Clialda»an." 
 
 And their houses a desolation. "^ For they are, of whom 
 it may be said very truly, ^ This is the man that took 7iot 
 God for his strength, hut trusted unto the multitude of his riclies, 
 and strengthened himself in his wickedness. But if indeed 
 their houses are adorned costlily, they shall not be theirs, 
 for they shall be burned, and themselves go into captivity, 
 leaving all in their house, and deprived of all which would 
 gladden. And this God said clearly to the king of Judali 
 by Jeremiah, " Thou hast Imilded thyself a large house and 
 wide cliambers, cielcd with cedar, and painted with vermilion. 
 Shalt thou reign because thou closest thyself with cedar f " 
 "*As the house of the body is the bodily dwelling, so to 
 each mind its house is that, wherein through desire it is 
 wont to dwell," and desolate shall they be, being severed 
 for ever from the things they desired, and for ever deserted 
 by God. They shall also build houses but not inhabit them, 
 as t!ie rich man said to his soul, ^ Soul, thou hast much goods 
 laid up for 7nany years. — Thou fool, this night thy soul shall 
 be rcifiired of thee ; then whose shall those things be, trhich 
 thoii hast provided '' Before the siege by the Romans, Jeru- 
 salem and the temple had been greatly beautified, only to 
 be destroyed. And they shall plant vineyards, but not drink 
 
 ' Is. xli. 23. Perhaps Zeph. meant to suggest this by using words which God by 
 Isaiah had used of idols. 2 Jer. X. 5. •> lb. xliv. 28. 
 
 4 Lev. xxvi. 32, 33. Deut. xxviii. 5 S. Cyr. ' Ps. lii. 7. 
 
 l/icm ; and they shall jdant vineyards, but f. jj^jfj^^^ 
 " not <lrink the wine thereof. "'■ ' " "'• 
 
 " Mic. 6. 15. 
 
 14 "The j^i-eut day of the Lord is near, it « joeT2!'i/ii 
 
 the wine thereof. 'I'his is tlie woe, first jironounced in the 
 law'", often rei»eated and ever found true;. Wickedness 
 makes joy its end, yet never finds it, seeking it where it is 
 not, out of God. 
 
 14 The great Day of the Lord is near. The Prophet 
 again expands the words of .(oel. accumulating words ex- 
 ])ressive of the terrors of that Day, sbcuiiig that though 
 " the great and very terrible Dai/ of the Lord, a day (Joel had 
 said '") of darkness and gloominess, of rlouds and of tliich dark- 
 ness, which was then coming and nigh at hand^^, had come 
 and was gone, it was only a forerunner of others ; none of 
 them final ; but each, because it was a judgement and an 
 instance of the justice of God, an earnest and forerunner of 
 other judgements to the end. Again, a great Day of the 
 Lord was /tear. This Day had itself, so to spealc, many 
 hours and divisions of the day. But each hour toUeth the 
 same knell of approaching doom. Each calamity in the 
 miserable reigns of the sons of Josiah was one stroke in 
 the passing-bell, until the destruction of Jerusalem by the 
 Chaldeans, for the time closed it. The judgement was com- 
 plete. The completeness of that excision made it the more 
 an image of every other like day until the final destruction 
 of all which, although around or near to Christ, shall in 
 the Great Day be found not to be His, but to have rejected 
 Him. '"* Truly was vengeance required, '^/ro??i the blood of 
 righteous Abel to tlie blood of Zechariah, ivhom they slew be- 
 tween the temple and the Altar, and at last when they said 
 of the Son of God, ''' His blood be upon us and upon our 
 children, they experienced a bitter day, because they had 
 provoked the Lord to bitterness ; a Day, appointed by the 
 Lord, in which not the weak only but the mighty shall 
 be bowed down, and wrath shall come upon them to the 
 end. For often before they endured the wrath of the Lord, 
 but that wrath was not to the uttermost. What need 
 now to describe how great calamities they endured in both 
 captivities, and how they who rejected the light of the 
 Lord, walked in darkness and thick darkness, and they who 
 would not hear the trumpet of the solemn feast-days, heard 
 the shout of the enemy. But of the fenced cities and lofty 
 corner-towers of Judaea, which are till now destroyed even 
 to the ground, the eyes, I deem, can judge better than the 
 ears. We especially, now living in that province, can see, 
 can prove what is written. We scarcely discern slight 
 traces of ruins of what once were great cities. At Shiloh, 
 where was the tabernacle and ark of the testament of the 
 Lord, scarcely the foundations of the altar are shewn. Ra- 
 ma and Betboron and the other noble cities built by Solo- 
 mon, are shewn to be little villages. Let us read Josephus 
 and the prophecy of Zephaniah ; we shall see his history 
 before our eyes. And this must be said not only of the cap- 
 tivity, but even to the present day. The treacherous hus- 
 bandmen, having slain the servants, and, at last, the Son of 
 God, arc prevented from entering Jerusalem, except to wail, 
 and they purchase at a price leave to weep the ruin of their 
 city, so that they who once bought the Blood of Christ, buy 
 their tears ; not even their tears are costless. You may see 
 
 7 Jer. xxii. 14, 15. 8 s. Greg. Mor, viii. 14. » S. Luke xii. 19, 20, 
 
 1" Deut. xxviii. 33. " Joel ii. 31. ''■' lb. 2. " lb. 1. 
 
 " S. Jer. 15 S. Matt. x.\iii. 35. '^ lb. xxvii. 25. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 453 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. G30. 
 
 y Isai. 22. 5. 
 Jer. 30. 7. 
 Joel2. 2, 11. 
 Amos 5. 18. 
 ver. 18. 
 
 is near, and hasteth j^reatly, even the voice 
 of the (lay of the Loud : the mighty man 
 shall cry there bitterly. 
 
 15 ^That (lay is a day of wrath, a day of 
 trouble and distres.s, a day of wast(!ness and 
 desolation, a day of darkness and i^loomi- 
 
 on the day that Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by the 
 Romans, a people in mourninf^ come, decrepit ohl women 
 and old men, in aged and ragged wretchedness, sliewlng in 
 their bodies and in their guise the wrath of the Lord. The 
 hapless crowd is gathered, and amid the gleaming of the 
 Cross of Christ, and the radiant glory of His Resurrection, 
 the standard also of the Cross shining from Mount Olivet, 
 you may see the people, piteous but unpitied, bewail the 
 ruins of their temple, tears still on their cheeks, their arms 
 livid and their hair dishevelled, and the soldier asketh a 
 guerdon, that they may be allowed to weep longer. And 
 doth any, when he seeth this, doubt of the dm/ of trouble 
 and distress, the day of darkness and gloominess, the day of 
 clonds and thick darkness, the day of the trumpet and alarm f 
 For they have also trumpets in their sorrow, and, accord- 
 ing to the prophecy, the voice of the solemn feast-day is 
 turned into mourning. They wail over the ashes of the 
 Sanctuary and the altar destroyed, and over cities once 
 fenced, and over the high towers of the temple, from which 
 they once cast headlong James the brother of the Lord." 
 
 But referring the Day of the Lord to the end of the world 
 or the close of the life of each, it too is near ; near, the 
 prophet adds to impress the more its nearness ; for it is at 
 hand to each ; and when eternity shall come, all time shall 
 seem like a moment, ^A thousand years, wheti past, are like a 
 ivatch in the night ; one fourth part of one night. 
 
 u4nd hasteth greatly. For time whirls on more rapidly 
 to each, year by year, and when God's judgements draw 
 near, the tokens of them thicken, and troubles sweep one 
 over the other, events jostle against each other. The voice 
 of the day of the Lord. That Day, when it cometh, shall 
 leave no one in doubt what it meaneth ; it shall give no 
 uncertain sound, but shall, trumpet-tongued, proclaim the 
 holiness and justice of Almighty God; its voice shall be the 
 Voice of Christ, which " all that are in the graves shall hear 
 and come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
 tion of life ; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection 
 of damnation. 
 
 The mighty men shall cry there bitterly ; for ^bitter is the 
 remembrance of death to a man that liveth at rest in his pos- 
 sessions, unto the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that 
 hath prosperity in all things ; and *, There is no mighty man 
 that hath poiver over the spirit to retain the spirit ; neither 
 hath he power in the day of death ; and there is no discharge 
 in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are 
 given to it. Rather, wrath shall come upon ^ the kings of the 
 earth, and the great men and the rich men aiul the mighty 
 men, and they shall will to hide themselves /ro/H the Face of 
 Him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the 
 Lamb; for the great Day of His lurath is come: and who shall 
 be able to stand ? 
 
 1 Ps. xc. 4. 2 S. John v. 28, 29. 3 Ecclus. xli. 1. * Eccl. viii. S. 
 
 * Rev. vi. 15-17. 5 Ps. xiv. 5. " The Arab, word, itis, is used of " a loud 
 
 shrill cry." It occurs only lure and (Hif.) in Is. xlii. 12. ^ Wisd. vi. 6. 
 
 ' Lam. iii. 14. 'o " Alarm " seems to be used in the sense of " sounding alarm," 
 
 alarum. " nynn 12 1 Thess. iv. IC. " See E. M. on iii. 6. It is the corner 
 
 PART V. 
 
 ness, a day of clouds and thick darkness, ch'rTst 
 IG A (lay of 'the trumpet and alarm '' "■ '^^- 
 
 aji^ainst the fenced cities, and ajjainst the '•'"•>• ^^y- 
 
 hijj^h towers. 
 
 17 And I will brinj^ distress upon men, 
 
 that they shall "walk like blind men, be- ' u^i' oy^fo.' 
 
 The mighty men shall cry there bitterly. The prophet has 
 spoken of time, the day of tite Lord. lie points out the more 
 vividly the unseen sight and place, there; so David says, 
 '''There they feared a fear. He sees the place; he hears the 
 bitter cry. So nigh is it in fact; so dose the coiiiiccf ion of 
 cause and effect, of sin and punislimcnt. There shall be a 
 great and bitter cry, when tliere shall be no place for re- 
 pentance. It shall be almighty cry, but mighty in the bit- 
 terness of its distress. ^Mighty men shall be mightily tor- 
 mented, i. e., those who have been mighty against God, "weak 
 against Satan, and shall have used their inigiit in his service. 
 
 15. A day of iv rath, in which all the wrath of Ahnighty 
 God, which evil angels and evil men have treasured to them 
 for that day, shall be poured out : the day (jf wrath, because 
 then they shall be brought face to face before the Presence of 
 God, but thenceforth they shall be cast out of it for ever. 
 
 A day of trouble and distress. Both words express, how 
 anguish shall narrow and hem them in ; so that there shall 
 ha no escape; above them, God displeased; below, the flames 
 of Hell ; around, devils to drag them away, and Angels cast- 
 ing them forth in bundles to burn them ; without, the books 
 which shall be opened ; and within, conscience leaving them 
 no escape. 
 
 A day of ivasteness and desolation, in which all things 
 shall return to their primeval void, before the Spirit of God 
 brooded upon the face of the waters, His Presence being alto- 
 gether withdrawn. 
 
 A day of darkness and glootniness ; for sun and moon shall 
 lose their brightness, and no brightness from the Lamb shall 
 shine upon the wicked, but they shall be driven into outer 
 darkness. 
 
 A day of clouds and thick darkness, hiding from them the 
 Face of the Sun of Righteousness, and covering Him, so that 
 their prayers should not pass through^. 
 
 16. A day of the trumpet and alarm'^'^, i. e., of the loud 
 blast of the trumpet, which sounds alarm and causes it. The 
 word 11 is especially the shrill loud noise of the trumpet (for 
 sacred purposes in Israel itself, as ruling all the movements 
 of the tabernacle and accompanying their feasts) ; then also 
 of the " battle cry." They had not listened to the voice of 
 the trumpet, as it called them to holy service; now they shall 
 hear ^- the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. 
 
 Against the high towers, lit. corners^^, and so corner- 
 towers. This peculiarity describes Jerusalem, whose walls 
 "1* were made artificially standing in a line curved inwards, 
 so that the flanks of assailants might be exposed." Bv this 
 same name ^^ are called the mighty men and chiefs of the 
 people, who, humanly speaking, hold it together and support 
 it ; on these chiefs in rebellion against God, whether devils 
 or evil men, shall punishment greatly fall. 
 
 17. I will bring distress upon men. I will hem them in, 
 
 of a house, of a street, of a court, a city. Hence "the gate of the comer," 2 Kgs 
 xiv. 13, 2 Chr. xxvi. 9, Jer. xxxi. 38. In 2 Chr. xxvi. 15, nya cannot be " battlements " 
 (as Ges.&c), sincetheengines were erected upon them. Neither then here is there any 
 ground to invent a new meaning for the word. '* Tac. Hist. v. 11. Jos. d'e 
 
 B. J. v. 5. 3. 'i Jud. XX. 2. 1 Sam. xiv. 33, Is. six. 13. Zech. x. 4. 
 
 XXX
 
 454 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 r urTs t cause they have sinned aganist tlie Loan : 
 „j:!Ii!^2i^ and ''theh* blood shall be poured out as 
 cps.S.'fo. dust, and their flesh " as the dung. 
 
 Jer. 9. 22. & 16. 4. 
 
 in anj^uish on all sides. God Himself shall meet thoin with 
 His terrors, wherever they turn, ^ / ivill hem them in, that 
 theij mat/ find it so. 
 
 That thei/ .shall walk like hliiid men, utterly bereft of coun- 
 sel seeinc; nii more than the blind whieh way to turn, sfrasp- 
 im; blindly and frantiely at anythinjj, ^wAgoini^ on headlong- to 
 their own destruction. So God forewarned them in the law; 
 -Thou shall grope at noon day, as the lilind gropeth in dark- 
 ness ; and Job, of the wicked generally, ^ They meet ivilh the 
 darkness in the day-time, and grope in the noon-day as in the 
 night; and, * They grope in the dark without light, and He 
 nmketh them to stagger like a drunken man ; and Isaiah fore- 
 tellini? of those times, ^fFe grope for the wall, «.v the lilind; and 
 we grope, as if we had no eyes; we stumble in the noon-day as 
 in the night. Because they have sinned against the Lord, and 
 so He hath turned their wisdom into foolishness, and since 
 they have despised Him, He hath made them objects of con- 
 tempt^. Their blood shall be poured out like dust, as abun- 
 dant and as valueless ; uttei-ly disrcsardcd by Him, as Asaph 
 complains, ''their blood have they shed like water ; contenij)t- 
 ible and disgusting as what is vilest; their Jlesh^ as the dung, 
 refuse, decayed, putrefied, offensive, enriching by its decay 
 the land, which had been the scene of their luxuries and op- 
 jiressions. Yet the most offensive disgusting physical corrup- 
 tion is but a faint image of the defilement of sin. This pu- 
 nishment, in which the carrion-remains should be entombed 
 only in the bowels of vultures and dogs, was especially 
 threatened to Jehoiakini; ^ He shall be buried with the burial of 
 an ass, dragged and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem. 
 
 18. Neither their silver nor their gold shall he able to de- 
 liver them in the day of the Lord's wrath. Gain unjustly 
 gotten was the cause of their destruction. For, as Ezckiel 
 closes the like description; "^^They shall cast their silver 
 into the streets, and their gold shall be removed ; their silver 
 and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of 
 the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls nor 
 fill their bowels : because it is the stumbling block of their ini- 
 quity." ]\luch less shall any possession, outward or inward, 
 be of avail in the Great Day ; since in death the rich man's 
 ^'^pomp shall not follow him, and every gift which he has 
 misused, whether of mind or spirit, even the knowledge of 
 God without doing His Will, shall but increase damnation. 
 " Sinners will then have nothing but their sins." 
 
 Here the prophet uses images belonging more to the im- 
 mediate destruction ; at the close the words again widen, and 
 belong, in their fullest literal sense, to the Day of Judge- 
 ment. The whole land, rather, as at the beginning, the whole 
 earth shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy ; for He 
 shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in 
 the land : rather. He shall make a?^ utter, yea altogether'^- 
 a terrific destruction ^' of all the dwellers of the earth. What 
 Nahum had foretold of Nineveh'*, He shall make the jilace 
 
 ^ Jer. X. 18. Moses had said this of His instruments, And He shall ficm thee in, in 
 all thi) gates. Deut. xxviii. 52. - lb. 29. •■• Job v. 1-1. 
 
 < lb. xii.25. 5 is.iix. in. 6 1 Sam. ii. 30. 
 
 7 Ps. Ixxix. 3. -pi is used of the pourini; out both liquids and solids. 
 
 •^ Insulated as tlie use is, DnS must have had the meaning of the Arab, fcn^ *' flesh.'' 
 So LXX Ch. Vuls;. Syr. David B. Abr, Abulw. Tanch., Anon-Arab. Tr., retain the 
 word in Arabic; Abulw. notices that "the Heb. is akin to the Arabic word," Tanch. 
 
 ]H 'Neither their silver nor their ^'old c if rTst 
 shall be able to deliver them in the day of — "'"■ '^^- — 
 
 .1 Prov. 11. 4. 
 
 the Lord's wrath ;but the whole hind shall Ezek. 7. i9. 
 
 thereof an utter consumption, tiiat Zcpbiiniah fore-tells of all 
 the inhabitants of the world. For what is this, the whole 
 earth shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy, but what 
 S. Peter says, " the earth also and the works that are therein 
 shall be burned up ? And what is that he says. He shall make 
 all the dwellers of tlie earth an utter, yea altogether a hasti/ 
 destruction, but a general judgement of all, who belong to the 
 world, whose home, citizenship, whose wliole mind is in the 
 world, not as true Christians, who are strangers and pilgrims 
 here, and their ^"citizenship is in Heaven ? These God shall 
 make an utter, terrific, speedy destruction, a living death, so 
 that they shall at once both be and not be; be, as continued 
 in being; not be, as having no life of God, but only a con- 
 tinued death in misery. And this shall be through the jea- 
 lousy of xVlmighty God, that Divine quality in Him, whereby 
 He loves and wills to be loved, and endures not those who 
 give to others the love for which He gave so much and which 
 is so wholly due to Himself Alone. "'^Thou demandest my 
 love, and if I give it not, art wroth with me, and threatenest 
 me with grievous woes. Is it then a slight woe to love Thee 
 not ?" What will be that anger, which is Infinite Love, but 
 which becomes, throngh man's sin. Hate ? 
 
 II. Having set fortli the terrors of the Judgement Day, 
 the prophet adds an earnest call to repentance; and then de- 
 clares how judgements, forerunners of that Day, shall fall, 
 one by one, on those nations around, who know not God, and 
 shall rest upon Nineveh, the great beautiful ancient city of 
 the world. " '^ See the mercy of God. It had been enough 
 to have set before the wise the vehemence of the coming evil. 
 But because He willeth not to punish, but to alarm only, 
 Himself calleth to repentance, that He may not do what 
 He threatened." "'^Having set forth clearly the savageness 
 of the war and the greatness of the suffering to come, he 
 suitably turns his discourse to the duty of calling to re- 
 pentance, when it was easy to persuade them, being terrified. 
 For sometimes when the mind has been numbed, and ex- 
 ceedingly bent to evil, we do not readily admit even the will 
 to repent, but fear often drives us to it, even against our will. 
 He calls us then to friendship with Himself. For as they re- 
 volted, became aliens, serving idols and giving up their mind 
 to their passions, so they would, as it were, retrace their 
 steps, and lay hold of the friendship of God, choosing to serve 
 Him, nay and Him Alone, and obey His commandments. 
 Wherefore while we have time, while the Lord, in His for- 
 bearance as God, gives way, let us enact repentance, suppli- 
 cate, say weeping, -^ remetnber tiot the sins and offences of my 
 youth ; let us unite ourselves with Him by sanctification 
 and sobriety. So shall we be sheltered in the day of wrath, 
 and wash away the stain of our falls, before the Day of 
 the Lord come upon us. For the Judge will come. He will 
 come from heaven at the due season, and will reward each 
 according to his work." 
 
 cites Job vi. 7. ' Jer. xxii. 19. i" Ezek. vii. 19. " Ps. xMx. 17. 
 
 '- "N "nothing but-" '^ njnni vinites here the senses of terror and destruc- 
 
 tion, as in Ps. civ. 29. Thov.hid.cst Thij face, theii are troubled, jwj; and perish ; Is. Ixv. 
 23, thei/ shall not bear n^n2^ for destruction, II p'h ly:' nS. 
 
 " See ah. on Nahum i. 8. p. 376. '' 2 Pet. iii. 13. 
 
 '6 Heb. xi. 13. Phil. iii. 20. '? S. Aug. Conf. i. 5. p. 3. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 18 S. Jer. i» S. Cyr. 2" Ps. xxv. 7.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 455 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 630. 
 
 « ch. 3. 8. 
 ' ver. 2, 3. 
 
 be " devoured by the fire of bis jealousy : 
 for Hie shall make even a speedy riddance 
 of all theui that dwell in the land. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 1 An exhortation to rvpcntanvc. A The Judgment 
 of the F/tilistine.i, 8 of Mouh and Antmou, 12 of 
 JClhiojiia and Assyria. 
 
 1, Gather yourselves together, yea gather together^, rather, 
 Sift yourselves, yea sift ". The exact iiiiaf!^c is from gatlieriiig' 
 stubble or dry stieks, wliioh are picked up one l)y one, 
 witli searcli and care. So must men deal with tlie dry 
 and witliered leaves of a past evil life. The English render- 
 ing however comes to the same meaning. We use, " collect 
 one's self" for bringing one's self, all one's thoughts, to- 
 gether, and so, having full possession of one's self. Or gather- 
 ing ourselves might stand in contrast with being "abroad," as 
 it were, out of ourselves amid the nianifoldness of things seen. 
 "^Thou who, taken up with the business of the world, hurriest 
 to and fro amid divers things, return to the Church of the 
 saints, and join thyself to their life and assembly, whom thou 
 seest to please God, and bring together the dislocated mem- 
 bers of thy soul, which now arc not knit togetiier, into one 
 frame of wisdom, and cleave to its embrace." Gather your- 
 selves into one, wherein ye have been scattered ; to the One 
 God, from Whom they had wandered, seeking pleasure from 
 His many creatures ; to His one fold and Church, from which 
 they had severed themselves outwardly by joining the worship 
 of Baal, inwardly, by serving him and his abominable rites ; 
 joining and joined to the assembly of the faithful, by oneness 
 of faith and life. 
 
 In order to repent, a man must know himself thoroughly; 
 and this can only be done by taking act by act, word by word, 
 thought by thought, as far as he can, not in a confused 
 heap or mass, as they lie in any man's conscience, but one by 
 one, each picked up apart, and examined, and added to the 
 sear unfruitful heap, plucking them as it were, and gathering 
 them out of himself, that so they may, by the Spirit of burn- 
 ing, the fire of God's Spirit kindling repentance, be burned 
 up, and not the sinner himself be fuel for fire with them. 
 The word too is intensive, " Gather together all which is in 
 you, thoroughly, piece by piece" (for the sinner's whole self 
 becomes chafi", dry and empty). To use another image, "Sift 
 yourselves thoroughly, so that nothing escape, as far as your 
 diligence can reach, and then — And gather on, i. e., " glean 
 on;" examine yourselves, "not lightly and after the man- 
 ner of dissemblers before God," but repeatedly, gleaning 
 again and again, to see if by any means any thing have es- 
 caped: continuing on the search and ceasing not. The first 
 earnest search into the soul must be the beginning, not the 
 end. Our search must be continued, until there be no more 
 to be discovered, i, e. when sin is no more, and we see our- 
 
 ' The Eng. Vers, follows the LXX Ch. Syr., S. Jer., which render " Gather your- 
 selves together," as if, from the first meaning, " gather dry sticks or stubble " it came to 
 signify '*gather" generally, and thence, in the reflective form, "gather yourselves together." 
 
 2 The word is first used of gathering dry stubble together (Ex. v. 7, 12.) then of " dry 
 sticks" one by one (Nu. xy. 32, 33, 1 Kgs xvii. 10, 12.). A heathen speaks of "gather- 
 ing out thorns" (e^aKai'Si^eii') i. e., minutely examining and bringing out to light every 
 fault. (Cic. ad Att. vi. li. 2.) And anotlier writes to his steward, " Shalt thou with stionger 
 hand pull out thorns from my field, or I from my mind.' " Hor. Ep. i. 11.4. 
 
 3 S. Jer. ■> S. Bern, de Cons. c. 5. » Id. Serm. 58. in Cant. fin. 
 
 ^ Lam. iii. 40. The two words, senrch and try, TSn, npn are both used of a deep search 
 of a thing which lies deep and liidden. Both originally mean " dig." Both are used 
 of a Divine knowledge of the inmost soul ; the former of tlie mind as enlightened by God 
 Prov. XX. 27), the latter of God's searching it out Himself (Jer, xvii. 10. Ps. xliv. 22 (21) 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 "/^ ATIIER yourselves together, yea, j^a- j; „ r i < 
 VX tlier toi^ether, O nation || not desired ; "'■•■ ""P- 
 2 Uefore tlie decree hriw'; forth, 6f'/ore ^ ?r' '/f • 
 
 " ' ./ 11 Or, not de- 
 
 the day pass ''as the chatt", before ' the ',7X21 is 
 fierce anjrer of the Jiouo come ujion you, f^'^ij-j^ ,., 
 before the day of the Lord's anger ooine,2"K^/|-=5;^ 
 upon you. 
 
 selves in the full light of the Presence of our Judge. For a 
 first searcli, however diligent, never thoroughly reaches the 
 whole deep disease of tlie whole man ; the most grievous sins 
 hide other grievous sins, though lighter. Some sins flash on 
 the conscience, at one time, some at another; so that few, 
 even upon a diligent search, come at once to the knowledge 
 of all their heaviest sins. When the mist is less thick, we see 
 more clearly wliat was before one dark dull mass of imper- 
 fection and misery. "■'Spiritual sins are also with diliicultv 
 sifted, (as they are,) by one who is carnal. A\'hence it hap- 
 pens, that things in themselves heavier he perceives less or 
 very little, and conscience is not grieved so much by the 
 memory of pride or envy, as of impurities and crinies."' So 
 haying said, "Sift yourselves through and through," he says, 
 "sift on." A diligent sifting and search into liimself must be 
 the beginning of all true repentance and pardon. " = What 
 remains, but that we give ourselves wholly to this work, so 
 holy, and needful? ^Let us search and try our ivays and 
 our doings, and let each think that he has made progress, 
 not if he find not what to i)laiuc, but if he blame "what 
 he finds. Thou hast not sifted thyself in vain, if thou 
 hast discovered that thou necdest a fresh sifting; and so 
 often has thy search not failed thee, as thou judgest that 
 it must be renewed. But if thou ever dost this, when 
 there is need, thou dost it ever. But ever remember thar 
 thou needest help from above and the mercy of Jesus Christ 
 our Lord Who is over all, God blessed 'for ever." The 
 whole course of self-examination then lies in two words 
 of Divine Scripture. And withal he warns them, instead 
 of gathering together riches which shall not he able to deliver 
 them in the day of trouble, to gather themselves into them- 
 selves, and so judge themselves thoroughly ^, that they be not 
 judged of the Lord ^. 
 
 O nation not desired ^, i. e., having nothing in itself to be 
 desired or loved, but rather, for its sin, hateful to God. God 
 yearneth with pity and compassion over His creatures; He 
 ^'' hath a desire to the work of His Hands. Here Israel is spo- 
 ken to, as what he had made himself, hateful to God by his 
 sins, although still an object of His tender care, in what yet 
 remained to him of nature or grace which was from Himself. 
 
 2. Before the decree bring forth. God's word is full (as it 
 were) of the event which it forctelleth; it contains its own ful- 
 filment in itself, and travaileth until it come to pass, giving 
 signs of its coming, yet delaying until the full time. Time 
 
 cxxxix. 1, Job xiii. 9, and of the Divine Wisdom, Job xxviii. 2". 
 
 ^ SiaKpipaTf, which answers to the intensive form here, "judge yourselves through and 
 through." 3 1 Cor. .xi. 31, 32. 
 
 8 The E. M. has " or not desirous," the word rpzi signify-ing to long. Gen. xxxi. 30. 
 Ps. Ixxxiv. 3. But in both places the object of desire is mentioned, " thr father's 
 house," in Gen., " the courts of the Lord," in the Ps. Israel had strong but "bad long- 
 ings. "Not desirous" would not by itself convey, "having no desire to return to God," 
 or as Ch., "who willeth not to return to the law." The same objection lies, over and 
 
 above, to the rendering "unashamed," coll. Chald. rpj "turned pale" from shame, 
 disgrace, horror. Buxt. For there is nothing to limit the "turning pale" to "shame." 
 The root '■pJ in Heb. only means " longed," Ps. xvii. 12, Job xiv. 15, of which >J02j is 
 here the passive. People turn pale from fear or horror, not from shame. 
 '" Job xiv. 15. The word is the same. 
 
 XX x2
 
 456 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 ch'r'ist 3 ''Seek ye the Lord, "^iiU ye meek of 
 cir. cap. t}j^3 earth, wliich have wrought his judg- 
 ^ Amis 5. 6. ment ; seek righteousness, seek meekness : 
 
 ' Ps. 76. 9. ' ' 
 
 ___i::ij:ii:_^ tut; t^uri 
 
 d Ps. 105. 4. 4. 
 
 Amos 5. 6. ment; s 
 
 « Ps. 76. 9, 
 
 is said to briiifc forth what is wrought in it. Thou knowest 
 nut, what a day shall bring forth. 
 
 Before t/ie da;/ pass as the vhajf\ or, parentlictically, like 
 ehajf the dat/ passeth hi/. God's (■ouiisels lie wrapt up, as it 
 were, in tlic womb of time, wherein lie hides them, until the 
 moment wliieh lie has appointed, and they break forth sud- 
 denly to those who look not for them. The mean season 
 is given for repentance, i. e., the day of grace, the span of 
 repentance still allowed, which is continually whirling more 
 swiftly by; and woe, if it be fruitless as chaft"! Those who 
 profit not by it shall also be as chaft", carried away pitilessly 
 by the whirlwind to destruction. Time, on which eternity 
 hangs, is a slight, uncertain thing, as little to be counted 
 upon, as the light dry particles which arc the sport of the 
 wind, driven uncertainly hither and thither. But when it 
 is passed, then coiiiefh, not to them, but njjon them, from 
 Heaven, overwhelming them, ^ahiditig ?ipou them, not to pass 
 away, the heat of the anger of Almighty God. This warning 
 he twice repeats, to impress the certainty and speed of its 
 coming-. It is the warning of our Lord, ^ Take heed, lest 
 that day come upon you unawares. 
 
 3. Seek ye the Lord. He had exhorted sinners to peni- 
 tence ; he now calls the righteous to persevere and increase 
 more and more. He bids them seek diligently*, and that 
 with a three-fold call, to seek Him from Whom "they received 
 daily the three-fold blessing^, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 as he had just before threatened God's impending judgement 
 with the same use of the mysterious number, three. They, 
 whom he calls, were already, by the grace of God, 7neek, and 
 had wrought His Judgement. '"'Submitting themselves to the 
 word of God, they had done and were doing the judgement 
 of God, judging themselves that they he not Judged ; the begin- 
 ning of which judgement is, as sinners and guilty of death, to 
 give themselves to the Cross of the Lord, i. c., to be ''baptised 
 in His Death and be buried with Him by Baptism into death ; 
 but the perfection of that judgement or righteousness is, to 
 walk in netrness of life, as He rose fro7n the dead through the 
 glory of the Father." 
 
 "« since the meek already have God through grace as the 
 Possessor and Dweller in their heart, how shall they seek 
 Him but that they may have Him more fully and more per- 
 fectly, knowing Him more clearly, loving Him more ardently, 
 cleaving to Him more inseparably, that so they may be heard 
 by Him, not for themselves only, but for others ?" It is then 
 the same Voice as at the close of the Revelation, ^ the right- 
 eous, let him be still more righteous ; the holy, let him be still 
 more holy. They are the 7neek, who are exhorted diligently 
 to seek meekness, and they who had wrought His Judgement, 
 who are diligently to seek .Righteousness. And since our Lord 
 saith, I'J Learti of Me, for I am meek and loicly of heart. He 
 bids " ^1 those who imitated His meekness and did His judge- 
 ment, to seek the Lord in their meekness." Meekness and 
 Righteousness may be His Attributes, Who is All-gentleness 
 and All-Righteousness, the Fountain of all, wheresoever it is, 
 in gentleness receiving penitents, and, as the Righteous Judge, 
 giving the croivti of righteousness to those who love Him and 
 
 1 S. John iii. 36. 2 Gen. xli. 32. s s. Luke xvi. 31. ■< The Hebrew form is 
 intensive. » Nu. vi. 23-26. ^Rup. 7Rom.vi.3,4. » Dion. « Rev.xxii. 11. 
 i» S. Matth. xi. 29. " S. Jer. " S. Cyr. » Rom. xiii. 10. 
 
 fit maybe ye shall he hid in the day of chi[°[sx 
 the Lord's anger, "'■ ^■*'- 
 
 4 If For sGaza shall be forsaken, and Amo^'s.^s. 
 
 8 Jer. 47.4,5. Ezek.25. 15. Amos. 1.6,7, 8. Zech.9. 5,6. Jonah 3. 9. 
 
 keep His commandments, yea He joineth righteousness with 
 meekness, since without His mercy no man living c<nild be 
 justified in His Sight. " '- G(jd is sought by us, when, of our 
 clioi(;e, laying aside all listlessness, we thirst after doing what 
 pleases Him; and we shall do judgement too, when we fulfil 
 His Divine law, working out what is good unshrinkingly ; and 
 we shall gain the prize of righteousness, when crowned with 
 glory for well-doing and running the vvell-reported and blame- 
 less way of true piety to God and of love to the brethren; for 
 ^'^ love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. 
 " " Shall these too then scarcely be hid in the day of the Lord's 
 anger f Doth not the Apostle Peter say the very same ? ^*If 
 it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not 
 the Gospel of God ? ylnd if the righteous scarcely be saved, 
 luhere shall the ungodly and the sinyier appear ? So then, 
 altlnrngh any be meek, although he have tvrought the Judge- 
 ment of the Lord, let him ever suspect himself, nor think 
 that he has already attained, since neither can any righteous 
 be saved, if he be judged trithout mercy." "*He saith, it nuiy 
 be ; not that there is any doubt that the meek and they who 
 perseveringly seek God, shall then be saved, but to convey 
 how difticult it is to be saved, and how fearful and rigorous 
 is the judgement of God." To be hid is to be slieltered from 
 wrath under the protection of God; as David says, ^^/w the 
 time of trouble He shall hide me ; and, ^^ Thou shall hide them 
 [that trust in Thee^ in the secret of Thy presence from the pride 
 of man ; Thou shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the 
 strife of tongues. And in Isaiah, ^''A 3Ian shall be us an hiding- 
 place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest ; and, ^^There 
 shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, 
 and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from 
 rain. 
 
 4. For, As a ground for repentance and perseverance, 
 he goes through Heathen nations, upon whom God's wrath 
 should come. "" As Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, after visions 
 concerning Judah, turn to other nations round about, and 
 according to the character of each, announce what shall come 
 upon them, and dwell at length upon it, so doth this prophet, 
 though more briefly." And thus under five nations, who lay 
 West, East, South and North, he includes all mankind on all 
 sides, and, again, according to their respective characters 
 towards Israel, as they are alien from, or hostile to the 
 Church ; the Philistines ", as a near, malicious, infesting 
 enemy ; Moab and Amnion -'J, people akSn to her (as heretics) 
 yet ever rejoicing at her troubles and sufferings; Ethiopians-', 
 distant nations at peace with her, and which are, for the most 
 part, spoken of as to be brought unto her; Assyria--, as the 
 great oppressive power of the world, and so upon it the full 
 desolation rests. In the first fulfilment, because Moab and 
 Amnion aiding Nebuchadnezzar, (and all, in divers ways, 
 wronging God's people-^), trampled on His sanctuary, over- 
 threw Hi.s temple and blasphemed the Lord, the prophecy is 
 turned against them. So then, before the captivity came, 
 while Josiah was yet king, and Jerusalem and the temple 
 were, as yet, not overthrown, the prophecy is directed against 
 
 "1 S. Pet.iv. 17, 18. 15 Ps.xxvii.6. '6 lb. xxxi. 20. '7 Isai. xxxii. 2. 
 
 18 lb. V. 6. » ii. 4-7. ■" lb. 8-10. 21 v. 12. ^ 13-15. 
 
 23 Is. xvi. 4, Am. i. 13-15. u. 1-3. Jer. xlviu. 27-30, 42. xlix. 1. Ezek. xx. 3, 6, 8.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 457 
 
 those who mocked at thoin. Grizn shrill he forsahoi. Out of 
 tlie five eities of the Philistines, the I'ropliet pronounces woe 
 upon the same four as Amos ^ l)efore, Jeremiah - soon after, 
 and Zccli.ariah^ hiter. Gath, tiien, tiie fifth, iiad prohaMy 
 remained with Judah since Uzziali * and Ilezekiah''. In tlie 
 sentence of the rest, rei;'ard is had (as is so frequent in the 
 OKI Testament) to the names of the phiccs themselves, that, 
 hencefortii, the name of the place might sugj^est the thouji^ht 
 of the doom pronounced upon it. The names expressed 
 boastfulness, and so, in the Divine judiijement, carried their 
 own sentence with them, and this sentence is pronounced by 
 a slij:;ht chan!;:e in the word. Thus 'AT.zah (Gaza,) sfro7ii^ 
 shall he 'Azoohah, desolated ; E/cron, deep-rooting ", shall 
 Teuker, he uprooted ; the Cherethites (cKffer.s off) shall he- 
 come (Cheroth) diggings; Chehel, the hand of the sea coast, 
 shall be in another sense Chehel, an inheritance'^, divided by 
 line to the remnant of Judah; and Ashdod {the ivaster^) shall 
 be taken in their might, not by craft, nor in the way of rob- 
 bers, but driven forth violently and openly in the noon-da i/. 
 
 For Gaza shall he forsaken. Some vi(ussitudes of these 
 towns have been noted already'. The fulfilment of the pro- 
 phecy is not tied down to time; the one marked contrast 
 is, that the old heathen enemies of Judah should be de- 
 stroyed, the house of Judah should be restored, and should 
 re-enter upon the possession of the land, promised to them 
 of old. The Philistine towns had, it seems, nothing to fear 
 from Babylon or Persia, to whom they remained faithful 
 subjects. The Ashdodites (who probably, as the most im- 
 portant, stand for the whole ^'') combined with Sanballat, 
 the Amtno7iites and the A rahions^^, to hinder the rebuilding 
 of the walls of Jerusalem. Even an army was gathered, 
 beaded by Samaria i-. They gave themselves out as loyal, 
 Jerusalem as rebellious^^. The old sin remaining, Zechariah 
 renewed the sentence by Zephaniah against the four cities ^*; 
 a prophecy, which an unbeliever also has recognised as 
 picturing the march of Alexander ^^. " ^^ All the other cities 
 of Palestine having submitted," Gaza alone resisted the con- 
 queror for two or five months. It had come into the hands 
 of the Persians in the expedition of Cambyses against 
 Egypt 1''. The Gazseans having all perished fighting at their 
 posts, Alexander sold the women and children, and re- 
 peopled the city from the neighbourhood ^^ Palestine lay 
 between the two rival successors of Alexander, the Ptolemies 
 and Seleucidae, and felt their wars ^^. Gaza fell through mis- 
 chance into the hands of Ptolemy -°, 11 years after the death 
 of Alexander-^ and soon after, was destroyed by Antiochus^^ 
 (B.C. 198), "preserving its faith to Ptolemy" as before to 
 the Persians, in a way admired by a heathen historian. In 
 tlie Maccabee wars, Judas Maccaba?us chiefly destroyed the 
 idols of Ashdod, but also --spoiled their cities ; Jonathan set 
 it on fire, with its idol-temple, which was a sort of citadel 
 
 1 Am. i.G-S. ■- Jer. xxv. 20. 
 
 3 Zecli. ix. 5, 6. * 2 Chr. xxvi. 6. * 2 Kgs xviii. 8. 
 
 '"' It seems to me most probable that the origin of the meanings is preserved in the 
 Ch. i;?!?, " root," (which itself is the source of other metaphoric meanings, as, " the root 
 ofathing;" "the root" i. e., the foundation "of faith," its fundamental doctrines: "the 
 root," in Lexicography, see Buxtorf) and that the Chald. ipy. " pluck up, remove," and 
 nps;, here and Eccl. lii. 2, is a denominative. The Proper Name is older probably than 
 even Moses. " ii. 5, 7. 
 
 *• The rooms' has throughout, the meaning of "wasting," not of " strength." "rji "the 
 Almighty," is probably from a kindred root, ms*. 
 
 9 See on Amos i. 6-8, p. 161-103. 
 
 If Their language alone is mentioned Neh. ix. 21, mntrn, in contrast with Jewish 
 r'Tin" 1 but neither is it mentioned that the Jews married any other Philistine women. 
 If Gath was destroyed, Ashdod lav nearest to them. " Neh. iv. 7. 
 
 '2 lb. 2. " lb. ii. ly. vi. g". » Zech. ix. '* Eichhorn Einl. iv. 605. See 
 
 Daniel the Proph. p. 280. sqq. '« Polyb. Reliq. xvi. 40. '7 Mela i. 11. 
 
 '8 Arriau ii. 27. 
 
 to it-^; Ascalon submitted to him -'; Ekron with its bor- 
 ders were given to him by Alexander Balas--'; he burnt the 
 suburbs of (Jaza-"; Simon took it, ex])elled its inhabitants, 
 filled it with believing Jews and fortified it more strongly 
 than before -^ ; but, after a year's siege, it was betrayed to 
 Alexander Janna'us, who slew its senate of .000 and razed 
 the «;ity to the ground -\ Gahinius restored it and Ashdod-'-'. 
 After llcrod's death, Ashdod was given to Salome'"; Gaza, 
 as being a Greek city^', was detached from the realm of 
 Archelaus and annexed to Syria. It was destroyed by the 
 Jews in their revolt when Floras was "procurator," A.D. 
 55^-, Ascalon and (iaza must still have been strong, and 
 were probably a distinct population in the early times of 
 Antipater, father of Herod, when .Mexander and Alexandra 
 set him over all Idunuea, since "he is said" then " ^^ ^q 
 have made friendship with the Arabs, Gazites and Asca- 
 lonites, likcminded with himself, and to have attached them 
 by many and large presents." 
 
 Yet though the inhabitants were changed, the hereditary 
 hatred remained. Pliilo in his Embassy to Caius, A.D. 40, 
 used the strong language, "^^The Ascalonites have an im- 
 placable and irreconcileable enmity to the Jews, their neigh- 
 bours, who inhabit the holy land." This continued toward 
 Christians. Some horrible atrocities, of almost inconceivable 
 savagery, by those of Gaza and Ascalon A.D. 3G1, are related 
 by Theodoret ^^ and Sozomen 2". " ^^ AVho is ignorant of the 
 madness of the Gazsans ? " asks S. Gregory of Nazianzus, of 
 the times of Julian. This was previous to the conver.-ion of 
 the great Gazite temple of Mania into a Christian Church 
 by Eudoxia^*. On occasion of Constantine's exemption of 
 the Maiumas Gazie from their control, it is alleged, that they 
 were " ^"^ exti-eme Heathen." In the time of the Crusades the 
 Ascalonites are described by Christians as their " *" most sa- 
 vage enemies." 
 
 It may be, that a likeness of sin may have continued on a 
 likeness of punishment. But the primary prediction was 
 against the people, not against the walls. The sentence, 
 Gaza shall he forsaken, would have been fulfilled by the 
 removal or captivity of its inhabitants, even if they had not 
 been replaced by others. A prediction against any ancient 
 British town would have been fulfilled, if the Britons in it 
 had been replaced or exterminated by Danes, and these by 
 Saxons, and these subdued by the Normans, though their 
 displacers became wealthy and powerful in their place. 
 Even on the same site it would not be the same Gaza, 
 when the Philistine Gaza became Edomite, and the Edomite 
 Greek, and the Greek Arabian *'. Ashdod (as well as Gaza) 
 is spoken of as a city of the Greeks*-; New Gaza is spoken 
 of as a mixture of Turks, Arabians, Fellahs, Bedouins out of 
 Egypt, Syria, Petraea *^. Felix Faber says. " there is a won- 
 derful commixture of divers nations in it, Ethiopians, Arabs, 
 
 " Polyb. V. 68. !» Diod. Sic. xix. 84. =• Ilecat. in Jos. c. Ap. i. 22 Opp. ii. 455 
 
 23 1 Mace. V. 68. -■> lb. x. 81. ■* lb. 86. 2^ lb. 80. 
 
 26 lb. xi. 61. ■' lb. xiii. 43-48. 2S Jqs. Ant. xiii. 13. 3 
 
 25 lb. xiv. 5. 3. 30 lb. xvii. 8. I. 3i B. J. U. 6. 3. 3= KariaKuirrov 
 
 Jos. B.J. ii. 18. 1. 33 Ant. xiv. 1. 3. 
 
 3^ Philo Leg. ad Caium T. ii. p. 5"6 Mang. The words are ao-u/j/Soriis ris Kal aito- 
 Td\AaKTos Suafxdffta. 3^ Theod. H. E. iii. 7. 
 
 3" Soz. H. E. v. 10. 37 Orat. 4. in Julian, c. .36. 
 
 33 " Tliis too we see to be fulfilled in our times. The temple of Serapis at Alexandria 
 andof Marna at Gaza, rose to be temples of the Lord." S. Jerome on Is. xvii. 
 
 35 4s Hyai* 'EW-qt^i^ovatv. Soz. v. 3. 
 
 1" William of Tyre (pp. 017,840, Hfio) calls them "hydra immanissima," " hostes 
 immanissimi "— " like restless gnats persevering in the purpose of injuring." comp. 
 pp. 781, 787, 797. "Ascalona was ever an adversary of Jerusalem." Robertus 
 Monachus p. 77. in v. Raunier Palaest. p. 173, ed. 4. It was called " the spouse of 
 Syria," as an impregnable fortress. 41 See on Amos i. 6. above p. 161. 
 
 *- Ps. Epiphanius de vitis Proph. p. 246. « Rjtter xvi. 49.
 
 458 
 
 ZEPIIANIAH. 
 
 Egyptians, Syrians, Indians and past(M-n Christians ; no 
 Latins'." Its Jewish inlial)itants ttcd t'nini it in the time of 
 Napoleon : now, with few cxcepti()ns it is iniiahited hy Arahs -. 
 
 But these, Ghiiz/eh, Eskahin, Akir, Scdiui, are at most 
 successors of tlic Philistine cities, of which there is no trace 
 ahove liie surface of tiie eartii. It is common to speak of 
 "remnants of antiquity," as heino; or not beinin- to be found 
 in any of tliem; but tliis means, tliat, wliere these exist, there 
 are remains of a Greek or Roman, not of a Philistine city. 
 
 Of the four cities, Ahkaron, Ekron, ("the iirm-rootini;") 
 has not left a vestiije. It is mentioned by name only, after 
 the times of the Bible, by some who passed by it^. There 
 was "a large village of Jews" so called in the time of Euse- 
 bius and S. Jerome', "between Azotus and Janinia." Now 
 a village of " ^ about 50 mud bouses without a single remnant 
 of antiquity except 2 large finely built wells" bears the 
 name of Akir. S. Jerome adds, " Some think that Accaron 
 is the tower of Strato, afterwards called Casarea." This 
 was perhaps derived from misunderstanding his Jewish 
 instructor^. But it shews how entirely all knowledge of 
 Ekron was then lost. 
 
 Ashdod or Azotus which, at the time when Zcphaniah 
 prophesied, held out a twenty-nine years' siege against 
 Psammetichus, is replaced by "^a moderate sized village 
 of mud houses, situated on the Eastern declivity of a little 
 flattish hill," "entirely modern, not containing a vestige of 
 antiquity." "A beautiful sculptured sarcophagus with some 
 fragments of small marble shafts," "near tiie Khan on the 
 S. W." belong of course to later times. "' The whole south 
 side of the hill appears also, as if it had been once covered 
 with buildings, the stones of which are now thrown together 
 in the rude fences." Its Bishops are mentioned from the 
 Council of Nice to A. D. 536*, and so probably continued 
 till the IMohammedan devastation. It is not mentioned in 
 the Talmud^. Benjanain of Tudela calls it Palmis, and says, 
 "■it is desolate, and there are no Jews in it ^"." " ^^ Neither 
 Ibn Haukal [Yacut], Edrisi, Abulfeda, nor William of Tyre 
 mention it." 
 
 Ascalon and Gaza had each a port, ]\Iaiunia Gazse, Maiuma 
 Ascalon; lit. "a place on the sea" (an Egyptian iiame^-) be- 
 longing to Ascalon or Gaza. The name involves that Asca- 
 lon and Gaza themselves, the old Philistine towns, were not 
 on the sea. They were, like Athens, built inland, perhaps 
 (as has been conjectured) from fear of the raids of pirates, 
 or of inroads from those who (like the Philistines themselves 
 probably, or some tribe of them) might come from the sea. 
 The port probably of both was built in much later times ; 
 the Egyptian name implies that they were built by Egyp- 
 tians, after the time when its kings Necos and Apries, 
 (Pharaoh-Necho and Pharaoh-Hoplira, who took Gaza^') made 
 Egypt a naval power". This became a characteristic of 
 these Philistine cities. They themselves lay more or less 
 inland, and had a city connected with them, of the same 
 
 1 Fabri Evagatorium T. ii. p. 379. 2 Schwartz, d. Heil. Land p. 91. 1853. 
 
 3 " Passing through Azotus, between which and Jamnia, wliich is situate on the sea, 
 [i. e. the maritime Jamnia] we left Accaron on one side." Fulcher. Camot. A.D. IIUU. 
 Gesta Peregr. Franc, c. 23 p. 46'1' quoted Raumer s. verb. 
 
 ■» de locis Hebr. T. iii. p. 1 16. Vail. 5 Porter Handb. p. 2"5. 
 
 ' "The verse, Ekron shall he uprooted, the Talmud says, relates to Ctesarea, the 
 daughter of Edom, which is situate among the sands. It does not mean tliat Ekron is 
 CsBsarea, which would be absurd, but only shews its hatred against that city, and foretells 
 its destruction, resting on a Biblical text, as is the habit of the talmudists." Neubauer 
 Geogr. du Talmud p. 92. See also lb. p. 12. Estori in Iris Kaftor uperach gives nop 
 as another name of ipy, but Zunz quotes the Succah f. 2"G. as distinguishing *TD'p from 
 TTD'p Caesarea (on the geogr. of Pal. App. to Benj. Tud. ii. 441.) 
 ' Porter Handb. pp. 272, 273. 
 
 8 Reland p. 609. ' It does not appear in Neubauer, Geographie du Talmud. 
 
 10 " Palmis, which is Ashdod of the Philistines." JO ed. Asher. 
 
 name, on the shore. Thus there was an "^^ Azotus by the 
 sea," and an "Azotus Ispinus." There were """two lamnia-, 
 OIK! inland." But Ashdod lay further from the sea than 
 Gaza; Yaninia, (the Yabnecl of Joshua'^, in Uzziah's time, 
 Yabneb "*) further than Ashdod. The port of Yamnia was 
 burnt by Judas '•'. 
 
 The iKiiiic, Maiumas, does not appear till Christian times, 
 though "tiie port offiaza" is mentioned by Strabo-":to 
 it, Alexander brought from Tyre the machines, with which 
 he took Gaza itself-'. That port then must have been at 
 some distance from (Jaza. Each port became a town, large 
 enough to have, in Christian times, a Bishop of its own. 
 Tlie Epistle of John of Jerusalem, inserted in the Acts of 
 the Council of Constantinople, A.D. W.H), written in the name 
 of Palestine i., ii., and iii., is signed by a Bishop of Maiumen 
 of Ascalon, as well as by a Bishop of Ascalon, as it is by a 
 Bishop of Maiumas of Gaza as well as by a Bishop of Gaza^*. 
 Yabne, or Yamnia, was on a small eminence-\6^ hours from 
 the sea-*. The Maiumas Gazse became the more known. To 
 it, as being Christian, Constantine gave the right of citizen- 
 ship, and called it Constantia from his son, making it a 
 city independent of Gaza. Julian the Apostate gave to Gaza 
 (which, though it had Bishops and Martyrs, had a hea- 
 then temple at the beginning of the 5th century) its for- 
 mer jurisdiction over it, and though about 20 furlongs off, 
 it was called "the maritime portion of Gaza-'." It had 
 thenceforth the same municipal officers ; but, " as regards 
 the Church alone," Sozomen adds, "they still appear to he 
 two cities ; each has its own Bishop and clergy, and festivals 
 and martyrs, and commemorations of those who had been their 
 Bishops, and boundaries of t lie fields around, whereby the altars 
 which belong to each Episcopate are parted." The provincial 
 Synod decided against the desire of a Bishop of Gaza, in Sozo- 
 men's time, who wished to bring the Clergy of the jNIaiumites 
 under himself, ruling that "although deprived of their civil 
 privileges by a heathen king, they should not be deprived 
 of those of the Church." 
 
 In A.D. 400, then, the two cities were distinct, not joined 
 or running into one another. 
 
 S. Jerome mentions it as "-* Maiumas, the emporium of 
 Gaza, 7 miles from the desert on the way to Egypt by the sea;" 
 Sozomen speaks of "-''Gaza by the sea, which they also call 
 Maiumas;" Evagrius, "-*that which they also call Maiumas, 
 which is over against the city Gaza," "-'a little city." Mark 
 the deacon A.D. 421, says, "^"We sailed to the maritime 
 portion of Gaza, which they call Maiumas," and Antoninus 
 Martyr, about the close of the vitii century, "^'we came from 
 Ascalon to Mazomates, and came thence, after a mile, to 
 Gaza,— that magnificent and lovely city." This perhaps ex- 
 plains how an anonymous Geographer, enumerating the 
 places from Egypt to Tyre, says so distinctly, " '""- after 
 Rinocorura lies the new Gaza, being itself also a city ; then 
 the desert Gaza," (writing, we must suppose, after some of 
 
 " Asher note lb. T. ii. p. 99. '= "The name Maiuma seems to be- 
 
 long to the Egyptian language, and to offer the two words ma iom "place by the sea." 
 Quatrem&re, les sultans Mamlouks de Makrizi T. i. 2. App. p. 229. 
 
 " Jer. xlvii. 1. " See Herod, ii. 159, 161. and Rawlinson on ii. 182. 
 
 Herod. T. ii. p. 277. 
 
 '* 'AfoiTos TrdpaXos. Excerpta in Graeca notitia Patriarch, in Reland p. 215. Schwarz 
 (d. hcil. Land p. 91.) places Ashdod at an hour from the " Mediterranean." 
 
 16 Plin. N. H. V. 12, 17 Josh. XV. 11. >« 2 Chr. xxvi.6. '» 2 Mace. xii. 9. 
 
 -" Strabo xvi. 2, 30. p. 759. -' " The engines, with which he took Tyre, 
 
 being sent for by him, arrive from the sea." Arr, ii. 27. -" Cone. T. v. 11(>4. fcol. 
 
 '■'■ Irbv and Mangles p. 57. ^ Michaud et Poujoulat Corresp. d'Orient v. 
 
 p. 373, 374. ■'' Soz. V. 3. -^ Vita S. Hilarion. n. 3. Opp. ii. 15. Vail. 
 
 27 Soz. vii. 21. =8 Ev. ii. 5. ^9 Ib. 8. =» Marcus Diac. A.D. 421, 
 
 in vita S. Porphyrii, c. 8. ap. Bolland. Feb. 2(i. 
 
 3' Itin. B. Antonini, pp. 24, 25. ' 3: Hudson Geograph. MinoresT. iv. p. 39.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 459 
 
 the destructions of Gaza) ; and S. Jerome could say equally 
 positively; "'The site of the ancient city s(Uirce yields the 
 traces of foundations ; but the city now seen was huilt in 
 another jilace in lieu of tiiat wiiich fell." 
 
 Keith, who in 1844 ex|»lored the spot, found widc-sprcad 
 traces of some extinct city. 
 
 "^ At seven furlongs fr(nn the sea the manifold but minute 
 remains of an ancient city are yet in many places to be 
 found — Innumerable frasxments of broken pottery, pieces of 
 jjlass, (some beautifully stained) and of polisiied marble, lie 
 thickly spread in every level and hollow, at a considerable 
 elevation and various distances, on a space of several square 
 miles. In fifty difl"erent places they profusely lie, in a level 
 space far firmer than the surroundin;:^ sands," " from small 
 patches to more open spaces of twelve or twenty thousand 
 square yards." " The oblonfj sand-hill, fjreatly varied in 
 its elevation and of an undulated surface, throujfhout which 
 they recur, extends to the W. and \V. S. W. from the sea 
 nearly to the environs of the modern Gaza." " In attempts 
 to cultivate the sand (in 1832) hewn stones were found, near 
 the old port. Remains of an old wall reached to the sea. 
 — Ten larjie frag-ments of wall were embedded in the sand. 
 About 2 miles oflT are fragments of another wall. Four 
 intermediate fountains still exist, nearly entire in a line 
 along the coast, doubtless pertaining to the ancient port 
 of Gaza. For a short distance inland, the debris is less fre- 
 quent, as if marking the space between it and the ancient 
 city, but it again becomes plentiful in every hollow. About 
 half a mile from the sea we saw three pedestals of beautiful 
 marble. Holes are still to be seen from which hewn stones 
 had been taken." 
 
 On the other hand, since the old Ashkelon had, like Gaza, 
 Jamnia, Ashdod, a sea-port town belonging to it but distinct 
 from itself, (the city itself lying distinct and inland), and since 
 there is no space for two towns distinct from one another, 
 within tlie circuit of the Ashkelon of the crusades, which is 
 limited by the nature of the ground, there seems to be no 
 choice but that the city of the crusades, and the present 
 skeleton, should have been the Rlaiumas Ascalon, the sea- 
 port. The change might the more readily take place, since 
 the title "port" was often omitted. The new town oblite- 
 rated the memory of the old, as Neapolis, Naples, on the 
 shore, has taken place of the inland city (whatever its name 
 was), or Utrecht, it is said, has displaced the old Roman 
 town, the remains of which are three miles off at Vechten^, 
 or Sicliem is called Neapolis, Nablous, which yet was 3 miles 
 off*. Er-riha is, probably, at least the second representative 
 of the ancient Jericho ; the Jericho of the New Testament, 
 l)uilt by Herod, not being the Jericho of the prophets. The 
 Corcyra of Greek history gave its name to the island ; it is 
 replaced by a Corfu in a different but near locality, which 
 equally gives its name to the island now. The name of Ve- 
 
 ' T. iii. p. 218. " Keith on prophecy, from personal examination, pp 378, 379. 
 
 3 Relancf who lived at Utrecht, says that Roman antiquities were daily dug up at 
 Vechten, where were the remains of a Roman fort. Pal. p. 105. ■* S.Jerome. 
 
 * Gibbon c. 35. 
 
 <• In like way Alresford, Basford, Brentford, Goole, Isleworth, must have been at one 
 time New Air. New Basford ^-c. but, as the more considerable, have appropriated the 
 name which belonged to both the old and new places. 
 
 7 Willermus Tyr. Hist. xvii. 22. in Gesta Dei per Francos p. 924. The solidity of 
 the walls and of the cement are described in the same way, in the latter part of the 17th. 
 cent, by d' Arvieux and Padre Malone da Maleo Terra Santa p. 471. 
 
 s Dr. Richardson, Travels along the Mediterr. ii. p. 201. 
 
 s According to Ibn Ferat in Reinaud Chroniques Arabes n. xcvi. Michaud, Biblioth. 
 des Croisades iv. 525. 
 
 ") Ab. Tab, Syriie p. 78. Kbhier. ivn, a gap, opening, access, or an enemy s frontier, 
 (Freytag) " is in ordinary Arabic, used for a port, as mT3 ijn ' the port of Beyrout,' and 
 na'DT ny.n ' the port of Damietta.' " Prof. Chenery. 
 
 11 p. n. 2. ed. Asher. The enumeration of " about 200 Rabbanite Jews," with the 
 
 netia migrated with the inhabitants of the province, who 
 lied from Attila, some '23 miles, to a few of the islands on 
 the coast, to bcconic again tlie name of a great republic', 
 in our own ciiiiiitry, "old Windsor" is said to have been the 
 residence (d tb(! Saxon monarchs ; the present Windsor, was 
 originally "new Windsor:" old Saruni was the (^atliedral 
 city, until the reign of Henry iii: but, as the old. towns de- 
 cayed, the new towns came to be called Windsor, Sarum, 
 though not the towns \vhicli first had the name. What is 
 now called Slioreliam, not many years ago, was called "new 
 Shoreiiam," in distin<-lion from tiic neighbo\iring xillage". 
 
 William of Tyre desci-ibes Ashkelon as "'situated on the 
 sea-sh()re, in tlu; form of a semi-circle, whose chord or dia- 
 meter lies on the sea-shore ; but its circnmferenc^e or arc on 
 the lami, looking liUst. The whole city lies as in a trench, all 
 declining towai-ds the sea, surrounded on all sides by raised 
 mounds, on wiiirdi are walls with numerous towers of s(did . 
 masonry, the cement being hardtu' than the stone, with walls 
 of due thickness and of height proportionate: it is surmount- 
 ed also with outer walls of the same S(didity." He then 
 describes its four gates, E. N. S. towards Jerusalem, Gaza, 
 Joppa, and the W., called the sea-gate, because " by it the in- 
 habitants have an egress to the sea." 
 
 A modern traveller, whose description of the ruins exactly 
 agrees with this, says, "^the walls are built on a ridge of 
 rocks that winds round the town in a semicircular direction 
 and terminates at each end in the sea : the ground falls with- 
 in the walls in the same manner, that it does without, so that 
 no part of it could be seen from the outside of the walls. 
 There is no bay nor shelter for shipping, but a small harbour 
 advancing a little way into the town towards its eastern ex- 
 tremity seems to have been formed for the accommodation of 
 such small craft as were used in the better days of the city." 
 The harbour, moreover, was larger during the crusades, and 
 enabled Ascalon to receive supplies of corn from Egypt and 
 thereby to protract its siege. Sultan Cibars filled up the 
 port and cast stones into the sea, A.D. 1270, and destroyed 
 the remains of the fortifications, for fear that the Franks, 
 after their treaty with the king of Tunis, should bring back 
 their forces against Islamism and establish themselves there^. 
 Yet Abulfeda, who wrote a few years later, calls it " one of 
 the Syrian ports of Islam '"." 
 
 This city, so placed on the sea, and in which too the sea 
 enters, cannot be the Ashkelon, which had a port, wliicdi was 
 a town distinct from it. The Ascalon of the Philistines, which 
 existed down into Christian times, must have been inland. 
 
 Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th cent, who had been on 
 the spot, and who is an accurate eyewitness'^, says, " From 
 Ashdod are two parasangs to Ashkelonah'-; this is new 
 Ashkelon which Ezra the priest built on the sea-shore, and 
 they at first called it Bcniljra'"', and it is distant from the old 
 Ashkelon, which is desolate, four parasangs." When the old 
 
 names of the chief, " about 40 karaites, and about 300 Cuthasans " shews personal ac- 
 quaintance. The former name of the " new Ascalon " and the supposed distance of the 
 ruins of the old, he must have learned on the spot. 
 
 12 Benj. Tud. pronounces the new cit}- Ashkelona, as the Latins did. When speaking 
 himself, he says Ashkelon. 
 
 13 "Benibra" looks like a corruption of TC3 nn, "a place of pure water," like " Beba- 
 ten, Bedora, Beestera, Begabar"&c. in Reland. G17. sqq. The Gadite town of that name 
 becomes in Ens. ^rj^ra^pi's. S. Jerome has another Benamerium, N. of Zoar, now 
 N'mairah. Tristram Land of Moab p. 57. A well m .\scalon is mentioned by Eusebius. 
 " There are many wells (named) in Scripture and are yet shewn in the country of Gerar, 
 and at Ascalon." v. tppeap. William ol Tyre says; " It has no fountains, either with- 
 in the compass of the walls, or near it ; but it abounds in wells, both within and without, 
 whicli supply palatable water, fit for drinking. For greater caution the inhabitants had 
 built some cisterns within, to receive rain-water." Benj. of T. also says, "There in the 
 midst of the city is a well which they call Beer Ibrahim-al-khalil [the well of .\braham 
 tlie friend (of God)] wbich he dug in the days of the Philistines." Keith mentions " 20 
 fountains of excellent water opened up anew by Ibrahim Pasha." p. 274.
 
 460 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 cifiiTsT A^'i'^*''"" a desolation: they shall drive 
 "'■ ^'■^^- out Ashdod '' at the noon day, and Ekron 
 
 "^ &\5%t' shall be rooted up. 
 
 ' Ezek. 25. iG. 5 Woe uuto the inhahitants of ' the sea 
 coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the 
 
 Ashkelon perished, is unlcnown. If, as seems probable from 
 some of the antiquities dufj up, the Aslikeloii, at whicli Herod 
 was born and wliieh lie beautified, was the sea|)ort town, com- 
 merec probably attraetcd to it f^radually the inhabitants of 
 the neighbouring; town of Asealon, as the population of the 
 Piraeus now execeds that of Athens. 
 
 The present Ashkelon is a ghastly skeleton ; all the frame- 
 work of a city, but none there. " The soil is good," but the 
 "peasants who cultivate it" prefer living outside in a small 
 village of mud-huts, exposed to winds and sand-storms, be- 
 cause they think that God has al)andoned it, and that evil 
 spirits (the Jan and the Ghfll) dwell there \ 
 
 Even the remains of antiquity, where they exist, belong to 
 later times. A hundred men excavated in Ashkelon for 14 
 days in hopes of finding treasure there. They dug 18 feet 
 beiow the surface, and found marble shafts, a Corinthian 
 capital, a colossal statue with a Medusa's head on its chest, 
 a marble pavement and white-marble pedestal". The ex- 
 cavation reached no Philistine Ashkelon. 
 
 " Broken pottery," " pieces of glass," " fragments of po- 
 lished marble" "of ancient columns, cornices &c.^" were the 
 relics of a Greek Gaza. 
 
 Though then it is a superfluity of fulfilment, and what can 
 be found belongs to a later city, still what can be seen has an 
 impressive correspondence with the words Gazn is forsaken ; 
 for there are miles of fragments of some city connected with 
 Gaza. The present Gaza occupies the southern half of a hill 
 built with stone for the Moslem conquerors of Palestine. 
 "*Even the traces of its former existence, its vestiges of anti- 
 quity, are very rare ; occasional columns of marble or gray 
 granite, scattered in the streets and gardens, or used as thres- 
 holds at the gates and doors of houses, or laid upon the front 
 of watering-troughs. One fine Corinthian capital of white 
 marble lies inverted in the middle of the street." These be- 
 long then to times later than Alexander, since whose days the 
 very site of Gaza must have changed its aspect. 
 
 Ashkelon shall be a desolation. The site of the port of 
 Asealon was well chosen, strong, overhanging the sea, fenced 
 from the land, stretching forth its arms towards the Medi- 
 terranean, as if to receive in its bosom the wealth of the sea, 
 yet shunned by the poor hinds around it. It lies in such a liv- 
 ing death, that it is " ^ one of the most mournful scenes of 
 utter desolation" which a traveller "even in this land of ruins 
 ever beheld." But this too cannot be the Philistine city. The 
 sands which are pressing hard upon the solid walls of the 
 city, held back by them for the time, yet threatening to over- 
 whelm " the spouse of Syria," and which accumulated in the 
 plain below, must have buried the old Ashkelon, since in this 
 land, where the old names so cling to the spot, there is no 
 trace of it. 
 
 Ekron shall be uprooted; and at Akir and Esdfid "^cele- 
 
 1 Mr. Cyril Graham in Keith p. 3"6. - Travels of Lady H. Stanhope, 
 
 iii. 159-16y. 3 Keith p. 3"S. 
 
 •» Robinson Travels ii. .38. ^ Smith lb. p. GG note. 
 
 8 Volnev Voyage en Syrie c. .31. p. 311. Keith p. 3"0. 
 
 7 S. Jer. ■" Rup. 9 2 Sam. xii. 12. '» S. Luke xii. 3. 
 
 II 1 Cor. iv. 5. 12 S. Matth. xv. 13. 
 
 13 See on Am. ix. 7. p. 221. " 1 Sam. xxx. 14. i* lb. 16. 
 
 •6 D'mD m 'msn Ezek. xxv, 10. It may be that they were so called as coming from 
 
 word of the Lord i.v against you ; O '' Ca- ^ jf '[{""s x 
 naan, the hmd of the Philistines, I will "*•■ "■"'• 
 even destroy thee, that there shall be ,^,j ''•'"'*• !■*• 3- 
 inhabitant. 
 
 G And the sea coast shall be dwellings 
 
 bratcd at present, for its scorpions," the few stones, which 
 remain, even of a later town, are but as gravestones to mark 
 the burial place of deiiartcul greatness. 
 
 "^ In like way, all who glory in bodily strength and worldly 
 power and say, ]}i/ the strength of my hand I have done it, 
 shall be left desolate and brought to nothing in the day of 
 the Lord's anger." And "the waster," they who by evil 
 words and deeds injure or destroy others and are an offence 
 unto them, these shall be cast out shamefully, into outer t/ar/c- 
 7<e.s'A- "** when the saints shall receive the fullest brightness" 
 in the mid-day of the Sun of Righteousness. The judgement 
 shall not be in darkness, save to them, but in mid-day, so 
 that the justice of God shall be clearly seen, and darkness 
 itself shall be turned into light, as was said to David, ^ Thoii 
 didst this thing secretly, but 1 luill do it before all Israel atid 
 before the sun ; and our Lord, ^"Whatsoever ye have spoken 
 in darkness shall be heard in the light ; a/id that which ye 
 have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the 
 housetops ; and St. Paul, ^^ the Lord shall come, TVho both will 
 bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and tvill make 
 manifest the counsels of the heart. And " they who by sedu- 
 cing words in life or in doctrine uprooted others, shall be 
 themselves rooted up '-." 
 
 5. The woe having been pronounced on the five cities 
 apart, now falls upon the whole nation of the Cherethites 
 or Philistines. The Cherethites are only named as equiva- 
 lent to the Philistines, probably as originally a distinct im- 
 migration of the same people ^^. The name is used by the 
 Egyptian slave of the Amalekite^* for those whom the author 
 of the first book of Samuel calls Philistines ^^. Ezekiel uses 
 the name parallel with that of Philistines, with reference to 
 the destruction which God would bring upon them ^^. 
 
 The word of the Lord conies not to them, but upon them, 
 overwhelming them. To them He speaketh not in good, 
 but in evil; not in grace, but in anger; not in mercy, but in 
 vengeance. Philistia was the first enemy of the Church. It 
 shewed its enmity to Abraham and Isaac and would fain that 
 they should not sojourn among them i^. They were the 
 hindrance that Israel should not go straiglit to the promised 
 land ^^ When Israel passed the Red Sea, ^^ sorrow took hold 
 of them. They were close to salvation in body, but far in 
 mind. They are called Canaan, as being a chief nation of 
 it'-", and in that name lay the original source of their des- 
 truction. They inherited the sins of Canaan and with them 
 his curse, preferring the restless beating of the barren, bitter 
 sea on which they dwelt, "the waves of this troublesome 
 world," to being a part of the true Canaan. They would 
 absorb the Church into the world, and master it, subduing 
 it to the heathen Canaan, not subdue themselves to it, and 
 become part of the heavenly Canaan. 
 
 6. The sea-coast -^ shall be dwellings and cottages, lit. 
 
 Crete as the LXX supposed, rendering " Cretans " in Ezek., and here (as also the Syr.) 
 " sojourners of the Cretans." Hence perhaps also Tacitus' statement (Hist. v. 2.) that 
 the Jews liad been expelled from Crete. The other versions render the word as an 
 appellative, "destroying" or " destroyed." Aq. and €, tOyov oKiOpiov, Theod. tdvos 
 oAeflpios Symm. Uvos oXfBpevdiJ.ei'oii. S. Jer. gives perditorem. 
 
 1? Gen. xxi. 31. xxvi. 11, 15, 28. '=* Ex. xiii. 17. " lb. xv. 14. 
 
 -" Gen. XV. 21. -' The words "band of the sea "are repeated with emphasis, 
 vers. 5, G, and the first words v. 7. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 461 
 
 n rTs t '^"'^ cottages for sheplierds, ' and folds for 
 
 cir. C30. 
 
 flocks. 
 
 ' See Is. 17. 2. 
 
 ■■■Tsui.'u. u. 7 And the coast shall he for "tin; rcin- 
 
 Mii;. 4. 7. 
 
 &5.7,8. nant of the house of Jiidah ; they shall feed 
 thereupon ; hi tlu' houses of Ashkelon shall 
 they lie down in the evening : || for the 
 
 &2. 2. 
 ver. 9. 
 Or, 
 
 when, S^c. 
 
 ciittinixs or dii^ijintrs^. Tliis is tlic fotitral iiieaniiiix of the 
 word; the place of the Clierothites (^tlic cutlers njl) sliall l>e 
 cheroth of shepherds, phices wliich tliey duj!^ up tliat their 
 flocks iiiic:lit he eiielosed therein. The tracts once full of 
 tiii^htiMif men, the scoiiri;e of Judah, should he so desolate of 
 its former people, as to hecome a sheep-walk. iMen of peace 
 should take the place of its warriors. 
 
 So the shepherds of the Gospel with their flocks have 
 entered into possession of warlike nations, turnini;; them 
 to the Gospel. They are shepherds, the chief of whom is 
 that Good Shepherd, Who laid down His Life for the sheep. 
 And these are the sheep of whom lie speaks, - Other sheep I 
 have, which are not of this fold ; them also I niiisf hrhig, and 
 thei/ shall hear JSIy Voice; and there shall be one fold and One 
 Shepherd. 
 
 7. yind the coast shall he. Or probably ^ It shall he a 
 portion for the remnant of the house of Judah. He uses the 
 word, employed in the first assignment of the land to Israel*; 
 and of the whole people as beloni!;in^; to God, '"^ Jacob is the 
 lot of His inheritance." The tract of the sea, which, with the 
 rest, was assis;ned to Israel, which, for its unfaithfulness, was 
 seldom, even in part, possessed, and at this time, was wludly 
 forfeited, should be a portion for the mere remnant which 
 should be brounht back. David used the word in his psalm 
 of thanksg-ivins", when he had brouj:;lit the ark to the city of 
 David, how God had '• " confirmed the covenant to Israel, 
 sayins;;', Unto thee will I i;-ivc the land of Canaan, the lot of 
 your inheritance ;" and Asaph, '^ He cast out the heathen be- 
 fore them and divided to them an inheritance hi/ line. It is 
 the reversal of the doom threatened by Micah, ^ Thou shall 
 have none, that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregatio)i of 
 the Lord. The word is revived by Ezekiel in his ideal di- 
 vision of the land to the restored people'. ^^ The gifts and 
 calling of God are without repentance. The promise, which 
 had slumbered during: Israel's faithlessness, should be renewed 
 to its old extent. "^^ There is no prescription against the 
 Church." The boat threatens to sink ; it is tossed, half- 
 submerged, by the waves ; but its Lord rebulces the wind and 
 the sea ; wind and sea obey Him, ami there is a great calm ^-. 
 
 For the remnant of the house of Judah. Yet, who save 
 He in Whose hand are human wills, could now foresee that 
 Judah should, like the ten tribes, rebel, be carried captive, 
 and yet, though like and worse than Israel in its sin i^, should, 
 unlike Israel, be restored? The re-building of Jerusalem was, 
 their enemies pleaded, contrary to sound policy^*: the plea 
 
 1 So Kim. Ibn Denan has, "caves which shepherds inhabit; " Arab, transl. "do- 
 miciles which sliepherds dig." Abulw., and Tanclium derive it from .To 3 Kgs. vi. 23. 
 '* a feast." Abulw. thinks this not improbable, as an irregular plural. Tanchimi, 
 " stations of shepherds where they turn tlieir flocks to feed and sit down to eat, or 
 places ill which they dig for watering the flocks." The climate of Juda?a, however, 
 does not admit of underground habitations, like Nineveh, and in the country of the 
 Philistines flocks would be supplied by wells with trenches. No Arabic authority 
 suggests a derivation from 151 "nest " (as Ewald). The allusion to Cherethim would 
 be lost by this invented root. Rashi has " a place where the sheplierds eat." A. E. 
 explains TCQ, as if it were from n"i3, " \vhich the shepherds im3 for themselves." The 
 Moabite stone has nnija 1. 2."). apparently, of "a ditch " " or moat." 
 
 2 S. John .X. 16. ^ Grammatically. '?5n may be either the subject or predicate. 
 For even in prose (Josh. xix. 2'J.) it is used without the article, of the sea-coast, the 
 
 PART V. 
 
 Lord their God shall "visit them, and chrTst 
 "turn away their ('aj)tivity. 
 
 tfore 
 RIS 
 
 cir. G30. 
 
 8 ^ P I Iiave h(nird tlu; rejiroacli of Moah, Luke V. (is. 
 and 'itlie revnnigs ot the children oi Am- jer.2y.11. 
 
 ch. 3. 20. 
 
 moil, Avlierehy they Iiave reproached my p jer.-is" 27. 
 peojih', and '^niagniiied them.selves against , Kzek 
 
 Ezek. 25. 8. 
 
 their honh'r. 
 
 25. 
 3,6. 
 ' Jer. 49. 1. 
 
 was for the time accepted ; for the rebellions of Jerusalem 
 were recorded in the chroiiich-s of Baitylon '^ Yet the 
 falling short of the com|dete restoration depended on their 
 own wills. God turned again their captivity; but they 
 only, whose .'spirit God stirred, willed to return. The tem- 
 poral restoration was the [licfurc- of the spiritual. 'J'hey 
 who returned had to give uj) lands and possessions in IJaby- 
 lonia, and a remnant <ndy chose the land of promise at such 
 cost. Babylonia was as attractive as ICgypt formerly. 
 
 In the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the even- 
 ing. One city is named for all. They shall lie down, he 
 says, continuing the image; from their flocks, as Isaiah, in a 
 like |)assage^''. The first-born of the poor shall feed, and the 
 needy shall lie down in safety. 
 
 The true Judah shall overspread the world; but it too 
 shall only be a remnant; these shall, in safety, ^~' g<} in and 
 out and find pasture. In the evening of the world they shall 
 find their rest; for then also in the time of Anti-Christ, the 
 Churi'h shall be but a remnant still. For the Lord their God 
 shall visit them, for He is the Good Shcjiherd. Who came 
 to seek the one slieep which was lost and Who says of Him- 
 self, ^^ Itoill seek that which was lost, and bring again that 
 7chich was driven away, and will bind up thai ivhich was 
 broken, and ivill strengthen that which was sick; and Who 
 in the end will more completely turn away their ca/)tivity, 
 bring His banished to their everlasting home, the Paradise 
 from which they have been exiled, and separate for ever the 
 sheep from the goats who now oppress and scatter them 
 abroad i". 
 
 8. /, "-"God, Who know all things, / heard i. e., have 
 known within Me, in JMy mind, not anew but from eternity, 
 and now I shew in effect that I know it ; wherefore I say 
 that I hear, because I act after the manner of one who per- 
 ceivcth something anew." I, the just Judge, heard-'. He 
 was present and heard, even when, because He avenged not. 
 He seemed not to hear, but laid it up in store with Him to 
 avenge in the due time-^. 
 
 The reproach of 3Ioab and the reviling of the children 
 of Amman, whereby they have reproached My people. Both 
 words, reproached. rfr/Zerf, mean, primarily, cutting speeches; 
 both are intensive, and are used of blaspheming God as un- 
 able to help His people, or reviling His people as forsaken 
 by Him. If directed against man, they are directed against 
 God through man. So David interpreted the taunt of Go- 
 liah, -^reviled the armies of the living God, and the Philistine 
 
 mention of the sea having preceded, " the goings forth thereof were to the sea, h^ra to 
 IVIizpeh." Yet there is no emphasis in the repetition of the word from the preceding 
 verse. The LXX renders ^zn as the subject, the Ch. Vulp. as the predicate. 
 
 ^ " Tlie ten portions of Manasseh ; " J osh. xvii. 5. " Why hast thou given me one 
 lot and one portion V lb. 14. " out of the portion of the children of Judah was the in- 
 heritance of the children of Simeon." lb. .xix. 9. ^ Deut. xxxii. 9. 
 
 6 1 Chr. xvi. 18. Ps. cv. 11. ' Ps. Ixxviii. 55. » Mic. ii. 5. 
 
 ' Ezek. xlvii. 13. '" Rom. xi. 29. " " Nullum tempus ecclesis," though 
 
 said of its property. '- S. Matt. viii. 26, 27. " Jer. iii. 8-11. Ezek. 
 
 xvi. 46-52. xxiii. 11. » Ezra ix. 12-16. i^ lb. 19-22. 
 
 16 1s. iv. 30. '■ S. John x. 9. '» Ezek. xxxiv. 16. " lb. 17-19. 
 
 20 Dion. -' See Is. .\vi. 6. Jer. xlviii. 39. Ezek. xxxv. 12, 13. 
 
 2« Deut. xxxii. -34, -35. -a 1 Sam. xvii. 26, 36, 45. coll. 10. 25. 
 
 Y Y Y
 
 4G2 
 
 ZEIMIANIAH. 
 
 ••ursed David hi) his galls'^. In a Psalm David coiniilaiiis, ^the 
 rcproarlies of them that repnmilud Thee tire fallen npoii me; 
 and a I'salni which cannot he later than David, sin(r(' it dc- 
 chircs the national innocciicy from idolatry, connects with 
 their defeats, tiie voice oF iiini '•Ihiit rejirodeheth and hhis- 
 /iheiiielli (joininfj tiie two woi'ds used hcrej. The sons of 
 Corah say, '^ with a sword in tinj Ixnies, mine enemies reprotieh 
 me, lehile they saij diiily unto me, where is thy (iod ? So 
 Asaph, '■ The enemi/ hath reproached, the foolish people hath 
 hlasjihemed Thij Name ; and, ''we are become a reproach to 
 oar neighlxnirs. Wherefore should the heathen sai/, where is 
 their (iod? render unto our neighbours — the rejiroaeh where- 
 iritli the]/ hare reproached Thee, () I^ord. And Ethan, "' Ite- 
 memlier. Lord, the reproach of Tin/ servants — wherewith Thine 
 enemies have rej/roached, O Lord, wherewith they have re- 
 proached the footsteps of Thine Anointed. 
 
 In history the repeated blasphemies of Sennacherib and 
 his messenfi;crs are expressed by the same words. In earlier 
 times the remarkable concession of Jephthah, ** 11111 not thou 
 j/ossess what Chemosh thi/ god girefh thee to possess? so 
 whomsoever the Lord our (iod shall drive init before us, litem 
 will we pttssess, implies that the Animonites claimed their 
 land as the jjift of their p)d Chemosh, and that that war was, 
 as that later by Sennacherib, waged in the name of the false 
 god against the True. 
 
 Tiie relations of Israel to ]\Ioab and Amnion have been so 
 haldtually misrepresented, that a review of those relations 
 throughout their whole history may correct some wrong 
 impressions. The first relations of Israel towards them were 
 even tender. God reminded His people of their common 
 relationship and forbade him even to take the straight road 
 to his own future possessions, across their land against their 
 will. ^Distress them Jtot, itor contend with them, it is said of 
 each, /or I will not give thee of their lanil for a ptissession ; fttr 
 I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession. 
 Idolaters and hostile as they were, yet, for their father's 
 sake, their title to their land had the same sacred sanction, 
 as Israel's to his. /, God says, htive given it to them as a 
 possessitin. Israel, to their own manifest inconvenience, ^"ivent 
 tilong throtigh the iciltterness, and compassetl the lantl of Edom, 
 and the lantl of ISlouh, but came not ivithin the border of Mottb. 
 By destroying Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of 
 Bashan, Israel removed formidable enemies, who had driven 
 jNIoab and Amnion out of a portion of the land which they 
 had conquered from the Zamzuinmim and Anakim^^ and who 
 threatened the remainder. ^-Israel ilivclt in all the cities of 
 the Amorites. 
 
 Ilcshbon, Dibon, .Tabaz, RIedeba, Nophah were cities in the 
 lantl of the Amorites, in which Israel direlt. The exclusion 
 of Moab and Amnion from the congregation of the Lord to 
 the tenth generations^ was not, of course, from any national 
 antipathy, but intended to prevent a debasing intercourse ; 
 a necessary precaution against the sensuousness of their 
 idolatries. Moab was the first '* in adopting the sataiiic 
 j)olicy of Balaam, to seduce Israel by sensuality to their 
 idolatries; but the punishment was apjiointed to the partners 
 of their guilt, the Midianitcs'^ not to Moab. Yet Moab was 
 the second nation, whose ambition God overruled to chasten 
 His people's idolatries. Eglon, king of Moab, united with 
 
 1 1 Sam. xvii. 43. 2 Ps. Ixix. in (0). 
 
 4 lb. xlii. lU. 6 lb. Ixxiv. 10, 18. 
 
 ' lb. Ixxxix. 50, 51. 
 ^ Deuf. ii. 11, 111. 1" .Tud. xi. 18. 
 
 1- Nu. xxi. i"i, .'il. 13 DlmiI. xxiii. .'!. 
 
 3 lb. xliv. ir. (17). 
 6Ib. Ixxix. 4, 10, 12. 
 8 Juil. xi. 24. 
 " Dent. ii. 10,20,21. 
 » Nu. XXV. 1, ;!. The rank of the 
 
 Midianitisli lady who gave herself as a i)artner of the .>;iu of tlie Siineonite chief (lb. 
 6, 11, 15, 18.) shews liow iiiucli store the Midianites set on that seduction. 
 
 himself Amnion and Amalek against Israel. The object of the 
 invasion was, not the recovery of the country which Moab 
 had lost to the Amorites hut, Palestine proper. The strength 
 of Moab was apparently not suHicient to <tc(ui|iy the- territ(jry 
 of Reuben. They took ])ossessi(Hi only of the city of pttlm 
 trees^'''- either the ruins of Jericho or a spot close by it; with 
 the view apjiarently id' receiving reinforcements or of secu- 
 ring their own retreat by the ford. This garrison enabled 
 them to carry their forays over Israel, and to hold it en- 
 shived for 18 years. The oppressiveness of this slavery is 
 implied by the cry and conversion of Israel to the Lord, 
 which was always in great distress. The memory of Eglon, 
 as one of the oppressors of Israel, lived in the minds of the 
 peo|)le in tiie days of Samuel'". In the end, this precaution 
 of Moab turned to its own destruction ; for, after Eglon was 
 slain, Ephraim, under Ehud, took the fords, and the whole 
 garrison, 1(),(M)() of Moab's warriors, ^'^every strinig mtin antl 
 every intin of might, were intercepted in their retreat and jie- 
 rished. For a long time after this, we hear of no fi'esh in- 
 vasion by Moab. The trans-Jordanic tribes remained in 
 unquestioned possession of their land for 300 years S", when 
 Amnion, not Moab, raised the claim, "^Israel took away my 
 land, although claiming the land down to the Arnon, and al- 
 ready being in possession of the Southernmost portion of that 
 land, Aroer, since Israel smote him frtjtn Aroer unto Jflin- 
 nith -'. The land then, according to a law recognised by 
 nations, belonged by a twofold right to Israel; 1) that it had 
 been won, not from Moab, but from the conquerors of Moab, 
 the right of Moab having passed to its conquerors--; 2) that 
 undisputed and unbroken possession " for time immemorial " 
 as we say, 'MM years, ought not to be disputed-'*. The defeat 
 by Jephthah stilled them for near 50 years till the beginning 
 of Saul's reign, when they refused the offer of the men of 
 ,/iibesh-Gilead to Serve them, and, with a mixture of inso- 
 lence and savagery, annexed as a condition of accepting that 
 entire submission, •* that I may thrust out till your right eyes, 
 to lay it as a reproach to Israel. The signal victory of Saul-^ 
 still did not prevent Amnion, as well as RIoab, from being 
 among the enemies whom Saul worsted-^. The term enemies 
 implies that they were the assailants. The history of Naomi 
 shews their prosperous condition, that the famine, which de- 
 solated Judah -", did not reach them, and that they were a 
 prosperous land, at peace, at that time, with Israel. If all 
 the links of the genealogy are preserved-*, Jesse, David's 
 father, was grandson of a RIoabitess, Ruth, and perhaps on 
 this ground David entrusted his jiarents to the care of the 
 king of Moab-^. Sacred history gives no hint, what was the 
 cause of his terrible execution upon Moab. But a Psalm of 
 David speaks to God of some blow, under which Israel had 
 reeled. ^^ O God, Thou hast abhorred us, antl broken us in 
 pieces ; Thou, hast been wroth : Thou hast made the lantl to 
 tremble and cloven it asuntler ; heal its breaches, for it shaketh; 
 Thou hast sheiced Thy people a hartl thing. Thou hast made 
 it drink wine of reeling ; and thereon David expresses his 
 confidence that God would humble Moab, Edom, Philistia. 
 While David then was engaged in the war with the Syrians 
 of Mesopotamia and Zobali'^, Rloab must have combinedwith 
 Edom in an aggressive war against Israel. The valley of 
 salt ^-, where Joab returned and defeated them, was probably 
 
 15 lb. 17. and xx.xi. is Jud. iii. 13. "' 1 Sam. xii. 9. i" Jiid. iii. 2P. 
 
 1'-' 111. xi. 26. 20 lb. 13. -1 lb. 33. - Grotius de jure belli et 
 
 pacis, iii. c. vi. n. vii. and notes. -^ Id. lb. ii. c. iv. n. ii. and ix. and notes. 
 
 -' 1 Sam. xi. 1, 2. -»lb. 11. -« y'Bn.i, not, " vexed." lb. xiv. 4". -" Ruth i. 1. 
 
 -s 11). iv. 21, 22. -•> 1 Sam. xxii. 3, 4. '■"< Ps. Ix. .3-5. ^i iij_ tit. 
 
 3"- It was probably the narrow valley .some three miles long between the Northern er.d 
 of that remarkable salt mountain, the Jebel or Khasm Usdum and the dead sea. See
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 4G3 
 
 uithin Jiidali, since the cili/ of salt^ was one of the six cities 
 (it" tlie wilderness. Since tliey liad defeated Jiidali, they must 
 have hecn overtaken tlien^ on their retiwii". 
 
 Yet tliis too was a religious war. " YV/o//," David says '', 
 '- liast i;iven a hdiiiur In I hem Ihiit j'liir Tltec,Ui he raised 
 aloft heeause of the truth." 
 
 There is no tradition, that the kinch-ed Psalm of the sons 
 of Corah, I'sahn xliv, hehini^s to tiie same time. Vet the pro- 
 testations to God of tlie entire ahsenee of i(h(latry could not 
 Iiave heen made at any time later than the early years of 
 Solomon. Even were there Alaccahee l'salnis,the Maccabees 
 were hut a handful anions;- a|M)states. 'i'hey could not have 
 pleaded the national freedom from unfaithfulness to God, 
 nor, except in two subordinate and self-willed expeditions*, 
 were they defeated. Umler the Persian rule, there were no 
 armies nor wars ; no immunity from idolatry in the later his- 
 tory of Judah. Judah did not in lle/.ekiah's time i^o out 
 against Assyria; the one battle, in whicrh Josiah was slain, 
 ended the resistance to Enypt. Defeat was, at the date of 
 this Psalm, new and surprising;, in contrast with God's deli- 
 verances of old"; yet the inroad, by which they had suffered, 
 was one of spoilinn'", not of subdual. Yet this too was a re- 
 lig'ious war, from their neifihbours. They were slain for the 
 sake of God '', they were covered with shame on account of 
 the reproaches and blasphemies^ of those who triumphed 
 over God, as powerless to help ; they were a scorn and de- 
 rision to the petty nations around them. It is a Psalm of 
 unshaken faith amid great prostration : it describes in detail 
 what the Ixth Psalm sums up in single heavy words of im- 
 agery; but both alike complain to God of what His people 
 had to suffer for His sake. 
 
 The insolence of Amnion in answer to David's message of 
 kindness to their new king, like that to the men of Jabesh 
 Gilead, seems like a deliberate purpose to create hostilities. 
 The relations of the previous king of Amnion to David, had 
 been kind^, perhaps, because David being a fugitive from 
 Israel, they supposed him to be Saul's enemy. The enmity 
 originated, not with the new king, but with the princes of the 
 children of yinimon^^. David's treatment of these nations ^^ 
 is so unlike his treatment of any others whom he defeated, 
 that it implies an internecine warfare, in which the safety 
 of Israel could only be secured by the destruction of its 
 assailants. 
 
 JMeslia king of Moab records one war, and alludes to others, 
 not mentioned in Holy Scripture. He says, that before his 
 own time, "Omri, king of Israel, afflicted Moab many days;" 
 that "his son [Ahab] succeeded him, and he too said, 'I will 
 afflict Moab.'" This affliction he explains to be that "i^Omri 
 
 the description in Tristram's Land of Isr., p. 32l> sqq. At its N. extremity at the 
 mouth of Wady Zuweirali there are considerahle traces of (perhaps Roman) buildings. 
 A tower placed here would command the entrance of the valley of salt, and this may 
 well have been tlip site of the citii of salt. ' Jos. xv. C-. 
 
 2 Seetzen guessed (Reisen ii. 35li) and Robinson considered it certain (ii. 109) that " the 
 valley of salt " was the lower part of the 'Arahah, close to the Dead Sea, between Edom 
 and judEea. But i. This is spoken of as a ''great plain" (Seetzen p..S55)and although 
 the word N'Jis twice used of as large valley ; (1) the valley over against Baal Peor, where 
 all Israel was encamped Deut. iii. 29, iv. 4fj ; 2) that of Zephatiiaii, where Asa, with 
 an army of 580,000 men, defeated Zerah the Ethiopian with 1000,000 (2 Chr. xiv. 10) this 
 is the exception. In eleven other places it is used of a narrow valley, ii. The depres- 
 sion, South of the dead Sea down to the Red Sea, had, in the time of Moses, the same title 
 asnow, the "Arabah," Deut. i. 1. ii. 8. iii. The space, near the Dead Sea, which is salt, 
 "the Sebkha, or desolate sand-swamp" (Tristram Moab, p. 41.) is impracticable for 
 men ; much more for an army. " The Sebkha or salt-flat is a large flat, of at least 6 by 
 10 miles from N. to .S. Taught by the experience of i\I. de Saulcy, we made no attempt 
 to cross it to the northwards, as the mud would have been far too deep and treacherous for 
 us to pass in safety " (Id. Land of Israel, p. 3-30.). "The land South of the Sebkha is not 
 salt, but rich and fertile "(Id. p. 338). Seede Saulcy Vovage en Syrie &c. p.248-23G. 
 
 3 Ps. Ix. 1. ■> 1 Mace. v. 5G-(;o. (57. " » Ps. xliv. 1-3. 
 Mb. 10, 12. 7 lb. 22. Mb. 13, 14. 9 2 Sam. x. 2. .3. 
 i"ib.3. iilb. viii. 2. xii.31. «2mi.13 jn.-(nKn;i'CTi 
 
 '3 This lies in the word trin. 
 
 possessed himself of the land of Medeha " [expelling", it is 
 implied, its former occu|)iers] "and that" (apparently, Is- 
 rael") "dwelt therein," "[in his days and in] the days of his 
 son forty years." He was also in possession of Nebo, and 
 "the king' of Israel" (apparently < )mri,) "builit] Jahaz and 
 dwelt in it, when he made war with me.''" Jahaz was near 
 Dihoii. In the time of Kusebius, it was still "pointed out be- 
 tween Dihon and Medeha"^." Mesha says, "And I t<iok it to 
 annex it to Dibon." It could not, according to Mesha also, 
 have been S. of the .\rnon, since Aroer lay lietwcen Dibon and 
 the Anion, and Mesha would not have annexed to Dihon a 
 town be\-ond tlic deep and diliiciilt ravine of tlie .\rnon, with 
 Aroer lying between ilicm. It was certainly N. of the .\rnon. 
 since Israel was not jiermitted to come within the border of 
 Moab, hut it was at Jahaz that Silion met them and fought 
 the battle in which Israel defeated him and gained posses- 
 sion of his land, /Vow/ the Arnon to I he Jnlihok ^"' . It is said 
 also that ^^Isract dirclt in the Idiid of the Anioriles frotn Aroer 
 wltich is on theedi^e of the rirer Arnon"^'^, find the city irhich is 
 in. the river-" unto Gilead. -^ Aroer on the edi^e of the river 
 Arnon, and the city which is in the river Arnon, again occur 
 in describing the southern border of Reuben, among whose 
 towns Jahaz is mentioned, with Beth-Uaal-.Meon and Kiria- 
 thaim, which have been identified. 
 
 The afflicting then of Moab by Omri, according to Mesha, 
 consisted in this, that he recovered to Israel a portion of the 
 allotment of Reuben, between 9 and 10 hours in length-- from 
 N. to S., of which, in the time of Israel's w-eakness through 
 the civil wars which followed on Jeroboam's revolt, Moab 
 must have dispossessed Reuben. Reuben had remained in 
 undisturbed possession of it, from the first expulsion of the 
 Amorites to the time at least of Rehoboam, about five hun- 
 dred years =^ "The men of Gad" still "dwelt in Ataroth," 
 Mesha says, " from time immemorial." 
 
 The picture, which Mesha gives, is of a desolation of the 
 southern pcu-tion of Reuben. For, "I rebuilt," he says, "Piaal- 
 Meon, Kiriathaim, Aroer, Betb-bamoth, Bezer, Beth-Dihla- 
 thaim, Beth-baal-Meon." Of Beth-Bamoth, and probably of 
 Bezer, Mesha says, that they had previously been destroyed^. 
 But Reuben would not, of course, destroy his own cities. 
 They must then have been destroyed either by Mesba's father, 
 who reigned before him, when invading Reuben, or by Omri, 
 when driving back Moab into his own land, and expelling 
 him from these cities. Possibly they were dismantled only, 
 since Mesha speaks only of Omri's occupying Medeha, Ata- 
 roth, and Jahaz. He held these three cities only, leaving the 
 rest dismantled, or dismantling them, unable to place de- 
 fenders in them, and unwilling to leave them as places of ag- 
 
 '^ A gap in the broken stone probably contained the subject. I see that Schlottman also 
 supplied, " Israel " ; Dr. Giusburg conjectured, less probably, " the enemy." 
 
 '^ In this place only Mesha speaks of tlie king of Israel's war with him in the past. 
 Elsewhere he speaks of himself only as being on the offensive. " I fought against the 
 city" [Ataroth]; " I fought against it " [Nebo]; "go down, fight against Horonaim." 
 The king of Israel is apparently the same throughout, Omri. 
 
 IS S. Jerome de situ loc. Hebr. 0pp. iii. 230, v. 'Uaaii, "Jassa, where Sihon king of the 
 Amorites is defeated." '7 Nu. xxi. 23-2.5. '» Deut. ii. 36. 
 
 '9 " The ruins of Araayr (TNjny) the Aroer of the Scriptures, standing on the edge 
 of the precipice." Burckhardt, travels in Syria p. 372. 
 
 20 "Near the confluence of theLedjoum and the Mojeb" [Amon] "about 1 mile E. 
 of the bridge across the Mojeb, there seems to be a fine verdant pasture ground, in the 
 midst of wiiich stands a hill with some ruins upon it." Burckhardt lb. 373, 4. 
 
 '-I Josh.xiii.H5, IS. 
 
 -- The distance is taken from Porter's Hand-book pp. 299-301. 
 
 -3 The beginning of Relioboam's reign is, in the received Chronology, 477. B.C. 
 
 -^ " I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built Bezer, for" [the rest is con- 
 jecture. There are only two letters, which may be ^J or ty, perhaps ZVtl "forsaken"] 
 raD probably, in such simple Hebrew, signifies, in regard to all the towns, built. It 
 is the one word used of the king of Israel and of Mesha, "he built;" "I built," 
 although it is rarely used of building on to existing towns and fortifying them. 
 (1 Kgs .XV. 17. 2 Chr. xi. 7) It is probably here used of re-building; since the cause 
 of the building was the previous destruction. 
 
 Y Y Y 2
 
 4G4 
 
 ZEPHANIAII. 
 
 f^rcssioii for Moal). But wliotlicr thoy ever were fortiiied 
 towns at all, or how tlit-y were desohited, is mere coiijeeture. 
 Only they were desolated in these wars. 
 
 JJiit it appears from Mesha's own statement, that neither 
 Omri nor Ahab invaded Moah proper. For in speaking; of 
 his sueeessful war and its results, he mentions no town S. of 
 the Arnon. lie must have been a tributary kinj;', but not a 
 foot of his land was taken. The subsequent war was not a 
 mei-e revolt, nor was it a mere refusal to pay tribute, of wliich 
 Mesha makes no comj)laint. Nor could the tril)ute have been 
 oppressive to him, since the spoils, left in the encampment of 
 jNIoab and his allies shortly after his revolt, is evidence of 
 such ijrcat wealth. The refusal to pay tribute would have 
 involved nothiniij further, unless Ahaziah had attempted to 
 enforce it, as Ilezekiah refused the tribute to Assyria, but re- 
 mained in his own borders. But Ahaziah, unlike his brother 
 Jehoram who succeeded him, seems to have undertaken no- 
 tliinif, except the building of some ships for trade ^ Mesha's 
 (var was a renewal of the agfsression on Reuben. 
 
 Ileshbon is not mentioned, and therefore must, even after 
 the war, have remained with Reuben. 
 
 JNlesha's own war was an exterminatinij war, as far as he 
 records it. "I fou2:lit asjainst the city," [Ataroth], he says, 
 "and took it, and killed all the mijihty of the city for the 
 well-pleasing of Chemosh and of Moab ; " " I fought against 
 it [Nebo] from break of day till noon and took it, and slew 
 all of it, 7000 men ; the ladies and maidens I devoted to Ash- 
 tar Chemosh ; " to be desecrated to the degradations of that 
 sensual idolatry. The words too "- Israel perished with an 
 everlasting destruction" stand clear, whether they express 
 Mesha's (sonviction of the past or his hope of the future. 
 
 The war also, on the part of Moab, was a war of his idol 
 Chemosh against God. Chemosh, from first to last, is the 
 agent. " Chemosh was angry with his land ; " " Chemosh 
 [was pleased] with it in my days;" " I killed the mighty for 
 the well-pleasing of Chemosh ;" " I took captive thence all 
 [ ] and dragged it along before Chemosh at Kiriath;" 
 "Chemosh said to me. Go and take Nebo against Israel;" "I 
 devoted the ladies and maidens to Ashtar-Chcmosh;" "I took 
 thence the vessels of IIIVH and dragged'^ them before Che- 
 mosh;" "Chemosh drove him [the king of Israel] out before 
 [my face] ;" " Chemosh said to me, G.o down against Horo- 
 naim." "Chemosh [ ] it in my days." 
 
 Contemporary with this aggressive war against Israel must 
 have been the invasion by '^tlie children of Moah and the 
 children of Ainmnn^ the grc/if multifitde from hei/ond the sea, 
 from Syria, in the reign of Jehoshaphat. which brought such 
 terror upon Judah. It preceded the invasion of Moab by 
 Jehoshapliat in union with Jehoram and the king of Edom. 
 For the invasion of Judah by Moab and Amnion took place, 
 while Ahab's son, Ahaziah, was still living. For it was after 
 /his, that Jehoshaj)hat joined with Ahaziah in making ships 
 to go to Tarshish''. But the expedition against Rloab was 
 in union with Jehoram who succeeded Ahaziah. The abun- 
 dance of wealth which the invaders of Judah brought with 
 them, and the precious jewels with which they had adorned 
 themselves, shew that this was no mere marauding expedi- 
 tion, to spoil; but that its object was, to take possession of 
 the land or at least of some portion of it. They came by 
 
 1 2 Chr, XX. .35, 3G. - A break in the Ktone leaves the subject uncertain, *' In 
 
 my day said [ ], and I will look upon him and upon his house, and Israel per- 
 
 ished with an everlastinR destruction." Schlottmau conjectures, probably, " Chemosh." 
 Ganneau renders as ifit were past, IJN, so Haug, Geiger, Neubauer, Wright; Schlott- 
 inan, Noldeke, and Ginsburg, as future, nn-x, though Ginsburg alone renders, " And 
 Israel said, I shall destroy it for ever," which is impossible. '■> The word in 
 
 entire surprise on Jeliosliaphat, who lieard of them first when 
 they were at Hazazon-Tamar or Engedi, some .'50 i miles 
 from Jerusalem''. He felt himself entirely unequal to meet 
 them, and cast himself n[»on God. There was a day of pub- 
 lic humiliation of Judah at Jerusalem. ^ Out of all the cities 
 of ,/nrlah thri/ came to seek the Lord. Jehoshaphat, in his 
 j)ul)ru; prayer, owned, *^ we have no niif^ht iiifainst this f^reut 
 comjiani/ which comet h against lis ; neitliir know we u'liiit to 
 do ; hut onr ei/es are iipon Thee. He appeals to God, that 
 He had forl)i(lden Israel to invade Amnion, Moab, and Mount 
 Seir, so that they turned away from them and destroyed 
 them not; and now these rewarded them by ""coming to 
 cast us out of Thy possession which 'i'hou hast given us 
 to inherit." One of the sons of Asaph foretold to the con- 
 gregation, that they might go out fearlessly; for they should 
 not have occasion to fight. A Psalm, ascribed to Asaph, re- 
 cords a great invasion, the object of which was the exter- 
 mination of Israel. ^^Theij have said ; Come and let us cut them 
 off' from being a 7iution, that the name of Israel may he no 
 more in remembrance. It had been a secret confederacy. 
 ^^They have taken crafty counsel against Thy peojile. It was 
 directed against God Himself, i. e. His worship and worship- 
 pers. ^'For they have taken counsel in heart together; against 
 Thee do they make a covenant. It was a combination of 
 the surrounding petty nations ; Tyre on the N., the Philis- 
 tines on the W.; on the South the Amalekites, Ishmaelites, 
 Hagarenes ; Eastwards, Edom, Gebal, Moab, Amnion. But 
 its most characteristic feature was, that Assur (this corres- 
 ponds with no period after Jelioshajjliat) occupies a subordi- 
 nate j)lace to Edom and Moab, putting them forward and 
 helping them. A.isur also, Asa.\)h says '5, is Joined icith them ; 
 they have become an arm to the children of Lot. This agrees 
 with the description, there is come against thee a great multi- 
 tude from beyond the sea, from Syria. 
 
 Scrijiture does not record, on what ground the invasion 
 of Moab by Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, with the tributary 
 king of Edom, was directed against Moab proper; but it 
 was the result doubtless of the double war of Moab against 
 Reuben and against Judah. It was a- war, in which the 
 strength of Israel and Moab was put forth to the utmost. 
 Jehoram had mustered all IsraeP'; Moab had gathered all 
 who liad reached the age of manhood and upwards, ^'^eiery 
 one who girded on a girdle and upwards. The three armies, 
 which had made a seven days' circuit in the wilderness, were 
 on the point of perishing by thirst and falling into the hands 
 of Moab. when Elisha in God's name promised them the 
 supply of their want, and complete victory over Moab. The 
 eager cupidity of Moab, as of many other armies, became 
 the occasion of his complete overthrow. The counsel with 
 which Elisha accompanied his prediction, ^^ye shall smite 
 every fenced city and every choice city, and every good tree 
 ye shall fell, and all springs of ivater ye shall stop up, and 
 every good piece of land ye shall waste with stones, was di- 
 rected, apparently, to dislodge an enemy so inveterate. For 
 water was essential to the fertility of their land and their 
 dwelling there. We hear of no special inlliction of death, 
 like what Mesha records of himself. The war was ended 
 by the king of Moab's sacrificing the heir-apparent of the 
 king of Edoni^', which naturally created great displeasure 
 
 Hebrew is used of contumelious dragging along the ground. ^ 2 Chr. xx. 1, 2. 
 
 ' Xb. 35, 36. "And afler this did Jehoshaphat king of .ludah join himself with 
 Ahaziah." ' 300 stadia. Jos. Ant. ix. 1. 2. 
 
 7 2 Chr. XX. 4. » lb. 13. « lb. 10. W Ps. Ixxxiii. 4. 
 
 "lb. 3. i=Ib. 5. 13 lb. 8. » 2 Kgs. iii. (i. 
 
 1= lb. 21. " lb. 19. '^ See ab. on Am. ii. 12. p. 170.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 46d 
 
 Uicainst Israel, in whose cause Edom tlnis suffered, so that 
 tliey departed to their own land and finally revolted. 
 
 Their departure apparently hndie up the siefjce of Ar and 
 the expedition. Israel a]i|>arently was not stron;; enou;;:ii 
 to carry on the war witliout, lOdoni, or feared to remain with 
 their armies away from their own land, as in the time of 
 David, of which Edom ini^jht take the advantaj^c. We know 
 only the result. 
 
 JVloah probahly even extended her border to the South by 
 the coinpiest of Horonaim '. 
 
 After this, Rloab is mentioned only on occasion of the 
 miracle of the dead man, to wiioni (iod i::ave life, when cast 
 into Elisha's sepulchre, as he came in contact with his bones. 
 Like the Bedaween now, or the iVmalekites of old, ~ tlie bunds 
 of Moah came into the luiul, as t lie year came. Plunder, year 
 by year, was the lot of Israel at the hands of Moah. 
 
 On the East of Jordan, Israel must have remained in part 
 (as Meslia says of the (iadites of Aroer) in their old border. 
 For after this, Hazael, in Jehu's reij^n, smote Israel '^ from 
 Aroer wliivli is by the river Arnon ; and at that time pro- 
 bably Anunon joined with him in the exterminating war in 
 (iilead, destroying life before it had come into the world, 
 tltat they might enlarge their border'^. Jeroboam ii, B. C. 
 S2a, restored Israel to the sea of the plain''' , i. e., the dead 
 sea, and, (as seems probable from the limitation of that term 
 in Deuteronomy^, under Ashdofh-Fisgah Eastwards) to its 
 Northern extremity, lower in latitude than Hcshbon, yet above 
 Nebo and Medeba, leaving accordingly to Moah all Mhich 
 it had gained by IMesha. Uzziah, a few years later, made 
 the Ammonites tributaries ^ B. C. 810. But 40 years later 
 B. C. 771. I'ul, and, after yet another 30 years, 740, Tiglath- 
 pileser having carried away the trans-jordanic tribes'^, JMoab 
 again possessed itself of the whole territory of Reuben. Pro- 
 bably before. For B.C. 7-6, when Isaiah foretold t\ia.t^ the 
 glory of Moah should be contemned with all that great multi- 
 tude, he hears the wailing of ]\loab throughout all his towns, 
 and names all those which had once been Reuben's and of 
 whose conquest or possession Moah had boasted '", Nebo, 
 Medeba, Dibon, Jahaz, Baiith; as also those not conquered 
 then, 11 Heshbon, Elealeh ; and those of JMoab proper, Lu- 
 hith, Horonaim, and its capitals, Ar-Moab and Kir-Moab. 
 lie hears their sorrow, sees their desolation and bewails 
 with their weeping 1-. He had prophesied this before ^\ and 
 now, three years "before its fulfilment by Tiglath-Pilescr, 
 he renews it. This tender sorrow for Moah has more the 
 character of an elegy than of a denunciation; so that he could 
 scarcely lament more tenderly the ruin of his own people. He 
 mentions also distinctly no sin there except pride. The pride 
 of Moab seems something of common notoriety and speech. 
 TVe have heard'^'\ Isaiah accumulates words, to express the 
 haughtiness of iNIoab ; the pride of Moab ; exceeding proud ; 
 his pride and his haughtiness and his wrath^'', pride over- 
 passing bounds, upon others. His words seem to be formed 
 so as to keep this one bared thought before us, as if we 
 were to say '-pride, prideful, proudness, pridcfulncss;" and 
 withal the unsubstantialness of it all, the uusubstantiality of 
 his lies^''. Pride is the source of all ambition ; so Moab is pic- 
 tured as retiring within her old bounds, the fords of Arnon, 
 and thence asking for aid ; her petition is met by the coun- 
 
 1 This is marked on the Moabite stone, as a subsequent and distinct expedition. 
 = 2 Kgs. xiii. 20. 3 lb. x. S;i. ■> See on Amos i. 13. p. 108. 
 
 " 2 Kgs. xvi. 25. 6 Deut. iii. 17. ^ 2 Chr. xxvi. 8. 
 
 8 1 Chr. V. 26. s js. xvi. 14. i" lb. xv. 1, 2, 4. 
 
 " lb. 4, 5. 1. 1- lb. xvi. U. 
 
 13 " That the prophecy must be from any other older prophet, is an inference from 
 
 ter-petition, that, if she would be protected in tin; day of 
 trouble, the out-casts of Israel might lodge with her now : be 
 thou a covert to her from the face of the spoiler^**. The pro- 
 ])hecy seems to mark itself out as belonging to a time, after 
 tiic \\\<t and a half tribes had been desolatc'd, as stragglers 
 sought rctiigc in Moab, and when a severe iniliction was to 
 come on Moab: the ^'■'remnant shall be small, small not great. 
 Yet Moab re<;overed this too. It was a weakening of the 
 nation, not its destruction. Some 126 years after the |)ro- 
 phecy of Isaiah, 30 years after tlit; prophecy of Ze|ihaniah, 
 Moab, in the time of .Icremiali, was in entire jirosperity, as 
 if no visitation had ever come ujion her. W'liat Zcplianiah 
 says of the luxuriousness of his j)eople, Jeremiah says of 
 Moab ; "" jMoab is one at ease from his youth ; he is resting on 
 his lees ; and he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, 
 neither hath he gone into captivity. "^ They sai/, JFe are 
 tnighty and strong men for the tear. Moali was -- a strong 
 staff, a beautiful rod; -''he magnijied himself against the Lord; 
 -^Israel was a derision to him ; he shiji/jedfor joy at his distress. 
 Jeremiah repeats and even strengthens Isaiah's description 
 of his pride ; -'^ his pride, proud, he repeats, cvceedingly ; his 
 loftiness, atxajn his pride, his arrogancy. and the haughtiness 
 of his heart. Its strong holds"'' were unhai-mcd ; all its cities, 
 far and, near, are counted one by one, in their prus|>crity "-" ; 
 its summer-fruits and vintage were plenteous; its vines, jux- 
 uriant ; all was joy and shouting. Whr'nce should this evil 
 come ? Yet so it was with Sodom and Gomorrah just before 
 its overthrow. It was, for beauty, "^ a paradise of God ; ivell- 
 ivatered everyivhere ; as the garden of the Lord, lihe the land 
 of Egypt. In the morning -■'the smoAe of the country went 
 up as the smoke of the furnace. The destruction foretold by 
 Jeremiah is far other than the affliction spoken of by Isaiah. 
 Isaiah prophesies only a visitation, which should reduce her 
 people: Jeremiah foretells, as did Zephaniah, ca])tivity and 
 the utter destruction of Iter cities. The destruction foi-etold 
 is complete. Not of individual cities only, but of the whole 
 he saith, '^'^ Moab is destroyed. ""^ The spoiler shall come u]ion 
 every city, and no citi/ shall escape, and the valley shall perish 
 and the high places shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoUen. 
 Moab himself was to leave his land. ^-Flee, save your lives, 
 and ye shall be like the heath in the wilderness. Chemosh shall 
 go forth into captivity ; his priests and his princes together. 
 Give pinions unto Moab, thai it may flee and get away, and 
 her cities shall be a desolation ; for there is none to dwell there- 
 in. It was not only to go into caj)tivity, but its home was to 
 be destroyed. ^'^ I will send to her those who shall upheave her, 
 and they shall upheave her, and her vessels they shall empty, 
 all her flagims (all that aforetime contained her) they shall 
 break in pieces. "^^ Moah is destroyed and her cities; "'the 
 spoiler of Moab is cmne ujxni her ; he hath destroi/ed the strong- 
 holds. The subsequent history of the ^loabites is in the 
 words, ^^ Leave the cities and dwell in the rock, dwellers of 
 Moab, and be like a dove which nesteth in the sides of the 
 mouth of the pit. The pur])ose of ]Moab and Ainmon against 
 Israel «'hich Asaph comjilains of, and which Mesha pro- 
 bably speaks of, is rettu-ted upon her. "' Li Heshbon theif 
 have devised evil against it ; come and let us cut it off' from 
 being a nation. Moab shall be destroyed from being a jieo- 
 ple, because he hath magnified himself against the Lord. 
 
 grounds of nought." Del. '< Is. xvi. 1.3, 1 4. 
 
 'ilb. G. "5 in-njn wk:i imx: n.vs n: r.-;!: Iin: 17 via phV '« Is. xvi. 4.5. 
 '9 lb. 14. =>■ .ler. xlviii. 11. -' lb. 14. :■; lb. i;. =^ lb. 20. 
 
 -J II). 27. -' lb. 2'J. =« lb. 18. =7 lb. 1, 3, 5, 21—24. 
 
 :s Gen. xiii. 10. 29 lb. xix. 28. 30 Jcr. xlviii. 4. " lb. 8. as lb. xWi. G. 
 33 lb. xlviii. 12. 34 ib. 15. 35 xb. 18. 36 lb. 28. ''" lb. 2, 42.
 
 466 
 
 ZEPHANIAII. 
 
 VVIioncc should this evil come ? They had, with the Am- 
 monites, heeu faitliful servants of Nelnicliadiu'/.zai- aj^ainst 
 Judah '. Their concerted <;ons|iiracy vvitli Edoni, Tyre, Zi- 
 don, to u'hich they invited Zcdekiali ". was dissolved. Nehu- 
 chadnezzar's niarcli ai^ainst .huUea did not touch tliem; for 
 they ^ .skipped with joi/ at Israel's distresses. Tiie connection 
 of Baalis, kinii;' of tiie Amnnsnites, with Ishmael' the assassin 
 of Gedaliah, whom the kin<j^ of IJahylon made ji'overnor over 
 the land" out of their own jieo|)le, probahly hrought down 
 the venj^cance of Nebuchadnezzar. For Clialdieans too were 
 included in the slauohter'^. The hlow seems to have been 
 aimed at the existence of the people; for the murder of Ge- 
 daliah followed upon the rallying of the Jews ^ out of all the 
 places whither tlieij had Iteeii driven. It returned on Ammon 
 itself, and on Moab who probably on this, as on former occa- 
 sions, was associated with it. The two nations, who had es- 
 caped at the destruction of Jerusalem, were warred upon 
 and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar in the 23rd year of his 
 reiiifn*, the 5th after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 And then probahly followed that complete destruction and 
 disc^raced end, in which Isaiah, in a distinct prophecy, sees 
 Moab trodden down by God as '■• the heap of straw is trodden 
 down In the waters^" of the dunghill, and he (Moab) stretcheth 
 forth his hands in the midst thereof, as the swimmer stretcheth 
 forth his ha/ids to swim, and He, God, shall bring down his 
 pride with the treacheries of his hands. It speaks much of the 
 continued hostility of Moab, that, in pro))hesying the complete 
 deliverance for which Israel waited, the one enemy whose 
 destruction is foretold, is Moab and those pictured by Moab. 
 ^^ ff^e have waited for Him and He will save us — F'or in this 
 mountain (Zion) shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moah 
 shall he trodden down under Him. 
 
 After this, Moab, as a nation, disappears from history. 
 Israel, on its return from the captivity, was again enticed 
 into idolatry by Moabite and Ammonite wives, as well as 
 by those of Ashdod and others^-, Canaanites, Hittites, Periz- 
 zites, Jebusites, Egyptians, Amorites ^'. Sanhallat also, who 
 headed the opposition to the rebuilding of Jerusalem, was a 
 JNIoabite^*; Tobiah, an Ammonite ^^. Yet it went no further 
 than intrigue and the threat of war. They were but indi- 
 viduals, who cherished the old hostility. In the time of the 
 Maccabees, the Ammonites, not Moab, with a mighty power 
 and much people were in possession of the Reubenite cities to 
 Jazar^". It was again an exterminating war, in which the 
 Jews were to be destroyed^^. After repeated defeats by Judas 
 Maccabaeus, the Ammonites hired the Arubians^^ (not the 
 
 • 2 Kgs xxiv. 2. 2 Jer. xxvii. 2 sqq. 3 lb. xlviii. 2". 
 
 < lb. xl. 14. xli. 10. » 2 Kks. xxv. 22— 2G. Jer. xl. C. xli. I. 
 
 « Jer. xli. 3. ^ lb. xl. 12. 3 Jos. Ant. x. 9, 7. 
 
 ' Is. xxv. 10—12. 1" '=a Chethib. n Is. xxv. y. 10. 
 
 >2 Neb. xiii. 23—26. " Ezr. ix. 1. » Neb. ii. 10. iv. 1—8. i'* lb. iv. 2, 9. 
 
 '6 IMauc. V.6, 8. >' lb. 9, 10, 27. "< lb. 39. '9 lb. 45. 
 
 20 Ant. i. 11. 3. ■-' Dial. n. 119, p. 218. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 -2 Anon, in Job ap. Origen i. 852. -' Seetzen Reisen i. 412. 
 
 -■* e, g. '*-J of an bour furtber, we reached tbe ruins of el-Eale; 1 \ hour further we 
 came to HUsban; besides some overthrown pillars, nothing important is found here. 
 On the E., about 1 i hour, are the ruins of Shelul ; after an hour on this plain we 
 came to 3 wasted places, close together; -J an hour further, we reached the ruins of 
 what formerly was Madaha; I an hour further lay the ruined village of Tuenie; above 
 an hour to the W. the important ruins of Maein.'" lb. 407,8. ■-= lb. 411. 
 
 26 "AlittleN.of el-Eale we came on pood soil, which however lay wholly uncultivated 
 and was mostly overgrown with the prickly little Bullan, which gave the country the 
 look of moor-ground." SeetzenTravels, i.40t). " The soil here (Heshbon) is in this district 
 excellent, but it lies wholly uncuUivated and serves only for pasture to the little herds 
 of sheep, goats, kine and camels of the Arabs." lb. p. 407. " The Arabs cultivate a 
 little ground near Madaha." p. 409. " The land (the other side the Mujeb [Arnon] and 
 so in Moab proper) bad little grass, but there was an extraordinary quantity of worm- 
 wood on it. Yet the soil seems excellent for wheat, although no spot was" cultivated. 
 Large spots had the look of our moors from the quantity of wormwood and other little 
 shrubs.' p. 410. " Here and there, there were tokens of cultivation, wheatfields ; tlie 
 wheat was good." p. 412. 
 
 Moaldtes) to help them, and Judas, although victorious, was 
 obliged to remove the whole Israelite population, '•' all that 
 were in the land of (Ulead, from, the least unto the greatest, 
 even their ivivcs, and their children, and their stuff', a very 
 great host, to the end they might come into the land of Jndiea. 
 The whole po|iulation was removed, obviously lest, on the 
 withdrawal of Judas' army, they should be ai::ain emperilled. 
 As it was a defensive war against Ammon, there is no men- 
 tion of any city, south of the Arnon, in Moab's own territory. 
 It was probably with the view to magnify descendants of 
 Lot, that J(>se|)lius speaks of the Moabites as being "even 
 yet a very great nation""." S. Justin's account, that there is 
 "-^even now a great multitude of Ammonites," does not seem 
 to me to imply a national existence. A later writer says, 
 "-^Now not only the Ed<»mites but the Ammonites and Moab- 
 ites too are included in the one name of Arabians." 
 
 Some chief towns of Moab became Ronian towns, con- 
 nected by the Roman road from Damascus to I'^lath. Ar and 
 Kir-Moab in Moab proper became Areopolis andCharac-Moah, 
 and, as well as Medeba and Heshbon in the (;ountry which 
 had been Reuben's, preserve traces of Roman occujjancy. As 
 such, they became Christian Sees. Tlie towns, which were 
 not thus revived as Roman, probably perished at once, since 
 they bear no traces of any later building. 
 
 The present condition of Moab and Ammon is remarkable 
 in two ways; 1) for tbe testimony which it gives of its former 
 extensive population ; 2) for the extent of its present desola- 
 tion. "How fearfully," says an accurate and minute observer-^, 
 " is this residence of old kings and their land wasted !" It 
 gives a vivid idea of the desolation, that distances are mark- 
 ed, not by villages which he passes but by ruins-*. "-^ From 
 these ruined places, which lay on our way, one sees how 
 thickly inhabited the district formerly was." Yet the ground 
 remained fruitful. It was partly abandoned to wild plants, 
 the wormwood and other shrubs-^; partly, the artificial irriga- 
 tion, essential to cultivation in this land, was destroyed-''; here 
 and there a patch was cultivated; the rest remained barren, 
 because the crops might become the prey of the spoiler ^^, or 
 the thin population had had no heart to cultivate it. A list 
 of 33 destroyed places, which still retained their names, was 
 given to Seetzen -^, " of which many were cities in times of 
 old, and besides these, a great number of other wasted villages. 
 One sees from this, that, in the days of old, this land was ex- 
 tremely peopled and flourishing, and that destructive wars 
 alone could produce the present desolation." And thereon 
 he adds the names of 40 more ruined places. Others say : 
 
 "' See Mr. Tristram's picture of "a ruin-covered ridge by an immense tank of solid 
 masonry, 140 yards by 110 yards, at Ziza. From the surface of the water to the 
 edge of the tank was 17 feet (J inches. The masonry was simply magnificent. The 
 wliole system and artificial sluices were precisely similar to ancient works for irriga- 
 tion in India and Ceylon. — Such works easily explain to us the enormous population, 
 of which the ruined cities gives evidence. Every where is some artificial means of re- 
 taining the occasional suppHes of rain water. So long as these precious structures re- 
 mained in order, cultivation was continuous and famines remained unknown.— Tbe Isla- 
 mite invasion left the miserable remnants of a dense and thriving nation entirely depend- 
 ent on the neighbouring countries for their supply of corn : a dependence which must 
 continue till these border lands are secure from the inroad of the predatory bands of 
 the East." Land of Moab pp. 183-186. At Kustul is ** a massive wall in the plain, 
 about 600 yards in length across the valley, and 18 feet thick, built to dam up the water 
 in the gentle depression, the head of the wady." lb. c. 12. p. 220. " Gor el Mesraa, as 
 far as the soil can be watered, evinces a luxuriant fertility. By far the greater part of 
 it is a waste." Seetz. ii. 352. *'G6r el Zaphia owes its fruitfulness entirely to the water of 
 the Wady el Hossa, which is guided to the fields in many canals. But only a very 
 small portion of this exceedingly rich soil is cultivated, the rest is overgrown with bushes 
 and shrubs, wherein very many wild boars, hyenas and other wild animals live." lb. 
 355. "This water too [of the Nimmery] is said formerly to have been used for water- 
 ing some fields, of which there is now no trace." lb. 351. 
 
 -^ " True, the land is not our's, but our people are many, and who shall dare to pre- 
 vent them from going where they please? You will find them everywhere, if the land 
 is good for them." Answer of Beni Sakkr Sheikh, Tristram Moab. c. 15. p. 28. 
 
 29 lb. 416.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 467 
 
 "'Tlie whole of the fine plains in this quarter" [tlic S. of 
 Moab] " are covered witli sites of towns, on every eininenee 
 or spot convenient for tlie eonstruction of one; and as ail the 
 land is capable of rich cultivation, there can he no douht that 
 this country, now so deserted, once jiresented a continued 
 ])icture of ))h'nty and fertility." "-Kvery kiioH" [in the iiif;li- 
 lands of MoahJ '"is covered with shapeless ruins. — The ruins 
 consist merely of heai)s of squared and well-fittiu!!; stones, 
 which apparently were erected without mortar." " ' One des- 
 cription mii^^ht serve for all these iMoahite ruins. 'J'hc town 
 seems to have been a system of concentric circles, built round 
 a central fort, and outside the buildini,fs the rinjis continue as 
 terrace-walks, the f;ardens of the old city. Tlie terraces are 
 continuous between the twin hillocks and intersect each other 
 at the foot." " ' Ruined villages and towns, broken walls that 
 once enclosed jrardens and vineyards, remains of ancient 
 roads; every thinjj in INJoab tells of the immense wealth and 
 population, which that country must have once enjoyed." 
 
 The like is observed of Ammon ^. His was direct hatred 
 of the true religion. It was not mere exultation at the deso- 
 lation of an envied people. It was hatred of the worship of 
 God. "*Thus saith the Lord God; Because thou saidst, Aha, 
 (li^ninst Mil sanctuary, because it was profaned ; and against 
 the land of Israel, because it was desolated; and against the 
 house of Jndah, because they went into captivity." The like 
 temper is shewn in the boast, '■^'^ Because that Moah and Seir 
 <to say ; Beliold the house of Judah is lihe unto tlie heat lien," 
 I. e., on a level with them. 
 
 Forbearing and long-suifering as Almighty God is, in His 
 infinite mercy. He does not, for tliat mercy's sake, bear the 
 direct defiance of Himself. He allows His creatures to for- 
 get Him, not to despise or defy Him. And on this ground, 
 perhaps. He gives to His prophecies a fulfilment beyond 
 what the letter requires, that they may be a continued wit- 
 ness to Him. The Ammonites, some IGIX) years ago, ceased 
 to "be remembered among the nations." But as Nineveh 
 and Babylon, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, by 
 being what they are, are witnesses to His dealings, so the 
 way in which Moab and Amnion are still kept desolate is a 
 continued picture of that first desolation. Both remain rich, 
 fertile ; but the very abundance of their fertility is the cause 
 of their desolation. God said to Amnion, as the retribution 
 on his contumely: "^therefore, behold, I give thee to the 
 children of the East for a possession, and they shall set their 
 encampments in thee, and place their dwellings in thee ; they 
 shall eat thy fruit and they shall drink thy milk ; and I will 
 make Rabbah a dwelling-place of camels, and the children of 
 Amnion a couching-place for flocks." Of Moab He says also, 
 '"I will open the side of Moab from the cities, which are on 
 his frontiers, the glory of the country, unto the men of the 
 East with the Ammonites." And this is an exact description 
 of the condition of the land at this day. All travellers de- 
 
 ' Irby and Mangles (May 14) p. 113. = Tristram, Land of Moab, pp. 100, 101. 
 
 3 lb. 99. *< Palmer, desert of tlie Exodus ii. 473, 474. 
 
 ■1 ** East of Assalt. including Amnion, are thirty ruined or deserted places of which 
 names are given in Dr. Smith's Arabic lists." Keith Prophecy p. 274. "AH this country, 
 formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert." Seetzen Brief 
 account &c. p. 3k lb. p. 2f)3. *' The far greater part of this country is uninhabited, being 
 abaniioned to the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total 
 ruin." Id. p. 37. lb. "Two hours from Szalt we came upon some peasants, who 
 were ploughing some little fields near wliat was a little fountain." Seetzen i. 40.i. " The 
 soil was excellent ; but only here and there we saw a little spot cultivated, and this by the 
 Aduun Arabs." p. 40i>. '* The country that lay in our route [near Daboah] though now 
 bare of wood, presented a great extent of fertile soil, lying entirely waste, though equal 
 to any of the very Ijest portions of Galilee and .Samaria, and capable of producing suste- 
 nance for a large population. Around us, in every direction, were remains of more than 
 ."»() towns or villages, once maintained by the productive soil, over which tiiey were so 
 thickly studded." Buckingham Travels among the Arab tribes p. 6G. "At Maha- 
 
 scribe the richness of the soil. We have seen this as to 
 Moab. But the history is one and the same. One of the 
 most, fertih; regions of the world, full of ruined towns, de- 
 stitute of \illagcs (U- fixed habitations, (tr security id" jiro- 
 pcrty, its itihaliitants ground down by tli(tse, Avbo liavt; s\ic- 
 ccedcd the Midianites and the Amalckites, the cliihlren of 
 the ICast. '•'I'liou ('anst not find a country like the Belka," 
 says the Arabic proverb '", but "the inliabitants cultivate 
 patches only of the best soil in that territory when they have 
 a ])rospect of being able to securt- the harvest against the 
 invasion (d' enemies." " We passed many ruined cities," said 
 L(U-d Lindsay^', "and the country has once been very popu- 
 lous, hut, in .').") miles at least, we did not see a single villagi!; 
 the wh(de country is one vast pastui-age, oversj)read by the 
 flocks and herds of the Anezee and Beni Hassan Bedouins." 
 
 The site of Rabi>atli Amman was well chosen for strength. 
 Lying "i-in a long valley" through which a stream passed, 
 "the city of waters" could not easily be taken, nor its in- 
 habitants compelled to surrender from hunger or thirst. Its 
 site, as the eastern bound of I'era-a'^ "^'the last place where 
 water could be obtained and a frontier fortress against the 
 wild tribes beyond," marked it for preservation. In Greek 
 times, the disj)utes for its possession attest the sense of its 
 importance. In Roman, it was one of the chief cities of 
 the Decapolis, though its population was said to be a mix- 
 ture of Egyptians, Arabians, Pluenicians ^\ The coins of Ro- 
 man Emperors to the end of the second century contain sym- 
 bols of plenty, where now reigns utter desolation^". In the 
 4th century, it and two other now ruined places, Bostra and 
 Gerasa, are named as "most carefully and strongly walled." 
 It was on a line of rich commerce filled with strong places, 
 in sites well selected for repelling the invasions of tlie neigh- 
 bouring nations^''. Centuries advanced. It was greatly beau- 
 tified by its Roman masters. The extent and wealth of the 
 Roman city are attested both by the remains of noble edi- 
 fices on both sides of the stream, and^^ by pieces of pottery, 
 which are the traces of ancient civilised dwelling, strewed on 
 the earth two miles from the city. "^^At this place, Amman, 
 as well as Gerasa and Gamala, three colonial settlements with- 
 in the compass of a day's journey from one another, there M'crc 
 five magnificent theatres and one ainpitheatre, besides tem- 
 ples, baths, aqueducts, naumachia, triumi)lial arches." "-''Its 
 theatre was the largest in Syria; its colonnade had at least 
 50 columns." The ditference of the architecture shews that 
 its aggrandisement must have been the work of difi'erent 
 centuries: its "castle walls are thick, and denote a remote 
 antiquity ; large blocks of stone are piled up without cement 
 and still hold together as well as if recently placed." It is 
 very probably the same which .Toab called David to take, 
 after the city of waters had been taken; within it are traces 
 of a temple with Corinthian c(dumns, the largest seen there, 
 yet "not of the best Roman times." 
 
 nafish we had arrived at a very elevated part of the plain, which had continued fertile 
 throughout the whole distance from Amnion." p. 81. " S. S. E. of Yeduody w-e pushed 
 our way over a continuous tract of fertile soil, capable of the highest cultivation. 
 Throughout the whole extent of the plain were seen ruined towns in every direction, 
 before, behind, on each side, generally seated on small eminences, all at a short distance 
 from each other, and all, as far as we had yet seen, bearing evident marks of former 
 opulence. There was not a tree in sight ; but my guide assured me, that the whole of 
 the plain was covered with the finest soil, and capable of being made the most produc- 
 tive corn-land in the world." lb. p. 8."). <• Ezck. .xxv. 3. < lb. 8. 
 
 » lb. 4,5. 9 lb. 8. 10. >» Burckhardt Syria p. 3lJ9. "On both sides of the road" 
 (near Naour) "were the vestiges of ancient field-enclosures." lb. 365. 
 
 " Travels p. 279. i- Irby and Mangles June 14. c. 8. p. 14(5. " Jos. B. J. iii. 3. 3. 
 
 H Grote in Smith Bibl. Diet. v. Rabbah. '' Strabo x%-i. 2. 33. p. 760. Cas. 
 
 IG Hitter, West-Asien viii. 115". *' -\mm. Marc. xiv. 8. 13. 
 
 « Buckingham Arab Tribes p. 67, 73. ''J lb. 77. 
 
 20 See Burckhardt's description of its ruins. Travels in Syria pp. 357-360.
 
 468 
 
 ZEIMIANIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. (i.'JO. 
 
 Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, the God of Israel, Surely »Moab 
 
 • Isai. 15. Jer. 48. Ezek. 25. 9. Amos 2. 1. 
 
 Yet Aininaa, the growth of oeuturies, at the end of our Gth 
 century was destroyed. For '"it was desolate before Islam, 
 a great ruin." ""No where else had we seen the vestiges 
 of public magnificence and wealth in such marked contrast 
 with the relapse into savage desolation." But the site of 
 the old city, so well adapted either for a secure refuge for 
 its inhabitants or for a secure de|)ository for their plunder, 
 was, on that very ground, when desolated of its inhabitants, 
 suited for M'hat God, by Ezckiel, said it would become, a 
 place, where the men of the East should stable their flocks and 
 herds, secure from straying. What a change, that its temples, 
 the centre of the worship of its successive idols, or its theatres, 
 its ])laces of luxury or of pom]), should he stables for that 
 drudge of man, the camel, and the stream which gave it the 
 provid title of " city of waters " their drinking trough ! And 
 yet of the cities whose destruction is prophesied, this is fore- 
 told of Uabbah alone, as in it alone is it fulfilled! "Amnion," 
 says Lord Lindsay', "was situated on both sides of the stream ; 
 the dreariness of its present aspect is quite indescribable. It 
 looks like the abode of death ; the valley stinks with dead 
 camels; one of them was rotting in the stream; and though 
 we saw none among the ruins, they were absolutely covered 
 in every direction with their dung." " Bones and skulls of 
 camels were mouldering there [in the area of the ruined 
 theatre] and in the vaulted galleries of this immense struc- 
 ture." '• It is now quite deserted, except by the Bedouins, 
 who water their flocks at its little river, descending to it by a 
 wady, nearly opposite to a theatre (in which Dr. Mac Lennau 
 saw great herds and flocks) and by the akiba. Re-ascending 
 it, we met sheep and goats by thousands, and camels by hun- 
 dreds." Another says *, " The space intervening between the 
 river and the western hills is entirely covered with the re- 
 mains of Ijuildings, now only used for shelter for camels and 
 sheep." Buckingham mentions incidentally, that he was 
 prevented from sleeping at night " = by the bleating of flocks 
 and the neighing of horses, barking of dogs &c." Another 
 speaks of "''a small stone building in the Acropolis now used 
 as a shelter for flocks." While he was "'traversing the 
 ruins of the city, the number of goats and sheep, which were 
 driven in among them, was exceedingly annoying, however 
 remarkable, as fulfilling the prophecies." " ^ Before six tents 
 fed sheep and camels." ■ "^Ezekiel points just to these, (xx. 
 5.) which passage Seetzen cites'". And in fact the ruins arc 
 still used for such stalls." 
 
 The prophecy is the very opposite to that upon Babylon, 
 though ])oth alike are prophecies of des(dation. Of Babylon 
 Isaiah prophesies, "'^t shall never be inhabited, neither shall 
 it be dwelt in from generation to generation ; neither shall 
 the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds 
 make fold there, but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, 
 and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and the 
 
 shall he as Sodom, and 'the children *i^ c^^^W^ 
 Amnion as Gomorrah, ''even the breeding <:'"■ ' '•^'- 
 
 ■Amos 1. 13. " Gen. 19. 25. Deut. 29. 23. Isai. 13. 19. & 34. 13. Jer. 49. 18. & 60. 40. 
 
 Abulf. Tab. Syr. p. 91. 
 3 The Holy Land pp. 279. 281, 283. 
 
 ' Tristram Land of Israel p. 551. 
 
 ^ G. Robinson's travels in Palestine and 
 
 lie 
 
 * Lord C. Ilamilton in Keith p. 271. 'i Id. lb. p. 209. 8 Seetzen Ileisen i. 394. 
 
 9 Prof. Kruse Anmerkung. lb. T. iv. p. 21C. 'f 1. 31. " Is. xiii. 20. 
 
 12 See Rich Mem. p. 27, 30. Buckingham ii. 307. Sir R. K. Porter Travels ii. 342. 
 387. Kenneir Memoirs p. 279. Keppel's Narr. i. 179, 180. Layard Nin. and Bab., quoted 
 by Keith on Prophecy pp. 4CG, 4U7. '•' Ezek. xxv. i, 5. 
 
 » S. John V. 26. '^ 1 Sara xvii. 26, 36. '« Jer. x. 10. T 2 Kgs. xix. 4. 16. 
 '8 Jer. xxiii. 36. i9 Deut. v. 25 (26 Heb.) "-<> Josh. iii. 10. 
 
 2' Ps. of sons of Korah. xlii. 2. Ixxxiv. 2. -'« Hos. i. 10 [ii.l. Heb.] 
 
 ostriches shall dwell tliere, and tlie jackals shall cry in their 
 desolate houses, and howling creatures in their pleasant pa- 
 laces." And the ruins are full of wild beasts '-. Of Kabbah 
 Ezckiel prophesied that it should be "^'a possession for the 
 men of the East, and I," God says, "will make Kabbah a 
 staljle for camels, and the Ammonites a coucliing-place for 
 flocks;" and man's lawlessness fulfils the will and v.ord of 
 God. 
 
 9. Therefore as I live, saitli the Lord of hosts. Life spe- 
 cially belongs to God, since He Alone is IJnderived Life. 
 ^'^ He hath life in Himself. He is entitled "the living God," 
 as here, in tai'it contrast with the dead idols of the Pliilis- 
 tincs '% with idols generally '''; or against the blasphemies of 
 Senna('herib'", the mockeries of scoffers''*; of the awe of His 
 presence'', Ilis might for His people-"; as the object of the 
 soul's longings -', the nearness in the Gospel, children of the 
 Ii fillip God --. Since He can sireur hi/ no greater, He swure hy 
 Himself -"\ Since mankind are ready mostly to believe that 
 God means well with them, but are slow to think that He is 
 in earnest in His threats, God employs this sanction of what 
 He says, twice only in regard to His promises or His mercy-*; 
 everywhere else to give solemnity to His threats -^ The ap- 
 peal to the truth of His own being -^ in support of tlie truth 
 of His words is part of the grandeur of the prophet Ezckiel 
 in whom it chiefly occurs. God says in the same meaning, 
 1)1/ Ml/self have I sworn, of promises which required strong 
 faith ^7. 
 
 Saith the Lord of Hosts. Their blasphemies had denied 
 the very being of God, as God, to Whom they preferred or 
 likened their idols ; they had denied His power or that He 
 could avenge, so He names His Name of power, the Lord of 
 the hosts of heaven against their array against His border, I, 
 the Lord of hosts Who can fulfil what I threaten, and the God 
 of Israel Who Myself am wronged in My people, will make 
 J/odh as Sodom, and the children of Amnion as Gomorrah. 
 Sodom and Gomorrah had once been flourishing cities, on 
 the borders of that land, which Israel had won from the 
 Amoritc, and of which Moab and Amnion at different times 
 possessed themselves, and to secure which Amnion carried 
 on that exterminating war. For they were to the East of the 
 plain hetiveen Bethel and Ai, where Lot made his choice, 
 in the plain or circle of Jordan"*, the well known title of the 
 tract, through which the Jordan flowed into the Dead Sea. 
 Near this, lay Zoar, (Ziara -') beneath the caves whither Lot, 
 at whose prayer it had been spared, escaped from its wicked- 
 ness. INIoab and Amnion had settled and in time spread from 
 the spot, wherein their forefathers had received their birth. 
 Sodom, at least, must have been in that part of the plain, 
 which is to the East of the Jordan, since Lot was bidden to 
 flee to the mountains, with his wife and daughters, and there 
 is no mention of the river, which would have been a hin- 
 
 =' Heb.vi. 13. ' -* Is. xlix. 18. Ezek. xxxiii. 10. 
 
 -= Num. xiv. 21, [of the glory which God should have in all the world from his chas- 
 tisement of Israel] 28. Deut. xxxii. 40, [adding cViJ'V] Jer. xxii. 24. Ez. v. 11. xiv. 16, 
 18, 2(1. xvi. 48. [as Judge] xvii. 16, 19. xviii. 3. [in rebuke] xx. 3, 31, 33. xxxiii. 27. 
 xxxiv. 8. XXXV. 11. In the same sense, I swear by Myself Jer. x.xii. 5. xlix. 13. hatli 
 sit'orjt hii Hhii self Am. vi. 8. by the excellency of Jacoli, viii. 7. 
 
 -' Ges. Maurer &:c. [with a strange conception of God] render " jta v'wam." Ewald 
 rightly, "as true as I live." -' Gen. xxii. 16. (so often referred to) 
 
 Is. xlv. 23, or by Thy Right Hand, i. e. the might which He would put forth. 
 
 -8 Gen. xiii. 1, 3, 11. -'See the description of Ziara "once a place of 
 
 considerable importance " in Tristram, land of Moab pp. 328, 3aO. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 469 
 
 c H^'^Ys T ^^ nettles, and salt|)its, and a por|)otual 
 
 "''"• '''^"- desolation : ^ the residue of my peojilc! shall 
 
 spoil them, and the remnant of my people 
 
 shall possess them. 
 
 Jer'.'48.'2y. 10 This shall they have ^ for their pride, 
 
 drance ^ Then it lay pr()l)altly in tliat "- broad belt of deso- 
 lation "in the plain of Siiittini, as (ioniorrali and others of 
 the Pentapolis may have lain in " the sulphnr-sprinkled ex- 
 panse" between El Riha [on the site of Jericho] ami the dead 
 sea, "covered with layers of salt and f^ypsuni whieh overlie 
 the loamy snbsoil, literally fulfillini:^ the descriptions of Holy 
 Writ (says an eye witness), ^Brimstone mid suit and hurning, 
 that it is not sown nor hearetli, nor <iny grass groweth therein: 
 * a fruitful land turned into saltness. ^ JVo man shall abide 
 there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it." An elaborate 
 system of artificial irrigjation was carried through that 
 cis-Jordanic tract, which decayed when it was desolated of 
 man, and that desolation prevents its restoration. 
 
 The doom of Moab and Amnion is rather of entire de- 
 struction beyond all recovery, than of universal barrenness. 
 For the imagery, that it should be the breeding [lit. posses- 
 sion] of nettles would not be literally compatible, except in 
 diftcrent localities, with that of saltpits, which exclude all 
 vegetation. Yet both are united in Moab. The soil con- 
 tinues, as of old, of exuberant fertility ; yet in part, from the 
 utter neglect and insecurity of agriculture it is abandoned to 
 a rank and encumbering vegetation ; elsewhere, from the 
 neglect of the former artificial system of irrigation, it is 
 wholly barren. The plant named is one of rank growth, 
 since outcasts could lie concealed under it ^. The prepon- 
 derating authority seems to be for molldch'', the Bedawin 
 name of the "mallow," Prof. B. H. Palmer says^, "which," 
 he adds, "I have seen growing in rank luxuriance in Moab, 
 especially in the sides of deserted Arab camps." 
 
 The residue of My people shall spoil them, and the rem- 
 nant of My people shall possess them. Again, a remnant only, 
 but even these shall prevail against them, as was first fulfilled 
 in Judas Maccabaeus ^. 
 
 10. This shall they have for their pride, lit. This to them 
 instead of their pride. Contempt and shame shall be the 
 residue of the proud man ; the exaltation shall be gone, and 
 all which they shall gain to themselves shall be shame. Aloab 
 and Amnion are the types of heretics^". As they were akin to 
 the people of God, but hating it ; akin to Abraham through 
 a lawless birth, but ever molesting the children of Abraham, 
 so heretics profess to believe in Christ, to be children of 
 Christ, and yet ever seek to overthrow the faith of Christians. 
 As the Church says, ^^My mot her'' s children are angry with me. 
 They seem to have escaped the overthrow of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah (heathen sins), and to have found a place of re- 
 fuge (Zoar) ; and yet they are in darkness and cannot see the 
 light of faith ; and in an unlawful manner they mingle, 
 against all right, the falsehood of Satan with the truth of 
 God; so that their doctrines become, in part, doctrines of 
 devils, in part have some stamp of the original truth. To 
 
 1 Gen. xix. 17-23. = Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 3fi7. 
 
 3 Deut. xxix. 23. ^ Ps. cvW. 31. » Jer. xlix. 18. « Job xxx. 7. 
 
 7 Jon. has pre'ro : the Peschito, NhlSo, and, remarkably, does not use a name coin- 
 cident with the Heb. hm sc. nSyrn, a sort of vetch. Abulwalid prefers themSo. but men- 
 tions the bsiin "artichoke "(Host Nachriehten von Maroko u. Fez p. 538) as an "opin- 
 ion ;" R. Taiichum adopts it, but gives |!(Din as an " opinion " and says that " altogether 
 it belongs to the prickly plants ; " Kimchi says, that " some count it a nettle ; others, a 
 thistle." On nha see Bochart Hieroz. ii. 223-228, ed. Leipz. ^ Ms. letter, 
 
 9 1 Mace. V. 6-8. '<• S. Jer. and Rup. » Cant. i. 5. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 hecause they have reproached and maj^ni- cf/^^'isT 
 fied tlu;m.s(diif's a<jainst the people of the '''"^- ''•'"■ 
 liORo of hosts. 
 
 II The Ijoki) iiiill he terrible unto them : 
 
 for he will f famish all the gods of the make lean. 
 
 them, as to the Jews, our Lord says, Ye are of your father 
 the devil. \V'hile they profess to be children of God, they 
 claim by their names to have God for their Father (Moab) 
 and to be of His people (Ammon), while in hatred to His true 
 children they forfeit i)oth. As Moab seduced Israel, so they 
 the children of the Church. They too enlarge themselves 
 against the. borders of the Church, rending off its cliikh-en 
 and making tlieniselvcs the Church. 'I'hey too utter re- 
 proaches and reviliiigs against it. "Take away their revil- 
 ings," says an early father'^, "against the law of Moses, and 
 the Prophets, and God the Creator, and they have iKtt a 
 word to utter." They too '' remove the old Uaidmnrks which 
 the fathers (the Prophets and Apostles) have set. And so, 
 barrenness is their portion ; as, after a time, heretics ever 
 divide, and do not multiply; they are a desert, t)eiiig out of 
 the Church of God: and at last the remnant of Judah, the 
 Church, possesses them, and absorbs them into herself. 
 
 1 1 . The Lord will be terrible unto {jipoii] them, i. e. upon 
 Moab and Ammon, and yet not in themselves only, but as 
 instances of His just judgement. Whence it follows. For He 
 tuill famish all the gods of the earth. "^* Miserable indeed, to 
 whom the Lord is terrible! Whence is this? Is not God 
 by Nature sweet and pleasurable and serene, and an Object 
 of longing? For the Angels ever desire to look into Him, 
 and, in a wonderful and unspeakable way, ever look and ever 
 long to look. For miserable they, whose conscience makes 
 them shrink from the face of Love. Even in this life tiicy 
 feel this shrinking, and, as if it were some lessening of their 
 grief, they deny it, as though this could destroy the truth, 
 which they hold down in unrighteousness^'." 
 
 For He u'ill faniish^^ all the gods of the earth, taking 
 away ^^ the fat of their sacrifices, and the wine of their drink- 
 offerings. Within 80 years from the death of our Lord''*, 
 the governor of Pontus and Bithynia wrote officially to 
 the Roman Emperor, that " '' the temples had been almost 
 left desolate, the sacred rites had been for a long time 
 intermitted, and that the victims had very seldom found 
 a purchaser," before the persecution of the Christians, and 
 consulted him as to the amount of its continuance. To- 
 wards the close of the century, it was one of the Heathen 
 complaints, which the Christian Apologist had to answer, 
 "-"they are daily melting away the revenues of our temples." 
 The Prophet began to speak of the subdual of Moab and 
 Amnion ; he is borne on to the triumphs of Christ over all 
 the gods of the Heathen, when the worship of God should 
 not be at Jerusalem only, but they shall worship Him, every 
 one from his place. 
 
 Even all the isles of the heathen. For this is the very note 
 of the Gospel, that "-'each who through faith in Christ was 
 brought to the knowledge of the truth, by Him, and with 
 
 12 Tert. de Praescr. Ha;r. c. 42, p. 493. Oxf. Tr. " lb. c. 37. p. 488. 
 
 n Rup. '' Rom. i. 18. '* There is no reason to abate the irony by 
 
 rendering "destroy." nru i.s contrasted with pst) Is. xvii. 4, as is Jin Is. x. 16; nn, 
 of the land, with nin? Nu. xiii. 20; of the sheep, with nna Ez. xxxiv. 20. In Ps. cvi. 15. 
 pn is used met. for a wasting, emaciating sickness; in Mic. vi. 10, of "an ephah of 
 emaciation" i. e. scant ; in Is. x.xiv. 6, TJ is sickness; (see Ew. Lehrb. 149. g.) [all] 
 17 Deut. xxxii. 38. is Between \. D. 103-105. 
 
 13 Pliny Epist. x. 32. p. 5*i. ed. Steph. -» Tert. Apol. c. 42. see p. 90. 
 note 0. Oxf. Tr. =' S. Cyr. 
 
 z z z
 
 470 
 
 ZErHANIAII. 
 
 chrTst earth; 'and mm shall worship hnin, every 
 cir. oao. t^pp from his place, even all "the isles of 
 
 « Mai. 1. n. John 1. 21. ° Gen. 10. 5. 
 
 Him, worshippeth from his place God the Father ; and God 
 is no lonffcr known in .ludiP.i only, but the countries and 
 cities of the Heathen, thouj^h they be separated by the inter- 
 veniiiiij sea from Juda'a, no less draw nijiii to Ciirist, i>ray, 
 glorify, thank Him unceasingly. For formerly ^ His Nunie 
 was great in Israel, but now He is well known to all every 
 where ; earth and sea are full of His glory, and so every one 
 U'ors/iijipeth Him from his place ; and this is what is said, "As 
 I live, saitlt the Lord, all the earth shall he filled with the 
 glory of the Lord." The isles are any distant lands on the 
 sea-shore', especially the very distant*; hut also Asia 
 Minor ^ and the whole coast of Europe, and even the Indian 
 Archipelago *, since the ivory and ebony came from its many 
 isles. Zephaniah revives the term, by which Moses had 
 spoken of the dispersion of the sons of Japhet; "^By these 
 were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one 
 after his tongue." He adds the word, all ; all, wherever they 
 had been dispersed, every one from his place, shall worship 
 God. One universal worship shall ascend to God from all 
 everywhere. So Malachi prophesied afterwards ; " ^ From 
 the rising up of the sun even to the going down of the same 
 My Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every 
 place incense shall be offered unto God and a pure offering; 
 for My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the 
 Lord of hosts." Even a Jew ^ says here : " This, without 
 doubt, refers to the time to come, when all the inhabitants 
 of the world shall know that the Lord is God, and that His 
 is the greatness and power and glory, and He shall he called 
 the God of the whole earth." The isles or coasts of the sea are 
 the more the emblem of the Church, in that, "'"lying, as it 
 were, in the sea of this world and encompassed by the evil 
 events in it, as with bitter waters, and lashed by the most 
 vehement waves of persecutions, the Churches are yet found- 
 ed, so that they cannot fall, and rear themselves aloft, and 
 are not overwhelmed by afflictions. For, for Christ's sake, 
 the Churches cannot be shaken, and ^' the gates of hell shall 
 not jirevail against them." 
 
 12. Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall he slain by My sword, lit. 
 Ye Ethiopians also, the slain of My sword are they. Having 
 summoned them to His throne, God speaks of them, not 
 to them any more; perhaps in compassion, as elsewhere in 
 indignation '-. The Ethiopians were not in any direct anta- 
 gonism to God and His people, but allied only to their old 
 oppressor, Egypt. They may have been in Pharaoh Necho's 
 army, in resisting which, as a subject of Assyria, Josiah was 
 slain : they are mentioned '^ in that army which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar smote at Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim. 
 The prophecy of Ezekiel implies rather, that Ethiopia should 
 be involved in the calamities of Egypt, than that it should be 
 itself invaded. " '' Great terror shall be in Ethiopia, when 
 the slain shall fall in Egypt." "^^ Ethiopia and Lybia and 
 Lydia &c. and all the men of the land that is in league, shall 
 
 ' Ps. Ixxvi. 1. - Nu. xiv. 21. 
 
 3 Jer. XXV. 22. sqq. Ez. xxvi. 15. sqq. Ps. Ixxii. 10. * Is. Ixvi. 19. 
 
 5 Dan, xi. 1,8. <■ Ez. xxvii. 15. Ges. Thes. sub v. 
 
 ' Gen. x. 5. The phrase, Din "«, occurs only in these two places. * Mai. i. 11. 
 
 9 Abarbanel. lo S. Cyr. " S. Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
 , '2 Is. xxii. 10, "What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed 
 thee here a sepulchre ? Hewing him out on high his sepulchre, graving in the rock a 
 dwelling for him." Mic. i. 2, " Hear, ye people, all of them." Deut. xxxii. 15. " Thou 
 art waxen fat, art grown thick, art covered with fatness ; and he forsook God Who made 
 bun,- and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." " Jer. xlvi. 9. 
 
 the heathen. j, h rTs t 
 
 12 f " Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall he '^'^•'""' 
 
 >> Isai. 18. 1. Ik 20. *. Jer. 4C. 9. Ezek. 30. 9. 
 
 fall with these, by the sword." "^'They also that uphold Egypt 
 shall fall." Syene'", the frontier-fortress over against Ethio- 
 pia, is especially mentioned as the boundary also of the de- 
 struction. "Messengers," God says ''', "shall go forth from Me 
 to make the careless Ethiopians afraid," while the storm was 
 bursting in its full desolating force upon Egypt. All the other 
 cities, whose destruction is foretold, are cities of lower or 
 upper Egypt ^*. 
 
 But such a blow as that foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel 
 must have fallen heavily upon the allies of Egypt. We have 
 no details ; for the Egyptians would not, and did not tell of 
 the calamities and disgraces of their country. No one does. 
 Josephus, however, briefly but distinctly says^'', that after 
 Nebuciiadnezzar had in the 23rd year of his reign, the 5th 
 after the destruction of Jerusalem, " reduced into subjection 
 Moab and Amnion, he invaded Egypt, with a view to subdue 
 it," "killed its then king, and having set up another, cap- 
 tured for the second time the Jews in it and carried them to 
 Babylon." The memory of the devastation by Nebuchad- 
 nezzar lived on apparently in Egypt, and is a recognised fact 
 among the Mohammedan historians, who had no interest in 
 the fulfilment of Jewish prophecy, of which it does not ap- 
 pear that they even knew. Bokht-nasar [Nebuchadnezzar], 
 they say, "-"made war on the son of Nechas [Necho], slew him 
 and ruined the city of Memphis and many other cities of 
 Egypt: he carried the inhabitants captive, without leaving one, 
 so that Egypt remained waste forty years without one inhabi- 
 tant." Another says, "-'The refuge which the king of Egjpt 
 granted to the Jews who fled from Nebuchadnezzar brought 
 this war upon it : for he took them under his protection and 
 would not give them up to their enemy. Nebuchadnezzar, in 
 revenge, marched against the king of Egypt and destroyed the 
 country." "One may be certain," says a good authority^'', 
 "that the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was a tradi- 
 tion generally spread in Egypt and questioned by no one." 
 Ethiopia was then involved, as an ally, and as far as its 
 contingent was concerned, in the war, in which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar desolated Egypt for those 40 years. But, although 
 this fulfilled the prophecy of Ezekiel, Isaiah, some sixty years 
 before Zephaniah, prophesied a direct conquest of Ethiopia. 
 / have given, God says -', Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and 
 Sella for thee. It lay in God's purpose, that Cyrus should 
 restore His own people, and that his ambition should find 
 its vent and compensation in the lands beyond. It may be 
 that, contrary to all known human policy, Cyrus restored 
 the Jews to their own land, willing to bind them to himself, 
 and to make them a frontier territory towards Egypt, not 
 suliject only but loyal to himself. This is quite consistent 
 with the reason which he assigns; -* The Lord God of heaven 
 hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and He hath 
 charged me to build Him an house at .Jerusalem which is in 
 Judah ; and with the statement of Josephus, that he was 
 
 i*" Ezek. XXX. 4. 
 
 15 lb. 5. 
 
 16 lb. 6. 
 
 17 lb. 9. 
 
 18 Zoan, Aven,Pi-beseth,Tehaphnehes,Sin,cn theEastem boundary; Noph[Memplus] 
 the capital of Lower Egypt ; Pathros, probably a district of Upper E^ypt ; No [Thebes] 
 its capital ; Syene, its last town to the South. i'* Ant. x. 9. 7. See further 
 
 Sir G. Wilkinson, Manners and customs of the Ancient Egyptians, i. 1/3-179. Pusey's 
 Daniel the Prophet pp. 275-277. '^ Makrizi in De .Sacy, Abdallatif Re- 
 
 ation derEgyptep.2.l7. -'' Abdallatif 1. c. p. 181. 
 
 -- De Sacy I.e. who quotes Abulfeda [see his hist, ante- Islam, p. 102. he could not 
 find the names of Egyptian kings between Shishak and the Pharaoh who was the contem- 
 porary of Nebuch.] Masudi, Nosairi, also. '3 Is. xliii. 3. 24Ezr. i. 2, 3. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 471 
 
 ci^rTst slain by ''my sword. 
 •""■ ''■'"• 13 And he will stretch out his hand a- 
 
 J isai!Vl'2. gainst the north, and ''destroy Assyria; 
 nIh.!. i. ' and will make Nineveh a desolation, and 
 
 & 2. 10. & 3. 15, 18. 
 
 moved thereto by "^ reading the prophecy which Isaiah left, 
 210 years before." It is, alas ! nothing new to Christians to 
 have mixed motives for their actions : the exception is to 
 have a single motive, "for the glory of (Jod." The advantage 
 to himself would doubtless flasli at once on the founder of a 
 great empire, though it did not suggest the restoration of 
 the Jews. Egypt and Assyria had always, on either side, 
 wished to possess themselves of Palestine, which lay between 
 them. Any how, one Persian monarch did restore the Jews; 
 Ills successor possessed himself of "Egypt, and part, at least, 
 of Ethiopia." Cyrus wished, it is related^, "to war in per- 
 son against Babylon, the Bactrians, the Sacaj, and Egypt." 
 He perished, as is known, before he had completed ^the third 
 of his purposed conquests. Cambyses, although after the 
 conquest of Egypt he planned ill his two more distant ex- 
 peditions, reduced "*the Ethiopians bordering upon Egypt" 
 ["Mower Ethiopia and Nubia"], and these "brought gifts" 
 permanently to the Persian Sovereign. Even in the time of 
 Xerxes, the Ethiopians had to furnish their contingent of 
 troops against the Greeks. Herodotus describes their dress 
 and weapons, as they were reviewed at Doriscus ^. Cam- 
 byses, then, did not lose his hold over Ethiopia and Egypt, 
 when forced by the rebellion of Pseudo-Smerdis to quit 
 Egypt. 
 
 13. Zephaniah began by singling out Judah amid the 
 general destruction, ' / tvill also stretch out My Hand upon 
 Judah; he sums up the judgement of the world in the same 
 way; He ivill stretch out,ov. Stretch He fort h'^ , His Hand against 
 the North and destroy Asshur, and make Nineveh a desola- 
 tion. Judah had, in Zephaniah's time, notliing to fear from 
 Assyria. Isaiah^ and Micah'" had already foretold, that the 
 captivity would be to Babylon, Yet of Assyria alone the 
 prophet, in his own person, expresses his own conformity 
 with the mind of God. Of others he had said, the word of 
 the Lord is against you, O Canaan, and I will destroy thee ; yls 
 I live, saith the Lord, Moab shall he as Sodom. Ye also, O 
 Ethiopians, the slain of 3/y sivord are they. Of Assyria alone, 
 by a slight inflection of the word, he expresses that he goes 
 along with this, which he announces. He does not say as an 
 imprecation, "May He stretch forth His hand;" but gently, 
 as continuing his prophecies, ««(/, joining on Asshur with the 
 rest ; only instead of saying " He will stretch forth," by a 
 form almost insulated in Hebrew, he says, And stretch He 
 forth His Hand. In a way not unlike, David having de- 
 
 1 Ant. xi. 1. 2. 2 Herod, i. 153. 
 
 3 lb. 214 and Rawl. notes p. 350. < Herod, iii. 97. 
 
 5 Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawl. Herod, ii. 487. n. 10. ' Her. vii. 69. 7 i. 4. 
 
 8 a:\, Da','1 The ordinary force of the abridged form of the future with 1 is consecutive, 
 viz., that the action so joined on is the result of the preceding ; *' intercede with the Lord 
 ip;>, that He may take away," lit. " and He may take away." Ex. x. 17. Gesenius' in- 
 stances are all of this sort. In Hif. of the regular verb, ,Iud. xiv. 15, 1 Sam. vii. 3, Job 
 xi. 6, xii. 7. Jer. xlii. 3. (Lehrg. p. 321.) verbs ly, Kal. Nu. xxv. 4, Jud. vi. 30, Is. 1. 2, 
 1 Kgs xxi. 10, 2 Kgs v. 10, 2 Chr. xxix. 10, xxx. 6, 8. (lb. p. 403.) Hif. Ex. viii. 4, x. 
 17, Nu. xxi. 7. (lb. p. 405) verb ni, Ez. x. 12, Is. ii. 20, Is. xxxviii. 21, 1 Kgs xx. 20, 
 Jer. xxiii. 18. (lb. p. 428). Such are also Hos. xiv. 6, 7, 9. Sometimes a prayer seems 
 to be thus interwoven with prediction as, Nu. xxiv. 7, *'her seed shall be in many waters, 
 and exalted be (Dl,"!) his king above Amalek, and exalted shall be his kingdom" and 
 lb. 9, " And Israel doeth valiantly; and rule one ("i")!}) from Jacob." Is. xxxv. 1, 2, 
 "Wilderness and dry-place shall be glad for them, and let the desert rejoice (''JOD and it 
 shall blossom as the Autumn-crocus. It shall blossom abundantly ; and joy it, (Sjni) 
 yea with joy and jubilee : the glory of Lebanon is given to it ; they shall see the glory 
 of the Lord, the excellency of our God." The peculiarity here is, that it stands so apart 
 and independent of the preceding, with wliich 1 connects it. The shade of meaning is 
 
 dry like a wilderness. f. if ^^s t 
 
 14 And "^ flocks shall lie down in the midst "'■ «'>"■ 
 
 of her, all 'the beasts of the nations : both i iTi3.'2i,22. 
 the jl » cormorant and the bittern shall lodge i u.'sHai'vi. 
 
 clared God's judgements, The Lord trieth the righteous ; and 
 the wickeil and the lover of violence doth His soul ahhor, sub- 
 joineth, On the wir/ced rain He snares, signifying that he (as 
 all must be in tlic Day of judgement), is at one with the judge- 
 ment of God. Tins is tlie hist sentence upcjii Kincveh, en- 
 forcing that of Jonah and Nahum, yet without place of re- 
 pentance now. He accumulates words expressive of dcsolate- 
 ness. It should not only be a desolution^^, as he had said of 
 Ashkelon, Moab and .\ninion, but a dry, parched'-, unfruitful'-^ 
 land. As Isaiah, under the same words, prophesies that the 
 dry and desolate land " should, by the Gos])el, be glad, so the 
 gladness of the world should become dryness and desolation. 
 Asshur is named, as though one individual''', implying the en- 
 tireness of the destruction ; all shall perish, as one man ; or 
 as gathered into one and dependent ujKtn one, its evil King. 
 The North is not only Assyria, in that its armies came upon 
 Judah from the North, but it stands for the whole power of 
 evil '", as Nineveh for the whole beautiful, evil, world. The 
 world with " the princes of this world" shall perish together. 
 
 14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her. No 
 desolation is like that of decayed luxury. It preaches the 
 nothingness of man, the fruitlessness of his toils, the fleeting- 
 ness of his hopes and enjoyments, and their battling when at 
 their height. Gi"iss in a court or on a once beaten road, 
 much more, in a town, speaks of the passing away of what has 
 been, that man was wont to be there, and is not, or is tiierc 
 less than he was. It leaves the feeling of void and forsaken- 
 ness. But in Nineveh not a few tufts of grass here and 
 there shall betoken desolation, it shall be one wild rank pas- 
 ture, where flocks shall not feed only, but lie down as in 
 their fold and continual resting-place, not in the outskirts 
 only or suburbs, but in the very centre of her life and throng 
 and busy activity, in the 7nidst of her, and none shall fray 
 them away. So Isaiah had said of the cities of Aroer, ^' they 
 shall he for flocks, u'hich shall lie down and none shall make 
 them afraid, and of Judah till its restoration by Christ, that it 
 should be ^'^ a foy of wild asses, a pasture of Jlocks. And not 
 only those which are wont to be found in some connection 
 with man, but all the beasts of a nation '', the troops of wild 
 and savage and unclean beasts which shun the dwellings of 
 man or are his enemies, these in troops have their lair there. 
 
 Both the pelican -° and the {hedgehog -i] shall lodge in the 
 upper lintels thereof. The chapiters [E. j\I.] or capitals of 
 the pillars of the temples and palaces shall lie broken and 
 
 so fine, that the Verss. and Rabbins pass over it, rendering simply future, as do modem 
 commentators, except Keil, and Ewald who corrects on 13K1 arbitrarily and against 
 history. ' Is. xxxix. 6. '" Mic. iv. 10. 
 
 1' riDDB' Zeph. ii. 4. 9. '- .TX of absence of water. Job xxx. 3. 
 
 Ps. Ixii'i.' 2. cv. 41. evil. 35. Is. xli. 18. Jer. ii. 6. Ez. six. 13. Hos. ii. 5. 
 
 >3 Is. liii. 2. " .TXi niTD Is. xxxv. 1. Jer. joins nmjn TX -QiD, 1. 12. 
 
 ■* Asshur is used in this way of the people, considered in and with their King. Is. xxx. 
 31. xx.xi. 8. '« See Is. xiv. 13. 
 
 17 lb. xvii. 2. '* lb. xxxii. 14. Comp. Jer. vi. 2. 
 
 •9 "i: " nation," of gregarious creatures, locusts, Jo.i. 6, ii. 2 ; cy, " ants," Pr. xxx. 25. 
 "conies," lb. 26. Comp. fSvea xv''" Sic. " apium populi, " "equoriun gentes," Virg. 
 Georg. iv. 430. Arab, .isi* Boch. Hieroz. ii. 468. Leipz. 
 
 -" The most probable rendering, as explaining the etjinology. The i render " pelican " 
 Ps. cii. 7. Lev. xi. IS ; Arj. Svnim. Th., Is. xxxiv. 11 ; Aq. here. The pip of the Tal- 
 mudists (Kpp Jerus. Targ. ap. Levy Lex.) is probably the same. The pelican retires inland 
 to consume its food. Tristram, Houghton, in Smith Bibl. Diet. v. Pelican, note. 
 
 -' There seems a consent that the "iSp is the hedgehog or porcupine (as in Aram, and 
 Arab.) 6, S. Jer. R. Nathan, Rashi, although the .\rab. etym. "rolled himself round " 
 seems uncertain. 
 
 z z z 2
 
 472 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 CH rTst i" ^^^^ II «»PI'<''' lin^t'l'^ "f '^; ''"'"' '*''>'<'<• ^'i''^" 
 '^''•- c'^"- sing in the windows ; desokition ,shall be in 
 
 "Efops.or, the thresholds : || for he shall uncover the 
 
 II tf"'' ' cedar work. 
 
 ii'Jn- 15 This «■« the rejoidng city ■ that dwelt 
 
 covered. »■ Jer. 22. It. ^^ ' I sai. 47- 8. 
 
 strcn'ii upon the c,roiind, and amoiifi; those desolate frajtments 
 of her pride shall unelcan animals haunt. Tiie pelican has 
 its Hebrew name from vomitini!^. It vt>mits up the shells 
 which it had swallowed whole, after they had been opened by 
 the heat of the stomach, and so picks out the animal con- 
 tained in thcni i, the very image of greediness and unclean- 
 ness. It dwells also not in deserts only but near marshes, so 
 that Nineveh is doubly waste. 
 
 ^ I'oice shall sing in the tvindows. In the midst of the 
 desolation, the muteness of the hedgehog and the pensive 
 loneliness of the solitary pelican, the musing spectator is even 
 startled by the gladness of a bird, joyous in the existence 
 which God has given it. Instead of the harmony of music - 
 and men-singers and women-singers in their palaces shall be 
 the sweet music of some lonely bird, unconscious that it is 
 sitting in the u'induius of those, at whose name the world 
 grew pale, portions of the outer walls being all which remain 
 of her palaces. Desolation shall be in the thresholds, sitting, 
 as it were, in them ; every where to be seen in them ; the 
 more, because unseen. Desolation is something oppressive; 
 wcfeel its presence. There, as the warder watch and ward 
 at the empty portals, where once was the fullest throng, 
 shall desolation sit, that no one enter. Fin- He shall uncover 
 [hath uncovered E. M.] the cedar-work: in the roofless palaces, 
 the carved cedar-toorA- shall be laid open to wind and rain. 
 Any one must have noticed, how piteous and dreary the decay 
 of any house in a town looks, with the torn paper hanging 
 uselessly on its walls. A poet of our own said of the beau- 
 tiful ruins of a wasted monastery : 
 
 " For the gay beams of lightsome day 
 Gild, but to flout the ruins gray." 
 
 But at Nineveh it is one of the mightiest cities of the world 
 which thus lies waste, and the bared cedar-work had, in the 
 days of its greatness, been carried off from the despoiled 
 Lebanon ' or Hermon *. 
 
 15. This utter desolation is the rejoicing city (so unlike 
 is it, that there is need to point out that it is the same); this 
 is she, who was full of joy, exulting exceedingly^, but in her- 
 self, not in God ; that dwelt carelessly, lit. securely, and so 
 carelessly; saying Peace and safety", as though no evil would 
 come upon her, and so perishing more certainly and miser- 
 ably''. That said in her heart, this was her inmost feeling, 
 the moving cause of all her deeds; lam and there is none 
 beside me ; literally, *«?»/ there is no I besides, claiming the very 
 attribute of God (as the world does) of self-existence, as if 
 it alone were /, and others, in respect of her, were as no- 
 
 ' Aristot. Anim. ix. 10. 
 - nnx collective, like n>y Jer. vi. 6. 3 Is. xiv. 8. xxxvii. 24. Ezek. xxxi. Ifi. 
 
 " In the fragment of another epigraph, we have mention of some ohjects also of wood, 
 'brought from Mt. Lebanon, (and taken up to tlie mound) from the Tigris.' " Layard, 
 Nineveh and Babylon, p. 118. *'At that time the countries that are upon Lebanon, I 
 took possession of, to the great sea of the country of Akkari," (the Mediterranean,) from 
 Inscription. lb, p. .355, 356. *' The conqueror from the upper passage of the Tigris to 
 Lebanon and the Great Sea." lb. p. 3G1, " Standing one day on a distant part of the 
 mound, I smelt the sweet smell of burning cedar; the Arab workmen excavating in the 
 small temple had dug out a beam, and the weather being cold, had at once made a 
 fire to warm themselves. The wood was cedar, probably one of the very beams men- 
 tioned in the inscription, as brought from the forests of Lebanon, by the King who 
 
 carelessly, "^ that said in her heart, T am, curTht 
 and there is none beside me : how is she be- '^"- *'•'"• 
 come a desolation, a place for beasts to lie i jor27!*23'. 
 down in ! every one tluit jjasseth by her Ezek.fz.Vj. 
 1 shall hiss, and "• wag his hand. " ^^''- ^ ''•'• 
 
 thing. Pantheism, which denies the being of God, as Author 
 of the world, and claims the life in the material world to be 
 God, and each living being to be a part of (iod, is only this 
 self-idolatry, reflected upon and carried out in words. All 
 the pride of the world, all self-indulgence which says, Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrotv we die, all covetousness 
 which ends in this world, speaks this by its acts, I and no 
 I beside. 
 
 lioiv is she become a desolation, has passed wholly into it, 
 exists only as a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in, 
 a mere den for the wild beasts. Every one that passeth by 
 her shall hiss in derision, a7id wag [or wave] his haiul] in de- 
 testation, as though putting the hand between them and it, 
 so as not to look at it, or, as it were, motioning it away. 
 The action is difftrent from that of ^ clajiping the hands in 
 exultation. 
 
 " It is not difficult," S. Jerome says, " to explain this of 
 the world, that when the Lord hath stretched forth His Hand 
 over the North and destroyed the Assyrian, the Prince of 
 this world, the world also perishes together with its Princes, 
 and is brought to utter desolation, and is pitied by none, but 
 all hiss and shake their hands at its ruin. But of the Church 
 it seems, at first sight, blasphemous to say that it shall be a 
 pathless desert, and wild beasts shall dwell in her, and that 
 afterwards it sliall be said insultingly over her; 'This is the 
 city given up to ill, which divelt carelessly and said in her 
 heart, I and none besides.' But whoso should consider that 
 of the Apostle, wherein he says, ^'^ in the last days perilous 
 times shall come, and what is written in the Gospel, that '^ be- 
 cause iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold, so 
 that then shall that be fulfilled, When the Son of Man cometh, 
 shall He find the faith on the earth ? he will not marvel at 
 the extreme desolation of the Church, that, in the reign of 
 Antichrist, it shall be reduced to a desolation and given over 
 to beasts, and shall suflTer whatever the Prophet now des- 
 cribes. For if for unbelief God spared not the natural branches, 
 but brake tliem o//', and turned rivers into a wilderness and 
 the water-springs into a dry ground, and a fruitful land into 
 barrenness, for the iniquity of them that dwell therein, why 
 not as to tliose of whom He had said, i- He turneth the wilder- 
 ness into a standing water, and dry ground ijito water-springs, 
 and there He maketh the hungry to dwell ; and as to those 
 whom out nf the wild olive He hath grafted into the good olive 
 tree, why, if forgetful of this benefit, they depart from their 
 Maker and worship the Assyrian, should He not undo them 
 and bring them to the same thirst wherein they were before ? 
 Which, whereas it may be understood generally of the coming 
 
 built the edifice. After a lapse of nearly 3000 years, it had retained its original fragrance." 
 lb. p. 357. ■• Rawl. 5. Emp. i. 3*^. 
 
 * iSy, (verb, perhaps i. q. dXaAdfoi,) is exulting joy, the exultation being good or bad, 
 according to its object, in God or in self and the world; in God, Ps. xxviii. 7, Ixviii. 
 5, xcvi. 11, cxlix. 5, Hab. iii. 18, Zeph. iii. 14; in good, Pr. xxiii. 1(5; in God's gifts, 
 Ps. Ix. 8, cviii. 8; in evil, Ps. xciv. 3, Jer. xi. 15, xv. 17, 1. 11, li. 39; over an 
 enemy 2 Sam. i. 20. rVy (intens.) Is. xxii. 2, xxiii. 7, xxiv. 8, xxxii. 13. is used, as here, 
 of a city, full of its tumultuous, self-confident, excitement, as is the verb Is. xxiii. 
 12. and' l^j; of an individual, Jer. v. 14. [all] ^ 1 Thess. v. 3. 
 
 ^ See Jud. xviii. 27. ^ As we might say "no second I." This gives 
 
 an adequate explanation of the * in VSx, as no other rendering does. ^ Nah. iii. 19. 
 
 i» 2 Tim. iii. 1-6, " S. Matt. xxiv. 12. i- Ps. cvii. &3-36.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 473 
 
 ch^Ht chapter III. 
 
 "'^' '^''"" 1 y4 sharp reproof of Jerusalem for divers sins. 
 
 8 ^/^ cxhortatidu to wait for the restoration of 
 Israel, 14 and to rejoice fn' tlieir salvation by God, 
 
 " w«'«™»„.. ^1,701^^ to II t her that is filthy and pol- 
 t fieb. craw. y ^ \xxivi\, to thc opprcssing city ! 
 
 of Anti-christ or of the end of the world, yet it may, day by 
 day, be understood of tliose who feign to be of the Chureii of 
 God, and in works deny it, are hearers of the tvord not doers, 
 who in vain boast in an outward show, whereas herds i. e. 
 troops of vices dwell in them, and brute animals serving the 
 body, and all the beasts of the field which devour their 
 hearts [and pelicans, i. e. gluttons \ whose god is their hel/i/~\ 
 and hedgehogs, a prickly animal full of spikes which pricketh 
 M'hatever it toucheth. After which it is subjoined, that the 
 Church shall therefore suffer this, or hath sutfered it, because 
 it lifted itself up proudly and raised its head like a cedar, 
 given up to evil works, and yet promising itself future bless- 
 edness, and despising others in its heart, nor thinking that 
 there is any other besides itself, and saying, I am, and there 
 is no other beside me, how is it become a solitude, a lair of 
 beasts ! For where before dwelt tlie Father, and the Son, 
 and the Holy Ghost, and Angels pi'csided over its ministries, 
 there shall beasts dwell. And if we understand that, every 
 one that passeth by shall hiss, we shall explain it thus ; 
 when Angels shall pass through her, and not remain in her, 
 as was their wont, they shall be amazed and marvel, and 
 shall not support and bear her up with their hand, when fall- 
 ing, but shall lift up the hands and shall pass by. Or they 
 shall make a sound as those who mourn. But if we under- 
 stand this of the devil and his angels, who destroyed the vine 
 also that was brought out of Egypt, we shall say, that 
 through the soul, which before was the temple of God and 
 hath ceased so to be, the serpent passeth, and liisseth and 
 spitteth forth the venom of his malice in her, and not this 
 only, but setteth in motion his works which figuratively are 
 called hands." 
 
 " - The earlier and partial fulfilment of prophecy does not 
 destroy, it rather confirms, the entire fulfilment to come. 
 For whoso heareth of the destruction of mighty cities, is con- 
 strained to believe the truth of the Gospel, that the fashion 
 of this world passeth away, and that, after the likeness of 
 Nineveh and Babylon, the Lord will in the end judge the 
 whole world also." 
 
 C. III. 1. The "woe," having gone round the heathen 
 nations, again circles round where it began, the ^ Jerusalem 
 that killed the prophets and stoned those that were sent tinto 
 her. Woe upon her, and joy to the holy Jerusalem, the new 
 Jerusalem *, the Jerusalem which is from above, the 7nother of 
 us all, close this prophecy; both in figure; destruction of her 
 and the whole earth, in time, the emblem of the eternal 
 death; and the love of God, the foretaste of endless joy in 
 Him. 
 
 fFo^ rebellious and polluted^; thou oppressive city''! The 
 address is the more abrupt, and bursts more upon her, since 
 the prophet does not name her. He uses as her proper 
 
 • Rib. = Rup, S S. Matt, xxiii. 37. ' Rev. iii. 12. xxi. 10. 
 
 5 1.1 with the panic, as a vocative, as in Am. v. 18. Is. xlv. 9, 10. Mic. i. 1. Hab. ii. G, 
 9, 12, 15, 19, S:c. 
 
 s nx")iD from ntd^.to. This seems more probable than E. V. (from a meaning given 
 to'KI Nah, iii. G. and from ni<'iD crop of bird Lev. i. 10.) or LXX 4-jTt(pav^s (asif nsis, as a 
 few Mss.de R.)or S.Jer. "embittering," provocatrix^as if NTD = .TCn),orAbarb. "terrible" 
 
 2 She "obeyed not the voice; she ''receiv- ciPrTst 
 ed not II correction ; she trusted not in the ""■ '^''- 
 Lord ; she drew not near to her God. ^ Jerii 'a/' 
 
 3 '^^Iler princes within her are roaring " ^/;„";„„. 
 lions; her judf^es are ''evening wolves ; "^ Mic.s^.'y,^^' 
 they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. diWV. 8. 
 
 name, not her own name, "city of peace," but "rebellious," 
 "polluted;" then he sums u]) in one, thou oppressive city. 
 
 Jerusalem's sin is threefold, actively rebelling against God; 
 then, inwardly defiled by sin ; then cruel to man. So then, 
 towards God, in herself, towards man, she is wholly turned 
 to evil, not in passing acts, but in her abiding state, 1) rebel- 
 lious, 2) defiled, 3) oppressive. Slie is known only by what 
 she bas become, and what has been done for her in vain. 
 She is rebellious, and so had had the law; defiled, and so had 
 been cleansed; and therefore her state is the more hopeless. 
 2. She obeyed not the f^oice, of God, by the law or the 
 prophets, teaching her His ways ; and wlien, disobeying, He 
 chastened her, she received not correction, and when He in- 
 creased His chastisements, she, in the declining age of the 
 state and deepening evil, turned not unto Him, as in the time 
 of the judges, nor ceased to do evil. 
 
 In the Lord she trusted not, but in Assyria or Egypt or her 
 idols. Our practical relation to God is summed up in the four 
 words, "Mistrust self; trust God." Man reverses this, and 
 when "self-trust" has of course failed him, then he "mis- 
 trusts God." "8 Such rarely ask of God, what they hope 
 they may obtain from man. They strain every nerve of their 
 soul to obtain what they want ; canvass, flatter, fawn, bribe, 
 court favour; and betake themselves to God when all human 
 help fails. They would be indebted, not to God, but to their 
 own diligence. For the more they receive of God, the less, 
 they see, can they exalt their own diligence, the more they 
 are bound to thank God, and obey Him the more strictly." 
 
 To her God she drew not nigh, even in trouble, when all 
 draw nigh unto Him, who are not wholly alien from Him ; 
 she drew not near by repentance, by faith, hope or love, or 
 by works meet for repentance, but in heart remained far from 
 Him. And yet He was her own God, as He had shewn Him- 
 self in times past. Who changes not, while we change; is 
 faithful to us, while we fail Him; is still our God, while we 
 forget Him; waits, to have mercy upon us; shines on us while 
 we interpose our earth-born clouds between us and Him. 
 "'Not in body nor in place, but spiritually and inwardly do 
 we approach to the uncircumscribed God," owning Him as 
 our Father, to Whom we daily say '• Our Father." 
 
 3. The prophet having declared the wickedness of the whole 
 city, rehearses how each in Church and state, the ministers 
 of God in either, who should have corrected the evil, them- 
 selves aggravated it. Not enemies, without, destroy her, but 
 
 Her princes within Iter, in the very midst of the flock, 
 whom they should in God's stead feed with a true heart, des- 
 troy her as they will, having no protection against them. Her 
 judges are evening icolves^"; those who should in the Name 
 of God redress all grievances and wrongs, are themselves like 
 wild beasts, when most driven by famine. They gnaw 7iot the 
 
 (as from NT which is expressed by Nif. Hia) or Drus. "made a spectacle-," irapaSfiyfiO- 
 Ti^onci'j), cf. nx->? ; but this is not used elsewhere, though the verb is so common. 
 
 ; Tyn as a separate vocative, as Nu. xv. 15. Cant. vi. 1. Is. Iii. IS. Mi. ii. 7. &c., and 
 in the N.T. d BtKnKeiis, S. Matt, xxvii. 29. i vibs, S. Mark x. 47. 6 Ttariip lb. xiv. 36. &c. 
 
 6 Rib. on Hos. vii. n. 39. s Dion. w See Hab. i. S. '
 
 474 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 c H^R^i^ T ^ H^** ^ I»*ophets are light and trea- 
 cir. 030. cherous persons ; lier priests have pol- 
 
 ' i"' ^*' "' luted the sanctuary, they have done ^ vio- 
 
 La'm. 2. It. Hos. !)■ 7- ' Ezck. 33. 20. 
 
 hones ^ tilt the morrow or 07i the morroiu [lit. in the mornitiff^. 
 They reserve nothiiifi- till the luoriiin;.;; lijciit, but do in dark- 
 ness the works of darkness, shrinking from the light, and, 
 in extreme rapacity, devouring at once the whole substance 
 of the poor. As Isaiah says, -Thy princes (ire rebellious uml 
 comptuiions of thieves, and '^The Lord wi/l enter into judgement 
 wit/i the ancients of His people and the princes thereof: for ye 
 have eaten up the vineyard : the spoil of the poor is in your 
 houses. And Ezekiel, * Her princes in the midst thereof are 
 like wolves, ravening the prey to shed Mood, to destroy souls, 
 to get disho7iest gain. 
 
 4. Her prophets are light, boiling and bubbling up, like 
 water boiling over ^, empty boasters claiming the gift of pro- 
 phecy, which they have not ; " boldly and rashly pouring out 
 what they willed as they willed;" promising good tilings 
 which shall not be. So they are her prophets, to whom they 
 prophesy smooth things, "^the prophets of this people" not 
 the prophets of God; treacherous persons [lit. men of treache- 
 ries] wholly given to manifold treacheries against God in 
 Whose Name they spake and to the people whom they de- 
 ceived. " ' They spake as if from the mouth of the Lord and 
 uttered every thing against the Lord." The leaders of the 
 people, those who profess to lead it aright, Isaiah says*, are 
 its misleaders. Thy prophets, Jeremiah says ^, have seen vai?i 
 and foolish things for thee; they have seen for thee false visions 
 and causes of bcmishment. 
 
 Her priests have polluted her sanctuary, lit. holiness, and 
 so holy rites, persons '", tilings, places (as the sanctuary), 
 sacrifices. All these they polluted, being themselves pol- 
 luted ; they polluted first themselves, then the holy things 
 which they handled, handling them as they ought not; care- 
 lessly and irreverently, not as ordained by God; turning 
 them to their own use and self-indulgence, instead of the 
 glory of God; then they polluted them in the eyes of the 
 ipeople, ^^ }naking them to abhor the offering of the Lord, since, 
 living scandalously, they themselves regarded the Ministry 
 entrusted to them by God so lightly. Their office was to 
 ^-put difference hetiveen holy and unholy and between clean 
 atid unclean, and to teach the children all the statutes which 
 the Lord hath spoken unto them by Moses ; that they ^^ should 
 sanctify themselves and be holy, for I the Lord your God am 
 holy. But they on the contrary, God says by Ezekiel, " have 
 done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; 
 they have made no difference between holy and profane, and have 
 taught none between clean and unclean. Holy and unholy being 
 the contradictory of each other, these changed what God had 
 hallowed into its exact contrary. It was not a mere short- 
 coming, but an annihilation (so to speak), of God's purposes. 
 " ^5 The Priests of the Church then must keep strict watch, 
 not to profane holy things. There is not one mode only of 
 profaning them, but many and divers. For Priests ought to 
 
 ' The meaning of Piel, in Num. xxiv. 8, and met. Ez. xxiii. 34. as denom. from poetic 
 dT3 *' bone." The Verss. gave the meaning, dropping the metaphor, the Lxx. and Vulg. 
 rendering " left ;" Ch. " deferring to ;" Syr. "waiting for." In Arab. DIX signifies " cut 
 oft'," spec, wool of sheep, fruit of palm-trees, and with ^ p. " gaining for himself or his 
 family." In Syr. it is 1) "cut oft';" 2) "decreed;" not, "reserved." Abulw. Kim. 
 Menach. render "break" as denom. 
 
 "■ Is. i. 23. 3 lb. iii. 14. •< Ez. xxii. 27. 
 
 '" nuns being used by Jeremiah (xxiii. 32.) of the false prophets who prophesy false dreams 
 and do tell them and cause Mij people tiferr bi/ their lies and bi/ their lightness, it probably 
 has the same meaning here ; though ins is used of the boiling over of sensuality (Gen. 
 xlix. 4.) and of empty wanton men, Jud. ix. 4. In Arabic, liis as well as iiis is used of 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 lence to the law. 
 
 5 s The just Lord*'/.? in the midst there- <=■''• "•'" 
 of; he will not do iniquity : f every morn- " ^'*"'' '^^^ ^' 
 
 f Heb, morning by morning. 
 
 "■ver. 15, 17. SeeMicahS. 11. 
 
 be purified both in soul and body, and to cast aside every form 
 of abominable pleasure, llather should they be resplendent 
 with zeal in well-doing, remembering what S. Paul saith, 
 ^'''U'alli in the Spirit and ye shall not fuljil the lust ofthejlesh." 
 
 They have oppressed, done violence, to the hai^, openly vio- 
 lating it '^; or straining it, or secretly wresting and using its 
 forms to wrong and violence, as in the case of Naboth and of 
 Him, of Whom Naboth thus far bore the Image, ^'^ff^e 
 have a law, and by our law He ought to die. Law exists to 
 restrain human violence; these reversed God's ordinances; 
 violence and law changed places: first, they did violence to the 
 majesty of the law, which was the very voice of God, and 
 then, through profaning it, did violence to man. Forerunners 
 herein of those, who, when Christ came, ^"^transgressed the com- 
 mandment of God, and made it of none effect by their traditions ; 
 ^" 07nitting also the weightier mutters of the laiv, judgement and 
 mercy and faith ; full of extortion and excess! 
 
 5. But, besides these evening ivolves in the midst of her, 
 there standeth Another in the midst of her. Whom they knew 
 not, and so, very near-^ to them although they would not draw 
 near to Him. But He was near, to behold all the iniquities 
 which they did in the very city and place called by His Name 
 and in His very Presence; He was in her to protect, foster 
 her with a father's love, but she, presuming on His mercy, 
 had cast it ofl". And so He was near to punish, not to deliver; 
 as a Judge, not as a Saviour. "- God is everywhere, Who says 
 by Jeremiah, -^ I fill heaven and earth. But since, as Solomon 
 attesteth, ~* The Lord is far from the tvicked, how is He said 
 here to be in the midst of these most wicked men ? Because 
 the Lord is far from the wicked, as regards the presence of 
 love and grace ; still in His Essence He is everj'where, and in 
 this way He is equally present to all." 
 
 The Lord is in the jnidst thereof ; He will not do iniquity. 
 "-- Since He is the primal rule and measure of all righteous- 
 ness ; therefore from the very fact that He doeth anything, 
 it is just ; for He cannot do amiss, being essentially holy. 
 Therefore He will give to every man what he deserves. 
 Therefore we chant, "'" The Lord is upright, and there is no tin- 
 righteousness in Him." Justice and injustice, purity and im- 
 purity, cannot be together. God's Presence then must de- 
 stroy the sinners, if not the sin. He was /?« the midst of them, 
 to sanctify them, giving them His judgements as a pattern 
 of theirs ; He will not do iniquity : but if they heeded it not, 
 the judgement would fall upon themselves. It were for God 
 to become -^ such an one as themselves, and to connive at wick- 
 edness, were He to spare at last the impenitent. 
 
 Every morning [lit. in the morning, in the tnor7iing'\ one 
 after the other, quickly, openly, daily, continuallj', bringing 
 all secret things, all works of darkness, to light, as He said to 
 David, "^ Thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before 
 all Israel, a/id before the sim. Doth He bri/ig His j'udge- 
 
 vain-glory ; in Syr. of " impurity." 
 
 6 See Mic. ii. 11. ~ S. Jer. » Is. ix. 15. [16. Eng.] 
 
 9 Lam. ii. U. '» Ezra viii. 28. " 1 Sam. ii. 17. 
 
 " Lev. x. 10, 11. " lb. xi. 44. xix. 2. &c. '^ Ezek. xxii. 26. 
 
 15 S. Cyr. '« Gal. v. 16. '" The construction with the 
 
 ace. of person occurs Ezek. xxii. 26, Prov. viii. 36, Jer. xxii. 3. 
 
 13 S. John xix. 7. ■' S. Matt. xv. 6. =» lb. xxiii. 23. 25. 
 
 -1 The words in Hebrew correspond with each other, being from the same root, n3^p 
 " draw near ;" nmpa, " in the midst of her." ver. 2, 3, 5. ~- Dion. 
 
 " Jer. xxiii. 24. ''* Pr. xv. 29. " Ps. xcii. 15. 
 
 2S lb. 1. 21. 27 2 Sam. xii. 12. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 475 
 
 CH^'^^rsT '"?? ^^"^'^ ^"^ brinif his jiuli^ment to llu^ht, 
 '^''"- '^'^"- 111! faileth not ; but ' the unjust knoweth no 
 
 'Jer. 3. 3. & vln.np 
 
 6. 15.&8 12. hname. 
 II Or, corners. Q I havG cut off the nat'ioHS : their || towers 
 are desolate ; I made their streets Avaste, 
 
 7nents to light, so that no sin should ho hid in the brightness 
 of His Lijulit, as lie said by Ilosea, Thy jiidi^cments arc a light 
 tvhich goeth forth. " ^ iMorning by morning. He shall execute 
 His judgements, i.e., in bright day and visibly, not restrain- 
 ing His anger, but bringing it fortii in the midst, and making 
 it conspieuous, and, as it were, setting in open vision what 
 He had foreannouneed." Day by day God gives some warn- 
 ing of His judgements. By chastisements whicli are felt to 
 be His on this side or on that or all around, He gives en- 
 samples which speak to the sinner's heart. He faileth not. 
 As God said by Habakkuk, that His promises, although they 
 seem to linger, were not behind' the real time, which lay 
 in the Divine mind, so, contrariwise, neither arc His judge- 
 ments. His hand is never missing' at the appointed time. 
 But the unjust^, he, whose very being and character, iniqidty, 
 is the exact contrary to what he had said of the perfection of 
 God, ^ Who doth 'not inifjuifi/, or, as Moses had taught them 
 in his song^, all His ways are judgement, a God of truth and 
 without iniquity'^, just and right is He. Knoweth no shame, 
 as God saith by Jeremiah, " Thou refuscdst to he ashamed. 
 ' They ivere not at all ashamed, neither could they hlush. Even 
 thus they would not be ashamed of their sins, ^^that they might 
 be converted and God might heal them. 
 
 6. I have cut off [the] nations. God appeals to His judge- 
 ments on heathen nations, not on any particular nation, as 
 far as we know; but to past history, whether of those, of 
 whose destruction Israel itself had been the instrument, or 
 others. The judgements upon the nations before them were 
 set forth to them, when they were about to enter on their in- 
 heritance, as a warning to themselves i^. Defile not ye your- 
 selves in any of these things ; for in all these have the nations 
 defiled themselves, ivhich I cast out before you : and the land is 
 defiled ; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the 
 land vomiteth out her inhabitattts. yind ye, ye shall keep My 
 statutes and 3Iy judgements and shall not commit any of these 
 abominations — And the land shall not spue yon out when ye 
 defile it, as it spued out the nations which were before you. The 
 very possession then of the land was a warning to them; the 
 ruins, which crowned so many of its hill-tops^-, were silent 
 preachers to them ; they lived among the memories of God's 
 visitations ; if neglected, they were an earnest of future judge- 
 ments on themselves. Yet God's judgements are not at one 
 time only. Sennacherib appealed to their own knowledge, 
 ^^ Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done 
 to all lands by destroying them utterly. Have the gods of the 
 nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed ? 
 Hezekiah owned it as a fact which he knew : ^^ Of a truth. 
 Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and 
 their land. And God owns him as His instrument : " A^otv 
 I have brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste 
 
 1 S. Cyr. = Hab. ii. 3. 
 
 3 inyj is used of one missing when a muster is made (1 Sam. xxx. 19, 2 Sam. xvii. 22, 
 met. Is. xxxiv. IG, xl. 26, lix. 15.); here only of God, that He does not fail to vi.sit at the 
 time when He oiiglit to be looked for. ■• 75y ^ nSiy .ii:'V' nV 
 
 6 Deut. xxxU. 4. rVivlW 8 Jer. iii. 3. 9 Jb. vi. 15, viii. 12. '" Is. vi. 10. 
 
 11 Lev. xviii. 21, 25, 2(i' 28, add lb. xx. 23. '= This will be brought out by the 
 
 " Ordnance survey " of Palestine, when completed. Isaiah alludes to them, xvii. 9. 
 
 " Is. xsxvil. 11, 13. » lb. 18. '* lb. 26. '^ lb. x. 6, 7, and the 
 
 tliat none pas.setli hy : tlieir cities are de- (, ,f jff^^ j 
 stroyed, so tliat tliere is no man, that there "^^ "■"^- 
 is none inha1>itant. 
 
 7 '' I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou * So Jer. s. c. 
 wilt receive instruction ; so their dwelling 
 
 defenced cities into ruinous heaps : and, ^* / will send him against 
 an ungodly nation, and against the people of My tvrath will I 
 give him a charge, to take thespoit and to take the jirey, and to 
 tread them down as the mire of the streets, and says of him, It 
 is in his heart to destroy and to rut ojf natimis not a few. The 
 king of iJabyhin too be describes as "/Ac man that made the 
 earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the ivorld 
 as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof. Habakkuk 
 recently described the wide wasting by the Babylonians, and 
 the helplessness of nations before him '^. 
 
 Their towers, corner toivers^^, the most carefully fortified 
 parts of their fortified cities, are desolate ; I made their streets 
 waste. The desolation is complete, within as well as witliout ; 
 ruin itself is hardly so desolate as the empty habitations and 
 forsaken streets, once full of life, where 
 
 "The echoes and the empty tread 
 Would sound like voices from the dead." 
 
 7. I said, surely thou wilt fear 3Ie. God speaks of things 
 here, as they are in their own nature. It could not hut be, that 
 in the very presence of the Hand of God, destroying others 
 but as yet sparing them, they must learn to fear Him ; they 
 must stand in awe of Him for His judgements on others; 
 they must be in filial fear of Him for His loving longsuffering 
 towards themselves. "Thou tvilt receive instruction," cor- 
 rected and taught through God's correction of others and the 
 lighter judgements on themselves, as Solomon says, "^Hooked, 
 I set my heart: I saw, I received instruction. He saith, receive, 
 making it man's free act. God brings it near, commends it 
 to him, exhorts, entreats, but leaves him the aweful power to 
 receive or to refuse. God speaks with a wonderful tenderness. 
 "Surely thou wilt stand in awe of Me; thou icilt receive in- 
 struction ; thou wilt now do wliat hitherto tliou hast refused 
 to do." There was (so to speak) nothing else left for them -i, 
 in sight of those judgements. He pleads their own interests. 
 The lightning was ready to fall. The prophet had, in vision, 
 seen the enemy within the city. Yet even now God lingers, 
 as it were, -- If thou hadst known in this thy day, the thi?igs 
 luhich are for thy peace. 
 
 So their [/«'/■] dwelling should not he cut off. His own 
 holy land which He had given them. A Jew ])araphrases -*, 
 " And He will not cut off their dwellings from the land of the 
 house of My Shechinah" (God's visible Presence in glory). 
 Judah, who was before addressed thou, is now spoken of in 
 the third person, her ; and this also had wonderful tender- 
 ness. It is as though God were musing over her and the 
 blessed fruits of her return to Him ; " it shall not be needed 
 to correct her further." Hncsoever I punished them : lit. all 
 (i.e., all the offences) which I visited upon tier, as God saith of 
 Himself, "-^visiting the si7is of the fathers upon the children," 
 
 graphic picture ib. 13, 14. >? lb. xiv. Ifi, ir. '« Hab. i. 14—16. 
 
 li* See on i. 16. Since also the subjects spoken of in this verse are places, the metaph. 
 meaning of niju " princes" i. e. corner-stones, is not probable here, although cciis, in 
 four places, used of men. 
 
 '-» Prov. xxiv. 32. -' 1|K, exclusively of all besides. All the 
 
 meanings ascribed to T|x are but different ways of expressing in other languages the pri- 
 mary meaning, " nothing but." -- S. Luke xix. 42. 
 
 33 Jon. 2* Ex. XX. 5, xxxiv. 7. Nu. xiv. 18.
 
 476 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 cinu'sT should not be cut ofT, howsoever I punished 
 jni%630. them ; hut tliey rose early, and ' corrupted 
 
 ' Gen. 6. 12. ,^jj j.,,^.;,. ,loi„jrs. 
 
 " &'37.'3"' S II Therefore "• wait ye upon me, saith 
 Prov.20. 22. jj,g l^rd^ „ntil the day that I rise up to the 
 
 and this is mostly the meaninj? of the words ^ visit upon. 
 Amid and notwithstandincr all the offences which God had 
 already chastised, He, in His love and compassion, still lonf^- 
 eth, not utterly to remove them from His Presence, if they 
 Mould but receive instruction now; but they wonldnot. How 
 often, our Lord says", would I laive gathered tltij children to- 
 gether, even as a hen gathereth tier chiehens nrtder her ivings, 
 and ye would not. But indeed, probably. Of a truth ' (it is a 
 word strouii'ly affirniinfij what follows) they rose early, they cor- 
 rupted all t/ieir doings; God gave them His warnings, awaited 
 the result ; they lost no time, they began with morning 
 light ; they hasted to rise, burthened * themselves, made 
 sure of having the whole day before them, to^ — seek God 
 as He had sent His Prophets, ^rising early and sending 
 them ? No, nor even simply to do ill, but of set purpose 
 to do, not this or that corruptly, l)ut to corrupt all their 
 doings. " ^ They with diligence and eagerness rose early, 
 that, with the same haste wherewith they ought to have re- 
 turned to Me, they might shew forth in deed what they had 
 conceived amiss in their mind." There are as many aggra- 
 vations of their sin as there are words. The four Hebrew 
 words bespeak eagerness, wilfulness, completeness, enormity, 
 in sin. They i-ose early, themselves deliberately corrupted, 
 of their own mind made offensive, all their doings, not slight 
 acts, but deeds, great works done with a high hand ^. 
 
 8. Therefore wait ye upon [for] Me. God so willeth not 
 to punish, but that all should lay hold of His mercy, that He 
 doth not here even name punisliment. Judah had slighted 
 His mercies ; He was ready to forgive all they had sinned, if 
 they would 7iow receive instruction ; they in return set them- 
 selves to corrupt all their doings. They had wholly forsaken 
 Him. Therefore — we should have expected, as elsewhere, 
 "Therefore I will visit all your iniquities upon you." But 
 not so. The chastisement is all veiled ; the prophet points 
 only to the mercy beyond. Therefore tcait ye for Me. All 
 the interval of chastisement is summed up in these words ; 
 i.e., since neither My mercies towards you, nor My chastise- 
 ment of others, lead you to obey Me, therefore the time shall 
 be, when My Providence shall not seem to be over you, nor 
 My Presence among you^; but then, tuait ye for Me'^ earnestly, 
 intensely, perseveringly, until the day, that I rise up to the prey . 
 The day is probably in the first instance, the deliverance 
 from Babylon. But the words seem to be purposely enlarged, 
 that they may embrace other judgements of God also. For 
 the words to gather the nations, assemble the kingdoms, de- 
 
 ' Ex. xxxii. 34, Is. xiii. 11, Jer. xxiii. 2, Hos. i. 4, ii. 13, iv. 9, Amos iii. 2, 14 ; be- 
 sides the separate cases of a) visiting upon, or b) visiting the sin. See Ges. 
 
 - S. Matt, xxiii. 37. 
 
 3 px proi)ably (as Ges.) = |Dn Jos. iii. 17. iv. 5. Tlie adversative force, whicli Gesenius 
 (Thes. p. (170) and Ewald (Lehrb. n. 105. d. p. 271. ed. 8.) think to belong to a later 
 style, lies (as so often in other Heb. particles) in the tacit contrast of the sentences. 
 Gesenius' instances of this "later usage" are Ps. xxxi. 23. (David's) Ixvi. 19. Ixxxii. 7. 
 Jobxxxii. 8. Is. xlix. 4. liii. 4. Jer. iii. 20, and this place. 
 
 ■* The word means originally " placed on the back ;" then is used of a traveller, who 
 taking his baggage upon him, or setting it on his camels, sets out in very early dawn, 
 or before it, as is the practice in hot countries. 
 
 '" Jer. vii. 13, 25, xi. 7, xxvi. 5. xxix. 19. 6 S. Jer. 
 
 7 niVSy are the "mighty works" of God, or deeds of man's might, and, as such, 
 mostly great crimes in the sight of God. So even the heathen have formed from "facio," 
 "facinus," of deeds which they too held to involve great guilt. 
 
 prey : for my determination I'.v to " j^ather the f. ,,^^["1 g ^ 
 
 Before 
 I R I f 
 
 nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, ''}h^-i 
 
 to pour uj)on them mine indi<.^nation, ei'en " °^ • • 
 all my fierce anj^er ; for all the earth ° shall " "^^ i- is. 
 be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. 
 
 scribe some array of nations against God and His people ; ga- 
 thering themselves for their own end at that time, but, in 
 His purpose, gathering themselves for their own destruction, 
 rather than the mere tranquil reunion of those of difierent 
 nations in the city of Babylon, when the Medcs and Persians 
 came against them. Nor again are they altogether fulfilled 
 in the destruction of Jerusalem, or any other event until 
 now. For although then a vast number of the dispersed 
 Jews were collected together, and were at that time '""broken 
 off" and out of covenant with God, they could hardly be 
 called nations, (which are here and before '^ spoken of in con- 
 trast with Judah), much less kingdoms. In its fullest sense 
 the prophecy seems to belong to the same events in the last 
 struggle of Anti-Christ, as at the close of Joel ^- and Zecha- 
 riah 1*. With this agrees the largeness of the destruction ; 
 to pour out upon them, in full measure, emptying out so as to 
 overwhelm them'*, 3Iine indignation, even all 3Iy fierce anger; 
 for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. 
 The outpouring of all God's wrath, the devouring of the whole 
 earth, in the fullest sense of the words, belongs to the end of 
 the world, when He shall say to the wicked, " Depart from 
 Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." In lesser degrees, and 
 less fully, the substance of the prophecy has again and again 
 been fulfilled to the Jewish Church before Christ, at Babylon 
 and under the Maccabees; and to the Christian, as when the 
 Mohammedans hemmed in Christendom on all sides, and the 
 waves of their conquests on the East and West threatened 
 to meet, overwhelming Christendom. The Church, having 
 sinned, had to %cait for a while for God Who by His Provi- 
 dence withdrew Himself, yet at last delivered it. 
 
 And since the whole history of the Church lies wrapt up 
 in the Person of the Redeemer, the day that I rise up to the 
 prey, is especially the Day in which the foundation of His 
 Church was laid, or that in which it shall be completed; the 
 Day whereon He rose again, as the first-fruits, or that Day 
 in which He shall ^^ stand again on the earth, to judge it ; ^^ so 
 coming even as He went up into Heaven. Then, the prey ^'' must 
 be, what God vouchsafes to account as His gain, the prey 
 which is taken from the mighty^^, and the lawful captivity, the 
 prey of the terrible one, wliich shall be delivered ; even that 
 spoil which the Father bestowed on Him fFho made His soul 
 an (iff'ering for sin '', the goods of the strong man-" whom He 
 bound, and spoiled us. His lawful goods and captives, since 
 we had sold-^ ourselves under sin to him. "2- Christ lived again 
 having spoiled hell, because -^ it was not possible (as it is 
 
 9 See Hos. iii. 3-5. 
 
 9 nrn is mostly a longing persevering expectation for a thing or person which as yet 
 comes not, when the delay requires patience ; for God, with ^, Ps. xxxiii. 20, Is. viii. 7, 
 Ixiv. 3 ; His promise, Hah. ii. 3, and (part. Kal in sense of Pi.) Is. xxx. 18; with nega- 
 tive Ps. cvi. 13; for death, Job iii. 20; of endurance, Dan. xii. 12. The only other cases 
 are ' lying in wait,' Hos. vi. 9. waiting for the end of Job's words, Job xxxii. 4 ; for the 
 issue of the message to Jehu, 2 Kgs ix. 3 ; till dawn, lb. vii. 9 ; and of God, waiting for 
 us, till He can shew us mercy. Is, x-xx. 18. '" Rom. xi. 20. " v. 6. 
 
 '- Joel iii. 2, 9-16. '^ Zech. xiv. 
 
 » See Ps. Ixix. 24, Ixxix. 6, Jer. vi. 11, x. 25, xiv. 16, Ezek. xxi. 31, Rev. xvi. 1. 
 
 '5 Job xix. 25. It is the same word. "■ Acts i. 11. 
 
 '' ly commonly signifies "eternity," nj or nyj ; also Gen. xlix. 27, Is. xxxiii. 23. (as 
 Ch. uny Ixc.) "prey ;" nowhere, as Ew., " attack. ' '^ is. xlix. 24, 25. 
 
 19 lb. liii. 10, 12. 21 S. Matt. xii. 29, -' Rom. vii. 14. 
 
 coll. Is. 1. 1, Iii. 3. » s. Cyr. » Acts ii. 24.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 477 
 
 c if rTs t ^ ^*^^ ^'^*'" ^^''^ ^ *"•*" ^^ ^'^^ peoijle '' a 
 
 "''• '^'^- pure f laii<?ii5ia;e, that tlicy may all call 
 
 1 Isai. 19. 18. -1 i- ii I j_ 1 • 
 
 tHeb.;/p. upon the name ot tlie Imrd, to serve hnn 
 
 written] that He, being by nature Life, should he holden of 
 death. 
 
 Here, where spoken of with rchition to tlie Chiireh, the jeti- 
 lousy of Ahniglity God is that h)ve for His people', which will 
 not endure their ill-treatment by those who (as all Anti- 
 Christian power doth) make themselves His rivals in the 
 government of the world. 
 
 9. For then, in the order of God's mercies. The deliver- 
 ance from Babylon was the forerunner of that of the Gos- 
 pel, which was its object. The spread of the Gospel then is 
 spoken of in the connection of God's Providence and plan, 
 and time is overlooked. Its blessings are spoken of, as then 
 given when the earnest was given, and the people, from whom 
 according to the flesh Clu'ist was to be born, were placed 
 anew in the land where He was to be born. "-The prophet 
 springs, as is his wont, to Christ and the time of the new 
 law." And in Christ, the End of the law, the prophet ends. 
 
 / will turn, contrary to what they had before, to the peo- 
 ple, lit. peoples, the nations of the earth, a pure language, lit. 
 a purified lip. It is a real conversion, as was said of Saul at 
 the beginning; ^God [lit.] turned to him another heart. Before 
 the dispersion of Babel the world was * df one lip, but that, 
 impure, for it was in rebellion against God. Now it shall be 
 again of owe lip; and t\\?it, purified. The purity is of faith 
 and of life, that they may call upon the Name of the Lord, 
 not as heretofore on idols, but that every tongue should con- 
 fess the one true God, Father Son and Holy Ghost, in Whose 
 Name they are baptised. This is purity of faith. To '" call 
 upon the Name of the Lord Jesus is the very title of Christian 
 worship ; all that called upon the Name of Jesus, the very 
 title of Christians ^. To serve Him with one consent, lit. ivith 
 one shoulder, evenly, steadfastly, not unequally yoked, but all 
 with united strength, bearing Christ's easy yoke and one ano- 
 titers' burdens, fulfilling the law of Christ. This is purity of 
 life. The fruit of the lips is the sacrifice of praise ^. God 
 gave back one pure language, when, on the Day of Pentecost, 
 the Holy Spirit, the Author of purity, came down in fiery 
 tongues upon the Apostles, teaching them and guiding them 
 into the ichole truth^, and to ^ speak to every one in his oivn 
 tongue, wherein he was born, the ivonderful works of God. 
 Thenceforth there was to be a higher unity than that of out- 
 ward language. For speech is not the outward sound, but the 
 thoughts which it conveys and embodies. The inward thought 
 is the soul of the words. The outward confusion of Babel 
 was to hinder oneness in evil and a worse confusion. At 
 Pentecost, the unity restored was oneness of soul and heart, 
 wrought by One Spirit, Whose gift is the one Faith and the 
 
 ' See on Nah. i. 2. 
 
 2 Lap. 3 1 Sam. x. 9. inn 3^ iV " ism, as here mra nBi" Dtiy S.x ibik. 
 
 ^ Gen. xi. 1, 6, 7, 9. The Jews also saw that this was a reversal of the confusion of 
 Babel. " God, blessed for ever, saith, ' in this world, on account of evil concupiscence 
 f jn.T i:i' man's natural corruption) men were divided into 70 languages ; but in the world 
 to come, all shall agree with one mind to call upon My Name ;' " alleging this place. 
 Tanchuma f. 5. 1. ap. Schoettg. ad loc. ** R. Chiia said, 'thou hearest from holy 
 Scripture, that all hangeth from the word of the mouth ; for after the tongues were con- 
 founded, it is added, ' and God dispersed them thence.' But in the time to come, what 
 is written ? ' Then will I turn &c.' " Sohar, Gen. f. 58. col. 217. (Schoettg. loc. gen. n. 
 37). Again it is said, "when the days of the Messiah shall come, boys shall know the 
 hidden things of wisdom ; for then shall all things be revealed, as is said. Then will 
 1 turn &c." lb. f. 7-1- col. 291. lb. ad loc. .\nd of its fulfilment in the conversion of the 
 world, " Who would have expected that God would raise up the tabernacle of David, 
 which was fallen ? and yet it is read. In that day I will raise &c. (Am. ix. 11). And 
 who would h.ive hoped that the whole world would be one band? as in. Then will I turn 
 &c." Beresliith rabba n. 88 fin. Schoettg. loci gen, n. 18, and on Gen. xli. 44 ; " Why is, 
 
 PART V. 
 
 with one f eon.sent. ^ if rTs t 
 
 10 J From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia "''"■ '"^''- 
 my sii|)pliants, even tiie daujrliter of my ^ "'^^j^r. 
 
 '1 I's. US. ai. Isai. 18. 1, 7. & GO. 1, iic. Mai. 1. 11. Acts 8. 27. 
 
 one Hope of our calling, in the One Lord, in Whom we are 
 
 one, grafted into the one body, by our Baptism'". The Church, 
 tlicn created, is the One Holy Catholic Church diffused 
 lliroughout all the world, everywhere with one rule of Faith, 
 the Faith o)ire for all delivered unto I lie saints, coiifcssing r)iie 
 God, the Trinity in Unity, and .serving Him in the one law 
 of the Gospel with one consent, ('hri^tiatis, as Christians, 
 speak the same language of Faith, and from all quarters of 
 tlie world, one language of praise goes up to the One God 
 and Father of all. "" (iod divided the tongues at Babel, lest, 
 understanding one another, they should form a destructive 
 unity. Through proud men tongues were divided; through 
 humble Apostles tongues were gathered in one. The spirit 
 of pride dispersed tongues; the Holy S|)irit gathered tongues 
 in one. For when the Holy Spirit came ujion the disciples, 
 they spake with the tongues of all, were understood by all; 
 the dispersed tongues were gathered into one. So then, if 
 they are yet angry and Gentiles, it is better for them to have 
 their tongues divided. If they wish for one tongue, let them 
 come to the Church ; for in diversity of the tongues of the 
 flesh, there is one tongue in the Faith of the heart." In 
 whatever degree the oneness is impaired within the Church, 
 while there is yet one Faith of the Creeds, He Alone can 
 restore it and turn to her a purified language, ^^'ilo first gave 
 it to those who waited for Him. Both praise and service 
 are perfected above, where the Blessed, with one loud voice, 
 ^■^ shall cry. Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne 
 and unto the Lamb ; blessing and glory and luisdom and 
 thanksgiving and honour and poiver and might be unto our 
 God for ever and ever. And they who have come out of great 
 tribulation and have tvashed their robes and ukuIc them white 
 in the Blood of the Lamb, shall be before the Throne of God 
 and serve Him day and night in His Temple "." 
 
 10. From beyond the rivers^* of Ethiopia. The furthest 
 Southern people, with whom the Jews had intercourse, stand 
 as the type of the whole world beyond. The utmost bound of 
 the known inhabited land should not be the bound of the Gos- 
 pel. The conversion of Abyssinia is one, but the narrowest 
 fulfilment of the prophecy. The whole new world, though not 
 in the mind of the prophet, was in the mind of Him Who 
 spake by the prophet. 
 
 3Iy suppliants. He names them as what they shall be 
 when they shall come to Him. They shall come, as needy, to 
 the Fountain of all good, asking for mercy of the unfailing 
 Source of all mercy. He describes the very character of all 
 who come to God through Christ. The daughter of Jly dis- 
 persed^^. God is, in the way of Providence, the Father of all, 
 
 ' they shall praise Thee ' repeated four times in Ps. Ixvii. 4 ? He means, ' Thev shall 
 praise Thee with their heart ; they shall praise Thee with their mouth ; they shall praise 
 Thee with their good deeds, and they shall praise Thee with all these, as it is said, For 
 then will I turn &c.* and the Name of the Lord is no other than the King Messiah, ac- 
 cording to, 'and the Name of the Lord cometh from far.'" in Mart. Pug. Fid. f. .327. 
 It is also quoted with other places, as to be fulfilled in the time of the Messiah, Ti/ckunf 
 Sohar p. 60 (Schoettg. Loc. gen. n. SO), R. Moseh in Ibn Ezra, and Ibn Ezra himself, 
 of the second temple. Ximchi " after the wars of Gog." 
 
 ^ Acts xxii. ir.. Rom. x. 13. <■ Acts ix. 14, 21, 1 Cor. i. 2. ' Heb. xiii. 15. 
 
 8 S. John xvi. 13. 9 Acts ii. 8, 11. 
 
 10 Eph. iv. 3-6. 11 S. Aug. in Ps. liv. 6. 
 
 12 Rev. vii. 10, 12. " lb. vii. 14, 15. » See Isaiah x\m. 1: 
 
 15 Ewald conjectures B13 r3 because Nahum speaks of Cush, Phut and Lubim amon» 
 the allies of No-.\mmon or Thebes, and renders nny "my incenses;" first rendering irp 
 (Ez. viii. 11) " Ihe smoke of Ihe cloud of incense." But this sense is not itself proved (in both 
 Syr. and Arab, incense is "oy not "iry) nor is incense plural ; nor is there any parallelism 
 of Cush and Phut in Nahum, but Phut and Lubim are historically named as' allies ot No. 
 
 A A A .\
 
 478 
 
 ZEPHANIAII. 
 
 ch'rTst '^'^P^**^^'^' shall hrinnj mino offcrinj;^. 
 "*•• """• 11 In tlmt (lay slialt thou not he ashamed 
 
 for all thy dohigs, wherein thou hast trans- 
 gressed against me : for then I will take 
 
 ahhough, by sin, alienated from Him ; whence S. Paul says, 
 tve are the offspring of God '. They were dispersed, severed 
 from the oneness in Him and from His house and family; yet 
 still, lookinc; on them as already helonfi'inf;; to Him, He calls 
 them, Ml/ dispersed, as by Caiaphas, being hijjh-priest. He 
 prophesied that Jesns should die for that nut ion ; inid not for 
 that nation onlij, hut that also He should gather together in 
 one the ehildren of God that ivere scattered abroad ^. 
 
 Shall bring Mine offering^. The offering is the same as 
 that wiiich Malachi prophesies shall continue under the New 
 Testament, which ortoring was to be offered to the Name of 
 God, not in Jerusalem, hut ^ in every place from the rising of 
 the sun unto the going down of the same. The dark skin of 
 the Ethiopian is the image of ingrained sin, which man could 
 not efface or change " : their conversion then declares how 
 those steeped in sin shall be cleansed from all their darkness 
 of mind, and washed white from their sins in Baptism and 
 beautified by the grace of God. ""The word of i)rophecy 
 cndeth in truth. For not only through the Roman cmj)irc is 
 the Gospel preached, hut it circles round the barbarous na- 
 tions. And there are Churches everywhere, shepherds and 
 teachers, guides and instructors in mysteries, and sacred 
 altars, and the Lamb is invisibly sacrificed by holy priests 
 among Indians too and Ethiopians. And this was said plainly 
 by another prophet also*. For I am a great King, saith the 
 Lord, and My Name is great among the heathen, and in every 
 place incense is offered to My Name and a pure sacrifice." 
 
 11. In that day shall thou not be ashamed for all thy 
 doings, because God, forgiving them, will blot them out and 
 no more remember them. This was first fulfilled in the Gos- 
 pel. ""No one can doubt that when Christ came in the 
 flesh, tliere was an amnesty and remission to all who be- 
 lieved. For u<e are justified not by works of righteousness 
 which ice have done, but according to His great mercy. But 
 we have been released from shame. For He hath restored 
 us to freedom of access to God, Who for our sakes arose from 
 the dead, and for us ascended to heaven in the presence of 
 the Father. For Christ, our Forerunner, hath ascended for 
 us now to appear in the presence of God. So then He took 
 away the guilt of all and freed believers from failures and 
 shame." St. Peter, even in heaven, must remember his denial 
 of our Lord, yet not so as to be ashamed or pained any more, 
 since the exceeding love of God will remove all shame or 
 pain, "7]Mio;hty promise, mighty consolation. Now, before 
 that Day comes, the Day of My" Resurrection, thou wilt be 
 ashamed and not without reason, since thou ownest by a true 
 confession, *«// our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But at 
 that Day it will not he so, especially when that shall be which 
 I promise thee in the Prophets and the Psalms, ^ There shall 
 
 ' Acts xvii. 28. 2 s. John xi. 51, 53. 
 
 s It IS possible also to render, "from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, My suppliants 
 the daiin;hter of My dispersed shall they bring as Mine offering : " and this some h.-ive 
 preferred on account of the like place in Isaiah Ixvi, 20, "And thev shall bring 
 all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations &c." 'But the word 
 nnjD alone is common to the two passages, and the words C'i3 "i.ijS nnyo which occur in 
 Is. xviii. 1, and "7 v 731- Ih. 7, make me think that this place rather was in the pro- 
 phet's mmd. 1 Mai. i. 11. s Jer. xiii. 23. 6 s. Cyr. 
 
 L 'i.^P;. » " J^- 1'''^- ''• ' Zech. xiii. 1. 
 
 lO Ps. h. 7.. >' lb. xxxiv. 5. 12 Rom. vi. 21. 
 
 " Ps- Ixxxix. 1. Hit cannot be " those that exult in thy highness ;" 
 
 for ."11x3, as used of man, always has a bad sense, " self-exaltation." 
 
 jvway out of the midst of th<'(^ them that 
 
 ■^rejoiee in thy j)ride, and thou shalt no more 
 
 he haughty f beeause of my holy mountain. 
 
 12 1 will also leave in the midst of thee 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 dr. 030. 
 
 "^Jer. 7. 4. 
 Mic 3. 11. 
 Matt. 3. 9, 
 Heb. in 
 my holy. 
 
 be a Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness; whence David 
 also, exulting in good hope of the Holy Spirit, saith, ^"Thou 
 shall wash mc and I shall be whiter than snow. For though he 
 elsewhere saith, ^^ they looked unto Him and were lightened, 
 and their faces were 7iot ashamed, yet in this mortal life, when 
 the day of My Resurrection doth not fully shine upon thee, 
 thou art after some sort ashamed; as it is written, ^^ What fruit 
 had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? but 
 that shame will bring glory, and, when that glory cometh 
 in its place, will wholly pass away. But when the fulness 
 of that day shall come, the fulness of My Resurrection, when 
 the members shall rise, as the Head hath risen, will the me- 
 mory of past foulness bring any confusion ? Yea the very 
 memory of the miseries will be the richest su))ject of sing- 
 ing, according to that, "^^My song shall be alway of the loving- 
 kindness of the Lord." For how shall the redeemed forget 
 the mercies of their redemption, or yet how feel a painful 
 shame even of the very miseries, out of which they were re- 
 deen)ed by the fulness of the over-streaming Love of God ? 
 
 For then will I take away out of the midst of thee them 
 that rejoice in thy pride, [tliose of thee who e.rult in pride^*.'\ 
 All confusion shall cease, because all pride shall cease, the 
 parent of sin and confusion. The very gift of God becomes 
 to the carnal a source of pride. Pride was to the Jew also 
 the great hindrance to the reception of the Gospel. He 
 made his boast of the law, yea, in God Himself, that he knew 
 His will, and was a guide of others^'", and so was the more 
 indignant, that the heathen was made equal to him, and that 
 he too was called to repentance and faith in Christ. So, go- 
 ing about to establish his own righteousness, he did not submit 
 himself to the righteousness of God, but shut himself out from 
 the faith and grace and salvation of Christ, and rejected 
 Himself. So, '' thy pride may be the pride in being the people 
 of God, and having Abraham for their father. And thou shalt 
 no more be haughty ^" in My holy mountain, " but thou shalt 
 stand in the great and everlasting abiding-place of humility, 
 knowing perfectly, that thou now 'knowest in part' only, 
 and confessest truly that no one ever could or can by his 
 i own works be justified in the sight of God. ^' For all have 
 sinned and come short of the glory of God." Pride which is 
 ever offensive to God, is yet more hideous in a holy place or 
 a holy oflUce, in Mount Sion where the temple was or in the 
 Christian priesthood, 
 
 12. And / will also leave {over, as a remnant, it is still 
 the same heavy prophecy, that a remnant only shall be 
 savecP^J an quieted and poor people. Priests, (except that 
 great company who were obedient to the faith^^) scribes, law- 
 yers, I'harisees, Sadducees were taken away; and there re- 
 mained " *° the people of the land," the -^ unlearned and ig- 
 
 >» Rom. ii. 17, lS-20, 23. 
 
 '5 As in E. M., not, because of. nil, as a mental quality, mostly occurs with 37 and is 
 used in a bad sense of high-mindedness= pride; Ps. cxxxi. 1, (David's), Pr. xviii. 12, Ez. 
 xxviii. 2, 5, 17, 2 Chr. xxvi. 16, xxxii. 25 ; absol. in a bad sense, Is. iii. 16, Jer. xiii. 
 15, Ez. xvi. 50. It is used of eminence given by God, Job xxxvi. 7, and of the Messiah 
 as exalted by Him, Is. Iii. 13. Once only, 2 Chr. xvii. 6, u'? n3j is used in a good sense 
 of Jehoshaphat, that, being exalted by God, " his heart was elevated in the ways of the 
 law." The form nna:^ is like the inf. in Ex. xxix. 29, xxx. 18, xxxvi. 2, Lev. xv. 
 32, &c. 17 R'oi'ri. iii. 23. i*' lb. ix. 27. See ab. on Mic. ii. 12. p. 309. 
 
 ^^ Acts vi. 7. 20 pj(n cy the uneducated, this pt-opie that hnotvetit not 
 
 the law (.S. John vii. 49), " one in whom there are moral not intellectual excellences." 
 Rambam in Buxt. Lex. Talm. col. 1026. 2' Acts iv. 13.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 479 
 
 c H R^i^s T ' ^" afflicted and poor people, and they shall 
 "'■ "'^''- trust in the name of the rjoiin. 
 Zecji. n.l'i. 13 'The renuiant of Israel " sliall not do 
 
 Matt. 5. 3. 1 Cor. 1. 27, 28. Jam. 2. 5. t Mic. I. /. cli. 2. 7. " Isai. CO. 21. 
 
 norant, ^the weak things 0/ the world and the things despised 
 who bore the very title of tlieir Muster ^, the poor and needy ; 
 poor in spirit^ ; poor also in outward things, since they ivho had 
 lands, sold them and tliey hud all things common '. They 
 were afflicted above measure outwardly in the ■' persecutions, 
 reproaches, spoiling of X\w\r goods, stripes, dcatiis, which they 
 endured for Ciirist's sake. They knew too their own poverty; 
 '"'knowiuff themselves to be sinners, and that they were 
 justified only by faith in Jesus Christ." When the rest were 
 cast out of the midst of her, these should be left ///, the midst 
 of her (the words stand in contrast with one another) in the 
 bosom of the Church. j4nd the]/ shall trust in the name of 
 the Lord. "As they looked to be justified only in the Name 
 of Christ," and '"'trusted in the grace and power of God 
 alone, not in any power or wisdom or eloquence or riches of 
 this world, they converted the world to a faith above nature." 
 "^Conformed in this too to Christ, Who for our sakes became 
 poor and almost neglected both His divine glory and the 
 supereminence of His nature, to subject Himself to the con- 
 dition of a servant. So then those instructed in His laws after 
 His example, think humbly of themselves. They became most 
 exceedingly loved of God, and chiefly the divine disciples, who 
 were set as lights of the world." 
 
 13. The remnant of Israel, the same poor people, the true 
 Israel of whom God said, / leave over (the word is the same) 
 a poor people, few, compared with the rest who were blinded; 
 of whom the Lord said, I know ivhom I have chosen''. These 
 shall not do iniquity nor speak lies. " ^ This is a spiritual 
 adorning, a most beautiful coronet of glorious virtues. For 
 where meekness and liumility are and the desire of righteous- 
 ness, and the tongue unlearns vain words and sinful speech, 
 and is the instrument of strict truth, there dawns a bright 
 and most perfect virtue. And this beseems those who are 
 in Christ. For the beauty of piety is not seen in the Law, 
 but gleams forth in the power of Evangelic teaching." 
 
 Our Lord said of Nathanael, ^^ZJeAoW an Israelite indeed, in 
 whom is no guile, and to the Apostles, ^^J send you forth as 
 sheep among wolves; be ye therefore ivise as serpents and harm- 
 less as doves ; and of the first Christians it is said, ^' they, con- 
 tinuing daily ivith one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 
 from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and sin- 
 gleness of heart, praising God and having favour ivith all the 
 people. This is the character of Christians, as such, and it 
 was at first fulfilled; ^^ whosoever is born of God, doth not com- 
 mit sin ; ^^ ivhosoever is horn of God sinneth not ; but he that is 
 begotten of God keepeth himself, and that tcicked one toucheth 
 him not. An Apologist, at the close of the second century, 
 could appeal to the Roman Emperor i^, that no Christian was 
 found among their criminals, " unless it be only as a Chris- 
 tian, or, if he be any thing else, he is forthwith no longer a 
 Christian. We alone then are innocent ! What wonder if this 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 27, 28. 2 Ps. xli. 1. 
 
 ' 'jy is not simply " poor," nor uy simply "meek." ':y is one " aftlicted," in whom 
 affliction has produced its fruits ; W, one " meek" but in whom patience has been tried ' 
 and perfected ; as the same class are meant by the irToixoi, S. Luke vi. 20, and the 
 iTTwxol "rt? irreiijuaTt, S. Matt. v. 3 ; and, '* no humility without humiliation," is become 
 a Christian proverb. ^ Acts ii. 'il, 45, iv. 32, 35. 
 
 6 Acts viii. 1, ix. 2, 13, 14. xii. 1, 2, xiii. 50, xiv. 5. 22. xxii. &c. Rom. viii. 17, 
 35, 36. xii. 14, 1 Cor. ix. 19, 2 Cor. i. 8, 9, xii. 10, 2 Thess. i. 4, 2 Tim. iii. 11, 12 
 Heb. X. 32-31, S. James ii. C, 7, 1 S. Pet. i. 6, 7- iv. 13, Rev. i. 9, vi. 9 S:c. 
 6 Rup. 7 Dion. 8 s. Cyr. 
 
 ini(julty, ' nor sjx'ak lies; neitlier shall a ^jf^'psT 
 deeeitfiil tonj^ue he found in their mouth : "■'•■ rm. 
 for Uhey shall feed and lie down, and none ' Rei.H.s. 
 
 y Ezek. 31. 28. Mic. 4. 4. & 7. 14. 
 
 be so, of necessity? And truly of necessity it is so. Taught 
 innocence by God, we both know it perfectly, as being revealed 
 by a perfect Master; and we keep it faitlifiilly, as being com- 
 mitted to us by an Oliscrver, Who may nctt be des])ised." 
 ""'lJ(!ing so vast a multitude of men, almost the greater jior- 
 tion of every state, we live silently and modestly, known per- 
 haps more as individuals than as a body, and to be known 
 by no other sign than tin? reformation of our former sins." 
 Now in the Church, which "our earth diiiim'd eyes behold," 
 we can but say, as in regard to the (cessation of war'^ under 
 the Gospel, that God's [iromises are sure on His j)art, that 
 still ^^ they that are Christ's have criicijicd the Jlesh. with the 
 a{f'ectio)is and lusts, that the Gospel is '^■' a power of God unto 
 salvation, that the ""preaching of the Cross is, unto us which 
 are saved, the power of God; -haito them that are called, Christ 
 is the power of God and the wisdom of God ; that those who 
 will, --are kept by God through faith unto salvtition ; but that 
 now too '"•they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, and that 
 ~^the faithlessness of man does not make the faith of God <f none 
 effect. "-^The Church of God is universally holy in respect of 
 all, by institutions and administrations of sanctity; the same 
 Church is really holy in this world, in relation to all godly 
 persons contained in it, by a real infused sanctity; the same 
 is farther yet at the same time perfectly holy in reference to 
 the saints departed and admitted to the presence of God; 
 and the same Church shall hereafter be most completely holy 
 in the world to come, when all the members, actually belong- 
 ing to it, shall be at once perfected in holiness and completed 
 in happiness." Most fully shall this be fulfilled in the Re- 
 surrection. "^O blessed day of the Resurrection, in whose 
 fulness no one will sin in word or deed ! O great and blessed 
 reward to every soul, which, although it hath now do)tc ini- 
 quity and spoken falsehood, yet willeth not to do it further ! 
 Great and blessed reward, that he shall now receive such ini- 
 moveableness, as no longer to be able to do iniquity or speak 
 falsehood, since the blessed soul, through the Spirit of ever- 
 lasting love inseparably united with God its Creator, shall 
 now no more be capable of an evil will!" 
 
 For they shall feed ; on the hidden manna, "^nourished 
 most delicately by the Holy Spirit with inward delights, and 
 spiritual food, the bread of life." In the things of the body 
 too was -'^distribution made unto every man according as he had 
 need. And they shall lie down in the green pastures where 
 He foldeth them ; and none shall make them afraid, " " for 
 they were ready to suffer and to die for the Name of the 
 Lord Jesus. -'^ "^ Thei/ departed from the presence of the council 
 rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for 
 His Name. Before the Resurrection and the sending of the 
 Holy Ghost, how great was the fearfulness, unsteadfastness, 
 weakness of the disciples; how great, after the infusion of 
 the Holy Spirit, was their constancy and imperturbableness, it 
 
 9 S. John xiii. 18. "> lb. i. 4". " S. Mat. x. 16. '= Acts ii. 46, 47. 
 
 '3 1 S. John iii. 9. » lb. v. 18. 
 
 '^ Tert. Apol. c. 41, 4.5. See also Justin M. i. n. 34. S. Athenaporas, n. 2, Minutius 
 Felix p. o'S'i. Theodoret de cur. Grtec. all". Disp. xii. circ. med. p. 1021 sqq. ed Schultz ; 
 Lactant. v. 9. quoted lb. '« Id. ad Scap. n. 2, p. 145. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 '■I See ah. on Mic. iv. 3 pp. 323, 324. is Gal. v. 24. See Dr Pusey's 
 
 Sermon, "The Gospel, the power of God." Lenten Sermons, pp. 300-321. 
 
 I'J Rom. i. IG. -» 1 Cor. i. 18. =' lb. 24. - 1 S. Pet. i. 5. 
 
 23 Rum. ix. 6. -* lb. iii. 3. -* Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. ix. 
 
 26 Acts iv. 35. . 2' lb. xxi. 13. 2sib. v. 41. 
 
 A A A A 2
 
 480 
 
 ZEPIIANIAH. 
 
 ci^rTst ^^''^'^ make them afraid. 
 
 "■•• fiiio- 14 ^[ '■ Sinj?, () (laujjjhter of Zion ; shout, 
 
 ^^Pilh^' O Israel; be '^\m\ and rejoice with all the 
 l^gl'gf'^"' heart, O daugliter of Jerusalem. 
 
 15 The Lord hath taken away thy judg- 
 
 is deIi2:htsoine to estimate in their Acts," when Xhcy^hare His 
 Name before the Geuti/es raid /chis;.s, raid the cliildren of Israel, 
 and he who had hoen atVaUl of a little maid, said to the Hi^h 
 Priest, "- JVe onglit to oheij God rather than men. "^When 
 Christ the Good Shejdicrd ^Vho laid down Ilis life for His 
 sheep, shone upon us, we arc fed in jjardens and pastured 
 among; lilies, and lie down in folds ; for we are folded in 
 Churches and holy shrines, no one scarinaf or spoiling' us, 
 no wolf assailing nor lion trampling on us, no robber break- 
 ing through, no one invading us, to steal and kill and destroy; 
 hut we abide in safety and participation of every good, being 
 in charge of Christ the Saviour of all." 
 
 14. S'aii;. () daughter of Sion; shout, O Israel; he glad a7id 
 rejoice teith all the heart, U drmghter of Jerusalem. Very re- 
 markable throughout all these verses is the use of the sacred 
 number three, secretly conveying to the thoughtful soul the 
 thought of Him, Father Son and Holy Ghost, the Holy and 
 Undivided Trinity by Whose operation these things shall be. 
 Threefold is the description of their being freed from sins; 
 1) they shall not do inirjnifi/, 2) nor speak lies, 3) neither shall 
 a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth. Threefold their 
 blessedness ; They shall 1) feed, 2) lie dotvn, 3) none make them 
 afraid. Threefold the exhortation to joy here ; " * ^SVwo- 
 to God the Father ; shout to God the Son ; he glad raid re- 
 I'oice in God the Holy Ghost, which Holy Trinity is One God, 
 from Whom thou hast received it that thou art 1) the daughter 
 of Zion, 2) Israel, 3) the daughter of Jerusalem; the rlaughter 
 of Zion by faith, Israel by hope, Jerusalem by charity." And 
 this hidden teaching of that holy mystery is continued; ^ The 
 Lorrl, God the Father, hath taken rnvay thy judgements ; He 
 God the Son, hath cast out (cleared quite away) thine enemy ; 
 the king of Israel, the Lord, the Holy Ghost, is in the midst of 
 thee ! The promise is threefold, 1) thou shall not see evil any 
 more ; 2) fear thou not ; 3) let not thine hands he slack. 
 The love of God is threefold. I) He will rejoice over thee with 
 
 joy ; 2) He icill rest in His love ; 3) He will joy over thee with 
 singing. Again the words in these four verses are so framed 
 as to be ////-tilled in the end. All in this life are but shadows 
 of that fulness. First, whether the Church or the faithful 
 soul, she is summoned by all her names, daughter of Zion 
 ("the thirsty" athirst for God) Israel ('• Prince with God") 
 Jerusalem (" City of peace"). By all she is called to the 
 fullest joy in God with every expression and every feeling. 
 'Sing; it is the inarticulate, thrilling, trembling burst of 
 joy ; shout; again the inarticulate yet louder swell of joy, a 
 trumpet-blast; and then too, deep within, he glad, the calm 
 even joy of the inward soul ; exult, the triumph of the soul 
 which cannot contain itself for joy ; and this, with the whole 
 heart, no corner of it not pervaded with joy. The ground 
 of this is the complete removal of every evil, and the full 
 Presence of God. 
 
 15. The Lord hath taken away thy judgements ; her own, 
 because brought upon her by her sins. But when God takes 
 
 'Actsix. 15. 2 1b. v. 29. 3 S. Cyril < Rup. * v. 15. 
 
 s Besides this place, the word is used of " the clearing of a house," Gen. xxiv. 31, 
 Lev. xiv. 30; " a way," Is. xl. 3, Ivii. 11, Ixii. lU; Mai. iii. 1 ; "clearing ground," Ps. 
 Ixxx. 10. ' S. John xii. 31. 8 Rev. vii. 15. » S. Matt, xxviii. 20, 
 
 inents, he hath east out thine enemy : ° the (. ,f[i'^YsT 
 kini^ of Israel, even the Lord, '' j.y in tlu; "'■ "''"■ 
 midst of thee : thou shalt not see evil any I ver\ 17. ' 
 
 Ezek.48.35. 
 
 more. Rev. 7. 15. 
 
 16 In that day "^ it shall be said to Jerusa- c u.35.'3,'4.' 
 
 away the chastisements in mercy. He removes and forgives 
 the sin too. Else, to remove the judgemeyits only, would be 
 to abandon the sinner. He hath cast out, lit. cleared quite 
 away'^, as a man clears away all liindran(;es, all which stands 
 in the way, so that there should be none whatever left — 
 thine enemy ; the one enemy, from whom every hindrance to 
 our salvation comes, as He saith, ^ Noiu shall the prince of 
 this world be cast out. The King rjf Israel, even the Lord, 
 Christ the Lord, is in the midst of thee, of ^Vhom it is .said, 
 * He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell ammig them, and 
 Who Himself saith, '' Lo I ran tvith yon always unto the end 
 of the world. ^'•^ Where two or three are gathered together iti 
 My A^ame, there am I in the midst of yon. He Who had re- 
 moved from the midst of her the proud. Who had left in the 
 mirlst of her those with whom He dwelleth, shall Himself 
 dwell in the midst of her in mercy, as He had before in 
 judgement 1'. He cleanseth the soul for His indwelling, and 
 so dwelleth in the mansion which He had prepared for Him- 
 self. Thou shalt not see evil any more. For even the remains 
 of evil, while we are yet in the flesh, are overruled, and 
 '- work together to good to those who love God. They cannot 
 separate between the soul and Christ. Rather, He is nearer 
 to her in them. We are bidden to ^^coutif it alljrjy when we 
 fall into divers temptations, for all sorrows are but medicine 
 from a father's hand. "^^And truly our way to eternal joy is 
 to suft'er here with Christ, and our door to enter into eternal 
 life is gladly to die with Christ, that we may rise again from 
 death and dwell with Him in everlasting life." So in the Re- 
 velation, it is first said that God should dwell with His 
 people, and then that all pain shall cease. ^''Behold the 
 tabernacle of Gorl is with men, and He will ilwell tvith them 
 ami he their God. And God shall wipe all tears from their 
 eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor cry- 
 ing, neither shall there he raiy more pain ; for the former things 
 are passed away. " ^ In the inmost meaning of the words, he 
 could not but bid her rejoice and be exceeding glad and re- 
 joice with her whole heart, her sins being done away through 
 Christ. For the holy and spiritual Zion, the Church, the 
 multitude of believers, is justified in Christ Alone, and we are 
 saved by Him and from Him, escaping the harms of our in- 
 visible enemies, and having in the midst of us the King and 
 God of all, M'ho appeared in our likeness, the Word from 
 God the Father, through Whom we see not evil, i. e. are 
 freed from all who could do us evil. For He is the worker of 
 our acccptableness, our peace, our wall, the bestowcr of in- 
 corruption, the dispenser of crowns. Who lighteneth the 
 assaults of devils, Who giveth us to ^^ tread on serpents and 
 scorpions and all the power of the enemy — through Whom we 
 are in good hope of immortality and life, adoption and glory, 
 through Whom we shall not see evil any more." 
 
 IG. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou 
 not ; for ^'perfect love casteth out fear ; whence He saith, ^^Fear 
 not, little Jlock ; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
 
 I« Ih. xviii. 20. 
 
 " S. James i. 2. 
 
 1= Rev. xxi. 3, 4. 
 ': 1 S. John iv. 18. 
 
 " Verses 11, 12, 15, 5, 
 
 '- Rom. viii. 28. 
 
 '■• Exhort, in Visit, of the sick, 
 16 S. Luke X. 19. 
 »s S. Luke xii. 32.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 481 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 630. 
 
 ■" Heb. 12. 12. 
 II Oi, faint. 
 ' ver. 15. 
 ' Deut. .W. 9. 
 
 Isai. 62. 5. 
 
 & 65. 19. 
 
 Jer. 32. 41. 
 
 lem, Fear thou not : and to Zion, '' Let not 
 thine liands be || shick. 
 
 17 The Loan thy (Jod ' in the midst of 
 thee is migl)ty ; he will save, Hie will rejoiee 
 over thee with joy ; f he will rest in his 
 
 \ Heb. he will be silent. 
 
 the kitif^doDi. Who tlicii inid what should tlie Cliurc-h or the 
 faithful soul fear, since inii:;liticr is He that is in her, tltmi he 
 that is ill the wor/df yl)id to Zion, Let not thine hands he 
 slack, throuijh faiiit-hcartcdncss\ htit work with all thy ini^ht ; 
 be ready to do or bear anything^; since Christ worketh 
 M'ith, in, by thee, and " in due time lue shall reap, if lue faint 
 not, 
 
 17- The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty ; He 
 will save. What can lie then not do for thee, since He is 
 Almighty ? What will He not do for thee, since He will save ? 
 Whom then should we fear ? ^ If God he for us, tvho can he 
 against us? But then was He especially in the 7nidst of 
 VIS, when God * the IVord heeame flesh and dwelt among us ; 
 and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of 
 the Father, full of grace and Truth. Thenceforth He ever is 
 in the midst of His own. He with the Father and the Holy 
 Spirit ^ come unto them and make Their abode with them, so 
 that they are the temple of God. He will save, as He saith, 
 ^ 3Ii/ Father is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck 
 them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are One. 
 Of the same time of the Christ, Isaiah saitii almost in the 
 same words ; ^ Strengthen ye the iceak hands and confirm the 
 feeble knees, Say to them that are of a feeble heart, Be strong, 
 fear not, behold your God will come, He will come and save 
 you ; and of the Holy Trinity, ^ He luill save us. 
 
 He will rejoiee over thee with joy. Love, joy, peace in 
 man are shadows of that which is in God, by Whom they are 
 created in man. Only in God they exist undivided, uncreated. 
 Hence God speaks after the manner of men, of that which 
 truly is in God. God joyeth " with an uncreated joy " over 
 the works of His Hands or the objects of His Love, as man 
 joyeth over the object of his love. So Isaiah saith'', u4s the 
 bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice 
 over thee. As with uncreated love the Father resteth in 
 good pleasure in His Well-beloved Son, so ^"God is well-pleased 
 ivith the sacrifices of loving deeds, and, ^^ the Lord delighteth in 
 thee ; and, ^"I ivill rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in My people ; 
 and, '^ the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good. And so 
 in a two-fold way God meeteth the longing of the heart of 
 man. The soul, until it hath found God, is evermore seek- 
 ing some love to fill it. and can find none, since the love of 
 God Alone can content it. Then too it longeth to be loved, 
 even as it loveth. God tells it, that every feeling and ex- 
 pression of human love may be found in Him, Whom if any 
 love, he only i* loveth Him, because He first loved us. Every 
 inward and outward expression or token of love are heaped 
 together, to express the love of Him Who broodcth and as it 
 were yearneth over (it is twice repeated) His own whom He 
 loveth. Then too He loveth thee as He biddeth thee to love 
 Him ; and since the love of man cannot be like the love of the 
 
 1 See Heb. xii. 12. = Gal. vi. 9. 
 
 3 Rom. viii. 31. * S. John i. 14. s lb. xiv. 23. 6 ib. x. 29, 30. 
 
 ' Is. XXXV. 3, 4. » Ib. xxxiii. 22. 9 Ib. Ixii. 5. 
 
 "I Heb. xiii. 16. >' Is. Ixii. 4. '- Ib. Ixv. 19. » Deut. xxx. 9. 
 
 '< 1 S. John iv. 19. i' Verse 14. 16 Rup. 
 
 '7 1 Cor. ii. 9. '» E"Tn' ''J Jer. xxxi. 34, xxxiii. 8, Mic. vii. 18. 
 
 -" This is the common meaning of the root n:', tliough not so frequent in the verb as 
 in nouns, and 5 out of the 8 cases are in Lam. i. 4 (where the same form niw, Nif. oc- 
 
 love, he will joy over thee with sinj^ing. ^ jf ^"[^g ^ 
 
 18 I will i:;ather them that £ are sorrow- "'*•• '^- 
 ful for the solemn assembly, ?r//o are of *" ^^'"' ^' ^* 
 thee, to tvho7n -j-the reproach of it ti'us a iC,. Ivrdcn 
 
 bi upon it was 
 
 Urden. repruacU. 
 
 Infinite (iod. He here jiirturcs His own hive in the ■>\(irds of 
 man's love, to convey to his sou! tiie oneness wiierewith love 
 unites her unto God. He here echoes in a manner the joy of 
 tlK'('hurch,to which He had called her'"', in words the self-same 
 or meaning the same. We have /V;y here for /oy tlierc; sing- 
 ing or the unuttered unutterahlc jiiltilcc of tlic licart, wliich 
 cannot utter in words its joy and love, and joys and loves the 
 more in its inmost depths because it cannot utter it. A sha- 
 dow of the unutterable, because Infinite Love of God, and this 
 repeated thrice ; as being the eternal love of the Ever-blessed 
 Trinity. This love and joy the Propliet speaks of, as an exu- 
 berant joy, one wliich lioundeth within the inmost self, and 
 again is wholly silent in His love, as the deejjest tenderest most 
 yearning love broods over the object of its love, yet is held still 
 in silence by the very depth of its love; and then, again, lireaks 
 forth in outward motion, and leaps for joy, and uttereth what 
 it cannot form in words; for truly the love of God in its un- 
 speakable love and joy is past belief, past utterance, past 
 thought. "^^ Truly that joy wherewith He will be silent in 
 His love, that exultation w^herewitii He will joy over thee with 
 singing, ^'^ Eye hath not seen nor car heard, neither hath it en- 
 tered into the heart of man." The Hebrew word'*" also con- 
 tains the meaning, " He in His love shall make no mention of 
 past sins^^. He shall not bring them up against thee, shall not 
 upbraid thee, yea, shall not remember them." It also may ex- 
 press the still, unvarying love of the Unchangeable God. And 
 again how the very silence of God, when He seemeth not to 
 hear, as He did not seem to hear S. Paul, is a very fruit of 
 His love. Yet that entire forgiveness of sins, and that seem- 
 ing absence are but ways of shewing His love. Hence God 
 speaks of His very love itself, He will he silent in His love, as, 
 before and after. He will rejoice. He will joy over thee. 
 
 18-21 . In these verses still continuing the number"three," 
 the prophecy closes with the final reversal of all which, in 
 this imperfect state of things, seems turned upside down, 
 when those who now mourn shall be comforted, they who 
 now bear reproach and shame shall have glory, and those 
 who now afflict the people of God shall be undone. 
 
 18. I will gather them that are sorrowful -'^for-^ the solemn 
 assembly, in which they were to rejoice-- before God and which 
 in their captivity God made to cease -^. They were of thee, the 
 true Israel who were "^ grieved for the affliction of Joseph ; to 
 whom the reproach of it jras a burden [rather -', on tvhom re- 
 proach was laid] : for this reproach of Christ is greater riches 
 than the treasures of Egypt, and such shall inherit the bless- 
 ing, -'' Blessed are ye, ichen men shall liate you, a)id tchen they 
 shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you 
 and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake ; 
 rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy ; for, behold your re- 
 tuard is great in heaven. 
 
 curs), 12. iii. 32, 33, the remaining being, this place. Job xix. 2, Is. li. 23. The other 
 sense " removed " (even if njrr 2 Sam. xx. 13, implies a "S in this sense) comes to the 
 same general meaning, though with less force. The Arab 'Ji, iv. is wrongly applied 
 (e. g. Ges. Thes. p. 56-1) as ''procul a se removit." It is simply " abstained from it," 
 '* refused one's self." -' p is used of the ultimate cause. See Ges. Thes. s. v. 2) 
 
 b. p. 802. " Lev.xxiii. 40. Deut. xii. 12, 18. xvi. 11, xxvii. 7. ss Lam. i. 4.ii.6. 
 "^ Amos vi. G. -^ As in Ps. xv. 3, i3ip hil Ntrj nS nsmi, the construction 
 
 being like tEO ca iroD, Is. liii. 3. -« S. Luke vi. 22, 23.
 
 482 
 
 ZEPHANIAH. 
 
 chrTst 1^ Behold, at tliat time I will undo all 
 ""■ ti''"- that alilict thee : and I will save her that 
 
 "" ^ic.'ti^r.' ^ halteth, and gather her that was driven 
 ^^^euh!mfor out; and f I will get them praise and fame 
 in every land f where they have been put 
 
 a prnisf\ 
 t Heb. of 
 their shame. ^^ shaUlC. 
 
 19. Behold, at that time I rvill tindo [lit. I deal withal. 
 While God punishcth not, He seenieth to sit stilP, be silent ', 
 asleep'. Then He shall act, He shall deal according to their 
 deserts with all, evil men or devils, that afflict thee. His 
 Church. The prophecy looked for a larger fuliilment than 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, since the Romans who, in God's 
 Hands, avenged the blood of His Saints, themselves were 
 among those who afflicted her. And will save her, the flock 
 or sheep that halteth'', ""imperfect in virtue and with trem- 
 bling faith," and gather, like a good and tender shepherd^, 
 her that was driven out j scattered and dispersed through 
 persecutions. All infirmities within shall be healed ; all 
 troubles without, removed. 
 
 And Iivill get them praise and fame [lit. Iivill make them 
 a praise and a name'\ in every land where they have been put 
 to shame^. Throughout the whole world have they been 
 ^ the offscourings of all things; throughout the whole world 
 should their praise be, as it is said, ^" Thou shall make them 
 princes in all lands. One of themselves saith i'. Ye see your 
 calling, brethren, how that not numy wise men after the Jiesh, 
 not mam/ mighty, not many noble, are called. But God hath 
 chosen the foolish things of the world to cotifound the wise ; 
 and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to con- 
 found the things tchich are mighty ; and base things of this 
 world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, 
 and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. 
 " ^- These He maketh a praise and a name there, where they 
 were without name and dispraised, confounding by them and 
 bringing to nought those wise and strong and mighty, in 
 whose sight they were contemptible." 
 
 20. At that time luill F bring you in i. e. into the one 
 fold, the one Church, the one Household of God, eveii in the 
 ti7ne that I gather you. "That time" is the whole time of 
 
 ' as Ru. ii. 19. in a good sense ; Ez. vii. 27. xvii. 17, xxiii. 25, in a bad ; enV, inix, 
 ynn heinf; probably for cnx &:c. 2 Is. xviii. 4. 3 Hab. i. 13. 
 
 ^ Ps. xliv. 23. * See Micah iv. 6, 7. « Dion. 7 See Is. xl. 11. 
 
 8 The article is inserted in a way very unusual and probably emphatic. Without it the 
 words would mean, as in the E. V. " in every land of their shame." But it makes the 
 meaning of the tirst words, pNnli33, complete in itself; and they mean, in the whole earth. 
 
 20 At that time ' will I bring you (if^ntn, ch rTst 
 even in the time that 1 gather you : tor I ""■ '''^*- 
 will make you a name and a praise among ^^"^'27^2% 
 all people of the earth, when I turn back Ezek.28. 25. 
 your captivity before your eyes, saith the f^'^t'i^^' "^ 
 Lord. 
 
 Amos 9. 11. 
 
 the Gospel ; the one day of salvation, in which all who shall 
 ever be gathered, shall be brought into the new Jerusalem. 
 These words were fulfilled, when, at our Lord's first Coming, 
 the remnant, the true Israel, those ordained to eternal life 
 were bi'ought in. It shall be fulfilled again, when "the ful- 
 ness of the Gentiles shall be come in, and so all Israel shall 
 be saved ^^." It shall most perfectly be fulfilled at the end, 
 when there shall be no going out of those once brought in, 
 and those who have gathered others into the Church, shall be 
 a name and a praise among all people of the earth, those whom 
 God hath ^* redeemed out of every tribe and tongue and peojjle 
 and nation, shining like stars for ever and ever. 
 
 Wiien I turn back your captivity: "'-that conversion, then 
 begun, now perfected, when the dead shall rise and they shall 
 be placed on the right hand, soon to receive the kingdom pre- 
 pared for them from the foundation of the world. O mighty 
 spectacle of the reversed captivity of those once captives; 
 mighty wonder at their present blessedness, as they review 
 the misery of their past captivity !" Before your eyes, so that 
 we shall see what we now believe and hope for, the end of all 
 our suiferings, chastisements, losses, achings of the heart, the 
 fulness of our Redemption. That which our eyes have looked 
 for, our eyes shall behold and not another, the everliving God 
 as HE IS, face to Face ; saith the Lord, Who is the Truth It- 
 self, all Whose words will be fulfilled. ^""Heaven and earth 
 shall pa.'is aivay, but My fVords shall not pass aivay, saith He 
 Who is God blessed for ever. And so the Prophet closes in 
 the thought of Him, Wliose Name is I AM, the Unchangeable, 
 the everlasting Rest and Centre of those who, having been 
 once captives and halting and scattered among the vanities 
 of the world, turn to Him, to Whom be glory and thanks- 
 giving for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 Dns'3 then is probably in apposition, in the whole earth, their shame, i. e. the scene of 
 their shame ; comp. the construction nnn.i piNT Jos. iii. 11. 17 and those Deut. viii. 15. 
 1 Kgs iv. 13 ; and " Daniel the Prophet" p. 476. In the ne.xt verse, px.Tis undoubtedly 
 " the earth." 9 1 Cor. iv. 13. l" Ps. xlv. 16. 
 
 " 1 Cor. i. 26-28. »= Rup. " Rom. xi. 25, 26. 
 
 " Rev. V. 9. w S. Mark xiii. 31. 
 
 THE MOABITE STONE. See pp. 463, 464. 
 
 I Mesha, son of Chemosh-gad, king of Moab tlie Dibonite. My father 
 reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my father ; and I made 
 this shrine to Chemosh in Korchoh, a shr[ine of delijverance, because he 
 saved me from all [ ' ] and because he let me look upon all who hate me, 
 Om[r]i king of Israel ; and he afflicted Moab many days, for Chemosh was 
 wroth with his la[n]d ; and his son succeeded him, and he too said, I will 
 afflict Moab. In my days said [Chemosh -], and I will look upon him and upon 
 his house, and Israel perisheth with an everlasting destruction. And Omri 
 took possession of the land of Moh-deba and there dwelt in it [-Israel in his 
 dcii/s and in] the days of his son, forty years; [and looked] on it Chemosh 
 in my days, and I buUt Baal-Meon and I made in it the ditch [?] and I 
 [built] Kiriathan. And the men of Gad dwelt in the land of [Atarjoth from 
 time immemorial, and the kin[g of IJsrael built for him A[ta]roth and I 
 warred against the city; and I took it and I slew all the mi[ghty men] of the 
 city, for the well-jileasing of Chemosh and Moab ; and I took captive thence 
 the [ ] and [dr]agged it [or them] before Chemosh in Kiriath and I made 
 
 to dwell in it the men of Siran, and the men of Macharath. And Chemosh 
 said to me. Go take Nebo against Israel [and I] went by night and I fought 
 against it from the break of the morning to midday and" I took it, and I slew 
 
 ' The stone has p'jB'.i, whose mcming is conjectural. Nlildeke conjectures pfe.T " the 
 kings," 2 Schlottman's conjecture. Likely conjectures I have put in []; mere 
 
 the whole of it, seven thousand ; [ ] the honourable women 
 
 [and mai]dens. for to Ashtar Chemosh [I] dedicated [them] and I took thence 
 [ves]sels of Yhvb and I dragged them before Chemosh. And the king of 
 Israel buil[t] Yahats, and dwelt in it when he warred with me; and Che- 
 mosh drove him from [my] f[ace and] I took of Moab 200 men, all its chiefs 
 and I took them against Yahats and took it to add to Dibon. I built Korchoh 
 the wall of the forest, and the wall of Ophel ' and I built the gates thereof, 
 and I built the towers thereof, and I built the king's house, and I made pri- 
 sons for the gui[lt]y in the mi[dst] of the city ; and there was no cistern within 
 the city, in Korchoh, and I said to all the people, make yourselves every man 
 a cistern in his house, and I cut the cutting for Korchoh by m[en ] 
 
 of Israel. I built [A]roer and I made the high road* at the Arnon. I built 
 Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed. I built Bezer, for [it was] forsa[ken] 
 me[n] of Dibon fifty ; for all Dibon was obedi- 
 
 ence, and I reig[ned] from Bikran which I added to the land and I buil[t] — 
 — and Beth Diblathan and Beth-Baal-Meon and I took there the — of the 
 
 land and Horonan dwelt in it ■ [and] Chemosh said 
 
 to me. Go fight against Horonan and I it — Chemosh in my days and 
 
 on [I] made 
 
 guess-work I have omitted, ' Ssyn min occurs of Jerusalem, Neh, iii. 27. 
 
 ** nSo'Dn lit. " the way cast up " cannot possibly be a way over the river.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 Haggai » is the eldest of the three-fold band, to whom, after 
 the Captivity, the word of (iod came, and l)y wiioin He con- 
 secrated the beg:innings of tiiis new condition of the chosen 
 people. He fi^ave tiicm these prophets, connecting; their spi- 
 ritual state after their return with that before the Captivity, 
 not leavini;; them wholly desolate, nor Himself without wit- 
 ness. He withdrew them about 100 years after, but some 
 420 years before Christ came, leaving His people to long the 
 more for Him, of Whom all the prophets spake. Haggai 
 himself seems to have almost finished his earthly course, be- 
 fore he was called to be a prophet ; and in four months his 
 office was closed. He speaks as one who had seen the first 
 house in its glory'', and so was probably among the very 
 aged men, who were the links between the first and the last, 
 and who laid the foundation of the house in tears'^. After 
 the first two months'^ of his office, Zechariah, in early youth, 
 was raised up to carry on his message; yet after one brief 
 prophecy was again silent, until the aged prophet had ended 
 the words whicli God gave him. Yet in this brief space he 
 first stirred up the people in one month to rebuild the tem- 
 ple % prophesied of its glory through the presence of Christ f, 
 yet taught that the presence of what was holy sanctified not 
 the unholy s, and closes in Him Who, when Heaven and 
 earth shall be shaken, shall abide, and they whom God hath 
 chosen in Him ''. 
 
 It has been the wont of critics, in whose eyes the Prophets 
 were but poets', to speak of the style of Haggai as "tame, 
 destitute of life and power," shewing "Ja marked decline in" 
 what they call "prophetic inspiration." The style of the 
 sacred writers is, of course, conformed to their mission. Pro- 
 phetic descriptions of the future are but incidental to the 
 mission of Haggai. Preachers do not speak in poetry, but 
 set before the people their faults or their duties in vivid ear- 
 nest language. Haggai sets before the people vividly their 
 negligence and its consequences; he arrests their attention by 
 his concise questions ; at one time retorting their excuses '' ; 
 at another asking them abruptly, in God's name, to say why 
 their troubles came '. Or he puts a matter of the law to the 
 priests, that they may draw the inference, before he does it 
 
 » His name is explained by S. Jerome " festive." But althougli there are Prop. 
 Names with ai which are Adjectives, as '^")5, Ti? (Ezr. ix. 40. 'd'^o and VV are foreign 
 names) V'?'?! the termination ni is more frequently an abbreviation of the Name of God, 
 which enters so largely into Hebrew names, as indeed we have .Tan 1 Chr. vi. 15. And 
 this occurs not only, when the first part of the word is a verb, ^n;, *Dn% *^s;;, Vk;, 'inx 
 "i^t?;, 'si\, 'If'X', '3pnx, (as Kiihler observes p. 2.1 but when it is a noun, as 'in, 'rex, y^hp 
 'n'?-i, 'jno (coll. n;irg, and in;;np) V^P Ezr. iv. 'n>^D (1 Chr. xxvi. 5.) perhaps 'NP, "JBfi 
 or again 'BX. i* ii. '3. ' <^ Ezr. iii. 12. 
 
 "• The prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah are thus intertwined. Haggai prophesies 
 ill the Dth and 7th months of the 2nd year of Darius Hystaspis, B, C. 520. (Hagg. i. 1. 
 
 himself"'. Or he asks them, what human hope had they", be- 
 fore he tells them of the Divine. Or he asks them (what was 
 in their heart), "Is not this house poor" ?" before he tells 
 them of the glory in store for it. At one time he uses heaped 
 and condensed antitheses p, to set before them one thought; 
 at another, he enumerates, one by one, how the visitation of 
 God fell upon all they had% so that there seemed to be no 
 end to it. At another, he uses a conciseness, like S. John 
 Baptist's cry, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, 
 in his repeated '' Set ijour heart to your ways ; and then, with 
 the same idiom, set your heart' viz. to God's ways, what He 
 had done on disobedience, what He would do on obedience. 
 He bids them work for God, and then he expresses the ac- 
 ceptablcncss of that work to God, in the three words, ^And- 
 I-icill-take-pleasure in-it a)id-n'i//-/je-iflorified. When thev set 
 themselves to obey, he encouraged them in the four words, " / 
 with-yoti saith the-Lord. This conciseness must have been 
 still more impressive in his words, as delivered". We use 
 many words, because our words are weak. Many of us can 
 remember how the House of Lords was hushed, to hear the 
 few low, but sententious words of the aged general and states- 
 man. But conceive the suggestive eloquence of those words, 
 as a whole sermon. Set your- heart on-yonr-xvays. 
 
 Of distant prophecies "there are but two'', so that the portion 
 to be compared with the former prophets consists but of at 
 most 7 verses. In these the language used is of the utmost 
 simplicity. Haggai had but one message as to the future to 
 convey, and he enforced it by the repeated use of the same 
 word% that temporal things should be shaken, the eternal ' 
 should remain, as S. Paul sums it up >'. He, the long-longed 
 for, the chosen of God, the signet on His Hand, should come; 
 God would fill that house, so poor in their eyes, with glorv, 
 and there would He give peace. Haggai had an all-contain- 
 ing but very simple message to give from God. Any orna- 
 ment of diction would but have impaired and obscured its 
 meaning. The two or three slight idioms, noticed by one 
 after another, are, though slight, forcible S 
 
 The office of Haggai was mainly to bring about one definite 
 end, which God, Who raised him up and inspired him, ac- 
 
 ii. 1) Zechariah first prophesies in the 8th month (Zech. i. 1 .). Haggai resumes at the 
 close of the "Jth and there ends (ii. 10, 20). On the same day in the 11th month, the 
 series of visions were given to Zechariah. (Zech. i. 7-) 
 
 ■^ e. i. f ii. 1-9. B lb. 12. k lb. 20-23. 
 
 i Eichborn, De Wette, Bertholdt, Gesenius (Gesh. d. Hebr. Spr. p. 26.), Herzfeldt, 
 (Gesch. d. Volkes Israel ii. 21) Stahelin, i Dr. Davidson iii. 314 ^i 4. 
 
 'i-9. "11.12.13. "ii. 19. » lb. 3. Pi. 6.' « i. 11. 
 
 ' i. 5-7. ' ii. 15-18. t i. 8. n ;. 13. 
 
 ' See on ii. 5, 9. » ii. 6-9, 21-23. « bttd, ii. 6, 22, Txr^vn ii. 7. 
 
 yHeb. xii.26. ' See on ii. 3, 5, 17. The junctionof tys nnx ii. 6, is a 
 
 mistake of the critics.
 
 484 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 coinplished by hiiu. It is in the lii!:lit of this great acconi- 
 plisliiiient of tlie work eiiti-usted to liiiii at tlie verge of man's 
 eartlily course, tliat his pou-er and energy are to be estimated. 
 The words which are preserved in liis book are doubtless (as 
 indeed was tlie case as to most of the pro|)liets) tiie repre- 
 sentatives and einlxxlinient of many like words, Ity wbieii, 
 during his sliort office, he roused the people from their dejet-- 
 tion indifference and irreligious apathy, to the restoration of 
 the public worship of God in the essentials of the preparatory 
 dispensation. 
 
 Great lukewarmness had been shewn in the return. The 
 fewTooked mournfully to the religions centre of Israel, the 
 ruined temple, the cessation of the daily sacrifice, and, like 
 Daniel, " confessed their sin and the sin of their people Israel, 
 and presented their siippliealion before the Lord their God for 
 the holp nionntuin of their God. The most part appear, as 
 I now, to have been taken up with their material prosperity, 
 and, at best, to have become inured to the cessation of their 
 symbolical worship, connected, as it was, with the declaration 
 of the forgiveness of their sins. Then too, God connected 
 His dechiration of pardon with certain outward acts : thei/ 
 became indiftcrent to the cessation of those acts. For few 
 returned. The indifference was even remarkable among 
 those, most connected with the altar. Of the 24 ^ orders of 
 priests, i onlj', 4 orders" returned; of the Levites only 74 
 individuals '^ ; while of those assigned to help them, the Ne- 
 thinim and the children of Solomon's servants, there were 
 392''. This coldness continued at the return of Ezra. The 
 edict of Artaxerxes*, as suggested by Ezra, was more pious 
 than those appointed to the service of God. In the first 
 instance no Lcvite answered to the invitation = ; on the 
 special urgency and message of Ezra, '' /jp the good hand of 
 God upon us they brought us a man of understanding, of the 
 sons of Levi ; some 3 or 4 diief Levites ; their sons and 
 brethren; in all, 38; but of the Nethinim, nearly six times 
 as many, 220'. Those who thought more of temporal pros- 
 perity than of their high spiritual nobility and destination, 
 had flourished doubtless in that exile as they have in their 
 present homelessness, as J wanderers a?nong the nations. Ha- 
 man calculated apparently on being able to pap out of their 
 spoils ten thousand talents of silver^, some £300,000,000, 
 two-thirds of the annual revenue of the Persian Empire ' into 
 the /ang's treasuries. 
 
 The numbers who had returned with Zerubbabcl had been 
 (as had been foretold of all restorations) a remnant only. 
 There Avere 42,360 free men, with 7337 male or female 
 slaves". The whole population which returned was not above 
 212,000, free-men and women and children. The proportion 
 of slaves is about yV, since in their case adults of both sexes 
 were counted. The enumeration is minute, giving the num- 
 ber of their horses, mules, camels, asses". The chief of the 
 fathers however were not poor, since (though unspeakably 
 short of the wealth, won by David and consecrated to the 
 future temple) they " offered freely for the house of God, to 
 set it up in its place, a sum about i'117,100Pof our money. 
 They had, beside, a grant from Cyrus, which he intended to 
 
 « Dan ix. 20. <> 1 Chr. xxiv. 3—19. « Ezr. ii. 3fi-39. <> lb. 40. 
 
 « lb. 58. < U). vii. 13-11. 8 lb. viii. 15. i- lb. 18, 19. ' lb. 20. 
 
 I See on Hos. ix. 17. pp. 61, 62. k Esther iii. 9. Ah.-isuerus appar- 
 
 ently, in acceding to Hainan's proposal, made over to him the lives and property of the 
 .Tews. The silver is ^iven unto thee, the peopfe also, to do with them as it seemeth tiood to 
 thee, {\h.\l.) The Jews' property was confiscated with their lives. On the contrary, 
 it was noticed, that the Jews, when permitted to defend their lives, did not lat/ their hands 
 on the pre}/, which, by the king's decree, was granted to them, with authority to take the 
 lives of those who s/iouW as.s<7i//( them. Esth. viii. 11. ix. 10, 15, 16. 
 ' 14,560 silver talents. Herod, iii. 95, 
 
 cover the expenses of the building, the height and breadth 
 whereof were dctcrniined by royal edict i. 
 
 The monarch, however, of an Eastern empire had, in pro- 
 portion to its size, little power over his subordinates or the 
 governors of the provinces, except by their recall or execu- 
 tion, when their oppressions or peculations notably exceeded 
 bounds. The returned colony, from the first, were in fear of 
 the nations, the peoples of those countries', their old enemies 
 pi'oltably ; and the first service, the altar to offer burnt-offer- 
 ings thereon, was probably a service of fear rather than of 
 love, as it is said, ' they set up the altar ujton its buses ; for it 
 was in fear upon them front the peoples of the lands, and they 
 offered lmrnt-o//'erings thereon unto the Lord. They hoped ap- 
 parently to win the favour of God, tliat He might, as of old, 
 protect them against their enemies. However, the work was 
 carried on ^according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king 
 of Persia; and the foundations of the temple were laid 
 amidst mixed joy at the carrying on of the work thus far, 
 and sorrow at its poverty, compared to the first temple'. 
 The hostility of the Samaritans discouraged them. Mixed 
 as the religion of the Samaritans was, — its better element 
 being the corrupt religion of the ten tribes, its worse the 
 idolatries of the various nations, brought thither in the reign 
 of Esarhaddon, - the returned Jews could not accept their offer 
 to join in their worship, without the certainty of admitting, 
 with them, the idolatries, for which they had been punished 
 so severely. For the Samaritans pleaded the identity of the 
 two religions. ^ Let tis build tuith you, for we serve your God, 
 as ye do ; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar- 
 haddon which brought us up hither. But in fact this mixed 
 worship, in which * they feared the IjOrd and served their own 
 gods, came to this, that "" they feared not the Lord, neither did 
 they after the law and commandment which the Lord com- 
 manded the children of Jacob. For God claims the undivided 
 allegiance of His creatures ; these '■feared the Lord and served 
 their graven images, both their children and their children's 
 children : as did their fathers, so do they to this day. But this 
 worship included some of the most cruel abominations of 
 heathendom, the sacrifice of their children to their gods^. 
 
 The Samaritans, thus rejected, first themselves harassed 
 the Jews in building, apparently by petty violence, as they 
 did afterwards in the rebuilding of the walls by Nehemiah. 
 ^ The people of the land weakened the hands of the people of 
 Judah, and wore them out " in building. This failing, they 
 '' hired counsellors (doubtless at the Persian court), to frustrate 
 their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, until the 
 reign of Darius king of Persia. The object of the intrigues 
 was probably to intercept the supplies, which Cyrus had en- 
 gaged to bestow, which could readily be effected in an Eastern 
 Court without any change of purpose or any cognizance of 
 Cyrus. 
 
 In the next reign of Ahashverosh (i. e. Khshwershe, a title 
 of honour of Cambyses) ''they wrote accusations against the 
 Jews, seemingly without any further effect, since none is 
 mentioned. Perhaps Cambyses, in his expedition to Egypt, 
 knew more of the Jews, than the Samaritans thought, or he 
 
 "" Ezra ii. &1, 65, Neh. vii. 66, 67. In the time of Augustus, it was no uncommon thing 
 for a person to have 200 slaves (Hor. Sat. i. 9. 11) it is said that very many Romans pos- 
 sessed 10000, or 20000 slaves. Athena-us vi. p. 272. 
 
 " 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, 6720 asses. Ezra ii. 66, 67, Neh. vii. 68, 69. 
 " Ezr. ii. 68, 69. P The golden daric being estimated at £1 2s., the 61,000 
 
 daiics would be £67,100; the " maneh" being 100 shekels, and the shekel about 2s., the 
 5000 maneh of silver would he about £50,000. i Ezr. iv. 3. ' lb. iii. 3. 
 
 »Ezr. iii. 7. > lb. 11-13. " lb. iv. 2. ' 2 Kgs xvii. 33. 
 
 "lb. 31. 'tib. 41. ylb. 31. 
 
 • rh:i Cheth. • Ezr. iv. 4. ^ lb. 5. <: lb. 6.
 
 IIAGGAF. 
 
 485 
 
 may have shrunk from ohanijiiin; liis father's deeree, eon- 
 trary to tlie fuiMhiineiital jiriiici|ilcs of I'crsism, not to alter 
 I any deeree, wliich flie sovereinn (aet'uii;', as lie was assumed 
 I to do, under the inHuenee of Ormu/d) had written ". I'seudo- 
 Smerdis (who doubtless to(d< ihe title of honour, Arlaelishafr) 
 may, as an iujpostor, have well hcen ii:;uorant of Cyrus' de(;ree, 
 to whieh no allusion is made''. From him the Samaritans, 
 through Rehum the ehaneellor, obtained a decree prcdiibit- 
 ing, until further notice, tlie rebuihiiui; of ///c riti/. The ac- 
 cusers had overreached themselves ; for the ground of their 
 accusation was, the former rebellions of tlu' city''; the pro- 
 liibition accordingly extended only to the r/7j/ '', not to the 
 temple. However, having (d)tained the decree, they were not 
 scrupulous about its application, and viade the Jews to cease 
 "hji arm and power, the governor of the Jews being appa- 
 rently unable, the governor of the cis-Euidiratensian pro- 
 vinces being unwilling, to help. As this, however, was, in 
 fact, a perversion of the decree, the Jews were left free to 
 build, and in the second year of Darius Hystaspis, ^ Haggai, 
 and then Zer/iaria/i, propJiesied in the name of the God of 
 Israel to Zerubbabel, the native Governor, and Joshua the 
 high-priest, and the J^eies in Jiidah and Jerusalem ; and they 
 began to hnild the house of God in Jerusalem. Force was no 
 longer used. Those engaged in building appealed to the edict 
 of Cyznis ; the edict was found at Ecbatana s, and the supplies 
 which Cyrus had promised, were again ordered. The dif- 
 ficulty was at the commencement. The people had been 
 cowed perhaps at first by the violence of Rehum and his 
 companions ; buLthey^ had accpiiesced readily in the illegal 
 
 prohiliition, and had " ?•«» each to Ins own house, some of 
 tfTem to their ^ceiled houses. All, employers or employed, 
 were busy on their husbandry. But nothing tlourished. The 
 labourers' wages disappeared, as soon as gained J. East and 
 West wind alike brought disease to their corn ; both, as 
 threatened upon disobedience in the law ''. The East wind 
 scorched and dried it up ' ; the warm West wind turned the 
 ears yellow™ and barren; the hail smote the vines, so that 
 when the unfilled and mutilated clusters were pressed out, 
 two-fifths only of the hoped-for produce was yielded; of the 
 corn, only one half". 
 
 In the midst of this, God raised up an earnest preacher of 
 repentance. Haggai was taught, not to promise anything at 
 the first, but to set before them, what they had been doing, 
 what was its result. ° He sets it before them in detail ; tells 
 them that God had so ordered it for their neglect of His 
 service, and bids them amend. He bids them quit their 
 wonted ways; go up into the mountain ; bring wood; build 
 the house. Conceive in Christian England, after some 
 potatoe-disease, or foot-and-mouth-disease (in Scripture lan- 
 guage "« 7nurrain among the cattle"), a preacher arising 
 and bidding them, consider your ways, and as the remedy, 
 not to look to any human means, but to do something, 
 which should please Almighty God; and not preaching 
 only but effecting what he preached. Yet such was Haggai. 
 He stood among his people, his existence a witness of the 
 truth of what he said ; himself one, who had lived among 
 the outward splendours of the former temple; a contem- 
 
 » See Daniel the prophet pp. 4-15-447. •■ Ezr. iv. 7, sqq. = lb. 12, 13, 15, 16. 
 
 4 lb. 111. 21. ' lb. 23. < lb. V. 1, 2. 
 
 e lb. vi. 2. ^ HaK?. i. 9. ' Ih. 4. i lb. 6. k Deut. xxviii. 22. 
 
 1 \\tPV comp. Dip niEHf' Gen. xli. 6, 23, 27. 
 " IVT Forskal (in Niebuhr, Besclireibuns v. Arabien, Pref. p. xlv,) took down from 
 the mouth of " Muri, a Jew of Mecca, that, in the month Marchesvan, a warm wind 
 sometimes blew, which turned the ears yellow and they yielded no grain ; it was an 
 unsteady wind, l>ut spoils all it touches." " M. Forskal remarks that the fields, near 
 the canal of Alexandria, are sown in October and reaped in Feb." Id. In Arabic the 
 
 PART V. 
 
 porary of those, who said ^ the temple of the Lord, the tem- 
 ple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these; who had 
 held it to l)e impossii)le that Jiidah should be c-arried ca|)tive; 
 who had |irophesicd the restoration of the vessels of God'i, 
 which had been carried away, not, as God foretold, after tlu; 
 captivity, but as an earnest that the fuller captivity should 
 not be''; yet who had himself, a(!cording to the propheines 
 of the ))rophets of those days, been carried info ea|)tivity, 
 and was ikhv a part (d" that restoration which (iod had pr((- 
 mised. He stood among them "in gray-haired might," Ijade 
 them do, what he bade them, in the name of tJod, to do; and 
 they did it. When they had set abmit the work, he assured 
 them of the jiresence of God with them '. A month later, 
 when they were seemingly discouraged at its poorness, he 
 promised them in God's name, that its glory should he greater 
 than that of Solomon's '. Three days after, in contrast v:\\h 
 the visitations up to tliat time, while there was as yet no 
 token of any change, he promised them in the name of God, 
 " From this day will I bless yon. 
 
 He himself apparently saw only the commencement of the 
 work; for his prophecies lay within the second year of Darius 
 and the temple was not completed till tin; sixth '. Even the 
 favourable rescript of Darius must have arrived after hi> 
 last prophecy, since it was elicited by the eiupiiry of the 
 governor, consequent upon the commenced re-building", three 
 months only before his office closed". 
 
 While this restoration of the public worship of God in its 
 integrity was his main office, yet he also taught Ijy parable > 
 that the presence of what was outwardly holy did not, in 
 itself, hallow those, among whom it was ; but was itself 
 unhallowed by inward uidioliness. 
 
 Standing too amid the small handfid of returned exiles, 
 not, altogether, more than the inhabitants of Sheffield, he 
 foretold, in simple all-comprehending words, that central 
 gift of the Gospel, ^ In this place will I give peace, saith the 
 Lord. So had David, the sons of Korah, Micah, Isaiah, 
 Ezekiel prophesied"; but the peace was to come, not then, 
 but in the days of the Messiah. Other times had come, in 
 which the false prophets had said '', Peace, peace, ichen there 
 was no peace; when God had taken away His peace from 
 ""this people. And now, when the chastisements were fulfilled, 
 when the land lay desolate, when every house of Jerusalem 
 lay burned with fire'^, and the "blackness of ashes" alone 
 •' marked where they stood ;" when the walls were broken 
 down so that, even when leave was given to rebuild them, 
 it seemed to their enemies a vain labour to " revive the stones 
 out of the heaps of rubbish which were burned ; when ^ the 
 place of their fathers' sepulchres lay waste, and the gates there- 
 of were consumed tuithfire; when, for their sakes, Zion was 
 ^ploughed as afield and Jerusalem was become heaps — let 
 any one picture to himself the silver-haired prophet stand- 
 ing, at first, alone, rebuking the people, first through their 
 governor and the high-priest, then the collected multitude, 
 in words, forceful from their simplicity, and obeyed ! And 
 then let them think whether anything of human or even 
 Divine eloquence was lacking, when the words flew straight 
 like arrows to the heart, and roused the people to do at once, 
 
 disease is called [xpT. Ges. Thes. ° Hagg. ii. 16. » lb. . 5-11. 
 
 P Jer. vii. 4. ' lb. xxvii. 16, xxviii. 3. ' lb. xxviii. 2. 
 
 • Hagg. i. 13. ' lb. u. 3-9. » u. 19. 
 
 » Ezr. vi. 15. ' lb. v. 3. sqq. 
 
 " Hagg. i. 15. ii. 10, 20. T ii. 10-15. ' ii. 9. 
 
 1 Ps. Ixxii. 3-7, Ixxxv. 8, 10. Mic. v. 5. Is. ix.6, 7. xxvi. 12. xxxii. 17. lji.7. liii. 5. 
 liv. 10, 13. Ivii. 19. Ix. 17. Ixri. 12. Ezek. xxxiv. 25. xxxvii. 20. 
 i" Jer. vi. 14 viii. 11. xiv. 13. = lb. xvi. 5. ^ 1 Chr. xxxvi. 19. 
 
 = Neb. iv. 2. ' lb. ii. 3. s Mic. iii.l2. 
 
 B B B B
 
 486 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO HAG(iAI. 
 
 amid every obstacle, amid every dnwiilicartediicss or outward 
 poverty, that for which God sent them. Tlie outward oriia- 
 nieut of words woidd have been inisphieed, Avheii the object 
 was to bid a dowiiliearted peoph-, in tiie Name (d' God, to do 
 a definite work. Haggai sets before his people cause and 
 eifect; that Ihey denied to God wiiat was His, and that God 
 denied to them' what was His to ^'ivc or to withhold. His 
 sermon was, in His words Wiioni he foretold ; Seek ye first 
 the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these thingt 
 shall be added unto you. He spake in the name of God, and 
 was obeyed. 
 
 ""The Holy Ghost, Who spake by tlie mouth of the pro- 
 phets, willed tliat lie by a foreboding; name should be called 
 Haffjjai, i. e. 'festive,' according: to the subject whereof He 
 should speak by his mouth. Yet was there not another 
 festiveness in the prophefs heart, than the joy which he 
 
 had or could have with the people, from the rcbuiidinjj of 
 that temple made witli liands, aj^ain to be defiled and burned 
 with fire irrecoverably? Be it that the rebuildinjc of that 
 temple, wliicb he saw before him, was a matter of great 
 festive joy; yet not in or for itself, but for Him, the festive 
 joy of saints and angels and men, Christ; because when the 
 temple should be rebuilt, the walls also of the city should be 
 rebuilt and the city again inhabited and the jK'oplc be united 
 in one, of whom Christ should be born, fulfilling tlie truth of 
 the promise made to Abraham and David and confirmed by 
 an oath. So then we, by aid of the H»dy Spirit, so enter 
 upon what Haggai here speaketh, as not doubting that he 
 altogether aimeth at Christ. And so may we in some sort 
 be called or be Haggais, i. e. ' festive,' by contemplating that 
 same, which because he should contemplate, he was, by a 
 Divine foreboding, called Haggai." 
 
 Hup, 
 
 I 
 
 ' The Desire op all nations shall come." — Hagg. ii. 7. 
 
 'I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL UNTO Me." — S. JoHN xii. 32.
 
 CJIAPTER I. 
 
 487 
 
 c^tl%r CHAPTER I. 
 
 cir. 520. I Hdgi^ai reproveth the people for neglecting the 
 
 building of the house. 7 //'' iiici/cth them to the 
 
 building. 12 He promiseth God's ussistuiice to 
 
 them being forward. 
 
 • Ezra 4. 24. -y N ■' tlu! secotul ycju' of Dar'uxs the kiniJi;, 
 
 Zec'h.i.i. X in the sixth month, in tlie iirst day of 
 
 Chap. I. 1. In the second year of Ihirius, i. c. Ilystaspis. 
 The very first word of prophecy alter the Captivity hctoUens 
 that they were restored, not yet as before, yet so, as to be 
 liereafter, more than l)efore. Tlie earthly type, by God's ap- 
 pointment, was fadinc: away, that tlic Ileaveidy truth mif;lit 
 dawn. The earthly kinj; was witlidrawn, to make way for 
 the Heavenly. God had said of Jeconiah, ^ No man of his 
 need shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling 
 any more in Israel : and so now propheey l)ei:;ins to l)e dated 
 by the years of a foreijjn earthly ruler, as in the Baptism 
 of the Lord Himself-. Yet God gives back in mercy more 
 than He withdraws in chastisement. The earthly rule is 
 suspended, that men might look out more longingly for the 
 Heavenly. 
 
 In the sixth tnonth. They counted by their own months, 
 hegiiniing with Nisan, the first of the ecclesiastical year, 
 (which was still used for holy purposes and in sacred his- 
 tory) although, having no more any kings, they dated their 
 years by those of the empire, to which they were subject^. 
 In the sixth month, part of our July and August, their 
 harvest was past, and the dearth, which they doubtless as- 
 cribed (as we do) to the seasons, and which llaggai pointed 
 out to be a judgement from God, had set in for this year also. 
 The months being lunar, the first day of the month was the 
 festival of the new moon, a popular feast * which their fore- 
 fathers had kept% while they neglected the weightier matters 
 of the law, and which the religious in Israel had kept, even 
 while separated from the worship at Jerusalem ". In its very 
 first day, when the grief for the barren year was yet fresh, 
 Haggai was stirred to exhort them to consider their ways ; 
 a pattern for Christian preachers, to bring home to people's 
 souls the meaning of God's judgements. God directs the 
 very day to be noted, in which He called the people anew to 
 build His temple, both to shew the readiness of their obedi- 
 ence, and a precedent to us to keep in memory days and sea- 
 sons, in which He stirs our souls to build more diligently 
 His spiritual temple in our souls ^. 
 
 IJy the hand of Haggai. God doth well-nigh all things 
 which He doeth for man through the hands of men. He com- 
 mitteth His words and works for men into the hands of men 
 as His stewards, to dispense faithfully to His household*. 
 Hence He speaks so often of the law, which He commanded 
 ^ by the hand of Moses ; hut also as to other prophets, Na- 
 than i", Abijah^', Jehu^-, Jonah'*, Isaiah '^, Jeremiah'", and the 
 
 • Jer. xxii. 30. - S. Luke iii. 1. ^ gee Zech. i. 7, vii. 1. 
 
 * Pr. vii. 20. * is. i. 13^ 14. 6 2 Kgs iv. 2-3. add Am. viii. 5. Hos. ii. 11. 
 
 7 Castro. » S. Luke xii. 42. 
 
 ' 12 times in the Pent. ; 5 times in Joshtia ; in Judges once ; in 1 Kgs viii; 2 Chron. 
 twice ; Neh. ix. 14. Ps. Ixxvii. 20. '" 3 Sam. xii. 3.i. " 1 Kgs xii. 15, xiv. 18. 
 
 2Chr. X. 15. 1- 111. xvi.7. '3 3 Kgs xiv. 25. '■* Is. xx. 2. '^ Jer. xxxvii. 2. 
 
 '« Hus. vii. 20. 2 Chr. xxix. 25. " Ezr. iii. 2, 8. v. 2. Neh. xii. 1. 
 
 '8 Lev. XX. 20, 21. " Jer. xxii. 30. 
 
 -0 nny from Tiy, as the Samar. Vers, renders it in Lev. xx. 20, 21, " naked." Abraham 
 uses it of his desolation in having no son. Gen. xv. 2. [all] 
 
 21 S. Luke iii. 2". -- 1 Chr. iii. 17— 111. -» Deut. xxiii. 5—10. _-< Ex. ii. 10. 
 
 2* .ler. Iii. 31. -'■ See in Daniel the prophet pp. 570 — 572. Keil adduces a 
 
 conjecture of Spiegel, "tliat perhnh is from pdrau, ' protector' (from pt^) which in San- 
 skrit and old Persian occurs in compounds as Kiislintrnpdvau, Satrap, but in the Avesta 
 occurs in the abridged form pdvun. Thence miiiht be developed pagvun. as drf^vnt 
 from drevat, huogvaitom huovu." Max Miiller kindly informs me; "Phonetically 
 
 Refore 
 
 the month, came the word of the Lord ohrist 
 f by Haj^^ai the prophet unto ** Zeruh- ^ hJ,'/" ' — 
 habel the son of SlK;altiel, || m^overnor of ^//t^^f 
 
 • I • I .1 1 i- ,1 T '' 1 Chron. 3. 
 
 .Iu(hih, and to "Joshua the son 01 " Jose- 17,10. 
 
 Ezra 3. 2. 
 
 deeh, the hi<,^i priest, sayinjr, i^^utll. 
 
 c Ezra 3. 2. & 5. 2. '^ 1 Chr. 6. 15. II Or, captain. 
 
 prophets generally'". The very Prophets of God, although 
 gifted with a Divine Spirit, still were willing and conscious 
 instruments in speaking His words. 
 
 Unto Zeruhhaliel I'so called from heinir born in Bi'ibylon) 
 the son of Shcaltirt. \\\ this genealogy Zeruhhaliel is known 
 in the history of the return from the captivity in Kzra and 
 Nehemiah '^ (iod does not say by Jeremiah, that Jeconiah 
 should have no children, but that he should in his life-time 
 be childless, as it is said of those married to the uncle's or 
 brother's widow, ^^ they shall die childless. Jeremiah rather 
 implies that he should have children, but that they should die 
 untimely before him. For he calls Jeconiah, '■'« /««/< who 
 shall not prosper in his days ; for there shall not prosper a man 
 of his seed, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling any more 
 in Israel. He should die (as the word means) bared-'' of all, 
 alone and desolate. The own father of Shealtiel appears to 
 have been Neri-', of the line of Nathan son of David ; not. of 
 the line of the kings of Judah. Neri married, one must sup- 
 pose, a daughter of Assir, son of --Jeconiah whose grandxm 
 Shealtiel was ; and Zerubbabel was the own son of i^edaiah, 
 the brother of Shealtiel, as whose son he was in the legal 
 genealogy inscribed, according to the law as to those who die 
 childless-*; or as having been adopted by Shealtiel being him- 
 self childless, as Moses was called the son of the daughter of 
 Pharaoh -*. So broken was the line of the unhappy Jehoia- 
 chin, two thirds of whose own life was passed in the prison 2% 
 into which Nebuchadnezzar cast him. 
 
 Governor of Judah. The foreign name =" betokens that 
 the civil rule was now held from a foreign power, although 
 Cyrus shewed the Jews the kindness of placing one of them- 
 selves, of royal extraction also, as his deputy over them. The 
 lineage of David is still in authority, connecting the present 
 with the past, but the earthly kingdom had faded away. Under 
 the name Sheshbuzzar Zerubbabel is spoken of both as the 
 prince-'' and the governor-'^ of Judah. With him is joined 
 Joshuah the son ofJosedech, the high priest, whose father went 
 into captivity -'••, when his grand-father Seraiah was slain by 
 Nelmchadnezzar*". The priestly line also is preserved. Haggai 
 addresses these two, the one of the royal, the other of the 
 priestly, line, as jointly responsible for the negligence of the 
 people'; he addresses the people only through them. Together, 
 they are types of Him, the true King and true Priest, Christ 
 Jesus, AVho by the Resurrection raised again the true temple. 
 His Body, after it had been destroyed^'. 
 
 pavao could hardly become pagvao, and even this would still be considerably different 
 from Pechah. Tlie insertion of a ^ before a v in Zend is totally anomalous. It rests 
 entirely on the uncertain identification of dregvant, " bad," with drvant, for in the second 
 instance, huova is much more likely a corruption of huogva, than rice versa. Paido 
 in Zend would mean, protector, but like the Sanskrit piivdii, it occurs only at the end of 
 compounds. The one passage, quoted in support of its occurring as a separate noun, 
 seems to me to contain an etymological play, where pavdo is used as an intlependeut 
 noun in order to explaui the two compounds, pa^i-a-parrfo and pard-paiino, i. e., pro- 
 tecting behind and protecting in front, as if we were to say, ' he is a lector, both as a 
 pro-tector and mib-tecfor' " 
 
 -i Ezr.i. 8. In relation to Cyrus, he is called by his Persian name Sheshbazzar, by 
 which name he is mentioned in Tatnai's letter to Darius, as having been commissioned 
 by Cyrus to rebuild the temple and as having done so (Ezr. vi. 14 — 10), while, in the 
 historv of the restoration, he is related to have done it under his domestic name Zerub- 
 babel." On these changes of names by their masters, see Daniel the Prophet p. 16. ■ 
 I 2s Ezr. V. 14. -> 1 Chr. vi. 15. '^ 2 Kgs xxv. 18—21. " S. Jer. 
 
 B B U B 2
 
 488 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 (' iftTsT 2 Tims speaketh the liOiio of l)osts, say- 
 cir.520. ;„<r. Tliis pcopU" siiv, Till! tiun' is not come 
 
 the time that the Loiu/s house shouhl be 
 
 built, 
 c Ezra 5. 1. 3 Then came the word of the Loun « by 
 
 2. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying. This people 
 say. Not Zerubbabcl or Joshua, but tliis people. He ssays 
 not, i)/// people, but reproachfully this people., as, in acts, dis- 
 owning- Him, and so deserving!: to be disowned by Him. The 
 ti/iie is not come, lit. // is not time to come, time for the house 
 of the Lord to he built '. They might yet sit still ; the time 
 for them to come was not yet; for not yet was the time for 
 the house of the Lord to he' built. Why it was not time, they 
 did not say. The government did not help them; the ori- 
 ginal grant by Cyrus- was exhausted; the Samaritans hin- 
 dered them, because they would not own them, (amid their 
 niishniasb of worship, worshipping, our Lord tells them, they 
 ■'■ knoic not what,) as worshippers of the same God. It was a 
 bold excuse, if they said, that the JO years during which the 
 temple was to lie waste, were not yet ended. Tiie time had 
 long since come, when, 16 years before, Cyrus had given com- 
 mand that the house of God should be built. The prohibition 
 to build, under Artaxcrxes or I'seudo-Snicrdis, applied directly 
 to the city and its walls, not to the temple, excejtt so far as 
 the temple itself, from its position, might be capable of being 
 used as a fort, as it was in the last siege of Jerusalem. Yet 
 in itself a building of the size of the temple, apart from outer 
 buildings, could scarcely so be used. The prohibition did not 
 hinder the building of stately private houses, as appears from 
 Haggai's rebuke. The hindrances also, whatever they were, 
 had not begun with that decree. Any how the death of 
 Pseudo-Smerdis had now, for a year, set them free, had they 
 had any zeal for the glory and service of God. Else Haggai 
 had not blamed them. God, knowing that He should bend 
 the heart of Darius, as He had that of Cyrus, requires the 
 house to be built without the king's decree. It was built in 
 faith, that God would bring through what He had enjoined, 
 although f)utward things were as adverse now as before. 
 And what He commanded He prospered*. 
 
 There was indeed a second fulfilment of seventy years, 
 from the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar B.C. 
 586, to its consecration in the 6th year of Darius B.C. 516. 
 But this was through the wilfulness of man, prolonging the 
 desolation decreed by God, and Jeremiah's prophecy relates 
 to the people not to the temple. 
 
 "^The projjhet addresses his discourse to the chiefs [in 
 Church and state] and yet accuses directly, not their listless- 
 ness but that of the people, in order both to honour them 
 before the people and to teach that their sins are to be blamed 
 privately not jtublicly, lest their authority should be injured, 
 and the people incited to rebel against them ; and also to shew 
 that this fault was directly that of the people, whom he re- 
 proves before their princes, that, being openly convicted 
 before them, it might be ashamed, repent, and obey God; 
 but that indirectly this fault touched the chiefs themselves, 
 whose office it was to urge the people to this work of God." 
 " '•For seldom is the Prince free from the guilt of his subjects, 
 as either assenting to, or winking at them, or not coercing 
 
 Before 
 C H li I S T 
 
 cir. SliO. 
 
 Ilau^ii^ai the prophet sayin|^, 
 
 4 ' y.s- it time for you, O ye, to dwell in 
 your eieled houses, and tliis house lie waste? ^v^'yil's, 
 
 5 Now therefore thus saith the Lord off HeL 
 hosts ; f 6 Consider your ways. 
 
 e Lam. 3. '10. ver. 7. 
 
 Set your 
 heart on 
 your ways. 
 
 them, though able." 
 
 1 The first sentence being left incomplete, for. " It is not time to come to build the 
 jiOril's house." 2 Ezr. iii. 7. 3 S. John iv. 22. < Ezr. v. vi. 
 
 s Lap. ' a Castro from Alb. 7 S. Jer. 8 s. Cyr. 
 
 Since also Christians are the temple of God, all this pro- 
 phecy of Haggai is a])plicable to them. "' When thou seest 
 one who has lapsed thinking and preparing to build tiirough 
 chastity the temple which he had before destroyed through 
 passion, and yet delaying day by day, say to him, "J'ruly th<»u 
 also art of the people of the captivity, and sayest. The lime is 
 not yet come for building the house of the Lord.' Whoso has 
 once settled to restore the temple of (icnl, to him every time 
 is suited for building, and the prince, Satan, cannot hinder, 
 nor the enemies around. As soon as being thyself converted, 
 thou callest upon the name of the Lord, He will say, Behold 
 Me." "*To him who willeth to do right, the time is always 
 present ; the good and right-minded have power to fulfil what 
 is to the glory of God, in every time and place." 
 
 3. And the word of the Lord came. " '" Before, he pro- 
 phesied nothing, but only recited the saying of the people; 
 now he refutes it in his prophecy, and repeats, again and 
 again, that he says this not of himself, but from the mind 
 and mouth of God." It is characteristic of Haggai to incul- 
 cate thus frequently, that his words are not his own, but the 
 words of God. Yet " ^the prophets, both in their threats and 
 prophecies, repeat again and again. Thus saith the Lord, 
 teaching us, how we should prize the word of God, bang 
 upon it, have it ever in our mouth, reverence, ruminate on, 
 utter, praise it, make it our continual delight." 
 
 4. Is it time for you, [j/oic ",] being what you are, the crea- 
 tures of God, to dwell in your ceiled licjuses ^"j more emphati- 
 cally, in your houses, and those ceiled, probably with costly 
 woods, such as cedar ^i. But where then was the excuse of 
 want of means ? They imitated, in their alleged poverty, 
 what is spoken of as magnificent in their old kings, Solomon 
 and Shallum, but not having, as Solomon first did, ^-covered 
 the liouse of God with beams and rows of cedar. " ^ Will ye 
 dwell in houses artificially adorned, not so much for use as 
 for delight, and shall INIy dwelling-place, wherein was the 
 Holy of holies, and the Cherubim, and the table of shew- 
 bread, be bestreamed with rains, desolated in solitude, scorch- 
 ed by the sun ? " 
 
 " ^^ With these words carnal Christians are reproved, who 
 have no glow of zeal for God, but are full of self-love, and so 
 make no effort to repair, build, or strengthen the material 
 temples of Christ, and houses assigned to His worship, when 
 aged, ruinous, decaying or destroyed, but build for them- 
 selves curious, voluptuous, superfluous dwellings. In these 
 the love of Christ glowcth not ; these Isaiah threateneth, 
 ^*fFoe to you udio join house to house andjield to Jield, and 
 regard not the ivork of t lie Lord!" 
 
 To David and Solomon the building of God's temple 
 was their heart's desire; to early Christian Emperors, to 
 the ages of faith, the building of Churches; now mostly, 
 owners of lands build houses for this world's profit, and 
 leave it to the few to build in view of eternity, and for the 
 glory of God. 
 
 5. And now, thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Consider, [lit. 
 
 ^ DDK D^V. the pers. pron. repeated emphatically. 
 
 '" The force of C':iEn in appos. to C3Ti3. n nK3 j'BD 1 Kgs vii. fi,7. 
 
 Jer. xxii. U. '- 1 Kgs vi. y. jBOl " Dion. '^ Is. v. S, 12.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 489 
 
 c fPrTs t ^ ^^ have '' sown inuoh, and l)rini:f in little ; 
 
 "'''• ^^ '^- ye eat, but yc have not enovigh ; ye drink, 
 
 Hol'4" 10. ' hut ye are not filled with drink ; ye clothe 
 i5lch.'2. iG. you, hut there is none warm ; and ' he that 
 
 ■ Zech. 8. 10. 
 
 set 1/oiir heart iipoyjl your uniys, what they had been doinjij, 
 what they were (h)itij;-, and what those (h)iiif^s had led to, and 
 wouhl lead to. This is ever present to the mind of the jjio- 
 phets, as speaking God's words, that our acts are not only 
 ways in which we !;•<>, each day of life heinuf a continuance of 
 the day before ; hut that they arc ways wliieh lead some- 
 whither in God's I'rovidence and His justice; to some end of 
 the icay, good or had. So God says by Jeremiah, ^I set before 
 you the way of life and the way of death ; and David, " Thou 
 wilt shetv me the path of life, wiiere it follows, //* Thy Pre- 
 sence is the fulness of joy and at Thy Right Hand there are 
 pleasures for evermore; and ^o\omm\,^ Reproofs of instruction 
 are the way of life ; and, he is in ^the way of life ivho keepeth 
 instruction ; and he who forsaketh rebuke, erreth ; and, ° The 
 way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell 
 beneath ; and of tlie adulterous woman, ^ Her house are the 
 ways of hell, going dotvn to the chambers of death ; and ''' her 
 feet go down unto death ; her steps take hold on hell j lest thou 
 shouldest ponder the path of life. Again, * There is a iv(ty 
 that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the 
 ways of death ; and contrariwise, ^ The path of the righteous 
 is a shining light, shining more and more until the midday. 
 1" The ways of darkness are the ways which end in darkness; 
 and when Isaiah says, ^^The ivay of peace hast thou not known, 
 he adds, whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. They 
 who choose not peace for their way, shall not find peace in 
 and for their end. 
 
 On these your ways, Haggai says, set your hearts, not think- 
 ing of them lightly, nor giving a passing thought to them, 
 but fixing your minds upon them ; as God says to Satan, 
 ^•Hast thou set thy heart on My servant Job? and God is said 
 to set His eye or His face upon man for good^'^ or for eviP^ 
 He speaks also, not of setting the mind, applying the under- 
 standing, giving the thoughts, but of setting the heart, as the 
 seat of the affections. It is not a dry weighing of the tem- 
 poral results of their ways, but a loving dwelling upon them ; 
 for repentance without love is but the gnawing of remorse. 
 
 "^' tiet your heart on your ways; i.e., your affections, 
 thoughts, works, so as to be circumspect in all things ; as the 
 Apostle says, ^''Z>o nothing without forethought, i.e., without 
 previous judgement of reason; and Solomon, '^'' Let thine eyes 
 look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee; 
 and the son of Sirach, ^^Soji, do nothing ivithout counsel and 
 when thou hast done it thou wilt not repent. For since, ac- 
 cording to a probable proposition, nothing in human acts is 
 indifferent, i.e., involving neither good nor ill deserts, they 
 who do not thus set their hearts uj)on their ways, do they not 
 daily incur well-nigh countless sins, in thought, word, desire, 
 deed, yea and by omission of duties ? Such are all fearless 
 persons who heed not to fulfil what is written, ^^Keep your 
 heart luith all ivatchfuJness." 
 
 " -" He sows much to his own heart, but brings ?m little, who 
 by reading and hearing knows much of the heavenly com- 
 mands, but by negligence in deeds bears little fruit. He 
 
 1 Jer. xxi. 8. = Ps. xvi, 11. 3 Pr. vi. 23. " lb. x. 1". 
 
 ■' lb. XV. 21. 6 lb. vii. 2". 7 lb. V. 5, 6. 8 lb. xiv. 12. xvi. 25. 
 
 9 Ih. iv. IS. i» lb. ii. 13. " Is. lix. 8. 
 
 1-^ Job i. 8. " Jer. xxiv. 6. " lb. xxi. 10. 'i Dion. 
 
 )« 1 Tim. V. 21. 1' Pr. iv. 25. 's Ecclus. xxxii. 19. Vulg. 
 
 earncth wajj^es earneth waives to put it into cifiiTsT 
 a huij^ f witii holes. '•''''• ^^- 
 
 7 *f[ Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Con- ^ "^^^'cW 
 sider your ways. "'""*'*• 
 
 eats and is not satisfied, who, hearing the words of God, 
 coveteth the gains or glory of the world. Well is he said not 
 to be satisfied, \\'ho ealelh one thing, hungereth after another. 
 He drinks and is not inebriated, who inclineth his ear to 
 the voice of preaching, init chaiigeth not his mind. For 
 tln'ough inebriation tiie mind of those \\\u> drink is changed. 
 lie then who is devoted to the knowledge of (iod's word, 
 yet still desireth to gain the things of the woi'Id, drinks and 
 is not inebriated. For \M're he inebriated, no doul)t he would 
 have changed his mind and no longer seek earthly things, 
 or love the vain and passing things Avhich he had loved. 
 For the Psalmist says of the elect, '^ tliey shall be inebriated 
 tcith the richness of Thy house, because they shall be tilled 
 with such love of Almighty God, that, their mind ijeing 
 changed, they seem to be strangers to themselves, fulfill- 
 ing what is written, -^ If any will come after Me, let him deny 
 himself." 
 
 6. Ye have sown much. The prophet expresses the habi- 
 tualness of these visitations by a vivid ])resent. He marks 
 no time and so expresses the more vividly that it was at all 
 times. It is one continually present evil. Ye have sown 
 much and there is a bringing in little ; there is eating and not 
 to satisfy ; there is drinking and not to exhilarate ; there is 
 clothing and not to be warm "'. It is not for tlie one or the 
 other years, as, since the first year of Darius Hystaspis ; it 
 is one continued visitation, coordinate with one continued 
 negligence. As long as the sin lasted, so long the punish- 
 ment. The visitation itself was twofold; impoverished har- 
 vests, so as to supply less sustenance ; and various indis- 
 position of the frame, so that what would, by God's appoint- 
 ment in nature, satisfy, gladden, warm, failed of its effect. 
 ^■Ind lie that laboureth for hire, gaineth himself hire into a 
 bag full of holes [lit. perforated]. The labour pictured is not 
 only fruitless, but wearisome and vexing. There is a seem- 
 ing result of all the labour, something to allure hopes ; but 
 forthwith it is gone. The heathen assigned a like baffling 
 of hope as one of the punishments of hell. "-^Better and 
 wiser to seek to be blessed by God, Who bestoweth on us 
 all things. And this will readily come to those who choose 
 to be of the same mind with Ilim and ])refcr what is for His 
 glory to their own. For so saith the Saviour Himself to us, 
 -'^Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
 all these things shall be added unto you." 
 
 " -'^ He loses good deeds by evil acts, who takes account 
 of his good works, which he has before his eyes, and forgets 
 the faults which creep in between ; or who, after what is 
 good, returns to what is vain and evil."' '■ -' Money is seen 
 in the pierced bag, when it is cast in, but when it is lost, it 
 is not seen. They then who look how much they give, but 
 do not weigh how much they gain wrongly, east their re- 
 wards into a pierced bag. Looking to the Hope of their 
 confidence they bring them together; not looking, they 
 lose them." 
 
 "15 They lose the fruit of their labour, by not persevering 
 
 " Pr. iv. 23. ■" S. Greg, in Ezek. Horn. i. 10. n. 7. 0pp. i. 1-C6. 
 
 2> Ps. xxxW. 8. -- S. Matt. xvi. 24. 
 
 -3 i'jch!'. The i'? is not pleonastic, but from the impersonal S en 1 Kgsi. 1,2. 
 Eccl. iv. 'll.(bis). ■-' S. Cvr. -^ S. Matt. vi. 33. 
 
 ■6 Lap. =?S. Greg. Reg. Past. iii. 21. fin. Opp.ii. 68.
 
 4no 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 c iniTs T ^ ^'" "1> to the mountain, and brinjr wood, 
 cii-- ^-in- an<l Iniild tlic house ; and I will take plea- 
 sure in it, and 1 will he j^loritied, saith the 
 Lord. 
 
 "'ch.2.16. 9 ^Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came 
 
 to the end, or by seeking? luunan praise, or by vainglory 
 within, not keepinc; spiritual riches luuk-r tlie j^nardianship 
 of humility. Sucli are vain and unprotital)lc men, of whom 
 the Saviour saitli, ^ Ferily I xtii/ itntu i/un, tlu'ij have their 
 reward." 
 
 8. Go up into the nion/ifain. Not Mount Lebanon, 
 whence the cedars had been Ijrouj^ht ft»r the first temple; 
 whence also Zerubbabel and Joshua had procured some out 
 of Cyrus' £,rant-, at the first return from the captivity. They 
 were not retpiired to buy, expend, bnt simply to give their 
 own labour. They were themselves to go up to the motmtitin, 
 i.e. the mountainous country where the trees grew, and 
 bring them. So, in order to keep the feast of tai)ernaeles, 
 Ezra made a proclamation ^ in all their cities and i)i Jeru- 
 salem, go ye up to the mountain and bring leafy branches of 
 vines, olii'es, vii/rtles, palms. The palms, any how, were 
 timber. God required not goodly stones, such as had been 
 already used, and such as hereafter, in the temple wliicli was 
 built, were the admiration even of discijdes of Jesus*, but 
 which were, for the wii^kedness of those who rejected their 
 Saviour, not to be left, one stone upon another. He required 
 not costly gifts, but the heart. The neglect to build the 
 temple was neglect of Himself, Who ouglit to be worshipped 
 there. His worship sanctified the ofiering; offerings were 
 acceptable, only if made with a free heart. 
 
 And I will hare pleasure in it. God, Who has declared 
 that He has no '"pleasure in thiuisands of rams, or ten thou- 
 sands of rivers of oil, had delight in ^ them that feared Him, 
 that are upright in their wai/'', that deal truli/^, in the praper 
 of the upright ^ ,- and so in the temple too, when it should 
 be built to His gloi-y. 
 
 And will be glori/ied^". God is glorified in man, when 
 man serves Him; in Himself, when He manifests aught of 
 His greatness; in His great doings to His people", as also 
 in the chastisement of those who disobey Him i-. God allows 
 that glory, which shines ineffably throughout His creation, 
 to be obscured here through man's disobedience, to shine 
 forth anew on his renewed obedience. The glory of God, as 
 it is the end of the creation, so is it His creature's supreme 
 bliss. When God is really glorified, then can He shew forth 
 His glory, by His grace and acceptance. "i^The glory of God 
 is our glory. The more sweetly God is glorified, the more it 
 profits us :" yet not our profit, but the glory of God is itself 
 our end ; so the prophet closes in that which is our end, God 
 will be glorified. 
 
 "i*Good then and well-pleasing to God is zeal in fulfilling 
 whatever may appear necessary for the good condition of 
 the Church and its building-up, collecting the most useful 
 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 2. 2Ezr. iii. 7. ' Neh. viii. 15. * S. Matt. xxiv. 1. 
 
 * Mic. vi. 7. ' Ps. cxlvii. 11. 
 
 7 Pr. xi. 20. 8 lb. xii. 22. » lb. xv. 8. 
 
 W There is no ground for tlie Kri iTi?3Xi, and so should I be glorified or hmioiired. It is 
 a positive promise that God would shew' forth His glory, as in ninxi immediately be- 
 fore, (iod says, ** do this, and I will do that." Comp. Zech. i. ;j. ' Of G5 instances 
 which Bfittcher (Lehrb. n. 9G5. c.) gives of n , after the imperative, 61 relate to some 
 wish of the human agent; I only relate to God. Deut. v. 31, "stand here hy Me, 
 .-nmsi, that I may speak unto thee; " Is. xli. 22, 23. irony, including men, " that we 
 n\ay consider and know ; that we may know ;" Ps. 1.7. " hear Me and / would speak, and 
 test/ f If;" Mai, iii. 7. "Return to Me and I would return unto you;" the return ot the crea- 
 ture being a condition that God could return to it. Ou the other hand the Ch. Lain. v. 21, 
 
 to little ; and when ye brouj^ht it home, ' I 
 did I blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord 
 of hosts. Ue( aus(! of mine house that is 
 waste, aiul ye run every man unto his own 
 house. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 520. 
 
 cii727l7. 
 
 1 Or, blow 
 
 it away. 
 
 materials, the spiritual principles in inspired Scripture, where- 
 by he may secure and ground the conception of God, and 
 nuiy shew that the way of the Incariuition was well-ordered, 
 and may collect what ajipertains to accurate knowledge of 
 spiritual erudition and moral goodness. Nay, each of us 
 may be thought of, as the temple and house of God. For 
 Christ dwelleth in us by the Spirit, and we are temples of the 
 living God, according to the Scripture '^ Let each then 
 build up his own heart by right faith, having the Sav'iour 
 as the precious foundation. And let him add thereto other 
 materials, obedience, readiness for anything, courage, en- 
 duran('e, continence. So being framed together by that luhich 
 every joint supplieth, shall we become a holy temple, a habi- 
 tation of God through the Spirit ^^. But those who are slow 
 to faith, or who believe but are sluggish in shaking ofi' pas- 
 sions and sins and worldly pleasure, thereby cry out in a 
 manner, The time is not come to build the house of the Lord." 
 
 9. Ye loolicd, lit. a looking ; as though he said, it has all 
 been one looking, /rv/- much, for increase, the result of all sow- 
 ing, in the way of nature : and behold it came to little, i.e. 
 less than was sown ; as Isaiah denounced to them of old by 
 God's word, i' the seed of a homer shall yield an epiiah, i.e. 
 one tenth of what was sown. And ye brought it home, and I 
 blew upon it, so as to disperse it, as, not tlie wheat, but the 
 chaff is blown before the wind. This, in whatever way it 
 came to pass, was a further chastisement of God. The little 
 seed which they brought in lessened through decay or waste. 
 fFhy ? saith the Lord of hosts. God asks by his prophet, 
 what He asks in the awakened conscience. ^^God ivith re- 
 bukes chastens man for sin. Conscience, when alive, confesses 
 for ichat sin ; or it asks itself, if memory does not supply the 
 special sin. Unawakened, it murmurs about the excess of 
 rain, the drought, the blight, the mildew, and asks, not itself, 
 why, in God's Providence, these inflictions came in these 
 years ? They felt doubtless the sterility in contrast with the 
 exceeding prolificalness of Babylonia^'-*, as they contrasted the 
 light bread-", the manna, with -^ the plentcousness of Egypt. 
 They ascribed probably their meagre crops (as we mostly do) 
 to mere natural causes, perhaps to the long neglect of the 
 land during the (-aptivity. God forces the question upon 
 their consciences, in that Haggai asks it in His Name, in 
 Whose hands all powers stand, saith the Lord of hosts. They 
 have not to talk it over among themselves, but to answer Al- 
 mighty God, why? That whyf strikes into the inmost depths 
 of conscience ! 
 
 liecause of 3[y house which is ivaste, and ye ru7i lit, are 
 running, all the while, each to his own house--. They were 
 absorbed in their material interests, and had no time for those 
 
 "Turn Thou us unto Thee, 31S'II, and we will return" expresses the absolute will to 
 return ; Ruth iv. 4, " tell me, ynNi, and I shall know," the certainty of the knowledge, 
 upon which Boaz would act. 
 
 " Is. xxvi. 15, xliv. 23, Ix, 21, Ixi. 3. '= Ex. xiv. 4. Ezek. xxviii. 22. 
 
 13 S. Aug. Serm. 3S0, n. 6. 
 
 " .S. Cyr. 15 2 Cor. vi. 16. " Eph. iv. 16, ii. 21. 22. 
 
 17 Is. V. 10. IS Ps. xxxix. 11. 19 Herod, i. 193. Theophr. Hist. Plant. 
 
 viii. 7. Berosus Fr. 1. Strabo xvi. 1. 14. Pliny Nat. Hist, xviii. 17. Anim. Marc. xxiv. 9. 
 ■-'" Nu. xxi. 5. -1 lb. xi. 5. 
 
 " j'n with "? is used of the direction whither a man goes ; if used of an action, hasting 
 to do it ; as riiniietlt to evil ( Is. lix. 7, Pr. i. 16.) Here in'3^ cannot be " on account of 
 liis house," but lo it, viz. for his business there. 
 
 ,
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 491 
 
 c if rTs t ^^ Thoreforo '" tlic hcavon over yoii is 
 "''•■ ^^"- stayed from (Unv, luid tlie earth is stayed 
 
 >° Lev. 2C.. 19. ,, , .• •- 
 
 Dc'.it ■>». i^.jrom her iruit. 
 
 " 1 Kill'. 17. 1.' 11 And I " ealled for a droiiii;;ht upon tlie 
 hind, and upon th(! nioiuitains, and u])on the 
 corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the 
 oil, and upon tJiat whieii the i^round hring- 
 eth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, 
 
 »cii.2. 17. and "upon all the labour of the hands. 
 
 of God. When the question vvas of God's lioiise, tliey stir 
 not from the spot; when it is of their own concerns, tliey run. 
 Our Lord says, ^ Seek ye first the kingdom, of God and His 
 righteousness, and all these things shall he added unto you. 
 Man reverses tliis, seeks his own things first, and God witli- 
 hohls His hlcsslngf. 
 
 ""This conies true of those who prefer their own conve- 
 niences to God's lionour, who do not thorouc:hly uproot self- 
 love, whose penitence and devotion are shewn to be unstable ; 
 for on a slia^ht temptation they are overcome. Such are they 
 who arc bold, self-pleasina;, wise and lyreat in their own eyes, 
 who do not ground their conversation on true and solid 
 humility." 
 
 " ^ To those who are slow to fulfil what is for the g:lory of 
 God, and tlie things whereby His house, the Church, is firmly 
 stayed, neither the heavenly dew cometh, which enricheth 
 hearts and minds, nor the fruitfulness of the earth ; i. e. right 
 action; not food nor wine nor use of oil. Cut they will be 
 ever strengthless and joyless, unenriched by spiritual oil, and 
 remain without taste or participation of the blessing through 
 Christ." 
 
 10. Therefore, for you, on your account*; for your sins^. 
 He points out the moral cause of the drought, whereas men 
 think of tiiis or that cause of the variations of the seasons, 
 and we, e. g. take into our mouths Scripture-words, as murrain 
 of cattle, and the like, and think of nothing less than why it 
 was sent, or Who sent it. Haggai directs the mind to the 
 higher Cause, that as they withheld their service from God, 
 so, on their account and by His will, His creatures withheld* 
 their service from them. 
 
 11. And I called for a drought upon the land. God called 
 to the people and they would not hear. It is His ever-re- 
 peated complaint to them. / called unto you, and ye ivould 
 not hear. He called to His inanimate creatures to punish 
 them, and they obeyed. So Elisha tells the woman, whose 
 son he had restored to life, '' The Lord hath called to the famine, 
 and it shall also come to the land seven years. 
 
 And upon men, in that the drought was oppressive to man. 
 The Prophet may also allude to the other meaning of the 
 word, " waste," " desolation." They had left the house of the 
 Lord ^ waste, therefore God called for waste, desolation, upon 
 them. 
 
 12. Then Zerubhahel, and all the remnant of the people, 
 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 33. = Dion. 3 S. Cyr. 
 
 * As in Ps. xliv. 43. ' Jon. ' N73 being everywhere transitive, and 
 
 in this V. also, is probably transitive here. 7 2 Kgs viii. 1. 
 
 's 3iri, Hagg. i. 1, 9; 3-in, i. 11. 
 
 ^ This is the almost uniform usage of nn.xt:'. " renmant which remains over," mostly 
 after the rest have been destroyed or carried captive. See ahnve on Am. i. 8; add, the 
 reinniint of Jtidnit, Jer. xl. 11, xlii. 19, xliii. 5, xliv. 12, 1-1, of Israel^ Zeph. iii. 13, Ez. 
 xi. 13 ; whoh' remnant of the people, Jer. xli. 10, 10 ; of Ashdoii, Jer. xxv. 20 ; of the 
 coast of Caphtur, lb. xlvii. 4; of their vatlei/, lb. 5; of the coast of the sea, £z. xxv. 
 16; of tlie nations, lb. xxxvi. 3, 4, 5 ; qf the land, .•onji, Is. xv. 9; of Mtj people, Zeph. 
 
 12 ^f i'ThenZeruldml)elthesonofShcal- chrTst 
 tiel, and Joshua the son of Josedeeh, the " '•• ■^''"- 
 hii^h priest, with all the remnant of the 
 pectple, ol)eyed tlie voice of the Lord their 
 (iod, and th(; words of llanu;ai tlie ])rophet, 
 as the liORi) tlieir (Jod had sent him, and 
 the people did f(!ar before the Lord, 
 
 1J{ Tlien spake Ilaij^ijfai the Jjord's nies- 
 sen*^er in the Lord's messaiije unto the peo- 
 
 not, " the rest of people " but " the remnant "," those who re- 
 mained over from the craptivity, the fragment of the twri 
 tril)(!S, wbicji returned to their own land, hearkened unto the 
 voire of the Lord. Tills was the l)egiiining of a conversion. 
 In this one thing they began to do, what, all along, in tiieir 
 history, and most in their decay before the ca|)tivity they re- 
 fused to do — obey God's word. So God sums up their his- 
 tory, by Jeremiah, ^'^ I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, thou 
 saidst, I will not hear. This is thy way from thy youth, that 
 thou hearkenedst not unto My voice. Zephaniaii still more 
 hr'iQUy,^^ she hearkened not unto [any] voice. Now in refer- 
 ence, it seems, to that account of their disobedience, Haggai 
 says, using the self-same formula, ^- they hearkened unto the 
 voice of the Lord, '■' according to the u'ords of Haggai. They 
 obeyed, not vaguely, or partly, but exactly, according to the 
 words which the messenger of God spake. 
 
 And tliey feared the Lord. "-Certainly the presence of the 
 Divine Majesty is to be feared with great reverence." "^The 
 fear of punishment at times transports the mind to what is 
 better, and the infiiction of sorrows harmonises the mind to 
 the fear of God ; and that of the Proverbs comes true, ^^He 
 that f caret h tlie Lord shall he recompensed, and ^^ the fear of the 
 Lord tendeth to life ; and Wisdom, ^" The fear of the Lord is 
 honour and glory, and ^"^ the fear of the Lord shall rejoice the 
 heart, and giveth joy and gladness and a long life. See how 
 gently and beseemingly God smites us." 
 
 "5 See how the lovingkindness of God forthwith goes along 
 with all changes for the better. For Almighty God changes 
 along with those who will to repent, and promises that He 
 will be with them ; which what can equal ? For when God 
 is with us, all harm will depart from us, all good come in to 
 us." 
 
 13. And Haggai, the Lord^s messenger. Malaehi, whose 
 own name was framed to express that he was the Lord's 
 messenger, and Haggai alone use the title, as the title of a 
 prophet; perhaps as forerunners of the great prophet whom 
 Malaehi announced. Malaehi also speaks of the priest, as 
 '^^ the tnessctiger of the Lord of hosts, and prophesies of John 
 Baptist as ^'■^ t/ie messenger of the Lord, who should go hefore 
 His face. Haggai, as he throughout repeats that his words 
 were God's words, frames a new word -", to express, in the 
 language of the New Testament -1 ; that he had an embassy 
 from God ; //* the Lord's message. 
 
 ii. 9; of His heritage. Mi. vii. 18; thi/ remnant, Is. xiv. .30, Ez. v. 10; its remnant. Is. 
 xliv. 17 ; their remnant, Jer. xv, 9; and of those who had actually returned, Zech. viii. 
 6,11,12. In two places in which it signifies "the rest" (Jer. xxxix. 3, 1 Chr. xii. 
 38.) it is at least the rest of a whole, already mentioned. A third only, Neh. vii. 72. is 
 uncertain. The word is used almost exclusively by the prophets. 
 
 i» Jer. xxii. 21. " ^p3 nyci? K^ See Introd. to Zeph. p. 442. 
 
 12 >■ Sip^ yss'T '' This is the only place in which •121 Sy yss is used. 
 
 n Pr. xiii. 13. 'i lb. xix. 23." .><■ Ecclus. i. 11. 
 
 17 lb. 12. '* Mai. ii. 7. '» lb. iii. 1. 
 
 -» ri-N^'a. :' 2 Cor. v. 20.
 
 492 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 c H rTs t P'*"' s^y'"??» '' I ""' ^^''^'* y""' ^''*'*'' *''*^ Tiord. 
 <^''-- ■'■-"■ _ 14 AikI ' the Lord stirre<l up the spirit of 
 
 ' Rom.'l.'li'.' Zcrul)b:ihel the son of Shealtiel, ' t^overnor 
 
 '"F^zraf.'i.''<)f .ludah, and the si)irit of Joshua the son 
 
 «ch.2. 21. of Josedeeli, the liii^h priest, and the spirit 
 
 tEzraS. 2, 8. of all the reuiiiant of tlie people ; 'and they 
 
 eame and did work in the house of the Lord 
 
 of hosts, their God. 
 
 15 In the four and twentieth day of the 
 
 sixth month, in the seeond year of Darius 
 
 the king. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 1 He encourageth the people to the work, bt/ promise 
 
 lam with you. All the needs and lonjjinsrs of the crea- 
 ture are summed up in those two words, I tvith-you. "Who 
 art Tliou and who am I ? Thou, He Who Is; 1, he who am 
 not;" nothing?, yea worse than nothins^. Yet if ^ God Ije for 
 us, S. Paul asks, irho can be ttgainst us? Our Blessed Lord's 
 partinj;- promise to the Apostles, and in them to tlie Cluircli, 
 was, '~Lo I am with you aliray, even to the end of the world. 
 The all-containing assurance ft'oes beyond any particular 
 promise of aid, as, "^ I will help you, and will protect you, 
 so that your buildina; shall have its completion." This is 
 one fruit of it; "* since I am in tlie midst of you, no one 
 shall he able to hinder your huildiniy." But, more widely, 
 the words l)espeak His presence in love. Who knows all our 
 needs, and is Almisibty to support and save us in all. So 
 David says, ^when I tvalk through the valley of tlie shadojv of 
 death, I irill fear no evil ; for Thou art ivitli me : and God 
 says by another, "/will be with him in trouble, and by Isaiah, 
 "^ fVheii thou passest through the wafers, I will be with thee. 
 14. yJud the Lord stirred up the spirit. The words are 
 used of any strong impulse from God to fulfil His will, whe- 
 ther in those who execute His will unknowingly as Pul **, 
 to carry oft* the trans-Jordanic tribes, or the Philistines and 
 Arabians against Jehoram ', or the Medes against Babylon^*^; 
 or knowingly, as of Cyrus to restore God's people and re- 
 build the temple ", or of the people themselves to return '-. 
 '• * The spirit of Zerubbaljel and the spirit of Joshua were 
 stirred, that the government and priesthood may build the 
 temple of God : the spirit of the people too, which before 
 was asleep in them ; not the body, not the soul, but tiie 
 spirit, which knoweth best how to build the temple of God." 
 " ^' The Holy Spirit is stirred up in us, that we should enter 
 the house of the Lord, and do tlie works of the Lord." 
 
 ""Again, observe that they did not set themselves to 
 choose to do what should please God, before He was with 
 them and stirred up their spirit. We shall know hence also, 
 that although one choose zealously to do good and be in 
 earnest therein, yet he will accomplish nothing, unless God 
 be with him, raising him up to dare, and sharpening him to 
 endure, and removing all torpor. For so the wondrous Paul 
 says of those entrusted with the divine preaching, i° / la- 
 boured more iihundantly than they all, yet added very wisely, 
 yet not I, but the grace of God wliich was with me, and the 
 Saviour Himself saith to the holy Apostles, ^^fPlt/iout 3Ie 
 
 1 Rom. viii. .31. 2 s. Matt, xxviii. 20. 'Dion. ■• S. Jer. 
 
 4 Ps. xxiii. 4. « lb. xci. l.'>. 7 Is. xliii. 2. s i Chr. v. 26. 
 
 ■> 2 Chr. xxi. 16. '» Jer. li. 11. " Ezr. i. 1. '-' lb. 5. 
 
 of greater glory to the second temple than was in jPu°i%t 
 the first. 10 /// the type, of holy things and mi- <:ir. o-iO. 
 clean he shewtth llieir sins hindered the work. 20 
 God\s promise to Xeriibbabcl. 
 
 IN the seventh inontli, in the one and 
 twentieth (hni of tlie month, eame the 
 word of the Lord f by the prophet Haggai, t Heb. by the 
 sayins,^ 
 
 2 Speak now to Zeruhbabel the son of 
 Shealtiel, i^overnor of Judah, and to Joshua 
 the son of Josedeeh, the high pi*iest, and to 
 the residue of the people, saying, 
 
 3 " Who is left among you that saw this " Ezras. 12. 
 
 ye can do nothing. For He is our desire. He, our courage 
 to any good work ; He our strength, and, if He is with us, 
 we shall do well, ^^ building ourselves to a holy temple, a habi- 
 tation of God in the Spirit; if He depart and withdraws, how 
 should any doul)t, that we should fail, overcome by sluggish- 
 ness and want of courage?" 
 
 15. /// the four and twentieth day of the mo)ith. The 
 interval of twenty three days must have been spent in pre- 
 paration, since the message came on the first of the month, 
 and the obedience was immediate. 
 
 ii. 1. In the seventh month, in the one and tiventieth day 
 of the month. This was the seventh day of the feast of ta- 
 bernacles'*, and its close. The eighth day was to be a sabbath, 
 with its ^'^ lioly convocation, hwX, the commemorative feast, the 
 dwelling in booths, in memory of God's bringing them out 
 of Egypt, was to last seven days. The close then of this 
 feast could not but revive their sadness at the glories of 
 their first deliverance by God's mighty hand and outstretched 
 arm, and their present fewness and poverty. This depres- 
 sion could not but bring with it heavy thoughts about the 
 work, in which they were, in obedience to God, engaged ; 
 and that, all the more, since Isaiah and Ezekiel had pro- 
 phesied of the glories of the Christian Church under the 
 symbol of the temple. This despondency Haggai is sent 
 to relieve, owning plainly the reality of its present grounds, 
 but renewing, on God's part, the pledge of the glories of this 
 second temple, which should be thereafter. 
 
 3. Tl'lio is left among you f Tlie question implies that 
 there were those among them, who had seen the first house 
 in its glory, yet but few. When the foundations of the first 
 temple were laid, there were many. ~^Many of the priests 
 and Levites and chief of the fathers, ancient men, that had 
 seen the first house, when tlie foundations of this house tvere 
 laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Fifty nine 
 years li.ad elapsed from the destruction of the temple in 
 the eleventh year of Zedekiah to the first of Cyrus ; so that 
 old men of seventy years had seen the first temple, when 
 themselves eleven years old. In this second of Darius seventy 
 years had passed, so that those of JS or 80 years might still 
 well remember it. Ezra's father, Seraiah, was slain in the 
 eleventh year of Zedekiah ; so he must have been born at 
 latest a few months later; yet he lived to the second of 
 Artaxerxes. 
 
 '■^ ap. Lap, 
 '7 Epb. ii. 21, 
 
 '< S. Cyr. '5 1 Cor. xv. 11. 
 
 22. '3 Lev. xxiii. 34, .36, 40-42. 
 
 -0 Ezr. iii. 12. 
 
 '6 S. John XV. 5. 
 " lb. 36, 39.
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 493 
 
 c if rTs t Jioi'se in her first j^lory ? and how do yo see 
 ''"■ ^^°- it now ? '' is it not in your eyes in eonipa- 
 " 2ech.4.io. j,j^^jj^ ^jf j^ j^g nothinir? 
 
 4 Yet now <^he stronjif, O Zerubl):d)el, 
 saith the Lord ; and he stronj^, O Josliua, 
 son of Josedeeh, the high priest ; and he 
 
 Zech. 8. 9. 
 
 Is not .Stick as it is'', as iio/fiiiii;^? Besides the richness 
 of the sculptures in the former temple, everytliiiig', which 
 admitted of it, was overlaid with f^ohl ; ~ Soloninn overlaid 
 the whole house with gold, tititil he h<td Jinished all the house, 
 the ivhole altar hy the oracle, tlie two cherubim, the floor of 
 the house, the doors of the holi/ of holies and the ornaments 
 of it, the cheruhims thereon and the palm trees he covered 
 with gold fitted upon the carved work ; ^ the altar of gold and 
 the table of gold, whereupon the shewhread was, the ten can- 
 dlesticks of pure gold, luith the Jiuwers and the latnps and the 
 tongs of gold, the howls, the snujf'ers and the haso)is and the 
 spoons and the cejtsers of pure gold, and hinges of pure gold 
 for all the doors of the temple. * The porch that was in the 
 front of the house, twenty cubits broad and 120 cubits high, 
 was overlaid within ivith pure gold; the house glistened 
 witii precious stones; and the gold (it is added) was gold 
 of Parvaim, a land distant of course and unknown to us. 
 Six hundred talents of gold (about ii4,320,(K)0'',) were em- 
 ployed in overlaying the Holy of holies. The upper chcan- 
 bers were also of gold ; the weight of the nails ivasjifty shekels 
 of gold. 
 
 4. Yet now he strong — and ivork. They are the words 
 with which David exhorted Solomon his son to be earnest 
 and to persevere in the building of the first temple. ^ Take 
 heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for 
 the sanctuary : be strong and do. ' Be strong and of good 
 courage, and do. This combination of words occurs once 
 only elsewhere *, in Jehoshaphat's exhortation to tlie ^ Levites 
 and priests and chiefs of the fathers of Israel, whom he had 
 set as judges in Jerusalem. Haggai seems then to have 
 adopted the words, with the purpose of suggesting to the 
 down-hearted people, that there was need of the like exhorta- 
 tion, in view of the building of the former temple, whose re- 
 lative glory so depressed them. The word be strong (else- 
 where rendered, be of good courage) occurs commonly in 
 exhortations to persevere and hold fast, amid whatever 
 obstacles ^'^. 
 
 5. The word wliich I covenanted. The words stand more 
 forcibly, because abruptly ^i. It is an exclamation which can- 
 not be forced into any grammatical relation with the preced- 
 
 1 Such is probably the force of iniD3. Comp. nyns^iiDD [Gen. xliv. 18] "one such as 
 thou is like Pharaoh," and perhaps 1.1D3, Ex. ix. 18, and 'IinD ib'k, 2 Sam. ix. 8. |'N3 m,T 
 (which Ewald says older writers would have used) would have been weaker. 
 2 1 Kgs vi. 22. 28, 30, 32, 35. 
 3 lb. vii. 48-50. 4 2 Chr. iii. 4-9. 
 
 * Reckoning the silver shekel at 2s., the talent of silver, = 3000 shekels, would be 
 £300 ; Teckoning the gold talent, as, in weight, double the silver talent, and the relation 
 of gold to silver as 12 to 1, (H. W. Poole in Smith Bibl. Diet. p. 1734, 1735.) the gold 
 talent would be £300 x 24, = £7,200; and COO gold talents £4,320,000. This would 
 not be so much as Solomon imported yearly, 6(50 talents =£4,795,200. 
 
 6 1 Chr. xxviii. 10. 7 lb. 20.' 8 2 Chr. xix. 11. ' lb. 8. 
 
 10 Gesenius (v. pTn) refers to the following; 3 Sam. x. 12, (Joab to Abishai in the war 
 with the Syrians) ; 2 Chr. xxv. 8. ^the prophet to Amaziah) ; 2 Sam. xiii. 28 (Absalom 
 to his servants about the murder oi Amnon) ; Ps. xxvii. 14, xx-^i. 25, (with the corre- 
 sponding promise that God would establish their hearts); Is. xli. 6, (in mockery of the 
 laborious process of making an idol). It occurs also, supported by [TiKi Jos. i. 6, 7, 
 9, 18 (God's words to Joshua) ; Deut. xxxi. 7, (Moses to Joshua) ; lb. tl' (to Israel) ; 
 Josh. X. 25 (Joshua to the people) ; 2 Chr. xxxii. 7 (Hezekiah to the people) ; pin itself 
 is repeated Dan. x. 19. ptm pin. 
 
 " Less probable seems to me, 1) To makel3innN depend onifc'vin v. 4, as Kim. A. E. 
 a) on account of the idiom in 1 Chr., in which, as here, ^vt/y stands absolutely, "do 
 
 PART V. 
 
 stronji^, all ye jx'oph; of the hmd, saith the cu^r^st 
 
 JiORD, and work : for I am with you, saith "'*'• ^^"- 
 
 the Lord of hosts : 
 
 5 '^./Icc.ordin"; to tlie word that I covenant-^ Ex. 29. 45, 
 
 40. 
 
 ed with you when ye eanie out of Kj^ypt, so 
 
 ,...,.,, c i. ' Neh. 9.20. 
 
 'my spirit reinaineth among you: tear ye not. isai.cs. 11. 
 
 ing. The more exact idiom would have been " Remember," 
 "take to heart." But the l'roj)lict points to it the more 
 energetically, because! Ik; casts it, as it were, info the midst, 
 not bound up with any one verb. This would be the rather 
 done in sjteuking to the people, as David to his followers'-, 
 That which the Lord hath given us and hath preserved us and 
 given the company against us into our hu7ids .' i. c. "Would you 
 deal thus with it?" The abrupt form rejects it as shocking. 
 So here, The word which I covenanted with you, i. e. this, / 
 7vill be with yoif, was the central all-c(jntaiiiiiig promise, to 
 wliich God pledged Himself when He brought tiiem out of 
 Egypt. He speaks to them as being one with those who came 
 up out of Egypt, as if they were the very persons. The 
 Church, ever varying in the individuals of whom it is com- 
 posed, is, throughout all ages, in God's sight, one; His pro- 
 mises to the fathers are made to the children in them. So 
 the I'salmist say.s, There (at the dividing of the Red Sea and 
 the Jordan) do we rejoice in Him, as if present there ; and 
 our Lord promises to the Apostles, ^^I am with you always 
 even to the end of the world, by an ever-present Presence 
 with them and His Church founded by them in Him. 
 
 3Iy Spirit abideth among you, as the Psalmist says, ^*they 
 [the heavens] perish (Did Thou abidest ; '^ The counsel of the 
 Lord sfandeth for ever ; '^'Uis righteousness eitdureth for ever. 
 The Spirit of God is God the Holy Ghost, with His manifold 
 gifts. Where He is, is all good. As the soul is in the body, 
 so God the Holy Ghost is in the Church, Himself its life, and 
 bestowing on all and each every good gift, as each and all 
 have need. As S. Paul says of the Church of Christ; ''''There 
 are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; and there are 
 diversities of operations, but it is the same God, Who worketh 
 all in all. All these ivorketh one and the self-same Spirit, 
 dividing to every man severally as He will. But above and 
 beyond all gifts He is present as the Spirit of holiness and 
 love, making the Church and those in whom He individually 
 dwells, acceptable to God. Special applications, such as the 
 Spirit of ivisdo)n and might ; a spirit such as He gave to 
 Moses to judge His people'*; the spirit of prophecy '^; or the 
 spirit given to Bezaleel and Aholiab for the work of the 
 sanctuary-" — these recognise in detail the one great truth, 
 
 work ; " b) Haggai is exhorting them to this one work of rebuilding the temple, not to 
 obedience to the law generally ; c) he speaks of what God had promised them, not of 
 their duties to God. 2) To supply nil " remember," or any like word, is arbitrary, un- 
 less it means that we should hll up the meaning by some such word. 3) To construe, 
 "Remember the word which I covenanted with you, fear not "(Ew.); a) gives undue 
 prominence to the absence of fear, which was one consequence of God's covenant that 
 tie would be their God, they His people, not the covenant itself; b) Fear not, is else- 
 where the counterpart and supplement of the exhortation, " be strong," 2 Chr. xxv. 
 8, Is. XXXV. 41. c) In Ex. xx. 20, (referred to by Ew.) " fear not " is only Moses' ex- 
 hortation on occasion of the terrors of the manifestation of God on Mt. Sinai. 4) It is 
 doubly improbable, that it, as well as Vtn, should be the subject of the sing. nncy. 
 Theiiin nx and the 'nn seem to he different constructions, in order to prevent this. Bott- 
 cher terms it, " an ace. abs. of the object," and cites Deut. xi. 2, Ezek. xliii. 7, xlvii. 
 17-19, (" unless one correct nut for nxi") Zech. viii. 17. (Lehrb. n. 516. e.) 
 
 '- 1 Sam. XXX. 23, which Ewald compares, Lehrb. n. 329. a p. 811, ed. 8, and in his Die 
 Proph. iii. 183. Only he, not very intelligibly, makes it a sort of oath. By the word. 
 By that which the Lord hath /riven us. But he suggests the like broken sentence 
 Zech. vii. 7. " S. Matt, xxviii. 20. " Ps. cii. 27. 
 
 13 lb. xxxiii. 11. '6 lb. cxi. 3. i: 1 Cor. xii. 4, 6, 11. 
 
 's Alb. quoting Num. xi. 25. " Jon. " My prophets shall teach you, fear not." 
 
 ■0 Included by Lap. 
 
 c c c c
 
 494 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 C H rTs T ^ ^^^ *''"^ ^'"*^* *^'*' ''"'^" "^ '^**^^^ ' '^'^^^ 
 
 "r- sao. once, it ?> a little while, und k 1 will shake 
 
 'ver. 21. Heb. 12.20. B Joel 3. 16. 
 
 that all fcood, all wisdom, from least to j^reatest, comes from 
 God the Holy Ghost; though one by one they would exclude 
 more truth than they each contain. 
 
 G. Yi-f once, it is a little wldle. This, the rendering of 
 S. Paul to the Hebrews, is alone f^rammatical ^ Yet once. By 
 the word yet lie looks hack to the first great shaking of the 
 moral world, when God's revelation by Moses and to His peo- 
 ple broke upon the darkness of the pagan world, to he a monu- 
 ment against heathen error till Christ should come; once 
 looks on, and conveys that God would again shake the world, 
 but once only, under the one dispensation of the Gospel, which 
 should endure to the end. 
 
 // is a little wliile. "^The 517 years, which were to elapse 
 to the birth of Christ, are called a little time, because to the 
 prophets, ascending in heart to God and the eternity of God, 
 all times, like all things of this world, seem, as they are, only 
 a little thing, yea a mere point ; " which has neither length 
 nor breadth. So S. John calls tlie time of the new law, t/ie 
 last hour ; ^Little children, it is the last hotir. It was little 
 also in respect to the time, which had elapsed from the fall of 
 Adam, upon which God promised the Saviour Christ * ; little 
 also in respect to the Christian law, which has now lasted 
 above 1800 years, and the time of the end does not seem 
 yet nigh. 
 
 / will shake the heave7is and the earth, and the sea and 
 the dry land. It is one universal shaking of all this our 
 world and the heavens over it, of which the Prophet spcciks. 
 He does not speak only of ^ signs in the sun and in the moon 
 and in the stars, which might be, and yet the frame of the 
 world itself might remain. It is a shaking, such as would 
 involve the dissolution of this our system, as St. Paul draws 
 out its meaning; ^ This word, once more, signifieth the re- 
 moving of the things that are shaken, that those things which 
 cannot he shaken may remain. Prophecy, in its long perspec- 
 tive, uses a continual foreshortening, speaking of things in 
 relation to their eternal meaning and significance, as to that 
 which shall survive, when heaven and earth and even time 
 shall have passed away. It blends together the beginning 
 and the earthly end; the preparation and the result; the 
 commencement of redemption and its completion; our Lord's 
 coming in humility and in His Majesty. Scarce any pro- 
 phet but exhibits things in their intrinsic relation, of which 
 time is but an accident. It is the rule, not the exception. 
 The Seed of the woman, Who should bruise the serpent's 
 head, was promised on the fall ; to Abraham, the blessing 
 through bis seed ; by Moses, the prophet like unto him ; 
 to David, an everlasting covenant''. Joel unites the out- 
 pouring of the Spirit of God on the Day of Pentecost, and 
 the hatred of the world till the Day of Judgement*; Isaiah, 
 God's judgements on the land and the Day of final judge- 
 ment^; the deliverance from Babylon, and the first coming 
 of Christ'"; the glories of the Church, the new heavens and 
 the new earth which shall remain for ever, and the un- 
 quenched fire and undying worm of the lost''; Daniel, the 
 
 • rnx 2 Kgs vi. 10, Ps, Ixii. 12, Job xl. 5 ; inx, as an adj., follows the noun. In the 
 only exception alleged by Ges., Dan. viii. 13, it is used of one certain anjiel, as contrasted 
 with another. EVO is used of time, Job x. 20, xxiv. 24. ) nriN liy is the like construc- 
 tion as 1 EDO TV lix. xvii. 4, Ps. xxxvii. 10, Hos. i. 4. - Lap. 
 3 1 S. John ii. 18. -i Gen. iii. 15. s S. Luke xxi. 25. 
 
 « Heb. xii. 27. '' 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. « Joel ii. 28-32, iii. 
 
 9 Is. xxiv. I» lb. xl.-Ixvi. " lb. Ixvi. 22-24. '- Dan. xi. xii. 
 
 W Ob. 18-21. '* See on Zeph. i. 2, 3. p. 444. '^ Mai. iii. 1-5. 17, 18. Iv. 
 
 the heavens, and tlie earth, and the sea. 
 and the dry land; 
 
 Before 
 ' C H 11 I S T 
 cir. 520. 
 
 persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, of Anti-Christ, and the 
 Kesurrection '- ; Obadiah, the punisliment of Edoin and the 
 everlasting kingdom of (iod '^; Zej)baniaii, tlie punishment 
 of Judah and the final judgement of the earth'*; Malachi, 
 our Lord's first and second Coming'^. 
 
 Nay, our Lord Himself so blends together the destruction 
 of Jerusalem and the days of Anti-Christ and the end of the 
 world, that it is diffiirult to separate them, so as to say what 
 belongs exclusively to either '". The jiropbecy is an answer 
 to two distinct questions of the Apostles, 1) IFhen shall these 
 things (viz. the destruction of the temple) he ? 2) a)id ivhut 
 shall he the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the world ? 
 Our Lord answers the two questions in one. Some things 
 seem to belong to the first Coming, as '^ the abotnitiution of 
 desolation spoken of by Daniel, and the flight from ^^Judcea 
 into the mountains. But the exceeding deceivableness is au- 
 thoritatively interpreted by St. PauP' of a distant time; and 
 our Lord Himself, having said that all these things, of which 
 the Apostles had enquired, should take place in that genera- 
 tion-", speaks of His absence as of a man taking a far journey'", 
 and says that not the angels in heaven knew that hour, 7ieither 
 the Son"^ ; which precludes the idea, that He had just before 
 declared that the whole would take place in that generation. 
 For this would be to make out, that He declared that the 
 Son knew not the hour of His Coming, which He had just 
 (on this supposition) declared to be in that generation. 
 
 So then, here. There was a general shaking upon earth 
 before our Lord came. Empires rose and fell. The Per- 
 sian fell before Alexander's; Alexander's world-empire was 
 ended by his sudden death in youth ; of his four successors, 
 two only continued, and they too fell before the Romans; 
 then were the Roman civil wars, until, under Augustus, 
 the temple of Janus was shut. " ^^ For it greatly beseemed 
 a work ordered by God, that many kingdoms should be 
 confederated in one empire, and that the universal preaching 
 might find the peoples easily accessible who were held un- 
 der the rule of one state." In the Heavens was the star, 
 which led the wise men, the manifestation of Angels to the 
 shepherds ; the preternatural darkness at the Passion ; the 
 Ascension into the highest Heaven, and the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost with ^* a sound from heaven as [of] a rushing 
 mighty wind. " -° God had moved them [heaven and earth] 
 before, when He delivered the people from Egj'pt, when there 
 was in heaven a column of fire, dry ground amid the waves, 
 a wall in the sea, a path in the waters, in the wilderness 
 there was multiplied a daily harvest of heavenly food [the 
 manna], the rock gushed into fountains of waters. But He 
 moved it afterwards also in the Passion of the Lord Jesus, 
 when the heaven was darkened, the sun shrank back, the 
 rocks were rent, the graves opened, the dead were raised, 
 the dragon, conquered in his waters, saw the fishers of men, 
 not only sailing in the sea, but also walking without peril. 
 The dry ground also was moved, when the unfruitful people 
 of the nations began to ripen to a harvest of devotion and 
 
 "> The second question about the end of the world occurs only in S. Matthew (xxiv. 
 3); the first, When shall these things be? occurs in S. Mark also (xiii. 3) and S. Luke 
 (xxi. 6). The words in S. Mark, This generation shall not pass till all these things be 
 clone (xiii. 30) seem to me to be cast in the form of their question, ll'hen shall these 
 things be? viz. the things about which they had asked. '' S. Matt. xxiv. 15, IG. 
 
 "lb. 24. " 2 Thess. v. 2-10. -» S. Mark xiii. 30. -' lb. 34. 
 
 ■- lb. .32. » S. Leo Hom. 82 in Nat. Ap. Petri et Pauli. c. 2. col. 322. Ball. 
 
 ■* Acts ii. 2. 2' S. Ambr. Ep. 30 ad Iren. n. 11, 12. 0pp. ii. 913 Ben.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 495 
 
 c h'rTs t 7 And I will shake all nations, ^ and tlu; 
 "'*•• ^^"- desire of all nations shall come : and I uill 
 
 I" Gtn.l'J. lU. Mai. 3.1. 
 
 faith, — so that more tvere the children of the forsaken, than 
 of her which had n hnshnnd, and ' the desert Jloiirished like a 
 lily." "^He iiiovcd oarth in that jj;reat luiraclo of Iho hirth 
 from the Viri;iii : lie iiiovid tlic sea and dry huid, wlicii in 
 the islands and in tho wliolc world Christ is preached. So 
 we see all nations moved to the faith." 
 
 And yet, whatever prelndes of fulfilment there were at our 
 Lord's first Cominc;', they were; as nothing to the fulfilment 
 which we look for in the Second, when ^ the earth shall he 
 ii/ferli/ hroken down; the earth, clean dissolved; the earth, 
 iiioved. e.rccedingli/ ; the earth shall reel to and fro like u 
 drit/ikard, and shall he roiiored like a hanging-cot in a vine- 
 yard \ and the transgression thereof is heavy upon it ; and it 
 shall fall and not rise again ; whereon follows an announce- 
 <d"the final juda;ement of men and angels, and the cverlast- 
 inj; kingdom of the blessed in the presence of God. 
 
 Of that day of the Lord, St. Peter uses our Lord's image, 
 ^ that it shall " come as u thief in the night, in which the 
 heavens shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the 
 works therein shall be burned up. 
 
 7. And the desire of all nations shall come. The words 
 can only mean this, the central longing of all nations '' ; He 
 whom they longed for, either through the knowledge of Him 
 spread by the Jews in their dispersion, or mutely by the 
 aching craving of the human heart, longing for the restora- 
 tion from its decay. The earnest cvpectation of the creature 
 did not begin with the Coming of Christ, nor was it limited 
 to those, who actually came to Him. ^ The whole creation, 
 Saint Paul saith, groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
 until now. It was enslaved, and the better self longed to be 
 free ; every motion of grace in the multitudinous heart of 
 man was a longing for its Deliverer ; every weariness of what 
 it was, every lleeting vision of what was better, every sigh 
 from out of its manifold ills, were notes of the one varied 
 cry, "Come and help us." Man's heart, formed in the image 
 of God, could not but ache to be re-formed by and for Him, 
 though an nnknmcn God, Who should reform it. 
 
 This longing increased as the time drew nigh, when Christ 
 
 • Is. XXXV. 1. 2 S. Ans. de Civ. Dei xviii. 25. ' Is. xxiv. 19, 20. 
 
 ^ rui70. See a picture of one ill Niebuhr. 
 
 5 S. Matt. xxiv. 43. 6 2 S. Pet. iii. 10. 
 
 " tan is " coveted." It is the passion forbidden in the tenth commandment, Ex. xx. 
 U, (bis) Oeut. v.l8,vii. 25, Ex. xxxiv. 24, Jos. vii. 21, Pr. vi.25, Mi. ii.2. In Pr. xii. 12, 
 it is a passionate desire which ends in choice. It is united with " loved " and " hated," 
 lb. i. 22 ; of the passionate idolatry. Is. i. 2',). It is used of God's passionless good- 
 pleasure in that which He chooses, vet speaking after the manner of men, I's. Ixviii. 17, 
 and of man's not longing for Jesus, Is. liii. 2. "The Piel is used once of intense longing. 
 Cant. ii. Ji. Men covet things for some real or seeming good ; and so the passive form 
 of the verb, lion or icra, are things wliicli are the object of coveting, and so things desira- 
 ble ; lion Job XX. 20, Ps. xxxix. 12, Is. xliv. 9; inni Gen. ii. 9, iii. (>, Ps, xix.ll. Pr. xxi. 20. 
 TCD? with the gen. is "the desire of the eye," what it covets or desires, 1 Kgs xx. 6, Ex. xxiv. 
 10, 21, 25, Lam. ii. 4; or desirable things, belonging to one, Jo. iv. 5, Is. Ixiv. 10, 
 Lara. i. 10, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 19, or from it, Dsai nonn Hos. ix. 16. "the desires of the 
 womb," "the desired children that their womb had borne," or witli V, " the desired things 
 consisting in their silver," CE037iDnD, lb. ix. C. or abs. Cant. v. l(j. innD occurs in the same 
 sense. Lam. i. 7, H ; niTOqor .n B"it of Daniel, as the object ofthe love of God, Dan. ix.23, 
 x. 11, 19 ; and of desirable things, Gen. xxvii. 15, 2 Chr. xx. 25, Dan. x. 3, xi. 38, 43, 
 Ezr. viii. 27. 
 
 As to iTipn itself, bvo idioms have been confused ; 1) that in which it is accessory to 
 another w'ortl. as men ■'JD " vessels of desire," Hos.xiii. 15, Jer. xxv. Zi, 2 Chr. xxxii. 27, 
 Dan. xi. 8, Nah. ii. 10; .non p.x, "land of desire," Ps. cvi. 21, Jer. iii. 19, Zech. vii. M; 
 iniDn 'n2 " houses of thy desire," or " thy houses of desire," Ez. xxvi. 12 ; 'man np'jn 
 "my portion of desire," Jer. xii. 10. These we might paraphrase "pleasant vessels," 
 " pleasant land," as we might say " desirables." Not that the word .TCn means, in it- 
 self, " pleasant things," any more than the word "coveted" signifies ;Vt'ffsn;j;, though 
 those things only are " coveted," which are thought to be pleasant. The original sense 
 of the root, to " desire," is obviously bronght out the more, when the idea is not sub- 
 sidiary, but the chief. There are four cases, in which Chemdnh is so used . { I ) " Jehoram 
 died man (iSa, unregretted," we should say ; " no one longing for him," 2 Chr, x.xi. 20 ; 
 
 fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 520. 
 
 should come. The Roman biographer attests the existence 
 of this expectation, not aiiioiig the Jews only, but in the 
 I'^ast''; this was (piickcncd doubtless among the heathen by 
 the Jewish Sibylline bo(d<, in that, amid the expectations of 
 one sent from heaven, who should found a kingdom of righte- 
 ousness, which the writer drew from the Hebrew prophets, 
 he inserted denunciations of temporal vengeance upon the 
 Jl()mans, which Easterns would share. Still, although written 
 17" years before our Ivord canu- '", it had not apparently much 
 effect until the time, when, from the prophecies of Daniel it 
 was clear, that He must shortly come ". Yet the attenij)t of 
 the Jewish '- and heathen ' ' historian to wrest it to Vespasian, 
 shews how great must have been the influence of the expec- 
 tation, which they attempted to turn aside. The Jews, who 
 rejected our Lord Whom Haggai predicted, still were con- 
 vinced that the prediction must be fulfilled before the de- 
 struction of the second temple. The impulse did not cease 
 even after its destruction. R. Akiba, whom they accounted 
 "'Hhe first oracle of his time, the first and greatest guardian 
 ofthe tradition and old law," of whom they said, that " ''God 
 revealed to him things unknown to Moses," was induced by 
 this prophecy to acknowledge the impostor Rar-cochab, to the 
 destruction of himself and of the most eminent of his time; 
 fulfilling our Lord's words, i"/ am come in My Father's name, 
 and ye receive Me not ; if another shall come in his oivn name, 
 him ye will receive, Akiba, following the traditional meaning 
 of the great prophecy which rivetted his own eyes, para- 
 phrased the words, " ^^ Yet a little, a little of the "kingdom, 
 will I give to Israel upon the destruction of the first house, 
 and after the kingdom, lo ! I will shake heaven, and after 
 that will come the Messiah." 
 
 Since the words can only mean "the Desire of all nations," 
 he or that which all nations long for, the construction of the 
 words does not affect the meaning. Herod doubtless thought 
 to advance his own claims on the Jewish people by his ma- 
 terial adorning of the temple; yet, although mankind' do covet 
 gold and silver, few could seriously think that, while a hea- 
 then immorrf but observant poet could speak of " gold un- 
 
 (2) " To whom is ^(oc mnn ^3, the whole longing of Israel ? " 1 .Sam. ix. 20 ; (3) The 
 well-known words D-C'i men, Chi'milath Nashhii, " the desire of women," Dan. xi. 37. If 
 (as this is now generally understood) this means "the object of the longing of women," 
 so much the more must Dlin ^3 mnn mean, " the object of the longing of all nations!" 
 They cannot mean, "the most desirable of all nations," "die liebsten aller Volker," 
 Ew. formerly; "die edelsten aller Volker," Hitzig; "dieauserlesensten derselben;" Um- 
 breit. This must have been expressed by aid of the passive participle in any of the 
 forms, by which a superlative is expressed. Nor can it mean " the costly things of all 
 people;" ("die hiihen Schatzen aller der volker," Ewald, "die Kiistbarkeiien aller Na- 
 tionen," Scholz). This, if expressed by the word at all, would have been.cun hj-yprs. 
 Rashi, A. E., Kimchi, explain as if 3 were omitted. R. Isaac (Chizzuk Emunah,~in 
 Wagens. Tela ignea p. 288) quotes 2 Kgs xii. 11, where "n'3 stands as the ace. of place; 
 R. Tanchum omits the verse, Abulwalid the instance. It is not noticed by R. Parchon' 
 Kimchi, Menahem ben Saruk, David b. Abraham, in their dictionaries. Abarbanel re- 
 tains the meaning, " the desire of all nations," interpreting it of the holy land. He para- 
 phrases .Jn 7D .n mm " that they shall come to the holy land and there shall He be avenged 
 of them, and then at that time ' I will fill this house with glory.' v. p. nn, -1. The Anon. 
 Arab. (Hunt. 20i;) renders "the most precious things of all na'tions shall come." 
 3 Rom. viii. 19-22. ^ Suet. Vesp. c. 4. '" See Pusey's " Daniel the Prophet," 
 
 pp. 3t;4-3(;8. 
 
 " lb. p^. 230-2.33. 
 
 '2 Jos. B.J. vi. 5. 4. 
 
 "Tac. Hist. V. 1.3. 
 
 H " He was President ol the academies of Lidda and Jafna, disciple and successor of 
 Rabban Gamaliel, and a man of such learning and repute, that he was accounted among 
 the Hebrews the first oracle &c." De Rossi Diz. stor. d. Autori Ebr. sub v. 
 
 '5 R. Bechai. See ab. p. 317. note 12. 16 §_ John v. 43. 
 
 17 Sanhedrin. dist. chelek in Mart. Pug. fid. p. 305. R. Gedaliah B. Yechaiah qiiotcs 
 R. Akiba, rejecting his interpretation. ".\nd not as Rabbi Akibah, who was interpre- 
 ting this section ; " Yet once, it is n litHe and I shake the heaven and the earth. He in- 
 terprets, that when Israel went to the captivity of Babylon, Haggai the prophet spalie 
 this section, and its meaning is, that in this house there will be little glory, and after 
 this I will bring the desire of the heathen to Jerusalem." Shalsheleth Hakkabbala ex- 
 tracted in the Carm. R. Lipmanni confut. p. 619. in Wagenseil Tela ignea satanae. 
 
 c c c c 2
 
 496 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 <liscovprcd and so better plaecd\" or our own of tlie "pale and 
 coninidn drudge 'Tween man and man," a Hebrew propbet 
 could recognise gold and silver as the desire of all luttions. R. 
 Akiba and S. Jerome's Jewish teacbers, after our Lord came, 
 felt no difficulty in understanding it of a person. We cannot 
 in Englisb express tbe delicacy of tbe pbrase, wbereby mani- 
 foldness is combined in unity, tbe Object of desire containing 
 in itself many objects of desire. To render " the desire of all 
 nations" or "the desires of all nations" alike fail to do this. 
 A great heathen master of language said to his wife, " fart 
 you well, my longings-," i. e., I suppose, if he had analysed 
 his feelings, he meant that she manifoldly met the longings 
 of bis heart; she had in herself manifold gifts to content them. 
 So St. Paul sums up all the truths and gifts of tbe Gospel, all 
 which God shadowed out in tbe law and bad given us in 
 Christ, under the name of "^the good things to come." A 
 pious modern writer* speaks of "the unseen rfeA7>«Z»/e* of the 
 spiritual world." A j)salmist expresses at once tbe collective, 
 " God's Word " and the " words " contained in it, by an idiom 
 like Haggai's, joining tbe feminine singular as a collective 
 with tbe plural verb ; ^Hoiv street are Thy word unto my taste 
 lit. palate. It is God's word, at once collectively and indi- 
 vidually, which was to tbe Psalmist so sweet. What was true 
 of tbe whole, was true, one by one, of each part ; what was 
 true of each part, was true of tbe whole. So here, the object 
 of this longing was manifold, but met in one, was concentrated 
 in One, ^ in Christ Jesus, JVho of God is made toito ns wisdom 
 and righteousness and sanctification a7id redemption. That 
 which tbe whole world sighed and mourned for, knowingly 
 or unknowingly, light to disperse its darkness, liberty from 
 its spiritual slavery, restoration from its degradation, could 
 not come to us without some one, who should impart it to us. 
 
 But if Jesus was the longed-for of the nations before He 
 came, by that mute longing of need for that which it wants 
 {as the parched ground tbirsteth for tbe rain '') how much 
 more afterwards ! So Micah and Isaiah describe many peo- 
 ples inviting one another, ^ Come ye, and let us go up to the 
 mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and 
 He will teach us of His tcays, and we luill walk in His paths. 
 And in truth He became the desire of the nations, much more 
 than of the Jews ; as, St. Paul says ^, God foretold of old ; 
 Moses saith, I tvill provoke you to jealousy by them that are 
 not a people : by a foolish nation I will anger you. But 
 Esaias is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought 
 Me 710 1. 
 
 So till now and in eternity, " ^^ Christ is the longing of all 
 holy souls, who long for nothing else, than to please Him, 
 daily to love Him more, to worship Him better. So S. John 
 longed for Him ; Come, Lord Jesus i^. So Isaiah ; ^- The de- 
 sire of our soul is to Thy Name and to the remembrance of 
 Thee: with my soul have I desired Thee in the night ; yea, with 
 my s])irit within me, will I seek Thee early. So S. Ignatius, 
 " 1^ Let fire, cross, troops of wild beasts, dissections, rendings, 
 scattering of bones, mincing of limbs, grindings of tbe whole 
 body, ill tortures of the devil come upon me, only may I 
 gain Jesus Christ. — I seek Him Who for us died ; I long for 
 Him Who for us rose." 
 
 1 " ^^ Hungercst thou and desirest food ? Long for Jesus ! He 
 ' is the bread and refreshment of Angels. He is manna, con- 
 taining in Him all sweetness and pleasurable delight. Thirst- 
 
 ' " Aurum irrppertum et sic melius situm." Hor. Od. iii. 3. 49. 
 
 - " Valete, mea desideria, valete." Cic. Ep. ad Famil. xiv. 2. fin. 
 
 3 Heb. X. 1. Twf fjL€\\6i'Tuii' ayadwi'. * Dr. Watts Vol. i. Serin, 4. 
 
 ^ Ps. cxix. 103. ^n■|■:^^ -^nS la^isj no « 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
 7 Euripides so uses fpuv, o{ the ground longing for the rain. 
 
 est thou ? Long for Jesus ! He is the well of living water, 
 refreshing, so that thou sbouldest thirst no more. Art thou 
 sick ? Go to Jesus. He is tbe Saviour, tbe physician, nay, 
 salvation itself. Art thou dying? Sigh for Jesus ! He is the 
 resurrection and the life. Art thou perj)lexed ? Come to 
 Jesus ! He is the Angel of great counsel. Art thou ignorant 
 and erring? Ask Jesus ; He is the way, the truth and the life. 
 Art thou a sinner? Call on Jesus! For He shall save His 
 people from their sins, To this end He came into the world: 
 This is all His fruit, to take away sin. Art thou tempted by 
 pride, gluttony, lust, sloth ? Call on Jesus! He is humility, 
 soberness, chastity, love, fervour ; He bare our in/irmities, 
 and carried, yea still beareth and carrieth, our griefs. Seek- 
 est thou beauty? He is fairer than the children of men. 
 Seekest thou wealth? In Him are all treasures, yea. in Him 
 the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth. Art thou ambitious of 
 honours ? Glory and riches are in His house. He is the Ki?ig 
 of glory. Seekest thou a friend ? He bath tbe greatest love 
 for thee, Who for love of thee came down from heaven, toiled, 
 endured the Sweat of Blood, the Cross and Death; He prayed 
 for thee by name in the garden, and poured forth tears of 
 Blood ! Seekest thou wisdom ? He is tbe Eternal and Un- 
 created Wisdom of the Father ! Wisbest thou for consolation 
 and joy ? He is tbe sweetness of souls, the joy and jubilee of 
 Angels. Wisbest thou for righteousness and holiness ? He 
 is the Holy of holies ; He is everlasting Righteousness, justify- 
 ing and sanctifying all who believe and hope in Him. Wisbest 
 thou for a blissful life ? He is life eternal, the bliss of the saints. 
 Long then for Him, love Him, sigh for Him ! In Him thou 
 wilt find all good ; out of Him, all evil, all misery. Say then 
 with S. Francis, 'My Jesus, my love and my all!' O Good 
 Jesus, burst tbe cataract of Thy love, that its streams, yea seas, 
 may flow down upon us, yea, inebriate and overwhelm us." 
 
 y/nd I tcill fill this house with glory. Tbe glory then was 
 not to be anything, which came from man, but directly from 
 God. It was the received expression of God's manifestation 
 of Himself in the tabernacle^*, in Solomon's temple'-', and of 
 tbe ideal tem])lc '^ which Ezekiel saw, after tbe likeness of 
 that of Solomon, that the glory of the Lord filled the house. 
 When then of this second temple God uses the self-same 
 words, that He will ;?// it with glory, with what other glory 
 should He fill it than His own ? In the history it is said, the 
 glory of the Lord filled the temple; for there man relates 
 what God did. Here it is God Himself Who speaks; so He 
 says not, the glory of the Lord, but, I will fill the house with 
 glory, glory which was His to give, which came from Him- 
 self. To interpret that glory of anything material, is to do 
 violence to language, to force on words of Scripture an 
 unworthy sense, which they refuse to bear. 
 
 The gold upon tbe walls, even had this second temple been 
 adorned like the first, did not fill tbe temple of Solomon. 
 However richly any building might be overlaid with gold, no 
 one could say that it is filled with it. A building is filled 
 with what it contains; a mint or treasure-house may be filled 
 with gold : tbe temple of God was^lled, we are told, 7cith the 
 glory of the Lord. His creatures bring Him such things as 
 they can otfcr ; they bring ^~ gold and incense j they ^^ bring 
 presents and offer gifts ; they do it, moved by His Spirit, as 
 acceptable to Him. God is nowhere said, Himself to give 
 these oiferings to Himself. 
 
 •* Mi. iv. 2. Is. ii. 3. ' Rom. x. 19, 20; quoting Deut. xxxii. 21. Is. Ixv. 2. 
 
 '0 Lap. " Rev. xxii. 20. >- Is. xxvi. S, a. 
 
 " Ep. ad Rom. in Ruinart Acta Mart. p. 703. " Ex. xl. 34, 35. 
 
 '5 1 Kgs viii. 11. 2 Chr. v. 14. vii. 1-12. '« Ezek. xliii. 5. xliv. 4. 
 
 '? Is. Ix. 6. " Ps. Ixxii. 10.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 497 
 
 c H "r i^s T ^ '^'^^ silver is mine and the gold i.s mine, 
 cir. 520. saitli the Lord of hosts. 
 
 8. The silver is Mine, and the f^old is Mine. These words, 
 which have occasioned some to think, that (Jod, in speakin!; 
 of the glory with wliioh He shouhi till the house, meant our 
 material riches, sufrf;est the contrary. For silver was no 
 ornament of the temple of Solomon. Everything was over- 
 laid with gold. In the tabernacle there were howls of silver '. 
 in Solomon's temple they and all were of gold ". Silver, we 
 are expressly told, icas nolhini^ uccoimted of "' in the days of 
 Solomon : he '^ made silver to be in ,ferusalem as stones — for 
 abundance. Rather, as God says by the Psalmist, ^ Every 
 beast of the forest is Mine, so are the cattle upon a thousand 
 hills: I knoiv all the foivls of the mountains, and the wild beasts 
 of the field are Mine. If I were hiutgry, I iconld not tell thee: 
 for the jvorld is 3Iine and the fulness thereof : so here He tells 
 them, that for the glory of His house He needed not gold or 
 silver: for all the wealth of the world is His. They had no 
 ground " " to grieve then, that they could not equal the mag- 
 nificence of Solomon who had abundance of gold and silver." 
 All was God's. He would fill it with divine glory. The 
 Desire of all nations, Christ, should come, and be a glory, to 
 which all created glory is nothing. 
 
 "^God says really and truly, that the silver and gold is 
 His, which in utmost bounty He created, and in His most 
 just government administers, so that, without His will and 
 dominion, neither can the bad have gold and silver for the 
 punishment of avarice, nor the good for the use of mercy. 
 Its abundance does not inflate the good, nor its want crush 
 them: but the bad, when bestowed, it blinds: when taken 
 away, it tortures." 
 
 "*It is as if He would say. Think not the temple inglori- 
 ous, because, may be, it will have no portion of gold or silver, 
 and their splendour. I need not such things. How should I? 
 For AJine is the silver and Mine the gold, saith the Lord 
 Almighty. I seek rather true worshippers : with their bright- 
 ness will I gild this temple. Let him come who hath right 
 faith, is adorned by graces, gleams with love for Me, is pure 
 in heart, poor in spirit, compassionate and good." "These 
 make the temple, i. e., the Church, glorious and renowned, | 
 being glorified by Christ. For they have learned to pray, 
 '■* The glory of the Lord our God he upon us." 
 
 9. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than 
 of the former, or, perhaps, more probably, the later glory 
 
 ' Nu. vii. 19, 25,31. &c. The "charger" (myp) which in the tabernacle was of silver 
 (Nu. vii. 13. He.) does not appear in the temple of Solomon. 
 
 ^ 1 Kgs vii. 50. 2 Chr. iv. 8. 3 1 Krs x 21. 
 
 < lb. 27. 5 Ps. 1. 10-12. 6 Lap. 7 S. Aug. Serm. 50. 
 
 (deAg. 2.)n.4, 5. 8 S. Cyr. » Ps. xc. 17. 
 
 '» n. 3. So the LXX. "Wherefore great will be the last glory of this house above 
 the first [glory]." In the other case, the order would have probably been, |nn.*Tn'3mU3 
 nm as in Ex. iii. 3, De. ii. 7, iv. G, 1 Sam. xii. 10, 1 Kgs iii. y, xx. 13, 28, Jon. i. 12; 
 but, as Kbhler observes, this is not quite uniform, as in 2 Chr. i. 10. 
 
 'I This interpretation iiivolves a change in the wording of the argument from this 
 prophecy, as to the time of our Lord's first coming. For thus interpreted, it does not 
 speak of a second house, and so does not, in terms, speak of the material building which 
 was destroyed. R. Isaac made use of this: "a difficulty need not be raised, that he said, 
 'this house' ofthe house which is to be built, since of the first house, which in their time 
 was of old waste, he said ' this house' in the words, ' who is left among you, who hath 
 seen this house in its first glory ? ' and as ' this house ' is spoken of the house of the 
 sanctuary which was then desolate, which was passed away, so he saith, 'this house,' 
 ofthe house which shall be." Chizzuch Emunah, c. 31. Wagens. p. 292. 
 
 '2 In his oration to the Jews, " Our forefathers built this temple to the supreme God 
 after the return from Babylon, yet in size it lacks CO cubits in height; for so much did 
 the first, which Solomon built, exceed. — But since, by the counsel of God, I now rule, 
 and we have a long peace, and ample funds and large revenues ; and chief of all, the 
 Romans, who, so to speak, are lords of all, are our friends and kindly disposed," 
 (Joseph. Ant. xv. 11. 1.) and a little later (n. 3) "exceeding the expenditure of those 
 aforetime, in a way in wliich no other appears to have adorned the temple." See 
 Hengst. Christ, iii. 257, 258. ed. 2. '^ Yoma 21. b. 
 
 9 ' The fr]ory of this hitter house shall he ^. ^'l{\%rj. 
 grcat(!r tlian of the former, saith the Lord '^i'-sso. 
 
 ' Johnl. 14. 
 
 of this house shall be greater than the former ; for he had 
 already spoken of the present temple, as identical with 
 that before the captivity; ""'Who is left among you that 
 saw this house in her first glory, and how do you see it now? " 
 \\c had spoken of W^ first glory. Now he s'ays, in contrast, 
 its later glory should" he greater than that of its most glo- 
 rious times". In this case the question, uhcther the temple 
 of Herod was a dilferent material building from that of 
 Zerubbabel, falls away. In either case, the contrast is be- 
 tween two things, either the temple in that its former estate, 
 and this its latter estate after the captivity, or the two tem- 
 ples of Solomon and Zerubbabel. There' is no room for a 
 third temple. God holds out no vain ho])es. To comfort 
 those distressed by the poverty of the house of God wliich 
 they were building, God promises a glory to this house 
 greater than before. A temple, erected, after this had Iain 
 waste above 18(X» years, even if Anti-Christ were to come 
 now and to erect a temple at Jerusalem, could be no fulfil- 
 ment of this prophecy. 
 
 In material magnificence the temple of Solomon, built and 
 adorned with all the treasures accumulated bv David and 
 enlarged by Solomon, far surpassed all which 'llcrod, amid 
 his attempts to give a material meaning to the prophecy, 
 could do. His attempt shews how the eyes of the Jews 
 were fixed on this prophecy, then when it was about to be 
 fulfilled. While taking pains, through the gradualness of 
 his rebuilding, to preserve the identity of the fabric, he 
 lavished his wealth, to draw off' their thoughts fi-om the king, 
 whom the Jews looked for, to himself. The friendship of 
 the Romans who were lords of all, was to replace the all 
 nations, of whom Haggai spoke; he pointed also to the 
 length of peace, the possession of wealth, the greatness of 
 revenues, the surpassing expenditure beyond those before". 
 A small section of Erastians admitted "these claims of the 
 murderer of his sons. The Jews generally were not diverted 
 from looking on to Him JVho should come. Those five things, 
 the absence whereof they felt, were connected with their 
 atoning worship or God's Presence among them; "i^the 
 ark with the mercy-seat and the Cherubim, the Urim and 
 Tummim, the fire from heaven, the Shechinah, the Holy 
 Ghost." Material magnificence could not replace spiritual 
 glory. The explanations of the great Jewish authorities", 
 
 n " Rah and Samuel disputed hereon, or, as others, R. Jochanan and R. Eliezer. 
 The former said, ' it shall be more glorious in structure;' the latter, 'in years.' "Baba 
 bathrac. l.f. 30. R. Asariah quotes also from the Shir hashshirim Rabba on Cant. 
 ii. 12 and viii. 1, and adds, " We have found that the best interpreters explained this 
 prophecy literally as to the second house." This is followed by Kimchi. Rashi, A. E., 
 Lipmann(Nizz. n. 2C0), Manasseh ben Israel (de tenn. vita;) iii. 4. (Hilpert de gloria 
 Templi post., Thes. Theol.-Phil. p. 108B sqq.) Tanchum. Ofthe magnificence ofthe 
 building they allege only that the building was in size equal to that of Solomon, while 
 even in material magnificence it was beyond measure inferior. The relative duration they 
 underrate; "the first, 410 years; the second 420;" for from the xi"" of Solomon's 
 reign, B. C. 1005, to the burning ofthe temple in the xi'i" of Zedekiah, were 417 years; 
 but from the vi'i" of Darius when the 2nd temple was finished, B. C. 515, to the'burn- 
 ing of the temple under Titus A.D. 70, were 585 years. But mere duration is not 
 glory. R. Isaac says as Abarbanel ; "But it is a dilficulty in what they say, that 
 Scripture says not, 'great shall be the building of the house,' or, 'the time of thehouse,' 
 only 'great shall be the glory ofthe house;' for what that the 2nd house stood ten year's 
 more than the 1st, this was not such great glory, that for this the prophet should sav 
 what he said : and again though the days during which the 2nd house stood were 100 vear's 
 more than the duration of the first house, and though in its building it were twofold 
 greater than the first house, how saith Scripture of it on this account, that its glory 
 was greater than the first, since the glory which dwelt in the first house did not dwell 
 in it ;" Chizz. Em. 1. c. pp. 287, 23S. "Wherefore it is rather the true glory which is the 
 abiding of the glory of the Shechinah in this house for ever ; which did not abide 
 continually in the first house; but in the second house the glory did not dwell at all; 
 for they liad not the ark and the mercy seat and the cherubim, or the Urim and 'Tuminim, 
 nor the Holy Spirit, nor the heavenly fire, nor the anointing oil, as it was in the 1st
 
 498 
 
 IIACJGAI. 
 
 , j^^jfopg ^ of hosts : ami in this phxcc will I j?ive 
 
 cir. 520. 
 
 that the second temple was superior to the first in structure 
 (u'hicli was untrue) or in duration, were laid aside by Jews 
 who had any other solution wherewith to satisfy themselves. 
 "The Sheeliinah and the five precious things," says one\ 
 "which, according to our wise of blessed memory, were in 
 it, and not in the second house, raised and exalted it beyond 
 compare." Another- says, "When Haggai saith, 'greater 
 shall be the glory of this later house than the first,' how is 
 it, that the house which Zerubbaljel built through the income 
 wliich the king of Persia gave them was more glorious than 
 the house which Solomon built ? And though it is said that 
 the building which Herod made, was exceeding beautiful and 
 rich, we should not think that it was in its beauty like to 
 the house which Solomon built. For what the wise of blessed 
 memory have said of the beauty of the house of Herod is in 
 relation to the house which Zerubbabel built. How much 
 more, since Scripture saith not, ' Great shall be the heautij 
 or the wealth of this latter house above the first,' but the 
 glory : and the glory is not the wealth or the beauty, or the 
 largeness of the dimensions of the building, as they said in 
 their interpretations; for the 'glory' is in truth spoken of 
 the glory of God, which filled the tabernacle, after it was set 
 up, and of the glory of God which filled the house of God, 
 which Solomon built, when he brought the ark into the holy 
 of holies, which is the Divine cloud and the Light supreme, 
 which came down thither in the eyes of all the people, and 
 it is said, ' And it was when the priests came out of the 
 holy place, the cloud filled the house of God, and the priests 
 could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the 
 glory of God filled the house of God.' And this glory was 
 not in the second house. And how shall it be said, if so, 
 'great shall be the glory of this later house above the first'?" 
 The poor unconverted Jew did not know the answer to his 
 question: "Through the Presence of God, in the substance 
 of our flesh ; through the Son given to us, Whose luune 
 should be Blighty God." The glory of this temple was in 
 Him W^ho ' ivas made Flesh and dwelt among us, and we be- 
 held His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the 
 Father, full of grare and truth, "* There Christ, the Son 
 of God, was, as a Child, oifered to God : there He sat in the 
 midst of the Doctors ; there He taught and revealed things, 
 hidden from the foundation of the world. The glory of the 
 temple of Solomon was, that in it the majesty of God ap- 
 peared, veiling itself in a cloud : in this, that same Majesty 
 shewed itself, in very deed united with the Flesh, visible to 
 sight: so that Jesus Himself said, ^ He that hath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father. This it was which Malachi sang with 
 joy : ^ The Lord Whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His tem- 
 ple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in." 
 
 And in this place I will give peace. Temporal peace they 
 had now, nor was there any prospect of its being disturbed. 
 They were quiet subjects of the Persian empire, which in- 
 cluded also all their former enemies, greater or less. Alex- 
 house." lb. p. 293. Others made the glory to consist in the absence of idolatry, quoted 
 Ih. p. 28*>. R. Lipmann Nizz. p, 42, makes in it to consist in the uninterruptedness of 
 the worship of God there, whereas the temple was shut by Ahaz and Manasseh [as was 
 the second at least desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes for 3 years. 1 Mace. i. 54, iv. 59.] 
 
 ' R. Asariah de Rossi Imre Binah, c. 51, in Hilpert 1. c. n. 8. His own solution is that 
 theglory was not in the temple itself, but in that kings brought presents to it. lb. 10. 
 
 - Aharbanel Qusest. iv in Hagg. f. lyi. He says that " the interpreters, all of them ex- 
 plained it of the second house." p. njn 2. Abarb. subjoins a criticism, which R. Asaria, 
 fmrf-Iiinali c. 54, saw to be mistaken, that JiE'.yi andjnn.** could not be said of two things 
 (of which in« and ':» are, he says, used) against which R. Asariiih quotes Jer. 1. 17. 
 Gen. xxxiii. i. Add Ex. iv. 8. Deut. xxiv. 3, 4. Ru. iii. 10, Is. viii. 23. [ix. 1. Eng.] 
 
 peace, saith the Lord of 
 
 i- I's. 83. 8, 9. Luke 2. 14. Eph. 2. 14. 
 
 hosts. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 520. 
 
 ander subdued oU the bordering countries which did not 
 yield, but spared themselves. Temporal peace then was 
 nothing to be then given them; for they had it. In later 
 times they had it not. The temple itself was profaned by 
 Antiochus Epiphanes. "'Her sanctuary was laid waste like 
 a wilderness. As had been her glory, so was her dishonour 
 increased." Again by Pompey **, by Crassus", the Parthians'", 
 befi)re it was destroyed by 'i'itus and the Romans. Jews saw 
 this and, knowing nothing of the j)eace in Jesus, argued from 
 the absence of outward peaitc, that the prophecy was not ful- 
 filled under the second temple. "^^Vhat S(;ripture says, 'and 
 in this place I will give peace,' is opposed to their interpreta- 
 tion. For all the days of the duration of the 2nd house were 
 in strait of times and not in peace, as was written in Daniel, 
 and threescore a)id two weeks : the street shall he built agai7i 
 and the fosse, and in strait of time, and, as I said, in the time 
 of Herod there was no peace whatever, for the sword did not 
 depart from his house to the day of his death ; and after his 
 death the hatred among the Jews increased, and the Gentiles 
 straitened them, until they were destroyed from the face 
 of the earth." 
 
 But spiritual peace is, throughout prophecy, part of the 
 promise of the Gospel. Christ Himself was to be ^^the Prince 
 of peace : of the increase of His government and of His peace 
 there was to be wo end; in His days ^^ the mountains were 
 to bring peace to the people ; there .should he abundance of 
 peace, so long as the moon endureth ; the work of righteousness 
 was to he peace^* ; the chastisement of our peace [that which 
 obtained it] ivas upon Him^' ; great should be the peace of 
 her children ^* ; in the Gospel God would give peace, true 
 peace, to the/ar off and the near^'' ; He would extend ^^peace 
 to her like a river : the good things of the Gospel was the 
 publishing of peace^^. The Gospel is described as ^"a co- 
 venant of peace : the promised king -^ shall .speak peace to the 
 Heathen ; He Himself should be our jteace--. And when He 
 was born, the angels proclaimed -^ on earth peace, goodwill 
 towards men : -* The Dayspring from on high visited tts, to 
 guide our feet into the way of peace. He Himself says, ~^ My 
 peace 1 leave with you. He spake, that -^ in 3Ie ye might have 
 peace. S. Peter sums up the word tchich God sent unto the 
 children of Israel, as "''preaching peace by Jesus Christ : -^ the 
 kingdom of God is joy and peace ; -'Christ is our peace ; jnade 
 peace ; preaches peace. God calleth us to peace ''', in the 
 Gospel: '^^ being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord; ^- the fruit of the Spirit is 
 love Joy peace. Spiritual peace being thus prominent in the 
 Gospel and in prophecy, as the gift of God, it were unnatural 
 to explain the peace which God promised here to give, as 
 other than He promised elsewhere; peace in Him Who is 
 our peace, Jesus Christ. 
 
 " ^^ Peace and tranquillity of mind is above all glory of 
 the house ; because peace passeth all understanding. This 
 is peace above peace, which shall be given after the third 
 
 3 S. John i. 14. •« Lap. s g. John xiv. 9. « Mai. iii. 1. 
 
 7 1 Mace. i. 39, 40. » Jos. Ant. xiv. 4. 4. B. J. i. 7. ' Ant. xiv. 7. 1. 
 
 B. J. i. 9. 8. >» Ant. xiv. 13. .3. 4. " "Abraham B. Dior 
 
 in his book of the Cabbala, p. 43" in R. Isaac Chizz. Era. 1. c. p. 287. R. Isaac makes 
 as if he had answered the explanation as to Jesus by quoting S. Matt. x. .34. 1. c. p. 
 292, 293. '= Is. ix. 6, 7. " Ps. Ixxii. 3, 7. '^ Is. xx.xii. 17. 
 
 '^ lb. liii. 5. '6 lb. liv. 13. '7 lb. Ivii. 19. '" lb. Ixvi. 12. 
 
 "lb.lii.7. 2» Ez. xxxiv. 25. 21 Zech. ix. 10. 22Mi.v.5. 
 
 23 S. Luke ii. 14. ^^Ib.i. 79. 25 g. John xiv. 27. 26 lb. x\-i. 33. 
 
 27 Acts X. .36. 28 Rom. xiv. 17. =3 Eph. ii. 14, 15, 17. ^ox Cor. via. 15. 
 
 31 Rom. V. 1. 32Gal. v. 22. » s. Ambr.l. c.n.14. Opp.ii.913.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 499 
 
 cifiiTsT 1^ f I" t'x' fo"!" an<' twentieth day of 
 ''"'• , ^ . " . "- the ninth month, in the seeond year of 
 Darius, came the word of the Lord by 
 Haa;jrai the i)rophet sayinjjf, 
 'ueui'afi'"' 11 Thus saith the Loiu> of hosts; 'Ask 
 Mai.2.7. now the priests conccrninp; the* hiw sayinj^, 
 12 If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of 
 his j^arnient, and Avith his skirt do toueh 
 bread, or pottaj^e, or wine, or oil, or any 
 meat, shall it be holy ? And the priest an- 
 swered and said. No. 
 ■" Num. 19. 11. 13 Then said Haggai, If one that is » un- 
 clean by a dead body touch any of these, 
 shall it be unclean ? And the priests an- 
 sweretl and said. It shall be unclean. 
 
 14 Then answered Haj^gai, and said, 
 " Tit. 1. 15. n go is this people, and so is this nation be- 
 fore me, saith the Lord ; and so is every 
 work of their hands ; and that which they 
 
 shaking of heaven sea earth, dry land, when He shall destroy 
 all powers and prineipalitics [in the day of judgement]. — And 
 so sliall there be peace throughout, that, no bodily pas- 
 sions or hindrances of unbelieving mind resisting, Christ 
 shall be all in all, exhibiting the hearts of all subdued to 
 tlie Father." 
 
 11-14. Ask noiv the priests coticernhig the law. The priests 
 answer rightly, that, by the law, insulated unlioliness spread 
 further than insulated holiness. The flesh of the sacrifice 
 hallowed whatever it should touch \ but not further ; but the 
 human being, who was defiled by touching a dead body, de- 
 filed all he might touch ^. Haggai does not apply the first 
 part ; viz. that the worship on the altar which they reared, 
 Avliile they neglected the building of the temple, did not hal- 
 low. The possession of a holy thing does not counterbalance 
 disobedience. Contrariwise, one defilement defiled the whole 
 man and all which he touched, according to that, ^whosoever 
 .shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty 
 of all. 
 
 In the application, the two melt into one; for the holy 
 thing, viz. the altar which they raised out of fear on their re- 
 turn, so far from hallowing the land or people by the sacri- 
 fices offered thereon, v/as itself defiled. This people and this 
 nation (not "My people") since they in act disowned Him. 
 Whatever they offer there, i. e. on that altar, instead of the 
 temple which God connnanded, is unclean, offending Him 
 Who gave all. 
 
 15. And now, I pray yon. Observe his tenderness, in 
 
 Consider from this day and up- 
 
 drawing their attention to it *. 
 
 1 Lev. vi. 19 (27 Eng.) = Nu. xi.\. 22. 
 
 3 S. James ii. 10. ■* As expressed by n:, here and 18. 
 
 * Dnrno " Ruth iii. 7. Neh. xiii. 15. 2 Chr. xxxi. C— 9. 7 Vulg. 
 
 * LXX. 5 rrws only occurs besides, Is. Ixiii. .S ; where it is the winefat itself. 
 The LXX render it inTpriTtiX ; Jon. ]'3i3 (which they use for V^i 1 Sam. x. 3, xxv. 18, 
 Jer. xiii. 12) Vulg. lagenas. 
 
 '" Deut. xxviii. 27. " Am. iv. 9. '- Ps. Ixxviii. 47. 
 
 '^ D3nN marking the ace., t^DHN J'N is not for CDri<, which itself, according to the com- 
 mon Hebrew construction, would require a participle, to express action on their part. 
 .See instances in Fiirst Cone. p. Li, v. ':y«, Ex. v. 10, De. i. 12, Is. i. 15, Jer. xiv. 12 
 (bis),x5cxvii. 14;'P'KGen. xx. 7, xliii.5, Ex. viii. 17, Jud. xii. 3, 1 Sam. xix. 11,2 Sam. 
 
 P eh. I.e. 9. 
 Zech. b. 10. 
 
 offer there is unclean. ^ ifaTsT 
 
 15 And now, 1 i)ray you, "consider from '-''•• ^^"- 
 this day and upward, from before a stone 
 
 was laid ui)on a ston(; in the temple of the 
 Lord : 
 
 16 Since those >lai/s were, ^when one 
 came to an heap of twenty measures, there 
 were but ten : when one came to the press- 
 fat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the 
 press, there were but twenty. 
 
 17 '1 1 smote you with blasting; and mU- ' fjH'n.l^?!* 
 dew and with hail 'in all the labours of Amo/tg. 
 your hands ; 'yet ye turned not to me, saith '. je^'c"' 
 the Lord. ^ ' ^ ^m-V^^^^ 
 
 18 Consider now from this day and up- 
 ward, from the four and twentieth day of 
 
 the ninth month, even from 'the day that' ^^'^''■^•^• 
 the foundation of the Lord's temple was 
 laid, consider it. 
 
 wards. He bids them look backward, /row Ijefore a stone iras 
 laid upon a stone, i. e. from the last moment of their neglect 
 in building the house of God ; from since those days were, or 
 from the time backwards when those things were, (resuming, 
 in the word, froyn-their-heing'", the date whicli he liad just 
 given, viz. the beginning of their resuming the building back- 
 wards, during all those years of neglect) o/ie rume to a heap 
 of twenty measures. The precise measure is not mentioned'': 
 the force of the appeal lay in the proportion : the heap of corn 
 which, usuallj', would yield twetity, (whether bushels' or 
 seahs'* or any other measure, for the heap itself being of no 
 defined size, neither could the quantity expected from it be 
 defined) there were ten only ; one came to the press-vat to draw 
 out fifty vessels out of the press, or perba\^1i fifty poorah, \. e. 
 the ordinary quantity drawn out at one time from the press*, 
 there tvere, or it hud become, twenty, two fifths only of what they 
 looked for and ordinarily obtained. The dried grapes yielded 
 so little. 
 
 17. I smote you with blasting and mildew, two diseases of 
 corn, which Moses had foretold^" as chastisements on disobe- 
 dience and God's infliction, of which Amos had spoken in 
 these self-same words ^\ Haggai adds the hail, as destructive 
 of the vines '^. Yet [And] ye turned you not to Me lit. there 
 u'ere none — you, (accusative*') i. e. who turned you unto Me. 
 The words are elliptical, but express the entire absence of 
 conversion, of any who turned to God. 
 
 18. From the day that the foundation of the Lord'' s house. 
 Zechariah, in a passage corresponding to this, uses the same 
 words *■*, the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of 
 
 xix. 8, 1 Kgs. xxi. 5, Neh. ii. 2, Eccl. xi. 5, 6. Jer. ra. 17 ; crrN, De. i. 32, iv. 12, 2 Kgs. 
 xii. 8, Ez. XX. 39, Mai. ii. 2, 9; urx, De. xxi. 18. 20, Jud. iii. 25, 1 Sam. xi. 7, 2 Chr. 
 xviii. 7, Esth. v. 13, Eccl. v. 11. viii. 7, 13, 16, ix. 2, Jer. xxxviii. 4, xliv. 16 : CJ'K, 2 Kgs. 
 xvii.26,31bis, Eccl. iv. 17, ix.5, Neh. xiii. 24, Jer. xxxii..33, Ezek.iii. 7. 'SucryKiwould 
 have signified, *'andye were not [well disposed] towards Me," as in Hos. iii. 3, Jer. 
 XV. 1,2 Kgs. vi. 11 (Ewald's instances Lehrb. n. 217 c). Gen. xxxi. 5; not (as required 
 here) "ye turned you not unto Me," as in Am. iv. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11. Bbttcher (Lehrbuch 
 n. 516. d.) compares bene te (which implies a verb), en ilium (where en is as a verb.) 
 These however are exclamations, not parts of sentences. He thinks that 'K is joined, 
 1) with a nom., and then an ace. after 1, 1 Sam. xxW. 16; that O' has an ace. Gen. xxiii.8, 
 2 Kgs. X. 15, and xSn Zech. vii. 7. " Zech. viii. 9.
 
 500 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 CH rTst ^^ "^'^ *''*^ ^*^^^^ y^^ '" *^'*^ barn? yea, as 
 »=■■•• 5-20. yet the vine, and the fijr tree, and the poine- 
 " ^ech. 8. 12. granate,and tlie olive tree, hath not brought 
 forth: from this day will I bless i/oti. 
 
 20 % And again the word of the Lord 
 
 hosts was laid, that the temple might be built, not of the first 
 foundation, but of the work as resumed in obedience to the 
 words by the mouth oft/iejirop/iets, Haggai and liiniself, which, 
 Ezra also says, was ^ in the second year of Darius. But that 
 work was resumed, not now at the time of this propliecy, but 
 three months before, on the 24th of the sixth month. Since 
 then the word translated here, from", is in no case used of 
 the present time, Hagjg;ai gives two dates, the resumption of 
 the work, as marked in these words, and the actual present. 
 He would then say, that even in these last months, since they 
 had begun the work, there were as yet no signs for the better. 
 There was yet no seed in the barn, the harvest having been 
 blighted and the fruit-trees stripped by the hail before the 
 close of the sixth month, when they resumed the work. Yet 
 though there were as yet no signs of change, no earnest that 
 the promise should be fulfilled, God pledges His word,/ro?« 
 this day I wilt bless j/ou. 
 
 Thenceforth, from their obedience, God would give them 
 those fruits of the earth, which in His Providence had been, 
 during their negligence, withheld. God, said St. Paul and 
 Barnabas, ^ left not Himself without ivitness, in that He did 
 good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling 
 our hearts with fond and gladness. 
 
 All the Old and New Testament, the Law, the Prophets and 
 the Psalms, the Apostles and our Lord Himself, bear witness 
 to the Providence of God Who makes His natural laws serve 
 to the moral discipline of His creature, man. The physical 
 theory, which presupposes that God so fixed the laws of His 
 creation, as to leave no room for Himself to vary them, 
 would, if ever so true, only come to this, that Almighty God 
 knowing absolutely (as He must know) the actions of His 
 creatures (in what way soever this is reconcileable with our 
 free-agency, of which we are conscious), framed the laws of 
 His physical creation, so that plenty or famine, healthiness 
 of our cattle or of the fruits of the earth or their sickness, 
 should coincide with the good or evil conduct of man, with 
 his prayers or his neglect of prayer. The reward or chastise- 
 ment alike come to man, whether they be the result of God's 
 Will, acting apart from any system which He has created, or 
 in it and through it. It is alike His Providential agency, 
 whether He have established any such system with all its 
 minute variations, or whether those variations are the imme- 
 diate result of His sovereign Will. If He has instituted any 
 physical system, so that the rain, hail, and its proportions, 
 size, destructiveness, should come in a regulated irregularity, 
 as fixed in all eternity as the revolutions of the lieavenly 
 bodies or the courses of the comets, then we come only to a 
 more intricate perfection of His creation, that in all eternity 
 He framed those laws in an exact conformity to the perfectly 
 foreseen actions of men good and evil, and to their prayers 
 
 ' Ezr. iv. 24, v. 1. 
 2 Such use of p? would be inconsistent with any force of 7. It is used of a terminus a 
 quo, distant from the present, and is equivalent to " up to and from." So Jud. xix. 30, 
 *' No such deed was seen or done from the day that the children of Israel came up," i.e. 
 looking back to that time and from it. So 2 Sam. vii. 6, " Since the time that I 
 i)rouKht up the children of Israel out of Egypt," lit. " up to from the day." Add Ex. 
 ix. IH, Deut. iv. 32, ix. 7, 2 Sam. vii. U, xix. 25, Is. vii. 17, Jer. vii. 7, 25, xxv. 5, xxxii. 
 31, 1 Chr. xvii. 10, Mai. iii, 7. But there is no ground for thinking tliat Haggai used the 
 
 came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth j, ^^^\% t 
 ddif of the month, saying, cir. 520. 
 
 21 Speak U. Zerul>babel, ^governor of " <=''-i-^*- 
 Judah, saying, ^ I will shake the heavens ' "^^^'jii 26. 
 and the earth ; 
 
 also : that He, knowing certainly whether the creature, which 
 He has framed to have its bliss in depending on Him, would 
 or would not cry unto Him, framed those physical laws in 
 conformity therewith; so that the su|)ply of wliat is necessary 
 for our wants or its withholding shall be in all time inworked 
 into the system of our jtrobation. Only, not to keep God out 
 of His own world, we must remember that other truth, that, 
 whether God act in any such system or no, He ^upholdeth all 
 things by the icord of His poiver by an ever-present working; 
 so that it is He Who at each moment doth what is done, doth 
 and maintains in existence all which He has created, in the 
 exact order and variations of their being. '■" Fire and hail, 
 snoiu and vapour, stormy wind fulfilling His word, are as im- 
 mediate results of His Divine Agency, in whatever way it 
 pleaseth Him to act, and are the expression of His Will. 
 
 21. I tvill shake. Haggai closes by resuming the words 
 of a former prophecy to Zerubbabel and Joshua, which 
 ended in the coming of Christ. Even thus it is plain, that 
 the prophecy does not belong personally to Zerubbabel, but 
 to him and his descendants, chiefly to Christ, There was in 
 Zerubbabel's time no shaking of the heaven or of nations. 
 Darius had indeed to put down an unusual number of rebel- 
 lions in the first few years after his accession ; but, although 
 he magnified himself on occasion of their suppression, they 
 were only so many distinct and unconcerted revolts, each 
 under its own head. All were far away in the distant East, 
 in Babylonia, Susiana, Media, Armenia, Assyria, Hyrcania, 
 Parthia, Sagartia, Margiana, Arachosia^. The Persian empire, 
 spread '" probably over 2,000,000 square miles, or more than 
 half of modern Europe," was not threatened ; no foreign 
 enemy assailed it ; one impostor only claimed the throne 
 of Darius. This would, if successful, have been, like his 
 own accession, a change of dynasty, affecting nothing ex- 
 ternally. But neither were lasting, some were very trifling. 
 Two decisive battles subdued Babylonia : of iVIedia the brief 
 summary is given ; " ^ the Medes revolted from Darius, and 
 having revolted were brought back into subjection, defeated 
 in battle." The Susianians slew their own pretender, on 
 the approach of the troops of Darius. We have indeed 
 mostly the account only of the victor. But these are only 
 self-glorying records of victories, accomplished in succession, 
 within a few years. Sometimes the satrap of the province 
 put the revolt down at once. At most two battles ended 
 in the crucifixion of the rebel. The Jews, if they heard of 
 them, knew them to be of no account. For the destroyer of 
 the Persian empire was to come from the West ^ ; the fourth 
 sovereign was to stir up all against the realm of Grecia^", 
 and Darius was but the third. In the same second year of 
 Darius, in which Haggai gave this prophecy, the whole earth 
 was exhibited to Zechariah as ^^ sitting still and at rest. 
 
 word in any sense, in which it had not been used before him. The only construction con- 
 sistent with the use oi pS elsewhere is, that the terminus ad quern, elsewhere expressed by 
 nyi, having been expressed by the present DVD, the distant terminus a quo is, as elsewhere, 
 expressed by pS. ' Acts xiv. 17. 
 
 ■• Heb. i. 3. '" Ps. cxlviii. 8. 
 
 6 Rawlinson v. Empires iv. pp. 407-415. chiefly from Behistun Inscription. 
 T Id. Ib.p. 2. 8 Herod, i. 130. ' Dan. vui, 5. 
 
 '» lb. xi. 2. " Zech. i. 11.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 501 
 
 chrYst 22 And 'I will overthrow the throne 
 
 "''•• ^^"- of kinj^doins, and I will destroy the 
 
 ' M^itht!?. stren<:fth of the kinj^^doins of the heathen ; 
 
 «Mic.5.io. „i ^yiii overthrow the chariots, and those 
 
 Zech. 4. 6. ' 
 
 & 9. 10. that ride in them ; and the horses and 
 their riders shall eonie down, every one 
 
 The overthrow prophesied is ii\so universal. It is not one 
 throne only, as of Persia, but f/ie tlirone, i. e. the sovereigns, 
 of kingdoms ; not a change of dynasty, but a destruction of 
 their strength ; not of a few powers only, but tUe kingdoms 
 of the heathen; and that, in detail; that, in which their chief 
 strength lay, tlie chariots and horsemen and their riders, and 
 this, man by man, every one hy the sword of his brother. This 
 mutual destruction is a feature of the judgements at the end 
 of the world against Gog and Magog'; and of the yet unful- 
 filled prophecies of Zechariah ". Its stretching out so far does 
 not hinder its partial fulfilment in earlier times. Zerubbabel 
 stood, at the return from the captivity, as the representative 
 of the house of David and heir of the promises to him, though 
 in an inferior temporal condition ; thereby the rather shewing 
 that the main import of the prophecy was not temporal. As 
 then Ezekiel prophesied, ^ I will set up One Shepherd over them, 
 and He shall feed them, My servant David; * And David My 
 servant shall be king over them ; and My servant David shall 
 be their prince for ever ; and Jeremiah, '' They shall serve the 
 Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up 
 •unto them ; and Hosea, that ^ after many days shall the child- 
 ren of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David 
 their king, meaning by David, the great descendant of David, 
 in whom the promises centered, so in his degree, the pro- 
 mise to Zerubbabel reaches on through his descendants to 
 Christ ; that, amid all the overthrow of empires, God would 
 protect his sons' sons until Christ should come, the King of 
 kings and Lord of lords, Whose ^ kingdom shall never be de- 
 stroyed, but it shall break in pieces and consume all those king- 
 doms, and shall stand fast for ever. 
 
 23. I will make thee as a sigiiet. God reverses to Zerub- 
 babel the sentence on Jeconiah for his impiety. To Jeconiah 
 He had said, ^though heivere the sig)tet upon 3Iy right hand, yet 
 would I pluck thee thence ; and Iivill give thee into the hand of 
 them that seek thy life. The signet was very precious to its 
 owner, never parted with, or only to those to whom authority 
 was delegated (as by Pharaoh to Joseph ^, or by Ahasuerus 
 to Haman '" and then to Mordecai i') ; through it his will was 
 expressed. Hence the spouse in the Canticles says, ^-Set 7ne, 
 as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm. The sigriet 
 also was an ornament to him who wore it. God is glorified 
 in His saints^^; by Zerubbabel in the building of His house. 
 He gave him estimation with Cjtus, who entrusted him with 
 the return of his people, and made him (who would have been 
 the successor to the throne of Judah, had the throne been re- 
 established) his governor over the restored people. God pro- 
 mises to him and his descendants protection amid all shaking 
 of empires. "i*He was a type of Christ in bringing back the 
 people from Babylon, as Christ delivered us from sin death 
 and hell : he built the temple, as Christ built the Church ; 
 he protected his people against the Samaritans who would 
 
 ' Ezek. xxxviii. 21. ^ Zech. xiv.l7. 
 
 3 Ezek. xxxiv. 23. ■• lb. xxxvii. 24, 25. " Jer. xxx. 9. 
 
 ' Hos. iii. 5. ^ Dan. ii. 44, 
 
 s Jer. xxii. 24. ' Gen. xli. 43. '» Esther iii. 10. " lb. viii. 2. 
 
 by the sword of his brother. ci?rTst 
 
 23 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, "'■ ^^"- 
 will I take thee, () ZeriibbalK;!, my servant, 
 the son of Shealtiel, saith the Loro, '' and " 5e".'22.'2'i. 
 will make the<; as a sijriu't : for ^ I have ' ^^%%'^- 
 ehosen thee, saith the Lor[) of hosts. 
 
 hinder the building, as Christ protects His Church : he was 
 dear and joined to (Jod, as (Jhrist was united to Him, and 
 hyi>ostaticaliy united and joined His Humanity to the ^^()rd. 
 The true Zerul)baljel then, i. e. Christ, the son and antitype 
 of Zerubbabel, is the signet in the hand of the Father, both 
 passively and actively, wiiereby (iod impresses His own Ma- 
 jesty thoughts and words and His own Image on men angels 
 and all creatures." "'^The Son is the Image of God the Fa- 
 ther, having His entire and exact likeness, and in His own 
 beauty beaming forth the nature of the Feather. In Him too 
 God seals us also to His own likeness, since, being conformed 
 to Christ, we gain tlie image of God." " " Christ, as the 
 Apostle says, is ^'^the Image of the invisible God, the brightness 
 of His Glory and the express Image of His Person, \\'^ho, as the 
 Word and Seal and express Image, seals it on others. Christ 
 is here called a signet, as Man not as God. For it was His 
 Manhood which He took of the flesh and race of Zerubbabel. 
 He is then, in His Manhood, the signet of God; 1) as being 
 hypostatically united with the Son of God ; 2) because the 
 Word impressed on His Humanity the likeness of Himself, 
 His knowledge, virtue, holiness, thoughts, words, acts and 
 conversation ; 3) because the Man Christ was the seal, i. e. 
 the most evident sign and witness of the attributes of God, 
 His power, justice, wisdom, and especially His exceeding love 
 for man. F^r, that God might shew this. He willed that His 
 Son should be Incarnate. Christ thus Incarnate is as a seal, 
 in which we see expressed and depicted the love power justice 
 wisdom &c. of God; 4) because Christ as a seal, attested and 
 certified to us the will of God, His doctrine law commands, 
 i. e. those which He promulgated and taught in the Gospel. 
 No one, St. John saith, ^"^ hath seen God at any time : the Only- 
 Begotten Son Who is the Image of the Father, He hath de- 
 clared Him. Hence God gave to Christ the power of working 
 miracles, that He might confirm His words as by a seal, and 
 demonstrate that they were revealed and enjoined to Him by 
 God, as it is in S. John, '* Him hath God the Father sealed." 
 " '* Christ is also the seal of God, because by His impress, i.e. 
 the faith grace virtue and conversation from Him and by the 
 impress in Baptism and the other Sacraments, He u-illed to 
 conform us to the Image of His Son '^, that, -° as tee have borne 
 the image of the earthly Adam, tee may also hear the image of 
 the Heavenly. Tlien, Christ, like a seal, seals and guards His 
 faithful against all temptations and enemies. The seal of 
 Christ is the Cross, according to that of Ezekiel, -' Seal a 
 mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh, and in the Reve- 
 lation, -~I saw another Angel having the seal of the living God. 
 For the Cross guardeth us against the temptations of the 
 flesh, the world and the devil, and makes us followers, soldiers, 
 and martyrs of Christ crucified. Whence the Apostle says, 
 "•* / bear in iny body the marks of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 "This is said without doubt of the Messiah, the expected;" 
 
 12 Cant. viii. 6. 
 " Lap. 13 S. Cvr. 
 
 13 S. John vi. 27. 
 -1 in Ezek. ix. 4. 
 
 "6 Heb. i. 3< 
 19 Rom. viii. 29. 
 -'- Rev. vii. 2. 
 
 " 2 Thess. i. 10. 
 
 1? S. John i. 18. 
 20 1 Cor. XV. 49. 
 23 Gal. VL17. 
 
 D n D D
 
 502 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 says even a Jewish eontroversialist', "who shall he of the 
 seed of Zeruhbabfl ; and tlierefore this promise was not ful- 
 filled at aU in himself: for at the time of tliis prophecy he 
 had aforetime been governor of Judah, and afterwards he did 
 not rise to any higher dignity than what he was up to that 
 day: and in like way we find that (iod said to Abraham our 
 father in the covenant between the pieces, ^ / u)ii the Lord 
 who brought thee out of Ur of the Chti/tlees to give thee this 
 land to inherit it, and beyond doubt this covenant was con- 
 firmed of (iod to the seed of Abraham, as He Himself ex- 
 plained it there afterwards, when He said, In that day God 
 made a covenant with Abraham, saying, To thy seed have I 
 given this land 8)-c., and many like these." 
 
 Abarbanel had laid down the right principles, though of 
 necessity misapplied. "^Xerubbabel did not reign in Jeru- 
 salem and did not rule in it, neither he nor any man of his 
 seed; but forthwith after the building of the house, he re- 
 turned to Babylon and died there in his captivity, and how 
 saith he, 'In that day I will take thee?' For after the fall 
 of the kingdom of Persia Zerubbabel is not known for any 
 greatness, and his name is not mentioned in the world. 
 Where then will be the meaning of ' And I will place thee 
 as a signet, for thee have I chosen ?' For the signet is as the 
 seal-ring which a man putteth on his hand, it departeth not 
 from it, night or day. And when was this fulfilled in Zerub- 
 babel? But the true meaning, in my opinion, is, that God 
 shewed Zerubbabel that this very second house would not 
 abide ; for after him should come another captivity, and of 
 this he says, ' I shake the heaven &c.,' and afterwards, after 
 a long time, will God take His vengeance of these nations 
 'which have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling 
 place ; ' and so He says ' I will overthrow the thrones &c.,' 
 and He sheweth him further that the king who shall rule 
 
 ' R. Isaac Chiz. Em. 1. c. pp. 289, 290. 
 
 2 Gen. XV. 7, 18. 
 
 p. eyi. 
 
 over Israel at the time of the redemption is the Messiah of 
 the seed of Zerubbabel and of the house of David; and God 
 saw good to shew him all this to <;onifort him and to speak 
 to his heart; and it is as if he said to him, ' It is true that 
 thou shalt not reign in the time of the second temple, nor 
 any of thy seed, but in that day when God shall overthrow the 
 throne of the kingdoms of the nations, when He gatliereth 
 His people Israel and redeemeth them, then shalt thou reign 
 over My people; for of thy seed shall lie be who ruleth from 
 Israel at that time for ever, and therefore he saith, ' 1 will 
 take tliec, O Zerubbabel &c.,' for because the Messiah was 
 to be of ins seed he saith, that he will take him; and this 
 is as he says, '* And David My servant shall be a prince to 
 them for ever;' for the very Messiah, he shall be David, he 
 shall be Zerubbabel, because he shall be a scion going forth 
 out of their hewn trunk ^." 
 
 For I have chosen thee. God's forecoming love is the 
 ground of all the acceptableness of His creatures. ^fFe love 
 Him, because He first loved us. Zerubbabel was a devoted 
 servant of God. God acknowledges his faithfulness. Only, 
 the beginning of all was with God. God speaks of the near- 
 ness to Himself which He had given him. But in two words' 
 He cuts off all possible boastfulness of His creature. Zerub- 
 babel was all this, not of himself, but because God had chosen 
 him. Even the Sacred Manhood of our Lord (it is acknow- 
 ledged as a theological Truth) was not chosen for any foreseen 
 merits, but for the great love, with which God the Father 
 chose It, and God the Son willed to be in such wise incarnate, 
 and God the Holy Ghost willed that that Holy Thing should 
 be conceived of Him. So God says of Him, ^Behold My 
 Servant whom I uphold. Mine elect in whom My soul delight- 
 eth ; and God bare witness to Him, ^ This is My Beloved Son 
 in TV horn I am well pleased. 
 
 •• Ezek. xxxvii. 24. 
 
 7 yrmi -3 
 
 ' Is. xi. 1. 
 
 s Is. xlu. 1. 
 
 « 1 S. John iv. 19. 
 B S. Mat. iil 17. xvii. 5.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 ZECHAEIAH. 
 
 Zechartah entered on his prophetic office, two months after 
 Ha£:gai's first prophecy. He was still a youth, when God 
 called him % and so, since in the second year of Darius Hys- 
 taspis 18 years had elapsed from the first of Cyrus, he must 
 have been broug;ht in infancy from Babylon. His father 
 Berechiah probably died young, since, in Ezra, the prophet 
 is called after his grandfather, Zechariah the son of Iddu ''. 
 He succeeded his grandfather in the office of the priests, the 
 chief of the fathers, (of which there were twelve) in the days 
 of Joiakim the son of Joshua, the High priests Since then, 
 while he prophesied together with Haggai, Joshua was still 
 high priest, and it is Joshua whom he sees in his vision in 
 that same year*", he must have entered on his prophetic office 
 before he succeeded to that other dignity. Yet neither is 
 there any reason to think that he ever laid it aside, since we 
 hear not of any prophet, called by God, who did abandon it. 
 Rather, like Jeremiah, he exercised both; called to the priest- 
 hood by the birth given to him by God, called to the pro- 
 phetic office by Divine inspiration. 
 
 Like Jeremiah, Zechariah was called in early youth to the 
 
 [ prophetic office. The same designation, by which Jeremiah 
 at first excused himself as unfit for the office, is given to 
 Zechariah, youth ". The term does not indeed mark any defi- 
 nite age; for Joseph, when he was so designated' by the 
 chief butler, was 28 S; Benjamin and Absalom had sons of 
 their own ''. They were probably so called as terms of afi^ec- 
 tion, the one by his brother Judah', the other by David his 
 father''. But his grandfather Iddo was still in the discharge 
 of his office. The length of his ministry is equally unknown. 
 
 I Two years after his first entrance upon it ', when Haggai's 
 office was closed, he was bidden to answer from God those 
 who enquired whether, now that they were freed from the 
 captivity, they should keep the national fasts which they had 
 instituted on occasion of some of the mournful events which 
 had ushered it in. His remaining prophecies bear no date. 
 The belief, that he lived and prophesied to old age, may have 
 a true foundation, though to us unknown. We only know 
 
 » Zech. ii. 4. ' Ezr. y. 1. vi. 14. 
 
 ' Neh. xii. 10, 12, 16. * Zech. iii. 1. 
 
 ' iy]. Jer. i. G, Zech. ii. 4. ' Gen. xli. 12. 
 
 ' Joseph was 30, when he stood before Pharaoh (lb. 46), but the interpretation of the 
 dreams of Pharaoh's servants was given two years before. (lb. 1.) 
 
 I" Benjamin had 10 sons when Jacob went down into Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 21); Absa- 
 lom's 3 sons (2 Sam. xiv. 27.) were dead (lb. xviii. 18). Absalom was David's third son. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 that he survived the high priest, Joshua, since his own ac- 
 cession to his office of head of the priests, in his division, was 
 in the days of Joiakim, the son of Joshua. 
 
 His l)ook opens with a very simple touching call to those 
 returned from the captivity, linking himself on to the former 
 prophets, but contrasting the transitoriness of all human 
 things, those who prophesied and those to whom they pro- 
 phesied, with the abidingness of the word of God. It consists 
 of four parts, differing in outward character, yet with a 
 remarkable unity of purpose and end. AH begin with a 
 foreground subsequent to the captivity ; all reach on to a 
 furtiier end ; the two first to the coming of our Lord ; the 
 third from the deliverance of the house then built, during 
 the invasion of Alexander, and from the victories of the 
 Maccabees, to the rejection of the true Shepherd and the 
 curse upon the false; the last, which is connected with the 
 third by its title, reaches from a future repentance for the 
 death of Christ to the final conversion of the Jews and 
 Gentiles. 
 
 The outward difference, that the first prophecy is in vi-' 
 sions ; the second, a response to an enquiry made of him ; the '- 
 two last in free delivery, obviously did not depend upon the-"' 
 prophet. The occasion also of the two first bodies of pro- 
 phecy involved that they were written in prose. For the 
 imagery was borne on the prophet's mind in visions. The 
 office of the prophet was only to record them and the expla- 
 nations given to him of parts of them, which could only be 
 done in prose. He was so far like the Apostles, who enquired 
 of our Lord, when in the flesh, the meaning of His parables. 
 There is, as in the later chapters, abundance of imagery; and 
 it luay have pleased God to adapt the form of His revelation 
 I to the imaginative mind of the young prophet who was to 
 ' receive it. But the visions are, as the name implies, pictures 
 i which the prophet sees, and which he describes. Even a 
 rationalist writer saw this. "" Every vision must form a pic- 
 ture, and the description of a vision must have the appear- 
 ance of being read from a picture. It follows from the na- 
 
 (2 Sam. iii. 3.) ' Gen. xliii. 8. xliv. 22, 30, 33. 
 
 t 2 Sam. xviii. 5, 12, 29, 32. ' vii. 1. 
 
 ni Eichhom Einl. n. 603. iv. pp. 435, 4.36. " The style in these risions borders closelj 
 on prose: for they relate what the Seer saw; and prose is the natural vehicle of relation." 
 lb. n. 605. p. 412. Eichhom also draws attention to what he calls " the hymns, songs 
 of victory or consolation, with which the visions are sometimes closed, and which are a 
 more elevated Imale." lb. 
 
 D D D D 2
 
 304 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 ture of the description of a vision, that for tlic most part it 
 cannot he composed in any ek'vated huijiuaf,'c. Tiie siinph'st 
 prose is the hest vehicle for a rehitiou (and siicii is tlie 
 description of a vision), and elahorate ornament of hinf;iiaKe 
 were foreig^n to it. Tiie heanty, i;reatness, elevation of a 
 vision, as described, mnst lie in the conception, or in tlie 
 symmetry, or wondrous holdness in the groupinj? of the 
 imaffes. Is the whole groupe, piece by piece, in all its parts, 
 to the most minute shadina;, faithful and described with the 
 character of truth, the cxliibitiou of the vision in words is 
 perfect." 
 
 The four portions were probably of different dates, as they 
 stand in order in the propliet's hook, as indeed the second is 
 dated two years later than the first". For in the first part 
 God's people are exhorted to come from Babylon '', which 
 command, many in the time of Ezra, obeyed, and doubtless 
 individuals subsequently, when a prosperous polity was re- 
 stored; in the latter part, Babylon is mentioned no more; 
 only in one place, in the iniajj^ery of earlier prophets, the fu- 
 ture gathering of God's people is symbolised under the pre- 
 vious deliverance from West and East, Egypt and Assyria '^. 
 
 But they agree in this, that the foreground is no longer, 
 as in the former prophets, deliverance from Babylon. In the 
 first part, the reference to the vision of the four empires in 
 Daniel removes the promise of the Deliverer to the fourth 
 Empire. For the series of visions having closed with the 
 vision of the four chariots, there follows at once the symbolic 
 act of placing the crown or crowns on the head of the high 
 priest and the promise of the Messiah, Who should be king 
 and priest''. In the later part the enemies spoken of are in 
 one place the Greeks ", subsequent to the protection of the 
 temple under Alexander f; in another the final gathering of 
 all nations against Jerusalem s, which Joel also places at the 
 end of all things '', after the outpouring of the Spirit, as it 
 was outpoured on the day of Pentecost. 
 
 In both parts alike, there is no mention of any king or of 
 any earthly ruler; in both, the ruler to come is the Mcssias. 
 In both, the division of the two kingdoms is gone. The 
 house of Israel and house of Judah are united, not divided'; 
 they had been distinct wholes, now they are in interests as 
 one. Zeehariah promises a future to both collectively, as 
 did Jeremiah '' long after the captivity of Israel, and Ezekiel 
 promised that they should both again be one in the hand of 
 God'. The hrotlterliood between Judah and Israel still existed, 
 after they had weighed the thirty pieces of silver for the 
 Good Shepherd. Tlie captivity, in God's Providence, ended 
 at once the kingdom of Israel and the religious schism, the 
 object of which was to maintain the kingdom. Even before 
 the captivity, ™ divers of Asher and. 3Ianassek mid Zehulun 
 liiimbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem, to the passover of 
 Hezekiah ; nay, " a great multitude of the people from Ephraim 
 and Maiiasseh, Issachar and Zehulun, who had neglected or 
 despised the lirst invitation", came subsequently. In the 
 great passover of Josiah, we hear Pof all Judah and Israel 
 that were present. The edict of Cyrus related to the '^people 
 of the Lord God of heaven, and was published throughout all 
 
 • " In the 2nd year of Darius." i. 1. " In the 4th year of Darius." vii. 1. ii ii. 7. 
 
 c Zech. X. 10. Comp. Is. xi. 11, Hi, Hos. xi. 11. ^ vi. 10-13. 
 
 , ' ix. 13. ' lb. 8. See Pusey's " Daniel the Prophet." pp. 271»-282. 
 
 ' B xii. 2, 3, 9. xiv. 2, 3, 14, 16. ^ Joel iii. 2. 
 
 ' "As ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah and house of Israel" 
 viii. 13; " these are the horns which scattered Judah, Israel, Jerusalem," i. 19. (ii. 2. 
 Heb.) So in x. 0. " I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will .save the house of 
 Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them." ' Jer. xxiii. 6. 1. 20. 
 
 1 Ez. xxxvii. 16-19. "> 2 Chr. xxx. 11. 
 
 " lb. 18. o lb. 10. P lb. XXXV. 18. 
 
 lEzr. i. 1,2. '2Kgsxvii. 6. " Ezr. ii. 2, 28. ' lb. vi. 17. 
 
 his kingdom, which included nhe cities of the Medes, whither 
 Israel had been removed. The sacred history is confined 
 to Jerusalem, whence the Gospel was to go forth ; yet even 
 'the sons of Ih'th J, the centre of the rival, idolatrous worship, 
 which was among the mountains of Ephraim, were among 
 those of the people of Israel who returned with Zerubbabel. 
 It is inconceivable that, as the material prosperity of Pales- 
 tine returned, even many of the ten tribes should not have 
 returned to their country. But place was no condition of the 
 unity of the Church. Those Avho returned recognised the 
 religifnis oneness of all the twelve tribes, wherever dispersed. 
 At the dedication of the lK)use of God, they ^offered a sin- 
 off'ering for all Israel, twelve he-gouts, according to the number 
 of tlie tribes of Israel. At that passover were present, not 
 oidy the children of Israel tvhich had come again out of the 
 captivity, but, " all such as had separated themselves unto them 
 from the defilements of the people of the land, to seek the Lord 
 God of Israel, i. e., Israelites, who had been defiled by the 
 heathen idolatries. The house of David'' \s, mentioned; for 
 of his seed according to the fiesh Messiah was to be born, but 
 it is his house, not any earthly ruler in it. 
 
 In both parts alike, Zeehariah connects his prophecies with 
 the former prophets, the fulfilment of whose warnings he im- 
 pressed upon his people in his opening exhortation to them", 
 and in his answer to the question about keeping the fasts " 
 which related to the destruction of the city and temple. In 
 the first part, the title "^ the Branch" is used as a proper 
 name, recalling the title of the Messiah in Isaiah and Jere- 
 miah, the Branch of the Lord % a righteous Branch % a Branch 
 of righteousness^', \v\nnn God would raise up to David. The 
 l)rophecy of the mutual exhortation of peoples and cities to 
 worship at Jerusalem ' is an echo of those of Isaiah and 
 Micah, prolonging them. The prophecy of the four chariots'*, 
 the symbol of those world-empires, would be unintelligible 
 without the visions in Daniel which it presupposes. The 
 union of the offices of priest and king in the Messiah is a re- 
 newal of the promise through David ■=. In the last chapters, 
 the continuousness of the prophet's diction admits still more 
 of this interweaving of the former prophecies, and these alike 
 from the earlier and later prophets. The censure of Tyre 
 for its boast of its wisdom is a renewal of that of Ezekiel'; 
 the prophecy against the Philistine cities, of that of Zepha- 
 nialiB; the i-emarkable prediction that, when the king should 
 come to Zion, chariots and horses, not of the enemy but of 
 Judah should be cut oif, is renewed from Micah''; the extent 
 of his peaceful kingdom is from a psalm of Solomon ' ; the 
 loosing of the exile from the pit, and God's rendering double 
 unto them, are in Isaiah ''. The description of the sifting, in 
 which, two parts having been cut off, even the remaining third 
 should be anew tried and cleansed, is condensed from Ezekiel, 
 so that, shall be cut off, shall expire, correspond to the natural 
 and violent deaths, by famine and Ijy the sword, spoken of in 
 Ezekiel '. The words, "' I have said, it is My people, and it will 
 say, the Lord my God, are almost verbally from Hosea, I say 
 to not-my-people, thou art My people, and it luill say, my God; 
 only omitting the allusion to the significant name of the pro- 
 
 n lb. 21. ' Zech. xii. 7. The kings tvine-presses (Zech. xiv. 10.) is but the 
 
 name of a locality in Jerusalem, which retained its former name. Wine-presses were 
 often hewn out in" the rock. Bleek, who alleged this, afterwards (Einl. p. 563. note) laid 
 no stress on it. ^ i. 4-6. " vii. 7-14. r iii. 8. vi. 12. ' Is. iv. 2. 
 
 « Jer. xxiii. 5. '' lb. xxxiii. 15. ' Zech. viii. 20-22. comp. 
 
 Mic. iv. 1, 2. Is. ii. 3. '' Zech. vi. coll. Dan. ii. vii. See below on c. vi. 
 
 and " Daniel the Prophet " pp. 359-361. ' Zech. vi. 13. coll. Ps. ex. 
 
 ' ix. 2. and Ezek. xxviii. 3. s ix. 5. Zeph. ii. 4. 
 
 t ix. 10. Mic. v. 10. ' lb. Ps. Ix.xii. 8. 
 
 ' lb. 13. Is. Ii. 14. Ixi. 7. ' xiii. 8, 9. Ezek. v. 12. Hengst. 
 
 ™ Hengst. Zech. xiii. 9, Hos. ii. 25.
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 505 
 
 phet's son. " " The first, part of xiv. 10, the whole land shall 
 he turned as a plahi from Geliah to lti)nnio)i, and Jcrusaletn 
 shall be exalted, reiniiuls of Isaiah and Ezckiel ; tlic latter 
 part, it shall be inhabited in her place from the tower of Ilana- 
 neel to the /dug's winepresses, and men shall du<ell in it and 
 there shall be no more ntter desolation, bat Jerasaletn shall 
 dwell securchj , reminds of Jeremiah, ''7'/(t- eiti/ shall be built to 
 the Lord from the tower of Ilananeel unto the gate of the 
 corner ; it shall not be jilueked up nor thrown down any more. 
 The words, '' and everi/ (me that is left of all the natiotis shall 
 go up to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the 
 feast of tabernacles, reminds of Isaiali, '^From new-moon to 
 his neiv-moon, and from sabbath to his sabbath shall uU flesh 
 come to worship before Me, saith the Lord. v. 17-19 are an 
 expansion of Isaiah Ix. 12; v. 20 expresses the thouji^ht of 
 Ez. xliii. 13: the proplieey, "there shall be no more the Canaan- 
 ite in the house of the Lord for ever, refers haek to EzekieF." 
 The symbolisina; of the Gospel by the life-giving waters which 
 should flow forth from Jerusalem, originally in Joel iii. 18, 
 is a miniature of the full picture in Ezekiels. The promise, 
 '"' I will cut off" the names of the idols //-owi the land and they 
 shall be no more remembered," in part verbally agrees with 
 that of Hosea, " And I will remove the names of the Baalim 
 from her mouth, and they shall be no more remembered by 
 their names ; " only, since the Baal-worship was destroyed 
 by the captivity, the more general name of idols is substi- 
 tuted. 
 
 Equally, in descriptions not prophetic, the symbolising of 
 the wicked by the title of the goats, I punished the goats', is 
 renewed from Ezekiel ; I judge between flock and flock, be- 
 tween the rams and the he-goats. The description of tiie shep- 
 herds who destroyed their flocks retains from Jeremiah the 
 characteristic expression, ^ and hold themselves not guilty. 
 The minuteness of the enumeration of their neglects and 
 cruelties is the sahie (amid diff'erences of the words whereby 
 it is expressed) : " ' the perishing shall he not visit, those 
 astray shall he not seek, and the broken shall he not heal ; the 
 sound shall he not nurture, and the flesh of the fat shall he 
 eat and their claws he shall split." In Ezekiel, ""Ye eat the 
 fat and clothe you with the wool ; the fat ye slay ; the flock 
 ye feed not ; the diseased have ye not healed ; and the broken 
 have ye not bound, and the wandering have ye not sought." 
 The imagery of Obadiah, that Israel should be a flame amidst 
 corn to consume it, is retained ; the name of Edom is dropped, 
 for the prophecy relates to a larger gathering of enemies. 
 Zechariah has, " " In that day I will make the governors of 
 Judah like a hearth of fire among wood and like a lamp of 
 
 » Hengst. •> Jer. xxxi. 38. 40. ' Zech. xiv. 16. ^ Is. lxvi.23. 
 
 ' Zech. xiv. 21. ' Ezeic. xliv. 9. e Zech. xiv. 8, Ezek. xlvii. 1-13. 
 
 t Zech. xiii. 2. Hos. ii. 17. ' Zech. x. 3. Ezek. xxxiv. 17. 
 
 k IDB'N' kSi Zech. xi. 5. DtJw nS Jer. 1. 7. i Zech. xi. 10. 
 
 ■» Ezek. xxxiv. 3, 4. " Zech. xii. 6. Obad. 18. » Zech. xi. 3. 
 
 P Jer. xii. 6. xlix. 19. 1. 41. 
 
 1 Prof. Stanley Leathes, " The witness of the Old Testament to Christ. Note on the 
 Authorship of Isaiah," (pp. 282, 283.) gives the following summary as to the occurrence 
 of words in poems of Milton and Tennyson; " L' Allegro is a poem of 152 lines: it con- 
 tains about 450 words; U Penseroso is a poem of 176 lines, and contains about 578 
 words ; Lycidas is a poem of 193 lines, which are longer than those of either of the other 
 two,most of them being heroics: its words are about 725. It is plain, therefore, that 
 Milton must have used for II Penseroso 128 words not in L' Allegro, and for Lycidas 
 275 not m L'Allegro, and 147 not in II Penseroso. 
 
 " But what is much more remarkable, is the fact that there are only about 125 words 
 common to L'Allegro and II Penseroso; only about 140 common to Lycidas and 
 II Penseroso ; only about 01 common to all three. That is ; Milton must have used for 
 11 Penseroso 450 words not in L'Allegro, and for Lycidas 590 not in L'Allegro. He 
 must have used for Lycidas some 585 words not in II Penseroso, and more than 600 not 
 occurring in both together. Also, there must be in L'Allegro some 325 words not in 
 II Penseroso, and 315 not in Lycidas; and there nmst be in II Penseftso nearly 440 
 words not in Lycidas. 
 
 " Again, Tennyson's Lotos-Eaters contains about 590 words ; (Enone has about 720. 
 Thus the latter must contain 130 words not in the former ; but a comparison shows that 
 
 fire in a sheaf of corn, and tliey shall eat on the right hand 
 and on the left all nations round about:" Obadiah; "The 
 lioiise of Jacob shall hn fire and tiie house of Jacob k flame, 
 and the house of Esau .itubble, and it shall kindle on them 
 and shall eat them." Even so slight an expression as the 
 pride of Jordan", as designating the cane-brake around it, is 
 peculiar to Jeremiah ''. 
 
 Zechariab is eminently an Evangelic prophet, as much as 
 Isaiah, and equally in both portions. 
 
 The use of diirercnt words in unlike subjects is a necessary 
 consequence of that unlikeness. In contrast with that pseudo- 
 criticism, which counts up the unlike words in different 
 chajiters of a pnqihct, the different words used by the same 
 modern poet have been counted''. A finer perceptilm will see 
 the correspondence of a style, when the rhvtlim, subject, 
 words, are different. No one familiar with English poetry 
 could doubt that "the Bard," and "the Elegy in a country 
 Churchyard," however different in subject and style and 
 words, were by the same hand, judging alone from the 
 laboured selection of the epithets, however different. Yet 
 there is not one characteristic word or idiom which occurs 
 in both. But the recurrence of the same or like words or 
 idioms, if unusual elsewhere, is a subordinate indication of 
 sameness of authorship. 
 
 They are thus enumerated by the writers who have an- 
 swered the attacks on the authorship of Zechariah. 
 
 " Common to both parts are the idioms, from him who 
 goeth and from him who returneth, which do not occur else- 
 where"^; the whole Jewish people are throughout designated 
 as " » the house of Israel and the house of Judah," or " * the 
 house of Judah and the house of Joseph," or " "Judah Israel 
 and Jerusalem," or '"' Ephraim and Jerusalem," or "« Judah 
 and Ephraim," or ""Judah and Israel." There is in both 
 parts the appeal to future knowledge of God's doings to be 
 obtained by experience >'; in both, internal discord is directly 
 attributed to God, Whose Providence permits it'; in both 
 the prophet promises God's gifts of the produce of the 
 earth " ; in both he bids Jerusalem burst out for joy ; in the 
 first, " ^for lo, God says, / come and will dwell in 'the midst 
 of thee; in the second, 'behold thy King comet h unto thee. 
 
 The purity of language is alike" in both parts of the book. 
 No one Syriasm occurs in the earlier chapters ''. The pro- 
 phet, who returned as a child to Judjea, formed his language 
 upon that of the older prophets. 
 
 In both there is a certain fulness of language, produced by 
 dwelling on the same thought or word " : in both, the whole 
 and its parts are, for emphasis, mentioned together'. In 
 
 there are only about 230 words common to the two poems. That is, there must be 490 
 words in (Enone which are not in the Lotos-Eaters, and there must be in the Lotos- 
 Eaters about 300 words not occurring in ffinone ; that is,— the shorter poem has 360 
 words which the longer one does not contain." 
 
 ' reiDi -aVDvii. 14, ix. 8. In Ez. xxxii. 27, the expression I3iri n2j), "pass through 
 and return," is not proverbial ; in Ezek. x.xxv. 7, it is "I will cut off from it" ayii -us; 
 
 • viii. 13. < X. 0. " i. 19, [ii. 2. Heb.] » ix. 10. " ix. 13. 
 
 » xi. 14. y ii. 13, 15. xi. 11. « viii. 10. xi. 6. « viii. 12 x 1 
 
 •" ii. 14. [10. Eng.] ' ix. 9. 
 
 ■* oijiptt) vii. 14 is no Syriasm (as so often alleged) but has Hebrew analogies as TO 
 Job xxii. 29. xxiii. 7, from .iiKS for .iws (Ew. Lehrb. n.02. b); but which of these critic^ 
 would argue from the points except in favour of what he wished to maintain ? IJott- 
 cher (Lehrbuch n. 437. g. 498. 3. p. 304.)regards the . as emphatic. 2) " That c-^SiO 
 (iii. 7.) comes from a -jSrio is self-evident." Ew. ad loc. 3) ^ iiy (i. 16.) is not " joLied 
 with ace. of object," but is simply our, " helped to evil." 
 
 e As in the repetition of I3in3 'ni3» ii. 14, 15 ; of nxni, in vi. 10; " 'jyn ns .IH- xni " h:-n nx •■rm 
 vi. 12, 13 ; ni3ni3, numi, .TnamD, 3 times in viii. 4. 5 ; ip'tn.ii-ip-m' lb. 23 ; [xi-n nx ny^m 
 at the beginning and end of xi. 7 ; n'nm nis' and nsaS oSim' .-inc- at the end, xiv. 10 11 
 2ip DVD icnS.T Di'D cnSn xiv. 3. In xiv. 4. the sentence BOi Sec, explains the same event in 
 different words ; Droj ityKD DnDJi-cnnji xiv. 5. 
 
 'v. 4. "the house, audits stones, and its timbers," x. 4. " out of him the comer; out of 
 him the nail ; out of him the battle bow ; out of him every oppressor together." x. 11. 
 "the land shall mourn, every family apart," and then follows the enumeration of the 
 families. 12, 13.
 
 506 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 both parts, as a consequence of this fuhicss, there occurs the 
 division of the verse into five sections, contrary to the usual 
 rule of Hebrew parallelism. 
 
 This rliythni will appear more vividly in instances '; 
 
 " ''And he shall build the temple of the Lord; 
 And he shall bear majesty ; 
 And he shall sit and rule on his throne ; 
 And he shall be a priest on his throne ; 
 And a counsel of peace shall be between them both. 
 
 ■^Ashkelon shall see, and shall fear ; 
 Gaza, and shall tremble exccedinfi:ly ; 
 And Ekron, and ashamed is her expectation ; 
 And perished hath a kin^ from Gaza, 
 And Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. 
 
 * And I will take away his blood from his mouth, 
 And his abominations from between his teeth : 
 And he too shall be left to our God, 
 
 And he shall be as a governor in Judah, 
 And Ekron as a Jebnsite. 
 
 "^ In that day, saith the Lord, 
 
 I will smite every horse with astonishment. 
 
 And his rider with madness ; 
 
 And upon the house of Judah I will open my eyes, 
 
 And every horse of the nations I will smite with blindness." 
 
 With one considerable exception ^, those who would sever 
 the six last chapters from Zechariali, are now at one in 
 placing them before the captivity. Yet Zechariali here too 
 speaks of the captivity as past. Adopting the imagery of 
 Isaiah, who foretells the delivery from the captivity as an 
 opening of a prison, he says, in the name of God, "sBy the 
 blood of thy covenant / have sent forth thy prisoners out of 
 the pit wherein is no water." Again, '""The Lord of hosts 
 hath visited His flock, the house of Judah. I will have mercy 
 upon them [Judah and Joseph] and they shall be as though 
 I had not cast them off." The mention of the mourning of 
 all \X\c families that remain' implies a previous carrying away. 
 Yet more ; Zechariali took his imagery of the future restora- 
 tion of Jerusalem, from its condition in his own time. " '' It 
 shall be lifted up and inhabited in its place from Benjamin's 
 gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner-gate, and 
 from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses." 
 "The gate of Benjamin " is doubtless " the gate of Ephraim," 
 since the road to Epliraim lay through Benjamin ; but the 
 gate of Ephraim existed in Nehemiah's time', yet was not 
 then repaired, as neither was the tower of Hananeel "', having 
 been left, doubtless, at the destruction of Jerusalem, being 
 useless for defence, when the wall was broken down. So 
 "at the second invasion the Romans left the three impregna- 
 ble towers, of Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne, as monu- 
 ments of the greatness of the city which they had destroyed. 
 Benjamin's gate, the corner gate, the tower of Hananeel, were 
 still standing; "the king's winepresses " were naturally un- 
 injured, since there was no use in injuring them : but the 
 first gate was destroyed, since not itself, but the place of it is 
 mentioned. 
 
 The prophecy of the victory over the Greeks fits in with 
 times when Assyria or Chaldiea were no longer the instru- 
 
 * This was observed by Koster, Meletemata crit. et exeg. in Zech. part. post. 
 c. ix-xiv. pp. 51-51). !• vi. 13. « ix. 5. ^ lb. 7. 
 
 e xii. 4. Koster further refers to i. 4, 17. lii. 5, 9. and on the other hand to ix. 9, 10, 
 13, 15. X. 11. xi.2, 7, 9, 17. xii. 10. xiv. 4, 8. < Bdttcher. 
 
 « ix. II. >■ X. 3-5. ' xii. 14. ^ xiv. 10. 
 
 ' Neh. viii. 16. xii. 39. "lb. iii. 1. ° Jos. B. J. vii. 1. 
 
 "> Hitzig. Ewald avoids this; but would have it, that the prophet in Joel's time was 
 
 ments of God in the chastisement of His people. The notion 
 that the prophet incited the few Hebrew slaves, sold into 
 (jreece, t() rebel against their masters, is so absurd, that one 
 wonders that any one could have ventured to forge it and 
 put it upon a Hebrew prophet". 
 
 Since, moreover, all now, who sever the six last chapters 
 from the preceding, also divide these six into two halves, the 
 evidence that the si.x chapters are from one author is a sepa- 
 rate ground against their theory. Yet not only are they con- 
 nected by the imagery of the people as the flock of God p, 
 whom God committed to the band of the Good Shepherd i, 
 and on their rejecting Him, gave them over to an evil shep- 
 herd^; but the Good Shepherd is One with God". The poor 
 of the flock, who would hold to the Shepherd, are designated 
 by a corresponding word*. 
 
 A writer has been at pains to shew that two different con- 
 ditions of things are foretold in the two prophecies. Granted. 
 The first, we believe, has its foreground in the deliverance 
 during the conquests of Alexander, and under the Maccabees, 
 and leads on to the rejection of the true Shepherd and God's 
 visitation on the false. The later relates to a later repentance 
 and later visitation of God, in part yet future. By what law 
 is a prophet bound down to speak of one future only ? 
 
 For those who criticise the prophets, resolve all prophecy 
 into mere " anticipation " of what might, or might not be, de- 
 nying to them all certain knowledge of any future, it is but 
 speaking plainly, when they imagine the author of the three 
 last chapters to have " anticipated " that God would interpose 
 miraculously to deliver Jerusalem, then, when it was de- 
 stroyed. It would have been in direct contradiction to Jere- 
 miah, who for 39 years in one unbroken dirge predicted the 
 evil which should come upon Jerusalem. The prophecy, had 
 it preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, could not have been 
 earlier than the reign of the wretched Jehoiakim, since the 
 mourning for the death of Josiah is spoken of as a proverbial 
 sorrow of the past. This invented prophet then would have 
 been one of the false prophets, who contradicted Jeremiah, 
 prophesying good, while Jeremiah prophesied evil ; who en- 
 couraged Zedekiah in his perjury, the punishment whereof 
 Ezekiel solemnly denounced", prophesying his captivity in 
 Babylon as its penalty; he would have been one of those, of 
 whom Jeremiah said, that they spake lies " in the name of the 
 Lord. It was not " anticipation " on either side. It was the 
 statement of those who spoke more certainly than we could 
 say, "the sun will rise tomorrow." They were the direct 
 contradictories of one another. The false prophets said, ""the 
 Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace;" the true, """they have 
 said. Peace, peace, when there is no peace : " the false said, 
 " y sword and famine shall not be in the land ; " the true, " ^By 
 sword and famine shall their prophets be consumed;" the 
 false said, " ^ ye shall not serve the king of Babylon ; thus 
 saith the Lord, even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of aU nations within 
 the space of two full years;" the true, ""Thus saith the Lord 
 of hosts. Now have I given all these lands into the hand of 
 Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and all na- 
 tions shall serve him, and his son and his son's son." The 
 false said, " •> I will bring again to this place Jeconiah, with 
 all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, for I will 
 
 stirring up the Jews tD war with the Greeks. Other evasions see in Pusey's " Daniel 
 the Prophet " pp. 281, 282. note. P ix. 1«. x. 3. i xi. 4-14. 
 
 ■■ lb. 15-17. ' xi. 7-12. xiii. 7. ' |kS'1 "W, xi. 7, 11. dV^'"', xiii. 7, the 
 
 same as tlie [Kxri i-yx Jer. xlix. 20, 1. 45. " Ezek. xiii. 10 — 19. 
 
 ' Jer. xiv. 14, xxiii. 22, xxvii. 15, xxviii. 15, xxix. 8, 9. 
 
 " Jer. viii. 11. xxiii. 17. ' Ezek. xiii.2-10. J Jer. xiv. 15. 
 
 ' lb. ixvii. 9-14, xxviii. 11. » lb. xxvii. 4, 6, 7. '' lb. xxviii. 4.
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 507 
 
 break the yoke of the king: of Babylon;" the true, ""1 will 
 cast thee out and the mother that hare thee, into another 
 country, where ye were not horn, and there ye siiall die. But 
 to the land, whereunto they desire to return, thither they 
 shall not return." The false said; '"'The vessels of tiie Lord's 
 house shall now shortly he hroujijht ai;ain from Bai)ylon ; " 
 the true, "'the residue of the vessels that remain in this city, 
 — they shall he carried to ]lahyIon." 
 
 If the writer of the three last chapters had lived just be- 
 fore the destruction of Jerusalem in those last reigns, he 
 would have been a political fanatic, one of those who, by en- 
 couraging rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, brought on the 
 destruction of the city, and, in the name of God, told lies 
 against God. "That which is most peculiar in this prophet," 
 says one'', "is the uncommon high and pious hope of the de- 
 liverance of Jerusalem and Judah, notwithstanding all visible 
 greatest dangers and threatenings. At a time when Jere- 
 miah, in the walls of the capital, already despairs of any pos- 
 sibility of a successful resistance to the Chaldces and exhorts 
 to tranquillity, this prophet still looks all these dangers 
 straight in the face with swelling spirit and divine confidence, 
 holds, with unbowed spirit, firm to the like promises of older 
 prophets, as Is. c. 29, and anticipates that, from that very 
 moment when the blind fury of the destroyers would dis- 
 charge itself on the sanctuary, a wondrous might would 
 crush them in pieces, and that this must be the beginning of 
 the Messianic weal within and without." 
 
 Chapter 14 is to this writer a modification of those antici- 
 pations. In other words there was a greater human proba- 
 bility, that Jeremiah's prophecies, not his, would be fulfilled : 
 yet he cannot give up his sanguineness, though his hopes had 
 now become fanatic. This writer says on chap. 14, "^This 
 piece cannot have been written till somewhat later, when 
 facts made it more and more improbable, that Jerusalem 
 would not any how be conquered, and treated as a conquered 
 city by coarse foes. Yet then too this prophet could not 
 yet part with the anticipations of older prophets and those 
 which he had himself at an earlier time expressed: so boldly, 
 amid the most visible danger, he holds firm to the old an- 
 ticipation, after that the great deliverance of Jerusalem in 
 Sennacherib's time (Is. c. 37.) appeared to justify the most 
 fanatic hopes for the future, (comp. Vs. 59) And so now the 
 prospect moulds itself to him thus, as if Jerusalem must in- 
 deed actually endure the horrors of the conquest, but that 
 then, when the work of the conquerors was half-completed, 
 the great deliverance, already suggested in that former piece, 
 would come, and so the Sanctuary would, notwithstanding, 
 be wonderfully preserved, the better Messianic time would 
 notwithstanding still so come." 
 
 It must be a marvellous fascination, which the old prophets 
 exercise over the human mind, that one who can so write 
 should trouble himself about them. It is such an intense pa- 
 radox, that the writing of one convicted by the event of 
 uttering falsehood in the name of God, incorrigible even by 
 the thickening tokens of God's displeasure, should have been 
 inserted among the Hebrew prophets, in times not far re- 
 moved from those whose events convicted him, that one won- 
 ders that any one should have invented it, still more that any 
 
 « lb. xxii. 26, 27. '■ lb. xxvii. 16. 
 
 c lb. 19-22. 
 a Ewald Proph. ii. 52, 53. ed. 1868. ^ lb. p. 59. 
 
 ' Hitzig, uber d. abfassuugszeit der Orakel Zach. i.\-xiv, in the Theol. Studien 
 u. Kritiken 1830. 1. p. 25. 
 
 8 De Wette ed. 4 (after maintaining the contrary ed. 1-3) and Stahelin, Einl. 1862. 
 " De Wette often assured me orally, that since he felt himself compelled to admit, that 
 
 should have believed in it. Great indeed is "the credulity of 
 the incredulous." 
 
 And yet this paradox is essential to the theories of the 
 modern sr-hool which wouhl place tliese chapters before the 
 captivity. English writers, who thought themselves com- 
 pelled to ascribe these chapters to Jeremiah, had an esr-ape, 
 be(!ause they did not bind down proj)hecy to immediate 
 events. Newcome's criticism was the (conjectural (criticism 
 of his day; i. e. bad, cutting knots instead of loosing them. 
 But his faith, that God's word is true, was entire. Since the 
 pro])hecy, placed at the time where he placed it, had no im- 
 mediate fulfilment, he supposed it, in common with those who 
 believe it to have been written by Zechariah, to relate to a 
 later period, 'j'hat (Jerman school, with whom it is an axiom, 
 "that all definite j)ropheey relates to an immediate future," 
 had no choice but to place it just before the destruction of 
 the temple by the Chaldees, or its profanation by Antiochus 
 Epiphanes ; and those who placed it before the Captivity, had 
 no choice, except to believe, that it related to events, by 
 which it was falsified. 
 
 Nearly half a century has passed, since a leading writer 
 of this school said, "f One must own, that the division of 
 opinions as to the real author of this section and his time, 
 as also the attempts to appropriate single oracles of this 
 portion to different periods, leave the result of criticism 
 simply negative ; whereas on the other hand, the view itself, 
 since it is not yet carried through exegetically, lacks the 
 completion of its proof. It is not till criticism becomes 
 positive, and evidences its truth in the explanation of details, 
 that it attains its completion ; which is not, in truth, always 
 possible." Hitzig did what he could, " to help to promote 
 the attainment of this end according to his ability." But 
 although the more popular theory has of late been that these 
 chapters are to be placed before the captivity, the one por- 
 tion somewhere in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotliam, Ahaz, or 
 Hezekiah ; the other, as marked in the chapters themselves, 
 after the death of Josiah, there have not been wanting critics 
 of equal repute, who place them in the time of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes. Yet criticism which reels to and fro in a period 
 of near 500 years, from the earliest of the prophets to a 
 period, a century after Malachi, and this on historical and 
 philological grounds, certainly has come to no definite basis, 
 either as to history or philology. Rather, it has enslaved 
 both to preconceived opinions ; and at last, as late a result 
 as any has been, after this weary round, to go back to where 
 it started from, and to suppose these chapters to have been 
 written by the prophet whose name they bear «. 
 
 It is obvious that there must be some mistake either in 
 the tests applied, or in their application, which admits of a 
 variation of at least 450 years from somewhere in the reign 
 of Uzziah (say B.C. 770) to "later than B. C. 330." 
 
 Philological and historical criticism, bearing on events (as 
 it is assumed) of the day, which should, in its variations, oscil- 
 late between the reign of John or of Charles I, or (to bring 
 it nearer to ourselves) the first half of the xiv"* centurj' or 
 the latter part of the xviii*, would not gain much attention. 
 Indeed, it is instructive, that after the philological argument 
 has figured so much in all questions about the date of books 
 
 this portion evinces acquaintance with the latest prophets, he could not deny it to be 
 Zechariah's." Stahelin p. 323. De Wette, Stahelin, Koster, Burger, were of a dif- 
 ferent school from Hengstenberg, Havemick, Keil, or again from Jahn and Herbst. 
 Stahelin says, " in the investigation I kept myself free from any influence from without, 
 and first found the facts, which attest the post-exile origin of this section, given by 
 Hengstenberg and de Wette, when I subsequently compared the labours of others, es- 
 pecially those two scholars." Messian. Weissag. p. 174. 1847.
 
 608 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 of Holy Scripture, it is virtually admitted to be absolutely 
 worthless, except iie!;ativcly. For, in regard to Zccliariah, 
 the ar^uineiit is not used, except in proof that the same 
 writer cannot have written prose and poetry, which would 
 establish that Hosea did not write eitiicr iiis three first 
 chapters or his nine last ; or Ezckiel his iiuiujj^ural vision, 
 the visions of the ninth and tenth chapters, and the sim- 
 ple exiiortations to repentance in his eigiiteenth and thirty- 
 third. Only I know not on the same evidence, how, of 
 modern writers, Scott and Southey could be supposed to 
 have written tlieir prose and their poetry. How easy it 
 would be to prove that the author of Thalaija did not write 
 the life of Wesley or the history of the peninsular war, nor 
 Shakespeare Macbeth and any comedy which criticism 
 may yet leave to him; still more that he cannot have written 
 the deep tragic scenes of Hamlet and that of the grave- 
 diggers. 
 
 Yet such negations have been practically considered as 
 the domain of the philological neo-criticism. Style is to be 
 evidence that the same prophet did not write certain pro- 
 phecies ; but, this being demonstrated, it is to yield no evi- 
 dence, whether he wrote, when Hebrew was a dead language 
 or in the time of its richest beauty. Individuals indeed have 
 their opinions; but philological criticism, as a whole, or as 
 relates to any acknowledged result, is altogether at fault. 
 Having done its office of establishing, that, in the mind of 
 the critic and his disciples, certain chapters are not Zecha- 
 riah's, the witness is forthwith dismissed, as incompetent 
 even to assist in proving anything besides. The rest is to be 
 established by historical allusions, which are by some adapted 
 to events in the reign of Uzziah, by others to those of the 
 Maccabees : or rather, it being assumed that there is no 
 prophecy, this latter class assumes that the book is to belong 
 to the times of the Maccabees, because one part of it pre- 
 dicts their victories. Those who tell us ^ of the unity of the 
 results of this modern criticism, must have been thinking of 
 the agreenient of its negations. As to the positive results, a 
 table will best shew their harmony. Yet the fault is not in 
 the want of an ill-exercised acumen of the critics; their 
 principle, that nothing in the prophets can relate to any 
 distant future, even though that future exactly realized the 
 words, is the mainspring of their confusions. Since the 
 words of Zechariah do relate to, and find their fulfilment 
 in, events widely separated from each other, and the theory of 
 the critics requires that they should belong to some proxi- 
 mate event, cither in the present or some near future, they 
 have to wrest those words from the events to which they 
 relate, some in this way, some in that ; and the most natural 
 interpretations are those which are least admitted. Cer- 
 tainly since the descriptions in c. ix. suit with the wars of 
 Alexander and the Maccabees, no one, but for some strong 
 antecedent exigency, would assume that they related to some 
 expected expedition of an Assyrian monarch, " ^ which may 
 be conjectured as very probable, but which, for want of his- 
 torical data, cannot be indicated more circumstantially," 
 or to " <^ a plan of the Assyrians which was not then carried 
 out," or '' Uzziah's war with the Philistines % and some ima- 
 gined '"^attitude of Jeroboam II against Damascus and Ha- 
 math," or "^a concealed denunciation against Persia," against 
 
 » Essays and Reviews, p. 310. "Among German commentators there is, for the first 
 time in the history of the world, an approach to agreement and certainty. For example 
 the diversity among German writers on prophecy is far less than 'among English 
 ones." b Bertholdt p. 1715. 
 
 i: Knobel ii. 170. ^ Hitzig Vorbemerk. z. ii. and iii. Zech. Kl. Pr. p. 354. 
 
 ' 2 Chr. xxvi. G. ( De Wette Einl. p. 337. 
 
 « " The uncertain hopes of the future, here expressed by the prophet, are not to be 
 
 whirrh Zechariah did not wish to prophesy openly, or to 
 have had no spetfial meaning at all^. 
 
 It is marvellous, on what slight data this modern school 
 has satisfied itfclf that tiiese chapters were written before 
 the captivity. To take the statement of an epitomator '' of 
 German pseudo-criticism : "Damascus, Tyre, and Hidon, Plii- 
 listia, Jdvan [ix. 1, 6-12) Assyria and ICgypt {x. 10.) are the 
 enemies of Judali." "The historical stand-point is di//erent 
 from that of Zech. i-viii." Of all these, Javan, the Greeks, 
 alone are spoken of as enemies of Judah, who before the 
 captivity were known only as purchasers of Hebrew cap- 
 tives; the only known wars are tiiose of the Maccabees. 
 
 " The two kiui^doms of Judah and Israel still exist. Surely 
 the language, ' that I might break the brotherhood between 
 Judah and Israel,' implies that both ki)igdoms existed as part 
 of the covenant nation."" 
 
 Zechariah speaks of Judah and Israel, but not as /dngdoms. 
 Before the captivity, except during the effects of the inter- 
 marriage with Athaliah, there was not brotherhood but enmity. 
 In the reigns of Amaziah and Ahaz there was war. 
 
 " The house of David is spokeii of xiii. 1." The house, not 
 the kingdom. The house existed after the captivity. Zerub- 
 babel, whom the Persians made governor, was its represen- 
 tative. 
 
 " Idols and false prophets (.v. 2. xiii. 2 ^-c.) harmonise only 
 with a time prior to the exile." 
 
 Idolatry certainly was not the prevailing national sin, after 
 God had taught the people through the captivity. It is com- 
 monly taken for granted, that there was none. But where is 
 the proof? Malachi would hardly have laid the stress on 
 ' marrying the daughters of a strange god, had there been no 
 danger that the marriage would lead to idolatry. ''Nehemiah 
 speaks of the sin, into which Solomon was seduced by "out- 
 landish women," as likely to recur through the heathen mar- 
 riages ; but idolatry was that sin. Half of the children could 
 only speak the language of their mothers '. It were strange, 
 if they had not imbibed their mothers' idolatry too. In a 
 battle in the Maccabee war, it is related " " under the coats 
 of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to 
 the idols of the Jamnites, which is forbidden the Jews by 
 their law." 
 
 The Teraphim were, moreover, an unlawful and forbidden 
 means of attempting to know the future, not any coarse form 
 of idolatry ^ ; much as people now, who more or less earnestly 
 have their fortunes told, would be surprised at being called 
 idolaters. But Zechariah was probably speaking of sins 
 which had brought on the captivity, not of his own day. The 
 prediction repeated from an older prophet, that in the true 
 Judah, the Church, God would cut o^'even the names and the 
 memory of idols, does not imply that they existed". 
 
 False prophets continued after the captivity. Shemaiah, 
 who uttered a prophecy against Nehemiah, the prophetess 
 JVoadiah, and the rest of the prophets, are known to us from 
 Nehemiah's relationP. Such there were before our Lord came, 
 of whom He said, that they iwere thieves and robbers: He 
 warned against them, ''as comijig in sheep's clothing, but in- 
 tvardly they are ravening wolves; He foretold that ^ many false 
 prophets shall arise and deceive many ; the Acts tell us of the 
 false prophet *, a Jew, Bar-jesus ; and Theudas, and Judas of 
 
 referred to certain events." Rosenmiiller on Zech. ix. 13. ed. 1. 
 "■ Dr. S. Davidson iii. 321, 322. 
 
 iMal.ii. 11. t Neh.xiii.2G. ' lb. 23, 24. 
 
 ■o 2 Mace. xii. 40. ° See below on x. 2. 
 
 " See ab. p. oOi, and bel. on xiii. 2. p Neh. vi. 12. 14. 
 
 1 S. John X. 8. ' S. Matt. vii. 15. 
 
 • lb. xxiv. 11, 21. S. Mark xiii. 22. ' Acts xiii. 6. 
 
 I
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 509 
 
 Galilee'. S. John says, ^ mnnj/ fd/sc prophets liave gone out 
 into the world. False projihcts at^fi^ravated tlic resistance to 
 the Romans and the final destruction of Jerusalem ^ 
 
 " The mention of a king or kingdom, in xi. G, xiii. 7, does 
 not suit the iige of Zerhnrinh." 
 
 Zechariah had already implied that they had no king then, 
 for he had hidden Zion to rejoice tiiat hvvk'iuii ifonld co7ne to 
 her; accordingly she had none. In xi. G, (iod says, " I will 
 no more pity the land ; I will deliver man, every one into 
 the hand of his king." It is an event, not of the prophet's 
 time, but of the future; in xiii. 7, there is no mention of any 
 king at all. 
 
 Such being the entire absence of proof that these chapters 
 were written before the captivity '', the proof that c.xi. relates 
 to the time of Menahcm is even absurd. The process with 
 those who maintained this, has been, assuming as proved, that 
 it was written before the captivity, and that it contained no 
 prophecy of the future, to ask, to what period before the cap- 
 tivity does it relate? One verse" relates to civil confusion, 
 such as is foretold also, with the same metaphor, by Isaiah 
 ami Jeremiah. The choice was large, since the kingdom of 
 Israel had the curse of discord and irrcligion entailed upon 
 it, and no king ventured to cut off the entail by cutting off the 
 central sin, the worship of tlie calves, which were to consoli- 
 date it by a worship, the rival of that at Jerusalem. Of the 
 18 kings between Jeroboam and Hosea, 9, including Tibni, 
 died violent deaths. The choice was directed to Menahem, 
 because of the words in Zechariah, three shepherds also I cut 
 off' in one month, and Shallum murdered Zachariah the son of 
 Jeroboam ; and he himself, after he had reigned a full month 
 in Samaria, was murdered by Menahem. Here then were two 
 kings cut off. But the third ? Imagination is to supply it. 
 One ' conjectures Menahem ; but he reigned 10 years, and so, 
 he invents a meaning for the word, that the prophet does 
 not mean cut off] but denied them, leaving it open whether 
 he meant "removed" or merely "did not acknowledge 
 them, as Menahem at first certainly found no recognition 
 with the prophetic order (2 Ivgs xv. IC, 19);" another s ima- 
 gined " some third rival of Zachariah and Shallum, of whom 
 there is no mention in the historical books ;" but there is no 
 room for a third king, since Shallum murdered Zachariah; 
 and Menahem, Shallum; another'' found in Hebrew words ' 
 which had crept into the LXX, an usurper Kobal-am, of 
 whom he says truly, "we hear nothing;" another J con- 
 ceived of some usurper after the murder of Zachariah or 
 of Shallum (this is left free), who about this time mai/ have 
 set himself at the head of the kingdom, but scarcely main- 
 tained himself some weeks; another'^ says, "This refers 
 probably to the Interregnum 784-773, in which many may 
 
 « Actsv. Sfl, 37. !> 1 S.John iv. 1. 
 
 <: " The cause of this destruction [of those who took refuge in tlie temple] was a false 
 prophet, who at that day preached to those in the city, that God bade them go up to the 
 temple, to receive the signs of salvation. But there were many at that time suborned 
 by the tyrants to the people, bidding them wait the lielp from God, that they might not 
 desert, and that liope might master to their ill, those who were beyond fear or watching. 
 — The deceivers, telling lies against God, then misdeceived the wretched people," Jos, 
 B. J. vi. 5.'2and3. 
 
 ■i The questions 1) whether the six last chapters were Zechariah's, and 2) whether 
 they were written before the captivity, are entirely apart. 
 
 » xi. 6. Comp. Is. ix. 20. xlix. 20. Jer. xix. 9. ' Hitzig ad loc. p. 373. ed. 3. 
 
 ? Maurer, followed by Bunsen Bibelwerk on Zech., Dr. Davidson Intr. ii. 330. 
 
 '' Ewald (Gesch. d. V. Israel iii. 6J4.), followed as elsewhere by Dr. Stanley, Jewish 
 Church ii. 361. 
 
 ' The original text of the LXX seems to have corresponded with the Hebrew. The 
 meaning of the two Hebrew words, :y S^p. is veiy simple, " Ijefore people " i. e. publicly ; 
 C!;.T S:!p would (as Bbttcher olisened, Jen. Lit. Zeit. 18-17. p. 1111) have signified "before 
 tlie people publicly assembled together." The S>TO-Hexaplar version by Paul of Tela 
 translates the words, and introduces '" Kebdaam" with Origen's asterism, and so, as not 
 belonging to the LXX. The Alexandrian and two other MSS. (one of Constantinople 
 cent. X.) also retain the rendering. The singular " conspired," which excludes " Keblaam " 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 have set tlicmselves as kings, but none have maintained 
 tiieinsidves." Another' "An anti-king mai/ at this time have 
 set himself up in other parts of the kingdom, whom Menahem 
 overthrew as he did that murderer." Others'" say of the 
 whole, "The symbolical rcpicscntation, verss. 'A stpj.. admits 
 of no detailed explaiialion, hut can be understood only as u 
 whole. It describes the evil coiiditioii of Judah under Aliaz." 
 Another", c(pially certain that it relates to Ahaz, says, " the 
 three shepherds, who perished in one and the same month, 
 were probably men who, in the long anarchy before Ilosea 
 ascended the throne, contended for tlie sceptre." 
 
 Yet another is so conlidciit in this interpretation as to 
 the three kings, Shallum Zechariah and .Menahem, that, 
 whereas the bo(di of Kings says expressly that Shallum 
 reigned ""a full month" lit. "a month of day.s," the comnien- 
 tator says, "The month cannot have been full''; Zechariah 
 xi. 8 evidently refers to the three Kings, Sachariali, Salium 
 andMenahem," while others 'I will have it that Zechariah by 
 one mo)ith means some indefinite space more than a nxjiith. 
 This is indeed required (although not .stated) by all these 
 theories, since Shallum alone reigned "a full month," and, 
 consequently, the other two kings (if intended at all by the 
 term " shepherds ") must have been cut off at some period, 
 outside of that "one month." 
 
 Truly, theory is a very exacting taskmaster, though 
 strangely fascinating. It is to be one of the triumphs of the 
 neo-critieism to distinguish between the authorship of Zech. 
 ix-xi and xii-xiv. The point alleged to prove that c. xi. be- 
 longs to the time of Menahem is one at variance with history. 
 It is not that the whole is like, while in one point the like- 
 ness is imperfect. It is the point, alleged as the keystone 
 of the whole, which fails. The words of (iod by the prophet 
 are, " Three shepherds have I cut off in one month:' It lies 
 on the surface of the history, that Zachariah, son of Jeroboam, 
 was murdered by Shallum, after reigning G months ; and that 
 Shallum, after reigning one full month, was himself murdered 
 by Menahem ''. The succession of murders was not so rapid 
 as when Zimri had murdered Elah, Baasha's son. and after 
 reigning 7 days, committed suicide, lest he should fall into 
 the hands of Omri^ Elah and Zimri were cut off in one 
 month ; Zachariah and Shallum, in two. But in neither case 
 was there any visible result, except a partial retribution of 
 God's justice. The last executioner of God's justice slept 
 with his fathers ; his retribution was after death. He was 
 not cut oft". And this is the proof, which is to supplant the 
 testimony to Jesus. The Apostle's words come true, as so 
 often besides : ' Theij shall tarn awaij their ears from the 
 truth and shall he turned unto fables. 
 
 " Thou art tvearied in the greatness of thy way, yet saidst 
 
 from the place which it commonly occupies, occurs in 3 MSS., the Syro-Hex. Georg. 
 Slav-Ostrog. Verss. and tlie Coniplut.; *'and smote him" is also sing, in 3 MSS. and Compl. 
 The word " Keblaam " was doubtless only the Hebrew words, written by one, who did not 
 know how to translate tlieni, and is variously wTitten and placed as if tne scribes did not 
 know what to do with it. Foiu" MS.S. make it the name of a place, " in leblaam." They 
 are retained in the place of the Hebrew words in the Vat. JIS., hut more commonly are 
 added to " Shallum son of Jabis;" in some MSS. and a note in the Sjt. Hex., they are 
 followed by "and Seleni or Selem his father." They are written, "Kebdaam, Kebdiam, 
 Kebdam, Kaddaam, Kaibdaam, Keblaam, Keddaam, Kebdaan, leblaam, lebaan, lebdaam, 
 Bdaam, Beldaara." See LXX ed. Parsons. 
 
 i Bleek Einl. p. 539. k Knobel, Proph. ii. 171. 
 
 1 Bunsen Gott in d. Gesch. i. 450. m Bertholdt Einl. iv. 1716, and 
 
 so seemingly Rosenmiiller. " Single traits are not to be pressed here ; that of v. 8, that 
 Jehovah had slain 3 bad shepherds in one month, belongs merely to poetic individualis- 
 ing." Gramberg ii. 523. " Herzfeld, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr. fexcurs. ii. § 3. p. 2S3. 
 
 2 Kgs XV. 13. P Thenius on 2 Kgs I.e. p. 351. 
 
 1 " Three kings were dethroned by sedition in nearly one month." G. L. Bauer, Addit. 
 ScJiulzii- Scholia viii. "Three kings followed in a short time on each other." E. Meier 
 Gesch. d. poet, nation, lit. d. Hebr. p. 307. 
 
 ' 2 Kgs XV. 8-14. " 1 Kgs xvi. 15-13. 
 
 « 2 Tim. iv. 4. « Is. hii. 10. 
 
 £ £ £ E
 
 510 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 thoH not, there is no hope. One slidiild have tli()ii<;lit that 
 some must liavc, at tiincs, thoiisht of tlic uld days, wlicn tlie 
 prophecy was interpreted (»f tlie (iuod Shepherd and of the 
 30 pieces of silver wliieh were the pri(;e of His Blood, and 
 which were cast into the house of the Lord-'. But tiiis would 
 have been fatal to "historical criticism," whose province 
 was to find out events of the prophet's own day to fill up the 
 words of prophecy. 
 
 The human autliorsliip of any books of Holy Scri|)ture, and 
 so of these chapters of Zechariah is, in itself, a matter which 
 does not concern the soul. It is an untrue imputation, that 
 the date of books of the Bible is converted into matter of 
 faith. In this case Jesus has not set His seal upon it ; God 
 the Holy Ghost has not declared it. But, as in other cases, 
 what lay as the foundation of the theory was the unbelief 
 that God, in a way above nature, when it seemed good to 
 Him, revealed a certain future to His creature man. It is 
 the postulate, (or axiom, as appears to these critics), that 
 there is no super-human prophecy, which gives rise to their 
 eagerness, to place these and other prophetic books or por- 
 tions of books where they can say to themselves that they do 
 not involve such prophecy. To believers it has obviously 
 no religious interest, at what time it pleased Almighty God 
 to send any of His servants the prophets. Not the dates 
 assigned by any of these self-devouring theories, but the 
 grounds alleged in support of those dates, as implying unbelief 
 in God's revelation of Himself, make the question one of 
 religious interest, viz. to shew that these theories are as 
 unsubstantial, as their assumed base is baseless. 
 
 It is an infelicity of the modern German mind, that it is 
 acute in observing detailed differences, rather than compre- 
 hensive in grasping deeper resemblances. It has been more 
 busied in discovering what is new, than in observing the 
 grounds of what is true. It does not, somehow, acquire the 
 power of balancing evidence, which is habitual to the prac- 
 tical minds of our own countrymen. To take an instance 
 of criticism, apart from Theology, the genuineness of a work 
 of Plato. 
 
 » S. Matt. XXV). 14-16, xxvii. 3-10. 
 
 l" Prof. Jowett, Translation of Plato's Dialogues. T. iv. p. 1. 
 
 <^ Philopon. de yEtern. mundi vi. 27. in Smith Gr. & Rom. Biogr. i. 317. 
 
 4 From B.C. 364. to Plato's death B.C. 347. 
 
 ' Pall Mall Gaz. March 28, 1808. 
 
 ' "The style of the Laws differs in several important respects from the other dia- 
 logues of Plato ; 1) in the want of character, power and lively illustration ; 2) in the 
 frequency of mannerisms ; 3) in the form and rhythm of the sentences ; 4) in the use of 
 words. On the other hand, there are many passages 5) which are characterised by a 
 sort of ethical grandeur ; and C) in which perhaps, a greater insight into human na- 
 ture, and a greater reach of practical wisdom is shewn than in any other of Plato's 
 writings. 
 
 " The Laws fall very short of the other Platonic dialogues in the refinements of 
 courtesy. Partly the subject did not properly take the form of dialogue and partly 
 the dramatic vigour of Plato had passed away. — Plato has given the Laws that form 
 which was most suited to his own powers of writing in the decline of life. 
 
 " The fictions of the Laws have no longer that verisimilitude, which we find in the 
 Phaedrus, and the 'Timaeus or even in the Politicus— Nor is there any where in the 
 Laws that lively eudpyfta, that vivid mise ert seine, which is as characteristic of Plato, 
 as of some modern novelists. 
 
 " We no longer breathe the atmosphere of humour which pervades the earlier writings 
 of Plato, and which makes the broadest Aristophanic joke as well as the subtlest 
 refinement of wit possible ; and hence the impression made upon us is bald and feeble — 
 The irony of the earlier dialogues, of which some traces occur in the 10th book, is 
 replaced by a sort of severity which hardly condescends to regard human things. 
 
 " The figures of speech and illustrations are poor in themselves and are not assisted 
 by the surrounding phraseology. In the Republic and in the earlier dialogues— notes 
 are struck which are repeated from time to time, as in a strain of music. There is none 
 of this subtle art in the Laws.— The citations from the poets have lost that fanciful 
 character, which gave them their charm in the earlier dialogues. 
 
 2. " The clumsiness of the dialogue leads to frequent mannerisms — This finish of style 
 [in the dialogue] is no longer discernible in the Laws. Again and again the speaker 
 IS charged or charges himself with obscurity ; he repeats again and again that he will 
 explain his views more clearly.— A tendency to a paradoxical form of statement is also 
 observable. — More than in other writings of Plato the tone is hortatory ; the Laws are 
 sermons as well as laws ; they are supposed to have a religious sanction, and to rest 
 upon a religious sentiment in the mind of the citizens— Resumptions of subjects which 
 have been half disposed of in a previous passage, constantly occur : the arrangement 
 
 "The genuineness of the Laws,"saysthcir recent translator'', 
 "is suliiciently proved by more than 20 citations of them in 
 the writings of Aristotle [whom Plato designated "'the 
 intellect of the school," and who must have been intimate 
 with him for some J 7 years''] who was residing at Athens 
 during the last years of the life of Plato, and who returned 
 to Athens at the time when he was himself writing his 
 Politics and Constitutions ; 2) by the allusion of Isocrates, 
 writing B. C. 346, a year after the death of Plato, and not 
 more than 2 or 3 years after the composition of the Laws — 
 3) by the reference of the comic poet Alexis, a younger 
 contemporary of Plato (B.C. 356.); 4) by the unanimous voice 
 of later antiquity, and the absence of any suspicion among 
 ancient writers worth noticing." 
 
 Yet German acuteness l»as found out reasons, wiiy the 
 treatise should not be Plato's. Those reasons are plausible, 
 as most untrue things are. As put together carefully by one 
 who yet attaches no weight to them, they look like a parody 
 of the arguments, produced by Germans to take to pieces 
 books of Holy Scripture. Mutatis mutandis, they have such 
 an absurdly ludicrous resemblance, that it provokes a smile. 
 Some 50 years ago, there was a tradition at Giittingen, 
 where Heyne had lived, that he attributed the non-reception of 
 the theories as to Homer in England to the English Bishops, 
 who "apprehended that the same principle would be applied 
 to Holy Scripture." Now, for half a century more, both sets 
 of critics have had full scope. The classical sceptics seem 
 to me to have the advantage. Any one, who knew but a 
 little of the uncritical criticism, applied to the sacred books, 
 could imagine, what a jubilee of triumph it would have occa- 
 sioned, could such differences as those pointed out between 
 " the Laws " and other treatises of Plato, have been pointed 
 out to detach any book of Holy Scripture from its tradi- 
 tional writer. Yet it is held inadequate by one, of whom an 
 admirer said, that ""his peculiar mode of criticism cut the 
 very sinews of belief." I insert the criticisms ', (omitting the 
 details of illustration) because their failure may open the 
 eyes of some to the utter valuelessness of this sort of 
 
 has neither the clearness of art, nor the freedom of nature. Irrelevant remarks are 
 made here and there, or illustrations used which are not properly filled in. The dia- 
 logue is generally weak and laboured; and is in the later books fairly given up; ap- 
 parently, because unsuited to the subject of the work. 
 
 3. " From this [perfection of style in the Symposium and Phaedrus] there are many 
 fallings ofl'in the Laws, first, in the structure ot the sentences, which are rhythmical 
 and monotonous : — second, they are often of enormous length, and the latter end fre- 
 quently appears to forget the beginning of them : they seem never to have received the 
 second thoughts of the author : either the emphasis is wrongly placed, or there is a want 
 of point in the clause, or an absolute case occurs, which is not properly separated from 
 the rest of the sentence ; or words are aggregated in a manner, which fails to shew their 
 relation to one another ; or the connecting particles are omitted at the beginning of sen- 
 tences ; the use of the relative and the antecedent is more indistinct, the changes of num- 
 ber and person more frequent ; examples of pleonasm, tautology and periphrasis, un- 
 meaning antitheses of positive and negative, and other affectations, are more numerous 
 than in the other writings of Plato ; there is also a more conmion and sometimes un- 
 meaning use of qualifying formulae — and of double expressions — ; again there is an 
 over-curious adjustment of verb and participle, noun and epithet: many forms of af- 
 fected variety: thirdly, the absence of metaphorical language is remarkable: the style 
 is not devoid of ornament but the ornament is of a debased rhetorical kind, patched 
 on it instead of grooving out of the subject ; there is a great command of words, and a 
 laboured use of them ; forced attempts at metaphor occur in several passages — (compare 
 also the unmeaning extravagance of language in other passages) ; poor and insipid 
 illustrations are also common : fourthly, we may observe an unmeaning use of climax 
 and hyperbole — 
 
 4. " 'The peculiarities in the use of words, -which occur in the Laws, have been collected 
 by Zeller and Stallbaum ; first, in the use of nouns, such as" [8 are given]; "secondly, 
 in the use of adjectives, such as" [5 instances] " and of adverbs, such as " [3 instances] 
 "thirdly in the use of verbs such as" [5 instances] 
 
 " Zeller and Stallbaum have also collected forms of words in the Laws difiTering from 
 the forms of the same words, which occur in other places [7 instances, " and the Ionic 
 
 word "]. Zeller has noticed a fondness for substantives ending in fia and (Tis, such 
 
 as [9 instances " and others "] ; also a use of substantives in the plural, which are 
 ccrninonly found only in the singular [five instances]. Also a peculiar use of preposi- 
 tions in composition as in [five instances " and others"] also a frequent use of the tonic 
 datives plural in atai and otfft. 
 
 " To these peculiarities he has added a list of peculiar expressions and constructions 
 [9 are given]. He remarks also on the frequent use of the abstract for the concrete
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 511 
 
 criticism. The accuracy of the criticisms is not questioned; 
 the statements are not said to be exaj^f^erated ; yet tiiey are 
 held invalid. The question then comes with great force to 
 the conscience; " Wiiy, rcjcctin;;- arf;umeiits so forcible as 
 to a treatise of Plato, do I acce])t aricunients very inferior, as 
 to such or such a book of the (Jld or New Testament, — certain 
 
 [U instances]. He further notes some curious instances of the genitive case — and of 
 the dative — and also some rather uncommon periphrases ; also the pleonastic use of 
 the enclitics tis and of yi, of rafw, of iis, and tlie periphrastic use of the preposition 
 T€(ii. Lastly he observes the tendency to hvpurliata or transposition of words; and to 
 rhythmical uniformity as well as grammatical irregularity in the structure of the 
 sentences. 
 
 chapters of Isaiali, or Ecdesiastes, or these chapters of 
 Zechariah, or the Epistle to the Hebrews, or the Revelation 
 of S. John the Divine, — except on j^rounds of tiieolof^y, not 
 of criticism, and how am I true to myself in rejecting such 
 arguments as to human books, and accepting them as to 
 Divine books r" 
 
 " For nearly all the expressions, which are adduced by Zeller against the genuineness 
 of the Laws, Stallbaum hnds some sort of authority. There is no reason for suspecting 
 their genuineness, because several words occur in them, which are not found in the other 
 writings of Plato. An imitator will often preserve the usual phraseology of a writer, 
 better than he would lumsclf." From Prof! Jowett's Introduction to the Laws of Plato, 
 T.iv. pp. 11-16. 
 
 TABLE OP DATES, WHICH IN THIS CENTUEY HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO ZECHARIAH IX— XIV ' 
 
 AFTER THE DATE OF ZECHAEIAH. 
 
 "At the eai-liest, in the first half and 
 middle of the fifth century." 
 
 "The younger poet, whose visions were 
 added to those of Zechariah." 
 
 Last years of Darius Hystaspis, or first 
 of Xerxes^. 
 
 After the battle of Issus B.C. 333. 
 
 After 330. 
 
 Antiochus Epiphanes. 
 
 On Hyrcanus i, as the Messiah. 
 
 Vatke'. 
 
 Geiger-. 
 
 Gramberg ^. 
 
 Eichhorn". 
 
 Bottcher". 
 
 "many 
 
 interpreters ' ." 
 
 Paulus^. 
 
 " J. D. Michaelis, 1780, was uncertain. The opinions or doubts in the last century were 
 altogether vague. '* I have as yet no certainty, but am seeking : am also not opposed, if 
 any deny these chapters to be Zechariah's." Neue Orient, u. Exeg. Biblioth. i. 128. 
 
 Augusti stated attack and defence, but gave no opinion, Einl. ISUfi. G. L. Bauer (1793) 
 said generally, " c. ix-xiv. seem not to be Zechariah's," but professed himself in utter 
 uncertainty as to the dates. SchoUa T. viii. On ix-xiv. he says, "which seems not to 
 be Zechariah's," but whether Flligge was right who thought c. ix. belonged to the time 
 of Jeroboam ii., or Eichhorn, who doubted whether it was not later than Zechariah, he 
 says, " I decide notliing, leaving the whole question uncertain." p. 74. On xi. he says, 
 " we find no indication when the desolation was inflicted," though he would rather un- 
 derstand the Assyrians, than Ant. Epiph. or the Romans, pp. 96, 97. Of xii-xiv. he 
 leaves subject and time uncertain, pp. 109. 119. 121. Dbderlein also seems uncertain, 
 Auserl. theol. Biblioth. iv. 2. p. 81. (1787) 
 
 • Biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich dargestellt. i. 553. " It seems to have been 
 occasioned by the Persian-Egyptian wars, and by the feuds of the Jews with the neigh- 
 bouring people. Neliemiah found Jerusalem half destroyed [rather not rebuilt]. 'The 
 want of historical accounts makes it impossible to explain to what details refer." 
 
 '- (Rabbiner d. Synag. Gem. Breslau) Urschrift u. Uebersetz. d. Bibl. p. 55, 57. 1857. 
 
 ■* " When the fame of the Greeks, even in Palestine, must have been great enough to 
 suggest to the poet the thought, that so mighty and warlike a people could only be con- 
 quered by Jehovah and his Israelites ; then would mere peace and prosperity prevail." 
 
 ■* Religions-Ideen d. A. T. (with preface by Gesenius) ii. 521). 
 
 '" Einl. ins A.T. n. 605. iv. 445,449. 450. 1824. "If it is ti-ue, that all prophecies start 
 from the present, and prophets threaten with no people, and promise nothing of any, till 
 the people itself is come on the scene and into relation witli their people, the poet cannot 
 have spoken of the relation of Alexander to the Jews, till after the battle of Issus." "Alto- 
 gether, no explanation of the whole section (Lx l.-x. 17.) is possible, if it be not gained fiom 
 the history of Alexander the Great. History relates expresslv, how after the battle of Issus 
 he took possession of all Syria and Zidon without great difficulties ; how, with an employment 
 of military contrivance mdieard of elsewhei*e, he conquered and destroyed island-TjTe ; how, 
 of the maritime cities of Philistia, witli indomitable perseverance he is specified to have be- 
 sieged and taken Gaza, punished with death the opposition of its commander and its inhabi- 
 tants, can any require more to justity tins explanation !" "The portions ,xi. xii-.xiii. 6. have 
 no matter, from which their age could be determined ; yet neither do they contain any 
 thing to remove them to an early time ; rather has the language much which is late ; if 
 then the contents of xiii. 7-end, set it late, they too may be accounted late. This last 
 must either have been to comfort the people on the first tidings of the death of Judas 
 Maccabi in the battle with Bacchides, or have no definite subject.— In that case it would 
 
 ZECHARIAH HIMSELF. 
 
 [Beckhaus^ 1792] Jahn ">, Koster", 
 Henstenberg'-, Burger '^ De Wette (edd. 
 4-6). A. Theiner », Herbst '% Umbreit >S 
 Havernick '', Keil '^, Sfahelin '°, von 
 Hoffmann ^^', Ebrard, Schegg, Baumgar- 
 ten ", Neumann ", KUefoth", Kohler", 
 Sandrock ''. 
 
 belong to B.C. 161, yet one must own that there is not the same evidence for this, as that 
 ix. l.-x. 17. belongs to the time of Alexander. — These must be the proofs, that the 2nd 
 half of Zechariah cannot have the same author as the first, or one must allow what 
 tradition gives out, and since there are great doubts against it, one must regret that one 
 can come to no clear result as to Zechariah. For the other proofs which could be brought 
 are not decisive" pp. 450, 451. 
 
 Corrodi had on the same grounds assigned c. is. to the time of Alexander ; c. xiv. to 
 that of Antiochus Epiphanes. Versuch e. Beleuchtung d. Gesch. d. Jud. u. Christl. 
 Bibel-Canons i. 107. 
 
 * Ausf. Lehrbuch d. Hebr. Sprache. n. 45. p. 23. 1868. "The wav in which Greece is 
 named as a chief enemy of Zion (quite different from that of Joel iv. 6. Is. Ixri. 19.), chiefly 
 shews that the sections Zech. ix. sqq, which resist every assured collocation in the prtc-exile 
 or ante- Macedonian jjcriorf, could only have been written after .Alexander's march through 
 Palestme. With this agree the later colouring, the Leritical spirit, the stj'le full of com- 
 pilation and of imitation, as also the phantastic messianic hopes. These last must have been 
 rerived among the Jews after tlie overthrow through Alexander. In comparison with the 
 lifeless language of these chapters, as to which we caimot at all understand how any can have 
 removed them into so early prse-exile times, the Psalms attributed to the times of the 
 Maccabees are amazingly fresli. On this, as well as other grounds, we can admit of no 
 Psalms of the Maccabee times.'' Neue Aehrenlese ii. 215-127. One ground, which has by 
 others of tliis school been alleged for not ascribing them to Zechariah, had been that they were 
 so much more poetic &ic. " In regard to language also, the style in the second Part is wholly 
 different, c. 9. and 10. are energetic, vivid, &c." Hitzig, Vorbemerkk. z. d. ii. u. iii. Zech. n. 2. 
 " RosenmuUer says truly : — How much the poetic, weighty, concise, fervid stj-le of the six 
 last chapters differs from the prosaic, languid, humble st\'le of the eight first." Maurer on 
 Zech. ix-xiv. p. 667. "These prophecies [Zech. ix-xiv. | cannot be from Zechariah, not on 
 account of the mi-s\-mbolic style (comp. xi." 4-17.) but on account of the more forceful style" 
 S;c. De Wette Einl. § 250 ed. 2. ? in Bertholdt Einl. iv. 1715. 
 
 s Comni. z. N. t. iii. 130-139. Else he follows Eichhorn 1832, 
 "> lib. d. Integritiit d. Proph- Schriften d. A. B. p 337. sqq. 
 
 'u Einl. ii. 675. sqq. 
 
 u Meletemata crit. et exeg. in Zach. proph. part. post. 1818. 
 
 '- Beitrage zur Einl. ins A. T. i. 361. sqq. 
 
 " Etudes exeget. et critiques sur le proph. Zacharie. Strasburg 1811. 
 
 ^■* In their commentaries on Zechariah. 
 
 '5 In their Introductions to the O. T. 
 
 ^^ Schriftbeweis ii. 2. p. 550. 
 
 '^ Prioris et posterioris Zach. partis vaticin. ab iino eodemque auct. profecta. 1857. 
 
 E E E E 2
 
 512 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 TABLE OF DATES. 
 
 ix-xi. 
 ix-xi. 
 
 ix-xi. 
 ix-xi. 
 
 ix-x 
 
 . and 
 
 xiii. 
 
 7-9. 
 
 ix- 
 
 xi. 
 
 xiii. 
 
 7-9. 
 
 ix- 
 
 xi. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ix. 
 ix. 
 
 XI. 1-3. 
 
 xii 4-17. 
 
 ix. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ix. 
 
 X. 
 
 xi. 1-3. 
 xi. 4-17. xiii. 7-9. 
 
 DATES BEFOKE THE CAPTIVITY. 
 Uzziah B.C. 772. 
 
 Under Ahaz, during war with Pekah. 
 Bexinninff of Ahaz. 
 
 Later time of Hezekiah. 
 
 Between B.C. 771-740, i.e. between the 
 invasion of Pul, (2 Kgs xv. H).) and 
 the capture of Damascus by Tiglath- 
 Pileser (2 Kgs xvi. 9.) i.e. between 
 the 40th of Uzziah and the 3rd of 
 Ahaz. 
 
 In the first 10 years of Pekah before the 
 war with Ahaz [i.e. between B.C. 
 759-749]. 
 
 " Very probably Uzziah's favourite pro- 
 phet in liis prosperous days." 
 
 Contemporary with Isaiah under Ahaz 
 towards B.C. 736. 
 
 Perhaps contemporary with Zephaniali 
 [in the time of Josiah]. 
 
 Might be put in the time of .\haz. 
 
 Perhaps out of the time of Zephaniah. 
 
 Uzziah. 
 
 Ahaz, soon after war with Pekah and 
 
 Rezin. 
 Invasion of some .Assyrian king. 
 Menahem, and end of Uzziah. 
 Between the carrying away of 2i tribes 
 
 and the fall of Damascus. 
 Between 739-731, the 7 years' anarchy 
 
 between Hosea's murder of Pekah and 
 
 his own accession. 
 In reign of Hosea. 
 Under Uzziah and Jeroboam. 
 The Anarchy after death of Jeroboam ii. 
 
 [B.C. 784-772]. 
 B. C. 710. 
 Shortly after the war of Pekah and 
 
 Rezin. 
 Not before Jeroboam, nor before Uzziah's 
 
 accession, but before the death of 
 
 Zechariah son of Jeroboam. 
 
 Hitzig ', 
 
 Rosenmiiller '. 
 
 Bertholdt^ 
 
 Credner ', 
 
 llerzfeld '. 
 
 Baur'. 
 Knobel '. 
 
 Ewald^ 
 
 Stanley'. 
 
 Bunsen '". 
 
 De Wette". 
 
 Id. 
 
 Gesenius '•'. 
 
 Bleek ". 
 
 Forberg '■•. 
 
 Bleek. 
 
 Maurer ". 
 
 V. Ortenberg' 
 
 Hitzig' 
 
 Buch 
 
 > Theol. Studienu. Kritiken 1830. 1. p. 25. sqq. followed by v. Lengerke, d 
 Daniel, Einl. p. Ixxvii. 
 
 - Scholia in V. T. vii. 4. p. 254. sqq. ed. 2. In ed. 1. he had followed Jahn. 
 
 ■> Einl. ins A. T. iv. n. 431. pp. 1712-1716. In p. 1722 he conjectures the prophet to 
 have been Zechariah son of Jeberechiah (Is. viii. 2): a conjecture recommended by 
 Gesenius, Jesaia i. 527 as " an acute combination." Ewald calls the theory of one or more 
 Zechariahs, "an over-ingenious device (erkliigelte) idle conjecture, a plea of those who will 
 not look straight at the truth." Proph. i. 24U. 
 
 •1 Joel p. 07. s Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., Excurs. ii. n. 3. pp. 280-282. 
 
 6 d. Proph. Amos p. 34. ^ Proplietismus d. Hebriier li. 1G8-170, 
 
 " Kl. Proph. i. 248-251, followed mostly by E. Meier Gesch. d. poet, national, lit. d. 
 Hebriier p. WIS. ' Jewish Church ii. 444, add 364, 366. 
 
 I" Gott in d. Geschichte i. 453. In p. 247, he placed ch. ix. at "a generation after Ahaz." 
 
 11 Einl. ins A. T. n. 250. p. 338. edd. 1-3. '= On Is. xxiii. p. 713. 
 
 '3 Einl. ins A. T. p. 565-560. " Comm. crit. et exeg. in part. post. Zach. P. i. 
 
 1'^ Maurer Comm. p. 6<jy. "^ Die Bestandtheile d. Buchs 
 
 Sacharia pp. 68. 72. 75, 70, followed by KahnisLuthcrische Dogm. i. 354-357. 
 
 17 D. Kl. Proph. ii.und iii. Zacharia,Vorbenitrk. n.4.p. 351. ed. 2., followed hySchroder 
 in bus re-writing of De Wettc's Einl. n. 308, only placing c. ix. definitely in the time of 
 Jeroboam ii. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ix. 
 
 xii. 1-xiii. 6. 
 
 xiii. 7. -end. 
 xii. 1-xiii. 0. 
 
 xiii. -7. end. 
 
 xii. 1-xiii. 0. 
 
 xiii. 7. -end. 
 
 xii. 1-xiii. 0. 
 
 xiv. 
 
 xii-xiii. 6. 
 
 xiii. 7-9. 
 xiv. 
 
 xii-xiii. 6. xiv. 
 xii. 1-xiii. 6. 
 xiii. 7- end. 
 
 xii. 1-xiii. 6. xiv. 
 
 Beginning of reign of Menahem. 
 
 Possibly contemi>orary with Hosea. 
 
 AftKT cajjture of Damascus by Tiglath- 
 Pileser. 
 
 Manasseh, in view of a siege by Esar- 
 haddon. 
 
 Between B.C. 6O7-0O4 (though falsified) 
 
 Soon after Josiah's death, by Uriah, 
 Jeremiah's contemporary, B.C. G07 or 
 606. 
 
 Most probably, while the Chaldecs were 
 already before Jerusalem, shortly be- 
 fore Jerusalem was first conquered 
 (599). 
 
 Under Joiakim or Jeconiali or Zede- 
 kiah in Nebuchadnezzar's last expedi- 
 tion (no objection that it was falsi- 
 fied). 
 
 Soon after Josiah's death. 
 
 The last years of Jehoiakim, or under 
 Jehoiachin or Zedekiah. 
 
 " Exceeding -probably under Josiah or 
 Jehoiakim." 
 
 Fourth year of Jehoiakim. 
 
 Fifth. 
 
 The latter half of 600 B.C. 
 
 Later than xii. l.-xiii. 6. 
 
 12 years after Habakkuk [about B.C. 
 607, Ewald] shortly before the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem. 
 
 Same date as ix. xi. (see above). 
 
 A little later than xii-xiii. 
 
 or. In tlie first rebellion against Nebu- 
 
 Hitzg'^ 
 
 Bauer '*. 
 Movers ". 
 
 Hitzig «•. 
 
 KnobeP'. 
 Bunsen ". 
 
 Schrader'^. 
 
 Bertholdt". 
 
 Bertholdt". 
 Bleek =«. 
 
 Bleek 27. 
 
 Maurer"'*. 
 
 . Ortenberg"' 
 
 Ewald ™. 
 
 Ewald 3'. 
 
 Stanley ''. 
 De Wette ed. 
 
 Kahnis". 
 
 chadnezzar " ^- by Chananiah, or one of 
 the many prophets who contradicted 
 Jeremiah." 
 Zedekiah, " Beginning of revolt." 
 " Prophecies of fanatic contents, which 
 deny all historical explanation, but 
 xiii. 7. must rather be conceived as 
 future than ' past,' as Bertholdt." 
 After death of Josiah, yet relating to 
 the repentance for the putting the 
 Messias to death, and so independent 
 of the times in which it is placed. 
 
 1' " What I think, or rather, conjecture." Schulzii Scholia continuata viii. 100. 
 
 '9 Phoenicien ii. 1. p. 383, 381. 
 
 ™ Kl. Proph. ii und iii. Sach. n. 5. 6. ed. 2, 3. 
 
 -'1 Prophetismus ii. 289. -- Gott in d. Geschichte i. 451, 452. 
 
 -* De Wette's Eialeitung, re-written from his Ed. vi. n. 308. a new § p. 382. 
 
 -'< Einl. iv. 1717. '^ lb. 1719. 
 
 =fi Einl. p. 560. ^ lb. 563. "■* Proph. Min. p. 670. 
 
 -J Bestandtheile &c. p. 87- ^" Kl. Proph. ii. 52. 
 
 ^1 lb. ii. 59. "At a time when the earnest and more threatening condition of the 
 world softened the proud certainty of victory, and occasioned the anticipation of the 
 fulfilment of a judgement on the holy city." xiv. 1-2. 
 
 •'■- Geschichte d. Volkes Isr. iii. 803. Ewald says that he often balanced between them, 
 but always ended by coming back to the first, since xiv. 2. probably referred to the capture 
 under Jehoiachin, 
 
 ^1 Jewish Church. Sect. xi. " special authorities." p. 513. Passing him over in the 
 history, he escapes the consequence which Ewald drew out, that he would have been a 
 f.ilse prophet, altliough he says, that " in Hananiah," whose death Jeremiah prophesied 
 for " telling lies in the name of the Lord," " passed away the last echo of tne ancient 
 invincible strain of the age of Isaiah." p. 545. 
 
 •■" Einl. n. 250. p. 338 ed. 1822. ^' Lutherische Dogm. i. 359-361.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 513 
 
 cH^'TsT CHAPTER I. 
 
 '^""- ^^'*- 1 Zechariah exhorteth to repentance. / The vision 
 of the horses. 12 At the prayer of the (tui^el 
 comfortable promises are mai/e to Jerusalem. 
 18 The vision of the horns, and the four car- 
 penters. 
 
 " H^gA'.^." ~\^ t'"' eightli month, "in the second year 
 -L of Darius, came the word of the Ijord 
 Ezras. 1. ii unto ZcchuHah, the son of Berechiah, the 
 
 Matt. 23.35. 
 
 son of Iddo the prophet, say in j^, 
 
 Chap. 1. 1. In the eighth month^. The date joins on Ze- 
 chariah's propliccy to those of Haggai. Two months before, 
 in the sixth month -, liad Haf>;c:ai, conjointly with Zechariah ■', 
 exhorted Zerubbahel and the people to resume the inter- 
 mitted buildina: of the temple. Tliese had used such dili- 
 .cence, notwithstanding the partial discouragement of the 
 Persian Government'^, that God gave them in the seventh 
 month, the magnificent promise of the later glory of the 
 temple through the Coming of Christ ^. Still as Haggai too 
 warned them, the conversion was not complete. So Zecha- 
 riah in the eighth, as Haggai in the ninth'' month, urges 
 upon them the necessity of thorough and inward repentance, 
 as the condition of partaking of those promises. 
 
 "^Thrice in the course of one saying, he mentions the most 
 holy name of God ; partly to instruct in the knowledge of 
 Three Persons in one Nature, partly to confirm their minds 
 more strongly in the hope of the salvation to come." 
 
 2. lit. IVroth was the Lord against your fathers ivith wrath^, 
 i. e., a wrath which was indeed sucli, whose greatness he does 
 not further express, but leaves to their memories to supply. 
 "^Seest thou how he scares them, and, setting before the 
 young what befel those before them, drives them to amend, 
 threatening them with the like or more grievous ills, unless 
 they would wisely reject their fathers' ways, esteeming the 
 pleasing of God worthy of all thought and care. He speaks 
 of great wrath. For it indicates no slight displeasure that 
 He allowed the Babylonians to waste all Judah and Samaria, 
 burn the holy places and destroy Jerusalem, remove the elect 
 Israel to a piteous slavery in a foreign land, severed from 
 sacrifices, entering no more the holy court nor offering the 
 thank-offering, or tithes, or first-fruits of the law, but pre- 
 cluded by necessity and fear even from the duty of celebra- 
 ting his prescribed and dearest festivals. The like we might 
 address to the Jewish people, if we would apply it to the mys- 
 tery of Christ. For after they had hilled the prophets and 
 had crucified the Lord of glory Himself, they were captured 
 and destroyed ; their famed temple was levelled, and Hosea's 
 words were fulfilled in them ; ^" The ehildren of Israel shall 
 abide many days xvithont a king and without a prince, tcith- 
 niit a sacrifice and without an image, tcithout an ephcnl and 
 without teraphim." 
 
 3. Therefore say tliou. lit. And thou sayest, i. e., this hav- 
 ing been so, it follows that thou sayest or must say^', Turn 
 
 ' Not as Kim. in the 8th new-moon ; for though v^n is used of the new-moon, Num. 
 xxvili. 14, 1 Sam. xx. 5, 18, 24; Am. viii. 5. (not Ex. xix. 1. or Hos. v. 7.) it is not so 
 used in dates, in which it would be ambiguous. 
 
 - Hagg. i. 1. 3 Ezr. v. 1, 2. * lb. 3-5. 
 
 ' Hagg. ii. 1-9. « lb. 10-14. 7 Osor. 
 
 ' As we might express by the indefinite article " a blow " for " such a blow." The 
 LXX fill up opyijy fitydKriv. Ewald(Lehrb. n. 281. p. 702.) quotes xap? x^'pf'i S.John 
 hi. 29. 
 
 .V. 2 ^ //r ^ 
 
 Miy 
 
 2 The Lord hath been f sore displeased ch^'^Pst 
 with your fathers. "'"■ ^-*>- 
 
 o ri'i c 1 1 mi t Heb. with 
 
 o 1 iicretore say thou unto them, Thus displeasure. 
 saith the Lord of liosts ; Turn "^ ye unto me, "^ Jer-ss.s. 
 saith the Lord ot lu)sts, and I will turn Mic. 7. ly. 
 
 ' Mai. 3. 7. 
 
 unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. Luke 15. 20. 
 
 James 4. 8. 
 
 4 Be ye not as your fathers, ^ unto whom * ^Pv^"- ^^'^^ 
 the former prophets have cried, .saying, 
 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; "^^Turn ye now 
 
 ' Isai. 31. C. Jer. 3. 12. & lii. 11. Ezek. 18.30. Hos. 14. 1. 
 
 ye unto Me, In some degree they had turned to God, for 
 Whose sake they had returned to their land; and again wlicn, 
 after some negligence'-, they renewed the building of the 
 temple, and God had said, '^Z am with you. But there needed 
 yet a more inward completer turning, wliereoii God jiroinises 
 a yet nearer presence, as Malachi repeats the words ", and 
 S. James exhorts '% Draw nigh to God and lie will draw nigh 
 to you. Those who have turned to God need ever to turn more 
 into the centre of the narrow way. As the soul opens itself 
 more to God, God, Whose communication of Himself is ever 
 hindered only by our closing the door of our liearts against 
 Him, enters more into it. ^'^ If a man love Me, he leill keep 
 My words, and My Father will love him, and IFe will come 
 unto him, and make Our abode ivith him. 
 
 '"'Men are said to be converted, when leaving behind 
 them deceitful goods, they give their whole mind to God, 
 bestowing no less pains and zeal on Divine things than before 
 on the nothings of life." 
 
 "'^When it is said in Holy Scripture, Turn unto Me and 
 I will turn unto you, we are admonished as to our own free- 
 dom ; when we answer. Turn us. Lord, unto Thee, and we 
 shall be turned, we confess that we are forecome bv the grace 
 of God." 
 
 4. Be ye not like your fathers. Strangely infectious is 
 the precedent of ill. Tradition of good, of truth, of faith, is 
 decried; only tradition of ill and error are adhered to. The 
 sin of Jeroboam was held sacred by every king of Israel : 
 '** The statutes of Omri were diligently kept, a)ul all the works 
 of the house of Ahab. They turned hack and were treacherous 
 like their forefathers ; they turned themselves like a deceitful 
 bow^'^, is God's summary of the history of Israel. '■"•'Absurd 
 are they who follow the ignorances of their fathers, and ever 
 plead inherited custom as an irrefragable defence, though 
 blamed for extremest ills. So idolaters especially, being 
 called to the knowledge of the truth, ever bear in mind the 
 error of tlieir fathers and, embracing their ignorance as an 
 hereditary lot, remain blind." 
 
 The former prophets. The prophets spake God's words, 
 as well in their pastoral office as in predicting things to come, 
 in enforcing God's law and in exhorting to repentance, as 
 in announcing the judgements on disobedience. The predic- 
 tive as well as the pastoral office were united in Nathan ^, 
 Gad=', Shemaiah--, Azariah^^, Hanani^^ Elijah -5, Elisha=6, 
 
 « S. Cyr. •" Hos. iii. 4. See ab. p. 24. 
 
 11 The force of isnOKi. The duty is impUed in v. 2. '- Hagg. i. 2-11. 
 
 13 lb. 13. ■ 'J Mai. iii. 7. ■=■ S. James iv. 8. >« S. John xiv. 23. 
 
 1" Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 5. 's Mic. ^-i. 16. i' Ps. Ixxrai. 57. 
 
 =1 2 Sam. vii. 4-16, xii. 1-14. -' 1 Sam. xxii. 5. xxiv. 11. 
 
 22 2 Chr. xi. 2-4, xii. 5-8. =3 lb. xx. -^ lb. xvi. 7-9. 
 
 ^ 1 Kgs xvii. 1, 14, x™i. 1, 41, xxi. 19, 21, 23, 29, 2 Kgs i. 4, 16. 
 =6 2 Kgs iii. 17, 18. iv. 16, v. 27, vii. 1, 2, viii. 10-13, xiii. 14-19- 
 
 »<,..
 
 514 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 Before from 
 CHRIST ""'" 
 
 cir. 520. 
 
 doings 
 
 fisai. 55. 1. 
 
 I Or, 
 
 overtake. 
 
 Lam. 1. 18. 
 & 2. 17. 
 
 your evil way.s, and from your ovil 
 but tlii'y did not hear, nor hearken 
 unto me, saith the Lord. 
 
 5 Your fathers, where are they ? and 
 tlie prophets, do they live for ever ? 
 
 6 But "^niy words and my statutes, whieh 
 I commanded my servants the prophets, did 
 they not |1 take hold of your fathers ? and 
 they returned and said, ^ Like as the Lord 
 of hosts thought to do unto us, according 
 
 Rlicaiah the son of Imla, whose habitual predictions a2;ainst 
 Ahab induced Ahab to say', I /tafc liim,for lie doth not pro- 
 phesi) good concerning me, hut evil. The specific calls to con- 
 version here named and their fruitlessness, arc summed up 
 by Jeremiah as words of all the prophets. For ten years he 
 says, ^ The word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have 
 spoken unto you, rising early and speaking, and ye have not 
 hearkened. And the Lord hath sent unto you all His servants 
 the prophets, rising early and sending ; hut ye have not heark- 
 ened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said. Turn ye again 
 now every one from his evil luays and from the evil of your 
 doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto 
 you and to your fathers for ever and ever ; and go not after 
 other gods to serve and worship them, and provoke Me not to 
 anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt. 
 But ye have not hearkened unto 3Ic, saith the Lord; that ye 
 might jjrovoke Me to anger with the works of ycmr hands to 
 your oivn hurt. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Be- 
 cause ye have not heard My ivords Sfc. The prophetic author 
 of the book of Kings sums up in like way, of all the prophets 
 and all the seers. ^ The Lord testified against Israel and 
 against .Tialah hy the hand of all the prophets and all the seers, 
 saying, Turn ye from your evil ways and keep My command- 
 ments, My statutes, according to all the lau< which I commanded 
 your fathers, and tvhich I sent to you, hy My servants the pro- 
 phets, and they did not hear, and hardened their neck, like the 
 neck of their fathers. 
 
 The characteristic word*, turn from your evil irays and the 
 evil of your doings occurring in Jeremiah, it is probable, that 
 this summary was chiefly in the mind of Zechariah, and that 
 he refers not to Isaiah, Joel, Amos &c., (as all the prophets 
 were preachers of repentance), but to the whole body of 
 teachers, whom God raised up, analogous to the Christian 
 ministry, to recall men to Himself. 
 
 The title, the former prophets, contrasts the office of Haggai 
 and Zechariah, not with definite prophets before the captivity, 
 but with the whole company of those, whom God sent as He 
 says, so unremittingly. 
 
 A)id they hearkened not unto Me, "^They heard not 
 the Lord warning through the prophets, attended not — not 
 to the Prophets who spake to them but — not to Me, saith 
 the Lord. For I was in them who spake and was despised. 
 Whence also the Lord in the Gospel saith, "^ He that receiveth 
 you, receiveth Me." 
 
 1 1 Kgs xxii. 8. 2 Jer. xxv. 3-8. 
 
 3 2 Kgs. svii. 1.3. 
 ■• Zech. D'lnn DDWVDi D'tnn D3'3-nD m laiiJ .Ter. xxv. 5. dd-'j^jo jtoi nynn i:tv3 e"n k: nr 
 In Jer. xviii. 11. the second clause is, DD'^Syni Dnn iiTaTii ; in Jer. xxxv. 15, it is, 
 D^'SSyo iD'DMi. In Zech., the Kri D3''?Sud substitutes Jeremiali's word for tlie oTr. A€7. 
 D-S-SjIO. 5 s. Jer. 6 S. Matt. x. 40. 
 
 ' It is probably for emphasis, that (here alone) the full en .tn stands for the con- 
 
 to our ways, and according to our doings, chrTst 
 so hath lit! dealt with us. "'"■ '^-"- 
 
 7 ^ Upon the four and twentieth day of c'r- sw. 
 the eleventh month, which u the month 
 Sehat, in the second year of Darius, came 
 
 the word of the Ijord unto Zechariah, the 
 son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the 
 prophet, saying, 
 
 8 I saw by night, and behold '' a man ^ Josh. 5. 13. 
 
 Rev. G. 4. 
 
 riding upon a red horse, and he stood 
 
 5. Your fathers, luhere are they''? The abrupt solemnity 
 of tlie question seems to imply an unexpected close of life 
 which cut short their hopes, plans, promises to self. ^ When 
 they said, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh 
 upon them. Yet not they only but the prophets too, who 
 ministered God's word to them, these also being men, passed 
 away, some of them before their time as men, by the martyr's 
 death. Many of them saw not their own words fulfilled. 
 But God's word which they spake, being from God, passed 
 not away. 
 
 6. 0)ily My words and My decrees^, which God spake 
 by them, did not they overtake them ? Heathen reminiscence 
 of God's justice acknowledged, "i° Rarely hath punishment 
 with limping tread parted with the forerunning miscreant." 
 All these curses, Moses foretells '', shall come upon thee and 
 overtake thee^', until thou art destroyed. 
 
 And they returned to God and said. The history of the 
 Jews in Babylon is omitted in Holy Scripture, except as to 
 His special dealings with Daniel and his three companions. 
 Yet Jeremiah confesses in words, what Zechariah bad ap- 
 parently in his mind; '■' The Lord hath done that which He 
 purposed; He hath fulfilled His tvord, which He commanded 
 in the days of old. The Lamentations are one long con- 
 fession of deserved punishment, such as Daniel too made 
 in the name of his people with himself*. 
 
 It was one long waiting for God and for the restoration of 
 His visible worship. Yet repentance was a condition of their 
 restoration. 
 
 7. On the twenty fourth day, exactly five months after 
 the building of the temple was resumed '% and two months 
 after Haggai's last prophecy '''. The series of visions, leading 
 onwards, from the first deliverance from the enemies who 
 oppressed them, to the Coming of Christ, is given as a reward 
 to their first whole-hearted endeavour to restore their wor- 
 ship of Him. The visions are called the word of the Lord, 
 because they were prophecy, made visible to the eye, con- 
 veying the revelation to the soul, and in part explained 
 by Him. 
 
 8. I saiv in the night, i. e. that following on the twenty- 
 fourth day. The darkness of the night perhaps was chosen, 
 as agreeing with the dimness of the restored condition. 
 Night too is, " '^ through the silence of the senses and of the 
 fancy, more suited for receiving Divine revelations." 
 
 A man riding upon a red horse. The man is an angel 
 
 tracted n;N ; our, " where are they ?" ' 1 Thess. v. 3. 
 
 3 As p's. ii. 7. Zeph. ii. 2. i» Hor. Od. iii. 9. fin. " Deut. xxviii. 45. 
 
 '■- The same word rii'n (as here) occurs also lb. 15 ; of the Divine wrath, Ps. Ixix. 
 25 : of iniquities. Ps. xl. 13. 
 
 " Lam. ii. 17. cat is used of God, in connection with nc'j; in both places and in Jer. Ii. 
 12. DO? is used of God besides only in Jer. iv. 28. The verb is used only 13 times in all. 
 
 » Dan. ix. 4-16. " Hagg. ii. 15. '« lb. ii. 20. 17 Dion. 
 
 r.V.f.-'. -i 
 
 U'4
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 515 
 
 c H rTst «i'"<^>"o the myrtle trees that iiiere in the 
 cir. 519. bottom ; and hehuid hhn loere there 'red 
 Iio'r^bal/V^' horses, II speckled, and white. 
 
 9 Then said I, () my lord, what are 
 these ? And the ani^el that talked witli 
 me said unto me, I will shew thee what 
 these be. 
 
 of God, appearing in form of man, as Daniel says, "'^T/ie 
 man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the begin- 
 ning!^, tonehed mc." He is donbtlcss the same who appeared 
 to Joshua in form of man, prej)aring thereby for the revela- 
 tion of God manifest in the jiesh — He, before whom Joshua 
 fell on his face and in him worshipped God, through whom 
 also God required the same tokens of reverenee as He had 
 from Moses". Joshua lifted up his eyes, and looked, and he- 
 huid there stood a 7nan over against him with a sword dratrn 
 in his hand, who said, as Captain of the Lord's host am 1 
 cotne. He rides here, as Leader of the host who follow Him ; 
 to Him the others report, and He instructs the Angel who 
 instructs the prophet. Red, being the colour of blood, symbo- 
 lises doubtless "^the vengeance of God to be inflicted on the 
 enemies of the Jews for their sins committed against the 
 Jews," exceeding the measure of chastisement allowed by 
 God. It probably was S. Michael*, who is entitled in Daniel, 
 your prince^, the great prince ichich standeth up for the children 
 of thy people ". 
 
 And he luas standing, almost as we say, stationary, abid- 
 ing in that one place. The description is repeated^, ap- 
 parently as identifying this angel, and so he and the angel 
 of the Lord^ are probably one. 
 
 The myrtle trees'^, from their fragrance and lowness, 
 probably symbolise the Church, as at once yielding a sweet 
 odour, and in a low estate, or lowly. The natural habits 
 of the myrtle make it the fitter symboP". 
 
 And behind him. The relation of the Angel as their 
 chief is represented by their following him. This is con- 
 sistent with their appearing subsequently as giving report to 
 him. The red and white horses are well-known symbols 
 of war and glory, whence He Who sits on the white horse ^^ 
 in the Revelations, went forth conquering and to conquer. 
 The remaining colour is somewhat uncertain. If it be ashen 
 gray, it would correspond to the pale horse i- of the Revela- 
 tions, and the union of the two colours, black and white, 
 is calculated to be a symbol of a chequered state of things, 
 whereas a mingled colour like " chestnut" is not suggestive 
 of any symbol. 
 
 9. IFhat are these ? He asks, not ivho, but luhat ^^ they 
 import. 
 
 ' Dan. ix. 21. = Josh. v. 13-15. See on " the Angel of the Lord " 
 
 in " Daniel the Prophet," pp. 519-525. 3 Dion. 4 Dan. x. 13. * lb. 21. 
 
 f' lb. xii. 1. S. Jerome observes, " The Jews suppose the man on the red horse to be 
 the Angel Michael, who was to avenge the iniquities and sins against Israel." 
 
 7 ver. 10. ^ ver. 11. 
 
 ' The name of the plant. Din, occurs in the Arabic of Yemen (Kam. p. 812 and 
 Abulwalid) and is probably tile basis of Esther's original name, fiDiri, perhaps i. q. 
 "hroaaa. Ges. 
 
 "I nSro, Stt. in form, is doubtless the same as n^sp, hhf being used of sinking in the 
 water, Ex. xv. 10. " In profundo," S. Jer. (Virg. Georg. ii. 112, litora myrtetis 
 gratissima, and lb. iv. 121, amantes litora niyrti.) The LXX KinaiTKiaiv would rather 
 have been n^o, and the myrtles make shade, but do not grow in a shady place. Hitz. 
 Ew. Maur. correct n^^D, " the tent," (as Arab. nSuzi) i. e. " of God," they say. But the 
 tabernacle, while it existed, was not so called; nor did myrtles grow before it. Bottcher 
 n. 641. 7.) nVjD, " schatten-dach." " Rev. vi. 2. 
 
 10 And the man that stood among the j, jf 'jJ^J^g ,j, 
 myrtle trees answered and said, ^ These '■'"■ ■'"'''■'• 
 are the;/ whom the Lord hath sent to walk " ''"'' ^" ''• 
 to and fro through the earth. 
 
 11 'And they answered the an<rel of tlie ' i'^- 1«3.20, 
 
 21* 
 
 Loud that stood among the myrtle trees, 
 and said, We have walked to and fro 
 
 The angel that talked luith me. lit. " spake in me." The 
 very rare exj)ression "^ seems meant to convey the thought of 
 an inward speaking, whereby tlie words siiould be liorne 
 directly into the soul, without the intervention of the or- 
 dinary outward organs. God says to Moses, '^ If there is a 
 prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make Myself knoien unto 
 him in a vision, I luill speak [lit.] in him in a dream. My 
 servant Moses is not so — In him rvill I speak mouth to 
 mouth; and Habakkuk says of the like inward teaching, 
 1" / ivill watch to see, what He ivill speak in me. It is the 
 characteristic title of one attendant-angel, who was God's 
 expositor of the visions to Zechariahi'. "-^By his ministry 
 God shewed me things to come, in that that angel formed 
 in the spirit and imaginative power of Zechariah phantasms 
 or images of things which were foreshewn him, and gave 
 him to understand what those images signified." 
 
 11. A)ul tlie man answered to the question addressed to 
 the attendant-angel. He himself took the word. 
 
 These are they xvhom the Lord sent to tvalk up and down. 
 Satan says of himself that he came ^^from going to and fro 
 in the earth and from walking up and doivn in it. As he 
 for evil, so these for good. Their office was not a specific 
 or passing duty, as when God sent His angels witli some 
 special commission, such as those recorded in Holy Scrip- 
 ture. It was a continuous conversation with the affairs of 
 men, a minute course of visiting, inspecting our human 
 deeds and ways, a part of the "^^ wonderful order," in which 
 God has "ordained and constituted the services of Angels 
 and men." Nor is it said that the Angels were limited, each 
 to his own peculiar province, as we learn through Daniel, 
 that certain great Angels, Princes among them, had the 
 charge of empires or nations, even of the heathen -°. These 
 Angels had apparently only the office of inspecting and re- 
 porting to Angels of a higher order, themselves a subordi- 
 nate order in the heavenly Hierarchy. Nor are they spoken 
 of, as executing any judgements of God, or as pacifying the 
 earth; they may have been so employed; but they are only 
 said to have reported the state in which they found it. 
 
 These answei-ed the unexpressed enquiry of the angel of 
 the Lord, as he had answered the unuttered question of the 
 angel, attendant on Zechariah. 
 
 '2 Rev. vi. 8, ij/apol, 6 ; varii, S. Jer., ^afBol Aq. The prnp of the Targum is itself un- 
 certain. It is a conjecture only of Levy, that it may be i. q. Kvavoxahns, "dark- 
 maned." Rashi and Kim. own that they do not know. The Peshito K'Jl'^ corres- 
 ponds to the Heb. mStj in Gen. xxx. 32. (bis) 33, 35 (bis) 39. but its meaning, in itself, is 
 equally unknown. The Hebrew root occurs besides, only of a choice vine, pi. Is. xvi. 8, 
 p-p Is. V. 2. Jer. ii. 21, n^lp Gen. xlix. 11 ; in Arab. pTD, Abulw. But although this 
 vine, growing only in Syria, has small blue-black grapes (Kim.), it is mere guess that 
 it is so called from its colour, or that pncr signiiies red or dark. It is equally a guess 
 that pit" is transposed from Arab. 'liSVit "chestnut," (as distinct from "bay" h'-c^). iopo 
 is used of the colour of fire. '^ .10, not T3. ".'jt^t' 
 
 15 Nu. xii. 6-9. 16 Hab. ii. 1. These are the only additional instances 
 
 of the construction, unless Jer. xxxi. 20, be used of tender speaking, " in (elsewhere 
 in the heart of) Ephraim." 
 
 1' i. 13, 14, 19 (ii. 2 Heb.) ii. 3. [7] iv. 1, 4, 5. v. 5. 10. i-i. 4. 
 1-" Job ii. 2, 19 Collect for S. Michael's dav. 
 
 ' See"Daniel the Prophet "pp. 525, 526.
 
 51(5 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 c h^rTs t throujrh the eartli, and, behold, all the earth 
 "'■ SI'-*- sitteth still, and is at vest. 
 
 12 ^f Then the anj^el of the Lord an- 
 » Ps. 102. 13. svvered and said, "" O Lord of hosts, how 
 
 Rev. 6. 10. 
 
 long wilt then not have nierey on Jerusalem 
 
 and on the eities of Juduh, a2;ainst which 
 
 "jer.25.11,12. thou luist had iudiij-natiou "these three- 
 Dan. 9. 2. ^ 
 
 ch.7.5. score and ten years ? 
 
 Sitteth still and is at rest, at rest, as the word seems 
 to express S from its wonted state of tumult and war. Wars, 
 although soon to break out again, were in tlic second year of 
 Darius for the time suspended. The rest, in which the world 
 was, suggests the contrast of the yet continuing unrest allot- 
 ted to the people of God. Such rest had been promised to 
 Israel, on its return from the captivity", but had not yet been 
 fulfilled. Through the hostility of the Samaritans the building 
 of the temple had been hindered and was just recommenced ; 
 the wall of Jerusalem was yet broken down'; its fire-burned 
 gates not restored; itself was a waste*; its bouses unbuilt ^ 
 This gives occasion to the intercession of the Angel of the 
 Lord. 
 
 12. And the Angel of the Lord answered the implied 
 longing, by intercession with God. As the angel-interpreter 
 in Job had ""the office of no mere created angel, but one, 
 anticipative ni His, Who came at once to redeem and justify," 
 so the Angel of the Lord, in whom God was, exercised at once 
 a mediatorial office with God, typical of our Lord's High 
 Priest's prayer^, and acted as God. 
 
 These seventi/ years. The seventy years of the captivity, 
 prophesied by Jeremiah ^, were on the eve of their conclusion 
 at the time of Daniel's great prayer of intercession ' ; they 
 ended with the capture of Babylon, and the edict of Cyrus, 
 permitting the Jews to return '". Yet there seems to have 
 been a secondary fulfilment, from the destruction of the tem- 
 ple and city, in'Zedekiah's eleventh year^^, 588 B.C. to the 
 second year of Darius, 619 B.C. Such double fulfilments of 
 prophecy are not like alternative fulfilments. They are a 
 more intricate and fuller, not an easier fulfilment of it. Yet 
 these 70 years do not necessitate such a double fulfilment. 
 It might express only a reverent wonder, that the 70 years 
 being accomplished, the complete restoration was not yet 
 brought to pass. "^-God having fixed the time of the captivity 
 to the 70th year, it was necessary to be silent, so long as the 
 time was not yet come to an end, that he might not seem to 
 oppose the Lord's will. But, when the time was now come 
 to a close and the fear of offending was removed, he, know- 
 ing that the Lord cannot lie, entreats and ventures to enquire 
 whether His anger has come to an end, as had those who sin- 
 ned; or whether, fi-esh sins having accrued, there shall be a 
 further delay, and their forlorn estate shall be yet further ex- 
 tended. They then who worship God have a good and not 
 uncertain hope, that, if they should oft'end from infirmity, yet 
 have they those who should entreat for them, not men only, 
 
 ' tp? is the word used in the book of .Tudges of the rest given to the land under judges 
 until its fresh departure from God, Jud. iii. 11, 30, v. 31, viii. 28. ; of the undisturbed 
 life of the people of Laish, Jud. xviii. 7, 27 ; " from war," ncnVea, is added, Jos. xi. 23, 
 xiv. 15, of the rest after the war whereby Israel was put in possession of Canaan. 
 
 It is used of the rest in Asa's days, 2 Chr. xiii. 23, Heb. given him by God, xiv, 4, 5. 
 of the rest of the city after the death of Athaliah, 2 Kgs xi. 20, 2 Chr. xxiii. 21 ; of 
 the earth, after the destruction of Babylon, Is. xiv. 7- 
 
 - with the same word tips' Jer. xxx. 10, xlvi. 27. ^ Nch. i. 3. 
 
 ^ lb. ii. 3. 5 lb. vii. 4. 
 
 6 See " Daniel the Prophet" p. 523. ? S. John xvii. 
 
 1.3 And the Lord answered the angel ch^hYst 
 that talked witli nie ii'ith " good words uttd '-'"'• "■'''•'• 
 
 <■ . 1 1 I o Jer. 29. 10. 
 
 con)rorta!)le words. 
 
 14 So the angel that communed with 
 me said unto me. Cry thou, saying. Thus 
 saith the Lord of hosts; I am i' jealous p Joel 2. is. 
 for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great 
 jealousy. 
 
 but the holy angels themselves, who render God gracious and 
 propitious, sootliing His anger by their purity, and in a man- 
 ner winning the grieved Judge. Then the Angel entreated 
 for the synagogue to the Jews ; but we, vvho believe and have 
 been sanctified in the Sjiirit, ^* hare an Advocate u'ith the 
 Father Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation 
 for our sins, and as the Divine Paul writes, ^^God hath set 
 Him forth as a propitiation through faith, freeing from sin 
 those who come to Him." 
 
 1.3. And the Lord ansivered the angel that talked with me. 
 Either directly, at the intercession of the angel of the Lord, 
 or mediately through an answer first given to him, and by 
 him communicated to the subordinate angel. Neither is 
 expressed. 
 
 Good words, as God had promised ^', after seventy years 
 shall he accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform 
 My good word unto you, causing you to return to this place ; 
 and Joshua says, ^^There failed not ought of any good word 
 which the Lord spake unto the house of Israel. 
 
 Comfortahle luords, lit. consolations^'^ . Perhaps the Angel 
 who received the message had, from their tender compassion 
 for us, whereby they ^'''joy over one sinner that repenteth, a part 
 in these consolations which he conveyed. 
 
 14. Cry thou. The vision was not for the prophet 
 alone. What he saw and heard, that he was to proclaim to 
 others. Tiie vision, which he now saw alone, was to be the 
 basis and substance of his subsequent preaching i', whereby 
 he was to encourage his people to persevere. 
 
 I am jealous for Jerusalem, lit. I have been, not now only 
 but in time past even when I did not shew it, and am jealous^\ 
 witli the tender love which allows not what it loves to be in- 
 jured -i. The love of God, until finally shut out, is unchange- 
 able, He pursues the sinner with chastisements and scourges 
 in His love, that he may yet be converted and live ^-. But for 
 God's love to him and the solicitations of His grace, while 
 yet impenitent and displeasing Him, he could not turn and 
 please Him. 
 
 And for Zion, which especially He had chosen to put 
 His Name there, and there to i-eceive the worship of His peo- 
 ple; -^the hill which God desired to dicell in, "^tvhich He loved. 
 "-^With great and special love have 1 loved the people of the 
 Jews and what pertained to them, and out of that love have 
 I so diligently and severely corrected her excesses, that she 
 may be more careful for the time to come, as a husband cor- 
 rects most sharply a wife most dear to him, if she be unfaith- 
 
 s Jer. XXV. 11, 12. xxix. 10. 
 10 2 Chr. xxxvi. 22, 23. Ezr. i. 1. 
 
 1-' S. Cyr. 
 " Rom. iii. 25. 's jer. xxix. 10. 
 
 '' as Is. Ivii. 18. 
 
 9 Dan. ix. 2. 
 " 2 Kgs XXV. 2, 8, 9. 
 IS 1 S. John ii. 1, 2. 
 16 Josh. xxi. 43 (45 Eng.) add xxiii. 14, 15. 
 IS S. Luke XV. 10. 
 
 K^p, ab. 4. Jon. i. 2. Is. xl. 2, 6. 
 -» Ewald compares 'njTi', oUa, novi ; 'nizi, memini, Nu. xi._5, Titin, rmn, Ps. xxxviii 
 16. &c. Lehrb. u. 135. i. p. 351 ed. 8. 
 -" S. Aug. Conf. iii. 1. 
 ■* lb. Lxxviii. 68, add Ps. cxxxii. 13, 11. 
 
 21 See on Nab. i. 1, p. 373. 
 23 Ps. Ixviii. 16. 
 2* Dion.
 
 CEAPTER I. 
 
 517 
 
 ch'rTst ^^ And I am very sore displeased with 
 "'•• ^^'■'- the lieiitlien that are lit ease : for 1 1 was 
 
 but a little displeased, and they helped 
 
 forward the afflietion. 
 'Isaii2. 1. 10 Therefore thus saith the Lord : 'lam 
 
 & a I. 8. 
 
 ch 2. 10. returned to Jerusalem with mereies : my 
 house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of 
 
 ful. Whence in the book of Maccabees it is written, "^It 
 is a tolicii of Ilis jjreat ji'oodness, wlicn wicked doers arc not 
 suft'ered any Ions;; time, but are fortliwitli ])iinish('d. For not 
 as with other nations, whom the Lord patiently forbeareth 
 to punish, till they be come to the fulness of their sins, so 
 dealeth lie with us; h^st, being come to the height of sin, 
 afterwards lie should take vengeance of us. And therefore 
 He never witbdraweth His mercy from us, and tliough He 
 pnnisbeth with adversity, yet doth He never forsake His 
 people." 
 
 15. / am sore displeased, lit. ivi/h great anger am I an- 
 gered against the nations which are at ease. The form of the 
 words - shews that the greatness of the displeasure of God 
 against those who oppress His people, is proportionate to the 
 great and tender love towards themselves. God had been 
 angered indeed'* with His people ; with their enemies He was 
 angered luith a great anger ; and that the more, because they 
 were at ease*, in unfeeling self-enjoyment amid tlie miseries 
 of others. 
 
 I was a little displeased^ ; little, in comparison with our 
 deserts ; little in comparison with the anger of the human 
 instruments of His displeasure; little in comparison with 
 their's who, in their anger, sought their own ends. 
 
 Thei/ helped forward the affliction'^. '• ^ He is wroth with 
 the nations at ease, because He delivered His people to be 
 corrected, but they used cruelty towards those delivered ; 
 He wills them to be amended as a son by a schoolmaster; 
 they set themselves to slay and punish them, as an enemy. 
 Like that in Isaiah, ^ I gave them into tlnj hands ; thou didst 
 shew them no mercy ; upon the ancients hast thou very heavily 
 laid thy yokeP 
 
 Or it may be, helped for evil, in order to bring about evil, 
 as in Jeremiah ^, Behold I set My face against you for evil ^"j 
 and to destroy all Judah i. e., as we should say, they were the 
 instruments of God, " ^^ cooperated in the execution of My 
 justice towards you, but cruelly and witli perverse intention. 
 For although the Assyrians and Chalda>ans wasted the Jewish 
 people, God so ordaining in as far as He willed through them 
 to punish in the present the sins of His people, yet they did 
 it, not in view of God and out of zeal for righteousness, but 
 out of pride covetousness and with the worst ends. Hence 
 God says by Isaiah^-, Wo to Asshur, the rod of Mine anger, 
 and the stajf in his hand is Mine indignation. Howbeit he 
 
 1 2 Mace. vi. l;5-ir.. 
 
 2 Vy is'p "3N f>n3 P|Sp ver. 15, as contrasted with n^nj nmp .S 'nnjp ver. 14. 
 
 3 'nSap ^|i.'p 1. -. '' I^??t?') as applied to persons, is always used in a bad sense ; 
 the nuun, 2 Kgs xix. 28, Is.'xxxvii. 29; the adj. Is. xxxii. 9, 11, Job xii. 5, Am. 
 vi. 1, Ps. cxxiii. 4, and here. 
 
 » £jya 'nsap is obviously contrasted with 'jnj r]sp : others " for a little while." But be- 
 sides this contrast. Dyo is seldom, comparatively, used of time, and that, as indicated 
 by the context. Gen. xlvii. 9, " my days have been few ; " Lev. xxv. 52, *'if a little re- 
 mains of the years ; " Ru. ii. 7, " she sat a little in the house ; " Job x. 20, " are not my 
 days few? " xxiv. 24, '* they are exalted a little, and are not." Add Ps. xxxvii. 10, Jer. li. 
 3.3, Hos. i.4, "yet a little, and." Hagg. ii. G; "yet once, it is a little, and; "[all, 
 e.xcept the doubtful Ps. viii. 6.] 
 
 6 As 2 Chr. XX. 23, n'nK'D7 niy " aided the destruction." <" S. Jer. 
 
 s Is. xlvii. e. siJer.xliv.il. »" nnin^i .i^n^. "Dion. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 hosts, and ' a line shall he stretehed forth q^II^W^, 
 upon Jerusalem, 
 
 cfore 
 Rl S 
 cir. 519. 
 
 17 Cry yet, sayini^. Thus saith the liORD*" — •^'^• 
 of hosts; My eiti(;s throus^h f prosperity + Heb. ^^oo,/. 
 shall yet be spread abroad ; ' aiul the; Jj<»rd 'Isai. 5i. 3. 
 shall yet eomfort Zion, and "shall yet ehoose " i»ai. n. i. 
 
 , •' . ' ^ ch. 2. 12. 
 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 &3.2. 
 
 thinketh not so, but his heart is to destroy and cut off nations 
 not a few. 
 
 16. Therefore. This being so, since God was so jealous 
 for His people, so displeased with tlicir |)ersccutors, thus saith 
 the Lord, ^^^^ 1 Who '''/« wrath rcinemher mercy , am returned^*, 
 not by change of place. Who am uncircuinscribed, not existing 
 in place, to the |)eoplc of Judali and Jerusalem in mercies, 
 manifoldly benefitting tlieni by various etfccts of Mv love." 
 The single beneiits, the rebuilding of His House, iuid so the 
 restoration of llis pul)lic worship, and the rebuilding of Jeru- 
 salem, are but instances of that all-containing mercy. His 
 restored presence in tender mercies''. lam returned, God 
 says, although the ettects of His retyrn were yet to come. 
 
 A line shall be stretched forth over ./erusalem, before, 
 when it stood, this had been done to destroy "' ; now, when 
 destroyed, to rebuild i^. 
 
 " "^The temple was built then, when the foundations of the 
 walls were not yet laid. In man's sight it would have seemed 
 more provident that the walls should be first buildcd, that 
 then the temple might be builded moi'e securely. To God. in 
 Whom Alone is the most firm stay of our life and salvation, 
 it seemed otherwise. For it cannot be that he. to whom no- 
 thing is dearer than zeal for the most holy religion, should 
 be forsaken of His help." 
 
 17. Cry yet, a further promise; not only should Jerusa- 
 lem be rebuilt, but should, as we say, over/loir with good^^ ; 
 and God, Who had seemed to cast otf" His people, should yet 
 comfort her, and should shew in act that He had <-hosen 
 her-". Zechariah thrice-' repeats the promise, given through 
 Isaiah" to Jerusalem, before her wasting by the C'halda'ans, 
 reminding the people thereby, that the restoration, in the 
 dawn whereof they lived, had been promised two centuries 
 before. Yet, against all appearances. My cities shall over- 
 flow with good, as being God's ; yet would the Lord comfort 
 Zion ; yet would He choose Jerusalem. 
 
 " '^ What is the highest of all goods ? what the sweetest 
 solace in life? what the subject of joys? what the oblivion of 
 past sorrow? That which the Son of God brought upon 
 earth, when He illumined Jerusalem with the brightness of 
 His light and heavenly discipline. For to that end was the 
 city restored, that in it, by the ordinance of Christ, for cala- 
 mity should abound bliss ; for desolation, fulness; for sorrow, 
 joy; for want, affluence of heavenly goods." 
 
 12 Is. X. 5, 7. '^ Hab. iii. 2. " '713='. although .133', .-«:•. 
 
 '» com occurs 27 times of the tender love of God ; 12 times only, of the compassion 
 of man. and in G of these, of compassion of man as given by God. C'liTiS E jrj; 2ce with 
 the word ncrj. "> 2 Kgs xxi. 13, Is. xxxiv. 11. 
 
 1? It is used of the creation of the earth. Job xxsviii. 5. The Chethib, probably rrtg, 
 occurs 1 Kgsvii. 23, Jer. xxxi. 10, and here. 
 
 IS Osor. " "affluent bonis," S. Jer.; "effluent bonis," Vulg. more exactly. 
 
 The word pa is used of the "gushing forth of a fountain," Pr. v. IG; also of the dis- 
 persion of people ; not of the spreading abroad of a people for good. 
 
 -" -ini is always " choose," not (as Ges. and others) " love." In all the cases, which 
 Ges. cites as meaning "love," (Gen.vi.2, 1 Sam. xx.30, 2 Sam. xv. 15, Pr. i. 29, iii. 31, 
 Is. i. 29) the sense would be injured by rendering, "loved." -• here, ii. 12. iii. 2. 
 
 -- Is. xiv.l. SNTJ"3Tynn3. Isaiah has the same cadence as Zechariah, though Zecharhih 
 only retains the characteristic words Tiy ina. 
 
 F F F F
 
 518 
 
 ZECriARIAH. 
 
 4, 7. & 5. 3. 
 
 ctPaTsT 1^ il Then lifted I up mine eyes, and 
 _lilill2i^sa\v, and behold four horns. 
 
 19 And 1 said unto the angel that talked 
 with nie, What In- these ? And he answered 
 
 » Ezra 4.1, me, " These are the horns which have scat- 
 tered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. 
 
 20 And the Lord shewed me four car- 
 penters. 
 
 21 Then said I, What come these to do ? 
 And he spake, saying. These arc the horns 
 which have scattered Judah, so that no man 
 did lift up his head : but these are come to 
 
 This first vision havina: predicted the entire restoration, 
 the details of that restoration are given in subsequent 
 visions. 
 
 18 ^^Hrf / lifted up mine ei/es. "^Not those of the body 
 (for such visions arc invisible to the eyes of the flesh), but 
 rather the inner eyes of the heart and mind." It seems as 
 thou2:h, at the close of each vision, Zcchariah sank in medi- 
 tation on what had been shewn him ; from which he was 
 again roused by the exhibition of another vision. 
 
 / saw four horns. The mention of the horns naturally 
 suggests the thought of the creatures which wielded them ; 
 as in the first vision that of the horses following the chiefs, 
 implies the presence of the riders upon them. And this the 
 more, since the word "fray them away" implies living crea- 
 tures, liable to fear. " " The horn, in inspired Scripture, is 
 always taken as an image of strength, and mostly of pride 
 also, "as David said to some, * I said unfo the fools, Deal not 
 so foolishly, and to the nngodli/. Lift not up the honis. Lift 
 not up your horns on high and speak not ivith a stijf' neck. 
 The prophet then sees four horns, i. e. four hard and warlike 
 nations, who could easily uproot cities and countries." 
 
 These are the horns which have scattered. " ^ The four 
 horns which scattered Judah Israel and Jerusalem, are four 
 nations, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and 
 Romans ; as the Lord, on the prophet's enquiry, explains 
 here, and Daniel unfolds most fully **; who in the vision of 
 the image with golden head, silver breast, belly and thighs of 
 brass, feet of iron and clay, explained it of these four nations, 
 and again in another vision of four beasts^, lion, bear, leo- 
 pard and another unnamed dreadful beast, he pointed out the 
 same nations under another figure. But that the Medes and 
 Persians, after the victory of Cyrus, were one kingdom, no one 
 will doubt, who reads secular and sacred literature. — When 
 this vision was beheld, the kingdom of the Babylonians had 
 now passed away, that of the Medes and Persians was in- 
 stant ; that of Greeks and Macedonians and of the Romans 
 was yet to come. What the Babylonians, what the Medes 
 and Persians, what the Greeks i. e. the Macedonians, did to 
 Judah, Israel and Jerusalem, a learned man acknowledgeth, 
 especially under Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, to which 
 the history of the Maccabees belongs. After the Coming of 
 our Lord and Saviour, when Jerusalem was encompassed, 
 Josephus, a native writer, tells most fully, what the Israelites 
 
 1 The Eng. Vers, follows the LXX and S. Jer. in adding the 2nd vision to the first 
 chapter. " S. t'yril on ii. 1. ^ S. t'yr. ■* Ps. Ixxv. 4. 
 
 ^ S. Jer, Kinichi and Abarbanel agree with Iiirn in the general line, 
 •i Dan. ii. ' lb. vii. 
 
 fray them, to cast out the horns of tlie chrTst 
 
 ( jientil(;s, which ^ lifted up their horn over - f";/'^'''\ 
 the land of Judah to scatter it. ''"'' '"' 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1 God, in the care of Jerusalem, sendeth to measure 
 it. ii The redemption of Ziou. 10 Tlie promise 
 of God\s presence. 
 
 I LIFTED up mine eyes again, and ei9. 
 looked, and behold " a man with a«Ezek. 40. 3. 
 measurinjr line in his hand. 
 
 endured, and the Gospel fore-announced. These horns dis- 
 persed Judah almost individually, so that, bowed down by 
 the heavy weight of evils, no one of them raised his head." 
 Though these were successive in time, they are exhibited to 
 Zcchariah as one. One whole are the efforts against God's 
 Church ; one whole are the instruments of God, whether an- 
 gelic or human, in doing or suffering, to repel them. Zccha- 
 riah then exhibits these hostile powers as past and gone *, 
 as each would be at the end, having put forth his passing 
 might, and perishing. They scattered, each in its day, and 
 disappeared; for the next displaced it. 
 
 The long schism being ended, Judah and Israel are again 
 one ; and Jerusalem, the place of God's worship, belongs to 
 Israel as well as to Judah". 
 
 The explanation of the number four, as symbolising con- 
 temporaneous attacks from the four quarters of the heavens, 
 fails in matter of fact, that, in these later times, the Jews 
 suffered always from one power at a time. There was no 
 such fourfold attack. In Zechariah's time all around was 
 Persian. 
 
 "i** Those horns, broken hy the angels' ministry, portended 
 that no guilt against the Church of Christ should be un- 
 punished. Never will there be wanting fierce enemies from 
 E. W. N. or S., whom God will strengthen, in order by them 
 to teach His own. But when He shall see His work finished, 
 i. e. when He shall have cleansed the stains of His own and 
 brought back His Church to her former purity, He will punish 
 those who so fiercely afflicted her." 
 
 Spiritually, " ^^ those who destroy vices, build up \artues, 
 and all the saints who, possessing these remedies, ever build 
 up the Church, may be called 'builders.' Whence the Apos- 
 tle says, ^" /, as a wise Indhler, laid the foundation ; and the 
 Jvord, when wroth, said that He would ^'^take aivay from Jeru- 
 salem artificer and wise man. And the Lord Himself, Son of 
 the Almighty God and of the Creator of all, is called ^* the son 
 of the carpenter." 
 
 ii. \. A man with a measuring line in his hand. Probably 
 the Angel of the Lord, of whom Ezekiel has a like vision. 
 " 1' He who before, when he lift up his eyes, had seen in the 
 fortr horns things mournful, now again lifts up his eyes to see 
 a man. of whom it is uTitten, ^' Behold a man ivhose name 
 is the Branch ; of whom we read above, ^^ Behold a man riding 
 upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, tuhich 
 
 y ii) 9 This is expressed by the use or omission of theriK. Its use coordinates 
 
 Judah and Israel i its omission subordinates Jenisalem. '" Osor. 
 
 11 S. Jer. '■- 1 Cor. iii. 10. " Is. iii. 3. " S. Matt. xiii. 55. 
 
 » Zech. vi. 12. " lb. i. 8.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 n^ 
 
 /?. 
 
 519 
 
 chrTst 2 Then said I, Whither j^oest thou ? And 
 '^'T^sis- — he said unto nie, ''To measure Jerusalem, 
 
 ^ Rev. 11. 1. ^ , . , , ... ,. 1 
 
 & 21. 15, 10. to see wliat i.y the breadtli thereot, and 
 what J.v the h'ns:;tli thereof. 
 
 3 And, behold, tiie atii^el that talked with 
 me went forth, and another angel went 
 out to meet him, 
 
 were in the bottom. Of whom too the Father saith ; He 
 buildcd My f'itv, ^ whose builder and maker is God. He too 
 is seen by Ezekiel in a desi^riptiou like this, -a man whose 
 appearance was like the appearance of brass, i. e. burnished-' 
 and shininjr as fire, with a line of Jlax in his hand and a mea- 
 siiring reed." The office also seems to be one of authority, 
 not to measure the actual lenffth and breadth of Jerusalem, 
 but to lay down what it should be, " ' to mark it out broad 
 and very long." 
 
 3. The angel that talked with me ivent forth, pi'obably 
 to receive the explanation which was f!:iven him for Zecha- 
 riah ; and another angel, a hij;fher angel, since he gives him a 
 commission, went forth to meet him, being (it seems probable) 
 instructed by the Angel of tiie Lord, who laid down the future 
 dimensions of the city. The indefinitencss of the description, 
 another angel, implies that he was neither the Angel of the 
 Lord, nor (were they different) iSIichael, or the man ivith the 
 measuri)ig line, but an angel of intermediate rank, instructed 
 by one higher, instructing the lower, who immediately in- 
 structed Zechariah. 
 
 ^ And said unto him, Run, speak unto this yonng man, the 
 prophet himself, who was to report to his people what he 
 heard. Jeremiah says, ^I am a youth ; and ^ the young man, 
 the young prophet, carried the prophetic message from Elisha 
 to Jehu.,/ " Youth," conniion as our English term in regard 
 to man, is inapplicable and unapplied to angels, who have not 
 our human variations of age, but exist, as they were created. 
 
 Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns tcithout walls, 
 or as villages ^, viz. an uncontined, uncramped population, 
 spreading itself freely, without restraint of walls, and (it 
 follows) without need of them. Clearly then it is no earthly 
 city. To be inhabited as villages would be weakness, not 
 strength; a peril, not a blessing. The earthly Jerusalem, 
 so long as she remained unwallcd, was in continual fear and 
 weakness. God put it into the heart of His servant to desire 
 to restore her ; her wall was built, and then she prospered. 
 He Himself had promised to Daniel, that * Her street shall 
 he rebuilt, and her wall, even in strait of times. Nehemiah 
 mourned 73 years after this, B.C. 443, when it was told him, 
 ' The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the pro- 
 vince are in great affliction and reproach : the wall of Jerusa- 
 lem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned ivith 
 fire. He said to Artaxerxes, ^^IVhy should not my counte- 
 nance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, 
 lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire f 
 When permitted by Artaxerxes to return, he addressed the 
 rulers of the Jews, ^^ Ye see the distress that we are in, how 
 Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates there(f are burned ivith 
 fire ; come, and let us huilil up the wall of Jerusalem, that we 
 be no more a reproach ; and they said, let us rise and build. 
 So they strengthened their hands for this good work. When 
 
 • Heb. xi. 10. " Ezek. xl. 8. 
 
 * S. Cyr. * ■'VI Jet. i. (J. 
 
 7 See on Hab. iii. 14. p. 432. » Dan. ix. 25. 
 
 3 Ih. i. 7. 
 
 ^ K'nn %'in -lyii 2 Kgs ix. 4. 
 9 Neh. i. 6. >» lb. ii. 3. 
 
 4 And said unto him, Run, speak to this cifiiTsT 
 
 younj^ man, sayinjii^, ■= Jerusalem shall be in- '■'''• °^^- 
 
 habited «.v towns without walls for the mul- Kz'eLae.io, 
 titude of n)en and cattle therein : 
 
 5 For I, saith the Loro, will be unto her 
 
 '' a wall of fire roundabout, ''and will be ■" ^^"'y^g^* 
 the irlory in the midst of her. ' Rev.l'i.'^i 
 
 ^^ the wall was finished and our enemies heard, and the heathen 
 about us saw it, they were much cast down in their own eyes ; 
 for they perceived tliat this work ivas wrought of our God. 
 
 This prophecy then looks on din'(;tly to the time of 
 Christ. Wonderfully does it picture the gradual expansion 
 of the kingdom of Christ, without bound or limit, whose 
 protection and glory (iod is, and the character (tf its de- 
 fences. It should dwell as villages, pcacrefully and gently 
 expanding itself to the right and the left, through its own 
 inherent power of multiplying itself, as a city, to wiiich no 
 bounds were assigned, but which was to fill the earth. 
 "*For us God hath raised a Church, that truly holy and 
 far-famed city, which Christ fortifieth, consuming opponents 
 by invisible powers, and filling it with His own glory, and as 
 it were, standing in the midst of those who dwell in it. For 
 He promised ; JLo, I am with you always even unto the end of 
 the ivorld. This holy city Isaiah mentioned : '' thine eyes 
 shall see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation ; a tabernacle that 
 shall not be taken doivn ; not on& of the stakes thereof shall 
 ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be 
 broken; and to her he saith, ^* enlarge the place of thy tent, 
 and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation ; 
 spare not ; lengthen fhi/ eords and strengf/ieii thi/ stakes. For 
 thou shall break forth on the right hand and on the left. 
 For the Church of Christ is widened and extended bound- 
 lessly, ever receiving countless souls who worship Him." 
 " '= What king or emperor could make walls so ample as 
 to include the whole world ? Yet, without this, it could 
 not encircle that Jerusalem, the Church which is dift'used 
 through the whole world. This Jerusalem, the pilgrim part 
 of the heavenly Jerusalem, is, in this present world, inha- 
 bited without walls, not being contained in one place or 
 one nation. But in that world, whither it is daily being re- 
 moved hence, nuich more can there not, nor ought to be, nor 
 is, any wall around, save the Lord, Who is also the glory in 
 the midst of it." 
 
 5. And I, Myself'" in My own Being, will be to her a 
 ivall of fire, not protection only, an inner circle around her, 
 however near an enemy might press in upon her, but de- 
 structive to her enemies. Isaiah says, '' No iveapon that is 
 formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall 
 rise in judgement against thee thou shalt cotidemn. Its de- 
 fence, Isaiah says, shall be immaterial. '** H^e have a strong 
 city; salvation shall God appoint for walls and bulwarks; 
 1^ thou shalt call thy walls salvation and thy gates praise. By 
 a different figure it is said, ^^ I will encamp about mine house 
 because of the army. 
 
 And glory will I he in the midst of her, as Isaiah says, 
 -' The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy 
 God thy glory ; and of Christ, "In that day shall the Branch 
 of tlie Lord be Beauty and Glory — to the escaped of Israel. 
 
 11 lb. 17, 18. 1- lb. vi. 15, ifi. " Is. xx.xiii. 20. 
 
 » lb. liv. 2, 3. IS Rup. iS'iKemph. i?Is. liv. 17. 
 
 13 lb. xxvi. 1. 1' lb. Ix. lb. ■■» Zech. ix. 8. =i Is. Ix. 19. - lb. iv. 2. 
 
 F F F F 2 
 
 .^■cf^ 
 
 pAr'
 
 520 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 chrTst C f J^*^' '"^' emu r forth, aiul flo(^ 'from 
 
 . _"r^5i!''_ the liind of tlir north, sailli tin; Ijoiio: for 
 
 & 52. 1'l" ' I have B spread you abroad as the four 
 &5o.'8.& winds of tlie heaven, saith the Lord. 
 
 51. 6, 45. B Deut. 28. 01. Ezek. 17. 21. 
 
 6. Ho ! ho ! and flee. Such being the safety and g;lory 
 in store for God's people in Jenisalcni, He Wlio had so pro- 
 vided it, the Angel of the Lord, bids Ills ])eople everywhere 
 to eonie to it, saving themselves also from tlie j)eril wliieh 
 was to eome on Babylon. So Isaiah bade them, ^ Go yc forth 
 of Btihi/loii ; flee ye from the Chaldtcoiia ii'ith (i voire of silig- 
 iiij^ ; t/er/iire ye, tell this, utter it to the eml of the earth ; say 
 ye. The Lord hath redeemed His servant Jacob. - Depart ye, 
 depart ye, go ye out from thence ; touch no unclean thing : go 
 ye out of the midst of her ; he ye clean, that bear the vessels of 
 the Lord; and Jeremiah, ^Ftee ye out of the midst of Baby- 
 lon, and deliver every man his soul ; be not cut off in her ini- 
 quity, for this is the time of the Lord'' s vengeance; Hewitt 
 render unto her a recompense. ^ ISly people, go ye out of the 
 inidst of her, and deliver ye, every ma/i his soul from the fierce 
 anger of the Lord. 
 
 The words, _^e«', deliver thyself, imply an imminent peril on 
 Babylon, such as came upon her, two years after this pro- 
 phecy, in the fourth year of Darius. But the earnestness of 
 the command, its repetition by three prophets, the context 
 in Isaiah and Jeremiah, imply something more than tem- 
 poral peril, the peril of J;hc infection of the manners of 
 Babylon, whi(!h may have detained there many who did not 
 return. Whence in the New Testament, the words are 
 cited, as to the great evil city of the world ; ^ JVherefore 
 come out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not 
 the unclean thing, and I will receive you; and under the 
 name of Babylon; ''/heard another voice from heaven, say- 
 ing. Come out of her. My jjeople, that ye be not partakers of 
 lier sins, and that ye receive not of Iter plagues. 
 
 For I have spread you. abroad as tlie four tcinds of heaven. 
 Tlie north country, although its capital and centre was Baby- 
 lon, was the whole Babylonian empire, called 'the North''' 
 because its invasions always came upon Israel from the 
 North. But the book of Esther shews that, sixty years after 
 tills, the Jews were dispersed over the 127 provinces of the 
 Persian empire,/yo?H India (the Punjaub) to Ethiopia^,yf\\et\\QV 
 they were purposely placed by the policy of the conquerors in 
 detached groupes, as the ten tribes were in the cities of the 
 vJief/es", or whether, when more trusted, they migrated of their 
 own accord. God, in calling them to return, reminds them of 
 the greatness of theirdispersion. Heliad dispersed themabroad 
 as the four winds of heaven '" : He, the Same, recalled them. 
 
 7. Dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. The unusual 
 idiom 1^ is perhaps chosen as expressive of God's tenderness, 
 even to the people who were to be destroyed, from which 
 Israel was to escape. 
 
 Us. xlvm.20. 2 lb. Hi. 11. 3 Jer.li.6.addl. 8. ■'Ib.li. 45. «2Cor.vi.l7. 
 
 « Rev. xviii. 4. ' Jcr. i. 13, 14, iii. 18, iv. 6, vi. 1. 22. xxiii. 8. 
 
 8 Esther i. 1, iii. 8, 12-14. viii. 5, 9. 9 2 Kgs xvii. 6. 
 
 '0 " As the four winds of heaven are distant one from the other." Sal. b. Mel. Kim. 
 AE. The LXX alone paraphrase, " For from the winds of heaven I will gather you." 
 Others take the word of an intended difiiision of them, through the favour of God, the 
 future being spoken of, as if past. But although t-e is used of dispersion, besides, in 
 Ps. Ixviii. 15, Nif. Ez. xvii. 21, it is no where used of diffusion, only of the spreading out 
 of what remained coherent, as hands, wings, a garment, tent, veil, cloud, letter, light. 
 See instances Ges. Thes. p. 11.32. 
 
 " ^3D na nze/)' dwelUr ofihe daughter of Babylon, as Jer. xlvi. 19. DTSO n3 n3»i", lb. xlviii. 
 18, p3T ni nnc. In Jeremiah however, it is the same people, Egypt or Dibon ; here, 
 Israel as settled in Babylon. 
 
 >- nha is used with ace. pcrs., and inn also of persons, 2 Sam. iii. 26, 2 Kgs viii. 14, 
 or with -inx of pcrs. alone, 2 Kgs xiv. "J. ms rhu/ is not elsewhere used like our " sent 
 
 7 '' lleliver tliyself, O Zion, that dwellest 
 with tlie dau<:;hter of lial)ylon. 
 
 8 For thus saitli tlie Lokd of hosts ; 
 After the glory hath he sent nie unto the 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 KiT^W. 
 
 ^ Rev. 1». 4. 
 
 8. After the glory'^''', ""Avhich it is promised to bring 
 upon you." This being the usual construction, the words 
 involve a great course of God's dealing, of first shewing 
 favour to those who will receive favour, then abandoning or 
 punishing the rest; as, when the eight souls had been re- 
 ceived into th(! ark, the flood came; when Lot and his had 
 escaped out of .Sodom, the fire (•ame down from heaven; 
 when Israel had passed the Red Sea, Pharaoh's hosts were 
 drowned ; the election obtained what Israel sought for, the 
 rest vmrc blinded '*. The glory then would be the glory, of 
 which God says, I ivill be the glory in the midst of you. 
 
 But furtlier He Who speaketh is Almighty God, Thus saith 
 the Lord of Hosts, He hath sent '^ me ; For to I wave My hand 
 against them — and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath 
 sent me ; Lo I come and dtvell in the midst of thee, saith the 
 Lord, and many nations shall cleave unto the Lord in that 
 day, and they shall be to Ble a people and I will dwell in the 
 midst of thee, ami thou shall know, tliat the Lord of hosts hath 
 sent me unto you. In all which series of promises, the /, of 
 whom Israel were to know that the Lord of hosts had sent 
 Him, is the /, Who affirms of Himself what belongs to 
 Almighty God only, inflicting punishment on the enemies 
 of Judah, indwelling the Church and people, receiving the 
 Heathen as His own ; and it is precisely by all these acts 
 of power and love, that Israel shall know that the Lord 
 of hosts had sent Him. 
 
 " '^ In what follows, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, After 
 glory. He hath sent Me 6jc., the Saviour is introduced speak- 
 ing. Who, being Almighty God, saith that He was sent by 
 the Father Almighty, not according to that whereby He was 
 Almighty, but according to that, that, after glory. He was 
 sent, ''^ JVho being in the For?n of God, thought it not robbery 
 to be equal with God ; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a 
 servant, and icas made obedioit unto the Father even iinto 
 death; and that, the death of the Cross. Nor is it marvel that 
 Christ is called Almighty, in Whose Person we read in the 
 Apocalypse of John, ^^ These things saith the faithful fFitness, 
 — / am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, 
 saith the Lord, luliich was and whicli is and which is to come, 
 the Almighty, ^^ to TFltom all power is given iti heaven and in 
 earth ; and Who saith, -''All things of the Father's are Mine. 
 But if all things, i. e. God from God, Lord from Lord, Light 
 from Light, therefore also Almighty from Almighty ; for it 
 cannot be, that diverse should be the glory of those whose 
 Nature is One." 
 
 For he who toucheth, so as to injure ^i, you, toucheth the 
 apple of His eye, i. e. of Him Who sent Him, Almighty 
 
 after a thing." So generally nnx is used with verbs of motion, nnx "b^. Gen. xxxvii. 
 17, 2 Kgs xxiii. .3; inn nt, Nu. .xxv. 8: inx n-.i, 1 Sam. xii. 14,- nns '\-r\. 2 Kgs xxv. 5 ; 
 inn NS'. 1 Sam. xi. 7 ; or, spiritually, cn'inncno nnn a'Z^rtn Is. Ixv. 2 ; cnn nnx, Ez. xiii. 
 3; '3*? "]?n 'yy nnn, Job xxxi. 7; but inx is not used in our sense of seeking, "going 
 after a thing." except in the one phrase CTiT piT ^3 n"Nl Job xxxix. 8, " searchetb after 
 every green thing." It is the less probable here, because, apart from this, (besides 
 the 5 duplicate passages in Isaiah and 2 Kings, 2 Sam. and 1 Chronicles) the con- 
 struction of vhz' with ace. of the person sent and Vn of the person to whom he is sent, 
 occurs in 71 passages. (Ges. cites 23 of them) and in no one case is the object for which 
 they were sent, added by any preposition. Four are in Zechariah himself ii. 12, 15, iv. 
 9, vi. 15. To "send for" is e.xpressed by ^ rha Jer. xiv. 3, 1 Kgs xx. 7. 
 
 " Jon. " Rom. .\i. 7. '= ver. 8-10. " S. Jer. ■? Phil. ii. 6. 
 
 " Rev. i. 5, 8. 19 S. Matt, xxviii. 18. =» S. John xvi. 15. 
 
 !' 3 ya, as in Gen. xxvi.ll, Jos. ix. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 10, Jer. xii. 14, Ezek. xvii. 10, Ps. 
 cv. 15 ; with ace. Gen. xxvi. 29, Ru. ii. 9; of God, 1 Sam. \'i. 9, Job i. 11, xix. 21.
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 521 
 
 c H R I s T "'itions which spoiled you : for he that 
 "'''■ ""^- — 'toiu'heth you touchetli the ai)|)lo of his 
 
 ' Deut. 32. 10. '' * ' 
 
 Ps. 17. 8. eye. 
 k fsai. u.' lis.'' 9 For, hehohl, I will ''shake mine hand 
 upon them, and they shall he a spoil to 
 their servants : and ' ye shall know that 
 the Lord of hosts hath sent me. 
 
 & 19. 16. 
 ' ch. 4, 9. 
 
 Godi, as in the sonjj of Moses, ^ He led liiin uhoiit. He hi- 
 sfructed /lim, He kept hi in ii.s the (ipi)le of His vije ; and David 
 prays, ^ Keep me us the apple of the eye. 
 
 9. For behold I will shake Mi/ liaiid against them, as God 
 promised of old ai;ainst the enemies of Ilis people', and 
 tliey shall be a spoil to those who served them habitually =. 
 
 And ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent 3Te. 
 '"^He was sent, not as God, but as Man. For as (iod He is 
 equal to tha Father. For He saith, '' I am in the Father and 
 the Father in Me, and, The Father IVho dwelleth in Me He 
 doeth the works, and, ** / and 3Ii/ Father are one, and ^ He 
 ti'ho hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But He is sent, as 
 ]\Ian, fulfilling the dispensation for us, not lessening- the Di- 
 vine Nature. The Pi'ophet then intimated not the duality 
 only, but the equality of the Persons." 
 
 10. Siiiff and rejoice, O daughter of Zion. It is a great 
 jubilee of joy, to which Zion is invited. Thrice besides is 
 she invited with this same word, and all for the restored or 
 renewed Presence of God. ^"^ Cry aloud for joy, thou barren 
 ■which bare not, as here, on the coming in of the Gentiles, 
 '^ Cry aloud for joy, O daughter of Zion ; jubilate, O Israel ; 
 rejoice and exult with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem ; 
 the Lord, the King of Israel, is in the jnidst of thee. ^- Shout 
 and cry aloud for joy, O inhabitant of Zion ; for great in the 
 midst of thee is the Holy One of Israel. The source of joy 
 is a fresh coming of God, a coming, whereby He should 
 dwell abidingly among them : truly what is this, but the 
 Incarnation ? As S. John saith, i' The JFord was made Flesh 
 and dwelt among us; and, ^* Heboid the tabernacle of God is 
 ivith men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His 
 people, and God Himself shall be irilh them and shall be their 
 
 God. "^' Hence too you may learn how great a subject of 
 contentment above is the Presence of the Saviour upon 
 earth. He could not then but bid the spiritual Zion, ^^ which 
 is the Church of the Living God, the most sacred multitude 
 of those saved by faith, to cry aloud for joy and rejoice. 
 But it was announced that He should come and be in the 
 midst of her. For S. John saith to us, The IFord ^'' was in 
 the luorld, and, being God, was not severed from His crea- 
 tures, but He was Himself the Soui'ce of life to all living, and 
 holding all things together to well-being and life ; but ^^ the 
 world knew Him not : for it worshipped the creature. But 
 He came among us, when, taking our likeness. He was con- 
 ceived by the holy Virgin, and ^^was seen upon earth and 
 conversed with men, and the divine David witnesseth saying, 
 
 ' So S. Jer. Theod. Others, as S. Cyr., of his own eye. turning to evil to him- 
 self; but the analogy of the other passages is against it. \']1 n22 (St.] is doubtless the 
 same as \'V ni with the same reduplication as in Arab. Syr. Ch. The reduplication is 
 plain in the Arab. K13)3 from njn3 " papavit," not from a separate root, as Ges. Thes. 
 P.-841. - Deut. xxxii. 10. 3 Ps. xvii. 8. 
 
 ■< The same idiom. Is. xi. 15. xix. IG. 
 
 5 The force of the part. D.nnay, instead of cn-n3y. So nCIN il'v, Zech. xiii. 5, Is. xxx. 
 24 ; inaiK iny Pr. xii. 11 ; D-nSn -tin Mai. iii. IS ; ins nai'n lb. 17. '^ynn nnji 2 Kgs x. 19, 21, 
 23, 23, '70D .y Ps. xcvii. 7. "I'yn -iny Ez. xlviii. 18. Ty.i inyrr. lb. ly. So lyio Snxn i3y.T S^, 
 Nu. iv. 37, 41. may on te'n omiy lb. xviii. 21. n:yri the labourer, Eccl. v. 11. In Gen. 
 iv. 2, xUx. 15, Jos. xvi. 10, 1 Kgs v. 1, 2 Kgs xvii. 33, 41, it has this force from the 
 
 10 •[[ '"Slnjr and rejoiee, O daui^hter of ^, jI'-jI",";. .j, 
 Zion : for, lo, I come, and I "will dwell in "r.sw. _ 
 the midst ot thee, saith the IjORO. Koi. i. 
 
 11 "And manv nations shall he joined to ° Lev. 20.12.' 
 
 Ezck. 37.27. 
 
 the Lord 'in that <lay, and sludl he 1 my eh. s.'a 
 people: and I will dwell in the midst of 2Cor.'G. 
 
 .. 1^,1 1 ii 1 ,1^,1 r ° Isai- 2. 2, 
 
 14. 
 IG. 
 3. 
 
 thee, and ^ thou shalt know that the Lord & 49. 22.' 
 
 Pch. 3. 10. 1 Ex. 12.49. ' Ezek. 33. 33. ver. 9. fhf 8. Ig^'ls. 
 
 " Our God shall come inanifestly, and shall not keep silence. 
 Then also was there a haven for the (jcntiles. For now no 
 longer was the race of Israel alone taught, but the whole 
 earth was engoldened with the evangelical preachings, and in 
 every nation and country great is His Name." 
 
 " ""This too is to be understood of the Person of the Lord, 
 that lie exhorts His people, being i-estored from the cap- 
 tivity to their former abode, to he glad and rejoice, because 
 the Lord IVimifcW Cometh and direllelh in the midst of her, and 
 many tiafions shall believe in Him, of Whom it is said, -' ylsk 
 of Me and I will give Thee nations for Thine inheritance, and 
 the ends of the earth for Thy possessiofi, and He shall dwell in 
 the midst of them, as He saith to His disciples, --Zo, I am ivith 
 you always, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 11. yind many nations shall join themselves, cleaving to 
 Him by a close union. Isaiah had so spoken of siiiifle prose- 
 lytes"'; Jeremiah had used the word of Israel's self-exhorta- 
 tion after the return from Babylon; -\going and iveeping, 
 they shall go and seek the Lord their God, saying. Come and 
 let ?ts join ourselves unto the Lord, in a perpietual covenant 
 that shall not be forgotten. This Zcchai'iah now predicts of 
 many nations. The Jews were scarcely half-restored them- 
 selves, a mere handful. They had wrought no conversions 
 among the heathen, yet prophecy continues its unbroken 
 voice, mani/ nations shall join themselves unto the Lord. 
 
 And shall be 3Iy people, lit. be to Me a people. This is 
 exactly the history of the Christian Church, unity amid di- 
 versity; many nations still retaining their national existence, 
 yet owned by God as one people and His own. The words 
 are those in which God adopted Israel in Egypt; -'•I will 
 take you to Me for a people, and I will be your God. This 
 was the covenant with them. ^^ that thou shouldest enter into 
 covenant ivith the Lord thy God, — that He may establish thee 
 to-day for a people tinto Himself, and that He may be wtto 
 thee a God. The contrary was the title of the heathen, -''not 
 a people ; with ivhom God said. I will move Israel to fea lousy. 
 The closeness of union Jeremiah expresses; -^ As the girdle 
 cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave to Me 
 the whole house of Israel and the ichole house of Judah, saith 
 the Lord, that they might be zaito Me for a people and for a 
 name and for a praise and for a glory. This was the object 
 of the existence of Israel; to this it was to be restored-' by 
 conversion^"; to this special privilege of Israel tnany nations 
 were to be admitted; yet not so as to be separate from 
 Israel, for He adds, and I will dwell in the inidst of thee, 
 
 ' S. John xiv. 10. 
 '1 Is. liv. 1. 
 " S. John i. 14. 
 16 1 Tim. iii. 15. 
 " Ps. 1. 3. 20 S. Jer. 
 
 preceding HM. ^ Theod. 
 
 8 lb. X. 30. 9 lb. xiv. 9. 
 
 " Zeph. iii. 14. 15. '= Is. xii. 6. 
 
 i-i Rev. xxi. 3. '» S. Cyr. 
 
 17 S. John i. 10. l» Baruch iii. 37. 
 
 -' Ps. ii. 8. 12 s. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
 23 Is. Ivi. 3-fi. 24 Jer. 1. 4, 5. 25 Exod. vi. 7. 
 
 26 Deut. xxix. 12, 13, add Lev. xxvi. 12, Deut. xxvii. 9. 1 Sam. xii. 22, 2 Sam. vii. 
 23, 24, 2 Kgs xi. 17, 1 Chr. xvii. 22, 2 Chr. xxiii. 16, Jer. vii. 23, xi. 4. 
 
 27 Deut. xxxii. 21. 2s Jer. xiii. 11. 29 n,_ xxiv. 7, xxx. 22, xxxi. 1, xxxii. 38. 
 
 'M Ez. xi. 20, xiv. 11, xxxvi. 28, xxxyii. 23, 27, Zech. viii. 8.
 
 522 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 519. 
 
 • Deut. 32. 9. 
 
 ' ch. 1. 17. 
 
 " Hab. 2. 20. 
 Zeph. 1. 7. 
 
 » Ps. 68. 5. 
 Isai. 57. 15. 
 
 t Heb. the ha- 
 bitation of 
 his holiness^ 
 Deut. 26. 15. 
 Isai. 63. 15. 
 
 of hosts hath sent me unto thee. 
 
 12 And the Loiin shall " inherit Judah his 
 portion in the holy land, and ' shall choose 
 Jerusalem again. 
 
 13 "13e silent, O all flesh, hefore the 
 Lord : for he is raised up ^ out of f his 
 holy hahitation. 
 
 Judah. God would dwell in His Church, foruicd of Israel 
 and the Gentiles, yet so that the Gentiles should be grafted 
 into Israel, becoming one with them. 
 
 12. ^nd the Lord aliall inherit Judah His portion. The 
 inheritance of the Lord is the title which God commonly 
 gave to IsraeP. God is said to be the portion of Israel"^; of 
 the pious ^; once only besides, is Israel said to be the portion 
 of God^; once only is God said to inherit Israel, '^Pardon 
 our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritanve. 
 Zechariah unites the two rare idioms. 
 
 In the hulij land. The land is again made holy by God, 
 and sanctified by His Presence. So He calls the place where 
 He revealed Himself to INIoses, holy ground^'. So it is said, 
 "' the holy place, ^ the holy house, '■• the holy ark, i" the holy 
 city, ^^ the holy mountain, ^~ the holy people, '^^ the holy cham- 
 bers, or, with "reference to their relation to God Who conse- 
 crates them, " My holy mountain, ^= Tliy holy hahitation, 
 i« Thy holy dwelling-place, " Thy holy temple, ^^ Thy holy 
 mountain, 'i" Thy holy oracle, -" thy holy city, -^ cities, ^^ His 
 holy place, -^ His holy border. It is not one technical expres- 
 sion, as people now by a sort of effort speak of '•' the holy 
 land." Every thing which has reference to God is holy. 
 The land is holy, not for any merits of theirs, but because 
 God was worshipped there, was specially present there. It 
 was an anticipation and type of "Thy holy Church through- 
 out all the world doth acknowledge Thee." This land their 
 fathers had -'' polluted tvith blood ; God says, -'"they defiled My 
 land; Ezekiel called her eminently, -'^ the land that is not 
 cleansed. Now God said, "^ / ti;/// remoiw the iniquity of the 
 land, and she was again a holy land, as hallowed by Him. 
 
 It is not a mere conversion of the heathen, but, as Isaiah-^ 
 and Micah-' foretold; a conversion, of which Jerusalem should 
 be the centre, as our Lord explained to the Apostles after 
 His Resun-ection, ^"that repentance and remission of sins should 
 
 1 Deut. iv. 20, ix. 26, 29, 1 Sam. xxvi. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 16, xx. 19, xxi. 3, 1 Kgs viii. 51 , 
 Ps. xxviii. 9, xxxiii. 12, Ixviii. 10, Ixxviii. 62, 71, Ixxix. 1, cvi. 40, Joel ii. 17, iii. 2,[Heb.] 
 Is. xix. 25, xlvii. 6, Jer. xii. 7-9, 1. 11. ^ Jer. x. 16. li. 19. 
 
 3 Ps. xvi. 5, Ixxiii. 26, cxix. 57, cxlii. 6, Lam. iii. 24. 
 ■1 Deut. xxxii. 9. ^ Ex. xxxiv. 9. 
 
 15 utp nCTK, Ex. iii. 5. 
 
 7 aipn aipa. Lev. x. 17, xiv. 13. 
 
 * .pn n'3, 1 Chr. xxix. 3. 
 
 ' .pn [nx. 2 Chr. xxxv. 3. 
 
 i» .pn Ty, Nell. xi. 1, 18, Is. xlviii. 2, Iii. 1. 
 
 " .pn in, Is. xxvii. 13, Jer. xxxi. 23, Zech. viii. 3. 
 
 J- .pr\ ny. Is. Ixii. 12. 
 
 •3 .pn niDB-S Ez. xlii. 13. [all.] 
 
 " -B-ip -n Ps. ii. 6. Is. xi. 9. Ivi. 7, Ivii. 13, Ixv. 11, 25, Ixvi. 20, Ez. xx. 40. 
 Jo. ii. 1, iv. 17, Ob. 16. Zeph. iii. 11. 
 
 i» -pip mj Ex. XV. 13. 
 
 "■' .p |iyo Deut. x.xvi. 15. His holt/ liab. Ps. Ixviii. 6, Jer. xxv. .30, Zech. ii. 17. 
 
 " .pSD-n Ps. v. 8, Ixxix. l,cxxxviii.2, Jon.ii. 5,8, His lioli/ temple. Mi. i. 2. Hab.ii. 20. 
 
 " p iri Ps. XV. 1, xliii. 3, Dau. ix. 16. His holy Itill, Ps. iii. 5, xlviii. 2, xcix. 9. 
 
 1^ .pT3T Ps. xxviii. 2. 
 
 21) .p TV Dan. ix. 24. 
 
 2' .pny Is. Ixiv. 9. 
 
 32 .p cipo Ps. xxiv. 3. 
 
 23 .p 'jui Ps. Ixxviii. 54. 
 
 !» Ps. cvi. .38. « Jer. ii. 7, iii. 9, xvi. 18. ^ Ezek. xxii. 24. 
 
 2' Zech. iii. 9. 28 Ig. ii. 3. -■a Micah iv. 2. '» S. Luke xxiv. 47. 
 
 31 See on Hab. ii. 20. p. 422. ^ Geu. vi. 3, 2 Chr. xxxii. 8, Job x. 4, Ps. Ivi. 4, 
 
 CHAPTER III. ei?R'TsT 
 
 1 Under the type of ,/oshua, the restoration of the — '■ — 
 
 church, 8 Christ the Brunch is promised. 
 
 AND he shewed me ''Joshua the high'""^-^ ^• 
 priest standini^ hefore the ani^el of 
 the Lord, and '' || Satan standing at his "* R;J''i'2.V 
 right hand f to resist him. " IS.^" 
 
 t Heb. to he his adversary. 
 
 be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Kl lie silent, lit. hush^^, all Jlesh, before the Lord ; man in 
 his weakness ", y/«7j and blood in the language of the New 
 Testament '*, before God his Maker. All Jlesh, the whole 
 human race"^, is to be hushed before God, because His judge- 
 ments, as His mercies, are over all. 
 
 For God ariseth. God seemeth to be quiescent, as it 
 were, when He bears with us ; to arise, when He puts forth 
 His power, either for us, when we pray, ^' Lord, awake to 
 help me ; or in displeasure. His holy habitation is alike the 
 tabernacle ■^°, temple •^^, heaven^*, since His presence is in all. 
 
 III. 1. A)id He, God, (for the office of the attendant 
 angel was to explain, not to shew the visions) sheived me 
 Joshua the High Priest, standing before the Angel of the 
 Lord; probably to be judged by hini''^; as in the New 
 Testament, to stand befn-e the Son of 3Ian ; for although 
 standing before, whether in relation to man ^'^ or God ", ex- 
 presses attendance upon, yet here it appears only as a 
 condition, contemporaneous*- with that of Satan's, to accuse 
 him. Although, moreover, the Angel speaks with authority, 
 yet God's Presence in him is not spoken of so distinctly, that 
 the High Priest would be exhibited as standing before him, 
 as in his office before God. 
 
 And Satan, etymologically, the enemy, as, in the New 
 Testament, '^yonr adversary the devil, etymologically, the 
 accuser. It is a proper name of the Evil one, yet its original 
 meaning, the eneiny^^, was not lost. Here, as in Job, his malice 
 is shewn in accusation ; *-' the accuser of our brethren, who 
 accused them before our God, day and night. In Job **, the 
 accusations were calumnious; here, doubtless, true. For he 
 accused Job of what would have been plain apostacy *' ; 
 Joshua and Zerubbabel had shared, or given way to, the re- 
 missness of the people, as to the rebuilding of the temple and 
 
 Ixxviii. 39, Is. xxxi. 3, Jer. xvii. 5. 33 §. Matt. xvi. 17, 1 Cor. xv. 50, Gal. i. 16. 
 
 ''* Gen. vi. 12, Ps. Ixv. 3, cxlv, 21, Is. xl. 5, 6, xlix. 26, Ixvi. 23, Jo. iii. 1, Ez. xxi. 
 4, 9, 10. ^ Ps. lix. 4. add Ps. vii. 7, xliv. 24. 
 
 3« 1 Sam. ii. 29, 32, Ps. xxvi. 9, Ixviii. 6. 37 2 Chr. xxxvi. 15. 
 
 3' Deut. xxvi. 15, Jer. xxv. 30, 2 Chr. xxx. 27. 
 
 3' " Stand before" is used judicially, Nu. xxxv. 12, Deut. xix. 17, Jos. xx. 6, and of 
 plaintiffs, Nu. xxvii. 2, 1 Kgs iii. 16 ; stand before God, Rev. xx. 12 ; before the judge- 
 ment-seat of Christ, Rom. xiv. 10; and be acquitted, S. Luke xxi. 36. 
 
 '"' Joseph before Pharaoh, Gen. xli. 46 ; Joshua before Moses, Deut. i. 38 ; David 
 before Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. 21 ; the young virgin before David, 1 Kgs i. 2 ; Solomon's 
 servants, lb. x. 8; his councillors, 2 Chr. x. 6; Gedaliah, of serving the Chaldasans, 
 Jer. xl. 10; Nebuzaradan, Jer. Iii. 12; Daniel and his companions, of office before 
 the king of ISabylon, Dan. i. 5. But it is also used of presence with a commission to 
 the person; Moses before Pharaoh, Ex. viii. 20, ix. 13; of an office towards others, to 
 minister unto them, as the Levites before the congregation, Nu. xvi. 9; degraded priests, 
 "to serve them." Ezek. xliv. II. 
 
 « The tribe of Levi, Deut. x. 8, 2 Chr. xix. 11 ; the High Priest, Jud. xx. 28, Ezek. 
 xliv. 15; Elijah, 1 Kgs xvii. 1, xviii. 15; Elisha, 2 Kgs iii. 14, v. 16; Jonadab's des- 
 cendants, Jer. xxxv. 19. It is used of standing to intercede with God, of Abraham, 
 Gen. xviii. 22; Moses and Samuel, Jer. xv. 1; Jeremiah, lb. 19. Also of worship, 
 Jer. vii. 10. ^ The two IDV express a correlative condition. 
 
 « i S. Pet. v. 8. 
 
 •'•' As in other appellatives, ^y.n (pi: twice only), 7Mri, but in its contracted form, 
 when the etymology was lost, Si, &c. pB" as a Prop. Name, without the article, occurs 
 1 Chr. xxi. 1, Ps. cix. 6 ; with the article, eleven times here, and fourteen times in the 
 first narrative chapters of Job. 
 
 <= Rev. xii. 10. ■'^ Job i. 8-11, ii. 3-5. *> lb. i. 11. ii. 6.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 528 
 
 CH^R°rsT 2 -^"*' *''*' Lord said unto Satan, «Tho 
 
 "'*'• °^'''- Lord rebuke thee, O Satan ; even the Lord 
 
 J ch. 1. 17. that '' hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee : 
 eAmos4.'ii.' ^is not this a brand phu-ked out of tlie fire? 
 Jude23.' * 3 Now Joshua was eh^thed with "^ filthy 
 garments, and stood before tl)e angel. 
 
 the full restoration of the worship of GocP. For this, Haf,^a:ai 
 had reproved the people, throui^h them '. Satan had then a 
 real eharjo;e, on wliurh to implead them. Since also the 
 whole series of visions relates to the restoration from tiie eap- 
 tivity, the Si'ih, for whieii Satan impleads him with Jerusalem 
 and Jerusalem in him, ineludes the whole s^'uilt, which had 
 rested upon them, so that for a time God had seemed to have 
 I cast away His people^. Satan stands at his right hand, the 
 I place of a protector*, to shew that he had none to save him, 
 and that himself was victorious. 
 
 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee. 
 '"This they so explain, that the Father and the Son is Lord, 
 as we read in the 1 lOth Psalm, The Lord said unto my Lord, 
 Sit Thou on My right hand. The Lord speaketh of another 
 Lord ; not that He, the Lord Who speaketh, cannot rehuke, 
 hut that, from the unity of nature, when the Other rebuketh, 
 He Himself Who speaketh rebuketh. For ^ lie who seeth the 
 Son, seeth the Father also." It may be that God, by such 
 saying's'', also accustomed men, before Christ came, to believe 
 in the Plurality of Persons in the One Godhead. 
 
 The rebuke of God must be with power. ^ Thou hast 
 rebuked the nations, Thou hast destroyed the ungodly. ' Thou 
 hast rebuked the proud, accursed. ^" They perish at the rebuke 
 of Thy Countenance. ^^ At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both 
 the chariot and horse are cast into a deep sleep. ^^ God shall 
 rebuke him, and he Jieeth far off, and shall be chased as the 
 chaff' of the mountains before the wind. ^^ He rebuked the Red 
 Sea and it dried up. ^* The foundations of the ivorld were 
 discovered at Thy rebuke, O Lord. He ^^ rebuked the seed, 
 and it perished; the devourer^^, and it no loni»;er devoured. 
 The rebuke then of the blasted spirit involved a withering 
 rejection of himself and his accusations, as when Jesus 
 rebuked the unclean spirit and he departed out of his 
 victim^''. 
 
 The Lord hath chosen Jerusalem. Joshua then is acquitted, 
 not because the accusation of Satan was false, but out of the 
 free love of God for His people and for Joshua in it and as 
 its representative. ^^ IFlio shall lay anything to the charge of 
 God^s elect? It is God that justijieth. Who is he that con- 
 demneth f The high priest, being ^^ himself also compassed 
 with infirmity, needed daily to offer up sacrifices first for his 
 oum sins, and then for the people's. As Isaiah said, on the 
 sight of God, -° / am undone, because I am a man of unclean 
 lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and, 
 until cleansed by the typical coal, dared not offer himself for 
 the prophetic office, so here Satan, in Joshua, aimed at the 
 whole priestly office, and in it, at Israel's relation to God. 
 
 ' Ezr. iii. iv. "-Hagg. i. 1-11. 3 Rom. xi. 1. 
 
 •" Ps. xvi. 8, cix. 31, cxxi. 5, cxlii. -1. * S. Jer. ^ S. John xiv. 9. 
 
 7 As in those, " the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah hrrmstoiie and fire ft 
 the Lord out of heaven," Gen. xix. 24, and others in which God speaks of Himself in 
 third person, the Lord. Gen. xviii. 14, 19. 
 
 10 lb. Ixxx. IB. 11 Ih. Ixxvi. 6. 
 
 " lb. xviii. 15. add Nab. i. 4. 
 
 rom 
 the 
 " Ps. ix. .5. '■) lb. cxix. 21. 
 
 12 Is. xvii. 13. 13 Ps. cvi. 9_ 
 
 i» Mai. ii. 3. 
 
 ■' lb. iii. 11. "lyj is used 11 times of God, only 3 times of man ; Gen. xxxra. 10, Ruth 
 ii. 16, Jer. xxix. 27. ■itjjj 8 times of God; 3 times in Prov. and Eecl. vii- 5, of rebuke of 
 man, and Is. xxx. 17. ' i' S. Mark i. 25, 26, ix. 25, S. Luke iv. 35, ix. 42. 
 
 '8 p,om. vui. 33, 34. '9 Heb. v. 2, 3. -u Is. vi. 5. =i S. Cyr. -'i The force of the 
 
 4 And he answered and spake unto those ch rTst 
 that stood before him, saying, Take away ""■ ^^'■>- 
 the filthy garments from him. And unto 
 him he said. Behold, I luive caused thine 
 inicpiitv to pass from thee, k and 1 will clothe * i''"'- "i- 1"- 
 
 , '.11 Luke 13. 22. 
 
 thee with change of raiment. " 
 
 Rev. 19. 8. 
 
 Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ? " ''^ As if he 
 should say, Israel ccjnfessedly has sinned, and is liable to 
 these charges. Yet it has suffered no slight piiiiisliment ; it 
 has endured sufferings, and has scarce been snatched out of 
 them, as a half-burned brand out of /he fire. For not yet had 
 it shaken off the dust of the harms from the captivitv: only 
 just now and scarcely had it escaped the flame of that most 
 intolerable calamity. Cease then imputing sin to them, on 
 whom God has had mercy." 
 
 3. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments ; such, 
 it is expressed, was his habitual coiKiition --; he was one so 
 clothed. The filthy garment, as defilement generally, is, in 
 Scripture, the symbtd of sin. -' fFe are all as the unclean, 
 and all our righteoustiesses are as filthy rags. -* He that 
 is left in Zion and he that reniaine/h in Jerusalem shall be 
 called holy — when the Lord shall have washed away the filth 
 of the daughters of Zion. "' There is a generation, pure in its 
 own eyes, and it is not washed from its filthiness. The same 
 is expressed by different words, signifying pollution, defile- 
 ment by sin; ^c fp'o unto her that is filthy and polluted ; -' The 
 land was defiled ivith blood; "^ they were defiled icith their oivn 
 works. It is symbolised also by the -'^divers washings of the 
 law, representing restored purity ; and the use of "the word 
 by Psalmists and Prophets; "'■'^ J Fash me throughly from nmie 
 iniquity ; ^^ wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of 
 your doings from before Mine eyes ; ^- O Jerusalem, wash thy 
 heart from wickedjiess. In later times at least, the accused 
 were clothed in black ^^, not in defiled'* garments. 
 
 4. And He spake to those who stood before Him. the 
 ministering Angels who had waited on the Angel of the Lord 
 to do His bidding. 
 
 See, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee; the 
 pardoning words of the Lord to David by Nathan, ^= The 
 Lord too hath put away thy sin. And clothe thee^^ with 
 change of raiment ^T, i. e. such as were taken off and reserved 
 for great occasions. As the filthy garments were not neces- 
 sarily other than the High Priest's vesture, symbolically 
 defiled through the sins of the people, so neither'need these 
 be other than the priestly garments in their purity and 
 freshness. The words imply the condition, not the nature of 
 the vestment. "-iThe high-priest having been thus taken 
 to represent the whole people, the filthy garments would be 
 no unclear symbol of the wickedness of the people. For 
 clad, as it were, with their sins, with the ill-effaceable spot of 
 ungodliness, they abode in captivity, subject to retribution, 
 paying the penalty of their unholy deeds. But when God 
 had pity on them, He bade them be freed from their defile- 
 participle wthn-n. =3Is. Ixiv. 6. 2Ub.iv. 3, 4. ^ Pr.-xxs. 12. FHIh, filthiness, 
 in Is. iv. 4 also, is .isis, the abstract of theoTr. Xey. in Zech., Nis. 26 2eph. iii. 1 
 
 ■■i5'¥??i iijlto- See ib.' =-' Ps. cvi. 38. im i.q. t))D Cant. v. 3. ^ Ps cvi 39 noo 
 
 opp. to -ana. -'s Heb. ix. 10. su pg. j; 4^ ':e?3_[2 Eng.] 3i js. ;_ jg, srn 
 
 ^■2 Jer. iv. 14, 'C??. ^3 Jos. Ant. xiv. 10. 4. " Whosoever is brought before" the 
 
 tribunal to be judged, is set. as lowly, before it, and is clothed with black raiment." 
 
 s-i As in Latin, " sordidati." Liv. ii. 54, vi. 20. 
 
 35 2 Sam. xii. 13, -jnxan Tay.i ■• ci. The idiom occurs Ib. xxiv. 10. add Job vii. 21. 
 
 36 The inf. expresses the more, the contemporaneousness of the acts. See below vii. 5 
 xii. 10. and others in Ewald Lehrb. § 351. c. p. 853. ed. 8. ' 
 
 3? nis^no recurs Is. iii. 22.
 
 524 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 c h^rTst ^ -^"'^ ' ^•"''' ^*^*' tliem set a fair '" luitro 
 c'''- 519. upon his head. So they set a lair mitre 
 ch.l/'n.' upon his liead, and clothed him with gar- 
 ments. And the angel of the Lord stood 
 by. 
 
 6 And the angel of the Lord protested 
 unto Joshua, saying, 
 
 7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; If thou 
 
 mcnts, and in a manner re-clad with justifyinjij ^vnce. He 
 indicates to them the end of their toils. For wiiere remis- 
 sion of sin is, there follows of necessity freedom from the 
 evils brought through sin." — He adds that « clean mitre 
 should he put iipim his head, " Hhat so we might understand 
 that the glory of the priesthood ever, in a sort, concurs with 
 the condition of the people. For the boast of the priesthood 
 is the purity of those in their charge. — As then when the 
 people was in sin, the raiment of the priest also was in a 
 manner defiled, so if it were again well-approved, pure and 
 bright is the fashion of the priesthood, and free its access to 
 God. So the divine Paul having ministered to the Gentiles 
 the Gospel of Christ, seeing them advancing in graces, writes, 
 " Bij your boast, brethren, which I have in Chi-ist Jesus, and, 
 ^ my joy and crown." 
 
 5. And I said, let them set a fair niitre^ on his head. 
 This seems to have been purposely omitted, in order to leave 
 something, and that, the completion of all, to be done at the 
 intercession of the prophet. The glory and complement of 
 the High Priest's sacrificial attire was the7nitrewith the holy 
 crown upon it and the plate of pure gold, on which was graven, 
 Holiness to the Lord' ; which was to he upon the High-priest's 
 forehead, that he may bear the inir/uity of the holy things 
 tvhich the children of Israel shall hallow in all tlteir holy gifts; 
 which was always to be upon his forehead, that they may be 
 accepted before the Lord. The renewed gift of this was 
 reserved for the intercession of man co-working with God. 
 
 And the angel of the Lord standing by, seeing that all 
 was done aright, and, now that the ac([uittal was complete, 
 statiding to give the ciiarge. 
 
 6. And the angel of the T^ord protested solemnly (etymo- 
 logically, called God to tvitness) as in, ^ Did I not make thee 
 swear by the Lord and protested unto thee, laying it as an obli- 
 gation upon him ''. The charge is given to Joshua, and in him 
 to aU successive high-priests, while Israel sht)uld continue 
 to be God's people, as the condition of their acceptance. 
 
 7. Jf thou wilt walk in My ways and if thou ivilt keep My 
 charge. Both of these are expressions, dating from the Pen- 
 tateuch, for holding on in the way of life, well-pleasing to God 
 and keeping the charge given by God*. It was the injunction 
 of the dying David to Sohjmon, ^Keep the charge of the Lord 
 thy God, to walk in His trays, to keep His statutes S)C. 
 
 Then shall thou also Judge My house. Judgement, in the 
 
 1 S. Cyr. ' 1 Cor. xv. 31. 
 
 ' Phil. iv. 1. * I'lx is used of the turhan of women. Is. iii. 23;or of nobles, 
 
 Job xxbc. 14: i. q. rjHS of royalty, Is. Ixii. 3. Here it is put for nsjiSD, the Pentateuch 
 name for the high-priest's mitre, as distinct from the n^^sw of ordinary priests. 
 
 s Ex. xxviii. 3C— 38, xxix. 6. « 1 Kgs ii. 42.' ' ' ^ nyn with 3 Gen. xliii. 3, 
 
 Deut. viii. 19, xxxii. 46, Ps. 1. 7, &c. 
 
 s niCira IDE' first used of Abraham, Gen. xxvi. 5, then Lev. xviii. 30, xxii. 9, Deut. xi. 1, 
 Jos. xxii. 3. 9 1 Kss ii. 3. 
 
 >" Deut. xvii. 9 — 13, xix. 17, Mal. ii. 7- I"i is used of judgnng a cause (with p, Jer. v. 28, 
 XXX. 13; with tDBro, lb. xxi. 12) or persons; with the personal pronoun. Gen. xxx. tS\ or 
 people, peoples, the ends of the earth, the poor and needy, 17 times : 'n'3 is used metapho- 
 rically of tne people of God, only in Nu. .\ii. 7, l^e is faithful in all My house, or at most 
 
 wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt ' keep 
 my 11 eiiargc, then thou shalt also ''judge 
 my house, and shalt also keep my courts, 
 and 1 will give thee f places to walk among 
 these that ' stand by. 
 
 8 Hear now, O .Josliua the high priest, 
 thou and thy fellows that sit before thee : 
 for they are '" f men wondered at : for, be- 
 
 + Heb. men of wonder, or, sign, as Ezek. 12. 11. & 24. 24. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. .519. 
 
 I Lev. 8. 35. 
 
 1 Kin. 2. 3. 
 Ezek. 44. 16. 
 
 II Or, 
 
 ortlihance. 
 k Deut. 17. 9. 
 
 Mal. 2. 7. 
 f Heb. walks. 
 1 eh. 4. 14. 
 
 & «. 5. 
 ■n Ps. 71. 7. 
 
 Isai. 8. 18. 
 
 & 20. 3. 
 
 place of God, was part of the High-priest's office '". Yet these 
 judgements also were given in the house of God. The cause 
 was directed to be brought to God, and He through His priests 
 judged it. Both then may be comprehended in the word, the 
 oversight of the people itself and tlie judgement of all causes 
 brought to it. "^'Thou shalt judge those who minister in 
 the house of jNIy sanctuary." 
 
 And I ivill give thee place to tvalk among those who stand 
 by^^, i.e., among the ministering spirits, who were^^ standing 
 before the Angel of the Lord. Tliis can be fully only after 
 death, when the saints shall be received among the several 
 choirs of angels. "'Mn the resurrection of the dead I will 
 revive thee and give thee feet walking among these Seraphim." 
 Even in this life, since ^*our conversation is in heaven, and the 
 life of priests should be an angel-lifc, it may mean, that he 
 should have free access to God, his soul in heaven, while his 
 body was on this earth. 
 
 8. Thou and thy companions which sit before thee ; yea '^ 
 7nen of marvellous signs are they ^'^. It seems probable that 
 the words addressed to Joshua begin here ; else the men of 
 signs would be the companions of Joshua, to the exclusion of 
 himself. His com])anions are probably ordinary priests, who 
 sit as sharing his dignity as priest, but before him, as inferiors. 
 So Ezekiel says, ^'Z ivas sitting in my house, and the elders of 
 Israel were sitting before me. They are ^^ images of the things 
 to come. Isaiah's two sons, with their prophetic names, 
 Haste-spoil speed-prey , and a-remnant shall-return, were with 
 his own name, salvation-of-t he-Lord, ^^signs and portents of the 
 future Israel. Isaiah, walking naked and barefoot, was ^a 
 sign and portent against Egypt. God tells Ezekiel, that in the 
 removal of his stuff, as stuff for the captivity, ~^I have set thee 
 for a portent laito the house of Israel. I, he explains his act --, 
 am your portent ; like as I Iiave done, so shall it be done unto 
 you.. When forbidden to mourn on the death of his wife ; 
 "^Ezekiel is unto you for a portent ; according to all that he 
 hath done, shall ye do; and when this cometh, ye shall know 
 that lam the Lord God. Wherein then were Joshua and the 
 other priests portents of what should be ? One fact alone had 
 stood out, the forgiveness of sins. Accusation and full for- 
 giveness, out of God's free mercy, were the substance of the 
 whole previous vision. It was the fuU re-instatement of the 
 priesthood. The priesthood so restored was the portent of 
 what was to come. To -* o^'er the offering of the people, and 
 
 Jer. xii. 7, / have left My house. Here the parallel word My courts, shews that the house 
 is the literal temple. i' Jon. 
 
 '- Against tlie rendering, "those who shall make thee to go," i.e., guide thee. (O'D^np for 
 0'3'SnD) there were valid objections ; 1) that the Hif. is always T7in, except yrn Ex. ii. 9. 
 The Partic. -J'Sia occiu^ 9 times, once iji Zech. v. 10. 2) It would have been probably 
 " out of these " or at least " from among these." D'^te is then probably from a suig. ijjna 
 like iisna, tvfo, asna) for Ti^o? Jon. iii. 3, 4. Ez. xlii. 4. " verse 4. 
 
 '< Phil. iii. 20. ' ' '^ '3 is inserted in the like way in Gen. xviii. 20, 
 
 Ps. cxviii. 10 — 12, cxxviii. 2. '^ The subject addressed in the nominative is resumed 
 
 by the pronoun of tlie 3rd person, as in Zeph. ii. 12. '' Ezek. viii. 1. 's Heb. x. 1. 
 
 19 Is. v-iii. IS. -» lb. X.X. 3. 21 Ezek. xii. tl. 23 lb. 11. 
 
 "•3 lb. xxiv. 24. " Lev. Lx. 7.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 525 
 
 cifiiTsT 1>"1*'» J "'11 bring forth "my servant the 
 
 ^ir.619. "BRANCH. 
 
 n Isai. 42. 1. 
 
 & 49. 3, s. 9 For bchoUl the stone that I have, laid 
 
 & 52. 13. & 
 
 53. II. Ezek. » Isai. 4. 2. & 11. 1. Jcr. 23. 5. & 33. 15. ch. G. 12. Luke 1. 78. 
 
 34. 23, 21. 
 
 muf<e an atoiiemcnt for them ; ^ to vuike an atonement for the 
 children of Israel for all their sins once a year, was the object 
 of the existence of tlie priestliood. 'I''yi>ical only it could be, 
 because tliey bad l)iit the hlood of hulls and i^oats to offer, trhich 
 coidd, iu tlicnisclves, -never lahe (tuuiy sins. But in tiiis tbeir 
 act tbey were |»oiieiits of wbat was to conic. He adds bere. 
 Fur, hehold, I will hring Mi/ Servant the Braneh. 
 
 The Braneh bad now become, or Zechariab made it, a 
 proper name. Isaiali bad propbesied, ^ In that day shall the 
 Branch of the Jjord he heautiful and i^Un-ious for the escaped 
 of Israel; and, in reference to tbc low estate of bini wbo 
 sbould come, ^ There shall come forth a rod out of the stamp 
 of ./esse, and a Braneh shall grow oat of his roots; and 
 jeremiab, ^Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
 raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign 
 and prosper, and shall execute Judgement and justice in the 
 earth, and this is the 7iame whereliy He shall he called, The 
 Lord our Itighteonsness ; and, '^ In those days and at that 
 time, will I cause the Brandt of righteousness to grotu up unto 
 David, and he shall execute judgement and righteousiiess in 
 tlie land. Of bini Zecbariaii afterwards spoke as, ^ a man 
 whose name is the Branch. Here Zecbariab names him 
 simply, as a proper name, 3Iy servant [the] Branch, as 
 Ezekiel propbesied of ^ 3Iy servant David. The title 3Iy 
 servant, which is Isaiah's cbiefest title of the Messiah, occurs 
 in connection with the same iniagT of His youth's lowly estate, 
 and of His atoning Death. '■'He shall grow up hefore Him as 
 a sucker, and us a root fi'om a dry grotnul ; ^° a sciim shall grow 
 out of his roots. " ^^ He alone was above all marked by this 
 name, who never in anything; withdrew from the Will of 
 God." " 1- God had before promised to Joshua, i. c. to the 
 ])riesthood of the law, that they sbould judge His house and 
 fulfil the types of tbc legal worship. Yet not long after, the 
 things of the law were to be translated into the true worship, 
 and the unlovelincss of the types to be recast into the lovely 
 spiritual polity. ^''' A righteous king was to reign and princes 
 to rule ivith judgement, as the Prophet spake. Another priest 
 was to arise, after the order, '^^ not of Aaron hut of Melchise- 
 dec, ^' a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tahernacle 
 u'hich God pitched and not man. For our Lord Jesus Christ 
 entered the holy of holies, ^^ not by the hlood of bulls and goats, 
 but by His own Blood, having ohtained eternal redemption, 
 and ^'^ having by One Oblation perfected for ever them that are 
 sanctified. Lest then God sbould seem to have spoken un- 
 truly, in promising to the legal priesthood that it sbould ever 
 have the oversight over His liouse, there was need to fore- 
 announce the mystery of Christ, that the things of the law 
 sbould cease and He Himself should judge His own house 
 through the Scion from Himself, His Son." 
 
 1 Lev. xvi. 34. " Heb. x. 4. » Is. iv. 2. 
 
 •* lb. xi. 1. ^ Jcv. xxiii. 5, 6. ^ lb. xxxiii. 13. " ^ecli. W. 12. 
 
 8 TT >^3jj Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24, xxxvii. 24, as here nos "i;y. 
 
 » Is. liii. 2. ' W lb. xi. 1. " Osor. '- S. Cyr. is is. xxxii. 1. 
 
 » Heb. ra. 11. « lb. viu. 2. m lb. ix. 12. i? lb. x. 14. 
 
 " Rashi. " Kim. Nor, of course, were either foundation-stone or head-stone 
 
 engraven. -^ Also in Kim. -• Is. xxviii. 16. — Ps. cx\iii. 22. 
 
 S. Matt. xxi. 42. add Acts iv. 11. The passac;es of tlie Psalm and of Isaiah are imited 
 1 S. Pet. ii. 4—7. -3 Eph. ii. 20, 21. -^ Zohar Gen. fol. 124. col. 492. 
 
 25 lb. Num. f. 100. col. 397. quoted by Schoettjr. de Mess. p. 218. " Both passages," 
 he subjoins, "are again adduced as parallel, Zohar Deut.f. 118. col. 472." Jonathan 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 before Jo.sliua; p upon one stone .shall he (^ifll^W^. 
 1 seven eyes: beliold, I will ciii^rave the — "r-''i'J- 
 
 1' I's. lib. 22. 
 
 graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, isii. 28.T(i. 
 
 1 ch. 4. 10. Rev. 5. G. 
 
 ""Look ye to the Branch of the Lord; set Him as the 
 
 example of life; in Him, as a most strong tower, place witli 
 most hccoming faitb all your hope of salvation and immor- 
 tality. For He is not only a I'.rancli, \\lio >Iiiill fill you with 
 the ricbness of Divine fruit, but a stone al.-o, to break all the 
 essays of the eneiriy." 
 
 9. I'or behold the stone, that I hare laid before Joshua. 
 This must be an expansion of what be bad said, or the 
 ground of it, being introduced by, /or. It must be something 
 future, to be done by (iod Himself, since (jod savs, / ivill 
 grave the graving thereof ; something conncclcd with the 
 remission of sins, which follows ujxin tbat gra\ing. TIk! 
 stone, then, cannot be the stone of foundation of tbc material 
 temple "^. For this bad long before been laid. The bead- 
 corner-stone, the completion of the building'', had nothing 
 remarkable, why God sbould be said to grave it. The i)lumb- 
 line -" was not a part even of the material temple. The stone 
 is one stone. But to interpret it by other pro|)liecy, one stone 
 there is, of which God nays, "^ Bcholil I lay in' Zi on for a 
 foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure 
 foutidation, he that believeth shall not make haste ; that stone, 
 of which our Lord reminded the Jews, "-the stone which the 
 builders refused is become the head-stmie of the corner ; ~'',Iesus 
 Christ Himself, the chief corner-stone, in whom all the build- 
 ing, fitly framed together, grojrefh into an holy temple iji the 
 Lord, in whom ye also are huilded together for an habitation 
 of God through the S/iirit. 
 
 On this stone had Joshua, with all those typical priests, 
 to look, in Whom Alone they and all have forgiveness, Whose 
 Sacrifice tbeir sacrifices pictured and pleaded. '■It," says an 
 old mystical Jewish book -', " is the stone of foundation, on 
 which the earth is founded, which God Himself laid, tbat the 
 world might receive blessing from it." "-^The Sbechinah is 
 called the stone, through which the world subsisteth ; of 
 which it is said, A stone of seven eyes, and, the stone which the 
 builders refused." This stone, God says, / have laid or set 
 before Joshua, i.e. for him to consider; as He speaks to 
 Solomon and bis children, of 31y commanduu'iits irhich I have 
 set before you -". "-"That the stone is the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the head corner-stone, elect, laid as a foundation; and that the 
 seven eyes on the one stone are the sevenfold Spirit of God 
 which rested upon Him, is or ought to be unknown to no 
 one. For to Him -** God giveth not the S/tirit by measure, and 
 "'/« Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodili/. This 
 Stone was rejected by men, but chosen and honoured bv 
 God." ""This stone then, on which the bouse of God and 
 our whole salvation restctb, is placed by God before tbat 
 high priest. That is, the most holy Name of Jesus, the 
 virtue piety and largeness of Jesus is, by the Divine Spirit, 
 
 seems to identify the Branch, the Messiah, and the .Stone; " Lo I am bringing My 
 Servant Messiah, and He shall be revealed. Lo, the stone which I have set before 
 .Joshua, upon one stone seven eyes, beholding it; lo, I revealed the vision thereof, saith 
 the Lord of hosts, and will remove the guilt ofthat land in one day." The Zohar chadash 
 (f. 7<'i. 1.) .joins the mention of the stone in Dan. ii. 35, Ps. cxviii. 22, Gen. xlix. 24. 
 and tliis place, in Schoettg, 1. c. p. 140. n. cv. 
 
 -<' 1 Kgs ix. 6. The idiom is the same, CT:sh ".irij. See also Dent. iv. 8, xi. 32, Jer. 
 ix. 12, xxvi. 4, xliv. 10; of two things, between which to choose, Deut. xi. 26, xxx. 15. 
 In Ezek. xxiii. 24, tru:': n.TaS 'nnj, " I have placed before them judgement," which they 
 are to consider and to execute. ^ Rup. 
 
 ^ S. John iii. 34. » Col. ii, 9. 
 
 G G G G
 
 526 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 r i?«Tc T aifl ' I will remove the iniquity of that hind 
 
 "^- ^i'-'- in one day. 
 '^&mhof' 10 ''In that day, saith the Lord of 
 
 Mic. 7. 18, 
 
 19. ch. 13.1, "ch. 2. 11. 
 
 shewed to the priest, that he mi^ht understand the End of the 
 law and holiness, to Whom all the aetions of life and the 
 offices of the priesthood were to he referred. In which stone 
 was foreshewn to the divine man, not the invisihle strength 
 only, but also the manifold light of the Divine intelligence. 
 For it follows ; " 
 
 Upon this uue stone are seven eyes, whether they arc the 
 eyes of God, resting in loving care upon it, or whether, as 
 the wheels in Ezckiel's vision were '^full of eijes round iiljonf, 
 the eyes are pictured as on the stone itself, marking that it 
 symbolised a being with manifold intelligence. Zcchariah 
 speaks of the eyes of "the Lord whieh rim to and fro on the 
 eartit, and S. John, of the '' Lamb, as it had been slain, having 
 seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, 
 sent forth into all the earth. Either symbol harmonises with 
 the context, and is admissible in language*. The care of 
 God for this stone is expressed before and afterwards, / have 
 laid it, I ivill engrave the graving thereof; and so it corre- 
 sponds to the '" It shall grow vp before Him as a tender plant. 
 But the contrast, that on one stone there are seven eyes, per- 
 haps rather suggests that the eyes are on the stone itself, 
 and He, the Living Stone, is pictured with an universality of 
 sight, whereby, with a Divine knowledge, He surveys and 
 provides for the well-being of His whole Church, It has 
 some analogy too to the sevenfold Spirit whieh was to rest 
 upon Him. " " For this stone to have seven eyes is to retain 
 in operation the whole virtue of the Spirit of sevenfold 
 grace. For according to the distribution of the Holy Spirit, 
 one receives prophecy ; another, knowledge ; another, mira- 
 cles; another, kinds of tongues; another, interpretation of 
 words ; but no one attaineth to have all the gifts of that same 
 Spirit. But our Creator taking on Him our infirmities, be- 
 cause, through the power of His Divinity, He shewed that 
 He had at once in Him all the virtues of the Holy Spirit, 
 united beyond doubt the bright gleams of the sevenfold 
 constellation." " None among men had together all the 
 operations of the Holy Spirit, save the Mediator of God 
 and man Alone, Whose is that same Spirit, Who proceeds 
 from the Father before all worlds." "'The stone is one. 
 For as we have in God One Spirit, one faith, one sacra- 
 ment of that most pure laver, so we worship One Christ, 
 the one only Deliverer of the human race, and Author of our 
 righteousness and everlasting salvation ; and strengthened 
 by His guardianship, we hope for immortality and eternal 
 glory. Who, though He be One, governs all things with 
 
 1 Ezek.i.l8,x.l2. siv.io. 3 Rev. v. 6. 
 
 *• In Ps. xxxii. 8. it is ■rVT*'!' ^V'x J uiill counsel. My Eye upon thee; in Ps. xxxiii. 18, 
 VNT Sk " py ; in Ps. xxxiv. 16. D'p'ia S« " 'i'S! ; but " directed towards, or resting upon," are 
 only shades of tlie same meaning. In Gen. xliv. 21. is r^y "J'y .td'b'M ; Jer. xxiv. 6, 'noci 
 On'hil -J'y and xl. 4, for good, T^y 'J-y nx E-ifn. = Is. liii. 2. 
 
 " S. Greg, on Job L. xxix. c. 31. n. 74. Opp. i. 951. ' Osor. 
 
 * iTlBa only occurs besides of the carved wood of the house of God, 1 Kgs vi. 29, Ps. 
 Ixxiv. (i, or of the carving of a precious stone, Ex. xxviii. 11, 21, 36, xx.\ix. 6, 14, 30. 
 raa is used of engraving things on wood, 1 Kgs vii. 36, 2 Chr. iii. 7 i on precious stones, 
 Ex. xxxviii. 9. The whole idiom, *' skilled to grave gravings" to grave all graving, 
 recurs 2 Chr. ii. 6, 13 ; thou shall grave on it with the engravings of a signet, holiness to 
 the Lord; Ex. xxviii. 36. 
 
 hosts, shall ye call every man his neigh- chrTst 
 l)our ' under the vine and under the fiar — '^'"■^ — 
 
 ° ' 1 Kin. 4. 25. 
 
 tree. isai. 36. le. 
 
 Mic. 4. 4. 
 
 ineffable wisdom. For His wisdom is aptly described by the 
 seven eyes. For the number seven generally describes an 
 universality of good." 
 
 Behold I will engrave the graving * thereof, as of a costly 
 stone, VV'hat tl»e graving is, is not explained; but manifestly 
 it is every thing which concurs to its beauty, " '^ This stone 
 is of earth, and of the power and workmanship of God." 
 " ^" It signifies Him Who had His birth in virgin-earth, but 
 framed skilfully by the power of the Holy Spirit." That Pre- 
 cious stone was further graven, through the Providence and 
 Will of God, when " '* He caused it to be wounded by the 
 nails of the Cross and the soldier's lance, and in His Passion 
 took away the iniquity of the earth in one day, of which it is 
 written, ^" This is the day tvhich the Lord hath made, we will 
 rejoice and be glad in it." Beautiful were the gifts and graces 
 which Christ received, as Man; but beautiful beyond all 
 beauty must be those glorious scar.s, with which He allowed 
 His whole Body to be riven, that "^^ throughout the whole 
 frame His love might be engraven." "^'What even in the 
 Body of the Lord can be lovelier or more lightful than those 
 five Wounds, which He willed to retain in His immortal 
 Being, lest the blessed should be deprived of that splendour, 
 surpassing far the light of sun and stars ?" 
 
 And I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. 
 On one day in the year was the typical atonement ; in one 
 day absolutely, God Himself would ?na/ie the iniquity of that 
 land to depart. One day is always emphatic ^^, that things 
 are crowded into it, which seemed too much for one day. 
 Year by year came the day of atonement : its yearly repetition 
 shewed that nothing lasting was effected. On one day that 
 removal should be, which needed no renewal ^^ A Jewish 
 writer confessed the mystery, while he said ^'', " One day ; I 
 know not what that day is." Ask any Christian child, "On 
 what day was iniquity removed, not from the land only, but 
 from all lands ? " he would say, " On the day when Jesus 
 Died." 
 
 10. Under the vine and tinder the figtree. Micah had 
 already made the description of the peaceful days of Solo- 
 mon 1*, a symbol ^' of the universal fearless peace of the time 
 of Christ. "-"Christ by His Passion shall not only take away 
 iniquity, but also bring peace, delight, free communication of 
 all things, so that all things among Christians should be 
 common. For the law of Christ enjoineth charity, forgive- 
 ness of injuries, patience, love of enemies &c., ail which bring 
 temporal peace." 
 
 ' S. Iren. Hter. iii. 21. 7, '" Lap. as from S. Iren. 
 
 " S. Jer. '2 Ps. cxviii. 24. 
 
 " " Cernis, ut in toto corpore sculptus amor." in Lap. " Rib. 
 
 ^^ Gen. xxvii. 45, "why should I be deprived of you both in one day?"\ Sam. ii. 34, "in 
 one day they shall die both of them ; " 1 Kgs xx. 29, " Israel slew of the Syrians 100,000 
 footmen in one day;" 2 Chr. xxviii. 6, " Pekah slew in Judah 120,000 ?'« one </rty;" 
 Is. ix. 14, "shall cut off branch and rush in one day," x. 17, "devour his thorns 
 and briers irr one day;" Is. xlvii. 9, "two things shall come to thee in one day ;" 
 lb. Ixvi. 8, "shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day?" 
 
 i' It includes then the 4<pa.Tra^ of Heb. vii. 27, ix. 12, X.' 10, though the idiom is 
 different. '^ Rashi, 's 1 Kgs iv. 25. 
 
 19 Mi. iv. 4. See ab. p. 324. -" Lap.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 527 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 51 'J. 
 
 " ch. 2. 3. 
 » Dan. 8. 18. 
 
 <= Ex. 2.5. 31. 
 
 Rev. 1. 12. 
 t Hcb. tiufit 
 
 iter htm'!- 
 i Ex. 25. 37. 
 
 Rev. 4. 5. 
 II Or, seven 
 
 several 
 
 pipes to tile 
 
 lfi7nps, ^T. 
 = vcr. U. 12. 
 
 Key. 11.4. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1 lij/ the f^olilen candlestick is foresheived the good 
 success of Zeriil)l)(il)cl''s foitiidation. 11 Bi/ the 
 two olive trees the two anointed ones. 
 
 AND *the angel that talked with me 
 came again and waked me, '' as a man 
 that is wakened out of his sleep, 
 
 2 And said unto me, Wiiat seest thou ? 
 And I said, 1 have looked, and hehold '^a 
 candlestick all of gold, f with a bowl upon 
 the top of it, '' and his seven lamps thereon, 
 and II seven pipes to the seven lamps, which 
 are upon the top thereof: 
 
 3 "^And two olive trees by it, one upon 
 
 iv. 1. The angel came again. Tlie angel (as before^) 
 had gone forth to receive some fresh instruction from a 
 higher angel or from God. 
 
 j4nd awakened mc, as a man is awakened out of sleep. 
 Zcchariah, ovcrniiclmed by the greatness of the visions, 
 must have sunk down in a sort of stupor, as after the vision 
 of the ram and he-goat, as Gabriel was speaking luith him, 
 Daniel says, " / was in a deep sleep on my face toward the 
 ground, and he touched me and set me upright ; and again 
 at the voice of the angel, who, after his three weeks' fast^, 
 came to declare to him * the scripture of truth ; and at the 
 Transfiguration, ^ Peter and they that iccre icith him jvere 
 heavy with sleep, and when they irere awake, they saw His 
 glory, "^Wondrous and stupendous mysteries were they 
 which were shewn to the divine man. He saw the Branch 
 of the Lord ; he saw His invincible might ; he saw His 
 brightness of Divine intelligence and Providence ; he saw 
 the amplitude of beauty and dignity. Nailed then and struck 
 still with amazement, while he revolved these things in his 
 mind, sunk in a sort of sleep, he is borne out of liimself and, 
 mantled around with darkness, understands that the secret 
 things of Divine wisdom cannot be perfectly comprehended 
 by the mind of any. This then he attained that, his senses 
 being overpowered, he should see notiiing, save that wherein 
 is the sum of wisdom, that this immensity of the Divine 
 excellence cannot be searched out. By this sleep he was 
 seized, when he was roused by the angel to see further 
 mysteries." "^ Such is the condition of our mind, so far in- 
 ferior to that in the holy angels, that their state may be 
 called wakefulness, our's a sleep." 
 
 '2. And I said^,I have looked and hehold a candlestick all 
 of gold. The candlestick is the seven-branched candlestick 
 of the tabernacle', but with variations purposely introduced 
 to symbolise the fuller and more constant supply of tlie oil, 
 itself the symbol of God's Holy Spirit, Who 
 " Enables with perpetual light 
 The dulness of our blinded siirht." 
 
 » ii. 3. 
 
 3 lb. X. 9. 
 
 < lb. 21. 
 
 - Dan. \\n. 13. 
 5 S. Luke ix. 32. « Osor. ' S. Cyr, 
 
 •'' The Kri ton; must be right, ""CNl, a manifest bhmder, wliioli the Kri corrects; count- 
 less Mss. correct in the text also, the Bibl. Brix.. an old folio without date, and the .Soncm. 
 Prophets, 1186." De Rossi ad loc. All the Verss. a^ree with the Kxi. The text would 
 suppose that, in the silence of the prophet, the anpel-interpreter related tlie rision which he 
 also saw. But this is unUke all the other cases. Kim. supposes tliat tlie prophet speaks of 
 himself in tlie third person. There is the same variation in 2 Sam. i. 8, Neh. v. 9, vii. 3. 
 
 9 Ex. sx?. 31. 
 
 the right side of the bowl, and the other 
 upon the left side thereof. 
 
 4 So I answ(!red and spake to the angel 
 tliat talked with me, saying, What are 
 these, my lord ? 
 
 5 Then the angel that talked with me 
 answered and said unto me, Knowest thou 
 not what these be ? And I said. No, my 
 lord. 
 
 Then he answered and spake unto me, 
 saying, This is the word of the Ijokd unto 
 
 B(-fore 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. .519. 
 
 Zerubbabel, saying, ' Not by 
 by power 
 of hosts. 
 
 miglit, nor ' Hos. 1.7. 
 
 1 1 ». I • -4. -il it I I' Or, army. 
 
 I)y power, out hy my spirit, saitli the Louu 
 
 The first variation is her howl ^'^ on the top of the candlestick, 
 containing the oil; then (as dependent on this) the jjipes to 
 derive the oil into each lnvn]*, seven several^^ pipes to the seven 
 lamps, i.e., seven to each; and the two olive trees on either 
 side of the bowl, whose extreme and fine branches poured 
 through two golden pipes the golden oil into the bowl which 
 supplied the lamps. The multiplied conduits imply the large 
 and perfect supply of oil unceasingly supplied, the seven 
 being symbolic of perfection or of the reconciling of God 
 (symbolised by 3) unto the world (symbolised by 4, its four 
 quarters) ; the spontaneous flow of the golden oil from the 
 olive trees symbolises the free gift of God. 
 
 4. ""Awakened from his state of sleep, even thus the 
 prophet seemed slowly to understand what was she^vn him. 
 He asks then of the instructing angel. The angd, almost 
 amazed, asks if he knows it not, and when he plainly declares 
 his ignorance, makes clear the enigma of the vision." 
 
 (i. This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubhahel. " "As if 
 he were to say, the meaning of the vision and scope of what 
 has been exhibited is, ' God's doings have almost cried aloud 
 to Zerubbabel that all these visions shall come to an end in 
 their time, not effected by human might nor in fleshly 
 strength, but in power of the Holy Ghost and through 
 Divine Will.' For the Only Begotten became Man as we : 
 but He warred not after the flesh, to set up the Church as a 
 candlestick to the world, nor did He, through sensible 
 weapons and armed phalanxes, make those two people His 
 own, or place the spiritual lights on the candlestick ; but in 
 the might of His own Spirit He appointed in the Church 
 ^~ first Apostles, then prophets and evangelists, and all the 
 rest of the saintly band, filling them with Divine gifts and 
 enriching tliem abundantly by the influx of His Spirit." 
 
 '■•''Not then i)i great power nor in fleshly might were the 
 things of Christ, but in power of the Spirit was Satan 
 spoiled, and the ranks of the adverse powers fell with him ; 
 and Israel and those who aforetime served the creature 
 rather than the Creator, were called to the . knowledge of 
 
 1" S'i Sir. My. for rh\, like other rare masculines, asCB3B, Hos. xiii. 2; el's, Ps. xlix. 15; 
 □3-!i;3 Job V. 13; 3J? Pr. vii. 8, as D'S? Zech. xiv. 10; DTU33, Ps. Iv. 16; 120 Ps. Lxxvi. sj 
 iat7, 1 Kgs. xiv. 4; rinfs, Ps. IxxxLx. 45. ' 
 
 " lit. seven and seven,' i.e., seven to each, as in Gen. vii. 2, without the 1, c'jp:' ncBn rir.T 
 nJji^jS " five shekels apiece by the poll," Nu. iii. 47 ; " the fingers of his hands, and the fin- 
 gers of hb feet were CTJ; m, sLx and six, four and twentj- in number," 2 Sam. xxi. 2(1; "his 
 fingers (including as in 2 Sam. those of his feet) were six and six, twenty four." ' 1 Chran. 
 X.X. 6. 
 
 12 1 Cor. xii. 23. 
 
 G G G G 2
 
 528 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 ^tPoTc-P 7 Who art thou, H) i>;r('at mountain? 
 
 cir. 519. before Zeruhbahfl thou slutlt become a phiui : 
 
 " Matt. 2K 21. and he shall brinn^ forth '' the headstone 
 
 !■ Ps. 118. 22. ^ 
 
 God throuffh faith. But that He saved all under heaven, 
 not hyhunian arm, Imt liy His own power as God Einnianuej, 
 Hosea too protested', / trill h(trc viercy ii/ion tite lioiise of 
 Judah and will save them by the Lord their God, and will 
 nut save than In/ botv nor by sword nor by battle nor liy 
 chariots nor by horses nor by horsemen. But cxeccdinj;; fit- 
 tiimlv "as this said to Zeruhl)ahel, wlio was of the trihe of 
 .hulali and at that time administered tlic royal seat at Jeru- 
 salem. For tiiat he niinlit not think tliat, since sueh i;lorious 
 successes were fore-announced to him, «ars would in their 
 season have to be orj^anised, he lifts him up from these 
 unsound and human thoughts, and bids him be thus minded, 
 tiiat the force was divine, the mijjlit of Christ, Who should 
 bring such things to pass, and not human." 
 
 Having given this key of the whole vision, without explain- 
 ing its details, God eidarges what He had said to Zerubbabcl, 
 as He had in the preceding chapter to Joshua-. 
 
 7. JFlio art thou, O great mountain * ? Befoi-e Zerubba- 
 bel thou shall he a plain. The words have the character of a 
 sacred proverb; ^ Every one that exalteth himself shall be 
 abased. Isaiah prophesies the victories of the Gospel in the 
 same imagery, ^ Every valley shall be exalted and every 
 mountain and hill shall be made low ; and the crooked shall be 
 made straight and the rough places plain. And in the New 
 Testament S. Paul says, ^ The weapons of our ivarfare are not 
 carnal, but inighty through God to the pulling doicn of strong- 
 holds, casting dotrn imaginations and every high thing that 
 exalteth itself against God, and bringing into captivity every 
 thought to the obedience of Christ. As it is the character of 
 Anti^Christ, that he ^ npposeth and exalteth himself above every 
 thing that is called God, so of Satan himself it had been said 
 in the former vision, that he stood at the right hand of 
 Joshua '^ to resist him. So then the mountain symbolises 
 every resisting power; Satan and all his instruments, who, 
 each in his turn, shall oppose himself and be brought low. 
 In the first instance, it was Sanballat and his companions, who 
 opposed the rebuilding of the temple, on account of the "ex- 
 clusiveness" of Zerubbabcl and Joshua^, because they would 
 not make the temple the abode of a mixed worship of him 
 whom they call your God and of their own idolatries. In all 
 and each of his instruments, the persecuting Emperors or the 
 heretics, it was the one adversary. "^"The words seem all 
 but to rebuke the great mountain, i. e. Satan, who riseth up 
 and leadeth against Christ the power of his own stubborn- 
 ness, who was figuratively spoken of before *. — For that as far 
 as it was allowed and in him lay, he warred fiercely against 
 the Saviour, no one would doubt, who considered how he 
 approached Him when fasting in the wilderness, and seeing 
 Him saving all below, willed to make Him his own worship- 
 per, shewing Him '^^ all the Idngdoms of the tvorld, saying 
 that all should be His, if He would fall down and worship 
 him. Then out of the very choir of the holy Apostles he 
 
 ' IIos. i. 7. - Zech. iii. 8— 10. 
 
 ■■' Snn 11 ; the constniction as ptrxi.T lytf, xiv. 10 ; rs'jn cttp 2 Sam. xii. 4 ; 7n:.i T13 ly, 
 1 Sam. xix. 22 ; .in 'niDK o-k 1 Sam. x\-ii. 12 ; 's^'jcn una Jer. xxx^ii. 11 ; ntri iji lb. xl. 3; 
 .ijn ^'7^rl -co lb. x.\xii. 14. al.«^o 1 Kgs vii. 8,12. Ges. Lehrg. n. 108. p. 659. 
 '■> S.' Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 1-1. * Is. xl. i. The same word tik''oS, there mth .t,ti. 
 
 " 2 Cor. X. 1, 5. ? 2 Thess. ii. 4. 8 ;;;. j. a gee al). Introd. to 
 
 Hapgai. p. 484. '" S. Cyr. » S. Matt. iv. 8, 9. '= t^nT is a fonn, perhaps framed 
 by Zechariah, here in apposition top^n. ^^ g^r. v. '-^ Is. xxviii. 10. 
 
 I'J Ps. cxviii. 22. This is implied in the Midrash, quoted by De Lira. "They explain it 
 of a certain stone of this building, which was frequently oHered by the stone-masons for the 
 building of the wall, but was always found too long or too short, aiid so was often rejected by 
 
 thereof 'with shoutings, cri/hif:;, Grace, grace (, urTs t 
 unto it. r .. "''•.."f; 
 
 ' Ezra 3. 11, 
 
 8 Moreover the word of the Lord came i'^- 
 
 snatched the traitor disciple, persuading him to become the 
 instrument of the Jewisli pcrverseness. He asks him, ^Fho 
 art thou :' disparaging him and making him of no ai'count, 
 great as the mountain was and hard to withstand, and in 
 the way of every one who would bring about such things for 
 Christ, of Whom, as we said, Zcrul)bai)el was a type." 
 
 ^'/nd he .shall bring forth the headslone^^. 'i'he foundation 
 of the temple iiad ituig been laid. Humanly it still hung in 
 the balance whether they would be j)crmitted to complete 
 it'': Zechariah foretells absohitely that they would. Two 
 images appear to he used in Holy Scripture, both of which 
 meet in Christ : the one, in which the stone spoken of is the 
 foundation-stone ; the other, in which it is the head corner- 
 stone binding the two walls together, which it connects. 
 Both were corner stones ; the one at the base, the other 
 at the summit. In Isaiah the whole emphasis is on the 
 foundation; ^^Beliold Me Who have laid in Zion a stone, a 
 tried stone, a precious corner-stone, well-founded. In the 
 Psalm, the building had been commenced ; those who were 
 building had disregarded and despised the stone, but it 
 became the head of the corner, crowning and binding the work 
 in one^^. Both images together express, how Christ is the 
 Beginning and the End, the First and the Last; the Founda- 
 tion of the spiritual building, the Church, and its summit 
 and completion ; the unseen Foundation which was laid deep 
 in Calvary, and the Summit to which it grows and which 
 holds it firm together. Whence S. Peter unites the two 
 prophecies, and blends with them that other of Isaiah, that 
 Christ would ^^ be a stone of stumbling, and a 7-ock of offence. 
 To Whom c(miing, as nnto a living stone, disallowed indeed 
 of men but chosen of God and precious, ye also are built up a 
 spiritual house — TFhence also it is contained in the Scripture, 
 Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious : — 
 7()ito you which believe He is precious, but unto them which 
 be disobedient, the same stone which the builders refused is 
 made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and 
 a rock of offence, to them which stumble at the %vord being 
 disobedient. 
 
 A Jew paraphrases this of the Messiah; "^^And He shall 
 reveal His JNIessiah, whose name was spoken from the begin- 
 ning, and he shall rule over all nations." 
 
 JVith shoutings^^, grace, grace iinto it, i. e. all favour 
 from God unto it, redoubled favours, grace upon grace. The 
 completion of the building was but the commencement of 
 the dispensation under it. It was the beginning not the end. \ 
 They pray then for the continued and manifold grace of God,/) 
 that He would carry on the work, which He had begun. 
 Perseverance, by the grace of God, crowns the life of the 
 Christian ; our Lord's abiding presence in grace with His 
 Church unto the end of the world, is the witness that He 
 Who founded her upholds her in being. 
 
 8. y^nd the word of the Lord. " " This word of the Lord 
 
 them as tmfit, but in the completion of the wall, in the coupling of the two walls, it is foimd 
 most fit, which was then accounted a man'ellous thing." in Ps. ex™. (118) 22. vrn'i " head," 
 is a natural metaphor for the summit ; the tops of mountains. Gen. \iii. 5 &c. ; of a hill over 
 vallies, Is. xxviii. 1, 4 ; of a tower, Gen. .\i. 4 ; of columns, 1 Kgs ra. 19 ; the roimded top 
 of a throne, lb. x. 19; of a bed, Gen. xlvii. 31 [Heb.]: ear- of com. Job xxiv. 24; the starry 
 heavens above us. Job xxii. 12; of the head ot a people, tribes, nations, a family, in many 
 places. Although used of the chief among things, it cannot, any more than Kec^oAjj, be used 
 of " the base," as Gesenius would have it. Tlies. p. 1251. v. niS'.>o. 
 
 '6 1 S. Pet. ii. 1-7. >" Jon. 
 
 1^ nNr,:''n always plur. ; of tlie cries of a city, Is. xxii. 2 ; of the exactor, Job xxxix. 7; 
 crash of thunder, lb. xx.\vi. 29. [all] " Keil.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 520 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 519. 
 
 ' Ezra 3. 10. 
 •■Ezra G. 15. 
 
 "> ch. 2. 9, 11. 
 & 6. 15. 
 
 ° Isai. 48. 16. 
 ch. 2. 8. 
 
 ° Hag. 2. 3. 
 II Or, s'mce 
 
 the seven 
 
 eyes of the 
 
 Lord shall 
 
 rejoice, 
 tHeb. 
 
 stone of tin. 
 P 2 Chr. 16. 9. 
 
 Prov. 15. 3. 
 
 ch. 3. 9. 
 
 unto me, sayinj^, 
 
 9 Tlu! hands of Zenibbabel ^ have laid the 
 foiuKhition of this house ; his hands ' shall 
 also finish it; and "thou shalt know that 
 the " Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. 
 
 10 For who hath despised the day of 
 "small thini^s ? || for they shall rejoice, and 
 shall se(^ the f plummet in the liand of 
 Zerubbahel with those seven ; ■' they are 
 the eyes of the Loro, whieh run to and fro 
 throuj^h the Avhole earth. 
 
 11 % Then ansAvered I, and said unto 
 
 is not addressed throuf^h ' the interpreting anijel/ but direct 
 from the Lord, and that tlirousjli the 'Anp;el of the Lord.' ^For 
 though in the first instance the words, the luinds of Zerubbahel, 
 S)-c., relate to the buikling of the material temple, and an- 
 nounce its completion through Zerubbahel, yet the inference, 
 and thou sliult Unoiv that the Lord of hosts hath sent me itnto 
 yon, shews that the meaning is not exhausted thereby, but 
 that here too this building is mentioned only as a type of the 
 building of the spiritual temple - ; and the completion of 
 the typical temple is but a pledge of tiie completion of the 
 true temple. For not through the completion of the material 
 temple, but only through the building of the kingdom of God, 
 siiadowed forth by it, can Judah know, that the Angel of the 
 Lord was sent to him." 
 
 10. The simplest rendering is marked by the accents. 
 For icho hath despised^ the day of small things '^f and [i.e. 
 seeing that ^,] there have rejoiced and seen the plummet in the 
 hand of Zertibhahcl, these seven, the Eyes of the Lord, they are 
 running to and fro in all the earth, i. e. since God hatli with 
 joy and good-pleasure beheld the progress of the work of 
 Zerubbahel, icho can despise the day of small things f The 
 dny of small things was not only that of the foundation of 
 the temple, but of its continued building also. The old men 
 indeed, that had seen the first house, wept trith a loud voice, 
 u'hen the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes''. 
 But while in progress too, Haggai asks, ^ fFho is left among 
 you that saw this house in its first glory f Attd how do ye see 
 it now} is not in your eyes such as it, as nothing f Uut that 
 temple was to see the day of great things, when *> the later 
 glory of this house shall be greater than the former, and in this 
 place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 They are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro. He 
 uses almost the words of the prophet Hanani to Asa ^, the 
 
 ' "comp. V. 9 >> with ii. 13 ^ and 15''." - "as in vi. 12. sq." 
 
 3 13 i. q. 15 (and with its const, with b) as na for no. Is. xliv. 18. 
 
 ■• nuep. as niv^, nix^pj. ntoy? Ps. x%i. 11. smg. rtim innje,? Num. xxii. 18. 
 
 ^ Tltis is not a mere i*elation of a contemporaneous fact, in which the noun is placed first. 
 (Ew. Lehrb. § 341 p. 835). It is a contrast ; in which case tlie word, in wliich the contrast 
 lies, is placed first, whetlicr noim or verb. Here the contrast beuij; between " despising " and 
 "rejoicmg," inDU"! is placed first. So in Ps. v. 12, inCB"l; lb. xxv. 3, all that trust in Thee 
 shall not he ashamed ; ashamed be thei/ who &c. ; Ps. xxxviii. 17. The arms of the un- 
 godly shall he broken, and upholdeth the Lord the righteous, " D'pns l^iDi. 
 
 6 Ezr. iv. 12. '" Hagg. ii. 3. 
 
 ' lb. 9. '2 Chr. xvi. 9. DTJ) is masc. in Zecli. both here and iii. 9, 
 
 which is rare, but also Ps. xxxviii. 11. py m. Cant. iv. 9. Ch. Ps. lx.\iii. 7. 
 
 1" Rib. vita S. Ther. ap. Lap. 
 '1 h^y, B.-IT. after the analogy of n?^^, D'^^"^ of ears of com. 
 
 '- Kim., by his explajiation " m the midst" arid that the olive trees were pressed in the 
 midst of the golden pipes, seems to mean tliat the branches ^vlth their olives fell into those 
 
 him, What arc these i two olive trees upon 
 the rijrht side of the candlestick and upon 
 the left side thereof? 
 
 12 And I answered aj^ain, and said unto 
 him, AVhat he these two olive })rancljes 
 which f throuijh the two i^olden pipes 
 ||empty ftlie i^olden oil out of tfiemselves? 
 
 \>\ And he answered me and said, Know- 
 est thou not what these he? And I said. 
 No, my lord. 
 
 14 Then said he, 'These are the two 
 [anointed ones, 'that stand by 'the Lord 
 
 Bffore 
 CHRIST 
 ci r. 519. 
 
 1 ver. 3. 
 
 + Heb. by 
 the hand. 
 
 If Or, empty 
 out if tliem- 
 telves oil in- 
 to the gold. 
 
 t Heb. 
 the gold. 
 
 ' Rev. II. 4. 
 
 f Heb. sons 
 of oil. 
 
 • ch. 3. 7. 
 Luke I. 19. 
 
 « Sec Josh. 
 3. II, 13. 
 ch. G. 5. 
 
 eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, 
 to shetc Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is 
 perfect tinvards Him. Yet this assurance that God's watchful 
 Providence is over the ivhole earth, betokens more than 
 the restoration of the material temple, whose only hindrance 
 could be the will of one man, Darius. 
 
 The day of small things i s especially God's day, Wliosc 
 strength is made perfect in iceahttess ; Who raised Joseph 
 from the prison, David from the sheepfold, Daniel from 
 slavery, and converted the world by the fishermen and the 
 tentniaker, having Himself first become the Carpenter. 
 " Wouldest thou be great ? Become little." " Wiicncver," 
 said S. Theresa^", "I am to receive some singular grace, I 
 first annihilate myself, sink into my own iiotliiiigness, so as 
 to seem to myself to be nothing, be capable of nothing." 
 
 11. yiml I answered and said. The vision, as a whole, 
 had been explained to him. The prophet asks as to subor- 
 dinate parts, which seemed perhaps inconsistent with the 
 whole. If the whole imports that everytliing should be done 
 by the Spirit of God, not by human power, what means it 
 that there are these tiro olive-trees ? And wlien the Angel 
 returned no answer, to invite perhaps closer attention and a 
 more definite question, he asks again; 
 
 12. IFhtit are the two spikes^^ of the olive? comparing 
 the extreme branches of the olive-tree, laden with their fruit, 
 to the ears of corn, which icere by or in the hand o/'- the 
 golden pljies^^, which empty forth the golden oil from themselves. 
 Zechariah's expression, in the hand of or, if so be, by the hand 
 of the two pipes, shews that these two were symbols of 
 living agents, for it is nowhere used except of a living agent, 
 or of that Avhich is personified as such '^ 
 
 14. These are the two sons of oil, probably not as them- 
 selves anointed, (for another word is used for this^^, and the 
 
 pipes as hands, and yielded in them their oil ; Rashi renders "near it" like 'T hit 2 Sam. 
 xiv. 30. as n'3 Job xv. 23. 
 
 " nnn:s is doubtless the same as Ch. prux Esth. (ii.) i. 2, "tubes" K:inn nus Eccl. i. 7, 
 Targ. in BiLXt., yet larger than the piiD. both trom its et>'molog3*, and since the oil was derived 
 through two tubes to the bowl, but by 7 x 7 = 49 to the lamps. 
 
 " Of the 276 cases besides this, in which T3 occurs, in three only is it used of any other 
 than a personal agent, and in these the agent is personified ; Job \Tii. 4, and he east them 
 away in the hand oj their transgression ; Prov. xviii. 21, death and life are in the power, 
 lit. the hand, of the tongne ; Is. Ixiv. 6. thou bast made us to melt away btf the hand of our 
 iniijuilics. AVith regard to n;2. ;i"i;3, this could not be otherwise ; but also in the 92 cases in 
 which n'3 ; 6, in wliich Tn'Z ; and 'ii, in which m'3, occurs, the pronoun relates to a personal 
 agent. 
 
 '> ^nx•, in the other 20 places where it occurs, is always united with other natural products : 
 both triTn (not ["), the fresh ivine. and pi " wheat." ps* is used of the oil as derived from the 
 olive (n-i ]zs. Ex. xx\ii. 20, Lev. xxiv, 2.) for the candlestick, Ex. xn-ii. 20, as well as for 
 the anointing oil, but not i"s\
 
 530 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 51'J. 
 
 of the whole earth. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1 By the flying roll is shewed the curse of thieves 
 
 whole vision has turned on the use of oil as an instrument 
 of lij^ht, not of anointinc:) but as themselves abundantly 
 niinisterinj^ the stream whi(^h is the source of lif:;ht'. 
 
 TVhich stand by the Lord of the luhole earth, as His 
 servants and ministers. 
 
 The candlestick is almost authoritatively interpreted for 
 us, by the adoption of the symbol in the Revelation, where our 
 Lord is exhibited - as walking in the midst of the seven golden 
 candlesticks, and, it is said, ^ the seven candlesticks are the 
 seven Churches; and our Lord says to the Apostles, on whom 
 He founded the Church; * Ye are the light of the world : men 
 light a candle, and put it on a candlestick, and it giveth light 
 to them that are in the house, 
 
 "^The golden candlestick is the Church, as being ho- 
 noured in the world, most bright in virtues, raised on high 
 exceedingly by the doctrines of the true knowledge of God. 
 But there are seven lamps, having light, not of their own, 
 but brought to them from without, and nourished by the 
 supplies through the olive tree. These signify the holy 
 Apostles, Evangelists, and those who, each in their season, 
 were teachers of the Churches, receiving, like lamps, into 
 their mind and heart the illumination from Christ, which is 
 nourished by the supplies of the Spirit, casting forth light 
 to those who are in tlie house." ""The pipes of the lamps, 
 which pour in the oil, signify the unstinted prodigality of the 
 loving-kindness of God to man." 
 
 The most difficult of explanation (as is plain from the 
 variety of interpretations) is this last symbol of the spikes 
 of the olive-tree, through whom flows the oil of the Holy 
 Spirit to the candlesticks, and which yet represent created 
 beings, ministers, and servants of God. Perhaps it repre- 
 sents that, in the Church, grace is ministered through men, 
 as S. Paul says, "^Unto every one of us is given grace according 
 to the measure of the gift of Christ. TVherefore he saith, when 
 Me ascended up on high, He led captivity captive and gave 
 gifts unto men. And He gave some, apostles ; and some, pro- 
 phets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers, 
 for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
 for the edifying of the body of Christ — that we — )nay groxv up 
 into Him in all things which is the Head, eveii Christ, from 
 Whom the whole body, fltly joined together and compacted by 
 that which every Joint supplicth, according to the effectual 
 working in the measure of every part, tnaketh increase of the 
 body unto the edifying of itself in love. What S. Paul expresses 
 hj^all the body, having tiourishment ministered and being knit 
 together by Joints and hands, from the Head, and so increasing 
 ■with the increase of God, (as he elsewhere speaks of ^ the mi- 
 nistration of the Spirit ; ^"he that ministereth to you the Spirit) 
 that Zechariah may express by the oil being poured, through 
 the living ^^ tubes, the bowl, the sevenfold pipes, into the 
 lamps, which shone with the God-given light. So S. Paul 
 speaks again, of ^^ having this treasure in earthen vessels. 
 
 1 So IDS' p Is. V. 1, and the other idioms of qualities, ^'n p, Syhl p, r\'r\)i p &c. 
 2 Rev. i. 1.3. ii. 1. 3 lb. i. 20. 
 
 < S. Matt. V. 1-1, 15. cf. Phil. ii. 15. 6 S. Cyr. 6 Theod. 
 
 7 Eph. iv. 7, 8, 11, 12, 14-16. 8 Col. ii. 1!). 
 
 ' 2 Cor. iii. 8. '» Gal. iii. 5, » See ab. on ver. 12. 
 
 and stvearers. !) By a tvoman pressed in an ,??/",''% -n 
 ephah, the final damnation of Babylon. >Ax. 519. 
 
 THEN I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, 
 and looked, and behold a flying 'roll. ' Ezck. 2. 9. 
 
 Joshua and Zerubbabel, as rei)resentatives of the priestly 
 and royal offices, shadowed forth what was united in Clirist, 
 and so, in their several offices, they might be included in the 
 symI)ol of the olive-tree: they could not exhaust it; for men 
 who, having served God in their generation, were to pass away, 
 could not be alone intended in a vision, which describes the 
 abiding being of the Church. 
 
 "^'^Christ is both All-holy Priest and supreme Eternal King. 
 In both ways He supplies to us the light which He brought. 
 For from Him piety and righteousness flow unceasingly to 
 the Church, that it never lack the heavenly light. The oil is 
 expressed into tubes ; thence passed through pipes into the 
 vessel which contains the lamps ; to designate the various sup- 
 pliers of light, which, the nearer they are to the effluence of the 
 oil, the more they resemble Him by Whom they are appointed 
 to so Divine an office. The seven lamps are the manifold 
 Churches, distinct in place but most closely bound together 
 by the consent of one faith and by the bond of charity. For 
 although the Church is one, yet it is distinct according to the 
 manifold variety of nations. They are said to be seven, both 
 on account of the seven gifts of the Spirit, mentioned by 
 Isaiah, and because in the numbers 3 and 4, is contained an 
 emblem of piety and righteousness. There are 7 pipes to 
 each lamp, to signify that each has need of many instruments, 
 that the light may be maintained longer. For as there are 
 diversities of gifts, so must there needs be the functions of 
 many ministers, to complete one work. But the lamps are 
 set in a circle, that the oil of one may flow more readily into 
 others, and it, in turn, may receive from others their super- 
 abundance, to set forth tiie communion of love and the 
 indissoluble community of faith." 
 
 V. 1. Hitherto all had been bright, full of the largeness 
 of the gifts of God; of God's favour to His people"; the re- 
 moval of their enemies ^' ; the restoration and expansion and 
 security of God's people and Church under His protection ^^ ; 
 the acceptance of the present typical priesthood and the 
 promise of Him, through Whom there should be entire 
 forgiveness^^: the abiding illumining of the Church by the 
 Spirit of God ^^. Yet there is a reverse side to all this, God's 
 judgements on those who reject all His mercies, "i' Pro- 
 phecies partly appertain to those in whose times the sacred 
 writers prophesied, partly to the mysteries of Christ. And 
 therefore it is the wont of the prophets, at one time to 
 chastise vices and set forth punishments, at another to 
 predict the mysteries of Christ and the Church." 
 
 And I turned and, or. Again -" / lifted up my eyes, having 
 again sunk down in meditation on what he had seen, and 
 behold a roll flying ; as, to Ezekiel was shewn a hand with a 
 roll of a book therein, and he spread it before me. Ezekiel's 
 roll also was -^ ivritten within and without, and there was 
 written therein lamentatio7i and mourning and woe. It was 
 a wide unfolded roll, as is involved in its flying ; but its 
 
 12 2 Cor. iv. 7. 
 n Vision 1. i. 7—17. 
 "> Vis. 3. c. ii. '' Vis. 4. c. Iii. 
 
 19 S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. xvii. 3. Rib. 
 Jer. xriii. 4, 
 
 " Osor. 
 J6 Vision 2. lb. 18-21. 
 1^ Vis. 5. c. iv, 
 I Gen. xx\i. 18, 2 Kgs i. 11, 13, 
 =' Ez. ii. 9, 10.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 531 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 519. 
 
 <• Mai. 4. G. 
 11 Or, every 
 
 one of this 
 
 people that 
 
 stvah'th 
 
 hohh'th him- 
 
 2 And he said unto me. What seest 
 thou ? And I answered, I see a flyuijjf roll ; 
 the lenjifth thereof is twenty cubits, and tlie 
 breadth thereof ten cubits. 
 
 3 Then said he unto me, This is the 
 •> curse that goeth forth 
 of the whole earth : for | 
 stealeth shall be cut oft' 
 
 over the face 
 every one that 
 as on this side 
 
 self 
 
 ifdothT'' according to it ; and every one that swear- 
 
 " ^flight siifiiificd the very swift comiiifj of punisliinciit ; its 
 flying from heaven that the sentenec came from the judge- 
 ment-seat ahove." 
 
 2. ^nd he (the interpreting angel) said nnto me. It 
 cannot be without meaning, that the dimensions of the roll 
 shoukl he those of the tahernacle ^, as tlie last vision was 
 that of the candlestick, after the likeness of the candlestick 
 therein. The explanations of this correspondence do not 
 icxclude each other. It may he that '^ Jndgemetit s/uill begin 
 \at the house of God ; that the punishment on sin is propor- 
 tioned to the nearness of God and the knowledge of Him; 
 that the presence of God, which was for life, might also he to 
 death, as S. Paul says ; * God maketh manifest the savour of 
 this knowledge hy us in evert/ place ; for u>e are unto God a 
 sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in tltem that 
 perish; to the one ice are the savour of death nnto death, and 
 to the other the savour of life unto life; and Simeon said, 
 ^ Tliis child is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
 Israel. 
 
 Over the face of the whole earth, primarily land, since 
 the perjured persons, upon whom the curse was to fall ^, were 
 those who swore falsely by the name of God : and this was in 
 Judah only. The reference to the two tables of the law also 
 confines it primarily to those who were under the law. Yet, 
 since the moral law abides under the Gospel, ultimately these 
 visions related to the Christian Church, which was to be 
 spread over the whole earth. The roll apparently was shewn, 
 as written on both sides; the commandments of the first table, 
 in which perjury is forbidden, on the one side; those relating 
 to the love gf our neighbour, in which stealing is forbidden, 
 on the other ^. "^He calleth curse that vengeance, which 
 goeth through the whole world, and is brought upon the 
 workers of iniquity. But hereby both prophets and people 
 were taught, that the God of all is the judge of all men, and 
 will exact meet punishment of all, bringing utter destruction 
 not on those only who live ungodly towards Himself, but on 
 those also vi'ho are unjust to their neighbours. For let no 
 one think that this threat was only against thieves and false- 
 swearers; for He gave sentence against all iniquity. For 
 
 > Rib. 
 
 2 The length of the tabernacle is fixed by the 5 curtains which were to be on each side, 
 the breadth of each curtain four cubits. Exod. xxvi. 1, 2. The whole, including the holy of 
 holies, is determined by the twenti/ boards on each side, a cubit and a half, the breadth of 
 each board; lb. 16, 18. The breadth is fixed by the si.v boards, i. e. nine cubits, with the 
 two boards for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides. lb. 23, 23. Josephus gives 
 the whole thirty cubits long, (the holy of holies being ten cubits square) ten broad (Ant. 3. 
 6. 3.). Kimchi strangely neglects this, and refers to the porch of Solomon's temple, in which 
 the dimensions of the tabernacle were repeated (1 Kgs vi. 3.), but which was itself only an 
 ornament to the temple. 3 x Pet. iv. 17. 
 
 ■1 2 Cor. ii. M— 16. s S. Luke ii. 34. 
 
 ^ ver. 4. ' nt? ,ijp, in Um corresponding sentences, can only be partitive, as 
 
 in Ex. xvii. 12, xxv. 19, xxvi. 13, xxxii. 15, of the two tables of the law, written on both 
 sides ; xxxvii. 8. xxxviii. 15, Nu. xxii. 24 ; Jos. viii. 22, and ten other places. So also niD 
 p^KS ntoi Jos. viii. 33. niDi niD Ez. xlvii. 7, 12, as in other partitives nsp, n'ss, or IBO Ez. xl. 
 10, 12, 21, 26, xli. 2. niD also, when used of place, always means " from here," i. e. a definite 
 
 eth shall be cut off a* on that side accord- ch'rTst 
 ing to it. "■•• '^i'-'- 
 
 4 I will bring it forth, saitli the Lord of 
 hosts, and it shall enter into the house of 
 the tliief, and into the house of '^ him that' ^f-JV" 
 sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall Mai. 3. 5. 
 n^main in the midst of his house, and ''shall " ^^• 
 consume it with the timber thereof and the 
 stones thereof. 
 
 since all the law and the prophets hang on this word. Thou 
 shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself, He comprised every sort of sin under false 
 swearing and theft. The vicdation of oaths is the head of \ 
 all ungodliness. One who so doetii is devoid of tiie love of '•. 
 God. But theft indicates injustice to one's ncighliour ; for \ 
 no one who loves his neighbour will endure to be unjust to ' 
 him. These heads tlicn comprehend all the other laws." 
 
 Shall be cut off, lit. cleansed away''', as something defiled 
 and defiling, which has to be cleared away as offensive : as 
 God says, ^"/ will take away the remnant of the house of .Jero- 
 boam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone, and SO 
 often in Deuteronomy, thou shall put the evil away from 
 the midst of thee^^, or of Israel^-, and in Ezekiel, ^-^f will 
 disperse thee in the countries and will consitmc thi/ filthiness 
 out of thee, ^* Set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the 
 brass of if may be hot and may burn, and the ^filthiness of it 
 may be molten, that the scum of it may be consumed. 
 
 4, I ivill bring it forth out of the treasurehouse, as it 
 were; as he says, ^'=He brijtgeth forth the wind out of His 
 treasures; and, ^''/s not this laid up in store icith Me, sealed 
 up among My treasures ? To Me belongeth vengeance and 
 recompense." 
 
 And it shall remain, lit, "lodge for the night i"," until it 
 has accomplished that for which it was sent, its utter des- 
 truction. " 18 So we have seen and see at this day powerful 
 families, which attained to splendour by rapine or ill-gotten 
 goods, destroyed by the just judgement of God, that tliose 
 who see it are amazed, how such wealth perceptibly yet 
 insensibly disappeared." "^'Why doth it overthrow the 
 stones and the wood of the swearer's house ? In order that 
 the ruin may be a correction to all. For since the earth 
 must hide the swearer, when dead, his house, overturned 
 and become a heap, will by the very sight be an admonition 
 to all who pass hy and see it, not to venture on the like, 
 lest they suS'er the like, and it will be a lasting witness 
 against the sin of the departed." Heathenism was impressed'-* 
 with the doom of him who consulted the oracle, whether 
 he should forswear himself for gain -'. " Swear," was the 
 
 place where people are. Gen. xx3\'ii. 17, xlii. 15, Exod. xi. 1 (Maurer's instances). 
 
 8 Theod. 
 ' So is Ka6apl(a used Mark vii. 19, (See reff. notes 10-14.) For npj is not simply 
 "clear." but "cleanse out," as Kadaipw Soph. Tr. 1012, 1061, Plutarch Thes. n. 7, Mar. 
 n. 6. "of monsters and robbers." (Gesenius in comparing Arab. 'p:nwN. "emptied clean 
 out" (Vita Tim. i. 570.), fVlinirs, " appropriated it exclusively to himself" (Lane), •BSTPK 
 "took away the whole" (Frejt.), "cleared it all off," misses the moral meaning of the 
 Heb. word. '» 1 Kgs xiv. 10, add xxi. 21. " Deut. xiii. 5 (6 Heb.), 
 
 xvii. 7, six. 19, xxi. 21, xxii. 21, 24, xxiv. 7. '- lb. xvii. 12, xxiii. 22. 
 
 '■■> Ezek. xxii. 15. » lb. xxiv. 11. 
 
 « Jer. X. 13, Ii. 16. '6 Deut. xxxii. 34, 35. 
 
 1? np for ."137 in verb Sir. ; in part. pass. .Ti;t Is. lix. 5. is Lap. 
 
 " s. Chn,s. on the statues 15. n. 13. p. 259. Oxf. Tr. 
 ^ "The stor^• of Glaucus is alluded to by Plutarch (ii. p. 550 D) Pausanias(ll. x\-iii. n. 2.) 
 Juvenal (xiii. '199-208) Clemens (Strom, vi. p. 749) Dio Chiysostom (Or. Ixiv. p. frlO) 
 and others." Rawl. Herod, iii. 477. '' Herod, vi. 85.
 
 532 
 
 ZECHARIAIl. 
 
 r, i??[Tc rn 5 ^ Then the :ini:;el that talkofl with mo 
 
 CHRIST 'I ' 
 
 cir. 5ii>. ^vent forth, and said unto n)e, J^ift up now 
 thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth 
 forth. 
 
 6 And I said, AVliat is it ? And he said, 
 This is an ephah that jj^oeth forth. He 
 said moreover, This is their resemblance 
 
 answer, "snice death awaits too the man, who keeps the 
 oath; yet Oath hath a son, nameless, handless, footless; 
 but swift he pursuetli, until he i;rasp toj^ether and destroy 
 the whole race and house." " Mn the third generation, there 
 wasaiought descended from him," who had consulted about 
 this perjury, "nor hearthstone reputed to be his. It had 
 been uprooted and effaced." A Heathen orator - relates, as 
 well known, that "the perjurer escapes not the vengeance of 
 the gods, and if not himself, yet the sons and whole race 
 of the forsworn fall into great misfortunes." God left not 
 Himself without witness. 
 
 "^Tbe prophet speaks of the curse inflicted on the thieves 
 and false swearers of his own day ; but a fortiori he includes 
 that which came upon them for slaying Christ. For this 
 was the greatest of all, which utterly overthrew and con- 
 sumed Jerusalem, the temple and polity, so that that ancient 
 and glorious Jerusalem exists no longer, as Christ threatened. 
 ■* T/tei/ shall lay thee even ivith the ground, and they shall not 
 leave in thee one stotie upon another. This resteth upon them 
 these" 1800 "years." 
 
 5. Then the angel went forth from the choirs of angels, 
 among whom, in the interval, he had retired, as before ^ he 
 had gone forth to meet another angel. 
 
 6. This is the ephah that goeth forth. ""We too are 
 taught by this, that the Lord of all administers all things 
 in weight and measure. So, foretelling to Abraham that his 
 seed should be a sojourner and the cause thereof. He says, 
 ''for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full, i. e., they 
 have not yet committed sins enough to merit entire destruc- 
 tion, wherefore I cannot yet endure to give them over to 
 the slaughter, but will wait for the measure of their iniquity." 
 The relation then of this vision to the seventh is, that the 
 seventh tells of God's punishment on individual sinners; this, 
 on the whole people, when the iniquity of the whole is full. 
 
 This is their resemblance, as we say, their look^, i. e. 
 the look, appearance, of the inhabitants '^in all the land. This 
 then being the condition of the people of the land, at the 
 time to which the vision relates, the symbolical carrying 
 away of the full measure of sin cannot be its forgiveness 
 since there was no repentance, but the taking away of the 
 sin with the sinner. "'"The Lord of all is good and loving 
 to mankind; for He is patient towards sinners and endures 
 transgressors, waiting for the repentance of each ; but if 
 one perseveres long in iniquity, and come to the term of the 
 endurance allowed, it remains that he should be subjected to 
 ■punishment, and there is no account of this long forbearance, 
 
 1 Herod. \\. 83, 85. 
 * S. Luke xix. 41. 
 6_Theod. 
 
 8 py our ?oo/.-, as in Lev. xiji. 55. mid the teproRy hath vot changed '^VjI its look ; Nu. xi. 
 7, of the manna, its look (ij'Ji) was like the look (I'i!3) of hdellitim ; Ezek. x. 9. the nppear- 
 anre of the udiej;ls was like the look (fK?) of stone of tarshish. Add Ez. i. 4, 7, 16,' 27, and 
 Dan. X. (i. like the look (j'y/?) of polished brass. 
 
 ^ The D, relates to the persons, implied though not expressed in the pNri 7|, as in Ps. Lxv. 
 10. tlion preparest C33n their corn ; xxxix. 7, he heapelh up and knoweth not, C59**» ^'^^ 
 palhereth them ; EcclV Y. 17, (18 Eng.) to see good (iVcy, '733) in all his labour; lb', vii. 1, 
 better is the dat/ of death than the da;/ "li^jn of his birth ; llagg, i. C, lit. to clothe, yet not 
 
 Lycuigus Or. in Leocr. p. 157 fin. ' Lap. 
 
 6 ii. .3 (7 Heb.) 
 7 Gen. XV. IG. 
 
 through all the earth. ch^rTst 
 
 7 And, behold there was lifted up a |1 ta- '^"- ^^^■~- 
 lent of hiad : and this is a woman that sit- piJce."'^ ' " 
 teth in the midst of the ephah. 
 
 8 And he said, This is wickedness. 
 And he cast it into the midst of the 
 ephah ; and he cast the weight of lead 
 
 nor can he be exempt from judgement proportioned to what 
 he has done. So then Christ says to the Jewish people, 
 rushing with unbridled phrenzy to all strange excess, ^^ Fill 
 ye up the measure of your fathers. The measure then, which 
 was seen, pointed to the filling up of the measure of the 
 transgression of the people against Himself." "'-The angel 
 bids him behold the sins of the people Israel, heaped to- 
 gether in a perfect measure, and the transgression of all 
 fulfilled — that the sins, which escaped notice, one by one, 
 might, when collected together, be laid open to the eyes of 
 all, and Israel might go forth from its place, and it might 
 be shewn to all what she was in her own land." " '^ I think 
 the Lord alluded to the words of the prophet, as though 
 He would say, Fill up the measure of sins which your fathers 
 began of old, as it is in Zechariah, i. e. ye will soon fill 
 it ; for ye so haste to do evil, that ye will soon fill it to the 
 utmost." 
 
 7. And behold there luus lifted up a talent of lead, the 
 heaviest Hebrew weight, elsewhere of gold or silver ; the 
 golden talent weighing, 1,300,000 grains; the silver, 660,000; 
 here, being lead, it is obviously an undefined mass, though 
 circular '*, corresponding to the Ephali. The Ephah too was 
 the largest Hebrew measure, whose compass cannot now, with 
 certainty, be ascertained '^ Both probably were, in the vision, 
 ideal. " '' Holy Scripture callef h the punishment of sin, lead, 
 as being by nature heavy. This the divine David teacheth 
 us, '" mine iniquities are gone over my head : as an heavy burden, 
 they are too heavy for me. The divine Zechariah seeth sin 
 under the image of a woman ; for most evils are engendered 
 by luxury. But he seeth the punishment, like most heavy 
 lead, lying upon the mouth of iniquity, according to a Psalm, 
 ^~ all iniquity shall stop her mouth." "'* Iniquity, as with a 
 talent of lead, weighs down the conscience." 
 
 This is a woman, lit. one icoman, all sin being concen- 
 trated and personified in one, as he goes on to speak of her 
 as //ie, personified, H'/c/iTf/weM^', The sitting may represent 
 her abiding tranquil condition in her sins, according to the 
 climax in the first Psalm, ~" and hath not sat in the seat of the 
 scornful ; and, "' thou sittest and speakest against thy brother ; 
 "^ not standing as by the way, but sitting, as if of set pur- 
 pose, of wont and habit." " -- Whoso hath peace in sins is 
 not fai' from lying down in them, so that, oppj-essed by a 
 spirit of slumber, he neither sees light, nor feels any blow, 
 but is kept down by the leaden talent of his obduracy." 
 
 8. And cast her into the midst of the Ephah. As yet 
 then the measure was not full. " '^ She had the lower part 
 
 for warmth "h, to him. Ew. Lehrb. n. 294. 1. p. 754. ed. 8. " S. CjT. 
 
 " S. Matt. xxui. 32. i- S. Jer. " Rib. 
 
 1' According to its etyraolc^. 
 '^ It is thought that Joscphus (Ant. 15. 9. 2.) put the ix4Stiii>os by mistake for the pifTpririis, 
 which is J of the /xeSi^vos ; the fifTpr)TT]s holduig nine of our gallons, the fieSifivos twelve. 
 The Ephah wasprobably an Egj-ptian measure, since the LXX substitute o't(pi Sec. corres- 
 ponding to the Eg)-ptian word for "measure," and Ephah has no Semitic etymologj'. 
 11 Ps. xxxviii. 4. '■■ lb. cvii". 42. 
 
 1*' S. Ambr. in Ps. 35. n. 9. Opp. i. 7fi9. " nvihn, Sir. with art. as npisn 
 
 absolutely, only in Dan. ix. 7. Thine, O Lord, is npnsn. n'jiy.T does not occur at all. 
 -■» Ps. i. 1. =' lb. 1. 20. - S.-mct.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 533 
 
 c if iiTs T "po" the mouth tliercof. 
 
 — ^ILlML — 9 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, 
 and, behold, there eanie out two women, 
 atid the wind iv(t.s- in their winj^s ; for they 
 had wings like the winjifs of a stork : and 
 they lifted up the ephah between the earth 
 and the heaven. 
 
 10 Then said I to the an<>jel that talked 
 
 with me, Whither do these bear the ephah ? 
 
 . Jer.29.5, n ^^jj j^g g^;,! ^^^^^^^ ,„y^ 'Po >=\)xiM it an 
 
 ' ^^"- !•>■ lo- house in ^ the land of Shinar : and it shall be 
 established, and set there upon her own 
 • base. 
 
 CHArTER VI. 
 
 1 T/ie vision of the four chariots. 9 Bi/ the crowns 
 
 within the Ephah. but the upper, especially the head, without. 
 Though the Jews had shiin the prophets and done many 
 grievous things, the greatest sin of all remained to be done. 
 But when they had crucified Christ and persecuted the 
 Apostles and the Gospel, the measure was full ; she was 
 wholly within the Ephah, no part remained without, so that 
 the measure was filled." 
 
 ^iid he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof, 
 i. e. doubtless of the Ephah ; as in Genesis >, a great stone ivas 
 on the mouth of the ivell, so that there should be no access 
 to it. 
 
 9. There came out tiro womeii. It may be that there may 
 be no symbol herein, but that he names women because it 
 was a woman who was so carried; yet their wings were the 
 wings of an unclean bird, strong, powerful, borne by a force 
 not their own ; with their will, since they flew ; beyond their 
 will, since the wind was in their wings ; rapidly, inexorably, 
 UTesistibly, they flew and bore the Ephah between heaven 
 and earth. No earthly power could reach or rescue it. God 
 would not. It may be that evil spirits are symbolised, as 
 being like to this personified human wickedness, such as 
 snatch away the souls of the damned, who, by serving theui, 
 have become as they. 
 
 11. To build it an house in the land of Shinar. The name 
 of Shinar, though strictly Babylonia, carries back to an 
 older power than the world-empire of Babylon ; which now 
 too was destroyed. In the land of Shinar" was that first 
 attempt to array a world-empire against God, ere mankind 
 was yet dispersed. And so it is the apter symbol of the 
 antitheist or Anti-Christian world, which by violence, art, 
 falsehood, sophistry, wars against the truth. To this great 
 world-empire it was to be removed ; yet to live there, no 
 longer cramped and confined as within an Ephah, but in 
 pomp and splendour. A house or temple was to be built for 
 it, for its honour and glory; as Dagon^ or Ashtaroth*, or 
 BaaP had their houses or temples, a great idol temple, in 
 which the god of this world should be worshipped. 
 
 ^nd it — "the house," shall be established firmly on its 
 base, like the house of God, and it, (wickedness'') shall be 
 
 > Gen. xxLx. 2. - lb. xi. 2. 
 
 ' 1 Sam. V. 2-5. ■• lb. xxxi. 10. ' 2 Kgs x. 23. 
 
 ^ The subjects are marked by the genders ; n'D being masc., .lyen fem. 
 
 ' S. Just. Dial. n. 17 (n. 91. Oxf. Tr.) and n. 108. p. 20o. Euseljius quotes the first 
 
 PART VU 
 
 of Joshua is shewed the temple and Idngdoin (f iP',["[''. , 
 Christ the Branch. cir. .'ii'.). 
 
 AND I turned, and lifled up mine eyes, 
 and look«>d, and beiiold, there eame 
 four ehariots out from between two moun- 
 tains ; and the mountains were mountains 
 of brass. 
 
 2 In the first chariot irere ^red horses ;*';''■ ^- "• 
 and m tlie second chariot 'black horses; ^ lUv. «. 5. 
 
 3 And in the third chariot "white horses ; ' R*v.f,.2. 
 and in the fourth chariot grisled and || bay II oi.tirung. 
 horses. 
 
 4 Then I answered ^ and said unto the " '=^'- ■'■ i'^- 
 angel that talked with me, What are these, 
 
 my lord ? 
 
 tranquilly rested on its base, as an idol in its temple, until the 
 end come. In the end, the belief of tho.se of old was, that 
 the Jews would have great share in the antagonism to Christ 
 and His empire. At the first, they were the great enemies of 
 the faith, and sent forth, S. Justin says^, those everywhere 
 who should circulate the calumnies against Christians, which 
 were made a ground of early persecutions. In the end. it 
 was believed, that Anti-Christ should be from them, that 
 they would receive him as their Christ, the last fulfilment of 
 our Lord's words, ^ I am come in My Father^s name and ye 
 receive Me not; another shall come in his own 7iame, him ye 
 tuill receive. 
 
 VI. 1. Behold, four chariots going forth '"by the secret 
 disposal of (iod into the theatre of the world," /Vow/ between 
 two mountains of brass. Both Jews ^" and Christians have 
 seen that the four chariots relate to the same four empires, 
 as the visions in Daniel. " The two mountains." It may 
 be that the imagery is from the two mountains on either 
 side of the valley of Jehoshaphat, which Joel had spoken 
 of as the place of God's judgement", and Zcchariah after- 
 wards ^-. It may then picture that the judgements go forth 
 from God. Any how the powers, symbolised by the four 
 chariots, are pictured as closed in on either side by these 
 mountains, strong as brass, unsurmountable, undecaying, 
 ''^'that they should not go forth to other lands to conquer, 
 until the time should come, fixed by the counsels of God, 
 when the gates should be opened for their going forth." 
 The mountains of brass may signify the height of the Divine , 
 wisdom ordering this, and the sublimity of the power which ' 
 putteth them in operation ; as the Psalmist says, ^^ Thy 
 righteousnesses are like the mountains of God. 
 
 2. 3. The symbol is diflVrent from that in the first vision. 
 There ^^, they were horses only, with their riders, to go to 
 and fro to enquire ; here they are war-chariots with their 
 horses, to execute God's judgements, each in their turn. 
 In the first vision also, there is not the characteristic 
 fourfold division, which reminds of the four world-empires of 
 DanieP^; after which, in both prophets, is the mention of 
 the kingdom of Christ. Even if the gristed horses be the 
 
 passage, H. E. iv. 18, and repeats the statement on Is. xviii. ^ S. John v. 43. 
 
 s Alb. '" Saadiah in Kim., Kim., Raslii, the Jews in the time of S. Jerome. 
 
 Jon. paraphrases vi. 5, " four kingdoms." " Jo. iii. 2. 
 
 >- Zech. xiv. 4. '^ Rib. " Ps. xxx^-i. 6. •* i. 8. " Dan. ii. 
 
 H H H H
 
 534 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 CH rTst ^ ^"^^ *^*^ angel answeretl and said unto 
 cir. 519. jy,p^ « These are the four || spirits of the 
 
 Hcb.i.'r.'ii. heavens, wliich go forth from "^ standing 
 ' "Kin":;'-'! HI. before tlie Jjord of all the earth. 
 
 eh!'i.'it. ■ G The hlaek hoi-ses which are therein 
 B je". 1. ii. ' go forth into *? the north country ; and the 
 
 same as the speckled of the first vision, the black horses are 
 wanting: there, as well as the succession, in which they go 
 forth. The only resemblance is, that there are horses of 
 divers colours, two of which, red and white, are the same. 
 The symbol of the fourth empire, grizzled, strong ', remark- 
 ably corresponds with the strength and mingled character of 
 the fourtli empire in Daniel. 
 
 5. These tire the four spirits of the heavens. They can- 
 not be literal winds : for spirits, not winds, stand before God, 
 as His servants, as in Job, '^the sons of God came to present 
 themselves before the Lord. This thoy did, "''for these four 
 kingdoms did nothing without the will of (iod." Zechariah 
 sums up in one, what former prophets had said separately 
 of the Assyrian, the Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian. * (J 
 yissi/ria, the rod of Mine anger — / luill send him against an 
 ungodly nation, and against the jjeople of 3Ii/ lurath I tvill 
 give him a charge. ^ I will send and take all the families of 
 the north, and Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, My 
 servant, and icill bring them against this land. " The Lord 
 shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost part of Egypt, 
 and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall 
 come, and shall rest, all of them, in the desolate valleys. ^ / 
 will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith 
 the Lord ; and they shall come, and shall set every one his 
 throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem. Whatever 
 the human impulse or the human means, all stand before the 
 Lord of the whole earth, ministering to His will Whose 
 are all things, the Judge of all, Who withlioldeth the chas- 
 tisement till the iniquity is full, and then, through man's 
 injustice, executes His own just judgement. "*He says 
 that they went forth from where they had stood hefore the 
 Lord of the whole earth, to shew that their power had been 
 obtained by the counsel of God, that tiiey might serve His 
 will. For no empire was ever set up on earth without the 
 mind, counsel and power of God. He exalts the humble and 
 obscure. He prostrates the lofty, who trust overmuch in 
 themselves, arms one against the other, so that no fraud 
 or pride shall be without punishment." 
 
 6. The black horses which are therein go forth, lit. That 
 chariot wherein the black horses are, these go forth. '" 3Iost 
 suitably is the first chariot, wherein the red horses were, 
 passed over, and what the second, third, fourth did is de- 
 scribed. For when the prophet related this, the Babylonian 
 empire had passed, and the power of the Medes possessed 
 all Asia." Red, as the colour of blood, represented Babylon 
 as sanguinary; as it is said in the Revelation, ^ There tvent 
 out another horse, red, and power tvas given to hi7n that sat 
 
 ' The guess of Abulwalid and Kimchi that fON might be i. q., yrn bright red, Is. Ixiii. 1, 
 is at variance with tlie whole use of the Hebrew root, whicli occurs 40 times in tlie verb, 
 f^K ; 7 times in the adj. ]"SX ; and once each in fpii, njax, j'sxo, besides the Proper Names 
 j'iDN, Isaiah's father; "^fOX, of two persons, n;spN, of four persons. The Arab. SDl, which 
 Eichhom and Henderson compare, is no name of a colour, but is tised apparently of the 
 "slight summer lishtiiing." The ground with some was, that the word is miited with names 
 of colours ; with EwaUi, to replace the red horses, on which the prophet is silent. See 
 "Daniel the propiiet" p. ^(iO. The single c"«e too, in which n and K are supposed to be 
 interchanged in Heb., is tliat a Proper Name yinn 1 Chr. ix. 41, is written SJiNFi lb. viii. 35, 
 but the pronunciation of Proper Names varies in all languages. See " Daniel the prophet" 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. .519. 
 
 white go forth after them ; and the grisled 
 go fortli toward the south country. 
 
 7 And the hay went forth, and sought to 
 go that tht'v n)ight ''walk to and fro tlirouirh *" ^,^": ^h ^^• 
 
 " . " ch. 1. 10. 
 
 the earth : and Ik; said, Get you hence, walk 
 to and fro through the earth. So they 
 
 thereon, to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill 
 one another, and there was given him, a sharp sword. The 
 black were to go forth to the North country, the ancient 
 title of Babylon. For Babylon, though taken, was far from 
 being broken, 'i'hey had probably been betrayed through the 
 weakness of their kings. Their resistance, in the first care- 
 fully prepared ^"revolt against Darius, was more courageous 
 than that against Cyrus : and more desperate '^ Since 
 probably more Jews remained in it, than returned to their 
 own country, what was to befall it had a special interest for 
 them. They had already been warned in the third vision '^ 
 to escape from it. The colour black doubtless symbolises 
 the heavy lot, inflicted by the Medo-1'ersians ; as in the 
 Revelation it is said, ^^ the sun became black as sackcloth of 
 hair ; and to the beast in Daniel's vision which corresponded 
 with it, ^* it was said. Arise, devour much Jlesh ; and in the 
 Revelation i^, he that sat on the black horse was the angel 
 charged with the infliction of famine. Of the Medes, Isaiah 
 had said 1", J will stir up the Medes against them [Babylon], 
 which shall not regard silver ; and gold, they shall not delight 
 in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; 
 and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the ivomb ; their 
 eye shall not spare children. 
 
 The white went forth after them : for the Greek empire 
 occupied the same portion of the earth as the Persian. 
 White is a symbol of joy, gladness ", victory^*, perhaps also, 
 from its relation to light, of acute intelligence. It may relate 
 too to the benevolence of Alexander to the Jewish nation. 
 "^Alexander used such clemency to the conquered, that it 
 seemed as though he might be called rather the founder 
 than the destroyer of the nations whom he subdued." 
 
 A)id the grizzled, the Romans in their mingled charac- 
 ter, so prominent in the fourth empire of DanieP'^, go forth 
 to the south country, i. e. Egypt ; as Daniel speaks of -" the 
 ships of Cliittim and the intervention of the Romans first in 
 regard to the expulsion of Antiochus Epiphanes from Egj'pt; 
 in Egypt also, the last enduring kingdom of any successor 
 of Alexander, that of the Ptolemies, expired. "30 years 
 afterwards, the Son of God was to bring light to the earth. 
 The prophet so interweaves the prediction, that from the 
 series of the four kingdoms it is brought to the Birth of the 
 Eternal King -^." 
 
 7. And the strong went forth and sought to go, that they 
 might walk to and fro through the earth. The mention of 
 their strength corresponds to the extent of the power and 
 commission, for which they asked, to go to and fro, up and 
 down, at their will, unhindered, through the whole earth, 
 
 p. 405. Fiirst's instances (Handwort. p. 3ftS) are conjectures of his own. Within Arabic, 
 TO, i.q., 'Fin; blk i.q., '&\n\ cnx i.q., nin ; (Eiclih. in Ges. Thes. p. 2.) are mthout au- 
 thority ; D3N is not owned by Lane ; else, if it means " imprisoned," it would be a softer 
 pronunciation of pjn in this one sense ; nsN and "i:m are perhaps from the same bilitteral root. 
 
 - .lob i. 6, ii. 1. The same idiom Sy DS'n.n. 3 §. Jer. 
 
 " Is. X. 5. 6 Jer. xxv. 9. 6 i^. vii. 18, 19. ' Jer. i. 15. ^ Osor. 
 
 " Rev. vi. 4. 'f Herod, iii. 150. " See " Daniel the Prophet," 
 
 pp. 129, 130. ed. 2. '^ \\_ 7. 13 Rev. vi. 12. '■• Dan. vii. 5. 
 
 '» Rev. vi. 5, 6. 16 Is. xiii. 17, 18. " Eccl. Lx. 8. "* Rev. vi. 2. 
 
 19 Dan. ii. 41-43. 20 lb. xi. 30. 
 
 -1 Osor. See " Daniel the Prophet," pp. 142-150.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 535 
 
 cifiiTsT ^^'^11^*^<1 to and fro through the earth. 
 
 cir. oli). 
 
 8 Tlien cried he upon nie, and spake unto 
 me, saying, Uelioid, these that go toward 
 
 ' J"^f- 8- ^- the north country have quieted my 'spirit 
 in the north country. 
 
 9 % And the word of the Lord came unto 
 me, saying, 
 
 The Babylonian empire held Ejfvpt only out of Asia; the 
 Persian was conquered in its ettbrts aj^ainst Europe, in 
 Greece ; Alexander's was like a meteor, ji^leaminjj but break- 
 ing; into the four: the Roman combined East and West and 
 within large limits tranquilly. 
 
 ^/id he said go, ivalk to and fro in the earth. He 
 commanded, and they, whieh were before withheld, went, U7id 
 theij walked to and fro^ on the earth, ordering all things at 
 their will, under the Providence of God, whereby He gave 
 free access to the Gospel in all their wide empire. The 
 Greek empire being extinguished, the Romans no longer 
 went into any given country, but superintended and governed 
 all human things in (it is the language of the New Testa- 
 ment) all the ivorld. " - These same, the dappled and ashen 
 grey horses were commanded to traverse the earth, and they 
 did traverse it ; for they mastered all under heaven, and ruled 
 the whole earth, God consenting and arraying those who 
 swayed the Roman might with this brilliant glory. For, as 
 God, He knew beforehand the greatness of their future piety." 
 
 8. Then God, or the ^Jngel of the Lord, who speaks of 
 what belonged to God alone, called me (probably "loudly^"), 
 so as to command his attention to this which most immedi- 
 ately concerned his people. 
 
 These have quieted My spirit in the North country, or 
 rather, have made 3Iy anger to rest* on, i.e. have carried it 
 thither and deposited it there, made it to rest upon them, as 
 its abode, as S. John saith of the unbelieving, ^ The wrath of 
 God ahideth on him. Babylon iiad been the final antagonist 
 and subduer of the people of God. It had at the outset 
 destroyed the temple of God, and carried off its vessels to 
 adorn idol-temples. Its empire closed on that night when it 
 triumphed over God^, using the vessels dedicated to Him, to 
 the glorifying of their idols. In that night was Belshazzar 
 the king of the ChaldcEans slain. This final execution of 
 God's anger upon that their destroyer was the earnest of the 
 rest to them ; and in this the visions pause. 
 
 9. And the icord of the Lord came to me. The visions 
 being closed, Zechariah marks the change by adopting the 
 usual formula, with whicli the prophets authenticated, that 
 they spake not of themselves, but by the Spirit of God. The 
 act enjoined is a symbolic act, pointing and summing up and 
 interpreting the visions, as some of the visions had been 
 already expanded by fresh revelations following immediately 
 upon them. 
 
 > The fern, njii'nnn may have been occasioned by the symbol rWDio v. 1, or the explana- 
 tion ninn, v. 5 ; but since their goin}^ \s*as consequent on the pemiission to go, which they asked 
 and obtained, it must relate to the empire symboUsed by the 4th chariot, not (as some") to all, 
 
 - S. Cyr. 3 p'yin, with ace. p. is used elsewliere of calling together people. 
 
 Jud. iv. 10, 13, 2 Sam. xx. 4, 5. * 'nn nn n'jn, «-ith 3, as Ez. v. 13. C3 'ncn -mnun, 
 
 followed by D3 'non 'ni733 lb. xxiv. 13 : thou shatt not he cleansed any more, until 1 have 
 made my anger to rest upon thee. The idiom, "to cause to rest upon" a person, involves 
 that that person is the object, on whom it abides ; not that anger or spirit was quieted in 
 him wliose it was, (as Kim.), nn is *' anger," Jud. \iii. 3, Ecd. x. 4. 
 
 5 S. Jolm iii. 36. ^ Dan. v. See ui Daniel the Prophet pp. 450-453. 
 
 ' r\i(a npS. as Ex. xxv. 2, xxx. 16, xxxv. 5, Lev. vii. 34. 
 
 8 Jer. xxviii. 6, xxix. 1, 4, 20, 31. (n'^J lb. x.xiv. 5, xxriii. 4, xxix. 22, xl. 1.) 
 
 9 Ezek. i. 2, iii. 11, 15, xi, 24, 25. ' i" Ezr. i. U. " lb. vui. 35. 
 
 10 Take of them o/the captivity, even of cifiiTsx 
 Ileldai, of Tohijali, and of Jedaiali, wliich — "''■ ■''''•'• — 
 are come from lial)ylon, and come thou the 
 
 same day, and go into tlie liouse of Josiah 
 the son of Zcphaniaii ; 
 
 11 Then take silver and gold, and make &29. 6. ' 
 ''crowns, and set them upon the head of ch.\\^' 
 
 10. Take of the captivity, of that wliich they had 
 Ijrought witli thcm^. The caittirity was, in Jeremiah'*, and 
 Ezekiel'*, the title of those who had been actually carried 
 captive and were at that moment in captivity. Ezra con- 
 tinues it of those who had been in captivity, though now 
 returned from exile. Yet not without a reference t(» the 
 cir<^umstan(!es or causes of that captivity. It is tiu- captivity '" 
 which Sheshbazzar lirings from Babylon, or Ezra subse- 
 quently '1 ; the children of the captivity, who set themselves to 
 build the tem|)le of (jod'~; who dedicated it and kept the 
 passover^^. The title is used apparently as an aggravation of 
 sin, like that which had been chastened by that captivity'*. 
 Here, the term seems to imply some blame, that they re- 
 mained of their own accord in this state of severance from 
 the altar, where alone special worship of God and sacrifice 
 could be oft'ercd. They had been removed against their 
 will; yet, as Christians often do, acquiesced in the loss, 
 rather than forego their temporal advantages. Still they 
 wished to take part in the work of restoring the public 
 worship, and so sent these men, with their contribution of 
 gold and silver, to their brethren, whcj had returned; as, in 
 the first times of tlie Gospel, the Christians every where 
 made collections for the poor saints, who dwelt in Jerusalem. 
 And this their imperfect zeal was instantly accepted. 
 
 Jlnd go thyself, to make the act more impressive, on 
 that same day, as matter of urgency, and thou shall come to 
 the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. whither they have come 
 from Babylon '\ The exiles who had brought presents for 
 the building of the temple, lodged, it seems, in the house of 
 Josiah, wliether they doubted or no that their presents 
 would be accepted, since they chose Babylon, not Jerusalem 
 for their abode. This acceptance of their gifts symbolised 
 the incoming of those from far. It is rcmarkal)le that all 
 five names express a relation to God. Tohiah, " "'The Lord 
 is my good; Yedaiah, "God knoweth" or " careth for;" 
 Josiah, "The Lord supporteth '^ ;" Zephaniah, "The Lord 
 hideth," and perhaps Cheldai, "The Lord's world'*." They 
 had taken religious instead of worldly names. Probably 
 Zechariah was first to accept the oflerings from the three 
 exiles, and then to take the actual gold from the house of 
 Josiah whither they had brought it. The pilgrims from 
 Babylon and their host are included in one common blessing. 
 
 ylnd make crowns; or a crotvn^^, as in Job, ~"I would hind 
 it as a crown unto me, and our Lord is seen in the Revelation, 
 
 '2 lb. iv. 1. '3 the children of the captivity lb. vi. 16. Ch. 19, 20. 
 
 » nS'jn lb. ix. 4, x. 6, nSun •:2 lb. x. 7. 16, n^-in hr.p lb. 8. 
 
 1' As in 1 Kgs xii. 2. n3 latt whither he had fed ; add Gen. xlv. 25, for the like accus. 
 of place. Knn. renders, "who have come from Babylon" expressly iiicluding Josiah. Yet 
 this too is an hnpossible construction. 
 
 ifi n;^ia. Tobias happens only to occur after the exile, in Ezr. ii. 60, Neh. vii. 62; 2) 
 in Neh. ii. 10, n. 1 ; 3) the Tobias here and 14 ; 4) Tobit and Tobias in his book. 
 1" Josiah only occurs besides, as the name of the well-known king. 
 
 ^s *i7n. The name is preserved, though obelised, in the LXX. 'EA5ai/i, EASal : not from 
 Aq. who has '0\Bo. Jon. retains the name ; the S)T. and S. Jer. Holdai, (the Syr. in v. 14. 
 also.) The LXX only Topct Twi' dpxoJH-ajy. 
 
 '* " great crown," Jon. ; " a crown," Syr. 
 
 2" nrey Job xxxi. 36. The plural form is used only in these two places, and as, or in, the 
 
 U U H H 2
 
 536 
 
 ZECHAIUAII. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 51'.). 
 
 Joshua the son of Josedcch the hii>h priest; 
 
 12 And speak unto linn, sayinu;, Thus 
 
 speaketh the Loud of liosts, saying, Behold 
 
 ^on His Head were many crowns. The suigular is used of 
 ^a roi/al crown, apparently of a festive crown'; and fi<fura- 
 tively '; even of Alniii;lity 'iod Himself as a crown ^; but no 
 where of the mitre of the hijj,h-pricst. 
 
 The <'haracteristic of the act is, that f/ie crown or crowns 
 (it is not in the context said, which) were placed on the 
 head of the one high priest, Joshua; and thou shult place \it 
 or them, it is not said which] npoji the head of Joshua son of 
 Josedech the high-priest, and shalt say unto him. If crowns 
 were made of eai-h material, there were two crowns. But 
 this is not said, and the silver might have formed a circlet 
 in the crown of gold, as, in modern times, the iron crown of 
 Lombardy, was called iron, because it had "^a plate of iron 
 in its summit, being else of gold and most precious." In 
 any case the symbolical act was completed by the placing of 
 a royal crown upon the head of the high-priest. This, in 
 itself, represented that He, Whom he and all other priests 
 represented, would be also our King. It is all one then, 
 whether the word designate one single crown, so entitled 
 for its greatness, or one united royal crown, i. e., one crown 
 uniting many crowns, symbolising the many kingdoms of 
 the earth, over which our High Priest and King should rule. 
 Either symbol, of separate crowns'', or an united crown*, 
 has been used in the sanae meaning, to symbolise as many 
 empires, as there were crowns. 
 
 On Zerubbabel no crown was placed. It would have been 
 confusing; a seeming restoration of the kingdom, when it 
 was not to be restored ; an encouragement of the temporal 
 hopes, which were the bane of Israel. God had foretold, that 
 none of the race of Jehoiakim should prosper, sitting on the 
 throne of Dai'id, or ruling any more in Israel. Neheniiah 
 rejects the imputation of Sanballat', Thou hast also appointed 
 
 Proper Name of four towns ; 1 ) nnej; a town of the Gadites, Nu. xxxii. 3, 34 ; 2) of Ephraim, 
 Josh. xri. 27, also nix n'rcy "cro-.vh of Addar," lb. xvi. 5, xriii. 13; 3) of Judali ninoy 
 nxr n'3 ("crown of the house of Joab") 1 Chr. ii. 51; and 4) and of Gad, iDiir n'nny, 
 (mentioned with Ataroth) Nu. xxxii. 35. In all these it must needs be sin^ilar. 
 
 1 Rev. xix. 12. In Rev. xii. 3, the 7 crowns are for the 7 heads of the dragon. D'lffp is 
 used of the one girdle, Jer. ii. 32. - DD^ mtjy 2 Sara. xii. 30, 1 Chr. xx. 2 ; 
 also of a king, Ps. xxi. 4, Cant. iii. 11, Jer. xiii. 18; perliaps Esther viii. 15, (coll. vi. 8.) 
 possibly Ezelc. xvi. 12, (coll. 13); fig., parallel witli ,i:iVd lux Is. bdi. 3; comp. also 
 .Ti'ayD 11:; Ti/re the crowning i. e., the kingmaker, in her colonies, Is. xxiii. 8. 
 
 2 Is. xxviii. 1, 3, Lam. v. 16; of festive array, Ez. xxiii. 42. 
 
 < Job xix. 9. [ghu-. lb. xxxi. 36] Pr. iv. 9, xii. 4, xiv. 24, xvi. 31. xvii. 6. 
 
 ' Is. xxviii. 5. is contrasted with " the crowni of pride" lb. 1, 3. [all] 
 
 fi Ceremoniale Rom. L. 1. sect. 5. in Du Cange Glossar. v. Corona Ferrea. 
 
 " Ptolemy Philadelpluis " set two crowns upon his head, the crown of Asia and of Eg^-pt 
 (1 Mace. xi. 13) ; Artabanus, " in whom the kingdom of Parthia ended," used two diadems 
 (Herodian Hist. vi. 2. p. 119 Bekk.); "the Emperor of Germany received ttoee crowns: 
 first, silver (at .\ix) for Germany; one of iron at Monza in the Milanese or Milan (for 
 Lombardy) ; that of gold in divers places," (.\lberic. Index v. Corona in Du Cange v. Corona 
 Imperialis) " the golden at Rome." Du Cang. Otto of Frisingen said that Frederic received 
 5 crowns; the first at Aix for the kingdom of the Franks; a second at Ratisbon for that of 
 Gennany ; a tliird at Paria for the kingdom of Lombardy ; the fourth at Rome for the 
 Roman empire from Adrian iv ; the iifth of Monza for the kingdom of Italy." In our 
 own memoiy, Napoleon I. having been crowned in France, was crowned with the iron crown 
 at Monza. 
 
 ** "The headdress of the king, on state occasions, was the crown of the upper or of the 
 lower country-, or the nslient, the union of the two. Eveiy king, after tlie sovereignty of the 
 Thebaid and lower Egypt had become once more vested in tiie same person, put on this 
 double crown at his coronation, and we find in the grand representation given of this cere- 
 mony at Medeenet Haboo that the principal feature of the proclamation, on his ascension to 
 the throne, was the announcement that Remeses had put on the crown of the upper and 
 lower country. — When crowned, the king invariably put on the two crowns at the same 
 time, though on other occa.sions he was permitted to wear each separately, whether in the 
 temple, the city, or the field of battle." Wilkinson's .\ncient Egvpt, iii. 351 — 353. 
 9 Neh. vi. 6—8. lo Ezek. xxi. 31, 32 [26, 27, Eng.] 
 
 11 Ps. ex. 4. 12 lb. ii. 6. 13 Phil. ii. 8. 9. 
 
 M The consent of the ancient Jews in interpreting "the Branch" of the Messiah is very 
 
 See Luke 
 1.78. 
 Jolm 1. 45. 
 
 'the man whose name h- The '"BRANCH ; ch^rTst 
 and he shall 11 jj^row up out of his place, "and , — "'-J^^^i^, 
 
 " ^ 1 _ ' ' 1 Kp» 1. 1,1*. 
 
 he shall huild the temple of the Ijoki> : 
 
 ^ ch. 3. 8. 11 Or, branch upfront under him. 
 
 " ch. 4. 9. Matt. 16. 18. Eph. 2. 20, 21, 22. Heb. 3. 3. 
 
 prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, There is a king in 
 Juiluh. He answers, There are no such things done as thou 
 sayest ; and thou feigttcst them out of thine own heart. But 
 Isaiah had foretold much of the king who should reign : 
 Zechariah, by placing the royal crown on the head of Jo-hua, 
 foreshewcd that the kingdom was not to be of this world. 
 The royal crown had been taken away in the time of Zedekiah, 
 ^^Thus suith the Lord God, Remove the diadem and take 
 away the crown; this shall 7iot be this; exalt the low and 
 abase the high; an overtltroiv, overt hrotc, onertliroiv will J make 
 it ; this too is not ; until he come whose the right is, and J will 
 give it. 
 
 But the Messiah, it was foretold, was to be both priest 
 and king; ^' a priest after the order of AJelchizedec, and a king, 
 set by the Lord ^' upon His holy hill of Zion. The act of 
 placing the crown on the head of Joshua the high-priest, 
 pictured not only the union of the offices of priest and king 
 in the person of Christ, but that He should be King, being 
 first our High Priest. Joshua was already High Priest; 
 being such, the kingly crown was added to him. It says in 
 act, what S. Paul says, that i' Christ Jesus, being found in 
 fashion as a man, humbled Himself and became obedient unto 
 death, even the death of the Cross. JFherefore God also hath 
 highly exalted Him. 
 
 12. The Prophet is taught to explain his own symbolic 
 
 act. Behold the Man whose 7iame is the Branch ^*. " Not for 
 
 j himself, but for Christ, Whose name Joshua bare, and Whose 
 
 I Priesthood and Princedom he represented," was the crown 
 
 given him. The Prophet had already foretold the Messiah, 
 
 under the name of the Branch. Here he adds, 
 
 ^nd he shall grow up out of His place ^^, lowly and of no 
 seeming account, as God foretold by Jeremiah, ^* / will cause 
 
 remarkable. " R. Berachiah (about A. D. 200, Wolf. Bibl. Hebr. ii. 870) said, that 'God, 
 blessed for ever, saith to Israel, Ye say before Me, we are become orphans and have no 
 father ; the Redeemer too. Whom I am about to make to stand from you, He shall have no 
 father, as is said. Behold the Man Whose name is the Branch, and he shall shoot [lit. from 
 below him] from his place; and so saith Isaiah, And he grew up like a sucker before him.*" 
 ( Bereshith Rabba on Gen. xxxvii. 22. in Martini Pug. Fid. f. 594 quoted also by a Jewish 
 convert, Joshua Hallorki, known among us as Hieron. de S. Fide, c. Jud. i. 5. Bibl. Max. 
 Patr. xxvi. 536. His quotation is independent of Martini, since he adds the quotation from 
 Ps. ii. "and elsewhere, 'The Lord said unto me, Thou art my ,Son.'") Jon. paraphrases, 
 " Behold a Man, Whose name is Messiah, Who shall be revealed, and shaU be multiplied." 
 ('3in'l, by which ms is rendered Ps. Lxxxv. 12.) "and he shall build the temple of the Lord, 
 and /(f shall bear glory, and he shall sit and shall rule on his throne, and he shall be a great 
 Priest on his throne, and counsel of peace there shall be between them both." Rashi says, 
 "He hints at the Messiah, and so paraphrases Jonathan, Behold a Man Whose name is 
 Messiah, &c."(in Mart. p. 376. The printed edd. suhstitute "And some interpret it of king 
 Messiah.") R. Nachman obsen'eson the force of the word man, "Man (in Nu. i. 4.)is not 
 said here but of the Messiah the Son of David, as is said, ' Behold the Man, Whose name 
 is the Branch.' Jonathan paraphrases Tlie >Ian Messiah, and so it is said, ' a man of sorrows 
 and acquainted with grief.' " (Mart. p. 664). The Echa Rabati, f. 59, 2. and Jerus. Bereshith 
 f..5, 1. quote R. Joshua B. Levi (end of 2nd cent.. Wolf. B. H. ii. 842, coll. pp. 8.34, 841) as 
 alleging this place in proof that "Branch is a name of the Messiah." Schbttgen [ad loc.]. 
 Schdttgen quotes also the Pirke Elieser c. 38, " God will free Israel at the end of the 
 4th kingdom, saying, I have put forth a germ imto you. Behold my servant the Branch." 
 Bammidbar R. sect. 18 f. 236, 1, Tanchiuna f. 68, 3. " Behold the Man, whose name is 
 the Branch. This is the Messiah, of Whom it is said (Jer. xxiii. 5.) And I will raise 
 up unto David a righteous Branch." Midrash Mishle xLx. 21 f. 57, 1. quotes, "R. Hima (3rd 
 cent.) said, The name of Messiah is Branch, as in, ' Behold a man.' " lb. After all this 
 1 Kinichi says, " Smne interpret it of king Messiah." 
 I 1^ TnnriD as Ex. x. 23, " neither rose any from his place," vnnnD. 
 
 I 1** Jer. xxxiii. 15. This is the natural construction. 1) nc:* being the common word for 
 I the shooting of plants, (Gen. ii. 5, xii. 6, 23, Is. xliv. 4. Ez.xvii. 0.) the name of "the branch," 
 [ having preceded, is the idiomatic subject tones'; 2) the impers. would have been plural, 
 since the meaning would have been plural, they i. e. many, shall grow up, 3) it is 
 I unnatural to assume an impersonal, since a subject has been mentioned in the preceding 
 ' clause to which it is united by 1 ; and 4) it is followed by a personal verb, with that same 
 ' subject for its subject.
 
 CIIAFTEIl Vl. 
 
 537 
 
 curTst ^''' ^^■''" ^^^ shall Imild the tciniih' «»f tiio 
 "*•• ^^^- Loud ; and he " shall bear the glory, and 
 
 ° Isai. 22. 24. 
 
 t/ie Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David ; and Jesus 
 Himselt" saitl, ^ Except a grain of irheat fall into the earth 
 and die, it ahideth alone ; hat if if die, it liriageth forth iniuh 
 fruit. Alone lie f;rc\v u|i Ix-torc (ioil, as a tender plant-, 
 unknown of man, known to God. It is that still, Divine life 
 at Nazareth, of which we see only that one hriji^ht flash in 
 the temple, the deep sayinif, ununderstood even by Joseph 
 and Mary, and then, '' lie went down with them and catne to 
 Nazareth and was suhjeet unto them. 
 
 And he shall build the tetnple of the Lord. The material 
 temple was soon to he finished, and that hy Zer\ihhahel, to 
 whom this had been promised ^, not by Joshua. It was then 
 a new temple, to be built from the foundation, of which He 
 Himself was to be the foundation ', as He said, ^ On this 
 rock I ivill huild My Church; and in Him ''all the building, 
 fitly framed together, grotveth unto an holy temple to the 
 Lord. '"* He it is. Who built the house ; for neither Solomon 
 nor Zerubbabel nor Joshua son of Josedech could build a 
 house worthy of the majesty of God. For ^/Ae most High, 
 S. Stephen says, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, us 
 saith the prophet ; Heaven is My throne and earth is My foot- 
 stool ; what house will ye build 3Ie, saith the Lord'' Fur if 
 they could have built a house for God, He would not have 
 allowed His house to be burned and overthrown. What 
 then is the house of God which Christ built ? The Church, 
 founded on faith in Him, dedicated by His Blood, stablished 
 by the stayedness of Divine virtue, adorned with Divine and 
 eternal riches, wherein the Lord ever dwelleth." 
 
 13. Even He, lit. He Himself ^^. The repetition shews 
 that it is a great thing;, which he affirms ; and He, again 
 emphatic. He, the same who shall build the temj)le of the 
 Lord, He shall bear the glory. Great must be the glory, 
 since it is affirmed of Him as of none besides, " i/e shall 
 bear glory," " He should build the temple of the Lord," as 
 none besides ever built it; He should bear glory, a.s none 
 besides ever bare it, ^' the glory as of the Only Begotten of 
 the Father, full of grace and truth. This word glory is 
 almost always used of the special glory of God ^~, and then, 
 although seldom, of the Majesty of those, on whom God 
 confers majesty as His representatives, as Moses, or Joshua", 
 or the glory of the kingdom given to Solomon ^*. It is used 
 also of Him, a likeness of Whom these vice-gerents of God 
 bare, in a Psalm whose language belongs (as Jews too have 
 seen,) to One more than man i% although also of glory given 
 by God, either of g^race or nature i''. So in our Lord's great 
 High Priest's prayer He says, i' Father, glorify Thou Me with 
 Thine own self ivith the glory which I had with Thee before 
 the world was ; and prays, '** that they also whom Them hast 
 given Me, be xeith Me, where I am ; that they may behold 3Ii/ 
 glory which Thou hast given Me. So S. Paul, applying the 
 words of the eighth Psalm, says of our Lord, I'/Fe see Jesus, 
 Who tuas made a little lower than the angels, crowned ivith 
 glory and honour ; and the angels and saints round the Throne 
 
 > S. John xii. 24. 2 Is. liii. 2. 3 See S. Luke u. 49-51. •• iv. 10. 
 
 5 Is. xxviii. 16, 1 Cor. iii. 11, Eph. ii. 20, 21. 6 S. Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
 7 Eph. ii. 21. 8 Osor. « Acts vii. 48, 49. '» Kin emph. " S. John i. 14. 
 
 12 11.11 111 Ps. xcvi. 6, (1 Chr. xvi. 27.) civ. 1, cxi. .S, Job xl. 10, of Christ, Ps. xlv. 4; 
 "pin lUD n.i Ps. cxlv. 5 ; ii.i alone, Job xxxvii. 22, Is. xxx. 30, 1 Clir. xxix. 11, Ps. viii. 2, 
 cxlviu. 13, Hab. in. 3. '3 Nu. xxvii. 20. n 1 Chr. xxix. 25. 
 
 '^ Ps. xxi. 6. See in Schbttgen de Messia ad loc. 
 
 '' It is used of the inward glory given to regenerate Israel, Hos. xiv. 7. (6 Eng.) ; or as 
 
 shall sit and riih* upon his throne; suK^cifRTsT 
 ^ he shall be a priest upon his throne : _ '■•''•• ^^"- 
 
 P Ps. 110. 4. Hcb. 3. 1. 
 
 say, '^Worthy is the Lamb irhich was slain to receive power and 
 tvisdom and strength anil honour and glory and blessing, and 
 those on earth answer. Blessing and honour and glory and 
 power be unto Him that silleth upon I he Throne and unto the 
 Lamb for ever and ever, 'i'hat glory Isaiah saw-'; in His 
 miracles \\(!. manifested forth His glory -"^j which resided in 
 Him; in His Transfiguration, the three Apostles saw His 
 glory ~\ shining out from within Hini; ijito this Jlis glory ''^j 
 He told the diseiiiles at Enimaus, the prophets said, tliat He 
 was to enter, having first suffei-ed what He suffered ; in this 
 His glory He is to sit, when He judges -^ And He shall sit 
 and rule on His Throne. His rule shall be, not passing but 
 abiding, not by human might, but in peaceful majesty, as 
 God says, -" Yet have I set My king upon My holy hill of Zion, 
 and a.^iiin,-'' Sit Thou on My Right Hand, until I make Thine 
 enemies Thy footstool ; and the angel said to Mary, "'' The Lord 
 God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and 
 He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His 
 kingdom there shall be no end. 
 
 And He shall be a priest Jipon His Throne. He shall be 
 at once king and priest, as it is said. Thou art a priest for 
 ever after the order of Melchir^edec. When the Christ should 
 reign. He should not cease to be our Priest. He, having all 
 poiver given to Him in heaven and in earth, reigneth over His 
 Church and His elect hy His grace, aud over the world by 
 His power, yet ever liveth to make intercession for us. "-'Not 
 dwelling now on M'hat is chiefest, that ^° by Him were all 
 things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, 
 visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or 
 principalities or jiotcers ; all things ivere created by Him atid 
 for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things 
 consist, how many crowns of glory belong to Him, One and 
 the Same, God and Man, Christ Jesus! He then ivill bear 
 glory and will sit upon His throne and shall be a priest on 
 His throne. How just this is, it is easier to think than to 
 express, that He should sit and rule all things, by JVhom all 
 things were made, and He should be a Priest for ever, by 
 Whose Blood all things are reconciled. He shall rule then 
 upon His throne, and He shall be a priest upon His throne, 
 which cannot be said of any of the saints, because it is the 
 right of none of them, to call the throne of his rule or of his 
 priesthood his own, but of this Only Lord and Priest, ^\'hose 
 majesty and throne are one and the same with the Majesty 
 of God, as He saith, ^^ IVhen the Son of 3Lin shall come in 
 His Majesty [Glori/], then shall He sit upon the throne of His 
 Maj'esfy [Glory]. And what meaneth that re-duplication, 
 anil He shall rule on His Throne, but that One and the 
 Same, of Whom all this is said, should be and is King and 
 Priest. He Who is King shall rule on His Throne, because 
 kingdom and priesthood shall meet in One Person, and One 
 shall occupy the double throne of kingdom and priesthood." 
 He Alone should be our King; He Alone our Saviour: He 
 Alone the Object of our love, obedience and adoration. 
 
 glorified by God, Zech. x. 3 ; of kingly glorj', Jer. xxii. 18, Dan. xi. 21 ; of the inward 
 glory of man, as such, Dan. x. 8, Pr. v. 9, or even of the horse, as the creation of God, 
 Job xxxix. 20 [all]. " i' S. John xvii. 5. is lb. 24. 
 
 19 Heb. ii. 9. ™ Rev. v. 12, 13. -• S. John xii. 41. = lb. ii. 11. 
 
 23 S. Luke ix. 32. 2^ lb. xxiv. 26 ; add 1 S. Pet. i. 11, 12. 
 
 23 S. Matt. xLx. 28, S. Luke ix. 26. 26 Ps. ;;_ g. S7 lb. ex. 1. 
 
 28 S. Luke i. 32, 33. ^ Rup. so Col. i. 16, 17. 
 
 3' S. Man. x.\v, 31.
 
 538 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 ciFrTst ^"'^ *'"' t'ounsel of peace slmll be between 
 "■•• "9- them both. 
 
 14 And the crowns shall be to Ilelem, 
 
 And the counsel of peace shall he hetween them both. The 
 counsel of peace is not merely ;;e«ct', tis S. Jerome seems to 
 interpret : " He is botli kinjif and priest, and shall sit both 
 on the royal and sacerdotal throne, and there shall be peace- 
 ful counsel between both, so that neither should tlie royal 
 eminence depress the dignity of the priesthood, nor the 
 dignity of the priesthood, the royal eminency, but both 
 should be consistent in the glory of the One Lord Jesus." 
 For had this been all, the simple idiom, there shall be peace 
 between them, would have been used here, as elsewhere ^. 
 But counsel of peace, must, according to the like idioms^, 
 signify "a counsel devising or procuring peace" for some 
 other than those who counsel thereon. We have the idiom 
 itself, counsellors of peace "^. 
 
 They twain might be said of things*: but things are 
 naturally not said to counsel, so that the meaning should be, 
 that the thrones of the priests and of the Branch sliould 
 counsel. For the throne is in each case merely subordinate. 
 It is not as we might say, "the See of Rome," or "of Con- 
 stantinople," or " of Canterbury," meaning the successive 
 Bishops. It is simply the material throne, on which He sits. 
 Nor is any thing said of any throne of a priest, nor had a 
 priest any throne. His office was to stand before the Lord =, 
 his intercessorial office to * offer gifts and sacrifices for siti. 
 To ''offer up sacrifice, first for his own sijis and then for the 
 people's, was his special office and honour. There are then 
 not two thrones. One sits on His Throne, as King and Priest. 
 It seems only to remain, that the counsel of peace should 
 be between Jesus and the Father ; as S. Jerome says, " I 
 read in the book of some, that this, there shall be a peaceful 
 counsel between the two, is referred to the Father and the 
 Son, because He ^ came to do not His own will, but the fVill 
 of the Father, and '■'the Father is in the Son, and the Son in 
 the Father." In Christ all is perfect harmony. There is a 
 counsel of peace between Him and the Father Whose temple 
 He builds. The Will of the Father and the Son is one. 
 Both had one Will of love towards ns, the salvation of the 
 world, bringing forth peace through our redemption. God 
 the Father ^'^ so loved the luorld, that He gave His Only- 
 Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish 
 but have everlasting life; and God the Son ^^ is our peace. 
 Who hath made both one, that He might reconcile both unto 
 God in one body by the Cross, and came and preached peace 
 to them which were afar off' and to them that ivere nigh. 
 Others seem to me less naturally to interpret it of Christ 
 in His two offices, "i- There shall be the counsel of peace 
 between them, the ruler and the priest, not that Christ is 
 
 1 Jud. iv. 17, 1 Sam. vii. 14, I Kgs v. IG (12 Enp;.). 
 
 2 The verbal noun retaining the active force of the verb, as jn, nsy. d'svv.t Ez. xi. 2. as in 
 the verb "n-aS nirn ni-y Hah. ii. 10 ; \)i;, nisi mn, Is. xxxii. 7 ; j*!;: nin-ij 3-ij, lb. 8. 
 
 3 Pr. xii. 20. ^ on'W is used of things, thiougliout Nu. vii, of the oflerings of the 
 princes of the 12 tribes; also Ex. xxvi. 24, xxxvi. 29, De. xxiii. 19, Pr. xx. 10, xxvii. 3, 
 Eccl. xi. 6 : but not with any verb implying action. 
 
 5 See ab. p. 522. n. 41. « Heb. v. 1. ix. 9. 7 lb. vii. 27. 
 
 s S. John V. 30, vi. 38. 9 lb. xiv. 10. w lb. iii. 16. 
 
 " Eph. ii. 14, 16, 17. '= Rup. " Col. i. 19, 20. 
 
 n All MSS. and the Versions (except the Syr. which repeats here the names of v. 10) 
 have or implv the names Helevi and Ileii. Aq. and Jon. have the names Helem here; 
 Symm. translated it as Holem, rcf 6poii/Ti ivinrvia. Tlie LXX render the names common 
 to both verses by the same words, [tuv xprialfiuv airf;?, rcif (TTfyDwKdTwv avrri") but use 
 diflerent words for Holdui and Helem; for Ilnlrliu {v. 10) apx6i'Tuii' ; for Helevi, toTs 
 vTTonivoi/ai, as if D'7'n". (The Prop. Name Sk'^H' is, in Gen. xlvi. 14, the third son of 
 Zabulon, the patronymic ''jK^n', Nu. xxvi. 26, and the adj. S-n- Lam. iii. 20). The Jews 
 
 and to T()l)ij:ih, and to Jedaiah, and to lien cifiiTsT 
 
 the son of Zephaniah, ifor a memorial in fi^J-i^L-. 
 
 the temple of the Loud. Mark 14. 9. 
 
 divided, but that those two princedoms, which were hitherto 
 divided, (the priest and the king being different jiersons) 
 should be united in the One Christ. Between these two 
 princedoms, being inseparably joined in one, shall be the 
 counsel of peace, because through that union we have peace; 
 and through Him ^^it pleased the Father to reconcile all 
 things unto Himself, and that all things should he brought 
 to peace through the Blood of His cross, whether things in 
 earth or things in heaven." 
 
 14. Jlnd the croivns shall be to Helem. There is no 
 ground ajtparent to us, why the name Helem appears instead 
 of Holdai '% or Hen for Josiuh : yet the same person must 
 have been called both Hen a)id Josiah, since the father's 
 name is the same in both places. They cannot both be 
 intended as explanations of tae former names, since Helem 
 stands insulated in Hebrew, its meaning conjectural ^^. Per- 
 haps then they were the own names of the individuals, and 
 the names compounded with the name of God, honourable 
 names which they had taken. 
 
 For a memorial in the temple of the Lord. They brought 
 a passing gift, but it should be for a lasting memorial in their 
 behalf. It is a renewal of the well-known term of the law^". 
 The ttoo stones, engraven with the names of the children of 
 Israel, rtpon the shoulders of the Ephod, were to the end, that 
 Aaron should bear their names before the Lord upon his ttvo 
 shoulders for a memorial ^^ ; continually, it is added of the 
 breastplate with its twelve precious stones ^* ; the atonement 
 money of the children of Israel was to be appointed for the 
 service of the tabernacle of the congregation, that it may be a 
 7uemorial for the children of Israel before the Lord, to make 
 atonement for their souls^''; to make ati atonement for their 
 souls before the Lord. They were to blcnv with the trumpets 
 over their burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifice of their 
 peace-offerings, that they may be to you for a memorial before 
 your God'^. When Midian had been smitten before Israel, 
 and not one of Israel had been slain, they brought all the 
 gold which had accrued to them, and Moses and Eleazar took 
 the gold, and brought it into the tabernacle, a memorial for 
 the children of Israel before the Lord-^. So the angel said to 
 Cornelius, --thy prayers and thy alms are come up for a 
 memorial before God. " ^- This is what we look for, that to 
 all the saints and friends of God, whom these signify, those 
 crowns which they made of their gold and silver for the 
 Lord Jesus, shall be an everlasting memorial in that heavenly 
 temple of the Lord." The tradition of the Jews, that this 
 was literally observed-', can hardly be without foundation. 
 "^* These their offerings shall be for grace to those who 
 
 in S. Jerome's time identified the tliree with Ananias Azarias and Misael, and Hen, 
 ' ' grace " with Daniel. 
 
 1^ In Syr. the central meaning of -r?n seems to be "crept," hence used of a "cancer" or 
 a "mole." Neither nSn nor o'jn signify "strong." nSn is rather used of "the world" as 
 " fleeting." "ihn Arab, is perhaps originally " lingered," hence was "slow in becoming grey," 
 " lingered," abode m a place ever, "everlastingly," in heaven or hell. It is not used of strength. 
 D?n is used of "good condition" of an animal. Job xx.xix. 4; (as in Arab.); in Hif. is 
 " restored one to health" (Is. xxxviii. 10), as Syr. in Ethp., In Svt. D'Sn is used of recovered 
 health, S. Mark v. 31, S. John v. 11, Acts iv. 10; as opposed to sickness, S. Mark ii. 17; 
 or sound heallhi/ words, S. Jolui vi. 3, 2 Tim. i. 11. In Arab. D^n conj. i. is " dreamt " ii. 
 "was kuid, forbearing," v. "became fat" (of animals). Other senses are derived from 
 dreaming- 
 
 " inst '^ Ex. xxviii. 12, 22, xxxix. 7. " lb. xxviii. 29. i' lb. .xxx. 16. 
 
 ' =» Nu. X. 10. 21 lb. x.x.xi. 50. 54. ^- Acts x. 4, 31. 
 
 -'' " The crowns were hung in windows in the height of the temple," as we learn from 
 the uact Middot. a.f. 30. Rashi ad loc. -■' S. Cyr.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 J39 
 
 ciFrTst 1'^ "^"'^ 'they that arc far off shall come 
 
 "''•• s^'-*- and huild in the temple of the Lord, and 
 
 &o'o. 10. ' *ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath 
 
 Eph.2.13,19. "^ , ^ A I a7 • 1 11 
 
 • cii. 2. 9. sent me nnto you. And this sliall come to 
 pass, if ye will dilij^ently ohey the voice of 
 
 the Lord your G(td. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1 The captives enquire of fasting. 
 
 4 Zechariah 
 
 dedicated them and an occasion of doxology. For the piety 
 of princes becomes to the rest a path to the love of God. 
 But when Ciirist is crowned by us, then sliall also the mul- 
 titude of the Gentiles haste to tlie knowledge of Him." 
 
 And they who are far off' shall come. They who came 
 from Babylon with offerings to God, became types of the 
 Gentiles, of whom the Apostle says, "^ Now in Christ Jesiis ye 
 who sometimes were far off have become nigh through the 
 hlnnd of Christ ; and, "He came and preached peace to you 
 which were far off and to them that ivere nigh; and* the 
 promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are far 
 off\ as many as the Lord our God shall call. 
 
 And build in, or upon, the temple of the Lord*, not 
 "build it" for it was to be built by the Branch, but btiild on, 
 labour on, it. It was a building', which should continually 
 be enlarged; of which S.Paul says, ^ I, as a wise master- 
 builder, according to the grace given unto me, laid the 
 foundation, and another buildeth thereon ; let every man take 
 heed how he buildeth thereupon. " ^ What shall they build ? 
 Themselves, compacting themselves with the saints, and 
 joining together in faith to oneness with those of Israel, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone and uniting 
 together in harmony through Himself, what was of old 
 divided. For He united ''the two peoples into one neiu man, 
 making peace, and reconciling in His own Body all things 
 unto the Father, which being accomplished, we shall own the 
 truth of the holy prophets, and know clearly that it was God 
 Who spake in them and declared to us beforehand the 
 mystery of Christ." 
 
 15. And this shall be; not as though the coming of 
 Christ depended upon their faithfulness, but their share in 
 it. Ye shall know (he had said) that the Lord of hosts hath 
 sent me unto yon ; but whether this knowledge should reach 
 to individuals, depends upon their obedience and their 
 willingness to know ; it shall be, ^ if ye will diligently obey 
 the voice of the Lord your God. For none of the ivicked, 
 Daniel says^, shall understand ; and Hosea, '^'^Wlio is tvise, and 
 he shall understand these things ? prudent, and he shall knotu 
 them ? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the Just shall 
 walk in them and the ti-ansgressors shall stumble at them ; 
 and the wise man, ^'^he that keepeth the law of the Lord getteth 
 the understanding thereof. So our Lord said, i- If any man 
 
 I Eph. ii. 13. 2 lb. 17. 3 Acts ii. 39. 
 
 * .3 nil Neh. iv. 1, 11 [10, 17 Eng.] = 1 Cor. iii. 10. 6 S. Cyr. 
 
 7 Eph. ii. 15, 10. 8 So Marck. ^ Dan. .xii. 10. 
 
 >o Hosea xiv. 9. [10 Heb.] see ab. pp. 93, 93. " Ecclus. xxi. 11. 
 
 •2 S. John vii. 17. '■'< lb. viii. 47. " lb. xviii. 37. '* Osor. 
 
 '^ The LXX, Jon., Syr. render in the accusative, to Bethel. The Vulg. alone has " ad 
 domuni Dei." 
 
 1? Although n"3 is used alike of the "tent" and the "house," it is used but little of the 
 " house of God " before Solomon's temple ; " n'3 Ex. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26, Deut. xxiii. 18, 
 Jos. vi. 24, Jud. xix. 18, 1 Sam. i. 7, 24, iii. 15, 2 Sam. xii. 20; D'n'jN.i n'3 Jud. xviii. 31. 
 Subsequently " n'3 occiu-s in the books of Kings, 73 times ; in the Clironicles, 92 ; in the 
 Psalms, 7; in Isaiah, 6; in Jeremiah. 32 ; in Lam., 1; Ezek., 0; Hosea, 2; Joel, 3; 
 Micah, 1 ; Haggai, 2 ; Zechariali, 5 ; Ezra, 7 ; in all 2 IT) ; D'.iSn n'3 occurs Gen. xxviii. 17, 
 22 ; in two of David's Psalms (Ps. Iii. 10, Iv. 15,); once in the Chronicles, 2 Clu-on. xxxiv. 9; 
 
 rrprovelh their fasting. 8 Sin the cause of their r,i??'°J^„_, 
 captivity. clr. sis. 
 
 AND it came to pass in the fourth year ^^^• 
 of kini^ Darius, that the word of the -^ 'vit. 
 Lord came unto Zechariah in tlie fourth 
 dai/ of the ninth month, even in Chisleu ; 
 
 2 When tliey had sent unto the house of 
 God Sherezer and Ilegem-melcch, and 
 
 will do His will, he shall knoiv of the doctrine, whether it be 
 of God or whether I speak of Myself; ^'"'He that is of God 
 heareth God's words : ye therefore hear them not because ye 
 are not of God: ^^ Every one that is of the truth heareth My 
 voice. "1^ Because he had said, And ye shall know that tlie 
 Lord hath sent me unto you, he warns them, tliat the fruit 
 of that coming will reach to those only, who sliould hear 
 God and with ardent mind join themselves to His name. 
 For as many as believed in Him were made sons of God ; but 
 the rest tvere cast into outer darkness. But they receive 
 Christ, who hear His voice and do not refuse His rule. For 
 He tvas made the cause of eternal salvatio7i to all who obey 
 Him." 
 
 VII. 1. Li the fourth year of Darius. Two years after 
 the series of visions, shewn to him, and two years before the 
 completion of the temple. Chisleu being December, it was 
 the end of B.C. 518. 
 
 When they had sent unto the house of God. Rather, .^nrf 
 Bethel sent ; i. e. the inhabitants of Bethel sent. The house 
 of God is nowhere in Holy Scripture called Bethel. Bethel 
 is always the name of the place ^''. The house of God is 
 designated by historians. Psalmists, prophets, by the name, 
 Beth-elohim, more commonly Beth-Ha-elohim, the God ; or 
 of the Lord, yhvh '^''. Zechariah and Haggai use these names. 
 It is not likely that the name, Beth-el, should have first been 
 given to the house of God, when it had been desecrated by the 
 idolatries of Jeroboam. Bethel also is, in the Hebrew order 
 of the words, naturally the subject ^**. Nor is there any reason 
 why they should have sent to Bethel, since they sought an 
 answer from God. For it would be forced to say that they 
 sent to Bethel, in order that those at Bethel should send to 
 Jerusalem; which is not said. It were unnatural also tliat 
 the name of the sender should not have been mentioned, 
 when the names of persons inferior, because sent, are re- 
 corded^'. Bethel, in Nehemiah's time-", was one of the chief 
 places of Benjamin. Two hundred tiventy and three of the 
 men of Bethel and Ai -^ had returned with Zerubbabel. The 
 answer being to the people of the land, such were doubtless 
 the enquirers, not those still in Babylon. The answer shews 
 that the question was not religious, though put as matter of 
 religion. It is remarkable that, whereas in the case of those 
 who brought presents from Babylon, the names express some 
 
 in all 5 ; and dmSkh n'3 in Eccl. iv. 17 ; in Chronicles, 33 times (intermingled with " n'3) ; 
 Daniel i. 2 ; Ezra, 7 times ; Xehemiah, 8 times ; in all 50. 
 
 " So Ibn Ezra, although regarding Bethel as the name of a man, who sent the others. 
 Rashi and S. Jerome's Hebrew instructors made Shareser and Regemmelech the sendere. 
 Rashi says that they sent to their kinsmen in Bethel, that these should come to entreat the 
 face of God at Jenisalem. S. Jerome's teachers said more naturally, that " Shareser and 
 Regemmelech sent to the house of God;" only "Bethel" is not so used, and the theory that 
 they were " Persian officers of Darius fearing God," is inconsistent with the question as to a 
 Jewish political fast of long standing. The interposition of the place whither they were sent, 
 between the verb and the subject, without any mark that it is not the subject, would be 
 unnatural. Tlie E. V. follows Kimchi, taking nSc'i as impersonal. But here it is a formal 
 message from some definite person or persons. In Gen. xhiii. 1, 3py'S "CK'l is alt(^ther like 
 our "one told Jacob." In Esth. ix. 30, the subject is probably Siordecai, mentioned v. 29. 
 
 " Abarbanel notices this difficulty. 20 Neh. xi. 31. 21 Ezr. ii. 28.
 
 540 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 c if rTs T ^'''^'"' '"Cn, fto pray before the Lord, 
 
 "'■•■ si*^- 3 And to " speak unto the priests vvh'urh 
 
 iJie'iiuiie were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and 
 
 hmin-!''" to the propliets, sayinji^, Should I weep in 
 
 c1i.T2l'^'" '' the fifth month, separatinj^ n)yself, as I 
 
 * %w, 11.' have done these so many years ? 
 MaL'2!'?. 4 ^ Then eame the word of the Lord of 
 Q^.'ihd^' hosts unto me, saying, 
 
 relation to God, these names are sinj^ularly, the one of a 
 parricide son of Sennaclicrib ^, and of one, cliief among; the 
 King of Babylon's princes"; tiic otiier probably a secular 
 name, "the kiiic^'s friend '." 
 
 "*I do not see why under the name of Bethel, the city so 
 called is not understood. For since Jerusalem was not yet 
 fortified, the Jews chose them sites in various places, where 
 they should be less harassed. All hatred was concentrated on 
 that city, which tlie neig^hbours wished not to be restored to 
 its former greatness. Other cities they did not so molest. 
 Bethel then, i. e. the assembly of the city, sent messengers to 
 Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to God and consult the wise 
 there." 
 
 2. To entreat the face of the Lord. They wished, it 
 seems, (so to speak) to ingratiate themselves with God with 
 an account of their past self-humiliation, on the day when 
 the house of God was burned by Nebuchadnezzar. In regard 
 to God, the word is always used of entreating Him by earnest 
 prayer ^. 
 
 8. Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself? 
 In the fifth month, from the seventh to the tenth day, Jerusa- 
 lem was in Hamcs, fired by Nebuchadnezzar. " He burnt the 
 /louse of the Lord, and the hing's house, and all the houses of 
 Jerusalem and every great man^s house he burnt with fire. 
 
 "'Now since it is said that the temple is builded and we 
 see that no cause of sorrow remaineth, answer, we pray, are 
 we to do this or to change our sorrow into joy ?" 
 
 Separating myself. This seems to be added, to intensify 
 the fast which they had kept. The Nazarite was bound to 
 ^separate himielf from wine and strong drink, and so, they 
 severed themselves to the Lord, and consecrated themselves 
 to Hini^. These had severed themselves from food, from 
 things pleasant, from pleasure, from sin, it may be, for the 
 day, but not abidingly : they had not given themselves to 
 God. 
 
 As I have done these so many years, lit. how many ^''. As 
 if, although they knew that they were seventy years, they 
 could not count them. 
 
 5. Speak unto all the people of the land. They of Bethel 
 had spoken as one man, as Edom said to Israel, ^^ Thou shult 
 
 ' Is. xxx\-ii. -38, 2 Kgs xix. 37. 
 
 2 Nergal-Sliar-ezer, " Nerval preserve the prince," Jer. xxxix. 3, 13. vepiyKuradp. The 
 omission of the name of the idol left it less openly idolatrous, but retained the prayer 
 originally idolatrous. 
 
 3 nil occurs as a proper name, 1 Chr. ii. 47. The Kamoos and Fasee say that the Arab. 
 bn is " friend," [see Lane] and, though tliis meaning is wholly insulated fiom the rest of the 
 root, their authority is, of course, decisive. ** Osor. 
 
 ' The explanation of the idiom, stroked the face of, in regard to which critics have so 
 descanted about antlu"opomorphisms, is altogether imaginary. The phrase occurs, in all, 
 13 times in regard to God ; three of these are in Zechariah, here, and viii, 21, 22 ; and 
 tesides Ex. xxxii. 11, 1 Sam. xiii. 12, 1 Kgs xiii. 6, (bis) 2 Kgs xiii.4, Jer. xxvi. 19, 
 Dan. ix. 13, Ps. cxix. 58, 2 Chr. xxxiii. 12, Mai. i. 9, and all the simplest prose. Of 
 man it occurs only 3 times Ps. xlv. 13, Pr. xix. 15, Job xi. 19. In no dialect is there any 
 trace of the meaning l(pvi.>s or pnlpo. The Arab N7n is, any how, used of hard friction, as to 
 bruising collyrium, rubbing oil' hair from skin [tanningj, striking with sword, &c. K7n 
 (ult. 1) is, "sweet;" 'Sn is "adorned with jewels." 
 
 '• 2 Kgs xxv. 9, Jer. lii. 13. Jeremiah mentions the tenth day ; the book of Kings, the 
 seventh. ? S. Jer. 
 
 T) Speak unto all the people of the land, ch'rTst 
 
 and to the priests, sayinjr, VVhen ye lasted '^' ^•^'^- 
 
 and mourned in the fifth "^ and seventh ^ JeT.' i'l.'i.' 
 
 month " even those seventy years, did ye at ^ ch. i.' 12.' 
 
 all fast 'unto me, even to me ? ' tf l^"'"' 
 
 ' 11. 0. 
 
 And wlien ye did eat, and wh<;n ye did 
 drink, || did not ye eat fur yourselves, and n Or, be 
 drink^or yourselves ? 
 
 not ye they 
 that Sfc. 
 
 not pass by me; and ^~the men of Israel said to the Hivite ; 
 I'erhajts thou divellest in the midst of me, and hon> shall I make 
 a league with thee? God gives the answer not to them only, 
 but to all like-minded with them, all the jjeople of the land, 
 the wliole population (in our language) ; as Jeremiah says, 
 ^^ye and your fathers, your kings and your pri?ices and all 
 the people of the land, and, '*^/<e scribe tvho mustered the 
 people of the land. 
 
 JVhen ye fasted and that, mourning. It was no mere 
 abstinence from food (severe as the Jewish fasts were, one 
 unbroken abstinence from evening to evening) but with 
 real mourning, the word being used only of mourning for 
 the dead^', or, in a few instances^^, for a very great public 
 calamity ; probably with beating on the breast. 
 
 In the seventh month. The murder of Gedaliah, whom 
 the king of Sabylon made governor of the land, completed 
 the calamities of Jerusalem, in the voluntary, but prohibited 
 exile to Egypt, for fear lest the murder should be avenged 
 on them ^'. 
 
 Did ye at all fast unto Me, Me'^^? God emphatically 
 rejects such fasting as their's had been, as something, un- 
 utterably alien from Him, to Me, Me^'^ .' Yet the fasting and 
 mourning had been real, but irreligious, like remorse for 
 ill-deeds, which has self only for its ground. He prepares 
 the way for His answer by correcting the error of the 
 question. " * Ye fasted to yourselves, not to Me. For ye 
 mourned your sorrows, not your misdeeds; and your public 
 fast was undertaken, not for My glory, but out of feeling 
 for your own grief. But nothing can be pleasing to God, 
 which is not referred to His glory. But those things alone 
 can be referred to His glory, which are done with righteous- 
 ness and devotion." 
 
 6. AjuI tvhen ye eat and tvhen ye drink, is it not ye who 
 eat and ye who drink ? Conversely now that, after your 
 return, ye feast for joy, this is no religious act; ye have all 
 the good of it, there is no thanksgiving to God. Contrary 
 to the Apostle's saying, -" Whether ye eat or drink, or what- 
 ever ye do, do all to the glory of God. " "^ He eateth and 
 drinketh to himself, who receiveth the nourishments of the 
 body, which are the common gifts of the Creator, without 
 
 s Nu. vi. 3. 9 lb. 5. See above on Am. ii. 11. p. 175. 
 
 'f .1D3 is used in exclamation, not interrogatively, here, Ps. Ixxviii. 40, Job xxi. 17. 
 
 II Nu. XX. 18. '2 Josh. ix. 7. '3 Jer. xliv. 21. . " lb. lii. 25. 
 
 '5 Gen. xxiii. 2, 1. 10, 1 Sam. xxv. 1, xxviii. 3, 2 Sam. i. 12, iii. 31, xi. 26, 1 Kgs xiii. 
 29, 30, xiv. 13, 18, Eccl. xii. 5, Jer. xvi, 4, 5, 6, xxii. 18, [bis], xxv. 33, xxxiv. 5, 
 Ezek. xxiv. 16, 23, Zech. xii. 10, 12. 
 
 >s Is. xxxii. 12, Jo. i. 1.3, Mic. i. 8, Jer. iv. 8, xlix. 3. In Eccl. iii. 4, it is "mourning" 
 as opposed to Hpn, " bounding" for joy [all]. The noun lEDD is in like way used of " mourn- 
 ing" for the dead. Gen. 1. 10, Jer. vi. 26, Nu. v. 16, Zech. xii. 10, 11, 12; for the destruction 
 of a people or place, Jer. xlviii. 38, Ez. x.xvii. 34, Mi. i. 8, 11 ; for imminent destruction. 
 Am. V. 17, Esth. iv. 3; or great public calamity, Jo. ii. 12, Is. xvii. 12. In Ps. xxx. 12, 
 it stands contrasted with a great outward expression of joy, dancing. Siro. [all] 
 
 '? Jer. xli-xliii. i* ':nDs. The aftix is almost a dative, as in Is. xhv. 21, IxT. 5, 
 
 Job xx.xi. 18; and Ch. Dan. v. 6. '.iiJC', for which, ■ni'jy pja", occurs ver. 9. 
 
 " The pronoun repeated after the affix, as in 'M '3 1 Sam. xxv. 24 ; DriK 03'1]S Nu. xiv. 
 32, and with nj, 'M d: ']3-a Gen. xxiii. 38; 2 Sam. xvii. 5, 1 Kgs xxi. 19, Pr. xxiii. 15, 
 Jer. xxv. 14, xxra. 7. -" 1 Cor. x. 31. 
 
 21 S. Greg, in Evang. Horn. 16, n. 6. Opp. i. 1495.
 
 CIIAFIER VII. 
 
 541 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 518. 
 
 II Or, Are 
 not tliese 
 the worda. 
 
 t Heb. 1)1/ the 
 hand oj, f\-c^ 
 
 » Jer. 17. 20. 
 
 I" Is. 58. fi, 7. 
 
 Jer. 7. 23. 
 
 Mic. (i. 8. 
 
 ch. 8. 18. 
 
 Matt. 2;{. 23. 
 f Heb. Judge 
 judgment 
 
 oJ truth. 
 
 7 II Should ifc not Iwur the words which 
 the LoKM hath cried f hy the former pro- 
 phets, wiien Jerusidein was inhal>itcd and 
 in prosperity, an«l tlie cities thereof round 
 ahout her, niien uicn inliabited t'the south 
 and the phiin ? 
 
 8 ^ And the word of the Lord came unto 
 Zeeliariah, sayiuij^, 
 
 S) Tlius speuketh tlie Lorii of hosts, 
 saying, ''f Execute true judgment, and 
 shew mercy and compassions every man 
 
 the needy. And any one fasts to himself, if he doth not 
 ji:ive to the poor what for the time he withdraweth from 
 himself, hut keei)eth it to he thereafter ottered to his ii|)]ietite. 
 Hence it is said hy Joel, sanc/ifi/ a fast. I<\)r to ' saiietify a 
 fast ' is to shew an ahstinen(;e worthy of God through other 
 a^ood deeds. Let anger eease, quarrels he hushed. For in 
 vain is the flesh worn, if the mind is not refrained from evil 
 pleasures, since the Lord says hy the Prophet, '^ Beliold, in 
 the day of i/oiir fttst ye Jind pleasure. Behold, ye fast for 
 strife (Did dthitte S)C." 
 
 7. Should ye not hear the irords, or. Know ye not the 
 words f The verh is presup])osed in the emphatic question, as 
 In, - Shall I, the blood of these men ? David omits the word 
 "drink" for ahliorrence. 
 
 By the former prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah', ti'hen Jern- 
 snhm was dwellini( abidingly'^, at ease, as the whole world 
 then was, except herself, and the south and the low-ronntry, 
 both belonging to Jiidah, were inhabited. The restoration 
 then was still very incomplete, since he contrasts their then 
 condition with the present, as inhabited or no. The mnnn- 
 tain, the south, and the low einnitry, known still by its name of 
 Sephela to Greeks =, made up the territory of Judah ^. 
 
 8. Instead ot'(juoting the former prophets, Zechariah gives 
 the substance of their exhortations, as renewed to himself 
 
 9. Thus spahe the Lord. i. e. through the former prophets, 
 for he goes on to speak of their rejection in the past. K.vecute 
 true judgement. He retains the words of Ezekiel'. The in- 
 junction itself runs throughout the prophets*. Shew mercy, 
 i.e. tender love, to all; compassion, to the unhappy. Omit 
 no act of love, God so loves the loving. "^Like S. Paul 
 to the Romans '", he names only the duties to the neighbour, 
 but understands what relates to God. For the love of our 
 neighboiu" presupposes the love of God, from which it 
 springs." " ^^ After strictness of justice, let mercy to all 
 follow, and specially to brethren, of the same blood and of 
 one faith. Brother and neighbour we ought to account the 
 whole human race, since we are all born of one parent, or 
 those who are of the household of faith, according to the 
 parable of the GospeP^, which willeth us to understand by 
 neighbour, not our kin, but all men." 
 
 10. yind oppress not. He had commanded positive 
 acts of love ; he now forbids every sort of unlove. He that 
 
 ' Is. hiii. ,3, 1. - 2 Sam. xxiii. 17. 
 
 ■"* Is. Iviii. 4, Jer. xiv, 12. Since Isaiah's is the chief passaj^e and Jeremiah's scarcely 
 more than allu^i\ e. Zechariah, Just after the captivity, kiiew that the prophecy Is. Iviii. 
 was I'-niah's. not by a propliet after tlie captivity. 
 
 •• mSs'i raip" — nvna as ab. i. 11. napn ddk" ; the state of ease is conveyed by the .t.t with 
 the act. partic. ^ 1 Mace. .\ii. 38. " It is still called Scpheia." Eus. Onom. 
 
 * Josh. X. 40. Jnd i. '.I. Jer. xvii. 2rt, xxxii. 41, xxxiii. 13. 
 " no.v cs^p occurs besides in Ezek. xviii. 8, only. In Deut. xvi. IS, occurs pis ESK'O. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 518. 
 
 ' Kx.22.21,:;2. 
 
 Deut. 21. 17. 
 
 Isai. 1. 17. 
 
 Jer. 5. 28. 
 k Ps. 30. 4. 
 
 Mic. 2. 1. 
 
 ch. 8. 17. 
 
 ' Neh. 9. 29. 
 
 Jer. 7. 24. 
 
 Hos. 4. 10. 
 t Heb. 
 
 tftetf ^five a 
 
 backsliding 
 
 shoulder. 
 ■(■ Heb. made 
 
 hi'/ivtf. 
 
 " Acts 7. 57. 
 
 to his brother : 
 
 10 And ' oppress not the widow, nor the 
 fatherless, the stranger, nor tlie jujor ; 
 "and let none of you imagine evil against 
 his brother in your heart. 
 
 11 lint they refused to lu'arken, and 
 'f pulled away the shouhler, and f "stopped 
 their ears, that they sliould not iiear. 
 
 12 Yea they made thtur "hearts «.y an 
 adamant stone, "lest they siiould hear the 
 law, and the words which the Ivord of hosts 
 
 ° Ezek. 11. 19. & 30. 20. ° Nch. 9. 29, 30. 
 
 ojijn-esseth the poor, Solomon had said''', reproacheth his 
 Maker. The n'idow, the orphan, the stranger, the afflicted, 
 are, tiiroughout the law, the sjn'cial objects of (iods care. 
 This was the condition wliicli God made by Jeremiah '*; If ye 
 throughly amend your tuays and your doings, if ye throughly 
 execute judgement betweeti a man and his neighbour ; if ye op- 
 press not the stranger the fatherless and the widoic, and shed not 
 innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to 
 your hurt, then will I cause you to dwell in this place. It was 
 on the breach of the covenant to set their l)rethren free in 
 the year of release, that God said; ^'^ I proclaim a liberty for 
 you to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine, and I will 
 make yon to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. 
 
 And let none of you imagine, i. e. devise^'^, as, hy Micah. 
 God retorted the evil upon them. I'hey ^~ deviscit evil on their 
 beds ; therefore, behold, against this family do I devise an evil, 
 from which ye shall not remove your necks. 
 
 11. But they gave a backsliding shoulder, ]\ke a. restive 
 animal, which would not endure the yoke, dull and stuj)id as 
 the beasts : as Hosea says, ^^ Israel slide) h back like a backsliding 
 heifer. Nehemiah confesses the same; ^'■'they gai-ea backsliding 
 shoulder and hardened their neck anil icould not hear. 
 
 And made heavy their ears, fulfilling in themselves what 
 God foretold to Isaiah would be the result of his preaching, 
 make their ears heavy-". The heart, which will not hearken, 
 becomes duller by the outward hearing, as S. Paul says, -^The 
 earth ivhich drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and 
 bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, 
 receiveth blessing from God ; but that ivhich beareth thorns 
 and briars is rejected. 
 
 12. Harder than adamant. The stone, whatever it be, 
 was hard enough to cut ineff'aceable characters--: it was harder 
 than flint-^. It would cut rocks; it could not be crraven itself, 
 or receive the characters of God. 
 
 This is the last sin, obduracy, persevering impenitence, 
 which -^resisted the Holy Ghost, and -'' did despite to the Spirit 
 of grace. Not through infirmity, but of set purpose, they 
 hardened themselves, lest -^ they should convert and be healed. 
 They feared to trust themselves to God's word, lest He should 
 convert them by it. 
 
 Lest they should hear the lair and the words ivhich the 
 Lord God sent by His Spirit by the baud of the former prophets. 
 
 s As Is. i. 17, 23, Iviii. G, 7. Jer. vii. 5. Ezek. xviii. 8. Hos. xii. &c. » Lap. 
 
 '» Rom. xiii. 9. " S. Jer. '-' S. Luke x. 30 sqq. 
 
 's Prov. xxiv. 31. " Jer. vii. 5-7. '* lb. x.\.\iv. 17. >« zrn 
 
 1" Mic. ii. 1. 3. 1' Hos. iv. 16. is Neh. ix. 29. 
 
 » The same words : 133:1 nmi Is. vi. 5, ii-a:.i cn-ntty Zech. -' Heb. vi. 7, 8. 
 
 -- Jer. xvii. 1. "The sin of Judab is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a d'"?') 
 diamond." E. V. 23 Ezek. iii. 9, " As an adamant harder than flint." 
 
 -'^ -Acts vii. 51. ^ Heb. x. 29. » Is. vi. 10. 
 
 I I I I
 
 542 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 __ eir. 51(<^ 
 
 t Hil). h,i 
 
 tin' iHliiii of, 
 1' 2Clu'.3(;. i(i. 
 
 Daii. 9. 11. 
 <i Prov. 1. 
 
 2t— 28. 
 
 Isa. 1. 1.5. 
 
 Jer. 11. 11. 
 
 & 11. 12. 
 
 Mic. 3. 4. 
 f Deut. 4. 27. 
 
 & 28. &i. 
 
 Ezek. 30. 19. 
 
 ch. 2. 6. 
 » Deut. 28. 33. 
 • Lev. 26. 22. 
 
 hath sent in his s])irit f by tlie former pro- 
 phets: i'therefor(! eaine a great wratli from 
 the LoKD of hosts. 
 
 13 Thei'efore it is come to pass, that as 
 he cried, and tliey wouhl not liear; so 
 ■! they cried, and I vvoidd not hear, saith the 
 Lord of hosts : 
 
 14 But ^ I scattered them with a whirl- 
 wind among all the nations ''whom they 
 knew not. Thus 'the land was desolate 
 
 Tlie Holy Ghost was the chief a!>ent; In/ His Spirit; the 
 inspired propiiets were His instniineiits ; bt/ the hand of. 
 Nehemiali confesses the same to God : ' Thou didst protest 
 to them hi/ Thi/ Sjiirit hi/ the limid of Thij prophets. Moses 
 was one of tiie si'reatest j)rophcts. The hiw then may he in- 
 chidcd, either as delivered hy Moses, or as heinj; continually 
 enforced hy all the prophets. Ohserve the jyradations. 1) The 
 words of God are not heard. 2) The restive shoulder is 
 shewn; men turn away, when God, hy tlie inner motions of 
 His Spirit or hy lesser chastisements, would hrina; tliem to 
 the yoke of oliedience. " " They would not hear the hurden 
 of the law. whereas they wiHinf:;ly horc tliat most heavy 
 weight of their sins." 3) Oliduracy. "-Their adamantine 
 heart could he softened neither by promises nor threats." 
 Therefore notiiing; remained but the great wrath, M'hich they 
 had treasured to themselves against the day of wrath. And so 
 Zechariah returns to that, wherewith his messaije and visions 
 of future mercy began, the great lerath which fell upon their 
 fathers ^: 
 
 "-'I sought not,' He says, 'for your tears; I enjoined 
 not bitterness of sorrow; but what, had they been done, the 
 calamity, for which those tears were meet, had never befallen 
 you. What was it which I admonished you formerly by the 
 former prophets to recall you from sin ? AVliat 1 bid you by 
 Zechariah now. This I preach, admonish, testify, inculcate 
 upon you.'" 
 
 13. yind it came to pass, i. e. this which God had said, 
 ,/Js He cried and they heard not, so shall they cry a>id 1 will 
 not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. God had often said this. 
 "It shall be too late to cry for mercy, when it is the time of 
 justice." So Wisdom had said by Solomon; *tlien,\. e. u-hen 
 distress and anguish comcth upon them, thei/ shall call upon 
 Me, hut I will not answer ; they shall seek Me early, and thei/ 
 shall not find Me. So by Isaiah, ^ FFhen ye spread fort h your 
 hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make 
 many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of bloods. 
 So by Hosea'', by Micali'', by Jeremiah ^. It was one message 
 which was verified in every day of chastisement, "there will 
 be a ' too late ; ' " not a final " too late," until the end of ends 
 comes, but a "too late" for them, a "too late" to avert that 
 particular judgement of God, whereby the sinner's earthly 
 trial and future were changed permanently ^ 
 
 14. But I scattered them, rather, And I tvill scatter 
 them ^^. The saying continues what God had said that He had 
 
 Neh. ix. 30. = Osor. 3 i. 7. "jSj^ ; here Vni tjXij * Prov. i. 27, 28. 
 
 Is. i. 15. « Hos. V. 6. see ab. pp. 34. 35. ' '^ iii. 4. see ab. pp. 311, 312. 
 
 '^ .Fer. XI. 14, xiv. 12. 
 ' See Pusey's Parocliial Semions, Vol. I. Senn. 12. " Irreversible chastisements." 
 10 The form DlJiSXi for "W , is remarkable chiefly, if the punctuation comes, (as is assumed) 
 from Zechariah's time, for the care with which the vowel pronunciation has been preserved. 
 It has no exact parallel. The conjugation recurs with the b, Job xx™. 21. See Introd. to 
 
 after them, that no man passed throuj>;h ch'rTst 
 nor n-turne*! : for they laid "the f pleasant . ''" ■ •'''^- - 
 land desolate. \ \Lh. Lnd 
 
 of deiii n, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1 The restoration of Jerusalem. 9 They are en- 
 couraged to the huilding hy God's favour to 
 them. 16 Good works are required of them. 
 18 Joy and enlargement are promised. 
 
 AGAIN the word of the Lord of hosts 
 came to me, saying, 
 
 said, and which had come to pass. Among all nations whom 
 they knew not. So God had repeatedly said by Jeremiah, 
 ''/ ivill cast you out of this land into a land that ye know 
 not, ye nor your fathers ; where I icill not shew you favour. 
 This was the aggravation of the original woe in the law : 
 ^- The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from fur, from, 
 the end of the earth, a nation whose tongue thou shall not 
 understand, a fiation of fierce countenance. There was no 
 mitigation of suffering, when the common bond between man 
 and man, mutual speech, was wanting. 
 
 That no man passed through 7ior returned, \\t. from passer 
 through and from returner ; as in the prophecy of .\lexander's 
 mai-cli and return, ^^ because of him that passeth hy and of him 
 that returneth ; and of Seir God saith, '*/ mvY/ cut off from 
 him, passer-through and returner '^, As we say, there shall 
 be no traffic more through her. 
 
 Anil they made the pleasant land^^ desolate. They were 
 the doers of what they by their sins caused, by bringing down 
 the judgements of God. Heretofore the land which God had 
 given them, had been in our language " the envy " of all who 
 knew it ; now they had made it into a desolation, one wide 
 waste ^'. 
 
 "^^What is said in the beginning of the chapter against 
 Jews who abstained indiscreetly, applies mystically to all, not 
 inward, but rude Christians, who not being diligent enough 
 but rather negligent about acts of piety and inward prayer 
 and reformation of the powers of the soul, account highly of 
 bodily exercises and outward observances, and use no slight 
 scrupulosity as to things of less moment, and do not attend 
 to the chief things, charity, humility, patience, meekness. 
 On these it must be inculcated, that if they wish their fasts 
 and other outward exercises to please God, they must judge 
 true judgement, and be compassionate, kind, liberal to their 
 neighbours, keep their mind ever steadfast in God, cast away 
 wholly all hardness of heart, and be soft and open to receive 
 within them the word of God. Otherwise their land tcill be 
 desolate, i. e. deprived of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, 
 and they scattered amid various vices." "^'That which was 
 formerly a pleasant land, and the hospice of the Trinity, is 
 turned into a desert and dwelling-place of dragons." 
 
 VIII. "i^After the Lord had, in the preceding chapter, 
 manifoldly rebuked the Jewish people, He now comforts it 
 with renewed promises, as a good physician, who after a 
 bitter draught employs sweet and soothing remedies; as 
 
 Zech. p. 505. n. d. " Jer. xvi. 13 ; add xv. 14, xvii. 4. 
 
 12 Deut. x.xviii. 49, 50. 
 13 ix. 8. '■' Ezelc. xxxv. 7. '* The form implies that the same did, or did 
 
 not, pass and return, whence he came. Ezek. xxxii. 27. 
 
 1' n-cn pN occurs Ps. cvi. 24, Jer. iii. 19. On !ncn see ab. on Hapg. ii. 7. p. 495. 
 1' This idiom .TDiJV n'B' or .vh Die/ had been used bv Jo. i. 7, Is. xiii. 9, Jer. ii. 15, iv. 7, 
 xviii. 16, xLx. 8, xxv. 9, 1. 3, Ii. 29. '* t)ion. " S. Jer.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 543 
 
 cifiiTsT 2 Thus saitli the Lord of hosts; "I was 
 — j^ ^-"f; ■ jetdous for Zion witli fjjnijit jealousy, and I 
 
 oh. i. 14. was jeah)us for hor with j^rcat fury. 
 "ch.i.ic. j{ Thus saith the Lord; '1 am returned 
 
 «ch.2. 10. unto Zion, and ''will dwell in the midst of 
 
 tliat most loviiis;- S;iiiiiirU;in poured in wine uiul oil." The 
 ciiupter falls into two portions, each marked by the words, 
 The Word of the Lord of hosts came ^, or came unto me, the 
 first ^ declarinj;- the reversal oF the former judijenients, and 
 the eomplete, tliounh conditional, restoi'ation of (Jod's favour; 
 the 2nd' containini;- the answer to the original (juestion as 
 to those fasts, in the declaration of the joy and the spread 
 of the Gospel. The first portion lias, ajiain, a sevenfold, 
 the second, a threefold subordinate division ; marked by tlie 
 begin niiiic, Thus saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 2. Tluts saith the Lord of hosts. "*At each word and 
 sentence, in which j^dod thinj;s, for their greatness, almost 
 incredible are jiromised, the ])rophet premises, Thus saith 
 the Lord of hosts, as if lie would say. Think not that what I 
 j)ledge you are my own, and refuse me not credence as man. 
 What 1 unfold are the promises of God." 
 
 / was Jealous, lit. / have been and am jealous for ^. He 
 repeats in words slightly varied, but in the same rhythm, the 
 declaration of His tender love wherewith He opened the 
 series of visions, thereby assuring beforehand that this was, 
 like that, an answer of peace. The form of words shews, 
 that this was a jealousy for, not tvith her; yet it was one 
 and the same strong, yea infinite love, whereby God, as He 
 says, ^ clave unto their fathers to love them and chose their 
 seed after them out of all nations. His jealousy of their sins 
 was part of that love, whereby, "'without disturbance of 
 passion or of traiiiiuillity. He inflicted rigorous punishment, 
 as a man fearfully reproves a wife who sins." They are 
 two diff"erent forms of love according to two needs. "*The 
 jealousy' of God is good, to love men and hate the sins of 
 men. Contrariwise the jealousy of the devil is evil, to hate 
 men and love the sins of men." "i" Since God's anger had 
 its origin in the vehemence of His love (for this sort of jealousy 
 arises from the greatness of love), there was hope that the 
 auger might readily be appeased towards her." 
 
 3. / am returned. "• ' Without change in Myself, I am 
 turned to that people from the ettect of justice to the sweet- 
 ness of mercy, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, in 
 the temple and the people, indwelling the hearts of the good 
 by charity and grace. Christ also. Very Ciod and Very IVIan, 
 visibly conversed and was seen in Zion." "^"When He says, 
 ' I am turned,' He shews that she was turned too. He had 
 said, Tarn unto Me and I will turn unto yo2i ; otherwise she 
 would not have been received into favour by Him. As the 
 fruit of this conversion. He promises her His presence, the 
 ornaments of truth, the hope of security, and adorns her 
 with glorious titles." 
 
 God had symbolised to Ezckiel the departure of His 
 special presence, in that the glori/ of the God of Israel which 
 was over the temple, at the very place where they placed 
 
 • 'Sk, ver. 1, which is added in 22 Kenn. MSS., IS De R.; 7 at first. 3 corrected ; 2 early 
 edd.; Jon. Syr., is only an explanatory addition. It is noted to be " wanting in correct MSS." 
 De R. 2 1—17. '■> l»-^23. ■< S. Jer. 
 
 * It is the inverted Hebrew parallelism 1, 2 ; 4, 3. / am jealous for Zion with a ereat 
 jealousy, and with great wrath am I jealous for her, only substituting nSna ncn for 
 
 ?nJ1SD, init. ' 3 pffij De. x. 15. ' Dion. ^ Rup. ' Zelus. '" Osor. 
 
 " Ezek. viii. 4, 5. '- lb. ix. 3. '» lb. x. 4, 18. » lb. xi. 23. 
 
 '• lb. xliii. 4. '6 il^inn to^b-i ii. 14. Heb. [10 Eng.] " Is. i. 26. 
 
 Jerusalem : and Jerusalem '^ shall be called ^. h'^rTst 
 a city of truth ; and " the mountain of the "'■^•i*^- . 
 
 d Is 1 21 2G 
 
 Lord of hosts "^the holy mountain. « i.s;2!2,'3r ' 
 
 4 Thus saith the Loud of liosts ; ^'There 
 shall yet old men and old women dwell in 
 
 f See 1 Sam. 2. 31. Is. 05. 20, 22. Lain. 2. 20, &c. & 5. 11,-14. 
 
 the image ofjeahmsi/^^, ^-went up from the Cheruh, whereupoyi 
 it was, to the threshold of the house; then ^'^ stood over the 
 Cherubim ; and then ^'^wejtt vp from the midst of the city and 
 stood upon the mountain, which is on the east side of the cittf, 
 so removing from them. 1I(! had prophesied its )-eturn in 
 the vision of the symbolic temple, how '^ the glorij of the Lord 
 came into the house liij the waij of the gate looking towards 
 the East, and the Spirit took me up and brought me into the 
 inner court, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. 
 This renewed dwelling in tiie midst of them, Zechariah too 
 prophesies, in the same terms as in his third vision "', / icill 
 divell in the niidst of Jerusiiiem. 
 
 And Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, being 
 what she is called, since God would not call her untruly; so 
 Isaiah says, ^^ afterwards thou shall he called the city of 
 righteousness, the faithful city, and ''^thcy shall call thee the 
 city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. So 
 Zephaniah had proj)hesied, '"TV/c remnant of Israel shall not 
 do iniquity, nor speak lies. Truth embraces everything 
 opposite to untruth; faithfulness, as opposed to faithles'sne.ss; 
 sincerity, as opposed to simulation; veracity, as opposed to 
 falsehood ; lionesty, as opposed to untruth in a(;t ; truth of 
 religion or faith, as opposed to untrue doctrine. "'// shall be 
 called the city of truth, i. e. of the True God or of truth of life, 
 doctrine, and justice. It is chiefly verified by the Coming of 
 Christ, Who often preached in Jerusalem, in Whom the city 
 afterwards believed." 
 
 And the mountain of the Lord of hosts, IMount Zion, on 
 which the temple shall be built, shall be called and be the 
 moiottain of holiness. This had been the favourite title of the 
 Psalmists"", and Isaiah-'; and Obadiah had fiiretttid, --«/;om 
 mount Zion there shall be holiness ; and Jeremiah, "'^As yet 
 they shall use this speech in the land of Judith and in the cities 
 thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity ; The Lord 
 shall bless thee, O habitation of Justice, and mountain of 
 holiness. It should be called and be; it should fulfil the 
 destination of its titles; as. in the Apostles' Creed we ])rofess 
 our belief of " the h(dy Catholic Church," and holiness is 
 one of its characteristics. 
 
 4. There shall yet direll old men and old n-innen. "'Men 
 and women shall not be slain now, as before in the time of 
 the Babylonish destruction, but shall fulfil their natural 
 course." It shall not be, as when ~^ He gave His people over 
 unto the sword ; the /ire consumed their young men and their 
 maidens 7vere not given to marriage ; the priests were slain by 
 the sword and their iridoirs made no lamentation ; a])art from 
 the horrible atrocities of heathen war, when the unborn 
 children were destroyed in their mothers' womb -', with their 
 mothers. Yet-^, once more as in the days of old. and as condi- 
 tionally promised in the law". As death is the punishmeut 
 
 w lb. Ix. 14. So Jer. iii. 17, At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the 
 Lord. 1' Zeph. iii. 13. -^ Darid, Ps. ii. 6, lii. 4, 
 
 XV. 1, sons of Korah, xliii. 3, xlviii. 1, Ixxx-vii. 1. and anon., Ps. xcix. 9. 
 
 21 Is. xi. 9, hi. 7, l™. 13, Ixv. 11, 25, brii. 20, also in Jo. ii. 1, iii. 17, Ob. 16, Zeph. 
 in. 11, D.nn. ix. Ifi, 20. s Ob. 17. 
 
 ■^ Jer. xxxi. 23. 24 Ps. baoiU. 63, 64. 
 
 25 2 Kgs XV. 16, Hos. xiii. 16, Am. i. 13. ^ As in Zech. i. 17. 
 
 -'" De. iv. 10, V. 16, 33, vi. 2, xi. 9, xvii. 20, xxii. 7, xxxii. 47, Ezek. xx. 17.
 
 rtu 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 cifiiTsT *^^*^ streets of Jerusaloiii, and every man 
 cir. r.Ls. ^vitli liiss staff in his liand f for very ai^e. 
 
 ^"«/«{"rf. 5 And the streets of the eity shall he full 
 
 o/rf«^s. ^^ boys and girls playing in the streets 
 thereof. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; If it be 
 
 of sin, so prolongation of life to the time which God has now 
 made its natural term, seems the more a token of His 
 goodness. 'J'liis promise Isaiah had renewed', There sliall 
 no more be an hifmit of diii/s, nor an old luitn that liatli not 
 filled his days. In those tierce wars neither young nor very 
 old were spared. It implied then a long peace, that men 
 should live to that utmost verge of human lite. 
 
 4. The man, whose stujf'is in his hand for the multitude of 
 days. The two opposite pictures, the old men, "-so aged 
 that they supjiort with a staff their failing and trembling 
 limbs," and tlie young in the glad buoyancy of recent life, 
 fresh from their Creator's hands, attest alike the goodness 
 of the Creator, Who protecteth both, the children in their 
 yet undeveloped strength, tlie very old M-hom He hath 
 brought through " all the changes and cliances of this 
 mortal life," in their yet sustained weakness. The tottering 
 limbs of the very old, and the elastic perpetual motion of 
 childhood are like far distant chords of tlie diapason of the 
 Creator's love. It must have been one of the most piteous 
 sights in that first imminent destruction of Jerusalem^, 
 how *the children and the sucklings swooned in the streets 
 of the city ; how the young children fainted for hunger in the 
 top of every street. We have but to picture to ourselves 
 any city in which one lives, the ground strewed with these 
 little ail-but corpses, alive only to suffer. We know not, 
 how great the relief of the yet innocent, almost indomitable 
 joyousness of children is, until we miss them. In the 
 dreadful Irish famine of 1847 tlie absence of the children 
 from the streets of Galway was told me by Religious as 
 one of its dreariest features''. In the dreary back-streets 
 and alleys of London, the irrepressible joyousness of children 
 is one of the briglit sun-beams of that great Babylon, 
 amid the oppressiveness of the anxious, hard, luxurious, 
 thoughtless, care-worn, eager, sensual, worldly, frivolous, 
 vain, stolid, sottish, cunning, faces, which traverse it. God 
 sanctions by His word here our joy in the joyousness of 
 children, that He too taketh pleasure in it. He the Father 
 of all. It is precisely their laughing '', the fulness of her 
 streets of these merry creations of His hands, that He speaks 
 of with complacency. 
 
 (). //' // should he marvellous in the eyes of the remnant 
 of this people in those'' [not these'\ days, shall it he marvellous 
 in Mine eyes also ? saith tlie Lord of hosts. Man's antici- 
 pations, by reason of his imperfections and the chequered 
 character of earthly things, are always disappointing. God's 
 doings, by reason of His infinite greatness and goodness, 
 are always beyond our anticipations, past all belief. It is 
 their very greatness which staggers us. It is not then 
 
 Us. bcv. 20. 2 Dion. 3 Jer. vi. 11, ix. 21. < Lam. ii. 11. 19. 
 
 5 See other pictures of that tinne in Posey's "Chastisements neglected forerunners of 
 greater." in *' Oecavional Scmions." ^ D^pnb'O 
 
 ' onn wo'i as in Gen. vi. 4, Ex. ii. 11, De. xvii. 9, nsnri D'D'3 are the times of the Gospel, 
 Jo. iii. 2. iv. 1 ; hel. 25. 
 
 ' S. Jer. ' Ps. exviii. 2.'?. The phrase occtirs besides only 2 Sam. xiii. 2. 
 
 ■ '0 See ah. on Am. i. 8, p. 1().3, n. 'M\. and on Hag». i. 12, p. 491. " Rom. xi. 5 — 7. 
 
 12 As in 2 Sam. xvi. 1", This thy kindoess ! for. Is this thy Icindnessl Gen. xxvii. 2J, 
 
 II marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of j. ,^]t'psx 
 this people in these days, '' should it also "''■ ''1 : — 
 
 bll • • -, •.! .1 \\Ol, hard, 
 
 e marvellous in mine eyes? saith the or, difficult. 
 
 , ,. , , >■ Gen. 1«. I i. 
 
 JjORO or hosts. Luke 1.37. 
 
 7 Tluis saith the Lord of hosts; Behold, iioni.i.'2i. 
 ' I will save my people from the east eoun- 
 
 ' Is. 11. 11, 12. & 4.i. 5, 0. Ezek. 37. 21. Amos. 9. 14, 15. 
 
 merely that the temporal promises seemed " too good to 
 be true" (in our words) "*'in the eyes of the people who 
 had come from the captivity, seeing that the city almost 
 desolate, the ruins of the city-walls, the ciiaricd houses 
 shewed the doings of the Babylonians." it is in tiie day of 
 tiie fulfilment, not of the anticipation, that they would seem 
 marvellous in their eyes, as the Psalmist says, ^ This is the 
 Lord's doing : and it is marvellous in our eyes. The temporal 
 blessings which God «'ould give were not so incredible. 
 They were but the ordinary gifts of His Providence: 
 they involved no change in their outward relations. His 
 people were still to i-emain under their Persian masters, 
 until their time too should come. It was matter of gladness 
 and of God's Providence, that the walls of Jerusalem should 
 be rebuilt : but not so marvellous, when it came to pass. 
 The mysteries of the Gospel are a marvel even to the blessed 
 Angels. That fulfilment being yet future, so the people, in 
 whose eyes that fulfilment should be marvellous, were future 
 also. And this was to be a renuiant still. It does not say, 
 this people which is a remnarit, nor this remnant of the people, 
 i. e., those who remained over out of the people who went 
 into captivity, or this remnant, but "the remnant of this 
 people," i. e. those who should remain over of it, i.e., of the 
 people who were returned. It is the remnant of the larger 
 whole, this people^'^. It is still the remnant according to the 
 election of grace ; that election which obtained what all Israel 
 sought, but, seeking wrongly, were blinded^^. 
 
 Shall it he marvellous in 3Iine eyes also ? It is an in- 
 direct question in the way of exclamation '-. It he marvellous 
 i)i 3Iine eyes also, rejecting the thought, as alien from the na- 
 ture of God, to Whom '"«// things are possible, yea, what luith 
 men is impossible. As God says to Jeremiah, ^* Behold, I am 
 the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for 
 Me? ^'^ For with God nothing shall be impossible. ^^The things 
 which are impossible tuith )uen are possible with God. ^^For 
 with God all things are possible. '• i* For He is the Lord of 
 all powers, fulfilling by His will what exceedingly surpasseth 
 nature, and eflecting at once what seemeth Him good. The 
 mystery of the Incaination passeth all marvel and discourse, 
 and no less the benefits redounding to us. For how is it not 
 next to incredible, that the Word, Begotten of God, should 
 be united with the flesh and be in the form of a servant, and 
 endure the Cross and the insults and outrages of the Jews ? 
 Or how should one not admire above measure the issue of 
 the dispensation, whereby sin was destroyed, death abolished, 
 corruption expelled, and man, once a recreant slave, became 
 resplendent with the grace of an adopted son ?" 
 
 7. I will save ISIy people from the East country and from 
 
 Thou, this mil son Esau ! for, j4rt thou my very son Esau ? 1 Sam. xxii. 7. Yea, to you 
 alt the son of Jesse shall give ! ior, shall he girt? Job ii. 9, 2'hou still holding fast thine 
 integrity! for, art thou? Jiid. xiv. 10. / have not told my father and viy viother, 
 TM ■\h\'and to thee 1 shall tell! i. e., shall I tell thee.' Jer.'xxv. 2^), For lo. on the city 
 tvhich is railed by My Name, I begin to bring evil, and ye shall be utterly unpunished! 
 as we should say *'and ye he utterly unpimished." Ew. Leiirb. n. 324. p. 8U2. ed, 8. 
 '■I S.' Matt. .xix. 26. '■■ Jer. xxxii. 27. 
 
 15 S. Luke i. 37. '« lb. xviii. 27. " S. Mark x. 27. is s. Cyr.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 545 
 
 Before 
 
 C H R 1 S T 
 
 cir. 618. 
 
 t Heb. 
 titr (•(iiiiitrti 
 nj the gfiiii}^ 
 down of the 
 siiti : See 
 Ps. flO. 1. 
 & IK!. 3. 
 Mai. 1. 11. 
 
 >■ .ler. 30. 23. 
 S;:51. 1,33. 
 ch. 13. 9. 
 
 ' Jer. 1. 2. 
 
 try, and from f the west country ; 
 
 8 And I will brinj^ theni, and they shall 
 dwell in the midst of Jernsalem: ''and they 
 shall be my |)eo|)le,an(l I will be their God, 
 'in truth and in righteousness. 
 
 9 ^f Thus saiith the Loiin of hosts ; "Let 
 your hands be strong, ye that hear in these 
 days these words by the mouth of "the 
 
 " Hag. 2. 4. vcr. 18. " Ezra 5. 1, 2. 
 
 t/ie West country, "^i.e. the whole world; for Israel had 
 been scattered in every part of the world." God had said to 
 Israel, '■^ I will briii!^ t/ii/ seed from the cast anil i^nthcr thee 
 from tlie west ; I will sni/ to the north, (Hive up, anil to the 
 south. Keep not buck. The two trihcs had Ix'eii carried to 
 llahyloii and had been dispersed, or had been allowed to 
 migrate to the various provinces of the Babylonian or Per- 
 sian empire. But these were in the East, tliough commonly 
 called the North, because they invaded Israel from the 
 North. Those who had niifcrated to Egypt were in the South. 
 As yet none were in the West. The dispersion, as well as 
 the gathering, was still future. When our Lord came, they 
 had migrated Westward. Greece, Italy, Asia minor, were 
 full of them; and from all they were gathered. All S.Paul's 
 Epistles written to named Churches, were written to Churches 
 formed from converts in the West. In all these countries 
 God would gather His one people. His Church, not of ^ tlie 
 Jews onh/, but also of tlie Gentiles, grafted into them, as our 
 Lord said, */ say unto you, that many shall come from the 
 Hast and from the JVest, and shall sit doivn with Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven ; Init the 
 children of the kingdom (the unbelieving Jews, who were not 
 the remnant) shall be cast out into outer darkness. 
 
 8. They shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, not the 
 literal Jerusalem ; for this would not contain the Jews from 
 all quarters of the world, whom, as they multiplied, the 
 whole land could not contain; but the promised Jerusalem, 
 the Jerusalem, which should be inhabited as towns witliout 
 walls, to which the Lord should be a wall of fire round 
 about. 
 
 And they shall be My people . He promises this as to those 
 who were already His people: I will save 31 i/ people — and will 
 bring them, and they shall dwell — and they shall be My people. 
 And this they were to be in a new way, by conversion of 
 heart, as Jeremiah says, ^ / will give tliem an heart to know 
 Me, that I am tlie Lord, and they shall be My people, and I 
 will be their God: for they shall return nnto Me with their 
 whole heart, and, * This shall be the covenant that I ivill make 
 ivith the house of Israel ; After those days, saitli the Lord, I ivill 
 put My law in their inward parts, and ivill write it in their 
 hearts ; and ivill be their God, and they shall be My people. 
 
 "^The circuit of one city will not contain so great a 
 multitude. But one confession of faith, one conspiration of 
 sanctity, one communion of religion and righteousness, can 
 easily enfold all born of the holy fathers, iniited to them in 
 faith and piety. And God is specially called the God of all 
 these. For He specially consults for these, loads them with 
 benefits, fences them in with most strong protection, illumines 
 
 1 Dion. - Is. xliii. 5, 6. ^ Rom. ix. 24. * S.Matt. viii. 11, 12. 
 
 » Jer. xxiv. 7, add xxx. 22. ' II). xxxi. 33. '' Osor. 
 
 « Is. xlviii. 1. 9 Jer. iv. 2. '" Rib. " Hagg. ii. 15—19. 
 
 '- n'ni tth. n'nj occurs only in 19 other places: "it came to pass," with noD, "it was 
 from," i.e. liis doing, 1 Kings i. 27, xii. 24, 2 Chr. xi. 4; of a thing which had not its like, 
 
 |)rophets, which ircre in "tlie day tlint the cii^uTsT 
 foundation of the house of the Lord of — ^ii^sis. 
 hosts was laid, that the temple mij^ht be '^"' 
 built. 
 
 10 For before these days || there was no " "^',„Vf „/ 
 Phire for man, nor any hire for beast; """'''«'"»« 
 ■I neither n-a.s there «n// ])eace to him that ^ JJ^.V^"' 
 went out or came in because of the alHic- ■• ^ Chr. is. 5. 
 
 them with His light, crowns them, when confirmed in the 
 Image of His beauty, with glory imniorlal and Divine." 
 
 In Iriilh and in righteousness. Tills too is on account of 
 their former relation to God. Isaiah had upbraided tliein for 
 a worship of (jod, ^not in truth and righteousness. Jeremiah 
 had said, '•'Thou shall swear, the Lord liveth, in truth, in judge- 
 ment, and in righteousness. God should be their God in truth 
 and. righteousness ; "^" truth in fulfilling His promises; righte- 
 ousness in rewarding every man according to his works." 
 
 9. Let your hands be strong. The fulfiluicnt of (rod's 
 former promises are the earnest of the future; Ills former 
 providences, of those to come. Having then those great 
 promises for the time to come, they were to be earnest in 
 whatever meantime God gave them to do. He speaks to 
 them, as hearing in these days, i.e. that fourth year of Darius 
 in which they apparently were, these words from the mouth 
 of the prophets, which were in the day when the foundation 
 of the house of the Lord was laid, the temple, that it might 
 be built. Haggai was now gone to bis rest. His voice liad 
 been silent for two years. But his words lived on. The ful- 
 filment of what the prophets had then spoken in (iod's Name, 
 was a ground, why their hands should be strong, now and 
 thereafter, for every work which God gave or should gi\e 
 them to do. "^"Somethings are said to Jerusalem, i.e. to 
 the Jews, which belong to them only ; some relate to what is 
 common to them and the other members of the Church, i.e. 
 those who are called from the Gentiles. Now he speaks to 
 the Jews, but not so as to seem to forget what he had said 
 before. He would say. Ye who hear the words, which in 
 those days when the temple was founded, Haggai and 
 Zechariah spake, be strong and proceed to the work which 
 ye began of fulfilling the will of the Lord in the building of 
 the temple, and in keeping from the sins, in which ye were 
 before entangled. For as, before ye began to build the 
 temple, ye were afflicted with many calamities, but after ye 
 had begun, all things went well with you, as Haggai said ^1, 
 so, if you cultivate piety and do not depart from God, ye 
 shall enjoy great abundance of spiritual good." "'The 
 memory of past calamity made the then tranquillity much 
 sweeter, and stirred the mind to greater thanksgiving. He 
 set forth then the grief of those times when he says;" 
 
 10. There was no hire for man, lit. hire for man came not 
 to pass ^". It was longed for, waited for, and came not. So 
 little was the produce, that neither labourer nor beast of 
 burden were employed to gather it in. 
 
 Neither was there peace to him who went out or came in 
 because of the affliction, better, of the adversary. In such an 
 empire as the Persian, there was large scope for actual 
 
 with 3 or IDD Ex. xi. 6, Deut. iv. 32, Jo. ii. 2, Jud. xix. 30, Dan. xii. 1, or abs., Jud. xx. 
 3, 12, Jer. v. 30, xlviii. 19, Ezek. xxi. 12, xxxix. 8. Tliere remain five uisulated cases; 
 " was made God's people," Deut. xx\ii. 9 ; " a desire accomplished." Pr. xiii. 19 ; " hath 
 not been done," (rejecting an imputation) Neh. vi. 8; "was departed," Dan. ii. 1; as if 
 be had ceased to be, lb. viii. 27.
 
 54G 
 
 ZECIIAIIIAII. 
 
 chrTst ti"" = f"** * ^^t ^'^ '"*^" every one against 
 
 "'^•^'^- his neiiiiibour. 
 
 11 But now I will not he unto the residue 
 ' Hos. 2. 21, of this peoph; as in the former days, saith 
 
 Joel 2. 23. the Jjoki) of hosts. 
 tHeb.^'^"" 12 'For the seed tiliall he f prosperous ; 
 • vJ^erX tlie vine shall give her fruit, and " the 
 ' h 10?"^' ground shall give her increase, and ' the 
 
 hostility among; the petty nations subject to it, so that they 
 (lid not threaten revolt against itself, or interfere with the 
 j)aynicnt of tribute, as in the Turkish Enijiire now, or in 
 the weak jjovernnient of Greece. At the rebuildiui? of the 
 walls, after this time, the Samaritans, Arahiims, ^-J/nnio/iites, 
 Aslidodites conspired to _/iiL;/it tigahixt Jerusuleiti, and to .slatj 
 them ^ They are sunnned up here in the general title used 
 here, our adversaries ". 
 
 For I set ; lit. attd I set. Domestic confusions and strife 
 were added to hostility trom without. Neliemiah's reforma- 
 tion was, in part, to stop the grinding usury in time of dearth 
 or to pay the king's taxes, through which men sold lands, 
 vineyards, even their children "\ 
 
 God (lit.) let t/iein loose, each against /lis neighhour, in that 
 He left them to their own ways and withheld them not. 
 
 11. And )iou<. The words imply a contrast of God's 
 dealings, rather than a contrast of time. / am not to the 
 remnant of this people. He had said, / u'ill be to them 
 God ; so now He does not say that He will not do to them, 
 «.s- in former dui/s, but / am not to the remnant of this people 
 as heretofore. He would be, as He was in Jesus, in a new 
 relation to them. 
 
 12. For the seed shall be peace *. " ^ Your seed shall be 
 peace and a blessing, so that they will call it 'a seed of 
 peace.'" The unusual construction is perhaps adopted, in 
 order to suggest a furtlier meaning. It is a reversal of the 
 condition, just spoken of, when there was no peace to him that 
 went, or to him that returned. 
 
 The vine shall give her fniit and the groioid shall give 
 her increase. The old promise in the law on obedience'^, as 
 the exact contrary was threatened on disobedience''. It had 
 been revived in the midst of promise of spiritual blessing and 
 of the coming of Christ, in Ezekiel*. "^By the metaphor of 
 sensible things he explains (as the prophets often do) the 
 abundance of spiritual good in the time of the new law, as 
 did Hosea^*^, Joel'^, Amos ^-, and many others." And I will 
 cause the remnant of the people to inherit. " " As if he said, I 
 promised these things not to you who live now, but to the 
 future remnant of your people, i.e. those who shall believe 
 in Christ and sballbe saved, while the rest perish. These 
 shall possess these spiritual goods, which I promise now, 
 under the image of temporal." As our Lord said '% He that 
 overcometh shall inherit all things, and I luill he his God, and 
 he shall be My son. 
 
 1 Neh. iv. 7-11. 
 
 " Ijns Neh. iv. .'> Heb. (11 Eng.). la. as calamity, is very rare, except in the idiom 7 'tis. 
 It is used twice in the construct, as a sort of adj., is arh, bread uf iifflidiun Is. .xx.k. 20 ; "n Py 
 time of afflirliun, ,liib xxxviii. 2.'5 ; and as united with tlie synonvnne npKDi, Job xv. 24. pisDl, 
 Ps. cxLx. 113; absolutely, once only, Is. v. .'50. The fern, mjf occurs, in all, 72 times. 
 
 3 Neh. V. 1— 12. 
 
 * It cannot be, the seed shall be safe, (Jon.), for u'h'nn is never used except of peace; nor 
 is even wh^ used as a predicate, except of human bein}i:s. either directly or as implied, as in 
 Job V. 2 \, thi/ lent, iVhk DiSc ; Job xxi. 'J, Iheir houses arepeace from fear, into DiV cn'na. 
 The sense incolumita-s, inteffritas, is wrongly assumed in Rod. Ges. Thes. Deut. xxix. IM. 
 1 Kgs ii. 3.'i, Ps. xxxvii. U, .",7, Ixxii. .S, 7, Is. Hi. 7, Ivii. 19, 21, Jer. iv. lU, vi. 14, except 
 as far as tliis may be involved in " peace." Nor can DiWn im be a noun. abs. before jBl, 
 
 heavens shall give their dew; and 1 will cifiiTsT 
 
 cause the remnant of this people to possess '-''''■ '^^^- 
 
 all these things. 
 
 13 And it shall come to pass, thut as ye 
 were "a curse among the heathen, () housed Gen.^^i.^l.' 
 of Judah, and house of Israel; so will 1 {^""'''•ii' 
 save you, and "ye shall be a blessing: fear zeph.',|.*2u!^' 
 not, hut ^let your hands be strong. , ve^^!'^^' 
 
 13. As ye were a curse among the nations, (J house of 
 Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you. The ten tribes 
 bore the name of Israel, in contrast with the two tribes with 
 the name of Judah, not only in the history but in the 
 ])rophets; as Hosea says ^*, I will no min-e have mercy npon the 
 house of Israel, and o)i the house of Judah I ivill have mercy. 
 Here he unites both ; both, in the time of their captivity, were 
 a curse, were held to be a thing accursed, as it is said, ^'■' He 
 that is hanged is the curse of God, i.e. a thing accursed by 
 Him; and God foretold of Judah, that they should be ^''a 
 desolation and u curse, and by Jeremiah, ^"^ I will deliver them 
 to he removed into all the kingtloms of the earth for hurt, a 
 reprrmch and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places tvhittier 
 I shall drive them; and in deed, when it was so, ^'^ therefore 
 is your land a desolation and an astonishment and a curse 
 tvithout an inhabitant, as at this day. Now the sentence was to 
 be reversed as to both. As ye iverc a curse, among the nations, 
 naming each, so I ivill save you. There would have been no 
 proportion between the curse and the blessing, unless both 
 had been included under the blessing, as they were under the 
 curse. But Israel had no share in the temporal blessing, not 
 returning from <;aptivity, as Zechariah knew they were not 
 returned hitherto. Therefore the blessings promised must be 
 spiritual. Even a Jewish commentator saw this. "'*It is 
 possible, that this may have been spoken of the second 
 temple, on condition that they should keep the commandments 
 of the Lord ; or, it is still future, referring to the days of the 
 Messiah: and this is proved by the following verse which 
 says, O house of Judah and house of Israel. During the 
 second temple the house of Israel did not return." 
 
 And ye shall be a blessing. This is a revival and an 
 application of the original promise to Abraham, -^thou shall 
 he a blessing ; which was continued to Jacob, -' God give thee 
 the blessing of Abraham, to thee and to thy seed with thee. 
 And of the future king, of whom it is said, -- Thou gavest 
 him length of days for ever and ever, David says. Thou 
 hast made him blessings for ever, and again, -^ They shall be 
 blessed i?i Him. So Isaiah had said of the days of Christ, 
 -* In that day shall Israel be the third with Fgypt and with 
 Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land; and symbolically 
 of the cluster of grapes, -■' Destroy it not : for a blessing is in 
 it ; and Ezekiel, -''/ will make them and the places round about 
 My hill a blessing. They were this ; for of them, -' according 
 to thejiesh, Christ caine, Who is over all, God blessed for ever ; 
 
 " a seed of peace, the vine shall yield her fruit ; " for " seed " has no relation to the " \Tne." 
 
 s Kim. 6 l^v. XXVI. 4. ' lb. 20. ' Ezek. x-xxiv. 27. 
 
 "^ Rib. ID Ho.s. ii. 21, 22. " Jo. ii. 23—25, iii. 18. 
 
 '2 Am. ix. 13. « Rev. xxi. 7. " Hos. i. C, 7. 
 
 15 De. xxi. 23. i« 2 Kgs .<Lxii. 19. 
 
 '^ Jer. xxiv. 9, add lb. .xxv. 18, to make thee a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing 
 and a curse ; and of those who went in rebellion to Egypt, ye shall be an execration 
 [n7K] and an astonishment and a curse and a repioach (lb. xlli. IS), and that i/e nii/^ht 
 be a curse and a reproach among alt the nations of the earth (lb. xliv, 8.) 
 
 '8 lb. xliv. 22. " Kim. on ver. 12. 
 
 20 Gen. xii. 2. 21 lb. xxviii. 4. ^ Ps. xxi. 4, 6. =3 lb. Ixxii. 17. 
 
 -* Is. xix. 24. « lb. Ixv. 8. *« Ezek. xxxiv. 26. ^ Rom. ix. 5.
 
 CHAPTER VI 11. 
 
 547 
 
 oh'iiTst ^'* ^"'' ^^^"^ ^^''^'> *^^''*- J-'O'^" «>'' liost^; 
 
 "*•• ■''"^- ^ As I thoui:;ht to punish you, vvhen your 
 
 fathers provoked ine to wrath, saith the 
 • 2Chr.36. 10. Loiin of hosts, "and I repented not: 
 
 en. 1. 0. ^ _ ' 
 
 15 So ai^aln ha\e f thoujL^fht in these 
 
 days to do well unto .Ferusaleuj and to the 
 
 house of Judah : fear ye not. 
 
 ver. I'y.' 16 ^ These are the thinj^s that ye shall 
 
 t Heb?}'«r;Ire do j ^ Speak ye every man the truth to his 
 
 tZji'iZ'- neij^hhour; f execute the judgment of 
 
 peace. trutli and peace in your gates : 
 
 " ch."?'. 10^^' 17 ' And let none of you imagine evil in 
 
 of them were the Apostles and Evangelists, of them every 
 writer of God's word, of them those who carried the Gospel 
 throughout the world. "^ Was tiiis fulfilled, when the Jews 
 were under the Persians ? or wiien they paid tribute to the 
 Greeks? or when they trembled, hour by hour, at the men- 
 tion of the Roman name? Do not all count tliose who rule 
 much happier than those oppressed l)y the rule of others? The 
 prediction then was fulfilled, not then, but when Christ, the 
 Sun of Righteousness, shone on the earth, and He chose from 
 the Flebrews lights, through whom to dissipate darkness and 
 illumine the minds of men who were in that darkness. The 
 Jews, when restored from the captivity, seemed born to 
 slavery." They were reputed to be of slaves the most 
 despised. " But when they had through Christ been put in 
 possession of that most sure liberty, they overthrew, through 
 their empire, the power and tyranny of the evil spirits." 
 
 14. ^s I thought to punish you (lit. to do evil to you) and 
 repented not. In like way God says in Jeremiah ^, / have 
 purposed and will not repent. 
 
 15. So have I turned and purposed^ in these days to 
 do ivell unto Jerusalem. "''God, to be better understood, 
 speaketh with the feelings and after the manner of men, 
 although, in the passionless and unchangeable God, there 
 is no provocation to anger, nor turning, implying change 
 in Himself." So He says by Jeremiah, ^ I know the thoughts 
 that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace 
 and not of evil. And, with the same contrast as here, ^u4s 
 I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down 
 and to throw down, and to destroy and to ajflict, so ivill I 
 watch over them, to build and to plant, saith the Lord. His 
 having done what He purposed before was an earnest the 
 more, that He would do what He purposed now. His 
 chastisements were the earnests of His mercies; for thev 
 too were an austere form of His love. " ^ When the Lord 
 stretches out His hand to strike those who are contumacious 
 in guilt, none can h(dd His hand that He exact not the due 
 punishment. Therefore He says, that He repented not; so, 
 when He receives to grace those who repent of their sins, no 
 one can any way delay the course of His benevolence, ''For 
 the gifts and calling of God are without repentance," 
 
 1 Osor. 2 Jer. iv. 28. ' On oar see above on i. 6, p. 514, note 13. 
 
 * Dion. 5 Jer. xxix. 11. « lb. xxxi. 28. 7 Rom. xi "9 
 
 ' Rib. 9 vii. 9, 10. in Kim. 
 
 " Sanhedr. f. 7. a. quoted by Mc. Caul, p. 78. '= Raslii, quoted lb. 
 
 '3 Exod. xviii. 23. » Judah b. Korcha in Sanhr. f. 6 b. lb. 
 
 ■* n7N 73 PK is a sort ot'nuun abs., as Hagg. ii. 5. 
 
 " Jer. xxxix. 2, 3; Ui. 6, 7. 
 
 " 2 Kgs. XXV. 1, Jer. xxxLx. 1, lii. 4. is Ezek. xxiv. 1, 2. 
 
 your lus'irts against his neighbour; !'"*!{; i?rTst 
 ' lov(; no false oath : for all these an; things "'"■ ""*• 
 
 ii i I 1 . • I I ¥ "I th. 5. 3, 4. 
 
 that 1 hate, saith the Lord. 
 
 18 ^[ And the word of the Lord of hosts 
 came unto me, saying, 
 
 111 Thus saith tli(! Lord of hosts; - The ' •'"• ^2. c, 7. 
 fast of the fourth month, ^ nu*\ the fast oi' ^'^[f/^^X^' 
 the fifth, Sand the fast of the; scventli, 'jer'^'a.tlf' 
 
 "and the fast of the tenth, shall he to the ['J^^--- 52. 4. 
 house of Judah 'joy and i;l;idness, and i-^i-35. 10. 
 cheerful feasts ; ^ therefore love the truth w. «' '""<■■>■ 
 
 " k ver. IG. 
 
 and peace. 
 
 Arid to the house of Judah. ^ He speaks to the two 
 tribes, not to, or of, the ten, because Christ was to come to 
 the two tribes, and Zechariah was prophesying to them, and 
 they were to be admonislicd to prc]iare tlicni-elves in good 
 works, lest the coming of Christ should not jtrotit them, on 
 account of their depraved ways. But the ten tribes were 
 far oif in the cities of the IMedes, nor was Christ to come 
 to them ; but they were to hear the Gospel through the 
 Apostles, and so he prophesies of the conversion of all to 
 the glory of Christ, yet he could not admonish all, but those 
 only to whom he was sent. 
 
 16. These are the things that ye shall do. lie exhorts 
 them to the same duties, to which the former prophets had 
 exhorted their fathers ^, and, as before, first positively to 
 triith and peace ; then to avoid everything contrary to it. 
 Judgement of peace must be judgement which issues in peace, 
 as all righteous judgement righteously received, in «hich 
 case each party acquiesces, must. " '" If ye judge righteous- 
 ness, there will be peace between the litigants, arr-ording to 
 that proverb, '^'He that hath his coat taken from him by the 
 tribunal, let him sing and go his way ' [" because," says a 
 gloss 1-, "they have jtidged the judgement of truth, and have 
 taken away that which would have been stolen property, if he 
 retained it," being in fact not his]. And they have quoted 
 that, ^"^ And all this people shall go to their place iu peace." 
 "^*All this people, even he that is condemned in judgement. 
 It is also interpreted of arbitration. What sort of judgement 
 is that, in which there is peace ? It is that of arbitration." 
 
 17. For all these things do I hate. lit. emphatic, ^'^ For 
 they are all these things which I hate. This is the sum of 
 what 1 hate ; for they comprise in brief the breaches of the 
 two tables, the love of God and of man. 
 
 19. The fast of the fourth month. On the ninth day of 
 the fourth month ^^ of Zedckiah's eleventh year, Jerusalem, 
 in the extremity of fannne, opened to Nebuchadnezzar, and 
 his princes sat in her gate ; in the tenth month ^'' of his ninth 
 year Nebuchadnezzar began the siege. Ezekiel was bidden 
 ^* on its tenth day; write thee the name of the day, of this same 
 day, as the beginning of God's uttermost judgements against 
 the bloody city ^*. The days of national sorrow were to be 
 
 1' lb. 6—14. The Jews in S. Jerome's time added, that in the fourth month Moses brake 
 the tables of tlie law ; in the fifth month was the rebellion on the return of the spies, and 
 the sentence of the forty years' wandering. This is true. For since Moses went up into 
 the moimt in the third month (Ex. xix. 1, 16, xxiv. 12, 16.), the ^nd of the fortv days 
 (lb. 18). after which he came down and brake the tables (Ex. xxxii. 15. 19) would fall in 
 tlie foiulh month. Ribera calculates the fourth month thus : setting off from Sinai. 2"th 
 day of 2nd month, Nu. x. 11 ; 3 days' ioumey. lb. 33 ; halt of one month, lb. xi. 20, 21 ; 
 of 7 days, lb. xii. 15 j 40 days' search of spies, lb. xiii. 25,
 
 548 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 518. 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 20 Thus saith the Lord of liosf s ; [t sliidl 
 yet come to pass, that there shall come 
 
 turned into exuberant joy, Joi/ and g/adiicss atid c/ieerfii/ 
 feasts^, for the sorrows, which they t^oniineniorated, were hut 
 the liarbiiiiicrs of joy, when the chastisements were ended; 
 only He adds, /ore llie truth and pence ; for such htve wherct)y 
 they would he Israelites indeed, in wliose spirits is no jnuile, 
 were the conditions of tlieir participatinjL!; the blessings of the 
 Gospel, of which he i;-oes on to speak ; 
 
 20. It shall ijet be that. The promises are those which 
 God had already made by Isaiah- and Micah'. Yet where 
 was the shew of their fulfilment ? The Jews themselves, a 
 handful: the temple unfinished ; its completion depending, 
 in human sight, upon tlie will of their heathen masters, the 
 rival worship at Samaria standine; and invitin!; to coalition. 
 Appearances and experience were ajjainst it. God says 
 virtually, that it was, in human sight, contrary to all expecta- 
 tions. But "weakness is aye Heaven's might." Despite of 
 all, of the fewness of those who were returned, their down- 
 hcarteduess, broken condition, hopelessness, though all had 
 hitherto failed, though, or rather because, all human energy 
 and strength were gone, as God had said before. The Lard 
 shall yet* choose Jerusalem, so now, It shall ?/p/^ be that. 
 
 Nations and many cities shall come. He describes vividly 
 the eagerness and mutual impulse, with which not only 
 many but mighty nations should throng to the Gospel, and 
 every fresh conversion should win others also, till the great 
 tide should sweep through the world. 
 
 21. The inhabitiDtts of one city shall go to another. It 
 is one unresting extension of the faith, the restlessness of 
 faith and love. "*They shall not be satisfied with their own 
 salvation, careless al)out the salvation of others ; they shall 
 employ all labour and industry, with wondrous love, to provide 
 for the salvation of others as if it were their own." It is a 
 marvellous stirring of minds. Missionary efforts, so familiar 
 with us as to be a household word, were unknown then. 
 The time was not yet come. Before the faith in Christ came, 
 the Jewish people were not to be the converters of mankind. 
 They were to await for Him, the Redeemer of the world, 
 through Whom and to Whom they were to be first converted, 
 and then the world through those who were of them. This 
 mutual conversion was absolutely unknown. The prophet^ 
 predicts certainly that it would be, and in (iod's time it was. 
 From you, S. Paul writes to a small colony in Greece ^, 
 sounded out the ivord of the Lord, not only in Macedonia 
 and jJchaia, hut also in everyplace your faith to God-ward 
 is spread abroad. ^ Your faith, he writes to the heathen 
 ca])ital of the world, is sjiuhen of throughout the whole world. 
 Within eighty years after our Lord's Ascension, the Roman 
 governor of Bithynia reported, on occasion of the then 
 persecution, that it spread as a contagion. " ^" The contagion 
 of that superstition traversed not cities only but villages and 
 scattered houses too." Before the persecution, the temples 
 had been desolated, the solemn rites long intermitted, the 
 sacrificed animals had very rarely found a purchaser. An 
 impostor of the same date says, "^^ Pontus is full of atheists 
 and Christians." "i- There is no one race of men," it was said 
 before the middle of the second century^\ "whether Barbarians 
 
 ■ yio as Dia DV, Esth. viii. 1". ix. Ifl, 22. Eccl. vii. 14. ^ Is. ii. 2, sqq. 
 
 3 Mic. iv. I. sqq. * \. ir, ii. Iii [12 Eng.j ^ iiy is premised emphatically. 
 
 " Osor. ? See below on ix. 12. s j Tliess. i. 8. ' Rom. i. 8. 
 
 '" I'lin.ailTraj. En. x.il7. " Alexander in Tjiioian. Alexunder. 
 
 12 S. Jiiitin M. Dial. n. 117, on Mai. i. 10. p. 210. O.xl'. Tr. 
 
 people, and the inhabitants of many cities : (, ifuTsT 
 21 And the iidiahitants of one city shall jijo ''"■ ■'^*^- 
 
 or (jreeks or by whatsoever name called, whether <jf those wan- 
 dering houseless tribes who live in waggons or those pastoral 
 ])eople who dwell in tents, in which there are not prayers and 
 I'^ucharists to the Father and Creator of all things, through 
 the name of the crucified Jesus." "The word of our teacher," 
 said anotlier "', "abode not in Judaea alone, as pl)il<jso])hy in 
 Greece; but was poured out throughout the whole world, 
 persuading Greeks and barbarians in their several nations 
 and villages and every city, whole houses and each hearer 
 individually, and having brought over to the truth no few even 
 of the very pliiloso])hers. And if any ordinary magistrate 
 forbid the Greek ])hilosophy, forthwith it vanishes ; but our 
 teaching, forthwitli at its first announcement, kings and 
 emperors and subordinate rulers and governors with all 
 their mercenaries and countless multitudes forbid, and war 
 against us and try to extirpate; but it the rather flourishes." 
 The second century had not closed, before another said, 
 " '''We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have tilled every 
 place belonging to you, cities, islands, castles, towns, assem- 
 blies, your very camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, 
 forum! We leave you your temples only. We can count 
 your armies ; our numbers in a single province will be 
 greater." " " Men cry out that the state is beset ; that the 
 Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. 
 They mourn, as for a loss, that every sex, age, condition, and 
 now even rank is going over to this sect." "^''On whom 
 besides have all nations believed, except on Christ ^\'ho hath 
 already come?" Then having enumerated the nations men- 
 tioned in the Acts '^, he adds, "And now the varieties of the 
 Getulians, and the many tracts of the Moors, all the bounds 
 of the Spains, and the divers nations of the Gauls, and places 
 of the Britons, unreached by the Romans but subdued to 
 Christ; of Sarmatians, Dacians, Germans, and Scythians, 
 and of many remote nations, and many provinces and islands, 
 uidinown to us, and which we can scarce enumerate. In all 
 which places the name of Christ, Who hath already come, 
 reignetli, seeing that before Him the gates of all cities are 
 opened and none are shut against Him, before Whom ^^the 
 bars of iron are broken in pieces and the gates of brass are 
 opened. In all these places dwellcth a people called by the 
 name of Christ. For who could reign over all, save Christ 
 the Son of God, Who was foretold as about to reign over all 
 nations for ever?" Then having contrasted the limited rule of 
 Solomon, Darius, the Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, 
 "the Romans who protect their own empire by the strength 
 of their legions and are unable to extend the might of their 
 kingdom beyond these nations [Germans, Britons, Moors, 
 Getulians], he sums up, "but the kingdom and the Name 
 of Christ is extended every where, is believed in every where, 
 is worshipped by all the nations above enumerated. Every 
 where He reigns, everywhere is adored, is given every where 
 equally to all. With Him no king hath greater favour; 
 no Barbarian inferior joy; no dignities or birth enhance the 
 merit of any; to all He is equal ; to all. King ; to all Judge ; to 
 all. God and Lord." A little later, a heathen owns, while 
 calumniating, "-"Those most foul rites of that impious coali- 
 
 '3 Trjpho saj's, " I escaped from the late war." (A. D. 132 — 135) Dial. init. p. 70. 
 
 '■• Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. &i. 
 
 IS Tert. Apol. n. 37, p. 78. Oxf. Tr. '« lb. n. 1. pp. 2, 3. 
 
 1? Tcit. adv. .hid. c. 7 p. 113 Rig. '" Act^ ii. 9—11. 
 
 1^ Is. xlv. 2. -<' Ciecil. ill Miiiut. Fel. p. SO. Ouz.
 
 CHAPTER Vlir. 
 
 r)4i) 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir.518. 
 
 ' Isai. 2. 3. 
 
 Mic. 4. 1, 2. 
 II Or, con- 
 
 timinUy. 
 + Heb. aoing. 
 t Hel). 'to 
 
 iiitri'tlt the 
 
 face of tlie 
 
 Lord, 
 
 ch. 7. 2. 
 
 to another, sayinj^, ' Let us «^o || f speedily 
 f to pray before the Lord, and to seek the 
 Lord of hosts : I will j^o also. 
 
 22 Yea, "many people and strong na- 
 tions shall come to seek the Lord of 
 hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before 
 the Lord. 
 
 " Isai. 60. 3, &c. & 60. 23. 
 
 tion are j;;ro\viiii;- tliroiiijliout tlic whole wcirld, as l)a(l thiiiiijs 
 come up most luxuriantly, evil ways ercepiiiu; on daily." The 
 Christian answers, "^ That our number increases daily, this 
 is no imputation of error, but a testimony to praise. For in a 
 S'ood mode of lite, its own jiersevere, aliens accrue to it." 
 
 Let us ^o on and o)i,~ perseveringly, until we attain to 
 entreat the face of the Lord. It is not a Theism or Mono- 
 theism, but tlic God, Who had revealed Himself to Israel, 
 Who, when our Lord came, was worshipped in Jerusalem, 
 to which those invited say, I too would go with thee. Yet 
 not .so, but the words seem to speak of that which is a 
 special gift of the Gospel, continued projjress, "forgetting 
 those things which are bcliiiid, and reaching fortti unto those 
 things which are before, to press toward the inar/c of the prize 
 of t lie high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let tis go on and 
 on; whence it is a Christian proverb, "*not to go on is to 
 go back." "^Thc whole life of a good Christian is a holy 
 longing to make progress." '"'The one perfection of man 
 is, to have found that he is not perfect." "^ If thou sayest, 
 It sufliceth, thou art lost." "^Tobe unwilling to increase, 
 is to decrease." 
 
 23. Ten men of all languages of the nations. Ten^ is the 
 symbol of a whole, all the numbers before it meeting in it 
 and starting again from it. The day of Pentecost was to be 
 the reversal of the confusion of Babel; all were to have one 
 voice, as God had said, ^^It (the time) sliall come to gather all 
 nations and tongues, and thei/ shall come and see My glory. 
 
 They sliall lay hold of the shirt of one man wlio is a Jeiv, 
 " 1^ that is, of the Lord and Saviour, of Whom it is said, 
 '" A prince shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
 between his feet, nntil He shall come, for TVIiom it is laid up, 
 and fur Him shall the Gentiles wait ; for ^' ///ere sliall be a 
 rod of Jesse, and He who shall arise to rule over the Gentiles, 
 to Him shall the Gentiles seek. And when they shall lay 
 hold of Him, they shall desire to tread in His steps, since 
 God is with Him. Or else, whosoever shall believe out of all 
 nations, shall lay hold of a man who is a Jew, the Apostles 
 who are from the Jews, and shall say. Let us go ivith you; for 
 we have known through the prophets and from the voice 
 of all the Scriptures, that the Son of God, Christ, God and 
 Lord, is with you. ^^^he^e there is a most manifest prophecy, 
 and the coming of Christ and His Apostles and the faith of 
 all nations is preached, let us seek for nothing more." 
 
 "1* Christ turning our sorrow into joy and a feast and 
 good days and gladness, and transferring lamentation into 
 cheerfulness, the accession to the faith and union to God by 
 sanctification in those called to salvation shall not henceforth 
 
 ' Mlniit. Fel. lb. p, .312. Other like sayings are in Oripen, (de Princ. iv. 1. c. Gels. 
 i. 7. 07, ii. 13, iii. 21,) Lactantius, (v. 13) Ariiobius (i. p. 33, ii. 50, Lugd.), who argues 
 thence to the divinity of the Gospel, Jul. Finnicus, (c. 21 15. P. iv. 172.) 
 
 ■- liV.T n^Sj. ■' Phil. iii. 13, It. ■• " non prosredi est regredi." 
 
 • S. Aug. in 1 Ep. S. Joann. Horn. iv. n. 6. p. 11 W. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 6 Id. Senii. 120, [170. Ben.] c. 8. p. 877. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 ^ Id. Serm. 119, [ICiO.] fin. ib. p. 871. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 ' Nolle prolicere deficere est. S. Bern. Ep. 23 1 ad Guarin. n. 4. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 23 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In cimITst 
 
 those days it shall coma to pass, that ten — '■'''■ ^'^- _ 
 
 men shall " take hold out of ail lany-uai^es ° isai. 3. c. 
 
 & 4. 1. 
 of the nations, even shall take hold of the 
 
 skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will 
 
 go witli you : for we have heard "that God° icor. 11.23. 
 
 /* with you. 
 
 be individually: but the cities shall exhort each other there- 
 to, and all nations shall come in multitudes, the later ever 
 calling out to those before them, / too will go. For it is 
 written, ^'' iron sharpenet h iron, so doth a man the ronntennnre 
 of another. For the zeal of some is ever found to call forth 
 others to fulfil what is good. But what is the aim proposed 
 to the cities, tiiat is, the Gentiles? To entreat and to seek 
 the face of the Lord, i.e. Christ, Who is the exact image of 
 God the Father, and, as is written, ^^the brightness of His 
 glory, and the express image of His Person, of Whom also 
 the divine David saith, ^~Sheu.< Thy countenance to Thy servant. 
 For the Image and Countenance of (jod the Fatlicr hath 
 shone upon us. Having Him propitious and kind, we lay 
 aside the injury from sin, being justified through faith, >**?*<// 
 by tvorks of righteousness, rvhich we have do7ie, but according 
 to His great mercy. — But how they shall come, he explains. 
 By the ten mot you are to understand the perfe(;t number of 
 those who come. For the number ten is the symbol of 
 perfection. But that those of the Gentiles, who cleave to 
 the holy Apostles, took in hand to go the same way with 
 them, being justified by the faith in Christ, he sets evidently 
 before us. For little children, if they would follow their 
 fathers, lay hold of the hem of their dress, and, aided by the 
 touch and hanging from their dress, walk steadily ami safelv. 
 In like way, they too who ^'^ ivorshipped the creature rather 
 than the Creator, choosing as their true fathers the bringers- 
 in of the Gospel-doctrines, and joining themselves by like- 
 mindedness to them, follow them, being still of childlike 
 minds, and go the same way, ever shewing themselves 
 zealous followers of their life, and by continued progress 
 advancing ~" to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of 
 the fulness of Christ. But why do they follow them ? Being 
 persuaded that God is with them, i. e. Emmanuel, God 
 with us. But that this calling belongs not only to those 
 of the blood of Israel but to all nations throughout the 
 world, he indicated by saying, that those who laid bold of 
 that hem should be of all languages. But when were the 
 nations called to the knowledge of the truth, and when did 
 they desire to seek the face of the Lord and to entreat it, 
 and to go the same way, as it were, as the holy Apostles, 
 except when the Only-Begotten came to us. Who is -' the 
 expectation of the nations : to Whom also the divine David 
 singeth, —^-lll the nations, whom Thou hast made, shall come 
 and worship before Thee, O Lord? For the multitude of the 
 nations also is saved through Him." 
 
 The startling condescension of this passage is, that our 
 Lord is spoken of as " a man, a Jew." Yet of His Human 
 
 ^ As in Gen. xxxi. 7, he hath chajtssrd my u-mrrs these ten times ; Lev. xxvi, 26. ivhen 
 I have broken your staff oj bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven ; Nu. xiv. 22, 
 those wen which have seefi My glory, have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not 
 hearkened to My voice. 
 
 " S, Jer. 12 Gen. xlix. 8-10. " Is. xi. 10. 
 
 1= Pr. xxTii. 17. 16 Heb. i. 3. 
 
 IS Tit. iii. 5. is Rom. i. 2.5. 
 
 :i G;;u. xlLx. 10. - Ps. Ixxxvi. 9. 
 
 i» Is. lx^•i. 18. 
 
 i< S. C}T. 
 1? Ps. cxix. 135. 
 ■^ Eph. iv. l-J. 
 
 K K K K
 
 550 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 4S7. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1 God dcfendcth hi.s (hiirrh. 9 Zion is exhorted to 
 rejoice for the roiiiiiig of Christ, and his peaceable 
 
 Nature it is not only the simple truth, but essential to the 
 truth. Pilate said to Him in scorn, ^hn la Jcw^? Thine own 
 nation and the Chief Priests hare delivered Thee unto me. 
 But it was essential to the fulfilment of God's promises. 
 The Christ was to be ''■the Son of David. '^ Hath not the 
 Scrijitnre said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and 
 out of the town of Bethleliem, vltere David ivasf David, 
 * lieing a projihet and Anoiriiiif that (iod had sicorn with an 
 oath to him, that of the f rait of his loins according to the flesh. 
 He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; ^ Of this man's 
 seed hath God, according to promise, raised unto Israel a 
 Saviour, Jesus. Wheiu'c S. Paul beg-ins his great doctrinal 
 Epistle with this contrast, * the Gospel of God concerning His 
 Son Jesus Christ, which tens made of the seed of David 
 according to the flesh, and declared to he the Son of God with 
 power. He was that ^ o7ie Man among a thousaiid, whom 
 Solomon says, I fimnd ; but a woman among all those have I 
 not found ; the one in the whole human race. It was ful- 
 filled in the very letter when '^theij brought to Him all that 
 were diseased, and liesoiight Him that they might onh/ touch 
 the hem of His garment : and as mamj as touched were made 
 perfectly xchole. ^ The whole nuiltitude sought to touch Him, 
 for there tvent virtue out of Him and healed all. 
 
 Even the Jews saw the reference to the Messiah. "^"All 
 nations shall come, falling on their faces before the Messiah 
 and the Israelites, sayiug-. Grant, that we may be Thy 
 servants and of Israel. For as relates to the doctrine 
 and the knowledge of the law, the Gentiles shall be their 
 servants, according to that, In those days ten men &('." 
 
 IX. 1. The hurden^^ of the word of the Lord in [ovvpnn^''\ 
 the land of Iladrach. The foreground of this prophecy is 
 the course of the victories of Alexander, which circled round 
 the holy land without hurting it, and ended in the overthrow 
 of the Persian empire. The surrender of Damascus followed 
 first, immediately on his great victory at the Issus ; then 
 Sidon yielded itself and received its ruler from the conqueror. 
 Tyre he utterly destroyed ; Gaza, we know, perished ; he 
 passed harmless by Jerusalem. Samaria, on his return from 
 Egypt, he chastised. 
 
 It is now certain that there was a city called Hadrach in 
 the neighbourhood of Damascus and Hamath, although its 
 exact site is not known. " It was first found upon the geo- 
 
 > S. John xviii. 35. 2 s. Matt. i. 1. xxii. 42. 3 S. Jolm vii. 42. 
 
 ■• Act-s ii. 30. 5 lb. xiii. 23. « Rom. i. 1-4. ' Eccl. vii. 28. 
 
 « S. Matt. xiv. 35. 3fi. 9 S. Luke vi. 19. add lb. viii. 46. S. Mark v. 30. 
 
 '" Pesikta Rabbathi. in Yalkut Shim'oni ii. 50. 4. in Schbttsen ad loc. 
 ^^ On the word *' Burden" see above on Nah. i. 1. p. 373. 
 '2 As Is. LX. 8, "The Lord sent a word upo7i Jacob (Dpy'3) and it lighted on Israel" (W|j;"3). 
 
 '■' PubUshed in the British Museum Series vol. ii. PI. 53. Prof. Rawlinson. 
 _ » Su; H. Rawlinson, Athen;emn, No. 18G9, Aug. 22, 1863, p. 2 l(i, where he " published 
 his readhig, .some time after he identified it." " It has since been identified by others." 
 
 '_* Sir H. Rawlinson adds in a note ; " From the position on the lists, I should be inclined 
 to identify it with Homs or Edessa which was certainly a very ancient capital, (being tlie 
 Kedesh of the Egyptian records) and which would not othenrise be represented in the 
 Assyrian inscriptions." Note 2C. lb. " Oppert in the Revue Archeologique 1808. 
 
 T. 2. p. 323. 17 G. Smith's .\ssvrian discoveries p. 270. 
 
 '■'* lb. p. 284. 19 in Siphre sect. Debarim (ed. Friedm. p. 05). 
 
 =» In the time of Hadrian. Wolf Bibl. Hebr. i. 411. 21 Here. 
 
 =2 David ben Abraham, MS. Opp. Add. f. 25, quoted by Neubauer, Geogr. du Tal- 
 mud p. 2!)8. The account of one Joseph Abassi that " it was once a large city, but now- 
 small ; that the Arabs told nuich of its kings and princes ; that it was said to have bad 
 giants and was about 10 miles from Damascus," no doubt relates to Edrei. See 
 Hengstenberg Christol. ii. 92 snq. A. v. Kremer, Beitrage zur Geographic des nbrdliehen 
 Syricns (in d. Denkscluiften d. Kais. Akad. d. Wissensch. [Wien] philos. hist. Classe, 
 
 Before 
 
 12 God's promises of victory and p|r;,rca. 
 
 cir. 187. 
 
 liingdom 
 defence. 
 
 THE =■ burden of the word of the Lord '"jer^M 
 in the land of Hadrach, and '' Danias- '' Amos i. a. 
 
 graphical tablets^* among the Assyrian inscriptions." "i*In 
 the catalogue of Syrian cities, tributary to Nineveh, fof which 
 we have several copies in a more or less perfect state, and 
 varying from each other, both in arrangement and extent) 
 there are three names, which arc uniformly grouped together 
 and which we read Manatsuah, Magida [Megiddo] and Du'ar 
 [Dor]. As these names are associated with those of Samaria, 
 Damascus, Arpad, Hamath, Carchcmisli, Iladrach, Zobah, 
 there can be no doubt of the position of the cities'''." In the 
 Assvrian Canon, Hadrach is the object of three Assyrian ex- 
 peditions, i" 9183 (B.C. 818), 9190 (811) and 92(X) (8(3l). The 
 first of these follows upon one against Damascus, 9182 (817). 
 In the wars of Tiglath-pilescr ii. (the Tiglath-pileser of Holy 
 Scripture.) it has been twice decyphered ; 1) in the war B.C. 
 ~'>^'i^,7'-yi , after the mention of "the cities to Sana the mountain 
 which is in Lebanon were divided, the land of Bahalzephon to 
 Ammana" (Amnion), there followsIIadrach*^;and subsequently 
 there are mentioned as joined to the league, " 19 districts of 
 Hamath, and the cities which were round them, which are 
 beside the sea of the setting sun." 2) In his "war in Pales- 
 tine and Arabia," "i**the city of Hadrach to the land of Saua," 
 and six other cities are enumerated, as "the cities beside the 
 upper sea," which, he says,"I possessed. and six of my generals 
 as governors over them I appointed." No other authority 
 nearly approaches these times. The nearest authority is of 
 the second century after our Lord, A.D. 116. ""R. Jose, born 
 of a Damascene mother, said," answering R. Yehudah ben 
 Elai -'\ " I call heaven and earth to witness upon me, that I 
 am of Damascus, and that there is a place called Hadrach." 
 S. Cyril of Alexandria says^^, that " the land of Hadrach must 
 be somewhere in the Eastern parts, and near to Emath (now 
 Epiphania of Antioch) a little further than Damascus, the 
 metropolis of the Phoenicians and Palestine." A writer of 
 the 10th century-- says that there was "a very beautiful 
 mosque there, called the Mesjed-el-Khadra, and that the town 
 was named from it." The conjecture that Hadrach might 
 be the name of a king -^, or an idol -*, will now probably be 
 abandoned, nor can the idea, (which before seemed the most 
 probable and which was very old), that it was a symbolic 
 name, hold any longer. For the Prophets do use symbolic 
 names -= ; but then they are names which they themselves 
 frame. Micah again selects several names of towns, now 
 
 A. 1852. 2 Abth. p. 21 sqq.)aiidTopographie v. Damascus(Ib. 1854. 2 Abth. p. 1 sqq.; 1855 
 2 Abth. p. 1 sqq.) and vVetzstein d. Alarkt v. Damascus (ZDMG. 1857. p. 476 sqq.) 
 Reisebericht iib. Hauran u. d. Trachonen (1860), carry out the evidence that no trace of 
 such a place can now be foimd. Kohler ad loc. T. ii. p. 7. 
 
 -•1 The idiom, the land of, is used of a people, Canaan, Benjamin, Israel, Judah, Zebulon, 
 Naphtali, Siuim, Chittini. Egypt, Assyria, the Philistines : or of the actual king, speaking 
 of his territory, (as Neb. ix. 22, theii possessed the [and ofSihon, and the land of the khig 
 of Ileshhon and the land of Ofr, kins: of Bashnii, (Sihon and Og and the king of Heshbon 
 being, at the time spoken of, in actual possession of that land) ; but it is no where used of 
 any past king or of an idol ; much less would it be used in reference to an unknown king or 
 idol. Scotland might, in orator\', be called " land of the Bruce," or England perhap.s. 
 " thou land of Mammon." But it would not be called, without emphasis, " land of 
 Stephen" or *' Edgar" or any obscure Saxon king. 
 
 -* The peojile. not the lan3. is called "the people of Chemosh" (i. e. the people who wor- 
 shipped it) Nu. xxi. 29. Jer. xlviii. 46. Nor is there any like name of an idol. "Derketo" 
 (v. Alphen) would be i«r;;"in. Hitzig gave up the combination, by which he made the nama 
 of an idol. (Kl. Proph. Ed. 3.) 
 
 -' As "Ariel," Is. xxix. 1, 2, 7; "Tlie burden of the desert of the sea," lb. xxi. 1 ; 
 " the sea," Jer. xlix. 23 ; " Sheshac." of Babylon, (whatever the explanation is, perhaps 
 from sinking down. coll. 'i^S' Gen. viii. 1) Jer. xxv. 20, Ii. 41 ; "the land Merathaim," 
 (" double rebellion"), and "the inhabitants of Pekod" ("visitation") of Babylon (Jer. 1. 21) : 
 not Diunah, which is probably a real proper name, Is. xxi. ll ; nor 'Dp nV, (Jer. Ii. 1.)
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 551 
 
 cifaTsT ^^^ shall be the rest thoroof: whim "the 
 "'"'• '^^'- eyes of man, as of all tlu; tribes of Israel, 
 
 " 2 Chr. 20. 12. Ps. 145. 1.5. 
 
 almost unknown and probably uninij)ortant, in order to 
 impress upon liis people some ineaniriij connettted witii 
 them', but tiieu lie does himself so connect it. lie dues 
 not name it (so to say), leaving;- it to explain itself. The 
 name Hadrach - would be a real name, used symbolically, 
 without iiiiythinj:; in the context to shew that it is a symlxd. 
 
 The cities, upon which the burden or heavy proj)hecy fell, 
 possessed no interest for Israel. Damascus was no Ioniser 
 a hostile power ; Hamath had ever been peaceable, and was 
 far away ; Tyre and Sidon did not now carry on a trade in 
 Jewish cai)tives. But the Jews knew from Daniel, that the 
 emj)ire, to which they were in subjection, would be over- 
 thrown by Greece^. When that rapid attack should come, 
 it would be a great consolation to them to know, how they 
 themselves would fare. It was a turniuc; point in t/ieir 
 history and the history of the tlicn known world. The pro- 
 phet describes * the circuit, which the concjueror would take 
 around the land which God defended ; how the thunder- 
 cloud circled round Juda'a, broke irresistibly upon cities 
 more powerful than Jerusalem, but was turned aside from 
 the holy city in going and returning, because God encamped 
 around it. 
 
 "^The selection of the places and of the whole line of 
 (MMintry corresponds very exactly to the march of Alexander 
 after the battle of Issus, when Damascus, which Darius had 
 chosen as the strong depository of bis wealth, of Persian 
 women of rank, confidential officers and envoys ^," was be- 
 trayed, but so opened its gates to his general, Parmenio. 
 Zidon, a city renowned for its antiquity and its founders, 
 surrendered freely; Tyre, here specially marked out, was taken 
 after a 7 months' siege; Gaza too resisted for 5 months, was 
 taken, and, as it was said, '• plucked up ''." 
 
 ^Ind Damascus shall be the rest thereof. God's judgement 
 fell first upon Damascus. But the word " resting-place " is 
 commonly used of quiet peaceful resting, especially as given 
 by God to Israel; of the ark, the token of the Presence of 
 God, after its manifold removals, and of the glorious dwell- 
 ing-place of the Christ among men **. The prophet seems 
 then purposely to have chosen a word of large meaning, 
 which should at once express (as he had before'), that the 
 word of God should fall heavily on Damascus and yet be 
 its resting-place. Hence, about the time of our Lord, the 
 
 for D'TJb ; for D'n::'^ could not be mentally substituted for it, since D'TJD '3S'' would be an 
 impossible combination. For inliabitants are of a land, city &c ; but D'1-3 are the people 
 themselves. ' .See ab. on Micah i. II), p. 3IK). 
 
 - The word, divided into two halves, would signify. " siiaq)-soft." in is used of sharp- 
 ness (see on Hab. i. 8. comp. Ps. Ivii. 5, Is. xlix. 2.); 71, of delicacy, Deut. xxxiii. 54-5G ; of 
 weakness, lb. xx. 8, 2 Chr. xiii. 7. And so itwould signify, wliat was in one respect or at one 
 time " sharp," and in or at another, " soft." A Jewisii tradition, extant in times soon after 
 our Lord, so explained it ; " Severe to the Gentiles, and tender to Israel." (R. Judah ben 
 Elai, a disciple of R. Akibah. Wolf. Bibl. Hebr. ii. (i',)0) S. Jerome lias tlie same from liis 
 Jewish teaclier, *' The burden of tlie word of the Lord is on the land of Hadrach ; on which 
 the Lord exercised both His austerity and clemency ; austerity on tliose who would not be- 
 lieve, clemency on those who, with tlie Apostles, returned to Him." Tlie name would have 
 singularly suited Persia, whose empire Alexander was engaged in destroying, when this pro- 
 phecy was fulfilled, and which was aimed at in them. It would describe them as they were, 
 fierce and cruel, as conquerors, but infamous, even among the Heatlien, for their incests. 
 Sins of the flesh, destroying pure love, brutalising the soul, disorganising the frame, are 
 parents of ferocity, from which voluptuousness seems at first sight most alien. 
 3 Dan. viii. 20. 21. ^ See below on ver. 8. 
 
 ^ Pusey's "Daniel the Propliet," pp. 279, 280. * Grote's Greece xii. 173, 4. 
 
 7 KaTe(ma(TfjL4ftj, Strabo xvi. 2. 30. 
 
 * niTOD is used of rest or a place of rest, given W God. Deut. xii. 9, Ps. xxiii. 2, xcv. 11, 
 Mi. ii. 10, Is. xxviii. 12, xxxii. 18; dwelling of God, Ps. cxxxii. 8, M, Is. Ixvi. 1 ; for the 
 ark, 1 Chr. xxviii. 2 ; of the Messiah, Is. xi. 10. It is probably a proper name, Jud. xx. 43. 
 
 9 n-jn Zcch. vi. 8. 
 
 "> R. Johanan in Midrash Sliir Hassliiruii on Cant. vii. I in Rayni. Pug. Fid. f. (U3. 
 
 s/iall he toward the Lord. ^ iPrTst 
 
 2 And '' Haiiiiitli ;ils;(> sliiill hordcr there- cir. w. 
 
 4 Jer. 19. 23. 
 
 Jews interpreted this of the coming of the Messiah, that 
 "'"Jerusalem should reach to the gates of Damascus. Since 
 Damascus sliall be the place of His re.-t, but the place of His 
 rest is only the house of the sanctuary, as it is said, This is 
 Mij rest for ever ; here will I dwell." Another added", '"All 
 tilt; prophets and all projiliesied but of the years of rcdcmj)- 
 tion and the days of the Messiah." Damascus, on tiie 
 (;onv<;rsion of S. Paul, became the first resting-place of the 
 word of (iod, the first-fruits of the Gentiles whom the .Apostle 
 of the Gentiles gathered from East to West tlir<jugli(jut the 
 world. 
 
 TVhcn [or For'\ the eijes of man, as [lit. and \. e. espe<-ially 
 beyond others] of all the tribes of Israel, shall he toxvard the 
 Lord. This also implies a conversion of Gentiles, as well as 
 Jews. For man, as contrasted with Israel, must be the 
 heathen world, mankind '-. '"^ The eyes of all nnist needs 
 look in adoration to (jod, expecting all good from Him, be- 
 cause the Creator of all provided for the well-being of all, 
 as the Apostle says, "/.s- He the God of the Jews only:' Is 
 He not also of the Gentiles? Yea, of the Gentiles also. God's 
 time of delivering His people is, when they pray to Him. So 
 Jehoshaphat prayed, '^O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? 
 For we hare no strength against this great eom/iani/, which is 
 come against us, and we /mow not irhut u'e shall do ; hut our 
 ei/es are <ni Thee^^' ; and the Psalmist says, '" The eyes of all 
 wait tou'ards Thee; and, '** «s the eyes of servants are unto the 
 hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden are unto 
 tlie hand of her 7nistress, so our eyes are unto the Lord our 
 God, tintil He have mercy upon us. " For in those days," 
 says a Jew, who represents the traditional interpretation ", 
 "man shall locdv to his Creator, and his eyes shall look to 
 the Blessed One, as it was said above, ice icill go with you, 
 and they shall j(jin themselves, they and their cities, to the 
 cities of Israel." And another-"; " In those days the eyes of 
 all mankind shall be to the Lord, not to idols or images; 
 therefore the land of Hadrach and Damascus, and the other 
 places near the land of Israel — shall be included among the 
 cities of Judah, and shall be in the faith of Israel." 
 
 2. A)id Hamath also sliall border thereby -'. Near to it 
 in place and character, it shall share its subdual. After the 
 betrayal of Damascus, Parmenio was set over all Syria. 
 '•--The Syrians, not as yet tamed by the losses of war, despised ' 
 
 This Midrash gives a second mystical interpretation of Hadrach. " Hadrach (TTin) is the 
 King Messiah, Who is to guide (TlinS) all who come into the world by repentance before 
 God. Blessed for ever." lb. " R. Jolianan was a disciple of the elder Hiilel and Shammai, 
 according to the Pirke Aboth c. 2 ; prince of Israel ibr 40 years. 5 of them after the destruc- 
 tion of the temple. Raslii on cod. Rosh Hasshana, end." Wolf Bibl. Hebr. ii. 841. 
 
 " Mar(quoted by Rasbi) i. e. Rabbi ben Xachman "Rector of the Academy of Pombedita 
 in 300." De Rossi Diet. St. v. Rablioth. Ibn Ezra has ; " the rest of tlie prophecy shall 
 be on Damascus; for this prophecy shall he fulfilled, connected with the second temple; 
 For the eyes of man are to the Lord ; for many from the men of Damascus shall return to 
 worship the Lord and to tuni to the obedience of Israel in Jerusalem." And so Kimclii, 
 " Damascus shall be His resting-place, i. e, the Shechinah of His glory and prophecy." 
 
 '- So Israel and man (Cttin) are contrasted in Jer. x.xxii. 20. '^ Rib. 
 
 " Rom. iii. 29. '^ 2 Chron. xx. 12. i« UTy y^y -3. 
 
 1? n3i?' t'jx Ps. cxlv. 15 ; without TV Ps. civ. 27 ; and in the same sense, with b, ■jiyir''? "Bljy 
 Ps. cxix. 100. 
 
 1' Ps. cxxiii. 2. God's eye is said to be IVi; 7X, towards them that fear Him. Ps. xxxiii. 18, 
 or in Ezra's Chaldee, The eye of their God teas upon the elders (*?^ Sv) of the Jews 
 (Ezr. V. 5.). or, the ei/es of the Lord thy God are upon it (the land) pr^, De. xi. 12 ; but 
 there is no construction like C1K \"J, "'? " the Lord hath an eye on (obj.) man" (as Ixx. Jon. 
 Syr.) The passages. Whose eyes are opened (ninj?) upon all the wat/s of the sons of men, to 
 give &c. (Jer. xxxii. 19), "His eyes behold the nations" (.i:"2Si C'U3 Ps. lx\i. 7), are 
 altogether dilferent. *' The eve of" must be construed as " his own eye." 
 " Ra,shi. =0 Kimchi. 
 
 -' It might be also, and Hamath too, which bordereth thereby, viz. shall be the place of 
 its rest, as well as Damascus, but it seems not so forcible. -- Q Curtius iv. 1. 
 
 K K K K 2
 
 552 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 '-•''•■ ^»^"- s wise 
 
 by; ^Tyriis, and 'Ziilon, though it be vci-y 
 
 3 And Tyrus did build herself a stroni 
 
 27, & 28.' Amos 1.9.' '1 Kin. 17. 9. Ezek. 28. 21. Obad. 20. « Ezek. 28. 3, &c. 
 
 the new empire, but, swiftly subdued, they did obediently 
 what tiiey were coininiinded." 
 
 j4nd Ziilon. Zidoii, altliou^Ii j)r(il)ably older than Tyre^, 
 is here spoken of parenthetically, as subordinate. l\'rliaps, 
 owing to its situation, it was a wealthy -, rather than a strong 
 plaee. Its name is "Fishing-town;" in Joshua, it is called 
 
 "the great V' 1""'''''^'*' *''•■ ""^^''"l"*''''! while Tyre is named 
 from its strength*. It infected Israel with its idolatry^, and 
 is mentioned among the nations who oppressed tiieni and 
 from whom God delivered them on their prayers", probably 
 under Jabin. In the time of the Judges, it, not Tyre, was 
 looked to for protection^. In the times of Ezekiel it had 
 become subordinate, furnishing "rowers*"' to Tyre; but 
 Esarhaddon, about 80 years before, boasts that he had taken 
 it, destroyed its inhabitants, and repeopled it with men from 
 the East, building a new city which he called by his own 
 iiame^ Tyre too had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar i'\ 
 At the restoration from the captivity, Sidon had the first 
 place ^^, which it retained in the time of Xerxes i^. But 
 Artaxerxes Ochus gained possession of it by treachery, 
 when all Phoenicia revolted from Persia, and, besides those 
 crucified, 4(),()()U of its inhabitants perished by their own 
 hands 1*, twenty years before the invasion of Alexander, to 
 whom it submitted willingly". 
 
 The prophet having named Tyre and Zidon together, yet 
 continues as to Tyre alone, as being alone of account in the 
 days of which he is speaking, those of Alexander. 
 
 Altliough, rather, because she is very wise. Man's own 
 wisdom is his foolishness and destruction, as ffie foolishness 
 of God is his wisdom and salvation. God '^ taheth the wise in 
 their own craftiness. ^''For after that, in the wisdom of God, 
 the world by tuisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the fool- 
 ishness of preaching to save them that believe. Of the Haga- 
 renes it is said, they ^" seek irisdom upon earth ; none of these 
 knoiv the ivay of icisdom, or remember her paths. The wisdom 
 of Tyre was the source of her pride, and so of her destruction 
 also. ^^Because thy heart is lifted np, and thou hast said, I 
 am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas ; 
 yet thou art a man and not God, though tlmu hast set thine 
 heart as the heart of God ; behold thou art wiser than Daniel, 
 there is no secret that they can hide from thee. Therefore 
 I will bring strangers ujhjh thee — they shall bring thee down 
 to the pit. So of Edom Obadiah says, ^'^ The pride of thy 
 heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the 
 rock. Shall I not destroy the wise men out of Edom, ajid 
 understanding out of the mount of Esau f 
 
 3. ^nd Tyre did build herself a stronghold. She built 
 it for herself, not for God, and trusted to it, not to God, and 
 so its strength bi'ought her the greater fall. The words in 
 Hebrew express yet more. " Tyre " (Zor) lit. " the rock," 
 built herself niuzor, toiver, a rock-like fort, as it were, a rock 
 
 ' "Tlie Tjiians are often called Sidonians ; the Sidonians are never called Tynans." 
 - Its inaimfactures of silver bowls and of female robes of ^reat beauty, are mentioned by 
 Homer (II. vi. iH'.), xxiii. 743, 7il; Od. iv. 014—1118.); Homer does not name Tyre. 
 3 Jos. xi. 8, xix. 28. * lb. xix. 29. * Jud. x. 6. 
 
 « lb. 12. 7 lb. x^iii. 7, 28. 8 Ezek. xxvii. 8. 
 
 ' Inscription of Esarhaddon (Annals of the past iii. 112). Such names, in the East, last 
 only with the conquerors. '» See ab. p. lU-1, and, more fully, "Daniel the Prophet ' 
 
 jip. 289, 290. " Ezr. iii. 7. '- Herod. viii."G7, see also vii. 9. 6. 
 
 13 Diod. xvi. 41 sqq. Mela i. 12. " Curt. iv. 3. '= Job v. 13. 
 
 ludd, and '' heaped up silver as the dust, 
 and fin(! i^old as the mire of tlie streets. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 4 Behold, 'the Lord will cast her out, ' /.^y^^g^^ g 
 
 1 I'eli. 23. 'l.' ' 
 
 u|ion a rock for exceeding strength, binding her together. 
 "-"The walls, 150 feet high and of breadth proportionate, 
 compacted of large stones, embedded in gypsum," seemed to 
 defy an enemy who could only approa(rh lier by sea. "^^In 
 order to make the wall twice as strong, they built a second 
 wall ten cubits broad, leaving a space between of five cubits, 
 which they filled with stones and earth." Yet high walls 
 do not fence in only; they also hem in. J/«;r;r is both " a 
 stronghold " and " a siege." Wealth and strength, with- 
 out God, do but invite and embitter the spoiler and the 
 conqueror. 
 
 j4)id she heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the 
 mire of the streets. Though he heap up silver as the dust, 
 Job says --. The King, Solomon, made silver in Jerusalem 
 as stones"^. Through her manifold conunerce she gathered to 
 herself wealth, as abundant as the mire and the dust, and as 
 valueless. " Gold and silver," said a heathen, " are but red 
 and white earth." Its strength was its destruction. Tyre 
 determined to resist Alexander, " "* trusting in the strength 
 of the island, and the stores which they had laid up," the 
 strength within and without, of which the Prophet speaks. 
 
 4. Behold. Such were the preparations of Tyre. Over 
 against them, as it were, the prophet sets before our eyes 
 the counsels of God. "^^ Since they had severed themselves 
 from the providence of God, they were now to experience 
 His power." The Lord will cast her ouf-^, lit. deprive her of 
 her possessions, give her an heir of what she had amassed, 
 viz: the enemy; and he will smite her power or tvea It h-'', of 
 which Ezekiel says, "* IFith thy icisdom and tcith thine under- 
 standing thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and 
 silver into thy treasures: by the greatness of thy trisdom and by 
 thy traffic thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is 
 lifted up because of thy riches -^. All wherein she relied, and 
 so too the stronghold itself, God would smite in the sea. The 
 sea was her confidence and boast. She said ^"I am a god; 
 I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. 
 
 The scene of her pride was to be that of her overthrow ; 
 the waves, which girt her round, should bury her ruins and 
 wash over her site. Even in the sea the hand of God should 
 find her, and smite her in it, and into it, and so that she 
 should abide in it. " ^^ They mocked at the king, as though he 
 thought to prevail against Neptune [the sea]." "^- Ye despise 
 this land-army, through confidence in the place, that ye 
 dwell in an island," was the message of Alexander, "but 
 soon will I shew you that ye dwell on a continent." 
 
 Every device had been put in force in its defence : the 
 versatility by which the inhabitants of an island, some 2^ 
 miles in circumference, held at bay the conqueror of the 
 battle of Issus with unlimited resources, " ^^ engineers from 
 Cyprus and all Phoenicia," and "**a fleet of 180 ships from 
 Cyprus," attests the wisdom in which the prophet says, she 
 
 i« 1 Cor. i. 21. 1' Baruch iii. 23. '» Ezek. xx™. 2, 8. 
 
 " Ob. 3, 8. -0 Ai-rian ii. 21. =' Diod. Sic. xvii. 43. 
 
 22 Job xxvii. 16. 53 2 Chron. ix. 27. -* Diod. Sic. XA-ii. 41). -' Theod. 
 
 26 B^^ii. of God, is chiefly used of the driving out the Canaanitish nations before Israel, 
 Ex. xxxiv. 24, Nu. xxxii. 21, Ps. xliv. 3, 1 Kgsxiv. 24, xxi. 2U, 2 Kgs xvi. 3, xvii. 8. xxi. 2. 
 
 -'■ ^'n cannot be here the outer wall (on which see Nah. iii. 8, ab. p. 391, n. 6.) which was 
 useless in island T\Te, whose walls rising from the sea needed no outer wall and admitted of 
 no fosse or pomcerium. 2s Ezek. xxviii. 4, 5, ^9 '?*n **^ Ezek. xxviii. 2. 
 
 ^' Diod. Sic. xvii. 41. 3= Q. Curt. iv. 7. ^ Arr. ii. 21. 3< Q. Curt. iv. 13.
 
 CIIAl'TER IX. 
 
 553 
 
 the sea; 
 
 cifiiTsT •'^"♦^ '"' "'•' smite Micr power hi 
 
 "'■ ^^- and slie shall be devoured with fire. 
 ■ Jc'rV^s'" ^ 'Ashkelon shall see tV, and fear; Gaza 
 Zeph. 2.4. jjigQ gf^(lll gf,f, if^ .^,^jj (jg Ygj.y sorrowful, 
 
 would trust. "iShc liad ahcady a profusion of catapults 
 and otlicr machines useful in a sicfije, and easily pre])ared 
 manifold others hy the makers of war-eni?incs and all sorts 
 of artiticei"s whom she had, and these invented new cni;ines 
 of all sorts; so that the whole circuit of the city was tilled 
 with en-lines." Divers who should loosen tiic mole ; ijrap- 
 pHna: hooks and nets to entans;le near-assailants ; melted 
 metal or heated sand to penetrate hetween the joints of their 
 armour; haj^s of sea-weed to deaden the hlows of the hatter- 
 inu; machines ; a fire-ship navii;iited so as to destroy tlie 
 works of the enemy, while its sailors escaped; fiery arrows; 
 wheels set in continual motion, to turn aside the missiles 
 ajyainst them ", hear witness to an unwearied inventiveness 
 of defence. Tlie temporary failures might have shaken any 
 mind hut Alexander's (who is even said to have hesitated ^) 
 but that he dared not, by abandoning the enterprise, lose 
 the prestige of victory. Yet all ended in the massacre of 
 6, 7, or SUUO of her men, the crucifixion of 2(K)(), the sale of 
 the rest, whether 13,000 or 30,000, into slavery*. None 
 escaped save those whom the Sidonians secreted in the 
 vessels ^, with which they had been compelled to serve 
 against her. 
 
 And she herself^, when her strength is overthrown, shall 
 he devoured with fire. "* Alexander, having slain all, save 
 those who fled to the temples, ordered the houses to be set 
 on fire." 
 
 5. Ashkelon shall see and fear. The words express that 
 to see and fear shall be as one ''. The mightiest and wealth- 
 iest, Tyre, having fallen, the neighbour cities of Philistia 
 who had hoped that her might should he their stay, shall 
 stand in fear and shame. Tyre, being a merchant-city, the 
 mother-city of the cities of the African coast and in Spain, 
 its desolation caused the more terror ^. 
 
 And the [«] king shall perish from Gaza, i.e. it shall have 
 no more kings. It had been the policy of the world-empires 
 to have tributary kings in the petty kingdoms which they 
 conquered, thus providing for their continued tranquil sub- 
 mission to themselves'. The internal government remained 
 as before : the people felt no difference, except as to the 
 payment of the tribute. The policy is expressed by the title 
 " king of kings," which they successively bore. Sennacherib 
 speaks of the kings of Ascalon, Ekron and Gaza ^". A con- 
 temporary of Alexander'^ mentions, that the king of Gaza 
 was brought alive to Alexander on its capture. Alexander's 
 
 1 Dio(). Sic. xvii. 41. ! Q. Curt. iv. ll-lfi. Arrian ii. 18-22. 
 
 3 Diod. Sic. xvii. 42-4U. < Diod. xvii. Ki. Q. Cvirt. iv. 11), Ait. ii. 24. 
 
 * Q. Curt. 1. c. ^ N'm emph. ~t ,x"i'ni"N"in => Is. xxiii. 5-11. 
 
 ^ Herodotus states it to have beeu the wont of the Persian monarchs to put tlie sons even 
 of revolted kings on their fathers' tluones (iii. 15), and in the review of the Persian troops 
 under Xerxes mentions dill'erent tributary kings, among whom the king of Sidon had &st 
 rank; then the king of Tyrej then the rest (viii. d"). Josephus speaks of '* tlie kings of 
 Syria." (Ant. xi. S. 5.) 'o ui Layard Nm. and Bab. p. 144. 
 
 ^^ Hegesias in Dionys. Hal. de comp. verb. c. 18. T. V. p. 125. Reiske. There is much 
 ohscurity about the individual. Dion. Hal. has, *'its king Baistis or Baistios;" Arrian 
 (ii. 25) mentions Batis, an Eunuch and so a Persian officer, as ** having supreme authority 
 over Gaza;" KpaTwf t. Ta^a'nav iriJAcaJs. Q. Curtius says, "Betis was over the city" 
 (iv. 26). " Josephus (Ant. xi. 84.) says that " the name of the commandant of the garrison 
 was Babemeses." 1- See "Daniel the Prophet," pp. 142 — 145. 
 
 13 1 Mace. X. 86. » lb. .xi. 60, 01. '5 Ih. xii..33. 
 
 1'' " The name was given twice to Lieut. Conder and 3 times to Corporal Brophy by dif- 
 ferent witnesses," "so that there is no doubt (Lieut. Conder subjoins) that it is a well- 
 kiiown site." Lieut. Conder's Report N. x.xxiv. p. 153. 
 
 1? Jud. xiv. 19. 's See ab. p. 458. " Lieut. Conder, Ih. 
 
 and I'^kron ; for her cxiiecfation sliall lie „ J^^/or* 
 ashamed ; and the kini^ shall perish from "■■•■ ^- 
 Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not he inhabited. 
 
 6 And a bastard shall dwell in '"Ashdod, "" Amos i. 8 
 
 ST 
 
 policy was essentially different from that of the world- 
 nmnarchs before him. The;/ desired only to hold an empire as 
 wide as possible, leaving the native kings, if they could; and 
 only, if these were intractable, |)laeing their own lieutenants. 
 Alexander's policy was to blend East and West into one'-. 
 These petty sovereignties, so many insulated centres of 
 mutual repulsion, were essentially at variance with this plan, 
 and so this remnant of sovereignty ot 1. ")(»(» vears was taken 
 away hy him, when, after a siege in wliicii 'he liiiii<elf was 
 twice wounded, he took it. Alexander wholly depopulated it, 
 and repeopled the city with strangers. 
 
 yhid Ashkelon shall not he inhahited. Ashkelon yielded 
 at once to Jonathan, when he "camped against it",'" after 
 he had taken and "burned Ashdod and the cities l-ound about 
 it." In another expedition of .(onathan its inhabitants "i*met 
 him honourably," while "they of Gaza shut him out" at first. 
 "i^Simon— passed thrcuigh the country unto Ascalon, and the 
 h(dds there adjoining,"without resistarice,wbereas "he turned 
 aside to Joppe, ami won it." He placed Jews in Gaza, but 
 of Ascalon nothing is said. The ruins of a Christian city, 
 built on its site, " khirbet-Ascalon," have been lately dis- 
 covered in the hills near Tell Zakariyeh"^, and so, a little 'South 
 of Timnath, a Philistine city in the' days of Samson, whence 
 Samsoti went to it, to gain the 30 changes of raiment ''. Com- 
 mentators have assigned reasons, why Samson might have 
 gone so far as the maritime Ascalon, whereas, in fact^ he went 
 to a city close by. 
 
 That "city, in 5'36A.D., had its Bishop". ""The .site shews 
 the remains of an early Christian Church or convent:" as 
 a great lintel of stone-", resembling somewhat the Maltese 
 Cross, lies on the ground." It was probably destroyed by 
 the inundation of JMohammedan conquest. In 1163 A.D. i't 
 was a ruin. The distance of the ruins from the Ascalon 
 Maiumas corresponds to that assigned by Benjamin of Tudela, 
 being twice the distance of that city froiii Aslidod-'; but since 
 he was at Beth Jibrin -, he must I'lave been not far from the 
 spot where it has been lately discovered -K Tiie Ashkelon, 
 which was Herod's birth-place and which he beautified, must 
 have been the well-known city by the sea; since the distance 
 from Jerusalem assigned by Josephus -* is too great for the old 
 Ashkelon, and he speaks of it as on the sea -'". 
 
 6. And a bastard shall dwell at Ashdod"'^. The "mamzer" 
 was one born unlawfully, whether out of marriage, or in for- 
 bidden marriage, or in adultery ■'. Here it is, probably, like 
 
 =" " Such lintels are to be found in all that class of ruins, which date from about the 5th 
 to the 7tli centur)'." lb. 
 
 =1 He says that the new Ashkelon, that on the sea, is 2 parasangs from Ashdod, 4 from . 
 the old Ashkelon. 2i Travels, p. 23. 
 
 =3 Jeremiah, xlvii. 7, How can it (the sword of the Lord) be quiet, seeing that the Lord 
 has giivn it a cliarge against Ashkelon. and against the sea-shore .' has often been wrongly 
 quoted in proof that Ashkelon was on the .>;ea-shore. On the contrarv. Jeremiah speaks of 
 them, as distinct; " against Ashkelon and against the sea-shore." 'The D'.T-n in the 3 
 other places, in which it occurs, is onlv a title for Philistia itself, as lyin" between the 
 Shephelah and the sea. Thus in Deut. i. 7, Palestine is divided into the hill countri'. the 
 'Arabali. the Shephelah. the Nejeh. and the c-n in. In Joshua, ix. 1- the division is.'" the 
 hiU country, the Shephelah. and the whole coast of the great sea. Vrun OM •■m Va." Ezekiel 
 (xxv. IG.) uses D'.T lin. as equivalent to the Cherethkn and Philistim, whom he liad named 
 in V. 5. Jeremiah names together the whole tract and a chief city of it, as the prophets so 
 often speakof"Judahand Jerusalem." ^ 520 stadia. B.J. iii. 2. 1. 
 
 , -' lb. iv. 1 1 . 5. 26 On the omission of Gath see on Arri. i .' f>. 
 
 ;' eKTropi/^s, ,JinDeut.xxiii.3; "descorto," Vulg. and so Saad.; "son of adultery." Sw. 
 \\ ith this agrees the opinion ot R. Joshua A. D. 73, " every- one, for whom thev are guilty 
 ot deatli m the liouse of judgement." R. Joshua b. Azal «ays, ' I have found a roll of
 
 554 
 
 ZECIIAIUAII. 
 
 c H kTs t ""^ ' ^^''^ *'"^ off the pride of the Philisthies. 
 
 '=■'•■ i^"- 7 And I will take away his f hlood out 
 
 t iieb. bloods, ^j- jjjg Hioiitl)^ and his abominations from 
 
 between his teeth : but he that remaineth, 
 
 our " spurious brood ^ ; " whether it was so itself or in tlie 
 eyes of the Ashdodites; whence lie adds, 
 
 I will cid ojf tlw pridt of the Pliilistines. Pride would 
 survive tlie ruin of their country, the capture of tlieir cities, 
 tlie loss of independence. It wouhl not survive the loss of 
 their nationality ; for they themselves would not be the same 
 people, who were proud of their long' descent and their 
 victories over Israel. The breaking- down of nationalities, 
 which was the policy of Alexander, was an instrument in 
 God"s hands in cutting oil' their pride. 
 
 7. And I trill take (iwiii; his bloods out of his mouth. The 
 abomiuiitions being idol-sacrifices -, the bloods will also be, 
 the blood mii'gled with the wine of sacrifices, of which David 
 says, * Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer ; and 
 Ezekiel unites the oft'ences, " * Ye eat ivith the blood, and lift 
 up ijour etjes towurd your idols, and shed blood." 
 
 But he that reinuineth, better, And he too shall remain 
 over to our God. Of the Philistines too, as of Israel, a 
 remuant shall be saved. After this visitation their idolatry 
 should cease ; God speaks of the Philistine nation as one 
 man ; He would wring his idol-sai-rifices and idol-enjoyments 
 from him; he should exist as a nation, but as God's. 
 
 And he shall be as a governor in Judah, lit. "a captain 
 of a thousand," merged in Judah as in a larger whole, as 
 each tril)e was divi<led into its "thousands," yet intimately 
 blended, in no inferior position, with the people of God, as each 
 converted nation became an integral yet unseparated whole 
 in the people of God. 
 
 And Ekron as a Jebusite. Ekron was apparently the 
 least important of the few remaining Philistine cities^; yet 
 he siiall be, as those of the Canaanite nations who were not 
 destroyed, nor fled, but in the very capital and centre of 
 Israel's worship, ''dwelt with the children of Benjamin U7id 
 Judah, and were, as a tj'jie of the future conversion and 
 absorption of the heathen, incorporated into Judah. 
 
 8. And I will encamp about mt/ house (for ' m?/ house's 
 sake) because of the armp^ ; because, it is added in exjilanation, 
 of him that passeth by and of him that returneth ; Alexander, 
 who passed by with his army, on his way to Egypt, and 
 returned, having founded Alexandria. 
 
 It was a most eventful march ; one of the most eventful 
 in the history of mankind. The destruction of the Persian 
 empire, for which it prepared, was in itself of little moment; 
 Alexander's own empire was very brief. As Daniel had 
 
 jienealogies in Jerusalem, and there was written in it, ' M., a mamzer from a man's wife ;' to 
 confirm the words of R. Joshua."' ill Yebamoth c. 4, § 13. R. Akiba's opinion was, that 
 *' it was a!iy near of kin, with whom marriaj^e was forbidden ;" Simon the Temanite said, 
 "any liable to excision at the hands of God."' Ih. in Ges. Thes. p. 781 sub v. Of the etymo- 
 logies. Kimchi's is perhaps the most probable, that it is from nil, the two D's being added, as 
 in nii;?o, Joel i. 17. 
 
 ' The Lxx. Jon. Svr. agree in the rendering, " strangers," Jon. and the Syr. using the 
 same word ; Kn:3ia Pesli, ; '• and the cliildren of Israel shall dwell in Ashdod, who were in it, 
 as strangers " (j'N-ouD). Jon. Aq. Syinm. Theod. retain the Hebrew word, as do Onk. ajid 
 Sam. in Deut. 
 
 2 pp?? always retains its appellative sense. It is not merely "idols," but idols, in that 
 they were " abominations." It is generally in constr., '* the abomination of" such a nation, 
 1 Kgs xi. 5, 7 [bis], 2 Kgs xxiii. iz [bis], "the abomination of his, their, eyes," Ezek. xx. 
 7, 8 ; or with the personal pronoun as nere, Deut. xxix. IB, Is. Ixvi. 3, Jer. [5 times] 
 Ezek. [0 times]. In a few places it stands absolutely, in its original appellative sense, 
 Nah. iii. fi; allusively to the idol abominations, Hos. ix. HI; with art. the [idol] abomina- 
 tions (2 Kgs xxiii. 24, 2 Clur. xv. 8) ; and the abomination of desolation. Dan. ix. 27, 
 xi. 31, xii. U. [all]. 3 Ps. xvi. 4. ■• Ezek. xxxiii. 25. 
 
 ' See on Jo. i. 8, ab. p. Ifiu. 6 Josh. xv. 63. Jud. i. 21. ' 'n'aV 
 
 even he, .shall Ik; for our Ciod, and he shall ci?rTst 
 be as a j^ovenor in Judah, and Ekron as a ^"•- ^^- 
 Jebusite. 
 
 8 And " I will encamp about mine house " Ji'.^'h.' 
 
 foretold *, he came, cast down Persia to the ground, waxed 
 very great, and ichen he iras strong, the great horn was broken. 
 But with the inarveljous perception which (tliaracterised him, 
 he saw and impressed upon his successors the dependible- 
 ness of the Jewish jieople. When he came into Jiida-a, he 
 sent to tlie high priest for aid against Tyre and for the 
 like tribute as he used to pay to Darius, promising that he 
 would not repent of choosing the friendsiiip of the Mace- 
 donians ^". Tiie high priest refused on the ground of the oath, 
 liy which his pet)j)le were bound in fealty to tlie earthly king 
 of kings, whom Alexander came to subdue. Alexander 
 threatened to teach all, through its fate, to whom fealty was 
 due. This, after the conquest of Gaza, he prepared to fulfil. 
 He came, he saw, he was conquered. ^Maddua and his people 
 prayed to God. Taught by God in a dream not to fear, he went 
 to meet the conqueror. The gates of tiie city were thrown 
 open. There marched out, not an army such as encountered 
 the Romans, but as he had been taught, a multitude in white 
 garments, and the priests going before in their raiment of 
 tine linen. The high priest, in his apparel of purple and 
 gold, having on his head the mitre, and on it the golden 
 plate ^-, whereon was written the name of God, advanced 
 alone, and the Conqueror, who was expected to give the city 
 to be plundered, and the high priest to be insulted and slain, 
 kissed the name of God, recognising in the priest one whom 
 he had seen in the like dress in a dream, who had bidden him, 
 when hesitating, cross to Asia; for that he would go before 
 his army and deliver the Persian empire to him. 
 
 Tlie result is related to have been, that Alexander promised 
 to allow the Jews in Judaea to live according to tlieir own 
 laws, remitted the tribute of every seventh year, acceded 
 beforehand to the terms to be proposed by those in Babylonia 
 and Media, and tliat many Jews joined his army, under 
 condition that they might live under their own laws. 
 
 Rationalism, while it remains such, cannot admit of Daniel's 
 prophecies which the high priest shewed him, declaring that 
 a Greek should destroy the Persian empire, which Alexander 
 rightly interpreted of himself. But the facts remain ; that 
 the conqueror, who, above most, gave way to his anger, 
 bestowed privileges almost incredible on a nation, which 
 under the Medes and Persians had been "^^ the most despised 
 part of the enslaved;" made them equal in privileges to his 
 own Macedonians^'', who could hardly brook the absorp- 
 tion of the Persians, although in inferior condition, among 
 
 * n2)f, for Njy, according to the Masorites as in the verb also. Is. xxix. ". So Symm. 
 KojKimv (TTpareioF. The context also favours the reading; for unless the parsers by and 
 returners had been a powerful army, there had been no occasion for that defence of 
 which God speaks. The correction .1210 would come to the same, " a military post ;" only, 
 in actual use, this is a " fort." " fortress," 1 Sam. xiv. 12, i. q. 3S0 lb. xiii. 23, xiv. 1,4, 
 6, 11, 1.5, 2 Sam. xxiii. 14. yiq Is. xxix. .3. is a work on the oli"ensive, not defensive. 
 Ewald comes to the same sense, that God would protect her against any one coming 
 against her. ' Dan. viii. 7, 8. '" Jos. Ant. xi. 8. 3. " lb. n. 5. 
 
 1- Justin says, " then he, Alexander, goes to Syria, where many kings of the East with 
 fillets met him. Of these, accorduig to their deserts, he received some into aUiauce ; others 
 he deprived of their kingdom, putting other kings in their place." xi. 10. 
 
 !•' Tacitus limits the description to the time, " when the East belonged to the Assyrians, 
 Medes and Persians." Hist. v. 8. 
 
 '■• " Alexander gave them (the Jews) a place to dwell in, and they obtained equal rank 
 with the Macedonians. I know not what Apion would have said, nad they been settled 
 near the Necropolis and not near the palace, and were not their race now too called ' Mace- 
 donians.' If tlien he (.\pion) has read the Epistles of Alexander the King, and has met with 
 the rescripts of Ptolemy Lagi and the kings after him, and has lighted on the column which 
 stands in Alexandria and contains the rights given by the great Ca-sar to the Jews ; if, I say,
 
 niAPTER IX. 
 
 555 
 
 chrTst because of tlie army, because of liirn that 
 
 cir. 487. passctli by, aiul Ix-cause of liiii) that re- 
 
 E^ic. 28. 24. tnrneth : and "no oppressor shall pass 
 
 p Ex. 3. 7. throujifh them any more : for now p have 1 
 
 thein.selves 1. The most despised of the enslaved became 
 the most trusted of the trusted. Tliey hecainc a larjjc 
 portion of the second and third tlien known cities of tlie 
 world. They became Alexandrians, Antiochencs, I'^pliesians^, 
 without ceasiiifi;' to be Jews. 'J'iic law conuriaiidcd f'aitiif'ul- 
 ness to oaths, and they who desj)ised their religion respected 
 its Fruits. 
 
 The immediate successors of Alexander, Ptolemy Lagi* 
 and Antiochus Nicator, folh)wed his policy; i'toleiny espe- 
 cially on the ground of the fealty shewn to Darius; Nicator, 
 as liavine: observed their faithfulness as soldiers, who had 
 served with him*; but they were so enrolled on tiiis visit to 
 Jerusalem. The Heathen kings multiplied, in their own pur- 
 pose, faithful subjects to themselves; in God's design, they 
 prepared in Asia and Egypt a seed-plot for the Gosj)el. The 
 settlement of the Jews at Alexandria formed the language 
 of the Gospel; that wonderful blending of the depth of the 
 Hebrew with the clearness and precision of the Greek. 
 Everywhere the seed of the preparatory dispensation was 
 sown, to be fostered, grow and ripen with the harvest of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 For now have I seen with 3Iine ej/es. This is the counter- 
 part of what the Psalmists and pious men so often pray, 
 ^^wahe to help me and Ijehold; ^ Look down from heaven, beliold 
 and visit this vine; "^ Look iipo)i my trouhle from titem that 
 hate me ; ^ Look upon nuj affliction and my trouble; look upon 
 my enemies, for they are many ; ^ Look npon my adversity and 
 deliver me ; '" O Lord, behold my affliction ; ^^ Behold, O Lord, 
 for I am in distress ; ^- Look and behold my reprimch ; ^^Open 
 Thine eyes, O Lord, and see ; ^* Look down from heaveii, and 
 behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and glory. With 
 God, compassion is so intrinsic an attribute, that He is 
 pictured as looking away, when He does not put it forth. 
 With God, to behold is to help. 
 
 9. From the protection, which God promised to His 
 people and to His House, the Prophet passes on to Him Who 
 was ever in his thoughts, and for Whose sake that people 
 and temple were preserved. He had described the great 
 conqueror of this world, sweeping along in his covirse of 
 victory. In contrast with such as he, he now exhibits to his 
 people the character and procession of their king. Rejoice 
 greatly. Not with this world's joy. God never exhorts 
 man to rejoice greatly in this world's fleeting joys. He 
 
 he knows these thinj^s, and. knowing them, has dared to write the contrary, he is unprin- 
 cipled; if he knew nothing; of them, he is ill-instructed." "Alexander collected some of 
 our people there, not for want of such as should colonise the city which he founded with f^reat 
 earnestness. But carefully proving all as to good faith and prohity, he gave this distinction 
 to our people. For he honoured oiu" nation, as Hecata?us too says of us, that, for the probity 
 and good faith which the Jews evinced towards him, he gave them in addition the territoiy 
 of Samaria to hold, free from tribute. And Ptolemy Lagi too was like-minded with Alex- 
 ander as to those who dwelt in Alexandria." Jos. lb. This early equalising of the Jews 
 with Alexandrians is recognised in tlie edict of Claudius ; " Having learnt that the Jews in 
 Alexandria were from the first called Alexandrians, having been settled there together with 
 the Alexandrians straightway at the earliest period, and having received from the kings 
 etpial citizenship, as appeared plain both from their letters and from the ordinances," &c, 
 [m Jos. Ant. xix. .5, 2.] in Pusey's " Daniel the Prophet," p. ltd, n. .3. ' An-, vii. fi. 
 
 - " His (Apion's) marvelling, how, being Jews, they were called Alexandrians, betrays the 
 same ignorance. For all who are invited into a given colony, nuich .as they diftier in race, take 
 their name from its founders. Those of us, who dwell at Antioch. are called .\ntiochenes. 
 For Seleucus, the founder, gave them citizenship. And so too in Ephesus, and the rest of 
 Ionia, they bear the same name with the natives, the Successors (of Alexander) having given 
 it to them." Jos. c. Ap. ii. 4. See Pusey's '• Daniel the Prophet," p. 146. n. 2. 
 
 seen with mine eyes. ciniTsT 
 
 9 ^1 I Rejoice i,n('atly, O dauirhter of Zion; "'' ^'^''- 
 shout, O (hiunhter of Jerusalem: bcliohl, " ch*2.''io"' 
 'thy Kin<^ eomcth unto thee: he i.» just, and j„h!!i2!'i5! 
 
 ' Jer. 2;i. 5. & 30. 9. Luke 19. 38. John 1. 49. 
 
 allows ns to be glad, as children, before Him ; He permits 
 such buoyancy of heart, if innocent; but He docs not com- 
 mand it. Now He commands His people to burst out into 
 a jul)ilec of rejoicing: they were to dance and shout for 
 gladness of spirit; "des])ising the portr exultation of this 
 world and exulting with that exceeding" yet chaste joy, 
 which befits the true bliss to be brought by their King and 
 Saviour. " '^This word, greatly, means that there should be 
 no measure whatever in their exultation ; for the exultation 
 of the children of the bridegroom is far unliiic to the exulta- 
 tion of the children of this world." ""'He biddeth the 
 spiritual Zion rejoice, inasmucli as dejection was removed. 
 For what cause of sorrow is there, when sin has been re- 
 moved, death tramjded under foot, and human nature called 
 to the dignity of freedom, and crowned with the grace of 
 adoption and illumined with the heavenly gift?" 
 
 Behold, thy king eomcth unto thee. He does not say "a 
 king," but "///// king;" thy king, thine own, the long-pro- 
 mised, the long-expected; He Who, when they had kings 
 of their own, given them by God, had been promised as the 
 king'7; '^^the righteons littler among men, of the seed of David; 
 He Who, above all other kings, was their King and .Saviour; 
 Whose kingdom was to absorb in itself all kingdoms of the 
 earth ; the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Her king was 
 to come to her. He was in a manner tlien " of her," and 
 "not of her;" "of her," since He was to be ker king, "not 
 of her," since He was to "cowe to her." As Man, He was 
 born of her: as God, the Word made flesh, He catne to 
 her. "^'7>/ thee, to be manifest unto thee-'^; to be thine 
 by communion of nature-'; as He is thine, by the earnest 
 of the Eternal Spirit and the gift of the Father, to pro- 
 cure thy good. " Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is 
 given." Of this. His entry into Jerusalem was an imajsre. 
 But how should He come ? " He shall come to thee," 
 says an old Jewish writing -\ "to atone thee; He shall 
 come to thee, to upraise thee; He shall come to thee, to 
 raise thee up to His temple, and to espouse thee with an 
 everlasting espousal." 
 
 He isjitst and having salvation. Just or righteous, and 
 the Fountain of justice or righteousness. For what He is, 
 that He ditfuseth. Righteousness which God Is, and right- 
 eousness which God, made Man, imparts, are often blended 
 in Holy Scripture-*. This is also the source of the exceeding 
 
 •■' Ptolemy Lagi, "understanding that those from Jerusalem were most reliable as to their 
 oaths and fealty, (from the answer which they gave to the embas.sy of Alexander after he had 
 conquered Darius,) having located many of "them in the garrisons and given them equal 
 rights of citizenship with the Macedonians in Alexandria, took an oath of them that mey 
 would keep fealty to the descendants of him who gave them this charge. And no few of 
 the other Jews came of their own accord uito Egvpt, inrited by the goodness of the soil 
 and the liberality of Ptolemy." Jos. Ant. xii. 1. lb. p. 145. n. 8. 
 
 * " They (the Jews) obtained the honour from the kings of .\sia also, having served 
 in the army with them. For Seleucus Nicator. in the cities which he founded in .\sia 
 and in lower Syria, and in the metropolis itself, Antioch, conferred on them citizenship, 
 and made them rank with the Macedonians and Greeks who were settled therein, so that 
 this citizenship remains even now also." Ant. xii. 3. lb. p. 14G. n. 1. 
 
 5 Ps. lix. 4. « lb. Ix.vx. 14. 7 lb. ix. 13. s j], jj^, jg^ jg 
 
 9 lb. cxix. I,=i3. 1" Lam. i. 9. addll,ii.20. "Ib.i.20. i= lb. v. 1. 
 
 13 Is. xxxvii. 17. Dan. ix. IS. '•• Is. l.viii. 15. >5 Rup. 16 s. Cvr. 
 
 '■ e.g. Ps. ii. Ixxii. Is. xxxii. 1. Jer. .\xiii. 5. '« 2 Sam. xxiii.3. 
 
 19 Cocc. -" 1 Tim. iii. 10. 21 Heb. ii. 14. - Is. ix. 6. 
 
 ^ Zohar Levit. f. 3. col. 9 in Schottg. on Hos. ii. 21. 
 21 Is. xlv. 21. liii. 11, Jer. x.xiii 5, 6. xxxiii. 15, 16, Mal. iv. 
 
 2.
 
 oofj 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 ciTrTst II ha'^'J^o salvation ; loAvIy, and ruling upon 
 
 cir. 487. II Or, saving h'wiseff. 
 
 joy. For the comings of their kin;? in righteousness would 
 be, to sinful in;in, a cause, not of joy but of fear. This was 
 the source of the An!i:el's messase of joy ; ' I bring yon good 
 tidings of great joy ^ which slinll lie to all people ; for taito yon 
 is horn this day, in the city of J)avid, a Saviour. 
 
 He is just, " - because in the Divine Nature, He is the 
 Fountain of all holiness and justice." "^As Thou art rij^ht- 
 eous Thyself, Thou orderest all thinj^s rif^hteously. For 
 Thy power is the ben-inninaj of rig:hteousness." According to 
 the nature which He took. He was also most just; for He 
 ever sought the glory of the Father, and * He did no sin, 
 neither was gnile foaiid in His 3/onth. In the way also of 
 justice He satisfied for men, delivering Himself for their 
 faults to the pain of the most bitter death, to satisfy the 
 honour of the Divine Majesty, so that sin should not remain 
 unpunished. Hence He saith of Himself ; ^ He that seeketh 
 His glory that sent Him, the same is trne, and no nnrighteotis- 
 ness is in Him. Of Whom also Stephen said to the Jews, 
 * Your fathers slew them which shewed he/ore of the coming 
 of the Just One, of Whom ye have been now the betrayers and 
 murderers. Righteousness is an aweful attril)ute of God. It 
 is a glory and perfection of His Being, for tiie perfect to 
 gaze on and adore. Mercy, issuing in our salvation, is the 
 attribute which draws us sinners. And this lies in the 
 promise that He should come to them, however the one word 
 nosha' be rendered''. The meaning of such a prophecy as 
 this is secure, independent of single words. The whole con- 
 text implies, that He should come as a ruler and deliverer, 
 whether the word nosha' signify " endued with salvation," 
 (whereas the old versions rendered it, " Saviour") or whether 
 it be, "saved." For as He came, not for Himself but for us, 
 so, in as far as He could be said to be saved. He was "saved," 
 not for Himself but for us. Of our Lord, as Man, it is, in 
 like way, said, ** Thmi shall not leave His soul in Hell, or, 
 ^ IFhom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, 
 because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. As 
 Man, He was raised from the dead; as God, He raised Him- 
 self from the dead, for our sakes, for whom He died. For 
 us, He was born a Saviour; for us. He was endued with 
 salvation ; for us. He was saved from being held of death ; in 
 like way as, of His Human Nature, the Apostle says, ^'^ He 
 was heard, in that He feared. To us, as sinners, it is happiest 
 to hear of the Saviour; but the most literal meaning "saved" 
 has its own proper comfort : for it implies the Sufferings, by 
 which that salvation was procured, and so it contains a liint 
 of the teaching by Isaiah, He was taken from oppression 
 and from judgement ; upon which that same wide reign 
 follows, of which David, in his picture of the Passion ", and 
 Isaiah '^ prophesy. ""This 'saved' does not imply, that He 
 obtained salvation for His own otherwise than from Himself. 
 3Iine own arm. He saith in Isaiah, ^* brought salvation nnto 
 Me. But as Man, He obtained salvation from the indwelling 
 Godhead. For when He destroyed the might of death, when, 
 rising from the dead. He ascended into heaven, when He 
 
 ■ S. Luke ii. 10, 11. 2 Dion. 3 Wisd. xii. 15, 16. 
 
 < 1 S. Pet. ii. it. 5 S.John vii. 18. « Acts vii. 52. 
 
 ' Tlie Jewish Version;: as well as the Cliristian render, actively, "Saviour," LXX, 
 trafyiv ; Jon. p~0, as well as the Christian, the Syr. and S. Jerome. The participle JIB'U 
 initrht, according to analogy, be a reflective, but it only occurs elsewhere as a passive ; 
 with 3 p.. Deul. .xx.xiii. ■.';!. Is. xlv. 17 ; with 3 r., Ps. xxxiii. 16. Imperat. " look unto 
 Me and be ye saved," vjv\r\-\ Is. xlv. 23; being "saved by God" implied Nu. x. 9. 
 Ps. xviii. 4. [2 Sam. xxii. -i.J Ixxx. 4, 8, 20, cxix. 117, Pr. xxviii. 18, Is. xxx. 15, 
 Ixiv. 4. Jer. iv. 14, viii. 20, xvii. 14, xxiii. 6, xxx. 7, xxxiii. 10. [all] 
 
 " Ps. -xvi. 10. » Acts ii. 24. i" Ileb. v. 7. 
 
 an ass, and upon a oolt the foal of an ass. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. Wi. 
 
 took on Him the everlasting kingdom of heaven and earth, 
 He obtained salvation from the glory of the Father, i.e. from 
 His own Divinity, to impart it to all His. The Hebrew 
 word then in no H'ay diminishes the amplitude of His dignity. 
 For we confess, that the Human Nature of Christ had that 
 everlasting glory added to It from His Divine Nature, so 
 that He should not only be Himself adorned with those 
 everlasting gifts, but should become the cause of everlasting 
 salvation to all who obey Him." 
 
 Lowly. Outward lowliness of condition, is, through the 
 grace of God, the best fosterer of the inward. The word 
 lowly wonderfully expresses the union of both ; lowness of 
 outward state with lowliness of soul. The Hebrew word 
 expresses the condition of one, who is bowed down, brought 
 low through oppression, affliction, desolation, poverty, perse- 
 cution, bereavement; hut only if, at the same time, he had 
 in him the fruit of all these, in lowliness of mind, submission 
 to God, piety. Thus our Lord pronounces the blessedness 
 of "the poor" and " the poor in spirit," i. e. poor in estate, 
 who are poor in soul also. But in no case does it express 
 lowliness of mind without lowness of condition, One lowly, 
 who was not afflicted, would never be so called. The Prophet 
 then declares that their king should come to them in a poor 
 condition, stricken, smitten, and aj/licted^'', and with the spe- 
 cial grace of tliat condition, meekness, gentleness and lowli- 
 ness of soul; and our Lord bids us, ^^ Learn of Me. for I am 
 meek and lowly of heart. " -He saith of Himself in the Gos- 
 pel, ^^ The fo.ves hai'e holes and the birds of the air have nests, 
 but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His Head. ^'* For 
 though He was rich, He for our sakes became poor, that we 
 through His poi-erti/ ntight be rich. 
 
 Lowly and riding upon an ass. Kings of the earth ride 
 in state. The days were long since by, when the sons of the 
 judges rode on asses''*. Even then the more distinguished rode 
 on ivhite (i. e. roan-") asses. The mule, as a taller animal, was 
 used by David -^ and his sons--, while asses were used for his 
 household^'^ and by Ziba, Shimei, Mephibosheth, Ahitophel-*, 
 and, later, by the old prophet of Bethel-'. David had reserved 
 horses for KK) chariots-'', after the defeat of the Syrians, but 
 he himself did not use them. Absalom employed chariots 
 and horses"'' as part of his pomp, when preparing to displace 
 his father; and Solomon multiplied them-^ He speaks of it 
 as an indignity or reverse; -^ I have seeii servants upon horses, 
 and princes walking, as servants, upon the earth. The burial of 
 an ass became a proverb for a disgraced end ^''. There is no 
 instance in which a king rode on an ass, save He Whose 
 kingdom was not of this world. The prophecy, then, was 
 framed to prepare the Jews to expect a prophet-king, not a 
 king of this world. Their eyes were fixed on this passage. 
 In the Talmud, in their traditional interpretations, and in 
 their mystical books, they dwelt on these words. The men- 
 tion of the ass, elsewhere, seemed to them typical of this ass, 
 on which their Messiah should ride. " If a man in a dream 
 seeth an ass," says the Talmud^', "he shall see salvation." 
 
 11 Ps. xxii. 27, 28. 12 Is. liU. 10-12. 13 Osor. 
 
 " Is. Ixiii. 5. " Is. liii. 4. ■« S. Matt. xi. 29. 
 
 17 S. Matt. viii. 20. » 2 Cor. viii. 9. 
 
 19 Jud. X. 4, xii. 14. ■'o jb. v. 10. -i 1 Kgs i. 33, 38, 41. 
 
 " 2 Sam. xiii. 29, xviii, 9. -^ lb. xvi. 2. 
 
 '* lb. xvi. 1, xvii. 23, xix. 26, 1 Kgs ii. 40. 
 
 25 1 Kgs xiii. 13, 23, 27. -'• 2 Sam. viii. 4. 
 
 =7 lb. XV. 1. 28 1 Kgs iv. 26, x. 26, 2 Chr. i. 14, ix. 25. 
 
 29 Eccl. X. 7. ™ Jer. x::ii. 19. 
 
 31 Berachoth f. 56. 2 (iii Schbttgen ad loc). There wasa general consent among tlie Jews,
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 557 
 
 It is an instflnrc of a propliory wliicli, huni.Tnly spoakinc:, a [ 
 false Messiah could have fiiifilhHl, hut which, from its nature, ' 
 none would fulfil, save the True. For llii-ir minds were set on 
 earthly f;lory and worldly j^reatncss : it would have been 
 inconsistent with the claims of one, whose liin5;;doni was of 
 
 that this prophecy related to t!ie Messiah. R. Josfph (prohahly "the pious," the disciple 
 of Jouhanan, the disc-iple of llillel, Wolf, Bilil. llebr. ii. »1.S, »U) used it as an arBunient 
 asaiiist R. llillel, wlio disbelieved in any Messiah. " R. Hillel, ' Israel has no Messiah, for 
 they enjoyed him in the days of Ilezekiah.' R. .Joseph said, 'Lord, forgive II. Hillel!' 
 When did Hezekiah live ? In [the time of] tlie first temple. lint Zeehariah prophesied in 
 [the time of] the second temple ; ' Rejoice greatly, daugliter of Zion, behold, thy kingcometli 
 unto thee, righteous and noshd '." lie said also, " () that he may come, and that I may be 
 worthy to sit in the shadow of the dung of his ass." Sanhedrin, f. 99. 1. " 11. Alexandri sai<l, 
 that li. Joshua hen Levi set against each other the Scriptures, ' Lo there came with the clouds 
 of heaven one like unto the Son of Man,' and that, 'lowly and riding on an ass.' Deserve 
 he [Israel], ' with the clouds of heaven ;' deserve he not, ' lowly and riding on an ass.'" lb. f. 98. 
 ".\11 these goods, which I will do to them through the merits of the Messiah, shall be ex- 
 tended in all those years." R. Janriiti (about A.D. 1.30) said from Raf, " whoever looketh for 
 salvation, God will give him rest in the garden of Eden, acconUng to that, ' I will feed my 
 flock and cause them to lie down' (Ezek. xxxiv. 15.) 'Just and nosha.' This is the Messiah, 
 wlio justifieth his judgement against Israel because they mocked him, because lie sat in prison, 
 so he is called 'just.' But why JIB'U, but that he justifieth the judgement upon them. He 
 says to them, ' ye are my sons ; are ye not all to be saved only by the mercy of the Holy 
 One, blessed be He ? ' 'Afllicted and riding on an ass.' This is the Messiah, But why is 
 his name called 'iV. 'afflicted?' Because he was afflicted all those years in prison, and the 
 transgressors of Israel mocked liini, because he rideth upon an ass on account of the wicked 
 who have no desert." (a dislocated passage, Schbttg. says, of the Pesikta Rahhuthi f. 01. 
 1.2. in Schiittg. de Messia, loci gen. n. xcvii. p. 1.36. The Hebrew of the latter part is 
 given by Wunsche d. Leiden des Messias p. CO.) And in a remarkable passage on Cant, 
 i. 4, " Let us exult and rejoice in thee." "The Matrona is like a royal bride, whose husliand 
 the king, her sons and sons-in-law, were gone beyond sea. When they brought her word 
 that her sons were returned, she said, ' What cause of joy have I ? Let my daughters-in-law 
 rejoice ! ' Another messenger came, that her sons-in-law were retmiied, she answered, ' W^hat 
 cause of joy have I ? Let my daughters rejoice!' But when they told her that the kuig, 
 her husband, was returned, she said, 'This is perfect joy, a joy above all joys!' So also in 
 the time to come, the time of the Messiah, the prophets shall come to Jerusalem and say, 
 (Is. Ix. V) 'thy sons siiall come from far;' she will answer, 'What cause of joy have I?' The 
 prophets will add, ' Thy daughters shall be nurtured by thy side ; ' she will answer in like 
 way. But when they shall say to her, 'Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, just and a 
 Saviour,' then she shall say, ' This is perfect joy ;' as in, ' Exult greatly, daughter of Zion,' 
 and elsewhere, ' Sing and rejoice. O daughter of Zion.' Then she shall say, ' I will greatly 
 rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in niy God (Is. Ixi. 10.)'" Sliir hasshirim Rabba 
 fol. 7. 3 (in Schottg. loc. gen. n. v., Martini f. 512). They quote the prophecy also as to the 
 union of the royal and priestly offices of the Messiah. The Beresliilh Rabba had on Gen. 
 xiv. 18, " 'And Melchizedec, king of Salem.' This is the name of Shem, the son of Noah. 
 What would that teach, 'he brought forth bread and wine?" R. Samuel Bur Nachman said, 
 lie delivered to him the ways of the priesthood, and he ofiered bread and wine to God, as it 
 is said, ' He was priest of the most High God, king of Salem.' — Otherwise ; Melchizedec ; 
 this is what Scripture saith, 'The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchizedec' And who is he ? This is the king, righteous and jre'lj, the 
 king Messiah, according to, ' Behold thy king cometh unto thee, righteous and JCT:.' And 
 what would that teach, ' He brought forth bread and wine ? ' It is as is said, * Be there a 
 handful of corn upon the earth.' (Ps. Ixxii. 16.) This is what is written, 'And he was a 
 priest of the most High God.' " (in Mart. f. 654 end.) Or they argue from ya'u, as to the free 
 mercy of God, ' 'God says to Israel, If your merit is not of such account, I do it for my own 
 sake ; lor day by day, when you are m trouble, I am with you, as in, ' I am with him in 
 trouble,' (Ps. xci. 15); and so I deliver myself, "And he saw that there was no one, and 
 wondered' (Is. lix. 10.); and elsewhere, ' Exult greatly, daughter of Zion — behold thy king 
 cometh unto thee, just and j;:;'lj.' It is not written yt'iDl ["and .saving"] but prill [" and 
 saved "] ; whereby it is hinted that, though your merits are not of such account, God will act 
 for His own sake, according to, ' For my salvation is near to come.' " (Shemnth Rabba sect. 30. 
 fol. 129. 1. Schbttg. loc. gen. n. ix.) Martini quotes a like saying from the Bereshitli Rabba on 
 Gen. xlix. 8. " R. Berachiah the priest, son of Rabbi, said. See what is written, ' Rejoice greatly 
 &c.' It is not written, 'Just and P'S'iD, a Saviour,' but 'Just and p;;'i] saved,' and thus he says, 
 (Is.lxii. ll.)'Sayyeto the daughter of Sion— it is not written, 'thy Sa™ur(-iy»iD) cometh," 
 but, 'Behold thy salvation ("Vi^'') cometh.' As if one might so speak, ' Israel was redeemed, 
 and it is as if God were redeemed,' and this is one of the hard Scriptures, that the salva- 
 tion of Israel is the salvation of God." fol. 518, Martini quotes also from a comment on 
 Isaiah Ivii. 1. "The righteous perisheth." "This is Messiah, of Whom it is said, 'Just and 
 saved.'" f. 334. 
 
 In other places, the riding upon the ass is dwelt upon. Midrash Coheleth on Eccl. i. 9. 
 f. 73. 3. "7J. Berachiah said from R. Isaac, As was the first redeemer, so also shall be the ! 
 last redeemer. What did the first redeemer.' (Ex. iv. 20.) 'And Moses took his wife and his ' 
 sons and placed them on an ass ;' the second, as is written, ' lowly and riding on an ass,' " ! 
 (Martini f. 380, and 690, Schottg. Her. Hebr. on S. Matt. xxi. 5.) In the Midrash Shemuel 
 PART VI. 
 
 this world. It helonji^cd to the character of Ilini, Who was 
 huffeted, nuicked, scourjfed, sjtit upon, <'rucified. died for us, 
 and rose a^ain. It was l)i\ine humiliation, which, in the 
 purpose of (jod, was to he compensated hy Divim? power. 
 In itself it would, if insulated, have heen unmeaning. The 
 
 f. 06. 1. the saying is ascribed to R. Levi (.Schiittg. on this place). And the Pirhe R, FAiezer 
 c. 31, of Abraham's ass, "This is the ass, on which the son of David shall ride, according to, 
 ' Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion.' " (lb.) The Zohay owns that the prophecy relates to the 
 Messiah, but apologises for it. "It is not the custom that the king and his Matrona should 
 ride on an ass, but rather on horses, as in (llab. iii. 7.) ' For thou shall ride on thy horses, 
 and thy chariots arc salvation.' For they do not esteem a matrona so slightly, that she 
 should ride on an a-ss, as the king wontcth not to ride on an a.ss, like one of the people. 
 And therefore it is said of the Messiah, ' Poor and riding upon an ass.' And he is mA there 
 called king, until he ride upon his horses, which arc the people of Israel." (on Levit. f. 38, 
 col. 151. in Schottg. de Mess. vi. 213. p. .5-13.) Or they say great things of the ass. "This 
 ass is son of the she-ass, which was created within the six days in the twilight. This is the 
 .ass, which Abraham saddled, when he purposed to sacrifice Isaac. This is the ass, on which 
 Moses was carried when he went to Egyjit. This is the ass, on which the son of David shall 
 ride hereafter." Yallsut Reubeni {i'.7i>, 3, 4 on Exod. iv. 20 in Schbttg. on S. Matt. xxi. 5.) 
 They connect it with Balaam's ass. "This is the a.ss destined for the Messiah, as it is 
 written, ' Poor and riding on an ass.' " {Zohar Num. f. 83. col. 332.) Or they speak of his 
 reigning thereon. 'This is the ass, on which the Messiah shall reign, as it is written, ' Poor 
 and riding on an ass.' " Zohar Num. f. 83, col. 332 (on Deut. xxii. 10.) in Schbttg. de 
 Messia vi. 2. 12. p. 643. The mention of an * ass ' in Holy Scripture suggests the thought 
 of this prophecy, as relating to the .Son of David. "'And 1 have oxen and asses.' Messiah 
 son of David is hinted at here, of whom it is written, 'Meek and riding upon an a.ss"' 
 Tnnchuma on Gen. xxxii. 6. f. 12. 2. (in Schbttg. on S. Matt. xxi. 5). And the Beresliilh 
 Rabba on Gen. xlix. 14, had, " By the foot of the ox (Is. xxxii. 20.) is understood Mes.sias 
 son of Joseph, according to Deut. xxxiii. 17. ' His glory is of the firstling of a bullock.' 
 But by the foot of the a.ss, Messiah son of David, as in Zacli., ' Meek and riding on an ass.'" 
 (in Mart. f. 330. See also Schbttg. loc. gen. n. liii. and Lxxiv.) "When he shall come, of 
 Whom it is written, '':y and riding upon an ass,' he will wash his garments in wine, i.e. 
 make clear to them the words of the law, and his clothes in the blood of grapes, i.e. 
 cleanse them from their errors." lb. f. 95. col. 4. And in the Bereshith hetamia on Gen. 
 xlix. 11. " binding his foal unto the vine and his ass's colt unto the choice vine." "This 
 is he of whom it is written, ' 'jy and riding &c. ' and he it is who planteth Israel as a choice 
 vine (Jer. ii. 21) : and how will he do it ? As it is written, I will sprinkle clean water &c. 
 Ezek. x.xxvi. 21." Zohnr Deut. f. 118. col. 471. in Schottg. Hone H. on Hab. ii. 3. p. 215. 
 "After that depth (of the fulfilment of the vision, Hab. ii. 3.) was opened, whoever fell 
 into it, never came up. The Messiah Ben David fell into it, with the Messiah ben Joseph, 
 of whom one is 'poor and riding upon an ass,' the other, 'the firstling of his bullock' (Deut. 
 xxxiii. 17.), viz. the Messiah ben Joseph. And this is alluded to in (E.x. xxi. 23.) ' If any 
 one dig a pit and cover it not, and an ox or an ass fall therein.' And therefore the Messiah 
 is called ' Bar naphli ' ' son of the fallen." The Bereshith Rabba quoted the prophecy 
 also in proof of His meekness. " When the king Messias shall come to Jerusalem to save 
 Israel, be shall hind his ass and ride upon it and come to Jerusalem, that he may conduct 
 himself in lowliness, as it is said, ' lowly and riding upon an ass.' And his ass's foal 
 unto the choice vine, when he shall come to gather the congregation of Lsrael, ["which is 
 called a vine in that. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt," added in Schottg. loc. gen. 
 n. lix.] as in Zech. x. 8. ' I will hiss to them and will gather tlieni,' then he shall ride on 
 the foal of his ass, as in Zech. ix. 9. 'Rejoice greatlfi Sec' And is it not of old said of the 
 Messiah, 'And in the clouds of heaven cometh one like the Son of man ?' (Dan. \-ii. 13.) If 
 Israel deserveth, ' He cometh with the clouds of heaven,' and if he desen'eth not, ' lowly and 
 riding on an ass.' on Gen. xlix. 11 in Martini f. 056 (or latter part as in Sanhedrin above). 
 In times not far from our Lord, the Messiah seems to be mentioned, as under a well-known 
 name, " he who is borne upon an ass." The Zohnr quotes a revelation to 7?. Eliezer and 
 R. Abba, " Did I not say to you that the precept of the king lasts, until he shall come 
 who is borne on an ass? " (Zohar Gen. in Schbttg. loc. gen. n. xxxi. 7 p. 79.) And "jy 
 "afflicted" becomes an indication that the passage relates to the Messiah. Tims 'the 
 steps of the needy,' 'ly, (Is. xxn. 6.) is explained 'This is the Messiah, "jy and riding on 
 an ass.' (Bereshith R. on Gen. xlix. 10. Mart. f. 050.) The Midrash Tehillim explains 
 Ps. xc. 15, " * according to the days of the Messiah.' Tlie word. ilTjy 'hast afflicted us' cor- 
 responds to the other, '':y afflicted and riding on an ass,' as if he would say 'according to 
 the days of our afflicted.'" (in Schottg. ad loc. p. 242.) and the Zohar Chadash on Eccl. 
 ix. 44. sqq. "A little city is Zion ; ' and a few men in it : ' these are the six days of the 
 creation ; and there came a great king against it,' this is a certain one ; ' and there was found 
 in it a poor wise man.' This is Messiah Ben David, as it is said. '*3y and riding upon an 
 ass' and ' the righteous perisheth' (Is. Ivii. 1.) so long as the overflowing cometh not upon 
 him, it is said, ' the river shall be wasted and dried up.' (Is. six. 5.) 'The ass,' that is 
 Samael, and the wise man, that is Messiah Ben Darid. and of him it is .said, ' and he 
 delivered the city by his wisdom.' And he shall be the deliverer of Messiah ben Ephraini. 
 And this is a redemption from above." (f. 63. 2. in Schbttg. loc. gen. n. 103. filled up 
 from Wiinsche Leiden d. Mess. p. 105.) Schbttgen ad loc. quotes also from the Zohar 
 Deut. 117. col. 465. 
 The name ten is understood as indicating the Messiah. " By the word icn, ' ass ' is indi- 
 
 L L L Ii
 
 558 
 
 ZECIIAIUAH. 
 
 Holy Ghost propliosiod it, Josus fulfilled it, to show the Jews, 
 of what nature Ills kinf;(l(Uii was. llcuco the ciialkMific ; 
 '•'Let us look at (lie proplieey, that in words, and that in 
 act. What is the prophecy? Lit,thij liiiit^ coiiieth iiiitd lln-c, 
 meek, and sUtitiii: upon an ass, and upon a colt ; not drivinfi; 
 chariots as other kings, not in pomp nor attended by fj^uards, 
 but sliewinj-- herein also all gentleness. Ask the Jew then, 
 ^^'hat kini;-, riding on an ass, came to Jerusalem ? He could 
 name none, save this One ah)ne." An ancient writer says, 
 "-The (Jreeks too" (not the Jews only) '"will laugh at us, 
 saying, that 'The God of the Christians, Who is called Christ, 
 sat upon an ass.'" The same mockery was probably intended 
 by Sapor^kingof Persia, which the Jews met with equal pride. 
 The taunt continues till now. "*It is not hid from you, O 
 congregation of Christians, that 'rider upon an ass' indicates 
 Christ." The Mohammedans appropriate the title "rider 
 upon a camel" to iMohammad, as the grander animal\ The 
 taunt of worshipping '• Him Who sat upon an ass" was of 
 the same class as those of the worship of the Crucified; ""one 
 dead and crucified, who could not save himself;" "a crucified 
 Man," " that great J\Ian," or (if it suited them so to speak) 
 "that great sophist who was crucified," but Who now, for 
 above 180U years, reigns, " to all, the King; to all, the Judge; 
 to all. Lord and God." "^Christ did not only fulfil prophe- 
 cies or plant the doctrines of truth, but did thereby also order 
 our life for us, every where laying down for us rules of neces- 
 sary use and, by all, correcting our life." Even Jews, having 
 
 cated the king Messiah, according to that, ' poor and riding on an ass.' " Bereshith Rabba 
 sect. 75, f. 74. 2- in Schbttg. ad loc. 
 
 In later times, R. Saadiuk Gaon said on Daniel vii. 1.3 ; " 'And behold with the clouds of 
 heaven one came like a .Son of maji.' Tins is the Messiah our righteousness, and is it not 
 written of the Messiah, * 'jy and riding upon an ass ? ' i. e. he shall come with meekness, for 
 he shall not come on horses with pride ; and ' the clouds of heaven ' they are the Angels of 
 the heavenly host. Tliis is the exceeding greatness, wliich the Creator shall give to the 
 Messiah." And Rashi says, *' This cannot be explained, except of king Messiah ; for it is 
 said of him, ' and his dominion shall be from sea to sea ; ' but we do not find that such an one 
 ruled over Israel ui the tmie of the second house ; " and (on Exod. iv. 20) " On an ass the 
 Messiah will reveal himself, according to ' Meek and riding on an ass.' " (in Schottg. ad loc.) j 
 The first who referred it to any other was R, Mosch Huccolieii (A. D. 1148), whom Jbn Ezra 
 quotes, as explaining it of '* Nehemiah, tlie Tirshatha, because of him it was said, ' There is 
 a king in Judah ; ' and that there was no mention of a horse, because he was poor ; " which, \ 
 Ibn Ezra says, was contraiy to the fact in Neliemiah, and also the mention of the Greeks did | 
 not suit liis times, llm Ezra says that, as far as he knows, ' ' it was the king Judas the Has- 
 mouffian, whose might suited that, • I have made thee like the sword of a mighty man,' and 
 his hand was mighty agamst tlie Greeks, and at first he had not wealth or horses." These I 
 were private opuiions ; for Ib/i Ezra says, " The expositoi-s are divided about it ; some say ' 
 tliis king is Messiah ben David, and some say, Messiah ben Joseph." Both then agreed ' 
 that he was a Messiah. Aharbanel says of Ibn Ezra ; "' I wonder that his ill intent bUnded 
 liis understanding ; for lo, Judas the Hasmonaean was never called kmg, all his days, much , 
 less of Zion ; that had he propliesied of the Hasmonasan, what had he to do with Ephraim, I 
 since the kingdom of Ephraim was not in the second temple ; also he did not speak peace to 1 
 all nations, and did not rule from sea to sea." (On his own exposition see below.) Even 1 
 R. Isaac (Chizz. Emmiah c. 35 p. 293 Wagenseil), denying it as to our Lord, insists upon it I 
 as relating to their Messiah whom they looked for. R. BerAai says that "Jacob (Gen. xlix. 11) 1 
 used the words :n']i ' his ass ' and wns '331 ' the foal of his ass,' because it is written of hun ' 
 (the king Messiah) ' and upon a colt, the foal of an ass ' (the same words being used, ni:inK ja Ty. 
 Bmat-hattliorah ad loc. f. m col. 3. Amst.) R. Tanrhiim athnits the difficulty of supposing 
 it to relate to a futm-e Messiah, or, since as a Jew, he could not mterpret it of Jesus, of 
 interpreting it of any one in the time of the second temple. " Some of the interpreters make 
 this consolation an amiouncement of the Expected (may he soon be revealed !) and this is 
 found in most of tlie Midrashoth of the ancient mse (blessed be their memoi-y !) and tlie 
 obvious meaning of his words, ' and his dominion is from sea to sea and from the river vmto 
 the ends of the earth' supports this; and some of them think, that from the context it 
 relates to the circumstances of the second house, and this is supported by his words in the 
 passage, 'And I will raise thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece,' which was in the 
 second house, through the Hasmonaeans, and now the empire of Greece is dispersed and gone. 
 How then should he promise lielp against it in the future ? And altogether the word of the 
 prophecies admits of the inter])retation. And many vary therein from one meaning to the 
 other. And therefore we will mention how the language can be explained according to each 
 opinion. And God, most High, knows what is hidden! The meanmg then of ' "jy and 
 riding upon an ass' is, in my opinion, in the first way, beautiful ; that 'jy means one who 
 
 rejected our Lord, saw this. "Not from poverty," says one", 
 " foi' behold the whole world shall be in bis jiower — but from 
 humility he w'lW ride upon an ass; and fnrtlicr to shew that 
 Israel [viz. the e.itablishment of His kingdom or Church] shall 
 not want horse nor chariot: therefore it is added, ^liid J wilt 
 cut (iff' the cliariot from Kpltraiin and the horse from Jerusalem.'' 
 And another'-'; "He, i.e. thy true king David, shall come t(» 
 thee; and he mentions of his qualities that ho shall be righte- 
 ous and nosha' ^" in his wars; l)ut his salvation shall not be 
 from strength of his wars, for he shall come lowli) and riding 
 upon an ass^K And riding on an ass, this is not on account 
 of his want, l)ut to shew that jteace and truth shall be in his 
 days ; and therefore he says forthwith, uJnd J will cut ojf the 
 chariot from Ephruiin and the horse from Jerusalem ; viz. that 
 such shall be the peace and stillness in the world, that in 
 Ephraim (i. e. the tribes) and in Jerusalem (i. e. the kingdom 
 of Judah) they shall trust no more in horse and in rider, but 
 in the name of God. And because it is the way of princes 
 and chiefs to take example from the life of their kings, and 
 to do as they, therefore he saith, that when the king Messiah 
 rideth upon an ass, and has no pleasure in the strength of a 
 horse, there will be no other in Jerusalem or the lands of 
 the tribes, who will have pleasure in riding on a horse. And 
 therefore he says, jind I will cut off' the chariot from Ephraim 
 and the horse from Jerusalem ; and he assigns the reason for 
 this, when he says, ^nd the hattle-hoiv shall he cut off', and. 
 he shall speak peace among the nations, i. e. there shall be 
 
 humbles himself, like (Is. Ixvi. 2) 'And to this man will I look, to the humble ("jy) and con- 
 trite of spirit,' not weak in condition ; on account then of his lowliness he will ride upon an 
 ass." (He compares the reduplication to that in Gen. xlix. ] 1.) " Or," he says, " the whole 
 of this may be a metaphor for self-abjection, not an actual history ; and what is known, is 
 that this is his condition at first for his weakness and lowness ; afterwards he will attain his 
 later condition in strength and feUcity. And so for the second way, this points to the return 
 of the kingdom to Israel tin-ough the Hasmonasans, and his saying ' meek and riding 
 upon an ass' indicates their first king, Judas the Hasmonaean, and he, at the outset, was 
 weak, because he followed upon the oppression of Greece, according to what has been trans- 
 mitted of that history ; and that, ' his dominion shall be from sea to sea &c.' this is the 
 kingdom to wliich he attained at last, and the extension of his house ; and he means by this, 
 ' from the red sea to the sea of the PhiUstines and from the river to the end of the habitable 
 land ; ' and this is, 'And from the river &c.' and tlius his words, ' I will raise up thy sons, O 
 Zion, against thy sous, O Greece,' will fit. And in the first way ; ' from sea to sea ' will be 
 the encircling sea [the Ocean] and from the river wliich is the bound of the land of Israel to 
 the furthest habitable earth." He answers the reference to Nehemiah, but ends by leaving 
 the other two open. Moses ben Nachman quotes it in illustration of the contempt of the 
 Messiah spoken of in Isaiah lii. 13. liii. 3. 7. " Theirs [the kings'] astonishment was shewn 
 by mocking him, when he first arrived, and by asking, how one ' despised, meek and riding 
 upon an ass,' could conquer all the kings of the world who had laid hold on Israel ? — He was 
 ' despised,' for he had no army and no people, but was ' meek and riding on an ass,' like the 
 first redeemer Moses our master, when he entered into Egypt with his wife and children 
 riding upon an ass. (Ex. iv. 20.) ' He was oppressed and he was afflicted,' for when he first 
 comes ' meek and riding upon an ass,' the oppressors and officers of every city will come 
 to liini, and afflict him with revilings and insult, reproaching both him and the God in whose 
 name he appears, like Moses our master, who, when Pharaoh said, I know not the Lord, 
 answered him not." in Jewish Commentaries on Is. liii. p. 80, 81. 
 
 The modem school, wliich rids itself of definite prophecy, would have this relate to " the 
 ideal Messiali." One does not see, how a literal prophecy, fulfilled to the letter, can relate 
 to an ideal king; unless on the mipMed assumption, "There can be no prophecy of a definite 
 event." ' S. Clirjs. in S. Matt. Hom. 66. p. 656 marg. Ed. Oxon. 
 
 - Author of the Hom. in S. Matt. xxi. 2. in the Duhia of S. Athan. n. 6. 0pp. ii. 77. 
 
 3 " King Sapor said to R. Samuel, ' Ye say that the Messiah conies upon an ass, I will 
 send him a horse [epithet uncertain] which I have.' He answered, ' Hast thou one with 
 100 colours ' (so Rashi) or. ' with 1000 qualities.' ( Aruch and Reland Diss. Lx. T. i. 288, 298.) 
 Sanhedr. f. 98. 1. "In the deep humility of the Messiah," subjoms Lightfoot, "they dream 
 of pride even in his ass." Hor. Hebr. on S. Matt. xxi. 5. 
 
 •* Epist. Mohammedan. Anon, inserted by Hackspan Nizzach. pp. 397 — 401. 
 
 ^ The titles " rider on an ass," " rider on a camel," are derived fiom Is. xxi. 14. 
 
 ' See Lucian de morte Peregrini c. 11, 13. Trypho in S. Justin Dial. n. 14. p. 83, Oxf. 
 Tr. Celsus in Origen c. Cels. viii. 12. 14. 15. and'othets in Pusey's Lenten Sennons pp. 454, 
 455. Liddon's Bampton Lectures pp. 392 — 397. ed 2. Kortholt de calunmiis Pagan, c. 
 4 pp. 31 -36. _ 7 S. Chrys. 1. c. p. 655. 
 
 ^ Kimchi. 9 Aharbanel in his Ma.slimi'a Yeshu'ah p. 73. 
 
 '" I leave the word nosha' untranslated, in order not to give any possible colour to his 
 words, though he seems from the context to take it actively " Saviour." 
 " He says here that 'jy is like uy.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 559 
 
 chrTst 1^ ^"^ I '^^'" ^"t "*^' ^*"' chariot Iroin 
 ^i^ii??^ Ephraiiii, and the horsi! from .Icrusalcin, 
 
 &2.'i8/' and the battle how shall he eut off: and he 
 
 Hag. 2. 22'. shall speak '^peacc; unto the heathen: and 
 
 u,"" ' his dominion .sluill he "from sea eiu-ii to 
 
 " Ps. 72. 8. 
 
 no more war in the world, because he shall spm/( peace 
 luito the nations, and hij the word of lii.s lips ^ he shall dispose 
 peace unto them." 
 
 And upon a colt, the foal of an ass. The word rendered 
 colt, as with us, signifies the younjj, as yet unbroken animal. 
 In the fulfilment, our Lord diivcted His dis<'i[)les to find ~an ass 
 tied, and a colt with her, whereon never man sat. TJu' |)roi)liet 
 foretold that lie would ride 011 both animals ; our Lord, by 
 eonunandiiii;' both to he brouffht, shewed that tiic propiiet 
 had a special nieaninjj in namini;- both. S.Matthew relates 
 that both were employed. " They brought the ass and the 
 colt, and put on them their elothes, and they set Him thereon." 
 'I'lie untrained eolt, an appendage to its mother, was a yet 
 luimbler animal. But as the whole action was a picture of 
 our Lord's humility and of the uneartbliness of His kingdom, 
 so, doubtless. His riding upon the two animals was a part 
 of that picture. There was no need of two animals to bear 
 «iur Lord for that short distance. S. John noti<;es especially, 
 ' These things understood not His disciples at the first. The 
 ass, an unclean stupid debased ignoble drudge, was in itself 
 a picture of unregenerate man, a slave to his ])assions and 
 fo devils, toiling under the load of ever-increasing sin. But, 
 of man, the Jew had been under the yoke and was broken; 
 the Gentiles were the wild unbroken colt. Both were to be 
 brought under obedience to Christ. 
 
 10. Anil J will cat <yff' the chariot. The horse is the 
 symbol of worldly power, as the ass is of meekness. Some, 
 says the Psalmist, * put their trust in chariots, and some in 
 horses ; hut we will remember the name of the Lord our God. 
 ^ A horse is hut a vain thing to save a man. ^ He delighteth 
 not 1)1 the strength rjf a horse. In scarcely any place in Holy 
 Scripture is the horse spoken of in relation to man, except 
 as the instrument of war. It represents human might, which 
 is either to be consecrated to the Lord, or destroyed by Him 7. 
 As the ^ stone, cut out without hands, broke in pieces and 
 absorbed into itself all the kingdoms of the world, so here 
 He, Whose Kingdom should not be of this world, should 
 supersede human might. His kingdom was to begin by 
 doing away, among His followers, all, whereby human king- 
 doms are estai)lislied. He first cuts oft" the chariot and the 
 horse, not from His enemies, but from His own people; His 
 people, not as a civil polity, but as the people of God. For 
 the prophet speaks of them as Ephraim and Judah, but 
 Ephraim had no longer a distinct existence. 
 
 And He shall speak peace unto the lieathen, as the Apostle 
 says, ^He came and preached peace to you. which were afar <)Jf, 
 and to them that were nigh. He shall speak it to them, as 
 He Who bath power to give it to them, peace with God, 
 peace in themselves, the reconciliation of God and man, and 
 the remission of their sins. 
 
 " ^"At His birth the heavenly host announced peace to men ; 
 all His doctrine has peace for its end ; when His death was 
 at hand, He especially commended peace to His disciples, 
 
 • Is. xxvi. 12. 2 s. Matt. xxi. 2., S. Mark xi. 2, S. Luke xix. 30. 
 
 3 S. John xii. IG. * Ps. xx. 7. * lb. xxxiii. 17. 
 
 « lb. cxlvii. 10. r See Mi. v. 10. s Dan. ii. 34. 
 
 sea, an»l from the river even to the ends of (. j^\'^"j*g .p 
 the earth. _f"jj*7._ 
 
 1 1 As for thee also, || hy the blood of thy cmeZliTm 
 covenant I have sent forth tiiy " prisoners ^.x''.''i\'.'%. 
 out of the pit wh(!rein /.v no water. &13.20. " 
 
 » Isai. 12. 7. & ol. II. & (Jl. 1. 
 
 that peace which the world knoweth not, which is contained 
 in tranquillity of mind, burning zeal for charity. Divine 
 grace. This same peace He brought to all who' gathered 
 themselves to His empire and guidance, that, emerging from 
 intestine wars and foul darkness, they might behohl tiie light 
 of liberty, and, in all wisdom keep the grace of (iod." 
 
 And His dominion shall he from sea to sea. The l)ounds 
 of the promised laiul, in its utmost range, on the West, were 
 the Mediterranean sea; on the East, tite great river, the 
 Euphrates. The prophet pictures its 'extension, so as to 
 embrace the whole world, taking away, first the one bound, 
 then the other. From sea to sea is from the Mediterraneati 
 to the extremest East, where the Ocean encircles the con- 
 tinent of Asia; from the river to the ends of the earth, is fntm 
 the Euphrates to the extremest West, en'ibracing the whole 
 of Europe ; and whatever may lie Iteyond, to the ends of the 
 earth, where earth eeaseth to'he ". It is this same lowly and 
 afflicted king. Whose entry into Jerusalem is on a despised 
 animal, Who shall, by His mere will, make wars to cease, 
 Who shall, by His mere word, give peace to the heathen. 
 
 11. As for thee also. The Prophet turns from the deliver- 
 ance of the whole world to the former j)eople, the sorrows 
 which they sluuild have in the way, and the protection which 
 God would bestow upon them for the sake of Him, \Mio, 
 according to the flesh, was to be born of them. Thou too ; 
 he had spoken of the glories of the Church, such as her 
 king, when He should come, should extend it, embracing 
 earth's remotest bounds : be turns to her, Israel after the 
 flesh, and assures her of the continued protection of God, 
 even in her lowest estate. The deliverance under the Mac- 
 cabees was, as those under the judges had been, an image of 
 the salvation of Christ and a preparation for it. Thev were 
 martyrs for the One God and for the faith in the Hesurrec-tion, 
 and, whether by doing or by suttering, preserved the sacred 
 line, until Christ should come. 
 
 Bi/ the blood of thp covenant. "'"Not by the blood of 
 those victims of old, but by the blood of tin/' covenant, wilt 
 thou be united to the empire of Christ, and so obtain salva- 
 tion. As the Lord Himself says. This is the blood of covenant, 
 which is shed for you." '~ The gifts and calling of God are 
 witlunit repentance. That symbolic blood, by which, fore- 
 signifying the new Covenant, He made them His own people, 
 '^^ Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made 
 with you concerniiig all these words, endured still, amid all 
 their unfaithfulness and breaches of it. By virtue of it God 
 would send forth her imprisoned ones out of the deep, dry 
 pit, the dungeon wherein they could i)e kept securely, because 
 life was not threatened '^ (Jut of any depth of hopeless 
 misery, in which they seemed to be shut up, God would 
 deliver them; as David says, ^'He brought me up also out of a 
 ; horrible pit, out of tlie miry clay, and set tuy feet upon a rock 
 ' a)al established my goings ; and Jeremiah, '^''Thei/ have cut off 
 my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon nie. I called 
 
 9 Eph. ii. 17. '" Osor. 
 
 '- Rom. xi. 2'J. 
 ^ As in Geu. xxxvii. 24. 
 
 " See " Daniel the Prophet." p. 483. 
 ^3 Exod. xxiv. 8. 
 « Ps. xl. 2. >« Lam. iii. 53, 55, 5C. 
 
 L L L L 2
 
 560 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 y Isai. 49. 9. 
 • lisai. 61. 7. 
 
 12 ^Turn you to the stron<>- hold, ^ ye 
 prisoners of hope : (;ven to thiy do I deehire 
 that '■ I will render double unto thee ; 
 
 13 When I have bent Judah for me, 
 
 filhul the bow with Ephraini, and raised up eifiiTsT 
 thy sons, O Zion, ai^ainst thy sons, O '■''''• ^^- 
 Greeee, and made thee as the sword of a 
 mii^hty man. 
 
 upon Thy Name, O Lord ; out of the low dungeon Thou liast 
 heard mi/ voice. "I'fhc dry and l)arrcii depth of liuinaii 
 misery, where are no streams of righteousness, hut the mire 
 of iniquity." 
 
 12. Turn ye to the stronghold ~, i. e. Alinij^hty Giul ; as the 
 Psalmists so often say^, The Lord is tlie defence of nty life; 
 and Joel*, Tlie Lord 'shall he a stronghold of the children of 
 Israel ; and Nahuni % 'The Lord is a stronghold in the day of 
 trouble ; And, David said, " Thou linst been a shelter for me, 
 a strong tower against the enemy ; '^ the Name of tlie Lord 
 is a strong tower, tlie righteous runneth into it and is safe; 
 and airain, ^ Be ThoxC to me a rock of strength, a house of de- 
 fence to save me— Bring me forth out of the net that they 
 have laid privily for me; for Thou art my stronghold. The 
 stronghold, "eiitotf" from all approaeh from an enemy, 
 stands in contrast with the deep dungeon of calamity. The 
 return must be a willing return, one in their own power; 
 return to the stronghold, which is Almighty (iod, must be by 
 conversion of heart and will. Even a Jewish commentator'* 
 paraphrases, "Turn ye to God; for He is a stronghold and 
 tower of strength." 
 
 Ye prisoners of [the'] hope'^" not, accordingly, any hope, or 
 generally, hope, but the special hope of Israel, the hope which 
 sustained them in all those years of patient expectation, as 
 S. Paul speaks of "/Ae hope of Israel, for which, he says, I 
 am hound with this chain. '^~ I stand to be judged for the hope 
 of the promise made by God unto our fathers, unto which 
 promise our twelve tribes, serving God instantly day and 
 night, hope to come ; for which hope's sake, King Agrippa, 
 1 am accused of the jews. And in his Epistles, i' the hope 
 laid vp for you in heaven; ^^ the hope of the Gospel; and, 
 ^= looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the 
 great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He writes also of 
 " ^"^ keeping the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end;" of 
 "I'the full assurance of the hope unto the end ; " of "'" fleeing 
 to lay hold on the hope set before us ; which hope we have 
 as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast." He does 
 not speak of hope as a grace or theological virtue, but, ob- 
 jectively, as the thing hoped for. So Zechariah calls to 
 them as bound, held fast by the hope, bound, as it were, to it 
 and by it, so as not to let it go, amid the persecution of the 
 world, or weariness of expectation ; as S. Paul also says, 
 '^'^ before faith came, ive xvere guarded, kept in ward, under the 
 law, shut up unto the faith "'^ which ivas about to be revealed. 
 
 > S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. xviii. 35. 3. 
 
 = ini-n is air. Key. ^ Ps. xxvii. 1. add xxxi. 5, xxxvii. 39. xliii. 2, lii. 9. 
 
 * J oel iv. 16. [iii. 16 Eng.] ^ Nah. 1.7. 6 ,y ^UD Ps. Ixi. 3. 
 
 7 Pr. xviii. 10. " Ps. xxxi. 3, 5. [2, 4, Eng.] ^ Kim. 
 
 i" mpnn. The only place, where it has the art. It is used 13 times with different 
 pronouns; G times with the gen., of him whose expectation is spoken of; it is used 
 absolutely 13 times, viz. 5 times of a hope which will not fail, in the idiom .tipn »' 
 Ruth i. 12. Jer. xxxi. 17, .n o'' '3 Job xi. 18, xiv. 7, Pr. xix. 18, modified by ''jiN Lam. iii. 29, 
 with S, a solid expectation which a person has. Job v. 16, Pr. xxvi. 12, xxix. 20; given 
 by God, Hos. ii. 17, Jer. .xxix. 11 ; twice with the neg., the absence of all hope, Job vii. 6, 
 Pr. xi. 7. [all.] i' Acts xxviii. 20. '" lb. xxvi. 6, 7. 
 
 13 Col. i. 5. " lb. 23. >* Tit. ii. 13. '« Heb. iii. 6. 
 
 17 lb. vi. 11. 18 lb. 18, 19. » Gal. iii. 23. 
 
 20 44,povpovixe9a, (TvyKfK\ft(Tii4voi els. ^' Is. Ixi. 7. The same word, njP'p. 
 
 — n'i'p "pi, in different inflections is too common an idiom to leave any ambiguity, 
 though the word nrp occurs in the following clause only. '1 he idiom occurs Ps. vii. 13, 
 xxxvii. 14, Is. v. 28, xxi. 15. Jer. xlvi. 9, 1. 14, 29, Ii. 3, Lam. ii. 4, iii. 12, 1 Chr. v. IS, 
 viii. 40, 2 Chr. xiv. 7. -pn is used twice in the same sense, when the arrow is made the 
 
 Even to-day, amid all contrary appearances, do I declare, 
 that I will render double unto thee ; as He had said by Isaiah -', 
 For ijtntr shame yc shall have double. 
 
 13. IVhen, or For I have bent^~ Judah for me, as a 
 mighty how which is only drawn at full human strength, the 
 foot being placed to steady it. It becomes a strong instru- 
 ment, but only at God's Will. God Himself bends it. It 
 cannot bend itself. And filled the bow wi/h Ephraim "'. The 
 how is filled, when the arrow is laid upon it. God would eni- 
 ](l()y both in their difl'erent offices, as one. And raised up "^thy 
 sous, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece. Let men place this 
 prophecy where they will, nothing in the history of the world 
 was more contradictory to what was in human sight possible. 
 " -'" Greece was, until Alexander, a colonising, not a conquer- 
 ing, nation. The Hebrews had no human knowledge of the 
 site or circumstances of Greece. There was not a little cloud, 
 like a man's hand, when Zechariah thus absolutely foretold 
 the conflict and its issue. Yet here we have a definite pro- 
 phecy later than Daniel, fitting in with his temporal pro- 
 phecy, expanding part of it, reaching on beyond the time of 
 Antiochus, and fore-announcing the help of God in two de- 
 finite ways of protection ; 1) without tear, against the army oi 
 Alexander-^; 2) in the war of the Maccabees; and these, two of 
 the most critical periods in their history after the captivity-'. 
 Yet, being expansions of part of the prophecy of Daniel, the 
 period, to which they belong, becomes clearer in the event by 
 aid of the more comprehensive prophecies. They were two 
 points in Daniel's larger prediction of the 3rd empire." 
 
 And I tvill make thee as the sivord of a mighty man 
 The strength is still not their own. In the whole history ol 
 Israel, they had only once met in battle an army of one of 
 the world-Empires and defeated it, at a time, when Asa's 
 whole population which could bear arms were 580,000 "^, 
 and he met Zerah the Ethiopian with his million of com- 
 batants, besides his 500 chariots, and defeated him. And 
 this, in reliance on the "^ Lord his God, to Whom he cried, 
 Lord, it is nothing to Thee to help, whether tcith many, or 
 ivith them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; 
 for we rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go agai7ist this 
 multitude. Asa's words found an echo in Judas Maccabaeus '*, 
 when the "small company with him asked him. How shall 
 we be able, being so few, to fight against so great a mul- 
 titude and so strong?" "It is no hard matter," Judas 
 answered, "for many to be shut up in the hands of a few, 
 
 object, Ps. Iviii. 8, Ixiv. 4. 
 
 -■^ It is the common construction of Njn with a double ace, " fill a thing with ;" which, 
 in different idioms, occurs 38 times besides. [Gen. xxi. 19. xxvi. 15, xlii. 25, Ex. xxviii. 3, 
 xxxi. 3, XXXV. 31, .35, 1 Sam. xvi. 1, 1 Kgs xviii. 35, 2 Kgs xxiii. 14, xxiv. 4, 2 Chr. rvn. 
 14, Job iii. 15, viii. 21, xv. 2, xxii. 18. .xxiii. 4, Ps. xvii. 14, Ixxxiii. 17, cvii. 9, cxxix. 7. 
 Pr. i. 13, Is. xxxiii. 5, Jer. xiii. 13, xv. 17, xxxiii. 5, xli. 9, Ii. 14, 34, Ezek. iii. 3, ix. 7, 
 X. 2. xi. 7, xxxii. 5, xxxv. 8. Nah. ii. 13, Zeph. i. 9, Hagg. ii. 7.] It is therefore entirely 
 unidiomatic to render with Ges. &c., "pulled with full strenjith a bow, Ephraim." The 
 .\rab. nipSx -D nSox does not bear this out, being for Dip^x •£! yn^NsScK. The Syr. ^rqp^ te 
 Ps. xi. 2. n'Vdt Kns'p Is. x-xi. 15, probably mean, "Med the bow" "the bow filled" viz. 
 with the anow. 
 
 "■' Since Tny occurs of rousing a person. Cant. ii. 7, iii. 5, viii, 4, 5, Is. xiv. 9, or living 
 thing, Job iii. 8, or His might, (of God) Ps. Ixxx. 3, it would be unidiomatic to interpret 
 it liere, " lift up as a spear," on the ground of tlie idioms in'm nn TTiy, 2 Sam. xxiii. 18, 
 1 Chr. xi. 1 1, 20. C31;? Tny, Is. x. 26, since here no instrument is mentioned, but a person, and 
 ^^ly is not used of any one instrument, nor, by itself, signifies " wave." 
 
 -s Pusey's " Daniel the Prophet" pp/ 282, 283. -^ Zech. ix. 1-8. ^ lb. 9-16. 
 
 -'" 2 Clu-. xiv. 8—10 sqq. /'; ■ ^ lb. 11. 'm 1 Mace. iii. 16—19. 
 
 ^
 
 CIIAPTliR IX. 
 
 561 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 " Ps. 18. 14. 
 
 & 77. 17. 
 
 & 141. 6. 
 •- Isai. 21. 1. 
 
 I Or, subdue 
 the sfonea of 
 the sling. 
 
 14 And the Lord shall be seen over 
 them, and " his arrow shall ij^o forth as the 
 lii»"htnin<>- : and the Jjord Gon shall blow 
 the trumpet, and shall go ''with whiidwinds 
 of the south. 
 
 15 The Ijord of hosts shall defend them ; 
 and they shall devour, and || subdue with 
 
 and with Heaven it is all one to deliver with a jjreat mul- 
 titude or a small company. For the victory of battle stand- 
 eth not in the multitude of an host ; but stroiiijth conieth 
 from Heaven." But his armies were but a handful ; HOOO, 
 on three occasions^, on one of which they are reduced by 
 fear to 800-; 10,000 on two occasions^; on another, two 
 armies of 8000 and 3000, with a g'arrison, not trusted to 
 fight in the open field * ; on one, 20,000 ° ; once only 40,000, 
 which Tryphon treacherously persuaded Jonathan to dis- 
 perse ^ ; these were the numbers with which, always against 
 " great hosts," God gave the victory to the lion-hearted 
 Judas and his brothers. But Who save He, in Whose hands 
 are the hearts of men, could foresee that He, at that criti- 
 cal moment, would raise up that devoted family, or inspire 
 that faith, through which they ''out of iveakness were Jtiade 
 strong, ivaxed valiant in Jight, turned to flight the armies of 
 the alie7is f 
 
 14. And the Lord shall he seen over them^, "®He will 
 reveal Himself," protecting them. " ^'^ He says plainly, that 
 the Lord God will be with them and will fight in serried 
 array with them and will with them subdue those who re- 
 sist them." It is as if he would say, " When they go forth 
 and preach every where, ^^ the Lord shall work ivith them and 
 confirm the tuord with sig)is following." And His arrow shall 
 go forth as the lightning. Habakkuk directly calls the 
 lightnings the arrows of God^-; at the light of Thine arrows 
 they went. Here it is probably of an invisible agency, and 
 so compared to that aweful symbol of His presence, the 
 lightning. 
 
 And the Lord God shall blow with the trumpet, as their 
 Commander, ordering their goings. The blowing of the 
 trumpet by the priests in war was commanded, as a remi- 
 niscence of themselves before God, ^^ If ye go to war in your 
 land against the enemy that oppresseth yon, then ye shall blow 
 an alarm luith the trumpets, and ye shall be remembei'ed before 
 the Lord your God, and ye shall he saved from your enemies. 
 Abijah said, ^* God Himself is with us for our captain, and His 
 priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. 
 
 And shall go with whirlwinds of the south, as being the 
 most vehement and destructive. So Isaiah, ^'As ivhirlwinds 
 in the south sweep by. He cometh from a desert, from a terrible 
 land. Such smote the four corners of the house where Job's 
 children were ^^, and they perished. 
 
 15. The Lord of hosts shall defend them. As God says^^, 
 J will defend this city to save it, for Mine own sake and for 
 My servant David's sake. The word is used by Isaiah only 
 before Zecliariah, and of the protection of Almighty God. 
 
 > 1 Mace. iv. 6, vii. 40. ix. 5. - lb. ix. 6. ^ lb. iv. 29, x. "4. 
 
 4 lb. V. 17—20. s lb. xvi. 4. 
 
 8 lb. xii. 41 — 17. See more in detail in " Daniel the Propliet " p. 371. note 5. 
 7 Heb. xi. 34. * 'jy as with tlie word nj, HDD, i^D, .Tjy. 
 
 9 Jon. >" S. Cyr. " S. Mark xvi. 20. 
 
 '2 Hab. iii. U. The arrows of God, and the lightnings, stand in parallel or connected 
 clauses, Ps. xviii. 14, Lxxvii. 17, IS. cxliv. 0. 
 
 '3 Nu. X. 9. '■• 2 Clir. xiH. 12. " js. ^xi. I. 
 
 sling stones; and they shall drink, and (;,"j*pjjT 
 make a noise as through wine ; and they — ™::i:'vl_ 
 II shall be filled like bowls, and as ''the 'jmllthihe 
 eorners or the altar. c Lev. i. is, 25. 
 
 IG And the JjOrd their (iod shall save 
 them in that day as the flock of his peo- 
 ple: for '^ titrif .fliall be as the stones of a jui. 3.17. 
 
 The image of the complete protection on all sides stands 
 first in (lod's words to Abraham"', / am thy shield; David 
 thence says to God, ''■* Thou, () Lord, art a shield around 
 me. 
 
 And they shall ilevour, and subdue, or more prr)lKib]y^, 
 shall tread on, the stones of the sling, as in the image of 
 leviathan in Job, -' The son of the bow will not make him flee; 
 sling-stones are to him turned into stubble ; clubs are counted 
 as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear. Their 
 enemies shall fall under them, as harndess and as of little 
 account as the sling-stones which liav(! missed their aim, and 
 lie as the road to be passed over. It is not expressed what 
 they shall devour, and so the image is not carried out, but 
 left indefinite, as destruction or absorption only; as in that, 
 "thou shall consume [lit. ea<] all the people tchich the Lord 
 thy God shall deliver thee ; and, -^ they are our bread ; and in 
 that, -^ they shall devour [lit. e«/] all the people round about, 
 where the image is of fire, not of eating. The one thought 
 seems to be, that their enemies should cease to be, so as 
 to molest them any more, whether by ceasing to be their 
 enemies or by ceasing to be. There is no comparison here, 
 (as in Balaam) with the lion ; or of eating flesh or drinking 
 blood, which, apart from the image of the wild beast, would 
 be intolerable to Israel, to whom the use of blood, even of 
 animals, was so strictly forbidden. They should disappear, 
 as completely as fuel before the fire, or food before the 
 hungry. The fire was invigorated, not extinguished, by the 
 multitude of the fuel: the multitude of the enemies but uer\'ed 
 and braced those, whom they sought to destroy. 
 
 And tltei/ shall be filled like bowls, like the corners of the 
 altar. They shall be consecrated instruments of God ; they 
 shall not prevail for themselves, but for Him ; they shall be 
 hallowed like the bowls of the temple, from which the sacri- 
 ficial blood is sprinkled on His altar, or as the corners of the 
 altar which receive it. 
 
 16. And the Lord their God shall save them in that day. 
 Still all should be God's doing ; they themselves were but as 
 a flock, as sheep among wolves, ready for the slaughter ; but 
 they were the flock. His people-', as He says, -^ I will increase 
 them like the flock, men, as the flock of holy things, as the flock 
 of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts ; so shall the waste cities be 
 filled with flocks, men. "-'As a man saves his flock with all 
 his strength, so He will save His people; for they are His 
 flock." As in, -^ Thou leddest Thy people like sheep by the 
 hand of Moses and Aaron. 
 
 They shall be as the stones of a crown. While God's 
 enemies shall be trampled under foot, as a common thing 
 
 " Job i. 19. In Job xxxvii. 9, E.V. has followed Kim. who explains Tinn p by jCTi Tin 
 Job ix. 9 ; but in tliis case the chief characteristic word would he omitted. 
 
 1' Is. xxxvii. 35, 2 Kgs xix. 34, Is. xxxviii. C, 2 Kgs xx. 6. It occurs again Zech. xii. 8. 
 "* Gen. XV. 1, jJO from the same root. "* Ps. iii. 4. (3 Eng.) 
 
 ^ As in margin. "' =1 Job .\li. 20, 21 (28, 29 Eng.) - Deut. vU. 16. 
 
 ■^ Nu. xiv. 9. -* Zech. xii. 6. 
 
 -5 icy jks? in apposition, as in Ezek. DiK jfOfj. 
 -'" Kim. 
 
 :« Ezek. xxx\-i. 37, 38. 
 ** Ps. bLxvii. 20.
 
 5G2 
 
 ZECIIAIUAII. 
 
 h^hTst *'^'**"'"' "lifted up as an ensign upon his 
 
 """■ -^^'^ land. 
 
 « Isai. 11. 12. 
 ' Ps. 31. 19. 
 
 17 For ^liow i^reat is his goodness, and 
 
 how great is his heuuty ! s corn shall make ^ ifaTs t 
 
 which has failed its end, tliese sli.ill be precious stones ; a 
 consecrated ^ diadem of king- or priest, riiiscd aloft ^, so that 
 all can see. On His /mid. It was laid down, as the title-deed 
 to its whole tenure, ■U/ie land i.s Mine, and much more our 
 Christian land, bought and purified by the blood of Christ. 
 
 17. J'^or how i^reut is His goodness. For it is unutter- 
 able! As the Psalmist said, 'O Lord, our Lord, Itow excellent 
 is Thy Name in all the earth .' and Jacob, ^ How aweful is 
 this place! and the I'salmist, How aweful are Thij doings 1 
 The goodness and the beauty are the goodness and beauty of 
 God, Whose great doings had been his theme throughout 
 before. Of the goodness the sacred writers often speak *, 
 since of this we have extremest need. And this He shewed 
 to Moses, ^ I 7uill cause all Mif goodness to pass before thy 
 face. Of this we know somewhat personally in this life; for 
 besides the surpassing amazingness of it in the work of our 
 redemption, we are surrounded by it, immersed in it, as in 
 a fathomless, shoreless ocean of infinite love, which finds 
 entrance into our souls, whenever we bar it not out. 
 
 Goodness is that attribute of God, whereby He loveth to 
 communicate to all, who can or will receive it, all good; yea. 
 Himself, " ^ Who is the fulness and universality of good. 
 Creator of all good, not in one way, not in one kind of good- 
 ness only, but absolutely, without beginning, without limit, 
 without measure, save that whereby without measurement He 
 possesseth and cmbraceth all excellence, all perfection, all 
 blessedness, all good." This (iood His Goodness bestoweth 
 on all and each, according to the capacity of each to receive 
 it, nor is there any limit to His giving, save His creature's 
 capacity of receiving, which also is a good gift from Him. 
 "From Him all things sweet derive their sweetness; all things 
 fair, their beauty; all things bright, their splendour; all things 
 that live, their life ; all things sentient, their sense ; all that 
 move, their vigour; all intelligences, their knowledge; all 
 things perfect, their j)erfection ; all things in any wise good, 
 their goodness." 
 
 The heauti/ of God belongs rather to the beatific vision. 
 Yet Da\ad speaks of the Beauty of Christ^, Thmi art exceed- 
 ing fairer than the children of men ; and Isaiah says, ^^Thine 
 eyes shall hehold the King in His beauty. But the Beauty of 
 God " eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor can heart of man 
 conceive." Here, on earth, created beauty can, at least when 
 suddenly seen, hold the frame motionless, jtierce the soul, 
 glue the heart to it, entrance the atiections. Light from 
 heaven kindles into beauty our dullest material substances; 
 the soul in grace diffuses beauty over the dullest human 
 countenance; the soul, ere it has passed from the body, has 
 been known to catch, through the half-opened portals, such 
 brilliancy of light, that the eye even for some time after death 
 has retained a brightness, beyond anything of earth ^^ "^-The 
 earth's form of beauty is a sort of voice of the dumb earth. 
 Doth not, on considering the beauty of this universe, its very 
 
 ' The etymolojiy implies this, properly "consecration," then the diadem of one conse- 
 crated, as tlie triprnii Ex. xxLx. (J, xxxix. 30. Lev. viii. 9. or the llj of the king. 
 - Comp. Ar. xs " lifted on high," s'w " throne exalted." 
 3 Lev. XXV. 23. 
 " Ps. viii. 1. s Gen. xxviii. 17, 
 
 f' 3>t5 " the goodness " of the Lord, Ps. xxv. 7, xxvii. 13, xxxi. 2(1, rxlv. 7, Is. Ixiii. 7, 
 Jer. xAxi. 12, 14. Hos. iii. 5. '" yis ^y "31B '71 Tinx Ex. x-xxiii. ly. 
 
 the young men 
 the maids. 
 
 cheerful, and new wine 
 
 Or, grow, or, apeak. 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 » Joel 3. IST 
 Amos y. 14. 
 
 form answer thee with one voice, 'Not I made myself, but 
 God ' ? " Poets have said, 
 
 *' 1^ Old friends shall lovelier be. 
 
 As more of heaven in each we see," 
 or, 
 
 " "When he saw, 
 " — God within him light his face." 
 
 and Holy Scripture tells us that when S. Ste\iheu, full of faith 
 and of the Holy Ghost, was about to speak of Jesus to the 
 council whicii arraigned him, ^■' all that sat in the council, 
 looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as it had been Ike face 
 of an j4ngel. It has been said, that if we could see a soul in 
 grace, its beauty would so pierce us, that wt; should die. But 
 the natural beauty of the soul transcends all corporeal beautv 
 which so attrai'ts us ; the natural beauty of the last Angel 
 surpasseth all natural beauty of soul. If we could ascend 
 from the most beautiful form, which the soul could here 
 imagine, to the least glorious body of the beatified, on and on 
 through the countless thousands of glorious bodies, compare*! 
 wherewith heaven would be dark and the sun lose its shin- 
 ing; and yet more from the most beautiful deified soul, as 
 visible here, to the beauty of the disembodied soul, whose 
 image would scarce be recognized, because ""'the bodily eyes 
 gleamed with angelic radiancy;" yea, let the God-enlightened 
 soul go on and on, through all those choirs of the heavenly 
 hierarchies, clad with the raiment of Divinity, from choir to 
 choir, from hierarchy to hierarchy, admiring the order and 
 beauty and harmony of the house of God ; yea, let it, aided 
 by divine grace and light, ascend even higher, and reach the 
 bound and term of all created beauty, yet it must know that 
 the Divine power and wisdom could create other creatures, 
 far more perfect and beautiful than all which He hath hither- 
 to created. Nay, let the highest of all the Seraphs sum in 
 one all the beauty by nature and grace and glory of all crea- 
 tures, yet could it not be satisfied with that Ijcauty, but must, 
 because it was not satisfied with it, conceive some higher 
 beauty. Were God forthwith, at every moment to create 
 that higher beauty at its wish, it could still conceive some- 
 thing beyond; for, not being God, its beauty could not satisfy 
 its conception. So let him still, and in hundred thousand, 
 hundred thousand, thousand years with swiftest flight of un- 
 derstanding multiply continually those degrees of beauty, so 
 that each fresh degree should ever double that preceding, 
 and the Divine power should, with like swiftness, concur in 
 creating that beauty, as in the beginning He said, let there he 
 light, and there was light ; after all those millions of years, he 
 would be again at the beginning, and there would be no 
 comparison between it and the Divine Beauty of Jesus 
 Christ, God and Wan. For it is the bliss of the finite not to 
 reach the Infinite ''. That city of the blest which is lightened 
 by the glory of God, and the Lamb is the light thereof, sees 
 
 8 Blaise Palma in " Paradise of the Christian soul," P. 1. c. y\. n. 4. pp. 90, 91. 
 
 n Ps. xlv. 2. 1" Is.xxxiii. 17. " This 1 saw once. 
 
 '- S. Aug. in Ps. cxliv. n. 13. '^ Christian Year. Morning Hymn. 
 
 i< Tennyson, Inmemoriam. T. has " TAc God." '^ Acts vi. 5, 13. 
 
 '^ S. Flavian, of Successus a martyr, whom he saw after death. Passio SS. Montani, Lucii 
 
 &c. cxxxi. in Ruiuart. Acta martyr, sincera p. 241. 
 
 i< abridged frou\ Juamies a J'esu Maria, ars amandi Deum c. 3. 0pp. ii. 301—304.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 563 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 — """• '^'^' — 1 God is to ]>e Koiiir/it unto, and not idols. 5 ^s he 
 
 visited his jiovk for sin, so he will save and restore 
 
 them. 
 
 " Jer. 14. 23. 
 !• Deut. 11. 11. 
 <: Job 29. 23. 
 Joel 2. 23. 
 
 ASK ye "of the Jjord ''ruin 'in the 
 time of the latter rain ; .so tiie Loru 
 
 It, enabled by God, as created eye can see It, and is held fast 
 to God in one jubilant cxstacy of everlasting' love. 
 
 "'The Propiiet, borne out of himself i)y consideration of 
 the Divine tfoodness, stands amazed, wbile be contemplates 
 the beauty and Deity oF Cbrist: he bursts out with unwonted 
 admiration ! How jri-^at is His g;oodness, WMio, to i;iiard His 
 flock, shall come down on earth to lay down His life for the 
 salvation of His sheep ! How great His beauty. Who is the \ 
 brightness of the glorif and the Image of the Father, and com- | 
 prises in His Godhead the measure of all order and beauty ! 
 With what firm mii^'ht does He strengthen, with what joy 
 does He overwhelm the souls which gaze most frequently on 
 His beauty, and gives largely and bountifully that corn, by 
 whose strength the youths arc made strong. He supplieth 
 abundantly the wine, whereby the virgins, on fire with His 
 love, are exhilarated and beautified. But both are necessary, 
 that the strength of the strong should be upheld by the bread 
 from heaven, and that sound and uncorrupt minds, melted 
 with the sweetness of love, should be re-created with wine, 
 i.e. the sweetness of the Holy Spirit, and be borne aloft with 
 great joy, in the midst of extreme toils. For all who keep 
 liolily the faith of Cbrist, may be called j/onths, for their iin- 
 conquered strength, and virgins for their ])urity and integrity 
 of soul. For all these that heavenly bread is prepared, that 
 their strength be not weakened, and the wine is inpoured, 
 that they be not only refreshed, but may live in utmost 
 sweetness." 
 
 X. 1. ^sk ye of the Lord rain. Ask and ye shall receive, 
 our Lord says. Zechariab had promised in God's name 
 blessings temporal and spiritual : all was ready on God's 
 part; only, he adds, ask them of the Lord, the Unchangeable, 
 the Selfsame, not of Teraphim or of diviner, as Israel had 
 done aforetime -. He had promised, ^ If ye shall hearken 
 diligently unto My commandments, to love the Lord your 
 God, I will give yon the rain of your land in his due season, 
 the first rain and the latter rain, and I trill send grass in thy 
 field for thy cattle. God bids them ask Him to fulfil His pro- 
 mise. The latter rain * alone is mentioned, as completing 
 what God had begun by the former rain, filling the ears be- 
 fore the harvest. Both ^ had been used as symbols of God's 
 spiritual gifts, and so the words fit in with the close of the 
 last chapter, both as to things temporal and eternal. '" He 
 exhorts all frequently to ask for the dew of the divine grace, 
 that what had sprung up in the heart from the seed of the 
 word of God, might attain to full ripeness." 
 
 The Lord maketh bright clouds, [rather] lightnings^, into 
 rain, as Jeremiah says, '^ He causeth the vapours to ascend frotn 
 the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings into rain; and the 
 
 ' Osorius. 
 
 3 Deut, xi. 13-15. 
 
 2 Hos. ii. 5-13, Jer. xliy. 15-28. 
 ■• It is mentioned alone in Pr. xvi. 15, 
 5 See above on Hos. vi. 3, p. 39; Jo. ii. 23. pp. 125, 120. 
 " O'nn, Its etymology is luiknown, its meaning is determined by the idiom niVlp Tin 
 Job xxviii. 26, xxxviii. 25. The Arab. 113 only signifies " made incisions, notches, cut the 
 iieart," (of misgivings of conscience.) 
 
 ' Jer. X. 1.3, Ii. 16. ' Ps. cxxxv. 7. 
 
 ' As the words are transposed in Jobxxxvii.6, iivnnaDDB':! ia3C!:':i. cpi occurs, defined 
 by 'rru 1 Kgs xviii. 45 ; by IBIW Ezek. xiii. 11, 13, xxxviii. 22 ; by niaij Ps. biviii. 10, 
 DS'jn pm 1 Kgs xviii. 41. "The clouds are full of DW," Eccl. xi. 3. The waters of the 
 
 shall make ||l)ria,ht clouds, and jjjive them cifiiTsT 
 
 showers of rain, to every one i;rass in — ™^J^ 
 
 the field. Ughimnffs. 
 
 Jer. 10. 13. 
 
 2 For the '' f idols have spoken vanity, and '' J<;r. lo. 8. 
 the diviners have seen a lie, aixl liave told t Heb. 
 
 .•II ,. . . , li'm/iliims, 
 
 lalse dreams ; they " eomiort m vain : there- Judg. 17. 5. 
 
 •' 'Job 13. 4. 
 
 Psalmist, ^ He maketh lightnings into rain, disappearing as it 
 were into the rain which folioMs on them. And gireth them. 
 While man is asking, God is answering. Shoirers of rain'', 
 "rain in torrents," as we should say, or "in floods," or, in- 
 verted, " floods of rain." To every one grass, rather, the green 
 herb, in the field, as the Psalmist says, '" //e causeth the grass 
 to grow for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men. 
 This He did with individual care, as eatdi had need, or as 
 should be best for each, as contrariwise He says in Amos, "/ 
 caused it to rain ujion one city, and caused it not to rain upmi 
 another city ; one piece teas rained u/ton, and the piece, whereon 
 it rained not, withered. The Rabbins observed these excep- 
 tions to (liod's general law, whereby He ^-sendeth rain on 
 the Just and on the unjust, though expressing it in their way 
 hypcrbolically ; ""In" the time when Israel docth tlie will of 
 God, He doeth their will; so that if one man alone, and not 
 the others, wants rain. He will give rain to that one man ; 
 and if a man wants one herb alone in his field or garden, and 
 not another, He will give rain to that one herb; as one of the 
 saints used to say. This plot of ground wants rain, and that 
 plot of ground wants not rain 'V Spiritually the rain is 
 divine doctrine bedewing the mind and making it fruitful, as 
 the rain doth the earth. So Moses saitb, ^'^ My doctrine shall 
 drop as tlie rain, my speech shall distil as the tlew, as the small 
 rain up<ni the tender herb and as the showers upon the grass. 
 "'*The law of Moses and the prophets were the former rain." 
 
 2. For the teraphim have spoken vaniti/, rather, spake 
 vanity. He appeals to their former experience. Their fathers 
 had sought of idols, not of God; therefore they went into cap- 
 tivity. The teraphim were used as instruments of divination. 
 They are united with the ephod, as forbidden, over against the 
 allowed, means of enquiry as to the future, in Hosea, ^'' with- 
 out an ephod and without teraphim ; they were united in the 
 mingled worship of Micah '" ; Josiah put them away together 
 with ^'*the workers tuith familiar spirits and the wizards, to 
 which are added, the idols. It was proliably, a superstition 
 of Eastern origin. Rachel brought them with her from her 
 father's house, and Nebuchadnezzar used them for divina- 
 tion ''-'. Samuel speaks of them, apparently, as things which 
 Saul himself condemned. -'' Rebellion is as the si}i of divina- 
 tion, and stubbornness as iniquity or idolatry, and teraphim. 
 For it was probably in those his better days, that -' Saul had 
 put aicay those that had familiar spirits and rcizards out of the 
 land. Samuel then seems to tell him, that the sins to which 
 he clave were as evil as those which he had, in an outward 
 zeal, like Jehu, condemned. Any how, the teraphim. stand 
 united with the divination which was expressly condemned by 
 the law --. The use of the teraphim by Rachel-^ and Michal-* 
 
 flood are called icin Gen. vii. 12, \Tii. 2. Kim. compares the two iivnonjTTies, ■sj) reriK 
 (Dan. xii. 2) ivn ets Ps. xl. 3. '» Ps. civ. 14. See also Gen. 'i. 30, iii. IS. 
 
 " Am. iv. 7. See note p. 188. 12 S. Matt. v. 49. 
 
 13 Taanith f. ix. 2 in Kim. Mc. Caul pp. Ill, 112. 
 
 " S. Cyril. 15 Deut. xxxii. 2. 
 
 1^ Hos. iii. 4. Every fresh attempt to find an etymology for cann attests the unsatisfac- 
 toriness of those before it. without finding anything better. 
 
 1? Jud. xvii. 5, xviii. 14, 17, 18, 20. " IS 2 Kgs xxiii. 34. 
 
 19 Ezek. xxi. 21. =« 1 Sam. xv. 23. ^i lb. xxviii. 3. 
 
 " De. xviii. 13, 14. 23 Qen. xxxi. 19, 34. 35. ■* 1 Sam. xix. 13, 16.
 
 5G4 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. IS/. 
 
 II Or. 
 
 answered 
 
 that, Sfc. 
 ' lizek. .'n.S. 
 sEzek. 31. 17. 
 f Heb, visUfd 
 
 upon. 
 k Lukel.GS. 
 
 I Cant. 1. 9. 
 
 fore they went tlicrr way as a floek, they 
 II were troubled, ^ because there was no 
 shepherd. 
 
 3 JMine anger was kindled against the 
 shei)herds, ^ and I f punished the goats : 
 for the Lord of hosts ^ hath visited his flock 
 the house of Judah, and 'hath made them 
 as his goodly horse in the battle. 
 
 (for whatever purpose) implies that it was some less offensive 
 form of false worship, thousjh they were probably the strange 
 gods^ which Jacob bade his household to put away, or, any 
 how, amona; them, since Laban calls them, -mi/ goil.s: 
 
 Zechariah uses anew the words of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
 ^ Hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to 
 your dreamers, nor to your encltanters, nor to yorir sorcerers ; 
 and, * let not your pro/i/iets and your diviners, that be in the 
 midst of 1/ou, deceive you, neither hearken toyiuir dreams, which 
 ye cause to he dreamed; and Ezekid, ^ JT'hilc they see vanity 
 unto thee, while the;) divine a lie unto thee. The words not 
 only joined on the Prophet's warninaj witli the past, but re- 
 minded them of the sentence which followed on their nejylect. 
 The echo of the words of the former pro])hets came to them, 
 floatinf^f, as it were, over the ruins of tiie former temple. 
 
 Therefore they went their way as a Jtock, which, havinj;^ 
 no shepherd, or only such as would mislead them, removed'', 
 but into captivity. Tlu-y ivere trouhled''. The trouble lasted 
 on, thouijh the captivity ended at the appointed time. Nehe- 
 miah speaks of the exactions of former fjovernors, '^ The former 
 governors which were before me, laid heavy ireights upon the 
 2)eople^, and took from them in bread and wine, after forty 
 shekels of silver ; also their servants used dominion over^'^ the 
 people ; and I did not so, because of the fear of (iod. 
 
 Because there was no shejihcrd. As Ezekiel said of those 
 times, ^^ IViey ivere scattered, because there is no shepherd ; and 
 they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were 
 scattered : My fiock was scattered ?ipon all the face of the 
 earth ; and none did search or seek after them. 
 
 3. 3Iiue auger was kindled against the shepherds. As 
 Ezekiel continued, '" Thus suith the Lord God; Behold /am 
 against the shepherds, and I will require My fiock at their 
 hand. 
 
 I punished the he-goats. The evil powerful are called the 
 he-goats of the earth^^ ; and in Ezekiel God says, ^* I will judge 
 between cattle and cattle, between rams and he-goats ; and our 
 Lord speaks of the reprobate as ^oats, the saved as slieep i°. 
 God visited upon^'' these in His displeasure, because He visited 
 His fiock, the people of Judah, to see to their needs and to 
 relieve them. 
 
 And hath made them as the goodly horse, as, before, He 
 said, ^'' I made thee as the sword of a inighty man. Judah's 
 migiitwas not in himself; but, in God's hands, he had might 
 
 ' Gen. XXXV. 2, 4. - lb. xxxi. 30, 32. 
 
 •'< Jer. xxvii. 9. i Ib.xxix. 8. 5 Ezek. xxi. 29; add xxii. 28. 
 
 *• The etyni. meaning of VD3, '* plucked up" pegs of tent, in order to removal, must have 
 been lost in the idiom. The captivity is spoken of as past, and the idolatry as before the 
 captivity, wliich was its punishment. 
 ' njj; occurs in this sense Ps. cxvi. 10, cxix. 67, of man ; with 3 of wearisome labour Eccl. 
 i. 13. iii. 10; of the Hon, Is. xxxi. 4; of thesong of the terrible, lb. xx\^ 5 [4 Eng.] all. 
 
 " Neb. V. 15. 9 TT3Dn with Sy p., like " made our, your, yoke heavy," 
 
 1 Kgs xii. 10, 14, 2 Chr. x. 10, 14. " thy yoke," Is. xlvii. 0. " my chain " Lam. iii. 7. or 
 B-siy Hab. ii. (i. 'o 'jyioV^ " Ezek. xxxiv. 5, 6. 
 
 '-■ lb. 10. " Is. xiv. n. n Ezek. xxxiv. 17. '' S. Matt. xxv. .32. 
 
 )6 Vy ipD, as commonly, of diastisement; ips, like eVeo-Kt'i^aro, of visiting to shew favour. 
 " ix. 13. '» 2 Cor. x. 4. 
 
 corner, cfliTsT 
 
 ci r. 4W7. 
 k Num. 'ii. 17 
 
 4 Out of him came forth ^ tin 
 out of him ' tlic nail, out of him the battle 
 
 ow, out oi him every oppressor together. isam.i4.38. 
 
 5 ^[ And they shall be as mighty men, i i5aL22.2;j.' 
 which '" tread (h)wn titcir enemies in the mire "''*• ^**'*"" 
 of the streets in the batth; : and they shall n or, ihey 
 fight, because the Lord Is with them, and ""'"'""'" 
 II the riders on horses shall be confounded. 
 
 the riders 
 <m horses 
 ashamed. 
 
 like and above the might of this world ; he was fearless, re- 
 sistless ; as S. Paul says, ^'^ the weapons of our warfare are not 
 carnal, but mighty through God to the pulli/ig down of strong- 
 holds. 
 
 4. Out of him " ca7ne forth, or rather, From him is the 
 corner, as Jeremiah -", Their nobles shall be from themselves, 
 and their governor shall go forth from the midst of them. Her 
 streiifTth, thoujjh given by God, was to be inherent in her, 
 though from her too was to come He ^V^lO was to be the 
 head-corner-stone , the sure Foundation and Crowner of the 
 whole building. 
 
 From thee the nail, an emblem of fixedness in itself, 
 (as Isaiah says, "^ I ivi II fasten him a nail to a sure place) and 
 of security given to others dependent on Him, as Isaiah says 
 further, "And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his 
 father's house, the o/f spring and tlie issue, from the vessels of 
 cups to the vessels of fiagons ; all, of much or little account, 
 the least and the greatest. "-^Christ is the corner-stone; 
 Christ is the nail fixed in the wall, whereby all vessels are 
 supported. The word of Christ is the bow, whence the 
 arrows rend the king's enemies." 
 
 From it every exactor shall go forth together. God had 
 promised-* that no oppressor, or e.vaetor-'', shall pass through 
 them any more. He seems to repeat it here. From thee shall 
 go forth every oppressor together ; go forth, not to return: as 
 Isaiah had said, "^ Thy children shall make haste to return ; 
 thy destroyers and they that made thee tvaste shall go forth of 
 thee. " From it, its corner-stone ; from it, the sure nail ; from 
 it, the battle bow •,from it," — he no longer unites closely with 
 it, that which should be from it, or of it, but — frcjm it shall go 
 forth every oppressor together ; one and all, as we say ; a con- 
 fused pele-mele body, as Isaiah, -''all that are found of thee are 
 bound together ; "** together shall they all perish ; or, in sepa- 
 rate clauses -', they are all of them put to shame ; together 
 they shall go into confusion. 
 
 5. And they [the house of Judah'", of whom he had said. 
 He hath tnade them as the goodly horse in the battle] shall be as 
 mighty men, trampling on the mire of the streets. Micah had 
 said, ^^ she shall be a trampling, as the mire of the streets, and 
 David, ^- 1 did stamp them as the mire of the street. Zechariah, 
 by a yet bolder image, pictures those trampled upon, as 
 what they had become, the mire of the streets, as worthless, as 
 foul ; as he had said, '' they shall trample on the sling-stones. 
 
 " The word US' does not suit TOS or in' imless (which is not probable as to Tn') the 
 metaphor was lost. ■" Jer. xxx. 21. ^i Is. xxii. 23. 
 
 -■-■ lb. 24. _ -^ Osor. _ . . "^ ?^'^*^- '"^- ^■ 
 
 -^ Is. .xiv. 2. b'3j is no where used of a ruler or king, as in j^thiopic. The idea of "oppres- 
 sors" remains in Is. iii. 12, (comp. by lb. iii. 5) xiv. 2. add Is. Lx. 17, where the contrast 
 is of change of the inferior for the better ; for brans I will bring gold &c. It is smnmed up 
 and it ends in, / will make their exactors righteousness, [all alleged] 
 '-'> Is. xlix. 17. INS' ■iiso, as here NS- iTa 
 -7 With the same idiom, nn' Sd ; rm nsN -i'xj?: S? Is. xxii. 3. 
 2** Is. xxxi. 3, p'S^' dSd nn". ■'> lb. xiv. 16, noSD3 idS.t nn- c'?D cS^j Dii. 
 
 3" Tliey are the main subject in v. 3. The words in v. 4. could not be the subject : for 
 neither comer-stone, nor nail, nor bow, can be said to be like mighty men itc. 
 31 Mic. vii. 10. 32 2 Sam. .x-xii. 43. '^ ix. 15.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 5G5 
 
 ch^rTst ^ ^"*^ ' "''^' .strcnirfhen tlio liouso of 
 — ?}lij^ — Judali, and I will save tlio liovisc ofjost-pli, 
 
 ° Ezek^'37^'2i ^"*' " ^ *^'" '"■'"?? tliem a<>aiii to place them; 
 
 ° ^^"''- '■■ ''• for I "have im^rey upon them : and they shall 
 
 be as thouf^h [ had not cast them off: for 1 
 
 pch. 13.9. am the fj(»iii) their (Jod,and I'uill iiear tliem, 
 
 7 And t/ici/ of Ephraim shall l)e like a 
 
 yiiid the]/ x/iall fig/if, hennise the Lord is with f/icni, not in 
 their own streni;tli, lie still reminds tlieni ; tliey sliall have 
 power, l)e(vause (lod empowers tliem ; strentftli, because (iod 
 insti'eiistiiens them'; in presence of which, the j^oodly war- 
 horse of God, human strcnjjth, (he riders on horses, shall he 
 ashamed. 
 
 i\/- 6. / tvill bring them (igiiin to place them. Zcchariah 
 seems to have condensed into one word two - of Jeremiah, 
 ^ / will bring them again unto this place, and / will cause 
 them to dwell safely. "^Tlie two ideas are here both implied, 
 he will cause them to return to their land, and will cause 
 them to dwell there in peace and security." 
 
 For I will have mcrci/ npon them. " ^ For the jj'oodness 
 and lovin£,kindness of God, not any merits of our's, is the iirst 
 and principal cause of our wlnde salvation aiul ^raee. Tliere- 
 fore the Psalmist says, ^neither did their own arm sare them; 
 but Thij right hand and. Thine arm, and the light of Thy 
 countenance, because Thou hadst a favour unto them. 
 
 And they shall he, as though I had not cast them off'. 
 (etymoloijicaUy, "loathed," "cast off as a thing; abhorrent''".) 
 God is ever " the God of the present." He does not half- 
 forgive. * Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no 
 more. God casts off the sinner, as being what he is, a thing 
 abhorrent, as penitence confesses of itself that it is "'a dead 
 dog, a loathsome worm, a putrid corpse." God will not clothe 
 with a righteousness, which He does not impart. He restores 
 to the penitent all his lost graces, as though he had never 
 forfeited them, and cumulates them with the fresh grace 
 whereby He converts liim '". It is an entire re-creation. 
 They shall be, as though I had not cast them off. '' / will 
 settle you as in your old estates, and tvill do good, more thaii 
 at your beginnings, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 
 
 For I am. the Lord their God, and tvill hear them, as He 
 says by Malachii-, / am the Lord; I change not. His un- 
 changeableness belongs to His Being; I Am; therefore ye sons 
 of Jacob are not consumed ; and by Hosea, '•' The I^ord of 
 hosts, The Lord is His memorial, therefore turn thou to thy 
 God. Because God was their God, and as surely as He was 
 their God, He would hear them. His Being was the pledge 
 of His hearing. '*/, the Lord, tvill hear them ; I, the God of 
 Israel, will not forsake them. 
 
 7. And Ephraim, they shall be like a mighty vain. Pro- 
 phecy, through the rest of the chapter, turns to Ephraim, 
 which had not yet been restored. With regard to them, 
 human victory retires out of sight, though doubtless, when 
 their wide prison was broken at the destruction of the Persian 
 empire, many were free to return to their native country, as 
 others spread over the West in Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, 
 and so some may have taken part in the victories of the 
 
 1 eV Ty ^v^vva^ovvrl fif xP^f^'^V- P^il- iv. 13. 
 
 - D'o'nB'i.i from D'i?3k',i, andD'rn'B'j 
 
 3 Jer. xxxii. 37. ■* Kim. It is not a confusioi'i of foniis, but the blending 
 
 of two words into one. So also Ibn E. ^ Dion. <' Ps. xliv. 3. 
 
 'nil. Arab used of "rancid" oil. Observe in'imn Is. xix. 6. " Heb. viii. 12. 
 
 ' Bp. Andrewes' devotions. Mom. Pr, •" See ab. on Joel ii. 25 pp. 120, 127. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 mii;;hty tnan, and their i heart shall rejoice c inns' 
 as throuii^h wine : yea, their children shall "■•• '•''" 
 
 S(!e tt, and be glad ; then* heart shall rejoice ch. 9.15. 
 in the Lokd. 
 
 H I will ■■ hiss for them, and feather them ; ' i»ai.5.2G. 
 lor I hav(; redeemed them : "and they sh"ll " E^ik^^jJl'a;. 
 increase as they have increased. 
 
 Maccabees. Yet not victory, but strength, gladness beyond 
 iiiitural gladness, as through wine, whereby the mind is ex- 
 liilariile<l above itself; and that, lasting, trariMnitteil to their 
 children, large increase, holy life in God, arc the outlines of 
 the promise. 
 
 Their heart shall rejoice in the Lord, " -^ as the principal 
 object, the first, highest, most worthy (Jiver of all good, to 
 Whom is to be referred all gladness, wiiich is conceived from 
 created goods, that ^'' whoso glorleth may gl/n-y in the Lord, hi 
 Whom Alone the rational creature ought to take delight." 
 
 8. J tvill hiss for them. Formerly (iod had so spoken of 
 His summoning the enemies of His people to chastise them. 
 ^'' It shall be in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the Jly, 
 that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Fgi/pt, and for 
 the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and thei/ shall come, and 
 shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of 
 the rocks, and upon all thorns and upon all bushes. '^ He will 
 hiss unto them from the ends of the earth, and behold they shall 
 come tvith speed stviftly ; none shall be iveury or stumble among 
 them. He would gather them, like the countless numbers of 
 the insect creation, which, if united, would irresistibly de- 
 solate life. He would summon them, as the bee-owuer, by 
 his shrill call, summons and unites his own swarm. Now, 
 contrariwise God would summon with the same His own 
 people. The fulfilment of the chastisement was the earnest 
 of the case of the fulfilment of the mercy. 
 
 For I have redeemed them. Then they are His, being 
 redeemed at so dear a price. " ■■ For Christ, as far as in Him 
 lay, redeemed all." God had done this in purpose, as S.John 
 speaks of ^^^ the Lamb slain from the foundatimi of the tvorld. 
 
 And they shall increase as they increased. " '' As they 
 increased in Egypt, so shall they increase at that time." 
 The marvels of God's favour in Egypt shall be repeated. 
 The increase there had been promised beforehand. ■" Fear 
 not to go down into Egi/])t ; for I will there make of thee 
 a great natiim. The fulfilment is recorded, -' the children of 
 Israel ivere fruitful, and increased abundantly, (Did mtiltipAied, 
 and waxed exceeding mighty ; and the land teas filled tvith them. 
 God appointed that this should be part of their confession at 
 their yearly prosperity, tlie oft'ering of the basket of first- 
 fruits ; "A Syrian ready to perish was yny father, and he went 
 info Egypt and sojourntd there with a few, and became there 
 a nation, great, mighty, anil populous. The Psalmist dwelt 
 upon it. -'^ He increased His people greatly, and made them 
 stronger than their enemies. It became then one of the re- 
 semblances between the first deliverance and the last. " '" For 
 the Apostles and others converted from Judaism, had more 
 spiritual children, all those wluun they begat la Christ, than 
 the synagogue ever had after tiie flesh." 
 
 13 Hos. xii. 5, G. [0, 7 Heb.] 
 
 i> Ezek. xxxvi. 11. 
 See ab. pp. 77. 78. 
 
 15 2 Cor. X. 1 
 
 1-' Mai. iii. 6. 
 
 » Is. xU. 17. 
 
 i« Is. vii. 18, 19. 
 
 1? lb. V. 26, 27. The word is onlv used in tliis same sense in these three places. 
 
 I'* Rev. xiii. 8. ' ■'' Kim. 2u Qen. xln. 3. 
 
 -I Ex. i. 7. " De. xxvi. 5. -^ Ps. cv. 24. 
 
 Bl M M JI 
 
 ■)•-'. Ka'^wtm^ e-'''»-^«~ ^
 
 5G6 
 
 ZECIIAUIAH. 
 
 c hf rTs t ^ '^"'^ * * "'"^ ^^^^ ^'^*'™ amonj? the 
 
 '=''•■ ■^' - peojilo : and they sliall " remember me in 
 
 " Deutrso.'i, far eountries ; and they shall live with tlieir 
 
 ehiidren, and turn aijjain. 
 
 ' His"ii"ii"'' 10 ^ I will brint? them a<>jain also out of 
 
 the land of Egypt, and gather them out of 
 
 9. ^J/id I Ji'i/l soil' them mrioug the natiuns. Such had 
 been the prophecy of Ilosca; ' I will sow her luito Me in the 
 earth, as the prelude of spiritual mercies, and I will have 
 niern/ an her that had not obtained inernj, and I will say to 
 not -itiy -people. Thou art 3Iy people, and the)/ sliall say, my 
 God. Hosea's saying;, / u'ill sow her in the earth i. e. the 
 whole earth, and that to Me, corresponds to, and explains 
 Zechariali's brief saying, / %vill sow them among the nations. 
 The sowinji;, which was ftiture to Hosea, had befi;un ; but 
 the purpose of the sowiniii:, the harvest, was wliolly to come; 
 M'hen it shonld be seen, that tliey were indeed sown by God, 
 that great should he the day of Jezreel'. And Jeremiah said, 
 * Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the 
 house of Israel and the house of Judah, with the seed of man 
 and with the seed of Least. The word is used of sowing to 
 multiply, never of mere scattering*. 
 
 jlnd they shall remember 3Ie in far countries. So Ezekiel 
 had said, ^And they that escape of you shall remember Me 
 among the nations, whither they shall be carried captive — and 
 they shall loath themselves for the evils which they have co>n- 
 initted in all their abominations, and they shall know that I am 
 the Lord. 
 
 And shall live. As Ezekiel again says, ^ Ye shall /enow 
 that I am the Lord, ivhen I open your graves, and bring you 
 up out of your graves, O 3Iy people, and shall put My Spirit 
 in you, and ye shall live. fFifh their children. A continuous 
 gift, as Ezekiel, '' they and their children, and their children's 
 children for ever : and My servant David shall be their prince 
 for ever. 
 
 And shall turn again to God, being converted, as Jere- 
 miah had been bidden to exhort them ; * Go and proclaim 
 these tcords toward the North, the cities of the Medes whither 
 they were carried captive, and say. Return, thou backsliding 
 Israel, and / ivill not cause Mine anger to fall upon you; 
 ' Turn, O backsliding children — and I will take you, one of a 
 city, and tivo of a family, and will bring you to Zion, and I 
 will give you pastors according to Mine heart. ^^ Return, ye 
 backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings. And they 
 answer. Behold, we come unto Thee ; for Thou art the Lord 
 our God. So Isaiah had said, ^^A remnant shall return, the 
 remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. "'-They shall return 
 by recollection of mind and adunation and simplification of 
 the aifections towards God, so as ultimately to intend that 
 one thing, which alone is necessary." 
 
 1 Hos. ii. ult. See ah. pp. 22, 23. - II). i. 11. See ab. p. 12. ' Jer. xxxi. 27. 
 
 ^ mi (Kal and Pi.), "dispersed," is contrariwise never to "sow." ' Ezek. vi. 9. 
 
 « lb. xxxvU. 13, 14. ? lb. 25. '- Jer. iii. 12. s lb. 11, 1.5. '» lb. 22. 
 
 " Is. X. 21. comp. n'27, " her converts," Is. i. 27. and 13'^1 in Solomon's prayer, 2 Chr. 
 vi. 24. '2 D'ion. " See ab. on Hos. vi'ii. 1.3, p. 51, ix. 3, p. 56. 
 
 » Hos. xi. 10, 11, Is. xi. 15, 16; add lb. xix. 23-25, xxvii. 1.3, hi. 4, Mic. vii. 12. See 
 ab.p. 350. '5 See on Hos. xi. 11. p. 74. '« 2 Kgs xxiii. 29, Lam. v. 6; and, 
 
 unless it refers to earlier liistory, Jer. ii. 18 ; also Judith i. 5, ii. 1, v. 1 &c. 
 
 >? Ezra vi. 22. _ _ is Nu. xxiv. 22-24. coll. Dan. xi. 30. 
 
 1^ Thus Herodotus, in the familiar passages, speaks of " Assyria, all but the Babylonian 
 portion." i. 106. "Those Assyrians, to whom Nineveh belongs." Ih. 102. "As.syria pos- 
 sesses a vast number of cities, whereof the stronfjest at this time was Babylon, whither after 
 the fall of Nineveh the seat of ijovemnient was removed." lb. 178. " many sovereigns have 
 ruled over this citv of Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adorn- 
 ment of its temples; of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history." lb. 184. 
 
 Assyria; and I will bring them into the eifuTsT 
 
 land of (iilead and Lel)anon ; and ^ place c'lJW. _ 
 
 shall not l)e i«»un(l lor them. 
 
 11 ''And he shall pass through the sea ' is.«- n- is, 
 with affliction, and shall smite the waves 
 in the sea, and all the deeps of the river 
 
 10. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt. 
 Individuals had fled to Egypt''; but here probably Egypt and 
 Assyria stand, as of old, for the two great conflicting empires, 
 between which Israel lay, at whose hands she had suffered, 
 and who represent the countries which lay beyond them. 
 Hosea unites, ""^ the West, Assyria, Egypt, the three then known 
 divisions of the world, Europe, Asia, Africa'". Asshur, after 
 Nineveh perished, stands clearly for the world-empire of the 
 East at Babylon'^, and then in Persia'^. Balaam includes 
 under Asshur, first Babylon, theji the third world-empire "*. 
 Babylon, which was first subject to Nineveh, then subjec^ted 
 it, was at a later period known to Greek writers (who pro- 
 bably had their information from Persian sources) as part of 
 Assyria", 
 
 And I will bring litem into the land of Gilead and Le- 
 banon, their old dwellings. East and West of Jordan. And 
 place shall not be found for them -", as Isaiah says, -' The 
 children of thy bereaved estate shall yet say in thine ears, The 
 place is too strait for me : give place, that I may direll. 
 
 11. And He, i.e. Almighty God, shall pass through the 
 sea, affliction ", as He says, -^ When thou tcaikest through the 
 ivaters, /will be ivith thee ; and through the rivers, they shall 
 not overftotv thee. And shall smite the waves in the sea, as in 
 Isaiah, -* The Lord shall utterly destroy the tojigue of the 
 Egyptian sea. The image is from the deliverance of Egypt : 
 yet it is said, that it should not be any exact repetition of 
 the miracles of Egypt; it would be as the Red Sea-^, which 
 would as effectually shut them in, and in presence of which 
 they might again think themselves lost, through which God 
 would again bring them. But it would not be the Red sea 
 itself; for the sea through which they should be brought, 
 would be affliction ; as our own poet speaks of ' taking arms 
 against a sea of troubles.' "-''The promise of succour to those 
 who believe in Christ is under the likeness of the things 
 given to those of old ; for as Israel was conveyed across the 
 Red sea, braving the waves in it; ^^/or the ivaters stood upright 
 as an heap, God bringing this to pass marvellously; and as 
 -^ they passed the Jordan on foot, so he says, those who are 
 called through Moses to the knowledge of Christ, and have 
 been saved by the ministries of the holy Apostles, they shall 
 pass the waves of this present life, like an angrily foaming 
 sea, and, being removed from the tumult of this life, shall, 
 undisturbed, worship the true God. And they shall pass 
 through temptations, like sweeping rivers, saying with great 
 
 "Babylon supplies food during four, the other regions of Asia during eight months [to the 
 great king] by which it appears that A,ss\Tia in respect of resources is J of the whole of 
 Asia." lb. 193. " Little rain falls in Assyria. The whole of Babylonia is, like Egypt, in- 
 tersected with canals. The largest is carried from the Euphrates into another stream called 
 the Tigris, upon which the city Nineveh foniierly stood." lb. 193. so Straho xiv. init., Arrian 
 Exp. Al. vii. 2. 6. Animiaii xxiii. 20. 
 
 -" cn*? ixm nS Jud. xxi. 11, is " they found not (enough) for themseh'es ;" thence here, 
 Nif. "there was not found for them." -i Is. xlix. 20. 
 
 " ms is in appos. to no. .Against the rendering of the LXX 4v daKacrarj ffrerp, 1) D*, as 
 the sea, no where occurs as fern. ; in 2 Kgs xW. 17- it is " the brazen sea " which is spoken 
 of; 2) the narrowness of the sea, if physical, would facilitate the crossing, not aggravate 
 it; 3) omitting the art., .Tiy D"D would be " in a sea of athiction." but would drop the re- 
 ference to the sea. or " the red sea," " sea " becommg a mere metaphor. 
 
 ■^ Is. xliii. 2. 24 lb. xi. 15. 2^ Ex. xiv. 10, 12. 
 
 26 S. Cyr. W Ex. XT. 8. -s Josh. iii. 17.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 507 
 
 shall dry up : and " tlio pride of Assyria 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 187. shall he hrouj^ht down, and '' the sceptre 
 
 • Isai. 14. 25. ,. ,^ i i 1 1 i ^ 
 
 •" Ezek. 30. 13. CI Jiif^ypt siiall depart away. 
 
 12 And I will streni;tlien 
 <^Mie.4.5. LoRo ; and '^ they siiall walk 
 in his name, saith the Lord. 
 
 them in the; 
 up and down 
 
 joy, in like way, ^Uii/ess the Lord had been for its, iiKty Israel 
 now sui/, the wafers had drowned as, the stream hail i^oiie over 
 Dur souls.''' He shall smite the wares hi the sea. 'I'licrc, where 
 the streiif>th of the powers of tliis world is put fortli aj^ainst 
 His people, there He will hrinji; it down. All the deeps of the 
 river, i. e. of the Nile ", shall be dried vp. Tlie Nile as a 
 mij^hty river is siihstituted for the Jordan, symbolising the 
 greater putting forth of (iod's power in tlie times to eome. 
 
 A)id the pride of Asshur shall be broai^ht down. "^When 
 the good receive their reward, then tlieir enemies shall have 
 no j)ower over them, but siiall be punished by Me, because 
 tiiey injured My elect. — By the Assyrians and Egyptians he 
 understands all their enemies." 
 
 12. I will strengthen them in the Lord, as our Lord said 
 to S. Paul, Ml/ strength is made perfect in weakness, and S. Paul 
 said in turn, JVhen I am weak, then am I strong. And in His 
 Name shall the// walk up and down, have tlieir whole con- 
 versation "*in Him according to His will, and diligent in all 
 things to speak and act in His grace and Divine hope." 
 "^Cliristians walk in the Name of Christ, and there is written 
 on the new white stone given to them a new name", and under 
 the dignity of a name so great, they walk with God, as "Enoch 
 walked and pleased God and was translated." 
 
 Sai/h the Lord. "*Again the Lord God speaks of the 
 Lord God, as of Another, hinting the plurality of Persons in 
 the Godhead." 
 
 XI. '^^All the tvai/s of the Lord are merry and truth, 
 saith the Psalmist ', and, '" / will sing to Thee of mem/ and 
 judgement. So is this prophecy divided. Above ^^, almost all 
 were promises of mercy, which are now fulfilled in deed; and 
 from this, ^-0/)en, O Lebanon, thij doors, all are terrible edicts 
 of truth and tokens of just judgement. How much sweetness 
 and softness and pleasantness is therein, Rejoice greatli/, 
 daughter of Zion : shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; what 
 bitterness and acerbity and calamity to those, to whom he 
 says, Ojien, O I^ebanon, tin/ doors, that the fire may devour 
 thy cedars ; howl, O fir tree ; howl, O ye oaks of Basan. As 
 then, before, we beheld His mercy in those who believed and 
 believe; so now let us contemplate His just judgement on 
 those who believed not." Gilead and Lebanon ^^ had been 
 named as the restored home of Ephraim ; but there remained 
 a dark side of the picture, which the jirophet suddenly pre- 
 sents, with the names of those self-same lands, ^* Open thy 
 doors, O Lebanon ; howl, O ye oaks of Basan." 
 
 ]. Open thy doors, O Lebanon. Lebanon, whose cedars 
 had stood, its glory, for centuries, yet could offer no re- 
 sistance to liini who felled them and were carried off to 
 adorn the palaces of its conquerors ^'% was in Isaiah ^^ and 
 
 ' Ps. cxxiv. 1 — 5. 
 
 - TIN', always the Nile, except Dan. xii. 5, where it is part of his revival of words of the 
 Pentateuch. ' So Geseniiis also. It has been conjectured tliat a canal now connecting the 
 Tigris and Euj)hrates, called Bnltr-t'l-Xif, may have had that name in tlie time of Daniel 
 and been the river in his vision (Stanley Jewish Church iii. 12). 1) The Bahr-rl-Xil is only 
 the modern Arabic name for the Nile. . 2) Had the canal been so called in Daniel's time 
 and had he meant it (wiiich is imlikely) lie would naturally have called it by its name, not 
 iiavc translated it into the old Egv]itiaii and Hebrew name. 
 
 ^ Rib. < Dion. ' » S. Jer. ^ Rev. ii. 17. ^ Gen. v. 24. 
 
 CHAPTER XL ciffrsT 
 
 1 The destruction of Jerusalem. The elect being cir. 487. 
 cared for, the rest are rejected. KJ The staves of 
 Beaut 1/ and Hands broken by the rejection of Christ, 
 l'> The ly/ie and curse of a foolish she/iherd. 
 
 OPJ'^N ^ tiiy doors, () J^eljanon, liiat the 
 tire niav devour thy cedars. 
 
 thy 
 
 •ch. 10. 10. 
 
 Jeremiah '^ the emblem of the glory of the Jewish state; and 
 in Iv/A'kiel, of Jerusalem, as tlic prophet hiiiisi'lf e.vplains it'"; 
 glorious, Ix'auteous, inaccessible, s() long as it was defended 
 by (iod; a ready prey, when aliainhjiied ijy Him. The •■entre 
 and soun-e of her strength was the worsliip <tf G'od ; and so 
 Lebanon has of old been understood to be the temple, which 
 was built with cedars of Lebanon, towering aloft upon a 
 strong summit; tlie s|iiritual glory and the eminence of Jeru- 
 salem, as Lelianon was of the whole country, and "''■'to 
 strangers who came to it, it appeared from afar like a moun- 
 tain full of snow; for, where it was not gilded, it was ex- 
 ceeding white, being built of marble." But at the time of 
 destruction, it was "" a den of tideves, as Lebanon, amidst its 
 beauty, was of wild beasts. 
 
 "8 1 suppose Lebanon itself, i.e. the temple, felt the com- 
 mand of the prophet's words, since, as its destruction ap- 
 proached, its doors opened without the hand of man. Joseph us 
 relates how "-'at the passover, the Eastern gate of the inner 
 temple, being of brass and very firm, and with difficulty shut 
 at eventide by twenty men ; moreover with bars strengthened 
 with iron, and having very deep bolts, which went down into 
 the threshold, itself of one stone, was seen at six o'clock at 
 night to open of its own accord. The guards of the tenijile 
 running told it tt> the officer, and he, going up, with difliculty 
 closed it. This the uninstructed thought a very favourable 
 sign, tliat God opened to them the gate of all goods. But 
 those taught in the Divine words, understood that the safety 
 of the temple was removed of itself, and that the gate opened." 
 A saying of this sort is still exstant. "--Our fathers have 
 handed down, forty years before the destruction of the house, 
 the lot of the Lord did not come up on the right hand, 
 and the tongue of splendour did not become white, nor did 
 the light from the evening burn, and the doors of the temple 
 opened of their own accord, until Rabban Johanan ben 
 Zaccai rebuked them, and said, 'O temple, why dost thou 
 affright thyself? I know of thee that thy end is to be de- 
 stroyed, and of this Zechariah ]>rophesied, Open thy doors, O 
 Lebanon, and let the fire devour thy cedars.' " The " forty 
 years" mentioned in this tradition carry back the event ex- 
 actly to the Death of Christ, the temple having been burned 
 A.D. 73 "^ Josepluis adds that they opened at the passover, 
 the season of His Crucifixion. On the other hand, the shut- 
 ting of the gates of the temple, when they had ~* seized Paul 
 and dragged him out of the temple, seems miraculous and 
 significant, that, having thus violently refused the preaching 
 of the Gospel, and cast Paul out, they themselves were also 
 shut out, denoting that an entrance was afterwards to be re- 
 fused them. 
 
 8 
 
 Rup. 
 
 9 Ps. XXV. 11. '" lb. ci. 1. " "viii. 19— x. end." 
 
 12 "allc. xi." '3 X. lU. " 3d. 1,2. 
 
 15 See ab. on Zepli. ii. 14. and note S. p. 4/2. '« Is. xiv. 8. xxx>-ii. 24. 
 
 l< Jer. xxii. 6, 7. " Ezek. xvu. 3, 12. " Joseph, de Bello J. n. 5, 6. 
 
 2" S. Matt. xxi. 13. -• de Bell. J. 0. o. 3 quoted by Rup. 
 
 -- Yoma f. 3!l b. quoted by Mart. Pug. fid. f. 297. Eu*ehius { Dem. Evang. Vii. 4; says 
 " He calls the temple Lebanon, as is his wont, since in other prophecies it has been shewu 
 that the temple itself is called Lebanon. This the Jews thems^-lves still confess." 
 23 Euseb.Chion. -^ Acts xxi. 30. 
 
 M M M M '^
 
 r>(;8 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 c HilTst 2 Howl, fir tree ; for tho cedar is fallen ; 
 
 "'''• t^"- because the || mij^^hty are spoiled : howl, O 
 
 saiiants. ve oaks of IJashan ; '' for || the forest of the 
 
 >■ Isai. 32. 19. . ^ , , 
 
 IIOr. w,e vintai!;e is come down. 
 slrTuf 3 ^f There is a voice of the howlinj^ of 
 
 the shepherds ; for their glory is spoiled : 
 
 ^iid let a fire devour thy cedars. JcrusalcTn, or the 
 temple, were, after tliosc times, burned by the Romans only. 
 The destruction of pride, o|>posed to Christ, was prophesied 
 by Isaiah in connection witii His Cominji;^ 
 
 '2. How/, () ri/prcxs, for the redar is fiiJivn. Jerusalem 
 or the temple having been likened to Lebanon and its cedars, 
 the prophet carries on the image, speaking of the priests 
 princes and people, under the title of firs cypresses and oaks, 
 trees inferior, but magnificent. He shen's that it is imagery, 
 by ascribing to them the feelings of men. The more glorious 
 and stately, tlie cedars, were destroyed. Woe then to the 
 rest, titc ci/press ; as our Lord says, '~ If they do these things in 
 the green tree, ivluit sliall he done in tlie dry ? and S. Peter, 
 ^ If tlie righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly 
 and the sinner appear ? 
 
 For the defenced* forest is come doivn ; that which was 
 closed and inaccessible to the enemy. All which was high and 
 lifted up was brought low, came down, even to the ground ^. 
 
 3. yl voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory 
 is spoiled. It echoes on from Jeremiah before the captivity, 
 " Hotel, ye shepherds — A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and 
 an howling of the jn'incipal of the flock ; for the Lord hath 
 spoiled their pasture. There is one chorus of desolation, the 
 mighty and the lowly; the shepherds and the young lions; 
 what is at other times opposed is joined in one wailing The 
 pride of Jordan are the stately oaks on its banks, which 
 shroud it from sight, until you reach its edges, and which, 
 after the captivity of the ten tribes, became the haunt of lions 
 and tlieir chief abode in Palestine, "on account of the burn- 
 ing heat, and the nearness of the desert, and the breadth of 
 the vast solitude and jungles"." 
 
 4. Thus saith the Lord my God, Feed the flock of the 
 slaughter. The fulfilment of the whole prophecy shews, that 
 the person addressed is the prophet, not in, or for himself, 
 but (as belongs to symbolic prophecy) as representing Ano- 
 ther, our Lord. It is addressed, in the first instance, to 
 Zechariah. For Zechariah is bidden, ^fake unto thee yet the 
 instruments of a foolish shejiherd, in words addressed to him- 
 self, personally ; ylnd the Lord said unto me. But he who 
 was to represent the foolish shepherd, had represented the 
 True Shepherd, since it is said to him, "Take unto thee yet." 
 But He, the Shepherd addressed, who does the acts com- 
 manded, speaks with the authority of God. He says, ^ / cut 
 off three shepherds in one month ; ^'^ I broke My covenant ivhich 
 I had made with all the peoples ; ^^ the poor of the flock waited 
 7ipon ]\Ie ; 1-/ cut asunder Mine other staff', Bands, that I might 
 lireak the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. But in 
 Zechariah's time, no three shepherds were cut off, the cove- 
 nant made by God was not broken on His part, there was no 
 
 ' Is. X. 34, xi. 1. s S. Luke xxiii. 31. 3 1 S. Pet. iv. 18. 
 
 ■• As in E. M. The E. V. has followed tlie Kri, correcting Tsnn ny for Tis3n nv', probably 
 in order to substitute the common nom. and gen. for the less usual construction of tlie subj. 
 and adj. being defined by tlie art. of the adj. as in Zech. himself, iv. 7, xiv. 10. 
 
 ' As m Is. xxxii. 19, ii. 12, sqq. « Jer. xxv. 34, .36. 
 
 ^ S. .Ter. .See Jerem. xlix. 19, 1. 44, 2 Kgs xvii. 25. The lion lingered there even to the 
 close of the Xllth cent. Phocas in Rcland Patest. i. 2/4. S. Cyril says in the present, 
 "there are very many Hens tliere, roaring hombly and striking fear into the inhabitants." 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 187. 
 
 ' ver. 7. 
 
 a voice of the roarinj^ of youn<:^ lions ; for ^'^^'"^ 
 the pride of Jordan is spoiled. 
 
 4 Thus saitli the Lord my God ; "= Feed 
 the flock of the slaughter ; 
 
 5 Whose possessors slay them, and ^ hold '' ^'jg"/' 
 themselves not guilty : and they that sell 
 
 such visible distinction between those who waited on Cod, 
 and those who, outwardly too, rejected Ilim. 
 
 Feed the flock of the slaughter ' *, those who were, even 
 before the end, slain by their evil shepherds whom they 
 followed, and who in the end would be given to the slaughter, 
 as the Psalmist says, '*M^e «>•<; counted as sheep for the slaughter, 
 because they would not hear the voice of the True Shepherd, 
 and were not His sheep. They were already, by God's judge- 
 ment, a prey to evil shepherds ; and would be so yet more 
 hereafter. As a whole then, they were slteep of the slaughter. 
 It is a last charge given to feed them. As our Lord says, 
 ^^ Last of all. He sent unto them His Son, saying. They tcill 
 reverence My Son. This failing, nothing remained but that 
 the flock would be given up, as they themselves say, ^^ He 
 ivill miserably destroy those ivicked men, and will let out 
 His vineyard unto other husbandmen, tchich shall render Him 
 the fruits in their seusoiis, i. e. our Lord explains it, ^^ The 
 kingdom of heaven shall be taken from them, and given to a 
 nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. Yet a remnant should 
 be saved, for whose sake the larger flock was still to be fed: 
 and, as our Lord, as Man, wept over Jerusalem, whose sen- 
 tence He pronounced, so He still feeds those who would not 
 turn to Him that they might be saved, and who would in the 
 end be a flock of slaughter, ^^ Death their shepherd, since 
 they chose death rather than Life. 
 
 5. Whose possessors \J)uyers ^^] slay them and hold them- 
 selves not guilty, rather, are not guilty, either in their own 
 eyes, or in the sight of God, since He gave them up and 
 would no more avenge them. They contract no guilt. Afore- 
 time God said ; -^Israel was holiness to the Lord, the first-fruits 
 of His increase ; all that devour him shall be guilty"^: evil 
 shall come ujion them, saith the Lord. Now God reversed 
 this, as He said by the same prophet, -- 3Iy people hath been 
 lost sheep ; their shepherds have caused them to go astray ; 
 they have turned them away on the mountains ; — all that found 
 them have devoured them ; and their adversaries say, We are 
 not guilty-'^ ; because they have sinned against the Lord, the 
 habitation of justice, yea, the hope of their fathers, the Lord. 
 The offence of injuring Israel was that they were God's 
 people : when He cast them forth, they who chastened them 
 were His servants -*, His instruments, and offended only when 
 through pride they knew not in Whose hands they themselves 
 were-", or through cruelty exceeded their office^^, and so they 
 became guilty. 
 
 And they that sell them say. Blessed be the Lord, for lam 
 rich. Even Sennacherib felt himself in part, or thought best 
 to own himself, to be an instrument in God's hand-^. But 
 Titus when he "-^entered Jerusalem, marvelled at the strength 
 of the city and its towers, which 'the tyrants' in phrenzy 
 
 8v. 15. 9v. 8. '"v. 10. "v. 11. '2v. 14. 
 
 13 nJ^^^ ins, as .n,-r n'a Jer. vii. 32. xix. 6. n Di' lb. xii. 3. " Ps. xliv. 22. .inaj jus. 
 
 ' IS S. Matt. xxi. 37. ' "^ lb. 41. i7Ib.43. 
 
 " Ps. xlix. 14. '' p'jp stands opposed to [.injo, as in Is. xxiv. 2, -cvss .111/35 
 
 -^ Jer. ii. 3. -' IDS'IC v'j^N ^73 ' -- Jer. 1. 0, 7. 
 
 -■' D?'Nj nS. The same word. -■• Jer. xxv. 9, xxvii. 6, xliii. 10. 
 
 =5 Is. X. 7. csw Hab. i. 11. 26 is. xlvii. 6, Zech. i. 18. -^ Is. xxxvi. 10. 
 
 w Jos. de B. J. C. 9. 1.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 569 
 
 CH^iiTsT t'*^'" ^say, Blessed he tlie TjOrd; for I am 
 "*•• ■^''- — rich : and tlieir own slienherds pity them 
 
 « Deut. 29. ID. , i i - 
 
 Hos. 12. 8. not. 
 
 6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants 
 of the land, saith the Lord : but, lo, I will 
 
 abiuidonod. Wlien tlion lie liiid liclicld tlicir solid stri-iiijtli 
 and the ijreattioss of caeli rock, and liow acciifatcly tlic^y were 
 fitted in, and how jjreat their h'ii2;th and lircadtii, he said 
 ' By the help of God \vc have warred : and (iod it was VV^lio 
 broiifi;ht down the Jews from tliose bulwarks : for what avail 
 the hands of man or his ena^ines aijainst such towers?' Much 
 of this sort he said to his friends." The Jews also were sold. 
 in this war, as they had not been in former captures ; and 
 that, not by chance, but because the Roman policy was dif- 
 ferent from all, known by "experieiu-c" in the time of Zeeha- 
 riah. Into Babylon they had been carried captive, as a whole, 
 because it was the will of God, after the seventy years to re- 
 store them. In this war, it was His will to destroy or disperse 
 them; and so those above 17 were sent to Ep^ypt to the 
 works; those below IJ were sold. "^The whole nundjer taken 
 prisoners during the wars were 1100,000," besides those who 
 perished elsewhere. " - Read we the ancient histories and the 
 traditions of the mourning Jews, that at the Tabernaculum 
 Abrahse (where now is a very thronged mart every year) after 
 the last destruction, which they endured from Adrian, many 
 thousands were sold, and what could not be sold were re- 
 moved into Egypt, and destroyed by shipwreck or famine 
 and slaughter by the people. No displeasure came upon the 
 Romans for the utter destruction, as there had upon the 
 Assyrians and Chaldieans." 
 
 And their own shepherds (in contrast to those who bought 
 and so/d them, who accordingly were not their own, tem- 
 poral or spiritual) they to whom God had assigned them, who 
 should have fed them with the word of God, ^ strengthened 
 the diseased, healed the sick, bound up the broken, and sought 
 the lost, pity them not. He says what they should have done, 
 in blaming them for what they did not do. They owed them 
 a tender compassionate love *; they laid aside all mercy, and 
 became wolves, as S. Paul says ; 'After my de/xirtiire shall 
 grievous wolves enter in amnng you, not sparing the Jlork. 
 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse 
 things, to draw away disciples after them. They who owed 
 them all love, shall have none. "^No marvel then, he says, 
 if enemies shall use the right of conquest, when their very 
 shepherds and teachers spared them not, and, through their 
 fault, the flock was given over to the wolves." All were cor- 
 rupted, High Priest, priests, scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, 
 Saddueees. No one*" had pity on them. 
 
 6. For I will no more pity. Therefore were they ti flock 
 of the slaughter, because God would have no pity on those 
 who went after shepherds who had no pity upon them, but 
 corrupted them; who "entered not in themselves, and those 
 who ivere entering in, they hindered. 
 
 The inhabitants of the land, "that land, of which he had 
 
 1 Jos. ib. § 2. 3. = S. Jer. 
 
 ' Ezek. xxxiv. 4. ^ Ann" s Acts xx. 29, 30. ^ This is ecpressed 
 
 by the Hebrew idiom, " their sheplierds [plur.] one by one, pity [sing.] them not." 
 
 ' S. Luke xi. 52. >* '3:n emphatic. '■> Acts iii. 13", 14. ^ S. John xix. IS. 
 
 " Of which nn? is used. Is. xxx. 14 ; of the golden calf, De. ix, 21. So rm?, of the brazen 
 serpent. 2 Kgs xviii. 4; the idols, 2 Chr. xxxiv. 7. 
 
 1- Vsp i'x Jud. xviii. 28, 2 Sam. xiv. 6, Job v. 4, Ps. vii. 3. 1. 22. Ixxi. 11, Is. v. 29, 
 xlii. 22, Hos. v. 14, Mic. v. 7, 8. " De. xxxii. 39, Job x. 7, Ps. 1. 22, Ixxi. 11. 
 
 Is. xliii. 13. Dan. viii. 4, 7. 
 
 " Ex. vi. 6, 2 Kgs XX. 6, Jer. xv. 21, xxxLx. 17, Ezek. xx.xiv. 27. 
 
 t deliver the men every one into his neli^h- c]fR"psx 
 hour's hand, and into the hand of his kin<^ : _ tir-iW^ 
 
 and they shall smite the land, and out of to''i!e/omd. 
 their band I will not deliver t/irm. 
 
 7 And I will ^ feed the flock of slauj!:bter, ' ""■ ■*- 
 
 been speaking," Juda'a. A//d lo. (iod, by this word, lo, al- 
 ways commands heed to His great doings with man; /, /, 
 Alysclf ", visibly interposing, will deliver man, the whole race 
 of itduil)itants, every one into his neighbour's hand, by con- 
 fusion and strife and hatred within, and into the hand of his 
 king, him whom they chose and took as their ouii king, 
 when they rejected (Christ as their Kiuir, repudiating the title 
 which i'ilati? gave Him, to iriove their pity. Whereas He, 
 their Lord and God, was their King, they formally '•'f/c/z/e*/ 
 I/im in the presence of Pilate, wlien he teas determined to let 
 Ilim go ; they denied the Holy One and the Just, and .'■aid, 
 '" H'e have no king but Cccsur. 
 
 And they, the king without and the wild savages within, 
 shall smite, bruise, crush in pieces, like a broken vessel ", 
 tlie lanil, and (nit of their hand I trill not deliver them. Their 
 captivity shall be without remedy or end. Holy Scripture 
 often says, there is no deliverer^^, or ^^none can deliver out 
 of My hand, or, since God delighteth in doing good, P*, He'°, 
 will deliver, or delivered i'' from the hands of the enemy, or 
 their slavery, or their own fears, or afflictions, or the like. 
 God no where else says absolutely as here. / will not deliver^''. 
 '• Hear, O Jew," says S.Jerome, "who boldest out to thyself 
 hopes most vain, and hearest not the Lord strongly asserting, 
 I will not deliver them out of their hands, that thy captivity 
 among the Romans shall have no end." In the threatened 
 captivity before they were carried to Babylon, the prophet 
 foretold the restoration: here only it is said of Judah, as 
 Hosea had said of Israel, that there should be no deliverer 
 out of the hand of the king whom they had chosen. 
 
 7. The prophetic narrative which follows, diflcrs in its 
 form, in some respects, from the symbolical actions of the 
 prophets and from Zecharialrs own visions. The symbolical 
 tactions of the prophets arc actions of their own: this involves 
 acts, which it would be impossible to represent, exce])t as a 
 sort of drama. Such are the very central points, the feeding 
 of the flock, which yet are intelligent men who understand 
 God's doings : the cutting oil" of the three shepherds ; the 
 asking for the price ; the unworthy price offered ; the casting 
 it aside. It differs from Zechariah's own visions, in that tiiey 
 arc for the most part exhibited to the eye. and Zechariah's 
 own part is simply to enquire their meaning and to learn 
 it, and to receive further revelation. In one case only, he 
 himself interposes in the action of the vision'**; but this too, 
 as asking that it might be done, not, as himself doing it. 
 Here, he is himself the actor, yet as representing Another, 
 Who alone could cut off shepherds, abandon the people to 
 mutual destruction, annulling the covenant which He had 
 made. Maimonides, then, seems to say rightly; "'^This, 1 
 fed the flock of the slaughter, to the end of the narrative, 
 
 15 1 Sam. vii. 3, Ps. x^-iii. 15, Ixxii. 12, 2 Kgs xvii. 39, Is. xus. 20, xxxi. 5, Job v. 19. 
 
 16 Ex. xviii. 10, Josh. x.xiv. 10, Jud. vi. 9, 1 Sam. x. 18, xiv. 10, 2 Sam. ssii. 1, 
 Ps. xxxiv. 5, 18, liv. 9, Ezr. viii. 31, Jer. xx. 13. 
 
 1' Once only on one of the brief repentances in the Judges, God answers their prayer, 1 
 v'Ul not save you ; go and cry to the <^ods which ye have chosen ; let them save you .-out only 
 to save them on their renewed repentance and praver. Jud. x. 13-16. 
 
 18 iii. 15. 15 More Neboch. ii. 46, p. 12.3, 6. Buxt. Tr. p. 326. Abarbanel (ad loc.) 
 
 regards the act as real, but s\Tnbolic. " God commanded him to do an act, in deed and awake, 
 which was a declaration and a sign of what should be in God's guidance of Israel. See at 
 length in Mc Caul's transl. of Kimchi on Zech. pp. 19S — 208.
 
 570 
 
 ZECHARIAH, 
 
 ch'r'ist 11^*"'" y^"' ^^ 1^°"** "^ *''^ ^^'^^' ^"^^ ^ 
 cir. 487. took luito Hie two stiivcs ; the one I called 
 
 II Or, verily 
 the poor. 
 
 Beauty, and the other I called || Bands; and 
 
 B Zeph. 3. 12. Matt. 11. 5. 
 
 I Or, Ilbtdcrs, 
 
 I fed the flock. ^ hIITh t 
 
 8 Three shepherds also I cut off '■ in one .. "jr. 487. 
 
 month; and my soul f lothed them, and '^•''■'• 
 
 f Heb. was straitened for them* 
 
 where he is said to have asked for his hire, to have received 
 it, and to have cast it into the temple, to the treasurer, all 
 this Zeehariah saw in prophetic vision. For the command 
 which he received, and the act which he is said to have done, 
 took place in prophetic vision or dream." " Tliis," he adds, 
 "is heyond controversy, as all know, who arc able to dis- 
 ting;iiish the possible from the impossible." 
 
 " 1 The actions, presented to the prophets are not always 
 to be understood as actions but as predictions. As when 
 God commands Isaiah, to make the heart of the people dulP 
 i.e. to denounce to the people their future blindness, through 
 which they would, with obstinate mind, reject the mercies of 
 Christ. Or when He says, that He appointed Jeremiah 'to 
 destroy and to build ; to root out and to plant. Or when He 
 commanded the same prophet to cause the nations to drink 
 the cup, whereby they should be bereft of their senses*, 
 Jeremiah did nothing of all this, but asserted that it would 
 be. So here." 
 
 ^)id I will feed thejlork of the sfaiig/iter, rather ^nd [our, 
 so] IfedK The prophet declares, in the name of our Lord, 
 that He did what the Father commanded Him. He fed the 
 flock, committed to His care by the Father, who, through 
 their own obstinacy, became the flock of slaughter. What 
 could be done. He did for them ; so that all might see that 
 they perished by their own fault. The symbol of our Lord, 
 as the Good Shepherd, had been made prominent by Isaiah 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel, '^ Behold the Lord will come, as a 
 Mighty One— He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He 
 shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His 
 bosom : He shall gently lead those that are with young. And 
 Jeremiah, having declared God's judgements on the then 
 shepherds', ^ I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all 
 countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again 
 to their fold; and they shall be fruitful ami increase. And I 
 will setup shepherds over them which shall feed them. Behold 
 the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a 
 righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper — atid 
 this is the name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our 
 Righteousness. And Ezekiel with the like context '; ^ There- 
 fore will I save My flock and they shall he no more a prey ; 
 and I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set One 
 shepherd over them, and He shall feed them : My servant 
 David, He shall feed them; and He shall be their Shepherd; 
 and, uniting both oflices, " David, My servant, shall be king 
 over them, and they shall all have One Shepherd. It was ap- 
 parent then beforehand, Who this Shepherd was to be, to 
 Whom God gave the feeding of the flock. 
 
 "Even you, or for you, ye poor of the flock; or, therefore, 
 being thus commanded, [/<?(/ /] the poor of theflock^'. The 
 whole flock was committed to Him to feed. He had to seek 
 out all " the lost sheep of the house of Israel. " " He fed, for 
 the time, the Jews destined to death, until their time should 
 
 1 Osor. ' Is. vi. 10. 3 Jer. i. 10. * Id. xxv. 15 sqq. 
 
 5 ,T retained in npNi as in verl)s n^ in 1 Sam. i. 7, 2 Sam. xxiii. 15, 1 Kgs xiv. 9, 2 Kgs 
 ii. 8, 14 [bis] Jer. xx.' 2. 6 Is. xl. 10. 11. ? Jer. xxiii. 2. « lb. 3—6. 
 
 9 Ezek. xxxiv. 1— 21. lo lb. 22, 23. " lb. xxxvii. 24. 
 
 12 The masora parva says tliat "the ];h is a feminine," i.e. so pimctuatcd for pS, as in the 
 3rd pers. on^ 2 Sam. xxiv. 3, Eccl. ix. 12 ; jnj Gen. xix. 2!», xxx. 2C). Yet pS being, so often, 
 some 60 times, illative, therefore, it would be arbitrary to take it otherwi.se liere, since even [J 
 itself nowhere occurs as a pronoun. '•* S. Matt. x. 6, xv. 24. 
 
 come;" the fruit of His labour was in the '^ little flock, "the 
 faithful Jews wiio believed in IFim, out of the people of the 
 flock aforesaid, or the synagogue, ^\'ho in the primitive Church 
 despised all earthly things, leading a most pure life." So He 
 says, ^^ I will feed My flock and I will cause them to lie down, 
 saith the Lord (iod : I will seek that which irns lust, and bring 
 again that which was driven away, anil will bind tiiat wiiich was 
 broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will de- 
 stroy the fat and the strong, I will feed them with judgemeiit. 
 
 The elect are the end of all God's dispensations. He fed 
 all; yet the fruit of His feeding, His toils. His death, the 
 travail of His soul, was in those only who are saved. So 
 S. Paul says, ^'' Therefore I endure all things for the elect's 
 sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ 
 Jesus, with eternal glory. He fed ail ; but the poor of the 
 flock alone, those who were despised of men, because they 
 would not follow the pride of the High Priests and Scribes 
 and Pharisees, believed on Him, as they themselves say, 
 ^* Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on Him f 
 and S. Paul says, '" JVot many ivise men after the flesh, not 
 many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath 
 chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; 
 and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
 the things that are mighty ; and base things of the world, and 
 things despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are 
 not, to bring to nought things that are. 
 
 And I took unto Me two [shepherd's] staves, as David 
 says, "" Thy rod and Thy slifl'they comfort me. The one I called 
 Beauty or Loveliness -^, as the Psalmist longs to behold the 
 beauty or loveliness of God in His temple"^, and says; let -^the 
 beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. 
 
 And the other I called Bands, lit. Binders^. The one 
 staff" represents the full favour and loving-kindness of God; 
 when this was broken, there yet remained the other, by which 
 they were held together as a people in covenant with God. 
 And I fed the flock. This was the use of his staves; He tended 
 them with both, ever putting in exercise towards them the 
 loving beauty and grace of God, and binding thein together 
 and with Himself. 
 
 8. And I cut (iff three shepherds i7i one inoiith. "-° I have 
 read in some one's commentary, that the shepherds, cut off" 
 in the indignation of the Lord, are to be understood of 
 priests and false prophets and kings of the Jews, who, after 
 the Passion of Christ, were all cut off" in one time, of whom 
 Jeremiah speaketh, -'' The priests said not. Where is the Lord ? 
 and they that handle the law knexc Me not ; the pastors also 
 transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, 
 and walked after things which do not profit^'' and again, °' As 
 the thief is ashamed tvhen he is found, so is the house of Israel 
 ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests and 
 their prophets; and "^ they said. Come, let vs devise devices 
 against Jeremiah ; for the laiv shall not perish from the priest, 
 
 " Dion. 15 s. Luke xii. 32. " Ezek. xxxiv. 15, 16. 
 
 17 2 Tim. ii. 10. i" S. John vii. -48. ■' I Cor. i. 26-28. 
 
 -" Ps. xxiii. 4. 21 KttAXos, 6; iv-npe-ntia.^ Aq. Sym. (Theodot. also, see Field 
 
 Hexapl. on V. 10.) "decus." S. Jer. -- " Cl'i Ps. xxvii. 4 -^ Ps. xc. 17. 
 
 -^ From the common hzn '* rope;" in Arab, verb, " hound fast as with rope," " made cove- 
 nant;" noun, "band of marriage, friendship, covenant of God or man, personal security,' 
 Lane, o'xoii'ttr/ta, o Aq. Sym. ; fuiiiculos, S. Jer. 
 
 ■» S Jer. 26 Jer. U. 8. V lb. 26. ^ lb. xviii. 18.
 
 CIIAl'TER XI. 
 
 5/1 
 
 df^iiTsT t'l^i'' stii'l 'il*^*^ abhorred lue. 
 
 "'■ '■'^^- 1) Then sjiid I, I will not feed you: 
 
 ijer.15. 2. ' tliiit that d'leth, let it die; and that that 
 fHeb.'o/A/s is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and 
 
 rleighbmr. l^t the rest Cat every one the flesh f of 
 
 7ior counsel from the jrvV, 7ior the word fnini the jirojihet. '" He 
 speaks of tlie kiiiu;s of tlu- Jews, and jiroplicts and priests; for 
 by the three orders they were shepherded." ''-The true and 
 good Shepherd liavins;: heen already pointed out, it was riiifht 
 and neeessary that the iiirelinj^s and false shepherds should he 
 removed, the ijuides of the Jews in the law. The three shep- 
 herds were, I deem, those who exereiscd the Icj^al priesthood, 
 and those appointed judges of the people, and the interpreters 
 of Seripture, i.e. the lawyers. For these too fed Israel. Those 
 who had the glory of the priesthood were of the trihe of Levi 
 only; and of them Malaehi says, ^ The pries fs lips shall keep 
 knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth. But those 
 who reeeived authority to judge were also selected, yet were 
 appointed out of every tribe. In like way the lawyers, who 
 were ever assessors to the judges, and adduced the words of 
 the law in proof of every matter. — But we shall find that our 
 Lord Jesus Christ Himself expressly pronounced woe on the 
 Pharisees and scribes and lawyers. For He said, */Foe unto 
 you scribes and Pharisees. And when one of the lawyers here- 
 upon answered Him saying, ^Master, so saying Thou reproach- 
 est us also, He said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers ! for ye lade 
 men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch 
 not the burdens with one of your fingers. These three Shepherds 
 then, priests and judges and lawyers ^, who remained in their 
 own orders and places, until the coming of Christ, were very 
 justly taken away in one month. For since ^ they killed the 
 Prince of life, thereby also are they mown down, and that 
 in the month of the first fruits, in which Emmanuel endured 
 to be slain for us. They remained indeed administering Israel, 
 even after the Saviour's Cross, through the long-sufl'ering and 
 compassion of Almighty God calling them to repentance; but, 
 in the sentence passed by God, they were taken away, at that 
 time, when they delivered to the Cross the Saviour' and Re- 
 deemer of all. They were taken away then in one month;" 
 Nisan. A. D. 33. The three offices. King, Divine Teacher, 
 Priest, were to be united in Christ : they might have been 
 held under Him : those who rejected them in Him, forfeited 
 them themselves. These then He made to disappear, eflaced 
 them from the earth ^ 
 
 ^nd My soul was straitened for them '. It is used of the 
 Divine grief at the misery of His people^". And their soul 
 abhorred ]\Ie, nauseated Me^^. "i- When it is said. Their soul 
 also abhorreth 3fe, the meaning is, ' My soul did not loathe 
 them first, but their soul first despised Me, therefore My Soul 
 abhorred them.' " The soul which di'ives away God's good 
 
 1 Theodoret. 
 
 2 S. Cyr. 
 
 3 Mai. ii. 7. 
 * S. Luke xi. 4-t. ' « lb. 45, 46. 
 
 ^ No otlier explanation of the ' tliree shepherds ' seems to me at all to recommend itself. 
 The Jews made them Moses Aaron and Miriam (Taanithf. 9a.)and. from them, S.Jerome; 
 J. Kim. and (as one solution) Ibn Ezra, suggested Haggai, Zechariali, Malaehi; '"After 
 whom,* the rabbis say, ' prophecy departed from Israel '" (" on account of the cutting offof pro- 
 phecy at their death," opinion in Tanehum.) Abraham Lev. "the principality of tlie sons 
 of David, and the monarcliy of the Hasmona?ans, and that of their ser\'ants." D. Kim., 
 "the three sons of Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah ;" Abarbancl, " the Maccabees, 
 Judas Jonathan and Simon ; ' ' Raslii, *' the house of Ahab and the liouse of Ahaziali, and 
 his brethren and all the posterity of the kingdom of David (except Joash) slain by Ahab 
 and Athaliah : " Tanehum, " Joshua the high-priest and the second priest and the anointed 
 for war;" (Buxtorf refers for his office to Maimonides, Hilchos melachin umilchamac. 7. and 
 massecheth Sota c. 8. Lex. Chald. col. l-l>7). "And it is said, Joshua, Zerruhbabel and Nehe- 
 miah," Tanchiun. Theodonis of Mops, interpreted it of 'tiie priests' generally, not of any 
 three classes of persons. Three classes, Priests, Pharisees and Sadducees, were adopted by 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 another. 
 
 10 ^[ And I took my staff, crcn Beauty, 
 and cut it asunder, that I niijiflit break my 
 covenant which I had made with all the 
 cople. 
 
 Spirit, comes at last to loathe Him and the thought and men- 
 tion of liim. 
 
 9. ylnd I said, I will not feed you. God, at last, leaves 
 the rebellious soul or ])eople to itself, as He says by Moses, 
 '■' Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and 
 I will forsake thei/i, and will hide My Fare from them, and 
 tliey shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall find 
 them : and our J>or(l tells the (•ii|)tious J(;ws; ^^ J go My way, 
 and ye shall seek Me and shall die in your sins. 
 
 That which dieth, let it die. Zeehariah seems to con- 
 dense, hut to repeat the abandonment in Jeremiah; ^■' Cast 
 them out of 3Iy sight, and let them go forth, ylnd it shall be, 
 if they shall say unto thee, ll'hither shall ive go forth ? then 
 thou shall tell them. Thus saith the Lord, Such as are /or death, 
 to death ; and such as are for the sword, to the sword ; and 
 such as arc for the captivity, to the captivity. First, God gives 
 over to death without violence, by famine or pestilence, those 
 whose lot it should be ; another ]iortion to violent death by 
 the sword; that ivhich is cut off shall he cut (ff; and the rest, 
 the flock of slaughter, would be turned into W(dves; and, as 
 in the aweful and horrible siege of Jerusalem, those who had 
 escaped these deaths, the left-over, shall eat every one of the 
 fiesh of his ■neighbour, every law of humanity and of nature 
 broken. "^'^ So should they understand at last, how evil and 
 bitter a thing it is for all who lived by My help to be des- 
 poiled of that help." 
 
 10. And I took my staff' Beauty, and cut it asunder. Not, 
 as aforetime, did He chasten His people, retaining His relation 
 to them : for such chastening is an austere form of love. By 
 breaking the stafl" of His tender love, He signified that this 
 relation was at an end. 
 
 That I might dissolve My covenant which I had made ivith 
 all the people, rather, ivith all the peoples, i. e. with all nations. 
 Often as it is said of Israel, that they brake the covenant of 
 God 1^, it is spoken of God, only to deny that He would break 
 it^*, or in prayer that He would not*''. Here it is not abso- 
 lutely the covenant with His whole people, which He brake; 
 it is rather, so to speak, a covenant with the nations in favour 
 of Israel, allowing thus much and forbidding more, with re- 
 gard to His people. So God had said of the times of Christ^; 
 In that day I ivill make a covenant for them with the beasts of 
 the field and with the fowls of the heaven, and with the creeping 
 things of the ground J and, -^ I will make with them a covenant 
 of peace, and will cduse the evil beasts to cease out of the land ; 
 and in Job "-thou shall be in league with the stones of the 
 
 some older; Pharisees Sadducees and Essenes by Lighlfoot (HortE Hebr. on S. John x.). 
 On the abortive guesses of a Gennan school, see ab. Introd. to Zeehariah p. 509. 
 
 ' Acts. iii. 15. 
 
 8 Tn3n lit. " hid," Job xx. 12, as Tis uniformly (15 times), thence atpavi^a. It is used of 
 numbers; the7nations, Ex. xxiii.23; of Israel, in the intention of their enemies, from being 
 a nation, ijn Ps. lxxxiii.5; of the house of Jeroboam from the face of the earth. 1 Kgsxiii.M; 
 of Sennacherib's anny, 2 Chr. xxxii. 21. ' As in E. M. 
 
 "* Jud. X. Hi also with 3 p. Gesenius' comparison of Arab, yi? is wrong. Its primary 
 meaning is "cut off from." See Lane p. 419. 
 
 " Such is the traditional meaning ot Vn3. " Loathed My worship," Ch. ; "loathed," -\bu]w. 
 Tanch. coll. Syr. kttq. " one so nauseating as to vomit his food." i'- Kim. 
 
 13 "De. xxxi. 17. " S. John viii. 21. 
 
 1^ Jer. XV. 1, 2. and similarly xliii. 11. lo Osor. 
 
 1" Lev. xxvi. 15, De. xxxi. 10, 20. Is. xxiv. 5, Jer. xi. 10. xxxi. 32, Ezet. xvi. 59, xliv. 7. 
 
 " Lev. xxvi. 41, Jud. ii. 1. and, strongly, Jer. xxxiii. 20. 21. '9 Jer. xiv. 21. 
 
 =1 Hos. ii. 18, [20, Heb.] I'l' Ezek. xxxiv. 25. si Job v. 23.
 
 572 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 chrTst ^1 -^"'^ '' ^^'^^ ')«'"l<en in that day: and 
 
 cir- ■i'''?- II SO "the poor of the floek that waited upon 
 
 " ?/hle/io<7,' me knew that it tms the word of thi; Loud. 
 
 ^^^«"«'""'' 12 And I said unto them, f If ye think 
 
 11/ knew, •^* 
 
 1' Zeph. 3. 12. ver. 7. 
 
 field, and the hensts of t lie field shall he at peace with thee. 
 This covenant He willed to annihilate. He would no more 
 interpose, as He had hefore said, ^ I will not deliver from their 
 hand. Whoever would nii!;ht do, what they would, as the 
 Romans first, and well niftli all nations since, have indicted 
 on the Jews, what they willed ; and Mohanunedans too have 
 requited to them their contumely to Jesus. 
 
 11. And so the poor of the fiock that waited upon Me- 
 kneiv. The rest were hlinded; those who listened to God's 
 word, ohscrved His Proplict, waited on Him and observed His 
 words, knew from the fullihuent of the bcginniuir, that the 
 whole was God's word. Every darkening cloud around the 
 devoted city was an earnest, that the storm, which should 
 destroy it, was gathering upon it. So our Lord warned, 
 ^ When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then 
 know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them ivhich 
 are in Judceaflee to the mountains ; and let them which are in 
 the midst of it depart. The little fiock which waited upon the 
 Good Shepherd, obeyed the warning, and, fleeing to Fella, 
 escaped the horrible judgement which fell on those who re- 
 mained. "*They remembered that it had been predicted 
 many centuries before, and that the Lord, by Whose Spirit 
 the prophet spake, foretold that in that city ^ one stone should 
 not he left ujiou another." 
 
 12. And I said unto them. If ye think good, give Me My 
 price. God asks of us a return, not having any proportion 
 to His gifts of nature or of grace, but such as we can render. 
 He took the Jews out of the whole human race, made them 
 His own, a peculiar people, freed them from the hondage and 
 the iron furnace of Egypt, gave them the land flowing with 
 milk and honey, fed and guarded them by His Providence, 
 taught them by His Prophets. He, the Lord and Creator of 
 all, was willing to have them alone for His inheritance, and, 
 in return, asked them to love Him with their whole heart, 
 and to do what He commanded them. ^ He sent His servants 
 to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of the 
 vineyard ; and the husbandmen took His servants, and heat one, 
 and killed another, and stoned another. Last of all, He se7tt 
 imto them His Son, to ask for those fruits, the return for all 
 His bounteous care and His unwearied acts of power and 
 love. " "i Give Me," He would say, " some fruits of piety, and 
 tokens of faith." 
 
 "*What? Does He speak of a price? Did the Lord of all 
 let out His toil ? Did He bargain with those, for whom he 
 expended it for a certain price ? He did. He condescended 
 to serve day and night for our salvation and dignity ; and 
 as one hired, in view of the reward which He set before Him, 
 to give all His care to adorn and sustain our condition. So 
 He complains by Isaiah, that He had undergone great toil to 
 do away our sins. But what reward did He require ? Faith 
 and the will of a faithful heart, that thereby we might attain 
 the gift of rigliteousness, and might in holy works pant 
 
 ' V. 6. - "nK DTDa'.n. tD'J occurs more commonly w. ace. of thg., commandments &c. 
 
 but w. ace pers., in good sense, vpx IDS' "he that observeth his master," Pr. xxvii. 18; 
 
 also of God, Hos. iv. 10; of idols, Fs. xxxi. 7; and of observing for evil, 1 .Sam. xix. 11, 
 
 Job X. 14. '■> S. Luke xxi. 20, 21. < Osor. * S. Matt. xxiv. 2. 
 
 6 S. Matt. xxi. .31—37. 7 Eus. Dem. Ev. x. i. So Theod. 
 
 8 Ezek. iii. 27; add ii. 5, 7, iii. 11. ' 1 Kps xviii. 21. 
 
 »» Ex. xxi. 32. II Maimonides More Neboch. c. 40. P. 3. 
 
 good, give me my priee ; and if not, for 
 hear. So they ' weighed for 
 tliirty pieces of silver. 
 
 my priee 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 4«7. 
 
 t Heb. //it be 
 good in your 
 
 13 And tlie Lord said unto me, Cast it ' Matt. 20. u. 
 
 SeeEx.21.32. 
 
 after everlasting glory. For He needeth not our goods ; but 
 He so bestoweth on us all things, as to esteem His labour 
 amply paid, if He see us enjoy His gifts. But He so asketh 
 for tills as a reward, as to leave us free, either by faith and 
 the love due, to embrace His benefits, or faithlessly to reject 
 it. This is His meaning, when He saith," 
 
 And if /lot, forbear. God does not force our free-will, or 
 constrain our service. He places life and death before us, 
 and bids us choose life. By His grace alone we can choose 
 Him ; but we can refuse His grace and Himself. ^Thou shall 
 yity unto them. He says to Ezekiel, Thus saith the Lord God, 
 He that heareth, let him hear, and he that forbea ret h, let him 
 forbear. This was said to them, as a peoj)le, tlie last offer of 
 grace. It gathered into one all the past. As Elijah had said, 
 ^ If the Lord be God, follow Hi/n ; but if Baal, then follow 
 him ; so He bids them, at last to choose openly, whose they 
 would be, to whom they would give their service ; and if they 
 would refuse in heart, to refuse in act also. Forbear, cease, 
 leave off, abandon ; and that for ever. 
 
 So they iveighed for My price thirty pieces of silver ; the 
 price of a slave, gored to death by an ox '". Whence one of 
 themselves says, "^^you will find that a freeman is valued, 
 more or less, at GO shekels, but a slave at thirty." He then, 
 Whom the prophet represented, was to be vahied at thirty 
 pieces of silver. It was but an increase of the contuniely, 
 that this contemptuous price was given, not to Him, but for 
 Him, the Price of His Blood. It was matter of bargain. 
 ^- Judas said, TFhat ivill ye give me, and I will deliver Him 
 unto you ? The High Priest, knowingly or unknowingly, 
 fixed on the price, named by Zechariah. As they took into 
 their mouths willingly the blasphemy mentioned in the 
 Psalm; ^^they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying. He 
 trusted in the Lord, that He would deliver Him ; let Him de- 
 liver Him, seeing that He delighted in Him ; so perhaps they 
 fixed on the thirty pieces of silver, because Zechariah had 
 named them as a sum offered in contumely to him, who 
 offered to be a shepherd and asked for his reward. 
 
 13. And the Lord said unto me. Cast it, as a thing vile 
 and rejected, as torn flesh was to be cast to dogs^*, or a corpse 
 was cast unburied '% or the dead body of Absalom was cast 
 into the pit ^'^, or the dust of the idol-altars into the brook 
 Kedron by Josiah^^, or the idols to the moles aud the bats^*; 
 or Judali and Israel from the face of God^^ into a strange 
 land-"; Coniah and his seed, a vessel in which is no pleasure-^, 
 into a land which they knew not; or the rebels against God, 
 said, "let us cast atvay their cords fro/n us; or wickedness was 
 cast into the Ephah -■' ; once it is added -*, for loathing. 
 
 Unto the potter. The words exactly correspond with the 
 event, that the thirty pieces of silver were cast or flung away^^; 
 that their ultimate destination was the potter, whose field 
 was bought with them ; but that they were not cast di- 
 rectly to him, (which were a contemptuous act, such as would 
 
 1= S. Matt. xxvi. 15. '3 Ps. xxii. 7, 8. 
 
 " Ex. xxii. 31. 1* Is. .xiv. 19, xxxiv. 3, Jer. xxiv. 16, xii. 19. xxvi. 23, xxxvi. 30. 
 
 "■' 2 Sam. xviii. 17. ''" 2 Kgs xxiii. 12. 
 
 i» Is. ii. 20, add Ezek. xx. 8. >« 2 Kgs xiii. 23, .xvii. 20, xxiv. 21, Jer. Ui. 3. 
 
 -« De. xxix. 27 [28 Eng.] =' Jer. xxii. 28. 
 
 " Ps. ii. 3. _ -^ Zech. v. 18. -* Ezek. xW. 5. 
 
 2^ pi'^as Ttt apyi'pia iv Tip va^ S, Matt. xx\'ii. 5.
 
 CHAPTER Xf. 
 
 ch^rYst ""to the "potter: a s^oodly price that I 
 "'"• *^^- was prised at of them. And 1 took the 
 
 ™ Matt. 27. 9, 10. 
 
 not be used, whetlior fi»r a fx'ih or a purchase), but were cast 
 to him /// //tc /iitiisc of the Lord. Tliey were Jliiiii^ (nvdij by 
 the remorse of Judas, aud, in (iod's Providence, came to tlie 
 potter. Wiiether any portion of this was a direct syud)(die 
 action of the projdu't, or whether it was a prophetic vision, 
 in which Zeehariah iiimselfwas an actor, ami saw himself in 
 the character which he described, doiuf^ what he relates, 
 cannot now be said certainly, since God has not told us. It 
 seems to me more probable, that these actions beloni;^ed to 
 the vision, because in other symbolic actions of the prophets, 
 no other actors take part ; and it is to the last degree unlikely, 
 that Ze(!hariah, at whose preaching Zerubbabel and Joshua 
 and all the people set themselves earnestly to rebuild the 
 temple, should have had so worthless a price offered to 
 him; and the casting a price, which God condemned, into 
 the house of God, at the command of God, ami so imply- 
 ing His acceptance of it, were inconsistent. It was fulfilled, 
 in act consistently, in Judas' remorse; in that hejhuig^ away 
 the pieces of silver, which had stained his soul with innocent 
 blood, i)i the temple, perhaps remembering the words of Zeeha- 
 riah ; perhaps wishing to give to pious uses, too late, money 
 which was the price of his soul; whereas God, even through 
 the Chief Priests, rejected it, and so it came to the potter, 
 its ultiiiiate destination in the Providence of God. "-He 
 saith, cast it unto the potter, that they might understand that 
 they would be broken as a potter's vessel." 
 
 ' Tliis is in itself (as Keil obseiTed) decisive aijainst the substitution of -t^» for ij'v, as Jon. 
 and the Syr. have, if it be interpreted of any act of Zeehariah. If it were taken only of the re- 
 sult of tile ordering of God's Providence, the main substance of the propliecy would equally 
 remain, that the Good Shepherd was valued at this contemptuous price ; and that the money 
 itself was flung into the treasury ; only in this case the second clause "to the treasiny in the 
 house of the Lord" would add nothing to the first, whereas, if isv be rendered in its natiu'al 
 sense "potter," this accoimts for the use of tlie word "iling," and contains wliat was brought 
 about by the joint agency of Judas and the Pliarisees. But 2} no two words, in any language, 
 are more distuict than ISIN and Tsl", both of them also bemg, m their several senses, common 
 words. n^fiN, " treasine," or at limes, "treasury." occurs 79 times in the O.T. ; T^r, lit. 
 " fonncr," occurs 11 times, besides these verses. Tliere is not the slightest approximation of 
 the meaning of the two roots ; "ISN is, " treasured up ;" IS*, " made." Since tlien, apart from 
 inspiration, every writer wishes to be xmderstood, it is, in the nature of things, absurd to sup- 
 pose, that, had Zeehariah meant to say, "cast mto the treasury," he should not have used 
 the word, whicli every where else, 79 tiines, is used to express it, but should have used a word, 
 wliich is always, viz. W times, used of something else. The particular form moreover, with 
 the art. occurs 11 times iji the O.T. as "the potter;" once in Isaiah (xxix, IG), seven times in 
 2 chapters of Jeremiah, xviii. 2, 3, 4 (bis) tj (bis) xix. 11, of "the potter," once only of 
 Almighty God, (Ps. xxxiii. 15) and that, in a different idiom. Of God, it is never used as 
 a sul)stantive, " the Creator." It remains a part., " Maker of," it being added, of what He 
 is the Maker. ' He that maketh the eye,' Ps. xciv. ',), the hearts, lb. xxxiii. 1.5, light. Is. xlv. 7; 
 the earth, lb. 18 ; the universe, ten Jer. x. 15, li. 19 ; mountains, Amos iv, 13 ; grasshoppers, 
 lb. vii. 1 ; the spuit of man, Zech. xii. 1 ; or with pronomis, my Maker Is. xlix. 5 ; thy 
 Maker Is. xliii. 1 ; our Maker xliv. 2, 24, his Maker Is. xxvii. 11, xxix. 1(!, xlv. 9, 11. The 
 rendering then of the Jews in S.Jerome's time, D. Kim., Abraham of Toledo apparently, 
 Abarb., Alsheikh, "the Creator," is unidiomatic, as well as that of Rashi, J. Kim. Tanch., 
 Isaac (xvii. cent.) Chizzuk Emunah (Wagenseil Tel. ign. Sat. p. 14(j.), "treasury," which 
 the modern Anti-Messianic interpreters follow. Aquila has toi- ir\atTT7|i/; the LXX and 
 Symm. xwt'eyri^pio*', " fomidry ; ' in that "is* is used with regard to metals. Is. xhv. 12, liv. 
 17, Hab. ii. 18, as well as, more commonly, of clay. TSl' is used of the " potter" 2 Sam. 
 xvii. 28, 1 Chr. iv. 23, Ps. ii.9, Is. xxx. 14, xli. 25, Ixiv. 7, Jer. xix. 1, Lam. iv. 2 (besides 
 the use of isi'.T above) ; also " the fonner thereof" contrasted with the clay, Is, xlv. U. 'The 
 Hebrew- Arabic translation, which Pococke sonmch valued (12th cent.) has twice J'KaSn, (used 
 chiefly of a gold-smith). Abulwalid does not notice it in either lexicon, nor Saadyah 
 Ibn Danan nor Parchon. They must therefore have had nothing to remark on it, inter- 
 pretmg it as elsewhere, ' potter.' 
 
 It is not then necessary even to say, that the dicta as to the interchange of K and * in Hebrew 
 are much too vague, the instances heterogeneous. AU the words, in which K and ' occur as the 
 first letter, are allied words of the same meaning, not interchanged. Sucli are IHK and in", -a» 
 and nir', (whence the Proper Names nSxirN 1 Chr. xxv. 2. and nSnx'" lb. 14.). nn,x. and in' 
 aTT. Aey. (2 Sam. xx. 5) are again allied, the Maltese also having a root tvacclmr (Vassali 
 Lex. melit. pp. 82, 051, in Ges. v. in'). ]Dtt "was stable" was, probably, tlie basis of ['D\ 
 The use of the air. \ey. Mnxn fonro'n "turn to the right" Is. xxx. 21, would have been 
 any how a substitution of the guttural for the '. not the ' for the K, aud any ambiguity is pre- 
 cluded by tlie contrast of iS'ssc-n "tuni to the left." The Kri D'3n*D(Jer. v. 8) is only a bad 
 correction for the Ch. D'iva, and so not Biblical Hebrew. These are all the instances col- 
 lected by Bottcher (Lehrb. n. 430.) In like way ui the middle radical ilN^ (Lev. x. 14) 
 and .Ti Deut. xiv. 13. Bottch. 1103, 4. adds rc'nn, whicli Saad. and Rashi, more probably, 
 derive from TD", Jer. ii. 11. In Ezek. vi. U, OiS" and CC'K both occur, as variations, not of 
 each other, but of COB*, vi. 4. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 tliirty pieces of silver, and east them 
 the potter in the house of the Louu. 
 
 573 
 
 f(» Before 
 
 " CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 A gixidhj price, that I was priced at of t Item, lit. the muq- 
 nificence of (lie value ■', at which I ivas valued of tliem ! The 
 strong irony is carried on by the, at wliich I was valued of 
 them, as in the idiom, thou wcrt precious in my sight'^. Pre- 
 cious the thought of God to David ^ ; precious the redemption 
 of the soul of man"; and precious was the Sbepberd Who 
 came to them ; precious was the value, whereat lie wa- valued 
 by them 7. And yet He. Who was so valued, was Almighty 
 (;od. For so it stands : Thus snilh the Lord God, Cast it unto 
 the potter, the goodly price that I was priced at of them. The 
 name, the potter, connects the prophecy witli that former 
 prophecy of Jeremiah", denouncing the judgement of God 
 for the shedding of innocent blood, whereby tliey had defiled 
 the valley of the son of Ilinnom, which was at I he enlri/ of the 
 gate of the jtottcry'', and which, through the vengeance of 
 Gtjd there, slioukl" be called the valley of slaughter^". The 
 price of this innocent Blood, by the shedding of which the 
 iniquities of their fathers were filled up, should rest on that 
 same place, for whose sake God said, " / will break this 
 people and this city, as one hreuketh a potter's vessel, that 
 cannot he made tvhole again. So then S. Matthew may have 
 quoted this prophecy as Jeremiah's, to signify how the woes, 
 denounced on the sins committed in this same platre, should 
 be brought upon it through this last crowning sin, and all the 
 righteous blood which had been shed, should come upon that 
 generation *-. 
 
 Other cases are simple omissions of the u, not an interchange at all ; as v^ from K-p (n-.ed. 
 i. Arab. Aiih.) Jer. xxv. 27, n-a for hk-id Ez. xxxiv. 20. Ta Jer. vi. 7 is a mere correc- 
 tion for -ra. and so, again, not Biblical Hebrew. yr\ (1 Sam. xxii. 18, 22 Ch.) is a mere 
 corruption of JNi, as, in all languages proper names are the most easily corrupted. (See 
 Daniel the prophet p. 405 ed. 2). ciif (2 Sam. xx. 5. Mic. vi. 19) and the common P', each 
 lose one letter of the original fonn, which has both. (See on Daniel the prophet p. 50 note, 
 ed. 2) There is not then the slightest countenance for assuming that TnTi hnot, what accord- 
 ing to its fonn, it is, " the potter." • Osor. 
 
 3 THN occurs in this sense, here only. In Mi. ii. 8, it is used of a wide garment i.q. nrnx. tj;:, 
 " of value" only occurs else in y>\ "^5, " a vessel of value " Pr. xx. 15 ; Tpr-te " every precious 
 thuig" Job xxviii. 10: nip; te "all itsmagnificence," Jer. xx. 5; " costhuess," Ez. xxii. 25; 
 not directly a "price." 
 
 "Jewish wnters who could satisfy themselves that the 'thirty pieces of silver' were 
 anything but what they are, some thirty precepts given to the sons of Noah (mystical in- 
 terpretation ui the .Tfjn TJ ap. Abarb. ad loc. p. 219. v.), or thirty dignities of royalty (" the 
 wise of blessed memor)'," in Abarb. lb. p. 292. v.) or the thirty righteous in eacli generation, 
 promised ("as tlicy say) by God to Abraham (Midrash Aggadah in Rashi), or the thuty in 
 that generation (Kun.), or who went up with Nehemiah, or were priests in liis time [Tancfium 
 has " It is said, that perhaps it is an image of the thirty righteous or priests, who were the 
 noblestofthe followers of Zerubbabel or Nehemiah."] IbnE.,orthirty days of imperfect re- 
 pentance (Kim.), or thirty years of the reigns of the kings of the pious Hasmonceans ( Abrah. 
 Toled. in Mc Caul on Zech. ad loc), or who scrupled not to own that they could not explain 
 them at all (Rashi) ; — Jewish writers, who could, in any of these wavs, escape from thinking 
 j of those thirty pieces of silver, at which tlieir forefathers priced the Blood of Jesus, doubt not 
 that the Good Shepherd Who fed them, Whom thev rejected. Who gave them up, Who 
 speaks of Himself, "the goodly price that / was priced at of them' (however they may 
 have distorted these words too) was Ahnighty God." Pusey's University Sermons pp. 
 151,152. 
 ■1 fl ':'V3 ip' 1 Sam. xxvi. 21, Ps. Ixxii. 1 1, 2 Kgs i. 13, 14, Is. xliii. 4. » Ps. cxxxix. 17. 
 
 « Ih. xlix, 9. ' cn-Ssia np'. See Ewald Lehrb. n. 219a. p. 573, ed. 8. s jer. xix. 
 
 9 mcnnn -W9 lb. 2. See' Ges. Thes. suh v. p. 522. '» Jer. xix. 6. i' lb. 11. 
 
 •- S. Augustine suggests that S. Matthew wished to lead the reader to connect the prophecy 
 of Zecliariali with Jerem. xxxii. 9. " W\ co])ies," he says, " have not ' Jeremiah ' nut only 
 ' by the propliet ; ' but more Mss. have the name of Jeremiah ; and those who have eonsidereii 
 the Gospel carefully in the Greek copies, say that they have foimd it in tlie older Greek 
 (copies) ; .and there is no reason why the name should be added, so as to occasion a fault ; but 
 there was a reason whij it should be removed from some copies, this being done by a bold un- 
 skilfulness [imperitia] being distracted by the question, that this testimony was not found 
 in Jeremiah." " S. Matthew," he says further, " would have corrected it in his life-time at 
 least, when admonished by others who could read this, wliile he was yet in the flesh, unless 
 he thought that one name of a prophet instead of another did, not without reason, occur to 
 his memory, which was ruled by the Holy Spirit, but that the Lord appointed that it 
 should be so written," 1) to shew that all the prophets, speaking by the Spirit, agreed together 
 by a man'cllous consent, which is much more than if all the things of tlie prophets were 
 spoken by the mouth of one man, and so that, whatever the Holy Spirit said by them, should 
 be receivetl undoubtingly, and each belonged to all and all to each iirc. 2)' to combine it 
 with the selling the field of Hananeel. of which the evidence was put in an earthen vessel, 
 de Cons. Evang. L. ill. n. 30, 31. T. iii. 2. p. 114—116. 
 
 None of the otlier cases of mixed quotation come up to this. S. Mark quotes two pro- 
 
 N N N N
 
 574 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 ch^rTst ^"^ Then I rut asunder mine other staff, 
 cir. 487. p„^,„ II iJivnds, tluit I nii<>^lit break the 
 \\ Or. Binders, ^j-otherhood betwcen Jn(hiii and Israel. 
 " Ez^ek. 34. 2, j - ^ ^ jj,j j.,jg i^^^.^ ^.^^^^ „„t<, j^^^ u Take 
 
 14. y4nd I cut asunder mine other stuff'. Bands, to dissolve 
 the hrotlwrhond hctweeii Jndah and Israel. Hitherto prophecy 
 hail spoken of the healiiia; of tlie f^reat hrcach hetwceii Israel 
 and Jiidah, in Christ. The Lord, Isaiah said, ^ shall assemble 
 the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of 
 Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy of 
 Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall he 
 rut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not 
 ve.v Ephruim ; and Hosca, ^ Then shall the children of Judah 
 and the children of Israel he gathered together and shall appoittt 
 themselves one Head ; and .lereniiah, '^In those days the house 
 of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel. And Ezekiel, 
 in the midst of the captivity, in a syniholic action the coun- 
 terpart of this, is hidden, "^Take thee one stick, and write upon 
 it, For Judali, and fn- the children of Israel his companions; 
 then take another stick, and write upon if, For Joseph, the 
 stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel his companions, 
 and Join them one to another into one stick, and they shall he- 
 come one in thy hand; and, when asked the meanings of this 
 act, he was to say, Thus saith the Lord God, ^ I will take the 
 stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the 
 tribes of Israel his fellows, and icill put them tvith him, even 
 7rith the stick of Judah, and irill make them one stick, and they 
 shall he one in Mine hand. And droppine^ the syinhol ; ^ Thus 
 saith the Lord God, Behold, I irill take the children of Israel 
 from, among the heathen, tvhither they he gone — and I ivill 
 make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel: 
 and one king shall be king to them all : and they shall be no 
 more two nations, neither shall they be divided into tivo king- 
 doms any more at all — I ivill cleanse them, and they shall he 
 3Iy people and. I will he their God, and David 3Iy servant 
 shall be king over them, and they all shall have one Shepherd. 
 Such should be the unity of those who would be jrathered 
 under the One Shepherd. And so it was. '' The multitude of 
 them that believed were of one heart and of one sotd ; and Ions: 
 afterwards it was a proverb among; the Heathen^, "See how 
 these Christians love one another." Zechariah is here speak- 
 ing: of those who liad rejected the Good Shepherd, the Israel 
 and Judah after the flesh, who shut themselves out from the 
 promises of God. This had its first fulfilment in the terrible 
 dissolution of every band oi brotherhood'^ and of our common 
 nature, which made the sie£:e of Jerusalem a proverb for 
 horror, and precipitated its destruction. "^"Having: thus sepa- 
 rated the believing: from the unbelieving:. He bared the rest of 
 His care. And what we now see bears witness to the pro- 
 phecy. For the Jews, being: deprived of prophets and priests 
 and king:s and temple and ark and altar and mercy-seat and 
 candlestick and tal)le and the rest, throug:h which the leg:al 
 worship was performed, have come to be deprived also of the 
 guardianship from above ; and, scattered, exiled, removed, 
 
 phecies, of Malachi and of Isaiah as Isaiah's (S. Mark i. 2, 3). S. Matthew blends in one, 
 words of Isaiah (Ixii. 1) and Zechariah (ix. 9) as "the prophet" (S. Matt. xxi. 4, 5). Our 
 Lord unites Is. Ivi. 7, and Jer. vii. 11, with the words, " It is written." 
 
 Of earlier fathers TerlulUan simply quotes tiie prophecy as Jeremiah's (adv. Marc, iv. 40). 
 Origen says, '■ Jeremiali is not said to liave prophesied this anywhere in his books, either 
 what are read in the Churches, or reported (rcferuntur) among tlie Jews. I suspect that it 
 is an error of writiuj;, or tliat it is some secret writing of Jeremiah wherein it is written." 
 (in S. Matt. p. '.)l(i.) Eiisehius says, " Consider since this, is not in the Prophet Jeremiah, 
 whether we must think that it. wa-s removed from it by some wickedness, or whether it was 
 a clerical error of those who made the copies of tlie Gospels carelessly." Dem . Ev. x. p. 481 . 
 ' Is. xi. 12, 13. 2 Hos. i. 11. 3 Jer. iii. 18. 
 
 unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish cifnTsT 
 
 shei)herd. '^"■■^'- . 
 
 16 For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in 
 the land, tvhich sliall not visit those that be 
 
 serve ag:ainst their will those who preach Christ: denying 
 Him as Lord, they yield service to His servants. The prophet 
 having foret(dd these things of Christ, our God and Saviour, 
 and reproved the obstinacy of tlie Jews, naturally turns his 
 prophecy straight to the God-opposed christ whom tliey ex- 
 pect, as they say. So said the Lord in the holy Gospels to 
 them, ^^I am come in My Father\s name, cmd ye receive 3Ie not; 
 another wilt come in his own name, and him ye icill receive. 
 This the blessed Paul also prophesied of them, '- Because they 
 received not the love of the trutit, that they might he saved, God 
 shall send them strong delusioti that they should believe a lie, 
 that all might be damned, luho believe not the truth, hut have 
 pleasure in unrighteousness. The like does the blessed Zecha- 
 riah prophesy, having received the power of the Holy Spirit." 
 15. Take to thee yet the instruments^ of a foolish^* shepherd. 
 
 "1^ Yet. He had enacted one tragedy, in which he clearly 
 set forth the future guilt of Judas; now another is set forth, 
 the accumulated scoffing through Anti-Christ. For as Paul 
 said, because they receive not the Spirit of truth, the All- 
 righteous Judge shall send them a spirit of delusion, that they 
 should believe a lie ^^. He calls him a foolish shepherd, for 
 since the extremest folly consists in the extremest wicked- 
 ness, he will be the most foolish, who reached the highest 
 impiety, and this he will do by arrogating to himself divinity 
 and claiming divine honours ^^. 
 
 This is the only action, which the prophet had to enact or to 
 relate. If it was a visible act, the instrument might be a 
 staff which should bruise, an instrument which should bear 
 a semblance to that of the good shepherd, but which should 
 be pernicious. "^*Good shepherds, who understood their busi- 
 ness, had slight staves, that, if there should be occasion to 
 strike, the stricken sheep might not be bruised ; but one who 
 understandeth not, beats them with thicker clubs." Or it 
 may mean also, whatever he would use for the hurtful treat- 
 ment of the sheep, such as he proceeds to speak of. He is 
 spoken of as, in fact, foolishly sinfuP*: for sin is the only 
 real folly, and all real folly has sin mingled in it. The short- 
 lived wisdom of the foolish sheplicrd for his own ends should 
 also be bis destruction. 
 
 16. I will raise up. God supplies the strength or 
 wisdom which men abuse to sin. He, in His Providence, 
 disposeth the circumstances, of which the ambitious avail 
 themselves. Anti-Christ, whom the Jews look for, will be 
 as much an instrument of God for the perfecting the elect, 
 as the Chaldees^''' or the Assyrians-" whom God raised up, for 
 the chastisement of His former people, or the Medes against 
 Babylon -\ 
 
 irhich shall not visit them that he cut off. Zechariah 
 uses the imagery, yet not the exact words of Jeremiah-- and 
 Ezekiel ^^. Neglect of every duty of a shepherd to his flock, 
 
 ■* Ezek. xxxvii. 16, 17. 
 
 I 
 
 « Tert. Apol. n. 39. p. 82. and notes, Oxf. Tr. '■ 
 
 but is in Arab. Syr. Ch. Zab. m Theod.:' S. John v. < 
 
 « lb. 19. « lb. 21, 22, 23, 24. ' Acts iv. 32. 
 
 s mnK The word occurs only here, 
 43."" 12 2 Thess ■ ii. 10— 12. 
 '3 Ezekiel has the idiom, "his instrument of destruction," innp'O'?? ix. 1 ; "his instru- 
 ment of slaughter," in:o .3 lb. 2 ; Isaiah. " for his work." nfyaS '"jD Uv. 16. 
 
 '■i '^1x ttTT.. ^'IK btiiig often a subst., S'lK is a sinful fool, Job v. 2, 3, and throughout the 
 Proverl)s, tliougii more marked in some places, Pr. vii. 22, xiv. 3, xv. 5, xx. 3, xxiv. 7i 
 xxvii. 22 ; and in the plural, Ps. cvii. 17, Pr. i. 7. x. 21, xiv, 9. 
 
 '• Osor. '« 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11. '' lb. 4. " S. Cyr. 
 
 " D'J^ 'iiTi Hab. i. 6. 20 Am. vi. 14. =• Tja -in. Is. xiii. 17. 
 
 ■' " Jer. xxiii. 1, 2. -3 Ezek. xxxiv. 3, 4.
 
 CI 1 A ITER XH. 
 
 575 
 
 c H^iiTs T II ^^^ "'^' "thither shall seek the; younj? om*, 
 
 '■''•■ ts7. nor heal that that is broken, nor j| feed tliat 
 
 II oJ; 'bfa'/."' t^^'^t standeth still : hut he shall (!at the flesh 
 
 of the fat, and tear their claws in [)ieees. 
 "i^'-P-J-^ 17 "Woe to the idol shenher<l that leav- 
 
 Ezek. 34. 2. ' ' 
 
 Joha 10. 12, eth the flock ! the sword .shall he upon his 
 arm, and upon his rij^ht eye : his arm shall 
 be clean dried up, and his right eye shall 
 
 to the sick, the broken, the sound; direct injury of thenij 
 preyinij upon them, make up the ])icture. 
 
 iriiirh alidll not visit, or tend, t/iat which is cxt (tjf': ful- 
 filliuii" (jiod's judgement ', that which is to he cut ojf', let it he 
 cut o//! 
 
 Neither shall seek the young one, better, the scattered'^, 
 dispersed, as the Good Sheplierd ^ came to seek and to save 
 that which luas lost. Nor heal that which is broken ; hound 
 not, Ezekiel says ^ " ' The broken lejis of sheep are healed 
 no otherwise than those of men ; rolled in wool impregnated 
 with oil and wine, and then bound up with splinters placed 
 round about it." 
 
 Nor feed that which standeth still, better, the tvhole^, as 
 the word always means, "in its good estate," like our prayer, 
 "that Thou wouldest strengthen those who do stand." 
 
 17. ff'o to the idol shepherd, (a shepherd of nothingness, one 
 who hath no quality of a shepherd';) tvho Ivaveth the Jiock. 
 The condemnation of the evil shepherd is complete in the 
 abandonment of the sheep ; as our Lord says, '^He that is an 
 hireling and not the Shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, 
 seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep andjleeth : and 
 the wolf catrheth them and scattereth the sheej). The hire' 
 ling Jieeth, because he is an hireling and careth not for the 
 sheep. 
 
 Or it may equally be, Shepherd, ^ thou idol, including the 
 original meaning of nothingness, such as Anti-Christ will be, 
 "1" while he calleth himself God, and willeth to be wor- 
 shipped." "^"This shepherd shall thercft»re arise in Israel, 
 because the true Shepherd had said, / will not feed you. He 
 is prophesied of by another name in Daniel the Prophet ^^, 
 and in the Gospel'-, and in the Epistle of I'aul to the Thessa- 
 lonians^', as the abomination of desolation, who shall sit in 
 the temple of the Lord, and make himself as God. He 
 Cometh, not to heal but to destroy the flock of Israel. This 
 shepherd the Jews shall receive, whom the L<n-d Jesus shall 
 slay with the breath 0/ His mouth, and destroy with the bright- 
 ness of His Coming." 
 
 The sword shall be upon [^i/gainst^ his arm and right eye. 
 His boast shall be of intelligence, and might. The punish- 
 ment and destruction shall be directed against the instru- 
 ment of each, the eye and the arm. " ^^ The eye, whereby he 
 shall boast to behold ac-utely the mysteries of God. and to 
 see more than all prophets heretofore, so that he shall call 
 himself son of God. But the word of the Lord shall be upon 
 his arm and upon his right eye, so that his strength and all 
 his boast of might shall be dried up, and the knowledge which 
 
 * ab. V. 9. ^ rh iaKopiritrfifvov, 6 ; dispersuni. S. Jer. " who have wandered 
 
 or gone astray," Syr. "He who hireth a flock is forbidden rn^h. What is this ! To lead it 
 from place to place." Tahn. Hieros. Tr. SheWith c. i, in Buxt. Lex. p. 1363. Arab. 
 K]'''K my] J'K ]D ■' Whence earnest thou to us .'" c. "B. " traversed country " (Kam.). lyj is not 
 used of young of animals. ^ S. Luke xix. Ul, S. Matt, xviii. 11. 
 
 ■• Ezek. xxxiv. 4. * Colum. de re rust. viii. 5. 
 
 6 " Which was set firm, or set himself firm." Nif. as in Ps. xxxix. ti, " Every man in 
 his firm estate (3^i) is aU vanity." t6 bK6K\riftov, <i. " id quod stat," S. Jer. So Syr. The 
 
 he utterly darkened. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1 Jerusalem a cup of trembling to herself, '.S and 
 a burdensome stone to her adversaries. G 7'he 
 I'iclorious restoring of Judah. 9 The repentance 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 187. 
 
 T 
 
 FIE burden of the word of the Lord jTij.ai.' 
 for Israel, saith the J^oro, ^ which si^'.n. 
 
 he i)romised himself falsely, shall be obscured in everlasting 
 darkness." " '* Above and against the power of Anti-Christ, 
 shall be the virtue ami vengean<!e and sentence of (Christ, 
 Who shall slay liini iiuth the tirralti of His mouth." The right 
 arm, the symbol of might, and the right eye which was to 
 direct its aim, should fail together, through the judgement 
 of God against him. He, lately boastful and pei'secuting, 
 shall become blind and powerless, bereft alike of wisdom and 
 strength. 
 
 The " right " in Holy Scripture being so often a symbol of 
 what is good, the left of what is evil, it may be also imagined, 
 that " '^ the left eye, i.e. the acumen and cunning to devise 
 deadly frauds, will remain uninjured: while the right eye, i.e. 
 counsel to guard against evil, will be sunk in thick darkness. 
 And so, the more he employs his ability to evil, the more 
 frantically will he bring to bear destruction upon himself." 
 
 XII. "'"From 'I will make Jerusalem' to ' Awake, U sword,' 
 there is a threefold exposition. For some of the Jews say 
 that these things have already been fulfilled in part from 
 Zorobabel to Cn. Pompey who, first of the Romans, took 
 Judaea and the temple, as Josephus relates. Others think 
 that it is to be fulfilled at the end of the world, when Jeru- 
 salem shall be restored, which the miserable Jewish race 
 promiseth itself with its anointed, of whom we read aljove as 
 the foolish shepherd. But others, i.e. we who are called by 
 the name of Christ, say that these things are daily fulfilled, 
 and will be fulfilled in the Church to the end of the world." 
 
 1. Tlie burden of the word of the Lord for. rather, ujion^^ 
 Israel. If this prophecy is a continuation of the last, not- 
 withstanding its fresh title, then Israel must be the Christian 
 Church, formed of the true Israel which believed, and the 
 Gentiles who were grafted into them. So S. Cyril ; " Having 
 spoken sufficiently of the Good Shepherd Christ, and of the 
 foolish, most cruel shepherd who butchered the sheep, i. e. 
 Anti-Christ, he seasonably makes mention of the persecutions 
 which would from time to time arise against Israel ; not the 
 Israel according to the flesh, but the spiritual, that Jerusalem 
 which is indeed holy, '' the Church of the Living God. For 
 as we say, that he is spiritually a Jew, avIio hath the ^^cir- 
 cumcision in the heart, that through the Spirit, and not in the 
 flesh through the letter; so also may Israel be conceived, 
 not that of the blood of Israel, but rather that, which has a 
 mind beholding (iod. But such are all who are called to 
 sanctification through the faith in Christ, and who, in Him 
 and by Him, know of God the Father. For this is the one 
 true elected way of beholding God." 
 
 .Arab, "jsiwaswearj" (quoted C.B. Mich. Ges.) has only this force as intrans.; 3s)c.acc. r., 
 and nsruN agree with' Heb. Yet Jon. renders as Eng. 
 
 7 S'Sfin-y'i, as S'^s'xsi, "physicians of no value." Job xiii. 4. * S. John x. 12. 1.3. 
 
 ' T,n, as a form for rrjl, occurs in Is. xxxviii. 12, 'jp ^.^^l. '" S. Jer. 
 
 11 Dan. ix. ' •= S. Mark xiii. "2Thess. ii. 
 
 " Dion. » Osor. 
 
 16 .See on Nah. i. 1. p. 373. The Vy of the title is repeated in the cSsm'-Vy Tiin'-';^ ver. 2. 
 '? 1 Tim. iij. 15. '* Rom. ii. 2SI. 
 
 N N N N 2
 
 576 
 
 ZKCIIAIUAII. 
 
 cniiTsT strett'lieth forth the heavens, and hvyeth 
 cir. 4'i7. the limndation of the earth, and '' formeth 
 the spirit of man within hiin. 
 
 •> Num. IC. 22. Ecxles. 12. 7. Isai. 57. 10. Heb. 12. 9. 
 
 Sinee the Good Shepherd was rejected by all, except the 
 poor of t lie flock, tlie tittle flock which believed in Him, and 
 tliereiijioii the Ixnid of lirotlicrltood was dissolved between 
 Israel and Judah, Israel in those times could not be Israel 
 after the flesh, which then too was the deadly antaj2;onist of 
 the true Israel, and thus early also chose Anti-Christ, such as 
 was Bar-Cochba, with whom so many hundreds of thousands 
 jierished. There was no war then against Jerusalem, since 
 it had ceased to be '. 
 
 But Zechariah does not say that this prophecy, to which 
 he has annexed a separate title, follows, in time, upon the 
 last ; rather, since he has so separated it by its title, he has 
 marked it as a distinct prophecy from the preceding. It 
 may be, that he began again from the time of the Maccabees 
 and took God's deliverances of the people Israel then, as the 
 foreground of the deliverances to the end '-. Yet in the times 
 of Antiochus, it was one people only which was against the 
 Jews, and Zechariah himself speaks only of the Greeks'; 
 here he repeatedly emphasises that they were all nations*. 
 It may then rather be. that the future, the successive efforts 
 of the world to crush the people of God, and its victory amid 
 suffering, and its conversions of the world through the peni- 
 tent looking to Jesus, are exhibited in one great perspective, 
 according to the manner of prophecy, which mostly exhibits 
 the prominent events, not their order or sequence. " ^ The 
 penitential act of contrite sinners, especially of Jews, looking 
 at Ilim Tritoni tltei/ pierced, dates from the Day of Pentecost, 
 and continues to the latter days, when it will be greatly in- 
 tensified and will produce blessed results, and is here concen- 
 trated into one focus. The rising up of God's enemies against 
 Christ's Church, which commenced at the same time, and 
 has been continued in successive persecutions from Jews, 
 Gentiles, and other unbelievers in every age, and which will 
 reach its climax in the great Anti-Christian outbreak of the 
 last times, and be confounded by the Coming of Christ to 
 judgement, is here summed up in one panoramic picture, 
 exhibited at once to the eye." 
 
 TVhich stretclietli forth tlie heavens. God's creative power 
 is an ever-present working, as our Lord says, ^ My Fa- 
 ther ivortieth hitlierto and [ tuork. His preservation of the 
 things which He has created is a continual re-creation. All 
 "forces" are supported by Him, Who Alone hath life in 
 Himself. He doth not the less uplmld all things bi/ the word 
 of I/i.s poirer, because, until the successive generations, with 
 or without their will, with or against His Will for them, shall 
 have completed His Sovereign Will, He upholds them uni- 
 formly in being by His Unchanging Will. Man is ever for- 
 getting this, and because, ''since the fathers fell asleep, all 
 tilings continue as from the beginning of tlie creation, they re- 
 legate the Creator and His creating as far as they can to some 
 time, as far back as they can imagine, enough to till their 
 
 ' See at length, ab. on Mic. iii. 12, pp. 316—318. 
 ^ So Lnp. " That Zecliariah speaks literally of the times of the Maccabees which were 
 shortly to follow, appears both from the sequence of the times, and the connection and con- 
 pruency of these oracles with the deeds of the Maccabees, as also because v. 10. ends in the 
 Passion of Christ. For this followed the times of the Maccabees. As then Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
 Hosea, Daniel, Ezekiel S:c. foretold what was shortly to befall the Jews from Salmanassar, 
 Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, so Zechariah foretells what should presently befall them 
 from Antiochus under the Maccabees." Synops. c. xii. 
 
 2 Behold, I will make .Jerusalem '^ a eup cifnTsT 
 
 cir. W". 
 
 17, 
 
 « ^ 11 IV 
 
 of II trend)lin<^ unto all tli(! j»eoj)le round SiTii 
 
 about, II when they shall hi; in the siege 2^23. 
 
 II Or, and also against Judah s\rM heiicwhirh shall be in siege or poison, 
 
 against Jerusalem. 
 
 imaginations, and forget Him Who made them, in Whose 
 bands is their eternity. Who will be their Judge. So the jtro- 
 phets remind them and us of His continual working, which 
 men forget in the sight of His works ; ** Thus saith the Lord ; 
 He that c.reateth the heavens, and stretcheth them out ; He tliat 
 spreadeth forth the earth and its produce, IVIio giveth breath 
 to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein ; 
 and, ^ I a?n the Lord JFho rnaketh all things. Who stretcheth 
 out the lieavens alone, fViio .spreadeth abroad the earth by 
 Bhjself ; s])eaking at once of that, past in its beginning yet 
 present to us in its continuance, but to Him ever-present 
 present; and of things actually present to us, ^^ that frustrateth 
 the tokens of the liars ; and of things to those of that day still 
 future, '^ that confirmeth the word of His servant, atid perform- 
 eth the counsel of His messengers ; the beginning of which 
 was not to be till the taking of Babylon. And the Psalmist 
 unites past and present in one, ^"Donning light as a garment, 
 stretching out ttie heavens as a curtain ; Who lai/eth the fjeams 
 of His chambers on the waters, Who maketh the clouds His 
 chariot ; Who walketh on the icings of the wind ; Who maketh 
 His angels spirits. His ministers a Jiame of fire ; He founded 
 the earth upon its base. And Amos, '^ He that formetfi the 
 numntains and createth the winds, and declareth unto man his 
 thoughts ; — adding whatever lieth nearest to each of us. 
 
 ^nd formeth ttie spirit of mem within him, both by the 
 unceasing creation of souls, at every moment in some spot 
 in our globe, or by the re-creation, for which David prays, 
 ^* Create in me a clean lieart, O God, and reneiv a right spirit 
 within me. He Who formed the hearts of men can overrule 
 them as He wills. "^=But the spirit of man is formed by God 
 in him, not by being called to the beginnings of being, although 
 it was made by Him, but, as it were, transformed from weak- 
 ness to strength, from unmanliness to endurance, altogether 
 being transelemented from things shameful to better things." 
 " ^^ It is the wont of the holy Prophets, when about to de- 
 clare beforehand things of no slight moment, to endeavour 
 to shew beforehand the Almightiness of God, that their word 
 may obtain credence, though they should declare what was 
 beyond all hope, and (to speak of our conceptions) above all 
 reason and credibility." 
 
 2. / icill make Jerusalem a cup of trembling ^*. For en- 
 couragement. He promises the victory, and at first mentions 
 the attack incidentally. Jerusalem is as a cup or basin, 
 which its enemies take into their hands ; a stone, which they 
 put forth their strength to lift ; but they themselves reel with 
 the draught of God's judgements which they would give to 
 others, they are torn by the stone which they would lift to 
 fling. The image of the cup is mostly of God's displeasure, 
 whic'h is given to His own people, and then. His judgement 
 of chastisement being exceeded, given in turn to those who 
 had been the instruments of giving it^''. Thus Isaiah speaks 
 
 3 Zech. ix. 13. " nnyn hz xii. 2, 3, 6, 9. 
 
 * Bp. C. Wordsworth here, and the like in Keil on xiv. 20. p. CGI. 
 6 S. John V. 17. 
 7 2 S. Pet. iii. 4. ■ Is. xlU. 5. 9 jb. xUv. 24. "> lb. 25. 
 
 " lb. 26. 1= Ps. civ. 2—5. '' Am. iv. 13. add v. 8. 
 
 » Ps. li. 10. '» S. Cyr. 
 
 " 7in air. in this sense. The form il7jnn occurs in the like idioms, n7j;TnDi3, Is. li. 17, 22; 
 n^jnn j" Ps. Lx. 5. '' See on Obad. 16, pp. 241, 242. 
 
 Vf Ju
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 577 
 
 „ .pefoje both au^ainst Judah and acrainst .Tcrusalein. 
 
 "■•• 4^7. . ,3 ^[ 'And in that day will I make Jern- 
 
 iL&'ch. 13.' salem '' a burdensome stone for all people : 
 
 8.9, is! ' ' all that burden themselves with it shall be 
 
 . . p^j^ jj^ pieees, thou<;h all the people of the 
 
 earth be gathered together against it. 
 
 of the cup of trem/ilinf^. ^Thoxi, Jerusalem, hast drunk the 
 dregs of the cup of trenililing, hast wrung them out. Therefore 
 hear thou, this, thou aJ/Hcted and drunlivn Imt not witii wine. 
 Thus saith tin/ I^ord, the Lord, and thij God that pteadeth the 
 cause of His people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand tite 
 cup of treinhling, the dregs of the cup of JSly fury ; thou shalt 
 710 more drink it again : hut I will put it info the hand of tliem 
 that afflict tliee. Jorcmiah speaks of the cup of God's anger, 
 as p;iveii by God first to Jerusalem, then to all whom Nebu- 
 chadnezzar should subdue, then to Babylon itself-; and as 
 passing through to Edom also'; Ezekiel, oi Aholibah^ (Jeru- 
 salem) drinking the cup of Samaria. In Jeremiah alone, Baby- 
 Ion is herself the cup. ^Babylon is a golden cup in the Lord's 
 hand, that made all the nations drunken ; the nations have 
 drunken of the rvine; therefore the nations are mad. Now Jeru- 
 salem is to be, not an ordinary cup, but a large basin^ or vessel, 
 from which all nations may drink what will make them reel. 
 
 And also upon Judah luill it be in the siege against Jeru- 
 salem, i.e. the burden of the ivord'' of the Lord which teas 07i 
 Israel should be upon Judah, i. e. upon all, great and small. 
 
 3. Itvill make Jerusalem a burdensome stone to all ?iafions. 
 What is a stone to all nations ? It is not a rock or anything 
 in its own nature immoveable, but a sto7ie, a thing rolled up 
 and down, moved, lifted, displaced, piled on others, in every 
 way at the service and command of men, to do with it what 
 they willed. So they thought of that ^ stone cut out without 
 hands ; that ' tried stone and sure fowidation, laid i/i Zion ; 
 that stone which, God said in Zechariah^", I have laid; of which 
 our Lord says, ^^ the sto7ie, tvhich the builders rejected, is become 
 the head of the cor7ier ; ^- whosoever shall fall o/i this stone shall 
 be broketi, but on ivhomsoever it shall fall, it ivill grind him to 
 powder. The Church, built on the stone, seems a thing easily 
 annihilated ; ten persecutions in succession strove to efface 
 it; Diocletian erected a monument, commemorating that the 
 Christian name was blotted out^'. It survived; he perished. 
 The image may have been suggested by the custom, so widely 
 prevailing in Judaea, of trying the relative strength of young 
 men, by lifting round stones selected for that end ^*. " ^^ The 
 meaning then is, I will place Jerusalem to all nations like a 
 very heavy stone ^^ to be lifted up. They will lift it up, and 
 according to their varied strength, will waste it; but it must 
 needs be, that, while it is lifted, in the very strain of lifting 
 
 > Is. li. 17, 21—23. 
 
 = Jer. XXV. 15—26. 3 Lam. iv. 21. Jer. xlix. 12. 
 
 * Ezelc. xjdii. 31—33. « Jer. U. 7. 
 
 •■ "JD is the basin, which received the blood of the Paschal lamb, Ex. xii. 22 ; D'?p, with 
 beds and earthen vessels, were brought to David by Barzillai and the others, 2 Sam. xvii. 28. 
 Else they are only mentioned as instnunents of the temple-services. 1 Kgs vii. 50, 2 Kgs xii. 14, 
 Jer. lii. 19. 
 
 ^ Kiti is the only natural subject, as in ix. 1, the burden of the Lord is on the land of 
 JJadrtick, but it is subjoined, Damascus is the resting place thereof S^c. The E. V. does not 
 seem grammatical. The E.M. is too elliptical, as also that other, "it will be laid upon 
 Jerusalem to be in the siege against Jerusalem." Had "the cup of treinbling" been the 
 subject, it had probably been nT\n-h, as D'DVn bj'?. Nor can niSD be the subject ; for countries, 
 as Judah, are not the objects of siege. ^ Dan. ii. 45. ** Is, xxviii. 16. 
 
 w Zech. iii. 9. " S. Luke xx. 17. '- S. Matt. xxi. 41. S. Luke xx. 18. 
 
 '3 Baronius speaks of two inscriptions as still existing at Clunia (Conmna dal Conde) 
 in Spain. The one had, " amplihcato per Orientem et Occid. Impe. Rom, et nomine 
 Cluistianor. delete qui remp. evertebant;" the other, " superstitione Christi ubiq. deleta. 
 Cultu Deorum propagato." A. 304. n. I. 
 
 '■I " It is the custom in the cities of Palestme, and that old tisage is kept up to this day 
 
 4 In that day, saitli the Lonn, 'I will ch^rTst 
 smit(! every horse with astonishment, and "'■ '*•'*''• 
 his rider with madness: and 1 will open EiJk.'ss. 4. 
 mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and 
 will smite every horse of the people with 
 blindness. 
 
 the weight, that most heavy stone should leave some scission 
 or rasure on the bodies of those who lift it. Of the Clnirch 
 it may be intcriirctcd tlius; that all jx-rsccutors, who fought 
 against the house of flic Lord, are inebriated \vith that cup, 
 wbicli Jeremiah gives to all nations, to drink and be inebriated 
 and fall and vomit and be mad. \\'hos(»ever would uplift the 
 stone shall lift it, and in the anger of the Lord, whereby He 
 (^hastens sinners, will hold it in his hands; but ho himself 
 will not go unpunished, the sword of the Lord fighting against 
 him." 
 
 All that burdcTi themselves with if irill he cut to pieces '^, 
 more exactly, scarified, lacerated; shall bear the scars. Though 
 (rather, and) all the jieople [peoples, nations^ of the earth shall 
 be gathered together against it. The prophet marshals them 
 all against Jerusalem, only to say how they should perish 
 before it. So in Joel God says, ^^Iwill also gather all 7iatio7is, 
 and will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, speaking 
 of that last closing strife of Anti-Christ against God. Wars 
 against Israel had either been petty, though Anti-theistic, 
 wars of neighbouring petty nations, |)itting their false gods 
 against the True, or one, though world-empire wielded by a 
 single will. The more God made Himself known, the fiercer 
 the opposition. The Gospel claiming ^'^ obedience to the faith 
 among all 7iations, provoked universal rebellion. Ilerod and 
 Pontius Pilate became friends through rejection of Christ ; 
 the Roman Caesar and the Persian Sapor, Goths and \'an(lals, 
 at war with one another, were one in persecuting Christ and 
 the Church. Yet in vain ; 
 
 4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse 
 u'ith astonishme7it, stupefying. Zecbariah revives the words 
 concentrated by Moses, to express the stupefaction at their 
 ills, which God would accumulate upon His peojde, if they 
 perseveringly rebelled against Him. Each expresses the in- 
 tensity of the visitation-". The horse a/id his rider had, through 
 Moses' song at the Red Sea, become the emblem of worldly 
 power, overthrown. That song opens ; -'/ tcill sing unto the 
 Lord; for He hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his 
 rider hath He cast into the sea. The scared cavalry throws 
 into confusion the ranks, of which it was the boast and 
 strength. 
 
 And 071 the house of Judah I icill ope7i My eyes, in pity 
 and love and guidance, as the Psalmist says, "-/ ivill counsel, 
 
 throughout Jud^a, that in villages towns and forts, roimd stones are placed, of very great 
 weight, on wliich young men are wont to practise themselves, and according to their varj-ing 
 strength, lift them, some to the knees, others to the navel, others to the shoulders and head ; 
 others lift the weight above the head, with their two hands raised straight up, shewing the 
 greatness of their strength. In the Acropolis at Athens, I saw a brass globe, of very great 
 weight, which I, with rny little weak body, could scarcely move. When I asked its object, 
 I was told by the inliabitants. that the strength of wrestlers was proved by that mass, and 
 that no one went to a match, until it was ascertained by the lifting of that weight, who ought 
 to be set against whom," S. Jer, ^^ S. Jer. 
 
 "' lit. "a stone of lading," which whoso lifteth would be laden or burthened. It is the 
 only noun formed from cov ; and the root itself existed only in Hebrew. 
 
 '' mi' is a root, reWved by Zechariah from the Pentateuch. It occurs only Lev. xix, 28, 
 xxi. 5, of the forbidden incisions for the dead. Arab. D"!? and Syr. B15, "scarified" Syr. 
 EDirriK "was branded." 
 
 i» .To. iii. 2. See ab. pp. 132, 133, and pp. 137—139 on Jo. iii, 9. is Rom. i. 5. 
 
 ™ Deut. xxviii. 28, p."Rn (the only noun derived from fcn) (and with the same word, ,"15;) 
 fii'jl occurs only there besides ; [iyj?, besides, only in 2 Kgs ix. 20. Only a;^ is omitted 
 after jvcn, since it stands in connection with the horse in the parallelism. 
 21 Ex. sv. 1. 22 Ps. xxxii. 8.
 
 578 
 
 ZECIIAllIAII. 
 
 ch^rTst ^ ^"^' the governors of .Tudah shall say 
 
 "''•■ ■^^- in their heart, |1 The inhabitants of Jeru- 
 
 is strength salem skuU be my strength in the Lord of 
 
 tome-Mii X il • r^ 1 
 
 toiheiuha- hosts theu* liOd. 
 
 foT-i'/U'. 6 ^1 In that day will I make the gover- 
 8 obad. X8. noi-s of Jiidali « like an hearth of fire among 
 the wood, and like a torch of fire in a 
 sheaf; and they shall devour all the peo- 
 ple round about, on the right hand and 
 on the left : and Jerusalem shall be in- 
 
 ivith 3Ihie eye npon thee, in contrast with the blindness with 
 which God woukl smite the powers arrayed ai::ainst them. 
 
 5. And the princes of Judah. He pictures the one- 
 mindedness of the Church. No one shall assume anything 
 to himself; each shall exalt the strength which the other 
 was to him ; but all, in the Lord. The princes of Judith 
 shall say in their heart, not outwardly or politically, but in 
 inward conviction, strength to nie^ (all speak as one) ca-e the 
 inhabitants uf Jerusalem in the Lord of hosts their God. The 
 highest in human estimation acknowledge that their strength 
 is in those who are of no account in this world ; as, in fact, 
 the hearts of the poor are evermore the strength of the 
 Church ; but that, in the Lord of hosts ; in Him, in Whose 
 hands are the powers of heaven and earth, over against the 
 petty turmoil on earth. God had chosen Jerusalem-; there- 
 fore she was invincible. "That most glorious prince of Judah, 
 Paul, said, '/ can do all things in Christ TFho instrengthe7ieth 
 me: " 
 
 6. / ivill make the governors of Judah like a hearth or 
 cauldron^ of fire, large, broad, deep, and full of fire, among 
 the wood which is prepared for burning \ and like a torch of 
 
 fire in a sheaf. The fire could not kindle the wood or the 
 sheaf, of itself, unless applied to it. All is of the agency of 
 God : / will make. 
 
 " = He foretells the increase of the Church, which by such 
 persecutions shall not be diminished, but shall be marvel- 
 lously increased. The preachers of the Church shall raise up 
 all the peoples round about, shall destroy all unbelief, and 
 shall kindle the hearts of hearers with the fire of the Divine 
 word." On the right hand and on the left. " = He indicates 
 the strength and success of the preachers, whom no one can 
 resist or hinder," as our Lord says, " I will give t/ou a mouth 
 and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to 
 guinsai/ nor resist. 
 
 And Jerusalem shall again, rather, i/et, be inhabited. 
 "Yet" is a sort of burden in Zechariah's prophecies''. "''They 
 at once burned up by the fiame all the defilement of vices, 
 and kindled the minds of men with the torch of Divine love; 
 at once consumed the enemy and cast a heavenly fire into 
 the human heart: i/et ; in despite of all appearances, of all I 
 which is against her. She shall yet dwell in her own place in 
 Jerusalem ; for, however the waves of this world chafe and 
 lash themselves into foam against her, they break themselves, 
 
 1 ny?N Stt. ; as is the form ynk. Job xvii. 19, ynKO lb. xxxvi. 19. 
 - Zecb. i. 17, ii. 12. iii. 2. 
 3 tIi*3. in 1 Sam. ii. 14, is 'a vessel, in whicli tlie food is cooked ;' in 2 Chr. vi. 13 'a pulpit:' 
 so that the vessel, to whidi it is likened, must iiave been larfie ; as must liave been the brazen 
 laver of the tabernacle (Ex. Lev.) or temple (2 Kgs), of which the word is elsewhere used. 
 Each laver of Solomon's temple contained forty baths, or about 300 gallons, and was four 
 cubits ( 1 Kks vii. 3S) square a])parently (coll. 27.). 
 
 * D'sy (pi.) is used of wood cut up, 1) for burning, especially on an altar, or 2) for build- 
 ing, iiniess it is plain from the context, that they are living trees, as m Jos. x. 26, Jud.ix. 48, 
 
 habited again in her own place, even in ^H^ifpsT 
 Jerusalem. "'*•• "^''- 
 
 7 The Loa'> also shall save the tents of ,' 
 Judah first, that the glory of the house of 
 David and the glory of the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem do not nuignify themselves 
 against Judah. 
 
 8 In that day shall the Lord defend the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem ; and ''he that ig ^ Jo*' s. lo. 
 
 II f feeble among them at that day shall be as !| H^eb. j^oiL. 
 
 not her; as soon as they have reached their utmost height, 
 they fall back ; if they toss themselves and, for a moment, 
 hide her light, they fall down at all sides, and the ray shines 
 out, steady as before ; for she is founded on a rock, against 
 which '-^ the gales of hell should not prevail. 
 
 7. The Lord also shall save the tents tjf Judah first. Still 
 it is, the Lord shall save. We have, on the one side, the siege, 
 the gathering of all the peo|)les of the earth against Jerusaleni, 
 the horse and his rider. On the other, no human strength ; 
 not, as before, in the prophecy of the Maccabees, the bow, 
 the arrow, and the sword, though in the hand of God ^". It 
 is thrice, I ivill niake^^ ; I tvill smite ^'~ ; and now, The Lord 
 shall save. By the tents, he probably indicates their defence- 
 lessncss. God would save them first; that the glory ^■^ of the 
 house of David — be ?tot great against or over Judah, may not 
 overshadow it ; but all may be as one; for all is the free gift 
 of God, the mere grace of God, that ^* he that glorielh may 
 glory in the Lord, and both "^=may own that, in both, the 
 victory is the Lord's." 
 
 "'•"/w Christ Jesus is neitlier Jew nor Greek ; neither bond 
 nor free^'', neither rich nor poor; but all are one, viz. a new 
 creation; yea in Christendom tlie poor are the highest, both 
 because Christ ^^ preached to the poor, and pronounced the 
 ^^poor blessed, and He made the Apostles, being poor, nobles 
 in His kingdom, through whom He converted kings and 
 princes, as is written, -*'ye see your calling, brethren, that not 
 many ivise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble 
 are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world 
 to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to con- 
 found the things which are mighty S;c. ; and, '^Hath not God 
 called the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the 
 kingdom, which God has promised to them that love Him f 
 The rich and noble have greater hindrances to humility and 
 Christian virtues, than the poor. For honours pufl" up, wealth 
 and delights weaken the mind; wherefore they need greater 
 grace of Christ to burst their bonds than the poor. Where- 
 fore, for the greater grace shewn them, they are bound to 
 give greater thanks unto Christ." 
 
 8. Li that day the Lord shall defend the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem ; and he that is feeble, rather, he that stumhleth 
 among them, shall be us David. The result of the care and 
 the defence of God is here wholly spiritual, "the strengthen- 
 ing of such as do stand, and the raising up of such as fall." 
 
 in Jotham's fable lb. 9—15, or Ps. xcvi. 12, civ. 16, Cant. iv. 14, Is. vii. 2. &c. 
 
 5 Rib. 6 S.Lukex.xi. 15. 7 See reff. note 2. » Osor. 
 
 ' S. Matt. xvi. 18. '" Zech. ix. 13. " ver. 2, 3, 6. '= ver. 4 bis. 
 
 '■■< mnan is nowhere " gloriatio," as Ges., but simply " glory," " beauty," though, rarely, it 
 is implied in the context that he who has it, is proud' of it, as Is. iii. 18. x. 12, xiii. 9. 
 n Jer. ix. 24, 1 Cor. i. 31, 2 Cor. x. 17. 
 15 S. Jer. 16 Lap. i" Gal. iii. 28. 
 
 IS S. Luke iv. 18. " lb. vi. 20. 
 
 if 1 Cor. i. 20. " S. James ii. 5. 
 
 1 
 
 (ba c-
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 '>/'. 
 
 cifiiTsT I^'*^'*'f^ ! f*"'' ^'"^ lioiiso of David shall he as 
 "'^- '^'^- God, as the aiiiircl of the Lord l)efore them. 
 
 9 ^ And it shall come to pass in that 
 
 '"rfs! "^' ''''y' '^'"^ ' ^^'"'l ^^^^^ t" ' <lestroy all the na- 
 tions that come against Jerusalem. 
 
 It is not simply one feeble, but one stumbling^ and ready to 
 fall, who becomes as David, the great instance of one who 
 fell, yet was raised. Daniel says of a like trial-time, "And 
 some of those of laiderstaitdins; slidll stititihle, to try tlivm inid to 
 purge and to make tliein wliite, to the time of t lie end. "'^Siieli 
 care will (iod have of protectinsj the sons of the Church, 
 when it shall be infested with persecutions, that he who shall 
 have fallen throuj^h human iufirniity, either deceived by 
 heretics or overcome by fear of tortures, shall arise the more 
 fervent and cautious, and with many tears shall make amends 
 for his sins to God, as did David. He who stumh/ed shall he 
 as David, because the sinner returneth to repentance. This 
 is not said of all times, nor of all (for many have stumbled, 
 who never rose) but chiefly of the first times of the Church 
 and of men of great sanctity, such as were many then." 
 
 And the house of David shall he as God. They n'ho 
 stumbled became really like David; but he, though mighty 
 and a great saint of (lod, though he once fell, was man. 
 How then could the house of David be really like fiod ? 
 Only fully in Him, Who, * being in the form of God, thought 
 it not robbery to he equal leith God ; Who said, '•" He who 
 hath seen 3Ie, hath seen Itfi/ Father also ; ^ I and the Father 
 are one. And this the prophet brings out by adding, as the 
 Angel of the Lord before them, i. e. that one Angel of the 
 Lord, in whom His very Presence and His Name was; Who 
 went before them, to guide them ^. Else, having said, like 
 God, it had been to lessen what he had just said, to add, 
 like the Angel of the Lord. Our Lord prayed for those who 
 are truly His, ^As Thou, Father, art in Me a)ul I in Thee, 
 that they may be one in Us ; that they may be one as IVe are 
 one, I in them and Thou in 3Ie, that they tuay Ije perfect in 
 one; and S. Paul saith, ' Christ is formed in us; ^° Christ 
 dwelleth in our hearts by faith; ^^ Christ liveth in me; ^^ Christ 
 is in you ; ^^ Christ is our life ; ^* Christ is all and in all ; ^^ive 
 groiv into Him which is the Head, even Christ ; ^^ we are in 
 Christ ; and S. Peter, we are ^''partakers of the Divine nature ; 
 and S. John, ^^As He is, so are we in this ivorld. Then in a 
 
 ' 1 Sam. ii. 4, is the only case alleged by Ges., in which Tybi is to signify " weak." Yet 
 here too "stumble," as in the E. V., is tlie natural rendering. In the otlier 19 cases it is 
 confessedly stumbling, though in some it is stumbling, so as to fall. 
 2 ban. xi. So. 3 Rib. 
 
 ■> Phil. ii. 6. 5 S. John xiv. 9. « lb. x. 30. 
 
 " See " Daniel the prophet" pp. 519-523. 8 S. John xvii. 21, 22, 23. 
 
 » Gal. iv. 19. "1 Eph. iii. 17. " Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 12 Rom. viii. 10. " Col. iii. 4. » lb. 11. 
 
 '5 Eph. iv. 15. Iii Rom. xvi. ", 2 Cor. v. 17, Gal. i. 22. >' 2 Pet. i. 4. 
 
 '"1 S.John iv. 17. " Gal. iv. 14. 
 
 20 rpa with S and inf. " Pliaraoh sought to slay Moses," Ex. ii. 15 ; " Saul, my father, 
 seeketh to slay thee." I Sam. xi. 2; "Saul sought to smite David," lb. 20; Solomon, to 
 kill Jeroboam, 1 Kgs xi. 10; " Sought to lay hand on the king," Esth. vi. 2 ; Haman 
 sought to destroy the Jews. lb. iii. 0. Tlie inf. without 7, occurs Jer. xxvi. 21 . 
 2' 1 Sam. xiv. 4, xxiii. 10, Eccl. xii. 10. 
 
 22 '* sought to turn away," De. xiii. 11. " seekest to destroy a city," 2 Sam. xx. 19. 
 
 23 1 Kgs xi. 22, Zech. vi. 7. 2< In Ex. iv. 24 only, it is said, " God 
 sought to slay Moses," i. e. shewed that He would, imless his son had been circumcised. 
 
 25 Jo. ii. 28. See ah. pp. 127, 128. 26 \^_ xi. 2. 
 
 27 D'JUnn is cliosen in allusion to [n " grace." D'Wnn is, almost everywhere, the cry to God 
 for His grace and favour. It occurs mostly in the Psalms miited with ^^p "the voice of 
 my supplications," Ps. xxviii. 2, G, xxxi. 23, xxxvi. 6, cx\i. 1, cxxx. 2, cxi. / ; also of the 
 cry to God, without Sip. Ps. cxliii. 1, Dan. ix. 3, 17, 18, 33, Jer. iii. 21. xxxi. 9. It is used 
 of man to man, only Prov. xviii. 23, and else, in irony, of what leviathan would not do to 
 man, Job xl. 27, 6. [xli. 3. Eng.] 28 Rom. v. 5. 
 
 29 Heb. X. 29, rh irviv^a Trfs x^P*tos (vv^piffas. 30 Osor. 
 
 3' There is no critical doubt about the reading, '7m, to Me. It is the reading of all the 
 
 10 "^ And I will pour upon the house of ciCrTst 
 JJavid, and upon the inhabitants of .leru- — 5!Li^_ 
 salem, the spirit of f^race and of supplica- &"o. 4. 
 tions : and they shall 'look upon me whom jlSi 28. 
 they have pierced, and they shall mourn 3V."Re,.Vi.'7. 
 
 degree the glory of Christ passeth over to those who dwell 
 in Him, and in whom He dwells by the .Spirit, as S. Paul 
 
 says ; '■■' Ye received me, as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 
 
 9. /// that dai/, I will seek to destroy. \\'oe indeed to 
 those, whom Almighty (Jod shall " .sYr/,- to destroy !" Man 
 may seek earnestly to do, what at last he cannot do. .Still 
 it is an earnest seeking. And whether it is used of human 
 seeking which fails-", or which succeeds^', inchoate^* or 
 permitted-^, it is always used of seeking to do, what it is a 
 person's set purpose to do if he can -". Here it is spoken of 
 Almighty God". "»He saith not, 'I will destroy' but / 
 will seek to destroy, i.e. it shall ever he My care to destroy 
 all the enemies of the Church, that they may in no way 
 prevail against it : this I will do alway to the end of the 
 world." 
 
 10. And I will prmr, as He promised by .Toel -', / wilt 
 pour out My Spirit upon all Jlcsh. largely, abimdantly, u])on 
 the house of Dai'id and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all, 
 highest and lowest, from first to last, the Spirit of grace and 
 supplication, i.e. the Holy Spirit which i-onveyeth grace, as 
 "'' the Spirit oftvisdotn and undei-sfauding is the Spirit infusing 
 wisdom and understanding, and the Spirit of counsel and might 
 is that same Spirit, imparting the gift of counsel to sec 
 what is to be done and of might to do it, and the Spirit of 
 the knowledge and of the fear of the Lord is that same 
 Spirit, infusing loving acquaintance with God, with awe at 
 His infinite Majesty. So the Spirit of grace and siipplica- 
 tion, is that same Spirit, infu.sing grace and bringing into a 
 state of favour with God, and a Spirit of su]i]iliratio7i -'' is that 
 Spirit, calling out of the inmost soul the cry for a yet larger 
 measure of the grace already given. S. Paul speaks of "* the 
 love of God poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit ichicli 
 is given unto us; and of-^ insulting the Spirit of grace, riuMy 
 repulsing the Spirit, Who giveth grace. "'^When God Him- 
 self says, ' / will pour out,' He sets forth the greatness of 
 His bountifulness whereby He bestoweth all things." 
 
 Andthey shall look,with trustful hope and longing, o«iJ/e^^, 
 
 old Verss., Jewish or Christian ; LXX. Aq. Sym. Theod. Chald. Syr. Vulg. In thehth 
 cent., the Jews had begmi to make a marginal correction into v'7k, but did not venture to 
 change the text. " Where we, according to the faith of Holy Scripture, read, in the Person 
 of God, ' and they shall look to Me Whom they pierced,' though, in the text itself of the 
 book, they were deterred by God's Providence from making a change, yet without, in the 
 margin, they have it noted, ' they shall look to him whom they pierced.' And so they 
 hand down to their disciples, that they should transcribe, as it is contained in the text, and 
 read, as they have noted, outside ; so that they may hold, according to their phrenzy, that 
 the Jews look to him, whom Gog and Magog' pierced." Rabanus Maunis c. Jud. n. 12. 
 In the 13th. cent. Martini says, that " nit the old MSS. of the Jews have -Sx :" and that 
 the " perfidy of some moderii Jews, unable to deprave so e\'ident a testimony to the divinity 
 of the Messiah, say, that it is not 'Sn but thx." f. 006. Inf. 328. he again says, "some 
 Jews falsih' the texT ; " and (f. 329) that " now (jam) in many MSS. they have corrupted 
 their text, but that they are refuted by the Targiun, the Talmud, and by many ancient MSS., 
 in whicli this text is not yet corrupted, and by the exposition of Rashi." R. Isaac, at the end 
 of the lOth. cent. A.D. 1593, quoted the reading "S-s without doubt, though he was expressly 
 controverting the Christian argument. "Tliey say. that hereafter the sons of Israel shall 
 mom'n, because they pierced and slew the Messiah sent to them, Jesus who is compounded 
 of Godhead and Manhood, and they say, that this is (the meaning oQ ' they shall looi 
 to me whom they pierced.'" (Cbizzuk Emunah in Wagensei! Tela ign. Sat. pp. 303, 304.) 
 He explains it of the wars of Gog and Magog. ' If they shall see that they [their ene- 
 mies] shall pierce tlu-ough even one of them, they shall be amazed and shall look to me, 
 etii asher dnknroo, i. e. on account of him, whom they pierced — So that the Nazarenes 
 have no help fiom the words npn -btn rx -Sx •^•27n ; ' (lb. pp. 307, 308 ;) and he subjoins, 
 that if he wno was wounded had been the same as he to whom they should look, it ought to 
 have gone on in the first person, 'Sy 1120, and 'Sy "CTI, like ''7X IB'ITI. lb. 309. R. Lipmana 
 (A.D. 1399) uses the same argument, " He should have said, and they shall mourn Jor me.
 
 580 
 
 ZECHARIAII. 
 
 cifnTsT ^^^' h"'"' "''^'^ ""*^ mournoth for his on\y ,so)i, 
 cir. 187. and shall bo in bitterness for him, as one 
 
 "> Jer. 6. 26. 
 Amos 8. 10. 
 
 that is in bitterness for his firstborn. 
 
 Alniiuhty God, Jlliom they have pierced'^ ; the Head with 
 the tliorns, the Hands and Feet with the nails, tlie Side 
 with the .soklier's lanee. The propliecy hejijan t(i l)e fulfilled 
 as soon as the deed was eoiiijihitcMl, and Jesus had yielded 
 up His Spirit: when -(til the people that came together to 
 that sight, behuld'nig the thliis;s tvhich were done, smote their 
 breasts and returned. "^VVhen tiiey had nailed the Divine 
 Shrine to the Wood, they who had crucified Him, stood 
 around, impiously inockinfj. — But wlien He had laid down 
 His life for us, '^ the centurion and tttcij that were with him, 
 watching Jesus, seeing the earthijuaUe and those things which 
 were done, feared greatly, saying. Truly this teas the Sou of 
 God." As it evjer is with sin, compunction did not come till 
 the sin was over : till then, it was overlaid ; else the sin could 
 not be done. At the first (conversion, the three thousand 
 irere pricked'^ in the heart, when told that He ^fVhom they had 
 taken and with wicked hands had crucified ami slaiu, is Lord 
 and Christ. This awoke the first penitence of him who he- 
 came S. Paul. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? This 
 has been the centre of Christian devotion ever since, the 
 security against passion, the impulse to self-denial, the 
 parent of zeal for souls, the incentive to love ; this has struck 
 the rock, that it gushed forth in tears of penitence : this is 
 the strength and vigour of hatred of sin, to look to Him 
 Whom our sins pierced, JVho S. Paul says, loved me and gave 
 Himself for me. "''We all lifted Him up upon the Cross; we 
 transfixed with the nails His Hands and Feet ; we pierced His 
 Side with the spear. For if man had not sinned, the Son of 
 God would have endured no torment." 
 
 ^4nd they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for an 
 only son, and shall he in bitterness for Him, as one that is in 
 bitterness for a first-born. W^e feel most sensibly the sorrows 
 of this life, passing as they arc ; and of these, the loss of an 
 only son is a proverbial sorrow. ^ O daughter of My people, 
 gird thee with sackcloth and walloiv thyself in ashes, God says : 
 make thee the mourning of an only son, most bitter lamenta- 
 tion. " / will make it as the mourning of an only son. The 
 dead man carried out, the only son of his mother and she was 
 a widow, is recorded as having touched the heart of Jesus. 
 '• ^"And our Lord, to the letter, was the Only-Begotten of 
 
 as he began, they shall took to me." p. 141 ed. Hacksp. Ibn Ezra agrees with this, for he 
 explains it iu the first person, *' Then shall all nations look to me {'bn) to see what I shall do 
 to those who have slain Messiah b. Joseph." Alsheikh's commentary requires the same, 
 " And I will yet do a third thing. And tliis that they shall look 'Sn, is tliat tliey shall hang 
 their eyes on Me in perfect repentance wlien they see Sec." and R. Obadiah Siporno, 
 (Bibl. Rabb.)"and they shall look to Me in their prayer." Rashi also gives the Targ. 
 "and they shall seek ojMc" TJippasthe interpretation of *7Nia'ani "they shall look tome." 
 R. Tanchum of Jerusalem, '"a learned son of a learned fatlier," in the latter part of the 
 13th cent. (Griitz vii. 141, 145) knew m the East of no other reading. He explains it; 
 " They shall flee to Me, when they see the slaying of those whom the enemy liad slain 
 of them" (Poc. 341). His contemporary, Parchon, in his lexicon Mechahberoth, cites the 
 passage with 'hx, and explains the word "piercing of a sword in the body," v. -\jn. The Heb. 
 Arab, version, so often quoted by Pococke (Hunt. 206) renders, " And they turned to me, 
 whom they rent (uj;^ the word, used by Abulwalid, only Abulwalid fiuther cxplauis this by 
 ps*.^ Abulwahd does not notice the rending iu either of his lexica, nor Menahem b. Sarug, 
 nor David b. Abraham. 
 
 With regard to MS.S., even m later times Peter Niger [Schwarz] (a learned Benedictine 
 of the 17th cent.) wrote, " some false and lying Jews say that it is not written, ' And 
 they shall look on me whom they have pierced,' but ' they shall seek to him whom 
 they have pierced ' — I answer, that on my conscience and on the Christian truth I say, 
 I have seen rnany Jewish Bibles [ Spanish, doubtless, since he studied Hebrew in Spain] 
 and I never, in any Bible, found it written other than vehihbitu elai ' and they shall look 
 to me,' and not vehibbitu elav, ' and they shall look to him,' as I will shew any one who 
 desires to see." Stella Messia; Tract, ii. c. 2. A.D. 1477 in Wolf Bibl. Hebr. iv. p. 54.3. 
 Norzi, a Jewish critic, says tliat I'Sn is not found in the Scriptures, only in Rashi and the 
 Grmnrti. The codex Babyl. Petropol. (I am told, of the ixth. cent.) has ''?«. In the col- 
 lated MSS. there is the variation, common where there is a real or virtual kri, 33 Kenn. 
 
 11 In that <lay shall there be a j^reat ciniTsT 
 
 "niourniiiir in Jerusaleni, "as the niourninj^ '-''''■ '"^"- — 
 
 of Hadadnnimon in the valley of Aleijjiddon. ■> 2 Kin.'2.3.'29. 
 
 2 Chr. 35. 24. 
 
 His Father and His mother." He was ^^thejirst-begotten of 
 every creature, and '- we saw His glory, the glory as of the 
 Only-Jiegotlen of the Father, full of grace anil truth. This 
 mourning for Him Whom our sins pierced and nailed to the 
 tree, is continued, week by week, by the pious, on the day of 
 the week, when He suffered for us, or in the perpetual me- 
 morial of His Precious Death in the Holy Eucharist, and 
 especially in Passion-Tide. God sends forth anew the Spirit 
 of grace and supplication, and the faithful mourn, because of 
 their share in II is Death. The proj)hecy had a rich and 
 copious fulfilment in that first conversion in the first Pente- 
 cost ; a larger fulfilment awaits it in the end, when, after the 
 destruction of Anti-Christ, ' Vi// Israel shall be converted and 
 he saved. There is yet a more aweful fulfilment; when ^* He 
 Cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, aiid they 
 tvhich pierced Him, and all kindreds of the eartli shall ivail 
 because of Him. But meanwhile it is fulfilled in every solid 
 conversion of Jew Heathen or careless Christian, as well as 
 in the devotion of the pious. Zechariah has concentrated in 
 few words the tenderest devotion of the Gospel, They shall 
 look on Me TVhom they pierced. " 1° Zechariah teaches that 
 among the various feelings which we can elicit from the 
 meditation on the Passion of Christ, as admiration, love, 
 gratitude, compunction, fear, penitence, imitation, patience, 
 joy, hope, the feeling of compassion stands eminent, and 
 that it is this, which we peculiarly owe to Christ suffering 
 for us. For who would not in his inmost self grieve with 
 Christ, innocent and holy, yea the Only-Begotten Son of 
 God, when he sees Him nailed to the Cross and enduring so 
 lovingly for him sufferings so manifold and so great ? Who 
 would not groan out commiseration, and melt into tears ? 
 Truly says S. Bonaventure in his 'goad of Divine love:' 
 ' What can be more fruitful, what sweeter than, with the 
 whole heart, to suffer with that most bitter suffering of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ? '" 
 
 11. ^4s the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of 
 3fegiddon. This was the greatest sorrow, which had fallen on 
 Judah. Josiah was the last hope of its declining kingdom. 
 His sons probably shewed already their unlikeness to their 
 father, whereby they precipitated their counti-y's fall. In 
 
 MSS. and fi de R. have vSn; 3 have 1'Sk marked on the marg., one as a kri ; 7 K. and 5 
 de R. had '^s corrected into vVk ; 4 K., 5 de R. had vhn corrected into ''jK : 11 K., 5 de 
 R. had a kri ui marg. vSk. " Tlie most and best MSS have 'hx." De R. . Ewald's groimd 
 
 at variance with the following V*?!; nsoi, and introduces into the Old Testament the sense- 
 lessness, that one is to weep over Jahve. (for Jahve [Almighty God] must be the subject.) 
 as over one dead, (who should never come back again!)." De Rossi suggests that the r'jx 
 came in accidentally, the scribe having in liis mind Ps. xxxiv. G, vSk ID'3.1. 
 
 * There can equally be no question about the meaning of npn (as even Ew. and Hitz. ad- 
 mit) or about the construction, "ipl (which occurs 11 times, is everywhere " thrust througli." 
 In one place only, Lam. iv. 9. D1i5n?. " thrust through," occurs as a synonyn^e of 2in 'V'^'J 
 " those wounded by hunger " and that, in contrast with 2in -^hn " wounded by the sword." 
 So also the nomi, rnn nnpl?, " the piercings of the sword, "Ps. xii. 18. In regard to the 
 construction, IE'n nj< occurs' in 97 places in the Bible, and in every place in the meaning 
 "he who," "that which," "this that." In one place only Dent. x.xix. 13, 14, BM having 
 been previously used as a preposition, " and not with you only, (D3PN) do I make this cove- 
 nant, ' the UK IS again used as a preposition, carrjing on the construction, "but with him 
 who, "it'Nnn. Frisclimuth(deMessiaconfixo) mentions 14 ways, by wliich " because " might 
 without ambiguity have been expressed (see Pusey's Univ. Sermons p. 142). There is then 
 no excuse for the renderings ai/$* uiv, LXX. or Aq. aitv ^. Theod. has irphs fif, ets ov 
 iiiKivT-qaav. 2 s. Luke xxiii. 48. ^S.Cyt. 
 
 ■• S. Matt, xxvii. 54. 5 KuTivvynrrav Acts ii. 37- « Ib.'23. 36, 
 
 ? Osor. 8 Jer. vi. 26. » Amos viii. 10. '" Alb. 
 
 " Col. i. 15. 1= S. John i. 14. 
 
 '3 Rom. xi. 26. " Rev. i. 7. "s Lap.
 
 CIIAPTEIl XIII. 
 
 581 
 
 ch^rTst ^^ PAnd the land shall mourn, f every 
 
 ^JLii^rj . family apart ; the family of the house of 
 
 Rev.'i.7. ' David apart, and their wives apart; the 
 families, family of the house of '' Nathan apart, and 
 
 families. ^ , . . . 
 
 n 2 Sam. 5. 11. thcu* wives apart; 
 
 JO rji|j^ fiuuily of tlie house of Levi apart, 
 II Or, of and their wives apart ; the family 11 of 
 
 Simeon, , , . . 
 
 asLXX. hhnnei aj)art, and then* wives apart ; 
 
 14 All the families that remain, every 
 
 Josiah's death the last gleam of the sunset of Judah faded 
 into night. Of him it is recorded, that /lis pious act.s, accord- 
 ing to u'/iat wiix luritleii in the law of the Loi'il, were written 
 in his country's history'; for him the prophet Jcrerniuli irrote 
 a dirge" ; all the minstrels of his country .s^k/Ax of him in 
 their dirges^. The dirges were 7nade an ordinance which 
 survived the captivity; to this day", it is said at the close of 
 the Chronicles. Among the gathering sorrows of Israel, this 
 lament over Josiah was written in the national collection of 
 dirges". Ifudadrinunon, as being compounded of the name 
 of two Syrian idols, is, in its name, a witness how Syrian 
 idolatry penetrated into the kingdom, when it was detached 
 from the worship of God. It was "^a city near Jezreel, now 
 called Maximinianopolis in the plain of Megiddon, in which 
 the righteous king Josiah was wounded by Pharaoh Necho." 
 This "^was 17 miles from Csesarea, 10 from Esdraelon." 
 Its name still survives iu a small village, south of Alegiddon^, 
 and so, on the way back to Jerusalem. 
 
 12-14. This sorrow should be universal but also indi- 
 vidual, the whole land, and that, family by family; the royal j 
 family in the direct line of its kings, and in a branch from 
 Nathan, a son of David and whole brother of Solomon'', which i 
 was continued on in private life, yet was still to be an anccs- , 
 tral line of Jesus': in like way the main priestly family from 
 Levi, and a subordinate line from a grandson of Levi, the • 
 famili/ of Shimei'^ ; and all the remaining families, each with ' 
 their separate sorrow, each according to Joel's call, ^ let the 
 bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her 
 closet, each denying himself the tcnderest solaces of life. 
 
 "^"The ungrateful and ungodly, daily, as far as in them 
 lies, crucify Christ, as S. Paul says, '^ crucifi/ijig to themselves 
 the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame. 
 And on these Christ, out of His boundless pity, poureth forth 
 a spirit of grace and supplication, so that, touched with com- 
 punction, with grieving and tearful feeling, they look on 
 Christ, suffering with His suft'ering, and bewailing their own 
 impurities." 
 
 " '" The likeness is in the sorrow, not in its degree. Josiah 
 had restored religion, removed a dire superstition, bound up 
 relaxed morals by healthful discipline, recalled to its former 
 condition the sinking state. In their extremcst needs light 
 
 1 2 Chr. XXXV. 26, 7. ' lb. 25. 3 S. Jer. 
 
 * Itin. Hieros. in Reland p. 891. ' "About J of an hour to the S. of Megiddo 
 
 lies a sinall village called Rumuiii." Van de Velde Travels i. 355. ^ 1 Chi-, iii. 5. 
 
 7 S. Luke iii. 31. 
 s Nu. iii. 21. Had the allusion been to the tribe of Simeon, as supplving, the teachers 
 of Israel, as S. Jerome thought, it had been, not 'yS!^, but *jyo^ as ui Nu. xxv. 14, Jos. 
 xxi. 4. 1 Chr. xxvii. 15. 
 
 ' Jo. ii. 16. '» Dion. " Heb. vi. 6. 1= Osor. 
 
 '3 xii. .% 4, C, 8, 9, 11, xiii. 1, 2, 4, xiv. 6, 8, 13, 20. '< S. John viii. 56. 
 
 '5 S. Matt. xiii. 17, S. Luke x. 24. '« The force of nns] ,t.t '? Is. xli. 17, 18. 
 •8 Heb. ix. 10. " nsBn '3 Num. viii. 7. '" lb. xix. 1". 
 
 21 rm 'D lb. xix. 9, 13, 20, 21 bis. xxxi. 23. ~ axJn lb. xix. 9. 
 
 =3 Theod. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 family apart, and their wives apart. cifiiTsx 
 
 cir. 4S7. 
 
 (MiAi'ii:ii xni. 
 
 1 Tlie fountain of purgation for Jerusalem, 2 from 
 idolatry, and false propliery. 7 2^'/'^ death of 
 Christ, and the trial of a third part. 
 
 IN "that day then; shall he ''a fountain boei,. 6. i4. 
 opened to the house of David and to r«;vJ. 5. 
 the inhahitants of Jerusalem for sin and \ejmraiim 
 
 i» I A for uncUari' 
 
 tor f uneleanness. w»«. 
 
 shone on them, when there came his unlooked-for death, 
 1'herewith the whole state seemed lost. So in the Death of 
 (■hrist, they who loved Him, saw His Divine works, jtiaced 
 their whole hope of salvation in His goodness, suddenly saw 
 the stay of tiieir life extinct, themselves deprived of that most 
 sweet intercourse, all hope for the future cut off. Hut the 
 grief in the death of ("hrist was the more bitter, as He awoke 
 a greater longing for Himself, and had brought a firmer hope 
 of salvation." 
 
 XIII. 1. In that day there shall be a fnintain opened. 
 Zechariah often repeats, i)i that day^'', resuming his subject 
 again and again, as a time not proximate, but fixed and 
 known of God, of which he declared somewhat. It is that 
 day which ^^ ^Ihraham desired to see, and saw it, wliether by 
 direct revelation, or in the typical sacrifice of Isaac, and was 
 glad: it was ^^ that day which many prophets and kings and 
 righteous men desired to see, and in patience waited for it : the 
 one day of salvation of the Gospel. He had spoken of rej)en- 
 tance, in contcmj)lation of Christ crucified; he now speaks 
 of forgiveness and cleansing, of sanctification and consequent 
 obedience. The fn/ntain shall he not simply opened, but shall 
 remain open^''. Isaiah had already prophesied of the refresh- 
 ment of the Gospel. ^" JFhen the poor and needy seek water 
 a)id there is none, and their tongue faileth fin- thirst, I, the 
 Lord, tuill hear them, I, the God of Israel, ivill not forsake 
 them. I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the 
 midst of the valleys; here it is added, /or sin and for ujic/ean- 
 7iess. There were divers^^ symbolical ?c«.?///«^a- under the law; 
 the Levites were ^^ sprinkled with the tvater of purifying, lit. 
 the water of taking away of sin : living waters-", put to the 
 ashes of an heifer, were appointed as a -' water for (renunirig) 
 defilements ; a cleansing of sin^^. Now, there should Ije one 
 ever-open fountain for all the house of David. "--^ Who that 
 fcmntain is, the Lord Himself teacheth through Jeremiah, 
 ~*they have forsaken 31e, the fountain of living waters; and 
 in the Gospel He says, -' If any man thirst, let him come iinto 
 Me and drink ; and -" The wafer ivhich I shall give him, is a 
 fountain of living ivater, gushing up to everlasting life. This 
 was open to the house of David; for of that kindred He took 
 human nature. It was opened also for the dwellers of Jeru- 
 salem, for the sprinkling of holy Baptism, through which we 
 
 s-* Jer. ii. 13. The word is the same, nips, and lb. xvii. 13. iipn is, etymologically, a place 
 "dug; " but a "mere well" could not be "a fountain of li\'ing water." They dug to ot>taiii 
 any how a larger supply of water. Is. xxx^ii. 25; Isaac's ser\'ants by digging obtained "a well 
 of living" i.e. flowuig "water" Gen. xx\i. 19. It is parallel with pjT3 Hos. xiii. 15., where 
 cistern or reservoir would he unmeaning. Metaphorically, fountain of living waters Jer. 
 xxii. 13. fountain of life Ps. x.xx\-i. 10. Pr. x. 11. xiii. 14. xiv. 27. xvi. 22. of wisdom 
 lb. xviii. 4. of tears Jer. viii. 23. of blood Lev. xii. 7. xx. 18. of Israel Ps. Ixviii. 17. are 
 like one fountain wliich supplies a stream, rather than a reservoir, and OT! CD is of nmning 
 water, Gen. 1. c. Lev. xiv. 5, 6, 50-,52. xv. 13. Num. xix. 17. Cant. ix. 15. Zech. xiv. 8. 
 nnP'D TlpD Pr. xxv. 28. is rather " a fountain corrupted." spoiled from without, tiian stagnant 
 water in a reservoir, where the spoiling is from itself. In Jer. Ii. 36. Tpo (sing.) stands 
 collectively for the whole supply of water, Tanchimi has no ynn. 
 
 ■^ S.John vii. 37. =* lb. iv. 14. 
 
 o o o o
 
 582 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 cniiTsT 2 If ^"^^ '* '^^"'^' <'om(' to pass in that 
 
 "ir- '^■^7. (lay^ saith tlie Lord of hosts, that I will " cut 
 
 ' Josh^'23! 7. oflF the names of the idols out of the land, 
 
 E^ek^o 13 and they shall no more be remembered: 
 
 ulr.tvlM. ""^^ ^^^^ ' ^^'"^ cause '' the prophets and the 
 
 "12 Pet. 2.1. unfiean spirit to pass out of the land. 
 
 3 And it shall come to ])ass, that when 
 any shall yet prophesy, then his father 
 
 have re(;eived remission of sins." "^That, receiving Divine 
 and holy Baptism, we are sprinkled with the Blood of Christ 
 to the remission of sins, who can doubt ? " " - Of this foun- 
 tain much was foretold hy Ezekiel", that a fountain should 
 issue forth from the temple of the Lord, and i^o down into the 
 desert, and evert/ soul , to whom it slinll come, shall live; and 
 Joel, ''^J fonntain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, 
 and water the valley of Shittim. Of this fountain I'etcr said 
 to the Jews, when pricked in the heart and seeking forgive- 
 ness, ^ Let every one of you be baptised in the Name of Jesus 
 Christ for the remission of sins." 
 
 2. I will cut off the names of the idols. Tiiis had been a 
 fence against idolatry. To name evil is a temptation to evil. 
 Wrong words are the parents of wrong acts. To speak of 
 evil awakens curiosity or passion ; curiosity is one of the 
 strongest incentives to act. All public mention of terrible 
 crimes (it has been observed) produces imitation of the 
 specific form of crime. Hence it was commanded, ^ make no 
 mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out 
 of thy month. And Josluia names it in his dying charge to 
 Israel, "^ Be ye therefore very stro/ig to keep and to do all that 
 is written in the book of the law of 3£oses — neither make men- 
 tion of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them. 
 Hence they changed the names of cities ^, which bare idol 
 names. David speaks of it, as part of fealty to God. */ 
 will not take their names upon my lips. Hosca prophesies 
 of the times of the new covenant; ^" I will take away the 
 names of Baalim out of her month, and they shall be no more 
 7-emembered by their name. Isaiah, ^' The idols he shall utterly 
 abolish. Zechariah foretells their abolition with a turn of 
 words, formed apparently on those ofHosea^^; but slightly 
 varied, because the worship of Baal, such a plague-spot in the 
 time of Hosea, one, which continued until the year before the 
 captivity ^^, was gone. He implies nothing as to his own 
 times, whether idolatry still existed. He predicts its entire 
 abolition in the whole compass of the enlarged Judah, i.e. of 
 Christendom. 
 
 j-lnd also I will cause the prophets and the tDiclean spirit 
 to pass out of the land. False prophecy sets itself to meet a 
 craving of human nature to know something of its future. 
 False prophets there were, even in the time of Nehemiahi*, 
 and those in some number, hired to prophesy against the 
 word of God. Our Lord warns against them. ^'Beware of 
 false pro])hets, tvhich come to you in sheep's clothing, but in- 
 wardly they are ravening wolves. ^^ Many false prophets shall 
 
 ' S. Cyr. 2 Dion. 
 
 « Ezek. xlvii. 1, 8, 9. ■• Jo. iii. 18. See ah. pp. 140,141. ' Acts ii. 37, S8. 
 
 ' Ex. xxiii. 13. 1 Jos. xxiii. G, 7. " Nebo and Baalmeon, Num. xxxii. 38. 
 
 9 Ps. xvi. 4. II) Hos. ii. 17. >' Is. ii. 18. 
 
 t- Hos. ii. 19. Hel). " / wUl remove the names of Baalim out of his mouth ; and they 
 shall be no more remembered, "nv TDrN7i, by their names." Zech. / will cnt o^ the names of 
 the idols/rom the land, and they shall be no more remembered, "nj; \-a\' th\. 
 
 '■■ Jer. xxxii. 19. The prophecy was in the tenth year of Zedekiah, ver. 1. So far then 
 from its implying a date tc&re the captivity (Speaker's Comm. p. 735.), there could have 
 
 'and his mother that boc^at him shall say ciniTsT 
 \ unto him, Tliou shalt not live ; for thou "■•■ '^T- 
 speakest lies in the name of the Lord : and 
 his father and his mother that begat him 
 "shall thrust him tbrousjrh when he ])ro- • Deut. is. 6, 
 
 ... ° ' 8. & 18. 20. 
 
 phesieth. 
 
 4 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 that 'the prophets shall be ashamed every f mic. 3. 6, 7. 
 
 arise and shall deceive many. Many false prophets, S.John 
 says, ^'^ are gone out into the world. False prophets attended 
 the decline of Judaism. Sucli was the author of the Jewish 
 Sibylline book, prophesying the destruction of the Romans'*, 
 and fixing the mind of his people on temporal aggrandise- 
 ment'^: false prophets were suborned by the Jewish "tyrants" 
 and encouraged the Jews in the resistance which ruined the 
 devoted ctity-": false prophets have arisen in Christianity; 
 but, like the Phrygian women who led TertuUian astray, 
 they " went out," were cast out " from it, as not being of it." 
 "'After that the Only-Begotten Word of God appeared to us, 
 the dull and childish toys of idolatry perished and were 
 utterly destroyed, and with it were taken away the strange 
 and impious devices of the false prophets, who were full of 
 the evil, unclean spirit, and could be readily detected as 
 labouring under a kindred disease to the idolaters. For both 
 had one president of impiety, Satan." Not 50 years after 
 the Crucifixion, a heathen"' wrote his work, "on the failure 
 of oracles." The outpouring of the Holy -- Spirit of grace 
 and supplication, should sweep away ^^ the unclean spirit, 
 (Zechariah alone anticipates the language of the New Testa- 
 ment-^) which became -*a lying spirit in the mouth of the 
 prophets of those who sought to them. 
 
 3. His father and mother that begat hini''" shall say unto 
 him. Thou shalt not live. The prophet describes the zeal 
 against false prophecy, with reference to the law against 
 those who seduced to apostasy from God. -* The nearest re- 
 lations were themselves to denounce any who had secretly 
 tried to seduce them, and themselves, as the accusers, to cast 
 the first stone at them. "^ Such shall in those times be the 
 reverence to God-wards, so careful shall they be of perfect 
 probity and laudable life, that parents themselves shall be 
 stimulated against their children, if they should speak falsely 
 any thing from their own heart, as though God spake by 
 them — How true that word is, and how accredited the pro- 
 phecy! This indicates clearly a great advance towards 
 godliness, God transforming things for the better. What 
 aforetime was held in great esteem, is now hated and accursed 
 and held intolerable." 
 
 4. The prophets shall be ashamed, every one of them. 
 They who before their conversion, gave themselves to such 
 deceits, shall be ashamed of their deeds ; as, after the defeat 
 of the seven sons of the chief priest Sceva, •'' fear fell on them 
 all, and the name of the Lord Jesus ivas magnified, and inany 
 that believed came and confessed and shewed their deeds : many 
 
 been no ground for the change then. 
 
 i* See Introd. p. 50S. '= S. Matt. vii. 15. '« lb. xxiv. 11. 
 
 ^7 1 S. John iv. 1 . *^ See Pusey's '" Daniel the Prophet " p. 1G2. 
 
 '9 lb. pp. 3(>4-368. 20 Jos. B. J. vi. 5. 2. 
 
 =1 Plutarch A.D. SO. 22 Zech. xii. 10. 
 
 "■> nxpsn rtn here only in the O. T. ; -rvivixa aKaSaprof, in our Lord's words, S. Matt. xii. 43. 
 S. Mark v. 8. S. Luke viii. 29, xi. 24. add Rev. xviii. 2, xvi. 13. 
 =1 1 Kgs xxii. 21—23. -* nV =« De. xiii. 6—10. 
 
 57 Acts xix. 13-20.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 583 
 
 cifiiTsT ^"*^ *^^ '"^ vision, when he hath prophesied ; 
 
 '"■ '^'^- neither shall they wear t' f a rous'h ijranuent 
 
 isai. 20. 2. t to (leeeive : 
 t Heb.'a 't-nV- 5 '' I3ut lie sluiU Say, latn no prophet, I 
 
 ini'tif (}/ hair. l i ■ i« a \ a 
 
 tHeb.Vofe. am an husoandnian ; tor man taught me 
 
 ■■ Amos 7. \i. 
 
 of them also which used curious arts hrous^ht their Ijoolis to- 
 gether and burned them before all, and they counted the price 
 of them, and found it fiftij thousand pieces of silver. So 
 mightili/, S. Lulie subjoins, grew the word of God and pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 Neither shall wear a rough garment to deceive, feijijning 
 themselves ascetics and mourners for their people, as the true 
 prophets were in truth. The sackcloth, which tlie pro|)hets 
 wore^, was a rou^li garment of hair", worn next to the 
 skin', whence Elijah was known to Ahaziah, when described 
 as *a hairy man, ajid girt with a girdle of leather about his 
 loins. It was a wide garment, enveloping the whole frame ^, 
 and so, afflictive to the whole body. ""This was the habit 
 of the prophets, that when they called the people to penitence, 
 they were clothed with sackcloth." 
 
 5. And he shall say, repudiating his former claims, /am 
 a husbandman'' : for a man hath taught^ me from my youth. 
 There was no room then for his having been a false prophet, 
 since he had had from his youth one simple unlettered oc- 
 cupation, as Amos said truly of himself; '^ I teas no prophet, 
 7ieither teas I a prophet's son : but I was an herdsman and a 
 gatherer of sycamore fruit. The prophet does not approve 
 the lie, any more than our Lord did the injustice of the unjust 
 steward. Our Lord contrasted the wisdom in their generation 
 of a bad man for his ends, with the unwisdom of the children 
 of light, who took no pains to secure their God. Zechariah 
 pictures vividly, how men would anyhow rid themselves of 
 all suspicion of false-prophesying. 
 
 6. And one shall say unto him, JVhat are those wounds in 
 thy hands? The words are simple; the meaning different i", 
 according as they are united with what immediately precedes, 
 or the main subject. Him Whom they pierced, for Whom 
 they were to mourn, and, on their mourning, to be cleansed, 
 and of Whom it is said in the next verse, Awake, O sword, 
 against My Shepherd. S. Jerome and others ^^ explain it of 
 the punishment inflicted by parents. "These wounds and 
 bruises I received, condemned by the judgement of my parents, 
 and of those who did not hate but loved me. And so will 
 truth prevail dissipating falsehood, that he too, who was 
 punished for his own fault, will own that he sulfered rightly." 
 But wounds of chastisement are not inflicted on the hands, 
 
 > Is. XX. 2. » lb. xxii. 12, Jer. iv. 8. vi. 26. 
 
 3 1 Kas xxi. 27, 2 Kss vi. 30, Job xvi. 1.5. * 2 Kas i. 8. 
 
 ^ nyb mn.x occurs Gen. xxv. 25, as describina: the whole appearance of the new-bom 
 Esau; rmx alone, of Elijah's mantle, 1 Kgs xix. 1.3, 19, 2 K^s ii. 8. 13, 14; of the robes 
 of the king of Nineveh Jon. iii. 6. nyja' miK is the large Babylonian ganuent wliich incited 
 Achan's covetousuess. Jos. vii. 21-24. [all] ' S. Jer. 
 
 1 The plu-ase njix ^3i' is from Gen. iv. 2. 
 
 ^ njpn, occurring in this place only, is uncertain. Against the modem rendering "sold" 
 (which would be the obvious causative of T:^i>), or " bought" {taking Hipt as Kal) it seems 
 decisive, that this would be contrary to the Levitical law. For since, if bought or sold as 
 a slave, he would have been set free in the Ttb year, he would not have been sold or bought 
 from his youth. :^^i>^ might equally be, " made me to possess," as " made another to possess 
 me." In either case it governs a double accusative, of which one only is expressed. Kim, 
 "made me a shepherd and husbandman : Rashi, quoting Men;ihem, "set me to keep his 
 flocks," Ibn Ezra, "made me to possess ground i.e. made me a husbandman." Tanchum 
 "tilled his band, which his father put hun in possession of by iidieritance." Hunt. 2U6. 
 translates 'apa by UNinc'K " bought me.'' 
 
 '' Am. vii. 14. 
 
 ^■^ A prevalent modem explanation has been of the self-inflicted wounds of the pmphets 
 of Baal. But 1) the idolatrous incisions have a technieal name, Tmn' " cut himself;" De. 
 
 to keep eattle from my youth. ^ iFrTs t 
 
 G And one shall say unto him, What arc — "'*•• '^'- 
 these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall 
 answer. Those with whieh I was wounded 
 in the house of my friends. 
 
 and the punishment of false prophecy was not such wounds ^^, 
 but deatli. Wounds in the hands were no punishment, which 
 parents would inflict. 'I'liey were the special |)uiiii-liinent of 
 the cross i^, after sustaining which, ()w. only li\c(l. 'i'lie most 
 literal interpretation, then, of the; wounds in the hands har- 
 monises with the j)icrcing before, and the smiting of the Good 
 Shepherd which follows, of VV^hom David too prophesied, 
 '' They pierced 3fy Hands and Aly Feet. " '^\\'hat are those 
 wounds of Thy hands? How long, think you, and how and 
 by whom will this be said to Him ? For ever and ever, un- 
 ceasingly, and with unspeakable admiration it will be said, 
 both by God the Father, *'"' to Whom He was oheditnt unto 
 death, the death of the Cross : it will be said also both by the 
 holy ^^ angels who desire to look into Him, and by men whom 
 He has redeemed. O great miracle, wonderful spectacle, 
 especially in the Lord of all, to bear wounds in the midst of 
 His Hands! And He shall say; fFith these I was wounded 
 i)i the house of those icho loved Me. O great sacrilege, sacri- 
 legious homicide, that such wounds were inflicted in the 
 house of those who loved. He will not say, 'with these I was 
 wounded by those who loved Me,' but ' in the house of those 
 who loved Me.' For they who inflicted them, loved Him not. 
 But they were the house of Abraham and Isaait and Jacob 
 and David, and the rest like them, who loved Me, and ex- 
 pected Me, Who was promised to them. Vet so to speak is 
 not to answer the question, xchat are these luoutidsf For it 
 is one thing to ask, what are these wounds, another to say, 
 where they were inflicted. Having said, that they were 
 inflicted in the house of those who loved Me, He says, what 
 they are, the Cup which My father hath given Me to drink. 
 For what He subjoins, is the Voice of the Father giving the 
 Cup. Sword, awake &;c. is as though he said. Ask ye. What 
 are these wounds ? I say, ' the tokens of obedience, the signs 
 of the Father's will and command. The Lord of hosts, God 
 the Father hath not spared Me, His own Son, but hath given 
 Me for you all. And He said, Awake, o sword, against 3Iy 
 Shejiherd, atid against the JMan cohering to Me, which is as 
 much as, 'O Death, have thou power over My Son, My good 
 Shepherd, the Man Who cohereth to Me, i.e. Who is joined 
 in unity of Person with the Word \\'ho is consubstantial 
 with Me!' And then, as though the sword asked, how or how 
 
 xiv. 1, 1 Kgs xviii. 28, Jer. xvi. 16, xli. 5. xlvii. 5. c-m: Jer. xhiii. -37. 2) .1J3. nis?. C"??, 
 are used of fresh unhealed wounds themselves, not of the scars. Pr. xx. 30, 1 Kgs .\xii. 35, 
 2 Kgs viii. 29, ix. 15, Is. i. 6, xxx. 26, Mi. i. 9, Nab. iii. 19, Jer. vi. ', x. 19, xv, 18, xxx. 
 12, 17. 3) Self-infliction was characteristic of the idolatrous cuttings. They were probably 
 to appease the displeased god or goddess. The only support of it, that cir,t/a is used of 
 idolatrous, and so adulterous, objects of love, is neutraHsed by the fact that the metaphor of 
 male and female is never dropped. Of 11 times in which it occurs, 11 times, in Hosea, 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, it is united witli the fem. pronoun, -^jqxD, n"?!!!!? ; 3 times in the first 
 pers. of the city personified. 
 
 11 So S. Cyr. also ; but S. Cyril was misled by the rendering of the LXX, (ru/tTToSioDtriv, 
 whereas Aq. Synmi. Theod. have iKKiVTi\(jovaiv. 
 
 '■- Hence Kim. explains it of the binding him hand and foot to keep him at home; Rashi 
 of scourging the back, which would be the very opposite of DT J'3. and would not be visible. 
 Ibn Ezra makes it refer to the i.TnpTi ver, 3, Tanchum explains "when one asks as to the 
 marks of beating which are on his body," and, paraphrasing "IT j'3, explains " in front of 
 thee." The Arab, version [Hmit. 206] has simply "NT fj. 
 
 " S. Jerome makes the question answered in the words, " They are the wounds &c." in- 
 consistently, "Why hangest thou on the Cross? why are thy hands transfixed by nails! 
 What bast thou done, to be subjected to this punishment and torture ? " 
 
 » Ps. xxii. 16. '* Rup. 16 Phil. ii. 8. ■? 1 S. Pet. i. 12. 
 
 o o o o 2
 
 584 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 ci^rTst 7 H Awalce, O swnrd, aj^ainst 'my slicp- 
 <="•• -Jsr. herd, and against the man '' that is my 
 
 I Isai. 10. U. Ezek.34.23. » John 10. 30. & 14. 10, 11. Phil. 2. 6. 
 
 far shall I arise a2:ainst this Thy Shepherd, he suhjoins, 
 
 S)iii/p the shepherd, find the sheejt shall he seattered. Hence 
 the Sht'iilienl Himself, wlien about to l)e smitten, S])ake, 
 ^yill ye shii/l he off'eiiiled hreiiiise of Sle this ')ii^ht. For it 
 is written, I will smite the Shepherd and the sheep shall he 
 scattered. So then to those who say, rvhat are those wounds 
 in the midst of Thy hands? is ajjpositely subjoined the Voice 
 of the Father, sayin!;,^H'«A-f, Osivord, tii^aijis! Mi/ Shepherd S)e. 
 in the meanins;, 'They are nionnnients of tlie Father's love, 
 the tokens of My Obedience, because He spared not His own 
 Son, and I becanie obedient to Him for you all, even unto death, 
 and that, the death of the Cross.' " 
 
 7. jiwake, O sword. So Jeremiah apostrophises the 
 sword, " O thou sword of the Lord, when irilt thou he quiet ? 
 Tlie ])rophets express what will he, by a command that it 
 should be; '■'■ Mahe the heart of this peo])le heavy. But by 
 this command he sig'nifies that human malice, actina; freely, 
 could do no more than * His Hand and His eon)isel determined 
 before to he done. The envy and hatred of Satan, the blind 
 fury of the Chief priests, the contempt of Herod, the j!:uilty 
 (Uiwardice of Pilate, freely accomplished that Death, which 
 God had before decreed for the salvation of the world. The 
 meanina^ then is, " ^ the sword shall be aroused ajjainst My 
 Shepherd, i.e. I will allow Him to be smitten by the Jews. 
 But by the sword he desiiynates death, persecution, wound- 
 ins; &c. as above, the ^ sword upon his right arm, and, where 
 the Passion of Christ is spoken of, ''Deliver my soul from the 
 .sword. So also, '*^-/// the sinners of the people shall die by the 
 su'ord," "''which cannot be taken literally; for many sinners 
 perish by shipwreck, poison, drowniuij, fire." Amos then "^so 
 spake, because many died by war, yet not all by the sword, 
 but others by pestilence and famine, all which he includes 
 under the sivord. This smiting be2:an, when the Lord was 
 taken, and His sheep bes^an to be scattered ; but the prophecy 
 which, before, was beina: gradually fulfilled, was fully fulfilled 
 in His Death, and the Apostles were dispersed till the day of 
 the Resurrection at eventide." 
 
 Against the Man, My Felhnc^^, i.e. One united by com- 
 munity of nature. A little before, God had spoken of Himself 
 as priced at the titirty pieees of silver, yet as breaking the 
 covenant which He had made with all nations for His people ; 
 as piereed through, yet as pouring the spirit of graee and sup- 
 ptieation on those who pierced Him, that they should mourn 
 their deed, and as, thereon, ever cleansing thein from sin. As 
 Man, God was sold, was pierced. "^^ God, in flesh, not work- 
 ing with aught intervening as in the prophets, but having 
 taken to Him a Manhood connatural ^^ with Himself and 
 made one, and through His flesh akin to us, drawing up to 
 Him all humanity. What was the manner of the Godhead in 
 flesh? As fire in iron, not transitively but by communication. 
 For the fire does not dart into the iron, but remains there 
 
 ' S. Matt. xxvi. 31. = Jer. ilvii. 6. 3 Is. vi. 10. 
 
 ■• Acts iv. 28. * Rib. ' ch. xi. 17. 
 
 'Ps. xxii. 20. "Am. ix. 10. ^S.Jer. 
 
 If* The word n'Dy, in form, ahstract, is always personal. It stands alone in the dialects, 
 having probai)ly been framed by IVloses, to express more than *' neit^hbour," "our common 
 nature," as we speak. It oi/curs 11 times in Leviticus (v. 21 bis, [vi. 2 Eng.] xviii. 20, xix. 
 11, 1.5, 17, xxiv. 19. XXV. IJ(liis) 1."), 17.) always with the pronominal affix, '•thy"or "liis ;" 
 and always in enjoining: tiiin;-;s or forbidding things by virtue of our common humanity. 
 Though feminine in form, it is always masc. in fact, a.s in, " the wife of'^ITDs; Lev. xviii. 20. 
 and vSy lb. xix. 17. The word, being revived out of the Pentateuch by Zcchariah, re- 
 ceived no modification in the Hebrew of the intennediate period. 
 
 " ilom.in Sanct. Christi gener. App. S. Basil. Opp. ii.5U0 quoted in Newman on S. Ath. 
 
 fellow, saltli the Tioun of hosts: 'smite the (^jPh^j^st 
 shepherd, and the sheep shall be seattered: . ""■ '^^- — 
 
 1 Matt. 20.31. Mark 14. 27. 
 
 and communicates to it of its own virtue, not impaired by the 
 connnunication, yet filling wholly its recipient." The bold 
 language of the Fathers only expressed the at'tuality of the 
 Incarnation. Since the Manhood was taken into (iod, and 
 in Hitn dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and (jod 
 and Man were one Christ, then was it all true language. 
 His Body was "I'the Body of God;" His flesh ""the flesh 
 of the Word;" and it was lawful to speak of "'^the flesh of 
 the Deity," of " ^^ the Passion of the Word," "^Uhe Passion 
 of Christ, niv God," "'^the Passion of God," "^Hiod dead 
 and buried," " ="God suffered," " =' murderers of God," ""-- the 
 (iodhead dwelt in the flesh bodily, which is all one with say- 
 ing that, being God, He had a proper body, and using this as 
 an instrument. He became Man for our sakes, and, because 
 of this, things proper to the flesh are said to be His, since He 
 was in it, as hunger, thirst, suffering, fatigue and the like, of 
 which the flesh is capable, while the works proper to the 
 Word Himself, as raising the dead and restoring the blind. 
 He did through His own Body," is but a continuance of the 
 language of Zechariah, since He Who was sold, was priced, was 
 Almighty God. Jesus being God and Man, the sufferings of 
 His Humanity were the sufferings of C!od, although, as God, He 
 could not suffer. Now, conversely, God speaks of the Shepherd 
 Who was slain, as 3fy Felloiu, united in Nature with Himself, 
 although not the Manhood of Jesus which suffered, but the 
 Godhead, united with It in one Person, was Consubstantial 
 with Himself. The name might perhaps be most nearly repre- 
 sented by "connatural." "-'W^hen then the title is employed 
 of the relation of an individual to God, it is clear that that 
 individual can be no mere man, hut must be one, united with 
 God by unity of Being. The Akin of the Lord is no other 
 than He Who said in the Gospel -^I and My Father are One, 
 and Who is designated as -''the Only-Begotten Son, Who is in 
 the Bosom of the Father. The word, it seems, was espe- 
 cially chosen, as being used in the Pentateuch, only in the 
 laws against injuring a fellow-man. The prophet thereby 
 gives prominence to the seeming contradiction between the 
 command of the Lord, Awake, O sword, against 3Iy Shepherd, 
 and those of His own law, whereby no one is to injure his 
 fellow. He thus points out the greatness of that end, for the 
 sake of which the Lord regards not that relation. Whose 
 image among men He commanded to be kept holy. He speaks 
 after the manner of men. He calls attention to the greatness 
 of that sacrifice, whereby He -^ spared not His own Son, hut 
 freely gave Him up for us all. The word ' 3Jan' forms a 
 sort of contrast with 31y Fellow. He Whom the sword is to 
 reach must unite the Human Nature with the Divine." Jews 
 too have seen that the words, 3Iy Felloir, imply an equality 
 with God ; only since they own not Him, Who was God and 
 Man, they must interpret it of a false claim on the part of 
 man -'', overlooking that it is given Him by God. 
 
 ag. Arian. p. 444. note k. Oxf. Tr. 1- " (TvtitpvTj i.e. joined on to His Nature." Tb. 
 
 13 S. Ath. ag. Arians iii. 9. p. 444. Oxf. Tr. '■> lb. n. 34 p. 44;». 
 
 '* S. Leo, Serm. 65. fin. '* Tert. de cam. Christi, 5. '? S. Ignat. Rom. 6. 
 
 « Tert. 1. c. lb. '» Vigil, c. Eut. ii. p. 502. =» S. MeKto in Anast. Hodeg. 12. 
 
 -1 Tert. 1. c. all quoted on S. Ath. 1. c. note i. 
 =■- S. Ath. ag. Ar. iii. n. 31 p. 443 O.T. See more ibid. 
 23 Hengst. Christ, iii. 530 ed. 2. -< S. John x. 30. s^n,.;. 18. 
 
 -^ Rom. viii. 32. 
 
 -^ Ibn Ezra interprets it in this sense, " He prophesietli agam many wars, which shall be 
 
 in all the earth, at the death of Messiah ben Joseph, and the meaning of My Shepherd, 
 
 is every king of the nations, whom God made to rule over the earth ; and he estimates of 
 
 himself that he is as God; therefore (he saith) and agamst the man my fellow." Kimchi
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 585, 
 
 c if rTs t ^^^ ^ ^^*'^' turn mine hand npon " the little 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 "' Matt. IS. 
 10, 14. 
 Luke 12. 32 
 
 ones. 
 
 8 And it shall come to pass that in all 
 the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein 
 "Rom. 11.5. shall be cut off and die; "but the third 
 shall be left therein. 
 
 u4nd I will turn My hand^ upon the little ones, dointf to 
 them as He had done to the Shepherd. So our Lord fore- 
 warned them : ~ //" the]/ have per.seruted Me they will also 
 persecute yim : ' //' the ivorld hale you, ye know that it hated 
 Me, hefore it hated you : ■* Ye shall be hated of all men for My 
 name\'< sahe : ^ they will delii^er you up to the councils a)id scourge 
 you in the synagogues ; and ye shall he brought before gorerno7's 
 and /lings for My name's sake : '' they shall deliver you up to 
 he afflicted, and shall kill yon : and ye shall be hated of all 
 men for My nanw's sake ; and to the Scribes and Pharisees, 
 "> I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some 
 of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them sitall ye 
 scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to 
 city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon 
 the earth. 
 
 The little ones^, as Jeremiah speaks of ^the least of the 
 flock, and the Lord said, '^^-fear not, little flock, little and 
 weak in itself, but mighty in Him and in His g'race. Three 
 centuries of persecution, alike in the Roman empire and be- 
 yond it in Persia, fulfilled the prophet's words and deepened 
 the foundation of the Church and cemented its fabric. 
 
 8. In all the land, tiro parts therein shall be cut off and 
 die. "In all the land of Israel," says a Jewish interpreter^^; — - 
 the land, in which the Good Shepherd had been slain and the 
 sheep scattered, that upon you, our Lord had said, inny come 
 all the righteous blood. As David punished Moal), ^"with two 
 lines measured he to put to death, and ivith one full line to keep 
 alive ; and Ezekiel prophesied, ^^ A third part of thee shall 
 die ivith the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed 
 in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword 
 round about thee; so now, the i;;reatcr part should be destroyed, 
 but a remnant should be saved. But the third part shall he 
 left therein. Even so then at this present time also, S. Paul 
 says ^^, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 
 "^^The third part only shall be saved from the common de- 
 struction ; yet not so, that they should suppose that glory was 
 to be obtained amid ease." 
 
 9. I will bring the third part through the fire. Such is 
 always God's way. ^^ Thou hast proved us, O God; Thou 
 hast tried us, like as silver is tried. Thou hroughtest us into 
 the snare, Thou laidest trouble upon our loins: we went through 
 
 Jire and water, and Thou hroughtest us out into a tvealthy 
 
 adopting the inteqiretation, adds " i.e. who thinks himself my fellow." R. Isaac (Chizzuk 
 Emunah. Wagenseil Tela Ignea Satanje p. .SIO) interprets the whole of the king of Ishmael, 
 called also the king of Turkey, and ruling over Asia and Africa, under whose hand tlie majority 
 ot the people of Israel are in captivity. God calls him niv siiepherd, because He lias given His 
 people into his hand to feed them in their capti\nty. He calls him ' the man my fellow and 
 companion,' because in the pride and greatness of his heart he accounteth himself like God, 
 like that, Behold man is become like one of us (Gen. iii.)."' Abarbanel gives, as the one of 
 three interpretations which he prefers, a modification of R. Isaac's, explaining tlie words" my 
 shepherd" of Mohammed, and directing liis interpretation of " the man. my I'ellow" against 
 our Lord. ' ' The words, ' the man my fellow ' are spoken of J esus the Nazarene. for according to 
 the sentiment of the children of Edom and their faith, he was the Son of God, and of the 
 same substance, and therefore he is called according to their words, ' The man, my fellow." 
 Rashi alone has ** My shepherd, whom I set over the sheep of my captivity, and' the man 
 my fellow whom I associated with myself to keep my sheep, even as I did ;" but " I smite the 
 shepherd," he explains "the wicked king of Moab," or " kuig of the border of wickedness" [i. e. 
 Edom] or in one MS. " the wicked Roman king, who shepherdeth my flock." R. Tancimm 
 has, " tnat they tliink in themselves on account of my setting them over the creation that they 
 
 And I will brini? the third part "throuijfh ^ ^ff^s t 
 the fire, and will f refine tiiein as silver is . cir.4«7^_ 
 
 . . , » Isai. l.**. 10. 
 
 refined, and will try thcin as <;old is tried : p i i'<t. 1.0,7. 
 
 , q Ps. .OO. I'l. 
 
 ''they shall call on my name, and I will &yi.i.';. ' 
 hear them : ' I will say, It is my people : 
 and they shall say, The Loan t.? my God. 
 
 r I's. 1 U. 15. Jcr. .10. 22. Ezek. 11. 20. Hos. 2. 23. ch. 8. 8. 
 
 ch. 10. G. 
 
 place. " / have refined thee, but not ivith silver, I have chosen 
 thee in the furnace of ajfliclion ; and, '^ Through much tribula- 
 tion we must enter into the kingdom of God. 
 
 '"" In adversity virtue is most tried, and it is shewn what 
 advance a person has madt!; for patience bath a perfect work'^"; 
 and it is called the tou(Mistone of all other virtues, as is 
 written; ' -KJod tried His elect as gold in the furnare ;ind 
 received them as a burnt ottering;' and, '"All the faithful 
 who have pleased the Lord have passed through many tribu- 
 lations.' And the angel Raphael saith to Tobias, ' -'' Because 
 tluni wcrt accepted of God, need was that temptation should 
 prove thee.'" "Adversities are granted to the elect of God, 
 and therefore to be rejoiced in with the whole heart." "''Fire, 
 crosses, racks were prepared ; swords executioners torturers 
 were put in action ; new forms of suffering were invented, and 
 yet Christian virtue remained moveless, unconquered : the 
 fiercer the onslaught, the more glorious was the triumph." 
 "-*Thc more suffered, the more believed in Christ." "'^ Whose 
 virtue they admired, these they imitated, and shared the 
 sutt'ering, that they might be partakers of the glory. This 
 was that fire, whereby God willed that His own should be 
 tried and purified, that, with Christ Whom they gave them- 
 selves to imitate, they might enjoy everlasting glory." 
 
 / tvill bless him and u'ill say. It is My people, " '^ not only 
 by creation as the rest, but by devotion and worship, by pre- 
 destination and infusion of grace, by singular Providence, by 
 mutual love ; and it sitall say, The Lord is tny God, Whom 
 Alone above all things, I long for, love, worship." 
 
 This promise is oftentimes renewed through the prophets, 
 oftentimes fulfilled in Christ, whenever the Church is recalled 
 from listlessness by fiery trials, and through them her children 
 are restored to deeper devotedness and closer union with God. 
 
 XIV. "The Jews," S.Jerome says, "say that these 
 things are to be fulfilled under Gog ; others that they were 
 accomplished in part, in the times of the iNlacedonians. Egyp- 
 tians, and other nations. We, leaving the truth of the time 
 to the judgement of the Lord, would explain what is written." 
 Eusebius-5 points out that it cannot be said to have been ful- 
 filled under Antiochus Epiphancs; "If any think that these 
 things are, then let him consider again and again, whether 
 he can refer the rest of the prophecy also to the times of 
 Antiochus; as, that -^ the feet of the Lord stood on the mount 
 
 are my administrators in the kingdom and government." The Heb. Ar. [Hunt. 200] 
 ** against the n^an, my companion" ('3n,x3 '?J"i'7.x '7y). 
 
 i' Such is the force of Vv ^'BTT Am. i. 'J, turning the hand against Ekron or against the 
 other cities of Philistia; in Is.i. 25, upon Judah. and thoroughly cleansing her by affliction; 
 Ezek. xx.\viii. 12, of Gog against the restored Israel ; Ps. lxx.xi. 15 of God's turning upon 
 its adversaries. His H and which was now upon her [all]. It were in itself improbable that 
 here alone should be iu a good sense, as Ges. 
 
 = S.,Iohnxv. 20. 2 lb. IS. ■• S. Matt. X. 22, S.Luke xxi. 17. 
 
 » S. Matt. X. 17, 18 ; add S. Luke xxi. 12. __ « S. Matt. xxiv. 9. 
 
 ' lb. xxiii. 31, 35. * D*'iiyin Sir. 
 
 ' Jer. xlix. 20 r.sin Tys i" S. Luke xii. 32. 
 
 11 Kim. ■ 1= 2 Sam. Tiii. 2. " Ezek. v. 12. 
 
 n Rom. xi. 5. li Osor. « Ps. bcri. 9—11. 
 
 I" Is. xlrai. 10. IS Acts xiv. 22. " Dion. * S. James i. i. 
 
 -' V\'isd. iii . (i. -- Judith viii. 2.3. Vulg. =3 Tobit xii. 13 Vulg. 
 
 2* S. Aug. in Ps. xc. Serm. i. n. 8. See more in Tert. Apol. c. ult. p. 105. note a. Oxf. Tr. 
 ^ Dem. Evang. vi. IS. ^ ver. 4.
 
 586 
 
 ZECIIARIAH. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 • Isai. 13. 9. 
 
 Joel 2. 31. 
 Acts 2. 20. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1 The destroyers of Jerusalem destroyed. 4 TIte 
 comiiiif of Christ, mid the i^ruces of his /ciiti^dotn. 
 12 The pliii^ne of Jenisittein's enemies. 10 The 
 remnant shall turn to the Lord, 2U and their 
 spoils shall be holy. 
 
 BEFIOLD, "the day of the Lord cometh, 
 and thy spoil shall be divided in the 
 
 of Olives, that ' the Lord in that day, became king over the 
 whole earth ; and so, as to the rest of tlie prophecry." And 
 althoiii^h more was fulfilled in the last sie^e by the Romans, 
 still those who would explain it solely of this, are oblij^ed to 
 minijle explanations partly literal, as that Jerusalem should 
 be the earthly Jerusalem, which was destroyed, partly meta- 
 phorical, as to the mount of Olives, its division into two 
 parts &c. It seems then probable that, like the kindred 
 prophecy of Joel -, it relates chiefly to the time of the end, 
 and that as our Lord unites the destruction of Jerusalem 
 with His Comina: in the Day of Judgement, so here are united 
 that first destruction with the last rebellion of man, in the 
 times of Anti-Christ. Since then much or most may be yet 
 future, it seems safer, as S. Jerome suggests, to explain the 
 Prophet's symbolic language, leaving the times of the fulfil- 
 ment to Him, in Whose hands they are. 
 
 1 . Behold the Day of the Lord eometh, lit. a day cometh, 
 the Lord's, in which He Himself shall be Judge, and no longer 
 leave man to fulfil his own will, and despise God's; in which 
 His glory and holiness and the righteousness of all His ways 
 shall be i-evealed. 
 
 And thy spoil shall be in the midst of thee. " ' How great 
 will the strait be, that the spoils should be divided in the 
 midst of her. It often happens that what, by a sudden assault, 
 is plundered in the city, is divided in the field or in solitude, 
 lest the enemy should come upon them. But now there will 
 be such a heavy weight of ills, such will be the security of 
 conquest, that the spoils shall be divided in the midst of the 
 city." 
 
 2. I ivill gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle. 
 This is a feature which belongs to the end. It had been 
 dwelt upon by Joel*; Ezekiel spoke of the ^ many nations 
 which should come under Gog. S. John foretells of an uni- 
 versal strife at the end, when ^ The spirits of devils, working 
 miracles, go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole 
 world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God 
 Almighty ; and '^ Satan shall be loosed out of his prison a7id 
 shall go out to deceive the nations tchich are in the four quarters 
 of the earth, Gog and 3Iagog, to gather them together to battle, 
 the number of ivhom is as the sand of the sea. And they went 
 up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the 
 saints round about, and the beloved city. Since no creature 
 can do aught but what God wills, and, in liis phrenzy against 
 God's people, is but His instrument, * to try them and to 
 purge and to make white to the time of the end; and the 
 strength of body or intellect, which is abused against His 
 law. He continuously in the order of nature supplies, God may 
 
 ' ver. 9. 
 
 3 S. Jer. 
 
 ^ Rev. xvi. 1 1. 
 X Daii. xi. 35. xii. lU. « Eccl. U. 2. 
 
 • Jo. ii. 30, iii. 18. See ab. pp. 120— Ml. 
 ' -'.), U. 5 Ezek. xxxviii. 6, 15, 22. 
 
 J lb. XX. 7, 8, 9. 
 '" See ab. on Mic. iii. 12. pp. 31G— 31S. 
 
 midst of thee. ^ nfra t 
 
 2 For '' I will j^uther all nations against ^iLii^i: — 
 
 J<'rusaleni to battle ; and the eity shall be 
 
 taken, and "^ the houses rifled, and the ' itai. i3. 16, 
 
 women ravished ; and half of tin; city shall 
 
 go forth into captivity, and the residue of 
 
 the people shall not be cut oif from the 
 
 city. 
 
 3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and 
 
 be said to do what Satan does against Him. Satan, in his 
 blind fury, crowns martyrs, fills the thi"ones of heaven, works, 
 against his will, the All-wise Will of God. 
 
 And the houses rijled, and the women Sfc. The horrors 
 of heathen war repeat themselves through men's evei"-recur- 
 ring passions. What was foretold as to Babylon is repeated 
 in the same words as to the Church of God. Seemingly all 
 things come alike to all: ^ there is one event to the righteous 
 and to the wicked ; to the good and to the clean and to the 
 unclean : to him that sacri/iceth and to him that sacrificeth 
 not : as is the good, so is the sinner. The outward event is 
 the same, the hidden part is known to God Alone. And the 
 residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city, unlike 
 the lot of the earthly Jerusalem, in the destruction both by 
 Nebuchadnezzar (which was past) and the Romans ^''. At the 
 first, 1' Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried away 
 the rest of the people left in the city, and the fugitives that fell 
 away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, 
 so that Jeremiah mourned over it, ^- Because of the mountain 
 of Zion tvhieh is desolate, fo.ves walk [habitually] upon it. 
 The Romans "^'effaced the city." Now a remnant is not cut 
 off', because ^^ for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened ; 
 for our Lord had said ^", that the gates of hell should not pre- 
 vail against His Church. 
 
 3. The Lord shall go forth and shall fight, " '^^ is to be 
 taken like that in Habakkuk, ^^ Thou iventest forth for the 
 salvation of Thy people, for snlvatioji with Thine Anointed, 
 and in Micah, i* For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His 
 place, and ivill come dotvn and will tread upon the high jilaces 
 of the earth, and the mountains shall be molten under Him, 
 and the valleys shall be cleft ; and Isaiah also, ^^ The Lord shall 
 go forth as a mighty man; He shall stir up jealousy like a 
 man of ivar ; He shall cry ; He shall prevail over His enemies. 
 " God is said to go forth, when by some wondrous deed He 
 declares His Presence — His Deity is, as it were, laid up, so 
 long as He holds Himself in, and does not by any token shew 
 His power. But He goes forth, and bursts forth, when He 
 exercises some judgement, and worketh some new work, 
 which striketh terror." God then will go forth out of His 
 place, when He is constrained to break through His quietness 
 and gentleness and clemency, for the amendment of sinners. 
 He Who elsewhere speaketh through the prophet, -"/, the 
 Lord, change not, and to Whom it is said, -^ Thou art the same, 
 and in the Epistle of James, -- fVith Whom is no change, now 
 goeth forth and fighteth as in the day of battle, when He 
 overwhelmed Pharaoh in the Red sea; and fought for Israel." 
 The Lord shall fight for you, became the watchword of Moses ^ 
 
 11 2 Kgs XXV. 11. 12 Lam. v. 13. 
 
 •3 See ab. p. 310. » S. Matt. xxiv. 33. i* lb. xvi. IS. i« S. Jer. 
 
 1" Hab. iii. 13. 13 Mic. i. 3, 1. '9 Is. xlii. 13. =" Mai. iii. 6. 
 
 -' Ps. cii. 28. =2 S. Janies i. 17. ^3 Exod. sdv. 14. Deut. i. 30, xiii. 22, xx. 4.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 587 
 
 ch^rTst fi-ylit against tlioso nations, as Avhen he 
 cir. 487. fought ju tlio (lay oF battle. <; -'' ■ '^ 
 
 4 ^f And his feet shall stand in that day 
 
 ^ihis?''' ^npon the mount of Olives, which i.v before 
 
 •lerusalem on the east, and the mount of 
 
 Olives shall eleave in tin; midst thereof 
 
 « Joel 3. 12, 14. toward the east and toward the west, "and 
 
 and the warrior Joshua in his oUl aijc \ after his life's ex- 
 perience -, and Ncheniiah'. lie not afrdid by reason of this 
 great multitude, said Jahaziel, son of Zaiihariaii ', when tlie 
 Spirit of the Lord came upon liini ;for the battle is not your's, 
 but God's. 
 
 As He fought in the daj/ of battle. " ^ All wars are so 
 disposed by tiie power of God, tliat every victory is to be 
 referred to His counsel and will. But this is not seen so 
 clearly, when men, elate and confident, try to transfer to 
 themselves all or the greater part of the glory of war. Then 
 may the war be eminently said to be the Lord's, when no one 
 drew swoi'd, as it is written, ® T'he Lord shall fight for you, 
 and ye shall hold your peace. Of all God's wars, in which 
 human insolence could claim no part of the glory, none was 
 more wondrous than that, in which Pharaoh and his army 
 were sunk in tlie deep. The Lord, said Moses ^, is a man of 
 luar : the Lord is His Name. That day of battle was the 
 image of one much greater. In that, Pharaoh's army was sunk 
 in the deep ; in this, the power of evil, in Hell : in that, what 
 could in some measure be conquered by human strength, was 
 subdued ; in this, a tyranny unconquerable ; in that, a short- 
 lived liberty was set up ; the liberty brought by Christ through 
 subdual of the enemy, is eternal. As then the image yields 
 to the truth, earthly goods to heavenly, things perishable to 
 eternal, so the glory of that ancient victory sinks to nothing 
 under the greatness of the latter." 
 
 4. And His feet shall stand in that day upo)i the mount of 
 Olives, "over against Jerusalem to the East, wherein riseth 
 the Sun of Righteousness." The Mount of Olives is the cen- 
 tral eminence of a line of hills, of rather more than a mile in 
 length, overhanging the city, from which it is separated only 
 by the narrow bed of the valley of the brook Cedron. It 
 rises 187 feet above Mount Zion, 295 feet above Mount 
 Moriah, 443 feet above Gethsemane, and lies between the 
 city and the wilderness toward the dead sea : around its 
 Northern side, wound the road to Bethany and the Jordan ^. 
 There, probably, David worshipped ' ; his son, in his decay, 
 profaned it'''; Josiah desecrated his desecrations'^; there ^'-upon 
 the mountain, which is on the East side of the city, the glory 
 of the Lord stood, when it had go7ie tip from the midst of the 
 city ; it united the greatest glory of the Lord on earth, His 
 Ascension, with its deepest soitow, in Gethsemane. Since 
 the Angel said, '^ This same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
 into heaven, shall so come in lihe manner as ye have seen Him 
 go into heaven, the old traditional opinion is not improbable, 
 that our Lord shall come again to judge the earth, where He 
 left the earth, near the place of His Agony and Crucifixion 
 
 1 Josh, xxiii. 10 ; comp. x. 14, 42, xxiii. 3. - 111. x. 14, 42, xxiii. 3. 
 
 3 Neh. iv. 20. < 2 Chr. xx. 15. 
 
 5 Osor. « Ex. xiv. 14. ^ lb. xv. 3. 
 
 8 Van de Valde, Memoir 179. ' 2 Sam. xv. .32. >» 1 Kgs. xi. 7. 
 
 11 2 Kgs xxiii. 13. i= Ezek. xi. 23. ■» Acts i. 11. H Dion. 
 
 ■» The evidence would he late, except as seemingly eoivfinned by a like history in Suetonius 
 
 vi. 13. 16 Zecli. iv. 7. ■' Is. xl. 4. '■'* According to tlie principle of 
 
 words of motion, iSn, ks', -ay, tea. See Ew. Lelirb. n. 282a, 1. pp. 706, 707, ed. 8. 
 
 H Or. my 
 mouiitaini). 
 Or, when he 
 shall touch 
 the vtiUctf of 
 the moun- 
 111 tains ta the 
 Sllclll place he 
 
 tJicrc .shall hn a very threat valley; and ludf cn'^ifTsT 
 of the mountain shall remove toward the ^ir. 4-i7. 
 north, and half of it toward the south. 
 
 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of || the " shaiituud, 
 mountains; ]| for the valley of the moun- 
 tains shall reach untoAzal: yea, ye shaL pace he 
 flee, like as ye fled from before the ^ earth- Tw.''* 
 
 ' Amos 1. 1, 
 
 for us. So shall the Feet of G<td literally stand upon the 
 Mount of Olives. Else it may be that "'*tiic Feet of the 
 uncircumscribed and simple God are to be understood not 
 materially, but that the loving and fixed assistance of His 
 power is expressed by that name." 
 
 Which is true, or whether, according to an old opinion, 
 the last act of Anti-Christ shall be an attempt to imitate the 
 Ascension of Christ (as the first Anti-Christ Simon Magus 
 was said to have met his death in some attempt to fly'^) and 
 be destroyed by His Coming there, the event must shew. 
 
 And the Mount of Olives shall cleave [be cleft] in [from'] 
 the 7nidst thereof toward the East and toicard the TFest, i.e. 
 the cleft shall be East and West, so as to form a very great 
 valley through it — from Jerusalem toward the Jordan East- 
 ward"; and this shall be, in that half of the mountain shall 
 remove Northward, and half thereof Southicard. If this be 
 literal, it is to form an actual way of escape from Jerusalem ; 
 if figurative, it symbolises how that which would be the 
 greatest hindrance to escape, the mountain which was higher 
 than the city, blocking, as it were, the way, should itself 
 afford the way of escape ; as Zechariah speaks, ^^ O great 
 mountain, before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plaiti ; and 
 Isaiah, ^^ Every valley shall be exalted and ever?/ jnountain 
 and hill shall be brought low, and the croo/ced shall be made 
 straight, and the rough places plaifi; i.e. every obstacle should 
 be removed. 
 
 5. And ye shall flee to the valley of the yuountains, rather, 
 along ^^ the valley of Jlly mountains ^^ viz. of those mountains, 
 which God had just formed by dividing the mount of Olives. 
 For the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal, i.e. 
 Azel, the same word which enters into Beth-Azcl of Micah, 
 where the allusion probably is to its firm-rootedness. It is 
 more probable that the name of a place should have been 
 chosen with an allusive meaning, as in Micah, than that an 
 unusual appellative should have been chosen to express a 
 very common meaning. S. Cyril had heard of it as the name 
 of a village at the extremity of the mountain "". Else it might 
 very probably have been destroyed in the destructive Roman 
 wars. The Roman camp in the last siege must have been 
 very near it -'. The destruction of villages, after the frantic 
 revolt under Bar-Chocab, was enormous--. 
 
 Yea, ye shall Jlee like as ye fled from before the earthquake. 
 An earthquake in the time of Uzziah, whose memorv survived 
 the captivity to the time of Zechariah, nearly two centuries, 
 must have been very terrible, but no historical account re- 
 mains of it, Josephus having apparently described the past 
 earthquake in the language which Zechariah uses of the 
 
 19 E. vers, has followed Kim.; yet there is no need to asstime that Tn is an old plur. form. 
 
 ''> Ss^ for Sxx, in pause, as in the man's name both forms occur i Chr. viii. 38, ix. 44. 
 The LXX had 'haariK in S. Jerome's time ; Aq. 'AtreA ; Theod. 'Atr^A ; Sjinm. alone 
 translates it, irphs rh irapaK^iixivov. Jon. retains ^;^'K. So Kim,, I.E., Abarb. The S\t. 
 and Sjnii. (whom S. Jerome follows.) paraphrases. So Mcnahem and Rashi, giring an im- 
 possible explanation, " height." S. Cyril says, " it is a \'i]lage, it is said, at the extremit)' of 
 the mountain." 2' Jos. B. J. v. 1. 8. 
 
 -■ " y85 very well known villages." Dio Cass. Ixix. 14. See ab. p. 317,
 
 588 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 c ifiiTsT q"al<<^ '" *'"■ ^^'^y^ ^^ TJzziah kin*? of Judah: 
 cir. 4S7. e -ind the Lord my (iod shall come, ««(/ 
 ' & 24;3o.lh "^ all the saints with thee. 
 
 fudew.' 6 And it shall come to pass in that day, 
 
 lif.T.'i?si"u \\fhut the light shall not be f clear, nor 
 
 not be clear r i i . , 
 in some T "" * 
 
 places, and dark in other places of the world. t Heb. precious. t "^°- thklmess. 
 
 future^. Such an eai-tliquake is the more remarkable a visi- 
 tation in Jerusalem, because it was out of the line of earth- 
 quakes. These were to the North and East of Palestine: 
 witliin it, they were almost unknown-. Interpositions of God 
 even in man's favour, are full of awe and terror. They are 
 tokens of the presence of the All-Holy among the unholy. 
 Fear was an accompaniment of special miracles in the Gos- 
 pel, not only amonii,- the poor Gadarcnes'', or the peo|)le*, but 
 even the Apostles ^ ; apart from the ettect of the sight of 
 Angels on us who are in the flesh". It is then quite com- 
 patible, that the valley so formed should be tbe means of 
 deliverance, and yet an occasion of terror to those delivered 
 through it. The escape of the Christians in Jerusalem to 
 Pella, during the break of the siege, after the withdrawal of 
 Cestius Gallus, was a slight image of this deliverance. 
 
 And the Lord llij/ God shall come, and all the sahi/s with 
 Thee, O God. The j)roi)iict, having spoken of God as nu/ 
 God, turns suddenly to speak to Him, as present. ""This is 
 manifestly said of the second Coming of the Saviour, of which 
 John too in his Apocalypse says, ^ Behold He xhall come with 
 the clouds, and everi/ eye shall see Him, and they also which 
 pierced Him. And the Lord Himself in the Gospel declareth, 
 that ' the Son of JIan shall come in the clouds of heaven with 
 power and great glory. He shall co>ne with the clouds, i.e. 
 with the Angels, who are ministering spirits and are sent 
 for different offices, and with the Pfoj)hets and Apostles." 
 "1" Whenever Scripture says that the saints and angels come 
 with Christ, it is always speaking of His second Coming, as 
 in that, ^^ JFhen the Son of Man shall come in His glory and 
 all His holy Angels icith Him, and in the Epistle of Jude^-, 
 Behold the Lord comcth with ten thousand of His saints, to 
 execute judgement." 
 
 6. The light shall not be clear nor dark, or, more pro- 
 bably, according to the original reading ^^, Li that day there 
 ivillhe no light ; the bright ones^*will contract themselves, as 
 it is said, ^' The stars shall withdraw their shi/iing. 
 
 This is evermore the description of the Day of Judgement, 
 that, in the presence of God Who is Light, all earthly light shall 
 grow pale. So Joel had said, ^^ The sim and moon shall be 
 darkened, and the stars shall tcifhdraw their shining. And 
 Isaiah, i" The moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, 
 
 1 See ab. Introd. to Amos p. 143. ' See ab. on Am. iv. 1 1. p. 189. 
 
 3 S. Mark V. 15, S. Luke viii. 25. ■* On the restoration ot Zacharias' 
 
 speech, S. Luke i. 05 ; of the son of the widow of Nain lb. vii. 16. 
 
 ' At tlie walking on the sea, S. Matt. xiv. 2(j, S. Jolni vi. 19 ; the rebuking of the wind, 
 S. Mark vi. 18, S. Luke viii. 25 : the Transfiguration, S. Matt. xvii. 6, S. Mark uc. 6 ; the 
 draught of fishes, S. Luke v. 3 — 10. 
 
 ' to Zacharias, S. Luke i. 12; the B. Virgin, lb. 29, SO; the shepherds, lb. ii. 9; to 
 the women after the Resurrection, S. Mark xvi. 8; the Apostles " supposing they had seen 
 a spirit." S. Luke xxiv. 37. 
 
 < S.Jer. on vv. 6, 7. » Rev. i. 7. « S. Matt. xxiv. 30. 'o Rib. 
 
 1' S.Matt. ixv. 31. '= S. Jude 14, 15. 
 
 " The E.V. follows Kim. "The light shall he neither rmp- ' preciousnesses ' nor JlnBp 
 ' thickness.' " '■• pN=i3' nns: 
 
 'i rn|T as Job xxxi. 26. " the moon, t>7i i,^'. waikmg in beauty." \\»n^. " shall contract 
 themselves," as it is said in Ex. xv. S. ninin ixpB " the depths (lit.) coa^'ulated in the heart 
 of the sea." According to the Kri, IiNJpi, the meaning of nnp- is mere conjecture. Kimclii 
 (Lex.) Ibn Ezra Raihi .suppose it to ije used of "clear light," as contrasted with cloudy, 
 expressed by jisyp, so that the meaning of tlie whole should be the same as that of v. 7. 
 
 „ Or, thr dau 
 
 evening ,/,«« ue «;'. 
 
 > Rt>v. 23.5. 
 k Matt. 24. Z(j. 
 
 7 But II it shall be 'one day"" which shall ch^rTst 
 
 be known to the Loud, not day, nor night : g"l- ^^'- 
 
 but it shall come to pass, tluit at 
 time it shall be light. 
 
 8 And it shall be in that day, that living aToo.'iVa). 
 ""waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half "-si-'- 
 
 ■° Ezek. 47. 1. Joel 3. 18. Rev. 22.1. 
 
 ivhen the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jem' 
 snleyn and before His ancients gloriously ; and, ^'* Behold the 
 day of the Lord cotneth, — The stars of heaven and the constel- 
 lations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall he 
 darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her 
 light to shine. All know well our Lord's words''. S. John, 
 like Zechariah, unites the failure of the heavenly light -"with 
 a great earthquake, and the sun became us .sackcloth of hair: 
 and the moon became as blood ; and the sta7's of heaven fell 
 upon the earth. 
 
 7. And it shall be one day : it shall be knoivn unto the 
 Lord: not day, and not night; and at tlie eventide it shall he 
 light. One special day; one, unlike all besides; known unto 
 God, and to Him Alone. For God Alone knows the day of 
 the consummation of all things, as He saith, -' Of that day 
 and that hour knoivelh no one, neither the angels in Heaven, 
 nor the Son, (so as to reveal it) hut the Father only. Neither 
 wholly day, because overclouded with darkness ; nor wholly 
 night, for the streaks of light burst through the darkness 
 chequered of both ; but in eventide, when all seems ready to 
 sink into the thickest night, there shall he light. Divine 
 light alway breaks in, when all seems darkness; but then 
 the chequered condition of our mortality comes to an end, 
 then comes the morning, which has no evening ; the light 
 which has no setting; "perpetual light, brightness infinite;" 
 when ~'the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, 
 and tlie light of the sun shall be sevenfold; and "' the glory 
 of God doth lighten the eternal city, a7id the Lamb is the light 
 thereof; and -*/« Thy light we shall see light. "-^Christ shall 
 be to us eternal light, a long perpetual day." 
 
 And it shall be, that living waters. " -^ This is what is 
 said in the prophecy of Joel, -'A fountain shall come forth from 
 the house of the Lord; and in that of Ezekiel, ~^And behold 
 there raji out waters." Zechariah leaves to the mind to supply 
 what the former prophets had said of the fertilising life-giving 
 character of those waters. He adds that they should pervade 
 the whole land. West as well as East ; to the former, rather the 
 JSastern sea "', into which they would by nature flow, and 
 toward the hinder, i. e, the Western sea, the Mediterranean, 
 which natural waters could not reach. This their flow, he 
 adds, should be perpetual. '""These streams shall not dry 
 
 Our version follows this. Abulwalid and Parchon explain it of heavy thick clouds^and 
 make the words synonymous. Tanchum mentions both. The LXX. seem further to have 
 read nnpi, Kal ^vxv ; but it is not supported by any MS. or any other version: for the 
 " but '' m Symni. Chald. Syr. may only express the contrast of the sentences ; " there shall 
 not be hght ; — and — ," as Asyndeton. The LXX. however, " There shall not be light and 
 cold and ice," could only mean to deny the presence of any of them, not (as Ewald) " tliere 
 shall be no alternation of light with cold and ice." Proph. ii. 62. Light too and cold ar* 
 not alternatives. The Kri pxDpi, as always, occurs in some MSS., 8 .Spanish of De Rossi, 
 2 at first, 15 old editions. The Jewish authorities (as far as I know) including Abulwalid 
 Tanchum Parchon &c., take no notice of the Kethibh. 
 
 16 Joel iii. 15. '? Is. xxiv. 23. '^ lb. liii. 9, 10. 
 
 i» S. Matt. xxiv. 29. '» Rev. vi. 12, 13. 
 
 2' S. Mark xiii. 32. « Is. xxx. 26. ^ Rev. xxi. 23. '* Ps. xxxvi. 9. 
 
 2S S.Cyr. =6 Kim. »7 Joel iii. IS. =« Ezek. xlvii. 2. 
 
 -^ Joel ii. 20, where the pretematuralness of the deliverance is pictured by the driving 
 the locust, the symbol of the enemy, into two opposite seas. The Ea.stern sea, i.e. tlie 
 dead sea. is spoken of there and Ezek. xlvii. 18 ; the hinder sea, i.e. the Mediterranean, 
 Joel ii. 20, Deut. xi. 24, xxxiv. 2. '" See ab. on Joel pp. 140, 141.
 
 CHAPTER XIV^ 
 
 589 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cii-. 137. 
 
 ]| Or, eastern J 
 Joel. 2. 20. 
 
 ° Oan. 3. 41. 
 Rev. 11. l.->. 
 
 » Eph. 4. 5, G. 
 
 II Or, com- 
 passed. 
 P Isai. to. 4. 
 1 eh. 12. C. 
 ■ II Or, shall 
 abide. 
 
 of them toward the || former sea, and half 
 of them toward tli(^ hiiuh'r sea : hi summer 
 and hi winter shall it he. 
 
 9 And the Lord shall he " kinj^ over all 
 the earth : in that day shall there be "one 
 LoRo, and his name one. 
 
 10 All the land shall he || turned ''as a 
 plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jeru- 
 salem : and it shall he lifted up, and 'i || in- 
 
 up and their waters shall not faiP;" therefore drouejht shall 
 not lessen them, nor u'inter-coUl hind thcni. "^ From Jeru- 
 salem as from a fountain shall stream forth living waters of 
 wisdom and grace to all nations." 
 
 " - Again he tells us, under a figure, that exceeding great 
 and large shall be that outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon 
 the saints, especially wlien they shall be removed to that 
 holy eternal life in the world to come. For now through 
 faith in Clirist we are enriched, as witli an earnest, with tiic 
 first-fruits of the Holy Spirit. But after the Resurrection, 
 sin being wholly taken away, the Holy Spirit will be in us, 
 not as an earnest or in a measure; but richly bounteously 
 and perfectly shall we enjoy the grace through Christ. He 
 calleth, then, liring wafer, the Spirit which, he says, will come 
 forth from the Jerusalem which is from above. — But tluxt the 
 holy Scripture is wont to liken the Divine Spirit to icatcr, 
 the Giver thereof, the Son, accredits, saying'', he that helieveth 
 on Me, as the Scripture hath said. Out of his belli/ shall flow 
 rivers of living water. This the Evangelist explains, * This 
 spake He of the Spirit, which thci/ who believe i)i Him should 
 receive. Since then the Spirit is life-giving, rightly does he 
 liken it to that, which is life-giving to the frame." 
 
 9. And the Lord shall he king over all the earth. Such 
 should be the influence of the living water, i. e. of the Spirit 
 of God. God Who has ever reigned and will reign, ^ a great 
 King over all the earth, shall be owned by His creatures, as 
 what He is. 
 
 There shall be one Lord, more exactly. The Lord shall he 
 One, and His Name One. He had before prophesied, " / will 
 cut off' the names of the idols out of the land. The Church 
 being thus cleansed, no other lord or object of worship should 
 be named but Himself. This is one of those prophecies, of 
 continued expansion and dcvelopement, ever bursting out 
 and enlarging, yet never, until the end, reaching its full ful- 
 filment. "'^ Since in this life we contemplate God in His 
 effects, in which His whole perfection shincth not forth, now 
 we know Him obscurely and imperfectly. His perfections 
 being in divers diversely represented. In our home we shall 
 see Him as He is, face to Face, through His Essence. There- 
 fore then He will be represented by one name, as He shall be 
 beheld by one gaze." 
 
 10. All the land shall he turned as a plain from Itimmon 
 to Gebah. " ^ All the land, which is round about Jerusalem, 
 
 1 Kim. Iini)"!:! make up the wliole year. Gen. vlii. 22, Ps. Ixxiv. 1". ^fin is winter 
 Pr. XX. 4, Am. iii. 15, Jer. xxxvi. 22. 
 
 ■ S.Cyr. 3 S. John vii. 3S. ■• lb. 39. 
 
 5 Ps. xlvii. 3, 8. « Zeeh. .xiii. 2. ' Dion. 
 
 8 Kim. ' Ps. cxxv. 2. 
 
 •0 nrun, as cxpi, Hos. x. 1 1. N is substituted in the name of the animal DX"), d'dnt ; the 
 appell., niDxT Pr. xxiv. 7 ; the precious substance, Ezek. xxvii. 16, Job xxviii. IS ; the town, 
 Deut. iv. -t3,' Jos. XX. 8, 1 Chr. vi. 05. " S.Matt. v. 14. 
 
 '■- Is. ii. 2. Mic. iv. 1. " 1 Sam. xiv. 5. " 1 Kgs xv. 22. 
 
 '» From Gebah to Beer-sheba," 2 Kgs xxiii. 8, as here, " from Gebah to Rimmon." It 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 habited in her plaee, from Benjamin's <|^ate ciniTsT 
 unto the plact' of the first i^ate, unto tiu; — '■'''"• ^~- - 
 corner j^ate, 'utu\froin the tower of liana- '^''J.;^^,]- 
 neel unto the kinj^'s winepresses. ^X Jcr.ai. 38. 
 
 11 And men shall dwell in it, and there 
 
 shall be "no more utter destruetion ; ' but 'j^J-g^i?' 
 Jerusalem || shall b(! safely inhabited. H abide"" 
 
 12 ^ And this shall be the plague where- 
 with the Lord will smite all the people that 
 
 which is now mountains, as is said, " The mountains are round 
 about Jerusalem, siiall be level as a plain, but .Jerusalem 
 itself shall be exalted"^, and high above all the earth." The 
 dignity of the Church, as " a city set upon a hill, which cayinot 
 be hid, is symbolised here by the sinking of all around and 
 its own uprising; as in Micah and Isaiah, '- The mounlain of 
 the Lord's house shall be established on the to]) of the inountuins, 
 and shall be e.valted ab(n'e the hills, (jcbali, lit. /////, now Jevu, 
 was a frontier-garrison, held once by tin; I'hilistines '', and 
 fortified by Asa '^, in the northern boundary of Benjamin '% 
 together with Michmash ^" (now Mftklimas), commanding 
 an important pass, by which Jerusalem was apjiroacbed '^. 
 Itimmon, south of Jerusalem is mentioned in Joshua among 
 the southern towns of Judah '"*, given to Simeon'''. Both 
 survived the Captivity-". They mark then tlie N. and S. of 
 the kingdom of Judah, a long mountain chain, which is 
 pictured as sinking down into a plain, that Jerusalem alone 
 might be e.xalted. 
 
 From Ben/'amin's gate nnto the place of the first gate. 
 Benjamin's gate'-' must obviously be a gate to the North, 
 and doubtless the same as the gate of Kphraim --, the way 
 to Ephraim lying through Benjamin. Tliis too has pro- 
 bably reference to the prophecy of Jeremiah, that -^the city 
 shall be built to the Lord from the tcnuer of Hananeel unto 
 the gate of the corner. "^ Jehoash, king of Israel, brake down 
 the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the 
 corner-gate, four hunilred cubits, after the war with Amaziah. 
 Zechariah seems to speak of Jerusalem, as it existed in his 
 time. For the tower of Hananeel-^ still existed; X\\c first 
 gate was probably destroyed, since he speaks not of it, but of 
 its place ; the gate of Benjamin and the corner-gate probably 
 still existed, since Nehemiah -^ mentions the building of the 
 sheep-gate, the fish-gate, the old gate, or gate of the old city, 
 the vailey-gate, the dung-gate, the gate of the fountain; but 
 not these. 
 
 11. And they shall dwell in it, in peace, going forth from 
 it, neither into captivity, nor in flight-^; for God should 
 exempt from curse the city which He had chosen, against 
 which the gates of hell shall not prevail, and He says of the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, -^ there shall be no more curse. 
 
 12. Again, upon the restoration of His people follows 
 the destruction of His enemies. It shall, first and chiefiy, be 
 God's doing, not man's. This shall be the plague. The word 
 
 is named among the nortliern to\nis of Benjamin, Jos. x\iii. 24. 
 
 16 1 Sara. 1. c. '? Is. X. 2S, 29. 
 
 15 Jos. XV. 32. " lb. xLx. 7, 1 Chron. iv. 32. 
 
 -0 Gebah, mentioned with Michmash, Neh. xi. 31, Rimmon, lb. 29. 
 -1 Mentioned besides, Jer. xx. 2. xxxvii. 12, 17. Jeremiah goes through it, " to go into 
 the land of Benjamin." Jer. xxxvii. 12, 13. 
 
 " Mentioned 2 Chr. xxv. 23, Neh. viii. 16, xii. 39. 
 23 Jer. xxxi. 38. ^ 2 Kgs xiv. 13. 2 Chr. xxv. 23. 
 
 25 Neh. iii. 1. ^ Neh. iii. 1, 3. 6, 13, 14, 15. 
 
 27 V. 2, 5. 2s Rev. xxii. 3. 
 
 P P P P
 
 590 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 c ifllTs T '^''*^'^ fouijht aj^ainst Jerusalem ; Tlieir flesh 
 
 !!iliiiili^ shall consume away wliile they stand upon 
 
 their feet, and their eyes shall consume 
 away in their holes, and their tongue shall 
 consume away in their mouth. 
 
 13 And it shall come to pass in tliat day, 
 "1 Sam. 14. fiifit "tiijreat tumult from the Lord shall 
 
 la, -U. ~ 
 
 be among them ; and they shall lay hold 
 
 is used of direct infliction by pestilence, wherewith the Lord 
 shall srnile^ all the people [peoples] that fought ugainst Jeru- 
 salem. The awcfiil description is of living; corpses. "-The 
 enemies of Jerusalem shall waste, not with fever or disease, 
 but by a plai^ue from God, so that, being sound, standing, 
 living, in well-being, they should waste and consume away," 
 as Isaiah speaks of the ^carcases of the men, that have trans- 
 gressed against Me \ for tlieir worm shall not die — and they 
 shall he an abhorring totto all flesh. 
 
 Their Jiesh shall anisume awai/, rather, ivasting away the 
 flesh of each one. It is the act of God, in His individual 
 justice to each one of all those multitudes gathered against 
 Him. One by one, their eyes, of which they said, * let our 
 eye look on Zion, i. e. «'ith joy at its desolation, shall consume 
 away in their holes, and their tongue, wherewith they blas- 
 pheiicd God^, shall consume away in their mouths. Appalling, 
 horrible, picture ! standing on their feet, yet their flesh 
 mouldering away as in a grave- yard, their sightless balls 
 decaying in their holes, the tongue putrefying in their mouth, 
 a disgust to themselves and to others ! Yet what, compared 
 to the horrible inward decay of sin, whereby men ^ have a 
 name that they live and are dead? "^ Let us read Ecclesias- 
 tical histories, what Valerian, Decius, Diocletian, Maximian, 
 what the savagest of all, Maximin, and lately Julian siifltred, 
 and then we shall prove by deeds, that the truth of prophecy 
 was fulfilled in the letter also." 
 
 13. ^il great tumult, and panic fear, such as God said He 
 would send upon the Canaanitcs before Israel*, or on Israel 
 itself, if disobedient^; or which fell on the Philistines after 
 Jonathan's capture of the garrison at Michmash, when every 
 man's ^" sword was against his fellow. There is no real unity, 
 except in God ; elsewhere, since each seeks his own, all must 
 be impregnated with mutual suspicion, ready at any moment 
 to be fanned into a flame; as when, at the blowing of Gideon's 
 trumpets, ^' the Lord set every man\s sicord agai/ist his fellow; 
 or when, at Jehoshaphat's prayer'-, ^Ae children of ytmmon 
 and 3Ioab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, 
 utterly to slay and destroy ; and when they had made an end 
 of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. 
 
 And they shall lay hold, every one on the hand of his 
 
 ' 113 occurs 20 times of God's striking ; 2ce of a foot stumbling; once (like n::) of an 
 ox goring another, once of a man's accidental blow, both in Ex. . nC3D, in like way, occurs 
 17 times of death inflicted by God (once only of an individual, Ezekiel's wife, Ez. xxiv. 16), 
 and 3 times only, of slaughter in battle liy men, 1 Sam. iv. 17, 2 Sam. xvii. 9, xviii. 7. 
 The form Hif., p:.i. is ott. Nif. is used of a putrefying wound, Ps. xxxviii. 6, and pa 
 subst. Is. iii. 24. Nif. is also used of man's wasting away through (a) his sins Lev. xxvi. 
 3'J (bis) Ez. xxiv. 3.3, xxxiii. 10 [not ' under the weight of as Ges.] and of the dissolution 
 of the host of heaven, Is. x.xxiv. 4. - Lap. 3 Is. Ixvi. 24. 
 
 ■• Mi. iv. 11. 5 comp. Ps. xii. 3. Is. xxxvi. 15, 18, xxxvii. 3, 4, 17, 2.3, 29. 
 
 « Rev. iii. 1. 7 S.Jer. » De. ^ni. 23. » lb. xxviii. 20^ 
 
 '» 1 Sam. xiv. 20. The same word is used. " Jud. vii. 22. ''- 2 Chr. xx. Si. 
 
 13 p-7nn, with ace, is used adversely though figuratively. Anguish (Jer. vi. 24, 1. 43) 
 amazement (lb. viii. 21) pangs (Mic. "iv. 9) are said to seize on—; and David " I seized 
 (•npinn) by the beard the lion and the bear," 1 Sam. xvii. 35. It is used of a man grasp- 
 ing with violence (with 3) De. xxii. 25, 2 Sam. xiii. 11 ; forcibly detaining prisoners, 
 Ex. ix. 2, Jer. 1. 33 ; the head of an opponent, " they seized each bis fellow by the head, 
 and his sword in his fellow's side," 2 ^^am. ii. 16; "the ears of a dog," Pr. xxvi. 17. 
 Here the context precludes ambiguity ; the use of the ace. is poetic. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 487. 
 
 » Judg. 7. 22. 
 
 2 Chr. 20. 23. 
 
 Ezc-k. ;«. 21. 
 II Or.thouaho, 
 
 O Jtidah, 
 
 shaU. 
 
 every one on the hand of his neighbour, and 
 " his hand shall rise up against the hand of 
 his neighl)our. 
 
 14 And II Judah also shall fight jjat Jeru- 
 salem ; ^and the Avealth of all the heathen 
 round al)out shall be gathered together, y ELkfsa'ib, 
 gold, and silver, and ajjparel, in great '' 
 abundance. 
 
 neighbour. Every one shall be every one's foe. Each shall, 
 in this tumultuous throng, grasp the other's hand, mastering 
 him powerfully'''. And his hand shall rise up ^^ against the 
 hand of his neighbour, as was prophesied of Ishmael, '=//« hand 
 ivill he against every mart, and every man^s hand against him. 
 14. And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem. This seems 
 more probable than the alternative rendering of the E.M., 
 "against." For Judah is united with Jerusalem as one, in 
 the same context i"*; and, if it bad shared with the heathen, 
 it must also have shared their lot. It is Judah itself, not 
 "a remnant of Judah," as it is ^"^ every one that is left of 
 all the nations, which is thus united to Jerusalem : it is 
 that same Judah, as a whole, of which it is said, it shall 
 flght. Nor is anything spoken of " conversion," which is 
 said of those left from the heathen nations, who had fought 
 against her. Yet for Judah to have joined an exterminating 
 Heathen war against Jerusalem, even though constrained, 
 had, like the constrained sacrifices to Heathen gods, been 
 apostasy. But there is not even a hint that, as Jonathan 
 apologetically paraphrases '*, they were " constrained." The 
 war is to be Judah's free act : Judah also shall fight. Again, 
 those gathered against Jerusalem, and their warfare against 
 it, had been described at the outset, as '^ all nations -. here 
 the subject is not the gathering or fighting, but the overthrow. 
 Nor is there any decisive contrary idiom ; for, although when 
 used of people, it always means " fight against," yet, of place, 
 it, as often, means "fight in-"." Probably then the Prophet 
 means, that not only should God fight for His people, but 
 that Judah also should do its part, as S. Paul says, -' IVe, 
 then, as workers together with Him ; and, ^- we are labourers 
 together with God; and, ^^ I laboured more abundantly than 
 they all ; yet not I, hut the grace of God which teas with me; 
 or, -*work out your own salvatio7i with fear and trembling ; 
 for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of 
 His good pleasure. God so doth all things in the Church, 
 for the conversion of the heathen, and for single souls, as to 
 wait for the cooperation of His creature. "-^God made thee 
 without thee; He doth not justify thee without thee." 
 
 And the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be 
 gathered. Whatever the world had taken in their war against 
 
 '•■ nSy "rise" = "be raised up," as even of inanimate things. Am. iii. 5, Pr. xxvi. 9, 
 Job V, 26 ; of a people carried away, lb. xxxvi. 20. Gesenius' instances, Thes. p. 1023 n. 2. 
 
 '^ Gen. xvi. 12. " v. 21. '7 v. 16. '^ "Yea, and those of the house of Judah 
 
 the nations will bring, constrained, to carry war against Jerusalem." Jon. ^^ v. 2, 3. 
 
 -" On the one hand, Ty3 cn'73 "fought against the city," Jud. ix. 45; nys "against 
 Rabbah" 2 Sam. xii. 27 ; nVypa " against Keilah," 1 Sam. xxiii. 1 : on the other, ll^ri|i 
 "fought at Taanach," Jud. v. 19; DT?-)?, "at Rephidim," Ex. xvii.8; to TOpan "in 
 the valley of Megiddo," 2 Chr. xxxv. 22, and so probably in the immediate context, (lb. 20) 
 t^'pzi^a, " at Carchemish," since it is hardly probable, that Carchemish should be men- 
 tioned as the object of such an expedition, and the decisive battle between Egj'pt and 
 Chald^ea was "af," not "in Carchemish," i?p?ir3. where Nebuchadnezzar smote his 
 anny. Jer. xlvi. 2. For such a large army as Pharaoh's would not have been shut up in a 
 town, which was of importance only as a key to the passage of the Euphrates. Also in 
 Isaiah xxx, 32. the Chethib 33 must be " in her," Zion, which the Kri has corrected into 
 the more common idiom, D3, " against them." The LXX. renders thus, Trapard^iTaL ey 
 'UpovaaKri/i. -' 2 Cor. \n. 1. "- 1 Cor. iii. 9. ^ lb. xv. 10. 
 
 2< Phil. u. 12. !» S. Aug. Serm. 169. n. 13. Opp. v. 815. (on N. T. p. 866 O. T.)
 
 CIIAITEU XIV. 
 
 591 
 
 chrTst ^^ -^"'1 'so shall be the plaj^ue of the 
 - ''"■'*^'- — horse, of the mule, of the eamel, and of the 
 
 ' ver. 12. 
 
 ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in 
 these tents, as this plau^ue. 
 
 IG ^ And it shall come to ])ass, that every 
 one that is left of all the nations which 
 
 the Church shall be abundantly repaid. ^1/ the heathen had 
 combined to plunder Jerusalem ^; the wenltli of all the hea- 
 then shall be f;athered to recjuite them. " - As Isaiah says, 
 The nations, converted to (Uirist, brouj^bt all their wealth 
 to the Cbureb, whence he coiinratiilates the (Jiiiircb, sayinj;:, 
 "^ Thou shaft also suck the milk of t lie Gentiles, and shall suck 
 the breasts of kings — /'or brass I will bring gold, and for iron 
 I will bring silver; under which he typically understands, 
 "*wisd(nn, philosophy, eloquence, learniuij, and all the other 
 arts and sciences, liberal and mechanical, wherewith the 
 heathen shall be adorned, who are converted to the faith. So 
 shall tlie Jiifts of nature ho perfected by the gifts of grace, 
 and thei/ shall defend the Cliurcb who erstwhile attacked it." 
 
 15. And so shall be the plague of the Lord Sfc. "*So, 
 when God sendetb the plague, all the irrational animals of 
 Anti-Christ and his satellites shall pei'ish, as the aforesaid 
 men, who used them, perished. For, for the sins of men, 
 God, to their greater confusion, sometimes slays their beasts, 
 sometimes also for their loving correction." " ^The imagery 
 is from the Mosaic law of the ban. If a whole city became 
 guilty of idolatry, not the inhabitants only, but the beasts 
 were to be destroyed", so that here, in miniature, should be 
 repeated the relation of the irrational to the ratioiud part of 
 the creation, according to which, for the sins of men, the 
 creature is, against its will, made subject to vaniti/. Ana- 
 logous is it also, that on the olfence of Aehan'', beside him 
 and his children, bis oxen, asses and sheep were [stoned and] 
 burned with him." 
 
 16. Even/ one that is left of the nations. God so gives 
 the repentance, even through His visitations, that, in pro- 
 portion to the largeness of the rebellion and the visitation 
 upon it, shall be the largeness of the conversion. ^Jerusalem 
 shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the 
 Gentiles shall be fulfilled. And S. Paul, '■'Blindness in part is 
 happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles shall be 
 come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved. Hitherto prophets 
 had spoken of a ^° remnant of Jacob, who should return to the 
 migh/i/ (7of/, and should be saved; now, upon this universal 
 rebellion of the .heathen. He foretells the conversion of a 
 remnant of the heathen also. 
 
 Shall even go up from year to year to worship the Kitig, 
 the Lord of hosts. There is a harmony between the rebellion 
 and the repentance. The converted shall go to worship God 
 there, where they had striven to exterminate His worshippers. 
 The prophet could only speak of the Gospel under the image 
 of the law. The Feast of Tabernacles has its counterpart, 
 not, like the Pascha or the Pentecost, in any single feast, but 
 in the whole life of the Gospel. It was a thanksgiving for 
 past deliverance; it was a picture of their pilgrim-life from 
 the passage of the Red sea, until the parting of the Jordan 
 opened to them the entrance to their temporary rest in 
 Canaan '^. " ^- In that vast, wide, terrible wilderness, where 
 
 2 Lap. 3 Is. Ix. 16, 17. * Dion. 
 
 « Deut. xiii. 15. ' Josh. vii. 24, 25. 
 
 1 ver. 2. 
 5 Hengst. 
 
 « S. Luke xxi. 24. s Rom. xi. 25, 26. 
 
 " See ab. at greater length on Hos. xii. 9. p. 79 
 
 >" Is. X. 21. 
 '2 S. Jer. 
 
 eaine aj^ainst Jerusalem shall even "jj^o up cifaTsr 
 from year to year to worship the Kinj^, the "'"■ '*^^- 
 Lord of hosts, and to keep '' th<; feast of &^m'->k'.' 
 
 .11 ^ U'V. 23. il, 
 
 taoernacles. 4.3. 
 
 17 'And it shall he, tlutl whoso will not nos.'i2.9." 
 come up of all the families of the earth c la. w! 12', 
 
 was no village, house, town, cave, it made itself tents, wherein 
 to sojourn with wives and children, avoiding by day the burn- 
 ing sun, by night damp and cohl aiul hurt from Anw \ and it 
 WHS ^^ u statute for ever in llieir gent rations ; ye shall direll 
 in booths seven days ; all, that arc Israelites born, shall dwell 
 in booths, that your geiterations may know, that I made the 
 children of Israel to diuell in booths, ivhen I brought them out 
 of the land of Egypt." "-Much more truly do Christians 
 keep the feast of tabernacles, not once in the year only, but 
 <'outinually, unceasingly. I'his is, what S. Peter admonivbeth, 
 ^^ Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilnrims, 
 abstain from fleshly lusts. And S. Paul often teacheth that 
 we, like Abraham, are strangers on earth, but '■' citizens of 
 heaven ivith the saints, and of the household, of God. Faith, 
 he says, '" is the substance of things hoped for, the ei-idenre of 
 things not seen. By faith Abraham sopntrncd in the land of 
 promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with 
 Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 
 for he looked for a city which hath fcnindations, whose builder 
 ami maker is God." "^-As long as we are in progress, in the 
 course and militant, we dwell in tabernacles, striving with 
 all our mind to pass from the tabernacles to the firm and 
 lasting dwelling-place of the house of God. Whence also 
 holy David said, ^^ I am a stranger with Thee and a sojourner, 
 as all my fathers were. So speaketh be, who is still in Egypt 
 and yet placed in the world. But he who gocth forth out of 
 Egypt, and entereth a desert from vices, holdeth his way and 
 says in the Psalm, ^"^ / will pass through to the place of the 
 tabernacle of the ff^jndrrful unto the house of God. Whence 
 also he says elsewhere, ^'^ IIoiv amiable are Thy dwellings. 
 Thou Lord of hosts; my soul longeth, yea even fainteth for 
 the courts of the Lord; and a little after, -"Blessed are they 
 who dwell in thy house, they shall be alway praising Thee. 
 -^ 2Vie voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of 
 the righteous. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that 
 will I seek after ; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord 
 all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and ■ 
 to enquire in His temple. Whoso dwelleth in such tabernacles, 
 and hastes to go from the tabernacles to the court, and from 
 the court to the house, and from the house to the temple of 
 the Lord, ought to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles &c." 
 It symbolises how, '"'in the New Testament, Christians, 
 being delivered through Christ from the slavery to sin and 
 satan, and sojourning in this vale of misery, by making pro- 
 gress in virtues go up to the home of the heavenly paradise, 
 the door of glory being open by the merit of the Lord's 
 Passion, and so the faithful of Christ celebrate the feast of 
 tabernacles ; and, after the destruction of Anti-Christ, they 
 will celebrate it the more devoutly, as there will then be 
 among them a fuller fervour of faith." 
 
 17. TFhoso will not go up. "-'To those who go not up, 
 he threatens the same punishment as persecutors would 
 
 13 Lev. xxiii. 41—1.3. » 1 S. Pet. ii. 11. 's Eph. ii. 19. 
 
 IS Heb. xi. 1, 9, 10. '? Ps. xxxix. 12. 
 
 IS lb. xli. 5. Vulg. '9 lb. Lxxxiv. 1. ™ lb. 4. 
 
 2> Xb. cxviii. 15. - lb. xx\Ti. 4. "-^ S. Cjr. 
 
 p p p p 2
 
 592 
 
 ZECIIARIAII. 
 
 ch^rTst ""t^ Jcrusah'in to worship the Kins', the 
 "i'^- ■'^^- Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no 
 rain. 
 
 IS And if the family of Ec^ypt go not up, 
 ^whomth°Te and come not, f that/ua'f no rain; thei-e 
 dge'ut'.'ii.in. shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord 
 
 endure. For enemies, and they who will not love, shall have 
 the same lot. This is, I think, what Christ fliniself said, 
 ^IFIioso is not with Me is against Me, and ivhoso gathereth not 
 with 3fe scattereth." 
 
 Upon tliem there shall be no rain. Rain was the most 
 essential oftlod's temporal p;ifts for the temporal well-being 
 of His people. Moses marked out this, as his people were 
 entering on the promised land, with recent memory of 
 Egypt's independence of rain in Egypt itself, and that this 
 gift depended on obedience. ^ The land, whither thou goest 
 in to possess it, is tiot as the land of Kgypt, ichence ye came 
 out, tvhere thou snwedst thy seed and watcrcdst it ivith thy foot, 
 as a garden of herbs: hut a land of hills and valleys, — it 
 drinheth water of the rain of heaven; a land ichieh the Lord 
 thy God caret h for ; tlie eyes of the Lord are always apoti it, 
 from the heginning of the year even niilo the end of the year. 
 And it shall he, if ye shall hearken diligently nnto 3Iy com- 
 mandments — I will give you the rain of your Umd in its season, 
 the first rain and the latter rain, that thou may est gather in 
 thy corn and thy wine and thine oil. And I will send grass in 
 thy fields for thy cattle, that thou may est eat and he fall. But 
 the threat on disobedience corresponded therewith. ^ Take 
 heed to yourselves, Moses continues, that your heart he not 
 deceived, and ye turn aside and serve other gods — and the 
 Lord's tvrath he kindled against you, and He shut up the 
 heaven, that there he no rain, and that the land yield not her 
 fruit, and ye perish (juirkly from off the good land, which the 
 Lord giveth you; and, *Thy heaven, that is over thee, shall be 
 brass, and the earth, that is under thee, shall be iron; the Lord 
 shall make the rain of thy laud powder and dust. Amos speaks 
 of the withdrawal of rain as one of God's chastisements^: 
 the distress in the time of Ahab is pictured in the history of 
 the woman of Sarejjta'', and Ahab's directions to Obadiah^. 
 But it is also the symbol of spiritual blessings; both are 
 united by Hosea^ and JoeP, as Joel and Amos also speak of 
 si)iritual blessings exclusively under the figure of temporal 
 abundance ^*'. In Isaiah it is simply a symbol, ^^Drop down, ye 
 heavens, from above, and let the skies pour doivn righteousness; 
 let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let 
 righteousness sjiring up together. 
 
 18. And if the family of Egypt go 7iot up, and come not, 
 that have no rain ; rather, and there shall not be^°. It may be 
 that the prophet chose this elliptical form, as well knowing 
 that the symbol did not hold as to Egypt, which, however it 
 ultimately depended on the equatorial rains which overfilled 
 the lakes which supply the Nile, did not need that fine 
 arrangement of the rains of Autumn and Spring which were 
 essential to the fruitfulness of Palestine. The omission 
 leaves room for the somewhat prosaic supply of Jonathan, 
 "The Nile shall not ascend to them." ]\Iore probably the 
 
 : De. xi. 10—15. 
 
 5 Am. iv. 7. See above p. 188. 
 " lb. xviii, 5. 
 
 1 S. Luke xi. 2.3. 
 3 lb. IC, 17. •> lb. xxviii. 23, 24. 
 
 5 1 Kgs xvii. 'J— K). 
 8 llosea vi. 3. See ab. p. .39. 9 Jo. ii. 23. See ab. pp. 125, 126. 
 
 1" Jo. iii. 18. See ab. pp. 140, 141. Am. ix. 13. See ab. 2il, 225. 
 " Is. xlv. 8. See also lb. v. 6, both together lb. xxx. 23. 
 '2 The E.V., following Kim., takes d.tVv n't! as a subordinate clause, "and there is not 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 4«7. 
 
 will smite the heathen that come not up to 
 keep the feast of tabernacles. 
 
 19 This shall be the || punishment ofliOr.s/n 
 Euypt, and the punishment of all nations 
 that come not up to keep the feast of 
 tabernacles. 
 
 words are left undefined with a purposed abruj)tiiess, there 
 shall not be ujton them, viz. whatever they need : the omission 
 of the symbol in these two verses might the more suggest, 
 that it is a symbol only. Egypt, the ancient oppressor of 
 Israel, is united with Judah as one, in the same worship of 
 God, as Isaiah had said, ^* /// that day shall Israel be the third 
 u'ith Egypt and with Assyria ; and since it is united in the 
 duty, so also in the punishment for despising it. 
 
 " '*.Let not Egypt be proud, that it is watered by the Nile, 
 as if it needed no rain: i.e. let no one be secure in this life. 
 For though we stand by faith, yet may we fall. For although 
 bedewed by the efflux of Divine grace, and filled with its 
 richness, yet if we give not thanks continually for such great 
 gifts, God will count us as the rest, to whom such copious 
 goodness never came. The safety of all then lies in this, 
 that while we are in these tabernacles, we cherish the Divine 
 benefits, and unceasingly praise the Lord, Who hath heaped 
 such benefits upon us." 
 
 " 15 Under the one nation of the Egyptians, he understands 
 those who are greatly deceived, and choose idolatry most 
 unreasonably, to whom it will be a grave inevitable judgement, 
 the pledge of destruction, that they despise the acceptable 
 grace of salvation through Christ. For they are murderers 
 of their own souls, if, when they could lay hold of eternal 
 life and the Divine gentleness, open to all who will choose it 
 and put ofl:' the burden of sin, they die in their errors : the 
 stain and pollution from trangression and error uncleansed, 
 although the Divine light illumined all around and called those 
 in darkness to receive sight. Of each of these I would say, 
 '^ Better is an untimely birth than he; for he cometh in with 
 vanity, and departeth in dar/cness, and his naiyie shall he covered 
 with darkness. ^'^ Good had it been for them, if they had 7iever 
 been born, is the Saviour's word. That this is not said of 
 the Egyptians only, but shall come true of all nation.?, who 
 sliall altogether be punished, if they are reckless of the sal- 
 vation through Christ and honour not His festival, he will 
 establish in these words ; 
 
 19. This shall be the sin of Egypt and the si)i of all 
 nations tliat come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. For 
 before the coming of the Saviour, good perhaps had been in 
 part the excuse of the heathen, that they had been called by 
 none. For no one had preached unto them. Wherefore the 
 Saviour also, pointing out this in the Gospel parables, said, 
 1* the labourers, called at the eleventh hour, said. No man hath 
 hired us. But when Christ cast His light upon us, ^^ bound 
 the strong man, removed from his perverseness those subject 
 to him, justified by faith those who came to Him, laid down 
 His life for the life of all, they will find no sufficient excuse 
 who admit not so reverend a grace. It will be true of the 
 heathen too, if Christ said of them, -^ If I had not come and 
 
 upon them," viz. rain at any time ; but it is unnatural that, in two consecutive verses, the 
 words should be taken in such divergent senses. The omission of N^i by the LXX., followed 
 so far (as so often) by the Pesh., is supported only by 4 Kenn. MSS., against those in 
 S. Jerome's time, and Symm. Theod. Jon., and is evidently a makeshift, followed by 
 Ewald. 13 Is. xix. 24. " Osor. '^ S. Cyr. 
 
 « Eccl. vi. 3, 4. ''" S. Matt. xxvi. 24. 
 
 IS lb. XX. 7. " lb. xii. 29. ■" S. John xv. 22.
 
 CIIAPTEIl XIV. 
 
 i93 
 
 ch^rTst 20 ^ In that day shall there hv, upon 
 cir.jsT^the II hells of the horses, ^HOLINESS 
 
 II Or, bridles. 
 <^ Isai. 23. 18. 
 
 UNTO THE LOUD; and the pots in the 
 Loiin's house shall he like the bowls before 
 the altar. 
 
 21 Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in 
 
 spoken unto them, they had not had sin : but now they have no 
 cloke for their sin." 
 
 The prophet says sin, not piiiiishineiit \ for sin inchules 
 the punishment, which is its due, and uiiich it entails: it does 
 not express the punisiinient, apart from tiie sin. It was the 
 sin which comprised and involved all other sin, the refusal 
 to worship God as He had revealed Himself, and to turn to 
 Him. It was to say, ^/Fe will not have Him to reign over 
 us. 
 
 20. In that day there shall he upon the hells ' of the 
 horses, Holiness unto the Lord. He does not say only, that they 
 should be consecrated to God, as Isaiah says of Tyre, '^ Her 
 merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord; he 
 says that, the bells of the horses, things simply secular, 
 should bear the same inscription as the plate on the high 
 priest's forehead. Perhaps the comparison was suggested by 
 the bells on the high priest's dress ' ; not the lamina only on 
 his forehead, but bells (not as his, which were part of his 
 sacred dress), bells, altogether secular, should be inscribed 
 with the self-same title, whereby he himself was dedicated to 
 God. 
 
 Holiness to the Lord. He does not bring down what is 
 sacred to a level with common things, but he u])lifts ordinary 
 things, that they too should be sacred, as S. I'aul says, 
 ''whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
 glory of God. 
 
 And the pots of the Lord's house shall be like bowls before 
 the altar. The pots are mentioned, together with other vessels 
 of the Lord's house ^, but not in regard to any sacred use. 
 They were used, with other vessels, for dressing the victims^ 
 for the partakers of the sacrifices. These were to be sacred, 
 like those made for the most sacred use of all, the bowls for 
 sprinkling^, whence that sacrificial blood was taken, which 
 was to make the typical atonement. 
 
 21. yind every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be 
 holiness to the Lord. Everything is to be advanced in holiness. 
 All the common utensils everywhere in the people of God 
 shall not only be holy, but holiness, and capable of the same 
 use as the vessels of the temple. 
 
 And there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of 
 the Lord of hosts. The actual Canaanite had long since 
 
 ^ The E.V. follows Kim. in rendering *' punisliment." Ges. combines the two in his 
 rendering of a^H, n. 2 " culpam sustinuit," not in liis " culpa pcenas dedit." The rendeiing 
 " shall be guilty " unites sin and punishment in his instances, Ps. xxxiv. 22. 23, Is. xxiv. fl, 
 Jer. ii. 3, Hos. x, 2, [E.V., in tlie same sense, "shall be found faulty"] xiv. 1 [xiii. 16 
 Eng.] Pr. XXX. 10, ["be fnimd guilty," E.V.] So also in (fan Lam. iii. 39, nxsn lb. if, 6. 
 When the Lord said, /( shall be more tolerable in the day of judgettie^it for Sodom and 
 Gomorrha than for that citi/. He meant, that both guilt and punishment would be greater. 
 In Is. V. 18, nnsn, and, lb. xl. 2, nxsn is •■ sin." So also p^ Is. v. 18, Ps. xxxi. 11. 
 
 - S. Luke xix. Lk 
 3 nWo, aw. Yet the rendering "bells" has tlie analogy of D^B^JSO 1 Chr. xiii. xv. xvi. 
 XXV. 2' Chr. V. xxix. Ezr. iii. 10, Neh. xii. 27. The other guesses, '"bridles" (Ixx. Syr.), 
 
 .Iiidali sliail he holiness unto the Lord of j, jJ^'^Yst 
 
 hosts : and all they that sacrifice! shall eome "''"■ ^"- — 
 
 and take of them, and seethe therein : and 
 
 in that day there shall he no more the j^is'.'ij'. 
 
 •^ Canaanite in ^ the house of the Lord of &22."i5.'' 
 
 I i f Eph. 2. io, 
 
 nOStS. 20, 21, 22. 
 
 cea.sed to be; the Gibconites, the last remnant of them, had 
 been absorbed among the ])eopl(' of (U>d. Hut all Israel were 
 not of Israel. Isaiah had called its prini-es and people, 
 ^'■'rulers of Sodom, people of (iomorrah. Ivzekiel had said, 
 " Thus stiilh the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and 
 thy nativity is of the land of Cmiaan ; thy father was an 
 Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. Ilosea used at least the 
 term of two-fold meaning, '- Canaati, in whose hands are the 
 balances of deceit ; and Zej)haniah, ''./// the people of Canaan 
 are dcstroi/ed. After the time of the Canon, Daniel is intro- 
 duced saying, "^'() thou seed of Canaan and not of Judah." 
 Ezekiel had spoken of ungodly jiriests, not only as uncircum- 
 cised in heart (according to the language of Deuteronomy i^), 
 but uncin iimcised in flesh also, altogether alien from the 
 people of God*''. The prophet then speaks, as Isaiah, i" 7/ 
 sliall be calleil the way of holiness ; the unclean shall not pass 
 over it, and Joel, ^^thoi shall Jerusalem be holy, and there 
 sliall no strangers pass through her any more. This shall 
 have its full fulfilment in the time of the end. ^^ There shall 
 in no wise enter into it any thing that dcfileth, neither whatso- 
 ever tvorketh abomination or a lie ; and, without are dogs and 
 sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters, and 
 whatsoever loveth and niaketh a lie. 
 
 '•-"Although born of the blood of Israel, those of old eagerly 
 imitated the alien Canaanites. But after that the Only- 
 Begotten Word of God came among us, and, having justified 
 by faith, sealed with the Holy Spirit, those who came to His 
 grace, our mind hath been steadfast, unshaken, fixed in piety. 
 Nor will any one persuade those who are sanctified, to honour 
 any other god save Him Who is, by nature and in truth, God, 
 Whom we have known in Christ. For in Himself He hath 
 shewn us the Father, saying, -^He that hath seen Me hath seen 
 the Father. Wherefore in that day, i. e. at that time, he says, 
 there shall be no Canaanite, i. e. alien and idolater, in the 
 house of the Lord Almighty." " "^ But may the Almighty God 
 bring the saying true at this time also, that no Canaanite 
 should he seen among us, but that all should live according 
 to the Gospel-laws, and await that blessed hope and the ap- 
 pearance of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, with 
 Whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Ghost, now and 
 ever and to endless ages. Amen." 
 
 " trappings of horses" [Jon. J or "warlike ornaments" (S.Jerome's Jewish teacher) have 
 none ; the BoSbf of Aq. and wipinaTov <riirKioy of S\-mm. (as from ni?ip) give no meaning, 
 ^ Is. xxiii. 18. * [iij'3 Ex. xx^iii. 31,' xxxix. 25, 26, used 
 
 of it only, and tliere only. ' 1 Cor. x. 31. 
 
 7 Ez. xxxviii. 3, l"Kgs vij. 45, 2 Kgs xxv. 14, 2 Chr. iv. 11, 16, Jer. Iii. 18, 19. 
 8 2 Clir. XXXV. 13. » c-jna 
 
 10 Is. i. 10. " Ezek, xri. 3. '= Hosea xii. 7. See ab. p. 78. 
 
 13 Zeph. i. 11, See ab. p. 451. » Hist, of Sus. ver. 56. 
 
 1= Deut. X. 16, XXX. 6. " Ezek. xliv. 7. '' Is. xxxv. 8. 
 
 i" Joel iii. 17. See ab. p. 140. >9 Rev. xxi. 27, xxii. 15. 
 
 ™ S. Cyr. =1 S. John xiv. 9. ^ Theod.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 M A L A C H I. 
 
 The last prophet of the Old Testament, like the Forerunner 
 of our Lord, whom he foreaiinounced under his own name, 
 "^the messenger of the Lord," willed to be but "the voice 
 of one crying in the wilderness;" as his great successor, who 
 took up his message, when as]icA,fF/io art t/iouf What say eat 
 thou of tin/self? said, ^ I am the voice of oiie crying in the 
 u'ilder)iess. Make straight the way of the Lord. He mentions 
 neither his parentage, nor birtiiplaee, nor date; nor did he 
 add the name of his office % and has left it to be guessed, 
 whether the name under which he is known, was the name 
 which he bore among men; so wholly did he will to be 
 hidden. No one before him is recorded to have borne his 
 name. It may l)c that lie framed it for himself, and willed 
 to be known only as what it designated, '" the messenger of 
 the Lord." This was a favourite title with him, since, in 
 this brief prophecy, he uses it, as describing the priest's office, 
 and that of the forerunner''; whereas, before him, except 
 once by Haggai and once by Isaiah % it had been used only 
 of the blessed Angels. 
 
 There is, however, no ground to think that it was not his 
 name. Even the Seventy, who paraphrase it, " His mes- 
 senger," prefix to the book the name Malachi ; and the title, 
 " my messenger," would not have described that he was " the 
 messenger of God," since the name of God had not preceded. 
 "If names are to be interpreted," S.Jerome says, "^and 
 history is to he framed from them, not a spiritual meaning 
 to be derived, then Ilosea who is called Saviour, and Joel 
 whose name means, ' Lord God,' and the other prophets will 
 not be men, but rather angels or the Lord and Saviour, ac- 
 cording to the meaning of their name." No special stress 
 was laid upon the name, even by the Origenists, who sup- 
 posed Haggai Malachi and S. John Baptist to have been 
 angels s. Origen himself supposed S.John Baptist to have 
 been an angel in human form'', and Melchisedek', as well as 
 Malachi. More widely, that "J they became the words in the 
 prophets." 
 
 At the time of our Lord, some accounted him to have been 
 Ezra, perhaps for his zeal for the law. His date must, how- 
 ever, have been later, since there is no mention of the build- 
 ing of tlie temple, whose service was in its regular order. In 
 the New Testament, like others of the twelve, he is cited 
 without his name'', or the substance of his prophecy, is spoken 
 
 « "3X^3, the extremest abridgement of the fuller form, in^J?!?;, .Tj,'?'-, as niK, Bezaleel's 
 father (and two othei>>) for npi.><, ' Uri.-ih' or inpiK, Urijah tlie prophet Jer. xxvi. 20. s<j. 
 The same person 'JK 2 Kgs xviii. 2 is n;3K in 2 Chr. xxix. 1 ; TJI (the name of 1 ] persons) is 
 doubtless abridged from w.njl np;!. ' ' i" S. John i. 23. 
 
 c Habakkuk and Haggai add tlie title of their office, "the prophet." Hab. i. 1. Ha<rg. i. 1. 
 J Mai. ii. 7, iii. 1. ' Hagg. i. 13, Is. xlii. ly. 
 
 ' Pnef. ad Mai. T. i. p. 930 Vail. 
 
 of or alluded to, without any reference to any human author'; 
 so entirely was his wish to remain hidden fulfilled. 
 
 Yet he probably bore a great part in the reformation, in 
 which Nehemiah cooperated outwardly, and to effect which, 
 after he had, on the expiring of his 12 years of offi(-e"', re- 
 turned to Persia, he obtained leave to visit his own land 
 again ", aj)parently for a short time. For he mentions his 
 obtaining that leave, in connection with abuses at Jerusalem, 
 wiiich had taken place in his absence, and which he began 
 reforming, forthwith on his arrival. But three chief abuses, 
 the neglect of God's service, thj? defilement of the priesthood 
 and of their covenant, and tj_ie^ cruelty to their own Jewish 
 wives, divorcing them to make way for idolatresses, are sub- 
 jects of IMalachi's reproofs. Nehemiah found these practices 
 apparently rampant. It is not then probable that they had 
 been, before, the subjects of Malachi's denunciation, nor 
 were his own energetic measures probably fruitless, so that 
 there should be occasion for these denunciations afterwards. 
 It remains, then, as the most probable, that Malachi, as the 
 prophet, cooperated with Nehemiah, as the civil authority, 
 as Haggai and Zechariah had with Zerubbabel. "°So Isaiah 
 cooperated with Hezekiah ; Jeremiah with Josiah. Of a 
 mere external reformation there is no instance" in Jewish 
 history. 
 
 It does not appear, whether Nehemiah, on his return, was 
 invested by the king of Persia with extraordinary authority 
 for these reforms, or whether he was appointed as their 
 governor. The brief account affords no scope for the mention 
 of it. It is not then any objection to the contemporaneous- 
 ness of Malachi and Nehemiah, that, whereas Nehemiah, 
 while governor, required not the bread of the governor, i. e, 
 the allowance granted him by the Persian government, as an 
 impost upon the people, Malachi upbraids the people that 
 they would not oifer to their governor the poor things which 
 they offered to Almighty God, or that the governor would not 
 accept it, in that it would be an insult rather than an act of 
 respect. For 1) the question in Malachi is of a free-offering, 
 not of an impost ; 2) Nehemiah says that he did not require 
 it, not that he would not accept it ; 3) there is no evidence 
 that he was now governor, nor 4) any reason why he should 
 not accept in their improved condition, what he did not re- 
 quire, P because the bondage ivas heavy upon this people. Pre- 
 
 s Id. on Hagg. i. 13 p. 751 Vail. 
 l" Orig. Comm. in S. Joan. T. ii. n. 25. Opp. iv. 85 de la Rue. 
 ' S. Jer. Ep. 73 ad Evang. n. 2. 
 i In Matt. Tom. ii. n. 30. Opp. iii. 549. 
 k " It is written." S. Matt. xi. 10. S. Luke vii. 27, or, with Isaiah, "in the prophets," 
 : S. Mark i. 2. ' S. Luke i. 17, 76. S. Matt. xvii. 10, S. John i. 21. 
 
 I m Neh. V. 14. ■" lb. xiii. 6. » Hengst. Christ, iii. 583. P Neh. t. 18.
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 595 
 
 scnts were, as they are still, a eommon act of courtesy in 
 the East. 
 
 Like S. John Baptist, th(»u}i;h afar off, he prei)are(l the 
 ivay of the Lord by tlic prcaeliinj; of repentance. More than 
 other proplicts, lie unveils priests and people to themselves, 
 interprets their thoughts to theni, and puts those thoufjhts 
 in abrupt naked ]anii;ua}je, pieturinfj them as demurrinj^ to 
 every char£,e which lie broui;:ht against tiiem. They were 
 not, doubtless, conscious hypocrites. For conscious hypo- 
 crisy is the sin of individuals, aping the graces which others 
 ])osscss and which they have not, yet wish to be held in 
 estimation for having. Here, it is the mass which is corrupt. 
 The true Israel are the exception; 't/iosc ir/io feared tlie Lord, 
 
 I the jewels o/ Almighty God. It is the hypocrisy of self-deceit, 
 contented with poor, limited, outward service, and pluming 
 itself upon it. Alalachi unfokls to them the meaning of their 
 acts. His thesis is themselves, whom he unfolds to them. 
 He interprets himself, putting into their mouths words, be- 
 tokening a simple unconsciousness either of God's goodness 
 or their own evil. ^ Yet ye sai/, JFIiereiu hast Thau loved us? 
 ^ This was their inward thought, as it is the thought of all, 
 ungrateful to God. But his characteristic is, that he puts 
 these thoughts into abrupt, bold bad words, which might 
 startle them for their hideousness, as if he would say, "This 
 is what your acts mean." He exhibits the worm and the 
 decay, which lay under the whited exterior. "^ Ye say, IFIierein 
 have ive despised Thy Numef Perhaps, they were already 
 learning, not to pronounce the proper Name of God, while 
 they caused it to be despised. Or they pronounced it with 
 reverent pause, while they shewed tliat they held cheap God 
 and His service. ^ Ye say, The table of the Lord is contempti- 
 ble. ' Ye say, the table of the Lord is polluted; and the fniit 
 thereof, his meat, is contemptible. Their acts said it. What 
 a reading of thoughts ! ' Ye said also, Behold, what a weari- 
 ness! It is the language of the heart in all indevotion. 
 B Ye say, TFherefore? as if innocently unconscious of the 
 ground of God's judgement. ^JFherein have we robbed Thee? 
 The language of those who count the earth as their own. 
 ' Ye say, JVherein have ive wearied Him ? TFhen ye say. Every 
 one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and in them 
 doth He delight, or. Where is the God of judgement? The 
 heart's speech in all envy at the prosperity of the wicked ! 
 
 Yet the object of all this unfolding them to themselves, is 
 their repentance. We have already the self-righteousness 
 of the Pharisees, and the Sadducees' denial of God's Pro- 
 vidence. And we have already the voice of S. John Baptist, 
 of the wrath to come. They professed to ^delight in the coming 
 of the ntessenger of the covenant ; yet their deeds were such 
 as would be burned up with the fire of His Coming, not, 
 rewarded. 
 
 '~ Pharisees and Sadducees are but two offshoots of the same 
 ungodliness ; Pharisees, while they hoped by outward acts to 
 be in favour with God, they become, at least, secret Sadducees, 
 when the hope fails. First, they justify themselves. God 
 had said to them, ' Ye are departed out of the ivay : I have 
 made you base, as ye have not kept My ivays. They say ", It 
 is vain to serve God; and what profit, that we have kept His 
 ordinance ? (affirming that they had done, what God called 
 them to repentance for not doing). God said". Ye have covered 
 the altar of the Lord with tears, the tears of their wronged 
 
 •Mai. Ui. 16. 'i.2. M. 6. « lb. 7. « lb. and 12. 
 
 'lb. 13. Bii. 14. !■ iii. 8. ' ii. 17. i" iii. 1. iv. 1. 
 
 1 ii. 8, 9. ™ iii. U. ° ii. 13. ° iii. 10 'JUt??! 
 
 P iii. 15. wn; i CDnx rs'xi iii. 12. 
 
 ' DIPND unjK iii. 15.' These last contrasts are Hengstenberg's Christ, iii. 597. ed. 2. 
 
 wives; they insist on their own austerities, " wc have walhed 
 mounifnlly before the Lord our God. 'I'hen comes the Sad- 
 (liiccc jiortion. (iod had called them to obcdicn(a' and said, 
 " I'rore Me now herewith : tlicy say, vibe tvorhers of wieheil- 
 ness have proved God. and are saved. God promised, '^ ylll 
 nations shall call you blessed ; they answer, 'ami noiv we call 
 the proud blessed. IFltat have we spoken against Thee? is the 
 last self-justifying fpicstion, which Malachi records of them; 
 and this, while rejtroaching (iod for the uselcssness of serv- 
 ing Him, and choosing tlic lot of those who rejected Him. 
 
 Tiicrcun Malachi abandons this class to their own blind- 
 ness. There was hoj)e amid any sin, however it rebelled 
 against (iod. This was a final detiial of God's Providence 
 and rejection of Himself. So Mala(-hi closes with the same 
 prophe(;y, with which S. John Baptist prepared our Lord's 
 coming. His 'fun is in His hand, and He will throughly purge 
 His floor, anil leill gather the wheat into His garner, but the 
 chaff He shall burn with fire WKpienrhable. The unspeakable 
 tenderness of God towards those who fear His nauie, and the 
 severity to those M'ho finally rebel, are perhaps nowhere more 
 vividly declared, tlian in these closing words of the Old 
 Testament. Yet the love of (iod, as ever, predominates; and 
 the last prophet closes with the word " Remember," and 
 with one more effort to avert the curse which they were 
 bringing u})on themselves. Yet no prophet declares more 
 expressly the rejection of tlie people, to whom he came to 
 minister, the calling of the Gentiles, the universal worship, 
 in all the earth, of Him Who was hitherto worshipped by the 
 Jews only; and that, not at Jerusalem, but each offering, in 
 his own place, the sacrifice which hitherto (as they had re- 
 cently experienced, in their captivity at Babylon) could he 
 offered up in Jerusalem only. To him alone it was reserved 
 to prophesy of the unbloody Sacrifice, which sliould be offered 
 unto (iod in every place throughout the world from the rising 
 of the sun unto the going down thereof. It has been said, 
 '' ' j\Lalachi is like a late evening, which closes a long day. but 
 he is at the same time the morning twilight which bears in 
 its bosom a glorious day." 
 
 ""When I'rophecy was to be withdrawn from the ancient 
 Church of God, its last light was mingled with the rising 
 beams of the Sun of Righteousness. In one view it combined 
 a retrospect of the Law with the clearest specific signs of 
 the Gospel advent. '' Jtememher ye the law of ]\ loses My ser- 
 vant, ivhich 1 commanded him in Horeb.for all Israel, with the 
 statutes and the judgements. Behold I will send you Klijah 
 the prophet, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 
 Prophecy had been the oracle of Judaism and of C,'hristianity, 
 to uphold the authority of the one, and reveal tlie promise 
 of the other. And now its latest admonitions were like those 
 of a faithful departing minister, embracing and summing up 
 his duties. Resigning its charge to the personal Precursor 
 of Christ, it expired with the Gospel upon its lips." 
 
 A school, which regards the " prophets " chiefly as " poets," 
 says that " the language is prosaic, and manifests the decaying 
 spirit of prophecy." The office of the prophets was, to con- 
 vey in forceful words, which God gave them. His message to 
 His people. The poetic form was but an accident. God, Who 
 knows the hearts of His creatures whom He has made, knows 
 better than we, why He chose such an instrument. Zechariah, 
 full of imagination, He chose some years before. But He 
 
 ■ S. Luke iii. 17. ' Nagelsbach in Herzog Rcal-Encjcl. 
 
 Q Davison on prophecy pp. 456, 457. *' Malachi, the last of the prophets, as in order, ^ 
 so in time ; and even for that reason, by me chosen to fix my thoughts on, before others, 
 because nearest, therefore, in conjunction with the Gospel ; to which it leads us by the hand, 
 and delivers us over ; for that begins, where he ends." Pococke, Dedication. ' iv. 4.
 
 596 
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 preserved in history the aeoount of the words whieh Zech.a- 
 riali spoke, not tlie words wlierewith he iirtced the rehiiiUlin!;- 
 of tlie teinph', in his own hook. Had INiahichi spoken in 
 imaginative hinsuas'e, like tliat of iCzekiel, to whom (iod 
 says, " thou art unto tlwin like <i vcri/ lorc/i/ noui^ of one tluit 
 hath a pleasant voice and can plai/ well on an instrument, and 
 they hear thy words and they do them not, it may be that 
 they vvoiihl liavc aeted tlicn, as they did in the time of Eze- 
 kiel. It may be, that times like those of Mahiclii, apathetie, 
 self-jastifying', murmuring, sclf-eomplaecnt, needed a sterner, 
 abrupter, more startling voiee to awaken them. JFisdom teas 
 justified of her children. God wrought by liim a I'eformation 
 for the time being: He gave through him a warning to the 
 
 " Ezek. xxxiii. 32. 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 397. 
 
 f Heb. 
 bti the hand 
 of Malachi. 
 
 " Oeiit. 7. S. 
 Sr 10. 15. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1 Malachi complaineth of Israel's unkindness, 6 Of 
 their irreligiousness, 12 and profaneness. 
 
 THE burden of the word of the Lord 
 to Israel f by INIalaehi. 
 2 "I have loved you, saith the Lord. 
 
 CHAP. I. 1. The burden of the tvord of the Lord to 
 Israel. "^Tlie word of the Lord is heavy, because it is called 
 a burden, yet it hath something of consolation, because it is 
 not 'against,' but to Israel. For it is one thing when we 
 write to this or that person ; another, when we write ' against ' 
 this or that person; tlie one being the part of friendship, the 
 other, the open admission of enmity." 
 
 By the hand of Malachi ; through him, as the instrument 
 of God, deposited with him; as S. Paul speaks of "the dispen- 
 sation of the Gospel, ■^ the trord of reconciliatio)t, *the Gospel 
 of the uncircumcision, being conunitfed to him. 
 
 2. I have loved you, saith the Lord. \\'hat a volume of 
 God's relations to us in two simple words, I-have-loved you^. 
 So would not God speak, unless He still loved. " I have 
 loved and do love you," is the force of the words. When ? 
 and since when ? In all eternity God loved ; in all our past, 
 God loved. Tokens of His love, past or present, in good or 
 seeming ill, are but an effluence of that everlasting love. He, 
 the Unchangeable, ever loved, as the Apostle of love says ; 
 ^we love Him, because He first loved us. The deliverance 
 from the bondage of Egypt, the making them His ''peculiar 
 people, the adoption, the covenant, the giving of the laiv, the 
 service of God and His promises, all the several mercies in- 
 volved in these, the feeding with manna, the deliverance from 
 their enemies whenever they returned to Him, their recent 
 restoration, the gift of the prophets, were so many single 
 pulses of (iod's everlasting love, uniform in itself, manifold 
 in its manifestations. But it is more than a declaration of 
 His everlasting love. " I have loved //07<;" God would say; 
 with "^a special love, a more than ordinary love, with greater 
 tokens of love, than to others." So God brings to the penitent 
 soul the thought of its ingratitude : I have loved you .- I, you. 
 
 ' S. Jer. 2 1 Cor. ix. 17, Tit. i. 3. 3 2 Cor. v. 10. 
 
 ■• Gal. ii. 7. 1 Tim. i. 18. 
 
 5 c^r.x 'na™. 6 1 s. Jolm iv. Id. 7 Rom. ix. 4. 
 
 " Poc. « Ps. Ixxviii. 11. 
 
 i" lb. cvi. 13. 11 Lap. 12 Gen. xxv. 23. " lb. x.xix. 31. 
 
 '■I rran, in tliis fern, form, is l)ut a variation from the form elsewhere, D'3,n. as we have S;n 
 
 and nj'N, Ewald. Lehrb. n. lirb. p.458. ed. 8. Ges.'s rendering "dwellings" (after tlie 
 
 generation, when our Lord should come, that lie should come, 
 as their Judge as well as their Saviour, and, Ikjw they should 
 stand in the day of His Coming. He gave it as a book to His 
 whole Church, whereby to distinguish seeming from real 
 service. Parting words are always scdemn, as closing the 
 past, and opening out a future of expectation before us. The 
 position of Mala(;hi, as the last of the prophets, bids us the 
 more solemnly prepare for that dread Day, our Lord's Second 
 Coming, \\hich he foretold, in one with thi; First, warning us 
 that we deceive not ourselves, in un<-onsciousness of our own 
 evil and remembrance of our seeming good, until He profess 
 unto us, '' / never knetv you; depart from Me, ye that work 
 iniquity. 
 
 •> S. Matt. vii. 23. 
 
 Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us ? ^ jf rT s t 
 ^r«* not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the "■•■ 397. 
 
 ' Rom. 9. 13. 
 
 Lord : yet '' I loved Jacob, 
 
 3 And I hated Esau, and " laid his moun- c jer.49. is. 
 tains and his herita-^e \vaste for the dragons 4,^7,9, 14,15. 
 
 c A.\ Ml Obad. 10, &c. 
 
 01 the Wilderness. 
 
 .And ye have said, Wherein hast Thou loved us ? It is a 
 characteristic of Malachi to exhibit in all its nakedness man's 
 ingratitude. This is the one voice of all men's murmurings, 
 ignoring all God's past and present mercies, in view of the 
 one thing which He withholds, though they dare not put it 
 into words: TVIierein hast Thou loved us? ^ Within a tvhile 
 they forgat His ivorks, and the wonders that He had shewed 
 them : ^^ they made haste, they forgat His 7corks. 
 
 Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: and I 
 loved Jacob, and Esau have I hated. " '^ While they were yet 
 in their mother's womb, before any good or evil deserts of 
 either, God said to their mother, '- The elder shall serve the 
 younger. The hatred was not a proper and formed hatred, 
 (for God could not hate Esau before he sinned) but only a 
 lesser love," which, in comparison to the great love for Jacob, 
 seemed as if it were not love. " " So he says, ^'' The Lord 
 saw that Leah was hated ; where Jacob's neglect of Leah, 
 and lesser love than for Rachel, is called ' hatred ; ' yet Jacob 
 did not literally hate Leah, whom he loved and cared for as 
 his wife." This greater love was shewn in preferring the 
 Jews to the Edomites, giving to the Jews His law. Church, 
 temple, prophets, aud subjecting Edom to them ; and espe- 
 cially in the recent deliverance. " ^^ He does not speak di- 
 rectly of predestination, but of pra;election to temporal 
 goods." God gave both nations alike over to the Chaldees 
 for the punishment of their sins; but the Jews He brought 
 back, Edom He left unrestored. 
 
 3. And I made his mountains a tvaste, and his heritage for 
 fhejackals^* of the tvilderness. Malachi attests the tirst stage 
 of fulfilment of Joel's prophecy, '= Edom shall be n desolate 
 wilderness. In temporal things, Esau's blessing was identical 
 with Jacob's; the fatness of the earth and of the dew of heaven 
 
 LXX. Siiiiara iprifnov, and S3T.) fails in many ways. The Arab hs'jn which he, after 
 Poc-ocke, compares, is a nomen aetionis, "a remaining, staying, dwelling, abiding [in a 
 countjy, town, place], not "the dwelling" itself. 2) he supposes n'l^n to be = n'\x5B (with 
 dag. forte euphon.) as nrpp for inijv'p?, n^?? for .iN^sp," (see Rod. in Ges. Thes.) But 
 tliis would be to derive it from Nn, with the characteristics of pn and none of Nn. 3) 
 " dwellitigs of the wilderness," is the contradictoiy of what is meant, complete desolation, 
 i^ Joel iii. 19. See ab. pp. 141, 145.
 
 CHAPTER [. 
 
 597 
 
 ch'rTst 4 Wiicroas Edoin siiitli, We arc imix)- 
 — ^'''- '^'■'''- verished, hut wo will rctiini aixl build tlif 
 desolate places ; thus saith the Lord of 
 hosts, They sludl huild, hut I will throw 
 dowu ; aud they shall call them. The horder 
 of wickedness, and, The people against 
 
 from ahove ; and tlic rich soil on tfie terraces of its mountain- 
 sides, thousih yicldini;- notliing now cx<'e[tt a wild beautiful 
 vcfijetation, and its deep i>lens, attest what tlicy onr-c must 
 have been, when artiticially watered and cultivated. The 
 first desolation must have been throujrh Ncbuchaduez/ar ^ in 
 his expedition aiiainst Ea,ypt, when he subdued Moab and 
 Amnion; and l']ilom lay in his way, as Jeremiah had foretold-. 
 
 4. JVhercas Kdotn .saith ^, fFe are itiiporcri.s/icd ^ or, more 
 probably, tec were crushed. Either s'ives an ade(|uate sense. 
 Human self-confidence will admit anythini>;, as to the past ; 
 nay, will even exagajerate past evil to itself, " Crush us how 
 they may, wc will arise and repair our losses." So Ephraim 
 said of old, " '' in the pride and stotttiiess of heart, The bricks 
 are fallen down, hut ice will huild with heivn-stones : the si/co- 
 mores are cut down, hut we will change them into cedars. It 
 is the one languag'e of what calls itself, "indomitable ;" in 
 other words, "untamcablc," conquerors or every other s^am- 
 bler; "we will repair our losses." All is ag;ain staked and lost. 
 
 y/irt/ shall call them the border of tuickedness. Formerly 
 it had its own proper name, the border of Kdom, as other 
 countries, " all the border of Egi/pt, ' the border of Moab, •* the 
 whole border of Israel, ^ the border of Israel, ^'^ the whole 
 border of the Amorite. Henceforth it should be known no 
 more by its own name; but as the border of wickedness, where 
 wickedness formerly dwelt, and hence the judg'cment of God 
 and desolation from Him came upon it, " an accursed land." 
 Somewhat in like way Jeremiah says of Jerusalem, ^^ Man?/ 
 nations shall puss by this citi/, and thetj shall stti/, even/ man 
 to his neighbour. Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this 
 great city ? Then they shall answer. Because thei/ have for- 
 saken the covenant of the Lord their God, and xvorsiiipped other 
 gods and served them. Only Israel would retain its name, as 
 it has ; Edom should be blotted out wholly and for ever. 
 
 5. And your eyes shall see. Malicious pleasure in lookina: 
 on at the misery of Jud;ea and Jerusalem, had been a special 
 sin of Edom : now God would shew Judah the fruit of its 
 reversal, and His goodness towards themselves. "'^Ye have 
 assurance of His love towards you and providence over you, 
 when ye see that ye arc returned to your own land, and can 
 inhabit it, but they cannot do this: but they build and I throw 
 doum, and ye therefore praise and magnify ]My name for this, 
 and ye shall say. The Lord shall be magnified, on the border of 
 Israel, i.e. His greatness shall be always manifest upon you;" 
 high above and exalted over the border of Israel ^^, which 
 shall retain its name, wliile Edom shall have ceased to be. 
 Wickedness gives its name to Edom's border, as in Zechariah's 
 vision it was removed and settled in Babylon i*. 
 
 1 Jos. Ant. X. 11. See ab. on Obad. IC. p. 242. = Jer. xxv. 9, 21. 
 
 3 "CNH. Edom, for Idunijea, and so feni. 
 ^ So Jon, and Syr. here. Kart trTpaTrxai, LXX : destructi suinus, Vuls;. R. Tanchum 
 ^ives both, liere and on Jer. v. 17, and Sal. b. Mel. here out of Kim. on Jer. v. 17." Poc. 
 On Jerem., Tanehuin says the meaning " cut oft*" suits best the mention of the sword. Per- 
 haps B'B~i may he = |'S1. and C''S'in, " Tarshish," may be so called, as a boast, " she crushes." 
 Syr., in Jerem. also has "impoverished;" Jon. "destroy;" S. Jer. "conteret." The 
 aKoiiaovai of tlie LXX. probably implies a misreading, C'S'T. 
 
 " Is. ix. 9. UP. « Ex. X. 14. 19. ? De. ii. 18. 
 
 8 1 Sam. xi. 3, 7, xxvii. 1, 1 Chr. xxi. 15. » 2 Chr. xi. 13. '" Jud. xi. 22. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 whom the fiOiu) hath indijrnation for ever. cifj['7sT. 
 
 5 And your eyes shall s(;e, and ye shall 
 
 cir. .'i'J7. 
 
 say, ''The Lord will be magnified || ffrom iior,'«Von.' 
 th(! border of Israel. frmupon. 
 
 G ^[ A son '■ honoureth lil.s father, and a (Luke6.4(i'. 
 servant his master: 4f then 1 be a father, 
 
 6. A son honoureth his fat her, and a slave his lord. Having 
 spoken of the lov(! of God, he turns to the tlianklcssness of 
 niati. God apjK'als to the first feelings of tlii! human heart, 
 the relation of parent and child, or, failing this, to the natural 
 self-interest of those dependent on their fellow-men. A son 
 l)y the instinct of nature, by the unwritten law written in the 
 hciU't, honoureth his father. If he fail to do so, he is counted 
 to have broken the law of nature, to be an unnatural son. 
 If he is, what by nature he ought to be, hi' does really honour 
 him. He docs not even speak of love, as to which they might 
 deceive themselves. He speaks oi honour, outward reverence 
 only; which whoso sheweth not, would openly condemn him- 
 self as an unnatural son, a i)ad slave. '■ Of course." the Jews 
 would say, "children honour parents, and slaves their master.s, 
 but what is that to us ? " God turns to them their own men- 
 tal admission. 
 
 If I am a Father. "^'Althougli, before ye were born, I 
 began to love you in Jacob as sons, yet choose by what title 
 ye will name Me : I am either your Father or your Lord. If 
 a Father, render me the honour due to a father, and offer the 
 piety worthy of a ])arent. If a Lord, why dcsj)ise ye Me ? why 
 fear ye not your Lord?" (iod was their Fatiicr by creation, 
 as He is Father of all, as Creator of all. He had come to be 
 their Father in a nearer way, by temporal redemption and 
 adoption as His peculiar people, creating them to be a nation 
 to His glory. This they were taught to confess in their 
 psalmody, ^"^ //« hath made us, and not xce onr.selves ; we are 
 His people and the sheep of His pasture. This title God had 
 given them in sight of the Egyptians, ^^ Israel is My son. My 
 firstborn : of this Hosea reminded them; ^^/f'hen Israel icas a 
 child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt ; and 
 Jeremiah reassured them, ^''/ am a Father to Israel and 
 Fjihraim is My first-born : this, Isaiah had jilcaded to God ; 
 '"Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abrahatn be ignorant 
 of us, and Israel acknowledge .us not. Ttunt, O Lord, art 
 our Father, our Redeemer, Thy name is from everlasting. 
 •^ And noiv, O Lord, Thou art our Father; ire the clay, and 
 Thou our potter; and ice all, the work of Thy hands. God 
 had impressed this His relation of Father, in Moses' pro- 
 phetic warning; —Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish 
 people and unwise f Is not He thy Father that hath bought 
 thee '' hath He not made thee and established thee f " -^God is 
 the Father of the faithful; 1) by creation; 2) by preservation 
 and governance; 3) by alimony; 4) by fatherly care and 
 providence; 5) by faith and grace, whereby He justifies and 
 adopts us as sons and heirs of His kingdom." 
 
 If I am a Father. He does not throw doubt, that He is 
 
 " Jer. xxni. 8, 9. Comp. Dent. xxLx. 2.5—28. 
 '2 Tanchum in Poc. here. Tanchum gives, as constructions of others, "the Lord, Who pro- 
 tecteth the border of Ismel," or "ye from the border of Lsrael," or, "it had been fittinpthat ye 
 should do this and abide in it : but ye have done the contrary," as he explains aftenvards. 
 
 '3 SyD. as in Eecl. v. 7, ai3 H'? ai| " One high from above the high ; " Ezek. i. 25. "a 
 voice from the fu-mament (huh) from 'above their heads." Gen. i. 7, "the waters above the 
 firmament." " Zech. v. 8, 11. 
 
 15 S.Jer. isps.c. .3. '7 Ex. iv. 22. 
 
 IS Hos. xi. 1. See ab. p. "0. " Jer. xxxi. 9. =" Is. Ixiii. 16. 
 
 :i lb. Ixiv. 8. -- Deut. xxxii. C. ^ Lap. 
 
 Q Q Q Q
 
 598 
 
 MALACIII. 
 
 c H rTs t where is mine honour ? and if I be a master, 
 
 «"•• 3'J7. where is my fear ? saith the Loiin of hosts 
 
 unto you, O priests, that despise my name. 
 
 our Father; but, by disobcdicnrc, we in deeds deny it. Our 
 life denies what we in words profess. JFhere is My iKniour f 
 "iWhv obey ye not My precepts, nor liononr Me witii acts 
 of adoration; prayinfj, praisinj?, jjivinj!: thanks, sacrificing, 
 and reverently fultilliiii;; every work of (iod ? For "cursed is 
 lie that duet It the work of the Lord deceitful I ;/." 
 
 And if I urn your Lord, "as I certainly am, and specially 
 l)v sinicular j)roviden('e.'' "■' lie is our Lord by the same titles, 
 that He is our Father, and by others, as that He has redeemed 
 us, and purchased us to Himself by the Blood of His Son ; 
 that He is the Supreme Majesty, Whom all creation is bound 
 to serve ; that, scttini;^ before us the reward of eternal g^lory, 
 He has hired us as servants and labourers into His vineyard." 
 God Alone is Lord through universal sovereignty, underived 
 authority, and original source of laws, precepts, rights; and 
 all other lords are but as ministers and instruments, com- 
 pared to Him, the Lord and original Doer of all. Hence He 
 says, * I am the Lord ; that is My Name, and My glory will I 
 not give to another." 
 
 JFhere is 31 y fear? which ought to be shewn Me. "^If 
 thou art a servant, render to the Lord the service of fear ; if 
 a son, shew to thy Father the feeling of piety. But thou 
 renderest not thanks, neither lovest nor fcarest God. Thou 
 art then either a contumacious servant or a proud son." 
 " ^ Fear includes reverence, adoration, sacrifice, the whole 
 worship of God." '"'Whoso feareth is not over-curious, but 
 adores ; is not inquisitive, but praises, and glorifies." 
 
 "1 Fear is twofold; servile, whereby punishment, not fault, 
 is dreaded; filial, by which fault is feared. In like way service 
 is twofold. A servant with a service of fear, purely servile, 
 does not deserve to be called a sou of God, nor is in a state 
 of salvation, not having love. Whence Christ, distinguisliing 
 such a servant from a son of God by adoption, saith, " TIte 
 servant ahideth not in the house for ever, but the son ahideth 
 ever: and again, ^ The servant laioweth not what his Lord 
 doeth. But a servant, whose service is of pure and filial love, 
 is also a son, of whom the Saviour saith, ^ fFell done, good 
 and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. But 
 since a distinction is made here between the son and the 
 servant, he seems to be speaking of servile fear, which, al- 
 though it doth not good well and meritoriously, i. e. with a 
 right intention and from love, yet withdraws from ill, and is 
 the beginning of wisdom, because it disposeth to grace. 
 Whence it is written, '^"The fear of the Lord drivcth away 
 sins,' and again Scripture saith, ^^ By the fear of the Lord 
 mien depart from evil." 
 
 "^-God requireth to be feared as a Lord, honoured as a Father, 
 loved as a Husband. Which is chiefest of these ? Love. 
 Without this, fear has torment, honour has no grace. Fear, 
 when not eufreed by love, is servile. Honour, which cometh 
 
 1 Dion. 
 3 Lap. 
 ' Lap. as from S. Ambr. 
 7 S. Joliii viii. 35. 
 
 1" Ecclus. i. 21. 
 
 2 Jer. xlviii. 10. 
 * Is. xlii. 8. 
 ' S. Chrys. de Incompr. Dei. Horn. ii. T. i. p. 459. Ben. 
 " lb. XV. 15. 9 S. Matt. xxv. 21, 23. 
 
 " Pr. xvi. 6. 
 
 12 S. Bern. Seim. 83 in Cant. n. 4. Opp. i. 1560 Ben. Lap. 
 
 " Lap. u Hos. iv. 9. 
 
 " Gen. iv. 9. i« S. Matt. vii. 23, 23. I7 lb. xxv. 44, 46. 
 
 '8 The collocation of C'B'-j'D is probably .subordinate to tbe verb, expressed in the question, 
 
 j/p despise, offering; as the participle often is to the expressed finite verb. Nu. xxvi. 27'. 
 
 Jud. viii. 4. Ps. vii. 3. Ixxviii. 4, Job xiv. 20, xxiv. 5, Ezr. x. 1, Jer. xliii. 2 (instances out of 
 
 ''And ye say, Wherein have wc despised cifiiTsT 
 tliy name ? _cir^3y7^ 
 
 7 II Ye offer '' polhited bread upon mine 
 
 e ch. 2. 14, 17. 
 & 3. 7, 8, 13. 
 
 I Or, Bring unto, Sfc. 
 
 ^ Deut. 16. 21. 
 
 not from love, is not honour, but adulation. Honour and 
 glory belong to God Alone; hut neither of them will God 
 accept, unless seasoned with the honey of love." 
 
 Saith the Lord unto you, () priests, tvho despise My Name, 
 lit. despisers of My Name, habitually beyond others. The con- 
 tempt of (jod came specially from those bound most to honour 
 him. Priests, as consecrated to God, belonged especially to 
 God. '""Malachi begins his prophecy and correction by the 
 correction of the priests; because the reformation of the state 
 ; and of the laity hangs upon the reformation of the clergy and 
 the priest ; for ^'^ as is the priest, such also is the people." He 
 turns, with a suddenness which must have been startling to 
 them, to them as the centre of the oifending. 
 
 And ye say, Wherein have we desjiised Thy Name ? Be- 
 fore, it was ignorance of God's love: now it is ignorance of 
 self and of sin. They affect to themselves innocence and are 
 unconscious of any sin. They said to themselves doubtless, 
 I (as many do now) "we cannot help it ; we do the best we can, 
 ! under the circumstances." Without some knowledge of God's 
 love, there can be no sense of sin ; without some sense of sin, 
 no knowledge of His love. They take the defensive, they are 
 simply surprised, like Cain, ^'^Am I my hrother^s keeper ? or 
 many of the lost in the Day of judgement, ""^ Many tvill say 
 to Me in that day. Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy 
 Name ? and in Thy Name have cast out devils ? and in Thy 
 Name dune many tconderful works ? and yet were all the while 
 tvorkers of iniquity, to whom He will say, / never kneiu you : 
 and, '^ Lord, when saw ice Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a 
 stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister 
 unto Thee ? And yet they shall go away into everlasting 
 punishment. 
 
 7 . Offering polluted bread upon Mine altar. This, con- 
 tinuing on the words, despisers of My Name^^, is the answer to 
 their question, IFherein have we despised Thy Name ? Bread 
 might stand, in itself, either for the shew-bread, or for the 
 " minchah," meal-oifering, which was the necessary accom- 
 paniment of sacrifices and sometimes the whole. But here 
 the polluted bread cannot be tlie shewbread, since this was 
 not put upon the altar, but upon its own table; and although 
 the altar is, as here, also called "a table"" in regard to the 
 sacrifice hereon consumed, "the table" of the shewbread is 
 nowhere called " altar." The prophet then means by bread, 
 either the meal-offering, as representing the sacrifice, or the 
 offerings by fire altogether, as in Y.zek\e\,-^JFIien ye offer My 
 bread, the fat and the blood ; and in Leviticus, -^the offer- 
 ings of the I^nrd, made by fire, the bread of their God, do they 
 offer; and of the peace-offering--, the priest shall burn it upon 
 the altar ; the bread of the (rffiring ytiade by fire unto the Lord: 
 and specifically, of animals with blemish, as these, it is for- 
 bidden, ^"^ Neither from a stranger's hand shall ye offer the 
 
 those in Ewald Lehrb. § 341. J 3. p. 836. ed. 8.) This case is however more developed 
 than the rest, as not being contemporaneous only, but an explanation of that expressed by 
 the finite verb, v'ln is used with '■}, of offerings to God, Am. v. 25, Mai. ii. 12 ; witli Sy, here 
 only. 
 
 '5 In Ezek. xli. 22, the " altar" is called the table that is before the Lord, and in regard 
 to the oiiering of the sacrifice, it is said, they shall come near to my table, Ezek. xli. 15, 16. 
 
 •-» Ezek. xliv. 7. 
 
 21 Lev. xxi.6: more briefly, <Ap irearfo///;!/ Gorf, ib. 8, of his God, ih. 17 and (parallel with 
 to offer the offerings oj the Lord made bi/Jire,) 21 ; to eat the bread of his God (in contrast 
 with offering it) ib. 22, and in Nu. .xxxlii. 2, " thy offering, thy bread for thy sacrifices 
 made by fire, shall ye observe to offer to Me." '^ Lev. iii. 11. 23 \\,^ ^xii. 25.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 599 
 
 c if rTs t ''l^^"* ; f^i^d yc say, Wherein have we pol- 
 cir.;w7. luted thee? In that ye say, 'The table of 
 the Lord is contemptible. 
 
 8 And 'mF ye offer the blind ffor sacri- 
 fice, is it n(»t evil ? and if ye offer the lame 
 and sick, is it not evil ? offer it now unto 
 
 ' Ezek. 11. 22. 
 
 ver. 12. 
 k Lev. 22. 22. 
 
 Deut. 15. 21. 
 
 ver. 14. 
 t Heb to 
 
 sacrifice. 
 
 bread of your God of any of these, hermtse tlieir corrKplioii is 
 in tlicm, blemishes in tlieiii : tliey shall not be aecejited for you. 
 It was, as it were, a feast of (iod with man, and what was 
 withdrawn from the use of man hy fuc, was, as it were, con- 
 sumed by God, to Whom it was oifered. 
 
 It was polluted, in that it was contrary to the law of God 
 whicli forbade to sacrifice any animal, laine or blind or with 
 any ill blemish, as being; inconsistent with the typical perfec- 
 tion of the sacrifice. Even the Gentiles were careful about 
 the perfection of their sacrifices. 
 
 '"Blind is the sacrifice of the soul, wlii(!h is not illumined 
 by the lig:ht of Christ. Lame is his sacrifice of prayer, who 
 comes with a dou])le inind to entreat the Lord." " - He 
 oifereth one weak, whose heart is not established in the 
 ,e;race of God, nor by the anchor of hope fixed in Christ. 
 These words are also uttered against those who, being rich, 
 offer to the Creator the cheaper and least things, and give 
 small alms." 
 
 And ye say, Whereivith have ive polluted T/tee^f It is 
 a bold expression. Yet a word, to which we are but too ill- 
 accustomed, which expresses what most have done, " dis- 
 honour God," comes to the same. Though less bold in ex- 
 pression, they are yet like in meaning. * //'/// ye pollute Me 
 any more among 3Iy people? or, "that My Name should not be 
 polluted before the heathen. ^ My holy Name shall Israel no 
 more defile ; '^ I will not let them pollute My Name any more. 
 "**iMuch more in the new law, in which the Sacrifice is Christ 
 Himself our God, whence the Apostle says expressly, '■' fVhoso 
 eateth this bread and driiiheth this Cup of the Lord unworthily, 
 shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. " ' For 
 when the Sacraments are violated. Himself, Whose Sacra- 
 ments they are, is violated." God speaks of our acts with 
 an unveiled plainness, which we should not dare to use. "-As 
 we are said to sanctify God, when we minister to Him in 
 holiness and righteousness, and so, as far as in us lies, shew 
 that He is holy; so we are said to pollute Him, when we 
 conduct ourselves irreverently and viciously before Him, 
 especially in His worship, and thereby, as far as in us lies, 
 shew that He is not holy and is to be dishonoured." 
 
 Li that ye say, the table of the Lord is contemptible, lit. 
 contemjilible is it '", and so any contemptible thing might be 
 offered on it. They said this probably, not in words, but in 
 deeds. Or, if in words, in plausible words. "^'God doth not 
 requii-e the ornamenting of the altar, but the devotion of the 
 offerers." "'What good is it, if we offer the best? Be what we 
 offer, what it may, it is all to be consumed by fire." "^The pre- 
 text at once of avarice and gluttony!" And so they kept the 
 best for themselves. They were poor, on their return from the 
 captivity. Any how, the sacrifices were offered. What could 
 it matter to God? And so they dispensed with God's law. 
 
 ' S. Jer. •' Dion. 
 
 ^ The conj. ^N*3 occurs only liere : tlie pass. 7X3, here and 12, Ezr. ii. 62, Neh. vii. 64, in 
 one idiom. * Ezek. xiii. 19. ' ' lb. xx. 9, 11, 22. 
 
 6 lb. xliii. 7. ' lb. xxxix. 7. 
 
 8 Lap. 9 1 Cor. xi. 27. 
 
 '" Kin ni3]; the noim being prefixed absolutely, as in Gen. xxxiv. 21, " these men, peaceful 
 
 tliy j^ovcrnor; will he he pleased witli th(;e, ch^iiTst 
 or ' accent thy person ? saith the Lord of '■•''•■ •'"'"■ 
 
 ■ ., 'Job 42. S. 
 
 hosts. 
 
 9 And now, I pray you, beseech + God t jit').'/^ 
 
 _••'•'' ' fiice of God. 
 
 Miat he will be s^racious unto us: "> this " ""»• '^ 'J- 
 hath been f by your means : will he regard yoVrimnd. 
 
 "'-So at this day we see some priests and prelates, splendid 
 in their tables and feasts, sordid in the altar and temple; on the 
 table are costly napkins and wine; on the Altar torn linen 
 and wine-mace '■' rather than wine." " ' We pollute the bread, 
 that is, the Body of Christ, when we approach the .Mtar un- 
 worthily, and, being defiled, drink that pure Blood, and say. 
 The table of the Lord is contemptible ; not that any one darctii 
 to say this, but the deeds of sinners pour conteiniit on the 
 Table of (iod." 
 
 8. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? 
 Others, it is not evil, as we should say, " there is no harm in 
 it." Both imply, alike, an utter unconsciousness on the part 
 of the offerer, that it was evil: the one, in irony, that this 
 was always their answer, "there is nothing amiss;" the other 
 is an indignant question, " is there indeed nought amiss ? " 
 And this seems the most natural. 
 
 The sacrifice of the blind and lame was expressly forbidden 
 in the law'*, and the si(;k in manifold varieties of animal 
 disease. JVhatever hath a blemish ye shall not offer, ' ' //////(/ 
 or with limb broken, or zvounded or mangy or scabby or scurfy. 
 Perfectness was an essential principle of sacrifice; whether, 
 as in the daily sacrifice, or the sin or tres])ass-ofi'ering, typical 
 of the all-perfect Sacrifice, or in the whole-burnt-offering, of 
 the entire self-oblation. But these knew better than God, 
 what was fit for Him and them. His law was to be modified 
 by circumstances. He would not be so particular, (as men 
 now say so often.) 
 
 Is it then fit to off'er to God what under the very same 
 circumstances man would not offer to man ? Against these 
 idle, ungrateful, covetous thoughts God saith, 
 
 Offer it noiv unto thy governor. He appeals to our own 
 instinctive thought of propriety to our fellow-creature, which 
 may so often be a test to us. No one would think of acting 
 to a fellow-creature, as they do to Almighty God. WUo 
 would make diligent preparation to receive any great one of 
 the earth, and turn his back upon him, when come ? Yet 
 what else is the behaviour of most Christians after Holy 
 Communion ? If thou wouldest not do this to a mortal man, 
 who is but dust and ashes, how much less to (iod Almighty, 
 the King of kings and Lord of lords! "-The words are a 
 reproof to those most negligent persons, who go through their 
 prayers to God without fear attention reverence or feeling; 
 but if they have to speak to some great man, prelate or 
 prince, approach him with great reverence, speak carefully 
 and distinctly and are in awe -of him. Do not thou prefer 
 the creature to the Creator, man to God. the servant to the 
 Lord, and that Lord, so exalted and so Infinite." 
 
 9. And now entreat, I pray you, God^'', that He icill be 
 g)-acious unto you. This is not a call to repentance, for he 
 assumes that God would not accept them. It is rather irony; 
 
 are thet/,^* lb. xlii. 11; *'a// of its, sons of one man are we." Ewald n. 207. h. pp. 761, 762. 
 
 11 Rcniig. '- Lap. referring to Card. Bellannnic de gemitu 
 
 coluinbx. " " villum (" the refuse of kernels and skins,"), potius quam vinum." 
 
 " Deut. XV. 21. '* Lev. xxii. 22. 
 
 '^ 7K seems to be used purposely in contrast with man, as in Is. xxxi. 3, The Egyptians 
 are men and not God. 
 
 Q Q Q Q 2
 
 mo 
 
 MALACllI. 
 
 cifiiTsT yoiii' persons? saith the Lord of hosts. 
 cii. 397. 10 W'Ik, i,y there even uinonj^ you that 
 
 '1 Cor. 9. 13. Avould sliut the doors /»>• notightf "neitlier 
 do ye kindle ^^»v' on mine altar for noui^lit. 
 I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord 
 
 "go now, seek the favour of God, as ye would not that of 
 your g;overiior." From your hand, not from your fathers, not 
 from aliens, hatii this hvcn : -itiill He uviept persons from you f 
 'J'lie unusual eonstructioii seems to iinjily a ditterence of mean- 
 ing-; as it' he would say, tiuit it eonsisted not with the justiee 
 of God, that He siioiild he an acvepfer of persons, (which lie 
 declares that He is not) which yet He would he, were He to 
 accept them, while acting thus. 
 
 10. fF/io is there even amoiiir yon ? This stinginess in 
 God's service was not confined to those offices which cost 
 something, as the sacrifices. Not even services absolutely 
 costless, which required only a little trouble, as that of clo- 
 .sing the folding-doors of the temple or the outer court, or 
 bringing the fire to consume the sacrifices, would they do 
 without some special hire. All was mercenary and hireling 
 service. Others have rendered it as a wish, ^ulw is there among 
 you! i.e. would that there were one among you, who would 
 close the doors altogether; so shall ye not kindle fire on JMine 
 altar for nought, i.e. fruitlessly! But apart from the diffi- 
 culty of the construction, it is not God's way to quench the 
 smouldering flax. He Who bids. Gather up the fragments 
 that remain, that nothing lie lost, accepts any imperfect service 
 rather than none. He does not break off" the last link, which 
 binds man to Himself Then, if or when God willed His 
 service to surcease. He would do it Himself, as He did by 
 the destruction of the temple before the Captivity, or finally 
 by the Romans. It would have been an luigodly act, (such 
 as was only done by Ahaz, perhaps the most ungodly king 
 of Israel ^), and one which especially called down His wrath -, 
 to close the doors, and therewith to break otf all sacrifice. 
 JManasseh carried the worship of false gods into the temple 
 itself; Ahaz, as far as in him lay, abolished the service of 
 God. A prophet of God could not express a wish, that pious 
 Israelites (for it is presupposed that they would do this out 
 of zeal for God's honour) should bring the service of God to 
 an end. 
 
 He sums up with an entire rejection of them, present and 
 future. I have no pleasure in you; it is a term of repudia- 
 tion^, sometimes of disgust*, neither will I accept an offering 
 at your hands. He says not simply, ^ your burnt-offerings are 
 not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto Me, but, I will not 
 accept it. Such as they were, such they would be hereafter. 
 God would not accept their sacrifices, but would replace 
 them. 
 
 11. For. The form of words does not express whether 
 this declaration relates to the present or the future. It is a 
 vivid present, such as is often used to describe the future. 
 But the things spoken of shew it to be future. The Jewish 
 sacrifices had defects, partly incidental, partly inherent. 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxriii. 2t. 
 Eccl. V. 3. [4Eng.] 
 6 Jer. vi. 20. 
 
 s lb. xxix. 8. 5 3 i'Bn j"N 1 Sam. xviii. 25. 
 
 < 13 j'sn ]•!< ''^D Jer. xxii. 28, xiviii. 38, Hos. viii. 8. 
 
 ^ Poc. ^ Jos. vij. 9. 
 
 " So in Raslii ; " Our rahbis sav, that " they [tlie heathen] called Him f the Lord] God 
 
 of gods; he too who liath an idol, linowetli, tliat He [the Lord] is God, that He is above 
 
 all those thinRs, and tliat in every place the Gentiles also, of their own accord, offer unto 
 
 my name. But our rabbis have expounded, that they [those spoken of] are the disciples of 
 
 of hosts, ° neitlier will I accept an offering (, h rTs t 
 
 at your hand, "'*'• "'^- - 
 
 11 For Pfrom the rishij^ of the sun even ° jer 0.20.' 
 unto the goini^ down of the same my name p i>'"nt.'l ' 
 .shuli ie great 1 among the Gentiles ; ' and , i^,'; ©o.' 3, 5. 
 
 'John 4. 21,23.1 Tim. 2.8. 
 
 Incidental were those, with which the Prophet had upbraided 
 them; inherent, (apart from their mere typical character) 
 that they never could be the religion of the world, since they 
 were locally fixed at Jerusalem. ]Malachi tells them of a 
 new sacrifice, which should be oifcred throughout the then 
 heathen world, grounded on His new revelation of Himself 
 to them. For great shall be 3Iy Name among the Itcatlien. 
 The prophet anticipates an objection^, M'hich the Jews 
 might make to him. ' What then will God do unto His 
 great A\ime? Those by which He would replace them, would 
 be more worthy of God in two ways, I) in themselves, 2) in 
 their universality. Then, whatsoever the heathen worshipped, 
 even if some worshipped an imknow7i God, His A^ame was not 
 known to them, nor great among them. Those who knew of 
 Him, knew of Him, not as the Lord of heaven and earth, but 
 as the God of the Jews only; their offerings were not pure, 
 but manifoldly defiled. A Hebrew prophet could not be an 
 apologist for heathen idolatry amidst its abominations, or set 
 it on a level with the worship which God had, for the time, 
 appointed ; much less could he set it forth as the true ac(;ep- 
 table service of God^. IVIalachi himself speaks of it, as an 
 aggravation of cruelty in their divorcing of their wives, that 
 they ^ 7narried the daughter of a strange god. The worship 
 of those Jews, who remained, out of secular interests, in 
 foreign countries, could not be represented as the "pure 
 offering;" for they made no oiferings: then as now, these 
 being forbidden out of Jerusalem ; nor would the worship of 
 such Jews, as were scattered in the large empire of Persia, 
 be contrasted with that at Jerusalem, as the pure worship ; 
 else why should the Jews have returned ? It would have 
 been an abolition of the law before its time. JMalachi pro- 
 phesies then, as had Micah, Isaiah, Zephaniah ^"j of a new 
 revelation of God, when, and in which, men .should tvor- 
 ship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the 
 heathen. 
 
 Our Lord Himself explains and expands it in His words to 
 the Samaritan woman; ^^Jfoman, believe Me, the hour cometh, 
 ichen ye shall ticither in this tnmintain, nor yet at Jei'usalem, 
 ivorship the Father. — The hour cometh, and noiu is, ruhen the 
 true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; 
 for the Father seeketh such to ivorship Him. God is a Spirit : 
 and they that ivorship Him must worship Him in spirit and in 
 truth, and declared the rejection of the Jew.s, sealing their 
 own sentence against themselves, ^-I say unto you, The king- 
 dom of God shall he taken from you, and given to a nation 
 bringing forth the fruits thereof; and befdre, ^'Many shall come 
 from the East and West, and shall sit down ivith Abraham and 
 Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, and the children of 
 the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. 
 
 the wise, who in everj' place are occupied in the rules of the Divine worship ; so also all the 
 prayers of Israel, which they make in every place, these are like a pure oblation (Minchah), 
 and so Jonathan interprets, ' at whatever time ye shall do My will, I receive your prayers, 
 and My great name is sanctified by you. and your j)rayer is like a pure oblation before Ale.' " 
 See Ibn Ezra, D. Kim., Tanchum, Abarb., in Poc. 
 
 » Mai. ii. 11. w Zeph. ii. 11. " S. John iv. 21, 23, 24. 
 
 1= S. Matt. xxi. 41, 43. " ja. yiji. n, 12.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 601 
 
 ciPrTst'" every place ^incense ahnll lie offered 
 ™- •^"^- unto my name, and a pure offerin;:; : 'for 
 
 • Rev. 8. 3. 
 
 'Isai. »;. v.), Jit. 
 
 Incense shall be offered unto My name, lit. I think, there 
 shall be inrciisc, ohlittion made unto Mi/ nainc [this is a more 
 (|\icstion of (•(Mistniction'], aud a purr ohiatiott. I 
 
 This sacritice, which siioiild ix' oflorcd, is dcsifjiiatcd by 
 the special name of incal-<iff'crinii!;". (iod would not acu'cpt j 
 it from the .lews; lie would, from the lleatiieii. It was a 
 special sacrifice, offered by itself as an unbloody sa(^riiice, i 
 or toi-'ethcr with the bloody sacrifice. ' // is most holy, as ^ 
 the sln-off'eriiii^ and as the trespass-ojferiu!^. In the daily : 
 sacrifice it was offered mornini!; and eveninij, with the lamb. 
 As this was typical of the jirecious blood-siieddini;: of the 
 Lamb ivithont spot upon the Cross, so was the meal-offering 
 which accompanied it, of the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 The early Christians saw the force of the prediction, that 
 sacrifice was contrasted with sacrifice, the bloody sacrifices 
 which were ended by the " One full perfect and sufficient Sa- 
 crifice Oblation and Satisfaction" made by our Lord "on the 
 Altar of the Cross for the sins of the whole world," and those 
 sacrifices which He commanded to be made on our Altars, as 
 a memorial of Him. So S. Justin, who was converted pro- 
 bably A.D. 133, within 30 years from the denth of S. John, 
 says, "*God has therefore beforehand declared, that all who 
 through this name offer those sacrifices, which Jesus, Who is 
 the Christ, commanded to be offered, that is to say, in the 
 Eucharist of the Bread and of the Cup, which are offered in 
 every part of the world by us Christians, are well-pleasing 
 to Him. But those sacrifices, which are offered by you and 
 through those priests of yours, He wholly rejects, saying. 
 And I will not accept your offerings at your hands. For from 
 the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, My 
 Name is glorified among the Gentiles; but ye profane it." 
 
 He points out further the failure of the Jewish explanation 
 as to their sacrifices, in that the Church was every where, not 
 so the Jews. " * You and your teiichers deceive yourselves, 
 when yon interpret this passage of Scripture of those of your 
 nation who were in the dispersion ^, and say that it speaks of 
 their prayers and sacrifices made in every place, as pure and 
 well-pleasing, and know that you speak falsely, and endeavour 
 in every way to impose upon yourselves ; first, because your 
 people are not found, even now, from the rising to the setting 
 of the sun, but there are nations, in which none of your 
 race have ever dwelt: whilst there is not one nation of men, 
 whether Barbarians, or Greeks, or by whatsoever name dis- 
 tinguished, whether of those (nomads) who live in waggons, 
 or of those who have no houses, or those pastoral people that 
 dwell in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are 
 not offered to the Father and Creator of all things, through 
 the name of the crucified Jesus. And you know that at the 
 time when the prophet Malachi said this, the dispersion of 
 you through the whole world, in which you now are, had not 
 yet taken place; as is also shewn by Scripture." 
 
 S. Irenseus in the same century, "^He took that which is 
 part of the creation, viz. bread, and gave thanks, saying, This 
 
 • »;d napD arc, I think most probably, two independent impersonal passive participles, 
 takeii'astuture. " will l)e incensed, oU'ered" [wird ser.iiichert, dargebr.iclit] as Ewald(Leln-b. 
 295 a) ^ni.i, "there is begun," TntJ, " there is wasted," njia "there is spoken" (Ps. l.>Lxxvii. 3), 
 and this place. Tanchum praises Abulwalid for taking TjpD as a noun =,TiiEp (Lib. Rad. 
 col. 634). He adds, "The rest (m'ir) tal<e them as adjectives with an unexpressed substantive." 
 This, I think right : for, altliougli Tapo might be 'what is incensed.' and so a subst., P'ln is 
 used elsewhere of offering a sacrifice, not of oflijring incense, and so TEpD could not be the 
 subject to it. 
 
 2 Lev. ii, 7 (11 Eng.) sqq. 3 Jb. vi. 17. [10. Hcb.] 
 
 my name .sliall he iyroat among the heathen, j, ifjfpg.i. 
 
 cir. 3'J7. 
 
 saith the Loiiu of hosts. 
 
 is My Body. And the Cup likewise, which is of the creation 
 wliicli apiicrtains unto us, He professed to be His own Blood, 
 and tauglit men tbe iww oitlation of the New Testament; 
 wliicli tlie Ciiuri-h recci\ing from the .\posfles offers unto (ir)d 
 in the world : — unto Ilim Who givcfii us nouri^liniciit, the 
 first-fruits of His own gifts, in the New Testament ; of nliicli 
 in the twelve jtrophets JMalachi gave beforeliand this inti- 
 mation [<|uoting Mai. i. 10, II]; most evidently intimating 
 hercb;, , tbat while the former peoph; should cease to make 
 offerings to (iod, in every jilace sacrifice shoidd be offered 
 unto Him, and that in pur(?iiess ; His Nami; also is glorified 
 among the Gentiles. Now what other name is there, m liicli 
 is glorified among the CJentiles, than that which belongs to 
 our liord, by Whom the Father is glorified, an.d man is glori- 
 fied ? And because man belongs to His Own Son, and is 
 made by Him, He calls him His own. And as if some King 
 were himself to paint an image of his own son, he justly calLs 
 it his own image, on both accounts,- first that it is his son's, 
 next, that he himself made it : so also the Name of Jesus 
 Christ, which is glorified in the Church throughout the whole 
 world, the Father professes to be His own, both because it 
 is His Son's, and because He Himself wrote and gave it for 
 the salvation of men. Because therefore the Name of the 
 Son properly belongs to the Father, and in God Almighty 
 through Jesus Christ the Church makes her offering, well 
 saith He on both accounts, And in every place incense is 
 offered unto My Name, and a pure sacrifice. And incense, 
 John in the Apocalypse declares to be the prayers of the 
 Saints. Therefore the offering of the Church, which the 
 Lord hath taught to be offered in the whole world, is ac- 
 counted with God as a pure sacrifice, and accepted of 
 Him." 
 
 Tertullian contrasts the "^sacerdotal law through Mose.s, 
 in Leviticus, prescribing to the people of Israel, that sacrifices 
 should in no other place be offered to God than in the land of 
 promise, which the Lord God was about to give to the people 
 Israel and to their brethren, in order that on Israel's intro- 
 duction thither, there should be there celebrated sacrifices 
 and holocausts, as well for sins as for souls, and no where 
 else but in the lioly land*," and this subsequent prediction of 
 " the Spirit through the prophets, that in every place and in 
 every land there should be offered sacrifices to God. As He 
 says through the angel IMalachi, one of the twelve prophets, 
 (citing the place)." 
 
 S. Hippolytus, a disciple of S. Irenseus, A. D. 220. martyr, 
 in a commentary on Daniel, says that '•' '^ when Anti-Christ 
 cometh, the sacrifice and libation will be taken away, which 
 is now in every place offered by the Gentiles to God." The 
 terms "Sacrifice ofl'cred in everyplace" are terms of Malachi. 
 
 So S. Cyprian, in his Testimonies against the Jews, sums 
 up the teaching of the passage under this head, "'"That the 
 old sacrifice was to be made void, and a new sacrifice insti- 
 tuted." 
 
 * Dial. c. Tlyph. § 117 pp. 215, 21G Oxf. Tr. also § 28, 29 pp. 101, 105. lb. 
 
 5 Tlie Jews then must have intei-preted it of themselves in the present, and so of the 
 times of Malachi after the return of others from Babylon. 
 
 6 iv. 17. 5. pp. 356. 357. Oxf. Tr. See also his Fragment xxxvi. p. 554, 555. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 / c. Jud. i. 5. p. 21 1 Edinb. Tr. Add c. Marcion. iii. 22. 
 8 Lev. xvii. 1-6, Deut. xii. 5-14, 26, 27. 
 ' Interpret, in Dan. n. xxii. p. 110, published from the Chisian codex of cent. x. in 
 Daniel sec. LXX. Romae 1772. The passage is quoted loosely by S. Jerome in Dan. c. 9. 
 Opp. V. 689. Vail. '" Testim. ad Quirin. i. 16. pp. 23 and 31, Oxf. Tr.
 
 602 
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 397. 
 
 12 ^ But ye have profaned it, in tli.at 
 ye say, " The table of tlie Loru is polluted 
 
 ' ver. 7. 
 
 In the " ' Apostolii! Constitutions," tlie prophecy is quoted 
 as "said by God of His cecunienii-al Church." 
 
 Eusebiiis says, "-Tiic truth bears witness to the prophetic 
 word, whereby (Jod, rejecting the Mosaic sacrifices, foretells 
 that which shall be among us. Fur from ilte ri.sljis; of tlie 
 sun 8)C. We sacrifice then to the supreme God the sacrifice 
 of praise; we sacrifice the Divine, reverend and holy oblation: 
 we sacrifice, in a new way according to the New Testament, tlie 
 pure sacrifice. The broken heart is also called a sacrifice 
 to God — We sacrifice also the Memory of that great Sacrifi(!e, 
 performing it according to the mysteries which have been 
 transmitted by Him." 
 
 S. Cyril of Jerusalem''' speaks of it only as prophesying 
 the rejection of the Jews and the adoption of the Gentiles. 
 
 In the liturgy of S. Mark*, it is naturally quoted, only, as 
 fulfilled "in the reasonable and unbloody sacrifice, which all 
 nations offer to Thee, O Lord, from the rising of the sun to 
 the setting thereof," not in reference to the cessation of 
 Jewish sacrifices. 
 
 S. Chrysostom dwells on its peculiar force, coming from so 
 late a prophet^. "Hear Malachi, who came after the other 
 prophets. For I adduce, for the time, no testimony cither 
 of Isaiah or Jeremiah or any other before the Captivity, 
 lest thou shouldest say that the terrible things which he 
 foretold were exhausted in the Ca])tivity. But I adduce a 
 prophet, after the return from Babylon and the restoration 
 of your city, prophesying clearly about you. For when they 
 had returned, and recovered their city, and rebuilt the temple 
 and performed the sacrifices, foretelling this present desola- 
 tion then future, and the taking away of the sacrifice, Mahu^hi 
 thus speaks in the Person of God [ver. 10 fin. — 12 beg.]. 
 When, o Jew, happened all this ? When was incense offered 
 to God in every place ? when a pure sacrifice ? Thou couldest 
 not name any other time, than this, after the Coming of 
 Christ. If the prophet foretelleth not this time and our sa- 
 crifice, but the Jewish, the prophecy will be against the law. 
 For if, when Moses commandeth that sacrifice should be 
 offered in no other place than the Lord (iod should choose, 
 and shutteth up those sacrifices in one place, the prophet 
 says that incense should be offered in every place and a pure 
 sacrifice, he opposeth and contradicteth Moses. But there 
 is no strife nor contention. For Moses speaketh of one sa- 
 crifice, and Malachi of another. Where doth this appear? 
 [From the place, not Judica only, from the mode, that it 
 should be pure; from the offerers, not Israel, but the na- 
 tions,] from East to West, shewing that whatever of earth 
 the sun surveys, the preaching will embrace. — He calls the 
 former sacrifice impure, not in its own nature but in the 
 mind of the offerers ; if one compares the sacrifice itself, 
 there is such a boundless distance, that this [that offered 
 by Christians] might in comparison be called 'pure.'" 
 
 Even the cold, but clear, Theodoret has, " * Foretelling to 
 the Jews the cessation of the legal priesthood, he announces 
 the pure and unbloody sacrifice of the Gentiles. And first 
 
 ' vii. 30 [on their age, especially of that of their substance, see Pusey, The Real Presence 
 the doctrine of the early Church jip. CiOj-OU'.!.] 
 
 2 Dem, Ev. i. 10. fin. He also (juotes the passage in proof of the abolition of the Jewish 
 sacrifices, although without allusion to the Eucharistic sacrifice, lb. i. 6. p. 19 ; and in 
 ii. 29. pp. 55, .56, of the rejection of the Jewish nation and their bodily worsjiip according 
 to the law of Moses, and the spiritual woisliip given to all nations through Christ." 
 
 3 Cat. x\Tii. 25. •• Assem. Cod. Lit. vii. 19, 20. 
 
 and the fruit thereof, even his meat is con- 
 temptible. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 397. 
 
 he says to the Jews, / hane no pleasure in you, saith the Lord 
 of hosts, wild I ivi/l 7iot accept a sacri/ice nt yonr liiinds. Tlien 
 he foreshews the piety of the Gentiles, For from the rising of 
 the sun 4c, (Mai. i. 11.) You tiien 1 will wholly reject; for 
 I detest altogether what you do. Wherefore also I reject the 
 sacrifice oflPcred by you ; but instead of you, I have the whole 
 world to worship Me. For the dwellers in the whole earth, 
 which the rising and setting sun illumines, will every where 
 both offer to Me incense, and will sacrifice to Me the pure 
 sacrifice, which I love. For they sliall know My name and 
 My will, and shall offer to Me reverence due. .So the Lord 
 said to the Samaritan woman, IFomnn, believe Me, that the 
 hour comcth and now is, when neither in this mountain, nor in 
 Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. — The blessed Paul, 
 being instructed in this, says, "^ I will that men pray every 
 where 6i(% and the Divine Malachi clearly taught us in this 
 place the worship now used; for the circumscribed worship of 
 the priests is brought to an end, and everyplace is accounted 
 fit for tiie worship of God, and the sacrifice of irrational 
 victims is ended, and He, our spotless Lamb, Who taketh 
 away the sin of the world, is sacrificed." 
 
 Lastly, S. Augustine, "^Malachi, prophesying of the Church 
 which we see propagated through Christ, says most plainly 
 to the Jews in the person of God, / have no pleasure in you, 
 and will not receive an offering at your hands. For from the 
 rising of the sun Sjc. Since we see this sacrifice through the 
 priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchisedek, now of- 
 fered to God in every place from the rising of the sun to its 
 setting; but the sacrifice of the Jews, of which it is said, / 
 have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an offering from 
 your /<«//(/a-, they cannot deny to have ceased; why do they 
 yet expect another Christ, since what they read as prophesied 
 and see fulfilled, could not be fulfilled, except through Him?" 
 
 12. Andye have profaned \Jare habitually profaning /<], in 
 that ye say. It was the daily result of their daily lives and 
 acts. "^"It is probable that the priests did not use such 
 words, but that by their very deeds, they proclaimed this 
 aloud : as in the, The fool hath said in his heart. There is no 
 God. For in that he is seen to be a despiser, though he say 
 it not in words, yet, by their very deeds and by the crooked- 
 ness of their lives, they ail-but cry out, There is no God. 
 For they who live as though God beheld not, and do all things 
 recklessly and unholily, by their own deeds and works deny 
 God. So they who are not earnest to preserve to the holy 
 Altar the reverence becoming to it, by the very things which 
 they do, say. 
 
 The table of the Lord is despised." Not the table of shew - 
 bread, since it is so called in reference to the sacrifice offered 
 thereon. Ezekiel had probably so called the altar, which he 
 saw in his vision of the new temple'^. It is what was before 
 called the altar ; an altar, in regard to the sacrifices offered 
 to God ; a table, in regard to the food of the sacrifice there- 
 from received. Both names, " altar i-" and " table ^'" being 
 received in the New Testament, both were received in the 
 
 5 Ad Jud. V. 12. Opp. i. 647, 648 Montf. See also his Expos, in Ps. 112. n. 2. Opp. 
 
 V. 28-*, 2S:t, and Quo! Christus sit Deus Opp. i. 582, " Seest thou, how plainly he both 
 cast out Judaism and exhibited Cluistianity etiulgent and extended over the whole worlds " 
 
 ^ ad loc. 
 * de Civ. Dei. xviii. 35. 3. 
 '" S.Cyr. 
 1- S. Matt. V. 23, Heb. xiii. 10. 
 
 7 1 Tim. ii. 8. 
 ' uiK D'VVnD ens 
 
 11 Ezek. xliv. Ifi. 
 13 1 Cor. X. 21.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 13 Ye said also, Behold, what a weuri- 
 
 003 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 ■ "''•■ ■'''-'^ _ ness is it! \\ and ye have snufled at it, saith 
 
 11 Or, wkere- . . » i? i 
 
 as,/emif;iu tlic LoRD ot hosts : and ye brou<rht that 
 
 have blown i ' i . iii 
 
 it away. wuicli iiHis tom, and tlie lanu;, and the si(!k ; 
 
 • Lev. 22. 20, jjjus ye broujrht an offerinir: ' sliouhi I 
 
 accept this of your hand ? saith the Lord. 
 
 early Church. For each represented one side of the great 
 Eucharistic action, as it is a Sacrifice and a Sacrament. But 
 the title '• altar" was the earliest '. 
 
 It may be here a different profaneness of the priests. Tiiey 
 connived at the sin of the people in sacrificinc: the maimed 
 animals wiiich they brought, and yet, since they had tlieir 
 food from the sacrifices, and such animals are likely to iiave 
 been neglected and ill-conditioned, tiiey may very prohaljly 
 have complained of the poverty of their lot, and despised tiie 
 whole service. For the words used, its produce, the eating 
 thereof is contemptible belong to their portion, not to what 
 was consumed by fire. With this agrees tlieir cry, 
 
 13. What a weariness ! What an onerous service it is ! 
 The service of God is its own reward. If not, it becomes a 
 greater toil, with less reward from this earth, than the tilings 
 of this eartii. Our only choice is between love aTid weariness. 
 
 j4itd ye have snuffed ^paffhi\ at it'', i.e. at tlie altar; as 
 a thing contemptible. Ye have brought that which was taken 
 by violence^. In despising any positive law of God, they 
 despised the lawgiver; and so, from contempt of the cere- 
 monial law, they went on to break the moral law. It were 
 indeed a mockery of God, to break a law whereby He bound 
 man to man, and therefrom to seek to appease Himself. Yet 
 in rough times, people, even in Christianity, have made their 
 account with their souls, by giving to the poor a portion of 
 what they had taken from the rich. "God," it was said to such 
 an one, "rejects the gifts obtained by violence and robbery. 
 He loves mercy, justice and humanity, and by the lovers of 
 these only will He be worshipped." "*He that sacriticcth of 
 a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous, and the 
 gifts of unjust men are not accepted. The Most High is not 
 pleased with the offerings of the wicked, neither is He paci- 
 fied for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso bringeth 
 an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that killeth 
 the son before the father's eyes." 
 
 14. Cursed is the deceiver. "^The fraudulent, hypocritical, 
 false or deceitful dealer, who makes a show of one thing, and 
 doth or intends another, nor doth to his power what he would 
 make a show of doing ; as if he could deceive God in doing in 
 His service otherwise than He required, and yet he accepted 
 by Him." The whole habit of these men was not to break 
 with God, but to keep well with Him on as easy terms as 
 they could. They even went beyond what the law re<iuired 
 in making vows, probably for some temporal end, and then 
 substituted for that which had typical perfection, the less 
 valuable animal, the ewe ^, and that, diseased. It was pro- 
 bably, to prevent self-deceit, that the law commanded that 
 the oblation for avow should be ^a male without blemish, per- 
 
 1 S. Ignat. ad Pliilad. n. 4. p. 32. Cotel. 
 
 2 This too is one of the Tikkuiie Sopheriin. as if. had it not been profane, the prophet 
 would have said, at Me, On the cliaracter of these liypothetic corrections, see on Hab. i. 12. 
 p.4n. n. 11. 
 
 3 This is the one sense of Sia, which occurs in 34 separate passages (besides two met. 
 Job xxiv. 19. Pr. iv. 16.) It is used specially of the robbery of tlie poor, whether by nTong 
 judfjenient (Eccl. v. 7, [Heb.] Is. x. 2) or open violence. Tlie nieamng "torn" was gained, 
 as if the animal liad been carried off by beasts (OripidkaTov), the eating of which was for- 
 bidden, Ex. xxii. 30, Lev. vii. 34, xxii. 8. Ezek. iv. 14, xliv. 31. But this had its own name, 
 
 14 But cursed be ''the deceiver, H which cimust 
 hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and ""■ ■'''■''■ 
 sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thinj^: nor,' 
 for ' I am a great King, saith the Lord of 'fl„d!'i!' 
 hosts, and my name is dreadful among the iTini.o.io. 
 heathen. 
 
 ferf ; lest (which may be a temptation in imp\ilsivc vows) 
 repenting of their vow, they should persuade theniselve.s, that 
 they had vowed less than they had. Ordinarily, then, it would 
 not have been allowed to one, who had not the best to offer, 
 to vow at all. But, in their alleged poverty, the prophet sup- 
 poses that God would so far disiicnse with His own law, and 
 accept the best which any one iiad, although it did not come 
 up to that law. Hence the clause, tr/ilch hath in his Jlor/c a 
 male. ""If thou hast not a nude, that curse in no wise in- 
 jureth thee. But saying this, he shewcth, that they have 
 what is best, and offer what is bad." 
 
 They sinned, not against religion only, but against justice 
 also. "^For as a merchant, who offers his goods at a certain 
 price, if lie sup])Iy them afterwards adulterated and corrupted, 
 is guilty of fraud and is unjust, so he who promised to (iod a 
 sacrifice wortiiy of God, and, according to the law, perfect 
 and sound, is fraudulent and sins against justice, if he after- 
 wards gives one, defective, mutilated, vitiated, and is guilty 
 of theft in a sac-red thing, aiul so of sacrilege." 
 
 Clergy or "all who have vowed, should learn hence, that 
 what they have vowed should be given to God, entire, manly, 
 perfect, the best. — For, reverence for the supreme and Divine 
 Majesty to Whom they consecrate themselves demandeth 
 this, that they should offer Him the highest best and most 
 perfect, making themselves a wholc-burnt-offering to God." 
 
 "'"They who abandon all things of the world, and kindle 
 their whole mind with the fire of Divine love, these become 
 a sacrifice and a whole-burnt-offering to Almighty God." 
 ""Man himself, consecrated and devoted in the name of God, 
 is a sacrifice." He then offers a corrupt thing who, like 
 Ananias, keeps back part of the price, and is the more guilty, 
 because, while it ivas his own, it was in his own power. 
 
 Iain a great King. "'-As God is Alone Lord through 
 His universal Providence and His intrinsic authority, so He 
 Alone is King, and a King so great, that of His greatness or 
 dignity and [lerfection there is no end." 
 
 My JVame is dreadful among the heathen. Absence of 
 any awe of God was a central defect of these Jews. They 
 treated Him, as they would not a fellow-creature, for whom 
 they had any respect or awe or fear. Some remaining in- 
 stinct kept them from parting with Him; hut they yielded a 
 cold, wearisome heartless service. Malachi points to the root 
 of the evil, the ignorance, how aweful God is. This is the 
 root of so much irreverence in people's theories, thoughts, 
 conversations, systems, acts, of tlie present day also. They 
 know neither God or themselves. I'he relation is summed 
 up in those words to a saint '^, " Knowest thou well. Who I 
 am, and who thou art ? I am He Who Is, and thou art she 
 
 naia, and could not be used in sacrifices, since it was dead already. 
 * Ecclus. xxxiv. IS— 20. 
 5 Poc. « nn73 fern, for nrroa. a."^ n-ifp for n;T;'2. 1 Kgs i. 15. and n^^s Lev. ii. 5, 
 
 Ewald Lehrb. n. ISS. p. 495 ed. ^. Keil would reaU riTf? (niasc.) and make it a separate 
 case, " the deceiver, wliereas in liis flock is a male ; and he who voweth iic. :" but then no- 
 thing would be said, wherein the deceit consisted. 
 
 ? Levit. xxii. I'J, 21. » S. Jer. 9 Lap. 
 
 1" S. Greg, in Ezek. L. i. Horn. xii. 30. 0pp. i. 305 Ben. L. 
 
 " S. Aug. de Civ. Dei x. 6. L. '- Dion. " S. Catherine of Sienna.
 
 G04 
 
 MALACIir. 
 
 B-^fore CflAPTER ir. 
 
 CHRIST vviiiii 1 i^iv 
 
 cir. yj7. \ iJc xhnrplt/ rcpravelh the privsis for neglecting 
 their covenant, 1 1 (uid tin- people for idolatry, 
 Wfor adaUcnj, 17 und for infidelity, 
 
 ND now, O yo priests, this command- 
 ment is foi" you. 
 «Lev.2G.M, 2 '' If yc will not hear, and if ye will not 
 Deut.28.15, lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, 
 saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a 
 curse upon you, and I will curse your bless- 
 
 A 
 
 \\\\o is not." So Job says in the presence of Q>oA.,^ I have 
 heard of Thee by the hearing of I lie ear, hat now mine eye seeth 
 Thee: lulierefore I ahhor myself and repent in dast and asltes. 
 To correct tliis, God, from the beginning?, insists on the title 
 which He gives Himself. ^ Citciimcisc the foreskin of your 
 hearts and he no more stiff-necked : for the Lord your God is 
 God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and 
 the terrihle; and in wariiinn-," J/VAom wilt not observe to do all 
 the ivords of this laiv that are written in this hook, that thou 
 mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God, 
 then the Lord thy God tvill make thy plagues wonderful djc. 
 
 II. 1. And now this is 3Iy commandment imto yon, not 
 a commandment, which He gave them, but a commandment 
 in regard to them. As God said of old, upon obedience, '' / 
 ivill command My blessing unto you, so now He would com- 
 mand what should reach tliem, but a curse. '"'He returns 
 from the people to the priests, as the fountain of the evil, 
 whose carelessness about tilings sacred he had rebuked before. 
 Let the priests of the new law hear this rebuke of God, and 
 conceive it dictated to them by the Holy Spirit to hear, from 
 whom God rightly requires greater holiness, and so will punish 
 them more grievously, if careless or scandalous in their 
 office." All Christians are, in some sense, ^ a royal, holy priest- 
 hood, over and above the special "Christian priesthood;" as 
 the Jews, over and above the special priesthood of Aaron, 
 were a'' kingdom of priests. What follows then belongs, in 
 their degree, to them and their duties. 
 
 2. If ye luill not lay to heart, viz. the rebukes addressed 
 to them, to give glory to God. For the glory of God is the 
 end and aim of the priesthood. Tliis should be the principle 
 and rule of their whole life, " ^ to the greater glory of God." 
 / tvill send the curse upon you, viz. that which He had threat- 
 ened in the law upon disobedience* and will curse your bless- 
 ings, will turn your blessings into a curse. He does not say, 
 I will send you curses instead of blessings, but, I will make 
 the blessings themselves a curse. ^ The things which should 
 have been to their wealth became to them an occasion of falling; 
 to the proud, the things which lift them up ; to the gluttonous, 
 their abundance ; to tiie avaricious, their wealth ; which, if 
 iised to the glory of God, become blessings, do, when self not 
 God is their end, by God's dispensation and Providence, be- 
 come a curse to them, " ^" The goods of nature, the goods of 
 
 1 Jot xlii. 5, 6. 
 
 '- Dent. X. Ifi, 17, vii. 21. Nehemiah uses it in his prayers (i. 5, be. .32) and Daniel (ix- 4.) 
 It occurs also Neh. iv. 8 (14 Eng.) Ps. xlvii. 3, Ixviii. :i(i, Ixxxix. 8, xcvi. 4, xcix. .3. cxi. 9, 
 Zeph. ii. 11. 3 Dent, xxviii. 58, 59. < Lev. xxv. 21, DD'j'n^nn T\i< "n'lsi 
 
 ^ Lap. ^ 1 S. Pet. ii. 9. 7 Ex. xix. G. * " Ad majoreni Dei ftloriani," the 
 
 motto of S. Ignatius Loyola. ' Ps. Ixix. 23. '"Dion. " S. Luke xii. 48. 
 
 '2 Keil objects to tliis rendering of the text and adopts the ])unctuation pp from Ixx. Aq. 
 Vuls. "the aim," i.e. render it useless and incapalile of dischargins its otiice. But when 
 ni'l is used of other than men themselves, it is a whole, as to which the metaphor is used, 
 either being animate, as " the devourer," Mai. iii. 1 1, or pictmed as animate, as " the sea," 
 Ps. cvi. 9. Nah. i. 4. 13 See also Joel i. 13. ii. U. 
 
 ings : yea, I have cur.sod them already, cifiiTsx 
 because; ye do not h»y it to heart. ""'• •^'•'^- 
 
 3 IJehold, I will || corrupt your seed, IIO""' "/"""«• 
 and f spread dung u})on your faces, ewen t Heb. 
 the dung of your solemn feasts; and || one w'or, a si,nii 
 
 11111 • ti ' A takf. ijou 
 
 shall "take vou away with it. awm,toit. 
 
 , . 1 1 1, 1 1 ,1 '1 Kin. 14.10. 
 
 4 And ye shall know tliat 1 have sent 
 this commandment unto you, that my cove- 
 nant might be with Levi, saith the Loud of 
 hosts. 
 
 fortune, the goods of the Church allowed to you, I will turn 
 to your greater damnation, permitting you to abuse them to 
 pride ; and your damnation shall be the more penal, the more 
 good things ye iiave received from jMe. Whence Christ de- 
 clares in the Gospel, ^^Unto whomsoever much is given, of him. 
 shall be much required ! " 
 
 Yea, I have cursed them [lit. »7], i.e. each one of the 
 blessings, already. God's judgements as well as His mercies 
 are individual witii a minute care, shewing that it is His doing. 
 The curse had already gone fortli, and had begun to seize 
 upon them from the time that they began to despise His 
 Name. His judgements do not break in at once, but little by 
 little, with warnings of their approach, that so we may turn to 
 Him, and escape the wrath to come. 
 
 3. Lo, I will rebuke the seed ^^ for your sake, i.e. that it 
 should not grow. He Who worketh by His sustaining will 
 all the operations of nature, would at His will withhold them. 
 Neither jjriests nor Levites cultivated the soil ; yet, since the 
 tithes were assigned to them, the diminution of the harvest 
 affected them. The meal-offering too was a requisite part 
 of the sacrifice ". 
 
 jind spread dung upon your faces, the dung^* of your soleimi 
 feasts, or, oj your sacrifices '=. It was by the law carried with- 
 out the camp and burned with the animal itself. They had 
 brought before the face of God maimed, unfitting sacrifices ; 
 they should have them cast back, with their refuse, upon 
 them ; "^"^ as a lord that rejecteth a gift, brought to him by his 
 servant, casts it back in his face." ^'^~ Of your sacrifices, not of 
 JMine ; for I am not worshipped in them : ye seek to please, 
 not Me, but yourselves." So God said of Eli, ^^them that honour 
 Me I tvill honour, and they that despise Me shall be lightly 
 esteemed. 
 
 And one shall take you away with it, lit. to it. They 
 should be swept away, as if they were an appendage to it, as 
 God said, ^' I will take away the remnant of the hcnise of Jero- 
 boam, as a man taketh away dung, till all be gone. As are 
 the offerings, so shall it be with the offerers. 
 
 4. And ye shall knotv that I have sent this commandment 
 unto you : this, which He had just uttered. They who believe 
 not God when threatening, know that He is in earnest and not 
 to be trifled with, through His punishing. Tliat My cove- 
 nant might be tvith Levi "". God willed to punish those who at 
 
 i-i 1^,5 is only used of the dung, as it lies in the animal killed for sacrifice, Ex. xxix. 4. 
 Lev. iv. 11, viii. 7, xxi. 2", Nu. xix. 5, and here. '^ jn is certainly the animal 
 
 sacrificed at the feast, Ex. xxiii. 18, Ps. cxviii, 27, and so probably here. .So Kim. 
 
 i» Aharb. Poc. i? Rib. >s 1 Sam. ii. 30. i" 1 Kgs xiv. 10. 
 
 -" Keil says that n'.T means indeed to "exist," but not to "continue existence." But the 
 continuance is involved in the existence in the futm-e, for the being in the future involves 
 the continued being. His own rendeiing, *' that this should be Mv covenant with Levi ; " 
 requires a more definite subject ; and it should rather be, " that ^ly covenant with Levi 
 should come to this." In ver. 5, 6, he speaks of the past emphatically, " My covenant 
 was with him," "the law of truth was in his mouth." So it shall be with you, if you be- 
 come like him.
 
 CHAPTER If. 
 
 605 
 
 ci^rTst ^ "My covenant u'as with him of life and 
 
 '=''•• •''"''■ . peace ; and I i^ave them to him ''_/«r tiie 
 
 Ezek.ai'.ss'. fear wherewith lie feared me, and was 
 
 & 37. 20. <i Deut. 33. 8, 9. 
 
 that time rebelled ag:ainst Iliin, that He inifijht spare those 
 who shouhl conic after them. He eluistened tlie fathers, wlio 
 shewed their contempt towards Him, that tiu^ir sons, takin*;; 
 warniiiij' thereby, niii;lit not be cat otf. He continues to say, 
 what the covenant was, which He willed still to be, if tliey 
 would repent. 
 
 5. Mij covenant was with him life and peace ; lit. tlie life 
 and tlie peace ; tiiat, which ah)ne is true life and peace. The 
 covenant was not with Levi himself, but with Aaron, his re- 
 presentative, with whom the covenant was made in the desert, 
 as is indeed here expressed; and. in him, with all his race^ 
 after him, who succeeded him in his office ; as, when it is said, 
 that 'Aaron and his sons offered upon the altar of hiirnt offering, 
 it must needs be understood, not of Aaron in person alone 
 and his sons then living, but of any of his race that succeeded 
 in his and their room. So our Lord promised to be with His 
 Apostles, '^ alwai/s to the end of the world, i.e. with them and 
 those whom they should appoint in their stead, and these 
 others, until He should Himself come. God promised, if they 
 would keep the law, that they should live in peace on the 
 earth ; yea. that they should iiave peace of mind and a life of 
 sirace. Life is an indefectible beinc;, which man does not 
 forfeit by sin, to which death is no interruption, changing' 
 only the place of the soul's life. 
 
 And I gave them to him, in, or as, fear, "* Fear, not ser- 
 vile but filial and pure, as S. Paul bids Christians, ^ work out 
 your own salvation ivith fear and trembling." God gave them 
 an aweful gift, to be held with fear and awe, for its very pre- 
 ciousness, as one would hold anxiously what is very precious, 
 yet very fragile and easily marred. 
 
 Afid he feared 3Ie. and was afraid before My Name. 
 Malachi unites two words, the second expressive of strong 
 fear, by which a man is, as it were, crushed or broken. They 
 are often united in Hebrew, but as expressing terror, which 
 men are bidden not to feel before men. Toward man it is 
 ever said, ^fear not, neither be ye dismayed ; toward God 
 Alone, it is a matter of praise. INIan's highest fear is too 
 little ; for he knows not. Who God is. So Isaiah says, "^ Fear 
 ye not their fear [the fear of this people] , nor be afraid. Sa7ictify 
 tlie Lord of hosts Himself, and let Him he your fear and let 
 Him be your dread. "*What can be more precious (than this 
 fear) ? For it is written, '■' He who feareth tlie Lord will be 
 rewarded. '^"The fear of the Lord is honour and glory and 
 gladness and a crown of rejoicing.' He saith, the fear, where- 
 tvith he feareth Me and was afraid, i.e. he received the fear of 
 God in his whole heart and soul. For these reduplications and 
 emphases suggest to the hearer how rooted in virtue are those 
 thus praised." 
 
 0. The law of truth was in his mouth. Apart from those 
 cases, which were brought to the priests at the tabernacle ^^ 
 in which their voice was the voice of God through them, to 
 teach the law was part of the office both of the priest and 
 
 ' By the art. in i"?.! v. 8. See Num. xxv. 12. 13. = 1 Chr. vi. 49. 
 
 3 S. Malt, xxviii. ill. ■" Dion. » Phil. ii. 12. 
 
 « Deut. i. 21, xxxi. 8, Josh. i. 9, X. 25, 1 Clir. xxii. 13, xxviii. 20, 2 Chr. xx. 15, 17, 
 xxxii. 7, Is. li. 7, Jer. -xxiii. 4, xxx. 10. xlvi. 27, Ez. ii. 6, iii. 9. 
 
 7 Is. viii. 12, 13. s s.Cyr. 9 Pr. xiii. 13. ■" Ecdus. i. 11. 
 
 II Deut. xvii. 9, 10, 11, xix. 17; (.i(id Deut. xxi. 5, Ezek. xliv. 23, 24.) hence the use of 
 D'n'jN Ex. xxi. G, .xxii. 7, 8. '- Lev. x. 11. '^ Deut. .xx.xiii. 10. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 afraid hefitn' my name. ciniTsT 
 
 (j '''I'he law of trutli was in his mouth, <ir. w>r. 
 
 and iniquity was not found in his lips : he 
 
 Deut. 33. 10. 
 
 Levite. Of the priest God says; ^-that ye may teach the 
 
 children of Lsra(d all the statutes, which the Lord hath spoken 
 unto them by the hand of Moses : of the tribe of Levi generally 
 Moses says, ^' They shall teach Jacob Thy /'udgemrnls and 
 Israel Thy law. After the schism of the fen tribes, a prophet 
 says to Asa, that Israel had ^^for a long time been without the 
 true God and without a leaching priest and without law. 'i'hey 
 are evil times, of which Ezekiel says, ^-the law shall perish from 
 the priest ; and God says of (•orru])t priests, ^''' The priest said 
 not, where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew Me 
 not. '^ Thci/ dill violence to My line. On their return from the 
 captivity Ezra was known to Artaxerxes as "'« scribe of the 
 laiv of the God of heaven, mnl he looked upon him ai)parently, 
 as one who should keep the people in good order by teaching 
 it. ^'•' Thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God ivhich is in thy 
 hand, set magistrates and Judges, which may Judge all the peo- 
 ple which are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of 
 tliif God, and teach ye them that know them not : and whoso- 
 ever will }iot do the law of thy God or the law of the king, let 
 judgement be e.vecuted speedily upon him. I>/,ra says of him- 
 self, that he •" had prepared his heart to seek the laiv of the Lord 
 and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and Judgements. 
 
 "-^ God's "law is the truth : the true do(;trine of this law- 
 did he teach the people, and instruct them in tlic true meaning 
 and intent thereof, that, according to the right rule, they 
 might frame all their actions ; nothing of it did he conceal 
 from them, nor teach any thing contrary to it or false. This 
 was in his mouth ; nothing contrary to it was found in his 
 lips." 
 
 And iniquity was not found in his lips. He expresses 
 the perfectness of that teaching, first positively, then nega- 
 tively. The true priest taught truth without any admixture 
 of wrong. "-'Not he only is a betrayer of the truth, who, 
 transgressing the truth, openly teaches a lie for the truth ; 
 but he too, who does not freely utter the truth, which he ought 
 to utter freely, or who does not freely defend the truth which 
 he ought to defend freely, is a betrayer of the truth. =' For 
 luith the heart man believeth unto righteousness, u)id with the 
 mouth confession is made unto salvation." "Nothing," says 
 S.Ambrose -5 to the Emperor Theodosius, "is so perilous to 
 the priest with God, so disgraceful with men, as not to utter 
 freely what he thinks. For it is written, -" / spake of Thy 
 testimonies before kings, and teas not ashamed. And therefore 
 a priest's silence ought to displease your Clemency:, his free- 
 dom, to please you. For you are involved in the peril of my 
 silence, art aided by the good of my free speech." 
 
 He walked with Me. To awe of God, truthfulness of 
 teaching, he adds a devout continual intercourse with God. 
 Like the patriarchs of old, Enoch and Noah, he -' xcalked with 
 God. He not only lived in the Presence, but walked up and 
 down with Him, through his whole life, as a Friend; "having 
 respect in all things to Him and His glory." 
 
 " 2 Clir. XV. 3. '5 Ezek. vii. 2G. 
 
 '" Ezek. xxii. 20, Zeph. iii. 4. 
 18 Ezr. vii. 12, 21. _ " lb. 25, 2fi. 
 
 16 Jer. ii. 8. 
 
 M lb. 10. 
 
 -■' Poc. 
 
 " Ps. cxix. M2. 
 
 23 Opus imp. in S. Matt. ap. S. Chr^•s. Horn. 25. T. vi. App. p. cix. Ben. 
 ■* Rom. X. 10. "-^ S. .\mbr. £p. xi. ad Theod. n. 2. 3. Ben. ] 
 
 -6 Ps. cxix. 40. -" Gen. v. 24, vi. 9. 
 
 R R R R
 
 GOG 
 
 MALACIII. 
 
 c if iiTs T ^^'«11<<'<^ "''<^^'> "1*^ '" peace and ef|uity, and 
 __£Ll!^ii__ did 'turn many away from ini(iuity. 
 ' jTm.5.20. 7 ^ F<*i' the priest's lips should keep 
 "^ Deutl'l'7! 0, linowledi;-e, and they should seek the law 
 
 10. ii'24.'8.'Ezra 7. 10. Jer. i«. IS. Hag. 2. 11, 12. 
 
 In peace and equity. The inward peace with God over- 
 flowins!: in ])ea('e to men. Tlic brief words comprise the duties 
 of both tables; as \\\i\X,^ Folhnc peace icitlt all men,und Ituliness, 
 icitlioiit ic/iic/t no man ultall see God ; -Live in peace, and the 
 God of love and peace shall he icith yon ; ^ blessed are the 
 peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. 
 " * God's covenant witli him was of peace '■ ; so lie observed 
 it on his part." Even equity, or real considerate justice, 
 would alienate those, whom it found wronc:, ■''O he joins with 
 it peace, that even equity was not administered but with love. 
 "^To have peace with God, what is it but to will to be mended 
 and to do what He willeth, and in nothing to offend Him ?" 
 
 And turned away many from iniquity. They, the true 
 priests of the Old Testament then, were not satisfied with 
 their own sanctification, but were zealous for the salvation 
 of souls. What a history of zeal for the glory of God and 
 the conversion of sinners in those, of whom the world knows 
 nothing; of whose working, but for the three words '^ in the 
 closing book of the Old Testament, we should have known 
 nothing! The Prophets upbraid the sins of the many; the 
 Psalms are the prayers given to and used by the pious ; 
 such incidental sayings as these, record some of the fruits. 
 "Be of the disciples of Aaron," said Hillel*, "who loved peace 
 and followed peace, and who loved men and brought them 
 near to the law." Yet even under the Gospel S. Gregory com- 
 plains, " ** The world is full of priests ; yet in the harvest of 
 God the labourers are few. For we undertake the priestly 
 office, but do not fulfil its work. We receive the fruit of holy 
 Church in daily stipend, but labour not for the everlasting 
 Church in preaching." "i" There are many priests," says a 
 writer in the IVth cent., "and few priests ; many in name, 
 few in deed. See then, how ye sit on your thrones ; for the 
 throne maketh not the priest, but the priest the throne; 
 the place sanctifieth not the man, but the man the place. 
 Whoso sitteth well on the throne, receiveth honour from the 
 throne; whoso ill, doth injustice to the throne. Thou sittest 
 in judgement. If tbou livest well and teachest well, thou wilt 
 be a judge of all; if thou teachest well and livest ill, thine 
 own only. For by teaching well and living well thou in- 
 structest the people, how it ought to live; by teaching well 
 and living ill, thou teachest God, how He should condemn 
 thee." "1' We who are called priests, above the ills which we 
 have of our own, add also the deaths of others. For we slay 
 as many as we, in tepidity and silence, see daily go to death. — 
 He who is placed under thee dies without thee, when in that 
 which causes his death, thou hast withstood him. For to that 
 death, which thou hast not withstood, thou wilt be added." 
 
 7. For the priest's lips should keep knoivledge. " ^- He 
 assigns the reason for what he had just said, the laiv of truth 
 was in his mouth ; they had done what it was their duty to 
 do; as in Ecclesiasticus it is said of Aaron; '^^God gave unto 
 him His commandments, and authority in the statutes of 
 
 ' H?>). xii. 14. Rom. xii. 18. 2 2 Cor. xiii. 11. 3 S.Matt. v. 9. 
 
 •• Poc. * ver. 5. « S. Cyr. " [U'D 3X'n D'311 
 
 » Pirke Abotli c. i. § 13 Poc. 
 
 9 S. Greg. Horn. xvii. in Evang. n. 3 aiid 8. Opp. i. 1496, 1499. Ben. L. 
 
 IK Op. Imperf. in S. Matt, cxxiii. Horn. xUii. App. p. clxxxiii. Ben. L. 
 
 " S. Greg. doin. in Ezek. L. i. Horn. xi. nn. 9. and 11. Opp. i. 1285. L. '- Lap. 
 
 at his mouth : ''for he is the messenger of ciFrTst 
 the Lord of hosts. <""■ '^'■^- 
 
 8 But ye are departed out of the way; i i sa'm.2.'i7. 
 ye 'have caused many to || stumhle at tlie y or?yl« If' 
 
 the law. 
 
 judgements, that he should teach Jacob the testimonies, and 
 inform Israel in His laws.' So S. I'aul requires of Titus to 
 ordain such Bishops, as shall be able to ^"^exliort by sound doc- 
 trine and to convince gainsuyers. Wherefore S. Ambrose '^ 
 calls the Bible, which contains the law of God, 'the book of 
 priests,' as specially belonging to them, to be specially studied 
 by them. S.Jerome notes that he says keep, not 'give forth,' 
 that they should speak seasonably, and give their fellow-ser- 
 vants meat in due season." 
 
 For lie is the tnessenger [or angel] of the Lord of hosts. 
 Malachi gives to the priest the title which belongs to the 
 lowest order of the heavenly spirits, as having an office akin 
 to theirs; as Haggai does to the prophet ''', as an extraordinary 
 messenger of God; and S. Paul tells the Galatians, ^''ye received 
 me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus; and Christ, by S. John, 
 speaks to the Bishops of the seven Churches, good or bad, or 
 of mixed good and bad, as the angels ^^ o/ those Churches. 
 
 " 1^ Since in the heavenly hierarchy the order of Angels is 
 the lowest, and in the Eucharistical hierarchy the order of 
 the priesthood is the highest," " ~° most truly is the priest of 
 God called angel, i. e. messenger, because he intervenes be- 
 tween God and man, and announces the things of God to the 
 people ; and therefore were the Urim and Thummim placed 
 on the priest's breast-plate of judgement, that we might 
 learn, that the priest ought to be learned, a herald of Divine 
 truth." Much more in the New Testament. "-iWho, as it 
 were in a day, can form one of earth, to be the defender of 
 truth, to stand with angels, to give glory with Archangels, to 
 transmit the sacrifices to the altar above, to be partaker of the 
 priesthood -- of Christ, to reform the thing formed, and pre- 
 sent the image, to re-create for the world above, to be a god-^ 
 and make men partakers of t lie Divine Nature-^}" "°^The 
 priesthood is enacted on earth, but is ranked with the heavenly 
 ranks. Very rightly. For not man, not angel, not archangel, 
 not any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself hath 
 ordained this office, and persuaded them, while yet abiding 
 in the flesh, to conceive the ministry of the Angels. Where- 
 fore, he who is consecrated as priest, ought to be pure, as if 
 he stood among the heavenly powers." " -^The throne of the 
 priesthood is placed in the heavens, and he is entrusted with 
 ministering things of heaven. Who saith this? The King of 
 heaven Himself. For He saith, TVhatsoever ye shall bind on 
 earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose 
 on earth, shall he loosed in heaven. — So the priest standeth in 
 the middle between God and human nature, bringing down 
 to us Divine benefits, and transmitting thither our suppli- 
 cations." 
 
 8. But ye -'' are departed out of the way "^- of knowledge, 
 truth, equity, fear of God, which I appointed to Aaron and 
 the Levites." Ye have caused many to stumble at the law. He 
 does not simply say, in the law, but at it. The law was what 
 they stumbled at. They did not only misunderstand the law, 
 
 " Ecclus. xlv. 17. " Tit. i. 9. 15 de fide iii. c. 15. n. 128. Opp. i. 519. Ben. 
 
 16 Hagg. ii. 11. i^Gal. iv. 14. ■* Rev. i. 20. 
 
 19 Dion. 20 s. Jer. =1 S. Greg. Naz. Orat. i!. n. 73. p. 48 Ben. 
 
 " (Tvvisp^vfrovTa ^ ©eir ea6fi€yop Kai Q^OTzoi-qffovTa. 
 
 '* 2 S. Pet. i. 4. 25 s. Chrys. de Sacerdotio iii. 4. Opp. i. 382 Ben. 
 
 26 Id. in Is. vi. 1. Horn. v. 1. Opp. vi. 132. -^ cnxi, emphatic.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 607 
 
 Before 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 3'.I7. 
 
 " Neh. 13. 29. 
 
 I 1 Sam. 2. 30. 
 
 II Or, lifted 
 up the face 
 against. 
 
 \ Heb. ac- 
 cepted faces. 
 
 law ; ^ ye have corrupted the covenant of 
 Levi, saith the Loud of hosts. 
 
 9 Ther(;fore ' have I also made you con- 
 temptihle and hase before all the people, 
 accordini^ as ye have not kept my ways, 
 but II f have been partial in the law. 
 
 through the fal.sc teaching of tlic priests, as though it allowcil 
 things which in trutii were sins (altliough tiiis too) ; itself 
 was their source of stumbling. As Jesus Himself was a rock 
 of offence whereon they stumbled, because tiirough His Divine 
 holiness He was not what they expected Him to be, so con- 
 ti'ariwise the law became an offence to them through the 
 unholincss and inconsistency of the lives and ways of tiiose 
 ■»vho taught it ; much as we now hear Christianity spoken 
 against, because of the inconsistency of Christians. So 
 S. Paul saith to the Jews, ^ The name of God is hlaspliemcd 
 among the Gentiles through you, as it is tvritten ; and, for the 
 sins of Eli's sons -, men alihorred the offering of the Lord. 
 
 And have corriijitcd the covenant of Levi ; as it is said in 
 Nehemiah, ^ Thei/ have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant 
 of the priesthood anil of Levi, that covenant which was life 
 and peace *, and therefore forfeited them. 
 
 9. Therefore have I made i/ou contemptible. They had 
 said in their hearts, ^ The table of the Lord is contemptible. 
 So God would requite them "^measure for measure." Yet 
 not only so, but in their office as judges, against the repeated 
 protestations in the law, ^ Thon shall not respect the person of 
 the poor, nor honour the pei-son of the mighty, in righteousness 
 shall thou judge thy neighbour; ^ ye shall not respect persons 
 in judgement ; '^ thou shall not ivrest judgement, he says. 
 
 Ye have accepted persons in the law. You have inter- 
 preted the law differently for rich and poor, or have put it 
 in force against the poor, not against the rich. It would 
 include actual bribery; but there are many more direct 
 offences against equal justice. How differently is the like 
 offence against the eighth commandment visited tipon the 
 poor who have real temptation to it, and the rich who have 
 none, but the lust of the eyes ! 
 
 " Crows he condones, vexes the simple dove," 
 
 That contempt which they cast upon God and His law, by 
 wresting it out of respect to persons, that so they might gain 
 favour and respect from them, so honouring them more 
 than Him, and seeking to please them more than Him, will 
 He cast back on them, making them contemptible even in 
 the eyes of those, from whom they thought by that means to 
 find respect. 
 
 10. Have we not all one Father'^"? Hath not one God 
 created us f Malachi turns abruptly to another offence, in 
 which also the priests set an evil example, the capricious 
 dismissal of their Hebrew wives and taking other women in 
 their stead. Here, as before, he lays down, at the outset, a 
 general moral principle, which he applies. The one Father, 
 (it appears from the parallel), is manifestly Almighty God, 
 as the Jews said to our Lord, '^^IFe have one Father, even God. 
 
 ' Rom. ii. 21. 2 1 Sam. ii. 17. Poc. 
 
 3 Neh. xiii. 2'J. * ii. 5. ° i. 7. * Kim. 
 
 7 Lev. xix. 15. ** Deut. i. 17. '■* Ii). xvi. ID. 
 
 '" Jews (Ibn E., Tanclium, Kim. Abarb. ap. Poc.) have understood tlie one father to be 
 Jacob ; S. Cyril, to be Abraham. The parallelism is, I think, decisive against both. Al- 
 though Abraham is specially spoken of as their father, yet the appeal to that relation would 
 not hold against the marriage, condemned here, since he was the father of the descendants 
 of Isluuael as of Isaac, of the bitterest foes of Israel, the heathenish Edoniites. Ammon 
 
 10 '"Have we not all one fatlicr? "hath not ^, „VTst 
 on(!(Jod created us? whv do we deal trcach- "^■■^'■>7- 
 
 , •" .^ I • I .1 I " ICor.S.G. 
 
 erously every man aj^amst his brother, by Eph.4.(i. 
 profanini? the covenant of our fathers ? 
 
 11 ^[ .Tudah hath dealt treac^hcrously, 
 and an abomination is committed in Israel 
 
 He created thcni, not only as He did all inankiiid. liut by fbc 
 spiritual relationship with Himself, into wiiich He brought 
 them. So Isaiah spct'iks, ^^ Thus saith the Lord that created 
 thee, () .Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel. Kvcry one 
 that is railed by My Name; I have created him for My glory ; 
 I have formed him; yea I have inndc him. This peojile have 
 I firmed for Myself ; they shall shew forth My praise. And 
 from the first in Closes' song, ^^ Is not He thy Father that 
 created ^^ thee? Hath He not made thee and established thee? 
 This creation of them by God, as His people, gave them a new 
 existence, a new relation to ear'b otlicr ; so that every offence 
 against each otiu'r was a violation of tiicir relation to (jod, 
 Who had given them this unity, and was, in a nearer sense 
 than of any otiier, the <;ommon Father of all. fHiy then, the 
 prophet adds, do we deal treacherously, a man against his 
 brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers? He docs not 
 yet say, wherein this treacherous dealing consisted ; but 
 awakens them to the thought, that sin against a brother is 
 sin against God, Who made him a brother; as, and much 
 more under the Gospel, in which we are all members of one 
 mj'stical body; ^'whe?i ye sin so against the brethren, and wound 
 their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. He speaks of the 
 sin, as affecting those who did not commit it. Why do tve 
 deal treacherously? So Isaiah, before his lips were cleansed 
 by the mystical coal, said, ^^ / am a man of unclean li/is, and 
 I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and the liigh- 
 priest Joshua was shewn in the vision, clothed with defiled 
 garments^^; and the sin of Achan became the sin of the children 
 of Israel ^^, and David's sinful pride in numbering the people 
 was visited upon alP". He teaches beforehand, that, -"whether 
 one tneniber suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member 
 be honoured, all the members rejoice with if. They profaned 
 also the covenant of their fathers, by marrying those wiiom 
 God forbade, and who would seduce, as heathen wives had 
 Solomon, from His worship. S. Paul in sanctioning the re- 
 marriage of widows, adds, o)ily^^ in the Z,on/, i.e. Christian 
 husbands. ""-He who treated as null the difference between 
 the Israelites and a heathen woman, shewed that the dif- 
 ference between the God of Israel and the God of the hea- 
 then had before become null to him, whence it follows ; 
 
 11. Treacherously has Judiih dealt ;'' an abomination is 
 coinmitted in Israel. The prophet, by the order of the words, 
 emphasises the treachery and the abomination. This have 
 they done ; the very contrary to what was required of them 
 as the people of God. He calls the remnant of Judah by 
 the sacred name of the whole people, of whom they were 
 the surviving representatives. The word "abomination^" 
 is a word belonging to the Hebrew, and is used especially 
 of things offensive to, or separating from. Almighty God; 
 
 and Moab, inveterate persecutors of Israel, were his near kindred. Ammonitesses and 
 Moabitesses were as much forbidden by Ezra (ix. 2) as women of the different nations of 
 Canaan, Ashdod or Eg}'pt. 
 
 " S. John viii'. 41. 1- Is. xUii. 1. 7. 21. add xliv. 2, 21, 24. 
 
 '■'' Deut. xxxii. G. " -pp T^st '^ 1 Cor. viii. 12. 
 
 16 Is. vi. 5. ■' Zech. iii. 3, 4. See ab. pp. 523, 524. '* Josh. ra. 1, 11. 
 
 >9 2 Sam. xxiv. a> 1 Cor. xii. 26. 
 
 2' lb. vii. 33. -- Hengst. Christ, iii. 595. ^ .Taym 
 
 R 
 
 R R R 2
 
 008 
 
 MALAcnn. 
 
 ch^rTst ^"^^ *'" •T<'i*>isf»lom ; for .liulnli lialh ])rofiinod 
 
 cir. 397. ^]^^, |i,,li|i('ss <)f tllC JjOIll) U ll'lfll ll(! \\ IoVIhI, 
 
 "and hath married tlie (hiughter of a strange 
 god. 
 
 12 The Lord will cut off the man that 
 doeth this, || the master and the scholar, 
 out of the tabernacles of Jacob, p and him 
 that offereth an oft'ering unto the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 13 And this have ye done again, cover- 
 
 II Or, ought 
 
 to love. 
 ° Ezra 9.1. 
 
 & 1(1.2. 
 
 Neh. 13. 23. 
 II Or, him 
 
 that wnheth, 
 
 anil him 
 
 that an- 
 
 swi'reth. 
 P Neh. 13. 
 
 28, 29. 
 
 idolatry, as the central dereliction of God, and involving!; 
 offences aiijainst the laws of nature, but also all other sins, as 
 adultery, which violate His most sacred laws and alienate 
 from Him. 
 
 Hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which He lorded, 
 in tliemselves, who had been separated and set apart by God 
 to riimselt" as a ^ Itoli/ tuition. "Israel was holiness to the Lord. 
 "^ The Lord is holy, perfect holiness; His name, holy; all 
 thing's relatina; to Him. holy; His law, covenant and all His 
 ordinances and institutions holy; Israel', His peculiar people, 
 an Iioly people; the temple and all things therein consecrated 
 to Him, holy; Jerusalem, the city of the great God, holy; 
 yea, the whole land of His inheritance, holy ; so that whoso- 
 ever doth not observe those due respects which to any of 
 these belong, may be said to h&ye profaned the holiness which 
 He loved:' 
 
 Unlawful marriages and unlawful lusts were in themselves 
 a special profanation of that holiness. The high priest was 
 to *take a virgin of his oivn people to wife, and not to profane 
 his seed among the people. The priests who married strange 
 wives, defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood^. 
 The marriage with idolatresses brought, as one consequence, 
 the profanation by their idolatries. Tlie prohibition is an 
 anticipation of the fuller revelation in the Gospel, that ''the 
 body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and so, that sins against 
 the hodii are profanations of the temple of God; "^ As those 
 who acknowledge, worship and serve the true God are called 
 His ''sons and daughters, so they tliat worshipped any strange 
 god are, by like reason, here called the daughters of that god. 
 Hence the Jews say, '^ He that niarrieth a heathen woman is, 
 as if he made himself son-in-law to an idol.'" 
 
 Hath married the daughter of a strange god. And so he 
 came into closest relation with idols and with devils. 
 
 12. The Lord will act off the man that doeth this, the master 
 and the scholar, lit. The Lord cat off' from the man that doeth 
 this, watcher''' and answerer. A proverbial saying apparently, 
 in which the two corresponding classes comprise the whole ^''. 
 Yet so, probably, that the one is the active agent ; the other, 
 the passive. The one as a watcher goes his rounds, to see 
 that nothing stirreth against that which he is to guard; the 
 other answereth, when roused. Together, they express the 
 two opposite classes, active and passive sin ; those who ori- 
 ginate the sin, and those who adopt or retain it at the insti- 
 gation of the inventor or active propagator of it. It will not 
 exempt from punishment, that he was led into the sin. 
 
 From the tabernacles of Jacob. Perhaps " he chose the 
 
 1 Ex. xix. 6. 
 •" Lev. .xxi. 14, 1.5. 
 7 Deut. xxxii. 10, 2 Cor. vi. IR 
 
 " Not " the awakener," as if -\-j were active : for iiy is always intransitive, except in 
 con'ection of the text, Job xli. 2. In Cliald. Ty is " a watcher." Dan. iv. 10, 14. 
 
 ■ Jer. ii. 3. ' Poc. 
 
 5 Neh. xiii. 29. ^ « 1 Cor. vi. 15—20. 
 
 ^ Maim, in Issurebiah, c. 12. § 1. Poc. 
 
 the 
 
 ing the altar of the Lord with tears, with cifiiTsT 
 
 weeping, and M'ith crying out, insomuch "''"• ''''■^- — 
 
 tiiat he regarileth not tlie offering any more, 
 or receiveth it with good will at your hand. 
 14 *\ Yet ye say. Wherefore ? Because 
 the Lord hath been witness between thee 
 and ''the wife of thy youth, against whom 'Pro'-^.is. 
 thou hast dealt treacherously: 'yet ?> she 'i'rov.2. 17. 
 thy companion, and the wife of thy cove- 
 nant. 
 
 word, to remind them of their unsettled condition," out of 
 which God had brought them. 
 
 yind him that offereth an offering nnto the Lord of hosts ; 
 i.e. him, who, doing tliese things, offereth an offering to God, 
 to bribe Him, as it were, to connivance at his sin. In the 
 same meaning, Isaiah says, that God hateth ^^ iniijiiiti/ and the 
 soletnn meeting, and, ^'^ I hate robbery with burnt-offering ; or 
 Solomon, ^^ The sacrifice of the wicked is an abominatioti to 
 the Lord; ^^ he that tiirneth away his ear from liearing the law, 
 his praj/cr shall be an abomination. And God by Amos says, 
 "^^ I hate, I despise, your feast-days, and icill not accept your 
 solemn assemblies. In one sense the sacrifice was an aggra- 
 vation, in that the worship of God made the offence either a 
 sin against light, or implied that God might be bribed into 
 connivance in the breaking of His laws. The ancient dis- 
 cipline of removing from Communion those guilty of grievous 
 sin was founded on this principle. 
 
 13. A)td this ye have done again, adding the second sin 
 of cruelty to their wives to the taking foreign women; they 
 covered the altar of God with tears, in that they by ill-treat- 
 ment occasioned their wives to M'eep there to God ; and God 
 regarded this, as though they had stained the altar with their 
 tears. 
 
 Insomuch that He regardeth not the offering any more. 
 God regarded the tears of the oppressed, not the sacrifices of 
 the oppressors. He would not accept what was thus offered 
 Him as a thing well-pleasing ^'^ to Him, ac(;eptable to win His 
 good pleasure. 
 
 14. And ye say. Wherefore f They again act the inno- 
 cent, or half-ignorant. What had they to do with their wives' 
 womanly tears ? He Who knows the hearts of all was Him- 
 self the witness between them and the wife of youth of each ; 
 her to whom, in the first freshness of life and their young 
 hearts, each had plighted his troth, having been entrusted 
 by her with her earthly all. ^^ Tlie Lord, said even Laban, 
 when parting from his daughters, watch betiveen me and 
 thee, U'hen lue are absent, the one frcjm the other ; if thou shall 
 (tfflict my daughters, or if thou shall take wives beside my 
 daughters, no man is ivith us ; see, God is witness between me 
 and thee. 
 
 And he dealt treacherously against her, violating his own 
 faith and her trusting love, whicli she had given once for all, 
 and could not now retract. And she is thy companioji ; she 
 has been another self, the companion of thy life, sharing thy 
 sorrows, joys, hopes, fears, interests ; different in strength, 
 yet in all, good and ill, sickness and health, thy associate and 
 
 '" Dietricli, Abhandll. zur Hebr. Gram. p. 201 sqq., has instances from the Arabic, but 
 not so energetic as those in the O.T., except when they are the same. ** Is. i. 13, 
 
 '- lb. Ixi. 8. " Prov. XV. 8. » lb. xxviii. 9. 
 
 '^ See above, p. 198 on Am. v. 21. 
 " pn '? Gen. xxxi. 49, 50.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 009 
 
 15 And 'did not he make ono ? Y(!t had 
 
 And whcro 
 
 Bcfore 
 C H il I S T 
 
 "''•■ •''• 7' he the || residue of the spirit, 
 lior, ' ''fore one? That he mi<^ht seed f ai^odly 
 '■■"'■ ''"""' seed. Therefore take lieed to your spirit, 
 and let none (h'al 
 
 t Ileb. n 
 
 seeil of God. 
 • Ezra i). 2. 
 
 1 Cor. 7. It, 
 II Or, u„- 
 
 failhfulUl. 
 
 " Dent. 21. 1. 
 
 Matt. 5. 32. 
 
 & 19. 8. 
 
 treacherously against 
 the wife of his youth. 
 
 10 For "the Loiin, the God of Israel, 
 saith II tliat he hateth f puttinsi; away : for 
 
 I Or, if he hate lier,;)H/ her awnif. 
 
 I iiel). to put aivay. 
 
 companion ; the help meet for the husband and provided for 
 him by God in Paradise; and above all, tlie wife of thtj cove- 
 nant, to whom tboii didst pledi^e thyself before God. These 
 are so many ajj^ravations of their shi. She was the wife of 
 their youth, of their covenant, their companion ; and God 
 was the witness and Sanctifier of their union. Marriag'e was 
 instituted and consecrated by God in Paradise. Man was to 
 leave fatlier and mother (if so be), but to cleave to his wife 
 indissolul)ly. For they were to be ^ no more twain, but one 
 flesh. Hence, as a remnant of Paradise, even the heathen 
 knew of marriage, as a religious act, guarded by religious 
 sanctions. Among God's people, marriage was a - covenant of 
 their God. To that original institution of marriage he seems 
 to refer in the following ; 
 
 15. And did not He, God, of Whom he had spoken as 
 the witness between man and his wife, make one, viz. Adam 
 first, to mark the oneness of marriage and make it a law of 
 nature, a|)pointing "that out of man (created in His own 
 image and similitude,) woman should take her beginning, and, 
 knitting them together, did teach that it should never be law- 
 ful to put asunder those, whom He by matrimony had made 
 one^?" "* Betiveen those two, and consequently between all 
 other married, to be born from them, He willed that there 
 should be one indivisible union ; for Adam could be married 
 to no other save Eve, since no otlier had been created by God, 
 Tior could Eve turn to any other man than Adam, since there 
 was no other in the woi"ld. 'Infringe not then this sanction 
 of God, and unity of marriage, and degenerate not from your 
 first parents, Adam and Eve.' " " ' If divorce had been good, 
 Jesus says, God would not have made one man and one woman, 
 but, having made one Adam, would have made two women, 
 had He meant that he should cast out the one, bring in the 
 other ; but now by the mode of creation. He brought in this 
 law, that each should have, throughout, the wife which he had 
 fi'om the beginning. This law is older than that about di- 
 vorce, as much as Adam is older than Moses." 
 
 Yet had he the residue of the spirit; ''the breath of life, 
 which He breathed into Adam, and man became a living soul. 
 All the souls, which God would ever create, are His, and He 
 could have called them into being at once. Yet in order to 
 designate the unity of marriage. He willed to create but one. 
 
 ' S. Matt. xix. 6. - Prov. ii. 17. ' Marriage Service. * Lap. 
 
 ° S. Chrys. de libello repud. n 2. Opp. iii. 2S. Ben. Rib. 
 6 Gen. ii. 7. ^ S. Matt. xix. t-ti. ^Gm. i. 27. 
 
 5 The D3,in, " your spirit," manifestly refers back to " the residue of the spirit,' nn tne" 
 wliich, he says, was God's. 
 
 1" The E. M. " //'/((^ hate her, pwi her ««'«;/," (which follows Jon.) seems to enjoin 
 what Malachi reproves these for, their cruelty to their vrives, as also it gives an imbounded 
 license of divorce. 
 
 " im nny Deut. xxiv. 1, used of disgusting foulness in the chapter before, xxiii. 15. 
 '- Things spoken of as objects of God's hatred, are. "a proud look, a lying tongue, hands 
 that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in 
 running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among 
 brethren," Prov. vi. 16 — 19 ; " pride, arrogancy, the evil way, and the froward mouth," 
 lb. viii. l.'i ; idolatry, De. xvi. 22, Jer. xiiv. 4, " robbery with burnt-olfering," Is. Ixi. 8 ; 
 heathen abominations, Deut. xii. 31 ; worship with sin, Am. v. 21, Is. i. 14. 
 
 oni' eoveretli violence with his c;<'irment, ^ ifiiTs t 
 saith tile Lord of hosts: therefore t:ike cir..'i97. 
 h(M'd to your spirit, that ye deal not 
 treaclierously. 
 
 17 11 " Ve have wearied the Lord with « isai. «. 21. 
 
 1 Ar i iT^i • I Amos 2. 13. 
 
 your words. Yet ye say, U herein have we ch.3. 13, 14, 
 wearied him ? AV'hen ye say. Every one 
 that docth evil is good in the sight of the 
 
 So our Lord argues against divorce, ^ Have ye not read, that 
 He which made them at the beginning, made them mate a?id 
 foliate? They both together are called one ?nan'^, and tliei-e- 
 fore should be of one mind and spirit also, the unity of which 
 they ought faithfully to preserve. 
 
 And wherefore one ? Seeking a seed of God. i.e. worthy 
 of God; for from religious marriage, religious offspring may 
 most be hoped from God; and by viidating that law, those 
 before the Hood brought in a spurious, unsanctificd genera- 
 tion, so that God in His displeasure destroyed them all. Ami 
 take heed to your sfiirit °, which ye too had from God, wliich 
 was His, and wliich He willed in time to create. He closes, 
 as he began, with an appeal to man's natural feeling, let none 
 deal treacherously against the ivife of his youth. 
 
 16. He hateth putting aivay^^\ He had allowed \t for the 
 hardness of their hearts, yet only in the one case of some ex- 
 treme bodily foulness", discovered upon marri;ige. and which 
 the woman, knowing the law, concealed at her own peril. 
 Not subsequent illness or any consequences of it, lio«ever 
 loathsome (as leprosy), were a ground of divorce, but only 
 this concealed foulness, which the husband fot/nd upon mar- 
 riage. The capricious tyrannical divorce, God saith. He 
 hateth : a word'- naturally used only as to sin, and so stamp- 
 ing such divorce as sin. 
 
 One covereth violence with his garment^^, or, and violence 
 covereth his garment^*, or, it might be, in the same sense, he 
 covereth his garment with violence^'', so that it cannot be hid, 
 nor washed away, nor removed, but envelopes him and his 
 garment ; and that, to his shame and punishment. It was, as 
 it were, an outer garment of violence, as Asaph says, ^'''violence 
 covereth them as a garment; or David, ^^ he clothed him.ielf 
 with cursing as with a garment. It was like a garment with 
 fretting leprosy, unclean and making unclean, to be burned 
 with fire'*. Contrariwise, the redeemed saints had ^''washed 
 their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. 
 Having declared God's hatred of this their doing, he sums up 
 in the same words, but more briefly; and this being so, ^e 
 shall take heed to your spirit, and not deal treacherously. 
 
 17. Ye have ivearied the Lord with your n-ords. """By 
 your blasphemous words, full of unbelief and mistrust, you 
 have in a manner wearied God. He speaks of God, after the 
 
 13 No Jewish- Arabic writer notices the meaning, which Pococke suggested, and Gesenius. 
 Ftirst, Ewald follow; as if cnn'? signified " wife," because in the Koran cich is used, 
 not directly for ' husband' or " wife," but in its original sense, * ' covering," of each reciprocally, 
 pn"? D,v37 cnJNi cdS dn37 3,i) " they (your wives) are a garment to you, and you are a garment 
 to them." So Abimelech said to Sarah, " he [Abraham] is to thee a covering (niCD) of the 
 eifps, unto all which are with thee, ( Gen. xx. 16). But DS2S does not sigiiity', either husband 
 or wife. In Arabic, rhn and INlx loose dresses, (See Lane Arab. Lex. p. 53, 621) are 
 used metaph. of a wife ; (iNix also of a person's self or family as well). But there is no trace 
 of this in I^eb. 
 
 '■• According to the constr., Nu. xvi. 33, Liev. iv. 8, Job xxi. 26, where the thing covering 
 is the nominative and Sy is put before the thing covered. So Vulg. and LXX. originally, 
 as shewn by the Arabic transl., though now the LXX. has eVeu^TJ/iara for evSv/iara. (l)e 
 Dieu) '» In Ez. xxiv. 7. Job xxxri. 32, the tiling covering is in the 
 
 ace, with 7y of tiling covered. i* ps Lxxiji_ g_ i? lb. cix. 18. 
 
 '8 Lev. xiii. 47—58. " Rev. vii. 14. » Dion.
 
 610 
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 CH^'^TsT I-'ORr>5 f'^"'! ''<^ (leliirhtoth in them; or, Where 
 ""•• '^^- is the God of judgment? 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1 0/ the messenger, majesli/ and grace of Christ. 
 7 Of the rebellion, 8 sacrilege, 1 3 a7id injidelity 
 
 manner of men, as a man afflicted by the ills of others. 
 Whence also the Lord says in Isaiah, ^ I am weari/ to bear 
 them, and " than hast made Me to serve with thij sins ; than 
 hast wearied 3Ie with thine iniquities. In like way the Apostle 
 says, ^ Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." 
 
 With the same contumacy as before, and unconsciousness 
 of sin, they ask, fVherein f It is the old temptation at the 
 prosperity of the wicked. "Does God love the wicked? if not, 
 why docs He not punish thcni?" " 'The people, when returned 
 from Babylon, sceini;- all the nations around, and the Baby- 
 lonians themselves, serving;; idols but aboundin*;; in wealth, 
 strong in body, possessinj"; all which is accounted sood in this 
 world, and themselves, who had the knowledge of God, over- 
 whelmed with want, hunger, servitude, is scandalised and 
 says, 'There is no providence in human things; all things 
 are borne along by blind chance, and not governed by the 
 judgement of God ; nay rather, things evil please Him, things 
 good displease Him ; or if God does discriminate all things, 
 where is His equitable and just judgement ?' Questions of 
 this sort minds, which believe not in the world to come, daily 
 raise to God, when they see the wicked in power, the saints 
 in low estate; such as Lazarus, whom we read of in the Gospel, 
 who, before the gate of the rich man in his purple, desires to 
 support his hungry soul with the crumbs which are thrown 
 away from the remnants of the table, while the rich man is of 
 such savagery and cruelty, that he had no pity on his fellow- 
 man, to whom the tongues of the dogs shewed pity ; not 
 \mderstanding the time of judgement, nor that those are the 
 true goods, which are for ever, say, He is pleased with the 
 evil, and. Where is the God of judgement ?" 
 
 Where is the God of the judgement f "= i. e. of that judge- 
 ment, the great, most certain, most exact, clearsighted, omni- 
 scient, most just, most free, wherein He regards neither 
 powerful nor rich nor gifts, nor aught but justice ? For He is 
 the God of the judgement, to Whom it belongs by nature to 
 judge all men and things by an exact judgement : for His 
 nature is equity itself, justice itself, providence itself, and 
 that, most just, most wise.— To Him it belongs to be the 
 Judge of all, and to exercise strict judgement upon all; and 
 He will exercise it fully on that decisive and last day of the 
 world, which shall be the horizon between this life and the 
 next, parting otf time from eternity, heaven from hell, the 
 blessed from the damned for ever, through Christ, Whom He 
 constituted Judge of all, quick and dead." 
 
 III. 1. God answers their complaints of the absence of His 
 judgements, that they would come, but would include those 
 also who clamoured for them. For no one who knew his 
 own sinfulness would call for the judgement of God, as being 
 himself, chief if sinners. S. Augustine pictures one saying to 
 God, " Take away the ungodly man," and that God answers, 
 " Which ? " 
 
 1 Is. i. 14. 2 lb. xlm. 24. 
 
 3 Eph. iv.30. ■< .S. Jer. * Lap. 
 
 « jn n39 had been used only by Isaiah, xl. 3. Ivii. 14, Lxii. 10, althougli r\-:th n;s, abs., 
 had been used Ps. Ixxx. 10. 7 Is. xl. 3. ' S. Luke i. 76. 
 
 ' Lap. 1" S.John vi. 57. " lb. vii. 16. 
 
 '2 lb. iii. 11, V. 43, viii. .'JS, 40, 47, r>5, xii. 49, xiv. 10, 24. 
 13 lb. iv. 34, V. 19, 20, 20, 30, 30, vi. 38, viii. 28, ix. 4, x. 25, 32, 37, 38, xiv. 10, 11. 
 
 of the people. IG The promise of blessing to them , Before 
 that J ear (jod, dr. :i97. 
 
 B 
 
 EHOrJ>, "I will send my messenger, .Matt, ii.io. 
 and he shall ''prepare the way before Luke i.' 70. 
 ine : and the Lord, whom ye seek, shallb^i..40.'3. 
 
 Behold, I send My messenger before My face, and he shall 
 prepare ]\Iy way before Me. They, then, were not prepared 
 for His Coming, for Whom they clamoured. The messenger 
 is the same whom Isaiah had foretold, whose words Malachi 
 uses *■ ; '' The voice of one crying in the icildcrness. Prepare ye 
 the ivay of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high-way 
 for our God. * Thou, child, was the prophecy on S. John 
 Baptist's birth, shall be culled the prophet of the Highest ; for 
 thou shall go before the face of the Lord to jtrepare His way, 
 to give latowledge of salvation unto His people, for the remis- 
 sion of their sins. Repentance was to be the preparation for 
 the kingdom of Christ, the Messiah, for Whom they looked 
 so impatiently. 
 
 He Who speaks, is He Who should come, God the Son. For 
 it was before Him Who came and dwelt among us, that the 
 way was to be prepared. He speaks here in His Divine 
 Nature, as the Lord Who should send, and VV^ho should Him- 
 self come in our flesh. In the Gospel, when He zuas come in 
 the flesh. He speaks not of His own Person but of the Father, 
 since '"indivisible are the operations of the Trinity, and 
 what the One doth, the other Two do, since the Three are of 
 one nature power and operation." Whence Christ, in order 
 to give no excuse to the Jews to speak against Him before 
 the time, refers it, as He does His life '°, His doctrine ^^, words '- 
 and works ^^ to the Father. 
 
 "^' Those works, which do not relate to that which be- 
 longs peculiarly to each Person, being common, are ascribed 
 now to One Person, now to Another, in order to set forth the 
 One Substance in the Trinity of Persons." Thus, S. John 
 says^', Isaiah spoke of the unbelief of the Jews, when he saw 
 the glory of God the Son and spake of Him, and S. Paul says ^^ 
 that the Holy Ghost spake then by him. 
 
 ^nd he shall prepare the way before Me. " ^'^ The same is 
 God's way here, and Christ's there, an evident proof that 
 Christ is one God with the Father, and that, in Christ, God 
 came and was manifest in the flesh." The prophets and all 
 who turned men to righteousness, or who retained the know- 
 ledge of the truth or of righteousness or of God in the world, 
 did, in their degree, prepare the way for Christ. But John 
 was His immediate forerunner before His Face, the herald of 
 His immediate approach; whence he is called "^^the end of 
 the law, and the beginning of the Gospel," "i^the lamp before 
 the Light, the voice before the Word, the mediator between 
 the Old and the New Testament;" "-"the link of the law 
 and of grace ; a new morning star; a ray, before the true 
 Sun should burst forth," the end of night, the beginning 
 of day. 
 
 ^nd the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His 
 temple. He, Whose Coming they sought for, was Almighty 
 God, the God of Judgement ~^. He Who should come, was the 
 Lord, again Almighty God, since, in usage too, none else is 
 
 " Rib. 15 S. John xii. 41. l« Acts xxviii. 25. '' Poc. 
 
 18 S. Thorn. 3 p. q. 38. art. 1. ad 2. See Tert. in Marc. iv. 33. pp. 317, 318. Edinb. Tr. 
 
 " S. Greg. Naz. Drat. 21. n. 3 p. 387 Ben. 
 
 2" S. Chrysol. Semi. 21. BiW. I'atr. vii. 917. 
 
 -1 Rashi, "The God of judgement." Ibn Ezra says, "This is the glory ; this is the messenger 
 
 of the coveiunii; lor the sense is doubled." Abarbanel. " Haadon is the Name which is glori- 
 
 tied, who will then come to His temple, the house of His sanctuary, and His glorious name
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Gil 
 
 ctfuTsT suddenly conic to his temple, "^ even tlie 
 
 '''*•■ ■'"^- mcssenj^er of the covenant, whom ye <le- 
 
 ^ ilag.iV^.' light in : heliohl, ^ he shall come, saith the 
 
 ciiWcd " the Lord ^," as none else can be. The temple also, 
 to which He was to come, the temple of God, is His own. 
 The ine.ssei/i>e)% or the yiiigel of the covenant, plainly, even 
 from the parallelism, is the same as the Lonl. It was o/ie, 
 for whom they looked ; one, of whose absence they com- 
 plained; "where is the God of Judgement f one, who slnnihl 
 come to His temple^; one, whose cominj^ they sonj;ht and 
 prepared to have pleasure in*; one, of whom it is repeated, 
 /o, Jfe cojneth ^ ; one, in the day of whose comine;', at whose 
 appearing:, it was asked, who sha/l stand? '"'All Christian 
 interpreters are agreed that this Lord is Christ, "^ JFho)n God 
 hath made both Lord and Christ, and ^JFho is Lord over all ; by 
 Whom all things were made, are snstained and governed; 
 Who is (as the root of the word ^ imports) the basis and 
 foundation, not of any private family, tribe or kingdom, but 
 of all ; ^^ by Whom are all fhi?igs and lue by Hi?n: and Whose 
 we are also by right of redemption ; and so He is ^^ Lord 
 of lords and King of hings, deservedly called the Lord." As 
 then the special presence of God was often indicated in con- 
 nection with the yingel of the Lord, so, here. He Who was to 
 come was entitled the Angel or messenger of the covenant, as 
 God also calls Him the covenant itself, ^"^ I ivill give Thee for 
 a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles. He it was, 
 ^^ the Angel of His Presence, Who saved His former people, in 
 Whom His Name tuas, and Who, by the prerogative of God, 
 would ^* not pardon their transgressions. He should be ^"the 
 3Iediator of the new and better covenant which is promised ; 
 ^^7iot according to the covenant, that I made ivith their fathers, 
 in the dap when I took them by the hand to lead them out 
 of the land of Egypt, which 3Iy covenant they brake, although 
 I was a husband unto them, sailh the Lord ; but this shall be 
 the covenant, that I icill make with the house of Israel after 
 those days, saith the Lord, I will put 3Iy law in their inward 
 parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and 
 they shall be My people. 
 
 Whom ye seek, are seeking, Whom ye delight in, i.e. pro- 
 fess so to do ; He tvill come, but will be very different from 
 Him whom ye look for, an Avenger on your enemies. Judge- 
 ment will come, but it will begin with yourselves. 
 
 Shall suddenly come, "^unawares, when men should not 
 think of them ; whence perhaps it is that the Jews reckon tlie 
 Messiah among what shall come imaivares^'' . As, it is here 
 said of His first Coming, so it is said of His second Coming, 
 (which may be comprehended under this here spoken of) that 
 except they diligently watch for it, ^^ it shall come upon them 
 
 and His Shechinah shall dwell there ; and this is ivhat they soup;ht in their murmiuings." 
 In the *' Mashniia' yeshu' ah," " lie says, " Haadon may be explamed of the king Messiah." 
 Kimchi also gives it as his first explanation ; " Haadon, he is the king Messiah, and lie is 
 the angel of the covenant; " but he gives an alternative explanation, " or he calls Elijali the 
 messenger of the covenant." Saadiah Gaon admits the ' Me,' before whom the messenger 
 is sent, to be the Messiah b. David. *'The forenmner of the Messiah b. David will be like 
 his embassador, and as one who prepareth the people, and cleareth the way, as in what is 
 said. Behold I send &c." Sepher Haemunoth Tr. 8 de redemptione, (quoted by Voisin on 
 the P. F. f. 127.) The author of the older Nizzachon (whetherseriously or to have something 
 to say) said, " He is sent and is not God." Wagenseilp. 126. Tanchuni says, "they are pro- 
 mised a time, in which transgressors will be requited with a swift retribution by the just 
 king whom God ivill raise up to tlie rule, and he is the king Messiah." 
 
 The Jews are agreed also that the messenger is no ordinary person. Ibn Ezra supposes 
 him to be the Messiah b. Joseph, holding accordingly that he, before whose face he should 
 come, was the Messiah ben David : Kimchi, that it was an angel from heaven (as in Ex. xxiii. 
 20.) to guard them in the way. But to guard in the way is not to prepare the way before 
 him ; Rashi and the author of the Abkath rochel, " the angel of deatli who should clear 
 away the mcked ; " Abarbanel, that it was Malachi himself; but he who is promised through 
 Malachi, was yet to come. 
 
 Lord of hosts. ch^rTst 
 
 2 Uiit who may abide nhe day of his "'"■ •^'■>'^- 
 coming? and 'who shall stand when he J^v^oli;. 
 
 unawares, "^^ suddenly, ^ in such an hour as thei/ think not. 
 "^'The Lord of glory always comes, like a thief in the night, 
 to those who sleep in tiieir sins." 
 
 Lo, He will come : he insists again and calls their minds 
 to that Coming, certain, swift, new, wonderful, on which all 
 eyes should be set, but His Coming would he a sifting-time. 
 
 2. And who may abide the day of His coming? And ivho 
 shall stand when He appeareth? The implied answer is, "No 
 one;" as in the Psalm, - // Thou, Lord, wilt mark iniquities, 
 Lord, who shall sland? Joel had asked the same, "^ The 
 'I"!/ of the Lord is great and very terrible ; and icho can abide 
 it? ""^Ilowcan the weakness of man endure such might; 
 his blindness, such light; bis frailty, such power; his undean- 
 ness, such holiness; the chaff, sucii a fii'c? For He is like a 
 refiner's fire. Who would not fail through stupefaction, fear, 
 horror, shrinking reverence, from sucii majesty?" 
 
 Malachi seems to blend, as Joel, the first and second 
 coming of our Lord. The first Coming too was a time of 
 sifting and severance, according as those, to whom He came, 
 did or did not receive Him. The severance was not final, 
 because there M^as yet space for repentance ; but it was real, 
 an earnest of the final judgement. -^ For judgement, our Lfjrd 
 says, / am come into this world, that they which see tiot may 
 see, and they which see might he made blind ; and again, -''Xow 
 is the judgonent of this world ; and, "'He that believeth not is 
 condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name 
 of the Only-Begotten Son of God ; "^ He that believeth not the 
 So7i, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abidcth on him. 
 As, on the other hand, He saith, "^ whoso eateth My Flesh 
 and drinketh 3Iy Blood hath eternal life ; and ^^ he that believ- 
 eth on the Son hath everlasting life; " hath," He saith ; not, 
 " shall have ;" hath it, in present reality and earnest, though 
 he may forfeit it: so the other class is condemned already, 
 although the one may repent and be saved, the other may 
 ^^ turn from his righteousness and co7nmit iniquity ; and if he 
 persevere in it, shall die therein. It is then one ever-present 
 judgement. Every soul of man is in a state of grace or out 
 of it; in God's favour or under His wrath; and the judge- 
 ment of the Great Day, in which the secrets of men's hearts 
 shall be revealed, will be but an outward manifestation of 
 that now hidden judgement. But the words, in their fullest 
 sense, imply a passing of that judgement, in which men do or 
 do not stand, as in those of our Lord, ^"As a snare shall that day 
 come on all those that dwell on the face of the whole earth. 
 Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted 
 
 1 \nxr\ Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 2-3, Is. i. 21, iii, 1, x. 16, 3-3, xxix. 4. [all, besides this place] 
 - ii. 17. 2 1^3'n hx N12'. iii. 1. 
 
 * CE'pnD, D'i'Bn. lb. s K3 r.yn 
 
 15 Poc. ' Acts ii. 36. « lb. x. 36. 
 
 ' Poc, (as Abulwalid, Menahem, Parchon, Kimchi) derives piK from pn. 
 i« 1 Cor. viii. 6. " Rev. sm. 14,xix. 16. 
 
 '2 Is. xlii. 6. 13 lb. bciii. 9. » Ex. xxiii. 21. 
 
 15 Heb. xii. 24, viii. 6. i« Jer. xxxi. 32, 33, Heb. viii. 9. 
 
 1? " Bust. Lex. Ch. et Talm. v. ra: " Poc. 
 19 S. Luke xxi. .35. is S. Mark xiii. 36. ^ s. Matt. xriv. 44. 
 
 -1 Schniieder. ^ Ps. cxxx. 3. 
 
 -^ Jo. ii. 11, uS'3' "CI ; Jer. x. 10, " The natlms shall not abide (I'j:;) Tits indication. 
 Vulg. has, cogitare, i. e. who shall comprehend ? But ^2^2. in this sen.se. is used of actual 
 containing, the heaven of heavens cannot contain the Infinite God, (1 Kgs \Tii. 27, 2 Chr. 
 ii. 5, [G Eng.] vi. IS.) not of intellectually comprehending. -* Lap. 
 
 M S. John ix. 39. -' lb. xii. 31. =7 lb. iii. 18. 
 
 =5 lb. 36. =3 lb. vi. 54. ^ lb. 47. 3i Ezek. xxxiii. 18. 
 
 32 S. Luke xxi. 35, 36.
 
 612 
 
 MALACHI. 
 
 cifiiTsT <il>I>t'»>'«'t'' ? f""' °'"' '* 1^1^*^ ^ refiner's fire, 
 
 '=''•■ ■''^^- and like fullers' sope : 
 
 ' ultLstio, 3 And '' he shuU sit as a refiner and 
 i- isai! 1. 2->. purifier of silver: and he shall purify the 
 
 zedi.13.9. g^jjj, ^j. Lgyj^ ji^j^jj purge them as gold and 
 
 worl/ii/ to escape all tliese things which shall come to pass, and 
 to stand he/ore the Son of Man; uud S. Paul, ' Take nnto you 
 the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to ivithstand in 
 the evil day, and, having done all, to stand ; and in the Reve- 
 lation, " Tiwy said to the inoicnlains and rocks; Fall on us, 
 U)id hide us from the wrath of llim that sit let h npon the throne, 
 and from the wrath of the J^amb. For the great day of His 
 wrath is come, and ivho shall he able to stand? Asaph says 
 of a teniporaJ, yet, for this life, final destruction ; '■''At Thy 
 rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast 
 into a deep sleep. Thou art to be feared, and who may stand 
 in Thy sight, ichen Thou art angry ? 
 
 For He is like a rc/incr's fire, and like fuller'' s soap. Two 
 sorts of materials for eleansiiiii; arc mentioned, the one severe, 
 where the baser materials are inworkcd with the rich ore; 
 the other mild, where the defilement is easily separable. 
 " *He shall come like a refining fire ; ^ ajire shall burn before 
 Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. Then 
 He shall call the heaven from above, and the earth, that He 
 may judge His people ; streams of fire shall sweep before, 
 bearing away all sinners. For the Lord is called a fire, and 
 a " consuming fire, so as to burn our '^ wood, hay, stubble. And 
 not fire only, but fuller's soap^. To those who sin heavily, He 
 is a refining and consuming fire, but to those who commit light 
 sins, fuller's soa/i, to restore (^leanness to it, when washed." 
 Yet, though light in comparison, tiiis too had its severity; 
 for clothes which were washed (of which the word is used) 
 were trampled ' on by the feet. '• "^The nitrum and thefuller's 
 soap is penitence." Yet tiie wliiteness and purity so restored, 
 is, at the last, perfected. Inspiration could find no more 
 adequate comparison for us, for the briglitness of our Lord's 
 raiment from the glory of the Transfiguration, than, ^^f.tTe«/- 
 ing while as snow; so as no fuller on earth can zvhite them. 
 
 Our Lord is, in many ways, as a fire. He says of Himself; 
 '" I am come to send a fire upon earth, and luhat will I, if it be 
 already kindled? S. John Baptist said of Him, ^'^ He shall 
 baptise you with tlie Holy Ghost and with fire. He kindles in 
 the heart " a tire of love," which softens what is hard, will 
 "^'Wash wbate'er of stain is here, 
 
 Sprinkle wiiat is dry or sere, 
 Heal and bind the wounded sprite; 
 
 Bend whate'er is stubl)orn still, 
 
 Kindle what is cold and chill, 
 
 What hath wandered guide aright." 
 
 1 Eph. vi. 13. ■ Rev. vi. 10, I". 
 
 3 Ps. btxvi. 0, 7. * S. Jer. ' Vs. 1. 3, 4. 
 
 6 Dent. iv. 24. M Cor. iii. 12. 
 
 ^ n'"i3 is a generic name for materials for cleansing ; but various plants, possessing alkaline 
 qualities, grew and grow in Palestine, and "kali" is still an article of trade. Being 
 united with inj Jer. ii. 22, it has been supposed the "borith" is a vegetable, as contrasted 
 with inj, a mineral. " For the herb Burilh. the LXX. have translated irdav, to signify the 
 herb of fullers, wliich according to tlie wont of Palestine grows in luxuriant moist places, 
 and has the same virtue for cleansing defilements as nitrum." S. Jer. on Jerem. ii. 21. 
 
 " D3D, (only used in Piel, except in the part, of the obsolete Kal. Comp., with Ges., V2^ 
 andDU. _ '» S. Jer.ib. " S. Mark ix. 3. '-' S. Luke xii. 49. 
 
 •2 lb. iii. 10. n Transl, of Wliitsun-hymn, Veni Sancte .Spiritus, in 
 
 Hymns for the Week and the Seasons p. 105. 1848. '^ Jer. vi. 29, 30. 
 
 1' The usual word for sitting on a throne, Ex. xii. 29, Deut. xvii. 18, 1 Kgs. i. 13, 17, 46, 
 48, ii. 12, 24, iii, 6, viii. 20, 25, xvi. 11, xxii. 10, 2 Kgs x. 30, xi. 19, xiii. 13, xv. 13, 
 Ps. cx.x.xii. 12, Pr. xx. 8, Is. xvi. 5, Jer. xiii. 13, xvii. 25, xxii. 4, .30, xxxiii. 17, x,xxvi. 30, 
 Zech. vi. 13 ; or for judgement, Ex. xviii. 13. Jud. v. 10, Ps. cxxii. 5, Is. .xxviii. 6, 
 Jer. xxix. 16, Dan. vii. 9, 20, Jo. ui. 12. Of God, Ps. ii. 4, ix. 5, 8, xjdx. 10, xlvii. 8, Iv. 20, 
 
 silver, that they may ' »)ff(;r unto the Loud ci^rTst 
 an otterini; in riijfhteousness. cir^w^ — 
 
 (1 pg. 2 5 
 
 4 Then "^ !:hall the ofiering of Judah and ^ch. i.'u.' 
 Jerusalem he pleasant unto the Lord, as 
 in the days of old, and as |1 in former years, y oi, aiment. 
 
 But as God is a consuming fire. Who must burn out the 
 dross, unless we be ^''reprobate silver which the founder inelleth 
 in vain, either He must, by His grace, consume the siu within ■ 
 us, or nmst consume us with it, in hell. " 
 
 3. And He shall sit i", as a King and Judge on His throne, 
 with authority, yet also to try accurately the cause of each, ^ 
 sej)arating seeming virtues from real graces ; hypocrites, ^ 
 more or less consciously, from His true servants. 
 
 He shall purify ^^ the sons of Levi. These had been first 
 the leaders in degeneracy, the corrupters of the people by 
 their e.xamj)le and connivance. Actually '*« great company 
 of the priests were obedient to the faith. Barnabas also was 
 a Levite '". But more largely, as Zion and Jerusalem are the 
 titles for the Christian Church, and Israel who believed was 
 the true Israel, so the sons of Levi are the true Levites, the 
 Apostles and their successors in the Christian priesthood. 
 
 It was through three centuries of persecutions that the 
 Church was purified by fire. 
 
 That they may offer, lit. and they shall be unto the Lord 
 ojfierers of a meal-offering in righteousness, i. e. they shall be 
 such, and that, habitually, abidingly. Again, here and in the 
 next words, and the meal-offering of Judah shall be pleasant 
 unto the Lord, it is remarkable, that the meal-offering, to 
 which the Holy Eucharist corresponds, is alone mentioned. 
 Of bloody offerings JNIalachi is silent; for they were to cease. 
 
 /// righteousness, as Zacharias prophesied, that we might 
 serve Him in holiness and righteousness before LTim all the 
 days of our life. 
 
 4. Then \_And'\ shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem. 
 The laiv, the new revelation of God, was to ""go forth from 
 Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Judah and 
 Jerusalem then are here the Christian Church. They shall 
 he pleasant [lit. sweet'\ unto the Lord. It is a reversal [using 
 the self-same wordj of what God had said of them in the time 
 of their religious decay, -^ they shall not offer wine-offerings 
 to the Lord, neither shall they be sweet unto Him; --your burnt- 
 offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto Me. 
 
 As in the days of old, before the days of degeneracy ; as 
 it stands in the ancient Liturgies, "-^Vouchsafe to look upon 
 them [the consecrated oblations] with a propitious and 
 serene Countenance, and to accept them, as Thou vouch- 
 safedst to accept the gifts of Thy righteous Abel and the 
 sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and the holy sacrifice, 
 the immaculate oflTering, which Thy high priest Alelchisedec 
 
 1 Kgs xxii. 19, Is. vi. 1. and others, 
 
 *' ppl, probably originally " strained," used of wine, Is. xxvi. 6, but thence perhaps, the 
 first meaning being lost, of precious metals; gold. Job xxviii. 1, 1 Chr. x.\viii. 18. silver, 
 Ps. xii. 7, 1 Chr. .xxLx. 4. '» Acts vi. 7. '" ib. iv. 36. 
 
 ™Is. ii. 3. =>Hos. IX. 4. - Jer. vi. 20. 
 
 -■* Canon Missae. So in S.James' Liturgy, in the prayer of the incense, "O God. Who 
 didst receive the gift of Abel, and the sacrifice of Noah and Abraham, the incense of .\ai-on 
 and Zachariah." Ass. Cod. Lit. T. v. p. 5. " Receive from the hand of us sinners this incense, 
 as Thou didst receive the oblation of Abel and Noah and Aaron and all Thy saints." Ib. p. 0. 
 ' ' Grant us. Lord, with fear and a pure conscience to present to Thee this spiritual and unbloody 
 Sacrifice, which, when Tliou hast received on Thy noly supercelestial and spiritual altar, as 
 a sweet savour, do Thou send back to us tlie grace of Thine All-holy Spirit, and look upon 
 us, O God, and regard this our reasonable service, and accept it, as Thou didst accept the 
 gitls of Abel, the sacrifice of Noah, the priesthoods of Moses and Aaron, the peace-ofierings 
 of Samuel, the repentance of David, the incense of Zacharj'. As Thou didst receive this 
 true worship from the liand of Thine Apostle, so, in Thy goodness, receive also from us sin- 
 ners the gift^ which lie before Thee, and grant that our obh.tion may be acceptable, hallowtd 
 in the Holy Spirit &ic." lb. p. 29, 30.
 
 CIIAl'TER III. 
 
 GU 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 39". 
 
 ' Zech. 6. 4. 
 
 Jam. 5. 4, 12. 
 II Or, 
 
 defraud. 
 
 5 And I will come near to you to JihIuj- 
 ment; and I will be a swift witness a«^ainst 
 the sorcerers, and ajijainst the adulterers, 
 'and ai^ainst false swearers, and against 
 those that || oppress the hireling in his 
 
 iitt'cred unto 'J'lice." " ' Tlie oblatiitii of the .sacrament of the 
 Eiicliari.st, made by tlie Jews who sliouhi believe in Clirist, 
 wliieh is known to liave been first instituted by Christ in tlie 
 city of Jerusalem, and afterwards to have been continued by 
 His disciples', shall be pleasing unto the Lord, as the sacri- 
 fices of the Patriarchs, Melchisedec, Abraham, and the holy 
 priests in the law, as Aaron ; yea, the truth takes precedence 
 of the figure and shadow; the sacrifice of the new law is more 
 excellent and acceptable to (iod, than all the sacrifices of 
 the law or before the law. With this agrees what the Lord 
 saith to the synagogue, '" I ivill turn Mi/ hatid upon tlice, and 
 j)iireli/ purge aivui/ thy dross, and taUe away all thy tin ; and I 
 U'ill restore thy Judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at 
 the beginning : ami the destruction of the transgressors and of 
 the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord 
 shall be consumed." So now it follows ; 
 
 5. And I will come near to you to judgement. They had 
 clamoured for the coming of the God of Judgement ; God 
 assures them that He will come to judgement, which they 
 had desired, hut far other than they look for. The few would 
 be purified ; the great mass of them (so that He calls them 
 you), the main body of those who had so clamoured, would 
 find that He came as a Judge, not for them but against 
 them. 
 
 And I ivill be a swift witness. "^ In judging I will bear 
 witness, and witnessing, I, the Same, will bring forth judge- 
 ment, saith the Lord; therefore the judgement shall be 
 terrible, since the judge is an infallible witness, whom the 
 conscience of no one will be able to contradict." 
 
 God would be a sivift witness, as He had said before, He 
 shall come suddenly. Our Lord calls Himself * the Faithful 
 and True witness, when He stands in the midst of the Church, 
 as their Judge. God's judgements are always unexpected by 
 those, on whom they fall. The sins are those specially con- 
 demned by the law; the use of magical arts as drawing men 
 away from God, the rest as sins of special malignity. Magical 
 arts were rife at the time of the Coming of our Lord '" ; and 
 adultery, as shewn in the history of the woman taken in 
 adultery, when her accusers were convicted in their own 
 consciences ^. 
 
 Oppress the hireling, lit. oppress the hire, "' i.e. deal oppres- 
 sively in it. Behold, says S. James ^, the hire of the labourers 
 who have reaped doivn your fields, which is by you kept back 
 bt/ fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are 
 entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The mere delay 
 in the payment of the wages of the labourer brought sin unto 
 
 1 Dion. 2 s. Matt. xxvi. [29] Acts ii. 42, 46. 3 Is. ;. 25, 26, 28. 
 
 ■* Rev. iii. 14, i. 5, "I, and not other witnesses, having seen with My own eyes." Theod. S. Jer. 
 
 5 See Introduction to Zechariah p. 508, and on Zech. xiii. 2. p. 582. Lightfoot, on 
 S. Matt. xxiv. 24., quotes Maimonides, alleging that one "elected in the Sanhedrin ought 
 to be learned in the arts of astrologers, diviners, soothsayers &c. that he might be able to 
 judge those guilty thereof." Sanhedrin c. 2. He mentions the belief that many had perished 
 thereby (Hieros.Sanlicdr. f. 18. 3). SO women hung in one day for it at Ascalon, (lb. f. 23, 
 3, Babyl. Sanh. f. 4-1, 2 ;) for that " the Jewish women had greatly broken out ijito such 
 practices." Gloss lb. 
 
 6 S. John viii. 9, adulterous generation. S. Matt. xii. 39. Lightfoot on S.John viii. 3 quotes 
 Sotah f. 47. 1. " From the time that homicides were multiphed, the beheading of the heifer 
 ceased : from the tune tliat adulterers were nmlttplied. tlie bitter waters ceased : " and Mai- 
 ino[iides on Sotah, c. 3, "When the adulterers nmltiplied mider the 2nd Temple, the 
 Sanhedrin abolished the ordeal of the adulteresses by the bitter water ; relying on its being ^ 
 written, ' I will not visit your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 wages, the widow, and tl)e fatherless, and chrTst 
 that turn aside the stranger J'roin his "'■ •'''■'^- 
 rljirht, and fear not me, saith the Lord of 
 
 hosts. m Num. 23. 19. 
 
 6 For I am the Lord, ■" I change not ; ^m. laVf ' 
 
 him, against whom he <Tied to God*. It is no light sin, since 
 it is united with the heaviest, and is spoken of as reaching 
 the ears of God. The widow and the fatherless stand in a 
 relation of special nearness to God. 
 
 And fear not Me. He closes witii the central defect, 
 which was the mainspring of all their sins, the absence of 
 the fear of God. The commission of any of these sins, rife 
 as they unhappily are, proves that those who did them had 
 no fear of God. "^Nothing hinders that this should be re- 
 feri'ed to the first Coming of Christ. Tor Christ, in preach- 
 ing to the Jews, exerc^ised upon them a ju(l}:;<nient of just 
 rebuke, especially of the priests, Scribes and Pharisees, as 
 the Gospels shew." 
 
 6. /am the Lord, I change not, better, more concisely, 
 /, the Lord^°, change not. The proper name of God, He fFho 
 Is, involves His Unchangeableness. For change implies im- 
 perfection ; it changes to that which is either more perfect 
 or less perfect: to somewhat which that being, who changes, 
 is not or has not. But God has everything in Himself per- 
 fectly. ""Thou Alone, O Lord, Art wliat Tiiou Art, and Thou 
 Art Who Art. For what is one thing in the whole and 
 another in parts, and wherein is anything subject to change, 
 is not altogether what Is. And what beginneth from not 
 being, and can be conceived, as not being, aiul only subsistcth 
 through another thing, returns to not-being; and what hath 
 a 'has been,' which now is not, and a "to lie,' which as yet is 
 not, that is not, properly and absolutely. But Thou Art what 
 Thou Art. For whatever Thou Art in any time or way, that 
 Thou Art wholly and always ; and Thou .\rt, Who Art pro- 
 perly and simply, because Thou hast neither 'to have been' 
 or 'to be about to be;' but only to be present; and canst not 
 be conceived, ever not to have been." " '-There is only one 
 simple Good, and therefore One Alone Unchangeable, which 
 is God." 
 
 Our life is a "becoming" rather than a simple "being;" 
 it is a continual losing of what we had. and gaining what 
 we had not; for "^''in as far as any one is not « iiat he was, 
 and is what he was not, so far forth he dicth and ariseth;" 
 dieth to what he was, ariseth to be something otherwise. 
 
 "1* Increase evidences a beginning; decrease, death and 
 destruction. And therefore Malachi says, / am God, and I 
 change wo^, ever retaining Flis own state of being; because 
 what has no origin cannot be changed." 
 
 So the Psalmist says, ^'-"As a vesture. Thou shah change 
 them and they shall he changed, hut Thou art the Satne, and 
 Thy years shall not fail ; and Balaam, controlled by God, 
 
 when they commit adultery.' " Lightfoot subjoins. "The Gemarisis teach that Johanan b. 
 Zacchai was the autlior of that advice, who was still alive, ill the Sanhedrin, and perhaps 
 among those who brought the adulteress before Clirist. For some things make it probable, 
 that the Scribes and Pharisees, mentioned here, were elders of the SjTiagogue." S. Justia 
 reproaches them with having fresh wives, wherever they went throughout the world. Dial. 
 fin. p. 243. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 7 yio' iri? "ps'y, as in Mi. ii. 2, in"3) "dj ipry oppress a man and his house. 
 s S. Jas. v. 4. 9 Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. 
 
 •0 The Lord is in apposition to /, as, in the followiBg clause, tlie sons of Jacob to ye. The 
 two clauses correspond in form. 
 
 I, (■:«) the Lord, change not; 
 Ye, (cn.xi) sons of Jacob, are not consumed. 
 " S. Anselm Prosl. c. 22. p. 34 Ben. '- S. Aug. de Civ. Dei xi. 10. 
 
 13 S. Aug. Couf. si. 7. p. 291. O.xf. Tr. 
 w Novatian de Trin. c. 4. '^ Ps. cii. 27. 
 
 S S S S
 
 614 
 
 MALAClll. 
 
 c iPrTs t " t''P''eff 1"^ y^ ''<•"'' ^^ Jaeob are not eon- 
 
 "■'•• •'""■ sinned. 
 "Au'tsV/siT 7 H Even from the days of "your fathers 
 
 ye are i^onc away from mine ordhiances, 
 pZcch. 1.3. and have not kept them, p Return unto 
 
 me, and I will return unto you, saith the 
 ich.i.c. Loud of hosts. i But ye said. Wherein 
 
 ^ God It not a man, that He should lie, or the son of man, that 
 He should repent ; and, -with TVhom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning. 
 
 Of this uiicliiuiijpableness of God, His holy ones partake, 
 as far as they fi.v tlicinselves on God. "^The soul of man 
 han<;s upon llini, by Whom it was made. And because it 
 was made, to desire God Alone, but every thing which it 
 desires below is less than He, rijjfhtly doth not that suffice it, 
 which is not God. Hence is it, that the soul is scattered 
 hitlier and thither, and is repelled from everythingn;, toward 
 which it is borne, throuifh satiety of them. But holy men 
 puard tlicniselves by cautious observation, lest they should 
 be relaxed from their intentness by change, and because they 
 desire to be the same, wisely bind themselves to the thought, 
 whereby they love God. For in the contemplation of the 
 Creator, they will receive this, that they should ever enjoy 
 one stability of mind. No changeablencss then dissipates 
 them, because their thought ever perseveres, free from unlike- 
 iiess to itself. This therefore they now imitate, striving with 
 effort, which hereafter they shall with joy receive as a gift. 
 To which unchangeableness the prophet had bound himself 
 by the power of love, when he said, *One thing I required of 
 the Lord, icliirh I will require, that I maij dwell in the house 
 of the Lord. To this unity Paul clave intently, when he said, 
 ^Oiie thing- I do, forgetting- those things which are behind and 
 stretchi/ig forth to those things which are before, I press forward 
 toward the mark for the prize of the high . calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 And ye sons of Jacob are tiot consumed. Man would 
 often have become weary of man's wickedness and wayward- 
 ness. We are ini])atient at one another, readily despair of 
 one another. God might justly have cast off them and us ; 
 but He changes not. He abides by the covenant which He 
 made with their fathers ; He consumed them not ; but with 
 His own unchangeable love awaited their repentance. Our 
 hope is not in ourselves, but in God. 
 
 7. Even from the days of your fathers. Back to those 
 days and from them'', ye are gone aicay from My ordinances. 
 '•^I am not changed from good; ye are not changed from 
 evil. I am unchangeable in holiness ; ye are unchangeable 
 in perversity." 
 
 Retttrn unto Me. The beginning of our return is from 
 the preventing grace of God. ^ Turn Thou me, and f shall be 
 turned; for Thou art the Lord my God, is the voice of the 
 soul to God, preparing for His grace; ^tur)i us, O God of our 
 salvation. For, not in its own strength, but by His grace can 
 the soul turn to God. Turn thou to Me and J will return 
 unto you, is the Voice of God, acknowledging our free-will, 
 and promising His favour, if we accept His grace in return. 
 
 > Nu. xxiii. 19. sS.Jas. i. 17. 
 
 » R. r.reg. Mor. xxvi. ll. n. "0. Ben. < Vs. xxvii. 4. ^ Phil. iii. 13, 11. 
 
 •S-:'? ^ Rup. 8 Jer. xxxi. 18. Lain. v. 21. ' Ps. Ixxxv. 4. 
 
 '" nciin Num. xv. ]!», 20. ii Ex. xxx. 13-15. 
 
 1- lb. XXV. 2, 3, XXXV. o, 21. 24, xxxvi. 3, 0. " Ezr. viii. 25. 
 
 " 2 Chr. xxxi. 10. 12 (wliere X'varrand rcnn.T are joined, as here, but in inverse order.) 
 
 '5 Nu. xviii. 20, 2S, 2y. i6 Lev. Wi. 14. 
 
 shall we return ? ^ „'',f'[«g .j, 
 
 8 5[ Will a man rob (iod ? Yet ye have ""■ '■^'•>^- 
 robi)ed me. j3ut ye say, Wherein have we 
 rohbed thee? ' In tithes and offerings. 'Nch. 1.3. lo, 
 
 9 Ye are eursed with a eurse : for ye.prov..^. 9 10. 
 have robbed me, cr^'u this M'liole nation. ' 2chr.f1'. n.' 
 
 10 "Bring ye all the tithes into 'the ^'h.n!^' 
 
 Jlnd ye say. Wherein shall we return ? Strange igno- 
 rance of the blinded soul, unconscious that (iod has aught 
 against it! It is the l'harisai(r spirit in the Gospel. It would 
 own itself doubtless in general terms a sinner, but when 
 called on, wholly to turn to God, as being «'liol)y turned from 
 Him, it asks, " In what ? What would God have of me ?" as 
 if ready to do it. 
 
 8. Shall a man rob or cheat, defraud God ? God answers 
 question by question, but thereby drives it home to the 
 sinner's soul, and appeals to his conscience. The conscience 
 is steeled, and answers again, In what ? God specifies two 
 things only, obvious, patent, which, as being material things, 
 they could not deny. /// tithes and ojfcrixgs. The ri^eri/igs 
 included several classes of dues to God, a) the first fruits i"; 
 b) the annual half-shekeP^ ; c) the offerings made for the 
 tabernacle^-, and tiie second temple^^ at its first erection; it 
 is used of ordinary offerings 1*; d) of the tithes of their own 
 tithes, which the Levites paid to the priests '°; e) of the por- 
 tions of the sacrifice which accrued to the priests'". 
 
 9. Ye have been cursed ivith the curse (not "with a curse"). 
 The curse threatened had come upon them: but, as fore-sup- 
 posed in Leviticus by the repeated burthen, If ye still walk 
 contrary to Me, they had persevered in evil. God had already 
 shewn His displeasure. But they, so far from being amended 
 by it, were the more hardened in their sin. Perhaps as men 
 do, they pleaded their punishment, as a reason why they 
 should not amend. They defrauded God, under false pre- 
 tences. They were impoverished by His curse, and so they 
 could not afford to pay the tithes; as men say, "the times 
 arc bad; so we cannot help the poor" of Christ. And Me ye 
 still are defrauding^' ; 3Ie, ye; man, God. And that not one 
 or other, but this whole people. It was a requital as to that, 
 in which they bad offended. "'^Because ye have not rendered 
 tithes and first-fruits, therefore ye are cursed in famine and 
 penury." " '^ Because the people did not render tithes and 
 first-fruits to the Levites, the Lord saith, that He Himself 
 suffered fraud, Whose ministers, constrained by hunger and 
 penury, deserted the temple. For, if He is visited by others 
 in ])rison, and sick, is received and cared for, and, hungry and 
 athirst, receives food and drink, why should He not receive 
 tithes in His ministers, and, if they are not given, be Himself 
 deprived of His portion ? " 
 
 10. Bring the wiiole tithes, not a part only, keeping back 
 more or less, and, as he had said, defrauding God, offering, 
 like Ananias, a part, as if it had been the whole ; into the 
 treasury, where they were collected in the time of Hezekiah '^, 
 and again, at this time, by the direction of Nehemiah, so that 
 there shall be food"'^, not superfluity, in My house, "-'for those 
 who minister in the house of My sanctuary." "- The Levites 
 
 '" cy^'p. According to its probable etym. ("withdrew and so hid," Arab.), it might be de- 
 fratulnig ratlier than open rolibery. Bn't it lia.s not this nietapli. meaning in Arabic. Abulw. 
 Tanchum, Hunt. 20li., render it of open violence 3sy. yrp occurs, besides, in Hebrew only 
 in Pr. xxii. 23, The Lord will picnd their cause and will spoil those who spoil litem, i.e. He 
 will requite them as they have done ; in the same bold language, as in Ps, xviii. 17. 
 
 i« S. Jer. i» 2 Clir. xxxi. 11. sqq. Neh. x. 38, 32, xii. 44. xiii. 12. 
 
 ■" 1-B, food, as Pr. xxxi. 15, Ps. cxi. 6. «' Jon. ~ Neh. xiii. 10-23.
 
 CIIAI'TER III. 
 
 615 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 storehouse, that there may he meat in mine 
 bilI^ — house, and prove me now herewith, saith 
 the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you 
 "?l"'^-"^ the "' windows of heaven, and '(•"pour vou 
 
 2 Kin. 7. 2. 7 11,/ 
 
 out a hlessinij;, that there ahull not he room 
 
 t Hell. 
 
 empfif oift, 
 
 '2Chi.:ii. 10. enouc'h toreceire if. 
 
 y Amos 4. 9. 
 
 11 And I will rehuke ^the devourer for 
 
 and siiigers had, before the reformation, Jled evert) one to his 
 field, because the portion of the Levites had ttot been given 
 them. On Nehcniiali's remonstrance, aided by Malaclii, the 
 tithe of corn and the wine and the new oil tvere brought into 
 the treasuries. 
 
 Bring the whole tithes. " ' TIiou knowest that all thinsys 
 which come to tliee arc (Jod's, and dost not thou ijivc of His 
 own to the Creator of all ? The Lord God ncedeth not : He 
 asketii not a reward, but reverence : He asketh not any thinji^ 
 of thine, to restore to Him. He asketh of thee first-fruits 
 and tithes. Nifj^ard, what wouldest thou do, if He took nine 
 parts to Himself, and left thee the tenth ? — What if He said 
 to thee; 'Man, thou art i\Iiiie, Who made thee; Wine is the 
 land which thou tillcst ; JMine are the seeds, which thou 
 sowest ; Mine are the animals, wliich thou weariest: Mine 
 are the showers. Mine the winds, Mine the sun's heat; and 
 since Mine are all the elements, whereby thou livest, thou 
 who givest only the labour of thine hands, deservest only the 
 tithes.' But since Almii;hty God lovinijly feeds us. He jyives 
 most ample reward to us who labour little : claiming' to Him- 
 self the tithes only. He has condoned ns all the rest." 
 
 ^4nd prove Me now herewith, in or by this thing. God 
 plejJiifis^ Himself to His creatures, in a way in which they 
 themselves can verify. " If you will obey, I will supply all 
 your needs; if not, I will continue your dearth." By what- 
 ever laws Gods orders the material creation. He c;ave them 
 a test, of the completion of whicii they tliemselves could 
 judffe, of which they themselves must have judged. They 
 had been afflicted with years of want. God promises them 
 years of plenty, on a condition which He names. What would 
 men think now, if any one had, in God's name, promised that 
 such or such a disease, which injured our crops or our cattle, 
 should come at once to an end, if any one of God's laws 
 should be kept? We should have been held as fanatics, and 
 rightlyj for we had no commission of God. God authenti- 
 cates those by whom He speaks; He promises, Who alone 
 can perform. 
 
 "-There be three keys which God hath reserved in His own 
 hands, and hath not delivered to any to minister or substi- 
 tute, the keys of life, of rain, and of the resurrection. In 
 the ordering of the rain they look on His great power, no 
 less than in giving life at first, or afterwards raising the dead 
 to it; as S. Paul saith, ' God left not Himself without witness, 
 in that He did good and gave rain from heaven and fruitful \ 
 seasons." 
 
 If I ivill not opeti the windows of heaven*. In the time 
 of the flood, they were, as it were, opened, to man's destruc- 
 tion : now, God would rain abundantly /or you, for their 
 
 ' App. Serrn. S. Aus. 277- Opp. v. App. p. 4G1. " Not S. Augustine's ; more like C^sa- 
 rius than S. Anj;.'' Ben. 
 . - Poc. quotinc; Sanhedr. c. Chelek, and Taanith c. 1. ^ Acts xiv. 17. 
 
 ■* Tlie exact expression occurs only in tlie histor\' of the flood. Gen. vii. 11. \iii. 2 ; in the 
 scoffing courtier's speech, ironically, of God " making; windows in heaven " (D'Cw'D), 2 Kgs 
 vii 2. and. perhaps in reference to the flood, Isaiah says, " windows from on high are opened^ 
 and the foundations of the earth do shake." Is. xxiv. 18. ' iKKixvTm Rom. v. 5. 
 
 your salves, and lie shall not f destroy the cifiiTsT 
 fruits of }<)ur jifround ; neither sliall ymir cir. a97. 
 vine cast her fruit hefore the time in the cmuiit. 
 field, saith tlie Lord of iiosts. 
 
 12 And all nations shall call you hlessed: 
 for ye shall he 'a delightsome land, saith . Dan. 8. it. 
 the Lord of hosts. 
 
 I sakes. ^nd pour you out, lit. empty out to you, g-ive to them 
 fully, holding back nothing. So in the Gosj)el it is said, that 
 
 ; the love of God is shed abroad^, poured out anil forth in our 
 hearts hy the Holy Hhost which is given to us. 
 
 That there he not room enough to receive it ; lit. ;////// 
 there he no sufficiency''. The text does not express what should 
 not sutticc, whether it he on (Jod's part or on man's, ^'et it 
 were too great irony, if understood of God. His superabun- 
 dance, above all which we can ask or think, is a first prin- 
 ciple in the conception of (Jod, as the Infinite Source of all 
 being. But to say of God, that He would pour out His bles- 
 sing, until man could not contain it, is one bliss of eternity, 
 that God's gifts will overflow the capacity of His creatures 
 to receive them. T\\q pot of oil poured forth the oil, until, 
 on the prophet's saying, ^ Bring me yet a vessel, the widow's 
 son said. There is not a vessel more. yJitd the oil stayed. God's 
 gifts are limited only by our capacity to receive them. 
 
 1 1. ^nd I irilt rebuke the devourer, the locust, caterpillar, 
 or any like scourge of God. It might be, that when the rain 
 watered the fields, the locust or caterpillar itc. might destroy 
 the corn, so that the labours of man should perish; wherefore 
 he adds, / will rebuke the devourer. Neither sliall yojtr vine 
 cast her fruit ^ before the time, holding out a fair promise, 
 but cut off by the frost-wind or the liail ; the blossoms or 
 the unripe fruit strewing the earth, as a token of God's 
 displeasure. 
 
 12. j^ll nations shall call y(n( blessed. The promise goes 
 beyond the temporal prosperity of their immediate obedience. 
 Few could know or think much of the restored prolificaliiess 
 of JudtPa; none could know of its antecedents. A pcfiplc. as 
 well as individuals, may starve, and none know of it. Had 
 the whole population of Judah died out, their Persian 
 masters would not have cared for it, but would have sent 
 fresh colonists to replace them and pay the tribute to the 
 great king. The only interest, which all nations could have 
 in them, was as being the people of God, from whom He 
 should come, the Desire of all nations, in Whcmi all the 
 families of the earth would lie blessed. Of this, (iod's outward 
 favour was the earnest; they should have again the blessings 
 which He had promised to His people. 
 
 And ye shall be called a delightsome land, lit. a land of 
 good pleasure. It was not so much the land as the people: 
 ye shall be called. The land stands for the people upon it, 
 in whom its characteristics lay. The river Jordan was not 
 so bright as Abana and Pharpar: "the aspect f)t the shore" 
 is the same, when the inhabitants are spiritually or morally 
 dead ; only the more beautiful, in contrast with the lifeless 
 "spirit of man." So Isaiah says, " The nations shall see thy 
 
 « In Ps. Lxxii. .3 (quoted by Ges. Ros. Jtc.) " there shall be abundance of peace rv -^3 "iy, 
 lit. " unli! there be no moon," has a literal meaning, that the peace should last until the end 
 of our creation, without saying anytliing of what lies beyond. 
 
 '2 Kgs iv. (J. 
 s Ssw, used elsewhere as to the animal world, is used of a land, 2 Kgs ii. 19, whence 
 n72e'D lb. 21. of " immatuiity." Pliny speaks of " arborum abortus." H. N. xii. 2, G. Ges. 
 9 is. Ixii. 2-4. 
 
 S S S S 2
 
 GIO 
 
 MALACIII. 
 
 c h'rTs t 1»^ H " Your words liave been stout 
 — -• '^'•''- ajrainst me, saith the Lord. Yet ve sav, 
 
 « fh. 2. 17. ". . 
 
 AVliat have we spokeu so much against 
 
 tliee ? 
 
 i5!V2ii';. 1-1 "" Ye have said, It is vain to serve 
 
 ZepiK i! i'2. God : and what i)rofit is it that we have 
 
 ^ow™/L,. kept fhis ordinanee, and that we have 
 
 + "';''• walked f mournfully before the Lord of 
 
 ill blade. 
 
 rigltteoitsness, and all kms;s tin) glory ; and thou shall be 
 called hi/ a name, which the month of the Lord shall name — 
 Thou shall no more be called Forsaken, nor shall thy land he 
 called Desolate, hut thou shall be called My-delight-is-in-her, 
 and thy land Married: for the Lord delighteth in thee and 
 thy land shall be married. God and man should delight in 
 her, 
 
 13. Your icords have been stout against Me, probably 
 oppressiic to ^ Me, as it is said, the famine urns strong upon 
 the land. And ye have said, IVhat have we spoketi among 
 ourselves" against Thee} Ag^ain, the entire unconsciousness 
 of self-ignorance and self-conceit! They had criticised God, 
 and knew it not. "^ Before, he had said, * Ye have wearied 
 the Lord with your words, and ye said, JVherein have ice 
 tvearied Him? When ye said. Every one that doeth evil is good 
 in the sight of the Lord &;c. Now he repeats this more fully. 
 For the people who returned from Babylon seemed to have 
 a knowledge of God, and to observe the law, and to under- 
 stand their sin, and to offer sacrifices for sin ;' to pay tithes, 
 to observe the sabbath, and the rest, commanded in the law 
 of God, and seeing all the nations around them abounding 
 in all things, and that they themselves were in penury hunger 
 and misery, was scandalised and said, ' What does it benefit 
 me, that I worship the One True God, abominate idols, and, 
 pricked with the consciousness of sin, walk mournfully be- 
 fore God ? ' A topic, which is pursued more largely in the 
 73rd Psalm." Only the Psalmist relates his temptations to 
 God, and God's deliverance of him from them; these adopted 
 them and spake them against God. They claim, for their 
 partial and meagre service, to have fulfilled God's law, taking 
 to themselves God's words of Abraham, he kept My charge ^. 
 
 14. Ye have said. It is vain to serve the Lord : " ^ as re- 
 ceiving no gain or reward for their service. This is the 
 judgement of the world, whereby worldlings think pious, 
 just, sincere, strict men, vain, i.e. especially when they see 
 them impoverished, despised, oppressed, afflicted, because 
 they know not the true goods of virtue and eternal glory, 
 but measure all things by sight sense and taste. — Truly, if" 
 the righteous had not hope of another and better life, in vain 
 would they afflict themselves and bear the afflictions of 
 others. For, as the Apostle says, '' If in this life only ive have 
 hope in Christ, we are of all men 7nost miserable. But now, 
 hoping for another blessed and eternal life for the slight 
 tribulations of this, we are the happiest of all men." 
 
 And we have ivulked mournfully *. Again they take in 
 
 1 pin. with 3,on the land, Gen. xli. 56, 57 : the city, 2 Kgs xxr. 3. Jer. lii. 6 ; with Ss, 
 of persons. Gen. .xlvii. 20; hand of God was strong upon the prophet, Ez. iii. 14; they were 
 urgent, pressed upon. Ez. xii. 33. 
 
 2 The force of Nif. as in iii. 16. Ps. cLx. 23, Ezek. x-xxiii. 30. The constr. with ^]l as 
 Pih. in Ps. cix. 20, Hos. vii. 13, Jer. xxix. 32. 
 
 => S.Jer. Mi. 17. 
 
 5 •m'SOD 1DB"1 Gen. xxvi. 5 ; add Lev. xviii. 30, xxii. 9, Deut. xi. 1, Jos. xxii. 3. 2 Kgs 
 ii. 3, 2 Chr. xiii. 11, xxiii. 6, Zech. iii. 7. 6 Lap. ? 1 Cor. xv. 19. 
 
 ' n'JTli? 1J37.1. The form .p is one found only here ; the phrase in the Ps. is "^^ly lip 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 hosts ? 
 
 15 And now "wg call the proud happy; — ^h^i^ 
 yea, they thi'.t work wickedness fare set ch.'2!i7. 
 up; yea, they that "^ tempt God are even mVimut. 
 
 , , . , "• Ps. 95. 9. 
 
 delivered. 
 
 10 f Then they "that feared the Lord '^hl^^^®' 
 '^ spake often one to another : and the Lord Vvt'J,'.^!' 
 
 Isai. fi5. 6. 
 20. 12. 
 
 hearkened, and heard it, and ^ a book of {^^ 
 
 their mouths the words of Psalmists, that they took the garb 
 of motu'ners, going about mourning before God for their 
 country's afflictions. 
 
 15. And now we call the proud happy \blessed'\. This 
 being so, they sum up the case against God. God had de- 
 clared that all nations should call them blessed^, if they 
 would obey. They answer, using His words; And noiv we, 
 (they lay stress on the word, ^'^tve,) pronounce blessed, in fact, 
 those whom God had pronounced cursed: ^^ Tliou hast rebuked 
 the proud, who are cursed. Their characteristic, among other 
 bad men, is of insolence i^, arrogance, boiling over with self- 
 conceit, and presumptuous towards God. The ground of 
 Babylon's sentence was, ^^ she hath been proud toxvards the 
 Lord, the Holy One of Israel ; Jethro says of the Egyptians, 
 as a ground of his belief in God, ^*for, in the thing that they 
 dealt proudly. He was above them. It describes the character 
 of the act of Israel, when God bade them not go tip, neither 
 
 fight, and they would not hear, and went up presumptuoush/ 
 into the battle^'" ; the contumacious act of those, who, ap- 
 pealing to the judgement of God, afterwards refused it^"; 
 of Johanan's associates, who accuse Jeremiah of speaking 
 falsely in the name of God ^^ ; they are persons who rise up i*, 
 forge lies against'', dig pits for-", deal perversely with-', hold 
 in derision --, oppress-% the pious. Whether or no, they mean 
 specifically the heathen, those, whom these pronounced blessed, 
 were those who were contemptuous towards God. 
 
 Yea, the workers of u'ickedness, those who habitually 
 work it, whose employment it is, are built up; yea, they 
 hare tried God and have escaped. God had promised that, if 
 •* they will diligently learn the ways of My people, they 
 shall be built up in the midst of My people ; these say, the 
 workers of wickedness had been built up> : God had bidden 
 themselves, •''make trial of Me in this; these answer, the 
 wicked had made trial of Him, and had been unpunished. 
 
 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often among 
 themselves. The proud-speaking of the ungodly called out 
 the piety of the God-fearing. "-^The more the ungodly 
 spake against God, the more these spake among themselves 
 for God." Both went on till the great Day of severance. 
 True, as those said, the distinction between righteous and 
 wicked was not made yet, but it was stored up out of sight. 
 They spake among themselves, strengthening each other 
 against the ungodly sayings of the ungodly. 
 
 And the Lord hearkened and heard it. God, Whom 
 these thought an idle looker-on, or regardless, all the while 
 
 Ps. XXXV. 14, xxxviii. 7, xlii. 10, xBii. 2. s verse 12. 
 
 '" unjN emph. " Ps. cxix. 21. '- Pr. xxi. 24. 
 
 " ^x mi Jer. 1. 29. It is used in regard tb Babylon together with c'sny (as in Ps. Ixxsvi. 
 14.) Is', xiii. 11. 
 
 " Ex. xviii. 11. It is used of Egypt towards Israel. Neh. ix. IC. 
 
 15 Deut. i. 41, 43. " lb. xvii. 12, 13. " Jer. xliii. 2. 
 
 1" Ps. Ixxx-vi. 14. » lb. cxix. 69. =» lb. 85. =i lb. 78. 
 
 =: lb. 51. ^ lb. 122. 
 
 -^ Jer. xii. 10. -'' ch. iii. 10. -^ a Castro. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 617 
 
 r.T?»ToT rcmembranee was written Ix^fore liitn for 
 "■•• ''"''• them that feared the Lord, and that 
 
 >■ Ex. 19. 5. 
 
 Deut. 7. 6. 
 
 Ps. 135. 4. 
 
 Tit. 2. li. 
 
 1 Pet. 2. 9. 
 II Or, special 
 
 treasure' 
 ' Isai. G2. 3. 
 
 thought iij)on his name. 
 
 17 And '' they shall be mine, saith the 
 Lord of hosts, in that day when I malce 
 up my II 'jewels ; and ^ I will spare tlieu), 
 
 k Ps. 103. 13. 
 
 as a man sparetli his own son that sen^eth c]fj["ps- 
 
 nin 
 
 cir. ;i'.»7. 
 
 (to speak after the manner of men) was bending the ear^ 
 from heaven and heard. Not one pious loyal word for Ilini 
 and Ilis f^lory, escaped Him. 
 
 j^nd a book (if renienthraure was written before Him. 
 Kinc;s had their chronicles written -, wherein men's {^ood or 
 ill deeds towards them were recorded. IJiit the iniajife is one 
 of the oldest in Scripture, and in the self-same words, '' the 
 Lord said to Moses, IFrite this, a memorial in a book. God 
 can only speak to us in our own lan^ua^e. One expression 
 is not more human than another, since all are so. Since 
 with God all thinijs are present, and memory relates to the 
 past, to speak of God as "rememhcrina;" is as imperfect an 
 expression in regard to God, as to speak of "a hook." "^For- 
 getfulness hath no place with God, hecause He is in no way 
 changed ; nor remembrance, hecause He forgetteth not." 
 Both expressions are used, only to picture vividly to our 
 minds, that our deeds are present-with God, for good or for 
 evil ; and in the Day of Judgement He will make them mani- 
 fest to men and angels, as though read out of a book, and 
 will requite them. So Daniel had said, ^ the judgemetit ivas 
 set, and the books zvere opened. And S. John says, " The books 
 were opened, and another baok was opened, which is the book 
 of life ; and the dead ivere judged ont of those things which 
 were written in the books, according to their works. So Moses 
 says to God, ' If not, blot me out of Thy book tvhich Thou 
 hast written ; and David, prophesying, prays, ** Let them be 
 blotted out of the hook of the living, and not be ivritten among 
 the righteous ; and our Lord bids His disciples, ^ Rejoice in 
 this, that your names are written in heaven. 
 
 And that thought upon His name, rather, esteemed, prized, 
 it, in contrast with those who ^"despised; as, of Christ, when 
 He should come, it is said, ^^He was despised, andive esteemed 
 Him not. "^-The thinking on His Name imports, not a bare 
 thinking of, but a due esteem and aweful regard of, so as with 
 all care to avoid all things which may tend to the dishonour 
 of it, as always in His presence and with respect to Him and 
 fear of Him." "^^ Those are meant who always meditate on 
 the ways of the Lord and the knowledge of His Godhead ; for 
 His name is Himself, and He is His Name;" ""the wise in 
 heart who know the mystery of the aweful glorious Name." 
 
 17. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in 
 that day when I make up 3fy jewels ^^, or perhaps better. And 
 the}/ shall be to 3Ie, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day which 
 I make (or, in tvhich I do this) a peculiar treasure^''. "^'In 
 the day of judgement, those who fear Me and believe and 
 maintain My providence shall be to Me a peculiar treasure, 
 i. e. a people peculiarly belonging and precious to IVIe, 
 blessed in the vision and fruition of JNIe. For as in the old 
 
 1 ntfp'i - nmiin nsa Estli. vi. 1. ' i£B3 fi-Ql nw 3nD Ex. xvii. 14. 
 
 ■• S. Aug. in Ps. xxxv-ii. n. 5. ' Dan. vii. 10. ' Rev. xx. 12. 
 
 7 Ex. xxxii. 32. s Ps. ixix. 28. » S. Luke x. 20. '" Mai. i. 6. 
 
 " Is. liii. 3. '- Poc. 13 Kim. ib. " Ibn Ezr. ib. 
 
 IS The grounds for this rendering are 1) the recurrence of the words, K'V '}x X'n dv, ver. 
 21. Heb. [iv. 3. Eng.], and the nSjD 'S CjTMI Ex. xix. 5; so that we have both phrases 
 elsewhere. In Deut. vii. 6, there is the equivalent n'jJD cyS ih Ttvnh, and the like, Deut. 
 xiv. 2, Ps. exxxv. 4. 
 
 18 ' Tlien shall ye return, and diseern 'P'-ss.u. 
 between the rigliteous and the wieked, be- 
 tween him that servetli God and him that 
 serveth him not. 
 
 law, Israel was a peculiar treasure'*, a special people'* and 
 inheritance of God, chosen out of all nations, so in the new 
 law (Christians, and tiiosc who are righteous through grace, 
 are the special treasure of God, and in heaven shall he His 
 special treasure in glory, possessed by God and possessing 
 God." The peculiar treasure, is something, much prized, 
 made great store of, and guarded. Such are Ciiristians, 
 bought at a great price, even by the precious Illood of (;iiri>t; 
 but much more evidently sucli shall they be, Malachi says, 
 in all eternity, which that Day of fiiuil rctrihiition shall de- 
 cide, "-"joying in the participation of their Creator, bv W'liose 
 eternity they arc fixed, by Whose trutli they arc assured, by 
 Whose gift they arc holy." 
 
 And I will spare them. It is a remarkable word, as 
 used of those who should be to Him a peculiar treasure, 
 teaching that, not of their own merits, they shall be such, 
 but by His great mercy. It stands in contrast with the 
 doom of the wicked, whom that day shall sentence to ever- 
 lasting loss of God. Still, the saved also shall have needed the 
 tender mercy "' of God, whereby He pardoned their misdeeds 
 and had compassion upon them. "If Thou, Lord, shalt lay up 
 iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Among those whom God 
 will spare on that day, will be countless, whom the self- 
 righteous despised as sinners. ""^ I will spare them, although 
 formerly sinners; I will spare them, repenting, and serving 
 Me with the service of a pious confession, as a man spareth 
 his own son which served him." For our Lord saith of the 
 son, who refused to go work in his Father's vineyard, and 
 afterwards repented and went, that he ~*did the will of his 
 Father. 
 
 18. Then shall ye return, or turn, not, "return" in the 
 sense of returning to God, for in that day will be the time of 
 judgement, not of repentance; nor yet, "then shall ye again 
 see;" for this is what they denied; and, if they had ceased to 
 deny it, they would have been converted, not in that day, but 
 before, when God gave them grace to see it. They shall turn, 
 so as to have other convictions than before; but, as Jiuias. 
 The Day of judgement will make a great change in earthly 
 judgement. Last shall be first, and first last ; this world's 
 sorrow shall end in joy, and worldly joy in sorrow ; afflictions 
 shall be seen to be God's love : ~'' Thou in r^ery faithfulness hast 
 ciffiicted me; and the unclouded prosperity of the ungodly to 
 be God's abandonment of them. The picture of the surprise 
 of the wicked in the Day of judgement, in the Wisdom of 
 Solomon, is a comment on the Prophet. "-''Then shall the 
 righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such 
 as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours ; 
 when they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and 
 
 1^ Besides the places in which Israel is spoken of such, it occurs only of David's treasures, 
 laid up for building the temple 1 Chr. ssix. 3. and of the public treasures of kings and 
 provinces. Eccl. ii. 8. '' Lap. 
 
 13 Th'O Ex. xxix. 5, Ps. exxxv. 4. " Th'JS CJf Deut. \ii. 6. 
 
 20 S. Aug. in Civ. Dei x. 7. 
 -1 ten has originally the meaning of tender compassion. 
 - Ps. cxxx. 3. » Rup. -* S. Matt. xxi. CI. 
 
 -= Ps. cxix. 75. -5 Wisd. v. 1 — 5.
 
 618 
 
 MALACIII. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 3i)7. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1 GoiVs Judgment mi the u'irlicci, 2 and liis hlessirii:; 
 OH the good. He cxhortetli to the study of tlic 
 law, 5 and tellcth of Klijuh's coming and office. 
 
 • Joel 2. 31. 
 
 ch. 3. 2. 
 
 2 Pet. 3. 7. 
 » ch. 3. IS. 
 
 FOR, behold, Hhe day conioth, that shall 
 burn as an oven ; and all '' the proud, 
 
 shall be amazed with the strang'encss of hi.s salvation, so far 
 beyond all they looked for: and they, repentina^ and j^roaning 
 for ann-nish of spirit, shall say witiiin themselves, This was 
 he whom we had sometimes in derision and a pi'overb of re- 
 proaeh : we fools counted his life madness and his end to be 
 withont honour: how is he numbered anionj^ the children of 
 God, and his lot is among' the saints !" 
 
 IV. 1. For, hchohl, the day comet h, widch shall hum as an 
 oven. He had declared the great severance of tlic (Jod-fearing 
 and the God-blaspheming, those who served and those who 
 did not serve God; the righteous and the wicked; now he 
 declares the way and time of the severance, the Day of 
 Judgement. Daniel had described the fire of that day, ' The 
 throne [of the Ancient of days^ was a fiery Jlame ; his wheels 
 a hurning fire: a fiery stream issued and came forth from Him : 
 the judgement luas set and the hooks were opened. Fire is ever 
 spoken of, as accompanying the judgement. "Our God shall 
 come, and shall not hecp silence, afire shall devour hefore Him ; 
 ^ Behold the Lord tvill come with fire : for by fire and by the 
 sivord ivill the Lord plead with all fiesh : * every ma)i's ivork 
 shall he made manifest, for the Day shall declare it, because it 
 shall be revealed by fire : and the fire shall try every mail's 
 work, of what sort it is. S. Peter tells us that fire will be of 
 this burning world; ^the heavens and the earth which are now, 
 by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
 the day of judgement and perdition of laigodly men ; — in the 
 which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall melt tcith fervent heat, the earth also and the 
 works that are therein shall be burned up. 
 
 The oven, or furnace, pictures the intensity of the heat, 
 which is white from its intensity, and darts forth, fiercely, 
 shooting up like a living creature, and destroying life, as the 
 flame of the fire of Nebuchadnezzar's ^ burning fiery furnace 
 slew those men that took up Shadrach 3Ieshach and Abednego. 
 The whole world shall be one burning furnace. 
 
 ylnd all the proud and all that do wickedly. All those, 
 whom those murmnrers pronounced blessed'', yea and all who 
 should thereafter be like them (be insists on the universality 
 of the judgement), every doer of ivickedness, up to that day 
 and those who should tiien be, shall be stubble. "^The proud 
 and mighty, who in this life were strong as iron and brass, 
 so that no one dared resist them, but they dared to fight with 
 God, these, in the Day of Judgement, shall be most powerless, 
 as stubble cannot resist the fire, in an evcrliving death." 
 
 That shall leave them neither root nor brunch "i.e. ''they 
 shall have no hope of shooting up again to life ; that life, I 
 mean, which is worthy of love, and in glory with God, in 
 holiness and bliss. For when the root has not been wholly 
 cut away, nor the shoot torn up as from the depth, some 
 hope is retained, that it may again shoot up. For, as it is 
 
 1 Dan. vii. 9, TO. 2 Ps. 1. 3. 3 i,. i^vi. 15, 16. 
 
 ■< 1 Cor. iii. 13. s 2 S. Pet. iii. 7-10. 
 
 « Dan. iii. 22. 7 ch. iii. 15. » Lap. 9 S. Cyr. 
 
 i» Job xiv. 7. " Is. btvi. ult. 
 
 >2 Ps. Ixxxiv. 11. 13 Is. Ix. 19, 20. » S. Luke i. 7G, 78, 79. 
 
 yea, and all that do wlekedly, shall beciPuTsT 
 ^stid)l>le: and the; day that eonieth shall —''^^^i— 
 burn them vp, saith the Loiiu of hosts, 
 that it shall ''leave them neither root nor ''Amos 2. 9. 
 branch. .ch.3.10^ 
 
 2 ^[ But unto you that 'fear my name ' ^i^ltu. 
 shall the "^Sun of rij^hteousness arise with Ri'v.'2!'28?' 
 
 written, ^^ There is hope of a tree, if it he cut down, that it tvill 
 sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 
 liut if it be wholly torn up from below and from its very 
 roots, and its shoots be fiercely cut away, all hoj)e, that it can 
 again shoot up to life, will perish also. So, he saith, will all 
 hope of the lovers of sin perish. For so the Divine Isaiah 
 clearly announces, ^' their worm shall tiot die and their fire shall 
 not be f/ucnchcd, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh." 
 
 2. But (And) unto ymi, who fear 3[y Nauie, shall the Sun 
 of Righteousness arise. It is said of God, ^-The Lord God is a 
 sun and a shield, and, ^' The Lord shall be to thee an everlasting 
 light, and thy God thy glory ; thy sun shall no more go down; 
 for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light ; and Zacharias, 
 speaking of the office of S. John Baptist in the words of 
 Malachi, thou shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare 
 His way, speaks of ^ ' the tender mercy of our God, whereby the 
 Dayspriug from im high hath visited us, to give light to them 
 that sit in darkness. '•' ^^ He Who is often called Lord and 
 God, and Angel and Captain of the Lord's host, and Christ 
 and Priest and Word and Wisdom of God and Image, is now 
 called the Sun of liighteousness. He, the Father promises, will 
 arise, not to all, but to those only who fear His Name, giving 
 them the light of the Sun of Righteousness, as the reward of 
 their fear towards Him. This is God the Word Who saith, / 
 am the Light of the world. Who was the Light nf every one 
 who Cometh into the ivorld." Primarily, Malachi speaks of 
 our Lord's second Coming, when ^^ to them that look for Him 
 shall He ajipear, a second time unto salvation. For as, in so 
 many places ^^, the Old Testament exhibits the opposite lots 
 of the righteous and the wicked, so here the prophet speaks 
 of the Day of Judgement, in reference to the two opposite 
 classes, of which he had before spoken, the proud and evil 
 doers, and the fearers of God. The title, the Sun of Right- 
 eousness, belongs to both Comings ; "*in the first. He diffused 
 rays of righteousness, whereby He justified and daily justi- 
 fies any sinners whatever, who will look to Him, i.e. believe 
 in Him and obey Him, as the sun imparts light joy and life 
 to all who turn towards it." In the second, the righteousness 
 which He gave. He will own and exhibit, cleared from all 
 the misjudgement of the world, before men and Angels. 
 Yet more, healing is, throughout Holy Scripture, used of 
 the removal of sickness or curing of wounds, in the individual 
 or state or Church, and, as to the individual, bodily or 
 spiritual. So David thanks God, first for the forgiveness, 
 '^ frho forgiveth all thine iniquities ; then for healing of his 
 soul, niio healeth all thy diseases; then for salvation, JT7io 
 redeemeth thy life from destruction ; then for the crown laid 
 up for him, JVho croivneth thee with loving-kindness and 
 tender inercies ; then, with the abiding sustenance and satis- 
 fying joy, fF'ho satisfieth thy mouth with good things. Healing 
 
 15 Eus. Dem. Ev. iv. 29. i« Heh. ix. 28. 
 
 1? As Ps. i. 6, ii. 12, iii. 7, 8, v. 10-12, vi. 8-10, vii. IG, 17, Lx. 17-20, x. 10-18, xi. 6, 7, 
 xvii. 13-15, XX. 8, xxvi. 9-12, xxxi. 23, xxxii. 10, 11, xxxiv. 21. 22, xxxv. 26-28, xxxyi. 
 10-12, xxxvii. .38-40, xl. 15-17, 1. 22, 23, Iii. 5-9, Iv. 22, 23, Iviii. 10, U. Ixiii. 10, 11, 
 Lxiv. 9, 10, Ixxiii. 27, 28, civ. 33-35, cxii. 9, 10, cxxvi. 5, cxlix. 9. i* Ps. ciii. 3-5.
 
 CIIAl'TER IV. 
 
 019 
 
 Rcfore 
 
 CHRIST li<5'il'"» i'l his wini^s ; and yo sliall i^o forth, 
 '''"■ "'■'<'■ and grow up as calves of the staU. 
 
 2 Sam. 22.43. 3 s And ye sliall tread down the wicked; 
 Zech.io.5. for they shall be ashes luuhir the soles of 
 
 your feet in the day that I shall do ffiis, 
 
 saith the Loud of hosts. 
 
 then primarily belonjjs to this life, in which we are still 
 encompassed witli infirmities, and even His elcet and His 
 Saints have still, wlicrcof to be healed. 'I'hc full then and 
 eom])lete hcalins; of the sonl, the intei;:rity of all its powers 
 Avill be in the life to come. There, will be " ' niiderstandinj^ 
 withont error, memory witiiout forifetfulness, tlioui;ht with- 
 out distraction, love without simulation, sensation without 
 t»ttence, satisfying;; without satiety, universal health without 
 sickness." " - For through Adam's sin the soul was wounded 
 in understanding;, through obscurity and ignorance; in will, 
 througli the leaning to perishing goods ; as concupiscent, 
 through infirmity and manifold concupiscence. In heaven 
 Christ will heal all these, giving to the understanding light 
 and knowledge; to the will, constancy in good; to the desire, 
 that it should desire nothing but what is right and good. 
 Then too the healing of the soul will be the light of glory, 
 the vision and fruition of God, and the glorious endowments 
 consequent thereon, overstreaming all the powers of the soul 
 and therefrom to the body." "^God has made the soul of a 
 nature so mighty, that from its most full beatitude, which at 
 the end of time is promised to the saints, there shall overflow 
 to the inferior nature, the body, not bliss, which belongs to 
 the soul as intelligent and capable of fruition, but the fulness 
 of health that is, the vigorousncss of ineorrn])tion." 
 
 yijtd ye shall go forth, as from a prison-house, from the 
 miseries of this lifeless life, a7id grow up, or perliaps more 
 probably, bound''', as the animal, which has been confined, 
 exults in its regained freedom, itself full of life and exuber- 
 ance of delight. So the Psalmist, ^ The saints shall e.iult in 
 glory. And our Lord uses the like word*, as to the way, with 
 which they should greet persecution to the utmost, for His 
 Name's sake. Swiftness of motion is one of the endowments 
 of the spiritual body, after the resurrection ; as the angels, 
 to whom the righteous shall be like ^, *^ran and returned as 
 the appearance of a flash of lightning. 
 
 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked ; for they shall he 
 ashes under the soles of your feet. It shall be a great reversal. 
 lie that exalteth himself shall he abased, and he that humhleth 
 himself shall be exalted. Here the wicked often have the pre- 
 eminence. This was the complaint of the murmurers among 
 the Jews ; in the morning oi the Resurrection '^the upright 
 shall have dcjininion over them. Tiie wicked, he had said, 
 shall be as .stubble, and that day ^^ shall hum them up ; here, 
 then, they are as the ashes, the only remnant of the stubble, 
 as the dust under the feet. " ^^ The elect shall rejoice, that 
 they have, in mercy, escaped such misery. Therefore they 
 shall be kindled inconceivably with the Divine love, and shall 
 from their inmost heart give thanks unto God." And being 
 thus of one mind with God, and seeing aU things as He seeth, 
 
 ' Pomerius de vit. contempl. i. 4. 
 
 ! Lap. ' S. Aug. Ep. 118 ad Diosc. n. 14 Opp. ii. 334. L. 
 
 •" So LXX. V'.ils- Syr. (and on Jer. 1. 11) Jon. (here "go" only); of modern Jews, 
 Tanehum here and on Jer. 1. 11. Pococke says more cautiously than moderns generally, 
 " vol far from this signification is the Arab. K'ns, which signifies to ' vaunt ' or ' boast ' or 
 * go strutting' or ' proudly.' " For '* arrogance," not " exuberance of joy," seems the mean- 
 ing of the Arabic word. The E.V., " grow," " enlarge," follows the interpretation given by 
 
 4 ^f Renieniher ye the "law of Moses ciuiTsT 
 my servant, which I commanded unto him ™- •'"''■ 
 ' in Iloreb for all Israel, with '' the statutes ' |c; ^"- "' 
 
 I . I , I rJeut.4. 10. 
 
 and judi^ments. ^i\.\i7.v.). 
 
 b\\ IJchold, I will send you ' Elijah the ' &I7. 'A"- 
 
 prophet '" before the coming of the great L^eitiV 
 
 "Joel 2.31. 
 
 they will rt^joice in His judgements, because they are His. 
 
 For tliey c.iiiiKit liiive one slightest velleity, other than the 
 nJI-peri'ect Will of (io<l. So Isaiaii closes his propiiecy, '-And 
 they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men, that 
 have transgressed against Me ; for their worm shall not die, 
 neither shall their /ire he quenched, and they shall he an abhor- 
 iug to alljlesh. So ''^The righteous shall rejoice, when he seeth 
 the I'engrance ; and aiiotlier Psalmist, "The righteous shall 
 see and rejoice ; and all wichedness shall stop her UKnith ; and 
 Job, '^ The righteous sec and are glad, and the innocent laugh 
 them to scorn. 
 
 4. Ilemeinlier ye the law of Moses, My servant. '" The law 
 was our schoolmaster to bring us tinto Christ. They then who 
 were most faithful to the law, would be most ])repared for 
 Christ. But for tliose of his own day, too, «ho were negli- 
 gent both of the ceremonial and moral law, he says, '• " .Since 
 the judgement of (iod will be so fearful, remember now un- 
 ceasingly and observe the law of God given by Moses." 
 
 TFhich I commanded'"^ unto him for [lit. upon, incumbent 
 upon'] all Israel. Not Moses connnanded them, but (jod by 
 Ilis servant INloses ; therefore He "-would in tlie day of 
 judgement take strict account of each, whether they had 
 or had not kept them. He would glorify tliose who obeyed. 
 He would condemn those who disobeyed them."' Tliey had 
 asked, TVhcre is the God of judgement ? What profit, that we 
 have kept the ordinance? He tells them of the judgement to 
 come, and bids them take heed, that they did indeed keep 
 them ; for there was a day of account to be held for all. 
 
 With the statutes and judgements, better, statutes and judge- 
 ments, i. c. consisting in them ; it seems added as an expiaiia- 
 tion of the word, law, individualising them. Duty is fulfilled, 
 not in a general acknowledgement of law, or an arbitrary 
 selection of some favourite commandments, which cost the 
 human will less; as, in our Lord's time, they miimtely observed 
 the law of tithes, but '^(mutfed weightier matters of the laic, 
 judgement, mercy, and faith. It is in obedience to the com- 
 mandments, one by one, one and all. INloses exhorted to the 
 keeping of the law, under these same words : ^'JN'oif therefore 
 hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and judgements which I 
 teach yon, to do them, that ye may live. — Ye shall not add 
 unto the icord that I command you, neither shall ye diminish 
 it. — Behold, I have taught you statutes and Judgements, even 
 as the Lord mi/ God commanded me. — What nation »o great, 
 that hath statutes and judgements, righteous as all this laiv, 
 which I set before you this day? The Lord commanded me 
 at that time, to teach you statutes and judgements, that ye 
 might do them in the laud, whither ye go to possess it. 
 
 5. Behold I will send [/ send, as a future, proximate in 
 the prophet's mind] you Klijah the prophet. The Archangel 
 
 most Heb. Comm. or lexicographers. 
 
 ' Ps. cxlLx. 5. ' aKipriitTaTf S. Luke vi. 23. 
 
 ' S. Luke XX. 3G. » Ezek. i. 14. 
 
 9 Ps. xlix. 14. l" iv. 1. 11 Dion. 
 
 '= Is. kvi. 24. " Ps. Iviii. 10. " lb. oii. 42. 
 
 15 Job xxii. 19. " Gal. iii. 24. 
 
 i; rrfi with double accus. 18 s. Matt, xxiii. 23. " Deut. iv. 1, 2, 5, 8, 14.
 
 G20 
 
 MALACIII. 
 
 Gabriel interprets this for us, to include the sending of 
 S. John Baptist. For he not only says ' tiiat lie shall go before 
 the Lord in the s/iirif (ind power of E/ia.s, hut desci-ibes his 
 mission in tlie characrteristic words of INlalachi, /o turn the 
 hearts of the fntliers to the children : and tiiose otiier words 
 also, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, perhaps re- 
 present the se([uel in Malachi, and the hearts of the einldren 
 to the fathers ; for their hearts could only l)e so turned by 
 conversion to God, Wiioni the fathers, patriarchs and pro- 
 phets, knew loved and served ; and Whom theij served in 
 name only. S. Jolin Baptist, in denying that he was Elias -, 
 denied only, that he was tliat great propiiet himself. Our 
 Lord, in saying, ^ This is Klius, which was for to come, * that 
 Elias is come already and they kneiv him not, hut have done 
 unto him ichatsoever they listed, met the error of the Scribes, 
 that He could not be tlie Christ, because Elias was not yet 
 come''. When He says, ^ Ulias truly slut II first come and 
 restore all things. He implies a coming of Elias, other tlian 
 that of S. John Baptist, since he was already martyred, and 
 all things were not yet restored. This must also be the 
 fullest fulfilment. For the great and terrible Day of the Lord 
 is the Day of judgement, of which all eartlily judgements, 
 however desohiting, (as the destruction of Jerusalem) are but 
 shadows and earnests. Before our Lord's coming all things 
 looked on to His first Coming, and, since tliat Coming, all 
 looks on to the Second, which is the completion of the first 
 and of all things in time. 
 
 Our Lord's words, Elias truly shall first come and restore 
 all things, seem to me to leave no question, that, as S.John 
 Baptist came, in the spirit and power of Elias, before His 
 First Coming, so, before the Second Coming, Elias should 
 come in person, as Jews and Christians have alike expected. 
 This has been the Christian expectation from the first. 
 S.Justin 3Iartyr asked iiis opponent'^, "Shall we not conceive 
 that the VVord of God has ])roclainied Elias to be the fore- 
 runner of the great and terrible day of His second Coming?" 
 " Certainly," was Trypho's reply. S. Justin continues, " Our 
 Lord Himself tauglit us in His own teaching that this very 
 thing shall be, when He said that Elias also shall come ; and 
 we know that this shall be fulfilled, wlien He is about to come 
 from Heaven in glory." TertuUian says ^, "Elias is to come 
 again, not after a departure from life, but after a translation ; 
 not to be restored to the body, from which he was never 
 taken ; but to be restored to the world, from which he was 
 translated ; not by way of restoration to life, but for the 
 completion of prophecy ; one and the same in name and in 
 
 person. 
 
 'Enoch and Elias were translated, and their death 
 
 is not recorded, as being deferred ; but they are reserved as 
 to die, that they may vanquish Antichrist by their blood." 
 And, in proof that the end was not yet, "^"No one has yet re- 
 ceived Elias; no one has yet fied from Antichrist." And the 
 ancient author of the verses against 3Iarcion; "^' Elias who has 
 not yet tasted the debt of death, because he is again to come 
 into the world." Origen says simply in one place^-, that the 
 Saviour answered the question as to the objection of the 
 Scribes, "not annulling what had been handed down concern- 
 ing Elias, but affirming that there was another coming of Elias 
 before Christ, unknown to the scribes, according to which, 
 
 • S. Luke i. 17. 2 S. John i. 21 . 
 
 3 S. Matt. xi. 14. ■> lb. xvi!. 12. 
 
 5 The error of the .lews consisted, not in their rooted belief, as founded on these words, 
 
 that Elijah sliould come before tlie great and tenible Day of the Lord, but in their denial 
 
 tliat He should have any foremnner of His Coming in His great humility. They erred, 
 
 not in wh:it they believed, but in wliat they disbelieved. 
 
 6 S. Matt. xvii. 11. -- Dial. c. 40. p. 131. Oxf. Tr. 
 
 8 De anima c. 35. p. 539. Rig. 9 Id. ib. c. 'M. p. 519. 
 
 not knowing him, and, being in a manner, accomplices in his 
 being cast into prison by Herod and slain by him, they had 
 done to him what they listed." .S. Uijtpolytus has; "''As 
 two Comings of our Lord and Saviour were indicated by the 
 Scriptures, the first in the fiesh, in dishonour, that He n'light 
 be set at naught — the second in glory, when He shall come 
 from Heaven witli the heavenly host and tiie glory of the 
 Father — so two forerunners were pointed out, the first, Joiin, 
 the son of Zacharias, and again — since He is manifested as 
 Judge at the end of the world. His forerunners must first ap- 
 pear, as He says through Malachi, / will send to you Elias 
 the Tishbite before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall 
 come.'' 
 
 S. Hilary ; "^'Tiie Apostles enquire in anxiety about the 
 times of Elias. To whom He answereth, that Elias luill come 
 and restore all things, that is, will recall to the knowledge of 
 God, what he shall find of Israel ; but he signifies tliat John 
 came in the spirit and potver of Elias, to whom they had 
 shewn all severe and liarsh dealings, that, foreannouncing 
 the Coming of the Lord, he might be a forerunner of the 
 Passion also by an example of wrong and harass." "i^We 
 understand that those same prophets [Moses and Elias] will 
 come before His Coming, who, the Apocalypse of John says, 
 will be slain by Antichrist, although there are various opinions 
 of very many, as to Enoch or Jeremiah, that one of them 
 is to die, as Elias." 
 
 Hilary the Deacon, A.D. 355, has on the words, / suppose 
 God hat h set fort h us the Apostles last; "^^ He therefore applies 
 these to his own person, because he was always in distress, 
 suffering, beyond the rest, persecutions and distresses, as 
 Enoch and Elias will suft'er, who will be Apostles at the last 
 time. For they have to be sent before Christ, to make ready 
 the people of God, and fortify all the Churches to resist Anti- 
 christ, of whom the Apocalypse attests, that they will suffer 
 persecutions and be slain." "^'^When the faithless shall be 
 secure of the kingdom of the devil, the saints, i.e. Enoch and 
 Elias being slain, rejoicing in the victory, and sending gifts, 
 one to another, as the Apocalypse says i**, sudden destruction 
 shall come upon them. For Christ at His Coming, shall 
 destroy them all." ^. Gregory of Nyssa quotes the prophecy 
 under the heading, that " ^'-^ before the second Coming of our 
 Lord, Elias should come." 
 
 S.Ambrose ; "-"Because the Lord was to come down from 
 heaven, and to ascend to heaven. He raised Elias to heaven, 
 to bring him back to the earth at the time He should please." 
 " -1 The beast. Antichrist, ascends from the abyss to fight 
 against Elias and Enoch and John, who are restored to the 
 earth for the testimony to the Lord Jesus, as we read in the 
 Apocalypse of John. 
 
 *S'. Jerome gives here the mystical meaning ; " God will 
 send, in Elias, (which is interpreted 'My God' and who is of 
 the town Thisbe, which signifies ' conversion ' or ' penitence') 
 the whole choir of the Prophets, to convert the heart of the 
 fathers to the sons, viz. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all 
 the patriarchs, that their posterity may believe in the Lord 
 the Saviour, in whom themselves believed: for Abraham saw 
 the day of the Lord and ivas glad." Here, he speaks of the 
 " coming of Elias before their anointed," as a supposition of 
 
 '" de res. camis c. 22. p. 3S5. Rig. 
 
 " Carm. incert. Auct. adv. Marcion. L. iii. p. 802. col. 1 Rig. 
 
 12 in S.Matt. xvii. 111. Opp. iii. 567. '^ de Antichristo c. 44— 4ti pp. 21, 22. 
 
 » in Matt. c. xvii. n. 4. Opp. p. 094, 695. 
 
 '5 Id. Ib. c. XX. n. 10. p. 710. Ben. 16 App. 3. Ambius. ii. 125. m 1 Cor. iv. 9. 
 
 1? Ib. p. 282. in 1 Thess. v. 1. ■» Rev. xi. 10. 
 
 I'J adv. Jud. Opp. ii. p. 266. ™ de poenit. i. 8. 
 
 =1 in Psalm 45, n. 10. Opp. i. 930. " Only one MS has, ' and Jolm.' " Ben. note.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 621 
 
 Jews and Judaiziii"^ heretics. But in commenting? on our 
 Lord's words in S. Matthew, he adiiercs twice to the literal 
 meaning. " ^ Some tliink that Jolin is therefore called Elias, 
 hecausc, as, accordinj^to Mahichi, at tlie second (.'oniinj? of the 
 Saviour", Elias will precede and antioiincc theJudi;c to come, 
 so did John at His lirst Coininu,, and each is ii iiicsscni;er, 
 of the first or second (Jominj:; of the Lord:" and a^ain con- 
 cisely, "-He who is to come in the second Coming;- of the 
 Saviour in the actual hody, now comes through John in spirit 
 and power;" and he speaks of Enoch and Elias as " ' the two 
 ivitnesscs in the Revelation, sinj-c, according; to the Apocalypse 
 of John, Enoch and Elias are spoken of, as having to die." 
 
 S. C/nysos/ome, "* When He saith that Elias comet h and 
 slinll restore (lit things. He means I'^Jias himself, and the con- 
 version of the Jews, which shall then he; hut when He saith, 
 ivluch was to come, He calls John, Elias, according to the 
 manner of his ministry." 
 
 In S. Augasfijie\s time it was the universal belief. " ' When 
 he [Malachi] had admonished them to remember the law of 
 Moses, because he foresaw, that they would for a long time not 
 receive it spiritnally, as it ought, he added forthwith ; And I 
 ivill send you Elias the Thishite&ic. That when, through this 
 Elias, the great and wonderful prophet, at the last time before 
 the judgement, the law shall have been expounded to them, 
 the Jews shall believe in the true Christ, i.e. in our Christ, is 
 everywhere in the mouths and hearts of the faithful. For 
 not without reason is it hoped, that he shall come before the 
 Coming of the Saviour, as Judge, because not without reason 
 is it believed that he still lives. For he was carried in a 
 chariot of fire from things below ; which Scripture most 
 evidently attests. When he shall come then, by expounding 
 the law spiritually, which the Jews now understand carnally, 
 he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children." 
 
 S. Cyril of Alexandria, his antagonist Theodoret, and Theo- 
 dore of Mopsuestia, who was loose from all tradition, had 
 the same clear belief. S. Cyril ; " It is demonstrative of the 
 gentleness and long-suflering of God, that Elias also the 
 Tishbite shall shine upon us, to foreannounce when the Judge 
 shall come to those in the Avhole world. For the Son shall 
 come down, as Judge, in the glory of the Father, attended 
 by the angels, and shall sit on the throne of His gloi-y, jai\g- 
 ing the ivorld in righteousness, and shall reward every man 
 according to his ivorks. But since we are in many sins, well 
 is it for us, that the Divine Prophet goes before Him, bring- 
 ing all those on earth to one mind ; that all, being brought to 
 the unity through the faith, and ceasing from evil intents, may 
 fulfil that which is good, and so be saved when tlie Judge 
 Cometh down. The blessed Baptist John came before Him 
 in the spirit and poiver of Elias. But, as he preached saying. 
 Prepare ye the icay of the Lord, make His paths straight, so 
 also tiie divine Elias proclaims His then being near and all- 
 but-present, that He may fudge the ivorld in righteousness." 
 Theodoret ; '"'Malachi teaches us how, when Antichrist shall 
 presume on these things, the great Elias shall appear, preach- 
 ing to the Jews the Coming of Christ : and he shall convert 
 many, for this is the meaning of, he shall turn the heart of 
 the fathers to the children, i.e. the Jews (for these he calls 
 fathers, as being older in knowledge) to those who believed 
 from the Gentiles. They who shall believe through the 
 preaching of the great Elias, and shall join themselves to the 
 Gentiles who seized the salvation sent to them, shall become 
 
 1 On S. Matt. xi. 14, 15. 
 
 On S. Matt. xvii. 11, 12. 
 
 3 Ep 59 [al. 148] ad Marcell. 0pp. i. 326. Vail. 
 * In S. Matt. Horn. 57. Opp. vii. 577. * de Civ. Dei, xx. 29. 0pp. ra. 613. 
 
 ^ On Daniel, c. xii. init. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 one Chur(;h. — He hints, how when these things are done by 
 Antichrist, S. Michael the Archangel will set all in motion, 
 that Elias should come and foreannounce the Coming of the 
 Lord, that tlic then Jews may obtain salvation." And on 
 this jdace, " Knowing well, that they would neither obey the 
 law, nor receive Ilini w hen He came, hut wouhl (Icliver Him to 
 l)e crucified, 11(! ])romises tlicni. in His unspeakable lovr' I'nr 
 man, that He will again send Elias as a herald of sahation, 
 fyo, I will send you Elias the Tishbite. And signifying the 
 time. He added, Before the great and terrible Day of the Lord 
 shall come: He named the Day of His Second ('oniing. But 
 He teaches us, what the great iCIias shall do, when he comes, 
 Jf^ho shall bring back the heart of the father to the son &c. 
 And pointing out the end, for which Elias siiould first conu!, 
 Lest I come and smite the earth utterly. For lest, finding you 
 all in unbelief!, I send you all to that endless punishment, 
 Elias will first come, and will persuade you, O Jews, to unite 
 you indissolubly with those, wiio from the Gentiles believe in 
 Me, and to be united to My one Church." 
 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia paraphrases: " In addition to all 
 which I have said, I give you this last commandment, to 
 remember My law, which I gave to all Israel through !Mose.s, 
 plainly declaring what they ought to do in each thing, and as 
 the first token of obedience, to receive the Lord Christ when 
 He Cometh, appearing for the salvation of all men : Who will 
 end the law, but sliew His own perfection. It had been \\ ell, 
 bad you immediately believed Him when He came, and known 
 Him, as He Whom JVIoscs and all the prophets signified, Who 
 should put an end to the law, and reveal the common salva- 
 tion of all men, so that it should be manifest to all, that 
 this is the sum and chief good of the whole dispensation of 
 the law, to bring all men to the Lord Christ, Who, for those 
 great goods, shotdd be manifested in His own time. But 
 since, when He manifested Himself, ye manifested your own 
 ungainliness, the blessed Elias shall be sent to you before 
 the second Coming of Christ, when He ■nail come from 
 Heaven, to unite those who, for religion, are separated from 
 each other, and, through the knowledge of religion, to bring 
 the fathers to one-mindedness with the children, and in a 
 word, to bring all men to one and the same harmony, when 
 those, then found in ungodliness, shall receive from him the 
 knowledge of the truth in the communion with the godly 
 thence ensuing." 
 
 The African author of the tvork on the promises and pre- 
 dictions of God (between A. D. 450-455.) 
 
 "^Against Antichrist shall be sent two witnesses, the pro- 
 phets Enoch and Elijah, against whom shall arise three false 
 prophets of Antichrist." 
 
 Isidore of Seville A. D. 595. ; 
 
 " ^ Elias, borne in a chariot of fire, ascended to heaven, to 
 come according to the prophet Malachi at the end of the 
 world, and to precede Christ, to announce His last Coming, 
 with great deeds and wondrous signs, so that, on earth too. 
 Antichrist will war against him, be against him, or him who 
 is to come with him, and will slay them ; their bodies also 
 will lie unburied in the streets. Then, raised by the Lord, 
 they will smite the kingdom of Antichrist with a great blow. 
 After this, the Lord will come, and will slay Antichrist with 
 the word of His mouth, and those who worshipped him." 
 '•^This will be in the last times, when, on the preaching of 
 Elias, Judah will be converted to Christ." 
 
 7 Dimid. Temp. c. 13. App. to S. Prosper. Enoch and Elias are spoken of, as the two 
 witnes.'ies. by Ammonius in the Comm. variorr. on Daniel. Mai Scriptt. Vett. Nov. Coll. 
 T. 1. P. iii. p. 52. 8 de ort. et ob. Patr. c. 35. Opp. v. 167, 168. 
 
 ' c. Jud. ii. 5. 9. Opp. vi. 79. 
 
 T T T T
 
 &22 
 
 MALACHL 
 
 ch^rTst ^"'^ dreadful day of the Lord: 
 "'■ »»^- G And he shall turn the heart of the 
 
 fathers to the ehildren, and the heart of 
 
 To add one more, for his great fjifts, S. Gregory the Great. 
 "^It is jtroniiscd, that wlieii Elias shall come, he shall bririi!:; 
 back the hearts of the sons to their fathers, that the doctrine 
 of the old, which is now taken from the hearts of the Jews, 
 may, in tiie mercy of God, return, when the sons shall begin 
 to understand of the Lord God, what the fathers taught." 
 ""Although Elias is related to have been carried to heaven, 
 he deferred, he did not escape, death. For it is said of him 
 by the mouth of the Truth Ilimsclf, Elias sliall come and 
 restore all things. He shall come to restore all things ; for to 
 this end is he restored to this world, that he may both fulfil 
 the office of preaching, and pay the debt of the flesh." '"The 
 holy Church, although it now loses many through the shock 
 of temptation, yet, at the end of the world, it receives its own 
 double, when, having received the Gentiles to the full, all 
 Judffia too, which shall then be, agrees to hasten to its faith. 
 For hence it is written, Until the fulness of the Gentiles shall 
 come, and so all Israel shall he saved. Hence in the Gospel 
 the Truth says, Elias shall come and shall restore all things. 
 For now the Church has lost the Israelites, whom it could 
 liot convert by preaching; but then, at the preaching of Elias, 
 while it collects all which it shall find, it receives in a manner 
 more fully what it has lost." "*John is spoken of as to come 
 in the spirit and power of Elias, because, as Elias shall pre- 
 cede the second Coming of the Lord, so John preceded His 
 first. For as Elias will come, as precursor of the Judge, so 
 John %vas made the precursor of the Redeemer. John then 
 was Elias iu spirit; he was not Elias in person. What then the 
 Lord owned as to spirit, that John denies as to the person." 
 
 Whether Elias is one of the two witnesses^, spoken of in the 
 Apocalypse, is obviously a distinct question. Of commenta- 
 tors on the Apocalypse, Arethas^ remarks that as to Elias, 
 there is clear testimony from Holy Scripture, this of Malachi; 
 but that, with regard to Enoch, we have only the fact of his 
 being freed from death by translation, and the tradition of the 
 Church. S.John Damascene fixed the belief, in the Eastern 
 Church '^. In the West, Bede e.g. who speaks of the 'belief 
 that the two witnesses wei'e Elijah and Enoch, as what was 
 said by "^ some doctors," takes our Lord's declaration, that 
 Elias shall return^ in its simple meaning^. Yet it was no 
 
 1 Moral, xi. 15. n. 24. Ben. 2 lb. xx. 34. n. 66. Ben. 
 
 3 lb. XXXV. 14. n. 24. See also on Ezek. L. i. Horn. 12. n. 8, y, where he speaks of the 
 corahig of Enoch also. 
 
 ■• in Evang. Horn. vii. n. 1. . 5 ggg above p. 25. 
 
 6 Comm. on Apocalypse printed with CEcumenjus p. 942. ed. 1530. 
 
 7 De fide iv. 26. s on Rev. c. xi. 
 
 9 on S.Matt. xvii. 11. S.Mark ix. 
 
 10 Rupertiis says here, "Of the coming of Elias I dare not define anything, because 
 some doctors, wit'li whom almost all agree, believe that he will come in the letter, and will 
 restore all things, and will pay the debt of death ; but others not, mth whom the illustrious 
 S.Jerome seems to agree. 
 
 " S. Matt. X. .34-36. n lb. 21. 
 
 13 Ibn Ezra. The Jews, although mostly agreed, that Elijah will come, are disagreed as 
 to the end of his coming. By some he is spoken of as a Redeemer. Taiwliuma. (f. 31. 1.) 
 "God said to Israel, In this world I sent an angel to cast out the nations before you, but in 
 tlie future [or, in the world to come, Yalkut Shim'oni f. 98-29] myself wiU lead you and 
 will ' send you Elijah the prophet." Pestkta rabbathi (in Yalkut Shim'oni ii. f. 32. 4) 
 " Both redeemed Israel : Moses in Egypt, and Elias in that wliich is to come." (Id. ib. 
 f. 53. 2.) " I send you a redeemer." Midrash Shoclier tof Ib. f. 884, " Israel said, ' It is 
 written of the first redemption, ' He sent Moses His servant, Aaron whom He had ehoscn ; 
 send me two like tliem.' God answered ; ' I will send you Elijah the prophet : this is 
 one, the other is he, of wliom Isaiah spoke (xlii. 1.) Behold, my servant whom I have 
 chosen.' " Shemoth Rabba [Sect 3. col. IDS. 2. ad loc] ' In the second redemption, ye 
 sliall be healed and redeemed by the word /, i.e. I will send." Or, as a comforter, "I 
 will send you Elias, he shall come and comfort you." Debarim rabba sect. 3. fin. Or to 
 pionounce some things clean, others unclean. Shir hashirim rabba f. 27. 3. [all the above 
 
 the children to tlu^ir fathers, lest I come 
 and "smite the earth with "a curse. 
 
 Before 
 CHRIST 
 
 cir. 3'.>7. 
 
 » Zech. 14. 12. 
 o Zech. 5. 3. 
 
 matter of faith '". W^hen the belief as to a personal Antichrist 
 was changed by Luther and Calvin, the belief of a personal 
 forerunner of Christ gave way also. 
 
 6. .^nd he shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the 
 children. Now they were unlike, and severed by that unlike- 
 ncss from each other. Yet not on earth; for on earth parents 
 and children were alike alienated from God, and united 
 between themselves in wickedness or worldliness. The com- 
 mon love of the world or of worldly pursuits, or gain or 
 self-exaltation, or making a fortune or securing it, is, so far, 
 a common bond of interest to those of one family, through a 
 common selfishness, though that selfishness is the parent of 
 general discord, of fraud, violence, and other misdeeds. Nay, 
 conversion of children or parents becomes rather a source of 
 discord, embittering the unconverted. Whence our Lord 
 says, ^^ Think 7iot, that I am come to send peace on the earth. 
 I came not to .^end peace on earth, but a siuord. Ear I am come 
 to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter 
 against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her inother- 
 in-law : and a man's foes shall be they of his oivn household; 
 a prophecy fulfilled continually in the early persecutions, 
 even to the extent of those other words of our Lord, i- the 
 brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the 
 child ; aiul the children shall rise up against their parents, and 
 cause them to he put to death. It is fulfilled also in the intense 
 hatred of the Jews at this day, to any who are converted to 
 Christ; a hatred which seems to have no parallel in the 
 world. Nor do the words seem to mean that fathers and 
 children should be united in one common conversion to God, 
 as one says, " ^^ All shall'be one heart to return to the Lord, 
 both fathers and children ; " for he speaks primarily of their 
 mutual conversion to one another, not to God. 
 
 The form of the expression seems to imply that the efi'ect 
 of the preaching of Elias shall be, to bring back the children, 
 the Jews then in being, to the faith and love which their 
 fathers, the Patriarchs, had; that "i*as these believed, hoped 
 for, longed exceedingly for, and loved Christ to come, so their 
 sons should believe, hope in, long exceedingly for and love 
 Christ, Who was come, yea is present ; and so the heart of 
 fathers, which before was turned from their unbelieving 
 
 in Schottgen ad loc] Others, in different ways, to settle, to which tribe each belongs. Kimchi 
 on Ezek. xlvii, and this with different explanations as to strictness. (See Edaioth fin. 
 Mishnah T. iv. p. 362. Surenhus.) "Rabbi Simeon says, 'To remove controversies.' 
 And the wise and doctors say. To make peace in the world, as is said, " Behold I send." 
 R. Abraham B. Da^id explams the peace to be "from the nations," and adds, "to an- 
 nounce to them tlie coming of the redeemer, and tliis ui one day before the coming of the 
 Messiah ; " and to "turn the hearts &c." he explains " the hearts of the fathers and children 
 (on W'hom softness had fallen from fear, and they fled, some here, some there, from their 
 distresses) on that day they shall return to their might and to one another and shaU comfort 
 each other." Abai'banel says, that Elijah shall be the instiimient of the resurrection, and 
 that, through those who rise, the race of man shall be directed in the recognition of God and 
 the true faith." Ibn Ezra, " that he shall come at the collection of the captives, as Moses 
 at the redemption of Egypt, not for the ressurrection." [These are collected by Frisclmiuth 
 de Elise adventu. Thes. Tlieol. Phil. V..T. T. i. p. 1070. sqq.] R. Tanchum. from Mai- 
 monides, says, "Tliis is without doubt a promise of the appearance of a prophet in Israel, 
 a little before the coming of the Messiah ; and some of the wise tliink tliat it is Elias the 
 Tishbite himself, and this is found in most of the Midrashoth, and some think that it is a 
 prophet like him in rank, occupying his place in the knowledge of God and the manifesting 
 His Name and that so he is called Elijah. And so explamed the great Gaon, Rah Mosheh 
 ben Maimon, at the end of his great book on jurisprudence, called ' Mislmeh Torah.' And, 
 perhaps he [the person sent] may be Messiali ben Joseph, as he says again — And the ex- 
 actness of the matter in these promises will only be kno\\'n, when they appear : and no one 
 has therein any accredited account, but each of them says what he says, according to what 
 appears to liim, and what prei^onderates in his mind of the explanation of the truth." 
 " 1 he tummg of the heart ot the father to the children," he explains to be, " the restoration 
 of religion, until all should be of one heart iu the obedience to God." ^^ Lap.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 623 
 
 children, he should turn to them, now Ix-licvitia;, iind cause 
 tlu! I'atriarehs to own and love the Jews Ix'lievini; in Christ, 
 as indeed their children ; for ^ your father Ahraham rejoiced to 
 see Ml/ day ; he saw it and ivas glad, Christ saith." 
 
 I^est I come and smite the earth with a curse, i.e. with an 
 utter destruction, from wlii(!h there should he no reden)j»tion. 
 In the end, God will so smite the earth, and all, not converted 
 to Him. The prayer and zeal of Elijah will jjain a repri(we, 
 in which God will spare the world for thc! j;atlierin!i^ of His 
 own elect, the full conversion of the Jews, which shall fulfil 
 the Apostle's words, ^ So shall all Israel he saved. 
 
 After the ^lad tidings, Malachi, and the Old Testament 
 in him, ends with words of awe, telling us of the consequence 
 of the final hardening of the heart; the eternal severance, 
 when the unending end of the everlasting Gospel itself shall 
 be accomplished, and its last grain shall be gathered into 
 
 I S. John viii. 56. 2 Rom. xi. 26. 
 
 ' The Masora at the end of Malachi notices, that in the reading of ppn', i.e. Isaiah, the 
 Twelve [as cue book, ending with Malachi], the Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, the last verse 
 
 the garner of thc liord. 'I'hc Jews, who would be wiser 
 than the prophet, repeat the previous verse^, because Malachi 
 closes so awefully. Thc Maker of the heart of man knew 
 better thc hearts which lie had made, and taught their 
 authors to end thc books of Isaiah and Ecclesiastes with 
 words of awe, from whi(!h man's heart so struggles to escape. 
 To turn to God here, or everlasting destruction from Ilis 
 presence there, is the only choice open to thee. '"'Think of 
 this, when lust goads thee, or ambition solicits thee, or anger 
 convulses thee, or the flesh blandishes thee, or the world 
 allures thee, or the devil displays bis deceitful pomj) and 
 enticement. In thy hand and thy choice are life and death, 
 heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, bliss or nii.sery 
 everlasting. Ciioose which tliou wiliest. Think, 'A moment 
 which delighteth, eternity which tortureth;' on the other hand, 
 ' a moment which tortureth, eternity which delighteth.' " 
 
 bnt one is rcjieatcd. Tlie tliree do end heavily ; but Ecclesiastes only end.s with the de- 
 claration of a day of judgement, wliich, it nmst be supposed, they did not like to dwell upon. 
 
 * Lap. 
 
 'I si;e that all things come to an end: 
 Thy commandment is exceeding euuau." Ps. cxix. 90. 
 
 'As THE HART PAXTETH AFTER THE WATER BROOKS, 
 So PANTETH MY SOUL AFTER ThEE, O GoD." Ps. xUi. 1.
 
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