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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at|http: //books .google .com/I t \ i\ »«« >■■••■ '•■•■■■■•«•_ • ■••■•••■•I • •••••IM • ■••■■ •■! »■«•■«•■ / • J' *•■•■••■*• tks>«»sa»aa ••■•■•■•8, ■••■■■•St 88ts,i; •••W >!■•■• *•••'»•• ••«■•«•• I ■ ■•! *■ ttt» ••■< ••■■•»*•'.«« >*^*s: :?*••• 1^ l^»! ssv^i^sa fil?SIS K«««^ *^^«1 ■ \ 3S is-ho THE MINOE PEOPHETS, WITH A COMMENTA EXPLANATORY AND PRACTICAL AND INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SEVERAL BOOKS. THE REV. E."* B^ PUSEY, D. D. BEOIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. Vol. II. MICAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, ZEPHANIAH, HAGQAI, ZEOHARiAH AND MALACHI. Open thou mine eyea^ that I may behold vxmdrout things out qf thy tou;.— Pi. cxix. 18. NEW YORK: FUNK & WAGNALLS, Pubushebs, 10 AND 12 Dey Street, 1885. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, By FUNK A WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. CL ( CONTENTS. I. MICAH. INTRODUCTION. His name : a villager : his date : earlier than Isaiah, yet prophesied under Ahaz and in beginning of Hezekiah's reign : divisions of his book : simplicity bat vividness and energy of his style. His extreme tenderness. His use of the Pentateuch, and use of his book by later prophets, .... pp. 5-14 COMMENTARY.— Chaptbrs I.— VII pp. 15-104 11. NAHUM. INTRODUCTION. His date : date of the conquest of No, mentioned by him. Strength of Nineveh : its history : its might enlarged, until within 22 years of its fall. Suddenness of its foil. It8 rivers were its strength and weakness. Commerce continued its old course on the opposite side of the river, but itself i>eri8hed. Psendo-crltidsms as to his style, pp. 105-128 CX)MMENTARy.-CHAPTEBa I.— HI i ... pp. 129-164 III. HABAKKUK. INTRODUCTION. Prophet of faith : earlier than Zephaniah : pseudo-criticism as to his language. Suddenness of the rise and foil of the strength of Babylon : mistake of Assyria in placing Chaldees there. Magnificence of Habakkuk's style, . . . pp. 165-177 COMMENTARY.-CHAPTEBS I.— Ill pp. 179-223 IV. ZEPHANIAH. INTRODUCTION. Correspondence with Habakkuk. His date, use of former prophetA. Distinct prophecies. Myth of critics as to Scythians being formidable to the Jews. Vividness and tenderness, ......... pp. 225-234 COMMENTARY.-<3haptkr8 I.— IH pp. 235-291 Moabite stone, translation of its inscription, ...... pp. 291-292 VOL. II. 3 4 CONTENTS. V. HAGGAI. INTRODUCTION. Lukewarmness of his times ; greatness of the repentance wrought through him. Enei^y of his style, .......... pp. 293-29T (X)MM£NTAKY.— Chaptebs I.— II. pp. 280-921 VI. ZECHARIAH. INTRODUCTION. Called early to his office. Imaginative richness In both parts of his book: correspondence between them: references in both to prophets before the captivity: correspondence in language and style and rhythm; Captivity spoken of as past In later chapters also : identity of authorship : author of these chapters, had he lived before the captivity, would have been one of the false prophets condemned by Jeremiah. German criticism, qn grround of philology and history, assigns dates varying by nearly 500 years ; alleged grounds of prse- exile date, or of the relation of c. xi. to times of Menahem. Arguments of phil- ology for weightier, allowed to be invalid as to Plato. Table of discrepant dates assigned to Zecharlah by modem Oerman critics, ..... pp. 323-338 COMMENTARY.-Chaptebs I--XIV. . . , pp. 830-450 VII. MALACHL INTRODUCTION. His date : characteristics of his call to repentance ; co-opemtcd effectively In Nehemiah's reformation. Poetry would have been misplaced in his prophecy . pp. 461-461 COMMENTARY.— Chapters I.-IV. pp. 465^504 INTEODUOTIOIJ TO THE PEOPHET MICAH. MiCAH, orMicaiah, this Morasthite, was so called, probably, in order to di^stingiiish him from hiB great predecessor, Mieaiah, son of Imlah, in the reign of Ahab. His name was spoken in its fuller form, by the elders of the land whose words Jeremiah has preserved. And in that fuller form his name is known, where the Greek and Latin translations of the Scriptures are used •. By the Syrians, and by tne Jews ^^ he is still csUled, as by us, Micah. The fullest and original form is Micalahu, " who is like the Lord ? " In this fullest form, it is the name of one of the Levites sent by Jehoshaphat to teach the people °, as also of the mother of king Asa '^, (the same name servinsf sometimes l^th for men and women). Then according to the habit of abridging names, in all countriei}, and especially those of which the proper name of the Lord is a pai-t, it is diversely abridged into Micaihu, Micahu*, whence Micah is readily formed, on the same rule as Micaiah itself from Micalahu. The forms are all found inJiflerently. The idolatrous Levite in the time of the Judges ', and the son of Imlah *, are both called in the same chapter Micaihu and Micah; the father of one of Josiah*B officers is called Micaiah in the book of Kings'^, Micah in the Chron- icles*. The Prophet's name, like those of Joshua, Elijah,' Elisha, Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, was • Mixoiaf is used by the LXX. in Jer. xxvi. 18 and Mioah i. 1, as also in tho other places where the name occurs, except Neh. xi. 17, 22, where for K3*0 thev have Mi^a. Josephus calls both prophets Mix<uaff Micah son of Imlah, Ant. 8. 14. 6. and our Srophet, Ant. 10. 6. 2. The Vulgate uses for both, [ichseas. ^ They substituted HD^D in the Krl in Jeremiah. significant. Joshua's, we know, was changed of set purpose *. The rest seem to have been fiven in God's Providence, or taken by the *rophets, in order to enunciate truths con- cerning God, opposed to the idolatries or self- dependence of the people. But the name of Micah or Micaiah, (as the elders of the land * called him on a solemn occasion, some 120 Years afterward) contained more than teach- ing. It was cast into the form of a challenge. Wlu> i8 like the Lord t The form of words had been impressed on Israel by the song of Moses after the deliverance at the Bed se^i ™. In the days of Elijah and that first Micniah, the strife between God and man, the true Prophet and the false, had been ended at the battle of Ramoth-Gilead ; it ceased for a time, in the reigns of Jehu and his suc- cessors, because in coasequence of his partial obedience, God, by Elisha and Jonah, pro- mised them good : it was again resumed, as the promise to Jehu was expiring, and God's prophets had anew to proclaim a message oi woe. Ha^st thou, found fne, 0 mine enemy " ? and, ° / hate Aim, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil, Ahab's words as to Elijah and Micaiah, were the types of the subsequent contradiction of the false pro- phets to Ilosea and Amos, which closed only with the destruction of Samaria. Now, in the time of the later Micaiah, were the first dawnings of the same strife in Judah, which • 2Chr. xvii.7. «Ib. xiii. 2. « lb. xviii. 8. Keth. ' ^n"^'?? Jud. xvii. 1, 4 ; HD'P 5, 8, 9, 10. i^rfj'D 1 Kings xxii. 9,2Chr. xviii. 7; nD*p2 Chr. xviii. 14. h 2 Kings xxii. 12. « 2 Chr. xxxiv. 20. * Num. xiii. 16. » Jer. xxvi. 17, 18. ■ Ex. XV. 11. > 1 Kings xxi. 20. • lb. xxii. 8, 18. 5 INTRODUCTION TO hastened and brought about the destruction of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, which re-ap- peared after the Captivity p and was the im- mediate cause of the second destruction under the Komans *!. Micah, as he dwells on the meaning of names generally, so, doubtless, it is in allusion to his own. that, at the close of his prophecy, he ushers m his announcement of Goa's incomparable mercv with the words *", Who is a God like uiUo Thee f Before him, whatever disobedience there was to God's law in Judah, there was no systematic, oi^nized, opposition to Hisprophets. There is i;o token of it in Joel, from the times of Micah it is never missing. We find it in each prophet (however brief the remains of some are), who prophesied directly to Judah, not in Isaiah only, but in Habakkuk ' and Zephaniah K It deepened, as it hastened toward its decision. The nearer God's judg- ments were at hand, the more obstinately the false prophets denied that they would come. The system of false prophecy, which rose to its height in the time of Jeremiah, which met and thwarted him at every step ^, and deceived those who wished to be deceived, was dawning in the time of Micah. False prophe(*y arose in Judah from the self-same cause whence it had arisen in Israel, because Judah's dcepenin<^ corruption drew down the prophecies of God's displeasure, which it was popular to disbelieve. False prophecy was a gainful occupation. The false prophets had men's wislies on their side. They had the people with them. My people love to have it 80 % said Gol. They forbade Micah to pro- phesy y ; prophesied peace ■, when Goxl fore- told evil; prophesied for gain% and pro- claimed war in the Name of Gk>d^ against those who fed them not. At such a time was Micah called. His name which he himself explains, was no chance name. To the Hebrews, to whom names were so much more significant, parts of the living language, it recalled the name of his great predecessor, his standing alone against all the prophets of Ahab, his pro- ?necy, his suffering, his evidenced truth, 'he truth of prophecy was set upon the issue of the battle before llamoth-Gilead. In the presence of Jelioshaphat, king of Judah, as well as of Ahab, the 400 prophets of Ash- taroth had promised to Anab the prize he longed for. One solitary, discriminating voice was heard amid that clamorous multi- tude, forewarning Ahab that he would perish, his people would be scattered. On the one side, was that loud triumphant chorus of° all the propheUf Oo up to itamoth-Oilead, and 9 Neh. yL 14. 4 See vol. 1. pp. 334-336. »vii. 18. •!. 6, 11. 1. •!. 12. • See Jer. v. 13, 31, vl. 13-17, vlil. 10-12, xiv. KMS, XX. 1-6, xxili. 9-eDd, xxvi. 7, 8, 11, xxvil. 14-18, xxviii., xxix. 8, 9, 21-32. > Jer. ?. 3L 7 ii A. ■ iii. 5. > ill. 11. prosper ; for the Lord shall deliver U, into the kin^s hand. On the other, one solemn voice, exhibiting before them that sad spectacle which the morrow's sun sliould witnebs *, / taw all Israel seaJUered upon the hUls'y as sheep that hare not a shepherd, and the Lord said, these have no master, Ut them return every man to his house in pea/x, Micaiah was smitten, im- prisoned, and, apparently, ended his ministry, appealing from that small audience of the armies of Israel and Judah to the whole world, which has ever since looked back on that strife with interest and awe ; • Hear ye peoples, each one of them, God, who guided the archer shooting at a venture^, fulfilled the words which He had put into the Prophet's mouth. God's words had found Ahab, although disguised; Jchoshaphat, the im- perilled *, returned home, to relate the issue. The conflict between God's truth and idol falsehood was doubtless long remembered in Judah. And- now when the strife had penetrated into Judah, to be ended some 170** years afterward in the destruction of Jerusalem, another Micaiah arose, his name the old watchword, Who is like the Lord f He prefixed to his prophecy that same sum- mons * to the whole world to behold the issue of the conflict, which God had once accredited and, in that issue, had given an earnest of the victory of His truth, there thenceforth and for ever. The prophet was born a villager, in More- sheth Gatn, "a village^", S. Jerome says; ("a little village"", in S. Jerome's own days), " East of Eleutheropolis," where what was "* formerly his grave," was "now a church." Since it was his birthplace and his burial-place, it was probably his home also. In the beginning of the reign of Je- hoiakim, the elders of the land " speak of liim with this same title, the Moinsthiie. He lin- gers, in his prophecy, nmon<7 the towns of the maritime plain (the Shephelah) where his birthplace lay. Among the ten places in thjit neighborhood ", which he selects for warning and for example of the universal captivity, is his native village, " the home he loved." But the chief scene of his ministry was Jerusalem. He names it in the begin- ning of his prophecy, as the place where the idolatries, and, with the idolatries, all the other sins of Judah were concentrated. The two capitiils, Samaria and Jerusalem, were the diief objects of the word of God to him, because the corruption of each kingdom streamed forth from them. The sins which he rebukes are chiefly those of the capital. Extreme oppression **, violence »• liL 6. see note. • 1 Kings xxii. 12. 4 lb. 17. •lb. 28. fM. i:iO-3. >» from the l'>e^inning of Jotham's reif^n. » Henjfst. Christ, i. 475. J Onom. k Prref. to Mic. » Ep. 86. ftd Eustoch. Epitaph. Paultp 8 14. i. 698. ■ Jer. xxvL 17, 18. ■ i. 11-15. • iU. 2, 3, 11. 2. MICAH. among the richP, bribing among jud^, priests, prophets '^ ; building up the capital even by cost of life, or actual bloodshed'; spoliation * ; expulsion of the powerless, wom- en and children from their nomes * ; covet- ousncss*; cheating in dealings ''; pride 7. These, of course, may be manifoldly repeated in lesser places of resort and of judgment. But it is Zion and Jerusalem which are so built lip with blood ' ; Zion and Jerumlemf which are, on that ground, to be plowed as a fieUl ' ; it is ^ city to which the Lords voice crietk • ; whose rich men are full of violence p ; it is the daughter of Zum^, which is to^o forth out of the city and go to Babylon. Especially, they , are the heads and princes of the people ^, whom he upbraids tor perversion of justice and for oppression. Even the good kings of Judah seem to have been powerless to re- strain the general corruption. Micah, according to the title which he prefixed to his prophecy, was called to the prophetic office somewhat later than Isaiah, iiis ministry began later, and ended earlier. For Uzziah, in whose reign Isaiah began to prophesv, was dead before Micah was called to his office ; and Micah probably wajs called away early in the reign of Ilezekiah, where- as some of the chief public acts of Isaiah's ministry fell in the I7th and 18th years of the reign of Ilezekiah. Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, had doubtless been withdrawn to their rest. Hosea alone, in "grey-haired might,*' was still protesting in vain against the deepening corruptions of Israel. The contents of Micah's prophecy and his relation to Isaiah agree with the inscription. His prophecv has indications of the times of Jotham, perhaps also of those of Ahaz ; one signal ^rophecy^ we know historically, was uttered in the reign of Hezekiah. It is now owned, well nigh on all hands, that the great prophecy, three verses of which Isaiah prefixed to his 2d chapter, was originally delivered by Micah. But it ap- pears from the context in Isaiah, that he de- livered the prophecy in that 2d chapter, in the reign of Jotham. Other language of Micah also belongs to that same reign. No one now thinks that Micah adopted that great prophecy from Isaiah. The prophecy, as it stands in Micah, is in close connection with what precedes it. He had said *', the mountain of the Jiouse shall be oa the high places of the forest ; he subjoins instantly God s re- versal of that sentence, in the loiter days, *And in the Uist days it shall be that the moun- tain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mouTUainSf and peoples shall p vi. 12. 4 iii. 11 ; jadges and priests, vii. 3. ' iii. lU ; bloodshed alno, Tii. 2. • ii. 8. * ii. 9. ■ii. 2. »vi. 10, 11. yii.3. • iii, 12, • vi, 9. * iv. 10. • Iii. 1, 0, 11, vi. 12, vii. 3, *UL12. •Iv.l, fiy.2. flow unto iL He had said, Zion shall be plowed as a fieldy and Jerusalem shall become neaps ; he adds forthwith, in reversal of this ^, the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, The two sentences are joined as closely as th^ can be ; Zion shall be plowed as ajieldj and Jerusalem shall become heapsy and the mountain of the house shall become high places of a forest; and it shall be, in the last days, the m/mntain of the house of the Lord shall be (abidingly) ' establislied on the top of the mountains. Every reader would understand, that the elevation intended, was spiritual, not physical. They could not fail to under- stand the metaphor; or imagine that the Mount Zion, on part of which, (Mount Mo- riah,) the house of the Lord stood, should be physically placed on other hills. But the contrast is marked. The promise is the se- quel of the woe ; the abiding condition is the reversal of the sentence of its desolation. Even the words allude, the one to the other \ In Isaiah, there is no such connection. After the first chapter and its summary of rebuke, warning, threatening, and final weal or woe resting on each class, Isaiah, in his second chapter, begins his prophecy anew with a fresii title ^ ; The wora that Isaiah the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusa' km; and to this he prefixes three verses from Micah's prophecy. He separates it in a marked way from the preceding summary, and yet connects it with some other prophecy by the word, AiuiK He himself marks tliat it is not in its original place here. So then, in the prophet Micah, the close connection with the foregoing marks that it is in its original place; Isaiah marked purposely that in his prophecy it is not. But Isaiah's prophecy belongs to a time of prosperity ; such as Judah had not, after the reign of J otham. It was a time of great war- like strength, dififused through the whole land. The land was full \ without end, of gold, silver, chariots, horses, of lofty Icoks and haughtiness. The images which follow ^ are shadows of the Day of Judgment, and extend beyond Judah : but the sins rebuked are the sins of strengtli and might, self-con- fidence, oppression, maniibld female luxury and bravery ™. Isaiah prophesies that God would take away their strength". Then they still had it. Judah trusted not at that time in God nor in foreign alliances, but in self. Yet, from the time of Ahaz, trust in foreign help infected them to the end. Even Ile/.ekiah, when he received the messengers of Merodach-baladan **, fell into the snare; and Josiah probably lost his life, as a vassal f It is not *:^y but p^3-^''^^ b The TWrV n'b in Iv. l. to the n'3n in iii. 12; the n'TV H'nn. Henget Jii. 1. Jii.2. kis. iL7,ll. » 12-21. - Ui. 16, 23. • iii. 1-a. •Is. xxzix. 8 INTRODUCTION TO of Assyria p. This union of inherent strength and unooncemedness about foreign aid is an adequate test of days anterior to Ahaz. But since Isaiah prefixed to a prophecy in the days of Jothani this great prophecy of Micah, then Micah's prophecy must have been already current. To those same days of strength it belongs, that Miciih oould prophesy as a gift, the cutting of!''* of horf<e8 and chariot% the destruction of cities and stronq towerSf all, in which Judah trusted instead of God. The prophecy is a counterpart of Isaiah's. Isaiah prophesied a day of Judg- ment, in which all these things should be re- moved ; Micah foretold that their removal should be a mercy to those w^ho trust in Christ. On the other hand, the utter dislocation of society, the bursting of all the most sacred bands which bind man to man together, de- scribed in his last chapter', perhaps belong most to the miserable decay in the reign of Ahaz. The idolatry spoken of also belongs probably to the time of Ahaz. In Jotham's time ', die people sacrificed and burned incense still in the nigh places ; yet, under a king so highly praised \ these are not likely to have been in Jerusalem. But Micah, in the very head of his prophecy, speaks of Jerusalem " as the centre of the idohitries of Judah. The allusion also to child-sacrifioes belongs to the time of Ahaz, who sacrificed sons of his own \ and whose sacrifice others probably imitated. The mention of the special idolatry of the time, y the staiiUes of Onri are kepty and all the works of the house of Ahab, belong to the same reign, it being recorded of Ahaz especially ■, he xoalked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made also molten images for Baalim; the special sin of the house of Ahab. That char- acter too which he describes, that, amid all that idolatiy, practical irreligion, and wick- edness, they leant upon the Lordj and said. Is not the Lord among tis f none evil <XLn come upon us^; was just the character of Ahaz. Not until the end of his reign was he so embit- tered by God's chastisements, that he closed His temple ^ Up to that time, even after he had copied the brazen altar at Damascus, he still kept up a divided allegiance to God. Urijah, the hij^h Priest, at the king's com- mand, offered the sacrifices for the king and the people, while Ahaz used the brazen alinr^ to enquire by ". This was just the half-service whicn God by Micah rejects. It is the old history of man's half-service, faith without love, which provides, that what it believes but loves not, should he done for it, and itself enacts what it prefers. Urijah was to offer the lawful sacrifices for the king and the people ; Ahaz was to obtain knowledge of the P2 Kings xzffi. 29, 2 Chr. xxxv. 20-22. <Mic.v.lO,ll,U. » vii.fi, 6. •2 Kings XV. X). « 2 Kings XV. 34, 2 Chr. xxvii. 2, 6. • i. 6. future, such as he wished in his own way, a lying future, by Iving acts. Micah renewed under Hezekiah the pro- phecy of the utter destruction of Jerusalem, which he had pronounced under Jotham. The prophets did not heed repeating them- selves. Eloquent as they were, they are the more eloquent because eloquence was not their object. Even our Lord, with Divine wisdom, and the more, probably, because lie had Divine wisdom, repeated in ilis teaching the same words. Those words sank the deeper, because often repeated. So Micah repeatetl doubtless oftentimes those words, which he first uttered in the days of Jotham ; Zion shall be plowed like afield and Jerusalem shall be- come heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Often, during those perhaps thirty years, he repeated them in vain. At the last, thev wrought a great re- pentance, and delayeo, it may be for 136 years, the destruction which he was con- strained to foretell. Early in the davs of Je- hoiakim, about 120 years afterward, in the public assembly when Jeremiah was on trial for his life, the elders of the land said explic- itly, that the great conversion at the begin- ning of the reign of Hezekiah, nay, of that king himself,' was wrought by the teaching of Micah. * Then rose up, says Jeremiah, certain of the elders of the lana, and spake to all the aS" sembly of the people, saying, Micah the Moras- thite prophesied in the days of Ilezekinh king of Judah, saying, T%us saith the Lord of hotis, Zion shall be plough^ like a field, and Jerusalem shall become henps, and the mountain of the house, as the high places of the forest. Did Heze- kiah king of Judah, and all Judah-, put him at all to deatJi. f Did he not fear the Lord, and be- sought the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which He had pronounced against them f It may have been that single prophecy which Micah so delivered ; some have thought that it was his whole book. Jere- miah, at God's command, at one time uttered single prophecies ; at another, the summary of all his prophecies. This only is certain, that the prophecy, whether these words alone or the Dook contiiining them, was de- livered to all Judah, and that God moved the people through them to repentance. The words, as they occur in Jeremiah, are the same, and in the same order, as they stand in Micah. Only in Jeremiah the com- mon plural termination is substituted for the rarer and poetic form used by Micah ". The elders, then, who quoted them, probably knew them, not from tradition, but from the written book of the Prophet. But those elders speak of Micah, as exercising his pro- phetic office in the days of Hezekiah. They « 2 Kings X vi. 3, 2 Chr. xxviii. 3. i vi. 16. ■2 Chr. xxviii. 2. • iii. 11, vl. 6. ^ 2 Chr. xxviii. 23-24 • 2 Kings xvi. 15. « Jer. xxvi. 17-19. • D^'J? for r"J?. MICAH. do not say, he prophesied^ which might have been a single act; but he teas prophesying^ hayah nibbah^ a form of speaking which is onij used of an abiding, habitual, action. They say also, " lie was habitually prophesy- ing, and he said," i. e. n.s we should sav, '* in the course of his prophesying in the days of Hezekiah, he said." Still it was to aU the peopU of Judah that he said it. The elders say so, and lay stress upon it by repeating it. IHd Hezekiah king of Judah and au Judah put him at all to death f It must have been then on some of the great festivals^ when aU Judah was gathered together, that Micah so spake to them. Probably, shortly afterward, in those first years of Hezekiah, Micah's office on earth closed. For, at the outset and in the sum- mary of his prophecy, not incidentally, he speaks of the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the 4th year of Hezekiah, as still to come ; and however practical or par- tial idolatry continued, such idolatry as he throughout describes, did not exist after the reformation by Hezekiah. This conversion, then, of the king and of some considerable part of Judah was probably the closing har- vest of his life, after a long seed-time of tears. So God allowed His servant to depart in neace. The reformation itself, at least in its fullness, took place after the kingdom of Samaria had come to an end, since Ilezekiah's messengers could, unhindered, invite all Israel to join in his great Passover. Probably, then, Alicah lived to see the first dawnings only of the first reformation which God wrought by his words. At the commencement, then, of Hezekiah's reiffn he collected the substance of what God had taught by him, re-casting it, so to speak, and retaining of his spoken prophecy so much as God willed to remain for us. As it stands, It belongs to that early time of Heze- kiah's reign, in which the sins of Ahaz still lived on. Corruption of manners had been hereditary. In Jotham's reign too, it is said expressly, in contrast with himself, the people were stUl doing corrvptly. Idolatry had, under Ahaz, received a fanatic impulse from the king, who, at last, set himself to close the worship of God *. The strength of Jotham's reign was gone; the longing for its restora- tion led to the wrong and destructive policy, against which Isaiah had to contend. Of this Micah says, such should not be the strength of the future kingdom of God. Idolatry and oppression lived on ; against these, the inheritance of those former reigns, the sole residuum of Jotham's might or Ahaz' policy, the breach of the law of love of God and man, Micah concentrated his written prophecy. '2 Chr. xxtII. 2. f lb. xxviii. 22-26, xxix. 7. <« ch. iiUv. and vi. vil. i ii. 12. * iii. 1. 1 HengPt Ghri£t i. 477, 8. • See ab. p. 289. ■iv. 2,7,8. 'iv.!, 2. This book also has remarkable symmetry. Each of its three divisions is a whole, begin- ning with upbraiding for sin, threatening God's judgments, and ending with promises of future mercy in Christ. The two later divisions begin again with that same charac- teristic, Hear ye^, with which Micah had opened the whole. The three divisions are also connected, as well by lesser references of the later to the former, as also by the advance of the prophecy. Judah could not be trusted now with any simple declaration of God's future mercy. They supposed themselves, impenitent as they were and with no pur- pose of repentance, to be the objects of God's care, and secure from evil. Unmixed prom- ise of good would but foment this irreligious apathy. Hence on the promises at the end of the first portion |, and their king shall pass before them and the Lord at the heaaofthemy he turns abruptly *, And I said, Hear, J pray vou, h it not for you to know judgment f I'he promise had been to Jacob and tlie remnant of Israel^, He renews his summons to the* heads of Jacob and the princes of the house of Israel. In like way, the last section, opening with that wonderful pleading of God with His people, follows upon that unbroken declaration of God's mercies, which itself issues out of the promised Birth at Bethle- hem. There is also a sort of progress in the promises of the three parts*. In the first, it is of deliverance generally, in language taken from that first deliverance from E^'pt. The 2d is objective, the Birth of the Redeemer, the conversion of the Gentiles, the restora- tion cf the Jews, the establishment and nature of His kingdom. The third is mainly suljective, man's repentance, waiting upon God, and God's forgiveness of his sins. Throughout, the metropolis is chiefly ad- dressed, as the main seat of present evil ^ and as the centre of the future blessings ; where the reign of the long-promised Ruler should be " ; whence tiie revelation of God should go forth to the heathen**; whither the scattered and dispersed people should be gathered p. Throughout the prophecy also, Micah up- braids tlie same class of sins, wrong dealing of man to man, oppression of the poor by the rich °*. Throughout, their future captivity and dispersion are either predicted \ or as- sumed as the basis of the prediction of good *". Throughout, we see the contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. Beside that great predic- tion, which Isaiah inserted verbally from Micah, we see them, as it were, side by side, in that city of God's visitation and of His mercy, prophesying the same respite, the same place of captivity and deliverance from Plv.Cs7, vii. 11,12. q i. 11, 14-16. ii. 4, 5, 10, (utter abiding destruction of Jerusalem) iii. 12, iv. 10, v. 3. ' ii. 12, 13, iv. 6, 7, 10, vii. 11, 12, 16. 10 INTRODUCrriON TO it, the same ulterior mercies in Christ. "■The more to establish the faith, God willed that Isaiah and Micah should speak together, as with one mouth, and use such agreement as might the more convict all rebels." Assyria was then the monarchy of the world ; yet both prophets promise deliv- erance from it'; both foretell the captivity in the then subordinate Babylon " ; both, the deliverance from it ^. Both speak in the like way of the gathering together of God's peo- ple from lands 3^, to some of which they were not yet dispersed. Isaiah prophesied the Virgin-Birth of Immaniiel"j Micah, the Birth at Bethlehem of Him Whose goings forth have been of old^ from, everlasting *. Both speak in the like way of the reverence for tne Gentiles thereafter for her**, by reason of the presence of her God. Even, in out- ward manner, Micah, representing himself, as one yfhow&nl Tnoumin^and wailing^ stripped and naked% is a sort of forerunner of the symbolic acts of Isaiah^. Micah had this also common with Isaiah, that he has a pre- dominance of comfort. He is brief in up- braiding*, indignant in casting back tne pleas of the false prophets ', concise in his threatenings of woe ', save where he lingers mournfully over the desolation'*, large and ilowing in his descriptions of mercy to corned He sees and pronounces the coming punish- ment, as absolutely certain ; he does not call to repentance to avert it; he knows that ultimately it will not be averted ; he sees it irrespectively of time, and says that it will be. Time is an accident to the link of cause and efiect. Sin consummated would be thp cause; punishment, the eflfect. He spoke to those who knew that God pardoned on repentance, who had lately had oefore them that marvelous instance in Nineveh. He dashes to the ground their false security, by reason of their descent from Jacob *, of God's Presence among them in the Temple ^ ; the multitude of their offerincis amid the multi- tude of their sins™. He rejects in God's name, their false, outward, impenitent, peni- tence; and thereby the more implies that He would accept a true repentance. They knew this, and were, for a time, scared into i)enitence. But in his book, as God willed It to remain, he is rather the prophet of God's dealings, than the direct preacher of repentance to individuals. Yet he is the more an evangelic preacher, in that he speaks of repentance, only as the gift of God. He • Carpz. In trod. p. 3G5. in HSv. ii. 864. « Is. X. 24-34, xiv. 25, xxx. 31, xxxi. 8, 9, xzxrii. 6, 7, 21-36, Mic. V 6, 6. o Is. xxxix. 6, Mio. iv. 10. « Is. xlviii. 20, Mic. ib. J Is. xi. 11 sqq. Mic. viL 12. ■ ylL 14. •y. 2Eng. (I Heb.) • Is. xlix. 23, Mic. vii. 17. HSv. ib. • i. 8. see note. * Is. xx. 2, 3. • L 6, li. 1, 2, »-ll. t ii. 7, 11, iii. 5-7. does not ignore that man myst accept the £p*ace of Grod ; but, as Isaiah foretells of the days of the Gospel, tite idols He shall utterly abolish^j so Micah first foretells that God would abolish all wherein man relied out of God, all wherein he prided himself**, every form of idolatry p, and subsequently describe the future evangelic repentance, submission to, and waiting upon Ghxl and His righteous- ness *> ; and God's free plenary forgiveness *". Micah's rapid unprepared transitions from each of his main themes to another, from upbraiding to threatening, from threatening to mercy and then back again to upbraiding, is probably a part of that same vivid percep- tion of the connection of sin, chastisement, forgiveness, in the will and mind of Grod. He sees them and speaks of them in the natural sequence in which they were exhibited to him. He connects most commonly the sin with the punishment by the one word, therefore ■, because it was an object with him to shew the connection. The mercies to come he subjoins either suddenly without any conjunction *, or with the simple and. An English reader loses some of the ibrce of this simplicity by the paraphrase, which, for the simple copula, substitutes the inference or contrast, thereforey then^ but, notwitltstajfiding ", which lie in the subjects themselves. An English reader might have been puzzled, at first sight, by the monotonous simplicity of the, anc?, and^ joining together the mention of events, which stand, either as the contrast or the conse- 3iuence of those which precede them. The i^nglish version accordingly has consulted for the reader or hearer, by drawing out for him the contrast or consequence wTiich lay be- neath the surface. But this gain of clearness involved givii^ up so far the majestic sim- plicity of the Prophet, who at times speaks of things as they lay in the Divine Mind, and as, one by one, they would be unfolded to man, without explaining the relation in which they stood to one another. Micah knew that sufferings were, in God^s purpose, travail- pains. And BO, immediately after the de- nunciation of punishment, he adds so calmly, ^'^ATid in the last days it shall be; " " And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah." Or in the midst of his descriptions of mercies, he speaks of the intervening troubles, as the way to them. Now^ why dost thou cry aloud f — pan^s have taken Mee, as a tooman in travail — be in pain — thou shall go even unto Babylon; there shall thou be delivered: or, ^Therefore wiU He f ii. 3, 10, iii. 4, 12, vi. 13-16, vii. 4, 13. ^ i. 10-16, li. 4, 6. t iv., v., vii. 7-20. » ii. 7. 1 iii. 11. »vi.6,7. nl8.ii. 18. • v. 9,10. P V. 11-13. <i vii. 8, 9. » lb. 18, 19. • Not I. 6, vi. 13. but L 14, li. 3, 6, iii. 6, 12. « ii. 12, iv. 13. « Therefore, i. 6, vi. 13, vii. 7 : then, iii. 7, vii. W ; but^ iii. 8, iv. 1, 4, 12, V. 2, vi. 16; /or, iv. 6; notunthstand- iw/, vii. 13. « iv. 1, V. 2 (1 Heb.), add vii. 7. 1riv.9. -v. 3. [2 Heb.] MICAH. 11 aioe thee up until the timey dtc. i. e. because He has these good things in store for thee, He viU give thee up, tntiil the time comes. With this great simplicity Micah unites ffreat vividness and energy. TIius in pre- dicting jpnnishment, he uses the form of com- mand, bidding them, as it were, execute it on themselves*; Arise, depart : us, in the Great Day, our Lord shall say, Depart, ye cursed. And since God does in us or by us what He commands to be done, he uses the imperative to Zion, alike as to her victories over God's enemies ^ or her state of anxious fear ^ To that same vividness belong his rapid chan^ of person or gender; nis sudden questions*^; his unmarked dialogues. The changes of person and gender occur in all Hebrew poetiy; all have their emphasis. He addresses the people or place as a whole (/em.), then all the individuals in her® ; or turns away and speaks of it ^j or contrariwise, having spoken of the whole in the third per- son, he turns round and drives the warning home to individuals*^. The variations in the last verse of ch. vi. are unexampled for rapidity even in Hebrew. And yet the flow of his words is smooth and measured. Without departing from the conciseness of Hebrew poetry, his cadence, for the most part, is of the more prolonged sort, as far as any can be called prolonged, when all is so concise. In some 8 verses, out of 104, he is markedly brief, where conciseness corres- ponds with his subject, as in an abrupt ap- peal as to their sins ^, or an energetic an- nouncement of judgment* or of mercy*, or in that remarkable prophecy of both *, how God would, in mercy, cut off' all grounds of human trust Else, whereas in Nahum and Habakkuk, not quite J, and in the eleven last Chapters of Hosea much less than i, of • ii. 10, ndd i. 11, L% iv. 10. » iv. 13. • T.l. (iv. 14Heb.) « L 6, ii. 7, iii. 1, iv. 9, tL 3, 6, 10, 11, viL 18. • i. 11. twice. »i. 2. twice ; in i. 13. he returns to the 2d pers. t ii. 3. ^ iii. 10 (5 words), vi. 11 (6 words). I V. 8, and vii. 13, (7 words). k vii. 11 (7 words), vii. 15 (6 words). 1 V. 13 Heb. (5 words), y. 10 (6 words), v. 11 (7 words). • Out of the 157 verses in Hosea's 11 last chapters, 111 contain fewer than 14 words each, 46 only 14 words or upwards; out of 4r,, of which the book of Nahum consists (oxcludine the title) 14 only have more than 13 words ; out or 65 of Habakkuk, 17 only have more than 13. « In Micah, 4« out of 104; in Joel, 30 out of 72 ; in Obftdiah, lo out of SJl. •There is less difference between a verse of 14 words, distributed 43, 43 and one of 11, distributed 32. 42, than in a verse whose 10 words were dis- tributed 32,32 or 323,2L p The followine summary of these lesser divisions, which are mostly markea by the Hebrew accents, may perhaps give some little idea of the rhythm. Only the degree of subdivision must often be a matter of opinion or taste or ear. Thus, of 5 words which grammatically belong together, one might think that the cadence separated them into 3 and 2; another might take them altogether. But this is A matter of detail only; the principle is unmis- the verses contain more than 13. words ™, in Micah above f (as, in Joel, nearly f ) exceed that number °. The verses are also distri- buted in that ever-varying cadence, whereby, in Hebrew poetry, portions of their short sentences being grouped together, the har- mony of the whole is produced by the varied dispositions of these lesser groups of 2, 3, 4, ana but rarely 5 words; scarcely any two verses exactly corresponding, but all being united by the blending of similar cadences. In Mican, as in all Hebrew poetiy, the com- bination of 3 words is the most frequent, and this, sometimes by itself, sometimes in union with the number 4, making the sacred num- ber 7 ; or, with 2, making a number which we find in the taoemacle, but which dwells more in the hearts' of the disciples of the Crucified. The same exact rhythm seldom recurs, and that, naturally, chlefiy in the shorter verses, the longer admitting or re- quiring more combinations. Wherever also tnere is more than one pause in the verse, a further and very considerable variety of rhythm may be produced, even when the sev- eral clauses of two verses contain the same number of words in the same order. The diflTerenoe of cadence is far more influenced by the place, where the verse is divided, than by the exact number of words contained in it. The rhetorical force of the distribution of the words into the several clauses depends mainly upon the place of the Athnach or semi- colon °. Tne same exact rhythm, (in which both the same number of words occur in the verse, and the verse is divided in the same place) recurs only seven times in Micah, in verses capable of a variation. The other four cases of repetition occur in short verses which have one division only p according to the place where the main division of the verse falls. takablo. Again, words which have been artificially Joined together in Hebrew by the Makkeph, I have considered as 2 words, if each had a distinct idea. Thus PK, when the mere sign of the object, I have not counted ; when it is the preposition, •* with," I have counted it. In the following list, the verses are ranged according to the number of the words contained in each verse, beginning with the high- est. The numbers on the right hand indicate the lesser divisions into which each verse may be dis- tributed. The comma in each set of numbers marks the place of the Athnach or semicolon. The Roman numerals indicate how often any cadence is repeated. NuMBEB OF Words in Each Lesssb Divisiok. Fbnte. 24 333422,43 432,3264 22 46,534 14333,44 21 221,423232 4433,34 20 23333,33 333,3134 ^333,44 4333,322 1» 344,44 34,2253 32,4424 18 43,3233 342,423 3232,44 17 444,32 3433,22 3,4343 2223,832 16 222,433 3433,3 .33,4222 44,44 16 32,325 31)33,3 432,33 43,233 43,323 (ii) 134,133 43^332 3223,32 14 33,53 (ii) 34,34 23122,22 43,43 432,32 333,23 .33,323 4.3,52 332,33 13,334 43,34 22,3313 2222,33 2222,51 12 INTRODUCTION TO His description of the destruction of the cities or villages of Jiidah corresponds in vividness to Isaiah's ideal march of h^cnna- cherib**. The flame of war spreads from place to place ; bat Micah relieves the same- ness of the description of misery by every variety which language allows. He speaks of them in his own person *", or to them ; he describes the calamity in jjast ■ or in future '. or by use of the imperative \ The verbal allusions are crowded together in a way un- exampled elsewhere. Modems have spoken of them, as not after their taste, or have apologized for them. The mighty Prophet, who wrought a repentance greater than his great contemporary Isaiah, knew well what would impress the people to whom he spoke. The Hebrew names had definite meanings. 13 12 11 10 0 8 7 6 5 43^3 3,442 332^2 1322,5 222,322 432,4 43,33 322,42 32,322 422,22 143,22 224,4 23,34 63,22 24,24 43,23 32,33 42,32 (ii) 33^12 23,33 (ii) 24,32 33,23 (if) 4322 22,43 32,42 5,5 33,4 32,32 (ii) 323,2 32,23 (il) 22,33 2222,2 43,3 43,2 4,32 3,33 42,3 22,32 33,3 132,2 33,2 4,3 (Ii) 3, 4 (ii) 3,22 3,3 (ii) 22,2 3,2 (ii) To facilitate comparison, I flubjoin a like analysis of the other prophets mentionea. HOSEA. Eleven last chapters. 22 422253,4 3214,54 21 4433,34 5,242224 20 32,3.'»24 3333,44 19 43^i;i,32 34*23,:i4 18 4,4«4 332,2:W2 2232,423 44,3223 17 43,:»'22 33.32,33 23,43*23 3223,223 333,323 8223,43 3442,4 16 2323,24 32,34*22 233,3*23 21214,24 3223,33 3232,33 33,253 42,4.33 15 344,4 2:i'23,23 3332,4 (ii) 223,242 a33,33 14 43,43 44,33 5,432 41,42 43,232 324,32 422,42 .33,2222 33,44 3224,3 33,63 4,442 32,333 14,- 33;J 33,4,3 (iii) 34,42 43,33 (ii) 4,333 4,54 34,33 323.32 22:i,:« 22,234 :}3,34 4,44 4:32,21 :»,3;i (ii) 222,222 32,34 42,42 222,33 223,32 43,1-22 43,23 43,32 32,43 24,32 3*2:1,3 32,.33 233,12 :j:i,*2:i 42,23 132,14 32,- 42 3"2,:W XL32 4,4;< •23,'222 43,3 (ii) ri.3,4(ii) 3,34 3232 (ii) 44,2 24,4 222,22 4,:j.3 3:4,22 322,3 5,13 25,2 3,33 (ii) :«,3(iii) 232,2 2,322 32,22 (ii) 32,4 '22,*23 •2*2,32 (Ii) 4,:V2 i;V32 2,34 6,4 24,3 32,3(11) 23,3 (iv) 22*22 224 (ii) 13,3 (iii) 4,3 (lii) 3,4 (ii) 2,23 22,3 2,32 23,2 31,3 33,1 14,2 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 4,2 (ii) 3,3 [Hi) 13,2 (ii) 3,i(\r (vii) 2111 113 Joel. a34,3534 322,144332 3544,2-23 4*23,4423 54-22,422 3335,43 16,4i£n3 34,3433 2*24,413 22,44:» 33,435 3332,42 245,33 863,33 1422,35 334,42 2242,6 44,44 22*23:),3 2432,22 22222,32 344,4 23,2323 333, 33 34,35 We can well imagine how, as name after name passed from the Prophet*s mouth, con- nected with -some note of woe, all around awaited anxiouslv, to know upon what place the fire of the t*rophet's word would next fall ; and as at last it had fallen upon little and mighty round about Jerusalem, the names of the places would ring in their ears as heralds of the coming woe ; they would be like so many monuments, inscribed before- hand with the titles of departed greatness, reminding Jerusalem itself of its portion of the prophecy, that * evil should conie from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem, Wonderful must have been his lightning- flash of indignation, as, when the false pro- phet or the people had forbidden God's word to be spoken, ne burst upon them, ^ TAou, 14 63,33 334,4 36,23 1432,4 3332,3 13 34,33 3,55 33,:)4 12 44,4 34,23 22*22,4 5,34 24,33 43,32 32,223 11 2'2,:i22(ii) 2-23,*22 •2-222,3(ii) 32,33 3,224 32,42 2*22,5 4,331 44,3 223,22 2222,3 10 32,32 2*22,*22 22,42 231,4 9 3*2,22 (iii) 2,43 5,22 8 3,2:i 22,22 4,22 7 133 3,4 (ii) 3,22 22y3 6 3,3 (iv) Obadiah. 21 4333,323 19 432:^,43 18 3:^32,133 34,344 4252,32 17 4242,32 16 5434 32422,3 15 3:m,23 14 43,43 13 332,23 42,34 4232,2 12 3.->,22 11 3*2,:i3 42,32 10 4;i,3 9 3,33 7 4,3 32,2 6 32 Nahum. 21 32232,72 19 2333.:k3 3233,44 18 32,:«7 16 34,-2;i*22 23,42131 15 32:i,43 33,r>22 2*2222,32 14123,4 14 44,;« (ii) 3'2221,13 3,2234 234,32 13 42,223 3:i;i2,2 3*23,32 12 33;i3 32,34 322;J2 (ii) 414,3 42,2*22 22->,2*22 11 43,4 3'2,*222 2*2,:U3 42,32 23,24 322,22 10 42,13 1*2,223 3,*2*23 32,32 9 3*A22 (ii) 23,22 8 23,3 (ii) 24,2 2-2,22 7 2*2,21 6 13,2 31,2 6 3.'-^ 24 20 19 18 17 16 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 « Ib. X ■9,10, «i. 12. I I Habakkxtk. 44,4444 4334.33 a33,l423 43,254 3332,43 45;« 4*22,2'2:V2 54,44 333V53 34,44 332,322 33,234 34,233 43,44 13143,3 3333,3 333,42 43,3*22 :tJ2,33 33,44 32,4*22 33,4:3 -^3,44 3*23,'22 (ii) 33,:« (ii) 2-2'2;B2 3*2,42 32,:» 322,4 42,14 3'2*2,3 3y31 4^3 33,3 (ii) 4,5 24,3 42,3 23,4 311,3 22,4 3,32 3,4 (ii) 4,3 (Ii) 3,3 [iv] . 28-32. r 1. 8, 10. see note. 11,12. «8. •11,13,16. 711.7. MICABL 13 eoMed houue of Jacob, shortejied is God's Spirit f Orihate His doin^f And then follow the plaintive descriptions of the wrongs done to the poor, the pejiceful ■, the mothers of his people and their little ones. And then again the instantaneous dismissal \ Arise and dsparU But, therewith, wonderful also is his tenderness. Burning as are his denuncia- tions against the oppressions of the rich \ (words less vehement will not pierce hearts of stone) there is an under-current of tender- ness. Ills rebukes evince not indignation only against sin, but a tender sympathy with the sufferers. ® He is afflicted in the afflic- tions which he has to denounce. He yearns for his people * ; nay, until our Lord's Com- ing, there is scarcely an expression of such yearning longing : he hungers and thirsts for their good ®. God's individual care of His people, and of each soul in it, had, since David s time ^ and even since Jacob ', been likened to the care of the shepherd for each single sheep. The Psalm of Asaph ^ must have familiar- ised the people to the image, as relating to themselves as a whole, and David's deep Ftolm had united it with (iod's tender care of His own in, and over, death. Yet the predomi- nance of this image in Micah is a part of the tenderness of the Prophet. He adopts it, as expressing, more than any other natural imase, the helplessness of the creature, the tender individual care of the Creator. He forestalls our Lord's words, I am the qood- shepherdy in his description of the Messiah, gathering M€ remnant of farad together, as the sheep of Bozrah * ; His people are as a flock, Uxme anddespised^ whom God would assem- ble ; His royal seat, the tower of theftock^ ; the Buler of Israel should stand unresting, and feed them ™ ; those whom He should employ against the enemies of His people, are shep- Mrds "*, under Him, the true shepherd. He sums up his prayer for his people to Grod as their Shepherd •» ; Feed Thy people with Thy rod, thefhek of Thine heritage. Directly, he was a Prophet for Judah only. At the beginning of his book, he condemns the idolatries of both capitals, as the central sin of the two kingdoms. The destniction of Samaria he pronounces at once, as future, absolutely certain, abiding i*. There he leaves her, declares her vxmnd incurable, and passes forthwith to Judah, to whom, he says, that wound should pass, whom that same enemy should reach <>. Thereafter, he men- tions incidentally the infection of Israel's sin .8,9. "lo. »► H.* 1, 2, ill. 1-8, 9-11, vi 10-12, vii. 2, 3. • L 8, 9, H. 1, 2, vii. 6, 6. * i. 8-10, 16, iv. 9, 10. • ▼iL'l.' 'Pb. xxili. «Gen. xlix.24. h P8. Ixxir. 1, IxxTiii. 52, Ixxix. 13, Ixxx. 1. i if. 12. k iv. 6. » lb. 8. ■ v. 4. [Eng. 3 Heb.l ■ Ib.6.[4Heb.] -" ^' »L6^7. 4L9. 'L13. ovii. li • 1.6. Spreading to Judah '. Else, after that first sentence on Samaria, the names of Jacob (which he had given to the ten tribes') and Israel are appropriated to the kingdom of Judah ^ : Judah is mentioned no more, only her capital " ; even her kin^ are called the kings of Israel *. The ten tribes are only in- cluded in the general restoration of the whole y. The luture remnant of the two tribes, to be restored after the captivity of Babylon, are called by themselves the rem- nant of Jacob « : the Messiah to be bom at Bethlehem is foretold as the ruler in Israel*: the ten tribes are caUed the remnant of His brethren, who were to return to the children of Israel **, i. e. Judah. This the more illustrates the genuineness of the inscription. A later hand would have been unlikely to have mentioned either Sa- maria or those earlier kings of Judah. £ach part of the title corresponds to something in the prophecy ; the name JlfwaA is alluded to at its close ; his birthplace, the Morasthite, at its beginning ; the indications of those earlier reigns lie there, although not on its surface °. The mention of the two capitals, followed by the immediate sentence on Samaria, and then by the fuller expansion of the sins and pun- ishment of Jerusalem, culminating in its sentence*, in Micah, corresponds to tiie brief mention of the punishment of Judah in Amos the Prophet of Israel, and then the fuller expansion of the sins and punishments of Israel. Further, the capitals, as the foun- tains of idolatry, are the primary object of God's displeasure. They are both specially denounced in the course of the prophecnr; their special overthrow is foretold •. The title corresponds with the contents of th^ prophecy, yet the objections of modem critics shew that the correspondence does not lie on the surface. The taunt of the false priest Amaziah ' to Amos may in itself suggest that prophets at Jerusalem did prophesy against Samaria. Amaziah, anyhow, thought it natural that they should. Both Isaiah and Micah, while exercising their oflice at Jerusalem, had re- gard also to Samaria. Divided as Israel and Judah were, Israel was not yet cut off. Is- rael and Judah were still, together, the one people of God. The prophets in each had a care for the other. Micah joins himself on to the men of God before him, as Isaiah at the time, and Jere- miah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, sub- sequently, employed words or thoughts of * Jacob, li. 7, iii. 1, 8, 9; l8rael, 1. 14, 16, iil. 1, 8, 9, v. 1, 3, vi. 2. " See ab. p. 6. « L 14. 7 Jacob, all of thee. ii. 12 ; the remnant of Israel, ib. ■ V. 7, 8, [8, 9 Heb.] • v. 2. (1 Heb.) « Ib. 3. (2 Heb.) • See ab. p. & * iii. 12. * i. 6, 9, 12, iil. 10-12, iv. 10. 'See vol. i. p. 321. 14 MICAH. Micah '. Micah alludes to the history, the laws, the promises, the threatenings of the Penta- teuch ; and that in such wise, that it is plain that he had, not traditional laws or traditional history, but the Pentateuch itself before him \ Nor were those books before himself only. His book implies not an acquaintance only, but a familiar acquaintance with it on the part of the people. Tlie title, the land of Mmrod ^ iJ^e house of bondage ^, for Egypt, the allusions to the miraculous deliverance from Egypt ', the history of Balaam ; the whole summary of the mercies of God from the Exodus to Gilgal", the faithfulness pledged to Abra- ham and Jacob '', would be unintelligible without the knowledge of the Pentateuch. Even single expressions are taken from ^ the Pentateuch •. Especially, the whole sixth chapter is grounded upon it. Thence is the appeal to inanimate nature to hear the con- troversy; thence the mercies alleged on God's part ; the offerings on man's part to atone to God (except the one dreadful super- stition of Ahaz) are from the law; the an- swer on God's part is almost verbally from the law; the sins upbraided are sins forbid- den in the law ; the penalties pronounced are also those of the law. There are two allu- sions also to the history of Joshua i*, to Da- vid's ele^ over Saul and Jonathan ^. and, as before said, to tlie history of Micaian son of Imlah in the book of Kings. Single expres- sions are also taken from the Psalms ' and the Proverbs '. In the descriptions of the peace of the kingdom ot Christ ^ he appears purposely to have reversed God's description of the animosity of the nations against God's people °. He has also two characteristic ex- pressions of Amos. Perhaps, in the image of the darkness which should come on the false prophets ^, he applied anew the image (See Caspftri Micha, 448-465. k See At length, in Caspar!, pp. 420-7, and below on the places. * t. 6, (5 Heb.) from Gen. x. 8-12. kvi. 4, comp. Deut. vii. 8, xiii. 6, Ex. xiii. 3, 14, XX. 2. Else only in Josh. zxiv. 17, and Jadg. vi. 8, also from the Pent. Gasp. 1 See on ii. 13, vl. 4, vil. 15. ■ See on tL 4, 5. > See on vii. 30. •As nhj; ii. 13, nSj;n yi 4, ^jdS nSer ib. ^jjbt •naS vii. i4» pK 'hr\} vii. n casp. of Amo6y adding the ideas of spiritual dark- ness and perplexity to that of calamity. The lignt and shadows of the prophetic life fell deeply on the soul of Micali. The cap- tivity of Judah too had been foretold before him. Moses had foretold the end from the beginning, had set before them the captivity and the dispersion, as a punishment which the sins of the people would certainly bring upon them. Hosea presupposed it 7; Amos foretold that Jerusalem, like the cities of its heathen enemies, should be burned with fire '. Micah haa to declare its lasting deso- lation*. Even when God wrought repent- ance through him, he knew that it was but for a time ; for he foresaw and foretold that the deliverance would be, not in Jerusa- lem, but at Babylon ^, in captivity. His pro- phecy sank 80 deep, that, above a century afterward, just when it was about to have its fulfillment, it was the prophecy which was remembered. But the sufferings of time disappeared in the light of eternal truth. Above seven centuries rolled by, and Micah re-appears as the herald, not now of sorrow but of salvation. Wise men from afar, in the nobility of their simple belief asked, Where is he thai is bom King of the Jews f A king, jealous for his temporal empire, gath- ered all those learned in Holy Scripture, and echoed the question. The answer was given, unhesitatingly, as a well-known truth of God, in the words of Micah. For thus it is loritten in the Prophet, Glorious peerage of the two contemporary prophets of Judah. Ere Jesus was born, the Angel announced the birth of the Virgin's Son, Goa with us, in the words of Isaiah. When He was bom. He was ^inted out as the Object of worship to the first converts from the heathen, on the au- thority of God, through Micah. pSee on if. 4, vi. 5. < 1. 10. » Caap. 42&-30; see on ii. 1, iil. 2, 3, tIL 2, 7, 8, 10. > Casp. 430-2; see on vi. 9, 11. » Iv. 3, Joel iii. 10. • K'n nj;n n;; o ii. 2, Am. v. 13, and e^^on ii. 6, 11, Am. Tii. 16. Casp. 443. * Mlc. iii. 6, Am. viii. 9. 7 See on Hos. vi. 11. vol. L pp. 09, 70. ■ ii. 5. • iii. 12. kiy.lO. MICAH. Before CHRIST cir. 758-726. » Jer. 26. 18. CHAPTER I. 1 Mieah sheweth the wrath of Ood against Jacob for tdoUi' try. 10 He exhorteth to mourning. THE word of the Lord that came to *Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Chap. I. Veb. 1. The vxtrd of the Lord that came to Mieah — which he saw. No two of the prophets authenticate their prophecy in exactly the same way. They, one and all, have the same simple statement to make, that this which they sav is from God, ana throuah them. A later hand, had it added the titles, would have formed all upon one model. The title was an essential part of the prophetic hook, as indicating to the people afterward, that it was not written after the event. It was a witness, not to the prophet whose name it bears, but to God. Tne pro- phet bare witness to God, that what he de- livered came from Him. The event bare witness to the prophet, that he said this truly, in that he Knew what God alone could know, — ^futurity. Mieah blends in one the fiicts, that he related in words given him by God, what he had seen spread before him in prophetic vision. His prophecy was, in one, the teord of the Lord which came to him, and a sight which he saw. Aiicah omits all mention of his father. His great predecessor was known as Micaiah son of Imiah. Mieah, a villager, would be known only by the name of his native village. So Nahum names himself the ElkoshUe ; Jonah is related to be a native of Oath-h^her ; Eli- jah, the TLshbite, a sojourner in the despised Gilead ^ ; Elisha, of Abelmeholah ; Jeremiah, of Anathoth ; forerunners of Him, and tau^bt by His Spirit Who willed to be bom at Bethlehem, and, since this, although too liule to he counted among the thousands of Jvdah, was yet a royal city and was to be the birth- place of the Christ, w^as known onlv as Jesus of Nazareihy the Nazarene. No propnet speaks of himself, or is spoken of, as bom at Jeru- salem, the holy city. They speak of themselves with titles of lowliness, not of greatness. 1 1 Kgs xTii. 1. s In the two pansages quoted for the contrary, Jer. TiiL 16, Ezek. xii. 19, the context shews that V"1K Is and can only be, land, not, earth, Jer. The snort' vng of his horses is heard from Dan, and they came and deooured the land and the fullness thereof; where the iemd to which they came could plainly be Judea Hezekiah, kings of Judah, ^ which he saw conceming Samaria and Jerusalem. 2 t Hear, all ye people; •hearken, O earth, and fall that therein is; and let the Lord God * be wit- ness against you, the Lord from ' his holy temple. Before CHRIST cir. 758-726. *Amos 1.1. tHeb. Hear, ye people, aU of them. e Deut. 32. 1. Is. 1. 2. t Heb. thefullr ness thereof. * Ps. 60. 7. Mai. 3. 6. oPs. 11.4. Jonah 2. 7. Hab. 2. 20. Mieah dates his prophetic office from kings of Judah only, as the only kings of the line appointed by God. Kings of Israel are mentioned in addition, only by prophets of Israel. He names Samaria first, because, its iniquity being most nearly full, its punish- ment was the nearest. 2. Hear, all ye people^ lit Aeaf, ye peoples, all of them Some 140, or 150 years had flowed by, since Micaiah, son of Imlah, had closed his prophecy in these words. And now they bursl out anew. From age to age the word of God holds its course, ever receiving new fulfillments, never dying out, until the end shall come. The signal fulfillment of the pro- phecy, to which the lormer Micaiah had called attention in these words, was an earnest of the fulfillment of this present message of God. Hearken, 0 earth, and aU that therein is. The peoples or nations are never Judah and Israel onfy : the earth and the fullness thereof is the well-known title of the whole earth ^ and all its inhabitants. Moses ', Asaph \ leaiah '^, call heaven and earth as witnesses against God's people. Jeremiah*, as Mieah here, summons the nations and the ear^A. Theoont^t between good and evil, sin and holiness, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, ever^Tiere, but most cliiefly where God's Presence is nearest, is a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men \ The nations are witnesses of God against His own people, so that these should not say, that it was for want of faithfulness or justice or power ®, but in His righteous judgment, that He cast off whom He had chosen. So shall the Day of Judgment revectZ His righteousness^. Hearken, 0 earth. The lifeless earth '^ trembles at the Presence of God, and so reproaches the dullness of man. By it he summons man to listen with great rever- ence to the Voice of Grod. only. In Eseklel it is not even the land, but h«r land. Say unto tfie people of the lartd ; Thus saith the Lord Ood of the land of Israel,— that her land may be desolate from all the fullness thereof. •Deuixxxii. 1. *P8. 1. 7. »1.2. •vl.l9. T 1 Oor. iv. 9. •Ex. xxxli. 12, Num. xiv. IR, Joeh. vii. 8, 9. • Rom. ii 6. 10 Ps. exiy. 7, xcvii. 6. 15 16 MICAH. CHRIST ^ ^^^' behold, 'the cir. 758-726. LoRD comcth forth out of 'Is. 26. 21. i_« » 1 J "ii IPs. 115.3. his * place, and will come And lei the Lord Chd be witness against you. Not in words, but in deeds ye shall know, that I speak not of myself but God in me, when, what 1 declare. He shall by His Pres- ence fulfilL But the nations are appealed to, not merely because the judgments of God on Israel should be made known to them by the Prophets. He had not yet spoken of Israel or Judah, whereas he had spoken to the nations ; Aeor, ye peoples. It seems then most likely that here too he is speaking to them. Every judfraent is an earnest, a forerunner, a part, of the final judgment and an en sample of its principles. It is but " the last great link in the chain," which unites God's deal- ings in time with eternity. God's judgments on one imply a judgment on all. His judg- ments in time imply a Judgment beyond time. Each sinner feels in his own heart a response to God's visible judgments on another. Each sinful nation muy read its. own doom in the sentence on each other nation. God judges each according to liis own meas- ure of light and grace, accepted or refused. The Heathen shall be judged by the law writ- ten in their heart ^ ; the Jew, by the law of Moses and the light of the prophets ; Chris- tians, by the law of Christ. The word, Christ saith ', thai I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last Day. God Himself foretold, that the heathen should know the ground of His judgments against His peopled AU nations shaU say, wherefore hath the Lord done thvs wnto this Uindf What Tneaneih the heat of this great anger f Then men shaU say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers which He made with them, when Me brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, &e. But in that the heathen knew why God so punished His people, they came 80 far to know the mind of God ; and God, Who at no time * left Himself without witness, bore fresh witness to them, and, so far us they neglected it, against them. A Jew, wherever he is seen throughout the world, is a witness to the world of God's judgments against sin. " * Christ, the faithful Witness, shall wit- ness against those who do ill, for those who do ! well." The Lord from His holy temple. Either that at Jerusalem, where God shewed and revealed Himself, or Heaven of which it was the image. As David says *, Tfie Lord is in His holy temple ; the Lord^s throne is in heaven ; and 1 Rom. ii. 12-15. s Beut. zxlx. 24, 5. •Ps. xi.4. SS. John zii. 48. *Actflxlv. 17. »Dion. T Ps. xviii. 9. down, and tread upon chr^jIt the *'high places of the c^r. 758-726. ^„ xt k Dent 32. 13. earth. & 33. 29. Amos 4. 13. contrasts His dwelling in heaven and His coming down upon earth. ^ He bowed the heavens also and came down ; and Isaiah, in like words'*. Behold, the Lord cometh out of His pkLce to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. 3. Fo}', behold, the Lord cometh forth, i. e. (as we now say,) is coming forth. Each day of judgment, and the last also, are ever drawing nigh, noiselessly as the nightfall, but unceas- ingly. Out of His PUux. "'God is hidden from us, except when He sheweth Himself by His Wisdom or Power of Justice or Grace, as Isaiah saith ", Verily, Thou art a Ood Who hidest ITiyself." He seemeth to be absent, when He doth not visibly work either in the heart within, or in judgments without ; to the ungodly and unbelieving He is absent ^\ far above out of their sight, when He does not avenge their scofis, their sins, their irrever- ence. Again He seemeth to go forth, when His Power is felt. "'Whence it is riaidi*, Bow Thy heavens, 0 Lord, and come down; and the Lord saith of Sodom ^, I will go dawn now and see, whether they have done aUogether a/ccording to the cry of it. which is come unto Me. Or, the Place of the Infinite God is God Him- self. For the Infinite sustaineth Itself, nor doth anything out of Itself contain It. God dwelleth also in light unapproojchahie ". When then Almighty God doth not manifest Him- self, He abideth, as it were, in His own Place. When He manifests His Power or Wisdom or Justice by their effects, He is said to go forth out of His Place, i. e. out of His hidi^nness. Again, since the Nature of God is Goodness, it is proper and co-natural to Him, to be pro- pitious, have mercy and spare. In this way, the Place of God is His mercy. When then He passctli from the sweetness of pity to the rigor of equity, and, on account of our sins, sheweth Himself severe (which is, as it were, alien from Him) He goeth forth out of His Place." "i*For He Who is gentle and gracious^ and Whose Nature it is to have mercy, is constrained, on your account, to take the seeming of hardness, which is not His," He comes invisibly now, in that it is He Who punisheth, through whatever power or will of man He useth ; He shews forth His Holiness through the punishment of u.iholi- ness. But the words, which are imag»' -lan- guage now, shall be most exactly fulfille.il in the end, when, in the Person of our Lord, He «xxyi.2l. 11 Ps. x. 5. MGeii.X7lii.21. •Dion. Wxlv. 15. " Ph. cxliv. 6, Is. Ixiv. 1. "iTim. vi. 16. "S. Jer. CHAPTEB L 17 chrTst ^ -^^ **'^® mountains cir. 758-726. ghall be molten under him, '^^%'"t and the valleys shaU be Is. 64. 1, 2, 3. Amoe 9. 6. Hab. 3. 6, 10. shall come visibly to judge the world. " * In the Day of Judgment-, Christ sheUl come down, acGordinj^ to that Nature which He took, from His Place, the highest heavens, and shall cast down the proud things of this world." And wiU come doum ; not by change of place, or in Himself, but as felt in the punishment of sin; and tread upon the high pkuxs of the earth; to bring down the pride oi those ' who *' ' being lifted up in their own conceit and lofty, sinning through pride and proud through sin, were yet created out of earth. For * why is earth and ashes proud f " What seems mightiest and most firm, is unto God less than is to man the dust under his feet. The high places were also the special scenes of an unceasing idolatry. " God treadeth in the good and humble, in that He dwelleth, walketh, feasteth in their hearts ^. But He treadeth upon the proud and the evil, in that He castetn them down, despiseth, condemneth them." 4. And the mountains shall be molten under Him. It has been thought that this is imagery, taken from volcanic eruptions'; but, although there is a very remarkable vol- canic district just outside of Gilead ^, it is < not thought to have been active at times so late as these ; nor were the people to whom the words were said, familiar with it. Fire, the real agent at the end of the world, is, meanwhile, the symbol of God's anger, as being the most terrible of His instruments of destruction : whence God revealed Himself as a consuming fire % and, at this same time said by Isaiah ^ ; For behold, the Lord mill come with fire — to render His anger with fury, and His re- buke with flames of fire. And the valleys shaU be deft as wax before the fire. It seems natural that the mountains should be cleft; but the valleys*^, so low » 8, Jer. Theoph. « See Am. iv. 13, Job ix. 8. » Rup. * Ecclus. X. 9. * 2 Cor. TL 16, Rev. iii 20. * HenderaoD here. » See vol. L p. 425. « Dent iv. 24. »lxvi.l6. >o Hence some M&S. mentioned in De Rorai's cod. 319, have (as a conjecture) riU*3Jni "the hills." " Sanch. " See Ps. xcvii. 6. "See 8. Hil. in Ps. Ivii. 3 4. 000 is used, as to natural objects, onlv of sucn melting whereby the substance is wasted, as of manna (Ex. xvi. 21), wax (Ps. Ixviii. 3, Ac), or the body through disease (1 Ham. XXV. 37) ; then, morally, chiefly of fear. M See Ges. Thes. sub v. from the Punic, Monum. Phcsn. p. 418. "There are many waterfalls in Lebanon, one very near and to the N. of the Damas- cus road. I have also seen one in Anti-libanus on \he river Barada, a little above Abll. The stream, n&med Sheba, which springs from the perpetual mows of Mount Hermon is extremelv rapid and has A Tdry steep fall to the Hasbeia which it Joins 2 cleft, as wax before the fire, ^ hrTs t and as the waters that are c'f- 758-726. poured down f a steep place, t Heb. a descent already I This speaks of a yet deeper disso- lution ; of lower depths beyond our sight or knowledge, into the very heart of the earth. " *^ Tins should they fear, who will to be so low ; who, so far from lifting them- selves to heavenly things, pour out their affections on things of earth, meditate on and love earthly things, and forgetful of the heavenly, choose to fix their eyes on earth. These the wide gaping of the earth which they loved, shall swallow : to them the deft valleys shall open an everlasting sepulchre, and, having received them, shall never part with them." Highest and lowest, first and last, shall perish before Him. The pride of the highest, kings and princes, priests and judges, shall sink and melt away ber^eaih the weight and Majesty of His glory ; the hardness of the lowest, which would not open itself to Him, shall be cleft in twain before Him. As wax before the fire ", melting away be- fore Him by Whom they were not softened, vanishing mto nothingness. Metals melt, changing their form only ; wax, so as to cease to be^". As the waters poured down (as a stream or cataract, so the word means ^*) a steep plaee, Down to the very edge, it is borne along, one strong, smooth, unbroken current; then, .at once, it seems to gather its strength, for one great effort. But to what end ? To fall, with the greater force, headlong, scattered in spray, foam and froth; dissipated, at times, into vapor, or reeling in giddy eddies, never to return. In Judeea, where the autumn rains set in with great vehemence", the waters must have been often seen pouring in their little tumultuous brooklets down the moun- tain side '^, hastening to disappear, and dis^ appearing the faster, the more vehemently they rolled along ^^. Both images exhibit in Meij-el-Hnloh. The Jordan is a continual cataract between el-Huleh and the Lake of Gennesareth ;" (Rev. G. Williams, MS. letter) "a fall of GOO feet in about 10 miles. On the Western bank, high above the rocky bed of the torrent, the water was running rapidly down the steep incline toward the river, which could hardly be less than 150 feet below us.'' (Id. Col. Church Chron. 18J30. Jan. p. 30.^. Porter describes the fall of the river Adonis (Five years, ii. 205.) From the height at which the streams rise in the Lebanon chain, there must be many greater or lesser falls. >* Hence the Hebrew name DB^J, ** heavy rain," for which we have no one word, is used of the autumn and winter rain. Cant. ii. 11. w I have seen this effect for above half an hour fl5 miles) on the mountain country near the lakes in a thunderstorm. 17 •* The decrease of the waters fswollen by the rains in the mountains) is usually as rapid as tlieir rise.** Burckhardt, Syria, p. 161. 18 Mia^H. CH rTst ^ ^^^ *^® transgression cir. 758-726. of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the trans- gression of Jacob? is U the inward emptiness of sinners, man's utter helplessness before God. They need no out- wam impulse to their destruction. " ^ Wax endureth not the nearness of the fire, and the waters are carried headlong. So all of the ungodly, when the Lord cometh, shall be dissolved and disappear." At the end of the world, they shall b^ gathered into bundles, and cast away. 5. For the iranaffression of J(Ui6b is aU this. Not for any change of purpose in God ; nor, arain, as the effect of man's lust of conquest. iNone could have any power against God's people, unless it had been given him by God. Those mighty Monarchies of old existed but as God's instruments, especially toward His own people. God said at this time of Assy- ria, ^AMniury rod c^ Mine angtry and the staff in his hajui is Mine indignation ; and ', Now nave I brought il to pas8, that thou shotddnst be to hy w%ste a^enced cities into ruinous heaps. Each scourge of GK)d chastised just those nations, which God willed him to chasten ; but the especial object for which each was raised up was his minion against that people, in whom Gk) 1 mo.^t shewed His mercies and His judg- ments. * I wHl send him against an ungodly naiion and aaainsi the penple of My wraih wiU l give him a charge, Jacob and Isrady in this place, comprise alike the ten tribes and the two. They still bare the name of their father, who, wrestlinsr with the Angel, became a prince with Oody Whom they forgat. The name of Jacob then, as of Christian now, stamped as deserters, those who did not the deeds of their father. Whal^ [rather Who *J is the trawigression of Jacob f W{io)b its cause ? In whom does it lie? Is it not Samaria f The metropolis must, in its own nature, be the source of. good or evil to the land. It is the heart who^se pulses beat throughout the wh >le system. As the seat of power, the res- idence of justice or injustice, the place of counsel, the concentration uf wealtn, which all the most influential of the land visit for their several occasions, its manners penetrate in a degree the utmost comers of Uie land. Corrupted, it becomes a focus of corruption. The blood parses through it, not to be puri- fied, but to be disea^. Samaria, being founded on apostasy, owing its being to rebel- lion against God, the home of that policy * 8. Jer. « l8. X. fl. • lb. xxxvH. 26. * lb. x. 6. *'0 always relates to a personal objeetj and appa- rent exoeptioa8 may be reduced to this. So AE. Kim. Tanch. Poc. not Samaria? and what chr^Fst are the high places of Ju- cir tss-t^s. dah? are they not Jerusa- lem? 6 Therefore I will make which set up a rival system of worship to Hisy forbidden by Uim, beomie a fountain of evil, whence the stream of ungodliness over- ilowed the land. It became thd imperson- ation of the people's sin, *' the heart and the head of the bod^ of sin." And wluii [lit. )(^^n are the high places of Judah t are they not Jerusalem t Jerusalem God had formed to be a centre of unity in holiness ; thiiher the tribes of the Lord were to go up to the testimony of Israel ; there was the unceasing worship of God, the morning and evening sacrifice ; the Feasts, the memorials of past miraculous mercies, the foreshadow- ings of redemption. But there too 8atan placed his throne. Ahaz brought thither that most hateful idolatry, the burning chil- dren to Moloch in the vaUey of the scm of Hin- nofm\ There, ''he made htm altars in every comer cf Jerusalem, Thence, he extended the idolatry to all Judah. * And in every several city of Judah he made high places to bum incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers, Hezekiah, in his reforma- tion, with cUl Israelf ^went out to the cities of Judahy and brake the images in pieces and hewed down the stalues of Asherah, and threw down the high places and the aUars ovt of all Judah and Benjaminy as much as out of Eph- raim and Manasseh, Nay, by a perverse interchange, Ahaz took the brazen aUary con- secrated to God, for his own divinations, and assigned to the worship of God the altar copied from the idol-altar at Dani.vcus. whose fashion pleased his taste ^^ Since dod and mammon cannot be served together, Jerusalem was become one great' idol-temple, in which Judah brought its sin into the verv face of God and of His Worahip. The Iffoly City had itself become sin, and the fountain of unholiness. The one temple of God was the single protest against the idolatries which encompassed and besieged it ; the incense went up to God, morning and evening, from it ; from every head of every street of the city^\ and (since Ahaz had brought in the worship of Baalim '*, and the rites of idol- atry continued the same,) from the roofi of all their hou9es ", went up the incense to JBaal ; a worship which, denying the Unity, denied the Being of God. 6. Therefore [lit. And] IvoiU make Samaria • 2 Chr. xxviil. 3. T p>. 24. « lb. 25. • lb. xxxl. I. w 2 Kings xvL 10-16. 11 Ezek. xvi. 31, 2 Chr. xxvUi. 24. m ib. 2. u Jer. xxxiL 29. CHAPTER L 19 c hrTs t Samaria ^ as an heap of the cir. 768-726. field, and as plantings of a k2 Kinss 19. 26. yineyard : and I will pour e]|L3.12L * down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will i.Esek. 13. 14. * discover the foundations thereof 08 an hetxp of the field, and as planimga of a vine- yanL " ' The order of the sin was the order of the punishment.'' Samaria's sins were the earliest, the most obstinate, the most un- broken, bound up with its being as a state. On it then God's judgments should first fall. It was o crown of pride\ resting on the head of the rich vaUevB, out of which it rose. Its soil is still rich *. " The whole is now cultivated in terraces V "to the summits*." Prob- ably, since the sides of hills, open to the sun, were chosen for vineyards, it had been a vine- yard, before Shemer sold it to Omri*. What It had been, that it was again to be. Its inhabitants cast forth, its houses and gorgeous palaces were to become heaps of stones, gaih- ered out ^ to make way for cultivation, or to become the fences of the vegetation, which should succeed to man. There is scarce a sadder natural sight than the fragments of human habitation, tokens of man's labor or his luxury, amid the rich beauty of nature when man himself is gone. For they are tracks of sin and punishment, man's rebellion and Grod's judgment, man's unworthiness of the good natural gifts of God. A century or two ago, travelers "® speak of the ground [the site of Samaria] as strewed with masses of ruins." Now these too are gone. "'The stones of the temples and palaces of Samaria have been carefully removed from the rich soil, thrown together in heaps, built up in the rude walls of terraces, and rolled down into the valley below." "'About midway of the ascent, the hill is surrounded by a nar- row terrace of woodland like a belt. Higher up too are the marks of slighter terraces, once occupied perhaps by the streets of the ancient city." Terrace-cultivation has suc- ceeded to the terraced streets once thronged by the busy, luxurious, sinful, population. And I mil pour down tJie stones thereof into the raUeyj of which it was the crest, and which it now proudly surveyed. God Himself would cause it to be poured down (he uses the word which he had iust u^ of the vehemence of the cataract ^® ). " " The whole fiioe of this part of the hill suggests the idea * 8. Jer. » Is. xxviil. 1. » Porter, Hdbook, p. 346. * lb. 344. » Rob. ii. 304. 307. '1 Kings xvi. 24. ' Is. v, 2. • "Cotovicus in the 16th, and Von Troilo in the 17th century.*' Rob. ii 307. note 1. 7 And all the graven chrTbt images thereof shall be cir. 768-728. beaten to pieces, and all the "hires thereof shall ■Ho8.2.5,i2. be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate : for she that the buildings of the ancient city had been thrown down from the brow of the hill. Ascending to the top, we went round the whole summit, and found marks of the same process everywhere." And I mUl discover the foundations thereof The desolation is entire; not one stone left upon another. Yet the very words of threat- ening contain hope. - It was to be not a heap only, but the plantings of a vineyard. The heaps betoken ruin ; the vineyard^ fruitfulness cared for bv Grod. Destroyed, as what it was, and tumea upside down, as a vineyard by the share, it should become again what God madf it and willed it to be. It should again become a rich vaUej/y but in outward desola- tion. Its splendid palaces, its idol teniple& its houses of joy, should be but heaps ana ruins, which are cleared away out of a vine- yard, as only choking it. It was built in rebellion and sciiism, loose and not held together, like a heap of stones, having no cement of love, rent and torn in itself, having been torn both from God and His worship. It could be remade only by being wholly unmade. Then should thev who believed be branches grafted in Him Who said, "/ am the Vine, ye are the branches. 7. And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces. Its idols in whom she trusts, so far from protecting her, shall themselves go into captivity, broken up for the gold and silver whereof they were made. The wars of the Assyrians being religious wars ^', the idolatry of Assyria destroyed the idolatry and idols of Israel. And all the hires thereof shall be burned toith fire. All forsaking of God being spiritual fornication from Him Who made His crea- tures for Himself, the hires are all which man would gain by that desertion of his God, emploved in man's intercourse with his idols, whether as bribing his idols to give him what are the gifts of God, or as himself bribed by them. For there is no pure ser- vice, save that of the love of God. God alone can be loved purely, for Himself; offer- ings to Him Alone are the creature's pure •Rob. 11.304. »ver.4. 11 Nnrrative of Scottish Mission, pp.293, 4. in Hen- derson. " 8. John XV. 6. usee below Introd. to Nahum. 20 MICAH. c hbTs t ga^l^^r^d it of the hire of cir. 7ft»-726. an harlot and they shall return to the hire of an harlot homage to the Creator, going out of itself, not lookinfi: back to itself, not seeking itself, but stretching forth to llim and seeking Him for Himself. Whatever man gives to or hopes from his idols, man himself is alike his object in both. The hire then is, alike what he gives to his idols, the gold whereof he makes his Baal \ the offerings which the heathen used to lay up in their temples, and what, as he thought, he him- self received back. For he gave onlv earthly things, in order to receive back things of earth. He hired their service to him, and his earthly gains were his hire. It is a strong mockery in the mouth of God, that they had these things from their idols. He speaks to them after their thoughts. Yet it is true that, lUthough God overrules all, man does receive from Satan ', the god (^ thU uorld^j all which he gains amiss. It i« the Erice for which he sells his soul and profanes imself. Yet herein were the heathen more religious than the Christian worldling. The heathen did offer an ignorant service to they knew not what. Our idolatiy of mam- mon, as being less abstract, is more evident self-worship, a more visible ignoring and so a more open dethroning of God, a worship of a material prosperity, of which we seem our- selves to be the authors, aud to which we habitually immolate the souls of men, so habitually that we have ceased to be con- scious of it. And all the idoU thereof vnU J lay desolate, lit. maks a desolation. They, now thronged by their worshipers, should be deserted ; tlieir place and temple, a waste. He thrice repeats aU; all her graven imagesy all her hires, all her idols; all Bhould be destroyed. He subjoins a threefold destruction which should over- take them : so that, while the Assyrian broke and carried off the more precious, or burned what could be burned, and, what could not be burned, nor was worth transporting, should be left desolate, all should come to an end. He sets the whole the more vividly before the mind, exhibiting to uh so many separate pictures of the mode of destruction. For from the hire of a harlot she gathered them, and to the hire of a harlot they shall return. "*The wealth and manifold provision which (as she thought) were gainea by fornication 1 See Hos. IL 8. vol. i. p. .%. »2Cor. iv. 4. «S. Jer. *S. Mattiv. 9. • Rom. i. 23. • HeHiod. 'E. k. • H. .354. L. 7 Pindar Isthm. vll. 67, 8. L. • Herod, i. 199. • vi. 43. ^ Strabo, z vi. 1. 20. 8 Therefore » I will wail ^ ^^^"^H ^ and howl/ 1 will go strip- ^-'f- 75fr-728. ped and naked: **I will "^22. 4** make a wailing like the •ia^io^i^i,^ »Job30. 29. Pa. 102. ft. with her idols, shall go to another harlot, Nineveh ; so that, as they went a whoring in their own land, they should go to another land of idols and fornication, the Assyrians." They * turned their glory iiUo shame, changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto eorruutible man; and so it should turn to them into shame. It sprung out of their shame, and should turn to it again. " III got, ill spent." Evil gain, cursed in its origin, has the curse of God upon it, and makes its gainer a curse, and ends ac- cursedly. " Make not ill gains," says even a Heathen •, "ill gains are equal to losses;" and another^, "Unlawful sweetness a most bitter end awaiteth." Probably, the most literal sense is not to be excluded. The degrading idolatrous cus- tom, related of Babylon and Cyprus '', still continued among the Babylonians at the date of the hook of Baruch •, and to the Christian era ^^. S. Augustine 8|)eaks of it as having existed ^^ among the Phoenicians, and Theo- dorct" says that it was still practiced by some in Syria. The existence of the idola- trous custom is presup|)08ed by the prohibi- tion by Mo^es ^' ; and, in the time of Hosea self-desecration was an idolatrous rite in Israel ". In the day of Judgment, when the foundation of those who build their house upon the sand, shall be laid bare, the riches wnich they gained unlawfully shall be burned up ; all the idols, which they set up instead of God, "*^the vain thoughts, and useless fancies, and hurtful forms and images which they picture in their mind, defiling it, and hindering it from the steadfast contem- plation of divine things, will be punished. They were the hire of the soul which went astray from God, and they who conceived them will, with them, become the' prey again of that infernal host which is unceas- ingly turned from Gtxl." 8. Therefore I will [wovld'^^ tpail [properly beat ", i. e. on the breast], ana howl. " Let me alone," he would say, " that I may vent my sorrow in all ways of expressing sorrow, beat- ing on the breast and wailing, using all acts and sounds of grief." It is a.s we would say, " Let me mourn on" a mourning inexhaust- ible, because the woe too and the cause of n dftbant. de Civ. Del lit. 10. u on thin place. M Dout. xxiii. 18. " See on Hos. iv. 14, p. 31. »I)ion. , , " He thrice repeats the optative H^'^-W mi3DK CHAPTER I. 21 Before CHRIST cir. 758-72«. dragons, and mourning as the t owls. 9 For 1 1 her wound is t Ueb.daugMers oftheowL 'yriSo^wc* incurable; for *>it of her wounds. 4 2 Kings 18. 13. Is. 1. 6, 7, 8. 18 grief was unceasiDg. The Prophet becomes in words, probably in acts too, an image of his people, doing as they should do her^ter. He mourns, because ana as they woald have to mourn, beuring chastisement, bereft of all outward comeliness, an example also of re- pentance, since what he did were the chief outward tokens of mourning. / wiU [would] go stripped [despoiled ^] and naked, lie explains tne acts, that they represented no mere voluntary mourning. Not only would he, representing them, go bared of all garments of beauty, as we say " half-naked * '* but despoiled also, the proper term of those plundei^d and stripped by an enemy. He npeaks of his doing, what we know that Isaiah did, by God's command, representing in act what his people should thereafter do. "' Wouldest thou that I should weep, thou must thyself grieve the first.'' Micali doubtless went about, not speaking only of grief, but grieving, in the habit of one mourning and bereit of all. He pro- longs in these words the voice of wailing, choosing unwonted forms of words, to carry on the sound of grief ^ / will make a waiUng like the dragons t jack- als^'] and mourning as the owls [ostriches^]. The cry of both, as heard at night, is very piteous. Both are doUful creatures, dwelling in desert and lonely places. ** The ^ jackals make a lamentable howling noise, so that travelers unacquainted with them would think that a company of people, women or children, were howling, one to another.'' > Barrfoot is exprossed in Hebrew by HIT. Since tiien Micah does not U8e the receiTod term for bare- foot, and does use the word expressing " stripped/* * despoiled," the E. V. is doubtless right, agreeing with the Latin against the LXX. and S3rr. *See on Amos ii. IC. p. 178. n. (i. Seneca says: ** Some things, though not fexactly] true, are com- prised under the same word, for their likeness. So we call illiterate, one not altogether uninstructed, bat who has not been advanced to higher knowledge. So he who has seen one inhabited and in rags, says that he had seen one * naked.' *^ de benef. v. 13. Sanch. sUor.A.P.102,8. *SS'B^ and noS"!* carry on the sound of nS^S'l«. hh'*Vf% the textual reading, is doubtless right, although without example; HOTK has anal- ogy with other words, but, common as the word is, stands alone in the word itself. Each bears out the other. • The jru which occurs only in the plural D'JHt is distinct fh)m the r^n, plur. 00^31% although they touch on each other, in that rjH sing, is written D^ Ji\ £zek. xxix. 3, and the poetic plur. of come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of. my people, even to Jeru- salem. Before CHRIST cir. 768-726. ^' Its howV says an Arabic natural histor- ian *, " is like the crying of an infant." " We heaid them," says another ', " through the night, wandering around the villages, with a continual, prolonged, mournful cry/' The ostrich, forsaking its young ^*^, is an image of bereavement. " " As the ostrich forgets her eggs and leaves than as though they were not l^Sf to be trampled by the feet of wild beasts, so too shall I go childless, spoiled and naked." Its screech is spoken of by travel- ers as ""fearful, affrighting." "" Dur- ing the lonesome part of the night they often make a doleful and piteous noise. I have often heard them groan, as if they were in the greatest agonies. " ** I will grieve from the heart over those who perish, mourning for the hardness of the ungodly, as the Apostle had ^ great heaviness and coniirituil sorrow in his lieart for his breth- ren, the impenitent and unbelieving Jews. Again he saith ^', who is weak and J am not weak t Who is offended, and I bum not t For by how much the soul is nobler than the body, and by how much eternal damnation is heavier than any temporal punishment, so much more vehemently should we grieve and weep for the peril and perpetual damna- tion of souls, than for bodily sickness or any temporal evil." 9. For her [Samaria's] wound^'^, [lit. her wounds, or strokes, (the word is used especially of those inflicted by God^®,) each, one by one,] is incurable. The idiom is used of inflictions on the body politic^' or the jn» rjn occurs in the text^ Lam. iv. 3. The Syr. (and Chaldee, properly) and Tanchum oftentimes render it "jackal." Pococke first, of moderns, brought out this me-aning. See his note here. •The njj?' D2 "female ostrich" (the DOnH probably being the male ostrich) may be so called from Tj;', (Syr. yitttton, like its Arabic name na*am) or from its shrill cry, HJJ?. ^ Pococke, who had heard them in Syria, Ac. • Demiri, in Bochart. iii. 12. T. iiL p. 181. ed. Leips. "It howls by night only." Id. •Olearius, Itin. Mosc. et Pera. It. 17. Boch. lb. p. 183. w Job xxxl X. 16. " S. Jer. w Sandys' Travels, L. ii. fin. w Shaw, Travels, T. ii. p. 349. M Dion. w Rom. ix. 1. » 2 C!or, xi. 29. " The construction of the E. V. is beyond ques- tion preferable that of the E. M. It is the common emphatic idiom, in which the plural subject and singular predicate are joined to express, that the thing asserted is true not only of all generally but of each individually. M Lev. xxvi. 21. Nu. xi. 33, Deut xxTiiL 69, 61, Ac. u Nah. iii. ult Jer. xxx. 12, 16. 22 MICAH. chrTst ^^ ir'I>eclare ye it not cir. 758-726. at Gath, wccp JB TLot at all : '2 8am. I. 21). in the house of ||Aphrah chbTst ■ roll thyself in the dust. I That is, ditft cir. 758-726. • Jer. 6. 2& mind \ for which there is no remedy. The wounds were very nckf or incurable, not in themselves or on God's part, but on Israel's. The day of grace passes awav at last, when man hus so steeled himself against grace, as to be morally dead, having deadened himself to all capacity of repentance. For it is come unto Iquite up to* Judah ; he, [the enemyj is come [lit. hath reachtd, touched,] to [^itite up to'] ths gate of my peo- ple, even to Iquite up to '] Jei-usaJem. "' The same sin, yea, the same punishment for sin, which overthrew Samaria, shall even come unto, quite up to Judah, Then the Prophet suddenly changes the gender, and, as Scrip- ture so often does, speaks of the one agent, the centre and impersonation of the coming 4 evil, as sweeping on over Judah, mate up to the gate of his people, quite up to Jerusalem, He does not say nere, whetner Jerusalem would be taken ^; and so, it seems likely that he speaks of a calamitv short of ex- cision. Of Israel's wounds only he here says, that they are iricurable; he describes the wasting of even lesser places near or beyond Jerusalem, the flight of their inhabitants. Of the capital itself he is silent, except that the enemy rea/ihed, touched, struck against it, quite up to iL Probably, then, he is here de- scribing the first visitation of God, when ^Sennacherib came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took Uiem, but Jerusalem was spared. God's judgments come step by step, leaving time for repentance. The same enemy, although not tlie same king, came against Jerusalem who had wasted Samaria. Samaria was probably as strong as Jenisalem. Hezekiah praved ; God heard, the Assyrian army perished by miracle ; Jerusalem was respited for 124 years. 10. TeUiinqtin Gath. Gath had probably now ceased to be ; at least, to be ot any ac- count ^ It shows how David's elegy lived 1 Jer. X. 19, XV. 18. H /HJ in Nahum and Jer. xxx. 15. is exactly equivalent to the tS^UK in Micah. In Jer. xxx. 12, ']*iatBf^ V/)2H Btands parallel with it Isaiah (xvii. 11) ha^i tsnjK 3K3. •ij; m each of the three placed. »S. Jer. *'\^ includes the whole country, (jutte up to. It does not necessarily include the place, quite up to whir'h it reaches. It does not, probably, 2 Kings xviii. 8. See on Am. L vol. L p. 245. »2 Kinf^s xviii. 13. •See on Am. vl. 2. vol. 1. p. 80B. ' Parallel with Anhkolon. •Ps. XXV. 2. •Rs. xlli. 10. »P8.1xxxix. 42,50. "The conjecture of Keland (Pal. p. SW) "in Acco weep not," as if }22 were for OJ^D, is against the Hebrew idiom, and one of the many abuses of Hebrew parallelinm, as if Hebrew writers were tied down to exactness of parallelism, and becauHO the Prophet mentions the name of a city in two clauses. in the hearts of Judah, that his words are used as a proverb, ( just as we do now, in whose ears it is yearly read), when, as with us, its original application was probably lost. True, Gath, reduced itself, might rejoice the more maliciously over the suHerings of Ju- dah. But David mentions it as a chief seat of Philistine strength ^; now its strength was gone. The blaspheming of the enemies of God is the sorest part of His chastisements. Whence David prays ^ let not mine enemies er- ult over me ; and the sons of Korah, ' With a sword in my bones, mine enemies rqnvaeh me, while they say daily unto me, where is thy God f and Ethan ^" ; Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice, Memiember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servant — wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Thine anointecL It is hard to part with home, with country, to see all de- solate, which one ever loved. But far, far above all, is it, if, in the disgrace and deso- lation, Gi)d*s honor seems to be injured. The Jewish people was then God's only home on earth. If H could be extinguished, who re- mained to honor Him ? Victories over them seemed to their heathen neighbors to be vic- tories over Him. He seemed to be dishon- ored without, because they had ^rst dishon- ored Him within. Sore is it to the Christian, to see God's cause hindered, His kingdom narrowed, the Empire of Infidelity advanced. Sorer in one way, because he knows the price of souls, for whom Jesus died. But the world is now the Church's home. "The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee ! " Then, it was girt in within a few miles of territory, and sad in- deed it must have been to the Prophet, to see this too hemmed in. Tell it not in Gath, to the sons of those who, of old, defied God. Weep not at all [lit. weeping ", we^p not"], he must in the third. The Prophet never would have used one of the commonest idioms in Hebrew, the emphatic use of the Inf. Abs. with the finite verb, unless he had meant it to be understood, as any one must understand the three Hebrew words, lD3n 7K OD. The sacred writers wrote to be understood. It is contrary to all principles of lan- eiiage^not to take a plain idi«)m in its plain sense. The \orss. Vulg. Aq. flymm. so rt'nder it The LXX. (from a readinfc in which, oi 'EvoKtifi or oi cr *Ax*Lfif Keland made his ot iv 'Ax«o) is full of blun- ders. They rendor also 133D as if it were ^}2i\, ayotMoiofitlrt i Jl^^S, i^ oIkov ; n*^£)V 7 'at* yiKttra. The J? is but seldom omitted in Hebrew. (Of the instances given by Ge.*<enius, p. 978, 73 for 7j/'3 i» the Chaldee name of the idol ; ^3 for ^j,»3, uncer- tain, at most; ID 7 for 1DJr*7 (Ps. xxvii. 8) wrong. There remains then in, Hebrew, only the single CHAPTER I. 23 c hrYs t ^^ ^"^ y® away, 1 1 thou eir.7&fr-7a8. f inhabitant of Saphir, d»eiuatfair(y. having thy ^ shame naked : tH^b. inUit^ ^j^^ inhabitant of || Zaanan « Is. 20. 4. A 47. 2, 3. Jer. 13. 22. Nah. 3. 5. ^ I Or, the cotMtry of flocks. Weeping is the stillest expression of grief. We spetJc of " weeping in silence." Yet this also was too visible a token of grief. Their weeping would be the joy and laughter of God 8 enemies. In the house of Aphrahy [probably, In Beth- leaphnUi] roll thyself in the dust [better, as the text, I roll myself in dust *]. The Prophet chose unusual names, such as would associate themselves with the meanings which he wished to oonvev, so that thenceforth the name itself might recall the prophecy. As if we were to say, " In Ashe I roll myself in ashes." — ^There was an Aphrah near Jerusa- lem'. It is more likely that Micah should refer to this, than to the Ophrah in Benja- min '. lie shewed them, in his own person, how they should mourn, retired out oi sight and hidden, as it were, in the dust. " * What- ever grief your heart may have, let your face have no tears * go not forth, out, in the house of dustf sprinkle thyself with the ashes of its ruins.'' All the places thenceforth spoken of were in Judah, whose sorrow and desolation are re- peated in all. It is one varied history of sor- row. The names of her cities, whether in themselves called from some gifts of God, as Shaphir, (beautiful; we have i^airford, Fair- field, ^atrbum, i^atrlight,) or contrariwise from some detect, Maroth, Bitterness (probably from brackish water) Achzib^ lying^ (doubt- less from a winter-torrent which in summer fidled) suggest, either in contrast or by them- pronnnciation of Amos HptB^J for T^J^pJff} viii. 8. See ab. p. 216. Robinsoii obserreff, '* The' Semitic letter ]^ in particular, so unpronounceable by other nationjt, has a remarkable tenacity. Of the very many Hebrew name^, containing tHia letter, which Btill survive in Arabic, our list^ exhibit only two or three in which it has been dropped ; and perhaps none in which it has been exchanged for another letter." (i. 25fl. n. 2.) His only instances are Jib for Oibeon (where the whole syllable has been dropped) i. 456 ; Jelbon for Gilboa (ii. 316) ; Yafa for Taphia Josh. xix. 12, (donbtfhl) ii. M2: and Endor (which I doubt) ii. 360. Anyhow they are but throe names, in which, in the transfer into another though cognate language, y has been dropped at the end, and one at the beginning of a word, none in the middle. In fact also Acco (Acre) was proba- bly never in the poRsession of Israel. It is only mentioned in the Old Testament, to say that Agher did not drive out its inhabitants (Judg. i. ^l). This interpretation which has become popular, 1) violates the Hebrew idiom; 2) implies a very improbable omission of a "tenacious letter;** 3) Is historically unnatural. In that the Prophet would thus forbid Judah to weep in a city where there were none even of Israel. Yet of late, it has been came not forth in the chrTst mourning of |[ Beth-ezel ; cJr- 7^)8-726. he shall receive of you his | or, a place standing. near. selves, some note of evil and woe. It is Ju- dah^s history in all, given in different traits ; her ^^ beauty '* turn^ into shame ; herself free neither to go forth nor to "abide;" looking for good and finding evil ; the strong (Lachish) strong only to nee ; like a brook that fails and deceives; her inheritance (Mareshah) inherited ; herself, taking refuge in dens and caves of the earth, yet even there found, and bereft of her glory. Whence, in the end, without naming Judah, the Pro- phet sums up her sorrows with one call to mourning. 1 1. Pass ye away [lit. Pass thou (fem.) away to or for yourselves^ disregarded by God and despised by man] pass the bounds of your lana into captivity, thou inhabiiani of Ska- phir, having thy shame nakedy [better, in naked' nessy and shame ^"j. Shaphir [fair^ was a village in Judah, between Eleutheropolis and Ashkelbn ^. There are still, in the 8hephe- lah, two villages called Sawafir^ It, once fav'f should now go forth in the disgrace and dishonor with which (sptives were led away. The inJiabiiants of Zianan came not forth. 2kianan {abounding tn flocks) was probably the same as Zenan of Judah, whicn lay in the Shephelah'. It, which formerly went forth ^ in pastoral gladness with the multitude of its flocks, shall now shrink into itself for fear. The mourning of Beth-Esd [lit. house of rooty firmly rooted] shaU take from you tts standing ^K It too cannot help itself, much less be a stay to others. They who have followed by Hitz. Maur. Umbreit, Ewald, thought probable by Gesenius and Winer, and adopted even by Dr. Henderson. , 1 The Kethib ^niS^ vfiDH is, as usual, to be pre- ferred to the correction, the Kri, ^B^SfiDn. « R. Tanchum of Jerusalem, here. •Josh, xviii. 23, 1 Sara, xiii 17. , 4S.Jer. Rup. •037 ^3;^. •The construction, nB^3 Ti^'^^t is like TV^p piy fneckncsa, righteousness^ Ps. xlr. 6. ilK?3 is the quality, shame. ^ Onom. • Schols, Reiscn, p. i.'tS. Robinson, ii. U, says, •* There are three villages of this name near each other." "There is yet a village Snaphir, two hours 8. E.of Ashdod." Schwartz (of Jerusalem) Das Heil. Land. p. 87. " a Sapheria one hour N. W. of Lod." [Lvdda] (lb. p. KV).) • Jo8h. XV. 27, coll. Xi. "There is a village Zana- bra, 1. hour 8. E. of Moresha." Schwartz, 74. ^^]H^t whence pK^, is itself probably con- nected with KV\ " I have preferred the division of the Syr. and Vulg. because, if joined as in the E. V. the last clsuf«e has no definit<» 8ubject, and there is no allu- sion to the meaning of Beth haezel. 24 MICAH. c hrTs t 12 For the inhabitant of cir- 7fi^>- Maroth || waited carefuUy \ Ot.uxu grieved, tor good : buf" cvil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem. 13 O thou inhabitant of Before been wont to go forth in fullness, shall not go forth then, and they who abide, strong though the^ be, shall not furnish an abiding place. Neither in going out nor in remain- ing, shall anything be secure then. 12. For the inkabilarU of Maroth [^bUlemess] wailed car^uUyfor good. She waited carefuUy^ for the good which God gives, not for the Good which God is. She looked, longed for, ' good, as men do ; but therewith her longing ended. She longed for it, amid her own evil, which brought GbJ's judgments upon her. Maroth is mentioned here only in iioly Scripture, and has not been identified. It too wiis probably selected for its meaning. 2%e inhabUarU of bUtemesses, she, to whom bUter- nessesj or, it may be, rebellions *, were as the home in inrhich she dwelt, which ever encir- cled her, in which she reposed, wherein she spent her life, wailed for good ! Strange con- tradiction! yet a contradiction, which the whole un-Christian world is continually en- acting; nay, from which Christians have often to be awakened, to look for good to themselves, nay, to pray for temporal good, while living in bitternesses, bitter ways, dis- pleasing to Grod. The words are calculated* to be a religious proverb. " Living in sin," as we say, dwelling in biUemeesee, she looked for aoodf Bitternesses I for it is ' an evil thing and biller, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy Ood, and thai My fear is not in thee. But {^For] evil came down from the Lord unto the gale of Jerusalem, It came, like the brim- stone and lire which God rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but as yet to the gale of Jeru- salem, not upon itself. ^* * Evil came down m)on them from the Lord, i.e. /was grieved, i chastenel, / brought the Assyrian upon them, and from My anger came this affliction * 7in is u»^<i in the bciibc of iX\*% Gen. viii. 10, And in Hif. Jtid. iii. 'iTi^ in Pil. Job xxvi. 16, and in Hithpal. Ps. xxxvii. 7. Here too it has the con- struction of 7n^ with 7, as it has in Job xxvi, and as it has not in the sense of the E. M . " was grieved." Such an idiom as 3107 7in, "to be in pain for Sost) good," does not occur in Hebrew, and would a equivocal, since the idiom u used for *' longed for (expected) good." 7in also, " grieved." occurs only Jer. v. 3. Used of the "writhing" of the birth-pangs, it is Joined with no preposition; in the sense ** feared." it is joined only with the 'Jfi 7D1 ID. ' JDD, of the object of fear. ' •D^ri"^0 ft'om mo occurs Jer. 1. 21. «Jer. li. 19. ^S. Cyr. , "S-ll. • fh>m the Arab. The bilitteral root *|7 seems to * Lachish, bind the chariot c h r i a t to the swift beast: she in cJr.'Tao. the beginning of the sin to s2 Kings is. the daughter of Zion : for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee. upon them. But it was removed, My Hand prevailing and marvelously rescuing those who worsniped My Majesty. For tlie trouble shall come ta the gale. But we know that Rabshakeh, with manv horsemen, came to Jerusalem and ail-but touched the gates. But he took it not. For in one night the Assyrian was consumed.'' The two for^s are seemingly co-ordinate, and assign the reasons of the foreannounced evils*, on man's part and on God's. On man's, in that he looked for what could not so come, good : on God's, in that evil, which alone could be looked for, which, amid man's evil, could alone be good for man, came from Him. Losing the true Good, man lost all other good, and dwelling in the bitterness of sin and provocation, he dwelt indeed in bitterness of trouble. 0 thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast [s/cee/.] Lachish was always a strong city, as its name probably denoted, (probably "compact*.") It was one of the royal cities of the Amorites, and its king one of the five, who went out to battle with Joshua '', It lay in the low country, Shep- heluh, of Judah **, between Adoraim and Azekah* 7 Roman miles S. of Eleuther- opoUs "*, and so, probably, close to the h ill- country, although on the plain; partaking perhaps of the advantages of both. Keho- lx)am fortified it. Amaziah fled to it from the conspiracy at Jerusalem *^, as a place of strength. It, with Azekah, alone remained, when Nebuchadnezzar had taken the rest, just before the capture of Jerusalem^. When Sennacherib took all the drfeneed cities of Judaky it seems to have been his last and proudest conquest, for from it he sent his contemptuous message to Ilczekiah ". The whole power of the great king seems to have have been an onomato-poet. In Arabic the sense of " striking '' occurs in ?3^, y2\ jr^S, 03^. P^, lOS, r\2\ noS, I3S. Thence the idea of parts ** impinging on one another " " cleaving cIoAe to," in KdS, HdS, IoS, [griping, oS,] 'jS; •* cleaving close together," *• compact," in lO*?, J?3^, 107. These senses account for all the Arabic words, beginning with 17. The only Hebrew roote, so beginning, are U7, took, and B^O^. 7 .Tosh. X. 3. • lb. XV. 33. 30. * 2 Chr. xi. 9. M Onom. ^» 2 Kgs xi v. 19. M Jer. xxxiv. 7. >» Is. xxxvi. 1, 2. CHAPTER I. 25 14 Therefore shalt thou Before CHRIST cir. 750. _y give 'presents ||to More- 2 Kings 16. sheth-gath : the houses li, 15, 1& I Or, /or. been called forth to take this stronghold. The Assyrian bas-reliefe, the record of the conquests of Sennacherib, if (as the accom- panying inscription is deciphered}, they rep- resent the taking of Lacliish, exhibit it as "*a city of great extent and importance, de- fended by double walls with battlements and towers, and by fortified out- works, in no otiier sculptures were so many armed warriors drawn up in array agi^inst a besieged city. Against the fortifications had been tiirown up as many as ten banks or mounts compactly built, — and seven battering-rams had already been rolled up against the walls." Its situa- tion, on the extremity probably of the plain, fitted it for a d^p6t of cavalry. The swift steeds ', to which it was bidden to bind the chariot, are mentioned as part of the magnifi- cence of Solomon, as distinct from his ordi- nary horses '. They were used by the posts of the king of Persia *. They were doubt- less part of the strength of the kings of Jndah, the cavalry in which their statesmen trusted, instead of God. Now, its swift horses in which it prided itself should avail but to flee. Probably, it is an ideal picture. Lachish is bidden to bind its chariots to horses of the utmost sjieed, which should carry them far away, if their strength were equal to their swiftness. It had great need ; for it was subjected under Sennacherib to the conse(]uences of Assyrian ' conquest. If the Assyrian accounts relate to its capture, im- palement and flaying alive ^ were among the tortures of the captive-people ; and awfully did Sennacherib, in his pride, avenge the sins ag.iinst God Whom he dLsbelieved. She is the heffinning of the sin to the daughter qf Zwn, "'She was at the gate through which the transgremons of Israel flooded Judah.'' How she came first to apostatise and to be the infectress of Judah, Scripture does not tell us^. She scarcely bordered on Phillstia; Jerusalem lay between her and Israel. But the course of sin follows no geographical lines. It was the greater sin to Lachish that she, locally so far removed 1 Lajard, NiD. And Bab. p. 149. « The \ff2'^ was undoubtedly a swift horse, proba- bly from its\ rapid striking of the earth. (Arab.) The word i» used of riding horses in Syr. Chald. Talm. Nasor. see Ges. ** horses of good breed and young," R. Jonah in Kim. lb. < 1 Kks iv. 28. Ene. (v. 8. Heb.) * R»ther viii. 10, U. * Lavard, lb. and 150. «S. 5er. ' Bosenm. and others f^om him, by mistake, attribute it to a supposed situation of Lachish, " lying on the frontier of" Israel ; whereas it was of ll'Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. Before CHRIST oir. ino. I That is, a /t«. ■Josh. 15.44. from Israel's sin, was the first to import into Judah the idolatries of Israel. Scripture does not say, what seduced Lachish herself, whether the pride of military strength, or her importance, or commercial intercourse, for her swift steeds, with Egypt, the common parent of Israers and her sin. Scripture does not give the genealogpr of her sin, but stamps her as the heresiarch of Judah. We know the fact from this place only, that she, apparently so removed from tiie occasion of sin, became, like the propagators of heresy, the authoress of evil, the cause of countless loss of souls. Be^nning of sin to—, what a world of evil lies in the three ® words ! 14. Therefore shalt thou give [bridall presents to Moresheth Oath. Therefore / since Judah had so become a partaker of Israel's sins, she had broken the covenant, whereby God had given her the land of the Ileuthcn, and she should part with it to aliens. The bridal presents, lit. the diemissals, were tlie dowry* with which the father seiit away *° his daugh- ter, to belong to another, her lord " or hus- band, never more to return. Moresheth, [lit. inheritance,] theinheritanceyfhich God gave her. was to be parted with ; she was to be laden *^ with gifts to the enemy. Judah should part with her, and her own treasure also. The houses of Achzib shaU be a lie, Achzib, so called probably from a winter brook (achzab) was to become what its name imiwrted, a re- source which should fail just in the time of need, as the winter brooks in the drought of summer. *' Wilt Thou be unto me as a failing brook, vxiters which are not sure f This Achzib. which is recounted between Keilah ana Mareshah ", was probably one of the oldest towns of Palestine, being mentioned in the history of the Patriarcli Judah ^. After hav- ing survived about 1000 years, it should, in time of need, fail. The kings of Israel are here the kings of Judah. When tnis prophecy was to be accomplished, the ten tribes would have ceased to have any political existence, the remnant in tiieir own land would have no head to look to, except the line of David, part of the chain of fortifled cities furthest removed from Israel on the 8. W. » ^ riKOn n'iy«"1. » 1 Kgs ix. 10. M Jud. xii. 9. u ^;?3. "nj HBTIID S;? D'mSiy Ilt "bndal presents on Moresheth Oath." Hltzlj? thinks that in niy^lD there is an allusion to Pfi/n^O, "espoused;" but this would be a contradictory image, since the bridal-presents were given in espousing, not to one already espoused, and they were to be given not to Gath but to the invader. " Jer. XV. 18. M Josh. xv. 44. u in the unlengthened form y^^ Gen. xxxviii. 5. 26 MICAH. cir. 7:x». an heir unto thee, O lor.the glory of mh&Dit&nt 01 ^Mare- e^i<;. shah: ||he shall come whose good kings had a care for them. Micah tnen, having prophesied the utter de- struction of Samaria, speaks in accordance with the state of things which he foresaw and foretold ^ 15. Yet will I briny an heir [^ihe heir\ him whom God had appointed to bd the heir, Sen- nacherib] unto theCj 0 inhabitant of Mareshah, Mare&hahj (as the original form of its name denotes',) lay on the summit of a hill. '* Its ruins only were still 6een,'' in the time of Eusehius and S. Jerome, " in the second mile from EleutheropolisV "* Foundations still remain on the south-eastern part of the re- markable Tell, south of Beth-Jibrin." Keho- boam fortified it also ^ Zerah the Ethiopian had Gome to'' it, probably to besiege it, when Asa met him, and Ood smote tfte .Ethiopians before him, in tlie valley of Zephathah thereat. In the wars of the Maccabees, it was in the hands of the Edomitcs'*. Its capture and that of Adora are mentioned * as the last act of the war, before the Edomites submitted to John Hvrcanus, and were incorporated in Israel. It was a powerful city *", when the Parthians took it. As Mii'ah writes the name, it looked nearer to the word " inheritance *^" Mareshih {inherit. inee) shall yet have the heir of God's appointment, the enemy. It shall not inherit the land, as promised to the faith- ful, but shall itself be inherited, its people disposs^se.l. While it, (and so also the soul now) held fast to God, they were the heritage of the Lord, by Ills gifts and grace ; when, of their own free-will, those, once God's herit- age, become slaves of sin, they passed and still pass, against their will, into the posses- don of another m:ister, the Assyrian or Satan. He [i. e. the heir, the enemy] shall come unto AdiUlam, the glory of Israel ^"^ ; i. e. he who shall dispossess Mareshah, shaU come quite unto AduUamj where, as in a place of safety, the alory of Israel, all in which she gloried, should be laid up. Adullam was a very ancient city, being mentioned in the history of the patriarch Juduh", a royal city**. It too lay in the Shephelah**; it was said to be 10^' or 12^^ miles £a8t of Eleutheropolis; 1 See ab. Introd. p. 6. « B^ITl. •niB'WTD (from \ffH'^) Jos. xv. 44.- *Ononi. » Rob. ii. «7, a. • -2 Chr. xi. 8. ^ ib. xiv. 9. aqq. • Jos. Ant. xiJ. 8. 6. • Ib. xili. 9. 1. w Ib. xiv. 1.3. 9. " TWff'yO like njy"))D. In the Chron. it is spelled Bn in Micah. "The Enic. Marjc. has, In the same Roneral sense, unto Adullam nhall come the glory of Israel. " Gen. xxxviii. 1. 12. 20. " Jos. xii. 15. » Ib. XV. 35. w Eus. " 8. Jer. " 2 Chr. xi. 7. Before CHRIST cir. 7.W. unto ^Adullam the gbry of Israel. 16 Make thee *bald, •jobLao.* and poll thee for thy * deli- i*^; vi ^ ' Lam. 4. 5. Jer. 7. 29. ft 16. 6. k 47. 6. A 48. 37. but for this, there seems to be scarcely place in the Shephelah. It was one of the 15 cities fortified by Kehoboam '^ ; one of the 16 towns, in which (with their dependent vil- lages) Judah settled after the captivity **. It contained the whole army of Judas MaCs cabsBUs **. Like Laehlsh, it had probably the double advantages of the neighborhood of the hills and of the plain, seated perhaps at the roots of the hill», since near it doubtless was the large cai^e of Adullam named from it. The line of caves, tit for human habitation, which extended from Eleutheropolis to Petra", began Westward of it. ""The valley which runs up from Eleutheropolis Eastward, is full of large caves ; some would hold thousands of men. They are very ex- tensive, and some of them had evidently been inhabited.'' " ** The outer chaml)er of one cavern was 270 feet long by 120 wide ; and behind this were recesses and galleries, probably leading to other chambers which we oould not explore. The massive roof was supported by misshaped pieces of the native limestone left for that purpose, and at some places was domed quite through to the sur- face, admitting both light and air by the roof." The nume of Adullam suggested the memoiy of that cave, the refuge of the Patri- arch David, the first of their line of kings, in extreme isolation and peril of his life. Thither, the refuge now of the remaining glory of Israel, its wealth, its trust, its boast, — the foe should come. And so there only re- mained one common dirge for all. 16. Make thee bald, j^l [lit. shear ^] thee for thy delicate children. Some special ways of cutting the hair were forbidden to the Israelites, as l)eing idolatrous customs, such as the rounding the hair in front, cutting it away from the temples**, or between the eyes *. All shearing of the hair was not for- bidden**; indeed to the Nazarite it was com- manded, at the close of his vow. The re- moval of that chief ornament of the counte- nance was a natural expression of grief, which revolts at all personal appearance. It be- longed, not to idolatry, but to nature*^. Thy w Neh. xi. 30. » Maco. xlL 38. « see S. Jer. ah. p. 235. BRcT. O. Williams, MS. letter. «8ee on .\m. viil. lu. vol. 1. p. 327. ' •* Lev. xix. 27. againnt Arab idolatry. See Herod, ili. 8. • Dout. xiv. I. *a.s Hltzig Bays. *See Job i. 2i), early Greeoo, (II. 2:^, 44i, i:v» ^qq. Aloestis 4U9. non-EKVpiian nations, (Horod. ii. 30.) Persians, (Ib. ix. 24.)' Scythians (lb. iv. 7L) ThesBfr- iiaos, Macedonians (Plut^ Poiop. M,) CHAPTER L 27 c H rTs t ^^ children ; enlarge thy cir. 750. baldness as the eagle; for ddieaU chUdrtn, The change was the more bitter for those tended and brought up deli- cately. Moses from the first spake of special miseries which should Ml on the tender and very delicate. Eidarae thy baldness ; outdo in grief what otheis do ; for the cause of thy grief is more than that of others. Tiie point of comparison in the Eagle might either be the actual baldness of the head, or its moult- ing. If it were the baldness of the head, the word translated eaale ', although mostly used of the Eagle itseli, might here comprehend the Vulture ^ For entire baldness is so marked a feature in the vulture, whereas the "bald-headed Eagle'' was probably not a bird of Palestine '. On the other hand, David, who lived so long among the rocks of Pales- tine, and Isaiah seem to have known of efiects iThe etymology, (Arab, nasara "tore with the beak,") belongs rather to the eugle with its sharp, than to the vulture with its long, piercing beak. (The Kamoos, Freytag'n authority for. rendering ruur vulture, onlv says **a bird," adding that it is the name of "the constellation," i.e. Aquila. In Ulug Begh Tab. Stell. 49, 5(). the okab and the nasr both occur as names of the constellation. Kazwini in Ideler [Sternkunde p. ;i8.'>] says tiiat the *okah is three stars of the form of the flying nasr.) Leo Afr. [Desor. Afr. ix. 66.^ says that "tl'ie largest species of eagle is called Nesir." 2) Unless neither be the golden Eagle, there ip no Hebrew name for it, whereas it is still a bird of Palestine, and smaller eagles are mentioned in the same verse, Lev. xi. 13; viz. the owifragty QlDt and the black eagle, T}^}]^, so called from its strength, like the Valeria, of which Pliny says, "the melanoetos or Valeria, least in size, remarkable for strength, blackish in color." x. 3. The same list of unclean birds contains also the vulture^ nn, Deut. xiv. i:i, (as it must be, being a gregarious bird, Ls. xxxiv. 15.) in its different species ; (Deut ib.) the gier-ea<ile, (i. e. Geyer) fvul- ture] eagle, gypaetos, or Vnltur percnopterus, (Has- selquist, Forskal, Shaw, Bruce in Savigny p. 77.) part4iking of the character of both, (OH*^ Lev. xi. is. Deut xiv. 17.) together with the falcon (HHl Lev. xi. 14.) and hawk, with its subordinate species, Onj'oS |*J) Lev. xL 18. Deut xiv. 16. « In this case, nesher, being a name taken from a quality common to birds of prey, might at once be a generic terra, corresponding to the mmlern term, (aves) rapaees, and mi^ht also designate what all account the king of birds. Its Greek name atrbt is doubtless the Hebrew, 0'>% (Bochart ii. 2. p. 170.) a generic name for birds of prey. The Gypaetos forms a link between the vu ture and the eagle. Seeing the prey afar, lofty tiijcht out of human sight, strength of pinion, building nests in the rocks, attributed in H. Scr. to the nesher. belong also to the vulture. The feeding on dead )x>dies belongs especially to the vulture, although affirmed of eagles also if the body lie not decayed. The Arabic nasr seems to comprise the vulture also. See in Boch. ii. 27. T. iil. p. 79 sqq. Leipz. Savigny says, **Nisr is a generic name which has always been translated Aquila, but now the people and Arabic naturalists use it fo designate the great vul- ture.'* (Descr. de I'Eg. i. 73.) and of 'Okab, " 'Okab is a generic name, but it becomes specific for the urnali black eacrle which, properly speaking, is the 'Okflb." (Ib. 85.) s " The only ' bald-headed Eagle * is an American Before they are gone into captivity c h r i s t from thee. c'''- '^^- of moultins upon the Eagle in producing, (idthough m a less degree than in other birds.) a temporary diminution of strength, which have not in modem times been com- monly observed. For David says*. Thou shall renew, like the eagle, thy youth, which speaks of fresh strength alter temporary weakness ; and Isaiah ^, T/iey thai trust in the Lord shall put forth • fresh strength ; they shall put forth pinum- fealhers'' like eagles, comparing the fresh strength which should succeed to that which was gone, to the eagle's recovering its strong pinion-feathers. Bochart however says un- hesitatingly, "®At the beginning of spring, the rapacious birds are subject to sliedding of their feathers which we call moulting." If this be so, the comparison is yet more vivid, For the baldness of the vulture belongs to rather than an European species. Though it is not exclusively of the new world^ it is yet rarely seen in the old, and then chiefiv in the Northern lati- tudes." Dr. Rolleston, MS. letter, who kindly guided me to the modern authorities Quoted above. * Ps. ciii. 6. » xl. 31. •HD 1fl"'Sn\ «)Sn to succeed to (as in Arab. whence Chaliph) is used of the f^esh shoots of grass, (Ph. xc. 5, 6.) of the stump of a felled tree, put- ting forth fresh suckers, Job xiv. 7. then, causa- tively, of the putting forth fresh strength, in contrast with the exhaustion ancT utt-er stumbling of the young and strong. In Arab. conj. iv. one of its many special meanings is '* put forth fresh feathers" after moulting. 7 Bochart ii. 1. T. 11. p. 745. So the LXX wrtpwbvi^ aovaiy. S. Jer. assument pennas. So also Syr. Saad. n 7j7n is used of bringing flesh on the bones, (Ez. xxxvli. 6.) putting on the figures of Cherubim on the veil, (2 Chr. iil. 14.) gold on « shield, (1 Kp x. 17.) dress, 2 Sam. 1. 24. Am. viii. 10. The E. V. (lit "they shall ascend a pinion fi. e. with a pinion] like eagles,") would Hot be too bold, but for the correspondence of Ps. cili. 6. The word "^IKi rendered wings E. V., is, in Esek. xvil. 3, dis- tinguished from the wing itself and the plumage ; as is n^DK Job xxxix. 13. In Ps. Ixviii. 14. nn3K must be the pinion-feathers, not the pinions; and 8o n^DH in Ps. xci. 4. In Job xxxix. 26, the de- nom. UK* might mean the same, (Boch. Ib.) the first hemistich describing the acouiring the new feathers, the 2d the emigration of tne hawks. The radical meaning of IDK is strength. * Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 1. p. 744, 6. The Kamoos quotes, among the 10 characteristics of the A nook, (the Rachma, Heb. Ori"^), " It flies in the tinio of shedding it^ feathers and is not imperilled in its young plumage, Ac." Boch. ii. 26. T. lii. p. 57. De- metrius Const, iu his 'Icpaxoo-o^. gives remedies for making fresh feathers put forth fast, (c. 17.) and grow quick, (c. 18.) and against diseases in moulting, (c. 32.) showing that birds erf prey are liable to the same law as other birds. (See Buffon^ Hist Nat 1. 44, 6. 69, 70.) Cuvier says, " In certain states of moulting, you see in the plumage [of the royal eagle] the white at the base of the feathers. It is then called Faleo Canadensis." (Rdgne Animal.) To this Grey add.t. that the names Melanaetos and Mogilnik (in Gmelin) only describe it when moult- ing. (Cuvier Anim. Kingd. vi. 33.) So then the change at moulting is so great, that the royal eagle, when moulting, has been thought to be four diner- ent species. 28 MICAH. Before CHRIST cir. 730. CHAPTER n. 1 AgaiivBl oppression, 4 A hm- entatioiL 7 A reproof of inr juBtiee and idolcUry. 12 A promise of restoring Jacob. H ^OE to them Mhat de- cHR^'faT vise iniquity, and c^r. 730. its matured strength, and oould only be an external likeness. The moulting of the eagle involves some degree of weakness, with which he compares Judah's mournful and weak con- dition amid the loss of their children, gone into captivity *. Thus closes the first general portion of the propliecy. The people had cast aside its own Glory, God ; now its sons, its pride and its trust, shall go away from it. " * The eagle, laying aside its old feathers and taking new, is a symbol of penitence and of the penitents who lay aside their former evil habits, and become other and new men. True, but rare form of penitence I" S. Gregory the Great thus a))plies this to the siege of Rome by the Lombards. '"'That happened to her which we know to have been foretold of Judea by the Prophet, en- large thy baldness like the eagk. For baldness bemlls man in the head only, but the eagle in its whole bod^ ; for, when it is verv old, its feathers and pmions fall from all its lx)dy. 8he lost her feathers, who lost her people. Her pinions too fell out, with which sne vib^ wont to fly to the prey ; for all her mighty men, through whom she plundered others, perished. Rut this which we speak of, the oreaking to pieces of the city of Rome, we know has been done in all the cities of the world. Some were desolated by pestilence, others devoured by the swonl, others racked by famine, others swallowed by earthquakes. Despise we them with our whole heart, at least, when brought to nought ; at least with the end of the world, let us end our eager- ness after the world. Follow we, wherein we can, the deeds of the gtxxi." One whose commentaries S. Jerome had read, thus ap- plies this verse to the whole human race. " O soul of man I O city, once the mother of saints, which wast formerly in Paradise, and didst enjoy the delights of different trees, and wast adorned most beautifully, now being cast down from thy place aloft, and brought down unto Babylon, and come into a place of captivity, and having lost thy glory, make thee balil and take the habit of a penitent ; and thou who didst fly aloft like an eagle, mourn thy sons, thy offspring, which from thee is kvl captive." 1 In Greek alao the loes of wealth by pillasce is compared to moulting, not in Aristopii. Av. 284-0. onlv, but in Philosti-atua, **he moults as to the wealth," p. 273. > Lap. s in Ezek. Horn. 18, fin. L. «DioiL ftBup.Rib. **work evil upon their •Hoe.v.e. beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, be- Chap. II. The Prophet had declared that evil should come down on Samaria and Je- rusalem for their sins. He had pronounced them sinners against God ; he now speaks of their hard unlovingness toward man, as our Blessed Lord in the Grospel speaks of sins against Himself in His members, as the ground of the condemnation of the wicked. The time of warning is past. He s])eaks as in the person of the Judge, declaring the righteous judgments of God, pronouncing sentence on the hardened, but blessing on those who follow Christ. The sins thus vis- ited were done with a high hand ; first, with forethought : 1. WoCy all woe, woe from God; "*the woe of temporal captivity ; and, unless ye re- pent, the woe of eternal damnation, hangeth over you." Woe to them that devise iniauity. They devise it, "*they are not led into it by others, but invent it out of their own hearts." They plot and forecast and fulfill it even in thought, before it comes to act. And work evil upon their beds. Thoughts and imagina- tions of evil are works of the soul •. l^pon their beds'', which ought to be the place of holy thought, and of communing with their own hearts and with God"*. Stillness must be filled with thought, good or bad ; if not with good, then with bad. The chamber, if not the sanctuary of holy thoughts, is fiU^ with unholy purposes and imaginations. Man's last and first thoughts, if not of good, are es- pecially of vanity and evil. The Psalmist says •, Lordf have I not ixmembered Thee in my bedj and thought upon Thee when I was waking f These men thought of sin on their bed, and did it on waking. When the morning is light, lit. in the light of the morning^ i. e, instantly, shamelessly, not shrinking from the light of day, not ignorantly, but knowingly, deliber- ately, in full light. Nor again through in- firmity, but in the wantonness of might, be- cause it is in the power of their hand *®, as, of old, God said ^\ This they begin to do, and now noth- ing will be restrained from them which they haoe wiagined to do. ""Impiously mighty, and mighty in impiety." *^ ISee the need of the daily prayer, " Vouch- safe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin ; " and " Almighty God, Who hast brought • Ps. Iviii. 2. y See Ps. xxxvi. 4. Mb. iv.4. 'Ixiii. 6. 10 This phrase can have no other meaning. Gen. xxxi. 29. rrov. iii. 27; nor the corresponding phrase with the negative, Deut. xxviiL 32. Neh. v. 5. u Gen. XL d. » Rup. u from lap. CHAPTER 11. 29 ^c H R^fs T ^^^"^ "it is in the power of c^'"- 730. their hand. •Gen. 81. 20. 2 And they covet * fields, and take them by violence ; and houses, and take them I Or, dflfraud. away : so they || oppress a us to the beginning of this day, defend us in the same by Thy mi«fhty power, that we may fall into no sin, &c. The illusions of the night, if such be permitted, have no power against the prayer of the morning. 2. And they covet fields and take them by viokruxy [rend them auxiy] and houses, and take them away. Still, first they sin in heart, then in act. And yet, with them, to covet and to rob, to desire and to take, are the same. They were prompt, instantaneous, without a scruple, in violence. So soon as they coveted, they took *. Desired, acquired ! Ooveted, robbed I " They saw, they coveted, they took," had been their past history. They did violence, not to one only, but, touched with no mercy, to whole families, their little ones also ; they oppressed a man and his house. They spoiled not goods only, but life, a man and his inherilanee ; destroying him by false accusations or violence and so seizing upon his inheritance'. Thus Ahab first coveted Kaboth's vineyard, then, through Jezebel, slew him ; and " * they who devoured widow's houses, did at the last plot by night against Him of Whom they saia, Qrnie, let us kill Hifn, and the inherUanee shall be ou?s ; and in the morning^ they m-acticed ity leading Him away to Pilate." ***Who of us desires not the villas of this world, forgetful of the posses- sions of* Paradise 7 You see men join field to field, and fence to fence. Whole places suffice not to the tiny frame of one man." " * Such is the fire of concupiscence, raging within, that, as those seized by burning fevers cannot rest, no bed suffices them, so no houi^es or fields content these. Yet no more than seven feet of earth will suffice them soon. 'Death only owns, how small the frame of man." 3. Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as one con- tinuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers o^ iniquitifj doers of evif. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought ; by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They do it ^ But, although renewed in fresh acts, it was one unbroken course of acting. And so 1 The force of iSlJ) HDH. s Comp. the woes, Is. v. 7. on oppression ; 8 covetoas- ness. » Theoph. * 8. Jer. » Rib. • Jut. 8at.x. 172, 3. » p^ 'Sj^fl, jW OiyP. man and his house, even a ^ hIITs t man and his heritage. <^'''- '^^' 3 Therefore thus saith the Lord ; Behold, against * this family do I devise an 'Jer. 8. s. evil, from which ye shall he also uses the form, in which the Hebrews spoke of uninterrupted habits. They have cov- eted, they have robbed, they have, laken^. Now came God^s part. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, since they op- press whole families, behold I will set Myself a^nst this whole family ^^ ; since they devise iniquity, behold I too, Myself, by Myself, in My own Person, am devising. Very awful is it, that Almighty God sets His own Infin- ite Wisdom against the devices of man and employs it fittingly to punish. " I am devis- ing no common punishment, but one to bow them down without escape ; an evil from which — He turns suddenly to them, ye shall not re^ move your necks, neither shall ye go haughtily, " "* Pride then was the source of that bound- less covetousness," since it was ^ pride which was to be bowed down in punishment. The punishment is |)roportionea to the sin. They nad done all this in pride ; they should have the liberty and self-will wherein they had wantoned, tamed or taken from them. Like animals with a heavy yoke upon them, they should live in disgraced slavery. The ten tribes were never able to withdraw their necks from the yoke. From the two tribes God re- moved it after the 70 rears. But the same sins against the love of (jrod and man brought on the same punishment. Our Lord again spake the woe against their covetousness ^\ It still shut them out from the service of God, or from receiving Him, their Redeemer. They still spoiled the goods ^' of their breth- ren. In the last dreadful siege, ""there were insatiable longings for plunder, search- ing-out of the houses of the nch ; murder of men and insults of women were enacted as sports; they drank down what they had spoiled, with blood." And so the prophecy was for the third time fulfilled. They who withdraw from Christ's easy yoke of obedi- ence shall not remove from the yoke of pun- ishment ; they who, through pride, will not bow down their necks, but make them stiff, shall be bent low, that they go not upright or haughtily anv more. ^* The Lord alone shall be exalted m that Day, For it is an evil time. Perhaps he gives a more special meaning to Was in Am. iii. 1. vol. 1. p. 270. n S. Luke xvi. 13, 14. xi. 38. S. Matt xxlii. 14, 23, 25. S. Mark xii. 40. w Heb. X. 34. M Jos. B. J. It. 9. 10. add ▼. 1. m Is. li. 11. 30 MICAH. chrTst ^^^ remove your necks; c^*"- '^^- neither shall ye go haught- f Amos 5. 13. £ph. 5. 16. ily : ' for this time m evil. 4 ^In that day shall cHab.2.6. one 'take up a parable >»2Sam. 1. 17. . , vi iHeh.witha agaiust you, and '^lament lamentation of /^ , . y a t» t i latnentations. J With a dolenil lamenta- »v. 13. « Deut xxviiL 37. 1 Kings ix. 7. 2 Chr. vii. 20. Ps. xliv. 15. Ixix. 12. Jer. xxir. 9. Ezek. xiv. 8. » Is. xiv. 4. 4 Hab. ii. 6. » Jer. 1. c. • Rib. ' Ps. Hi. 6, 7» Is. Ixvl. 24. ■ r\^r\} 'm nnj from the sounds, ^in passim, in in Am. T. 16. 'n Eaek. ii. 10. nn, i. q. 7V1H Ezek. xzx. 2. • Jer. xxxL 16. » Ea. xxxiL 18. u Am. V. 16. Jer. ix. 17, 19. M 1 Sam. vii. 2. Jer. ix. 18. • n' jr]f FQret 8. T. "ni3Tn id. 1* There Is no plea for separating n^HJ in the sense, "it has been," like "fuit Ilium." Bv itself n^nj would mther be. "it came to pass." IDH also, which follows, explains what the proverb and tion, and say, We be utter- ^ hr^is t ly spoiled: 'he hath eir. 730. the words of Amos *, that a time of moral evil will be, or will end in, a Hme, full oievil, i. e. of sorest calamity. 4. In that day shaU one take up a parable against you. The mashal or likeness may, in itself be any speech in which one thing is likened to another ; 1) " figured speech, " 2) "proverb," and, since such proverbs were often sharp sayings against others, 3) " taunt- ing figurative speech.'' But of the person himself it is always Kiid, he is made, becomes a proverb \ To take up or utter such a speech against one, is, elsewhere, followed by the speech itself; ' Thou shall take up this parable O/gainsl the king of Babylon, and say, &e. * Shall not ail these take up a parable against him, and say, <!te. Although then the name of the Jews has passed into a proverb of reproach \ this is not contained here. The paraole here must be the same as the dol^U lamenlaHon, or dirge, which follows. No mockery is more cujtting or fiendish, than to repeat in jest words by which one bemoans himself. The dirge which Israel should use of themselves in sorrow, the enemy shall take up in de- rision, as Satan does doubtless the self-con- demnation of the damned. " • Men do any evil, undergo any peril, to avoid shame. Grod brings before us that deepest and eternal shame," the shame and everlasting contempt, in presence of Himself and angels and devils and the good ^, that we may avoid shame by avoiding evil. And limenVwiih a ddeful Umientaiion, The words in Hebrew are varied inflections of a word imitating the sounds of woe. It is the voice of woe in all languages, because the voice of nature. Shall wail a wail of woe ®, It is the funeral dirge over the dead •, or of the living doomed to die^^; it is sometimes the changed the portion of my tch. 1. 16. people: how hath he re- moved it from me I II turn- 1 o^ vMtead of ing away he hath divided our fields. measured mourning of those employed to call forth sorrow", or mourning ^nerally**. Among such elegies, are still Zion-songs ^', (elegies over the ruin of Zion,) and mourn- ings for the dead ^*. The word woe is thrice ** repeated in Hebrew, in different forms, ac- cording to that solemn way, in which the extremest good or evil is spoken of; the threefold blessing, morning and evening, with the thrice-repeated name of God *•, impressing upon them the mystery which developed itself, as the Divinity of the Messiah and the personal agency of the Holy Spirit were unfolded to them. The dii^e wliich follows is purposely in abrupt brief words, as those in trouble speak, with scarce breath for utterance. First, in two words^ with perhaps a softened inflection", they express the uttemess of their desolation. Then, in a threefold sentence, each clause consisting of three short words, they say what God had done, but name Him not, because they are angry with Him. God's chastise- ments irritate those whom they do not subdue **. The portion of my people He changeth ; How removeth He (it) as to me / To a rebel *'our fields He divideth. They act the patriot. They, the rich, mourn over " the portion of my people " (they say) which they had themselves aespoiled : they speak, (as men do,) as if things were what they ought to be : they hold to the theory and ignore the facts. As if, because God ha^ divided it to His people, therefore it so re- mained ! as if, because the poor were in theory and by G<xi's law provided for, they were so in fact ! Then they are enra.fired at God's dealings. He removeth the portion as to m« / and to whom giveth He our fields ? dirge is, as in Isaiah and Habakkuk. The single word n*n3i actum est, is no dirjce. The feminmo and masculine together make up a whole as in Is. iii. 1 ; or it might stand as a superlative, as in the Eng. Marg. w Num. vl. 24-26. "^12^3 IXVO The ^ for the 1 repeating the sound 00. w See ab. on Am. vi. 10. p. 207. '• T\22W% *' backsliding, o<!cnrs Jer. xxxl. 22. and, of Aibmon, xlix. 4. This rendering is favored by the contrast between the ^S and the 231tS^ 7i and gives an adequate meanina; to the 7 in the 331Br7; whereas, as part of tho infinitiye, it is auperflaoua, and unusual as superfluous. CHAPTER II. 31 5 Therefore thou shalt Before CHRIST cir. 730. have none that shall * cast k Deut 32. 8, 9. To a rebel ! the Assyrian, or the Chaldee. They had deprived the poor of their portion of Oie Lord 9 landK And now they marvel that God resumes the possession of Hb own, and requires from them, not the fourfold''^ only of their spoil, hut His whole heritage. Well might Assyrian or Chaldee, as they did, jeer at the word, renegade. They had not for- saken their gods ; — but Israel, what was its whole histozy but a turning back ? ' Hath a nation changed their gods, whioh yet are no godsf Bid My people have changed their ghryfor that which doth not profit. Such was the meaning in their lips. The word dindeth had the more bitterness, because it was the reversal of that first division at tlie entrance into Canaan. Then, with the use of this same word \ the division of the land of the heathen was appointed to them. Ezekiel, in his great symbolic vision, afterward pro- phesied the restoration of Israel, with the use of this same term^ Joel spoke of the parting of their land, under this same term, as a sin ot the heathen ^ Now, they say, God divideth our fields, not to us, but to the Heathen, whose lands He gave us. It was a change of act : in impenitence, they think it a change of purpose or will. But what lies in that, we be utterly despoiled f Despoiled of everything ; of what they felt, temporal things; and of what they did not feel, spiritual things. Despoiled of the land of promise, the good things of this life, but also of the Presence of (rod in His Temple, the grace of the Lord, the image of God and ererlasting glory. Their 'portion was changed,, as to themselves and with others. As to themselves, riches, honor, pleasure,' their own hind, were changed into want, disgrace, suffering, captivity; and yet more bitter was it to see others gain what they by their own fault had forfeited. As time went on, and their transgression deepened, the exchange of the portion of that former people of God be- came more complete. The casting-off of the Jews was the grafting-in of the Gentiles. "^ Seeing ye judge yourselves unworthy of ever- lasting Ufej lo I we turn to the Gentiles. And so they who were ® no people, became the people of God, and they who were His people, became, for the time, ' not My people : and ^^ the adaption of sons, and the glory, and the cove- nants, and the lawgiving, and the service of God, and the promises, came to us Gentiles, since to ' 8ee on Hos. Ir. 3. vol. I. p. 88. s Ex. XX ii. 1. 2 Sam. xli. 6. 8. Lake xix. 8. • Jer. ii. 11. ^Num. xxvi. 63, 66, G. Josh. xiii. 7. xiv. 5. xviii. 2, 6, 10. xix. 61. * xlvii. 21. « iv. 2. [ill. 3. Eng.] T Acts xiil. 46. • Rom. x. 19. • Hos. i. 0. a cord by lot in the congre- ^ h rTI t gation of the Lord. ^^^' '^' us Christ Himself our God blessed for ever came, and made us His. How hath He removed. The words do not say what He removed. They thought of His gifts, the words include Himself ^^. They say Howl in amazement. The change is so great and bitter, it cannot be said. Time, yea eternity cannot utter it. He hath divided our fields. The land was but the outward symbol of the inward heritage. Unjust gain, kept back, is restored with usury ; ^' it taketh away the life of the owners thereof The vineyard whereof the Jews said, the inherir tance shall be ours, was taken from them and ^iven to others, even to Christians. So now IS that awful change begun, when Christians, leaving God, their only unchanging Good, turn to earthly vanities, and, for the grace of God which He withdraws, have these only for their fleeting portion, until it shall be finally exchanged m the Day of Juc^^ent. *^ Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise iJazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and thou art tormented, Israel defended himself in impenitence and self-righteousness. He was already the Pharisee. The doom of such was hopeless. The prophet breaks in with a renewed, Ther^ore. He had already prophesied that they should lose the lands which they had unjustly gotten, the land which they had pi-oianed. He- had described it in their own impenitent words. Now on the impenitence he pronounces the judgment which im- penitence entails, that Sey should not be restored 5. Therefore thou shall have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord. Thoti, in the first instance, is the impenitent Jew of that day. God had promised by Hosea ** to restore Judah ; shortly after, the Prophet himself foretells it **. Now he fore- warns these and such as these, that thev would have no portion in it. They had " neither part nor lot in this matter. They, the not-Israel then, were the images and en- samples of the not-Israel afterward, those who seem to be God's people and are not ; members of the body, not of the soul of the Church ; who have a sort of faith, but have not love. Such was afterward t)ie Israel after the flesh, which was broken off, while the true Israel was restored, passing out of them- selves into Christ Such, at the end, shall be w Rom. Ix. 4, 5. 11 Bf'O^ is mostly transitive; it was intransitive ii. 3, and is so (if not Kal) Prov. xvii. 13. w Prov. i. 19. " 8. Luke xvi. 26. M See on Hos. v. 11. vol. i. p. 60, i»ii.l2. MActsvill.21. 32 MICAH. c H rTs t 6 II f Propheey ye not, cir. 7:»). ^y tJi^ tQ them that proph- fiJif <u i^ esy : they shall not prophe- t^e?. ih^, Ac sy to them, thai they shall Ezek. 21. i. X J. 1 1- 1 if>Ai. 30. 10. not take sbame. 1 Rib. « Rot. xxI. 27. » S, Luke xi. 52. «Poc. ^ives this distribution of the words from Abulwahd v. RCSJ. *See on Am. vii. 16. toI. L p. 322. • Ezok. ii. 10. 7 1 Kinwi xxii. 18. » Acta Iv. 18. V. 40. » lb. t. 28. w lb. vi. 13. u nS)-0\ M Ezek. ii. 6. 7. " xxviii. »-14. 22. named the house of Jacob, ^ hIus t is the spirit of the Lord g^r- 73o. those, who, being admitted by Christ into Meir portion, renounce the world in word not in deed. Such shall have " * no portion for ever in the eonffregalion of the Lord, For' nothing defiled shall enter there, nor whatsoever toorkeih abomination or a lie, but they which are written in the Lambda book of life" The ground of their condemnation is their resistance to light and known truth. These not onlv' entered not in, themselves, but, being hinderers of God's word, them thai were entering in, they hindered, 6. Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy ; they Ihall not prophesy to them, thai they shall not take shame. The words are very emphatic in Hebrew, from their briefness, Pronhesy not ; they shaU, indeed prophesy ; they shall not prophesy to these; shame maU not depart *. The people, the false prophets, the politicians, forbade God and Micah to pro- phesy ; Prophesy not, God, by Micah, recites their prohibition to themselves, and fore- warns them of the consequences. Prophesy ye not, lit. drop noL Amaziah and tne (rod-opposing party had already given an unorodly meaning to the word *. " Drop not," "distill not," thus unceasingly, these same words, ever warning, ever telling of • lamenlatlon and mourning and woe ; prophesu- ing not good concerning us, but evil^. So their descendants commanded the Apostles** not to speak at all or to teach in the Name of Jesus, ^ Did we 7iot straitly command you, that ye should not teach in this Namet *° This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy nla/x and the law, God answers; They shall certainlv prophesy. The Hebrew word ia emphatic ". The Prophets had their commission from God, and Him they must obey, whether Israel ** would hear or whether they would forbear, • So must Micah and Isaiah *' now, or Jeremiah **, Ezekiel, and the rest afterward. They shall not prophesy to these. He does not say only, They shall not prophesy to them, but, to these ; i, e. they shall prophesy to others wbo would receive their words: God's word would not be stayed; they who would hearken shall never be de- II straitened ? are these his I or, shortawit doings? do not my words do good to him that walk- eth t uprightly ? f Heb. upright f prived of their portion ; but to these who de- spise, they shall not prophesy. It shall be all one, as though they did not prophesy ; the soft rain shall not l)edew them. The bam- fl(X)r shall be dr^', while the fleece is moist". So God says by Isaiah " ; I will (dso command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it The dew of God's word shall be transferred to others. But so shame [lit. shames '^, manifold shame,] sAaU not depart, but sludl rest upon them for ever. God would have turned away the shame from them ; but they, despising His warnings, drew it to themselves. It was the natural fruit of their doings ; it was in its natural home with them. God snake to them, that they might be freed from it. They silenced His Propliets ; deafened them- selves to His words ; so it departed noL So our Lord says **, Now ye say, we see ; therefore your sin renmineth; and S.John Baptist*', The wrath of God abideih on him. It hath not now first to come. It is not some new thing to be avoided, turned aside. The sinner has but to remain as he is ; the shame encom- passeth him already; and only departcth not. The wrath of God is already upon him, and abideih on him. 7. 0 thou that art named the house of Jacob ; as Isaiah says *, Hear ye this, 0 house of Jwxb, which are called by the name of Israel— ^hich make mention of the God of Israel, not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of IsrheL They lx)asted of what convicted them of faithlessness. They relied on being what in spirit they had ceased to be, what in deeds they denied, children of a believing forefather. It is the same temper which we see more at large in their descendants ; '^ We be Abraham^ s seed and were never in bondage to any man; how aayest Thou, ye shall be made freef ^Abraham is our Father, It is the same which S. John Baptist and our Lord and S. Paul reproved. ** Think not to say within yoursdves, we haxe Abraham to out father. **If ye were Abraham^ s elnldrcTi, ye would do the works of Abraham. Now ye seek to kill Me-, a Man tlioi hath told you the truth — This did not M !. 7. 17. xxvi 10-15. w Judg. vi. 37. "Is. V. 6. '^ niD^Z) as IWJ^W^f omnigensB salutes, mani- fold 5>alTation. " S. John ix. 41. i» lb. ill. 36. » xl viii. 1. ns. John viii.33. ^Ib. 39. » S. Matt. iii. 9. »* S. John viii. 30, 40. CHAPTER IL 33 chrTst ^ Even tof late my peo- cir. 730. pie ia risen up as an enemy : iHlh!"^^^' ye puU off the robe f with againtt a garment. Abraham. ' He is not a Jew which is (me out- wardly j neither is thai eirewmcision which is out- ward in the flesh. — Behold thou art called a JeWj and restest in the law and makesi thy boast oj God^ and knowest His Will and approvest the things thai are more excellent — &c. The Pro- phet answers the unexpressed objections of those who forbade to prophesy evu. " Such could not be of God," these said ; " for God was pledged by His promises to the house of Jacob. It would imply change in God, if He were to cast off those whom He had chosen." Micah answers; ^'not God is changed, but you." God's promise was to Jacob, not to those who were but nctmed Jacob, who called themselves after the name of their father, but did not his deeds. The Spirit of the Lord was not straitened^ so that He was less long- suffering than heretofore. These, which He threatened and of which they complained, were not His doings, not what He of His own Nature did, not what He loved to do, not His, as the Author or Cause of them, but theirs. God is Good, but to those who can receive good, the upright in hearth God is only Loving unto IsraeL He is all Love; nothing but * Love : all His ways are Love ; but it follows, unto what Israel, the true Israel, the pure of heart. * All the paths of the Lord are mercy and trvJth ; but to wnom ? unio such ajs keep Mis cownant and His testimonies. • The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting ; hut unto them that fear Him. But, they becoming evil, His good became to them evil. Light, wholesome and gladdening to the healthful, hurts weak eyes. That which is straight cannot suit or fit with the crooked. Amend your crookedness, and God's ways will be stniight to you. Vo not My words do good f He doth speak ^ good words and camfortr able words. They are not only good, but do good. ^His word is with power. Still it is 1 Rom. ii. 17-28. *nn ^]fpf (03 In part Zech. zi. 8,) as opposed to DliJK 1*1K (Ex- xxziv. 6. &c. longanimis, longsof- fering,) and 1. q. D'flH 1]f p Pro v. xx. 17, coll. 29. • Ps. 1 xxiii. 1. * The force of •]«. * Pb. XXV. 10, « Ps. ciii. 17. 8. Luke 1. fiO. 7 Zech. i. 13. 'S. Luke iv. 32. • Jer. vi. 14. » Rom. xL 22. n '71Dn« is L q. S^DflK, in Is. xxx. 33. «S.Jer. " DD1p% in Isaiah (xllv. 28. Ivill. 12. Ixi. 4.) transi- tive, but only of the raising up, rebuilding of ruins. The use of DDlp actively in that one sense is no ground for taking It so, where the idea is different. To raise up an adversary, is expressed by D^pil 3 Before the garment from them qhrist that pass by secxirely aa cir. 730. men averse from war. with those who walk uprightly; whether those who forsake not, or those who return to, the way of righteousness. God flattereth not, deceiveth not, promiseth not what He will not do. He cannot • speaJc peace where there is no peace. As He saith, ^^ Behold the goodness ana severity of God; on them which fell, severity, but toward thee, aoodness, if thou continue in His goodness. God Himself could not make a heaven for the proud or envious. Heaven would be to them a hell. 8. Even of late [lit. yesterday ^l"] ""He imputeth not past sins, out those recent and, as it were, of yesterday." Mi; people is risen up vehemently ". God upbraideth them ten- derly b^ the title, Mine own people, as S. John complaineth '*, He came unto His men, and His own received Him not. God became not their enemy, but they arose as one man, — is risen up, the whole of it, as His. In Him they might have had peace and joy and assured fladness, but they arose in rebellion against lim, requiting Him evil for good, (as bad Christians do to Christ,) and brought war upon their own heads. This they did by their sins against their brethren. Casting on the love of man, they alienated themselves from the love of God. Ye pull off \^8trip off violently "] the robe with the garment, lit. over against the cloak. The sahmh ^^ is the large enveloping cloak, which was worn loosely over the other dress, and served by night for a covering*'. Eder^^, translatea robe, is probably not any one gar- ment, but the remaining dress, the comely, becoming *•, array of the person. These they stripped violently off from persons, peaceable, unofiending, ofl* their guard, passing by se- curely, men averse from war ^ and strife. These they stripped of their raiment by day, leav- ing them half-naked, and of their covering for the night So making war against God's Mic. y. 4. Am. vl. 14. 1 Kings zi. 14. and so raising up evil also. Ml. 11. u pDtfi^fln. This is intensive, as in Arabic "HdSb^ here and Ex. xxiL 8. 1. q. nSoB^, else- where. " Deut. xxll. 17. M 11K occurs here only. There* is no ground to identify it with the well-known P'^IK. It is not likely that the common garment should have been called, this once, by a different name ; nor that the PIIM, a wide enfolding garment, (see on Jonah ill. 6. vol. i. p. 416,) should have been worn together with the noSfe^. wThis meaning seems to lie In the root; comp. <rToA^, array, apparel, dress. »01l? is doubtless an adjective form, distinct ft-om the participle ^2lff, (Is. lix. 20.) like n)D Jer. 11.21. 34 MICAH. chrTst ^ "^^ llwomen of my dr. 730. people have ye cast out from their pleasant housee ; from their chUdren have I Or, wives. peacefulpeople, they, as it were^ made war against Uod. 9. The women of my people haxie ye ead out from their plea&arU hovies, [lit. from her pleasant house,'] each from her home. These were probably the widows of those whom they had stripped. Since the houses were their's, they were widows ; and 80 their spoilers were at war with those whom Grod had committed to their special love, whom He had declared the objects of His own tender care, the widows and the fatherless. The widows they drove vehemently forth\ as having no portion in the inheritance which God had given them, as God had driven oat their enemies before them, each/?*oin her pleasant houaey the home where she had liv^ with her husband and cliildren in delight and joy. From lqff"\ their [young ^^ children have ye taken away my glory, Ftimarily, the glory, comeliness, was t*he fitting apparel which Goa hod given them *, and laid upon them *, and which these oppressors stripped offhom them. But it includes all the gif^ of God, where- with God would array tliem. Instead of the holy home of parental care, the children grew up in want and neglect, away from all the ordinances of God, it may be, in a strange land. Forever. They never repented, never made restitution ; but so they incurred the special woe of those who ill-used the unpro- tected, the widow, and the fatherless. The words for ever anticipate the punishment. The punishment is according to the sin. They never ceased their oppression. They, with the generation who should oome after them, should be deprived of GK)d'8 glory, and cast out of His land forever. 10. Arise ye and depart Gk> your way, as being cast out of GK>d'8 care and land. It matters not whither they went. For this is not your resL As ye have done, so shall it be done unto you. As ye cast out the widow and the fatherless, so ohaM ye be cast out ; as ^ ptsnjn ia doubly intensive, as the intenaiye form with the emphatic |. It is the word used of God's driving out the nations before Israel, (Ex. Jud. Ac.) or of man being driven out of Paradise, fGen. iii. 24,) Hagar being cast out. (Gen. xxi. 10.) The word itself, by its rough sound, exproiises the more of harshnesfl ; and that as opposed to soft- ness, n^JlJirn. This is the same word as that ren- dered deUeate^ i. 16. • as Hoe. VL 11. ' J Jl I. H. Mich. « Ez. xvi 14. Id. » Rev. xilL la • Deut xii. 9. 10. add 1 Kings yML 66. • nm JDH h% the same word. • TVyTi. ye taken away my glory chrTst cir. 780. for ever. 10 Arise ye, and depart; for this ta not ytmr ^ rest : "Deat is. 9. ye gave no rest to those averse from war, so shall ye have none. ^ He that leadeth into captivity shaU go into eaptimty ; he that killeth With the sword must be killed with the sword. The land was given to them as a temporary rest, a symbol and earnest of the everlasting rest to the obedient. So Moses spake ^ ye are not as yet come to the rest ^ and the inhenr tanee which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in Ute land which the Lord your Qod giveth you to inheritj and when He giveth you rest^from your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety, dte. And Joshua ', Remember the word v^ieh Moses com- manded you, saying, T%e Lord your God giveth you rest^^. But the Psalmist had warned them, that, if they hardened their hearts like their forefathers, they too would not enter into His rest ". Because it is polluted [lit because of its poUtb' tion^*'] by idolatry, by violence, by unclean- ness. So Moises (uHing the same wonl) says, the land is defiled " by the abominations of the heathen ; and warns them, that the land spue you not out, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations which were before you. Ezekiel speaks of that defilement '^, as the ground why God expelled Israel ^^ It shall destroy you, even with a sore [lit. shcurp] destruction"^*. It is a sore thing to abuse the creatures of God to sin, and it is unfit that we should use what we have abused. Hence Holy Scripture speaks, as though even the inanimate crea- tion took part with Grod, made subject to tntir ibj, not willingly, and could not endure those who emploved it against His Will. The wor^ Arise, depart ye, for this is tiqt your rest, beoune a sort of sacred proverb, spoken anew to the soul, whenever it would find rest out of God. *^" We are bidden to think of no rest for ourselves in any things of the world ; but, as it were, arising from the dead, to stretch upwards, and walk after the Lord our God, and say, My soul deaveth hard •1.13. "n^JD. nPs. xev. 11. oomp. nnmJD? Ps- cxxxii. 8. IS as pointed in most accurate copies, without Metheg. " «DOn Lev. x viii. 27. D JKO 03 28. M Eaok. xxxvi. 17. M Ezek. XXX vL 18. add Jer. ii. 7. , w This is the common renderins^ of 73n. Othen*, with Sal. B. Mel. have understood it of traTall-painM, (Cant viii. 6. Ps. rii. 15.) but this would liave the opposite sense of bringing forth, re-blrth, not of ejection. (See Is. Ixvi. 8.) The sharp bitter pang would exprera the pains of travail, not its fhiitless- ness or that they were cast out any whither. Fruit- lessness of trarail-pangs is expressed, if intended, (as in Is. zxYl. 18.) uaJer. CHAPTER n. 35 CHRIST I'^^^^^se it is "polluted, it cir. 730. shall destroy you, even with ■Lev. 18. 2S, 28. a sore destruction. lo/,'waUcwith 11 If a man || "* walking liefSSdy. in the spirit and falsehood • Eiek. 13. 3. ^^ 2j^^ saying, I will proph- et Thee, This if we neglect, and will not hear Him Who saith, Awake thou that deepegty cmd arise from the deadj and Christ shaU give thee light, we shall indeed slumher, but shall be deceived and shall not find rest; for where Christ enlighteneth not the risen sooly what seemeth to be rest, is trotible.'' All rest is wearisome which is not in Thee,0 our God. 11. ^ a man walking in the spirit and faJse- hood, lit. in spirit [not Mij Spirit] and falsc' hoody i. e. in a lying spirit ; such as they, whose woe Ezekiel pronounces ^, Woeuntothe foolish prophets who walk after their own spirit and wmU they have not seen '; prophets out of their own hearts, who ' prophesied a vision of falsehood, and a destruction and nothingness * ; prophesid falsehood ; yea, prophets of the deceit of their hearts. These, like tne true prophets, walked in spirit; as Isaiah speaks of walking in righteousness ^, and Solomon of one walking in thefrowardness of the mouth ^, Their habitual converse was in a spirit, but of falsehood. If such an one do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and strong drink, Man's conscience must needs have some plea in speaking falsely of God. The fidse prophets had to please the rich men, to embolden ^hem in their self-indulgence, to tell them that God would not puniui. They doubtless spoke of God's temporal promises to His people, the land,^oiom^ with milk and honey. His promises of abundant harvest and vintage, and assured them, that God would not withdraw these, ' that He was not so precise about His law. Micah tells them in plain words, what it all came to ; it was a prophesying of ia»e and strong drink. mOaUevm be a* pn>phet(^thupe>yple, lit and shall be bedewing this people. He uses the same words^ which scomers of Israel and Judah employed in forbidding to prophesy. They said, drop not ; forbidding God's word as a wearisome dropping. It wore away their patience, not their nearts of stone. He tells them, who might speak to them without wearying, of whose words they would never tire, who might do habitually^ what they JEzek. xiil. 3. « lb. 2. 17. • Jer. xiv. 14, IpBT JITH, as here npB^I nn. *Ib. xxiiL 26. add IDJff D'WJ xxviL 10, 14, 16. or IpM Jer. xxix. 9. ')T)tff moSn '«3J lb. xxiH.32.i , r •xxxiiLie. ni^T3f-'7n. esy unto thee of wine and ^ hrTs t of strong drink ; he shall ^^^- 73o- even be the prophet of this people. 12 ^'I will surely as- pch.4.6,7. semble, O Jacob, all of forbade to God,— one who. in the Name of Grod, set them at ease in tneir sensual indul- gences. This is the seci'et of the success of everything opposed to Grod and Christ. Man wants a God. God has made it a necessity of our nature to crave ader Him. Spiritual, like natural, hunger, debarred from or loath- ing wholesome food, must be stilled, stifled, with what will appease its gnawing. Our natural intellect lon^ for Him ; for it cannot understand itself without Him. Our rest- lessness longs for Him ; to rest upon. Our helplessness longs for Him, to escape from the unbearable pressure of our unknown fu- turity. Our imagination craves for Him ; for, being made for the Infinite, it cannot be content with the finite. Aching aflections long for Him ; for no creature can soothe them. Our dissatisfied conscience longs for Him, to teach it and make it one witli itself. But man does not want to be responsible, nor to owe duty ; still less to be liable to penalties for disobeying. The Christian, not the natural man, longs that his wliole being should tend to God. The natural man wishes to be well-rid of what sets him ill at ease, not to belong to God. .And the horrible subtlety of false teaching, in each age or country, is to meet its own iavo- rite requirements without calling for self- sacrifice or self-oolation, to give it a god, such as it would have, sueh as mieht conteni it. " * The people willeth to be deceived, be it deceived,*' is a true proverb. 3£en turn away their ears from the truth • which thev dislike ; and so are turned unto fables whicli they like. They who receive not the love of the truth, — believe a lie *®. If men xvill not retain God in their knowledge, God giveth them over to an undistinguishing mind *^ They who would not receive our Lord, coming in His Father's Name, have ever since, as He said, received them who came in their own ". Men teach their teachers how they wish to be mistaught, and receive the eclio of their wishes as*the Voice of God. 1 2. lunll surely assemble, 0 Jaeob, all of thee ; I will sLrely gather the remTumt of Israel. God's •nfl fXWpp ^Sin Pr. vl. 12. elsewhere with 3. » The force of rj'DD HTI. > Pqpulas valt decipl, deciplatur. »2Tira. Iv. 4. »2The88.ii. 11.12. UBom.L28. iss. JohDT. 48. 36 MICAH. c H rTI t ^^ » ^ ^^ surely gather cir. 730. the remnant of Israel; I «Jer. 31. 10. will put them together "> as the sheep of Bozrah, as the mercy on the penitent and belieying being the end of all His threatenings, the mention of it often bursts in abruptly. Christ is ever the Hope as the End of prophecy, ever before the Prophets' mind. The earthquake and fire precede the still small voice of peace in Uim. What seems then sudden to us, is connected in truth. The Prophet had said *. where was not their rest and how they should be cast forth ; he saith at once how they should be gathered to their everlasting rest. He had said, what promises of the false pro- £het8 would noi be fulfilled '. But, despair 3ing the most deadly enemy of the soul, he does not take away their false hopes, without shewing them the true mercies in store for them. " » Think not," he would say, " that I am only 'a prophet of ill. The captivity foretold will indeed now come, and God's mercies will alK) come, although not in the way, which these speak of." The false prophets spoke of worldly abundance ministering to sensuality, ana of unbroken security. lie tells of God's mercies, but after chastisement, to the remnant of larael. But the restoration is complete, far beyond their then condition. He liad foretold the desolation of Samaria*, the captivity of Ju- dah * ; he foretells the restoration of ill Jafob^ as one. The images are partly taken (as is the Prophet's wont,) from that first deliver- ance from Egypt*. TAen, as the image of the future growth under persecution, God multiplied His people exceedingly'; then * the Lord went be/oi'e them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead themtJie way ; then Gou brought thun vp ^ out of the house of bondage ^\ fiut their future prison-house was to be no land of Goshen. It was to be a captivity and a dispersion at once, as Hosea hiul already fore- told ". So he speaks of them emphatically ", as a great throng, nssembling I will assemble, 0 Jacoby all of thee ; gathering I will gather the remnant of Israel. The word, which is used of the gathering of a flock or its lambs ^', be- 1 ver. 10. • ver. 11. 'S. Jer. « k 6. • L 16. ii. 4. • Hengst ChrisL i. 4J0. TEx. i. 12. •lb. xiii. 21. » Ex. iii. 8, 17. Lev. xi. 45. The people went up. Ex. xiii. 18. add. zii. 38. i. 10. MSee below, vi. 4. 11 See on Ho». vi. 11. vol. f . p. 70. ix. 17. p. 97. " cJD«K rJDK, ppK pp. "la xl. 11. xilL M. M Deut XXX. a, 4. Roe Neh. i. 9. i*Seo below, iv. 6. Ps. cvi. 47. evil. 3. Is. xi. 12. xliii. 5. liv. 7. Ivi. 8. Zoph. ill. 19, 20. Jor. xxiii. 3. xxix. 14. xxxi. 8, 10. xxxii. 37. Ezek xi. 17. xx. 34, 41. xxviii. 25. xxxiv. 13. xxxvii. 21. xxxviii. 8. xxxix. 27. Zech. X. 10. ' flock in the midst of their ^ hrTs t fold : ' they shall make ^ir. 730. great noise by reason of 'Exek.s0.a7. the multitude of men. came, from Moses' prophecy**, a received word of the gathering of Israel from the dis- persion of the captivity **. The return of the Jews from Babylon was but a faint shadow of the fulfillment. For, ample as were the terms of the decrees of Cyrus *• and Artaxerxes ", and widely as that of ('ynis was diffused *^, the restoration was essentially that of Judah, i. e. Judah, Benjamin and Levi *': the towns, whose inhabitants returned, were those of Judah and Benjamin '^ ; the towns, to which they returned, were of the two tribes. It was not a gathering of all Jacob; and of the three tril)es who returned, there were but few gath- ered, and they had not even an earthly kinif, nor any visible Presence of God. The words began to be fulfilled in the many '* tens of Oiousands who believed at our Lord's first Coming ; and all Jacob, that is, all who were Israelites indeed, the remnant according to the election of grace^, were gathered within the one fold of*^the Church, under One Shepherd. It shall be fully fulfilled, when, in the end, the fullness of the Gentiles shaU come in. and oil Israel shali be saved ^, All Jacob is the same as Uie remnant of Israel, the true Israel which remains when the false severed itself off'; all the seed-corn, when the chaff w:ts winnowed away. So then, whereas they were now scat- tered, then, God saith, / will put them together [in one fold] as the sheep of Bozrah, which abounded in sheep ^, and was also a strong city of Edom*; denoting how believers should be fenced within tiie Church, as by a strong wall, against which the powers of dark- ness should not prevail, and the wolf should howl around the fold, yet be unable to enter it, and £dom and the heathen should be- come part of the inheritance of Christ *•. As a flock in the midst of their fold, at rest, "*^ like sheep, still and subject to their shepherd's voice. So shall these, having one faith and One Spirit, in meekness and simplicity, obey the one rule of truth. Nor shall it be a small number;" for the place where they M Ezr. 1. a-4. " vii. 1.^ w lb. i. 1. " lb. i. 6. ii. 1. Iv. 1. X. 7, 9. Josephns, who nlone iTjentiona that Er.ra pent a oopy of Artaxerxes' letter to him, "to all those of his nation who were in Media," and that " many of them, takinc; their property, came to Babylon,' lonscinjc for tho return to Jenisolem," adds, ** but the whole people of Israelites [i.e. the great maas] remained where they were.^ Ant. xi 5, 2. » Ezr. ii. Neh. vii. n livpw^ Acts xzi. 20. « Rom. xi. 6. » lb. xi. 26, 6. •♦ Is. xxxiv. G. » See on Am. i. 12. vol. i. p. 252L *8ee on Am. ix. 12. vol. i. p. 337. « Bup. CHAPTER II. 37 c HR°i8 T ^^ '"^^ breaker is come ^^^' "30. up before them : they have shall be gathered shall be too narrow to con- tain them, as is said in Isaiah ; Give place to me, that I may dtoeU \ They 8haU make great noise (it is the same word as our hum, "the hum of men,") by reaaon of the multitude of men. He explains his image, as does Ezekiel \ And ye are My floekj the Jiock of My pasture ; men are ye; I, your Crody saUh the Lord God : and, ^ As a flock of holy thirty as the flock of Jerusalem in her sol- emn feasts ; so shall the waste cities be full of a flock of men, and they shall huno thai I am tlie Lord. So many shall they be, that *' through- out the whole world they shall make a great and public sound in praising God, filling Heaven and the green pastures of Paradise with a mighty hum of praise ; " as St. John saw * a great multitude which no man could nunv- ber, "*with one united voice praising the Good Shepherd, Who smoothed for them all rugged places, and evened them by His Own Steps, Himself the Guide of their way and the Gate of Paradise, as He saith, / am the Door; through Whom, bursting through and going beforCj being also the Door of the way, the flock of believers shall break through It. But this Shepherd is their Lord and King." Not their King only, but the Lord God; so that this, too, bears witness that Chiist is God. 13. The Breaker is come up {gone up) before them; they have broken up^ (broken through*) and have passed the gate, and have gone forth. The image is not of conquest, but of deliver- ance. They break through, not to enter in but to pa^ through the gate ana ap forth. The wall of the city is ordfinarily broken through, in order to make an entrance^, or to secure to a conqueror th^ power of entering in® at any time, or by age and decay •. But here the object is expressed, to go forth. Plainly then they were confined before, a.s in a prison ; and the gnte of the prison was burst open, to set them free. It is then the same image as when God says by Isaiah ^^ ; I will say to the North, give up ; and to the South, Hold not back, or ", Go ye forth of Babylon, Say ye, the Lord * xlix. 20. * xxzIt. 3L • lb. zxxvi. 38. * Rev. vii. 9. * Rap. * ]nD is to break through, as, enemies surround- ing one, 2 Sam. v. 20. 1 Chr. xiv. 11. break in pieces ») AM to ecatteff Ps. Ix. 3. brecJc through or down a wall, (5»oe references in 30, 31,33.) and with 3, "burst uiM><' of God's inflictions, £x. xix. 22, 24. 2 Sam. VI. 8. Pfl. cvi. 29. 1 Chr. xiil. 11. xv. 13. T P«. Ixxx. l.^ Ixxxix. 41. Is. V. 6. Neh. li. 13. •ProT. XXV. 28. 2 Kgs xiv. 13. 2 Chr. xxv. 23. xxvL 6. » 2 Chr. xxxii. 5. » xliii. 6. " lb. xlviil. 20. M lii. 11, 12. IKVP, AS here )HT ; and D3' Jfl^ni^H ooiresponding to DD^J£)^ Tlh]^. broken up, and have passed ^ hrTs t through the gate, and are Q"*- '^^- hath redeemed His servant Jacob; or, with the same reminiscence of God's visible leading of His people out of Egypt, " Depart ye, de- P^^l y^f /or y« ^haU not go out with h^ste, nor yet by flight, for the Lord Ood shall go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward ; or as Hosea describes their restoration " ; Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be aathered together and appoint themselves one Heaa, and they shall go up out of the land ^*. Elsewhere, in Isaiah, the spiritual meaning of the deliverance from the prison is more distinctly brought out, as the work of our « Redeemer ". Twill give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the pris- on-house; and ", the Spirit of the Lard God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the open- ing of the prison to them that are baund. From this passage, the " Breaker-through " was one of the titles of the Christ, known to the Jews *^, as One Who should be " ^® from below and from above " also ; and from it they believed that " ^' captives should come up from Gehenna, and the Shechinah/' or the Presence of God, " at their head." " » He then. Who shall break the way, the King and Lord Who shall go up before them, shall be the Good Shepherd, Who puts them together in the fold. And this He doth when, as He saith, *^ He putteth forth His own sheep, and He goeth before them and the sheep foUow Him, for they know His Voice. How doth He go be- fore them but by suffering for them, leaving them an exam^e of sufiering, and opening the entrance of Farad ise ? The Good Shep- herd goeth up to the Cross, ^and is lifted up from the earth, laying down His Life for His sheep, to draw all men unto Him. He goeth up, trampling on death by His resurrection ; He goeth up above the heaven of heavens, and sitteth on the Right Hand of the Father, opening the way before them, so that the flock, in their lowliness, may arrive where • the Shepherd went before in His Majesty. wi. 11. (IL2.Heb.) • " VIKn TD iSjT in reference to Egypt, (see on Hos. i. 11. vol. i. p. 26) as here D^J?. w Is. xlli. 6, 7. w Is. Ixi. 1. " Huls. Theol. Jud. pp. 143, 144. u R. Mos. Haddars. in Mart Pug. Fid. p. 432. It is interpreted of the Messiah in the Beresnith Rabba, g 48. f. 47. 2. (Sch5ttg. de Mess. p. 61.) the Echa Rab- baihi, f. 60. 2, (lb. p. 69.) the Penile ta Rabbathi, f. 60. 1, (lb. p. 135.) and the Midrash Mishle, ad c. vi. 1. (lb. ad loc. p. 212.) So also Jonathan, Kashi, Tan- chum, Abarbanel in Poc. i» Quoted by Pearson on the Creed, art 6, note y. «> Rup. n &. John x.4. « lb. 16. zii. 32. 38 MICAH. _ <^^^^- '^^- king shall pass before them, • H08.3.6. '^ ^ And when He thus breaketh through and openeth the road, thej also break through and pass through the aate and go otUby U,hj that Gate, namely, whereof the Psalmist saith \ This 18 the Oate of the Lord ; the righteous shall enter into It What other is this Gate than that same Passion of Christ, beside which there is no gate, no waj whereby any can enter into life? Through that open portal, wliich the lance of the soldier made m His Side when crucified, and there came thereout Blood and Watery they shall pass and go through, even as the childi:en of Israel passed through tlie Red Sea, which divided before thera, when Pharaoh, his chariots and horsemen, were drowned." "'He will be in their hearts, and will teach and lead them; He will 8hew them the way of Salvation, ^guid- ing their feet into the way of peace, and they shall pass through the strait and narrow gate which leadeth unto life ; of which it is writ- ten*, Enler ye in at the. strait gate; because strait is the gate and ncuTOw is the way which leadeth unto life, arid few there be thai find iL And their Kino shall pass before M«m, as He did, of old. in the figure of the cloud, of which Moses saia *, If Thy Presence go not, carry us nM up hence; aryi wherein shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight, land Thy people, is it not in that Thou goest up with us f and as He then did when He passed out of this world to the Father. And t/ie Lord on (that is, ai) the head of them, as of His army. " * For the Lord is His Name, and He is the Head, they tlie members; He the King, tiiey the people ; He the Shepherd, they the siieep of His pasture. And of this passing through He spake ^, By Me if any man enter in, he shaU be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. For a man entereth in, when, receiving the faith, he becomes a sheep of this Shepherd, and goeth out, when he eloseth this present life, and then findeth the pastures of unfading, everlasting life ; " " * passing from this pilgrimage to his home, from faith to sijL>:ht, Irom labor to reward." Again, as describing the Christianas life here, it speaks of pn)2fress. "^Wh'W) shall have entered in, must not remain in the state wherein he entered, but must go forth into the pasture ; so that, in entering in should be the begin- ning, in going forth and finding pasture^ the perfecting of graces. He who entereth in, is contiiined within the bounds of the world ; he who goeth forth, goes, as it were, beyond all » Ps. ex viii. 20. « Dion. » S. Luke i. 79. «8. Matt. vii. 13, 14. » Ex. xxxlii. 15, 16. • Rup. 7 s. John X. 9. 8 S. Jer. • Ps. xxiil. 1. ^ Is. xlv. 2. " lb. li. 10. " lb. xlv. 2, 3. "2 Tim. ii. 3. ' and the Lord on the head, of them. Before CHRIST cir. TV). * Is. 52. 12. created things, and, counting as nothing aU things seen, snail find pasture above the Heav- ens and shall feed upon the Word of God, ana say •, The Lord is my Shepherd, (and feed- eth me,) I can lack nothing. But this going forth can only be through-Christ ; as it fol- loweth, and the Lord at the head of them.^^ Nor, again, is this in itself easy, or done for us without anv effort of our own. All is of Christ. The words express the closeness of the relation between the Head and the mem- bers; and what He, our King and Lord, doth, they do, because He Who did it for them, doth it in them. The same words are used of both, shewing that what they do, they do by virtue of His Might, treading in His steps, walking where He has made the way plain, and by His Spirit. What they do, they do, as belonging Co Him. He break- eth through, or, rather, in all is the Breaker- through. They, having broken through, pass on, because He passeth before them. He will ^^ break in pieces Ute gales of brojss. and cut in sunder the oars of iron. He breaketh through whatever would hold us back or oppose us, all might of sin and detith and Satan, as Moses opened the Red Sea, for " a way for the ransomed to pass over ; and so He saith, *' / wiU go before thee, I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron, and I wiU give thee the treasures of darkness, atid hid" den riches of secret places. So tlien Christians, following Him, tne Captain of their sahxUvm^ strengttiened by His grace, must burst the bars of the flesh and of the world, the chains and bonds of evil passions and habits, force themselves through the narrow way and nar- row gate, do violence to themselves, ^^ emiure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. The title of our Lord, the Breaker-through ", and the saying, they break through, together ex- press the same as the New Testament doth m regard to our being partakers of the suf- ferings of Christ. ** Joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, thai we may be also glorified togetJier. ^^ If we be dead with Ifim, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. ^"^ Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in thefiesh — arm yowr^ self*es likewise with the same mind. * The words may include also the removal of the souls of the just, who had believed in Christ before His Coming, into Heaven after His Resurrection, and will be fiiUv comj^lelefl when, in the end, He shall cause I lis faithful i*yifl. It is fhsm the same word as Pharez, Judah*8 son, whcNse birth was typical. Gen. xxxviii. 29. " Rom. vitl. 17. w 2 Tim. IL 11, 12. " 1 Pet. iv. 1. CHAPTER IIL 39 chr7st . CHAPTER IH. Cir. 710. 1 Thp. j^iAhj nf £V prifu^ 6 The faUehood of the prophets. 8 Hie security <^ them both. A ND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house •Jer.^4,5. of Israel; ^h it not for you to know judgment ? 2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who Bervants, in body and 'soul, to eiUer into the joy of their Lord. Chap. III. ver. 1. And I said. God's love for OS is the great incitement^ constrainer, vivifier of His creature's love. Micah had just spoken of God's love of Israel ; how He would gather them into one fold under One Shepherd, guard them, lead them, remove all uificulties before them, be Himself their Head and enable them to follow Him. He turns then to them. These are God's doings ; this, God has in store for you hereaf^r. Even when mercy itself shall require chas- tisement. He doth not cast off forever. The desolation is but the forerunner of future mercy. What then do ye ? The Prophet appeals to them, class bv class. There was one general corruption of every order of men, through whom Judah could be preserved, princes \ prophets*, priests'. The salt had lost Us savor; wherewith could it be seasoned f whereby could the decaying mass of the people be kept from entire corruption ? Hear J I pray yoUy 0 heads of Jacob^ and ye princes of the house of Israel. He arraigns them by the same name, under which He had first promised mercy. He had first promised mercy to all Jacob and the remnant of Isra^. So now he upraids the heads of Jacobf and the princes of the house of Israd, lest they should deceive themselves. At the same time he recalls them to the deeds of their father. Judah had succeeded to the birthright, forfeited by Reuben, Simeon and Levi ; ana in Judah idl the promises of the Messiah were laid up. But ne was not like the three great Patriarchs, the father of the faithful^ or the meek Isaac, or the much- tried Ja^ob. The name then had not the reminiscences, or force of appeal, contained in the titles^ seed tif Abraham^ or Isaac, or Israel. Is il not for you to know judffment / It is a * j'Vp from n2fp, "cut, deci(ie," whence Cadhl. ft The word is the same, Is. L 10. pluck off their skin from cHR^fsx off them, and their flesh cJ^^- "^lo- from off their bones ; 3 Who also ^eat the bP8.i4.4. flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and ''as flesh within the •Ezek.ii.s,7. caldron. great increase of guilt, when persons neglect or pervert what it is their special duty and office to guard; as when teachers corrupt doctrine, or preachers give in to a low stand- ard of morals, or judges pervert judgment. The princes here spoken of are so named from judging, " deciding * " causes. They are the same as the rulers, whom Isaiah at the same time upbraids, as being, from their sins, rulers of /Sboom*, whose *fuinds were full of blood. They who do not right, in time ce&se^ in great measure, to know it. As God with- draws His grace, the mind is darkened and can no longer see it So it is said of Eli's sons, they^ were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord; and, ^ Into a malicious smd Wis- dom shall not enter f nor dwell in a body that is suhjeet unto sin. Such " ' attain not to know the judgments of Ood which are a great deep: and the depth of Hb justice the evil mind findeth not." But if men will not know^udy ment by doing it they shall by suffering it. 2. Who h(3e the good and love the evu; i. e. they hate, for its own sake, that which is good, and love that which is evil. The Prophet is not here speaking of their haling good men, or loving evil men, but of their hating goodness and \oving wickedness^^. *''It is sin not to love good ; what g^iilt to hate it ! it is faulty, not to fiec from evil, what ungodliness to love itt'' Man, at first, loves and admires the good, even while he doth it not ; he hates the evil, even while he does it, or as soon as he has done it But man cannot bear to be at strife with his conscience, and so he ends it^ by excusing himself and telling lies to himself. And then, he hates the truth or good with a bitter hatred, because it disturbs the darkness of the false peace with wliich he would envelop liimself. At first, men love only the pleasure connected with the evil ; then they make whom they can, evil, because goodness is a reproach to them*: ihi • lb. 15. U Sam. IL.12L. • Wlsd. i.4. »S. Jer.. 10 jhls appears from the Kethib TXJiy, 40 MTfiATT CHRIST ^ '^^^ ^Bheil they cry cir. 710. unto the Lord, but he will «P8.i8.«. not hear them: he will Prov. 1. 28. 1 . 1 , . i. >. 18.1.15. even hide his face from Szfik 8 18 Zeoh.'7.'i3.' them at that time, as they the end, they love evil for its own sake^ Heathen morality too distinguished between the incontinent and the unprincipled', the man who sinned under force of temptation, and the man who had lost the sense of right and wrong. ^* Every one that doeth evil, hateth the UghL Whoso longeth for things unlawful, hateth the righteousness which rebuketh ana punisheth V Who pluck off their skin from off theiOf and their flesh from off their bones. He had de- scribed the Good Shepherd ; now, in contrast^ he describes those who ought to be '' shep- herds of the people,'' to feed, guard, direct them, but who were their butchers ; who did not shear them, but flayed them ; who fed on them, not fed them. He heaps up their guilt, act by act. First they nay, i. e. take away their outer goods; then they break their bones in pieces, the most solid parts, on which the whole frame of their body depends to get at the very marrow of their life, ana so feed themselves upon them. And not unlike, though still more fearfully, do they sin, who first remove the skin, as it were, or outward tender fences of (rod's graces ; (such as is modesty, in regard to inward purity ; outward demeanor, of inward virtue: out- ward forms, of inward devotion;) and so break the strong bones of the sterner virtues, which hold the whole soul together ; and with them the whole flesh, or softer graces, becomes one shapeless mass, shred to pieces and con- sumed. 8o Ezekiel says^; Woe to the shep- herds of IsiXLel that do feed themselves; should not the shepherds feed the flock t Te eat the fat and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them thai arefedf ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened^ 4Sce. 4. Then shall they cry unto the Lord. Then, The Prophet looks on to the Daj of the Lord, which is ever before his mind. So the Pfialmist, speaking of a time or place not expressed, says, * There were they in oreat fear. He sees it, points to it, as seeing what those to whom he spoke, saw not, and the more awfully, because he saw, with super-human and so with certain vision, what was hid from their eyes. The then was not then, in the time ofgracej but when the Day of grace should be over, and the Day of Judgment should be > Bom. i. 32. s The aKparrff and aK6\aarTOi of Aristotle. «S. John iil. 20. ♦ Dion. » xxxiv. 2-4. add 5-10. «P8.liii.5. 7xi.ll. «Pa.xviiI.41. • Prov. xxi. 13. »> iL 13. u See on Hos. v. 6. vol. i. p. 68. have behaved themselves chbTst ill in their doings. *^^- '^^' 5 ^Thus saith the Lord •concerninir the -is. 56. 10,11. ° Ezek. 13. la prophets that make my ft22.25. come. So of that day, when judgment should set in, God says in Jeremiah ^, Behold I will bring evil upon them tchuJi they shall not be cMe to go forth of, and they will cry unio Me, and I wiU not hearken unio Uiem, And David ^, 2%ey cried and therewtjimme to save; unto the Lord, and He answered them noL And Solomon^; Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall cry himself and shall not be near a. And St. James ^®, He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy. The prayer is never too late, until judgment comes " ; the day of grace is over, when the time of judgment has arrived. "They shall crv unto the Lord, and shall not be heard, because they too did not hear those who asked them, and the Lord shall turn Hia Face from them, because they too turned their face from those who prayea them." He uill even hide His Face, He will not look in mercy on those who would not receive His look of grace. Your sins, He says by Isaiah, have hid His face from you, that He heareth not, O what will that turning away of the Face be, on which hangs eternity I As. There is a proportion oetween the sin and the punishment ^ As I have done, so Ood hath regfuUed me. Thev haxje behaved themr- selves iU in their doings, lit. have made their deeds eviL The word rendered doings is almost always used in a bad sense, mighty deeds, and so deeds with a high hand. Kot ignorantly or negligently, nor through human frailty, but with set purpose they applied themselves, not to amend but to corrupt their doinas, and make them worse. God called to tnem by all His prophets, make good yoitr doings^^ ; and they, reversingit, used diligence to make their doings eviL ^*A11 this they shall suffer, because they were not rulers, but tyrants ; not Prefects, but lions ; not masters of disciples, but wolves of sheep ; and thev sated themselves with flesh and were fattened, and, as sacrifices for the slaughter, were made ready for the punishment of the Lord. Thus far against evil rulers ; then he turns to the false prophets and evil teachers, who by flatteries subvert the people of God, promising them the knowledge of His word." 5. The prophets that make My people err, flat- tering them in their sins and rebellions, ujudg. 1. 7. *'A8 the Jews speak 'measure for measure \" Foe. tcom Abarb. w Jer. XXXV. 16. UD^hhpO ITO^H; here, i;?nn Drr'b^^^D. "3t. Jer. CHAPTER m. 41 chrTst P^P^® ®"'> *^^^ '^^^ ^^^ ^^ *"" their teeth, and cry, Peace ; 'ch.2.11. and 'he that putteth not Matt* 7. 16. • i A 1 • xi_ J.J. •Eiek.13.18,19. into their mouths, they even prepare war against It Is. 8. 20, 22. him* Ezek. 13. 23. ^^^ ' ^h.i3.i. 6 *^Therefore night fHeh, from a - „ , , ,® virion. shall be unto you, jthat promising that they shall go unpunished, that God is not so strict, will not put in force the Judgments He threatens. So Isaiah saith ^; U my loeople^ Utey which lead theey miB- lead thee; and , the leaders of thiepeople are its nudeadersy and they that are Ud of them are dettmyed. And Jeremiah', The prophets have seen for thee vanity and folly ; and they hasoe not discovered thine iniquity to turn avxty thy eaptivityj and have seen for thee faise burdens and causes of banishment. No error is hopeless, save what is taught in the Name of God. J%at bite vnth their mouths. The word * is used of no other hiting than the biting of serpents. They were doing real, secret evil whUe they cry, i. e. proclaim peace ; they bit, as serpents, treacherously, deadlily. They fed, not so much on the gifts, for whidi they hired themselves to ^ f^eak peace when there was no peace, as on the souls of the givers. 8o God says by Ezekiel ^ Will ye pollute Me among My people for handfuls of bartey and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, ana to save the souls alive thai should not live, by your lying to My people that hear your lies t Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I haioe not made sad ; and strengthened the hands of the wicked ^ thai he should not return from his wicked way, by promr ising him life — therefore ye shall see no more vantiy nor divine divinaJtions, It was with a show of peace that Joab slew Abner and Amasa, and with a kiss of peace Judas be- trayed our Lord. And he thai putteth not into their mouths, they prepare war against him, lit. and (i.e. forthwitn ; it was all one ; bribes refused, war proclaimed,) they sanctify war agaiTust him. Like those of whom Joel prophesied ^, they proclaim war against him in the Name of God, by the authority of God which the^ had taken to themselves, speaking in His Name Who had not sent them. So when our Lord fied the multitude, they would take 1 iiL 1 2. * ix. 16. (15, Heb.) * Laiil. li. 14. *'\^1 Gen. xllx. 17. Num.' xxl. 8, 9. Prov. xiii. 32. EcpI. X. 8, 11. Am. V. 19. ix. 3. Hence. Kimchi, "While thoy proclaim peace, and flatter the people, it ia as if they bit it wi& the teeth." So A. £. also and Tanch. In Poc. Before ye shall not have a vifr- q h r i s t ion; and it shall be dark c^r. tip. unto you, fthat ye shall fHeb./rom not divme; ^and the sun lAmoasTg. shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Him by force and make Him a king ; when their hopes were gone and they saw that His Kingdom was not of this world, they said, Orw- etfy him, crucify Him. Much more the Phar- iseesy who, beoEiuse He rebuked their coyet- i ousness, their devouring widows' houses, their I extortion and excess, their making their pros- elytes more children of hell than themBelves, said. Thou blusphemest. So, when the masters of the possessed damsel whom St. Paul freed, ^saw thai the hope of their gains was gone, they accused him, that he exceedingly troubled their dty, teaching customs not lawful to he received. So Christians were persecuteid by the Heathen as '* ' hating the human race," l)ecause they would not partake of their sins ; as '* ^^ athe- ists." because they worshiped not their gods; as " ** disloyal " and " public enemies," because they joined not in unholy festivals ; as " un- profitable," because they neglected things not profitable but harmful. So men are now called "illiberal," who will not make free with the truth of God : "intolerant," who will not allow that all faitn is matter of opinion, and that there is no certain truth ; " precise," " censorious," who will not connive at sin, or allow the levity which plays, mothlike, around it and jests at it. The Church .and the (lospel are against the world, and bo the world which they condemn must be against them ; and such is the iorce of truth and holiness, that it must carry on the war against them in their own name. 6. Tfierefore night shall be unto you, thai ye shall not nave a vision. In the presence of God's extreme judgments, even deceivers are at length still ; silenced at last by the com- mon misery, if not by awe. The false pro- phets had promised peace, light, brightness, Srosperity; the night of trouble, anguish, arkness, fear, shall come upon them. So shall thejr no more dare to speak in the Name of God, while He was by His judgments speaking the contrary in a way which all must hear. They abused God's gifts and long-sufiering B Esek. zlii. 10. « lb. 10, 22, 23 T See on Joel ill. vol. i. p. 207. • Acts xvi. 19-21. •Tertulllan, Apol. c. 10. and note k. Oxf. Tr. v> lb. c. .35. ad Scap. c. 2. u lb. 42, 43. 44 MICAH. cir. 710. ^th " t blood, and Jerusa- ■ Jer. 22. 13. 1 . , -i . • • . « Eaek. 22. 27. lem With miquitv. Hab. 2. 12. Zeph. 3. 3. f Heb. bloods. the individual ; perversion of eouity destroys the fountain-head of justice. The Prophet turns from them in these words, as one who could not bear to look upon their miftdeeds, and who would not speak to them ; they per- vert; building; her headSy her priests, her Jropheia; as ilblisha, but for the presence of enoshaphat, would not look on Jehoram, nor see him^. He first turns and speaks of them, as one man, as if they were all one in evil; 10. Tliey build ttp [lit. building, sin^.'] Zion viiih blood. This may be taken literally on both sides, that, the rich bHilt their pal- aces, " with wealth gotten by bloodshed ', by rapine of the poor, by slaughter of the saints," as Ezekiel says', her princes in the midst thereof are like woLveSy to shed blood, to de- stroy souls, to get dishonest g(iin. Or bv blood he may mean that they indirectly took away life, in that, through wrong judgments, ex- tortion, usury, fraud, oppression, reducing wages or detaining them, they took away what was necessary to support life. So it is said * ; I%e bread of the needy is their life, he that defroiideth him thereof is a w£tn of blood. He thai taketh away his neighbours living slayeih him, and he thai defraxideih the laborer of his hire is a bloodj^hedder. Or it may be, that as David prayed to Grod, * BuHd Thou the idoUs of Jerusalem, asking Him thereby to main- tain or increase its well-being, so these men thought to promote the temporal prosperity of Jerusalem by doings which were unjust, oppressive, crushing to their inferiors. So Solomon, in his degenerate days, made the yoke upon his people and his service grievous \ oo ambitious monarchs by large standing- armies or filling their exchequers drain the life-blood of their people. The physical condition and stature of the poorer popula- tion in much of France was lowered perma- nently by the conscriptions under the first Emperor. In our wealthy nation, the term poverty describes a condition of other days. We have had to coin a new name to designate the misery, o£&pring of our material pros- perity. From our wealthy towns, (as from those of Flanders,) ascends to heaven against us "^the cry of ^pauperism' i.e. the cry of distress, arrived at a condition of system and of power, and, by an unexpected curse, issu- ing from the very development of wealth. 1 2 Kes m. U. « S. Jer. « xxil. 27. * EccTus. xxxlv. 21, 22. » Pa. li. 18. eiKg8.xiL4. f Lacordaire, Conferences, T. ii. p. 300. 8 B. John xi. 48. • S. Matt xxv. 45. 11 •The heads thereof chrTst cir. 710. judge for reward, and 'the priesta thereof teach f o r ' Esek^Sz. 12. P Jer. 6. 13. H08. 4. 18. ch. 7. 3. • [8. 1. 23. The political economy of unbelief has been crushed by facts on all the theatres of human activity and industry." Truly we buUd up Zion with blood, when we cheapen luxuries and comforts at the price of souls, Use Chris- tian toil like brute strength, tempt men to dishonesty and women to other sin, to' eke out the scanty wages which alone our selfish thirst for che^ipness allows, heedless of every thing save of our individual gratification, or the commercial prosperity, which we have made our god. Most awfully was Zion built wiilt blood, when the Jews shed the innocent Blood, that ^the Romans might not take away their place and nation. But since He has said', Inajtmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did il not unto Me, and, "^ Saul, Saul, why perseculest thou Met when Saul was persecuting Christ's members, then, in this waste of lives and of souls, we are not only wasting the Price of His Blood in ourselves and others, but are anew slaying Christ, and that, from the self- same motives as tliose who crucified Him. ** When ye si,n against the members, ye sin against CfirisL Our c^ommercial greatness is the price of His Blood^\ In the judgments on the Jews, we may read our own national future ; in the woe on those throu;;h whom the weak brother pei-ishcs for whom Christ died *', we, if we partiike or connive at it, may read our own. 11. Hie heads thereof judge for reward. Every class was corrupted. One sin, the root of all etril " covetousness, entered into all they did. It, not God, was their one end, and so their God. Her heads, the secular autliority, who ^ 'sat to judge according to the law, jud'jed, contrary to the law, for rewards. They sat as the representatives of the Miu- esty of God, in Wliose Name they judged, Wiioee righteous Jud^ent and correcting Providence law exhibits and executes, and they profaned it. To judge for revxirds was in itself sin, forbidden by the law ^^ To re- fuse justice, unless paia for it, was unjust, degrading to justice. The second sin fol- lowed hard upon it, to judge unjustly, ab- solving the guilty, condemning the innocent, justifying the oppressor, legalizing wrong. And her priests teach for hire. The Lord was the portion and inheritance " of the priest. He had his sustenance assigned him by God, »Acteix.4. MS. MattwXXvlLe. " 1 Tim. vi. 10. w Ex. xxlii. 8. Deut. xvi. 19. •w Num. xviiL 20. Deut xviil. 2. M 1 Cor. viii. 12. MlCor. viii. 11. UActA7UciiL3. CHAPTER III. 45 CHB^iST ^^* *^^ ^^® prophets cir. 710. thereof divine for money : « Is. 48. 2. Jer. 7. 4. Bom. 2. 17. *yet will they lean upon and, therewith, the duty to ^ put difference be- tween holy and unholy^ and between clean and unclean^ and to teadi all the staluies, which God had oommanded. Their lips were to keep know- ledge *. This then, which they were bound to give, they sold. But " 'whereas it is said to the holy, *fFreelyye have received j freely give, these, producing the answer of God upon the receipt of money, sold the grace of the Lord for a covetous price." Probably too, their sin co-operated with and strengthened the sin of the judges. Autliorized interpre- ters of the law, tiiey, to pleuse the wealthy, probably misinterpreted tlie law. For wicked judges would not have given a price for a righteous interpretation of the law. The civil authorities were entrusted by God with power to execute the law ; the priests were entrusted by Him with the knowledge to ex- pound it. Both employed in its perversion that which God gave them for its mainte- nance. The princes obtained by bribery the misjudgment of the priests and enforced it ; the priests justified the injustice of the Princes. So Arian Bishops, themselves hire- lings*, by false expositions of Scripture, countenanced Arian Emperors in the oppres- sion of the faithful. " * They propped up the heresy by human patronage ; " the Em- perors " ' bestowed on " them their " reign of irreligion." The Arian Emperors tried to efface the Council of Nice by councils of Arian Bishop ®. Emperors perverted their power, the Bishops their knowledge. Not publicly only but privately doubtless also, these priests taught falsely /or hire, lulling the consciences of those who wished to deceive themselves as to what God forbade, and to obtain from His priests answers in His Name, which might explain away His law in favor of laxity or sin. So people now try to get ill-advised to do against God's will what they are bent on doing ; only they get ill-advised for nothing. One who receives money for giving an irre- sponsible opinion, places himself in proxi- mate peril of giving the answer which will please those who pay him. " • It is Simony to teach and preach the doctrine of Christ and His Gospel, or to give answers to quiet the conscience, for money. For the imme- diate o^'ect of these two acts, is the calling forth of faith, hope, charity, penitence, and 1 Lev. X. 10, 11. add Deut xrii. 10, 11. xxxlll. 10. Hag. ii. 11 sqq. « Mai. ii. 7. » S. Jer. * 8. Matt. x.S. * S. Ath. ag. Arians, i. 8. p. 191. and n. c. Oxf. Tr. •Id. il. 43. p. 341. T Counc. Arim. § 3. p. 77. 'Poaey's Ck>uDcil8 of the Church, p. 118-180, Ac. the Lord, f and say, Is not ^ h rTs t the Lord among us ? none c^^. 710. evil can come upon us. tHeb. wying. other supernatural acts, and the reception of the consolation of the Holy Spirit ; and this is, among Christians, their only value. Whence they are account^ things sacred and supernatural ; for their immediate end is to things supernatural ; and they are done by man, as he is an instrument of the Holy Ghost." " 1° Thou art permitted, O Priest, to live ", not to luxuriate, from the altar. " The mouth of the ox which treadeih out the com is not mtuh ded. Yet the Apostle " abused not the liberty^ but " having food and raiineni, was thereunih content; ^^ laboring night and day, thai he might not be chargeable to anybody. And in his Epistles he calls God to witness that he '* lived hdily and without avarice in the Gos- pel of Christ. He asserts this too, not of himself alone but of his disciples, that he had sent no one who would either ask or receive anything from the Churches". But if in some Epistles he expresses pleasure, and calls the gifts of those who sent, the grace *^ of God, he gathers not for himself but lor the ** poor saints at Jerusalem. But these poor saints were they who of the Jews first believed in Christ, and, being cast out by parents, kins- men, connections, had lost their possessions and all their goods, the priests of the temple and the people destroying them. Let such poor receive. But if on plea of the poor, a few houses are enriched, and we eat in gold, glass and china, let us either with our wealth change our habit, or let not the habit of poverty seek the riches of Senators. What avails the habit of poverty, while a whole crowd of poor longs for the contents of our purse? wherefore, for our sake who are such, who build up ^ion with blood and Jenisor lem by iniquity, who judge for gifts, give answei^s for rewards, divine for money, and thereon, claiming to ourselves a fictitious sanctity, say, EvU will not came upon us, hear we the sen- tence of the Lord which follows. Sion and Jerusalem and the mountain of the temple, i. e. the temple of Christ, shall, in the consumma- tion and the end, when * love shall wax cold and the faith shall be rare '^, be plov>ed as a field and become heaps as the high places of a forest ; so that, where once were ample houses and countless heaps of corn, there should only be a poor cottage, keeping up the show ^Less de Jastit. ii. 35. de Simonia Dab. 13. p. 389. L. MS. Jer. niCor. Ix. 13. "lb. 9. "lb. 18. M 1 Tim. vi. 8. » 1 Thess. ii. 0. 2 Thess. iii. 8. w 1 Thess. il 10. " 2 Cor. xil. 17, 18. M lb. viii. 6. 7. » Rom. xr. 26. » S. Matt. xxiv. 12. » S. LAke xviii. 8. 46 MICAH. 12 Therefore shall Zion Before CHRIST cir. 710. for your sake be 'plowed ' Jer. 26. 18. ch. 1. 0. 08 a field, ■ and Jerusalem ^ hrTs t shall become heaps^aud ' the ^^^' '^^^^ •Pfl.79. 1. «ch.4.2. of fruit which has no refreshment for the soul." The three places, Zion, Jerusalem, the Temple, descrioe the whole city in its poli- tical and religious aspects. Locally, Mount Zion, which occupies the South-West, " had upon it the Upper city," and " was bj much the loftier, and length-ways the straighter." Jerusalem, as contrasted with Zion, repre- sented the lower city, " ^ supported " on the East by Mount Acra, and includjpg the valley of TyropcBon- South of Mount Acra and lower than it, at the South Eastern comer of the city, lay Mount Moriah or the Mount of the Lord's House, separated at this time from Mount Acra by a deep ravine, which was filled up by the Asmonwan princes, who lowered Mount Acra. It was joined to the N. E. comer of Mount Zion by the cause- way of Solomon across the Tyropceori. The whole city then in all its parts was to be desolated. And her prophets divine for money. The word rendered^, divine, is idways used in a bad Bense. These prophets then were false prophets, her prophets and not God|s, which divined, in reality or ap()eanince, giving the answer which their employers, the rich men, wanted, as if it were an answer from God. ' Yet they also jtuloe for rewards, who look rather to the earthly than to the spiritual good ; they teojch for hire, who seek in the nrst place the things of this world, in- stead of teaching for the glory of God. and the good of souls, and regarding earthly things in the second place only, as the sup- port of life. And say^ Is not the Lord among us t And after all this, not understanding their sin, as though by their guilt they purchased the love of God, the^ said in their impenitence, that they were judges, propliets, priests, of God. They do all Siis, and yet lean on the Lord ; they stay and trust, not in themselves, but in God ; good in itself, had not they been evil ! And say, Is not the Lord among us t none evil can \shaJ£\ come upon us. So Jere- miah says \ Trust ye not in tying words saying, The temple of the liord, the temple of the Lord, 2^ temple of the Lord are these, " ^ He called them lying words, as being ofltimes repeated by the false prophets, to entice the credulous people to a false security" against the threatenings of God. As though God could not forsake His own people, nor cast away ' Jos. B. J. ▼. 4. 1. s In Prov. zvl. 10. (quoted as an exception) it is used of that penetrating acuteness which is like a gilt of dlyination ; as we apeak of " divining a per- son's thoughts, purposes," Ac Zion which He had chosen for an habiiaiionfor Himself, nor profane His own holy place ! Yet it was true that God was among them, in the midst of them, as our Lord was among the Jews, though they knew Him not. Yet if not in the midst of His people so as to hallow, God is in the midst of them to punish. But what else do we than these Jews did, if we lean on the Apostolic line, the possession of Holy Scripture, Sacraments, pure d(x;trine, without setting ourselves to gain to God the souls of our Ileathen popu- lation ? or what else is it for a soul to trust in having been made a member of Christ, or in any gifts of Go:l, unless it be bringing forth fruit uifh patience t " • Learn we too lience, that all trust' in the Merits of Christ is vain, so long as any wilfully persist in sin." " * Know we, that Goid will be in us also, if wc have not faith alone, nor on this account res^t, as it were, on Him, but if to faith there be added also the excelling in good works. For faith without works is dead. But when w^ith the riches of faith works concur, then will God indeed be with us, and will strengthen us mightily, and account us friends, and glad- den us as His true sons, and free us from all evil." 12. Hierefore shall Zion for your sake [Jor your saJx shali Zion^ be plowed as a field. They thought to be its bmlders ; they were its destroyers. Thev imagined to advsmce or secure its temporal pros{)erity by bloods; they (as men ever do nrst or last,) mined it. Zion might liave stood, but for these its acute, far-sighted politicians, who scorned the warn- ings of the prophets, as well-meant ignor- ance of the wond or of the necessitiess of the state. They tauglit, perhaps they thought, that for Zion's sake they, (act as they might,) were secure. Practical Antino- miansl God says, that, for their sake, Zion, defiled by their deeds, should be destroyed. The fulfillment of the prophecy was delayed by the repentance under Hczekiah. Did he not, the elders ask', /ear the Lord and Ae- sought the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which Me had pronounced against them f But the prophecy remained, like that of Jo- nah iigainst r^ineveh. and, when man undid and in act repentea of his repentance, it found its fulfillment. Jerusalem shall become heaps, nit. qfrnins ',] and the mountain of the house. Mount Moriah, on which the house of Gfod stood, as the high • From Dion. «vlL4. » Sanch. •J. H. Mich. » Jer. xxvl. 19. • p^ ftom TWp, *• distort, perrert, subvert** CHAPTER IIL 47 c H^Ts T iQOuntain of the house as cir. 710. places of thefnrest, lit. 08 high places of a faresL It should return wholly to .what it had been, before Abraham offered up the typical sacri- fice of his son, a wild and desolate place cov- ered with tangled thickets ^. The prophecy had a first fulfillment at its first capture by Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah mourns over it; ^BeeauM of the mountain of Zion which is desoUUe^ foxes vxdk [habitually '] upon it. Nehemian said, * Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste; and Sanballat mocked at the attempts to rebuild it, as a thing impossible ; '^ WUl they revive the stones out ^ the heaps of dusty-and these too, burned f and the builders complained : * The strength of the bearers of huToens is aeeayed [lit. sinketh under them J, and there is much dust, and we are not able to build the waU, In the desolation under Antiochus again it is related ; ^ they saw the sanetuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burned up, and shrubs growing in the courts, as in a forest or in one of the mountains. When, by the shedding of the Blood of the Lord, they ^fiUed up the measure of their fathers, and called the curse upon themselves, 'JETm Blood be upon us and upon our chil- dren, destruction came upon them to the utter- most. With the exception of three towers, left to exhibit the greatness of Roman prowess in destroying such and so strong a dty, they "*®so levelled to the ground the wliole circuit of the city, that to a stranger it presented no token of ever having been in- habited.'' He '< effaced the rest of the dty,'' sajs the Jewish historian^ himself an eye- witness *^ The elder Plmy soon after. A. D. 77, speaks of it, as a dty which had been «Lam. v. 18. »0^n. »Gen. xxU. 1S.-J30. *Neh. U. 17. •lb. 10. [iv.4. Heb.] *Ib.iv.2.[Ili.34. Heb.l » 1 Mace. iv. .38. 8 S. Matt xziiL 32. • lb. xxvii. 26. » Joseph. B. J. vii. 1. 1. u ib. ▼!. 9. 1. M Nat. Hist. V. 14. u Pliny sara of Engedl, "Below these was the town Engadda, second only to Jerusalem in fertility and palm-groves, now a second ftineral pile." [buH- tumj N. H. y. 18. See at length in Deyling de ^lice Oapit. Orig. in his Obes. socr. y. 436-^. and on the whole subject Lightfoot^hronicon de Excidio urb. Hieros. Opp. ii. 136 sqq. Tillemont, Hist. d. Emp. T. L Ruine des Juifs ; T. ii. R^voltes des Juifs ; Munter, d. Jud. Krieg unt. Trai. u. Hadr. (translated In Dr. Robinson's Bibl. 8acr. T. iiL 1st series) who, how- eyer, gives too much weight to vexy late authorities. JosLOesch. d. Juden, B. xiL >4 Ep. 129. ad Dard. fin. V The Talmud speaks of R. Jose (who liyed before Hadrian) ** praying in one of the ruins of Jerusa- lem,** but only when on a loumey. Berachoth, f. 3. The context implies that they were utter ruins. MGittin, r. 66. Jost, iiL 184. Anhang, p. 166. IT Maecoth, fin. u Joseph us* numbers. » Jo©, a J. TiL 6. 2. » Dio Ixix. 14. B ** The tenth legion and some troops of horse and companies of foot'* (Joe. Ib. yii. 1. 2.) The the high places of the forest Before CHRIST cir. 710. and was not " " Where was Jerusalem, far the most renowned dty, not of Judiea only, bat of the East," " » a funeral pUe." With this corresponds S. Jerome's statement, " " relics of the city remained for fifty years until the Emperor Hadrian." Still it was in utter ruins ^, The toleration of the Jewish school at Jamnia ^' the more illustrates the desolation of Jerusalem where there was none. The Tdmud ^^ relates how K. Akiba smiled when others wept at seeing a fox com- ing out of the Holy of holies. This prophe<^ of Micah being ftilfilled, he looked the more for the prophecy of good things to come^ oonnectea therewith. Not Jerusalem only, but well-nigh all Judsea was desolated by , that war. in which a million and a half per- ished ^^, oeside all who were sold as slavcs.- " Their country to which you would expell them, is destroyed, and there is no place to receive them," was Titus' expostulation " to the Antiochenes, who desired to be rid of the Jews their fellow-citizens. A heathen hLsto- rian relates how, before the destniction bv HadriaUf " ^ many wolves and hyoenas entered their cities howling." Titus however having left above 6000 ^^ Roman soldiers on the spot, a civil population was required to minister to their wants. The Christians who, following our Itord's warning, had fled to Pella **, re- turned to Jerusalem*^, and continued there until the second destruction bv Had- rian, under fifteen successive Bishops'*. Some few Jews had been left there*; some very probably returned, since we hear of no prohibition from the Romans, until after the fanatic revolt under Bar- cocheba. But the fact that when toward legion was 0000 men; the troop, 64; the com- pany, 100. « Eufl. H. E. iil. 6. SB 8. Eplph. de Mens. 0. 16. p. 171. »* Eus. H. E. iy. 6. " from written documents.'* ftjosephus makes Eleasar say In the siege of Masada, ''Jerusalem has been plucked up by the ront«,and the only memorial of it remaining is the camp of those who took it, still seated on its remains. Hapless elders sit by the du8t of the temple, and a few women preseryed by the enemy for th£ foulest insolence.'' B. J. yii. 8. The state- ment of 8. Epiphanius (de Mens. 15. p. 170.) *' in that part of Zion which survived after the denola- tion, there were both parts of dwellings around Zion itnelf and seven synagogues which alone stood in Zion as cabins, one of which survived till the time of Bishop Maxim us and the Emperor Constantine, as a hut in a vineyard," is remarkaoly confirmed by the independent Latin statement of the Bourdeaux pil- grim. " Within the wall of Zion appears the place where David had his palace ; ana of seven syna- 8ogues, which were there, one only has remained, ^c rest are ploughed and sowed." Itin. Hieros. p. 692, ed. Wess. Optatus also mentions the 7 synagogues, (iii. 2. Edd. before Dupin, and all MSS. but one. See E. 63.) Before the destruction there are said to ave been 480. Echa Rabbathi,f. 62. col. 2. f. 71. col. 4. 48 MICAH. the close of Tn^an's reign they burst out simultaneously, in one wild frenzy ^^ upon the surrounding Heathen, all along the coast of Africa, Libya, Cyrene, Egypt, the Thebais, Mesopotamia, Cyprus', there was no insur- rection in Judsea, implies that there were no great numbers of Jews there. Judsea, afore- time the centre of rebellion, contributed nothing * to thai wide national insurrection, in which the carnage was so terrible, as though it had been one convulsive effort of the Jews to root out their enemies ^ Even in the subsequent war under Hadrian, Oro- sius speaks of them, as " ^ laying waste the province of Palestine, once their owriy" as though they had gained possession of it from without, not by insurrection within it. The Jews assert that in the time of Joshua Ben Chananiah (under Trajan) " the kingdom of wickedness decreed that the temple should be rebuilt •." If this was so, the massacres toward the end of Trajan's reign altered the S)licy of the Empire. Apparently the mperors attemptea to extinguish the Jew- ish, as, at other times, the Christian faith. A heathen Author mentions the prohibition of circumcision ^. The Jerusalem Talmud " speaks of many who for fear became uncircuwr cioed, and renewed the symbol of their faith 1 sub uno tempore, Quasi rable efferati. Oros. L. vii. B. P. vi. 437. "as ii rekindled by some dreadful seditious spirit.** Eus. H. E. iy. 2. «Oros. Dio mentions Cyrene, Egypt^ Cyprus; to these Eu.sebius adds Mesopotamia; also in S. Jer. Chron. A. D. 117. » Abnlfaraj (A. D. 1270.) mentions an invasion of Ju- dfea by one whom the Egyptian Jews made their king; and whom "the Roman armies sought and slew with some ten thousands of Jews everywhere." (Hist. Ar. p. 12(). Chron. Syr. p. 56.) He is too late to be an authority; but his account equally implies that there was no rebellion in Judeea. * Dio speaks of their destroying 220,000 Romans and Greeks in Cyrene; coramftting much the same horrors in Egypt; destroying 240,(KX) In Cyprus. Ixviii. 32. The Jews, ascribing this to Bnrcocneba, say that they destroyed " in Africa a great multi- tude of Romans and Greeks like the san<l on the sea-shore innumerable," and In Egypt more than 200,000 men ; and in Cyprus, so as to leave none. Zemach David, f. 27. 1. In Eisenmengcr, Knt4. Jud. ii. 655. (The coincidence is remarkable, but the statement is too late to have any independent value.) Orosius says that "Libya was so desolated through the slaughter of its pea.sants, that^ had not Hadrian re-colonized Ifc, it wonld haye remained empty.** 1. c. A 1. c. Sulpicius Severas in like way speaks of the Jews "wishing to rebel, essaying to plunder Svria and Palestine.*^ ii. 4. « Bereshith Rabba. c. 64. T Spartian Hadrian, c. 14. It was repealed by An- tonino. See Munter, §26. ■Yebammoth, f. 9. 1. and R. Nisslm. (See in Lightfoot, Chron. 0pp. ii. 143.) Berachoth f. 16. 2. in Jost B. xii. Anhanp; n. 21. » R. Ni^^sim in Lightfoot, 1. o. wjostxii. J>. p. 228. " Eus. H. E. IV. 6. Zemach David, f. 27. in Eisen- mengcr, Ent<i. Jud. ii. 664. "He was called Bar Cocheba, because he interpreted, as said of himself, a star shali arise out of Jacob. Ac. (Num. xxiv. 17.) Shalshalet hakkabbala (In De Voisin on Martini, Pug. Fid. p. 206.) Sanhedrin, Chelek. (Mart. p. 320.) ""And R. Akibah himself, when he saw him, said of him, This is the king Messiali, aa it id in the "* when Bar Cozibah got the better, so as to reign 2| years among them." The Jews adc^ that the prohibition extended to the keeping of the sabbath and the reading of the law ^^ Hadrian's city, uElia, was doubt- less intended, not only for a strong position, bat also to efface the memory of Jerusalem by the Roman and Heathen city which was to replace it. Christians, when persecuted, suffered ; Jews rel>elled. The recognition of Barcocheba, who gave himself out as the Messiah ", by Akibah " and " all the wise [Jews] of his generation"," made the war national. Palestine was the chief seat of the war, but not its source. The Jews through- out the Roman world were in arms against their conquerors"; and the number of fortresses and villages which they got pos- session o^ and which were destroyed by the Romans^, shews that their successes were far beyond Judsea. Their measures in Judsea attest the desolate condition of the country. They fortified, not towns, but ""the advan- tageous jpositions of the country, strengthened them with mines and walls, that, if defeated, they might have places of refuge, and com- munication among themselves underground unperceived." For two years, (as ap()ears from the coins struck by Barcocheba *^,) they Echa Rabbathi on the verse Lam. ii. 2." (lb.) "Ho applied Hagg. ii. 6, 7. to him " (quoting v, 7. "/tcW brmq the desire of the nations to Jerusalem") flanh. Chelek in Mart See more of him Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. i. n. 1801. R. Bechai said, God revertled to him things unknown to Moses. (lb.) See also Midrash Cant, in Mart* p. 320. Bartolocci, Bibl. Rabb. p. 27i. "Maimon. Yad Chazaka, Sanhedrin, c. 11. in Mart p. 873. "R. Akiba and all the wise of his generation thought that he was the Messiah, until He was slain in his iniquities, and it was known that he was not" This was doubtless the ground of their death, mentioned in the .\voda Zara. See p. 128 sag. F. C. Ewald, trans. 14 "The Romans made no account of them at first, but when all .ludtca was moved and all the Jews throughout the world were set in commotion and conspired and publicly and privately inflicted much evil on the Romans, and many foreigners helped them in hope of gain, and the whole world was shaken, Hadrian sent his best general against them." Dio Cass. Ixix. 1.3. i*"50 fortresses of much accoimt and 985 very well-known villages." Dio C. (almost a contempo- rary) lb. 14. M lb. 12. 17 De Saulcy, Numismatique Judaique, p. loG-70. The coins bear the inscription "the 1st year of the redemption of Jerusalem, ' "the first" and "second year or the freedom of Jerusalem." Two of them are cast upon coins of Trajan and Vespasian. lb. p. 102. The Abb6 Barth^l^mi (App. to Bayer Num. Hebr. Sam. Vind. L. iii. p. ix.-xi.) mentions four of Trajan's, recast by Barcocheba. Bayer mentions coins of the 3d and 4th year, but anonymous. (Num. Hebr. Sam. p. 171.) De Saulcy supposes these to belong t«5 the revolt aeainst Vespasian, (p. 15.1,4.) The title and the name "Simon" which probanlv Barcocheba took, were doubtless intended to recall the memory of the Maccabees. The Jeru- salem Talmud speaks of money with the impress of Ben Coziba, ("son of a lie" Jis the Jews changed his name.) Lightfoot, 0pp. ii. 143. Mr. Vaux, keeper of the coins, British Museum, tells me that these coins (of which some are in the British Museum) are certainly genuine. See also Madden, p. 161-182. CHAPTEB m. 49 had poeseesion of Jernsalem. It was essential to his claim to be a temporal Messiah. They proposed, at least, to " rebuild their temple ^'^ and restore their polity.'' But they^ could not fortify Jerusalem. Its siege is just named ' ; but the one place which obstinately resisted the Romans was a strong city near Jerusalem ', known before only as a deeply indented mountain tract, Bether^ Prob- ably, it was one of the strong positions, fortified in haste, at the beginning of the war*. The Jews fulfilled our Lord's words*, lam come in My Fathoms Name and ye receive Me not ; if another shall come in his own name^ him ye will receive. Their first destruction was the punishment of their Deicide, the crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ; their second they brought upon themselves by accepting a false Christy a robber ^ and jug- gler". "580,000 are said to have perished in battle V' besides *' an incalculable number by famine and fire, so that all Judaea was made well-nigh a desert." The Jews say that " ** no olives remained in Palestine." Hiidrian " " destroyed it," making it " " an utter deso- lation" and ^^eflacing all remains of it." " We read "," says St. Jerome ", " the expe- dition of iElius Hadrianus against the Jews, who so destroyed Jerusalem and its walls, as, from the fragments and ashes of the city to build a citv, named from himself, jElia." At this time ** there appears to have been a for- mal act, whereby the Romans marked the legal annihilation of cities ; an act esteemed, at this time, one of most extreme severity '^ When a city was to be built, its compass was marked with a plough ; the Romans, where they willed to unmake a city, did, on rare oocasionsy turn up its soil with the 1 S. Chrys. ad v. Jud. t. 10. He docs not apparently mean that they actually began it. s Ens. Dcm. Ev. ii. .38. yi. 18. The Samaritan Chronicle (c. 47. ed. Juynboll) gives an account of a siege by Adrian in which it mixes up fables and facts belonging to the siege of Titun, (which it omits,) but 1 ao not see any traces of traditional fact. » Eus. H. E. iv. «. 4 The Rev. O. Williams, (Holy City, 1. 209-13,) has at once identified Bether with the name, the mounr- tains of Bether, (Cant ii. 17,) and ruins, **lchirbet el yehfld,** (ruins of the Jews) near the village still called Bittir near Jerusalem. (See Robinson's or Kiopert*s map.) There are traces both of fortifica- tions and excavations, such as Dio speaks of. Bether as well as Bithron beyond Jordan (2 Sam. ij. 28.) had their name ft'om deep inci»\ons» (See the use of nni nj^, nna, oen. xv. lo.) *Dio Cass. Ixix. 12. ' •S.John V. 43. 1 « gtven to murder and robbery." Eus. H. K iv. 8. See Maimonides above, n. 13. *8. Jer. Apol. 2. c. Ruf. §31. He pretended to breathe fire, a trick ascribed by Florus iii. 19 to Eunos, author of the servile war in Sicily. Val- lars. •Dio I.e. «»Talm. Jesus. Pea 7 in Lightfoot, 1. c. ^Appian de reb. Syr. fiO. ''Jerusalem, which Ptolemy king of Egypt first destroyed : then, when ' plough. Hence the saying, " " A city with a plough is built, with a plough over- thrown." The dty so ploughed forfeited all civil rights"; it was counted to have ceased to be. The symbolical act under Hadrian appears to liave been directed against both the civil and reliKious existence of their city, siuce the revolts of the Jews were mixea up with their religious hopes. The Jews relate that both the city generally, and the Temple, were plough^. The ploughing of the city was the last of those mournful memories, which made the month Ab a time of sorrow. But the ploughing of the temple is also especially reconlcd. S. Jerome says, " "* In this [the 6th Month] was the Temple at Jerusalem burnt and destroyed, both by Nebuchadnezzar, and many years afterward by Titus and Vespasian ; the citv Bether, whither thousands of Jews had fled, was taken ; the Temple was ploughed, as an insult to the conquered race, by Titus Annius Rufus." The Gemara says, " » When Tumus, [or it may be " when Tyrant] Rufus ploughed the porch," [of the temple.] Perhaps Hadrian meant thus to declare the desecra- tion of the site of the Temple, and so to make way for the further desecration by his temple of Jupiter. He would declare the worship of God at an end. The horrible desecration of placing the temple of Ashtaroth over the Holy Sepulchre ^* was probably a part of the same policy, to make the Holy City utterly Heathen. The " Capitoline *• " was part of its new name in honor of the Jupiter of the Roman Capitol. Hadrian intended, not to rebuild Jerusalem, but to build a new city under his own name. " " The city being thus bared of the Jewish nation, and its old in- habitants haying been utterly destroyed, and rebuilt, Vespasian razed to the ground, and again Hadrian, in my time." wg. Chrys. I.e. §11. i*S. Jerome then took this statement fh>m written history. w in Joel i. 4. ^ The Mishnah places it after the capture of Bo- ther. " On the 9th of Ab. it was decreed against our fathers, that they should not enter the land ; and the Temple was laid desolate the first and second time ; and Bother was taken ; and the city was Sloughed.'' Taanith, c. 6. g 6. Mi&hna ii. p. 382. ed. urenhus. Rashi regards this as a fulfillment of Jer. xxvi. 18. and of this plaro. lb. p. 38.'i. col. 2. Buxtorf quotes also Yotseroth, (Jewisn hymns,) c. Comm. f. 35. 1. for the fact Lex. Rabb. p. 91G. "Seneca de clem. i. 26. Deyl. " Isidor. Ixxv. 1. Ac. i> '* If the usuiVuct [annual produce] be left to a city, and the plough be passed over It, (as befell Carthage,) it ceases to be a city, and so by a sort of death it ceases to have the usufruct." Modestinus in l.Si usus ft-uctus 21.ff quibus modis usus fructua amittatur. L. i<> On Zech. viii. 16, 17. 8. Jerome has the same or- der as the Talmud. «> Taanith, 1. c. The Jerusalem Talmud has ** the temple" for "the porch." n Eus. Vit-Const. iii. 26. Socr. i. 17. Soi. ii. 1. 8. Jer. Ep. 58, ad Paul. 13. n Col. ^1. Capitol. L e. Colonia iElia Capitolina. » EuB. H. £. iv. 6. 50 MICAH. an alien race settled there, the Boman city which afterward arose, having changed its name, is called ^lia in honor of the Emperor ^lius Hadrianas/' It was a Roman colony ', with Boman temples. Boman amphitheatres. Idolatry was stamped on its coins \ Hadrian excluded from it, on the North, almost the whole of Bezetha or the new city, which Agrippa had enclosed by his wall, and, on the {South, more than half of Mount 2iion', wliich was left, as Micah foretold, to be ploughed as a field. Tiie Jawa themselves were prohibited from entering the Holy Land^ so that the heathen Celsus sa^'s, " * they have neither a clod nor a hearth left." ^lia, then, being a new city, Jerusalem was spoken of^ as having ceased to be. The Koman magistrates, even in Palestine, did not know the name \ Christians too used the name ^lia^ and that, in ^jolemn documents, as the C^non of Nice*'. In the 4th century the city was still called JcAltk by the Christians *, and, on the first Mohammedan coin *** in the 7th centurj', it still lx)re that name. A series of writers speak of the deso- lation of Jerusalem. In the next century Origen addresses a Jew, " " If going to the eartiily city, Jerusalem, thou shalt find it overthrown, reduced to dust and ashes, weep not, as ye now do." ""From that fHadrian's] time until now, the extrcmest aesolation having taken possession of tlie place, their once renowned hill of Zion — now no wise diffiering from the rest of the country, is cultivated by Romans, so that we ourselves have with our own eyes observed the phice ploughed by oxen and sown all over. Ana Jerusalem, being inhabited by aliens, has to this day the stones gathered oat of it, all the inhabitants, in our own times too, gathering up the stones out of its ruins for their private or public and common buildings. You may observe with your own eyes the mournful sight, how the stones from 1 Col. JEl. Capitol. {. e. Colonfa ^lia Capitolina. «See Roman coins in De Saulcy, p. 171-187. from Hadrian, A. D. 130, to Ho8tilian, A. D. 230. •See Pierotti'p excellent map of JcruMilem, (also reduced in his ".TeniJiialem explored." n. 3.) ♦ Kiisehins, I. c. affirm h this on the authority of Aristo of Pella, a contemporary; Tertullian says, "they are not permitted, even In the right oi strangers, to greet their native land so much as with the Hole of their foot." (Apol. c. 21. p. 46 Oxf. Tr. and adv. Jud. c. 13.) S. Jerome affirmn the same, (on Is. vi. 11-13. and on Dan. ix. end.) Celsus urges the fact of their total expulsion as a proof of God's breach of promise; (in Orig. c. Cel.«<. viii, (59.) and Origen atjroes as to the fact. 8. .Justin speaks of their expulsion (as a nation) after their defeat, (Dial. c. 110.) so that, when he speaks of Jerusalem only, (Apol. i. 47.) it may have been that he spoke of It alonn, as sufficing for the prophecy which he was explaining. The prohibition was .«*ubsequently limitea to Jerusalem, with the well-known conces- sion to behold it witnout entering, one day in the rear, to weep. Itin. HIeros. p. 591. S. Hil. on Ps. 68. 7. 8. Jer. on Zeph. 1. 1ft, 16, 4c. Both 8. Chrysostom and 8. Augustine speak of the Jews, as excluded from Jerusalem. *^Dost thou for thy sins, O Jew, the Temple itself and from the Holy of holies have been taken for the idol-temples aiul to build amphitheatres." '*^' Their once holy place has now come to such a state, as in no way to fall short of the overthrow of Sodom." 8. Hilary, who had been banished into the East, savs, " " The Royal city of David, taken oy the Babylonians and over- thrown, held not its queenly dignity under the rule of its lords ; but, taken afterward and burnt by the Bomans, it now is not." 8w Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop of the new town, and delivering his catechetical lectures in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, pointed out to his hearers the fulfillment of pro- phecy; ""The place [Zion] is now filled with gardens of cucuml^ers." " If they [the Jews] plead the captivity," says S. Atha> nasius **, " and sjiy that on that ground Jeni- salem is not." " 1 he whole world, over which they are scattered," sajrs S. Gregory of Nazianzum^^ "is one monument of their calamity, their worship closed, and the soil of Jerusalem itself scarcely known." It is apparently part of the gradual and increasing fulfillment of God's word, that the ploughing of the city and of the site of the Temple, and the continued cultivation of so large a portion of Zion, are recorded in the last visitation when itc iniquity was full. It still remains ploughed as a field, "^*At the time I visited this sacred ground, one part of it supported a crop of barlev, another was undergoing the labor of the plough, and the soil, turned up, consisted of stone and lime fille<l with earth, such as is usually met with in the foundations of ruined cities. It is nearly a mile in circumference." " ^'On the S. E. Zion slopes down, in a series of cul- tivated terraces, sharply though not abruptly, to the sites of the Kings' gardens. — Here and round to the S. the whole declivities are sprinkled with olive trees, which grow luxuriantly among the narrow slips of com." remain so long out of Jerusalem ? *' 8. Chrys. adv. Jud. vi. 2. "Thev were excluded from the place where they cruoiflod (^hrist; novo that place is ftUl of Christians who praise Him ; it hath no Jew." 8. Aug. in Ps. Ixii. n. 18. ** Now thou seekest a Jew in the city of Jerusalem, and findcst not" in P8.cxziv. u. 3. * L. c • Ens. de mart Pal. c. 11. ' " In the suburbs of what is now ^lia." Eus, H. E. ii. 12. add. yi. 20. de mart Pal. c. 11. (Deyl.) •Can. vii. •"From that [Hadrian's] time until now, it is called JElia from the name of him who conouered and destroyed it." (9. Chrys. adv. Jud. v. 11 T. i. p. 64.k) "Which is now iElia." 8. Jer. Ep. 129. ad. Dard. g.«4. w De Saulcy, p. 18«. i» In Jos. riom. xvii. 1. Opp, II. 438. " Eus. Dem. Ev. viii. 8. p. 40G. M I h. V. 23. p. 2«). " 8. Hll. in Ps. 131. 1 18. w Lect xvi. 9. § 18. see Oxf. Tr. w de Incarn. n. 39. T. i. p. 81. Ben. "Orat 6.118. Ben. IS Richardson's Travels, p. 358. quoted by Keith on Prophecy, p. 257. '• Porter, Hdbook, p. 92. CHAPTER IV. 51 Before CHRIST cir. 710. CHAPTER IV. 1 ITie f^ory, 3 'peace, 8 kingdom^ 11 and victory of the church. Not Christians only, bat Jews also have seen herein the fulfillment upon themselves of Mlcah's words, spoken now ^'26 centuries ago." IV. 1. Bvi [^A7ur\ in the last days il shall come to JKIS8, Grod's promises, goodness, truth, fail not. He withdraweth His Presence from those who receive Him not, onl^ to give Himself to those who will receive Him. MercT is the sequel and end of chastisement. Mican then joins on this great prophecy of future mercy to the preceding woe, as its issue in the order of God's Will. And it shall be. He fixes the mind to some great thing which shall come to pass ; it shall he. Then follows, in marked reference to the preceding priva- tions, a superabundance of mercy, for tlte mountain of the housCj which should be as a forest and which was Ze/2 unto them desolaiey there is the mountain of the Lord!s house estab- lished; for the heap of dust and the ploughed fidd, there is the nowing-in of the Uentiles ,* for the night and darkness, that there shidl he no visum, there is the fullness of revelation ; for corrupt judgment, teaching, diviiung, a law from God Iiimself going forth through the world ; for the building of Jerusalem with blood, one universal peace. In the last days, lit. the end ^ of the days, i. e. of those days which are in the thoughts of the speaker. Politically, there are many b^innings and many endings ; as many end- ings as there are beginnings, since all human polity begins, only to end, and to be dis- placed in its turn by some new beginning, which too runs its course, only to end. Be- ligiously, there are but two consummations. AJl time, since man fell, is divided into two halves, tfie looking forward to Christ to come in humility ; the looking forward to His Coming in glory. These are the two events on which man's history turns. To that former people the whole period of Christ's kingdom was one future, the fullness of all their own shadows, types, sacrifices, services, iGesenios adduces, as the single instance in which n'">ni5 is to mean "seauel," Is. xlvi. 10. where **the end** answers to "the beginning, nnnH p"Jff\r\. it is the end of the year, Deiit. xi 12 ; the end of a person, Pr. v. 4, Ps. xxxvii. 37 ; of a nation, Jer. xxxl. 17: of a thing, i. e. its issue, Pr. xxiil. 32 ;** the end of the sea," Ps. nxxxlx. 9. The phrase is rendered rightiy by the Ch. H'DV ^]10. The «v* JtrxftTov n»v xp^v»v of S. Paul, S. Peter and a Jnde is nearly the translation of D'OT! rmnK3. *Ho8. iii. 5. Is. iL 2. Jer. zxiii. 20. xxx. 24. xlviii. 47. xlix. 39. Ezek. xxxviii. 16. Dan. x. 14. Daniel uses it in Chaldee. (ii. 28.) Nebuchadnezzar's dream which he ia interpreting ended in the kingdom of Christ. On the Jewish agreement, see on Hos. iii. 6. p. 26. n- 10. <I£p.L20L Before gUT • in the last days it christ shall come to pass, that ^^^- ^lo. the mountain of the house *Eiek. 17.22, 23. prophecies, longing, being. The end of their days was the beginning of the new Day of Christ : tlie coming of His Day was neces- sarily the close of the former days, the period of the dispensation which prepared for it. The Prophets then by the words, the end of the days, always mean the times of the Gos- pel •. The end of the days is the close of all which went before, the last dispensation, after which there shull be no other. Yet this too hast last days of its own, which shall close God's kingdom of grace and shall issue in the Second Coming of Ctirist ; as the end of those former days, which closed the times of " the law," issued in His First Coming. We are then at once living in the Uist times, and look- ing on to a last time still to come. In the one way 8t. Peter speaks ' of the last tim£s, or the end of the times*, in which Christ was mani- fested for us, in contrast vnth thefoundatUms of the world, before which He was foreordained. And St. Paul contrasts God's * speaking to the fathers in the Prophets, and at the end of these days^ speaking to tis in the Son; and of our Lord coming '' at the end, consummation, of the times % to put uway sins by the sacrifice of Himself ; and says that the things which befell the Jews ^u^ere written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the times^^ [i.e. of those of the former people of whom he had been speak- ing] are come; and St. Jolm speaks of this as ^^ the last time. In the other way, they con- trast the last days, not with the times before them but with their own, and then plainly they are a last and distant part of this their own last time, ^* The Spirit speakethexpresdy, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith : ^' In the Uist days perilous times shall come : " There shall come at the end of the days scoffers : *^ They told you that there sJtould be mockers in the last time. The Jews distributed all time between "this world" and "the coming world*'," including under "the coming world " the time of grace under the Mes- siah's reign, and the future glory. To us the * According to the reading cir* ivxarov rwv )yi6vwv, preferred by Alter and Tischendorf. »Heb. 1. 1. •eir' e<rxarov rStv ifiiepStv toi;t«v, preferred by Griesbach, Matthias, Scholz, Tisch. 7 Heb. ix. 26. ^itri (TuvTtKtia. rSiv ouivuv, com p. S. Matt. xiii. 40. xxiv. 3. • 1 Cor. X. 11. *o ra riKri rwv auuvwy. " 1 Ep. ii. 18. w 1 Tim. Iv. 1. iv vo-T^poif jffiSvoii. ^2 Tim. iii. 1. iv iax^Tcui i^iiioai^. 1* 2 Pet iii. 3. iv iaxo^rov rmv riitepStv, preferred by Griesb.. Alter, Matthsei, Scholz. ^ u Jude 18. iv ccxaruypdi^ or iw' i^x^Tov rov XP^>^v, preferred by Schols, Tisch. "nrn di^3; and wan uhyj;. see sohattg. de Messia i. 2. 4. p. 23-27. 62 MICAH. chrTst ^^ *^® Lord shall be es- cir- '^10- tablifihed in the top of the mountains, and it shall be names have Bhifled, since this present world ^ is to OS the kingdom of Christ, and there re- mains nothing further on this earth to look to, beyond what God has already given us. Our future then, placed as we are between the two Comings of our Lord, is, of neoeasitj, beyond this world '. TKs mou7\iain of the kouae af the Lord ehaU be labidinyly} established. He does not say merely, it shcUl be eMablUhed, Kingdoms may be established at one time, and then oome to an end. He says, il shall be a thing estab- lished '. His saying is expanded by Daniel ; * In the days of these kinjs shall the Ood of heaven set up a kingdom whieh shall not be de- stroyedfor ever, and it shall abide for ever. The house of the Lord was the centre of His wor- ship, the token of His Presence, the pledge of His revelations and of His abiding ac- ceptance, protection, favor. All these were to be increased and continuous. The image is one familiar to us in the Hebrew Scrip- tures. People were said to ^ ifp ^ to it, as to a place ot dignitv. In the Psalm on the carrying of the Ark thither, the hill of Ood is compared to the many-topped mountains of Basan*, (the Hermon-peaks which bound Basan,) and so declared to be greater than they, as being the object of God's choice. The mountain where God was worshiped rose above the mountains of idolatry. Eze- kiel, varying the ima^ speaks of the Gos- pel as an overshadowing cedar ^, planted by God upon an high mountain and an eminent^ in the mountain of the heijht of Israel^ under which should dwcU all fowl of every wing; and, in his vision of the Temple, he sees this, the image of the Cliristian Church, ^upon a very hiah mountain. Our Lord speaks of His Apostles and the Church in them, as 'a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid. The seat of God's worahip was to be seen far and wide ; nothing was to obscure it. It, now lower than the surrounding hills, was then to be as on the summit of them. Human elevation, the more exalted it is, the more unstable is it. Divine greatness alone is at once solid and exalted. The new kingdom of God was at once to be exalted above the hills, and estab- lished on the top of the mountains; exalted, at once, above everything human, and jet eatdblishedj strong as the mountains on which IS. Matt. xili. 40. Eph. i. 21. Tit. il. 12. >S. Mark x. 30. 8. Luke xviii. 30. xx. 35. Eph. 1. c. lleb. vi. 5. Attention to this language of Holy Scripture and the distant future which it lookH on to, should have saved miflbelieversft-om imagining that Apostles erroneously expected a near end of the world. ' (OJ r\^T\\ as in 1 Kgs ii. 45, of the throne of exalted above the hilk; ch^Tst and people shall flow ^_£lEiJ[!2:__ unto it it rested, and onassailable, unconquerable, seated secure aloft, between heaven, whence it came and to which it tends, and earth, on which it just rests in the sublime serenity of its majesty. The image sets forth the sopereminenoe of the Lord's House above all things earthly. It does not define wherein that greatness consists. The flowing in of the nations is a fruit of it *^ The immediate object of their coming is explained to be, to learn to know and to do the will of God ^^ But the new revelation does not form all its greatness. That greatness is from the Presence of God, reveaUn^ and evermore teaching His Will^ ruling, judging, rebuking, peacemaking^'. « II 'pliQ mountain of the Lonts Mouse was then exalted above the hUls by the bodily Presence of Christ, when He, in the Temple built on that mountain, spake, preacftd, worked so many miracles; as, on the same ground, llaggai saith ^\ the olory of this latter house shall be greater than the gloiy of the former,*^ ''^This mountain, the Church of Christ, transcends all laws, schools, doctrines, re- ligions. Synagogues of Jews and Philoso- phers, which seemed to rise aloft among men, like mountain-tops, yea, whatever under the sun is sublime and lofty, it will overpass, trample on, subdue to itself.'' Even Jews have seen the meaning of this figure. Their oldest mystical book explains it ^'. "ATid it shall be in the last days, when namely the Lord shall visit the daughter of Jacob, then shall the mountain of the house of the Lord be firmly established, i. e. the Jerusa- lem which Ls above, which shall stand firmly in its place, that it may shine by the light which is above. (For no light can retain its existence, except through the light from above.) For in that time shall the light from above shine sevenfold more than be- fore ; according to that ^^, Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light cf the sun ; and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light €§ seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach cf His people and healeth the stroke of their wound '^ Another, of the dry literal school, savs", ''It is well known that the house of the Temple is not high. The mean- ing then is, that its fame shall go forth far, and there shall return to it from all quarters DarM. ** It Is an exprennion denotinfc continuance and perpetuity, that it shall continually remain on its pettlement.'^ Poc. from Aharb. * il. 44. » See on Hos. 1. 11. rol. 1. p. 28. • Pfl. Ixvlii. 16, 17. » xvii. 22, 23. » xl. 2. » 8. Matt. V. 14, M iy. 1, 2. " iv. 2. " i v. 3, 4. "Dion. MU.9. »Lap. "Zohar.f. 93. 17 Is. XXX. 2S. u Aben Eua. CHAPTEE IV. 53 chrTst ^ ^^ many nations cir. 7ia ghall come, and say, Come, persons with offerings, so that it shall be, as if it were on the top of all hills, so that all the inhabitants of the earth should see it/' Some ^ interpret the mountain to be Christ, Who is called the Boek\ on the confession of Whom, God-Man, the hmue <^ the Lord, i. e. the Church is built', the precious Comer- fiioin£\ which is laid, beside which ito founda- tion COM be iaid^; the great mountain^ of which Daniel* prophesied. It is firmly eetaUiishedy so that the gates of Hell shaU not prerail aaainst the Churehj being built thereon : exaUed above hiUe and moun/atTU, i. e. above all beside, greater or smaller, which has any eminence ; for He in truth is ^ highly exalted and hath a Name above every name^ being ^ai the Right Hand of Grod in the heavenly ptacesy far above all prineipalily and power and might and dominioriy ana every name that is named^ not only in thie world but aUo in that which is to come ; and all things are under His Feet, And this for us, in that He, the Same^ is the Head over all things to the Church which is Hie Body, tU fullness (^ Him that fiMh aa in all. /'"He is God and Man, Kin^ and Priest, Kin^ of kings, and a Priest abiding for ever. Since then His Mi^esty reacheth to the Bight Hand of Qod, neither mountains nor hills. Angels nor holy men, reach thereto ; for ^® to u^nch of the Angds said God at any time. Sit ihou vn My Right Hand f " ** ^^ Aloft then is the Church of God raised, both in that its Head is in heaven and the Lord of all, and that, on earth, it is not like the Temple, in one small people, but ^ set on a hill that it cannot be hid, or remain unseen even to those far from it. Its doctrine too and life are far above the wisdom of this world, shewing in them nothing of earth, but are above ; its wisdom is the knowledge and love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and its life i$ hid with Christ in God, in those who are justified in Him and hallowed by His Spirit." In Him, it is lifted above all things, and with the eyes of the mind be- holdeth (as far as may be) the glory of God, soaring on high toward Him Who is the Author of all being, and, filled with Divine light, it owneth Him the Maker of all. AndpeopUy [peoples, nations,] shall flow unto [lit. upon} iL A mighty tide should set in »Tert c Jud. L 3. Orlg. c Cels. II. 33. 8. Cypr. Test iL 18. EuHeb. EcL Proph. iw, i. p. ni. ecL Ox. 8. Jerome here, S. Aug. de Civ. D. xviiL 30. Ps. BMil on Is. H 1 Coi* X- 4 flL *& Matt. xvL 18. see Note Q. on TertulL p. 402 aqq. Ox£. Tr. «L<«. xxTiii. 16. 1 Pet iL «. Eph. IL 20. • I Cor. HL IL « Dan. IL 3&. vPhiL iL 9. SEph. L 20-23. and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, Before CHRIST cir. 710. to the Gospel. The word ^' is appropriated to the streaming in of multitudes, such as of old poured into Babylon^ the merchant- empress of the world '\ It is used of the distant nations who should throng in one continuous stream into the Gospel, or of Israel streaming together from the four comers of the world "^ So Isaiah foretells ^*, Thy gates shall be open continually ; they shall not be shut day nor night; that they may bring unto thee the forces of the QentileK, and that their kings may be brought. These were to fiow upon itj perhaps so as to cover it, expressing both the multitude and density of the throng of nations, how full the Church should be, as the swollen river spreads itself over the whole champaign country, and the surging flood- tide climbs up the face of the rock which bounds it. The flood once covered the highest mountains to destroy life ; this flood should pour in for the saving of life. ^*^^ It is a miracle, if waters ascend from a valley and flow to a mountain. So is it a miracle that earthly nations should ascend to the Church, whose doctrine and life are lofty, arduous, sublime. This the grace of Christ eflfecteth, mighty and lofty, as being sent from heaven. As then waters, oonductcd from the fountains by pipes into a valley, in that valley bound up ana rise nearly to their original height, so these waters of *heaven1y grace, brought down into valleys, i. e. the hearts of men, make them to bound up with them into heaven and enter upon and em- brace a heavenly life.'' 2. And many nations shall come, Isaiah " added the world aU to Micah's prophecy. So our Lord said^ '* Uns Gospel of the kingdom shall be preaehed tnaU the world for a witness unto all nations ; and the elect are to be gath- ered out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues^. AU nations shall flow into iL The ail might be many or few. Both Jrophets say that those all should be many, udah problably knew already of many. The history of Genesis gave them a wide-expand- ing knowledge of the enlaigement of man- kind after the flood, in Europe, Asia, Africa, as they then existed in their nations. The SODS of Japhet had already spread over the whole coast of our Western sea, and far • from Rup. » Heb. L 13. u from 8, Cyr. MS. Matt V. 14. "I'inj (from 'nj river, stream) is used only figuratively. MJer. IL44. u lb. xxxL 12. It Ib UAed in these places only, aDd Is. iL 2. M Is. Ix. U. add Rey. xxL 25, 20. » Lap. M Is. iL 2. 1* 8. Matt xxiv. 14. » Bey. yiL 9. 54 MICAH. c hrTs t ^^^ ^ *^® house of the ; will teach U8 of his ways, cir. 710. God of Jacob; and he Before CHRIST and we will walk in hifl_£!!LZ"L_ North; the Cimmerians \ or Cwmry, Scan- dinavians', Carpathians', (probably Celts,) Armenians^, (indudinf^ the kindred Phry- fians,) Scythians ^, Modes, lonians*, iLColians ^, berians •*, Cypriotes ', Dardani ^*, lybarenes", Moschi *^ and the Turseni ^', or perhaps tlie Thracians. On the East, the sons of Shem had spread in Elam, Asshnr, Arrapachitis ^* ; they occupied the intervening tract of Aram ; in the N. W. they reached to Lydia. South- ward the sons of Joktan were in Arabia. Micah's hearers knew how, of the sons of Ham, Cush had spread far to the S. E. and S. from Babylonia to Ethiopia; Egypt they remembered too well, and, beyond it, they knew of the far-scattered tribes of the Libyans, who extended along the coast of Africa. Phoenician trade filled up this great outline. They themselves had, in Solomon's time, traded with India ^^ ; about this time, we know that they were acquainted with the furthest East, China '*. Such was the sight before the human mind of the Prophet ; such the extent of the nations whom his people knew of. Some were the deadly enemies of his people ; some were to be its conquerors. He knew that tlie the ten tribes were to Lc abidingly vxLnderen among the nationa^^, de- spisedby them ^^ ; " a people, the strangers and sojourners of the whole world *•." He knew many of those nations to be sunk in idolatiy, viciousneas ; proud, contemptuous, lawless; he saw them fixed in their idolatries. All people ufUl walk every one in the name of his god. But he saw what eye of man could not see, what the will of man could not aooomplish, that He, whom now Judah alone partially worshiped, would turn the hearts of His creatures to Himselt^ to seek Him, not in their own ways, but as He should reveal Himself at Jerusalem. Micah tells them distinctly, that those who should believe would "be a great multitude from many nations. In like way Isaiah expresses the great multitude of those for whom Christ should atone. ''^He bare the sin of many. ** By * Oomer. *Ashkenas, Scandinavia, Soanzla In Jomandes. Knobel, V61kertafel d. Genesis, p. 35. * Riphaih, from whom also the Monies Riphtci are named. ♦Togarmah. ^MagoK. •Javan. f Eliahah, AioXcic or AUei«, Knobel : Elis, Boch. ill. 4. 8 Tarshiah. *• Tarseis, whence the Iberians." Eiia. (Tuch ad loo.) •Chittim. WDodanim. "Tubal. WMeshech. "Tiras, Tyraeni, (Tuch,) Thracians, Boch. iii. 2. Knob. " Arphaxad, Gen. x. 22. ** As appears from the Tamul name for the pea- cock '*2F\ Tarn, tdgai I Kgs x. 22 ; the Sanskrit or Malabar name for the ape, nip kapi; (lb. see Ges.) i! hundedge of Him shall My righteous Servant make maiuj righteous. And our Lord Himself says ; '^ The Son of man came to give His life a ransom for many. " This is my Bloodf— which u shed for many for the remission q^ sins. In Micah's time not one people, scarcely some poor fragments of the Jewish people, went up to worship God at Zion, to call to remem- brance His benefits^ to learn of Him. Those who should thereafter worship Him, should be many nations. And say^ exhorting one another, in fer- vor and mutual love, as Andrew exhorted his brother Simon, and Philip Nathanael, and the woman of Samaria those of her city, to come to ChrisK and so all since, who have been won by 'Him, by word or example, by preaching or by deed, in public or in private, bear along with them others to seek Him Whom they themselves have found. Lei us go up, leaving the lownewand earth- liness of their former conversation^ and mounting upward on high where Christ ia^ desdring rignteousness, and athirst to know HLs ways. To the house qf the God of Jacob. They shall seek Ilim as Jacob sought Him, '"^who left his fathers house ana removed into another land, was a man of heavy toils and served for hire, but obtained special help from God, and, undistinguished as he waa^ became most ^^lorious. So too the Church, leaving all Heathen wisdom, and having its conversation in Hciiven, and therefore per- secuted and enduring many hardships^ enjoys now glory with (4od." And HCy i. e. the God of Jaeob of Whom he had just spoken, shall teach us of His ways. They do not go to (iod, because they know Him, but tfiat they mcty know Him. They are drawn by a mighty impulse toward Him. Howsoever attracted, they come, not makinar bargains with God, (as some now wouldj what they should be taught, that He should reveal to them nothing transcending reiison, nothing exceeding or contradicting their which came with the creatures themselves; a Sanskrit name for elephant, ibha^ W^T}}^ ivory, lit. " elephant's tooth :" (lb.) and a Malabar nsmo for a wood, nl gumy val gu {ka.) See Max Mailer, Soience of language, p. 2aB. ed. 3. Ophir itself, (which i«» mentioned in connection with these things,) Max MQller Identifies, beyond question, with the Abiria of Ptolemy above Pattalene ; the people, "called bv Hindn Oeojcraphors AhMrattXid " the Ahirfi " in "Macmurdo'a account of the piov- Ince of Cntch." lb. w Im. xlix. 12. see (Jesenius Thes. p. 948-50. " See on Hos. ix. 17. vol. 1. p. 07. "See on Hos. viii. 8. vol. i. p. 83. w S. Greg. Naz. Or. 22. n. 2. » Is. lili. 12. n lb. 11. "S. Matt xx. 28. M lb. xxvi. 28. add Rom. v. 16. »• Thooph. CHAPTEB IV. 55 c hrTs t P^*'^ ' ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 8^^^^ E^ dr. 710. forth of Zion, and the word notions of God : they do not come with re- serves^ that Goa should not take away this or thai error, or should not disclose anything of His incomprehensibleness. They come in holy simplieity, to learn whatever He will condescend to tell them ; in holy confidence, that He, the Infallible Truth, will teuch them infallibly. They say, of HU uxtys. For all learning is by degrees, and all which all crea- tures could learn in all eternity falls infi- nitely short of His truth and Holiness. Nay, in all eternity the highest creature which He has made and which He has admitted most deeply into the secrets of His Wisdom will be as infinitely removed ns ever from the full knowledge of His Wisdom and His Love. For what is finite, enlarged, expanded, accu- mulated to the utmost degree possible, re- mains finite still. It has no proportion to the Infinite. But even here, all growth in grace implies growth in knowledge. The more we love God. the more we know of Him; and with increased knowledge of Him come hij^her perceptions of worship, praise, thanksgiving, of the character of faith, hopey charity, of our outward and inward acts and relati(ms to Gkxl, the unboundedness of God's love to us and the manifoldness of the ways of pleasing Him, which, in His love. He has given us. Since then the whole Christian life b a growth in grace, and even St. Paul, ^forgetting those things which are beliind and reaehina forth to those which are beforej pressed towara the mark for the high call- ing of God in Christ Jesus^ then St. Paul too was ever learning, in intensity, what he knew certainly by revelation, of His ways. Again, as each blade of grass is said to difier from another, so, and much more, each soul of man which God has created for Himself. No one ever saw or could imagine two human beings, in whom the grace of God had unfolded itself in exactly the same way. Each saint will have his distinct beauty around the Throne. But then each will have learnt of His wayjt, in a different pro- portion or degree. His greatest saints, yea His Apostles, have been pre-eminent, the one in one grace, another in another. St. John Baptist came as a pattern of repentance, and contempt of self; St John the Evangelist, stands out pre-eminent in deep tender oum- l Phil. iil. 13,14. * S. Luke i. 48. ravnvnvit in Prov. zvi. 19. LXX. to, "lowliness."^ The whole phrase intfiXtipev iiri Ti|v Tawtivwviy r^ 3ovAi|f avrov, corresponds more to the nne in 1 Kgs (Sam.) i. 11. 2 Kgn xvi. 12. 2 Kgs xIt. 26. Neh. ix. 9. Fs. ix. L3. LXX. where the promi- nent sense is tow estate. Perhaps, as in ^ j j*, the two meanings are blended. « rjllD fj")r . * 1 Cor. xll IL » Theoph. of the Lord from Jerusa- ^ h rTs t lem. c^r. 710. ing personal love ; St. Paul in zeal to spread the Knowledge of Christ Crucified ; St. Mary Magdelene in loving penitence. Even the Blessed Virgin herself, under inspiration, seems, in part, to speak of her lowly louness *, as that which God specially regarded in her, when He made her the Mother of God. Eternity only will set forth the fullness of the two words ', He will teach us of His ways. For eternity will shew, how in all * worketh that one and the sHf-same Spiritj dividing to every man severally as He wiU ; and how the count- less multitude of the redeemed have corres- ponded to His gifts and drawings. "*The way of the life to Grod-ward is one, in that it looketh to one end, to please God ; but there are many tracks along it, as there are many modes of life ; " and each several grace is a part of the way to God. And we will walk in His paihsj " • by believ- ing, hoping, loving, well-aoing, and bearing patiently nil trouble." "^For it sufficeth not to believe, unless we act as He com- mandeth, and strive to enter on His ways, the strait and narrow path which leadeth unto life. He Himself then, when He had said, ^Go, teach all naiionsy baptizirig them in the Name of the Father, and of the Soti, and of the Holy Uhostj added, ieacJnng them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." They say too, wc will walk, i. e. go on from strength to strength, not stand still after having labored for a while to do His Will, but hohf on to all His ways and to Himself Who is the Way, uTiiil thev appear before the Lord in Zion. For the taw, [lit. Imo •,] sfiaJl go forth from Zion. These are the Prophet's words, declar- ing why the nations should so flock to Zion. For he says, shall go forth, but the nations were not gathered to Zion, until the Gospel was alreaay gone forth. He speaks of it as law simnlv, not the Jewish law as such, but a rule of life *® from God. Man's better nature is ill at ease, being out of harmony with God. It cannot be otherwise. Having been made in His likeness, it must be distressed by its unlikeness ; having been made by Him for Himself, it must be restless without Him. What they indistinctly longed for, what drew them, was the lioj^e to be conformed by Him to Him. The sight of superhuman holiness^ life, love, endurance, ever won and « Dion. T Rup. 8 s. Matt, xx vili. end. •niiAnotniinn. *^n'>in is always tow, not, as some have said, "religion," or "doctrine" generally. It is used without the article^ in this senBe, as rule of life, (Prov. vi. 23. xxviii. 4, 7^ 9. xxix. 18.) «uch as the Heathen had not, (Lam. li. 9.) but which should be revealed to them, (here. Is. 11. 3. 11. 4.) The TV^Wi corresponds with the ^y^y. 66 MICAH. c hrTs t 3 II ^^ ^^ **^ i"^^ cir. 710. among many people, and rebuke strong nations chrTst afar off; and they shall ^_fiL_iilL_ wins those without to the Gospel or the Church. Our Lord Himself gives it, as the substance of Prophecy *, thai repentance and remission of sins should be preadied in His Name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. The image may be that of a stream, is.^uing forth from Jerusalem' and watering the whole world. "'The law of the Gospel and the word of the Apostles, beginning from Jerusalem, as from a fountain, ran through the whole world, watering those who approached with faith." But in that it icent forth, it may be meant, that it left those from amone whom it went forth, and "*Zion was indeed desolate of the law and Jerusalem bared of the Divine word." "*The word of God pa^^sd from Jerusalem to the Gentiles." "•For the shadow was done away, and the types ceased, and sacrifices were aliolished, and everything of Moses was, in the letter, brought to a close." He does not say here, through whom God would so teach, but he does speak of a direct teaching of God. He does not say only, " God will give us a law," or " will make a revelation of Himself." He speaks of a Personal, direct, continuous act of teaching by Gad, carried on upon earth, whether the teacher be our Lord's word spoken once on earth, which does not pass away ^, or God the Holy Ghost, as teaching in the Church and in the hearts which receive Him. The words which follow speak of a personal reign, as these speak of personal teaching. 3. And He shall judge among manv people and rebuke strong nations afar off. Hitnerto, they had walked each in their own ways^; now, they sought to be tauaht in the ways of God, Before, they had Deen lords of the world ; now they should own a Judge higher than themselves. They were no common, but migfUy^ nations, such as had heretofore been the oppressors of Israel. The^ were to be many, and those mighty, nations. He sliould "*®not only command, but rebuke, not weak or petty nations only, but mighty, and those not only near but afar." Mohammed had moral strength through what he stole from the law and the G^pel, and by his owning Christ as the Word of God. He was a heretic, rather than a heathen. Fearful scourge as he was, and as his successors have been, all is now decayed, and no mighty nation is left upon earth, which does not profess the Name of Christ. > S. Luke xxlv. 47. « See on Joel iil. 18. vol. i. p. 212. » Theod. «S. Cyr. ftS. Jer. «Rup. T 9. Matt xxlv. 35. • Is. liii. 6. * D]fi7f which originally signified bound together, (coll. Arab.) thence used of the closing of the eyes, He shcUl rebuke them ; for it was an office of the Holy Ghost " to rcpror^ the world as to its sin, tJ\e righteousness of Christ, the judgment of the prince of this world. The Gospel con- quered the world, not by compromises or concordants, but by convicting it. It alone could rebuke with power; for it was, like its Author, all-holy. It could rebuke with efficacy ; for it was the word of Him Who knew what is in man. It could rebuke with awe ; for it knew the secrets of eternal Judg- ment It could rebuke winningly; for it knew " the love of Christ which passeth know- ledge. Its martyrs suffered and rebuked their juages ; and the world was amazed at the impotence of power and the might of suffer- ing. It rebuked the enthroned idolatry of centuries ; it set in rebellion by its rebukes every sinful passion of man, and it subdued them. Tyrants, whom no human power could reach, trembled before its censures. Then only is it powerless, if its corrupted or timid or paralyzed ministers forfeit in them- selves the power of rebuke. And they shall beat their spears into phughr shares. " All things are made new in Christ." As the inward discjuiet of evil men makes them restless, and vents itself toward others in envy, hatred, maliciousness, wrong, so the inward peace whereof He saith, My peace I give unlo you, shall, wherever it reacheth, spread out abroad and, by the power of grace, bring to " ^' all nations unity, peace, and con- cord." All, being brought under the one empire of Christ, shall be in harmony, one with the other. As far as in it lies, the Gospel is a Gt)spel of peace, and makes peace. Christians, as far as they obey Christ, are at peace, both in themselves and with one another. And this is what is here prophe- sied. The peace follows from His rule. Where He judges and rebukes, there even the mighty beat their swords into phuglishares. The universal peace, amid whicli our Lord was bom in the flesh, the first which there had been since the foundation of the Roman empire, was, in God*8 Providence, a fruit of His kingdom. It was no chance coincidence, since nothing is by chance. God willed that they should he contemporaneous. It was fitting that the world should be still, when its Lord, the Prince of peace, was bom in it. That outward cessation of public strife, though but for a brief time, was an image how liis peace spread backward as well as (Is. xxix. 10. xxxiii. 15.) included the idea of number. The secondary idea of strenf^th. (as we use "well- knit,") is so prominent, that the idea of number, in the verb, onlv occurs in Ps. xl. 13. Jer. xv. 8 ; in the a4j. Num. xxxii. 1. w Rib. u a John xvi. 8-lL » Eph. iil. 19. » Litany. CHAPTER IV. 57 CH^R^isT ^^^^^ *^®"^ sworda into cir. 710. *• plowshares, and their ^Is.2.4. Joel 3. 10. forward, and of the peace which through Hinij our Peace^, was dawning on the world. " * First, according to the letter, before That Child was bom to us, 'ori Whose shoulder the oovemment is, the whole world was full of olood ; people fought against people, kings against kings, nations against nations, l^astly, the Koman state itself wiis torn by civil wars, in whose battles all kingdoms shed blood. But after that, at the time of the Empire of Christ, Borne gained an undivided empire, the world was laid open to the journeys of Apostles, and tlie gates of cities were open to them, and, for the preacliingof the One God, one single empire was formed. It may too be understood as an image, that, on receiving the faith of Christ, anger and unrestrained reviiings were laid aside, so that each piiUeth his hand to the plough and looketh not bach, and, breaking in pieces the shafts of contumelies, seeketh to reap spiritual fruit, so that, others laboring, we enter into their labors ; and of us it is said, They shall come with joy, bringing their fheaves '. I^ow no one fighteth ; for we read, * Blessed are the peacemaJcei's ; no one leameth to ^strive, to the subverting of the hear' ers. And every one sludl rest under his vine, so as to press out that* Wine which gloMeneth the heart cfman^nmXerihvLi ^ Vine, whereof the Father is the Husbandman ; and under his fig tree, gathering the sweet ^fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, and the rest.'* The fathers nad indeed a joy, which we have not, that wars were not between Chris- tians; for although "just wars are lawful," war cannot be on both sides just ; very few wars have noL on both sides, what is against the spirit of the Gospel. For, except where there is exceeding wickedness on one side, or peril of further evil, the words of our Lord would hold good, in public as in private, ' 1 my unto you, that ye resist not evU. This prophecy then is fulfilled 1) in the character of the Gospel. " ^^ The law of the Gospel worketh and preserveth peace. For it plucketh up altogether the roots of all war, avarice, ambition, injustice, wrath. Then, it teacheth to bear injuries, and, so ^sir from requiting them, willeth that we be prepared to receive fresh wroi^. He saith, " ^ any one smile thee on the right cheek, him to htm the other also, &c, *' / say unto you, Love your ene- mies, <£& For neither did the old law give 1 8. Jer. ■Ps. czzvi. 6. •Pft. civ. 15. •8. Matt. ▼. 39. M rb. 44-48. «l8. 1 * S. Matt. V. 9. » 2 Tim. f 1. 14. ' S. John XV. 1. 8 Gal. v. 22. » Rib. u S. Matt. v. 30-42. »Act8iv. 32. MTertull. Apol. e. 39. "For they themselves hate one another.* "For they themselves ore more spears into || pruning- chrTst hooks: nation shall not cir. 710. I Or, scythes. these counsels, nor did it explain so clearly the precept implied in them, nor had it that wonderful and most efficacious example of the patience and love of Christ, nor did it supply grace, whereby peace could be preserved ;• whereas now the first fruits of the Spirit are hue, joy^ peace, Umg-suffering, gentleness, good- ness." 2) The prophecy has been fulfilled within and without, among individuals or bodies of men, in body or mind, in tem- per or in deed, as far as the Gospel has prevailed. " The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one mind ; one, through One indwelling Spirit ; one, though a great multitude, through one bond of love. " " See how these Christians love one another ; " " see how ready they are to die for one another," was, in the third cen- tury, a heathen proverb as to Christian love. " " They love one another, almost before they know one anotljer." ""Their first lawgiver has persuaded them that they are all breth- ren." "We (which grieves you,) " the Chris- tian answered", "so love one another, be- cause we know not how to hate. We call ourselves * brethren ' which you take ill, as men who liave one Father, God, and are sharers in one faith, in one hope, coheirs." For centuries too, there was, ior the most part, public peace of Christians among them- selves. Christian soldiers fought only, as constrained by the civil law, or against Bar- barian invaders, to defend life, wile, children, not for ambition, anger, or pride. Christians could then appeal, in fulfillment of the pro- phecy, to this outward, the fruit of the in- ward, peace. " We," says an early martyr *•*, "who formerly stained ourselves with mu- tual slaughter, not only do not wage war with foes, but even, in order not to lie and deceive those who consume us, willingly professing Christ, meet death." " From the coming of the Lord," says another martyr ", " the New Testament, reconciling unto peace, and a life- giving law, went forth into all lands. If then another law and word, going forth from Je- rusalem, produced such peace among the na- tions which received it, and thereby reproved much people of want of wisdom, then it would follow that the prophets spake of some other. But if the law of liberty, that is, the law of God preached by the Apostles, which went forth out of Jerusalem to all the world, worked ready to slay one another/* are Tertullian's state- ments as to the contemporary condition of the Heathen, which their amazement at Christian love rather confirms. ^ Minut. Felix, p. 81. ed. Qui. »• Lucian, de morte Peregrini, i. 507. ed. Graev. w Min. F. p. 312, 3. M S. Justin M. Apol. 1. 39. i* S. Iren. iv. 34. 4. 58 MICAH. Before CH RIST cir. 710. • Ps. 72. 7. lift up a sword against nation, ^neither shall such a transformation, that swords and spears of war He wrought into ploagh-shares and pruning-hoolcs, instruments of peace, and now men know not how to fight, but, when smitten, yield the other cheek, then the pro- phets spake of no other, but of Him who brought it to pass." ** Even from this," says Tertullian*, "you may know that Christ was promised, not as ona mighty in war, but us a peace-bringcr. Either deny that these things were prophesied, since they are plain to see ; or, since they are written, deny that they are fulfilled. But if thou mayest deny neither, thou must own that they are fulfilled in Him, of Whom they are prophesied." " Of old *," says St. Athanrisius, " Greeks and Barbarians, being idolaters, warred with one another, and were fierce toward those akin. For through their implacable warfare no one might Diiss land or sea, unarmed. Their whole life was passed in arms; the sword was to them for staf!* and stay. They wor- shiped idols, sacrificed to demons, and yet from their reverence for idols they could gain no help to correct their minds. But when they passed into the school of Christ, then, of a truth, pricked in mind, they wondrously laid aside their savage slaughters, and now think no more of things of war ; for now all peace and friendship are alone their mind's delight. Who then did this, Who blended in peac3 those who hated one another, save the Beloved Son of the Father, the common Saviour of all, Christ Jesus, Who, through His love, endured all things for our salva- tion ? For of old too. the peace which should hold sway from Him was prophesied, they skall beat their swords into ploughshares. Nor is this incredible, since now too, the Barba- rians with innate savageness, while they yet sacrifice to their idols, are mad with one another, and cannot for one hour part with their swords. But when they have received the teaching of Christ, forthwith for ever they turn to husbandry ; and, in lieu of arm- ing their hands with swords, stretch them out to prayer. And altogether, instead of warring with one another, they arm them- selves again.>^t the devil and demons, warring against them with modesty and virtue of soul. This is a token of the Godhead of the Saviour. For what men could not learn among idols, this they have learned from Him. Christ's disciples, having no war with one another, array themselves against de- mons by their life and deeds of virtue^ chase iadv.Mftrc.iil. 21. ■de Incarn. Verbi D.?i, c. 61, 2. • in Ps. xU7. g 3. T. V. p. 186. they learn more. war any Before CHRIST cir. 710. them and mock their captain the devil, chaMe in youth, enduring in temptation, strong in toils, tranquil when insulted, unconcerned when despoiled." And yet later, S. Chrysostom says, "'Be- fore the Coming of Christ, all men armed themselves and no one was exempt from this service, and cities fought with citifs, and everywhere were men trained to war. But now most of the world is in peace ; all en- gage in mechanical art or agriculture or commerce, and few are employed in military service for all. And of this too the occasion would ce:ise, if we acted as we ought and did not need to be reminded by uillictions." " * After the Sun of rightpousness dawned, so far are all cities and nations from living in such perils, tiiat they know not even how to take in hand any afifairs of war. — Or if there be still any war, it is far off at the ex- tremity of the Koman Empire, not in each city and country, as heretofore. For then, in any one nation, there were countless se- ditions and multiform wars. But now the whole earth which the sun surveys from the Tigris to the British isles, and therewith Lybia too and Egypt and Palestine, yea, all beneath the Roman rule, — ye know how all enjoy complete security, and learn of war only by hearsay." S. Cyril * and Theodoret * carry on this account into the fifth oenttiry after our Lord's Coming. Christians then during those four centuries could point to a present fulfillment of prophecy, when we, for our sins, am only speak of the past. ' Th£ Lor(Vs hand is not sJiorten^d, thai it cannot save : neither His ear heavy, thai it cannot hear ; but our iniquities have separated betieeen us, and our Gody and our sins have hid His Foice from us, thit He will not hear. Those first Chris- tians could urge ngainst the Jews the fulfill- ment of their prophecies herein, where the Jews can now urge upon us their seeming non-fulfillment ; " ^ In the time of King Mes- siah, after the wars of Gog and Magog, there shall be peace and tranquillity in all the world, and the sons of men shall have no need of weapons, but these promises were not fulfilled." The prophecy is fulfilled, in that the Gospel is a Gospel of peace and makes peace. Christians, as far as they obey Christ, are at peace both in themselves and with one another. The promises of God are per- fect on His part : He is faithful to them. But lie so wills to be freely loved by Ills intelli- gent creatures whom He formed for His love, * in Is. il. n. 5. T. vi. p. 24, 5. • on Is. ii. and here. • Is. lix. 1, 2. T R. Isaac, Manim. Fid. i. 0. 7. et all. CHAPTER IV. 59 cir. 710. every man under his vine «i Kings. 4. 25. and Under his fig tree; Zech. 3.10. J T_ 11 1 ji and none shall make them that He does not force our free-agency. We can fiidl short of His promises, if we will. To those only who will it, the Gospel brings peace, stilling the passions, quelUng disputes, banishing contentions, removing errors, Ciilm- ing concupiscence, soothing and repressing anger, in individuals, nations, the Church ; giving oneness of belief, harmony of soul, contentment with our own, love of others as ourselves | so that whatever is contrary to this has its origin in something which is not of Christ nor of His Gospel. 4. But (And) they shall sU every man^ under his vine and unaer his fig-tree^ Palestine was a home of the vine and the fig-tree. Vine- yards were a common property, possessed bv all but the very poor \ or even by them *. The land was ' a land of' bread <md vineyards. The vine was the emblem of the people, in Flsalmists and Prophets*. The hunch of ^pes or the vine-leaf appear as character- istic emblems on Jewish coins ^, chiefly in the times of their revolts under Vespasian and Hadrian \ The fig is also mentioned as part of the characteristic fruitfulness of Pal- estine ^. It too was an universal property*. Both formed natural arbors ; the ug had its name probably from its length', the vine from the arch made by its drooping boughs '^ Both formed, in those hot countries, a grate- ful shade. The vine, rising with its single stem, was spread over trellis-work or bv props, so as to enclose a considerable space '\ Even in Italy, a sinsrle vuie shaded a por- tico ". In Palestine it grew by the walh of the houxe ^*. Babbins relate how their forefathers sat and studied under the fig-tree ^*, as Na- thanael was doubtless meditatinc; or praying under one, when Jesus, being God, saw him^^ I Thi9 is implied in the laws concerning them, as Ex. zxiiL 11. Lev. xix. 10. xxv. 3, 4. Deut. xx. 0, Ac. com p. Num. xvi. 14. Deut vi. 11. 1 Sam. viii. 14. xxii. 7. 2 Kgs. xviil. 3SS. Pb. cvii. 37. Prov. xxxi. 16. s Neh. V. 4. Jer. xxxix. 10. < 2 Kgs. x viii. 32. *Pb. Ixxx. 8 sqq. Is. ill. 14. v. 1 sciq. xzvii. 2. Jer. li. 21, xii. 10. Esek. xv. xvii. 6-10. xix. 10. Hos. x. 1. » Tne bunch of grapes appears on coins of Herod Archelaiis« Madden, Jew, Coinage, p. 94, 6. also of Tiberias, lb. p. 144. See De Saulcy, p. 1.34. 140, 1. The golden vine, given by Alexander to the Romans is mentioned by Strabo. (Jos. Ant. 14, 3U The vine- tree stood at the porch of the Temple lor receiving alms. Middoth 3. 8. in Levy JQd. MQnz. p. 134. Mad- den, p. 210. • Madden, p. 162, 4, 7, 8. 170, 2, 3, 7. 180. 206, 7, 8, 9. Bee also De Saalcy, p. 160, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, Ac. ' Dent. viii. 8. 8 2 Kgs xviii. 32. 'njMn (its name still in the East) from jKn i. q. pn. W{flJi.q. pj. II ** We pafised the evening, nnder a large vine, whose stem was about \% root in diameter. Its height was 30 feet; its branches had to be propped afraid: for tlie mouth of' ciiR^fsT the Lord of hosts hath cJr- 7io- spoken U, 5 For •all people will • Jer. 2.11. It exhibits a picture of domestic peace, each family gathered in harmony and rest under the protection of God, each content with what they have, neither coveting another's, nor disturbed in their own. Wine is explained in Holy Scripture to be an emblem of gladness, and the fig of sweetness **. " " For exceeding sweet is the word of the Saviour, and it know- eth how to gladden man's heart ; sweet also and full of joy is the hope of the future, wherewith we are enriched in Christ. Such had been Israel's lot in the peaceful days of Solomon ^*, the peace of whose times had already been made the image of the Gospel**; the coming of the Queen of the South from the uttermost parts of the earth, to hear the wisdom of Sohmon^f had made ner kingdom to be selected as an emblem of those who should fall dawn before Christ and serve Him *' . '* ^ Such is that most (]^uiet fear- lessness which the law of Christ bnngeth, as being the law of charity, peace, and concord." And none shall make them afraid. " ^ Neither man, nor devil ; for the Lord hath given us power to ''* tread on serpents and scorpions^ and over all the power of the enemy ^ and said, noth" ing shall by any means hurt youy and bade us, ^fear not them whieh hiU the body." Witness the might which He gave to His Apostles and Martyrs. For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it. The Prophets often add this, when what they say, seems, for its greatness, past belief. Yet it will be, because lie hath spoken it the Lord Who changeth not, the Lord of Hosts, to Whose commands all creatures are subject, Whose word is truth with Whom to speak is to do. 5. For all people will walk, every one in the up: and so it covered an arbor more than 50 feet wide and lung. I remembered Micah. I have seen in this land the people living under both the fig and the vine ; the fig between Jerusalem and Arima- thea; the vine, here [Beitjin.]" Schulz. Leit. v. 285. in Paulus Reisen, vii. 103. " Plin. N. H. xiv. 3. w Ps. cxxviii. ,3. 1* " R. Haiaand his disciples— others say, R. Akiba, used to rise very early and sit and study under a fig-tree." Bereshith Rabbain Winer Reallex. [wrong reference.] 1* S. John i. 4S. , " Jud. ix. 11. 13. "The ni3"! is the fig, distin- guished for its more perfect sweetness, so that none such can bo found, save in the land of Israel.** Maimonid. in Demai c. iL |1. in Cels. Hierob. ii. 360. ** It is appropriated to the food of man." Id. de jure anni 7 et juoil. c. v. g 8. lb. Our Lord made it, as well as the grape, the figure of good f^uit, which an evil nature could not bear. S. Matt. vii. 16. S. Luke vi. 44. " 8. Cyr. w 1 Kings iv. 25. » Ps. Ixxil. » 8. Matt. xii. 42. n Ps. Ixxii. 10, 11. BLap. «Theoph. M S. Luke X. 19. * S. Matt. z. 28. 60 MICAH. c H R^fs T ^^^ every one in the name ^^^- '^^^- of his god, and 'we will walk 'Zech. 10. 12. name of kia god^ and we will vxUk in the name of tite Lord our Ood, Hitherto unsteadfastness had been the very characteristic sin of Israel. It was ''^constant only in its inconstancy/' ever 'falling away like Uieir for^alhersj starting aside Uke a broken bow. The heathen perse- vered in their worship, because it was evil or had evil in it, not checking but feeding their passions. Israel did not persevere in bis, be- cause it required him to deny himself things unlawful. ' Hath a nation changed their aods which are yet no gods f But my people have changed their glory far thai which doth not pro/iL Henceforth, the rrophet professeth for nis people, the true Israel, that he will be as steaxifast in good, as the heathen in evil ; so our Lord sets forth * the children of this world in their generation^ as an example of wisdom to the children of light "*They who are eager to go up into the mountain of the Lord, and wisn to learn thor- oughly His ways^ promise a ready obedi- ence, and receive in themselves tbe glories of the life in Christ, and undertake with their whole strength to be earnest in all holiness. *For let every one,* he saith, *in every country and citv go the way himself chooseth, and pass his hfe, as to him seemeth good : but our care is Christ, and His laws we will make our straight path ; we will walk along with Him ; and that not for this life only, present or past, but yet more for what is be- yond.' ^ It is a faithftU saving. For they who now miffer with Him, shall walk with Him forever, and with Him be glorified, and with Him reign. But they make Christ their care, who prefer nothing to His love, who cease from the vain distractions of the world, and seek rather righteousness and what ia pleasing unto Him, and to excell in virtue. Such an one was the divine Paul ; for he writeth, ^ I am crucified with CIvrist; and now no longer 1 live, but Chriat liveth in me ; and again ^, 1 deter- mined not to know anything atnong you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" To walk is so uniformly in Holy Scripture used of a person's moral or religious " ways'" fas we say), that the Prophet here too is aoubtless speaking of the opposite religious ways of the Heathen and of the future people of God. The name was often, in Hebrew, ex- pressive of the character ; and, in regard to > Rib. « Pa. IxxviiL 67. « Jer. li. 11. « 8. Luke xvL 8. » S. Cyr. •2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. Rom. vilL 17. Rev. iii. 4. »Gal. ILao. «lCor. ii.2. * As to walk in OodTB statutes^ (Exek. v. 6, 7, ite. and seven other plac^ in ffUjudgments, CPs. Ixxxix. 31. Es. XXXTL27.} in Bts commanammts^ (2 Chr. xvii. 4.) in His law, (Ps. Ixxvili. 10 *c.) in His fear, (Neh. V. 9.) and, in the corresponding place in Luuah, in in the name of the Lord chr'Tst our God for ever and ever. ^^^- "^^Q- God Himself, that Name which He vouch- safed to. give to Himself*^, expressed His Self-existence, and, as a result, His Un- chtingeableneas and His Faithfulness. The names, by which it was foretold that Christ should be called, express both His Deity and attributes"; tlie human Name, which He bare and vouchsafes to bear yet, was signifi- cant of His office for us, Saviour *''. To praise the Name of the Lord then, is to praise Him in that character or relation which He has re- vealed to us. " "He walketh in the Name of the Lord, who ordereth every act and motion worthily of the vocation wherewith he is called, and, ^* whether he eatelfi or drinkeOi^ doth all to the glory of God" This promise hath its own reward ; for it is /or ever and ever. Thev who walk in the Name of the Lord, shall walk ^ before Him in the land of the living, for ever and ever. Such walk on, with quickened steps, lingering not, in the Name of the Lord our God, L e. doing all things in His Name, as His great Name requires, conformed to the holi- ness and all other qualities which His Name expreaseth. For ever and ever, lit. /or ever and yet, or, more strictly still, for thai ic^iVA is hid- den and yet, which is the utmost thought of eternity we can come to. Time indeed has no relation to eternity ; for time, being God's creature, is infinite. Still, practicallv to us, our neat^t conception of eternity, is exist- ence, on and on and on, an endless, unchang- ing, ever-prolonged future, lost in distance ana huldm from us, and then, and yet, an ever-to-comc yet, which shall never come to an end. Well then may we not faint, as tho' it were long to tcjil or to do without thb or that, since the part of our way which lies amid toils and weariness is so short, and will soon be at an end ; what lies beyond, in joy, is infinite in infinite joy, ever full and stUl ever a yet to come. The Prophet says, we will walk; "'•unit- ing himself in longing, hope, faith, to the sons of the New Testament, i. e. Christians, as his brethren, re-born by the grace of the same Christ ; " " " ministers of the Old, heirs of the New Testament, because they loved through that same faith whereby we love ; believing in the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of Christ yet to be, as we be- lieve in it, having been.'' the light of the Lord. (Is. II. 6.) see Gee. Thes. ▼. "tSh. p. 378. and above on Mic. ii. 11. p. 35. So again to walk with Ood^ (G<*n. v. 22.) or before Qod, (lb. xviL 1.) or contrary to Ood, (Lev. xxvi. 21.) wmn^ See on IIos. xll. 6. vol. i. p. 119. Ills. vii. 14. Immanuel, i.e. God with na; ix, 6. Wonderftil, Coanaellor. Mighty God, Ac. w S. Matt. i. 21. w Theoph. " 1 Cor. x. 31. ups.cxTL9. MTir. » S. Aug. c 2 Epp. Pelag. iii. 4^ CHAPTER IV. 61 c hrTs t ^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^y> ^^^^ ^^^ cip. 7ia Lord, » will I assemble her cEzek.d4.ie. that haltethy ^and I will kps. 147. 2. ' gather her that is driven ft37.2L * out, and her that I have afflicted ; 7 And I will make her 6. In thai day, i. e. in that day of Christ and of His Gospel, of grace and salvation, ike Uut days of which he had been speaking. Hitherto he had prophesied the glory of Zion, chiefly through the coming-in of the Gentiles. Now he adds, how the Jews should, with them, be gathered by grace into the one fold, in that long last day of the Gospel, at the beginning, in the course of it, and com- pletely at the end ^ Her that halteth. The Prophet resumes the image of the scattered flock, under which he had before' foretold their restoration. This was no hope of his own, but His word Who cannot fait The course of events, upon which he is entering, would be. at times, for their greatness and their difficulty, past human belief. So he adds straightway, at the outset, sailh the Lord, To halt is used of bodily lameness ', and that, of a flock, worn out by its wanderings ^. It is used also of moral halting ^, such as had been a chief sin of Israel, serving partly God, partly Baal * ; God, with a service of fear, Baal with a ser- vice of that counterfeit of love, sensuality. So it was sick, both in body and soul, and driven out'' also, and afflicted. 7. And her that was cast off a strong nation. The prophecy, that there should be a rem- nant, was depressing. Yet what a remnant should it be I A remnant, which should multiply like the stars of heaven or the sand on the sea-shore. Israel had never been a strong nation, as a kingdom of this world. At its best estate, under David, it had subdued the petty nations around it, who were con- federated to destroy it. It had never com- peted with the powers of this world, East or West, Egypt or Nineveh, although God had at times marvelously saved it from being swallowed up by them. Now, the remnant of Jndah, which itself was but a remnant of the undivided people, was to become a Hrong naJtum, So Isaiah prophesied, ^ A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. Plainly not in temporal great- ness, both because human strength was not, and could not be, its characteristic, and be- 1 Bora. xi. 26. « il. 12, 13. «Gen xxxiL 32. 4Zeph. iii. 19. » Pa. XXXV. 16. xxxvIH. 18. <1 Kingfl xviii. 21. The word is different here. r nn^^ is used with the same image of the dis- that halted *a remnant, chrTst and her that was cast far cir. 710. off a strong nation: andich.2.12. the Lord * shall reign over a ?! is!* ** them in mount Zion from a'24.'23. henceforth, even for ever, Luke\^33.^* 8 ^ And thou, O tower ^^- ^'' '^'' cause the Prophet had been speaking of spirit- ual restoration. ^^^Stivng are they, whom neither torture nor allurements can separate from the love of Christ." " Strong are they, who are strong against themselves." Strong were they who said *•*, We ought to obey God ratlier than men, and ", Who shall separate us from the lore of Christ f shall trihulaiion, or distress, or persecu- tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword f Nay, in all these things we are more than con- querors through Him thai laved us. God does not onlpr restore in the Gospel ; He multiplies exceedingly. " " I will so clothe her with the spirit of might, that, as she shall be fruitful in number so shall she be glorious in victories, so that of her it shall be said '', Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, dear as the sun, terrible a« an army with banners f " For, not to name those, whose whole life is one warfare against invisible enemies and the evil desires of the ilesh, who Fhull count the martyrs of Christ ? "We know that that remnant and strong nation owe wholly to ^race all which they are, as they themselves m the Revelations give thanks; " Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy Blood, out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God binas and priests, and we shall reign on the earth; that same Lord, of Whom it is here said. The Loi'd shall reign over them in Zion from henceforth evenforever^ The visible kingdom of God in Judah was often obscured, kings, princes, priests, and false prophets combining to encourage one another in rebellion against God. In the captivity it even underwent an almost total eclipse by the over-shadowing of earthly power, save when the Divine light flashed forth for an instant in the deeds or words of power and wisdom, related by Daniel, henceforth, i. e. from the time, when the law should go forth out of Zion, God should indeed reign, and that kingdom should have no end. 8. And thou, 0 tower of the flock. " * Tower of Ader,' which is interpreted * tower of the flock,' about 1000 paces (a mile) from Beth- persed flock, Zeph. lit. 19. Es. xzxiv. 4. 16. and ^n^'nn Jer. 1. 17. « Ix. 22. • Gloss. w Acts T. 29. M Rom. vill. M, 37. » Rup. » Cant vi. la WRev. 7. 9,10. 62 MICAH. cir. 710. hold of the daughter of |0r, JSdar: Qen. 35, 21. Zion, unto thee shall it ch^Tst come, even the first domin- ^^'^- '^^^' lehem," sa^ St. Jerome^ who lived there, ** and foresignifying [in its very name] by a sort of propnecy the shepherds at the Birth of the Lord." There Jacob fed his sheep *, and there (since it was hard by Bethlehem) the shepherds, keeping watch over their Hocks by night, saw and heard the Angels singing, " Glory to God in the higliest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." The Jews in- ferred from this place that the Messiah should be revealed there '. Stronghold [Ophel *] of the dauohter of Zion, Ophel was a stnmg place in the South of Jerusalem, the last which the wall, enclosing Zion, reached, before, or as, it touched on the Eastern poreh of the temple ^, with whose service it was connected. We know that, after the captivity, the Nethinira, who did the laborious service of the temple, dwelt there*. It lay very near to the priests' dis- trict ^ It was probably, a lower acdivitv, " swelling out," (as its name seems to mean^,) from the mounkiin of the temple. In the last war, it was held together with *^'the temple, and the acyoining parts to no slight extent and the valley of Kedron." It was burnt *•* before the upper city was taken. It had been encircled by a wall of old; for Jotham " ^* built greatly upon its wall." Manasseh ""encircled it^" (probably with an outer wall) " and raised it exceedingly," i. e. apparently raised artificially the whole level. Yet) as a svmbol of all Jerusalem, Ophel is as remarkable, as the " tower of the flock " is as to Bethlehem. For Ophel, although fortified, is no where spoken of, as of any ac- count". It b not even mentioned in the circuit of the walls, at their dedication under Nehemiah^*, probably as an outlying, spot. It was probably of moment chiefly, as giving > de loc. Hebr. Arculf A. D. 670 found " a Church of the Shepherds," a mile from Bethlehem. Ekirly trav. in Pat. p. 6. The Mindal Edar is mentioned also in the Mass. Shekalim c. 7. 4. "Of the herds, in the space between Jeru-^alem and * the tower of the flook* and on both sides, the males are for burnt-offerings, the female for peace-otferings. R. Jehiida says, whatever male animals are found {there) thirty days before the passover fit for it, are to be used tfiereto." in Sepp. Hell. Land. ii. 470. «Gen. XXXV. 21. » Ps. Jon. on Gen. xxxv. 21. " This is the place, where in the last days Messiah shall be revealed." * Ophel, like many other H««brew Proper names, did not lose its original appellative meaning, and so in the 6 places, where it occurs in the pn>se books, keeps the article ; 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. xxxiii. 14. Neh. iii. 28, 7. xi. 21. and 2 Kings v. 24. in which last place it may very possibly be a place in Sama- ria, named afler that in Jerusalem. It occurs with- out the art. here and Is. xxxii. 14. and in Josephus, *O^Aa9. The E. V. retains the word as a Proper name in the historical books, 2 Chron. and Neh. ***Tne oldest wall was hard to be taken on ac- count of the ravines, and the ridge above them on an advantage to an enemy who might occupy it. Both then are images of lowliness. The lonely Shepherd tower, for Bethlehem, the birthplace of David ; Ophel for Jerusalem, of which it was yet but an outlying part, and deriving its value probably as an oat- work of the temple. Both symbob anticipate the fuller propnecy of the littleness, which shall become great in (lod. Before the men- tion of the greatness of the dominion to eomej is set forth the future poverty to which it should come. In lowliness Christ came, ^et is indeed a Tower protecting and defendmg the sheep of His pasture, founded -on earth in His Iluman Nature, reiurhing to Heaven in His Divine ; '* a strong Tower ; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. Unto thee shall it come ; (lit ufUo thee shaU it come ^', and there shall arrive &c) He saith not at first what shall come, and so raises the soul to think of the greatness of that which should come. The soul is lelt to All up what is more than thought can utter. Unto thee^ (lit. mute up to thee ".) Ko hindrances should withtiold it from coming. Seemingly it was a great way oflf, and they in a very hopeless state. He suggests the aifliculty even by his strength of assurance. One could not say, it shall come quite up to thee, of tliat which in tite way of nature would readily come to any one. But amid all hindrances God's Might makes its way, and brings His gifts and promises to their end. And there shall arrive. He twice re{)eats the assurance, in equivalent words, for their fuller assurance, **^^to make the good tidings the gladder by repeating and enforcing tliem." The first or former, dominion. The word often stands, as our *' former ^V' ^^ contrast which it was built.— On the West— turning to the 8. over the pool of Siloam, and then again bending Eastward to Solomon's pool^ and extending to a place which they call Ophlas, it was joined on to the Eastern porch of the temple." Jos. B. J. v. 4. 2. • Neh. lii. 2ti. xi. 21. ^ Ih. ill. 28. * Like tumulus ftoxa tumeo. FQrat. It is used of a local tumor in Arab, and in Dout.xxyiii. 27.1 Sam. V. G. 12. vi. 4. 5. and of the swelling of pride. I^'um. xiv. 44. Hab. li. 4. » by John. Jos. B. J. v. 6. 1. w Together with "the archive, Acra, the Council- hall." lb. vi. 6. 3. after the destruction of the temple, lb. vi. 4. 6-7. " 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. " lb. xxxiii. 14. u Josephus calls it,** that which was called Ophlas.* B. J. V. 4. 2. vi. 6. 3. M Neh. xii. 31-40. » Prov. xviii. 10. MThe Masorethes seem rightly to have marked thia by the accents. " Tli'- " ^"P- wSo, the former time, (Is. viii. 23.) deeds, (2 Chron. ix. 29. XVI. 11, XX. .14,) king. (Num. xxvi. 2r>,) tables^ (Ex. xxxiv. 1.) hmrtiu. (Ps. Ixxxix. 50.) days^ iDout. iv. 32, X. 10.) kinqs, (J or. xxxiv. ft,) prophetic Zech. i. 4, vii. 7. 12.) temple^ (Ezr. iiL 12. Hagg. IL 3. .) Bee Ges. Thes. p. 1251. CHAPTER IV. 63 CH*R*i8T '^^^'' *^® kingdom shall cir. 710. oome to the daughter of Jerusalem. )Jor.8.19. > l8. 13. 8. k 21. 3. Jer. 30. 6. AM. 43. 9 Now why doert thou cry out aloud? ^is there no king in thee ? is thy coun- sellor perished? for "^ pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. with the " later.'' It is not neceflsarily the fint, strictly ; and so here, not the dominion of David and Solomon exclusively. Bather the Prophet is placed in spirit in the later times when the kingdom should be suspended, and foretells that the former dominion, i. e. that of the line of David, should come to her, not in its temporal g^reatness, but the line itself. So the Angel siud, ^ He shall be great and thaU he called the Son of the Highest j and the Lord Qod shall give unto Him the throne of His father Davidy and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, 2%e [^] kingdom to the daughter of Jerusa- tern, i. e. a kingdom, which should not be of her, but which should come to her ; not Iter's by right, but by His right. Who should merit it for hen ana, being King of kings, makes His own, ^ kings and priests unto God and His Father, The Jews themselves seem to have taken these words into their own mouths, just before they rejected Him, when they hoped that He would he a king, such as they wished for. ' Blessed be the kingdom of our father David thai eometh in the Name of tfie Lord. And in a distorted form, they held it even afterward \ 9. Now. The prophet places himself in the midst of their deepest sorrows, and out of them he promises comfort. Why dost thou cry out aloud f is there no King in thee f is thy dunsdlor perished^ ^ Is then all lost, because thou hast no visible king, none to counsel thee or consult for thee*? Veiy remarkably he speaks of their King and OounAellor as one, as if to say, ** When all beside is gone, there is One Who abides. Though thou be a cap- tive, God will not forsake thee. W^hen thou hadst no earthly king, ' the Lord thy God was thy Kina. He is the First, and He is the Last, when thou shalt have no other, Ho, thy King, ceaseth not to be." "^Thou 1 S. Lake 1. 32, 3. * Rer. i. 6. •S.Mark xLlO. * Targ. " And thou. O Messiah of Israel, who art hid on account of the sinn of the congregation of Israel, to thee the kingdom will come,'* giving to Sfii; the sense of .SdI(. (as in the LXX. Vulg. Aq. Symm. Syr.) and thence obtaining the sense 10 Be in pain, and la- chrTst bor to bring forth, 0_£iLll2i— daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail : for now shalt 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 de- shouldest not fear, so long as He, Who coun- selleth for thee, liveth ; but He liveth for ever." Thy Counsdlor, He, Who is called *^ Oounsellorf Who counselleth for thee, Who counselleth thee, will, if thou obey His counsel, make birth-pangs to end in joy. For pan^s have taken thee, as a woman in travailf resistless, remediless, doubling the whole frame, redoubled until the end, for which God sends them, is accomplished, and then ceasing in joy. The truest comfort, amid all sorrow, is in owning that the trayail-pains must be, but that the reward shall be afterward. '* ^ It is meet to look for deliverance from God's mercy, as cer- tainly as for punishment from our guilt ; ond that the more, since He who foretold both, willingly saves, punishes unwillingly/' So the prophets adds. 10. Be in pain, and labor to bring forthy (lit. Writhe and hurst forthy) as if to sjiy, "thou must suffer, but thy suHering and thy joy shall be one. Thou canst not have the joy without the suffering. As surely as thou snfierest, thou shalt have joy. In all sorrow, lose not faith and hope, and * thou shalt be sorrowful^ but thy sorrow shall be turned into joy." " *® Good daughter, be very patient in the pangs, bear up against your sorrows," so shall the birth be nigh. I et for the time she must go forth out of the city into captivity. And thou shalt dwell in the fields houseless, under tents, as captives were wont to be kept, until all were gathered together to be led away ; a sore exchange for her former luxury, and in requital of their oppression ". And thou shalt go even to Babylon. Not Babylon, but Assyria was the scourge of Grod in Micah's time. Babvlon was scarcely known, afar country ". let Micah is taught of God to declare that thither shall the two tribes be carried captive, although the ten " hidden " in reference to their fable that He wm born before the destruction of the temple and hidden by Ood. 6Comp. Hos. xiii. 10. «1 Sam. xii. 12. 7 Mont. « Is. ix. 6. • 8. John xvl. 20. w S. Cyr. u Am. vi. Micah ii. 8, 9. 1S2 Kings XX. 14. 64 MICAH. CHR^fsT levered; there the Lord c^r- 'y^^'- shall redeem thee from the • Lam. 2. 16. hand of thine enemies. 11 ^"Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let were carried captive by Assyria. Thcre*^ 8haU thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand^ of thine enemies. God's judgments^ or purifying trials, or visi- tation of His stunts, hold their way, until their end be reached. They whosufier them cannot turn them aside; they who inflict them cannot add to them or detain them. The prisonhouse is the place of deliverance to Joseph and St. Peter; the Red-sea to Israel ; the judges were raised up, when Israel was mightily oppressed ; Jabesh-Gilend was delivereii when the seventh day was come * ; the walls of Jerusalem wore the end of JSen- nacherib; Judah should Iiave long been in the very hand and grasp of Babylon, yet must its clenched hand be opened. 11. Now also. [^And now.'] The prophet had already spoken of the future before them, with thb word Now, Then, he distinctly prophesied the captivity to Babylon. Twice more he begias anew ; as Holy Scripture, so often, in a mystery, whether spealcing of evil or of good, of deliverance or of punishment, uses a threefold form. In these two, no men- tion is made of the enemy, and so there is some uncertainty. But the course must apparently be either backwani or forward. They must either be two nearer futures before the Cap- tivity, or two more distant after it. This second gathering might, in itself, either be that of the Assyrian hosts under Sennacherib out of all the nations subject to him ; or that of the many petty nations in the time of the Maccabees, who took advantage of the Syrians' oppression, to combine to eradicate the Jews*. If understood of Sennacherib, the prophet, having foretold the entire cap- tivity of the whole people to Babylon, would have prophesied the sudden destruction of a nearer enemy, whose miraculous and instan- taneous overthrow should be the earnest of the destruction of Babylon and of their deliverance from it. This would suit well with the description, He shall gaiher them as sheaves to the floor, ani would correspond well with the descriptions in Isaiah. On the other hand, whereas this description would suit any other event, in which man gathered his strength against God and was overthrown, I See on Hos. il. 15. Slit "^tho hollow of the hand,** and so **the grasp." 3 1 Sam. xi. 3. 10. 11. * 1 Maco. V. 1, 2. her be defiled, and let our ^ hr'Ts t eye •look upon Zion. ^^^' '^^' 12 But they know not •o'^^^. •' ch. 7. 10. ' the thoughts of the Lord, » J?- «■ »• A<Hn. 11. 83. neither undei'stand they his counsel: for he shall the following words, Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, &e, fit better with the vic^ tories of the Maccabees, in which Israel was active, than with the overthrow of Sen- nacherib, in which they were wholly passive, and God did all for them, as Isaiah and Nahum foretell the sjime overthrow*. Then also, if the couree of the description was backward, I) the captivity in Babylon, 2) the destruction of Sennacherib, there is no earlier event to correspond with ' the smiting of the judge of Israel on the. cheek. The malice also of the nations gathered against Zion suits better with the abiding character of the petty nations, and of their hereditary envy af^nst Israel and its high claims. To Nineveh and Babylon, Israel was but one little corner of ground, which rounded their teriitoijy and connected them with Egypt. They disdained them, even while they sought to subdue them. Micah describes the exul- tation of petty gratified rivalry. Thai say, let her be dtjiUd, The bad have a keen eye for the baitings and inconsistencies and falls of God's people, for which they are ever on the wjitch. Like Satan, they are first tempters, then the accusers ; first dese- craters, then sanctimonious iusticiaries. God, in His judgment, leaves wnat has been in- wardly defiled to be outwardly profiined. ''If any man defile the temple of QodL him shall Ood destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple are ye. * The faithful dty had become a harht, ' The land had become poUvUed by its inhabitants. Now it was to be polluted by the enemy. Its seducers ask for the judgment of God. '^It has become like us in its deeds; let it no more be distin- guished from us by the name of the pec^le of God." And let ojir eye look upon Zion, with pleasure upon its desoiution, and feed itself with its misery. "*° Where the eye, there love; where the hand, there pain." " They opened their mouth wide against me: they said, Aha, Aha, our eye halh seen. The world hates the Church ; Edom, Israel ; it cannot be satisfied with beholding its chastisements**. The sufl!ering8 of the Martyrs were the choice spectacle of the Heathen. » Is. X. 24-34. xiv. 24, 6. xvii. 12-14. xxix. 7, 8. Nah. 1.10-13. 'v. 1-4. Heb. T i Cor. iii. 17. "Is. I. 21. » Jer. iil. 9. P8. cvi. 38, Is. xxi?. 6. » Proverb in Lap. " Ps. xxxv. 21. MMic. Tii.lO. Ob. 12. ^ CHAPTER rV. 65 chrTst g«^tt®r them *»a8 the cir. 710. sheaves into the floor. « Is. 21. ia » Is. 41. 15, 18. Jer. 51. 33. 13 'Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoo& 12. But they know not the thoughts of the Lnrdy neiiher understarid they His counsel. The heathen did, for their own endB, what God willed for His. The first step was the same ; God willed that His people should be punished ; they willed to punish them. But all which lay beyond, they saw not; that God villed (on their repentance) to pardon His own people, but to punish themselves for their pride ' and cruelty *. " • Almighty God corrects the elect through the reprobate, as with a rod ; after which He condemns the reprobate eternally, as when the son has been disciplined, the rod is cast into the fire." - For He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. The multitude of the sheaves hin- ders not the threshing; the multitude of God's enemies hinders not their destruc- tion. They think that they strengtiien themselves, as they ^ther together; God sees them but as ripened and fitted for destruction, gathered into one bundle together, to perish together. God gathers them, not by constraint or force, but by giving free scope to their own wayward wills, and overruling these to His ends. 13. Arise (it ma^ be,) from the dust in which they were lying, I will make thine horn irony and IwiU make my hoofs brass. Thresh- ing in the East is partly with oxen, partly with wheels of iron, or with planks set with sharp flints on an open place made hard to this end. The Propnet joins another ima^e, with this and represents Judah as beinff by God endued with strength, first as with a horn of iron^ to cast the enemy to the ground, and then with hoofs of brass, where- with to trample them to aust, as the stubble and chafiT. And I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, L e. to Myself; the Lord gathered them into the floor by His Providence ; the Lord gave His people strength to subdue them ; and now, m His own Person, He says, I will complete My own work. The very image of the " threshing " im- plies that this is no mere destruction. While the stubble is beaten or bruised to small pieces, and the chaff ia far more than the wheat^ and is carried out of the floor, there yet re- mains the seed-corn. So in tne great judg- ments of God, while most is refuse, there yet I la. X. 7. 12. <DioiL « Zech. 1. 15. 19. «1 Kings xxii. 11. brass: and thou shalt 'beat chrTIt cir. 710. in pieces many people: * and I will consecrate their • Dan. 2. 44. . . , T J * Isai. 18. 7. gain unto the Lord, and ^23. is. their substance unto "the «zeck.\i4. Lord of the whole earth. * ®* ^• remains over, what is severed firom the lost heap and wholly consecrated to Him. What- ever things were the object of the '* Cherem *" or *^ thing devoted to the Lord/' could not be redeemed, but must remain wholly the Lord's. If it had life, it was to be put to death ^ And so the use of the word here may the rather shew, how those converted to God, and who became gain, hallowed to Him, were to pass through death to life, to die to themselves that they might live to Him : what was evil was to be slain in them, that they themselves might live. The Israelites and God's ^lealings with them are ^ ensamples of us upon whom the ends of the world are come. And so the whole sec- tion fits wonderfully with the condition of the single soul. She who halteth is " ^ the soul, who would serve God, yet not so as wholly to give up the service of the world, which it had in Baptism renounced, who, after it had gone astray like a lost sheep, and been scattered amid the manifoldness of earthly things, was gathered again into the fold, to love One only, long for One only, give itself to One," its Good Shepherd, and over it the Lord reigneth for ever, if, taught by experience the deceitfulness of Satan's promises, and stung by the sense of its own thanklessness and vileness, and conscious of the peril of self confidence, it abideth more closely than others with God. He shall gather her thai is driven out, i. e. "'He shall restore her, from whom He had, for the time, withdrawn His erace," and her that was afflictedj trouble being God's most eflectual instrument, in recalling the soul to Himself. " ^° For the Lord raised them thai are bowed down. And mil make her that halteihf a remnant, placing her among the elect and holy, and her that was cast off strong; for Christ ^iveth oft to such souls great rich- ness of Divine graces, so that ^^ where sin abounded, grace should mvah more abound," " ® To it, when enlightened and purified by affliction and by repentance, it is promised, that its Lord, the Great King, shall come to it, and again reign in it, which is the great bliss of souls in grace. For then doth the soul really reign, when it submits wholly to Christ, Whom to serve is to reign, and so, under Him, receives power to command its » Lev. xxTli. 28. • lb. 29. t i Cor. x. 11. 8 Rib. »Dioii. «)P8.cxlTi8. nRom.v.20. 66 MICAH. chrTst CHAPTEB V. cir. 710. 1 Ute hkih cf ChrisL 4 His kingdom. 8 HiseonquaL J^OW gather thyself in troops O daughter of wrong desires, and rule itself;" that great and wonderful power which the Evangelist expresses in words so brief, ^ To them gaxx He power to become the aons of Cfod, Thus He maketh it strong, eo Hxai ' neither death, nor life, nor cmgels, nor principalities, nor povDcra, can separate it from the lave of Qod which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Then, ''he describes the oondition of the soul fluctuating between good and evil, called one way by C^kI through in- ward inspirations, and another way by the enticements and habits of sin. And, wisliing to follow God, yet not to be without its sinful pleasures, and knowing this to be impossible, it is in anguish and hesitates. Her tne pro- phet iustly rebukes, ^why thw cry alovd, as thoueh thou must be fed captive by the DeviL not knowing or unable to extricate thyself? Hast thou no King, aided by Whose power, thou mayest light ^gainst all entice- ments, habit, the flesh ?' Paul felt this and cried aloud, *I see another law in my menU>er8, warring against the law of my mind, and bting- ing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 0 wi'etched man thai I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death f* You see his grief. But he despairs not. He knows that he has a King. I thank Ood throuah Jesus Christ our Lord. Or why griev- est tnou, as if thou hadst no counsellor, by whose counsels to free thee from these snares ? Thy Counsellor indeed perished on the Cross, but for thy sake, that thou mayest live. He died, to destroy him who hath the power of death. But He rose the third day and is still with thee j at the Bight Hancl of the Father He still reigns Immortal forever. See how many counsels He has left thee in the Gospel, how many admonitions, whereby thou mayest lead a happy and tranquil life. Now pain seizes thee like a vfoman in travaiL For such a soul travails, having conceived in- spirations from Grod, which it wishes to obey, but that the flesh, overcome by concupiscence, resists, and so it never brings forth, nor ex- periences that joy, whereof the Lord speak- eth, * When she is ddvvered of the child^ me re- memberelfi no mare the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into the world. Wherefore he adds; be in jjain, for thou art indeed in travail ; thou wilt not cease to be in pain, until thou bring forth. Thou wHt go forth, &c, " * God, by a provision of His great mercy, allows lukewarm souls, who will be at no pains to gain grace, to fall into foulest sins, m order 1 8. John i. 12. s Rom. viii. 88,9. * Rom. vii. 23, 24. «S.JohnxTi.21. ft Rib. •Heb.xi.lO. TiB.ix.6. troops: he hath laid siege christ against us: they shall — ^^' ^^^' * smite the judge of Israel •Lam. 3.30. Matt 6.39. With a rod upon the cheek, a 27. ao. that, owning at last th^ misery, they may oease to be lukewarm^ and with great ardor of soul may embrace virtue. For, warned by the result, thcnr understand that they them- selves emboldened the tempter, (for he chiefly attacks the lukewarm and remiss,) and tne^ become ardent in the oonflict and in well-doing." Wherefore he says, thou shaU go forth out <f the dty. that City of God, where- of He is the Builder and Maker*, which is gladdened by the river of His spirit ; *' and It dwells in the open field, unprotected, ready to be a prey, in the broad way of its own con- cupiscences, out of the narrow road which lead- eth to life, and goeth even to Babylon, the city of 'confusion,' in tumult and din and unrest, and the distractions of this life." Yet even there shall it be delivered, like the poor Prodigal, who came to himself in a far coun- try, when worn out by its hard service. Even there it must not despair, but remember, with him, its Fathers house, its former home, the Heavenly Jerusalem. Its pains within or without, whereby it is brought back, are travail-pains. Though all is dark, it must not say, /have no GowMdhr. For its Redeemer's Name is ^Qmiwetfor, "'one Counsellor of a thousand." " • Thine Inter- cessor never dies." Out of the very depth of misery will the Divine Mercy draw thee. Though thou seem held by the strong hand of the enemy, and he seems to triumph over thee and to jeer thee, *® There, there so would we have it, toe ha/be devoured him, and hosts of devils seek thy utter destruction, and thou seem to be " delivered over to them to tfie de- struction of the flesh; yet is it only tkat the spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord^ Even Satan, when he is tormenting souls, knows not the thoughts of the Lord, nor under- stands His counsels, how, by the yery ^in which he inflicts, God is bidding them, Kise and '^^look up to heaven and long foi heav- enly things and trample on all which they had hitherto foully served, honor or vain glory or covetousness or lust ; " how He will exalt their horn in the Lord, make it strong as iron that they should do ail things through Christ in strengthening them, and conquer all through the might of Christ ; how He should bruise Saian under their feet shortly, and they consecrate wholly to Grod their whole strength, every power of soul and body which hitherto had been the adversary's. V. 1. Now gather tht^elfin troops, 0 daughter • Ecclus. Yi. ft. iops.xxxy.25. • Christian Year. "1 Cor. v. 5. CHAPTER V. 67 Before CHRIST cir. 710. 2 But thou, ^Beth-le- b Matt 2. 6. John 7. 42. cf troops. The daughter of troops is still the same who was before addresHecii Judah. The word is almost always^ used of ''bands of meo employed in irregular, marauding, in- roads." Judah is entitled daughter of troops on account of ^er violence, the robbery and bloodshed within her '. as Jeremiah says ', h this house which is eaJUta by My Name become a den of robbers in vovr eyesf She then who hnd spoiled^ should now be spoiled; she who had formed herself in bands to lay waste, shall now be gathered thick together, in small bands ^, unable to resist in the open field ; yet in vain should she so gather her- self; for the enemy was upon her, in her last retreat. This description has obviously ro fulfill- ment, except m the infliction by the Romans. For there was no event, before the invasion by Sennaclierib and accordingly in the pro- phet's own time, in which there is any seem- mff fulfillment of it But then, the second deliverance must be that by the Maccabees ; and this siege, which lies, in order of time, beyond it, must be a siege by the Bomans. With this it agrees, that whereas, in the two former visitations, Grod promised, in the first, deliverance, in the second, victory, here the Prr>phet dwells on the Person of the Redeem- er, and foretelb that the strength of the Church should not lie in any human means^ Here too Israel had no king, but ajudae onlv. Then the "gathering in robber-bands" strik- ingly describes their internal state in the si^e of Jerusalem; and although this was subsequent to and consequent upon the rejec- tion of our Lord, yet there is no reason why the end should be separated from the begin- ning since the capture by Titus was but the sequel of the capture by Pompey, the result of that same temper, in which they cruciiied Jesus, because He would not be their earthly king. It was the close of the organic exist- ence of the former people ; after which the remnant from among them with the Gentiles, not Israel after the flesh, were the true people of God. He hath laid siege against us. The Prophet, being bom of them, and for the great love he bore them, counts himself among them, as St. Paul mourns over his brethren after the flesh. I^hey shaiU smite the judge of Israel with a ^ i. e. except Job xxv. 3. (where it Is uf»ed of the armies of God} and Job xxix. 25. In Job xix. 6. it ifi osed motapnorically of the "host" of evils sent atrainst Job. 8. Jerome renders "filia latronis/' and says that Aq. Symm. Theod. and Ed. V. agree with that rendenng. « ii. 8. ilL 2. Ac. Hos. v. 10. s Jer. vii. 11. comp. 8. Matt xxl. 13. * Is. xxxiii. 1. »'TnjJin and "mj n3 are manifestly to be taken in corresponding senses. That of "gathering in hem Ephratah though thou Before GHRI8T cir. 710. rod upon the cheek. So St. Paul said to him who nad made himself high priest, ^ Ood shall smite thee, thou whiied wall; for siitest thou to judge me cfier the UxWj and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law. It is no longer '* the king " (for they had said, ^ We have no King but Ocesar) but the judge of Israelf they who against Clirist and His Apostles gave wrong judgment. As they had smitten con- trary to the law, so were the chief men smit- ten by Titus, when tlie city was taken. As tliey had done it, was done unto them. To be smitten on the face, betokens shame : to smite with the rod, betokens destruction. Now both shall meet in one ; as, in the Great Diiy, the wicked * shall awaJce to shame and ever' lasting contempt, and shall perish for ever. 2. But lAndl thou, Bethlehem Ephraiah. With us, the chequered events of time stand in strong contnist, painful or gladdening. Good seems to eftace evil, or evil blots out the memory of the good. God orders all in tlie continuous course of His Wisdom. All lies in perfect harmony in the Divine Mind. Each event is the sequel of what went before. So here the Prophet joins on, what to us stands in such contrast, with that simple. And. Yet he describes the two conditions as bearing on one anotiier. He had just spoken of the judge of Israel smitten on the cheek, and, before *®, that Israel had neither king nor counsellor; he now speaks of the Ruler in Israel, the Everlasting. He had said, how Judah was to become mere bands of men ; he now savs, how the little Bethlehem was to be exalted, lie had said before, that the rule of old was to come to the tower of the flock, the daughter of Jerusalem; now, retaining the word ^\ he speaks of the Ruler, in Whom it was to be established. Before he had ad- dressed the tower of the flock; now, Bethlehem. But he has greater things to say now, so he pauses ", ATid thou / People have admired the brief appeal of the murdered Coesar, "Thou too, brutus." The like energetic conciseness lies in the words. And mou! Betldehem Ephraiah. The name Ephratah is not seemingly added, in order to distinguish Bethlehem from the Bethlehem of Zabulon, since thai is but once named ^',and Bethlehem here is marked to be the Bethlehem Judah ^*, by the addition, too little to be among the thou- troops" Is the only known sense of TTUm, Jer. v. 7, except that of *' making incisions in one's flesh," which is obviously irrelevant here. • V. 8-16. ' Acts xxiil. 3. » St. John xix. Iff. »Dan.xii.2. wiv. 9. " n'?B^DD iv. 8. Sb^ID ▼. 1. Heb. "As marked by the accent, "double Garesh." Cftsp. i> Jos. xix. 15. M It? name in Jud. xvii. 7-9. xix. 1, 2. 18. Ruth i. 1, 2. 1 Sam. xvii. 12. 68 MICAfi. Before CHRIST cir. 710. be little * among the'thou- •1 Sam. 28. 23. < Ex. 18. 25. sands of Judah. Heroins apparently the usual name, Bethlehem^ with the old Patriarchal, and perhaps poetic^ name EphrcUah, either in reference and contrast to that former birth of sorrow near Ephratah *j or, (as is Micah's wont,) regarding the meaning of both names. Both its names were derived from ** fruitful- ness;" "House of Bread" and "fniitful- ness ; " and, despite of centuries of Moham- medan oppression, it is fertile still '. It had been rich in the fruitfulness of this world; rich, thrice rich, should it be in spiritual fruitfulness. "* Truly is Bethle- hem» * house of bread,' where was bom * the Bread of life^ which came down from keaven^^ ** • Who with inward sweetness refreshes the minds of the elect," "^AngeHs Bread, and *' * Ephratah, fruitfulness, whose fruitfulness is God," the Seed-corn, stored wherein, died and brought forth much fruity all which ever was brought forth to God in the whole world. Though ihou he lUtle among the thousands of Judahy lit. small to be^ i. e. too small to be among <&c. Each tribe was divided into its thous- ands, probably of fightin<? men, each thous- and liaving its own tseparute head ^. But the thousand continued to be a division of the tribe, after Israel was settled in Canaan*. The thousand of Gideon was the meanest in 1 Ps. cxxxlL «. • Gen. xxxv. 19. xlriil. 7. •"The diBtrict country around Bi'thlehem abounds in fields, vineyards hills, valleys, olive- yiirds, fig-troes, and is esm'oially supported by vriues and com." Quaresm. Eluoici. Terrse 8. ii. G20. '* Round the hill is fruitful gnrdon and corn land." Russegger iii. 79. "The terrac(»s. admirably kept, and covered with rows of luxuriant olives, int<'r- mixed with the fi^ and vine, sweep in graceful ourves round the ridge, regular as stairs." Port<»r Hdl>ook, p. 20C " It 13 still one of the bost-oulti- vu^'mI ana most fertile parts of Palestine." Rev. G. Williams in Smith's Gr. and R. Geogr. Add. Volney 11. -298. * in viL 8. Jer. Ep. 108. de vit. Paulse. n. 10. » S. Joh. vi. 48, 51. 'S. Greg. Tlom. 8. in Ev. ' Ph. IxxviiL 25. 8 Num. i. 16. x. 4. * Jos. xxii. 21. 80. 1 Sam. x. 19. xxiii. 23. wjud. vi. 16. " .\a in 1 Chron. xxiii. 11. four brothers, not having many sons, were counted as one '* liouse." Hcngst. "Jos. XV. The LXX interpolate it in Jos. xv. m. WEus. S. Jer. da loc. Hebr. "6 miles [in the Cth mile, 3. Jer.] from iElia to the South, near the road which leadeth to Hebron." Itin. Micros, p. 698. " From Jerusalem, as you go to Bethlehem, on the high road at 4 mi Ion on the right is the monument wli'^ro Rachel, Jacob's wife, wiv* buried. Thence 2 miles on the left is Bethlehem where our Lord Je>us Christ was bom." "Two parasangs," (li miles) Bcnj. Tud (i. 40. ii. 90.) "6 miles," Arculf, (Early travels in Pal. p. 6.) Bernard (lb. 2i).) Ssp, wulf, (lb. 44.) " 2 hours.'*^ Maundrell, (lb. 46.^) Rob- inson (L 470.) MThomson,Tiie land ii^ 509. ^ van de Velde memoir p. 180. ** convent at Beth- lehem, 2704 Eng. feet." Ru««s. i« Arculf in Early Travels in Palestine p. 6. 17 Ritter Erdk. xvi. 285. and Russ. in n. 15. w Porter's Hdbook i. 207. " It stands upon an eminence surrounded by small valleys or deprea- sands of Judah, yet out of Before CHRIST cir. 710. Manasseh^^. Places too small to form a thousand by themselves were united with others, to make up the number ^^ So lowly was Bethlehem that it was not counted amon^ the possessions of Judah. In the division under Joshua, it was wholly omitted^'. From its situation, Bethlehem can never have been a considerable place. It lay and lies^ £ust of the road from Jerusalem to Hebron, at six miles from the capital". It was "^^ seated on the summit-level of the hill country of Judaea with deep gorges descend- ing luist to the Dead Sea and West to the plains of Philistia," "2704 feet above the sea **." It lay " "on a narrow ridge," who8e whole length was not above a mile ", swell- ing at each extremity into a somewhat higher ■ eminence, with a slight depression l>etween ^^ , ""The ridge projects Eastward from tlie I central mountain range, and breaks down in abrupt terraced slopes to deep valleys on the N. E. and S." The M'est end too "^» shelves gradually down to the valley." It was then rather calculated to be an outlying fortress, guarding the approach to Jerusa^m, than for a considerable city. As a garrison, it was fortified and held by the Philistines*^ in the time of Saul, recovered from them by David, and was one of the 15 cities *^ fortified by Rehoboam. Yet it remained an unimportant sions, devoted to the culture of the oliTe and vine." — " From tiiis height there is a pretty steep slope on both the North and Southern sides, particularly the former, the two Wadis or gorges wnieh form its boundarie.s. On the flanks of these Wadis are the principal gardens vineyards, and plantations of olives and ligs. They unite a little to the E. of the town, and form what is called the Wadi-et-Taamar rah from the village of Beit^Taamr, in the ncigh- borhoo<i." Wilson, Lands i. 304. " A narrow ridse, surrounded on all sides by valleys." Arculf. lb. "On the N. the other side of the'deep, abruptlv- sinking, valley, on the top of the hill, lay Bethle- hem." V. Schubert ii. 493, coming from the south. " It stands on the slope of a hill, of diflBcult ascent, at least by night." Lord Lindsay p. 240. "The first sight of Bethlehem has somethmg strangely Jicturesque. It lies auite on a >»are summit in the ura limestone of Palestine, 5£{:w Paris feet above the sea. The summit is divided by a shallow sad- dle-back. On the West side lies Bethlehem, on the East the great monastery and Church, like a ' fortres.s over the precipice, which falls into the deep valley." Russegger ill. 79. "The little city of David, seated on a lofty hill, shines, like a bril- liant crown^ among the mountams of Judah.** Mis- lin. c. 32. in. S. From one spot, you can see the Church of Bethlehem, where our Fuiviour was bom ; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where He was buried : the Mount of Olives whence He ascended to heaven." Id. lb. "Grove ir Smith Diet, of Bib. "Toward the W. the hill is higher than the village, and then sinks down very gradually toward Wadi Ahmed." Bob. i.470. «>2 Sam. xxiii. 14. "2 Chron. xJ. 6. "A low wall without towers surrounds the brow of the hill, and overlooks the valley." A real t p. 6. "scarcely a 3$£ of an hour." Ritter p. 286. CHAPTER V. 69 cir. 710. place. Its inhabitants are counted with those of the neighboring Netophah, both before' and after'' the captivity, but both together amounted after the captivity to 179' or 188* only. It still does not appear among the possessions of Judah^ It was called a city^, but the name included even places which had only 100 fighting men^ in our Lord's time it is called a village ^. a afy®, or a strong spot'. The royal city would become a £n of thieves, Christ should be bom in a lowly village. " ^ He Who had taken the form of a servant, chose Bethle- hem for His Birth, Jerusalem for Hb Passion." St. Matthew relates how the Chief Priest and Scril^es in their answer to Herod's en- quiries, where Christ should be bom ^, alleged this prophecy. They gave the substance rather than the exact words, and with one remarkable variation, art not the least among tfie princes of Judah, St. Matthew did not correct their paraphrase, because it does not aflect the object for which they alleged the prophecy, the birth of the Redeemer in bethlehem. The sacred writers often do not correct the translations, existing in their time, when the variations do not affect the truth ^. Both words are true here. Micah speaks of Bethlehem, as it was in the sight of men; the chief priests, whose words St. Matthew approves, speak of it as it was in the sight of God, and as, by the Birth of 1 1 Chron. li. M. « Neh. vil. 26. » Ezr. ii, 21. 2. * Neh. xi. 25-30. » Ruth i. 19. Ezr. 11. 1. with 21. Neh. vil. 6. with 26. • Am. ▼. 3. '8. John vii. 42. •B. Luke IL 4. *Jo8. Ant v. 2. 8. {x!^ptov) »s. Leo de Epiph. 8erm. 1. " 8. Matt li. 4-6. 1* See on Am. ix. 12. vol. i. p. ^28. Pococke has em- ployed much learning to make this passage ver- oally accord with the allegation of it by the chief priest recorded by S. Matthew (Notea miscell. on the Porta MoslSf Works i. 134-^). He follows the eminent authority of Abulwalid (followed by R. Tancham and a Hebr. Arab. Gloss.) in supposing 1'j,*3f, "little," to have had the opposite sense of ** great,** and that it actually had that meaning in Jer. xlviii. 4. Zech. xiii. 7. In neither of those passages, however, have "I^J^lf , l^»3f , that meaning, nor do the cases alleged of words containing oppo- site meanings bear out such an one as this. For the two senses, although differing at lost, can be traced up to one common source, which could not be done as to 1';;3f. Thus 1) BTip, " holy," is used of idolatrous consecrations which were In fact hor- rible, desecrations, (see on Hoa. Iv. 14. vol. i. p. 62.) 2) t7£ J, ** soul," jB used of the " person," as we speak of " 1000 souls." Thence the idiom nO MJ, lit ** the soul of one dead," Lev. xxi. 11. Num. vi. 6 ; then In one idiom ISTOjS MOD* ** defiled as to the dead,** but JffQ2 ^oea not signify one alive or dead indilrerently. 3) 'y\2$ iit ** bent the knee," prayed, includes prayers for evil as well as for good, curs- ing as well as blessing. 4} *lDn love, piety, hence unto me that m to be chrTst cir. 710. Christ, it should become. "^'Nothing hin- dered that Bethlehem should be at once a small village and the Mother-city of the whole earth, as being the mother and nurse of Christ Who muSe the world and con- quered it." " "That iS not the leasts Avhich is tne house of blessing, and the receptacle of Divine grace." "^''•He saith that the spot, although mean and small, shall be glorious. And in truth," adds S. Chrysoetom, "the whole world came together to see Bethlehem, where, being bom. He was laid, on no other ground than this only." " *• O Bethlehem, little, but now made great bv the Lord, He hath made thee great, Who, being great, was in thee made little. What dty, if it heard thereof, would not envy thee that most precious Stable and th^ glory of that Crib ? Thy name is great in all the earth, and all generatums call thee blessed. *' Glorious things are everywhere spoken qftheej thou dty of Goo, Everywhere it is sung, that ^ts Man is bom in her, and the Most High Mimsey shaU stab* lish her. Out cf fhee shaU He come forth to Me that is to be Ruler in Israel [lit. shall (one) come forth to Me to be Buler.'] Bethlehem was too small to be any part of the polity of Judah ; out of her was to come forth One, W^ho, in God's Will, was to be its Ruler. The words to Me include both of Me and to Me. Of Me^ i.e. "*®by My Power and Spirit," as Gabriel said, '* The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and perhaps, what is forbidden by natural piety, (Lev. XX. 17.) and a reproach; (Prov. xiv. 34. lb. xxv. 10.) unless different roots have accidentally coalesced, (see Fflrst Cone.) as in Sot!/, to use "insight," hence wisdom, and 730 vacillate, hence folly, meet in one Syriac word; or our let, "hinder," is from lata^ "slow;" lati/an, "retard;" Goth, our let, " allow," from " Utan " i. q. lassen.) In Arabic this is the more common on account of the sever- ance of the different tribes who spoke it, before Mohammed united them into one, as the same word receives modifications in different languages of Europe. The meaning, " great " also, if it could be obtained for 'I'J?^, would still not yield the meaning desired. For nVH / implies a compari- son. It means Utile to be in the thousands of Judah i. e. too little. If 1'j72f were rendered great, it would still be " great to be among the thousands " &c. i. e. too great to be. Chald. Lxx. 8^r. and the Latin in S. Aug. de Civ. D. xviii. 30. give another explanation, it is little that thou shouldest be. This does not a^ree better with the words in 8t. Matthew, and is ag&inst the idiom. In this idiom 1) "l^j^lf is not used, but mostly t9j^0, or hp} Is. xlix. 6. or I Op 2 Sam. vii. 10. 2) The person spoken to is always expressed. "S. Greg. Naz. Orat. 18. In patr. 1 17. " S. Chrys. Quod Christus sit Deus g3. i. 561. "8. Ambr. Ep. 70. " " W8. Bern. ~ " Ps, IxxxvlL re. uuoa unrisius sii i^eus g3. i. 661. ir. Ep. 70. 1 11. I. Serm. 1 in Vig. Nativ-gi. 1. 7fi3. :xviL 8. M Theoph. »S. Luke i. 35. ^70 MICAR chbYst * ruler in Israel; 'whose cir. 710. goinga forth have been • Gen. 49. la l8. 9. 6. ' Ps. 90. 2. Pro. 8. 22, 23. John 1. 1. from of old, from fever- q^7|t lasting, ^ir- Txo. t Heb. the dayi of eternity. if le power of the Highest shall overshadow thee^ Uierefore also that iloly Thing which shall be bom of thee, shall be eaUed the Son of Ood, To Me, as Goa said to Samnel \ I will send thee to Jesse the BeUdehemile ; for I have provided Me a kino among his sons. So now, one shall go forth thence to 3/c, to do My Will, to My praise and glory, to reconcile the world unto Me, to rule and be Head over the true Is- rael, the Church. He was to go forth out of Bethlehem, as his native-place*; as Jere- miah ' says. His noble shall be from Aim, ajid his ruler shall go forth out of the midst (^ him * ; and 2iechariuh \ Out of him shall come forth Vie cornerstone ; out of him the naU, out of him the baUUhoWf out of him every ruler together. Before, Micah had said to the tower of Kdary Opfiel of the daughter of Zion, the first rule sh'iU come to thee; now, retaining the word, he says to Bethlehem, out of thee sliall come one to be a ruler ^. The judge of Israel had been svnitten ; now there should go forth out of the little Bethlehem, One, not to be a judge only, but a Ruler. \Vho8e goings forth have been from of old, from everUtsting, lit. from the days of eternity. Going forth \s opposeJ to going forth ; agoing forth out of Bethlehem, to a going forth from eternity ; a (ping forth, which then was still to come, (the Prophet says, shaU go forth,) to a going forth which had been long ago, '* ^ not from the world but from the b%inning, not in the days of time, but from the days of eter- nity. For' in the beginning was the Word, and the Word vxis with Qod, and the Word was G'xL The Same kxw in the beginning with God. In the end of the daus, He was to go forth from Bethlehem; but, lest he should be thought then to have ha<l Plis Being, the Prophet adds. His goings forth are from ever' lasting.*^ Here words, denoting eternity and used of the eternity of G(xl, are united to- gether to impress the belief of the Eternity of God the Son. We have neither thought nor words to conceive eternity ; we can only conceive of time lengthened out without end. *' • True eternity is boundless life, all exist- ing at once," or " *° duration without begin- ning and without end and without change." » 1 Sam. xvi. 1. * When KJf ^ is used of actual descent, It Is In relation to the actual parent, to " j?o forth out of the womb," "out of the loins," "out of the bowels," " out of thee," Gen. xlvi. 2f>. Job i. 21. Jer. i. ft. Gen. XXXV. 11, XV. 4, xvii. 6. 2 Kings xx. 18. O")^ 'K^' » XXX. 21. * KV' la-ipD iSb^d. » X. 4. •SbtD (v. L Heb.) refers back to nSBTDDn Iv. 8. TRup. as. John LI. 2. The Hebrew names, here used, express as much as our thoughts can oonceiye or our words utter. They mean literally, /rom o/bre^ (1. e. look back as far as we can, that from which we begin is still ^before,") "from the days Q^ that whieh is hiddenJ' True, that in eternity there are no diyisions, no sucoeasioo, but one eyerlasting ''now;" one, as God, in whom it is, is One. But man can only con- ceive of Infinity of space as space without bounds, although God contains space, and is not containe<l by it ; nor can we conceiye of Eternity, save as filled out by time. And so G<xl speaks after the manner of men, and calls Himself *' the Ancient of Days, " " being Himself the age and time of all thin^; before days and age and time,'' " the Begin- ning and measure of ages and of time.'* The word, translated from of old, is used else- where" of the eternity of God. " The God of before is a title chosen to express, that He IS before all things which He made. ** Dweller of afore is a title, formed to shadow out His ever-present existence. Conceive any ex- istence afore all wliich else you can conceiye, go back afore and afore that; stretch out backward yet before and before all which you have conceived, ages afore ages, and yet afore, without end, — then and there God was. That afore was the property of God. Eternity be- longs to God, not God to eternity. Any words must be inadequate to convey tlie idesi of the Infinite to our finite minds. Probably the sight of Grod, as He is, will give us the only possible conception of eternity. Still the idea of time prolonged infinitely, although we cannot follow it to infinity, shadows our eternal being. And as we look along that long vista, our sight is prolonged and str^^ed out by those millions upon millions of years, along which we can look, although eyen if each grain of sand or dust on this earth, which are countless, represented countless millions, we should be, at the end, as far from reaching to eternity as at the beginning. The days of eternity lure only an inadequate expression, because every conception of the hiunan mind must be so. Equally so is every other, ^ From everlasting to everlasting ; ^"^from •S. Anselm Monol. c. 24. L. » Rich. Vict do Trin. ii. 4. L. « Dan. vH. 9. M Dionys. de Div. Nom. c. 10. x. 5. » Hah. L 12. "Dip ^hSk Deut.xxxlli.27. So dSij^ ^« Gen. xxi. .'£). Is. xl. 28. " Dip 3B^' Ps. Iv. 20. "dSij; "?;; dSh'O Pa- 3C0. 2. ciil. 17. ^ oSl^fD Pb. xclfi. 2. and of Divine Wisdom, or God the Son, Ptoy. viiL 23. CHAPTER V 71 everhttting; ^ to everkuting; ^fram the day, i. e. since the day waa. ^ For the word,^roni^ to our minds implies time, and time is no measure of eternity. Only it expresses pne- existence, an eternal Existence backward as weU as forward, the incommunicable attri- bute of God. But words of Holy Scripture have their full meaning, unless it appear from the passage itself that they have not. In the passages where the words, /or et^, from afore, do not mean eternity, the subject itself restrains them. Thus for ever, looking on- ward, is used of time, equal in duration with the being of whom it ia written, as', Ac ahaU be thy servant for ever, i. e. so long as he lives in the body. So when it is said to the Son *, Thy throne, O Chd, i» for ever and ever, it speaks of a kingdom which shall have no end. In like way, looking backward, ^Ivnll remember I%y vxmders from old, must needs relate to time, because they are marvelous dealings of God in time. Bo again*, the heavens of old, stand simply contrasted with the changes of man. But ^ God of oldls the Eternal God. * He thatabideth of^ old is God enthroned from everlasting In like manner the ffoings forth here, opposed to a going forth in time, (emphatic words being moreover united together,) are a going forth in eter- nity. The word, from of old, as used of being, is only used as to the Being of God. Here too then there is no ground to stop short of that meaning; and so it declares the eternal going-forth, or Generation of the Son. The plural, goings forth, may here be used, either as wonis of great majesty', "God," "Lord," "Wisdom," (i.e. Divmey are plural; or be- cause the Generation ot the Son from the Father is an Eternal Generation, before all time, and now, though not in time, yet in eternity still. As then the prophet saith, **from the days of eternity," altnough eternity has no parts, nor b^inning, nor "from," so he may say goings form, to convey, as we can receive it, a continual coing-forth. We think of Eternity as unending, continual, time; and so he may have set forth to us the Eter- nal Act of the Going Forth of the Son, as continual acts. The Jews understood, as we do now, that Micah foretold that the Christ was to be bom at Bethlehem, until they rejected Him, and were pressed by the argument. Not only did • 2Vr uhipb Ps. Ix. 8. xxix. 10. • Dl^D la. xlUL 13. » Ex. xxl. 6. «Ps. xlv. 8. » lb. IxKvIl. 12. • lb. IXTlil. 34. T Dent, xxxiil. 27. • Onp 3ir Pa. Iy.20. • D'hSk, 'rm. D'BHp, Tr\DD7] Ptov. L 20. Ix. 1. »8. Johnvii.41,2. n Tert. c. Jud. c. 13. R. Lnac, Chlsznk Emnnah, in Wagenaeil tela ignea Sat p. 278. tries to evade It the chief priests fonnally give the answer^ but, supposing our Lord to be of Nazareth^ some w-ho rejected Him, employed the argu- ment against Him. ^^Some said, Shall Chist come out of Galilee f Hath not the Scripture said, that Ohrist crnneth of the seed of DaxM, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where' David toasf They knew of two distinct things : that Christ was 1) to be