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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,

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

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.

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.

> Hosea xiv. 4, 8.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER 11.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

^,??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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

i S. Luke xviii. 4.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

<- „^,?'?''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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.)

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.

* Osoriiis.

' Rup.

rvA

iV...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

" 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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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,

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

" 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

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

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.

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

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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!'.

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:

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.

M
H

b
O

H
D
O

■J

Z
a

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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,

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

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.

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

.'{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.

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

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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

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.

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

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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

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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.

=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.

()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,

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.

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.

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

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;"

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.

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

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.

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.

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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

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■• 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.

CHAPTER 1.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

;^,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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

' 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

' 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

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.

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-x

. and

xiii.

7-9.

ix-

xi.

xiii.

7-9.

ix-

xi.

XI.

ix.
ix.

XI. 1-3.

xii 4-17.

ix.

XI.

ix.

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.

/?.

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

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.

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.

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.

« 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.

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.

(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

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

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-

\\\\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.

'* 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 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.

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.

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.

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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