614 
 
^r^ ^^ ^^^ 
 
 THE 
 
 MINOR PROPHETS; 
 
 NOTES, 
 
 CRITICAL, EXPLANATORY, AND PRACTICAL, 
 
 DESIGNED FOR BOTH PASTORS AND PEOPLE. 
 
 EEY. IIEjN^RY BOWLES. 
 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest ? And he said, IIo w cxw I, except some 
 man should guide me ? " — Acts 8: 39, 31. 
 
 NEW YOEK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 6 49 & 55 1 BROADWAY. 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year ISGQ. by 
 ItEV. nENRT COWLES, 
 !n the Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United Stiites fur the 
 Northern District of Ohio. 
 
PKEFAOE 
 
 The Christian commentator, assuming that the Scrip- 
 tures are from God, infers their inestimable value to man- 
 kind. Assuming also that God speaks to man in love and 
 for his good, he infers that originally, to common hearers 
 and readers, his words must have been readily intelligible. 
 Hence he finds his work to be, comprehensively, to get 
 possession of the same means for understanding the words 
 of God which were enjoyed by those first hearers and 
 readers, including specially the language in which God 
 spake, the historic facts to which he alludes, and the scenes 
 in nature and common life from which he drew his illustra- 
 tions. So much he must have in order to a clear and full 
 understanding for himself of the ancient words of God 
 
 to men. Then it remains only to put his readers in 
 
 possession of his views of the Sacred Word. To do this he 
 may lead them over all the ground which he himself has 
 travelled, i. c, through the original Hebrew, unfolding its 
 laws of etymology, syntax, and usage of words, and also 
 through all the details of historic investigation : or he 
 may place before his readers for the most part only the 
 results at which he has arrived. In the former case, he 
 
iV PREFACE. 
 
 writes for scholars only ; in the latter, for readers of all 
 classes. ^I have adopted mainly the latter method, aim- 
 ing to meet the wants, not of Hebrew sciiolars only or 
 chiefly, but of all English readers. I have ha n view 
 somewhat specially those who have been and are yet to be 
 trained to thoughtful study of God's word in Sabbath 
 schools and Bible classes, and indeed all those laymen and 
 women who love the Sacred Scriptures, and who naturally 
 
 wish to know their full and precise meaning. ^While in 
 
 the main it has been my plan to give results only, and not 
 the processes by Avhich I reach them, yet points of great 
 practical interest and value, e.g., those prophecies respect- 
 ing the Messiah and his kingdom which yet remain in part 
 to be fulfilled, I have deemed it important to discuss 
 fundamentally and thoroughly, so that the reader may see 
 what principles of interpretation I adopt, and wdiy, — and 
 also to what results they have led me. A superficial treat- 
 ment of these points ought to be eminently imsatisfactory. 
 The commentator has his option whether to restrict 
 his work mainly to the unfolding of the exact sense, or to 
 speak more or less fully of the practical and moral applica- 
 tions of the truth which he brings out. These moral 
 applications are, of course, of the utmost importance to 
 every reader ; yet usually God has left each reader to make 
 them for himself, and adapt them to his own case. Hence 
 I have thought it cannot be unwise for me to follow for the 
 most part tlie same method — assuming that God's word as 
 it came from his lips will have power on men's hearts when 
 the full sense of it is clearly apprehended. I have therefore 
 spoken of the moral bearings and apj^lications of the truth 
 only in fewest words, suggestively and by no means ex- 
 liaustively, and rather as a specimen and illustration of 
 
PREFACE. y 
 
 tlie practical use to bo made of the divine word. By this 
 method, the work is much reduced in size and expense ; is 
 brought within the means and the time for reading of a 
 much greater number; and still, it is hoped, witliout lessen- 
 ing its moral and sj)iritual value. 
 
 The study of the Bible has been to me, above all other 
 studies, my life-work and my life-joy. Through divine 
 mercy and a fore-ordering providence, my attention has 
 been turned and held very considerably during forty years 
 past to the study of the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially 
 to the writings of the prophets. At the urgent suggestion 
 of friends, and under a strong conviction of the need of a 
 commentary on these books adapted to all readers, I 
 entered, three years ago, uj^on the preparation of these 
 volumes, fully purposed to spare no pains, first to reacli 
 the exact and full thought in these sacred words, and then 
 to present it with whatever clearness, brevity, and force I 
 
 could command. Tliese years of study and writing have 
 
 been to me a continual feast. Such a jorofusion of literary 
 and poetic beauties as lie here, is one of God's great 
 benefactions, yet is not to be named in comparison with 
 the value of these truths fresh from the infinite mind of 
 our divine Father, and from his parental heart. It is a 
 luxury to see the lines of evidence converging to a focus to 
 certify the exact meaning of God's word, and to bring out 
 that meaning in sunlight before the mind. It ought to be 
 and is a luxury even more rich to feel the presence and the 
 power of such truth upon the heart. The writer has gone 
 through these prophetic books with a growing sense of the 
 richness and fulness of their provisions for both the mind 
 and the heart, earnestly wishing that his readers may 
 partake of this feast, and drink dcci'ly at thcFc fonntaijis. 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 This volume is sent forth in the hope that it may aid the 
 studies and refresh the souls of those who prize the Sacred 
 Word, and rejoice in the growing sway of light and love 
 under the Gjreat Redeemer's rei^'n. 
 
 It has heen thought best to begin with the minor proph- 
 ets. The notes on the remaining prophets, upon the same 
 general plan, have been prepared for the press, and may 
 appear at some future day, if it should seem desirable. 
 
 The reader will be careful to observe that in the notes, 
 italic words are emphatic ; but in the sacred text, as in all 
 English Bibles, they indicate that there are no correspond- 
 ing words in the original Hebrew. Hence they are often 
 the opposite of emphatic, — a more just translation dispens- 
 ing with them altogether. 
 
 The author has aimed to give either a translation, more 
 or less free, or a paraphrase, in all cases where he has been 
 compelled to differ from the received version. These pas- 
 sages are usually indicated by marks of quotation. 
 
 OnERLiN, OMoy Sept., 1866. 
 
GENERAL LNTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS. 
 
 The Mosaic system comprised instil ations and agencies for 
 sustaining the religious life of tlie Hebrew people. The priests 
 and the Levites were religious orders, held responsible for this 
 ser\'ice. In the degenerate ages of the nation, the forms of 
 their religion lost their spiritual power, and those religious 
 orders seem to have gone down morally in the general declen- 
 sion. Hence there arose a demand for a new order of men, 
 and prophets appeared, holding their individual commissions 
 direct from the living God. Singled out by his special call, they 
 went fortli with his definite messages, calling upon the people 
 to hear liis voice, and turn from their sins to righteousness. 
 Hence it resulted, from the very circumstances which called into 
 existence the order of propliets, that tlieir main work sliould be 
 to preacli reform ; to rebuke the prevalent sins of the nation ; 
 to denounce their idolatry, their self-righteousness, their heart- 
 less formality, and their oppression of the poor ; to threaten im- 
 pending judgments, and to call the people back to their for- 
 saken God. 
 
 A portion of them (not all) have left in writing more or less 
 of the messages sent by them from God to the people. Some, 
 whose position is quite prominent in the history {e. g.., Elijah 
 and Elisha), have left no books of their own. Others, whose 
 names are not in the historic annals, have left valuable writings. 
 Manifestly each followed, in this respect, his own word from 
 
viii GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE rROPHETS. 
 
 the Lord — tlie Lord in his wisdom using these servants of his 
 for the work which he most needed done and which they w^ere 
 best quahfied to do. 
 
 It is manifest, both from the history and from the tenor of 
 these recorded prophecies, that with few if any exceptions they 
 first bore their messages from God to the people, with the liv- 
 ing voice, in the form of direct address. It may be safely 
 assumed that those portions were committed to writing which 
 embraced prophecy yet to be fulfilled, or which would bo 
 specially useful, either to the Jewish or the Gentile Church, 
 along the course of future ages. 
 
 These writings of the Hebrew prophets are now before us 
 — rich treasures of truth and experience from the ancient past, 
 God's own words, given to " holy men of old, w^ho spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Noble men were they, 
 of martyr spirit, of Christian heroism, of faith and courage 
 inspired by the sense of a special mission from the Most High ; 
 men whose record the w^orld cannot afford to lose, nor the 
 Christian Church to drop from her living thought. With what 
 power of logic have they set forth the claims of God upon his 
 rational creatures ! TIow have they depicted the ingratitude, 
 the meanness, the folly, and the madness of sin ! With what 
 solemn and thrilling w^ords have they spoken of the judgments 
 which God would send, and did, upon guilty nations, Jew and 
 Gentile, in retribution on sinners, whom no w^arning from his 
 voice availed to reclaim, and w^hose sins even the great forbear- 
 ance of God could not longer endure ! How pertinent and for- 
 cible arc the moral lessons which come down to us from such 
 living examples ! Do proud rulers question whether there be 
 an infinite Moral Governor of the universe ? Do they doubt 
 whether he takes note of the sins of mighty nations, and holds 
 both them and their rulers to a strict moral accountability? 
 Do they vainly think to set justice at naught, and trample down 
 the helpless — no God from on high regarding and avenging ? 
 Or do they presume that he is too tender-hearted or too weak 
 to punish, so that strong men and proud nations shall feel it? 
 
 On all these and on all kindred points, the logic of facts 
 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPHETS. jx 
 
 affords demonstration, not only convincing, but appalling. It 
 must be morally wholesome to study such testimonies from tlic 
 actual ways of God in the teacbing past. It were madness to 
 ignore tbem. 
 
 Here also, coupled with these terrible retributions from God 
 upon persistent sinners, are the most touching invitations to re- 
 turn in penitence, and the richest promises of pardon to the hum- 
 ble and the contrite. You are impressed as you read with a 
 sense that these words of promise are freighted with a wcaltli 
 of love unknown in human hearts, and truly worthy of a God. 
 Whoever with honest mind shall take in their full significance, 
 
 and not abuse it, will surely find in it a blessing. It was 
 
 one of the special functions of those ancient prophets to minis- 
 ter to the faith and hope of the few yet found faithful among 
 the many faithless. To them, and primarily for their sake, 
 God spake, through his servants, of the gTeat things then in 
 the future of his Zion. The Messiah jet to come; the work 
 lie should achieve while yet among men in the flesh ; the mis- 
 sion of the Holy Spirit; the conversion of the Gentiles; the 
 fortunes of the Jews — at first mostly cast off for their unbehef, 
 but ultimately brought in through great mercy ; the abrogation 
 of the sacrificial system ; the outgoing of the gospel to the dis- 
 tant nations of the earth ; the mission of truth and its triumphs 
 in every land, and the final victory of Christ over all opposing 
 powers : these things are grouped together into these glorious 
 visions of the then distant future — a grand and sublime pan- 
 orama of the Christian aQ;e in whole, makins: revelations even 
 to US who live midway in their fdfilment, such as no lover of 
 his race and lover of Christ can contemplate without being 
 quickened anew in faith and love for the prayer and the work 
 to which Christ calls him. How earnestly do these prophecies 
 invite the most careful study ! "VVe do not wonder that Peter 
 should endorse and commend them to his Christian brethren, 
 saying: "We have also the word of prophecy made more 
 sure (i. c, by its incipient fulfilment), whcrcunto ye do well that 
 ye take heed as to a light that shincth in a dark place until the 
 day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts " (2 Peter : 1, 
 
X GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE TROrilETS. 
 
 19). Truly tins "pioplietic word" does shed forth a glorious 
 light upon the future history of our world, a place otherwise! 
 utterly dark to mortal vision ; and equally true is it that in 
 giving due heed to this light, and in bringing our souls fully 
 under its illuminating power and its inspiring influence, a 
 glorious " day " dawns upon us; the day-star of faith and hope 
 arises, and we wake to the work of the millennial age, to joyful 
 anticipations of its approach, and to a sense of the ocean fulness 
 of its blessings for a world redeemed. 
 
 Yet, rich in gospel truth and inspiring to faith as this pro- 
 phetic word truly is, no portion of the Scriptures is so little 
 read, so little studied, and so little understood. Nowhere else 
 in human language does there lie such a mass of half-buried 
 and almost unknown treasures. True, they come to us in a 
 language now long unspoken, but diligent labor can unlock its 
 meaning ; in figures somewhat unfamiliar, yet not unintelligible ; 
 with allusions to history then past, and to life-scenes then pres- 
 ent, which need from us some careful research to bring them 
 within command for ready use. These circumstances make 
 labor for the commentator ; yet when his work is well done, 
 the resulting profit to the diligent reader will be richly reuau- 
 nerative. 
 
HOSEA 
 
 INTRODUCTION^. 
 
 HosKA prophesied " in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and 
 Ilezekiah, kings of Jiidah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of 
 Joash, king of Israel." This covers a long period at the very least, 
 for, from the death of Jeroboam to the accession of Ilezekiah, was 
 fifty-six years ; to which mast be added whatever years he prophe- 
 sied before Jeroboam's death and after Ilezekiah's reign began. 
 Jeroboam reigned forty-one years (2 Kings 14 : 23), and Hezekiah 
 twenty-nine. How much of either of tliese reigns fell within the 
 prophetic life of Hosea there are no positive data to show ; proba- 
 bly several from each. Various allusions to events past, then pass- 
 ing, or very near, locate the greater part of this book within the 
 sixty-two years lying between the death of Jeroboam and the fall 
 of the kingdom. Jeroboam's was the last long and vigorous reign, 
 and hence the only one in Israel worthy of being named in this 
 introduction. The ensuing period had two seasons of anarchy, one 
 of eleven years and the other of nine ; besides the reign of Zaclia- 
 riah, six months ; of Shallum, two months ; of Menahem, ten years ; 
 of Pekahiah, two; of Pekah, nineteen, and of Iloshea, the last, nine. 
 If, now, the reader recalls the facts stated in the liistory, that these 
 six kings belonged to five different dynasties; that four of them fell 
 by conspiracy, and a fifth with the final foil of his kingdom ; and 
 that not one of them bears any other record than that of " doing 
 evil in the sight of the Lord, departing not from the sins of- Jero- 
 boam, son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," he will have valua- 
 ble data for estimating the deplorable state of morals, piety, and 
 1 
 
2 nOSEA.— CHAP. I. 
 
 civil government at this time. During tliis same period Isaiah and 
 Micali were prophesying, chiefly in Judah, and Amos, like Hosea, 
 mostly in Israel. The latter were shut np by the force of circum- 
 stances to one main effort to convict the people of their great sins, 
 and to call them to repentance toward God as the only means of 
 
 saving either the government or the people from utter ruin. 
 
 Hence the prophecies of Hosea are full of rebuke and expostula- 
 tion against sin, and of demonstrations of God's loving-kindness 
 and pity toward Ms people. It is preeminently the book in the 
 whole Bible for times of spiritual declension and sore apostasy — 
 God's voice of warning and entreaty to any people who once 
 w^alked in fear and love before him, but who have become deeply 
 corrupt in heart and life. Must it not also have many points of 
 forcible application to the great American people — a nation emi- 
 nently favored of God, but grievously apostate from his fear and 
 honor ? 
 
 In style, Hosea is preeminently concise and abrupt, abounding 
 
 m historical allusions and also in sudden transitions, which involve 
 
 more or less obscurity. Yet the book will yield a rich reward for 
 
 close and earnest study. Let the reader come to it as to God's 
 
 own words, through one of his faithful but long and sorely-tried 
 
 ^^^servants, remembering his own closing testimony: "Who is wise, 
 
 I and he shall understand these things ; prudent, and he shall know 
 
 [ them; for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk 
 
 /' in them ; but the transgressors shall fall therein." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The book opens with events peculiar to Hosea's prophetic min- 
 istry — the taking of a wife whose lewdness symbolized the infidel- 
 ity of the nation to God, their Maker and Husband; and the birth 
 and naming of children whose names were significant before the 
 people of their relations to Jehovah. 
 
 1. The word of tlie Lokd tliat came unto Ilosea, the 
 son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and 
 Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam 
 the son of Joash king of Israel. 
 
 The reader may wisely peruse the history of the period covered 
 by these reigns as recorded 2 Kings 14 : 23 to 18 : 12, and also in 
 2 Ohron. chapters 26-31. The record is a dismal one — revolutions, 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. I. 3 
 
 /marchy, conspiracies, universal idolatry, and outbreaking wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 2. Tlie beginning of the word of tlie Loed by ITosea. 
 And tbe Loed said to Hosea, Go, take nnto thee a wife 
 of wlioredoms and cliildren of whoredoms ; for the land 
 hath committed great whoredom, dej^artlng from the 
 Loed. 
 
 It has been questioned whether this taking of a lewd wife were 
 a real transaction. Some suppose it existed only in msion. The 
 laws of prophetic interpretation forbid this view. The command 
 is, " Go, take ; " and nothing less than the strongest reasons can 
 justify us in rejecting the obvious sense of such language. Be- 
 sides, what could be the use of such a thing, if done only in vision ; 
 and especially, what could be the use of it to the ijcople f Yet fur- 
 ther, and more to our purpose as interpreters of God's word — if tiio 
 Lord meant only that Hosea saw or should see this thing in visio7i, 
 why did he not say so ? Cases in which things were to be done in 
 the actual life of the prophets for the greater effect as sjpnlols be- 
 fore the people, occur frequently in Ezekiel, and occasionally in 
 other Old Testament prophets. But see this subject discussed more 
 fully in the Appendix — Dissertation I. 
 
 A second question, of less importance, is, whether Gomer was a 
 lewd woman lefore marriage. On the one hand, the language does 
 not absolutely demand the affirmative, while yet it is the more ob- 
 vious sense of the words. On the other hand, the negative is sup- 
 ported by the circumstance that, so interpreted, the case better 
 symbolizes the idolatry of Israel, inasmuch as the Lord entered into 
 covenant with them while yet they were mostly pure from this 
 great sin. It is not necessary, however, that the symbol should fit 
 at all possible points. The one main point is the grievous guilt of 
 such adultery. I pass this question, simply expressing my opinion 
 that she had been lewd before marriage, and was taken as a wife 
 upon a promise of conjugal fidelity. It is well to note carefully 
 that the Lord gave the reasons for this remarkable command— viz. : 
 because the land had become w^holly adulterous and apostate from 
 God. Of course, adultery here means specially idolatry. By the 
 worship of idols the people had put other gods before Jehovah. 
 They had faithlessly broken their solemn covenant to fear and serve 
 the Lord alone. This covenant can find no better symbol among 
 human relations than that by which one man and one woman " be- 
 come no longer twain, but one flesh." The marriage relation, closer 
 and more endearing than any other, comes nearest to a perfect 
 symbol of the covenant relation between God and his chosen peo- 
 ple. It is therefore used with great pertinence, beauty, and force. 
 
 The fact is humiliating to the people of God that this symbol 
 
 should find its most abundant occasion for use, not on the bright 
 Bide of this marriage relation, but on the dark — the shameful infi- 
 
4 IIOSEA.— CHAP. I. 
 
 delities and apostasies of the people in the times of Hosea, Jere* 
 niiah, and Ezckiel. The same idea, and mostly on its bright side, 
 underlies the forty-fifth Psalm, and (as tlie Jews mnst have under- 
 stood it) the Book of Canticles ; but its fuller development waited 
 till flagrant sin called it forth. 
 
 Let us not pass this point -without taking note of the keenness 
 of the domestic trial to which Hosea was subjected at his very en- 
 trance upon the prophetic work. We sometimes think of this work 
 as bringing the prophet into near and honored relations to Jehovah 
 — as, indeed, sublimely grand and glorious. We are liable to forget 
 that for even such prophets to live godly was to sufter. Isaiah 
 shrank from the work; Jonah fled, to escape its responsibilities; 
 Jeremiah felt heavily on his heart the message burdens he bore 
 from God to the people ; and to Hosea was allotted this bitter af- 
 fliction — a wife unfaithful to her marriage vows — that he might be 
 a living representative of the great sin of the people against their 
 divine Husband ; and perhaps, also, that his own experience of do- 
 mestic wrong and wretchedness might give him a keener sense of 
 the cruel guilt of the nation's idolatry, and might help hira to sym- 
 pathize with the feelings of Jehovah under such abuse. These 
 
 trials in the prophet's mission have a vital bearing on the question 
 of his essential honesty. No selfish motive could have moved him 
 to such a life-work. To rebuke sin in an age of such outbreaking 
 and universal wickedness, and to be subjected to such domestic af- 
 fliction for the sake of more vividly illustrating the apostasy of Is- 
 rael from their God involve and imply an honest, self-sacrificing 
 devotion to the will of God, and quite preclude the supposition of 
 his being an impostor. 
 
 3. So lie went and took Gomer the daughter of Dib- 
 laim ; which conceived, and bare him a son. 
 
 4. And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jez- 
 reel ; for yet a little lohile^ and I will avenge the blood 
 of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to 
 cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. 
 
 5. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will 
 break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. 
 
 The word Jezreel has a two-fold significance ; the one drawn 
 from its etymology, the other from its history. By its etymology 
 it means the Lord will sotc, or tlie LorcVs sowing. We have this 
 sense in v. 11. Great shall be the day when the Lord shall sow or 
 plant his people in their own land. By historical allusion, the 
 word carries us back to the city bearing that name, the royal resi- 
 dence of Ahab ; to the blood shed there by Jehu, and to the aveng- 
 ing of that blood upon his posterity. See 2 Kings 10 : 11, 14. 
 
 Naming the prophet's first child Jezreel denoted that this avenging 
 was near at liand. Jehu by promise Avas to hold the throne to the 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. I. 5 
 
 fourth generation. Jeroboam II. was the third in that line ; his 
 son, Zachariah, was the fourth and last. A wicked reign of six 
 months ended his life and the dynasty of Jehu. See 2 Kings 15 : 
 8-12. 
 
 The kingdom of the house of Israel was to cease soon. It 
 ceased fifty-one years after the death of tliis king, Zachariah. It 
 may be asked, Did not the Lord (2 Kings 10 : 30) approve of Jehu's 
 deeds in destroying the house of Ahab ? And if so, why should 
 he now avenge that blood on the house of Jehu ? The true answer 
 seems to be that he in part approved it, and therefore in part re- 
 warded Jehu — that is, by giving him the kingdom to the fourth 
 generation. But he could not approve his spirit, which was far 
 from being right before God ; nor could he approve of his " taking 
 no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his 
 heart, departing not from the sins of Jeroboam," 2 Kings 10 : 31. 
 
 Hence these judgments on his house. " Breaking the bow of 
 
 Jezreel," is breaking their military power — the bow beiug then the 
 chief weapon of war. That this was done especially in the valley 
 of Jezreel is every way probable, though there is no definite record 
 of the event. This valley, since called Esdraelon, has been one of 
 the most noted battle-grounds in history. Here Deborah and 
 Barak fought and conquered ; here Gideon scourged and drove the 
 Midianites; here Ahab gained a great victory over Ben-hadad. 
 Here have fought Romans, Crusaders, Egyptians, and Frenchmen. 
 It is more than supposable that in this famous valley the enfeebled 
 hosts of Israel made their last stand against the Assyrian power. 
 
 6. And she conceived again and bare a dangMer. 
 And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah : for 
 I will no more have mercy npon the honse of Israel ; 
 but I will utterly take them away. 
 
 '■'• Lo-ruliamaJi'''' is literally "not compassionated" — not a sub- 
 ject of mercy. This use of the negative Lo imphes not merely the 
 absence of mercy, but the presence of wrath. The sense is not 
 suspended at the point of mere negation, but goes over to the op- 
 posite side. Here it means that the people had incurred Jehovah's 
 frozen. He would not any more show mercy to the people of the 
 ten tribes in such form as to arrest and turn aside his impending, 
 long-deserved judgments. On the contrary, he " would utterly 
 
 take them away" into captivity. As to the last clause, the 
 
 marginal reading suggests another possible sense of the original, 
 viz. ; " that I should altogether pardon them." The original He- 
 brew verb means to take away, and is sometimes used for the tak- 
 ing away of sin. But the connecting particle gives this as the 
 course of thought : " I will not again show mercy to the house of 
 Israel, for I will utterly take them away," i. e., from their land. 
 This is my purpose. 
 
6 HOSEA.— CHAP. I. 
 
 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, 
 and will save them by the Loed their God, and will not 
 save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by 
 horses, nor by horsemen. 
 
 There was still in Judali some trnc fidelity to God; he would 
 therefore yet have mercy on them. The expression — " Save thera 
 ly the Lord their God, and not by sword or battle," is beautifully 
 concise and forcible — as if Jehovah were himself the engines of 
 war, the sword and the bow, that should save them. The might of 
 his arm is finely contrasted with the might of human prowess in 
 w^ar. 
 
 8. I^ow when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she con- 
 ceived, and bare a son. 
 
 9. Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi : for ye 
 are not my people, and I will not be your God. 
 
 "Lo-ammi" signifies not my people^ and as said above of Lo- 
 ruhamah, it implies that they are in a state of positive rejection. 
 God was about to disown them — so utterly had they rejected him 
 by their abounding persistent idolatry, by forsaking the worship of 
 
 God, and by most flagrant immoralities. How impressive to 
 
 Hosea must have been all the scenes and sounds of his household ! 
 Often as he spake or heard spoken the names of these two children, 
 the thought came — N'o mercy ! Not my people ! A like testimony 
 it must have borne to the people among whom he was sent as the 
 prophet of the living God. 
 
 10. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall 
 be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor 
 numbered ; and it shall come to pass, that in the place 
 where it was said unto them, Ye ai^e not my people, 
 tJiere it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the 
 living God. 
 
 11. Then shall the children of Judah and the chil- 
 dren of Israel be gathered together and appoint them- 
 selves one head, and they shalfcome up out of the land : 
 for great shall he the day of Jezreel. 
 
 Here is a sudden transition from extreme judgment to the ful- 
 ness of mercy. " The Lord keepeth not his anger forever." Ee- 
 markably is it his method, whether by prophet or apostle, to blend 
 threatening with promise, and to follow the sternest denunciations 
 with outbursts of pity and love. The general sense of the pas- 
 sage is— God hath not forsaken his church utterly and forever. 
 Notwithstanding this ruin now coming on Israel, the Lord shall jet 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. I. 7 
 
 have a people, conntless as the sands, united also and prosperous, 
 
 the true Israel and Judah.- A number "as the sands of the sea " 
 
 is, of course, indefinitely great, denoting the highest prosperity and 
 a vast increase of population, compared with the Israel then pres- 
 ent. What is spoken of here as currently " said to them " must 
 
 be construed as said, because true. The truth of it, rather than the 
 saying of it, is the thing specially afiirmed. Whereas ye formerly 
 were not my people, ye shall, in the future time referred to, be 
 really the sons of the living God.-^ — No special stress can be given 
 to the words "in the place where," as defining any particular 
 locality. It is used adverbially to mean that instead of— in place 
 (?/— their not being God's people, they shall really le his sons. 
 
 That Israel and Judah " gather together and appoint themselves 
 one head," looks by historical allusion to the sad history of the re- 
 cent past, since the revolt under Jeroboam, and means to say that 
 in this good time coming, that sore breach shall be healed, the 
 rival kingdoms become one, and "Ephraim no more envy Judah, 
 nor Judah vex Ephraim." The Church of God, in those times, 
 
 shall be one in love, and strong in its union. To " come up out 
 
 of the land " is the classic phrase for the exodus from Egypt, and 
 implies that God will work a like deliverance of his people from 
 their bondage, whatever the form of that bondage may be. When 
 we find a manifest historical allusion, we must accept it as illustra- 
 tive, and not look for a precisely literal fulfilment. In the present 
 case, we are not to look for the geographical land, out of which 
 they come up. It is rather a moral state., and no land or country 
 
 whatever. The " day of Jezreel " is here the day of the Lord's 
 
 sowing, or, in our English idiom, planting His people — with refer- 
 ence to the etymology of the word Jezreel. Looking historically 
 to the planting in Canaan, under Joshua, it means that God will 
 do a similar thing again. Great shall be the day when the Lord 
 thus lays anew the foundations of his Zion, and rebuilds Jerusalem 
 — plants his people in their new estate, and puts a new face upon 
 his earthly kingdom. It does not necessarily follow that this plant- 
 ing is the locating of his ancient people in the land of Canaan. 
 
 Having now noted the sense of the several expressions, it re- 
 mains to consider the meaning of the whole passage. Here we 
 
 must not fail to take account of the fearful things God had just 
 spoken against Israel : "I will cause to cease the kingdom of the 
 house of Israel; " "I will break the bow of Israel;" "I will no 
 more have mercy on the house of Israel, but will utterly take them 
 away," i. c, into captivity; ''Ye are not my people, and I will not 
 
 be your God." All this has the aspect of rejecting Israel, utterly 
 
 and forever. — Yes, and the Israel of the ten tribes v^as substantially 
 rejected. But a new Israel comes up, a new or at least a modified 
 sense is given to the word Israel, so that it now means not merely 
 those born of Jacob, or those who were of the kingdom' of the ten 
 tribes, but the real people of God ; or, as the etymology of the 
 word implies, those who have a princely power with God through 
 
8 HOSEA.— CHAP. I. 
 
 prayer. See Gen, 32 : 28, and IIos. 12 : 3, 4. This play on the 
 different senses of a word, the one, perliaps, historical, and tht 
 other drawn from its etjTnology, is hy no means foreign to the style 
 of Ilosea. Wo have seen it already in the word Jezreel. 
 
 The general intei*]:)retation here indicated involves great ques- 
 tions and results, and should, therefore, be carefully stated and well 
 supported. Let it, then, be considered, 
 
 (1.) The literal and old sense of Israel, in this passage, is simply 
 impossible. To hold, as some good men have done, that the ten 
 tribes did return in vast numbers with the Jews under Zerub- 
 babel, their " one head," and that the richness of this glorious 
 promise had its fulfilment then, is to struggle in vain against the 
 wdiole array of authentic history. Ezra and ISTehemiah have told 
 us (Ez. 2:1 ff., and Neh. 7:6 ff.) how many did return ; about 
 50,000, all told. They have shown us that these were mostly of 
 the tribes of Judah and Levi, the lineal descendants of those who 
 belonged to that kingdom, and not to the kingdom of the ten tribes 
 (see Ez. 2 : 1, and ISTeh. 7 : 6). Hence they leave no place there 
 for the ten tribes, and, much more, no place for a multitude of 
 them, like the sands of the sea. And yet more, the ten tribes are 
 now plainly lost from the view of authentic history, leaving no 
 ground to suppose they can ever be discovered among the living 
 tribes of the earth. Therefore it is not too much to say that this 
 prophecy, if applied to the hingdom of the ten trihes, has never 
 been fulfilled, and never can be. We are amply justified, therefore, 
 in looking for some other sense of the word '^' Israeiy 
 
 (2.) The construction above given, which supposes the word to 
 be used here for the true people of God, is in harmony with the 
 peculiar style of Ilosea, as has been already stated. 
 
 (3.) It is abundantly endorsed by the New Testament. («.) By 
 its use of the terms Israel, Zion, the temple, &c., &c. Thus Eom. 
 9: G, "They are not all Israel which are of Israel," i. <?., they are 
 not all God's true people who are lineally born of Israel — a case, 
 therefore, in wiiich we have precisely tlie same new second sense 
 of the word Israel, which is claimed for Hosea in this passage. 
 -Again, this same apostle closes one epistle — full of the doctrine 
 that " all who are Christ's are Abraham's seed," by invoking 
 "peace upon the Israel of God." So Mount Zion (Ileb. 12 : 22) is 
 the whole Christian church: Christians (2 Cor. 6:16) are God's 
 temple. (b.) This construction is sustained by the wdiole doc- 
 trine of the New Testament in reference to the relation of Gentiles 
 to the church and kingdom of God. The great battle of the apos- 
 tolic age was fought over this very question, whether Gentiles could 
 come in with Jeics as heirs of God's promises, and really entitled to 
 
 the blessings foretold in prophecy for Israel. (c.) But more 
 
 particularly, Paul (Eom. 9 : 25, 26) quotes tiiis very passage from 
 Ilosea to prove that the " vessels of mercy " to whom God " makes 
 known the riches of his glory," are "not of the Jews only but also 
 of the Gentiles." That is, he assumes that in this very passagi 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. II. 9 
 
 Hosea embraces Gentile Christians under the name Israel ; and, of 
 course, that it is fulfilled in the New Testament age, and not exclu- 
 sively before — in the Gentiles, and not otherwise. This ought to 
 be decisive. 
 
 (4.) While some of the prophets, e. g., Isaiah, speak of the Gen- 
 tiles by name as coming into the church and sharing in the great 
 blessings of the latter days ; others, like Hosea, predict the same 
 great blessings, but never name the Gentiles, and give them no 
 share except as they come in under the name Israel. We must, 
 therefore, either say that they rule out the Gentiles from the pale 
 of these blessings and give them to the lineal Israel, and to Israel 
 only; or Ave must admit that they modify the sense of the word. 
 Israel, and use it to include all the real children of God in the 
 latter days. 
 
 Finally, we have the great fact that just at the point where the 
 Israel of the ten tribes was being cast off for their hopeless idolatry 
 and incurable corruption, a larger, richer promise is made to the 
 " children of Israel" than the literal Israel ever had before or since, 
 or ever can have. Moveover, what time the old Israel became lost 
 to history, a new Israel appears; Gentiles come into the church of 
 God ; the world opens to the mission of the Gospel, and lies at the 
 feet of the Prince of Peace : and so his Israel becomes as the sand 
 of the sea; his people are the "sons of the living God;" old 
 antipathies give place to the oneness of love ; under their one head, 
 they come up from their last house of bondage, and great beyond 
 
 all former thought is " the day of Jezreel." For all this let us sing 
 
 in words furnished to the church for this occasion by Isaiah (chap. 
 12). " Lord, I will praise thee ; though thou wast angry with 
 me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold 
 God is my salvation ; I will trust and not be afraid ; for the Lord 
 Jehovah is my strength and my song ; he also is become my sal- 
 vation." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In this chapter, the Lord exposes and rebukes the sins of his 
 people, and threatens retribution, vs. 1-13 ; then turns to promises 
 of effective discipline and of restoring mercy, vs. 14-23. 
 
 It is noticeable that throughout this chapter, the adulterous 
 mother, Israel, is spoken of in the third person, and the Lord 
 declares what he will do to her in judgment and for her in mercy. 
 Piemarkably, and as if to give a more impressive sense of her horrible 
 guilt, her children are introduced— are apprised of the unnatural 
 crime of their mother, and are exhorted to plead with her to put 
 away her sins. What a family scene must be the reality presented 
 in this symbol— the children appealing to their mother to desist 
 from her adulterous life, and to put an end at once to all its indi 
 
10 nOSEA.— CHAP. II. 
 
 cations ! It is manifestly the purpose of God, in this message bj 
 Hosea, to paint a life-scene of the crimes of his covenant people in 
 their relations to himself. 
 
 1. Say unto yonr brethren, Ammi ; and to your 
 sisters, Ruliamali. 
 
 Say to your brethren, Ammi; to your sisters, Ruharaah. 
 Drop the negative particle from the names, Lo-Ammi, Lo-Ruhamah ; 
 sound the sweet words, " my people ;" " the pitied and beloved" — as 
 if to suggest that the heart of the Lord still yearns to make them 
 again his own, and to give the freest flow to his great and deep 
 
 compassions. -The persons exhorted to do this may be supposed 
 
 to be the few yet found faithful among the many faithless. Tho 
 Lord calls on them for one more effort to reclaim the nation. 
 
 2. Plead witli yonr mother, plead ; for she is not my 
 wife, neither am I her husband : let her therefore put 
 away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adul- 
 teries from between her breasts ; 
 
 3. Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day 
 that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and 
 set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 
 
 " Plead with your mother," ye children of shame ; go and tell 
 her you cannot bear the disgrace and pain of her unnatural crime ; 
 tell her that her God disowns her as a wife, and puts her away for 
 
 her lewd idolatry. Such is this strain of fiery rebuke. The last 
 
 clause refers to the incitements to lewdness common with bad 
 women. " Out of her sight," should read, " from her face," cor- 
 responding to " from her breasts " in the parallel member of tho 
 sentence. The original has tlie same form of expression in each 
 case. The face and the bosom are alike used for incitement to 
 lewd passion ; — paint, ornament, and lascivious expression in the 
 one; exposure of person in the other. In the spiritual application, 
 God frowns upon and would put away every form of inducement 
 to idolatry in Israel ; every thing that in any age naturally tempts 
 his people to sin. 
 
 4. And I will not have mercy npon her children ; 
 for they le the children of whoredoms. 
 
 Closely following out the symbol, the Lord appeals to the heart 
 of the mother, as if he would say : Though you have lost all sensi- 
 bility to your own welfore, yet think of your children. I will not 
 have mercy on them; your unnatural crime comes down on them 
 with perpetual curses. Can a mother's heart resist such an appeal ? 
 
 5. For their mother hath played the harlot : she that 
 conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said. T 
 
nOSEA.— CUAP. II. 11 
 
 will go after my lovers, that give "nie my bread and my 
 water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. 
 
 The adulterous mother is here seeu, going- after lier iufaraous 
 paramours — as one who I'lx^es on the wages of her shameless crime. 
 This is turning over and over the leading symbol, to put in still 
 new Hght the shameful sins of the chosen people against their God, 
 and to show why he ought to and must visit them with terrible retri- 
 bution. The fifth and sixth verses stand related as cause and 
 
 result: ''''Because their mother hath committed lewdness," " there- 
 fore will 1 hedge up her way," &c. 
 
 6. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with 
 thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her 
 paths. 
 
 Y. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she 
 shall not overtake them ; and she shall seek them, but 
 shall not find them : then shall she say, I will go and 
 return to my first husband ; for then was it better with 
 me than now. 
 
 God will trouble her in every way ; she shall follow liard (so 
 the original) after her lovers for help, but in vain, till affliction and 
 want bring her back to reason and to her forsaken God. 
 
 8, For she did not know that I gave her corn, and 
 wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which 
 they prepared for Baal. 
 
 9, Therefore will I return, and take away my corn 
 in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, 
 and will recover my wool and my fiax given to cover 
 her nakedness, 
 
 Ys. 8 and 9 are correlated thus : " Because she did not know," &c., 
 
 " tfierefore will I take away," &c, " Did not know that /gave her " 
 
 all, where the original makes the pronoun / emphatic. God mul- 
 
 tipHed to Israel silver and gold, which tliey wrought into images of 
 Baal, This is one point of aggravation in all sin. Men take the 
 gifts of God and pervert them into means of sinning the more 
 against him; work them into idols to worship instead of Jehovah 
 
 Baal was one of the most ancient of the gods worshipped in 
 
 the East. lie is supposed by many to represent the sun ; by others, 
 the planet Jupiter, as the almoner of good fortune, lie was wor- 
 shipped by the people of Phoenicia and Tyre, and from them, at a 
 very early age, and in the reign of Ahab especially, his worship 
 passed over to the Jews. 
 
 10, And now Avill I discover her lewdness in the 
 
12 nOSEA.— CHAP. II. 
 
 Biglit of lier lovers, and none shall deliver her out of 
 mine hand. 
 
 " Discover," in the sense of exjiOBe her nakedness before her 
 lovers — terribly significant of the fearful judgments God knows 
 how to send on his apostate people ! 
 
 11. I will also canse all her mirth to cease, her feast 
 days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all hei 
 solemn feasts. 
 
 These were seasons of special joy to the Hebrew people, anc' 
 stand here to represent a?^ joy. 
 
 12. And 1 will destroy her vines and her iig-trees. 
 whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my 
 lovers have given me : and I will make them a forest, 
 and the beasts of the field shall eat them. 
 
 The heathen regarded their idol gods as the givers of their vines 
 and fig-trees. Israel says the same thing. Those idol gods are hei 
 lovers, to whom, in her spiritual adultery, she gives her heart and 
 her confidence. 
 
 13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, 
 wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked 
 herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went 
 after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord. 
 
 This strain of rebuke and threatening culminates with the 
 general declaration — " I will visit upon her for the guilt of her days 
 of Baal worship." " Baalim," in the plural, refers to the numerous 
 images of Baal, or as others hold plausibly, to the diverse modes 
 of his manifestation. " Decking herself with ear-rings and jewels, 
 and going after her lovers," carries out the symbol — a harlot, 
 plying all the shameless arts of a common prostitute. 
 
 14. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring 
 her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto 
 her. 
 
 This verse is, for the chapter, the transition point between 
 rebuke and threatened retribution for the sms of idol worship on 
 the one hand, and promises of effective discipline and of restoring 
 
 mercy on the other. '^ Behold^ calls special attention to the 
 
 great things God now proposes to' do. " Therefore^''^ reminds us 
 
 to ask why? AVhat is the reason for the promises of good that fol- 
 low? Some have found a difliculty here, inasmuch as tlie griev- 
 ous sins of Israel seem to be no natural reason for giving the bless- 
 ings hereafter promised. But the reasons, viewed fundament- 
 ally, lie deeper than the sins of Israel, even in God's covenant love 
 
nOSEA.-"CIIAP. II. 13 
 
 and faithfulness. He cannot bear tliat liis own Israel should sink 
 hopelesi^ly under her sins into ruin. Therefore his pity moves him 
 
 to discipline and to mercy. " Will allure her " — in a good sense ; 
 
 persuade her, draw her by the sweet attractions of love. 
 
 This " bringing her into the wilderness," Dr. Henderson, fol- 
 lowing his principles of literal interpretation, finds fulfilled in 
 God's taking the whole Hebrew people into captivity to Babylon 
 and Assyria. Apparently he fails to notice that they were driven 
 not drawn thither, and also that neither Babylon nor Assyria are 
 
 known in Scripture as " the wilderness." Dismissing, therefore, 
 
 this literal view of the language, I prefer to assume an historical allu- 
 sion to the exodus from Egypt. God means — " I will do to Israel 
 again what I did when I took them by the hand and led them out 
 of the house of bondage, and out of the land of idol gods, into the 
 wilderness, and there spake to them face to face " — spake most 
 effectively " to their Jieart^"* as the last clause reads in the original. 
 We may fitly recall the fact that tliis wilderness-life was to the 
 Hebrew people a great and most effective theatre of moral disci- 
 pline. l!«J^o generation in all their history was so true to God or so 
 much beloved of him as that which had its training in the wilder- 
 ness, and went in under Joshua to the land of Canaan. God hero 
 
 promises to do a like thing to his covenant people again. With 
 
 allusion probably to this passage, yet amplifying it, Ezekiel (20 : 35, 
 30) says: '' And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, 
 and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded 
 with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I 
 plead with you, saith the Lord." This confirms the idea of an 
 historical allusion to the scenes of the exodus. 
 
 15. And I will give lier her vineyards from tlience, 
 and the valley of Achor for a door of hope : and she 
 shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in 
 the day when she came np out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 " From thence " — from such a scene of moral discipline, God 
 will give her her vineyards — with historical reference to the grapes 
 of Eshcol, which ancient Israel found on entering Canaan. I31ess- 
 
 ings come after, and out of, efiicient moral discipline. " The 
 
 valley of Achor " is still another historical allusion. The word 
 Aclior means by its etymology, trouble: in liistory it was the place 
 of trouble to Achan. See Josh. 7 : 2-^20. So the troubles of 
 
 Israel shall be her " door of hope." -''And she shall sing there " 
 
 — with declared reference to the joy of the Hebrews when, led by 
 Moses and Miriam, they sang songs of deUverance on the hitlicr 
 
 side of the Red Sea. So joy comes from sanctified sorrow. 
 
 Moral discipline that really turns the heart from sin to God, is 
 evermore a weU-spring of blessings. 
 
 16. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that 
 
14: nOSEA.— CHAP. II. 
 
 thou sbalt call rae Islii ; and slialt call me no more 
 Baali. 
 
 17. For I will take away tlie names of Baalim out of 
 Tier moutli, and tliey shall no more be remembered by 
 their name. 
 
 The true and full sense of these verses is seen in the fact that 
 " /«/<i," my man, and " Baali^"^ my lord, were both sometimes used 
 to mean mij Imsband. But the word Baal had become so dangerously 
 associated with idol worship that Jehovah forbade the use of it, 
 even to express an innocent relation. So there is sound wisdom in 
 forestalling all those temptations which steal upon us under the 
 laws of mental association. God would take away from us every 
 thing that may work, through the power of those laws of thought, 
 to beguile us into sin. 
 
 18. And in that day will I make a covenant for 
 them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of 
 heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground : 
 and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle 
 out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. 
 
 This covenant which God makes with the lower animals, debars 
 them from harming his people. I find here an allusion to vs. 12, 
 where God gives the beasts of the field license to devour the vines 
 and fig-trees of his sinning people. This covenant recalls that 
 license, and even lays them under bond to spare to God's penitent 
 people the fruits of the earth. Sense : God's providence becomes 
 their shield and refuge. 
 
 19. And I will betroth thee unto me for. ever ; yea, 
 I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in 
 judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. 
 
 20. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness : 
 and thou slialt know the Lord. 
 
 This betrothal assumes that her long-persistent adulteries had 
 ended in divorce. Now the marriage covenant is renewed — renew- 
 ed ^'forever; " renewed "in righteousness, in judgment, in loving- 
 kindness, and in great mercy ; " where the reiteration i« intended 
 to heighten the sense of God's great love in this* transaction. Ee- 
 markably, it culminates in faithfulness ; as if to say, This covenant 
 
 must stand, and be broken no more. "Thou shalt know the 
 
 Lord," is one of the most expressive phrases possible to human 
 language, implying to know God in all the great elements of his 
 character, and in all the experiences of his spiritual power; to 
 know with a knowledge other and better far than theory ; to know 
 with the heart brought fully under the power of Jehovah's presence 
 and love. 
 
nosEA.--cnAP. II. 15 
 
 21. And it sliall come to pass in tliat day, I will 
 hear, saitli tlie Lokd, I will liear tlie heavens, and they 
 shall hear the earth ; 
 
 22. And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, 
 and the oil ; and they shall hear Jezreel. 
 
 This extraordinary passage means, compreliensively, that God 
 will hear the prayer of his people for the earthly good they may 
 need and shall ask of him. The manner of saying this gives us 
 what we may call a circle of prayer. "Hearing," means hearing 
 and answering the requests made. " Jezreel " stands here for the 
 people whom God plants in the land. Hence, the form of the 
 thought is : This people call for corn and wine and oil, and in a 
 sense cry unto these things, and are heard and answered : the corn 
 and wine cry to the earth ; the earth to the heavens ; and the heavens 
 to God. God hears the heavens ; the heavens hear the earth ; the 
 earth hears the corn, and the corn hears tlie people whom God 
 plants in the land. The agencies of providence that lie between 
 God and his praying people, which must be all put in operation in 
 order to give them corn and wine, are beautifully put into the links 
 of this chain of prayer. 
 
 23. And I will sow her unto me in the earth ; and I 
 will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy ; 
 and I will say to them lohich loere not my people. Thou 
 art my people ; and they shall say, Thoic art my God. 
 
 " I will sow her unto me," still keeps up the sense of the word 
 "Jezreel." " Unto we," shows that this planting of God's people 
 shall be for himself and not for another ; no more for Baal. " In 
 the earth," might have been as well expressed by "in the land," 
 the allusion being to the fact that of old God had given to his peo- 
 ple a land, specially their own by co>,tenant promise. 1 will now 
 
 and onward have mercy on her who was rejected from my mercy, 
 bearing the name Zo-Eubamah : I will say to Lo-Ammi, Thou art 
 Ammi — beautifully expunging the negative ; and he [my people] 
 
 shall say. My God! This is the concise, yet strongly expressive 
 
 form of the original. 
 
 Thus closes this richly instructive passage. Its whole strain is 
 one glorious testimony that our God, in the midst of wrath, remem- 
 bers mercy. 
 
IQ IIOSEA.— CHAP. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 This short chapter embraces one theme only — the prophet's 
 relation to a wife — adduced as the occasion of a remarkable proph- 
 ecy of the future of the Jewish people. 
 
 1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman 
 beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the 
 love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, wlio look 
 to other gods, and love flagons of wine. 
 
 A question arises here, rather curious than vital to the jieneral 
 sense of the chapter — whether this woman was or was not Goraer, 
 
 the wife brought to our knowledge in the first chapter. On" the 
 
 supposition that she was the same, it seems somewhat remarkable 
 that the statements are so indefinite, with no clear allusions to the 
 Gomer before introduced; yet, despite of this difficulty, the evi- 
 dence preponderates in favor of their identity. The Lord here 
 says, " Go, Zowe," not ta'ke a woman ; the latter being the usual 
 formula for entering the first time into the marriage relation. He 
 says simply "a woman," not "thy wife;" indicating a state of 
 separation and semi-divorce, such as would naturally result from 
 the lewdness of Gomer. She is further described as " beloved of 
 a frlend,^^ as the original has it (not " her " friend), a sort of free- 
 love relationship, and yet an adulteress ; and, of course, not living 
 with this friend in lawful wedlock. A further point in the descrip- 
 tion is, that this case corresponds to the love of the Lord tow\ard 
 the children of Israel, who look (in the Heb. turn) to other gods. 
 Inasmuch as this is part of the description of this woman, it should 
 be allowed the more weight in identifying her. Its whole force 
 goes to show that she was Gomer, since it was the same Israel 
 with whom the Lord had been in covenant, to whom he now 
 returns iu his great loving-kindness. And this is the very point 
 made in this chapter. This main feature, therefore, forbids us to 
 
 think here of any other woman than Gomer. Our translation 
 
 renders the last word of this verse, "flagons of wine." Modern 
 scholars agree in rendering the Hebrew word grape-calces ; i. <?., 
 grapes dried and pressed into the form of cakes. They Avere cus- 
 tomarily oflTered in the worship of idols, and then eaten by the 
 worshippers. Another instance of the general policy of making 
 idol-worship every way attractive to the senses and animal ap- 
 petites. 
 
 2. So I bouglit her to me for MiQGn. pieces of silver, 
 and/br an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley. 
 
 It was common among the Jews, indeed it is in all the East, tc 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. III. 17 
 
 this day, to buy a wife. "Whetlier the price named here was the 
 standard one is of no special importance ; if it were, our means of 
 fixing the vakie of a "piece of silver" are very imperfect. The 
 
 amount of barley was about fourteen bushels. This buying does 
 
 not necessarily forbid the supposition that she had been his wife 
 before. It does imply that she had forfeited that relation, and 
 could properly return only as one justly divorced. To show this 
 seems to be the chief or sole intent in this second verse. 
 
 3. And I said unto her, Tlion slialt abide for me 
 many days ; tliou slialt not play tlie harlot, and thou 
 shalt not be for another man : so will I also 1)6 for thee. 
 
 The prophet implores her to desist from her former crimes. 
 Probably the true sense of the verse is better given by omitting the 
 word '•'■another^'''' which has nothing to correspond to it in the He- 
 brew. " Thou shalt not be /or man " — any man ; — the special point 
 being to represent a state of Israel described in the next verse as 
 without any worship of either the true God or idols. 
 
 4. For the children of Israel shall abide many days 
 without a king, and without a prince, and without a 
 sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, 
 and without teraphira : 
 
 6. Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and 
 seek the Lokd their God, and David their king ; and 
 shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. 
 
 Here is an exceedingly interesting prophecy, to the effect that 
 the children of Israel shall remain a long time without king or 
 prince, without sacrifice, images, or any insignia of worship, wheth- 
 er true or false, required or forbidden. Images and teraphim 
 (household gods) must be put in the latter class. The ephod was 
 
 the outer robe of the high priest. Cured of idolatry, yet not 
 
 converted to the worship of the true God, they were to remain 
 long in this peculiar, extraordinary state. Considering how strong 
 their national passion has been to have a king and some established 
 ceremonials of worship, either divine or idolatrous, this prophecy is 
 surely such as no human sagacity could or would have made. Yet, 
 ever since their own Messiah came in the flesh, or, more definitely, 
 since the fall of their city under the Eoman arms (a. d. YO), this 
 
 has been precisely their condition. "Afterwards " — somewhere 
 
 in the times yet future — " they shall return and seek the Lord their 
 God and David their king." Hosea is not alone in giving to Da- 
 vid's greater Son the name David. Jeremiah (30 : 9) says — "They 
 shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom 1 will 
 raise up to them." Ezekiel likewise (34:23, 24, and 37:24, 25). 
 David, considered as kmg, was a special type of the Messiah, so 
 that the transfer of his name to the latter is natural. To " fcai* 
 
18 HOSEA.— CHAP. m. 
 
 the Lord " is the current phrase of the Old Testament for real piety 
 — naturally so under a dispensation of " law as a schoolmas^." 
 In this passage, the Hehrew verb which means, primarily, to fear^ 
 is followed by a preposition, meaning toward or %into^ showing that 
 this fear does not repel away from God, but rather draws toward 
 him. The precise sense seems to be — to draw near to God in rev- 
 erential fear and trust. This view is confirmed by the addition of 
 
 the word goodness^ which cannot be a thing for Christians to fcar^ 
 in the usual sense of this word. On the contrary, it draws them 
 
 very near to his feet in the spirit of filial confidence and hope. 
 
 In this spirit the children of Israel shall seek and approach the Lord 
 " in the latter days." The time here designated can be no other 
 in this case than the Gospel age. The phrase, " latter days," almost 
 
 invariably has this sense. The phrase, " the children of Israel," 
 
 can have no special reference here to the ten tribes, but rather 
 comprises all the Hebrew people, without distinction between Israel 
 and Judah. — The ultimate conversion of the Jews is, therefore, 
 distinctly foretold in this passage. It must come to pass in the 
 latter days. It has not been yet, and therefore waits its fulfilment 
 in the future. 
 
 It may be asked — 'Why interpret chapter iii. throughout, of the 
 lineal Hebrew race, and not chapter i. likewise ? 
 
 Ans. (1.) Chapter iii. bears this interpretation — has received, 
 and is yet receiving a most striking fulfilment on this principle. 
 Not this, but its opposite, is true of chapter i. It cannot be inter- 
 preted throughout of the lineal children of Israel. The facts of 
 history forbid it. 
 
 (2.) Chapter iii. demands this construction. The entire scope 
 of the chapter, so far as it is prediction, gives us precisely the 
 anomalous condition of the Hebrew race, from the fall of Jerusa- 
 lem down to their ultimate conversion; nothing more, nothing 
 
 else. On the contrary, in chapter i. there is no close connection 
 
 of thought, holding the interpreter to the people of the ten tribes, 
 or even to the lineal Hebrews. The last two verses may be applied 
 without violence to a new and other Israel. 
 
 (3.) In general, the construction given to chapter i. :10, 11 is 
 justified, on its own proper grounds, to be determined in view of 
 what it is, and of its relations to history and to the doctrine of the 
 New Testament. So of the construction given above to chapter iii. 
 
 It must be interpreted in view of what it is. Such I hold to be 
 
 the true theory of interpreting all prophecy. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. IV. 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Lord sets fortli the great sin of the people ; charges it 
 argely to the account of the priests, whose flagrant neglects of duty 
 he exposes and denounces, vs. 1-11 ; shoAV* that idolatry is fol- 
 ly, V. 12, and begets hcentiousness, vs. 13, 14. He solemnly warns 
 Judah to avoid the sin and doom of Ephraira, vs. 15-19. 
 
 1. Hear tlie word, of tlie Lord, ye cliildren of Is- 
 rael : for the Lord liatli a controversy with the inhabi- 
 tants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, 
 nor knowledge of God in the land. 
 
 The word rendered " controversy " often means an occasion for 
 civil process in law — a case of crime so aggravated that it should 
 
 come before the judges. The word which, applied to God, is so 
 
 well rendered mercy, might better, when applied to man, be ren- 
 dered kindness, inasmuch as real mercy — the richest favors shown 
 to the utterly vile and guilty — though found abundantly in God, 
 can scarcely be predicated at all of men. Hence, kindness is, in 
 
 this passage, the better rendering. The Lord can have no peace 
 
 with any people who misuse and abuse one another — truthless, un- 
 kind, and discarding the knowledge and claims of their God. 
 
 2. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, 
 and committing adultery, they break out, and blood 
 toucheth blood. 
 
 The Hebrew of this verse is a model of brevity and force — its 
 
 infinitives absolute, standing naked, and as compact as possible. 
 
 " Swearing, lying, murdering, stealing, committing adultery " — they 
 are outbreaking in all. Scorning restraint, they break over all 
 
 bounds. "Blood toucheth blood " in the strong sense that the 
 
 streams from the first murdered man meet and mingle with the 
 streams from the second, and scarcely can' there be found a spot 
 clean of the gore of murder. 
 
 3. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one 
 that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of 
 the field, and with the fowls of heaven ; yea, the fishes 
 of the sea also shall be taken away. 
 
 Under such wickedness the w^hole land suffers ; society is para- 
 lyzed ; even beasts, fowls, and fishes sympathize and suffer under 
 the general afiliction. 
 
 4. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another; foi 
 thy people are as they that sti'ive with the priest. 
 
20 HOSEA.— CHAP. 17. 
 
 Worst of all is the hopeless moral infatuation of the people. It 
 is all in vain for one man to reprove another for sin. Tlie people 
 are like him T\'ho resists the judicial decisions g'iven by the priest 
 acting as judge, under God. Of him the law of Moses said (Deut. 
 17:12), "The man that will do presumptuously, and will not 
 hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the 
 Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die, and thou 
 
 shalt put away the evil from Israel." This sin is referred to as 
 
 the height of defiant hardihood against God. Such were the peo- 
 ple of Israel at this time. 
 
 6. Therefore, slialt tlioii fall in the clay, and the 
 j^rophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will 
 destroy thy mother. 
 
 This abrupt change of person to direct address is for the sake 
 of greater force. "Thou" — the people — "shalt fall," by awful 
 
 judgments from God. " The prophet " here is the false prophet 
 
 who had misguided and deluded the people, and must perish with 
 
 tliem. ISTo special stress should be given to his falling by night, 
 
 and the people by day. Judgments fall thick ; life is no longer sa- 
 cred ; men are dying day and night. " Thy mother " is either 
 
 the capital, the mother city, or the state, involving the nationality ; 
 probably, in this case, the latter. The nation was, in fact, utterly 
 
 destroyed very soon. The Hebrew word " destroy " carries hero 
 
 the strong idea — brought to perpetual silence. 
 
 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge : be- 
 cause thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, 
 that thou shalt be no priest to me : seeing thou hast for- 
 gotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. 
 
 From this doom the knowledge of God, exerting its legitimate 
 influence, would have saved them — a glorious but just testimony to 
 the value of this knowledge in sustaining the vital life of society. 
 
 Again the prophet accosts the priests directly, as if they stood 
 
 in his eye, and fearlessly says, " Thou art the man ! " " Because thou 
 hast rejected knowledge, I have rejected thee from being a priest for 
 me ; thou hast forgotten the law of thy God ; I, even I, will forget 
 
 thy children." God's forgetting their children means more than 
 
 it expresses. For God to forget to protect and bless is to give up 
 to unmingled curses. The turn given in this language is fearfully 
 
 significant of retribution. The Hebrew makes God's agency em- 
 
 pliatic : " I, yea, 7, will forget thy children." 
 
 7. As they were increased, so they sinned against 
 me : therefore will I change their glory into shame. 
 
 " They " refers to the priests. The " increase " might bo either 
 in numbers or in wealth and honor ; probably not eitlier alone, but 
 all. The more they prospered, by so much the more they siuned 
 
'*<•% 
 
 HOSEA.— CHAP. IV. 21 
 
 against God. Hence he would convert their glory into disgrace. 
 The desolations of war and captivity soon fulfilled this threatening. 
 
 8. They eat up the sin of my people, and tliey set 
 their heart on their iniquity. 
 
 By "sin," in this passage, some suppose the sin-offerings of the 
 Mosaic law to be meant, and eating them to be the sin committed 
 
 by the sons of Eli. See 1 Sam. 2 : 12-17. The usual sense of 
 
 the word is, however, preferable, and is fully sustained by the 
 parallel clause, which is, literally, "They lift up their soul to their 
 iniquity ; " i. e., they are interested and pleasurably excited by the 
 sins of the people. They eat them, in the sense of enjoying tliem 
 
 as hungry men enjoy a feast. How horribly corrupt these 
 
 priests must have been ! So far gone in sin that they loved to have 
 
 all the people sin ! The Hebrew verbs rendered " cat vp " and 
 
 " set " are future, implying not only that they have done, but will 
 yet do this ; are committed, past reclaim, to these sins. 
 
 9. And there shall be, like people, like priest : and 
 I will punisli them for their ways, and reward them 
 their doings. 
 
 No wonder God has judgments in store for them, from which 
 
 their superior dignity and rank shall by no means shield them. 
 
 Such is the import of this verse. As the people were doomed to 
 desolating judgments, so also are the priests. Their office shall not 
 conduct the lightnings of Jehovah's wrath away from their heads, 
 but rather dow}i upon them. 
 
 10. For they shall eat, and not have enough : they 
 shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase : because 
 they have left off to take heed to the Loed. 
 
 Eesuming from v. 8 their eating the sins of the people, God 
 now declares — They shall eat, but shall get no good of it ; this 
 being the sense of the words rendered "not have enough; " liter- 
 ally, " shall not be satisfied." 
 
 Adulterous life gives no increase of family — the natural conse- 
 quences being the opposite of this. Barrenness was accounted one 
 
 of the greatest calamities. These sins are due to the fact that 
 
 they have ceased to honor and fear Jehovah. 
 
 11. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away 
 the heart. 
 
 This verse is a grand moral adage — an axiom in the philosophy 
 
 of human life. The "7iea?'f,"in Hebrew usage, is sometimes 
 
 wise and understanding, in reference to the intellectual faculties, 
 and sometimes includes the moral purposes of the soul, as when 
 
 God is said to be served with the whole heart. " Taking away 
 
 the heart," therefore, is robbing a man of his good sense, his moral 
 stamina — of all that makes his manhood of any account. After 
 
22 HOSEA.— CHAP. ly. 
 
 whoredom and wine have done their work upon hira, he is practi- 
 cally more brutish tlian rational and human. Hosea has a similar 
 use of the word "heart " (7 : 11): "Ephraim is like a silly dove 
 iDitliout heart " — ^lacking even natural sagacity to avoid the snare. 
 
 12.. My people ask counsel at tlieir stocks, and tlieir 
 staff declareth unto them : for the spirit of whoredoms 
 hath cansed them to err, and they have gone a whoring 
 from nnder their God. 
 
 As if to prove how utterly whoredom and wine have robbed 
 the people of their good sense, the Lord adduces their confidence 
 in idol gods, "ify people" — who ought to ask counsel of me — 
 "ask counsel of their sticks of wood" — a justly contemptuous 
 name for a wooden god; " and their staff" — a divining rod, makes 
 
 revelations to them as an oracle. This divining rod has been 
 
 common among the miserable superstitions of heathenism, and is 
 
 not unknown in nominally Christian lands. "Whoredom" in 
 
 this connection seems to be literal, sensual ; not the spiritual whore- 
 dom of idolatry. The essential spirit of licentiousness has plunged 
 them into error and folly, so that, from " being under their God," 
 in a state of humble dependence and moral purity, they have gone 
 utterly into this most imbruting sin. Idol worship in all ages and 
 countries has been intensely licentious, mixed up with abominations 
 too foul to be named. 
 
 13. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, 
 and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and pop- 
 lars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: 
 therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and 
 your spouses shall commit adultery. 
 
 High places and groves of great natural beauty and sublimity 
 have always been favorite localities for idol worship — as said here 
 — " because the shadow thereof is good " — pleasant and attractive, 
 it being the policy of Satan always to cluster around his worship 
 
 all possible sensuous attractions. Therefore the daughters and 
 
 wives of the Hebrew idolaters became licentious and corrupt. This 
 is only the natural consequence of such idolatry, practised amid 
 such temptations to lewdness. 
 
 14. I will not j^unish your daughters when they 
 commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit 
 adultery : for themselves are separated with whores, and 
 they sacrifice with harlots : therefore the people that 
 doth not imderstand shall fall. 
 
 Some prefer to road interrogatively — " Shall I not punish," &c. ? 
 But the usual sense of the Hebrew words is simply declarative — 
 "I will not." The sense seems to be — I will not punish your 
 
EOSEA.— CHAP. IV. 23 
 
 daughters and wives for sins for which you are mainly responsible. 
 So long as you lead them into such scenes of temptation, and allure 
 them on by your own example, upon yourselves and not upon them 
 
 shall fall my heaviest judgments. " Themselves are separated," 
 
 &c., refers not to the daughters and wives, but to the fatliers and 
 husbands. The change of person is peculiar, but not uncommon 
 in Hosea. The prophet is showing why the fathers and not their 
 daughters, the husbands and not their wives, should be specially 
 punished. They seek retired places with vile women ; they offer 
 idolatrous sacrifices with harlots — a class of women, as the Hebrew 
 
 shows, consecrated to pollution in the idol temples. Therefore 
 
 this people, so utterly void of understanding, moral sense, and 
 reason, shall fall, i. «., into ruin. 
 
 15. Though thou, Israel, play the liarlot, yet let not 
 Juclali offend ; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go 
 ye up to Betli-aven, nor swear, The Loed livetli. 
 
 Thus far in this chapter the sins of Israel, the ten tribes, have 
 been portrayed. Here the prophet turns to admonish Judah to 
 
 shun such crime and its consequent ruin. Gilgal was one of the 
 
 centres of idol worship, as was also Beth-aven, house of vanity, 
 which was probably the place long known as Bethel — ^liouse of 
 God. The change of name represents the change from the wor- 
 ship of Jehovah to the worship of mere nothings, vanities. Both 
 
 Gilgal and Bethel had been associated with the true worship of 
 God ; Gilgal ever since the rolling up of the heap of stones there 
 on entering Canaan, and the circumcision of all the people there 
 (Josh. 4 : 20 and 5 : 9), and Samuel's holding his circuit court there 
 (1 Sam. T : 16) ; and Bethel, from that eventful night when the Lord 
 met the youthful Jacob there (Gen. 28 : 16-19). This appropria- 
 tion of God's house (Bethel) to the devil's worship is one of his 
 
 own Satanic arts, kept up through all time. " Nor swear," in 
 
 the profane way of idol worshippers, " The Lord liveth." It seems 
 to have been common to blend with idolatry some of the forms of 
 recognizing the true God. This he abhorred. 
 
 16. For Israel slidetli back as a backsliding heifer : 
 now the Lokd will feed them as a lamb in a large place. 
 
 " Sliding back " is not strong enough to represent the original 
 word. The figure supposes a young heifer under the yoke (for the 
 female was put to real work in the East), but resisting, refractory, 
 yerking her head away, and running back — a very different sort of 
 action from that gradual down-hill sliding which is commonly asso- 
 ciated with the English word, backslide. It is unfortunate that the 
 word backslide, taken from the Bible to describe a state of Cliris- 
 tian experience, should by usage fall so far short of the Bible sense. 
 It means liere that Israel is persistent, stubborn, half frantic in her 
 rebellion against God — a state of heart and life utterly far from true 
 piety. Now, i. «., \qvj soon, the Lord will give Israel a vast 
 
24: nOSEA.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 range of wilderness for her wanderings — will cast her forth fi'om 
 her land as a lamb might be cast forth from his secure and peaceful 
 fold, to roam at large, homeless and unprotected. The passage pre- 
 dicts the captivity of the ten tribes to Assyria, but keeps up the 
 figure of the refractory heifer, only changing from the heifer to the 
 lamb as being more defenceless, and more wretched when lost and 
 wandering alone. The heifer tears herself away ; God lets her go, 
 a wandering lamb, into a hopeless captivity. 
 
 IT. Epliraim is joined to idols : let liim alone. 
 The Hebrew w^ord for idols implies things made with the toil- 
 some but fruitless labor of human hands. Ephraim is joined 
 
 to tliem in the strong sense of being closely united and adhering^ 
 
 so to speak, to those senseless things. " Let him alone," cannot, 
 
 in this connection, be the declaration of God's purpose to abandon 
 Ephraim and withdraw his Spirit, as has been supposed by some ; 
 but is God's command to Judah to desist from all society with 
 Ephraim and leave him to sin and suffer alone. The general course 
 of thought in the context, as well as the phrase itself, require the 
 
 latter construction. Here, for the first time in Hosea, we have 
 
 the word " Ephraim " used for the kingdom and people of the ten 
 tribes — a usage due to the great preponderance of this tribe in 
 population and also in dignity as having the capital, Samaria, and 
 as having furnished the first king, Jeroboam. 
 
 18. Their drink is sour : tliey liave committed whore- 
 dom continually : lier rulers with shame do love, Give 
 
 ye. 
 
 " Drink," here, is not common drink, is certainly not cold wa- 
 ter. The original is always strong^ intoxicating drin%^ or the drink- 
 ing itself— the carousals. The verb* which our translators have 
 rendered " is sour.'''' is used very frequently in the general sense of 
 passing away, departing; and also in the special sense of departing 
 from God, apostatizing, becoming degenerate. These two senses 
 indicate the two constructions between Avhich our choice is to be 
 made. The general sense is here the more probable, as when Agag, 
 using the same word (1 Sam. 15 : 32), said, " The bitterness of death 
 is 2mst.'''' Hcnc« I translate closely thus : " Their carousals are 
 over; they plunge into lewdness; their shields (rulers) love shame." 
 The better to bring out the sense, I paraphrase the verse thus : 
 " When their carousals are past, their passions are sharpened for 
 baser whoredom : their rulers, who ought to be their shields and 
 safeguards against such baseness, are themselves so corrupt as to 
 love" what is only their shame." 
 
 The second construction is worthy of being suggested. By it, 
 the first verb, rendered " is sour,'''' has the sense of becoming apos- 
 tate, tluis : " He (Epln-aim) becomes the more apostate from God 
 through strong drink ; so they plunge the deeper into whoredom," 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. IV. 25 
 
 &c. In this constfuction tliis verb looks toward its cognate * in 
 V. IG : There Israel is refractory, like an unbroken heifer ; here he 
 becomes the more refractory as to God through strong drink. Tliis 
 verb unquestionably bears tlie sense of departing from God, becom- 
 ing apostate and refractory, as may be seen in JDeut. 11 : IG : "Ye 
 turn aside and serve other gods." Ps. 14 : 3 : " They are all gone 
 aside; they are altogether become filthy," &c. But especially 
 Jer. 5 : 23, where those two cognate verbs are brought together as 
 parallel : " This people hath a revolting \ and a rebellious heart ; 
 they are revolted J and gone." This passage entirely confirms the 
 close cognate relationship between these two verbs — that in v. IG, 
 
 and this in 18. The rendering of the verb with its noun in tho 
 
 first clause is more easy on the first construction above given, else 
 tlie second of the two would be preferable. The ultimate sense is 
 essentially the same, testifying to the fearfully demoralizing influ- 
 ence of strong drink toward lewdness in tho orgies of idolatry. 
 
 The second verb in this verse, expressing the practice of lewd- 
 ness, is made intensive by the usual repetition of the finite verb by 
 means of the infinitive. The reader will notice tliat my transla- 
 tion of the last clause differs from that of our Eaghsh Bible in two 
 respects, making "shame" the object of the verb, and entirely 
 omitting the words " Give ycy This last change follows the best 
 critical authorities as to the original text. These omit this word 
 rendered "Give ye" as spurious, or, as some conjecture, attach it 
 to the previous verb, and thus reduplicate its two last radicals. The 
 very apposite sense thus obtained in the place of one very obscure 
 and inept, justifies this clioice between the authorities for the orig- 
 inal text. 
 
 19. The wind Iiatli bound her up in her wings, and 
 they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. 
 
 The whirlwind affords a common figure for those providential 
 agencies with which God overv/helras and sweeps away the wicked. 
 
 See Ps. 58 : 9 ; Prov. 1 : 27 ; Isa. 40 : 24, and 6G : 15, &c. Here a 
 
 bold poetic imagination gives to the whirhvind real life, and wings 
 in which the guilty nation is enfolded, to be borne away to its final 
 doom — captivity. Zechariah (5 : 5-11) has the same figure in a 
 
 slightly ditierent dress. " They shall be confounded because of 
 
 their sacrifices " to idol gods which cannot save. Their objects of 
 confidence shall utterly fail them ; the idols in v»^hich they trusted 
 
 shall prove their curse. So evermore must all the hopes of tho 
 
 wicked pei-ish ! That on which they rely fur help shall become tho 
 millstone to sink them — the fire to scorch and blast them, for ever 
 and ever ! 
 
26 HOSEA.— CHAP. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In genera], the course of tlioiiglit is the same in this cliapter as 
 in the fourth ; rebukes for sin, threatening of near judgments, in 
 which God's own hand should be specially manifest. Judah ia 
 spoken of more fi-equently than in chapter iv., and hence, Judah 
 being less hardened than Ephraim, the strain of remark gives more 
 intimations of hopeful repentance. 
 
 1. Hear ye this, O priests ; and hearken, ye house 
 of Israel ; and give ye ear, O honse of the king ; for 
 judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare 
 on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. 
 
 The priests and the king are specially called to attend to this 
 message, because the threatened judgments were to fall first and 
 most heavily on them. The word "judgment " in the original has 
 the article, and should have in Enghsh— "for tJie judgment" — the 
 one predicted and near impending — " is specially destined for yoii^ 
 The reason given is, they have ensnared the people into sm — "have 
 been a snare," such as is laid to catch birds, " on Mizpah," &c. 
 Mizpah and Tabor w^ere "high places," locations for idol worship; 
 the former east of Jordan, the latter w^est. 
 
 2. And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, 
 thou2:h I have heen a rebuker of them all. 
 
 The verb rendered "to make slaughter" is most commonly used 
 for the slaughter of animals— rarely for the slaying of men ; and 
 in reference to animals, more often for purposes of sacrifice, less 
 often for food. Here we may best take the most common sense. 
 
 The word rendered " revolters," is used both in the concrete, 
 
 meaning revolters, and in the abstract, revolting, departure from 
 right, sin. The latter sense seems preferable here. I paraphrase 
 thus: "They," the priests and the king, "make their sins deep, 
 even in their slaying of animals for sacrifice ; " they deviate widely 
 from righteousness and from God, even in their rehgious ceremo- 
 nies. " But I will chastise them all." The sense given in the 
 
 English version may be the true one : the one given here seems 
 the more probable as being more in harmony with the course of 
 thought, and equally in harmony with the usual sense of the words. 
 The Lord assures them that their sacrifice of animals after the law 
 of Moses, whether mixed up with idol worship and all manner of 
 wickedness, or standing by itself, yet used as a cloak for their sin, 
 would avail them nothing. They might go deep into it ; it could 
 be accounted only as so much the greater sin, and could by no 
 means screen them from the judgments of God. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. V. 27 
 
 3. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not Lid from mo : 
 for now, O Epliraim, thou committest wlioredom, and 
 Israel is defiled. 
 
 The special pertinence of the declaration " I know Ephraim," 
 ttc, comes from the thought in the verse preceding — the attempt 
 to cover up idol worship and all wickedness, with the established 
 religious rites of the Mosaic system. What if they do put on the 
 fairest semblance of true worship, slaughtering animals by the 
 thousand — " I know them ; " I see through their hearts ; Ephraim 
 is full of Avhoredom (idolatry). True it is that men only in- 
 sult God the more when they assume that they can cover up sin by 
 the forms of religion. To assume that God cannot see through this 
 covering, is an insult to his omniscience; to assume that he can 
 ever accept such hypocrisy, is an insult to his holiness. 
 
 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto 
 their God : for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst 
 of them, and they have not known the Lokd. 
 
 A great moral truth lies here — that when men have given them- 
 selves up heartily to sin and the spirit of sinning rules, and they 
 do not care to know God, then they will not make any honest ef- 
 forts to turn to God; tliey will not shape their external doings so 
 as to facilitate the turning of their hearts from sin to holiness. The 
 reason why they will not is given here — the spirit of sinning is in 
 them as the ruling power of their heart and life. They liave not 
 known the Lord, and do not intend to think or to learn of him. 
 
 5. And the pride of Israel dotli testify to his face : 
 therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity ; 
 Judah also sliall fall with tliem. 
 
 The pride of Israel is a true witness against him to the point 
 here charged ; for pride seals the evidence that the heart is hard- 
 ened and perverse. "When a sinner is proud in his sin and of his 
 sin, he gives the strongest evidence of being fully committed and 
 awfully hardened. Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall un- 
 der the judgments of God. Judah comes in here, and hencefor- 
 ward through the chapter, as having shared in the guilt of Ephraim, 
 and consequently as bound to share her doom. 
 
 6. They shall go with their flocks and witli their 
 herds to seek the Lokd ; but they shall not find him ; 
 he hath withdrawn himself from them. 
 
 In the day of their calamity they may summon to their help the 
 most costly forms and services of rehgious worship, but all in vain. 
 There comes a time when it is too late to cry even for mercy. The 
 Scriptures repeatedly affirm this awful truth, as e. g. Prov. 1 : 24- 
 31. AVhen mercy has been abused too long, and patience in God 
 
28 HOSEA.— CHAP. V. 
 
 ceases to be a virtue, then retribution must take its course — else 
 law were a force, and the throne of justice would sink into con- 
 tempt. 
 
 Y. Tliey have dealt treaclierously against tlie Lord : 
 lor tliej have begotten strange children : now shall a 
 month devonr them with their portions. 
 
 The charge of treachery looks to their violation of their cove- 
 nant vows to be the Lord's. One proof of this perfidy was that 
 they had begotten children of foreign mothers, by intermarriage or 
 by adulterous connection with the heathen round about tliem. 
 
 This, God had most exphcitly forbidden, Ex. 34: 16. The time 
 
 of their destruction hastens on ; within one month they shall per- 
 ish "with their portions" — their idol gods whom they had chosen 
 as their helpers and refuge. 
 
 8. Blow^ ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trnmpet 
 in Ham ah : cry alond at Beth-aven ; after thee, O Ben- 
 jamin. 
 
 The enemy are near; let the war-cry ring out the alarm on the 
 very hill-tops where the idol temples stand. " Cry aloud at Beth- 
 aven " — that place once sacred as Bethel, the house of God ; now 
 desecrated by idol-worship into Betli-aven — house of vanity — noth- 
 
 ii;igg. " After thee, Benjamin," it seems most natural to take 
 
 as the very words of the outcry. " The foe is after thee," or be- 
 hind thee, close upon thee. 
 
 0. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebnke : 
 among the tribes of Israel have I made known that 
 Vvdiich shall surely be. 
 
 The judgm-ent on Ephraim should be sweeping and extermina- 
 ting, putting an end to her nationality, and leaving her desecrated 
 
 laud a desolation. " Rebuke " here refers to deeds, not words ; 
 
 to the judgments of war, subjugation, captivity. The last clause 
 
 refers to the warnings God had given to the people of the ten tribes 
 by the mouth of Ilosea and other prophets. What they had said 
 from the Lord was wholly true, and should surely come to pass. 
 
 10. The princes of Jndah were like them that re- 
 move the bound : therefore I will pour out my wrath 
 upon them like water. 
 
 The " bound" referred to is the landmarh by which contiguous 
 estates were defined. In the absence offences these "bounds" 
 were relied on in practice. The sin of removing them is the 
 greater because so easily done and so difficult of detection. The 
 Mosaic law severely denounced this sin. (See Dent. 19 : 14 and 
 27: IT.) It became a proverb to signify a man of no conscience 
 and no honor. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. V. 29 
 
 11. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment 
 because lie willingly walked after the commandment. 
 
 Ephraim is crushed utterly under the divine judgments because 
 he heartily consented to "walk after tJie commandment of Jeroboam, 
 son of Nebat, who bade the people worship the golden calves at 
 Bethel and at Dan. (1 Kings 12 : 28-33.) This is the command- 
 ment referred to as the first fatal step — the occasion of the sad re- 
 lapse which was so soon to end in the utter ruin of the people and 
 the kingdom. 
 
 12. Tlierefore will I I^e unto Ephraim as a moth, 
 and to the house of Judah as rottenness. 
 
 This strong language implies sapping the nation's vitality and 
 leaving it utterly powerless. 
 
 13. When Ephraim saw his sickness^, and Judah saio 
 his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and 
 sent to king Jareb : yet could he not heal you, nor cure 
 you of your wound. 
 
 This "sickness" and "wound" are of the body politic. Tho 
 sense is that each kingdom, conscious of its weakness and danger, 
 
 sent to the Assyrian power for help, but to no good purpose. 
 
 ]?cfore the word "sent," Judah should be supplied. Ephraim 
 w ent to the Assyrian king, and Judah sent, &c. The history takes 
 note of both these facts. Ephraim (2 Kings 15 : 19, 20), threat- 
 ened by Pul, king of Assyria, " gave him a thousand talents of sil- 
 ver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his 
 hand." Judah (2 Kings 16 : 7), threatened by Rezin of Syria, sent 
 to Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria for help. In neither case was this 
 
 call for help of any avail. "Jareb " is not the proper name of 
 
 any king, but is a verb, meaning one who should interpose, or, in 
 modern phrase, intervene. This was precisely what Ahaz king of 
 Judah sought of the Assyrian king, that he should intervene and 
 help himself against Eezin of Syria. 
 
 14. For I will he unto E])hraim as a lion, and as a 
 young lion to the house of Judah : I, even I, will tear 
 and go away ; I w^ill take aw^ay, and none shall rescue 
 him. 
 
 The connection of thought is — ISTo good can come of Assyrian 
 help, "/<??• I will be unto Ephraim as a lion," &c., — the lion being a 
 symbol of power that turns not from its purpose for any. Com- 
 pare Ps. 50 : 22 : '' Consider this, ye that forget God, lost I tear 
 you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." The symbol should 
 not be forced so as to carry over to the Almighty all the qualities 
 of the lion — not his ferocity, not his heartless cruelty, but only his 
 great power which none can evade, none escape, none withstand. 
 
30 HOSEA.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 The manner of the lion is carried out here to a remarkable ex- 
 tent. He tears his prey in pieces ; goes away ; comes again ; then 
 takes some of it with him to his place, and none can rescue from 
 
 his grasp. There were points analogous to this in the ways of 
 
 God toward Ephraim and Judah, as the prophet proceeds to show. 
 
 15. I will go and return to my place, till tliey ac- 
 knowledge their offence, and seek my face : in tlieir af- 
 fliction tliey will seek me early. 
 
 Especially in this respect v/ould the Lord be as a lion to thoso 
 kingdoms. He would send one fearful scourge ; then retire as it 
 were to his place to watch and wait for the moral result. For 
 God's purpose in sending these afflictions was never vindictive, was 
 never merely to destroy, but only to constrain them to seek liis 
 face in repentance. the verb rendered " acknowledge their of- 
 fence " means primarily to be guilty ; then to bear one's guilt in 
 the sense of suftcring punishment or chastisement for it. The lat- 
 ter seems clearly to be the sense here. There is no decisive usage 
 
 to sustain the interpretation — " acknowledge one's offence." The 
 
 Lord, having sorely chastised them, would wait till they had borne 
 the infliction, and had been brought by it to seek his face. He is 
 sure that in their affliction they will seek him early, or earnestly, 
 as one who is up betimes in the morning to a work lying near his 
 
 heart. So the original implies. Here the chapter closes, but the 
 
 course of thought passes over to the next unbroken. 
 
 OHAPTEE VI. 
 
 In this chapter we have calls to repentance, assurances of God'a 
 great mercy, but this mercy is grieved by the fickleness of God's 
 degenerate people. It closes with continued details of aggravated 
 wickedness. 
 
 1. Come, and let ns return unto the Lokd : for lie 
 hatli torn, and lie will lieal us ; lie hath smitten, and he 
 will bind us up. 
 
 TVith unsurpassed beauty and force, the Lord himself gives his 
 people the very words with which they may exhort each other to 
 return to him. The marvel is that in the figure the Lord is no 
 more the lion, but an angel of mercy, coming down to bind up the 
 v/ounds himself has made! And it is he himself that declares 
 this — testimony, therefore, that could not be better. Indeed, we 
 could not reasonably accept any other. For who else could know, 
 or who else could make us beheve, that the same God who hath 
 torn will also heal — the same who hath smitten will also bind iiu? 
 Such are the wondrous things of God's mercy. 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. VI. 31 
 
 2. After two days will lie revive us : in the third 
 day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. 
 
 The general sense is clear. God will soon revive us if chastise- 
 ment has wrought its proper fruits. Various conjectures have 
 been made to answer the question, "Why does he say so definitely, 
 
 "After two days," "on the third day?" Some have found 
 
 here, as they suppose, an allusion to the resurrection of Christ. 
 But this passage has the air of historic allusion and not of proph- 
 ecy ; and historic allusions look to the past, and not to the future. 
 The manner of this passage is not that oi proi^hecy^ foretelHng some 
 future event to occur after two days or on the third, but it is rather 
 that of a statement shaped by the thought, then present to the 
 mind, of some analogous event in past, well-known history. Such 
 an event I find substantially in the case of the pestilence sent on 
 Israel for David's sin of numbering the people. (See 2 Sam. 24.) 
 When for this sin three forms of judgment were proposed to David 
 for his choice, he chose the pestilence, as coming more directly from 
 the hand of God, saying, "Let us fall now into the hand of the 
 Lord, for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand 
 of man." This pestilence continued three days, no more. The 
 Lord became a lion to tear, so long; — then turned to revive and 
 restore. This case, supposed to have been before the mind of Ho- 
 sea, would fitly account for his naming two and three days. Hosea 
 abounds, beyond most of the sacred writers, in historic allusions. 
 
 A case much less closely parallel may be seen in the plague of 
 
 darkness on Egypt of three days. And there may be a tacit allusion 
 to the fact that three days is about the extent of haman endurance 
 under extreme privations and hardships, as e. g. the case of the 
 Egyptian found by David's men. (1 Sam. 30 : 11, 1%.) The senti- 
 ment would then be that God is wont to arrest his judgments beforo 
 human endurance is quite exhausted. 
 
 3. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know 
 the Lord : his going forth is prepared as the morning ; 
 and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and 
 former rain unto the earth. 
 
 Oiu* translators apprise us that they found no word in the orig- 
 inal for " (/*." It is more true to the original and equally pertinent 
 sense to read It, " Then let us know, let us follow on to know the 
 Lord," &c., i. e. encouraged by these demonstrations of his mercy, 
 let us seek to know, yea let us follow on earnestly to know the 
 
 Lord. "His going forth," in this connection, is not his going 
 
 in general, but his going forth in the revelations of his great mercy 
 — his outgoing, as the sun comes to light after the darkness of 
 storm or of night — the original word being currently used for the 
 rising of the sun. David uses it in his exquisite nineteenth psalm, 
 saying of' the sun, " His going forth is from one end of the heav- 
 ens and his circuit to the other end thereof." So God's coming 
 
32 nOSEA.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 fortli in the displays of his mercy "is prepared as the morning," 
 equally sure in its place, and nothing in nature more fitly repre- 
 sents the revelations of his mei-cy as they rise on benighted souls. 
 
 The next iigure also is rich in beauty and in blessings. " lie 
 
 shall come unto us," corresponding in sense to his " going forth,'" 
 "as the gi'eat rain " (often called the "former rain"), "and as the 
 latter rain that water the earth." This is a precise translation of 
 
 the original. The former rain, succeeding a long dry season, 
 
 falling from the middle of October to the middle of December, 
 prepared the ground for seed-sowing, and if abundant, gave assur- 
 ance of harvests. The latter rain fell in March and April, ma- 
 turing the crops, and continuing in some seasons quite to their 
 early harvest, from which fact it takes its Hebrew name. 
 
 Those who liave " tasted that the Lord is gracious " will appre- 
 ciate the fitness and force of these illustrations, and wiU not wonder 
 that the most beautiful and beneficent things in nature are clustered 
 together to set forth the munificent loving-kindness of the Lord. 
 
 4. O Epliraim, wliat shall I do unto thee? O Ju- 
 dah, what shall I do unto thee ? for your goodness is as 
 a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. 
 
 Alas! that there should ever be occasion to turn so abruptly from 
 the glory of God's mercy to the meanness of man's sin ! — ^from the 
 enduring love and the well-ordered going forth of his light and sal- 
 vation, to the fickleness of man's best resolutions, and to the incon- 
 stancy of his most hopeful professions! The antithesis between 
 
 this verse and the preceding one should be noted. The morning 
 light, gloriously outbreaking from the east, is God's love shining out 
 on the darkness of the sin-stricken soul. The morning cloud and 
 the early dew, hopeful and sweet for a moment, but soon gone up 
 as if they had never been, are the goodness of God's inconstant 
 people. We cannot wonder that the Lord should exclaim : " O 
 Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? " By what new and untried 
 appliances shall I bring stability out of fickleness, and make your 
 wavering steps steadfast ? 
 
 5. Therefore have I hewed t/iem by the prophets ; I 
 have slain them by the words of my mouth : and thy 
 judgments are as the light that goeth :^orth. 
 
 As to the figures in this verse — "hewing them by the 
 prophets," "slaying them by the words of my mouth" — we may 
 fitly remGmber that Solomon says: "The words of the wise are as 
 goads and as nails" (EccL 12: 11), and Paul (Heb. 4:12) sj^eaks 
 of " the word of God as sharper than any two-edged sword, pierc- 
 ing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," and also (Eph. 
 6:17) of "the sword of tlie Spirit, which is the word of God." 
 The Lord signifies here that he has used sharp and cutting words in 
 his messages to the people — has, in fact, exhausted the power of 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. VI. 33 
 
 earnest language to pierce the hard shell of their heart and reach 
 
 live flesh. " Thy judgments are as the hght " — clear, impressive, 
 
 awe-inspiring as the liglitnings of heaven — for so the word may 
 signify. The instances of this usage are comparatively rare, how- 
 ever, and the common sense, light, is pertinent and forcible. God 
 had made his displeasure toward their sins clear as the liglit. 
 
 6. For. I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the 
 knowledge of God more tlian bnrnt-ofi'erings. 
 
 " Mercy" here represents the whole circle of moral duties tow- 
 ard man, as in the next clause, " the knowledge of God " stands 
 for that which is practical, not theoretical only, and comprises all 
 
 riglit aflections toward God. The people had sliown themselves 
 
 far more ready to oifer sacrifices than to do right toward either 
 God or man. The Lord, on the contrary, held sacrifices in low es- 
 teem, but held in the highest esteem mercy toward man and the 
 intelligent worship and homage of the heart toward God. 
 
 See a similar doctrine taught in the Old Testament, Ps. 40 : 7-9 
 and 50 : 8-23 ; Isa. 1 : 11-17, and Micah G : 6-8. 
 
 Our divine Teacher on two several occasions endorsed the sen- 
 timent of this verse most emphatically, Matt. 9:13, and 12:7; 
 " Go ye and learn what that meaneth ; I will have mercy, and not 
 sacrifice " — said, in this case, to show why he ate \Yith publicans 
 
 and sinners — viz., to save their souls. "But if ye had known 
 
 what this meaneth — 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,' ye 
 Avould not have condemned the guiltless ; " said in rebuke of the 
 
 Pharisees for their judgments in regard to keeping the Sabbath. 
 
 This form of statement should not be pressed tp mean that God 
 had never required sacrifice and burnt-ofi:erings ; this Avould not be 
 true. 
 
 This doctrine needs often to be revived and reiterated, so prone 
 are men to put the forms and ceremonies of religion in the place 
 of real kindness and justice toward man, and honest heart-worship 
 of God. American slaveholding Christianity is a striking case in 
 point — an efl:ort to conform Christianity to the demands of the 
 time by framing a system of religion and morals with mercy and 
 even justice left out, and the real knowledge of God woefully per- 
 verted. 
 
 Y. But tliey like men Lave transgressed tlie covenant ; 
 there have they dealt treacherously against me. 
 
 The word rendered "men" is, in Hebrew, adam^ and may bo 
 either a proper noun, meaning Adam, or a common noun, meaning 
 man. Hence this clause has been construed three ways : (1.) "They, 
 like common men, have transgressed the covenant " — the point being 
 that they^ being priests, princes, and a people long trained of God, 
 have yet broken their covenant, as common men might do ; or, 
 (2.) "They ure like men who break covenant "—the point here 
 being that they break their covenant Avith God as men are wont to 
 
34 IIOSEA.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 break tlieir covenauts with eacli otlier, accounting obligation to Gotl 
 no more sacred than a man's obhgation to his fellow ; or, (3.) "They, 
 like Adam, have broken covenant ; " their obligation, like his, being 
 all the more sacred by reason of their intimate and honored rela- 
 tions to the glorious God. 
 
 Of these various interpretations, none bad, the last has in its 
 favor the obvious antithesis between " they " and " Adam," which 
 stands out strongly in the original, inasmuch as the use of the per- 
 sonal pronoun in llebrew is not common, and is, therefore, usually 
 
 somewhat emphatic where introduced as here. A paraUel case 
 
 of the use of Adam as a proper and not a common noun, is found 
 Job 31 : 33: "If I covered my transgressions as Adam " did, etc. 
 
 " TTiere^^'' in the phrase, " there have they dealt treacherously," 
 
 refers to the kingdom of the ten tribes, where the great mass had 
 I)roved utterly treacherous toward God. 
 
 8. Gilead is a city of tliem that work iniquitj, and 
 is polluted with blood. 
 
 Erom general charges of sin, the prophet here becomes specific. 
 
 Gilead (often called Eamoth-Gilead) was a prominent city of 
 
 refuge (see I)eut. 4 : 43) on the east of Jordan. The cities of refuge 
 made special provision for the residence of the priests, who, indeed, 
 were needed there to hold civil courts and determine questions of 
 manslaughter, which naturally came to tyal there. But this city 
 w^as full of bloody violence — as the last clause of the verse has it — • 
 " tracked or footstepped with blood." Murderers left their bloody 
 footprints along its streets.— — It appears from 2 Kings, 15 : 25, 
 that Pekah, in conspiring against and murdering Pekahiah, had 
 with him fifty men of the Gileadites. To this fact the prophet may 
 allude. From such a city he might get fit materials for conspiracy 
 and murder. 
 
 9. And as troops of robljers wait for a man, so the 
 company of priests mnrder in the way by consent : for 
 they commit lewdness. 
 
 This might be closely translated thus: " As robber-gangs way- 
 laymen, so bands of priests commit murder on the way to Shechem, 
 
 for they work out deep-laid schemes of crime." Shechem (by 
 
 mistake of our translators taken as a common noun) was another 
 city of refuge, inhabited largely by priests therefore, who waylaid 
 travellers coming to the city — perhaps the implication is, such as 
 were fleeing thither for refuge — so horribly did they pervert tlie 
 
 functions of justice committed to their hands ! The last w^ord 
 
 does not mean lewdness, but intentional, studied crime — all the 
 more guilty in the view both of God and man for the amount of 
 thought and deep-laid plot that entered into it. 
 
 10. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of 
 
iiosEA.—ciiAP. vr. 35 
 
 Israel : there is tlie whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is de- 
 filed. 
 
 It is in view of such particulars as these that the Lord now ex- 
 claims, "I have seen horrible things in the house of Israel! " 
 
 ** Whoredom " seems here to be idolatry, the mother sin of aU sins 
 in the land, 
 
 11. Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, 
 when I returned the captivity of my people. 
 
 This verse has cmised commentators much perplexity. The 
 questions have been, whether the "harvest" appointed of God for 
 Judah betokened blessings or calamities; and, if the latter, hc>w it 
 can correspond with bringing back their captives — a lact which 
 
 naturally and usually indicates blessings. The first word, well 
 
 rendered " also," implies that the Lord had something for Judali 
 of the same sort which he was about to bring on Ephraim ; and 
 there can be no doubt that the strain of the previous context as- 
 sumes the near coming of fearful judgments on Ephraim, Then 
 
 fui'ther, prophetic usage very uniformly makes tlie harvest a sym- 
 bol of judgments. (See Jer. 51 : 33 ; Joel 3 : 13 ; Eev. 14 : 15-20.) 
 These considerations go far to show that the passage must predict 
 judgments on Judah — naturally, a great slaughter. It only re- 
 mains to see how this can comport with the Lord's bringing back 
 the captives of his people. The history recorded 2 Chron. 28 : 1-15 
 solves this remarkable problem, meeting all its difficulties, and 
 readily accounting for its apparent incompatibilities. 
 
 Ahaz, king of Judah, reigned wickedly ; for which God delivered 
 him into the hand of the king of Syria, who smote him and took 
 many captives to Damascus. God also delivered him into the hand 
 of the king of Israel, who smote him with great slaughter. "-For 
 Pekah slew in Judah one hundred and twenty thousand in one 
 day, because they had forsaken the Lord God of then* fathers." He 
 also took away two hundred thousand cnptives, women, sons, and 
 daughters, and brought them to Samaria, Here was a fearful har- 
 vest in the sense of a great slaughter. Yet, contrary to all human 
 expectation, it was closely connected with God's interposition to 
 bring back the captives of his people, for the history proceeds to 
 say that when the captives were brought into Samaria, a prophet of 
 the Lord was there by the name of Oded, and that he went before 
 the host of Israel and expostulated with them earnestly, and finally 
 persuaded them to send all the captives home. Hence, although 
 God brought back their captives, yet a harvest was set lor Judah in 
 the usual sense of an immense slaughter of their people. 
 
36 nOSEA.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Speaking of Ephraim, this chapter continues to portray Lis 
 treachery, blindness, intense passion in sinning, and extreme folly. 
 It should be specially noted that throughout this and the succeeding 
 chapters to the twelfth, Ephraim, the kingdom of the ten tribes, i? 
 the theme of remark, Judah being scarcely mentioned. The his 
 toric events alluded to fell within the last years of the kingdom- 
 some of them in the reign of Hoshea, its last king. 
 
 1. "VVlien I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity 
 of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of 
 Samaria : for they commit falsehood : and the thief 
 C(5metli in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. 
 
 The tune specially referred to, when the Lord sought to heal 
 Israel, and the indications were hopeful, may probably have been 
 when they sent home their Jewish captives, as in 2 Chron. 28: 9- 
 15 — historically coincident with the events referred to in the close 
 of the previous cliapter. At that time " certain of the heads of the 
 children of Ephraim " acknowledged the guilt of their nation, and 
 spake sensibly of " God's Herce wrath against Israel." But these 
 hopeful appearances soon j^assed away ; the nation proved false to 
 Jehovah and false to even common morality ; thieves break into 
 
 houses and robbers plunder abroad. So it often happens that the 
 
 deepest w^ickedness comes to light only under the special eflorts 
 which the Lord makes to heal and restore. When wicked men 
 will not be healed, and only become the more infatuated and deter- 
 mined, and the more outbreaking in their sin for all the labor of 
 love which God bestows upon them to reclaim them, they are fast 
 verging to the brink of ruin. IIow painfully discouraging even to 
 intinite patience and pity ! 
 
 Some suppose that the period specially referred to as one in 
 which the Lord would have healed Israel, was during the reign of 
 Jeroboam second. This reign was one of general prosperity. (See 2 
 Kings 14 : 23-28.) He restored the coast of Israel on the north, as 
 had been foretold by Jonah: "For the Lord saw the afiliction of 
 Israel that it was most bitter, for there was not any shut up, nor 
 any left, nor any helper for Israel*; and the Lord said not that he 
 w^ould blot out the name of Israel from under heaven ; but he 
 saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash." 
 
 Manifestly here was one special etfort to heal Israel. Hosea 
 may have thought of more than one. The Lord is wont to repeat 
 Buch efforts of reclaiming mercy. 
 
 2. And they consider not in .their hearts, that 1 
 i-emember all their wickedness : now their own doings 
 have Ijeset them about ; they are before my face. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. VII. 37 
 
 Literally — " They do not say to their heart, I remember all 
 their wickedness. Now theu* own doings invest them — lie on tho 
 outside surface as a garment — palpably before my face, with no con- 
 cealment." 
 
 3. They make the king gLad with their wickedness, 
 and the princes with their lies. 
 
 Theu- king and princes, instead of frowning upon the wicked- 
 ness of the people, were in full sympathy with it, and could be 
 di-awn in to rejoice in it all. 
 
 4. They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the 
 baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded 
 the dough, until it be leavened. 
 
 " Adulterers," probably in the literal, not the symbolic sense. 
 
 Idolatry fostered lewdness. The ligure of an "(?u(?7z," as used in 
 
 vs. 4, 6, 7, demands special notice. Of course, we must go far 
 back of the modern stove-oven in which the heat is generated and 
 used at the same time. In the kind of ancient oven here referred 
 to, as also in those used commonly before/ the age of stoves, the heat- 
 ing is done 'before the baking, and the excellence of the oven con- 
 sists in its power to hold lieat^ and give it up gradually for baldng 
 purposes. Precisely at this point the figure applies. The baker 
 gets up an intense heat, and then takes out his fuel and lets it rest 
 till the first intense heat is somewhat abated. He trusts his oven to 
 hold heat while his dough is rising ; indeed, by closing his oven 
 with his fuel in, he may keep the heat confined there so that he can 
 ^leep all night, and yet find every thing ready for flaming out in 
 
 the morning. So these wicked men are perpetually heated up 
 
 with the hot passions of sin. They do not need new incitements 
 continually. The old fires, smothered for a time, flame out again 
 on the first occasion. The heart of wicked men Iwlds heat — the 
 
 heat of sinful passion — like an oriental oven. The last clause of 
 
 V. 4, should read, "ceaseth from firing up," i. e.^ his oven, "after 
 the kneading of the dough, until it is risen." Once intensely heated, 
 it can be trusted to rest, and indeed to bake only the better 
 therefor. 
 
 5. In the day of onr king the princes have made him 
 sick w^ith bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand 
 with scorners. 
 
 " The day of our king " would naturally be his birth-day, or 
 perhaps his coronation-day — devoted, therefore, to special festivi- 
 ties. On that day, "the princes made liim sick (intoxicated) witli 
 the lieat of Avine," not "bottles." "He stretched out his hand 
 with scorners," Belshazzar-like; for when men are inflamed with 
 wine, they are wont to scoft' at things sacred. 
 
 6. For they have made ready their heart like an 
 
38 nOSEA.-^CHAP. VII. 
 
 oven, wLile tliey lie in wait : their baker slecpeth all 
 the night ; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. 
 
 Y. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured 
 their judges ; all their kings are fallen : ihero is none 
 among them that calleth unto me. 
 
 The special form of wickedness spoken of here is that of plotting 
 the destruction of tlicir princes, judges, and kings. That such con- 
 spiracies were shockingly common, the brief history of this period 
 shows. 
 
 The verse may be rendered thus : " For they bring their hearts 
 close together as in the oven, in their plots ; all night their baker 
 sleeps " (so perfectly is the plot laid) ; " in the morning he bm-ns as 
 with the fiery flame." [The baker represents the managing spirit 
 of the plot.] "All of them are hot as the oven : they devour their 
 judges," as fire devours ; "all their kings fall" (before such con- 
 spiracies), " and none among them call unto me " — to the fear of 
 God and to repentance for such wickedness. 
 
 8. Ephraim, lie hath mixed himself among the 
 people ; Ephraim is a cake not turned. 
 
 The " people " here are the heathen nations. Ephraim had 
 mixed himself with them by means of entangling alliances, but 
 more especially by hnporting their idol-Avorship. The figure of " a 
 cake not turned," is suggested by the oven. The kind of oven 
 thought of hero seems to bo difierent from that in mind in the 
 previous verses. The most ancient mode of baking was to heat the 
 naked sand with a lire ; then remove the fire, and lay on the dough. 
 This, of course, must soon be " turned." To this our verse alludes. 
 Another form of oven was a hole excavated in the earth and w^alled 
 up ; and still a third, bearing the name given here, vs. 4, G, 7, was 
 made of brick, besmeared within and without with clay. 
 
 "A cake not turned" in the first-named sort of oven, would 
 naturally be burned on one side, and raw on the other — all worth- 
 less — spoiled by bad baking. The fact of its being spoiled, rather 
 than any particular analogy in the modG of doing it, seems to be the 
 thought of the passage. 
 
 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he 
 knoweth it not : yea, gray hairs are here and there upon 
 him, yet he knoweth not. 
 
 As usual in the Scriptures, " strangere" are foreigners — born in 
 other lands. Indications of decrepitude and of death near at hand 
 are on him, and he is not aware of it. 
 
 10. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face : and 
 they do not return to the Lokd their God, nor seek him 
 Cor all this. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. TIL 39 
 
 The same expression as to pride occurred above (5 : 5). Pride 
 is working his ruin. The judgments of God fail of leading him to 
 return in penitence. 
 
 11. Epliraim also is like a silly dove without heart : 
 they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. 
 
 A " silly dove " means one open to seductive influences — easily 
 drawn into the fatal snare. So, " without heart," means without 
 wisdom or sense to suspect and avoid danger. Ephraim plunges 
 into danger, as appears by his sending to Egyjjt for help and going 
 to Assyria. This was putting his head within the jaws of the lion, 
 God had warned him against this course ; he would not hear. 
 
 12. When they shall go, I will spread my net upon 
 them ; I will bring them down as the fowls of the 
 heaven ; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath 
 heard. 
 
 "With the figure of the dove still before the mind, the Lord says 
 — "When they fly off to Assyria or Egypt for help I will spread 
 my net over them ; I will bring them down as by the shafts of the 
 foWler; I will chastise them, as hath been heard from the lips of the 
 prophets in their congregation," vdiere those prophetic messages 
 were publicly read. 
 
 13. "^Voe nnto them ! for they have fled from me : 
 destruction imto them ! because they have transgressed 
 against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they 
 have spoken lies against me. 
 
 " Fled " still keeps up the figure of the dove. The people utter- 
 ly turned away from God, and this became their ruin. God had 
 redeemed them often from their enemies — from Pharaoh, and 
 from the strong nations on their borders ; yet they would prove 
 false to all their professions of penitence and fidelity. In the origi- 
 nal the verb translated "have redeemed," is in the tense commonly 
 called the future, but perhaps better, the imperfect or incomplete — 
 nidicating in this case not only that God had redeemed them, but 
 would now and hereafter — this being the permanent state of his 
 mind toward them. The clause might be fitly paraphrased, 
 " Though I would gladly redeem them at any time, as I have often 
 done already,' yet they only speak lies against me." 
 
 The passage puts in forcible contrast the loving faithfulness of 
 God, still warm and sure, on the one hand; and, on the otlier, the 
 treachery and utter infidelity of his people. The original makes 
 this contrast the more palpable by writing out in fidl the pronouns 
 "I" and "they." These pronouns are not usually written in 
 
 Hebrew except for the sake of emphasis. " Redeemed " is the 
 
 usual word for the deliverance God wrought for his people from 
 Egypt. (See Deut. 7: 8, and 18 : 5, and Micah G : 4.) 
 
^0 IIOSEA.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 14. And tliey have not cried unto me with their 
 heart, when they howled upon their beds : they assem- 
 ble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against 
 me. 
 
 Under their affliction, when they howled upon their beds in 
 their anguish, they would not sincerely cry unto God. They as- 
 sembled in their idol temples to implore corn and wine of their 
 false gods ; and so they rebelled yet the more grievously against 
 
 Jehovah. The last three verbs, "howl," "assemble," "rebel," 
 
 are in the imperfect — incomplete tense, implying not only that they 
 7iad, but icould yet. They were doomed to "howl; " it Avas fully 
 in their heart to "assemble," and to "rebel." 
 
 15. Though I have bound and strengthened their 
 arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. 
 
 The word rendered " bound " means to chasten and correct. God 
 had in this way taught them, and he had also made their arm strong 
 in war ; yet they only do and will plot revolt and wrong against 
 him. Here also the last verb is in the imperfect, denoting a state 
 of mind yet active and lixed. 
 
 16. They return, hut not to the Most High : they are 
 like a deceitful bow : their princes- shall fall by the 
 sword for the rage of their tongue : this shall he their 
 derision in the land of Egypt. 
 
 If they turned, in any sense, it was not to the Most High. The 
 original most naturally reads, " They will turn to a no-god " — to 
 one not the Most High, but the opposite — one infinitely low and 
 mean. So in the w^ords, Lo-Ammi, Lo-Euhamah, the negative 
 particle gives the opposite sense — a people rejected from being mine 
 — to whom mercy is denied. " A deceitfal bow " makes the ar- 
 row miss the mark, and therefore cannot be trusted. So with Is- 
 rael. " The rage of their tongue " is their insolence of language, 
 
 probably in boasting of help from Eg>T^)t, despite of God's warning 
 to tlie contraT-y. "When they shall have come into Egypt, captive 
 and weak, this proud boasting Avill be their special derision. Hoshea, 
 the last king of the ten tribes, sought help from Egypt against the 
 king of Assyria, but only to his shame and rum. (2 Kings 17:4-.) 
 So shall it ever be wath all who depart from God ! 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. VIII. 41 
 
 CHAPTEK yill. 
 
 IsKAEL is still the subject of rebulce, and of thrci.tened jaflgmeiit 
 .— tlie prophet bringing forth to view her sins, her resort to idol gods 
 and to foreign alliances, to the rejection of her own ever-living 
 God, and showing that this policy must be utterly ruinous. 
 
 1. Set the trumpet to thy month. He shall come as 
 an eagle against the honse of the Loud, because they 
 have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against 
 my law. 
 
 This ver&e is remarkably in the peculiar style of ITosea — abrupt 
 and bold. " To thy mouth the trumpet ; " [the foe comes down] 
 "as an eagle upon the house of the Lord, because they [ray peo- 
 ple] have broken my covenant and sinned against my law." 
 
 The blast of the trumpet, long and loud, was the alarm for war. 
 The coming of the foe is compared with the swoop of the eagle, 
 when, from his lofty height, he comes down upon the temple. This 
 coming down on the temple may suggest that even this sacred sym- 
 bol of Jehovah's presence in the land cannot shield it from the 
 fierce invader. 
 
 The eagle in his flight is frequently, in Scripture, a symbol of 
 swiftness and of terrible conquest. Thus, Deut. 28:49: "The 
 Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the ends of 
 the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth." Also, Lam. 4:19: " Our 
 
 persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven." This fearful 
 
 foe comes because the nation has so utterly apostatized from their 
 God. 
 
 2. Israel shall cry nnto me, My God, we know thee. 
 Grievously as they had departed from God, they still made high 
 
 religious professions, vainly claiming to know the true God. So in 
 later times they said, "We have Abraham to our father." "Have 
 we not prophesied in thy name ? " 
 
 The Enghsh translation renders it " shall cry,'''' as if the thought 
 were future only. The Hebrew imperfect rather means the past 
 running on into the futui'e. They have done, and still do. 
 
 3. Israel hatli cast off the thing that is good: the 
 enemy shall pursue him. 
 
 The repetition of the name " Israel " is expressive. The same 
 people, Israel, who claim to know the true God, have, in truth, 
 scornfully repelled all that is good ; i. e. both God and his blessings. 
 Hence, enemies shall pursue him ; or, as the original word means, 
 chase him down. 
 
 The verb rendered " cast off" has, for its primary sense, to bo 
 
42 nosEA.— CHAP. viii. 
 
 foul, nauseous, loathsome ; then, to reject and cast off as loathsome. 
 The latter is the sense here. With loathing has this Israel, whi 
 claims to know me, spurned away all good, even God himself. 
 
 4. Tliey have set up kings, but not bj me : tliey have 
 made princes, and I knew it not : of tbeir silver and 
 tlieir gold liave tliey made tliem idols, that tliey may be 
 cut off. 
 
 From Jeroboam of Nebat onward they have set up kings after 
 their own heart, with no regard to God's will. So of their princes; 
 tlicy have made them, and without my approval — the word " know " 
 being used here in this not infrequent sense. 
 
 They had made idol images out of their silver and gold, to the 
 end that they might be cut off; i. e. not of their intention^ but 
 of God's purpose, and of both natural and actual result. The ruin 
 of the nation was both a righteous and a natural retribution for this 
 sin — natural because idolatry and its associate vices were essential 
 rottenness in the body politic. 
 
 5. Tliy calf, O Samaria, liatli cast thee off; mine an- 
 ger is kindled against tliem ; how long will it he ere 
 they attam to innocency ? 
 
 " Thy calf, Samaria," is the golden one set up by Jeroboam (see 
 1 Kings 12 : 26-33), out of which grew the idol worsliip of the king- 
 dom of the ten tribes. Samaria, the capital, here represents the 
 whole kingdom ; the calf was properly theirs. 
 
 The verb rendered "cast off "is the same that is used and so 
 rendered in v. 3, but manifestly here with a slight modification 
 of meaning; — there, in the sense of repelhng with loathing; here, 
 in the sense of being loathsome, abominable. There is no word 
 for " thee," as found in the English translation, which unfortunately 
 
 fails to give the true sense. There is great force and beauty in 
 
 this play upon the two kindred meanings of the same word. Thus, 
 V. 3 : " With loathing has Israel rejected God and all real good ; " 
 V. 5 : " Truly and intensely loathsome is thy calf, Samaria." Thou 
 hast thrust from thee thy God and all his blessings, as things loath- 
 some ; the really loathsome thing is tliy calf. 
 
 To this construction the next clause fits perfectly: "Mine anger 
 
 is kindled against the worshippers of that abominable calf.'' The 
 
 last clause is hterally rendered, " How long will they be impotent 
 as to moral innocence? " i. c. with no recuperative moral power to 
 
 return to sense, and to the reasonable worship of the true God ? 
 
 In how many cases, throughout all ages, must a holy and compas- 
 sionate God deplore the same moral impotence in wicked men ! 
 Inasmuch as God was constantly acting upon them toward "inno- 
 cency," we must imderstand this verse to imply that there was no 
 conscience, and no moral sensibility in them, to respond healthfully 
 under the divine eftbrts made for their recovery. 
 
nosEA.^cnAP. viir. 43 
 
 6. For from Israel was it also : the workman made 
 it ; therefore it is not God : but the calf of Samaria 
 shall be broken in pieces. 
 
 The aggravation of tliis case was that the calf " came out from. 
 iHraeV — from God's chosen people. " A workman made it " with 
 his human fingers, so that it is no god at all. On the contrary, ac- 
 cording to the expressive Hebrew, "it shall become fragments." 
 
 The prophets were wont to expose the ineffable folly of idol- wor- 
 ship and of all trust in idols, by referring to their origin as nothing 
 higher or other than human workmanship. A mere man made it, 
 made all there is of it ; and can that senseless, helpless thing be God ? 
 
 7. For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap 
 the whirlwind : it hath no stalk : the bnd shall yield no 
 meal : if so be it yield, the strangers shall swalloAV it np. 
 
 They — the idol-worshippers — in forsaking the true God for 
 idols, have sown the wind ; and how vain a thing this is, any one 
 
 will see who will suppose himself actually attempting to do it. 
 
 The passage becomes terribly forcible when this sowing of wind, 
 vain and empty as it would seem to be, brings forth for its harvest 
 the icJiirlwind — one of the most fearfully destructive agencies in 
 nature. 
 
 The idea of a harvest is still kept up, and the proi)het proceeds 
 to say, " There is no stalk to it : its shoot will not produce meal ; 
 
 or, if it should, foreigners shall devour it." " Strangers," in the 
 
 Bible, are always foreigners ; not merely those with whom we have 
 no personal acquaintance. 
 
 8 Israel is swallowed up : now shall they be among 
 the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. 
 
 The last verb of the verse preceding gives the leading thouglit 
 of this verse. All Israel is '•' swallowed up ; " not only will a foreign 
 foe swallow up all the harvests of the land ; the very nation is 
 
 swallowed up, and its nationality is to become extinct. "Now," 
 
 i. e. shortly, they shall be among the nations as a vessel of no 
 value, for which nobody cares; a potsherd, a piece of broken 
 crockery, simply useless. 
 
 9. For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone 
 by himself : Ephraim hath hired lovers. 
 
 As showing how low they have sunk in general esteem among 
 the nations of their thne, the prophet goes on to say, " They have 
 gone to Assyria for help" — wild, wayward, solitary and friendless 
 as the wild ass that has no affinities for other animals, and little, at 
 best, for his own species. 
 
 In the words "Ephraim hath hired lovers," the idea of hi:? 
 marriage relations to Jehovah reappears. This going to other na- 
 tions and not to God for help, is the baseness of an adulteress, for- 
 
44: nOSEA.— CHAP. VIII. 
 
 saking tlie home and the love of her husband, and sunk so low 
 that, instead of being hired for prostitution, she herself hires her 
 paramours. Ephraim in his distress goes for help, not to his God, 
 ^vho would have joyfully relieved him with no thought of pay, but 
 to heathen nations, and pays them enormously. See a case of such 
 exaction, 2 Kings 15: 19, 20, where Menahera, king of Israel, gave 
 to Pul of Assyria one thousand talents of silver, and "exacted the 
 money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each 
 man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria." Iloshea 
 also, the last king, paid tribute, 2 Kings 17 : 3. 
 
 10. Yea, tliougli tliey have liired among tlie nations, 
 ?iow will I gather tliem, and they shall sorrow a little 
 for the burden of the king of princes. 
 
 This verse has perplexed commentators, especially because of the 
 difficulty of determining the root .and the exact sense of the verb 
 rendered, in our version, "sorrow." Without entering upon minute 
 Hebrew criticism, let it sufiice that I find here threatening, not 
 promise, the former only being in harmony with the strain of the 
 context ; and therefore I derive the verb from the root * which 
 means to writhe, to be in pain, etc. The sense of the passage then 
 is, " Although Ephraim hires foreign help [in the line of ungodly 
 national alliances], yet now will I gather them " {i. e. group them 
 all under this scourge), " and they shall soon be in anguish under 
 the burden of exactions imposed by the king of princes." 
 
 This "king of princes" is the Assyrian who said (Isa. 10 : 8), 
 "Are not my princes altogether kings? " Several kingdoms were 
 then his tributaries. 
 
 The received version unfortunately gives the sense of " sorrow- 
 ing a little,^^ instead of sorrowing severely, very soo^s", as the 
 original ob\iously means. The marginal reading — "in a little 
 while " — should have gone into the text. The verb is very inten- 
 sive. 
 
 11. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, 
 altars shall be unto him to sin. 
 
 The verb rendered "to sin," in the i)hrascs "made altars ?<? 
 sin ; " " altars shall be to him to sin; " — is the same in both clauses. 
 If taken in precisely the same sense in both cases, it would give 
 this as the meaning of the verse — "Because Ephraim hasmultipled 
 idol altars for purposes of sin, they shall be to him the occasion of 
 more and greater sin." 
 
 I suggest a slight modification in the sense of this verb on its 
 second occurrence — a usage quite common in Tlosea. This verb, 
 to sin, means primarily to miss the mark, to misdirect, and conse- 
 quently to fail of one's object, and so to reap disaster rather thac 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. VIII. 45 
 
 profit. Modifying this verb, therefore, on its second occurrence, 
 we have this sense — " Because Ephraira multiplied altars for sin^ 
 altars shall be to Invafor ruiny He meant to deviate from right: 
 lie shall thereby, in fact, miss ha'ppiness. lie meant to wander 
 from God : he shall really wander from all good. 
 
 Such a play upon two well-known senses of the same word is 
 one of the beauties of the style of Hosea. The verb rendered 
 "cast off," in vs. 3 and 5 above, is another case in this chapter. 
 To make the mutual relation of "cast off," v. 8, to "cast off," v. 
 5, the moi-e obvious, the verb in each case stands at tlie head of its 
 verse ; as in the verse before us correspondingly, " to sin " is the 
 closing word in each clause. 
 
 12. I have written to liim the great things of my 
 hiw, htct they were counted as a strange thing. 
 
 This had been the chief aggravation of the sin of Ephraim. God 
 had sent to him in writing the great things of his law — its great 
 truths, principles, and rules of life; yet he had practically accounted 
 them as foreign and unworthy of his thought or care. This is the 
 monster sin of all those in Christian lands who repel the light of 
 God's word, and sin on as if no Bible had ever been given them. 
 Jesus said (John. 15 : 22), " If I had not come and spoken unto 
 them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloak [excuse] 
 for their sin." 
 
 The original verb, "have written," is in the tense which implies 
 incomplete action. God had written, and had yet more to write. 
 
 13. They sacrifice flesh /br the sacrifice of mine offer- 
 ings, and eat it/ hut the Lord accepteth them not; now 
 will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins : 
 they shall return to Egypt. 
 
 " As to the sacrifices of things dedicated to me, they sacrifice 
 flesh, and then eat; — Jehovah does not accept them " — i. e. abhors 
 them. The sacrifices referred to were professedly made to God, 
 but made before the golden calves, or in the worship of Baal or 
 other idols. It should be remembered that Jeroboam's original 
 plan was professedly to change the 'place and, slightly, the /<?rm of 
 worship, rather than tlie God to be worshipped. Bringing forth 
 his two calves of gold, he said : "It is too much for you to go up 
 to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, Israel, which brought thee up 
 
 out of the land of Egypt." By a form of retribution, strikingly in 
 
 line with the sin which was borrowed from Egypt, they were 
 doomed to return to Egypt. Some of them soon tied thither to 
 escape the AssjTian arms, and, contrary to their intentions, never 
 returned again to their native land. The whole nation retunied. 
 again to a state of captivity and oppression analogous to their 
 former one in Egyy^t. 
 
46 nosEA.— CHAP. ix. 
 
 14. For Israel liatli forgotten liis Maker, and 
 bnildetli temples ; and Judali liath multiplied fenced 
 cities : bnt I will send a fire npon liis cities, and it 
 shall devour tlie palaces thereof. 
 
 These temples were for their idols, — The sin of Judah, in innlti- 
 plying fenced (fortified) cities, lay in making strong cities rather 
 than the Almighty God their hope and refuge. God would soon 
 send a fire upon their strong cities and consume all their lofty 
 palaces. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Ephraim is still the suhject; the strain of rebuke for sin is more 
 and more mingled with announcements of near impending judg- 
 ment. 
 
 1. Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as otliev people : for 
 thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast 
 loved a reward upon every corn-floor. 
 
 The first clause means precisely — " Eejoice not, O Israel, unto 
 the point of exultation, as other nations may." Comparatively 
 speaking, it was legitimate for the latter to exult in their prosper- 
 ity, and in the abundance of their fruits ; but not so for Israel. She 
 had sinned against so much light and against obligations so sacred, 
 it was madness for her to exult in her blessings. God would surely 
 
 tear them away, and leave her to desolation. So terrible a thing 
 
 it is to sin against great mercies ! He who does it should take this 
 admonition. Eejoice not as others may fitly do, for there will soon 
 be an utter end to blessings so ungratefully and so fatally abused. 
 
 The idolatry of Israel is here, as heretofore, spoken of as adul- 
 tery. The original word for " reward " is currently used for the 
 hirc of harlots. It is spoken of here as being " on every corn- 
 floor," because, like the heathen about them, idolatrous Israel had 
 sunk so low as to attribute her corn and wine to Baal's favor and 
 not to Jehovah's. Hence she paid her ofterings to Baal — here 
 thought of as the harlot-hire of her spiritual adultery. 
 
 2. The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, 
 and the new wine shall fail in her. 
 
 Passing from the sin to the curse for sin, God declares that these 
 blessings — the fruits of the earth — shall fail them. Neither the 
 corn-floor nor the Avine-press sliall supply them food ; the new 
 wine shall prove false — shall lie to them, as the original has it. The 
 last words ("in her") mean either in the wine-i^rcss, or in the land \ 
 •—sense, shall lie to the people. 
 
 3. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land ; but 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. IX. 47 
 
 Epliraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat un- 
 clean things in Assyria. 
 
 The land, sacred so long as the land of promise, and subsequent- 
 ly so long the land of Jehovah's presence and power, would spew 
 them out as unfit to live in it. Egypt and Assyria were their only fit 
 abode. It would seem that many individuals from the ten tribes 
 fled to Egypt for refuge from the impending storm of Assyrian in- 
 vasion, hoping to return soon. Others, the greater portion, were 
 borne away into Assyria, and there doomed to eat things unclean 
 and abominable to a Jew — fit retribution on them for eating so 
 long and against so much light, in idol temples. 
 
 4. They shall not offer vime-offerings to the Lokd, 
 neither shall they be pleasing unto him : their sacrifices 
 shall he unto them as the bread of mourners ; all that eat 
 thereof shall be polluted : for their bread for their soul 
 shall not come into the house of the Loed. 
 
 According to the Mosaic ritual (N'um. 15 : 5, 7, 10) wine was 
 poured out in certain sacrifices. The prophet here says, they shall 
 offer it no more to the Lord ; if they do, he will not accept it. 
 
 " The bread of mourners " was deemed unclean, as was also 
 
 whatever had been near a dead body. " Bread for their soul " 
 
 probably means bread for sustenance, for the physical life. It had 
 been customary to feast upon large portions of what was off"ered in 
 sacrifice to God. The prophet here declares that this shall be no 
 longer. The food for their subsistence should no more come into 
 the sacred temple of Jehovah. He could no longer have such 
 fellowship with his apostate people as this communion in bread 
 would imply. Another construction of this last clause (not pre- 
 ferred, hovv^ever) may be noticed. — Their bread shall be for them- 
 selves alone; it shall not come into the house of the Lord. So 
 Gesenius and Henderson. 
 
 5. What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the 
 day of the feast of the Loed ? 
 
 A rendering more true to the original, and giving better the 
 exact sense, would be — " What will ye do for the day of solemn 
 assembly, and/(?r the day of the feast of the Lord?" They could 
 no more have them in the remote land of their captivity. They 
 would sadly miss those seasons of great public rejoicing. (See 
 Hos. 2:11.) 
 
 G. For, lo, they are gone because of destruction : 
 Egyi:>t shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them : 
 the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess 
 them : thorns shall he in their tabernacles. 
 
 The reason why they could not have those national festivals is 
 
48 HOSEA.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 given — For they have fled their country because of impending 
 destruction. They shall die and be buried in Egypt — whither some 
 had fled, never thinking to lay their bones there. — Memphis is 
 specially named because it was a noted burying-place of Egyptians, 
 
 as its tombs and mummies are proving at this day, The clause 
 
 rendered " pleasant places for their silver," seems to mean, their 
 costly and most valued property — the original words making prom- 
 inent the two ideas — desire and money ^ — that which men love, and 
 which costs silver. Those things nettles shall inherit, and of 
 course, occupy. Desolation comes over whatever was fairest and 
 most valued. 
 
 7. The da}^^s of visitation are come, the days of recom- 
 pense are come ; Israel sliall know it : the prophet is a 
 fool, the spiritnal man is mad, for the multitude of thine 
 iniquity, and the great hatred. 
 
 This " visitation " is for judgment. " Recompense," parallel to 
 
 it, is retribution for their great sin. "Israel shall know it" 
 
 experimentally ; know it in such a way as precludes not only all 
 
 mistake, but all indifference and insensibility.- The " prophet " 
 
 here must be the false one who had misled the people. He is 
 shown to be a fool by the failure of all his predictions and prom- 
 ises. " The spiritual man " — literally, " the man of the spirit " — 
 
 represents the class who professed to be filled with some super- 
 human spirit, but were utterly far from God and his Spirit. These 
 men have been known by various names — magicians, sorcerers, 
 soothsayers, &c., down to "' spiritists." It is here said of him that 
 he is " frantic," beside himself, because of the greatness of their 
 iniquity (and of its resulting punishment), and of the great hatred — 
 i. e. felt by God against such sin. Its sense is — In the days of God's 
 visitation, the false prophets, who had so long deceived the people, 
 were appalled, their folly exposed, and themselves driven mad 
 with vexation, chagrin, and shame, before the dreadful wrath of 
 Jehovah upon his people. 
 
 8. The watchman of Ephraim loas with my God : hut 
 the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and 
 hatred in the house of his God. 
 
 Our translators seem to have understood the first clause to 
 speak of God's true prophets, and as standing on the side of God. 
 But both the context and the grammatical construction oppose their 
 view. The course of thought hero respects the false, not the true 
 projdict, and tlie form of the word requires us to render, not " the 
 watchman of Ephraim," but " Ephraim was watching," i. e. look- 
 ing for and awaiting good from with my God. Despite of his great 
 gin, Ephraim was full of hope and expectation of good from Jeho- 
 vah — probably with reference to help against their foreign enemies 
 — which help might have come had not the false prophet been as 
 
UOSEA.— CUAP. IX. 49 
 
 the snare of a fowler over all Ins ways, and the occasion of God's 
 
 hating them the more even for then* coming into liis temple. In 
 
 this manner repeatedly is this grievous apostasy of the people as- 
 cribed largely to the terribly pernicious influence of corrupt priests 
 and false prophets. Truly there can be no power for evil so active 
 and so fatal as a corrupt ministry — as flagrant sin in those who 
 si)eak for God and of him to men. 
 
 0, Tlmy have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the 
 days of Gibeali : therefore he \vill remeiiiher theh' ini- 
 quity, he vdll visit their sins. 
 
 The sin of Gibeah at the time referred to may be seeiL, Judg. 
 19:22-25. An appalling history! Alas for the dreadful corrup- 
 tion of the land of Eplu'aira, if it was fitly compared to those 
 scenes in Gibeah of Benjamin ! Good reason wliy God should re- 
 member their iniquity and visit retribution upon the whole land! 
 
 10, I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness ; I 
 ■saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her 
 first time : Ijut they went to Baal-peor, and separated 
 themselves unto that shame; and their abominations 
 were according as they loved. 
 
 The true light for seeing their sins can be liad only through 
 contrast with the bright days of their early national history. Hence 
 
 this historical sketch. As one finds grapes in the wilderness, 
 
 himself weary and hungry, and not expecting luscious fruit amid 
 such barrenness, and therefore is filled with joy at the discovery, 
 so the Lord found Israel. The first ripe figs in their first bearing 
 year furnish the next beautiful figure. But the fatal mischief was, 
 they went after idol gods, and plunged into the vices associated 
 with idol worship. First at Baal-peor, in the wilderness ; see Xum. 
 
 25. " Separated themselves unto that shame,'' means that they 
 
 set themselves apart by consecration as the Nazarites under their 
 vows — the original word being precisely tliis — they became ISTaza- 
 rites, not to a noble principle or a worthy purpose, but to that 
 ^JiamG ! The last clause thus — "They became abominable, like 
 their paramours, lovers; " referring to the idol gods to whom they 
 
 gave their homage, So evermore men become like the God they 
 
 ^vorship ; abominable and vile like their idols, or pure-minded and 
 loving, like Him whose nature is purity and whose name is love. 
 
 11. As for Ephi'aim, their glory shall fly away like 
 a Bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from 
 tlie conception. 
 
 With the significance of the word Ephraim in mind, viz., fruit- 
 ful in ofi'spring (see Gen. 41 : 52), the reader will readily trace the 
 
 drift of thought in this and the subsequent verses. " Ephraim," 
 
 the populous — " their glory " (a dense population), " shall take wings 
 3 
 
50 nOSEA.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 as a bird, so that there shall he no birth, no womb, no conception." 
 
 This construction of the preposition before the last three nouns 
 
 is admissible by usage and pertinent to the course of thought. The 
 received translation gives it precisely this construction in the next 
 verse. 
 
 12. TlioiTgli the J bring up their children, yet will I 
 bereave tliein, tliat there shall not 1)6 a man left : yea, 
 woe also to them when I depart from them ! 
 
 Literally " bereave them from man^"^ i. e. so that they shall not 
 live to manhood ; none shall come to man's estate. The curse of 
 God's departing from them shall fall on that which has been their 
 chief glory, as it is wont to do. Barrenness shall take the place of 
 numerous families and a dense population. 
 
 13. Ephraim, as I saw Tyinis, is planted in a pleas- 
 ant place : but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to 
 the mnrderer. 
 
 Ephraim as well as Tyre had a delightful country, surroundings 
 of beauty and prosperity ; but what can these avail to stay the 
 
 wrath of God against their sin ? The language in this verse and 
 
 the next is plain. 
 
 14. Give them, O Lord : what wilt thon give ? give 
 them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 
 
 The holy indignation of the prophet is kindled, and for once he 
 gives it expression. 
 
 15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal : for there I 
 hated them : for the wickedness of their doings I will 
 drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more : 
 all their princes are revolters. 
 
 The speaker in this verse, as also in verse 13, is the Lord. 
 
 Gilgal, as was remarked on Hosea 4 : 15, was noted for its idol wor- 
 ship. There the sins of the nation might be sup]30sed to be con- 
 centrated. God abhorred this great sin, and in this sense hated 
 the sinners — would drive them from his temple and show them tii- 
 
 vor no more. Eeference is again made to the wicked life and 
 
 pernicious influence of the chief men, all of whom were refrac- 
 tory — rebels against God — this being the sense of the last word in 
 the verse. 
 
 16. Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they 
 shall bear no fruit : yea, though they bring forth, yet 
 will I slay even the \)c\.o\Q(ifimit of their womb. 
 
 Ephraim now appears under the figure of a fruit-T)earing tree, 
 tmitten with death, dried up, to bear fruit no more. Tlien drop. 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. X. • 51 
 
 ping, or rather changing the figure, God declares that if they have 
 children born to them, he will slay even their dearest and most 
 
 loved oftspring. So terrible are the curses that must come down 
 
 on those who sin so persistently, and against so great light and so 
 rich mercies. 
 
 17. My God will cast tliem away, because tliey did 
 not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers 
 amono* the nations. 
 
 "My God will reject them from being his people." "They 
 shall be wanderers among the nations," with no settled habitation, 
 no loved home — a prophecy eminently improbable when spoken, 
 but eminently true for ages on ages. The ten tribes have long 
 since lost all distinct nationality. Their posterity, if yet living, are 
 wandering among the nations, nnlcnown and of no account in his- 
 tory. Even the Jews are often known simply as " wanderers." 
 " The wandering Jew " is his style, both in common parlance and 
 
 in more stately history, So signally are the words of prophecy 
 
 fulfilled, and so terribly do the judgments of God scourge and deso- 
 late those whom liis great mercies fail to reclaim ! 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TnE same general subject continues ; the sin of Ephraim and 
 its just punishment, vs. 1-11 ; a call to repentance and a new life, 
 V. 12; judgments still more near and dire, vs. 13-15. 
 
 1. Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit 
 unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he 
 hath increased the altars ; according to the goodness of 
 his land they have made goodly images. 
 
 I paraphrase thus : " A vine pouring itself abroad, in luxurious 
 growth, is Israel; he makes fruit for himself; according to the 
 abundance of his fruit he has multiplied altars; according to the 
 goodness of his land have they, the people, made good images." 
 
 The word rendered " empty " does not appear anywhere in use 
 in the intransitive sense of being empty, but does sometimes in the 
 transitive sense of maling empty. Its usual and primary sense is 
 
 that of pouring out abroad. The course of thought forbids the 
 
 sense of barren, fruitless, since the very point made is the abundant 
 wealth of Israel, perverted the more to idolatry and sin. The more 
 God gives them, the more they give to idols ; the richer their land 
 
 and its products, the richer shrines and altars go up for Baal, 
 
 So sinful men everywhere are wont to pervert the earthly gifts of 
 God, till more gifts only make them more wicked and more un- 
 grateful to the Giver ; and so more mercy in this line becomes only 
 
52 HOSEA.— CHAP. X. 
 
 the greater curse, and sinners themselves compel their God to turn 
 from blessings to retribution. 
 
 2. Their heart is clividecl ; now shall they be found 
 faulty : he shall break down their altar?, he shall spoil 
 their images. 
 
 '' Their heart is smooth," i. e., treacherous, deceitful, the verb 
 here having this its primary sense. Among the various meanings 
 of thisj^ord the idea of dividing is secondary and remote, grow- 
 ing out of the* use of smooth stones in casting the lot for the pur- 
 pose of dividing between rival claimants. There seems to be no 
 good reason here for departing from the primary sense of the word. 
 
 "Now shall they be punished," not merely "•found faulty." 
 
 The verb means first to sin, and then naturally to suffer for sin, to 
 
 bear punishm.ent, as here. " He,'''' who " shall break down their 
 
 altars," &c., is God, named last in the closing verse of the previous 
 
 chapter, but naturally present in thought in this connection. It 
 
 is altogether legitimate that his judgments should fall on the idol 
 a.ltars and images, as here said. 
 
 3. For now they shall sa}^, We have no king, because 
 we feared not the Lord ; wdiat then should a king do 
 tons? 
 
 The last clause should read — "As to the king, what shall he do 
 
 jTm'us? i. e., to help us. The time to which this applies would 
 
 naturally be in some of the seasons of anarchy when they had no 
 king, and the tone is that of discouragement, tending to despair. 
 Now they shall say, "We have no king, for we have not feared the 
 Lord," and therefore this judgment of anarchy has come upon us; 
 what help now can we have from the king? 
 
 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in 
 making a covenant : thus judgment springeth up as 
 hemlock in the furrows of the field. 
 
 " They speak mere words " (unreliable), " swearing folsely, mak- 
 ing covenants," in both of which their words go for nothing, and 
 hence " the judgments of God spring up as the poisonous poppy in 
 the furrows of the field." This plant was peculiar for spreading 
 rapidly, especially in a ploughed field, and for being injurious as a 
 poison. In this view the point of the figure would be the rapidity 
 with which the judgments of God on the people spring to light on 
 every hand, and the fearful devastations and mischiefs they bring 
 upon the land. Or possibly the sense may be — Justice as deter- 
 mined among men, either publicly or privately, is perverted to be- 
 come as the deadly poisonous poppy in the furrows of the field. 
 
 This figure appears tAvice in Amos, viz., 5 : 7 and G : 12. " Yo 
 who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave ofi:' righteousness in 
 the earth." " For ye have turned judgment into gall " (the sarao 
 
nOSEA.— CHAP. X. 53 
 
 Hebrew words as in Ilosea), " and the fruit of riglitconsness into 
 
 hemlock." Now since xVmos prophesied soniewiiat earlier than 
 
 llosea, the latter may have taken np this figure from his brother 
 prophet, changing it only as a mind of higher poetic culture and a 
 more vivid imagination would naturally do. 
 
 5. Tlie inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of 
 the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall 
 mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on 
 it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed ifem it. 
 
 Beth-aven, honse of idols (literally, of nothings, nonentities), is 
 instead of Bethel, house of God, — the name being changed to indi- 
 cate the fearful fact that the people had ceased to be a house of 
 God, and had become a house of idols, after Jeroboam of Nebat set 
 np his golden calf there. The sentiment of this verse is, that the 
 people of Samai'ia should be put in fear because of these calves. So 
 tar from finding peace and help from their new gods, they should 
 
 find only peril and alarm. " The people thereof " who " shall 
 
 mourn over it " are the worshippers of these calves. The next 
 clause should read — "And his priests" (those of the calf) "shall 
 be thrilled with terror," or perhaps "shall leap as men fran- 
 tic with terror, on account of them, because of his glory " 
 
 (that of the calf), " for it is departed as into captivity." 
 
 Sentiment — shame, confusion,' and horror shall come on all the 
 Ti^orshippers and priests of these calves, under the force of God's 
 awful judgments on the land for this sin. 
 
 6. It shall be also carried unto Assyria, /b?^ a present 
 to king Jareb : Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel 
 shall be ashamed of his own counsel. 
 
 " It " (the calf) " shall be carried into Assyria for a present to tlie 
 king that intervenes," i. e.^ who is called in to defend the kingdom 
 against the Syrian power, but who, instead, becomes the conqueror 
 and devastator of the ten tribes. See 5 : 13. Then Ephi-aim and 
 Israel shall be confounded by the result of their own counsels. 
 Their expected helper becomes their actual destroyer. 
 
 Y. As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam 
 upon the water. 
 
 " As for Samaria, her king is cut off as chips on the face of the 
 Avaters" — as if he were as insignificant as a floating chip, and as 
 easily taken away and destroyed. The original word demands the 
 sense chip, and not foam. 
 
 8. The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, 
 rhall be destroyed : the thorn and the thistle shall como 
 np on their altars ; and they shall say to the mountains, 
 Cover us ; and to the hills, Fall on us. 
 
54 nOSEA.— CHAP. X. 
 
 " J\ ven " is here the Beth-aven of v. 5— the locality of one of 
 the golden calves — long time known as Bethel. See notes on 4 : 15. 
 Its high places, on which idol altars and temples stood, should be 
 
 destroyed. "The sin of Israel," is said of the calf at Bethel, as 
 
 being the occasion and manifestation of her sin of idolatry. The 
 growth of thorns and thistles in places once so much frequented 
 and so magnificent in works of art, gives a vivid sense of utter 
 desolation. The doom of the people would be so terrible that they 
 would choose death rather than life, and hence would cry to the 
 mountains, "Cover us," and to the hills, " Fall on us ! "—strong 
 poetic conceptions, but terribly significant of their awful doom. 
 
 9. O Israel, tlioii liast sinned from the clays of Gib- 
 cali : there they stood : the battle in Gibeali against 
 the children of iniquity did not overtake them. 
 
 " More than in the days of Gibeah, hast thou sinned, Israel ; " — 
 thy sins are greater thon theirs; for which, see Judges, chap. 19- 
 21. Of course, her doom is more terrible. "There (in Gibeah) 
 they stood; "a remnant, even six hundred men, survived, from 
 whom the tribe was again filled up. The battle in Gibeah against 
 the children of iniquity (those wicked men) did not overtake and 
 exterminate them. Ephraim need not expect to come off so well, 
 for of her no remnant shall survive to replace the fallen and rebuild 
 the kingdom. 
 
 10. It is in my desire that I should chastise them ; 
 and the people shall be gathered against them, when 
 they shall bind themselves in their two furrows. 
 
 The received translation of the last clause scarcely gives an 
 intelligible sense. The passage has vexed commentators the more 
 because the reading of the original, both in its vowels and conso- 
 nants, is in dispute. Omitting the details of this matter, suffice 
 
 it to say that I prefer to read after the margin — sins not furrows, 
 and hence to render the entire verse thus : — 
 
 "It is in my purpose to chastise them, and the nations shall be 
 gathered against them when they shall be bound for their two 
 sins," — these sins having reference to the two golden calves at 
 Bethel and at Dan. In the same sense, the " high places of Aven " 
 are called " the sin of Israel " (v. 8). The idea is that, to chastise 
 them, God will bind them fast because of these sins of calf-worship, 
 and will then gather the nations (Syrians and Assyrians) together 
 
 to fall upon them. So construed, the sense is vigorous, and 
 
 entirely in accordance with both the significance of the several 
 words and the grammatical construction. 
 
 11. And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and 
 loveth to tread out the corn^ but I passed over uj-ton 
 her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah 
 shall plough, and Jacob shall break his clods. 
 
nOSEA.— GEAR X. 55 
 
 in the East, cows (heifers also) as well as oxen were put under the 
 yoke and to the plough. They Avere also used for threshing, and 
 under the Mosaic law — " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that tread- 
 etli out the corn " (Deut. 25 : 4), the latter may be supposed tho 
 more pleasant service. Threshing, moreover, was a common sym- 
 bol for the exercise of oppressive power, or for the infliction of 
 
 severe sufi:ering. Hence I render — "Ephraim is a well-trained 
 
 heifer, loving to thresh " (L e., without a figure, to ojopress), " but 
 I passed along over the beauty of her neck" (never yet galled with 
 a yoke) ; " I will yoke Ephraira ; Judali shall plough ; Jacob shall 
 
 harrow." Some render — I will put a rider on Ephraim, i. e., for 
 
 a driver. Our English version quite misses the sense in saying — ''I 
 will make Ephraira to ride," tlie idea being that lie shall drmo and 
 ^corJc, not ride. These figures, taken from the occupations of ag- 
 riculture, are significant and forcible. 
 
 12. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in 
 mercy ; break up your fallow ground : for it is time to 
 seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon 
 you. 
 
 With this new figure before the mind, the prophet turns here 
 to exhort both Israel and Judali to repentance and to works of 
 
 righteousness. Here, as is very common in Hebrew, the second 
 
 of two successive imperatives should be rendered in the future as 
 a promise. " Sow for yourselves, for righteousness; thus shall ye 
 reap according to your piety." The " reaping in mercy " must bo 
 2Jromise, not command. " For righteousness " is the literal ren- 
 dering, meaning, sow what will naturally produce the fruits of 
 righteousness. The word rendered " mercy " must refer to man, 
 not to God, and is therefore piety. The Hebrew phrase means — 
 
 according to the measure of your piety. " Break up your fallow 
 
 ground ; " make all due preparation for the harvest of blessings 
 
 you need and should seek. " For it is time to seek Jehovah 
 
 until he come and teach you righteousness." The verb rendered 
 in our version to " rain " means to rain in a very few cases, to 
 teacb in a much larger number. In the conjugation used here it 
 always means to teach, never to rain. And since in this latter 
 half of the verse the figure is dropped, and the prophet says with- 
 out a figure — "it is time to seek the Lord," it is more consonant 
 with the strain of the clause to translate this word without a fig- 
 ure, "teach," rather than with a figure, "rain." 
 
 13. Ye have ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped 
 iniquity ; ye have eaten the fruit of lies : because thou 
 didst trust in thy waj^, in the multitude of thy mighty 
 men. 
 
 Resuming the figures of husbandry, the prophet says — "Yo 
 
56 nosEA.— CHAP. X. 
 
 have plo\iglied wickedness," &c., in tlie same sense as Paul (Gal.6 : 7), 
 '' Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be also reap ; " or Solomon 
 (Prov. 1 : 31), ^'^They shall eat of tlie fruit of their awn way," &c. 
 
 Ephraim had trnsted, not in tlio Lord, hnt in the way of hei 
 
 own choice, and in the multitude of her mighty men. The Lord is 
 now ahout to show her the folly of such trust. 
 
 14. Therefore sliall a, tumult arise among tliy peo- 
 ple," and all thy fortresses sliall be spoiled, as Shalman 
 spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother 
 was dashed in pieces npon Tier children. 
 
 "Tumnlt" is the panic-cry of men smitten with fear. "Shal- 
 man " is abbreviated for Shalmaneser, king of Assyria (see 2 Kings 
 17:3), the same avIio conquered the kingdom of the ten tribes, 
 besieged and took Samaria^ and bore the people away into captivity. 
 
 '' Beth-Arbel " is probably Arbela of Galilee. The fearful 
 
 judgments which have been spoken of repeatedly throughout chap- 
 ters 4-10 culminate here. The time is just at hand, and the man- 
 ner and form of the visitation are no longer couched in symbols, 
 but are announced in the plainest speech. 
 
 15. So shall Beth-ei do mito yon because of yonr 
 great wickedness : in a morning shall the king of Israel 
 ntterly be cut off. 
 
 Bethel, the centre and hence the symbol of calf-worship, is here 
 used for the scourge sent of God to desolate the land. The senti- 
 ment is tliat their sin at Bethel becomes their ruin. 
 
 The king of Israel referred to here, I assume to be Iloshea, the 
 last in the kingdom of the ten tribes, — especially because the whole 
 tenor of chapters 7-14 implies that the destruction of the kingdom 
 was very near, and because chap. 13 : 10, 11, implies that the king 
 
 is already cutoff. "In a morning," is in the Hebrew — "in tlie 
 
 morning ; " and therefore cannot well mean that his being cut off 
 should occur in the morning hour of some indefinite day ; but 
 either in the next morning; or taken adverbially, 'cenj soon — as the 
 Hebrews were wont to signify the doing of a thing early by a verb 
 
 formed from this same word, which means the morning dawn. 
 
 There seems to be no objection, either grammatical or historical, to 
 the sense — in the next morning — to-morrow morning ; — for it is 
 plain that this prophet continued to bear messages to the people 
 after the last king, Iloshea, was cut oft'. The history (2 Kings 17 : 
 3-6) shows that this king was shot up and bound in prison, and 
 tha*; after tJds, the king of Assyria seized the whole country, 
 besieged Samaria, and took it after a siege of three years. But this 
 Jast king appears no more on the face of the history ; — " he ia 
 utterly cut off." 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. XI. 57 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 The strain of rebuke and of forewarning of judgment Laving 
 continued with only brief interruptions from the beginning of 
 chapter 4, till we are brought almost to the very day in which the 
 king of Israel should be cut off, the course of thought now turns to 
 reminiscences of love, and to the most touching expressions of pity 
 and grief over the impending ruin of Israel. 
 
 1. When Israel was a cliild, then I loyed him, and 
 called my son out of Egypt. 
 
 Thinking of the nation as having a lifetime, analogous to that 
 of the individual, running through infancy and youth to manhood, 
 the Lord says, '' When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and 
 called my son out of Egypt." He had manifested a very special 
 interest in the fathers of the nation, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; 
 he had shown his care for their children during their oppressions 
 under the Pharaohs. It was precisely by means of the call of God 
 that Moses was trained, commissioned, and led on to become, under 
 
 God, the deliverer of the people from Egyptian bondage. The 
 
 citation of this passage by Matthew (2 : 14, 15), as being fulfilled in 
 the case of the young child Jesus, called up from Egypt, raises the 
 question. Does Hosea in this passage refer in any sense to the 
 
 Messiah ? The context decides this question in the negative. 
 
 The enth'e course of thought, both in what precedes and in what 
 
 follows, relates to the nation of Israel. Hence Matthew must 
 
 ■mean " fulfilled " only in the sense of an analogous event — an event 
 \\\\\c]i filled out the natural sense of the words "out of Egypt 
 have I called my son." The nation of Israel was God's child, and 
 might be called his son. So was Jesus. God loved and cared for 
 Israel ; so and more for the child Jesus. God brought the formei* 
 out of Egypt ; and the latter also. The same language, therefore, 
 fitly describes each event, and the second becomes in a sort a fu'/l- 
 ment of the words which describe the first. It is not a case of 
 the fulfilment of jpro2jTiecy^ but only of the icords of a certain his- 
 tory. The great value of the case lies in its moral bearings as 
 illustrating the unchanging and oft-shown love and care of God 
 for his sons. 
 
 2. As they called them, so they went from tliem : 
 they sacrificed unto Baalmi, and burned incense to 
 graven images. 
 
 God's calling of his s-m Israel, especially by the agency of 
 
 Moses, suggested his cont nued agencies of calling the people by 
 
 later prophets, and of this he proceeds to speak: "As they" — thesb 
 
 later prophets— " called tl cm, so they went away from their prcs- 
 
 3* 
 
58 HOSE A.— CHAP. XL 
 
 ence " — (so the Hebrew) : — the more the Lord's servants called, 
 the more the people turned awaj ; " they sacrificed to Baalim," &c., 
 as e. g. under Ahab and onward. Indeed, the worship of Baal 
 appears as ftir back as Num. 25 : 3, 5, and Judg. 2 : 11-13, and 6 : 
 
 25-82. The tense of the verbs " sacrifice " and " burn incense," 
 
 implies not only that they liad^ but loould still— oi set purpose and 
 fixed habit. 
 
 3. I taiiglit Ephraim also to go, taking tliem bv their 
 arms ; but they knew not that I healed them. 
 
 " Epliraim," here as elsewhere, must be the kingdom of the ten 
 tribes. There was no nationahty known as Ephraira till the revolt 
 under Jeroboam. Hence the Lord speaks of his parental care of 
 tliis new-born nation in its infancy. " I taught Ephraim to walk," 
 as a little child is taught, supported and helped along — " taking 
 them by tlie arms." But they did not recognize the Lord's hand in 
 their healing and help. He does not imply that they could not 
 know; and does not say " they knew not " as lessening, but rather as 
 increasing, their guilt. 
 
 4. I drew them with cords of a man, witli bands of 
 love : and I was to them as they that take off the yoke 
 on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. 
 
 The description of God's tender care and gentle loving wayg 
 with his people continues. " I drew " (not drove) " them — with 
 cords of a man," not cords of a bullock, untamed, headstrong, and 
 wild. These cords are explained fully in the words "v/ith bands 
 of love," by the sweet attractions which manifested love naturally 
 
 creates. The next figure also is taken from the ways of the kind 
 
 husbandman : " I was to them as they that lift up the yoke which 
 presses on their cheek ; " — for the rude yokes of oriental countries 
 are heavy and ill-adapted to the comfort of animals while eating. — 
 The description continues: "I brought food to them and caused 
 them to eat," The Hebrew has two verbs here, of which the 
 literal sense is given in this translation. The tense of these verbs 
 implies that God is willing still to feed them, as of old. This show- 
 ing of God's loving care and gentleness toward his people is at once 
 beautiful and strong. The facts of the case justify more even than 
 this. 
 
 5. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but 
 the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to 
 return. 
 
 Ephraim as a nation is spoken of as one person. — He shall not 
 be suffered to turn back to the Egypt of his fathers, though the 
 people often manifested a strong desire to do so. God had another 
 and a more fearful doom for them ; " the Assyrian shall be his 
 king " The reason— because the. people refused to return in peni- 
 
HOSEA.— CUAP. XI. 59 
 
 teuco to God. Ilosea is remarkable for his play on the various 
 
 senses of the same word — as here, between " returninj^ to Ejrypt " 
 in the first clause, and " refusing to return " in the second — the latter 
 return being moral, — that of real repentance. Because they would 
 not repent, the Lord put them under the Assyrian king w^hich they 
 abhorred, and forbade their returning to Egypt, wliich they sought. 
 
 6. And the sword sliall abide on his cities, and shall 
 consume his branches, and devour them^ because of their 
 own counsels. 
 
 The word " abide " docs not give the full force of the Hebrew, 
 which means, to whirl, to be moved in a circle, brandished. Here, 
 the sword is said to be hurled down upon his cities — as if seen by 
 the prophet, uplifted and waving higii in the hand of the Almighty. 
 
 Through the aid of progressive criticism, the word rendered 
 
 ^' branch " obtains a modified and better sense. Primarily, the 
 Hebrew word means ^imrt of a thing; then a branch as being part 
 of a tree ; then from branch, the word comes to mean poles and 
 bare — the latter fastening the gates and becoming in a sort the 
 strength and protection of a city ; and finally, by another change, it 
 is used for princes and chieftains, considered as the strength of the 
 city. So here, from the cities on which the sword falls, the prophet 
 passes, not to " branches," for these have no natural connection 
 with the city, but to the chiefs and rulers, and says of them — The 
 sword shall consume and devour them, because of their vicious 
 counsels in departing fi;cm God. This last circumstance forbids us 
 to interpret the previous clause as being said of " branches." 
 
 Y. And my people are bent to backsliding from me : 
 though they called them to the Most High, none at all 
 would exalt him. 
 
 Though they are my people, yet despite of all my love and of 
 all my discijdine, they are " bent " — fully purposed, committed— to 
 
 turning back and away from me. Though my prophets called 
 
 them to return to the Most High, yet w^itli one accord they " would 
 not exalt him " — *' exalt," in the sense of honoring him as the 
 supreme God — to be adored instead of senseless idols. 
 
 8. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? hoio shall 1 
 deliver thee, Israeli how shall I make thee as Admah ? 
 how shall I set thet3 as Zeboim ? mine lieart is tui-ned 
 within me, my repentings are kindled together. 
 
 The sense of this vci-sc is plain, Tbe "giving «p," is to hope- 
 less ruin and desolation. So tlie parallel word — ''deliver thee" — 
 
 means to give over to the fell destroyer. " Admah and Zeboim " 
 
 are associated with Sodom and Gomorrali as lying near in Gen. 14: 
 
 8, and in Dcut, 29: 2:^>, as involved in the same terrible doom. ► 
 
 "Mine heart is turned within me" — with fillings of pity, and grief, 
 
60 nOSEA.— CHAP. XL 
 
 and tender compassion. " My rcpentings are kindled toc^etlier," 
 implies that in this fxreat conflict of emotions between the high 
 demands of justice and the pleadings of compassion, his velentinga 
 were enkindled, and his very heart seemed to burn under the 
 intense yearnings of sympathy. The reader will notice the strik- 
 ing contrast between his people, "bent to backshding" from him, 
 and his own lieart so tenderly Ijent to love and pity. How wonder- 
 ful that the last words before this outburst of tenderness, and the 
 last antecedent thoughts, are concerning the cruel waywardness 
 
 and persistent rebellion of his people ! But no words of comment 
 
 can heighten the beauty and force of this inimitable passage. The 
 very heart of the God of love stands forth revealed in its glowing 
 aucl expressive words. 
 
 The general strain of the message, sent of God by Ilosea, had 
 been of necessity stringent and stern with rebukes for sin, and 
 oftentimes terrible in revelations of impending judgment — all right 
 because absolutely necessary. Yet this strain, alone and exclusive, 
 would not do full justice to the tenderness and the loving pity of 
 Israel's God. These messages therefore cannot close without a 
 
 most emphatic testimony to the loving-kindness of J^ehovah. 
 
 "What do these testimonies concerning God prove ? 
 
 (1.) That he has no pleasure in bringing ruin on even the guiltiest 
 
 shiner. (2.) That he does not punish in the spirit of vindictive- 
 
 ness. (3.) That he would always spare the sinner, and forbear to 
 
 punish, or even chastise, if he could do so wisely and safely. (4.) 
 
 That he takes supreme delight in conferring good, and longs to bless 
 
 all his sentient creatures. (5.) That it is only with the deepest 
 
 grief that he ever brings pain and woe upon his creatures. (G.) 
 
 Hence, that he will never punish any sinner beyond his real deserts 
 — never beyond what the good of the universe imperatively 
 
 demands. (7.) That no sinner, however severely punished, can 
 
 ever blame God. (8.) That all sinners are bound to do justice to 
 
 the divine love and pity, and should never impute to God feelings 
 and motives which his own heart-utterances unmistakably preclude 
 
 and forbid. (9.) Tinally, that the character and government of 
 
 such a God should command our unbounded and eternal confidence 
 and love. 
 
 9. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I 
 will not return to destroy Ephraim : for I ain God, and 
 not man ; the Holy One in the midst of thee : and I v^'ill 
 not enter into the city. 
 
 Speaking very much after the manner of men, God represents 
 himself as having more " fierceness of anger " than he executes on 
 the guilty. Often we need to make allowance for the necessity 
 resting upon God, if he would be understood by men, of adopting 
 their modes of expression, so as to speak of himself as men have 
 reason to speak of them.selves. In such cases, we must qualify the 
 
HOSEA.— CUAP. XL 61 
 
 statements by reference to the known attributes of Jehovab. In 
 tbe passage before us, we must not suppose tbat the anger of God 
 bad become unreasonably fierce, and that, becoming liimself aware 
 of this, he resolved not to execute it in full. It is in accommodation 
 to finite minds that he represents a conflict in his own between his 
 indignation against sin and his pity for the sinner. Such represen- 
 tations can scarcely mislead any except the captious and uncandid. 
 
 In the phrase " I will not return to destroy," the first verb is 
 
 used adverbially, the sense being — " I will not again destroy." 
 
 The reason given — "for I am God and not man," reminds us of 
 those beautiful words of Isaiah (55 : 8, 9): "For my thoughts arc 
 not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, saith the 
 Lord. For, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
 ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 
 "^The last clause should read — not, " I will not enter into the city," 
 but, " I will not come in irratli.'''' The former makes no pertinent 
 sense in this connection. The latter is entirely admissible on the 
 score of usage, and is perfectly in harmony with tlie scope of the 
 passage. 
 
 10. Tliej shall walk after the Lokd : lie shall roar 
 like a lion :' when he shall roar, then the children shall 
 tremble from the west. 
 
 11. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and 
 as a doYe out of the land of Assyria : and I will place 
 them in their houses, saith the Loed. 
 
 Better things are here. The people, once more, " follow after 
 
 tlie Lord " — a phrase which always means true obedience. The 
 
 Lord is compared to the lion and his voice to the lion's roar with 
 reference to those fearful, awe-inspiring agencies of God in provi- 
 dence which startle and convulse the nations. It was such agencies 
 that overwhelmed the old Ass}Tian and Chaldean empires, and 
 raised up Cyrus of Persia to befriend the restoration of God's people. 
 
 "The children" here must be the people, of God. They 
 
 "tremble" — /. e., come with trembling "from the west," as not un- 
 aftccted with awe under the majestic presence of Jehovah. Yet 
 they come with ease and rapidity, as is indicated by the flight of 
 the sparrow and the dove. They come from every quarter — from 
 Egypt on the south ; Assyria on the north and east ; and tbe west is 
 specially named. Only for the sake of the idea of universality 
 could we expect the west to be mentioned, since there lay the sea. 
 
 • God will place them in their habitations, for dwelling again in 
 
 peace and security. These verses give promise of a successful 
 
 result, to some extent, and at some time, to the compassionate 
 labors of the God of Israel to reclaim and restore his people. 
 
 12. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the? 
 house of Israel with deceit : but Judah yet ruleth with 
 God, and is faithful Avith the saints. 
 
62 nosEA.--ciiAP. XII. 
 
 The Hebrew attaches this verse to the next chapter. In tha 
 course of thouglit it belongs there, and not at the close of this, 
 since it reverts again to the perverseness, treachery, and hypocrisy 
 of Ephruini and Israel ; and when justly understood, makes Judah 
 
 only less treacherous and apostate. What is said here of Ephraim 
 
 and Israel is plain ; the last clause which respects Judah has been 
 interpreted variously. The sense turns primarily on the Hebrew 
 word rendered "ruleth." * The translators of our version derived 
 it from another root, which means to tread down, and then to bear 
 rule. But the sense above given is far more in harmony with the 
 preceding context, and also with 12 : 2, which indeed quite forbids 
 our taking this passage in a good sense. The best modern critics 
 derive this verb from a root which means, to run wildly and at 
 large, as animals that, after long restraint, have broken loose. So 
 Judah has broken away from the Lord's yoke and runs wanton at 
 her will. The same word occurs (Jer. 2 : 31), " Wlierefor say my 
 people — Wq are lords; we will come no more unto thee." We are 
 lords^ gives the idea; we have broken loose from all authority and 
 
 restraint. The entire last clause may be translated — "But 
 
 Judah runs loose and wild as to God and as to the holy and faith- 
 ful one" — where God's purity and faithfulness are j^ut in contrast 
 with the infidelity and moral pollution of Judah. The Avord for 
 " holy " is indeed in the plural here. So are some of the names of 
 God. The marginal reading properly gives it, " tli.e most Holy." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 In this chapter the prophet, besides bringing out yet more fully 
 the sins of Ephraim and of Judah, seeks to encourage repentance 
 and trust in God by referring to events in the early history of the 
 patriarch Jacob — his taking the precedence of his brother Esau (v. 
 3) ; his prevailing prayer at Peniel, and his meeting with God at 
 Bethel (vs. 8-5).. 
 
 1. Epliraim feedetli on wind, and followetli after the 
 east wind : lie daily increasetli lies and desolation ; and 
 tliey do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is 
 carried into Egypt. 
 
 "Feedeth on wind," literally, pastureth himself on wind as shep- 
 lierds pasture their flocks on grass, which represents his reliance 
 on the merest vanities, on that which can avail him nothing. 
 " Chasing after the east wind" has the same significance. "Every 
 day he raultiplicth lies," and consequently " desolation " — the deso- 
 lation being manifestly spoken of here as the fruit of his lies. The 
 
 '*'' T?" — /'Ofpf/, expressed in English letters. 
 
nOSEA.-^CHAP. XII. 63 
 
 prophet's eye seems to have been on the historic events narrated 
 (2 Kings 17 : 3, 4), wliere it is stated that the king of Assyria camo 
 against IToshea, the last king of Israel ; that Iloshea became his 
 servant and paid him tribute ; that subsequently the king of As- 
 syria " found conspiracy in Iloshea because he sent messengers to 
 So, king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, 
 as he had done year by year ; therefore the king of Assyria shut 
 him up and bound him in prison," came up and besieged his capi- 
 tal, subdued his kingdom, and took his people captive. Ilis lies did 
 
 not jt)«2/) hut brought on him and his kingdom ruin. " They 
 
 made a covenant with the Assyrians," but broke it; " they carried 
 oil into Egypt " as a present or tribute, but Egypt could not save 
 them from the Assyrian power. The last three verbs of this verse 
 — rendered " increaseth," "do make," "is carried" — are all in the 
 incomjylete tense, which implies not only that they have done so, 
 but have the heart to do so still. 
 
 2. The Lord liatli also a controversy with Jiidali, 
 and will punisli Jacob according to liis ways ; according 
 to Lis doings will he recompense liim. 
 
 " Controversy," in the same sense as in 4: 1^-ground of griev- 
 ous complaint. " And will visit upon Jacob " (literally rendered), 
 in the sense of retribution for his sins.— — " Jacob " in this passage 
 must mean Ephraim, the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
 
 3. He took liis brotlier by tbe heel in the womb, and 
 by his strength he had power with God : 
 
 The name " Jacob," applied to the northern kingdom, helps the 
 prophet to pass by an easy transition to the early history of the 
 patriarch who bore this name. — — " He took his brother by the 
 heel in the womb," indicating that he would supplant him in the 
 matter of the birthright and of priority. See the history (Gen. 25 : 
 20). The verb from which the name Jacob is derived means " to 
 
 take by the heel," to supplant. l^o bad intention or purpose on 
 
 Jacob's part should attach to this supplanting as here spoken of. 
 It simply indicated the purpose of God to put Jacob before Esau, 
 although born last. This preference is alluded to in this passage to 
 
 encourage the people to return to their own God. The next 
 
 clause carries us to the celebrated scene of Pcniel, where Jacob 
 wrestled with the angel of the covenant in struggling prayer all 
 night, and finally prevailed, " had power with God," and became 
 a prince through liis perseverance and success. The Lord gave him 
 the name Israel, meaning a prince icitli God., at this ver}' time, botli 
 to indicate and to honor his prevalence in prayer. (See Gen. 32 : 
 28.) " Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel ; for as 
 a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast pre- 
 railed." 
 
 4. Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed; 
 
04 HOSEA.— CHAP. Xll. 
 
 he wept, and made snpplication unto liim : lie found 
 him in I3eth-el, and there he spake with ns ; 
 
 To give tlie nicer shades of thought from the original, and to 
 present the relations of the different persons brought to view, the 
 verse might be rendered somewhat freely, thus : " And then he had 
 power with the angel and prevailed ; he wept and made supplica- 
 tion to him. Also God met him (Jacob) at Bethel, and there spake 
 Avith him and through him with us." The angel referred to is 
 called God (Elohim) in v. 3, and can be no other than the uncre- 
 ated angel of the covenant, who appears not unfrequently in the 
 history of ancient Israel, manifesting divine attributes, and ob- 
 viously being the very Messiah, then, as ever, the Head of the 
 
 Church on earth. In the record of tlie scenes of Peniel (Gen. 
 
 32 : 24-30), the historian does not call him " the angel," but says, 
 " there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." 
 This gives his external appearance. But Jacob, when the scene 
 had passed, called the name of the place Peniel, the face of God, 
 " for he said, I have seen God face to face." Much to our point 
 are God's words to Moses (Ex. 23 : 20, 21) : " Behold, I send an an- 
 gel before thee to keep thee in the way and to bring thee into the 
 place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice ; 
 provoke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions; for 
 my name is in Jiim.^'' The power to pardon sin, implied to exist in 
 him, and especially the last words, " my name " (in the sense of 
 nature and attributes) " is in him," must be considered as amply 
 
 identifying him to be the second person in the Godhead. With 
 
 him Jacob wrestled in agonizing prayer — the external struggle be- 
 ing only an index of the inward, which was the vital thing. Jacob 
 was in most imminent peril from his enraged and powerful brother, 
 and therefore must seek help from God. His long agony of strug- 
 gling prayer suggests that he may have had an unsettled account 
 with the " angel of the covenant," some of the items of which 
 may have been his complicity with his mother In the deception 
 practised by her to get from Isaac the paternal blessing ; and not 
 improbably some lack of faithful reproof of his favorite Rachel in 
 the matter of her proclivities toward idol- worship — things to be re- 
 pented of and adjusted as to God before any signal testimony of 
 his favor could be safely given. It need not surprise us, therefore, 
 that "he wept and made supplication." The full history of his 
 heart might show how bitterly he repented of his sins, and how 
 earnestly he plead that God would remember his covenant, and not 
 account the great faults of his servant as a forfeiture of his claims 
 
 upon God for protection and help. In all its parts this was a 
 
 wonderful case of persevering and prevailing prayer — one that 
 might well be suggested to the whole Hebrew people in the times 
 of ilosea as an assurance that such prayer might yet save them, 
 
 while nothing less or other than this could. Abruptly the 
 
 prophet passes to the thii'd scene in tlie life of Jacob — that which 
 
nOSEA.— CHAR XII. 05 
 
 transpired at Bethel. There the Lord God met the youthful Jacob, 
 reminded him of his own covenant with Abraham and Isaac; re- 
 ncAved this covenant with Jacob, and left him. Then Jacob awoke 
 from this blessed vision and said, " Surely the Lord is in this place, 
 and I knew it not." " IIoav dreadful is this place! This is none 
 other but the house of God, and this is tlie gate of heaven ! " See 
 Gen. 28 : 11-22. Some difference of opinion exists as to the sig- 
 nificance of the last word of this verse, " usy In what sense did 
 the Lord speak with iis in Bethel ? Hosea says, " There the Lord 
 
 found Jacob, and there he spake with not Jacob only, but us." 
 
 Some have said, the prophet included with Jacob, himself, and 
 perhaps others also, on the score of a common sympathy, as writers 
 sometimes unconsciously suppose themselves to be participating in 
 scenes that awaken in their hearts deep interest. Others, no- 
 ticing that the verb rendered " spake " is in the future, have given 
 it this turn : There the Lord tcill speak with us ; did speak with 
 
 Jacob, and will no less with us if we seek him as earnestly. 
 
 The latter idea — that God will truly speak with us and with all 
 who wait earnestly on him — is no doubt implied ; the Bible usually 
 
 implies this, though it is rarely deemed necessary to express it. 
 
 The first of the two views above given is preferable, expanded with 
 this further idea, that the things God said there belong to the 
 whole future family of Jacob, viz.: the promise of Canaan; a 
 countless seed ; a blessing on all the families of the earth through 
 his offspring, and the Lord Jehovah for his God and their God. In 
 view of the broad application of the things said then and there to 
 all the Hebrew race, Hosea might well say, " There the Lord spake 
 'icithus''^ — with us none the less because through Jacob. In this 
 sense the future incoinplete tense of the Hebrew is specially appo- 
 site. There was pecuhar fitness in this allusion to Bethel — the 
 
 place made so sacred in those ancient times by the presence of God 
 and by his renewed covenant, but, during many generations re- 
 cently past, most horribly desecrated by giving to a calf tho wor- 
 ship due to God alone. 
 
 5. Even the Lord God of hosts ; the Loud is his ine- 
 inorial. 
 
 This verse is a close continuation of the preceding. " There he 
 
 spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts." In most English 
 
 Bibles the name " Lord " is printed in small capitals vrhen it trans- 
 lates the Hebrew word Jehovah. In this verse the Hebrew reads, 
 " Even Jehovah, God of hosts — Jehovah is his memorial." By 
 this is meant that the name Jehovah is that by which he would be 
 specially known, or, more precisely, is that one of his various 
 names whose significance he would have his people evermore re- 
 member, as to be fulfilled all along onward in the lapse of the ages. 
 All the names given to the Supreme Being are significant, e. g.^ 
 ''God of Hosts," or of the celestial armies; "El-Shaddai," the 
 Omnipotent or Almighty; "El" alone, the exalted and tho mighty 
 
66 HOSE A.— CHAP. XIT. 
 
 one ; and in like manner " Jehovali," tlie immutable, " he that was 
 and is and is to come," forever li/ing and forever the same, 
 the real and the p-eat "/aw." See Ex. 3:13-15, and 6:3, 
 where it is said, " This is mj name forever, and this is my memo- 
 rial unto all generations;" and where also God said to Moses, "I 
 am Jehovah ; and I appeared nnto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by 
 the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not 
 known nnto them." This cannot mean that they had never known 
 and nsed the name Jehovah, for they had. It must therefore mean 
 that God had not fulfilled to them the true significance of this 
 name, i. e., one faithful to his promises. The idea is that this faith- 
 fulness results from his immutability, and that his people do not 
 fully Mote this attribute of God till they have tested and proved it 
 in their experience of his faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. In 
 this sense the name Jehovah stands through all time as his memo- 
 rial name — its significance to be remembered by his people, and 
 perpetually developed and fulfilled more and more in the lapse of 
 ages. The significance of his other names may be verified and ful- 
 filled at once ; his omnipotence is seen in the creation of worlds 
 and in every real miracle ; but his name Jehovah is verified only 
 ly tJie aid of time, through the occurrence of events transpiring all 
 along down the world's history. In this most expressive sense it 
 is his memorial name, and is adduced by Hosea most fitly in this 
 connection to encourage the people to put their trust in him. 
 
 6. Therefore, turn thou to thy God : keep mercy and 
 judgment, and wait on thy God continually^ 
 
 Hence the application here made — " Therefore," since God is 
 forever faithful and true, since he ever has been and ever will be 
 the God of his people Israel, " therefore, turn thou to thy God." 
 "Keep mercy and judgment" — duties toward man ; " and wait on 
 thy God continually," living in dependence upon him, and expect- 
 ing all needful good from him alone. Morality toAvard man and 
 piety toward God make up the sum of human duty— loving God 
 with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. 
 
 Y. He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in 
 his hand : he loveth to oppress. 
 
 The discourse here turns abruptly to another sin of the people 
 of Ephraim — covetousness and consequent oppression. " The Ca- 
 naanite — balances of deceit are in his hand: " he loves to take ad- 
 vantage in trade, and to drive a gainful bargain to the extent of 
 real oppression. The word " Canaanite " is used for merchant, 
 that people being the trafiickers of Western Asia. The Phoenicians, 
 long celebrated for commerce and navigation, were part of tlie 
 original people of Canaan. The word Canaanite means in Hebrew 
 one who acquires, accumulates. To this also the present use of the 
 
 word may refer. " Balances of deceit " were made to cheat 
 
 with — ojie weight for buying and another for selling. Thus (Prov. 
 
nosEA.— CHAP. xn. gY 
 
 20 : 23), "An abomination to tlie Lord is a stone and a stone" (one 
 to bny with and one to sell with) ; " and balances of deceit are not 
 
 grood," L e.^ are utterly bad. This allusion to the trading usages 
 
 of Canaan was shaped to take hold of the peo])le of Ephraini, the 
 more so because the latter, while in general holding the Canaanites 
 in contempt, were yet trading, defrauding, and oppressing in tlie 
 same way. As if the prophet would say : See the Oanaanite; you 
 think meanly of him for his low tricks of trade ; what do you think 
 of yourselves ? 
 
 8. And Epliraim said, Yet I am become rich, I liavo 
 found me ont substance : in all my labours they shall 
 find none iniquity in me that loere sm. 
 
 " Also Ephraim said : Surely I am rich ; I have found wealth 
 for myself; in all the fruits of my business they shall find in me no 
 acts of extortion that are sinful." The last word is from the verb 
 which means to miss the mark, to overdo, to overstep due bounds. 
 E pin-aim quietly implies that in trade some little crookedness and 
 deception are quite admissible; (probably he would have said, Who 
 can live by trade otherwise?) But on the other hand there are 
 things so flagrant that all the world will call them sin. He hopes, 
 indeed he is quite sure, they will not find any of this bad sort of 
 
 sin in his business life. So human nature and the usages and 
 
 moralities of trade were much the same b. c. 750, when Ilosea was 
 writing, as they are to-day ! 
 
 9. And I that am the Loed thy God from the land 
 of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as 
 in the clays of the solemn feast. 
 
 Once more the prophet turns abruptly, as is his wont, to prom- 
 ises, yet again to try the power of persuasion and love on the peo- 
 ple. " Yet I, the Lord thy God ever since Egypt " (i. e., since the 
 exodus from Egypt), " will yet make thee to dwell in tents," &c., 
 with reference to the feast of tabernacles, the great national thanks- 
 giving. This was always a joyful occasion. Hence this verse must 
 be interpreted as a promise of good, and not a threatening of evil. 
 
 10. I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have 
 multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry 
 of the prophets. 
 
 Literally, " I have spoken to the prophets " — that they might 
 speak for me to the people. During the great apostasy in the latter 
 years of the kingdom of Ephraim, the Lord greatly multiplied 
 
 prophets and visions. " Similitudes " include poetic figures, and 
 
 also symbols, which latter comprise both illustrative acts done by 
 the prophets, and also things seen in vision. 
 
 11. Is there iniquity in Gilead ? surely they are van 
 
OS nOSEA.— CHAII. XIII. 
 
 ity : tliey sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal ; yea, their altars 
 are as lieaps in the furrows of the fields. 
 
 Literally, /' Lo ! Gilead is -vvickedness ! " The next clause is 
 
 parallel: "surely they are vanity.'' Gilead, one of the cities of 
 
 refuge, where many priests dwelt, has been named for its great 
 
 wickedness above (G : 8). Gilgal also was notorious for its idol 
 
 worship. The Hebrew word " heaps " is a play on the word Gilgal, 
 which means a rolled-up heap of s'ones. Idol altars were thick 
 there as the heaps of stones in a j)loughed field. 
 
 12. And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and 
 Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. 
 
 This brief and abrupt allusion to Jacob was designed to suggest 
 God's watchful care through his providence over his trustful chil- 
 dren. This familiar history is found, Gen. chapters 29-33. 
 
 13. And by a prophet the Loed brought Israel out 
 of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved. 
 
 By this prophet, Moses, the Lord brought up his people from 
 Egypt, andean do like things again; by this prophet Israel was 
 Icept — the same word which is rendered Icejpt in v. 12. As Jacob 
 Icei^t sheep — a faithful shepherd — so the Lord by Moses IzeiJt his 
 people, and, as Ilosea would have the peo^Dle infer, can again. 
 
 14. Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly : 
 therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his re- 
 proach shall his Lord return unto him. 
 
 But Ephraim has long provoked him most bitterly ; therefore 
 shall his Lord leave his blood upon him, unpardoned, and not 
 washed away, and shall turn back his reproach upon himself. The 
 blood referred to is probably that of children sacrificed to Moloch ; 
 his reproach is that which he had cast upon the true God by dis- 
 carding his law and worship, and putting idols before him. God 
 would requite this reproach by consigning Ephraim to public con- 
 tempt among the nations of the earth. 
 
 CIIAPTEE XIII. 
 
 The main drift of this chapter is to set forth the sins of Ephraim 
 and their certain consequences in his ruin — intermingled with some 
 rich assurances of God's love and promises of mercy and help to 
 the penitent. 
 
 1. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted him- 
 oclf in Israel ; but when he olFended in 13aal, he died. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. XIII. 69 
 
 Our translators seem to have supposed the first clause to refer 
 to a time when Ephraim was penitent and humble. More recent 
 investigations in the language show that this sense and construction 
 are scarcely admissible, and by no means probable. The word on 
 which the interpretation liinges, occurs in this precise form no- 
 where else in our Bible. But a cognate word, without much doubt 
 of the same meaning, occurs, Jer. 49 : 24, where it means terror. 
 This word in our passage is a noun, not, as in the English transla- 
 tion, a participial adjective. I translate : " When Ephraim spake, 
 there was trembling; he stood high in Israel ; but when he sinned 
 in the matter of Baal, he died." Ephraim, as here used, is the 
 one tribe only, not the whole ten. In the early days of the king- 
 dom the influence of this tribe was very great; the word of 
 Ephraim was law, and was heard with trembling. His sin in the 
 matter of Baal proved the ruin of his influence and of himself. 
 
 2. And now tliey sin more and more, and liave made 
 tliem molten images of tlieir silver, and idols according 
 to tlieir own nnclerstanding, all of it the w^ork of tlie 
 craftsmen : they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice 
 kiss the calves. 
 
 The word used here for idols, as above remarked, in 4: 17, is 
 itself significant of toil and labor in their construction. " Ac- 
 cording to their own understanding " means with their skill, with 
 
 the best art and tact they have. "Wholly the work of the 
 
 craftsmen," is yet further expressive of the leading idea that these 
 idols are nothing whatever beyond Vviiat men make them. There 
 is nothing else about them, in them, or of them. The prophet 
 means to deny that there is any invisible God dwelling in them. 
 In the phrase "they say of them," the pronoun tliey is expressed 
 in the Hebrew, and hence is made prominent in the thought — re- 
 ferring here to the priests, who had the management of idol wor- 
 sliip. They gave the order that the men who ofi:ered sacrifice 
 should kiss the calves. This ceremony was one form of expressing 
 their reverence, confidence, and affection for these calves. 
 
 3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, 
 and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff 
 that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and 
 as the smoke out of the chimney. 
 
 "Therefore," as the fruit of such senseless and guilty worship,, 
 their glory shall be evanescent ; the whole nation shall soon disap- 
 pear from the face of the earth, and hold no longer any place 
 among the nations. The threshing floors were fitted up on high 
 hills, and in open, exposed situations, to get the benefit of the wind 
 in cleaning grain. But when an oriental whirlwind fell suddenly 
 upon this operation, the chaflT was driven ofif fearfully. 
 
70 nOSEA.— CHAP. XIIL 
 
 4. Yet 1 am the Lord thy God from tlie land of 
 Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me : for there is 
 no saviour beside me. 
 
 Yet fearful as tlieir doom must be, and great as their guilt had 
 been, the Lord reminds them that he has been their God ever since 
 the nation came out from Egypt. He evinced this relationship to 
 them then, and had done nothing on his part since to change it. 
 
 5. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of 
 great drought. 
 
 " I did know thee in the wilderness," means more than a mere 
 knowledge of what they were. It implies that he had manifested 
 his knowledge of their case by his sympathy, love, and care. He 
 lot nothing pertaining to their case or wants escape his notice. 
 The word rendered " drought" means properly, thirst — a land cele- 
 brated for the thirst of the weary traveller — one where no water 
 is. In that land, God brought forth water for them from the 
 rock. 
 
 6. According to their pasture, so were they filled ; 
 and their heart was exalted : therefore have they for- 
 gotten me. 
 
 The better God made their condition, or, in the prophet's figure, 
 the better pasture he put them into, the more they were sated; this 
 
 fulness begat pride ; and in their pride, they forgat Jehovah. 
 
 Alas, that this should be the history of so many myriads of sinners! 
 God blesses them (must we say) too much ; thej^ become too full ; 
 then proud ; then they forget God, and become awfully strong m 
 their wickedness ! 
 
 Y. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion : as a 
 leopard by the way will I observe tJie7n. 
 
 8. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her 
 lohelps^ and will rend the caul of their heart, and there 
 will I devour them like a lion : the wild beast shall tear 
 them. 
 
 The figures to represent swift destruction are multiplied. To 
 
 " observe," as the leopard, is to lie in wait and watch as for prey. 
 
 God represents himself as doing what is done instrumentally by 
 
 the Assyrian arms. 
 
 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me 
 is thine help. 
 
 The received translation expresses rich truths with great force. 
 Thou art thine own destroyer ; thy God thine only deliverer. The 
 destruction is Avholly thine ; the salvation altogether mine. 
 
 But although both these propositions are true, and altliough 
 
KOSEA.— CHAP. XIII. 71 
 
 their beauty and force are raiicli enhanced by this vivid juxtaposi- 
 tion and contrast, yet a close and careful study of the original raises 
 a serious doubt in my mind whether this is precisely its sense. 
 
 The'first clause is all right. '' Thine is this destruction ;" but 
 the last clause, having in Hebrew three words, is more closely and 
 perfectly rendered thus : " Because (thou art) against me, against 
 thy help." The strong objection to our received translation is the 
 proposition against before the last word, " thy help." The English 
 translation makes no account of it; but Ilosea does not put in words 
 for nothing. Then also the connecting particle more naturally 
 means lyecause than tut. 
 
 In this construction we miss the strong antithesis, but we get a 
 pertinent sense, and one in harmony with the previous and follow- 
 ing context; — thus v. 8, The Assyrian power shall devour thee: 
 v. 9, This destruction is all of thine own procuring, because thou 
 wast against me, against thy only help : v. 10, Where is thy king 
 now, or any one that can save thee ? &c. 
 
 10. I will be tliy king : where is any other that may 
 save thee in all thy cities ? and thy jndges of whom thou 
 saidst, Give me a king and princes ? 
 
 The most approved translation is that in the margin: "Where 
 is thy king now — that he may save thee in all thy cities ? " In this 
 case the Hebrew marginal reading is followed, not the received 
 text. The difference betvreen the two is that the marginal reading 
 transposes the last two radicals.'^ 
 
 The remark is pertinently made in our English margin, that 
 Iloshea, the last king, was at this time in prison, as is stated 2 Kings 
 17: 4. 
 
 11. I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took htm 
 away in my wrath. 
 
 This statement probably has reference to this very king Hoshea, 
 It was true of Saul, and no less so of many of the kings in the king- 
 dom of the ten tribes. But if we ask for the particular king thought 
 
 * The real question for the critic here is whether he shall read "^riK 
 ''Iwill be;" orj-i-ij^ "Where?" The only difference is in the trans- 
 position of the last two radicals. The critical authorities for the two read- 
 ings in Hebrew are conflicting. I prefer the latter ( rT'X) "Where?" 
 (1.) Because as compared with the other, w^hich is fbllo^ved in our received 
 version, this flows easily, following the natural order of the Hebrew words; 
 while that one labors and almost does violence to the word rendered 
 "where," in the clause, " where is any other," &c. (2.) This last-named 
 word (x'.Ewt) strongly indicates that the sentence in which it occurs com- 
 menced with an interrosjative. This is its common use — an enclitic or 
 post-positive particle, after an interrogative. Our received translation 
 makes this word itself an interrogative, which is scarcely admissible. 
 (3.) The sense is indefinitely more pertinent and forcible — a consideration 
 which, superadded to the preceding, is conclusive. 
 
72 HOSEA.— CHAP. Xlll. 
 
 of by tlie autlior, no one meets tlie conditions so well as the last, 
 Hoshea. 
 
 12. Tlie iniquity of Epiiraim is bound up ; liis sin is 
 Md. 
 
 This refers to what God, not Ephraim, has done with his sin. 
 It is not implied that Ephraim has been able to hide his sin from 
 either man or God. The figm-es are taken from a man's tieing np 
 and hiding his money or other valuables for safe-keeping. So God 
 has laid away the sin of Ephraim, to be brought forth another day 
 for terrible retribution ! Of tliis coming retribution, the prophet 
 proceeds to speak. 
 
 13. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come 
 upon him : he is an unwise son ; for he should not stay 
 long in the place of the breaking forth of children. 
 
 The received translation of this verse can scarcely be improved. 
 The figure in the first clause suddenly changes. Ephraim is first a 
 mother in her travail pains ; then an infant voluntarily retarding 
 his own birth, and thus fearfully imperihing both his own life and 
 
 the mother's. ISTo figures drawn from human experience can be 
 
 more forcible than this — the peril that ensues when " children come 
 to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth." If, now, to 
 get the full force of this passage as applied to Ephraim, we suppose 
 the son to bring on this danger by his own voluntary, intelligent 
 agency, we shall see the infatuation and very madness which Ilosea 
 so temperately describes as being " unwise." Ephraim is going to 
 the judgment with God in charge of all his sins, and he still lingers 
 under the call to repent, and will not make peace with his oftended 
 
 judge. The primary reference here is to judgments on earth, 
 
 and very near ; yet the principle is even more pertinent and forci- 
 ble as applied to every sinner going to the final judgment. 
 
 11. I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; 
 I will redeem them from death : O death, I will be thy 
 plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction : repentance 
 shall be hid from mine eyes. 
 
 Ephraim is seen ruining himself by his madness. The 
 figure in the prophet's mind suggests death in some of its most 
 painful forms; but God interposes, saying, "I will ransom thee 
 from Sheol ; I will redeem thee from death." Sheol, the grave, 
 and death are, of course, personified hero, and su])posed to be living 
 agents of teri-ific power over frail mortals. The clauses trans- 
 lated—" death, I will be thy plagues ; " " O grave, I will be thy 
 destruction — " raise the same critical question which came up in v. 
 10 — the choice between the interrogative and the indicative form — 
 w^th, however, less reason for the interrogative here than there. 
 The general sense is the same either way; the interrogative form 
 
HOSEA.— CUAP. XIII. 73 
 
 is the more bold and triumpliant, and lias yet this further fact in its 
 favor, viz. : that Paul (1 Cor. 15 : 55) quotes interroc^atively — " O 
 death, where is thy sting ? O o:rave, where is thy victory ? " 
 
 In regard to this quotation by Paul, it should be said furtlier, 
 
 that tlie words as they stand here do not refer to the resurrection, 
 but to salvation from the ruin then impending over Israel ; but 
 Paul's quotation applies them to the resurrection — the tinal triumph 
 of our frail mortality over death and the grave, under the power of 
 a resurrection to unfading life and immortality. The words are 
 beautifully applicable to the latter event, and are, therefore, fitly 
 
 used. " Repentance shall be liid from mine eyes," must here bo 
 
 taken as God's own declaration concerning liis purpose just before 
 expressed : '' I will redeem my people and be the destroyer of their 
 worst foes, even of death and the grave, and there shall le no re~ 
 
 ■versal of this ^mrpose.'''' This has no reference to God's hiding 
 
 his eyes from man's repentance in this world or any other. What- 
 ever may be true as to this, the passage before us has nothing to 
 say about it. All language should be construed and applied with 
 
 reference to the subject in hand. In this verse the Lord thinks 
 
 of Ephraim as bringing down on himself remediless ruin ; but he 
 interposes one more pi'omise : I will yet redeem them even from 
 this awful death if they iciU rej^ent; or as the future might be ren- 
 dered — / would, on my part, redeem them, if only they would 
 consent ! 
 
 15. Tliougli lie be fruitful among /us bretliren, an 
 east wind shall come, tlie wind of tlie Lord sliall come 
 up from tlie wilderness, and liis spring sliall become dry, 
 and liis fountain shall be dried up : he shall spoil the 
 treasure of all pleasant vessels. 
 
 Promise of help avails not; so, again, the prophet predicts for 
 Ephraim near impending judgments. Though he may have been 
 eininently fruitful, i. e., populous and prosperous among his brother 
 tribes (said with reference to the significance of his name — Ephraim, 
 the prolific, and with reference also to the facts of his history), yet 
 ** an east wind " — often the simoom coming in upon Palestine from 
 the eastern quarter — " tlie wind of the Lord," i. e. sent by him 
 especially, " from the desert " — this shall " dry up his fountain 
 and spring," and be the ruin of his land. In oriental countries the 
 great scourge of the land is drouglit. Cut off" from water, the land 
 
 becomes one wide waste of desolation. So of Ephraim. This 
 
 language has special reference to the Assyrian power, which was 
 God's great instrument for laying waste the kingdom of Ephraim. 
 To this Assyrian king the pronoun "7ie"mustbe referred; "he 
 shall spoil the treasures of all desirable, valuable things." 
 
 16. Samaria shall become desolate ; for she hath 
 rebelled against her God : they shall fall by the sword : 
 
74: HOSEA.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women 
 with child shall be ripped np. 
 
 This clear, definite announcement of the ruin to come on the 
 kingdom of the ten tribes for their great sins, was obviously made 
 but a short time before the event. Hosea lived and prophesied in 
 the midst of these very scenes. Thus closes what he has to say in 
 the line of rebuking the sins of the people and announcing their 
 coming doom. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 This short chapter is a fit and striking sequel to the book of 
 Ilosea, almost the entire strain of which sets forth the sins — the 
 ingratitude, incorrigibleness, and the coming doom of the apostate 
 children of Israel. But the Lord cannot let this stern message of 
 rebuke and threatening close without one more call to repentance. 
 If the nation must go down, like a sinking ship into the angry bil- 
 lows, with its vast freight of human souls, they shall at least go 
 with the sounds of ofifered mercy still ringing in their ears ; and 
 further, the Lord would not leave a shade of apology for the infer- 
 ence that his heart is vindictive. After so much said of judgment 
 and wrath, a wrong impression as to these points might be left if 
 the book were to close without yet another testimony to his merci- 
 ful compassion. How tenderly careful not to crush out hope from 
 even the guiltiest bosom, saying, " I will not contend forever, neither 
 will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me and the 
 
 souls which I have made." (Isa. 57 : 16.) Yet again : the strain 
 
 of this closing chapter really gloics with the beauty and joy of God's 
 restored people when they repose under his shadow and drink at 
 liis fountain of bliss— all in charming contrast with the utter blight 
 that falls on the wicked who pasture themselves on wind and chase 
 after the east wind, and whose best delights turn to ashes on their 
 lips. The joyous prosperity of God's penitent people is one of the 
 
 strong recommendations of true piety. And finally, the strain of 
 
 this chapter is doubtless intended as an answer to the question 
 oft'^feper thought than expressed. What will become of the cause 
 and kingdom of God on earth? If his people prove so hopelessly 
 apostate, despite of such loving and persistent labor to save them, 
 what is the hope for God's kingdom? Here we have the answer. 
 It will yet be seen that this kingdom has the infinite God for its 
 king. The interests of truth and righteousness in the earth may 
 seem to go down in darkness ; but tliey can at worst only pass 
 under an eclipse, to shine out the more gloriously in their own 
 appointed time. In this point of view, this closing chapter must 
 be taken as a prophecy of the ultimate triumph of the cause and 
 kingdom of God on eajrth. 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. XIV. ^5 
 
 1. O Israel, return unto the Loed tlij God ; for tliou 
 hast fallen by thine iniquity. 
 
 "To the Lord tliy God"— thine own God still— a precious 
 reason for hope and encouragement in your return. 
 
 2. Take with you words, and turn to the Loed : say 
 unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us gra- 
 ciously : so will we render tlie calves of our lips. 
 
 '^ Take words " — avail yourself of the aid which the expression 
 of your feelings in fit language will give you ; and, moreover, do 
 this, not merely alone, each in his solitude ; but socially, the great 
 
 body of the people uniting as the heart of one man. ^To " render 
 
 the calves of our lips," means to respond to God's forgiving mercy 
 with oral expressions of gratitude and praise — oftering our lips in- 
 stead of bullocks. The word rendered " calves " means lullocls, 
 and is almost without exception used of bullocks offered in sacri- 
 fice. The construction in Hebrew is not— the calves of our lips ; 
 but this — so will we give back our lips (as) bullocks — after the 
 manner in which bullocks are brought forth for oficrings in sacrifice 
 to God. 
 
 3. Asshur shall not save us ; we will not ride upon 
 horses : neither will w^e say any more to the work of 
 our hands, Ye are our gods : for in thee the fatherless 
 findeth mercy. 
 
 The returning penitents jjledge themselves specifically against 
 three sins : seeking help from Assyria ; from the use of horses in 
 war, usually brought from Egypt ; and saying any more to what is 
 only the work of their own hands, " Ye are our gods." The reason 
 given is ample — " In God, the fatherless find mercy ; " — the helpless 
 and forlorn, like ourselves, find compassion in hira. The word 
 used carries us back to " Euhamali," as in chapters 1 and 2— this 
 being the same. 
 
 4. I will heal theii* backsliding, I will love them 
 freely : for mine anger is turned away from him. 
 
 The Lord himself now speaks in response to their vows and 
 prayers. "Heal them o/ their backslidings " means restore fii em 
 
 both in heart and in the external life. " Will love i\\Qm freely " 
 
 —the last most expressive w^ord having the sense of spontaneous — 
 with warm and full heart, even as the blessed God of love is wont 
 to love the truly penitent soul. 
 
 5. I will be as the dew unto Israel : ho shall grow as 
 the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 
 
 The dews of Palestine were very heavy, and when in their ful- 
 ness, went far to supply the want of rain. The "lily " is noted 
 
•7G nOSEA.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 for its beauty. Our Saviour's reference to it will be readily re- 
 called—" Consider the lilies of the field," &c. (Matt. 6 : 28, 29). 
 
 "He," Israel, " shall shoot forth his roots as Lebanon" — referring 
 to its lofty cedars which thrust their roots far out and deep down 
 among the ancient foundations of the mountains, and so withstand 
 the tempests of ages." 
 
 6. His brandies shall spread, and his beauty shall be 
 as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 
 
 The olive-tree with its lovely green, furnishes another image of 
 God's people under his faithful culture. Some of the trees and 
 shrubs of Lebanon were fragrant, and perfumed the atmosphere of 
 the mountain, as is indicated here, "the smell of Lebanon." 
 
 T. They that dwell nnder his shadow shall return ; 
 they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine : the 
 scent thereof shall he as the wine of Lebanon. 
 
 '"'■Ills shadow " is that of God — perhaps suggested by the tacit 
 
 allusion to the cedars of Lebanon, whose sh.-ide is magnificent. 
 
 The word tendered scent, in the last clause, is memorial — the same 
 used 12 : 5 — meaning, they shall be renowned in fame, as the wine 
 of Lebanon which has to this day the highest repute. 
 
 8. Ephraim shall say^ What have I to do any more 
 with idols ? I have heard hirn^ and observed him : I am 
 like a green fir-tree. From me is thy fruit found. 
 
 Ephraim renounces idols for ever. The Lord takes note of this, 
 
 and will observe — watch over him with a loving father's care. 
 
 The fir-tree is an evergreen, — setting forth here that God's love 
 and care are ever enduring — green through all the year. And if 
 the thought should arise, "But it yields no fruit" — the Lord at 
 once forestalls that objection. "From me is thy fruit found;" all 
 fruit comes, not from creatures, even the best and surest of them, 
 but from myself. 
 
 9. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things f 
 prudent, and he shall know them ? for the ways of the 
 LoKD are right, and the just shall walk in them : but the 
 transo-ressors shall fall therein. 
 
 The interrogatives here call the reader's special attention. The 
 subject-matter of this book — God's ways of judgment and of mercy 
 toward his people, wayward or penitent — are here set before you ; 
 whoever is wise shall understand them and learn their lessons of 
 
 great truth and of practical life. For God's ways are altogether 
 
 right ; tlie just, in the sense of upright, honest, and sincere, shall 
 walk in them with peace and gladness through usefulness and honor 
 here to a blissful end hereafter; but transgressors, whom no truth 
 
HOSEA.— CHAP. XIV. 77 
 
 can reach to bless, sliall stumble and fall under the very influences 
 tbat bring salvation to the just. 
 
 Such are the lessons of this richly instructive book of Ilosca. 
 We shall need to go far to find other writings more forcible, more 
 tersely written, more beautifid in their poetic imagery, more burn- 
 ing in their rebukes of sin, and more gloAving in their testimonies 
 to the deep compassion and yearning love of God toward sinful 
 man. 
 
JOEL, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The precise date and duration of the proplictic life of Joel may 
 be conjectured, but cannot be certainly known. lie is not named 
 elsewhere in the Old Testament Scriptures. His prophecy seems to 
 be quoted both by Amos (compare Amos 1 : 2 with Joel 3:10) and 
 by Isaiah (compare Isaiah 13: 6 with Joel 1 : 15). Amos prophe- 
 sied at some period within the long reig^is of Uzziah of Judah, b. o. 
 811-759, and of Jeroboam 11. of Israel, b. c. 825-784. Hence,- if 
 the writings of Joel were in the hands of Amos, he cannot have 
 prophesied later than the reign of Uzziah ; he may have been many 
 years earlier. His book shows that he prophesied in Judah, and 
 that the temple worship was then kept up. Eemarkably, the book 
 does not notice tlie kingdom of the ten tribes nor the sin of idola- 
 try. The people are exhorted to repentance, to fasting, weeping, 
 and rending of the heart. It may be inferred that in such a book 
 idolatry would have been rebuked if it had been then prevalent. 
 Some have argued, from his silence respecting the Syrian power, 
 while he mentions Tyre and Sidon (3 : 4) as enemies, that he must 
 have lived before their first invasion of Judah in the time of Ahab 
 (reigned B. o. 918-897). See 1 Kings, chapters 20-22. But this 
 cannot be conclusive, since he might know the Syrian kingdom as 
 an enemy, and yet not mention it. Some weight is rightly given to 
 the liict that the compilers of these sacred books have placed Joel 
 between Hosea and Amos. In general, they observed the order of 
 time, and it is safe to assume that, living so near the age of those 
 prophets, they must have known with a fair measure of accuracy 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. I. 79 
 
 when Joel lived and wrote. This compilatiori is usually ascribed 
 to Ezra and his associates — perhaps we should rather say, Ezra and 
 his successors. The earliest historical notice of a collection known 
 as " the Twelve Minor Prophets," is in the book of " Ecclesiasti- 
 cus," or "Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach" (49:10), in these 
 words: "And of the Twelve Prophets let the memorial he blessed, 
 and let their hones flourish again out of their place, for they com- 
 forted Jacob and delivered them by assured hope." The original 
 of this hook hears date 180 b. c. But there is good reason to sup- 
 pose this compilation to he not much if any later than Malachi, 
 about 420 b. c. Joel may liave been somewhat earlier than Ilosea, 
 and yet be placed after him in order because shorter or for other 
 reasons. I incline to assign him an earlier date than Hosea. Pos- 
 sibly (not probably) the famine which he portrays so vividly was 
 that terrible one of seven years referred to (2 Kings 8 : 1) in the 
 reign of Jehosaphat in Judah (reigned b. o. 914-891) and of Jeho- 
 ram, son of Ahab, in Israel (reigned b. c. B96-884). With these 
 only approximate results I pass the question of date. 
 
 Another question, at once more difficult and more important, 
 respects the principles of interpretation which shall rule throughout 
 the first two chapters. On this depends the determination of the 
 primary and proper sense. On this point very able commentators 
 disagree. It is admitted by all that the language seeing to describe 
 a fearful visitation of locusts, coupled with drought and consequent 
 famine. But some, with Dr. Hengstenherg, hold that there were 
 no real locusts. Foreign enemies "present themselves to the in- 
 ward contemplation of the prophet as an all-devouring swarm of 
 locusts." — (Vol. 3 : 103.) That is, Joel saw the locusts only in vis- 
 ion; the only real visitation was that of armed men — the real 
 
 scourge was war. Others, with Dr. Henderson, find real locusts, 
 
 desolating the land, throughout chapter 1. In chapter 2, armed 
 bands are the real thing, but they are compared to locusts. The 
 locust bands, then recent, furnish the imagery by which they are 
 
 described. Others still suppose that real locusts are definitely 
 
 described throughout chapter 1, and also 2 : 1-27. Yet this being a 
 most fearful visitation, a striking and even appalling proof of God's 
 power to inflict judgments on guilty men and guilty nations, it be- 
 came naturally suggestive of what the wicked have to fear in some 
 other and more terrible " great day of the Lord." Without ad- 
 mitting the doctrine of a doable sense, i. e., two distinct and coOr- 
 
go JOEL.— CIIAr. I. 
 
 dinato senses of the same words and phrases, it may yet he reason- 
 ably held that a fearful devastation by locusts may suggest the ruin 
 brought on a country by war, or by those unknown agencies of 
 destruction wliich God has in store for the gTiilty in his magazines 
 
 of wrath. This latter view I accept, constrained in general by 
 
 the fact that this seems to be the obvious sense of the passage. 
 
 My plan of commentary precludes any extended discussion of 
 opinions from which I dissent, yet briefly I must reject the firet 
 theory above named as too foreign from the obvious sense of the 
 language. There is no hint that the locusts are seen in vision only, 
 and stand merely as symbols and figures of armed men. Heng- 
 ^tenberg speaks of it as an '^allegory," but the manner and air of 
 an allegory are wanting. Every allegory should furnish clear evi- 
 dence of its being such. Besides this, an allegory should not give 
 
 a minute natural history of the locust. The second theory fails 
 
 to harmonize with the drift of the description, for the second chap- 
 ter gives us locusts as clearly as the first. In vs. 4-9 these locusts 
 are compared to armed men — not armed men to locusts — a distinc- 
 tion v/hich Dr. Ilcndei-son seems to ignore or at least overlook. 
 
 Other remarks bearing on the true interpretation may be suggested 
 in the notes on particular passages. 
 
 In this book there will be very little occasion to comment on 
 the meaning of particular words and clauses. Tlie received trans- 
 lation in most cases is excellent, and gives the sense of the original 
 with accuracy. The point of chief difficulty and of greatest mo- 
 ment is, to arrive at the ultimate sense and instruction — the mind 
 of the Spirit of truth. 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 A PLAGUE of locusts comcs upon the land, unparalleled in its 
 kind; they are described, vs. 6, 7, their devastations, vs. 9-12, 16- 
 20, and various classes of the people are summoned to mourning, 
 vs. 5, 8, 9, 13, and to fasting, v. 14. 
 
 1. The word of the Lokd that came to Joel the son 
 of Pethuel. 
 
 With the greatest brevity we are simply told that this book U 
 the word of God that came to Joel. 
 
 2. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhab- 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. I. gl 
 
 itants of the land. Ilatli this been in your days, or 
 even in the days of your fathers ? 
 
 3. Tell ye your children of it, and let your children 
 tell their children, and their children another generation. 
 
 "Hath this been in your clays?" must mean, Hath SlTij such 
 thing as this been — any visitation so fearful and so desolating? Ho 
 appeals to tlie oldest men to say if, either in their days or in the 
 days of their fathers, so great a judgment in its kind has befallen 
 the land. V. 4 opens the description. 
 
 4. That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the 
 locust eaten ; and that which the locust hath left hath 
 the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker- 
 worm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten. 
 
 Successive armies of locusts come upon the land, each, accord- 
 ing to the strong language of this description, devouring all that 
 
 the next preceding had left. Great labor has been expended on 
 
 the natural history of the locusts spoken of in the Bible. They 
 appear under about ten different names, but whether these names 
 represent ten distinct species remains in doubt. This point has no 
 
 very great practical importance. It is important, however, to 
 
 the full impression of these chapters, that the power of these locusts 
 for devastation should be understood. One author says: "Man 
 can conquer the tiger and the lion ; can turn the course of mighty 
 rivers, and chain the winds to his car, and can play with the light- 
 nings of heaven, but he is nothing before an army of locusts." 
 Another says; " In some regions of the East the whole earth is at 
 times covered with locusts for the space of several leagues, often to 
 the depth of four, sometimes of six or seven inches. Their ap- 
 proach, with a noise like the rushing of a torrent, darkens the hori- 
 zon, hides the light of the sun, and casts an awful gloom like that 
 of an echpse over the fields." Major Moore, when at Poonah, had 
 an opportunity of seeing an immense army of locusts which rav- 
 aged the Mahratta country, and was supposed to have come from 
 Arabia. Their column extended five hundred miles, and so com- 
 pact was it when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely 
 hid the sun. Pliny calls them " a scourge in the hand of an in- 
 censed Deity." Before them all verdure disappears; the whole 
 country puts on the appearance of being burnt. Fire itself devours 
 not so fast. ISTot a vestige of vegetation is left behind them. In 
 a few hours they eat up every green thing, and consign the mis- 
 erable inhabitants to inevitable famine. "The husbandmen make 
 every effort possible to stay or turn aside these foes or destroy 
 them; they build fires or raise a dense smoke to withstand them, 
 or dig trenches and fill them with water, but all to no purpose ; for 
 the trenches are soon filled and the fires extinguished by infinite 
 swarms succeeding one another, and forming a bed on their fields 
 4* 
 
gg JOEL.— CHAP. I. 
 
 of six or seven inches in tliickness. When they die the effluna 
 becomes intolerable, and often lias occasioned a pestilence fearfully 
 destructive to human life." These few facts will suffice to show 
 that the locust is one of the most terrible agents for destruction in 
 the hands of the Almighty. 
 
 5. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ; and howl, all 
 ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine ; for it is 
 cut oif from your mouth. 
 
 "Wine-drinkers are called to weep and howl, because their new 
 wine, called " must," fails them. 
 
 6. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, 
 and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, 
 and he hath the che(?k teeth of a great lion. 
 
 Y. He hath laid^iy vine waste, and barked my fig 
 tree : he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away ; the 
 branches thereof are made white. 
 
 The word here rendered " nation " is usually apx)lied to heathen 
 nations, considered as the enemies of God and of his 'people. In 
 this case it implies that they are public enemies, a scourge sent of 
 God upon his land. They are strong by reason of their great num- 
 bers ; their teeth are terrible because of the devastations they can 
 make. Stripping off all the foliage and even the bark, they leave 
 
 only a mass of ruins and bare white branches. The grasshopper 
 
 of our country bears a close resemblance to the oriental locust. 
 The latter, however, appear in immensely gi-eater numbers, and 
 make their desolations absolutely complete and universal. 
 
 8. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for 
 the husband of her youth. 
 
 0. The meat-ofiering and the drink-offering is cut 
 off from the house of the Loud ; the priests, the Lord's 
 ministers, mourn. 
 
 10. The field is wasted, the land mourneth ; for the 
 corn is wasted : the new wine is dried up, the oil 
 languisheth. 
 
 By a change in the usage of our English woivi " meat," within the 
 last two hundred years, it has come to mean the flesh of animals. 
 Anciently it was used in the general sense of food, and sometimes in 
 the specific sense oivcgctcible food. Thus (Gen. 1 : 29, 30) God said, " I 
 have given to you," i. e. toman, " every herb, and the frait of trees, 
 ioY meat f and "to every beast," &c., "have I given every green 
 
 herb for meaV So here, this "meat-offering" consisted of 
 
 Hour, nieal, or cakes, with oil, frankincense, but not a particle of 
 flesh. Hence the locusts swept it all away. Those who loved 
 
JOEL.— CIIAP. I. 83 
 
 the service of the Lord were specially afflicted, because tlioj wero 
 no longer able to bring to liis temple the accustomed and required 
 offerings. 
 
 11. Be ye asliained, O ye hiisbandmen ; liowl, O ye 
 vine-dressers, for tlie wheat and for the barley ; because 
 the liarvest of the fiekl is perished. 
 
 Coiifoiindcd expresses the exact sense, rather than " ashamed," 
 since shame properly implies some sense of guilt. Here the idea is 
 that they were at their \vit"'s end — all their labor had come to 
 nanght. 
 
 12. The Tine is dried np and the fig-tree hmguish- 
 eth ; the pomegranate-tree, the pahn-tree also, and the 
 apple-tree, even ail the trees of the field, are withered : 
 because joy is withered away from the sons of men. 
 
 13. Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, 
 ye rainistei's of the altar : come, lie all night in sack- 
 v.'loth, ye ministers of my God : for the meat-offering and 
 the drink-oftering is ^\'ithholden from the house of your 
 God. 
 
 11, Sanctify ye a fjist, call a solemn assembly, gather 
 the elders and all the inhabitants of the land i7ito the 
 house of the Lokd your God, and cry unto the Loud. 
 
 The evil was by lav the more serious, since not only the vege- 
 tables — annual plants — but trees of many year*' growth, withered 
 and died under this fearful scourge, so that joy— the joy men feel 
 in these sources of eaj;thly good — withered away. Here is an- 
 other call to mourning over these calamiti<3s, and especially and 
 most pertinently to fasting, and to a general gathering in the house 
 of God to lift up their prayer to him, l!«[othing can be more ap- 
 propriate in seasons of calamity than to humble our hearts before 
 the Lord, and seek his face with deep humility for our great sins. 
 
 15. Alas for the day ! for the day of the Lord is at 
 hand, and as a destruction from tJie Almighty shall it 
 come. 
 
 The locusts being spoken of as present and this " day of the 
 Lord" as being only "?imr," grave questions arise here ; viz. : What 
 is this "day of the Lord" which is near, but not (as it would seem) 
 yet present ? Is it the visitation of locusts, and nothing beyond 
 and greater? If something beyond and gi-eater, then icJiat pre- 
 cisely is it? Does the prophet intend to make his description of it 
 detinite, as of some special event ^ or rather to leave it indefinite, 
 designing only to impress the thought of the awfulness and terror 
 of QoiVs retributive judgments, however <mid whenever sent? 
 
84 JOEL.— CHAP. I. 
 
 If there were notliing else in Joel but this (v. 15), looking tow- 
 ard another great day of the Lord, there would be no special 
 difliculty in interj^reting this of the locusts exclusively. For it 
 miglit be urged that the locusts were even then scarcely present, 
 and the terribleness of this scourge was still in the nearer future; 
 that the tenses in Hebrew and especially in prophecy are not used 
 with such definite precision as in most other languages ; also, that 
 the next verses continue the subject of locusts and the drought as 
 
 if no other thought had been before the writer's mind. But 
 
 this verse does not stand alone in reference to the question now 
 before us. The passage (2:1) repeats — "For the day of the Lord 
 Cometh, for it is nigh at hand;" and, of more weight still (in 2 : 81) 
 we read: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon 
 into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." 
 This plainly shows that the prophet has some thouglit of another 
 great and fearful, but somewhat remote, " day of the Lord," besides 
 this in which locusts are the manifestation of his retributive ven- 
 geance. Here, then, are various allusions to a "great day of the 
 
 Lord," to be explained and accounted for. Do we not find the key 
 to their exposition in those laws of mental association which, under 
 tlie awe-inspiring power of a present judgment, like this of locusts, 
 carry the mind over to the more awful future — to the great power 
 of Almighty God to bring forth from the storehouse of his plagues 
 far more terrible, annihilating judgments, and which make every 
 mind feel that God's judgments are near at hand? This law of 
 mind is well known. The effect of any present judgment is to 
 make all future judgments seem near. It leads the mind to antici- 
 pate them with confidence, to take this present one as itself a proph- 
 ecy and pledge of more and other in the future, and to lose sigiit 
 of whatever time may intervene before they come. Thus, a single 
 death-bed scene makes death seem near to ourselves. Sudden 
 deaths by hundreds, as in the awful cholera pestilence, make stout 
 hearts quail under a sense of God's power and justice, so that it 
 shall seem that deatli and judgment are at the door. Moreover, a 
 guilty conscience fearfully heightens tliis sense of the great day of 
 
 the Lord as near at hand. Thus powerfully suggestive was this 
 
 fearful day of visitation by locusts. It brought fresh to the proph- 
 et's mind a sense of the awful guilt of his people, and of tlie 
 certainty and nearness of God's sorer judgments. And, moreover, 
 as he wrote /c>7* moral impression, and as the divine Spirit had this 
 main if not sole purpose, it need not surprise us that he deems it 
 of no special importance to speak more definitely of the time or 
 manner of these yet future visitations of judgment. Suffice it if he 
 can impress on the souls of wicked men the solemn thought that 
 God's great day of judgment to tlicm cannot be long delayed ! 
 
 Yet further, as bearing on the sense of this verse, let it be noted 
 that the most fearful thing in any form of judgment is that it comes 
 from God^ and is a proof of his stern displeasure. The conscious 
 sense of his wrath burning against us is of all things most awful 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. I. 85 
 
 Tliis becomes fit'.y the all-absorbing thouglit. Any form of judg- 
 ment may suffice to awaken this feeling. Once awakened in a 
 consciously guilty bosom, the man knows and feels that more and 
 greater demonstrations of God's displeasure must be near. 
 
 In view of these laws of mind and of their relations to the 
 question in hand, I see in this verse, and also in 2:1, no evidence 
 of allusion to any other siiedfic day, as e. g. the invasion of the 
 Assyrian array. To suppose this, seems foreign from the general 
 drift of the prophet's thought. Besides, if he had wished to predict 
 that invasion, it is marvellous that he should not have made his 
 statements more defini te. The original words rendered "destruc- 
 tion" and '' ahniglity " are from kindred roots — as if we should say, 
 " a miglity vm\i from the Almighty hand." 
 
 16. Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea^ 
 joy and gladness from the house of om- God ? 
 
 The same idea as in v. 9, resumed and reiterated interrogatively 
 — Is it not so ? The prophet reverts to the subject in hand (vs. 2-14) 
 as if no thought of any other day had come in to divert it. This 
 fiict shows that v. 15 is no new and foreign subject, but only some- 
 thing naturally suggested by his main theme. 
 
 17. The seed is rotten nnder their clods, the garners 
 are laid desolate, the barns are broken down ; for the 
 corn is withered. 
 
 The effects of extreme drought, coupled witli the v.'ork of the 
 locusts. No seed vegetates ; all harvests fail. 
 
 18. How do the beasts groan ! the herds of cattle are 
 perplexed, because they have no pasture ; yea, the flocks 
 of sheep are made desolate. 
 
 The "cattle are perplexed" — the original word, looldug, how- 
 ever, not so much to a state of mind as to its manifestations. They 
 wander up and down as if bewildered and at their wit's end. 
 
 19. O LoKD, to thee will I cry : for the fire hath de- 
 voured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath 
 burned all the trees of the field. 
 
 20. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee : for the 
 rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured 
 the pastures of the wilderness. 
 
 The prophet declares his purpose to cry unto the Lord for help 
 and mercy, for the twofold reason that his heart feels so, and that 
 he would lead the people also to prayer for help. 
 
 Thus closes this chapter — a most graphic, life-like description of 
 a fearful devastation by drought and locusts — so severe and so ter- 
 rible as to impress the mind with a sense of the weakness of man 
 
80 JOEL.— CHAP. II. 
 
 before the great and dreadful God, and of his guilt before Ono too 
 holj to pass over sin without manifesting his sore displeasure. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The great alarm is sounded forth from the temple as usual in tho 
 presence of some dire calamity (v. 1) ; a more full description of 
 the locusts is given — in part personal (vs. 4-9, and in part general 
 and in the line of their eftects (vs. 2, 3, 10, 11) : the Lord exhorts 
 the people to return to him (vs. 12-14). A solemn assembly is 
 called for fasting and prayer (vs. 15-17) ; the Lord answers gra- 
 ciously (vs. 18-20), and passes over to rich promises of mercy, in- 
 cluding rain and abundant harvests (vs. 21-27); and finally to the 
 fuller promise of his Spirit in the latter time (vs. 2o, 28-32). 
 
 1. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm 
 in my lioly mountain : let all the inhabitants of the land 
 tremble : for the day of the Lokd cometh, for it is nigh 
 at hand ; 
 
 " Blowing the trumpet and sounding an alarm " from tho 
 temple was of divine appointment in the law given through Moses. 
 (See Num. 10: 1-10.) It convened the people to consider and act 
 upon any case of general calamity, and had the promise — " Ye shall 
 be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved 
 
 from your enemies." The near " coming of the day of the Lord" 
 
 is analogous to chap. 1:15, and must be explained in the same way. 
 
 2. A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of 
 clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon 
 the mountains : a great people and a strong ; there hath 
 not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after 
 it, even to the years of many generations. 
 
 Darkness is often, with the Hebrew poets especially, a symbol 
 of calamity. In this verse, however, there is no occasion to inter- 
 pret it as a symbol. It is rather actual — the darkness produced by 
 immense clouds of locusts, obscuring the light of day. This dark- 
 ness came on and passed over the land " as the light of morning 
 spread over the mountains ;" where the point of the comparison is 
 not in any supposed resemblance between darkness and light, for 
 there is none ; but in the manner of its coming on over the face of 
 the earth. As the morning light sweeps up from the east, tirst 
 gilding the mountain-tops, and then quietly pervading the whole 
 hice of the earth, so this darkness swept on as an avalanche of 
 cloud, and rested like a dark pall of gloom and terror on the whole 
 land. That this visitation should be described as surpassing '.ir, 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. II. 87 
 
 ever known before, and even any tLat should come after for many 
 generations, need not surprise us. It may have been strictly true of 
 \tw7iileU lasted, and in r(ference to judgments of this sort. More- 
 over, men suifering under any fearlul infliction, naturally express 
 themselves in such strong terms. 
 
 3. A fire devouretli before them ; and behind them a 
 flame bnrneth : the land is as the garden of Eden before 
 them, and behmd them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and 
 nothing shall escape them. 
 
 "Fire" and "flame" are probably figurative; the desolation 
 they wrought being like that of fire on the prairies, as if fire swept 
 on before them, and again behind them, leaving absolutely noth- 
 ing more to be destroyed. Exquisitely forcible and touching is 
 this — the land seen in all the beauty of Eden before them, but be- 
 hind them only a desolate wilderness. 
 
 4. The appearance of them is as the aj)pearance of 
 horses ; and as horsemen so shall they run. 
 
 5. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of moun- 
 tains shall they leap, like the noise of a ilame of fire 
 that deYOureth the stubble, as a strong people set in 
 battle array. 
 
 Locusts have been often compared to hor.ses, as in Rev. 9:7:— 
 "The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for 
 battle." They are fleet like horsemen, moving rapidly with the 
 wind. 'The figure of an army moving in solid phalanx and fear- 
 ful array, is constantly present to the mind. Yet the thing described 
 is an army, not of men, but of locusts. The locusts are Wee armed 
 horsemen. He does not say that armed horsemen arc coming on, 
 and are like locusts. 
 
 6. Before their face the people shall be much pained : 
 all faces shall gather blackness. 
 
 The word rendered " blackness " means rather a glow or flush 
 of anxiety. The sense is — the people become intensely agitated 
 with fear and alarm. 
 
 Y. They shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb 
 the wall like men of war ; and they shall march every 
 one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks : 
 
 8. I^either shall one thrust another ; they shall w\alk 
 every one in his path : and when they fill upon the 
 sword, they shall not be wounded. 
 
 9. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall 
 
88 JOEL.—CIIAP. 11. 
 
 run upon tlie wall, tliey shall climb up upon tlie Louses ; 
 tliey shall enter in at the windows like a thief. 
 
 It cannot be reasonably doubted that this is, and is intended to 
 be, a closely accurate description of locusts, as they sweep along in 
 their onward march for devastation. Every feature is in its place, 
 made true to the reality by a master's hand. That the sword avails 
 nothing against them goes to confirm this view, and to shut off the 
 possibility of applying the description to the Assyrian array. 
 
 10. The earth shall quake before them ; the heavens 
 shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and 
 the stars shall withdraw their shining : 
 
 Strong poetic imagery should not be pressed to an extremely 
 literal sense. In this passage, we need not insist that the locusts 
 produced an earthquake, or any real concussion of the heavens. 
 Jerome says pertinently on this passage : " Not that the locusts 
 have so much power that they can move the heavens and shake the 
 earth ; but to those who are in great suffering and extreme terror, 
 it will seem that the heavens are falling and the earth tossing under 
 
 their feet." Strong feeling naturally expresses itself in strong 
 
 language. The darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, is a com- 
 mon figure for a great calamity ; as, on the other hand, sun-rising 
 and the joyous light of day are symbols of prosperity. The reader 
 may find scriptural examples in abundance, e. g.^ of the former 
 class— Jcr. 4: 28; Ezek. 32: 7, 8; Isa. 13: 10; Matt. 24: 29. 
 
 The consternation commonly felt for many ages Avhen an eclipse 
 occurred, shows how forcible this figure must have been in ancient 
 times. Moreover, there may be here a tacit allusion to the actual 
 darkening of the heavens, occasioned by the flight of countless 
 myriads of locusts. 
 
 11. And the Lord shall utter his voice before his 
 army : for his camp is very great : for Jte is strong that 
 executeth his word : for the day of the Lokd is great and 
 very terrible ; and wdio can abide it ? 
 
 That "his army" is none other than the locusts, is put beyond 
 a doubt by the Lord himself (v. 25), where he says of the locust, 
 caterpillar, etc., " my great army which I sent among you." The 
 vv^ords in Hebrew as well as in the English version are the same in 
 both passages. This locust army is strong to execute the mandate 
 of Jehovah. Sent by him, they are terribly efiicient in devastating 
 the land. This " day of the Lord " can look to nothing else pri- 
 marily save the visitation of locusts. " Abide " is here used in 
 
 the sense of endure. 
 
 12. Therefore also now, saith the Lokd, turn ye even 
 to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and witli 
 weeping, and with mourning : 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. II. 89 
 
 13. And rend yonr heart, and not your garments, 
 and turn unto the Loed your God : for he is gracious 
 and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and 
 repenteth him of the evil. 
 
 14. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and 
 leave a blessing behind him, even a meat-olfering and a 
 drink-offering unto the Loed your God 1 
 
 This is the oulj appropri.ate thing to be done — the only source 
 of hope for deliverance — to return and seek the Lord in penitence, 
 for he is gracious and delights in mercy. AYho knows but he may 
 turn from scourging to blessing, and leave us at least so much that 
 we can bring meat and drink offerings before him at his temple ? 
 
 This moral lesson is for all time, and for all sorts of affliction 
 
 and calamity befalling men in this world. Everywhere and always, 
 be the scourge what it may, it behooves men to turn to God, con- 
 fessing sin, imploring mercy, daring to hope, since they may, that 
 the Lord will yet turn from judgment to mercy. 
 
 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a 
 solemn assembly : 
 
 16. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, 
 assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that 
 suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his 
 chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 
 
 IT. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep 
 between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Sparc 
 thy peo]3le, O Loed, and give not thine heritage to re- 
 proach, that the heathen should rule over them : where- 
 fore should they say among the people, Where is their 
 God? 
 
 This summons to a groat convocation for fasting and humiliation 
 before God, differs from that in chap. 1 : 14, in being more specific 
 as to the classes of people to be convened, and also in giving the form 
 
 of prayer appropriate for the occasion. In this prayer, the phrase, 
 
 *' that the heathen should rule over them " — ^has been thought by 
 some to be conclusive proof that the judgment described in this 
 chapter (or, as others think, in the first as well) is not locusts, but 
 
 armed men — a foreign invasion. But a single circumstance like 
 
 this cannot legitimately outweigh the continued tenor of the 
 description throughout these two entire chapters. Besides, the 
 thing chiefly feared from the heathen is reproach, not subjugation 
 — the reproach of having a God unable to save, and bent on scourg- 
 ing and devastation. This is the thought in v. 17 — " Give not 
 thine heritage to reproach;" and also in v. 19 (the Lord's reply) 
 — " I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen." It 
 
90 JOEL.—CHAP. II. 
 
 is also seen in the taunt, supposed to be in their month, " Where is 
 their God?" It is therefore onlj in harmony with the drift of 
 thoiif^lit to interpret the words rendered " rule over them," as in 
 the margin, " use a byword against them." "While it must be ad- 
 mitted that in most cases this verb means to rtile, yet the noun 
 formed from it has the sense of byword, reproach, in many passages, 
 
 and the verb is used in this sense in Job, 17: 6. Or, it might be 
 
 said that giving this phrase the sense of ruling, it may still be 
 thought of as an evil to be feared in the future, not as one suffered 
 in the present. If the land were to remain long so desolate and 
 breadless, the people would become an easy prey to any foreign 
 enemy, for such famine at once cuts the sinews of war and leaves 
 the people no power of self-defence. In this view, therefore, they 
 might fitly pray that God would remove this scourge of locusts, lest 
 otherwise the whole nation, being powerless, should fall before its 
 foreign enemies. 
 
 18. Then will tlie Loed be jealous for his land, and 
 pity his people. 
 
 19. Yea, the Lord will answer and say nnto his 
 people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, 
 and ye shall be satisfied therewith : and I will no more 
 make you a reproach among the heathen : 
 
 "Then," i. <?., when liis people hiunble themselves, and with one 
 
 heart and voice implore his mercy. Expressly the Lord is said to 
 
 be "jealous for his land," for that land which had long borne his 
 name before the nations, and with which his honor was so deeply 
 involved. The Lord's ansAver promises blessings that lie over 
 against the previous curse. He will gloriously reverse the calami- 
 ties with corresponding mercies. It may be noted that all along 
 
 through verses 19-26, these blessings point to the devastations of 
 locusts, the destruction of all the fruits of the earth, as the evils 
 under which the nation had suffered, with no clearly defined allusion 
 to foreign invasion. This fact goes for to disprove any distinct ref- 
 erence in these chapters to such invasion. 
 
 20. But I will remove far off from you the northern 
 army, and will drive him into a land barren and deso- 
 late, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder 
 part toward the utmost sea ; and his stink shall come up, 
 and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done 
 great things. 
 
 The phrase "northern army" is urged by some as decisive proof 
 of reference throughout this chapter to the Assyrians or Chaldeans, 
 and not to locusts. 
 
 Against this it may be said: (1.) Tlie manner and the conse- 
 quences of the destruction of this army, as given in this verse, show 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. IT. 91 
 
 that they are locusts, not men. In destroying this army, the Lord 
 sends a strong wind and drives them into the sea; then they are 
 thrown (this is imphed) by the waves npon tlie shore, and their 
 stench becomes intolerable. JSTot so would he destroy an army of 
 men. (2.) It is still a contested question, with authorities con- 
 flicting on either side, whether the locust armies do not sometimes 
 enter Palestine from the north or northeast, so that this army raiglit 
 be called "northern" for this reason. Or, (3.) It may be sug- 
 gested whether, inasmuch as all the great powers, hostile to Israel 
 in the latter period of their history, lay on the north, viz., Syria 
 and Assyria, this term " northern " might not be a synonym for 
 powerful, so that an army so terrible as this locust horde might be 
 called northern for tliis reason. 
 
 In the last clause, "because he hath done great things," some 
 critics suppose they find voluntary and morally responsible agency, 
 and hence they infer that it can apply only to a human foe. But 
 the indications of moral agency in this phrase are by no means de- 
 cisive. 
 
 21. Fear not, O land ; be glad and rejoice : for the 
 LoKD will do great things. 
 
 22. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the 
 pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth 
 her fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. 
 
 By a bold personification the "land" and the "beasts" are ex- 
 horted not to fear any more, for God will remove his fearful scourge. 
 
 "The Lord wiU do great things," is here finely contrasted with 
 
 the locusts " doing great things," as in v. 20. However great their 
 devastations, the Lord can make his ensuing blessings far greater. 
 He delights to set his mercies over against the mischiefs and mis- 
 eries that sin brings on men, and to show in this way how exceed- 
 ingly he m.n surpass them in the greatness and glory of his grace. 
 
 23. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in 
 the Lord your God : for he hath given you the former 
 rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you 
 the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first 
 month. 
 
 In the interpretation of this verse, the main question, one really 
 of great interest, is this: Wlietlier the passage is a promise of rain 
 only^ or iDhetlier it cojnprises a far richer promise and propliecy of 
 
 spiritual blessings? This question turns mainly on the sense 
 
 given to the original words rendered in our English text, " the for- 
 mer rain moderately," but in the margin, " a teacher of righteous- 
 ness." If the latter be the true sense, the passage will be found far 
 more rich in promised blessings than has been commonly supposed. 
 The point is worthy of carefal attention, and no apology need be 
 
92 JOEL.— CHAP. II. 
 
 made for a thorough, though it he a somewhat protracted examma 
 tion. 
 
 Tlie evidence in favor of translating ^' the teacher of righteous- 
 ness," is in my view fnllj conclusive. It may he arranged thus: 
 
 (1.) This construction hecomes antecedently prohahle in view of 
 the common prophetic usage of engrafting Messianic prophecies 
 upon analogous events of then current history. Some great present 
 mercy suggests the far greater mercies of gospel times. This usage 
 is so common that it may he considered one of the laws of Messi- 
 anic prophecy. Thus in the passage Isa. 10: 24-84, with chap. 11 
 and 12, the deliverance wrought for Israel hy the destruction of the 
 Assyrian army, suggested the greater deliverance wrought for Zion 
 by her King Messiah. In Zech. 9 : 8-10, the protection afforded 
 against Alexander the Great suggested the richer protection coming 
 from the meek and peaceful King, whose empire shall be wider as 
 well as more benign than ever was Alexander's. There is there- 
 fore not only no objection to the gospel idea in this connection, but 
 there is a measure of antecedent probability in its favor, inasmuch 
 hs the circumstances are of that very sort in which prophecies of 
 the Messiah so often occur. 1 adduce this point, however, espe- 
 cially to rebut the only objection made against the Messianic inter- 
 pretation, viz. : that it is out of place here in a strain of remark 
 about rain and fertility after famine. Henderson, Eosemueller, Gc- 
 senius, and others, seem to think this objection conclusive against 
 the reference of these words to gospel times. The facts of pro- 
 phetic usage bear in precisely the opposite direction, and show that 
 Messianic reference is here precisely in 2y^(^ce, opportune, natural, 
 probable. 
 
 (2.) The second argum.ent is of the same sort with the foregoing, 
 heightening the antecedent probability of a reference to gospel 
 blessings. It lies in the fact that the prophet gives special notice 
 that he has great blessings to promise, by calling on "the children 
 of Zion to be glad and rejoice in the Lord their God." This notice 
 very commonly and very naturally precedes a prophecy of gospel 
 blessings, as a preintimation that they are to be brought forward. 
 Thus Zech. 9:9, " Kejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O 
 daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, thy King cometh unto thee," &c. 
 And Zech. 2: 10, "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for lo, 1 
 come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord." Or, 
 Isa. 49 : 13, " Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, earth, and break 
 forth into singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his 
 people," &c. This list might be extended almost indelinitely, some- 
 times indeed with only the special call of attention, " Behold ! " 
 as in Isa. 52 : 13, and Jer. 23 : 5. This may be set down, there- 
 fore, as one of the laws of the Messianic passages, all the more 
 strong in proof of Messianic reference here, because the prophet 
 had already announced the coming fulness of bread instead of 
 emptiness, plenty in place of famine ; so that there was really no 
 occasion to call for special joy in the prospect of mere rain. In 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. II. 93 
 
 • 
 
 fact, rain was already presupposed in the verse preceding — "the 
 
 pastures of the -wilderness do spring ; the fig-tree and the vine yield 
 
 their strength." Hence there arc the hcst of reasons to look for 
 
 a promise of gospel hlessings here. Let ns now examine the words 
 themselves : 
 
 (3.) The specially essential word, rendered " the former rain," 
 is in Ilehrew, moreh,* a participle (Iliphil) from the verb t which 
 means, first, to throw or cast; then to throw javelins, spears, ar- 
 rows ; to throw drops of water, i. <?., to rain ; and to throw ont the 
 liand in pointing out objects to another, and hence, to teach. Thus, 
 from this root we in fact get words both for rain and for tcaclier. 
 Indeed, the participle in one conjugation (Kal), is used to a hmited 
 extent for rain, e. ^., Deut. 11 : 14 and Jer. 5 : 24, &c. ; while in an- 
 other conjugation (Hiphil) — the one used here — it denotes teacher. 
 
 Of course this is a question of usage. Moreh, in precisely this 
 
 ■form, occurs in the Hebrew Bible, outside of the passage before us, , 
 seven times, and in its plural three times — and in each case in tlie 
 sense oi teacher only. The passages are 2 Kings 17: 28, "he be- 
 came their teacher;" 2 Chron. 15:3, "without a teacher, a priest;" 
 Job 36 : 22 — said of God — " who is a teacher like him?" Prov. 6 : 
 13, "he is a teacher with his fingers" — (with an eye to the ety- 
 mology); Isa. 9 : 14, "the prophet, teacher of lies," (fee; Hab. 2: 18, 
 
 "teacher of lies." Ps. 84: 7 may be considered doubtful. Our 
 
 English Bible has it — "The rain also filleth the pools;" but Dr. 
 i^lexander, better, thus: "The teacher is clothed with blessings:" 
 — one of the good things about the house of God — this being the 
 
 subject-matter of the psalm. Besides these, are three instances 
 
 of the plural in the same sense of teacher; viz., Prov. 5: 13, and 
 
 Isa, 30:20 twice. Hence the usage in the sense of teacher \h 
 
 substantially universal, there being no clear case of the use of this 
 word in this form for rain^ outside of this passage in Joel. The case 
 
 Ps. 84: 7 is the only one claimed. Yet further, the usage of the 
 
 finite verb (Hiphil conjugation), in the sense of teach^ is most 
 abundant. Taylor's Concordance gives forty-three cases, but not 
 one in the sense to rain. Hence, it would seem that the facts on 
 the point of usage must be conclusive, in proof that the original 
 word moreh means here teacher. 
 
 (4.) The argument is heightened by the use of the article — the 
 teacher — the celebrated, distinguished teacher. The article appears 
 in none of the other ten cases where this word means teacher. This 
 then must be the teacher, in the highest, noblest sense. But if the 
 word is held to mean rain^ no reason can be given for the use of 
 tbe article. 
 
 (5.) By a sort of attraction, the word in the last clause of the 
 verse, rendered "former rain," takes tliis form moreh instead of the 
 usual one yoreh,| but is without the article. In other respects the 
 form is the same as before, where I render it " teacher.'^'' If this 
 
94: JOEL.— CEIAP. 11. 
 
 were a case of " renewed mention," as grammarians call it, i. e.^ if it 
 were used in the same sense here as before, and referred to that use, 
 it should have the article. If that was former rain, this should be 
 the former rain, before spoken of. But this is not the rain ; there- 
 fore that was not rain at all. 
 
 (6.) The word I render " righteousness " (in our English Bible, 
 " moderately ") demands the Messianic sense. This word * is 
 always used in the moral sense — never in the physical. It occurs 
 scores of times in the Scriptures ; never in the sense of " moderately," 
 as of rain in due measure, but always in the moral sense of morally 
 right doctrine, and a morally right life. 
 
 (7.) Another argument comes from the tenses of the two verbs 
 in this passage, rendered "hath given," and "will cause to come 
 down." This argument perhaps will not be very clear to a merely 
 English reader, yet it has essential weight. The first verb is in- 
 deed in the preter tense — a fact which may seem to preclude its 
 being a prophecy of distant future blessings. But almost all the 
 prophecies are in this very tense — so that tliis is often called "the 
 
 prophetic preter." The tense of the second verb iscuite pecaliar 
 
 — known by Hebrew grammarians as the future with vav conver- 
 sive. It indicates a connection with the preceding verb, which 
 means more than " and,^'' i. e., more than simply that one event 
 comes after the other. The connection may be expressed thus — 
 "And then or so, will he bring down rain," denoting what results 
 as a consequence, or inference, from what has been just said. In 
 the present case the relation of ideas involved in the tense of the 
 second verb may be twofold : (a.) That having promised the Teacher 
 of righteousness whose very name is associated with rain, he will 
 much more give literal rain in its time; and (b.) That having thus 
 made provision for teaching the people righteousness, the reason for 
 withholding rain for discipline or in judgment, will cease, and the 
 Lord will now give rain without stint, since he safely can, without 
 moral harm. The latter I incline to make specially prominent. 
 
 (8.) If, with our Enghsh Bible, we render "the former rain 
 moderately," then the last part of the verse is tame repetition, and 
 makes no progress in the thought : thus — " He gives you the former 
 rain moderately, and he causes to come down the rain, the former 
 and the latter rain." It is scarcely supposable that this can be the 
 true rendering. This objection cannot be relieved by the differ- 
 ence in tense, presented in our common version — " he Jiccth given ;" 
 and " he will cause to come down;" for the Hebrew tenses do not 
 sustain this distinction. 
 
 (9.) Giving this claus3 the sense — " the Teacher of righteousness " 
 with reference to spiritual blessings, and somewhat to gospel times, 
 there is a striking autitheals between this verse and v. 28 ; v. 
 23 promises "the Teacher of righteousness, in the first place." (Our 
 translators found nothing for their word "month.") The Hebrew 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. II. 95 
 
 means — "in the first place," the first instahnent of blessings. Tlien 
 V. 28 promises that '-'■ afterwards'''' another instalment shall be given. 
 As the latter is not rain, so neither is the former. As the latter is 
 
 the Spirit, so is the former. 1 suggest yet another antithesis : v. 
 
 23, addressing specially ''the children of Zion," says — " Pie gives 
 to you the Teacher of righteousness;" v. 28, over against this, has 
 it — "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.'''' In verse 23, the pro- 
 noun you is fully expressed, and for this reason, by Hebrew law, is 
 slightly emphatic, or at least distinctly prominent. Hence the evi- 
 dence of designed antithesis is the stronger. 
 
 (10.) This antithesis becomes yet somewhat more direct, if by 
 "the Teacher of righteousness " we understand the Holy Spirit — 
 the same blessing promised in v. 28, given first to the children of 
 
 Zion, and " afterwards poured out on all flesh." "All flesh," by 
 
 current usage as well as by the legitimate sense of the words, should 
 mean the whole human family, and in this antithesis, the Gentile 
 workL (See Gen. G : 12 ; Ps. G5 : 2 and 145 : 21 ; Isa. 40 : 5, 6, &c.) 
 
 True, the specifications that immediately follow lead the mind 
 
 rather to the idea of all classes of society — "sons and daughters," 
 "old men and young," "servants and handmaids" — this wide 
 range of classes being perhaps in antithesis with the former limita- 
 tions to the priestly and prophetic orders, to which latter the prom 
 ise (v. 23), may have special reference. That is, the promise ot 
 " the Teacher of righteousness," referring primarily to the Holy 
 Spirit, W'Ould contemplate the Spirit as working upon the people 
 tlirougJi his priests and prophets, and thus turning them to right- 
 eousness. The next instalment of these blessings would greatly 
 
 increase the number of his immediate agents. The New Testament 
 seems to assume that, ordinarily, the Spirit reaches the ungodly 
 through the media of Christians, working and praying " in the 
 Spirit," while he comes down upon Christians directly^ both to 
 anoint them for their Christian labor for the ungodly, and to secure 
 their own sanctification. This second instalment (v. 28) therefore 
 looks toward the unlimited extension of the Spirit's agencies by 
 multiplying the number and enlarging the circle of his immediate 
 
 agents. The arguments then against restricting the eftusion of 
 
 the Spirit, promised vs. 28, 29, to the Hebrew line, and /or its un- 
 limited extension, stand briefly thus : {a.) "All flesh" legitimately 
 means all mankind, (b.) The specifications only show that the circle 
 of special agents through whom the Spirit works will be vastly en- 
 larged — indeed, will comprise all classes of society — and thus will 
 provide the instrumentalities for diffusing the Spirit's influence over 
 all the v/orld. {c.) Peter applies " all flesh " in this large, unlimited 
 sense (Acts 2 : 21, 39) : " Whosoever shall call on the name of the 
 Lord shall be saved," (which is his version of Joel 2 : 32), and — " For 
 the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar 
 ojf, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." This argument 
 from Peter's exposition of Joel is the stronger, because it is pre- 
 eminently the Spirit's exposition, and not Peter's — the latter not 
 
90 JOEL.— CHAP. II. 
 
 having yet really understood the sense of these words. Acts 10 
 shows both when and liow his mind was opened to the i^rand idea 
 that " of a truth God is no respecter of persons ; " but gives gospel 
 blessings to Gentile as to Jew. 
 
 (11.) That Moreli^ the Teacher, refers to the Holy Spirit rather 
 than specially to the Messiah, is certainly favored by the strong anal- 
 ogy, everywhere apparent throughout the Old Testament, between 
 the Spirit and the gift of rain — between the agencies of the 
 Spirit, and reviving, cleansing water. This analogy does not hold 
 between rain and the Messiah. That rain is a symbol of the Spirit, 
 probably both in manner of coming and in consequent eifects, is 
 apparent even here in v. 28 : " I will _2-)0?('7' out my Spirit." The 
 very form of expression shows that this analogy is before the proph- 
 et's mind. So also Isa. 44 : 3, "I will pour water upon him that 
 is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground : I will pour my Spirit 
 upon thy seed, and my blessing upon their offspring." Or Ezek. 
 8G : 25, " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall 
 be clean .... from your filthiness :" — "I will put my Spirit within 
 you and cause you to walk in my statutes." The parallelisms here 
 furnish all the evidence needed to show that in these passages water 
 
 is thought of only as a figure for the Spirit. Many other passages 
 
 might be cited from the Old Testament in which the close analogy 
 between the Spirit and water is boldly prominent. Ezckiel, in his 
 last recorded vision, saw living waters flow from under the sanctuary 
 and soon become a mighty river — manifestly looking onward to 
 that blessed age when the fulness of the Spirit shall be shed forth to 
 make pure and effective all the forms of social and moral influences 
 in human society. Let us note also that this passage (Ezek. 47) is 
 the more in point here because it was manifestly suggested by tlie 
 passage Joel 3:18, and is strictly an expansion of Joel's thought : 
 — " All the rivers of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain 
 shall come forth of the house of the Lord^ and shall water the valley 
 of Shitlim!" 
 
 (12.) It is plausibly objected to the rendering, " Teacher of 
 righteousness," that, admitting it, the thought is dropped too soon, 
 and that the current of remark (vs. 24-27) seems to ignore it, as it 
 could not if the gospel idea were really there in the words which I 
 render "The Te-acher of righteousness;" in other words, that 
 room enough is not allowed for a thought so great and so import- 
 ant as this. A closer examination will obviate this objection. 
 
 First, the greatest joy is invoked in view of the gift of the Teacher 
 of righteousness. Then this teacher is to be a fresent as well as a 
 future blessing, inasmuch as he will manifest his power throngh his 
 anointed servants — the priests and the prophets of the old dispen- 
 sation. See Zech. 4 throughout, and especially vs. 11-14. Hence 
 the prosperity of the people will hopefully become both great and 
 permanent, since, when they are radically turned to righteousness, 
 
 nothing will restrain the rich gifts of God's providence. More- 
 
 ovei", these views and theL'j only give their full force to verses 26, 
 
JOEL.—CHAP. 11. 97 
 
 27 — " Yo shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name 
 of tlie Lord your God who hath dealt wondrously with you ; and 
 my people shall never be ashamed; and ye shall know that I am 
 in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and none 
 
 else ; and my people shall never be ashamed." That they should 
 
 praise God who had " wrought wondrously " in scourging them for 
 their sins, and in thus drawing them back to humiliation, repent- 
 ance, and a godly life ; that they should know that the Lord is their 
 God and is verily in the midst of them — know it by his discipline 
 and by its " peaceable fruits of righteousness ; " that they should 
 never be put to shame before their foes, but always live so that the 
 Lord should be their trust and salvation; all these things imply 
 more than a present supply of rain. Their meaning cannot be ex- 
 hausted short of a living fountain of sph-itual truth and life, flow- 
 ing from the great Teacher of righteousness through his inspired 
 l)rophets. 
 
 (13.) Still another objection will strike many minds against the 
 assumed antithesis between the clauses " Teacher of righteous- 
 ness," V. 23, and '* I will pour out my Spirit," v. 28, viz.. Why are 
 the names and statements so diverse if they mean the same thing ? 
 If V. 23 means the Holy Spirit, why did not the language say so? 
 
 I reply (a.) As I have already hinted, there may be some re- 
 gard to these facts, viz., that rain is before the mind; that the ideas 
 of rain and of teacher are associated in the same Hebrew verb ; and 
 yet more, that there is a close and constant analogy in the Hebrew 
 mind between water and rain on the one hand, and the Holy Spirit 
 on the other. (&.) But probably more weight still in determin- 
 ing the jfoj^m of the expression " Teacher of righteousness," is due 
 to the nature of the case in hand, the special sort of blessing 
 needed by the peoi)le, as seen in the light of events then present. 
 Great sin had brought upon them a great scourge of locusts, drought 
 and famine. Eepentance »and divine mercy had driven off the lo- 
 custs and brought them rain and bread, but yet the people were 
 not half saved without a permanent Teacher of righteousness. A 
 divine teacher, himself teaching their teachers, and holding the 
 people permanently to righteousness, was precisely the greatest 
 blessing possible in their case; was the very blessing they needed; 
 
 was the only thing requisite to fill their cup full. These now are 
 
 not only reasons why God should give the people his Spirit, but 
 were also reasons why He should designate him thus : " The Teacher 
 of righteousness." This name indicated the work most essential 
 then, in the light of the recent calamities and their causes. Hence 
 the name. It is shaped by the surroundings, by the facts then spe- 
 cially present to the mind. Why should it not be ? 
 
 Finally, since this special interpretation which refers the phrase 
 " Teacher of righteousness " rather to the Spirit than to the Son, U 
 mainly if not wholly new, I choose to present it as a suggestion. 
 I do not press it as a j)oint of vital importance. That the passage 
 promises spiritual and not temporal blessings, the teaching of right- 
 5 
 
98 JOEL.— CHAP. II. 
 
 eousness and not merely the gift of rain, I think is entirely clear 
 
 and withal a point of practical value. Theologically there can 
 
 be no prejudice against it, for while teaching was one office of the 
 Messiah, it was not the only or the chief one, but it is the chief and 
 characteristic function of the Spirit. Jesus himself said of the 
 Spirit, " He shall teach you all tilings ; " and yet more, if possible, 
 to the point in hand, "When he is come, he will reprove the world 
 of sin and of righteousness.'''' 
 
 24. And tlie floors sliall be full of wheat, and the 
 fats shall overflow with wme and oil. 
 
 25. And I will restore to you the years that the lo- 
 cust hath eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, 
 and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among 
 you. 
 
 In the clause " The years that the locust hath eaten," the plu- 
 ral "years" indicates that this scourge was not transient nor lim- 
 ited even to one year, but continued through several, a most terrific 
 visitation of divine judgment. But the Lord would make good to 
 his people all the losses and sufferings of those long-remembered 
 years. He seems to refer primarily to restoration in Mnd^ i. e., in 
 corn, and wine, and oil ; but if he would restore those things of less 
 value, how much more will he make up their losses in the earthly 
 line by superabounding mercies in the spiritual line ! This is the 
 wise and ever precious way of the Lord to restore to his penitent 
 people earthly good in just measure, but heavenly, in all the plen- 
 itude of his grace. 
 
 26. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and 
 praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt 
 wondrously with you : and my people shall never be 
 ashamed. 
 
 27. And ye shall know that I aQn in the midst of 
 Israel, and that I am the Lokd your God, and none else : 
 and my people shall never be ashamed. 
 
 A thanksgiving festival' over^ these mercies would be eminently 
 fitting, especially the thanksgiving and the praise. Tliis repeti- 
 tion is designed to give special force to two ideas : (1) that God's 
 people should hnoio by their precious experience that their own 
 God is in the midst of them, a Power and a Eefugc, and an only 
 God, there being no other; and (2) that his people, confiding in his 
 love and help, shall never be put to shame. This confidence in 
 their God can never prove abortive. It is always safe to trust in 
 his name. So trusting, his people never have been confounded and 
 
 never can be. Knowing by personal experience that God is in 
 
 the midst of us through scenes of sore affliction, until deliverance 
 and restoring mercy appear, implies that we apprehend the great 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. II. 99 
 
 idea of God's use of earthly discipline, viz., to make all tilings work 
 together for good to those who love him. When Israel came out 
 from under the scourge of locusts and famine, penitent and hum- 
 bled, drawn thereby the nearer to God, and made fully aware that 
 his hand had been afflicting them in mercy for their spiritual good, 
 they might well be said to know that God had been in the midst 
 of them all the time as their own Lord God. 
 
 28. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will 
 pour out my Spirit upon all flesli ; and your sons and 
 your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream 
 dreams, your young men shall see visions : 
 
 29. And also upon the servants and upon the hand- 
 maids in those days will I pour out my Spirit. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this passage predicts the effusion of 
 the Spirit in the gospel sense, and particularly, though not exclu- 
 sively, in gospel times. That the specifications should point to the 
 extraordinary rather than the ordinary operations of the Spirit, 
 i. e., to visions, dreams, and prophetic functions, rather than to his 
 more common, now more useful but less palpable ministries of 
 convicting, converting, and sanctifying grace — has the same reason 
 in prophecy that it had in the fact itself on the day of Pentecost, 
 viz., the importance of having the Spirit's earlier manifestations 
 made so tangible as to convince gainsayers and demonstrate his 
 
 presence and power. "All flesh" must mean the whole race, 
 
 without distinction of Jew or Gentile. This usage is fully estab- 
 lished. In addition to the passages referred to in notes on v. 23, 
 see Gen. 9:17; Num. 16 : 22 ; Isaiah 60 : 23 ; Luke 3:6; and John 
 IT : 2. The specifications given here, " your sons and your daugh- 
 ters," " your old men and your young men," " the servants and 
 the handmaids," go to show that there shall also be no distinction 
 of sex or age, of rank or station. As the gospel was to be preached 
 to the poor, so the Spirit should come down upon servants and 
 handmaids, as well as upon their employers, however rich and 
 noble. It may also be intended that this spiritual illumination 
 shall not be restricted to the orders of priests and prophets, but 
 
 diffused through all grades and classes. The question Whe7i? 
 
 must not be overlooked. The only designation of time given here, 
 " afterwards," in future time, was purposely left thus indefinite. 
 The period before Christ and subsequent to Joel, is not necessarily 
 excluded ; the early years of the Christian age are certainly in- 
 cluded, as Peter shows (Acts 2 : 16-21) in his citation of this pas- 
 sage as then having its fulfilment ; nor can the yet future periods 
 of the gospel age be shut out. Indeed, numerous prophecies show 
 that in the times yet future there shall be far richer manifestations 
 of the Spirit's power than the world has yet seen. Nothing in 
 prophecy, nothing in Peter's reference to Joel on the day of Pente- 
 cost, forbids this belief. The connection of thought in which this 
 
100 JOEL.— CHAP. II. 
 
 prophecy stands has been already noticed. The great deliveraiica 
 wrought for the covenant people on their repentance, by driving 
 away the fearful locust army and by giving instead copious rains 
 and superabundant harvests, suggested the far richer mercies of the 
 divine Spirit. The underlying cause of both is the same — God's 
 loving-kindness and great mercy. It is only in accordance with 
 well-known laws of mind that one great blessing should suggest 
 
 another yet greater. Finally, let us notice the favor shown by 
 
 the Lord to ihe saints of that early age, in setting before them such 
 glimpses of die better gospel days yet to come, and particularly 
 such revelations of the future effusions of the Spirit. It must have 
 ministered greatly to their faith in God and to their hope and joy 
 in his kingdom among men. 
 
 30. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in 
 the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. 
 
 31. The snn shall be turned into darkness, and the 
 moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day 
 of the LoED come. 
 
 Striking portents and prodigies shall precede the coming of. 
 " the great and terrible day of the Lord." The two main ques- 
 tions here are (1) Whether this language respecting the sun and 
 moon shall be taken in a strictly literal or a figurative sense ? and 
 (2) Whether the reference is to some one great day only, and if so 
 to what ? or whether the passage teaches or implies a general truth, 
 viz., that portents shall appear prior to all the really great and sig- 
 nal manifestations of the Lord's judgments on the wicked? As 
 
 to the first question, what is said of the sun and moon must be un- 
 derstood of their appearance, and not of their reality. On the 
 question whether these extraordinary things pertain to the realm 
 of nature or the realm of society, I incline to decide for the 
 former, and so far forth to give them a literal construction. That 
 is, I do not favor the mode of interpretation which makes the sun 
 and moon represent the greater and lesser kingdoms or princes of 
 the world. The plagues on Egypt, prior to the great deliverance 
 wrought for God's people, seem to have been before the prophet's 
 mind as the case to furnish his illustrative terms. And further, 
 there seems to be a general expectation in the minds of men, in all 
 ages, that God will give preintimations in the natural world of his 
 special comings for judgment. To this point pagan writings fur- 
 nish ample proof. As to the question whether this prophecy 
 
 looks to one particular day alone, or rather announces a general 
 doctrine, I suggest that the phraseology " the great and the terrible 
 day" leads the mind specially to some one day, and yet the fact 
 that this day shall be heralded by portents in nature may be only 
 
 one striking case under a general hw. If I am to look for the 
 
 definite day, I cannot place it earlier tJian the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem by the Romans, as to which dny the evidence of portents 
 
JOEL.-CHAr. III. 101 
 
 nnd prodigies seems very strong. Beyond tliat I fix on no definite 
 day. The future may reveal it. It may have its final and most 
 startling fulfilment shortly prior to the last great judgment day. 
 
 32. And it sliall come to pass, that whosoever sLall 
 call on the name of the Lokd shall be delivered : for in 
 Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as 
 the LoED hath said, and in the remnant whom the Loed 
 shall call. 
 
 In these times of terrible judgment on the incorrigibly guilty, 
 some shall escape altogether. This verse informs us very definitely 
 who they are, viz., those who " call on the name of the Lord," and 
 those whom " the Lord shall call." Moreover, the deliverance shall 
 be "in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem," i, e., for their inhabitants, for 
 
 those who are the Lord's true people. "Calling on the name of 
 
 the Lord " must be of and from the heart, since such salvation can 
 be promised to no otter. The primitive Christians were distin- 
 guished as those who called on the name of Christ their Lord, as 
 God ; and to this fact there may be here a prophetic allusion. The 
 common mode of reaching the sense, however, is preferable; all 
 those who heartily cry unto God for mercy and who cast themselves 
 
 wholly on his grace. " The remnant whom the Lord shall call," 
 
 are the same people, for they whom the Lord calls are brought to 
 call on the Lord. In this very thing consists the efl5ciency of God's 
 call to them. It moves their hearts to call upon him in sincerity. 
 
 Thus, in the severest judgments of the Lord on the wicked, 
 
 salvation is sure to those who take hold of his promised mercy and 
 grace, and call on him in sincere and humble prayer. His people 
 find a sure and everlasting refuge beneath the wing of the same 
 Power, whose uplifted arm comes doAvn in vengeance on his foes. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The most vital and therefore the first step toward the exposi- 
 tion of this chapter is, to determine the general principles of its in- 
 terpretation. The choice lies between two methods. One of these 
 is ably carried out by Dr. Henderson, who always leans strongly to 
 a literal and specific construction. He holds that the passage 2 : 
 28-32, is parenthetic, interposed between passages preceding and 
 succeeding, both of which were fulfilled at least a century or more 
 before Christ ; while this parenthetic clause carries us forward (for 
 the moment only) to the times of Peter and the Pentecost ; that this 
 third chapter returns again to the restoration from captivity in Baby- 
 lon and to the destruction of Tyre, Zidon, &c., during the twf or 
 three centuries next subsequent to that restoration, lie accounts 
 it the main drift of the chapter to predict the retributive judgments 
 
102 JOEL.— CHAP. III. 
 
 of God on those particular nations, and then to portray the conse- 
 quent peace and prosperity of the Jews — all in the period prior to 
 
 the Christian era. The other method makes the main drift and 
 
 purpose of the chapter far more general and less specific in regard 
 to the nations specially named in it; finds here the general doctrine 
 of God's retributive judgments in this world on nations and powers 
 arrayed against his people and kingdom, and accounts the reference 
 to Tyre, Zidon, and Philistia (vs. 4-8), as rather parenthetic and il- 
 lustrative of the general principle, than as constituting the main 
 
 subject of tlic chapter. On this system it is not supposed that 
 
 more is said of Tyre and Zidon than was true, not more than has 
 been punctually fulfilled; but it is held that the chapter looks 
 far beyond the case of those nations, and teaches that the retri- 
 bution which blighted them falls under the general law, serves to 
 illustrate that law, and finds a place in this chapter for this reason, 
 
 and not as being the leading theme. 1 adopt this last-named 
 
 method of interpretation, and shall feel at lib<3rty to present it with- 
 out turning aside specially to controvert the other scheme. 
 
 The relation of this chapter to the first and second should bo 
 noticed. The locust army, and its attendant drought and conse- 
 quent famine and distress, gave occasion to prayer, fasting, and peni- 
 tence, and so opened the way for the signal extermination of that 
 army, and for timely rains and superabundant harvests. These 
 lesser gifts suggested the far greater gifts of the Spirit, the predic- 
 tion of which constitutes the glory of the closing verses of 
 
 the second chapter. But there remains yet another great lesson 
 
 of moral truth, suggested by the extermination of the locust horde 
 — a lesson hinted at (2: 30,81) in the allusion to "the great and 
 terrible day of the Lord," but laid over for its special presentation 
 in the third chapter, viz., the fearful and exterminating retribution 
 which God will bring on all those nations and powers which per- 
 sistently array themselves in arms against his kingdom and people. 
 Hence this is the great theme of the chapter before us. It naturally 
 closes with the resulting peace, prosperity, and purity of the res- 
 cued and saved people of God. 
 
 1. For behold, in those days, and in that time, when 
 I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusa- 
 lem, 
 
 The first word, "For," indicates a close connection of thought 
 between this chapter and the preceding. Tlie prophet had said 
 there should be "a great and terrible day of the Lord," so sweep- 
 ing in the ruin it brings that none shall escape it but those who 
 call upon the name of the Lord. Here, resuming this subject, he 
 begins to give the reason, " J^or I will gather all nations," i. c, for 
 
 trial and retribution. "Behold" calls special attention as to 
 
 truths of momentous import. The time ichen^ is indicated next, 
 
 viz., when he shall interpose to redeem liis people and bring them 
 out of all their affliction. The phrase, "bring again the captivity 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. III. 103 
 
 of Juclah and Jerusalem," admits this general sense, as may be seen 
 in Job 42 : 10, where it is said that "the Lord turned the captivity 
 of Job " — of course, not in the specific sense of bringing him back 
 from some captivity in a foreign land, but in the general one of 
 bringing him out of a state of great affliction. So, also, Ezekiel 
 (16:53-55) speaks hypothetically of bringing again the captivity 
 of Sodom and Samaria, but explains the sense by saying, " when 
 Sodom and Samaria shall return to their former estate." We are 
 not, therefore, shut up to find the fulfilment of tliis chapter at the 
 precise time of some actual restoration of Judah from a real cap- 
 tivity under some hostile nation. The general sense is indeed more 
 probable — When I shall turn my hand from afflicting to restoring 
 and blessing ray people, then will I visit retribution on all their foes. 
 
 2. I will also gather all nations, and will bring them 
 down into the vallej of Jehoshaphat, and will plead 
 with them there for my people and for my heritage Is- 
 rael, whom they have scattered among the nations, and 
 parted my land. 
 
 On this verse, the leading question is, whether this gathering of 
 all nations is to be understood literally, or only as a figure for 
 a general retribution ? Under this arises the question, whether the 
 valley of Jehoshaphat, as thought of by Joel, was real, or only 
 
 ideal ? In my opinion ideal only, for there is no proof that any 
 
 actual valley was then known by this name. The name occurs no- 
 where else in the Scriptures, applied to any valley. In later times 
 {%. e., since the middle of the fourth century), the name has been 
 given to the valley of the Kidron (in ]!T. T., Cedron), which skirts 
 Jerusalem on the east. With this modern application of the name 
 is connected the current belief among Jews, Catholics, and Moham- 
 medans, that the last judgment will be held in this valley. This 
 fact goes far to show that the name Jehoshaphat was applied to this 
 valley upon the mere supposition that Joel referred to it, and hence 
 is modern only and not ancient, and therefore affording no proof 
 
 that Joel referred to this valley. On the other hand, the name is 
 
 chosen because of its Hebrew significance — Jehovah judges — and a 
 " valley " is thought of because in this hilly country valleys afford 
 
 the only fit locations for convening a vast multitude. That the 
 
 writer's mind is specially on the significance of the word Jehosha- 
 phat (Jehovah judges), is more obvious in the Hebrew than in our 
 English, since the verb rendered, "plead with," is from the same 
 root. " I will bring them into the valley of the LorcVs judgment^ 
 and there will I judge them," i. e.^ hold court for their trial on the 
 
 charge of scattering my people and dividing their land. The 
 
 reader should also notice in this connection v. 12 : " Let the heathen 
 be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat ; for there 
 will I sit to judge all the heathen round about." The idea is that 
 of a grand assize, a sublime court, held for the trial and condenina- 
 
104 JOEL.— en AP. III. 
 
 tion of the whole heathen world, so far as they have been guilty of 
 wrong and abuse against the known people of God. 
 
 The description of this scene is continued, vs. 11, 13-16. The 
 
 conception is very similar to that of the final judgment, as it ap- 
 pears in the New Testament; yet this day of Joel cannot be iden- 
 tical with that, because here we have nations on ti-ial ; there indi- 
 viduals: here only those nations which have been known as enemies 
 of the covenant people ; there all people of all time — the entire 
 population of our earth. This takes place in time ; that only at 
 the end of time, as measured for this world by the great lights 
 
 God has set in our heavens. Let it be considered yet further : — 
 
 No valley, certainly not the one now called the valley of Jeliosha- 
 phat, could suffice for convening all the nations specially named in 
 this chapter — to say nothing of the untold myriads really included 
 under tliis general description.* 
 
 I am brought, then, by this mass of concurrent evidence, to 
 adopt the ideal sense of "the valley of Jehoshaphat" — meaning 
 any valley — any circumstances in which Jehovah judges guilty na- 
 tions. The fiict that he does judge tliem^ and visit xi/pon tliem retri- 
 dution in time^ is the thing taught ; — the place where, and its sur- 
 roundings, are only the ideal drapery of the scene, designed to 
 make the fact more tangible to the imagination. 
 
 3. And tliey liave east lots for my people; and have 
 given a boy for a liarlot, and sold a girl for wine, that 
 they might drink. 
 
 Here are more specifications in the indictment against these na- 
 tions. They have not only scattered the chosen people among the 
 nations and parted their land, but have cast lots over the captives 
 (see traces of this usage in ancient times, Obadiah, v. 11, and Na- 
 hum 8:10); and as shov/ing both the wickedness of these conquer- 
 ors, and the contempt they felt for their captives, they gave a boy 
 for the temporary hire of a harlot, and sold a girl for one drink of 
 
 wine. Is it strange that the heart of the great Father should 
 
 take fire against such abominations ? 
 
 4. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, 
 and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine ? will ye ren- 
 der me a recompense? and if ye recompense me, swiftly 
 and speedily will I return your recom])ense upon your 
 own head ; 
 
 * Still further ; the Hebrews had one general term for a broad valley^ 
 used here ; applied also to the broad valley of Esdraelon, and to several 
 others; but never to the valley of the Kidrou. They had another term, ^ 
 more specific, for a narrow gorge, the bed of a winter torrent, which is 
 commonly, if not universally, used for the gorge of the Kidron ; e.g. 'i Sam, 
 15:23, and 1 Kings 2:37' and 15:13; Jer.31:40. Thus Hebrew usage 
 seems to forbid the reference of Joel to the gorge of the Kidron. 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. III. 105 
 
 " What have ye to do with me ? " fails to express quite clearly 
 the exact sense. Better, and strictly literal is this: "What are yo 
 to me, O Tyre ? " etc. What account do I make of you ? What 
 reason have I to fear your petty wrath ? As the context goes on 
 to say — Will ye think to rise against my scourging hand and wreak 
 your vengeance on me, or on my people ? Will ye retaliate on me ? 
 If ye attempt it, very speedily and swiftly will I hurl hack your re- 
 taliation upon your own heads. Of course, in this lofty strain, 
 
 the Lord speaks after the manner of men, but as one conscious of 
 infinite power to punish his foes, and fully purposed to visit on 
 them most ample and righteous retribution. As already intimat- 
 ed in the introductory remarks upon this chapter, tliese nations, 
 Tyro, Zidon, and Philistia, are named here, not as being the only 
 nations involved in this great judgment, but as present to the minds 
 of the prophet and of his first readers, and as fitting illustrations, 
 therefore, of the great truths he would impress. 
 
 6. Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, 
 and have carried into yonr temples my goodly pleasant 
 things. 
 
 The silver and the gold which they had taken from Israel by 
 robbery, the Lord calls his own — " my silver." Whatever of most 
 costly value they could find they had borne into their own idol 
 temples, as a trophy of conquest over the people of God, and the 
 Lord remembers this against them ! 
 
 6. The children also of Judah and the children of 
 Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might 
 remove them far from then* border. 
 
 The captives they had taken from his people they had sold to 
 the Grecians, in order to remove them far as possible from their 
 homes, that they might never return. 
 
 7. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither 
 ye have sold them, and will return your recompense 
 upon your own head. 
 
 God will recover them notwithstanding, and will bring retribu- 
 tion on their captors, who had held, or had sold them as slaves. 
 
 8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters into 
 the land of the children of Judah, and they shall sell 
 them to the Saheans, to a people far off: for the Loed 
 hath spoken it. 
 
 This retaliation in kind should perhaps be taken as a case of 
 speaking after the manner of men, and not by any means as imply- 
 ing that God can ever sanction the selling of men into slavery, or 
 can authorize his people to do it, even in retaliation fur like ofi'enco 
 
lOG JOEL.— CHAP. III. 
 
 and abuse. It sbonld, however, be considered that God, in re- 
 tributive justice and judgment on wicked nations, may, through his 
 providential agencies, suifer other wicked nations to enslave them, 
 without at all sanctioning as morally right their free acts in enslav- 
 ing men. This distinction is one of vital moment in regard to 
 God's providential agencies in his government over nations, and, in- 
 deed, over individuals no less. When the Lord sends the scom'ge 
 of war on a nation it will not follow that he accepts as morally 
 right the ambition or the cruelty that instigated the aggressive 
 power, nor does he make liimself responsible for their moral acts, 
 however lie may permit their existence and providentially direct 
 their blow. 
 
 9. Proclaim ye tliis among the Gentiles; Prepare 
 war, wake np the mighty men, let all the men of war 
 draw near ; let them come up ; 
 
 10. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your 
 pruning-hooks into spears : let the weak say, I am strong. 
 
 Having finished the digression in respect to Tyre, etc., and the 
 form of retribution destined for them, tlie prophet now, speaking 
 in behalf of the Almighty, daringly challenges the Gentile hosts to 
 
 muster for the mighty conflict. The first word of the challenge, 
 
 rendered " prepare " war, carries with it the idea of proclaiming 
 war in the most solemn manner with religious rites. It is the com- 
 mon word for " sanctify," and means here — make this war a sacred 
 tiling; bind yourselves to it by solemn oaths, and invoke all your 
 
 gods to your help. Beating ploughshares into swords reverses the 
 
 long prayed for consummation when swords shall be beaten into 
 ploughshares. The sense is — prepare for universal war. The im- 
 plements on hand might suffice for any ordinary war, but not for 
 this; now you must needs arm every man, and hence you must 
 
 convert even the tools of agriculture into weapons of war. Let 
 
 the conscription be absolutely universal. Let no invalid plead ex- 
 emption ; "let even the weak say, I am strong." 
 
 11. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, 
 and gather yourselves together round about : thither 
 cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Loed. 
 
 Then with striking beauty and force the prophet suddenly turns 
 to the other party in the conflict: " Thither bring down thy mighty 
 
 ones, Jehovah ! " How fearful is this great battle of earth now 
 
 coming on ! 
 
 12. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to 
 the valley of Jelioshaphat : for there will I sit to judge 
 all the heathen round about. 
 
 See notes on v. 2. Observe also how quietly the strain of tha 
 
JOEL.— CHAP. in. 107 
 
 passage assumes that this dread array of armed nations, Tast as 
 numbers without number, and girded all for bloody war, results in 
 no war at all. Their weapons amount to nothing ; they are there 
 only for judgment— culprits before the King and Judge of the uni- 
 verse! They suddenly find themselves on no battle-ground, but 
 summoned to the valley where Jehovah judges; and he comes 
 down to take his lolty judgment throne, and "sit to judge all these 
 
 nations round about." What quiet, unostentatious majesty! 
 
 Uow does such real greatness eclipse all the assembled littleness of 
 the gathered myriads of the heathen i 
 
 13. Put yo ill tlie siclde, for tlie liarvest is ripe : 
 C(jme, get you down ; for the press is full, the fats over- 
 flow ; lor their wickedness is great. 
 
 Here are symbols of terrific slaughter — the sickle laying low 
 the ripened grain, and the wine-vats full and trodden till they over- 
 flow with wine — which in such a connection represents human 
 
 blood. Dropping all figure, the reason is given in plain language 
 
 — "For their Avickcdness is great" — not '•''the wickedness," in- 
 definitely, but theirs^ the wickedness of these hostile nations. 
 
 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision : 
 for the day of the Loed is near in the valley of decision. 
 
 Their vast number strikes the prophet's mind, and prompts the 
 exclamation, " O, the multitudes ! the multitudes in this valley of 
 
 judgment!" The word rendered "decision" means judgment 
 
 in the sense of a final verdict wliich decides the criminal's destiny, 
 past all reversal. See the usage of the original word, 1 Kings 29 : 40, 
 and Isa. 10:23. This i^'-'- the day of the Lord;'''^ it comes ex- 
 ceedingly near in this valley of judgment. The word " near " 
 should not carry the mind onward to any other day beyond this. 
 God is here, and his great day has come ! 
 
 15. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and 
 the stars shall withdraw their shining. 
 
 These figures must here take their usual sense — extreme calamity 
 — casting the deep shades of night over all the hopes of the wicked 
 — engulfing them in deep, impenetrable darkness. So in all 
 languages, of every land or nation, darkness is the symbol of what- 
 ever is most fearful to rational beings. 
 
 16. The LoKD shall also roar out of Zion, and utter 
 his voice from Jerusalem ; and the heavens and the 
 earth shall shake : but the Lokd will he the hope of his 
 people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 
 
 In this strain of the boldest poetic imagery, the Lord becomes 
 a lion, and his roar shakes the heavens and the earth. See the 
 same figure under analogous circumstances, Jer. 25 : 30 ; Isa. 42 : 13. 
 
108 JOEL.— CHAP. III. 
 
 This roar comes forth " out of Zion,''^ because there, in tlie 
 
 deep recesses of the temple, Jehovah dwelt. This was not onlj 
 current and accepted Jewish opinion ; it was fact. His manifested 
 presence -ZM* there; and he was careful to impress this upon the 
 hearts of the people. The "voice of the Lord," in such a con- 
 nection as this, is thunder, as throughout Ps. 29. These figures, 
 
 combined, give the chmax of the dreadful scene, in which blended 
 terror and majesty, justice and wratli, encircle and gird the throne 
 of the Almighty round about, as, with the guilty nations, the op 
 pressors of his people, assembled before him, he sits for judgment 
 
 and final decision. Then, with inimitable beauty and force, 
 
 turning to those on liis right hand (may we not borrow from that 
 other analogous scene ?) he says : " But the Lord will be the hope 
 of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel." They 
 may trust their God forever. He is their strength in every hour 
 of their weakness. He stands for their deliverance, and for retri- 
 bution on their foes. " Children of Israel " is here parallel to 
 
 " his people," the latter, and consequently the former, including far 
 more than the lineal seed of Abraham. 
 
 lY. So shall ye know tliat I am tlie Lord your God 
 dwelling in Zion, my lioly mountain : then shall Jeru- 
 salem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass throngh 
 her any more. 
 
 " So shall ye Jcnoio " — know in your own case and by your own 
 full experience of his saving power and loving heart, that he is 
 Jeliomh — forever the same; that he "dwells in Zion," manifesting 
 his presence, care, and love among his people forever ; and, what is 
 more, making it his holy mountain by purifying his people there. 
 
 " Then shall Jerusalem be holy" — a statement which clearly 
 
 identifies these events in their general character with those which 
 close the second chapter of this prophet — the outpouring of the 
 Spirit on the children of Zion first, and then on all flesh ; for cer- 
 tainly, Jerusalem never becomes holy save under this great sancti- 
 fying agency. "Strangers," foreign and alien in spirit, heathen, 
 
 wdcked men — shall not traverse the holy city any more — shall not 
 come and go as if of her and having rights in her sanctuaries and 
 
 palaces. No more si i all such intruders defile the church of God. 
 
 This betokens an eminent degree of real purity and holiness among 
 God's people. 
 
 18. And it shall come to pass in that day, tJiat the 
 mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall 
 flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow 
 with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house 
 of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim. 
 
 This description, looking somewhat to that ancient one of 
 the goodly laud as flowing with milk and honey, names carthljf 
 
JOEL.— cmvp. III. 109 
 
 good, Lut manifestly means heavenly. Jewish costume and 
 imagery are to he translated so as to give ns the fulness of gospel 
 significance — the language of the material Canaan into the lan- 
 guage of the spiritual, which is far hotter. The last clause 
 
 strongly implies and demands this significance. " A fountain comes 
 forth from the house of the Lord," where the institutions of 
 religious instruction and worship are in power — " and it w^aters 
 all the valley of Acacias,'''' this heing the sense of the word 
 " Shittim." And inasmuch as the oriental acacia enjoys the sterile 
 valley, and puts forth its redeeming heauty and fragrance there 
 w^here nothing else does, we find here the idea that the gospel turns 
 harrenness to plenty, sterility to verdure, sin to holiness, and woe 
 to hliss, all over this sin-wasted earth. Ezekiel's living waters 
 (chap. 47), starting from the same source, ilow into similar desola- 
 tions, and produce a like result of health, heauty, and glory. 
 
 19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be 
 a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the chil- 
 dren of Jndah, because they have shed innocent blood in 
 their land. 
 
 Prophecies that are alike millennial in their import differ in one 
 respect among themselves, really fahing into two classes. One class 
 represents the whole world as radiant with light and glory, peace 
 and love — the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters 
 cover the sea (Isa. 11 : 9) : — "in every place incense offered to my 
 name, and a pure offering" (Mai. 1 : 11) ; &c., &c. ; while another 
 class (like the passage hefore us) still leaves on the picture some 
 traces of the awful mischiefs sin has wrought. " Egypt is a desola- 
 tion, and Edom a desolate wilderness," as if to heighten by con- 
 trast the heauty and glory of the people and kingdom of the Lord. 
 Pressed to its literal sense, it could only mean that some districts, 
 most notoriously representing the persistent and sworn enemies of 
 God's people, shall lie desolate, while all around them, even all else 
 on the face of the earth, blooms in beauty and fertility. Those 
 desolations lie in their ruins — like hell among the myriads of holy 
 worlds — a swift and perpetual witness to the fearfulness of sinning 
 against God, and to the certainty of woe to all sinners who will not 
 
 repent. Egypt and Edom w^ere the oldest national enemies of the 
 
 covenant people. They are doomed because of their violence against 
 Judah and the innocent blood they have shed in the Lord's land. 
 
 20. Eut Jndah shall dwell for ever, and Jernsalem 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 21. For I will cleanse their blood thai I have not 
 cleansed : for the LoPwD dwelleth in Zion. 
 
 Judah shall he inhabited forever, dwelling in her places. This 
 perpetuity affirmed of Judah and Jerusalem, must ccrtninly apply 
 only to the real Judah — the true people of God. The Judah that Wiu 
 
110 JOEL.— CHAP. III. 
 
 after tlie flesh and was of the flesh only, never can fill the sense 
 of these precious words. See Notes on Hos. 1 : 10, 11, and also 
 
 Dissertation II. in the Appendix. The word rendered " cleanse " 
 
 means, to regard as innocent, and therefore to treat accord- 
 ingly. This might imply either that God, at length, freely and 
 fully forgives their sin and puts it forever away ; or that he avenges 
 it upon her foes ; prohably the former, at least; possibly the latter 
 
 also. Both ideas are fully brought out in this chapter. It might 
 
 well have been remarked ere this, that very much the same course 
 of thought as appears in this chapter of Joel may be seen also in 
 Isa. OG : 14-24, and in Jer. 25 : 12-38 ; in Zech. 14 ; and in Ezekiel, 
 chapters 37-48. — The passage in Joel, coupled with these just above 
 noted, suggest this grave and truly momentous question — Whether 
 the final conquest of the world by the Messiah w^ill or will not bo 
 eft'ected in large measure by the destruction of incorrigible enemies. 
 Are we authorized to expect a mingling of judgment and mercy 
 among the agencies in this great conquest ; and if so, can we infer 
 with any considerable accuracy the relative measure of each? or to 
 put the case more precisely, the relative numbers of earth's popula- 
 tion at that time, destroyed by judgments on the one hand, and 
 saved by mercy on the otlier. Tlds is not the place for an extend- 
 ed discussion of this question. Let it sufiice then to say that the 
 
 tenor of propliecy as well as the genius of the gospel system, 
 authorize us to expect the conversion of the world by means of those 
 very gospel agencies wliich were employed aud consecrated by 
 Christ himself — the preaching of the gospel, the faitliful testimony 
 of his people, and the gift of his Spirit ; tliat the Lord has always 
 carried along a coordinate work of retributive justice and judgment 
 on the wicked in this world, sometimes more aud sometimes less 
 prominent ; that he may, to cut short the reign of Satan, intensify 
 these agencies of retribution in the latter days ; that universally 
 the underlying principle is, bov,^ or break — repent, or be broken 
 in pieces, so that the finally incorrigible may always know their 
 certain doom. Hence we should not expect a definite revelation of 
 the relative numbers of the saved on the one hand, or of the 
 hardened and destroyed on the other. It is God's way to leave the 
 principles of his moral government and his policy in its adminis- 
 tration in such shape as will bring the most solemn and efiective 
 moral pressure to bear toward repentance and consequent salvation. 
 His problem is — judgment and mercy being given — so to arrange 
 and mingle them as to persuade the greatest number to flee from 
 the judgment and take hold of the mercy. Could he do better ? 
 
 Thus ends this grand, sublime, and glorious chapter! We might 
 fitly apply these epithets to the whole book, for few more sublime 
 compositions can anywhere be found, distinguished for conceptions 
 so lofty, a style so pure, truths so vast, so far reaching, so vital to 
 the moral government of God over nations, and so fraught with 
 
 instruction to mankind. May the reader catch the inspiration 
 
 of tills admirable book, and drink deeply of its pure and healing 
 waters ! 
 
AMOS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of tlie previous life of Amos before he became a propbet we learn, 
 from cbapter 1:1, tbat be "was among tbo berdmen of Tekoa, and 
 from 7 : 14, 15, tbat be was not born in the line of the prophets, but 
 was "an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit," and tbat " the 
 Lord took him as he was following the flock, and said to him, " Go, 
 prophesy unto my people Israel." What the book itself thus states, 
 its style, its choice of words and figures, and its numerous indica- 
 tions of familiarity with the scenes of husbandry, most abundantly 
 confirm. His case, therefore, shows that the old dispensation as well 
 as the new, honored the humble and laboring classes, and drew 
 some at least of its most effective helpers from among " the poor 
 
 of this world." Though a native and early resident of Judab, 
 
 (" Tekoa " being within this kingdom), his prophetic mission was 
 to the northern kingdom exclusively. In chapter 7: 10-17 it ap- 
 pears that he was then in Bethel, and had made that city his resi- 
 dence. More than this is not known. His first verse fixes tbe 
 
 date of his prophetic life within the reigns of Uzziah, king of Judah 
 (b. c. 811-759), and of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel (b. c. 
 825-784). How large a part of the sixty-six years, from the ac- 
 cession of Jeroboam to the death of Uzziah, he was engaged in his 
 prophetic work, is not said, nor whether his time lay nearer the close 
 or tbe beginning of this period. There are good reasons for suppos- 
 ing that he was somewhat later than Joel, but contemporary, during 
 at least a part of bis prophetic life, with Ilosea, very probably ear- 
 lier than the active years of Isaiah and Micab. He finds the same 
 sins prevalent and calling for rebuke that Ilosea found. His Ian- 
 
112 AMOS.— CHAP. I. 
 
 guage is less terse than that of Hosea, less sublime tlian that of 
 Joel, but yet by no means unworthy of a place among the noblest 
 writings the world ever saw. His style is clear, forcible, and in 
 some passages grand, particularly in his descriptions of the majesty 
 
 and power of Jehovah. Commissioned especially to rebuke the 
 
 isins of Israel, he yet in the first and second chapters denounces 
 judgments on six other contiguous powers outside of Judah and 
 Israel, and then upon these two in like general terms. Then in 
 chapters 3-6 he exposes and reproves in detail the sins of Israel, 
 
 and threatens judgments therefor. The last three chapters diflfer 
 
 from this middle portion by tlie introduction of visions for purposes 
 of more vivid illustration, and by the blending of promise with the 
 general strain of threatening. The book closes with predictions of 
 peace and prosperity to the kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 After a very brief introduction, which gives us the name of the 
 author and the date of his prophecies, the chapter proceeds at 
 once to name the crowning sin of five adjacent nations, and to an- 
 nounce the judgments of God upon them. They are Syria, the 
 Phihstines, Tyre, Edom, and Amraon. His main object in this is 
 to make the stronger impression upon Israel. If for their sins God 
 must scourge and even exterminate heathen powers sitting in the 
 dimness of the light of nature, how much more mast he for your 
 sins scourge you to whom his word has come ! 
 
 1. The words of Amos, wlio was among the herd- 
 men of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the 
 days of Uzziah king of Jndah, in the days of Jeroboam 
 the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the 
 earthquake. 
 
 Most of the points named here came before us in the general 
 
 introduction. This " earthquake " is commonly supposed to be 
 
 that of which Zechariah speaks (14: 5), "Ye shall flee like as ye 
 fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of 
 Judah." Since Amos prophesied during Uzziah's reign, and since 
 they both refer to an earthquake of great power and prominence, 
 it may bo safely assumed that they speak of the same. But at 
 what point during the fifty-two years of Uzziah's reign this oc- 
 curred is not said. 
 
 2. And he said, The 'Lord will roar from Zion, and 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. I. 113 
 
 utter his voice from Jerusalem ; and the habitations of 
 the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall 
 wither. 
 
 The first half of tliis verse seems to be borrowed from Joel 
 3:16. In Joel the passage makes so close connection with what 
 precedes, that it must be admitted to stand " i)i flace^'' as the geol- 
 ogists say of specimens found in their original rock. Not so in 
 Amos. If wo supply " as another prophet has said," we shall not 
 at all disturb the flow of thought. Moreover, Joel prophesied ?;e- 
 fove Amos, according to the closest estimate, about seventy-five 
 
 years. The last half of the verse is characteristic of Amos. A 
 
 man who came up among hcrdmen would naturally think of these 
 rather than other eifects of the Lord's sore judgments. Carmel 
 was ordinarily clothed with verdure even to its summit ; hence the 
 fitness of saying " the top of Carmel shall wither." This moun- 
 tain lay in the northwest part of the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
 The word Carmel means a fruitful field, a fact which makes this al- 
 lusion the more forcible. In the passage " The Lord will roar 
 
 from Zion," the original word " roar " is used commonly of the 
 lion, and denotes here that the Lord has aroused himself like the 
 lion of the forest, to assert his rule among the nations, and espe- 
 cially to visit retribution on those which had filled up the measure 
 of their sins. Such a roaring, foreshow^ing terrible visitations of 
 judgment, would thrill the nailons with terror, much as the beasts 
 of the forest tremble wnen the earth quakes, and the depths of 
 their solitudes reecho to the lion's roar. 
 
 o. Thus saith the Lokd ; For three transgressions of 
 Damascus, and for four, I will not turn awaj the pun- 
 ishment thereof; hecanse they have threshed (iilead with 
 threshing instruments of iron : 
 
 4. But I will send a fire into the house of Ilazael, 
 which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. 
 
 5. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut 
 off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that 
 holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden : and the 
 people of S^a-ia shall go into captivity nnto Kir, saith 
 the LoED. 
 
 In the passage commencing here and extending to chap. 2 : G, 
 eight kingdoms are brought up in succession, with Judah and Is- 
 rael last. Each receives its message, beginning, "-Thus saith the 
 Lord; " in each is the phraseology — "For three transgressions, and 
 for four, I will not reverse it ; " each specifies the last and most 
 heinous crime, for which, especially (it would seem), the judgment 
 named is sent; and each closes with naming the judgment. This 
 remarkable uniformity in style no doubt had its object. It natu- 
 
114 AMOS.— CHAP. I. 
 
 rally implied tliat the same God of nations was taking tliem all 
 successively in hand to administer justice and judgment upon each 
 and on the same principles, common to all. It was well adapted to 
 confirm the impression that Jehovah is indeed the ruler of nations, 
 and holds them to a solemn responsibility, here in time, to bear 
 themselves justly and not oppressively toward each other. More- 
 over, as already intimated, these nations contiguous to Judah and 
 Israel are mentioned first, to prepare the minds of the men of Ju- 
 dali and Israel to hear their own sin and doom — first to stir up 
 their sense of justice and draw out their approval of God's right- 
 eous ways, and then to say to them — " Thou art the man ! " Fur- 
 ther, the argument is d fortiori : " If those things be done in the 
 green tree" — to those heathen benighted kingdoms, — "what shall 
 be done in the dry " — to a people chosen and long blessed of God, 
 
 but now shamefully apostate and incorrigible? And yet further, 
 
 as if to insure the more certainly a righteous judgment in the minds 
 of Judah and Israel against their heathen neighbors, the sins se- 
 lected and named are chiefly those committed against Judah and 
 Israel. Everybody sees, feels, and condemns a wrong done against 
 himself. Under this law of even depraved human nature, God first 
 secured from his professed people their indignant condemnation of 
 other peoples' sins, and then lifted the curtain to show them their 
 
 own! 'Tor three transgressions and for four," as to the form 
 
 of expression, may be compared with numerous other passages of 
 Scripture of a like proverbial character ; e. g. Ex. 20 : 5 — " Visiting 
 the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
 fourth generation of them that hate me; " Job 5 : 19 — " He shall 
 deliver thee in six troubles ; yea, in seven shall no evil toucli thee ; " 
 Eccles. 11:2 — "Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for 
 thou knowest not what e^dl shall be upon the earth ; " Mic. 5 : 5 — 
 " When the Assyrian shall come into our land, then shaU we raise 
 
 against him seven shepherds and eight principal men." These 
 
 cases establish a current usage of definite numbers to express the 
 
 indefinite idea of several. But the thought is more to us than 
 
 the^ drapery that clothes or adorns it. This thought is that these 
 nations had been adding sin to sin, running up a long unsettled ac- 
 count, until at last some one sin, perhaps more aggravated than any 
 preceding, filled up the measure of their iniquities, and demanded 
 of their righteous Euler his visitation of terrible judgment. The 
 fourth and crowning crime is specified in each case. For three sins 
 they have deserved punishment, and the decree has gone out — for 
 the fourth " I will not reverse it," saith the Lord, but (as is imphed) 
 
 will proceed without delay to execute it. It is noticeable that 
 
 the original has no word for punishment. The little Avord "?Y," 
 sufiixed to tlie verb — I will not reverse it — leaves us to find its an- 
 tecedent in the never-failing law of connection between sin and 
 punishment. The Lord assumes that men ought to know what he 
 will not reverse, after his allusion to such sins as these. This tacit 
 assumption that judgment must follow sin has in itself appalling 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. I. 115 
 
 force. "Damascns" represents Syria, a strong and flourish- 
 ing kingdom on the north and northeast of TsraeL It Avas the 
 capital. 
 
 Their last sin was that of "threshing Gilead " — putting its in- 
 habitants to torture and death under the huge threshing- wain, 
 armed with savage iron teetli, and drawn by animals over the grain. 
 See a case of such treatment, 2 Sam. 12 : 31, and also 2 Kings 18:7 
 
 — the last being done by this same Ilazacl. The name Gilead 
 
 covers the territory of the two and a half tribes east of Jordan, 
 Lying contiguous to Syria, it suftered fearfully from that kingdom. 
 
 The judgment was a devouring fire sent on the royal house of 
 
 Hazael, and of his son and successor, Ben-hadad. (Both his father 
 and his son bore this name, Ben-hadad ; but Amos must allude to 
 the son. See 2 Kings 13 : 8, 24.) "The bar of Damascus" rep- 
 resents its means of defence and protection in war. " The inhabi- 
 tant" — hterally he who sits^ i. e.^ on a throne — is parallel to "him 
 that holdeth the sceptre." The sense is that their government 
 
 should be utterly broken down, and their nationality cease. The 
 
 word " Aven" is probably changed from 0?i, the Syrian name of a 
 beautiful valley, the country-seat, it may be, of their king. The 
 Hebrews, changing its vowels, called it Aven, to represent the con- 
 temptible idoLatry of the Syrians. See the same word, Aven, 
 wrought into the name Beth-el (Beth-Aven), for a similar reason, 
 
 IIos. 4: 15, and 10: 5, 8. "House of Eden," equal to Paradise, 
 
 is another delightful locality, and was called in ancient authors, 
 Paradise. Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, fulfilled this predic- 
 tion. He took the people into captivity to Kir, the river and region 
 known as Cyrus, in Iberia. See this fact in history, 2 Kings 16:9. 
 " The king of Assyi-ia went up against Damascus and took it, and 
 carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Kezin." 
 
 6. Tims saitb. the Lord ; For tliree transgressions of 
 Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the jmnisJiment 
 thereof: because tliey carried away captive the whole 
 captivity, to deliver them up to Edom : 
 
 7. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which 
 shall devour the palaces thereof: 
 
 8. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, 
 and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I 
 will turn mine hand against Ekron : and the remnant 
 of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. 
 
 Gaza, the northern of the five chief cities of the Philistines, rep- 
 resents here the whole cluster. Gath, the only one of the five not 
 named here, is omitted, probably because it was already laid waste, 
 i. e.^ during the reign of Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26 : 6, 7). This was 
 
 within the personal knowledge of Amos. Their crowning sin 
 
 was that they carried the entire body of their captives to Edom and 
 
116 AMOS.— CHAP. I. 
 
 sold them for slaves. The phrase, "the whole captivity," aflSrms 
 nothing in respect to the number, as being great or small ; it means 
 all they had. Edom, further advanced in wealth and the arts than 
 most of the nations adjacent to Palestine, seems to have been a no- 
 torious slave mart. The Lord accounted it the damning sin of the 
 Philistines, that they sent thither all their prisoners of war and sold 
 them into slavery ! Who, after this testimony, can deny that God 
 abhors slavery, and will preeminently scourge and destroy the na- 
 tion that makes itself preeminent for the enslaving of men? The 
 
 ''fire sent on the wall of Gaza" is the desolation of war, visited on 
 them by Uzziah, as above noted, and by Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 18 : 8), 
 
 and later by various Eastern conquerors. " The inhabitant " must 
 
 be understood here as in v. 5. See a striking prophecy of the final 
 fall of the Philistines, in Jer. 47. 
 
 9. Tlins saitli the Loed ; For tliree transgressions of 
 Tyrus, and for four, I will not tnrn away the ^punishment 
 thereof; because tliey delivered np the whole captivity 
 to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant : 
 
 10. But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, 
 which shall devour the palaces thereof. 
 
 Tyre, the city renowned for its commerce and wealth, on the 
 Mediterranean and very near the northwest corner of the land of 
 Canaan, had sinned, in common with the Philistines, by send- 
 ing the entire body of their captives of war to Edom for slaves 
 — a sin in their case aggravated by the friendly and even covenant 
 relation existing of old between them and the ancient kingdom of 
 Israel. This was indeed a " brotherly covenant," binding each party 
 to mutual friendship and protection. It commenced between 
 Iliram, King of Tyre, and David ; the former making the first ad- 
 vances. (2 Sam. 5 : 11), "Iliram, King of Tyre, sent messengers 
 to David, and cedar-trees," &c. It was ratified again between the 
 same Hiram and Solomon (1 Kings, 5: 12), "Iliram sent his ser- 
 vants to Solomon [for Iliram was ever a lover of David], and 
 they two made a league together." It is obvious that the cap- 
 tives, which Tyre sent en masse to Edom, were Hebrews, else the 
 Lord could not have deemed it a breach of that " brotherly cove- 
 nant." Tyre sufiered fearfully from the arms of both Nebuchad- 
 nezzar and Alexander the Great. They were the fire of Jehovah's 
 vengeance upon her, specially for her sin of selling all her captives 
 into the horrible slave marts of Edom. 
 
 11. Thus saith the Lord ; For three transgressions 
 of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punish- 
 ment thereof: because he did pursue his brother with 
 the sword, and did cast oif all pity, and his anger did 
 tear perpetually, and ho kept his wrath for ever: 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. I. 117 
 
 12. But I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall 
 devour the palaces of Bozrah. 
 
 Edom himself comes next — an ancient kingdom southeast from 
 Palestine, strong in arms, and very considerably advanced in culture 
 at the time when Israel, forbidden by him to travel through his ter- 
 ritory, journeyed round it to reach the Jordan and pass into Canaan, 
 B. c. 1451. His crowning sin lay in his animosity against his 
 brother Jacob. Intensely jealous of the greatness of the Hebrew 
 nation, Edom had almost never neglected any opportunity to 
 let loose his wrath upon them. As stated here, he had "pursued 
 his brother with the sword," and had " cast off all pity." The original 
 more precisely says he ^'' corriii^ted^^'' in the sense of suppressing 
 and smothering the natural dictates of sympathy and compassion. 
 "His anger did Uar'^'' — the common word used when savage beasts 
 of prey tear in pieces their victims, and he "kept his Avrath 
 forever," not suffering even the lapse of time to abate its ferocity. 
 Teman and Bozrah were principal cities in Edom, and here rep- 
 resent the nation. 
 
 13. Thus saith the Loed ; For three transgressions of 
 the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn 
 away the punishment thereof: because they have ripped 
 up the women with child, of Gilead, that they might 
 enlarge their border : 
 
 14. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, 
 and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting 
 in the day of battle, w^itli a tempest in the day of 
 the whirlwind : 
 
 15. And their king shall go into captivity, he and 
 his princes together, saith the Loud. 
 
 Ammon and Moah, nations taking their name and descent fron: 
 the two sons of Lot, were ancient kingdoms on the east of Jordan, 
 and of course contiguous to the country of the two and a half 
 
 tribes here called Gilead. The last and fatal sin of Ammon was 
 
 their horrid cruelty upon the pregnant mothers of Gilead, as if it were 
 their purpose to exterminate not only the living population, but the 
 unborn no less. God holds nations solemnly responsible for the sin 
 of cruelty. It was an insignificant apology for such cruelty that 
 
 they wanted more territory. The indignation of the Lord against 
 
 them for such cruelty stands out in the' grouping of fire, the war- 
 cry of battle, the tempest and whirlwind, among the figures that 
 set forth the vengeance due and about to fall on Ammon. Oh, how 
 sublimely grand is such vengeance on a nation guilty of such horrid 
 
 sin ! Let us not fail to note the solemn lesson, which all people 
 
 of every age should learn from this recital of Jehovah's judgments 
 on nations for violating the plain dictates of common justice and 
 
118 AMOS.— CHAP. II. 
 
 humanity in their treatment of each other. And let us revert 
 
 again to the fact that most of these last and damning sins were 
 committed against the Hebrews, a secondary object with Amos 
 being to draw out their verdict against these sins as perpetrated by 
 their enemies, and bring them to admit and endorse the principles 
 of God's administration as infinitely right and just, before he shall 
 come to say, " Thus saith the Lord ; For three transgressions of 
 Jicdah and of Israel^ and for four, I will not reverse it." There 
 Avas no difficulty in getting them to condemn with burning indigna- 
 tion the sins under which themselves had suffered. This done, it 
 only remained to add, Thus saith the Lord; thou art the man! 
 Condemning others, thou hast confessed thine own desert and foro- 
 shadowed thine own doom ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This chapter continues the unfinished series of kingdoms doomed 
 for their national sins — Moab, the last outside of the chosen people ; 
 then Judah and Israel. Israel once reached, becomes the subject 
 of rebuke, expostulation, and threatened doom throughout this 
 chapter and the four next following. 
 
 1. Thus saitli the Lokd ; For three transgressions ot 
 Moab, and for four, I wiU not turn away the punishment 
 thereof, because he burned the bones of the king of 
 Edom into lime : 
 
 2. But I will send a lire upon Moab, and it shall de- 
 vour the palaces of Kirioth : and Moab shall die with 
 tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the 
 trumpet : 
 
 3. And I will cut off the judge from the midst 
 thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof Avith him, 
 saith the Lokd. 
 
 Moab closes the list of Gentile nations. In his crime — burning 
 the bones of the king of Edom into lime — his vindictive spirit fol- 
 lowed his enemy even beyond death, into the grave. It may be 
 supposed that he came into possession of the body of his old enemy 
 by some of the vicissitudes of war. Of the fact we have no history. 
 But this horribly vindictive spirit, and this savage act, called forth 
 the special curse of the Lord. 
 
 4. Thus saith the Loed ; For three transgressions of 
 Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the ]_ntnish- 
 ment thereof: because they have despised the law of the 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. II. 119 
 
 Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their 
 lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers 
 have walked : 
 
 5. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall 
 devour the palaces of Jerusalem. 
 
 The crying sin of Judah, correspond hig to the enslaving of their 
 captives by Gaza and Tyre, to the barbarities of Damascus and of 
 Aramou, and to the perpetual resentments of Edora, lay in lier dis- 
 owning God, spurning his authority, and turning her heart to idols. 
 The " law of the Lord " is the moral law ; " the commandments " 
 are specially the statutes, religious and civil ; while their "lies which 
 had led them astray," were their idol gods. Those were lies in the 
 most emphatic sense — lies in act, every idol god being a lie acted 
 out, a living falsehood, representing nothing true and real, but only 
 a delusion ; or, in the shortest, best phrase, a lie. This crime of 
 Judah was all the greater because it was committed against so 
 much light. " To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to 
 him it is sin " (James 4 : 17). " If I had not come and spoken to 
 them " — so said Christ of the Jews — " they had not had sin ; but 
 now they have no cloak for their sin" (John 15: 22). Judah had 
 no doubt sinned in other ways ; doubtless she had been cruel 
 toward other nations, oppressive toward her own poor, but none of 
 these sins were to be named in comparison with this mother sin, 
 this crowning sin of all — her reproach and dishonor cast upon God 
 in rejecting his authority, renouncing his worship, and giving her 
 
 heart publicly to lying vanities. This passage reads to us the 
 
 guilt and the doom of thousands of ungodly men in Christian lands. 
 They know God and his gospel but too well — too well to have their 
 sin and damnation measured by even the savage barbarities of 
 heatlien nations. Of the city where Christ wrought many mira- 
 cles he said, " It shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment for 
 
 Sodom than for thee" (Matt. 11:24). The Chaldean was the 
 
 first terrible executioner of this threatened doom. (See 2 Chron. 
 36:19; Jer. 52 : 13 ; Lam. 2 : 1-10.) 
 
 6. Thus saith the Lord ; For three transgressions of 
 Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the puiiish- 
 meiit thereof: because they sold the righteous for silver, 
 and the poor for a pair of shoes ; 
 
 7. That pant after the dust of the earth on the head 
 of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek : and 
 a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to 
 profane my holy name : 
 
 8. And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid 
 to pledge by every altar, aiid they drink the wine of the 
 condemned m the house of their god. 
 
120 AMOS.— CHAP. II. 
 
 Last of all is Israel, the northern kingdom, to whom especially 
 the prophet Amos was sent. It is remarkable that their chief sins, 
 as here developed, lay in the line of immoralities against their fel- 
 low-men : the violation of natural rights, the oppression of the 
 poor, and dishonoring the law of chastity. This book of Amos 
 discloses startling facts in respect to the luxury of the wealthy, and 
 their oppression of the poor. Note the particulars given here. 
 " They sold the righteous for silver ; " good men, bearing God's 
 image, and beloved of him for their moral integrity, they sold for 
 paltry silver! Ought not the righteous Father of all to abhor thib 
 crime, and hurl his bolts of vengeance on the heads of such crim- 
 inals? They "sold the poor for a pair of shoes," so cheap did 
 
 they hold personal liberty and the rights of manhood! These 
 " shoes " were only sandals, nothing but soles of leather or wood, 
 
 fastened to the foot with straps ; of course very cheap. " That 
 
 pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor : " so grasp- 
 ing, so avaricious, so bent on extorting every thing the poor man 
 had, if they saw a particle of dust settled upon his hatless head, 
 they are represented as panting after it, as if they could have no 
 rest till they had got it by extortion or by violence ! A pretty 
 strong figure truly — but human depravity sometimes comes fully up 
 to the sense of it ! Avarice not unfrequcntly becomes the ruling 
 master passion of a man's soul, and then no sin is more likely to 
 take on a development perfectly monstrous. It behooves men of 
 
 avaricious tendencies to beware! Some interpreters suppose the 
 
 case thought of here is that of a poor man, robbed of all, throwing 
 dust on his head in his grief over his loss, while his rapacious op- 
 pressor grudges him even this poor dust ! To '' turn aside the 
 
 way of the meek" is to subvert justice in their case, and bar them 
 
 from redress for their wrongs through the courts of law. =^The 
 
 case of a man, his father, and the same mait\ j-cfers probably to the 
 public prostitutes kept in the idol temples, such abominations being 
 part of tliat system of unutterable pollution. The prophet says 
 this was done to profane God's holy name, as if it were their set 
 purpose to dishonor God and trample under their feet his blessed 
 
 law of chastity. Retaining over night the garments of the poor 
 
 taken in pledge, was very expressly forbidden, Ex. 22 : 26, 27: "If 
 thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver 
 it to him by that the sun goeth down, for it is his covering only ; 
 it is his raiment for his skin. Wherein shall he sleep ? And it 
 shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear, for I 
 am gracious." The poor in those countries had no bed-covering 
 other than their outer garments. The Lord would not let the grip 
 of avarice deprive the poor of their bed-covering. But these de- 
 generate Israelites, instead of returning this bed-covering for the 
 owner to sleep under, " laid themselves down upon clothes laid to 
 pledge" ( i. e., as security for debts), and this "5?/ ^^'^^'2/ ci,ltar'''' in 
 the very presence of their gods, and in their places of religious 
 worshi]). Plainly their religion bore no testimony against out- 
 
AMdS.— CHAP. II. 121 
 
 rageons hiliuraanity. Any form of religion is practically rotten wliicli 
 bears no testimony or protest against hard-hearted cruelty to man. 
 There is never a stronger proof of religious corruption than a cool 
 and heartless mixing up of professed worship of God with remorse- 
 less crime tou^ard man. "To drink the wine of the condemned 
 
 in the honse of their God," is another sin of the same sort. Lit- 
 erally rendered, it is the wine of the amerced or taxed — the wine 
 they had assessed upon their tenants or other poor, and by fraud 
 or force compelled them unjustly to pay. This they have the im- 
 piety to drink " in the house of their god," their religion having 
 no testimony to bear to the conscience against crime toward fellow- 
 men. 
 
 9. Yet destroyed I the Ainorite before tliein, whose 
 height was like the height of the cedars, and he loas 
 strong as the oaks ; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, 
 and his roots from beneath. 
 
 Here the prophet turns to speak in the next three verses of 
 what God had wrought for his people, that in the light of these 
 great works of mercy they may see their more aggravated guilt. 
 The Amorites, living of old on both sides of tlie Jordan, rep- 
 resent the nations of Canaan. Pliysically, they were a gigantic 
 race, and being proficient in the arts of war, they were exceedingly 
 strong. So they appeared to the twelve spies whom Moses sent up 
 from the wilderness of Paran. They reported : " The people be 
 strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very 
 great, and moreover we saw the children of Anak there." "All 
 the people that we saw in it are men of great stature; there we 
 saw the giants ; and we were in our own siglit as grasshoppers, 
 and so we were in their sight " (Xum. 13 : 28, 32, 33). The his- 
 tory shows that God's interposition to drive out this powerful 
 race before Israel, then altogether unused to war, was special. 
 Tie promised early (Ex. 23: 27-29), "I will send my fear before 
 thee, and will destroy all the people unto whom thou shalt come. . . 
 I will send liornets before thee who shall drive out the Canaanites," 
 i\rc. See also Deut. T: 20, and Josh. 24: 12. This hornet (so ren- 
 dered) seems to have been some form of scourge, perhaps a pesti- 
 lence, as Hab. 3 : 5 would naturally imply. It was at least God's 
 hand, manifested either in some physical scourge, or in mental panic, 
 or in both, and designed to palsy their power and make them an 
 easy conquest to God's chosen people. This Amos beautifully sets 
 forth : " The Amorite, though in his early prowess as the height 
 of the cedars and the strength of the oaks, yet God's hand destroyed 
 his fruit above and his roots beneath." 
 
 10. Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, 
 and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess 
 the land of the Amorite. 
 
122 AMOS.— CHAP. II. 
 
 The scenes of the Exodus and of those forty years in the "wilder* 
 ness were full of divine care and love. Every day had its miracles 
 of mercy. 
 
 11. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of 
 your young men for !Nazarites. Is it not even tlius, O 
 ye cliildren of Israel ? saitli the Lord. 
 
 The order of prophets seems not to have heen specially provided 
 for in the Mosaic institutes, but sprang np under the law of demand 
 — the exigencies of later times. For the order of Nazarites, how- 
 ever, special provision was made. (See Num. 6.) The persons com- 
 posing this order were often set apart from their hirth, e. g.^ Sam- 
 son and Samuel. They were to abstain sacredly and specially from 
 wine and from every thing else that could intoxicate, standing as 
 living witnesses to the value of temperance and a perpetual protest 
 
 against self-indulgence. It was truly a favor to the people that 
 
 the Lord took his prophets and Nazarites from their own sons. 
 We can suppose the case that the men for these orders should have 
 been called in from other nations. This supposition would shov/ 
 at a glance how much better the social and general influence must 
 
 be to take them from Hebrew families. Our translators and 
 
 many commentators interpret the question at the close of the verse 
 as the Lord's appeal to Israel to admit the fact that he had taken 
 his prophets and IS^azarites from among them. In my vievf, such 
 an appeal can scarcely be deemed necessary, and is therefore very 
 improbable. I prefer to read, " And is there nothing of this, O ye 
 children of Israel ? " Is this a thing of no account ? — implying that 
 it is a matter of great account. 
 
 12. But ye gave the I^azarites wine to drink ; and 
 commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not. 
 
 This fact evinces the daring impiety of the people. They sought 
 to frustrate the benevolent aims of God in establishing both these 
 classes of reformers. "Ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink" — 
 seducing them into the violation of their vows, and thus paralyzing 
 their influence. "Ye forbid the prophets to prophesy." In some 
 cases, they persecuted, imprisoned, and murdered God's prophets, 
 
 to suppress their testimony. Such a people must be fast filling up 
 
 the measure of their iniquities. 
 
 13. BehoM, I am pressed under you, as a cart is 
 pressed that is full of sheaves. 
 
 14. Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, 
 and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither 
 Bhall the .mighty deliver himself : 
 
 15. Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow ; 
 and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself : 
 neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself. 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. III. 123 
 
 16. And he that is courageous among tlie miglity 
 sliall flee away naked in that day, saitli the Loed. 
 
 Here the prophet amioiinces divine judgments for these sins o*f 
 
 the people. The received version — " I am pressed under yon," 
 
 &c., represents the Lord as the cart pressed by its burden of sheaves 
 — with reference to the demand made upon liira for vengeance — 
 which demand his justice could not resist, nor could his mercy 
 ly-ield to it without strong pressure and keen anguish. This senti- 
 ment may be very true, but it is probably not the truth tanght here. 
 The passage should rather be read — " Behold, I am pressing you 
 down as a cart full of sheaves presseth down," i. c.^ whatever it 
 passes over. The points in favor of this construction are (1.) That 
 the verbs are not passive — " I am pressed," &c., but are strongly 
 active, and even causative — "I am pressing you down " — causing 
 you to be pressed down. (2.) That the word "Behold," more 
 naturally calls attention to the punishment God will inflict than to 
 the state of his feelings in view of the necessity of inflicting it. 
 (3.) And it makes the logic of the following verse for more forcible : 
 — a people so pressed down as with a loaded cart upon them must 
 lose all power of flight, even the swiftest of them; the strong could 
 have no force available under such a weight, &c. This logical con- 
 nection of thought, ^expressed by "therefore" (v. 14), is more than 
 lost by the rendering which assumes that the weight and burden 
 of this pressure come down upon God rather than upon his sinning 
 
 people. The idea that none can escape is reiterated with great 
 
 force. The bowmen shall not stand ; the swift-footed shall not save 
 even himself, nor he who has a fleet horse at command ; and finally, 
 he who unites the utmost courage and the utmost strength shall 
 
 only escape (if at all) naked, saving nothing but his person. The 
 
 reader will readily notice that the figure belongs to husbandry, antl 
 is such as we might look for in one who was from boyhood " among 
 the herdmen of Tekoa." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Tms chapter continues the same strain, exposing the sins of the 
 people, showing that the Almighty awakes to judgment against 
 tliem, and calls his prophet to reveal the fearful truth. Foreign 
 nations are summoned to witness the sins of Samaria, and again hei 
 doom is announced. 
 
 1. Hear this word that th.e Lord hath spoken agamst 
 you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which 
 I brought up from the land of Egjq^t, saying, 
 
 2. You only have I known of all the fiimilies of the 
 earth : therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities 
 
12i AMOS.— CHAP. III. 
 
 It was tlie paculiar ag£?ravation of the sins of Israel that God 
 had hioimi them as his own, and had blessed them only among all 
 the nations, with abundant revelations of his will ; and that, not- 
 withstanding all, they had persistently rebelled against him. There- 
 fore, he would surely punish them for all their iniquities. The sins 
 of other nations God might wink at and pass over with comparatively 
 little notice; the sins of Israel could not be passed over ! 
 
 Z. Can two walk together, except they be agreed ? 
 
 4. Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no 
 prey ? will a young lion cry ont of his den, if he have 
 taken nothing 'l 
 
 5. Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where 
 no gin is for him ? shall one take np a snare from the 
 earth, and have taken nothing at all ? 
 
 G. Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the 
 people not be afraid ? shall there be evil in a city, and 
 the LoED hath not done it f 
 
 These spirited interrogatives imply that God can go on no 
 longer with his covenant people ; that the hour of his desolating 
 judgments hastens on ; that for these judgments there is abundant 
 cause in their sins ; and tliat the Lord lias summoned his prophet to 
 
 become his oracle of solemn warning to the guilty people. More 
 
 particularly, I paraphrase thus : Can God and Israel walk together 
 unless agreed in sympathy of purpose and character, as they are 
 not now ? — Will the Lord roar out of Zion in premonitory fore- 
 shadowings of coming vengeance, when there is no prey to fall 
 
 upon ? Can the people fall under war and capti\dty where no 
 
 war is, and no captivity, and there is no wrath of God to fear ? 
 
 Are these threatened judgments really nothing? Are not people 
 
 wont to be afraid when they hear the clarion blast of war? And 
 shall they not fear as much now, before the awful blast of Jehovah's 
 trumpet, calling out the nations to bring war on his land ? Shall 
 we not recognize God's agency as including and working all the 
 
 inflictions of calamity that fall on guilty cities? This '' evil in 
 
 the city " Vv^hich v. 6 assumes that the Lord has done, must be 
 natural, not moral — calamity, not sin. The original Hebrew is used 
 frequently for natural evil, e. {/., Gen. 19 : 19 : "Lest some evil take 
 me and I die;" and Gen. 44: : 34: "Lest peradventure I see the 
 
 evil that shall come on my father ;" also Ex. 32 : 14. Besides, 
 
 the strain of the whole passage is of natural evil — the judgments 
 about to come from God on apostate and guilty Israel. To construe 
 this evil, therefore, as being sin, and not calamity, is to ignore the 
 whole current of thought, and to outrage the soundest, most vital 
 laws of interpretation. Moreover, common justice toward God 
 Ibrbids this construction — " Shall there be sin in the city, and the 
 Lord liatli not done it? " This would assume that God is the doer 
 of all the sin in our loorld! 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. III. 125 
 
 7. Siu'ely tlie Lord God will do nothing, bnt lie 
 revealetli his secret unto his servants the prophets. 
 
 8. The lion hath roared, who will not fear ? the Lord 
 God hath spoken, who can bnt prophesy ? 
 
 The Lord is wont to forewarn his people by his proj)hets before 
 he smites them with desolating judgments. This forewarning the 
 prophet now gives, as v. 8 implies : "The lion hath roared." God 
 has uttered his fearful note of warning as one about to smite ; who 
 can refuse to prophesy when thus called to it of God ? The prophet 
 means to say that in the presence of such demonstrations of coming 
 judgments, he should be not only false to God, but false to his 
 countrymen, if he did not solemnly announce God's message, and 
 call them to repentance. 
 
 9. Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the 
 palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble your- 
 selves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the 
 great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in 
 the midst thereof. 
 
 This is a call to tlie people of Ashdod and Eg}T)t, and, by 
 implication, to all the nations named and doomed in the first two 
 chapters, to convene upon the mountains that overlook Samaria, 
 and be witnesses to her great tumults, disorders, and crimes, and to 
 the oppressions done in the midst of her. Guilty as those nations 
 are, they will see deeper guilt and more outrageous crime in Sama- 
 ria. They are to be witnesses of her doom : let them first witness 
 her sins. The word " oppressed " in the text, sliould be " op- 
 pressions," a^ in the margin. 
 
 10. For they know not to do right, saith the Lokd, who 
 store up violence and robbery in their palaces. 
 
 These are the people of Samaria. Despite of aU the light of 
 nature and the superadded light of divine revelation, they yet act 
 as if they knew not how to do right. The trouble is not their 
 ignorance, but their moral perverseness. Knowledge of duty does 
 them no good: they will go on in sin as ■z*/* they had no moral sense 
 
 — no knowledge of right. " They store up in their palaces " the 
 
 fruits of their "violence and robbery" — the cause, violence, being 
 put for the result — the property they wrest from the poor and in- 
 nocent. The frequent allusions to " palaces " imply that the 
 
 wealthy classes lived in luxury on the fruits of extortion and op- 
 pression. 
 
 11. Therefore thus saith rhe Lord God ; An adversary 
 there shall he even round about the land ; and he shall 
 bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall 
 be spoiled. 
 
120 AMOS. -CHAP. III. 
 
 There shall come an enemy — one who shall pervade the whole 
 land. He shall bring down thy strength, and shall spoil tliy palaces. 
 
 The Assyrians w^ere this enemy. The desolation they wrought 
 
 was complete, as the reader may see in 2 Kings 17. 
 
 12. Tliiis saith the Lokd: As tlie slieplierd talvctli 
 out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an 
 ear : so shall the children of Israel be taken out that 
 dwell in Samaria in the corner of abed, and in Damascus 
 m a couch. 
 
 This figure, altogether natural for a shepherd-author, shows 
 that nothing but the merest wrecks and fragments of that great and 
 Avealthy people w^ould remain — only some of the aged, bed-ridden, 
 or sick, overlooked in the general slaughter and deportation of cap- 
 tives — here one in the corner of a bed ; there another on a couch. 
 
 Some of the people might have fled to Damascus for refuge ; 
 
 lience this reference to the few left there. The devastation "would 
 be most terrific and complete. 
 
 13. Hear ye, and testify in the house of Jacob, saith 
 the Lord God, the God of hosts, 
 
 14. That, in the day that I shall visit the transgres- 
 sions of Israel upon him, I will also visit the altars of 
 Eeth-el : and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and 
 fall to the ground. 
 
 15. And I will smite the winter-house w^ith the sum- 
 mer-house ; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the 
 great houses shall have an end, saith the Loed. 
 
 Yet another message indicates the point on which especially the 
 judgments of the Almighty would fall, viz., on the idol altars of 
 Bethel, and on the luxurious palaces of rich oppressors. God would 
 direct his judgments so in the line of the sins scourged as to indi- 
 cate those sins. He would show that his wrath burned especially 
 against those idol altars, and those palaces built with the fruits of 
 
 violence and wrong. "The horns of the altar ; " its projecting 
 
 points at each of the four corners, were highly ornamented; hence 
 these especially should be smitten, to rebuke the pride of the people. 
 
 " The houses of ivory " were those in which ivory was used 
 
 for ornament. Only the w^ealthy could have one house for sum- 
 mer and another for winter. The curse of extermination fell on 
 Samaria mainly because her wealth was ill-gotten, and represented 
 her ^ruel, iniquitous oppression of the poor and innocent. 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. IV. 127 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 The prophet still addresses the proud, oppressive, but effem'mato 
 people of Samaria, describin2: them (v. 1) ; predicting their captivity 
 (vs. 2, 3) ; in irony, bidding* them go on in their sins (vs. 4, 5) ; recit- 
 ing successive judgments from God — famine, drought, blasting, pes- 
 tilence, and the overthrow of some of them even as Sodom — all, 
 however, failing to bring them back to God (vs. 6-11) ; therefore the 
 Almighty bids them prepare to meet him in his desolating judg- 
 ments (vs. 12, 13). 
 
 1. Hear this word, ye kine of Baslian, that are in the 
 inoiintaiii of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which 
 crush the needy, which say to their masters. Bring, and 
 let ns drink. 
 
 2. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, 
 the days shall come npon you, that he will take you 
 away with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks. 
 
 3. And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at 
 that which is before her ; and ye shall cast the?)i into the 
 palace, saith the Loud. 
 
 By the word " kine " (the nearly obsolete plural of cow) some sup- 
 pose the luxurious and corrupt women of Samaria are meant. It is 
 better to apply it to the same class hitherto spoken of, e. ^., 2 : G-8, 
 11-16, and 3: 9-15, i. e.,the wealthy, proud, oppressive rulers and 
 leaders in civil and social life, with no special reference to the fe- 
 male sex : (1.) Because the description given of them here identifies 
 them as the same ; they oppress the poor, crush the needy, love 
 strong drink, (fee. (2.) Because these cows of Bashan are spoken 
 of in the Hebrew, now in the feminine and now in the masculine 
 gender, as if the figure drew the writer to the feminine, but the 
 fact to the masculine ; and (3.) Because he had special reasons for 
 
 calling the men " cows of Bashan," as we shall see. Concerning 
 
 tliis figure — Bashan, a region on the east of Jordan, was renowned 
 for its rich pastures and breeds of cattle, fine, fat, and strong. (See 
 Dent. 32: 14; Ps. 22: 12; Ezek. 39: 18.) Especially the "bulls of 
 Bashan," as in David's reference (Ps. 22 : 12), were fat, strong, fear- 
 less, ferocious : " Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round." 
 Perhaps with a tacit but cutting allusion to them, Amos meant to 
 say — " Ye cows (not bulls) of Bashan, fat enough indeed and well- 
 fed ; fierce and cruel enough toward your helpless poor ; but 
 shamefully effeminate and co2o«rtZ^y where real danger lies; — hear 
 ye these words ! The Lord is about to put his hook in your nose, 
 and take you away to a hopeless captivity. Ye shall be driven out 
 through the breaches made in your city walls, as a man drives out 
 his cows through a gap in their fence — each cow straightforward, 
 
128 AMOS.— CIIAP. lY. 
 
 i. d., with no option to turn to the right hand or to the left." Tim 
 
 is tlie general course of thought in the first three verses. Spe- 
 cially — (v. 1), " in the mountain " would he hotter on the moun- 
 tain, with the figure in view— cows of Bashan, pasturing on the 
 
 raonutains of Samaria. "Who say to their masters," the king — 
 
 the plural being probably what is called '■'-pluralis excellcnticG^'''' — ■ 
 a plural form appropriated to one individual — (here a king) as a 
 
 distinguished honor. " The Lord hath sworn by his holiness " — 
 
 as if declaring solemnly — If I am holy; if I abhor sin ; ly all my 
 abhorrence of such outrages upon the innocent — ye shall be swept 
 
 from your land ! " Taking them away with fish-hooks," should 
 
 not lead our thought to fishing for small game, but to the harpoon- 
 ing of sea-monsters, or rather, to the hook in the jaws of leviathan, 
 or in the nose of fierce bullocks, as where the Lord said of the As- 
 syrian king (Isa. 37 : 29), " I will put my hook in thy nose and 
 turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest ; " or of Pharaoh 
 (Ezek. 29 : 4), " I will put hooks in thy jaws," &c., " and will bring 
 thee up out of the midst of thy rivers ; " or (Job. 41 : 1, 2), " Canst 
 thou draw out leviathan with a hook ? " Thou canst not ; but God 
 
 can ! Li v. 3, the clause — " Ye shall cast them into the palace" 
 
 — should rather be read — "They" — the cows, alias the rich, 
 proud oppressors of Samaria — "shall be cast out of the palace," 
 driven rudely from the ivory mansions, made so splendid by the 
 
 fruits of robbery and wrong. Thus the entire passage is keenly 
 
 ironical and stinging. 
 
 4. Come to Beth-el and transgress : at Gilgal multi- 
 ply transgression ; and bring yonr sacrifices every morn- 
 ing, and your titlies after three years : 
 
 5. And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, 
 and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this 
 liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. 
 
 Tliese verses continue and even intensify the strain of irony. 
 " Come to Bethel, and sin on, since so you like ; try it, if you will ! " 
 
 Bethel and Gilgal were places noted for idol worship. The 
 
 Mosaic law required a sacrifice each morning ; tithes for the poor 
 at the end of each third year (Deut. 14: 28, 29, and 26 : 12), thank- 
 off"erings, and free-will offerings also ; — but the people of Samaria 
 mixed up these required ritual services with horrible idolatry and 
 not less horrid immoralities — oppression, slavery, outrages on all tho 
 rights of the poor and the weak. Hence God abhorred them nono 
 
 the less for their religious rites. " This liketh you" — means in 
 
 the original, this you like or love. 
 
 6. And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in 
 all your cities, and want of bread in all your places : yet 
 have ye not returned unto me, saith the Loed. 
 
 7. And also I have withholden the rain from you, 
 
AMOS.—CHAP. IV. 129 
 
 when there were yet three montlis to the harvest : and 1 
 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 one city, to 
 drink water ; but they were not satisfied : yet have ye 
 not returned unto me, saith the Lord. 
 
 9. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew : 
 when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig- 
 trees and your oHve-trees increased, the pahner-worm 
 devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith 
 the LoED. 
 
 10. I have sent among you the pestilence after the 
 manner of Egypt : your young men have I slain with 
 the sword, and have taken away your horses ; and I 
 have made the stink of your camps to come up unto 
 your nostrils : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith 
 the LoED. 
 
 Here is a series of milder cliastisements wliicli the Lord had 
 tried upon the people, but all in vain. The statement of each form 
 of infliction closes with the same sad result — "Yet have ye not re- 
 turned unto me, saith the Lord." They are enumerated in this 
 way to show the people how long, how patiently, how sincerely, 
 and with what varied appliances the Lord had labored to reclaim 
 them, that they might themselves see the necessity laid on him to 
 
 proceed to measures far more stern and fearful. " Cleanness of 
 
 teeth " is identical with want of bread, famine. He had withheld 
 rain, long before the maturing of the harvests, so that the harvest 
 
 must have utterly failed. The middle clause of v. 9 might be read : 
 
 " The multitude of your gardens and of your vineyards, also your 
 
 tig-trees and olive-trees, the locust hath devoured." V. 10 
 
 seems to imply that when the youDg men were slain by the sword, 
 their horses, left riderless, fell into the hands of the enemy and were 
 
 taken captive — fit retribution for their vain trust in horses. A 
 
 great slaughter had left many bodies unburied, to aggravate the 
 pestilence ; but even this fearful scourge did not bring them back to 
 God. 
 
 11. I have overthrown soDie of you, as God over- 
 threw Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a fire-brand 
 plucked out of the burning : yet have ye not returned 
 unto me, saith the Lord. 
 
 Some of their cities had been laid desolate, even as Sodom and 
 Gomorrah ; — by what precise agency is not said ; but the rest of 
 
130 AMOS.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 the nation might fitly regard themselves as a brand plucked froiK 
 the flames. These figures occur, Zech. 3 : 2, and 1 Cor. 2:15. 
 Yet this most fearful scourge of all, which seemed almost to kindle 
 the very fires of perdition upon them, failed to secure repentance. 
 
 12. Therefore, tlius will I do unto tliee, O Israel : 
 and because I will do this unto tliee, prepare to meet 
 thy God, O Israel. 
 
 " Therefore " implies that by the very necessities of his moral 
 government, since all discipline and chastisement fail, exterminat- 
 ing judgments must come! The word " thus," which here raises 
 
 the question, How will God deal with them? refers to the previous 
 verses. The answer therefore is — As I have exterminated some of 
 your cities, root and branch, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, so will 
 
 I do to the whole nation. Because I have purposed to do this, I 
 
 now give thee warning — "Prepare to meet thy God! " Ye must 
 meet him, coming with exterminating judgments ; there is no es- 
 cape ; therefore be in readiness! The spirit of this announce- 
 ment seems to be that the decree of judgment had gone forth, and 
 its execution was fixed in the counsels of Heaven ; and yet this fact 
 is declared, not with the expectation that the masses will hear and 
 repent, but rather in the hope that some individuals might ; and that 
 it might stand as a w*arning to all other guilty nations in later times. 
 
 It will be noticed that the primary sense of the passage relates 
 
 to Israel as a nation, and had its fulfilment in the final desolation 
 and captivity effected by the Assyrian power as stated 2 Kings 17. 
 But in principle it applies with even augmented force to all the in- 
 corrigibly wicked, summoned to meet God in the final judgment- 
 day. It warns them to be ready to meet him then and there, by 
 turning at once to become his friends and people. O might the 
 wicked only be wise in time, and make the Great Judge their friend 
 while they may, so freely and with such Avelcome ! 
 
 13. For, lo, lie that formeth the mountains, and cre- 
 ateth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his 
 thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and tread- 
 eth upon the high places of the earth, The Loed, The 
 God of hosts, is his name. 
 
 To give his readers some just sense of the majesty of that Being 
 whom sinners of that and of every age must meet in judgment, he 
 names a few of his mighty acts. The passage has scarcely a par- 
 allel for its beauty and sublimity. The Creator must be indefi- 
 nitely greater than his works ; — but look at tliem — the mountains 
 and the winds ; note how he can tell man all his thoughts ; how he 
 can change the glory of the morning into darkness ; and with the 
 majestic march of a God, tread upon the high places of the earth — 
 Jehovah, God of the armies of heaven, his name : — then say — Is it 
 well for thee to rouse his wrath to flame and then to fall before it? 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. V, 131 
 
 Can thy lieart endure and thy hands be strong in so dread a con- 
 flict ? Wilt thou persist in having this Ahnighty God thine enemy ? 
 
 ■ It is remarkable that though this chapter begins with caustic 
 
 irony, yet it ends with the most tender, solemn warnings. Hence 
 the irony is not malign, but is benevolent — used only for the better 
 moral effect — not for any satisfaction to be found in intlicting a 
 keen and cutting castigation. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In this chapter the prophet laments the fall of Israel ; exhorts 
 the people to seek the Lord ; portrays the glory and power of Je- 
 hovah, as reasons why he should be both feared and sought ; re- 
 bukes the sins of the people, and affirms God's abhorrence of the 
 mere forms of worship without the heart and without justice and 
 righteousness toward fellow-men, 
 
 1. Hear ye this word wliich I take up against you, 
 even a lamentation, O house of Israel. 
 
 2. The virgin of Israel is fallen ; she shall no more 
 rise : she is forsaken upon her land : there is none to 
 raise her up. 
 
 This lamentation or elegy — a plaintive wail of grief — assumes 
 forcibly that Israel is seen as one fallen, and her nationality extinct 
 She is compared to a maiden, now gone down to rise no more. 
 ^'Forsaken upon her land" should rather be '■'■ prostrate \x])Oti her 
 own land," with none to help her rise, 
 
 3. For thus saith the Lord God ; Tiie city that went 
 out 1)}/ a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that 
 which went forth hj an hundred shall leave ten, to the 
 house of Israel. 
 
 The glory of cities was graduated by the number of men they 
 could send out for war. The passage shows how fearfully their 
 strength had departed. The city that once sent forth a thousand 
 had now but a hundred left; so that the house of Israel was shorn 
 of its military strength. 
 
 4. For thus saith the Loed unto the house of Israel, 
 Seek ye me, and ye shall live : 
 
 5. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and 
 pass not to Beer-sheba : for Gilgal shall surely go into 
 captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. 
 
 "Seeking the Lord" is returning to him in penitence and im- 
 ploring his mercy. The promise — "thou shalt live" — usually 
 
132 AMOS.— CHAP. V. 
 
 covers sometliing more and other than natural life, and, in the case 
 of Israel, more than a prolonged nationality ; it means the richest 
 blessings. Life is one of the most comprehensive and expressive 
 terms in human language to denote blessedness — substantial good, 
 
 "Seek not Bethel; " i. e., the idol gods of Bethel. So Gilgal 
 
 and Beersheba are not to be sought, considered as seats of idol-wor- 
 ship. In the last clause the prophet fastens the thought in the 
 mind of his Hebrew readers by a play vipon his words. Gilgal, 
 meaning the place of rolled-up heaps, shall be rolled away inl o 
 captivity ; Bethel shall become Aven, nothing, void of any living 
 thing. The word rendered " nought " is Aven. Bethel came to 
 be frequently called Beth-aven, because it was desecrated by its 
 idols. Here the sense is even stronger — house of nonentities, 
 empty of even its senseless, powerless idols. Even they have gone 
 and perished ! 
 
 6. Seek the Loed, and ye shall live ; lest he break 
 out like fire in the honse of Joseph, and devonr it, and 
 there Ije none to qnench it in Beth-el. 
 
 A further reason for seeking Jehovah is, "lest he break forth 
 like fire on the house of Joseph " — Joseph being another name for 
 the northern kingdom. The last clause, literally rendered, is ex- 
 pressive : " And "there be no quencher for Bethel " — no one to ex- 
 tinguish the fires the Lord kindles upon her. 
 
 Y. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave 
 off righteousness in the earth, 
 
 "Wormwood" is one of the most bitter of herbs— significantly 
 put here for the grief felt by those who get only wrong and injury 
 where they should have right and good. The passage describes 
 
 those who wrest the cause of the innocent and pervert justice. 
 
 The clause " leave ofi^ righteousness in the earth " is better ren- 
 dered, " who cast righteousness to the ground." The words im- 
 ply also that they make it lie there— make that its resting-place— 
 and allow it no practical sway in human affairs. 
 
 8. Seeh Mm that maketh the seven stars and Orion, 
 and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and 
 maketh the day dark with night : that calleth for the 
 waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face 
 of the earth : The Lord is his name : 
 
 Men should seek God because he is so great and so glorious— 
 has such power to turn our day to night, and our night to day— to 
 bring up the waters of ocean by his call, and pour them forth 
 as of old, in the deluge. The beauty and sublimity of this passage 
 are exquisite. Job has a similar allusion to those brilliant constel 
 lations (9 : 9). 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. V. 133 
 
 9. That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, 
 so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. 
 
 This magnificent description of the power of Jehovah closes 
 with a word designed to make it more practical to the Samaritans 
 who relied on the mihtary strength of their capital — " Who makes 
 destruction flash out upon the mighty, and desolation shall como 
 upon the strong city." The first verb, which I have rendered 
 ''flash out," takes its figure from the breaking forth of the dawn 
 upon the darkness of the night — a figure which has most force iu 
 couuti-ies near the equator, where the twilight is short. The re- 
 ceived translation fails to give the exact sense. 
 
 10. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and 
 they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. 
 
 Again the prophet reverts to the reigning sin of the people. 
 They love darkness and hate light, because their deeds are evil, and 
 they are committed to wrong-doing. The " gate " was in that age 
 the court-house—the place where justice should reign, and sin bo 
 always rebuked. The people of Samaria hated the upright, honest 
 judge, and whoever else should speak for righteousness. 
 
 11. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon 
 the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat : ye 
 have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell 
 in them ; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye 
 shall not drink wine of them. 
 
 These " burdens of wheat " were cruel exactions in the form of 
 rents or taxes, yet oppressive and unrighteous. For these sins of 
 oppressing the poor, God will tear them away from their houses 
 and vineyards. However much they may build tlie one and plant 
 the other, he can frustrate their hope of enjoying them. It is hard 
 fighting against God. No wisdom and no strength can withstand 
 him. 
 
 12. For I know your manifold transgressions and 
 your mighty sins : they afflict the just, they take a 
 bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from 
 their right. 
 
 "For I know that your transgressions are many, and your sins 
 gi'eat." " The poor in the gate " are before the courts of justice. 
 
 13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that 
 time ; for it is an evil time. 
 
 " The prudent " are the wise and good. They keep silence and 
 forbear to rebuke the sins of the age, because they see no hope of 
 doing good thereby. They recognize God's aw ful presence to scour i^'o 
 the people, and they bow before his manifestly righteous ways. 
 
134 AMOS.— CHAP. V. 
 
 14. Seek good, and not evil, tliat ye may live : and 
 BO the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye 
 have spoken. 
 
 " As je have spoken " refers to their professions of being the 
 people of the Lord, and, as such, safe against harm from a heathen 
 foe. The prophet says to them — " Seek good, and not evil ; " so 
 the Lord of hosts shall be with you truly— as ye have been saying 
 when it was not true. 
 
 15. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish 
 judgment in the gate : it may be that the Lord God of 
 hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. 
 
 The phrase '' remnant of Joseph " implies that the population 
 was already greatly reduced in numbers, of which fact there is 
 proof in 2 Kings 10 : 82, 83 : " In those days the Lord began to 
 cut Israel short, and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel." 
 
 16. Therefore, the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, 
 saith thus ; Wailing shall he in all streets ; and they shall 
 say in all the highways, Alas ! alas ! and they shall call 
 the husbandmen to mourning, and such as are skilful of 
 lamentation to wailing. 
 
 17. And in all vineyards shall he wailing : for I will 
 pass through thee, saith the Lord. 
 
 The prophet Amos is remarkable for the fulness and solemnity 
 with which he uses the significant names of God. Here is an in- 
 stance: "Jehovah, the God of hosts" (or celestial armies), "the 
 Lord, saith thus," &c. The people at that time had a very imper- 
 fect sense of the glory and majesty of the Lord their God. This 
 grouping of his majestic names was therefore entirely appropriate, 
 
 and had a most worthy object. In this passage the Lord seeks to 
 
 impress the certainty of their impending doom by declaring that 
 soon there shall be wailing through all the populous cities and the 
 country. The " skilful of lamentation " were persons who made it 
 their profession to sing or chant mournful dirges at funerals, or on 
 other occasions of public sorrow. Eccles. 12 : 5 speaks of this class 
 of persons as "going about the streets." Jer. 9 : 17-19 seems to 
 show that women were specially employed in this service. This 
 usage prevailed not only among the Hebrews, but among the 
 
 ancient Greeks, Komans, Egyptians, and other nations also. 
 
 God "will pass through" the land and among the people in such 
 a way that they shall feci his presence and be made fearfully con- 
 scious of his wrath. 
 
 18. Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord ! 
 to what end is it for you ? the day of the Lord is dark- 
 ness, and not light. 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. V. 135 
 
 19. As if a man did ilee from a lion, and a bear met 
 him ; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on 
 the wall, and a serpent bit him. 
 
 20. Shall not the day of the Lokd Ije darkness, and 
 not light ? even very dark, and no brightness in it % 
 
 In their foolhardiness some had expressed their desire that this 
 day of the Lord might come, madly daring Jehovah to do his worst. 
 Upon them God denounces special woe. Ho asks — What will this 
 day of the Lord be to you ? and answers — Only darkness, and not 
 light; no rays of light in it; no mitigation to its horrors. Then, 
 by two expressive figures, of a class natural to the mind of one 
 trained in fields and deserts where wild beasts have their homes, he 
 shows that to attempt to flee from God in any direction would be 
 
 only to meet him there in a more fearful form. What else can 
 
 any sane mind think of the daring impiety that challenges God 
 to show his power to curse and punish, save that it is the veriest 
 madness? Do such men suppose they can cope with Omnipotence? 
 Do they assume that God's resources for making them feel the bit- 
 terness of his strokes, are likely to be soon exhausted ? Or do they 
 glory in rousing their puny souls to bravery and daring, as if it 
 were noble to measure strength with the iUmighty ? Alas for the 
 folly and the madness that sin begets 1 
 
 21. I hate, I despise yonr feast days, and I will not 
 smell in yonr solemn assemblies. 
 
 22. Though ye ofler me burnt-offerings and your 
 meat-offerings, I will not accept them ; neither will I 
 regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. 
 
 23. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs ; 
 for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 
 
 The people were deluding themselves with the notion that they 
 were high in favor with God, because they kept up the forms of 
 the Mosaic worship. To dispel this delusion, the Lord solemnly pro- 
 tests to them that He not only takes no pleasure in their worship, 
 but thoroughly abhors it : "I hat-e, I loathe your feast days.'' 
 The practice of burning incense in worship for the sake of its sweet 
 odors, led to the use of the verb to smell in this connection. It 
 may perhaps be as well to translate so as to give only the ultimate 
 
 sense — I have no pleasure in your solemn assemblies.- The 
 
 " peace-oflerings " are often called "thank-offerings," a term which 
 better expresses their significance — ofierings of gratitude and thanks- 
 giving. The word ^'- noise" (v. 28) is highly expressive, showing 
 
 that music with no heart in it is otjIj noise, and never melody to the 
 ear of God, a thought worthy of consideration in reference to the 
 " service of sacred song " in our own times. If the Lord had a 
 prophet Amos to send now into modern congregations, would lio 
 
13G AMOS.— CHAP. V. 
 
 not (sometimes) give him this very message ? The sentiment ol 
 
 these verses appears in several other prophets — in Hosea, as we 
 have seen, G : 6, and 8 : 13, and 9:4; and Isa. 1 : 11-15. 
 
 24. But let judgment run down as waters, and right- 
 eousness as a mighty stream. 
 
 The Lord asts them to reform, not their modes of worship, but 
 their morals^ their monstrous wrongs and oppressions of their fel- 
 low-men. Let judgment (in^the sense of justice) flow freelj, rolling 
 on as water, smoothly and without obstruction ; and let righteous- 
 ness be as a perennial stream. Some critics say perennial ; others 
 say strong, powerful. Either is good sense, and the original bears 
 either. A stream never dry, and never abating its flow, seems most 
 
 in harmony with the scope of thought. How strongly does the 
 
 word of God afiirm and reiterate the doctrine that God repels the 
 forms of worship, unless they are accompanied with an honest re- 
 gard for our fellow-men ! He will never accept of worship profess- 
 edly oftered to himself, in place of duties due to man. This is 
 
 truly like a father, to insist that we shall treat all his children well, 
 as a condition of his acceptiug our worship of himself. No 
 worship can be so costly or so imposing that it can supply the place 
 of "loving our neighbor as ourself." 
 
 25. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings 
 in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel ? 
 
 26. But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch 
 and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye 
 made to yourselves. 
 
 27. Tlierefore w^ill I cause you to go into captivity 
 beyond Damascus, saith the Lokd, w^hose name is The 
 God of hosts. 
 
 This question assumes that the answer is affirmative. Ye did, 
 indeed, i. e., your fathers, then living, did ofter sacrifices in the 
 wilderness; hut, ye also carried along your little idol images 
 secretly, stealthily, all that time. The same spirit of idolatry has 
 become far more rampant, open, Heaven-daring, in these later 
 times, for which I shall send you into captivity beyond Damascus. 
 
 This is the general scope. Tlie particular explanation of v. 26 
 
 has been found somewhat difficult. The quotation of it by Stephen 
 (Acts 7 : 42, 43), made from the Septuagint version, shows some 
 of these various opinions. The original words have been spelled 
 and read differently; e. (/., the Hebrew reading is Melek, which 
 means king; the Septuagint is Moloch, an ancient idol. Some 
 make Chiun a proper, others a common noun. None of these 
 points of diff'erence materially affect the general sense of the 
 passage, which, beyond all doubt, means tliat the Israelites in the 
 wilderness bore along with them little shrines and images of idol 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VI. 137 
 
 gods, or of some of the planets. The Hebrew text might ho 
 
 rendered, "But ye bore the shrine of your king (meaning, yonr 
 idol) and the little images of your idols, the star of your 
 god, which ye made for yourselves." The last clause iniphes that 
 the images represented a star, and involved the worship of the 
 planet Saturn. They supposed the planets to be animated, conscious 
 and powerful, wielding a vast influence over human destiny. These 
 ideas and usages they found and embraced in Egypt. Of their per- 
 petual tendency to idol worship while in the wilderness, the history 
 gives painful evidence, especially in the case of the golden calf (Ex. 
 32). In our passage it is assumed that, like Eachel in Jacob's family, 
 some of the Hebrews, during those forty years, bore along their 
 
 little idol shrines and worshipped them. The Jews were never 
 
 thoroughly cured of their proclivities toward idols until their 
 seventy years' captivity. The captivity of the ten tribes practically 
 destroyed their nationality, and sunk them into oblivion, so that it 
 cannot be known whether they ever abandoned their idol worship. 
 
 CHAPTEPw VI. 
 
 Woes on cities and their chief men who can be at ease in their 
 great sins, and in the very face of fearful judgments from the Almighty ; 
 further specifications of their sins of luxury, intemperance, and 
 oppression; followed by announcements of yet more desolating 
 judgments, fill up this chapter. 
 
 1. Woe to tliem that are at ease in Zion, and trust in 
 the mountain of Samaria, which are named cliief of tlie 
 nations, to whom tlie house of Israel came ! 
 
 The word Zion embraces Jerusalem and her leading minds, as, 
 on the other hand, Samaria carries ns to the chief city of the north- 
 ern kingdom. The people of Samaria trusted in the natural 
 
 strength of their position. — on the mountains. " Judah and Israel 
 
 were renowned as chief among the nations " of Western Asia. The 
 clause " to whom the house of Israel came," refers to the leading 
 men — princes, judges, and religious teachers, to whom the people 
 came for justice in the courts, and to whom they looked for influence 
 
 and direction. This woe came on them because of their great 
 
 guilt, especially the guilt of being reckless in the midst of awful sin, 
 and under God's revealed threatenings of exterminating judgments. 
 Eor the responsible leading men to say practically in the face of 
 such threatenings, What do ue care ? was fearfully provoking to 
 the Most High, and must inevitably seal their doom. In every age 
 sinners who scorn the warnings of Jehovah, and would fain beat ease 
 in Zion despite of them, are near the point where judgments break 
 forth and " there is no remedy ! " 
 
138 AMOS.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 2. Pass ye imto Calneh, and see ; and from thence 
 go ye to Hamatli the great : then go down to Gath of 
 the Pliilistines : he they better than these kingdoms 1 or 
 their border greater than yom* border ? 
 
 This verse connects itself in thought with the clause " which 
 are named chief of the nations " (v. 1). The thought is — Judah 
 and Israel have stood high among the nations of their time, in 
 military power, in richness of country, and in the light of a true 
 religion : their responsibilities are therefore the greater, and so much 
 the more is their guilt in disowning and abusing the great Giver of 
 
 their blessings. That they were truly renowned as first among 
 
 the nations, any one may see by going (in thought) to those nations 
 with whom the comparison should naturally Idc made. Pass thus 
 over the Euphrates to Calneli (called Calno, Isaiah 10 : 9), on the 
 cast bank of the Tigris, and see ; from thence go to Hamath the 
 great, on the Orontes, one of the great cities of Syria; then go down 
 to Gath of the Philistines : were they better than these two king- 
 doms, Judah and Israel ? or had they a larger and better territory ? 
 
 3. Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the 
 seat of violence to come near ; 
 
 4. That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch them- 
 selves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the 
 flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall ; 
 
 5. That chant to tlie sound of the viol, and invent 
 to themselves instruments of music, like David ; 
 
 6. That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themseh^es 
 with the chief ointments : hut they are not grieved for 
 the affliction of Joseph. 
 
 Here is a rapid description of the social and moral life of the 
 classes in question — the leading minds, especially in the kingdom 
 of Israel. They "put far away the evil day," i. c.^ in thought, they 
 assume it to be far distant, and they act as if it were; but the 
 throne of violence — the bench of justice whence righteousness 
 should proceed and violence never should — they cause to come 
 near ; — the form of expression being antithetic to that in the first 
 clause. They thrust the fear of danger from sin far away, and 
 welcome near the worst forms of wrong, even legalized oppression, 
 rolling in luxury, lounging in idleness, feasting on fatlings from 
 flock and stall, chattering to the sound of the viol (where the word 
 used by the prophet has a spice of irony and contempt) ; but they 
 are fain to give themselves to music, as if nothing in their great 
 guilt and near approaching doom should be allowed to trench on 
 their hilarity; and to crown all, they drink wine by the bowlful, 
 and, anointing themselves with the richest oils, they think only of 
 personal gelf-indulgcnce and never " grieve for the afliiction of 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VI. 139 
 
 Jose|)h." Their, country and the cause of their nation's God have 
 
 no place in their hearts. This last clause, "they grieve not for 
 
 the affliction of Joseph," is analogous to " being at ease in Zion," 
 and shows why the woes of God came down on Israel. They had 
 
 no true sjTopathy with God or with his people. The name 
 
 " Joseph " represents the kingdom of Israel considered especially as 
 being the chosen people of God, and bearing his name before the 
 nations ; yet may there not be, in the choice of this name, a tacit 
 allusion to the original Joseph among his envious, heartless breth- 
 ren, when they "saw the anguish of his soul, and he besought them, 
 and they would not hear." Little did they heed the affliction of 
 Joseph then ; alike heedless are the people of Samaria in the days 
 of this prophet, llencc the righteous woe, so soon to fall upon 
 them. 
 
 7. Therefore, now shall they go captive with the first 
 that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched 
 themselves shall be removed. 
 
 As the men of wealth and high standing have been foremost in 
 oppressing the poor and wresting the cause of the meek; foremost 
 also in luxury, self-indulgence, and recklessness of the cause of 
 God : so they shall be first among the captives, heading the sad 
 procession; and the banquet of those who lay stretched out around 
 (in beastly drunkenness, we must suppose), shall be quite broken 
 up. (The Lord has no special tenderness toward this beastly sin!) 
 
 8. The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the 
 Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, 
 and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver np the 
 city with all that is therein. 
 
 ISTote the solemn reiteration of the names of God in this case, 
 in which, since " he can swear by no greater, he swears by him- 
 self." The things so solemnly affirmed are two: (1.) That " God 
 abhors the excellency of Jacob," &c. ; (2.) That he will abandon 
 
 the city and all its inhabitants to destruction. The " excellency 
 
 of Jacob" has been alluded to in this chapter; see v. 1, "chief of 
 the nations," and v. 2, " better than other adjacent kingdoms ; " — 
 this excellency being mainly thought of as lying in its natural ad- 
 vantages. The same sense must be the primary one here, the more 
 so because connected with " his palaces ; " but the reason why God 
 has come to abhor and hate a noble country, once flowing with 
 milk and honey, and the glory of all lands, lies in the guilt, and es- 
 pecially the pride of its people. To this there seems to be a tacit 
 aUusion in the very phrase, " the excellency of Jacob," since this 
 word in Hebrew is used for pride^ as well as for naturally excellent 
 qualities. The sense then, here, is that the pride and moral corrup- 
 tion of the people were so monstrous and so intrinsically hateful 
 to God, that he abhorred the very country for their sake, and must 
 
140 AMOS.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 spoil its fair beauty and consign it to long and blank desolation. 
 And there the land of Palestine lies to-day — as yet, not half recov- 
 ered from this fearful curse ! 
 
 9. And it shall come to pass, if tliere remain ten 
 men in one house, that they shall die. 
 
 10. And a man's imcle shall take him up, and he 
 that burnetii him, to bring out the bones out of the 
 house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the 
 house. Is there yet any with thee ? and he shall say, No. 
 Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue : for we may not 
 make mention of the name of the Lokd. 
 
 To show how utter would be the destruction of its inhabitants, 
 the prophet gives some particulars for illustration. If only a small 
 number, say ten (a definite number for an indefinite), remain in one 
 house, even they shall all die. And when a man's nncle (or other 
 friend), together with him whose office it shall be to burn the corpse, 
 bring ont a dead body, and finding one poor invalid in some corner or 
 closet of the house, shall ask him, " Is there another dead man here ? " 
 he shall say, "No more; " and then shall add, " Hush ! for we may 
 
 not make mention of the name of the Lord." This last phrase — 
 
 "make mention of the name of the Lord" — usually signifies, to 
 speak of God in grateful, appropriate acknowledgment, and due 
 lionor. See Josh. 23 : 7, where this is forbidden in reference to false 
 gods ; also Ps. 20 : 7, and Isa. 62 : 6. Precisely what this prohibi- 
 tion meant in this case is not certain ; perhaps it indicates such a 
 sense of the awfulness of God's presence in this scourge upon the 
 land that guilty men could not endure to hear his name ! 
 
 11. For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will 
 smite the great house with breaches, and the little house 
 with clefts. 
 
 All the houses, great or little, shall be smitten ; the great shat- 
 tered to pieces, as the Hebrew word implies ; the little ones rent 
 with clefts. Oppressors, enriched by wrong, are remembered be- 
 fore God in this day of judgment. 
 
 12. Shall horses run upon the rock % will one plough 
 tliere with oxen ? for ye have turned judgment into gall, 
 and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock : 
 
 These questions put cases, not of extreme difficulty so much as 
 of practical impossibility, and aim to illustrate the futility and ab- 
 surdity of those vain reliances w^hich have kept up the spirits of the 
 people. They had been hoping to repel their foreign enemies and 
 withstand the threatened judgments of the Almighty. He hints to 
 them that they might as we^l plough the rock with oxen, or run 
 horses upon the precipitous cliffs of their mountain glens. ^V}ly 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VI. i^l 
 
 could they not escape ? Why could they not resist Jeliov^ah's wrath ? 
 Because they " had turned judgment into gall " — that which is 
 always sweet to good men into the most bitter draught — "and tlic 
 fruit of righteousness" — righteous judicial decisions — "into the 
 poison hemlock." Such perversions of justice had insured Jeho- 
 vah's wrath. What a lesson of warning against American slave- 
 holding! See a like form of expression, IIos. 10 : 4, and Amos 
 
 5:7. 
 
 13. Ye whicli rejoice in a thing of nought, wliicli 
 saj, Have we not taken to us horns b j our own strength ? 
 They had trusted joyfully in what could avail them nought, but 
 nnist prove a thing of no power to save — a mere nothing. They 
 had said, " Have we not taken to ourselves horns (always an em- 
 blem of power) by our own strength ? " Not the least recognition 
 of God as their strength appears, but, on the contrary, every word 
 indicates the purest self-conceit, and the pride of self-made help. 
 Such "pride goeth before destruction," jnst a little way only, be- 
 fore ! 
 
 IJ:. But beholdj I will raise up against you a nation, 
 O house of Israel, saith the Lord the God of hosts ; and 
 they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hamath 
 unto the river of the wilderness. 
 
 This prediction almost names the Assyrian power — manifestly 
 means it. God raised them, up ; they came, and did indeed lay the 
 land desolate " from the entering in of Hamath " — a very common 
 phrase for their northern border, and a natural thoroughfare out- 
 ward to Hamath — "unto the river of the wilderness." This name, 
 " tJie wilderness " — in Hebrew, Arabah — with the article, is applied 
 in the Scriptures to the great valley of the Jordan, the Lake Genes- 
 saret (in Heb. Cinneroth), and the Dead Sea. In later times, the 
 name Arabah has been specially given to the extension of this 
 valley southward, from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf. But in 
 the earlier ages, it was currently given to the portion north of the 
 Dead Sea, and usually translated in our English version, "the 
 plain." The exceptions are Deut. 11 : 30, "champaign," and Josh. 
 18 : 18, " Arabah." See other passages — " the plain," Deut. 3 : 17, 
 and 4 : 49 ; Josh. 3 : 16, and 8 : 14, and 11 : 2, 10, and 12 : 1, 3 ; 
 2 Kings 14: 25, and 25 : 4, 5, &c. This wonderful valley was one 
 cf the natural boundaries of the kingdom. 
 
£42 AMOS.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 This chapter records three successive visions, shown to the 
 prophet, each indicating the judgments impending over the land 
 (vs. 1-9) ; then an attempt roade hy A.raaziah, an idol priest of 
 Bethel, to prevent Amos from prophesying more in Bethel, and to 
 send him hack into Judah ; with the defence made hy Amos, and 
 the response made hy the Lord (vs. 10-17). 
 
 1. TliiTS liatli the Lord God slieAved unto me ; and 
 boliold, lie formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the 
 shooting np of the latter growth ; and lo, it tvas the 
 latter growth after the king's mowings. 
 
 That this is a msion presented to the spiritual eye of the 
 prophet, is indicated hy the language — "Thus did the Lord 
 God show me," i. e., cause me to see. He saw the Lord forming 
 grasshoppers. They were young, hut fast coming forward for their 
 work of destruction ; and he saw God's hand in them. The time 
 was just when the meadows were putting forward their second 
 growth — the after-math. The phrase, "the king's mowings," is 
 supposed to allude to a claim of the king to have a part, at least, of 
 the first growth of the meadows. 
 
 2. And it came to pass, that Avhen they had made an 
 end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord 
 God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob 
 arise ? for he is small. 
 
 After he had seen them eat the last of the grass of the land, he 
 prayed that the Lord would forgive the sin for which this scourge 
 was sent, and nscd this plea: "By whom else shall Jacoh arise," 
 i. e., stand, live ; " for he is weak " and without strength against 
 God, and against such agents of destruction as these. 
 
 3. The Lord repented for this : It shall not be, saith 
 the Lord. 
 
 The Lord heard his prayer and changed his purpose, sparing tho 
 land the judgments which this \dsion portended. A clear and strik- 
 ing case of prevailing prayer, even when God's purpose to destroy 
 
 was not only formed, hut made known. What the precise form 
 
 of this judgment would have heen, is not certain. The grass- 
 hoppers, heing seen only in vision, may have heen symhohc of some 
 other form of judgment, even as the fire in the next verse mani- 
 festly must have been. Amos does not say here, as Joel did, that 
 actual grasshoppers came up over the land, visible to all the people, 
 and thrilling all hearts with fear and dread. 
 
 4. Thus liath the Lord God shewed nnto me : and, 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VII. 14,3 
 
 beliold, the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it 
 devoured the great deep, and did eat up a x^art. 
 
 5. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee : 
 by whom shall Jacob arise ? for he is small. 
 
 6. The LoKD repented for this : This also shall not 
 be, saith the Lord God. 
 
 In the second vision he heard the Lord calhng for the action of 
 fire. The original words imply a controversj, or legal jndicial issue 
 by fire, probably only in the general sense of a judgment on the 
 people for their sins. Appalling to behold, this fire seemed to de- 
 vour the great deep, and to eat np the dry land also. The original 
 word rendered " a imrt " is supposed to have here this sense^ — not 
 that it ate up a part of the great deep, but ate up the dry land. 
 The previous clause, using the same verb, affirms that it had eaten 
 np the great deep already. Of course I construe this as a vision, 
 and symbolic of some all-consuming desolation, doubtless by war 
 
 and conquest. Again the prophet prays, but not in this case as 
 
 before — "forgive" — which, if answered, wonld have averted the 
 judgment ; but, '■ desist ; " cut short this judgment ; let it be arrested 
 midway. He uses the same plea as before, in the same words ; and 
 the Lord answered to the precise extent of his request. He desisted, 
 after the judgment had run a part of its course. The scourge of 
 war and indeed of captivity came, but probably with the less 
 
 severity because of the prophet's prevailing prayer. These cases, 
 
 as thus recorded, must have been designed of God to encourage his 
 people to come before him with most importunate prayer that he 
 would avert, either in part or wholly, the judgments v.'hich he 
 seemed about to intiict on a guilty people. 
 
 7. Tims he shewed me : and behold, the Lord stood 
 upon a wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in 
 his hand. 
 
 8. And the Loed said unto me, Amos, what seest 
 thon ? And I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Loed, 
 Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst of my people 
 Israel : I will not again pass by them any'more : 
 
 9. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, 
 and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste : and I 
 will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. 
 
 The third vision will be better understood if wo consider that 
 the prophets speak o^ a measuring line as marking off for destroy- 
 ing as well as for creatinir ; for casting down, no less than for build- 
 ing up. (See 2 Kings 21': 13, and Isa. 34 : 11, and Lam. 2 : 8.) So 
 here, this plumb-line evinces the moral obliquity of the people and 
 their consequent fitness for destruction. God will not any more 
 pass ly them, but will take them in hand for scourging and for ruin. 
 
1^,4: AMOS.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 The "high places of Isaac" were those elevated sites so con- 
 stantly chosen for idol temples and idol worship. The " sanctuaries 
 of Israel " were their idol temples and shrines. These were doomed 
 to utter destruction, and at least by implication the whole land as 
 well. The "house of Jeroboam" the Lord would cut off by the 
 sword. He did so ; Shallum (2 Kings 15 : 10) conspired against 
 Zachariah, son and successor of Jeroboam, and thus ended the 
 
 royal line of his house. It should be noted that in this third 
 
 vision nothing is said of the prophet's interceding by prayer for the 
 removal or even the mitigation of this judgment. He saw that it was 
 most righteously deserved, and fully fixed in the counsels of Jehovah, 
 and therefore he forebore to press any plea for its reversal. Essen- 
 tially the same answer must be given to the question — "Why did he 
 pray '-''for git e''"' in reference to the first threatened judgment, and 
 only '■'•desist'''' upon the second? "The secret of the Lord is with 
 them that fear him." The conditions of acceptable prayer being 
 fully met on our part, the Lord, on his part, will lead our minds in 
 prayer, aiding us thus to ask for those things, and only those, which 
 he is pleased to grant. 
 
 10. Then Amaziali tlie priest of Betli-el sent to Jero- 
 boam king of Israel, saying, Amos lias conspired against 
 tliee in the midst of the honse of Israel : the land is not 
 able to bear all his words. 
 
 11. For tlms Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the 
 sword, and Israel shall snrely be led away captive out 
 of their own land. 
 
 12. Also, Amaziali said nnto Amos, O thou seer, go 
 ilee thee away into the land of Jndah, and there eat 
 bread, and prophesy there : 
 
 13. But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el : for 
 it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. 
 
 This historical sketch (vs. 10-17) presents no difficulties that re- 
 quire exposition. Amaziah, " tJie priest of Bethel," was probably 
 the high priest before the golden calf located there, for there must 
 have been other priests as well. The history of Elijah (1 Kings 18) 
 
 gives us some facts respecting the number of idol priests. The 
 
 charge of treason against the king and the state was often brought 
 against the Lord's faithful prophets, and constituted one of their 
 serious embarrassments and trials. It seems that Jeroboam did not 
 think best to interfere with the Lord's prophet. Amaziah there- 
 fore resorted to a private effort (vs. 12, 13) to get Amos out of the 
 kingdom. Judah, said he, is a better place for you ; the prophets 
 ot the Lord get a good living there; there you can be quiet and 
 fultil your prophetic function, if so you choose : but be off and away 
 from Bethel, for these idol temples are the king's sanctuarj- — the 
 place where he worships, and the house of his kingdom (so the 
 
AMOS.~CHAP. VII. 145 • 
 
 Hebrew reads), and it implies tliat^ ia their notion, these heathen 
 gods were the patrons of the kingdom, and their favor vital to its 
 permanence and prosperity. Hence they would very naturally 
 arraign the Lord's true prophets for high treason, whenever tliey 
 dared. 
 
 14. Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziali, I 
 was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son ; but I 
 was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : 
 
 15. And the Loed took me as I followed the flock, 
 and the Loed said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my peo- 
 ple Israel. 
 
 Amos first gives his own personal defence. With beautiful sim- 
 plicity he replies: "I was no prophet; I did not come up unto this 
 profession because my father was a prophet before me ; but I was 
 earning my bread by honest labor when the Lord took me from 
 following the flock, and said — ' Go, prophesy unto my people Is- 
 rael' — not JudaJi^ as you propose, but Israel, How could I do 
 otherwise than obey this divine mandate ? " 
 
 16. E^ow, therefore, hear thou the word of the Lord : 
 Thou sayest. Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not 
 thy word against the house of Isaac. 
 
 17. Therefore thus saith the Loed ; Thy wife shall 
 be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters 
 shall fall by the sword, 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. 
 
 The rest of his reply comes directly from the Lord himself. 
 Thou hast forbidden me to prophesy against Israel ; for this impiety 
 the Lord reveals to thee thy doom — thy wife a harlot in the city ; 
 thy sons and daughters falling by the sword ; thy landed estates 
 divided by hue to others ; thou thyself shall die in a foreign and 
 so in a polluted land, and the nation shall be carried away into cap- 
 tivity — a fearful warning against interfering with the divine mis- 
 sion of God's faithful prophets ! The Hebrews regarded all other 
 
 lands compared with their own as polluted. Hence they naturally 
 
 desired to make their graves in the holy land. This captivity 
 
 was to Assyria, eflected by Tiglath-Pileser b. o. 722, or sixty-two 
 years after the death of this Jeroboam. 
 
140 AMOS.— c^AI^ viii. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 This chapter opens with the last vision in this series of foni 
 (vs. 1, 2), which is followed by further details of the great and 
 damning sins of the people, and of the terrible judgments then im- 
 pending. 
 
 1. Thus liatli tlie Lord God sliewed unto me : and 
 beliold a basket of summer fruit. 
 
 2. And lie said, Amos, wliat seest tliou ? And I 
 said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord 
 unto me. The end is come upon my people of Israel ; I 
 will not again pass by them any more. 
 
 Summer fruit ripens quick and soon decays. The people had 
 ripened for ruin, and their ruin was near at hand. The latter of 
 these two ideas seems rather more prominent than the former ; 
 perhaps both are implied. The special idea is that the end is 
 come to the nation of Israel. God can pass by them, sparing them 
 and deferring his judgments, no longer. 
 
 3. And the songs of the temple shall be bowlings in 
 that day, saith the Lord God : there shall he many dead 
 bodies in every place ; they shall cast them forth with 
 silence. 
 
 Since the time of David, songs had formed a part of the temple 
 worship. In the dark and sad day just at hand, those songs should 
 become bowlings — the wails of agony. The original is concise : 
 
 " The songs of the temple shall wail in that day." The last half 
 
 of the verse Dr. Henderson translates with graphic power : 
 
 '<The carcasses are many! 
 Throw them out anywhere ! 
 Hush ! " 
 
 This is a close translation of the Hebrew, except that the verb 
 throw is not imperative, but indicative — " men do throw them out 
 anywhere." The last word " hush " should be compared with 
 Amos 6 : 10, where the word is the same, and the sentiment also, 
 doubtless, the same. Some suppose this injunction to silence looks 
 toward their danger from the invading foe, it being such that they 
 could not bury their beloved and honored dead with safety, save. in 
 secrecy and silence. Perhaps so; but the passage (6:10) ftivors 
 another view, viz., that an appalling sense of the presence and wrath 
 of God awed every heart into silence. 
 
 4. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even 
 to make the poor of the land to fail, 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VIII. 147 
 
 5. Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we 
 may sell corn ? and the sabbath, that we may set fortli 
 wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, 
 and falsifying the balances by deceit ? 
 
 6. That we may buy the poor for silver, and the 
 needy for a pair of shoes ; yea^ and sell the refuse of the 
 wheat ? 
 
 The guilty people are once more exhorted to hear tlie threat- 
 ened judgments of the Almighty, and the recital of those judgments 
 is prefaced by a further description of their oppressions of the poor. 
 In this passage, as in 2 : 6-8, these oppressions stand as the crown- 
 ing, damning sin — that which filled to the brim the cup of their 
 
 iniquity. " Swallow up the needy," exhibits the same verb that 
 
 is rendered (chap. 2:7) " that 'pant after the dust of the earth on 
 the head of the poor." It might more precisely be rendered here — 
 " that pant after the poor," even to make the needy of the land cease 
 
 altogether, i. e.^ to annihilate them so that none should remain. 
 
 So eager are they to drive hard bargains, and wrest from the poor 
 the last pittance of their earnings, they cannot wait for the new 
 moon and for the Sabbath to pass over — so would they hurry olf 
 their religious duties to get back again to their extortion and fraud. 
 Their religion stood in the way of their sin in no other respect than 
 that it demanded a few hours' suspension of trade and business. It 
 utterly failed of its proper influence, viz., to make their heart 
 thoroughly benevolent, and, consequently, their business-life just. 
 
 It would seem that these tradesmen bought by the shekel 
 
 and sold by the ephah. So they perverted their measures and 
 weights to subserve the ends of fraud. They made false balances 
 
 for deceit. Yet further, they drive their fraudulent trade to get 
 
 money in order to buy tlie poor for slaves, cheapening even their 
 price, so that they could get a poor man or a poor boy for a pair of 
 
 sandals, which are of much less value than American shoes. 
 
 And one thing more, they sell as merchantable the refuse of the 
 
 wheat — the light, half-filled grains. What a depth of corruption 
 
 in morals do such sketches of the ways of business and trade re- 
 veal ! The reader will be careful to note how sharply the Lord 
 rebukes and exposes such outrages on human, rights and on com- 
 mercial justice, and how fearfully he punishes the guilty. 
 
 7. The LoED hath sw^orn by the excellency of Jacob, 
 Surely I will never forget any of their works. 
 
 Here begins the message which (in v. 4.) the people were ex- 
 horted to hear. It opens with a most solemn asseveration, the oath 
 of the Almighty. " The excellency of Jacob " cannot well mean 
 here any quality or thing that Jacob possessed — not his moral 
 qualities, not his goodly land — but it must refer to and describe 
 Jehovah himself. He was " the excellency of Jacob " in the sense 
 
148 AMOS.— CHAP. VIII. 
 
 of beino^ liig most glorious "portion," his ricliest treasure; tliat in 
 which Jacob should more exult and rejoice than in all things else. 
 
 Comparing this passage with Amos 6 : 8, where the Lord says, 
 
 *' I abhor the excellency of Jacob," the difference is that tlierc 
 tlie phrase refers to the glorious land and country of Jacob which 
 the people did account their chief glory, as they should not ; Jiere^ 
 to their covenant-keeping God whom they ougJit to have ac- 
 counted their chief glory, but did not. The object in using this 
 one phrase in these two different senses may have been to make this 
 
 contrast palpable. It is by no means uncommon for Jehovah to 
 
 swear by himself. Paul (Heb. 6 : 13) intimates the reason to be 
 that he can swear by none greater — by nothing else so solemn, 
 
 As to the form of this oath, it is very common in Hebrew, 
 
 but not often retained in our English translation : " If I shall ever 
 forget any of their works " — where the full force would be express- 
 ed by filling out the sentence — then I am not God. A very strong 
 emphasis on the word ?/ suffices, however, to express the sense. God 
 will not lose from his memory one of the least of all their doings. 
 All shall come up again for judgment. 
 
 8. Shall not tlie land tremble for tins, and every one 
 mourn tliat dwelletli therein ? and it shall rise np wholly 
 as a flood ; and it shall be cast ont and drowned, as bt/ 
 the flood of Egypt. 
 
 The tone of q,wful earnestness, manifest in this oath of Jehovah, 
 should lead us to expect appalling judgments, in hearing which, all 
 ears should tingle. The prophet compares the convulsions that 
 shall shake the land to an earthquake, and represents this earth- 
 quake as heaving up the land, even as the Nile lifts up its waters 
 in its annual inundations. The verse might be paraphrased thus : 
 "For this, shall not the land tremble as in an earthquake, and 
 every dweller therein mourn, when the Tvliole land rises up as the 
 Nile, and rolls to and fro, and then subsides like the river of Egypt 
 
 after its mighty inundations ? " Of the two words rendered 
 
 "cast out," and "drowned," the first must mean, driven and 
 tossed^ as impelled by mighty forces; and the second, subsiding 
 again^ when the moving force is spent. The ultimate thought is, 
 that convulsions shake and rock the kingdom of Israel, and finally 
 sweep it away into the gulf of ruin, 
 
 9. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the 
 Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, 
 and I will darken the earth in the clear day : 
 
 This is the usual 'figure for great calamity. The last clause 
 reads literally — "I will darken the light to iha earth in the day- 
 time." The actual thing indicated by these figures should not be 
 looked for in the natural but in the political and moral world. 
 (See Joel 3 : 15 and 2 : 31.) 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. VIII. l^c^ 
 
 10. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and 
 all your songs into lamentation ; and I will bring up 
 aackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every bead ; 
 and I will make it as tlie mourning of an only S07i^ and 
 tbe end tbereof as a bitter day. 
 
 These are the tokens of grief common among the people of the 
 East in all ages. 
 
 11. Bebold, tbe days come, saitli tbe Lord God, tliat 
 I will send a famine in tbe land, not a famine of bread, 
 nor a tbirst for water, but of bearing tbe words of tbe 
 Loed: 
 
 12. And tbey sball wander from sea to sea, and from 
 tbe nortb even to tbe east ; tbey sball run to and fro to 
 seek tbe word of tbe Lokd, and sball not find it. 
 
 13. In tbat day sball tbe fair virgins and young men 
 faint for tbirst. 
 
 In their deep calamity, their ideas and feelings in regard to 
 messages from the Lord by his servants, will utterly change. Whereas 
 they had made light of these messages when they had them— even 
 scornmg the Avord of God and misusing his prophets — now, the 
 Lord having withdrawn and trouble having come on, they are in 
 tJie horrors of a great famine of the words of the Lord. They long 
 for some word from him, and wander over the whole land in vain 
 to find a prophet. Like Saul after the Lord had forsaken him, 
 they say — " I am sore distressed ; God is departed from me, and 
 answereth me no more, ileither by prophet nor by dreams" 
 
 (1 Sam. 28 : 15). This was one of the prophet's last appeals to 
 
 the people to give heed to the words of the Lord while they had 
 them. 
 
 14. Tbey tbat swear by tbe sin of Samaria, and say, 
 Tby god, O Dan, livetb ; and, Tbe manner of Beer-sbeba 
 livetb ; even tbey sball fall, and never rise up again. 
 
 The " sin of Samaria " is here idol gods. One of Jeroboam's 
 calves was put up in Dan, the extreme northern limit of the king- 
 dom. The " 77ia?iner of Beersheba " means first the ways of idol 
 
 worship practised there, and next, the idol gods themselves, which 
 is the sense here. The form of the oath might be better ex- 
 pressed—" As thy God, O Dan, liveth ;" or, " By the life of thy 
 
 god, O Dan ;" and so of the god Beersheba. All who have had 
 
 j>uch reverence for these infamous gods as to swear by them shall 
 fall, never to rise again. 
 
150 AMOS.—CHAP. IX. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 This cliapter opens with the fifth and last special vision sliovrn 
 the prophet : affirms the complete destruction of the guilty, apos- 
 tate people of Israel ; denies in vivid forms all possibility of their 
 escape (vs. 1-7, 10), yet promises the rescue of a small remnant (vs. 
 8, 9) ; predicts the raising up of the fallen tent of David, and the 
 saving of the true Israel for an era of extraordinary and long-con- 
 tinued prosperity. 
 
 1. I saw tlie Lord standing npon tlie altar : and lie 
 said, Smite tlie lintel of tlie door, that tlie posts may 
 shake : and cut them in the head all of them ; and I 
 will slay the last of them with the sword: he thatfleeth 
 of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of 
 them shall not be delivered. 
 
 In the outset, a question arises respecting the altar referred to 
 here, the decision of which affects the interpretation of the chapter 
 
 fundamentally. Some, with Dr. Henderson, take it to be the 
 
 idol altar at Bethel, and adduce the following reasons for this view : 
 (1.) The reference (8 : 14), immediately preceding, to the utter and 
 final fall of the worshippers of those idols, showing that this sub- 
 ject was in mind; (2.) That Amos (3 : 14) affirms this very thing — 
 " In the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon 
 him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of 
 the altar shall be cut off and fall to^ the ground ; " (3.) The fit- 
 ness of this fact in itself, and in all its relations ; (4.) That 
 Ilosea, under the same circumstances, distinctly predicts that 
 God will break down those altars and spoil their images (Hos. 10 : 
 
 2, 5, 8). Others, including Dr. Hengstenberg, Eosenmuller, and 
 
 Calvin, take it to mean the altar of burnt-offering at Jerusalem. I 
 adopt this opinion decidedly, for the following reasons: (1.) This, 
 and this only, is the altar — the one to be thought of when we have 
 nothing else to determine the sense except this emphatic definite 
 article. (2.) The idol altar was not, to the same extent, the promi- 
 nent thing at Bethel. The calf, the god himself, was much more 
 prominent. (3.) The scope of this chapter, and more especially 
 from V. 8 to the close, contemplates Judah and Jerusalem, as well 
 as Samaria, Bethel, and the northern kingdom ; e. </., v. 7, " brought 
 up Israel out of the land of Egypt; '' v. 8, "the house of Jacob," 
 and V. 9, " the house of Israel," who are spoken of as " my people," 
 V. 10; "the tent of David," v. 11; "my people of Israel," v. 14. 
 (4.) The allusions, v. 11, and especially the use of the plural num- 
 ber, are thought to refer to both kingdoms: "In that day will I 
 raise up the tent of David that is fallen (looking, perhaps, in part to 
 the crushing down of the temple, as in this v. 1), and will wall up 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. IX. ^ 151 
 
 their (not its) breaches " — the breaches of both kingdoms, and " I 
 will raise np his ruins," those of David, and " I will build it " — the 
 
 tent — "as in days of old." The two points of argument last 
 
 made (Nos. 3 and 4) offset the consideration that most of the book 
 of Amos relates to the northern kingdom. That is freely admitted, 
 yet when the Lord reaches, in this last chapter, the revelations of 
 mercy, the phraseology embraces the southern as well as the north- 
 ern kingdom ; or rather that temporary distinction is lost sight of, 
 and we have the earlier Israel of the times of the Exodus and of 
 David. In this point of view we go back also to the great altar at 
 Jerusalem. (5.) But more than all is the argument from the scope 
 and course of thought. To see this in its full force, we must look 
 first at the fact that the people of the northern kingdom, though 
 fearfully apostate from God into idol-worship, yet kept up some of 
 the forms of the Mosaic system, and manifestly depended upon 
 God's protection and favor on this account. See the evidence, chap. 
 4:4,5: "Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes after 
 three years, your thank-offerings and your free-offerings " — where 
 the sense is, Bring them if you will, and rely on them for salvation 
 if you will; they can avail you nothing. Also 5:14, 18-26: 
 " Seek good and not evil ; so the Lord shall be with you as ye have 
 said; " -i. <?., they had said the Lord would be with them, because of 
 their religious worship. The prophet replies, " God will be with 
 you then, and only then, when you seek good and do right." V. 
 18 shows that they did not fear but even dared the coming of the 
 day oi the Lord — ^manifestly through tlanr vain confidence in his 
 f^ivor. Hence he solemnly affirms, " I hate, I despise your feast- 
 days; I will not accept your burnt-offerings," &c. The whole con- 
 nection here shows that the Lord would fain annul their vain reli- 
 ance on the mere forms of ceremonial worship for the salvation of 
 their country. 
 
 AVith this fact in mind, let us come to our verse (9 : 1). I para- 
 phrase it thus : " I saw the Lord standing beside the great altar of 
 burnt-offering in Jerusalem, and he said, ' Smite the capitals of the 
 columns, and make the very thresholds tremble, and dash them in 
 pieces upon the heads of all the people within, and the remnant of 
 them I will slay with the sword ; whoever flees shall not escape, 
 
 and he that gets away shall not be finally delivered.' " In tliis 
 
 vision the people are supposed to be assembled in the temple for 
 safety against the judgments of God, but he comes down with his 
 destroying angel and orders the whole temple to be crushed down 
 from pinnacle to basement, that it may fall crashing upon tlie heads 
 of the assembled throng. Then, whom the ftilling temple does not 
 
 crush, the sword shall slay, and none shall escape. The context 
 
 in the next three verses confirms this view of the general course 
 of thought in this passage, as we shall see. 
 
 This vision of the temple crushed down upon the heads of those 
 who had fled to it for refuge against the judgments of God, is alto- 
 gether in harmony with Amos G:8:— "The Lord hath sworn by 
 
152 AMOS,— CHAR IX. 
 
 himself, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, acd hate his palaces.'' 
 See Notes on the passage. The whole heart of the IIolj Ono 
 revolts at the idea that his temple should be made a hiding-placo 
 and ganctnary of refuge for hypocrites so foul, apostates so guilty 
 and so Heaven-provoking ; and as he abhors their goodly land 
 because of the sins of the people, and will not spare it for its 
 natural beauty, so neither will he spare its goodly temple. 
 
 2. Thoiigli tliej dig into hell, tlienee shall mine hand 
 take them ; thongli they climb np to heaven, thence will 
 I bring them down : 
 
 3. And though they hide themselves in the top of 
 Carmel, I will search and take them ont thence ; and 
 thongh they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the 
 sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall 
 hite them : 
 
 4. And thongh they go into captivity before their 
 enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall 
 slay them : and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil^ 
 and not for good. 
 
 The aim throughout these verses is to deny all possibility of 
 
 escape. It is not essential to the fitness or the force of these 
 
 supposed cases that they should be actually possible. The affirma- 
 tion is that if they were so, and if men should hide there, it should 
 avail them nothing. There is no escape from the Almighty by any 
 expedient, possible or even supposable. '^The topofCarmel" is 
 suggested as a place to hide one's self, both because of its numerous 
 eaves and thick undergrowths, and because, lying adjacent to the 
 Mediterranean, it naturally stood in contrast with the bottom of the 
 
 sea. " Going into captivity " presupposes that their lives are at 
 
 first spared ; but even the rights of prisoners of war should not save 
 them from death, 
 
 5. And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the 
 land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall 
 momm : and it shall rise np wholly like a flood ; and 
 be drowmed, as Ijy the flood of Egypt. 
 
 6. It is he that bnildeth his stories in the heaven, 
 and hath fonnded his troop in the earth ; he that calletli 
 for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the 
 face of the earth : the Lord is his name. 
 
 These bold descriptions of Jehovah's power over the material 
 world are adduced here in the same line of thought with the pre- 
 ceding — to show how hopelessly futile must be every attempt of 
 guilty men to evade his scourge or escape his retributions. The 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. IX. 153 
 
 manuer of tlie oric^nal is graphic : " And tlie Lord Jehovali of 
 Hosts — he is touchin*^ the earth, and then it melts, and all the 
 dwellers in it mourn ; its whole surface is lifted up like the rising 
 Kile, and then subsides as the river of Egypt (the effects of an 
 earthquake, as in Amos 8 : 8). He builds his chambers in the 
 heavens ; he has founded his arched vault upon the earth {i. e. the 
 blue concave firmament). lie calls for the waters of the sea, and 
 then pours them out upon the face of the earth — Jehovah, his 
 
 name." "What our translators meant by "troop" is not clear. 
 
 The original word refers to the apparently arched concave above us, 
 which the Hebrews thought and spoke of as solid, " the firmament," 
 and its pillars or lower edges as resting upon the earth. 
 
 1. Are ye not as cliildren of tlie Etliiopians "iinto me, 
 O cliilcben of Israel? saitli tlie Loed. Have I not 
 l:>ronght np Israel out of tlie land of Egypt ? and the 
 Philistines from Caj)litor, and the Sji'ians from Kir ? 
 
 This verse aims to confront and demolish another delusive 
 reliance of the apostate people, \^z., that, being the seed of Abraham 
 and children of the covenant, brought by a series of miracles 
 into the land of promise, they were invincible against any heathen 
 
 power, since their God would surely protect them. The Lord 
 
 replies to their thought — "What are ye to me more than the 
 Cushites and Ethiopians? I did indeed bring you up out of Egypt; 
 so I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete), and the 
 Syrians from Kir " — the region of the river Cyrus. Does such a 
 removal insure the perpetual prosperity of any people ? Can it 
 save you from being removed again, ftir beyond Damascus ? (Sec 
 
 Amos 5 : 27.) The Ethiopians, or Cushites, originally holding 
 
 central Arabia, were removed to the interior of Africa. 
 
 8. Behold the eyes of the Lord God are npon the 
 sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from oif the face 
 face of the earth ; saving that I will not ntterly destroy 
 the honse of Jacob, saith the Loed. 
 
 The phrase " sinful kingdom " leads the mind to the kingdom 
 of the ten tribes, that being at this period far more corrupt than 
 Judah. Tlie sentence "I Avill destroy it from the face of the 
 earth," had special reference to the ten tribes. The excepting 
 clause, " saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob," 
 raises the question whether the saved were of the ten tribes, or of 
 Judah only. On this point, the statements in this verse are not 
 altogether explicit : v. 9 favors the hope that some from the ten 
 tribes were plucked from utter ruin; v. 10 shows that all the 
 sinners — all who were past repentance and reform — would be cut 
 off by the sword. 
 
 9. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house 
 
 7* 
 
151 AMOS.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 of Israel among all nations, like as C07m is sifted in a 
 sieve, yet shall not the least gi'ain fall npon the earth. 
 
 It would seem that " the house of Israel," as used in this verse, 
 must be a different class from " the sinful kingdom," named in v. 
 8, and from "the sinners of mj people," spoken of in v. 10. The 
 latter, he says, " shall be destroyed " (v.8) ; " shall die by the sword " 
 (v. 10); but the former, though sifted fine and far among the 
 nations, shall none of them be lost. They are the precious grain, 
 and God's eye is on them to save them and to use them for his own 
 purpose, as his eye is also on the sinful kingdom to destroy it from 
 the face of the earth. The "house of Israel," therefore, must in- 
 clude here only the real people of God, " faithful found among the 
 faithless ;" the same v/hom, considered as captives, he will restore, 
 
 as said below. The word rendered " the least grain " is thought 
 
 by Ilengstenberg to mean a bundle, or any thing bound up. This 
 is the almost imiversal sense of the word. Its meaning here 
 Avould be essentially as in 1 Sam. 25 : 29 : " Men rise up to per- 
 secute and to seek thy soul ; but the soul of my Lord is bound 
 in the bundle of the living by the Lord thy God." So in our 
 passage with this sense of the word, the house of Israel are bound 
 up in the bundle of life by the Lord himself, and cannot be lost in 
 the sifting process of disciphne by dispersion among the nations. 
 
 If we might give the word the sense — a small grain — the 
 
 ultimate meaning would be much the same. 
 
 10. All the sinners of my people shall die by the 
 sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake or prevent 
 us. 
 
 The sense here must be — "All the sinners out of or among my 
 people" — the sinners being one class and God's people another. 
 The sinners shall die — the judgment of God being the fearfully 
 
 sifting process. The description given of them evinces their vain 
 
 self-confidence. The evils threatened by the prophets of the Lord, 
 they are sure, will neither overtake them from behind, nor come in 
 ahead of them from before. "Prevent" has usually in our Bible 
 that ancient, now obsolete sense, of getting in advance, coming in 
 ahead to intercept and confront an adversary. Vain self-confi- 
 dence never saves ; it only hastens and aggravates destruction. 
 
 11. In that day will I raise np the tabernacle of 
 David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; 
 and I will raise np his ruins, and I will build it as in 
 the days of old : 
 
 The point of time indicated by " in that day," is not definite. It 
 looks into that future period when discipline shall have wi'ought its 
 desired result and the fulness of the Lord's time of mercy shall 
 
 have come. The "tent" or booth "of David"— not his royal 
 
 palace, which would indicate prosperity and strength— but hia 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. IX. 155 
 
 reduced and liiimblc dwelling, a booth of tree-bouglis, and eventhia 
 fallen down, God will now raise np. The reigning family of David 
 had been sadly broken down by the revolt nnder Jeroboam ; far 
 more so still by their apostasy into idol-worship, oppression, and 
 other immoralities, for all which God had doomed the sinners 
 of his people to be utterly cut off; but the day will come for rear- 
 ing up again this royal line and its kingdom. lie will wall up the 
 breaches of the "double house," the two kingdoms (for so the 
 plural pronoun, rendered "thereof," should naturally mean): "I 
 will raise up David's ruins and build his tent as in days of old." 
 These promises suggest the original covenant Avith David's line (3 
 Sam. 7 : 16), " And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established 
 forever before thee; thy throne shall be established forever." King 
 Messiah is to come in this royal line, and, according to the strain of 
 this prophecy, events ripen for his coming. Only in him can this 
 prophecy find an adequate fulfilment. 
 
 12. That tliey may possess the remnant of Edom, 
 and of all the heathen which are called by my name, 
 saith the Lokd that doetli this. 
 
 The "remnant of Edom" reminds us that in chap. 1 : 11, 12, we 
 saw Edom doomed to sore judgments, almost exterminating, be- 
 cause of his relentless hostility to his brother Jacob's race. ISToav 
 the revived and rebuilt house of David shall possess what is left of 
 Edom. There may also be a tacit allusion to the fact that the 
 literal David himself subdued the Edomites and made them tributary, 
 and that they took advantage of the breaches in David's tents — in 
 other words, the weakness induced by the revolt and by the great 
 sins of the covenant people — to throw off this yoke. David's line, 
 having returned to God and to consequent prosperity and power, 
 shall again possess what remains of Edom. And not of Edom 
 alone, but of all the heathen over whom God's name is called, for 
 
 so saith the Lord who bringeth to pass these promised events. 
 
 The calling of God"'s name over a person or people is not an empty 
 ceremony, but a most significant fiict. It implies their consecration 
 to his love and service. Thus it was said coucei'ning Israel — Deut. 
 28 : 9, 10 : "The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto him- 
 self," efec, "and all people of the earth sliall see that thou art 
 called by the name of the Lord," literally rendered, " that the name 
 of the Lord hath been called over or upon thee," and consequently 
 that thou art the people of God, and the object of his protecting 
 care and love. To the same purport is Dan. 9 : 18, 19, "O Lord, 
 beliold the city over which thy name is called" — "for thy city and 
 
 thy people are called by thy name." In this most interesting 
 
 sense God's name has been called over the gentile nations. This is 
 the great fact affirmed in this passage. May it not be that Isaiah, 
 in nearly the same words, means the same thing (oi : 5) ? " The 
 God of the whole earth shall he be called," i. c.^ "his name shall be 
 called over or upon it all." Another mode of expressing essen- 
 
156 AMOS.— CHAR IX. 
 
 tial] J the same • thing is this — " They " — the royal seed of Davit! 
 — "shall possess" (inherit) "the remnant of Edom and of all 
 the heathen." Precisely this Isaiah afBrms — " Thy seed shall inherit 
 
 the Gentiles " (54 : 3). Yet further, let us not lose sight of the 
 
 idea that this calling of the name of God over these heathen 
 nations, and this inheriting or possession of the Gentiles by the 
 royal seed of David, must all be understood, not in the worldly bnt 
 in the gospel sense. Israel takes possession of the gentile nations, 
 only in the name ot her King Messiah ; only by preaching to them 
 his gospel, revealing to them his love, and taking their hearts captive 
 for him by the power of his cross. "We must think of no other 
 
 conquest, no other form of possession, but this. Finally, let us 
 
 revert to tlie quotation of thes-e verses (11, 12) by the Apostle 
 James (Acts 15 : 14-17) in his speech before the great council at Je- 
 rusalem, lie began with saying, " Simon Peter has been relating 
 to you how God has visited the Gentiles to convert some of them 
 to himself; and to this agree the words of the prophet Amos;" 
 and then he quotes substantially from the Septuagint version these 
 two verses. Ilis quotations differ from the Hebrew chiefly in read- 
 ing "the residue of men," instead of "the remnant of Edom." 
 The Hebrew reader will readily see the resemblance between 
 " Edom " and " Adam " — which was specially close when the 
 Hebrew was written without the vowels. Yet James gives the 
 general sense with entire accuracy, viz., that God had of set pur- 
 pose called the Gentiles within the pale of his church, to inherit 
 in it among his people. 
 
 13. Behold, the days come, saith tlie Lord, that the 
 ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader 
 of grapes him that soweth seed ; and the momitains 
 shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. 
 
 14. And I will bring again the captivity of my peo- 
 ple of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and 
 inhabit them ', and they shall plant vineyards, and drink 
 the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat 
 the fruit of them. 
 
 15. And I will plant them upon their land, and they 
 shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I 
 have given them, saith the Loed thy Grod. 
 
 Here let us first note the sense of particular words and phrases. 
 " Days come," looks forward to the remote and indefinite fu- 
 ture. The manner of calling attention to the matters revealed in 
 these last three verses, " Beliold^^'* coupled with the cliange from 
 "in that day" (v. 11), to " days come" (v. 13), imply that these lat- 
 ter events lie onward in the future, beyond those recorded (vs. 11, 
 
 12). " The ploughman overtaking the reaper," &c., implies great 
 
 prosperity and abundance. The reaper will have so much to do, 
 
AMOS.— CHAP. IX. 157 
 
 and the plongliman withal is so easier to get in readiness a largo 
 field, that he treads on the heels of the reaper. The mountains 
 terraced and cultivated in grapes to their summits shall seem to dis- 
 til new wine. It flows down their declivities as if the naountaius 
 themselves were becoming liquid. To " bring again their captiv- 
 ity " always implies good and not evil — ^promised blessings and not 
 threatened calamities. It is also used in a broader and more gen- 
 eral sense than that of bringing captives home to their own land. 
 How this came to pass may be seen in the history of the Hebrews 
 as related to Canaan. In all those ages of promise, prior to their 
 possession of Canaan under Joshua, '' to inherit the land," to pos- 
 sess the land of promise, was the consunmiation of hope, the thing 
 of most earnest desire. " The meek shall inherit the land," shows 
 the significance of this phraseology. In later times, after. cap- 
 tivity in foreign lands had been their sad experience, the phrases 
 " bring again their captivity," and " plant them again in their own 
 land," superseded the former phrase in a like sense of general pros- 
 perity. Cases that both illustrate and prove this figurative use of 
 the phrase " to bring or turn again the captivity," may be seen 
 (Job 42 : 10), " And the Lord turned the captivity of Job," but Job 
 had been in no captivity in the literal sense. The Lord changed 
 his state by a change analogous to that from bondage to freedom. 
 Also Ezek. 16 : 53, 55, " When I shall bring again the captivity of 
 Sodom and her daughters," &c., but the trouble with Sodom was 
 not a real ccqotivity. This term is used here figuratively for another 
 calamity worse than that. Tlie precise sense of the phrase is given 
 in a clause exj^lanatory (v. 55), " When thy sister Sodom and her 
 daughters shall return to their former estate." These cases will 
 suffice to establish the usage which I have assumed. Let us be- 
 ware lest we stop in the letter and miss the spirit of this prophecy. 
 So doing, we shall find in it only a Mohammedan paradise, and God 
 surely intended something far richer and better than that. We 
 shall greatly err if in reading this passage we think only of great 
 harvests, hills running down with wine, and the people of Israel 
 restored again and forevermore to Palestine. The construction we 
 are compelled to put on the two verses next preceding forbids this. 
 The sense given to those verses by the Apostle James, viz., the call- 
 ing of the Gentiles into the gospel faith, forbids it. It would be a 
 sad faUing off if, borne along by the whole current of thought in 
 this ninth chapter, and especially in verses 11, 13, we should begin 
 to rejoice in the glory of gospel salvation, spreading widely over 
 all the Gentile world, and then, in these last three verses, should 
 reach the climax by dropping down to Judaism, and find none but 
 sensual ideas, luxurious harvests, plenty of good wine, and the land 
 of Palestine held forever by the Jews. The current strain of all 
 the gospel prophecies forbids this construction. Amos himself 
 would rebuke us ! He would say. How could you forget that, be- 
 ing myself a husbandman from my youth, I ought to be allowed to 
 draw my figures and illustrations from things with which I had 
 
155 AMOS.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 been all my life familiar? Had you not noticed this same thing 
 throughout my book ? And could you not learn to distinguish be- 
 tween the drapery and the person clothed in it — between the cos- 
 tume and the inward reality? Yes, thou lovely, venerable prophet 
 
 of the Lord, we will not torture thy figures of speech into sensu- 
 alities that never came into thy mind ! We will try to see in this 
 rich imagery of nature the glorious and munificent things of gospel 
 times. We will not impute to thee the inconsistency of denoun- 
 cing the woes of God on men " at ease in Zion," because they 
 " drink wine in howls " (6 : 6), and then representing the saints of 
 God as finding their highest spiritual life and glory in vineyards, 
 grapes, and wine ! 
 
 I cannot close this book of Amos without a passing tribute to 
 his clear, forcible, and earnest style; to the richness of his figures, 
 drawn chiefly from the familiar but often sublimely grand fields of 
 nature, and from the scenes of husbandry ; to the sublime and sol- 
 enm grandeur with which he recites the significant names of Je- 
 hovah, God of hosts; and not least, to his warm sympathy with 
 the wronged and outraged poor, and to his intense abhorrence of 
 the luxury, pride, ostentation, and especially the o2}prcmon Avhich 
 manifestly was the crowning and damning sin of the leading men 
 in the kingdom of Israel. We shall need to go far to find keener 
 invectives against these Heaven-provoking sins, or a more earnest 
 wielding of Jehovah's thunders against the oppression of the poor, 
 the perversions of justice, and the enslaving of men. Well, in- 
 deed, had it been, if during the past hundred years, our American 
 churches had drank deeply of the spirit of Amos, the herdman- 
 prophet, and had given heed to the burning words against oppress- 
 ion which God spake through his lips ! Then had our American 
 Christianity never stricken hands with the oppressor ! American 
 systematized oppression would have been throttled in its cradle, 
 and the woes of the great war of rebellion under which the nation 
 
 has bled and groaned need never have been! It may be noted 
 
 that Amos, like Ilosea and Joel, closes with an outlook from the 
 lofty heights of the mount of Vision into that goodly land of Prom- 
 ise, yet mostly future, when " the earth shall be full of the knowl- 
 edge of the Lord," when his kingdom and people shall possess the 
 world, and all its tribes and kingdoms shall become the kingdom of 
 our Lord and of his Christ that he may reign forever and ever. 
 
OBADIAH 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of the author of this shortest book in tiie Bible, we have the 
 briefest possible account. His name was Obadiah — there the rec- 
 ord ends. The book contains historical (not prophetic) allusions to 
 the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the 
 consequent captivity, and therefore must have been written subse- 
 quent to that event, yet how long after cannot be certainly deter- 
 mined by any evidence external or internal. The tone of the pas- 
 sage (vs. 11-14) implies that those events connected with the fall 
 
 of Jerusalem were then recent. The name, Obadiah, meaning 
 
 " servant of the Lord," occurs frequently in the Hebrew genealo- 
 gies, and several times in Bible history. The author of this book 
 was not the Obadiah who stood up so nobly for the Lord under 
 that wicked Ahab (1 Kings 18 : 3, 4, T, IG), nor that other Obadiah 
 who was employed by Jehosliaphat to teach rehgious duty (2 Chron. 
 
 17 : T). We must be content to know but little of his personal 
 
 history. 
 
 His subject is one — a prophecy concerning Edom. The poster- 
 ity of Esau, otherwise called Edom, founded this kingdom at a very 
 early period. They manifestly had their land under cultivation 
 before the Hebrews entered Canaan. They appear repeatedly in 
 the scenes of Jewish history during the reign of David, and more 
 especially after the revolt. The early antipathy which brought 
 Esau out with four hundred armed men to intercept Jacob on his 
 return from Padanaram to Canaan, though sometimes kept down 
 under the pressure of conscious inability to do his brother harm, 
 
IGO OBADIAIL— CHAP. I. 
 
 yet seems never to have been fully suppressed. As said by Amofe 
 (1: 11), "he cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, 
 and he nursed his wrath forever." This enduring hatred seized its 
 opportunity when Jerusalem fell before the Chaldean power, and 
 broke forth, not only in most unfraternal words, but in most cruel 
 deeds. This was tlie special occasion of the prophecy here recorded. 
 Other prophets have predicted the fall of Edom, some o^ ear- 
 lier date, e, g.^ Isaiah and Joel, and some contemporary, or of later 
 date, e. g., Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malacbi, and the writer of Psalm 
 137. (See Isaiah 21 : 11 ; and 34: and Joel 3 : 19, and Jeremiah 49 : 
 7-22 (closely parallel), and Ezek. 25 : 12-14, and Mai. 1 : 3, 4.) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. The vision of Obadiah. Thus saitli the Lord God 
 concerning Edom ; We have heard a rumor from the 
 Lord, and an ambassador is sent • among the heathen, 
 Arise ye, and let ns rise np against her in battle. 
 
 The Lord commissions his servant Obadiah to proclaim. We 
 have heard from the Lord a message, i. <?., a thing to be announced 
 (not a " rumor " in the sense of an uncertain, fljing report), to the 
 effect that his providential agencies have summoned the heathen 
 forth, calling on them to arise and come up for battle against Edom. 
 
 2. Behold, I have made thee small among the 
 heathen : thou art greatly despised. 
 
 3. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou 
 that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation 
 is high ; that saith in his heart. Who shall bring me 
 down to the ground ? 
 
 4. Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and 
 though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I 
 bring thee down, saith the Lokd. 
 
 The great men of Edom had been proud (we may suppose) of 
 the high antiquity of their nation; of their great wealth, their 
 country having been for ages the thoroughfare of commerce be- 
 tween Egypt and North Africa on their southwest, and the rich 
 countries of Mesopotamia and India on the east and northeast ; of 
 their eminent progress in the arts, of which the ruins yet remain- 
 ing are ample proof; and of their early knowledge of letters, of 
 which the Book of Job (native to this country) is good testimony. 
 Sir Isaac Newton came to the conclusion that Edom was the nur- 
 
OBADIAH.— CHAP. I. 101 
 
 sery of the arts and sciences for all the world, and that even tho 
 Egyptians received from them their earliest knowledge of astron- 
 omy and of its use in navigation. Men of the world think and 
 speak of pride on such grounds as honest and honorable; but, how- 
 ever this may be, it surely cannot atone for moral obliquities, for 
 national animosity, jealousy, revenge, and perpetual hatred. And 
 when, as in this case, national pride deceives a people so greatly as 
 to make them think they have nothing to fear from the just judg- 
 ments of God, the mistake is fearful. This was the sin and ruin 
 of ancient Edom. 
 
 The phrase " Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose 
 habitation is high," has in modern times received a very striking 
 confirmation from the personal visits and examination made by a 
 large number of travellers — Burckhardt among the earliest; Dr. 
 Edward Robinson among the most accurate and rehable. They and 
 others have found on the site of ancient Petra a vast amount of 
 ruins of the homes of both the living and the dead, especially along 
 the face of an immense gorge or chasm, where the perpendicular 
 rock, several hundred feet in height, was improved for temples, 
 sepulchres, and private residences, chiselled from the rock itself. 
 The massive grandeur of these ruins aids us to appreciate the de- 
 scription, " Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose hab- 
 itation is high." It also accounts for the pride and vain conlidenco 
 felt by the men of Edom in the military strength of their fast- 
 nesses, and evinces the pertinence of the divine word, " Though 
 thou lift thyself high as the eagle, and set thy nest among the stars, 
 thence will I bring thee down." How vain it must ever be for 
 even the loftiest and mightiest of men to defy the Almighty, o; 
 count themselves above the reach of his retributions I 
 
 5. If thieves came to tliee, if robbers bj niglit (hoT\ 
 art thoii cut off!) would tliey not liave stolen till they 
 had enongh ? if the grape-gatherers came to thee, would 
 they not leave so?ne grapes ? 
 
 6. How are the things of Esau searched out ! hou 
 are his hidden things sought up ! 
 
 These supposed cases — the thieves, the night-robbers, and tlu 
 grape-gatherers — all have the same object, viz., to show that th( 
 spoiling of Esau would be unsparing. The interjected exclamatioc 
 — " How art thou cut off! " — implies that the desolation of Esa-a 
 would be more dire than that wrought by thieves and night-rob- 
 bers. The latter, compelled by fear to make short work, are wont to 
 seize what comes first to hand till they have enough for present want, 
 or, as \X\% case may be, all they can carry away ; and so may leave 
 some valuables behind. Grape-gatherers leave gleanings. But Esau's 
 wealth will be carefully searched out. Those who shall come to 
 
 spoil him will find all his hidden stores. The exclamation in v. 
 
 6 corresponds in form of statement precisely to that thrown into 
 
162 OBADIAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 the middle of v. 5 — " How art thou cut off! " The propLet's eja 
 and heart were full of tlie sad fate of so mucli wealth, heauty, and 
 glorj, doomed to utter desolation. 
 
 1. All tlie men of tliy confederacy liave brought tliee 
 even to the border : the men that were at peace with 
 thee have deceived thee, a7id prevailed against thee ; 
 they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee : 
 there is none understanding in him. 
 
 When the Lord's time comes to cast a miijhty nation down, he 
 causes all their friends to turn against them. So this verse affirms 
 of the kingdom of Edom. Pirst, all his allies (" men of thy con- 
 federacy"), bound hy treaty to stand or fall with him, cast him out 
 of their country, chasing him even to their border, as one turns a 
 villain out of his doors. Next, those who were on terms of peace 
 and friendship turn to deceive him, and prevail against him ; and 
 last, even his dependents, who ate at his table, put a snare under 
 his feet to entrap him. Snare (not "wound") is the sense of the 
 original word used here. Finally, this utter failure of all his re- 
 liances suggests the remark, " There is no understanding in him," 
 He should not have trusted such helpers, and rejected the Almighty 
 God! 
 
 8. Shall I not in that day, saith the Lokd, even de- 
 stroy the wise 7nen out of Edom, and understanding out 
 of the mount of Esau ? 
 
 The closing thought of the verse preceding suggests these ques- 
 tions. Edom was celebrated for her wise men, and was proud of 
 them. Would not the Lord in that day destroy those great men, 
 and cause wisdom to cease from the mount of Esau ? 
 
 9. And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dis- 
 mayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau 
 may be cut off by slaughter. 
 
 Her warriors also should be smitten with panic, in order that 
 
 the slaughter of the people might be complete. " Teman " was 
 
 the naiue of a city and region in the eastern part of Idumea. Per- 
 haps it was celebrated for its courage and prowess in war. 
 
 10. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, 
 shame shall come over thee, and thou shalt be cut off 
 for ever. 
 
 The discourse turns here from the destruction of Edom to thoso 
 sins which were its special cause. These sins were their violence 
 and outrages against the posterity of Jacob, their brother. For this 
 they should be ashamed and confounded ; and for this the nation 
 should ultimately be cut olF forever. These two inflictions wovdd 
 
OBADIAH. 163 
 
 be distinct, aud miglit be somewhat widely separated in time. The 
 form of the prophetic statement admits this distinction ; the facts 
 of history fultilled it. The shameful defeat came from the hand of 
 Nebuchadnezzar; the final overthrow was postponed into the early 
 ages of the Christian era. 
 
 11. In the day that tlioii stoodest on the other side, 
 in the day that the strangers carried away captive his 
 forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast 
 lots npon Jerusalem, even thou want as one of them. 
 
 12. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day 
 of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger ; 
 neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children 
 of Judah in the day of their destruction ; neither should- 
 est thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. 
 
 13. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate 
 of my people in the day of their calamity ; yea, thou 
 shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day 
 of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substanco 
 in the day of their calamity ; 
 
 14. Neither shouldest thou have stood in the cross- 
 way, to cut oft' those of his that did escape ; neither 
 shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did 
 remain in the day of distress. 
 
 These specifications of what Esau had done in the line of vio- 
 lence and wrong toward his brother Jacob are put in the form of 
 
 pointed rebuke, after the fact. In the day when the Chaldeans 
 
 took his (Jacob's) armed men captive, entered his gates, and cast 
 lots upon whatever was fair and precious in the holy city, thou 
 
 wast hostile and violent as they. '' Thou stoodest on the other 
 
 side " means more than simply standing aloof and distant ; it im- 
 plies the attitude of an adversary. The original words have this 
 sense (2 Sam. 18:13): "Thou wouldest have set thyself against 
 
 them." " Thou wast as one of them " might possibly, if taken 
 
 by itself, mean only that the men of Edom sympathized fully with 
 the Chaldeans and against the Jews ; but it more naturally implies 
 that they participated heartily in the assault and pillage of the 
 hated city. V. 14 certainly means all this. "Thou shouldest 
 not have looked on (exultingly) in the day when he was treated as 
 an alien." V. 12 shows that they were present in the sack and 
 ruin of the city, seizing the opportunity to rush within those gates 
 
 and lay hands on her spoil. The middle clause of this verse (12) 
 
 is made specially emphatic — "Thou shoiddest not," of all the na- 
 tions, " thou shouldest not have been looking on, to gloat thine 
 cnviou3 and cruel eye with the sight of their calauiilics." V. 14 rep- 
 
1G4 OBADIAH. 
 
 resents that tlicy most cruelly stood in the road-crossings to wayla;^ 
 the fleeing Jews, to cut off their escape, and to deliver them up as 
 captives to their cruel captors. They should have done none of 
 these things. God — the righteous God of nations — is now holding 
 them to a strict and stern responsibility for those cruel violations 
 of fraternal sympathy which should have hound them to the pos- 
 terity of their father's brother. The writer of Ps. 137 felt tlie 
 
 spirit of this just rej;ribution — "Eemember, O Lord, the children 
 of Edom in the day of avenging Jerusalem, who said : Ease it, 
 rase it, even to the foundation thereof" (v. 7). 
 
 15. For tlie day of the Loed^'^ near upon all the hea- 
 then : as thou hast done, it shall be done nnto thee : thy 
 reward shall return upon thine own head. 
 
 "The day of the Lord " is his time for retribution, declared here 
 to be " near upon all the heathen." It came soon by the hand of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. " As thou " (Edom) " hast done to Jerusalem, so 
 shall it be done unto thee ; thy reward " (the sort of treatment 
 thou hast shown to others) "shall come back upon thine own 
 head." 
 
 16. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so 
 shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall 
 drink, and they shall swallov/ down, and they shall be 
 as though they had not been. 
 
 These allusions to drinking are explained by the usage of the 
 prophets. TV hen they bore predictions of dire calamity, they were 
 said to carry a cup filled with a mixture which represented the 
 wrath and vengeance of the Almighty. ITie ground passage is 
 Ps. 75 : 7, 8: "But God is the judge; he putteth down one, and 
 setteth up another ; for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and 
 the wine is red; it is full of mixture : but the dregs thereof — all the 
 wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them." To 
 Jerusalem Isaiah said (51 : 17) : " Stand up, thou who hast drunk at 
 the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury." In Jer. 25 : 15-33, this 
 figure is carried out fully : " Take the wine-cup of this fury at mine 
 hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it." 
 So also Jer. 49:12, in a passage very closely parallel to this of Obadiah. 
 
 AVith this view of the sense of this figure, it seems necessary to 
 
 refer the first clause — "ye who have drunk on my holy moun- 
 tain " — to the Jews themselves. They had taken their turn in drink- 
 ing from this cup of retributive justice ; now all the heathen — Edom 
 
 among them — must follow. These guilty heathen nations must 
 
 drink copiously, for the word rendered " swallow down " is strong — 
 shall guzzle down, as men who love it, and suck out the very dregs 
 with keenest relish. And this shall be the end of them — their cup 
 of national annihilation. 
 
 17. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and 
 
OBADIAH. 165 
 
 tliere thall be holiness ; and the honse of Jacob shall 
 possess their possessions. 
 
 Over against the final fate of tLose oppressive and wicked na- 
 tions, Mount Zion stands in the strongest contrast. Turning now to 
 promises for the people of God, the prophet portrays the victory given 
 to Zion's side. Mount Zion shall be delivered, and, best of all, 
 " shall become Tiolyy This will secure her forever against such 
 fearful calamities, for these come only as needful discipline to cleanse 
 her from her sins. That " the house of Jacob shall possess their pos- 
 sessions" will either mean that they repossess their former land, or 
 that they gain possession of the country of the heathen — one or the 
 other, according as the pronoun " their'''' is reflexive, meaning their 
 own, or refers to heathen nations. The former is most probable. 
 The latter fact is taught specially in vs. 19, 20. 
 
 18. And the honse of Jacob shall be a lire, and the 
 house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stub- 
 ble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them ; 
 and there shall not be any remaining of the house of 
 Esau ; for the Loed hath spoken it. 
 
 Fire is one of the oriental images for war and its devastations. 
 Thus, Num. 21 : 28 : ^Tor a fire is gone out of Ileshbon, a flame^ 
 from the jjity of Sihon ; it hath consumed Ar of Moab," &c. Isaiah ^'^JJ^ 
 (10 : 17), setting forth how God's consuming wrath fell on thev^ 
 Assyrian host, says, " The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his'^^^^-'H^ v 
 Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns andg^j^^ g 
 briers in one day." So here, the house of Jacob shall be a fire, | . ' 
 &c., and Esau stubble. This must imply that Jacob should be the ' ^ « 
 executioner of the Lord's vengeance upon Esau./^A ^jgnal ful fil- * -# 
 ment of this prophecy took place under John Ilyrcanus, b. c. 125^~s4 ^ ( 
 
 19. And they of the south shall possess the mount of 
 Esau ; and they of the plain the Philistines : and they 
 shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Sa- 
 maria : and Benjamin shallpossess Gilead. 
 
 The people of the southern part of Palestine should possess the 
 mount of Esau, that being contiguous to their homes. They of the 
 plain country, the southwest portion of Palestine, should have the 
 country of the Philistines, adjacent to them, &c. 
 
 20. And the captivity of this host of the children of 
 Israel shall 2^ossess that of the Canaanites, even unto 
 Zarephath ; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in 
 Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south. 
 
 "The captives of this host" are the captives returning from 
 Babylon. They shall possess the country long held by the Canaan- 
 
10(J OBADIAH. 
 
 ites, even to Zarephatli, a city near Zidon (see 1 Kings 17:9), and 
 
 called " Sarepta," Luke 4 : 26. The geography of '' Sepharad " is 
 
 not fully settled. It was a place whither some captives from Je- 
 rusalem were sent by the Chaldeans. Recent critics locate it in 
 "Western Asia, near the Bosphorus. 
 
 21. And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to 
 judge tlie mount of Esau ; and the kingdom shall be the 
 Lord's. 
 
 " Saviours " must be used here in the sense in which God raised 
 up saviours to deliver the people in the days of the Judges that 
 succeeded Joshua. The passage teaches that the princes reigning on 
 Mount Zion shall rule over Mount Esau : " the elder shall serve the 
 younger," or rather, in the much broader sense, the people w^ho 
 stand with God shall bear sway over all the realms and peoples of 
 the earth. The wicked shall no more bear rule: "the kingdom 
 is the Lord's and he is Governor among the nations." This is the 
 great truth in which the whole Book of Obadiah culminates- a glo- 
 rious truth indeed ' 
 
JOIJAH 
 
 I N T K O D U C T I N . 
 
 This book, more than any other in the Bible, has been assailed 
 with ridicule by infidels, and tortured from its simplicity by neolog- 
 ical critics. Whereas its air is that of a simple narrative of facts, 
 immense efforts have been made to show that its ^atements aro 
 not fact, but fiction. Some of these critics would make it a vision ; 
 some an allegory ; some a parable ; others a tale of ancient tradi- 
 tion, believed by people of weak minds, perhaps, but by such only, 
 
 and never reliable. It would scarcely pay to follow out these 
 
 critical fancies in detail. Let it suffice that the narrative bears not 
 the least trace of being a vision, or an allegory, or a parable, or a 
 tale of old-time tradition. From beginning to end it is simple, 
 straightforward, nobly honest and selfVcondemning, especially con- 
 sidered as written by Jonah of himself; in short, in every respect 
 
 bearing the best internal evidence of truth. Then further, the 
 
 book has worthy moral objects ; e. g.^ to set forth the peril of flee- 
 ing from the path of duty, however rough or even dangerous that 
 j)ath may be; also, the ways of God's discipline to bring his wan- 
 dering servants back, and the tenderness of his pity and forgiving 
 love toward them despite of their sins ; and yet farther, the prin- 
 ciples on which God deals with nations, even the heathen, whether 
 in judgment when they sin, or in sparing mercy when they repent. 
 Such objects as these are great and good enough to entitle the book 
 of Jonah to a place in the sacred canon ; or we might go farther 
 back and say, sufficiently important to justify God in making those 
 arrangements of his providence which constitute Ids part in these 
 
108 JONAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 scenes of Jonali's liistory. But more than all, Jonah is distinctly 
 
 recognized, in both the Old Testament and the New, as an historical 
 and not a fictitious person. In Old Testament history, 2 Kings 14 : 
 25 distinctly refers to this Jonah, the son of Amittai, in these 
 words : "lie (Jeroboam II.) restored the coast of Israel from the 
 entering of Ilamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the 
 word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of 
 his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, who was of Gath-Hepher." 
 This city was assigned to the tribe of Zebulon (Josh. 19 : 13), so 
 that Jonah's residence was within the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
 He is thus located, precisely as to place^ and proximately as to tim&i 
 not later than the early part of the reign of Jeroboam II. (reigned 
 
 B. c. 825-784). In the New Testament, the proof to the point 
 
 that Jonah was a real and not a fictitious character, is complete. 
 (See Matt. 12 : 39-41, and 16 : 4.) The Lord Jesus most distinctly re- 
 fers to Jonah as the subject of a sign — i. <?., of a miracle — as having 
 been three days and three nights in the whale's belly, and as hav- 
 ing preached to the people of Nineveh, under which preaching they 
 repented ; and finally, he definitely compares himself with Jonah : 
 
 " Behold, a greater than Jonah is here." Now, if, despite of 
 
 these testimonies to the contrary, men insist that Jonah is to bo ac- 
 counted a fictitious character, they may say the same with equal 
 reason of the queen of Sheba and of the wise Solomon. Will it 
 be claimed that the Lord Jesus did not hnow whether the history 
 of Jonah were truth or fiction? or that, knowing it to be fiction, he 
 did not care how strongly his allusions to it implied its truth and 
 misled the people ? Neither of these positions will ever be taken 
 by those who intelligently accept and honor Jesus Christ as a 
 teacher sent from God, and the very impersonation of truth. 
 
 Yet further, the apocr}T)hal Book of Tobit (14 : 4, 8) recognizes 
 Jonah as an historical and not a fictitious character, a fact which at 
 least testifies to current Jewish opinion at its date. Josephus is yet 
 another witness to the same point (Ant. 9 : 10, 12). 
 
 The case of Jonah suggests that the Hebrew prophets, though 
 brought into very near relations to God, were yet only human— men 
 of like passions with the race at large, and subject to the tempta- 
 tions incident to human frailties. His course in fleeing to Tarshish 
 and his spirit while at Nineveh, are at once surprising and painful. 
 In view of the fact that he was one of the earliest of the Hebrew 
 prophets whose writings have come down to us, it is at least sup- 
 posable that the Lord intended this example to be a lesson of spe- 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. I. 1G9 
 
 cia! admonition to all subsequent prophets. Let ns hope that it 
 was blessed to them as a warning against being unfaithful to their 
 mission, and against assuming to dictate or question the policy of 
 the Most High God, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JoxAn is commissioned to go to Nineveh and forewarn them of 
 their destruction (vs. 1, 2). lie attempts to flee away to Spain in- 
 stead (v. 8); a tempest from the Lord arrests the sliip (vs. 4-11)^ 
 lie is thrown overboard and caught up by a great fish (vs. 11-17). 
 
 1. ISTow the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the 
 son of Amittai, saying, 
 
 2. Arise, go to Kineveh, that great city, and cry 
 against it ; for their wickedness is come np before me. 
 
 Nineveh, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the site of 
 the modern Mosul, for many ages past in ruins, has been discovered 
 and its ruins somewhat thoroughly explored in the present century. 
 It was the capital of ancient Assyria, one of the oldest cities since 
 the flood (Gen. 10: 11, 12), long celebrated for its size, wealth, and 
 magnificence. At this time its wickedness had come up before God, 
 and he mercifully sent to them a prophet from Israel to forewarn 
 
 them of impending ruin and exhort them to repent. The Hebrew 
 
 prophets were somewhat frequently commissioned to utter predic- 
 tions of judgment on Gentile nations, but seem to have been very 
 rarely sent in person to bear tliese predictions to those nations. In 
 Jer. 27 may be seen a proximate case. The prophet was directed to 
 send his prophetic message by the hand of foreign ambassadoi-s 
 present at the Jewish capital. 
 
 3. But Jonah rose up to iiee unto Tarshish from the 
 presence of the Loed, and went down to Joppa ; and he 
 found a ship going to Tarshish : so he paid the fare 
 thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto 
 Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 
 
 It is now quite settled among critics that "Tarshish" was the 
 city Tartessus, in Spain, with which the Phoenicians ke])t up an 
 active trade by sea. Jonah thought to escape the responsibility of 
 his unwelcome commission to Nineveh by taking ship at once to 
 Tarshish. The narrative is particular to state repeatedly that this 
 was "fleeing from the presence of the Lord" — as if there would 
 be no God in Tarshish to make him trouble ! or at least, as if God 
 could not object to his laying down his prophetic ofiice, and going 
 
 abroad to foreign lands. We naturally ask — What could liave 
 
 8 
 
170 JONAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 been his motive and what his temptation to a course so wicked and 
 so foolish ? Fear for his personal safety is the cause we most naturally 
 think of, yet of this it might well be asked — Did not he know that 
 if the Lord sent him into danger, he could protect him through it? 
 and that it is always safe for a child of God to go where he knows 
 
 his Father sends him ? Another motive, even less worthy than 
 
 this of fear, is indicated by his own strange expostulation with God 
 (4 ; 1, 2), because He retracted his threat to destroy Nineveh and 
 turned from punishment to pardon. This change on the part of 
 God "displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry!" 
 (Alas for poor human nature !) " And he prayed unto the Lord 
 and said — I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was 
 yet in my country ? Therefore I fled before to 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." Ah, indeed! then 
 
 Jonah did not like to go to Nineveh, through fear that they would 
 repent, and then the Lord would forgive them and not destroy the 
 city, as he was about to proclaim. And was he concerned lest his 
 reputation should suffer, and he be thought a false prophet ? Alas, 
 
 again we must say, for the follies and sins of man ! In some 
 
 points of view it seems wonderful that God should employ such 
 a man at all as a prophet — only that in the sins of Jonah many a 
 
 man might see his own, if he woald. The Lord has great moral 
 
 lessons to teach us from these sins of Jonah. Let none of us be 
 too blind to see them, nor too much in love with sin to accept the 
 rebuke they read to us, and repent. 
 
 4. But tile LoED sent out a great wind into tlie sea, 
 and tliere was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the 
 ship was like to be broken. 
 
 The verb rendered "sent out" is strikingly expressive. He 
 hurled down upon the sea a great wind. The same Avord is used 
 in the next verse for casting out the wares from the ship. So 
 easily does God cast forth his tempest blasts and lash the sea into 
 fury. 
 
 5. Tlien the mariners were afraid, and cried every 
 man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that vjere in 
 the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah 
 was gone down into the sides of the ship ; and he lay, 
 and was fast asleep. 
 
 Those heathen men — for such they doubtless were — had each 
 his god. In his danger each of those men prayed to the god ho 
 was wont to worship. Who does not pray in the hour of peril? 
 Certainly the heathen are usually no exception. Probably there are 
 no people on earth further removed Irom confidence in some super- 
 human power able to befriend and save, than the irreligious and 
 profane class in Christian lands. 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. I. lYl 
 
 Some have thought that the statement respecting Jonah as fast 
 
 asleep under sucli circumstances, is violently improbable. But 
 
 who knows how far he had walked during the previous day to reach 
 joppa, or how much he may have suffered in his mind throughout 
 his journey, and for days previous? The Avays of*sin are not wont 
 to he ways of pleasantness, nor her paths those of peace. 
 
 6. So tlie sliipm aster came to liim, and said unto 
 him, What meanest thou, O sleeper ? arise, call npon thy 
 God, if so be that God will think npon us, that we perish 
 not. 
 
 This mousing call must have stung the sleeper, especially when, 
 having fully awakened, he saw that God had met him in his guilty 
 
 way, and had brought such peril upon others for his sake._ It is 
 
 noticeable that the word God in the last clause has the article: "It 
 may be that the great and the true God will think upon us," &c. 
 Had he not some just conception of the one only true God? 
 
 7. And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and 
 let ns cast lots, tliat we may know for whose cause this 
 evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon 
 Jonah. 
 
 The "lot" -was practically an appeal to God to decide a pend- 
 ing question by his providence. In this case the Lord took the 
 disposal of the lot, according to Prov. 16 : 33 : " The lot is cast into 
 the lap ; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." It put 
 the finger of God upon Jonah. 
 
 8. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, 
 for whose cause this evil is upon us ; What is^ thine 
 occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy 
 country ? and of what people a7't thou ? 
 
 9. And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew ; and I 
 fear the Loed, the God of heaven, which hath made the 
 sea and the dry land. 
 
 10. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said 
 unto him. Why hast thou done this ? For the men 
 knew that he fled from the presence of the Lokd, be- 
 cause he had told them. 
 
 The alarm felt by those sailors was greatly increased vdien 
 Jonah told them that the God whom he feared and worshipped 
 was that great God of heaven who made the sea and the dry 
 land. They could not help rebuking liiin. IIow couldest thou 
 offend «McA a God? See what comes of it ! Didst thou think to 
 escape the wrath and the reach of so great a God ? 
 
172 JONAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 11. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto 
 thee, that the sea may be calm unto ns ? for the sea 
 wrought and was tempestuons. 
 
 They see plamly that they must do something with Jonali. He 
 is the Achaii in their camp. So they frankly ask him what they 
 
 shall do with him. The last clause manifestly means that the sea 
 
 was becoming more and more tempestuous. 
 
 12. And he said nnto them, Take me up, and cast 
 me forth into the sea ; so shall the sea be calm nnto 
 yon : for I know that for my sake this great tempest is 
 upon yon. 
 
 /Here is one redeeming quality in the character of Jonah. It is 
 pleasant to see a man, when found in sin, so frank, so honest, so 
 consciously sensible of his fault, and so ready to suffer the whole 
 fruit of his own misdoings, and relieve his companions. 
 
 13. IS'evertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to 
 the land ; but they could not : for the sea w^rought, and 
 was tempestuous against them. 
 
 The spirit which Jonah manifested awakened the sympathy of 
 the captain and crew in his behalf, and again they dug into the sea 
 with their oai-s (so the Hebrew means), to bring their ship to land ; 
 but all in vain. The sea only became the more furious. 
 
 14. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said. 
 We beseech thee, O Loed, we beseech thee, let us not 
 perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent 
 blood : for thou, O Lokd, hast done as it pleased thee. 
 
 It was a solemn thing to take this human life ; and like men 
 who appreciate this, they once more implore the mercy of God, 
 and beseech him to note the necessity that lies upon them, which 
 they refer distinctly to his manifest hand in providence, so that they 
 may not be held guilty of innocent blood. 
 
 15. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into 
 the sea : and the sea ceased from her raging. 
 
 16. Then the men feared the Loed exceedingly, and 
 offered a sacrifice unto the Loed, and made vows. 
 
 17. Now the LoED had prepared a great fish to swal- 
 low up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish 
 three days and three nights. 
 
 The original word rendered " prepared " means appointed, 
 assigned, i. e., to this service. This fish was providentially ready. 
 
 The fact here stated is the great stone of stumbling and rock of 
 
 offence to that class of critics who deny the existence of miracles. 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. n. 173 
 
 We need have no special sympatliy with their perplexities or their 
 stumbling ; for there can be no good reason for rejecting miracles. 
 Besides, in this case, our divine Lord distinctly recognizes the pres- 
 ence of miracles by sajing that Jonah was " a sign,^^ i. c, a man in 
 
 Vi^hom miracles were manifested. It is not necessarily a miracle 
 
 that a great fish should swallow a man. There are several varieties 
 that are capable of swallowing a man whole, for they have done it. 
 13ut that a man should live three days and three nights, or, indeed, 
 one hour, in the belly of a fish, must be a miracle. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In this short chapter, Jonah has put on record tlie prayers he 
 poured out unto God from his heart of anguish while imprisoned 
 three days in the stomach of a sea-monster. 
 
 1. Then Jon all prayed unto the Lord his God ont 
 of the iish's belly, 
 
 2. And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction nnto 
 the Lord, and he heard me ; out of the belly of hell cried 
 I, and thou heardest my voice. 
 
 The phrase — "out of the behy of hell" — should not carry our 
 minds to the place of final torment for the wicked, but to the pit 
 or grave, where the bodies of men are laid at death. He felt like 
 one buried alive — ^his consciousness still active and keen as ever, 
 but himself shut up in darkness; imprisoned, apparently past hope 
 of ever seeing the light of this fair world again, save as he knew 
 
 and felt that his God might mercifully restore him. The Hebrew 
 
 word used here (Sheol) often has this sense — the grave. 
 
 3. For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst 
 of the seas ; and the floods compassed me about : all thy 
 billows and thy waves passed over me. 
 
 Many of the expressions in this prayer of Jonah occur in the 
 Psalms, with only slight variations, if any. The reader may find it 
 interesting to compare v. 2 with Ps. 120 : 1 ; v. 3 with 42 : 7 ; 
 V. 4 with 81 : 22 ; v. 5 with 69 : 1 ; v. 7 with 142 : 3 ; v. 8 with 
 81:6; and v. 9 with 8 : 8. This comparison goes far to cstabhsh 
 two interesting facts: (1.) That these psalms were extant in Jonah's 
 time; (2.) That he had read them often, had become familiar 
 with their phraseology, especially that which was used in prayer, 
 and was therefore accustomed to use their language in his own de- 
 votions. He did as Christians now do who are tamiliar with the 
 devotional portions of God's word— use those forms of expression in 
 their daily and hourly intercessions before God. 
 
174 JONAIL— CHAP. II. 
 
 4. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight ; yet I will 
 look again toward thy holy temple. 
 
 It cannot surprise us that Jonah both said and felt, " I am cast 
 out of thy sight." "When his fellow-passengers on shipboard took 
 him up and cast him overboard, it must have seemed to him that 
 
 God was casting liim forth out of his sight forever. But Jonah 
 
 had once known the loving-kindness of his God. Hence, the thought 
 of possible mercy came now to his relief, and he said, " Yet I wiU 
 look once more toward thy holy temple." Did he not appreciate in 
 that hour how much the mercy of God is worth to a soul con- 
 sciously lost ? 
 
 5. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul : 
 the depth closed me round about, the w^eeds were 
 wrapped about my head. 
 
 He seemed to himself to lie on the bottom of iviQ sea— its weeds 
 wrapped as his winding-sheet about him. 
 
 G. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains ; the 
 earth wdth her bars ivas about me for ever : yet hast 
 thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my 
 God. 
 
 The word " bars," in the clause " the earth with her bars was 
 about me forever," Gesenius supposes to refer to the bars of Sheol — ■ 
 the under world — as closed now upon him forever. But the promi- 
 nent position of the word " earth " in the sentence favors another 
 construction, viz., that the earth, in the sense of land as opposed to 
 sea, had cast him out, and closed its bars upon him, so that he could 
 not hope ever to see its light and beauty again. If he had meant 
 the bars of Sheol, he might readily have said so in unambiguous 
 
 terms. Yet, notwithstanding he was so imprisoned in the depths 
 
 of the sea, he lifts up his grateful eye and his voice of acknowledg- 
 ment to God above — " Thou hast brought up my hfe from the pit, 
 O Lord my God. 
 
 Y. When my soul fainted wdthin me I remembered 
 the Lord : and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine 
 holy temple. 
 
 8. They that observe lying vanities, forsake their 
 own mercy. 
 
 "They that observe lying vanities " are the worshippers of idol 
 gods which are always false and vain. They do indeed '■'■ forsal-,e " 
 in the sense of rejecting and losing their own mercies. They 
 miserably forego the blessedness that is in store for them in the 
 true God, if only they will seek it there. So of all sinners who 
 seek their good elsewhere than in the living God. They " forsake 
 their own mercies." 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. III. 1Y5 
 
 9. But I will sacrifice imto thee with the voice of 
 thanksgiving ; I will pay that that I have vow^ecl. Sal- 
 vation is of the Lord. 
 
 Precisely what his vows were in his trouble he has uot said. 
 Doubtless he promised the Lord never again to try to flee from his 
 
 presence to avoid an unwelcome duty. He closes with this most 
 
 expressive, glorious testimony: '■'• Qaltation is of the LonV lie 
 and he only can save in times of trouble. 
 
 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomit- 
 ed out Jonah upon the dry land. 
 
 With infinite ease the Lord spake — only spake to the fish — and 
 it vomited Jonah forth upon the dry land, doubtless on the shore 
 of his native country, Palestine. It would seem that the ship had 
 not gone far from its starting-point, Joppa, when the storm headed 
 and beat it back. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Commanded a second time, Jonah goes to Nineveh, and pro- 
 claims its approaching ruin. The people and their king humble 
 themselves and repent before God ; he turns from his purpose and 
 spares the city. 
 
 1. And the word of the Loed came unto Jonah the 
 second time, saying, 
 
 2. Arise, go unto ^N'ineveh, that great city, and 
 preach unto it the preaching that I Lid thee. 
 
 Jonah was not only to go as commanded, but he is specially 
 charged to preach to that great and proud city what God should 
 bid hhn preach — a charge very probably significant of some appre- 
 hension lest Jonah might trip at this point, and certainly full of 
 suggestions to all who are ever called of God to preach in his name. 
 What have they to do to preach out of their own heart, to sub- 
 serve some supposed interest of their own, other than that for 
 which God sends them ? They might as well flee to Tarshish, to 
 escape the duty of preaching the ruin of the wicked, as to withhold 
 God's threatenings, or preach something else and other than what 
 God bids them, Avhen they reach the Nineveh whither he sends 
 them. 
 
 3. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, accord- 
 ing to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an ex • 
 ceeding great city of three days' journey. 
 
 Now Jonah obeys. He is a wiser and a better man for the dis- 
 cipline God has given him. " Before I was afilicted, I went astray; 
 
176 JONAH.— CHAP. m. 
 
 bnt now Lave I kept thy word." T]ie i^hrase "an exceeding 
 
 great city," stands in the llebrew, "a city gi-eat to God^^'' i. e.^ great 
 before lum-rgrcat as to bim, in bis estimation. The Hebrews were 
 accustomed to express tlieir highest ideas of the superlative degree 
 by using the name of God, e. g.^ " mountains of God," &c. The 
 sense of this passage may be somewhat more specific, representing 
 the city as gi-eat in its relations to God, and not merely as very 
 
 great apart from those relations. In estimating an oriental day's 
 
 journey, we must think of a caravan, heavy laden, many on foot, 
 in a hot climate. Twenty miles would be the maximum. Thi 
 statement " a city of three days' journey " should probably be ap- 
 plied to its circumference, and not to its diameter ; because sixty 
 miles in diameter would make the city incredibly large ; because 
 one of the most reliable ancient historians, Diodorus Siculus (II., 3) 
 represents it as sixty miles in circuit ; and because Jonah's begin- 
 ning to enter it one day's journey (v. 4) may have been on a tor- 
 tuous course, and not on a right line through its centre. 
 
 4. And Jon all began to enter into the city a day's 
 jonrney, and lie cried, and said. Yet forty days, and 
 Sineveli sliall be overthrown. 
 
 Jonah seems to have begun his preaching as he entered the city, 
 and to have made his proclamation in the streets and public places, 
 wherever he found people to hear him. 
 
 5. So the people of ^Nineveh believed God, and pro- 
 claimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest 
 of them even to the least of them. 
 
 The first step toward their repentance and salvation lay in their 
 Relieving God. They accepted the message of this solitary stran- 
 ger as one sent them by the Most High God. To those who 
 
 have noted the strange incredulity of millions under the light of 
 the gospel, this fact appears surprising. We must suppose that 
 Jonah spake as one who felt the solemnity of his mission and car- 
 ried the air of a deeply honest man, and we must also suppose that 
 he had their conscience on his side, and that the power of God was 
 in and with his words. 
 
 6. For word came nnto the king of ISTineveh, and he 
 arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, 
 and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 
 
 It does not appear that the king heard from Jonah's own lips ; 
 but the word came to him through his servants. They testified to 
 the deep, pervading conviction of the people, and the king at once 
 
 believed God as his people had done. The name of this king is 
 
 not given or known. This record of him may well rebuke many an 
 ungodly monarch who plants his foot upon the very idea of " a higher 
 law of God," and scornfully repels all authority higher than tho 
 mandates of his own will. 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. III. 177 
 
 7. And he caused it to be proclaimed and piiblislied 
 through J^ineveh by decree of the king and his no- 
 bles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, 
 taste any thing : let them not feed, nor drink water : 
 
 8. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, 
 and cry mightily unto God : yea, let them turn every 
 one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in 
 their hands. 
 
 It is specially noticeable that tliis proclamation calls not only for 
 humiliation, fasting, and all the customary oriental tokens of sorrow 
 and penitence, and for prayer also — crying mightily to God — but also 
 specially enjoins on aU men to " turn every one from his evil way 
 and from the violence that is in their hands." So manifest is it that 
 the law of justice and right is everywhere in the human mind, and 
 
 that no heathen can be so blind as not to see it. This also is a 
 
 stinging rebuke to men, who, under far clearer light than theirs, 
 yet labor to extinguish this light, or, in the more fit and expressive 
 words of revelation, " put darkness for hght and light for darkness." 
 
 9. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and 
 turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not ? 
 
 The form of this question suggests that the king of Nineveh 
 did not hioio that God would always forgive a penitent people. 
 He had heard less of God than we have. But he could say, " Who 
 can tell (literally, " who knows ") whether he will turn and repent, 
 that we perish not ? " On this assumed possibility he bases his call 
 to humiliation, fasting, prayer, and reform. 
 
 10. And God saw their works, that they tm-ned 
 from their evil way ; and God repented of the evil that 
 he had said that he would do unto them ; and he did it 
 not. 
 
 "God saw," not their professions, nor merely their prayers, but 
 " their works, that they turned from their evil way." Of course, 
 when they changed their moral attitude before liim, he changed his 
 plan ; turned from his purpose, and spared the city. So he always 
 deals with the nations of the earth. Works meet for i-epentancc 
 will infallibly secure the reversal of threatened and impending doom. 
 God's immutability is that of principle — not of plan and action. Ho 
 immutably hates and punishes sin : hence, when a sinner becomes a 
 penitent, God turns from threatened vengeance to free pardon. 
 
 8* 
 
178 JONAn.-.CHAP. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Tma chapter is a mournful record of the moral frailties of a 
 good man, and a glorious testimony to the pity, forbearance, and 
 love of the blessed God. Jonah is greatly displeased because the 
 Lord reversed the predicted fall of Nineveh : he waits outside the 
 city to see what the Lord would do to it ; he put up a rude tent for 
 shelter from the heat ; and the Lord brought up a gourd over him 
 for his further relief; but a worm destroys the gourd. Jonah is 
 again fretful, impatient, and angry, and the Lord very gently 
 rebukes him, and gives reasons for sparing Nineveh. 
 
 1. But it displeased Jonali excaedinglj, and lie was 
 very angry. 
 
 Some critics give the word rendered in this passage " displeased," 
 the sense of grieved. It would be a great relief to my feehngs of 
 sorrow and shame, if the words and the circumstances would bear 
 this construction. But as an interpreter of God's word, I must 
 honor the truth rather than humor the feelings of the heart. So 
 this passage must stand, " displeased," " angry exceedingly." 
 
 2. And lie prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray 
 thee, O LoKD, was not this my saying, when I was yet 
 in my country 1 Therefore I lied 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. 
 
 In the clause, " Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish," the sense 
 is not tbat I fled at a former time^ but that I fled Icfore I came into 
 such an emergency as this ; I anticipated precisely such a result as 
 this, and I fled 'beforehand^ to avoid it. I did not wish to declare 
 to them from the mouth of the Lord that the city should fall within 
 forty days, and then have my words prove false. -To this con- 
 struction, the reasons he assigns correspond: "Eor I knew that 
 thou art a gracious God, and wouldest probably repent so as not to 
 
 inflict this evil." The last clause which groups his testimony to 
 
 God's mercy is in the very words of Joel (2 : 13), and almost iden- 
 tical with Ex. 84 : G, 7. Probably both passages were familiar to 
 his mind. Tliis boldness before God, while so grievously in the 
 wrong withal, is appalling. It is awful that a sinner, plucked him- 
 self as a brand from the burning, and living on mere mercy alone, 
 should object to God's showing the same mercy to his fellow-sin- 
 ners. Why did he not rather rejoice and shout for joy when he 
 saw the king and people of Nineveh on their faces before God — his 
 warnings pressing them efi'ectually to repentance, and the clouds 
 of gathering vengeance swept away by the hand of love ? 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. IV. 179 
 
 3. Therefore now, O LopwD, take, I beseech tliee, my 
 life from me ; for it is "better for me to die than to 
 live. 
 
 And now lie is so nmcli vexed and so angry, that he prays God 
 to take bis lilb ! How could Le think himself prepared to die in 
 such a temper ? 
 
 4. Then said the Loed, Doest thou well to he angry ? 
 
 Some interpreters render this verse — " Then said the Lord, Art 
 thou much vexed? " Thei*e are two fatal objections to this ren- 
 dering: (1,) The question so put is needless, since Jonah had 
 shown liis extreme anger but too plainly; and (2.) The original 
 words cannot, legitimately, bear this construction. They mean — 
 Does thine anger burn justly, rightly ? Hast thou any good reason 
 for such anger ? Is it doing well, that thou shouldest let such pas- 
 sions rise? — A very gentle rebuke indeed, for sins so great and so 
 provoking to God ! 
 
 5. So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east 
 side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat 
 under it in the shadow, till he might see what would be- 
 come of the city. 
 
 " Till he might see what would become of the city " — as if this 
 question were still in suspense. Can it be supposed that he thought 
 — Possibly the Lord will hear my prayer and my expostulation, and 
 will turn again to execute his first sentence of destruction ? 
 
 6, And the Loed God pre^Dared a gourd, and made it 
 to come up over J onah, that it might be a shadow over 
 his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was 
 exceeding glad of the gourd. 
 
 Still the Lord is mindful of the little comforts of his servant 
 Jonah, and brings up over him very suddenly the shade of a rapidly 
 growing plant, to " relieve his sufferings" — for so, more accurately, 
 I render the words translated " to deliver him from his grief,"" This 
 *' gourd " is supposed to be the shrub known by the name of *' Palma 
 Christi," 
 
 7, But God prepai-ed a worm when the morning 
 rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it 
 Mothered, 
 
 8, And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that 
 God jDi^pared a vehement east wind ; and the sun beat 
 upon 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. 
 
ISO JONAH.— CHAP. lY. 
 
 This cai^t wliul, wliicli tlie text rends ''volienient," tlio marii'in, 
 nearer the truth, has "silent." It ^vas not a violent but a sultr?/ 
 wind, sueli as eonies np from the desert on the southeast, like the 
 hreath of a great furnaee. Jonah sinks nnder this great heat, ant? 
 again wishes that lie may die ! 
 
 0. Aud God said to Jonali, Doost tlioii avcII to be 
 angry for the gourd ? And he said, I do well to be 
 angrv, even nnto death. 
 
 The same question, in the same words as in v. G, and with the 
 same meaning, only that this respects his recent anger because of 
 the withered gourd. Strange to say, Jonah justifies himself, and by 
 implication, complains of God for sutfering the worm to kill his 
 goui'd ! 
 
 10. Then said the Loep, Thou hast had pity on the 
 guurd, for the which thon hast not labored, neither 
 niadest it grow ; which came np in a night, and perished 
 in a night : 
 
 11. And shonld not I spare Nineveh, that great city, 
 wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that 
 cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
 hand, aiul aJ^^o much cattle I 
 
 The verb which expresses Jonah's iVeling for the gourd is the 
 same which expresses the Lord's feeling for JSinevah, yet our trans- 
 lators render tlie former '• hast had pit i/,''^ and the latter " Should 
 1 not spare ? " This is nnfortnnate. Pity for the gourd was not 
 precisely the feeling of Jonah; he rather pitied Ju'msflf. The 
 gonrd was not a sentient being — was not a sutterer. Yet Jonali 
 deplored the loss of the gonrd, and in this point of view the antith- 
 esis bears. The scope of the antithesis is essentially this : — Thou, 
 Jonah, wast pained at the ruin of that gourd, though it had cost 
 tlice nothing, and thon liadst done nothing to interest thy heart in 
 its weltare, and it is a short-lived thing at best : should not I, much 
 more, deprecate the ruin of that great city, Nineveh, in which are 
 more than one hundred and twenty thousand Jiuman hings (so the 
 Hebrew specially denotes) wlio have not yet reached the ])eriod of 
 moral accountability, and also many cattle who never reach it .^ These 
 are all sentient beings; their happiness is a positive good to them, 
 and therefore to me. They have not sinned against me: shall I not, 
 therefore, spare the city if I can do so safely and wisely ; spare it 
 especially for the sake of the imsinning beings who are in it and 
 who must be involved in its doom if it tails? Thns it is vegeta- 
 ble life on the one hand against animal life on the other; a slirub 
 against a babe or a lamb. For the shrub Jonah had done nothing 
 to enlist his sympathies, but God implies that he has been watch- 
 ing over these infants and the lambs too, with a Father's tender 
 care, and has good reason, therefore, to be deeply interested in their 
 hajipiness. 
 
JONAH.— CHAP. IV. ISl 
 
 The passage makes useful and ricli revelations in respect to tlio 
 feelings of the great God as to those fearful judgments which fall 
 on the wicked, but which, as the world is, must involve some inno- 
 cent beings — a part of them innocent as having not yet reached suf- 
 ficient intelligence to make them morally accountable, and others 
 as not having by nature any moral attributes. In the light of this 
 passage it becomes altogether plain that God always takes into ac- 
 count the case of these sinless sufferers, and regards their presence 
 as itself a plea for sparing the guilty. Of course he will give this 
 plea all the consideration which the nature of the case will allow, 
 lie will punish, in forms that necessarily involve the unsinning in 
 the general ruin, only when the ends of a moral system impera- 
 tively demand it. Who can estimate the amount of sparing mercy 
 which the guilty of our world owe, in this life, to God's pity foi 
 infants and for the sentient but unsinning animal races? 
 
MIOAH 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 MiuAH, a name abbreviated from Micaiah, which signifies— 
 Who is lils:e God ? was of Moresheth-gath, a city near Eleutheropo- 
 lis, and not far from the country of the Phihstines. His introduc- 
 tory verse states that he prophesied in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, 
 and Ilezekiah, kings of Judah. As the two former reigned each 
 sixteen years and the latter twenty-nine, the entire duration of his 
 ministry possible within this statement is sixty-one years. He was 
 contemporary with Isaiah, who dates one vision " in the year that 
 king Uzziah, the father of Jotham," "died" (6:1), and who was 
 certainly in active service as a prophet under Hezekiah. Interest- 
 ing collateral evidence that Micah prophesied in the reign of Heze- 
 kiah is found in Jer. 26 : 17-19. While some of the priests, princes, 
 and false prophets demanded that Jeremiah should die for the al- 
 leged crime of speaking against the royal city, certain of the elders 
 rose up to defend him with this plea: "Micah, the Morasthite, 
 prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to 
 all the people of Judah (very publicly), saying : ' Thus saith the 
 Lord of hosts, Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem 
 shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high 
 places of the forest.' Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put 
 him at all to death? " &c. See the original passage (Micah 3 : 12). 
 
 This Micah was not that noble Micaiah, son of Imlah, whom 
 \liab did not love because he told him too much unwelcome truth. 
 (See 1 Kings 22). Ahab died one hundred and thirty-eight years 
 
 before Jotham came to the throne. Micah, the author, also spake 
 
 bold and fearless words for God and righteousness. He spake con- 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. I. 183 
 
 cerning both Samaria and Jerusalem, mostly the latter, exposing 
 and rebukmg their sins. He predicted the destruction of both 
 cities. He expatiated on the final glory of Zion, the real kingdom 
 of the Messiah, in words of great beauty and power. 
 
 It is important to a full understanding of the work of these 
 prophets that we think of their relations to the throne, stemming 
 the tide of wickedness under such reigns as that of Ahaz; power- 
 fully aiding the work of reform under such good kings as Hezekiah. 
 Contemporary with these two kings were Micah, Ilosea, Isaiah, and 
 ITahum. 
 
 OHAPTEK I. 
 
 The sin and doom of Samaria, embracing of com'se the kingdom 
 of which it was the capital, constitute the leading themes in this 
 chapter. Vs. 10-1 G describe the effects of the Assyrian invasion 
 as it swept along over a line of cities that lay in his path. 
 
 1. The word of tlie Loed that came to Micali tlie 
 Morastliite in tlie days of Jotliam, Aliaz, and Heze- 
 kiah, kings of Judali, whicli lie saw concerning Samaria 
 and Jerusalem. 
 
 2. Ilear, all ye people ; hearken, O earth, and all 
 that therein is : and let the Lord God be witness against 
 yon, the Lord from his holy temple. 
 
 3. For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his 
 place, and will come down, and tread upon the high 
 places of the earth. 
 
 4. And the mountains shall be molten under him, 
 and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the lire, and 
 as the waters that are poured down a steep place. 
 
 The prophet summons all the nations of the earth to hear. 
 Practically, they are supposed to be convened for a great judgment 
 scene, and the Almighty God comes down from his throne in 
 heaven to appear as a witness against them for their sins. His 
 coming down is portrayed with wonderful grandeur. '^ See ! the 
 Lord comes out of his place: he comes down: he treads on tiie 
 high places of the earth," as if his glorious footsteps I'cstcd only 
 on the mountain tops; and " the mountains are molten " under the 
 touch of his feet; new valleys are cleft; the solid hills melt as wax 
 before the fire, and flow as water leaping down a precipice. Such 
 convulsions of nature betoken the majesty of nature's Godl 
 
184 MICAIL— CILVP. I. 
 
 5. For tlie transgi'ession of Jacob is all tliis, and foi 
 the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgres- 
 sion of Jacob ? is it not Samaria 1 and what are the 
 high places of Jndah ? are they not Jernsalem ? 
 
 Why is all this? "For the transgression of Jacob, and the sins 
 of the house of Israel." God comes down to take account of the 
 great sins of his covenant people, and to bring on them retribution 
 therefor. This great judgment to which all the nations are con- 
 vened is, for the present, that of the covenant people only ; but the 
 Gentile nations may well ask — " If judgment begin at the house of 
 God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of 
 God ? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the un- 
 godly and the sinner appear ? " Indeed, this judgment of Judah 
 
 and Israel is of most vital concern to all the nations of the earth, 
 since in it and from it they may learn the ways of God's reign over 
 all nations, and the doom which awaits them unless they repent. 
 
 " What is the transgression of Jacob ? Is it not Samaria ? " Thaii 
 
 is, is it not found in Samaria, concentrated, embodied, developed 
 there, viz., in her idolatry, her violence, injustice, pride, and general 
 corruption of morals ? So also Jerusalem had taken the lead in the 
 
 idolatries and corruptions of Judah. The phrase "house of 
 
 Israel," in the second clause of this verse, refers specially to Judah, 
 
 as is shown by the last clauses of the verse. From this point 
 
 forward through the chapter, the doom of- Samaria and her king- 
 dom is the main subject. 
 
 6. Therefore, I will make Samaria as an heap of the 
 field, and as plantings of a vineyard : and I will pour 
 down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will dis- 
 cover the foundations thereof. 
 
 This is a picture of utter desolation. "Heaps of the field," 
 said of a city, shows a surprising contrast to what it was. Once 
 full of noble buildings, now only piles of ruins, heaps of stones and 
 furrows cast up by the plough. So Samaria returns back to the 
 status of a plantation with its i)loughed fields and vineyards. Its 
 stones are tumbled down the hill on which the city stood to fill the 
 valley below, and the very foundations on which it stood are laid 
 bare. Modern travellers testify to the precisely literal fidfilmcnt of 
 these words, saying that the valley adjacent to the hill of Samaria 
 is full of the stones which once had a place in her houses and idol 
 temples. So the words of the Lord never fail. 
 
 7. And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten 
 to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with 
 the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate : for 
 she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall 
 return to the hire of an harlot. 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. I. 185 
 
 As is usual and altogether right, God's judgments follow and 
 point out the great sins thej come to punish. Hence, the altar and 
 all that pertains to idolatry come up in remembrance before God in 
 
 the day of his visitation, as appears in this verse. The original 
 
 word rendered "the hires^^ thereof, carries the mind to the income 
 derived to the city from its idol altars, temples, and worship. The 
 word refers primarily to harlot-hire — the wages of prostitution — 
 and is applied to the money profits of idolatry, under that current 
 prophetic usage wliich speaks of idolatry as itself harlotry. The 
 last clause of the verse says that, as Samaria had accumulated her 
 wealth and splendor by this sort of harlot-hire, idolatry, and its 
 wages, her people shall return to harlot-hire in the literal sense — 
 to that lowest of all pursuits for a living — the life of a common 
 prostitute. If not to this precisely and literally, yet to a sort of 
 life analogous to tliis and fitly represented by it. How inexpress- 
 ibly appalling is such a doom ! 
 
 8. Therefore, I will wail and howl ; I will go stripped 
 and naked : I will make a wailing like tlie dragons, and 
 mourning as tlie owls. 
 
 It cannot appear strange that the prophet should pause over 
 such a doom and say — ^'' TTierefore^^'' for this "I will wail and 
 
 howl." "Dragons," in the sense of sea-monsters, are not the 
 
 animals here intended, but probably jackals or wolves. Either of 
 these, in oriental countries, make night hideous Math their howling. 
 The best modern critics concur in rendering the last word not 
 "owl," but ostrich. The latter were distinguished for their plain- 
 tive cry far out on the desert. 
 
 9. For lier wound is incurable ; for it is come unto 
 Judali ; lie is come unto tlie gate of my people, even to 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 The blow that fell on Samaria and the ten-tribe kingdom was 
 fatal. It swept the nation into a hopeless captivity, and laid the 
 whole land utterly desolate. It also alarmed Judah. Under Sen- 
 nacherib and Eabshakeh, tliis same Assyrian power even came 
 within sight of Jerusalem, and might be said to have reached her 
 gates. 
 
 10. Declare je it not at Gatli, weep ye not at all : in 
 tlie house of Aphrali roll thyself in the dust. 
 
 The remaining part of this chapter is a gi*aphic painting of the 
 first results of the Assyrian invasion, as they were felt in one <^ity 
 after another along the line of his march. In most of the cases 
 the things said of each city are a play upon the significant name of 
 that city — a method of writing well adapted to impress the idea 
 upon the memory. Sometimes there is simply a resemblance in 
 sound between the prominent word spoken of a city and the nanu 
 
18(5 MICAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 of tiiat city. Both of these cases fall under the figure of speech 
 technically called a paronomasia. The latter form of it — resem- 
 blance in sounds — is of course untranslatable. The other form — a 
 play upon the significance of the name of a city — is as if one 
 should exclaim: What! is there quarrelling in Concord; war in 
 Salem [Peace] ; family feuds in Philadelphia [Brotherly Love] ; 
 slavery in Freetown ? * 
 
 " Tell it not in Gath," comes from David's lament over Saul and 
 Jonathan. The idea is — Let not the enemies of Zion hear of her 
 
 sad fall. Modern critics read the next clause, " weep not in 
 
 Ako," with which the Hebrew word for " weep" (baka) gives us 
 a case of paranomasia, better seen when the Hebrew preposition 
 (b) is put before ako, as in the original, making it JaX^o. This 
 city fell within the sweep of this march of the desolating army. 
 So did Aphrah, which means dust. "In the '- dust^ city, roll 
 thyself in the ' dust.'' " Weeping is too feeble an expression for a 
 ruin so terrible. To roll thyself in the dust is befitting, and there- 
 fore enjoined. 
 
 11. Pass ye away, tlioii inhabitant of Sapliir, having 
 thy shame naked : the inhabitant of Zaanan came not 
 forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel ; he shall receive of 
 you his standing. 
 
 12. For the inhabitants of IVEaroth waited carefully 
 for good : but evil came down from the Lord unto the 
 gate of Jerusalem. 
 
 13. O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot 
 to the swift beast : she is the beginning of the sin to the 
 daughter of Zion : for the transgressions of Israel were 
 found in thee. 
 
 14. Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth- 
 gath : the houses of Achzib shall he a lie to the kings of 
 Israel. 
 
 15. Yet will I bring an heir imto thee, inhabitant 
 of Mareshah : he shall come unto Adullam the glory of 
 Israel. 
 
 I translate these verses rather freely, in order to give as fully as 
 Y)0ssible the same play upon the words — by paranomasia — that I 
 
 * Isaiah, contemporary with Micah, is equally remarkable for his free 
 use of paronomasia. A beautiful example is in Isa. 5 : 7 — "He looked for 
 judgment, but behold bloodshed ; for righteousness, but behold an outcry." 
 That is, he looked for LJSUrs, and lo, nSiTTO ; fornj^n:: and lo, njry::. 
 The Hebrew reader will notice that the prominent antithetic words are as 
 like as possible in sound, but as unlike as possible in sense. Herein lie 
 the beauty and force of this figure of speech. It is as if an English writer 
 should say — He looked for the law of ri(/7tt, but lo, the law of might ; he 
 looked for good, but behold, blood. 
 
mcAH.— CHAP. r. 187 
 
 find in the original, and also to give the ultimate sense. To aid the 
 reader yet more, I put the correlated words in italics. ''Pass ye 
 on, ye dwellers in Saphir (the leautiful city), in ntter nakedness " 
 (as those who flee, stripped by the ravages of war) ; " the dwellers 
 in Zaanan " (the city oi flocls), "do wot floch out to the mourning 
 of Beth-ezel : " " from you " {i. e , of Betli-ezel, city of firm root)^ 
 " will he, the conqueror take his camping-ground ; " i. e., he will 
 make his camp — his place of halting and stay there (hence their 
 mourning — to which the people of Zaanan do not flock out to sym- 
 pathize with them, though neighbors— having sorrow and fear 
 
 enough at home). "For the dwellers m MaroW (the city of 
 
 Mtterncss) "are in anguish for some good" (all good being lost to 
 them) ; " but evil comes down from the Lord, even to the gates of 
 Jerusalem." How, then, can one of the lesser feeble cities, like 
 Maroth, hope for any good ? It is only natural that a '' Maroth," 
 city of bitterness, should be in bitter grief and destruction.— — 
 This " evil came to tlie gate of Jerusalem " — no farther. The Assyi'ian 
 invader never sacked Jerusalem. The blow that smote the king- 
 dom of the ten tribes fatally, may have alarmed Jerusalem ; it left 
 her untouched. The invasion of Sennacherib a few years later 
 
 proved the ruin of himself, not of Jerusalem. '' Bind the chariot 
 
 to the fleet steed " (for rapid flight)—" thou dweller oi LacMsh " (the 
 smitten city), "the first cause of sin was she" (Lachish), "to the 
 daughter of Zion, for in thee were found the sins of Israel." La- 
 chish lay on the southern border of the ten tribes, and being not far 
 from Jerusalem, became the channel through which the temptations 
 to idolatry passed over from Israel, after the revolt, into Jerusalem. 
 
 Hence this special judgment on Lachish. In the first clause 
 
 Micah has a paranomasia which is untranslatable between "La- 
 chish" and "Rekesh," the word for fleet steed. 
 
 " Therefore shalt thou " (Israel) " give divorce papers to More- 
 sheth-gath ; " — though her name signifies citij of jjossession, thou 
 must forego all 2^ossession of her and let her go before the destroyer. 
 
 " The houses of Achzib^'' (city of lies) shall be for a lie to the 
 
 kings of Israel" — no dependence in their need. "Yet wiU I 
 
 bring an heir " (one who shall possess) " to thee, O dweller ^ of 
 Mareshah " — which name seems here to mean city of possession. 
 
 This heir is the conqueror. " He," this conqueror, shall come 
 
 even to AcluUam, which means justice of the people — and this sig- 
 nificance, if realized, would be " the glory of Israel.'''' 
 
 This passage (vs. 10-15) is admitted to be extremely difficult. 
 No doubt it was intelligible in the age of Micah, though somewhat 
 enigmatical. But such nice, delicate allusions to cities and their 
 significant names must inevitably become obscure by the lapse of 
 ages, and the oblivion of those associations of thought with cities 
 and their names which are in their nature incidental and tem- 
 porary. 
 
 16. Make tliee bald, and poll tlicc for tliy delicato 
 
188 MIC AH.— CHAP. II, 
 
 cliildren ; enlarge tliy baldness as tlie eagle ; for tliC}' 
 are gone into captivity from thee. 
 
 The eagle is referred to as an illustration of baldness. Tearing 
 out the Lair, or even cutting it off, were usual signs of extreme 
 grief. Hence the prophet exhorts Israel, considered as the mother 
 of her people, to go into mourning for her children, because they are 
 
 gone away into captivity, to return no more. Except in the nse 
 
 of the paranoraasia, the passage (Isa. 10 : 28-32) is strikingly analo- 
 gous to this (Mic. 1 : 10-1 G). There Isaiah sketches the advance ol 
 Sennacherib's host toward Jerusalem, by noting its effects of panic, 
 mourning, or flight, on various cities as he approached. Here 
 Micah describes a similar march of an Assyrian army to destroy 
 the northern kingdom, and to alarm the southern. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This chapter presents the sins of the people (vs. 1, 2) ; God's 
 threatenings (v. 3) ; lamentations over her doom (vs. 4, 5) ; the gain- 
 saying of a wicked people against God and his prophets (v. 6) ; the 
 prophet's indignant reply (v. 7) ; a further description of their sins 
 (vs. 8, 9) ; the sort of prophets the people choose (v. 11) ; and prom- 
 ises of good (vs. 12, 13). 
 
 1. Woe to tliem that devise iniqnity, and work evil 
 upon their beds ! When the morning is light, they prac- 
 tise it, because it is in the power of their hand. 
 
 This woe fitly comes down, not on those who sin inadvertently, 
 or only under the impulse of sudden temptation, but on those who 
 coolly and with the clear-headed thought of the night-watches, 
 frame plans of mischief and work out schemes for wrong, to be 
 executed in the morning ; and who are wicked enough for all the 
 mischief their hands have the power to do. 
 
 2. And they covet fields, and take them by violence ; 
 and houses, and take them away : so they oppress a man 
 and his house, even a man and his heritage. 
 
 " Oppressing a man and Ms liouse^''^ means robbing not him 
 alone, but his family as well. They take away property in which 
 his wife and children have their living. This is the same class of 
 sins which Amos and Isaiah rebuke so sharply. 
 
 3. Therefore thus saitli the Lord ; Behold, against 
 this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not 
 remove your necks ; neither shall ye go haughtily : for 
 this time is evil. 
 
 The idea of retaliation and of just retribution stands out clearl)' 
 
MIC AH.— CHAP. II. 189 
 
 in the very form of tlie prophet's expressions: They devise iniquity; 
 God devises calamity to punish it. They devise it upon their beds ; 
 God devises it upon this whole family — the prophet choosing a 
 word for /«?w«72/ which has the leading radicals of the word for led, 
 
 God's calamities shall he on them as a yoke which they cannot 
 
 throw otf, and under which they can no longer walk proudly, carry- 
 ing their heads high— for the prophet's words have this sense. 
 
 4. In tliat day shall one take up a parable against 
 yon, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, 
 We he utterly spoiled : he hath changed the portion of 
 my people : how hath he removed it from me ! turning 
 away he hath divided our fields. 
 
 The hest lexicographers would read the second clause — not) 
 "lament with a doleful lamentation," but thus — ''And wail in a 
 dirge of wailing. It is done!'''' i. e.^ all is over! "and say, we are 
 
 utterly spoiled! " " Changing the portion of my people" means 
 
 here changing the title to their landed estates, and hence implies 
 
 that they lose possession of their country. The last clause better 
 
 — "He hath apportioned our fields to one who takes them all away 
 from us " — i. e., God has given them all to the conqueror of our 
 country. 
 
 5. Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a 
 cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord. 
 
 Consequently there shall be none to set oif their land to them by 
 lot in the public congregation. " Cord " is used here for a measur- 
 ing line for land. The soil has passed into the hands of a foreign 
 power. This is one of their bitter plaints, 
 
 6. Prophesy ye not, scct/ tliey to them that prophesy : 
 they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take 
 shame. 
 
 Y. O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is tlie 
 Spirit of the Loed straitened ? are these his doings ? do 
 not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly ? 
 
 At this point, the ungodly people interpose to gainsay the 
 prophet, forbidding him to prophesy, and suggesting the sort of 
 prophet they would have. The passage is quite obscure, the tran- 
 sitions being abrupt, and the point Avhere the objector's language 
 closes and the prophet's reply begins, being a matter of some doubt. 
 Thus, among the ablest critics now before me, Rosenmuller assigns 
 to the objector less than half of v. 6 ; Henderson precisely v. 6, 
 and no more ; Ilengstenberg apparently, vs. 6 and 7. 1 find the best 
 point of transition from the objector to the prophet at the close of 
 V. 6, and translate thus: " Prophesy not ; let those i)rophesy who 
 will not prophesy as to such things ; reproaches will never cease." 
 
190 MICAH.— CHAP. II. 
 
 This is their demand and this their complaint. They say — "We canH 
 hear any more such prophesying ; let ns have another sort of men 
 who will not sa^ such hard things; — there is no end to your faul- 
 
 finding. Then the prophet resumes in v. 7, " Shall this be said 
 
 in the house of Jacob ? " "Is the Spirit of the Lord to be strait- 
 ened ? " — i. e., to be dictated to by mortal man ? " Are these ?iis 
 doings?" i. e., is it his fault that he mast predict calamity? Is it 
 not rather your sins that bring down the wrath and curse of God ? 
 
 " Do not my words always bless him who w^alketh uprightly ? " 
 
 This is the beginning of the prophet's reply. 1 dissent from the 
 
 English version — " O thou that art named the house of Jacob:" (1.) 
 Because this verb without any preposition following, seems not to 
 be used in the sense to name ; (2.) And mainly, because, beyond all 
 question, this first clause is interrogative and not vocative. There 
 are four distinct questions asked in this verse, each indicated by its 
 interrogative particle. There is, therefore, as much reason for 
 making this first clause a question as either of the three that follows. 
 Beyond a doubt, each of the four is an interrogative clause. The 
 first expresses the surprise and horror felt by the prophet that men 
 should arise in the house of Jacol) to say such things in the way of 
 dictation to the Almighty! The construction of v. 6 is exceed- 
 ingly obscure. The sense I have given is a choice among difficulties. 
 
 8. Even of late my people is risen up as an enemy : 
 ye pull off tlie robe with the garment from them that 
 pass by securely as men averse from war. 
 
 9. The women of my people have ye cast out from 
 their pleasant houses ; from their children have ye taken 
 away my glory for ever. 
 
 These verses are interposed here to show that the objectors vsrho 
 cavil against the prophets of the Lord do not themselves " walk up- 
 rightly." Then v. 10 warns them out of the land; and v. 11 returns 
 
 to tell them what sort of a prophet they choose, and shall have. 
 
 The words ''"Even of late" do not necessarily imply that the event 
 
 is very recent. The horrible thing is that ^'- my people^'''' God's 
 
 own people, " should have risen up," i. <?., in their full strength, 
 "to become an enemy " to every man's rights and interests — a 
 public enemy to all. Eor instance, " they strip ofl:' both the outer 
 robe and the inner from men passing along securely " with no 
 thought of danger, "returning from war." Their worn and weary 
 soldiers, returning from hard service for their country, they fall 
 upon, and rob and strip even to the skin ; for the common oriental 
 dress included only these two garments, the outer robe and the 
 
 inner. " The wives among my people ye expel from their 
 
 l)leasant houses, and from their children ye take away iny orna- 
 ments " (the good clothing I have given them), and never return it 
 — "take it away for every These are named as instances and 
 illustrations of their rapacity and wickedness, to show wliat is 
 
MICAII.— OnAP. II. 191 
 
 meant by their " rising np as an enemy." Bad as any foreign 
 enemy were they even toward the soldiers of their country return- 
 ing from war, and toward wives and children who, being depend- 
 ent and defenceless, are specially under God's protection. 
 
 10. Arise ye, and depart ; for tliis is not your rest : 
 becanse it is polluted, it shall destroy yoic, even with a 
 sore destruction. 
 
 " Up, and away " — be out of this land ; " for this is not your 
 rest." God gave Canaan as a land of rest to his people, but never 
 to such apostates as you ! They had so polluted the land by their 
 sins that it should itself destroy them. The very land is thought of 
 as instinct with life, and tired with holy indignation to devour these 
 guilty inhabitants ! 
 
 11. If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do 
 lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of 
 strong drink ; he shall even be the prophet of this 
 people. 
 
 Having shown (vs. 8, 9) that these cavillers against the Lord's 
 prophets do not "walk uprightly," and having (v. 10) warned them 
 out of the land as their lit doom, he comes now to describe the sort 
 
 of prophet they would like and shall have. " If a man walking 
 
 in wind and falsehood will lie for them, and will prophesy to them 
 (not q/*, but) for wine and strong drink " — taking his pay in those 
 articles as meeting his chief want — "he shall be the prophet of this 
 people." The middle clause is in the first person, as in our English 
 Bible, giving us the very words of his proposal — " I will proph- 
 esy for you if you will give me all the wine and strong drink I 
 want." Fit showing of the depth of degradation into which wicked 
 
 men would sink the prophetic office, if they could ! The first 
 
 point in this description is richly graphic: — " If a man walking in 
 wind and lies will lie for them all they wish," &c. Men who are 
 windy, gassy, full of talk but void of sense and thought, and utterly 
 reckless of truth— such are commonly in every age the high priests 
 
 of error and falsehood, the champions of religious delusion. For 
 
 this use of the word " wind " to denote what is empty, light as air 
 and v\'orthless, see Isa. 41:29, "Their molten images are tcind 
 and confusion;" and Job IC: 3, "Is there any end to words of 
 wind ? " 
 
 12. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee ; I 
 v/ill surely gather the renmant of Israel ; I will put them 
 together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst 
 of their fold : they shall make great noise by reason of 
 the multitude of men. 
 
 13. The breaker is come up before them : they have 
 
192 MICAH.— CHAP. II. 
 
 broken up, and have passed tlirongli the gate, and are 
 gone ont by it ; and tbeir king shall pass before them, 
 and the Lokd on the head of them. 
 
 This sudden transition to the richest promises of restoration and 
 salvation is indeed remarkable. It would seem that the divine 
 Spirit, fired with indignation in view of such depths of moral pollu- 
 tion and guilt, rallies himself to the defence of his own cause of 
 truth: "I will surely save my people, and restore my crum- 
 bling kingdom." Glorious turn of thought this — rebounding from 
 
 the greatness of man's sin to the richness of God's mercy ! 
 
 The promise is that God will surely gather together all of Jacob, 
 and all who survive of Israel ; will become their shepherd ; and 
 that there shall be "« hum'''' (so the Hebrew) as of bees in swarm 
 -a loud noise by reason of the great number of men. They are 
 thought of as having been imprisoned within high walls ; hence 
 " the breaker " who makes great breaches in this wall goes out 
 before them. They break through; they pass out through the 
 gate ; they go forth by it ; and their king marches before them, and 
 
 Jehovah at their head. This deliverance is w^holly of the Lord. 
 
 His providential agencies are omnipresent, and his Spirit inspires 
 
 the movement. The allusion in this passage to the Exodus trom 
 
 Egypt should be noticed. Here, as there, the people are first 
 gathered together; the Lord takes charge of them as his flock; then 
 he sends Moses to break down the prison walls. The Exodus, or 
 going forth, is made prominent here by repeated reiterations, as it 
 was there in the historic facts; and, finally, Jehovah puts himself 
 here at the head of his ransomed people, as then and there in the 
 pillar of fire and of cloud. 
 
 As to the ultimate significance of these verses, it will be noted 
 that they speak both of Jacob and Israel ; but these terms are not 
 distinctive as between the two rival kingdoms. Neither of them is 
 the usual name to designate the kingdom of Judah. It would seem 
 to be no part of the prophet's intention to regard the distinction of 
 kingdoms which was made by the revolt. The names Jacob and 
 
 Israel have rather the general sense — the covenant people of God. 
 
 So also, as to time and circumstances of fulfilment, the passage is 
 altogether general and indefinite. Beyond a doubt it must imply 
 that God will at some future day gather his scattered people of 
 Israel, and put himself at their head as their Deliverer and King. 
 He will make his earthly kingdom great and glorious. As to the 
 question whether Gentiles form a part of it, or whether Jews 
 alone arc thought of, no more should be sought in any given pas- 
 sage than it contains. Not every passage can say every thing. 
 This prophecy does not name the Gentiles, nor does it exclude them. 
 One instalment — a small one — of this broadly comprehensive 
 promise was paid in the restoration from Babylon. Vastly more 
 remains unpaid yet. 
 
mCAH.— CHAP. m. 193 
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 The prophet returns to speak against tlie sins of the people, 
 dwelling specially in this chapter on the sins of the princes and judges 
 (vs. 1-4, 9-11); giving the sin and doom of the false prophets 
 (vs. 5-7) ; and closing with predictions of the desolation of the holy 
 city and of the temple mountain (v. 12). 
 
 1. And I said, Hear, I pray yon, O lieads of Jacob, 
 and ye princes of the honse ol* Israel : Is it not for you 
 to know judgment ? 
 
 " And tJien I said," &c,, connecting this in thought with what 
 he had said before. In the previous chapter he had sharply re- 
 buked and terribly doomed those who devise iniquity on their beds 
 (2 : 1-5) ; now he asks, Why are not such sins forestalled by tlie 
 faithful administation of justice and law? Does it not behoove 
 princes and judges — men at the head of their " thousands " — (see 
 Ex. 18: 21) "to know judgment?" He implies by this more 
 than merely knowing the theory of law and justice. Ought they 
 not to know it in practice^ and to see it administered all the more 
 faithfully and earnestly by how liiuch the greater the reigning 
 corruption ? 
 
 2. Who hate the ^ood, and love the evil ; who pluck 
 off their skin from off them, and their flesh from ofi:* their 
 bones ; 
 
 3. Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their 
 skin from ofl* them ; and they break their bones, and chop 
 them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the 
 caldron. 
 
 So far are they from knowing judgment in the practical sense 
 that they even hate good and love evil, and they show this by 
 
 their deeds. This description of rapacity and robbery is fearfully 
 
 strong. They not only fleece but flay their victims; not only flay 
 but teai* off the flesh and eat it ; then go on to the bones ; chop 
 them tine for the pot, as if they would boil and eat up the last thing 
 in the poor body of their victims. So with insatiable extortion, 
 they strip men of their last right, of their last acre, and of their last 
 farthing. 
 
 4. Then shall they cry unto the Lokd, but he will 
 not hear them : he will even hide his face from them at that 
 time, as they have behaved themselves ill in theh doings. 
 
 Yet these men, of such outrageous extortion, set themselves to 
 pray to God ; but of course he will not hear. " The prayer of the 
 wicked is abomination to the Lord." " If I regard iniquity in my 
 9 
 
194 MICAH.— CHAP. III. 
 
 Tieart even, the Lord will not hear me ; " how much more when such 
 iniquities are found in men's hand! " He will hide his face from 
 them at that time according as they have made their doings vile," 
 i. e.^ inasmuch as they have done so wickedly, and according to the 
 wickedness of those doings, God will hide his face from them. 
 
 5. Thus saitli tlie Loed concerning tlie prophets that 
 make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, 
 Peace ; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they 
 even pre2)are war against him. 
 
 Turning from civil to religious leaders, vs. 5-7 speak of the 
 
 corrupt prophets of that age. The clause, " that bite with their 
 
 teeth," &c., may be construed in -either of two ways : (1.) As indi- 
 cating extortion, following out the idea in vs. 3 : "Who eat the flesh 
 of my people ; " or (2.) As indicating gross and supreme sensuality ; 
 who live only to eat, and prophesy only for the sake of good eating. 
 In the former construction, the remainder of the verse might be put 
 thus: "Who bite savagely with their teeth, yet cry 'all's well;' 
 and if one resist their extortion, they even declare war on him." 
 But the latter construction is preferable : " Who are mere sen- 
 sualists, and for good feeding will prophesy peace to the most 
 wicked of men ; but if one refuse to fill their mouths well, they are 
 
 up in arms against him." Such shamefully low impulses and 
 
 low sensual natures, ought to be anywhere else rather than in the 
 sacred office! Alas for the people when those who minister to 
 them in holy things make a god of their belly, and live only for 
 good eating ! 
 
 6. Therefore, night shall he unto you, that ye shall 
 not have a vision ; and it shall be dark unto you, that 
 ye shall not divine ; and the sun shall go down over the 
 prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. 
 
 T. Then shall the seers be asliamed, and the diviners 
 confounded : yea, they shall all cover their lips ; for 
 there is no answer of God. 
 
 This is the doom of these false, ungodly prophets : " There shall 
 be night to you so that there can be no vision ; it shall be too dark 
 for you to divine ; the sun shall go down upon the prophets," &c. 
 
 " They shall cover their lips " — as those who have nothing to 
 
 say, and with the further idea of intense shame and sorrow, inasmuch 
 as the beard — always prominent in oriental life — was to the male 
 sex the seat of beauty and honor. The leper (Lev. 13 : 45) was to 
 put a cover on his upper lip. Ezekiel (24 : 17, 22) was forbidden to 
 
 cover his lips in mourning for his deceased wife. The cause of 
 
 this intense shame and confusion is that they not only get no an- 
 swer from God, but that he frustrates their predictions, confounds 
 their machinations, and exposes the groundlessness of their claims 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. III. 195 
 
 to be prophets of the Lord. The darkness God brings over them is 
 that of calamitv and judgment where thej were predicting only 
 good. 
 
 8. But truly I am full of power by tlie Spirit of the 
 LoED, and of judgment, and of miglit, to declare unto 
 Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 
 
 With a strong and full consciousness of honesty, and of being filled 
 with the Spirit of God, Micah puts himself in contrast with those 
 false prophets. His soul is deeply stirred within him by his abhorrence 
 of their spirit and life, so that his holy indignation overleaps the re- 
 straints of false modesty, and he speaks out fearlessly what so fills his 
 indignant soul that he cannot but say it. He must and will rebuke 
 the sins of the people and of their leaders even ; for no regard to 
 rank and station shall soften the just severity of his reproofs. 
 
 9. Hear this, I pray yon, ye heads of the honse of 
 Jacob, and princes of the honse of Israel, that abhor 
 judgment, and pervert all eqnity. 
 
 10. They build np Zion with blood, and Jerusalem 
 with iniquity. 
 
 11. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests 
 thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for 
 money : yet will they lean upon the Loed, and say, Is 
 not the Lord among us ? none evil can come upon us. 
 
 Once more, as in v. 1, he inveighs against the horrible corruption 
 of the princes and judges of the land. With Judah specially in his 
 eye, he charges them with abhorring not sin and wrong, as they 
 should, but judgment and justice as men never should; and with 
 distorting and perverting equity. " They build up Zion with blood " 
 by devoting the fruits of their robbery and murder to splendid 
 buildings and gorgeous display. They judge for bribes in open 
 contempt of the law given through Moses (see Ex. 23 : 8, and Deut. 
 16:19); and yet they lean upon the Lord and vainly think that, 
 being called the people of God and keeping up the forms of his 
 worship, they are safe against calamity. Jeremiah rebukes the same 
 wretched folly (7:4): " Trust ye not in lying words, saying. The 
 temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, 
 are these." So in later times, the self-righteous, extortions Pharisees 
 said, "We have Abraham to our father; " — "Lord, Lord, have we 
 not prophesied in thy name ? " &c. 
 
 12. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed 
 as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the 
 mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. 
 
 Retribution for such sins must come. "Zion" — the hill of 
 David in the south part of the city — " the mountain of the house " 
 
196 MIC AH.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 (temple) i. e.^ Mount Moriali, the temple-monntaiu on tlie north, and 
 Jerusalem in general — shall become desolate : Zion to be ploughed 
 as a field ; Jerusalem to be heaps of desolate ruins ; and the temple- 
 mountain " as the high places of a forest," thickly covered with an 
 undergrowth of shrubs. Tliis has special reference to the destruc- 
 tion of the city by the Chaldeans when, for seventy years, even 
 Jerusalem lay in utter desolation. 
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The first eight verses are a graphic prediction of God's restoring 
 mercy to his real Zion; vs. 9, 10 resume the subject of the captivity 
 to Babylon ; vs. 11-13 note the events of a later period — the Syrian 
 invasion, and the heroic deeds of the Maccabees. 
 
 1. But ill tlie last dajs it sliall come to pass, that the 
 mountain of tlie liouse^of the Loed shall be established 
 in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted 
 above the hills ; and people shall flow unto it. 
 
 2. And many nations shall come, and say. Come, and 
 '^' let us go up to the mountain of . the irORD, and to the 
 
 house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his 
 ways, and we will walk in his paths : for the law shall 
 go forth of Zion, and the word of the Loed from Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 3. And he shall judge among many jDeople, and re- 
 buke strong nations afar off ; and they shall beat their 
 swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning- 
 liooks : nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more. 
 
 These words occur substantially in Isa. 2 : 2-4, but appear to be 
 original with Micah. At least it nnist be admitted that here they 
 fit nicely to the previous context (3 : 12), and also to the following 
 context. In Isaiah, the passage has no such close connection with 
 
 the preceding context. In this passage, the relation of thought 
 
 to what precedes is the first thing to be noted. Zion is seen in 
 ruins ; the temple-mountain dishonored and waste — all for the 
 sins of the covenant people. Must it hence be inferred that the 
 kingdom of God among men is crushed down, never to rise ? By 
 no means. In the last days this kingdom shall rise in fiir greater 
 glory than ever before. The temple-mountain — called here " the 
 mountain of the house of the Lord^^'' though in 3 : 12 it is only " the 
 mountain of the house " — shall be lifted high and firmly set on the 
 tops of the other mountains, and high above all the hills in glory 
 
MICAn.— CHAP. IV. 197 
 
 and esteem. Such I understand to be the sense of tins striking 
 poetic conception — the temple-mountain (Moriah) lifted up and set 
 on the top of all other mountains. In honor it shall surpass and 
 overtop them all. In Ps. G8: IG, the Psalmist, supposing the otlier 
 mountains to envy Mount Moriah this distinction, says — " The hill 
 of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill," &c. "Why do ye 
 look invidiously, ye higli hills ? This is the hill which God hath 
 desired to dwell in." Zech. 14:10 carries the figure one step 
 further. All the rest of the world becomes a plain; its mountains 
 subside altogether, and then the temple-mountain stands out soli- 
 tary and alone, the one great and only mountain of the world ! The 
 sense here is the same as inMicah — this mountain, the one place of 
 
 surpassing honor, dignity, and glory. Next, "peoples, even all 
 
 the nations of men, shaU flow nnto it." That they shall Jloio thither 
 implies, not that they are dragged or driven into this worship, but 
 that they come spontaneously, as water moves with the utmost 
 ease under the power of gravitation. Many nations shaU come of 
 their free accord. They shall exhort one another to go up to the 
 house of the God of Jacob, to learn of the true God and of all 
 moral duty there. God's will, as revealed in Zion, they recognize 
 to be the fountain of all law, and they joyfully place themselves 
 under his supreme dominion. Then his peaceful reign over the 
 nations of men begins; they need sword and spear no longer; the 
 culture of the soil supersedes the arts of war, and nation no more 
 lifts up sword against its brother nation. For the law of God is 
 the law ot'supreme, impartial love, administered under the sw^ay of 
 the Prince of Peace : how then can the result be other than universal 
 tranquillity ? Obeyed, it must supplant war forever. Men can no 
 longer "hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain, for the earth 
 shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the 
 sea." Glorious scene ! Blissful consummation ! And this is no 
 visionary dream. It shall yet be. The days of battles and carnage, 
 the days of fell animosity, satanic ambition, demoniac hate, must 
 cease, and give place to days of blessed peace and good-will among 
 men. Let the love of tJie Great Father have the 'praise for all this! 
 
 Micah sees it in the distant future. Briefly and in general, he 
 
 locates it "in the last days." They are future yet; but they will 
 surely come and (may we not hope and pray ?) will not long 
 tarry ! 
 
 4. But they shall sit every man under liis vine and 
 under liis fig-tree ; and none sliall make them afraid : 
 for the month of the Lop.d of hosts hath spoken it 
 
 Over against the scenes of war lie the pursuits of peace and 
 the quiet enjoyment of God's good gifts of nature and providence, and 
 of the fruits of human labor. Each man sits under his own vino 
 and fig-tree; — none shall make them afraid. These are the usual 
 oriental symbols of a state of paradise on earth. 
 
198 MIC AH.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 5 For all people will walk every one in tlie name 
 of his god, and we will walk in tlie name of the Lord 
 onr Go"d for ever and ever. 
 
 This verse shows how the people in that good daj are to feel 
 and act. These are their supposed words. They recognize tlie 
 common law of human life, that men follow the God they ac- 
 knowledge and trust, and then they avow their ow^n full purpose 
 to walk in the name of their God for ever and ever. They are alto- 
 gether satisfied with his worship and service. In the love of his 
 name and in the full strength of their convictions they pledge 
 themselves to his ways and worship for all time. 
 
 6. In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her 
 that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven ont, 
 and her tliat I have afflicted ; 
 
 Y. And I will make her that halted a remnant, and 
 her that was cast far off a strong nation : and the Loed 
 shall reign over them in Monnt Zion from henceforth, 
 even for ever. 
 
 At that time the Lord will gather to himself the halting, i. e., 
 the lame, the smitten, scathed, and long-rejected remnant of his 
 people, and will make them a strong nation, reigning over them 
 himself in Mount Zion forever. As vs. 1-4 by their very 
 terms expressly include the Gentiles, so tliese verses have 
 special reference to the long-dispersed Jews. When the fulness of 
 the Gentiles shall have come in, then shall all Israel be saved; her 
 partial blindness shall pass away, and the Lord's great plan of^ re- 
 deeming, saving mercy shall grasp the Avorld, and bring the nations 
 of every race and clime beneath Iramanuel's sceptre. (See Rom. 
 11:15, 23-27). 
 
 8. And tlion, O toAver of the flock, the strong hold 
 of the danghter of Zion, nnto thee shall it come, even 
 the first dominion ; the kingdom shall come to the 
 daughter of Jerusalem. 
 
 In this passage God is thought of as the shepherd, and his peo- 
 ple as his flock. Hence the " tow^er of the flock " is Jerusalem. 
 
 Towers were built in or near the sheepfold for defence. The 
 
 original dominion, as under David, shall return again. That pros- 
 perous era of the Hebrew people in wdnch they subdued all their 
 enemies round about, and greatly improved the modes of public 
 worship, is a common illustration of Messiah's reign. The king- 
 dom of Immanuel shall have this Mount Zion for its centre and 
 
 capital forever. But let ns give this scripture its gospel sense. 
 
 Let us not fall into the error of the Pharisees, as seen in the New 
 Testament, who could fnid in the Scriptures nothing but a "king- 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. IV. 199 
 
 dom of this world" for the outward Israel and her earthly 
 king. "We need to distinguish the clothing of ideas from the ideas 
 themselves. That the great truths of gospel times and of Christ's 
 millennial reign, should be clothed in Jewish imagery and costume, 
 ought not to surprise or stumble us. The human mind being what 
 it is, this mode of writing for Jews and among Jews is unavoidable, 
 is natural, is indeed tlie only language that could have been at 
 that time understood. 
 
 9. N^ow wliy dost tliou cry out aloud ? is there no 
 king in thee ? is thy counsellor perished ? for pangs 
 have taken thee as a woman in travail. 
 
 10. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daugh- 
 ter of Zion, like a woman in travail : for now slialt thou 
 go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the 
 field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon ; there shalt 
 thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee 
 from the hand of thine enemies. 
 
 "With V. 9 commences a remarkably regular series of prophecies, 
 forecasting great events that were specially to aftect the welfare of 
 the Jews down to the coming of Christ, and of the church of God 
 thenceforward. It is very noticeable that the beginning of each is 
 indicated in our English Bible by the word "?ioic," which has its 
 corresponding Hebrew word. It stands at the head of vs. 9, 11, and 
 5: 1. Consequently, the distinct predictions are (1.) vs. 9, 10; 
 (2.) vs. 11-13; (3.) chapter 5 : 1, and onward substantially through 
 the chapter. No. 1 speaks of the captivity to Babylon and the res- 
 toration from it. 1:^0. 2, of the gathering of the great Syrian armies, 
 together with those of some other adjacent powers, against the 
 Jews in the times of the Maccabees, with their heroic defence and 
 final victory. No. 3, of the siege and ftill of Jerusalem, when the 
 sceptre finally departed from Judah ; of the Messiah's birth at Beth- 
 lehem, and then of his peaceful, triumphant reign, its policy and 
 
 results. "With this summary of the points before us to tlie end 
 
 of chapter 5, we may the better understand each separate prophecy. 
 
 In the first prediction of this series (vs. 9, 10) the people are 
 seen in extreme agony : the prophet hears their sharp outcry of 
 anguish, and asks the cause of it. "And where arc thy reliances 
 for help ? Hast thou no king ? no counsellor ? " The trouble is, that 
 the city is falling before the fierce Chaldean, and their honored tem- 
 ple and loved homes are in ruins. How much tliey rested on their 
 king is indicated (Lam. 4 : 20), Avhere they say of him : " Tlie breatli 
 of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of 
 whom we liad said. Under his shadow we shall live among tlie 
 heathen." Zedekiah was both weak and wicked, yet he was the 
 Lord's anointed king, and the people, long accustomed to rever- 
 ence royalty, and to expect good from the Lord through hi,'? 
 
200 mCAH.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 anointed ones, bemoaned Ms fall into the enemy^s power. Tha 
 
 prophet foresaw these events with entire historic accuracy. A 
 
 woman in her travail pains is the next fignre, used here to repre- 
 sent only the painful side of the case — not the joy over a happy 
 hirth. In the clause, " there shalt thou be delivered," the original 
 forbids us to think of any reference to the bright side of this iigure. 
 It means merely that they should be brought out of this captivity 
 at some future time. The " dwelling in the field " lies interme- 
 diate between their expulsion from Jerusalem and their residence 
 in or near Babylon, and seems to allude to their exposure in the 
 
 open country during their long and weary journey to Babylon. 
 
 The twice repeated " there " — " tliere shalt thou be delivered," 
 " tliere shall the Lord redeem thee," &c., was equivalent to saying, 
 Do not dread this going to Babylon, as if it must be the tomb of 
 all your hopes, for there your God will meet you for your deliver- 
 ance. So in fact it came to pass. Precisely there God raised up 
 Cyrus ; precisely at Babylon he gave him those victories which 
 paved the way for the restoration of his people. So true is it that 
 the people of God never need fear to pass under any cloud which 
 the Lord their God may bring up over them. What seems to them 
 their ruin, God can make their salvation. 
 
 11. Now also many nations are gathered against 
 tliee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let onr eye look 
 upon Zion. 
 
 12. But they Icnow not the thoughts of the Lord : 
 neither understand they his counsel : for he shall gather 
 them as the sheaves into the floor. 
 
 13. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion : for I will 
 make thy horn iron, and I wdll make thy hoofs brass : 
 and thou shall beat in pieces many people : and I will 
 consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance 
 unto the Lord of the whole earth. 
 
 Here the course of thought makes another stage onward, and 
 reaches the second distinct prophecy in this series. Many nations 
 gather together against Zion in bitter malignity and haughty scorn, 
 and with set purpose to defile her sanctuary. Manifestly a real 
 hatred of their religion gives the impulse to this onslaught upon Zion. 
 " Let her be defiled," say they, " and let us have the joy of look- 
 ing on to see her anguish." No language could more accurately 
 
 describe the spirit of Antiochus Epiphanes and of his alhes, in their 
 fell, demoniac attempts to uproot and overwhelm the holy city, its 
 temple, and all the true worshippers of Jehovah. The reader will 
 find a most thrilling history of these events in the first and second 
 books of Maccabees. It specially appears there that the wrath of 
 tliese enemies of God was aimed at the temple, its worship, and all 
 worshippers of the true God, since, when at one time the temple fell 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. V. 201 
 
 into their hands, they polluted it in every way they could devise, even 
 offering swine's flesh on the sacred altar. Hence " the cleansing of 
 the sanctuary " finds a prominent place in Daniel's prophecy of these 
 
 events, and in Jewish history. "But," says our prophet, ''they 
 
 do not understand God's thonghts and counsels." No, indeed ; for 
 God thought, first, to disciphne, prove, and purify his people ; next, 
 to scourge and terribly punish his enemies ; the latter only being 
 made prominent here in the prophecy. He gathered them as 
 sheaves into the floor, preparatory to bringing the threshing 
 power of his people down upon them. Then the prophet calls on 
 the " daughter of Zion to arise and thresh." The mixing of meta- 
 phors here need not surprise us, for we have strength, even if we 
 have not the most finished concinnity and fitness in the points of the 
 illustration. That a virgin should thresh with the feet of cattle, and 
 that with threshing should be blended the use of horns of iron, is 
 all strong and full of meaning, however it may lack the nicer beauties. 
 It should be said, however, that in the phrase "daughter of Zion," 
 the idea of a female is lost in the general conception of the military 
 force of the city. There was a terrible significance in these figures 
 when the things they denoted became actual history, when God fired 
 the souls of the heroic, lion-hearted Maccabees, and made " one of 
 them chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight," grind- 
 ing to powder one after another the huge armies sent upon them by 
 
 the enraged Syrian king. Eemarkably, the Lord promised to turn 
 
 the spoils of these wars to account tov>^ard the wealth of his own 
 kingdom. Perhaps this is an historic allusion to David, who turned 
 the spoils of his many victories to account for building and adorning 
 the first temple. 
 
 So it is evermore the Lord's purpose to make the wicked lay up 
 treasures for the just, and coin money, to be consecrated under his 
 providence, though against their intent, unto the Lord of the whole 
 earth. 
 
 CHATTER V. 
 
 As already indicated, this chapter records the third in the con- 
 'nected series of consecutive prophecies. It begins with the siege of 
 Jerusalem and the dishonor done to her Judge ; advances to the 
 birth of the Messiah, and then to the character and results of his 
 glorious reign on earth. 
 
 1. 'Now gather tlij^self in troops, O daiigliter of 
 troops : lie liatli laid siege against ns : tliey shall smite 
 tlie judge of Israel witli a rod upon tlie clieek. 
 
 The descriptive points in this verse are few ; the thronging of 
 
 her own troops within the city, the siege, the extreme insult oftered 
 
 to the Judge of Israel. The Lord summons the armed hosts of 
 
 Jerusalem together for battle, and probably of Judah as well; 
 
 9vv 
 
202 
 
 MICAII.—CHAP. V. 
 
 some nostile power besieges the city and inflicts utter disgrace on 
 the head man of the nation, at that time embodying and represent- 
 ing the government, and called "the Judge of Israel,'' with allusion 
 to°the Judges who fell between Joshua and Saul, and were inferior 
 to their kings— showing that already royalty had greatly declined. 
 After this decline came ruin, for, to smite the chieftain of the nation 
 with a rod upon the cheek must imply extreme indignity and 
 utter impotence— not only that all influence and authority had gone 
 from this particular Judge, but, since he is a representative man, 
 that the sceptre had passed away from Judah herself. 
 
 In what special event was this prophecy fulfilled? Some 
 
 (with Ilengstenberg) have said, in the fall of Jerusalem, b(*lbre 
 
 the arms of Titus, a. d. 70. The objections to this ^ne^Y are: 
 
 (1.) It involves a serious anachronism, since, as this verse imme- 
 diately precedes the account of the birth of King Messiah, so its 
 events should precede that event. But the fall of the city, instead 
 of coming before his birth, was seventy years after. 
 
 (2.) On this theory the last and main point of the description 
 does not appositely fit the historic facts. In the prophecy, the 
 main thing is the utter dishonor done to the supreme authority ; 
 but in the final destruction of the city by the Eomans, the terrible 
 thing was the slaughter of more than a million of her people, the 
 horrors of famine and pestilence, and appalling judgments on the 
 whole nation. It was not the loss of their sceptre, for this had 
 practically gone long before. 
 
 (3.) There are clear indications throughout this chapter that the 
 prophet had his eye on that striking prophecy (Gen. 49 : 10) : " The 
 sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between 
 his feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the 
 people be." Note the coming forth of the Enler of Israel (v. 2) ; 
 the gathering of the people to him (v. 3) ; even of all nations to the 
 ends of the earth (v. 4) ; that he shall be " the Fcaco^^— the real 
 Shiloh — the Prince of Peace (v. 5), &c., &c. 
 
 These considerations go far to show that the passage does not 
 look specifically to the liill of Jerusalem before the Roman arms 
 under Titus, a. d. 70. 
 
 Another interpretation is already indicated by the leading points 
 made in this description, viz., the siege and fall of Jerusalem, b. c. 
 34, when King Antigonus, the last monarch of the Asmonean 
 dynasty (Jewish), fell before Herod the Great, who was aided by 
 eleven Roman legions. Herod was an Idumean. In him the Jews 
 came under a foreign dynasty, and never again had a king of their 
 own race, save King Messiah. This siege was an obstinate contest 
 of one year's duration. History* notes especially that "King An- 
 tigonus surrendered himself in a most cowardly manner, and was ac- 
 cordingly treated with the greatest indignity. He threw himself at 
 
 * See Jalm's " Hebrew CommomvcaUh," p. 375, and Taylor's " Manual 
 of History," p. 176. 
 
MICAm—CHAP. V. 203 
 
 Oie feet of the Roman jreueral, who repelled biiii with contempt, 
 and scornfully called hhn Antigona, as if he were miworthy the 
 name of a man. The deposed king was loaded with chains, carried 
 to Antioch, and there heheaded like a common malefactor." 
 
 Thus signally was the Judge of Israel " smitten with a rod upon 
 the cheek : " thus did the " sceptre depart from Judah," The order 
 of time is complete, for it was during the reign of this very Ilerod 
 who thus supplanted Antigonus that the Prince of Peace was horn 
 and the Sliiloh of ancient prophecy came; and thenceforward the 
 true Israel never lacked a glorious King, 
 
 2. But tlioii Betli-leliem Epliratali, tliou^li tlioii be 
 little among the tliousands of Jiidali, yet out of tliee 
 sliall lie come fortli unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; 
 wbose goings fortli have heen from of old, from everlasting. 
 
 "The Judge of Israel" — all his dignity and power gone — has 
 passed away, and with him that earthly kingdom and dispensation 
 which so long embosomed or imprisoned the germ of the true king- 
 dom of God. ISTow a new " Ruler in Israel " appeai-s who is truly 
 King and Lord of all. The first point presented is his birth- 
 place. On the side of his human natui-e, he conies forth from Beth- 
 lehem Ephratah — that little city, too small to have a place among 
 the thousands of Judah — for this is precisely the sense of the 
 Hebrew; not that Bethlehem Avas a small one a???^??// the thousands, 
 yet being one of them, but toe small to be one of them. The ex- 
 pression refers to a classification of the people of each tribe into 
 thousands which commenced during their sojourn in the wilderness, 
 <3ach thousand having its head officer, who combined both civil and 
 judicial authority. The rise of this system may be seen Ex. 18 : 
 21, 25. Saul recognizes its existence long after the settlement of 
 Canaan, when he said of David (1 Sam, 23 : 23), " If he be in the 
 land, I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah." 
 In the transition from nomadic life in the wilderness to fixed resi- 
 dence in Canaan, this system of division into thousands, with each 
 its head-man, "captain," or "judge," took this modification. Those 
 cities that numbered one thousand people rose to the rank of being 
 among the thousands, and had one such officer. The smaller 
 \Tillages must needs unite two or more together to constitute a 
 family of a thousand. Bethlehem had less than a thousand people, 
 and was therefore among the smaller cities — only a village in Ju- 
 dah, It lay six miles southwest of Jerusalem, in a fertile region, as 
 its name, "house of bre^id," denotes. Ephratah also means "fruit- 
 ful." It was the birthplace of David, and partly for this reason, 
 we may suppose, was the birthplace of his greater Son. Royalty 
 in the house of David had fallen low at the jxjriod contemplated m 
 this prophecy. Indeed, there are indications here that it was seen 
 by Micali to be practically extinct, so that David is thought of as 
 having returned back fi'om tlie place of his throne on Mount Zion, 
 
204 MICAH.— CHAP. V. 
 
 to the place of his hutnble birth and shepherd life, Bethleheui. 
 Its being a small city was really no disqualification for a birthplace 
 of King Messiah, since David himself was born here and not in any 
 of the greater cities of the land, and also because it was no part of 
 God's plan, in determining the birthplace of his incarnate Son, to 
 
 make him famous by its greatness or renown. The appended 
 
 name "Ephratah" carries us back to Gen. 35 : 16-19, where this 
 
 place was distinguished by yet another birth. Though thou art 
 
 so small, O Bethlehem, "yet out of thee shall he come forth who 
 is to be/or me ruler in Israel." For me, rather than "unto me " 
 — the idea being, not that the Messiah comes from Bethlehem mito 
 God^ but that he is to be ruler for Gocl^ acting under God and in 
 his behalf in the great mediatorial scheme. The word "ruler" 
 
 means chief ruler, king. On the last clause of the verse, opinions 
 
 differ. There can be no doubt that the noun rendered "goings 
 forth" is correlated with the verb just before it, rendered '-'• sliall 
 come forth^'''' i. e.^ from Bethlehem — the noun being from the same 
 root. In one point of view, he shall go forth out of Bethlehem ; 
 but in another, his goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
 lasting. The last point in this correlation, the precise sense in 
 which his goings foj'th have been from of old, is that on which 
 critics have ditiered. Some say that, as in his human nature 
 he came out of Bethlehem, so in his divine nature he came forth 
 from eternity. Others, urging that eternity is no _^97«<?<?, and there- 
 fore cannot be antithetic to Bethlehem which is a place, find a ref- 
 erence to his repeated manifestations through his divine nature and 
 before his proper incarnation, e. (/., to the patriarchs, to Moses, 
 Joshua, Sanmel, and others. 1 adopt the latter view, as constitut- 
 ing the most natural antithesis, as avoiding the rather harsh con- 
 ception of coming out of eternity, as involving a reference to a sc- 
 ries of facts of the highest moment in identifying this glorious 
 Kuler of Israel, and finally as well accounting for the use of the 
 plural, "his goings forth," which implies that there had been many. 
 But the construction first stated above, provides for only one com- 
 ing forth, viz., from eternity. The prophet, then, means to say 
 
 that this was not his first manifestation among men. During all 
 the earlier ages, he had often come forth and made his presence 
 manifest. In the wilderness he v^as the angel of Jehovah's pres- 
 ence (Ex. 28 : 20-23, and 33 : 14) ; to Joshua (5 : 13-15) he appeared 
 as captain of the Lord's host, and to Manoah (Judg. 13 : 17, 18) as 
 one whose name is "Wonderful.". So the Hebrew, which occurs 
 
 again in Isa. 9 : G. And these are only a few out of many. It 
 
 was manifestly pertinent that Micah, in predictnig his human bii-th 
 in Bethlehem, should indicate the fact of his preexistcnce and of 
 his frequent previous manifestations to his people in the earlier ages. 
 
 It only remains to note that the Jews of the Saviour's time so 
 
 far understood this prophecy as to apply it to the Messiah, and to 
 learn from it that he should be born in Bethlehem. Matthew in- 
 forms us (2 : 4^0) that Ilcrod gatliered the chief priests and scrUes 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. V. 205 
 
 togetlier and demanded of tliera wlierc Clirist slioiild be born. 
 They at once answered, "In Bethlehem of Jndea,'" and appealed 
 to this prophecy for the proof. 
 
 3. Therefore will lie give tlieni up until tlie time 
 that she which travaileth hath brought forth : then the 
 remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children 
 of Israel. 
 
 He (Jehovah) gives np them (liis covenant people), in the sense of 
 leaving them to be scourged for their sins and puriHed under this disci- 
 pline, until this great Ruler, the Messiah, should be born. The verb 
 rendered " give up," has this sense in 1 Kings 14 : 16, and 2 Chron. 
 30:7, ''Be not as your fathers who transgressed against the God 
 
 of your fathers ; therefore he gave them iqi to desolation." " She 
 
 that travaileth " must refer to the thought in the previous verse, 
 the human birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Micah may have 
 had before his mind what Isaiah wrote (7 : 14), " Behold, a virgin 
 shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." 
 
 The giving up to temporary calamities is referred to in verse 1. 
 
 The divine policy seems to have been to let his apostate Israel sink 
 very low as to its outward estate, and then by this means bring out 
 
 the more prominently before all the world the Great Deliverer. 
 
 " The remnant of his brethren" should naturally be those of the 
 Jewish communion who were scattered abroad. Tliey were to re- 
 turn to the main body. 
 
 4. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the 
 LoED, in the majesty of the name of the Lokd his God ; 
 and they shall abide : for now shall he be great unto the 
 ends of the earth. 
 
 The Hebrew verb " feed" belongs to shepherd life, and includes 
 both feeding and ruling, supplying the want of food and the want 
 of protection and government as v^ell. The attitude of a shepherd 
 is a standing one, hence " he shall stand and feed." He shall fullil 
 this office, not in any merely human might and majesty, but in the 
 strength and majesty of the veiy God. "■ And they," his peo- 
 ple, his flock, "shall «5icZ6," in the sense of permanence and secu- 
 rity, not driven about and away into captivity, as they then would 
 have been so recenth'. May there not be a quiet antithesis between 
 the shepherd standing over them, and themselves sittin/j securely 
 and at ease under his guardian eye and overshadowing presence ? 
 
 One reason why they sit so securely is that their king is "great 
 
 unto the very ends of the earth." The range of his power sweeps 
 for beyond Judea. It fills the wide world,. and leaves no i)lacc for 
 nations and armies hostile to the people of the Messiah. 
 
 5. And this man shall be the peace, wdien the Assyr- 
 ian shal^L come into our land : and when he shall tread 
 
20G MICAII.— CHAP. V. 
 
 ill our palaces, tlien shall we raise against liini seven 
 sliepherdSj and eight principal men. 
 
 " This man," the Messiah, " shall he ^eacc," the fountain and 
 author of peace, and of peace in a sense involving not only the 
 absence of war hut the presence of all the best earthly good and 
 even heavenly good besides. Yet the special sense is that ot 
 peace as opposed to war. The course of thought throughout thiti 
 passage contemplates the people as in a militant state, often assailed 
 by outward, active enemies. Under such circumstances, "peace" 
 
 is a Vv^ord fraught with intense and precious significance. The 
 
 brevity of this expression, " this man shall be peace," favors the 
 opinion that Micah had before his mind, and assumed that his read- 
 ers would have before theirs, those other prophecies which he had 
 almost quoted: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
 hiwgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (Prince of Peace) shall 
 come ; him shall the people obey " (Gen. 49 : 10) ; and that of Isaiah 
 (9:6): " For unto us a child is born ; unto us a son is given ; and 
 the government shall be upon his shoulders ; and his name shall be 
 called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting 
 Father, The Prince of Peace,'''' As if he would say, You will under- 
 stand my brief allusion to this man as " peace ; " you will remem- 
 ber those prophecies so very similar to what I have been saying. 
 The Assyrian foe is named because he was then for more for- 
 midable than any other. This does not imply that precisely this 
 enemy would be on hand in the days of the Messiah's advent or 
 thenceforward. He expects that help from God against foreign en- 
 emies will come in the way of supplying competent leaders. That 
 these niihtary leaders are called "shepherds," may have a tacit 
 reference to Moses, the shepherd leader, and to David, the shep- 
 herd king. It may also imply that if the people are taught and fed 
 in the ways of God, they will be invincible against outward ene- 
 mies. "Principal men" is in Hebrew, anointed men^ set apart, 
 
 anointed and quahfied of God. " Seven " and " eight " are definite 
 numbers used as indefinite, in the sense of an adequate number for 
 leaders against the foe. See notes on A^mos 1 : 3. 
 
 6. And tliey sliall waste the land of Assyria with the 
 sword, and the land of Mmrod in the entrances thereof: 
 thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he 
 Cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our 
 borders. 
 
 The verb rendered " waste " is the same rendered " feed " in v. 
 4-, and is probably a play on the possible senses of that word. 
 While King Messiah shall feed his own people like a shepherd, they, 
 made brave in war by his might within them, shall feed doicn the 
 land of Assyria by the sword— of course in the sense of consum- 
 ing and laying desolate. The Assyrian stands here to represent 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. V. 207 
 
 the enemies of God's people, and is selected because when Micali 
 wrote, lie was the enemy chiefly to be feared. With this view I 
 see no necessity of looking after a literal fulfilment on that Assyria. 
 Any powerful foe is Assyria. 
 
 7. And tlie remnant of Jacob sliall be in tlie midst 
 of many people as a dew from the Lokd, as the showers 
 upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth 
 for the sons of men. 
 
 8. And the remnant of Jacob shall be 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 sheep : who, if he go through, both treadeth down, 
 and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. 
 
 9. Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adver- 
 saries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off. 
 
 " The remnant of Jacob " comprises tliose who survive the wars 
 and desolations sent of God to scourge and purify his people. It is 
 of course implied that these have been purified by the afflictions 
 which they have survived, and ai*e now prepared for effective use- 
 fulness in the service of tlieir King Messiah. First, they shall '' be 
 among Gentile nations like the dew and like showers from the 
 Lord " — figures suggestive of munificent blessings— blessings that 
 come before men ask for them, " on the just and on the unjust ; " 
 anticipating the wants of vegetation. The next figure also lo- 
 cates them among Gentile nations, wiiere they are as a lion among 
 beasts, or a young lion among the flock — everywhere a power to 
 be respected and even feared. The idea of destructiveness is (wo 
 may hope) less prominent than that of efficiency, or at least we ai'e 
 to think of destructiveness only as relating to the real and incorri- 
 gible enemies of God, and even then of their agency as incidental 
 and passive rather than direct and active. "Vengeance bclongeth 
 unto God," and when his providence employs his people in the 
 destruction of guilty nations, it is commonly not by any direct 
 agency, but ratlier by indirect. 
 
 10. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the 
 Lord, that 1 w^ill cut oiF thy horses out of the midst of 
 thee, and I will destroy thy chariots : 
 
 11. And I will cut oii the cities of thy land, and 
 throw down all thy strong holds : 
 
 These statements show that God's people are not thought of 
 here as fighting with carnal weapons, for if they were, then horses 
 and chariots would come into use. " Cities" must be licre thought 
 of in the military sense, parallel to " strongholds." The idea is 
 that the Lord will be himself their Refuge and Streuglh, and wiK 
 
208 MICAH.— CHAP. V. 
 
 take away tlicir confidence in Iniman sources of lielp. Tlie Psalm- 
 ist gives the spirit of this passage, saying—" Some trust in chariota 
 and some in liorses ; but we, in the name of the Lord our God " 
 (Fs. 20:7). 
 
 12. And I will cut off witchcrafts out of tliiiie liaud ; 
 and tliou slialt liave no more sootli-sayers : 
 
 13. Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy 
 standing images out of the midst of thee ; and thou 
 shalt no more worship the work of thy hands. 
 
 14. And I will pluck np thy groves out of the midst 
 of thee : so will I destroy thy cities. 
 
 Witchcraft and soothsaying are twin sisters to idol gods; all 
 unite in a common sympathy with Satan and his kingdom against 
 God and his truth and worship. "What he here promises is there- 
 fore a blessing to liis church and kingdom. Indeed, we might say. 
 He can give no greater blessing to his people than to take away 
 their sins, by mikl measures and influences, if lie can ; by stern and 
 painful agencies, if he must. The destruction of " cities " here also, 
 as in V. 11, must contemplate them, not as mere residences of a 
 dense population, but rather as the corrupt centres and fountains 
 of idolatry and vile superstition. 
 
 15. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury 
 uj^on the heathen, such as they have not heard. 
 
 The church being purified, it remains to execute vengeance on 
 the heathen who are still incorrigible. Then and so will the world 
 be redeemed from its sins, and tlie reign of Messiah be omnipotent 
 in all the earth. What we should expect from the nature of the 
 case is rendered certain by the sure word of prophecy, viz., that 
 this subjugation of the world to King Messiah will be eifected by a 
 twofold agency : (1.) The power of truth and of the Spirit of God to 
 whatever extent they may become eflfectual. (2.) iJesolating and 
 exterminating judgments on all who are incorrigible under the best 
 appliances for their salvation that God can wisely employ. 
 
 Thus closes this most instructive Messianic chapter. Some have 
 said that the portion of this chapter which promises prosperity 
 closes with v. 8, the remaining part denoting adversity. Such in- 
 terpreters seem to forget that God can give his people no richer 
 blessing than to cut oft' and remove their sins. Aye, let his name 
 be praised for this, even though it be by stern excision, the cutting 
 off of right hands, or the plucking out of right eyes ! 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. VI. 209 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A GRAND public licarinflj of the case made by Jeliovah against 
 his covenant people is called for (v. 1); the mountains are sum- 
 moned to be present (vs. 1 and 2) ; the Lord presents his complaint 
 and appeals to his past mercies (vs. 3-5) ; the people ask what tliey 
 shall do to please God (vs. 6, 7) ; the prophet replies (v. 8), and 
 continues still to expose their sins, and to speak of the jadgments 
 inflicted therefor. 
 
 1. Hear ye now wliat the Lord saitli ; Arise, contend 
 tliou before tlie mountains, and let the hills hear thy 
 voice. 
 
 2. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, 
 and ye strong foundations of the earth : for the Lord 
 hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead 
 with Israel. 
 
 The first verse is the Lord's word to his prophet. " Contend " 
 is used here in the sense of a legal contending — a pleading before a 
 court. This complaint made by Jehovah against his people, the 
 prophet is to bring before the " mountains and the strong founda- 
 tions of the earth," as if inanimate nature could not fail of having 
 moral sense enough to appreciate the merits of so very plain a case. 
 The scene is sublimely grand — this holding court before the moun- 
 tains and the strong pillars of the earth, giving them to understand 
 that the Lord has a controversy with his people, and summoning 
 them to hear and pass upon the case. 
 
 3. O my people, what have I done unto thee ? and 
 wherein have I wearied thee ? testify against me. 
 
 The case now opens. The Lord says, " O my people, what 
 hav6 I done that could in any possible degree justify thee in such 
 apostasy against thy God? " If they have ought to reply, the court 
 is open ; " testify," saith the Lord, " against me." 
 
 4. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egy|)t, 
 and redeemed thee out of the house of servants ; and I 
 sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 
 
 5. O my people, remember now what Balak king of 
 Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor an- 
 swered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may 
 know the righteousness of the Lord. 
 
 Miriam became prominent in the song of triumph on the hither 
 
 side of the Eed Sea, Ex. 15. The striking narrative respecting 
 
 Balak and Balaam may be seen, Num. chap. 22-24. Balak tliought 
 
210 MICAH.—CHAP. VI. 
 
 to prevail ftgainst this new and formidable people by means of 
 divination and the enrsing power of one widely known and honored 
 as a master in the mysteries of magic ; but the Lord headed Ba- 
 laam, and would not let him go to sell his conscience and his soul 
 for the wages of unrighteousness, and make capital for Balak against 
 the Lord's people. The Lord's control over Balaam evinced his 
 power on the hearts of even wicked men, for Balaam still continued 
 to he a bad man, and met his death at last among God's enemies 
 
 (Num. 31 : 8). " Shittim " was a valley in Moab. Gilgal was the 
 
 place, close on the west side of the Jordan, where the Hebrew peo- 
 ple pitched their first camp in Canaan, and raised their monument 
 of stones. " From Shittim unto Gilgal " cannot be directly con- 
 nected with Balaam's answer to Balak, as if this answer was kept 
 up throughout this entire journey. "We must supply the ellipsis : 
 " Remember all that occurred from Shittim till ye wei-e across the 
 
 Jordan in Gilgal." " That ye may know the righteousness of the 
 
 Lord" cannot here refer to justice, but must rather mean the favors 
 and mercies of the Lord, the word " righteousness " has this sense 
 in quite a number of passages. One clear case occurs 1 Sam. 12 : Y, 
 where Samuel says, '' Let me reason with you of all the righteous 
 acts of the Lord (righteousnesses), which he did to you and to your 
 fathers; " whereupon he proceeds to recite a long catalogue of di- 
 vine benefits, mercies — not by any means acts of mere justice. 
 
 6. Wherewitli sliall I come before the Lord, a7id 
 bow myself before the high God ? shall I come before 
 him with burnt-oiferings, with calves of a year old ? 
 
 Y. "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 
 or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my 
 first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body 
 for the sin of my soul ? 
 
 These are questions put by the people to the prophet. They 
 respond to his rebukes and expostulations with the inquiry, What 
 will meet the demands of the Lord our God? What does he re- 
 quire us to do? Two things are worthy of note in the general 
 
 cast of these inquiries: (1.) That they are deeply shaded with the 
 current thought of the heathen nations round about them, rather 
 than by the tone of the Institutes of Moses ; and (2.) That they 
 seem to imply that the Deity demands ofterings of Wie most costly 
 sort, and penance the most severe — overlooking all the weightier 
 matters of the law — justice and love. 
 
 8. He hath shewed thee, O man, what ^*6* good ; and 
 what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, 
 and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God '^i 
 This is the prophet's brief but exceedingly comprehensive reply. 
 '' Do justice " first of all, everywhere, and always ; then, yet fur- 
 ther, toward your fcllow-mcn " show mercy ; " do acts of kindness 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. VI. 211 
 
 and favor where no merit creates a claim of justice ; and finally, as 
 toward God, walk with him humbly, in constant communion and 
 fellowship. Recognize his surrounding, all-pervading presence, and 
 adjust thy spirit and thy life to a due sense of that presence. In 
 the last clause the Hebrew is specially expressive: "-Bow loic to 
 walh with God^'''' as if only so could sinning mortals hope to come 
 
 near to the Holy One. Thus, in fewest, briefest words, does the 
 
 prophet reply, giving us precisely the great duties which man owes 
 both to his fellow-man and to his God. 
 
 9. The Loed's voice crieth unto the city, and the man 
 of wisdom shall see thy name : hear ye the rod, and 
 who hath appointed it. 
 
 Again the prophet returns to expose and reprove the sins of the 
 people, and to announce the judgments that the Lord must needs 
 
 send. The " city " to which the Lord's voice crieth is Jerusalem, 
 
 prominent for her responsibilities, prominent in her sins. It was 
 
 therefore every way fitting that the Lord ehould cry unto her. 
 
 In the next clause the Hebrew margin presents a slightly dilierent 
 reading, which would give this sense: "Those who fear thy name 
 will have wisdom." But this reading has no claims for precedence 
 before the one in our Hebrew text and in our English text — "The 
 wise will regard thy name " — whatever fools may do or may not. 
 The prophet assumes that the unwise will not regard the name of 
 
 Jehovah The exhortation is, "Hear ye the rod" — the lessons 
 
 taught by the Lord's rod of discipline— and so learn to know him 
 who has appointed it, and who directs its mission in a sinning 
 world. 
 
 10. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the 
 house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is 
 abominable ? 
 
 As if surprised as well as grieved, the Lord asks, Are there yet 
 in wicked men's houses the treasures +hey have gotten by wicked- 
 ness and the scant measure, or " ephah ? " This form of question 
 
 strongly implies that there are. The Hebrew people seem to 
 
 have been strangely addicted to falsifying by unjust weights and 
 measures, although their statute law most expressly forbade it. See 
 Lev. 19:35,86, and Dent. 25:13-10. Other passages note the 
 prevalence of this sin, and strongly condemn it: Prov. 11 :1 and 
 20 : 10 ; Hos. 12 : 7 ; and Amos 8 : 5. 
 
 11. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, 
 and with the bag of deceitful weights ? 
 
 The use of the first person creates the only difiiculty of exposi- 
 tion. The verb properly means " Shall I be pure? "—not, Shall 1 
 count others ns pure ? Eead thus, we must suppose the prophet to 
 put the question as of himself, that the people may in like manner 
 
212 Muwir.— ciLvr. vii. 
 
 oncli ask it of himselt^ "Shall I bo piiro with" (/. e., while using) 
 '' wicked balances and a bag: of deceitful weights i " literally, stona 
 to dcccicc icith. 
 
 12. For the ricdi inoii tlioroof are full of A'iolenoe, and 
 the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their 
 tongue is deceitful in their mouth. 
 
 " For the rich men thereof/' /. r., of the city of Jerusalem, re- 
 ferred to V. 0. 
 
 13. Therefore also will I nuihe f/u^e sick in smiting 
 thee, in making t/uY desolate because of thy sins. 
 
 Itt. Thou shalt eat, but not be satisiied ; and thy 
 casting down shall he in the midst of thee ; and thou 
 shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and ihat^\\iid\ 
 thou deliverest will I give up to the sword. 
 
 15. Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap ; thou 
 shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee 
 Avith oil ; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine. 
 
 Here are the judgments to be sent on tbe people for these sins. 
 In the clanse "I will make thy wound incurabk^" the words imply 
 
 tliat this wound comes of the Lord's smiting. Y. 14 I translate 
 
 closely, thus : " Thou shalt eat and not be satistied, for thy hunger 
 shall still be within thee ; thou shalt remove away (/. ^., thy goods 
 for safety), bnt thou shalt not save them ; and whatever thou shalt 
 save I will give np to the sword.'' 
 
 1(3. For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the 
 works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their coun- 
 sels ; that I should make thee a desolation, and the in- 
 liabitants thereof an hissing : therefore ye shall bear the 
 reproach of my people. 
 
 Omri, the fiither, and Ahab, the son, were leaders in the idolatry 
 of Israel. Their example and influence were intensely pernicious 
 
 over Jndah. " The reproach of my people " is not reproach cast 
 
 III my people, but such reproach as is due to my people, consider- 
 ing that they were mine by covenant, under the highest obligations, 
 but violated all. 
 
 CIIATTER YII. 
 
 The course of thought in this chapter embraces the prophet's 
 distress (v. 1); its causes in the extreme wickedness of the people 
 (vs. 2-4) ; so great tliat no confidence can be reposed in man, not 
 even in best friends (v>. 5, G) ; but should be in God (y. 7) Trusting 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 213 
 
 in her God, Zion exults over her enemies Cvs. 8, 9j, wIjo are covered 
 with shame Cv. 10) ; enlargement for Zion Cvb. 11, ]2j, albeit judg- 
 ments have come and must come for her sins; the prophet's 7>rayer 
 (v. 14); and the Lord's answer fvs. 15-17; ; the prophet testifies in 
 Buhlime strains to God's i>ardoning rnercy, and the people respond 
 (vs. lH-2()). 
 
 ' 1. Woo is me I for I am as wlien tliey liave gathered 
 the summer fruits, as the grape-gleariiri;^sof the vintage: 
 there is no cluster to eat : my soul desired tlie first ripe 
 fruit. 
 
 The prophet gives expression to his sadness, grief^ and disap- 
 pointment, hy comparing his case to that of a man longing for tho 
 first ripe fruits, but who finds the summer fruits all gathcWl, the 
 grapes all gleaned, and Dot*a cluster left for his hunger. The state 
 of things among the people which causes him such grief and disap- 
 pointment, he proceeds to describe. 
 
 2. The good man is p>erislied out of the earth : and 
 Utere is none upriglit among men : they all lie in wait 
 for hlood ; they hunt every man his brother with a net. 
 
 3. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, 
 the prince asketh, and the judge (isltetJh for a reward ; 
 and the great raan^ he uttereth his mischievous desire : 
 so they wrap it up. 
 
 4. The best of them is as a l>rier : the most upright 
 is slio/rjjer than a thorn-hedge : the day of thy watchmen 
 and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their j^er- 
 plexity. 
 
 The received translation gives the sense, in the main, well. The 
 verb rendered " v.rax) it up " implies not merely covering over, but 
 
 tying up — interlacing, and making all secure by artful planning. 
 
 The watchmen " Cv. 4j are prophets, and " the day of thy watch- 
 men " is the day thy prophets have foretold as one of destruction, 
 and of God's visitation in judgment. Xow .shall the wicked who 
 fall under these judgments be perjjlexed and confounded in their 
 plans of wickedness, so that they shall not know what they 
 can do. 
 
 5. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in 
 a guide : keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth 
 in thy bosom. 
 
 G. For the son dishonoreth the father, the daughter 
 rLseth up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against 
 her mother-in-law ; a man's enemies are the men of his 
 ow^ house. 
 
21JL MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 This entire description, beginning with v. 2, reveals a state of 
 appalling corruption of morals, and gives the soundings of the great 
 depths of human depravity as seen where the light of God's word 
 is withdrawn, and idol worship with its surroundings comes into its 
 place. As Christianity sanctifies and makes benign all the sweet 
 relationships of liome and family, so does human depravity, finding 
 free scope, and ever-quickening impulse under the reign of idolatry, 
 desecrate and render liendish those same precious relationships. It 
 is terrible that homes of love should become "habitations of 
 crnelty ; " but human depravity, unrestrained, has precisely this ten- 
 dency, and sometimes reaches this result. 
 
 Y. Therefore I will look unto the Loed ; I will wait 
 for the God of my salvation ; my God will hear me. 
 
 N"o conclusion from such premises as these could be more fitting 
 than this. When all our dearest earthly friends fail, let it be our 
 joy that God is true and fiiithful — a doubly precious friend. 
 
 8. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy : when I 
 fall, I shall arise ; when I sit in darkness, the Lokd shall 
 he a light nnto me. 
 
 The special thing to be noticed in the Hebrew of this verse is 
 that the verb rendered "rejoice," and the noun, "mine enemy," 
 are hoth feminine, showing that the prophet addresses some city or 
 pohtical power, present to his thought ; and consequently does not 
 speak in his own person exclusively, but in behalf of his peo- 
 ple ; the sense being this : Speaking for Judah and Jerusalem, I 
 say to Edom or to Babylon — " Eejoice not over me, thou insulting 
 and exulting enemy ; though I fall in war, and my sons and daugh- 
 ters go into captivity, I shall arise through the strength of my Ee- 
 deemer God ; though I sit in the darkness of a fallen kingdom, my 
 people in a strange land, yet the Lord shall be a light unto me." 
 It should be carefully noticed that the prophet's mind is pro- 
 jected forward from the awful sins of the land to the consequent 
 curse — the captivity in Babylon, and to the deliverance ultimately 
 wrought there for the covenant people when they became humbled, 
 reformed, and penitent. It is with those scenes in view that he 
 addresses Edom and Babylon so triumphantly in these verses. 
 
 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lokd, because I 
 have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and 
 execute judgment for me : he will bring me forth to the 
 light, a7id I shall behold his righteousness. 
 
 10. Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and 
 shame shall cover her which said unto mc, Where is 
 the Lokd thy God ? mine eyes shall behold her : no^v 
 shall she bo trodden down as the mire of the streets. 
 
MICAH.-^CnAP. VII. 215 
 
 In tlicse verses also, Micati speaks in behalf of the covenant 
 people. V. 9 gives utterance to the feelings appropriate under such 
 sore chastisements from the Lord — a moral lesson for all in aflfliction, 
 he the form of it what it may. " Righteousness," in such a con- 
 nection, does not mean simple justice, hut beneficence, goodness, 
 God's interposition in redeeming and saving mercy. This specific 
 sense is in some passages entirely essential ; I. therefore, confirm 
 it: (1.) By the fact that in many passages "righteousness" is 
 parallel to " salvation," and therefore synon}Tnous with it, e. ^., 
 Isa. 51 : 5, 6, 8 : " My righteousness is near ; my salvation is gone 
 forth," &c. — " but my salvation sliall be forevei-, and my righteous- 
 ness shall not be abolished " — " but my righteousness shall be for- 
 ever, and my salvation from generation to generation ; (2.) In other 
 passages, the strain' of the context and the nature of the case de- 
 mand this sense, e. </., Isa. 54: 17; which means — God will save 
 his Zion from all her foes, " and their righteousness " {i. <?., this sal- 
 vation) " is of me, saith the Lord." Also Ps. 51 : 14 : " Deliver me 
 from blood-guiltiness, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue 
 shall sing aloud of thy righteousness." — See notes on Micah 6 : 5. 
 
 In V. 10, the English translators have given the gender of the 
 party spoken of — manifestly the same that is addressed in v. 8. 
 The sense is — The great enemy of Zion (probably Edom or Baby- 
 lon) shall see the salvation wrought of God for us. She who had 
 said tauntingly, "Where is the Lord thy God?" shall now be 
 overwhelmed with shame, and be herself trodden under foot as 
 mire in the streets. Whereas she looked exultingly on me in my 
 fall, now mine eye shall behold her under God's righteous retri- 
 butions. 
 
 11. Ill tlie day tliat thy walls are to be built, in tliat 
 day sliall the decree be far removed. 
 
 12. In that day also he shall come even to thee from 
 Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the for- 
 tress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from 
 mountain to mountain. 
 
 These verses obviously speak of blessings upon Zion in the day 
 when the Lord, having turned again her captivity, shall rebuild 
 lier walls, bring home her captives from afar, and with them also 
 
 " the forces of the Gentiles." Critics have diftered greatly as to 
 
 the precise sense of the words rendered " shall the decree be far 
 removed." What our translators meant by " the decree," or by its 
 being " far removed," is by no means clear. It is plain to one who 
 reads the original, that Micah chooses his words, the verb "^ 
 and the nouu,t for the sake in part of a paranomasia, the two last 
 radicals of the verb and the two which compose the noun being 
 the same, and therefore the sounds of each are similar. For the 
 
 »pi 
 
 tPK 
 
216 MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 sake of this result, he may, perhaps, have used one or botli of these 
 words in a somewhat unusual sense. This may occasion some of 
 the difficulties found by critics in the interpretation of the 
 passage. 
 
 The following construction is suggested as fully in harmony 
 both with the context and with the original and normal use of both 
 these words: ''In the day for rebuilding thy walls, in that day 
 shall limit lefar away " — i. e., the city bounds shall be far off; the 
 city indefinitely extended. This use of the noun is amply justi- 
 fied by Job 14 : 5, "Thou hast appointed his lounds that he cannot 
 pass" (here, of time)-^ and Job 26: 10, "He hath compassed the 
 waters with hounds'''' (here limits in space, as in our passage), 
 and 28 : 2G, " He made a decree (bound) for the rain " (determin- 
 ing its locality, and, perhaps, quantity). Isa. 5 : 14, " Hell hath 
 opened her mouth without W(?«si/r6; " literally, " and there is no 
 limit." 
 
 The primary sense of the verb is — to be far off, far removed. 
 
 Parallel in general meaning is Zech. 2 : 1-4, where the first 
 
 thought is — Go, measure the length and breadth of the city walls, 
 as if to rebuild on the old foundations ; but this direction is with- 
 drawn, and God promises — Jerusalem shall be inhabited without 
 walls for the multitude, &c. So here the purpose of God is to en- 
 large her borders so that she may receive great accessions, as the 
 
 next verse proceeds to say. The verb used here occurs Isa. 83 : 
 
 17: " Thine eyes shall sec the King in his beauty; with joy shall 
 they behold the land greatly extended^'''' enlarged — their king in his 
 
 glory, with a subject territory greatly increased on every side. 
 
 In sentiment Isa. 54: 2, 3, is parallel: "Enlarge the place of thy 
 ten I, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations ; 
 spare not; lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes, for thou 
 shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed 
 shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhab- 
 ited." Eemembering that Micah was contemporary with Isaiah, 
 and that there are abundant proofs of their acquaintance with each 
 other's writings, we shall readily account for their saying the same 
 things, in much the same language, as to the day when the fallen 
 walls of Zion shall be rebuilt. Taught by one and the same Spirit, 
 and writing of the same things in the same age, why should not 
 
 their views and their language be essentially the same ? Gese- 
 
 nius gives these words here this sense — " The set time is greatly 
 extended." But it does not clearly appear from the context what 
 this "set time" is, nor is any good reason apparent for restricting 
 the enlargement to the one element of time. I prefer the broader 
 sense as given above, which may indeed comprise enlargement in 
 territory^ in capacity for receiving great accessions to -the church, 
 and in the period of this prosperity — enlarffement m the most gen- 
 eral sense. Hence, the broad, indefinite form of the statement. 
 — — In V. 12, the first verb is impersonal, and therefore means, 
 not that " 7<^," some one man, shall come from Assyria, but that 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 2 IT 
 
 men, peoples, it may be in vast numbers, sliall come. The word 
 rendered "fortified,"* I prefer to render Fgi/2)t, thus— "In that 
 day shall men come to thee from Assyria and from the cities of 
 Egypt ; and from Egypt even to the great river (Euphrates) ; from 
 sea to sea and from mountain to mountain ; " L e., from all the 
 intervening regions, whicli indeed comprise all that vast country 
 lying contiguous to Palestine, and stretcliing out to the remotest 
 bounds of Egypt on the southwest, and to Assyria on the north and 
 east. From these remote lands shall the exiles return, and, as above 
 intimated, perhaps Gentiles as well, for the promise may look far 
 on beyond the restoration from Babylon, although its primary 
 reference is probably to that event. 
 
 13. ^ otwithstanding the land shall be desolate be- 
 cause of tbem that dwell therein, for the fruit of their 
 doings. 
 
 The sense is — ISTotwithstanding these glorious promises of future 
 enlargement, every way adapted to inspire high and brilliant anti- 
 cipations, yet bear in mind " that for the great sins of the people, 
 an age of judgment and desolation will surely intervene. Before 
 those better days shall come, the land will lie a long time desolate 
 as the fruit of the people's sins." A caution against abusing these 
 promises. 
 
 14. Feed thy people witli thy rod, the ilock of tliine 
 lieritage, wbicli dwell solitarily in the wood, in the 
 midst of Carmel : let them feed i?i Bashan and Gilead, 
 as in the days of old. 
 
 The word rendered "/ee^Z " is pastoral — the usual term to de- 
 scribe the service of the shepherd. It, therefore, combines the two 
 ideas — feeding, and ruling, or guiding. Hence to the Hebrews 
 there would be no incongruity in supposing this feeding to be done 
 with the "rod" — which is here the sliepherd's crook; not a rod 
 for scourging. The sense of the verse is — Take charge of thy peo- 
 ple as a shepherd of his flock ; they are thine heritage, now solitary 
 in the forest; let them feed in the rich pastures of Bashan and 
 Gilead, as of old. This is the prayer of the prophet. He expects 
 the people to join in it, ■ 
 
 15. According to the days of thy coming out of the 
 land of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things. 
 
 This verse may fitly be considered as the answer of the Lord to 
 the prayer in the verse preceding. It pledges miraculous inter- 
 position and effective help, as in the Exodus froniEg^^it — the stand- 
 ing historic case to signify a glorious salvation. 
 
 ■^^ "lisa 
 10 
 
218 MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 
 
 IG. The nations sliall see and be confounded at all 
 their might : they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, 
 their ears shall oe deaf. 
 
 lY. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall 
 move out of their holes like worms of the earth : they 
 shall be afraid of the Loed our God, and shall fear be- 
 cause of thee. 
 
 Here are the effects on the Gentile nations of God's marvellous 
 deliverances to be wrought for his people. They shall see and shall 
 be ashamed of their own insignificant prowess. They may be sup- 
 posed to say — " We have no power to cope with that ; all our 
 strength vanishes away before such marvellous works." They shall 
 be dumb and deaf, as men astonished and stupefied with amazement. 
 They shall lick the dust, humbling themselves low before the glori- 
 ous majesty of Jehovah. They shall crawl out of their holes in the 
 ground — a strong figure, to denote the change that has come over 
 
 their glory and greatness. The last clause should read thus: 
 
 " They shall approach with humble fear and reverence unto the 
 Lord our God " — this shade of meaning being required by the prep- 
 osition rendered " unto.'''' See notes on Hos. 3 : 5. Thus those 
 thrilling impressions of awe and fear are to avail for the conversion 
 of the Gentile nations. 
 
 18. "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth in- 
 iquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant 
 of his heritage ? he retaineth not his anger for ever, be- 
 cause he delighteth in mercy. 
 
 That sins so great should be so entirely forgiven, so fully passed over, 
 to be noticed and known no more — and that God should so fully turu 
 from his righteous anger, and give scope only to his great mercy — 
 is most wonderful! As the prophet thinks of these qualities of the 
 divine mercy in the case of his forgiving his covenant people and 
 restoring them again to favors so great, his heart is overwhelmed 
 
 within him. And why not? "What can be more wonderful ? 
 
 This language is full of beauty and of strength as well. "Who is a 
 God like Thee, taking away sin " (to be seen and noted no more), 
 " passing over the transgressions of the remnant of his chosen " (as 
 a traveller ^Mss^s ly what he does not wish to notice) ; " and he does 
 not make his wrath strong forever " (implying that he does the very 
 opposite — makes it subside and give place to loving-kindness.) And all 
 this " because he dehghteth in mercy "), finding his real bliss, even the 
 highest joy of his heart in forgiving the chief of sinners.) Is not al) 
 this most precious and most wonderful ? Who, having once seen 
 his own guilt in all its appalling blackness and vileness, and tlien 
 felt the sweet sense of pardon, as if God himself were whispering 
 peace and love to his heart, will not appreciate this inimitable de- 
 scription of the pardoning love of the Lord? 
 
MICAH.— CHAP. VII. 219 
 
 19. He will turn again, lie will have compassion 
 upon us ; he will subdue our iniquities ; and thou wilt 
 cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 
 
 This verse maj, without violence, ho construed as a sort of re- 
 frain or response, taken up hy the people themselves, who enter 
 into the spirit of the prophet's words, and respond in terras scarcely 
 less pertinent and afi'ecting. Or it may very fitly he considered as 
 the prophet's own application of the previous verse to the case of 
 God's covenant people. Either way the general sentiment is the 
 same. God will turn from scourging to hlessing, when his smitten 
 people turn from their sins to righteousness. " He will have com- 
 passion upon us." Ah, yes, indeed he will ! Such a God, so full 
 
 of loving pity, how can it he otherwise ? " He will suhdue our 
 
 iniquities," the original word for "subdue" implying that he will 
 tread them down under his feet — as an apostle said, " He will 
 tread Satan under your feet shortly." Sin, personified, command- 
 ing its forces of temptation, is thought of as a powerful foe of man, 
 as his arch enemy, perpetually ensnaring, assailing, crushing down 
 and piercing through with bitter pangs ; but God subdues this en- 
 emy ; he withstands his efforts ; sets himself to counteract his temp- 
 tations, and becomes hunself a strong tower of refuge, whither his 
 people may fly and into which they may run and be safe! O how 
 
 inexpressibly precious ! "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the 
 
 depths of the sea," and they go down hke a millstone, to rise no 
 more ! The idea is, that they come up no more to remembrance — 
 as the Lord has said, " Their sins and their iniquities will I remem- 
 ber no more! " (Heb. 8: 12). Considering that the Infinite Mind 
 of the Universe never has lost from its thought and knowledge one 
 fact, however minute, and never can, this statement seems most 
 wonderful of all. God would have us feel that he does not remem- 
 ber against us the sin which we have fully repented of and heartily 
 forsaken, and which therefore he has altogether forgiven and put 
 away. He would almost lead us to think that he can forget them 
 and has forgotten them, so that they shall come before his mind 
 
 even in memory no more ! O how divinely kind and gracious is 
 
 this ! How like a tender Father ! That he should labor to dispel 
 from our mind those painful feelings of shame and grief over our 
 sins, and should seem to say, " Come near to me and be my free- 
 hearted, loving child, as welcome to my smiles and confidence and 
 
 favor as if you had never sinned against me ! " Let this infinite 
 
 Friend, so kind and so gracious, be loved, trusted, and adored by 
 us all, for ever and ever ! 
 
 20. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the 
 mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our 
 fathers from the days of old. 
 
 Here the book closes, affirming that such a God will surely ])er- 
 
220 MICAH.— CHAP. VIL 
 
 form all the good things, the truth and the mercy promised to the 
 fathers long years ago. No doubt he will ! Zacharias, filled with 
 the Holy Ghost, caught the spirit as well as the leading words of 
 this passage : " To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and 
 to remember his holy covenant," «&c. (Luke 1 : T2). 
 
l^AHUM. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The introduction to this short book gives us only the general 
 subject — a prediction of sore calamity on Nineveh ; the name of 
 the author and the place of his residence, or perhaps nativity. The 
 
 latter point, being of small importance, I dispose of it briefly. 
 
 Two places bear the name of Elkosh, and claim the honor of this 
 prophet's birth ; — one, beyond the Tigris ; the other, in Galilee — 
 the latter with the greater plausibility. Some think that Caper- 
 naum — village of Naum — bears the name of this prophet. 
 
 The date of the book is a greater question. It can, however, be 
 answered only proximately. The location of the book in the series 
 of minor prophets probably had some reference to its date ; but the 
 internal evidence in the line of historic allusion is our main reliance. 
 
 This goes to place him a little after Micah. His great theme 
 
 being the fall of Nineveh, there can be no reasonable doubt that he 
 wrote soon after the famous invasion of Judah by Sennacherib and 
 the utter overthrow of his army. That this event had thrilled the 
 nation may be seen in numerous passages of Isaiah, e. g.^ 10 : 24-34, 
 and 14 : 24-27, and 17 : 12-14, and 80 ; and 36-39 chap. It could 
 not be otherwise. Hence, naturally and properly, the Lord by his 
 prophets sought to turn these signal enents to the best moral 
 account. Isaiah, though alluding to these transactions so often, had 
 J CO mostly passQd over the retribution which the Lord would one 
 day bring on Nineveh. This was left for Nahum. It was important, 
 for the best moral impression on the people, that this should be 
 revealed, and indeed that it should bo written and made public 
 soon after the invasion by Sennacherib and the defeat of his army 
 
222 NAIIUM.— CHAP. I. 
 
 — at least, before the first impressions made by tbose events ha3 
 
 passed away. Now, this great invasion was in the fourteenth 
 
 year of Plezekiah (2 Kings 18 : 13), whose reign of twenty-nino 
 years fell n. c. 728-699 — consequently, about b. c. 714, and Nahum 
 would be located in time during the latter part of Hezekiah's reign. 
 
 This book furnishes one other historic point — a reference 
 
 (3:8-10) to the fall of "No-Amon," otherwise called Thebes 
 and Diospolis, the famous capital of Upper Egypt. The manner 
 of the prophet's allusion to this event implies that it was then past, 
 yet probably recent and fresh in the minds of his first readers. But 
 no extant history chronicles precisely the date of her fall. What 
 Isaiah says (20 : 1-6) of Sargon, king of Assyria, and of his general 
 Tartan, almost without doubt refers to this event, the more surely 
 so, because both Isaiah and Nahum represent the Ethiopians as 
 being the allies of the Egyptians, and involved in the ruin of their 
 great city. The location of this narrative in the book of Isaiah 
 favors its date somewhat earlier than the march of Sennacherib 
 upon Jerusalem. Sargon is known to have reigned next before 
 
 Sennacherib. These facts and suppositions go to confirm the 
 
 views above presented respecting the date of this book, as falling in 
 
 the latter part of the reign of Hezekiah, i. e., b. c. 710-700. The 
 
 fall of 'Nineveh, which ISTahum so vividly describes, chapters 2 and 
 3, took place from seventy-five to eighty years after the date 
 assumed for this prophecy. It fell before the allied forces of the 
 Medes under Cyaxares and the Chaldeans under JSTabopolassar, the 
 precise date being assigned by the most reliable historians to b. c. 
 625 
 
 All tne critics accord to ISTahum a style of lofty sublimity and a 
 power of graphic painting rarely surpassed. He wrote as one 
 whose very soul was permeated and thrilled by the great events 
 of his time, and who saw God's hand in them — a present and glori- 
 ous 2yoicer for salvation to his people, and for vengeance on their 
 foes. To see the beauty and feel the force of his book, we shall 
 need to imbue our hearts deeply with the true spirit and sig- 
 nificance of those momen'tous facts of history. 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. I. 223 
 
 OnAPTER I. 
 
 After the briefest possible introduction, the prophet breaks 
 into the midst of his theme, his starting-point being most fitly those 
 great qualities of the divine character which both the recent events 
 of history and the burden of his prophecy conspire to illustrate- 
 especially his retributive vengeance upon his enemies, coupled with 
 his merciful protection and deliverance of his people. Hence we 
 liave mainly God's judgments on his foes (vs. 2-6) ; God a refuge for 
 his people (v. Y) ; the overthrow of Sennacherib's army before 
 Jerusalem (vs. 8-14) ; and the ensuing peace and joy (v. 15). 
 
 1. Tlie burden of Mneveli. The book of the vision 
 of l^alimn the Elkoshite. 
 
 A " burden " in prophecy, here as elsewhere, is a message of 
 calamity, predicting judgment and desolation. 
 
 2. God is jealous, and the Lokd revengeth ; the Lord 
 revengeth, and is furious ; the Lord will take vengeance 
 on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his ene- 
 mies. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that these attributes of Jeliovah are 
 suggested by his retributive justice on Assyria, first, in destroying 
 her great array when it came proudly and defiantly to lay waste 
 the holy city ; and next, in the future desolations of Nineveh, their 
 great and proud capital. These historic facts may serve as illustra- 
 tions of the sense in which Jehovah is "jealous," " revengeth," and 
 
 "taketh vengeance." The word '-'- furious'''' in the English 
 
 version should not be taken in the bad sense which has in modern 
 times become predominant — as when spoken of wild beasts enraged, 
 or men half frantic. The original is innocent of this special sig- 
 nificance, and simply implies that the Lord is moved with indignation 
 against his proud, determined enemies. 
 
 3. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, 
 and will not at all acquit the %(3iGked : the Lord hath his 
 way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds 
 are the dust of his feet. 
 
 The first clause continues the glowing description of Jehovah's 
 attributes, most of the expressions being taken from the classic 
 passage (Ex. 34 : 6, 7) where the Lord proclaimed his name to Moses 
 
 as one slow to anger, yet who will not at all acquit the guilty. 
 
 The last clause opens one of the grandest portrayings of the 
 majesty of Jehovah ever drawn by human pen : " Jehovah — his 
 way is in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the 
 dust about his feet." Across the deserts of the East a moving car- 
 avan is seen farthest by the dust they raise. So the clouds are tho 
 
224 NAHUM.— CHAP. I. 
 
 dust rising bcneatli his feet and marking the pathway of his 
 glorious presence. 
 
 4. He rebuketli the sea, and maketh it dry, and 
 drietli np all the rivers : Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, 
 and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. 
 
 With an eye perhaps on the lied sea and the Jordan, the prophet 
 proceeds: "He rebuketh the sea and so dries it up," **. ^., by liia 
 mere word of rebuke. Also, through his power of withholding 
 rain, all vegetation, even in the most fertile regions, withers. 
 
 5. The mountains qnake at him, and the hills melt, 
 and the earth is bnrned at his presence, yea, the world, 
 and all that dwell therein. 
 
 In the phrase "the earth is burnt at his presence," the original 
 verb gives no sanction to the sense to turn^ but must mean is lifted 
 wp^ with reference to the upheaval of its crust by volcanic agents. 
 The whole verse refers to this class of agencies. "The moun- 
 tains tremble before him," or "because of him" (not properly '-'•at 
 liim'''')^ "the hills melt," liquid lava gushing forth from their bowels 
 and pouring down their sides — and the solid crust of the earth's 
 surface is upheaved with its cities and all their vast population. 
 
 C. Who can stand before his indignation ? and who 
 can abide in the fierceness of his anger ? his fury is 
 ponred ont like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by 
 him. 
 
 "With the terrible agencies of the volcano and the earthquake 
 still in mind, the prophet fitly asks — " Who can stand before Jeho- 
 vah's indignation?" "Who can rise up against his burning 
 wrath ? " " Rise up," and not " a'bide.,'''' is the sense of the Hebrew. 
 His fury is poured forth like rivers of lava from the craters of Ve- 
 suvius. How, then, can the wicked endure before him when once he 
 ariseth in his wrath ? 
 
 7. The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of 
 trouble ; and he knoweth them that trust in him. 
 
 By a sudden, yet most expressive transition, this same God is a 
 glorious refuge for his people. He is none the less good because he 
 feels such indignation against incorrigible sin. He will defend his 
 trustful children none the less because his wrath is so terrible 
 against his and their foes. Indeed, his wrath against their foes is the 
 pledge and guaranty of his love for them, and of his purpose to de- 
 fend them forever. This side of his character had its present il- 
 lustration in the deliverance wrought for Judah when just about tc 
 fall before the armed hordes of Assyria. In the phrase " he Icnotceth 
 them that trust in him," " Imoiceth " takes the strong sense of a pe- 
 culiar and most tender regard. 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. I. 225 
 
 8. But with an overrunning flood lie will make an 
 utter end of tlie place thereof, and darkness shall pursue 
 his enemies. 
 
 From tliis point onward tlirongli tlie chapter, Sennacherib's army 
 is before the mind, and the prophet alhulcs to their mischievous 
 plottings against the people of God, and to his consequent retri- 
 bution upon them in their complete destruction. A question of 
 some importance arises here, upon which interpreters differ, viz., 
 Whether the prophet's allusions to the invasion of Judah by Sen- 
 nacherib (vs. 8-15) are prophecy or history. Was this passage writ- 
 ten 'before or after the invasion? My mind inclines strongly to 
 
 the latter \new, on the following grounds: (1.) The tenses of the 
 verbs used at least admit this construction. Owing to a striking 
 peculiarity in the use of the Hebrew tenses in prophecy, or rather, 
 perhaps, to the mental stand-point of the prophet when visions of 
 the future are brought before him, it becomes very difficult to de- 
 termine, /ro7?^ tlie tenses alone, what is prophecy and what is 
 history. In this passage it would be hard to show absolutely from 
 the tenses alone, that either theory is impossible. There is plainly 
 nothing in the tenses to forbid the construction of what relates to 
 
 Sennacherib's invasion as recently past. Thus the verbs in v. 8 
 
 are future, but they refer to the future fall of Nineveh — about b. o. 
 625. (V. 9), thus (literally) : " What will ye devise against Jehovah ? " 
 The sense is — How can ye devise any thing to purpose against such 
 an one as Jehovah ^_--w4ncli has augmented force, considered as 
 spoken after the fall of Senaacherib's host. The reasons given 
 are, "He makes" (not "will make") "ruin complete." "Affliction 
 shall not rise again" — from you, or from any whom the Lord has 
 once undertaken to destroy. These reasons are all fully in point, 
 
 considered as said after the invasion and its defeat. In v. 10 the 
 
 sense is — " ThougbLfiompacted like tangled thorns and soaked with 
 strong drink, ihQj were devoured " (the Hebrew is in the past tense) 
 "like dry stubble." In v. 11 read "From thee came ouf'' (past 
 tense) " one who plotted mischief" — alluding to the past purpose 
 and deed of Sennacherib. The twelfth verse has past tenses through- 
 out ; not " shall they be cut down," but they icere cut. " Though 
 
 I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more," is literal, and 
 
 properly assume that the invasion is past. The thirteenth verse 
 
 means that now and henceforth, I will break off his yoke from 
 upon thee. Thou shalt have notliing to fear more from the Assyrian 
 power. In v. 14, the inf^miy and disgraceful death of Sennach- 
 erib assume that the invasion is past. In v. 15, the messengers 
 
 wath tidings of their foil — the call to Judah to resume her solemn 
 feasts for her Belial shall never come near even to alarm her again 
 — all is specially pertinent and life-hke on the assumption that the 
 deed is done. There can, therefore, be no objection to its con- 
 struction as history on the score of the Hebrew tenses, nor in the 
 strain of the passage. (2.) The passage (1 : 2-7) is especially per- 
 
i2^(} NAIIUM.— CHAP. I. 
 
 tincnt and forcible on tlie supposition tlicit tlie fall of Sennaclicrib^s 
 
 host is in the recent past, and fresh before all minds. (3.) There 
 
 is great pertinence in going forward from these events of recent his- 
 tory to predict the final ruin of Assyria, in righteous retribution for 
 
 her bold and impious defiance of the Most High God. (4.) The 
 
 history of the event as given (Isa. 37) goes for to show that no 
 prophecy of Kahum, predicting the fall of this Assyrian host, was 
 extant before that fall. The king and even the pious portion of the 
 people were in deep agitation, not to say consternation ; they come 
 to Isaiah for some light from the Lord, and he gives it. Then their 
 
 fears are allayed and their faith confirmed. The whole tenor of 
 
 these transactions implies that nothing is known of any prediction 
 from ISTahum of the failure of this invasion and the consequent ruin 
 
 of its author. (5.) The Book of Na'hura must be taken as one 
 
 whole, Avritten at one time. But it is scarcely supposable that the 
 whole, including the prediction of the final fall of Nineveh, dates 
 
 lffo7'e this great invasion of Judah. These considerations seem 
 
 decisive. 
 
 There is a sudden transition from v. T, where God is a refuge 
 to his people, to v. 8, where he is a sweeping flood, overwhelming 
 Kineveh and obliterating even its ancient foundations. The ideas, 
 however, are kindred, for God is such a refuge to his people de- 
 cause he is such a power of destruction upon her enemies. The 
 
 figure — "with a flood sweeping over the land" — is probably bor- 
 rowed from Isaiah 8 : 7, 8, where it describes the desolating march 
 of the vast Assyrian army over the land of Judah. By a fit and 
 most palpable retribution, armies, equally vast and desolating, shall 
 yet come down on Mneveh, and shall make an utter end of even 
 the site where she stood so long in her glory. The darkness of ob- 
 livion shall chase down these enemies of God, and they shall sink 
 from the knowledge of coming generations. 
 
 0. What do je imagine against the Lord ? he will 
 make an utter end : affliction shall not rise np the second 
 time. 
 
 The prophet puts this bold question to the proud Assyrian 
 invader: "What would ye plot against Jehovah?" "He will 
 make an utter end" of his foes and of you.. " Trouble to many 
 people shall not arise from you a second time." Once smitten, you 
 will never return to harass them again. 
 
 10. For while t/iCT/ he folden together as thorns, and 
 while they are drnnken as drunkards, they shall be de- 
 voured as stubble fully dry. 
 
 For though your armies move in phalanx, closely interlaced as 
 thorns in their wild growtli, and though they reel under their 
 intoxication, they shall be devoured as stubble burns Avhen perfectly 
 dry. That they are said to be drunken as with wine, and henc« 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. I. 227 
 
 to reel in tlieir intoxication, may allude to a strikiDg fact in God's 
 agency over nations doomed to judgment, and also to a very strik- 
 ing figure to represent this fact — the fact being that God gives such 
 nations over to infatuation ; and the figure to express it being this 
 (as appears in Jer. 25 : 15-29), G^d sends round to the nations tho 
 wine-cup of his fury, and they drink till they are "moved" and 
 *' mad." Hence they are easily destroyed. They more than half 
 destroy themselves. The slaveholding power of this American 
 nation is a case quite in pointy evincing this same mad infatuation 
 which is both a natural and a governmental forerunner of destruc- 
 tion. The wine-cup of Jehovah's fury has been to their lips! 
 
 11. There is one come out of tliee, tliat imagineth. 
 evil against tlie Lokd, a wicked counsellor. 
 
 Sennacherib or Eabshakeh, lie comes forth out of Assyria, or 
 perhaps, specially from Nineveh, de^dsing evil against Jehovah as 
 the king of his covenant people. 
 
 12. Thus saith the Lord ; Though they he quiet, and 
 likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when 
 he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I 
 will afflict thee no more. 
 
 The Lord sees this heathen king deliberately plotting the 
 destruction of Judah, and therefore declares his purpose to destroy 
 
 liim and his army. The first prominent word, rendered " quiet," 
 
 more properly means conrplete^ furnished with every appliance for 
 success in their proposed object. Though they are fully equipped, 
 and withal so very many, yet shall they be cut down (as the figure 
 in V. 10 had expressed it) when he, the destroying angel, shall pass 
 
 through their camp. Isaiah records this event in these brief 
 
 words : " Then the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the 
 camp of the Assyrians an hundred and fourscore and five thousand, 
 and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all 
 
 dead corpses''"' (Isa, 37 : 36), Byron has put this scene in his 
 
 best style : 
 
 ** Like (he leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
 That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
 Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
 That host on tho morrow lay withered and strown. 
 For the anxrel of death spread his wings ou the blast, 
 And breatlied on the face of the foe as he passed. 
 And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly aud ehill, 
 And theirhcarts but onc<! heaved, and forever were still." 
 
 The last clause — ^' though I have afflicted thee," &c., refers to 
 Judah, now relieved from danger, and no more to be afflicted by 
 this long dangerous enemy. 
 
 13. For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and 
 will burst thy bonds in sunder. 
 
228 - NAHUM.— CHAP. I. 
 
 This verse expands the thouglit just before expressed. 
 
 14. And the Loed liath given a commandment con- 
 cerning thee, tliat no more of thy name be sown : out 
 of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image 
 and the molten image : I will make thy grave ; for thou 
 art vile. 
 
 The person spoken of must be the Assyrian king. No scion of 
 his family should again take root ; no child come to the honor of 
 his father's throne. This would seem to be the most natural sense 
 
 of these words. But according to the dim light of the history of 
 
 those times, its precise fulfilment is not readily made out. The 
 king should be Sennacherib who headed the famous invasion of 
 Judah and Jerusalem. All the latter part of tliis verse 14 finds an 
 accurate fulfilment in him. He made his grave in the house of his 
 gods — a vile, " liglit " man, of no particular account. " Light " is 
 the sense of the Hebrew word. But Isaiah records (37 : 38), " and 
 Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead." History assigns to tliis 
 Esarhaddon a reign of thirty-five years. How, then, could it be 
 
 said, no son of Sennacherib should come to the throne ? To 
 
 avoid this difiSculty, Dr. Henderson holds that the threatening was 
 not to take effect at his death, but only at the final destruction of 
 Nineveh — which he locates b. c. 625 — almost a century in the 
 future. Then^ his dynasty should become extinct. He says, "It 
 does not mean that none of his sons should succeed him in the 
 government." But this is just what it seems to sa}^ if we give the 
 language a sense which affirms the extinction of his dynasty. If 
 the words afiirm extinction at all, they afiirm it to take efiect at 
 
 once. Others, with better success, give the words this turn — 
 
 that his name^ in the sense of fome, reputation, should be diftused 
 abroad — sown 'broadcast^ no more. He should die in dishonor -as a 
 vile man, and his name go down to posterity only in disgrace. In 
 this sense of the prophecy, its fulfilment presents no difiiculty. 
 
 15. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that 
 bringeth good tidings, that publisheth j)eace ! O Judah, 
 keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows : for the wicked 
 shall no more pass through thee : he is utterly cut off. 
 
 "War telegrams were borne in those days by swift runners (see 2 
 Sam. 18 : 19 ff.). When they brought tidings of victory and peace, 
 their approach might well be hailed with joy. So now of these mes- 
 sengers with tidings of the utter ruin that befell Assyria's proud hosts 
 in that one fotal night. The prophet's graphic touch of this scene is 
 masterly. He gives no long and tedious details : his mind flashes 
 over and past them all, to light on one or two most significant and 
 expressive results. " Go, Judah, now, and keep thy solemn feasts : 
 perform thy vows made in the hour of thy peril : this Belial shall 
 pass through thy land no more : he is utterly cut ofi\' " 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. II. 229 
 
 As to keeping those solemn f Beasts, Jndah couldy for no enemy 
 remained in lier land to prevent : she should^ for never before were 
 there such themes for praise, such reasons for coming to the house 
 of God v/ith her thank-ofterings to pay her solemn vows. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This cliapter brings us at once to the prophet's great theme — the 
 burden of Xineveh. The mad and proud invasion of Judah by 
 Sennacherib must first be noticed, that being the antecedent 
 occasion of this final overthrow — the great sin of which this fall 
 was the signal retribution. That consequently is spoken of in the 
 first cliapter. This chapter and the third give us the assault on an- 
 cient Nineveh, and her final fall. 
 
 1. He tliat daslietli in pieces is come up before tlij 
 fiice : keep the mnnition, watch the way, make thy loins 
 strong, fortify thy power mightily. 
 
 Instead of finding in this first verse a summons to Hezekiah to 
 prepare his capital for defence against Sennacherib (as some have 
 done), I prefer to apply it (as manifestly vs. 3-13 must be ap- 
 phed) to the Assyrian king Chynilidan, in whose reign the combined 
 forces of the Medes and Chaldeans came up against great Nineveh, 
 and laid it in ruins. With this construction, v. 2 is interposed as a 
 reason for God's overthrowing Nineveh — good, although the event 
 occurred more than half a century before. Then v. 3 resumes 
 
 and carries forward the thought of v. 1. Moreover, Sennacherib 
 
 has been efiectually disposed of in chapter 1, tumbled into his 
 dishonored grave, and his name given over to contempt and oblivion. 
 It is not meet to raise him from his grave, to appear again on tlic 
 
 face of this chapter. Nineveh and her kings arc addressed. 
 
 Nineveh had been in her day a conquering power, dashing nations 
 and their strong cities to atoms. Now, another great '' hammer of 
 tlie nations" is raised up of God, and appears at her gates, and the 
 prophet tauntingly admonishes her to look well to her fortifications ; 
 to set watchmen along the ways leading to the city; to gird her 
 loins for strife, and fortify to the utmost. 
 
 2. For the Lord hath turned away tlie excellency of 
 Jacob, as the excellency of Israel : for the emptiers 
 have emptied them out, and marred their yine-branches. 
 
 Why? " Because the Lord hath" (not turned cncay, but) "re- 
 stored the glory of Jacob as the glory of Israel, although the 
 ' emptiers ' (her foreign enemies) had (almost) emptied the land of 
 her population, and marred their vine-branches." This language 
 Implies that Judah had sufiered sorely from her enemies, both in 
 
"30 NAIIUM.— CHAP. II. 
 
 the waste of precious life, and in the damage done her vines, and of 
 course other vegetable growths as well. The same facts are indi- 
 cated by Isaiah of this very time : "And the remnant that is es- 
 caped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward," &c. 
 "From out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant," &c., showing 
 that many must have perished (see Isa. 87: 81, 82). V. 30 shows 
 that cultivation had been entirely neglected during two full years. 
 
 The word rendered "excellency" is sometimes {e. gr., Amos 
 
 G : 8 and Ps. 47 : 4) applied to the land of Palestine, as being the 
 " glory of all lands." So here, with the accessory idea of the land 
 in its state of prosperity and glory. Jacob and Israel arc here, not 
 each the name of a distinct people, but both the name of one. With 
 tacit allusion to the change of Jacob's name to Israel (Gen. 
 82 : 27, 28), the Lord is said to restore the glory of Jacob as being 
 the people who have a princely power with Grod, and are recognized 
 by him as his covenant people. Jacob and Israel are never the dis- 
 tinctive names of the two kingdoms. Here God blesses Jacob, as 
 if in remembrance of what his other name, Israel, implies. 
 
 3. The shield of liis miglity men is made red, the 
 valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall he with 
 flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the fir- 
 trees shall be terribly shaken. 
 
 4. The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall 
 justle one against another in the broad ways: they 
 shall seem like torches, they shall run like the light- 
 nings. 
 
 This description, given by the prophet, of the approaching hosts 
 of Media and Chaldea, is, like all his descriptive paragraphs, full of 
 
 tire, painting to the eye most vividly. '' The shields of his mighty 
 
 men are reddened; his heroes are in scarlet; his chariots flash with 
 the brightness of their iron scythes, as in the day of their prepara- 
 tion {i. e.^ when new); the spears of cypress also wave on high. The 
 chariots dash madly in the streets ; they run to and fro in the 
 open grounds; they look like lamps of fire; they dart like the 
 lightning." 
 
 5. He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble 
 in their walk ; they shall make haste to the wall thereof, 
 and the defence shall be prepared. 
 
 Here the king of Nineveh is seen starting up as from a reverie 
 or a sleep, to begin to appreciate his danger. He sees the fearful 
 onslaught of converging hosts upon his capital. Now, "he thinks 
 of his generals," and summons them to their work ; they start off in 
 haste, or in panic, and "stumble in their goings; " they make haste 
 to the city wall," where their soldiers and military defences were 
 located for the protection of the city, "and the breastworks are 
 made firm." Breastworks is rather the modern phrase. This was a 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. II. 231 
 
 mantlet, apparently of interwoven bonglis, to protect their heads as 
 
 well as breasts froni the missiles of ancient warfare. According 
 
 to Diodorus Siculiis, Nineveh had fifteen hundred towers, dis- 
 tributed around on her city walls. These mantlets may have been 
 located in the intervening spaces. 
 
 6. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the 
 palace shall be dissolved. 
 
 Y. And Iluzzab shall be led away captive, she shall 
 be brought np, and her maids shall lead her as with the 
 voice of doves, tabcring upon their breasts. 
 
 " The gates of her water-courses are burst open, and the palace 
 is swept away." iSTineveh stood upon the Tigris, on low ground. 
 These "rivers" were her artificial canals for letting in their supply 
 of water for irrigation and for other uses. Now, burst open by the 
 besiegers, the palace, and consequently much of the city, was 
 
 inundated. The word rendered " Iluzzab " has been variously 
 
 interpreted, as the margin indicates. All modern critics agree in 
 making the word a verb, and not, as in the English version, a proper 
 noun. The reader may choose among the following construc- 
 tions, the first of which disregards the usual division of verses : 
 
 (1.) (v. 6). " The palace is dissolved, though firmly established." 
 (v. 7). " She is made bare ; she is carried up," &c. 
 
 (2.) (v. 7). " It is settled! {i. e.^ decreed and done !) she is led off 
 into captivity," &c. 
 
 (8.) (v. G). "And the palace is dissolved, (v. 7.) "Though it (the 
 palace) Avas firmly founded, yet is she (the city) led into ca])tivity; 
 she is borne away (as a captive queen) ; her maids are leading her 
 as with the voice of doves, smiting (drumming) upon their breasts." 
 This choice between various constructions involves no doc- 
 trinal truth of special importance. The last interpretation, requir- 
 ing no change in the Hebrew accents, and otherwise meeting both 
 the exigencies of the context and the established usage of the indi- 
 vidual words, has shghtly ray preference. 
 
 8. But l^ineveh is of old like a pool of water : yet 
 they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry, but 
 none shall look back. 
 
 " Though Nineveh has been since her early days as a reservoir 
 of waters" — a point for the confluence of people from every clime 
 and kingdom, "yet now are they fleeing." "Stand! stand! but 
 there is no turning them back." This translation imitates the 
 terseness and gives the sense of the original. All great com- 
 mercial centres, like the London and New York of onrtinies, will 
 have a population gathered from the whole cirilized world. Tlie 
 exigencies of business and trade produce this result. Our pas- 
 sage touches graphically the ett'ect of a panic on such a populatior.. 
 The masses liave but one impulse — to run. The authorities, who 
 
232 NAHUM.— CHAP. II. 
 
 would fain save the city, shont, "Stand! stand! " but the call ia 
 powerless ; it turns no one back. 
 
 9. Take ye the spoil of silver, take tlie spoil of 
 gold ; for there is none end of tlie store and glory out of 
 all the pleasant furniture. 
 
 The prophet turns for a word to the conquerors, who are 
 thought of now as within the city. " Seize the silver ; seize the 
 gold ; there is no end to her stores " {i. e.^ of carefully prepared and 
 curiously wrouglit furniture, equipage, &c.)— ^a huge mass of all 
 beautiful things." There is no other word but " things " so nearly 
 
 equivalent to the Hebrew in comprehensiveness. The great 
 
 wealth of Nineveh now lies at the mercy of her conquerors. 
 
 10. She is empty and void, and waste : and the 
 heart nielteth, and the knees smite together, and much 
 pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather 
 blackness. 
 
 The first three adjectives aim to intensify the idea of utter empti- 
 ness, as if Nineveh had been a huge and full bottle, now inverted, 
 
 and the contents gurgle and gush out to the last drop. " Hearts 
 
 melt ; there is shaking of knees and keen pangs in all loins ; all faces 
 lose their cheerful glow" — contract and seem to draw ici their 
 brightness. This seems to be the exact sense of the Hebrew. 
 
 11. Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feed- 
 ing-place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old 
 lion, Yv^alked, and the lion's whelj:), and none made the7n 
 afraid ? 
 
 12. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, 
 and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes witli • 
 prey, and his dens with ravin. 
 
 13. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, 
 and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword 
 shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy 
 prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers 
 shall no more be heard. 
 
 Nineveh is here thought of as an old lion's den. This figure is 
 the more pertinent because the ancient Assyrians (like the modern 
 British) chose the lion for their national symbol. This figure conse- 
 quently is prominent in the ruins of ancient Nineveh (see Layard's 
 " Nineveh," pp. 32, 47, 85, 88, &c.) Hence the prophet exultingly 
 
 asks, Where is the old den now ? In the last verse the figure is 
 
 half dropped and half retained, " Burning her chariots in the 
 smoke," drops the figure; "the sword devouring her young lions. 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. HI. 233 
 
 and cutting off his prey from tbe earth," mostly retains it. " The 
 
 voice of her messengers " is that of her ambassadors, who repre- 
 sented her power in distant countries, with perhaps a tacit aihision 
 to the taunting speech of her Eabshakch to the Jewish people on 
 the walls of Jerusalem, as in Isa. 30 : 4-20. Such a voice as tbis 
 
 shall be heard no more. The immediate cause of her ruin i^ 
 
 presented forcibly : " Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of 
 
 hosts." Not the proudest or the mightest of cities can stand 
 
 vv'hen the great Jehovah is against her. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The same subject — the fall of Mneveh — is resumed and con- 
 cluded. 
 
 1. "Woe to tlie bloody city ! it is all full of lies and 
 robbery ; the prey departetli not ; 
 
 First come the moral causes of this fearful desolation. It is a 
 city of blood ; "all fuU of lies " — no truth between man and man ; 
 and thence come, by natural result, violence and robbery. The 
 seizing of prey, by the strong from the weaker, never ceases. The 
 original words suggest that men, created rational and moral, have 
 become fierce and savage as beasts of prey. 
 
 2. The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling 
 of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the 
 jumping chariots. 
 
 3. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword 
 and the glittering spear : and there is a multitude of 
 slain, and a great number of carcasses ; and there is none 
 end of their corpses ; they stumble npon their corpses : 
 
 These verses resume the account of the siege and assault, con- 
 tinued from 2 : 3-5, 9, 10 : " The crack of the whip ; the noise of 
 rattling w^heels, prancing horses, bounding chariots. There are 
 horsemen mounting; flashing swords, the lightnings of the spear; 
 heaps of slain, masses of the dead, and no end to the corpses; men 
 stumble over their dead bodies." Think of it, and note how it looks 
 — this onslaught of warriors through the crowded streets of help- 
 less Nineveh, leaving traces of their work in the heaps of her man- 
 gled dead! One of the marvels is, that the pen of prophecy 
 
 should paint such a life-scene with no less vividness and force than 
 the ablest historic pen. Surely we must see in this the impress of 
 God's own finger ! 
 
 4. Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of 
 the well-fayored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that 
 
234 NAHUM.— CHAP. III. 
 
 selleth nations tliroiigli her whoredoms, and families 
 through her witchcrafts. 
 
 Again the prophet recurs to the moral causes of this appalling 
 
 slaughter. There had been sin no less appalling! If these terras 
 
 that usually denote lewdness, referred to Israel and Judah, it would he 
 legitimate to give them the sense of idolatry — this usage being well 
 established with reference to the covenant people. In this passage 
 the same usage may be inferred from the connection of whoredom 
 with witchcraft. Hence, under this figure of a lewd harlot, the 
 prophet really means idolatry and its monstrous brood of supersti- 
 tions, witchcrafts, and doubtless licentiousness as well. Through 
 the influence wielded by her world-wide commerce, Nineveh had 
 corrupted all the nations round about. It was, therefore, only a 
 fit retribution that her fall should be a public disgrace before 
 them all. 
 
 5. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts ; 
 and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will 
 shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms 
 thy shame. 
 
 6. And I will cast abominable filth npon thee, and 
 make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. 
 
 This is her doom of shame. The figure of a harlot is kept up 
 
 throughout these two verses. " Discover " — not in the modern 
 
 sense, to find ly search^ but in the ancient one, to expose to public 
 view, and here to public scorn. God will expose her nakedness 
 before all the nations; and then, to make her shame the greater, 
 will cast abominable filth upon her naked person. 
 
 Y. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look 
 npon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid 
 waste : who will bemoan her 1 whence shall I seek com- 
 Ibrters for thee ? 
 
 None can bear the horrid sight. Her old associates flee away, 
 and no one cares to pause, to bewail her doom. 
 
 8. Art thou better than populous No, that was situate 
 among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, 
 whose rampart was the sea, and her wall ims from the 
 sea? 
 
 9. Ethiopia and Egypt loere her strength, and it was 
 infinite ; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. 
 
 When Nahum wrote, Nineveh was still in her glory. Her peo- 
 ple felt as secure from ':his or any other destruction as the people 
 of London, Paris, or New York, to-day. It was to meet such a feel- 
 ing of security that the prophet calls their attention to Xo^ the great 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. III. 235 
 
 city known as Thebes and Diospolis, the capital of Upper Egypt — 
 which, from a state of unrivalled splendor, wealth, and greatness, 
 
 had been suddenly laid in ruins. " Art thou better," i. e., stronger 
 
 and more safe, " than No- Anion? " The word rendered "populous " 
 should be taken as part of the proper name of the city. "No- 
 Amon," called only "A^^," Ezek. 30: 14-16, and Jer. 46: 25, 
 but more often in Egyptian history, "Thebes," stood on both sides 
 of the Nile — a most magnificent city, the ruins of whose temples 
 and tombs are at this day one of the wonders of the world. This 
 city is supposed to have fallen under the assault of Sargon, king of 
 Assyria, of whom Isaiah 20 spea,ks. — See introduction to Nahum. 
 Thebes had powerful allies. Being the centre of trade, busi- 
 ness, and religion for all Upper Egypt, and probably for Ethiopia 
 also, she had their aid, and the prophet says this was without limit. 
 Lubim was the Hebrew form of the nams Libyans, and Put is sup- 
 posed to have been part of their extensive country — the whole 
 lying on the west of Egypt. 
 
 10. Yet was she carried away, slie went into captiv- 
 ity : lier yonng children also were dashed in pieces at 
 the top of all the streets : and they cast lots for her 
 honorable men, and all her great men were bound in 
 chains. 
 
 " Yet she became an exile," &;c. The verse sketches the usual 
 fate of a conquered people in that almost savage state of the world. 
 
 If such had become the doom of Thebes, ought not Nineveh 
 
 also to fear ? 
 
 11. Thon also shalt be drunken : thou shalt be hid, 
 thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy. 
 
 Nineveh also as well as Thebes should " be drunken " — should 
 take the wine-cup of Jehovah's wrath and drink her death-doom. 
 
 See notes on Nahum, 1 : 10. "Thou shalt be hid," means shall 
 
 be lost to public view — obliterated and forgotten ; dropped from the 
 
 knowledge of the human race. How wonderfully has this been 
 
 true of old Nineveh for twenty-live centuries ! Until the present 
 generation, ages have passed over her ruins, and no living man knew 
 the site where once she sat so proudly and sinned so fearfully ! The 
 Arab rode his steed high above her fallen towers and crumbled walls, 
 all unconscious how much human greatness lay dead and forgotten 
 
 beneath his feet ! " Shall seek strength." The Hebrew properly 
 
 means a stronghold — a place of safety against the enemy. To this 
 they should be subjected, despite of their lofty walls and almost 
 countless towers. So understood, the course of thought is continued 
 into the next verse. 
 
 12. All thy strong holds shall he like fig-trees with 
 the first ripe figs : if they be shaken, they shall even fall 
 into the mouth of the eater. 
 
236 NAHUM.— CHAP. III. 
 
 13. Beliold, tliy people in the midst of tliee are, 
 women : the gates of thy land shall be set wide open 
 unto thine enemies : the fire shall devour thy bars. 
 
 By a most sigDificant figure, the propliet shows that her military 
 strength was of small account— rather a temptation to an assault 
 than a defence against it. Nineveh had become too rich, and too 
 luxurious and effeminate, to stand against the plundering robher- 
 hordes of younger and more vigorous races. Her warriors had be- 
 come as women. The "bars" which the fire shall devour, are 
 
 those of her gates. 
 
 14. Draw the waters for the siege, fortify thy strong 
 holds : go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong 
 the brick-kiln. 
 
 Tauntingly the prophet commends to her a little more labor on 
 her fortifications — advice the more in point, because Nineveh had 
 already expended an untold amount of wealth and labor upon this 
 very thing, and also because she was so sure her walls were impreg- 
 nable, and because they were, after all, of so very small account as 
 against her enemies. The irony was put on for an edge, to make the 
 truth cut. 
 
 15. There shall the fire devour thee ; the sword shall 
 cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the canker-worm : 
 make thyself many as the canker-worm, make thyself 
 many as the locusts. 
 
 Even there in thy brick-kilns and mortar-beds, the fire of Jeho- 
 vah's retribution will find thee out and devour thee. It shall eat 
 thee, as the canker worm (a species of locust) eats the herbage of 
 
 the land. Then the locust liaving been suggested to his mind as 
 
 a figure of devastation, he seizes it as a figure for a multitude, and 
 says — " Make thyself a countless host like the locusts, yet shall the 
 fire and sword of the Almighty consume thee." 
 
 16. Thou hast multiplied th}^ merchants above the 
 stars of heaven : the canker-worm spoileth, and flieth 
 away. 
 
 She had enjoyed an immense commerce with India on the east, 
 and with all western Asia and northeastern Africa on the west. 
 The wealth of those valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris was also 
 immense ; but the prophet quietly suggests that the locust pillages 
 and then flies away. So would her great wealth vanish before the 
 hosts of her foes. 
 
 17. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains 
 as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in 
 the cold day, Ijiit when the sun ariseth they flee away, 
 and their place is not known where they are. 
 
NAHUM.— CHAP. III. 237 
 
 " Thy crowned " are lier princes, of whom Sennacherib said, 
 
 " Are not my princes altogether kings ? " The original rendered 
 
 "captains" is an Assyrian word, meaning satraps, governors. They 
 will disappear as the grasshoppers, who lie close under the wall 
 dm-ing the cool of the day, but when the sun rises flee away, and 
 their very place is unknown. So these high oflScers on whom he 
 had so much relied, would fail him and disappoint his expectations. 
 Nahum 2 : 5 represents the king, when first aroused to his danger, 
 as thinking of these officers — to how little purpose may be seen 
 here. 
 
 18. Tliy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: 
 thy nobles shall dwell in the dust : thy people is scat- 
 tered npon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. 
 
 " Thy shepherds " must mean, in this connection, his viceroys — 
 officers in charge of his provinces. They are in a deep sleep, in- 
 active, overcome with sloth — as a real shepherd might be. " Thy 
 nobles have sat down " — as if in utter unconcern for the peril of 
 Nineveh. Thus, nobles and people alike fail him in the hour of 
 his extremity. 
 
 19. There is no healing of thy bruise ; thy wound is 
 grievous : all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the 
 hands over thee : for upon whom hath not thy wicked- 
 ness passed continually ? 
 
 The nearly obsolete word " Iruit " means report concerning thee 
 — the news of thy fall. The world was ready to rejoice over her 
 righteous doom ; for where could a tribe be found that had not felt 
 the galling of her yoke — the infliction of some wrong from her 
 
 overbearing power? So the prophet leaves proud Nineveh to 
 
 her righteous yet fearful doom! Considering this prophecy as 
 written and sent forth to the world almost a century before Iho 
 final catastrophe, it was a standing admonition to the king and 
 people of Nineveh to prepare to meet God in the judgments of his 
 wrath. Considered in its relations to God's people in the reign of 
 Hezekiah, it was admirably adapted to secure a right moral impres- 
 sion from the overthrow of Sennacherib's army, and to make the 
 people feel that, with God on their side, they need not fear the 
 mightiest or proudest of their foes. 
 
HABAKKUK 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The introduction to this sLort book gives nothing but the wri- 
 ter's name. He leaves the reader to ascertain from tlie book itself 
 the time when, the place where, and the theme of which he wrote. 
 These points may be ascertained with a good degree of definiteness 
 and certainty in the first chapter, especially vs. 5-11. These verses 
 show that the Chaldean power is now for the first time coming up 
 to view as a desolating scourge on Judah. They were to do a work 
 which men would not readily believe (v. 5), indicating that they 
 had scarcely been known as a dangerous power before. The 
 minute description of their character and ways (vs. 6-11) bears 
 toward the same result, showing that previously they had been but 
 
 little known. Hence this must have been their first invasion. 
 
 It was very near at hand Avhen Habakkuk wrote. The invasion 
 occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, whose reign of eleven 
 years was b. o. 611-600. It has been usual to date this invasion 
 B. c. 006. Habakkuk's writing must be located somewhat (perhaps 
 a few years) earlier. The desolation and famine which he contem- 
 plates (3 : 17) and which his exalted faith enabled him to triumph 
 over, came with this sweep of a conquering, cruel enemy, probably 
 not long after the publication of this wonderful book. Habak- 
 kuk was contemporary with Jeremiah, who began to prophesy in 
 the thirteenth year of Josiali, and continued down to tlie destruc- 
 tion of the city and the last deportation of captives in the eleventh 
 year of Zedekiah, a range of some forty years. Near the middle 
 of this period fell the first invasion by the Chaldeans in the fourth 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. I. 239 
 
 year of Jehoiakim. From Jeremiah, therefore, we may learn mucli 
 respecting the general and moral condition of the people when 
 
 Habakkuk wrote. One leading course of thought runs through 
 
 the entire book : the sins of the covenant people ; God's raising up 
 the Chaldeans to scourge them therefor ; the prophet's expostula- 
 tion with the Lord against permitting a people so cruel and wicked 
 as they to afflict and destroy Judah ; the Lord's answer touching 
 the Chaldeans; closing with the prophet's prayer that God would 
 reenact the glorious scenes of deliverance that appear on so many 
 pages of the nation's early history ; and God's virtual reply, by caus- 
 ing his glory to pass before the prophet's eye, thus impressing his 
 soul with a sense of his power to save, and of his faithfulness and 
 love as well. In view of these manifestations, the. prophet exults 
 in Jehovah alone, satisfied that under the wing and in the love of 
 such a God he has nothing to fear, but every reason for joyful trust 
 
 and triumph. In point of style, Habakkuk stands unrivalled. 
 
 Who can name the writer that excels him in the best qualities of a 
 poetic imagination, and especially in his grand and sublime con- 
 ceptions of Jehovah ? 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The prophet, distressed by the appalling prevalence of wicked- 
 ness among his people, cries to God for help (vs. 2-4) ; the Lord 
 replies that he is raising up the Chaldeans to scourge them, and 
 describes that people (vs. 5-11), against which the prophet expos- 
 tulates with God (vs. 12-17). 
 
 1. The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. 
 " Burden " is here, as usual, a prophetic message of such sort 
 
 as bears heavily on the prophet's heart. 
 
 2. O LoED, how long shall I cry, and thon wilt not 
 hear ! even cry ont nnto thee of violence, and thou wilt 
 not save ! 
 
 3. Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me 
 to behold grievance ? for spoiling and violence are before 
 me : and there are that raise up strife and contention. 
 
 4. Therefore, the law is slacked, and judgment doth 
 never go forth : for the wicked doth compass about the 
 righteous ; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth. 
 
 A preliminary question arises here as to the general scope of 
 
240 IIABAKKUK.— CHAP. 1. 
 
 these verses. Some suppose they describe the effects of the Chal- 
 dean invasion — tlie demoralization and oppression which they pro- 
 duced ; others, that they present the state of morals and of the 
 public life of the Jewish nation shortly before that invasion. I 
 hold the latter view decidedly, for the following reasons: (1.) Be- 
 cause the prophets were accustomed to record the sins for which 
 God judges and punishes his people, before they record the punish- 
 ment itself. This is their established usage, and is, moreover, de- 
 manded by moral considerations, it being necessary for the best 
 moral results that not only the punished but the world should know 
 why God punishes. (2.) In v. 5 the prophet manifestly intro- 
 duces the Chaldean power for the first time to the reader's notice. 
 It was obviously imthought of before. That this must be true will 
 be readily seen by supposing the other theory (the first above 
 named) to be true. On this supposition the prophet (vs. 2-4) would 
 be made to say — Lord, how long shall I cry out to thee of the 
 mischiefs wrought by those Chaldean savages, and thou wilt not 
 hear? See how they have broken down the public morals, and 
 
 made justice between man and man a mockery ! To which (by 
 
 the supposition) the Lord replies: "Let all the heathen take notice 
 of it and marvel exceedingly, for I am about to do a strange and 
 almost incredible thing," And what is it? "I am raising up the 
 
 Chaldeans!" "Ah, Lord God," the prophet might reply, "we 
 
 have had them upon us a long time ! They are the very mischief 
 
 that I complain of," &c. Such a construction of the passage is 
 
 utterly inadmissible. (3.) The description (vs. 2-4) corresponds to 
 
 the moral and social state of Judah under the reign of Jehoiakim, 
 and also of Zedekiah. See Jer. 22, and 2 Chron. 36. The pubHc 
 morals were utterly prostrate, and wickedness in all forms was 
 rampant. (4.) On the other hand, the state of the country does 
 not correspond with the results of the Chaldean invasion. The lat- 
 ter are indicated in 3 : 17. Hence in vs. 2-4 I understand the 
 
 prophet to speak of the state of society in Judah before the Chal- 
 deans were thought of. V. 2 seems to imply that the prophet 
 
 liad been for some time in his prophetic work, laboring among a 
 degenerate people, battling against sin, and almost impatient that 
 the Lord did not interpose to convert, or chastise, or exterminate. 
 Jer. 22 shows that the people were then horribly corrupt, and that 
 tlieir king Jehoiakim was the weakest, meanest, and wickedest 
 king that had ever disgraced their throne. V. 3 is literally ren- 
 dered thus : " Why dost thou cause me to behold iniquity, and why 
 dost thou look (unconcerned) upon human misery? Destruction 
 and violence are before me ; there is strife, and men excite conten- 
 tion." The second clause does not weU admit the sense— Why dost 
 thou malce me leliold? The implied expostulation with God is 
 stronger — Why dost thou thyself look on this woe with no eftbrt 
 to relieve or prevent? The sense of v. 4 is not obscure: " There- 
 fore," under the influence of almost universal violence and strife, 
 law becomes frigid, cold as if near death ; right judgment is never 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. I. 24:1 
 
 issued by the courts of law ; the wicked circumvent the righteous, 
 and always secure unjust decisions. 
 
 5. Beliold ye among the heathen, and regard, and 
 wonder marvellously : for I will work a work in your 
 days, which ye will not believe though it be told you. 
 
 Here the Chaldeans are brought first to our notice. Indeed, it 
 would seem that they were brought by this prophecy to the notice 
 of the Jews as a dangerous j^otcer, they having previously neglected 
 to observe the sudden rise and rapid growth of this new power 
 among the nations. The Lord says, " Look abroad, consider atten- 
 tively, and you will have occasion to wonder exceedingly," the last 
 imperative in a series of two or more being usually in sense a fu- 
 ture. God will do a work which will seem incredible, even though 
 sustained by good testimony. 
 
 6. For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and 
 hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of 
 the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not 
 theirs. 
 
 This is the work, the raising up of a new first-class power, the 
 Chaldeans. By taking notice of recent events, the Jews might see 
 the rise of this power. The Chaldean king Nabopolassar, aided by 
 the Medes, had overthrown Nineveh (b. o. G25), as Nahum had 
 foretold. The Egj^Dtians, alarmed at their growth, came against 
 tliem, but were badly beaten at Carchemish, on the Euphrates. 
 Thenceforward no nation was able to stay their progress. The 
 Jews, moreover, were probably the less alarmed at this because 
 they were in sympathy with the Chaldean, while he was devasta- 
 ting Mneveh, and were certainly in league with him when Josiali 
 felt bound in honor to march out against Necho, king of Egypt, as 
 a common enemy to himself and to his ally, the Chaldean. But 
 relations of friendship with such a power are evanescent. The 
 Jews soon had reason to fear this new enemy. The Lord de- 
 scribes them, " bitter and rapid," " who march upon broad regions," 
 vast countries of the earth, L e.^ who fear nothing, and strike for 
 vast conquests. 
 
 7. They are terrible and dreadful : their judgment 
 and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. 
 
 8. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, 
 and are more fierce than the evening wolves : and their 
 horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen 
 shall come from far ; they shall fly as the eagle that hast- 
 eth to eat. 
 
 Sad proof that they were '' terrible and dreadful " appears in 
 the history (2 Chron. 36 : 17) : " lie brought upon them the king 
 11 
 
242 HABAKKUK.- -CHAP. I. 
 
 of tlie Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the 
 house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man 
 or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age." "Their judg- 
 ment and their dignity proceeding from themselves," seems to 
 mean that they are an independent, self-made people. Literally, it 
 reads — " Tlieir decision" (plans) "and their lofty bearing are self- 
 originated." In the clause, "their horsemen spread themselves," 
 
 the verb rendered " spread " means they " leap fiercely and proud- 
 ly," their horses being probably like the Arabian stock of more 
 modern times. Tlie flight of the eagle when roijsed by hunger is 
 a vivid figure for tlie most rapid motion then known. 
 
 9. They sliall come all for violence : their faces shall 
 sup up as the east wind, and thej shall gather the cap- 
 tivity as the sand. 
 
 In the clause, " their faces shall sup up as the east wind," the 
 obscurity of this translation suggests a doubt of its correctness. 
 The various marginal readings confirm the opinion that our trans- 
 lators were much perplexed with the passage. Later commentators 
 also doubt and differ. It is difl5cult. The principal word * is little 
 known in our extant Hebrew. Henderson renders — " The aspect 
 of their faces is like the east wind." Gesenius — " The gathering 
 of their faces is forward." The latter I approve, with only a slight 
 modification, so as to signify not the act of gathering, but their 
 faces already gathered, i. e.^ " the set or phalanx of their faces is 
 forward ; " all as one in solid phalanx and complete array, they set 
 their faces forward, turning never to the right hand nor to the left, 
 and turning back for none. This construction answers to the indi- 
 vidual w^ords, and to the demands of the context. Such an army 
 will, of course, gather up captives as the sand. 
 
 10. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes 
 shall 1)6 a scorn unto them : they shall deride every strong- 
 hold ; for they shall heap dust, and take it. 
 
 More than fearless of kings and of strongholds, they scoff at the 
 one and deride the other. It is only their sport to strike terror 
 
 through them all. The last clause alludes to the usual method in 
 
 that age of capturing walled towns — heaping up huge embank- 
 ments of earth that even overtopped the enemy's walls, whence 
 they hurled their missiles into the city. 
 
 11. Then shall his mind change, and he shall 
 pass over, and offend, imjmthig this his power unto his 
 god. 
 
 The sentiment of this verse is, that constant success ha* made 
 the Chaldean another man. The moderation and modesty of hia 
 
HABAKKUK. -CHAP. I. 243 
 
 early years have given place to unbounded aspirations. He assumes 
 that the gods are on his side, and ascribes his victories to their 
 
 favor and help. The first verb, rendered in our version 
 
 "change," means more definitely ^'' to pass over''' — to pass beyond 
 former bounds. The next verb, which tlie English version renders 
 "shall pass over," usually means to go beyond due bounds, in the 
 sense to transgress. The verse therefore means to say that suc- 
 cess has excited his ambition, and also given stimulus to his trust 
 in his idol gods ; and for both reasons will bring down on him the 
 wrath of the Almighty. 
 
 Vs. 9-11 may be translated thus: "They shall all come for 
 violence ; the serried host of their faces is forward, and so they 
 shall gather captives as the sand. They shall scofi" at kings ; princes 
 shall be their derision; they laugh at all strongholds, and forth- 
 with cast up embankments, and so shall take them. Then his spirit 
 is changed ; he transgresses and sins, ascribing this power of hi» 
 to his god." 
 
 12. Art thou not from everlasting, O Lokd my God, 
 mine Holy One ? we shall not die. O Loed, tlioii hast 
 ordained them for judgment ; and, O mighty God, thou 
 hast established them for correction. 
 
 Here the prophet interposes. The remainder of this chapter 
 must be expounded as his expostulation or debate with God, the 
 spirit of which is : " O Lord, spare thy heritage, and give it not over 
 to utter devastation. Thy people doubtless need correction, and thou 
 hast ordained the Chaldean power for this purpose ; but do not let 
 them ruin our nation utterly and forever. They are more wicked 
 than we, and they hold human life cruelly cheap, as the fishermen 
 do the lives of the little fishes brought up by their huge drag-nets." 
 
 It will be noted that the prophet seizes the best point formtro- 
 
 ducing his plea — just where the Chaldean's sins of ambition and 
 
 trust in idols are brought before the mind. The phrase "we 
 
 shall not die," might be more fitly rendered, "Let us not die," i.e., 
 "let not thy chosen people be utterly destroyed." He sees that 
 they need discipline, and recognizes God's purpose to use the Chal- 
 dean power for this end. 
 
 13. Thoic art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and 
 canst not look on iniquity : wherefore lookest thou upon 
 them that deal treacherously, a7id boldest thy tongue 
 
 the wdcked devoureth me man that is more rio-ht- 
 
 when 
 
 fe' 
 
 eous than he ? 
 
 11. And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the 
 creeping things, that have no ruler over them ? 
 
 The verb rendered "look," occurring here twice — " look on ini- 
 quity," and " look on them that deal treacherously" — is the same with 
 
24:4 HABAEKUK.— CHAP. II. 
 
 the second verb in v. 8, there rendered (improperly) " cause lue to 
 behold." The sense here, as there, I take to be, " Thon canst not 
 look calmly and unconcerned upon iniquity, or rather, upon misery 
 — the woe that sin begets ; it is not in thy nature. Wherefore, 
 then, dost thou look quietly on the perfidious — those faithless 
 Chaldeans — and wherefore art thou silent," &c. One point in the 
 prophet's plea is, that the Chaldeans are greater sinners than the 
 Jews ; therefore the Lord should not allow the greater sinners to 
 devour the less. 
 
 The connection with the previous verse is close. That wicked 
 Chaldean not only devours his more righteous brother nation, but 
 eats up men as if they were little fishes before him, or the tiny 
 insects which have no protector. 
 
 15. Tliey take up all of them with the angle, they 
 catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag : 
 therefore they rejoice and are glad. 
 
 16. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn 
 incense imto their drag ; because by them their portion 
 ^6' fat, and their meat plenteous. 
 
 The figure of speech which compares the seizing and consuming 
 of nations of men to the taking of fishes in a net, runs through this 
 verse. "Drag" is really a drag-net^ dvomn along the bottom to 
 
 scoop up small and great together. Their idolatrous hearts and 
 
 habits must not be omitted in this argument with Jehovah. 
 " These impious Chaldeans have no regard for thee, O Lord. They 
 ascribe all their success to their nets, and worship them as their 
 gods, honoring their own martial prowess, and not the ever-living 
 God." 
 
 17. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not 
 spare continually to slay the nations ? 
 
 Will God allow them to go on, emptying and then filling theii* 
 nets, and having no compassion in their souls toward sparing tho 
 nations from perpetual slaughter ? Such is the prophet's plea in be- 
 half of his people. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In this chax)ter the prophet is seen on his watch-tower, waiting 
 for an answer from the Lord to his expostulations (v. 1.) The 
 remainder of the chapter contains this answer in its various parts, 
 directing the prophet first to write out tho vision plainly (v. 2); 
 assuring him it was soon to be fulfilled (v. 8) ; indicating how the 
 proud and unbelieving would abuse it, but the believing be blessed 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. IT. " 245 
 
 thereby (v. 4) ; and then (vs. 5-20) depicting the sins of the Chal- 
 deans, and showing that both general justice and the special agencies 
 of God's providence would surely overtake them with fearful 
 retribution. 
 
 1. I will stand upon mj watcli, and set me npon tlie 
 tower, and will watch to see wdiat lie will say nnto me, 
 and what I shall answer when I am reproved. 
 
 Considered as a seer, the prophet must needs loolc two Avays : 
 first, to God, for his message ; and then down into the future, and 
 abroad into the realms of divine providence, to see those coming 
 events which no human vision, unaided, could reach. This verse 
 strikingly presents the prophet looking the first way — toward God. 
 He says : "I will take ray stand on my watch-tower, and place 
 myself on the fortress, and will watch to see what God will say to 
 me, and what I shall bring back (from Him)" concerning my expos- 
 tulation. " The message I shall bring back from God, and what 
 God will say to me," are essentially parallel clauses with the same 
 idea. The word here rendered "shall answer,"* much more 
 naturally means to bring back, i. e., from God, than to answer 
 
 to God. In the first chapter, some of the prophet's expostulations 
 
 amounted very nearly to rebuke and chiding; and this idea is 
 frequently embraced in the noun here used, t rendered in our Eng- 
 lish version, " when I am reproved," but better, " concerning my 
 expostulation," i. <?., with God. The preposition before the noun 
 fits this construction, having the sense, concerning, in reference to. 
 The prophet having said what is recorded (chap. 1 : 12-17), should 
 of course watch to see how the Lord received it, and what he would 
 say in reply. He acted for the people of Judah, representing their 
 case before God, and could not but feel deeply solicitous to get the 
 answer both for himself and for them. 
 
 2. And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the 
 vision, and make it plain npon tables, that he may run 
 that readeth it. 
 
 Here the answer begins. " Write the vision " — all I reveal — 
 " engrave it on tablets, so that the reader of it may run," i. <?, with 
 it, reading from it as he runs. "He that readeth in it," is possibly 
 here a public reader for an assembly; but in this case, since he is 
 expected to run^ he is more probably a public crier for the streets 
 and public grounds. Some interpret thus : That he may run his 
 eye over it easily and rapidly, as sermon-readers over their manu- 
 scripts. But though the word for reader may mean either a reader 
 before an audience, or a herald in public grounds, yet no Hebrew 
 usage sustains the sense oi JIuent reading for the verb to run. 
 
246 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 
 
 3. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at 
 tlie end it shall speak, and not lie : though it tarry, wait 
 for it ; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. 
 
 Tlicrc seems to be no absolute demand for restricting the vision 
 here spoken of to any particular part of what God revealed to Habak- 
 kiik. Of the whole, the main events yet future were : (1.) The Ohal- 
 (Jean invasion of Judah (recorded 1 : 5-11) ; and (2.) The ultimate 
 destruction of the Chaldean power, and of Babylon, in righteous ret- 
 ribution for their sins (2 : 5-21). Yet, inasmuch as the latter was 
 
 then about to be announced to the prophet (the former having been 
 so already), and especially, inasmuch as this latter was the hopeful 
 part to the Jewish mind, toward which they might look v/ith com 
 fort, as being a proof of God's mercy toward themselves and of 
 his regard for intrinsic justice and righteousness, we may well 
 assume that in this verse the latter is specially in mind. Both parts 
 were fixed in the divine counsels, each had its definite time to 
 wait, yet neither would tarry long. The former came probably 
 within a few months; the latter at the end of about seventy years, 
 Cyrus being the instrument of Jehovah's vengeance in its execu- 
 tion. In the second clause, the word rendered "shall speak," is 
 
 supposed by Gesenius to mean here " shall hasten." This word, 
 however, meaning primarily to breathe out, to breathe hard, to 
 throw out the breath, has much more often the secondary sense to 
 speah than to hasten. The former is also more naturally correlated 
 with " shall not lie." Sense — At the end it shall testify for itself 
 without mistake as to its fulfilment. Ye shall know the fulfilment 
 
 when it comes. In the last two clauses the English version 
 
 seems first to imply that it will "tarry," and then to afiirm that it 
 will not "tarry." the Hebrew has no such apparent contradiction, 
 for it uses two different verbs, and does not, as the English does, 
 repeat the same. " Though it linger, yet wait for it, for it will 
 surely come ; it will not be JyeTiind the time^'''' L e., will not be too late, 
 so as to come in aftencards. This is the exact sense of the second 
 verb. 
 
 4. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright 
 in him : but the just shall live by his faith. 
 
 In these times that try men's souls, involving the invasion by 
 the terrible Chaldeans, just coming upon the people as announced 
 above (1 : 5-10), and the retribution to come at some future day 
 on them — a thing of faith, forming the chief burden of chapter 
 2 — some would be intensely agitated, having practically no faith 
 in God's promises, or in his threatened retributive judgments on 
 the wicked Chaldean, Others would repose calmly upon God 
 through their faith. These two classes are before us in this verse. 
 I i)araphraso it tlius: "Behold the ])roud, disquieted man. His 
 soul within him is not placid; but as for the righteous man, he 
 shall live by his laith." The verb "?i?;c"mu3t bo taken in its 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 247 
 
 verj' common moral sense of true blessing:s — the calm repose of a 
 
 true faith in God. Tlie Hebrew accents connect very closely tlie 
 
 words rendered " the jusf'' and " ly ?iis faith,^'' showing that the 
 earher Jews read the clause, " He Avho is all right in respect to his 
 foith shall live." This construction also makes a natural antithesis 
 between the proud man of the first clause and the sincerely be- 
 lieving man of the second. The former is never placid ; the latter 
 enjoys in the rest of faith that true life which is real blessedness. 
 
 The construction given first above disregards the authority of the 
 
 accents. Some take the proud, disquieted man of this verse to be 
 
 the Chaldean. I prefer to find in him the unbelieving Jew, and 
 assume that the discourse turns to the Chaldean in v. 5. 
 
 5. Yea, also, because lie transgresseth by wine, he is 
 a proud man, neither keepetli at home, who enlargeth 
 his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satis- 
 fied, bnt gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth 
 unto him all people : 
 
 At this point the strain of discourse turns to the Chaldean power, 
 considered as a unit, and continues to speak of him through the 
 
 chapter. Starting with the thought in the first clause of v. 4 — 
 
 the case of the proud, unbelieving, and therefore disquieted Jew — 
 the prophet proceeds to say: "How much more of this one (the 
 Chaldean) because he errs the more by reason of wine, is a proud 
 man, and never rests quietly at home ; who enlarges his desire as 
 Sheol {L <3., the grave) does its mouth, and he is like Death and is 
 never satisfied ; and consequently he gathers unto him all the na- 
 tions and annexes to himself all the peoples." This represents the 
 ambition of a yoimg conquering power, grasping the dominion of 
 the world, and, like Alexander, pained to tears when he finds no 
 
 other world to conquer. Such is the Chaldean. The reader will 
 
 note, here and onward through the chapter, how the Lord does in 
 fact answer the expostulations of his prophet, recorded 1 : 12-lT. 
 The prophet had virtually said : "0 Lord, thou art ever righteous 
 and just; thou canst not look quietly on wrong and its resulting 
 miseries; how, then, canst thou see the Chaldean exterminate an- 
 other nation more righteous than he ? How canst thou let him go 
 on unpunished, sweeping the nations into his drag-net, and slaugh- 
 tering myriads of men to satiate his mad ambition? " The Lord 
 
 replies : Be at rest ; the Chaldean is indeed guilty, he shall have his 
 just doom not far hence. There shall never be just occasion to say 
 or to think that I can look down upon wrong-doing and its conse- 
 quent misery with indifference, or that justice has forsaken my 
 throne. This is what the prophet brings back from God concern- 
 ing his expostulation (2 : 1). 
 
 G. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, 
 and a taunting proverb against him, and saj. Woe tc 
 
24:8 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 
 
 liim that increasetli that lohich is not liis ! how long ? and 
 to him that ladetli himself with thick clay ! 
 
 The great sin of the Chaldean havin.j? been indicatetl, retribution 
 comes next. The moral sense of mankind is a2:ainst him, condemn- 
 ing his grasping, cruel ambition, and demanding vengeance. Of 
 course, it is implied that the voice of universal humanity is also 
 
 the voice of God. 'The special mode of giving utterance to this 
 
 voice of mankind is that of pronouncing a iDoe on the Chaldean, 
 superadding to the solemnity of the woe the keen retort which car- 
 ries with it the idea of deserved and righteous retribution — the sort 
 of taunt expressed when men say, " You have only your deserts." 
 A similar taunt, done in the loftiest strain of irony, may be seen in 
 
 Isa. 14, over the foreseen fall of this same Babylon. " Shall not 
 
 all these nations whom he has warred against, subdued, or imper- 
 illed, take up this taunting strain against him and say : Woe to him 
 who grasps and accumulates what is not his own ! How long must 
 this be? " — implying that in the Chaldean's purpose there would be 
 no end to it, but in the retributions of justice it could not last long. 
 
 "Woe to him that ladeth himself" (not with " thick clay," but) 
 
 " with goods taken in pledge " — such as the Hebrew law forbado 
 men to keep over night if taken from the poor — the sense being, 
 with sins against mankind which demand and shall have their just 
 retribution. The Chaldean was loading himself quite too heavily 
 
 with sins that would bring upon him the vengeance of justice. 
 
 This taunting strain is methodically arranged — its successive stan- 
 zas beginnmg witli " Woe " — as the reader may sec (vs. 6, 9, 12, 15, 
 19). 
 
 7. Shall they not rise np suddenly that shall bite 
 thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be 
 for booties unto them ? 
 
 Those who ultimately came down on Babylon to " bite " and to 
 " vex " her — God's instruments for vengeance upon her, viz., the 
 Medo-Persian power — did start up suddenly, and spring upon her 
 in an unexpected hour, and she became their spoil. 
 
 8. Because thon hast spoiled many nations, all the 
 remnant of the people shall spoil thee ; because of men's 
 blood, and /"or the violence of the land, of the city, and 
 of all that dwell therein. 
 
 "Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remaining 
 nations" (not utterly crushed) "shall make common cause, and 
 shall spoil thee, — because of the blood of men " (shed in wanton 
 profusion), and for the violence wrought in the earth, in the city, 
 and upon all that dwell therein." 
 
 9. Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to 
 bis house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may 
 be delivered from the power of evil ! 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 240 
 
 The Chaldeans emi)lo7ed the wealth and the mnscle of tlie na- 
 tions they subdued, in building their immense walls, towers, and 
 castles — hoping thereby to make their city impregnable, and thus 
 deliver themselves from the fear of future harm from foreign ene- 
 mies. They did indeed set their nest on high, as the eagle in the 
 lofty crags of the rock. 
 
 10. Tliou Last consulted slianie to thy lionse by cut- 
 ting oif many people, and hast sinned against thy soul ! 
 
 Thy counsels in this thing have brought shame (implying not 
 only dishonor but ruin) to thy house, destroying so many nations to 
 enrich thyself. So doing, thou hast sinned against thine own life. 
 
 Other instances of the x>hrase — "to sin against one's own sou 
 
 or life " — may be seen, Prov. 8 : 36 and 20 : 2. 
 
 11. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the 
 beam out of the timber shall answer it. 
 
 The sense of wrong and the demand for retribution, so universal 
 in all human hearts, "is, by a bold but most beautiful conception, 
 thought of here as pervading the very stones and timbers of the 
 house built by injustice. Jesus Christ once said — " If these should 
 hold their peace, tlie stones would immediately cry out." So the 
 stone in this wall cries out against the wrong done — against the 
 bloody fingers laid upon it — and the cross-beam among the timbers 
 responds to reecho the complaint. 
 
 12. "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, 
 and establisheth a city by iniquity ! 
 
 13. Behold, is it not of the Lokd of hosts that the 
 people shall labor in the very lire, and the people shall 
 weary themselves for very vanity ? 
 
 This woe looks to the city of Babylon. She obtained hei 
 laborers for her immense walls by taking them captive in war, and 
 then coercing them into slaves under her military power. So they 
 wrought Avith their bloody fingers. Babylon laid up her walls in 
 blood and planted their foundations in wrong: so the woes of God 
 
 and of universal justice abode upon her ! " Behold," calls special 
 
 attention to the fact that it came from the Lord of hosts that this 
 great work was done, not ''in the fire," but ''for the fire," to be 
 consumed ere long, both utterly and forever. So also in the parallel 
 clause — "for mere vanity" — for no enduring benefit.^ The original 
 is expressive — "for fire in plenty^''^ for abundance of fire— that it 
 may become the sport of whirlwinds of flame. Surely this is of the 
 Lord : let all men see his hand and his righteous retribution in all 
 
 this! Essentially the same language is used by Jeremiah 
 
 (51 : 58) : " Thus saith the Lord of hosts ;"The broad walls of Baby- 
 Ion shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned witli 
 fire, and the people shall labor in vain and the folk for the 
 11* 
 
250 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 
 
 fire ; and they sIiuU be weary ;" but though hiboring to wcarineas, 
 yet all in vain. 
 
 14. For the eartli sliall be filled witli tlie knowledge 
 of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 
 
 The general scope of the context must determine the specific 
 sense of this passage. This shows that the prophet thinks of God 
 as glorifying himself by the retributions of justice on nations guilty 
 of great oppression and wrong. Hence our verse assumes it to be 
 a great principle in the government of God over nations as such 
 that lie will not only glorify himself by the retributions of justice 
 upon them, but Avill fill the Avhole earth with the knowledge of this 
 glory, even as the waters cover the bed of the sea. He will 
 manifest himself so abundantly as the avenger of the oppressed and 
 as one who takes vengeance on oppressors, that no man in all the 
 
 earth can fail to know it — none be too blind to sec it. The same 
 
 sentiment is in Num. 14 : 21 — referring there, however, to retribu- 
 tion on the unbelieving Hebrews wdio gave credit to the unbelieving 
 spies more than to the God of all the promises : "But as truly as I 
 live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord " — • 
 which was revealed then in forty years of wandering in the desert, 
 through privations and plagues which swept to their early graves 
 
 the last man of that unbelieving host. The very analogous 
 
 promise (Isa. 11 : 9) looks towards the visitations of mercy and the 
 triumphs of love : — " They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
 mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord as the waters cover the sea;" and this knowledge shall mould 
 human hearts into the spirit of heavenly love and blessed peace. 
 
 So it is clearly in God's plan to manifest his glory in both ways 
 
 —in the retributions of justice, and in the visitations of mercy. 
 
 15. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, 
 that piittest thy bottle to him^ and makest liim drunken 
 also, that thon mayest look on their nakedness ! 
 
 IG. Thon art filled with shame for glory : drink thon 
 also, and let thy foreskin be nncovered : the cup of the 
 Lokd's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shame- 
 ful spewing shall he on thy glory. 
 
 Translated thus : " Woe to him who causcth his neighbor to 
 drink" {i. c., whatever can intoxicate) — "who pourest out thy hot 
 wine that inflames, and even makest him drunken — that thou 
 mayest look (exultingly) on their nakedness!" "Thou shalt 
 have thy fill of shame instead of glory ; drink thou too and expose 
 thine own nakedness. The cup of the Lord's right hand shall come 
 round to thee, and shame shall come over all thy glory. The 
 rendering " shameful spewing," though pertinent sense, is not 
 well sustained by the original text. The "cup of the Lord's 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. II. 251 
 
 right hand" carries the mind to the' fuller statement by Jeremiah 
 (25 : 15 :) " Take the Avine-cup of tliis fury at my hand, and causo 
 all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it. And they shall 
 drink and be moved and be mad, because of the sword that I shall 
 send among them." See Notes on Nahum 1 : 10. The Babylo- 
 nians were notorious for their excesses in Avine and strong drink, 
 for which God remembered them in the day of his visitation. 
 Much in point here are the facts of her history when on the very 
 night of her final fall, Belsliazzar and his lords drank wine from the 
 sacred vessels of Jehovah's temple, and in the height of their 
 drunken revelry the thunder-bolts of ruin fell ! (Dan. 5 : 1-4, 30^ 
 and Jer. 51 : 39), 
 
 17. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, 
 and the spoil of beasts, toJiich made them afraid, because 
 of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the 
 city, and of all that dvv^ell therein, 
 
 " The violence of Lebanon " is not that done hj Lebanon 
 (this would be entirely aside from the course of thought) ; but done 
 to Lebanon. " Lebanon " here is probably Jerusalem and her 
 temple — so named partly because the cedars of Lebanon w^ere in 
 her temple — partly in reference to the lofty grandeur of that 
 
 mountain which fitly symbolized the glory of the holy city. Tlie 
 
 violence done by Babylon to Jerusalem shall return in retribution 
 to overwhelm herself. So also shall an onslanght like that on a 
 herd of wild beasts which terrifies them, fall on thee — imjdying 
 that they would be in like manner frightened and panic-smitten. 
 
 In this translation, I supply the needed verb from the next 
 
 preceding clause. Two things cover Babylon, in the sense of over- 
 whelming her in the day of her ruin, viz., the violence she has 
 brought on Lebanon (Jerusalem), and an onslaught like that on 
 wild beasts, who furnish a striking example of a x^^anic-smitten 
 liost, The last clause has occurred verbatim (v. 8). 
 
 18. What profiteth the graven image that the maker 
 thereof hath graven it ; the molten image, and a teacher 
 of lies, that the maker of liis work trusteth therein, to 
 make dumb idols ? 
 
 Exegetically, the only question In this verse turns on the precise 
 relation between tlie first clause and tliose that follow, indicated in 
 our English Bible by " thut the maker," &c. Some take the con- 
 necting particle* as a relative, thus: " What's tlie use of the graven 
 image lohkli its maker gravcth ? " I prefer to make this particle 
 indicate a reason why idol images are profitless, ^z., hccause they 
 are made by human fingers , thus — " What can be the use of a 
 graven image, ^r its human maker hath wrought it," &c, "" Wha< 
 
252 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 is the use of a molten image and a teacher of lies (an idol priest), 
 for the maker of it trusts in his own work, in a thing himself has 
 made ? " 
 
 19. Woe unto liim tliat saitli to tlie wood, Awake ; 
 to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach ! Behold, it is 
 laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at 
 all in the midst of it. 
 
 All this is plain, and sots forth vividly the intense folly of idol- 
 making, idol-worship, and of all trust in idols. 
 
 20. But the Lord is in his holy temple : let all the 
 earth keep silence before him. 
 
 All unlike the whole idol system are the power, the majesty, and 
 the all-pervading reign of the dread Jehovah ! That he should be 
 thought of ly a Jew as in Ms Jioly temple at Jerusalem, was both 
 natural and truthful ; for his manifested presence loas there in tlie 
 Holy of Holies, reposing above the mercy-seat and beneath the 
 wings of the cherubim. All the idol temples Avere godless. ISTot so 
 
 the temple of the Lord of hosts in Mount Zion ! His rule is both 
 
 supreme and universal. Let all the earth stand in awe before him 
 — all the more so, as they note how tlie proud and conquering 
 nations of the earth, like old Babylon, meet their righteous doom 
 from the retributive justice of his throne ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 This chapter, said in the preface to be a " prayer," is not exclu- 
 sively or even chiefly prayer in its strict sense ; though it begins 
 with prayer and closes with most wonderful utterances of simple 
 faith and exulting joy in God. The chapter is chiefly song^ em- 
 bodying as the immediate answer to his prayer what is technically 
 called a " theopliany " — i. e., a manifestation of God to his prophet 
 — to his mental, not bodily eye, we must suppose ; bringing np be- 
 fore him in vivid review the glorious things God had wrought for 
 his people in ancient days. The special aim was to reveal God as 
 seen in his glorious power, and in his loving faitlifulness to his 
 chosen people, so that the prophet should see that Jehovah is verily 
 great anel glorious, and especially Avorthy to be trusted as the endur- 
 ing protector of his own people. It Avas under the influence of this 
 sublimely grand manifestation of Jeliovah, that the prophet makes 
 at the close suth an utterance of his simple faith and of his un- 
 bounded joy and triumph in the God of his salvation. 
 
 The publication of this song, in connection with the revelation of 
 such calamities, was designed to inspire the same faith and joy in 
 the believing portion of the people as it had done in the prophet's oav n 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 253 
 
 Boul, despite of the fall of their beloved city and land before the 
 terrible Chaldean power. 
 
 1. A prayer of Ilabahkuk tlic prophet upon Sliig- 
 ionoth. 
 
 "Upon Shigionoth," refers to the mnsic in "vvliich tliis song was 
 to be sung — no doubt lofty, bold, triuniplial, in keeping with the 
 strain of the sentiment. 
 
 2. O LoED, 1 have heard thy speecli and was afraid : 
 O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in 
 the midst of the years make known ; in wrath remember 
 mere}-. 
 
 " Lord, I have heard thy message " — verbal prediction, i. e., 
 concerning the invasion by the Chaldeans (as recorded chap. 1: 5-11), 
 " and I was afraid." '' O Lord, re-enact thy work " (of deliverance 
 for thy people) " in tlie midst of these years ; even now make 
 known" — 1 ^., thyself and thy power to save; in this manifesta- 
 tion of thy wrath against ns for our sins, "remember mercy." 
 
 The word rendered "revive," means literally to maTce aline. In 
 this connection it must be in the sense of reproducing, performing 
 once more those great works of salvation for Israel with which 
 
 their early history is filled. The language of this prayer, " O 
 
 Lord revive thy work," may be used fitly by all Christians in the 
 way of accommodation, as a prayer for a revival of true religion in 
 the hearts of men. Yet this passage must be interpreted according 
 to the nature of the subject as shown in the context; and this re- 
 quires us here to apply the words to God's work of saving his people 
 from being utterly ruined by the Chaldean invasion, then close at 
 hand. 
 
 3. God came from Teman, and the Holy One from 
 mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered tiie heavens, 
 and the earth was full of his praise. 
 
 Tlie theophany proper commences here. Bearing in mind 
 that the prophet had besought God to reproduce those glorious 
 w^orks of saving power wrought of old for his peojjle, we shall read- 
 ily see the fitness of this peculiar manifestation. The Lord seems, 
 practically, to reply to his servant — Thou hast prayed me to do 
 again wdiat I did in ancient days for my people. Eather let it sufiice 
 thee that I make all my glory pass before thee in displays of my power 
 and faithful love to my people. Thou shalt see the uplifted glorious 
 arm of Jehovah, as in former times, made bare for his people, and 
 thou shalt know that I am still and evermore the God of thy sal- 
 vation. It is plain that God forbore to do precisely the thing for 
 
 which Ilabakkuk prayed — i. e., come down to save Judea and Jeru- 
 salem just as he had long before saved his people out of Egypt, and 
 made them victorious in Canaan ;--but he docs a second thing, not 
 
254 HABAKKUK.— CIIAP. III. 
 
 less efFectivc for the repose and even joy of the prophet's heart : 
 he makes such revelations of himself hy the aid of those historic 
 scenes as avail to inspire unbounded faith and even triumphant joy 
 in the God of his salvation. Probably we can get no better con- 
 ception of this theophany, as it appeared to ITahakkuk, than to 
 conceive of it as a panorama^ passings before the prophet's mental 
 eye — the divine Spirit causing him in the light of those ancient 
 historic scenes to lieliold a present God^ marching before the hosts 
 of his chosen, or standing on the confines of Canaan, or Hfting up 
 his voice in awful thunder, shaking the mountains and filling rivers 
 and seas with consternation. The prophet's mental state was such, 
 we may suppose, as Elisha prayed for in behalf of his servant — 
 "Lord, open his eyes that he may sec. And the Lord opened the 
 eyes of the young man, and he saw ; and behold, the mountain was 
 full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha " (2 Kings G : 
 17). So the eyes of Habakkuk were opened and lie sate God ; — the 
 groundwork of this manifestation of God being his former deeds of 
 power in delivering his people from their enemies, and planting 
 them in their promised land. These scenes are made to pass before 
 him in a sort of panoramic vision, while God opened his eyes to see 
 things in their true relations to the ever-present agency of Him 
 who worketh all in all, and worketh none the less really because 
 for the most part invisibly to mortal eyes. 
 
 Similar conceptions and representations of God are not uncom- 
 mon in Hebrew poetry. Thus (Deut. 33 : 2, 20, 27) Moses, in his 
 last w^ords of blessing upon the tribes, said: " The Lord came from 
 Sinai, and rose up (like the rising of a sun) from Seir unto them ; 
 he shone forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands 
 
 of saints — from his right hand Avent a fiery law for them." 
 
 Also, " There is none like unto the God of Jesurun, who ridetli 
 
 upon the heavens in thy help and in his excellency on the sky." 
 
 This is as if his very eye saw without a veil the unclouded majesty 
 of the Infinite One I Such was his poetic conception of the scenes 
 of Sinai ; or, as we might Siiy — This was Sinai seen in pcmoreimic 
 vision. Of the same character is a passage in the Song of Debo- 
 rah — (Judg. 5 : 4, 5), "Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, W'hen 
 thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and 
 the heavens dropped ; the clouds also dropped water. The moun- 
 tains quaked (so the Heb.) before the Lord, even that Sinai before 
 the Lord God of Israel." Of the same sort is Ps. G8 : 7, 8, 33 : " O 
 God, wTien thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst 
 march through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens also 
 dropped at the presence of God, the God of Israek" — "Sing praises 
 to him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens that were of old; 
 
 lo, he doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice." Very 
 
 similar in the line of poetic conception are many expressions in 
 Ps. 77 : 10-20 and 114 : 1-8, and Isa. 63 : 11-14., e. g., "The waters 
 saw thee, O God ; the waters saw thee, they were afraid ; the depths 
 ftlso were troubled." "The sea saw it and ficd; Jordan was driven 
 
DABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 255 
 
 back. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou flcddest?" &c. A? 
 if the great deep Avere waked into intelligence and consciousness hy 
 those august and thrilling manifestations of the majesty of her King 1 
 
 Such conceptions of dead nature quickened to life, thought, and 
 
 feeling before a present God, give wonderful power to these pano- 
 ramic scenes, of which the one intent is to set the all-working and 
 
 energizing God before the mind. Some Christians in later ages 
 
 have testified to manifestations of God to their souls, under which 
 their sense of his attributes and works has been not less impressive 
 than supernatural presentations of divine power to the senses would 
 be. Not without reason, they ascribe these manifestations of God 
 to the divine Spirit's agency. In this manifestation to Ilabakkuk, 
 
 the hand of the same Divine Teacher must be assumed. It is 
 
 remarkable how much these conceptions of God working upon 
 Kature, and of ISTatm-e responding to the agencies of God, blend 
 themselves with tlie genuine spirit of poetry, exemplifying the fact 
 that genuine poetry, so far from being necessarily unreal and un- 
 truthful, may be the veriest reality and the purest truth. Most 
 certain it is that the poetic conceptions of God and of Nature in 
 this theophany in nowise over-paint the actual verities of things. 
 
 Before I proceed to comment on particular terms or clauses, a 
 few words are due in respect to the use of the tenses in this theoph- 
 any. If the views advanced above are just, it is obvious that the 
 
 tenses throughout should be present. A panorama made up of a se- 
 ries of historic paintings must naturally represent each scene as 
 present. The events which constitute the groundwork, and to 
 which the paintings perpetually refer, may have transpired long 
 ago. Others like them may occur again ; but the painting has for 
 
 its object to give the observer a view of them as tben passing. 
 
 So here, all is made present by the impressions wrought upon the 
 
 prophet's mind by the teaching Spirit.* These preliminary re* 
 
 marks will sufficiently prepare the way for the study of the pas- 
 sage. " God comes up from Teman," the South, this being both 
 
 the etymological significance of the name, and the geographical po- 
 sition of the place. Mount Paran is well known as often associated 
 with Sinai. God comes up from those regions as one Avho had re- 
 vealed liimself there in forms of surpassing majesty and glory in the 
 giving of the law. — — It will be recollected that Moses (in Dent, 
 oo) and the author of Ps. 08 both speak of God as coming up from 
 
 Mount Sinai, the land of the south.- The best critics mostly agree 
 
 that '"Selah " is a musical term, meaning ^aws^, and perhaps a direc- 
 
 * The Hebrew student will rendily cotice that in this passage (vs. 3-15) 
 both of the two normal Hebrew tenses are u^ed, the perfect and the imper- 
 fect (often called the future), some of the verbs being in one tense and 
 some in the other. The explanation of this rcmarkahle fact seems to be 
 that these two tenses meet at a common centre in the present, and in a 
 case of this sort, may be used almost indiscriminately for the present, yet 
 not altogether so, since still the perfect will inipl}' that the event ^cas a.s 
 jv'ell as is f' and the imperfect not only that it is, but wlU he yet again. 
 
256 UABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 tion to tlie singers to rest while the instruments filled out an inter- 
 lude. In some cases (not in all) the thought just expressed renders 
 
 a pause for reflection appropriate. His visible glory seems to 
 
 illumine the whole concave heavens above. The earth is full of 
 manifestations of God that are proper themes of praise. The sense 
 is not that he sees the world full of men actually praising God, but 
 rather that the very earth itself seems vocal with praises. Moun- 
 tains, rivers, and the pestilence, all seem to be doing God's work 
 so perfectly, though unconsciously, as to fill all the earth with 
 voices of praise. 
 
 4. And his briglitness was as the light ; lie had horns 
 coming ont of his hand ; and there vms the hiding of his 
 power. 
 
 The word rendered "hght,"* modern critics suppose here to 
 mean the sun. Also that "horns coming out of his hand" are 
 rays of light streaming forth and bearing to the eye the appearance 
 of horns. The Arabic (a cognate language) shows that this usage of 
 " horn " is oriental. It is also Hebraistic, as appears in the use of 
 the same word as a verb (Ex. 34 : 29, 30, 35), where three times 
 over it is said that the skin of Moses' face was liorny^ i. e., emitted 
 
 horn-like rays of light ; in the English version, '■'■ slione.'''' The 
 
 whole verse may be freely translated — " His brightness was as the 
 sun in his strength ; rays of light streamed from his hand ; there 
 lay concealed his unknown power." 
 
 5. Before him went the pestilence, and bnrning coals 
 went foi'th at his feet. 
 
 Jehovah is still coming up from the land of the south, the re- 
 gion of Sinai and the wilderness, marching at the head of the thou- 
 sands of Israel, to give them possession of Canaan. This is the con- 
 ception of God throughout this theophany (vs. 3-15). Before 
 
 him moves onward the pestilence, and fevers seem to go forth from 
 his presence on their mission of death. The word rendered "burn- 
 ing coals" has but two well-established senses: (1) lightnings; 
 (2) fevers — both having the common idea of intense heat. The 
 general sense is that God sent " the hornet " (see Ex. 23 : 28 ; Deut. 
 7: 20, and Josh. 24: 12), i. e., plagues, judgments, and, no doubt, 
 the pestilence, to cut off the strong and warlike Canaanites, and 
 make them a more easy conquest to the then unwarlike children of 
 Israel. It is very obvious, from a comparison of the Canaanites 
 as seen by the spies, with the Canaanites as found by Joshua, that 
 by some means a great change had come over them. Their mili- 
 tary prowess was far less formidable. 
 
 6. lie stood, and measured the earth : he beheld, 
 and drove asunder the nations ; and the everlasting 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 257 
 
 mountains were scattered, the perpetual liills did bow : 
 his ways are everlasting. 
 
 The sense is, I see liim stand (as in the days of Joshua he stood) 
 on the confines of Canaan, a mighty conqueror and the rightful 
 Lord of all; "he measures off the land" for his people with the 
 sweep of his eye, according to the purposes of his wisdom. "He 
 looks^^'' and the terror of "that look "drives asunder the nations" 
 of Canaan, and dispossesses them of their land, that his people may 
 take possession. In the presence of such majesty " the everlasting 
 mountains are scattered ; " " the enduring hills bow low " as in awe 
 before him; "his ways are of old," L €., they were manifested in 
 those ancient days. 
 
 7. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction : and the 
 curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. 
 
 The best authorities agree in finding one branch of the Cushitcs 
 
 in eastern Arabia, and the Midianites in western. That their 
 
 " tents are in affliction " means that the people themselves, dwelling 
 in tents, are troubled by the glorious things Jehovah is achieving 
 for his people. The " curtains of Midian " are their tent-curtains, 
 trembling in sympathy with the trembling hearts of their occupants. 
 The two clauses are essentially parallel, and show that the fear 
 and the dread of Israel, while Jehovah is so manifestly marching at 
 their head, fell on even remote nations, so that they stand appalled 
 by what they hear and see of his power. The policy of the Gibe- 
 ouites (Josh. 9) is in proof of this. (See vs. 24, 25). 
 
 8. Was the Lokd displeased against the rivers ? vms 
 thine anger against the rivers % was thy wrath against 
 the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy 
 chariots of salvation ? 
 
 This verse contemplates the passage of the Red Sea and of the 
 Jordan. A bold imagination in the strains of lofty song does not 
 stop to narrate the facts and detail the circumstances. On the 
 contrary, assuming these, and speaking of events as they appear to 
 the eye, the prophet exclaims : " What aileth thee, 0_ thou Jor- 
 dan ? " Is it because the Lord is angry against the rivers ? is it 
 that his wrath is on the sea that he drives their waters back, and 
 seems to rebuke them for obtruding themselves in the pathway he 
 
 has marked out for the hosts of his chosen ? " Rivers," twice in 
 
 the plural, contemplate the Red Sea as one, the Jordan another. 
 TJiough it was more properly an arm of the sea, yet its tides are 
 said to rise seven feet, and consequently must make an active cur- 
 rent. But a strong imagination is not wont to be precise as to 
 number. Indeed, the startling fact is the main thing, and not the 
 number of rivers in question. The last clause shows that the Red 
 
 Sea is in his mind. "That thy chariots are salvation" is the 
 
 precise rendering, the full construction being that thy chariots are 
 
258 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 cliariots of salvation, i. e., that riding in royal state as a conquering 
 hero on thy horses and chariots of war thou dost save thy people 
 from the grasp of Pharaoh, and bring them forth in triumph. 
 
 9. Tliy bow was made quite naked, according to tlie 
 oatlis of tiie tribes, eveji thy Avord. Selali. Thou didst 
 cleave the earth with rivers. 
 
 This verse should close with " Selah." The lirst clause presents 
 no diflBculty. The second has perplexed commentators, and scat- 
 tered their opinions more than almost any other passage in the 
 Bible. Dr. Henderson remarks that one hundred different exposi- 
 tions of it have been given. "Thy bow is made quite naked" 
 
 conceives of Jehovah as still a warrior chieftain at the head of his 
 martial hosts, coming down in battle npon the nations of Canaan. 
 To " make the bow naked " is to draw it out from its sheath or 
 case, which was a protection necessary to preserve the string from 
 dampness, and keep it in order for service. Drawn out and made 
 
 quite naked, it was ready for nse. The next clause, interpreted 
 
 so variously, has in Hebrew three words,* all of them words of 
 very frequent occurrence, especially the lirst two, and of well-es- 
 tablished meaning. The first word may be a noun in the sense of 
 oaths, possibly sevens, or a participle, meaning sworn. The sec- 
 ond is a noun, meaning originally a rod, something stretched out; 
 then a shoot or twig ; but in use most often, the tribes of Israel. 
 The third means a word, a word of command or of threatening ; in 
 rare instances, a watchword or a song. Here follow some in- 
 terpretations by the ablest commentators. Dr. Henderson — 
 
 " Sevens of spears was the word ! " i. e., let there be a full comple- 
 ment of spears for the war. This is the divine mandate. Gese- 
 
 uius — " Sworn are the rods of his word," -/. e., the promised chas- 
 tisements ; he has sworn the overthrow of his enemies. But Gesenius 
 favors a slight change in the first letter of the first word, by which it 
 would come from a different root, meaning to be sated, to be full, 
 and then would render — " Sated are the spears, i. e., with blood ! 
 
 A song ! " After a somewhat extended examination, I prefer the 
 
 rendering of our received translation, on the following grounds : 
 
 (1.) it gives each word its most common meaning. The usage 
 of the words rendered " oaths " and " tribes " is very strong. It is 
 not easy for one who has examined it to see how a Hebrew reader 
 could understand these words to mean any thing else in this con- 
 nection. 
 
 (2.) This sense is in harmony with truth, and the truth is one 
 which the Lord has often taken special pains to reassert and im- 
 press, viz., that the conquest of Canaan for the tribes of Israel was 
 in fulfilment of his oft-sworn promise to their fathers. (See Deut. 
 T : 7, 8, 12 ; Ps. 105 : 8-11 ; Jer. 11 : 4, 5). The great theme of 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 259 
 
 this theopliany is this very conquest. Hence the fitness of tliis 
 reference to the oath of Jehovah to give Canaan to the tribes. 
 
 (3.) In this construction the oldest authorities all agree, e. f/., 
 the Ohaldee Paraphrast: "Thou didst marvellously reveal thyself in 
 thy great power on account of thy covenant wliich thy word had 
 
 made with the tribes for the ages to come." Also Jerome : 
 
 "Ascending thy chariot and seizing thy bow, thou wilt give salva- 
 tion to thy people, and wilt fulfil for all time the oaths which thou 
 hast sworn to our fathers and the tribes." 
 
 (4.) IsTo other interpretation is so well supported, or is obnox- 
 ious to so few objections. "Selah" calls for a pause, appro- 
 
 piate here for reflection. " Thou didst cleave the earth with riv- 
 ers " looks toward those fearful convulsions occasioned by earth- 
 quakes, which often open new fountains and plough out new water- 
 courses. 
 
 10. The mountains saw tliee, and they trembled : 
 the overflowing of the water passed by : the deep uttered 
 his voice, and lifted up his hands on high. 
 
 A strong imagination gives to inanimate objects life, thought, 
 and emotion. So here — The " mountains see " Jehovah as he 
 stands forth at the head of his hosts in Canaan, " and they ^re?m- 
 ?>/<?." The verb here used means to move in a circle, to dance ; 
 then to be in pain, to writhe ; also to shake, as here, with the acces- 
 sory idea of being in anguish. The great floods of water swept 
 
 past and along, with reference perhaps to the Jordan, long dammed 
 up while the people were passing through its bed, and then rushing 
 with augmented volume and force ; or possibly to great storms of 
 hail and rain which the Lord sent down in some of the great battles 
 
 fought with the Canaanites. In the phrase " the deep uttered 
 
 his voice," lies one of the grandest conceptions found in any lan- 
 guage. The conscious spirit of the Great Deep, affrighted before 
 the majesty of Nature's King and Lord, throws up his hands and 
 utters screams of awe and terror! How can he endure such a 
 Presence? How can he be i)lacid when the great and dreadful 
 God comes so near ! 
 
 11. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation ; 
 at the light of thine arrows they went, andvii the shining 
 of thy glittering spear. 
 
 Xot only are the mountains and the great deep agitated at the 
 presence of Jehovah : " The snn and the moon stand back to^^ ard 
 their dwelling-places "—literally, stand toward, in the sense in 
 which it is said of a ship at sea, she stands toward a given point. 
 They made for the dwelling-places where they were thought to 
 repose when withdrawn from human view. Ah ! they, too, cannot 
 
 bear the dread presence of Jehovah in his majesty! They retire 
 
 to their hiding-places " at the light of thine arrows which flew — at 
 
 ^ 
 
260 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 the brightness of the lightning of thj spear." So conscious are they 
 of their inferiority, so ashamed to put their feeble light in contrast 
 with the blaze of Jehovah's splendor, they shrink away to their re- 
 cesses. Orientals are accustomed to speak of the heavenly bodies 
 
 as having their homes, mansions, abodes.* The word "i^Aey" 
 
 before " went " refers, not to the sun or moon, nor to the Hebrew 
 soldiers, but to God's arrows, the lightnings. These are said not 
 merely to go^ but to fly — a very intensive form of the verb go. 
 
 12. Thou didst marcli tlirougli tlie land in indigna- 
 tion, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. 
 
 Putting the emphatic words first in order, the Hebrew would 
 run — 
 
 " In wrath thou didst marcli through the land ; 
 In fury thou didst thresh the nations" — 
 
 sweeping away the guilty and doomed nations of Canaan from be- 
 fore thy people. 
 
 13. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, 
 even for salvation with thine anointed ; thou woundedst 
 the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering 
 the foundation unto the neck. Selah. 
 
 The first clause is plain ; the last is specially difficult. " Thy 
 
 anointed " must, by the demands of the parallelism, be the same 
 with " thy people." The sentiment is simply that God marched 
 thus through the land to save his people, considered as his chosen 
 and anointed, to give them victory over their enemies and possession 
 of Canaan. Upon the last clause few words must suffice, present- 
 ing only the construction Avhich I on the whole prefer. By 
 
 "house " (i. e. of the wicked) may be meant the family, the class 
 of people ; or the structure, the building, conceived of as embody- 
 ing their interests and strength. I prefer the latter. By 
 
 "iiead " may be meant the head-men, the princes of the family or 
 clique of the wicked ; or the MgTiest jtctrt of the structure. I adopt 
 the latter, and therefore translate : " Thou dashest to pieces the 
 head " (and dost strike it off) '' from the house of the wicked, laying 
 bare the foundation even to the neck " — i. e. as deep as water 
 would be that came up to the neck — of course, utterly destroying 
 the entire structure which represents the strength and cause of the 
 wicked. A similar case of smiting the head and dashing the Avhole 
 structure to atoms appears Amos 9 : 1. This may have been in the 
 prophet's mind. The phrase "even to the neck" was proverbial, 
 at first to indicate a depth of water nearly sufficient to drown a 
 man. See Isa. 8 : 8 and 30 : 28. Probably it canie thence to be used 
 for about the same depth, five feet, more or less, in other relations. 
 
 * T render " toward their habitation," on tlic strength of what gram- 
 marians call "//d local" which is appended to the word for habitation, giv- 
 ing the sense, " toward their habitation." 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 261 
 
 This would be deep enough to tear up the foundations of a building, 
 and etfect its utter ruin. If we adhere to the Hebrew text, and 
 suppose any connection of tliought between these two clauses now 
 under consideration, this must be the construction. If it were ever 
 allowable to admit that a slight error of one letter has crept into the 
 text, for v/^hich the manuscripts give no authority, I should favor 
 such a solution here, and then read roclc in place of neck.^ But I 
 hold it to "be the work of a commentator to interpret his text rather 
 than to ainend it, and therefore abstain on principle from tampering 
 with such conjectures. To decide betw^een conflicting testimonies 
 of manuscripts and other authorities is auotlier matter, sometimes 
 quite ineyitable, and quite allowable. 
 
 14. Thou didst strike tlirongli with his staves the 
 head of his villages : they came out as a whirlwind to 
 scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor 
 secretly. 
 
 " Thou didst strike through (pierce) with his own spears the 
 head of his princes." The word " head " is the same as in the 
 first clause of v. 13, but means here a man's head, and not either 
 the head-men (princes), or the head (summit) of a building. The 
 passage may allude to the case of Jael smiting a nail through the 
 head of Sisera. In general, it means that God turned their 
 own weapons upon themselves, panic-smiting their hosts and 
 setting them to slaughter one another. See Judges 7 : 20-22, 
 and 1 Sam. 14:15, 16 — Gideon and his three hundred against 
 the countless Midianites; Jonathan and his armor-bearer against 
 the Philistines. " They, the Canaanites, came forth like a whirl- 
 wind to scatter me" — where '' Twe," through the prophet's sym- 
 pathy with the people of God, represents that w^hoie people. 
 
 The Canaanites rejoiced in their work of destruction, as wicked 
 men rejoice w^hen they can devour the poor defenceless ones 
 secretly, without exposure and consequent punishment. David, in 
 several passages, refers to this joy of the wicked in maltreating the 
 defenceless, without exposing themselves to retribution. See Ps. 
 10 : 8-11. 
 
 15. Thou didst walk through the sea with thine 
 horses, thrmtgh the heap of great waters. 
 
 The word rendered " heap " means here the foaming — in this 
 case, the foaming of the mighty waters. " Thou, Jehovah, didst 
 march through the sea with thy horses," &c., witli a tacit reference 
 to the passage of the Red Sea for the figure, but probably, as to the. 
 thing intended, referring to Jehovah's marching with his victorious 
 hosts among the mad and raging nations of Canaan. This was the 
 last scene in this august panorama. Thus closes this magnificent 
 
 * nsi:S instead of ^5t^:C 
 
2G2 HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 portrayal of Jehovali's great achievements for his ancient people* 
 Never were nohler conceptions wrought up with bolder and yet so 
 chaste imagination, or in loftier strains of triumphal song. 
 
 16. "When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips 
 quivered at tlie voice : rottenness entered into my bones, 
 and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day 
 of trouble : when he cometh np unto the people, he 
 will invade them with his troops. 
 
 Here the prophet falls back to the point from which he started 
 (v. 2) — to the fear which agitated him so deeply when ho first 
 heard from the Lord that the fierce and terrible Chaldeans were 
 surely coming to overwhelm the nation, to lay the land desolate, 
 
 and the loved and holy city with its sacred temple in ruins. 
 
 With all the oriental nations, the belly is the seat of the emotions, 
 especially of grief. Thus Ilabbakuk : " My bowels were strangely 
 agitated; my lips quivered at the voice," i. e., that uttered those 
 words about the Chaldeans ; "rottenness entered into my bones" 
 and all my strength perished — the bones being the pillars and frame- 
 work of the animal system; "I trembled," not precisely "in my- 
 self," hut imder me, my knees shaking and refusing their ofiice — so 
 strong was my agony of desire " that I might have rest in the day 
 of trouble, in the coming up of the people who shall invade us." 
 The last clause must be connected with the preceding more closely 
 than in our English Bible. I have given a very literal and (as I 
 
 suppose) an accurate translation. The period around which his 
 
 anxieties clustered was the hour of the anticipated invasion by 
 the Chaldeans. His prayer and his solicitude looked toward rest 
 for his spirit in that day of trouble when this fierce and savage 
 
 people should come up against Jerusalem. The word rendered 
 
 " invade," means to press upon and besiege with troops. 
 
 17. Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither 
 shall fruit he in the vines ; the labor of the olive shall 
 fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall 
 be cut off from the fold, and there shall he no herd in the 
 stalls : 
 
 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the 
 God of my salvation. 
 
 19. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make 
 my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to w^alk 
 upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my 
 Btrin«:ed instruments. 
 
 The prophet's prayer was most abundantly answered. The 
 Lord gave him "peace like a river;" — nay, more than merely 
 peace— joy and exultation in the Lord his God, and in liim alone 
 
HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 263 
 
 and only. The sentiment of the seventeenth verse is that though 
 everv thing else should fail, the fig-tree, the vine, the olive, the 
 fields, the llocks and the herds, yet the everlasting God Avould 
 still live and never could fail or he cut otf, or be any the less a 
 faithful and glorious God for all the storms of earth, or for the in- 
 vasion and desolating sweep of the most savage robber hosts. The 
 last verse heightens the showing of his joy. Elastic and buoyant, 
 his feet like the feet of the hind "vvho bounds over the clifls and 
 never makes a mis-step on the crags of the mountain — so he moves 
 along the high places of the eartli, all undisturbed by the storms 
 
 and troubles that harass the dwellers in the vales below. It 
 
 seems plain that the prophet was brought to this sublime height 
 and placid rest of faith by means of those vivid, soul-thrilling 
 views of God presented in this chapter, in which God is seen in 
 liis great works of mercy and of power in behalf of his people. 
 Herein lie the special instruction and the great value of this 
 wonderful chapter. In point of literary merit, its beauty and sub- 
 limity are of the highest order, and challenge oiir intense admira- 
 tion ; but far above and better than all those beauties is the sub- 
 lime moral lesson it teaches, viz., that if any " good man Avould fix 
 his hand upon the skies and bid earth roll, nor feel her idle whirl," 
 the rational mode of reaching this sublime repose of faith is to 
 study the great vforks of God's power and mercy as found in the 
 historic pages of his word, and as first revealed from heaven in the 
 ways of his providence and miracle-v/orking power toward his 
 people in the days of old. This study of God, deep, appreciative, 
 prayerful, with the aid of his teaching Spirit, must be the one great 
 condition on our part — a trustful, believing study, with a loving 
 and appropriating faith. Such a study of God, with such help 
 from his Spirit, give their utmost vividness and power to those 
 great truths respecting God which we need to see and feel as 
 realities. Oh, it is beyond measure blessed to have the soul thus 
 filled with the practical impression of those truths ! Then what 
 w^as only as a dream before, becomes reality, clearly seen and deeply 
 felt, and then it becomes natural and easy to adjust one's heart and 
 life to the demands of those truths. They call for implicit faith in 
 God ; impressed by such views of God, and drawn by his Spirit, 
 we seem spontaneously to yield it. So Habakkuk found his heart 
 full of the simplest, sweetest trust in God, and in God alone — in 
 God, though every thing else should fail. 
 
 It should have been more distinctly noted that the fig-tree and 
 the vine stand here to represent, not themselves alone, but every 
 other earthly good. They stand for home and dear ones, for 
 country and sanctuary, for safety of person and for dear life. 
 Although all these should fail, yet, said the prophet, will I rejoice 
 in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation. In the same 
 spirit, a psalmist said : " My flesh and my heart faileth ; but God is 
 the strength of my heart, and my portion forever " (Ps. 73 : 26). 
 • The reader will scarcely need to be reminded that any and 
 
2G4: HABAKKUK.— CHAP. III. 
 
 every one who cometh to the knowledge of this sublime example 
 of faith may reach it for himself personally by the same steps. 
 There is no exclusiveness in this gift of faith ; it cometh alike to the 
 simple-hearted child and to' the wisest philosopher — to each and to 
 all who heartily receive God as their supreme portion, and fully open 
 
 their souls to his teaching, moulding Spirit. And who wOl not 
 
 prize this simple yet mighty faith? To whom would it not be a 
 blessing high above all other blessings possible ? It is like pos- 
 sessing and inheriting the Infinite God ! This prophet foresaw that 
 soon he should own no vine or fig-tree, no herd or flock; but he 
 was more than satisfied, for he had (it might almost be said, he 
 owned) — he had, as his own to trust in and enjoy, the Infinite and 
 
 ever-blessed God! When flesh and heart shall fail us, and all of 
 
 earth shall be fading fast away from our mortal vision, there will be 
 at least one hour in which it will be more to us than all the universe 
 besides to have this God as our own ! 
 
ZEPHAlsriAH. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of this prophet, his own introduction gives us the names of his 
 immediate ancestors through "four generations, of whom, however, 
 nothing is known to ns certainly except their names. It gives also 
 the much more important statement that this word of the Lord 
 came to him in the days of Josiah, king of Judah. Josiah's reign 
 of thirty-one years fell, b. c. G-i2-611. A careful comparison of this 
 Book of Zephaniah, witli the history of Josiah's reign, as found, 2 
 Kings chapters 22 and 23, and yet more fully 2 Ohron., chapters 34 
 and 35, will throw yet more light upon the precise date of his 
 writings, and upon the much more important point of its definite 
 
 aim and purpose. Let it be borne in mind that after the great 
 
 reformation wrought by Ilezekiah with the aid of Isaiah and other 
 prophets during his reign of twenty-nine years, a fearful relapse 
 followed during Manasseh's long reign of fifty-five years ; that the 
 brief history sets forth in very strong terms the horrible influence 
 of this wicked king who " made Jerusalem and Judah do worse 
 than the heathen " (2 Chron. 33 : 9) ; that his repentance occurring 
 late in life, while it may have saved his own soul in answer to a godly 
 father's prayers, yet seems scarcely to have at all arrested the strong 
 currents of national wickedness ; that his son Anion, reigning two 
 years most wickedly, and then losing his life by conspiracy among 
 his own servants, must have left the nation yet waxing worse and 
 worse ; and then that Josiah, coming to the throne at the tender 
 age of eight years, began to seek after the God of his fathers at the 
 age of sixteen, commenced a vigorous reform yet four years later, 
 12 
 
266 ZEPHANIAII.— CHAP. I. 
 
 i. e., at the age of twenty, wMch was the twelfth year of his reign, 
 and had gone over the work with commendable thoroughness at the 
 end of six years' labor, i. e., in the eighteenth year of his reign. 
 That was the era of a remarkable passover, kept with great solem- 
 nity and with hopeful results. But the roots of wickedness had gone 
 deep into the national life. Hence this reform, as to the mass of 
 the nation, could not have penetrated much beneath the surface. 
 
 This reign of the good Josiah was the Lord's last call of the 
 
 nation to repentance. Toward this result, Zephaniah and Jere- 
 miah lent their aid — the latter beginning to prophesy in the thir- 
 teenth year of Josiah, and the former probably about the same time. 
 Zephaniah (1 : 4) predicts — " I will cut off the remnant of Baal from 
 this place," &c., and the history states (2 Chron. 34 : 3, 4) that 
 Josiah began this very work in his twelfth year, and closed it in his 
 eighteenth. It may also be noted that Zephaniah (2 : 13-15) pre- 
 dicts the fall of Nineveh, which occurred b. c. 625 — i. e., in the 
 
 seventeenth year of Josiah. It was to aid King Josiah in his great 
 
 work of reforming the nation and of saving it from ruin under 
 the long-accumulating wrath of God, that Zephaniah was commis- 
 sioned to reiterate the solemn declarations of Jehovah — "I will 
 utterly consume this whole land " — especially every vestige of its 
 idolatry, and not sparing its fearfully corrupt and wicked people. 
 This is the one great thought throughout the first chapter. The 
 next chapter heightens the force of this dread decree by assuring 
 the people that the adjacent nations sunk low in general corruption 
 and idol worship, were also doomed to fearful devastations — the 
 Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Ethiopia, and Assyiia, with her proud 
 capital, Nineveh. In this general sweep of desolating judgments, 
 Judah could by no means hope to escape, save by earnest and thor- 
 ough repentance before God. Chapter 3 sets forth yet more 
 
 fully the extreme corruption of her prophets, priests, and princes, 
 but closes with merciful promises of salvation in a future day for 
 the remnant of his people. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Foe the general scope of this chapter, the reader is referred to 
 2 Kings 23 : 26, 27. Closely following a very full account of the 
 great reformation effected by Josiah, the historian says : "Notwith- 
 standing, the Lord turned not fi'om the fierceness of his great wrath 
 
ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. I. 267 
 
 wlierewitli Ms anger was kindled against Judali, because of all tlio 
 provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. And the 
 Lord said, " I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have 
 removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem wliich I have 
 chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall he there." 
 
 1. The word of tlie Loed which came unto Zepha- 
 niah the son of Ciishi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of 
 Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the 
 son of Amon, king of Judah. 
 
 2. I will utterly consume all things from off the 
 land, saith the Lord. 
 
 3. I will consume man and beast ; I will consume 
 the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and 
 the stumbling-blocks with the wicked ; and I w^ill cut 
 off man from off the land, saith the Loed. 
 
 See the general introduction. The stumbling-blocks are here, 
 the idol-gods which had proved such a stuml)ling-block of ruin to the 
 people. This shows that the reformation under Josiah entirely 
 failed to save the land from its sins, and hence, from its deserved 
 and fearful doom. 
 
 4. I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah 
 and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; and I will 
 cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the 
 name of the Chemarims with the priests ; 
 
 God would utterly finish the destruction of Baal, including the 
 idols, their priests, and their worshippers, and would exterminate 
 the very "• name of the Chemarims." This word — meaning priest, 
 as one who goes about in black or mourning, an ascetic — came from 
 
 Syria, and was always applied by the Jews to the priests of idols. 
 
 The history (2 Kings 23:5) states that Josiah put down the Chem- 
 arims, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the 
 high places," &c. ; but ultimately, the Lord, by the long captivity in 
 Babylon, made much more thorough work in rooting them out 
 from among his people and burying their very name in oblivion. 
 The last words of the verse, " with the priests," refers to Jew- 
 ish priests — probably such as professed to serve the true God, but 
 had apostatized into idol-worship. 
 
 5. And them that worship the host of heaven upon 
 the house-tops ; and them that worship and that swear 
 by the Loed, and that swear by Malcham ; 
 
 6. And them that are turned back from the Loed ; 
 and those that have not sought the Loed, nor inquired 
 for him. 
 
2G8 ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 " The host of heaven " were the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, 
 stars, and planets. Tliis form of idolatry, Sabianism (from Saba *) 
 (used for the host of heaven), was very ancient, and widely extended 
 throughout the East. The worship v/as offered oif the house-tops, 
 possibly for secrecy, but more probably for the sake of a better view of 
 the objects of their worship. The next class of worshippers," wor- 
 ship, swearing by the Lord and swearing by their hing " — a term 
 here supposed to refer to Moloch. That is, they mix together the 
 ostensible worship of Jehovah with the real worship of Moloch, 
 
 whom they practically recognized as their king. To swear by 
 
 Jehovah is to recognize his supreme divinity, at least professedly. 
 They rendered the same recognition to Moloch also. Of course 
 such men render no true worship to Jehovah, and he dooms them 
 
 to fall with the guiltiest idolaters. Y. 6 describes them in more 
 
 general terms — all who have turned back, having once professed to 
 serve him, and those who have not sought him — in every age a great 
 and fearfully guilty class. 
 
 T. Hold thy peace at tlie presence of tlie Lord God : 
 for the day of the Lokd is at hand : for the Lokd hath 
 prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests. 
 
 "Hold thy peace before the face of the Lord God" enjoins 
 silence in the spirit of profound reverence and solemn awe. See a 
 similar sentiment, Amos 6 : 10. The reason assigned is, " because 
 the day of the Lord is near," a day of judgment on the people. 
 " The Lord hath prepared a sacrifice " — here in the sense of a great 
 slaughter, as in Isa. 34: 6: "The Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, 
 and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea." The original word 
 rendered " bid," t means to sanctify, but here in the sense in which 
 war was declared with religious solemnities, and the warriors prac- 
 tically sworn in and consecrated to their work. The Lord's 
 
 " guests " — his called ones, as the original word means — are here, not 
 men invited to dine at a festival, but those whom he had called in 
 his providence to be the executioners of his vengeance on the 
 wicked in this great slaughter — in the case, the Chaldeans. 
 
 8. And it shall come to pass in the day of the Loed's 
 sacrifice, that I Y/ill punish tliB princes, and the king's 
 children, and all such as are clothed with strange ap- 
 parel. 
 
 Koyalty in Judah had been deep in guilt and should be first in 
 
 punishment. In the phrase, "strange apparel," strange does not 
 
 mean uncouth or surprising, but foreign. Indeed, the words 
 " strange " and "stranger " in our Bible always means foreign, per- 
 taining to Gentiles and not to Jews. The idea here is that tho 
 adoption a)id use of the foreign costume in dress indicated apostasy 
 
ZEPHANIAH.— CHAR I. 269 
 
 from God and a love for tlie institutions and customs of thelieatlicn. 
 Hence it marked men out for special plagues from the Lord. 
 
 9. In the same day also will I pnnlsh all those that 
 leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses 
 with violence and deceit. 
 
 The phrase, "those that leap on the threshold," is explained 
 variously by commentators. Some suppose an allusion to the wor- 
 shippers of Dagon (1 Sam. 5 : 4, 5), who, because their helpless idol 
 fell before the ark of God, and broke his neck over the tlireshold, 
 took care forever after not to step on the threshold but over it. I 
 see no analogy between this case and that. Here are persons who 
 leap, not over^ but upon the threshold. The parallel clause — "who 
 fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit " — i. e., with 
 goods, property, obtained by violence and deceit, shows that robbers 
 are thought of. Hence tlie probable sense of leaping upon the 
 threshold is, invading the sanctity of other men's houses ; violently 
 leaping upon and over their thresholds, to enter their houses for 
 robbery and spoil. 
 
 10. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the 
 LoED, that there shall he the noise of a cry from the fish 
 gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crash- 
 ing from the hills. 
 
 The city is here thought of as attacked by ISTebuchadnezzar. 
 The panic and the outcries of terror mark the progress of the con- 
 queror through the city. First, "the noise of a cry from the fish 
 gate." To this gate we find allusions in 2 Chron. 33 : 14, and Neh. 
 3 : 3, and 12 : 39. Doubtless it was the gate through which fish 
 were brought into the city for market, and probably its direction 
 was toward the lake of Tiberias and the Jordan, where fishing was 
 certainly common in the New Testament age. At this point the 
 Chaldean army would most naturally strike the city. '' A howl- 
 ing or wailing from the second " — not the second gate, but the second 
 city, i. €., a later addition to the city (see Neh. 11: 9), very prob- 
 ably the one built by Manasseh, as recorded, 2 Chron. 33 : 14 : " He 
 built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, 
 in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed 
 about Ophel (a hill so called), and raised it up a very great height," 
 &c. The location of this new or second city shows that the Chal- 
 dean army would strike it next in order after entering at the fish 
 
 gate. " A great crashing from the hills " refers to hills icithin 
 
 the city; Zion, Moriah, Ophel, &c. The echoes of crash after crash 
 of ruin from these hills would be, to Jewish ears, terrific. 
 
 11. Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the mer- 
 chant people are cut do^vn ; all they that bear silver are 
 cut off. 
 
270 ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 "Maktesli " means tJie mortar, the article being prefixed, wliicli 
 shows that it is not a proper name generally known. It is plausibly 
 supposed to refer to some valley, mortar-shaped, and probably the 
 Tyropoeon, a valley within the city, occupied largely by merchants. 
 — The reason for their wailing is that " all the merchants are cut off" 
 — " all who are heavy laden with silver," for this is the sense of the 
 Hebrew word. Those who were not only rich, but rich in silver, 
 would suffer most severely in the sack of the city. It is tacitly im- 
 plied that these merchants are men of not the best repute; "people 
 of Canaan" is their designation here. Hos. 12:7, 8, shows that 
 the merchants of that day were not held in the highest esteem by 
 the Lord. Their fraudulent habits are repeatedly rebuked by the 
 prophets. 
 
 12. And it shall come to pass at that time, that I 
 will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men 
 that are settled on their lees : that say in their hearts, 
 The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil. 
 
 " Searching Jerusalem with candles " is an expressive figure, to 
 show that none could secrete themselves in recesses so dark as to 
 
 escape the vigilance and vengeance of Jehovah. " Settled on their 
 
 lees," alludes to wine standing long on its sediment, and not 
 racked off into another vessel. The primary sense of the verb is to 
 settle down in the oriental manner of sitting upon one's ankles, 
 with the feet bent under the person (see Jer. 48 : 11). It de- 
 scribes those who have repelled all fear of retribution from God for 
 their sins, and have gone on quietly in their great iniquities, as if 
 there were no God above ; who say in their hearts, " The Lord will 
 do neither good nor evil, will neither reward the righteous nor punish 
 the wicked." This is the cherished feeling of myriads of heathen 
 minds ; witness the Budhists of the East, who think of God only as 
 reposing in eternal sleep in some indefinitely remote region of the 
 universe, never concerning himself with the moral conduct of his 
 creatures. 
 
 13. Therefore, their goods shall become a booty, and 
 their houses a desolation : they shall also build houses, 
 but not inhabit them / and they shall plant vineyards, 
 but not drink the wine thereof. 
 
 The allusion to their "goods" shows that the prophet still has 
 in view the wealthy classes who have grown rich through fraud 
 or violence. 
 
 14. The great day of the Lokd is near, it is near, 
 and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the 
 Lord : tlie mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 
 
 15. That day is a day of v/rath, a day of trouble and 
 
ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. II. 271 
 
 distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of 
 darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick 
 darkness, 
 
 16. A day of tlie trumpet and alarm against tlie 
 fenced cities, and against tlie high towers. 
 
 This great and awful day of the Lord, so graphically descrihed, 
 is the period of the Chaldean invasion. The "mighty laaa who 
 shall cry there bitterly," is the warrior to whom the city intrusts 
 its defence, but who will find himself utterly inadequate to the task. 
 He can only wail in the anguish of his soul over his complete over- 
 throw. 
 
 17. And I will bring distress upon men, that they 
 shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned 
 against the Lord : and their blood shall be poured out 
 as dust, and tlieir flesh as the dung. 
 
 18. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able 
 to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath ; but the 
 w^hole land 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. 
 
 Under the great and universal distress, men shall act as if be- 
 wildered, groping about as blind men, etiually void of wisdom and 
 of power for the emergency. The conclusion of this fearful de- 
 nunciation of doom is, that God will make a sweeping destruction, 
 even a hastened one, of all the inhabitants of the land. So it came 
 to pass. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The scope of this chapter was spoken of in the general introduc- 
 tion to this book. It aims to enforce repentance: (1.) By the short- 
 ness of time yet remaining before otherwise the shafts of vengeance 
 must fall. (2.) By the fact that desolating judgments were coming 
 upon other nations contiguous. This fact should assure them that 
 the Lord was about to take in hand the work of retribution upon 
 guilty nations on a broad scale ; that he had his agencies in readi- 
 ness ; and that Judah and Jerusalem could by no means hope to 
 escape. 
 
 1. Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, 
 O nation not desired ; 
 
 The connection shows that this verse, and the two that follow 
 it, were addressed to Judah, exhorting her to immediate repentance 
 and righteousness as her last hope. With this view of the course 
 
272 ZErnANiAii.—ciiAP. ii. 
 
 of thought, I find no appropnate sense in the rendering of the first 
 verb, "gather yourselves together.". The question must be met, 
 For Avhat purpose ? "What would be the use of merely '" gathering 
 together ? " Better than this rendering is that of Gesenius : " Col- 
 lect your thoughts; consider your ways; " examine yourselves and 
 
 think of your sins. Still better is Henderson's derivation of the 
 
 verb from another though a cognate root,* in the sense to lend^ to 
 how loio hefore God, in repentance and profound humiliation for your 
 
 sins. "O nation not desired," Gesenius renders, "nations 
 
 never pale with shame," and the sense of conscious guilt. But the 
 sense of longing after and greatly desiring is much better sustained 
 by usage. I therefore adopt this rendering, according to our Eng- 
 lish Bible, only giving its strongest negative power to "wo if," so 
 that it shall imply that so far from loving and longing for this 
 nation in its present moral state, God altogether loathed them. 
 He could have no other feeling toward them but that of loathing 
 while they were so intensely corrupt. Hence the urgency of the 
 call to humiliation and to a new heart and life. 
 
 2. Before tlie decree bring forth, hefare the day pass 
 as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come 
 npon yon, before the day of the Lord's anger come npon 
 yon. 
 
 The decree, i. c, the purpose of God to destroy, is thought of 
 here as pregnant with a sure execution, and soon to " bring forth."" 
 Before this execution of the Lord's wrath, so near at hand, there 
 was a short moment for repentance. The prophet exhorts the peo- 
 ple to seize and improve it. In the clause "before the day pass 
 
 as the chaff," Henderson explains " day," not as the period of 
 judgment, but as the short space for repentance lying yet before it. 
 But the uniform usage of the word " day," fourteen times repeated 
 in a connection like this, within the first chapter, and again in this 
 verse, in every instance in the sense of the period of the judgment, 
 seems to forbid his construction. I prefer to explain it : " Before that 
 day of judgment shall sweep along as the chafi" flies" — swiftly and 
 waiting for none. 
 
 3. Seek ye the Loed, all ye meek of the earth, which 
 have wronght his jndgment; seek righteonsness, seek 
 meekness : it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the 
 Lord's anger. 
 
 Here is the point of the exhortation, the duty to which 
 they are exhorted. All the meek, the humble ones of the land, 
 the only hopeful class — all those who have obeyed the Lord's 
 revealed will ("judgments " here in the sense of revealed statutes), 
 are implored to seek the Lord, and also to seek righteousness 
 
 "^ Cip instead of ITL'P. 
 
ZEPHANIAH.—CHAP. II. 273 
 
 nnd a deeper linrailiation ("meekness''), in the liope that so 
 they may be hidden from danger in the day of the Lord's anger. 
 It could not be regarded as certain that they would be exempt from 
 all harm, even though penitent, for sometimes the righteous mugt 
 suffer (in this world, not the next) with the wicked. Hence the 
 qualified form of the statement, " it may le^ that ye shall be hid." 
 
 4. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Aslikelon a deso- 
 lation : they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon-day, and 
 Ekron shall he rooted np. 
 
 With this prediction of desolation on the cities of the Philistines, 
 
 compare Amos 1 : 6-8. The Hebrew rerbs which express the 
 
 doom of Gaza and Ekron form a paranomasia with those names. If 
 the word gazee meant forsaken, we might imitate the Hebrew by 
 
 saying Gaza shall be gazecd. These paranomasias are not merely 
 
 beauties of style ; they are utilities as well, for the doom of a city 
 so expressed could not be forgotten. It would be riveted in the 
 mind with the name itself. 
 
 5. Woe inito the inhabitants of the sea coast, the 
 nation of the Cherethites ! the word of the Lord is 
 against you ; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, 1 
 will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 
 
 6. And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages 
 for shepherds, and folds for flocks. 
 
 This " sea coast " is the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and 
 the western border of Canaan, along which the Philistines (Chere- 
 thites) — to some extent a maritime people — were located. All that 
 
 region would fall before the Chaldean power. It did. The sea 
 
 coast shall be not "dwellings and cottages," but " pastures with 
 shepherds' cisterns^ and folds for flocks." 
 
 7. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the 
 house of Judah ; they shall feed thereupon : in the 
 houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening : 
 for the LoED their God shall visit them, and turn away 
 their captivity. 
 
 This looks forward to the better days, when the Lord should re- 
 store his captive people, and they, returning, should find their old 
 enemies, the Philistines, no longer there, but should themselves 
 enjoy quietly the country of the sea coast. 
 
 8. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the re, 
 vilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have 
 reproached my people, and magnified themselves against 
 their border. 
 
 12* 
 
274 ZEPnANIAH.— CHAP. II. 
 
 God had heard what Moab and Araraon had said in contempt 
 of Israel and of Israel's God, and would now remember it and visit 
 
 them with retribution. "Magnified themselves against their 
 
 border," has the sense of carrying themselves proudly and in an 
 overbearing way along and over their border — with reference, 
 doubtless, to hostile encroachments upon Jewish territory. 
 
 9. Therefore, as I live, saitli the Lord of hosts, the 
 God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the 
 children of Ammon as Gomorrah, eve7i the breeding of 
 nettles and salt-pits, and a perpetual desolation : the res- 
 idue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of 
 my people shall possess them. 
 
 This is the doom of Moab and Ammon. How fearfully it has 
 been put in execution! For the past twenty-four centuries, the 
 
 world has scarcely known where those nations once stood ! In 
 
 the phrase "the breeding of nettles," the Hebrew gives the sense, 
 the possession of nettles — a place which nettles shall occupy as all- 
 their own. 
 
 10. This shall they have for their pride, because they 
 have reproached and magnified themselves against the 
 people of the Loed of hosts. 
 
 So God Avill avenge himself on those who reproach Tiim through 
 their reproach of his people. 
 
 11. The Lord will he terrible unto them ; for he will 
 fVimish all the gods of the earth ; and men shall worship 
 him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the 
 heathen. 
 
 The course of thought here should be noted. God becomes 
 terrible to idolatrous nations when he famishes, i, <?., wastes away 
 and destroys their gods; for when a nation's gods are gone, what 
 have they more? On the other hand, and as a result of destroy- 
 ing both the idol gods of those nations and their incorrigible wor- 
 shippers as well, men everywhere, over all the isles of the Gentiles, 
 shall worship the true God. " The isles of the nations " embrace 
 all remote countries lying beyond the sea. 
 
 12. Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall he slain by my 
 sword. 
 
 These Ethiopians are those of Africa — probably including the 
 Egyptians. They were destined to fall before the same all-devour- 
 ing Chaldean sword. 
 
 13. And he will stretch out his liand ao:ainst the 
 north, and destroy Assyria ; and will make Nineveh a 
 desolation, and dry like a wilderness. 
 
ZEPHAXIAH.— CHAP. III. 275 
 
 See Nineveli, doomed in like manner (Xahum, cliap. 2 and 3). 
 
 14. And flocks sliall lie doA\Ti in the midst of lier, all 
 the beasts of the nations : both the cormorant and the 
 bittern shall lodge in the npper lintels of it ; their voice 
 shall sing in the windoAvs; desolation shall he in the 
 thresholds : for he shall uncover the cedar work. 
 
 The word rendered "cormorant" means "the vomiter," and is 
 supposed to designate the pelican. The " bittern " is the porcupine 
 
 or hedge-hog, so called from his rolling himself up. These shall 
 
 " lie among the capitals " — the tops of the columns — which of 
 course are now fallen to the ground. The columns are those of 
 her ruined temples and palaces. 
 
 15. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, 
 that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside 
 me : how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts 
 to lie down in ! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, 
 and wag his hand. 
 
 Thus great Nineveh, once proud and joyous, is doomed to lie an 
 utter waste, the scorn of passers-by. She was doubtless standing 
 in her strength and glory when this servant and seer of the Lord 
 uttered and penned these terrible words. The nations of the earth 
 have had ample occasion to verify their truth during more than two 
 thousand years. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 This chapter opens with further statements of the guilt and 
 doom of Jerusalem (vs. 1-4); of God's justice in her punishment 
 (v. 5); of his judgments on other nations (vs. 6-8); then turning 
 to words of mercy, the Lord promises to convert the nations (vs. 
 9-10), and to restore and bless most abundantly the remnant of 
 his people (vs. 1 1-20). 
 
 1. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the op- 
 pressing city ! 
 
 2. She obeyed not the voice ; she received not cor- 
 rection ; she trusted not in the Lord ; she drew not near 
 to her God. 
 
 The entire strain of remark shows that this passage speaks of 
 Jerusalem ; e. g.^ that she had heard the voice of God ; had been 
 instructed and corrected, yet in vain ; and that Jehovah is spoken 
 of as " A<?r God." The word rendered "filthy," means rebel- 
 lious: she had polluted herself by her sins, especially by idolatry, 
 and had outraged justice by her oppressions of her own poor and 
 
276 ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. III. 
 
 defenceless people. Hence the wrath of God upon her. She 
 
 had also heen taught her duty hy the servants of the Lord, espe- 
 cially in later tmies by his prophets; yet she would neither ohey 
 God nor trust him. 
 
 3. Her princes witliin lier are roaring lions; her 
 judges are evening wolves ; tliej gnaw not the bones 
 till tiie morrow. 
 
 Her princes and judges had heen fearfully corrupt. Those wdio 
 should have withstood the influx of vice had been themselves ex- 
 amples and ministers of all wickedness. "Eoaring lions," in the 
 
 sense of being mighty in sin, bold and rampant in their hiiquity. 
 
 "Evening wolves," who in oriental countries go about in the 
 
 darkness, making night hideous with their howl and perilous by 
 their ferocity, stand here to represent those judges who make an 
 utter wreck of justice and peace, prostrating beneath their feet tlie 
 
 very interests they are sworn to sustain. These (human) wolves 
 
 are voracious ; " they do not gnaw the bones in the morning; " so 
 the Hebrew reads, and implies, not that they leave all^ but that they 
 leave ?iof7;/;?^ till the morrow. Their voracity saves not even the 
 bones till morning. 
 
 4. Her prophets are light and tre'acherous persons : 
 her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done 
 violence to the law. 
 
 " Her prophets are light," in the sense of vain-glorious, proud, 
 and boastful — bearing on their licarts no sense of their responsi- 
 bility. The priests seem for the most part to have gone down in 
 degeneracy and sin with the people by at least an equal pace. The 
 Lord had some prophets tliat were thoroughly faithful and bold in 
 rebuking sin ; yet the history shows that under the wicked kings, 
 folse prophets were never wanting who claimed to speak for God, 
 but who really prostituted the whole influence of the prophetic 
 name, and of God's name too, so far as they could, to the cause of 
 vice and idolatry. 
 
 5. The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not 
 do iniquity : every morning doth he bring his judgment 
 to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no 
 shame. 
 
 Note the designed antithesis between the flagrantly unjust 
 judges, false prophets, and degenerate i:>riests on the one hand ; and 
 on the other, the just Lord, never doing iniquity, bringing forth his 
 
 just decisions every morning without fail. Courts were held in 
 
 the morning hour. Those unjust, wicked men are shameless — lost 
 
 to all compunction of conscience for wrong-doing. This fact shows 
 that the moral tone of public sentiment was deplorably low. 
 
ZEPHANIAU.— CHAP. III. 277 
 
 6. I have cut off tlie nations : their towers are deso- 
 late ; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by : 
 their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that 
 there is none inhabitant. 
 
 This is thought, with good reason, to have special reference to the 
 cahimities brought bj a great Scythian invasion upon most of the 
 nations of Western Asia during the reign of Josiah. From these 
 
 evils, Judah, under his wise and righteous reign, was exempt. 
 
 In seasons of gi*eat public danger, travel must cease, and none would 
 pass along the highways. (See Judg. 5 : 6.) 
 
 7. I said. Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive 
 instruction ; so their dwelling should not be cut off, 
 howsoever I punished them : but they rose early, and 
 corrupted all their doings. 
 
 At this time the Lord said: "My people" will appreciate this 
 merciful protection afforded to them : they " will fear me and re- 
 ceive instruction." In case they did so, "their dwelling" (in the 
 sense of place of rest and safety) "should not be cut off, according 
 as I have visited all others with judgments." The English, "how- 
 soever I punished them," fails to give the true sense, which is this : 
 that if his kind protection of them against the Scythians had moved 
 them to gratitude, obedience and trust, he would not now punish 
 them as he had done other nations. I prefer to adhere to the usual 
 sense of the verb here used, viz., to visit with judgment, rather than 
 to give it (with Dr. Henderson) the new and doubtful sense of ap- 
 pointing for punishment. "But they rose early and corrupted all 
 
 their doings " — as men who work with their might and with earnest 
 heart, are up betimes in the morning. It is noticeable that God rep- 
 resents his own earnestness in efforts to save them by the same im- 
 pressive figure (2 Chron. 36 : 15): "The Lord God of their fathers 
 sent to them by his messengers, rising ui^ early in the morning and 
 sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwell- 
 ing-place." The contrast gives a sad impression of their horrible 
 depravity, but a rich and exalted one of his unutterably tender com- 
 passion and loving-kindness! They, up early in the morning, 
 working with might and main, to do a long and hard day's work in 
 sin ; God, up betimes to press his agencies mightily to save them ! 
 
 8. Therefore, wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until 
 the day that I rise up to the prey : for my determination is 
 to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, 
 to pom- upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce 
 anger : for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire 
 of my jealousy. 
 
 " Therefore " (in view of all these things) " wait ye for me " {i. e^ 
 
278 ZEPHANIAH.— CHAP. III. 
 
 to fulfil my threatenings) " until the day of my rising np for the 
 
 prey, to spoil the nations, for this is my purpose." Great and 
 
 widely extended judgments are in the plan of God, to fall on all 
 tlie guilty nations of the earth. Let his i)eople expect them in 
 their time. 
 
 9. For then will I turn to tlie people a pure lan- 
 
 fuage, that they may all call upon the name of the 
 lOKD, to serve him with one consent. 
 Here is a reason for awaiting those judgments, hecause then, in 
 close connection, the Lord will convert the remnant of the nations 
 to himself. His great judgments will prepare the way for mercies 
 no less great. " I will turn to the nations (Gentiles) a pure lan- 
 guage " —freed from the very names of idols (see Hos. 2 : IT), and 
 from all those terms that are suggestive of tlie pollutions and cor- 
 ruptions of human depravity. God will give them a new vocabu- 
 lary; the language of Zion will be all new when all men shall call 
 
 upon the name of the Lord. " To serve him with one shoulder," 
 
 is the striking expression of the Hebrew — as we might say, moving 
 on in military phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, for soldiers dress to 
 a line by the shoulder. Or the phrase may allude to two or ^noro 
 men bearing the same burden on their shoulders, in which case 
 they must move accurately together. So in Zion should order and 
 harmony be perfect, resting on the basis of having one heart and 
 one soul. 
 
 10. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my sup- 
 pliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring 
 mine oifering. 
 
 This must be the African Ethiopia, south of Egypt, embosoming 
 the head-waters of the Nile, Thence should supx)liants from the 
 Lord's scattered people come with their offerings to Jerusalem. 
 The reader will readily recall the case of an " eunuch of great au- 
 thority under Candace, queen of Ethiopia, who came to Jerusalem 
 to worship " (Acts 8 : 27 IF.), and who went home with more of the 
 gospel than he had ever known before. The case proves that there 
 were some dispersed people there, probably Jews, who remembered 
 Zion, and that a purer knowledge of God went among them after 
 the Christian era. It would seem that there have been nominal 
 Christians in Abyssinia ever since. They were found there by 
 Bruce in his travels, early in the present century. 
 
 11. In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy 
 doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me : for 
 then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that 
 rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty 
 because of my holy mountain. 
 
 This cannot mean that they shall have no sense of sharae for the 
 
ZEPHANUn.— CHAP. III. 279 
 
 eins of which they are or have been guilty. The Scriptures and 
 Christian experience combine to teach that pardoned sinners have 
 the very keenest sense of sorrow and shame for tlieir sins. (See 
 
 Ezek. IG : Gl-63 and 3G : 31.) The meaning liere is therefore only 
 
 this : that they shall not be confounded before the nations by God's 
 judgments upon them for their sins. They will not sin as they had 
 done ; and moreover, God will forgive and forbear to punish. That 
 their sin itself should mostly cease — at least, their specially proA'ok- 
 iug, heaven-defying sins — is expressly said : " For then I will take 
 away out of thee thy proud, exulting ones, and man shall no more 
 be haughty in my holy mountain." The Hebrew has it " m," not 
 " because of." 
 
 12. I will also leave in tlie midst of tliee au afflicted 
 and poor people, and they sliall trust dn the name of the 
 
 LOKD. 
 
 The few spared and surviving, after the many had Mien under 
 sore judgments, are blessed by what they have suffered, and by what 
 they have seen others suffer ; and these return to the Lord their 
 God. Of this promise there have been many fulfilments. 
 
 13. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor 
 Bpeak lies ; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in 
 their mouth : for they shall feed and lie down, and 
 none shall make them afraid. 
 
 This applies readily to the remnant restored from Babylon, and 
 affirms their general purity of character, greatly reformed as com- 
 pared with the morals of the nation before the captivity. It may 
 apply also to subsequent periods. 
 
 14. Sing, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O Israel ; be 
 glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 This call to great joy indicates that precious blessings are to be 
 revealed. 
 
 15. The LoKD hath taken away thy judgments, he 
 hath cast out thine enemy : the king of Israel, even the 
 LoKD, is in the midst of thee : thou shalt not see evil 
 any more. 
 
 " Ilath taken away thy judgments," not in the sense of remov- 
 ing from them the administration of justice or the jurisdiction of 
 his lav,^, but of terminating his inflictions of calamity and his retri- 
 butions for their sin. The days of her sore scourging had passed. 
 
 " He hath cleared away thine enemies from before thee " — perhaps 
 with historical allusion to their early days in Canaan, wiien the 
 Lord did not fully clear away the Canaanites and Pliilistines. Now 
 
280 ZEPHANIAIL— CHAP. III. 
 
 he will, and they shall repose in quiet — ^less tempted to sin, and loss 
 annoyed with thorns in their side — enemies within their own bor- 
 
 (iers. Their king, Messiah, the real Jehovah, being in the midst 
 
 of them as Iramanuel (God with ns), verily, " they shall see evil 
 no more," as compared with former evils. 
 
 16. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear 
 thou not : and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. 
 
 "Let not thy hands be slack " is said in the sense of not waxing 
 feeble through despondency and unbelief. 
 
 IT. The LoKD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty ; 
 he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy ; he will 
 rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. 
 
 Her Lord is not in the midst of her — his Zion — as a terror or a 
 scourge, but as a mighty one for help, rejoicing in her purity and 
 
 blessedness. The phrase "he will rest in his love " seems to 
 
 mean in the original, "will be silent in his love," in the sense of 
 freely forgiving her sin, and henceforth forbearing to speak of it in 
 words of threatening, and to act against it in retributive judgments. 
 His love is silent from upbraiding and chastising, in contrast with 
 the continual strain of rebuke which had been the common mani- 
 festation of his presence in their former apostasy. Now, they being 
 no longer apostate, but walking humbly and softly before God, he 
 takes the purest delight in abiding among tliem, and silently enjoys 
 their worship and their responsive love. It is indeed a precious 
 thought, but is most fully authorized, that God rejoices in the sin- 
 cere love and worship of his people. It is a source of ineffable de- 
 light to his benevolent heart. This doctrine is reiterated with great 
 force in this passage. 
 
 18. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the sol- 
 emn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach 
 of it was a burden. 
 
 "Those who are grieved" (because of their exclusion) "from 
 thy solemn festivals, I will gather home (they were of thee), who 
 have borne reproach for her" (Zion's) "sake;" or the last clause 
 might be read, "to Avhom reproach for her sake was a burden." 
 The sentiment is that God will gather home to Zion those dispersed 
 ones who had been sad because of their long exclusion from her 
 solemn feasts, and who had borne reproach for their God. 
 
 19. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict 
 thee : and I will save her that halteth, and gather her 
 that was driven out; and I will get them praise and 
 fame in every land where they have been put to shame. 
 
 20. At that time will I bring you again, even in the 
 time that I gather you : for I will make you a name and 
 
ZEPEANIAH.— CHAP. III. 281 
 
 a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn 
 back your captivity before yonr eyes, saitli the Loed. 
 
 The original, rendered "I will undo," means I will deal with — 
 take them in hand for justice and judgment. This would doubtless 
 involve their undoing. Sentiment — God will reverse the state of 
 her long-depressed and scattered people. The feeble shall be saved 
 with strength ; the exiled brought home in triumph ; the long-dis- 
 lionored and disowned shall have praise and fame in the very place 
 where they had been put to shame. The public sentiment of the 
 world is changed, and the real friends of God are now held, not in 
 
 contempt, but in honor. It can scarcely be supposed that the 
 
 restoration from Babylon exhausted the significance of these prom- 
 ises. Then the restored people were few and feeble. Though hon- 
 ored and favored by Cyrus, yet they were by no means greatly 
 honored by their nearest neighbors, the Samaritans, nor by other 
 contiguous nations. Something more and better than that must lie 
 yet treasured up for Zion in these promises. Yet further, the clear 
 indications in this chapter (vs. 9, 10) of the conversion of the Gen- 
 tiles also, must carry the great body of these predictions over into 
 the gospel era, and some portion of them down into those times 
 described by Paul (Rom. 11), when, almost simultaneously, the Jews 
 will be grafted back into their former stock, and the Gentile world 
 be converted to the same ever-blessed God. come, that glo- 
 rious day I 
 
HAGGAI 
 
 IISrTEODUCTIO]?! 
 
 Both the date and the occasion of this book are given very dis- 
 tinctly. Its date is subsequent to the restoration from captivity in 
 Babylon by sixteen years. Its occasion was the fact that the Jews 
 were sinfully neglecting to complete the building of their temple. 
 Consequently the Lord sent Haggai to rebuke them for this sin, and 
 
 to exhort them to resume the work and complete it. It should be 
 
 borne in mind that Cyrus, on his accession to the Medo-Persian 
 throne, two years after it had absorbed the Chaldean empire and 
 made Babylon its capital, issued an edict, strongly inviting the 
 Jews to return to their own land, and rebuild both their holy city 
 and their temple. Fifty thousand responded to this call, and under 
 \ Zerubbabel as governor, and Joshua as high priest, returned to the 
 land of their fathers, and commenced rebuilding the city, and in 
 process of time the temple also. The Book of Ezra gives the Jewish 
 history of these events. It there appears that in the second year 
 of Cyrus (b. c. 535), and in the second month, they began to re- 
 , build the temple ; that soon the Samaritans began to oppose and 
 ' retard their work, and kept up this opposition during the remaining 
 five years of the reign of Cyrus (Ez. 4 : 5), and yet more vigor- 
 ously and successfully, under his vile son and successor Canibyses 
 (called, Ez. 4 ; 6, " Ahasuerus "), who reigned seven years and five 
 months. At length, from his successor, Smerdis (called, Ez. 4: T, 
 8, 11, 23, Artaxerxes), they obtained an order that the work should 
 absolutely cease. This Smerdis reigned but seven months. A 
 better king succeeded, in the person of Darius Ilystaspes. As Smerdis 
 was xt best only an usurper, and as the decree of Cyrus was there- 
 
HAGGAL— CHAP. I. 283 
 
 foro still the law of the realm, there was no legal obstacle in the 
 way of resuming this work the first moment after the pressure of 
 violent prevention was removed. When, throughout the first year 
 of Darius, it was seen that the people did not resume this work, but 
 occupied themselves in fitting up and even embelKshing their own 
 houses, the Lord sent his prophet Haggai, and two months later 
 Zechariah, to rebuke them for this neglect, and to encourage them 
 to resume and complete the buiiding of the temple. The work was 
 
 completed in the sixth year of Darius (Ezra 6 : 15). These are 
 
 briefly the historic facts which, being intimately connected with the 
 subject matter of this book, are essential to its intelligent exposition. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 The Lord rebukes the neglect of the people to build his house ; 
 calls their attention to their lean and meagre harvests, and to his 
 blighting curses upon their land and labor because of this neglect; 
 and when the people shall have returned to this duty, pledges them 
 his favoring presence. 
 
 1. In tlie second year of Darius the king, in the sixth 
 month, in the first day of the month, came the word of 
 the LoKD by Haggai the prophet nnto Zerubbabel the 
 son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the 
 son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, 
 
 2. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying. This 
 people say, The time is not come, the time that the 
 Lord's house should be built. 
 
 The people excused their delay in finishing the temple, on the 
 
 alleged ground that the time for it had not yet come. It has 
 
 been supposed that they bolstered up this lame apology by their 
 own construction of Jeremiah's prophecy (25 : 12), which had named 
 seventy years as the duration of the captivity. As the temple was 
 not destroyed until eighteen years after the first captives were taken 
 away, and as only about fifteen years had passed, up to the first 
 year of Darius, since the first captives returned, they perhaps per- 
 suaded themselves to think that the temple must lie desolate yet 
 some three years longer, to complete its full period of seventy years. 
 
 Men sometimes put constructions upon Scripture which God 
 
 has neither put nor authorized, the ultimate cause being that they 
 are but too well pleased to have it so. This may liavo been a cane 
 of the same sort. 
 
284 HAGGAI.— CEAP. I. 
 
 3. Then came tlie word of the Lord by Haggai the 
 prophet, saying, 
 
 4. Is it time for yon, O ye, to dwell in yonr ceiled 
 honses, and this house lie waste ; 
 
 In the question, " Is it time for yon," &c., the Lord uses the 
 word " time " because the people had used it, saying, " The time has 
 not come to build the Lord's house." Thus ye say, " The time has 
 not come to build my house ; " has the time come for you to build 
 yours, and finish them off with comfort and even elegance, while 
 you let my house lie waste ? Is this a proper expression of gratitude 
 to Jehovah for condescending to dwell in the midst of you, and for 
 redeeming you from your long captivity ? The word " you " in the 
 Hebrew is made specially emphatic. It is for yoii^ for such as you^ 
 for yoii^ in view of all your circumstances, &;c. This emphasis is 
 
 indicated by repeating the pronoun you. " Ceiled houses," from 
 
 the Hebrew word meaning covered, refers to the inside covering of 
 the walls with more or less of ornament — in modern phrase, called 
 " finishing " — for both comfort and beauty. 
 
 6. Now, therefore, thns saith the Loed of hosts ; Con- 
 sider your ways. 
 
 6. Ye have sown much, and briug in little ; ye eat, 
 but ye have not enough ; ye drink, but ye are not filled 
 with drink ; ye clothe you, but there is none warm ; and 
 he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag 
 with holes. 
 
 The expressive form of tlie original is, "Set your heart on your 
 ways," i. e., look on your ways, not only thoughtfully but solemnly, 
 appreciating and realizing the significance of your course toward 
 God, and of God's toward you. Since they had dishonored God by 
 neglecting his temple, he had scourged them by suspending his 
 usual gifts of timely rain and sun. He appeals to them to note the 
 facts of their own case, how they had prospered in nothing, and had 
 toiled to small purpose. 
 
 T. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Consider your ways. 
 
 8. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build 
 the house ; and I will take pleasure in it, and. I will be 
 glorified, saith the Lord. 
 
 This second exhortation to consider their ways may have a look 
 forward, as the first (v. 5) looked back, as if the Lord would say: 
 " Take note of what shall be hereafter, as well as of what has been 
 heretofore. Go to the mountain; get wood; finish my house; 
 then see what a change shall come over your labor, and the fruits 
 thereof." 
 
 0. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little ; and 
 
HAGGAL— CHAP. I. 285 
 
 when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. "Why ? 
 saith the Lord of hosts. Becanse of mine liouse that is 
 waste, and ye rnn every man nnto his own house. 
 
 10. Therefore, the heaven over you is stayed from 
 dew, and the earth is stayed /r(9??i her fruit. 
 
 11. And I called for a drought upon the land, and 
 upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the 
 new wine, and \\.])0\\ the oil, and upon that which the 
 ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, 
 and upon all the labor of the hands. 
 
 The phrase " blow upon it," some interpreters render (as the 
 margin has it) blow it away. The pre[)Osition rendered iipon^ 
 strongly favors our received translation. The sense will then be — 
 Even after you had gathered your harvests home, I blighted them as 
 
 by the breath of my mouth. The word " rz^n," " ye run every 
 
 man to his own house," indicates that their hearts were not in God's 
 
 house, nor toward it, but toward their own. It was specially 
 
 characteristic of the entire age before the coming of Christ that God's 
 moral government over men in this w^orld was made manifest by 
 present retrihutio?i. It was never intended that those present retri- 
 butions should be perfect, or should supersede the necessity of a fu- 
 ture state in which all deficiencies would be made up ; but it was 
 the design of God to make his government palpable, so that all men 
 should have tangible, visible evidence of its reality. Obviously there 
 was indefinitely more need of present retribution then than now. 
 It was a sort of compensation to oftsett their inferior light respecting 
 
 God, duty, and salvation. The genius of that whole dispensation 
 
 in regard to the point now in hand — present retribution for right 
 and wrong doing, visited on the people in blessings or in curses — is 
 set forth strongly in the latter chapters of Deuteronomy, especially 
 chapter 28. These verses of Haggai presuppose this type of God's 
 moral government over men in this world. 
 
 12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua 
 the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the rem- 
 nant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Loed their 
 God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Loed 
 their God had sent him, and the people did fear before 
 the Loed. 
 
 13. Then spake Haggai the Loed's messenger in the 
 Loed's message unto the people, saying, I cwi with you, 
 Baith the Loed. 
 
 14. And tlie Loed stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel 
 the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of 
 Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the 
 
286 nAGGAi.— cnAP. ii. 
 
 spirit of all the remnant of tlie people ; and tliej came 
 and did work in the honse of the Lokd of hosts, their 
 God, 
 
 15. In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, 
 in the second year of Darins the king. 
 
 It is pleasant to note that these messages from the Lord pro- 
 duced the desired result. The Lord stirred up the spirit of both 
 rulers and people, and thej took hold earnestly of the neglected 
 work of rebuilding the temple. Twenty-four days sufficed to arouse 
 
 them and to make the necessary preparations. The masses of the 
 
 jjeople were far more obedient to the voice of God than before the 
 captivity — furnishing yet another case of blessings coming through 
 sore chastisement. " Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now 
 have I kept thy word." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The distinct portions of this chapter are strongly marked : (1.) 
 The portion (vs. 1-9) which speaks to those hearts that were sad 
 and depressed by the gi*eatly inferior glory of this temple compared 
 with that built by Solomon. (2.) Ys. 10-19, designed to show that 
 their late neglect to build the house of God had vitiated all their 
 labors, and brought a blight from the Lord upon all their fruits ; 
 and (3.) Vs. 20-23, encouraging their rulers, and confirming the 
 great promise made (vs. 6-9). 
 
 1. In the seventh month^ in the one and twentietli 
 day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the 
 prophet Haggai, saying, 
 
 The reader will note that this date is one month, less three 
 days, after they began upon the work of rebuilding. (See 1:15.) 
 "With what had been done in the former effort, commenced some 
 fourteen years before, the work of this month sufficed to show that 
 this temple must be greatly inferior in splendor and in all its ap- 
 pointments, to that which had stood from the time of Solomon 
 down to the captivity. 
 
 2. Speak now to Zernbbabel the son of Shealtiel, 
 governor of Judah, and to Joslma the son of Josedech 
 the hi2:h priest, and to the re-sidue of the people, saying, 
 
 3. Who is left among yon that saw this house in her 
 first glory % and how do ye see it now % is it not in your 
 eyes in comparison of it as nothing ? 
 
 A few patriarchs of venerable age remained to remember the 
 glory of that first temple which had now lain desolate about sixty- 
 
nAGGAI.— CHAP. II. 287 
 
 eight years. The Lord calls their attention to the contrast hetweeu 
 that and this. " How do ye see this now ? Is not this in your 
 
 eyes, compared with that, as nothing? " Ezra. 3 : 12, 13, gives us 
 
 a touching allusion to this scene, hlending the joy of the young 
 people with the grief of their fathers — the shoutings of the one class 
 and the sad wailings of the other — each swelling up, and perhaps 
 each exciting the other, until the noise was heard afar, and men 
 could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the outcries of grief— 
 a scene not soon forgotten hy either the joyous or the sad ones of 
 
 that day. The Lord calls attention to the wide contrast between 
 
 this latter house and the former because he had something to say 
 about it, as we shall see. 
 
 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubabbel, saitli the Loed ; 
 and be strong, O Josliua, son of Josedecli the high 
 priest ; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith 
 the LoED, and work : for I am with yon, saith the Lord 
 of hosts : 
 
 The first thing he would say is. Be strong of heart, and never 
 yield to depression; "be strong and work," for I am with you, 
 and my presence ought to outweigh greater and more discouraging 
 contrasts than this which saddens your hearts to-day. Shall it not 
 be enough for you that I am with you ? 
 
 5. According to the word that I covenanted with 
 yon w^hen ye came ont of Egypt, so my Spirit remain- 
 eth among you ; fear ye not. 
 
 The proper construction of the terra " word," in the phrase 
 rendered " according to the word that I covenanted," &c., pre- 
 sents difficulties. There seems to be no authority in the original 
 for the words " according to," or for the idea that the continued 
 presence of the Spirit is in accordance with that original covenant 
 made when the nation came forth from Egypt. This may or not be 
 
 true : it is not expressed clearly and beyond a doubt here. 
 
 On the contrary, this passage, almost beyond a doubt, affirms (1.) 
 That the covenant made at Sinai is still in force, no less since the 
 captivity than before ; and (2.) That God's Spirit also still abides 
 with the people ; so that for both reasons the people ought not to 
 fear, but be strong and of good courage. "With such a covenant of 
 promise, and such a present, indwelling Spirit, why should they 
 bewail the lack of those external splendors which pertained to the 
 temple of Solomon ? 
 
 6. For thns saith the Lord of hosts ; Yet once, it is 
 a little v\'hile, and I will shake the heavens, and the 
 earth, and the sea, and the dry land j 
 
 Exegetically, the chief difficulty in this verse turns on the word 
 rendered '' oncey The choice seems to me to lie between these 
 
288 HAGGAI.— CHAP. II. 
 
 two constructions: (1.) "Yet once more, and that very soon, I 
 will sbake," &c. ; or (2). " It is yet but one short period, and I will 
 shake," &c. In the latter case, the word one (this is the nsual sense 
 of the Hebrew) is only equivalent to the article. Of this usage 
 there are some examples. _The choice between these two construc- 
 tions is a matter of no greab importance as to the ultimate sense. 
 The first construction may be thought to imply once more, and 
 once o?il?/. 
 
 The " shaking of the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry 
 land," must be taken in the figurative and not the literal sense, to 
 indicate, not an earthquake, reaching far out thi'ough boundless 
 space, but convulsions among the great nationalities of the world — 
 Ass}Tian, Chaldean, Medo-Persian, and Grecian — to pave the way 
 for the coming of Messiah's kingdom. They dash one against an- 
 other, each in succession overwhelming its immediate predecessor, 
 but each revolution ripening the w^orld for the coming of Messiah. 
 In a similar strain Ezekiel says (21 : 27) : "I will overturn, overturn, 
 overturn, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, 
 
 and I will give it him." In this view of the sense, the next verse 
 
 will be explanatory — " Yea, I will shake all nations," &c. 
 
 7. And I will sliake all nations, and the desire of 
 all nations shall come : and I will fill this house with 
 glory, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 8. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith 
 the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The test word in verse 7 is " desire.''^ Is this a synonym for the 
 Messiah? Is it only another name for the same exalted man, 
 thought and spoken of here as one " desired by all nations " ? So 
 the current sentiment of the Church and so its sacred songs have 
 for the most part assumed. This has been a pleasant and cherished 
 interpretation. I must confess that I have felt its strong attrac- 
 tions. But I have been compelled by the force of grammatical and 
 exegetical reasons to modify somewhat this interpretation, yet not 
 so as ultimately to lessen but rather to augment the richness of its 
 
 spiritual significance. The usual construction, which interprets 
 
 the word "desire" as meaning precisely the Messiah, must be re- 
 jected : 
 
 (1.) First and mainly, because the verb is plural — " tJiey come, 
 even the desire of all the nations." The word -'desire'" must 
 therefore be a noun of multitude, i. <?., a noun embracing in its 
 meaning not one object alcme, but many. There seems to be no 
 way to get over this difiiculty so long as we make " desire " synony- 
 mous with Messiah. 
 
 (2.) The scope of thought is not congenial to its strict applica- 
 tion to the Messiah, especially as seen in the declaration, " The 
 silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts." 
 Silver and gold were eminently absent, not present, in the personal 
 
nAGGAL— CHAP. II. 289 
 
 afe of the man of Nazareth. Yet in this prophecy silver and gold 
 must stand in a close relation to tlie sense of the clause " the De- 
 sire of all nations shall come." A better construction is possible. 
 
 and indeed unobjectionable. Let it be borne in mind that this 
 entire passage grows out of the contrast between the meagreness 
 of tlie new temple and the wealth and splendor of the old, and out 
 of the consequent discouragement and depression of the Lord's peo- 
 ple. He calls their special attention to this wide contrast (v. 3). 
 lie proceeds to intimate (vs. 4, 5) that the absence of gold and 
 silver, and of material splendor in this new temple, may be abun- 
 dantly compensated by his spiritual blessings; by the fact that "/ 
 ajn with you,^^ and the further fact that the covenant and the Spirit 
 are still remaining. He advances yet in the same line of thought — 
 I am about to convulse the nations — to revolutionize the state of 
 the world, and thus, as the ultimate outcome, the desirable things 
 of all nations — their wealth, beauty, and glory — shall come to Zion ; 
 and " I will fill this temple with glory, saitli the Lord of hosts." 
 The silver and the gold of all the world are mine, saith the Lord 
 of hosts, and by the might of my power over the hearts of men 
 and over all human society, it shall be consecrated to Immanuel's 
 kingdom. Special stress must be accorded to this frequent repe- 
 tition of the phrase, "saith the Lord of hosts," closing each of 
 
 three successive verses, 7, 8, 9. Let it also be borne in mind that, 
 
 according to this construction, the Lord speaks precisely to that 
 which constituted the chief solicitude of the pious Jews. They 
 were saying in their heart: How much we do miss the riches — the 
 silver, the gold, the cedars, the tapestry — of that ancient temple! 
 When and how can we ever rear a temple worthy of the God of 
 our fathers ? We are very poor ; shall we ever be rich enough to 
 
 build and adorn a temple w^orthy of our God ? -To this the Lord 
 
 very kindly and pertinently replies : Give yourselves no solicitudes 
 in that line. I am the Lord God of hosts ; I rule this wide world, 
 and I can command all its silver and gold when I will for my king- 
 dom. Axidi I shall do it ! In support of this construction may 
 
 be urged (1.) It gives the ordinary and established sense to the 
 word rendered " desire.'^'' This word is used mainly for those things 
 which worldly men desire. (2.) It meets the exigencies of the 
 plural verb, since it embraces in its idea many things, not one only. 
 (3.) It is, as we have seen, fully in keeping with the previous con- 
 text — the train of thought which occasioned this prophecy, and 
 which introduced this passage. (4.) It is equally in harmony with 
 the subsequent context — filling this house with glory, and God's 
 claiming the silver and the gold of the world as his own. (5.) It is 
 also entirely in harmony with other and more ancient prophecies, 
 e. g.^ Isa. 60. To set this in its full light would demand the whole 
 chapter, in which we read : " The abundance of the sea shall be 
 converted unto thee " — " all they from Sheba shall come, bringing 
 gold and incense" — " the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of 
 Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold 
 13 
 
290 HAGGAI.— CHAP. II. 
 
 with them, nnto the name of the Lord thy God " — " the glory of 
 Lebanon shall come nnto thee to heantify the place of my sanctu- 
 ary, and I will make the place of my feet glorions," &c., &c. 
 
 The same strain runs through the seventy-second Psalm : " The 
 kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents ; the kings 
 of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts." Let it be said very dis- 
 tinctly that in tliis construction of the passage, I do not exclude 
 but include the Messiah. One advantage of this construction is 
 that under it we get, not the Messiah alone, but much more be- 
 sides. It is only under his reign and after the power of his cross 
 over human hearts has been gloriously developed among the great 
 and distant nations of the earth, that all the silver and gold of 
 the world shall be brought and laid at his feet for use in the pur- 
 poses of Ms spiritual kingdom. Even yet, how little of the real 
 wealth of nominally Christian nations — ^nay, more, how little of the 
 wealth of the visible Church is truly consecrated to the Saviour of 
 men ! It shall yet be far otherwise than this ! Prophecy cannot 
 receive its entire fulfilment until the wealth of the world shall press 
 forward voluntarily (so to speak) to lay itself at Immanuel's feet, 
 to be used so that he may soonest and best see of the travail of his 
 soul, and may have most of that "joy set before him," in the con- 
 version of myriads to his love and service. It may be asked : Do 
 
 you expect, in the good time yet coming, to see a temple built with 
 cedars from Lebanon, and beautified with the silver and the gold of 
 
 all the earth? 1 answer, Nothing can be further from my 
 
 thought than the going back of Christianity to real Judaism. The 
 New Testament "temple of God" is the loving and pure heart 
 wherein God dwells (2 Cor. G : 16). In this temple, by another 
 figure. Christians are themselves "living stones" (1 Pet. 2:5), 
 and in this temple " the sacrifices of God are a broken heart and 
 
 a contrite spirit." Of course, Jewish prophets must think and 
 
 write in Jewish symbols and terms. Good Christian sense must 
 find the spiritual meaning of those terms and symbols — the New 
 Testament and its teaching Spirit furnishing the key. 
 
 9. Tlie glory of this latter house shall be greater than 
 of the former, saith the Lord of hosts : and in this place 
 will I give peace, saith the Loed of hosts. 
 
 To the first clause, two different interpretations have been given ; 
 (1.) That the "latter house " is that of Zerubbabel, the former that 
 of Solomon ; and the thing affirmed, that the glory of this built 
 under Zerubbabel, shall be greater than the glory of that built by 
 Solomon ; (2.) That the temple of Solomon is out of mind, and that 
 the antithesis really lies between the former and the latter glory of 
 this same temple then in building — its " former glory " being what 
 it had under Zerubbabel, and onward down through what remained 
 of the age before Christ ; and the latter, that which it shall attain 
 when the desirable things of all nations shall come into it ; when 
 the wealth and beauty of the world shall be consecrated to Imman- 
 
HAGGAI.— CHAP. II. 291 
 
 uel, and the Prince of Peace shall reign in his own spiritual tem- 
 ple, filling it with the glory of his own presence. The latter is 
 
 doubtless the true construction: (1.) Because it is precisely what 
 the words in their order mean, and must mean. They stand thus : 
 " Great shall be the glory of this house — the latter more than the 
 former, saith Jehovah of hosts." (2.) Because this construction 
 alone answers to the drift of the context, the very thing that the 
 Lord is saying in this passage being this — The meagre glory of 
 this temple, as ye now see it, shall give place to a glory vastly 
 greater when the wealth and beauty of all the nations shall bo 
 brought into it. That is, the era of spiritual power, beauty, and 
 glory, shall immensely surpass all the external splendors of Judaism ; 
 the spirit shall eclipse the letter ; the inward be more and better 
 than the outward ; the homage of countless warm and living hearts 
 shall more adorn and glorify God's temple than all the gold of 
 Ophir, the smoke of incense and the blood of thousands of bullocks 
 
 and of rams. "In this place will I give peace" — can have but 
 
 one interpretation ; — not tranquillity as opposed to the disturbances 
 of war ; not peace of mind as opposed to agitation and distress : but 
 including all these and much more, the abstract word peace, used 
 for the concrete, it means the great PeacemaTcer, the great author 
 and Prince of Peace, the world's pacificator as toward its abused, 
 ofifended Maker ; — the Shiloh of earlier prophecy, repeatedly foretold 
 under precisely this appellation. (See Micah 5 : 5 and Isa. 9 : 6, 7.) 
 
 This naturally completes the evidence in proof that this entire 
 
 passage refers to the then future times of the Messiah. 
 
 10. In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month^ 
 in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord 
 by Haggai the prophet, saying, 
 
 11. Thus saith the Lokd of hosts, Ask now the 
 priests concerning the hiw, saying, 
 
 12. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, 
 and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, 
 or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy ? And the priests 
 answered and said, No. 
 
 13. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a 
 dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean ? And 
 the priests answered and said. It shall be unclean. 
 
 14. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this peo- 
 ple, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lokd ; and 
 so is every work of their hands ; and that which they 
 offer here is unclean. 
 
 The priests being the authorized expounders of the ceremonial 
 law, the Lord directs the people to propound to them two ques- 
 tions : (1.) In case a priest, bearing holy flesh in his garment, bring? 
 
292 HAGGAL— CHAP. II. 
 
 it in contact with any thing else, does it impart its own sacrednesa 
 to whatsoever it touches ? To this, they answer, No. Ceremo- 
 nial holiness is not imparted by the touch. (2.) Over against tliis 
 
 is the second question : Does a man, who has been made unclean 
 by contact with a dead body, impart his own uncleanness by the 
 touch? They answer. Yes. Ceremonial uncleanness is imparted 
 by the touch. This doctrine of the ceremonial law, the Lord ap- 
 plies to the people. They had sinned in neglecting to build the 
 Lord's temple. By reason of this sin, their moral state became 
 analogous to that of the man ceremonially unclean. This sin im- 
 parted its moral character to all they did. The Lord could not take 
 
 pleasure in the labors of their hands ; it all became unclean. On 
 
 the other hand, if they should do any good thing, it could not carry 
 its good quality over to any thing else they might do. Under the 
 law of God, works of supererogation are unknown. 
 
 15. And now, I pray you, consider from this day 
 and upwards, from before a stone was laid upon a stone 
 in the temple of the Lord : 
 
 16. Since those days were, when 07ie came to an heap 
 of twenty ineasures^ there were hut ten : when one came 
 to the press-fat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the 
 press, there were hut twenty. 
 
 17. I smote you with blasting and with mildew and 
 with hail in all the labors of your hands ; yet ye turned 
 not to me, saith the Loed. 
 
 The Lord would have them re\'iew the period from that day 
 backward to the point where the building of the temple commenced, 
 and so from that day onward to the present, and observe how fear- 
 fully their harvests had been blighted. " I smote you with blasting 
 and blight, yet ye moved not toward me " — literally, " there was 
 nothing of you to me." Up to this point his chastisements had 
 proved altogether unavailing. 
 
 18. Consider now from this day and upward, from 
 the four and twentieth day of the ninth montli^ ecen 
 from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple 
 was laid, consider it. 
 
 19. Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, 
 and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the ohve-tree, 
 hath not brought forth : from this day will I bless yoib. 
 
 Here is another call to examine the course of the Lord's provi- 
 dence toward them throughout the interval from the day when 
 they commenced laying the foundations of the Lord's house to that 
 
 hour. Is tlie seed yet in the barn ? No. Planting-time is past, 
 
 and you have planted ; but have you any harvests of any sort? Not 
 
HAGGAL— CHAP. II. 293 
 
 any. Bnt now that ye have resumed this labor upon the temple, 
 
 from this day I will bless you. Note and see. 
 
 20. And again tlie word of the Loed came unto 
 Haggai in the four and tv/entietli day of the month, 
 saying, 
 
 21. Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, 
 I will shake the heavens and the earth ; 
 
 22. And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, 
 and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the 
 heathen ; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those 
 that ride in them ; and the horses and their riders shall 
 come down, every one by the sword of his brother. 
 
 This message, sent especially to Zerubbabel, bears the same date 
 with that immediately preceding, and seems intended to supple- 
 ment and reaffirm the prophecy recorded (vs. 6-9). It is quite plain 
 here that the " shaking of the heavens and the earth " is the same 
 thing as " overthrowing the throne of the kingdoms," and has no 
 application other than this. God will cast down vast armies, over- 
 throwing chariots and their riders, horses and horsemen, and turn- 
 ing a man against his brother, so that God's enemies should give 
 then* strength to mutual slaughter. Thus those vast, ungodly king- 
 doms of the earth are doomed to fall. 
 
 23. In that day saith the Loed of hosts, will I take 
 thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, 
 saith the Loed, and will make thee as a signet ; for I 
 have chosen thee, saith the Loed of hosts. 
 
 But throughout this slaughter of his foes, God will protect his 
 friends. He indicates this by saying that their governor shall be as 
 his signet-ring upon his finger. This implies care, love, and protec- 
 tion. No doubt the Lord intended this promise should be good to 
 the successors of Zerubbabel ; — good for his people so long as they 
 put their trust in him, whoever their Zerubbabel may be. 
 
ZEOHAEIAH 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The usnal preliminary questions of personal history — date, occa- 
 Bion, and special object — are readily settled in the case of the proph- 
 et Zechariah. He began to prophesy in the eighth month of the 
 second year of Darius Ilystaspes, b. c. 520, contemporary with Ilag- 
 gai, when Zerubbabel was governor of Judah, and Joshua was high 
 priest. At this period, the great matters of interest in the visible 
 kingdom of God were the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the resettlement 
 of the returned and still-returning captives from Chaldea, and yet 
 more especially, the rebuilding of the temple, and the culture of the 
 faith and religious life of the people composing the new community. 
 In many respects it was a time of laying again the foundations of re- 
 ligion and morals, and of planting anew those institutions which 
 were to be the fountains of their future religious life, and hence of 
 their abiding prosperity. Consequently, there was abundant work 
 
 for the prophets of the Lord. It is pleasant to note that their 
 
 work was more hopeful and less discouraging than that of their 
 predecessors for many generations. The people were more impres- 
 sible; the word of the Lord was effective; the spirit of obedience, 
 and not of rebellion, was in the main predominant. Hence, most 
 of the messages sent from the Lord by Zechariah were of cheerful 
 tone, breathing far more of promise than of threatening. 
 
 The reader will notice in this prophet (relatively to the whole 
 amount of his writings) more predictions of the Messiah than in any 
 
 other. The people were at first a small and feeble band, estimated 
 
 in comparison with other tribes and sovereignties about them. They 
 could scarcely have stood their ground against these hostile powers, 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. I. 295 
 
 save under the protection of the Persian throne. In this throne, 
 God liad remarkably provided for their security. Hence, they had 
 great reason to feel that in this respect their salvation and national 
 life were from the Lord. In the same line of thought, the Lord 
 often revealed to them that Greater Patron and more glorious 
 Refuge, ere long to appear in the person of Iramanuel, the real 
 King of Zion. 
 
 The first six chapters are distinguished from the rest of the hook, 
 and indeed from most of the other prophetical writings of the 
 Old Testament, by the blending of symbol and vision. The things 
 presented to the prophet in vision were highly symbolic. Most of 
 these symbols were so far explained to the prophet as to give us an 
 
 adequate clue to their significance. Some critics have assumed 
 
 that the diversity in the point of symbolic vision, between the first 
 six chapters and the remaining eight, is sufficient proof that the lat- 
 ter portion was not written by the same Zechariah. The only valid 
 ground for this assumption must be another further back, viz. 
 that, if God reveals any truth to a given prophet by symbolic 
 visions, he must pursue this precise method and no other without 
 variation throughout that prophet's life. But what authority can 
 bo found for such an assumption? Does it obtain in the case of the 
 prophet Amos, or Daniel, or Ezekiel, or Jeremiah? I look upon 
 this assumption as one of tlie follies, not to say absurdities, of hyper- 
 criticism. Tlie book throughout is richly instructive, fraught 
 
 with spiritual life and power, and consolatory to the feeble but 
 trusting children of God. 
 
 OHAPTEPw I. 
 
 Tms chapter contains three distinct portions : vs. 1-6 derive 
 admonition for the people from the case of their fathers whom the 
 Lord sent into captivity for their sins; vs. 8-17 is the first symboHc 
 vision, viz., of horses and their riders, and vs. 17-21 the second, of 
 four horns, and of smiths to break those horns in pieces and destroy 
 their power for harm. 
 
 1. In tlie eighth month, in the second year of 
 Darins, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the 
 son of Barachiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 
 
 Zechariah is said (Ezra 5 : 1) to be the son of Iddo the prophet. 
 Wo must suppose that '' son " is used there in its less rigid sense, 
 for grandson. Iddo is perhaps made prominent there as his an- 
 cestor, because he was a prophet. 
 
290 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. I. 
 
 2. The LoED liatli been sore displeased witli yoni 
 fathers. 
 
 The statements of tLe history respecting this sore displeasure 
 of God against their fathers are abnndant and very strong. (See 
 2 Chron. 36 : 11-lG, and 2 Chron. 33, and 2 Kings 21 : 2-16.) 
 
 3. Therefore, say thon unto them, Thus saith the 
 Lord of hosts ; Turn ye imto me, saith the Lord of hosts, 
 and I will turn unto you, saith tlie Lord of hosts. 
 
 In view of God's wrath against their fathers and its results in 
 the desolation of their city and land, the Lord commissions Zech- 
 ariah to say to the people then present : " Turn unto me in 
 penitence, and I will turn unto you in forgiving love and mercy." 
 This is the standing law of God's moral kingdom in this world of 
 
 probation. The reader will notice the frequent yet not " vain 
 
 repetition " of the divine title, '' the Lord of hosts," the Great 
 Euler of the celestial armies, the King of the universe. 
 
 4. Ee ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former 
 prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of 
 hosts ; Turn ye now from your evil ways, sudfrom your 
 evil doings : hut they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, 
 saith the Lord. 
 
 5. Your fathers, w/iere are they ? and the prophets, 
 do they live for ever ? 
 
 6. But, my words and my statutes which I com- 
 manded my servants the prophets, did they not take 
 hold of your fathers? And they returned and said, Like 
 as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to 
 our ways and according to our doings, so hath he dealt 
 with us. 
 
 "With great pertinence and force the Lord exhorts them not to 
 be as their fathers, stiff-necked, obdurate, reckless of the warnings 
 and entreaties sent them of God by the former prophets. }V7iere 
 are tliose fathers now f Gone from the world where they became 
 so fearfully hardened in their sins ; gone from the land they pol- 
 luted by their abominations and cursed by their persistence in 
 rebellion ; gone to their righteous but most fearful doom ! It were 
 well for the children to think often of those fathers and ask. Where 
 
 are they? The prophets, too, having served their generation 
 
 amid sore trials and heart-griefs unutterable, had gone to their 
 
 blissful reward. Let the people consider! Did not the words 
 
 which God sent by those former prophets " talce hold of your fathers ?" 
 Did they slip off as things of loose grasp, and prove void of re- 
 sult? Did not those awful threateniugs hold on, and have not 
 you yourselves seen and felt the terrible judgments which thoso 
 
ZECHAPJAH.— CHAP. I. 297 
 
 words portended ? They themselves were forced to admit tliis. 
 
 They returned and said, i. e., they took a new and better view of 
 the case under the pressure of appalling facts, and then they said — 
 All that God thought and threatened to do unto us as a nation, he 
 has done I Let their children take warning I 
 
 T. Upon tlie four and twentieth day of the eleventli 
 month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of 
 Darius, came the word of the Loed unto Zechanah, the 
 son of Barachiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 
 
 8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a 
 red horse, and he stood among the myrtle-trees that ivere 
 in the bottom ; and behind him were there red horses, 
 speckled, and white. 
 
 9. Then said I, O my lord, what are these ? And 
 the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew 
 thee what these de. 
 
 10. And the man that stood among the myrtle-trees 
 answered and said. These are they whom the Loed hath 
 sent to walk to and fro through the earth. 
 
 11. And they answered the angel of the Loed that 
 stood among the myrtle-trees, and said. We have walked 
 to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth 
 sitteth still, and is at rest. 
 
 12. Then the angel of the Loed answered and said, 
 O Loed of hosts, how long wdlt thou not have mercy on 
 Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which 
 thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten 
 years ? 
 
 13. And the Loed answered the angel that talked 
 with me with good words and comfortable words. 
 
 14. So the angel that communed with me said unto 
 me, Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Loed of hosts ; I 
 am jealous for tferusalem and for Zion with a great 
 jealousy. 
 
 15. And I am very sore displeased witli tlie heathen 
 that are at ease : for I was but a little displeased, and 
 they helped forward the affliction. 
 
 16. Therefore thus saith the Loed ; I am returned to 
 Jerusalem with mercies ; mine house shall be built in it, 
 saith the Loed of hosts, and a line shall be stretched 
 forth upon Jerusalem. 
 
 13* 
 
298 ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. I. 
 
 17. Cry yet, saying, Thus saith tlie Lord of hosts , 
 My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad ; 
 and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 These verses comprise one entire and distinct vision, the first in 
 a series, and of symbolic character. The s}Tiibols represent the 
 executive forces by which the Lord administers his providential 
 government over the nations. The special aim here is — (1.) To 
 assm-e the Hebrew people that God had more judgments to send on 
 the nations that had oppressed them; and (2.) That he would greatly 
 augment the growth and prosperity of Zion. So much for the 
 
 general scope of the passage. As to the particulars, let us note 
 
 that this is a night-vision, presented to the mind's eye of the 
 
 prophet by special divine agencies. That men riding on horses 
 
 arc used to represent the executive forces of God's reign over the 
 nations is due (we may suppose) to the use of post-horses as vehicles 
 of the royal mandates, as the nerves of communication (so to speak) 
 from the working brain on the throne to the remotest organs of his 
 will in all his distant provinces. They seem to be thought of here 
 rather as explorers to observe and report, than as executioners. 
 
 The reader will better understand this representation if he will 
 
 be at the pains to classify the personages of the scene — what are 
 sometimes called" the dramatis personas " — thus: (1.) The man 
 riding npon a red horse (v. 8), who stood (on horseback) among the 
 myrtle-trees in the shaded vale, at the head of others, also on horses 
 of various colors ; the same who (v. 10) explained and said, " These 
 arc they whom the Lord hath sent," &c., to whom the other horse- 
 men report (v. 11) ; and to whom prayer is offered as "the Lord of 
 hosts " (v. 12) ; and who answers so kindly (v. 13). This can be no 
 other than the uncreated angel — the very Son of God, so often if 
 not always the God revealed and made manifest in all the ages 
 before his incarnation. (2.) iSText are his attendants, on horses, 
 representing angels proper; those "ministers of his who do his 
 pleasure," and whom he continually employs in the administration 
 of his providential government on earth. Tliey appear (v. 8) where 
 it must be assumed that the horses have riders upon them ; also 
 (v. 11), they report what they have seen in their mission to and fro 
 through the earth. (3.) The revealing angel, specially attendant 
 upon the prophet as his interpreter, usually called " the angel 
 that talked with me," e. g., v. 9, 13, and also in v. 14, where our 
 translators have given the same Hebrew word another rendering, 
 " that communed with me." It is the same angel who offers the 
 prayer (v. 12), since the answer (v. 13) is given to him. That he 
 offers this prayer is due to his strong sympathy with the prophet, 
 
 to whom he was a sort of guardian angel. This grouping of the 
 
 characters of this scene will help the reader to understand its sig- 
 nificance. The horses and their i-iders are seen among the myrtle- 
 trees in a sluuly vale — both the myrtles and the vale indicating the 
 
ZECHArvIAH.—CIIAP. I. 999 
 
 low and liumble condition of God's people and kingdom, especially 
 at that time, yet showing ns plainly that however low and humble 
 in human estimation, God teas in the midst of them^ and did not 
 disdain to reveal precisely tliere his glurious Son, and under him 
 the angels clothed in might as the executive servants of his reign 
 
 among the nations. >^o other speciality of meaning can be safely 
 
 assigned to the color of these horses, cxcei)t that red commonly 
 indicates v/ar-scenes of blood, and that the variety may suggest 
 that God's agency embraces all varieties of manifestation — curses 
 
 and blessings, war and peace. The prophet asks his attendant 
 
 angel what those horses and their riders mean. He promises to 
 show him, but the statement is given by the personage first seen and 
 standing in the foreground of the picture — the Great Uncreated 
 Angel of Jeliovah — " These are they whom the Lord sends to 
 traverse the whole earth." Then they themselves come forv.'afd 
 and make their report in the hearing of the prophet : '' We have 
 traversed the earth, and lo, all the nations arc still and at rest." 
 Even those great powers which had so cruelly oppressed the Jews 
 were not receiving their deserved retribution. This is the main 
 
 point of their report. Upon this, the revealing angel, warming 
 
 in sympathy with the prophet and his people, cries — " IIow long, 
 O Lord, ere thou wilt have mercy on Jerusalem and on Judah, upon 
 which tliou hast manifested thine indignation now seventy years? " 
 
 To this the Lord answers Avitli words of comfort and cheer. 
 
 He has purposed to scourge and soon to destroy that fierce 
 
 Chaldean power, and he will surely lift up Jerusalem. V. 15 
 
 may be paraphrased thus : " I am very sore displeased with 
 Chaldea and Edom : I was comparatively a little displeased with 
 ray people, Judah and Jerusalem, and therefore I suftered those 
 powers to come down on the holy city and land ; but they aug- 
 mented that infliction ; they gave vent to their cruel and vindictive 
 spirit, and have quite overdone the work which I commissioned 
 
 them to do. For this, they are to have a fearful doom." Li 
 
 V. IG, the Lord promises to return in mercy and to help onward the 
 rebuilding of the city; and in v. 17, that the population should 
 
 overpass the city walls and fill the adjacent country. "" Will yet 
 
 choose Jerusalem " — means, will yet manifest his loving choice of 
 her by appropriate mercies. 
 
 18. Then lifted I w]) mine ejes, and saw, and beliold 
 four horns. 
 
 19. And I said unto the angel that talked with me, 
 What he these? And he answered me, These are the 
 horns which have scattered Jndah, Israel, and Jerusalem. 
 
 20. And the Loed shewed me four carpenters. 
 
 21. Then said I, What come these to do ? And he 
 spake, saying. These are the horns which have scattered 
 Judah, so th-it no man did lift up his head : hut tliere 
 
300 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. II. 
 
 are come to fray tliem, to cast out the horns of the Gen 
 tileSj which lifted np iheir horn orer the land of Jndah 
 to scatter it. 
 
 This second vision is closely connected in significance witli the 
 first, looking especially to the destruction of those heathen powers 
 which ''had scattered Judah and Jerusalem." The "horn" is a 
 natural emblem of power. The number, four, does not count so 
 many hostile nations, but rather means all, in every quarter of the 
 earth, toward every cardinal point of the compass, who have been 
 
 pushing and scattering the saints of God. The word rendered 
 
 "carpenters," should be "smiths," workers in iron or other met- 
 als, and therefore armed with suitable instruments for breaking 
 horns. The word " fray," mostly obsolete as a verb, means to 
 frighten. The next verb, rendered " cast out," has a stronger sense 
 — castdoiC7i to tliG ground, so as altogether to paralyze their power 
 
 for harm. This prediction was fulfilled shortly after. Chaldea 
 
 revolted against its late Medo-Persian conquerors during the reign 
 of this same Darius. He consequently attacked and subdued them, 
 and tlien greatly marred the military strength and glory of Baby- 
 lon. Thenceforward Chaldea was no more felt or feared as a power 
 among the nations. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 This chapter introduces one vision and has but a single theme. 
 The vision presents a man going forth to measure Jerusalem ; but 
 he is soon stopped, and it is announced that Jerusalem shall be so 
 prosperous and populous that her people shall overpass her former 
 limits and fill the adjacent country with unwalled villages (vs. 1-4). 
 God will dwell in the midst of her, revealing his glory there ; her 
 captive children are exhorted to fiee out of Babylon and hasten 
 home. In the greatness of her future prosperity, many other 
 nations shall join themselves unto the Lord (vs. 5-13). 
 
 1. I lifted up mine ejes again, and looked, and 
 behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. 
 
 2. Then said I, Whither goest thou ? And he said 
 unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the 
 breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. 
 
 3. And behold, the angel that talked with me went 
 forth, and another angel went out to meet him, 
 
 4. And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, 
 saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without 
 walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein : 
 
 In this vision a man is seen with a measuring line, g^ing forth 
 
ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. II. 301 
 
 to measure Jerusalem — probably its dimensions before its recent 
 destruction — as if preparing to rebuild it on the same foundations. 
 
 The angel that talked with the prophet went forth (i. <?., from 
 
 fiiG prophet) and another angel came forth (it may be supposed) 
 from the Lord, to meet him and to say to him: Hasten to 
 that young man Avho has the measuring line, and tell him there 
 is no occasion to measure the old limits of the city ; the new one 
 shall spread out beyond her former walls, and her people shall live 
 in the sun'ounding country without walls, because of the multitude 
 
 of men and of cattle. In this passage, the point most in dispute 
 
 among critics is the question — Who is this "young man "? (v. 4). 
 Some say he is the prophet Zechariah ; others, that he is the " man 
 with a measuring line " of v. 1 — an appropriate work for an active 
 young man. I incline to the latter view, especially because v. 4 
 implies that the measurement of the city is arrested for reasons 
 there given. The whole scene was designed to impress vividly 
 upon the prophet and his people the gi-eat promise of God respect- 
 ing the gi'owth, prosperity, and glory of the new city, and ulti- 
 mately of that spiritual Zion of which this was the outward 
 symbol. 
 
 5. For I, saith tlie Lord, will be unto her a wall of 
 fire round about, and will be tlie glorj in the midst of 
 her. 
 
 The connection of thought here is admirable : Think no more 
 of walls to be rebuilt for the new city, nor of costly outlays to 
 beautify and adorn it ; " for I, saith the Lord, will be myself her 
 wall," even "a wall of fire round about her; " and I will be her 
 adornment also — even " a glory in the midst of her." This mag- 
 nificent promise we cannot suppose to have been exhausted in the 
 days of Zechariah, nor in the entire period before the incarnation 
 of the Son of God ; but preeminently then when He, the great In- 
 carnation of God, became manifest in human flesh in the midst of 
 his Zion. Yet its fulfilment began in those days of Zion's reforma- 
 tion and rebuilding. Our divine Lord reasserted essentially the 
 same thing and made it a promise of perpetual love to his Church, 
 when he said, " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the 
 world." 
 
 6. Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the 
 north, saith the Lord : for I have spread you abroad as 
 the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord. 
 
 7. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the 
 daughter of Babylon. 
 
 This call summons all Jews stiU remaining in Chaldea to return, 
 especially to escape from the judgments God was soon to bring on 
 Babylon. Babylon is " the land of the north." (See Jer. 6 : 1-22, 
 and IG : 15.) This call to escape contemplates (probably) that 
 
302 ZECHAKLVn.— CHAP. II. 
 
 impemling devastation of Babylon referred to in the notes on Zech- 
 
 1 : 21. The Lord had scattered them abroad asif tlie winds from 
 
 every quarter of the heavens liad been combined for this work. 
 This is the most natui-al sense of the words '''as the four winds of 
 heaven " — i. e., would do it. So, in Isa. 64 : G, and Job 30 : 15. A 
 different pbj-ase is used to express the sense — into or toward the 
 four quarters of the heavens ; as in Jer. 49 : 32-36. 
 
 8. For tliiis saitli the Lord of hosts : After the glory 
 hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you : for 
 he that toucheth yon toncheth the apple of his eye. 
 
 Here two points may need each a word of explanation, viz., the 
 sense of the phrase "after the glory," and the identification of the 
 
 persons "he" and "me," in the clause "he hath sent me," &c. 
 
 "After the glory" is an elliptical, shortened phrase, looking to v. 
 5, and meaning that cfffer having become tlie glory of Z Ion by reveal- 
 ing himself as her king, her refuge, and protector, it follow^ed 
 naturally that he should be sent to scourge the nations that had 
 spoiled Jerusalem, i. <?., the Chaldeans, and perhaps the Edomites 
 
 also. As to the persons "he" and "me," in the phrase "he 
 
 hath sent me," &c., the language implies that the speaker who calls 
 himself the "Lord of hosts," has been sent by some one referred 
 to as "he; " '"'he hath sent w<?," &c. The one thus "sent" can be 
 no other than the leading personage in the vision (1 : 8-18), there 
 seen on a red horse (v. 8) ; to whom the otlier horsemen report (v. 
 11) ; to whom the angel interpreter offei*s prayer (v. 12) ; and 
 moreover the same personage wiio in 2 : 5 says, " I will be a glory 
 in the midst of her," i. <?,, the Son of God. — —The antecedent of 
 ^' he " is implied in thought, rather than expressed in word ; yet can 
 be no other tlian the infinite Father — often represented in the Scrip- 
 tures as sending the Son — here on a mission of providential judg- 
 ments on the guilty nations that had desolated Jerusalem. The 
 
 reason assigned is beautifully significant of the tenderness of even 
 the Father's love toward his people. ATe often see manifestations 
 of tenderness in Jesus Christ while wearing our nature in its hu- 
 man weaknesses; but here Jesus says of his Father — "He that 
 toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye." " Toucheth " — in 
 the sense of doing harm. The apple is the pupil of the eye, which 
 the Hebrews call the little riian of the eye, or as here^ the little boy 
 of the eye, both terms coming probably from the fact that, looking 
 
 into the eye, you see a miniature picture of yourself. Can we 
 
 realize the precious truth taught here — that God feels every injury 
 done to his people, as we feel a wound in the apple of our eye? 
 Then let us forever dismiss and discard the cruel assumption that 
 the Infinite God has little or no sympathy with our spiritual life, 
 vvitli the real welfare of his people, the interests of his truth, and 
 ihe cause of human salvation ! 
 
 9. For, hehold, I will shake my hand upon themj 
 
ZECIIARIAII.— CHAP. 11. 303 
 
 and tliey shall be a spoil to their servants : and ye shall 
 know that the Loed of hosts hath sent me, 
 
 Immanuel, as tlic C4od of universal providence, sent to the na- 
 tions that had wasted Zion, here declares what he will do, and caPa 
 special attention to it: "I will shake or wave my hand over them " 
 — so mach only being necessary to indicate to the executioners of 
 his will what they were to do ; and "they shall become a spoil to 
 those who have heretofore been their servants ; " i. <?., the nations 
 some time in servitude under Chaldea now rise up, overcome, and 
 
 spoil her. Ye shall know by your experience of divine blessinj2;s 
 
 that my commission is truly divine. It is remarkable that the 
 
 phrase "the Lord of hosts " is used interchangeably of the Father 
 «Hnd the Son : of the Father here ; of the Son in v. 8, and elsewhere 
 in this and the previous chapter. No other explanation of this is 
 needed save the ftict that this name is equally applicable to either, 
 and that the Scriptures in some cases represent the Father and in 
 some cases the Son, as administering the government of this world. 
 
 10. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion ; for lo, I 
 come, and i will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the 
 Lord. 
 
 Closely parallel with this is Zech. 9:9: There — " Rejoice great- 
 ly, daughter of Zion ; shout, daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, 
 thy king coraeth unto thee,"&c. Here^ as the reader will see, " Sing 
 and rejoice," for lo, I come and I will dw^ell in the midst of thee, 
 saith the Lord, i. e., Jehovah. This close similarity strengthens 
 the evidence that the speaker here is the promised Messiah, and 
 that this promised coming can be exhausted in nothing less than his 
 appearance in human flesh, and indeed in nothing less than his 
 abiding presence (spiritually) with his people "to the end of the 
 world." This abiding presence, in somewhat lower forms, he mani- 
 fested from the time of Zechariah onward to his incarnation. 
 
 All this is indeed occasion for exultant joy. 
 
 11. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in 
 that day, and shall be my people : and I will dwell in 
 the midst of thee, and thon shalt know that the Lord of 
 hosts hath sent me nnto thee. 
 
 Christ's coming to dwell incarnate and subsequently by his 
 Spirit, the Comforter, would result in the calling of the Gentiles 
 into his Church, and ultimately in the gathering of many nations, 
 and in their becoming joined in the relationships of love and trust to 
 their redeeming Saviour and king. Here recurs again that ex- 
 pressive phrase — " Thou shalt know " (in thine own blest expe- 
 rience) that I am sent of the Eternal Father, that the work is not 
 mine alone, but his as well — evermore sustained by the commou 
 sympathy and the cooperative agency of each and of both. 
 
301 ZECIIARIAn.— CHAP. III. 
 
 12. And tlie Lord shall inherit Juclah his portion ip 
 the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. 
 
 "Inherit," in the sense of having them as indeed his own 
 peculiar people, with their most heart j concurrence and true 
 devotion to his service. This verse raanifestlj had its special fulfil- 
 ment in the nearer future — already apparent in the time of this 
 prophet. 
 
 13. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord : for he is 
 raised np out of his holy habitation. 
 
 So glorious are these promises, so magnificent and momentous 
 these achievements, that the prophet gives utterance to his sense of 
 the impressive presence of Jehovah, who works them all, hy saying 
 — " Be silent, O all flesh, before " such a God, so present in this 
 guilty world, " for he hath roused himself up from his holy habita- 
 tion," and is about to gird himself for solemn and mighty issues ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 This chapter records another distinct and entire vision, in whicb 
 Joshua, the high priest, is the prominent personage. He appears, 
 not in his own person, but as representing the priesthood, and par- 
 ticularly in their depressed condition at that time. The vision aims 
 to show that God does not reject but forgives and restores the 
 priesthood, and indeed will at length make it perpetual in the per- 
 son of his Messiah. 
 
 1. And he shewed me Joshua the high priest stand- 
 ing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at 
 his right hand to resist him. 
 
 The tense of the Hebrew verb connects this verb closely with 
 the preceding : " And tlwn he caused me to see Joshua the high 
 priest standing," engaged in his ofiicial ministrations before the 
 uncreated angel Immanuel ; and Satan, the well-known adversary 
 of God's people, standing at his right hand to act the Satan against 
 bim — literally to " Satan'''' him — the Hebrew for Satan meaning to 
 persecute, oppose, resist. Bearing in mind, that the high priest was 
 by virtue of his office a representative man, officiating for the peo- 
 ple before the Lord, and remembering the low estate of their entire 
 religious system at this time, it need not surprise us that the people 
 should be sinfully despondent and weak of faith. Probably this 
 was the great sin which is here represented by the filthy garments 
 of the priest. It is fully in character for Satan to take advantage of 
 their unbehef, and thrust forward his plea against their being for- 
 given or in any wise accepted before God. He dreaded the present 
 and prospective revival in their religious state, and roused himself 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IH. 305 
 
 (as is his . wont) to liead it off at the outset. Is not he a very 
 devil ? 
 
 2. And the Lokd said unto Satan, Tlie Loed rebnkc 
 thee, O Satan ; even the Lokd that hath chosen Jern- 
 salem rebnke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of 
 the fire? 
 
 He who in v. 1 is called '' the angel of the Lord," is here " tlie 
 XojyZ," " Jehovah." So also in the phrase '• The Lord rebnke thee," 
 ''Jehovah " is the word for " Lord," showing that this term is ap- 
 plied interchangeahlj to both the Father and the Son. The 
 
 clause, " The Lord rebuke thee," is repeated, both for the greater 
 emphasis, and in order to connect with it the consolatory words — 
 he, the same that has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes thee. The term 
 " choose " here, as in 1 : 17 and 2 : 12, implies God's special love for 
 
 Jerusalem as representing his own people. "Is not this a brand 
 
 plucked out of the fire ? " imphes that after the fires of utter destruc- 
 tion were already kindled upon her, the Lord plucked her out and 
 extinguished the fires. Having done so much to save her and at 
 
 such personal risk, would the Lord give her up to Satan now ? 
 
 This language is used by Amos (4 : 10), and may be borrowed from 
 
 him. Commenting on these verses. Dr. Henderson raises the 
 
 question as to the gi-ound of Satan's opposition, and remarks that 
 the passage does not inform ns ; but that he finds a clue to it in 
 Jude 9, in which passage he adopts the construction which resolves 
 "the body of Moses " into the Jewish church, and assumes a refer- 
 ence there to this passage in Zechariah. But in that dispute it was 
 Michael the archangel Avho contended with the devil; in this, it is 
 the Lord Jehovah, not to say also that Jude's language, " the body 
 of Moses," should by no means be made to mean any thing else but 
 his physical, veritable body, without good reason. The literal 
 sense, if admissible, as it is here, has the prior claim. 
 
 3. ISTow Joslina was clothed with filthy garments, 
 and stood before the angel. 
 
 4. And he answered and spake nnto those that stood 
 before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from 
 him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused 
 thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee 
 with change of raiment. 
 
 The Mosaic law prescribed the priest's gai-ments very minute- 
 ly, and made great account of them as indicative of the moral 
 purity requisite in those who came before God. Here the filthy^ 
 garments represent the sins of the people, jn-obably (as suggested' 
 above) their unbehef and despondency at that tune, and their long 
 and guilty wanderings from God into idolatry in past time, from 
 which they were only now returning. He stood before tho 
 
306 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. III. 
 
 divine angel wlio, in v. 4, pardons sin. This divine personage sayi 
 to Lis attendant angels : " Take those filthy garments away ; " and 
 to Joshna, " See, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and 
 I will clothe thee with festive garments," such as the priests should 
 wear on holy days. This removing of his sin is a representative 
 thing, its import being, not that the Lord forgives his personal sin, 
 hut rather the sins of the people, and practically reinaugurates the 
 long disused functions of the priesthood. As if he would say to all 
 the people : " Return to the modes of worship enjoined upon your 
 fathers in the wilderness ; your own covenant-keeping God will 
 hear your prayers and accept your offerings through the High 
 Priest of his own appointment. The great sins of your nation be- 
 fore and during the captivity are forgiven, and again the way is 
 open to you for acceptable worship before him and for confidence 
 
 in his love." Y. 4 commences: "He" (the angel Jehovah) 
 
 '■'■ answered y But the narrative has nothing that called for an 
 answer. Frequently, in both the Old Testament and the JSTew, the 
 word "answer " refers to something thouglit but not expressed; in 
 the present case, to the silent prayer of Joshua standing before the 
 Lord as a sinner, that God would forgive him. To this unuttered 
 prayer the answer comes. 
 
 5. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon liis 
 head. So they set a fair mitre npon his head, and 
 clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Loed 
 stood bj. 
 
 The original word, rendered "I said," Dr. Henderson thinks 
 should have its vowels changed so as to read, "And he " (the Lord) 
 "said." He pleads for this change on the ground that it would be 
 impertinent for the prophet to speak here. I do not see force enough 
 in this objection to justify a change of the text. The prophet's re- 
 quest I attribute to his deep sympathy with the transaction — a sym- 
 pathy upon which his Lord would not frown, and which in his eye 
 
 would readily atone for any seeming impertinence. The prophet 
 
 saying in his heart as he saw the filthy garments taken away, " That 
 is good^^'' begged that his head-dress might be changed as well. His 
 request was at once complied with. In the last clause, some sup- 
 pose that the angel of the Lord stood ly^ as supervising the transac- 
 tion till all was complete, thus expressing his deep personal interest ; 
 while others render it simply stood^ as if he rose up preparatory to 
 the solemn asseveration recorded in the next verse. I prefer the 
 former construction, with our English version. 
 
 6. And the angel of the Loed protested nnto Joshua, 
 saying, 
 
 Y. Tims saith the Loed of hosts; If thon wilt walk 
 in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou 
 sh alt also judge my house, and slialt also keep my courts, 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP III. 307 
 
 and I will give tliee places to walk among these that 
 stand by. 
 
 Tlie ■word rendered "protest" means to afBrra with special so- 
 lemnity, to assevercate. In the word " charge," the margin is 
 
 more true to the original, " ordinance." Our translators seem to 
 have misapprehended the word rendered " places to walk." * It 
 is a participle, with the sense of guides, attendants, who shall aid you 
 to walk — cause you to walk safely. They are to come from among 
 "these that stand by" — his own attendant, ministering angels. It is 
 a plain promise of the aid of ministering angels. The essential mean- 
 ing of the verse is clear : " If thou art both obedient and faithful, 
 thou shalt be established in the priesthood, thy services shall be ac- 
 cepted before me, and thou shalt have ministering angels to lead 
 and aid thee in thy work." 
 
 8. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, then and thy 
 fellows that sit before thee : for they are men wondered at : 
 for behold, I will bring forth my servant The BEAIvTCH. 
 
 This call of Joshua's special attention implies that statements are 
 to be made of things highly important. The word rendered " thy 
 fellows," means thy associates in the priesthood, the subordinate 
 priests who served under the general direction of the high priest. 
 
 In the rendering " they are men wondered at," few readers 
 
 would be likely to see the true idea, which is — they are men of 
 typical character, men who are significant signs or representatives 
 of the great intercession, performed for God's people by Jesus Christ, 
 their Great High Priest. The most literal rendering is " men of 
 wonder." See the same use of the word, Isa. 8:18 and 20 : 3 ; Ezek. 
 12 : 6, 11, and 24: 24, 27. In this line of thought the prophet gives a 
 striking prediction of the Messiah. The course of thought is : " Hear 
 and give special heed, O Joshua, thou high priest, and thy attendant 
 priests also, for ye are all typical men ; for lo, I shall soon cause to 
 
 appear among men my servant the Branch ! " The original 
 
 for "bring forth" does not refer specifically to his human birth 
 of a virgin, but to his being caused to come down to our world, and 
 
 so to appear among men. The word " branch " should not carry 
 
 our thought to a branch in the sense of limh^ as one among many 
 on the same tree, but to the one shoot which springs up from the 
 root, and which, though small at first, becomes a tree of wonderful 
 qualities. The word seems to be chosen because it well expresses 
 the humble origin of the Messiah, and the small beginnings of his 
 work, and also his descent from the stock of David as to his human 
 nature. It occurs as a name for the Messiah in Isa. 4:2; Jer. 23 : 5 
 and 33 : 15 ; and Zech. G : 12. " My servant " is also a well-known 
 designation of the Messiah, occurring Isa. 42 : 1, and 49 : 3, 5, G, and 
 52: 13, and 53: 11. The earliest Jewish expositors known to usia- 
 
308 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. III. 
 
 terpret this passage of the Messiah. The Chaldean Paraphrase 
 (older than the Christian era) reads it: "Behold, I bring my servant 
 the Messiah, who will be revealed." 
 
 9. For behold the stone that I have laid before 
 Joshua ; upon one stone shall he seven eyes : behold, I 
 will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Loed of 
 hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in 
 one day. 
 
 This verse brings forward another great truth, manifestly re- 
 garded as one of high importance, since special attention is called 
 
 to it. The first and main inquiry is, "What is this " stone " ? 
 
 Note what is said of it. It is laid before the high priest Joshua, 
 manifestly to be under his care ; the seven eyes of God — ^liis perfect 
 eye — are upon it ; it is not a stone to be built on, but to be en- 
 graved — wrought with the chisel into forms of beauty ; and finally, 
 the real thing signified by it must have some natural connection 
 with the great work of Christ's atonement, in which, by one offer- 
 ing, " in one day," he bore away the sins of men. All these con- 
 ditions cannot be fulfilled in the foundation stone of the temple, 
 although not improbably the stones of the temple suggested this 
 figure of a stone. They are, however, all fulfilled in the Iking 
 Church of God^ and in nothing else. God's Church was then '' laid 
 before Joshua," in the sense of being put under his charge ; then, 
 as ever, the perfect eye of God w^as upon it ; its engraving into 
 forms of spiritual beauty is eminently God's work by the chisel of 
 liis providence, and by the agency of his Spirit ; and finally, the 
 sins of this Church Christ took away by that one ottering of him- 
 self on Calvary. By a figure somewhat analogous to this. Chris- 
 tians are said to be "the temple of the living God " (2 Cor. 6 : IG), 
 and "his building" (1 Cor. 3:9), and "living stones, built up a 
 spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5). The passage Zech. 4: 10 defi- 
 nitely alludes to this verse, and asserts that "they are the eyes of 
 the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." The 
 usage of accounting seven as the perfect number seems to have been 
 oriental, and not merely Jewish — pervading the literature of the 
 
 East, and not restricted to Palestine. These truths were well 
 
 adapted to inspire the people with fresh confidence in God as their 
 present Friend and Guardian, interested evermore in the spiritual 
 culture of his people, and purposing to use the priesthood again, as 
 in early days, as his instrument in the spiritual training of his peo- 
 ple ; and at the same time signifying that a more perfect atonement 
 Avould be made — finished and complete — "in one day," and not 
 needing, therefore, perpetual sacrifices, year by year, which never 
 could do their work perfectly. (See Ileb. 7: 27, 9:9, 25, 26, and 
 10 : 1-4.) 
 
 10. In that day, saith the Loiid of hosts, shall yc call 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IV. 309 
 
 every man liis neiglibor under the vine and nnder the 
 fig-tree. 
 
 In that future daj, wlien the Messiah shall be revealed, " the 
 iniquity of his people be taken away in one day," and their spir- 
 itual discipline be made effective to their sanctification, there 
 will be superabounding joy and blessedness, beautifully represented 
 here by the common Jewish conception of reposing in peace and in 
 
 love under the vine and the fig-tree. The last words of the verse 
 
 — " under the vine and under the fig-tree " — are given here as the 
 very language of the call. Every man shall cry to his neighbor, 
 " Ho ! under the vine and under the fig-tree ; " come and let us 
 have peace and rest, enjoying the gifts of our bountiful God! 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 This chapter is another complete vision, having one set of sym- 
 bols, illustrating one leading truth, viz., that the only perpetual 
 fountain of power for spiritual life and labor is in God, and reaches 
 man through his Spirit. 
 
 1. And the angel that talked with me came again, 
 and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. 
 
 This verse has special interest, because of the analogy it gives 
 us to illustrate the mental state of the prophet while enjoying pro- 
 phetic visions. His angel interpreter came and ^''loaTced him," 
 arousing his mind into a new state of activity, corresponding to the 
 ordinary change from sleeping to waking. Of course, it is only by 
 experience that any one can know every thing pertaining to this 
 prophetic state. Its powers must be quite analogous to those of a 
 new ^ense^ and we do not need to be told that each of our five 
 senses must give its own sensations and impressions. Ko one of 
 them can perform this service- for another ; the eye cannot give us 
 sounds, nor the ear colors. We must have the prophetic sense be- 
 fore we can hope to have the prophetic sensations or impressions, or 
 to Tcnow them perfectly. 
 
 2. And said unto me, What seest thou ? And I said, 
 I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, 
 with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps 
 thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are 
 upon the top thereof : 
 
 3. And two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side 
 of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. 
 
 In this vision the symbols and their meaning are plain. Chris- 
 tians are the lights of the world. Churches are candlesticks, and 
 
310 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IT. 
 
 their members luminous bodies, candles or lamps, revealing liglii 
 
 coucerning God in this otherwise very dark world. Here, ihen, 
 
 are one golden candlestick; a bowl or reservoir on the top of it, to 
 contain oil ; two ohve-trees, one on each side, for supplying the oil ; 
 and pipes or tubes (v. 2 seems to say seven in number, and v. 12 
 two), to carry the oil from the tree to the reservoir. This is essen- 
 tially the apparatus for supplying light. That the candlestick is 
 all of gold indicates its excellence— the value, in God's sight, of the 
 Church, and of living, shining Christians. 
 
 4. So I answered and spake to the angel that talked 
 with me, saying, What are these, my lord ? 
 
 5. Then the angel that talked w^ith me answered and 
 said nnto me, Knowest thon not what these be ? And 
 I said, ITo, my lord. 
 
 6. Then he answered and spake nnto me, saying. 
 This is the word of the Lord nnto Zernbbahel, saying, 
 ]S[ot by might, nor by power, bnt by my Spirit, saith the 
 Lord of hosts. 
 
 These symbols, interpreted into literal language, amount to this 
 word which the Lord sends to Zerubbabel, then the governor of 
 Judah, and in charge of the great work then present and pressing — 
 the rebuilding of the temple: "Not by might, nor by power, but 
 by my Spirit, saith the Lord." The work upon which you labor 
 seems to you very difficult — often, perhaps, too great for your re- 
 sources; but know that success is not by any human power alone, 
 but by the Spirit of God. This Spirit supplies the oil that feeds the 
 lamps. Christian souls and religious institutions correspond to the 
 lamps and to the machinery which supplies them ; but the living 
 fountain of oil is of the Lord alone by his Spii-it. This is the pre- 
 cious doctrine of the New Testament as well as of the Old. Paul 
 loved to say, man may labor, " God alone giveth the increase." (See 
 1 Cor. 3 : 5-9.) 
 
 7. "Who arti thon, O great monntain ? before Zerub- 
 babel thou shall hecome a plain : and he shall bring 
 forth the headstone thei'eof ivith shoutings, crying^ Grace, 
 grace, unto it. 
 
 Obstacles, high and strong as great mountains, may seem to 
 block the prosecution of tliis work; but say in the hearing of your 
 governor, "Who art thou, great mountain," that thou shouldst 
 think to withstand this work of God ? " Before Zerubbabel become 
 thou a plain ! " — a summons to the great mountain of difficulty and 
 opposition to lie low before the Lord's servant, and cease to retard 
 
 his efforts. The " headstone" seems most naturally to mean the 
 
 crowning topstone. put on at the completion of the temple. This 
 would be put on with loud ascriptions of praise to divine grace for 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IV. 311 
 
 the effective power which had carried the work through to its final 
 consummatiou. 
 
 8. Moreover the word of the Loed came unto me, 
 saying, 
 
 9." The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation 
 of this house ; his hands shall also finish it ; and thon 
 shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me nnto you. 
 
 This message translates into literal language the symhols of the 
 vision (vs. 2, 3, 11-14), and the strong poetic imagery of v. T. 
 Through mercy and help from God, Zeruhbabel shall finish the 
 building of the temple, and the people shall know, Avhen they ex- 
 perience this fulfilment, that the Lord has truly sent his prophet to 
 til em. 
 
 10. For who hath, despised the day of small things? 
 for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the 
 hand of Zerubbabel with those seven ; they are the eyes 
 of the LoKD, which run to and fro through the whole 
 earth. 
 
 Here is an additional word to those who have been greatly dis- 
 couraged in the rebuilding of the temple and painfully impressed 
 by its insignificance, compared with the greatness and splendor of 
 the former one. I translate — "For who have despised the day of 
 small things? Let them rejoice when they see the plumb-lead in 
 the hands of Zerubbabel ; those seven — the eyes of the Lord are 
 
 they, ranging through all the earth." The words " those seven " 
 
 are somewhat abrupt, but manifestly refer to the passage (3 : 9), 
 " Upon one stone are seven eyes ; " and they are immediately ex- 
 plained to be the eyes of the Lord, which never fail to see any of 
 the least possible things in all the earth. They traverse the uni- 
 verse, and take cognizance of every thing. Let the disheartened 
 dismiss then' despondency when they see the plumb-line in the 
 hands of Zerubbabel for laying out this temple work, and especially 
 when they consider that the perfect eye of the All-seeing One is 
 upon him, and that his universal, almighty agency guarantees the 
 
 execution of this work. Dr. Henderson, by severely inverting 
 
 the order of the words, translates thus: "Who hath despised the 
 day of small things? For those seven eyes of Jehovah, which run 
 to and fro through the whole earth, rejoiced when they saw the 
 plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel." He w^ould make this the 
 sense : Let no man think lightly of that over which God rejoices. 
 
 But I very much prefer the coustruction given first in order 
 
 above, not only because it follows the order of the words without 
 any violent inversion, but because it avoids the harshness of sa}ing 
 that "the eyes of God rejoiced ; " and, yet further, because the eyes 
 of God are introduced here, not as themselves rejoicing, but as a rea- 
 son why his people should rejoice, and why they should trust implidt- 
 
312 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. V. 
 
 ly in Lis promise to cany the work through. This most vital idea is 
 missed and lost in Dr. Ilenderson'g translation. 
 
 11. Then answered I, and said unto him, What are 
 these two olive-trees upon the right side of the candle- 
 stick and upon the left side thereof ? 
 
 12. And I answered again, and said nnto him, "What 
 he these two olive branches which through the two gold- 
 en pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves ? 
 
 ViS. And he answered me and said, Knowest thou 
 not what these he f And I said, K'o, my lord. 
 
 14. Then said he. These are the two anointed ones, 
 that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. 
 
 The prophet still seeks a fuller explanation of the two olive- 
 trees and of the olive clusters in the symbolic vision, and at last 
 obtains it. They represent the two anointed ones (Heb. " sons of 
 oil "), by which I understand the two anointed orders — the civil 
 rulers and the priests. Both of these classes were inaugurated into 
 their work by being anointed with oil — the significance being the 
 same in each case, viz., that God imparts the graces of his Spirit to 
 
 qualify them for the functions of their ofiice. 1 prefer to apply 
 
 the phrase, " the two anointed ones," to the two orders, kings and 
 priests, rather than to the two individuals then filling those offices, Ze- 
 rubbabel and Joshua, because this provision for oil through these 
 conducting tubes was not transient, limited to the hfetime of these 
 two men, but permanent — to continue so long as God should give 
 them kings and priests ; and especially because permanence was a 
 cardinal idea in the symbol. Its special intent was to sliow that the 
 God of Israel still honored his own institutions as of old, and would 
 
 do so onward into the distant future. These anointed kings and 
 
 priests stand tefore rather than " Ijy " the Lord of the whole earth 
 — standing being the appropriate attitude for servants in the pres- 
 ence of their masters, preeminently so for the servants of the Most 
 High God. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 This chapter comprises two visions — a flying roll, and a woman 
 sitting in an cphah — both denoting the judgments of God on his 
 chosen people, considered as having filled up the measure of their 
 iniquities. 
 
 1. Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and 
 looked, and behold a flying roll. 
 
 2. And he said unto me, What seest thou ? And I 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. V. 313 
 
 answered, I see a flying roll ; tlie lengtli tliere^^^f is 
 twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. 
 
 This roll is to be thought of as being the ancient form of book or 
 'volume, made of parchment or prepared skins; but immensely 
 large, the dimensions being those of the porch in front of Solomon's 
 temple. (See 1 Kings 6 : 8.) This correspondence cannot be sup- 
 posed to be accidental. Hence we must conclude it was intended to 
 intimate that this " fiery law " and its judgments come forth from 
 
 their God, who dwelt in the temple. That it was seen "flying," 
 
 showed that it hastened to its work, Ezekiel's roll (2 : 8-10) prob- 
 ably suggested this symbol. 
 
 3. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that 
 goetli forth over the face of tlie whole earth : for every 
 one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side, accord- 
 ing to it ; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as 
 on that side, according to it. 
 
 This further explanation shows that this flying roll symbolizes the 
 curse of the Almighty going forth over the earth for execution upon 
 the guilty. The roll, like Ezekiel's, was written on both sides, and 
 it would seem that the first table of the law was written on one 
 side — the second on the other. The case of the false swearer repre- 
 sents all sins against the precepts of the first table ; the case of the 
 thief, all sins against the second. According to the high behest of 
 this law of God, now going forth to punish violations against itself, 
 the thief is cut oft" according to the law written on one side ; the 
 swearer, according to the law written on the other. 
 
 4. I will bring it forth, said the Lokd of hosts, and it 
 shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the 
 house of him that sweareth falsely by my name : and it 
 shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume 
 it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof. 
 
 The Lord brings forth this flying roll, and causes it to enter the 
 house of every sinner against the law of God. It abides there, and 
 utterly consumes every vestige of his habitation — a terribly vivid 
 representation of God's judgments upon all unpardoned sin ! To 
 think of the law itself as written out, and its written record then 
 armed with power to search out every sinner, enter into his house and 
 there consume every thing — all his ill-gotten wealth, the last crumb 
 of his accumulated comforts, and finally himself — this surely must 
 imply a ruin for the guilty from which there can be no escape, and 
 in which there can be no alleviation. 
 
 5. Then the angel that talked with me went forth, 
 and said unto me. Lift up now thine eyes, and see what 
 is this that goeth forth. 
 
 14 
 
314 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. V. 
 
 6. And I said, What is it ? And lie said, This is an 
 ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover , This is their 
 resemblance through all the earth. 
 
 7. And behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead : 
 and this is a woman that sitteth 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 upon the mouth thereof. 
 
 A new scene opens. The first apparent object is an epliah, the 
 largest Hebrew dry measure, corresponding to the common corn- 
 basket of onr country, containing by one computation one and 
 one-ninth bushels, and by another one and one-half. This is seen 
 "going forth," as if this also, like the flying roll, was hastening 
 to execute its mission. We shall probably best reach the sense 
 of this symbol if we remember that the Scripture speaks of sin- 
 ners as " filling up the measure " of their iniquities (Matt. 23 : 32, 
 and 1 Thess. 2: 16). Here is the largest-sized measure. A wo- 
 man sits in it, who is explained to represent or symbohze '•'■iDicked- 
 ness " — the sins, or, yet more precisely, the sinners of the covenant 
 people. The female person is a common symbol in the Scriptures 
 for a city with its masses of people, e. g., Babylon (Jer. 50 and 51 ; 
 Eev. 16 : 19 and 18 : 2-11), Jerusalem (Lam. 1 : 1 fl^). This woman, 
 therefore, represents strictly the Jewish people apostate from God, 
 having filled the measure of their iniquities, and now about to re- 
 ceive due retribution. She is first seen (v. 7) sitting in the midst 
 
 of this large measure. Then he throws her down (" 7ie " is God's 
 minister of vengeance) into the midst or bottom of the vessel, and 
 casts a weight of lead upon the mouth of the vessel, manifestly to 
 
 hold her down and prevent her escape. The word rendered 
 
 "talent," i. e., of lead, means a large round lump, probably large 
 
 enough for its purpose, i. e., to fill the mouth of the vessel. The 
 
 clause " This is their resemblance through all the earth," is inter- 
 preted variously. The original word is the common one for eye. 
 Some manuscripts, however, and other authorities, make a slight 
 change in the word itself, by which it would mean sin. Not improb- 
 ably this change began with the attempt of some critic to make a diffi- 
 cult text more easy. The reading eye some explain to mean their 
 
 intent, the thing they have their eye upon, viz., to sin on without 
 restraint, and fill up the measure of their iniquities. Others render, 
 as our received version does, " their resemblance " or appearance, 
 what they look like everywhere. In this sense of the word i]ie 
 clause would mean that all over the land the moral condition of tlie 
 people who have filled up the measure of their sins is well repre- 
 sented by a large vessel, and a woman, personifying the whole sin- 
 ning people, thrown down and confined in it, and awaiting lior 
 
ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. V. 315 
 
 doom. The ultimate meaning of the vision is rancli the same, 
 whichever of these two senses shall he given to the word in ques- 
 tion. The latter certainly gives a good sense ; the former is not bad^ 
 
 9. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and be- 
 hold, there came ont two women, and the wind was in 
 their wings ; for they had wings like the wings of a stork : 
 and they lifted up the • ephah between the earth and 
 the heaven. 
 
 10. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, 
 Whither do these bear the ephah ? 
 
 11. And he said unto me, To build it an house in the 
 land of Shinar : and it shall be established, and set there 
 upon her own base. 
 
 Two women (are they not angelic forms?) — two, because so large 
 a burden required one on each side — come forth, the wind in their 
 wings to indicate the most rapid motion ; and they bear the ephah 
 containing this Vv^oman far away into the land of Shinar (Babylon), 
 
 to fix for it there a permanent abode. The main question here is, 
 
 whether this is retrospective, looking hack to the recent captivity 
 in Babylon ; or prospective, predicting some future judgment on 
 
 the covenant people. The latter view I accept: (1.) Because the 
 
 other visions throughout this series are prophetic, not historic. 
 
 (2.) Because the late captivity in Babylon was transient ; this is at 
 least very long. (3.) Because that always contemplated a resto- 
 ration : this gives no hint of any restoration, but the contrary. 
 
 (4.) Because in v. 4 the " curse that goeth forth " inflicts judg- 
 ments more severe and exterminating than those in the captivity to 
 Babylon, This vision of the ephah should correspond to that of the 
 
 roll. There is no particular difficulty in applying this entire 
 
 chapter to the judgments that fell on the Jewish nation for their 
 rejection of their Messiah, according to their own imprecation — 
 *' Ilis blood be on us and on our children ! " The first instalment 
 of this doom came from the Roman arms; the rest in the almost 
 universal persecution, dispersion, and reproach under which they 
 have suffered for ages. In this view of its prophetic significance, 
 " Shinar " is used by way of historic allusion — a second Shinar — 
 another captivity like that of Babylon, only more terrible, more 
 protracted, and (so far as appears here) not alleviated by the prom- 
 ise of restoration. "Shinar" was the country in which Babylon 
 lay (Gen. 11 : 2, 9). Both these visions were intended as solemn 
 warnings to the people, at that time and onward, against violating 
 the law of God, and filling up again the measure of their national 
 sins. Such warnings were in their nature v.iiolesome, and through 
 the divine mercy might long postpone that depth of depravity 
 which should be ultimately reached, and then be so terribly 
 punished. 
 
316 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 This chapter is in two quite distinct parts; the first a vision, 
 and the second a symboHc transaction. The vision (vs. 1-8) pre- 
 sents four chariots, and shows their mission. The symboHc trans- 
 action (vs. 9-15) is the making of crowns and setting them on the 
 head of Joshua the high priest, who becomes the type of the 
 Messiah. 
 
 1. And I turned, and lifted np mine eyes, and looked, 
 and beliold, there came four chariots out from between 
 two mountains ; and the mountains were mountains of 
 brass. 
 
 2. In tlie first chariot were red horses ; and in the 
 second chariot black horses ; 
 
 3. And in the third chariot w^liite horses ; and in the 
 fourth chariot grizzled and bay horses. 
 
 4. Then I answered and said unto the angel that 
 talked with me, What are these, my lord ? 
 
 5. And the angel answered and said unto me, These 
 are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from 
 standing before the Lord of all the earth. 
 
 6. The black horses which are therein go forth into 
 the north country ; and the white go forth after them ; 
 and the grizzled go forth toward the south country. 
 
 7. And the bay went forth, and sought to go that 
 they might walk to and fro through the earth : and he 
 said, Get ye hence, walk to and fro through the earth. 
 So they walked to and fro through the earth. 
 
 8. Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, say- 
 ing. Behold, these that go toward the north country have 
 quieted my spirit in the north country. 
 
 As tlie fifth chapter predicted judgments on the covenant peo- 
 ple for their sins, this last vision (6 : 1-8) predicts corresponding 
 judgments on the enemies of God's people. 
 
 The leading objects of vision here are four chariots drawn by 
 diverse-colored horses, red, bLack, Avhite, and gray. They " come 
 forth from between two mountains of brass," to denote the amaz- 
 ing strength of that power of which they were the representative 
 agents, and, as some suppose, witli a tacit reference to the geograph- 
 ical x^osition of Jerusalem, it being but natural that these chariots, 
 symbohziug God's providential agencies among the nations of the 
 ear til, should seem to proceed from hira in his own place of abode 
 
ZEcnARiAn.—cnAP. vi. . 317 
 
 at Jerusalem. Like the horses seen in the first vision (1 : 8-13), 
 these chariots must be understood to represent, in pertinent sym- 
 bols, those varied agencies of God's providential rule over nations, 
 by which he puts down one and sets up another, and in general 
 administers the retributions of an actual government. The princi- 
 pal shade of ditference between the horses and their riders of the 
 first vision, and the chariots with tlieir horses in this last, is that 
 the horses with their riders serve rather as scouts; the chariots as 
 executioners : the riders on horses explore the state of the nations ; 
 the chariots put in execution the mandates of Jehovah ; or (nearer 
 to the expressive language of the text) they convey the very animus 
 of Jehovah — his spirit of indignation and retributive justice — and 
 cause it to fall on those guilty nations. As was remarked in the 
 notes on chapter 1, the use of post-horses in those vast oriental 
 kingdoms (Esth. 3 : 13 and 8 : 10) suggested their use in that vis- 
 ion, so here we may find a good reason for this symbolic use of the 
 chariot in the prominent place held by chariots of war in the ar- 
 mies of that day. The explanation of the chariots (v. 5), ''These 
 
 are the four spirits or winds of the heavens," should not suggest 
 to us the literal winds^ nor any Hteral sense of the word spirit, but, as 
 already hinted, those invisible agencies of the divine hand in provi- 
 dence which act upon the nations of the earth, in judgments espe- 
 cially, but in blessings also, as the case may be, constituting the 
 working forces of an actual administration of the government of 
 
 God over nations as such in the present world. These chariots 
 
 " go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth," the 
 usual attitude of servants awaiting their orders, and going forth, 
 
 when bidden, to their execution. It will be noted that two of 
 
 these chariots, that with black and that with white horses, go forth 
 toward the north country, Babylon, where the enemies specially 
 contemplated here were located. One chariot (v. Y) seems to have 
 had a very general commission " to traverse the whole earth," im- 
 plying that these agencies of God's reign over the nations are not 
 restricted to any special district or to any one human kingdom, but 
 
 embrace them all. In v. 8 w^e read — "Behold, these that go 
 
 toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north coun- 
 try," which translation can be understood rightly in no other sense 
 than that of quieting the spirit of God by executing his righteous 
 indignation and giving scope to the retributions of justice. A less 
 ambiguous rendering would be — " have brought my anger down 
 upon the north country." This is doubtless the sense of the pas- 
 sage. The judgments of God fell on Babylon for her too cruel op- 
 pression of the covenant people. Darius, heading the Persian ar- 
 mies, was the first executioner of this wrath; the time, not long 
 
 after this prophecy was revealed. The various color of the horses 
 
 may have been slightly significant, yet some interpreters incline to 
 make too much of it. It is manifestly one of the very subordinate 
 and less important things in the vision. Plainly the revealing an- 
 gel, or it may perhaps be said, the recording mind, made little ao- 
 
318 ZECnARIAH.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 count of this feature, else we should find more accuracy in tho 
 references to the different chariots. Thus we have at first four, des- 
 ignated by their horses, but the last span has a twofold description; 
 tliey are gray, and also active, fleet, this being the only sense of the 
 Hebrew word rendered " bay " (vs. 3, 7). When they are named 
 again, the red-colored disappear, and the chariot commissioned to 
 traverse the whole eartli is indicated (very appropriately) as that 
 drawn by the active, fleet span. (The span that had the wide world 
 for their range should be preeminently ^ec^.) Thus the red are 
 dropped from view, and what was the fourth in the first descrip- 
 tion now becomes two. The twofold description given of its horses 
 is divided, and we have two spans and two chariots out of the one. 
 
 This criticism may be thought of small importance. It is 
 
 chiefly valuable as showing that the color of the horses and the dis- 
 tinction of chariots is really in the eye of the revealing Spirit a 
 small and not hnportant matter. The vital points are more cared 
 
 for, and are put with more accuracy. Some critics suppose that 
 
 the two mountains are the kingdoms of Media and Persia. This 
 view is wide of their real significance. The material — " brass" or 
 copper — denotes the strength, not of any heathen nation whose 
 power God might use by overruhng it, but of God himself, in ref- 
 erence specially to the deep, immovable foundations of his throne. 
 The location should be the supposed and indeed actual dwelling- 
 place of God, i. <?., among his people, in his temple at Jerusalem. 
 As the chariots represent his providential agencies, going forth on 
 their mission, so their head-quarters and starting-point should be 
 
 the place of his abode. That they come forth from between 
 
 two mountains is due simply to the necessities of chariot-driving 
 in a mountainous countrj^ They cannot run on tho tops or sides 
 of rugged mountains, but only in the valley, which will be between 
 two mountains. 
 
 9. And tlie word of tlie Lord came unto me, saying, 
 
 10. Take of them of tlie captivity, even of Heldai, 
 of. Tobijali, of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, 
 and come thon the same day, and go into the honse of 
 Josiah the son of Zephaniah ; 
 
 11. Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, 
 and set them npon the head of Joshua the son of Jose- 
 dech, the high priest ; 
 
 12. And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the 
 LoKD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is 
 The BRANCH ; and he shall grow np out of his place, 
 and he shall build the temple of the Lokd : 
 
 13. Even he shall build the temple of the Loed ; and 
 he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his 
 
ZECHARIAE.— CHAP. VI. 319 
 
 throne : and lie sliall be a priest upon Lis tlirone : and 
 the counsel of peace shall be between them both. 
 
 14. And the crowns sliall be to Helem, and to Tobi- 
 jah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen the son of Zephaniah, 
 tor a memorial in the temple of the Lord. 
 
 15. And they that are far oif shall come and build 
 in the temple of the Lord ; and ye shall know that the 
 Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall 
 come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the 
 Lord your God. 
 
 The series of visions is now closed, and we have here an actual 
 transaction of a symbohcal character. That this is not a vision, but 
 .is a real transaction, appears on the face of the record. It does 
 not open with " I saw by night " (as 1:8); nor " I lifted up mine 
 eyes and saw " (as 1 : 18) ; nor " I lifted up mine eyes again " (as 
 2:1); nor '^ he showed me" (as 3:1); nor as 4 : 1 and 4:5; nor 
 as 6 : 1 — all which statements testify that the scenes that follow re- 
 spectively were witnessed in prophetic vision. On the contrary, this 
 is simply " The word of the Lord came unto me," as in 1 : 1, and 7 : 1, 
 and 8 : 1, &c., where verbal communications are made. More- 
 over, here is not a presentation of things to be seen by the prophet, 
 but a command respecting things to be done. And finally, these 
 crowns, after being made and solemnly placed on the head of the 
 Jiigh priest, were to be "laid up for a memorial in the temple of 
 
 the Lord," all indicating an actuality, things done in real life. 
 
 The leading points are tlie preparation of crowns ; the solemn cor- 
 onation of the high priest; the accompanying announcement and 
 explanations, showing that the purport of the transaction was to 
 make Joshua a special type of the Messiah, and to reveal vastly 
 important truths respecting his person and relations to men ; and 
 finally, to indicate that GentOe nations Avere to participate in the 
 
 services and the glories of his coming kingdom. This seems to 
 
 have been a double crown, the word for crown being phu*al, the 
 verb (v. 14) being in the singular ; and manifestly but one head, that 
 
 of Joshua, is crowned in the transaction. To obtain the silver 
 
 and the gold for its construction, the prophet is directed to go to 
 certain men here named, who are recently from Babylon, captive 
 Jews, who remained behind when the first company of their breth- 
 ren left, and who seem to have come to Jerusalem now with a con- 
 tribution from their brethren still behind, to aid in building the 
 temple. Josiah, son of Zephaniah, may have been the treasurer 
 of this fund; hence the direction to go with the other three without 
 delay to his house to draw the money. The original brings in the 
 phrase, *'who are come from Babylon," at the end of the verse, 
 showing that Josiah, as well as the otlier three, was in the delega^ 
 
 tion from the captive Jews there. Having made the crowns, he 
 
 sots them upon the head of Joshua the high priest, and then sol 
 
320 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. VI. 
 
 emnlv announces from the Lord, " Behold the man — Branch is hia 
 name; he shall branch" (shoot) " up from underneath himself" 
 (from his own humble root), " and he shall build the temple of the 
 
 Lord." As already indicated, the sense of the word rendered 
 
 " Brancli " is shoot, the single stock that springs from the root and 
 becomes the one trunk of the tree. In the original the verb ren- 
 dered " shall grow," is the same — shall shoot iip. The specially 
 
 emphatic declaration here is that this man — the Branch — '■''shall 
 build the temple of the Lovdy Hence this is solemnly repeated 
 (v. 13) : " Even Ae" (he alone, and he in distinction from all others) 
 " shall build the temple of the Lord." Tliis cannot refer to the 
 temple then being built by Zerubbabel, for of this the Lord had 
 exphcitly declared (4 : 9), " The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the 
 foundations of this house, and his hands shall also finish it.^'' We 
 must therefore look to another temple, which can be none other 
 than that so often referred to in the New Testament, built by Jesus, 
 the Messiah, of which it is said, " ye " (Christians) " are the temple 
 of the living God" (2 Cor. 6 : 16). "For the temple of God is 
 holy, ichich temple ye are''"' (1 Cor. 3:16, 17). " Ye also, as living 
 
 stones, are built up a spiritual house," &c. (1 Peter 2 : 5). The 
 
 comprehensive idea embraces the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, 
 of which the Jewish temple was an apposite symbol. In that an- 
 cient temple Jehavah dwelt, revealing his presence. So in this, 
 the presence of the Holy Ghost reclaims men's hearts to God, and 
 
 makes them pure before him. Yet further : " He shall bear the 
 
 glory," i. c, preeminent glory, becoming the " head of all things 
 to his church," "King of kings " " moreover, and "Lord of lords." 
 " He shall sit and rule upon his throne," truly a king, not in Zion 
 alone, but over all the earth, or rather all the earth shall ultimately 
 become his Zion, since his kingdom shall in the latter days embosom 
 and absorb into itself all other kingdoms and all other love, obe- 
 dience, and homage, so that it can be said truly, " The kingdoms of 
 this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
 
 Christ, and he (alone) shall reign for ever and ever." He shall 
 
 also " be a priest upon his throne," uniting these two functions in 
 his own person, and never ceasing to mediate for his people, and be 
 their great atoning sacriBce because of his exaltation to so great 
 
 power and glory on his throne. The phrase " the counsel of 
 
 peace shall be between them both," does not refer to some second 
 person other than the Messiah, cooperating with him ; nor does it 
 mean merely that Messiah as king and Messiah as priest shall be 
 harmonious and not conflicting, but rather that both as King and 
 as Priest, Messiah shall consuU for and shall secure tbe peace, the 
 highest spiritual good of his people. The full energy of both rela- 
 tions shall be made subservient to the spiritual life and consequent 
 
 peace and blessedness of his children. After these crowns had 
 
 served their temporary purpose in this typical inauguration of 
 Joshua the high priest, they were to bo laid up in the temple of the 
 Lord, as a memorial for those four delegates who came up fro'i] 
 
ZEGHAPviAH.— CHAP. VII. oq] 
 
 afar with those ofterhigs of silver and gold for the temple. They 
 are now representative men, to indicate that people from afar, even 
 the Gentile nations, " shall come and huild in the temple of the 
 Lord," i. e., shall come into the Christian Church, bringing into it 
 their wealth, their personal service, and the full homage of their 
 
 willing hearts. That they shonld come and build in the temple, 
 
 is Jewish costume, like that of Isaiah (ch. 60), to show that ia the lat- 
 ter day. Gentile nations from all the ends of the earth shall swell 
 the hosts of the people of God and contribute their wealtli and 
 their hearts to the greatness and glory of his kingdom on earth. 
 
 As nsual with Zechariah, the final seal is put upon this glorious 
 
 prophecy : " Ye shall know by your own precious experience that 
 the Lord hath sent me to yon to say these things." They cannot 
 fail. The names of those four representative men are given dif- 
 ferently, yet too much should not be made of this. Ileldai, the 
 first one named (v. 10), becomes in v. 14 Ilelem, a word of nearly 
 the same significance; while Josiah, son of Zei)haniah (v. 10), bo- 
 coraes in v. 14 Hen, the son of Zephaniah, which is also of kindred 
 meaning. There are no certain data upon which to account for 
 these changes of names. These two men may have had each two 
 names, or there may be a play upon their first name by giving 
 another of similar significance ; or the intent of it may have been 
 to call attention to the meaning of their names. The case is 
 scarcely of sufficient importance to justify or call for much specu- 
 lation. The last clause has the appearance of being broken oflf 
 
 abruptly, leaving the corresponding part to be supplied. " And it 
 shall come to pass if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord 
 your God" .... (supply) all these promised blessings shall come 
 to you most abundantly. You shall have them on condition of 
 
 obej^ng the Lord diligently, but on no other. So all the great 
 
 blessings of the gospel are, as to each of us, suspended on this con- 
 dition of honest diligence and faithful obedience to the Lord our 
 God, Perhaps it was with the intention of making this condition 
 the more impressive, that the sentence breaks oft' thus abruptly, 
 leaving the reader to inquire the more carefully into the force of 
 this great condition, and the wealth of blessings suspended upon it. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 This chapter and the next were both occasioned by one special 
 circumstance. For seventy years the people had been observing 
 certain days of fasting, in remembrance of prominent events con- 
 nected with the fall of their beloved city and temple. ISTow, they 
 had returned from their captivity ; the city was rebuilt ; the work 
 on the temple was far advanced toward completion. It was now 
 the fourth year of Darius, and the temple was finished in his sixth 
 year. The community was decidedly prosperous ; hence the ques- 
 ]4* 
 
322 ZEcnARiAii.— CHAP. vir. 
 
 tion arose — Shall we continue to observe those days of fasting 
 Would it not be more appropriate to observe days of praise and 
 
 thanksgiving? The Lord sends his answer by his prophet Zech- 
 
 ariah. It is twofold. (1.) It rebukes the hypocrisy and selfish- 
 ness manifested by some of the people in those very fasts which 
 should have been seasons of special humiliation and honest confes- 
 sion of sin before the Lord ; admonishes them that God's eye is on 
 their moral conduct as well as on their hearts, and exhorts them to 
 justice and righteousness, especially by the sad case of their fathers, 
 whom the Lord had scourged so severely by a long and terrible 
 captivity. This part of the reply fills out the seventh chapter (vs. 
 
 4r-14). (2.) The second part fills the eighth chapter, and is rich in 
 
 promised blessings to the obedient, closing with a direct answer to 
 their inquiry. 
 
 1. And it came to pass in the foiirtli year of king 
 Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah 
 in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chislen ; 
 
 2. When thej liad sent unto the liouse of God, She- 
 rezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to pray before 
 the Lord, 
 
 3. And to speak unto the priests which were in the 
 house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, 
 Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as 
 I have done these so many years % 
 
 The date is given precisely, this being a matter of historic im- 
 portance. From the arrival of the first caravan of returning Jews 
 in the first year of Cyrus (b. o. 536) to the second year of Darius 
 (about B. 0. 520), the people had been harassed by their Samaritan 
 enemies; the work on tlie temple for a time dragged heavily, and 
 was finally quite suspended. At length, under special messages 
 from God by Ilaggai and Zechariah, it was resumed in the second 
 year of Darius. With this resumption commenced an era of great 
 prosperity. Their foreign enemies ceased to annoy them; the 
 smiles of God rested on all their labors. After two years of such 
 prosperity, the question naturally arose, whether they should con- 
 tinue to observe certain days of fasting, as they had done then some 
 seventy years. The most prominent of these days are specially re- 
 ferred to here ; that in the fifth month (v. 8), and that also in the 
 seventh month (v. 5). Chap. 8:19 refers to two others, viz., one in 
 the fourth month and another in the tenth. The history indicates 
 the special reason of fasting on these days. In the fifth month the 
 temple was burnt (Jer. 52 : 12). In the seventh, Gedaliah was slain, 
 and the small remnant that remained with him were scattered and 
 destroyed (Jer. 41 : 1 If). In the fourth month the city was taken 
 (Jer. 52 : 0, 7). In the tenth it was invested by the armed hosts of 
 Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 52 : 4). V. 2 should be translated — " "When 
 
ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. VII. 323 
 
 Bethel " (the household of God. in the sense of the congregation of 
 the Lord) " sent Sherezer," &o., i. c, the people in the capacity of a 
 worshipping congregation, sent this commission to their priests and 
 
 prophets with this inquiry. V. 3. "Separating myself," ^. ^., 
 
 from my accustomed secular labors — making it a holy and solemn 
 day. 
 
 4. Tlieii came tlie word of the Loed of hosts unto me, 
 saying, 
 
 5. Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the 
 priests, saying, When ye fasted and mom-ned in the fifth 
 and seventh moiith^ even those seventy years, did ye at 
 all fast nnto me, even to me ? 
 
 6. And when ye did eat, and wdien ye did drink, did 
 not ye eat for yourselves^ and drink for yourselves f 
 
 This rebuke manifestly applied to some of those who united in 
 this inquiry. The Lord asks — Did your fasting have any regard to 
 mel Did you think of your smsagai?ist mef Did you humble your- 
 selves before me? So, when ye ate and when ye drank, was it not 
 ye that ate, and ye that drank? This is the literal rendering, and 
 implies that they thought of nothing but their own sensual gratifi- 
 cation, ate and drank merely to enjoy themselves, and as if there 
 were no God to thank, no great Giver to recognize as the fountain 
 of aU blessings. 
 
 7. Should ye not hear the words which the Loed hath 
 cried by the former prophets when Jerusalem was in- 
 habited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round 
 about her, when men inhabited the south and the 
 plain ? 
 
 The original omits the verb before " words " in the beginning of 
 the verse, apparently assuming that the sense would be clear with- 
 out it. In supplying it, the choice lies between our English text 
 and the marginal reading, the former giving the sense most in har- 
 mony with the strain of the passage. The verse suggests the 
 
 substance of the next special message (vs. 8-14), the admonitions 
 sent from God by the prophets to their fathers, their rejection of 
 them, and the consequences. 
 
 8. And the word of the Loed came unto Zechariah, 
 Baying, 
 
 9. Thus speaketh the Loed of hosts, saying, Execute 
 true judgment, and shew mercy and comj)assion3 every 
 man to his brother : 
 
 10. And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, 
 
324 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. VIII. 
 
 the stranger, nor the poor ; and let none of you imagine 
 evil against his brother in yonr heart. 
 
 11. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away 
 the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should 
 not hear. 
 
 12. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant 
 stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which 
 the LoED of hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former 
 prophets : therefore came a great wrath from the Lord 
 of hosts. 
 
 13. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and 
 they would not hear ; so they cried, and I would not 
 hear, saith the Lord of hosts : 
 
 14:. But I scattered them with a w^hirlwind among 
 all the nations w^hom they knew not. Thus the land 
 was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor 
 returned : for they laid the j)leasant land desolate. 
 
 Here the Lord gives to his servant Zechariah a summary of the 
 message he sent by many of his prophets shortly before the cap- 
 tivity. V. 9 should therefore read — "Thns the Lord did speak," 
 i. «., to your fathers, by Jeremiah and Zephaniah in the days of Jo- 
 siah ; and somewhat earlier by Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. 
 
 In V. 11, "pulled away the shoulder," is in Hebrew, "They 
 
 gave a refractory shoulder," i. e., they made their shou-lder refrac- 
 tory — with allusion to the bullock who refuses to be broken into 
 
 patient labor. V. 12 most fully recognizes the inspiration of the 
 
 prophets. The Lord sent His words to the people hy his 8])ivit^ by 
 
 the hand, i. e., the ministration of the former prophets. By his 
 
 Spirit, rather than "^?z," is the sense of the original, the preposition 
 
 being the same as that before the '•^liand of the prophets." V. 
 
 13, " Hence it is come to pass " — referring still to the history of what 
 
 occurred shortly before the captivity. V. 1-4 fully confirms this 
 
 general course of interpretation, as referring to the ways of God 
 toward the people, and of the people tow^ard God, in the age 
 next preceding the time of Zechariah. That history was exceed- 
 ingly full of most pertinent and valuable instruction. 
 
 CHAPTEE VITI. 
 
 As already remarked in the introduction to chap. 7, this con- 
 tinues and concludes the subject opened in that chapter. It gives 
 the brighter side — the message of the Lord to the truly humbled, 
 penitent, and believing portion of the people. Hence it abounds in 
 cheering promises. 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. VIH. 325 
 
 1. Again the word of tbe Loed of hosts came to me, 
 saying, 
 
 2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; I was jealous for 
 Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with 
 great fury. 
 
 "Jealous for Zion." The same sentiment is even yet more ex- 
 panded (chap. 1 : 14-1 G). This revived jealousy for Zion implies 
 that the Lord's love for her was enkindled afresh ; his pity, too, be- 
 came active; his apprehensions also for the honor of his name 
 before the nations ; and not least, his indignation toward the people 
 tliat had so cruelly oppressed Zion. All these feelings conspired 
 toward his purpose to return in mercy to Zion, as the next verso 
 states. 
 
 3. Thus saith the Lokd ; I am returned unto Zion, 
 and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem : and Jerusa- 
 lem shall be called, a city of truth ; and the mountain of 
 the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. 
 
 These are the blessings. It is noticeable that moral purity 
 stands specially prominent. "Jerusalem shall be called" (because 
 she shall really he) "the city of truth," distinguished above all 
 other cities for substantial integrity of character ; and the temple- 
 mountain where the Lord dwells shall be " the holy mountain " — 
 holy, by reason of tlie regeneration and sanctification of those who 
 
 worship the Lord there. Such should be the results of the Lord's 
 
 returning to Zion, to dwell there by his spiritual presence. These 
 are the legitimate criteria of his real presence by his Spirit any- 
 where. 
 
 4^ Thu§ saith the Lord of hosts ; There shall yet old 
 men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, 
 and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. 
 
 5. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys 
 and girls playing in the streets thereof. 
 
 A beautiful scene of peace and prosperity, indicated by the 
 groups of the aged, still living as witnesses to the long-continued 
 exemption from desolating v/ars, and the yet more numerous throng 
 of little boys and girls playing and happy in the streets. Evermore, 
 through all the ages before Christ, such external prosperity is ac- 
 counted as evidence of God's favor and approval. " Length of 
 days is in her right hand; in her left, riches and honor." The ge- 
 nius of God's providential government in that age involved a high 
 degree of present retribution. 
 
 6. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; If it be marvellous 
 in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, 
 
ggO ZECHARIATL— CHAP. VIII. 
 
 sliould it also be marvellous in mine cjes? saitli tlie 
 LoED of hosts. 
 
 Though it should seem marvellous and almost incredible in your 
 eyes, that I should bestow so great blessings, yet must it be marvel- 
 lous in mine? Is any thing too hard for the Lord? Is any measure 
 of blessings so great as to be marvellous in view of the great depths* 
 of divine love ? 
 
 7. Tims saitli tlie Lord of hosts ; Behold, I will save 
 my people from the east country, and from the west 
 country ; 
 
 8. And I w^ill bring them, and they shall dwell in 
 the midst of Jerusalem : and they shall he my people, 
 and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. 
 
 This is a promise to save his people wherever they were, and 
 to gather them in from their dispersions — two quarters of tlie 
 heavens, the land toward the sun-rising and the land toward the 
 
 sun-setting being named — a part for the whole. Its fulfilment in 
 
 the literal sense took place while yet that economy continued, which 
 required the residence of the Jews in their own land. 
 
 9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Let your hands be 
 strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the 
 mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the 
 foundation of the house of the Loed of hosts was laid, 
 that the temple might be built. 
 
 10. For before these days there was no hire for man, 
 nor any hire for beast ; neither was there any peace to 
 him that went out or came in because of th^ affliction : 
 for I set all men every one against his neighbor. 
 
 11. But now I wiU not he unto the residue of this 
 people as in the former days, saith the Loed of hosts, 
 
 12. For the seed shall he prosperous ; the vine shall 
 give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, 
 and the heavens shall give their dew ; and I will cause 
 the remnant of this people to possess all these things. 
 
 These words exliort the people to courage, fearlessness, and 
 vigor, in the prosecution of the temple-building, and in whatever 
 labor the Lord might impose. While the temple lay neglected all 
 things went awry; enemies pressed them from abroad; dissension, 
 
 stagnation, and starvation distressed them at home. When the 
 
 Lord says, "I set all men each one against his neighbor," he refers 
 to what he let men do, in the sense of not preventing it — as a judg- 
 ment on them for their sins. 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. VIII. 327 
 
 13. And it shall come to pass, that as jc were a curse 
 among the heathen, O house of Judah and house of 
 Israel ; so will I save you, and je shall be a blessing : 
 fear not, hut let your hands be strong. 
 
 The expression, "ye were a curse among the heathen," &c., 
 might in itself mean either that they hrougTit curses upon tlie 
 heathen, or that they were themselves cursed among the heathen. 
 
 The latter I take to be the sense here. So of blessings : tlie sense 
 
 is, ye shall be blessed. 
 
 14. For thus saitli the Lord of hosts ; As I thouglit 
 to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, 
 saith the Lord of hosts, and I repented not : 
 
 15. So again have I thought in these days to do well 
 unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah : fear ye not. 
 
 The antithesis here is t]iis : As I thought to punish your fathers 
 for their great provocations, and did not swerre from my thought, 
 but carried it into execution ; so have I now thought to bless Jeru- 
 salem, and / shall not fail to do it ! Fear not ! 
 
 16. These are the things that ye shall do ; Speak ye 
 every man the truth to his neighbor ; execute the judg- 
 ment of truth and peace in your gates : 
 
 17. And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts 
 against his neighbor; and love no false oath: for all 
 these are tilings that I hate, saith the Lord. 
 
 The usual and always pertinent exhortations to practise rigljt- 
 eousness and truth. The last clause of v. IG enjoins upon them 
 to administer law in the courts according to justice and truth. This 
 would promote real peace and prosperity. Such decisions are de- 
 cisions of peace. 
 
 18. And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto 
 me, saying, 
 
 19. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; The fast of the 
 fourth months and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of 
 the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the 
 house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts ; 
 therefore love the truth and peace. 
 
 Here we find the explicit answer to the question sent up from 
 the people by the hand of Sherezer and Eegem-melech. Those 
 fasts shall be changed to seasons of joy and gladness, and to cheer- 
 ful feasts — only the Lord still enforces that which is evermore es- 
 sential to their abiding prosperity — "Xore the truth and 'peace!''' 
 
328 ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. VIII. 
 
 20. Tliiis saitli tlie Lorb of liosts : It shall yet com^ 
 to pass, tliat tliere shall come people, and the inhabitants 
 of many cities: 
 
 21. And the inhabitants of one citi/ shall go to an- 
 other, saying, Let ns go speedily to pray before the Lord, 
 and to seek the Lord of hosts : I will go also. 
 
 22. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come 
 to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray be- 
 fore the Lord. 
 
 23. Thus saitli the Lord of hosts ; In those days U 
 shall come to jpass, that ten men shall take hold, out of 
 all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the 
 skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you : 
 for Ave have heard that God is with you. 
 
 The renewed vitcality of the religions life in these times of Zech- 
 ariah, suggested the jet far more glorions revival and consequent 
 extension of pure religion in the latter days. The transition from 
 the gloom and grief of the captivity to the peace and joy indicated 
 thus far throughout this chapter, becomes suggestive and significant 
 of another advance — perhaps I might say a similar transition from 
 the narrow limitations of the kingdom of God then, to that won- 
 drous expansion when "many people and strong nations shall come 
 to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the 
 
 Lord." Such seems to be the mental law of association under 
 
 which these predictions of the Messiah's enlarged and glorious king- 
 dom are brought to mind. 1 can find no adequate fulfilment of 
 
 these promises short of the millennial days. Nothing at all equiva- 
 lent has yet transpired. Let us look a moment at their significance. 
 
 In V. 21, "Let us go speedily," is the usual intensive repetition 
 
 of the infinitive with the finite verb, and might as well be rendered 
 "Let us go with all our heart" — earnestly. This would imply 
 going speedily ; but it would also mean much more than that. The 
 last clause also is strong: " I, too, will surely go;" or "Let me go 
 
 too." " Ten men " is a definite number for an indefinite, as many 
 
 as could well get hold of one man's skirt — and obviously means 
 that many men shall follow one Jew as their guide ; as many as 
 one man can teach. This throng of pupils represents far more than 
 a single nation. Indeed, each of the ten representative men stands 
 for one nation, since they are each of different language, and taken 
 together represent " all languages of the nations " — ^indicating that 
 people of every tongue and clime shall come to Zion for the law 
 
 and the light of God. That they are said to come to Jerusalem is 
 
 due to the necessary modes of Jewish thought. That was the only 
 way in which the Jews before Christ could conceive of real con- 
 versions — the only language descriptive of conversion which they 
 could understand. They had not yet reachcil the idea that God can 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 329 
 
 be worshipped acceptably and spiritually, just as well anywhere 
 else as in Jerusalem. Hence those glorious conversions of Gentile 
 nations, which are to take place far down in the ages of the gospel 
 dispensation, if foretold at all by Jewish prophets and for Jewish 
 readers, must he presented in thoroughly Jewish language and in 
 harmony with Jewish concejjtions. So we ought to expect to find it 
 throughout the Old Testament prophets ; so we do find it. On this 
 princifjle, the "Jew " is any one with whom God is. Under the gospel 
 system "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly'''' (Rom. 2 : 28, 29). 
 
 This passage, therefore, is a prediction that "the inhabitants of 
 
 many cities" — "yea, many people and strong nations" — yea, na- 
 tions so diverse that they speak all the languages of the earth — 
 shall come to those who have the gospel and beg to be led to the 
 Lamb of God. They shall come with great earnestness and zeal, 
 manifesting the utmost readiness to go themselves, and exhorting 
 others likewise — the people of one city pressing the people of an- 
 other city to join the great company of those who shall go to pray 
 before the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. Such is the im- 
 port of this wonderful prophecy. We can scarcely wish it were 
 greater and better in the breadth and richness of its promises. Who 
 can find it in his heart to wish it were less? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Vs. 1-8 sketch the sweep of the conquering hosts of Alexan- 
 der the Great in western Asia, and along the eastern coast of the 
 Mediterranean, and refer to the special protection afforded by the 
 Lord to his people in the midst of that scene of danger; then the 
 prophet (vs. 9, 10) passes over to the greater protection and salva- 
 tion wrought out by King Messiah for his people ; and then (vs. 10- 
 17) on the same analogy predicts the protection of the Jews against 
 the Greco-Syrian power in the age of the Maccabees. 
 
 1. The burden of tlie word of the Lord in the land 
 of Hadrach, and Damascus shall he the rest thereof: 
 ^vhen the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall 
 te toward the Lord. 
 
 "Burden," as usual, is a prediction of calamity, here destined to 
 fall, not on God's people, but on their enemies. — ^-"Hadrach" 
 has given critics ample occasion for research, ingenuity, and diver- 
 sity of opinion. It would seem, from the connection, to be a coun- 
 try; yet geographically this name for a country is unknown.^ The 
 vague reports of some obscure city bearing this name, are, in the 
 first place, very unrehableat the best; and then the position which 
 this name occupies in the first eight verses among Damascus, Tyre, 
 Zidon, &c., and at the head of them all, quite forbids that it should 
 be an insignificant, almost unknown city. The best solution yet 
 
330 ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 suggested is that of ITengstenberg, who thinks it is purposely enig 
 matical, and refers to Persia; and that etymologically, it is made 
 np from two Hebrew verbs,* the former meaning to he stroiig, and 
 the hitter to le 'iceoJc, giving the signiticance — The strong-ioeaTc ; — 
 thus intimating that she is at one time strong; at another, weak ; — 
 
 strong under a Cyrus ; weak under her last Darius. The reason 
 
 for an enigmatical name lay in the delicate relations which the Jews 
 of his time sustained to the Persian throne. The Books of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah make the delicacy of those relations very palpable. See 
 especially Ezra, chap. 4-6. It could not be wise for a Hebrew 
 prophet to utter such predictions against Persia as might be caught 
 up and construed into proof of unfriendliness toward that power. 
 
 Enigmatical names are not entirely without precedent among 
 
 the Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah has Sheshach for Babylon (25 : 26 
 
 and 51 : 41). It is remarkable that though Hadrach (Persia) is 
 
 named as the first to feel the sweep of\this conquering devastator, 
 Alexander, and though precisely this is the order of the historic 
 facts, yet the prophet passes her with only her enigmatical name. 
 A burden of the word of the Lord is upon her land; that is all he 
 thinks proper to say. Damascus is the place upon which this bur- 
 den rests down. The predicted ruin should smite and crush her. 
 
 To the last clause, interpreters have given two difterent con- 
 structions : one thus — ''Because the Lord's eye is upon men, even 
 upon all the tribes of Israel ; " the other thus : " Because the eyes 
 of men, even of all the tribes of Israel, are toward and unto the 
 Lord." The latter is much better sustained by the grammatical 
 relations of the words, and has also this in its favor, that it practi- 
 cally involves the former. When the eyes of men, even of all God's 
 people, are toward him for help, then his eye is surely upon them 
 in love, care, and succor. It was in answer to the humble uplifted 
 eye and prayer of God's people that this conquering sweep of Alex- 
 ander crushed down so many of those ancient powers hostile to 
 the covenant people, but spared them. 
 
 2. And Hamatli also shall border thereby ; Tjrus 
 and Zidon, though it be very wise. 
 
 Ilamath, a country lying north of Palestine, bordered on Damas- 
 cus, and therefore fell within the range of this great conqueror, and 
 came down beneath the force of his arms. So did Tyre, with Zidon, 
 because she had taken great pride in her wisdom, and had so utter- 
 ly renounced all reliance on the true God. In this passage Tyre 
 
 leads the thought, as also in the historic facts she had quite eclipsed 
 Zidon. Hence, the verb rendered " be very wise," is in the singu- 
 lar, and refers primarily to Tyre. Tlie word rendered " though " 
 should be read "because," this being its usual and best established 
 meaning. The full thought is brought out by Ezekiel in 28 : 2, 3, 
 6, 17: "Say to the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God, Be- 
 
 *^^n 
 
 15: 
 
ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. IX. 331 
 
 cause thine heart is hftcd up and thou hast said — I am God ; I sit in 
 the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man and 
 not God, though thou set thy heart as the heart of God ; therefore, 
 because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God, behold therefore 
 I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations, «fec., &c. 
 
 3. And Tyriis did build herself a strong liold, and 
 heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire 
 of the streets. 
 
 4. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will 
 smite her power in the sea ; and she shall be devoured 
 with fire. 
 
 Further and special notice is taken of Tyre. After having been 
 once fearfully desolated by Nebuchadnezzar, she had fortified her- 
 self on an island with immense strength, and, by means of her ex- 
 tensive commerce, had amassed great wealth. But the Lord would 
 dispossess her of all this wealth. So the original signifies, and not 
 merely " cast her out." He would also smite her bulwarks, built 
 up and standing in the sea, and she should be at length devoured 
 
 utterly by fire. After a siege of seven months, Alexander took 
 
 the city, b. c. 332, and every feature of this prophecy was fulfilled. 
 
 5. Ashkelon shall see it^ and fear ; Gaza also shall 
 see it, and be very sorrowful, and Ekron ; for her expec- 
 tation shall be ashamed ; and the king shall perish from 
 Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. 
 
 From Phoenicia the conqueror swept on to Philistia. The 
 prophet's course of thought is the same. The fall of Tyre sent a 
 panic through those cities of far inferior strength. How could they 
 stand before a power with which Tyre, in all her glory and prowess, 
 
 could not cope? See the same thoughts in Isa. 23. Tyre held 
 
 Alexander's army at bay seven months; the cities of Pliilistia 
 
 scarcely retarded the conquering march of his army at all. The 
 
 verse may be read thus: "Ashkelon shall see and be afraid ; Gaza, 
 too, and she shall be in great anguish; and Ekron, because she shall 
 be ashamed of her trust {i. e., in Tyre) ; kings perish from Gaza, and 
 Aahkelon shall no longer fill her throne " — literally, " shall not 
 sit on a throne." Both shall cease to be nationalities ruled by 
 kings. 
 
 0. And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I ^vill 
 cut off the pride of the Philistines. 
 
 T. And I will take away his blood cut of his mouth, 
 and his abominations from between his teeth ; but he 
 that remaineth, even he shall he for our God, and he 
 shall be as a governor in Judah,^and Ekron as a Jebu- 
 site. 
 
332 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 The first clause I prefer to read — " A foreigner shall rule in 
 Aslidod." The sense, however, may be only that foreigners shall 
 dwell there. The verbs will bear either interpretation. Probably 
 the meaning is, that tlie civil power has passed forever from the 
 hands of the original Philistines to foreigners. Of course, the popu- 
 lation would be in good part changed as well. The pride of 
 
 Philistia would be effectually humbled. And furthermore, the 
 Lord would thoroughly cure them of their idolatry. The prophet, 
 in representing this fact, thinks of them as eating things offered to 
 idols, or as feasting in honor of their idols, and then the Lord 
 plucks out the flesh from between their teeth and cleanses out the 
 blood from their mouth. Then the remnant are converted — ''shall 
 bo for our God" — are honored as a captain of a thousand in Judah ; 
 and they of Ekron shall come to be as near to God as the Jebusites 
 — the primitive inhabitants of Jerusalem — after that city became the 
 holy and the chosen one of God. (See Josh. 15 : 63, and Judg, 19 : 
 10, 11, and 2 Sam. 24 : 16.) This prophecy had its special fulfil- 
 ment when the gospel was preached with great success by the 
 apostles in those cities. It has its general fulfilment under the 
 broad doctrine that all the great revolutions which the Lord brings 
 about by war shall culminate at last in the wider range and sweep 
 of his converting grace. Hence so many prophecies terminate like 
 this. (See Isa. 19 : 18-25 and 23 : 15-18, and Jer. 12 : 15, 16.) 
 
 8. And I will encamp about mine liouse because of 
 the arm J, because of bim that passetb bj, and because 
 of bim tliat returnetb : and no oppressor sball pass 
 tbrougli tliem any more : for now bave I seen witli mine 
 eyes. 
 
 The strain of the chapter thus far is that the Lord will let the 
 great conqueror, Alexander, overwhelm the nations that had so often 
 oppressed Israel. Here, on the other hand, he protects his own 
 chosen people: "I will encamp about them and myself be a wail of 
 fire around them for their sure defence." The special reason, now 
 thought of is the danger from the army of Alexander, " going and 
 returning," mo^'lng to and fro, to Egypt and back, through or very 
 near Judca. " No oppressor," in the precise sense of exactor of 
 service or tribute, " shall pass over them any more," because hence- 
 forth the eye of God's love and care is upon them, in the same 
 sense, a watchful eye, as in Zech. 3 : 9 and 4 : 10. The fulfil- 
 ment of this promise began with the nearer future, and was specially 
 developed in the time of Alexander, when it was indeed striking 
 and alijiost miraculous. If we may credit Josephus, Alexander sent 
 to the Jews his usual demand for tribute as a token of submission, 
 and was answered that they were in allegiance to the Persian throne. 
 Offended by this reply, he soon after came in person ; met Jaddua, 
 t\\Q high priest, in his robejj of oflice, attended by other priests ; was 
 Bolennily impressed by their appearance ; treated them with extra- 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 333 
 
 ordinary deference, and ever after accounted the Jews liis special 
 friends. In explanation of this extraordinary conduct, he referred 
 to a dream in which a personage attired like this high priest, met 
 him while yet at home and pondering the question of invading 
 Persia, encouraged him to go forward, assuring him of -victory and 
 success. Consequently, he recognized this high priest as the minis- 
 ter of the invisible gods, and all the more so wlien the Jews showed 
 
 him the prophecies of Daniel respecting himself. Of the general 
 
 fact of Alexander's special favor to the Jews, there can he no doubt. 
 This favor fulfilled the prophecy before lis (v. 8). God's hand was 
 in the agencies that secured it. "Whether those agencies are given 
 with general accuracy by Josephus, has been questioned ; but for 
 aught that appears, with more reason for affirming than for denying. 
 In its general significance, this promise is good for the true church 
 of God in every age of time. 
 
 9. Eejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O 
 daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy King cometh unto 
 thee : he is just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding 
 upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. 
 
 This striking case of protection against one of the world's 
 greatest and most formidable conquerors — protection which spe- 
 cially shielded Jerusalem Avheu all the adjacent cities and kingdoms 
 v/ere overrun and fearfully desolated — suggested the greater and 
 more glorious protection achieved for the people of God through 
 their incarnate Messiah, at once their great High Priest and their 
 supreme King. Over this Deliverer, let Zion rejoice exceedingly ! 
 This summons to exultant joy indicates that Messianic blessings are 
 before the prophet's eye. His character asKmg is specially prom- 
 inent here because suggested by the protection he gives his people 
 against their enemies. 
 
 "Behold," see! "Thy King shall come to thee," for thy help 
 and refuge. " He is just," the first quality of a good king ; and 
 "issai^e*^," *'.«., protected of God. This word, rendered "having 
 salvation,"* is the passive participle of the common verb, to save, 
 from which our word Jesus is derived. It must, therefore, legiti- 
 mately be taken in the sense — protected, carried safely through all 
 danger — in this case, with reference to the sustaining hand of the 
 Father, upholding his beloved Son through all the temptations and 
 conflicts incident to his incarnation, sutferings, and death. More- 
 over, he is an afflicted one, sorely bruised and suftering, for this is 
 
 the usual sense of the word rendered "lowly." The last clause 
 
 of the verse demands special attention : — " Kiding upon an ass, and 
 
 upon a colt, the. foal of an ass." The primary sense of these 
 
 words is plain enough. It is also clear that the first and proper 
 meaning of the words is precisely what they seem to say, viz., that 
 
334: ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 he should ride upon an ass, and even upon one yet young. The fact 
 that the Lord Jesus fulfilled this prediction to the very letter; that 
 he seemed to take special pains to fulfil it ; and more than all, that 
 this riding was not for tlie common purpose of a more comfortable 
 conveyance from place to place, but was in juanner and form the 
 solemn and joyous procession of his inauguration and coronation 
 as King in his own Jerusalem ; — coupled also with the fact that 
 each one of the four evangehsts has given with more or less ful- 
 ness his own account of the transaction* — all combine to show 
 that it must have had some ulterior and extraordinary significance. 
 It cannot by any means bo supposed that the transaction has no 
 speciality of meaning. What, then, is this special meaning — the 
 
 significance of both the prophecy and tlie fulfilling act? Very 
 
 much has been said to show that the ass is everywhere despised, 
 and that riding on an ass indicates whatever is low and scarcely 
 above contempt. That the Lord Jesus rode on an ass has been sup- 
 posed to denote the position he held among the men of his genera- 
 tion, as one " despised and rejected." This idea has been fostered 
 by the fact that in some Christian countries Jews have been for- 
 bidden to ride on horses, or on any other animal but the ass, 
 for the purpose of branding them with national odium. It is well 
 understood among critics that Jewish commentators since the 
 Christian era have been sorely perplexed with this prediction of 
 their Messiah in whom they have expected a conquering hero, and 
 therefore could find no place in their preconceived notions of his 
 character for such a feature and fact as this, especially inasmuch 
 as modern ideas have led them to interpret the fact as a thing of 
 
 dishonor. To relieve their King Messiah from this odium, they 
 
 have taxed their ingenuity upon tradition and fable, e. g.^ asserting 
 that this ass was the identical one created within the six days of 
 Gen. 1, the original ass(!), and the same on which Abraham rode 
 to Mount Moriah to offer his Isaac there, and which Moses rode 
 when he came from Midian into Egypt as their deliverer — thus 
 
 asserting for him at least the honors of a renowned antiquity ! 
 
 But these Jewish commentators, and some not Jewish, have 
 made themselves gratuitous labor in explaining away the supposed 
 disgrace of riding on an ass. It were better first to consider that 
 the notions of modern Europe and America concerning the ass are 
 no rule for the people of Western Asia ; and further, that the no- 
 tions of Arab tribes and Mohammedans who glory in the horse are 
 not to be the standard by which to determine Hebrew ideas. Mani- 
 festly the sole question here is, not what Western nations think of 
 the ass, nor what Arabs think of him, nor indeed what is thought 
 of him by any people in any age or country who are accustomed to 
 use his rival, the horse; but what were the current usages and 
 hence the current ideas of tlie Jeic,% the people among whom Zech- 
 
 * The reader- will find the history of the fulfilment iu Matt. 21 : 1-16, 
 Mark 11 : 1-11, Luke 19 : 29-40, and John 12 : 12-18. 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 335 
 
 ariali lived and wrote ? That tins is the very point to be ascertained 
 seems too plain to need proof, and yet it has been strangely over- 
 looked. It cannot be deemed necessary to prove that Jewisli 
 
 ideas were substantially the same from Abraham to the Christian 
 era — certainly among all who, like Zechariah, held in high esteem 
 
 the patriarchs of the nation and their ancient Scriptures. Let it 
 
 then be considered that during the entire life of the Jewish nation, 
 the horse had never any footing in Palestine, and therefore had no 
 opportunity to disparage his lowlier rival. It was the divine policy 
 to keep him ont, as being uncongenial to the Hebrew state, too 
 aristocratic, and withal dangerous as a temptation into the ways of 
 the idolatrous and corrupt nations in their vicinity ; and more than 
 all, too imich associated icitliicar. These considerations all conspired 
 to retain the ass in service and to secure for him a fairly respectable 
 
 standing. But let ns look at the historic facts. Abraham, the 
 
 honored father of the nation, rode an ass. The sons of Jacob, 
 heads of the tribes of Israel, rode every man his ass. Balaam, a 
 great man in his country, rode on an ass. The daughter of Caleb, 
 and Abigail too, among the worthy women of Jewish history, rode 
 each on her ass. All the sons of David rode on mules — an animal 
 of the same general character ; Absalom also, when at the head 
 of his army. In the transfer of the kingdom from I>avid to Solo- 
 mon, great account is made of his riding on David's mule in the 
 royal procession on coronation day. It is therefore simply im- 
 possible that any odium could have been attached to riding on an 
 ass at the time Zechariah wrote, or at the time when Christ ful- 
 
 fihed his prediction. But there is one idea, already hinted at 
 
 though not fully developed, which deserves a far more prominent 
 position than it has had. The ass icas not adaiJted to war ; the horse 
 was. For the most part the ass appears in Jewish history either 
 used by men in peaceful life, or by women who should never be in 
 any other. On the contrary, the horse of scripture history is a 
 war-horse, with either his dragoon or his chariot. The Egyptians 
 on one side; the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians on the other; 
 made great account of liorses for war. Hence, when the horse in 
 Jewish history sets foot on Palestine, he is there for war, for 
 
 aggression. Nor let us fail to notice in our context that while 
 
 King Messiah is to ride on an a^s, the Lord says: "I will cut oft" 
 the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; "and he 
 sliall speak peace to the heathen." Jerusalem especially, the holy 
 city where Jehovah dwelt, must have no horses. Their very names 
 
 and their presence are too much associated icith tear. Zech. 
 
 13:4 shov/s how the horse is commonly thought of as related to 
 the Hebrew state. In the millennial age, horses for once (for the 
 lirst time ?) shall be really consecrated to God (14 : 20), a most re- 
 markable fact, and indicating a stupendous change! llie ass then 
 is here an emblem of ])eace — of peaceful pursuits, of a peaceful 
 king, and of his peaceful reign, showing that Messiah's kingdom 
 should not be of this world, and should not make its conquests 
 
336 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 witli carnal weapons. This significant act, riding on an ass, is a 
 symbol of Christ's peaceful reign, inaugurating liim for the sort of 
 work which the next verse describes. 
 
 10. And I will cut oif the cliariot from Epliraim, 
 and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall 
 be cut olF : and he shall speak peace unto the heathen : 
 and his dominion shall he from sea even to sea, and from 
 the river even to the ends of the earth. 
 
 This verse is closely connected with verse 9 — a part of the same 
 grand prophecy of the Messiali and of his reign on earth — set here 
 in a fine antithesis with the conquering, world-wide kingdom of 
 
 Alexander. The chariot and the horse must be discarded and 
 
 abolished as war-institutions^ and therefore wholly out of place un- 
 der this peaceful reign. They can bear no part in the great con- 
 quests which Zion's King is to make. He has no fighting to do 
 with carnal weapons. On the contrary, he " speals " peace to the 
 nations. The gospel of his word carries with it peace and love to 
 
 the very hearts of men. -The reader will notice how fully this 
 
 view of Messiah's reign harmonizes with that given by Micah 4 : 1- 
 4; Isa. 11 and Ps. 72, &c., &c. Though the kingdom of Mes- 
 siah relies on. peaceful agencies alone for its diffusion, yet it shall be 
 extended far away to the ends of the world. " His dominion shall 
 be from sea to sea" — from land's end in one direction to land's end 
 in another — " from the great river" (Euphrates) " to the ends of the 
 earth." The prophet is not aiming to fix certain geographical 
 boundaries to this kingdom, as if implying that it lies within these 
 and in no case beyond them, but rather means that it is coexten- 
 sive with the known world, sweeping away to the very ends of the 
 
 earth. That this passage (vs. 9, 10) is a prophecy of Jesus Christ, 
 
 admits of no rational doubt. (1.) The course of thought which 
 suggests and introduces it, the transition from the protection af- 
 forded against Alexander to the greater and better protection af- 
 forded by Zion's King against Satan, the world's worst conqueror 
 and tyrant, goes far to prove it Messianic. (2.) The call for ex- 
 traordinary joy in this glorious King belongs to the prophecies of 
 
 the Messiah, and to nothing of less magnitude and value. (3.) 
 
 The points made can apply to none but the Messiah. (4.) They 
 
 al] apply to him easily, accurately, and fully. (5.) The one most 
 
 extraordinary point — his riding on an ass — was not only fulfilled m 
 him but J)y him, with more appearance of special aim to fulfil this 
 prophecy than is apparent elsewhere in regard to any other. Yet, 
 in view of the exposition above given of the significance of this act, 
 we must suppose that he did it because of its significance rather 
 than merely for the sake of IWfilling this prophecy. He did fulfil 
 
 it, however, none the less. (G.) The testimony of the disciples in 
 
 their comments on the historic fact is in point. Matthew (21 : 4) 
 remarks : " All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
 
ZECHARIAII.— CHAP. IX. 337 
 
 «spoken by the prophet," and then cites this passage ; while John 
 (12 : 16) remarks that his " disciples did not undei*stand these things 
 at the first, hut when Jesns w^as glorified, then they remembered 
 that these things were written of him, and that they had done 
 these things unto him." When the Spirit had fully come to teach 
 them all things, and to bring all things Christ had said and done 
 to their remembrance, then the significance of this transaction be- 
 came wonderfully clear to their minds. All these points of evi- 
 dence combined make the proof signally complete — indeed, over- 
 whelming. 
 
 11. As for thee also, bj tlie "blood of thy covenant I 
 iiave sent forth thy prisoners ont of the pit wherein is 
 no water. 
 
 12. Turn yon to the strong hold, ye prisoners of 
 hope : even to-day do I declare tJiat I will render double 
 unto thee ; 
 
 13. When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow 
 with Ephraini, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against 
 thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a 
 mighty man. 
 
 The ninth and tenth verses may be regarded as a digression 
 from the regular course of thought, and embraced in a parenthesis. 
 In V. 11 the prophet returns to speak of events that follow shortly 
 after those predicted (vs. 1-8). The conflict (v. 13) between the 
 sons of Zion and the sons of Greece finds its fulfilment in the fu- 
 rious wars waged during twenty-four years between the Jews and 
 the Syrian Greeks, commencing in the reign of Antiochus Epiph- 
 anes. His people are here called Greeks because his kingdom 
 was one of the four into which the great Grecian empire of Alex- 
 ander w^as divided, and also because their language and customs 
 
 were Grecian. " As for thee also (0 daughter of Zion, as in v. 9), 
 
 because thou art in a covenant with thy God which is sealed with 
 blood, I will send forth thy prisoners out of the pit in which is no 
 water." The covenant of the Lord with the Jewish nation was 
 sealed with sprinkled blood. See Ex. 24 : 8. — " And Moses took 
 the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said : Behold the 
 blood of the covenant which the Lord had made with you concern- 
 ing all these words." A " pit without water " is one from which 
 
 the water has by some means gone, lea\dng mud on the bottom, 
 exceedingly offensive and .often miasmatic. See the experiences 
 of Joseijh and of Jeremiah, Gen. 37 : 24 and Jer. 38 : G. The Lord's 
 people are thought of as having been imprisoned in such a pit ; but 
 the Lord sends them forth. The past tense, rendered " have sent," 
 is doubtless used because the event is so fixed in the counsels of 
 God as to be accounted clone. Hence this tense (the perfect) is 
 used by the prophets even for events yet as to actual occurrence in 
 15 
 
338 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 
 
 tlie future. This was to occur Ojftev Zecliariali"'s day. " Return 
 
 ye to the strong hold " — a higli and therefore strong, inaccessible 
 position, and here in contrast with the " deep pit " where they had 
 lain imprisoned. Being the people of Jehovah and in covenant 
 with him, they were evermore ''prisoners of hope" — prisoners 
 
 having just ground of hope in his protecting, delivering grace. 
 
 To " render double " is to give them blessings twice as great as 
 their atHictions had been. See the same expression, Isa. 40 : 2 and 
 61:7. It is altogether the way of the Lord to send grief and 
 affliction only in single measure, but joy and blessing in double — 
 weighing out the retributions of justice carefully and the inflictions 
 of his rod very tenderly ; but pouring forth the bounties of his 
 mercy as if ho could not think of measuring them by any rule less 
 
 than the impulses of infinite love ! In v. 13 — "'Because I have 
 
 trodden Judah for my bow, and filled my bow with Ephraira as 
 mine arrow " — means that the Lord is to use the military strength 
 of Judah and Ephraim in protecting his land against the Syrian 
 
 armies. The strong bows of the warrior were bent by using the 
 
 foot as well as the hand. Hence the phrase "to tread the bow," 
 
 for bending it to fit its string for use. Applying the arrow 
 
 "filled the bow" — this being a necessary complement, without 
 
 which it was of no account. " Raised up " should rather he 
 
 " roused up " — exciting and inspiring to deeds of heroic valor — all 
 which had its precise fulfilment in those inspirations of heroism 
 with which the Lord anointed the souls of the Maccabees agamst 
 their Syrian foes. 
 
 14. And the Loed sliall be seen over tliem, and liis 
 arrow sliall go forth as tlie lightning : and the Lord God 
 shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds 
 of the sonth. 
 
 The agencies of God's providence in this war shall be as pal- 
 pable as if Jehovah himself were visible above them as they fought 
 their battles. His own arrows shall go forth like the lightnings ; 
 he shall blow the trumpet-blasts of the battle, and shall march 
 upon his foes as in the whirlwinds of the south — those most fear- 
 ful tornadoes that carry death in their wings. These whirwinds 
 of the south are referred to by Job (37 : 9), and by Isaiah (21 : 1). 
 This grouping of the boldest and most terrible elements of nature 
 represents God's agencies in those wars. 
 
 15. The Lord of hosts shall defend them ; and they 
 shall devour and subdue with sling-stones ; and they 
 shall drink, and make a noise as through wine ; and 
 they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of 
 the altar. 
 
 " The Lord of hosts " (" God of the celestial armies " is the right 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. IX. 339 
 
 name to use here) "shall defend them" (literally, shall throw his 
 shield over them), "and they shall devonr " (literally "eat" as it 
 were the flesh of their enemies), " and shall tread down sling- 
 stones " — implying that their enemies are now as powerless as a 
 small sling-stone when lying on the ground, which is dangerous 
 only when hurled and flying from its sling. The sense is not — 
 "subdue with sling-stones," i. e., of their own; hut tread under 
 
 foot their enemy as they "would tread upon sling-stones. " They 
 
 shall drink," i. <?., the blood of their enemies, as men drink wine, 
 and shall shout as men under its stimulus, and be filled with it as 
 the bowls of the altar, and as its corners upon which the blood was 
 
 daily sprinkled. These allusions to the bowls and the corners of 
 
 the altar may refer tacitly to the covenant sealed with blood, under 
 which help came from God for victory. 
 
 The reader will be careful to notice the contrast between these 
 verses (13-15) and the Messianic passage (vs. 9, 10) on the point of 
 war with deadly weapons. Under Messiah's peaceful reign there 
 shall be no chariots or horses of war ; the battle-bow shall be cut 
 off" and unknown : but here, in the age before Messiah came, Ju- 
 dali is the Lord's bow, Ephraim his arrow ; the Lord fights at their 
 head, and they too fight with determined and almost furious bra- 
 very. The Lord had his own reasons for making the age before 
 
 Messiah came so militant. Let us not question their wisdom or 
 their love. But manifestly it is his purpose in this chapter to put 
 the future kingdom of the Messiah in the strongest possible con- 
 trast with those raihtant features of the earlier age, and to assure 
 us that in the good time coming men shall truly "learn war no 
 more." The gospel, having once developed its whole genius and 
 power, shall prove itself thoroughly and only "peace on earth and 
 good wiU to men." 
 
 16. And the Lokd their God sliall save tliem in tliat 
 day as the flock of his people : for the^ shall he as the 
 stones of a crown, lifted np as an ensign npon his land. 
 
 "The Lord their God shall save them as the flock of his people " 
 — as if he were indeed their own shepherd. "Because diadem- 
 stones," the jewels of a crown, "are they," borne on the head of 
 
 a conquering king, and waving high over his land. A beautiful 
 
 contrast should be noted here between their Syrian foes — sling- 
 stones under foot — and themselves crown-stones, precious gems, 
 set in a crown, and borne aloft over the land on the head of 
 conquerors. 
 
 lY. .For how great is his goodness, and how great is 
 his beanty ! corn shall make the young men cheerful, 
 and new w^ine the maids. 
 
 There is good reason for this exclamation of surprise and joy in 
 view of the goodness of God to his people, and the beauty of hi:^ 
 
340 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. X. 
 
 providential dispensations as seen in the time of Lliose Syrian wars. 
 
 -In tlie last clanse, " cheerful " is not precisely the idea, but 
 
 rather fruitful^ 'prolijic^ which, according: to well-known Jewish 
 idea-!, was one of the most conclusive and joyous proofs of great 
 [)rosperity. Early marriages, healthful parents, "sons as plants 
 grown up in their youth ; " daughters as corner-stones, polished after 
 the similitude of a palace : "happy is that people that is in such a 
 case" (Ps. 144: 12-15). "Happy is the man that hath his quiver 
 full of them" (Ps. 127: 5). These are the peaceful and pros- 
 perous times that succeed those wars. 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 This chapter is a continuation from the close of chapter 9, and 
 hence has for its ground idea the wars of the Maccabees against the 
 Syrian power. V. 1 stands immediately connected with 9 : 17, in- 
 dicating the external prosperity that succeeded those wars; v. 2 
 falls back to note the apostasies which brought on this Syrian 
 scourge; v. 3 the zeal and jealousy of the Lord kindled against the 
 corrupt Jewish leaders, and the remedy for their mischiefs ; in v. 4 
 men rise up, capable of filling positions of responsible trust; in v. 5 
 they fight valiantly, because the Lord is with them, and confounds 
 their foes. In vs. 6-12, on the basis of this great deliverance 
 wrought for his people, the prophet predicts that in times more 
 remote the Lord will work similar but yet more glorious achieve- 
 ments for his Zion. 
 
 1. Ask ye of tlie Loed rain in the time of tlie latter 
 rain; so the Loed sliall make bright clouds, and give 
 them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. 
 
 Under the ancient dispensation the Lord gave timely rains and 
 abundant harvests to his people when they were obedient and 
 trustful, and sought him in prayer. lie took care to have them 
 understand this from the outset. See Dent. 11: 13, 14: — "And it 
 shall come to pass that if ye shall hearken diligently unto ray com- 
 mandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your 
 God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul, 
 that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first 
 rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn and 
 
 thy wine and thy oil." Hence the prophet says here : "Ask of 
 
 the Lord rain " — it comes for the asking, for the Lord your God hears 
 the prayer of his obedient people. Kain "in the time of the latter 
 
 rain" was especially useful to perfect the maturing crops. 
 
 "So the Lord shall give" — not "bright clouds," but "light- 
 nings," always portendmg rain. The Hebrew words translated 
 
 "showers of rain " imply abundance — " the rain of great rain " — so 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. X. 311 
 
 that not in detached districts alone, but over the whole land, " every 
 one shall have grass in the field." 
 
 2. Fortlie idols have spoken vanity, and tlie diviners 
 have seen a lie, and have told false dreams ; they com- 
 fort in vain : therefore they went their way as a flock, 
 they were troubled because there was no sheplierd. 
 
 The reason is given here why the Lord comes to the rescue ; 
 "/(?r the people have been sorely deceived by diviners and by the 
 ])riests of idol gods, and have been seduced away from me," allud- 
 ing to the antecedent apostasy which was the occasion and procur- 
 ing cause of that fearful Syrian scourge. Historical evidence to 
 this apostasy exists in 1 Mac. 1 : 11-15. The "idols," is in He- 
 brew "the teraphira," household gods which appear not nnfre- 
 quently in Jewish history, e. g., with Rachel (Gen. 31 : 19, 34); with 
 Michal, Saul's daughter (1 Sam. 19 : 13, 16) ; with Micah in Judges 
 
 17:5, &c., &c. All the light that came from these gods and 
 
 diviners was only darkness; their guidance only misled the people ; 
 the hopes tliey inspired were worse than vain ; consequently the 
 whole people were led off in a wrong and ruinous way, going en 
 masse, as a flock of sheep follow the lead given them. They were 
 in great affliction (the sense of the word rendered " were troubled "), 
 because there was no competent and real shepherd. 
 
 3. Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, 
 and I 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. 
 
 "My wratli" (saith the Lord) "is kindled against those shep- 
 herds " who so mislead the people. " I will punish the he-goats," 
 so called because the he- goat leads the flock.— — "For the Lord 
 hath visited his flock," implying that he is the real shepherd of the 
 house of Judah, and hath made them victorious in the conflict 
 against then* enemies, crowning them with honor before the nation, 
 as he indicates by comparing them to his own horse, one specially 
 
 honored by his own use in the day of battle. In the middle of 
 
 the verse is a play upon the two meanings of the usual Hebrew 
 word for msit,^ which, with a preposition following, equivalent to 
 upon., means to inflict judgment ; but standing alone means to look 
 after in a good sense. God will look after those enemies in the 
 sense oi msiting upon them his plagues; but will look after his peo- 
 ple in the sense of looking into their case with kindness, and redress- 
 ing their wrongs with his glorious right arm, 
 
 4. Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the 
 
342 ZECnARIAH.— CHAP. X. 
 
 nail, out of lilm the battle-Low, out of liim ever j oppress- 
 or together. 
 
 "When the Lord visits Jiidali in raercy, lie gives her the very 
 blessings she needs — good leaders in place of the bad who had been 
 so sore a curse upon her. Hence out of Judah now come forth the 
 "■ corner-stone " men, good for bearing the weightiest responsibilities :• 
 the " nail " men, to hold things in their right place, or to bear great 
 burden^. " The battle-bow " are the men skilful in the line of war, 
 but the word rendered "oppressor" does not in this passage im- 
 \)\y any injustice, but only an active, vigorous, and capable ruler. 
 
 The nail, in oriental use, was rather a spike or tent-pin, 
 
 sometimes so large that all the kitchen utensils were hung upon it. 
 (See Isa. 22 : 23, 25 and Ezra 9 : 8.) 
 
 5. And they shall be as mighty ?nen, which tread 
 dovvai their eneniies in the mire of the streets in the bat- 
 tie: and they shall fight, becanse the Lord is with 
 them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded. 
 
 This graphic and vigorous description of the Lord's valiant war- 
 riors corresponds admirably with the historic character of the Mac- 
 cabean brothers, who girded themselves for heroic fight in the name 
 of the Lord God of their fathers. They felt that the Lord was with 
 them. The " riders on horses" were their Syrian invaders. The 
 history makes frequent mention of large bodies of horsemen in their 
 armies, e. g.^ 1 Mac. 3 : 39 : " Seven thousand horsemen," and 4:1, 
 '• one thousand of the best horsemen," &c. They were confounded 
 to meet such power among those despised Jews. 
 
 6. And I wdll strengthen the house of Judah, and I 
 will save the house of Joseph, and I wdll bring them 
 again to place them ; for I have mercy upon them : and 
 they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I 
 aTTi the LoED their God, and will hear them. 
 
 The general conception in this verse is that of reproducing the 
 best days of Israel, e. g.^ under David and Solomon. Consequently 
 " Joseph," the ten tribes, must be saved ; the people all made ready 
 to '• dwell " in a settled and secure way in their own land, the Lord 
 showing his mercy upon them even as though he had not ever cast 
 
 them otf for their sins. But tliis conception carries us onward 
 
 into the Messianic age, and could have its fulfilment in nothing 
 short or less. The recall of the ten tribes, in any age snbsequent 
 to Zcchariah, must, of necessit}', be regarded as Messianic, and to 
 be fulfilled only in the New Testament sense. With these prin- 
 ciples of interpretation before the mind, this entire passage (vs. 
 6-12) becomes not only clear and free h'om its otherwise insur- 
 mountable difficulties, but rich in gospel significance and in the 
 fulness of glorious jn-omise for Zion in her latter days. 
 
ZECHAR-AH.— CHAP. X. 343 
 
 Y. And they of Epliraim shall be like a miglitv man^ 
 and tlieir hearts shall rejoice as through wine: yea, 
 the children shall see it^ and be glad ; their hearts shall 
 rejoice in the Lord. 
 
 8. I will hiss for them, and gather them ; for I have 
 redeemed them : and thej shall increase as they have 
 increased. 
 
 9. And I will sow them among the people : and they 
 shall remember me in far countries ; and they shall live 
 with their children, and turn again. 
 
 " Ephraim " contemplates in its literal sense the ten tribes ; but 
 in its real prophetic outlook, the ingathering of the nations to Jesus 
 Christ in the gospel age. A Jew in the time of Zechariah could 
 conceive of no state of things more desh-able than the reproducing 
 of the good times of David and Solomon. Hence language and 
 figures are drawn from that state to represent the best condition 
 possible for God's earthly "kingdom — the sublimely glorious con- 
 quests of peace and victories of love in the latter days. In v. 8 
 
 E[)hraim comes back with heart full of joy ; the Lord lifts up his 
 shrill cry for them, as the keeper of bees whistles for them, and they 
 come to his call. They multiply as of old (Ephraim took his name 
 
 from the idea of being prolific in population). In v. 9 God will 
 
 scatter them abroad among the nations, and there, under the moral 
 influence of this affliction, they shall remember the Lord their God 
 
 and repent of their great sins. So the Lord said by Ilosea 
 
 (2 : 4), " I will allure her into the wilderness and speak to her 
 
 heart." " They shall Iwe with their children " — live in the high 
 
 spiritual sense, with allusion perhaps to Ezek. 37 : 9 : " Come from 
 the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they 
 
 may Ziud." ""With their children," implies that these blessings 
 
 go down to future generations— not to themselves alone, but to 
 their children after them as well. 
 
 10. I will bring them again also out of the land of 
 Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria ; and I will bring 
 them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and ^ylaoe 
 shall not be found for them. 
 
 These words must be understood as historic allusion, and not as 
 specific and literal prediction. The sense is not — I will gather my 
 captives out of Egypt and out of Assyria, but — I will do a similar 
 thing to the great achievement of bringing my people out of Egypt 
 under Moses. I will redeem them from a second Egypt, and save 
 them from a second Assyrian Sennacherib. That only Egypt and 
 Assyria, and not Chaldea, are referred to, is explained by the fact 
 that the kingdom of the ten tribes had disappeared before the Chal- 
 dean came into notice ; hence, Ephraim never knew Chaldea as an 
 
S4A ZECnAKIAH.— CHAP. X. 
 
 enemy. Note also that the prophet does not say they shall ro 
 
 tnrn to Jndah and Jerusalem ; but, to show the enlargement of 
 th.Q Lord's kingdom, he names "Gilead," the extensive region on tho 
 east of Jordan, and "-Lebanon," on the north, which lay outside 
 the usual boundaries of the tribes of Israel ; and, indeed, he says^ 
 
 "place large enough shall not be found for them." But this has 
 
 never been fulfilled in the lineal descendants of Abraham, nor can 
 it ever be. Their numbers, all told to-day, would not meet the de- 
 mands of this prophecy, interpreted however moderately. We must, 
 therefore, find Israel and Ephraim in that new era of Messiah's kiug- 
 dom in which there is no distinction of Jew and Greek, but all are 
 
 one in Christ Jesus. Yet another reason for omitting to name 
 
 Judah and Jerusalem is, that the prophet has in mind the ten tribes 
 specially, and not Judah. The demand for restoring mercy lay 
 chiefly in their direction, as seen in the age of Zechai-iah. Further, 
 the Jews were never carried captive literally into Egypt. If any 
 Jews fled thither for refuge in those seasons when their homes were 
 broken up, they went and were received as friends. But v. 11 con- 
 ceives of their rescue from Egyj)t as being from the hand of enemies, 
 a fact which shows that Egypt comes in here only by way of historic 
 
 allusion. Arguing against the doctrine of a literal restoration of 
 
 the Jews to Palestine, Dr. Hengstenberg pertinently says : " If it 
 cannot be denied that the Ia,nds out of which the Israelites were 
 brought back, are to be understood only as types, what objection 
 can be urged if the land to ichicli they shall be restored is in like 
 manner to be regarded as a type ? " (Christology, ii., 143.) 
 
 11. And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, 
 and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps 
 of the rivers shall diy np : and the pride of Assyria 
 shall be bronght down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall 
 depart away. 
 
 Tills verse begins with a change of person from the first, "I," as 
 in vs. 6-10, to the third, "he." But "he " must be understood of 
 
 the same Lord God. Tlie " sea " can be no other than the Red 
 
 Sea, named by way of historic allusion. The Lord passes through 
 it at the head of his people to achieve a like deliverance to that of 
 
 the Exodus from Egypt. Not " with afliiction," for there is no 
 
 word corresponding to " with," and nothing out of vdiich to make 
 tliis sense; but the sea which is itself their affliction — which stands 
 in their way, and is the occasion of their trouble — ^in apposition 
 with the word " sea." Whatever their affliction may be, analogous to 
 the Red Sea of the olden time, the Lord will march through it at tho 
 
 head of his people. " And he will smite the waves " in that sea 
 
 which represents their affliction, as he is wont to smite his enemies. 
 " And all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up " — with his- 
 toric reference to the Jordan, which, however, being a comparatively 
 small stream, is not itself named here, but the usual word for thu 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XI. 345 
 
 Nile is taken instead. That is, the idea of drying up comes from the 
 
 Jordan ; the magnitude of tiie stream from tlie Nile. Isaiah 
 
 (11 : 15, 16) has a very similar allusion to the passage of the Eed Sea. 
 — — "The pride of Assyria " and "the sceptre of Egypt " are also 
 historic allusions to those hostile powers from whom Israel had suf- 
 fered so much. The sense is — God will humhle all the foes of Zion, 
 and will effectually hreak in pieces their power to harm. 
 
 12. And I will strengthen them in the Lord ; and 
 they shall walk np and" down in his name, saith the 
 
 LOED. 
 
 Finally, they shall he made gloriously strong in the Lord, and 
 through his strength alone. So shall they walk np and down, trav- 
 erse the land at their will, or in their duty, withont fear, l^o harm 
 can befall them, since they walk with God. Many parallel pas- 
 sages might be cited from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ilosea, and Micah, scrv- 
 iug to confirm the general interpretation here given, and to show 
 that the prophets harmonize remarkably in these views of the 
 general course of events in the great future of Zion; and also to 
 show that they give the same sense to individual and special phrases. 
 It has not seemed necessary to collate and compare these texts, 
 
 except in passages of special difficulty. The reader will find in 
 
 Isaiah 11 : 11-16 a passage remarkably similar to this in all impor- 
 tant respects. It is beyond all question il/^ssza?i/c ; so must this be 
 also. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 If the Book of Zechariah be divided into two portions, the first 
 six chapters being the first division, and the remaining eight the 
 second, then this eleventh will be a digression from the current 
 strain of promised blessings in the second portion, very analogous 
 to the fifth chapter in the first part. As the fifth was interposed 
 for the purpose of moral v/arning to the careless, apprising them 
 that the judgments of God awaited the guUty, so here this eleventli 
 chapter is interposed for the same purpose. There can be no doubt 
 that it predicts judgments on the covenant people at some period 
 
 of their history then future. The manner of presenting this truth 
 
 is very peculiar, essentially that of symbolic vision — a case quite 
 unique in the respect that, in vision only, and not in actuality', and 
 as personating, not himself, but others, the prophet is required to 
 perform the functions of a shepherd to the Lord's people, consid- 
 ered as his flock. On this theory of interpreting the chapter the 
 best modern commentators are united. Despite of tlie unique pe- 
 culiarities of the case, it is generally agreed that the chapter pre- 
 dicts the overthrow of the Jewish state, and the ruin of their city 
 and temple, effected by the Romans, about a. d. 70, in consequence 
 15* 
 
34G ZECHARIAII.— CHAP. XI. 
 
 of their national corruption, and of their blind and mad rejection 
 of their Messiah. The prophet, acting the part of a good shepherd 
 (vs. 4-14), personates the Messiah himself. Acting the part of the 
 foolish shepherd (vs. 15-17), he personates the Scribes and Pharisees 
 
 of the Saviour's day. The first three verses, wrought up in high 
 
 poetic imagery, predict the fall of the nation before the Eoman 
 arms ; while the remaining part of the chapter gives the antecedent 
 moral causes of that fall. Whereas those morally blinded and hard- 
 ened Jews had said in the madness of their wrath against the spot- 
 less Eedeemer, "His blood be on us and on our children," on them 
 and on their children his blood did come, and their blood flowed 
 like rivers of water! The Saviour himself had said, "Behold your 
 house is left nnto you desolate." Here is an earlier prediction of 
 those fearful retributions. History endorses its accuracy to the very 
 
 letter. The comprehensive thought of this chapter is, therefore, 
 
 Judaism^ utterly corrupt and apostate^ repelling the merciful ef- 
 forts of her Redeemer to reclaim and save lier^ and thus dringing 
 on herself dire destruction. The divisions of the chapter are al- 
 ready indicated incidentally: vs. 1-3, a comprehensive prediction 
 of ruin upon their city and nation ; vs. 4-14, the causes of this ruin 
 shown to he in the utter corruption of those orders (the priests, 
 scribes, and doctors of the law) who should have been, under God, 
 their good shepherds, and their consequent rejection of their true 
 Shepherd, Jesus, the Messiah. Lastly, vs. 15-17 give the course 
 and doom of those corrupt teachers, specially personated by the 
 prophet, acting the part of a foolish shepherd. 
 
 1. Open tliy doors, O Lebanon, that tlio fire may de- 
 vour tliy cedars. 
 
 Lebanon and her lofty cedars represent Jerusalem ; her doors, 
 the gates of the city. Hence this is a sumtnons to Jerusalem to pre- 
 pare for approaching ruin. The ground of this poetical conception 
 of Lebanon for Jerusalem may be a tacit analogy between them — 
 Lebanon one of the grandest objects in the realm of nature, Jeru- 
 salem in the realm of art; Lebanon among the works. of God, Je- 
 rusalem among the works of man — with, perhaps, a side-look to the 
 fact that the temple was largely built with cedars from Lebanon. 
 
 ^ 2. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen ; because the 
 mighty are spoiled : howl, O ye oaks of Bashan, for the 
 forest of the vhitage is come down. 
 
 The sentiment is— This destruction shall be complete. The lof- 
 tiest and strongest fall; how, then, can the feebler hope to 
 
 stand? The same strain of poetic conception is carried through 
 
 the verse, the grandest trees of the forest representing Jerusalem 
 and other strongholds of the nation. "Wail, O cypress, for the ce- 
 dar has fallen " (i. e., what were most lofty are now destroyed) ; 
 " wail, ye oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the inaccessible moun- 
 
ZECHARIAir.— CHAP. XI. 347 
 
 tain-lieights is laid low." "If these things be done in the green 
 tree, what shall be done in the dry? " 
 
 3. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds ; 
 for their glory is spoiled : a voice of the roaring of 
 young lions ; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. 
 
 Here the figures turn from inanimate nature to animate. The 
 ornament and glory of the shepherds are their rich pastures — now 
 laid waste. Compare Jer. 25 : 36 : "A voice of the cry of the shep- 
 herds, and an howKng of the principal of the flock ; for the Lord hath 
 
 spoiled their pasture." " The pride of Jordan," in which the 
 
 young lion made his lair, were the dense thickets along his banks. 
 This phrase was already in use by Jeremiah, whom Zechariah fol- 
 lows remarkably in his terms and phrases. See Jer. 12 : 5, where 
 the " swelling of Jordan " is the same original phrase here rendered 
 "pride of Jordan." So also, Jer. 49:19, and 50: 44 — in all cases 
 said of the thick undergrowths along the Jordan, where the lions 
 
 had their homes. The sentiment is here the same as above — All 
 
 classes of people are in distress, for their choicest treasures are 
 wasted ; what they most love and value is in ruins. A poetic 
 imagination seizes on the ruin of individual classes, and by a few 
 striking details gives a vivid conception of the universal desola- 
 tion. 
 
 4. Thus saitli the Lord my God ; Feed the flock of 
 the slaughter; 
 
 As already stated, vs. 4-14 are a sort of parable — a dramatic 
 scene, in which the prophet personates the Messiah, and represents 
 in himself what the Messiah was to do for the Jewish nation, con- 
 sidered as the people of God. The figure throughout is that of a 
 shepherd and his flock — a figure often applied to the spiritual rela- 
 tions of the Lord to his people. Those who act under and for him, 
 ministering to the religious life of his people, are also called shep- 
 herds, pastors of his people. This figure had become very common 
 in the age of Zechariah, and of the prophets during the captivity. 
 The reader will see, in Ezek. 34 and Jer. 23, how familiar tliose 
 prophets were with this conception, and how much use they made 
 of it to set forth the relations sustained by the Lord toward his peo- 
 ple. It also served with them, as with Zechariah, to represent how 
 fearfully the priests and prophets of that age had degenerated, and 
 
 were scattering and wasting the sheep of the Lord's pasture. 
 
 "The flock of the slaughter" means the flock doomed to slaughter 
 for their sins — the Jewish people, now ripe for the fearful retributive 
 judgments of the Almighty. 
 
 5. Whose possessors slay thenij and hold themselves 
 not gnilty : and they that sell them say, Blessed he the 
 Lord ; for I am rich : and their own shepherds pity 
 them not. 
 
348 ZECHARiAn.—cnAP. n. 
 
 The persons of the drama in this verse are (i.) The fioc\ who 
 are the Jews during the period a. d. 30-*/ 0, conceived of as the flock 
 of the Lord's pastures ; (2.) Their &?«/<??'« (" possessors ") and their 
 sellers, the Romans; and (3.) Their oicn shepJierds, the priests, 
 Scribes, and Pharisees, who should have taught them the knowledge 
 of God, but who had no care or pity for their deplorable moral 
 
 condition. Their buyers who buy them for slaughter kill them 
 
 and are not punished as guilty, because it is of the Lord to scourge 
 the nation for its great sins. The verb here used * has only these 
 two well-established senses : (1.) To sin ; (2.) To suffer punishment 
 for sin. See notes on Hos. 5 : 15. It occurs Jer. 2 : 8 and 50 : 7, 
 both of which passages strikingly illustrate the sense of the clause 
 before us. The former, refen-ing to the time when Israel was holi- 
 ness to the Lord, says — " AU that devour him offend,'''' i. c, sin 
 against God, and shall suffer punishment ; " evil shall come upon 
 them, saith the Lord." The latter, referring to a time when the 
 Lord would scourge his people, reads — " All that found them liave 
 devoured them ; their adversaries said, "We offend not, because they 
 have sinned against the Lord." It is remarkable that foreign 
 enemies whom the Lord made use of to scourge his people, seem to 
 have in some sort understood why the Lord gave them this license. 
 The king of Assyria (Isa. 36 : 10) said : " Am I now come up with- 
 out tTie Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said unto 
 
 me, Go Tip against this land to destroy it." That '' they who sell 
 
 them bless the Lord for their gains," corresponds to the clause, 
 " they are not punished " (" offend not "). They think they are doing 
 God service, and thank him for the personal selfish good they get 
 as if all were morally right. 
 
 6. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the 
 land, saith the Loed : bnt lo, I will deliver the men 
 every one into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand 
 of his king : and they shall smite the land, and ont of 
 their hand I will not deliver them. 
 
 The reason for the ruin that comes thus terribly on the covenant 
 people is that God has given them over to destruction for their in- 
 corrigible -sins. The repetition of the verb rendered " pity " is 
 
 a play upon the word, thus : As their shepherds have lost all pity 
 for the moral condition of their flock, so will I abjure all pity for 
 them, flock and shepherd both ; and will give them over to remedi- 
 less ruin. This doom, thns made prophetically specific, is shown 
 
 by the history to be drawn with entire accuracy. The facts were, 
 that the people had no head ; that intestine discord and civil war 
 were scarcely less destructive than the Roman sword. Every one 
 v^^as delivered into the hand of his neighbor and into tlie hand of 
 the Roman king. The slaugliter was terrific, scarcely equalled bjf 
 
ZECnARIAIL— CHAP. XI. 340 
 
 any other scene recorded in authentic history. Josephus is the chief 
 original aiitliority. His statements are full and reliable. According 
 to his account, the loss of life on the Jewish side, during that horri- 
 ble siege and capture, could not have been less than eleven hundred 
 thousand ! 
 
 T. And I will feed tlie flock of slaughter, eveii you, 
 O poor of the flock. And I took nnto me two staves ; 
 the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands ; 
 and I fed the flock. 
 
 Xot " I icill feed," for this fails to give the tense of the origi- 
 nal ; but, " so then I fed the flock doomed to slaughter because of 
 the poor of the flock " — i. c, out of my pity for the^joor ones of 
 the flock — a pertinent and beautiful statement of the labor and love 
 of their own Messiah, who was so often " moved with compassion 
 when he saw the people as sheep having no shepherd." For the 
 proud and self-righteous and for those who w^ere rich toward this 
 world but not rich toward God, he manifested no specially tender 
 pity ; but for the masses who had no shepherd, and especially for 
 the poor, his heart was tenderly touched. In the line of pure benev- 
 olence he rose indefinitely high above all other rejigious teachers 
 of every age in this — " he 2)reached the gospel to the poor.'''' 
 
 These " staves " were the usual w' ell-known shepherd's crool\ 
 the only special instrument used by the shepherd ; useful to him 
 both in the management of the flock, and in repelling its enemies. 
 They represent here those providential agencies by which the Lord 
 aided the pastoral work of the Messiah over his people, as appears from 
 their significant names. The one he called Grace (not so properly 
 " Beauty "), but grace in the sense of that divine favor which re- 
 strained hostile heathen nations from assaulting the people of the 
 
 Lord while they faithfully served him. 'The other, ''•Bands," w'as 
 
 a crook of cords, significant of those providential agencies which 
 held the people together in peace. With these aids he acted the 
 part of a shepherd to the flock. 
 
 8. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month ; and 
 my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. 
 
 The prophet, personating the Messiah, is supposed to have sub- 
 ordinate shepherds under him. These three shepherds cannot 
 mean three individuals. The general strain of the subject forbids 
 this. Besides, Zechariah is wont to present individuals as represent- 
 atives of orders or classes of men. See chap. 3, throughout, where 
 Joshua represents the order of priests ; and 4 : 14, where the two 
 anointed ones must mean the two orders, the regal and the priestly, 
 
 which were inducted into oflfice by the ceremony of anointiug. 
 
 Here we must suppose that the prophet takes the number three 
 from precisely those three established orders upon whom the pasto- 
 ral responsibility of caring under God for the covenant people de- 
 volved — priests, prophets, and civil magistrates. (See Jer. 2: 8, 26 
 
350 ZECHARIAlL—CllAr. XI. 
 
 and 18: 18.) Those who represented tlicsc chosscs during our Lord's 
 public ministry must be specially intended here, i)robably the 
 priests ; the scribes in the place of the ancient prophets ; and the 
 civil magistrates. The Lord Jesus rejected them from their places 
 of trust, not instantaneously, but very summarily, as " one month " 
 shows. It was the labor of his public life. The history of our 
 Lord's public ministry, in its relation to the scribes, doctore of the 
 law, and Pharisees, shows that he and they had not the least com- 
 mon sympathy. He loathed them, as the Hebrew woixi implies ; 
 he lost all conifidence in their moral integrity and even honesty ; 
 and on the other hand, their soul rebelled against him because of 
 the purity of his character, and the fidelity and pungency of his 
 rebnkes of their sin. 
 
 9. Then said I, I will not feed you : that that dieth, 
 let it die ; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off ; 
 and let the rest eat, every one the flesh of another. 
 
 The Messiah abandons the flock, the Jewish p<K)ple, to the 
 sweep of terrible judgments. '' I will be your shepherd no longer." 
 A threefold judgment shall be your extermination ;- — pestilence; the 
 ■sword from without ; the sword from within ; — the two last lootv- 
 ing toward (1.) the Eoman arms ; (2.) those horrible conflicts of 
 hostile parties which made the very strength of the nation its essen- 
 tial weakness and ruin. Let the pestilence sweep away whom 
 
 it will ; let the Komah sword drink the blood of tbe victims so 
 doomed by the will of the Most High ; let every man's teeth be 
 
 sharpened to devour his neighbor's flesh ! The reality set forth 
 
 in this prophetic language was fearfully terrific! They had said — 
 *'His blood be on us and on our children ! "" The Lord responded, 
 *' So let it be ! " Here is the prediction. History verifies it to the letter ! 
 
 10. And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it 
 asunder, that I might break my covenant whicli I had 
 made with all the people. 
 
 The first crook, now broken, represented the sundering of the 
 covenant which God is supposed to have made with foreign nations 
 (the sense of " all the people "), to restrain them from harming his 
 chosen. This covenant lay in the divine mind — his purpose to 
 restrain heathen nations from making war on his people. See the 
 same sense in Hos. 2 : 18 : "In that day I will make a covena.it for 
 them with the beasts of the field," &c. Compare Job. 5 : 23 and 
 Ezek. 34 : 25. 
 
 11. And it was broken in that day : and so the poor 
 of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the 
 word of the Lord. 
 
 The staff once broken, the Roman arms came down upon the 
 land, " Then the poor of the flock " — Christ's disciples — having 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XI. 35I 
 
 been apprised by him (Matt. 24 : 15-21), know that the hour of jucln:» 
 iiicnt for the hind had come, and fled for safety to the mountains of 
 Pella, on the east of Jordan. History records the remarkable fact 
 that not one Christian Jew fell in that awful carnage. All who had 
 faith in their divine Lord gave heed to his warnings. The Lord by 
 his special providence gave them ample time to make good their 
 escape befo]-e the city was invested by the Roman legions. They 
 fled to Pella in the mountains east of the Jordan, and were all 
 safe. 
 
 12. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give m^ 
 my price ; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for iny 
 price thirty pieces of silver. 
 
 13. And the Lokd said unto me, Cast it unto the pot- 
 ter : a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And 
 I took the thirty piecefj of silver, and cast them to the 
 potter in the house of the Loed. 
 
 The great shepherd, about to close his services, proposes in the 
 business settlement that they, the Jews, shoukl give him the wages 
 due. It is not implied by the original words that lie fixed the price 
 himself. " Give me my price," should rather read, " Give me my 
 hire or reward." He manifestly left it with them to fix the price. 
 
 He only said, Give me what wages you please, and let me go. 
 
 They weighed out thirty pieces of silver, the very price for whicli 
 Judas betrayed him, and the usual price for a slave. (iSee Ex. 21 : 32.) 
 Maimonides, one of the most reliable ancient Jewish authors, speaks 
 of this as the price of a slave's services, but contemptible for a free 
 man's. The meagreness of it indicates how low they estimated his 
 services. Precisely this is the intended showing of the transaction. 
 
 "A goodly price," &:c., is ironical, and shows how keenly the 
 
 insult was felt. It has, moreover, a prophetic outlook toward the 
 
 very deed of Judas. The Lord said, "Cast it to the potter." He 
 
 did so. This, too, was one of the points of remarkable coincidence 
 between this symbolic prophecy and one of the prominent scenes 
 in the betrayal of his Lord by Judas.- — It should be noted that 
 Matthew, having stated that Judas, filled with remorre, returned 
 the price of blood (27: 3-10), says that the chief priests "bought 
 therewith the potter's field to bury strangers in," which thenceforth 
 bore the name of " tlie field of blood," and that "then was fulfilled 
 that which was spoken by Jeremy the j)Toplict^ ^<iying. And they 
 took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that Avas valued, 
 whom they of the cldldren of Israel did value ; and gave them for 
 
 the potter's field as the Lord appointed me." These words are not 
 
 found in the Book of Jeremiah, but the general sense and nearly the 
 same words occur in this passage of Zechariah. How came it to pass 
 
 that Matthew named Jeremiah instead of Zechariah ? It should be 
 
 considered that Zechariah's words, "the potter," &c., connect his 
 prophecy closely with Jeremiah, chaps. 18 and 19. "The potter " 
 
352 ZECIIARIAII.— CHAP. XI. 
 
 of Jeremiah worked down in the valley of the son of Ilinnom, aa 
 the expressions " go down " and " went down " (Jer. 18 : 2, 3) ren- 
 der ])robable, and as the passage (19 : 2) proves, for here the "east 
 gate " is (in Heb.) " the entrance to the potter's gate." There 
 Jeremiah was to denounce upon the people most solemn threaten- 
 ings from the Lord, and then break a potter's vessel before them. 
 The place, already made abominable ; the breaking of the vessel, sig- 
 nificant of a doom for which there can be no remedy ; and the fear- 
 ful solemnity of the message — all conspired to make the associations 
 connected with this potter's house specially solemn and portentous. 
 These things need to be understood in order to get the full sense of 
 this passage in Zechariah. It may he supposed that Matthew had 
 before his mind the full account of Jeremiah as well as the more 
 brief one of Zechariah, and quoting from memory, assigned to the 
 former what is found as to its precise words most nearly in the 
 latter. -It is by no means necessary to the reliability of the Scrip- 
 tures that we prove them perfectly accurate in all the minutest 
 literary points. Let it sufSco that every thing vital is right and 
 true, and that every doctrine of any importance is revealed without 
 the least admixture of error. 
 
 14. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands 
 that I might break the brotherhood betvv^een Judah 
 and IsraeL 
 
 The phrase " the brotherhood between Judah and Israel " is an 
 historic allusion to the case of the two nations after the revolt under 
 Jeroboam. Under their mutual relations, brotherhood was peace ; 
 brotherhood broken was civil war. Hence the breaking of this sec- 
 ond staff or crook symbolized the withdrawal of those providential 
 agencies which had kept the people together in friendly relations 
 with each other. Those agencies being withdrawn, intestine discord 
 at once broke out, hostile parties arose, and civil war became their 
 most fearful curse. The history of the period, commencing shortly 
 before the invasion by the Komans, and continuing till the city lay 
 in ruins, is a mournful confirmation of this symbolic prophecy. 
 
 15. And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee yet 
 the instruments of a foolish shepherd. 
 
 16. For lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, 
 which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall 
 seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor 
 feed tliat that stand eth still : but he shall eat the flesh of 
 tlie fat, and tear their claws in pieces. 
 
 IT. Wo to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock ! 
 the sword shall he upon his arm, and upon his right 
 eye : his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye 
 shall be utterly darkened. 
 
ZECnARIAH.— CHAP. XI. 353 
 
 This passage seems to prove conclusively that the person who 
 is commanded here (v. 15) to " take the instruments of a foolish 
 shepherd," and who was ordered (vs. 4-14) to "feed the flock of 
 slaughter," can be no other than the prophet himself; yet not 
 acting in his own person, or rather not prefiguring aught concern- 
 ing himself; hut in vs. 4-14 personating the Messiah during his 
 public ministry; and here (vs. 15-17) personating those priests, 
 scribes, and civil magistrates whom the good shepherd cut oif " in 
 one month " (v. 8). The object here is to give a more full view of 
 
 the character, life, and doom of those faithless shepherds. The 
 
 passage is very brief; hence we are not told precisely what the 
 " instruments of a foolish shepherd " are. They were not the two 
 crooks, Grace and Bands, as in the former case ; the savage scalpel 
 
 and butcher-knife would be more appropriate. "Lo, I will raise 
 
 np a shepherd in the land," &c., reminds us that God is said to do 
 what he providentially permits to be done. As a judgment on those 
 utterly corrupt Jews, the Lord gave them shepherds of like moral 
 
 corruption. That the prophet should say " a shepherd," as if but 
 
 one, when the sense is a whole class, an entire body of professedly 
 religious teachers, is in accordance with his usage, as we have seen 
 
 in the notes on v. 8. The things w^hich this bad shepherd will 
 
 not do come first in order; " he will not visit the perishing; v>^ill 
 not seek after the outcasts; will not heal the bruised; will not 
 nourish the halting," ivho can scarcely walk, i. e., he neglects pre- 
 cisely the very things which a good shepherd should by all means 
 
 do. On the other hand, with supreme selfishness, he gets all the 
 
 good he can for himself. He eats the flesh of the fat ones, and 
 even tears in pieces their hoofs, so eager is he to get the last thing 
 
 of any value from the carcass. In the clause " Woe to the idol 
 
 shepherd," the Hebrew word rendered '-HdoV adinifs this sense, 
 but does not require it, and therefore should not have it here, 
 there being no aUusion in the case to idolatry, and the more general 
 sense of useless^ icorthless, faithless, being in point, and fully jus- 
 tified by usage. The judgments on this worthless and wicked 
 
 shepherd fall on those bodily organs most useful to the shepherd — 
 the arm and the eye. The sense is, that God will utterly paralyze 
 his power for such services, and will moreover send his judgments 
 so in the line of his sins, that they will be a perpetual index and 
 remembrancer of that for which he suflTers. As the shepherd icould 
 not use his arm and his eye in the care of his flock, the Lord 
 withers them utterly and forever. "To him that knoweth to do 
 good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin " (Jam. 4:17). Wasted talents, 
 powers for good unused, bring down from God the most terriblo 
 retribution. 
 
354 ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 This chapter manifestly opens a new subject. The first leading 
 inquiry should respect its general scope and spirit, and the period 
 
 of time to which it relates. In chapter 11, the Jews of our 
 
 Saviour's time reject him, their oiiered Messiah, and bring upon 
 their city and nation an avalanche of ruin. Now the question may 
 be supposed to arise, Is the kingdom of the Messiah therefore 
 
 utterly broken down? To this inquiry, chapters 12 and 13 reply 
 
 — By no means. The Lord has yet a " Judah," and a " Jerusalem," 
 and a "House of David: " he will redeem them from their external 
 enemies (see 12 : 2-9) ; and wliat is yet more to the purpose, he will 
 pour upon them a spirit of grace, supplication, and penitence, which 
 shall make them in a far higher and nobler sense his people, and 
 shall insure their glorious prosperity as his people and kingdom. 
 The exposition of this portion of Zechariah involves the inves- 
 tigation and proof of several points : 
 
 I. The scenes liere jyredicted lie onwards in the Christian age siih- 
 sequent to those predicted in chapter 11. 
 
 (1.) Because, in the absence of proof to the contrary, it should 
 be assumed that our author advances in time. He has been thus 
 advancing in his course of thought throughout chaps. 9, 10, and 
 
 11. Why not also yet further in chapter 12 ? (2.) Because there is 
 
 manifestly a close analogy between the order of subjects in the first 
 six chapters (made up of a series of visions) on the one hand, and 
 chaps. 7-14 (not such visions) on the other. As chaps. 1-4 promise 
 good to Zion, so do chaps. 7-10. As chap. 5, on the other hand, pre- 
 dicts the sin and doom of the guilty, so does chap. 11 ; and then 
 as chap. 6 : 1-8 returns again to God's loving care and protection of 
 his people, and specifically as manifested against hostile nations, so 
 does this chap. 12, and also chap. 14. As the last part of chap. 6 
 is eminently Messianic, predicting also the ultimate reception of the 
 nations into his kingdom, so we find the same idea in these chapters 
 
 12-14, and especially in chap. 14. (3.) Because manifestly we 
 
 are in this chapter borne on beyond the date of chap. 9, for there 
 the Lord was protecting his people against x\lexander and his 
 Syrian successors ; here against " all nations " (vs. 2, 3, 9) ;_ and, 
 moreover, here we have passed the crucifixion of Christ (which is 
 essentially involved in chap. 11), for the people bewail their guilt in 
 
 that act (see v. 10). The location of these events in time must 
 
 therefore be onward, after the advent of Messiah. So much may 
 be considered as fixed. But other questions remain. 
 
 II. It is a question of no trifling importance whether the terms 
 "Israel," "Judah," "Jerusalem," "" the house of David," are to be 
 taken here literally or figuratively. Is "Judah " in these chapters 
 (12-14) the very Judah of Zechariah's time ; are her people the lineal 
 descendants of Abraham ; and does the lineal Jew here, as then and 
 there, represent and embody the earthly kingdom of God? Is 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIT. 355 
 
 Jerusalem still, as of old, her capital, and the centre and throne of 
 Messiah's kingdom? Do the Gentile hosts besiege her literally, 
 as the Chaldeans had done so recently when Zechariah was v/rit- 
 
 ing ? 1 cannot think so, for these reasons : (1.) With the events 
 
 predicted (chap. 11), the literal Judah and Jerusalem ceased to be 
 the recognized visible Church and kingdom of God on earth. It is 
 the precise purpose of chap. 11 to affirm this fact. Consequently, 
 ever since the apostohc age, Ciiurch history has taken on a new type. 
 No Church historian tliinks of looking for the Christian Church in 
 
 the Jewish line. (2.) Whatever Old Testament prophecy is 
 
 clearly shown to refer to the New Testament age must, by all 
 legitimate rules of interpretation, be construed in accordance with 
 New Testament light, with gospel ideas, Avith the new principles of 
 Messiah's kingdom, then first fully brought out. Hence the Judah 
 and Jerusalem of gospel pro])hecy, standing as types and symbols 
 of Messiah's kingdom, must be construed, not literally, but figura- 
 tively—just as '' the temple" is no longer, as of old, the one place 
 of God's dwelling, and of all acceptable worship, bat the Christian 
 " temple " is the living pious heart. (3.) That the Jews shall re- 
 turn again — not to their own land merely, but to Judaism restored 
 after the order of Moses ; that Jerusalem shall again become the 
 living centre of all visible vorship, and of all the true religion of the 
 world — this worship conforming itself, as of old, to the Mosaic 
 ritual ; and that, as such, Judah shall be invaded and Jerusalem 
 besieged by all the Gentile nations of the earth, according to the 
 literal construction of chapters 12 and 14, are not things even sup- 
 posable. If the New Testament is held to be of any account, Juda- 
 ism, after the order of Moses, is dead, and those ideas must hence 
 be rejected. For, practically, that state of things must ignore all the 
 Christianity of the Gentile world — all the actual Christianity of the 
 v/hole world as it now is, and as it has been since the death of 
 Christ. Can any sane man believe that all the Gentile Christian 
 churches are at some future period to be annihilated ; the religious 
 world be put back to its condition and relations as in the age of Zech- 
 ariah ; bloody sacrifices and passovers and feasts of tabernacles oe 
 restored, and Judah and Jerusalem stand as the sole representatives 
 of the Church of God upon the earth ? Or can it be believed that 
 all the great nations of the present or of any future age shall gather 
 in one vast crusade against the converted Christian Jews in their 
 own land to besiege Jerusalem, and to exterminate all true religion 
 
 from the face of the earth ? The literal construction of chapters 
 
 12-14: would hold us to such results: therefore the literal construc- 
 tion must be promptly rejected. (4.) Nor let it be thought that 
 
 we do violence to the laws of language when we reject the literal 
 and adopt the figurative sense under such circumstances as these. 
 Let the reader ask himself — How should a Jevv'ish prophet, writing 
 in the midst of Judaism, with no other history of the Church before 
 him, and no other conception of the Church in his mind but that of 
 Judaism, with no other first readers but Jews, write of the future 
 
356 ZECHAEIAH.— CHAP. XII. 
 
 Clmrch and kinn^dora of God in the gospel age? Shall wo deman(? 
 that he write of the Christian Church and of millennial times in Now 
 Testament words and phrases, and with fully-developed Kew Tes- 
 tament ideas? Let us remember that the time had not come for 
 such ideas. Let us recall the striking fact that more than three 
 years' personal communion with Jesus himself, and no small 
 amount of his personal labor, quite failed to convert liis disciples from 
 Jewish to Christian ideas ; that only the shock given to the old 
 system by his death, aided by the subsequent teaching of the Holy 
 Ghost, availed, and then rather slowly, to effect this great change. 
 IIoAV absurd, then, to expect that the Hebrew prophets and their 
 first readers could readily reach those new ideas and take in the 
 
 sense of Christian as contrasted with Jewish phraseology! 
 
 Plainly, those Jewish prophets and their first readers must think of 
 Christianity only as of Judaism extended and purified ; must con- 
 ceive of a world converted only as .a world coming up to Jerusalem 
 to worship ; and must conceive of irreligion, infidelity, every form 
 of hostility to Christ, as the gathering of nations for war against 
 
 Jerusalem and Judah, to crush them from the face of the earth. 
 
 Hence when we speak of Jewish costume and drapery as clothing 
 gospel ideas in these sublimely grand and glorious prophecies, we 
 are not parting company with common sense. We are simply in- 
 terpreting in harmony with the stern necessities of their condition. 
 Jewish minds, Avith no other than Jewish tl'aining, must think so 
 and speak so, by the inevitable laws of human thought. 
 
 III. Consequently, it is no longer a question whether, in 
 these remaining prophecies of Zechariah (chap. 12-14), we arc 
 to find blessings for the Gentile world ; even the extension of 
 the gospel to all the nations of the earth. If these prophecies 
 relate to times subsequent to the death of Christ, they must 
 predict the prosperity of the Christian Church, the conversion 
 
 of the world to Immanuel. It might be a much more difti- 
 
 cult question (were it needful to be settled) whether the lineal 
 Jew is here, and if so, where and by what marks we shall identify 
 him. If he were named here alongside of his brother Gentile, as 
 Paul names them in Rom. 11, it would be easy to make this dis- 
 crimination. But it is at least supposable that in the greater part 
 of these three chapters there is no intention to discriminate between 
 Jew and Gentile. If so, how can it be expected that a discreet in- 
 terpreter should make any distinction ? Interpreters should not be 
 asked to malce prophecy, nor to put into it what was not there be- 
 fore ; but only to unfold the sense already there. It may be well 
 
 to remember also that the change wronght in the transition from 
 Judaism to Christianity, fitly described as a " breaking down of the 
 middle wall of partition between us " (Eph. 2 : 14), aimed not to 
 thrust the Jew out, but to let the Gentile in ; to abolish henceforth 
 all distinction as to Christian rights and privileges, and make both 
 one henceforth in Christ Jesus. Why, then, may not Old Testa- 
 ment prophecy assume precisely this state of the future kingdom 
 
ZECHARIAIL— CHAP. XII. 357 
 
 of iLe Itfessiali ? The tlionghtful reader can scarcely fail to ap- 
 preciate the importance of these points, and if so, will not account 
 this discussion unreasonably full or protracted. 
 
 Chapter 12 is naturally in tT^'o parts, of which the first (vs. 1-9) 
 represents Judah as invaded and Jerusalem as besieged by the 
 combined powers of all nations ; but the Lord delivers them. The 
 second part (vs. 10-14) represents the house of David and the peo- 
 ple of Jerusalem as deeply penitent for their sins, especially the sin 
 
 of crucifying their ]\f essiah. In my comments on this chapter, I 
 
 propose first to explain the words and phrases so far as may seem 
 necessary, and then to speak of its general scope and fulfilment as 
 prophecy. 
 
 1. Tlie burden of tlie word of the Lord for Israel, 
 saitli the Loed, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and 
 layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the 
 spirit of man within him. 
 
 This prophecy is a " 'burden upon Israel " only to a limited ex- 
 tent, for the assault of all nations upon her and the siege of Jerusa- 
 lem were transient, ending soon in complete victory on Zion's side. 
 
 That help comes from the Lord alone, who is mighty to save, 
 
 is indicated by the allusion to his great and glorious works of creation. 
 
 2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cnp of trembling 
 unto all the people round about, when they shall be in 
 the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. 
 
 The phrase rendered " cup of trembling " is read by some, 
 " threshold of shaking " — one upon which a violent assault should 
 be made, biit which should react in ruin upon the assailants. There 
 seems, however, to be no good reason for rejecting the usual sense 
 of the words "a cup of reeling, intoxication" — with reference to 
 that very common conception of the wine-cup of the wrath of the 
 Lord which maddens and infatuates nations doomed to ruin. (Sec 
 
 Jer. 25 : 15-31, and notes on JSTahum 1 : 10). All the nations are 
 
 tliought of as gathered against Judah and Jerusalem. In the last 
 clause the sense is, that what the Lord had said of Jerusalem should 
 be true of Judah also in the siege of her capital. 
 
 3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burden- 
 some stone for all people : all that burden themselves 
 with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of 
 the earth be weathered tosfether af>;ainst it. 
 
 The reference to a burdensome stone alludes to a custom 
 among the Jewish young men of trying their strength at lifting 
 a very heavy stone as high as possible, in which some were wont 
 to get wounds and bruises. Such a stone, fully equal to one's ut- 
 most strength, and often beyond it, should Jerusalem be to the na- 
 
358 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XII. 
 
 tions. The stone itself is not harmed by the lifting, but the liftera 
 thereof were sure to be lacerated. 
 
 4. In that day, saitli the Lord, I will smite every 
 horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness : 
 and I will open mine eyes npon the house of Judah, 
 and will smite every horse of the people with blindness. 
 
 Eeraarkably, tlie Lord accounts horses to be a power hostile to 
 Christ's kingdom. This appears throughout Zechariah, and aids 
 us to the true conception of Messiah's riding on an ass (9 : 9). The 
 warring enemies of God's people come on horses, this animal being 
 
 associated with human pride and rebellion against God. This 
 
 astonishment and madness are among the effects of the cup of in- 
 toxication, given to God's enemies to drink. Note the beautiful 
 
 antithesis. God smites with blindness the warring powers of his 
 foes, but opens his own eyes wide on his people to see their wants 
 and to provide therefor. 
 
 5. And the governors of Judah shall say in their 
 heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall he my strength 
 in the Loed of hosts their God. 
 
 6. In that day will I make the governors of Judah 
 like a hearth of lire among the wood, and like a torch 
 of fire in a sheaf ; and they shall devour all the people 
 round about, on the right hand and on the left : and Je- 
 rusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even 
 in Jerusalem. 
 
 7. The LoKD 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 magnify themselves 
 against Judah. 
 
 Without saying it openly, yet in their secret thought, the gov- 
 ernors of Judah are relying for their own protection under God on 
 the military strength of Jerusalem and the valor of her defenders. 
 But the Lord will make Judah safe and mighty against her foreign 
 foes, as a hearth of fire to its fuel, which itself burns not, but only 
 facihtates the burning of the wood, or as a torch of fire to a sheaf, 
 which consumes it with no danger to itself. So shall they devour 
 
 the gathered nations who assail them. And " Jerusalem, too, shall 
 
 still sit on her throne in her own place," on her own foundations. 
 The Lord saves Judah first, that he may forestall the pride of self- 
 reliance on the strength and glory of the city. So vital to true re- 
 ligion is it to crucify all human glorying, to cherish the spirit of 
 absolute dependence on the Lord alone, and to give him for ever- 
 more all the glory as the source of all spiritual life and of all power 
 for good to Ziou. 
 
ZECHAPJAn.— CEAP. XH. 350 
 
 8. In tliat day sliall the Lord defend the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem ; and he that is feeble among them at that 
 day shall be as David ; and the lionse of David shall he 
 as God, as the angel of the LorwD before them. 
 
 The Lord defends Jerusalem, yet not without their own concur- 
 rent agency. The doctrine that God saves his people must not bo 
 abused to human inaction. He saves Vather by augmenting and 
 reanimating their strength than by superseding their agency. So 
 here, the feeble shall be as David, who is the t}T)e of a most ath- 
 letic warrior ; and the men of David's cast and power shall be now 
 as God, even as the angel of Jehovah — the uncreated one who had 
 so often appeared in forms of majesty and power. This is a strong 
 figure, and must represent a vast augmentation of spiritual force in 
 the people of God. 
 
 9. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will 
 seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusa- 
 lem. 
 
 Now the Lord sets himself earnestly to destroy all the nations 
 that array themselves in hostile mood against his people and their 
 sacred city. 
 
 10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and 
 upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace 
 and of supplications : and they shall look upon me 
 whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, 
 as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitter- 
 ness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. 
 
 These terms are strongly in contrast with those in v. 9. ^ God 
 will seek to j^our out vengeance and ruin on those hostile nations; 
 
 but grace, mercy, and blessings on Jerusalem. To " pour out " is 
 
 to bestow in large and abundant measure. It is the usual phrase 
 for the effusions of the Holy Spirit, as in Joel 2 : 28—" I will pour out 
 
 my Spirit upon all flesh." hi this passage, " the Spirit " is the 
 
 Holy Spirit of God, and not a quality or grace in man. It is thought 
 of, however, as producing piety and prayer in the hearts of men, 
 and hence is called " the Spirit of grace and of supplications " — 
 meaning that Divine Spirit, whose special work it is to beget as to 
 one's self a tender prayerful frame of mind, and as to others a lov- 
 ing compassion for the souls of men, and earnest prayer for their 
 salvation. "{?ra^6" in man stands for that wliich is specially 
 pleasing to God, and which secures his favor. In the case of sin- 
 ners, the first buddings of grace are penitence and prayer, a broken 
 and contrite spirit, which inspires prayer both for our own pardon 
 and for mercy on other sinners also. The close connection between 
 the gift of this Spirit, begetting such grace and supplications, and 
 tlie "looking upon him whom they have pierced," shuts us up to 
 
3G0 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XII. 
 
 this sense of the passage — its leading thought being the conversion 
 
 of sinners. To "look on me whom they have pierced " can mean 
 
 nothing else than thinking of their guilt in crucifying tlie Lord of 
 glory. They now look upon the crucified One with bitter peni- 
 tence and grief for the sin of piercing his heart, and with imploring 
 cries for pardon through his own blood. This sin of piercing the Lord 
 belongs not alone to that Roman soldier who drove the nails into 
 his hands and his feet, nor' to him alone whose spear opened his 
 side, but obviously to all who participated then and there in his 
 death, and indeed to that indefinitely greater mass who in all ages 
 have had the same wicked heart as they had, and have abused, in- 
 sulted, scorned, and rejected Jesus Christ in a spirit like theirs. 
 All such have crucified the Son of God afresh, reenacting the very 
 
 scenes of Calvary, and its very sins too ! But when, touched by 
 
 the Spirit of God, they look on the crucified One as pierced by their 
 own hands, and when they think of their own sins as the nails and 
 the spear that gave him his bitterest pangs, and then take also into 
 view the wonderful truth that, despite of such abuse from myself, 
 that murdered Saviour loves me in his pity still, and ofi^ers me par- 
 don as it were through the blood my own guilty hands have shed, 
 O then the deep fountains of my grief burst open, and for once, if 
 never before, it is a luxury to weep. Thousands have felt this bit- 
 terness of grief for their sins against the crucified One, made doubly 
 keen by the sense of his enduring and forgiving love, despite of 
 
 guilt so black and ingratitude so vile ! Such I take t6 be the 
 
 thought of this passage. This mourning for sin is as when one 
 
 mourns over an only son, lost in death ; its bitterness is as that 
 over a first-born. Ask the real parent's heart for the depth of an- 
 guish in such mourning ! 
 
 11. In that day tliere sliall be a great mourning in 
 Jerusalem, as tlie mourning of Iladadrimmon in the 
 valley of Megiddon. 
 
 12. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; 
 the family of the house of David apart, and their wives 
 apart ; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and 
 their wives apart ; 
 
 13. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their 
 wives apart ; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives 
 apart ; 
 
 14. All the families that remain, every lamily apart, 
 and their waives apart. 
 
 This mourning for sin against the slain Messiah is not restricted 
 to a few, but is widely extended ; it is " a great mourning in Jeru- 
 salem," like that over the death of the good King Josiah, who fell 
 in battle against Necho, king of Egypt, in the valley of Megiddon, 
 the long-famed battle-ground of Esdraelon. See the liistory in 2 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XII. 361 
 
 Chron. 35 : 23-25 and 2 Kings 23 : 29, 30. Note here that this 
 
 mourning for sin is not merely a puhhc tiling : piihlio mournings ar^ 
 wometimes a pageant only, with more of display than of heartfelt grief. 
 This is so much a personal matter, lying between each individual 
 soul and his Saviour, that each one is dravrn to weep and mourn 
 apart and alone. Every instinct leads the mourner to seek 
 solitude, and to pour out his whole heart there, under no other 
 eye than God's ! Who has not felt this impulse toward silent, se- 
 cret mourning, under such mingled shame and grief, coupled with 
 the conviction that your whole concern is now with that crucified 
 One whose heart you have pierced, and whose possible mercy is 
 
 now your only hope ? The mode of presenting this thought is 
 
 by Jewish terms and historic allusions. The house of David and 
 the house of Nathan, one of his sons, in the royal line ; then the 
 house of Levi and the house of Shimei. one of his sons, represent- 
 ing the priesthood ; — these stand for the whole people, and show 
 
 that they all mourn apart, and their wives apart. The first verse 
 
 of the next chapter belongs with this, showing that such penitence 
 and prayer bring pardon full and free. " In that day a fountain is 
 opened for sin and for uncleanness " " to the house of David and to 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem " — the same on whom (12 : 10) the 
 spirit of grace and of supplication is poured out. In that blood 
 which their own guilty hands have shed, is parvlon found for all the 
 truly penitent. 
 
 That this chapter must relate to events subsequent to the death 
 of Christ — that it concerns the Christian Church and the gospel 
 age, and therefore must be interpreted according to New Testament 
 ideas — has been already said, and I trust adequately shown. It 
 stiU remains to inquhe whether its fulfilment can be located yet 
 more definitely, and if so, wliere ; and whether now past or yet 
 
 future. It may be proper for me to say that during several years 
 
 past, and until this present reinvestigation, I have been inclined to 
 locate the fulfilment of this portion of Zechariah, chapters 12-14, 
 yet in the future — ^near or in the millennial age. I must now modify 
 this opinion so far at least as to suggest the strong probability that 
 this chap. 12, looks primarily to a series of events that occurred 
 within the first three centuries of the Christian era. My reasons 
 for this view fall under two different heads : (1). The consecu- 
 tive order of Zechariah's prophecies throughout chapters 9-11, 
 which, unless some reason appear to the contrary, should continue 
 also through chap. 12. Thus in chap. 9 : 1-8, we have the conquer- 
 ing sweep of Alexander's armies, over Persia, Syria, Tyre, and 
 Philistia, while God protected Judah — all in th^ fourth century 
 before Christ; then, in 9:11-17 and 10:1-5, the wars of the 
 Syrians in the age of the Maccabees, in the second century before 
 Christ; then in cliap. 11, the very events of Christ's personal 
 ministry, his being rejected by the Jews, and their consequent 
 destruction by the Eomans — all in the period a. d. 1-70. This 
 regular order of time suggests with very considerable force whether 
 IG 
 
362 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XH. 
 
 chap. 12 does not continue on with no great chasm into the Cliris- 
 tian age. (2.) But a second reason, certainly worthy of considera- 
 tion, is that, adopting the principles of interpretation already pre- 
 sented, we find great events to which these prophetic descriptions 
 very accurately correspond. Thus in 12 : 1-9, the leading idea is 
 that of persecutio7i, a fierce and l)loody onslaught upon the Church 
 of God. A Jewish prophet could not depict an era of persecution 
 in any other form so definite and decisive as this. Judah invaded, 
 Jerusalem besieged and assailed by heathen nations; this in the 
 
 Christian age can be nothing else but violent persecution. And 
 
 who does not know that the history of the Church during the first 
 three centuries is largely the history of 'persecutions ? The Church 
 is bitterly and cruelly assailed; but she is like "the bush that 
 burned with fire, yet was not consumed," or in this prophet's own 
 figures, not less pertinent, she is a cup of reeling to all that besiege 
 her; a burdensome stone they cannot lift, however much they 
 essay it, and can by no means harm', but are only themselves 
 harmed thereby ; or yet more fitly, she is a hearth of fire, and her 
 enemies the burning fuel ; or a torch, and they the sheaf that 
 
 readily takes fire and is consumed. So the Church stood the shock 
 
 of persecution unshaken ; bore its fires unscathed ; became only the 
 more pure, grew only with the mDre rapid growth ; while on her 
 enemies the wrath of the Lord came down to their uttermost destruc- 
 tion. Must we not account tliis series of historic events as fully 
 
 answering to the drift of these prophetic representations ? Taking 
 this natural harmony between the historic facts and the prophetic 
 portrayals, in connection with the probable continued consecution 
 of the prophetic steps along the track of time, is there not at least a 
 very high degree of probability that this is the true interpretation 
 ofZech. 12:1-9? 
 
 We come next to the closing portion 12 : 10-14 and 13 : 1. Here 
 it should be borne in mind that chap. 11 has virtually assumed the 
 rejection of Messiah by his covenant people and his consequent 
 crucifixion. It is hence but fit that the Lord, through his prophet, 
 should meet the natural inquiry — What teas the result ofhismolent 
 death? Did it utterly crush the young germ of the shoot and 
 scion of David? Did it wither the hopes of the w^orld, and the 
 raised expectations of the liierarchies of heaven ? Did it ring the 
 death-knell of Zion's promised future glory ? Not at all ; noth- 
 ing of the sort. Indeed, that very death on the cross unsealed 
 the fountains of spii-itual power ; brought down the glorious eflus- 
 ions of the Spirit of God; made the hearts of even his murderers 
 like water in the tenderness of tlieir contrition and the outflow of 
 their sorrows, and drew the hearts of millions, with a power of at- 
 traction never known on earth before, into loving gratitude and all- 
 consuming zeal and labor for the risen Eedeemer of men. Is not 
 
 such the plain teaching of tliis most w^onderful passage? We 
 
 scarcely need, therefore, to ask more particularly lohen it was ful- 
 filled. Its fulfilment began, we may say, on the day of Pentecost 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XH. 363 
 
 when God first " poured out tlie Spirit of grace and of supplica- 
 tions," and when three thousand men "were pricked in their 
 heart" in view of this very fict that they had taken Him of 
 Nazareth, and by wicked hands had crucified and slain him. Its 
 fulfilment continued on through that glorious age of gospel tri- 
 umphs. It continues still wherever the sense of Christ crucified 
 goes deep to the heart, and, under the Spirit's light, men feel that 
 
 they have themselves been his betrayers and murderers. The 
 
 fountain opened for the penitent people of the house of David is 
 only the great fact of the gospel age, the way of pardon revealed 
 and brought out fully to glorious light through the atonement of 
 
 the crucified Son of God. It need not be assumed that these 
 
 prophecies are exhausted in those events to which they primarily 
 refer. Their truths are for all time, and their fulfilment in this 
 sense cannot be exhausted until the gospel shall cease to be " the 
 power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." So long, 
 the agencies of outward violent persecution shall never crush the 
 true Church, but only serve to purify her the more; so long, a 
 Saviour crucified shall be the power of God, through the Holy 
 Ghost, unto penitence, and prayer, and pardon, and anev/ and holy 
 life unto God and the Lamb. 
 
 If any objection can be plausibly urged against the explanation 
 above given of this chapter 12, as alreadi/ fulfiUed jjrojjJiecT/^ it will 
 be on the ground that vs. 10-14 are thus put, in time, Ijefore vs. 
 1-9 ; whereas, according to their order of sequence, they should come 
 
 after. My answer is twofold : (1.) Claiming a large abatement 
 
 from the facts as stated in the objection. (2.) Accounting for the 
 relative location of the two passages on other grounds than the 
 
 order of time. (1.) The objection assumes that as to time, the 
 
 passage (vs. 10-14) looks to the death of Christ and to the immediate 
 efi'ects of that death upon its authors. 1 answer : Such limita- 
 tion as to its efects is by no means necessary or natural. And the 
 moral effects of that death, not the death itself as an historic event, 
 are here the subject of remark. These moral eftects are thought 
 of as characterizing the gospel dispensation — specially prominent 
 indeed in its opening era, but characteristic of it throughout. V. 10 
 is not connected with what precedes it as an event that closely 
 follows in time. The Hebrew language would naturally indicate 
 such a connection by the future with vav conversive. But here the 
 connective particle might as well be rendered " 5?<f," indicating an 
 
 event of an opposite antithetic character. And the thought tliat 
 
 follovv's is obviously antithetic to what precedes. This relation of 
 the two thoughts determined the location of the latter passage. I 
 will seek to pour out judgments unto their destruction on the na- 
 tions that come against Jerusalem ; but the grace of my Spirit unto 
 salvation on Jerusalem herself. This is manifestly the law of 
 thought that suggested the passage, v. 10-14. That is, vs. 1-9 'give 
 the judgments of God against the sworn, violent enemies of his 
 Church; vs. 10-14 the blessings that come through the death of 
 Christ, and the mission of his Spirit upon tlie Church and people 
 
364: ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The first verse, as already intimated, belongs very properly to tlic 
 previous chapter, since it stands in tlie closest relations of tliouglit 
 with the penitence of the people for their sins against the Lord 
 
 Jesus. The next point made is the purifying of the people from 
 
 then- sins, as shown by specifying two most besetting sins of the 
 ancient Hebrews, idolatry and false prophesying, both of which are 
 thoroughly removed from the land (vs. 2-G). Then, by association 
 of ideas, the crucified Messiah is brought to view (v. 7) ; finally, the 
 ungodly portion are cut ofi; only one-third part remaining, but 
 these are purified by stern discipline, and come to know Jehovah as 
 their God (vs. 8, 9). 
 
 1. In tliat day tliere shall be a fountain opened to 
 the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
 for sin and for uncleanness. 
 
 2. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the 
 LoED of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols 
 out of the land, and they shall no more be remxcmbered ; 
 and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit 
 to pass out of the land. 
 
 The manner of Zechariah is to affirm a general truth by aflSrm- 
 ing certain individual facts which are left to imply it. So here, to 
 show that the land is purified from its great sins, he makes no gen- 
 eral statements, but simply individualizes two of the prominent and 
 most dangerous sins of the covenant people — idolatry and false 
 
 prophecy — and represents them to be eftectually exterminated. 
 
 " Cutting off the very names of idols, so that they should be no 
 more remembered," implies that idolatry is thoroughly expelled 
 
 from the land. (See Hos. 2: 17 and 14 : 8 and Mic. 5 : 12-14.) 
 
 The " prophets " named here in connection with idols before and 
 "the unclean spirit " after, must be /«fe^ prophets, called prophets 
 only because they falsely and foully assumed this name. The Lord 
 will drive them out of the land, forcibly expel them. The refer- 
 ence to an "unclean spirit " recognizes Satanic agency. 
 
 3. And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet 
 prophesy, that his father and his mother that begat him 
 shall say unto him. Thou shalt not live ; for thou speak- 
 est lies in the name of the Lord : and his father and his 
 mother that besiat him thall thrust him throuodi when he 
 prophesieth. 
 
 A supposed case is made : If any one shall yet attempt to proph- 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIII. 365 
 
 esjfiilsely, Iiis own father and motlier shall be so zealous for God and 
 for truth that they shall solemnly declare unto him, " Thou ^halt 
 not Hve ; " and, moreover, they shall not merely threaten ; they 
 
 shall even thrust him through in. his very act of propliesying. 
 
 To make the case stand out the more strongly, stress is laid upon 
 the parental relation : his father that begat and his mother that bare 
 him will not shrink from taking his hfe. This would be according 
 to the Mosaic law. See the passages, very strong and expUcit : 
 Deut. 13:G-10andl8:20. 
 
 4. And it sliall come to pass in that day, thai the 
 prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when 
 he hath prophesied ; neither shall they wear a rongh gar- 
 ment to deceive : 
 
 Pubhc sentiment gives no coantenance to the abominable sin of 
 pretending to be the Lord's prophet. Hence, all men of this class 
 
 should be ashamed of their former pretended visions. The "rough 
 
 garment" was one used by mourners, and worn by false prophets 
 to make the people think they were bearing the sins of the nation 
 sorrow^fully on their hearts — somewhat in imitation of the true 
 prophets of the Lord. 
 
 6. But he shall say, I a77i no prophet, I am an hus- 
 bandman ; for man taught me to keep cattle from my 
 youth. 
 
 6. And 07ie shall say nnto him. What are these 
 wounds in thy hands ? Then he shall answer, Those 
 with which I was wounded m the house of my friends. 
 "But one shall say" (a supposed case), "lam an husbandman, 
 for a man sold me from my youth," i. e., as a servant. This is the 
 precise sense of the original, which says nothing specially about 
 "keeping cattle." He means to show that his position in life has 
 been such as should remove all suspicion of his playing the false 
 
 prophet. He has been held as a servant all his days. But there 
 
 are palpable marks on his person that convict him of lying even 
 now ; hence, one replies to him — What mean those gashes on your 
 hands ? He can only confess the truth : " They were inflicted by 
 my associates according to the custom of idol worshippers, in their 
 
 temples." The word rendered "friends" means properly lovers; 
 
 but is used in the bad sense, and here of his fellow idolaters involved 
 
 like himself in this harlotry to which the word "lovers" refers. 
 
 Jewish as well as profane history shows clearly that cutting the 
 flesh was common in idol worship. (See 1 Kings 18; Jer. 16: and 
 41 : 5 ; Deut. 14 : 1.) The common idea of penance may be supposed 
 to lie at the bottom of such practices; a consciousness of guilt; 
 the demands of remorse ; coupled with the notion that the gods will 
 exact some sufl'ering for such sins, and hence each man had best in* 
 flict it upon himself, rather than leave it for the gods to inflict. 
 
366 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIIT. 
 
 7. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against 
 the man that is my fellow, saitli the Lord of hosts : smite 
 the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered ; and I 
 will turn mine hand upon the little ones. 
 
 This verse refers to the dcatli of Christ by violent hands, and its 
 results as to the flock of Tvhich he was the shepherd. An active 
 iraagination gives life and "will to the Bicord, considered as the instru- 
 ment in a violent death, and the Lord of hosts commands — 
 "Awake" (as if it had been asleep, at rest), "awake against my 
 shepherd" (the Messiah), described here as being "the man that is 
 my nearest friend " — for such is the sense of the word rendered 
 " my fellov/." This word occurs elsewhere only in the Pentateuch, 
 and there in such passages as Lev. 6 : 2, and 19 : 11, 15, 17, and 25 : 
 15, &c., "Ye shall not lie nor deceive each man his near friend," 
 IzQ. " If a man lie unto his neiglibor in that wiiich was delivered 
 him to keep, or hath deceived his neighbor," &c. This usage shows 
 that the word is used for the nearest human relationship, not in- 
 volving consanguinity. It, therefore, well expresses the relation 
 between the Father and the Son, when he is thought of as incarnate 
 — in his human nature. This human nature of Jesus stood in this 
 
 close relation to the Father. The bold metaphor, "Awake, O 
 
 sword," &c., has its analogy in Jer. 47 : 6, 7 : " O thou sword of the 
 Lord, how long ere thou wilt be quiet? Put up thyself into tliy 
 
 scabbard ; rest and be still." " How can it be quiet, seeing the 
 
 Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon and against the sea 
 
 shore? There hath he appointed it." This sword of the Lord is 
 
 the Lord's executioner. So in our passage the Lord of hosts com- 
 mands the sword to its work, remarkably recognizing the divine 
 agency in the atoning death of the Lamb of God. Our Saviour 
 intimated the same agency when he said to Pilate (John 19: 11), 
 "Thou coulde&t have no power against me except it were given 
 
 thee from above." The Lord Jehovah had most important ends 
 
 to accomplish in his kingdom by this violent death of " the Lamb 
 of God who was to" take away the sin of the world," and therefore 
 suffered him to fall into the hands of wicked men, and suffered those 
 wicked hands to take his life. What God suffers to be done, he is 
 sometunes said to do. The consequences to the flock are depict- 
 ed : "Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" — the 
 natural result when their protector and guide falls. So in chap. 
 11 : G, 9-14, where the good shepherd is practically rejected by his 
 flock, and where a tacit allusion to his dishonored death is implied 
 (vs. 12, 13), the consequences are the utter ruin of the corrupt antj 
 guilty j>ortion of tlio covenant people. Those Jews who murdered 
 the Son of God and repented not of their deeds, brought down on 
 
 their city and their entire nationality a fearful doom. But the 
 
 Lord turns back his hand to spare and save liis little ones. (The 
 same use of this verb, " turn back," may be seen Isa. 1 : 25.) The 
 same hand that was stretched out to destroy the guilty, reversing 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIII. 307 
 
 -Its action, turned itself back to protect and "bless " the poor of the 
 tlock tliat waited on me," as they are described, chap. 11 : 11. A 
 few of the Jewish people received Jesus as their Messiah, became 
 his disciples while he lived or converts to his faith after his death, 
 
 and these became objects of his special care and love. It remains 
 
 to consider the connection of this verse with the one immediately 
 preceding. I think this connection falls under the law of associa- 
 tion of ideas. The close analogy between the false prophet, whose 
 hands had been gashed and pierced " in the house of his friends," 
 and the Messiah, whose hands were pierced in a death by crucifixion 
 among those who ought to have been his friends, suggested the 
 latter case, and led the prophet to speak of it here. This accounts 
 for its coming in here out ofjylace in the sense of being both aside 
 from the general course of thought in this chapter, and out of its 
 chronological order — his violent death having been assumed in chap. 
 11, and certainly tliought of as already past in 12: 10 and 13 : 1. 
 This renewed allusion to it is therefore due to the power of this law 
 
 of suggestion. In this explanation, it is assumed that in speaking 
 
 to men, the Spirit of inspiration not only uses human language, but 
 follows human laws of thought in determining the succession of 
 ideas. We may be quite unable to make np a full and perfect an- 
 swer to the question, What is inspiration ? but it stands out undeni- 
 ably on the face of these inspired writings that inspiration does 
 not supersede nor override the laws of mental association by which 
 one thought suggests another analogous one. 
 
 8. And it sliall come to pass, that in all the land, 
 saith tlie Losd, two parts therein shall be cut off and 
 die ; bnt the third shall be left therein. 
 
 9. And I will bring the third part through the fire, 
 and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try 
 them as gold is tried : they shall call on my name, and 
 I will hear them ; I will say, It is my people ; and they 
 shall say, The Lokd is my God. 
 
 The primary sense of these verses is clear. Over all the land, 
 two parts out of three are cut off and die ; the third part remain- 
 ing, is purified through the fires of earthly discipline. These be- 
 come far more fully than before the people of the living God. 
 
 But while the rendering of these words is plain, and their current 
 usage well established, the question of their application and fulfil- 
 ment as prophecy is by no means so obvious. It has been com- 
 mon for interpreters to assume the closest possible connection be- 
 tween these verses and v. 7, and hence to apply them to the case 
 of the lineal Jews immediately subsequent to the crucifixion of 
 Christ, when, as they would say, the greater part — two-thirds — of 
 the people were cut ofl:' violently by the lioman arras ; the remain- 
 ing third purified and brought into the Christian Church. This 
 
308 ZECIIARIAn.— CHAP. XIII. 
 
 maj pos»ilh/ he the correct view; but there are serious objections 
 to it: (1.) the focts of history do not verify it ; the proportion cut 
 off being much more than two parts out of tlirce, and the saved 
 
 being less than one in three. (2.) The saved arc here thought 
 
 of as being the entire visible Chui'ch of God. But in fact, the 
 Church in the apostolic age was far more of Gentiles than of Jews. 
 (3.) This construction is out of the chronological order which runs 
 not only through chapters 9-11, but also through chapters 12 and 
 13, up to the digression which takes us back for a moment to the cru- 
 cifixion in 13 : 7. Chapter 12 : 1-9 gives us the Christian Church 
 
 passing through its fii-st three centures, a period of persecution. 
 Chapter 12: 10 to 13: 1 gives the effect of Messiah's death as through 
 the Holy Ghost a power unto penitence, prayer, and pardon. Chap. 
 13:2-6, the great advance made in the Christian Clmrch in real 
 piety, presented by means of Jewish historic allusions, but miamfest- 
 ly meaning that the people of God are, through divine mercy, 
 redeemed from reigning sin, and brought into a far higher state of 
 Christian life than the covenant people had reached during the ages 
 
 before Christ. Thus far, then, the reader will notice a somewhat 
 
 regular chronological order, a progress onward in time in the course 
 of thought. It is reversing this course to go back in this passage 
 (13 : 8, 9) to the date of chap. 11. It quite breaks out of the line 
 of historic events in which we were moving in the passage 13 : 2-6. 
 
 1 therefore suggest another construction, viz. : that vs. 8, 9 lie 
 
 in the same line of thought with vs. 2-6, and looking to a somewhat 
 later period in the Christian age, give us the comqjf ions of Christian- 
 ity, and indicate that God will sever those corrupt portions, prior to 
 
 the millennial age. It is obvious that chap. 14 gives us first the 
 
 opening scenes and then the full consummation of millennial purity 
 and glory. If we give due heed to the chronological succession of 
 prophetic events in this prophet through chapters 9 to 13 : 6, and allow 
 for continued progress on the same grade of advance, we shall find 
 ourselves drawing nigh the millennial age in the closing verses of 
 
 chap. 13. It has been already suggested that the main reason 
 
 for applying vs. 8 and 9 to the lineal Jews at the point where they 
 took sides for Christ or against him in the latter half of the first cen- 
 tury, is the assumption that they stand closely connected with v. 7. 
 This class of interpreters would paraphrase thus: "Smite the 
 shepherd, then shall the ancient covenant people be scattered and 
 broken up ; two parts of them shall reject Jesus Christ and perish 
 miserably under the Roman arms ; the remaining third part shall be- 
 come the beloved and sanctified people of God." But instead of 
 
 this, the connection may be quite different, thus : The manifestation 
 of Jesus Christ in the fiesh served to reveal the utter rottenness of 
 the visible Jewish church. When the shepherd was smitten, the 
 mass of that church wcrit to ruin ; only a, few of the little ones 
 were saved. So, in the advanced ages of the Christian Church, cor- 
 ruption became again fearfully prevalent, and another great sifting 
 process became indispensable before the era of the final conquest 
 
ZECHARIAH.—CHAP. Xin. 869 
 
 and triumpli of Christ's kingdom could open. Tliat is, as v. 7 camo 
 in nnder the influence of association of ideas, so it goes out and v. 8 
 comes in, under the same general law of analogy — v. 7 standing alone 
 as a diversion from the current strain of chronological thought. The 
 analogy between the corrupt Judaism of the Saviour's day on tlie 
 one hand, and the corrupt Christianity of the media3val Christian 
 age, onward indeed to the present day, is the law of connection be- 
 tween V. 7 and v. 8. In support of this view, let it be noted that 
 
 the prophet does 7iot put the eighth verse in close connection as to 
 time with verse 7. He does not say, " in that clay^ two parts 
 therein shall be cut off," &c. Let the reader notice how constantly 
 he has used this phrase wherever he meant this thing, as e. g., in 12 : 
 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 13 : 1, 2, 4— nine times withm this and the 
 previous chapters. Hence its omission here should at least suggest 
 a grave doubt whether ho could have located these events (vs. 8 
 and 9) " in tlie same day " with those of v. 7. If he did, why did 
 
 he not say so ? Yet further, our translators manifestly leaned 
 
 strongly toward the application of these verses to the Jews exclu- 
 sively, and therefore rendered "in all the ^a/z^;" but Zechariah 
 wrote it, " in all the earths * This Hebrew phrase is used more 
 than fifty times (I count' fifty-nine) in the sense of all the earth. I 
 find but three cases of its use for Judea only, and in these the con- 
 nection furnishes the limitation. This same phrase is used by our 
 prophet in 14 : 9 : " And the Lord shall be king oxer all the earth,' 
 
 in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." This 
 
 usage ought (it would seem) to be accounted decisive proof that 
 Zechariah in vs. 8, 9 speaks of Christianity as a whole all over the 
 world, and not of Judaism in Palestine only. 
 
 Such, in brief, are the reasons which compel me to differ widely 
 from the current interpretation of these verses. I am constrained 
 to apply them to the gimmtic corruptions of the nominally Christian 
 Church, especially the Koman and the Greek, and not altogether 
 excepting some of those that have been once ostensibly reformed. 
 Let it be asked, What does the "American and Foreign Christian 
 Union " find to do ? Or let us ask, How large a portion of nominal 
 Christendom to-day comes up to the standard of these words : 
 "They shall call on mynajne and I will hear them; I will say. It 
 is my people, and they shall say. The Lord is my God "? Who can 
 doubt that the fires of discipline and of judgment must pass over 
 the nominally Christian world, sifting out the precious from the 
 
 vile, and consuming whatever proves to be only dross? How 
 
 large a part of this work shall be wrought by the moral and spiritual 
 agencies of truth, purifying and converting; and how much by the 
 stern agencies of consuming fire, time only can fully show. This 
 language looks toward the latter. Let the people of God press 
 their gospel work to the utmost while they may! 
 
 I V T T T : 
 
 16* 
 
370 ZECnAKIAII.— CHAP. XIT. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The principles of interpretation wliicli should rule in this chap- 
 ter have been fully discussed and brought out in my remarks intro- 
 ductory to chapter 12. The events vphich it portrays are all yet in 
 tlio»future. Consequently there is no occasion to try to locate them 
 in history, or to dcfme their precise historic character. Their gen- 
 eral significance and results may be inferred with reasonable cer- 
 tainty. The entire costume is Jewish, as we ought to expect. 
 
 Jerusalem is invested by the combined forces of all nations ; the 
 city taken and sacked; half its people go into captivity (vs. 1, 2). 
 The Lord comes forth to fight against those nations (v. 3) ; he stands 
 on the mount of Ohves and cleaves it in twain for his people to pass 
 through (v. 4) ; they flee, but ultimately the Lord and his holy ones 
 appear for their salvation (v. 5) ; a most peculiar twilight period fol- 
 lows, breaking forth near evening into the elFulgence of full day 
 (vs. 6. 7) ; living waters flow from Jerusalem perpetually (v. 8) ; Jeho- 
 vah alone is King over all the earth (v. 9) ; the whole world becomes 
 a plain, and the temple-mountain stands Sllone the only mountain 
 (v. 10) ; the plague that comes on those who fought against Jerusa- 
 lem (v. 12) — panic and mutual slaughter consume them (v. 13) ; Judah 
 aids Jerusalem in this great conflict against their common foes (v. 
 14) ; God's judgments reach all the domestic animals used by their 
 enemies, as well as their owners (v. 15) ; all the surviving people 
 of the world shall go up to Jerusalem to worship (v. 16) ; the plague 
 on those who will not go up (v. 17), and especially on Egypt (vs. 18, 
 19); holiness to the Lord in all inanimate things, universal and 
 final (vs. 20, 21). 
 
 1. Beliold, the clay of the Lokd comcth, and tlij spoil 
 oliall be divided in the midst of thee. 
 
 "Behold," calls special attention to what follows, as of the 
 
 deepest interest and greatest importance. Remarkably, the usual 
 
 form, "day of the Lord," is materially changed here. It is — "a 
 day comes for the Lord " — one day preeminently /*6»r him, in which 
 he will fully vindicate his name as the God of Zion, his power as 
 one mighty to save, and his faithfulness as one who, having long 
 ago promised, comes forth now in the fulness of time to perform. 
 The other form — simply day of the Lord * — occurs in Joel 1 : 15 
 and 2 : 1, 11, 31, and 3 : 14; Amos 5 : 18, 20; Zeph. 1 : 14, and 
 elsewhere ; but this is unique and peculiar,t occurring, however, 
 substantially in Jer. 51 : 6, "Elee out of the midst of Babylon; be 
 not cut off in her iniquity; for it is a time of vengeance for the 
 
 Lord." Also in Isa. 2 : 12. " Thy spoil shall be divided in the 
 
 midst of thee," is of course said of Jerusalem, and imphes that she 
 
 T : I T T T 
 
ZECUARIAII.— CHAP. XIV. 371 
 
 is in the power of her enemies ; " for no man can enter into a strong 
 man's house and spoil his goods, except lie first bind tlie strong 
 
 man; then shall he spoil his goods." Sad eclipse must this be 
 
 for the Church of God, represented as analogous to that of the Jews 
 when the proud Chaldean spoiled her city and temple. 
 
 2. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to 
 battle ; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, 
 a,nd the women ravished ; and half of the city shall go 
 forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall 
 not be cut off from the city. 
 
 This verse gives somewhat the details of the case, to show how 
 it comes to pass that the spoil of the city is divided among its cap- 
 tors within her very walls. The Lord, by his providential agencies, 
 brings all the nations up against Jerusalem to battle. In this one 
 prominent feature, this prophecy harmonizes W'ith Ezek. 38 and 39, 
 
 and with Rev. 20 : 8, 9. The city is taken ; the horrible scenes 
 
 usually consequent on such a capture ensue. Finally, half the 
 
 people go into captivity; the other half remain in the city. We 
 
 do not hear from these captives again. They meet the doom of the 
 wicked, and doubtless represent the corrupt and not truly pious 
 
 portion of the people. This cleansing of the nominal Church by 
 
 which one-half is sloughed off, taken in connection with the simi- 
 lar operation predicted (chap. 13 : 8, 9), which cut off two parts out 
 of three, gives us a strong view of the fearful corruption of the 
 Church, and of the amount of winnowing and separation requisite 
 before her great victories over the wide world can be achieved. 
 Like the host of Gideon, her host is to be reduced to the faithful 
 few. 
 
 3. Then shall the Lokd go forth, and fight against 
 those n.ations, as when he fought in the day of battle. 
 
 " Then shall the Lord go forth "—this Hebrew verb being the 
 common one for "going out" to war and battle, e.g.^ Ilab. 3 : 13, 
 and Isa. 26 : 21, which latter passage, like the one before us, as- 
 sutnes that the Lord has been at rest, Avaiting for the fit hour, and now 
 
 comes forth for special displays of his power against his foes. 
 
 " As when he fought in the day of battle," suggests the inquiry. 
 What special day, if any, is referred to. The original repeats the 
 \vord "day" thus: "as in the day of his fighting in the day of 
 battle." Very probably the prophet alludes to the overthrow of 
 Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea. That conflict stood preeminent 
 above all others yet, and should the more surely be assumed as pres*- 
 ent in thought here because the parting asunder of the Mount of 
 Olives, as in the next verse, is a tacit allusion to that parting of the 
 Red Sea for a similar purpose, viz., the escape of his people from 
 their p irsning foes. 
 
372 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 4. And his feet shall stand in that day n])on the 
 monnt of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, 
 and the monnt of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof 
 toward the east and toward the west, and there shall he 
 a very gi'eat valley ; and half of the mountain shall re- 
 move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 
 
 The commander of a vast army takes some elevated position 
 which overlooks the hattle-field. So Jehovah takes his stand on 
 the Mount of Olives, which overlooked the city on the east, aiford- 
 ing the hest commanding view of the city. To give the greater 
 vividness to the scene as a reality, it is said "his feet shall stand 
 there." The mountain cleaves asunder in the middle, half remov- 
 ing northward and half southward, leaving a wide valley. There 
 can be no doubt of a tacit historical allusion here to the very simi- 
 lar cleaving of the Red Sea for his people to escape from Pharaoh's 
 pursuing host. That was done literally ; this, being an historical 
 allusion, means only that a deliverance is now effected Wke that, 
 equally glorious to the power that saved his people, equally effective 
 for their salvation. The analogy will be yet more complete if we 
 may suppose, with Hengstenberg, that the mountain is cleft by an 
 earthquake, which, while it opened the mountain for their easy 
 escape, swallowed up their enemies. As the text does not affirm 
 
 this, however, it must stand as mere conjecture. This earthquake 
 
 alarmed the retreating host and hastened their llight — of which fear 
 and llight the next verse speaks. ' 
 
 5. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains ; 
 for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal : 
 yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earth- 
 quake in the days of Uzziali king of Judah : and the 
 Lord my God shall come, and all the saints w^ith thee. 
 
 "And ye flee along the valley of my mountains " — called here 
 the Lord's, because he had cleft and prepared them for his people 
 to pass along the valley between them — "for this valley of the 
 mountains shall reach to Azal " — a city lying east of the Mount of 
 Olives, its name signifying that it is a suitable place for halting in 
 
 safety. This earthquake in the days of Uzziah is not noticed in 
 
 the historical books, but is probably alluded to by Amos (1 : 1). 
 That, like this, was a time of panic and of earnest flight from the 
 
 city to the mountains for safety. "Now there comes the Lord my 
 
 God, and all the saints with thee." With this the scene changes ; 
 Jmmanuel appears in preeminent splendor, and all the holy in his 
 train. The nearest parallel to tliis scene as respects his retinue is 
 Deut. 83 : 2, where Moses said : " The Lord came from Sinai ; he 
 shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of 
 saints," <fec. The prophet speaks of this scene as it appeared to 
 
ZECHARlAn.— CHAP. XIV. 373 
 
 bim in prophetic vision. The scene was pecuharly and preeminently 
 impressive. He had a vivid sense of Iraraanuel, " the captain of the 
 Lord's host," as his own God, and the God of his own people, and 
 therefore says, "There comes the Lord my God!'''' 
 
 The next striking feature he puts in the form of an address to 
 
 Lnmanuel: "All the holy ones are with thee." The great aim 
 
 of this revelation is to impress the prophet, and through his words 
 all the people of God in every age, with this great truth, that Jesus 
 Immanuel is the Almighty Saviour of his people, and that he em- 
 ploys angelic spiritual beings as his agents in the ministrations of 
 his mediatorial reign, both in the care of his people and in his judg- 
 ments on the wicked. Hence these agents sometimes appear in the 
 visions of prophecy. Lsaiah "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, 
 high and lifted up, and above him were the seraphim." The same 
 thing was symbolized when (2 Kings 6 : 17) Elisha prayed in behalf 
 of his young servant : "Lord, I pray thee open his eyes, that he 
 may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he 
 .saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
 
 fire round about Elisha." This was only bringing before t^e 
 
 prophet's mental eye the actual verities of things — those agencies, 
 fall of power, though usually invisible to mortals, by which Jesus 
 Christ administers the providential government of this world. In 
 this view of the passage, the saints (literally the holy ones) are 
 especially the angels, who are all ministering spirits sent of God, 
 either to minister blessings to the heirs of salvation, or judgments 
 
 on the heirs of perdition. Some interpreters suppose they find 
 
 in this passage the visible personal advent of Christ with his risen 
 saints — the pious dead — to reign in this world, in what must be es- 
 sentially a " kingdom of this world." I find in it no such thing. 
 There is nothing in the language of this verse that demands such a 
 construction, and nothing in the subsequent scenes of the chapter 
 at all suggestive of an order of things so very peculiar, and so en- 
 tirely unlike what prophecy currently sets forth as the era of the 
 triumphs of gospel truth and love upon earth. 
 
 G. And it shall come to pass in that day, tJiat the 
 light shall not be clear, nor dark : 
 
 7. But it shall be one day which shall be knoYvai to 
 the Lord, not day, nor night : but it shall come to pass, 
 that at evening time it shall be light. 
 
 The sixth verse requires a more careful and accurate transla- 
 tion, thus: "And it shall be on that day, there shall be no light; 
 the sources of splendor " (the luminaries of heaven) " shall be 
 shut up, and it shall be one day" (unique and unlike all other days), 
 " known to the Lord " (only) ; " not day and not night : but it shall 
 
 come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." There seems 
 
 to be a gradation here through three distinct stages: first, utter 
 darkness ; then, a dim twilight, like that of an eclipse ; then, at the 
 
374 ZECHARIAII.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 close of tlic day, when you might expect darkness soon to cover the 
 
 earth, lo, the effulgence of full and glorious day! This must bo 
 
 taken as an ei)itome of the state of the Church, as seen by the 
 prophet somewhere in the then distant future. How long this period, 
 here called " a day," shall be, we have no means of knowing, nor 
 can we know yet the peculiar circumstances which constitute the 
 darkness of its morning, the dim tv/ilight of its mid-day, and the 
 glorious effulgence of its close ; which, indeed, instead of being its 
 «}lose, seems rather to be the opening of a long and ineffably glori- 
 ous day! It must suffice us that we may learn from such prophe- 
 cies that the Lord knoweth his thoughts of mercy toward our sin- 
 ful world, and that he has great and glorious blessings yet to bring 
 
 forth from the infinite stores of his love! The prophet proceeds 
 
 to give us yet further illustrations of the better day that shall follow 
 this darkness and dimness. 
 
 8. And it shall be in tliat day, tlio.t living waters sliall 
 go ont from Jernsaleni ; half of them toward the former 
 sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea : in summer 
 and in winter shall it be. 
 
 As we have seen in the notes on Joel 3 : 18 ("a fountain shall 
 come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of 
 Shittini "), water is a natural symbol of God's spiritual blessings, 
 especially those in which the agencies of the Holy Spirit are prom- 
 inent. Indeed, water is the special symbol of this divine Spirit, as 
 may be seen in the explanatory clauses of Ezek. 36 : 25, 27, and of 
 Isaiah 44: 3. Tlie latter reads, "I will pour water on him that is 
 thirsty " — shown to mean, " I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, 
 and my blessing upon thy offspring." Ezekiel has it, " Then will I 
 sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean," &c. — shown 
 to mean, " I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk 
 in my statutes," &c. Moreovei', the very terms which express the 
 manner of giving the Spirit indicate this: "I will pmir my Spirit 
 
 upon you," &c. Strikingly parallel to this passage of Zechariah 
 
 is Ezek. 47 : 1-12. There the water flows from under the sanctuary, 
 here from Jerusalem ; there in one widening, deepening stream, 
 till it becomes a mighty river, and sweeping through the desert 
 eastward, pours itself into the Dead Sea and heals its waters ; here 
 one-half flows into the front sea, which is, of course, the Dead Sea, 
 and the other half into the Mediterranean on the west. That of 
 Ezekiel carries on its bosom health, abundance, undying verdure, 
 and is of course to be considered perennial ; this flows during the 
 arid summer as well as the rainy winter, which amounts to saying 
 
 that it flows all the year, and year after year, never failing. Now, 
 
 as Palestine would be rendered almost an earthly Paradise by such 
 living streams as Zechariah and Ezekiel have described, if they were 
 to 1)6 miraculously created hy the finger of Gocl^ and become literal 
 verities, so we must take these figures as predictions of blessings of 
 
ZECnARIAH.— CUAP. XIV. 375 
 
 the richest, most abundant, and most endurinp; land possible for God 
 
 to bestow on human souls. That Zechariah's stream of water 
 
 flows from Jerusalem and Ezekiel's " from under the sanctuary " in- 
 dicate plainly that the Spirit of God will yet continue, as ever, to make 
 the institutions of the gospel — the service and worship of tlie sanc- 
 tuary — the vehicles and the channels through which he will pour 
 abroad the fulness of his blessings upon men. 
 
 9. And tlie Loed sliall be king over all the earth : 
 in that day shall there be one Lokd, and his name one. 
 
 The precious fact predicted here is that tlie Lord Jehovah reigns 
 supreme over all the earth, and is recognized everyicJiere as tlie only 
 true God. The sense is not precisely this — that now and hence- 
 forth there shall really l)e but one God, as if to imply that in for- 
 mer times there had been more true Gods than one ; but this — that 
 now he is known, acknowledged, honored, obeyed, as the one only 
 God. The very names of other gods are forgotten. No other name 
 than his is recognized as a name for God. Now, therefore, " the 
 kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
 and of iiis Christ, and he shall reign forever." Now, at length, the 
 long-oflered prayer, the burden of pious hearts age after age, is ful- 
 filled: " Tliy Mngclom come ; thy will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven." That good promise by the mouth and pen of David (Ps. 
 22 : 27, 28), has now come to pass : " All the ends of the earth sliall 
 remember, and turn unto the Lord, all the kindreds of the nations 
 shall worship before thee; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is 
 Governor among the nations." 
 
 10. All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba 
 to Rimmon, sonth of Jerusalem : and it shall be lifted 
 up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate 
 unto the place of the firet gate, unto the corner gate, 
 and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's wine- 
 presses. 
 
 "All the laud" should read, as it clearly means, all tlie earthy 
 being precisely the same words rendered "all the earth " in the pre- 
 vious verse : " The Lord shall be king over all the earth." " Turned " 
 means clianged, in its physical conformation, from a mountainous to 
 a plain, level country. The sense is not that all the land from Geba 
 to Rimmon — so much, and no more — shall become a 'plain^ but 
 tliis : that all the earth shall become a plain similar to that from 
 Geba to Rimmon. The Hebrew reads, "All the earth shall be 
 changed and become like to tlie plain from Geba to Rimmon," &c., 
 not a plain. " South of Jerusalem " is added to Rimmon to distin- 
 guish it from another, known as " the rock Rimmon." (See Judges 
 20 : 45, 47, and 21 : 13.) Geba was on the northern border of Ju- 
 dah (2 Kings 23 : 8), and Rimmon on the southern (1 Chron. 4 : 82). 
 " It shall be lifted up " means that Jerusalem shall rise in lofty 
 
376 ZECIIARIAH.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 toweriug grandeur, ths only mountain in all the world, and, of 
 course, the chief wonder and admiration of the world, the Chimbo- 
 razo of the globe, all else being a plain. It shall be crowned on its 
 summit with the glorious temple of the living God. This carries 
 forward the figure used Micah 4: 1 and Isaiah 2:2, at least one im- 
 portant step further. Micah and Isaiah speak of the temple-moun- 
 tain as "established" (firmly set) "on the top of the mountains, 
 and exalted above the hills." Zechariah sees all other mountains 
 and hills sinking down to a plain, and the temple-mountain, or 
 rather Jerusalem herself as a whole, is lifted up and becomes the 
 only mountain of the world. So magnificent, honorable, and glo- 
 rious is to be the future kingdom of Messiah — the state of Christian 
 faith and life in this world redeemed from its sins and pollu- 
 tions ! The last clause of the verse states that Jerusalem shall 
 
 again sit in her queenly majesty, the metropolitan city of this glo- 
 rious kingdom. " In her place " means upon her former foundations, 
 which is also expressed by the more particular specification of the 
 gates and well-known points of the old city. 
 
 11. And men sliall dwell in it, and there shall be no 
 more utter destruction ; but Jerusalem shall be safely 
 inhabited. 
 
 As Jerusalem had been repeatedly visited with the fearfully 
 blighting curse of Jehovah for her great sins — once infiicted by the 
 cruel Chaldeans, and again to be, as already predicted, by the stern 
 Komans — it was specially pertinent for the prophet to say that there 
 should be no more such visitations of ruin. Her sins having been 
 washed away and herself taken under the special protection of her 
 Redeemer, there would be no more occasion for such " utter destruc- 
 tion." Henceforth she should be "inhabited safely." 
 
 12. And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lokd 
 will smite all the people that have fought against Jeru- 
 salem ; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand 
 upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in 
 their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their 
 mouth. 
 
 The prophet left the enemies of Zion at the third verse, to fol- 
 loviT the fortunes of Zion herself, and to show us, through vs. 4-11, 
 how signally the Lord appeared for her help, and how gloriously 
 he turned her darkness into day, and then poured out for her living 
 waters and rebuilt her capital in greater and more enduring splen- 
 dor than ever. Now he returns to inform us of the doom of those 
 old enemies who marshalled their hosts against Zion, as appears vs. 
 1-3. They are smitten with a living death. Their flesh, touched 
 Avith some consuming leprosy, perishes while yet they stand upon 
 their feet. Their eyes consume away in their sockets ; their tongue 
 In their mouths. The eye and the tongue are specified as being the 
 
ZECHARIAn.— CHAP. XIV. 377 
 
 most valued organs — those of sight and of speecli; and probablj, 
 too, as having been specially used in their war upon Zion. AYith 
 their tongue they had spoken proudly, blasphemously, profanely. 
 The type of their spirit had been, "Let her be defiled; let our eye 
 look upon Zion" (Mic. 4:11). "Where is the Lord thy God? 
 Mine eye shall behold her " (Mic. 7:10). The Lord is wont to 
 make his retributive judgments indicate the sin for which they are 
 sent. This plague wherewith the Lord shall smite the open ene- 
 mies and actual assailants of his Zion is intended to be terrible. 
 What could be more so than such a wasting and consuming away, 
 if slowly, yet surely, through the horrors of a living death, till the 
 dread reality shall have fully come ? 
 
 13. And it shall come to pass in that clay, that a 
 great tumult from the Lokd shall be among them ; and 
 they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neigh- 
 bor, and his hand shall rise np against the hand of his 
 neighbor. 
 
 The word " tumult " does not naturally convey the full sense of 
 the original, which rather meazis a jyanic — the blended terror and 
 confusion which an awful sense of the fact that Almighty God is 
 against them would naturally produce. Analogous cases appear in 
 the pages of Jewish history, as in Judges 7 : 22, where " Gideon's 
 three hundred men blew with the trumpet, and the Lord set every 
 man's sword against his fellow throughout all the host ; " or the 
 case of Jonathan and his armor-bearer (1 Sam. 14: 15, IG), "and 
 there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among all the 
 people" — "the earth quaked, so it was a very great trembling; 
 and behold, the multitude melted away, and they went on beating 
 down one another." Also 2 Chron. 20 : 23 — " They lay hold every 
 one on the hand of his neighbor," not to help, but to disarm and 
 
 smite him. This verse and the preceding should be located in 
 
 the events of this chapter, immediately after the first three verses. 
 We are not to suppose that this plague of v. 12, and this panic with 
 mutual slaughter of v. 13, come in only long after the scenes of the 
 first three verses, and after Jerusalem has become peaceful and 
 glorious. They rather go back to give us in detail the manner in 
 which the Lord disposed of those enemies that fought against Jeru- 
 salem, took and divided her spoil, and made captives of half her 
 people. All suddenly, the plagues of Jehovah smite them ; their 
 fiesh consumes away ; this awful form of death serves to panic- 
 smite their hosts, and they fall upon each other in the dread work 
 
 of mutual slaughter! "So let all thine enemies perish, Lord; 
 
 but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in 
 his might! " (Judges 5 : 31). 
 
 14. And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem ; and 
 the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gath- 
 
378 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 cred together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in greai 
 abundance. 
 
 Judah fights in Jerusalem, not as the margin has it, against 
 her. The meaning is that, with a mutually good understanding, the 
 people of the country rush to the help of the city, and fight hero- 
 ically within the city for her defence. The spoil from the enemy 
 
 is immense. The ultimate truth taught here is that real union 
 
 shall he the strength and glory of the millennial Church. 
 
 15. And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the 
 mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts 
 that shall be in these tents, as this plague. 
 
 The same plague that came from the Lord upon incorrigibly 
 wicked men falls also on all their cattle, horses, mules, camels, and 
 asses. They are supposed to he polluted by the horrible corruption 
 of their owners. Moreover, the Lord would make his judgments so 
 terrible as to inspire awe of his majesty and justice. The cattle of 
 a city given to idolatry were to be destroyed. So were the ani- 
 mals in some of those most wicked cities doomed of God to de- 
 struction. The word " tents " should have been " camps," which 
 
 is the sense of the original — thus removing the incongruity of hav- 
 ing these animals in their tents, 
 
 16. And it shall come to pass, tJiat every one that is 
 left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, 
 shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, 
 the LoED of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. 
 
 The slaughter of the wicked nations, implied in v. 3, and terribly 
 indicated in vs. 12, 13, leaves some yet living ; how many relatively 
 to the whole number, or to -the number slain, we are not told. But 
 we are told that those who remain shall be converted to God. They 
 now come up to Jerusalem, no longer to fight against her, but to 
 worship the living God in her temple, and to join heart and hand with 
 the Lord's people. They are changed men — changed from sinners 
 
 to saints. The Jewish idea of a convert made to the true God 
 
 in distant Gentile lands must naturally imply that he will come up 
 year by year to Jerusalem to worship God at their great festivals. 
 This idea they could not fail to carry over to the reign of their ex- 
 pected Messiah. Prophecy makes him a second David, the great 
 successor on David's throne, to reign over all the nations from that 
 great central metropolis of his kingdom. It remains for us to 
 translate this Old Testament phraseology into that of the New Tes- 
 tament, and to modify those ideas which were the natural, not to say 
 necessary, outgrowth of the ancienn dispensation, and make them cor- 
 respond to the new type of things established by our Lord and his 
 apostles. So modified, we no longer think of converts in the ends 
 of the earth making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to keep 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIY. 379 
 
 her holy feasts and to worship Jehovah there. "We understand 
 that every living Christian heart is God's temple, and that every sin- 
 cere worshipper is accepted in the !N"ew Mediator of the better cove- 
 nant. This passage, then, interpreted in harmony with New Tes- 
 tament doctrines and ideas, predicts the conversion of most if not 
 all the ungodly who survive the fearful judgments already referred 
 to. That out of the three^ great annual festivals, the feast of tab- 
 ernacles should be selected, is due to its special adaptation to the 
 times. It was the national thanksgiving for God's favors in the 
 fruits of the year, and was also a grateful memorial of their change 
 from a wilderness life, forty years in tents, to a settled rest in Ca- 
 naan. Now after Zion has been redeemed fromjier sins, made 
 victorious over her foes, has received all that survive of them to 
 her bosom as friends, and they are made welcome to her munificent 
 blessings from her King, why should they not bring up their an- 
 nual otferings of thanksgiving and praise ? Isaiah (QQ : 23) names 
 
 the "new moons and the Sabbaths" as the periods at which all 
 flesh should come up to worship before the Lord — showing, when 
 compared with this statement by Zechariah, that a literal coming 
 is not tliought of by the Spirit of inspiration. The essential 
 idea la expressed as well by one form of statement as by the 
 other. This idea is, that all the i^eople of tlie earth will worship 
 the true God in the modes of his own appointment, as Christ taught 
 the woman of Samaria (John 4 : 20-24), and as the converted Jews 
 were taught (Heb., chapters 7-10). 
 
 17. And it shall be, that wlioso will not come up of 
 all the families of the earth nnto Jerusalem to worship 
 the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be 
 no rain. 
 
 This curse is entirely in accordance with the principles of the 
 ancient Theocracy which promised rain to the people if obedient, 
 but threatened to withhold it if they turned aside to idols. (See 
 
 Deut. 11 : 13-17.) The ancient economy provided for retribution 
 
 in the present world sufficiently full and sure to make the sense of 
 it effective in those early ages, and to minister to an intelligent faith 
 
 in God's actual government of the world. The previous verse 
 
 speaks of "nations;" this, particularly, of "families," because it 
 was by families that the Hebrew people came up to Jerusalem on 
 their great annual festivals. 
 
 18. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come 
 not, that have no 7'ain / there shall be the plague, where- 
 with the LoKD will smite the heathen that come not up 
 to keep the feast of tabernacles. 
 
 It is not entirely clear why the family of Egypt is specified here. 
 We naturally think the reason to be that no rain ever falls in por- 
 tions of that country, and therefore, since this plague would not 
 
380 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIV. 
 
 tonch them, another of special sort would be providetl. But the 
 Hebrew clause, which reads in our version, " that have no rain," is 
 elliptical, and therefore quite indefinite, since it may be supplied 
 cither thus: Upon whom rain does not (usually) fall; or tlius : 
 
 Upon them shall be no rain, The general sense, however, is 
 
 plain, viz., that Egypt shall be no exception to the general law. If 
 they go not up, the same plagues shall fall on them for this neglect 
 as on other nations. The fact is, tliat the failure of rain around 
 the head- waters of the Nile is as fatal to Egypt as the failure of rain 
 
 in other countries. Let it be noted that these threatened plagues 
 
 (vs. 17, 18) do not of necessity imply that any families will refuse 
 to go up to w(jj*ship the Lord of hosts. They may only show that 
 ]nen are still moral agents, acted upon by fear and hope, and made 
 responsible for their free moral acts. The assurance (v. 16) that 
 " every one that is left of all the nations sliall go w^," needs no 
 abatement because of this threatened plague on whomsoever shall 
 not go. Yet it must be admitted that this language may purposely 
 imply that there will be even in that glorious day some still per- 
 sistent enemies of God upon whom his judgments shall actually 
 fall. 
 
 19. Tliis sliall be the piiiiisliment of Egypt, and the 
 punishment of all nations that come not np to keep the 
 feast of tabernacles. 
 
 Sin is the more usual sense of the word here rendered "punish- 
 ment," but the course of thought seems to demand the sense of 
 punishment. "This" {i. e., the withholdmg of rain) shall be the 
 
 punishment of all who do not come up to this feast. Hengsten- 
 
 berg, giving the word the sense of sin, makes the passage mean that 
 the chief sin, the test sin, the one specially noticed and punished, is 
 this of not going up, &c. But to make out tliis sense, the passage 
 should read — " This not going up to the feast of tabernacles, shall 
 be the test sin of all the nations " — ^a very difterent statement from 
 this Avhich the verse does make. 
 
 20. In that day shall there be npon the bells of the 
 horses, IIOLmESS UNTO THE LORD ; and the 
 
 pots in the Lokd's house shall be like the bowls before 
 the altar. 
 
 21. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall 
 be holiness unto the Lord of hosts : and all they that 
 sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe there- 
 in : and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite 
 in the house of the Lord of hosts. 
 
 That holiness to the Lord shall be not only very pure, but widely 
 extended, is taught here by three distinct statements: (1.) Things 
 that have no special sanctity, e. g.^ bells on horses, shall be conse- 
 
ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XIV. 381 
 
 crated as altogether holy. (2.) The less sacred things about the 
 
 temple shall become as holy as those most sacred ■vrere wont to be, 
 e. g.^ common pots for cooking food shall become no less sacred than 
 the bowls which received the blood of animals slain in sacrifice ; the 
 
 latter being of old accounted most holy, the former least so. 
 
 (3.) The Canaanites shall be no more in the Lord's temple. Ca- 
 
 naanite was the common Hebrew word for trafficker, merchant — a 
 business in bad repute among the Hebrews because so much asso- 
 ciated with fraud and deceit. See Hos. 12:7, 8. There is special 
 
 force in the allusion to the bells upon the horses because the He- 
 brew law and Hebrew sentiment had a prejudice against horses, as 
 associated with pride and vain show ; with reliance also on some 
 other power than God, and with inar. This prejudice was all the 
 stronger because their most powerful enemies came upon them with 
 a strong force of cavalry and chariots ; while, on the other hand, 
 their own kings were forbidden to multiply horses. (See Deut. 
 17 : IG.) The pious Psalmist said, " Some trust in chariots and some 
 in horsemen ; we, in the name of the Lord our God." The pious in 
 Hos. 14 : 3, say, " We will not ride upon horses." But now, in the 
 purity of the millennial age, even the bells, mere ornaments on the 
 horses, shall bear the same inscription as the ancient breast-plate 
 worn by the high priest — ''''Holiness to the Lordy How exceed- 
 ingly expressive of the absolute and universal consecration of all 
 
 things to the service and worship of the one all-glorious God! 
 
 So also is the last clause rich in its special significance. "When v.e 
 consider how much the love of "filthy lucre" has polluted the 
 sanctuary, both under the Mosaic and throughout the Christian age, 
 it is a relief to feel that in the good time coming, " there shall be no 
 more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts." ISTo more 
 shall men carry the spirit of gain into the gospel ministry. No 
 more shall dishonesty and overreaching for pelf pollute the Church 
 of God. 
 
 Reviewing briefly the course of thought in this entire chapter, I 
 call renewed attention to the follov/ing points: (1.) The whole 
 chapter must be taken as figurative, and not literal. The literal 
 sense, implying the actual cleaving of the Mount of Olives, and the 
 escape of half the population of the city through its cleft bowels ; 
 two literal rii'^ers flowing from Jerusalem, one east and the other 
 west ; all the mountains in the world levelled down to plains, save 
 the one on which Jerusalem and its temple shall stand ; all the na- 
 tions coming up to Jerusalem yearly to the feast of tabernacles ; 
 Judaism with its bloody sacrifices enjoined on all the Gentile world, 
 despite of the whole New Testament to the contrary : such things, 
 supposed to take place literally, are simply incredible and absurd. 
 Some of them, if they were to take place literally, would inevitably 
 defeat their own ends. All would defeat and crush out JSTew Testa- 
 ment Christianity. There can be no sufficient reasons for giving 
 this chapter a literal construction. (2.) I have studiously ab- 
 stained from the attempt to determine and define the lultilment of 
 
382 ZECHARIAH.— CHAP. XI Y. 
 
 any minute feature in tliis grouping? of Ilebrew figures, because I 
 have no faitli in such attempts. When these things shall be ful- 
 filled ; in what precise form the wicked shall assail the Church of 
 God ; how many of them shall be cut off by the plagues of the 
 Lord, and how many shall remain to be converted — these points, 
 and such as these, I think it wise to make no attempt to determine. 
 Ungodliness has its group of specific forms to-day ; w^ho can tell 
 whether they will change essentially before this general onslaught 
 upon Zion ? The world has long since passed the besieging of the lit- 
 eral Jerusalem, as hdng herself the Lord?s Zion ; probably has passed 
 the era of religious wars, avowedly to destroy Christianity. But 
 stern conflicts with Satan and his human aids await the kingdom of 
 
 Christ ere its great and final victory. (3.) In the exposition of this 
 
 chapter the first main inquiry should be — How would the Jews of 
 Zechariah's time understand it? AVhat would be the general impres- 
 sion made upon them by this grouping of Jewish images and ideas ? 
 Would not they hail this chapter as God's word of promise, that 
 the worship of their own Jehovah would one day become universal ; 
 that their old enemies would first be greatly reduced in numbers by 
 fearful plagues, and the remnant be converted to the living God, 
 and that then the worship of God w^ould become pure and substan- 
 tially universal ? They could make of it notliing less than this. IsTo 
 other language could express these points raor.e surely or more 
 
 forcibly than this. (4.) Then this is the general sense of the 
 
 chapter. For it w^as written to be read and to be understood 
 by the Jews of his time. The writer of it was himself a Jew, writ- 
 ing for first readers who were Jews, and therefore he used and 
 
 could use only Jewish terms and figures. The general sense of 
 
 these figures we get from that ancient economy. It only remains 
 (as already said) that we translate Jewish into Christian terras, 
 Jewish symbols into Christian thought and meaning, and we have 
 the truth wliich the Lord hath taught us with so much clearness, 
 
 beauty, and force in this chapter. Let the name of the Lord be 
 
 praised for such and so much light upon the otherwise unknown 
 future of his earthly Zion ! "We w^ill bless his name, not only that 
 lie bas formed such purposes of loving-kindness — not only that he 
 has determined to bring all the nations of men to live joyfully be- 
 neath Messiah's sceptre, but that he has revealed to us this inirj)ose^ 
 and delineated in such forms of beauty and joy the glorious futui'e 
 which awaits Messiah's kingdom among: men. 
 
MALACHI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of this prophet wc have no personal history. The book gives 
 us only his name, and over even this there hangs a doubt in some 
 minds whether it be a proper name, or whether it designates some 
 unknown person as " my messenger," the original being the same 
 as is translated thus (chap. 3:1): "Behold, I send my messenger," 
 &c. I take it, however, to be a proper name, because every other 
 prophetical book gives the real name of its author; because a name 
 and a personal character were essential as credentials ; and because 
 the other view (" my messenger ") gives us no light whatever as to 
 the author, in the very place where we have a right to expect it. 
 By the universal consent of biblical critics, he was the latest known 
 prophet. The internal evidence leaves scarcely a doubt that he 
 was contemporary v/ith Nehemiah's last visit to Judea, aiding him 
 in his work of correcting the abuses which had gained a footing 
 among the people. A careful comparison of the liJook of Malachi 
 with Nehemiah 13 : 7-31 exhibits the same flagrant sins as prevail- 
 ing in each, e. g.^ intermarriages with foreigners, even in the case 
 of the priests (Neh. 13:28-30 with Mai. 2:7-16); neglect of 
 tithes (Neh. 13: 10-13 with Mai. 3:7-10); violation of the Sab- 
 batli and of religious worship generally (Neh. 13 : 15-22 with 
 Mai. 1 : 13 and 2 : 8). Hence it appears highly probable that Mala- 
 chi cooperated vfith Nehemiah in his last reformation, as Isaiah did 
 with Ilozekiah, and Jeremiah with Josiah. Tlie civil ruler would 
 greatly need the aid of some earnest and pure-minded prophet in 
 such a work. The Lord took care to provide it. The precise 
 
384: MALACHL— CHAP. I. 
 
 date of this last visit of Nehemiali is a question of some historic 
 interest, inasmuch as it is the date of the latest inspired Old Testa- 
 ment history and prophecy. The following brief synopsis of his- 
 toric dates is supposed to be proximately correct. It may aid the 
 reader to locate these events in time, and fix their connections with 
 profane history. (1.) The first captives returned under Zerubbabel, in 
 the first year of Cyrus, e. o. 536. (2.) Fifty-eight years after, Ezra 
 went up to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Xerxes (called Artax- 
 erxes, Ezra 7:1, Y), b. c. 478. (3.) Nehemiah's fir^t visit was yet 
 thirty-four years later, viz., in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Lon- 
 gimanus, b. o. 444. (4.) After twelve years' stay in Judea, Nehe- 
 miah returned to Babylon in the thirty-second year of this same 
 king, B. c. 432. (5.) The date of his second visit to Judea is proba- 
 bly twenty-four years subsequent, i. e., in b. c. 408, altliough it may 
 have been less. Some critics fix it b. o. 423, after an interval of 
 only nine years instead of twenty-four. The interval must have 
 been long enough for the introduction of grievous abuses, for 
 intermarriages with foreigners, and births from those marriages, 
 and children old enough to speak " according to the language of 
 each people." The data do not suflice for a more precise determi- 
 nation of the time. This, however, is near enough for all practical 
 purposes. Not far from four hundred years before Christ, this last 
 in the long series of inspired prophets united his efforts with those 
 of l!Teheraiah to call back the apostate people to their forsaken 
 God, to rebuke them for their great sins, and to animate the believ- 
 ing portion by some very distinct and precious promises of the con- 
 version of the Gentiles ; of the coming of the glorious Lord, " the 
 Messenger of the covenant," to his earthly temple ; and also of the 
 coming of John Baptist, here designated as " my messenger who 
 shall prepare the way before me," and as " Elijah tlie prophet." 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 To show the people their great guilt, the Lord testifies to his 
 special love for their nation, particularly as compared with the pos- 
 terity of Esau (vs. 2-5) ; rebukes the priests for their contempt of 
 his worship (vs. 6-10) ; assures them that he will find countless sin- 
 cere worshippers among the heathen (v. 11) ; exposes and denounces 
 their heinous sins (vs. 12-14). 
 
 1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by 
 Malachi. 
 
MALACHL— CHAP. I. 385 
 
 This propliecy, as a wiiole, comprises so much rebuke for sin 
 and threatening of judgment, that it may fitly be called a " burden'' 
 in the usual sense — sins and judgments, which it is a heart-burden 
 to tliink ot" and to i-eveal. 
 
 2. I have loved joii, saitli the Loed, Yet ye say, 
 Wherein hast thou loved us ? Was not Esau Jacob's 
 brother ? saith the Loed : yet I loved Jacob, 
 
 3. And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his 
 heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 
 
 A view of the love sinned against deepens the sense of guilt. 
 As one who appreciates this law of our moral nature, the Lord be- 
 gins his endeavors to convict the Jews of sin by setting before 
 them the special love he had borne for their nation ever since Ja- 
 cob was chosen to be the heir of his promises and Esau was re- 
 jected. This hating of Esau was rather a not-loving^ and looks 
 
 especially to the fact that God rejected him from being the heir of 
 the promises made to Abraham and Isaac. The history shows that 
 Esau did not value tlie inheritance of those promises. The writer 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls him "that profane person," as 
 if to intimate that his rejection was not an arbitrary act of God in 
 
 the sense of being irrespective of Esau's ill desert. As to the 
 
 words " I hated Esau," let it be carefully noted that God's hatred 
 is never malign and never causeless. The " laying of his moun- 
 tains and heritage waste " was done soon after the fall of Jerusa- 
 lem before the Chaldean arms, and by the same power. 
 
 4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but 
 we will return and build the desolate places ; thus saith 
 the LoED of hosts. They shall build, but I will throw 
 down ; and they shall call them. The border of wicked- 
 ness, and. The people against whom the Loed hath in- 
 dignation for ever. 
 
 5. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say. The 
 Loed will be magnified from the border of Israel. 
 
 Edom resolutely determined to rebuild ; the Lord as resolutely 
 to cast down. The Lord, and not Edom, triumphed in this conflict. 
 
 Men in general, the voice of the nations, " shall call them the 
 
 border of wickedness," i. «., the wicked country, the people against 
 whom Jehovah's wrath burns forever. Their sins had been so base 
 and so notorious that all mankind would appreciate the reasons of 
 God's wrath against them. Ye shall say, " Let the Lord be mag- 
 nified by all the people of Israel ; " let his praise come forth from 
 that whole country. It behooved all tlie Jews to extol the justice 
 of God in sending such retribution upon Edom. 
 
 6. A son honoreth Jiis father, and a servant his mas 
 
 17 
 
386 MALACHI.-CHAP. I. 
 
 ter : if then Ihe sl father, where is mine honor ? and if 
 I J^ a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts 
 unto you, O priests, that despise my name." And ye 
 say, wherein have we despised thy name ? 
 
 This reasoning from the honor due and usually accorded to a 
 father, is full of force as applied to the great God. How much 
 more a Father is he than anj of these " fathers of our flesh," and 
 how much greater ! Most forcibly, therefore, does he demand from 
 us, ''Where is my honor?" "Where is my fear?" This ap- 
 peal was made with special pertinence to the priests, to whom God 
 had given high responsibilities and am])le means of knowing his 
 
 name and his love. " Yet ye say, Wherein have we despised 
 
 thy name? " This is the first case out of many in which the priests 
 retort the charge made against them, daring the prophet or the 
 Lord to the proof! It is the rankest pride and self-justification. 
 It may well amaze us that a priesthood so enlightened should be- 
 come so fearfully corrupt, so rotten morally, so blind to their own 
 past and present sins ! 
 
 T. Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar ; and ye 
 say, "Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that ye say, 
 Tiie table of the Lord is contemptible. 
 
 8. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not 
 evil ? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil ? 
 offer it now unto thy governor ; will he be pleased with 
 thee, or accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The ceremonial law specified, with almost extreme precision, 
 what offerings should be made and how prepared, laying the great- 
 est stress on their being the very hetit of their Tcind. The signifi- 
 cance of this is obvious. No greater insult could be offered to God 
 than to turn him off with the refuse of their flocks and herds, and 
 with polluted bread for his altar ! Yet this the priests of that day 
 had done, and moreover seemed still to have no sense of their hor- 
 rible sin! Forcibly does the Lord say, "Offer such presents to 
 ,your governor; will he feel himself honored? " Alas ! many a hu- 
 man heart ought to be smitten with a sense of its sins against the 
 glorious Jehovah, in having constantly withheld from him the best 
 of its love, homage, and service, and in doling out only the meanest, 
 cheapest offerings, in a way which signifies that the heart does not 
 intend to give the least thing in real love to the good and glorious 
 God! 
 
 9. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will 
 be gracious unto us : this hath been by your means : will 
 he regard your persons ? saith the Loed of hosts. 
 
 The clause, " this hath been by your means," seems to refer to 
 
MALACHI.—CHAP. I. 387 
 
 the deplorably low state of piety and of divine worship, and to 
 charge the canse of it to the priests, and on this ground implore 
 them to repent and conciliate the favor of God. 
 
 10. Who is there even among jou that would shut 
 tlie doors yb/" nougJitf neither do ye Idwdlejire on mine 
 altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saitli the 
 LoED of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your 
 hand. 
 
 The service they did render was done in supreme selfishness, for 
 they would not even close the doors of tlie temple or kindle the 
 fire upon the altar, without special pay for it. So utterly merce- 
 nary and heartless had they become in all their religious duties ! 
 No wonder the Lord declares to them, "I have no pleasure in 
 you ! " The pure, loving heart is above all things else first and 
 highest in his esteem ; it might almost be said to be all he cares 
 for; without it, all else goes for nothing. 
 
 11. For from the rising of the sun even unto the 
 going down of the same, my name shall he great am^ong 
 the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall he offered 
 unto my name, and a pure offering : for my name shall 
 he great among the heathen, saith the Loed of hosts. 
 
 The logical connection, indicated by the word "yor," should be 
 distinctly noted. The Lord would say to those corrupt priests — 
 You have no heart in my worship ; you make it contemptible be 
 fore the people ; your whole heart is meanly selfish ; T cannot ac- 
 cept such worship, and / have no occasion to do so. You greatly 
 mistake if you suppose that I am in such need that I shall thank- 
 fully accept at your hand such miserably poor service. I have 
 other and far purer service coming in from the Gentile nations, upon 
 whom you are lookiag down with haughty scorn, "/or from the rising 
 of the sun even to the going down of the same, my name shall be 
 great among the Gentiles " (not cast out as vile, after the manner 
 of your devotions). "In every place" (not in Jerusalem alone) 
 "incense shall be offered to my name and a pure" (not a polluted) 
 offering; " for my name " (which you have despised, v. G) " shall be 
 
 great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts." Sublimely 
 
 glorious promise ! Its outlook into the Christian age is truly won- 
 derful. Th«it great change wrought out under tlie apostles, by 
 which the pure worship of God passed from Jewish to Gentile 
 
 hands and hearts, is here most clearly indicated. Let it be noted 
 
 also that more is here than the world has yet seen. The sweep of 
 the gospel has never yet ranged from the rising to the setting sun. 
 " Incense and a pure offering " have not yet been ofiered " in every 
 place." The glorious name of Jehovah has not yet become "great 
 among all the heathen." But all these things shall yet be ! Let 
 
388 MALACHI.— CHAP. IT. 
 
 ail lieart3 hail the coming day! And let all hands hasten it on- 
 ward 1 
 
 12. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say^ The 
 table of tlie Lord is polkited ; and the fruit thereof, even 
 his meat, is contemptible. 
 
 13. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it ! and 
 ye have snuffed at it, saith the Loed of hosts ; and ye 
 brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick ; 
 thus ye brought an offering : should I accept this of your 
 hand ? saith the Lord. 
 
 14. But cursed he the deceiver, which hath in his 
 flock a male, and voweth, and sacriliceth unto the Lord 
 a corrupt thing : for I am a great King, saith the Lord 
 of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. 
 
 The prophet returns again to the sins of the priests, exposing 
 and rehuking them with deserved severity. "Who can wonder that 
 the curse of Jehovah falls on such priests and on all such worshippers 
 at his altar? How can he regard it as better than intended insult ? 
 
 Verily God is too great, and too holy to he so contemned ! 
 
 Woe to the man who offers such abuse to the Great King whose 
 " name is dreadful among the heathen ! " 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The corrupt priests are specially exhorted, rebuked, and threat- 
 ened (vs. 1-9) ; the sin of practically divorcing their Je^vish wives 
 and marrying heathen women is condemned (vs. 10-16) ; and finally 
 the priests are rebuked for denying the justicorof God in his prov- 
 idential government (v. 17). 
 
 1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for 
 you. 
 
 2. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to 
 heart, to give glory nnto ray name, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, ^nd I will 
 curse your blessings ; yea, I have cursed them already, 
 because ye do not lay it to heart. 
 
 The priests had been deeply guilty in the great apostasy of that 
 age. They had not only failed altogether to teach the people 
 faithfully and truly for God, but they had fearfully seduced them 
 into sin by their pernicious example. Hence the prophet gives 
 them to understand very explicitly that this message of command 
 
MALACni.— CHAP. 11. 389 
 
 and rebuke is for them. The threateniDg is not merely "I TS'ill 
 
 send a curse " — some unknown, indefinite curse — but tlie curse (so 
 the original has it), referring doubtless to Dcut. 27 : 14—20, " And the 
 Le\dtes shall say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice. Cursed 
 be he," &c., " and all the people shall say, Amen ! " To this fearful 
 
 catalogue of twelve curses the prophet must have referred. To 
 
 "curse your blessings" is to change them to curses. The clause 
 
 rendered "yea, I have cursed them already," &c., shoidd read, 
 " yea, I will curse each one of them." The tense is the same 
 as in the preceding clause. There is no authority for the sense 
 " already. '''' 
 
 3. Behold I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung 
 upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts ; 
 and one shall take you away with it. 
 
 " I will rebuke your seed sown," imphes that he will forbid its 
 
 coming to maturity. The spreading of dung upon their faces 
 
 must imply a doom both publicly disgraceful and intrinsically 
 loathsome. Themselves shall be thrown out and borne away with 
 the offal of their sacrifices, in one promiscuous mass. 
 
 4. And ye shall know that I have sent this com- 
 mandment unto you, that my covenant might be with 
 Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 I take this verse to mean — Ye shall know in your own ex- 
 perience that I make this last effort to save you, in order that my 
 covenant may still be as of old with Levi, and that the priesthood 
 may still abide in honor and usefulness with my blessing upon it ; 
 but that this effort shall he the last / 
 
 5. My covenant was with him of life and peace ; and 
 I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared 
 me, and was afraid before my name. 
 
 This seems to refer to some events in the early history of Israel, 
 in which the tribe of Levi manifested a special regard for the name 
 and honor of God, and for this reason was honored with the cove- 
 nant of the perpetual priesthood. The reference may be either to 
 Ex. 32 : 26-29, or to Num. 25 : 7-13, or to both. In the former case 
 the whole tribe of Levi came forth promptly to the call of Moses, 
 " Who is on the Lord's side ? " and girding on each man his sword, 
 they slew the worshippers of the golden calf wherever they were, 
 sparing not even a brother, companion, or neighbor. To tliis case 
 Moses reverts (Deut. 33 : 9, 10) in his last blessing upon the tribes : 
 " Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him, 
 neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor know his own chil- 
 dren; for they have observed thy words, and kept thy covenant. 
 They shall teach Jacol) thy judgments, and Israel thy law ; they shaT. 
 put incense before thee," &o. The other case, that of Phineaa 
 
890 MALACHI.— CHAP. 11. 
 
 (ISTum, 25), did not pertain so directly to the whole tribe of Levi, 
 and yet has in its favor the fact that for his zeal the Lord said of 
 him : " Behold I give unto him mj covenant of peace, and he shall 
 liavo it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting 
 priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made an atone- 
 ment for the children of Israel." The latter also has closer relations 
 with the priesthood, while the former concerned the whole tribe of 
 Levi. Very probably there may be a tacit reference to both cases. 
 
 6. The law of triitli was in Lis month, and ini- 
 qnity was not found in his lips : he walked with me 
 in peace and equity, and did turn many away from 
 iniquity. 
 
 7. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and 
 they should seek the law at his mouth : for he is the 
 messenger of the Loed of hosts. 
 
 In the outset the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron were 
 selected because of their fidelity to God and to his truth. In the 
 early times of the nation they were in the main true to their responsi- 
 bilities, and taught the people the knowledge of the Lord faith- 
 fully and successfully. The passage shows that the priests were 
 
 by profession the pubhc teachers of religion, and performed that 
 service until they became too corrupt. Then prophets were raised 
 up to supply in some measure their lack of service. 
 
 8. But ye are departed out of the way ; ye have 
 caused many to stumble at the law ; ye have corrupted 
 the covenant of Levi, saitli the Lord of hosts. 
 
 9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible 
 and base before all the jjeople, according as ye have not 
 kept my ways, but have been partial in the law. 
 
 The original puts the antithesis forcibly between " ye " (v. 8), and 
 " I " (v. 9), ye departed out of the way ; " therefore / have made you 
 contemptible and base before all the people." Note here the thing 
 signified by the bold figures in v. 3. The Lord will surely take away 
 all honor from the priest who dishonors God and disgraces himself. 
 " They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." 
 
 10. Have we not all one father ? hath not one God 
 created us ? why do we deal treacherously every man 
 against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our 
 fathers ? 
 
 11. Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomi- 
 nation is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for 
 Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Loed which he 
 loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 
 
MALACHL— CHAP. II. 391 
 
 12. The LoED will cut off the man that doeth this, 
 the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of 
 Jacob, and him that olfereth an offering unto the Lord 
 of hosts. 
 
 13. And this have ye done again, covering the altar 
 of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying 
 out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any 
 more, or receiveth it Avith good will at your hand. 
 
 14. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hatli 
 been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, 
 against whom thou hast dealt treacherously : yet is she 
 thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 
 
 15. And did not he make one ? Yet had he the res- 
 idue of the Spirit. And wherefore one ? That he might 
 seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, 
 and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his 
 youth. 
 
 16. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith, that he 
 hateth putting away : for one covereth violence witli his 
 garment, saith the Lord of hosts : therefore take heed to 
 your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. 
 
 This passage is best imderstood when considered as one distinct 
 and entire subject. It refers to the sin of practically or actually 
 putting away their Hebrew wives, and taking wives from the idola- 
 trous heathen. Even the priests had done this ; and, indeed, they 
 seem to have been foremost. (See Neh. 13 : 23-29.) "With a mas- 
 terly hand the prophet calls their attention first in order to the 
 very highest moral considerations — to their obligations to God, their 
 common Father, which bind them to deal faithfully and forbid 
 them to deal treacherously against their fellow-beings, children of 
 the same common Father. In the clause " every man against his 
 brother," &c., the thing in mind is the obligation that binds a man 
 to fidelity with his wife. " Brother " is used in the general sense 
 
 of feUow-creature — one who is a child of the same Creator. 
 
 "The covenant of our fathers" is the covenant of marriage, or- 
 dained of God, and given first to the common father of our race. In 
 the clause (v. 11) " Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord 
 which he loved," I take the sense to be, that the people of Judah 
 had abused and dishonored the sacredness which the Lord had at- 
 tached to his own people in forbidding intermarriages with the 
 heathen, and requiring them to marry within the pale of the cove- 
 nant people. The Lord had felt a special interest in this law. It 
 recognized a certain holiness in his own people which ho had 
 valued as a distinction vital to the preservation of morals and piety 
 
392 MALACIIL— CHAP. II. 
 
 among them. The priests and people had profaned this sacrednesa 
 by marrying the daughters of strange gods — ^heathen idolatrous 
 
 women. In v. 12 it is said, " The Lord will cut off the man that 
 
 doeth this," be he who he may. This is the ultimate sense of the 
 original rendered, 'Hhe master and the scholar." Its proximate 
 sense, however, is not ''master and scholar," but "the waker and 
 the an&vferer," with reference to the night-watch of the priests or 
 Levites in the temple where the party retiring from their watch 
 aroused their successors, who answered to their call. The two 
 parties taken together might include all. The description should 
 apply to the priests ; this does ; and, moreover, follows strictly the 
 sense of the original. 
 
 In V. 13, "done this again," means ye have a second time re- 
 lapsed into this great sin ; the first time being that great apostasy 
 from which they were reclaimed under Ezra. (See Ezra 9.) This 
 reform seemed for the time to be thorough, but subsequently the 
 
 people and priests apostatized again. They " covered the altar 
 
 of God with tears," inasmuch as the Hebrew wives, supplanted in 
 the affections of their husbands by heathen wives, fled to the altar to 
 lay their case before the God of their fathers there, and to pour out 
 their sorrows into his ear, and their tears upon his altar. Such 
 scenes as these touched the heart of God, and he could no longer 
 accept the offerings brought to this same altar by these adul- 
 terous and apostate priests. The self-justifying priests still say^ 
 
 "Wherefore?" "Why should God repel and disownus? Is it for 
 these trivial matters pertaining to our wives ? The prophet an- 
 swers : Because the Lord became a witness between thee and the 
 wife of thy youth on the day of thine espousals ; and he cannot but 
 mark, and marking, abhor thy treachery in the breach of that 
 
 covenant. Pursuing this point yet fm-ther, the prophet inquires, 
 
 Did not the Lord create one woman, and one only, to be the wife 
 of the first man ? Yet he had the residue of the creative Spirit, and 
 might easily have made for Adam another wife, or even a score of 
 wives, if he had thought it best. Wherefore did he limit Adam to 
 one wife ? The reason w^as, he sought a godly seed. His heart was 
 on securing such family influences as would avail to "train up a 
 child in the way he should go," and he knew full well that polyg- 
 amy — the presence of two or more wives in the same household — 
 must utterly forbid such moral training. N"© godly seed can be ex- 
 pected in that family where j^olygamy is forever begetting discord, 
 
 jealousy, and every thing immoral, selfish, and ungodly. " For the 
 
 Lord saith he hateth divorce," which implies that vii'tually, if not 
 directly, this taking of foreign Avives resulted in putting away their 
 Hebrew wives. Very probably the results might vary somewhat; 
 for some Hebrew wives might consent for a time, longer or shorter, 
 to be crushed down and trodden under foot ; while others would 
 not brook such treatrticnt an hour. In the end, the usual result 
 would be the expulsion of the Hebrew wife from the household. 
 - — In the next clause, the word " garment " is thought to mean 
 
MALACni.~CHAP. II. 393 
 
 wife. Arabic usage favors this sense. The meaning of the whole 
 passage would then be, '' For the Lord, the God of Israel, hateth 
 divorce, in Avhich one heaps violence upon his wife — covers and 
 buries lier as it were with accumulated wrongs and violent assaults " 
 — a sad, dark picture of the domestic scenes attendant upon that 
 monster sin of divorcing the wife of one's youth, to wed one's self 
 
 to a foreign idolatress. The prophet closes with repeating the 
 
 exhortation to take heed to their spirits that they no more deal 
 treacherously with the wife of their first sacred covenant. 
 
 IT. Ye have wearied tlie Loed with jonr words. Yet 
 ye saj, Wherein have we wearied Mm f "When ye say, 
 Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the 
 LoED, and he dehghteth in them; or, Where is the God 
 of judgment ? 
 
 The essence of this crime, which had wearied the Lord of 
 hosts, was a denial of his justice in the administration of his moral 
 government. They said, "Every one that doeth evil is good in the 
 sight of the Lord," who manifests as much delight in them as in 
 well-doers. They also said, with the same implication, "Where is 
 the God of just judgment?" — implying, We know not where he is. 
 Hence it must be inferred that the horrible sins of the priests in con- 
 temning the worship of God, offering polluted offerings, and putting 
 away their Hebrew wives to marry heathen idolaters, had at bot- 
 tom a deep apostasy in principle and theory from the living God. 
 They had ceased to vindicate the ways of God to man ; had ceased 
 to think and speak well of his government; had ceased to regard 
 
 him as holy, just, and good. But it need not be supposed that 
 
 they had forsaken his worship and gone thus into sin lecanse they 
 had first reached the conclusion intelligently that he was unworthy 
 of their regard. By no means. The reverse order is almost if not 
 quite universal. Sins of the heart and of the life, long cherished, 
 create a demand in the mind, and especially before the conscience, 
 for false notions of God to serve as a quietus to the conscience. 
 Men first have evil deeds ; then necessarily love darkness more tlian 
 light for their convenience and comfort in their evil ways ; and then 
 their love of darkness leads them on to any conceivable absurdities 
 
 of error. The developments of this Book of Malachi reveal an 
 
 appalling depth of depravity among the priests and Levites — the 
 very men who should have been true to God and inflexible against 
 all the seductions of popular sins. 
 
3D4- MALACin.— CHAP. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The coming- of John Baptist and of Jesus tlie Messiah is fore- 
 told with some of the results (vs. 1-5) ; tlien exhortations to re- 
 pentance and rebukes for sin, especially the sin of robbing the Lord 
 of his tithes and offerings (vs. G-12). The spirit of the wielded la 
 contrasted with the spirit of the righteous (vs. 13-18). 
 
 1. Bell old, I will send my messenger, and lie sliall 
 prepare the way before me: and tlie Lord, wliom ye 
 seek, sliall suddenly come to his temple, even the 
 messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in : behold, 
 he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The most ample proof is found in the 'New Testament that " mv 
 messenger " is John Baptist. Our Lord bore witness to John 
 (Luke 7: 27) : "This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send 
 my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare the way before 
 thee." His father, Zacharias, when filled with the Holy Ghost, 
 said — " Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for 
 tliou shalt go before tlie face of the Lord to prepare his ways," &c. 
 
 (Luke 1 : 76.) Consequently, "the Lord whom ye seek," "the 
 
 messenger of the covenant," can be no other than Jesus the Mes- 
 siah. It was of the wisdom and mercy of God that he should be so 
 deiinitely pointed out both in this and kindred prophecies, and by a 
 messenger so fitted every way for his commission as John. Such 
 indications must have been eminently welcome and satisfactory to 
 
 all honest minds. This feature in the description of Messiah, 
 
 " whom ye seek," was pertinent in the latest prophecy of him, and 
 pertinent at the time of his coming, inasmuch as high expectations 
 concerning him were now raised, and a lively interest in liis coming 
 was awakened. The testimony concerning Simeon and Anna, as 
 given by Luke, is in point to illustrate the "seeking" of the pious 
 portion of the people. Plainly their hearts were keenly ahve Avith 
 
 interest and hope. That he should be spoken of as " coming to 
 
 Ms temjple^"' may be due in part to the fact that the temple was Ms 
 by long residence — his visible glory having dwelt there for ages, 
 reposing upon the mercy-seat and beneath the cherubhn; partly 
 also to the indications of prophecy, as in Zech. 6 : 12, 13 — " he shall 
 build the temple of the Lord." But why is he called " the mes- 
 senger of the covenant"? "Messenger" means angel. It is the 
 word usually translated angel. Jesus is the angel of the covenant 
 in the twofold sense: (1.) Of being the same personage so often 
 called in the Old Testament an " angel," c. g., Ex. 23 : 20-23, which 
 if the reader will examine, he will see refers to the uncreated angel 
 Avho pardons sin, in whom is the name of Jehovah, and who is a 
 perpetual Presence with his Church under both the old dispensation 
 
MALACIII.— CHAP. III. 305 
 
 and the new ; called " the nngel of the covenant " also, because so 
 long promised by covenant with the patriarchs and saints of okl : 
 and' (2.) Of being especially " the Mediator of the new covenant " 
 (Heb. 9: 15) ; and of "the better covenant, established upon better 
 promises" (Heb. 8 : 6-13). " Behold " indicates an announce- 
 ment wortliy of particular attention, the more so because repeated 
 
 — " Behold, he shall surely come, saith the Lord of hosts." Can 
 
 we trace any connection of thought between this promise as it 
 
 stands here, and the preceding context? If any, it is this: The 
 
 priesthood is becoming hopelessly corrupt, the people going astray as 
 sheep having no shepherd ; the Idngdom of God will never rise and 
 become far extended by such agencies alone ; the name of God is 
 everywhere dishonored. This course of things will not answer the 
 ends of divine mercy ; something more and other than this must be 
 done; I will send my servant John, and close after him, the Lord 
 of all! He will bear up the otherwise sinking cause of God and 
 
 of righteousness. The reader will notice the person who speaks 
 
 in this verse. He is "Jehovah of hosts." Yet he says: "/will 
 send one who shall prepare the way before w<g." The testimony 
 of inspiration thus makes the promised Messiah no other than 
 " Jehovah of hosts." This name is given him by divine author- 
 ity. 
 
 2. But who may abide the day of his coming ? and 
 who shall stand w4ien he appeareth ? for he is like a 
 reiiner's fire, and like fuller's soap : 
 
 "Who shall be able to bear the day of his coming" — the 
 searching ordeal of such moral scrutiny? Not those corrupt 
 priests, so recently before the prophet's mind. Ah ! full soon will 
 he scourge them out of his temple, and hurl them down from the 
 
 high position which they so shamefully desecrate! " "Who shall 
 
 stand when he appeareth ? " Some few — those who " looked for 
 redemption in Jerusalem " — wall hail his coming as "the horn of 
 salvation- for us in the house of his servant David;" but the 
 sensual, the worldly, the formal, — however carefully they may have 
 covered up their iniquity with the cloak of sanctimonious jiro- 
 fession, will be put through such processes of refining and proving 
 as shall surely reveal their dross — " for he is like a refiner's tire, and 
 like fuller's soap," — physical agents which well illustrate the work 
 of the coming Messiah in purifying his Church. The state of the 
 Church and its leading men at tliat time strongly suggested the 
 need of this purifying work to be done by " the Messenger of the 
 covenant." 
 
 3. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of 
 silver : and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge 
 them as gold and silver, that they may ofier unto the 
 LoKP an offering in righteousness. 
 
396 MALACHI.— CHAP. III. 
 
 " Sitting " is tlie posture of tlie refiner of silver, clioscn as being 
 more convenient for the long, patient, careful watching of the pro- 
 cess -which is essential to success. Silver is too precious to he 
 wasted by having too much heat; and its purity is too valuable a 
 
 quality to be missed by having too little. That " he shall purify 
 
 the sons of Levi " was suggested by the deeply-felt want of this at 
 that time, and is always vital because of the essential importance 
 of having those who minister in sacred things spotless examples of 
 the godUness which they should commend to others. How can the 
 Lord send blessings to men through instrumentahties that are cor- 
 rupt and rotten? Having wisely determined to work througli 
 human agents, and having designated them, what if they prove 
 faithless, and only hinder and block the progress of the work they 
 should set forward ? Hence the first labor of the Messiah when ho 
 appears among his people will be " to purify the sons of Levi, that 
 they may offer unto the Lord an ofifering in righteousness." 
 
 4. Then shall the offering of Juclah and Jernsalein 
 be pleasant nnto the Loed, as in the days of old, and as 
 in former years. 
 
 This done, the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleas- 
 ing to the Lord as in the better, purer days of the Hebrew people, 
 when "Israel was holiness to the Lord." (See Jer. 2 : 3.) The verse 
 has a refreshing look toward that one perfect offering of Jesus, 
 our Great High Priest, in wliich God was well pleased, and on 
 the ground of which he will joyfully accept the humble offerings of 
 his people. 
 
 6. And I will come near to you to judgment : and I 
 will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against 
 the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against 
 those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, 
 and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger 
 from his right, and fear not me, saitli the Loed of 
 hosts. 
 
 " But,''^ over against this, " to you " and to all such as you 
 (referring to the priests and Levites of that day) " will I come near 
 in judgment, and I will be a swift witness," &c.—S2/)i/t, as affc)rd- 
 ing no more time for such wickedness, and as cutting short their 
 most abused probation. These words refer to the liorribly v/icked 
 religious leaders of those days. 
 
 6. For I a7n the Loed, I change not ; therefore ye 
 sons of Jacob are not consumed. 
 
 The connection of thought here turns on the special signiQcanco 
 of the name JehovaJi — the ever faithful and unchanging One — the 
 God of the promises, who hath said and Avill surely fulfil. If he 
 
MALACHI.— CHAP. III. 397 
 
 had not made such promises of enduring protection and mercy to 
 the ancient covenant people, he would even now cut tliem off at 
 once. This only is the reason why they are not consumed. It is 
 only because he is Jehovah that his faithfulness spares " the sons 
 of Jacob." There is a power in that name, '' sons of Jacob," that 
 avails to save them yet, on the score of those never-failing promises. 
 See notes on IIos. 12 : 4-6. 
 
 7. Even from tlie days of yonr fatliers ye are gone 
 away from mine ordinances, and liave not kept iliem. 
 Ketum nnto me, and I will return unto you, saith the 
 Loud of liosts. But ye said, Wlierein sliall we return ? 
 
 8. Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed me. 
 But ye say, "Wherein have w^e robbed thee ? In tithes 
 and offerings. 
 
 9. Ye are cursed with a curse : for ye have robbed 
 me, even this whole nation. 
 
 This apostasy had already been of long standing. — —The spirit 
 of divine command and promise is tersely and beautifully expressed 
 here — "Return unto me, and I will return unto you." So also is 
 the spirit of raan's depravity truthfully expressed in the quick re- 
 sponse — Are we not all right now ? " Wherein shall we return? " 
 .... Alas for the blindness of sin ! Alas for the hardness it brings 
 on human hearts ! It is only when conviction of the truth as it is, 
 fastens on the mind through the Spirit of God, that sinners think to 
 
 any purpose of returning to God. Strange that a man should 
 
 rob God ! " Yet ye have robbed me," in withholding the stipulated 
 tithes — the tenth part of their annual income. For this withhold- 
 ing, the Lord was visiting the land with the curse of barrenness 
 and famine. 
 
 10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, 
 that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me 
 now herewith, saith the Loed of hosts, if I will not open 
 you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
 that there shall not he room enough to receive it. 
 
 This striking passage has the richer interest to Christians be- 
 cause, under the principles of the ancient economy, viz., temporal 
 blessings to the faithfully obedient, it presents to us the great law 
 of his spiritual administration as well, showing that there can really 
 be no limit (short of our utmost capacity) to the spiritual blessings 
 God will give those who, really hungering for righteousness, " open 
 wide their mouth that God may fill it," and hence who honestly usa 
 
 all appropriate means for this result. God is forever the same, 
 
 and certainly is no less bountiful of blessings under the Christian 
 than under the Jewish economy. " Prove me ; " put my words 
 
398 MALACni.— CHAP. III. 
 
 to the test ; try it and see. If you have doubts, there is a ready 
 
 way to solve them ; do all I say, and bide the issue. ''Pour out," 
 
 as the margin indicates, is the verb that means to empty out^ as if 
 God meant to say he would empty forth his vast reservoirs of bless- 
 ings. In the last clause, our translators found it necessary to ital- 
 icise too many words — a common indication that they did not clearly 
 see the primary sense of the passage. The Avord they rendered 
 "i^Aai" never has this meaning, but means until. The other 
 Hebrew words are " not " and " enough " — " until not enough," i. e., 
 until my stores shall fail me — a result you never need think of as 
 possible. Since this can never be, the Lord would have his people 
 understand that nothing can limit his blessings short of their capa- 
 city to receive. The Hebrew of this clause is tlie same as in Ps. 72 : 
 T — ''Abundance of peace until" (there is) "no moon; " translated, 
 " so long as the moon endure th. 
 
 11. And I will rebuke the clevourer for your sakes, 
 mid lie sliall not destroy tlie fruits of your ground ; 
 neither sliall your vine cast her fruit before tlie time in 
 the field, saitli the Lord of hosts. 
 
 12. And all nations shall call you blessed : for ye 
 shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lokd of hosts. 
 
 These verses still expand the promise commenced in v. 10. If 
 you will truly bring in fdl the tithes and meet all your obligations 
 to God, tlien I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes — the locust, 
 put here for all forms of destructive agents. All the nations shall 
 witness to your prosperity. 
 
 13. Your words have been stout against me, saitli 
 the Lord. Yet ye say. What have we spoken so much 
 against thee ? 
 
 14. Ye have said. It is vain to serve God : and what 
 profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and tliat we 
 have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts ? 
 
 15. And now we call tbe proud bappy ; yea, tbey 
 that w^ork wickedness are set up ; yea, they that tempt 
 God are even delivered. 
 
 Once more recurring to those wicked men who have constantly 
 gainsayed the prophet and his Lord, he charges them — " Your 
 words have been Tiard^ strong against me, saith the Lord." They 
 retort by virtually denying the charge. Then the Lord makes. his 
 charge more specific. When I promised, "Bring in all the tithes," 
 so shall your cup be filled with good, ye replied, " It is vain to serve 
 God ; what profit have we found in keeping his ordinances, and walk- 
 ing mournfully before the Lord," as those who sorrow for theii 
 
MALACUL-^CHAP. III. 399 
 
 Bins? Thou, Lord, Last said tlie nations shall call the righteoud 
 blessed; on the contrary, ice call the proud blessed; yea, they that 
 work wickedness are built up in enduring prosperity. They that 
 " prove God " in this way, daring him to do his worst if ho 
 will, not those that prove him by bringing in all the tithes, 
 
 are delivered from evil, and even from the danger of it. The 
 
 antithesis between what God had said before (vs. 10-12), and 
 what these wicked gainsayers reply (vs. 14,15), is much more appar- 
 ent in the original, especially of v. 15 than in the received trans- 
 lation. First, the pronoun '^w^," being expressed in full, is slightly 
 emphatic: you say one thing; tee, on our part, not admitting what 
 you say, are stoutly maintaining the opposite. Then the verb, "call 
 you Messed " (in v. 12), and the corresponding verb, '' call the proud 
 hop2)y'''' (v. 15), are precisely the same ; as if they would say — You 
 claim that the nations shall call God's obedient ])eople blessed ; we, 
 for our part, call the proud blessed. So the word rendered 
 '•'• liro'ce'''' (v. 10) is the same as is here (v. 15) rendered "tempt." 
 You have said. Let my people ^9r(?i^c me. We have to say in reply, 
 that the wicked have ^proved thee by scoffing at thy words ; and 
 yet so far from being punished, tliey are even delivered from all fear 
 and danger. Their eyes stand out with fatness ; they have more 
 
 than heart could wish. Wliat a portrayal this of most shocking 
 
 hardihood in sin ! 
 
 16. Then tliey tliat feared the Loed spake often one to 
 another : and the Loed hearkened and heard it j and a 
 book of rememhrance was written before hhn for them 
 that feared the Loed, and that thonght npon his name. 
 
 IT. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, 
 in that day when I make np my jewels ; and I will spare 
 them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 
 
 18. Then shall ye return and discern between the 
 righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth 
 God and him that serveth him not. 
 
 Here we turn to the other class, in every respect the moral 
 
 opposites of the ungodly and the proud. " Then," L e., in the 
 
 very face of such bold, defiant blasphemy against God and right- 
 eousness ; " then they that feared the Lord " — all unlike the proud 
 who had no fear of God before their eyes — "held free communion 
 one with another." They did not suppress their thoughts because 
 the defiant godless blasphemers were so outspoken, but none the 
 
 less for that, they talked freely one with another. There was 
 
 One who listened, all unawares to them ; " tlie Lord hearkened and 
 heard; " and what is more, he made a record for the perpetual re- 
 membrance of a thing that touched his heart so tenderly. There 
 he entered the names of those who, at such a time, in the face of 
 snch blasphemy, yet feared the Lord, and had thoughts of affection 
 
400 MALACni.— CHAP. lY. 
 
 and esteem for his name. " Those shall be mine, saith the Lord of 
 hosts, m that day when I raalie up my treasures ;" I will hold them 
 amonj? my choicest, best jewels; and until that future, final gather- 
 ing of them into my heavenly cabinet, I will manifest my compas- 
 sion and loving-kindness toward them, as a man does toward his 
 own son that serveth him. Such is the sense of the word rendered 
 "«;?«?'^." The Lord implies that he has indeed real service for his 
 people — some of it, perhaps, hard and earnest work ; but his great 
 and tender love for them will insure the kindest treatment possible, 
 even as a kind father may set his son to earnest service, but will 
 lovingly watch over him to spare him from excessive toil and expos- 
 ure. No good father makes his son a galley-slave. The kind Lord 
 drops many a loving tear over the hardships to which his needful 
 service may subject his people in these years of their toil and of 
 reproach for his nmne. Let it be enough for us that he feels 
 
 towai-d us such pity and such tender love! "Then shall ye 
 
 return," look again, and then ye shall see a broad distinction, nay 
 more, a real contrast, between the destiny of the righteous and the 
 destiny of the wricked. The proud and defiant ones have been say- 
 ing, "Where is the God of judgment?" "Everyone that doeth 
 evil is good in the sight of the Lord ; " "it is vain to serve God ; " 
 " the proud are blessed ; " " they that tempt God with most daring 
 provocation are delivered ; " — but the reckoning day will shortly 
 come ! Let the righteous return after a httle space, and they will 
 see a broad line of diverse destiny ranging "between him that 
 
 serveth God and him that serveth him not." The beginning of 
 
 the next chapter is closely connected with this, for there this line 
 of difl:erence becomes a wide and strilcins: contrast. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 With no break in the continuous thought, this chapter proceeds 
 to contrast the destiny of the wicked and of the righteous (vs. 1-3) ; 
 gives a general injunction to observe the law of Moses (v. 4) ; and a 
 promise of John Baptist under the name of Elijah, with brief hints 
 of the work he should do (vs. 5, 0). 
 
 1. For beliold, tlie day cometli, tliat shall burn as an 
 oven ; and all tlie proud, yea, and all tliat do wickedly, 
 sliall be stnbble : and tlie day that cometh shall bnrn 
 them np, saith the Loed of hosts, that it shall leave them 
 neither root nor branch. 
 
 "For" indicates a close connection with chapter 3. "Be- 
 liold," calls solemn attention. "The day," in its usual prophetic, 
 sense, is a period which is peculiar, " sui generis " — here a time of 
 fearful judgments on the wicked. The wicked are said in the 
 
MALACHL— CHAr. IV. 401 
 
 Old Testament, as well as the ISTew, to be destroyed by fire. Thus 
 Psalm 11 : 6, "Upon the wicked he shall rain forked lightnings, fire, 
 and brimstone, and an horrible tempest." The prime exemplar is 
 the ruin on Sodom, Gen. 19: 24, *'Then the Lord rained upon 
 Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." See also 
 
 Ezek. 38 : 22. Tlie great question here respects the time, and 
 
 hence the sort of judgment referred to. In my view, the primary 
 reference must be to judgments on the wicked in time, providential 
 inflictions, like that on Jerusalem by the Eomans, like the still 
 earlier judgments that fell on the ungodly portion of the Jews in 
 the fearful Syrian wars during the second century before Christ ; 
 indeed, embracing all those forms of special infliction which belong 
 to God's providential government over nations and individuals too 
 in the present world. All these are to be taken as prophecies and 
 pledges of that far more terrific vengeance which shall come down 
 on all the finally Avicked in the world to come. I would not apply 
 this passage to either this world or the next, to the entire exclusion 
 of the other, but assume that it refers primarily to judgments in this 
 world ; then as a type, a harbinger, prophecy, and pledge, it em- 
 braces also those heavier, sorer judgments which execute full- and 
 
 unmitigated justice on the ungodly in the world to come. The 
 
 context shows that the primary reference here is to judgments in 
 time ; for the righteous are thought of as walking over the ground 
 where the ashes of the perished wicked lie strewn. 
 
 2. But unto you that fear my name, shall tlie Sun 
 of righteousness arise with healing in his wings ; and 
 ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 
 
 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they 
 shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day 
 that I shall do tliis^ saith the Loed of hosts. 
 
 This is the joyous, far diflferent lot of the righteous. The fear- 
 ers of God's name are in strong contrast of character as well as 
 
 destiny with the proud blasphemers. The rising sun is a glowing 
 
 and glorious image of hope and joy. "Righteousness" has here 
 the not uncommon sense of deliverance, salvation, blessedness, with 
 no implication of its being strictly deserved on -the score of simple 
 justice, and by no means excluding mercy. The reference is mainly 
 to the ikiessiah as the great fountain of fight, peace, and joy, to the 
 
 saints of God. His wings are the beams of his light. " Ye shall 
 
 go forth and leap as well-fed calves of the stall." Leaping rather 
 than growing is the sense of the Hebrew, indicative of exultant 
 
 joy. How solemn and impressive the scene, to walk over the 
 
 ashes of the wicked and say — Here the wrath of God smote them, 
 and here their ruins lie, an awful monument to the madness of sin 
 and to the justice of Jehovah's most fearful retributions ! Such 
 views of their horrid blasphemous wickedness as are given above 
 (3 : 13-15), ought to reconcile every sane mind to the severity of 
 
402 MALACHI.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 these judgments, and even ought to inspire in all hearts the song of 
 Moses and of the Lamb — " Great and marvellous are thy works, 
 Lord God Almighty; jwat and true are thy way s^ thou king oi 
 
 saints." 
 
 4. Remember ye tlie law of Moses my servant, wliicli 
 I commanded nnto liim in Iloreb for all Israel, with the 
 statutes and judgments. 
 
 Specially pertinent, in view of the shocking abuses and corrup- 
 tions of the ceremonial law^, is this last injunction to observe those 
 statutes and judgments until the better system shall supersede them. 
 
 5. Eeliold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before 
 the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Loed : 
 
 6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the 
 children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, 
 lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. 
 
 The remarkable thing in this passage is that, without any spe- 
 cial explanation,^the great forerunner of the Messiah is here called 
 " Elijah the prophet." The New Testament has solved this enigma 
 to us ; but how could the Jews of Malachi's time have understood 
 
 it? Still the general sense might perhaps have been clear to 
 
 them, viz., one who should be a second Elijah, who should come 
 with a spirit and power like his, sternly rebuking sin, and earnestly 
 calling all men to repentance. This would be the more apparent 
 by how much the more they regarded Elijah as a representative 
 man, embodying in himself precisely those qualities which fitted 
 him for the prophetic work. The shocking corruption of the priests 
 in the time of Malachi would suggest strongly that the covenant 
 people would need another Elijah, filled with his spirit and powder, 
 to do the work which the priesthood were only undoing and coun- 
 teracting. Our Lord, in Mark 9 : 11-13, gave a very specific expla- 
 nation. " They asked him — ' Why say the scribes that Elias must 
 first come ? ' " He answered — " Elias verily cometh first and restor- 
 eth all things; but I say unto you that Elias is indeed come, and 
 they have done unto him whatsoever they listed." Or as narrated 
 by Matthew (11 : 14), " If ye will receive it, this is Ehas who was 
 
 to come." The phrase rendered — " the great and dreadful day 
 
 of the Lord," is in the original verbatim from Joel 2 : 31, " before 
 the coming of the day of the Lord, the great, and the terrible." 
 Standing here it must refer to the " day that shall burn as an oven " 
 (v. 1), while not unnaturally the language may be borrowed from Joel. 
 
 To warn in mercy before lie smites in judgment, is cvefmoro 
 
 the order of God's throne. ITence the second Elijah should come 
 belbre the Jewish people and polity should be smitten down by the 
 terrible Roman arms. They were fearfully corrui)t already. It 
 was lb]-csecn that they w^ould become yet more so before and dur- 
 
MALACHI.— CHAP. IV. 403 
 
 ing the Messiah's incarnation. Hence the last warnings sent 
 them through John Baptist, in the form of a call to repent, and 
 to welcome their Great Deliverer, soon to appear, came in the 
 hour of their greatest moral extremity, But what is the perti- 
 nence of describing the moral work wrought bj John Baptist, as 
 *' turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts 
 
 of the children to the fathers " ? Perhaps few of us appreciate 
 
 the loving heart and the social influence of this John. It may have 
 come to us with the notions of our childhood to think of the man 
 of camel's-hair cloak and leathern girdle, making his meals of lo- 
 custs, and ranging the wilderness of Judea to preach repentance, as 
 only a stern reprover — a battle-axe upon men's sins, and scarcely 
 
 less savage toward the endearing relationships of society. If we 
 
 added the latter Inference, we made a great mistake. It never was 
 any part of true religion, never was the function of any true re- 
 former, to ride roughshod over the tenderness of the parental and 
 filial relations. No, it is idolatry that first debases and then cruci- 
 fies parental affection, and makes the mother that bare him heart- 
 less and cruel enough to cast her boy into the burning arms of Mo- 
 loch. Avarice and lust are doing the same thing in tens of thou- 
 sands of families in Christian lands to-day. So always and every- 
 where sin quickens selfishness ; and selfishness, grown rampant and 
 rabid, severs parent from child, and child from parent. On the 
 other hand, what do we always see in all genuine revivals of re- 
 ligion ? What so universally as a revival of deep, all-absorbing lo'ce 
 for others^ especially within the circle of the domestic relations? 
 How often do we see the hearts of parents home down with almost 
 crushing solicitude in the tenderness of their love for the souls of 
 their children ! What but this turning of the hearts of parents to 
 their children begets such agonizing prayer of Christian parents for 
 ungodly children, and of converted children for yet unconverted 
 
 parents ? Hence it was the Spirit of the Lord that moved this 
 
 })rophet to touch by one master-stroke the central influence of John 
 Baptist's preaching. When the men whom he called so might- 
 ily to repentance, had bowed their hearts to this high behest, their 
 next thought was that of renewed care and love for their children. 
 If we had been present in that revival, we should have found it by 
 no means unlike all the true revivals of our day in this one most 
 precious feature. Such a revival of the home and household af- 
 fections is eminently pleasing to God. In such a soil religion 
 thrives. Where the hearts of fathers turn with loving, tender in- 
 terest toward their children, and the hearts of children in like 
 manner to their fathers, the Saviour finds a congenial home and 
 t:ikes up his abode. It seems to be implied that if John's preach- 
 ing had altogether failed of this result, the gospel of salvation from 
 the lips of Jesus might have fallen powerless upon the world, and 
 left to Judea and to the nations of the earth only the remediless 
 
 " curse.'''' How forcibly, then, comes the appeal to us to cherish 
 
 the tenderness of mutual love and earnest care for others' souls, 
 
4-04: MALACni.— CHAP. IV. 
 
 especially within tlie dear circle of family relationships, lest the 
 gospel should fliil to bless us, and lest we doom ourselves and those 
 we ought to love, to a moral ruin for which God has no remedy ! 
 Thus close the admonitions of the last prophet of tlie Old Tes- 
 tament age, and with them the volume of Scripture as it stood till 
 in the fulness of time the Messiah came. 
 
DISSEETATION I, 
 
 ON THE CRITERIA FOR DISTIXGUISIIIXG, IX THE PROPHETIC IJFE, 
 BETWEEN THINGS SEEN AND DONE IN VISION ONLY, AND THINGS 
 DONE IN FACT. 
 
 The importance of tliis point seems to jnstify a more extended 
 examination than could properly be introduced in the notes. 
 
 It is clear beyond a doubt that some of the prophets liad visions, 
 somewhat analogous to dreams, yet not altogether dreams, in which 
 objects were presented to their mind's eye only; or as the case may 
 be, they were transported, not In body, but in thought, to distant 
 points, and made to see or do things that had no actuality in the 
 external world. It is equally clear that these prophets all lived an 
 actual life in this external world, and that, in the ministry of their 
 prophetic office, they were required of God to go and to do in the 
 external world things of a symbolic nature, belonging properly to 
 
 their prophetic work. iSTow our first question is. Are there any 
 
 criteria ly wMcTi these two xery diffefent things can de distin- 
 guished from each other f 
 
 Our second question is. If so^ are they in the records themsches, 
 in the very forms of the statement, or are they mainly or only in 
 oiir own ideas of the fitness or unfitness of the things to be done in 
 actual life ? 
 
 The only decisive and satisfactory answer to these questions 
 must be obtained by a careful examination of the cases which belong 
 to one class or the other as they stand in the record. If there are 
 laws of prophetic usage, so well established as to aftbrd us the cri- 
 teria we seek, they must be sought and found by a thorough induc- 
 tion from particular cases ; not otherwise. We are shut up to an 
 examination of the record. Does the record give us the distinctive 
 ci'iteria, or does it commit the decision to the taste and judgment 
 of each reader? The subject will be exhausted only when all the 
 cases that belong to either class have been carefully and candidly 
 
 examined. Ezekiel abounds in these cases. We will begin with 
 
 him. Note a case of mere vision (37:1-14), the well-known 
 
 " valley of dry bones." The very introduction shows this to be a 
 vision only. '^Tlie hand of the Lord was upon me," indicating 
 
408 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 some special extraordinaiy power, "and carried me out in the 
 Spirit of the Lord," not in actuality, but in that peculiar, prophetic 
 state often described as "m the Spirit;'''' and "set me down in 
 the midst of the valley, which was full of bones, and caused me to 
 pass by tliem round about," &c. Here the form of the statement 
 seems designed to shut off the thought of an actual scene. But vs. 
 15-23 in the same chapter present an actual scene. " Take thee 
 one stick, and write on it Tor Judah,' and take another 
 stick, and write on it, ' For Ephraim,' &c. ; join them one to an- 
 other into one stick, and they shall become one in thy hand." 
 That this is actual, and not in vision only, appears from the fact 
 that the form of statement gives no inthnation of a vision, but has 
 throughout the air of reality. Thus, " When the childi-en of thy 
 people shall ask, Wilt thou not show us what tliou meanest by 
 these? "it is plainly implied that they saw the sticks joined, and 
 did not merely hear the prophet report the case as presented to 
 himself alone, and in vision only. Still further, the Lord said : 
 " The sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand lefore 
 their eyes^'' i. e., as an illustration of great truths to be propheti- 
 cally announced. It should be constantly borne in mind that 
 
 the people are in the external world only — never in the state of 
 prophetic vision. What theij see and hear, therefore, must be in 
 the external world — in the world of sense, and not in the prophetic 
 world of the " Spirit." Hence this union of the two sticks must 
 
 have been real, and not visional only. Yet further, comparing 
 
 the two portions of the 37th chapter above named — the former a 
 vision, viz., of the dry bones, and the latter an actuality — the union 
 of two sticks in one in the prophet's hand — we may note another 
 distinctive criterion. The former consists mainly of things seen by 
 the prophet; the latter of things done. So we might expect that 
 in visions the prophet will be mainly an observer^ but in things 
 
 made actual for symbolic purposes, mainly a doer. Ezek. 40-48 
 
 is declared to be a vision. " The hand of God was upon me, and 
 brought me thither," i. 6., to the city of Jerusalem : " in the visions 
 of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me on a very 
 high mountain," &c., where he saw the frame of a city, and a man 
 in appearance as brass, &c., with a measuring line in his hand ; 
 and he was told to note with special care all he should see and 
 
 hear, that he might declare it to the house of Israel. The whole 
 
 account shows beyond a doubt that this is a vision only. The 
 record is throughout one of things seen by the prophet, not of 
 things done. The " hand of the Lord," which is " upon him," and by 
 which ho is "brought" from one point of the scene to another, is 
 continually referred to, e. g.^ 40 : 2, 3, 17, 24, 35, 48, and 41 : 1, and 
 
 42 : 1, and 43 : 1, &c., &c. Equally clear to the same conclusion 
 
 is the passage Ezek, chapter 8-11, inclusive. Both the introduction 
 and the close of this passage are decisive. The prophet is sitting in 
 his house; the elders of Judah are sitting before him; " the hand of 
 the Lord falls there upon him ; " he sees a strangely glorious form 
 
DISSERTATION I. 407 
 
 "of the likeness of fire from the loins downward, and of brightness 
 like amber from the loins npward." This personage, says Eze- 
 kiel, " put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of mine 
 hair, and the Spirit lifted me up between tlie earth and the 
 heavens, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem." 
 There he saw scenes significant and most impressive. At the close 
 he records: "Afterward the Spirit took me up and brought me in 
 a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea to them of the captivity. 
 So the vision that I had seen went up from me," " Then I spake to 
 them of the captivity, all the things that the Lord had shown me." 
 
 The reader will take note that these chapters are throughout a 
 
 narration of things seen by the prophet — not of things done. Indeed, 
 very special care is taken to make it clear that these things are 
 seen and transacted in vision only. The language used is strongly 
 distinctive. " The Spirit lifted me up," " brouglit me in the visions 
 of God to Jerusalem." " Afterward the Spirit took me up and 
 brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea." " So the 
 vision that I had seen went up from me," as if it had been a great 
 
 slieet of panoramic representation. This extreme care to define 
 
 the precise character of the transaction should be especially noticed, 
 since it manifestly justifies the inference that God would have us 
 distinguish between this class of cases and those of a symbolic charac- 
 ter, where external acts are really done. It also shows that he in- 
 tends to furnish the criteria for this discrimination himself, so as to 
 leave us no responKibility, and no exercise of judgment, save that of 
 
 interpreting his very plain words. Over against these visions 
 
 there lies a class of symbolic transactions, done in real life, in the 
 external world, before the open eyes of the people — their symbolic 
 character having for its aim a deeper impression on the popular 
 mind. In this class stands Ezek. 12 : 1-16. It opens not by saying, 
 " The hand of the Lord was upon me ; " " the Spirit took me up ; " 
 "I was brought in vision by the Spirit," &-c. ; but thus, "Son of 
 man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebelhous house, who have 
 eyes to see, and see not," &c., implying the occasion for new and 
 peculiar means of impressing truth on their dull minds and hard 
 hearts. " Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff" for remov- 
 ing, and remove by day in their sight " (not by night, and in dreams 
 only) ; "it may be they will consider, though they are a rebellious 
 
 house." The whole plan of operation is then detailed, and he is 
 
 especially charged again (v. 6) to " do it in their sight ^'''' and finally 
 tlie reason is given : " For I liave set thee for a sign (a thing both 
 visible and significant) to the house of Israel." The prophet 
 proceeds to say (v. T), " I did so as I was commanded," i. e., this 
 was an actual transaction. Furthermore, the end sought was 
 in part at least gained ; the people inquired, and tlie Lord im- 
 proved tlieir awakened curiosity. " Son of man, hath not the 
 house of Israel, the rebellious house, said unto thee. What doest 
 thou? Say thou unto them. Thus saith the Lord God: Thio 
 burden (i. <?., of predicted calamity) concerneth the prince in Jeru- 
 
408 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 salem, and all the house of Israel that are among them. Say, I am 
 your sign; in like manner as I have done, so shall it he done unto 
 them ; they shall remove and go into captivity." Here we see at 
 every point most decisive indications that this is a symbolic transac- 
 tion, actually Tvrought hefore the eyes of the people. The prophet 
 is here a doer, not a seer ; the people see,, and therefore the things 
 
 done must have been in the world of sense before them. Of the 
 
 same sort is the transaction recorded Ezek. 4. Here we miss the 
 statements : " The hand of the Lord was upon me ; " " the Spirit 
 took me up or brought me ;" "I v\"as in vision," &c., &c. ; but on 
 the other hand, we find the other class of statements: '' Son of man 
 do " certain things ; " this shall be a sign to the house of Israel." In 
 this case the things to do are : " Take thee a tile and lay it before 
 thee, and portray upon it the city — even Jerusalem — and lay siege 
 against it. Set the camp against it, and battering-rams — all tlio 
 enginery of assault in ancient warfare. Nor may he omit the 
 means of protection to the assailing party : " Take thee an iron 
 pan, and set it for a Avail of iron between thee and the city," 
 and so make the siege coraxjlete. And then the Lord said: "This 
 shall be a sign to the house of Israel" — the usual formula 
 to show that this is a symbolic and real transaction. In this 
 case also we have a long series of details respecting the prophet's 
 lying first on the left side and then on the right side, and the 
 significance of each ; the duration of each and its significance ; 
 then, moreover, his food and drink the while are fully defined. The 
 circumstance of his cooking his own food shows that his lying on 
 one side was not absolutely continuous during the whole twenty- 
 four hours of every day. It was sufiicient that it should be so con- 
 tinuous, and withal so public, as to avail for a sign to Israel. The 
 decisive proof of an actual transaction in this case lies i^artly in 
 the absence of any hint that this is seen in vision only, and part- 
 ly in the fact that throughout it is represented as a veritable transac- 
 tion ; but especially in the declaration, " This shall be a sign to the 
 house of Israel." For if the whole thing were seen by the prophet in 
 vision only, and not done at all, how could it be seen by the people and 
 be a " sign unto them ? " For it cannot be even supposed that they 
 were Jn a state of prophetic vision, and so were able to see things 
 presented in vision only. Note here also that the prophet is a doer, 
 
 not a seer. Ezek. 1 is a. vision throughout, for so the record states : 
 
 — V. 1, " The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God ; " and 
 V. 8, " The hand of the Lord was there upon him ; " "And I looked 
 and beheld," &c. Ezek. 2 is also a vision. " The Spirit entered into 
 me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, and then I 
 heard him that spake unto me " — the prophetic state, that of 
 one into \Ahom the Spirit had entered, being a prerequisite to his 
 hearing the words spoken to him in the vision.— — The " roll " of 
 which we read, 2 : 8-10, and 8 : 1-10, should be accounted a thing 
 of vision, this being indicated by the words (2 : 9), " "When I looked, 
 behold an hand was sent unto me, and lo, a roll of a book was 
 
DISSERTATION I. 409 
 
 therein." In Ezek. 3 : 11-27 some of the transactions seem to 
 
 have been of the external world, and some only seen or done in 
 irmon. Of the former sort are his " going to them of the captivity," 
 (vs. 11-15), and " his going forth into the plain" (vs. 22, 23). Of 
 the latter, " the Spirit took me up " (v. 12), "lifted me up and took 
 rae away " (v. 14), &c. In the former case, if they of the captivity 
 are spoken of as actual and not visional, then his going to them 
 must have been in the external world, and not in the world of 
 
 thought only. ^Ezek. 5 : 1-4, the prophet polling liis hair and 
 
 dividing it into three parts, one part to be burned with fire in the 
 midst of the city, another to be smitten about with a knife, and 
 the last third scattered to the wind ; and the application of this to 
 Jerusalem (vs. 5-17) we must obviously interpret as a real transac- 
 tion, although the forms of statement wliich specially indicate a 
 symbolic proceeding are not here. On the other hand, the yet more 
 uniformly present indications of a vision are v/holly wanting; and 
 moreover, the thing itself is so obviously done to le seen Inj theiico- 
 ple, and would have so little force as a thing presented to the 
 prophet only, and in vision, that aU doubt is substantially preclud- 
 ed. In Ezek. 21 : G, 7, we must recognize an actual scene, the 
 
 tokens of bitter grief, groans, and sighs, must have been heard and 
 seen by the people. This was the intent of the command : " Sigh, 
 therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins ; and 
 with bitterness, sigh 'before their eyes. V. 7 shows that they saw, 
 and therefore inquired the cause : " It shall be when they say unto 
 thee, wherefore sighest thou? "that thou shalt answer, "For the 
 tidings, because it cometh," &c. This awakened curiosity and at- 
 tention, tlie Lord used of set purpose to get into their dull and un- 
 believing minds the great idea of coming calamity. In Ezek. 24, 
 
 we have first a supposed case, for it is definitely named a "parable," 
 and is to be spoken to the peo])le, and not done, in fact, before them. 
 ''''Utter a parable to the rebellious house, and say unto them. Thus 
 saith the Lord God ; Set on a pot, set it on, pour water into it ; 
 gather the pieces, i. <?., of a slain animal, and let them seethe the 
 bones therein." And this was to represent the bloody city, Jerusa- 
 lem, in which flesh, bones, and blood promiscuously, were seething 
 together. This parable forms the text for the discourse, vs. 6-14. 
 Strictly, this case is neither a symbol nor a vision. It is only and 
 precisely what the Lord called it, a "parable," and shows that the 
 Lord is specially careful to define sharply the particular manner of 
 his revelations to men by his i)rophets, so that there shall be the 
 
 least possible occasion for misapprehension on this point. Over 
 
 against this parable, vs. 15-18 describe a real transaction. The 
 prophet is apprised that the Lord will "take away the desire of his 
 eyes with a stroke," and is forbidden to mourn or weep therefor. 
 "So," he adds, "I spake unto the people in the morning, and in the 
 evening my wife died, and I did as I was commanded." This was 
 visible to the people, and therefore an actual death, and a real case 
 of a bereaved husband, refraining from tlie usual tokens of grief. 
 18 
 
410 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 The people ask — "Wilt thou not tell ns what these things are to ns 
 that thou (loest so? " showing that they understand this to he a sym- 
 bol, and therefore significant as to themselves. Further, the narra- 
 tive repeatedly declares : " Ezekiel is unto you a sign " (v. 24), " and 
 thou shalt he a sign unto them " (v. 27). Thus by the words and 
 forms of statement the line is drawn, and in the main clearly, be- 
 tween things actually done for symbolic or other purposes, and 
 things only seen by the prophet himself in vision. This examina- 
 tion has aimed to touch all the cases of either sort that occur in 
 Ezekiel. An induction of cases that is exhaustive, bringing under 
 consideration, and properly classifying all the passages that relate 
 to the question in hand, must bring out the laws of prophetic usage 
 in this matter. Indeed, this method must furnish the only legitimate 
 and ultimate data for obtaining these laws of prophetic usage. In 
 this matter the Book of Ezekiel is classic ground, furnishing us 
 more data than all the other Old Testament prophets combined. 
 Hence the great length of this examination of Ezekiel. 
 
 In Zech. 1 : 7 to 6 : 8 are eight distinct visions, and in 6 : 9-15 is 
 one symbolic transaction in actual life. The broad line of distinc- 
 tion between these two classes in the very forms of statement is 
 worthy of special attention. The visions open thus: "I saw by 
 night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse," &c. (1 : 8) ; " Then 
 I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold four horses," &c. (1 : 18). 
 " I lifted up mine eyes again and looked, and behold a man with a 
 measuring line," «&c. (2: 1); "And he showed me (i. ^., caused me 
 to see) Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the 
 Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him," &c. (3 : 1) ; 
 " And the angel that talked with me came again and w\aked me, as 
 a man that is wakened out of his sleep, and said unto me," &c. (4 : 1). 
 This passage is specially valuable as showing that the state of recep- 
 tivity for prophetic visions was peculiar, sui generis. Further, "I 
 turned and lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold a flying 
 roll," &c. (5 : 1). " The angel that talked with me said, Lift up 
 now thine eyes and see what is this that goeth forth," &c. (5 : 5). 
 "And I turned and lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold four 
 chariots," &c. (6 : 1). The uniformity and precision of these state- 
 ments is certainly complete, leaving nothing more for us even to 
 
 desire. From this series of prophetic visions let us pass on to 
 
 the closing portion of this same sixth chapter. The record here is 
 very definite, yet entirely different from what we have seen in the 
 eight visions that immediately precede. Kot a word is said about 
 "lifting up his eyes," nor about " being made to see," nor does he 
 say at the commencement, " behold," nor is he " wakened out of his 
 sleep," nor is it "seen by night." But squarely over against these 
 characteristics, "the word of the Lord comes to him," just as it 
 does in the passages 1 : 1-6, and 7 : 1, tF., and 8 : 1, &c., &c. Then 
 the Lord commands him not to see something, but to do something ; 
 in this case, "Take from the captive delegation, late from Babylon, 
 eilver and gold and make crowns, and set tliem on the head of 
 
DISSERTATION I. 411 
 
 Jo&hna llie high priest," &c., to make him a symbolic type of the 
 Messiah, as Loth priest and king. And yet further, to show that 
 this was to be actually done^ it was ordered that after the coronation 
 is over and has served its present purpose, tlie crowns shall be de- 
 posited in the tem])le for a memorial to this delegation from the far 
 Eastern land, to show that nations from far were yet to come and 
 build in the temple of the Lord. Thus every special feature in each 
 class, the visions on the one hand and the symbolic actualities of 
 the prophetic life on the other, is distinctly drawn — so distinctly as 
 to leare no apology for misapprehension or mistake. 
 
 Darnel, throughout, has visions, and not symbolic acts of his 
 own. His visions embrace more or less objects having a symbolic 
 nature. This, however, does not touch the point of discrimination 
 now before us. "VYe inquire simply after the line between things 
 only seen by the prophet, and things actually done by him. Daniel, 
 in chap. 2 interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream. In chap. 7 he is 
 careful to say, " Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon 
 his bed." In chap. 8, " a vision appeared unto me." In chap 9 : 
 21-27, the man Gabriel came ; and in chaps. 10-12 the future is re- 
 vealed to him by an angel. Thus everywhere the forms of state- 
 ment are full and definite to the point before us. 
 
 In Jeremiah, the great body of communications read simply, 
 " Thus saith the Lord," and the narrative presents neither visions 
 nor symbohc acts. But chap. 24 records a vision, introduced thus : 
 "The Lord showed me," i. e., two baskets of figs ; and in chaps. 18 
 and 19 we must recognize symbolic transactions in real life. Here, 
 too, the proof of this lies in the form of the statement — "Arise 
 and go down to the potter's house, and there will I cause thee to 
 hear my words." Here is something to be done before the revela- 
 tion proper from the Lord even begins. More still to our argument 
 is the implication (v. 6) that the house of Israel are witnesses of 
 what was done by the potter. " O house of Israel, cannot I do 
 v/ith you as this potter?" This, of course, locates the scene in 
 the external world. So in chap. 19, something is to be actually done 
 in the outer world : "Go and get "thee a potter's earthen bottle, 
 and take of the ancients of the people, &c., and go forth unto the 
 valley of the son of Hinnom and proclaim there the v/ords that I 
 
 shall tell thee." A part of this message stands (vs. 8-9), and 
 
 then in V. 10 the Lord said, " Then shalt thou break the bottle in 
 the sight of the men that go with thee and say. Thus saith the 
 Lord, Even so will I break this people and this city, as one brcaketh 
 a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again." 
 
 Here we have the usual criteria of actuality. Things are to bo 
 said and done by the prophet — not merely seen in vision ; and they 
 are to be said and done before the eyes of the people. There can 
 bo no doubt that this is a symbolic transaction. It stands, there- 
 fore, as further proof of a constant divine care and purpose to dis- 
 tinguish between visions and things of actual life, done for the 
 greater efiect through tlie power of symLol. In chnp. 13, the 
 
412 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 girdle which the prophet is to "go to the Euphrates and hide 
 there in a hole of the rock," must be, according to our laws of con- 
 struction, actual, and not merely visional, although it were a long 
 way to the Euphrates for a place to hide it and let it rot. That very 
 mission to the Euphrates had its object and its special significance. 
 The people were soon to go there, and their nationality should there 
 
 decay, not to say be marred and rot, like the prophet's girdle. The 
 
 language is decisive — " Go, get thee a linen girdle ; " " take the girdle 
 and arise, go to Euphrates," &c. There is nothing said of "the 
 hand of the Lord upon him," or of being "in the Spirit," or "being 
 in vision," or of being " brought by the Spirit " to Euphrates, &c. 
 
 Hence we must interpret it of a real transaction. In Jer. 27 
 
 and 28, the bonds and yokes to be made by the Lord's command for 
 tlie neck of the prophet, and to be sent to various kings whom the 
 Lord had made subject to Nebuchadnezzar, must be construed as 
 actual, and not visional only. The command was — "Make thee 
 bonds and yokes," &c., "put them upon thy neck, and send them to 
 the king of Edom," c^c, by messengers, and " command them to say 
 unto their masters," &c., — the yoke being symbolic of the main 
 idea of the message. The false prophet Hananiah, Vvdio confronted 
 and gainsayed Jeremiah, gave a counter-message, professedly from 
 the mouth of the Lord, and then to symbolize this, took the yoke 
 from off Jeremiah's neck and broke it. For this daring and impi- 
 ous lie, the Lord doomed him to die v.'ithin the year. lie died in 
 the seventh month. These transactions must, beyond a doubt, be 
 interpreted as real, and not of vision only. 
 
 Isaiah had a vision (chap. G) indicated by — "I saw the Lord, sit- 
 ting upon a throne," &c. ; but Isa. 7 : 3, umst be actual : " go forth to 
 
 meet Ahaz." In Isa. 20 the Lord com^mands Isaiah to " loose 
 
 his sackcloth from his loins and put off his shoes, and he did so, 
 walking naked " {i. c, with no outer garment) " and barefoot." The 
 Lord plainly shows this to be a real transaction when he says — 
 "Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three 
 years for a sign and a wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia, so shall 
 the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, naked and 
 barefoot." The fact that this was to be a " sign " — a thing attract- 
 ing wonder — proves it an actuality. Besides, it might be asked — 
 What could be the use of this thing, if done in vision only? The 
 record, however, and not any judgment of our own as to the fitness 
 or propriety of the things for either vision or external symbol, must 
 bo our main authority. Everywhere we see that the Lord intended to 
 make the record itself decisive to the point of this discrimination. 
 
 Amos had visions (7 : 1, 7, 8, and 8 : 1, 2, and 9:1, ff.), always 
 indicated by the usual statements — " The Lord showed me," "I saw 
 tiie Lord," &c. 
 
 The 13ook of Jonah must be construed as actual life, and not 
 merely prophetic vision. If it be asked. Why? the answer is fur- 
 nished by this fidl induction of all the cases of either sort found in 
 the other Old Testament prophets, and may be stated briefly, thus- 
 
DISSERTATION I. 413 
 
 (1.) Tliere is not the least indication of a vision in tlie entire book. 
 (2.) The forms of statement are throughout those of a real transac- 
 tion — things done and suffered by the prophet, and not things seen. 
 (3.) The moral aim and instruction of tlie whole book demand its 
 interpretation as a scene of actual, real life. Mythical interpre- 
 ters do indeed avoid some of those things which they are fain to 
 call unnatural and impossible, by explaining this book throughout as 
 a myth, or a thing of vision only. There is no difficulty in sup- 
 posing a man to dream of being swallowed by a great fish. No; 
 but there ought to be great difficulty in overriding the plain, ob- 
 vious sense of the Book of God. A solemn responsibility rests on 
 every man to study the laws of prophetic interpretation with both 
 care and candor, and with whatever good sense the Lord may give. 
 Eollowing these laws of prophetic usage, we must make the lo- 
 custs in Joel (chap. 1 and 2) literal and real, not ideal and things of 
 vision only. For Joel does not say, "I lifted up mine eyes and 
 saw " — does not say, " The Lord showed me," or that " the hand of 
 the Lord was there upon me." He simply narrates events as 
 matters of fact. The locusts come up in successive swarms, and 
 utterly desolate the land ; the people are famished, and turn to fast- 
 ing and prayer for the divine mercy. This belongs to real life. He 
 further describes them in chap. 2 — " They look like horses ; " " they 
 run like horsemen " (v. 4) ; and, again, " they run like mighty men " 
 (v. 7) — which certainly is not saying that they are mighty men, and 
 tliat the real thing was never a locust-host, but only a raid of armed 
 
 men. Over against this, Amos saw locusts in vision, for he says 
 
 so : this is the proof. He says : " Thus hath the Lord caused me to 
 
 see, and behold, he formed locusts" (7: 1). Hence Dr. Heng- 
 
 stenberg, though an excellent, acute, and almost faultless commen- 
 tator, is manifestly wrong in assuming that the locusts of Joel were 
 never actual, but only ideal — only seen in vision. 
 
 We have now gone through the cases {all^ as I suppose) that 
 occur in the various Old Testament prophets, bearing on the point 
 before us, designedly omitting none; and we find a clear line of dis- 
 tinction drawn between the things seen and shown in vision only, 
 and those which were done in the outward life for syrabohc or 
 other purposes. These distinctions lie not mainly — indeed, scarcely 
 at all — in the nature of the things as convenient to be done, or as 
 impossible, but in the very foriwoi the statements. In other 
 words, the Lord has been specially careful to leave us in no doubt 
 as to what was actually done by his prophets on the one hand, and 
 what was only seen by them in vision on the other. 
 
 Let us now come to the case of Hosea (chapters 1 and 3). Was 
 his " taking a lewd wife " — lewd either before and after marriage, 
 or after only — a real transaction ; or was it only a thing seen in 
 vision? Were those three children, and their significant names, 
 
 things of vision only, or actualities of real life? The laws of 
 
 interpretation are already educed from tlie usage of all the other 
 prophets, with whom such cases occur throughout the Old Testa 
 
4.14 DISSERTATION I. 
 
 ment. It only remains to apply them here. (1.) There is not the 
 
 least intimation that these things are in vision only. He does not 
 say — "The Lord showed me," does not say "I saw," does not hint 
 that " the hand of the Lord is npon him," and that he is " in vision " 
 or " in the Spirit," so that he might see such things done in the 
 prophetic ecstasy. This essential evidence of a mere vision is al- 
 together wanting. (2.) On the other hand, the language of com- 
 mand is explicit : " Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms," &c. 
 The entire narrative lacks not one of the features of an actual 
 transaction. The children are horn in the usual succession of time 
 (see vs. 3, 8), and each has its significant name. So also chap. 3 is 
 the natural description of real life. Let it also he carefully noted 
 
 that in all this the prophet is a doer^ not a seer only. (3.) The 
 
 reason why God requires this of his prophet is specially given, viz., 
 hccause " the land has committed great whoredom in departing from 
 the Lord." There was therefore a fitness in having this fact syni- 
 bolized in the prophet's family state, and also in having other im- 
 portant facts symbolized in the significant names of his children. 
 And it may have been a further reason that the Lord would have 
 his prophet sympathize with himself, and appreciate more keenly 
 the feehngs of the divine mind under such abuse. 
 
 This naturally completes the argument, so far as concerns the 
 principles and laws of prophetic interpretation. That usage which 
 rightly gives law to language is all on one side, and if the authority 
 of this law be admitted at all, can leave no doubt as to the right in- 
 terpretation in this particular case. It need only be added that 
 
 if this law of language — prophetic usage— be discarded in this case, 
 it may be in any and every other, and we are all afloat, with no 
 
 principles of interpretation to guide us. It amounts to little to 
 
 say in abatement or exception to this, that we can fall back upon 
 our own sense of the fitness or unfitness of the things to be done in 
 fact, using our discretion and interpreting that as done in vision only 
 which seems to us unfit to be done in fact. For the vital question 
 is — Does God leave us to this exercise of our own discrimination, 
 giving us no other data for determining the sense of his words? 
 Does prophetic usage show numerous cases, or indeed any one clear 
 case, in which there is only this discretion to guide us ? The examin- 
 ation here presented should suffice (it would seem) to prove the neg- 
 ative. The question might be pressed — Would it be safe to leave 
 
 with men the discretion and responsibility of deciding this question 
 by their own sense of fitness ? The care God has taken not to leave 
 the question to this umpire should suffice to show that he, at least, 
 
 has not thought it wise to do so. Yet, though this may seem 
 
 clear, yet some excellent men and able interpreters hold the opinion 
 that Ilosea took this wife Gomer no otherwise than in vision, and 
 had these children born to hitn only in the sense of dreaming it — • 
 seeing them so born in pi-ophetic vision. Their main reliance in 
 support of this view is in the idea that marrying a "wife of whore- 
 doms " and having "children of whoredoms" i}i real I'lfe^ must be 
 
DISSERTATION II. 415 
 
 immoral, and therefore that God could not command Ilosca to do 
 
 it. 1 replj, (1.) The force of this objection is mainly obviated by 
 
 the supposition (entirely admissible in view of the language and 
 history) that Gomer, though of previously lewd habits, had become 
 professedly penitent and reformed, and was accepted by the prophet 
 on these professions of penitence and promises of conjugal fidelity. 
 The marriage covenant would of course in her case involve these 
 
 promises. Like Israel, in relation to her covenant God, she too 
 
 may have lapsed again, and so have symbolized the more forcibly 
 
 the course of that guilty nation toward God. (2.) It need not 
 
 be claimed that Hosea, or any other man, would choose to marry a 
 woman of previously bad life, even upon any professions of amend- 
 ment, however fair. The special command of the Lord in this case 
 assumes that the thing required was a hardship — a thing that no 
 good man would be likely to do, save under a positive command 
 
 from God and for a very special purpose. (3.) In this view of it 
 
 the transaction cannot be regarded as immoral in the prophet. 
 Hence the moral objection against it as a reality, loses its force. 
 
 The application of these principles of interpretation to that sys- 
 tem which converts the simple narratives of Scripture into mythSy 
 will be readily seen. It must suflSce here only to suggest it. 
 
 DISSEETATIOjS^ II. 
 
 ON TWO MILLENNIAL THEOEIES. 
 
 TnE theories here discussed are : 
 
 I. That the Old Testament prophecies of the millennium treat 
 of the heavenly as well as of the millennial state ; that in giving a 
 general view of the kingdom of the Messiah, they describe first in 
 the order of time, the New Testament age and its peculiarities as 
 contrasted with the Jewish ; but that then, in addition to this, they 
 pass over by analogy, or by a natural continuation of the same 
 theme, to give also the eternal blessedness of the saints in heaven 
 after the resurrection and general judgment. 
 
 II. The second theory denies all reference of these prophecies 
 to the jSTew Testament age, and locates their fulfilment exclusively, 
 as to time, after the resurrection and the judgment day; as to 
 space^ upon this earth, purified by the fires of the last day, and made 
 the eternal abode of the righteous. This theory excludes all promise 
 
 of the conversion of the world to Christ. The principal passages 
 
 here referred to as millennial are — in the minor prophets — Joel 8 : 
 17-21 ; Amos 9 : 11-15 ; Mic. 4:1-8; Zeph. 3 : 9-20 ; Zech. 14 : 
 
 6-9, 16, 20, 21. In other prophets, Isa. 4: 2-6, and 9 : 1-7, and 
 
 11, and 85, and 54, and 60, and 66: 18-24; Jcr. 31: 31-40; and 
 Ezek. 36 : 25-28, and 37 : 21-28, and 47 : 1-12. 
 
 Taking up first in order the theory first named above, let us uoto 
 
41 G DISSERTATION II. 
 
 the main argiimonts acTcluced in support of it, viz. :- 1. These 
 
 prophecies descnbc a state too lioly to be realized in such a v/orld 
 
 as this, under its present physical laws. 2. The state described 
 
 is too long to be exhausted in this world, inasmuch as it is repeat- 
 edly said to continue forever. 3. The Old Testament reveals no 
 
 heaven, unless it be in these prophecies. The results of Messiah's 
 work for our race are exceedingly incomplete without a somewhat 
 full revelation of its great consummation in an eternal heaven for 
 the saints. Hence we have a right to expect a revelation of heaven 
 
 in tliese prophecies. Replying to these arguments in their order, 
 
 I admit, as to the first, that the language implies a high standard of 
 holiness, very much in advance of the average under the Jewish 
 dispensation, with which it would of necessity be tacitly compared. 
 
 Thus (Joel 3: IV) — "Jerusalem shall be holy; ancl there shall 
 
 no stranger pass through her any more." Zeph. 3 : 9 — " For 
 
 then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all 
 call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent." 
 
 Zech. 14 : 20, 21 — " In that day shall there be upon the bells 
 
 of the horses liollness unto the Lord, &c. ; and in that day there 
 shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts." 
 
 See also Isa. 4: 3, 4, and 11 : 0, and 35 : 8, and 54: 13, and GO : 
 
 18-21 ; and Jer. 31 : 31-34; and Ezek. 37 : 23. 
 
 But this feature of these prophecies does not necessarily carry 
 
 their fulfilment over to the heavenly state, because (1.) The 
 
 gospel system provides for a high degi'ee of holiness in the present 
 life, especially through Christ's intercessions for his people, his 
 manifested presence with them, and the indwelling of his Spirit 
 with power in their hearts. Hence Christ himself says : " I pray 
 that thou wouldest keep them from the evil " (John 17: 15). " My 
 grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weak- 
 ness" (2 Cor. 12: 9). Paul testifies : "I can do all things through 
 
 Christ who strengtheneth me (Phil. 4 : 13). (2.) Those prophecies 
 
 wliich give us the largest promises of spiritual life and power indicate 
 their own fulfilment in the present world and in the New Testament 
 age. Some of them are cited by inspired apostles with this under- 
 standing, e. g. (Joel 2 : 28-32), the great promise of the eifusion of 
 the Spirit which Peter affirmed began to be fulfilled at the opening 
 of the gospel age (Acts 2:16, tf. ; also Gen. 22 : 18), " In thy seed (Je- 
 sus Christ) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." This Pe- 
 ter applies (xicts 3 : 25, 2G) : " Unto you first, God having raised up 
 his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of 
 you from your iniquities." This, then, is a case showing lioic all the 
 
 nations are to be blessed in Christ. So the great promise of the 
 
 new covenant, which stands at tlie head of the predictions of emi- 
 nent hoUiiess (Jer. 31 : 31-34) is cited (Ileb. 8 : 8-13) as being the 
 very genius and soul of the gospel dispensation. That extraor- 
 dinary promise of moral cleansing by the Spirit (Ezek. 36 : 25-28), 
 " I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ; from 
 all your filthiness will I cleanse you ; I will put my Spirit within 
 
DISSERTATION II. 417 
 
 you and cause you to walk in my statutes," &c., proceeds to say: 
 " And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your Mhers " — aa 
 much as to say — These promises belong to earth and not to heaven ; 
 to this world in its present state, and not to the next, after these 
 
 heavens and this earth shall have passed away. (3.) While the 
 
 New Testament descriptions of the heavenly state affirm an ahso 
 lute perfection, and make it sure by the beatific presence of tlio 
 Saviour, the prophecies in question fall manifestly short of this, 
 especially so if we may even proximately estimate the holiness they 
 promise by the experience of any period of the gospel age which 
 
 has thus far transpired. Thus the New Testament witnesses of 
 
 the heavenly state : " We know that when he (Christ) shall appear, 
 we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is " (1 John 2 : 2). 
 
 " Neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the 
 
 angels^ and are the children of God, being children of the resurrec- 
 tion" (Luke 20: 36). The Old Testament prophecies fall some- 
 what short of this. 
 
 2. I pass to the second argument, viz., that these prophecies 
 apply not to the earthly state, but to the heavenly, because they 
 
 represent it as being eternal. To this I answer : (1.) It may be 
 
 admitted that possibly a few of these passages conceive of the Mes- 
 siah's reign as holding over beyond this world to the heavenly — an 
 absolutely eternal reign — yet without giving any special account of 
 
 that heavenly state. Supposing this to be true, all tlie specific 
 
 features of this millennial state, except its absolute eternity, belong 
 to this world and to time ; so that this admission abstracts nothing 
 
 from the glories of the millennial state. And yet it would bo 
 
 somewhat difficult to find the passages that clearly hold over to tlie 
 future world. If you say they are Dan. 2 : 44, and 7: 14, 18, 27, 
 the negative side of the description, " shall not be left to other peo- 
 ple, but shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms"— 
 ''which shall not pass away" (supplanted by some conquering 
 power) ; and the fact that the saints shall take the kingdom and 
 possess it forever;" also, that it is the kingdom and dominion 
 iinder the "whole heaven, not in heaven^ go for to show that the 
 thought here is specially of this world, and not of the eternal one. 
 
 Again, Micah says : " The Lord shall reign over them in Mount 
 
 Zion from henceforth even forever ; " but the reigning in Mount 
 Zion, and the previous " assembling of her that halteth and her 
 that was cast far oft'," hold the mind to this earthly state as the 
 
 thing specially in view. (2.) Many of these descriptions forbid 
 
 us to think of an absolute eternity. Thus (Joel 3 : 20), '• But Judah 
 shall dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation " 
 — Avhere the last clause, being parallel, is explanatory, and assumes 
 a succession of generations not to be thought of in the heavenly 
 state.— — So the parallel clause in Isa. GO: 15 — "I will make thee 
 
 an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations." Note also the 
 
 indications of time in the " new heavens and new earth " of Isa. 
 65 : 22, where you might expect an absolutely eternal state — " Foi 
 18* 
 
418 DISSERTATION II. 
 
 as llie (lays of a tree are the clays of ray people, and mitie elect 
 
 sliall long enjoy the work of their hands." The passage (Ezek. 37 : 
 
 21-28) expresses the duration of its events by "forever" (v. 25), 
 and l)y "for evermore " (vs. 26, 28), hut it also locates the Lord's 
 ])eople "in the land upon the mountains of Israel ; " attirms that 
 "the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel," as- 
 suming that some heathen still live on the earth and are cognizant 
 of her condition ; and also declares — " I will set my sanctuary in 
 the midst of them for evermore " — " yea, I will be their God and 
 they shall be my people" — a passage which Paul (2 Cor. 6:16) 
 manifestly assumes to have its fulfilment in the Christian age of 
 the world. Thus it might be shown that many of these proph- 
 ecies which affirm eternal duration most strongly embrace points 
 which locate their fulfilment on earth, in time, and not in heaven 
 
 during the eternal state. (3.) None of these prophecies give us 
 
 any marks by which we can distinguish between what belongs to 
 this world and what to the next, the heavenly. The New Testa- 
 ment descriptions of heaven never fail to furnish these marks of 
 discrimination, as is apparent in Matt. 25 : 34 ; Luke 16 : 22, 25, 26 ; 
 and even in Rev. 21 and 22, which chapters follow the final judg- 
 ment: the first heaven and the first earth have passed away; the 
 holy city is the Ifew Jerusalem, built in heaven, and has no temple 
 in it ; the wicked are all in the lake that burneth with fire ; the 
 
 righteous enjoy the beatific presence of God and the Lamb. 
 
 Criteria of this sort are wholly wanting in the millennial proph- 
 ecies of the Old Testament. (4.) Unlike the New Testament 
 
 descriptions of heaven, these prophecies give us no intimation that 
 their scenes transpire after death, the resurrection, and the general 
 
 judgment. (5.) The prof^hetic state which is said to continue 
 
 "forever," is in many cases described with Jewish costume; in 
 other words, the Jews dwell in their own land, with their temple 
 and ritual institutions complete; the Gentiles come up to Jeru- 
 salem to build and beautify that temple, and to worship therein — 
 all legitimate as descriptions of the millennial state on earth, but 
 scarcely admissible as descriptions of the real heaven beyond death 
 
 and the judgment. (6.) The New Testament docs not locate heaven 
 
 upon this earth, but elsewliere. Ahvays it is a place to which resi- 
 dents of earth are said to '■'■ go " and to ^ulepart ; " of which Christ 
 said, " I go to prepare a place for you." But of this more fully here- 
 after. (Y.) The only uniform and reliable principle by which the 
 
 terms "everlasting, "forever," &c., can be explained, is that 
 which makes them relative, i. e., as long as the nature of the subject 
 which they qualify will admit. Thus " eternal punishment," under 
 the government of God must be as long as God's government ex- 
 ists;"" everlasting mountains" will stand while the world stands; 
 " an ordinance forever " will remain only so long as the system to 
 which it pertains. It is only on this principle that the Jewish fes- 
 tivals (Lev. 23 : 14, 21, 31, 41) are everlasting, or the Aaronic priest- 
 hood (Ex. 40 : 15 and Num. 25 : 13), for they ceased with the passing 
 
DISSERTATION II. 419 
 
 flway ot the system of wliich they formed a part. On tliis prin- 
 ciple the millennial *' forever " would be indefinitely long, yet would, 
 or at least might close, in that special form, with the end of thig 
 world. 
 
 3. To the argument that the Old Testament reveals nothing of 
 the heavenly state except in llicse prophecies ; that the results of 
 Messiah's reign are altogether incomplete without a somewhat full 
 revelation of its heavenly state ; and that therefore we have a right 
 to expect something definite of heaven in these Old Testament 
 
 prophecies — I answer; (1.) The first statement is not strictly 
 
 correct. The real heaven stands forth revealed in such passages as 
 the following: "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy pres- 
 ence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for 
 
 evermore " (Ps. IG : 11). " As for me, I shall behold thy face in 
 
 righteousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy like- 
 ness" (Ps. 17: 15). — "Thou shalt guide rae Avith thy counsel, and 
 afterward receive me to glory. Wliom have I in heaven but thee, 
 and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh 
 and my heart faileth ; but God is the strength of my heart, and my 
 
 portion forever " (Ps. 73 : 2i-2G). "Many of them that sleep in 
 
 the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
 to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall 
 shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they tiiat turn many 
 
 to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (2.) Of the 
 
 other points, I remark, («.) that the revelations of the Old Testa- 
 ment must be admitted to be incomplete compared with those of 
 the New, especially in respect to the future world ; the resurrec- 
 tion, the final judgment, and the ultimate destiny of the righteous 
 and of the wicked. (b.) It is rather the genius of the Old Testa- 
 ment to reveal the great fact of a present moral government over 
 nations, and also largely over individuals as well — administered in 
 this world by present rewards and penalties ; and then to leave the 
 future destiny of men to l)e inferred from this great fact of i^resent 
 
 retribution. (c.) Eemarkably, the future existence of the soul, 
 
 the future blessedness of the righteous, and misery of the wicked, 
 are rather assumed than affirmed^ e. f/., the existence of the soul 
 after death, in Exodus 3:6: "I am Ihe God of thy fathers, the 
 God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Our 
 divine Lord teaches us how to bring out from this passage the 
 underlying assumption of the soul's continued existence (Matt. 23 : 
 32): "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" — where 
 ^''clead " must be taken in the Sadducean sense — non-existent. Jehovah 
 could not be the .God of nonentities; hence Abraliam, Isaac, and 
 
 Jacob are shown to be still living. So the resurrection is assumed 
 
 to be known in those striking passages where it is used as a figure 
 to represent analogous changes in the state of the nations, viz., Isa. 
 26 : 14, 19 : " They " (God's enemies) are dead, they shall not live ; 
 they are deceased, they shall not rise." " Thy dead men shall live, 
 together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, yo 
 
420 DISSERTATION n. 
 
 that dv^ell in dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herhs, and the 
 
 earth shall cast out the dead." Or the well-known passage, Ezek. 
 
 87: 1-14, the vision of tlie valley of dry bones, raised from the 
 dead, and figuratively representing how God revives the hope and 
 
 the national spirit of his captive people. Dan. 12 : 2, recently 
 
 cited, comes nearer to a formal affirmation of the resurrection than 
 any thing else in the Old Testament, and yet it was not the design 
 of that passage to affirm the universal resurrection. The Old 
 Testament nowhere teaches this doctrine in a didactic, elementary 
 way, as our Saviour does (John 5 : 28, 29). It is quietly assumed. 
 So the future blessedness of the righteous is assumed — in- 
 ferrible from his blessedness here in time — and on the same princi- 
 ple, the final woe of the wicked. (d.) It should not be forgotten 
 
 that according to the New Testament, Jesus Christ " brought fife 
 and immortality to light through the gospel." This cannot mean 
 less than that life and immortality "were not really Iroiight to light 
 until Christ came. Those great truths had lain in comparative 
 
 obscurity, with only dim and flickering rays falling around. 
 
 {e.) It is not altogether safe or wise for us to assume that certain 
 things ought to appear in the Old Testament. The Lord has his 
 own views and plans as to the order and method of his revelations 
 to man. 
 
 Second TJicory. — This theory denies all reference of these proph- 
 ecies to the New Testament age, and locates their fulfilment as to 
 time^ after the resurrection and judgment day; — as to space^ upon 
 this earth purified by the fires of the last day, and made the eternal 
 abode of the righteous. It excludes all promise of the conversion 
 of the world to Christ. 
 
 Of this I have to say — 1. If it be true, it is doubtless susceptible 
 of very clear and strong proof. The points it assumes to be true are 
 entirely tangible. If taught in the Scriptures at all, they would be 
 
 likely to appear in tangible forms. 2. A theory which robs the 
 
 Church of God of so many of her glorious hopes for the future 
 prosperity of Zion, and for the Saviour's joy in the travail of his 
 soul ; — which smites down so many of her best impulses and motives 
 to missionary zeal and self-sacrifice, ought to be well grounded, or 
 else not be believed at all. A theory which so eclipses the 
 glories of heaven as well as the best hopes for our present earth, 
 can have but small hold, it would seem, on our Christian sympa- 
 thies. Yet, if it be true, let us bear it in submission, though in 
 sorrow ; but if it be not true, let us hurl it from us as the robber 
 
 of our best heritage. 3. This theory cannot be true and must be 
 
 false, because the conversion of the world to Christ is taught and 
 
 implied in the word of God most abundantly. (1.) It is thex>lain 
 
 significance of those prophecies which are clothed most fully in 
 Jewish costume and figures, representing Israel and Judah in the 
 gospel age as dwelling in their own land with their temple standing 
 and ritual service entire; and Gentiles coming up from all the ends 
 of the earth to worship the one Lord there, Sec notes on IIos, 
 
DISSERTATION II. 421 
 
 1 : 10, 11, and on Zecli. 12 : 1-9. (2.) In another class of proph< 
 
 ecies wliicli have far less of Jewish costume, the same great truth 
 is undeniably taug:ht ; — e. g.^ Ps. 2 : 8 — " I will give thee (the Messiah) 
 the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of th-e 
 earth for thy possession." Ps. 22 : 27, 28 : " All the ends of the 
 earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds 
 of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the 
 Lord's, and he is Governor among the nations." Ps. 72:8, 17: 
 "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river 
 to the ends of the earth." .... " And men shall be blessed in him; 
 
 all nations shall call him blessed." Mai. 1 : 11 : "For from the 
 
 rising 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 to my name, and a pure offering ; for my name shall be 
 great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." See also Gen. 
 
 22: 18, and 49:10. (3.) Such passages as Isa. 52:13-15, and 
 
 53 : 10-12, show that the Messiah shall be gloriously successful 
 relatively to Satan and sin in the very work of saving men— shall 
 be exalted high in triumph because of his great humiliation and 
 sufferings, and in view of the fruits thereof; " shall sprinkle many 
 nations ;" " shall see of the travail of his soul till he is satisfied ;^' 
 shall have the great for his portion, and a large share of the spoil 
 
 after the battle with sin and Satan is fought through.- Gen. 3 : 
 
 15 runs in the same strain, confirming the glorious truth that the 
 masses of the human family are to be ultimately for Christ and not 
 for Satan. Of course, no such result can be without an indefinitely 
 
 long millennial state upon this earth. (4.) The New Testament 
 
 confirms this view by teaching the same thing. See Ptom. 11 : 15, 
 25, 26 : " For if the casting away of them le the reconcihng of the 
 world, what sliall the receiving of tlicm le, but life from the dead? 
 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this 
 mystery, lest ye should be Avise in your own conceits ; that bhnd- 
 ness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles 
 be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved : as it is written, 
 There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away 
 ungodliness from Jacob." And Kev. 11 : 15 : " And the seventh 
 angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, 
 The kingdoms of this world are become tlie Mngdoms of our Lord, 
 and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." These 
 predictions are exceedingly definite and exidicit. It need not 
 surprise us that tlieir number is no greater. The ITew Testament 
 writers believed in Old Testament prophecy, and held its testimony 
 
 to this point to be abundantly adequate. (5.) Yet further, the 
 
 New Testament most fully endorses the application of tliese proph- 
 ecies to the gospel age, and especially to the conversion of the 
 Gentiles, and to the ultimate union of Jews and Gentiles in the same 
 earthly Church and kingdom of God. It is not easy to conceive 
 how they could more strongly endorse both this interpretation of 
 
i22 DISSERTATION IT. 
 
 these prophecies aixl its reliability, than by quoting tliem as proof 
 of these very points. 
 
 Here let us note how Paul (Acts 13 : 47) quotes Isa. 49 : 6 : "We 
 turn to the Gentiles ; for so hath the Lord commanded us : I have 
 set thee (the Messiah) to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou 
 shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth." 
 
 The chapter here quoted from is one of the most decisive and 
 rich prophecies of the world's conversion. Note also how James 
 (Acts 15: 15-18) cites Amos 9: 11, 12 : "Simon (Peter) hath de- 
 clared how God at first did visit the Gentiles, &c., and to this agree 
 the words of the prophet, as it is written : After this I will return, 
 and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down ; 
 and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, that the 
 I'esidue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon 
 whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these 
 things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of 
 the world ; " as if he would intimate that God had planned the con- 
 version of the Gentiles from the very creation of man. In the 
 
 same way Paul (Rom. 11 : 26, 27) quotes Isa. 59: 20, and in Rom. 
 15: 18-12 quotes several prophecies, and among them Isa. 11 — one 
 
 of the first-class prophecies of the conversion of the world. Thus 
 
 do the apostles, after being fully taught by the Spirit, see in these 
 prophecies that God had purposed and foretold the conversion of 
 the Gentiles to Christ, and the ultimate union of both Jews and 
 Gentiles in the Christian Church. They make the same use of 
 these prophecies that we ought to make now, as the ground of faith 
 and the fountain of impulse to self-denying labor for the gathering 
 of all nations into the Messiah's kingdom. It never entered their 
 mind that these prophecies teach nothing about the conversion of 
 men, but only promise a sort of heavenly paradise on this earth 
 after probation shall have closed. They never cite these prophecies 
 as teaching and proving this modern doctrine. They do continually 
 cite them to prove that, through the eifusions of the Spirit and the 
 preaching of the gospel. Gentiles and Jews shall be converted to 
 Christ. That they expected the fulfilment of these prophecies in 
 the present world by means of these gospel agencies, the divine and 
 the human, is beyond all doubt. Hence, if their testimony be ad- 
 initted, it decides the question. 
 
 4. If it be fully admitted that these prophecies pledge the conver- 
 sion of the world to Christ, the further question respecting the locahty 
 of the future heavenly state loses most of its importance. Not all of 
 it, however, for the natural tendency of the notion that the future 
 heaven is to be on this earth, is material as opposed to spiritual — not 
 to say even sensual and carnal — exceedingly unlike the tendency and 
 influence of those New Testament descriptions which make heaven 
 consist essentially in being "forever with the Lord," and in so 
 "beholding his glory" that we become thereby forever "like hhn." 
 
 See 1 John 3: 2, and Thess. 4: 17, It may not be superfluous, 
 
 therefore, to say, that the evidence in the Scriptures to prove that 
 
DISSERTATION II. 423 
 
 this earth is to be the future heaven of the saints is exceedingly 
 
 meagre. The heaven of the Scriptures is ah-eady in existence, 
 
 long before this earth is piuitied. Myriads have ah'cady gone before 
 to that other better world. Everywhere in the Scriptures it is a 
 place to which one goes from this world. As said by our Lord : 
 "In my father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place 
 for you." (Did he mean by these words that he was then going to 
 burn this ^corld up, and purify it for a heaven ?) He adds : " I will 
 ocme again, and {not dwell with you on this earth, but) receive you 
 to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also " (John 14 : 2, 3.) 
 
 Paul "desired to dejjcirt^ and to be with Christ." At the very 
 time when the theory in question would plant the saints in this 
 glorified earth, Paul assigns them a very diftercnb location : " Them 
 also that sleep in Jesus will God Iring iDitliMm^ i. <?., up to heaven ; 
 and those who are then alive (not having tasted death) shall bo 
 eavgJtt itp together with" — the previously dead now raised — "in 
 the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air," and "they inherit the king- 
 dom prejjared for them (not at tJie end of the world, but) from the 
 
 foundation of the world." But it is claimed that Isaiah, Peter, and 
 
 John teach this doctrine under the phrase, " The new heavens and 
 the new earth" (Isa. G5 : 17, 18 ; 2 Pet. 3 : 13, and Rev. 21 and 22.) 
 In few words as possible, I reply : («.) The important declara- 
 tions in Isaiah are : " Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; 
 the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. . . . But 
 be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for, behold, I 
 
 create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy," &c. This is 
 
 obviously a great moral change, and not a physical one, as when 
 Paul says, "If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation." 
 (This is the original.) Isaiah himself explains it to mean " I create 
 Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy," i. e., a cause or ground 
 of joy to all who love God and holiness. The context still further 
 proves that the prophet speaks of the millennial state in this world 
 of probation as produced under the gospel, and not of the state of 
 
 retribution subsequent to the resurrection and final judgment. 
 
 (h.) Peter, having described the burning of the earth and the works 
 that are therein, adds, " I\ evertheless we, according to his promise, 
 look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness." But this falls far short of affirming that the saints shall 
 dwell forever in this new earth. It just as much affirms that they 
 shall dwell forever in these new heavens. It does not specially 
 affirm either. Hence this text will scarcely suffice for a corner- 
 stone of any entire system of doctrine respecting the future location 
 of the saints. There are too many doubtful points in its interpre- 
 tation. It is doubtful what Peter refers to by " ?iis promise.'''' He 
 may refer to some unwritten promise from the Saviour's own hps ; 
 
 or to Isa. G5: 17; or possibly to Ecv. 21. {c.) John, in Pev. 21 
 
 and 22, most distinctly locates tlie saints before and around the 
 throne of God and of the Lamb ; represents them as dwelling in a 
 great and glorious city — the new Jerusalem (which manifestly 
 
424: DISSERTATION II. 
 
 must be taken as Jewish costume) — but is very far indeed from 
 affirming that the location of this heavenly state is on this earth. 
 Indeed, he does not tell us where this holy city is located. It was 
 no part of his design to give its celestial geography. 
 
 If these brief suggestions shall conduce to save the millennial 
 prophecies from the perverting influence of unfounded theories, and 
 leave them to stand forth before the Church in their full strength 
 *nd glory, my main purpose will be accomplished, p 
 
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