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Introduction to Ruth
The Book of Ruth is historically important as giving the lineage of David through the whole period of the rule of the Judges Rut 1:1, i. e. from Salmon who fought under Joshua, to "Jesse the Bethlehemite" Sa1 16:1; and as illustrating the ancestry of "Jesus Christ, the son of David," who "was born in Bethlehem of Judea" Mat 1:1; Mat 2:1. The care with which this narrative was preserved through so many centuries before the birth of Christ is a striking evidence of the providence of God, that "known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world." The genealogy with which the Book closes Rut 4:18, is also an important contribution to the chronology of Scripture history. We learn from it, with great distinctness, that Salmon, one of the conquering host of Joshua, was the grandfather of Obed, who was the grandfather of king David; in other words, that four generations, or about 200 years, span the "days when the Judges ruled."
But the Book of Ruth has another interest, from the charming view it gives us of the domestic life of pious Israelites even during the most troubled times. If we only had drawn our impressions from the records of violence and crime contained in the Book of Judges, we would have been ready to conclude that all the gentler virtues had fled from the land, while the children of Israel were alternately struggling for their lives and liberties with the tribes of Canaan, or yielding themselves to the seductions of Canaanite idolatry. But the Book of Ruth, lifting up the curtain which veiled the privacy of domestic life, discloses to us most beautiful views of piety, integrity, self-sacrificing affection, chastity, gentleness and charity, growing up amidst the rude scenes of war, discord, and strife.
Ruth, from its contents, as anciently by its place in the canon, belongs to the Book of Judges, and is a kind of appendix to it. In the present Hebrew Bible it is placed among the Kethubim (Hagiographa), in the group containing the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther; but in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate it occupies the same place as in our English Bibles, which was its ancient place in the Hebrew Bible.
The language of the Book of Ruth is generally pure Hebrew. But there are words of Aramaic form and origin , and other expressions unique to the later Hebrew. The inference would be that, the Book of Ruth was composed not before the later times of the Jewish monarchy; and this inference is somewhat strengthened by the way in which the writer speaks of the custom which prevailed in former times in Israel Rut 4:7. Other expressions, which the book has in common with the Books of Samuel and Kings, and a certain similarity of narrative, tend to place it upon about the same level of antiquity with those Books.
The Books of the Old Testament, to the contents of which reference seems to be made in the Book of Ruth, are Judges, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, and perhaps Job. Ruth is not quoted or referred to in the New Testament, except that the generations from Hezron to David in our Lord's genealogy seem to be taken from it.
No mystical or allegorical sense can be assigned to the history; but Ruth, the Moabitess, was undoubtedly one of the first-fruits of the ingathering of Gentiles into the Church of Christ, and so an evidence of God's gracious purpose in Christ, "also to the Gentiles to grant repentance unto life;" and the important evangelical lesson is as plainly taught in her case, as in that of Cornelius, "that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him." The great doctrine of divine grace is also forcibly taught by the admission of Ruth, the Moabitess, among the ancestry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Next: Ruth Chapter 1
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Introduction to 1 and 2 Chronicles
1. Like the two Books of King, the two Books of Chronicles formed originally a single work, the separation of which into two "books" is referable to the Septuagint translators, whose division was adopted by Jerome, and from whom it passed to the various branches of the Western Church. In the Hebrew Bibles the title of the work means literally "the daily acts" or "occurrences," a title originally applied to the accounts of the reigns of the several kings, but afterward applied to general works made up from these particular narratives.
The Septuagint translators substituted one which they regarded as more suitable to the contents of the work and the position that it occupies among the historical books of the Bible. This was Paraleipomena, or "the things omitted " - a name intended to imply that Chronicles was supplementary to Samuel and Kings, written, i. e., mainly for the purpose of supplying the omissions of the earlier history.
The English title, "Chronicles," (derived from the Vulgate) is a term primarily significative of time; but in practical use it designates a simple and primitive style of history rather than one in which the chronological element is peculiarly prominent.
2. The "Book of Chronicles" stands in a position unlike that occupied by any other book of the Old Testament. It is historical, yet not new history. The writer traverses ground that has been already trodden by others.
His purpose in so doing is sufficiently indicated by the practical object he had in view, namely, that of meeting the special difficulties of his own day. The people had lately returned from the captivity and had rebuilt the temple; but they had not yet gathered up the threads of the old national life, broken by the captivity. They were therefore reminded, in the first place, of their entire history, of the whole past course of mundane events, and of the position which they themselves held among the nations of the earth. This was done, curtly and drily, but sufficiently, by genealogies, which have always possessed a special attraction for Orientals. They were then more especially reminded of their own past as an organized nation - a settled people with a religion which has a fixed home in the center of the nation's life.
It was the strong conviction of the writer that the whole future prosperity of his countrymen was bound up with the preservation of the temple service, with the proper maintenance of the priests and Levites, the regular establishment of the "courses," and the rightful distribution of the several ministrations of the temple among the Levitical families. He therefore drew the attention of his countrymen to the past history of the temple, under David, Solomon, and the later kings of Judah; pointing out that in almost every instance temporal rewards and punishments followed in exact accordance with the attitude in which the king placed himself toward the national religion. Such a picture of the past, a sort of condensed view of the entire previous history, written in the idiom of the day, with frequent allusions to recent events, and with constant reiteration of the moral intended to be taught, was calculated to affect the newly returned and still unsettled people far more strongly and deeply than the old narratives. The Book of Chronicles bridged over, so to speak, the gulf which separated the nation after, from the nation before, the captivity: it must have helped greatly to restore the national life, to revive hope and encourage high aspirations by showing to the nation that its fate was in its own hands, and that religious faithfulness would be certain to secure the divine blessing.
3. That the Book of Chronicles was composed after the return from the captivity is evident, not only from its closing passage, but from other portions of it.
The evidence of style accords with the evidence furnished by the contents. The phraseology is similar to that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, all books written after the exile. It has numerous Aramaean forms and at least one word derived from the Persian. The date cannot therefore well be earlier than 538 B.C., but may be very considerably later. The very close connection of style between Chronicles and Ezra, makes it probable that they were composed at the same time, if not even by the same person. If Ezra was the author, as so many think, the date could not well be much later than 435 B.C., for Ezra probably died about that time. There is nothing in the contents or style of the work to make the date 450-435 B.C. improbable; for the genealogy in Ch1 3:23-24, which appears to be later than this, may be a subsequent addition.
4. The writer of Chronicles cites, as his authorities, works of two distinct classes:
(a) His most frequent reference is to a general history - the "Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah," This was a compilation from the two histories constantly mentioned in Kings - the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel," and the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," which it had been found convenient to unite into one.
(b) The other works cited by him were 12-part or 13-part histories, the works of prophets who dealt with particular portions of the national annals. Of none of these works is the exact character known to us; but the manner in which they are cited makes it probable that for the most part they treated with some fullness the history - especially the religious history - of the times of their authors. They may be regarded as independent compositions - monographs upon the events of their times, written by individual prophets, of which occasionally one was transferred, not into our "Books of Kings," but into the "book of the kings of Israel and Judah;" while the remainder existed for some centuries side by side with the "Book of the Kings," and furnished to the writer of Chronicles much of the special information which he conveys to us.
There is also ample proof that the writer made use of the whole of the earlier historical Scriptures, and especially of the Books of Samuel and Kings, such as we have them. The main sources of 1 Chr 1-8, are the earlier Scriptures from Genesis to Ruth, supplemented by statements drawn from private sources, such as the genealogies of families, and numerous important points of family history, carefully preserved by the "chiefs of the fathers" in almost all the Israelite tribes; a main source of 1 Chr. 10-27 is Samuel; and a source, though scarcely a main source, of 2 Chr. 1-36 is Kings (compare the marginal references and notes). But the writer has always some further authority besides these; and there is no section of the Jewish history, from the death of Saul to the fall of Jerusalem, which he has not illustrated with new facts, drawn from some source which has perished.
5. The indications of unity in the authorship preponderate over those of diversity, and lead to the conclusion that the entire work is from one and the same writer. The genealogical tendency, which shows itself so strongly in the introductory section 1 Chr. 1-9, is remarkably characteristic of the writer, and continually thrusts itself into notice in the more purely historical portions of his narrative. Conversely, the mere genealogical portion of the work is penetrated by the same spirit as animates the historical chapters, and, moreover, abounds with phrases, characteristic of the writer.
That the historical narrative (1 Chr. 10-2 Chr. 36) is from one hand, can scarcely be doubted. One pointedly didactic tone pervades the whole - each signal calamity and success being ascribed in the most direct manner to the action of Divine Providence, rewarding the righteous and punishing the evil-doers. There is everywhere the same method of composition - a primary use of Samuel and Kings as bases of the narrative, the abbreviation of what has been narrated before, the omission of important facts, otherwise known to the reader; and the addition of new facts, sometimes minute, and less important than curious, at other times so striking that it is surprising that the earlier historians should have passed them over.
6. The abrupt termination of Chronicles, in the middle of a sentence, is an unanswerable argument against its having come down to us in the form in which it was originally written.
And the recurrence of the final passage of our present copies of Chronicles at the commencement of Ezra, taken in conjunction with the undoubted fact, that there is a very close resemblance of style and tone between the two books, suggests naturally the explanation, which has been accepted by some of the best critics, that the two works, Chronicles and Ezra, were originally one, and were afterwards separated: that separation having probably arisen out of a desire to arrange the history of the post-captivity period in chronological sequence.
7. The condition of the text of Chronicles is far from satisfactory. Various readings are frequent, particularly in the names of persons and places; omissions are found, especially in the genealogies; and the numbers are sometimes self-contradictory, sometimes contradictory of more probable numbers in Samuel or Kings, sometimes unreasonably large, and therefore justly suspected.
The work is, however, free from defects of a more serious character. The unity is unbroken, and there is every reason to believe that we have the work, in almost all respects, exactly as it came from the hand of the author.
8. As compared with the parallel histories of Samuel and Kings, the history of Chronicles is characterized by three principal features:
(a) A greater tendency to dwell on the externals of religion, on the details of the temple worship, the various functions of the priests and Levites, the arrangement of the courses, and the like. Hence, the history of Chronicles has been called "ecclesiastical," while that of Samuel and Kings has been termed "political." This tendency does not detract from the credibility, or render the history undeserving of confidence.
(b) A marked genealogical bias and desire to put on record the names of persons engaged in any of the events narrated; and
(c) A more constant, open, and direct ascription of all the events of the history to the divine agency, and especially a more plain reference of every great calamity or deliverance to the good or evil deeds of the monarch, or the nation, which Divine Providence so punished or rewarded.
There is no reason to regard Chronicles as less trustworthy than Samuel or Kings. A due consideration of disputed points, the "Levitical spirit," contradictions, alleged mistakes, etc., does not, speaking generally, impugn the honesty of the writer or the authenticity of his work. The book may fairly be regarded as authentic in all its parts, with the exception of some of its members. These appear to have occasionally suffered corruption, though scarcely to a greater extent than those of other books of equal antiquity. From blemishes of this kind it has not pleased God to keep His Word free. It will scarcely be maintained at the present day that their occurrence affects in the very slightest degree the authenticity of the rest of the narrative.
The style of Chronicles is simpler and less elevated than that of Kings. Excepting the psalm of David in 1 Chr. 16 and the prayer of Solomon in 2 Chr. 6, the whole is prosaic, level, and uniform. There are no especially striking chapters, as in Kings; but it is less gloomy, being addressed to the restored nation, which it seeks to animate and inspirit. The captive people, weeping by the waters of Babylon, fitly read their mournful history in Kings: the liberated nation, entering hopefully upon a new life, found in Chronicles a review of its past, calculated to help it forward on the path of progress, upon which it was entering.
1 Chronicles 1 Next: 1 Chronicles Chapter 1
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Introduction to 1 and 2 Chronicles
1. Like the two Books of King, the two Books of Chronicles formed originally a single work, the separation of which into two "books" is referable to the Septuagint translators, whose division was adopted by Jerome, and from whom it passed to the various branches of the Western Church. In the Hebrew Bibles the title of the work means literally "the daily acts" or "occurrences," a title originally applied to the accounts of the reigns of the several kings, but afterward applied to general works made up from these particular narratives.
The Septuagint translators substituted one which they regarded as more suitable to the contents of the work and the position that it occupies among the historical books of the Bible. This was Paraleipomena, or "the things omitted " - a name intended to imply that Chronicles was supplementary to Samuel and Kings, written, i. e., mainly for the purpose of supplying the omissions of the earlier history.
The English title, "Chronicles," (derived from the Vulgate) is a term primarily significative of time; but in practical use it designates a simple and primitive style of history rather than one in which the chronological element is peculiarly prominent.
2. The "Book of Chronicles" stands in a position unlike that occupied by any other book of the Old Testament. It is historical, yet not new history. The writer traverses ground that has been already trodden by others.
His purpose in so doing is sufficiently indicated by the practical object he had in view, namely, that of meeting the special difficulties of his own day. The people had lately returned from the captivity and had rebuilt the temple; but they had not yet gathered up the threads of the old national life, broken by the captivity. They were therefore reminded, in the first place, of their entire history, of the whole past course of mundane events, and of the position which they themselves held among the nations of the earth. This was done, curtly and drily, but sufficiently, by genealogies, which have always possessed a special attraction for Orientals. They were then more especially reminded of their own past as an organized nation - a settled people with a religion which has a fixed home in the center of the nation's life.
It was the strong conviction of the writer that the whole future prosperity of his countrymen was bound up with the preservation of the temple service, with the proper maintenance of the priests and Levites, the regular establishment of the "courses," and the rightful distribution of the several ministrations of the temple among the Levitical families. He therefore drew the attention of his countrymen to the past history of the temple, under David, Solomon, and the later kings of Judah; pointing out that in almost every instance temporal rewards and punishments followed in exact accordance with the attitude in which the king placed himself toward the national religion. Such a picture of the past, a sort of condensed view of the entire previous history, written in the idiom of the day, with frequent allusions to recent events, and with constant reiteration of the moral intended to be taught, was calculated to affect the newly returned and still unsettled people far more strongly and deeply than the old narratives. The Book of Chronicles bridged over, so to speak, the gulf which separated the nation after, from the nation before, the captivity: it must have helped greatly to restore the national life, to revive hope and encourage high aspirations by showing to the nation that its fate was in its own hands, and that religious faithfulness would be certain to secure the divine blessing.
3. That the Book of Chronicles was composed after the return from the captivity is evident, not only from its closing passage, but from other portions of it.
The evidence of style accords with the evidence furnished by the contents. The phraseology is similar to that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, all books written after the exile. It has numerous Aramaean forms and at least one word derived from the Persian. The date cannot therefore well be earlier than 538 B.C., but may be very considerably later. The very close connection of style between Chronicles and Ezra, makes it probable that they were composed at the same time, if not even by the same person. If Ezra was the author, as so many think, the date could not well be much later than 435 B.C., for Ezra probably died about that time. There is nothing in the contents or style of the work to make the date 450-435 B.C. improbable; for the genealogy in Ch1 3:23-24, which appears to be later than this, may be a subsequent addition.
4. The writer of Chronicles cites, as his authorities, works of two distinct classes:
(a) His most frequent reference is to a general history - the "Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah," This was a compilation from the two histories constantly mentioned in Kings - the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel," and the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," which it had been found convenient to unite into one.
(b) The other works cited by him were 12-part or 13-part histories, the works of prophets who dealt with particular portions of the national annals. Of none of these works is the exact character known to us; but the manner in which they are cited makes it probable that for the most part they treated with some fullness the history - especially the religious history - of the times of their authors. They may be regarded as independent compositions - monographs upon the events of their times, written by individual prophets, of which occasionally one was transferred, not into our "Books of Kings," but into the "book of the kings of Israel and Judah;" while the remainder existed for some centuries side by side with the "Book of the Kings," and furnished to the writer of Chronicles much of the special information which he conveys to us.
There is also ample proof that the writer made use of the whole of the earlier historical Scriptures, and especially of the Books of Samuel and Kings, such as we have them. The main sources of 1 Chr 1-8, are the earlier Scriptures from Genesis to Ruth, supplemented by statements drawn from private sources, such as the genealogies of families, and numerous important points of family history, carefully preserved by the "chiefs of the fathers" in almost all the Israelite tribes; a main source of 1 Chr. 10-27 is Samuel; and a source, though scarcely a main source, of 2 Chr. 1-36 is Kings (compare the marginal references and notes). But the writer has always some further authority besides these; and there is no section of the Jewish history, from the death of Saul to the fall of Jerusalem, which he has not illustrated with new facts, drawn from some source which has perished.
5. The indications of unity in the authorship preponderate over those of diversity, and lead to the conclusion that the entire work is from one and the same writer. The genealogical tendency, which shows itself so strongly in the introductory section 1 Chr. 1-9, is remarkably characteristic of the writer, and continually thrusts itself into notice in the more purely historical portions of his narrative. Conversely, the mere genealogical portion of the work is penetrated by the same spirit as animates the historical chapters, and, moreover, abounds with phrases, characteristic of the writer.
That the historical narrative (1 Chr. 10-2 Chr. 36) is from one hand, can scarcely be doubted. One pointedly didactic tone pervades the whole - each signal calamity and success being ascribed in the most direct manner to the action of Divine Providence, rewarding the righteous and punishing the evil-doers. There is everywhere the same method of composition - a primary use of Samuel and Kings as bases of the narrative, the abbreviation of what has been narrated before, the omission of important facts, otherwise known to the reader; and the addition of new facts, sometimes minute, and less important than curious, at other times so striking that it is surprising that the earlier historians should have passed them over.
6. The abrupt termination of Chronicles, in the middle of a sentence, is an unanswerable argument against its having come down to us in the form in which it was originally written.
And the recurrence of the final passage of our present copies of Chronicles at the commencement of Ezra, taken in conjunction with the undoubted fact, that there is a very close resemblance of style and tone between the two books, suggests naturally the explanation, which has been accepted by some of the best critics, that the two works, Chronicles and Ezra, were originally one, and were afterwards separated: that separation having probably arisen out of a desire to arrange the history of the post-captivity period in chronological sequence.
7. The condition of the text of Chronicles is far from satisfactory. Various readings are frequent, particularly in the names of persons and places; omissions are found, especially in the genealogies; and the numbers are sometimes self-contradictory, sometimes contradictory of more probable numbers in Samuel or Kings, sometimes unreasonably large, and therefore justly suspected.
The work is, however, free from defects of a more serious character. The unity is unbroken, and there is every reason to believe that we have the work, in almost all respects, exactly as it came from the hand of the author.
8. As compared with the parallel histories of Samuel and Kings, the history of Chronicles is characterized by three principal features:
(a) A greater tendency to dwell on the externals of religion, on the details of the temple worship, the various functions of the priests and Levites, the arrangement of the courses, and the like. Hence, the history of Chronicles has been called "ecclesiastical," while that of Samuel and Kings has been termed "political." This tendency does not detract from the credibility, or render the history undeserving of confidence.
(b) A marked genealogical bias and desire to put on record the names of persons engaged in any of the events narrated; and
(c) A more constant, open, and direct ascription of all the events of the history to the divine agency, and especially a more plain reference of every great calamity or deliverance to the good or evil deeds of the monarch, or the nation, which Divine Providence so punished or rewarded.
There is no reason to regard Chronicles as less trustworthy than Samuel or Kings. A due consideration of disputed points, the "Levitical spirit," contradictions, alleged mistakes, etc., does not, speaking generally, impugn the honesty of the writer or the authenticity of his work. The book may fairly be regarded as authentic in all its parts, with the exception of some of its members. These appear to have occasionally suffered corruption, though scarcely to a greater extent than those of other books of equal antiquity. From blemishes of this kind it has not pleased God to keep His Word free. It will scarcely be maintained at the present day that their occurrence affects in the very slightest degree the authenticity of the rest of the narrative.
The style of Chronicles is simpler and less elevated than that of Kings. Excepting the psalm of David in 1 Chr. 16 and the prayer of Solomon in 2 Chr. 6, the whole is prosaic, level, and uniform. There are no especially striking chapters, as in Kings; but it is less gloomy, being addressed to the restored nation, which it seeks to animate and inspirit. The captive people, weeping by the waters of Babylon, fitly read their mournful history in Kings: the liberated nation, entering hopefully upon a new life, found in Chronicles a review of its past, calculated to help it forward on the path of progress, upon which it was entering. Next: 2 Chronicles Chapter 1
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Introduction to Job
In reference to no part of the Scriptures have so many questions arisen as to the Book of Job. The time of its composition; the author; the country where the scene was laid; the question whether Job was a real person; the nature and design of the poem; have been points on which a great variety of opinion has been entertained among expositors, and on which different views still prevail. It is important, in order to have a correct understanding of the book, that all the light should be thrown on these subjects which can be; and though amidst the variety of opinion which prevails among men of the highest distinction in learning absolute certainty cannot be hoped for, yet such advances have been made in the investigation that on some of these points we may arrive to a high degree of probability.
Section 1. The Question whether Job Was a Real Person
The first question which presents itself in the examination of the book is, whether Job had a real existence. This has been doubted on such grounds as the following:
(1) The book has been supposed by some to have every mark of an allegory. Allegories and parables, it is said, are not uncommon in the Scriptures where a case is supposed, and then the narrative proceeds as if it were real. Such an instance, it has been maintained, occurs here, in which the author of the poem designed to illustrate important truths, but instead of stating them in an abstract form, chose to present them in the more graphic and interesting form of a supposed case - in which we are led to sympathize with a sufferer; to see the ground of the difficulty in the question under discussion in a more affecting manner than could be presented in an abstract form; and where the argument has all to interest the mind which one has when occurring in real life.
(2) it has been maintained that some of the transactions in the book must have been of this character, or are such as could not have actually occurred. Particularly it has been said that the account of the interview of Satan with yahweh -Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7 must be regarded merely as a supposed case, it being in the highest degree improbable that such an interview would occur, and such a conversation be held.
(3) the same conclusion has been drawn from the artificial character of the statements about the possessions of Job, both before and after his trials - statements which appear as if the case were merely supposed, and which would not be likely to occur in reality. Thus, we have only round numbers mentioned in enumerating his possessions - as 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she-asses. So, also, there is something artificial in the manner in which the sacred numbers seven and three are used. He had 7,000 sheep, 7 sons - both before and after his trials; his three friends came and sat down 7 days and 7 nights without saying a word to condole with him Job 2:13; and both before and after his trials he had three daughters. The same artificial and parabolical appearance, it is said, is seen in the fact that after his recovery his possessions were exactly doubled, and he had again in his old age exactly the same number of 7 sons and 3 daughters which he had before his afflictions.
(4) that the whole narration is allegorical or parabolical has been further argued from the conduct of the friends of Job. Their sitting down 7 days and 7 nights without saying anything, when they had come expressly to condole with him, it is said, is a wholly improbable circumstance, and looks as if the whole were a supposed case.
(5) the same thing has been inferred from the manner in which the book is written. It is of the highest order of poetry. The speeches are most elaborate; are filled with accurate and carefully prepared argument; are arranged with great care; are expressed in the most sententious manner; embody the results of long and careful observation, and are wholly unlike what would be uttered in unpremeditated and extemporary debate. No men, it is said, talk in this manner; nor can it be supposed that beautiful poetry and sublime argument, such as abound in this book, ever fell in animated debate from the lips of men. See Eichorn, Einleitung in das Alte Tes. V. Band. 129-131. From considerations such as these the historical character of the book has been doubted, and the whole has been regarded as a supposed case designed to illustrate the great question which the author of the poem proposed to examine.
It is important, therefore, to inquire what reasons there are for believing that such a person as Job lived, and how far the transactions referred to in the book are to be regarded as historically true.
(1) the fact of his existence is expressly declared, and the narrative has all the appearance of being a simple record of an actual occurrence. The first two chapters of the book, and a part of the last chapter, are simple historical records. The remainder of the book is indeed poetic, but these portions bare none of the characteristics of poetry. There are not to be found in the Bible more simple and plain historical statements than these; and there are none which, in themselves considered, might not be as properly set aside as allegorical. This fact should be regarded as decisive, unless there is some reason which does not appear on the face of the narrative for regarding it as allegorical.
(2) the account of the existence of such a man is regarded as historically true by the inspired writers of the Scriptures. Thus, in Eze 14:14, God says, "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it (the land), they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." Compare Eze 14:16, Eze 14:20. Here Job is referred to as a real character as distinctly as Noah and Daniel, and all the circumstances are just such as they would be on the supposition that he had a real existence. They are alike spoken of as real "men;" as having souls - "they should deliver but their own souls by their own righteousness;" as having sons and daughters - "they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, they only shall be delivered" Eze 14:16; and are in all respects mentioned alike as real characters. Of the historic fact that there were such men as Noah and Daniel there can be no doubt, and it is evident that Ezekiel as certainly regarded Job as a real character as he did either of the others.
A parallel passage, which will illustrate this, occurs in Jer 15:1 : "Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people." Here Moses and Samuel are spoken of as real characters, and there is no doubt of their having existed. Yet they are mentioned in the same manner as Job is in the passage in Ezekiel. In either case it is incredible that a reference should have been made to a fictitious character. The appeal is one that could have been made only to a real character, and there can be no reasonable doubt that Ezekiel regarded Job as having really existed; or rather, since it is God who speaks and not Ezekiel, that he speaks of Job as having actually existed. The same thing is evident from a reference to Job by the apostle James: "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy" Jam 5:11; that is, the happy issue to which the Lord brought all his trials, showing that he was pitiful to those in affliction, and of great mercy.
There can be no doubt that there is reference here to the sufferings of a real man, as there is to the real compassion which the Lord shows to one in great trials. It is incredible that this sacred writer should have appealed in this instance to the case of one whom he regarded as a fictitious character; and if the views of Ezekiel and James are to be relied on, there can be no doubt that Job had a real existence. Ezekiel mentions him just as he does Noah and Daniel, and James mentions him just as he does Elijah Jam 5:17; and so far as this historical record goes there is the same evidence of the actual existence of the one as of the other.
(3) the specifications of places and names in the book are not such as would occur in an allegory. Had it been merely a "supposed case," to illustrate some great truth, these specifications would have been unnecessary, and would not have occurred. In the acknowledged parables of the Scripture, there are seldom any very minute specifications of names and places. Thus, in the parable of the prodigal son, neither the name of the father, nor of the sons, nor of the place where the scene was laid, is mentioned. So of the nobleman who went to receive a kingdom; the unjust steward; the ten virgins, and of numerous others. But here we have distinct specifications of a great number of things which are in no way necessary to illustrate the main truth in the poem. Thus, we have not only the name of the sufferer, but the place of his residence mentioned, as if it were well known. We have the names of his friends, and the places of their residence mentioned - "Eliphaz the Temanite," and "Bildad the Shuhite," and "Zophar the Naamathite." and Elihu "the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram." Why are the places of residence of these persons mentioned unless it be meant to intimate that they were real persons, and not allegorical characters?
In like manner we have express mention of the Sabeans and the Chaldeans - specifications wholly unnecessary if not improbable if the work is an allegory. The single word "robbers" would have answered all the purpose, and would have been such as an inspired writer would have used unless the transaction were real, for an inspired writer would not have charged this offence on any class of men, thus holding them up to lasting reproach, unless an event of this kind had actually occurred. When the Savior, in the parable of the good Samaritan, mentions a robbery that occurred between Jerusalem and Jericho, the word "thieves," or more properly "robbers", is the only word used. No names are mentioned, nor is any class of men referred to, who would by such a mention of the name be held up to infamy. Thus, also we have the particular statement respecting the feasting of the sons and daughters of Job; his sending for and admonishing them; his offering up special sacrifices on their behalf; the account of the destruction of the oxen, the sheep, the camels, and the house where the sons and daughters of Job were - all statements of circumstances which would not be likely to occur in an allegory.
They are such particular statements as we expect to find respecting the real transactions, and they bear on the face of them the simple impression of truth. This is not the kind of information which we look for in a parable. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, almost the only one spoken by the Saviour where a name is mentioned, we have not that of the rich man; and though the name Lazarus is mentioned, yet that is all. We have no account of his family, of his place of residence, of his genealogy, of the time when he lived; and the name itself is so common that it would be impossible even to suspect whom the Savior had in his eye, if he had any real individual at all. Far different is this in the account of Job. It is true that in a romance, or in an extended allegory like the Pilgrim's Progress, we expect a detailed statement of names and places; but there is no evidence that there is any such extended fictitious narrative in the Bible, and unless the Book of Job be one there is no such extended allegory.
(4) the objections urged against this view are not such as to destroy the positive proof of the reality of the existence of Job. The objections which have been urged against the historical truth of the narrative, and which have already been in part alluded to, are principally the following:
The first is, the account of the interview between God and Satan in Job 1 and Job 2:1-13. It is alleged that this is so improbable a transaction as to throw an air of fiction over all the historical statements of the book. In reply to this, it may be observed, first, that even if this were not to be regarded as a literal transaction, it does not prove that no such man as Job lived, and that the transactions in regard to him were not real. He might have had an existence, and been stripped of his possessions, and subjected to these long and painful trials of his fidelity, even if this were a poetic ornament, or merely a figurative representation.
But, secondly, it is impossible to prove that no such transaction occurred. The existence of such a being as Satan is everywhere recognized in the Scriptures; the account which is here given of his character accords entirely with the uniform representation of him; he exerts no power over Job which is not expressly conceded to him; and it is impossible to prove that he does not even now perform the same things in the trial of good men, which it is said that he did in the case of Job. And even if it be admitted that there is somewhat of poetic statement in the form in which he is introduced, still this does not render the main account improbable and absurd. The Bible, from the necessity of the case, abounds with representations of this sort; and when it is said that God "speaks" to men, that he conversed with Adam, that he spake to the serpent Gen. 3, we are not necessarily to suppose that all this is strictly literal, nor does the fact that it is not strictly literal invalidate the main facts. There were results, or there was a series of facts following, as if this had been literally true; see the notes at Job 1:6-12.
A second objection to the historical truth of the transactions recorded in the book is, the poetic character of the work, and the strong improbability that addresses of this kind should ever have been made in the manner here represented. See Eichhorn, Einleit. v. 123, 124. They are of the highest order of poetry; they partake not at all of the nature of extemporaneous effusions; they indicate profound and close thinking, and are such as must have required much time to have prepared them. Especially it is said that it is in the highest degree improbable that Job, in the anguish of his body and mind, should have been capable of giving utterance to poetry and argument of this highly finished character. In regard to this objection, it may be observed,
(1) that even if this were so, and it were to be supposed that the arguments of the various speakers have a poetic character, and were in reality never uttered in the form in which we now have them, still this would not invalidate the evidence which exists of the historic truth of the facts stated about the existence and trials of Job. It might be true that he lived and suffered in this manner, and that a discussion of this character actually occurred, and that substantially these arguments were advanced, though they were afterward wrought by Job himself or by some other hand into the poetic form in which we now have them. Job himself lived after his trials 140 years, and, in itself considered, there is no improbability in the supposition, that when restored to the vigorous use of his powers, and in the leisure which he enjoyed, he should have thought it worthy to present the argument which he once held on this great subject in a more perfect form, and to give to it a more poetic cast. In this case, the main historic truth would be retained, and the real argument would in fact be stated - though in a form more worthy of preservation than could be expected to fall extemporaneously from the lips of the speakers. But
(2) all the difficulty may be removed by a supposition which is entirely in accordance with the character of the book and the nature of the case. It is, that the several speeches succeeded each other at such intervals as gave full time for reflection, and for carefully framing the argument. There is no evidence that the whole argument was gone through with "at one sitting;" there are no proofs that one speech followed immediately on another, or that a sufficient interval of time may not have elapsed to give opportunity for preparation to meet the views which had been suggested by the previous speaker. Everything in the book bears the marks of the most careful deliberation, and is as free as possible from the hurry and bustle of an extemporaneous debate. The sufferings of Job were evidently of a protracted nature. His friends sat down "seven days and seven nights" in silence before they said anything to him.
The whole subject of the debate seems to be arranged with most systematic care and regularity. The speakers succeed each other in regular order in a series of arguments - in each of these series following the same method, and no one of them out of his place. No one is ever interrupted while speaking; and no matter how keen and sarcastic his invectives, how torturing his reproaches, how bold or blasphemous what he said was thought to be, he is patiently heard until he has said all that he designed to say; and then all that he said is carefully weighed and considered in the reply. All this looks as if there might have been ample time to arrange the reply before it was uttered, and this supposition, of course, would relieve all the force of this objection. If this be so, then there is no more ground of objection against the supposition that these things were spoken, as it is said they were, than there is about the genuineness of the poems of the Grecian Rhapsodists, composed with a view to public recitation, or to the Iliad of Homer or the History of Herodotus, both of which, after they were composed, were recited publicly by their authors at Athens. No one can prove certainly that the several persons named in the book - Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zolphar, and Elihu - were incompetent to compose the speeches which are severally assigned to them, or that all the time necessary for such a composition was not taken by them.
Unless this can be done, the objection of its improbability, so confidently urged by Eichhorn (Einleit. v. 123ff.), and defended by Noyes (Intro. pp. xxi., xxi.), where he says that "the supposition that so beautiful and harmonious a whole, every part of which bears the stamp of the highest genius, was the casual production of a man brought to the gates of the grave by a loathsome disease, of three or four friends who had come to comfort him in his affliction, all of them expressing their thoughts in poetical and measured language; that the Deity was actually heard to speak half an hour in the midst of a violent storm; and that the consultations in the heavenly world were actual occurrences, is too extravagant to need refutation," is an objection really of little force.
A third objection has been derived from the round and doubled numbers which occur in the book, and the artificial character which the whole narrative seems to assume on that account. It is alleged that this is wholly an unusual and improbable occurrence; and that the whole statement appears as if it were a fictitious narrative. Thus Job's possessions of oxen and camels and sheep are expressed in round numbers; one part of these is exactly the double of another; and what is more remarkable still, all these are exactly doubled on his restoration to health. He had the same number of sons and the same number of daughters after his trial which he had before, and the number of each was what was esteemed among the Hebrews as a sacred number.
In regard to this objection, we may observe:
(1) That as to the round numbers, this is no more than what constantly occurs in historical statements. Nothing is more common in the enumeration of armies, of the people of a country, or of herds and flocks, than such statements.
(2) in regard to the fact that the possessions of Job are said to have been exactly "doubled" after his recovery from his calamities, it is not necessary to suppose that this was in all respects literally true. Nothing forbids us to suppose that, from the gifts of friends and other causes, the possessions of Job came so near to being just twice what they were before his trials, as to justify this general statement. In the statement itself, there is nothing improbable. Job lived 140 after his trials. If he had then the same measure of prosperity which he had before, and with the assistance of his friends to enable him to begin life again, there is no improbability in the supposition that these possessions would be doubled.
These are substantially all the objections which have been urged against the historical character of the book, and if they are not well founded, then it follows that it should be regarded as historically true that such a man actually lived, and that he passed through the trials which are here described. A more extended statement of these objections, and a refutation of them, may be found in the following works: - Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, Vol. V. p. 298ff. ed. 8vo, London, 1811; Prof. Lee on Job, Intro. Section 11; and Magee on atonement and Sacrifice, p. 212, following, ed. New York, 1813. It should be said, however, that not a few writers admit that such a man as Job lived, and that the book has an historical basis, while they regard the work itself as in the main poetic. In the view of such critics, the poet, in order to illustrate the great truth which he proposed to consider, made use of a tradition respecting the sufferings of a well-known person of distinction, and gave to the whole argument the high poetic cast which it has now. This supposition is in accordance with the methods frequently adopted by epic and tragic poets, and which is commonly followed by writers of romance. This is the opinion of Eichhorn, Einleitung V. Section 638.
Section 2. The Question on Where Job Lived
In Job 1:1, it is said that Job dwelt "in the land of Uz." The only question, then, to be settled in ascertaining where he lived, is, if possible, to determine where this place was. From the manner in which the record is made ("the land of Uz") it would seem probable that this was a region of country of some considerable extent, and also that it derived its name from some man of that name who had settled there. The word Uz (עוּץ ‛ûts), according to Gesenius, means a light, sandy soil; and if the name was given to the country with reference to this quality of the soil, it would be natural to fix on some region remarkable for its barrenness - a waste place or a desert. Gesenius supposes that Uz was in the northern part of Arabia Deserta - a place lying between Palestine and the Euphrates, called by Ptolemy Αἰσῖται Aisitai. This opinion is defended by Rosenmuller (Prolegomena); and is adopted by Spanheim, Bochart, Lee, Umbreit, Noyes, and the authors of the Universal History. Dr. Good supposes that the Uz here referred to was in Arabia Petraea, on the southwestern coast of the Dead Sea, and that Job and all his friends referred to in the poem were Idumeans. Introductory Dissertation, Section 1.
Eichhorn also supposes that the scene is laid in Idumea, and that the author of the poem shows that he had a particular acquaintance with the history, customs, and productions of Egypt. Einleit. Section 638. Bochart (in Phaleg et Canaan), Michaelis (Spicileg. Geog. Hebraeo.), and Ilgen (Jobi, Antiquis. carminis Hebrew natura et indoles, p. 91), suppose that the place of his residence was the valley of Guta near Damascus, regarded as the most beautiful of the four Paradises of the Arabians. For a description of this valley, see Eichhorn, Einleit. V. s. 134. The word עוּץ ‛ûts (Uz) occurs only in the following places in the Hebrew Bible: Gen 10:23; Gen 22:21; Gen 36:28, and Ch1 1:17, Ch1 1:42; in each of which places it is the name of a man; and in Jer 25:20; Lam 4:21, and in Job 1:1, where it is applied to a country. The only circumstances which furnish any probability in regard to the place where Job lived, are the following:
(1) Those which enable us to determine with some probability where the family of Uz was settled, who not improbably gave his name to the country - as Sheba, and Seba, and Tema, and Cush, and Misraim, and others, did to the countries where they settled. In Gen 10:23; Uz עוּץ ‛ûts, is mentioned as a grandson of Shem. In Gen 22:21; an Uz (English Bible, "Huz") is mentioned as the son of Nahor, brother of Abraham, undoubtedly a different person from the one mentioned in Gen 10:23. In Gen 36:28, an individual of this name is mentioned among the descendants of Esau. In Ch1 1:17, the name occurs among the "sons of Shem;" and in Ch1 1:42, the same name occurs among the descendants of Esau. So far, therefore, as the name is concerned, it may have been derived from one of the family of Shem, or from one who was a contemporary with Abraham, or from a somewhat remote descendant Esau. It will be seen in the course of this introduction, that there is strong improbability that the name was given to the country because it was settled by either of the two latter, as such a supposition would bring down the time when Job lived to a later period than the circumstances recorded in his history will allow, and it is therefore probable that the name was conferred in honor of the grandson of Shem. This fact, of itself, will do something to determine the place.
Shem lived in Asia, and we shall find that the settlements of his descendants originally occupied the country somewhere in the vicinity of the Euphrates; Gen 10:21-30. In Gen 10:23; Uz is mentioned as one of the sons of Aram, who gave name to the country known as Aramea, or Syria, and from whom the Arameans descended. Their original residence, it is supposed, was near the river Kir, or Cyrus, from where they were brought, at some period now unknown, by a deliverance resembling that of the children of Israel from Egypt, and placed in the regions of Syria; see Amo 9:7. The inhabitants of Syria and Mesopotamia are always called by Moses "Arameus": as they had their seat in and near Mesopotamia, it is probable that Uz was located also not far from that region. We should, therefore, naturally be led to look for the country of Uz somewhere in that vicinity. In Gen 10:30; it is further said of the sons of Shem, that "their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the East;" a statement which corresponds with what is said of Job himself, that he was "the greatest of all the men of the East" Job 1:8; manifestly implying that he was an inhabitant of the country so called.
Various opinions have been entertained of the places where Mesha and Sephar were. The opinion of Michaelis is the most probable (Spicileg. pt. 11, p. 214), "that Mesha is the region around Passora, which the later Syrians called Maishon, and the Greeks Mesene. Under these names they included the country on the Euphrates and the Tigris, between Seleucia and the Persian Gulf. Abulfeda mentions in this region two cities not far from Passora, called Maisan, and Mushan. Here, then, was probably the northeastern border of the district inhabited by the Joktanites. The name of the opposite limit, Sephar, signifies in the Chaldee shore or coast, and is probably the western part of Yemen, along the Arabian Gulf, now called by the Arabs Tchiainah. The range of high and mountainous country between these two borders, Moses calls "the Mount of the East," or eastern mountains. It is also called by the Arabs, Djebal, i. e., "mountains," to the present day. See Rosenmuller's Alterthumskunde, iii. 163, 164.
The supposition that some portion of this region is denoted by the country where Uz settled, and is the place where Job resided is strengthened by the fact, that many of the persons and tribes mentioned in the book resided in this vicinity. Thus, it is probable that Eliphaz the Temanite had his residence there; see the notes at Job 2:11. The Sabeans probably dwelt not very remote from that region (see the notes at Job 1:15); the Chaldeans we know had their residence there (notes, Job 1:17), and this supposition will agree well with what is said of the tornado that came from the "wilderness," or desert; see the notes at Job 1:19. The residence of Job was so near to the Chaldeans and the Sabeans that he could be reached in their usual predatory excursions; a fact that better accords with the supposition that his residence was in some part of Arabia Deserta, than that it was in Idumea.
(2) this country is referred to in two places by Jeremiah, which may serve to aid us in determining its location; Lam 4:21 :
"Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
That dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup shall pass through unto thee:
Thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked."
At first view, perhaps, this passage would indicate that the land of Uz was a part of Edom, yet it more properly indicates that the land of Uz was not a part of that land, but that the Edomites or Idumeans had gained possession of a country which did not originally belong to them. Thus, the prophet speaks of the "daughter of Edom," not as dwelling in her own country properly, but as dwelling "in the land of Uz" - in a foreign country, of which she had somehow obtained possession. The country of Edom, properly, was Mount Seir and the vicinity, south of the Dead Sea; but it is known that the Edomites subsequently extended their boundaries, and that at one period Bozrah, on the east of the Dead Sea, in the country of Moab, was their capital; see the Analysis of Isa. 34, and the notes at Isa 34:6. It is highly probable that Jeremiah refers to the period when the Idumeans, having secured these conquests, and made this foreign city their capital, is represented as dwelling there. If so, according to this passage in Lamentations, we should naturally look for the land of Uz somewhere in the countries to which the conquests of the Edomites extended - and these conquests were chiefly to the east of their own land. A similar conclusion will be derived from the other place where the name occurs in Jeremiah. It is in Jer 25:20 ff. "And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Askelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, and Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon," etc. Two things are apparent here. One is, that the country of Uz was distinct from the land of Edom, since they are mentioned as separate nations; the other is, that it was a country of some considerable extent, since it is mentioned as being under several "kings." There is, indeed, in this reference to it no allusion to its situation; but it is mentioned as being well known in the time of Jeremiah.
(3) the same thing is evident from the manner in which the residence of Job is spoken of in Job 1:8. He is there said to have been the "greatest of all the men of the east." This implies that his residence was in the land which was known familiarly as the country of the East. It is true, indeed, that we have not yet determined where the poem was composed, and of course do not know precisely what the author would understand by this phrase, but the expression has a common signification in the Scriptures, as denoting the country east of Palestine. The land of Idumea, however, was directly south; and we are, therefore, naturally led to look to some other place as the land of Uz; compare the notes at Job 1:3. The expression "the East," as used in the Bible, would in no instance naturally lead us to look to Idumea.
(4) the Septuagint renders the word Uz in Job 1:1. by Ασίτις Asitis - a word which seems to have been formed from the Hebrew עוּץ ‛ûts, Utz, or Uz. Of course, their translation gives no intimation of the place referred to. But Ptolemy (Geog. Lib. v.) speaks of a tribe or nation in the neighborhood of Babylon, whom he calls Αὐσίται Ausitai, Ausitae (or as it was perhaps written Αἰσίται Aisitai), the same word which is used by the Septuagint in rendering the word Uz. These people are placed by Ptolemy in the neighborhood of the Cauchebeni - ὑπὸ υὲν τοῖς Καυχαβηνοις hupo men tois Kauchabēnois - and he speaks of them as separated from Chaldea by a ridge of mountains. See Rosenm. Prolegomena, p. 27. This location would place Job so near to the Chaldeans, that the account of their making an excursion into his country Job 1:17 would be entirely probable. - It may be added, also, that in the same neighborhood we find a town called Sabas (Σάβας Sabas) in Diodorus Sic. Lib. iii. Section 46. Prof. Lee, p. 32. These circumstances render it probable that the residence of the patriarch was west of Chaldea, and somewhere in the northern part of Arabia Deserta, between Palestine, Idumea, and the Euphratcs.
(5) the monuments and memorials of Job still preserved or referred to in the East, may be adduced as some slight evidence of the fact that such a man as Job lived, and as an indication of the region in which he resided. It is true that they depend on mere tradition; but monuments are not erected to the memory of any who are not supposed to have had an existence, and traditions usually have some basis in reality. Arabian writers always make mention of Job as a real person, and his pretended grave is shown in the East to this day. It is shown indeed in six different places: but this is no evidence that all that is said of the existence of such a man is fabulous, anymore than the fact that seven cities contended for the honor of the birth of Homer is an evidence that there was no such man. The most celebrated tomb of this kind is that of the Trachonitis, toward the springs of the Jordan. It is situated between the cities still bearing the names of Teman, Shuah, and Naama - (Wemyss); though there is every reason to believe that these names have been given rather with reference to the fact that that was supposed to be his residence, than that they were the names of the places referred to in the book of Job. One of these tombs was shown to Niebuhr. He says (Reisebeschreib, i. 466, "Two or three hours east of Saada is a great mosque, in which, according to the opinion of the Arabs who reside there, the sufferer Job lies buried." "On the eastern limits of Arabia, they showed me the grave of Job, close to the Euphrates, and near the Helleh, one hour south from Babylon." is of importance to remark here only that all of these tombs are outside the limits of Idumea. Among the Arabians there are numerous traditions respecting Job, many of them indeed stories that are entirely ridiculous, but all showing the firm belief prevalent in Arabia that there was such a man. See Sale's Koran, vol. ii. pp. 174, 322; Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, pp. 366, 367; and D'Herbelot, Bibli. Orient. tom. i. pp. 75, 432, 438, as quoted by Magee.
(6) the present belief of the Arabians may be referred to as corroborating the results to which we have approximated in this inquiry, that the residence of Job was not in Idumea, but was in some part of Arabia Deserta, lying between Palestine and the Euphrates. Eli Smith stated to me (November, 1840) that there was still a place in the Houran called by the Arabians, Uz; and that there is a tradition among them that that was the residence of Job. It is northeast of Bozrah. Bozrah was once the capital of Idumea (notes on Isa 34:6), though it was situated without the limits of their natural territory. If this tradition is well founded, then Job was not probably an Idumean. There is nothing that renders the tradition improbable, and the course of the investigation conducts us, with a high degree of probability, to the conclusion that this was the residence of Job. On the residence of Job and his friends, consult also Abrahami Peritsol Itinera Mundi, in Ugolin, Thes. Sac. vii. pp. 103-106.
Section 3. The Time When Job Lived
There has been quite as much uncertainty in regard to the time when Job lived, as there has been in regard to the place where he lived. It should be observed here, that this question is not necessarily connected with the inquiry when the book was composed, and will not be materially affected, whether we suppose it to have been composed by Job himself, by Moses, or by a later writer. Whenever the book was composed, if at a later period than that in which the patriarch lived, the author would naturally conceal the marks of his own time, by referring only to such customs and opinions as prevailed in the age when the events were supposed to have occurred.
On this question, we cannot hope to arrive at absolute certainty. It is remarkable that neither the genealogical record of the family of Job nor that of his three friends is given. The only record of the kind occurring in the book, is that of Elihu Job 32:2, and this is so slight as to furnish but little assistance in determining when he lived. The only circumstances which occur in regard to this question, are the following; and they will serve to settle the question with sufficient probability, as it is a question on which no important results can depend.
(1) the age of Job. According to this, the time when he lived, would occur somewhere between the age of Terah, the father of Abraham, and Jacob, or about 1,800 years before Christ, and about 600 years after the deluge. For the reasons of this opinion, see the notes at Job 42:16. This estimate cannot pretend to be entirely accurate, but, it has a high degree of probability. If this estimate is correct, he lived not far from 400 years before the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, and before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; compare the notes at Act 7:6.
(2) as a slight confirmation of this opinion, we may refer to the traditions in reference to the time when he lived. The account which is appended to the Septuagint, that he was a son of Zare, one of the sons of Esau, and the fifth in descent from Abraham, may be seen in the notes at Job 42:16. A similar account is given at the close of the Arabic translation of Job, so similar that the one has every appearance of having been copied from the other, or of their having had a common origin. "Job dwelt in the land of Uz, between the borders of Edom and Arabia, and was before called Jobab. He married a foreign wife, whose name was Anun. Job was himself a son of Zare, one of the sons of Esau; and his mother's name was Basra, and he was the sixth in descent from Abraham. But of the kings who reigned in Edom, the first who reigned over the land was Balak, the son of Beor; and the name of his city was Danaba. And after him Jobab, who is called Job; and after him the name of him who was prince of the land of Teman; and after him his son Barak, he who slew and put to flight Madian in the plain of Moab, and the name of his city was Gjates. And of the friends of Job who came to meet him, was Elifaz, of the sons of Esau, the king of the Temanites." These traditions are worthless, except as they show the prevalent belief when these translations were made, that Job lived somewhere near the time of the three great Hebrew patriarchs.
A nearly uniform tradition also has concurred in describing this as about the age in which he lived. The Hebrew writers generally concur in describing him as living in the days of Isaac and Jacob. Wemyss. Eusebius places him about two "ages" before Moses. The opinions of the Eastern nations generally concur in assigning this as the age in which he lived.
(3) from the representations in the book itself, it is clear that he lived before the departure from Egypt. This is evident from the fact that there is no direct allusion either to that remarkable event, or to the series of wonders which accompanied it, or to the journey to the land of Canaan. This silence is unaccountable on any other supposition than that he lived before it occurred, for two reasons. One is, that it would have furnished the most striking illustration occurring in history, of the interposition by God in delivering his friends and in destroying the wicked, and was such an illustration as Job and his friends could not have failed to refer to, in defense of their opinions, if it were known to them; and the other is, that this event was the great storehouse of argument and illustration for all the sacred writers, after it occurred. The deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and the divine interposition in conducting the nation to the promised land, is constantly referred to by the sacred writers. They derive from those events their most magnificent descriptions of the power and majesty of Yahweh. They refer to them as illustrating his character and government. They appeal to them in proof that he was the friend and protector of his people, and that he would destroy his foes. They draw from them their most sublime and beautiful poetic images, and are never weary with calling the attention of the people to their obligation to serve God, on account of his merciful and wonderful interposition. The very point of the argument in this book is one that would be better illustrated by that deliverance, than by any other event which ever occurred in history; and as this must have been known to the inhabitants of the country where Job lived, it is inexplicable that there is no allusion to these transactions, if they had already occurred.
It is clear, therefore, that even if the book was written at a later period than the exode from Egypt, the author of the poem meant to represent the patriarch as having lived before that event. He has described him as one who was ignorant of it, and in such circumstances, and with such opinions, that he could not have failed to refer to it, if he was believed to have lived after that event. It is equally probable that Job lived before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This event occurred in the vicinity of the country where he lived, and he could not have been ignorant of it. It was, moreover, a case not less in point in the argument than the deliverance from Egypt was; and it is not conceivable that a reference to so signal a punishment on the wicked by the direct judgment of the Almighty, would have been omitted in an argument of the nature of that in this book. It was the very point maintained by the friends of Job, that God interposed by direct judgments to cut off the wicked; and the world never furnished a more appropriate illustration of this than had occurred in their own neighborhood, on the supposition that the calamities of Job occurred after that event.
(4) the same thing is apparent also from the absence of all allusion to the Jewish rites, manners, customs, religious ceremonies, priesthood, festivals, fasts, sabbaths, etc. There will be occasion in another part of this introduction (Section 4) to inquire how far there is in fact such a lack of allusion to these things. All that is now meant is, that there is an obvious and striking lack of such allusions as we should expect to find made by one who lived at a later period, and who was familiar with the customs and religious rites of the Jews. The plan of the poem, it may be admitted, indeed, did not demand any frequent allusion to these customs and rites, and may be conceded to be adverse to such an allusion, even if they were known; but it is hardly conceivable that there should not have been some reference to them of more marked character than is now found. Even admitting that Job was a foreigner, and that the author meant to preserve this impression distinctly, yet his residence could not have been far from the confines of the Jewish people; and one who manifested such decided principles of piety toward God as he did, could not but have had a strong sympathy with that people, and could not but have referred to their rites in an argument so intimately pertaining to the government of yahweh. The representation of Job, and the allusions in the book, are in all respects such as would occur on the supposition that he lived before the special Jewish polity was instituted.
(5) the same thing is manifest from another circumstance. The religion of Job is of the same kind which we find prevailing in the time of Abraham, and before the institution of the Jewish system. It is a religion of sacrifices, but without any officiating priest. Job himself presents the offering, as the head of the family, in behalf of his children and his friends; Job 1:5; Job 42:8. There is no priest appointed for this office; no temple, tabernacle, or sacred place of any kind; no consecrated altar. Now this is just the kind of religion which we find prevailing among the patriarchs, until the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; and hence, it is natural to infer that Job lived anterior to that event. Thus, we find Noah building an altar to the Lord, and offering sacrifices, Gen 8:20; Abraham offering a sacrifice himself in the same manner, Gen 15:9-11; compare Gen 12:1-13; and this was undoubtedly the earliest form of religion. Sacrifices were offered to God, and the father of a family was the officiating priest.
These circumstances combined leave little doubt as to the time when Job lived. They concur in fixing the period as not remote from the age of Abraham, and there is no other period of history in which they will be found to unite. No question of great importance, however, depends on settling this question; and these circumstances determine the time with sufficient accuracy for all that is necessary, in an exposition of the book.
Section 4. The Author of the Book
A question of more vital importance than those which have been already considered, relates to the authorship of the book. As the name of the author is nowhere mentioned, either in the book itself or elsewhere in the Bible, it is of course impossible to arrive at absolute certainty; and after all that has been written on it, it is still and must be a point of mere conjecture. Still the question, as it is commonly discussed, opens a wide range of inquiry, and claims an investigation. If the name of the author cannot be discovered with certainty, it may be possible at least to decide with some degree of probability at what period of the world it was committed to writing, and perhaps with a degree of probability that may be sufficiently satisfactory, by whom it was done.
The first inquiry that meets us in the investigation of this point is, whether the whole book was composed by the same author, or whether the historical parts were added by a later hand. The slightest acquaintance with the book is sufficient to show, that there are in it two essentially different kinds of style - the poetic and prosaic. The body of the work, Job 3-42:6, is poetry; the other portion, Job 1; Job 2:1-13 and Job 42:7-17, is prose. The genuineness of the latter has been denied by many eminent critics, and particularly by DeWette, who regard it as the addition of some later hand. Against the prologue and the epilogue DeWette urges, "that the perfection of the work requires their rejection, because they solve the problem which is the subject of the discussion, by the idea of trial and compensation; whereas it was the design of the author to solve the question through the idea of entire submission on the part of man to the wisdom and power of God;" see Noyes, Intro. pp. xxi., xxii.
To this objection it may be replied:
(1) That we are to learn the view of the author only by all that he has presented to us. It may have been a part of his plan to exhibit just this view - not to present an abstract argument, but such an argument in connection with a real case, and to make it more vivid by showing an actual instance of calamity falling upon a pious man, and by a state of remarkable prosperity succeeding it. The presumption is, that the author of the poem designed to throw all the light possible on a very obscure and dark subject; and in order to that, a statement of the facts which preceded and followed the argument seems indispensable.
(2) without the statement in the conclusion of the prosperity of Job after his trials, the argument of the book is incomplete. The main question is not solved. God is introduced in the latter chapters, not as solving by explicit statements the questions that had given so much perplexity, but as showing the duty of unqualified submission. But when this is followed by the historical statement of the return of Job to a state of prosperity, of the long life which he afterward enjoyed, and of the wealth and happiness which attended him for nearly a century and a half, the objections of his friends and his own difficulties are abundantly met, and the conclusion of the whole shows that God is not regardless of his people, but that, though they pass through severe trials, still they are the objects of his tender care.
(3) besides, the prologue is necessary in order to understand the character, the language, and the arguments of Job. In the harsh and irreverent speeches which he sometimes makes, in his fearful imprecations in Job 3 on the day of his birth, and in the outbreaks of impatience which we meet with, it would be impossible for us to have the sympathy for the sufferer which the author evidently desired we should have, or to understand the depth of his woes, unless we had a view of his previous prosperity, and of the causes of his trials, and unless we had the assurance that he had been an eminently pious and upright man. As it is, we are prepared to sympathize with a sufferer of eminent rank, a man of previous wealth and prosperity, and one who had been brought into these circumstances or the very purpose of trial. We become at once interested to know how human nature will act in such circumstances, nor does the interest ever flag.
Under these sudden and accumulated trials, we admire, at first, the patience and resignation of the sufferer; then, under the protracted and intolerable pressure, we are not surprised to witness the outbreak of his feelings in Job 3; and then we watch with great interest and without weariness the manner in which he meets the ingenious arguments of his "friends" to prove that he had always been a hypocrite, and their cutting taunts and reproaches. It would be impossible to keep up this interest in the argument unless we were prepared for it by the historical statement in the introductory chapters. It should be added, that any supposition that these chapters are by a later hand, is entirely conjectural - no authority for any such belief being furnished by the ancient versions, manuscripts, or traditions. These remarks, however, do not forbid us to suppose, that, if the book were composed by Job himself, the last two verses in Job 42, containing an account of his age and death, were added by a later hand - as the account of the death of Moses Deu 34:1-12 must be supposed not to be the work of Moses himself, but of some later inspired writer.
If there is, therefore, reason to believe that the whole work, substantially as we have it now, was committed to writing by the same hand, the question arises, whether there are any circumstances by which it can be determined with probability who the author was. On no question, almost, pertaining to sacred criticism, have there been so many contradictory opinions as on this. Lowth, Magee, Prof. Lee, and many others, regard it as the work of Job himself. Lightfoot and others ascribe it to Elihu; some of the rabbinical writers, as also Kennicott, Michaelis, Dathe, and Good, to Moses; Luther, Grotius, and Doederlin, to Solomon; Umbreit and Noyes to some writer who lived not far from the period of the Jewish captivity; Rosenmuller, Spanheim, Reimar, Stauedlin, and C. F. Richter, suppose that it was composed by some Hebrew writer about the time of Solomon; Warburton regards it as the production of Ezra; Herder (Hebrew Poetry, i. 110) supposes that it was written by some ancient Idumean, probably Job himself, and was obtained by David in his conquests over Idumea. He supposes that in the later writings of David he finds traces of his having imitated the style of this ancient book.
It would be uninteresting and profitless to go into an examination of the reasons suggested by these respective authors for their various opinions. Instead of this, I propose to state the leading considerations which have occurred in the examination of the book itself, and of the reasons which have been suggested by these various authors, which may enable us to form a probable opinion. If the investigation shall result only in adding one more conjecture to those already formed, still it will have the merit of stating about all that seems to be of importance in enabling us to form an opinion in the case.
I. The first circumstance that would occur to one in estimating the question about the authorship of the book, is the foreign cast of the whole work - the fact that it differs from the usual style of the Hebrew compositions. The customs, allusions, figures of speech, and modes of thought, to one who is familiar with the writings of the Hebrews, have a foreign air, and are such as evidently show that the speakers lived in some other country than Judea. There is, indeed, a common Oriental cast diffused over the whole work, enough to distinguish it from all the modes of composition in the Occidental world; but there is, also, scarcely less to distinguish it from the compositions which we know had their origin among the Hebrews. The style of thought, and the general cast of the book, is Arabian. The allusions; the metaphors; the illustrations; the reference to historical events and to prevailing customs, are not such as an Hebrew would make; certainly not, unless in the very earliest periods of history, and before the character of the nation became so formed as to distinguish it characteristically from their brethren in the great family of the East. Arabian deserts; streams failing from drought; wadys filled in the winter and dry in the summer; moving hordes and caravans that come regularly to the same place for water; dwellings of tents easily plucked up and removed; the dry and stinted shrubbery of the desert; the roaring of lions and other wild beasts; periodical rains; trees planted on the verge of running streams; robbers and plunderers that rise before day, and make their attack in the early morning; the rights, authority, and obligation of the גאל gô'el, or avenger of blood; the claims of hospitality; the formalities of an Arabic court of justice, are the images which are kept constantly before the mind.
Here the respect due to an Emir; the courtesy of manners which prevails among the more elevated ranks in the Arabic tribes; the profound attention which listens to the close while one is speaking, and which never interrupts him (Herder i. 81), so remarkable among well-bred Orientals at the present day, appear everywhere. It is true, that many of these things may find a resemblance in the undoubted Hebrew writings - for some of them are the common characteristics of the Oriental people - but still, no one can doubt that they abound in this book more than in any other in the Bible, and that, as we shall see more particularly soon, they are unmixed as they are elsewhere, with what is indubitably of Hebrew origin. In connection with this, it may be remarked that there are in the book an unusual number of words, whose root is found now only in the Arabic, and which are used in a sense not common in the Hebrew, but usual in the Arabic. Of this all will be convinced who, in interpreting the book, avail themselves of the light which Gesenius has thrown on numerous words from the Arabic, or who consult the Lexicon of Castell, or who examine the Commentaries of Schultens and Lee. That more importance has been attached to this by many critics than facts will warrant, no one can deny; but as little can it be denied that more aid can be derived from the Arabic language in interpreting this book, than in the exposition of any other part of the Bible. On this point Gesenius makes the following remarks "Altogether there is found in the book much resemblance to the Arabic, or which can be illustrated from the Arabic; but this is either Hebrew, and pertains to the poetic diction, or it is at the same time Aramaish, and was borrowed by the poet from the Aramaean language, and appears here not as Aramaean but as Arabic. Yet there is not here proportionably more than in other poetic books and portions of books. It would be unjust to infer from this that the author of this book had any immediate connection with Arabia, or with Arabic literature." Geschichte der hebr. Sprache und Schrift, S. 88. The fact of the Arabic cast of the work is conceded by Gesenius in the above extract; the inferences in regard to the connection of the book with Arabia and with Arabic literature which may be derived from this, is to be determined from other circumstances; compare Eichhorn, Einleitung, v. S. 163ff.
II. A second consideration that may enable us to determine the question respecting the authorship of the book is, the fact that there are in it numerous undoubted allusions to events which occurred before the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, and the establishment of the Jewish institutions. The point of this remark is, that if we shall find such allusions, and also that there are no allusions to events occurring after that period, this is a circumstance which may throw some light on the authorship. It will at least enable us to fix, with some degree of accuracy, the time when the book was committed to writing. Now that there are manifest allusions to events occurring before that period, the following references will show; Job 10:9, "Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me to dust again?" Here there is an allusion in almost so many words to the statements in Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19, respecting the manner in which man was formed - showing that Job was familiar with the account of the creation of man, Job 27:3, "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;" Job 33:4, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life;" Job 32:8, "But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
Here there are undoubted allusions, also, to the manner in which man was formed - (compare Gen 2:7) - allusions which show that the fact must have been made known to the speakers by tradition, since it is not such a fact as man would readily arrive at by reasoning. The imbecility and weakness of man also, are described in terms which imply an acquaintance with the manner in which he was created. "How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth;" Job 4:19. In Job 31:33, there is probably an allusion to the fact that Adam attempted to hide himself from God when he had eaten the forbidden fruit. "If I covered my transgressions as Adam." For the reasons for supposing that this refers to Adam, see the notes at the verse. In Job 22:15-16, there is a manifest reference to the deluge. "Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood?"
See the notes on that passage. In connection with this we may refer also to the fact that the description of the modes of worship, and the views of religion, found in this book, show an acquaintance with the form in which worship was offered to God before the exode from Egypt. They are of precisely such a character as we find in the time of Abel, Noah, and Abraham. These events are not such as would occur to one who was not familiar with the historical facts recorded in the first part of the book of Genesis. They are not such as would result from a train of reasoning, but could only be derived from the knowledge of those events which would be spread over the East at that early period of the world. They demonstrate that the work was composed by one who had had an opportunity to become acquainted with what is now recorded as the Mosaic history of the creation, and of the early events of the world.
III. There are no such allusions to events occurring after the exode from Egypt, and the establishment of the Jewish institutions. As this is a point of great importance in determining the question respecting the authorship of the book, and as it as been confidently asserted that there are such allusions, and as they have been made the basis of an argument to prove that the book had an origin as late as Solomon or even as Ezra, it is of importance to examine this point with attention. The point is, that there are no such allusions as a Hebrew would make after the exode; or in other words, there is nothing in the book itself which would lead us to conclude that it was composed after the departure from Egypt. A few remarks will show the truth and the bearing of this observation.
The Hebrew writers were remarkable above most others for allusions to the events of their own history. The dealings of God with their nation had been so special, and they were so much imbued with the conviction that the events of their own history furnished proofs of the divine favor toward their nation, that we find in their writings a constant reference to what had happened to them as a people. Particularly the deliverance from Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the giving of the law on Sinai, the journey in the wilderness, the conquest of the land of Canaan, and the destruction of their enemies, constituted an unfailing depository of argument and illustration for their writers in all ages. All their poetry written subsequent to these events, abounds with allusions to them. Their prophets refer to them for topics of solemn appeal to the nation; and the remembrance of these things warms the heart of piety, and animates the song of praise in the temple-service. Under the sufferings of the "captivity," they are cheered by the fact that God delivered them once from much more galling oppression; and in the times of freedom, their liberty is made sweet by the memory of what their fathers suffered in the "house of bondage."
Now it is as undeniable as it is remarkable, that in the book of Job there are no such allusions to these events as a Hebrew would make. There is no allusion to Moses; no indisputable reference to their bondage in Egypt, to the oppressive acts of Pharaoh, to the destruction of his army in the Red Sea, to the rescue of the children of Israel, to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, to the perils of the wilderness, to their final settlement in the promised land. There is no reference to the tabernacle, to the ark, to the tables of the law, to the institution and the functions of the priesthood, to the cities of refuge, or to the special religious rites of the Hebrew people. There is none to the theocracy, to the days of solemn convocation, to the great national festivals, or to the names of the Jewish tribes. There is none to the special judicial laws of the Hebrews, and none to the administration of justice but such as we should find in the early patriarchal times.
These omissions are the more remarkable, as has been already observed, because many of these events would have furnished the most apposite illustrations of the points maintained by the different speakers of any which had ever occurred in history. Nothing could have been more in point, on numerous occasions in conducting the argument, than the destruction of Pharaoh, the deliverance and protection of the people of God, the care evinced for them in the wilderness, and the overthrow of their enemies in the promised land. So obvious do these considerations appear, that they seem to settle the question on one point in regard to the authorship of the book, and to show that it could not have been composed by a Hebrew after the exode. For several additional arguments to prove that the book was written before the exode, see Eichhorn, Einleit, section 641. As, however, notwithstanding these facts, it has been held by some respectable critics - as Rosenmuller, Umbreit, Warburton, and others - that it was composed as late as the time of Solomon, or even the captivity, it is important to inquire in what way it is proposed to set this argument aside, and by what considerations they propose to defend its composition at a later date than the exode. They are, briefly, the following:
(1) One is, that the very design of the poem, whenever it was composed, required that there should be no such allusion. The scene, it is said is laid, not in Palestine, but in a foreign country; the time supposed is that of the patriarchs, and before the exode; the characters are not Hebrew, but are Arabian or Idumean, and the very purpose of the author required that there should be no allusion to the unique history or customs of the Hebrews. The same thing, it is said, occurred which would in the composition of poem or romance now in which the scene is laid in a foreign land, or in the time of the Crusades or the Caesars. We should expect that the characters, the costume, the habits of that foreign country or those distant times, would be carefully observed. "As they (the characters and the author of the work) were Arabians who had nothing to do with the institutions of Moses, it is plain that a writer of genius would not have been guilty of the absurdity of putting the sentiments, eats of a Jew into the mouth of an Arabian, at least so far as relates to such tangible matters as institutions, positive laws, ceremonies, and history. The author has manifested abundant evidence of genius and skill in the structure and execution of the work, to account for his not having given to Arabians the obvious peculiarities of Hebrews who lived under the institutions of Moses, at whatever period it may have been written.
Even if the characters of the book had been Hebrews, the argument under consideration would not have been perfectly conclusive, for, from the nature of the subject, we might have expected as little in it that was Levitical or grossly Jewish, as in the Book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes." Noyes, Introduction p. 28. This supposition assumes that the work was written in a later age than that of Moses. It furnishes no evidence, however, that it was so written. It can only furnish evidence that the author had genius and skill so to throw himself back into a distant age and into a foreign land, as completely to conceal his own uniqueness of country or time, and to represent characters as living and acting in the supposed country and period, without betraying his own. So far as the question about the author, and the time when the work was composed, is concerned, the fact here admitted, that there are no allusions to events after the exode, is quite as strong certainly in favor of the supposition that it was composed before as after that event.
There are still some difficulties on the supposition that it was written by a Hebrew of a later age, who designedly meant to give it an Arabic dress, and to make no allusion to anything in the institutions and history of his own country that would betray its authorship, One is, the intrinsic difficulty of doing this. It requires rare genius for an author so to throw himself into past ages, as leave nothing that shall betray his own times and country. We are never so betrayed as to imagine that Shakespeare lived in the time of Coriolanus or of Caesar; that Johnson lived in the time and the country of Rasselas; or that Scott lived in the times of the Crusaders. Instances have been found, it is admitted, where the concealment has been effectual, but they have been exceedingly rare. Another objection to this view is, that such a work would have been especially impracticable for a Hebrew, who of all men would have been most likely to betray his time and country.
The cast of the poem is highly philosophical. The argument is in many places exceedingly abstruse. The appeal is to close and long observation; to the recorded experience of their ancestors; to the observed effects of devine judgments on the world. A Hebrew in such circumstances would have appealed to the authority of God; he would have referred to the terrible sanctions of the law rather than to cold and abstract reasoning; and he could hardly have refrained from some allusion to the events of his own history that bore so palpably on the case, It may be doubted, also, whether any Hebrew ever had such versatility of genius and character as to divest himself wholly of the proper costume of his country, and to appear throughout as an Arabic Emir, and so as never in a long argument to express anything but such as became the assumed character of the foreigner. It should be remembered, also, that the language which is used in this poem is different from that which prevailed in the time of Solomon and the captivity.
It has an antique cast. It abounds in words which do not elsewhere occur, and whose roots are now to be found only in the Arabic. It has much of the peculiarities of a strongly marked dialect - and would require all the art necessary to keep up the spirit of an ancient dialect. Yet in the whole range of literature there are not probably half a dozen instances where such an expedient as this has been resorted to - where a writer has made use of a foreign or an antique dialect for the purpose of giving to the production of his pen an air of antiquity. Aristophanes and the tragedians, indeed, sometimes introduce persons speaking the dialects of parts of Greece different from that in which they had been brought up (Lee), and the same is occasionally true of Shakespeare; but except in the case of Chatterton, scarcely one has occurred where the device has been continued through a production of any considerable length. There is a moral certainty that a Hebrew would not attempt it.
(2) a second objection to the supposition that the work was composed before the exode, or argument that it was composed by a Hebrew who lived at a much later period of the world, is derived from the supposed allusions to the historical events connected with the Jewish people, and to the unique institutions of Moses. It is not maintained that there is any direct mention of those events or those institutions, but that the author has undesignedly "betrayed" himself by the use of certain words and phrases such as no one would employ but a Hebrew. This argument may be seen at length in Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol. v. pp. 306-319, and a full examination of it may be seen in Peters' Critical Dissertation on the Book of Job, pp. 22-36. All that can be done here is to make a very brief reference to the argument. Even the advocates for the opinion that the book was composed after the exode, have generally admitted that the passages referred to contribute but little to the support of the opinion. The passages referred to by Warburton are the following:
(a) The allusion to the calamities which the wickedness of parents brings upon their children. "He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail;" Job 17:5. "God layeth up his iniquity for his children; he rewardeth him, and they shall know it;" Job 21:19. Here it is supposed there is a reference to the principle laid down in the Hebrew Scriptures as a part of the divine administration, that the iniquities of the fathers should be visited upon their children. But it is not necessary to suppose that there was any particular acquaintance with the laws of Moses, to understand this. Observation of the actual course of events would have suggested all that is alleged in the Book of Job on this point. The poverty, disease, and disgrace which the vicious entail on their offspring in every land, would have furnished to a careful observer all the facts necessary to suggest this remark. The opinion that children suffer as a consequence of the sins of wicked parents was common all over the world. Thus, in a verse of Theocritus, delivered as a sort of oracle from Jupiter, Idyll. xxvi.
Εὐσεβέων παίδεσσι τὰ λώια, δυσσεβέων δ ̓ οὐ Eusebeōn paidessi ta lōia dussebeōn d' ou.
"Good things happen to children of the pious, but not to those of the irreligious."
(b) Allusion to the fact that idolatry is an offence against the state, and is to be punished by the civil magistrate. "This also (idolatry) were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above;" Job 31:28. This is supposed to be such a sentiment as a Hebrew only would have employed, as derived from his special institutions, where idolatry was an offence against the state, and was made a capital crime. But there is not the least evidence that in the patriarchal times, and in the country where Job lived, idolatrous worship might not be regarded as a civil offence; and whether it were so or not, there is no reason for surprise that a man who had a profound veneration for God, and for the honor due to his name, such as Job had, should express the sentiment, that the worship of the sun and moon was a heinous offence, and that pure religion was of so much importance that a violation of its principles ought to be regarded as a crime against society.
(c) Allusions to certain PHRASES such as only a Hebrew would use, and which would be employed only at a later period of the world than the exode. Such phrases are referred to as the following: "He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter;" Job 20:17. "Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart;" Job 22:22. "O that I were in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;" Job 29:4. It is maintained that these are manifest allusions to facts referred to in the books of Moses: that the first refers to the common description of the holy land; the second, to the giving of the law on Sinai; and the third, to the dwelling of the Shekinah, or visible symbol of God, on the tabernacle. To this we may reply, that the first is such common language as was used in the East to denote plenty or abundance, and is manifestly a proverbial expression. It is used by Pindar, Nem. εἰδ. γ; and is common in the Arabic writers. The second is only such general language as anyone would use who should exhort another to be attentive to the law of God, and has in it manifestly no particular allusion to the method in which the law was given on Sinai. And the third can be shown to have no special reference to the Shekinah or cloud of glory as resting on the tabernacle, nor is it such language as a Hebrew would employ in speaking of it. That cloud is nowhere in the Scripture called "the secret of God," and the fair meaning of the phrase is, that God came into his dwelling as a friend and counselor, and admitted him familiarly to communion with him; see the notes at Job 29:4. It was one of the privileges, Job says, of his earlier life that he could regard himself as the friend of God, and that he had clear views of his plans and purposes. Now, those views were withheld, and he was left to darkness and solitude.
(d) Supposed allusions to the miraculous history of the Jewish people. "Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars;" Job 9:7. Here it is supposed there is allusion to the miracle performed by Joshua in commanding the sun and moon to stand still. But assuredly there is no necessity for supposing that there is a reference to anything miraculous. The idea is, that God has power to cause the sun, the moon, and the stars to shine or not, as he pleases. He can obscure them by clouds, or He can blot them out altogether. Besides, in the account of the miracle performed at the command of Joshua, there is no allusion to the stars. "He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud;" Job 26:12. Here it is supposed there is an allusion to the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. But the language does not necessarily demand this interpretation, nor will it admit of it.
The word improperly rendered "divideth," means to awe, to cause to cower, or tremble, and then to be calm or still, and is descriptive of the power which God has over a tempest. See the notes at the verse. There is not the slightest evidence that there is any allusion to the passage through the Red Sea. "He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way;" Job 12:24. "Who can doubt," says Warburton, "but that these words alluded to the wandering of the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness, as a punishment for their cowardice and diffidence in God's promises?" But there is no necessary reference to this. Job is speaking of the control which God has over the nations. He has power to frustrate all their counsels, and to defeat all their plans. He can found all the purposes of their princes, and throw their affairs into inextricable confusion.
In the original, moreover, the word does not necessarily imply a "wilderness" or desert. The word is תהוּ tôhû a word used in Gen 1:2, to denote "emptiness," or "chaos," and may here refer to the "confusion" of their counsels and plans; or if it refer to a desert, the allusion is of a general character, meaning that God had power to drive the people from their fixed habitations, and to make them wanderers on the face of the earth. "I will show thee; hear me; and what I have seen will I declare; which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it;" Job 15:17-18. "The very way," says Warburton, "in which Moses directs the Israelites to preserve the memory of the miraculous works of God." And the very way, also, it may be replied, in which all ancient history, and all the ancient wisdom from the beginning of the world, was transmitted to posterity. There was no other method of preserving the record of past transactions, but by transmitting the memory of them from father to son; and this was and is, in fact, the method of doing it all over the East. It was by no means confined to the Israelites. "Unto whom alone the earth was given, AND NO STRANGER PASSED AMONGST THEM;" Job 15:19. "A circumstance," says Warburton, "agreeing to no people whatever but to the Israelites settled in Canaan." But there is no necessary allusion here to the Israelites. Eliphaz is speaking of the golden age of his country; of the happy and pure times when his ancestors dwelt in the land without being corrupted by the intermingling of foreigners.
He says that he will state the result of their wisdom and observation in those pure and happy days, before it could be pretended that their views were corrupted by any foreign admixture; see the notes on the passage. These passages are the strongest instances of what has been adduced to show that in the Book of Job there are allusions to the customs and opinions of the Jews after the exode from Egypt. It would be tedious and unprofitable to go into a particular examination of all those which are referred to by Dr. Warburton. The remark may be made of them all, that they are of so general a character, and that they apply so much to the prevailing manners and customs of the East, that there is no reason for supposing that there is a special reference to the Hebrews. The remaining passages referred to, are Job 22:6; Job 24:7, Job 24:9-10; Job 33:17 ff; Job 34:20; Job 36:7-12; and Job 37:13. A fu l examination of these may be seen in Peters' Critical Dissertation, pp. 32-36.
(3) A third objection to the supposition that the book was composed before the time of the exode, is derived from the use of the word yahweh. This word occurs several times in the historical part of the book Job 1:6-9, Job 1:12, Job 1:21; Job 2:1-4, Job 2:6; Job 42:1, Job 42:10, Job 42:12, and a few times in the body of the poem. The objection is founded on what God says to Moses, Exo 6:3; "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name yahweh was I not known to them." At the burning bush, when he appeared to Moses, he solemnly assumed this name, and directed him to announce him as "I am that I am," or as yahweh. From this it is inferred that, as the name occurs in the book of Job, that book must have been composed subsequently to the time when God appeared to Moses. But this conclusion does not follow, for the following reasons:
(a) It might be true that God was not known to "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," by this name, and still the name might have been used by others to designate him.
(b) The name yahweh was actually used before this by God himself and by others; Gen 2:7-9, Gen 2:15-16, Gen 2:18-19, Gen 2:21; Gen 3:9, et al; Gen 12:1, Gen 12:4,Gen 12:7-8, Gen 12:17; Gen 13:10, Gen 13:13-14; Gen 15:6, Gen 15:18; Gen 16:9-10, Gen 16:13, et saepe al. If the argument from this, therefore, be valid to prove that the book of Job was not composed before the exode, it will demonstrate that the book of Genesis was also a subsequent production.
(c) But the whole argument is based on a misapprehension of Exo 6:3. The meaning of that passage, since the name yahweh was known to the patriarchs, must be
(1) that it was not by this name that he had promulgated his existence, or was publicly and solemnly known. It was a name used in common with other names by them, but which He had in no special way appropriated to Himself, or to which He had affixed no special sacredness. The name which He had Himself more commonly employed was another. Thus when He appeared to Abraham and made Himself known, he said, "I am the ALMIGHTY GOD; walk before me, and be thou perfect;" Gen 17:1. So He appeared to Jacob: "I am GOD be fruitful and multiply;" Gen 35:11; compare Gen 28:3; Gen 43:14.
(2) at the bush Exo. 3; Exo 4:3, God publicly and solemnly assumed the name yahweh. He affixed to it a special sacredness. He explained its meaning, Exo 3:14. He said it was the name by which He intended especially to be known as the God of His people. He invested it with a solemn sacredness, as that by which He chose ever afterward to be known among His people as their God. Other nations had their divinities with different names; the God of the children of Israel was to be known by the special and sacred name yahweh. But this solemn assumption of the name is by no means inconsistent with the supposition that He might have used it before, or that it might have been used before in the composition of the Book of Job.
(4) a fourth objection to the supposition that the book was composed before the time of the exode, is, that the name Satan, which occurs in this book, was not known to the Hebrews at so early a date, and that in fact it occurs as a proper name only at a late period of their history. See Warburton's Divine Legation, vol. v. 353ff. In reply to this it may be observed,
(a) that the doctrine of the existence of an evil spirit of the character ascribed in this book to Satan, was early known to the Hebrews. It was known in the time of Ahab, when, it is said, the Lord had put a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets, Kg1 22:22-23, and the belief of such an evil spirit must have been early prevalent to explain in any tolerable way the history of the fall. On the meaning of the word, see the notes at Job 1:6.
(b) The word "Satan" early occurs in history in the sense of an adversary or accuser, and it was natural to transfer this word to the great adversary. See Num 22:22. In Zac 3:1-2, it is used in the same sense as in Job, to denote the great adversary of God appearing before him; see the notes at Job 1:6. Here Satan is introduced as a being whose name and character were well known.
(c) It is admitted by Warburton himself (p. 355), that the notion of "an evil demon," or a "fury," was a common opinion among the pagan, even in early ages, though he says it was not admitted among the Hebrews until a late period of their history. But if it prevailed among the pagan, it is possible that the same sentiment might have been understood in Arabia, and that this might at a very early period have been incorporated into the Book of Job. See this whole subject examined in Peters' Critical Dissertation, pp. 80-92. I confess, however, that the answers which Peters and Magee (pp. 322, 323) give to this objection, are not perfectly satisfactory; and that the objection here urged against the composition of the book before the exode, is the most forcible of all those which I have seen. A more thorough investigation of the history of opinions respecting a presiding evil being than I have had access to, seems to be necessary to a full removal of the difficulty.
The real difficulty is, not that no such being is elsewhere referred to in the Scriptures; not that his existence is improbable or absurd - for the existence of Satan is no more improbable in itself than that of Nero, Tiberius, Richard III, Alexander VI, or Caesar Borgia, than either of whom he is not much worse; and not that there are no traces of him in the early account in the Bible; - but it is, that while in the Scriptures we have, up to the time of the exode, and indeed long after, only obscure intimations of his existence and character - without any particular designation of his attributes, and without any name being given to him, in the Book of Job he appears with a name apparently in common use; with a definitely formed character; in the full maturity of his plans - a being evidently as well defined as the Satan in the latest periods of the Jewish history. I confess myself unable to account for this, but still do not perceive that there is any impossibility in supposing that this maturity of view in regard to the evil principle might have prevailed in the country of Job at this early period, though no occasion occurred for its statement in the corresponding part of the Jewish history. There may have been such a prevalent belief among the patriarchs, though in the brief records of their opinions and lives no occasion occurred for a record of their belief.
(5) a fifth objection has been derived from the fact that in the Book of Job there is a strong resemblance to many passages in the Psalms, and in the Book of Proverbs, from which it is inferred that it was composed subsequently to those books. Rosenmuller, who has particularly urged this objection, appeals to the following instances of resemblance; Psa 107:40; compare with 16:18; Psa 18:12; Psa 29:1-11 :23; Job 22:29; Pro 8:26-29; Pro 30:4; Job 38:4-8; Pro 10:7; Job 20:7. It is unnecessary to go into an examination of these passages, or to attempt to disprove their similarity. There can be no doubt of their very strong resemblance, but still the question is fairly open, which of these books was first composed, and which, if one has borrowed from another, was the original fountain. Warburton has himself well remarked, that "if the sacred writers must needs have borrowed trite moral sentences from one another, it may be as fairly said that the authors of the Psalms borrowed from the book of Job, as that the author of Job borrowed from the book of Psalms." Works, vol. v. 320. The supposition that the Book of Job was first composed will meet the whole difficulty, so far as one was derived from the other. It should be added, also, that many of these sentiments consist of the common maxims that must have prevailed among a people accustomed to close observation, and habituated to expressing their views in a proverbial form.
I have now noticed at length all the objections which have been urged, which seem to me to have any force, against the supposition that the Book of Job was composed before the exode from Egypt, and have stated the arguments which lead to the supposition that it had so early an origin. The considerations suggested are such as seem to me to leave no rational doubt that the work was composed before the departure from Egypt. The train of thought pursued, therefore, if conclusive, will remove the necessity of all further inquiry into the opinion of Luther, Grotius, and Doederlin, that Solomon was the author; of Umbreit and Noyes, that it was composed by some unknown writer about the period of the captivity; of Warburton, that it was the production of Ezra; and of Rosenmuller, Spanheim, Reimer, Staeudlin, and Richter, that it was composed by some Hebrew writer about the time of Solomon. It remains then to inquire whether there are any circumstances which can lead us to determine with any degree of probability who was the author. This inquiry leads us,
IV. In the fourth place, to remark that there are no sufficient indications that the work was composed by Elihu. The opinion that he was the author was held, among others, by Lightfoot. But, independently of the want of any positive evidence which would lead to such a conclusion, there are objections to this opinion which render it in the highest degree improbable. They are found in the argument of Elihu himself. He advances, indeed, with great modesty, but still with extraordinary pretensions to wisdom. He lays claim to direct inspiration, and professes to be able to throw such light on the whole of the perplexed subject as to end the debate. But in the course of his addresses, he introduces but one single idea on the point under discussion which had not been dwelt on at length by the speakers before. That idea is, that afflictions are designed, not to demonstrate that the sufferer was eminently guilty, as the friends of Job held, but that intended for the benefit of the sufferer himself, and might, therefore, be consistent with true piety.
This idea he places in a variety of attitudes; illustrates it with great beauty, and enforces it with great power on the attention of Job; compare Job 33:14-30, notes; Job 34:31-32, notes; Job 35:10-15, notes; Job 36:7-16, notes. But in his speeches Elihu shows no such extraordinary ability as to lead us to suppose that he was the author of the work. He does not appear to have understood the design of the trials that came upon Job; he gives no satisfactory solution of the causes of affliction; he abounds in repetition; his observation of the course of events had been evidently much less profound than that of Eliphaz, and his knowledge of nature was much less extensive than that of Job and the other speakers; and he was evidently as much in the dark in the great question which is discussed throughout the book as the other speakers were. Besides, as Prof. Lee has remarked (p. 44), the belief that Elihu wrote the book is inconsistent with the supposition that the first two chapters and the last chapter were written by the same author who composed the body of the work. He who wrote these chapters manifestly "saw through the whole affair," and understood the reasons why these trials came upon the patriarch. Those reasons would have been suggested by Elihu in his speech, if he had known them.
V. The supposition that Job himself was the author of the book, though it may have been slightly modified by some one subsequently, will meet all the circumstances of the case. This will agree with its foreign cast and character; with the use of the Arabic words now unknown in Hebrew; with the allusions to the nomadic habits of the times, and to the modes of living, and to the illustrations drawn from sandy plains and deserts; with the statements about the simple modes of worship prevailing, and the notice of the sciences and the arts (see the introduction, Section 5), and with the absence of all allusion to the exode, the giving of the law, and the special customs and institutions of the Hebrews. In addition to these general considerations for supposing that Job was the author of the work, the following suggestions may serve to show that this opinion is attended with the highest degree of probability.
(1) Job lived after his calamities 140 years, affording ample leisure to make the record of his trials.
(2) the art of making books was known in his time, and by the patriarch himself, Job 19:23-24; Job 31:35. In whatever way it was done, whether by engraving on stone or lead, or by the use of more perishable materials, he was not ignorant of the art of making a record of thoughts to be preserved and transmitted to future times. Understanding this art, and having abundant leisure, it is scarcely to be conceived, that he would have failed to make a record of what had occurred during his own remarkable trials.
(3) the whole account was one that would furnish important lessons to mankind, and it is hardly probable that a man who had passed through so unusual a scene would be willing that the recollection of it should be entrusted to uncertain tradition. The strongest arguments which human ingenuity could invent, had been urged on both sides of a great question pertaining to the divine administration; a case of a strongly marked character had happened, similar to what is constantly occurring in the world, in which similar perplexing and embarrassing questions would arise; God had come forth to inculcate the duty of man in this case, and had furnished instruction that would be invaluable in all similar instances; and the result of the whole trial had been such as to furnish the strongest proof that however the righteous are afflicted, their sufferings are not proof that they are deceivers or hypocrites.
(4) the record of his own imperfections and failures is just such as we should expect from Job, on the supposition that he was the author of the book. Nothing is concealed. There is the most fair and full statement of his impatience, his murmuring, his irreverence, and of the rebuke which he received of the Almighty. Thus Moses, too, records his own failings, and, throughout the Scriptures, the sacred writers never attempt to conceal their own infirmities and faults.
(5) Job has shown in his own speeches that he was abundantly able to compose the book. In everything he goes immeasurably beyond all the other speakers, except God; and he who was competent, in trials so severe as his were, to give utterance to the lofty eloquence, the argument, and the poetry now found in his speeches, was not incompetent to make record of them in the long period of health and prosperity which he subsequently enjoyed. Every circumstance, therefore, seems to me to render it probable that Job was the compiler, or perhaps we should rather say, the editor of this remarkable book, with the exception of the record which is made of his own age and death. The speeches were undoubtedly made substantially as they are recorded, and the work of the author was to collect and edit those speeches, to record his own and that of the Almighty, and to furnish to the whole the proper historical notices, that the argument might be properly understood.
VI. But one other supposition seems necessary to meet all the questions which have been raised in regard to the origin of the work. It is, that Moses adopted it and published it among the Hebrews as a part of divine revelation, and entrusted it to them, with his own writings, to be transmitted to future times. Several circumstances contribute to render this probable.
(1) Moses spent forty years in various parts of Arabia, mostly in the neighborhood of Horeb; and in a country where, if such a work had been in existence, it would be likely to be known.
(2) his talents and previous training at the court of Pharaoh were such as would make him likely to look with interest on any literary document; on any work expressive of the customs, arts, sciences, and religion of another land: and especially on anything having the stamp of uncommon genius.
(3) the work was eminently adapted to be useful to his own countrymen, and could be employed to great advantage in the enterprise which he undertook of delivering them from bondage. It contained an extended examination of the great question which could not but come before their minds - why the people of God were subjected to calamities; it inculcated the necessity of submission without murmuring, under the severest trials; and it showed that God was the friend of his people, though they were long afflicted, and would ultimately bestow upon them abundant prosperity. There is every probability, therefore, that if Moses found such a book in existence, he would have adopted it as an important auxiliary in accomplishing the great work to which he was called. It may be added
(4) that there is every reason to think that Moses was not himself the author of it. This opinion rests on such considerations as these:
(a) The style is not that of Moses. It has more allusion to proverbs, and maxims, and prevailing views of science, than occur in his poetic writings; see Lowth, Prae. Hebr. xxxii.; Michaelis, Nat. et Epim. p 186, as quoted by Magee, p. 328, and Herder, Hebrew Poetry, vol. i. pp. 108, 109.
(b) Moses in his poetry almost invariably used the word yahweh as the name of God, rarely that of the Almighty (שׁדי shadday); in Job, the word yahweh rarely occurs in the body of the poem, some other name for the Deity being almost uniformly employed.
(c) In the book of Job there are numerous instances of words, the roots of which are now obsolete, or which are found only in the Arabic or Chaldee. See Prof. Lee, Intro. p. 50.
(d) The allusions to Arabic customs, opinions, and manners, are not such as would have been likely to be familiar to the mind of Moses. All that he could have learned of them would have been what he acquired, when over forty years of age, in keeping the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro; and though it might be said with plausibility that the forty years which he spent with him might have made him familiar with the habits of Arabia, still, in a poem of this length, we should have expected that these would not have been the only allusions. The most vivid and permanent impressions on the mind are those made in youth; and on the mind of Moses, those impressions had been received in Egypt. the work had been composed by him we should, therefore, bare expected that there would have been frequent allusions that would have betrayed Egyptian origin. But of these there are none, or if there are any which have such an origin, they are such as might have been readily learned from the common reports of travelers. But with all that pertained to the desert, to the keeping of flocks and herds, to the nomadic mode of life, to the poor and needy wanderers there, to the methods of plunder and robbery, the author of the poem shows himself to be perfectly familiar. It seems to me, therefore, that by this train of remarks, we are conducted to a conclusion tended with as much certainty as can be hoped for in the nature of the case, that the work was composed by Job himself in the period of rest and prosperity which succeeded his trials, and came to the knowledge of Moses during his residence in Arabia, and was adopted by him to represent to the Hebrews, in their trials, the duty of submission to the will of God, and to furnish the assurance that he would yet appear to crown with abundant blessings his own people, however much they might be afflicted.
Section 5. The State of the Arts and Sciences in the Time of Job
There is one important aspect still in which the book of Job may be contemplated. It is as an illustration of the state of the acts and sciences of the period of the world when it was composed. We are not indeed, in a poem of this nature, to look for formal treatises on any of the arts or sciences as then understood, but all that we can expect to find must be incidental allusions, or hints, that may enable us to determine with some degree of accuracy what advances society had then made. Such allusions are also of much more value in determining the progress of society, than extended descriptions of conquests and sieges would be. The latter merely change the boundaries of empire; the former indicate progress in the condition of man. Inventions in the arts and discoveries in science are fixed points, from which society does not go backward. I propose, then, as an illustration of the progress which society had made in the time of Job, as well as to prepare the mind to read the book in the most intelligent manner, to bring together the scattered notices of the state of the arts and sciences contained in this poem. No exact order can be observed in this; nor is there anything in the poem to indicate which of the things specified had the priority in point of time, or when the invention or discovery was made. The order of the arrangement chosen will have some reference to the importance of the subjects, and also some to what may be supposed to have first attracted attention. For a more full view of the various points that will be referred to, reference may be made to the notes on the various passages adduced.
I. Astronomy
The stars were early observed in Chaldea, where the science of astronomy had its origin. A pastoral people always have some knowledge of the heavenly bodies. The tending of flocks by night, under a clear Oriental sky, gave abundant opportunity for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, and names would soon be given to the most important of the stars; the difference between the planets and the fixed stars would be observed, and the imagination would be employed in grouping the stars into fanciful resemblances to animals and other objects. In like manner, as caravans traveled much at night through the deserts, on account of the comparative coolness then, they would have an opportunity of observing the stars, and some knowledge of the heavenly bodies became necessary to guide their way. The notices of the heavenly bodies in this poem show chiefly that names were given to some of the stars; that they were grouped together in constellations; and that the times of the appearance of certain stars had been carefully observed, and their relation to certain aspects of the weather had been marked. There is no express mention of the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars; and nothing to lead us to suppose that they were acquainted with the true system of astronomy.
He commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,
And he sealeth up the stars.
He alone stretcheth out the heavens
And walketh upon the high waves of the sea.
He maketh Arcturus, Orion,
The Pleiades, and the secret chambers of the south.
Job 9:7-9.
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season,
Or lead forth the Bear with her young?
Knowest thou the laws of the heavens,
Or hast thou appointed their dominion over the earth?
Job 38:31-33.
It would seem from these passages, that the allusion to the clusters of stars here, is made to them as the harbingers of certain seasons. "It is well known, that, in different regions of the earth, the appearance of certain constellations before sunrise or after sunset, marks the distinction of seasons, and regulates the labors of the farmer." Wemyss. It is also known that the appearance of certain constellations - as Orion - was regarded by mariners as denoting a stormy and tempestuous season of the year. See Job 9:7-9, notes; and Job 38:31-33, notes. This seems to be the knowledge of the constellations referred to here, and there is no certain evidence that the observation of the heavens in the time of Job had gone beyond this.
A somewhat curious use has been made of the reference to the stars in the book of Job, by an attempt to determine the time when he lived. Supposing the principal stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in the time of Job, and calculating their positions by the precession of the equinoxes, the time referred to in the book of Job was found to be 818 years after the deluge, or 184 years before the birth of Abraham. "This calculation, made by Dr. Brinkley of Dublin, and adopted by Dr. Hales, had been made also in 1765 by M. Ducontant in Paris, with a result differing only in being forty-two years less." The coincidence is remarkable, but the proof that the constellations referred to are Taurus and Scorpio, is too uncertain to give much weight to the argument.
II. Cosmology
The intimations about the structure, the size, and the support of the earth, are also very obscure, and the views entertained would seem to have been very confused. Language is used, doubtless, such as would express the popular belief, and it resembles that which is commonly employed in the Scriptures. The common representation is, that the heavens are stretched out as a curtain or tent, or sometimes as a solid concave sphere in which the heavenly bodies are fixed (see the notes at Isa 34:4), and that the earth is an immense plain, surrounded by water, which reached the concave heavens in which the stars were fixed. Occasionally, the earth is represented as supported by pillars, or as resting on a solid foundation; and once we meet with an intimation that it is globular, and suspended in space.
In the following passages the earth and the sky are represented as supported by pillars:
He shaketh the earth out of her place,
And the pillars thereof tremble. Job 9:6
The pillars of heaven tremble,
And are astonished at his rebuke. Job 31:11.
In the latter passage the reference is to mountains, which seem to uphold the sky as pillars, in accordance with the common and popular representation among the ancients. Thus Mount Atlas, in Mauritania, was represented as a pillar on which heaven was suspended:
"Atlas' broad shoulders prop th' incumbent skies,
Around his cloud-girt head the stars arise,"
In the following passage the earth is represented as suspended on nothing, and there would seem to be a slight evidence that the true doctrine about the form of the earth was then known:
He stretcheth out the North over the empty space,
And hangeth the earth upon nothing. Job 26:7.
See particularly the notes on that passage. Though the belief seems to nave been that the earth was thus "self-balanced," yet there is no intimation that they were acquainted with the fact that it revolves on its axis, or around the sun as a center.
III. Geography
There are few intimations of the prevalent knowledge of geography in the time of Job. In one instance foreign regions are mentioned, though there is no certainty that the countries beyond Palestine are there referred to:
Have ye not inquired of the travelers?
And will ye not hear their testimony? Job 21:29.
In the close of the book, in the mention of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, there is evidence that there was some knowledge of the land of Egypt, though no intimation is given of the situation or extent of that Country.
The cardinal points are referred to, and there is evidence in this book, as well as elsewhere in the Scriptures, that the geographer then regarded himself as looking toward the East. The South was thus the "right hand," the North the left hand, and the West the region "behind:"
Behold, I go to the East, and he is not there;
And to the West, but I cannot perceive him;
To the North, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him;
He hideth himself on the South, that I cannot see him.
Job 23:8-9.
See the notes on this verse for an explanation of the terms used; compare the following places, where similar geographical terms occur; Jdg 18:12; Deu 11:24; Zac 14:8; Exo 10:19; Jos 17:7; Kg2 23:13; Sa1 23:24; Gen 14:15; Jos 19:27.
Whatever was the form of the earth, and the manner in which it was sustained, it is evident from the following passage that the land was regarded as surrounded by a waste of waters, whose outer limit was deep and impenetrable darkness:
He hath drawn a circular bound upon the waters,
To the confines of the light and darkness. Job 26:10.
Yet the whole subject is represented as one with which man was then unacquainted, and which was beyond his grasp:
Hast thou observed the breadths of the earth?
Declare, if thou knowest it all. Job 38:18.
For a full illustration of this passage, and the views of geography which then prevailed, the reader is referred to the notes. It is evident that the knowledge of geography, so far as is indicated by this book, was then very limited, though it should also be said that in the argument of the poem there was little occasion to refer to knowledge of this kind, and that few intimations are to be expected on the subject.
IV. Meteorology
There are much more frequent intimations of the state of knowledge on the various subjects embraced under this head, than of either astronomy or geography. These intimations show that these subjects had excited much attention, and had been the result of careful observation; and in regard to some of them there are indications of a plausible theory of their causes, though most of them are appealed to as among the inscrutable things of God. The facts excited the wonder of the Arabian observers, and they clothed their conceptions of them in the most beautiful language of poetry; but they do not often attempt to explain them. On the contrary, these obvious and undisputed facts, so inscrutable to them, are referred to as full proof that we cannot hope to comprehend the ways of God, and as reason why we should bow before him with profound adoration. Among the things referred to are the following:
(a) The Aurora Borealis, or Northern lights. Thus the magnificent description of the approach of the Almighty to close the controversy Job 37:21-23, seems to have been borrowed by Elihu from the beautiful lights of the North, in accordance with the common opinion that the North was the seat of the Divinity:
And now - man cannot look upon the bright splendor that is
On the clouds:
For the wind passeth along and maketh them clear.
golden splendor approaches from the North:
How fearful is the majesty of God!
The Almighty! we cannot find him out!
Great in power and in justice, and vast in righteousness!
Compare Isa 14:13, notes; and Job 23:9, notes.
(b) Tornadoes, whirlwinds, and tempests, were the subject of careful observation. The sources from where they usually came were attentively marked, and the various phenomena which they exhibited were so observed that the author of the poem was able to describe them with the highest degree of poetic beauty:
With his hands be covereth the lightning
And commandeth it where to strike.
He pointeth out to it his friends -
The collecting of his wrath is upon the wicked.
At this also my heart palpitates,
And is moved out of its place.
Hear, O hear, the thundrer of his voice!
The muttering thunder that goes forth from his mouth!
He directeth it under the whole heaven,
And his lightning to the ends of the earth.
He thundereth with the voice of his majesty,
And he will not restrain the tempest when his voice is heard.
Job 36:32-33; Job 37:1-4.
Terrors come upon him like waters,
In the night a tempest stealeth him away.
The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth,
And it sweeps him away from his place. Job 27:20-21.
(c) The dew had been carefully observed, yet the speakers did not understand its phenomena. How it was produced; whether it descended from the atmosphere, or ascended from the earth, they did not profess to be able to explain. It was regarded as one of the things which God only could understand; yet the manner in which it is spoken of shows that it had attracted deep attention, and led to much inquiry:
Hath the rain a father?
And who hath begotten the drops of the dew? Job 38:28.
(d) The same remarks may be made of the formation of the hoar frost, of snow, of hail, and of ice. There is no theory suggested to account for them but they are regarded as among the things which God alone could comprehend, and which evinced his wisdom. There had been evidently much careful observation of the facts, and much inquiry into the cause of these things but the speakers did not profess to be able to explain them. To this day, also, there is much about them which is unexplained, and the farther the investigation is carried, the more occasion is there to admire the wisdom of God in the formation of these things, See the notes on the passages that will now be referred to:
From whose womb came the ice;
The hoar-frost of heaven, who gave it birth? Job 38:29 (note).
By the breath of God frost is produced,
And the broad waters become compressed. Job 37:10 (note).
For he saith to the snow, "Be thou on the earth." Job 37:6 (note).
Hast thou been into the storehouses of snow?
Or seen the storehouses of hail, that and Which I have reserved until the time of trouble,
To the day of battle and war? Job 38:22-23 (note).
(e) The dawning of the morning is described with great beauty, and is represented as wholly beyond the power of man to produce or explain:
Hast thou, in thy life, given commandment to the morning?
Or caused the dawn to know His place?
That it may seize on the far corners of the earth,
And scatter the robbers before it?
It turns itself along like clay under the seal,
And all things stand forth as if in gorgeous apparel.
Job 38:12-14.
NOTE: For the meaning of this uncommonly beautiful imagery, see the notes on this place.
(f) So all the phenomena of light are represented as evincing the wisdom of God, and as wholly beyond the ability of man to explain or comprehend them; yet so represented as to show that it had been a subject of careful observation and reflection:
Where is the way to the dwelling-place of light?
And the darkness, where is its place?
That thou couldest conduct it to its limits,
And that thou shouldest knorr the path to its dwelling?
Job 38:19-20.
(g) The clouds and rain also had been carefully observed, and the laws which governed them were among the inscrutable things of God:
Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
And who can empty the bottles of heaven? Job 38:37.
The clouds seem to have been regarded as a solid substance capable of holding rain like a leather bottle, and the rain was caused by their emptying themselves on the earth. Yet the whole phenomena were considered to beyond the comprehension of man. The laws by which the clouds suspended in the air, and the reason why the rain descended in small drops, instead of gushing floods, were alike incomprehensible:
Who also can understand the outspreading of the clouds,
And the fearful thunderings in his pavilion? Job 36:29.
For he draweth up the drops of water;
They distil rain in his vapor,
Which the clouds pour down;
They pour it upon man in abundance. Job 36:27-28.
He bindeth up the waters in the thick clouds,
And the cloud is not rent under them. Job 26:8.
(h) The sea had also attracted the attention of these ancient observers and there were phenomena there which they could not explain:
Who shut up the sea with doors,
In its bursting forth as from the womb?
When I made the cloud its garment,
And swathed it in thick darkness?
I measured out for it its limits.
And fixed its bars and doors,
And said, Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther.
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed! Job 38:8-11.
There is a reference here, undoubtedly, to the creation; but as this is the language of God describing that event, it cannot be determined with certainty that a knowledge of the method of creation had been communicated to them by tradition. But language like this implies that there bad been a careful observation of the ocean, and that there were things in regard to it which were to them incomprehensible. The passage is a most sublime description of the creation of the mighty mass of waters, and while it is entirely consistent with the account in Genesis, it supplies some important circumstances not recorded there.
V. Mining Operations
Job 28 - one of the most beautiful portions of the Bible - contains a statement of the method of mining then practiced, and shows that the art was well understood. The mechanical devices mentioned, and the skill with which the process was carried on, evince considerable advance in the arts:
Truly there is a vein for silver,
And a place for gold where they refine it.
Iron is obtained from the earth,
And ore is fused into copper.
Man putteth an end to darkness,
And completely searches every thing -
The rocks, the thick darkness, and the shadow of death
He sinks a shaft far from a human dwelling;
They, unsupported by the feet, hang suspended;
Far from men they swing to and fro.
The earth - out of it cometh bread;
And when turned up beneath, it resembles fire.
Its stones are the places of sapphires,
And gold dust pertains to it.
The path thereto no bird knoweth,
And the vulture's eye hath not seen it.
The fierce wild beasts have not trodden it,
And the lion hath not walked over it.
Man layeth his hand upon the flinty rock;
He overturneth mountains from their foundations;
He cutteth out canals among the rocks,
And his eye seeth every precious thing.
He restraineth the streams from trickling down,
And bringeth hiddden things to light. Job 28:1-11.
The operation of mining must have early attracted attention, for the art of working metals, and of course their value, was understood in a very early age of the world. Tubal Cain is described as an "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron;" Gen 4:22. The description in Job shows that this art had received much attention, and that in his time it had been carried to a high degree of perfection; see the notes at Job 28:1-11.
VI. Precious Stones
There is frequent mention of precious stones in the book of Job, and it is evident that they were regarded as of great value, and were used for ornament. The following are mentioned, as among the precious stones, though some of them are now ascertained to be of little value. There is evidence that they judged, as was necessarily the case in the early age of the world, rather from appearances than from any chemical knowledge of their nature. The onyx and sapphire:
It (wisdom) cannot be estimated by the gold of Ophir
By the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Job 28:16.
Coral, crystal, and rubies:
No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;
For the price of wisdom is above rubies. Job 28:18.
The topaz found in Ethiopia, or Cush:
The topaz of Cush cannot equal it,
Nor can it be purchased with pure gold. Job 28:19.
These were found as the result of the processes of mining, though it is not known that the art of engraving on them was known. It is, moreover, not entirely easy to fix the signification of the original words used here. See the notes at Job 28.
VII. Coining, Writing Engraving
It is not quite certain, though there is some evidence, that the art of coining was known in the days of Job. The solution of this question depends on the meaning of the word rendered "a piece of money," in Job 42:11. For an examination of this, the reader is referred to the notes on that verse. There is the fullest evidence that the art of writing was then known:
O that my words were now written!
O that they were engraved on a tablet!
That with an iron graver, and with lead,
They were engraven upon a rock forever. Job 19:23-24.
O that He would hear me!
Behold my defense! May the Almighty answer me!
Would that he who contends with me would write down his charge!
Truly upon my shoulder would I bear it;
I would bind it upon me as a diadem. Job 31:35-36.
The materials for writing are not indeed particularly mentioned, but it is evident that permanent records on stone were made; that this was done sometimes by making use of lead; and also that it was common to make use of portable materials, and as would seem of flexible materials, since Job speaks Job 31 of binding the charge of his adversary, when written down, around his head like a turban or diadem; compare Isa 8:1, note; Isa 30:8, note. Though the papyrus, or "paper reed," of Egypt, seems to be once alluded to (see the notes at Job 8:11), yet there is no evidence that it was known as a material for writing.
VIII. The Medical Art
Physicians are once mentioned.
For truly are ye forgers of fallacies;
Physicians of no value, all of you. Job 13:4.
But there is no intimation of the methods of cure, or of the remedies that were applied. It is remarkable that, so far as appears, no methods were taken to cure the extraordinary malady of Job himself. He excluded himself from society, sat down in dust and ashes, and merely attempted to remove the offensive matter that the disease collected on his person; Job 2:8. So far as appears from the Scriptur early times were chiefly external applications. See Isa 1:6, note; Isa 38:21-22, note. "Physicians" are mentioned in Gen 50:2, but only in connection with embalming, where it is said that "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel."
IX. Music
Musical instruments are mentioned in the book of Job in such a manner as to show that the subject of music had attracted attention, though we may not be able now to ascertain the exact form of the instruments which were employed:
They excite themselves with the tabor and the harp,
And rejoice at the sound of the pipe. Job 21:12 (note).
My harp also is turned to mourning,
And my pipes to notes of grief. Job 30:31 (note).
For an explanation of these terms, the reader is referred to the notes on these passages. We have evidence that music was cultivated long before the time in which it is supposed Job lived Gen 4:21, though there is no certainty that even in his time it had reached a high degree of perfection.
X. Hunting
One of the earliest arts practiced in society would be that of taking and destroying wild beasts, and we find several allusions to the methods in which this was done, in the book of Job. Nets, gins, and pitfalls, were made use of for this purpose, and in order to drive the wild beasts into the nets or pitfalls, it was customary for a number of persons to extend themselves in a forest, enclosing a large space, and gradually drawing near to each other and to the center:
His strong steps shall be straitened,
And his own plans shall cast him down.
For he is brought into his net by his own feet,
And into the pitfall he walks.
The snare takes him by the heel,
And the gin takes fast hold of him.
A net is secretly laid for him in the ground,
And a trap for him in the pathway. Job 18:7-10.
The howling of dogs, and the shouts of the hunters, are represented as filling the wild animal with dismay, and as harassing him as he attempts to escape:
Terrors alarm him on every side,
And harass him at his heels. Job 18:11.
While spent with hunger and fatigue, he is entangled in the spread nets, and becomes an easy prey for the hunter:
His strength shall be exhausted by hunger,
And destruction shall seize upon his side.
It shall devour the vigour of his frame,
The first-born of Death shall devour his limbs.
Job 18:12-13.
Compare Psa 140:4-5; Eze 19:6-9.
XI. Methods of Husbandry
The customs of the pastoral life, one of the chief employments of early ages, are often referred to; Job 1:3,Job 1:16; Job 42:12.
He shall never look upon the rivulets -
The streams of the valleys - of honey and butter.
Job 20:17.
When I washed my steps with cream,
And the rock poured me out rivers of oil. Job 29:6.
Plowing with oxen is mentioned, Job 1:14.
So also Job 31:38-40 :
If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows likewise complain;
If I have eaten its fruits without payment,
And extorted the living of its owners;
Let thistles grow up instead of wheat,
And noxious weeds instead of barley. Job 31:38-40.
The cultivation of the vine and the olive, and the pressure of grapes and olives, is mentioned:
He shall cast his unripe fruit as the vine,
And shed his blossoms like the olive. Job 15:33.
They reap their grain in the field (of others),
And they gather the vintage of the oppressor. Job 24:6.
They cause them to express oil within their walls;
They tread their wine-presses, and yet they suffer thirst.
Job 24:11.
It is remarkable that in the book of Job there is no mention of the palm, the pomegranate, or any species of flowers. In a country like Arabia, where the date now is so important an article of food, it would have been reasonable to anticipate that there would have been some allusion known, from what is said, of the implements of husbandry, and nothing forbids us to suppose that they were of the rudest sort.
XII. Modes of Traveling
From the earliest period in the East the mode of traveling to any distance appears to have been by caravans, or companies. Two objects seem to have been contemplated by this in making long journeys across pathless deserts that were much infested by robbers; the one was the purpose of selfdefense, the other mutual accommodation. For the purposes of those traveling companies, camels are admirably adapted by nature, alike from their ability to bear burdens, from the scantiness of food which they require, and for their being able to travel far without water. Caravans are first mentioned in Gen 37:25, "And they sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." A beautiful notice of this mode of traveling occurs in Job Job 6:15-20, as being common in his time:
My brethren are faithless as a brook,
Like the streams of the valley that pass away;
Which are turbid by means of the (melted) ice,
In which the snow is hid (by being dissolved).
In the time when they become warm they evaporate.
When the heat cometh, they are dried up from their place;
The channels of their way wind round about;
They go into nothing, and are lost.
The caravans of Tema look;
The traveling companies of Sheba expect to see them.
They are ashamed that they have relied on them,
They come even to the place, and are confounded.
There is, in one place in Job, a slight intimation that runners or carriers were employed to carry messages when extraordinary speed was demanded, though there is no evidence that this was a settled custom, or that it was regulated by law:
And my days are swifter than a runner;
They flee away, and they see no good. Job 9:25.
Connected with the subject of traveling, we may remark, that the art of making light boats or skiffs from reeds appears to have been known, though there is no mention of ships, or of distant navigation:
They pass on like the reed-skiffs;
As the eagle darting on its prey. Job 9:26.
XIII. The Military Art
There are in the book of Job frequent allusions to weapons of war, and to modes of attack and defense, such as to show that the subject had attracted much attention, and that war then was by no means unknown. In the poem we find the following allusions to the weapons used, and to the methods of attack and defense.
To poisoned arrows:
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
Their poison drinketh up my spirit;
The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
Job 6:4.
To the shield:
He runneth upon him with outstretched neck,
With the thick bosses of his shields. Job 15:26.
To the methods of attack, and the capture of a walled town:
He set me up for a mark,
His archers came around me;
He transfixed my reins, and did not spare;
My gall hath he poured out upon the ground.
He breaketh me with breach upon breach;
He rusheth upon me like a mighty man. Job 16:12-14.
To the iron weapon and the bow of brass:
He shall flee from the iron weapon,
But the bow of brass shall pierce him through.
Job 20:24.
To the works cast up by a besieging army for the annoyance of a city by their weapons of war:
His troops advanced together against me;
They throw up their way against me,
And they encamp round about my dwelling. Job 19:12.
In this connection, also, should be mentioned the sublime description of the war-horse in Job 39:19, following The horse was undoubtedly used in war and a more sublime description of this animal caparisoned for battle, impatient for the contest, does not occur in any language:
Hast thou given the horse his strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Dost thou make him to leap as the locust?
How terrible is the glory of his nostrils!
He paweth in the valley; he exulteth in his strength;
He goeth forth into the midst of arms.
He laugheth at fear, and is nothing daunted;
And he turneth not back from the sword.
Upon him rattleth the quiver;
The glittering spear and the lance.
In his fierceness and rage he devoureth the ground,
And will no longer stand still when the trumpet sounds.
When the trumpet sounds, he saith,
"Aba!"
And from afar be snuffeth the battle -
The war-cry of the princes, and the battle-shout.
XIV. Zoology
The references to zoology in this book, which are numerous, and which show that the habits of many portions of the animated creation had been observed with great care, may be ranked under the heads of insects, reptiles, birds, and beasts.
1. Of insects, the only two that are mentioned are the spider and the moth:
His hope shall rot,
And his trust shall be the building of the spider.
He shall lean upon his dwelling, and it shall not stand;
He shall grasp it, but it shall not endure.
Job 8:14-15.
Behold, in his servants he putteth no confidence,
And his angels he chargeth with frailty;
How much more true is this of those who dwell in houses of clay,
Whose foundation is in the dust;
They are crushed before the moth-worm! Job 4:18-19.
He buildeth his house like the moth,
Or like a shed which the watchman maketh. Job 27:18.
2. Of reptiles, we find the asp and the viper mentioned:
He shall suck the poison of asps;
The viper's tongue shall destroy him. Job 20:16.
3. The birds or fowls that are mentioned in this book, are much more numerous. They are the following, nearly all so mentioned as their habits had been the subject of careful observation.
The vulture:
The path thereto no bird knoweth,
And the vulture's eye hath not seen it. Job 28:7.
The raven:
Who provideth for the raven his food,
When his young ones cry unto God,
And wander for lack of food? Job 38:41.
The stork and the ostrich:
A wing of exuiting fowls moves joyfully!
Is it the wing and plumage of the stork?
For she leaveth her eggs upon the ground,
And upon the dust she warmeth them,
And forgetteth that her foot may crush them,
And that the wild beast may break them.
She is hardened toward her young, as it they were not hers;
In vain is her travail, and without solicitude;
Because God hath withheld wisdom from her,
And hath not imparted to her understanding.
In the time when she raiseth herself up on high,
She laugheth at the horse and his rider.
Job 39:13-18.
The eagle and the hawk:
Is it by thy understanding that the hawk flieth,
And spreadeth his wings toward the south?
Is it at thy command that the eagle mounteth up,
And that he buildeth his nest on high?
He inhabiteth the rock and abideth there -
Upon the crag of the rock, and the high fortress.
From thence he spieth out his prey,
His eyes discern it from afar.
His young ones greedily gulp down blood;
And where the slain are, there is he.
Job 39:26-30.
4. The beasts that are mentioned are, also, quite numerous, and the description of some of them constitutes the most magnificent part of the poem. The descriptions of the various animals are also more minute than any thing else referred to, and but a few of them can be copied without transcribing whole chapters. The beasts referred to are the following.
The camel, sheep, ox, and she-ass: Job 1:3; Job 42:12.
The lion:
The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion (are silenced),
And the teeth of young lions are broken out.
The old lion perishes for want of prey,
And the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad.
Job 4:10-11.
The wild ass:
Doth the wild donkey bray in the midst of grass?
Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Job 6:5.
Who hath sent forth the wild donkey free;
Or who hath loosed the bonds of the wild ass?
Whose home I have made the wilderness,
And his dwellings the barren land.
He scorneth the uproar of the city;
The cry of the driver he heedeth not.
The range of the mountains is his pasture:
He searcheth after every green thing.
Job 39:5-8.
The dog:
But now they who are younger than I have me in derision,
Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the
Dogs of my flock. Job 30:1.
The jackal:
I am become a brother to the jackal,
And a companion to the ostrich. Job 30:29.
The mountain-goat and the hind:
Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth?
Or canst thou observe the birth-throes of the hind?
Canst thou number the months that they fulfil?
Knowest thou the season when they bring forth?
They bow themselves; they give birth to their young;
They cast forth their sorrows.
Their young ones increase in strength,
They grow up in the wilderness,
They go from them, and return no more. Job 39:1-4.
The unicorn:
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?
Will he abide through the night at thy crib?
Wilt thou bind him with his band to the furrow?
And will he harrow the valleys after thee?
Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great?
Or wilt thou commit thy labor to him?
Wilt thou have confidence in him to bring in thy grain?
Or to gather it to thy threshing-floor? Job 39:9-12.
The war-horse, in a splendid passage already quoted, Job 39:19-25 (notes). And, finally, the behemoth or hippopotamus, and the leviathan or crocodile, in Job 40:15-24 (notes); Job 40:21 (note) - perhaps the most splendid descriptions of animals to be found any where in poetry. For the nature and habits of the animals there described, as well as of those already referred to, the reader is referred to the notes.
Such is a mere reference to the various topics of science and the arts referred to in the book of Job. Though brief, yet they furnish us with an invaluable account of the progress which society had then made; and in order to obtain an estimate of the state of the world on these subjects at an early period, there is no better means now at command than a careful study of this book. The scene of the book is laid in the vicinity of those portions of the earth which had made the greatest progress in science and the arts, and from this poem we may learn with considerable accuracy, probably, what advances had then been made in Babylon and in Egypt.
Outline and General Analysis of the Book of Job
First Part - The Historical Intoduction, in Prose, Job 1-2
Second Part - The Argument, or Controversy, in Verse, Job 3-42:6
I. The first series in the controversy, Job 3-14
(1.) Job opens the discussion by cursing his birth-day, and by a bitter complaint of his calamity, Job 3
(2.) Speech of Eliphaz, Job 4-5
(3.) Answer of Job, Job 5-6
(4.) Speech of Bildad, Job 8
(5.) Answer of Job, Job 9-10
(6.) Speech of Zophar, Job 11
(7.) Answer of Job, Job 12-14
II. The second series in the controversy, Job 15-21
(1.) Speech of Eliphaz, Job 15
(2.) Answer of Job, Job 16-17
(3.) Speech of Bildad, Job 18
(4.) Answer of Job, Job 19
(5.) Speech of Zophar, Job 20
(6.) Answer of Job, Job 21
III. The third series in the controversy, Job 22-31
(1.) Speech of Eliphaz Job 22
(2.) Answer of Job, Job 23-24
(3.) Speech of Bildad, Job 25:1-6
(4.) Answer of Job, Job 26-31
IV. Speech of Elihu, Job 32-37
V. The close of the discussion, Job 38-42:6
(1.) The speech of the Almighty, Job 38-41
(2.) The response and penitent confession of Job, Job 42:1-6.
Third Part - The Conclusion, in Prose, Job 42:7-17 Next: Job Chapter 1
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Introduction to the Psalm
Section 1. "The Title to the Book of Psalm."
The general title to the Book of Psalms in Hebrew is תהלים Tehilliym, Psalms, or more fully, תהלים ספר Sêpher Tehilliym, "Book of Psalms?" Sometimes a shorter title is used - תלים Tilliym. Other terms are used as appropriate to particular psalms, as מזמורים mizmôriym, or שׁירים shı̂yriym, songs; or in the singular, מזמור mizmôr, and שׁיר shı̂yr, a song. These latter titles, however, are not given to the entire collection, but to particular psalms. The former title - מזמור mizmôr - is given to Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 8:1-9; Ps. 9; Psa 12:1-8; Psa 13:1-6; Psa 15:1-5; Psa 19:1-14; Psa 20:1-9; Psa 21:1-13; Ps. 22; Psa 23:1-6; and to 39 others, the last being Psa 143:1-12, rendered uniformly "a psalm." The latter title, שׁיר shı̂yr, occurs in Psa 30:1-12; Ps. 45; Psa 46:1-11; and in 27 other psalms, the last being Psa 134:1-3, and is uniformly rendered "song," though it is sometimes connected with the word מזמור mizmôr, psalm, and rendered "A song and psalm," as in Psa 48:1-14; Psa 65:1-13; Ps. 66; Psa 67:1-7; Ps. 68; Ps. 69; Psa 75:1-10; Ps. 83; Psa 87:1-7; Ps. 88; and in Psa 122:1-9; Psa 123:1-4; Psa 124:1-8 it is connected with the word degrees: "A song of degrees."
The word תהלים Tehilliym is derived from the verb - הלל hâlal, to praise, as in the word "Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah." The name is given to the general collection, because praise, more than anything else, is the characteristic of the book, and because the collection seems to have been designed to be used in the public praise or worship of God. They were all probably thus used in Hebrew worship.
The word "Psalms," as applied to the collection, we have derived from the Greek translation, the word ψαλμοὶ psalmoi, in the plural - "psalmos" (a psalm) and "psalmoi" (psalms). This word is derived from ψάλλω psallō, to touch, to twitch, to pluck - as the hair or beard; and then, to touch or twitch a string, "to twang," that is, to cause it to vibrate by touching or twitching it with the finger or with a "plectrum" (πλῆκτρον plēktron) - an instrument for striking the strings of a lyre, as a quill. Cic. N. D., 2. 59. Hence, the word is applied to instruments of music employed in praise, and then to acts of praise in general. The noun - ψαλμός psalmos, - "psalm," means properly "a touching, twang," as of a bowstring, or of stringed instruments; then a song, as accompanying stringed instruments; and then specifically a psalm or song of praise to God. Thus, the verb - ψάλλω psallō, - is used in the New Testament as denoting "praise" in the following places: Rom 15:9, "I will confess ... and "sing" unto Thy name;" Co1 14:15, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding;" Eph 5:19, "Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;" Jam 5:13, "Is any merry? let him sing psalms."
The verb does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament. The "noun" - ψαλμός psalmos, - is used in the New Testament in the following places as denoting psalms in general: Co1 14:26, "Every one of you hath a psalm;" Eph 5:19, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms;" Col 3:16, "Admonishing one another in psalms." In the following places it is applied in the New Testament to the Book of Psalms, considered as a collection of songs of praise; - Luk 20:42, "David himself saith in the Book of Psalms;" - Luk 24:44, "All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me:" see the notes on that passage; - Act 1:20, "It is written in the Book of Psalms;" - Act 13:33, "It is also written in the second psalm." The word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament.
Section 2. "The Authors of the Psalm."
The Psalms thus collected into a book are by no means the production of one poet or one age. They stretch through a long period of Jewish history, certainly from the time of Moses to the time of the return from the captivity of Babylon, and probably later, and they are modified by all the varieties incident to the peculiarities of their respective authors; to individual and national history; to the times in which they were composed. So many of them, however, are the composition of David, that it is customary to speak of them as "The Psalms of David," though it is probable that not much more than half of the psalms in the collection were written by him. Of the 150 psalms comprising the collection, according to the enumeration in the Hebrew manuscripts, not quite one half are usually ascribed to him. According to DeWette, 74; to Kennicott, 66; to DeRossi, 67; to Rosenmuller and Eichhorn, 71; and to Hengstenberg, 80. It is probable, however, that a portion of the psalms to which no name is prefixed in the title - but how great a portion it is impossible now to determine - is the production of David. Still, so many are known to have been composed by him, and he was so eminent as a poet, as to justify the language which is so frequently employed when they are called familiarly "The Psalms of David."
The following persons are mentioned in the titles as authors of psalms:
(1) One psalm Ps. 90 is ascribed to Moses. In regard to the question whether this is to be regarded as a composition of Moses, see the notes on the psalm. No other psalm in the collection is ascribed to him, though not a few specimens of his poetry are preserved in the Pentateuch. Why this was not incorporated with his other writings, or how it was preserved until it obtained a permanent place in the Book of Psalms, cannot now be determined.
(2) David occupies a prominent position as the author of many of the psalms in the collection, but, as has been remarked above, critics are divided in opinion as to the exact number that should be ascribed to him. In the Hebrew inscriptions of the Psalms, 68 are attributed to him. The difference between this number and that noted above in regard to the opinions of DeWette, Kennicott, DeRossi, Rosenmuller, Eichhorn, Hengstenberg, and others, arises from the variations in the manuscripts in respect to these inscriptions; the different value attached to these inscriptions by various critics; the fact that some psalms, though without a title in the Hebrew, are supposed to be so certainly the production of David as to make it proper to ascribe them to him; and the fact that some of the psalms ascribed to him are supposed by different writers to belong to a later period of the Jewish history than his time, and that, consequently, the title by which they are attributed to David is an error. There is every reason to suppose that some of the psalms now without a title are the composition of David, though it is not known, and cannot now be known, why they are not ascribed to him in the titles of the psalms themselves. In consequence of these facts, it is impossible now to determine with exact precision how many of the psalms are to be ascribed to David; though the number is undoubtedly so great that he is to be regarded as the principal author of the collection.
(3) Twelve of the psalms, Ps. 50; Ps. 73; Ps. 74; Psa 75:1-10; Psa 76:1-12; Ps. 77; Ps. 78; Psa 79:1-13; Ps. 80; Ps. 81; Psa 82:1-8; Ps. 83; are ascribed to Asaph. These, it will be seen, occupy a place together in the collection Ps. 63-83, with the exception of Psa 1:1-6. The reason for this arrangement cannot now be known. DeWette (Einleitung, III. iii.) supposes that, with the exception of Psa 1:1-6. and Ps. 73, these are improperly ascribed to Asaph, as, in his view, they pertain to later times of the Jewish history, Ps. 74; Psa 79:1-13 to the destruction of the temple and the city; Ps. 80 to the Exile, etc. Compare the notes on the introduction to those psalms (Ps. 74; Ps. 79; Ps. 80).
(4) Eleven of the psalms, Psa 42:1-11; Ps. 44; Ps. 45; Psa 46:1-11; Psa 47:1-9; Psa 48:1-14; Ps. 49; Psa 84:1-12; Psa 85:1-13; Psa 87:1-7; Ps. 88; are ascribed to "the sons of Korah," as the authors, or are "for the sons of Korah." See the notes to the introduction of Psa 42:1-11. It is not certain whether these were composed by "the sons of Korah," or were composed for "the sons of Korah;" that is, for the company of musicians to whom the direction of the music in the temple was confided. It is obvious, however, that if the meaning is that they were composed by "the sons of Korah," this furnishes no information as to the individual authorship of the psalms. By which one of them they were composed, or whether by more than one, of course is not indicated by a title so general. DeWette supposes that most of these psalms pertain to the times of the Exile, or to a later period. There is nothing very unique in the character of these psalms; nothing which in themselves could lead us to conclude that they were composed by those to whom they are ascribed, rather than by David or Asaph.
(5) Two psalms, Ps. 88; Ps. 89 are ascribed to a person called "The Ezrahite." One of these, Ps. 88, is ascribed to" the Ezrahite," and the other, Ps. 89, to Ethan the Ezrahite." The former of these is also reckoned among those which pertain to the "sons of Korah." Ethan and Heman were probably, however, different persons, to each of whom the name "Ezrahite" might for some reason be applied. In Kg1 4:31, they are mentioned among others as remarkable for their wisdom: "For he, Solomon, was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol." In Ch1 2:6, they are mentioned as "sons of Zerah:" "Zimri, and Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Dara." In Ch1 6:33, a Heman is mentioned as one of the "sons of the Kohathites:" "Heman, a singer, the son of Joel." So, in Ch1 15:17, he is mentioned in connection with Ethan, who is there said to be the son of Kushaiah; and in Ch1 15:19, he is mentioned as associated with Asaph and Ethan: "So the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were appointed to sound with cymbals of brass." In Ch1 25:1, Helman is mentioned with Jeduthun, as one of those whose sons "should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals." He is there referred to as associated with Asaph. Compare Ch2 5:12; Ch2 29:13-14; Ch2 35:15. Ethan is twice mentioned - Kg1 4:31 as above, as a wise man, and Ch1 2:6, as above. Compare the notes on the introduction to Ps. 88; Ps. 89.
(6) Two of the psalms, Ps. 72 and Psa 127:1-5, are ascribed to Solomon, or are "for Solomon." See the notes on the titles to those psalms (Ps. 72; Ps. 127). It cannot be positively determined whether those psalms are his composition, or whether they were composed with reference to him or for him. The latter would seem to be the more probable opinion in regard to Ps. 72, so far as can be determined from the contents of the psalm; but still there is nothing which absolutely prevents us from ascribing the two to him as the author.
(7) Fifteen of the psalms, Ps. 120-134, are entitled "Songs of Degrees." Of these, four are ascribed to David and one to Solomon. The names of the authors of the others are not mentioned. Compare the introduction to the notes on Psa 120:1-7. They are grouped together because they appear to have been used on certain special occasions, rather than from anything special in the psalms themselves.
(8) Some of the psalms are ascribed in the Septuagint translation to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel, to Haggai, and to Zechariah. As there is nothing corresponding to this in the Hebrew titles, this must have been, of course, mere conjecture or tradition.
(9) There remains a pretty large number of the collection the names of whose authors are not mentioned; and, of course, there are now no means of determining the question in regard to the authorship. Such are s. 150. These, it will be seen, are irregularly scattered through the book, though they are, for the most part, near its close.
In regard to the origin and authority of the titles to the several psalms, see section 4.
Section 3. "The Formation of the Collection and Arrangement of the Book of Psalm."
The Jewish Talmud (Cod. Berachot, 1, 9) ascribes the formation of the Psalter, or the assembling of the Book of Psalms, to David. It is unnecessary to remark that this cannot be a correct opinion, since many of the psalms are indubitably of a later date than the time of David. Most of the Christian fathers, and many critics of modern times, ascribe the collection and arrangement of the Book to Ezra, and this is now regarded as the most probable opinion; and if so the whole collection must have been formed about 450 years before Christ. But though this may be regarded as the correct opinion in regard to the completion of the whole as it now stands, yet there is evidence in the psalms themselves of the existence of smaller collections made before from which the general one was ultimately formed. By whom those smaller collections were made is not now known, nor can it be ascertained what changes may have been made in them when the general collection was formed.
The Book is divided in the Hebrew text into five minor books or collections, sufficiently marked in their character, and so indicated at the close of each as to make it every way probable that these may have been "published," so to speak, in the form of different books, or that the later were additions to the first collection or volume. This division is found also in the Septuagint version - a fact which proves that it existed as early as the year 200 b.c. These portions bear marks of being not "arbitrary" divisions made at the time when the general collection was formed, but distinct and independent collections by different persons. The grouping is not precisely accurate, that is, in the first part, the "Psalms of David" Ps. 1-41, not all the psalms of David are included; and there are a few that are not ascribed to him in the title; but still it was so complete at the time, probably, as to make it proper to regard it as a collection of "his" psalms in respect to the purpose for which that collection was made.
The first book embraces the first 41 psalms, and was, probably, a collection of David's psalms as such, although it does not embrace by any means all that he wrote, probably not all that were extant at the time when the collection was made. The "close" of this "book" is indicated by the words "Amen, and Amen," Psa 41:13. All the psalms in this collection, except Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12; Ps. 10; Ps. 33; are expressly ascribed to David, and it is every way probable that all were composed by him. In many manuscripts, in the Septuagint, and in the Latin Vulgate, the first psalm is united with the second (as are, also, in other parts of the general collection, Psa 42:1-11 and Psa 43:1-5; and Ps. 116 and Psa 117:1-2). It is probable that this collection was early made, though DeWette has endeavored to show that it could not have been until after the exile, since he supposes that Psa 14:1-7 and Ps. 44 were composed after that event. Of this, however, there is no evidence. Of course it is impossible to determine by whom this collection was made. It has been supposed by some that it was as early as the time of Hezekiah, and that it was prepared under his direction, as he is known to have ordered a collection of the proverbs of Solomon to be made and written out Pro 25:1; and as Ch2 29:30 he "commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David." (Kitto, Encyclopedia)
The second book in the general collection comprises Ps. 42-72. This collection is made up of the psalms of "the sons of Korah," Ps. 42-49; of one of the psalms of Asaph, Ps. 50; of 19 psalms of David; of two whose authors are not named; and of one inscribed "to Solomon," or "for Solomon," Ps. 72. At the end of this collection Psa 72:20 the following notice is given: "The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended;" and some have supposed that this was the close of the entire psalms preceding it, as one book or collection, Ps. 1-72. Carpzov, Introduction ii. 107. But that this was a different collection, or that there were two collections made by different persons, seems evident from the fact that Psa 53:1-6 is the same as Psa 14:1-7; with only slight variations - the variations consisting mainly in the fact that the word אלהים 'Elohiym is used as the name of God in the latter, in the place of יהוה Yahweh in the former. It cannot be supposed that a collector would have used the same psalm with such a variation in the same collection. So also Psa 70:1-5 is only a repetition of Psa 40:13-17, with only a similar change.
It may be "suggested" that these two collections may have been subsequently "united," and may have constituted as one before the more general collection was made. Thus, the natural "close" of this collection, as of the first collection Psa 41:13, would be with the words "Amen, and Amen," Psa 72:19. To the "entire" collection - the two combined - these words may have been added Psa 72:20, "The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended," meaning that "now" an entire and complete collection of the Psalms of David had been made in the "two" combined; or, that "as many had been combined for public worship as were then intended to be used in that service." This idea would not prevent the supposition that there may have been at that time, in fact, other psalms of David in existence; or that they might have been subsequently introduced into the worship of God in "other" collections.
The third book Ps. 73-89 consists in part Ps. 73-83 of psalms of Asaph, and in part Ps. 84-89 of the psalms of the sons of Korah, including one of David Ps. 86. The book contains none of the psalms of David, with the exception of Ps. 86; and therefore the notice is given at the end of the second book Psa 72:20, that "the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended." It was evidently the design of the author of the compilation at the "close" of that book not to admit in the following book any of the psalms of David; perhaps it was the intention "not" to collect anymore of the psalms of David for the purpose of public worship. Possibly, as DeWette (Einleitung, p. 21) suggests, the author of the collection in the third book put the notice at the end of the second book that David's psalms ended there, it being his intention to make a collection of another kind. when this collection was made is unknown. From Psa 85:1-13 it would seem probable that it was made as late as the return from the captivity at Babylon. That psalm may have been written by one of the company called "the sons of Korah;" or it may have been composed for their use in the sanctuary. This collection closes, like the two former, with the expressive "Amen, and Amen," Psa 89:52,
The fourth collection Ps. 90-106 is made up wholly of anonymous psalms, with the exception of Ps. 90, which is ascribed to Moses, and Psa 101:1-8; Ps. 103; which are ascribed to David. They are psalms which have almost no local references or allusions, which might, for the most part, have been composed in any country or at any period of the world; and which, in their structure and allusions, give no indication of their authors or of the circumstances which led to their composition. Their authorship, except in the three instances above mentioned, cannot now be ascertained; nor is it necessary to determine that question in order fully to understand and appreciate them. They were manifestly designed for public worship, and probably written with the intention of being so used. This book closes Psa 106:48 with the expression "Amen, Hallelujah."
The fifth and last book Ps. 107-150, is miscellaneous in its character, and seems to have been intended to be a collection of all the scattered psalms which would be proper for public worship, which had not found a place in the other collections. Part (Psa 108:1-13; Ps. 109; Psa 110:1-7; Psa 122:1-9; Psa 124:1-8; Psa 131:1-3; Psa 133:1-3; the four last being among the "Songs of Degrees," Psa 138:1-8; Ps. 139; Psa 140:1-13; Psa 141:1-10; Psa 142:1-7; Psa 143:1-12; Psa 144:1-15; Ps. 145) are ascribed to David. Part Ps. 120-134 consist of the "Songs of Degrees." The rest Ps. 107; Psa 111:1-10; Psa 112:1-10; Psa 113:1-9; Psa 114:1-8; Ps. 115; Ps. 116; Psa 117:1-2; Ps. 118; Ps. 119; Ps. 135; Ps. 136; Psa 137:1-9; Psa 146:1-10; Ps. 147; Psa 148:1-14; Psa 149:1-9; Psa 150:1-6 are anonymous. By whom, and when this last collection was made is unknown. It may without improbability, however, be supposed perhaps that it was made by the person (Ezra?) who undertook to collect into one the entire "books" already existing, and who found many psalms that had not been included by the collectors of the previous books, and who, therefore, grouped all these together in a single book, to be added in the general collection to those which had been already classified and arranged.
Section 4. "The Titles to the Several Psalm."
All the psalms, except Ps. 34, now have in the Hebrew titles or superscriptions. Some, however, reckon only 25 exceptions, as, according to their view, the phrase, "Hallelujah,"" Praise ye the Lord," occurring at the commencement of several of the psalms, is regarded by them as a title or superscription. The more correct supposition, however, undoubtedly is to regard that phrase as a part of the psalm. To each one of these exceptions the Talmud gives the name of "Orphan Psalms."
(a) The "authorship" of these titles is unknown, and cannot now be ascertained. They are found in the Hebrew; but it is not to be supposed that, so far as the "name" of the author of the psalm is concerned, or so far as they are intended to indicate the author, they were prefixed to the psalm by the authors themselves. The Psalms are not of the nature of epistles or histories, and it cannot be supposed that the author would prefix his name to a mere poem or hymn. The probability, therefore, is, that they were prefixed to the psalms as they came into common use, or by the collectors of the several books, or the collector of the entire book, either as indicating what was the common opinion on the subject of the authorship, and the occasion on which they were composed, or as an inspired record in regard to that authorship and design. The question "by whom" they were prefixed is, however, a point which cannot now be determined. If it were possible to ascertain that, it would do much to determine their authority and worth, but the estimate of their value must now be settled by some other method than this.
(b) These titles are of great "antiquity." The fact that they are found in the Hebrew manuscripts proves this, for there are no Hebrew manuscripts, however ancient, without them. They are found, with some variations, in the Septuagint; and it is thus certain that they existed before that translation was made. This point is also confirmed by the fact that the translators of the Septuagint have, in some instances, copied the Hebrew words in Greek letters, without attempting to translate them; and that, in other instances, the titles which they use are translations of the Hebrew words, and show that they must have been made from a Hebrew original. These facts, however, would not make it necessary to suppose that they had been prefixed by the writers themselves, nor would it be "necessary" to suppose that they were prefixed before the time when the psalms were collected - either the separate books, or the general collection.
(c) The "design" of these titles is either to designate the author of the psalm, or the occasion on which it was composed, or the chief singer to whom it was dedicated, and to whom it seems to have been committed to set it to appropriate music - that is, to arrange the music for a public use of the psalm; or the style of the poetry; or the instrument which was to be used; or the "tune" which was to be sung. Some of the titles simply designate the author, as in many of those ascribed to David; some describe at length the occasion on which they were written, as Ps. 18; Psa 30:1-12; Ps. 51; Psa 52:1-9; Psa 56:1-13; etc. Some combine several of these things together, the author, the occasion, the style of the poetry, the music to be used, etc., as Psa 52:1-9; Psa 53:1-6; Psa 54:1-7; Ps. 55; Psa 56:1-13. The longest and fullest of these titles is that prefixed to Psa 60:1-12; where we have the dedication to the chief musician, the name of the author, the style of the poetry, the design of the psalm, the instrument of music to be employed, and the historical occasion on which the psalm was composed.
(d) It is very difficult at this distance of time to explain the "meaning" of many of these titles, and critics have differed very materially in their conjectures on this subject. The difficulty arises in a considerable degree from our ignorance in regard to the temple-music, and to the instruments which were employed. The difficulty is the same which would exist two or three thousand years from the present time in explaining a book, now familiar, containing "tunes" of music, and a reference to the instruments of music which are now employed in the public service of God. It might be difficult, if not impossible, so to describe the exact instrument of music used as to be intelligible to a future age; and it would be obviously impossible to explain satisfactorily the "names" of many of the "tunes" which are now in common use - as "Mear," "Martin's," "Russia, "Windham," "Lenox." The difficulty, as has been remarked above, was felt even at the time when the Septuagint version was made, as in several instances the authors of that version have not attempted even to translate the title, but have expressed it in Greek letters answering to the Hebrew. Coverdale, who translated the Bible in 1535, felt the difficulty to be so great that he has omitted nearly all the titles except the names of the authors. In these notes, as far as an explanation can now be given that is satisfactory or probable, it will be offered in the exposition of the particular psalms.
(e) There has been a wide difference of opinion respecting the "authority" of these titles. Not a few modern critics, especially German critics, regard them as of no authority, and argue in respect to the authorship of the psalms, and the time and occasion on which they were composed, as if no such titles were found in the Hebrew. By most of the ancient critics they were considered as genuine, and as having equal authority with the psalms themselves. They were wholly rejected at the close of the fourth century by Theodore of Mopsuestia, one of the ablest and most judicious of the ancient interpreters. Rosenmuller, Hist. Interp. Librorum Sacrorum, P. III, p. 256. Tholuck and Hengstenberg admit their authority. The "objections" to the authority of the title are such as these:
(1) That the "subscriptions" at the close of the epistles in the New Testament are now regarded as of no historical value, and it is asked why may not the same conclusion be adopted in regard to the titles "prefixed" to the psalms?
(2) that the ancient versions, the Syriac and the Greek especially, exhibit them with great variations, often altering the Hebrew, and sometimes giving a heading where the Hebrew has none. It is asked whether these ancient translators would have taken such liberties if the titles had been considered sacred like the psalms themselves? (Kitto). - It is added on this point, that "if ever Ezra settled them, the variations in versions and manuscripts have tended since to make them doubtful." Eichhorn, "Einleitung," III, p. 490.
(3) It is argued that the titles are at variance with the contents of the psalms. Thus, it is alleged that sometimes the name of the author is incorrectly given, "as when David is named over the psalms referring to the captivity," as in Psa 14:1-7; Ps. 25; Ps. 51; Ps. 69. It is also alleged that Ps. 139 cannot be David's, since it is not free from Aramaisms. It is also said that the occasion on which a psalm was composed is not always correctly specified, as in Psa 30:1-12.
It is to be observed, however, that these writers sometimes assume that a psalm refers to the time of the exile when it would be possible to explain it on the supposition that it was composed at an earlier date; and that it is not always safe to argue from the internal evidence of a psalm against the inscription. A critic affixes his own interpretation to a psalm, and then adopts that as a basis of argument in regard to its origin; whereas often, possibly in all cases, if the inscription were assumed to be correct, it would not be difficult to explain the psalm, by fair rules of interpretation, in accordance with that supposition.
On the whole, it seems to me that these inscriptions are to be regarded as a part of the inspired record, and as having the authority of inspiration. The fact that they are found in the Hebrew - that they can be traced back to the earliest periods when we have any knowledge of the Hebrew text - that they have come down to us with that text - furnishes proof which it seems we cannot now set aside; that they are to be regarded as a part of the text, and that they should not be rejected, except as any other portion of the Hebrew text should be rejected, i. e., only when it can be demonstrated that an error has crept into the text by the fault of transcribers.
Section 5. "The General Character of the Book of Psalm."
The Psalms are mostly lyrical poetry, that is, poetry adapted to the harp or lyre; to be used in connection with instrumental music; to be "sung," not "read." Such poetry was common among the ancients, as it is among the moderns. Anacreon, Alcaeus, Stesichous, Sappho, and Horace were eminent among the ancients as "lyric" poets; and the numerous writers of "songs," sacred and secular, among the moderns, are to be ranked in the same class. The phrase "lyric poetry" now, however, is frequently applied to that species of poetry which "directly expresses the individual emotions of the poet" (Webster).
Lyric poetry is, for the most part, an expression of deep feeling, and has its foundation in feeling or emotion. It is not so much the fruit of the understanding as of the heart; not so much the creation of the imagination as the utterance of deep personal emotion. It embraces in its design and nature all kinds of feeling, and may be joyous, pensive, desponding, triumphant, according to the feelings of the author, or to the occasion, for all these utterances may be sung, or may be set to music, the varying tones of music being adapted to express them all. Hence, in the Psalms, 150 in number, and composed by a considerable variety of individuals, and on many different occasions, we have the varied feelings of trouble, anguish, fear, hope, joy, trust, thankfulness, devotion to God, penitence for sin, and the exultation of forgiveness - the heart moved, and finding vent for its feelings in words adapted to the melody of the lyre, or the musical tones of the voice. These feelings are expressed in a great variety of modes or forms, and the music was intended, doubtless, to be in accordance with these varied feelings. The Psalms, therefore, comprise compositions of the following classes or orders:
(1) Hymns in which the praise of God is the principal and leading object, as
(a) in general, God is praised as the God of nature and of men, Psa 8:1-9; Ps. 104; Ps. 145;
(b) as the God of nature and of the Hebrew people, Psa 19:1-14; Psa 29:1-11; Ps. 33; Psa 65:1-13; Psa 93:1-5; Ps. 135; Ps. 136; Ps. 147;
(c) as uniquely the God of the Hebrew people, Psa 47:1-9; Ps. 66; Psa 67:1-7; Psa 75:1-10;
(d) as the helper and deliverer of his people, Psa 46:1-11; Psa 48:1-14; Psa 75:1-10; Psa 76:1-12; Ps. 18; Psa 30:1-12; Psa 138:1-8.
(2) Psalms pertaining to the Hebrew nation; to its history; to the Divine interposition in its behalf; and to its relation to Yahweh. Ps. Ps. 78; Ps. 105; Ps. 106; Psa 114:1-8.
(3) temple psalms, or songs of Zion. Psa 5:1-12; Psa 15:1-5; Psa 24:1-10; Psa 87:1-7; Ps. 132.
(4) Psalms in relation to trial, calamity, distress, whether of individuals or of the nation. These abound, as Ps. 7; Ps. 22; Ps. 55; Psa 56:1-13; Ps. 109; Ps. 44; Ps. 74; Psa 79:1-13; Ps. 80; Psa 137:1-9; Ps. 69; Ps. 77; Ps. 102; Ps. 10; Psa 12:1-8; Psa 14:1-7; Psa 36:1-12; and many others.
(5) Religious and moral psalms, Ps. 90; Ps. 139; Psa 23:1-6; Ps. 91; Psa 121:1-8; Psa 127:1-5; Psa 128:1-6; Psa 42:1-11; Psa 43:1-5; Psa 101:1-8; Psa 131:1-3; Psa 1:1-6; Psa 133:1-3; Ps. 119:
The uniqueness of the Hebrew lyrical poetry as distinguished from the lyrical poetry of other ancient people, and from most of the lyrical poetry in modern times, is its "religion." It is lyrical poetry on subjects pertaining to religion, or to be employed in religion: as expressing religious feeling, and as designed to awaken and foster such feeling. It is intended to raise the heart and the affections toward God; to lift up the thoughts of men from the earth; to inspire confidence in God; to produce consolation as derived from God in times of trouble; to cheer and comfort man in his pilgrimage along a path of sorrow and trouble to a better abode. Much of it can be best characterized by an expression derived from the Bible itself - an expression no less remarkable for its beauty than its truthfulness - as "songs in the night" Job 35:10; songs indicating the joy that may spring up in the soul of man in times of distress and sorrow; songs that show that there "is" joy in the darkness of this world; songs which illustrate the power and the value of religion; songs with which men cheer themselves and each other in their journey toward the grave; songs which even the guilty may pour forth from hearts softened into penitence, and filled with thankfulness in the assurance of pardon.
It is most remarkable that this rich poetry should have sprung up in Palestine, and that it should have been confined to that land. It was not that the land was better adapted to lyric poetry than other lands - for in this respect it could not compare favorably with many other countries, and particularly with Greece. It was not that the events of their history had been such as peculiarly to suggest this kind of composition - for poetry adapted to the lyre or to music abounded elsewhere, and especially in Greece. It was not that the Hebrews had a more poetic imagination than other people - for theirs did not, in this respect, surpass the Greek genius, and whatever there was of poetic imagination in the character of their minds was found with equal richness in Arabia and Persia. Nor was it that their language was especiallly favorable for this kind of poetry - for in very many respects it was far inferior in this point to the Greek, and had no superiority certainly over the Arabian and Persian.
The fact that their poetry took this turn; the fact that all which they had was religious; the fact that there was literally no poetry in their language that was designed and adapted to the dance, to festive amusements, to Bacchanalian orgies, to scenes of gaiety, frivolity, and vanity; the fact that in all the lyric poetry of the Hebrews there is literally nothing in this respect that can be placed by the side of much in the Greek lyric poetry - much in Horace - much in Burns; by the side of the lyric poetry of all lands except Palestine, can be traced only to the idea that the new religion prevailed there, and can be best explained on the supposition that the authors of that poetry were inspired to prepare and transmit to future times that which, in all ages, would express the feelings of true devotion, and which might be permanently employed in the praises of God. He will fail to explain the fact that such poetry is found in Palestine alone, and will fail to appreciate its true nature, who does not admit that these "sweet singers" were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
On the general character of Hebrew poetry, see the introduction to the notes on the Book of Job, Section 5. On "the origin and culture of lyric poetry among the Hebrews," it may be proper to introduce here the following remarks from DeWette's "Commentar ueber die Psalmen," Einleitung, II, pp. 6-12. I copy from the elegant translation of the introduction of DeWette, by Prof. John Torrey, in the Biblical Repository, Vol. III, pp. 450-456:
"If we follow the titles of the Psalms and the common opinion, we must suppose the lyric poetry of the Hebrews, as well as the largest portion of the Psalms themselves, a production of David and his contemporaries. The few specimens of lyric composition which we find before David scarcely enter into consideration, compared with the fertility of his own period. In the earlier history it is but occasionally that the voice of poetry is heard, as in the songs of Moses at the Red Sea, of Deborah, and of Hannah. We are surprised, after so few attempts in lyric poetry, to see so accomplished and fruitful a poet rise up all at once, with several others in his company. So rapid a progress supposes some adequate occasion, some preparatory steps. Now, if we cast our eye over the history of the times immediately preceding the age of David, we are presented with a phenomenon which seems to explain the difficulty.
It is Samuel's school of the prophets. Many, as Herder, Eichhorn, Nachtigall, and Rosenmuller, suppose that the composition of psalms was cultivated and brought to perfection in this seminary. Specious as this conjecture appears, it is hardly reconcilable with the facts of the history. It is not intimated that David, before his unction, had any connection with Samuel. The former tends his father's flock. Indeed Samuel appears to have had no acquaintance with David when he comes to anoint him, Sa1 16:6 ff. Yet, David is already a skillful minstrel, and famed for his art, Sa1 16:18; he was not, therefore, a disciple of Samuel, at least in minstrelsy. But it is well known that music and song at this period were not separated; we must therefore suppose that David was already a poet, and, as such, known and celebrated. Some time afterward, it is true, we find David in Samuel's school of the prophets, but it is only on the occasion of his flight from Saul, Sa1 19:18 ff.
It may be possible that Samuel had some acquaintance with David prior to his unction, though no mention is made of it in the account of that transaction, 1 Sam. 16. But he might have been an object of attention to the prophet without being properly his disciple; or perhaps the youth was his own instructor. Natural capacity, in connection with frequent practice, might produce the same degree of talent, to say the least, as an artificial system of instruction, like that which we may suppose to have prevailed in the prophetic school. At the same time, it would be an error to imagine that lyric poetry arose among the Hebrews all at once, as if it sprung out of the ground. David's contemporaries, the women who celebrated with song and joy his victory over Goliath, practiced a species of poetry which, though rude and uncultivated, was truly lyric in its kind; their short poem, has already the form of the poetic parallelism, and an original and superior mind might easily advance from such a beginning to the highest degree of excellence.
Saul smote his thousands,
But David his ten thousands,
We find also, still earlier, in addition to the examples of Moses, Deborah, and Hannah, the practice, particularly among the women, of music and the dance, from which song certainly was not excluded. Jephthah's daughter comes out to meet her father with timbrels and dances, Jdg 11:34. At Shiloh the maidens held a yearly feast with dances, Jdg 21:21. It may be questioned whether Samson was not a minstrel, for he is called out to play before the Philistines, Jdg 16:25, which is commonly understood to refer to the dance, but excludes not the accompaniments of song and instrumental music. But even if he was not, strictly speaking, a musician and singer, yet we meet in him with the first "Mashal" poet, as we have also from the same period the masterly apologue of Jotham. Such facts, though insulated, presuppose among a people a considerably high degree of cultivation, or at least of poetical capacity.
Indeed, the song of Deborah alone proves that the poetic art was already arrived at a stage of improvement sufficient to account for the origin of the Davidian poetry. Whether a period produces one admirable poem or more is a matter of chance rather than the result of the state of culture. Besides, the times of the judges and of Samuel constituted the heroic age of the Hebrews, a period peculiarly favorable to the first beginnings and gradual improvement of poetry. 'Such times,' says Eichhorn, 'are poetical under every climate;' but I cannot add with him, 'that poetry, in this case, is like the nation, wild and heroic, breathes only in the warlike trump, and knows no field for practice but that of valor and victory with their attendant train.' The occasions which first called forth the Hebrew poets were, probably enough, connected with war; but when poetry has once sprung into life, she confines herself to no such narrow limits, and draws still other objects within her circle. With feasts of victory, sacrifices, dances, and other rites were united, which might easily have tempered the song to a tone of somewhat softer character. Even warlike songs admit of the gentler emotions, and the song of Deborah is rich in touches of amiable feeling. When it is said they sung to the trumpet, we are certainly not to understand it in the literal sense; the music of the harp, of the flute, and of the timbrel, was the accompaniment even of the songs of war, and these instruments are adapted to the softest tones. We are not then obliged to trace the origin of the sweet and amiable poetry of David's psalms exclusively to Samuel's school of the prophets.
"Unfortunately we know far too little about the prophetic school of Samuel to determine what influence it had on the cultivation of poetry. The passages relating to it are Sa1 10:5; Sa1 19:19-20. In the first of these it is undoubtedly implied that the disciples of the prophets had music among them. and their 'prophesying' (התנבא hitenabē') has been understood, not without grounds, in the sense of song, for the word נביא nâbı̂y' sometimes signifies poet, Exo 15:20, and נבא nibâ', to sing, Ch1 25:1 ff. We may suppose, however, that this music was employed simply as a support and accompaniment of the prophetic delivery. The prophets probably delivered their messages, in the earlier times at least, in connection with music and a vehement action and declamation approaching to a dance. The passage in Kg2 3:15 ff. is remarkable. The prophet Elisha is about to pronounce the answer of the Lord to certain inquiries of Jehoshaphat; but before he does it, he asks for a minstrel; and as the latter strikes the harp, 'the hand of Yahweh comes upon him,' and he utters his reply.
The case here, it is true, is different; the prophet does not play and sing himself, but submits to the performance of another; still it shows the constant connection of music with the prophetic office. Neither is it distinctly asserted in the passages above that the company of the prophets "sung" themselves. The word התנבא hitenabē', which is there employed, may not perhaps signify "to sing," for Saul and Saul's messengers prophecy - התנבאוּ hitenabe'û - as soon as they hear the music, without preparation or practice. Their prophesying was perhaps nothing more than a vehement action, dancing, and gesticulation, as we see from the circumstance of Saul's falling down naked. At the farthest, they might have joined in the choral song with the company of prophets. Such choral chants were perhaps sung in the school of Samuel, but only for the purposes of devotion and inspiration; and the proper design of this school was to educate youth for the prophetic office, that is, to give counsel from the Lord to a people under a theocratic government.
Samuel was a prophet, and history has preserved no remains of any poetical works of his. Is it not most probable that he was aiming to educate his disciples likewise for the prophetic office? Now, it is true that the Hebrews drew no accurate line of distinction between lyric poetry and prophetic eloquence; yet these two always differ, particularly in the mode of delivery, for the lyric poem was probably sung, while the prophetic message was only recited. Supposing, then, Samuel was employed in forming his disciples to be prophetic poets or speakers, what is more natural than to imagine that some of them might feel drawn by genius and inclination to lyric poetry, and succeed in perfecting themselves in this? Yet it lay out of the plan of the prophetic school, and was a thing quite accidental. It is hardly correct, therefore, to consider the prophetic school of Samuel simply as an institution for the cultivation of singing and poetry.
"There were other institutions which may have had an influence still more important and decided than this school of the prophets in promoting the culture of lyric poetry, especially of the religious kind. I refer particularly to those musical schools which, according to the account, Ch1 15:16 ff. were founded by David in aid of the public worship. Yet I cannot retract the unfavorable opinion I once pronounced upon these and similar narratives in the Chronicles; I must rather confirm it. Besides the reasons there alleged, which I may not repeat, it seems to me to be a circumstance particularly calculated to excite suspicion, that the psalms and fragments of psalms represented by the Chronicles to have been sung at the dedication of the tabernacle and on similar occasions can hardly have been penned by David, but belong rather to the later and less pure style of the temple poetry. The psalm which is sung, Ch1 16:8 ff, is composed Ps. 105 and Psa 96:1-13; but both are productions of a later style. If the Chronicles had presented us on this occasion with a genuine song of David, such as the elegy for which we are indebted to 2 Sam. 1; this circumstance would have contributed not a little to add weight to its authority, but the insertion of these fragments throws suspicion over the whole of the accompanying narrative. The phrase also, quoted Ch1 16:41, and elsewhere, respecting the Levites who were appointed to give thanks to the Lord, 'because his mercy endureth forever,' betrays the later poetry of the temple, an example of which we have in Ps. 136, where this phrase forms a regular refrain; also Ps. 106; Ps. 107; Ps. 118; in which this phrase occurs appear to belong to a later style of poetry.
"We may imagine that a master like David would not be without companions and assistants in the poetic art; and, in fact, several of David's contemporaries are named in the titles as composers of psalms: but these notices are not always good authority. Solomon, according to the testimony of history, united in himself such richness of lyric invention with the sententious style unique to him, that in his time lyric poetry must have attained to a very high degree of perfection. 'Solomon spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five,' Kg1 4:32. It is singular, however, that with the exception of two which are quite uncertain, no psalms of Solomon are preserved in our present collection; nor do we find any psalm with the author's name belonging to the period after Solomon, not even one which admits of being referred with certainty and of necessity to any particular event in the history of those times; and yet such lyric poems as those of Hezekiah and of Habakkuk clearly evince, that during this period the culture of lyric composition had by no means fallen into neglect.
On the contrary, we have many psalms which, according to the results of a sound critical exegesis almost universally acknowledged, must be placed in the times of the captivity, and after the captivity; and these psalms rank, for purity of language, and for sublimity, beauty, and freshness of conception, in the highest class, and are, in no respect, inferior to the poems of David and his contemporaries, for example, Ps. 45; Ps. 74; Psa 79:1-13; Ps. 107; and many, if not all, of the Psalms of Degrees. We are here presented, then, with a singular phenomenon. The lyric poetry of the Hebrews, which was cultivated and brought to perfection in the times of David, after producing abundance of fruit, sank into a repose of nearly 500 years, and then all at once, in the most calamitous period of the state, arose again, survived another golden age, and yielded a second harvest - a phenomenon hardly corresponding with the common course of events. The singularity, however, disappears as soon as we suppose that the collection of Psalms contains several pieces, either anonymous or incorrectly named, which belong to the period extending from David to the captivity. Indeed, it is in the highest degree probable that lyric composition flourished side by side with the prophetic poetry, and that many of the prophets themselves contributed to our present collection, and might reclaim their own productions from David and others. Some of the prophets, too, are actually named by the Septuagint as authors of psalms."
Section 6. "The Imprecations in the Psalm."
Much has been written on the subject of the imprecations in the Psalms, or, as they are called, "The imprecatory psalms;" and perhaps there is no part of the Bible that gives more perplexity and pain to its readers than this; perhaps nothing that constitutes a more plausible objection to the belief that the psalms are the productions of inspired men than the spirit of revenge which they sometimes seem to breathe, and the spirit of cherished malice and implacableness which the writers seem to manifest. There has been probably no explanation offered which has relieved the minds of those who are thus perplexed, or which has furnished a solution wholly satisfactory on the question how this spirit can be reconciled with the precepts of the New Testament and with the requirements of true religion. It is useless to attempt to disguise or to conceal the difficulty, and it may be admitted that most of the explanations which have been suggested leave the difficulty just where it was. Perhaps it is not possible for us to remove all such difficulty, or so to present the subject that questions may not be asked which it would be impossible to answer, and, indeed, what subject is there in mental philosophy, in natural science, in morals, or in theology, on which questions may not be asked which the human powers are not yet competent to answer? In regard to the growth of a blade of grass, questions may be asked which no chemist - no person - can answer.
With reference to the imprecations in the Psalms, it will be proper, first, to refer to some specimens of such psalms, that we may know where the difficulty lies; and then to consider in what way, if any, this difficulty may be solved.
The following are among the passages which would be referred to as belonging to that class of psalms. They are not, indeed, all that could be selected, but they are fair specimens, and there are no others that would involve any difficulty which are not found in these.
Psa 5:10, "destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee."
Psa 10:15, "break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness until thou find none."
Psa 18:40-42, "thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in streets."
Psa 28:4, "give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert."
Psa 31:17, "let me not be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave."
Psa 35:3-8, "draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be founded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall."
Psa 40:14, "let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil."
Psa 55:9, "destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city."
Psa 55:15, "let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick (alive, living) into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them."
Psa 58:6-10, "break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord. Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked."
Psa 59:12-15, "for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak. Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth. And at evening let them return; and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied."
Psa 68:2, "as smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God."
Psa 69:22-25, "let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents."
Psa 79:12, "and render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord."
Psa 83:9-17, "do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison: which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth. Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb; yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna ...O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind. As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; so persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish."
Psa 109:6-15, "set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth."
Psa 137:7-9, "remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
These are specimens of the class of psalms now under consideration, and though the number might be somewhat increased, yet these examples embrace those which are most difficult to be explained, and involve all the difficulties to be found in this class of the psalms. None could be adduced which seem to breathe a more vindictive spirit than these do; none seem to be more opposed to the spirit of the New Testament. If, therefore, a solution can be suggested that would be satisfactory in regard to these passages, it would be easy to apply the principles of such a solution to all the similar passages in the Psalms.
The inquiry then occurs in what way, if in any way, the difficulty is to be solved, or what explanations can be suggested.
On this subject the following remarks may be made:
(1) Whatever difficulty there exists is created by the Bible itself. The record is one which the sacred writers have themselves made. This fact is proof at least of candor, and of a consciousness on their part that there was "nothing" in this record which was not founded in truth, which did not really occur; that is, that these feelings actually existed in their minds. It cannot be pretended that the writers indulged in feelings which they were unwilling to record; which they were ashamed to make known. In fact, they took all the methods in their power to make them known, and to have the record perpetuated. They not only recorded them - put them in a permanent form - but they embodied them in poetry, which was to be employed in the public worship of God; which was to go down to future ages, to direct the devotions of the people of far-distant times. Moreover, if there is any condemnation of this spirit in the Bible - if there was anything wrong in this spirit - we are to remember that the condemnation is found in the very book where these expressions occur - for it is to be assumed here that, so far as the objection lies against these expressions as a part of the Bible - as a part of a pretended revelation - "the Bible is one book;" the Old Testament and the New are parts of the same revelation from God. The Bible, thus in making the record, should be allowed at least to be a book of candor - a book in which there is no attempt to conceal what was actually passing in the minds of the writers. There was, it may be presumed some reason for making the record which was regarded as not inconsistent with the purpose of a revelation; and it was assumed also that these things would be susceptible of an explanation, which would be consistent with the claim that the Bible was a revelation from God.
(2) It may be a fair subject of inquiry how much of what is charged as wrong, harsh, and vindictive, may be referred to the spirit of the age in which the Bible was composed, and in which these men lived. This remark is not made on the supposition that the principles of morals and religion change from one age to another; or that they are modified by the circumstances of men; or that the same thing is morally right in one age or country, and morally wrong in another. Truth and holiness, right and wrong, do not change, nor are they dependent on the caprices or the customs of mankind. Still, in order to know exactly what was "meant;" how much words express; what was the precise idea intended to be conveyed by language that was used - it is necessary for us to place ourselves in the circumstances, and to understand the prevailing customs and habits of the people who used the language. We constantly apply these principles, insensibly it may be, when we read Homer, or when we read the records of knight-errantry, or when we endeavor to understand the poetry of any people in the earlier periods of history.
The language which a covenanter or a Puritan used may possibly have expressed no other internal emotion than would be expressed by the milder language which we should use; the rough words which the uneducated and the common use may express no different feelings than would be found to exist when the thoughts are conveyed in the smooth tones, and the courtly phrases of those in the higher walks of life. There may be as much bitter feeling beneath silk and satin as beneath a dress made of the skins of wild beasts; in the palace as in the wigwam. It may be possible that those who lived in the earlier ages of the world really meant no more by the language which they often used, and which seems to us to be so harsh, so revengeful, and so savage, that we do in the milder tones which we employ, and which we now suppose to be demanded by civilization and Christianity. It is, at least, a supposable case that the people of future times may have had conveyed to them as much in the records of our literature, and of our customs, which they will find it difficult to explain consistently with their notions of refinement, civilization, and the spirit of pure religion, as we recognize in the language of the covenanters and the Puritans of Scotland and England, or in the poetic effusions of the days of David. Let us be sure that we understand precisely what they meant, and exactly how our own spirit is better than theirs, before we condemn them.
(3) Part of these passages may undoubtedly be regarded as prophetic; expressing what would be, rather than indicating any wish on the part of the author of the psalms that such things should be. In some instances, the passages might have been rendered in the future instead of the imperative mood, with no violation of the laws of the Hebrew language, or the proper principles of interpretation. Several of the passages of this kind which may properly be applied to the Messiah, are undoubtedly of this nature, and those passages are to be interpreted, when the laws of language will admit of such an interpretation, as expressive of what sinners deserve, and of what will come upon them, and not as indicating any desire on the part of the author that it should be so.
It must be admitted, however, that this consideration does by no means remove all the difficulty, nor does it in fact even diminish it. It cannot be affirmed by anyone acquainted with the Hebrew language that this solution could be applied to will the cases in reference to which the difficulty exists, and there is still an explanation needed to meet the cases which cannot be brought under this rule. In a book claiming to be inspired, the objection is, in effect, as great if there is only one such passage as if there are many. The essential difficulty is to explain it consistently with the claim to inspiration at all.
It should be conceded, further, that this explanation is one which cannot be admitted in regard to the most difficult of the passages. No man can show that they are all mere predictions of the future; no one can prove that all that is implied in these passages is a mere expression of what sin deserves, or what ought to be inflicted on transgressors. Beyond all question there is, in many cases, an expression of feeling - or desire - or wish; there is language used which implies that there would be gratification - satisfaction - pleasure - if the calamity invoked should come upon the enemies of the writer, or if the punishment should be inflicted on the wicked; there is what is of the nature of prayer, that these calamities might come, and that the wicked might be detected, arrested, punished. We cannot on any honest principles interpret these psalms without admitting this; and the objector has a right to ask how this feeling can be vindicated; how it can be reconciled with the spirit of Christianity; how it can be shown to be consistent with the belief that the psalms were inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is a fair question to ask, and it is one which a believer in the inspiration of the Bible should be held to answer.
(4) Some of the expressions referred to are a mere record of the feelings of others; of the gratification which they would feel in seeing vengeance inflicted on the guilty, even when revenge should be taken in the most barbarous and savage manner. In such a case all that the inspired writer, or the Spirit of inspiration, is responsible for, is the fairness of the record, or that he has given an exact statement of the feelings which would be cherished and expressed by those who should inflict the vengeance, or who should experience gratification in seeing it. A person may describe the acts of the American savage, scalping, torturing, murdering by slow degrees women and children, or the acts of cannibals, without being responsible for any of the feelings of the savages in doing this; and the writer of history cannot assuredly be responsible for all or any of the feelings of barbarous delight which a tyrant may have in oppressing his subjects, or for the fury and hatred which leads men to pursue with vengeance their flying victims. The inspired writers who made a record of the cruelty of the sons of Jacob Gen 34:25-29; Gen 49:6-7, or of the act of David in bringing forth the people of Rabbah, and "putting them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron. and making them pass through the brick-kiln" Sa2 12:31, or the acts of Joab, Ahithophel, Absalom, Nebuchadnezzar, Ahab or Jezebel, cannot be held to be answerable for the feelings which they manifested, or the deeds which they performed, nor is it fair to infer that in making the record they approved of what was done. All that the writers can be held to be responsible for is the correctness of the record.
An instance of this kind occurs in Psa 137:8-9, "O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." There is nothing to prevent our regarding this as a statement of the actual feelings - the pleasure - the satisfaction - which they would actually feel who should wreak vengeance upon Babylon. The idea may be, and from anything that appears actually is, that such had been the pride and arrogance of Babylon, such the wrongs which she had done to other people; such her acts of cruelty and oppression - that they who should overcome, subdue, and destroy her, would have conscious satisfaction and pleasure in bringing deserved punishment on her, even in those forms which men usually regard as savage and barbarous. In this there is nothing which necessarily implies that the author of the psalms would approve of it, or that he would have done it himself. If the case is supposed even to indicate the common feelings of the Hebrew people, in view of the destruction of an enemy under which the nation had suffered so much and so long, still it may be a mere record of that feeling as a matter of fact, and the Spirit of inspiration is responsible only for a fair account of the feelings which would actually exist.
In one of the methods which have thus been indicated the difficulties in regard to a portion of what are called the "imprecatory psalms" may be removed altogether. These are solutions, however, which cannot be applied to all of them; and if there is any number, however small - if there is a single one remaining - to which these solutions cannot be applied, it must be admitted that the actual difficulty still remains, for the Psalms are to be regarded as forming one book; they have, as is fairly implied in the idea that they are inspired, one author - the Holy Spirit; and as it is a principle which must be held by all who regard the Bible as an inspired book, that one text of Scripture fairly interpreted is sufficient to establish the truth of any doctrine, so it must be admitted that a well-founded objection to a single text, fairly interpreted, as really affects the question of inspiration as though there were many passages of that character. Some other solution, therefore, must be found in order to remove the real difficulty in the case.
(5) A fifth remark, therefore, in regard to the prayers in these passages considered as invocations of vengeance or of punishment on the wicked may be suggested. The real question is, whether under any circumstance such prayers - such imprecations - can be right; and whether, if ever right, the circumstances in the Psalms were such as to make them proper.
To obtain a just view of this, several remarks are to be made.
(a) David was a magistrate; a king. He was, by the appointment of God, the civil and military ruler of the nation. His authority was not an usurped authority; nor were his acts those merely of a private man, a man individually wronged. As a king - a magistrate - he was appointed to preserve order; to maintain law; to dispense justice; to detect, arraign, and punish the guilty. As a magistrate, he represented the state; the majesty of the law; the interests of justice. As, a magistrate, an act done - an offence committed - a crime in the community, did not respect him as a man - an individual - but as appointed to administer the government and to defend the state. No one can deny that David sustained this relation to the state, and that the duty of maintaining and administering law rested supremely with him. From anything that appears, also, the remark here made is applicable to each of the cases where "imprecations" are found in the Psalms. The question, then, is, whether there is anything in the office and functions of one appointed to make and execute the laws of a land which would render such imprecations justifiable.
(b) Punishment is right. It is not wrong that a penalty should be affixed to law; it is not wrong that the penalty of a law should be inflicted; it is not wrong that pain, privation of office, imprisonment, and the loss of life itself, should follow the commission of crime. So all laws determine; so all nations have judged. It is material here to remark that this is not an arbitrary thing; that it is not a matter of individual or local feeling. It is laid in our very nature. It is found in all nations. It is acted on among all people. "There is something in our very nature, account for it as we may, which approves of punishment when properly inflicted; which approves of the appointment of a penalty for crime." If this is wrong, it is a wrong in our very nature; it is a universal wrong; it is a wrong which has gone into the enactment of all laws - for all law has a penalty. A law without a penalty would be a mockery and a farce. When a man, in accordance with a just sentence of law, is fined, imprisoned, executed, we approve of it. We feel that it is what ought to be done, and in this feeling we are conscious of no wrong. We are conscious that we are not to be blamed for approving the sentence which condemns the guilty anymore than we are for approving the sentence which acquits the innocent. The foundation of this feeling is laid in the very nature of man, and, therefore, it cannot be evil. No man feels that he is blameworthy when he thus finds himself approving of a just sentence of law; no man feels that this principle of his nature ought to be resisted or reversed, so that he would be a better man if he were conscious of the opposite feeling.
(c) In accordance with this principle, there are arrangements in every community for detecting and punishing crime. There are laws made which define crime, and designate its just penalty; there are arrangements made for arresting the guilty, and bringing them to trial; there are prisons built in anticipation that there will be men to be punished. There are courts organized for the express purpose of trying offenders; there are penalties affixed by law to different classes of crimes; there are processes prescribed in the law books for arresting. indicting, committing, arraigning, and judging those charged with a violation of law. There is a class of men whose business it is to detect and arrest offenders; there is a class whose business it is to try them; there is a class whose business it is to inflict punishment on them. Hence, we have a detective police - men whose calling it is to find out offenders; we have an array of constables, jurymen, and judges; we have sheriffs, keepers of prisons, and executioners. These arrangements are necessary in our world. Society could not do without them. No community would be safe without them. No man would feel that his life, his property, his family were secure without them. They enter into the very structure of society as it exists on earth; and if these were abolished, the world would soon be filled with anarchy, bloodshed, and crime.
(d) These are lawful, proper, and honorable employments. The business of a detective officer, of a constable, of a sheriff, of a juryman, of a judge, is as lawful as that of a farmer, a blacksmith, a school-teacher, a physician, a clergyman. No man occupies a more honorable position than the judge of a court, though it be a criminal court; no man is rendering more valuable service to his country than he whose daily business it is to detect offenders, to prosecute for crime, or to administer the laws of a nation. The constable and the judge may go to their work with as conscious a feeling that they are engaged in an honorable work as the farmer or the merchant; and the foreman of a jury who declares that a man arraigned for crime has been found guilty, and the judge who pronounces the sentence of the law, and the man who executes the sentence, may each one lie down on his bed at night as calmly as the man who during the day has been engaged in sowing seed in his field, or gathering in his harvest, or administering medicine to the sick, or preaching the Gospel. Through all that day the one may be as conscious that he has had no malice toward his fellow-men, no desire of revenge, as the other. In the bosom of each one there may have been only the consciousness of a simple desire to do his duty.
(e) It is lawful and proper for such a man - a detective officer, a constable, a juryman, a judge, a keeper of a prison, a hangman - to pray. It is as proper for such a man to pray as any other man. He may pray in his closet and in his family; he may breathe forth a mental prayer when searching for a man charged with an offence, or when hearing a testimony against him, or when sitting in judgment on him, or when inflicting the penalty of the law. He may pray, as other men do, that he may be "diligent in business;" that he may be "fervent in spirit;" that he may "serve the Lord" in that calling. He may pray that he may have grace to be faithful to his trust; firm in his conduct; "successful in what he is appointed to do." But what is this? It is that the wicked - the guilty - may be brought to punishment; that they may be punished; that they may receive the due reward for their deeds. It is not malice against an individual; it is not a desire of revenge; it is not the indulgence of any private feeling; it is not conduct inconsistent with the widest benevolence. The officers of justice are engaged in the very work of bringing men to punishment; and why may they not "pray" for success in the work in which they are engaged? Why may not any man who loves the cause of justice, and who desires the security and good order of a community, pray that the wicked may be checked in their career - arrested - confined - punished? Since men lawfully engage in doing the thing, why may they not lawfully pray for the Divine blessing to aid them in doing it?
It is further to be remarked that a magistrate offering such a prayer would have a very different feeling from one who was engaged in an unlawful employment. How can a man engaged in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks "pray"? How can he ask for success in his work? To do this would be to pray that his neighbor, his fellow-men, near or far off, might spend their property for that which would not profit them; might waste their time, ruin their health, cut short their lives, and destroy their souls; that they might be profane, gross, offensive, beastly; that they might be a pest in the community, be led into crime, and find their home in an almshouse, a penitentiary, or an insane asylum; that their families might be beggared, and that a once peaceful home might become a hell; and that the young, the vigorous, the hopeful, the beautiful, the sons of the virtuous and the pious - might go down early to the drunkard's grave; that the hearts of wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters might be crushed and broken, because a husband, a father, a brother, had been made a drunkard.
But what fiendish malignity would there be in such a prayer as this! Hence, such men do not ask the Divine blessing on their work. But a magistrate may pray, and should pray. He may pray that he may be successful in discharging the duties of his office; in administering justice; in prosecuting for crime; and in pronouncing the sentence of the law. His prayer, in fact, is simply that justice may be done to all; that punishment may be inflicted when it is deserved; and that he may be made an instrument in the hands of God in detecting and punishing crime. At the same time this may be so far from being a vindictive and revengeful spirit, that he himself may be among the most kind and humane men in a community, and when he pronounces the sentence of the law, he may be the only one in the court room that shall weep. Tears may flow fast from his eyes as he pronounces the sentence of the law, while the hardened wretch sentenced to the gallows may be wholly unmoved. It indicated no lack of feeling and no malevolent spirit when Washington signed the death-warrant of the accomplished Andre, for he did it with tears.
In the same way, and with the same spirit, a man may go forth to the defense of his country when invaded, or when one portion of it has risen up in rebellion against a lawful government. A soldier called forth to defend his country may pray; the commander of an army may pray - should pray. But the prayer of such an one may be, and should be, in the line of his duty, for success in that which he has undertaken. It will be a prayer that the enemies of his country may be overcome and subdued. It indicates no malice, no personal feeling, no spirit of revenge, when he prays that the enemies of his country may be scattered as chaff before the wind; or that their counsels may be turned to foolishness; or that he may be successful in subduing them. It is a prayer for the triumph of a righteous cause; and as all his acts as a soldier tend to the destruction of the enemies of his country; as he is actually engaged in endeavoring to subdue them; as all his plans contemplate that; as he cannot be successful without that - if the employment itself is right, it cannot be wrong that he should pray for success in it; that is, that his enemies may be delivered into his hands, and that God would enable him to overcome, to scatter, to subdue them. In this view of the matter there is necessarily no feeling inconsistent with the purest benevolence when the defenders of liberty and law and right apply to themselves the language of Psa 149:1-9 : "Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the pagan, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written," Psa 149:6-9.
(f) It only remains to be added, as bearing on the point here suggested, that it cannot be "demonstrated" that there is in the psalms that are called "imprecatory psalms" anymore of malice, or of a spirit of revenge, than there is in the heart of a detective officer, a constable, a sheriff, a juryman, a crown lawyer, a prosecuting attorney, a judge, the keeper of a penitentiary, or an executioner, when he goes to the daily discharge of the duties of his office, and when, in his closet, or in his family, in his morning devotions, he "prays" that he may be faithful and successful in the discharge of his official duties through the day: for success in any of these duties will be in the line of prayer, and may be in answer to prayer. If the detective officer is successful in ferreting out a burglar or a counterfeiter; if a magistrate is successful in bringing him to justice; if a juryman pronounces an honest verdict finding him guilty; if an attorney is successful in prosecuting the guilty to conviction; if a judge delivers a just sentence; and if the keeper of a prison closes the massive bars and bolts on the guilty - at night, when they reflect on their work, they may regard their success in the lawful duties of the day as being as real an answer to prayer in the proper business of human life as the waving golden harvest is an answer to the prayers of the pious farmer, or the ship laden with the rich productions of the east, as she glides gallantly into port, should be regarded as an answer to the prayers of the pious merchant; and until it is proved that this may not have been all that was implied in the language of the psalmist, it should not be assumed that the imprecatory psalms breathe a vindictive spirit, or are contrary to the purest and most benevolent feelings of the human heart.
(6) There is still another solution of the difficulty which has been suggested. It is, substantially, that these expressions "are a mere record of what actually occurred in the mind of the psalmist," and are preserved to us as an illustration of human nature when partially sanctified. According to this explanation we are not required by any just view of inspiration to vindicate those feelings, or to maintain that such feelings could not occur in the case of an inspired man. One of the main objects of the Psalms is to illustrate religion as it actually exists in the minds of good men in this world; men who are not absolutely perfect, but whose best religious emotions are mingled with many imperfections. According to this view the Spirit of inspiration is no more responsible for these feelings on the part of the psalmist than it is for the acts of David, Abraham, Jacob, or Peter. The feelings - the acts - are what they are; the Spirit of inspiration is responsible for a correct record or statement in regard to these acts and feelings: a record that shall be historically and exactly true. A few remarks may explain this further.
(a) It is, then, an admitted fact that David was not a perfect man; and the same was undoubtedly true of all the writers of the Psalms. The Bible never claims that they were perfect; it makes a fair record of their faults; it lays down the general principle that none are absolutely free from sin: Kg1 8:46; Ecc 7:20; Jam 3:2; Jo1 1:8; Job 9:20. As it is everywhere declared in the Bible that no one is absolutely perfect, and as it is admitted that David, for example, was guilty of wrong acts, as in the case of Uriah - so, for the same reason, it is to be admitted that men, even the best of men, are liable to sin in thoughts and in words as well as in deeds.
(b) The proper notion of inspiration does not require us to hold that the men who were inspired were absolutely sinless. There is and must be a manifest and palpable difference between being inspired, and being personally perfect. Inspiration, in its true nature, secures a truthful record; it does not necessarily secure absolute sanctification. Indeed, inspiration has no necessary connection with sanctification; - as it is conceivable, certainly, in accordance with the common belief, that Balaam uttered true prophecies respecting the Messiah, yet no one from that fact feels bound to maintain that he was otherwise than a bad man. Livy, Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, were not perfect men, and yet it may be true that they have given a correct account of the events which they profess to record; nor do we argue that because they were faithful historians that therefore, they were perfect men, or that they never did or said anything, which, if it were recorded exactly as it occurred, would not be inconsistent with the idea of absolute perfection of character. It is, therefore, a very important principle "that inspiration secures a correct record, not that it implies or secures personal sanctification; and that if it does secure a correct record the limit of responsibility in regard to it is reached." Assuredly, the fact that David in Ps. 51 has made a true record in regard to his guiltiness in the case of Uriah, does not prove that he was right or innocent in the fact which is the subject of that record; nor if a record is a record of feelings instead of deeds does its correctness anymore justify or sanction such feelings.
(c) It was important and necessary in a revelation from God, in order to meet the wants of the world, that there should be a true representation of religion as it comes in contact with the human heart; as it is in fact illustrated and manifested in the life of man, not as it might be in the life of a spotless angel. Assuming, as the Bible does everywhere, that man is depraved; that he has corrupt and evil propensities; that he has passions which by nature are uncontrollable, and that it is the design of religion to teach him how to control and govern them - what we want is an illustration of religion as it comes in contact with such a heart. If the Bible had described only the feelings and conduct of a perfect being, it would be obviously unfit for man, for it would not be adapted to his condition. As man is imperfect and sinful, a representation of religion which would leave the impression that there is no true piety except where there is absolute perfection, would be adapted only to discourage and dishearten, for it would hold up that before his mind which he would feel to be unattainable, and his own consciousness of imperfection would lead him to the painful conclusion that he had no true religion.
Hence, in the Bible, except in the solitary instance of the Savior, we have no record of the life of a perfect saint. We have a description of piety as it must always be found in the life of man: as feeble, and struggling, and doubting, and contending with evil passions; as a life of conflict, of mingled light and darkness, good and evil, happiness and sadness, cheerfulness and despondency; as a life where evil often breaks out, where there is a constant effort required to subdue it, and where there is, amidst much that seems to be otherwise, yet truly a constant progress in the soul toward perfection - a perfection not to be obtained in this life, but which is to be consummated in heaven alone. Such a record only is fitted for man; such a record only would properly represent and describe man in his present condition. In another world - in heaven - a true record of man redeemed would be a record of religion without imperfection - as it would now be of the angels.
As it is, we have now in the Bible everywhere recorded the lives of imperfect men: imperfect in their conduct; imperfect in their feelings; imperfect in their words. We have the biographies of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, of Eli, David, Hezekiah, Moses, Aaron, Josiah, James, John, Peter - all imperfect but good men; men in whose bosoms there were the strugglings between good and evil principles; in whose lives the evil principle was constantly breaking out, and over whom for the time it seemed to triumph. Hence, the painful but honest records which we have of piety in the Bible. In like manner, in order to see and understand what true piety is, as it is found in connection with human nature, it might be important that there should be such an illustration of it as we actually find in the Psalms: the honest record of what passed through the mind of a good man; of what imperfect man actually feels often, even when it is proper to characterize him as a man of God. Probably there have been few men, very few, even under the influence of the highest forms of piety, who, if they had made an honest record of what was passing in their minds at all times - of their wishes, desires, emotions; of their feelings toward their enemies, persecutors, and slanderers - would not have found that the language of the Psalms would better express their feelings in this respect than any language which they could find elsewhere; - and is it a forced or an unauthorized thought that even such men as Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Edwards, at times when unChristian feelings seemed to have got the ascendancy in their hearts; when they were strongly tempted to give way to passion, or actually gave way to it; when they might have been led to doubt whether men with such feelings could have any true religion - may have found consolation in the fact that feelings precisely like theirs sprang up in the hearts of the inspired men who composed the Psalms, and who there made an honest record of what was actually passing in the soul, almost an actual transcript of what they themselves experienced? It need be hardly remarked that if this is a true view of the matter, we are not bound to attempt to vindicate these expressions of passion - anymore than we are the conduct of David in the matter of Uriah, or of Peter in denying his Lord.
(d) According to this view, the expressions which are used in this record are not presented for our imitation. The mere fact that they are recorded as having occurred in the lives of good men is no evidence that they are right, or are to be followed by us. "All" that occurred in the life of the Redeemer was right, and was recorded that, so far as it might be applicable to us in our circumstances, we might imitate it. If the above remarks are correct, then the record was made for other purposes than that we should imitate the conduct of those who gave expression to these feelings. Nor should the fact that such feelings actually existed in the minds of good men, or that these "imprecations" are found in their writings, be charged on religion, as if it tended to produce them, anymore than the act of adultery and murder on the part of David, or the profaneness of Peter, should be referred to as an illustration of what religion is adapted to produce in the hearts and lives of men. Religion is not responsible for these things. The responsibility is in our corrupt nature.
(e) If such is a just view of the matter, then all that "inspiration" is responsible for is, the correctness of the "record" in regard to the existence of these feelings: that is, the authors of the Psalms actually "recorded" what was passing in their own minds. They gave vent to their internal emotions. They state real feelings which they themselves had; feelings which, while human nature remains the same, may spring up in the mind of imperfect man, anywhere, and at any time. They record what other men actually feel; and in making the record, they simply give utterance to what passed through their own hearts. They do not apologize for it; they do not pause to vindicate it; they offer no word in extenuation of it - anymore than other sacred writers did when they recorded the facts about the errors in the lives of the patriarchs, of David, and of Peter.
In some of these ways it is probable that all the difficulties in regard to the "imprecations" in the Psalms may be met. They who deny the inspiration of the Psalms should be able to show that these are not proper explanations of the difficulty; or that they are not consistent with any just notions of inspiration.
Section 7. "The Practical Value of the Book of Psalm."
It is not a little remarkable that the Psalms, in the estimation of religious persons, hold substantially the same place under the clearer light of the Christian dispensation which they did under the comparatively obscure Hebrew economy, and that with all the additional light which has been imparted under the Christian revelation, the Psalms have not been superseded. The "Christian" looks to the Psalms with an interest as intense as did the ancient Jew; and, as expressive of personal religious experience, as well as for the purpose of a manual for worship, the Psalms are selected by the Christian, from the whole Bible, as they were by the Jew from the books in his possession - the Old Testament. As such, they will retain their value in all times to come, nor will there ever be in our world such an advance in religious light, experience, and knowledge, that they will lose their relative place as connected with the exercises of practical piety.
How far this fact is to be regarded as a proof that the authors of the Psalms were inspired; that there was communicated to them a knowledge of the principles and workings of true piety, so in advance of their own age as to be on a level with what will be possessed in the most advanced periods of religious culture; that there must have been an influence on their minds, in composing the Psalms, beyond anything derived from mere poetic genius, is a question which must occur to all reflecting minds. It is a fair question to propose to one who doubts the inspiration of the Psalms, how he will account for this fact, consistently with his idea that the authors of the Psalms were men endowed only as other men of genius are, and with the acknowledged fact that they lived in an age when the views of truth in the world were comparatively obscure. How did it happen that a Hebrew bard, in the matter of deep religious experience and knowledge, placed himself so high as to be a guide to mankind in all coming times, after a new revelation should have been introduced to the world, and after all the attainments which men would have made in the knowledge of religion and of the human heart?
The special value of the Psalms arises: (a) from the fact that they are adapted to the worship of God; (b) from the fact that they are records of deep religious experience.
(a) As adapted to the worship of God. For this many of them were originally designed in their very composition; to this the entire book seems to have been intentionally adapted by those who made the collection. It is not necessary to suppose that these sacred songs comprise the whole of the Hebrew lyrical poetry, for as we know that some of the books mentioned in the Old Testament, though inspired, accomplished their purpose and have been lost, so it may have been in regard to a portion of the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews. Many of the words of the Savior, though all that he spoke was pure truth - truth such as no other man ever spoke - truth such as the Spirit of God imparts - were lost from not having been recorded Joh 21:25, and in like manner it may have been that truths which were written may have accomplished their purpose, and have passed away. But, if there were such productions which have not come down to us, we have no reason to doubt that they were of the same general character as those which have survived, and which now constitute the Book of Psalms. Now, it is remarkable that the poetry of the Hebrews is so adapted to public worship above all other poetry, and that the poetic genius of the nation took so exclusively a religious turn.
In this respect the Hebrew lyric poetry stands by itself, and is unlike that of every other nation. Among the Greeks there are, indeed, hymns to the gods - hymns designed to be used in the worship of the gods; but this is by no means the general character of their lyric poetry. Among the Persians, the Arabs, the Romans, the Babylonians, there were doubtless such hymns; but this is not the prevailing character of their lyric poetry. In the early Scotch, French, Spanish, Italian, and English poetry there are such hymns, but this is by no means the exclusive or the predominant character of the early lyric poetry of those nations. Few of all their lyric compositions can be used in the worship of the true God; nor is that which can be thus used always of the most exalted character as poetry. The composition of psalms and hymns is a separate poetic art; and though there are specimens, in the hymns in these languages, of the highest kind of lyric excellence, yet it is to be admitted that a large portion of that species of literature would scarcely be regarded as even "respectable," if it related to other subjects than religion.
Of the Hebrews, however, this is their all. They have no other poetry whatever. They have none merely amatory or pastoral which will compare with the Bucolics of Virgil, or with much of the poetry of Burns. Their poetry of the religious kind, also, is all of a high order. There is none that can be placed on the same low level with much that is found in the hymn books of most denominations of Christians - very good; very pious; very sentimental; very much adapted, as is supposed, to excite the feelings of devotion - but withal so flat, so weak, so unpoetic, that it would not, in a volume of mere poetry, be admitted to a third or fourth rank, if, indeed, it would find a place at all. It is for him who rejects the idea of "inspiration," as applied to the Book of Psalms, to account for this fact.
(b) The Book of Psalms is a record of deep religious experience. It is this which, in the estimation of religious persons in general, gives it its chief value. It is the guide of young believers; and it becomes more and more the companion, the comforter, and the counselor, as the believer moves along through the varied scenes of life, and as grey hairs come upon him, and as the infirmities, which pre-intimate the approaching close of all things, press him down. A religious man is rarely, if ever, placed in circumstances where he will not find something in the Psalms appropriate to his circumstances; where he will not find that the Hebrew sacred bard has not gone before him in the depths of religious experience. Hence, in sickness, in bereavement, in persecution, in old age, on the bed of death, the Book of Psalms becomes so invariable and so valuable a companion; and hence, not as a matter of convenience, but as supplying a want in the minds of men, and as significant of their value, the Psalms and the New Testament are so often bound together in a single volume. Hence, also, for the aged, for the sick, for those whose powers of vision fail by disease or by years, the Psalms and the New Testament are printed in large type, and bound in convenient forms, that the truths contained in these volumes may be still accessible to the saint ripening for heaven, as the light fails, and as life ebbs away. To the end of the world the Psalms in religious experience will occupy the same place which they now occupy; to the end of the world they will impart comfort to the troubled, and peace to the dying, as they have done in the ages that are past.
Section 8. "The Qualifications for Preparing a Commentary on the Psalm."
It is an undoubted fact that there have been more failures in the Commentaries on the Book of Psalms than on any other of the books of the Bible. As yet there has been no commentary that has met the wants of the Christian world; there are none, whatever anticipations may have been raised, which can be read without feelings of disappointment. For this fact there must be a cause; and that cause is probably to be found in the very peculiar qualifications needed to produce a commentary on the Psalms: - qualifications which are rarely to be found united in the same person.
A few remarks on the qualifications necessary for preparing such a commentary may explain the cause of the failures which have occurred; and may, perhaps, also explain the reason why the one now submitted to the public may be found to be an addition to the failures already existing. Every man who prepares a commentary on the Psalms will probably, at the close of his work, be sensible of a feeling of disappointment in what he had hoped, perhaps what he had expected to do, and will share fully in the feelings of his readers that what is thus submitted to the world is very far from being what a commentary on this portion of the sacred Scriptures ought to be.
The unique qualifications for preparing a commentary on the Psalms are such as the following:
(1) A knowledge of the Hebrew language, particularly as it is affected by the laws of poetry which prevailed among the Hebrews. In all languages there are special rules of poetry; rules by which the sense of the words used is affected. and by which special shades of thought are expressed. In most languages, words have a "poetic" and a "prosaic" sense; and the application of the meaning of a word as used in prose to a passage in poetry might by no means express the idea which was in the mind of the poet. We learn almost insensibly, in reading a language familiar to us, to make this distinction accurately, even when we could not explain it; and we read a psalm, a hymn, a lyric song, without mistaking the meaning. But it is another thing when one undertakes to read a book of poetry in a language different from his native tongue. What is obvious to an Italian, a Frenchman, or a German, in reading poetry in his native language, becomes a matter of difficult acquisition when an Englishman attempts to read the poem.
The same thing is true in studying a dead language. It need not be said that there is a unique literature with respect to the Greek and Latin poets; and he who can read Herodotus or Livy cannot assume that he has such a full knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages as to qualify him to understand the poetry in those languages. So much depends often on rhythm, on the poetic forms of words, or on the images special to poetry, that a classical education is not complete, nor is the student qualified to apprehend the meaning of the language of a poem, or to appreciate the beauties of its thought and imagery until he has mastered this most difficult part of the rules of language. That the Hebrews, like other people, had such rules and usages, there can be no doubt, for they are to be found in all languages, and there is abundant evidence in the Hebrew poetry itself that they existed among the Jewish people. Yet, it may be doubted whether it is possible now so fully to recover the knowledge of those rules and usages as to apply them perfectly in the explanation of the poetic portions of the sacred writings. Much pertaining to the rhythm of the language, much relating to the accents, much connected with the peculiar use of words, it may be impossible now to recover. To show the difficulty of this subject in its bearing on the interpretation of the Psalms, as well as to illustrate the subject of Hebrew poetry, I may refer to the remarks of DeWette, Einleitung, vii. pp. 37-76. An elegant translation of this may be found in the Biblical Repository, vol. iii.; pp. 478-514.
(2) True piety is essential to qualify one to be an interpreter of the Psalms. This is true, in fact, in regard to the interpretation of any portion of the sacred volume. Since the Bible is a book of religion, employed in describing the nature, the power, and the influence of religion, it is obvious that correct religious feeling, or a practical acquaintance with religion, is necessary in an interpreter. The principle is substantially the same which is required in the interpretation of books on any subject. In a treatise on painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, there will be things which could not be so well explained as by one who had a practical knowledge of these arts; and in order to the possession of a complete qualification for the interpretation of such a book, an ability to appreciate what is said on those arts must be regarded as indispensable. It is obvious that the mere knowledge of words - of philology - would not be all that would be demanded; nor would any power of explaining local allusions, laws, customs, manners, or geographical or historical references, be all that would be required. Beyond all this, there was in the mind of the writer or author that which he intended to express, and which no mere knowledge of language or of customs would be sufficient to explain. To show what the writer meant it would be obviously necessary to be able to understand him - to appreciate what he intended to say; to bring out what was in his mind; what he thought of - what he felt - what he designed to express. Hence, however valuable a work may be on the Psalms as a philological work, or as illustrating the authorship of a psalm, and the circumstances of the author in its composition, it is plain that we have not reached the main thing unless we have entered into the spirit of the author, and are qualified to understand and appreciate his own feelings in the composition.
(3) For the reason above stated, there should be in an exposition of the Psalms more than the mere possession of piety. "There should be deep religious experience." There should be an acquaintance with piety in its highest forms of rapture, and in the lowest depths of despondency, darkness, and sorrow. There is no book in the world in which there are such varied expressions of piety, in which there are such diversified forms of religious experience, as in the Book of Psalms. As the Psalms were designed for every age of the world, for persons found in every rank and condition of life, for seasons of joy and of sorrow, for childhood, youth, middle age, old age, for the ignorant and the learned, for times of sickness and of health, for private, social, domestic, and public life, for magistrates and private citizens, for war and peace, for acts of business and acts of charity, for the living and for the dying, and for those that mourn - so they were designed to form a "manual" that would illustrate religion in all these forms and relations; to be a book in which anyone, in all the varied conditions of human existence, might be sure that he would find something that would be applicable to himself. If this is so, then it is clear that in order to a good commentary on the Psalms - in order that the expositor may be able to enter into the real spirit of the work which he undertakes to explain - piety of no common order is demanded; a rich and varied religious experience is required that falls to the lot of very few of mankind. Looking simply at this qualification of a commentator on the Psalms, we may cease to be surprised that no such commentary has ever appeared as to leave nothing yet to be desired.
(4) Poetic taste is an important requisite in a commentator on the Psalms. The Psalms are poetry, and poetry of the most delicate kind. Much of the beauty of the Psalms, and much of their adaptedness to the wants of man, depends on the fact that they are poetry. This was a reason why the Spirit of God, in breathing his influence on the men who composed the Psalms, preferred that the sentiments found in them should be expressed in poetry rather that in prose, and hence, this medium was selected. Among the original endowments of the human mind, that which contemplates "poetry" as among the means of happiness; as adapted to impress truth on the mind; as fitted to arouse the soul to great efforts; as designed to fill the mind with calm, peaceful, pure, patriotic, pious emotions, is one. Possessed by men, indeed (either in the power of producing poetry or of appreciating it) in very different degrees, yet it is an endowment of man; and, being such, religion makes use of it to promote its own ends. There are those who will be moved by little besides calm argument, stern logic, severe demonstration; there are those who will be aroused only by the lofty appeals of eloquence; there are those who will be most influenced by the voice of persuasion; there are those who will be awakened from dangerous slumbers only by the denunciations of wrath; there are those in whose minds pure and joyful and holy emotions will be best excited by poetry. It is the province of "song," as such, to awaken many of the most pure and devoted feelings of piety in the human soul; and the Book of Psalms is the portion of the sacred volume by which it is designed and expected that this object will be accomplished as a permanent arrangement.
It is clear, therefore, that he cannot be completely qualified to be a commentator on the Psalms who has not himself such endowments as to appreciate the beauties of poetry; who cannot, in this respect, enter into the feelings of the sacred writer on the one hand, and into the hearts of those who are so made as to be affected by poetry on the other. One of the causes of the "failure" to produce a good commentary on the Psalms may be traced to this source. A mere philologist; a man who regards nothing as valuable but exact demonstration; a man of prosaic temperament, though he may have piety that is exalted and pure, may lack still an important qualification for entering into the true spirit of the Psalms, and for meeting the needs of those who seek for edification and comfort in this portion of the Bible.
(5) A knowledge of the human heart - of human nature - is an indispensable condition for a good commentator on the Psalms. The Psalms comprise, more than any other book in the Bible, a record of the workings of the heart. Indeed, they pertain mostly to the heart. They are not addressed, as the epistle to the Romans is, to the loftier powers of the understanding, nor do they make such appeals to the imagination as the visions of Isaiah, or the visions of John in Patmos. It is the heart which, in the Psalms, is eminently the medium of communication between the Divine Spirit and the soul. Of all parts of the Bible there is most to illustrate the human heart in the Psalms. All that there is in the heart of man is there in one way or another illustrated, and in an almost endless variety of circumstances. Joy, sorrow, penitence, gratitude, praise, despondency, sadness; love - love to God - love to man; - the feelings experienced in sickness, and on a recovery from sickness; - the anguish, the bitterness of soul, arising from the ingratitude of others; terror at the wrath of God; the dread of death; the peace which religion gives in the prospect of death; the joy of prayer; the light which comes into the soul in answer to earnest supplication; the calmness which springs from devout meditation on the character of God and his law; the light which beams upon the soul after long darkness; the effects of remembered guilt (as in Ps. 51); the feeling of despair when God seems to have forsaken us; the feelings which spring up in the heart on the reception of injuries; these are a few among the many topics which are found illustrated in the Psalms in the personal experience of the writers, and it is obvious that no one is qualified to comment on these subjects unless he has himself a knowledge of the workings of the human heart.
To be able to explain the words used; to state the origin and authorship of the Psalms, and the occasion on which they were composed; to investigate the genuineness and accuracy of the text, and to determine the value of the varied readings; to understand and explain the parallelisms, the rhythm, and the accents employed in the Psalms; to comprehend and appreciate the poetry of the Psalms; or to gather together what Jewish rabbis and the Christian fathers have written, or to transplant from Germany what has been produced under Rationalistic views of the Bible, or even what the German mind in its best workings and under the influence of true religion has produced, is not all or mainly what is demanded in a commentary on the Psalms that will meet the wants of those in our own land, or that will illustrate the Psalms in the manner that will be of most value to the great masses of the young, the sick, the bereaved, the tempted, the aged, and the desponding. A man who cannot in this varied manner enter into sympathy with the writers of the Psalms in the workings of the human heart as there illustrated, is not a man who is fully qualified to prepare a commentary on this Book. For some purposes he may, indeed, make a book that will be valuable, but not a book that will be valuable in relation to the real purpose designed to be accomplished by the Psalms - to be a guide and a comfort to believers of every station and condition, in all the varied circumstances of human life, and in all the varied and complicated workings of the human heart.
(6) It may be added that the Book of Psalms, in the main, is so plain, so easy to be understood by the great mass of readers; so expressive of the internal feelings and emotions, as to increase the difficulty in the preparation of a commentary. The Psalms are so rich; so full of meaning; so adapted to the wants of believers; they so meet the varied experiences of the people of God, and are so replete with the illustrations of piety; they so touch the deepest fountains of emotion in the soul, that, so far as most of these points are concerned, a "commentary," considered as an additional source of light, does not differ materially from a candle considered as affording additional splendor to the sun. What a man finds in the ordinary perusal of the Psalms as a book of devotion, on the subject of deep experimental piety, is so much in advance of what he will usually find in the commentary, that he turns from the attempt to explain them with a feeling of deep disappointment, and comes back to the book itself as better expressing his emotions, meeting his necessities, and imparting consolation in trial, than anything which the commentator can add. He welcomes the Book of Psalms itself as a comforter and a guide; and in the little volume sold now at so cheap a rate, or appended to his pocket Testament, the common reader of the Bible finds more that is suited to his need than he would in the voluminous commentary of Venema; in all the collections in the Critici Sacri; in the Synopsis of Poole; in the Annotations of Grotius; or in the learned expositions of DeWette - elegant as the work of DeWette is - or of Tholuck, or Hengstenberg.
When these difficulties in composing a commentary on the Psalms are considered - when a man who sits down to write one reflects on the qualifications necessary for the task - and when under the influence of these thoughts, constantly increasing in magnitude, and pressing upon him more and more as he labors for a dozen years, though at intervals, as I have done, in preparing a commentary on this portion of Scripture - whatever ardor of desire or confidence of success he may have had at the commencement of his enterprise, he will cease to wonder, as he progresses in his work, that the efforts of others to prepare a commentary heretofore have been a failure, and he will not be surprised, should his life be lengthened out to see the result of his own labors, if he finds that the world regards that at which he has toiled so long, and which he hoped might be, in some measure, worthy of the volume he has undertaken to explain, as but adding another to the long list of unsuccessful attempts to prepare a proper exposition of the Book of Psalms. Next: Psalms Chapter 1
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Section 1. The author. This psalm purports in the title to be "A Psalm of David," and is the first one to which a title indicating authorship, or the occasion on which a psalm was composed, is prefixed. The title is found in the Aramaic Paraphrase, the Latin Vulgate, the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Ethiopic versions. It is not, indeed, certain by whom the title was prefixed, but there is no reason to doubt its correctness. The sentiments in the psalm accord with the circumstances in which David was more than once placed, and are such as we may suppose he would express in those circumstances.
Section 2. The occasion on which the psalm was composed. The psalm, according to the title, purports to have been written by David, "when he fled from Absalom his son." That is, it was composed at the time when he fled from Absalom - or in view of that event, and as expressive of his feelings on that occasion, though it might have been penned afterward. Neither of these suppositions has any intrinsic improbability in it, for though at the time when he fled there was, of course, much tumult, agitation, and anxiety, yet there is no improbability in supposing that these thoughts passed through his mind, and that while these events were going forward, during some moments taken for rest, or in the nightwatches, he may have given vent to these deep feelings in this poetic form. Kimchi says that it was the opinion of the ancient rabbis that this psalm was actually composed when David, with naked feet, and with his head covered, ascended the Mount of Olives, as he fled from Jerusalem, Sa2 15:30.
It is not necessary, however, to suppose that in these circumstances he would actually give himself to the task of a poetic composition; yet nothing is more probable than that such thoughts passed through his mind, and nothing would be more natural than that he should seize the first moment of peace and calmness - when the agitation of the scene should be in some measure over - to embody these thoughts in verse. Indeed, there is evidence in the psalm itself that it was actually penned on some such occasion. There is Psa 3:1-2 an allusion to the great number of his foes, and to those who had risen up against him, and an expression of his agitation and anxiety in view of that; and there is then a statement that he had, in these circumstances, cried unto the Lord, and that God had heard him out of his holy hill, and that, notwithstanding these alarms, he had been permitted to lie down and sleep, for the Lord had sustained him Psa 3:4-5. In these circumstances - after preservation and peace during what he had apprehended would be a dreadful night - what was more proper, or more natural, than the composition of such a psalm as the one before us?
If the psalm was composed by David, it was most probably at the time supposed in the title - the time when he fled from Absalom his son. There is no other period of his life to which it could be regarded as fitted, unless it were the time of Saul, and the persecutions which he waged against him. Hitzig indeed supposes that the latter was the occasion on which it was written; but to this it may be replied:
(a) That there is no direct evidence of this.
(b) That the title should be regarded as good evidence, unless it can be set aside by some clear proofs.
(c) That the contents of the psalm are no more applicable to the time of Saul than to the time of Absalom.
(d) That in the time of the persecutions of Saul, David had not been in such circumstances as are implied in Psa 3:4, "he heard me out of his holy hill." This, according to the fair construction of the language, must be understood as referring to Mount Zion (compare the notes at Psa 2:6), and implies that David at the time referred to was the established king, and had made that the seat of his authority. This had not occurred in the time of Saul; and there can be no reason for supposing, as Hitzig does, that Mount Horeb is intended.
The flight of David, which is supposed to be referred to here, is described in 2 Sam. 15-18. Absalom rebelled against his father; gathered together a great number of the disaffected in the kingdom; and under pretence of performing a vow which he had made, obtained permission to go to Hebron, having given instructions to his followers to meet him, and having made arrangements to be proclaimed king there. So artful had he been, so numerous were his followers, so extensive seemed to be the defection, and so little prepared was David to meet it, that the only prospect of safety seemed to be in flight. With a few attendants David left Jerusalem, and passed over the Mount of Olives, designing to seek a place of refuge. This was to him the great trial of his life, for there is no greater trial than the ingratitude of a son when he seeks the life of his father. All the circumstances of this case are such that we should suppose that David would cry to God in some such language as is found in this psalm.
It is indeed objected by Horsley that there is "nothing in the psalm that had any particular reference to this event," and hence, he supposes that the title should be, "Prayer of a Believer for Deliverance from the Atheistical Conspiracy." But there is nothing in the original title that corresponds with this; and there is no need for departing from the common supposition. It is true that there is in the psalm no express mention of Absalom; but the same remark may be made of nearly all the psalms. A considerable portion of David's psalms were doubtless composed in view of the circumstances in which the writer was placed, and were designed to be expressive of his own feelings on the occasion, but they were also designed for the Church at large, and were intended to be used in the Church in all times to come, and hence, a general form is given to the sentiments, and the local allusion is barely referred to, or omitted altogether. It is, perhaps, also an indication of the nature of true devotion, that it will turn away from, or forget, for the time, the personal and local circumstances of distress, and give utterance to sentiments of piety that will express the feelings of the children of God in all ages and in all circumstances. The psalm thus becomes one of general use; and the language is such as is adapted to the use of the Church in all generations.
It is also objected by DeWette that the psalm is devoid of all the tender feelings which we should suppose the heart of a father would pour out on such an occasion. But to this it may be replied, that this was not the occasion to pour out such feelings. The thoughts are fixed on his own danger; on the nnmber of his enemies; on the suddenness of the peril; on the great ingratitude and crime of those who had risen up against him. It is a time to look to God for help; not a time to express affection for an ungrateful and rebellious son. When this son died - when he was put to death in violation of the commands and entreaties of himself as a king and a father Sa2 18:5, Sa2 18:12, Sa2 18:14 - he poured forth all his heart in language such as had never been used before, and has never been equalled since, Sa2 18:33.
Section 3. Analysis of the psalm. The psalm is naturally and regularly divided into four strophes or parts, each one embracing two verses; and in three of them closed by the word Selah, indicating a pause either in the sense, in the melody, or in both. See the notes at Psa 3:2.
I. The first is expressive of the anxiety of the psalmist from the fact that many enemies had risen up against him, Psa 3:1-2.
II. The second expresses his confidence in God in the midst of his troubles, Psa 3:3-4. He was his shield and his helper, and he heard his prayer out of his holy hill.
III. The third refers to the fact that in his troubles he had, contrary to what there had been reason to apprehend, been permitted to lie down calmly and to sleep, and to arise again in the morning. In view of this, refreshed and invigorated by rest, and having this new proof of the divine favor and protection, he says that he would not be afraid though ten thousands of people should set themselves against him round about, Psa 3:5-6.
IV. In the fourth part, the psalmist calls upon God to arise and save him for in other times he had smitten his enemies upon their cheek bone, and had broken the teeth of the ungodly, and salvation belonged only unto him, Psa 3:7-8. Psalms 3:1
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1. "Author of the psalm." This psalm, according to the title, was composed by David; and there is nothing in it that is contrary to this supposition. Indeed, there were many circumstances in the life of David which would suggest the thoughts in this psalm; and the sentiments expressed are such as are frequently found in his other compositions.
2. "Occasion on which the psalm was composed." The psalm is said in the title to have been composed as "a song to the Lord, concerning the words (Margin, 'or business, ') of Cush the Benjamite." There is no reason to call the correctness of this title in question, but there have been very various opinions as to who this Cush was. It is manifest from the psalm that it was composed in view of some "words" of reviling, or reproach, or slander; something that was done to wound the feelings, or to injure the reputation, or destroy the peace of David.
There have been three opinions in regard to the "Cush" here referred to:
(1) According to the first, "Saul" is the person intended; and it has been supposed that the name "Cush" is given to him as a reproach, and to denote the blackness of his character, as the word "Cush" would denote an Ethiopian, or black man. So it was understood by the author of the Targum or Aramaic Paraphrase, in which it is rendered "an ode which David sang before the Lord on the death of Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin." But this opinion has no probability. It is not certain that this term "Cush" would, in the time of David, denote one of black complexion; nor is there any probability that it would be used as a term of reproach at all; and as little probability is there that it would be applied by David to Saul if it had been. If the psalm referred to Saul, it is probable, from all that we know of the feelings of David toward the reigning prince, that he would not designate him, in the title of a psalm, in enigmatical and reproachful language. Besides, the injurious treatment of Saul toward Davd was rather manifested in deeds than in words.
(2) a second opinion is, that it refers to Shimei, who was of the house of Saul, and who reproached and cursed David as he was flying from Jerusalem on occasion of the rebellion of Absalom, Sa2 16:5 ff. It is supposed by those who maintain this opinion that the name was given to him because he was a calumniator and reviler - or, as we would say, a "blackhearted" man. But the same objection exists to this opinion as to that before-mentioned; and besides this, there are several things in the psalm which do not agree with such a supposition. In fact there is no reason for such a supposition, except that Shimei was a calumniator, and that the psalm refers to some such person.
(3) a third opinion is, that it refers to some one of the name Cush, of the tribe of Benjamin, who reproached David on some occasion that is now unknown. This opinion has every degree of probability, and is undoutbtedly the correct opinion. David was often reproached and calumniated in his life, and it would seem that, on some occasion now to us unknown, when he was violently reproached in this manner, he gave vent to his feelings in this impassioned ode. No other record was made of the transaction, and the occasion on which it occurred is not known. At the time when it occurred it would be easily understood who was referred to, and the design of the composition was accomplished by the record of the feelings of the author on all occasion that greatly tried his spirit. It is thus of permanent value to the church and the world, for there are few persons that are not on some occasions bitterly reproached, and few who are not disposed to vent their feelings in expressions similar to those in this psalm. One great design of the collection of poems in the Psalms was to show the workings of human nature in a great variety of situations; and hence, such a psalm as this has a permanent and general value; and so far as this general use is concerned, it matters little on what occasion, or in reference to what individual, the psalm was composed.
3. "Contents of the psalm." The psalm embraces the following points:
I. A prayer of the psalmist for deliverance from his enemies, and especially from this particular foe that threatened his destruction, Psa 7:1-2. This is the general subject of the psalm.
II. He offers this prayer on the ground that he is innocent of the charges that are brought against him; relying thus on the fact that his was a righteous cause, and appealing to God on this ground, and declaring his willingness to suffer all that his enemy attempted to bring upon him if he was guilty, Psa 7:3-5.
III. He prays for the interposition of divine justice on his enemies, on the ground of the general justice of God, and as a part of his general administration over men, Psa 7:6-9.
IV. In his own hopes, he trusts in the divine discrimination between innocence and guilt, assured that God would interpose on behalf of the righteous, and that the principles of the divine administration were opposed to the wicked, Psa 7:10-11.
V. He speaks confidently of the ultimate destruction of the ungodly and of the manner in which it would be brought about, Psa 7:12-16. If they did not turn, they must be certainly destroyed, for God was preparing the instruments of their destruction; and the means which he would use would be the very plans of the wicked themselves.
VI. The psalmist says that, as for himself, he would praise the Lord according to his righteousness; that is, would adore and praise him as a righteous God, Psa 7:17.
The general subject of the psalm, therefore, pertains to the feelings which are to be entertained toward revilers and calumniators - toward those who reproach us when we are conscious of innocence of the charges that are alleged against us; and as all good men are liable to be placed in these circumstances, the psalm has a practical and general value.
4. "The title to the psalm." The psalm is entitled "Shiggaion of David." The word "Shiggaion" - שׁגיון shiggâyôn - occurs only in this place in the singular number, and in Hab 3:1 in the plural. "A prayer of Habakkuk upon Shigionoth." It properly means a "song, psalm, hymn" (Gesenius). Prof. Alexander renders it "wandering, error," as if the word were derived from שׁגה shâgâh, to walk, to go astray; and he supposes that it refers to the fact that David was "wandering" or unsettled at the time when the psalm was composed. This reason, however, will not apply to the use of the word in Habakkuk. Solomon Van Til. (Ugolin, Thesau. Sac. Ant., vol. xxxii. pp. 294, 295), supposes that it refers to "a certain inadvertence or oblivion of himself on the part of the author, or powerful seizure of the mind," "animi abreptio." He says that it is commonly supposed to indicate a poem, in which the poet is impelled by his feelings, and drawn along with little regard to the regularity of the numbers or the meter, but in which he pours out his emotions in an erratic or irregular manner from the overflowing of his soul.
This seems to me to have been the probable origin of this title, and to have denoted the kind of poetry to which it was applicable. Julius Bartoloccius (Ugolin, xxxii. 484) supposes that it refers to a certain "tone" (the "fifth tone") as especially "sweet" and "soft," and that this kind of poetry was thus applicable to hymns of joy; and that the term is used here because this psalm is especially sweet and pleasant. There is nothing in the psalm, however, which would indicate that this is the origin of the title; and the former supposition better meets the case than either this or the opinion of Prof. Alexander. I would regard it, therefore, as applicable to a psalm where there was an overflow of feeling or emotion that poured itself out without much regard to regular rhythm, or the laws of meter. It is a psalm of a "wandering" or "irregular meter." It may not be easy, however, to determine why it is particularly applied to this psalm; it is more easy to see why it should be applied to the hymn in Habakkuk. The Latin Vulgate and the Septuagint render it simply "A psalm." Psalms 7:1
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Section 1
"Author of the psalm." This psalm is ascribed to David, not only in the title, but in all the versions, and there is no reason to doubt the correctness of this. It would not be difficult to show from its contents that the sentiments and style of composition are such as accord with the other compositions of David.
Section 2
"Occasion on which the psalm was composed." On this point nothing is intimated expressly in the psalm, unless it be in the title, "To the chief Musician upon Muth-labben." The meaning of and that it was composed on his death. Others, as Rudinger, suppose that it is a psalm of thanksgiving on occasion of the victory over Absalom, and the suppression of his rebellion by his death: a harsh and unnatural supposition, as if any father, in any circumstances, could compose a psalm of praise on occasion of the death of it son. Moeller supposes that it was composed on occasion of a victory over the Philistines by David; Ferrand, who unites this psalm with the following, supposes that the whole refers to the times of the captivity in Babylon, and is a triumphal song of the people over their enemies; and Venema, who also thinks that these two psalms should be united, supposes that Ps. 9:1-18 refers to David, and to his deliverance from all his enemies, and the remainder to the times of the Maccabees, and the deliverance from the persecutions under Antiochus Epiphanes. Dr. Horsley styles the psalm "thanksgiving for the extirpation of the Atheistical faction, promised in Ps. 10," and supposes that the order should be reversed, and that the whole refers to some great deliverance - either the "overthrow of the Babylonian empire by Cyrus, or the defeat of Haman's plot."
The Jewish writers, Jarchi and Aben Ezra, suppose that it was composed on occasion of the defeat and death of some foreign prince. From this variety of views, none of which seem to rest on certain historical grounds, it appears probable that the exact occasion on which the psalm was composed cannot now be ascertained in such a way as to leave no ground for doubt. The only indications of the occasion on which it this will be considered in another part of the introduction to the psalm (Section 4). it will be seen there that nothing is determined by that title in regard to the origin of the psalm, or the time when it was composed. Neither is there any certain tradition which will determine this, and most that has been written on this point has been mere conjecture, or has arisen out of some interpretation of the enigmatical title; "upon Muthlabben." Some have supposed that the word labben refers to some foreign king or prince slain by David, and that the psalm was composed on his death. Others, following the Targum, or Aramaic Paraphrase (see section 4), suppose that the person referred to was Goliath of Gath, was written must be found, if at all, in the psalm itself. In the psalm we find the following things, which may, perhaps, be all that is necessary to enable us to understand it.
(a) It was composed in view of "enemies" of the writer, or foes with whom he had been engaged, Psa 9:3 : "When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence." Compare Psa 9:6, Psa 9:13, Psa 9:19-20.
(b) These were foreign enemies, or those who are called pagan, that is, belonging to idolatrous nations, Psa 9:5 : "Thou hast rebuked the heathen." Compare Psa 9:15, Psa 9:19.
(c) They were desolating foes - invading foes - those who laid a land waste in their marches, Psa 9:6 : "Thou hast destroyed cities: their memorial is perished with them."
(d) The writer had achieved a victory over them, and for this he celebrated the praises of God for his interposition, Psa 9:1-2, Psa 9:10-11, Psa 9:15. This victory thus achieved was such as to make him certain of ultimate complete triumph.
(e) Yet he was still surrounded by enemies, and he still asks God's merciful interposition in his behalf, Psa 9:13 : "Have mercy upon me, O Lord; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death." Compare Psa 9:18-20.
David was not unfrequently in his life in circumstances such as arc here supposed, and it is not possible now to determine the exact occasion to which the psalm alludes.
Section 3
The contents of the psalm. The psalm erabraces two leading subjects - one pertaining to the past and the other to the future, both illustrating the character of God, and both giving occasion to the writer to express iris confidence in God. The one relates to deliverance already granted; the other to deliverance still hoped for in his troubles.
I. The first relates to deliverance from trouble, or conquest over foes, already granted, and to the occasion which that furnished for praising God, and for pious reflections on his character.
(1) The psalmist expresses his thanks to God, or pours out the language of praise for mercies that have been received. Psa 9:1-2.
(2) The particular reason for this is stated; that God had enabled him to overcome many of his enemies - the pagan that had risen up against him, who had now been subdued, Psa 9:3-6.
(3) this gives occasion for pious reflections on him character of God, as one who would endure forever; as one who had set up his throne to do judgment or right; as one who would be a refuge for the oppressed; as one who might; be confided in by all who knew him; as one who would remember the foes of the righteous, and who would not forget the cry of the humble, Psa 9:7-12. The principal truth taught in this part of the psalm is, that God is a refuge and help for those who are in trouble and danger; that all such may put their trust in Him; and that He will interpose to save them.
II. The second part, constructed in a manner similar to the former, relates to the future, and to what the psalmist hoped still from God, in view of the character which lie had evinced in his former troubles, Psa 9:18-20.
(1) The psalmist still needs help, Psa 9:13-14. He still has trouble from them that hate him, and he calls upon God still to interpose and lift him up from the gates of death, that he may praise him.
(2) He refers to the fact that; the pagan, who surrounded him as his foes, had sunk down into the pit which they hall made for others; and that their foot was taken in the net which they had hid: referring either to what had occurred in the past as the foundation of his present hope, or being so certain that this would be done that he could speak of it as if it were now actually accomplished, Psa 9:15.
(3) This also, as in the former case, gives occasion for pious reflections on the character of God, and on the fact that he would interpose to destroy the wicked, and to protect the righteous, Psa 9:16-18.
(4) In view of all this, the psalmist calls on God still to interpose - to manifest the same character which He had formerly done, by protecting him, and by overcoming his foes, Psa 9:19-20. The principal truth taught in this part of the psalm is, that the wicked will be destroyed; that they as contradistinguished from the righteous, can hope for no protection from God, but will be cut down and punished.
The condition of the author of the psalm then was, that he had been surrounded by foes, and that God had interposcd in his behalf, giving him occasion for praise and thanksgiving; that he was still surrounded by formidable inemies, yet he felt assured that God would manifest the same character which he had done formerly, and that he might, therefore, call upon Him to interpose and give him occasion for future praise.
Section 4
"The title of the psalm." The psalm is directed to "the chief Musician upon Muth-labben." In regard to the phrase "chief Musician," see the notes at the title to Psa 4:1-8. The phrase, "upon Muthlabben," occurs nowhere else, and very different explnations have been given of its meaning. The Targum, or Aramaic Paraphrase, renders it "To be sung over the man that went out between the camps;" that is, Goliath of Gath; and the author of the Aramaic Paraphrase, evidently supposed it was written on the occasion of his death. The Latin Vulgate renders it, "Pro occultis filii;" and so the Septuagint, ὑπὲρ τῶν κρυφίων τοῦ ὑιοῦ huper tōn kruphiōn tou huiou - "for the secret things (mysteries) of the Son:" but what idea was attached to those words it is impossible now to determine. The Syriac has this title: "Concerning the Messiah taking his throne and kingdom, and prostrating his foe." Luther renders it, "A Psalm of David concerning a beautiful youth" - von der schonen Jugend. Substantially so also DeWette; Nach der Jungfernweise, den Beniten. Tholuck renders it, "To the chief Musician, after the melody 'Death to the Son' (Tod dem Sohne), a Psalm of David."
After this variety in the explanation of the title, it is certainly not easy to determine the meaning. The most probable opinions may be regarded as two.
(1) That which supposes that it was a melody designed to be sung by females, or with female voices: literally according to this interpretation, "after the manner of virgins;" that is, with the female voice treble, soprano, in opposition to the deeper voice of men. Compare Ch1 15:20. Forkel, in his History of Musick (Gesch. der Musik, 1,142), understands it as meaning virgin measures, like the German Jungfrauweis. Gesenius, who supposes that it refers to the female voice or treble, regards the title - על־מות ‛al-mûth - "upon Muth," as being the same as עלמות על ‛al ‛ălâmôth, in Psa 46:1-11, "Upon Alamoth," and supposes that it is derived from עלמה ‛almâh - a virgin.
(2) The other opinion is that which supposes that the title is the beginning of some old and well-known melody in common use, and that the idea is, that this psalm was to be sung to that melody. That melody was, as expressed by Tholuck and others, a melody on the death of a son, and was set to some hymn that had been composed with reference to such an event. This is founded on the supposition that the national melodies had become in some degree fixed and unchangeable, or that certain melodies or tunes originally composed for a particular occasion had become popular and that the melody would be affixed to new pieces of music. This is common in the East; and, indeed, it is common in all countries. See this idea illustrated in Rosenmuller (Morgenland, No. 800). The meaning, as thus expressed, is, "According to the manner (or, to the air) of the song (or poem called Death to the Son." Thus understood, it does not refer to the death of Absalom (as some have supposed), since there is nothing in the psalm that would correspond with such a supposition; nor to the death of Goliath, as the Targum supposes; but the composition was to be sung to the well-known air, or tune, entitled "Death to the Son." But when that air was composed, or on what occasion, there is of course no possibility now of ascertaining; and equally impossible is it to recover the air, or tune. The literal meaning of the title is על ‛al, on, or according to - מות mûth, death - לבן labên, to the son. Psalms 9:1
psa 18:0
This psalm is found, with some unimportant variations, in 2 Sam. 22. In that history, as in the inscription of the psalm here, it is said to have been composed by David on the occasion when the Lord "delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul." There can, therefore, be no doubt that David was the author, nor can there be any as to the occasion on which it was composed. It is a song of victory, and is beyond doubt the most sublime ode that was ever composed on such an occasion. David, long pursued and harassed by foes who sought his life, at length felt that a complete triumph was obtained, and that he and his kingdom were safe, and he pours forth the utterances of a grateful heart for God's merciful and mighty interposition, in language of the highest sublimity, and with the utmost grandeur of poetic imagery. Nowhere else, even in the sacred Scriptures, are there to be found images more beautiful, or expressions more sublime, than those which occur in this psalm.
From the place which this psalm occupies in the history of the life of David (2 Sam. 22), it is probable that it was composed in the latter years of his life, though it occupies this early place in the Book of Psalms. We have no reason to believe that the principle adopted in the arrangement of the Psalms was to place them in chronological order; and we cannot determine why in that arrangement this psalm has the place which has been assigned to it; but we cannot well be mistaken in supposing that it was composed at a somewhat advanced period of the life of David, and that it was in fact among the last of his compositions. Thus, in the Book of Samuel, it is placed (1 Sam. 22) immediately preceding a chapter (1 Sam. 23) which professes (Sa1 23:1) to record "the last words of David." And thus in the title it is said to have been composed when "the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies," an event which occurred only at a comparatively late period of his life.
The circumstance which is mentioned in the title - "and out of the hand of Saul" - does not necessarily conflict with this view, or make it necessary for us to suppose that it was composed immediately after his deliverance from the hand of Saul. To David, recording and recounting the great events of his life, that deliverance would occur as one of the most momentous and worthy of a grateful remembrance, for it was a deliverance which was the foundation of all his subsequent successes, and in which the divine interposition had been most remarkable. At any time of his life it would be proper to refer to this as demanding special acknowledgment. Saul had been among the most formidable of all his enemies. The most distressing and harassing events of his life had occurred in the time of his conflicts with him. God's interpositions in his behalf had occurred in the most remarkable manner, in delivering him from the dangers of that period of his history.
It was natural and proper, therefore, in a general song of praise, composed in view of all God's interpositions in his behalf, that he should refer particularly to those dangers and deliverances. This opinion, that the psalm was composed when David was aged, which seems so obvious, is the opinion of Jarchi and Kimchi, of Rosenmuller and DeWette. The strong imagery, therefore, in the psalm, describing mighty convulsions of nature Psa 18:6-16, is to be understood, not as a literal description, but as narrating God's gracious interposition in the time of danger, "as if" the Lord had spoken to him out of the temple; "as if" the earth had trembled; "as if" its foundations had been shaken; "as if" a smoke had gone out of his nostrils; "as if" he had bowed the heavens and come down; "as if" he had thundered in the heavens, and had sent out hailstones and coals of fire, etc.
From the fact that there are variations, though not of an essential character, in the two copies of the psalm, it would seem not improbable that it had been revised by David himself, or by some other person, after it was first composed, and that one copy was used by the author of the Book of Samuel, and the other by the collector and arranger of the Book of Psalms. These variations are not important, and by no means change the essential character of the psalm. It is not very easy to see why they were made, if they were made designedly, or to account for them if they were not so made. They are such as the following: The introduction, or the title of it, is adapted, in the psalm before us, to the purposes for which it was designed, when it was admitted into the collection. "To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words," etc. The first verse of Ps. 18, "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength," is not found in the psalm as it is in the Book of Samuel. The second verse of the psalm is, "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."
In Samuel, the corresponding passage is, "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; the God of my rock, in him will I trust; he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence." In Psa 18:4, the reading is, "The sorrows of death compassed me" etc.; in Samuel, "The waves of death compassed me." Similar variations, affecting the words, without materially affecting the sense, occur in Psa 18:2-4, Psa 18:6-8, Psa 18:11-16, Psa 18:19-21, Psa 18:23-27, also in Psa 18:28-30, Psa 18:32-45, and Ps. 18:47-51. See these passages arranged in Rosenmuller's Scholia, vol. i., pp. 451-458. In no instance is the sense very materially affected, though the variations are so numerous.
It is impossible now to account for these variations. Hammond, Kennicott, and others, suppose that they occurred from the errors of transcribers. But to this opinion Schultens opposes unanswerable objections. He refers particularly
(a) to the multitude and variety of the changes;
(b) to the condition or state of the codices;
(c) to the nature of the variations, or to the fact that changes are made in words, and not merely in letters of similar forms which might be mistaken for each other.
See his arguments in Rosenmuller, Schol., vol. i., pp. 441-443. It seems most probable, therefore, that these changes were made by design, and that it was done either by David, who revised the original composition. and issued two forms of the poem, one of which was inserted in the history in Samuel, and the other in the collection of the Psalms; or that the changes were made by the collector of the Psalms, when they were arranged for public worship. The former supposition is a possible one; though, as the psalm was composed near the close of the life of David, it would seem not to be very probable. The most natural supposition, therefore, is, that the changes were made by the collector of the Psalms, whoever he might be, or by the person who presided over this part of public worship in the temple, and that the changes were made for some reason which we cannot now understand, as better adapting the psalm to musical purposes.
Doederlein supposes that the recension was made by some later poet, for the purpose of "polishing" the language; of giving it a more finished poetic form; and of adapting it better to public use; and he regards both forms as "genuine, elegant, sublime; the one more ancient, the other more polished and refined." It seems most probable that the changes were made with a view to some rhythmical or musical effect, or for the purpose of adapting the psalm to the music of the temple service. Such changes would depend on causes which could be now little understood, as we are not sufficiently acquainted with the music employed in public worship by the Hebrews, nor are we now competent to understand the effect which, in this respect, would be produced by a slight change of phraseology. Variations of a similar nature now exist in psalms and hymns which could not be well explained or understood by one who was not familiar with our language and with our music, and which, after as long an interval as that between the time when the Psalms were arranged for musical purposes and the present time, would be wholly unintelligible.
The psalm embraces the following subjects:
I. A general acknowledgment of God, and thanks to him, as the Deliverer in the time of troubles, and as worthy to be praised, Psa 18:1-3.
II. A brief description of the troubles and dangers from which the psalmist had been rescued, Psa 18:4-5.
III. A description, conceived in the highest forms of poetic language, of the divine interposition in times of danger, Psa 18:6-19,
IV. A statement of the psalmist that this interposition was of such a nature as to vindicate his own character, or to show that his cause was a righteous cause; that he was right, and that his enemies had been in the wrong; that God approved his course, and disapproved the course of his enemies: or, in other words, that these interpositions were such as to prove that God was just, and would deal with men according to their character, Psa 18:20-30.
V. A recapitulation of what God had done for him, in enabling him to subdue his enemies, and a statement of the effect which he supposed would be produced on others by the report of what God had done in his behalf, Psa 18:31-45.
VI. A general expression of thanksgiving to God as the author of all these blessings, and as worthy of universal confidence and praise, Psa 18:46-50.
Psalm 18:Title
"To the chief Musician." See the notes to the title of Psa 4:1-8.
A Psalm of David - The words "A Psalm" are not here in the original, and may convey a slightly erroneous impression, as if the psalm had been composed for the express purpose of being used publicly in the worship of God. In the corresponding place in 2 Sam. 22, it is described as a "Song" of David: "And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song." It was originally an expression of his private gratitude for God's distinguishing mercies, and was afterward, as we have seen, probably adapted to purposes of public worship by some one of a later age.
The servant of the Lord - This expression also is wanting in 2 Sam. 22. It is undoubtedly an addition by a later hand, as indicating the general character which David had acquired, or as denoting the national estimate in regard to his character. The same expression occurs in the title to Psa 36:1-12. The Aramaic Paraphrase translates this title: "To be sung over the wonderful things which abundantly happened to the servant of the Lord, to David, who sang," etc. The use of the phrase here - "the servant of the Lord" - by him who made the collection of the Psalms, would seem to imply that he regarded the psalm as having a sufficiently public character to make it proper to introduce it into a collection designed for general worship. In other words, David was not, in the view of the author of the collection, a private man, but was eminently a public servant of Yahweh; and a song of grateful remembrance of God's mercies to him was entitled to be regarded as expressing the appropriate feelings of God's people in similar circumstances in all times.
Who spake unto the Lord - Composed it as giving utterance to his feelings toward the Lord.
The words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him - When the Lord "had" delivered him; when he felt that he was completely rescued from "all" his foes. This does not mean that the psalm was composed on a particular day when God had by some one signal act rescued him from impending danger, but it refers to a calm period of his life. when he could review the past, and see that God had rescued him from "all" the enemies that had ever threatened his peace. This would probably, as has been suggested above, occur near the close of his life.
From the hand of all his enemies - Out of the hand, or the power. There is here a "general" view of the mercy of God in rescuing him from all his foes.
And from the hand of Saul - Saul had been one of his most formidable enemies, and the wars with him had been among the most eventful periods of the life of David. In a general review of his life, near its close, he would naturally recur to the dangers of that period, and to God's gracious interpositions in his behalf, and it would seem to him that what God had done for him in those times deserved a special record. The original word here - כף kaph - is not the same as in the corresponding place in 2 Sam. 22 - יד yâd - though the idea is substantially the same. The word used here means properly the "palm" or "hollow" of the hand; the word used in Samuel means the hand itself. Why the change was made we have not the means of ascertaining.
And he said - So Sa2 22:2. What follows is what he said. Psalms 18:1
psa 23:0
This psalm is asserted in the title to have been composed by David, and there is nothing in its contents contrary to this supposition, as there is nothing in it that would lead us necessarily to ascribe it to him. The contents of the psalm indeed correspond with the facts of his history, and with the recollections of his early life as a shepherd; but it is such as might have been composed by anyone who had been, and in fact by anyone though he had not been, a shepherd, as the images in it are such as are common in all poetry. Still, there is nothing to lead us to doubt that it was written by David.
It is wholly uncertain on what occasion the psalm was composed, since there are in the psalm no historical references, no indications of time, and no allusions to any circumstances in the life of the author. It is impossible even to determine whether it was composed in a time of prosperity or adversity; whether when the author was persecuted, or when he was prosperous and triumphant. The only apparent allusion to any circumstance of the poet's life is in Psa 23:6, where he says, as the crowning joy which he anticipated, that he would "dwell in the house of the Lord forever," from which it has been inferred by some that he was then in exile. But this allusion is of too general a character to justify this inference with certainty. Such a hope might be expressed by anyone in any circumstances, as the highest desire of a pious heart. Kimchi supposes that the psalm was composed by David in the wilderness of Hareth Sa1 22:5; and that it pertained to the people of Israel, and to their return from exile. But this is mere conjecture. The Aramaic Paraphrase applies the psalm to the Hebrew people when delivered from captivity and exile, as a song of triumph on their return to their own land. Rudinger, and John D. Michaelis, suppose that it refers to the time when David had obtained a complete victory over all his enemies - when the rebellion of Absalom was quelled, when he was seated quietly on throne. Probably, if we are to to fix a time, it was at that period of life - an advanced period - when the recollection of the merciful interpositic of God in his behalf so often would suggest the brightest image of his earlier years, the watchful care which he as a shepherd had extended over his own flock - a care which God had now extended over him in the perils of his own life. Still, all this is no more than conjecture.
The psalm has always been regarded as one of exquisite beauty. The main subject is the watchful care which God had extended over the author, and the consequent assurance which he felt that God would still watch over him, and supply all his need. The leading thought - the essential idea - is, his full belief that God would provide for him, and that he would never be left to want. This is the thought with which the psalm commences: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want:" and this thought is carried through the psalm. It is illustrated by two facts or images:
(a) That God was his shepherd; that He had always manifested toward him (David) the care which a shepherd takes of his flock, Psa 23:1-3; and
(b) That God had prepared a table before him (David) in the very presence of his enemies, or that he had abundantly led for him in their very sight, when they were endeavoring to destroy him - thus giving him the assurance that God never would leave him, Psa 23:5.
The psalm, therefore, may be regarded as consisting of two main parts:
I. The general subject of the psalm - the confidence of the author in God - the assurance that he would always so provide for him that he would not want, Psa 23:1.
II. The grounds or reasons for this confidence, Psa 23:2-6. These are twofold:
(1) An argument derived from the care of God over him as a shepherd, Psa 23:2-4.
(a) The statement of the fact, Psa 23:2-3.
(b) The argument, Psa 23:4. From his experience of the divine care in the past, he says that he would not be afraid even to descend into the valley of death.
(2) an argument derived from the fact that God had provided for him in the very presence of his enemies, Psa 23:5-6.
(a) The statement of the fact; or a reference to his life, during which God had shown the same care and goodness as if He had spread a table for him even in the sight of his enemies, Psa 23:5.
(b) The confident assurance, derived from that fact, that God would follow him with goodness and mercy all the days of his life; that his future course would be as if he were always to dwell in the house of the Lord, Psa 23:6. Psalms 23:1
psa 38:0
I. "Author of the psalm" - The psalm purports to have been written by David, and there is no reason to doubt that it was composed by him. There is no tradition to the contrary, and there is nothing in the psalm inconsistent with such a supposition.
II. "The title" - The psalm is said in the title to be designed "to bring to remembrance." The same title occurs in Psa 70:1-5, though there is no resemblance between the two, except that they both have reference to the attempts and purposes of the enemies of David, and to trials in different forms which had come from them. The Latin Vulgate renders this: "A Psalm of David, for remembrance concerning the Sabbath." The Septuagint renders it in the same manner. The Arabic: In which there is a mention of the sabbath." Whence these allusions to the sabbath were derived is unknown, as there is nothing in the Hebrew corresponding with them. The Aramaic Paraphrase has prefixed, "For a good memorial concerning Israel." The Hebrew term used - להזכיר lehazekiyr - means simply "for bringing to remembrance," or for reminding. The meaning is, that it is a record for the purpose of "reminding;" that is, of keeping the "remembrance" of something which had occurred in his own experience, and which might be useful to himself or to others; the record of some valuable lessons which had been learned from what he had experienced in the trials referred to. Compare Gen 40:14; Kg1 17:18; Eze 21:24. Gesenius (Lexicon) renders it, "To bring to remembrance, sc., oneself with God." Grotius says of it, "This psalm is designed to inculcate the perpetual remembrance of David and his sin, and of the pardon that was granted." There can be no doubt that the psalm had this design of making a permanent record of an important event in the life of the author, or of his "experience" in a time of great calamity; but why this title was affixed only to this psalm and to Psa 70:1-5 is wholly unknown. There are many other psalms to which, it would seem, the title might have been prefixed with equal propriety, as containing important reminiscences of trials, and of religious experience under those trials.
III. "Occasion of the psalm" - The particular time or occasion on which the psalm was composed is unknown. There are no recorded events in the life of David to which this psalm would be "particularly" applicable, though, in a life of trial and suffering such as his was, there can be no doubt that there may have been many such occasions. It is impossible now, however, to fix the exact time or occasion with any degree of accuracy or probability. What is known is, that it was with reference to sickness Psa 38:3-8, Psa 38:10-11, and to the neglect which was evinced, and the cruel treatment which he received, in sickness Psa 38:11-12, Psa 38:19-20.
IV. The contents of the psalm.
(1) The psalm describes the condition of one who was suffering from "sickness," Psa 38:2-3, Psa 38:5,Psa 38:7-8, Psa 38:10-11. Some have supposed that this is merely "figurative" language, and that it is designed to represent calamity, trouble, sorrow, heavily pressing upon him as if he were sick; others have supposed that it is intended to refer, not to David, but to the people of Israel as afflicted and persecuted, represented under the image of one suffering from disease; but the most natural and obvious interpretation is to regard it as a literal description of one who was suffering under some form of disease. There were doubtless occasions in the long life of David when this actually occurred; and there are occasions in the lives of the people of God of a similar kind, sufficiently numerous to make it proper that an inspired record of the experience of a good man thus suffering should be preserved, as an example of the proper spirit to be manifested in sickness. What was the "character" or "nature" of that sickness may appear in the examination of the particular expressions in the record.
(2) The condition of the sufferer as aggravated by two things:
(a) By the neglect of his friends - by their turning away from him in his trials, Psa 38:11;
(b) By the efforts of his enemies - taking advantage of his sickness, and bringing against him accusations which he was not then able to meet, Psa 38:12.
(3) He himself traces all these trials, arising either from his disease or from the attacks of his enemies, to his own sins, and regards them all as the expression of the divine displeasure against his transgressions, Psa 38:3-4, Psa 38:6,Psa 38:18. The effect of his suffering from sickness was to bring his sins to remembrance - an effect not uncommon, and, under the Providence of God, not undesigned - though he may have erred, as the afflicted often do, in supposing that his sickness was a "specific punishment" for sin, or was intended to correct him for some "particular" transgression.
(4) His own calmness and meekness in respect to the charges which, amid his other trials, his enemies brought against him, Psa 38:13-14. He says that he was like a deaf man that did not hear, and like a mute man that did not open his mouth. He "seemed" not to hear anything that was said to his disadvantage, and he was as silent as though he had been mute.
(5) His earnest prayer for the interposition of God in these circumstances of sickness and trial, Psa 38:15-22. He says that his only help is in God, Psa 38:15; he prays that God will not allow his enemies to triumph over him, Psa 38:16; he says that he is ready to halt, or that his strength is nearly exhausted, and he fears that his patience will utterly give way, Psa 38:17; he says that he will confess all his sin, Psa 38:18; he refers to the fact that his enemies are "lively," and are on the alert for his fall, Psa 38:19-20; and in view of all this, he earnestly calls on God to save him, Psa 38:21-22.
There is a striking resemblance between this psalm and Psa 6:1-10, in the general structure, and in some of the particular expressions. Both appear to have been composed in a time of sickness, though not probably in the same sickness; and both express substantially the same feelings. The forty-first psalm, also, appears to have been composed on a similar occasion. In a revelation adapted to mankind, and designed to be applicable in its instructions and promises to the various conditions in which men are placed on the earth, it was to be presumed that there would be a not unfrequent reference to the sick bed - to the trials on a couch of languishing. And in an inspired book of "devotion," like the Book of Psalms, designed to illustrate the nature of piety in the various and diversified situations of life, the object of a revelation could not be fully accomplished without an illustration of the feelings of piety in the time of sickness, and in the prospect of death - for such scenes must occur in the world, and it is eminently in such scenes that we desire to know what is the proper feeling to be cherished; what true religion is at such a time; what it will do to sustain and comfort the soul.
The Book of Psalms, therefore, would not have been complete without such an illustration of the nature of piety; and hence, it was every way probable that psalms like this would be composed, and every way improbable that no such psalms would be found in a book of inspired devotion. It seems to me, therefore, unnatural, and not demanded by any proper views of interpretation, to regard this psalm, and the other similar psalms, as DeWette, Hengstenberg, Rosenmuller and others do, and as the Aramaic Paraphrase and Jarchi do, as descriptive of "general calamity, Ungluck;" or of calamity coming upon "a people" - rather than a particular affliction in the form of sickness coming upon "an individual." The great value of the book of Psalms consists in the fact that it furnishes illustrations of the nature and power of true religion in all the varied circumstances of the lives of individual friends of God. Psalms 38:1
psa 60:0
In the title, this psalm is ascribed to David. The occasion on which it is said to have been composed was after he had been engaged in wars in the East - in Aramea - and when he was meditating the completion of his conquests in the subjugation of Idumea. The time of its composition, according to the title, was that referred to in 2 Sam. 8, compare 1 Chr. 18. The occasion will be best understood by an explanation of the title.
On the phrase "To the chief Musician," see the notes at the introduction to Psa 4:1-8.
The phrase "upon Shushan-eduth" means properly "Lily of Testimony." The word שׁושׁן shôshân means properly lily. See the notes at the title to Ps. 45, where, as in the titles to Ps. 69; 80, the plural form of the word occurs. This is the only instance in which it is found in the singular number, when in the title to a psalm. The word עדות ‛êdûth means properly testimony; law; precept; revelation. It is applied to the law of God, as a testimony which God bears to the truth, Psa 19:7; Kg2 11:12; and especially to the ark, called "the ark of the testimony," as containing the law or the divine testimony to the truth. Exo 25:21-22 (compare Exo 16:34); Exo 26:33-34; Exo 30:6, Exo 30:26; Exo 31:7. The word occurs frequently, and is uniformly translated testimony. Exo 27:21; Exo 30:36; Exo 31:18, et saepe. See the notes at Psa 19:7. The lily of the law would properly express the meaning of the phrase here, and it may have been the name of a musical instrument having a resemblance to a lily - open-mouthed like the lily; perhaps some form of the trumpet.
Why the term earth - testimony or law - was connected with this, it is not easy to determine. Gesenius (Lexicon) supposes that the word means revelation, and that the term was used in these inscriptions because the authors of the psalms wrote by revelation. But if this was the reason, it would not explain why the title was prefixed to these psalms rather than others, since all were composed by revelation. Prof. Alexander, somewhat fancifully, supposes that the name lily is used in this title to denote beauty; that the reference is to the beauty of the law, and that the psalm is designed to celebrate that beauty. But it is sufficient to say in reply to this that there is no particular mention of the law in this psalm, and no special commemoration of its beauty. If the title had been prefixed to Psa 19:1-14, or to Ps. 119, there would then have been some foundation for the remark. On the whole, it seems impossible to determine the reason of the use of the term here. It would seem most probable that the allusion is to a musical instrument, or to some classes of musical instruments to which the term had been originally applied with reference to the use of those instruments in the services connected with the "ark of the testimony," or the celebration of the law of God; but on what occasion such instruments were first used, or why the term was applied, we cannot hope now to understand.
On the word Michtan, see the notes at the Introduction to Psa 16:1-11. It indicates nothing here in regard to the character of the psalm to which it is prefixed. It may be merely one form of denoting that it was a composition of David.
The word rendered "to teach," means here that the psalm was adapted to impart instruction, and in this sense it is not unlike the word Maschil (Title to Psa 32:1-11), as being a psalm suited to impart valuable information on the subject referred to, or perhaps to be learned and treasured up in the memory. It is not possible for us, however, to understand why the language was applied to this psalm rather than to others.
The psalm is said to have been composed when David "strove with Aramnaharaim and with Aram-zobah, when Joab returned and smote in the valley of salt twelve thousand." The allusion is to the transactions referred to in 2 Sam. 8 and 1 Chr. 18. In those chapters we learn that David made extensive conquests in the East, extending his victories over Moab, Syria, and Hamath, and subduing the country as far as the Euphrates. It is to these victories that the psalm refers, see Psa 60:7-8. The words rendered Aram-nahaim mean properly Aram (or Aramea) of the two rivers, and the reference is to Syria or Mesopotamia. The compound word occurs elsewhere in the following places, in all of which it is rendered Mesopotamia, Gen 24:10; Deu 23:4; Jdg 3:8; Ch1 19:6. The word Aram is of frequent occurrence, and properly refers to Syria. The name comprehended more than Syria proper, and the term Aram-naharaim, or Aram of the two rivers, was used to designate that part of the general country of Aramea which was between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The compound term Aram-zobah refers also to a part of Aramea or Syria. This kingdom was in the neighborhood of Damascus, and perhaps comprehended Hamath, and probably extended as far as the Euphrates. The king of this country is represented as making war with Saul Sa1 14:47, and with David Sa2 8:3; Sa2 10:6. In Sa2 8:3, David is represented as having smitten "Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates." It is to these wars, and to this conquest, that the title of the psalm alludes.
The language in the title "when Joab returned," would seem to imply that these conquests were achieved not by David in person, but by Joab - a circumstance not at all improbable, as he was the leader of the armies of David; Sa2 20:23, "Now Joab was over all the host of Israel." David had thus subdued Syria, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, and the Philistines, and the Amalekites, and Hadadezer, king of Zobah, and had dedicated to the Lord the silver and the gold which he had taken in these conquests Sa2 8:11-12; but it would seem probable that Edom or Idumea stilt held out, or that at the time of composing the psalm that country had not been subdued. But the subjugation of that land was necessary to complete the conquests of David, and to make his kingdom safe. It was at this time probably, in the interval between Sa2 8:12 and Sa2 8:14, that the psalm was composed, or in view of the strong desire of David to subdue Edom; see Psa 60:8-9, "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe,"..."Who will lead me into Edom?" It would seem that there were some special difficulties in the conquest of that country; or that there had been some partial discomfiture in attempting it Psa 60:1-3, and David was now fearful that he had in some way incurred the divine displeasure after all his conquests, and that Edom - a place so strong and so important - was likely to remain unsubdued. And yet the conquest was made, for it is said in the title "that Joab smote of Edom in the valley of salt twelve thousand." Compare Sa2 8:13.
The phrase "the Valley of Salt" is explained by the fact that not a few valleys are found in Arabia and Syria, which are at certain periods - in the wet seasons - stagnant pools; but which, when they are dried up, leave an incrustation of salt, or a saline deposit on the sand. Travelers make mention of such pools, from which they obtain their supplies of salt. Van Hamelsveld, Bib. Geog., i. p. 402. What valley is here referred to is not certain. It would seem most probable that it was the valley in which the Dead Sea is situated, as being eminently the valley of salt, or the valley in which such deposits abounded. Dr. Robinson (Researches in Palestine, vol. ii. p. 483), supposes that this "valley of salt" is situated at the southern end of the Dead Sea - the Ghor south of the Dead Sea; and adjacent to the Mountain of Salt - "the whole body of the mountain being a solid mass of rock-salt" p. 482. This valley separates the ancient territories of Judah and Edom, and would, therefore, be the place where the battle would naturally be fought.
This victory is said in the title of the psalm to have been achieved by Joab; in Sa2 8:13, it is attributed to David; in the parallel place in Ch1 18:12, it is said to have been achieved by Abishai - in the margin, Abshai. There is no discrepancy between the account in 2 Samuel, where the victory is ascribed to David, and that in the title to the psalm where it is ascribed to Joab, for though the battle may have been fought by Joab, yet it was really one of the victories of David, as Joab acted under him and by his orders - as we speak of the conquests of Napoleon, attributing to him the conquests which were secured by the armies under his command. There is greater difficulty in reconciling the account in 1 Chronicles with the title to the psalm, where one ascribes the victory to Joab, and the other to Aibishai. Some have supposed that either in the title to the psalm or in 1 Chronicles there has been an error in transcribing. But such an error could hardly have occurred. The most probable opinion seems to be that the victory was achieved by the joint action of the forces under Joab and his brother Abishai, and that with propriety it may be spoken of as the victory of either of them. We know that on one occasion Joab thus divided his forces, retaining the command of a portion of the army to himself, and assigning the other portion to his brother Abishai Sa2 10:9-10, and it is possible that there may have been such a division of the army here, and that the victory may have been so connected with the skill and valor of Abishai that it might without impropriety be spoken of as his victory, while there was no impropriety also in ascribing it to Joab, as entrusted with the general command, or to David who had planned and directed the expedition.
There is, also, a discrepancy in the numbers mentioned as slain, in the title to the psalm, and in the account in Samuel and Chronicles. In Sa2 8:13, and in Ch1 18:12, the number is "eighteen thousand;" in the title to the psalm, it is "twelve thousand." Why the statement varies, it is impossible to determine with certainty. We cannot suppose that the author of the psalm was ignorant of the usual estimate of the number, and we have no evidence that there is an error in the transcription. The probability is, that there may have been, as is often the case, in the account of battles, two estimates. The common and more moderate estimate may have been that the number was twelve thousand - and this was adopted by the author of the psalm. The more accurate and well-ascertained estimate may have been that which was placed in the regular history, in the Books of Samuel and the Chronicles. If the actual number was in fact as great as eighteen thousand, then there is no contradiction - for the greater number includes the less. If eighteen thousand were actually slain, there was no falsehood in the assertion, according to the first estimate, that twelve thousand had fallen in the battle, for that statement was in fact true, though a subsequent and more accurate "return" from the army made the number larger. Both statements were true. In saying that three men were drowned in a flood, or lost at sea in a storm, I do not falsify a declaration which may be made subsequently that not only three perished but six or more.
There is no reference, in the accounts in Samuel and the Chronicles, to the partial discomfiture referred to in the psalm Psa 60:1-3; and the impression from those historical narratives would probably be that the armies of David had been uniformly successful. Yet it is possible that some things may have been omitted in the rapid survey of the conquests of David in Samuel and the Chronicles. The design of the authors of those books may have been to give a general summary of the wars or series of wars by which David obtained a final victory over his enemies, and brought into subjection all that he regarded as properly his territory, or all that had been included in the general promise to Abraham and his posterity, without noticing the reverses or disasters that may have occurred in securing those triumphs. Perhaps the most probable supposition in the case is, that during the absence of the armies in the east the Edomites had taken occasion to invade the land of Palestine from the south, and that in endeavoring to repel them, there had been some defeats and losses in the comparatively small forces which David was then able to employ. He now summoned his armies on their return, and made a vigorous and decided effort to expel the Edomites from the land, to carry the warfare into their own country, and to add their territory to that which he had already brought under subjection. In this he was entirely successful. Sa2 8:14; Ch1 18:13.
The contents of the psalm are as follows:
I. A statement of the disaster which had occurred, as if God had cast his people off, and as if, after all, they might be given up into the hands of their enemies, Psa 60:1-3.
II. A statement of the object for which God now summoned his people to war - that of carrying forth the banner of truth, or of bringing nations into subjection to the true religion, Psa 60:4-5.
III. A reference to the conquests already made, or to the dominion which David had set up over Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, and Philistia, Psa 60:6-8.
IV. The expression of a strong desire to complete the series of conquests by subduing Edom or Idumea, Psa 60:8-9. That alone remained. That offered formidable resistance to the armies of David. The conquest of that seemed difficult, if not hopeless, and the psalmist, therefore, asks with deep solicitude who would aid him in this war; who would bring him successfully into the strong city - the strong fortifications of Edom, Psa 60:9.
V. An appeal to God to do it; to that God who had cast them off; to him who had left their armies to go forth alone. David now calls on him to return to those forces, and to render aid - expressing the confident assurance that he would thus return, and that the victory would be secured, Psa 60:10-12. Psalms 60:1
isa 36:0
This chapter commences the historical portion of Isaiah, which continues to the close of Isa 39:1-8. The main subject is the destruction of Sennacherib and his army. It contains also an account of the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah; the song with which he celebrated his recovery; and an account of his ostentation in showing his treasures to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon. In Ch2 32:32, the following record occurs: 'Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold they are written in the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz;' and it is to this portion of Isaiah to which the author of the Book of Chronicles doubtless refers.
There was an obvious propriety in Isaiah's making a record of the invasion and destruction of Sennacherib. That event has occupied a considerable portion of his prophetic announcements; and as he lived to see them fulfilled, it was proper that he should record the event. The prophecy and its fulfillment can thus be compared together; and while there is the strongest internal testimony that the prophecy was uttered before the event, there is also the most striking and clear fulfillment of all the predictions on the subject.
A parallel history of these transactions occurs in 2 Kings 17-20, and in 2 Chr. 32. The history in Chronicles, though it contains an account of the same transaction, is evidently by another hand, as it bears no further resemblance to this, than that it contains an account of the same transactions. But between the account here and in 2 Kings there is a most striking resemblance, so much so as to show that they were mainly by the same hand. It has been made a matter of inquiry whether Isaiah was the original author, or whether he copied a history which he found in the Book of Kings, or whether both he and the author of the Book of Kings copied from some original document which is now lost, or whether the collectors of the prophetic writings after the return from the captivity at Babylon, judging that such a history would appropriately explain the prophecies of Isaiah, copied the account from some historical record, and inserted it among his prophecies. This last is the opinion of Rosenmuller - an opinion which evidently lacks all historical evidence, and indeed all probability. The most obvious and fair supposition undoubtedly is, that this history was inserted here by Isaiah, or that he made this record according to the statement in Ch2 32:32. Gesenius also accords substantially with Rosenmuller in supposing that this history is an elaboration of that in the Book of Kings, and that it was reduced to its present form by some one who collected and edited the books of Isaiah after the Babylonian captivity. Vitringa supposes that both the accounts in Kings and in Isaiah have been derived from a common historical document, and have been adopted and somewhat abridged and modified by the author of the Book of Kings and by Isaiah.
It is impossible now to determine the truth in regard to this subject; nor is it of much importance. Those who are desirous of seeing the subject discussed more at length may consult Vitringa, Rosenmuller, and Gesenius. The view of Gesenius is chiefly valuable because he has gone into a comparison of the account in Isaiah with that in Kings. The following remarks are all that occur to me as desirable to make, and express the conclusion which I have been able to form on the subject:
1. The two accounts have a common origin, or are substantially the production of the same hand. This is apparent on the face of them. The same course of the narrative is pursued, the same expressions occur, and the same style of composition is found. It is possible, indeed, that the Holy Spirit might have inspired two different anthors to adopt the same style and expressions in recording the same events, but this is not the mode elsewhere observed in the Scriptures. Every sacred writer is allowed to pursue his own method of narration, and to express himself in a style and manner of his own.
2. There is no evidence that the two accounts were abridged from a more full narrative. Such a thing is possible; nor is there any impropriety in the supposition. But it lacks historical support. That there were histories among the Jews which are now lost; that there were public records which were the fountains from where the authors of the histories which we now have drew their information, no one can doubt who reads the Old Testament. Thus we have accounts of the writings of Gaff, and Iddo the seer, and Nathan, and the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and of the Book of Jehu the prophet Ch2 9:29; Ch2 20:34; Kg1 16:1, all of which are now lost, except so far as they are incorporated in the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament. It is possible, therefore, that these accounts may have been abridged from some such common record, but there is no historical testimony to the fact.
3. There is no evidence that these chapters in Isaiah were inserted by Ezra, or the other inspired men who collected the Sacred Writings, and published a recension, or an edition of them after the return from Babylon. That there was such a work performed by Ezra and his contemporaries is the testimony of all the Jewish historians (see Dr. Alexander "On the Canon of Scripture"). But there is no historical evidence that they thus introduced into the writings of Isaiah an entire historical narrative from the previous histories, or that they composed this history to be inserted here. It is done nowhere else. And had it been done on this occasion, we should have had reason to expect that they would have inserted historical records of the fulfillment of all the other prophecies which had been fulfilled. We should have looked, therefore, for historical statements of the downfall of Damascus and Syria; of the destruction of Samaria, of Moab of Babylon, and of Tyre, as proofs of the fulfillment of the predictions of Isaiah. There can be no reason why the account of the destruction of Sennacherib should have been singled out and inserted in preference to others. And this is especially true in regard to Babylon. The prophecy of Isaiah Isa. 13; 14 had been most striking and clear; the fulfillment had also been most remarkable; Ezra and his contemporaries must have felt a much deeper interest in that than in the destruction of Sennacherib; and it is unaccountable, therefore, if they inserted this narrative respecting Sennacherib, that they did not give us a full account also of the overthrow of Babylon, and of their deliverance, as showing the fulfillment of the prophecies on that subject.
4. The author of the Books of Kings is unknown. There is reason to believe that these books, as well as the Books of Chronicles, and some other of the historical books of the Old Testament, were written by the prophets; or at least compiled and arranged by some inspired man, from historical sketches that were made by the prophets. To such sketches or narratives we find frequent reference in the books themselves. Thus Nathan the prophet, and Ahijah the Shilonite, and Iddo the seer, recorded the acts of Solomon Ch2 9:29; thus the same Iddo the seer, and Shemaiah the prophet, recorded the acts of Rehoboam Ch2 12:15; thus the acts of Jehoshaphat were written in the Book of Jehu Ch2 20:34; and thus Isaiah wrote the acts of king Uzziah Ch2 26:22, and also of Hezekiah Ch2 32:32. Many of these historical sketches or fragments have not come down to us; but all that was essential to us has been doubtless incorporated into the sacred narrative, and transmitted to our own times. It is not improbable that many of these histories were mere fragments or public documents; narratives or sketches of a single reign, or some important fact in a reign, which were subsequently revised and inserted in the more extended history, so that, after all, it may be that we have all, or nearly all, of these fragments incorporated in the histories which we now possess.
5. As Isaiah is thus known to have written some portions of the history of the kings, it is probable that his history would be incorporated into the record of the kings by whomsoever that record might be composed. Indeed, the composition of the entire Books of Kings has been ascribed by many writers to Isaiah, though Grotius and some others ascribe it to Jeremiah. The general, and the probable opinion is, however, that the Books of the Kings were digested into their present form by Ezra. It is probable, therefore, I think, that Isaiah wrote the chapters in Kings respecting the invasion of Sennacherib; that the compiler of the Books of Kings, whoever he might be, adopted the fragment as a part of his history, and that the portion which we have here in Isaiah is the same fragment revised, abridged in some places, and enlarged in others, to adapt it to his purpose in introducing it into his book of prophecy. But it is admitted that this is conjecture. Every consideration, however, must lead us to suppose that this is the work of Isaiah (compare the Introduction, Section 5).
The portion of history contained in these chapters differs from the record in the Kings in several respects. There is no difference in regard to the historical facts, but the difference has respect to the fulness of the narratives, and to the change of a few words. The most material difference is that a few sentences, and members of sentences, are omitted in Isaiah which are found in Kings. These variations will be noticed in the exposition, and it is not necessary more particularly to refer to them here.
The thirty-sixth chapter contains the following parts, or subjects:
1. Sennacherib, having taken most of the strongholds of Judea, sent Rabshakeh with a great force to besiege Jerusalem, and to summon it to surrender Isa 36:1-2.
2. Hezekiah sent an embassy to meet with Rabshakeh, evidently to induce him to depart from the city Isa 36:3.
3. This embassy Rabshakeh addressed in a proud, insolent, and taunting speech, reproaching them with putting their trust in Egypt, and with their feebleness, and assuring them that Sennacherib had come up against the city at the command of Yahweh Isa 36:4-10.
4. The Jewish embassy requested Rabshakeh to speak in the Aramean or Syrian language, that the common people on the wall might not hear Isa 36:11.
5. To this he replied, that he came that they might hear; to endearour to draw them off from trusting to Hezekiah, and to induce them to submit to Sennacherib, promising them abundance in the land to which he would take them Isa 36:12-20.
6. To all this, the embassy of Hezekiah said nothing, but returned, as they had been instructed, into the city, with deep expressions of sorrow and grief Isa 36:21-22. Isaiah 36:1
dan 6:0
Section I. - Authenticity of the Chapter
This chapter Dan. 6, like the previous ones, has not escaped serious objections as to its authenticity and credibility. The objections which have been made to it have been derived from what is regarded as incredible in its statements. It is important, as in the previous chapters, to inquire whether the objections are insuperable, or whether this is so free from reasonable objection as to be worthy to be received as a portion of Divine truth. The objections, as urged by Bertholdt (Daniel aus dem Hebraisch-Aramaischen neu ubersetzt, etc., pp. 72-75, and pp. 357-364) and by Bleek, are capable of being reduced to the four following:
I. That it is wholly improbable that a monarch, in the circumstances of Darius, would give an order so unreasonable and foolish as that no one of his subjects should present any petition for a month to anyone, God or man, but to himself. It is alleged that no good end could have been proposed by it; that it would have perilled the peace of the empire; that among a people who worshipped many gods - who had gods in all their dwellings - it would have been vain to hope that the command could have been carried peaceably into execution; and that, whoever proposed this, it could not have been executed without shaking the stability of the throne. Bertholdt asks (p. 357, following), "Can one believe that among a people so devoted to religion as the Babylonians were, it should have been forbidden them to address their gods for one single day? Is it credible that the counselors of the king were so irreligious that without fear of the avenging deities, they would endeavor to enforce such an order as that here referred to - that no petition should be addressed to God or man for a month, except to the king? And was Cyaxares so destitute of religion as not to refuse to sanction such a mandate? And does this agree with the fact that in the issue itself he showed so much respect to a foreign God - the God of the Jews? Under what pretence could the ministers of the king give him this counsel? Could it be under any purpose of deifying his own person? But it remains to be proved that either then, or soon after that time, it was customary in Asia to attribute Divine honors to a monarch, whether deceased or living."
To this objection, Hengstenberg (Die Authentie des Daniel, p. 125, following) replies, by an endeavor to show that it was a common opinion in Persia that the king was regarded "as a representative, and an incarnation of Ormuzd;" and that nothing is more probable than that such a monarch coming to the throne of Babylon would be willing to appear in that character, claiming Divine honors, and early testing the inclination of his new subjects to receive him in that character in which he was recognized in his own land. In confirmation of this, he quotes two passages from Heeren (Ideen 3te Ausg. I. i. p. 446, 51) in proof that these ideas thus prevailed. "The person of the king," Heeren says, "is in Asiatic kingdoms the middle point around which all revolves. He is regarded, according to the Oriental notions, not so much the ruler as the actual owner of the people and land. All their arrangements are formed on this fundamental idea, and they are carried to an extent which to Europeans appears incredible and ridiculous. "The idea of citizenship, according to the European nations, is altogether a strange idea to them; all, without exception, from the highest to the lowest, are the servants of the king, and the right to rule over them, and to deal with them as he pleases, is a right which is never called in question."
Hengstenberg then remarks, that it is capable of the clearest proof that the kings of the Medes and Persians were regarded and honored as the representatives and incarnations of Ormuzd. In proof of this, he quotes the following passage from Heeren (p. 474), showing that this idea early prevailed among the followers of Zoroaster. "Zoroaster," says he, "saw the kingdom of light and of darkness both developed upon the earth; Iran, the Medo-Bactrish kingdom, under the scepter of Gustasp, is to him the image of the kingdom of Ormuzd; the king himself is an image of him; Turan, the Northern Nomadland, when Afraslab reigned, is the image of the kingdom of darkness, under the dominion of Ahriman." This idea, says Hengstenberg, the magi made use of when they wished to bring the king to their own interests, or to promote any favorite object of their own. The king was regarded as the representative, the visible manifestation of Ormuzd, ruling with power as uncircumscribed as his; the seven princes standing near him were representatives of the seven Amshaspands, who stood before the throne of Ormuzd. The evidence that the Persian kings were regarded as an embodiment of the deity, or that they represented him on earth, Hengstenberg, remarks (p. 126), is clear in the classic writings, in the Scriptures, and in the Persian monuments.
In proof of this, he appeals to the following authorities among the classic writers: Plutarch (Themistocl. cap. 27); Xenophon (Agesil.); Isocrates (Panegyri de Pets. princ. p. 17); Arrian (6. 29); Curtius (8. 5). Curtius says, Persas reges suos inter deos colere. For the same purpose, Hengstenberg (pp. 128, 129) appeals to the following passage of Scripture, Est 3:4, and the conduct of Mordecai in general, who refused, as he supposes, the respect which Haman demanded as the first minister of the king, on religious grounds, and because more was required and expected of him than mere civil respect - or that a degree of homage was required entirely inconsistent with that due to the true God. In proof of the same thing, Hengstenberg appeals to Persian monuments, pp. 129-132. The proof is too long to be inserted here. These monuments show that the Persian kings were regarded and adored as impersonations of Ormuzd. To this may be added many of their inscriptions. In the work by De Sacy, Memoires s. divers. Antiq. de la Perse, Pl. i. p. 27, 31, the Persian kings are mentioned as ἔκγονοι θεῶν, ἐκ γένους θεῶν ekgonoi theōn, ek genous theōn, and θεοῖ theoi - both as offsprings of the gods, as of the race of the gods, and as gods.
If this is correct, and the Persian kings were regarded as divine - as an impersonation or incarnation of the god that was worshipped - then there is no improbability in the supposition that it might be proposed to the king that for a given space of time he should allow no petition to be presented to anyone else, god or man. It would be easy to persuade a monarch having such pretensions to issue such a decree, and especially when he had subjected a foreign people like the Babylonians to be willing thus to assert his authority over them, and show them what respect and homage he demanded. In judging also of the probability of what is here said, we are to remember the arbitrary character of Oriental monarchs, and of the Persian kings no less than others. Assuredly there were as strange things in the character and conduct of Xerxes, one of the successors of this same Darius, as any that are recorded in this chapter of the book of Daniel; and if the acts of folly which he perpetrated had been written in a book claiming to be Divinely inspired, they would have been liable to much greater objection than anything which is stated here. The mere fact that a thing is in itself foolish and unreasonable, and apparently absurd, is no conclusive evidence that a man clothed with absolute authority would not be guilty of it.
To all that has been said on this point, there should be added a remark made by Bertholdt himself (p. 357) respecting Darius, which will show that what is here said of him is really not at all inconsistent with his character, and not improbable. He says, speaking of Darius or Cyaxares, that "from his character, as given by Xenophon, a man of weak mind (Cyrop. i. 4, 22; iv. 1, 13); a man passionate and peevish (iii. 3, 29; iv. 5, 8; v. 5; i. 8); a man given to wine and women (iv. 5, 52; v. 5, 44), we are not to expect much wisdom." There is nothing stated here by Daniel which is inconsistent with the character of such a man.
II. A second objection made to the probability of this statement is drawn from the character of the edict which Darius is said to have proclaimed, commanding that honor should be rendered to Jehovah, Dan 6:25-27. It is alleged that if such an edict had been published, it is incredible that no mention is made of it in history; that the thing was so remarkable that it must have been noticed by the writers who have referred to Darius or Cyaxares.
To this it may be replied:
(1) that, for anything that appears to the contrary, Daniel may be as credible an historian as Xenophon or Herodotus. No one can demonstrate that the account here is not as worthy of belief as if it bad appeared in a Greek or Latin classic author. When will the world get over the folly of supposing that what is found in a book claiming to be inspired, should be regarded as suspicious until it is confirmed by the authority of some pagan writer; that what is found in any other book should be regarded as necessarily true, however much it may conflict with the testimony of the sacred writers? Viewed in any light, Daniel is as worthy of confidence as any Greek or Latin historian; what he says is as credible as if it had been found in the works of Sanchoniathon or Berosus.
(2) there are, in fact, few things preserved in any history in regard to Darius the Mede. Compare Section II. The information given of him by Xenophon consists merely of a few detached and fragmentary notices, and it is not at all remarkable that the facts mentioned here, and the proclamation which he made, should be unnoticed by him. A proclamation respecting a foreign god, when it was customary to recognize so many gods, and indeed to regard all such gods as entitled to respect and honor, would not be likely to arrest the attention of a Greek historian even if he knew of it, and, for the same reason, it would be scarcely probable that he would know of it at all. Nothing would be more likely to pass away from the recollection of a people than such an edict, or less likely to be known to a foreigner. So far as the evidence goes, it would seem that the proclamation made no disturbance in the realm; the injunction appeared to be generally acquiesced in by all except Daniel; and it was soon forgotten. If it was understood, as it was not improbable, that this was designed as a sort of test to see whether the people would receive the commands of Darius as binding on them; that they would honor him, as the Persian monarch was honored in his own proper kingdom, it would seem to have been entirely successful, and there was no occasion to refer to it again.
III. A third objection urged by Bertholdt (p. 361), is derived from the account respecting the lions in this chapter. It is alleged by him that the account is so full of improbabilities that it cannot be received as true; that though the fact that they did not fall on Daniel can be explained from the circumstance that they were not hungry, etc., yet that it is incredible that they should have fallen on the enemies of Daniel as soon as they were thrown into the den; that the king should expect to find Daniel alive after being thrown among them; that he should have called in this manner to Daniel, etc.
To all this it is sufficient to reply, that no one can suppose that the facts stated here can be explained by any natural causes. The whole representation is evidently designed to leave the impression that there was a special Divine interposition - a miracle - in the case, and the only explanation which is admissible here is what would be proper in the case of any other miracle. The only questions which could be asked, or which would be proper, are these two; whether a miracle is possible; and whether this was a suitable occasion for the miraculous exertion of Divine power. As to the first of these questions, it is not necessary to argue that here - for the objection might lie with equal force against any other miracle referred to in the Bible. As to the second, it may be observed, that it is not easy to conceive of a case when a miracle would be more proper. If a miracle was ever proper to protect the innocent; or to vindicate the claims of the true God against all false gods: or to make a deep and lasting impression on the minds of men that Jehovah is the true God, it is not easy to conceive of a more appropriate occasion than this. No situation could be conceived to be more appropriate than when an impression was designed to be made on the mind of the sovereign of the most mighty empire on the earth; or that when, through a proclamation issued from the throne, the nations subject to his scepter should be summoned to acknowledge him as the true God.
IV. A fourth objection urged by Bleek (Theologische Zeitschrift, pp. 262-264) is, substantially, the following: that it is remarkable that there is in this account no allusion to the three companions of Daniel; to those who had been trained with him at the Chaldean court, and had been admitted also to honor, and who had so abundantly shown that they were worshippers of the true God. The whole story, says Bleek, appears to have been designed to produce a moral effect on the mind of the Jews, by the unknown author, to persuade them in some period of persecution to adhere to the God of their fathers in the midst of all persecution and opposition.
To this objection it may be replied:
(1) That it is wholly probable that there were many other pious Jews in Babylon at this time beside Daniel - Jews who would, like him, adhere to the worship of the true God, regardless of the command of the king. We are not to suppose, by any means, that Daniel was the only conscientious Jew in Babylon. The narrative evidently does not require that we should come to such a conclusion, but that there was something peculiar in regard to Daniel.
(2) as to the three companions and friends of Daniel, it is possible, as Hengstenberg remarks (Authentic, etc. p. 135), that they may either have been dead, or may have been removed from office, and were leading private lives.
(3) this edict was evidently aimed at Daniel. The whole narrative supposes this. For some cause, according to the narrative - and there is no improbability that such an opposition weight exist against a foreigner advanced to honor at court - there was some ground of jealousy against him, and a purpose formed to remove or disgrace him. There does not appear to have been any jealousy of others, or any purpose to disturb others in the free enjoyment of their religion. The aim was to humble Daniel; to secure his removal from office, and to degrade him; and for this purpose a plan was laid with consummate skill. He was known to be upright, and they who laird the plot felt assured that no charge of guilt, no accusation of crime, or unfaithfulness in his office, could be alleged against him. He was known to be a man who would not shrink from the avowal of his opinions, or from the performance of those duties which he owed to his God. He was known to be a man so much devoted to the worship Jehovah, the God of his people, that no law whatever would prevent him from rendering to him the homage which was his due, and it was believed, therefore, that if a law were made, on any pretence, that no one in the realm should ask anything of either God or man, except the king, for a definite space of time, there would be a moral certainty that Daniel would be found to be a violator of that law, and his degradation and death would be certain. What was here proposed was a scheme worthy of crafty and jealous and wicked men; and the only difficulty, evidently, which would occur to their mind would be to persuade the king to enter into the measure so far as to promulgate such a law. As already observed, plausible pretences might be found for that; and when that was done, they would naturally conclude that their whole scheme was successful.
(4) there is no improbability, therefore, in supposing that, as the whole thing was aimed at Daniel, there might have been many pious Jews who still worshipped God in secret in Babylon, and that no one would give information against them. As the edict was not aimed at them, it is not surprising that we hear of no prosecution against them, and no complaint made of them for disregarding the law. If Daniel was found to violate the statute; if he was ensnared and entrapped by the cunning device; if he was humbled and punished, all the purposes contemplated by its authors would be accomplished, and we need not suppose that they would give themselves any trouble about others.
Section II. - The Question About the Identity of Darius the Mede
Considerable importance is to be attached to the question who was Darius the Mede," as it has been made a ground of objection to the Scripture narrative, that no person by that name is mentioned in the Greek writers.
There are three Medo-Persian kings of the name of Darius mentioned in the Old Testament. One occurs in the book of Ezra Ezr 4:5; Ezr 6:1, Ezr 6:12, Ezr 6:15, in Haggai Hag 1:1; Hag 2:10, and in Zechariah Zac 1:7, as the king who, in the second year of his reign, effected the execution of those decrees of Cyrus which granted the Jews the liberty of rebuilding the temple, the fulfillment of which had been obstructed by the malicious representations which their enemies had made to his immediate successors. It is commonly agreed that this king was Darius Hystaspis, who succeeded the usurper Smerdis, 521 b.c., and reigned thirty-six years.
A second is mentioned as "Darius the Persian," in Neh 12:22. All that is said of him is, that the succession of priests was registered up to his reign. This was either Darius Nothus, B. c. 423, or Darius Codomanus, 336 b.c. See Kitto's Cyclop., art. Darius.
The remaining one is that mentioned in Daniel only as Darius the Median. In Dan 9:1, he is mentioned as Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes. Much difference of opinion has prevailed as to the person here intended; but a strict attention to what is actually expressed in, or fairly deduced from, the terms used in Daniel, tends to narrow the field of conjecture very considerably, if it does not decide the question. It appears from the passage in Dan 5:30-31; Dan 6:28, that Darius the Mede obtained the dominion over Babylon on the death of Belshazzar, who was the last Chaldean king, and that he was the immediate predecessor of Koresh (Cyrus) in the sovereignty. The historical juncture here defined belongs, therefore, to the period when the Medo-Persian army led by Cyrus took Babylon (538 b.c.), and Darius the Mede must denote the first king of a foreign dynasty who assumed the dominion over the Babylonian empire before Cyrus. These indications all concur in the person of Cyaxares the Second, the son and successor of Astyages (Ahasuerus), and the immediate predecessor of Cyrus. - Kitto's Cyclop., art. Darius
In reference to the question, who was Darius the Mede, Bertholdt has examined the different opinions which have been entertained in a manner that is satisfactory, and I cannot do better than to present his views on the subject. They are found in his Vierter Excurs. uber den Darius Medus, in his Commentary on Daniel, pp. 843-858. I will give the substance of the Excursus, in a free translation:
"Who was Darius the Mede, the son of Ahasuerus, of whom mention is made in the sixth chapter of the book of Daniel, and again in Dan 9:1; Dan 11:1? It is agreed on all hands that he was the immediate successor of Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans Dan 5:30. Compare Dan 6:1. But, notwithstanding this, there is uncertainty as to his person, since history makes no mention of a Median, Darius. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that various opinions have been entertained by commentators on the Scriptures, and by historical inquirers. Conring (Advers. Chronol. c. 13), whom many have followed, particularly Harenberg (Aufklarung des Buchs Daniels, s. 454, following), has endeavored to show that Darius the Mede was the fourth Chaldean monarch, Neriglissar, and that Belshazzar, his predecessor, was Evil-Merodach. John Scaliger (DeEmendat. Temporum, p. 579, seq.) recognized in Darius the Mede the last Chaldean king in Babylon, Nabonned, and in Belshazzar, the one before the last, Laborosoarchod, which hypothesis also Calvisius, Petavius, and Buddens adopted.
On the other hand, Syncellus (Chronogr. p. 232), Cedrenus (Chr. p. 142), the Alexandrine Chronicle, Marsham (Can. Chr. p. 604, following), the two most recent editors of AEschylus, Schutz (in zweiten Excurs. zu AEschylus' περσαι persai), and Bothe (AEsch. dramata, p. 671), held that Darius the Mede was the Median king Astyages, the maternal grandfather of Cyrus. Des Vignolles (Chronologie, t. 2. p. 495), and Schroer (Regnum Babyl. Sect. 6, Section 12, following), held him to be a prince of Media, a younger brother of Astyages, whom Cyrus made king over Babylon. Another opinion, however, deserves more respect than this, which was advanced by Marianus Scotus, a Benedictine monk of the eleventh century, though this hypothesis is not tenable, which opinion has found, in modern times, a warm advocate in Beer (Kings of Israel and Judah, p. 22, following) According to this opinion, it was held that Darius the Mede is the same person as the third Persian king after Cyrus, Darius Hystaspis, and that Belshazzar was indeed the last Chaldean king, Nabonned, but that in the first capture of Babylon under Cyrus, according to the account of Berosus in (Jos. c. Ap. i. 20) and Megasthenes (in Euseb. Proep. Evag. ix. 44), he was not put to death, but was appointed by Cyrus as a vassal-king; and then in the second taking of Babylon under Darius Hystaspis (Herod. iii. 150, following), from whom he had sought to make himself independent, he was slain.
This opinion has this advantage, that it has in its favor the fact that it has the undoubted name of Darius, but it is not conformable to history to suppose that Darius Hystaspis was a son of Ahasuerus the Mede, for his father, Hystaspis, was a native-born prince of Persia (Xenop. Cyrop. iv. 2, 46), of the family of the Achaemenides (Herod. i. 209, 210). Darius Hystaspis was indeed remotely related by means of the mother of Cyrus, Mandane, with the royal family; but this relation could not entitle him to be called a Mede, for, since she was the mother of Cyrus, it is altogether inexplicable that since both were thus connected with each other, that Cyrus should be called "the Persian" (פרסיא pâresâyâ'), and Darius the Mede (מדיא mâdây'ā), Dan 6:28 (29). The supposition, moreover, that Nabonned, after the taking of Babylon, was appointed as a tributary king by Cyrus, is wholly gratuitous; since Nabonned, according to the express testimony of Xenophon (Cyrop. vii. 5, 26, following), was slain at the taking of Babylon.
"There is yet one other opinion respecting Darius the Mede, to which I will first prefix the following remarks:
(1) Darius the Mede is mentioned in Dan 6:28 (29) as the immediate predecessor of Cyrus in Babylon.
(2) Belshazzar was the last Babylonian Chaldee king.
(3) the account of the violent death of Belshazzar, with which the fifth chapter closes, stands in direct historical connection with the statement in the beginning of the sixth chapter that Darius the Mede had the kingdom.
(4) Darius the Mede must, therefore, be the first foreign prince after the downfall of the Chaldean dynasty, which directly reigned over Babylon.
(5) the chronological point, therefore, where the history of Belshazzar and of Darius the Mede coincide, developes itself: the account falls in the time of the downfall of Babylon through the Medo-Persian army, and this must be the occasion as the connecting fact between the fifth and sixth chapters. According to this, Darius the Mede can be no other person than the Medish king Cyaxares II, the son and successor of Astyages, and the predecessor of Cyrus in the rule over Babylon; and Belshazzar is the last Chaldee monarch, Nabonned, or Labynet. With this agrees the account of Josephus (Ant. x. 11, 4); and later, this opinion found an advocate in Jerome.
"The existence of such a person as Cyaxares II has been indeed denied. because, according to Herodotus (i. 109), and Justin (i. 4, 7), Astyages had no son. But it should be remarked, that the latter of these writers only copies from the former, and what Herodotus states respecting Astyages has so much the appearance of fable that no reliance is to be placed on it. It has been objected also that Dionysius of Halicarnassus (b. i. Section. 1) says that the Medish kingdom continued only through four reigns, so that if we reckon the names of the reigning kings. Dejoces, Phraortes, Cyaxares (the contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar), and Astyages, there will be no place for a second Cyaxares. But is it not probable that Dionysius meant, by these words, only that the Median kingdom came to an end under the fourth dynasty? Finally, it has been objected that, according to Herodotus (i. 128, following), and Ctesias (Persik 2 and 5) Median prince sat upon the throne in Ecbatana after Astyages, but that with Astyages the kingdom of the Medes came to an end, and with Cyrus, his immediate successor, the Persian kingdom took its beginning.
Therewith agree nearly all the historians of the following times, Diodorus (ii. 34), Justin (i. 6, 16, 17, vii. 1), Strabo (ix. p. 735; xv. p. 1662), Polyan (vii. 7), and many others. But these writers only copy from Herodotus and Ctesias, and the whole rests only on their authority. But their credibility in this point must be regarded as doubtful, for it is not difficult to understand the reasons why they have omitted to make mention of Cyaxares II. They commenced the history of the reign of Cyrus with the beginning of his world-renowned celebrity, and hence, it was natural to connect the beginning of his reign, and the beginning of the Persian reign, with the reign of his grandfather Astyages, for, so long as his uncle Cyaxares II reigned, Cyrus alone acted, and he in fact was the regent. But if the silence of Herodotus and Ctesias is not to be regarded as proof that no such person as Cyaxares II lived and reigned, there are in favor of that the following positive arguments:
"(1) The authority of Xenophon, who not only says that a Cyaxares ascended the throne after Astyages, but that he was a son of Astyages (Cyr. i. 5. 2), and besides relates so much of this Cyaxares (i. 4, 7; iii. 3, 20; viii. 5, 19) that his Cyropaedia may be regarded as in a measure a history of him. Yea, Xenophon goes so far (viii. 7, 1) that he reckons the years of the reign of Cyrus from the death of Cyaxares II. Can anyone conceive a reason why Xenophon had a motive to weave together such a tissue of falsehood as this, unless Cyaxares II actually lived? If one should object, indeed, that he is so far to be reckoned among fictitious writers that he gives a moral character to the subjects on which he writes, and that he has passed over the difference between Cyrus and his grandfather Astyages, yet there is no reason why he should have brought upon the stage so important a person, wholly from fiction, as Cyaxares. What a degree of boldness it must have required, if he, who lived not much more than a century after the events recorded, had mentioned to his contemporaries so much respecting a prince of whom no one whatever had even heard. But the existence of Cyaxares II may be proved,
"(2) From a passage in Eschylus (Pers. verses 762, following) -
Μῆδος γάρ ἦν ὁ πρῶτος ἡγεμὼν στρατοῦ
Αλλος δ ̓ ἐκείνου παῖς τό δ ̓ ἔργον ἤνυσε;
Τρίτος δ ̓ ἀπ ̓ αὐτοῦ Κῦρος, εὐδαίμων ἀνήρ,
κ.τ.λ.
Mēdos gar ēn ho prōtos hēgemōn stratou
Allos d' ekeinou pais to d' ergon ēnuse;
Tritos d' ap' autou Kuros, eudaimōn anēr,
etc.
The first who is mentioned here as the Mede (Μῆδος Mēdos) is manifestly no other than Astyages, whom, before Cyrus, his son succeeded in the government, and who is the same whom we, after Xenophon, call Cyaxares. This testimony is the more important as Eschylus lived before Xenophon, in the time of Darius Hystaspis, and is free from all suspicions from this circumstance, that, according to the public relations which Eschylus sustained, no accounts of the former Persian history could be expected from any doubtful authorties to have been adduced by him. But the existence of Cyaxares II does not depend solely on the authority of Xenophon, in his Cyropaedia. For,
"(3) Josephus (Ant. x. 11, 4), who speaks of this person under the name of Darius, adds, νἦ Ἄστυάγους ὑιὸς, ἔτερον δέ παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐκαλεῖτο ονομα nē.Astuagous huios, heteron de para tois Hellēsin ekaleito onoma - 'he was the son of Astyages, but had another name among the Greeks.' This name, which he had among the Greeks, can be found only in their own Xenophon.
"(4) To all this should be added, that many other data of history, especially those taken from the Hebrew writings, so set out the continuance of the reign of the Medes over Upper Asia that it is necessary to suppose the existence of such a person as the Medish king, Cyaxares, after the reign of Astyages. Had Cyrus, after the death of Astyages, immediately assumed the government over Upper Asia, how happened it that until the downfall of the Babylonian-Chaldee kingdom mention is made almost always of the Medes, or at least of the Persians, of whom there is special mention? Whence is it that the passage of Abydenus, quoted from Megasthenes, p. 295, speaks of a Mede, who, in connection with a Persian, overthrew the Babylonian kingdom? Is not the Mede so represented as to show that he was a prominent and leading person? Is it not necessary to attribute to this fragment a higher authority, and to suppose that a Medish monarch, in connection with a Persian, brought the kingdom of Babylon to an end?
Whence did Jeremiah, Jer. 1; 51, expressly threaten that the Jews would be punished by a Median king? Whence does the author of Isa. 13; 14 mention that the destruction of the Chaldean monarchy would be effected by the Medes? The acceasion of Cyrus to the throne was no mere change of person in the authority, but it was a change of the reigning nation. So long as a Mede sat on the throne, the Persians, though they acted an important part in the affairs of the nation, yet occupied only the second place. The court was Medish, and the Medes were prominent in all the affairs of the government, as every page of the Cyropaedia furnishes evidence. Upon the accession of Cyrus, the whole thing was changed. The Persians were now the predominant nation, and from that time onward, as has been remarked, the Persians are always mentioned as having the priority, though before they had but a secondary place. As the reign of Astyages, though he reigned thirty-five years (Herod. i. 130), could not have embraced the whole period mentioned to the accession of Cyrus, so the royal race of the Medes, and the kingdom of the Medes, could not have been extinguished with him, and it is necessary to suppose the existence of Cyaxares II. as his successor, and the predecessor of Cyrus."
These considerations, suggested by Bertholdt, are sufficient to demonstrate that such a person as Cyaxares II lived between the reign of Astyages and Cyrus, and that, after the destruction of Babylon, he was the immediate successor of Belshazzar, or Nabonned, and was the predecessor of Cyrus. He was the first of the foreign princes who reigned over Babylon. It has been made a question why, in the book of Daniel, he is mentioned under the name of Darius, and not by his other name Cyaxares. It may be difficult to answer this question, but it will be sufficient to remark
(a) that it was common for Oriental kings to have many names, and, as we have seen, in regard to the kings of Babylon, one writer might designate them by one name, and another by another. This is indeed the occasion of much confusion in ancient history, but it is inevitable.
(b) As we have seen, Josephus (Ant. x. 11, 4) expressly says that this Darius had another name among the Greeks, and, as Bertholdt remarks, it is natural to seek that name in the writings of their own Xenophon.
(c) Darius was a common name in Persia, and it may have been one of the names by which the princes of Persia and Media were commonly known. Three of that name are mentioned in the Scriptures, and three who were distinguished are mentioned in profane history - Darius Hystaspis, Darius Ochus, or Darius Nothus, as he was known among the Greeks, and Darias Codomanus, who was overthrown by Alexander the Great.
An important statement is made by Xenophon respecting Cyaxares II, the son of Astyages, which may account for the fact that his name was omitted by Herodotus and Ctesias. He describes him as a prince given up to sensuality, and this fact explains the reason why he came to surrender all authority so entirely into the hands of his enterprising son-in-law and nephew Cyrus, and why his reign was naturally sunk in that of his distin. guished successor. - Cyrop. i. 5, viii. 7.
Section Iii. - Analysis of the Chapter
This sixth chapter of Daniel contains the history of Daniel under the government, or during the reign of Darius the Mede, or Cyaxares II, from a period, it would seem, soon after the accession of Darius to the throne in Babylon, or the conquest of Babylon, until his death. It is not indeed said how soon after that event Daniel was exalted to the premiership in Babylon, but the narrative would lead us to suppose that it was soon after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, acting under the authority of Cyaxares. As Daniel, on account of the disclosure made to Belshazzar of the meaning of the handwriting on the wall, had been exalted to high honor at the close of the life of that monarch Dan. 5, it is probable that he would be called to a similar station under the reign of Darius, as it cannot be supposed that Darius would appoint Medes and Persians entirely to fill the high offices of the realm. The chapter contains a record of the following events:
(1) The arrangement of the government after the conquest of Babylon, consisting of one hundred and twenty officers over the kingdom, so divided as to be placed under the care of three superior officers, or "presidents," of whom Daniel held the first place Dan 6:1-3.
(2) The dissatisfaction or envy of the officers so appointed against Daniel, for causes now unknown, and their conspiracy to remove him from office, or to bring him into disgrace with the king Dan 6:4.
(3) The plan which they formed to secure this, derived from the known piety and integrity of Daniel, and their conviction that, at any hazard, he would remain firm to his religious principles, and would conscientiously maintain the worship of God. Convinced that they could find no fault in his administration; that he could not be convicted of malversation or infidelity in office; that there was nothing in his private or public character that was contrary to justice and integrity, they resolved to take advantage of his well-known piety, and to make that the occasion of his downfall and ruin Dan 6:5.
(4) The plan that was artfully proposed was, to induce the king to sign a decree that if anyone for thirty days should ask any petition for anything of God or man, he should be thrown into a den of lions - that is, should be, as they supposed, certainly put to death. This proposed decree they apprehended they could induce the king to sign, perhaps because it was flattering to the monarch, or perhaps because it would test the disposition of his new subjects to obey him, or perhaps because they knew he was a weak and effeminate prince, and that he was accustomed to sign papers presented to him by his counselors without much reflection or hesitation Dan 6:6-9.
(5) Daniel, when he was apprised of the contents of the decree, though he saw its bearing, and perhaps its design, yet continued his devotions as usual - praying, as he was known to do, three times a day, with his face toward Jerusalem, with his windows open. The case was one where he felt, undoubtedly, that it was a matter of principle that he should worship God in his usual manner, and not allow himself to be driven from the acknowledgment of his God by the fear of death Dan 6:10.
(6) they who had laid the plan made report of this to the king, and demanded the execution of the decree. The case was a plain one, for though it had not been intended or expected by the king that Daniel would have been found a violator of the law, yet as the decree was positive, and there had been no concealment on the part of Daniel, the counselors urged that it was necessary that the decree should be executed Dan 6:11-13.
(7) The king, displeased with himself, and evidently enraged against these crafty counselors, desirous of sparing Daniel, and yet feeling the necessity of maintaining a law positively enacted, sought some way by which Daniel might be saved, and the honor and majesty of the law preserved. No method, however, occurring to him of securing both objects, he was constrained to submit to the execution of the decree, and ordered Daniel to be cast into the den of lions Dan 6:14-17.
(8) The king returned to his palace, and passed the night fasting, and overwhelmed with sadness Dan 6:18.
(9) in the morning he came with deep anxiety to the place where Daniel had been thrown, and called to see if he were alive Dan 6:19-20.
(10) The reply of Daniel, that he had been preserved by the intervention of an angel, who had closed the mouths of the lions, and had kept him alive Dan 6:21-22.
(11) The release of Daniel from the den, and the command to cast those in who had thus accused Daniel, and who had sought his ruin Dan 6:23-24.
(12) an appropriate proclamation from the king to all men to honor that God who had thus preserved his servant Dan 6:25-27.
(13) a statement of the prosperity of Daniel, extending to the reign of Cyrus Dan 6:28. Daniel 6:1
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Introduction to Joel
The prophet Joel relates nothing of himself. He gives no hints as to himself, except the one fact which was necessary to authenticate his prophecy, that the word of the Lord came to him, and that the book to which that statement is prefixed is that "word of the Lord." "The word of the Lord, which came to Joel, son of Pethuel." Like Hosea, he distinguished himself from others of the same name, by the mention of the name of his unknown father. But his whole book bears evidence, that he was a prophet of Jerusalem. He was living in the center of the public worship of God: he speaks to the priests as though present, "Come ye, lie all night in sackcloth" Joe 1:13-14; he was, where the "solemn assembly Joe 2:15-17, which he bids them "proclaim," would be held; "the house of the Lord Joe 1:9, from which "meat-offering and drink-offering" were "cut off," was before his eyes. Whether for alarm Joe 2:1, or for prayer Joe 2:15, he bids, "blow ye the trumpet in Zion. The city Joe 2:9, which he sees the enemy approaching to beleaguer and enter, is Jerusalem. He adresses the "children of Zion" Joe 2:23; he reproaches Tyre, Zidon, and Philistia, with selling to the Greeks the "children of Zion and Jerusalem" Joe 3:4, Joe 3:6.
God promises by him to "bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem Joe 3:1. Of Israel, in its separated existence, he takes no more notice, than if it were not. They may be included in the three places in which he uses the name; "Ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel; I will plead for My people and My heritage, Israel; the Lord will be the strength of Israel Joe 2:27; Joe 3:2, Joe 3:16; but, (as the context shows) only as included, together with Judah, in the one people of God. The promises to Judah, Jerusalem, Zion, with which he closes his book, being simply prophetic, must, so far, remain the same, whomsoever he addressed. He foretells that those blessings were to issue from Zion, and that the Church was to be founded there. Yet the absence of any direct promise of the extension of those blessings to the ten tribes, (such as occur in Hosea and Amos) implies that he had no office in regard to them.
Although a prophet of Jerusalem, and calling, in the name of God, to a solemn and strict fast and supplication, he was no priest. He mentions the priests as a class to which he did not belong Joe 1:9, Joe 1:12; Joe 2:17, the priests, the Lord's ministers; ye priests; ye ministers of the altar; ye ministers of my God; let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, the place where they officiated. He calls upon them to proclaim the fast, which he enjoined in the name of God. "Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly Joe 1:14, he says to those, whom be had just called to mourn, "ye priests, ye ministers of the altar." As entrusted with a revelation from God, he had an authority superior to that of the priests. While using this, he interfered not with their own special office.
Joel must have completed his prophecy in its present form, before Amos collected his prophecies into one whole. For Amos takes as the key-note of his prophecy, words with which Joel almost closes his; "The Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem" Joe 3:16. Nor only so, but Amos inserts at the end of his own prophecy some of Joel's closing words of promise. Amos thus identified his own prophecy with that of Joel. In the threatening with which he opens it, he retains each word of Joel, in the self-same order, although the words admit equally of several different collocations, each of which would have had an emphasis of its own. The symbolic blessing, which Amos takes from Joel at the close of his prophecy "the mountains shall drop with new wine, is found in these two prophets alone; and the language is the bolder and more peculiar, because the word "drop" is used of dropping from above, not of flowing down.
It seems as if the picture were, that the mountains of Judaea, "the" mountains, instead of mist or vapor, should "distill" that which is the symbol of joy, "wine which maketh glad the heart of man" Psa 104:15. The reason why Amos, in this marked way, joined on his own book of prophecy to the book of Joel, must remain uncertain, since he did not explain it. It may have been, that, being called in an unusual way to the prophetic office, he would in this way identify himself with the rest of those whom God called to it. A prophet, out of Judah but for Israel, Amos identified himself with the one prophet of Judah, whose prophecy was committed to writing. Certainly those first words of Amos, "The Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem," pointed out to the ten tribes, that Zion and Jerusalem were the place "which God had chosen to place His Name there," the visible center of His government, whence proceeded His judgments and His revelation. Others have supposed that bad men thought that the evil which Joel had foretold would not come, and that the good may have looked anxiously for the fulfillment of God's promises; and that on that ground, Amos renewed, by way of allusion, both God's threats and promises, thereby impressing on men's minds, what Habakkuk says in plain terms, Hab 2:3, "The vision is for the appointed time, and it hasteth to the end : though it tarry, wait for it, for it will come, it will not tarry, or be behindhand .
However this may have been, such marked renewal of threatenings and promises of Joel by Amos, attests two things:
(1) that Joel's prophecy must, at the time when Amos wrote, have become part of Holy Scripture, and its authority must have been acknowledged;
(2) that its authority must have been acknowledged by, and it must have been in circulation among, those to whom Amos prophesied; otherwise he would not have prefixed to his book those words of Joel.
For the whole force of the words, as employed by Amos, depends upon their being recognized by his hearers, as a renewal of the prophecy of Joel. Certainly bad men jeered at Amos, as though his threatenings would not be fulfilled Amo 5:18; Amo 6:3; Amo 9:10.
Since, then, Amos prophesied during the time, when Azariah and Jeroboam II reigned together, the book of Joel must have been at that time written, and known in Israel also. Beyond this, the brief, although full, prophecy of Joel affords no clue as to its own date. Yet probably it was not far removed from that of Amos. For Amos, as well as Joel, speaks of the sin of Tyre and Zidon and of the Philistines in selling the children of Judah into captivity Joe 3:4-6; Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9. And since Amos speaks of this, as the crowning sin of both, it is perhaps likely that some signal instance of it had taken place, to which both prophets refer. To this, the fact that both prophets speak of the scourge of locusts and drought , (if this were so) would not add any further evidence. For Joel was prophesying to Judah; Amos, to Israel. The prophecy of Joel may indeed subordinately, although very subordinately at the most, "include" real locusts; and such locusts, if he meant to include them, could have been no local plague, and so could hardly have passed over Israel. But Amos does not speak of the ravages of the locusts, by which, in addition to drought, mildew, pestilence, God had, when he prophesied, recently chastened Israel, as distinguished above others which God had sent upon this land. There is nothing therefore to identify the locusts spoken of by Amos with those which Joel speaks of as an image of the terrible, successive, judgments of God. Rather Amos enumerates, one after the other, God's ordinary plagues in those countries, and says that all had failed in the object for which God sent them, the turning of His people to Himself.
Nor, again, does anything in Joel's own prophecy suggest any particular date, beyond what is already assigned through the relation which the book of Amos bears to his book. On the contrary, in correspondence, perhaps, with the wide extent of his prophecy, Joel says next to nothing of what was temporary or local. He mentions, incidentally, in one place the "drunkards" Joe 1:5 of his people; yet in this case too, he speaks of the sin as especially affected and touched by the chastisement, not of the chastisement, as brought upon the sinner or upon the sinful people by that sin. Beyond this one case, the prophet names neither sins nor sinners among his own people. He foretells chastisement, and exhorts to repentance as the means of averting it, but does not specify any sins. His prophecy is one declaration of the displeasure of God against all sin, and of His judgments consequent thereon, one promise of pardon upon earnest repentance; and so, perhaps, what is individual has, for the most part been purposely suppressed.
The notices in the book of Joel, which have been employed to fix more precisely the date of the prophet, relate:
(1) to the proclamation of the solemn assembly, which, it is supposed, would be enjoined thus authoritatively in a time when that injunction would be obeyed;
(2) to the mention of certain nations, and the supposed omission of certain other nations, as enemies of Judah.
Both arguments have been overstated and misstated.
(1) the call to public humiliation implies, so far, times in which the king would not interfere to prevent it. But ordinarily, in Judah, even bad and irreligious kings did not interfere with extraordinary fasts in times of public distress. Jehoiakim did not; the king, who hesitated not to cut in shreds the roll of Jeremiah's prophecies when three or four columns or chapters Jer 36:23 had been read before him, and burned it on the hearth by which he was sitting. The fast-day, upon which that roll had been read in the ears of all the people, was an extraordinary "fast before the Lord, proclaimed to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem" Jer 36:9. This fasting day was not their annual fast, the day of atonement. For the day of atonement was in the seventh month; this Jeremiah tells us, "was in the ninth month" Jer 36:9.
When such a king as Jehoiakim tolerated the appointment of an extraordinary fast, not for Jerusalem only, but for "all the people who came from the cities of Judah," we may well think that no king of ordinary impiety would, in a time of such distress as Joel foretells, have interfered to hinder it. There were at most, after Athaliah's death, two periods only of decided antagonism to God. The first was at the close of the reign of Joash, after the death of Johoiada, when Joash with the princes gave himself to the idolatry of Ashtaroth and put to death Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, upon whom "the Spirit of God came" and he foretold their destruction; "Because ye have forsaken the Lord, He had also forsaken you" Ch2 24:17-21. The period after the murder of Zechariah was very short. "As the year came round," the Syrians came against them; and "when they departed, his own servants slew him" Ch2 24:23, Ch2 24:25. The only space, left uncertain, is the length of time, during which the idolatry lasted, before the murder of Zechariah. The second period, that in which Amaziah fell away to the idolatry of the Edomites, silenced the prophet of God, and was abandoned by him to his destruction Ch2 25:14-16, Ch2 25:23, was also brief, lasting probably some 16 years.
(2) the argument from the prophet's of some enemies of God's people and the supposed omission of other later enemies, rests partly on a wrong conception of prophecy, partly on wrong interpretation of the prophet. On the assumption that the prophets did not speak of nations, as instruments of God's chastisements on His people, until they had risen above the political horizon of Judah, it has been inferred that Joel lived before the time when Assyria became an object of dread, because, mentioning other enemies of God's people, he does not mention Assyria. The assumption, which originated in unbelief, is untrue in fact. Balaam prophesied the captivity through Assyria Num 24:22, when Israel was entering on the promised land; he foretold also the destruction of Assyria or the great empire of the East through a power who should come from Europe Num 24:24. The prophet Ahijah foretold to Jeroboam I that the Lord would "root up Israel out of the good land which He gave to their fathers, and would scatter them beyond the river Kg1 14:15. Neither in temporal nor spiritual prophecy can we discern the rules, by which, "at sundry times and in diver's manners, God" revealed Himself "through the prophets," so that we should be able to reduce to one strict method "the manifold wisdom" of God, and infer the age of a prophet from the tenor of the prophecy which God put into his mouth.
It is plain, moreover, from the text of Joel himself, that God had revealed to him, that other more formidable enemies than had yet invaded Judah would hereafter come against it, and that those enemies whom he speaks of, he mentions only, as specimens of hatred against God's people and of its punishment. There can really be no question, that by "the Northern Joe 2:20 army, he means the Assyrian. God foretells also by him the capture of Jerusalem, and the punishment of those who "scattered Israel, My heritage, among the pagan, and divided My land" Joe 3:2. Such words can only be understood of an entire removal of Judah, whereby others could come and take possession of his land. In connection with these great powers occurs the mention of Tyre, Sidon and Philistia, petty yet vexatious enemies, contrasted with the more powerful. The very formula with which that mention is introduced, shows that they are named only incidentally and as instances of a class. "And also, what are ye to Me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Philistia?" The mighty nations were to come as lions, to lay waste; these, like jackals, made their own petty merchants gain. The mighty divided the land; these were plunderers and men-stealers. In both together, he declares that nothing, either great or small, should escape the righteous judgments of God. Neither shall might save the mighty, nor shall the petty malice of the lesser enemies of God be too small to be requited. But not only is there no proof that Joel means to enumerate all the nations who had hitherto infested Judah, but there is proof that he did not.
One only has been found to place Joel so early as the reign of Jehoshaphat. But in his reign, after the death of Ahab, (897 b.c.) "Moab and Ammon and with them others, a great multitude Ch2 20:1-2, invaded Judah. Since then it is tacitly admitted, that the absence of the mention of Moab and Ammon does not imply that Joel prophesied before their invasion (897 b.c.) neither is the non-mention of the invasion of the Syrians any argument that he lived before the end of the reign of Jehoash (840 b.c.). Further, not the mere invasion of Judah, but the motives of the invasion or cruelty evinced in it, drew down the judgments of God. The invasion of Hazael was directed not against Judah, but "against Gath." Kg2 12:17. But "a small company of men" Ch2 24:24 went up against Jerusalem; "and the Lord delivered a very great company into their hand, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. They executed," we are told, "judgment against Joash." Nor does it appear, that they, like the Assyrians, exceeded the commission for which God employed them (Ch2 24:23; add 17, 18). "They destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people," the princes who had seduced Joash to idolatry and were the authors of the murder of Zechariah Ch2 24:21. "They conspired against him, and stoned him (Zechariah) with stones at the commandment of the king." Amos mentions, as the last ground of God's sentence against Damascus, not this incursion, but the cruelty of Hazael to Gilead Joe 1:3. The religious aspect of the single invasion of Judah by this band of Syrians was very different from the perpetual hostility of the Philistines, or the malicious cupidity of the Phoenicians.
Still less intelligible is the assertion, that Joel would not have foretold any punishment of Edom, had he lived after the time when Amaziah smote 20,000 of them "in the valley of salt, and took Selah Kg2 14:7; Ch2 25:11, or Petra 838 b.c. For Amos confessedly prophesied in the reign of Azariah, the son of Amaziah. Azariah recovered Elath also from Edom; Kg2 14:22; Ch2 26:2 yet Amos, in his time, foretells the utter destruction of Bozra and Teman Joe 1:12. The victory of Amaziah did not humble Edom. They remained the same embittered foe. In the time of Ahaz, they again invaded Judah and "smote" it and "carried away a captivity" Ch2 28:17. Prophecy does not regard these little variations of conquest or defeat. They do not exhaust its meaning. It pronounces God's judgment against the abiding character of the nation; and while that continues unchanged, the sentence remains. Its fulfillment seems often to linger, but in the end, it does not fail nor remain behind God's appointed time. Egypt and Edom moreover, in Joel, stand also as symbols of nations or people like themselves. They stand for the people themselves, but they represent also others of the same character, as long as the struggle between "the city of God" and "the city of the devil" shall last, i. e., to the end of time.
There being then no internal indication of the date of Joel, we cannot do better than acquiesce in the tradition, by which his book is placed next to that of Hosea, and regard Joel as the prophet of Judah, during the earlier part of Hosea's office toward Israel, and rather earlier than Isaiah. At least, Isaiah, although he too was called to the prophetic office in the days of Uzziah, appears to have embodied in his prophecy, words of Joel, as well of Micah, bearing witness to the unity of prophecy, and, amid the richness and fullness of his own prophetic store, purposely borrowing from those, of whose ministry God did not will that such large fruit should remain. The remarkable words Isa 13:6, "Near is the Day of the Lord, like destruction from the Almighty shall it come," Isaiah inserted, word for word from Joel, Joe 1:15, including the remarkable alliteration, משׁשׁדי סשׁד seshod mishshadday, "like a 'mighty' destruction from the 'Almighty. '"
The prophecy of Joel is altogether one. It extends from his own day to the end of time. He gives the key to it in a saying, which he casts into the form of a proverb, that judgment shall follow after judgment Joe 1:4. Then he describes that first desolation, as if present, and calls to repentance Joe 1:5,ff.; yet withal he says expressly, that the day of the Lord is not come, but is at hand Joe 1:15. This he repeats at the beginning of the second chapter Joe 2:1, in which he describes the coming judgment more fully, speaks of it, as coming Joe 2:2-10, and, when, he has pictured it as just ready to break upon them, and God, as giving the command to the great camp assembled to fulfill His word Joe 2:11, he calls them, in God's name, yet more earnestly to repentance Joe 2:12-17, and promises, upon that repentance, plenary forgiveness and the restoration of everything which God had withdrawn from them Joe 2:18-27. These promises culminate in the first Coming of Christ, the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh, and the enlarged gift of prophecy at the same time among the sons and daughters of Judah Joe 2:28-29. Upon these mercies to His own people, follow the judgments upon His and their enemies, reaching on to the second Coming of our Lord.
An attempt has been made to sever the prophecy into two discourses, of which the first is to end at Joe 2:17, the second is to comprise the remainder of the book . That scheme severs what is closely united, God's call to prayer and His promise that He will answer it. According to this severance of the prophecy, the first portion is to contain the exhortation on the part of God, without any promise; the second is to contain an historical relation that God answered, without saying what He answered. The notion was grounded on unbelief, that God absolutely foretold, that He would, beyond the way of nature, bring, what He would, upon repentance, as certainly remove. It is rested upon a mere error in grammar . The grammatical form was probably chosen, in order to express how instantaneously God would hearken to real repentance, "that the Lord is jealous for His land." The words of prayer should not yet have escaped their lips, when God answered. As He says, "And it shall be, before they shall call, I will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hear" Isa 65:24. Man has to make up his mind on a petition; with God, hearing and answering are one.
The judgments upon God's people, described in the two first chapters of Joel, cannot be limited to a season of drought and a visitation of locusts, whether one or more.
I. The prophet includes all which he foretells, in one statement, which, both from its form and its preternatural character, has the appearance of a proverbial saying Joe 1:4. It does stand, as a summary. For he draws the attention of all to "this" Joe 1:2; "Hear" this, "ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days? etc." He appeals to the aged, whether they had heard the like, and bids all transmit it to their posterity Joe 1:3. The summary is given in a very measured form, in three divisions, each consisting of four words, and the four words standing, in each, in the same order. The first and third words of the four are the same in each; and the fourth of the first and second four become the second of the second and third four, respectively. Next to Hebrew, its force can best be seen in Latin:
Residuum erucae comedit loeusta; Residuumque locustae comedit bruchus; Residuumque bruchi comedit exesor. The structure of the words resembles God's words to Elijah Kg1 19:17, whose measured rhythm and precise order of words may again be best, because most concisely, exhibited in Latin. Each division contains five words in the same order; and here, the first, second, and fourth words of each five remain the same, and the proper name which is the fifth in the first five becomes the third in the second five.
Profugum gladii Hazaelis occidet Jehu; Profugumque gladii Jehu occidet Elisha. In this case, we see that the form is proverbial, because the slaying by Elisha is different in kind from the slaying by Jehu and Hazael, and is the same of which God speaks by Hosea, "I hewed them by the prophets; I slew them by the words of my mouth" Hos 6:5. But so also is it with regard to the locust. Except by miracle, what the prophet here describes, would not happen. He foretells, not only that a scourge should come, unknown in degree and number, before or afterward, in Palestine, but that four sorts of locusts should come successively, the latter destroying what the former left. Now this is not God's ordinary way in bringing this scourge. In His ordinary Providence different sorts of locusts do not succeed one another. Nor would it be any increase of the infliction, anything to record or forewarn of. At times, by a very rare chastisement, God has brought successive flights of the same insect from the same common birthplace; and generally, where the female locusts deposit their eggs and die, unless a moist winter or man's forethought destroy the eggs, the brood which issues from them in the next spring, being as voracious as the full grown locusts, but crawling through the land, does, in that immediate neighborhood, destroy the produce of the second year, more fatally than the parent had that of the preceding. This however is, at most, the ravage of two stages of the same insect, not four successive scourges, the three last destroying what the former had spared. What the prophet predicted, if taken literally, was altogether out of the order of nature, and yet its literal fulfillment has not the character of a miracle, for it adds nothing to the intensity of what is predicted. The form of his prediction is proverbial; and this coincides with the other indications that the prophet did not intend to speak of mere locusts.
(1) In order to bring down this summary of the prophet to the level of an ordinary event in God's ordinary Providence, a theory has been invented, that he is not here speaking of different sorts of locusts, but of the same locust in different stages of its growth, from the time when it leaves the egg, until it attains its full development and its wings. According to the inventor of this theory , the first, the גזם gâzâm (the "palmer-worm" of our version) was to be the migratory locust, which visits Palestine (it was said) chiefly in Autumn; the second, ארבה 'arbeh," (the ordinary name of the locust) was to stand for the young locust, as it first creeps out of the shell; the ילק yeleq (translated "cankerworm") was to be the locust, in what was supposed to be the third stage of development; the חסיל châsı̂yl (translated "caterpillar") was to be the full-grown locust.
According to this form of the theory, the גזם gâzâm was to be the same as the חסיל châsı̂yl, the first as the last; and two of the most special names of the locust, גזם gâzâm and חסיל châsı̂yl, were, without any distinction, to be ascribed to the full-grown locust, of one and the same species. For, according to the theory, the גזם gâzâm was to be the full-grown locust which arrived by flight and deposited its eggs; the ארבה 'arbeh, ילק yeleq, חסיל châsı̂yl," were to be three chief stages of development of the locusts which left those eggs. So that the חסיל châsı̂yl, although not the same individual, was to be exactly the same insect as the גזם gâzâm, and at the same stage of existence, the full-grown locust, the gryllus migratorius with wings. But while these two, more special, names were appropriated to the self-same species of locust, in the same, its full-grown stage (which in itself is unlikely, when they are thus distinguished from each other) one of the two names which remained to describe (as was supposed) the earlier, (so to speak) infantine or childish stages of its development, ארבה 'arbeh, is the most general name of locust. This was much as if, when we wished to speak of a "colt" as such, we were to call it "horse," or were to use the word "cow" to designate a "calf." For, according to this theory, Joel, wishing to mark that he was speaking of the pupa, just emerged from the egg, called it ארבה 'arbeh, the most common name of the locust tribe.
This theory then was tacitly modified tacitly corrects Credner. Maurer, Ewald, Umbreit, follow Gesenius; yet Ewald thinks that the גזם gâzâm, ילק yeleq, חסיל châsı̂yl, need" not belong to the proper locust tribe ארבה 'arbeh, (which is in fact an abandonment of the theory)). In the second form of the theory, which is more likely to be introduced among us, גזם gâzâm was to be the locust in its first stage; ארבה 'arbeh was to be the second, instead of the first; ילק yeleq was to be the last but one; חסיל châsı̂yl was, as before, to be the full-grown locust. This theory escaped one difficulty, that of making the גזם gâzâm and חסיל châsı̂yl full-grown locusts of the same species. It added another. The three moultings which it assumes to be represented by the ארבה 'arbeh, ילק yeleq, and גזם gâzâm, correspond neither with the actual moults of the locust, nor with those which strike the eye. Some observers have noticed four moultings of the locust, after it had left the egg . Some write, as if there were yet more . But of marked changes which the eye of the observer can discern, there are two only, that by which it passes from the larva state into the pupa; and that by which it passes from the pupa to the full-grown locust. The "three" names, arbitrarily adapted to the natural history of the locust, correspond neither with the "four" actual, nor with the "two" noticeable changes.
But even these terms larva and pupa, if taken in their popular sense, would give a wrong idea of the moults of the locust. The changes with which we are familiar under these names, take place in the locust, before it leaves the egg . : "The pupae are equally capable of eating and moving with the larvae, which they resemble except in having rudiments of wings or of wings and elytra:" having in fact "complete wings, only folded up longitudinally and transversely, and enclosed in membranous cases." "The pupae of the orthoptera" (to which the locust belongs) "resemble the perfect insect, both as to shape and the organs for taking their food, except in not having their wings and elytra fully developed."
These changes regard only its outward form, not its habits. Its voracity begins almost as soon as it has left the egg. The first change takes place "a few days" after they are first in motion. "They fast, 'for a short time,'" before each change. But the creature continues, throughout, the same living, devouring, thing . From the first, "creeping and jumping in the same general direction, they begin their destructive march." . The change, when it is made, takes place "in seven or eight minutes" by the creature disengaging itself from its former outward skin . All the changes are often completed in six weeks. In the Ukraine, six weeks after it has left the egg, it has wings and flies away . In the warmer climate of Palestine, the change would be yet more rapid. "They attain their natural size," Niebuhr says of those in Mosul , "with astonishing rapidity." "Tis three weeks," says Le Bruyn , "before they can use their wings."
(2) But the prophet is not writing on "natural history," nor noticing distinctions observable only on minute inspection. He is foretelling God's judgments. But, as all relate, who have described the ravages of locusts, there are not three, four or five, but two stages only, in which its ravages are at all distinct, the unwinged and the winged state.
(3) Probably, only in a country which was the birthplace of locusts, and where consequently they would, in all the stages of their existence, be, year by year, before the eyes of the people, would those stages be marked by different names. Arabia was one such birthplace, and the Arabs, living a wild life of nature, have invented, probably beyond any other nation, words with very special physical meanings. The Arabs, who have above 50 names for different locusts, or locusts under different circumstances, as they distinguished the sexes of the locust by different names, so they did three of its ages. : "When it came forth out of its egg, it was called "doba;" when its wings appeared and grew, it was called "ghaugha;" and this, when they jostled one another; and when their colors appeared, the males becoming yellow, the females black, then they were called 'jerad.'" This is no scientific description; for the wings of the locust are not visible, until after the last moult.
But in the language of other countries, where this plague was not domestic, these different stages of the existence of the locust are not marked by a special name. The Syrians added an epithet "the flying," "the creeping," but designated by the "creeping" the חסיל châsı̂yl as well as the ילק yeleq, , creeping." In Psa 78:46, it renders חסיל châsı̂yl by kamtso, locust," and ארבה 'arbeh, by dsochelo, creeper." In Psa 105:34, it renders ארבה 'arbeh," by kamtso only (as also in 2 Chr. 6) and ילק yeleq again by dsochelo) which last the Chaldees render by (parecha) "the flying." In Joel where they had to designate the four kinds of locusts together, they were obliged, like our own version, in one case to substitute the name of another destructive insect; in another, they use the name of a different kind of locust, the "tsartsuro," or "tsartsero," the Syrian and Arabic way of pronouncing the Hebrew צלצל tselatsal Deu 28:42. In Greek the Βροῦχος Brouchos and Ἀττέλαβος Attelabos have been thought to be two stages of the unwinged, and so, unperfected, locusts. But Cyril and Theodoret speak of the Βροῦχος Brouchos as having wings; Aristotle and Plutarch speak of the eggs of the Ἀττέλαβος Attelabos.
(4) The prophet is speaking of successive ravagers, each devouring what the former left. If the theory of these writers was correct, the order in which he names them, would be the order of their development. But in the order of their development, they never destroy what they left in their former stages. From the time when they begin to move, they march right onward "creeping and jumping, all in the same general direction" . This march never stops. They creep on, eating as they creep, in the same tract of country, not in the same spot. You could not say of creatures (were we afflicted with such,) who crawled for six weeks, devouring, over two counties of England, that in their later stage they devoured what in their former they left. We should speak of the plague "spreading" over two counties. We could not use the prophet's description, for it would not be true.
This mere march, however destructive in its course, does not correspond with the prophet's words. The prophet then must mean something else. When the locust becomes winged it flies away, to ravage other countries. So far from destroying what, in its former condition, it left, its ravages in that country are at an end. Had it been ever so true, that these four names, גזם gâzâm, ארבה 'arbeh, ילק yeleq, חסיל châsı̂yl," designated four stages of being of the one locust, of which stages גזם gâzâm was the first, חסיל châsı̂yl חסיל châsı̂yl the last, then to suit this theory, it should have been said, that גזם gâzâm, the young locust, devoured what the חסיל châsı̂yl, by the hypothesis the full-grown locust, left, not the reverse, as it stands in the prophet. For the young, when hatched, do destroy in the same place which their parents visited, when they deposited their eggs; but the grown locust does not devastate the country which he wasted before he had wings. So then, in truth, had the prophet meant this, he would have spoken of two creatures, not of four; and of those two he would have spoken in a different order from that of this hypothesis.
(5) Palestine not being an ordinary breeding place of the locusts, the locust arrives there by flight. Accordingly, on this ground also, the first mentioned would be the winged, not the crawling, locust.
(6) The use of these names of the locust, elsewhere in Holy Scripture, contradicts the theory, that they designate different stages of growth, of the same creature.
(a) The ארבה 'arbeh is itself one of the four kinds of locust, allowed to be eaten, having subordinate species. "The locust" (ארבה 'arbeh) "after his kind, and the bald locust" (סלעם sol‛âm "the devourer") "after his kind, and the beetle" (חרגל chârgôl, literally, "the springer") "after his kind, and the grasshopper" (חגב châgâb), perhaps, "the overshadower) after his kind" Lev 11:22. It is to the last degree unlikely, that the name ארבה 'arbeh, which is the generic name of the most common sort of the "winged" locust, should be given to one imperfect, unwinged, stage of one species of locust.
(b) The creeping, unwinged, insect, which has just come forth from the ground, would more probably be called by yet another name for "locust," גוב gôb, גובי gôbay," "the creeper," than by that of גזם gâzâm. But though such is probably the etymology of גוב gôb, probably it too is winged Nah 3:17.
(c) Some of these creatures here mentioned by Joel are named together in Holy Scripture as distinct and winged. The ארבה 'arbeh and חסיל châsı̂yl, are mentioned together Kg1 8:37; Ch2 6:28; Psa 78:46; as are also the ארבה 'arbeh and the ילק yeleq " Nah 3:16-17; Psa 105:34. The ארבה 'arbeh, the ילק yeleq, and the חסיל châsı̂yl, are all together mentioned in regard to the plague of Egypt , and all consequently, as winged, since they were brought by the wind. The prophet Nahum also speaks of the ילק yeleq, a "spoiling and fleeing away" Nah 3:16. According to the theory, the ילק yeleq," as well as the ארבה 'arbeh, ought to be unwinged.
Nor, again, can it be said, that the names are merely poetic names of the locust. It is true that ארבה 'arbeh, the common name of the locust, is taken from its number; the rest, גזם gâzâm, ילק yeleq, חסיל châsı̂yl, are descriptive of the voracity of that tribe. But both the ארבה 'arbeh and the חסיל châsı̂yl occur together in the historical and so in prose books. We know of ninety sorts of locusts , and they are distinguished from one another by some epithet. It would plainly be gratuitous to assume that the Hebrew names, although epithets, describe only the genus in its largest sense, and are not names of species. If, moreover, these names were used of the same identical race, not of different species in it, the saying would the more have the character of a proverb. We could not say, for instance, "what the horse left, the steed devoured," except in some proverbial meaning.
This furnishes a certain probability that the prophet means something more under the locust, than the creature itself, although this in itself too is a great scourge of God.
II. In the course of the description itself, the prophet gives hints, that he means, under the locust, a judgment far greater, an enemy far mightier, than the locust. These hints have been put together most fully, and supported in detail by Hengstenberg , so that here they are but re-arranged.
(1) Joel calls the scourge, whom he describes, "the Northern" or Northman. But whereas the Assyrian invaders of Palestine did pour into it from the north, the locust, almost always, by a sort of law of their being, make their inroads there from their birth-place in the south (see the note at Joe 2:20).
(2) The prophet directs the priests to pray, "O Lord give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them" Joe 2:17. But there is plainly no connection between the desolation caused by locusts, and the people being given over to a pagan conqueror.
(3) The prophet speaks of, or alludes to, the agent, as one responsible. It is not likely that, of an irrational scourge of God, the prophet would have assigned as a ground of its destruction, "he hath magnified to do" (see the note at Joe 2:20); words used of human pride which exceeds the measure appointed to it by God. On the other hand, when God says, "a nation is come up upon My land Joe 1:6 then will the Lord be jealous for His land Joe 2:18, the words belong rather to a pagan invader of God's land, who disputed with His people the possession of the land which He had given them, than to an insect, which was simply carried, without volition of its own, by the wind. With this, falls in the use of the title "people, גוי gôy Joe 1:6, used often of pagan, not (as is עם ‛am) of irrational creatures.
(4) After the summary which mentions simply different kinds of locusts, the prophet speaks of "fire, flame, drought Joe 1:19-20, which show that he means something beyond that plague.
(5) The imagery, even where it has some correspondence with what is known of locusts, goes beyond any mere plague of locusts.
(a) People are terrified at their approach; but Joel says not "people," but "peoples Joe 2:6, nations. It was a scourge then, like those great conquering Empires, whom God made "the hammer of the whole earth" Jer 50:23.
(b) The locusts darken the air as they come; but the darkening of the sun and moon, the withdrawing of the shining of the stars Joe 2:10 (which together are incompatible) are far beyond this, and are symbols elsewhere of the trembling of all things before the revelation of the wrath of God Isa 13:10.
(c) Locusts enter towns and are troublesome to their inhabitants (see the note at Joe 2:9, p. 117): but the fields are the scenes of their desolation, in towns they are destroyed .
These in Joel are represented as taking "the city," Jerusalem Joe 2:10, symbols of countless trusts, but as mere locusts, harmless.
(6) The effects of the scourge are such as do not result from mere locusts.
(a) The quantity used for the "meat-offering and drink-offering" Joe 1:9 was so small, that even a famine could not occasion their disuse. They were continued even in the last dreadful siege of Jerusalem. Not materials for sacrifice, but sacrificers were wanting .
(b) God says, I "will restore the years which the locust hath eaten" Joe 2:25. But the locust, being a passing scourge, did not destroy the fruits of several "years," only of that one year.
(c) The "beasts of the field" are bidden to rejoice, "because the tree beareth her fruit Joe 2:22. This must be a metaphor, for the trees are not food for cattle.
(d) The scourge is spoken of as greater than any which they or their fathers knew of, and as one to be ever remembered Joe 1:2-3; Joe 2:2; but Israel had many worse scourges than any plague of locusts, however severe. God had taught them by David, It is better to fall into the hands of God, than into the hands of men.
(7) The destruction of this scourge of God is described in a way, taken doubtless in its details from the destruction of locusts, yet, as a whole, physically impossible in a literal sense (see the note at Joe 2:20).
(8) The Day of the Lord, of which he speaks, is identical with the scourge which he describes, but is far beyond any plague of locusts. It includes the captivity of Judah Joe 3:1, the division of their land Joe 3:2, its possession by strangers, since it is promised that these are "no more to pass through her" Joe 3:17. It is a day of utter destruction, such as the Almighty alone can inflict. "It shall come like a mighty destruction from the Almighty" Joe 1:15.
I. Attempts have been made to meet some of these arguments; but these attempts for the most part only illustrate the strength of the arguments, which they try to remove.
(1) Northern has been taken in its natural sense, and it has been asserted, contrary to the fact, that locusts did come from the North into Palestine ; or it has been said , that the locusts were first driven from their birthplace in Arabia Deserta through Palestine "to" the North, and then brought back again into Palestine "from" the North; or that "Northern" meant that part of the whole body of locusts which occupied the Northern parts of Palestine , Judea lying to the extreme south.
But an incidental flight of locusts, which should have entered Palestine from the North, (which they are not recorded to have done) would not have been called "the Northern." The object of such a name would be to describe the locale of those spoken of, not a mere accident or anomaly. Still less, if this ever happened, (of which there is no proof) would a swarm of locusts be so called, which had first come from the South. The regularity, with which the winds blow in Palestine, makes such a bringing back of the locusts altogether improbable. The South wind blows chiefly in March; the East wind in Summer, the North wind mostly about the Autumnal equinox. But neither would a body so blown to and fro, be the fearful scourge predicted by the prophet, nor would it have been called "the Northern." The "iy" of the word צפוני tsephônı̂y, like our "-ern" in Northern, designates that which is spoken of, not as coming incidentally from the North, but as having an habitual relation to the North. A flight of locusts driven back, contrary to continual experience, from the North, would not have been designated as "the Northern," anymore than a Lowlander who passes some time in the Highlands would be called a Highlander, or a Highlander, passing into the South, would be called a "Southron." With regard to the third explanation, Joel was especially a prophet of Judah. The supposition that, in predicting the destruction of the locusts, he spoke of the Northern not of the Southern portion of them, implies that he promised on the part of God, as the reward of the humiliation of Judah, that God would remove this scourge from the separated kingdom of the ten tribes, without any promise as to that part which immediately concerned themselves. Manifestly also, "the Northern" does not, by itself, express the Northern part of a whole.
It is almost incredible that some have understood by "the Northern," those driven toward the North, and so those actually in the South ; and "I will remove far from you the Northern," "I will remove far from "you" who are in the South, the locusts who have come to you from the South, whom I will drive to the North."
(2) Instances have been brought "from other lands," to which locusts have come from the North. This answer wholly misstates the point at issue. The question is not as to the direction which locusts take, "in other countries," where God sends them, but as to the quarter from which they enter Judea. The direction which they take, varies in different countries, but is on one and the same principle. It is said by one observer, that they have power to fly against the wind . Yet this probably is said only of light airs, when they are circling round in preparation for their flight. For the most part, they are carried by the prevailing wind, sometimes, if God so wills, to their own destruction, but, mostly, to other counties as a scourge. "When they can fly, they go," relates Beauplan of those bred in the Ukraine, "wherever the wind carries them. If the Northeast wind prevails, when they first take flight, it carries them all into the Black Sea; but if the wind blows from any other quarter, they go into some other country, to do mischief."
Lichtenstein writes , "They never deviate from the straight line, so long as the same wind blows." Niebuhr says, : "I saw in Cairo a yet more terrible cloud of locusts, which came by a southwest wind and so from the desert of Libya" . "In the night of Nov. 10, 1762, a great cloud passed over Jidda with a West wind, consequently over the Arabian gulf which is very broad here." Of two flights in India which Forbes witnessed, he relates , "Each of these flights were brought by an East wind; they took a Westerly direction, and, without settling in the country, probably perished in the gulf of Cambay." Dr. Thomson who had spent 25 years in the holy land, says in illustration of David's words, "I am tossed up and down like the locust" Psa 109:23. : "This refers to the flying locust. I have had frequent opportunities to notice, how these squadrons are tossed up and down, and whirled round and round by the evervarying currents of the mountain winds."
Morier says , "The Southeast wind constantly brought with it innumerable flights of locusts," but also "a fresh wind from the Southwest which had brought them, so completely drove them forward that not a vestige of them was to be seen two hours afterward." These were different kinds of locusts, the first "at Bushire," having "legs and body of a light yellow and wings spotted brown" ; the second at Shiraz (which "the Persians said came from the Germesir,") being "larger and red."
The breeding country for the locust in Southwestern Asia, is the great desert of Arabia reaching to the Persian gulf. From this, at God's command, "the East wind brought the locust" Exo 10:13 to Egypt. They are often carried by a west or southwest wind into Persia. "I have often in spring," relates Joseph de S. Angelo , "seen the sun darkened by very thick clouds (so to say) of locusts, which cross the sea from the deserts of Arabia far into Persia." In Western Arabia, Burckhard writes, "the locusts are known to come invariably from the East," i. e., from the same deserts. The South wind carries them to the different countries Northward. This is so general, that Hasselquist wrote ; "The locusts appear to be directed - in a direct meridian line by keeping nearly from South to North, turning very little either to the East or West. They come from the deserts of Arabia, take their course on through Palestine, Syria, Carmania, Natolia, go sometimes through Bithynia. They never turn from their course, for example, to the West, wherefore Egypt is not visited by them, though so near their usual tract.
Neither do they turn to the East, for I never heard that Mesopotamia or the confines of the Euphrates are ravaged by them." And Volney reports, as the common observation of the natives ; "The inhabitants, of Syria remarked that the locusts only came after overmild winters, and that they always came from the deserts of Arabia." Whence Jerome, himself an inhabitant of Palestine, regarded this mention of the North as an indication that the prophet intended us to understand under the name of locusts, the great Conquerors who did invade Palestine from the North (in Joe 2:20). "According to the letter, the South wind, rather than the North, hath been wont to bring the flocks of locusts, i. e., they come not from the cold but from the heat. But since he was speaking of the Assyrians, under the image of locusts, therefore he inserted the mention of the North, that we may understand, not the actual locust, which hath been wont to come from the South, but under the locust, the Assyrians and Chaldees."
On the same ground, that the locusts came to Palestine from the South they were brought from Tartary, (the breeding-place of the locust thence called the Tartarian locust) by an East or Southeast wind to the Ukraine. : "They generally come (to the Ukraine) from toward Tartary, which happens in a dry spring, for Tartary and the countries East of it, as Circassia, Bazza and Mingrelia, are seldom free from them. The vermin being driven by an East or Southeast wind come into the Ukraine." To the coasts of Barbary or to Italy for the same reason they come from the South; to Upper Egypt from Arabia; and to Nubia from the North , namely, from Upper Egypt. "In the summer of 1778," Chenier says of Mauritania , there "were seen, coming from the South, clouds of locusts which darkened the sun. Strabo states, that , "the strong Southwest or West winds of the vernal equinox drive them together into the country of Acridophagi." To the Cape of Good Hope they come from the North, from where alone they could come ; to Senegal they come with the wind from the East . "They infest Italy," Pliny says , "chiefly from Africa;" from where of course, they come to Spain also . Shaw writes of those in Barbary ; "Their first appearance was toward the latter end of March, the wind having been for some time Southerly." "As the direction of the marches and flight of them both," (i. e. both of the young brood and their parents, their "marches" before they had wings, and their "flight" afterward) "was always to the Northward, it is probable that they perished in the sea."
All this, however, illustrates the one rule of their flight, that they come with the wind from their birthplace to other lands. On the same ground that they come to Italy or Barbary from the South, to the Ukraine or Arabia Felix from the East, to Persia from the South or Southwest, to Nubia or to the Cape, or Constantinople sometimes, from the North, they came to Judea from the South. The word "Northern" describes the habitual character of the army here spoken of. Such was the character of the Assyrian or Chaldean conquerors, who are described oftentimes, in holy Scripture, as coming "out of the North," and such was not the character of the locusts, who, if described by the quarter from which they habitually came, must have been called "the Southern."
(3) The third mode of removing the evidence of the word "Northern," has been to explain its meaning. But in no living, nor indeed in any well-known language, would anyone have recourse to certain or uncertain etymology, in order to displace the received meaning of a word. Our "North" originally meant "narrowed, contracted;" the Latin "Septentrionalis" is so called from the constellation of the Great Bear; yet no one in his right mind, if he understood not how anything was, by an English author, called "Northern," would have recourse to the original meaning of the word and say "Northern" might signify "hemmed in," or that "septentrionalis" or septentrionel meant "belonging to the seven plowers," or whatever other etymology might be given to septentrio. No more should they, because they did not or would not understand the use of the word צפוני tsephônı̂y, have had recourse to etymologies. צפן tsâphan as uniformly signifies the North, as our word "North" itself. צפוני tsephônı̂y signifies Northern, the "iy" having the same office as our ending "ern" in "Northern." The word צפן tsâphan originally signified "hid;" then, "laid up;" and, it may be, that "the North" was called צפון tsâphôn, as "the hidden," "shrouded in darkness." But to infer from that etymology, that צפוני tsephônı̂y here may signify the "hider," "that which obscures the rays of the sun," is, apart from its grammatical incorrectness, much the same argument as if we were to say that Northern meant, that which "narrows, contracts, hems in," or "is fast bound."
Equally capricious and arbitrary is the coining of a new Hebrew word to substitute for the word צפוני tsephônı̂y; as one , first reading it צבה tsâbâh, supposes it to mean "captain," or "main army," because in Arabic or Aramaic, "tsaphpha" means, "set things in a row, "set an army in array," of which root there is no trace in Hebrew. Stranger yet is it to identify the well-known Hebrew word צפון tsâphôn with the Greek τύφων tuphōn, and צפוני tsephônı̂y with τυφωνικός tuphōnikos; and because Typhon was, in Egyptian mythology, a principle of evil, to infer that צפוני tsephônı̂y meant a "destroyer" . Another , who would give to צפוני tsephônı̂y the meaning of "Barbarian," admits in fact the prophetic character of the title; since the Jews had as yet, in the time of Joel, no external foe on their North border; no one, except Israel, as yet invaded them from the North. Not until the Assyrian swept over them, was "the Northern" any special enemy of Judah. Until the time of Ahaz, Syria was the enemy, not of Judah, but of Israel.
This varied straining to get rid of the plain meaning of the word "the Northern," illustrates the more the importance of the term as one of the keys of the prophecy.
One and the same wind could not drive the same body of locusts, to perish in three different, and two of them opposite, directions. Yet it is clear that the prophet speaks of them as one and the same. The locusts are spoken of as one great army, (as God had before called them,) Joe 2:11, with front and rear. The resource has been to say that the van and rear were two different bodies of locusts, destroyed at different times, or to say that it is only Hebrew parallelism. In Hebrew parallelism, each portion of the verse adds something to the other. It does not unite things incompatible. Nor is it here the question of two but of three directions, where this enemy was to be swept away and perish.
But Joel speaks of them first as one whole. "I will drive him into a land barren and desolate," the wastes South of Judah, and then of the front and rear, as driven into the two seas, which bound Judah on the East and West. The two Hebrew words, וספו פניו, "his front and his rear," can no more mean two bodies, having no relation to one another and to the whole, than our English words could, when used of an army.
II. Equally unsuccessful are the attempts to get rid of the proofs that the invader here described is a moral agent. In regard to the words assigned as the ground of his destruction, "for he hath magnified to do,
(1) It has been denied, contrary to the Hebrew idiom and the context, that they do relate to moral agency, whereas, in regard to creatures, the idiom is used of nothing else, nor in any other sense could this be the ground why God destroyed them. Yet, that this their pride was the cause of their destruction, is marked by the word "for."
(2) (Strange to say) one has been found who thought that the prophet spoke of the locusts as moral agents.
(3) Others have applied the words to God, again contrary to the context. For God speaks in this same verse of Himself in the first person, of the enemy whom He sentences to destruction, in the third. "And 'I' will remove far off from you the Northern army, and 'I' will drive 'him' into a land barren and desolate, 'his' face toward the Eastern sea, and 'his' rear toward the Western sea, and 'his' stink shall come up, and 'his' ill savor shall come up, because 'he' hath magnified to do." Joel does not use rapid transitions. And rapid transitions, when used, are never without meaning. A sacred writer who has been speaking of God, does often, in holy fervor, turn suddenly to address God; or, having upbraided a sinful people, he turns away from them, and speaks, not "to" them anymore but "of" them. But it is unexampled in Holy Scripture, that in words in the mouth of God, God should speak of Himself first in the first person, then in the third.
III. Instead of "'that the pagan should rule over them,'" they render, "'That the pagan should' jest at 'them,'" But besides this place, the phrase occurs fifty times in the Hebrew Bible, and in every case means indisputably "rule over." It is plainly contrary to all rules of language, to take an idiom in the 51st case, in a sense wholly different from that which it has in the other 50. The noun also signifying "proverb," is derived from a root entirely distinct from the verb to "rule;" the verb which Ezekiel perhaps formed (as verbs are formed in Hebrew) from the noun, is never used except in connection, direct or implied, with that noun . The idiom "became a proverb," "make a proverb of," is always expressed, not by the verb, but by the noun with some other verb, as "became, give, set, place" . It is even said , "I will make him desolate to a proverb, or shall take up a parable against him , but in no one of these idioms is the verb used.
IV. The word "jealousy" is used 20 times in the Old Testament, of that attribute in God, whereby He does not endure the love of His creatures to be transferred from Him, or divided with Him. Besides this place, it is used by the prophets 15 times, of God's love for His people, as shown against the Pagan who oppressed them. In all the 35 cases it is used of an attribute of Almighty God toward His rational creatures. And it is a violation of the uniform usage of holy Scripture in a matter which relates to the attributes of Almighty God and His relation to the creatures which He has made, to extend it to His irrational creation. It is to force on holy Scripture an unauthorized statement as to Almighty God.
Of these hints that the prophecy extends beyond any mere locusts, five are given in the space of four verses at the close of that part of the prophecy, and seem to be condensed there, as a key to the whole. Joel began his prophecy by a sort of sacred enigma or proverb, which waited its explanation. At the close of the description of God's judgments on His people, which he so opened, he concentrates traits which should indicate its fullest meaning. He does not exclude suffering by locusts, fire, drought, famine, or any other of God's natural visitations. But he indicates that the scourge, which he was chiefly foretelling, was man. Three of these hints combine to show that Joel was speaking of Pagan scourges of God's people and Church. The mention "of the Northern" fixes the prophecy to enemies, of whom Joel had no human knowledge, but by whom Judah was carried away captive, and who themselves were soon afterward destroyed, while Judah was restored. Not until after Joel and all his generation were fallen asleep, did a king of Assyria come up against Israel, nor was the North a quarter from where men would then apprehend danger. Pul came up against Menahem, king of Israel, at the close of the reign of Uzziah. The reign of Jotham was victorious. Not until invited by his son Ahaz, did Tiglath-pileser meddle with the affairs of Judah. In yet another reign, that of Hezekiah, was the first invasion of Judah. Sennacherib, first the scourge of God, in his second invasion blasphemed God, and his army perished in one night, smitten by the Angel of God.
It seems then probable, that what Joel describes was presented to him in the form of a vision, the title which he gives to his prophecy. There, as far as we can imagine what was exhibited by God to His prophets, he saw before him the land wasted and desolate; pastures and trees burned up by fire; the channels of the rivers dried up, the barns broken down as useless, and withal, the locusts, such as he describes them in the second chapter, advancing, overspreading the land, desolating all as they advanced, marching in the wonderful order in which the locust presses on, indomitable, unbroken, unhindercd; assaulting the city Jerusalem, mounting the walls, possessing themselves of it, entering its houses, as victorious. But withal he knew by that same inspiration which spread this scene before his eyes, that not mere locusts were intended, and was inspired to intermingle in his description expressions which forewarned his people of invaders yet more formidable.
It may be added, that John, in the Book of Revelation, not only uses the symbol of locusts as a type of enemies of God's Church and people, whether actual persecutors or spirtual foes or both, but, in three successive verses of his description, he takes from Joel three traits of the picture. "The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; their teeth were as the teeth of lions; the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle Rev 9:7-9; Joe 2:4; Joe 1:6; Joe 2:5. It seems probable, that as John takes up anew the prophecies of the Old Testament, and embodies in his prophecy their language, pointing on to a fulfillment of it in the Christian Church, he does, by adopting the symbol of the locusts, in part in Joel's own words, express that he himself understood the prophet to speak of enemies, beyond the mere irrational scourge.
The chief characteristic of the prophet's style is perhaps its simple vividness. Everything is set before our eyes, as though we ourselves saw it. This is alike the character of the description of the desolation in the first chapter; the advance of the locusts in the second; or that more awful gathering in the valley of Jehoshaphat, described in the third. The prophet adds detail to detail; each, clear, brief, distinct, a picture in itself, yet adding to the effect of the whole. We can, without an effort, bring the whole of each picture before our eyes. Sometimes he uses the very briefest form of words, two words, in his own language, sufficing for each feature in his picture. One verse consists almost of five such pairs of words . Then, again, the discourse flows on in a soft and gentle cadence, like one of those longer sweeps of an AEolian harp. This blending of energy and softness is perhaps one secret, why the diction also of this prophet has been at all times so winning and so touching. Deep and full, he pours out the tide of his words, with an unbroken smoothness, carries all along with him, yea, like those rivers of the new world, bears back the bitter, restless billows which oppose him, a pure strong stream amid the endless heavings and tossings of the world.
Poetic as Joel's language is, he does not much use distinct imagery. For his whole picture is one image. They are God's chastenings through inanimate nature, picturing the worse chastenings through man. So much had he, probably, in prophetic vision, the symbol spread before his eyes, that he likens it in one place to that which it represents, the men of war of the invading army. But this too adds to the formidableness of the picture.
Full of sorrow himself, he summons all with him to repentance, priests and people, old and young, bride and bridegroom. Yet his very call, "let the bridegroom go forth out of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet," shows how tenderly he felt for those, whom he called from the solaces of mutual affection to fasting and weeping and girding with sackcloth. Yet more tender is the summons to all Israel, "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth" Joe 1:8. The tenderness of his soul is evinced by his lingering over the desolation which he foresees. It is like one, counting over, one by one, the losses he endures in the privations of others. Nature to him "seemed to mourn;" he had a feeling of sympathy with the brute cattle which in his ears mourn so grievously; and, if none else would mourn for their own sins, he himself would mourn to Him who is full of compassion and mercy. He announces to the poor cattle the removal of the woe, "Fear not, fear ye not" Joe 2:21-22. Few passages in Scripture itself are more touching, than when, having represented God as marshalling His creatures for the destruction of His people, and just ready to give the word, having expressed the great terribleness of the Day of the Lord, and asked "who can abide it?" he suddenly turns, "And now too" Joe 2:12, and calls to repentance.
Amid a wonderful beauty of language, he employs words not found elsewhere in holy Scripture. In one verse, he has three such words Joe 1:16. The degree to which the prophecies of Joel reappear in the later prophets has been exaggerated. The subjects of the prophecy recur; not, for the most part, the form in which they were delivered. The subjects could not but recur. For the truths, when once revealed, became a part of the hopes and fears of the Jewish Church; and the prophets, as preachers and teachers of their people, could not but repeat them. But it was no mere repetition. Even those truths which, in one of their bearings, or, again, in outline were fully declared, admitted of subordinate enlargement, or of the revelation of other accessory truths, which filled up or determined or limited that first outline. And as far as anything was added or determined by any later prophet, such additions constituted a fresh revelation by him.
It is so in the case of the wonderful image, in which, taking occasion of the fact of nature, that there was a fountain under the temple (see the note at Joe 3:18), which carried off the blood of the sacrifices, and, carrying it off, was intermingled with that blood, the image of the All-atoning Blood, Joel speaks of "a fountain" flowing forth "from the House of the Lord and watering the valley of Shittim," where by nature its waters could not flow. He first describes the holiness to be bestowed upon Mount Zion; then, how from the temple, the center of worship and of revelation, the place of the shadow of the atonement, the stream should gush forth, which, pouring on beyond the bounds of the land of Judah, should carry fertility to a barren and thirsty land. (For in such lands the shittah grows.) To this picture Zechariah Zac 14:8 adds the permanence of the life-giving stream and its perennial flow, "in summer and in winter shall it be." Ezekiel, in his full and wonderful expansion of the image Eze 47:1-12, adds the ideas of the gradual increase of those waters of life, their exceeding depth, the healing of all which could be healed, the abiding desolation where those waters did not reach; and trees, as in the garden of Eden, yielding food and health. He in a manner anticipates our Lord's prophecy, "ye shall be fishers of men." John takes up the image Rev 22:1-5, yet as an emblem of such fullness of bliss and glory, that, amid some things, which can scarcely be understood except of this life, it seems rather to belong to life eternal.
Indeed, as to the great imagery of Joel, it is much more adopted and enforced in the New Testament than in the Old Testament. The image of the locust is taken up in the Revelation; that of the "pouring out of the Spirit" (for this too is an image, how largely God would bestow Himself in the times of the Gospel) is adopted in the Old Testament by Ezekiel Eze 39:29, Jews only; in the New by Peter and Paul . Of those condensed images, under which Joel speaks of the wickedness of the whole earth ripened for destruction, the harvest and the wine-treading, that of the harvest is employed by Jeremiah Jer 51:33 as to Babylon, that of the wine-press is enlarged by Isaiah Isa 63:1-6. The harvest is so employed by our Lord Mat 13:39 as to explain the imagery of Joel; and in that great embodiment of Old Testament prophecy, the Revelation Rev 14:18-20, John expands the image of the wine-press in the same largeness of meaning as it is used by Joel.
The largeness of all these declarations remains peculiar to Joel. To this unknown prophet, whom in his writings we cannot but love, but of whose history, condition, rank, parentage, birth-place, nothing is known, nothing beyond his name, save the name of an unknown father, of whom moreover God has allowed nothing to remain save these few chapters - to him God reserved the prerogative, first to declare the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, the perpetual abiding of the Church, the final struggle of good and evil, the last rebellion against God, and the Day of Judgment. "The Day of the Lord, the great and terrible day," the belief in which now forms part of the faith of all Jews and Christians, was a title first revealed to this unknown prophet.
The primeval prophecy on Adam's expulsion from Paradise, had been renewed to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon. In Abraham's seed were all nations of the earth to be blessed Gen 22:18; the obedience of the nations was to be rendered to Shiloh the Peacemaker Gen 49:10; the nations were to rejoice with the people of God Deu 32:43; God's anointed king was from Mount Zion to have the pagan for his inheritance Psa 2:1-12; David's Son and David's Lord was to be a king and priest forever after the order of Melchizedek Psa 110:1-7; the peoples were to be willing in the Day of His power. All nations were to serve him Psa 72:11. This had been prophesied before. It was part of the body of belief in the time of Joel. But to Joel it was first foreshown that the Gentiles too should be filled with the Spirit of God. To him was first declared that great paradox, or mystery, of faith, which, after his time, prophet after prophet insisted upon, that while deliverance should be in Mount Zion, while sons and daughters, young and old, should prophesy in Zion, and the stream of God's grace should issue to the barren world from the temple of the Lord, those in her who should be delivered should be a remnant only Joe 2:32.
Marvelous faith, alike in those who uttered it and those who received it; marvelous, disinterested faith! The true worship of God was, by the revolt of the ten tribes, limited to the two tribes, the territory of the largest of which was but some 50 miles long, and not 30 miles broad; Benjamin added but 12 miles to the length of the whole. It was but 12 miles from Jerusalem on its Southern Border to Bethel on its Northern. They had made no impression beyond their own boundaries. Edom, their "brother," was their bitterest enemy, wise in the wisdom of the world Oba 1:8; Jer 49:7, but worshiping false gods Ch2 25:14, Ch2 25:20. Nay they themselves still borrowed the idolatries of their neighbors Ch2 25:14, Ch2 25:20. Beset as Judah was by constant wars without, deserted by Israel, the immediate band of worshipers of the one God within its narrow borders thinned by those who fell away from Him, Joel foretold, not as uncertainly, not as anticipation, or hope, or longing, but absolutely and distinctly, that God would "pour out" His "Spirit upon all flesh;" and that the healing stream should issue forth from Jerusalem. Eight centuries rolled on, and it was not accomplished. "He" died, of whom it was said, "we trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel; Luk 24:21 and it was fulfilled. Had it failed, justly would the Hebrew prophets have been called fanatics. The words were too distinct to be explained away. It could not fail, for God had said it. Next: Joel Chapter 1
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Introduction to Jonah
The prophet Jonah, who was at once the author and in part the subject of the book which bears his name, is, beyond question, the same who is related in the Book of Kings Kg2 14:25 to have been God's messenger of comfort to Israel, in the reign of Jeroboam II. For his own name, in English "Dove," as well as that of his father, Amittai, "The Truth of Yah," occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament; and it is wholly improbable that there should have been two prophets of the same name, sons of fathers of the same name, when the names of both son and father were so rare as not to occur elsewhere in the Old Testament. The place which the prophet occupies among the twelve agrees therewith. For Hosea and Amos, prophets who are known to have prophesied in the time of Jeroboam, and Joel, who prophesied before Amos, are placed before him; Micah, who prophesied after the death of Jeroboam and Uzziah, is placed after him.
A remarkable and much-misunderstood expression of the prophet shows that this mission fell in the later part of his life, at least after he had already exercised the prophetic office. Our translation has: "Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord." It has been asked , "How could a "prophet" imagine that he could flee from the presence of God?" Plainly he could not. Jonah, so conversant with the Psalms, doubtless knew well the Psalm of David Psa 139:7, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy presence?" He could not but know, what every instructed Israelite knew. And so critics should have known that such could not be the meaning. The words are used, as we say, "he went out of the king's presence," or the like. It is literally "he rose to flee from being in the presence of the Lord," i. e., from standing in His presence as His Servant and Minister.
Then he must have so stood before; he must have had the office, which he sought to abandon.
He was then a prophet of Israel, born at Gath-hepher, "a small village" of Zebulon Jos 19:13, which lies, Jerome says, "two miles from Sepphorim which is now called Diocaesarea, in the way to Tiberius, where his tomb also is pointed out." His tomb was still shown in the hills near Sipphorim in the 12th century, as Benjamin of Tudela relates; at the same place "on a rocky hill 2 miles East of Sepphuriah," is still pointed out the tomb of the prophet, and "Muslims and the Christians of Nazareth alike regard the village (el-Meshhad) as his native village." The tomb is even now venerated by the Muslim inhabitants.
But although a prophet of Israel, he, like Daniel afterward or his great predecessor Elisha, had his mission also beyond the bounds of Israel. Whenever God brought His people into any relation with other people, He made Himself known to them. The mode of His manifestation varied; the fact remained uniform. So He made Himself known to Egypt through Joseph and Moses; to the Philistines at the capture of the ark; to the Syrians by Elisha; to Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar by Daniel, as again to Darius and Cyrus. The hindrances interposed to the edict of Darius perpetuated that knowledge among his successors. Yet further on, the high priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the prophecy of Daniel "that a Greek should destroy the Persian Empire." For there is no ground to question the account of Josephus. The mission then of Jonah to Nineveh is in harmony with God's other dealings with pagan nations, although, in God's manifold wisdom, not identical with any.
To Israel the history of that mission revealed that same fact which was more fully declared by Peter Act 10:34-35; "I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." This righteous judgment of God stands out the more, alike in the history of the mariners and of the Ninevites, in that the character of both is exhibited advantageously, in comparison with that of the prophet. The prophet brings out the awe, the humanity, the earnestness of the natural religion, and the final conversion of the sailors, and the zealous repentance of the Ninevites, while he neglects to explain his own character, or, in the least, to soften its hard angles. Rather, with a holy indifference, he has left his character to be hardly and unjustly judged by those who, themselves sharing his infirmities, share not his excellences. Disobedient once, he cares only to teach us what God taught him for us. The mariners were spared, the Hebrew prophet was cast forth as guilty. The Ninevites were forgiven: the prophet, rebuked.
That other moral, which our Lord inculcated, that the pagan believed and repented with less light, the Jews, amid so much greater light, repented not, also lay there, to be drawn out by men's own consciences. "To the condemnation of Israel," says Jerome, "Jonah is sent to the Gentiles, because, whereas Nineveh repented, Israel persevered in his iniquity." But this is only a secondary result of his prophecy, as all divine history must be full of teaching, because the facts themselves are instructive. Its instructiveness in this respect depends wholly upon the truth of the facts. It is the real repentance of the Ninevites, which becomes the reproach of the impenitent Jew or Christian.
Even among the Jews, a large school, the Cabbalists (although amid other error), interpreted the history of Jonah as teaching the resurrection of the dead, and (with that remarkable correctness of combination of different passages of Holy Scripture which we often find) in union with the prophecy of Hosea. "The fish's belly, where Jonah was enclosed, signifies the tomb, where the body is covered and laid up. But as Jonah was given back on the third day, so shall we also on the third day rise again and be restored to life. As Hosea says, 'On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight.'" Talmudic Jews identified Jonah with their Messiah ben Joseph, whom they expected to die and rise again. The deeper meaning then of the history was not, at least in later times, unknown to them, a meaning which entirely depended on its truth.
The history of his mission, Jonah doubtless himself wrote. Such has been the uniform tradition of the Jews, and on this principle alone was his book placed among the prophets. For no books were admitted among the prophets but those which the arranger of the canon believed (if this was the work of the great synagogue) or (if it was the work of Ezra) knew, to have been written by persons called to the prophetic office. Hence, the Psalms of David (although many are prophetic, and our Lord declares him to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit Mat 22:43; Mar 12:36.,) and the book of Daniel, were placed in a separate class, because their authors, although eminently endowed with prophetic gifts, did not exercise the pastoral office of the prophet. Histories of the prophets, as Elijah and Elisha, stand, not under their own names, but in the books of the prophets who wrote them. Nor is the Book of Jonah a history of the prophet, but of that one mission to Nineveh. Every notice of the prophet is omitted, except what bears on that mission.
The book also begins with just that same authentication, with which all other prophetic books begin. As Hoses and Joel and Micah and Zephaniah open, "The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zephaniah," and other prophets in other ways ascribe their books not to themselves, but to God, so Jonah opens, "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying." This inscription is an integral part of the book; as is marked by the word, saying. As the historical books are joined on the sacred writings before them, so as to form one continuous stream of history, by the and, with which they begin, so the Book of Jonah is tacitly joined onto other books of other prophets by the word, "and," with which it commences. The words, "The word of the Lord came to," are the acknowledged form in which the commission of God to prophesy is recorded. It is used of the commission to deliver a single prophecy, or it describes the whole collection of prophecies, with which any prophet was entrusted; Mic 1:1; Zep 1:1. "The word of the Lord which come to Micah or Zephaniah." But the whole history of the prophecy is bound up with, and a sequel of those words.
Nor is there anything in the style of the prophet at variance with this.
It is strange that, at any time beyond the babyhood of criticism, any argument should be drawn from the fact that the prophet writes of himself in the third person. Manly criticism has been ashamed to use the argument, as to the commentaries of Caesar or the Anabasis of Xenophon . However the genuineness of those works may have been at times questioned, here we were on the ground of genuine criticism, and no one ventured to use an argument so palpably idle. It has been pointed out that minds so different, as Barhebraeus, the great Jacobite historian of the East, and Frederick the Great wrote of themselves in the third person; as did also Thucydides and Josephus , even after they had attested that the history, in which they so speak, was written by themselves.
But the real ground lies much deeper. It is the exception, when any sacred writer speaks of himself in the first person. Ezra and Nehemiah do so, for they are giving an account, not of God's dealings with His people, but of their own discharge of a definite office, allotted to them by man. Solomon does so in Ecclesiastes, because he is giving the history of his own experience; and the vanity of all human things, in themselves, could be attested so impressively by no one, as by one, who had all which man's mind could imagine.
On the contrary, the prophets, unless they speak of God's revelations to them, speak of themselves in the third person. Thus, Amos relates in the first person, what God showed him in vision Amo 7:1-8; Amo 8:1-2; Amo 9:1; for God spoke to him, and he answered and pleaded with God. In relating his persecution by Amaziah, he passes at once to the third Amo 7:12, Amo 7:14; "Amaziah said to Amos; Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah." In a similar manner, Isaiah speaks of himself in the third person, when relating how God sent him to meet Ahaz Isa 7:3; God commanded him to walk three years, naked and barefoot Isa 20:2-3, Hezekiah's message to him, to pray for his people, and his own prophetic answer; his visit to Hezekiah in the king's sickness, his warning to him, his prophecy of his recovery, the sign which at God's command Isaiah gave him, and the means of healing he appointed Isa 37:2, Isa 37:5-6, Isa 37:21; Isa 38:1, Isa 38:4, Isa 38:21.
Jeremiah, the mourner over his people, more than any other prophet, speaks and complains to his God in the midst of his prophecy. In no other prophet do we see so much the workings of his inmost soul. Such souls would most use the first person, for it is in the use of the first person that the soul pours itself forth. In the relating of himself in the third person, the prophet restrains himself, speaking only of the event. Yet it is thus that Jeremiah relates almost all which befell him - Pashur's smiting him and putting him in the stocks Jer 20:1, Jer 20:3; the gathering of the people against him to put him to death, his hearing before the princes of Judah and his deliverance Jer 26:7-8, Jer 26:12, Jer 26:24; the contest with Hananiah, when Hananiah broke off the symbolic yoke from his neck and prophesied lies in the name of God, and Jeremiah foretold his death Jer 28:5-6, Jer 28:10, Jer 28:12, Jer 28:15, which followed; the letters of Shemaiah against him, and his own prophecy against Shemaiah Jer 29:27, Jer 29:29-30; his trial of the Rechabites and his prophecy to them Jer. 35; the writing the scroll, which he sent Baruch to read in God's house, and its renewal when Jehoiakim had burned it, and God's concealing him and Baruch from the king's emissaries Jer 36:1, Jer 36:4-5, Jer 36:26-27, Jer 36:32; his purpose to leave Jerusalem when the interval of the last siege gave him liberty Jer 37:2-6, Jer 37:12-21; the false accusations against him, the designs of the princes to put him to death, their plunging him in the still deeper pit, where there was no water only mud, the milder treatment through the intercession of Ebedmelech; Zedekiah's contact with him Jer 38:1, Jer 38:6, 12-28; Jer 32:2-5, his liberation by Nebuzaradan, his choice to abide in the land, his residence with Gedaliah Jer 40:2-6; Johanan's hypocritical inquiring of God by him and disobedience Jer. 42, his being carried into Egypt Jer 43:1-13, the insolent answer of the Jews in Egypt to him and his denunciation upon them Jer 44:15, Jer 44:20, Jer 44:24.
All this, the account of which occupies a space, many times larger than the book of Jonah, Jeremiah relates as if it were the history of some other man. So did God teach His prophets to forget themselves. Haggai, whose prophecy consists of exhortations which God directed him to address to the people, speaks of himself, solely in the third person. He even relates the questions which he puts to the priests and their answers still in the third person Hag 1:1, Hag 1:3, Hag 1:12-13; Hag 2:1, Hag 2:10, Hag 2:13-14, Hag 2:20; "then said Haggai;" "then answered Haggai." Daniel relates in the third person, the whole which he does give of his history; how when young he obtained exemption from the use of the royal luxuries and from food unlawful to him; the favor and wisdom which God gave him Dan. 1:6-21; how God saved him from death, revealing to him, on his prayer, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and its meaning; how Nebuchadnezzar made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon Dan 2:13-27, Dan 2:46-47, Dan 2:49; how he was brought into Belshazzar's great impious feast, and interpreted the writing on the wall; and was honored Dan 5:12-13, Dan 5:17, Dan 5:29; how, under Darius, he persevered in his accustomed prayer against the king's command, was cast into the den of lions, was delivered, and prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian Dan. 6.
When Daniel passes from history to relate visions vouchsafed to himself, he authenticated them with his own name, "I, Daniel" Dan 7:15, Dan 7:28; Dan 8:1, Dan 8:15, Dan 8:27; Dan 9:2; Dan 10:2, Dan 10:7; Dan 12:5. It is no longer his own history. It is the revelation of God by him. In a similar manner, John, when referring to himself in the history of His Lord, calls himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved." In Revelation, he authenticates his visions by his own name Rev 1:9; Rev 21:2; Rev 22:8; "I, John." Moses relates how God commanded him to write things which he wrote, in the third person. Paul, when he has to speak of his overpowering revelations, says Co2 12:2-4, "I knew a man in Christ." It seems as if he could not speak of them as vouchsafed to himself. He lets us see that it was himself, when he speaks of the humiliations Co2 12:7, which God saw to be necessary for him. To ordinary people it would be conceit or hypocrisy to write of themselves in the third person.
They would have the appearance of writing impartially of themselves, of abstracting themselves from themselves, when, in reality, they were ever present to themselves. The men of God were writing of the things of God. They had a God-given indifference how they themselves would be thought of by man. They related, with the same holy unconcern, their praise or their blame. Jonah has exhibited himself in his infirmities, such as no other but himself would have drawn a prophet of God. He has left his character, unexplained, unsoftened; he has left himself lying under God's reproof; and told us nothing of all that which God loved in him, and which made him a chosen instrument of God also. People, while they measure divine things, or characters formed by God, by what would be natural to themselves, measure by a crooked rule Co1 4:3. "It is a very small thing," says Paul, "that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment." Nature does not measure grace; nor the human spirit measure the Divine Spirit.
As for the few words, which persons who disbelieved in miracles selected out of the Book of Jonah as a plea for removing it far down beyond the period when those miracles took place , they rather indicate the contrary. They are all genuine Hebrew words or forms, except the one Aramaic name for the decree of the king of Nineveh, which Jonah naturally heard in Nineveh itself.
A writer , equally unbelieving, who got rid of the miracles by assuming that the Book of Jonah was meant only for a moralizing fiction, found no counter-evidence in the language, but ascribed it unhesitatingly to the Jonah, son of Amittai, who prophesied in the reign of Jeroboam II. He saw the nothingness of the so-called proof, which he had no longer any interest in maintaining.
The examination of these words will require a little detail, yet it may serve as a specimen (it is no worse than its neighbors) of the way in which the disbelieving school picked out a few words of a Hebrew prophet or section of a prophet, in order to disparage the genuineness of what they did not believe.
The words are these:
(1) The word ספינה sephı̂ynâh, literally "a decked vessel." is a genuine Hebrew word from ספן sâphan, "covered, ceiled" . The word was borrowed from the Hebrew, not by Syrians or Chaldees only but by the Arabians, in none of which dialects is it an original word. A word plainly is original in that language in which it stands connected with other meanings of the same root, and not in that in which it stands isolated. Naturally too, the term for a decked vessel would be borrowed by inland people, as the Syrians, from a notion living on the seashore, not conversely. This is the first occasion for mentioning "a decked vessel." It is related that Jonah went in fact "below deck," "was gone down into the sides of the decked vessel." Three times in those verses Jon 1:3-5, when Jonah did not wish to express that the vessel was decked, he uses the common Hebrew word, אניה 'onı̂yâh. It was then of set purpose that he, in the same verse, used the two words, אניה 'onı̂yâh and ספינה sephı̂ynâh.
(2) מלח mallâch is also a genuine Hebrew word from מלח melach, salt sea, as ἁλιεύς halieus from ἅλς hals "salt," then (masculine) in poetry "brine." It is formed strictly, as other Hebrew words denoting an occupation.. It does not occur in earlier books, because "seamen" are not mentioned earlier.
(3) החבל רב rab hachôbêl, "chief of the sailors," "captain." "Rab" is Phoenician also, and this was a Phoenician vessel. It does not occur earlier, because "the captain of a vessel" is not mentioned earlier. One says , "it is the same as שׂר s'ar, chiefly in later Hebrew." It occurs, in all, only four times, and in all cases, as here, of persons not Hebrew; Nebuzaradan, טבחים רב rab ṭabbâchı̂ym Kg2 25:8, "captain of the guard," סריסים רב rab sârı̂ysı̂ym Dan 1:3, "chief of the eunuchs;" ביתוּ רב כל kôl rab bayithô Est 1:8, "every officer of his house." שׂר s'ar, on the other hand, is never used except of an office of authority, of one who had a place of authority given by one higher. It occurs as much in the later as in the earlier books, but is not used in the singular of an inferior office. It is used of military, but not of any interior secular command. It would probably have been a solecism to have said החבל שׂר s'ar hachôbêl, as much as if we were to say "prince of sailors." חבל chôbêl, which is joined with it, is a Hebrew word not Aramaic word.
(4) רבו ribbô, "ten thousand," they say, "is a word of later Hebrew." Certainly neither it, nor any inflection of it occurs in the Pentateuch, Judges, Samuel, Canticles, in until which we have the word רבבה rebâbâh. It is true also that the form רבו ribbô or derivative forms occur in books of the date of the captivity, as Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. (In Ch1 29:7, twice, Daniel once, Ezra twice; Nehemiah thrice.) But it also occurs in a Psalm of David , and in Hosea (Hos 8:12 Ch.) who is acknowledged to have prophesied in the days of Jeroboam, and so was a contemporary of Jonah. It might have been, accordingly, a form used in Northern Palestine, but that its use by David does not justify such limitation.
(5) עשׁת ית yı̂th ‛âshath, "thought, purposed," is also an old Hebrew word, as appears from its use in the number eleven , as the first number which is conceived in thought, the ten being numbered on the fingers. The root occurs also in Job, a Psalm Psa 146:4, and the Canticles. in the Syriac, it does not occur; nor, in the extant Aramaic, in the sense in which it is used in Jonah. For in Jonah it is used of the merciful thoughts of God; in Aramaic, of the evil thoughts of man. Besides, it is used in Jonah not by the prophet himself but by the shipmaster, whose words he relates.
(6) The use of the abridged forms of the relative pronoun שׁ she for אשׁר 'ăsher, twice in composite words בשׁלמי beshelmı̂y Jon 1:7, בשׁלי beshelı̂y Jon 1:12, (the fuller form, למי באשׁר ba'ăsher lemı̂y Jon 1:8, also occurring) and once in union with a noun שׁבן shebbên (Jon 4:10. (2)).
There is absolutely no plea whatever for making this an indication of a later style, and yet it occurs in every string of words, which have been assumed to be indications of such style. It is not Aramaic at all, but Phoenician and old Hebrew. In Phoenician, "esh" is the relative, which corresponds the more with the Hebrew in that the phollowing letter was doubled, as in the Punic words in Plautus, "syllohom, siddoberim," it enters into two proper names, both of which occur in the Pentateuch, and one, only there, מתושׁאל methûshâ'êl Gen 4:18, "a man of God," and מישׁאל mı̂yshâ'êl (Exo 6:22; Lev 10:4; also in Daniel and Nehemiah), the same as Michael, "who is like God?" literally, "Who is what God is?"
Probably, it occurs also in the Pentateuch in the ordinary language Gen 6:3. Perhaps it was used more in the dialect of North Palestine . Probably it was also the spoken language Jdg 6:17; Kg2 6:11. Two of the instances in the Lamentations are words in the mouth of the pagan, Lam 2:15-16), in which abridged forms are used in all languages. Hence, perhaps its frequent use in the Song of Solomon (Sol 1:6 (2), 7 (2); Sol 2:7, Sol 2:17; Sol 3:1-4 (4), 5, 7; Sol 4:1-2 (2), 6; Sol 5:2, Sol 5:8-9; Sol 6:5 (2), 6 (2); Sol 8:4, Sol 8:8, Sol 8:12), which is all dialogue, and in which it is employed to the entire exclusion of the fuller form; and that, so frequently, that the instances in the Canticles are nearly 14 of those in the whole Old Testament. In addition to this, half of the whole number of instances, in which it occurs in the Bible, are found in another short book, Ecclesiastes. In a book, containing only 222 verses, it occurs 66 times (Ecc 1:3, Ecc 1:7, Ecc 1:9 (4), 10, 11(2), 14, 17; Ecc 2:9, Ecc 2:11 (2), 2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18(3), 19(2), 20, 21(2), 22, 24, 26; Ecc 3:13-15, Ecc 3:18, Ecc 3:22; Ecc 4:2, Ecc 4:10; Ecc 5:4, Ecc 5:14 (2), 15 (2), 17; Ecc 6:3, Ecc 6:10 (2); Ecc 7:10, Ecc 7:14, Ecc 7:24; Ecc 8:7, Ecc 8:14, Ecc 8:17; Ecc 9:5, Ecc 9:12 (2); Ecc 10:3, Ecc 10:5, Ecc 10:14, Ecc 10:16-17; Ecc 11:3, Ecc 11:8; Ecc 12:3, Ecc 12:7, Ecc 12:9).
This, in itself, requires some ground for its use, beyond that of mere date. Of books which are really later, it does not occur in Jeremiah's prophecies, Ezekiel, Daniel, or any of the 6 later of the Minor prophets, nor in Nehemiah or Esther. It occurs once only in Ezra Ezr 8:20, and twice in the First Book of Chronicles (Ch1 5:20 שעמהם; Ch1 27:27 שבכרמים), whereas it occurs four times in the Judges Jdg 5:7; Jdg 6:17; Jdg 7:12; Jdg 8:26, and once in the Kings (Kg2 6:11 משלנו.), and once probably in Job (Job 19:29, ending with שדין.). Its use belongs to that wide principle of condensation in Hebrew, blending in one, in different ways, what we express by separate words. The relative pronoun is confessedly, on this ground, very often omitted in Hebrew poetry, when it would be used in prose. In the Canticles, Solomon does not once use the ordinary separate relative, אשׁר 'ăsher.
Of the 19 instances in the Psalms, almost half, 9, occur in those Psalms of unique rhythm - the gradual Psalms Psa 122:3-4; Psa 123:2; Psa 124:1, Psa 124:6; Psa 129:6-7; Psa 133:2-3; four more occur in two other Psalms Psa 125:2, 8, 10; Psa 136:23, which belong to one another, the latter of which has that remarkable burden, for His mercy endureth forever. Three are condensed into a solemn denunciation of Babylon in another Psalm. (Psa 137:8 (2), 9. The remaining ones are Psa 144:15, שככה and Psa 146:3, Psa 146:5). Of the ten Psalms, in which it occurs, four are ascribed to David, and only one, Psa 137:1-9, has any token of belonging to a later date. In the two passages in the Chronicles, it occurs in words doubly compounded (Ch1 5:20 שעמהם; Ch1 27:27 שבכרמים). The principle of rhythm would account for its occurring four times in the five chapters of the Lamentations Lam 2:15-16; Lam 4:19; Lam 5:18 of Jeremiah, while in the 52 chapters of his prophecies it does not occur even once. In Job also, it is in a solemn pause. Altogether, there is no proof whatever that the use of שׁ she for אשׁר 'ăsher is any test of the date of any Hebrew book, since:
(1) It is not Aramaic.
(2) It occurs in the earliest books, and
(3) not in the latest books.
(4) Its use is idiomatic, and nowhere except in the Canticles and Ecclesiastes does it pervade any book.
If it had belonged to the ordinary idiom at the date of Ezra, it would not have been so entirely insulated as it is, in the three instances in the Chronicles and Ezra. It would not have occurred in the earlier books in which it does occur, and would have occurred in later books in which it does not. In Jonah, its use in two places is unique to himself, occurring nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the first, its Phoenician form is used by the Phoenician mariners; in the second it is an instance of the spoken language in the mouth of the prophet, a native of North Palestine, and in answer to Phoenicians. In the third instance, (where it is the simple relative pronoun) its use is evidently for condensation. Its use, in any case, would agree with the exact circumstances of Jonah, as a native of North Palestine, conversing with the Phoenician mariners. The only plea of argument has been gained by arguing in a circle, assuming without any even plausible ground that the Song of Solomon or Psalms of David were late, because they had this form, and then using it as a test of another book being late; ignoring alike the earlier books which have it and the later books which have it not, and its exceptional use (except in the Canticles and Ecclesiastes), in the books which have it.
(7) It is difficult to know to what end the use of מנה mânâh, "appoint " or "prepare," is alleged, since it occurs in a Psalm of David Psa 61:8. Jonah uses it in a special way as to acts of God's Providence, "preparing" before, what He wills to employ. Jonah uses the word of the "preparing" of the fish, the palm-christ, the worm which should destroy it, the East wind. He evidently used it with a set purpose, to express what no other word expressed equally to his mind, how God prepared by His Providence the instruments which He willed to employ.
(8) There remains only the word used for the decree of the king of Nineveh, טעם ṭa‛am. This is a Syriac word; and accordingly, since it has now been ascertained beyond all question, that the language of Nineveh was a dialect of Syriac, it was, with a Hebrew pronunciation , the very word used of this decree at Nineveh. The employment of the special word is a part of the same accuracy with which Jonah relates that the decree used was issued not from the king only, but from the king and his nobles, one of those minute touches, which occur in the writings of those who describe what they have seen, but supplying a fact as to the Assyrian polity, which we should not otherwise have known, that the nobles were in some way associated in the decrees of the king.
Out of these eight words or forms, three are naval terms, and, since Israel was no seafaring people, it is in harmony with the history, that these terms should first occur in the first prophet who left the land of his mission by sea. So it is also, that an Assyrian technical term should first occur in a prophet who had been sent to Nineveh. A fifth word occurs in Hosea, a contemporary of Jonah, and in a Psalm of David. The abridged grammatical form was Phoenician, not Aramaic, was used in conversation, occurs in the oldest proper names, and in the Northern tribes. The 7th and 8th do not occur in Aramaic in the meaning in which they are used by Jonah.
In truth, often as these false criticisms have been repeated from one to the other, they would not have been thought of at all, except for the miracles related by Jonah, which the devisers of these criticisms did not believe. A history of miracles, such as those in Jonah, would not be published at the time, unless they were true! Those then who did not believe that God worked any miracles, were forced to have some plea for saying that the book was not written in the time of Jonah. Prejudices against faith have, sometimes openly, sometimes tacitly, been the ruling principle (on which earlier portions of Holy Scripture have been classed among the latter by critics who disbelieved what those books or passages related. Obviously no weight can be given to the opinions of critics, whose criticisms are founded, not on the study of the language, but upon unbelief. It has recently been said , "the joint decision of Gesenius, DeWette and Hitzig ought to be final." A joint decision certainly it is not. For DeWette places the book of Jonah before the captivity; Gesenius and Ewald, when prophecy had long ceased; Ewald, partly on account of its miracles, in the 5th century, b.c.; and Hitzig, with his accustomed willfulness and insulatedness of criticism, built a theory that the book is of Egyptian origin on his own mistake that the קיקיון qı̂yqâyôn grew only in Egypt, and placed it in the second century, b.c., the times of the Maccabees . The interval is also filled up. Every sort of date and contradictory grounds for those dates have been assigned. So then one places the book of Jonah in the time of Sennacherib , i. e., of Hezekiah; another under Josiah ; another before the captivity ; another toward the end of the captivity, after the destruction of Nineveh by Cyaxares ; a fifth lays chief stress on the argument that the destruction of Nineveh is not mentioned in it ; a sixth prefers the time after the return from the captivity to its close; a seventh doubted not, "from its argument and purpose, that it was written before the order of prophets ceded" , others of the same school are as positive from. its arguments and contents, that it must have been written after that order was closed .
The style of the Book of Jonah is, in fact pure and simple Hebrew, corresponding to the simplicity of the narrative, and of the prophet's character. Although written in prose, it has poetic language, not in the thanksgiving only, but whenever it suits the subject. These expressions are unique to Jonah. Such are, in the account of the storm, "the Lord cast a strong wind," "the vessel thought to be broken," "the sea shall be silent" (hushed, as we say) i. e., calm; "the wind was advancing and storming" , as with a whirlwind; (the word is used as to the sea by Jonah only), "the men plowed" or "dug" (in rowing) "the sea stood from its raging." Also "let man and beast 'clothe themselves' with sackcloth," and that touching expression, "son of a night, it (the palma-Christi) came to being, and son of a night (i. e., in a night) it perished." It is in harmony with his simplicity of character, that he is fond of the old idiom, by which the thought of the verb is carried on by a noun formed from it. "The men feared a great fear," (Jon 1:10, Jon 1:16. יראה ייראו) "It displeased Jonah a great displeasure," (Jon 4:1. רעה ירע) "Jonah joyed a great joy." (Jon 4:6, שמחה ישמח) Another idiom has been observed, which occurs in no writer later than the judges.
But, in the history, every phrase is vivid and graphic. There is not a word which does not advance the history. There is no reflection. All hastens on to the completion, and when God has given the key to the whole, the book closes with His words of exceeding tenderness lingering in our ears. The prophet, with the same simplicity and beginning with the same words, says he did not, and he did, obey God. The book opens, after the first authenticating words, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for the wickedness is come up before Me." God had commanded him to arise ; the narrative simply repeats the word, "And Jonah arose " - but for what? to flee in the very opposite direction "from being before the Lord" , i. e., from standing in His presence, as His servant and minister. He lost no time, to do the contrary. After the miracles, by which he had been both punished and delivered, the history is resumed with the same simple dignity as before, in the same words; the disobedience being noticed only in the word, a second time. "And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry unto it that cry which I say unto thee." This time it follows, "And Jonah arose and went to Nineveh."
Then, in the history itself, we follow the prophet step by step. He arose to flee to Tarshish, went down to Joppa, a perilous, yet the only sea-port for Judaea (Kg1 5:9; Ch2 2:16; and after the captivity, Ezr 3:7). He finds the ship, "pays its fare" (one of those little touches of a true narrative); God sends the storm, man does all he can; and all in vain. The character of the pagan is brought out in contrast with the then sleeping conscience and despondency of the prophet. But it is all in act. They are all activity; he is simply passive. They pray, (as they can) each man to his gods; he is asleep: they do all they can, lighten the ship, the ship-master rouses him, to pray to his God, since their own prayers avail not; they propose the lots, cast them; the lot falls upon Jonah. Then follow their brief accumulated inquiries; Jonah's calm answer, increasing their fear; their inquiry of the prophet himself, what they are to do to him; his knowledge that he must be cast over; the unwillingness of the pagan; one more fruitless effort to save both themselves and the prophet; the increasing violence of the storm; the prayer to the prophet's God, not to lay innocent blood to them, who obeyed His prophet; the casting him forth; the instant hush and silence of the sea; their conversion and sacrifice to the true God - the whole stands before us, as if we saw it with our own eyes.
And yet, amid, or perhaps as a part of, that vividness, there is that characteristic of Scripture-narratives, that some things even seem improbable, until, on thought, we discover the reason. It is not on a first reading, that most perceive the naturalness either of Jonah's deep sleep, or of the increase of the mariner's fear, on his account of himself. Yet that deep sleep harmonizes at least with his long hurried flight to Joppa, and that mood with which men who have taken a wrong step, try to forget themselves. He relates that he "was gone down" Jon 1:5, i. e., before the storm began. The sailors' increased tear surprises us the more, since it is added, "they knew that he had fled from before the presence of God, 'because he had told them.'" One word explained it. He had told them, from whose service he had fled, but not that He, against whom he had sinned, and who, they would think, was pursuing His fugitive, was "the Maker of the sea," whose raging was threatening their lives.
Again, the history mentions only that Jonah was cast over; that God prepared a fish to swallow him; that he was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights; that he, at the end of that time, prayed to God out of the fish's belly, and at the close of the prayer was delivered. The word "prayed" obviously includes "thanksgiving" as the act of adoring love from the creature to the Creator. It is said that Hannah prayed Sa1 2:1, but her hymn, as well as Jonah's does not contain one petition. Both are the outpouring of thanksgiving from the soul, to which God had given what it had prayed for. As, before, it was not said, whether he prayed because of the shipmaster's rebuke or not, so here nothing is said in the history, except as to the last moment, upon which he was cast out on the dry ground. The prayer incidentally supplies the rest. It is a simple thanksgiving of one who had prayed and who had been delivered Jon 2:3. "I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me." In the first mercy, he saw the earnest of the rest. He asks for nothing, he only thanks. But that for which he thanks is the deliverance from the perils of the sea. The thanksgiving corresponds with the plain words, "that he prayed out of the fish's belly." They are suited to one so praying, who looked on in full faith to the future completion of his deliverance, although our minds might rather have been fixed on the actual peril. It is a thanksgiving of faith, but of stronger faith than many moderns have been able to conceive.
The hymn itself is a remarkable blending of old and new, as our Lord says Mat 13:52 : "Therefore is the kingdom of heaven like a householder, who bringeth out of his treasure new and old." The prophet teaches us to use the Psalms, as well as how the holy men of old used them. In that great moment of religious life, the wellremembered Psalms, such as he had often used them, were brought to his mind. What had been figures to David or the sons of Korah, as Jon 2:5; Psa 69:2, "the waters are come in even unto my soul" Jon 2:3; Psa 42:8; "all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me," were strict realities to him. Yet only in this last sentence and in one other sentence which doubtless had become a proverb of accepted prayer Jon 2:2; Psa 120:1, "I cried out of my trouble unto the Lord and He heard me," does Jonah use exactly the words of earlier Psalms. Elsewhere he varies or amplifies them according to his own special circumstances.
Thus, where David said, "the waters are 'come in,' even unto my soul," Jonah substitutes the word which best described the condition from which God had delivered him, "The water compassed me about, even to the soul." Where David said (Psa 31:22, נגזרתי), "I am cut off from before Thine eyes," expressing an abiding condition, Jonah, who had for disobedience been cast into the sea, uses the strong word (Jon 2:4 (5), נגרשתי), "I am cast out from before Thine eyes." David says, "I said in my haste;" Jonah simply," I said;" for he had deserved it. David said Ps. 142:8, "when my spirit was overwhelmed" or "fainted within me," "Thou knewest my path;" Jonah substitutes, "When my soul fainted within me, 'I remembered the Lord'" (Jon 2:7 (8)); for when he rebelled, he forgot Him. David said Psa 31:7, "I hate them that observe lying vanities;" Jonah, who had himself disobeyed God, says mournfully Jon 2:9, "They that observe lying vanities, 'forsake their own mercy,'" i. e., their God, Who is mercy.
Altogether, Jonah's thanksgiving is that of one whose mind was stored with the Psalms which were part of the public worship, but it is the language of one who uses and re-casts them freely, as he was taught of God, not of one who copies. No one verse is taken entirely from any Psalm. There are original expressions everywhere The words, "I went down to the cuttings-off of the mountains," "the seaweed bound around my head;" "the earth, its bars around me forever:" perhaps the coral reefs which run along all that shore vividly exhibit him, sinking, entangled, imprisoned, as it seems, inextricably; he goes on; we should expect some further description of his state; but he adds, in five simple words , "Thou broughtest up my life from corruption, O Lord My God." Words, somewhat like these last, occur elsewhere Psa 30:3. "thou hast brought up my soul from hell," agreeing in the one word "brought up." But the majesty of the prophet's conception is in the connection of the thought; the seaweed was bound around his head as his grave-clothes; the solid bars of the deep-rooted earth, were around him, and ... God brought him up. At the close of the thanksgiving, "Salvation is the Lord's," deliverance is completed, as though God had only waited for this act of complete faith.
So could no one have written, who had not himself been delivered from such an extreme peril of drowning, as man could not, of himself, escape from. True, that no image so well expresses the overwhelmedness under affliction or temptation, as the pressure of storm by land, or being overflooded by the waves of the sea. Human poetry knows of "a sea of troubles," or "the triple wave of evils." It expresses how we are simply pas sive and powerless under a trouble, which leaves us neither breath nor power of motion; under which we can be but still, until, by God's mercy it passes. "We are sunk, overhead, deep down in temptations, and the masterful current is sweeping in eddies over us." Of this sort are those images which Jonah took from the Psalms. But a description so minute as the whole of Jonah's would be allegory, not metaphor. What, in it, is most descriptive of Jonah's situation , as "binding of the seaweed around the head, the sinking down to the roots of the mountains, the bars of the earth around him," are special to this thanksgiving of Jonah; they do not occur elsewhere, for, except through miracle, they would be images not of peril but of death.
The same vividness, and the same steady directions to its end, characterizes the rest of the book. Critics have wondered why Jonah does not say, on what shore he was east forth, why he does not describe his long journey to Nineveh, or tell us the name of the Assyrian king, or what he himself did, when his mission was closed. Jonah speaks of himself, only as relates to his mission, and God's teaching through him; the tells us not the king's name, but his deeds.
The description of the size of Nineveh remarkably corresponds alike with the ancient accounts and modern investigations. Jonah describes it as "a city of three days'journey." This obviously means its circumference, for, unless the city were a circle, (as no cities are,) it would have no one diameter. A person might describe the average length and breadth of a city, but no one who gave any one measure, by days or miles or any other measure, would mean anything else than its circumference. Diodorus (probably on the authority of Ctesias) states that (Jon 2:3. So too Q. Curtius v. 4.) "it was well-walled, of unequal lengths. Each of the longer sides was 150 furlongs; each of the shorter, 90. The whole circuit then being 480 furlongs (60 miles) the hope of the founder was not disappointed. For no one afterward built a city of such compass, and with walls so magnificent." To Babylon "Clitarehus and the companions of Alexander in their writings, assigned a circuit of 365 furlongs, adding that the number of furlongs was conformed to the number of days in the year" .
Ctesias, in round numbers, calls them 360; Strabo, 385. All these accounts agree with the statement of Strabo, "Nineveh was much larger than Babylon." The 60 miles of Diodorus exactly correspond with the three days' journey of Jonah. A traveler of our own at the beginning of the 17th century, John Cartwright, states that with his own eyes he traced out the ruinous foundations, and gives their dimensions. "It seems by the ruinous foundation (which I thoroughly viewed) that it was built with four sides, but not equal or square. For the two longer sides had each of them (as we guess) 150 furlongs, the two shorter sides ninety furlongs, which amounteth to four hundred and eighty furlongs of ground, which makes the threescore miles, accounting eight furlongs to an Italian mile."
No one of the four great mounds, which lie around the site of ancient Nineveh, Nimrud, Kouyunjik, Khorsabad, Karamless, is of sufficient moment or extent to be identified with the old Nineveh. But they are connected together by the sameness of their remains. Together they form a parallelogram, and this of exactly the dimensions assigned by Jonah. "From the northern extremity of Kouyunjik to Nimrud, is about 18 miles, the distance from Nimrud to Karamless, about 12; the opposite sides, the same." "A recent trigonometrical survey of the country by Captain Jones proves, I am informed," says Layard , "that the great ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamless, and Khorsabad form very nearly a perfect parallelogram."
This is perhaps also the explanation, how, seeing its circumference was three days' journey, Jonah entered a day's journey in the city and, at the close of the period, we find him at the East side of the city, the opposite to that at which he had entered.
His preaching seems to have lasted only this one day. He went, we are told, "one day's journey in the city." The 150 stadia are nearly 19 miles, a day's journey, so that Jonah walked through it from end to end, repeating that one cry, which God had commanded him to cry out. We seem to see the solitary figure of the prophet, clothed (as was the prophet's dress) in that one rough garment of hair cloth, uttering the cry which we almost hear, echoing in street after street, Jon 3:4, "נהפחת נינוה יום ארבעים עד ‛ôd' arbâ‛ı̂ym yôm nı̂ynevêh nêhpâcheth," "yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown!" The words which he says he cried and said, belong to that one day only. For on that one day only, was there still a respite of forty days. In one day, the grace of God prevailed. The conversion of a whole people upon one day's preaching of a single stranger, stands in contrast with the many years during which, God says (Jer 7:25, add 13; Jer 11:7; Jer 25:3-4; Jer 26:5; Jer 29:19; Jer 32:33; Jer 35:14-15; Jer 44:4), "since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have sent unto you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them, yet they hearkened not unto Me." Many of us have wondered what the prophet did on the other thirty-nine days; people have imagined the prophet preaching as moderns would, or telling them his own wondrous story of his desertion of God, his miraculous punishment, and, on his repentance, his miraculous deliverance. Jonah says nothing of this. The one point he brought out was the conversion of the Ninevites. This he dwells on in circumstantial details. His own part he suppresses; he would be, like John the Immerser, but the voice of one crying in the wild waste of a city of violence.
This simple message of Jonah bears an analogy to what we find elsewhere in Holy Scripture. Doubtless, the great preacher of repentance, John the Immerser, repeated oftentimes that one cry Mat 3:2, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Our Lord vouchsafed to begin His own office with those self-same words Mat 4:17; Mar 1:15. And probably, among the civilized but savage inhabitants of Nineveh, that one cry was more impressive than any other would have been. Simplicity is always impressive. They were four words which God caused to be written on the wall amid Belshazzar's impious revelry Dan 5:25 - פרסין תקל מנא מנא menê' menê' teqal perası̂yn (Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin). We all remember the touching history of Jesus, the son of Anan, an unlettered rustic, who , "four years before the war, when Jerusalem was in complete peace and affluence," burst in on the people at the Feast of Tabernacles with one oft-repeated cry, "A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice on Jerusalem and the temple, a voice on the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice on the whole people;" how he went about through all the lanes of the city, repeating, day and night, this one cry; and when scourged until his bones were laid bare, echoed every lash with "woe, woe, to Jerusalem," and continued as his daily dirge and his one response to daily good or ill-treatment, "woe, woe, to Jerusalem." The magistrates and even the cold Josephus thought that there was something in it above nature.
In Jerusalem, no effect was produced, because they had filled up the measure of their sins and God had abandoned them. All conversion is the work of the grace of God. That of Nineveh remains, in the history of mankind, an insulated instance of God's overpowering grace. All which can be pointed out as to the Book of Jonah, is the latent suitableness of the instruments employed. We know from the Cuneiform Inscriptions that Assyria had been for successive generations at war with Syria. Not until the time of Ivalush or Pul, the Assyrian monarch, probably, at the time of Jonah's mission, do we find them tributary to Assyria. They were hereditary enemies of Assyria, and probably their chief opponents on the North East. The breaking of their power then, under Jeroboam, which Jonah had foretold, had an interest for the Assyrians; and Jonah's prophecy and the fact of its fulfillment may have reached them. The history of his own deliverance, we know from our Lord's own words, did reach them. He "was a sign Luk 11:30 unto the Ninevites." The word, under which he threatened their destruction, pointed to a miraculous overthrow. It was a turning upside down , like the overthrow of the five cities of the plain which are known throughout the Old Testament, Gen 19:21, Gen 19:25; Deu 29:23; Amo 4:11; Jer 20:16; Lam 4:6. and still throughout the Muslim East, by the same name, "almoutaphikat , the overthrown."
The Assyrians also, amidst their cruelties, had a great reverence for their gods, and (as appears from the inscriptions, ascribed to them their national greatness . The variety of ways in which this is expressed, implies a far more personal belief; than the statements which we find among the Romans, and would put to shame almost every English manifesto, or the speeches put into the mouth of the Queen. They may have been, then, the more prepared to fear the prophecy of their destruction from the true God. Layard relates that he has "known a Christian priest frighten a whole Mussulman town to repentance, by proclaiming that he had a divine mission to announce a coming earthquake or plague" .
These may have been predisposing causes. But the completeness of the repentance, not outward only, but inward, "turning from their evil way," is, in its extent, unexampled.
The fact rests upon the authority of "One greater than Jonah." Our Lord relates it as a fact. He contrasts people with people, the penitent pagan with the impenitent Jews, the inferior messenger who prevailed, with Himself, whom His own received not Mat 12:4. "The men of Nineveh shall raise up with this generation and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas is here."
The chief subject of the repentance of the Ninevites agrees also remarkably with their character. It is mentioned in the proclamation of the king and his nobles, "let them turn every one from his evil way 'and from the violence' that is in their hands." Out of the whole catalogue of their sins, conscience singled out violence. This incidental notice, contained in the one word, exactly corresponds in substance with the fuller description in the prophet Nahum Nah 3:1, "Woe to the bloody city; it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not" Nah 2:12. "The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey and his dens with ravin" Nah 3:19. "Upon whom hath not thy wickedness (ill-doing) passed continually?" "The Assyrian records," says Layard , "are nothing but a dry register of military campaigns, spoilations, and cruelties."
The direction, that the animals also should be included in the common mourning, was according to the analogy of Eastern custom. When the Persian general Masistius fell at the battle of Plataea , the "whole army and Mardonius above all, made a mourning, 'shaving themselves, and the horses, and the beasts of burden,' amid surpassing wailing ... Thus the Barbarians after their manner honored Masistius on his death." Alexander imitated apparently the Persian custom in his mourning for Hephsestion . The characteristic of the mourning in each case is, that they include the animals in that same mourning which they made themselves. The Ninevites had a right feeling (as God Himself says), that the mercies of God were over man and beast ; and so they joined the beasts with themselves, hoping that the Creator of all would the rather have mercy on their common distress Psa 145:9. "His tender mercies are over all His works Psa 36:7. Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast."
The name of the king cannot yet be ascertained. But since this mission of Jonah fell in the latter part of his prophetic office, and so probably in the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam or even later, the Assyrian king was probably Ivalush III or the "Pul" of Holy Scripture. Jonah's human fears would, in that case, have been soon fulfilled. For Pul was the first Assyrian Monarch through whom Israel was weakened; and God had foreshown by Amos that through the third it would be destroyed. Characteristic, on account of the earnestness which it implies, is the account that the men of Nineveh proclaimed the fast, before news reached the king himself. This is the plain meaning of the words; yet on account of the obvious difficulty they have been rendered, and word had come to the king . The account is in harmony with that vast extent of the city, as of Babylon, of which "the residents related that, after the outer portions of the city were taken, the inhabitants of the central part did not know that they were taken." It could scarcely have occurred to one who did not know the fact.
The history of Jonah, after God had spared Nineveh, has the same characteristic touches. He leaves his own character unexplained, its severity rebuked by God, unexcused and unpalliated. He had some special repugnance to be the messenger of mercy to the Ninevites. "For this cause," he says to God, "I fled before to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a merciful God, and repentest Thee of the evil." The circumstances of his time explain that repugnance. He had already been employed to prophesy the partial restoration of the boundaries of Israel. He was the contemporary of Hosea who foretold of his people, the ten tribes Hos 9:3, "they shall not dwell in the Lord's land, they shall eat unclean things in Assyria." God, in giving him his commission to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and "cry against it, assigned as the reason," for its wickedness is come up before Me;" words which to Jonah would suggest the memory of the wickedness of Sodom and its destruction.
Jonah was a prophet, but he was also an Israelite. He was commanded by God to call to repentance the capital of the country by which his own people, nay the people of his God, were to be carried captive. And he rebelled. We know more of the love of God than Jonah, for we have known the love of the Incarnation and the Redemption. And yet, were it made known to us, that some European or Asiatic people were to carry our own people captive out of our land, more than would be willing to confess it of themselves, (whatever sense they might have of the awfulness of God's judgments, and ever feelings belonging to our common humanity,) would still inwardly rejoice to hear, that such a calamity as the earthquake at Lisbon befell its capital. It is the instinct of self-preservation and the implanted love of country. Jonah's complaining related solely to God's mercy shown to them as to this world.
For the Ninevites had repented, and so were in the grace of God. The older of us remember what awful joy was felt when that three days' mortal strife at Leipzig at length was won, in which 107,000 were killed or wounded ; or when out of 647,000 men who swept across Europe (a mass larger than the whole population of Nineveh) only "85,000 escaped; 125,000 were slain in battle, 132,000 perished by cold, fatigue and famine." A few years ago, how were Sebastopol and the Krimea in men's mouths, although that war is reputed to have cost the five nations involved in it 700,000 lives, more, probably, than all the inhabitants of Nineveh. People forget or abstract themselves from all the individual sufferings, and think only of the result of the whole. A humane historian says of the battle of Leipzig , "a prodigious sacrifice, but one which, great as it was, humanity has no cause to regret, for it delivered Europe from French bondage, and the world from revolutionary aggression." He says on the Russian campaign of Napoleon I , "the faithful throughout Europe repeated the words of the Psalm, Efflavit Deus et dissipantur."
Look at Dr. Arnold's description of the issue of the Russian campaign : "Still the flood of the tide rose higher and higher, and every successive wave of its advance swept away a kingdom. Earthly state has never reached a prouder pinnacle, than when Napoleon in June, 1812, gathered his army at Dresden, that mighty host, unequalled in all time, of 450,000, not men merely but, effective soldiers, and there received the homage of subject kings. And now, what was the principal adversary of this tremendous power? by whom was it checked, resisted, and put down? fly none, and by nothing but the direct and manifest interposition of God. I know no language so well fitted to describe the victorious advance to Moscow, and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as the language of the prophet with respect to the advance and subsequent destruction cf the host of Sennacherib. When they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses, applied almost literally to that memorable night of frost in which 20,000 horses perished, and the strength of the French army was utterly broken.
Human instruments no doubt were employed in the remainder of the work, nor would I deny to Germany and to Russia the glories of that great year 1813, nor to England the honor of her victories in Spain or of the crowning victory of Waterloo. But at the distance of thirty years those who lived in the time of danger and remember its magnitude, and now calmly review what there was in human strength to avert it, must acknowledge, I think, beyond all controversy, that the deliverance of Europe from the dominion of Napoleon was effected neither by Russia nor by Germany nor by England, but by the hand of God alone." Jonah probably pictured to himself some sudden and almost painless destruction, which the word, overthrown, suggested, in which the whole city would be engulfed in an instant and the power which threatened his people, the people of God, broken at once. God reproved Jonah; but, before man condemns him, it were well to think, what is the prevailing feeling in Christian nations, at any signal calamity which befalls any people who threaten their own power or honor; we cannot, in Christian times, say, their existence. "Jonah," runs an old traditional saying among the Jews , "sought the honor of the son (Israel), and sought not the honor of the Father."
An uninspired writer would doubtless at least have brought out the relieving points of Jonah's character, and not have left him under the unmitigated censure of God. Jonah tells the plain truth of himself, as Matthew relates his own desertion of his Lord among the Apostles, or Mark, under the guidance of Peter, relates the great fall of the great Apostle.
Amid this, Jonah remains the same throughout. It is one strong impetuous will, bent on having no share in that which was to bring destruction on his people, fearless of death and ready to give up his life. In the same mind he gives himself to death amid the storm, and, when his mission was accomplished, asks for death in the words of his great predecessor Elijah, when he fled from Jezebel. He probably justified his impatience to himself by the precedent of so great a prophet. But although he complains, he complains to God of Himself. Having complained, Jonah waits. It may be that he thought, although God did not execute His judgments on the 40th day, He might still fulfill them. He had been accustomed to the thought of the long-suffering of God, delaying even when He struck at last. "Considering with himself," says Theodorus, "the greatness of the threat, he imagined that something might perchance still happen even after this." The patience of God amid the prophet's impatience, the still, gentle inquiry (such as lie often puts to the conscience now), "Doest thou well to be angry?" and his final conviction of the prophet out of his own feelings toward one of God's inanimate creatures, none would have ventured to picture, who had not known or experienced it.
In regard to the miracles in Jonah's history, over and above the fact, that they occur in Holy Scripture, we have our Lord's own word for their truth. He has set His seal on the whole of the Old Testament Luk 24:24; He has directly authenticated by His own divine authority the physical miracle of Jonah's preservation for three days and nights in the belly of the fish Mat 12:40, and the still greater moral miracle of the conversion of the Ninevites Mat 12:41; Luk 11:32. He speaks of them both, as facts, and of the stay of Jonah in the fish's belly, as a type of His own stay in the heart of the earth. He speaks of it also as a miraculous sign Mat 12:38-40; Luk 11:16, Luk 11:29-30.
The Scribes and Pharisees, unable to answer His refutation of their blasphemy, imputing His miracles to Beelzebub, asked of Him a miraculous sign from heaven. Probably, they meant to ask that one sign, for which they were always craving. Confounding His first coming with His second coming, and interpreting, according to their wishes, of His first coming all which the prophets foretold of the second, they were ever looking out for that His Coming in glory "with the clouds of heaven" Dan 7:13-14; Mat 16:27; Mat 24:30; Mat 26:64; Luk 21:27; Th1 4:16; Rev 1:7, to humble, as they thought, their own as well as His enemies. Our Lord answers, that this their craving for a sign was part of their faithlessness. "An evil and adulterons generation seeketh after a sign: and there shall no sign be given them, but the sign of the prophet Jonas." He uses three times their own word "sign."
He speaks of a miraculous sign, "the sign of Jonas," a miracle which was the sign of something beyond itself Mat 12:41; Luk 11:32. "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." He gave them the sign from earth, not from heaven; a miracle of humility, not of glory; of deliverance from death, and, as it were, a resurrection. A sign, such as Holy Scripture speaks of, need not at all times be a miraculous, but it is always a real sign. Isaiah and his sons, by real names, given to them by God, or the prophet by his walking barefoot, or Ezekiel by symbolic acts, were signs; not by miraculous but still by real acts. In this case, the Jews asked for a miraculous sign; our Lord promises them a miraculous sign, although not one such as they wished for, or which would satisfy them; a miraculous sign, of which the miraculous preservation of Jonah was a type. Our Lord says Mat 12:41; Luk 11:32, "Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly," and no one who really believes in Him, dare think that he was not.
It is perhaps a part of the simplicity of Jonah's narrative, that he relates these great miracles, as naturally as he does the most ordinary events. To God nothing is great or small; and the prophet, deeply as he feels God's mercy, relates the means which God employed, as if it had been one of those every day miracles of His power and love, of which people think so little because God worketh them every day.
"God prepared a great fish," he says, "God prepared a palm-christ; God prepared a worm; God prepared a vehement East wind." Whether Jonah relates God's ordinary or His extraordinary workings, His workings in the way in which He upholdeth in being the creatures of His will, or in a way which involves a miracle, i. e., God's acting in some unusual way, Jonah relates it in the same way, with the same simplicity of truth. His mind is fixed upon God's Providence, and he relates God's acts, as they bore upon God's Providential dealings with him. He tells of God's preparing the East Wind which struck the palm-christ, in the same way in which he speaks of the supernatural growth of the palm-christ, or of God's Providence, in appointing that the fish should swallow him. He mentions this, which was in the order of God's Providence; he nowhere stops to tell us the "how." How God converted the Ninevites, how He sustained his life in the fish's belly, he does not tell. He mentions only the great facts themselves, and leaves them in their mysterious greatness.
It is not strange, the pagan scoffers fixed upon the physical miracles in the history of Jonah for their scorn. They could have no appreciation of the great moral miracle of the conversion of a whole Pagan city at the voice of a single unknown prophet. Such a conversion is unexampled in the whole revelation of God to man, greater in its immediate effects than the miracle of the Day of Pentecost. Before this stupendous power of God's grace over the unruly will of savage, yet educated, men, the physical miracles, great as they are, shrink into nothing. The wielding and swaying of half a million of human wills, and turning them from Satan to God, is a power of grace, as much above and beyond all changes of the unresisting physical creation, as the spirits and intelligences which God has created are higher than insentient matter. Physical miracles are a new exercise of the creative power of God: the moral miracles were a sort of firstfruit of the re-creation of the Gentile world. Physical miracles were the simple exercise of the will of God; the moral miracles were, in these hundreds of thousands, His overpowering grace, pouring itself into the heart of rebellious man and re-creating it. As many souls as there were, so many miracles were there, greater even than the creation of man.
The miracles too are in harmony with the nature around. The Hebrews, who were, at this time, not a maritime people, scarcely knew probably of those vast monsters, which our manifold researches into God's animal kingdom have laid open to us. Jonah speaks only of "a great fish." The Greek word, by which the Septuagint translated it, and which our Lord used, is (like our "cetacea" which is taken from it), the name of a genus, not of any individual fish. It is the equivalent of the "great fish" of Jonah. The Greeks use the adjective , as we do, but they also use the substantive which occurs in Matthew. This designates a class which includes the whale, but is never used to designate the whale. In Homer , it includes "dolphins and the dog." In the natural historians, (as Aristotle , it designates the whole class of sea-creatures which are viviparous, "as the dolphin, the seal, the whale;" Galen adds the Zygaena (a shark) and large tunnies; Photius says that "the Carcharias," or white shark, "is a species of it." Oppian recounts, as belonging to the Cote, several species of sharks and whales , some with names of land animals , and also the black tunnies .
AElian enumerates most of these under the same head . Our Lord's words then would be rendered more literally, "in the fish's belly, Mat 12:40. than "in the whale's belly." Infidels seized eagerly on the fact of the narrowness of the whale's throat; their cavil applied only to an incorrect rendering of modern versions. Fish, of such size that they can swallow a man whole, and which are so formed as naturally to swallow their prey whole, have been found in the Mediterranean. The white shark, having teeth merely incisive, has no choice, except between swallowing its prey whole, or cutting off a portion of it. It cannot hold its prey, or swallow it piecemeal. Its voracity leads it to swallow at once all which it can . Hence, Otto Fabricius relates , "its custom is to swallow down dead and, sometimes also, living men, which it finds in the sea."
A natural historian of repute relates , "In 1758 in stormy weather a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, took him in his wide throat, so that he immediately disappeared. Other sailors had leapt into the sloop, to help their comrade, while yet swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged at the fish, which struck it so, that it cast out the sailor which it had in its throat, who was taken up, alive and little injured, by the sloop which had now come up. The fish was harpooned, taken up on the frigate, and dried. The captain made a present of the fish to the sailor who, by God's Providence, had been so wonderfully preserved. The sailor went around Europe exhibiting it. He came to Franconia, and it was publicly exhibited here in Erlangen, as also at Nurnberg and other places. The dried fish was delineated. It was 20 feet long, and, with expanded fins, nine feet wide, and weighed 3,924 pounds. From all this, it is probable that this was the fish of Jonah."
This is by no means an insulated account of the size of this fish. Blumenbach states, "the white shark, or Canis carcharias, is found of the size of 10,000 lbs, and horses have been found whole in its stomach." A writer of the 16th century on "the fish of Marseilles" says, "they of Nice attested to me, that they had taken a fish of this sort, approaching to 4,000 lbs. weight, in whose body they had found a man whole. Those of Marseilles told something similar, that they had once taken a Lamia (so they still popularly call the Carcharias) and found in it a man in a coat of mail (loricatus)" Rondelet says , "sometimes it grows to such size, that, placed on a carriage, it can hardly be drawn by two horses. I have seen one of moderate size, which weighed 1,000 lbs, and, when disembowelled and cut to pieces, it had to be put on two carriages." "I have seen on the shore of saintonge a Lamia, whose mouth and throat were of such vast size, that it would easily swallow a large man."
Richardson , speaking of the white shark in North America, says that they attain the length of 30 feet, i. e., one-third larger than that which swallowed the sailor whole. Lacepede speaks of fish of this kind as "more than 30 feet long" . "The contour," he adds , "of the upper jaw of a requin of 30 feet, is about 6 feet long; its swallow is of a diameter proportionate." : "In all modern works on Zoology, we find 30 feet given as a common length for a shark's body. Now a shark's body is usually only about eleven times the length of the half of its lower jaw. Consequently, a shark of 30 feet would have a lower jaw of nearly 6 feet in its semi-circular extent. Even if such a jaw as this was of hard bony consistence instead of a yielding cartilaginous nature, it would qualify its possessor for engulfing one of our own species most easily. The power which it has, by virtue of its cartilaginous skeleton, of stretching, bending and yielding, enables us to understand how the shark can swallow entire animals as large or larger than ourselves. Such an incident is related to have occurred 1802 a.d., on the authority of a Captain Brown, who found the body of a woman entire with the exception of the head within the stomach of a shark killed by him at Surinam" .
In the Mediterranean there are traces of a still larger race, now extinct. "However large or dangerous the existing race may be, yet from the magnitude of the fossil teeth found in Malta and elsewhere, some of which measure 4 12 inches from the point to the base, and 6 inches from the point to the angle, the animal, to which they belonged, must have much exceeded the present species in size." "The mouth of a fish of this sort," says Bloch , "is armed with 400 teeth of this kind. In the Isle of Malta and in Sicily, their teeth are found in great numbers on the shore. Naturalists of old took them for tongues of serpents. They are so compact that, after having remained for many centuries in the earth, they are still not decayed. The quantity and size of those which are found proves that these creatures existed formerly in great numbers, and that some were of extraordinary size.
If one were to calculate from them what should, in proportion, be the size of the throat which should hold such a number of such teeth, it ought to be at least 8 or 10 feet wide. In truth, these fish are found to this day of a terrific size. This fish, celebrated for its voracity and courage, is found in the Mediterranean and in almost every Ocean. It generally keeps at the bottom, and rises only to satisfy its hunger. It is not seen near shore, except when it pursues its prey, or is pursued by the mular , which it does not venture to approach, even when dead. It swallows all sorts of aquatic animals, alive or dead, and pursues especially the sea-calf and the tunny. In its pursuit of the tunny, it sometimes falls into nets, and some have been thus taken in Sardinia, which weighed 400 lbs. and in which 8 or 10 tunnies were found still undigested.
It attacks men wherever it can find them, whence the Germans call it 'menschenfresser' (man-eater). Gunner speaks of a sea-calf 'of the size of an ox, which has also been found in one of these animals; and in another a reindeer without horns, which had fallen from a rock.' This fish attains a length of 25 to 30 feet. Muller says that one was taken near the Island of Marguerite which weighed 1,500 lbs. Upon opening it, they found in it a HORSE, quite whole: which had apparently been thrown overboard. M. Brunniche says that during his residence at Marseilles, one was taken near that city, 15 feet long, and that two years before, two, much larger, had been taken, in one of which had been found two tunnies and a man quite dressed. The fish were injured, the man not at all. In 1760 there was exhibited at Berlin a requin stuffed, 20 feet long, and 9 feet in circumference, where it was thickest. It had been taken in the Mediterranean. Its voracity is so great, that it does not spare its own species. Leem relates, that a Laplander, who had taken a requin, fastened it to his canoe; soon after, he missed it. Some time after, having taken a larger one, he found in its stomach the requin which he had lost." "The large Australian shark (Carcharias glaucus), which has been measured after death 37 feet long, has teeth about 2 58 inches long."
Such facts ought to shame those who speak of the miracle of Jonah's preservation through the fish, as a thing less credible than any other of God's miraculous doings. There is no greater or less to Omnipotence. The creation of the universe, the whole stellar system, or of a fly, are alike to Him, simple acts of His divine will. "He spake, and it was" Psa 33:9. What to people seem the greatest miracles or the least, are alike to Him, the mere "Let it be" of His all-holy will, acting in a different way for one and the same end, the instruction of the intelligent creatures which He has made. Each and all subserve, in their several places and occasions, the same end of the manifold wisdom of God. Each and all of these, which to us seem interruptions of His ordinary workings in nature, were from the beginning, before He had created anything, as much a part of His divine purpose, as the creation of the universe.
They are not disturbances of His laws. Night does not disturb day which it closes, nor day disturb night. No more does any work which God, before the creation of the world, willed to do (for, Act 15:18, "known unto God are all His ways from the beginning of the world,") interfere with any other of His workings. His workings in nature, and His workings above nature, form one harmonious whole. Each are a part of His ways; each is essential to the manifestation of God to us. That wonderful order and symmetry of God's creation exhibits to us some effluences of the Divine Wisdom and Beauty and Power and Goodness; that regularity itself sets forth those other foreknown operations of God, whereby He worketh in a way different from His ordinary mode of working in nature. "They who know not God, will ask," says Cyril , "how was Jonah preserved in the fish? How was he not consumed? How did he endure that natural heat, and live, surrounded by such and was not rather digested? For this poor body is very weak and perishable. Truly wonderful was it, surpassing reason and wontedness. But if God be declared its Author, who would anymore disbelieve? For God is All-powerful, and transmouldeth easily the nature of things which are, to what He willeth, and nothing resisteth His ineffable will.
For that which is perishable can at His will easily become superior to corruption; and what is firm and unshaken and undecaying is easily subjected thereto. For nature, I deem, to the things which be, is, what seemeth good to the Creator." Augustine well points out the inconsistency, so common now, of excepting to the one or the other miracle, upon grounds which would in truth apply to many or to all , "The answer" to the mockery of the Pagans, "is that either all divine miracles are to be disbelieved, or there is no reason why this should not be believed. For we should not believe in Christ Himself that He rose on the third day, if the faith of the Christians shrank from the mockery of Pagans. Since our friend does not put the question, Is it to be believed that Lazarus rose on the 4th day, or Christ Himself on the third day, I much marvel that he put this as to Jonah as a thing incredible, unless he think it easier for one dead to be raised from the tomb, than to be preserved alive in that vast belly of the fish.
Not to mention how vast the size of marine creatures is said to be by those who have witnessed it, who could not conceive what numbers of men that stomach could contain which was fenced by those ribs, well known to the people at Carthage, where they were set up in public? How vast must have been the opening of that mouth, the doer, as it were, to that cave." "But, troth, they have found in a divine miracle something which they need not believe; namely, that the gastric juice whereby food is digested could be so tempered as not to injure the life of man. How still less credible would they deem it, that those three men, cast into the furnace by the impious king, walked up and down in the midst of the fire! If then they refuse to believe any miracles of God, they must be answered in another way. But they ought not to question any one, as though it were incredible, but at once all which are as, or even more, marvelous.
He who proposed these questions, let him be a Christian now, lest, while he waits first to finish the questions on the sacred books, he come to the end of his life, before he has passed from death to life. Let him, if he will, first ask questions such as he asked concerning Christ, and those few great questions to which the rest are subordinate. But if he think to finish all such questions as this of Jonah, before he becomes a Christian, he little appreciates human mortality or his own mortality. For they are countless; not to be finished before accepting the faith, lest life be finished without faith. But, retaining the faith, they are subjects for the diligent study of the faithful; and what in them becomes clear is to be communicated without arrogance, what still lies hidden, to be borne without risk to salvation."
The other physical miracle of the rapid production of the Palma Christi, which God created to overshadow Jonah, was plainly supernatural in that extreme rapidity of growth, else in conformity with the ordinary character of that plant. "The קיקיון qı̂yqâyôn, as we read in the Hebrew, called kikeia (or, Elkeroa, in Syriac and Punic," says Jerome , "is a shrub with broad leaves like vine-leaves. It gives a very dense shade, supports itself on its own stem. It grows most abundantly in Palestine, especially in sandy spots. If you cast the seed into the ground, it is soon quickened, rises marvelously into a tree, and a few days what you had beheld an herb, you look up to, a shrub. The קיקיון qı̂yqâyôn, a miracle in its instantaneous existence, and an instance of the power of God in the protection given by this living shade, followed the course of its own nature."
It is a native of all North Africa, Arabia, Syria, India. In the valley of the Jordan it still grows to a "large size, and has the character," an eyewitness writes , "of a perennial tree, although usually described as a biennial plant." "It is of the size of a small fig tree. It has leaves like a plane, only larger, smoother, and darker." The name of the plant is of Egyptian origin, kiki; which Dioscorides and Galen identify with the croton ; Herodotus with the Silicyprion , which, in the form seselicyprion, Dioscorides mentions as a name given to the kiki or kroton; Pliny with the Ricinus also (the Latin name for the croton), our Palma Christi; Hebrews with the Arabic Elkeroa, which again is known to be the Ricinus. The growth and occasional perishing of the Palma Christi have both something analogous to the growth and decay related in Jonah. Its rapidity of growth is remarked by Jerome and Pliny, who says , "in Spain it shoots up rapidly, of the height of an olive, with hollow stem," and branches .
"All the species of the Ricinus shoot up quickly, and yield fruit within three months, and are so multipled from the seed shed, that, if left to themselves, they would occupy in short space the whole country." In Jamaica , "it grows with surprising rapidity to the height of 15 or 16 feet." Niebuhr says, "it has the appearance of a tree. Each branch of the kheroa has only one leaf, with 6, 7, or 8 indentures. This plant was near a stream which watered it adequately. At the end of October, 1765, it had, in 5 months, grown about 8 feet, and bore, at once, flowers and fruit, green and ripe." This rapidity of growth has only a sort of likeness to the miracle, which quickened in a way far above nature the powers implanted in nature. The destruction may have been altogether in the way of nature, except that it happened at that precise moment, when it was to be a lesson to Jonah . "On warm days, when a small rain falls, black caterpillars are generated in great numbers on this plant, which, in one night, so often and so suddenly cut off its leaves, that only their bare ribs remain, which I have often observed with much wonder, as though it were a copy of that destruction of old at Nineveh." The Ricinus of India and Assyria furnishes food to a different caterpillar from that of Amboyna , but the account illustrates the rapidity of the destruction.
The word "worm" is elsewhere also used collectively, not of a single worm only, Jon 4:7, , and of creatures which, in God's appointment, devour the vine. Deu 28:39. there is nothing in the text, implying that the creature was one which gnawed the stem rather than the leaves. The unique word, smote , is probably used, to correspond with the mention of the sun smiting Jon 4:8. on the head of Jonah.
These were miracles, like all the other miracles of Scripture, ways, in which God made Himself and His power known to us, showing Himself the Lord of that nature which men worshiped and worship, for the present conversion of a great people, for the conviction of Israel, a hidden prophecy of the future conversion of the pagan, and an example of repentance and its fruits to the end of time. They have no difficulty except to the rebelliousness of unbelief.
Other difficulties people have made for themselves. In a planked-roof booth such as ours, Joriah would not have needed the shadow of a plant. Obviously then, Jonah's booth, even if we knew not what it was, was not like our's. A German critic has chosen to treat this as an absurdity "Although Jonah makes himself a shady booth, he still further needs the overshadowing קיקיון qı̂yqâyôn." Jonah however, being an Israelite, made booths, such as Israel made them. Now we happen to know that the Jewish סכה sûkkâh, or booth, being formed of the interlaced branches of trees, did not exclude the sun. We know this from the rules in the Talmud as to the construction of the Succah or "tabernacle" for the Feast of Tabernacles. It lays down . "A סכה sûkkâh whose height is not 10 palms, and which has not three sides, and which has more sun than shade (i. e., more of whose floor is penetrated by light through the top of the Succah, than is left in shade), is profane."
And again , "Whoso spreadeth a linen cloth over the סכה sûkkâh, to protect him from the sun, it is profane." . "Whoso raiseth above it the vine or gourd or ivy, and so covers it, it is profane; but if the roof be larger than they, or if one cut them, they are lawful" . "With bundles of straw, and bundles of wood, and bundles of sticks, they do not cover it; and all these, if undone, are lawful" . "They cover it with planks according to Rabbi Jonah; and Rabbi Meir forbids; whoso putteth upon it one plank of four palms' breadth it is lawful, only he must not sleep under it." Yet all held that a plank thus broad was to overlap the booth, in which case it would not cover it. The principle of all these rules is, that the rude hut, in which they dwelt during the Feast of Tabernacles, was to be a shade, symbolizing God's overshadowing them in the wilderness; the סכה sûkkâh itself, not anything adscititious, was to be their shade; yet it was but an imperfect protection, and was indeed intended so to be, in order to symbolize their pilgrim-state.
Hence the contrivances among those who wished to be at case, to protect themselves; and hence the inconvenience which God turned into an instruction to Jonah. Even "the Arabs," Layard tells us in a Nineveh summer, "struck their black tents and lived in sheds, constructed of reeds and grass along the banks of the river." "The heats of summer made it impossible to live in a white tent." Layard's resource of a "recess, cut into the bank of the river where it rose perpendicularly from the water's edge, screening the front with reeds and boughs of trees, and covering the whole with similar materials," corresponds with the hut of Jonah, covered by the קיקיון qı̂yqâyôn.
No pagan scoffer, as far as we know, when he became acquainted with the history of Jonah, likened it to any pagan fable. This was reserved for so-called Christians. Some pagan mocked at it, as the philosophers of Mars' Hill mocked at the resurrection of Christ Act 17:32. "This sort of question" (about Jonah), said a pagan, who professed to be an inquirer, "I have observed to be met with broad mockery by the pagans" . They mocked, but they did not insult the history by likening it to any fable of their own. Jerome, who mentions incidentally that "Joppa is the place in which, to this day, rocks are pointed out in the shore, where Andromeda, being bound, was once on a time freed by the help of Perseus," does not seem aware that the fable could be brought into any connection with the history of Jonah. He urges on the pagan the inconsistency of believing their own fables, which besides their marvelousness were often immoral, and refusing to believe the miracles of Scripture histories; but the fable of Andromeda or of Hesione do not even occur to him in this respect . "I am not ignorant that to some it will seem incredible that a man could be preserved alive 3 days and nights in the fish's belly. These must be either believers or unbelievers. If believers, they must needs believe much greater things, how the three youths, cast into the burning fiery furnace, were in such sort unharmed, that not even the smell of fire touched their dress; how the sea retired, and stood on either side rigid like walls, to make a way for the people passing over; how the rage of lions, aggravated by hunger, looked, awestricken, on its prey, and touched it not, and many like things.
Or if they be unbelievers, let them read the 15 books of Ovid's metamorphoses, and all Greek and Latin story, and there they will see where the foulness of the fables precludes the holiness of a divine origin. These things they believe, and that to God all things are possible. Believing foul things, and defending them by alleging the unlimited power of God, they do not admit the same power as to things moral." In Alexandria and in the time of Cyril, the old pagan fables were tricked up again. He alludes then to Lycophron's version of the story of Hercules , in order, like Jerome, to point out the inconsistency of believing pagan fables and rejecting divine truth. "We," he says, "do not use their fables to confirm things divine, but we mention them to a good end, in answer to unbelievers, that their received histories too do not reject such relations."
The philosophers wished at once to defend their own fables and to attack the Gospel. Yet it was an unhappy argumentum ad hominem. Modern infidelity would find a likeness, where there is no shadow of it. The two pagan fables had this in common; that, in order to avert the anger of the gods, a virgin was exposed to be devoured by a sea monster, and delivered from death by a hero, who killed the monster and married the princess whom he delivered. This, as given by Cyril, was a form of the fable, long subsequent to Jonah. The original simple form of the story was this , "Apollo and Poseidon, wishing to make trial of the insolence of Laomedon, appearing in the likeness of men, promised for a consideration to fortify Pergamus. When they had fortified it, he did not pay them their hire. Wherefore Apollo sent a pestilence, and Poseidon a sea monster, cast on shore by the flood-tide, who made havoc of the men that were in the plain. The oracle said that they should be freed from these misfortunes, if Laomedon would set his daughter Hesione as food for the monster; he did so set her, binding her to the rocks near to the plain; Hercules, seeing her thus exposed, promised to save her, if he might have from Laomedon the horses, which Zeus had given in compensation for the rape of Ganymede. Laomedon saying that he would give them, he killed the monster and set Hesione free."
This simple story is repeated, with unimportant variations, by Diodorus Siculus , Hyginus, Orid, Valerius Flaccus. Even later, the younger Philostratus, depicting the story, has no other facts. An old icon represents the conflict in a way that is inconsistent with the later form of the story .
The story of Andromeda is told by Apollodorus , in part in the very same words. The Nereids were angered by Cassiope the mother of Andromeda, for boasting herself more beautiful than they. Then follows the same history, Poseidon sending a flood-tide and a sea monster; the same advice of the oracle; the setting Andromeda in chains, as food for the sea monster; Perseus' arrival, bargain with the father, the killing of the sea monster, the deliverance of Andromeda. Fable as all this is, it does not seem to have been meant to be fable. Pliny relates , "M. Scaurus, when AEdile, exhibited at Rome, among other marvels, the bones of the monster to which Andromeda was said to have been exposed, which bones were brought from Joppa, a city of Judaea, being 40 feet long, in height greater than the ribs of the Indian elephant, and the vertebrae a foot and a half thick." He describes Joppa as "seated on a hill, with a projecting rock, in which they show the traces of the chains of Andromeda" , Josephus says the same . Pausanias relates, "the country of the Hebrews near Joppa supplies water blood-red, very near the sea. The natives tell, that Perseus, when he had slain the monster to which the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, washed off the blood there." Mela, following perhaps his Greek authority , speaks in the present , "an illustrious trace of the preservation of Andromeda by Perseus, they show vast bones of a sea monster."
But, whether the authors of these fables meant them for matters of fact, or whether the fables had any symbolic meaning, they have not, in any form which they received until long after the time of Jonah, any connection with the Book of Jonah.
The history of Andromeda has in common with the Book of Jonah, only this, that, whereas Apollodorus and the ancients placed the scene of her history in AEthiopia, writers who lived some centuries after the time of Jonah removed it to Joppa, the seaport from where Jonah took ship. "There are some," says Strabo, speaking of his own day, "who transfer AEthiopia to our Phoenicia, and say that the matters of Andromeda took place at Joppa; and this, not out of ignorance of places, but rather in the form of a myth." The transfer, doubtless, took place in the 800 years which elapsed between Jonah and Strabo, and was occasioned perhaps by the special idolatry of the coast, the worship of Atargatis or Derceto. Pliny, at least, immediately after that statement about the chains of Andromeda at Joppa, subjoins , "The fabulous Ceto is worshiped there." Ceto is doubtless the same as "Derceto," of which Pliny uses the same epithet a little afterward . "There," at Hierapolis, "is worshiped the prodigious Atargatis, which the Greeks call Derceto." The Greeks appear (as their way was), on occasion of this worship of Ceto, to have transferred here their own story of Andromeda and the Cetos.
Ceto, i. e., Derceto, and Dagon were the corresponding male and female deities, under whose names the Philistines worshiped the power which God has implanted in nature to reproduce itself. Both were fish-forms, with human hands and face. Derceto or Atargatis was the Syriac Ter'to, whose worship at Hierapolis or Mabug bad a far-known infamy, the same altogether as that of Rhea or Cybele. The maritime situation of Philistia probably led them to adopt the fish as the symbol of prolific reproduction. In Holy Scripture we find chiefly the worship of the male god Dagon, literally "great fish." He had temples at Gaza, Jdg 16:23. and Ashdod, (Sa1 5:1; 1 Macc. 10:83; 11:4.) where all the lords of the Philistines assembled. Five other places are named from his worship, four near the sea coast, and one close to Joppa itself. Beth-dagon ("temple of Dagon") in the southwest part of Judah Jos 15:41. and so, near Philistia;
2) Another, in Asher also near the sea;
3) Caphar Dagon (village of Dagon) "a very large village between Jamnia and Diospolis." (Eusebius, Onom. sub v.)
4) Belt Dejan (Beth Dagon) about 6 miles N. W. of Ramlah (Robinson, Bibl. R. 2:232; see map) accordingly distinct from Caphar Dagon, and 4 1/2 hours from Joppa;
5) Another Beit Dejan, East of Nablus. (Ib. 282.))
But in later times the name of the goddess became more prominent, and, among the Greeks, exclusive. Atargatis or Detecto had, in the time of the Maccabees, a celebrated temple at Carnion, (2 Macc. 12:26.) i. e., Ashteroth Carnaim in Gilead, and, according to Pliny, at Joppa itself. This furnished an easy occasion to the Greeks to transfer there their story of the Cotes. The Greeks had populated Joppa (1 Macc. 10:75; 14:34), before Simon retook it from Antiochus. In Jonah's time, it was Phoenician. It was not colonized by Greeks until five centuries later. Since then Andromeda is a Greek story which they transferred to Joppa with themselves, the existence of the Greek story, at a later date, can be no evidence for "a Phoenician legend," of which the rationalists have dreamed, nor can it have any connection with Jonah who lived half a millennium before the Greeks came, 800 years before the story is mentioned in connection with Joppa.
With regard to the fables of Hercules, Diodorus Siculus thought that there was a basis of truth in them. The story of Hercules and Hesione, as alluded to by Homer and told by Apollodorus, looks like an account of the sea breaking in upon the land and wasting it; a human sacrifice on the point of being offered, and prevented by the removal of the evil through the building of a sea-wall. Gigantic works were commonly attributed to superior agency, good or evil. In Homer, the mention of the sea-wall is prominent . "He led the way to the lofty wall of mounded earth of the divine Hercules, which the Trojans and Minerva made for him, that, eluding the sea monster, he might escape, when he rushed at him from the beach toward the plain." In any case, a monster, which came up from the sea and wasted the land, is no fish; nor has the story of one who destroyed such a monster, any bearing on that of one whose life God preserved by a fish.
Nor is the likeness really mended by the later version of the story, originating in an Alexandrian after the Book of Jonah had been translated into Greek at Alexandria. The writer of the Cassandra, who lived at least five centuries after Jonah, represents Hercules as "a lion, the offspring of three nights, which aforetime the jagged-toothed dog of Triton lapped up in his jaws; and he, a living carver of his entrails, scorched by the steam of a cauldron on the fireless hearths, shed the bristles of his head upon the ground, the infanticide waster of my country."
In that form the story re-appears in a pagan philosopher and an Alexandrian father but, in both, as borrowed from the Alexandrian poet. Others, who were unacquainted with Lycophron, pagan
And Christian alike, knew nothing of it. One Christian writer, at the end of the 5th century , a Platonic philosopher, gives an account, distinct from any other, pagan or Christian, probably confused from both. In speaking of marvelous deliverances, he says ; "As Hercules too is sung" (i. e., in Greek poetry), "when his ship was broken, to have been swallowed up by a κητὸς kētos, and, having come within, was preserved." In the midst of the 11th century after our Lord, some writers on Greek fable, in order to get rid of the very offensive story of the conception of Hercules, interpreted the word of Lycophron which alludes to it, of his employing, in the destruction of the monster, three periods of 24 hours, called "nights" from the darkness in which he was enveloped. Truly, full often have those words of God been fulfilled, that Ti2 4:4. men shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. People, who refused to believe the history of Jonah, although attested by our Lord, considered AEneas Gazaeus, who lived about 13 centuries after Jonah, to be an authentic witness of an imaginary Phoenician tradition , 13 centuries before his own time; and that, simply on the ground that he has his name from Gaza; whereas he expressly refers, not to Phoenician tradition but to Greek poetry.
Such are the stories, which became a traditional argument among unbelieving critics to justify their disbelief in miracles accredited by our Lord. Flimsy spider-webs, which a critic of the same school brushes away as soon as he has found some other expedient, as flimsy, to serve his purpose! The majestic simplicity of Holy Scripture and its moral greatness stand out the more, in contrast with the unmeaning fables, with which men have dared, amid much self-applause, to compare it. A more earnest, but misled, mind, even while unhappily disbelieving the miracle of Jonah, held the comparison, on ground of "reason, ludicrous; but not the less frivolous and irreverent, as applied to Holy Scripture."
It was assumed by those who first wrote against the Book of Jonah, that the thanksgiving in it was later than Jonah, "a cento from the Psalms." They objected that it did not allude to the history of Jonah. One critic repeated after the other , that the Psalm was a "mere cento" of Psalms. However untrue, nothing was less doubted. A later critic felt that the Psalm must have been the thanksgiving of one delivered from great peril of life in the sea. "The images," he says , "are too definite, they relate too exclusively to such a situation, to admit of being understood vaguely of any great peril to life, as may Psalms 18 and Psa 42:1-11, (Which the writer may have had in his mind) or Psa 124:1-8." Another, to whom attention has been recently drawn, maintained the early date of the thanksgiving, and held that it contained so much of the first part of Jonah's history, that that history might be founded on the thanksgiving. This was one step backward toward the truth.
It is admitted that the thanksgiving is genuine, is Jonah's, and relates to a real deliverance of the real prophet. But the thanksgiving would not suggest the history Jonah thanks God for his deliverance from the depths of the sea, from which no man could be delivered, except by miracle.
He describes himself, not as struggling with the waves, but as sunk beneath them to the bottom of the sea, from where no other ever rose . Jonah does not tell God, how He had delivered him. Who does? He rehearses to God the hopeless peril, out of which He had delivered him. On this the soul dwells, for this is the ground of its thankfulness. The delivered soul loves to describe to God the death out of which it had been delivered. Jonah thanks God for one miracle; he gives no hint of the other, which, when he uttered the thanksgiving, was not yet completed. The thanksgiving bears witness to it miracle; but does not suggest its nature. The history supplies it.
It is instructive that the writer who, disbelieving the miracles in the book of Jonah, "restorers his history" by effacing them, has also to "restore the history "of the Saviour of the world, by omitting His testimony to them. But this is to subject the revelation of God to the variations of the mind of His creatures, believing what they like, disbelieving what they dislike.
Our Lord Himself attested that this miracle on Jonah was an image of His own entombment and Resurrection. He has compared the preaching of Jonah with His own. He compares it as a real history, as He does the coming of the Queen of Sheba to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Modern writers have lost sight of the principle, that men, as individuals, amid their infirmities and sins, are but types of man; in their history alone, their office, their sufferings, can they be images of their Redeemer. God portrayed doctrines of the Gospel in the ritual of the law. Of the offices of Christ and, at times, His history, he gave some faint outline in offices which He instituted, or persons whose history He guided. But they are types only, in that which is of God. Even that which was good in any was no type of His goodness; nay, the more what is human is recorded of them, the less they are types of Him. Abraham who acted much, is a type, not of Christ, but of the faithful.
Isaac, of whom little is recorded, except his sacrifice, becomes the type of Christ. Melchizedek, who comes forth once in that great loneliness, a King of Righteousness and of peace, a priest of God, refreshing the father of the faithful with the sacrificial bread and wine, is a type, the more, of Christ's everlasting priesthood, in that he stands alone, without father, without known descent, without known beginning or end, majestic in his one office, and then disappearing from our sight. Joseph was a type of our Lord, not in his chastity or his personal virtues but in his history; in that he was rejected by his brethren, sold at the price of a slave, yet, with kingly authority, received, supported, pardoned, gladdened, feasted, his brethren who had sold him. Even so the history of Jonah had two aspects. It is, at once, the history of his mission and of his own personal conduct in it.
These are quite distinct. The one is the history of God's doings in him and through him; the other is the account of his own soul, its rebellions, struggles, conviction. As a man, he is himself the penitent; as a prophet, he is the preacher of repentance. In what was human infirmity in him, he was a picture of his people, whose cause he espoused with too narrow a zeal. Zealous too for the honor of God, although not with God's all-enfolding love, willing that that honor should be vindicated in his own way, unwilling to be God's instrument on God's terms, yet silenced and subdued at last, he was the image and lesson to those who complained at Peter's mission to Cornelius, and who, only when they heard how God the Holy Spirit had come down upon Cornelius' household, "held their peace and glorified God, saying, then hath God to the Gentiles also granted repentance unto life. Act 11:18. what coinciding visions to Cornelius and Peter, what evident miracles of power and of grace, were needed after the Resurrection to convince the Jewish converts of that same truth, which God made known to and through Jonah! The conversion of the Gentiles and the saving of a remnant only of the Jews are so bound together in the prophets, that it may be that the repugnance of the Jewish converts was founded on an instinctive dread of the same sort which so moved Jonah. It was a superhuman love, through which S. Paul contemplated "their fall as the riches of the Gentiles" Rom 11:12.
On the other hand, that, in which Jonah was an image of our Lord, was very simple and distinct. It was where Jonah was passive, where nothing of his own was mingled. The storm, the casting over of Jonah, were the works of God's Providence; his preservation through the fish was a miracle of God's power; the conversion of the Ninevites was a manifold miracle of His grace. It might have pleased God to send to convert a pagan people one whom He had not so delivered; or to have subdued the will of the prophet whom He sent on some other mission. But now sign answers to sign, and mission shadows out mission. Jonah was first delivered from his three days' burial in that living tomb by a sort of resurrection, and then, whereas he had previously been a prophet to Israel, he thenceforth became a prophet to the pagan, whom, and not Israel, he converted, and, in their conversion, his, as it were, resurrection was operative.
The correspondence is there. We may lawfully dwell on subordinate details, how man was tempest-tost and buffeted by the angry waves of this perilous and bitter world; Christ, as one of us, gave His life for our lives, the storm at once was hushed, there is a deep calm of inward peace, and our haven was secured. But the great outstanding facts, which our Lord Himself has pointed out, are, that he who had heretofore been the prophet of Israel only, was, after a three days' burial, restored through miracle to life, and then the pagan were converted. Our Lord has set His seal upon the facts. They were to Israel a sacred enigma, a hidden prophecy, waiting for their explanation. They were a warning, how those on whom God then seemed not to have pity, might become the object of His pity, while they themselves were cast out. Now the marvelous correspondence is, even on the surface, a witness to the miracle. Centuries before our Lord came, there was the history of life preserved by miracle in death and out of death; and thereupon the history of pagan converted to God and accepted by Him. Is this, even a doubting mind might ask, accidental coincidence? or are it and the other like resemblances, the tracing of the finger of God, from whom is all harmony, Who blends in one all the gradations of His creation, all the lineaments of history, His natural and His moral world, the shadow of the law with the realities of the Gospel? How should such harmony exist, but for that harmonizing Hand, who "binds and blends in one" the morning and evening of His creation. Next: Jonah Chapter 1
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Introduction to Nahum
The prophecy of Nahum is both the complement and the counterpart of the Book of Jonah. When Moses had asked God to show him His glory, and God had promised to let him see the outskirts of that glory, and to proclaim the Name of the Lord before him, "the Lord," we are told, "passed by before him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty" Exo 34:6-7. God proclaimed at once His mercy and His justice. Those wondrous words echo along the whole patch of the Old Testament. Moses himself Num 14:17-18, David Psa 86:15; Psa 103:8; Psa 145:8, other Psalmists Psa 111:4; Psa 112:4; Psa 116:5, Jeremiah Jer 32:18-19, Daniel Dan 9:4, Nehemiah Neh 9:17 all pled to God or recounted some words in thanksgiving. Joel repeated such words as a motive for repentance Joe 2:13. Upon the repentance of Nineveh, Jonah had recited to God the bright side of His declaration of Himself, "I knew that Thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great goodness" Jon 4:2, repeating to God His words to Moses, and adding a change of heart concerning the harm. Nineveh, as appears from Nahum, had fallen back into the violence of which it had repented. Nahum then, in reference to that declaration of Jonah, begins by setting forth the awful side of the attributes of God. First, in a stately rhythm, which, in the original, reminds us of the gradual Psalms, he enunciates the solemn threefold declaration of the severity of God to those who will be His enemies.
A jealous God and Avenger is the Lord:
An Avenger is the Lord, and lord of wrath;
An Avenger is the Lord to His adversaries:
And a Reserver of wrath to His enemies.
Nah 1:2
Then, Naham too recites that character of mercy recorded by Moses, "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power" Nah 1:3. But anger, although slow, comes, he adds, not the less certainly on the guilty; "and will not at all clear the guilty" Nah 1:3. The iniquity is full. As a whole, there is no more room for repentance. Nineveh had had its prophet, and had been spared, and had sunk back into its old sins. The office of Nahum is to pronounce its sentence. That sentence is fixed. "There is no healing of thy bruise" Nah 3:19. Nothing is said of its ulterior conversion or restoration. On the contrary, Nahum says, "He will make the place thereof an utter desolation" Nah 1:8.
The sins of Nineveh spoken of by Nahum are the same as those from which they had turned at the preaching of Jonah. In Jonah, it is, "the violence of their hands" Jon 3:8. Nahum describes Nineveh as "a dwelling of lions, filled with prey and with ravin, the feeding-place of young lions, where the lion tore enough for his whelps" Nah 2:11-12; "a city of bloods, full of lies and robbery, from which the prey departeth not" Nah 3:1.
But, amid this mass of evil, one thing was eminent, in direct antagonism to God. The character is very special. It is not simply of rebellion against God, or neglect of Him. It is a direct disputation of His Sovereignty. Twice the prophet repeats the characteristic expression, "What will ye devise against the Lord?" "devising evil against the Lord;" and adds, "counselor of evil" Nah 1:11. This was exactly the character of Sennacherib, whose wars, like those of his forefathers, (as appears from the cuneiform inscriptions . There were religious wars, and Sennacherib blasphemously compared God to the local deities of the countries, which his forefathers or himself had destroyed Isa 36:18-20; Isa 37:10-13. Of this enemy Nahum speaks, as having "gone forth;" out of thee (Nineveh) hath gone forth Nah 1:11 one, devising evil against the Lord, a counselor of Belial. This was past.
Their purpose was inchoate, yet incomplete. God challenges them, "What will ye devise so vehemently against the Lord?" Nah 1:9. The destruction too is proximate. The prophet answers for God, "He Himself, by Himself is already making an utter end" Nah 1:9. To Jerusalem he turns, "And now I will break his yoke from off thee, and will break his bonds asunder" Nah 1:13. Twice the prophet mentions the device against God; each time he answers it by the prediction of the sudden utter destruction of the enemy, while in the most perfect security. "While they are intertwined as thorns, and swallowed up as their drink, they are devoured as stubble fully dry" Nah 1:10; and, "If they are perfect" Nah 1:12, unimpaired in their strength, "and thus many, even thus shall they be mown down." Their destruction was to be, their numbers, complete. With no previous loss, secure and at ease, a mighty host, in consequence of their prosperity, all were, at one blow, mown down; "and he (their king, who counseled against the Lord) shall pass away and perish."
"The abundance of the wool in the fleece is no hindrance to the shears," nor of the grass to the sythe, nor of the Assyrian host to the will of the Lord, After he, the chief, had thus passed away, Nahum foretells that remarkable death, in connection with the house of his gods; "Out of the house of thy gods I will cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave" Nah 1:14. There is no natural construction of these words, except, "I will make it thy grave" . Judah too was, by the presence of the Assyrian, hindered from going up to worship at Jerusalem. The prophet bids to proclaim peace to Jerusalem; "keep thy feasts - for the wicked shall no more pass through thee." It was then by the presence of the wicked, that they were now hindered from keeping their feasts, which could be kept only at Jerusalem.
The prophecy of Nahum coincides then with that of Isaiah, when Hezekiah prayed against Sennacherib. In the history Kg2 19:4, Kg2 19:22-28, and in the prophecy of Isaiah, the reproach and blasphemy and rage against God are prominent, as an evil design against God is in Nahum. In Isaiah we have the messengers sent to blaspheme Isa 37:4, Isa 37:23-29; in Nahum, the promise, that "the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard." Isaiah prophesies the fruitlessness of his attempt against Jerusalem Isa 37:33-34; his disgraced return; his violent death in his own land Isa 37:7; Nahum prophesies the entire destruction of his army, his own passing away, his grave. Isaiah, in Jerusalem, foretells how the spontaneous fruits of the earth shall be restored to them Kg2 19:29; Isa 37:30, and so, that they shall have possession of the open corn-country; Nahum, living probably in the country, foretells the free access to Jerusalem, and bids them to (Nah 1:15; Nah 2:1 (Nah 2:2 in Hebrew)) keep their feasts, and perform the vows, which, in their trouble, they had promised to God. He does not only foretell that they may, but he enjoins them to do it.
The words (Nah 2:2 (verse 3 in Hebrew)), "the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vine branches," may relate to the first expedition of Sennacherib, when, Holy Scripture says, he "came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them," and Hezekiah gave him "thirty talents of gold and 300 talents of silver" Kg2 18:13-14; Isa 36:1. Sennacherib himself says , "Hezekiah, king of Judah, who had not submitted to my authority, forty-six of his principal cities, and fortresses and villages depending upon them of which I took no account, I captured, and carried away their spoil. And from these places I captured and carried off as spoil 200, 150 people," etc. This must relate to the first expedition, on account of the exact correspondence of the tribute in gold, with a variation in the number of the talents of silver, easily accounted for .
In the first invasion Sennacherib relates that he besieged Jerusalem. : "Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to fence him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape." It is perhaps in reference to this, that, in the second invasion, God promises by Isaiah; "He shall not come into this city, and shall not shoot an arrow there; and shall not present shield before it, and shall not cast up bank against it" Isa 37:33. Still, in this second invasion also, Holy Scripture relates, that "the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army" Isa 36:2; Kg2 18:17. Perhaps it is in regard to this second expedition, that God says, "Though I have afflicted thee, I will affict thee no more" Nah 1:12; i. e., this second invasion should not desolate her, like that first. Not that God absolutely would not again afflict her, but not now. The yoke of the Assyrian was then broken, until the fresh sins of Manasseh drew down their own punishment.
Nahum then was a prophet for Judah, or for that remnant of Israel, which, after the ten tribes were carried captive, became one with Judah, not in temporal sovereignty, but in the one worship of God. His mention of Basan, Carmel and Lebanon alone, as places lying under the rebuke of God, perhaps implies a special interest in Northern Palestine. Judah may have already become the name for the whole people of God who were left in their own land, since those of the ten tribes who remained had now no separate religious or political existence. The idol-center of their worship was gone into captivity.
The old tradition agrees with this as to the name of the birthplace of Nahum, "the Elkoshite." "Some think," says Jerome , "that Elcesaeus was the father of Nahum, and, according to the Hebrew tradition, was also a prophet; whereas Elcesi is even to this day a little village in Galilee, small indeed, and scarcely indicating by its ruins the traces of ancient buildings, yet known to the Jews, and pointed out to me too by my guide." The name is a genuine Hebrew name, the "El," with which it begins, being the name of God, which appears in the names of other towns also as El'ale, Eltolad, Elteke Eltolem. The author of the short-lived Gnostic heresy of the Elcesaites, called Elkesai, elkasai, elxai, elxaios, Elkasaios , probably had his name from that same village. Eusebius mentions Elkese, as the place "whence was Nahum the Elkesaean." Cyril of Alexandria says, that Elkese was a village somewhere in Judaea.
On the other hand "Alcush," a town in Mosul, is probably a name of Arabic origin, and is not connected with Nahum by any extant or known writer, earlier than Masius toward the end of the 16th century , and an Arabic scribe in 1713 . Neither of these mention the tomb. "The tomb," says Layard , "is a simple plaster box, covered with green cloth, and standing at the upper end of a large chamber. The house containing the tomb is a modern building. There are no inscriptions, nor fragments of any antiquity near the place." The place is now reverenced by the Jews, but in the 12th century Benjamin of Tudela supposed his tomb to be at Ain Japhata, South of Babylon. Were anything needed to invalidate statements more than 2000 years after the time of Nahum, it might suffice that the Jews, who are the authors of this story, maintain that not Jonah only but Obadiah and Jephthah the Gileadite are also buried at Mosul .
Nor were the ten tribes placed there, but "in the cities of the Medes" Kg2 17:6. The name Capernaum, "the village of Nahum," is probably an indication of his residence in Galilee. There is nothing in his language unique to the Northern tribes. One very poetic word Nah 3:2; Jdg 5:22, common to him with the song of Deborah, is not therefore a "provincialism," because it only happens to occur in the rich, varied, language of two prophets of North Palestine. Nor does the occurrence of a foreign title interfere with "purity of diction" . It rather belongs to the vividness of his description.
The conquest of No-Ammon or Thebes and the captivity of its inhabitants, of which Nahum speaks, must have been by Assyria itself. Certainly it was not from domestic disturbances ; for Nahum says, that the people were carried away captive Nah 3:10. Nor was it from the Ethiopians ; for Nahum speaks of them, as her allies Nah 3:9. Nor from the Carthaginians ; for the account of Ammianus , that "when first Carthage was beginning to expand itself far and wide, the Punic generals, by an unexpected inroad, subdued the hundred-gated Thebes," is merely a mistaken gloss on a statement of Diodorus, that "Hanno took Hekatompylos by siege;" a city, according to Diodorus himself , "in the desert of Libya." Nor was it from the Scythians ; for Herodotus, who alone speaks of their maraudings and who manifestly exaggerates them, expressly says, that Psammetichus induced the Scythians by presents not to enter Egypt ; and a wandering predatory horde does not besiege or take strongly-fortified towns.
There remain then only the Assyrians. Four successive Assyrian Monarchs Sargon, his son, grandson and great grandson, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Asshur-bani-pal, from 718 b.c. to about 657 b.c., conquered in Egypt . The hostility was first provoked by the encouragement given by Sabacho the Ethiopian (Sab'e in the cuneiform inscriptions, S b k, in Egyptian), the So of Holy Scripture , to Hoshea to rebel against Shalmaneser Kg2 17:4. Sargon, who, according to his own statement, was the king who actually took Samaria , led three expeditions of his own against Egypt. In the first, Sargon defeated the Egyptian king in the battle of Raphia ; in the second, in his seventh year, he boasts that Pharaoh became his tributary ; in a third, which is placed three years later, Ethiopia submitted to him .
A seal of Sabaco has been found at Koyunjik, which, as has been conjectured , was probably annexed to a treaty. The capture of Ashdod by the Tartan of Sargon, recorded by Isaiah Isa 20:1, was probably in the second expedition, when Sargon deposed its king Azuri, substituting his brother Akhimit : the rebellion of Ashdod probably occasioned the third expedition, in which as it seems, Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled, that Egyptians and Ethiopians, young and old, should be carried captive by the king of Assyria. The king of Ashdod, Yaman, is related to have fled to Egypt, which was subject to Merukha or Meroe; and to have been delivered up by the king of Meroe who himself fled to some unnamed desert afar, a march of (it is conjectured) months . The king of Meroe, first, from times the most distant, became tributary. : "His forefathers had not" in all that period "sent to the kings my ancestors to ask for peace and to acknowledge the power of Merodach." The fact, that his magnificent palace, "one of the few remains of external decoration," Layard says , "with which we are acquainted in Assyrian architecture," "seems" according to Mr. Fergusson, , "at first sight almost purely Egyptian," implies some lengthened residence in Egypt or some capture of Egyptian artists.
Of Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, Josephus writes , "Berosus, the historian of the Chaldee affairs, mentions the king Sennacherib, and that he reigned over the Assyrians, and that he warred against all Asia and Egypt, saying as follows." The passage of Berosus itself is missing, witether Josephus neglected to fill it in, or whether it has been subsequently lost; but neither Chaldee nor Egyptian writers record expeditions which were reverses; and although Beresus was a Babylonian, not an Assyrian, yet the document, which he used, must have been Assyrian. In the second expedition of Sennacherib, Rabshakeh, in his message to Hezekiah, says, "Behold thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, upon Egypt" Kg2 18:21. The expression is remarkable. He does not speak of Egypt, as a power, weak, frail, failing, but, passively, as crushed by another. It is the same word and image which he uses in his prophecy of our Lord, "a bruised reed (רצץ קנה qâneh râtsats) shall He not break," i. e., He shall not break that which is already bruised. The word implies, then, that the king of Egypt had already received some decided blow before the second expedition of Sennacherib. The annals of Sennacherib's reign, still preserved in his inscriptions, break off in the eighth of his twenty-two years , and do not extend to the time of this second expedition against Hezekiah . Nor does Holy Scripture say, in what year this second expedition took place. In this he defeated "the kings of Egypt and the king of Meroe at Altakou (Elteke) and Tamna (Timnatha)."
Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon appears for the time to have subdued Egypt and Ethiopia, and to have held them as kingdoms dependent on himself. "He acquired Egypt and the inner parts of Asia," is the brief statement of Abydenus (i. e., of Berosus): "He established" (his son relates) "twenty kings, satraps, governors in Egypt" , among which can be recognized Necho, (the father of Psammetichus) king of Memphis and Sais; a king of Tanis, or Zoan (now San); Natho (or, according to another copy, Sept), Hanes, Sebennytus, Mendes, Bubastis, Siyout or Lycopolis, Chemmis, Tinis, and No. These were all subordinate kings, for so he entitles each separately in the list, although he sums up the whole , "These are the names of the Kings, Pechahs, Satraps who in Egypt obeyed my father who begat me." Tearcho or Taracho himself, "king of Egypt and Ethiopia" , was in like way subject to Esarhaddon. The account of the revolt, which his son Asshur-bani-pal quelled, implies also a fixed settlement in Egypt. The 20 kings were involved in the rebellion through fear of Taracho, but there is notice of other servants of Esarhaddon who remained faithful and were maltreated by Taraoho .
Asshur-bani-pal says also, that he strengthened his former garrisons . One expedition of Esarhaddon (probably toward the close of his reign, since he does not mention it in his own annals which extend over eight years) is related by his son Asshur-bani-pal . "He defeated Tirhakah in the lower country, after which, proceeding Southward, he took the city, where the Ethiopian held his court," and assumed the title , "king of the kings of Egypt and conqueror of Ethiopia." On another inscription in a palace built for his son, at Tarbisi, now Sherif-khan, he entitles himself "king of the kings of Egypt, Pathros, Ethiopia." We do not, however, find the addition, which appears to recur upon every conquest of a people not before conquered by Assyria, "which the kings, my fathers, had not subdued." This addition is so regular, that the absence of it, in itself, involves a strong probability of a previous conquest of the country.
The subdual apparently was complete. They revolted at the close of the reign of Esarhaddon (as his son Asshur-bani-pal relates) from fear of Taracho rather than from any wish of their own to regain independence. Asshur-bani-pal accordingly, after the defeat of Taracho, forgave and restored them . Even the second treacherous revolt was out of fear, lest Taracho shall return , upon the withdrawal of the Assyrian armies. This second revolt and perhaps a subsequent revolt of Urdamanie a stepson of Taracho, who succeeded him, Asshur-bani-pal seems to have subdued by his lieutenants , without any necessity of marching in person against them. Thebes was taken and retaken; but does not appear to have offered any resistance. Taracho, upon his defeat at Memphis, fled to it, and again abandoned it as he had Memphis, and the army of Asshur-bani-pal made a massacre in it . Once more it was taken, when it had been recovered by Urdamanie , and then, if the inscriptions are rightly deciphered, strange as it is, the carrying off of men and women from it is mentioned in the midst of that of "great horses and apes." "Silver, gold, metals, stones, treasures of his palace, dyed garments, berom and linen, great horses, men, male and female, immense apes - they drew from the midst of the city, and brought as spoils to Nineveh the city of my dominion, and kissed my feet."
All of those kings having been conquerors of Egypt, the captivity of No might equally hav, e taken place under any of them. All of them employed the policy, which Sargon apparently began, of transporting to a distance those whom they had conquered . Yet it is, in itself, more probable, that it was at the earlier than at the later date. It is most in harmony with the relation of Nahum to Isaiah that, in regard to the conquest of Thebes also, Nahum refers to the victory over Egypt and Ethiopia foretold by Isaiah, when Sargon's general, the Tartan, was besieging Ashdod. The object of Isaiah's prophecy was to undeceive Judah in regard to its reliance on Egypt and Ethiopia against Assyria, which was their continual bane, morally, religiously, nationally. But the prophecy goes beyond any mere defeat in battle, or capture of prisoners. It relates to conquest within Egypt itself. For Isaiah says, "the king of Assyria shall lead into captivity Egyptians and Ethiopians, young and old" Isa 20:4. They are not their choice young men, the flower of their army, but those of advanced age and those in their first youth, such as are taken captive, only when a population itself is taken captive, either in a marauding expedition, or in the capture of a city. The account of the captivity of No exactly corresponds with this. Nahum says nothing of its permanent subdual, only of the captivity of its inhabitants. But Esarhaddon apparently did not carry the Egyptians captive at all . Every fact given in the Inscriptions looks like a permanent settlement. The establishment of the 20 subordinate kings, in the whole length and breadth of Egypt, implies the continuance of the previous state of things, with the exception of that subordination. No itself appears as one of the cities settled apparently under its native though tributary king .
In regard to the fulfillment of prophecy, they who assume as an axiom, or petitio principii, that there can be no prophecy of distant events, have overlooked, that while they think that, by assuming the later date, they bring Nahum's prophecy of the capture of Nineveh nearer to its accomplishment, they remove in the same degree Isaiah's prophecy of the captivity of Egyptians and Ethiopians, young and old, from its accomplishment. "Young and old" are not the prisoners of a field of battle; young and old of the Ethiopians would not be in a city of lower Egypt. If Isaiah's prophecy was not fulfilled under Sargon or Sennacherib, it must probably have waited for its fulfillment until this last subdual by Asshurbanipal. For the policy of Esarhaddon and also of Asshurbanipal, until repeated rebellions wore his patience, was of settlement, not of deportation. If too the prophecy of Nahum were brought down to the reign of Asshurbanipal, it would be the more stupendous.
For the empire was more consolidated. Nahum tells the conqueror, flushed with his own successes and those of his father, that he had himself no more inherent power than the city whose people he had carried captive. Thebes too, like Nineveh, dwelt securely, conquering all, unreached by any ill, sea-girt, as it were, by the mighty river on which she rested. She too was strengthened with countless hosts of her own and of allied people. Yet she fell. Nineveh, the prophet tells her, was no mightier, in herself. Her river was no stronger defense than that sea of fresh water, the Nile; her tributaries would disperse or become her enemies. The prophet holds up to her the vicissitudes of No-amon, as a mirror to herself. As each death is a renewed witness to man's mortality, so each marvelous reverse of temporal greatness is a witness to the precariousness of other human might. No then was an ensample to Nineveh, although its capture was by the armies of Nineveh. They had been, for centuries, two rivals for power. But the contrast bad far more force, when the victory over Egypt was fresh, than after 61 years of alternate conquest and rebellion.
But, anyhow, the state of Nineveh and its empire, as pictured by Nahum, is inconsistent with any times of supposed weakness in the reign of its last king: the state of Judah, with reference to Assyria, corresponds with that under Sennacherib but with none below. They are these. Assyria was in its full unimpaired strength Nah 1:12; Nah 2:12. She still blended those two characters so rarely combined, but actually united in her and subsequently in Babylon, of a great merchant and military people. She had, at once, the prosperity of peace and of war. Lying on a great line of ancient traffic, which bound together East and West, India with Phoenicia, and with Europe through Phoenicia, both East and West poured their treasures into the great capital, which lay as a center between them, and stretched out its arms, alike to the Indian sea and the Mediterranean. Nahum can compare its merchants only to that which is countless by man, the locusts or the stars of heaven Nah 3:16.
But amid this prosperity of peace, war also was enriching her. Nineveh was still sending out its messengers (such as was Rabshakeh), the leviers of its tribute, the demanders of submission. It was still one vast lion-lair, its lions still gathering in prey from the whole earth Nah 2:12-13, still desolating, continually, unceasingly, in all directions Nah 3:19, and now, especially, devising evil against God and His people Nah 1:9, Nah 1:11. Upon that people its yoke already pressed, for God promises to break it off from them Nah 1:13; the people was already afflicted, for God says to it, "Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more" Nah 1:12, namely, by this invader. The solemn feasts of Judah were hindered through the presence of ungodly invaders; Belial, the counselor of evil spoken of under that name, already passing through her. War was around her, for he promises that one should publish peace upon her mountains Nah 1:15. This was the foreground of the picture. This was the exact condition of things at Hezekiah's second invasion, just before the miraculous destruction of his army. Sennacherib's yoke was heavy, for he had exacted from Hezekiah "three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold" Kg2 18:14; Hezekiah had not "two thousand horsemen" Kg2 18:23; the "great host" Kg2 18:17 of the Assyrians encircled Jerusalem. They summoned it to surrender on the terms, that they should pay a new tribute, and that Sennacherib, whenever it pleased him, should remove them to Assyria Kg2 18:31-32.
At no subsequent period were there any events corresponding to this description. Manasseh was carried captive to Babylon by Esarhaddon; but probably this was no formidable or resisted invasion, since the book of Kings passes it over altogether, the Chronicles mention only that the Assyrian generals took Manasseh prisoner in a thicket (Ch2 33:11, accordingly not in Jerusalem, and carried him to Babylon. Probably, this took place, in the expedition of Esarhaddon to the West, when he settled in the cities of Samaria people of different nations, his captives Ezr 4:2, Ezr 4:9-10. The capture of Manasseh was then, probably, a mere incident in the history. Since he was taken among the thickets, he had probably fled, as Zedekiah did afterward, and was taken in his place of concealment. This was simply personal. No taking of towns is mentioned, no siege, no terror, no exaction of tribute, no carrying away into captivity, except of the single Manasseh. The grounds of his restoration are not mentioned.
The Chronicles mention only the religious aspect of his captivity and his restoration, his sin and his repentance. But it seems probable that he was restored by Esarhaddon, upon the same system of policy, on which he planted subjects of his own in Samaria and the country around Zidon, built a new town to take the place of Zidon, and joined in the throne of Edom one, brought up in his own palace. For, when restored, Manasseh was set at full liberty to fortify Jerusalem Ch2 33:14, as Hezekiah had done, and to put "captains of war in all the cities of Judah" Ch2 33:14. This looks as if he was sent back as a trusted tributary of Esarhaddon, and as a frontier-power against Egypt. At least, 60 years afterward, we find Josiah, in the like relation of trust to Nebuchadnezzar, resisting the passage of Pharaoh-Necho. However, the human cause of his restoration must remain uncertain. Yet clearly, in their whole history, there is nothing to correspond to the state of Judaea, as described by Nahum.
A recent critic writes , "Nahum's prophecy must have been occasioned by an expedition of mighty enemies against Nineveh. The whole prophecy is grounded on the certain danger, to which Nineveh was given over; only the way in which this visible danger is conceived of, in connection with the eternal truths, is here the properly prophetic." Ewald does not explain how the danger, to which "Nineveh was given over" was certain, when it did not happen. The explanation must come to this. Nahum described a siege of Nineveh and its issue, as certain. The description in itself might be either of an actual siege, before the prophet's eyes, or of one beheld in the prophet's mind. But obviously no mere man, endowed with mere human knowledge, would have ventured to predict so certainly the fall of such a city as Nineveh, unless it was "given over to certain danger." But according to the axiom received in Ewald's school, Nahum, equally with all other men, could have had only human prescience.
Therefore, Nahum, prophesying the issue so confidently, must have prophesied when Nineveh was so "given over." The a priori axiom of the school rules its criticism. Meanwhile the admission is incidentally made, that a prophecy so certain, had it related to distant events, was what no man, with mere human knowledge, would venture upon. Ewald accordingly thinks that the prophecy was occasioned by a siege of Phraortes; which siege Nahum expected to be successful; which however failed, so that Nahum was mistaken, although the overthrow which he foretold came to pass afterward! The siege, however, of Nineveh by Phraortes is a mere romance. Herodotus, who alone attributes to Phraortes a war with Assyria, has no hint, that he even approached to Nineveh. He simply relates that Phraortes "subdued Asia, going from one nation to another, until, leading an army against the Assyrians, he perished himself, in the second year of his reign, and the greater part of his army."
It is not necessary to consider the non-natural expositions, by which the simple descriptions of Nahum were distorted into conformity with this theory, which has no one fact to support it. Herodotus even dwells on the good condition of the Assyrian affairs, although isolated from their revolted allies, and seemingly represents the victory as an easy one. And, according to Herodotus, whose account is the only one we have, Phraortes (even if he ever fought with the Ninevites, and Herodotus' account is not merely the recasting of the history of another Median Frawartish who, according to the Behistun Inscription, claimed the throne of Media against Darius, and perished in battle with him ) had only an unorganized army. Herodotus says of Cyaxares, his son , "He is said to have been more warlike far than his forefathers, and he first distributed Asiatics into distinct bands, and separated the spearmen and archers and horsemen from one another, whereas, before, everything had alike mixed into one confused mass." Such an undisciplined horde could have been no formidable enemy for a nation, whom the monuments and their history exhibit as so warlike and so skilled in war as the Assyrians.
Another critic, , then, seeing the untenableness of this theory, ventures (as he never hesitated at any paradox) to place the prophet Nahum, as an eye-witness of the first siege of Cyaxares.
Herodotus states that Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes, twice besieged Nineveh. First, immediately after his father's death, to avenge it ; the second, after the end of the Scythian troubles, when he took it . The capture of Nineveh was in the first year of Nabopolassor 625 b.c. The accession of Cyaxares, according to Herodotus, was 633 b.c. Eight years then only elapsed between his first siege and its capture, and, if it be true, that the siege lasted two years, there was an interval of six years only. But, at this time, the destruction of Nineveh was no longer a subject of joy to Judah. Since the captivity of Manasseh, Judah had had nothing to fear from Assyria; nor do we know of any oppression from it. Holy Scripture mentions none. The Assyrian monuments speak of expeditions against Egypt; but there was no temptation to harass Judah, which stood in the relation of a faithful tributary and an outwork against Egypt, and which, when Nineveh fell, remained in the same relation to its conquerors, into whose suzerainty it passed, together with the other dependencies of Assyria. The relation of Josiah to Babylon was the continuation of that of Manasseh to Esarhaddon.
The motive of this theory is explained by the words, "With a confidence, which leaves room for no doubt, Nahum expects a siege and an ultimate destruction of Nineveh. The security of his tone, nay that he ventures at all to trope so enormous a revolution of the existing state of things, must find its explanation in the circumstances of the time, out of the then condition of the world; but not until Cyaxares reigned in Media, did things assume an aspect, corresponding to this confidence." It is well that this writer doffs the courteous language, as to the "hopes," "expectations," "inferences from God's justice," and brings the question to the issue, "there is such absolute certainty of tone," that Nahum must have had either a divine or a human knowledge. He acknowledges the untenableness of any theory width would account for the prophecy of Nahum on any human knowledge, before Cyaxares was marching against the gates of Nineveh. Would human knowledge have sufficed then? Certainly, from such accounts as we have, Nineveh might still have stood against Cyaxares and its own rebel and traitorous general, but for an unforeseen event which man could not bring about, the swelling of its river.
But, as usual, unbelief fixes itself upon that which is minutest, ignores what is greatest. There are, in Nahum, three remarkable predictions.
(1) The sudden destruction of Sennacherib's army and his own remarkable death in the house of his god.
(2) The certain, inevitable, capture of Nineveh, and that, not by capitulation or famine, not even by the siege or assault, which is painted so vividly, but the river, which was its protection, becoming the cause of its destruction.
(3) Its utter desolation, when captured. The first, people assume to have been the description of events past; the second, the siege, they assume to have been present; and that, when truman wisdom could foresee its issue; the third, they generalize. The first is beyond the reach of proof now. It was a witness of the Providence and just judgment of God, to those days, not to our's. A brief survey of the history of the Assyrian Empire will show, that the second and third predictions were beyond human knowledge.
The Assyrian Empire dated probably from the ninth century before Christ. Such, it has been pointed out, is the concurrent result of the statements of Berosus and Herodotus. Moses, according to the simplest meaning of his words, spake of the foundation of Nineveh as contemporary with that of Babylon. "The beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod," he relates, "was Babel and Erech, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh" Gen 10:10-11. Oppressed probably and driven forth by Nimrod, Asshur and his Semitic descendants went forth from the plain of Shinar, the Babylonia of after-ages. Had Moses intended to express (what some have thought), that Nimrod "went forth out of that land to Assyria," he would doubtless have used the ordinary style of connected narrative; "And he went forth thence." He would probably also have avoided ambiguity, by expressing that Nimrod "went forth to Asshur" Gen 25:18 using a form, which he employs a little later. As it is, Moses has used a mode of speech, by which, in Hebrew, a parenthetical statement would be made, and he has not used the form, which occurs in every line of Hebrew narrative to express a continued history. No one indeed would have doubted that such was the meaning, but that they did not see, how the mention of Asshur, a son of Shem, came to be anticipated in this account of the children of Ham. This is no ground for abandoning the simple construction of the Hebrew. It is but the history, so often repeated in the changes of the world, that the kingdom of Nimrod was founded on the expulsion of the former inhabitants. Nimrod began his kingdom; "Asshur went forth."
It is most probable, from this same brief notice, that Nineveh was, from the first, that aggregate of cities, which it afterward was. Moses says, "And he builded Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calach and Resen, between Nineveh and Calach; this is that great city" Gen 10:11-12. This cannot be understood as said exclusively of Nineveh; since Nineveh was mentioned first in the list, of cities, and the mention of the three others had intervened; and, in the second place where it is named, it is only spoken of indirectly and subordinately; it is hardly likely to be said of Resen, of whose unusual size nothing is elsewhere related. It seems more probable, that it is said of the aggregate of cities, that they formed together one great city, the very characteristic of Nineveh, as spoken of in Jonah.
Nineveh itself lay on the Eastern side of the Tigris, opposite to the present Mosul. In later times, among the Syrian writers, As shur becomes the name for the country, distinct from Mesopotamia and Babylonia , front which it was separated by the Tigris, and bounded on the North by Mount Niphates.
This distinction, however, does not occur until after the extinction of the Assyrian empire. On the contrary, in Genesis, Asshur, in one place, is spoken of as West of the Hiddekel or Tigris, so that it must at that time have comprised Mesopotamia, if not all on this side of the Tigris, i. e., Babylonia. In another place, it is the great border-state of Arabia on the one side, as was Egypt on the other. The sons of Ishmael, Moses relates, Gen 25:18, dwell from Havilah unto Shur that is before Egypt, as thou goest to Assyria; i. e., they dwelt on the great caraven-route across the Arabian desert from Egypt to Babylonia. Yet Moses mentions, not Babylon, but Asshur. In Balaam's prophecy Num 24:22, Asshur stands for the great Empire, whose seat was at one time at Nineveh, at another at Babylon, which should, centuries afterward, carry Israel captive.
Without entering into the intricacies of Assyrian or Babylonian history further than is necessary for the immediate object, it seems probable, that the one or other of the sovereigns of these nations had an ascendency over the others, according to his personal character and military energy. Thus, in the time of Abraham, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, in his expedition against the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, took with him, as subordinate allies, the kings of Shinar, (or Babylon) and Ellasar, as well as Tidal king of nations, a king probably of Nomadic tribes. The expedition was to avenge the rebellion of the petty kings in the valley of Siddim against Chedorlaomer, after they had been for twelve years tributary. But, although the expedition closed with the attack on the live kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar, its extent on the East side of the Jordan from Ashteroth Karnaim in Basan to Elparan (perhaps Elath on the Red Sea), and the defeat of the giant tribes, the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horites, the Amalekites and the Amorites in their several abodes, seems to imply one of those larger combinations against the aggressions of the East, which we meet with in later times .
It was no insulated conflict which spread over nearly three degrees of latitude. But it was the king of Elam, not the king of Babylon or of Asshur, who led this expedition; and those other kings, according to the analogy of the expeditions of Eastern monarchs, were probably dependent on him. It has been observed that the inscriptions of a monarch whose name partly coincides with that of Chedorlaomer, namely, Kudurmabuk, or Kudurmapula, show traces of a Persian influence on the Chaldee characters; but cuneiform decipherers having desponded of identifying those monarchs , Chedorlaomer appears as yet only so far cOnnected with Babylon, that its king was a tributary sovereign to him or a vice-king like those of later times, of whom Sennacherib boasts, "Are not my princes altogether kings?"
Assyria, at this time, is not mentioned, and so, since we know of its existence at an earlier period, it probably was independent. Lying far to the North of any of the nations here mentioned, it, from whatever cause or however it may have been engaged, took no share in the war. Subsequently also, down to a date almost contemporary with the Exodus, it has been observed that the name of Asshur does not appear on the Babylonian inscriptions, nor does it swell the titles of the king of Babylon . A little later than the Exodus, however, in the beginning of the 14th century b.c., Asshur and Egypt were already disputing the country which lay between them. The account is Egyptian, and so, of course, only relates the successes of Egypt. Thothmes III, in his fortieth year, according to Mr. Birch, received tribute from a king of Nineveh . In another monument of the same monarch, where the line, following on the name Nineveh, is lost, Thothmes says that he "erected his tablet in Naharaina (Mesopotamia) for the extension of the frontiers of Kami" (Egypt). Amenophis III, in the same century, represented Asiatic captives , with the names of Patens (Padan-Aram), Asuria, Karukamishi (Carchemish"). "On another column are Saenkar (Shiner), Naharaina, and the Khita (Hittites)." The mention of these contiguous nations strengthens the impression that the details of the interpretation are accurate. All these inscriptions imply that Assyria was independent of Babylon. In one, it is a co ordinate power; in the two others, it is a state which had measured its strength with Egypt, under one of its greatest conquerors, though, according to the Egyptian account, it had been worsted.
Another account, which has been thought to be the first instance of the extension of Babylonian authority so far northward, seems to me rather to imply the ancient self-government of Assyria. : "A record of Tiglath-pileser I. declares him to have rebuilt a temple in the city of Asshur, which had been taken down 60 years previously, after it had lasted for 641 years frp, the date of its first foundation by Shamas-Iva, son of Ismi-Dagon." Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that it is probable (although only probable) , that this Ismi-Dagon is a king, whose name occurs in the brick-legends of Lower Babylonia. Yet the Ismi-Dagon of the bricks does not bear the title of king of Babylon, but of king of Niffer only ; "his son," it is noticed, "does not take the title of king; but of governor of Hur ."
The name Shamas-Iva nowhere occurs in connection with Babylonia, but it docks recur, at a later period, as the name of an Assyrian Monarch . Since the names of the Eastern kings so often continue on in the same kingdom the recurrence of that name, at a later period, makes it even probable, that Shamas-Iva was a native king. There is absolutely nothing to connect his father Ismi-Dagon with the Ismi-Dagon king of Niffer, beyond the name itself, which, being Semitic, may just as well have belonged to a native king of Nineveh as to a king of Lower Babylonia. Nay, there is nothing to show that Ismi-Dagon was not an Assyrian Monarch who reigned at Niffer, for the name of his father is still unknown; there is no evidence that his father was ever a king, or, if a king, where he reigned. It seems to me in the last degree precarious to assume, without further evidence, the identity of the two kings. It has, further, yet to be shown that Lower Babylonia had, at that time, an empire, as distinct from its own local sovereignty. We know from Holy Scripture of Nimrod's kingdom in Shinar, a province distinct from Elymais, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and probably Chaldaea. In Abraham's time, 1900 b.c., we find again a king of Shinar. Shinar again, it is supposed, appears in Egyptian inscriptions, in the 14th century, b.c. ; and, if so, still distinct from Mesopotamia and Assyria. But all this implies a distinct kingdom, not an empire.
Again, were it ever so true, that Shamas-Iva was a son of a king in Lower Babylonia, that be built a temple in Kileh-Shergat, as being its king, and that he was king, as placed there by Ismi-Dagon, this would be no proof of the continual dependence of Assyria upon Babylonia. England did not continue a dependency of France, because conquered by William of Normandy. How was Alexander's empire broken at once! Spain under Charles the V was under one sovereignty with Austria; Spain with France had, even of late, alike Bourbon kings. A name would, at most, show an accidental, not a permanent, connection.
But there is, at present, no evidence implying a continued dependence of Assyria upon Babylon. Two facts only have been alleged;
1) that the cuneiform writing of inscriptions at Kileh-Shergat, 40 miles South of Nineveh, has a Babylonian character;
2) that, on those bricks, four names have been found of inferior Satraps.
But 1) the Babylonian character of the inscriptions would show a dependence of civilization, not of empire. Arts flourished early at Babylon, and so the graven character of the Inscriptions too may have been curried to the rougher and warlike North. The garment, worked at Babylon, was, in the 15th century b.c., exported as far as Palestine, and was, for its beauty, the object of Achan's covetousness Jos 7:21.
2) In regard to the satraps whose names are found on the bricks of Kileh-Shergat, it does not appear, that they were tributary to Babylon at all; they may, as far as it appears, have been simply inferior officers of the Assyrian empire. Anyhow, the utmost which such a relation to Babylon would evince, if ever so well established, would be a temporary dependence of Kileh-Shergat itself, not of Nineveh or the Assyrian kingdom. Further, the evidence of the duration of the dependency would, be as limited at its extent. Four satraps would be no evidence as to this period of 700 years, only a century less than has elapsed since the Norman conquest. The early existence of an Assyrian kingdom has been confirmed by recent cuneiform discoveries, which give the names of 8 Assyrian kings, the earliest of whom is supposed to have reigned about 3 12 centuries before the Commencement of the Assyrian Empire .
The "empire," Herodotus says , "Assyria held in Upper Asia for 520 years;" Berosus , "for 526 years." The Cuneiform Inscriptions give much the same result. Tiglath-pileser , who gives five years' annals of his own victories, mentions his grandfather's grandfather, the 4th king before him, as the king who "first organized the country of Assyria," who "established the troops of Assyria in authority." The expression, "established in authority," if it may be pressed, relates to foreign conquest. If this Tiglath-pileser be the same whom Sennacherib, in the 10th year of his own reign, mentions as having lost his gods to Merodach-ad-akhi, king of Mesopotamia, 418 years before , then, since Sennacherib ascended the throne about 703 b.c. , we should have 1112 b.c. for the latter part of the reign of Tiglath-pileser I, and counting tills and the six preceding reigns at 20 years each , should have about 1252 b.c. for the beginning of the Assyrian empire. It has been calculated that if the 526 years, assigned by Berosus to his 45 Assyrian kings, are (as Polyhistor states Berosus to have meant) to be dated back from the accession of Pul who took tribute from Menahem, and so from between 770 b.c. and 760 b.c., they carry back the beginning of the dynasty to about 1290 b.c. If they be counted, (as is perhaps more probable) from the end of the reign of Pul Kg2 15:19, i. e., probably 747 b.c., "the era of Nabonassar," the Empire would commence about 1273 b.c. Herodotus, it has been shown , had much the same date in his mind, when he assigned 520 years to the Assyrian empire in upper Asia, dating back from the revolt of the Medes. For he supposed this revolt to be 179 years anterior to the death of Cyrus 529 b.c. (and so, 708 b.c.) plus a period of anarchy before the accession of Deioces. Allowing 30 years for this period of anarchy, we have 738 b.c. plus 520, i. e., 1258 b.c., for the date of the commencement of Assyrian empire according to Herodotus. Thus, the three testimonies would coincide in placing the beginning of that Empire anyhow between 1258 and 1273 b.c.
But this Empire started up full-grown. It was the concentration of energy and power, which had before existed. Herodotus' expression is "rulers of Upper Asia." Tiglath-pileser attributes to his forefather, that he "organized the country," and "established the armies of Assyria in authority." The second king of that list takes the title of "ruler over the people of Bel" , i. e., Babylonia. The 4th boasts to have reduced "all the lands of the Magian world." Tiglath-pileser I claims to have conquered large parts of Cappadocia, Syria from Tsukha to Carchemish, Media and Muzr. According to the inscription at Bavian , he sustained a reverse, and lost his gods to a king of Mesopotamia, which gods were recovered by Sennacherib from Babylon. Yet this exception the more proves that conquest was the rule. For, had there been subsequent successful invasions of Assyria by Babylonia, the spoils of the 5th century backward would not have been alone recovered or recorded. If the deciphering of the Inscriptions is to be trusted, Nineveh was the capital, even in the days el Tiglath-pileser I. For Sennacherib brought the gods back, it is said, and put them in their places, i. e., probably where he himself reigned, at Nineveh. Thence then they were taken in the reign of Tiglath-pileser. Nineveh then was his capital also.
Of an earlier portion we have as yet but incidental notices; yet the might of Assyria is attested by the presence of Assyrian names in the Egyptian dynastic lists, whether the dynasties were themselves Assyrian, or whether the names came in through matrimonial alliances between two great nations .
With few exceptions, as far as appears from their own annals (and these are in the later times confirmed by Holy Scripture), the Assyrian Empire was, almost whenever we hear of it, one long series of victory and rapine. It is an exception, if any monarch is peaceful, and content to "repair the buildings" in his residence, "leaving no evidence of conquest or greatness." Tiglathi-Nin, father of the warlike Asshur-i-danipal or Sardanapalus, is mentioned only in his son's monument , "among his warlike ancestors, who had carried their arms into the Armenian mountains, and there set up stelae to commemorate their conquests."
Civil wars there were, and revolutions. Conquerors and dynasties came to an untimely end; there was parricide, fratricide; but the tide of war and conquest rolled on. The restless warriors gave no rest. Sardanapalus terms himself , "the conqueror from the upper passage of the Tigris to Lebanon and the great sea, who all countries, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, has reduced under his authority." His son, Shalmanubar or Shalmaneser, in his thirty-five years of reign led, in person twenty-three military expeditions. 20,000, 16,000, are the numbers of his enemies left dead upon a field of battle with Benhadad and Hazael . Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, Media, Babylonia, Syria, Phoenicia , 15 degrees of longitude and 10 of latitude, save where the desert or the sea gave him nothing to conquer, were the range of his repeated expeditions.
He circled round Judaea. He thrice defeated Benhadad with his allies (on several occasions, twelve kings of the Hittites). His own army exceeded on occasions 100,000 fighting men. Twice he defeated Hazael. Israel trader Jehu, Tyre, Sidon, 24 kings in Pontus, kings of the Hittites, of Chaldaea, 27 kings of Persia are among his tributaries ; "the shooting of his arrows struck terror," he says, "as far as the sea" (Indian Ocean); "he put up his arrows in their quiver at the sea of the setting sun." His son Shamesiva apparently subdued Babylonia, and in the West conquered tribes near Mount Taurus, on the North the countries bordering on Armenia to the South and East, the Medes beyond Mount Zagros, and "the Zimri Jer 25:25 in upper Luristan." His son Ivalush III or IV received undisturbed tribute from the kingdoms which his fathers conquered, and ascribes to his god Asshur the grant of "the kingdom of Babylon to his son."
Thus "Assyria with one hand grasped Babylonia; with the other Philistia and Edom; she held Media Proper, S. Armenia, possessed all Upper Syria, including Commagene and Amanus, bore sway over all the whole Syrian coast from Issus to Gaza, and from the coast to the desert." Tiglath-pileser II and Shalmaneser are known to us as conquerors from Holy Scripture . Tiglath-pileser, we are told from the inscriptions, warred and conquered in Upper Mesopotamia, Armenia, Media, Babylonia, drove into exile a Babyionian prince, destroyed Damascus, took tribute from a Hiram king of Tyre, and from a Queen of the Arabs . And so it continued, until nearly the close of the Monarchy.
The new dynasty which began with Sargon were even greater conquerors than their predecessors. Sargon, in a reign of seventeen or nineteen years, defeated the king of Elam, conquered in Iatbour beyond Elam, reigned from Ras, a dependency on Elam, over Poukoud (Pekod), Phoenicia, Syria, etc. to the river of Egypt, in the far Media to the rising sun, in Scythia, Albania, Parthia, Van, Armenia, Colchis, Tubal to the Moschi: he placed his lieutenants as governors over these countries, and imposed tribute upon them, as upon Assyrians; he, probably, placed Merodach-Baladan on the throne of Babylon, and after 12 years displaced him; he reduced all Chaldaea under his rule; he defeated "Sebech (i. e., probably, So), Sultan of Egypt, so that he was heard of no more;" he received tribute from the Pharaoh of Egypt, from a Queen of Arabia and from Himyar the Sabaean. To him first the king of Meroe paid tribute. He finally captured Samaria: he took Gaza, Kharkar, Arpad and Damascus, Ashdod (which it cost Psammetichus 29 years to reconquer), and Tyre, (which resisted Nebuchadnezzar for 13 years). He added to the Satrapy of Parthia, placed a Satrap or Lieutenant over Commagene and Sentaria, Kharkar, Tel-Garimmi, Gamgoum, Ashdod, and a king of his own choice over Albania. lie seized 55 walled cities in Armenia, 11, which were held to be "inaccessible fortresses;" and 62 great cities in Commagene; 34 in Media; he laid tribute on the "king of the country of rivers."
He removed whole populations at his will; from Samaria, he carried captive its inhabitants, 27,800, and placed them in "cities of the Medes" Kg2 17:6; Kg2 18:11; he removed those of Commagene to Elam; all the great men of the Tibareni, and the inhabitants of unknown cities, to Assyria; Cammanians, whom he had conquered, to Tel-Garimmi, a capital which he rebuilt; others whom he had vanquished in the East he placed in Ashdod: again he placed "Assyrians devoted to his empire" among the Tibareni; inhabitants of cities unknown to us, in Damascus; Chaldaeans in Commagene , extracted from the Annales de Philosophie Chretienne T. vi. (5e sêrie). Oppert p. 8, gives as the meaning of his name, "actual king," "roi de fait." (שׁר־כן shar-kēn) Sargon himself, if Oppert has translated him rightly, gives as its meaning, "righteous prince," p. 38). : "The Comukha were removed from the extreme North to Susiana, and Chaldaeans were brought from the extreme South to supply their place." "Seven kings of Iatnan, seven days voyage off in the Western seas, whose names were unknown to the kings" his "fathers; hearing of" his "deeds, came before" him to Babylon with "presents:" as did the king of Asmoun, who dwelt in the midst of the Eastern sea (the Persian gulf). He placed his statue, "writing on it the glory of Asshur his master," in the capital of Van, in Kikisim (Circesium) as also in Cyprus, which he does not name, but where it has been discovered in this century . The Moschian king, with his 3000 towns, who had never submitted to the kings his predecessors, sent his submission and tribute to him.
Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, says of himself, "Assour, the great Lord, has conferred on me sovereignty over the peoples; he has extended my dominion over all those who dwell in the world. From the upper Ocean of the setting sun to the lower Ocean of the rising sun, I reduced under my power all who carried aloft their head."
He defeated Merodach Baladan and the king of Elam together ; took in one expedition , "79 great strong cities of the Chaldaeans anti 820 small towns;" he took prisoners by hundreds of thousands; 200, 150 in his first expedition against Hezekiah, from 44 great walled cities which he took and little villages innumerable ; 208,000 from the Nabathseans anti Hagarenes : he employed on his great buildings 360,000 men, gathered from Chaldea and Aramaea, from Cilicia and Armenia ; he conquered populations in the North, which "had of old not submitted to the kings my brothers ," annexed them to the prefecture of Arrapachitis and set up his image ; he received tribute from the governor of Khararat , wasted the 2 residence cities, 34 smaller cities of Ispahara king of Albania, joining a part of the territory to Assyria, and calling its city, Ilhinzas, the city of Sennacherib ;
He reduced countries of "Media, whose names the kings his brothers had not heard ; he set a king, Toubaal, over the great and little Sidon, Sarepta, Achzib, Acco, Betzitti, Mahalliba; the kings of Moab, Edom, Bet-Amman, Avvad, Ashdod, submitted to him ; he deteated an "innumerable host" of Egyptians at Altakou (Elteke); sons of the king of Egypt fell into his hands; he captured Ascalon, Bene-Barak, Joppa, Hazor ; put back at Amgarron (Migron) the expelled king Padi, who had been surrendered to Hezekiah ; gave portions of the territory of Hezekiah to the kings of Ashdod, Migron, Gaza ; he drove Merodach-baladan again to Elam, captured his brothers, wasted his cities, and placed his own oldest son, Assurnadin, on the throne of Babylon took seven impregnable cities of the Toukharri, placed like birds' nests on the mountains of Nipour ; conquered the king of Oukkou in Dayi, among mountains which none of his ancestors had penetrated; look Oukkou and 33 other cities ; attached Elam, "crossing" the Persian gulf "in Syrian vessels" ; capturing the men, and destroying the cities ; in another campaign, he garrisoned, with prisoner-warriors of his own, cities in Elam which his father had lost ; destroyed 34 large cities and others innumerable of Elam .
His account of his reign closes with a great defeat of Elam, whom the escaped Souzoub had hired with the treasures of the temples of Babylon, and of 17 rebel tribes or cities, at Khalouli, and their entire subdual . He repelled some Greeks in Cilicia, set up his image there, with a record of his deeds, and built Tarsus, on the model of Babylon . It has been noticed, what a "keen appreciation of the merits of a locality" his selection of its site evinced. The destruction of his army of 185,000 men, at the word of God, might well deter him from again challenging the Almighty; but we have seen, in the wars of Napoleon I, that such losses do not break the power of an empire. It was no vain boast of Sennacherib, that he had "gathered all the earth, and carried captive the gods of the nations." The boast was true; the application alone was impious. God owned in him the instrument which He had formed, "the rod of His anger." He condenmed him, only because "the axe boasted itself against Him Who hewed therewith." Victorious, except when he fought against God, and employed by God "to tread down the people as the mire of the streets" Isa 10:5-15; Isa 36:18-20, Sennacherib was cut off as God foretold, but left his kingdom to a victorious son.
His son, Esarhaddon, takes titles, yet more lofty titan those of Sennacherib. He calls himself , "King of Assyria, Vicar of Babylon, King of the Sumirs and Accads, King of Egypt, Meroe and Cush, who reigned from sunrising to sun-set, unequalled in the imposition of tributes." In Armenia, he killed Adrammelech , his half-brother, one of his father's murderers, who fled to Armenia, probably to dispute thence his father's crown. In every direction he carried his conquests further than his powerful father . He speaks of conquests in the far Media , "where none of the kings, our fathers," had conquered, whose kings bore well-known Persian names .
They and their subjects were carried off to Assyria. Others, who "had not conspired against the kings my fathers and the land of Assyria, and whose territories my fathers had not conquered," submitted voluntarily in terror, paid tribute and received Assyrian governors. In the West, he pursued by sea a king of Sidon who rebelled, divided the Syrians in strange countries, and placed mountaineers, whom his bow had subdued in the East, with a governor, in a castle of Esarhaddon which he built in Syria. He warred successfully in Cilicia, Khoubousna, and destroyed 10 large cities of the Tibareni and carried their people captive; trod down the country of Masnaki, transported rebels of Van; he established on the Southern shore that son of Merodach-baladan who submitted to him, removing the brother who trusted in Elam, himself reigned in Babylon , where he carried Manasseh Ch2 33:11.
He reconquered "the city of Adoumou (Edom), (the city of the power of the Arabs,) which Sennacherib had conquered, and carried off its people to Assyria;" he named as Queen of the Arabs, Tabouya, born in his palace; put the son of Hazael on his father's throne. An expedition to "a far country to the bounds of the earth beyond the desert," Bazi (Buz), reached by traversing 140 farsakhs (?) of sandy desert, then 20 farsakhs (?) of fertile land and a stony region, Khazi (Uz), looks like an expedition across Arabia, and, if so, was unparalleled except by Nushirvan. Some of the other names are Arabic. Anyhow, it was a country, where none of his predecessors had gone; he killed 8 kings, carried off their subjects and spoils. He conquered the Gomboulou in their marshes. twelve kings on the coast of Syria whom he recounts by name, (Ba'lou king of Tyre, Manasseh king of Judah, and those of Edom, Maan, Gaza, Ascalon, Amgarron, Byblos, Aradus, Ousimouroun, Bet-Ammon, Ashdod) and 10 kings of Yatnan in the sea (Cyprus) - Aegisthus (Ikistonsi), King of Idalion (Idial), Pythagoras (Pitagoura) K. of Citium (Kitthim), Ki ..., K. of Salamis (Silhimmi), Ittodagon ("Dagon is with him," Itoudagon), K. of Paphos (Pappa), Euryalus (lrieli), K. of Soil (Sillou), Damasou, K. of Curium (Kuri,) Ounagonsou, K. of Limenion (Limini), Roumizu, K. of Tamassus (Tamizzi,) Damutsi of Amti-Khadasti, Puhali of Aphrodisium (Oupridissa) , held their rule from him.
The names of the countries, from which he brought those whom he settled in Samaria, attest alike his strength and the then weakness of two of the nations, which afterward concurred to overthrow his empire. The colonists, according to their own letters to Artaxerxes Ezr 4:9, comprehended, among others, Babylonians; Archevites i. e., inhabitants of Erech, mentioned in Genesis Gen 10:10, as, together with Babel, part of the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod; Susanchites, i. e., inhabitants of Susiana or Chusistan; Dehavites, Daans in Herodotus , one of the wandering Persian tribes, whose name (Taia) still exists; Elamite's Isa 21:2; Isa 22:6 or the dwellers on the Persian gulf, bordering on Susiana; Apharsites or the Persians in their original abode in Paraca, Paraic, now Farsistan. It seems also probable that the Apharsachites are those more known to us as Sacae or Scythians, whom Esarhaddon says that he conquered ; and that the Apharsachthites (with the same word Aphar prefixed) are the Sittaceni on the Caspian. The Dinaites and the Tarphelites are as yet unidentified, unless the Tarpetes of the Palus Maeotis near the Sittaceni, or the Tapiri in Media be a corruption of the name.
The Samaritan settlers add, "And the rest of the nations, whom the great and noble Asnapper carried captive, and settled in the cities of Samaria and the rest on this side the river." Under this general term, they include the Mesopotamian settlers brought from Avvah and Sepharvaim, and those from Hamath Kg2 17:24, probably wishing to insist to the Persian Monarch on their Persian, Median, or Babylonian descent. They attest at the same time that their forefathers were not willingly removed but "transported, carried into exile" Ezr 4:10, and accordingly that Esarhaddon, in whose reign they were removed, had power in all these countries. The condensation also of settlers from twelve nations in so small a space as the cities of Samaria (analogous as it is to the dispersion of the Jews over so many provinces of their captors) illustrates the policy of these transportations, and the strength which they gave to the empire. Nations were blended together among those foreign to them, with no common bond except their relation to their conqueror. A check on those around them, and themselves held in check by them, they had no common home to which to return, no interest to serve by rebelling. Esarhaddon built 36 temples in Assyria by the labor of foreign slaves, his captives, who worshiped his gods .
This collection of people of twelve nations in the cities of Samaria represents moreover one portion only of the conquests of Esarhaddon, and, for the most part, that furthest from Judaea. For the principle of the policy was to remove them far from their own land. Ethiopian and Egyptian captives would be placed, not here from where they could easily return, but, like Israel in the cities of the Medes, from where they could find no escape.
The son of Esarhaddon, Asshurbanipal II. , yet further enlarged and consolidated the conquests of his conquering father. His expeditions into Egypt have been already dwelt upon; his victories were easy, complete. Tirhaka, himself a great conqueror, fled into unknown deserts beyond reach of pursuits. His step-son Urdaminie attempted to recover his kingdom, was defeated at once, fled and his capital was taken. In Asia, he took away tim king of Tyre, who offended him; made conquests beyond Mt. Taurus, where his fathers had never been ; received an embassy from Gyges; attached to Assyria a tract of Minni or Persarmenia, took the capital of Minni; took Shushan and Badaca; killed their kings, united Susiana to Babylonia; subdued anew Edom, Moab, Kedar, the Nabathaeans; received the submission of the king of Urarda, Ararat .
While Assyria was extended wider than before, its old enemies were more incorporated with it, or, at least, more subdued; it was more at one within itself. Egypt, the great rival Empire, had tried to shake off the yoke, but was subdued; no people in Syria or the valley of the Euphrates stirred itself; the whole tract within the Taurus, once so rife with enemies, lay hushed under his rule: hushed were the Hittites, Hamathites, the Syrians of Damascus, the Tibareni who had once held their own against his father; war was only at the very extremities, in Minni or Edom, and that, rather chastisement than war; Babylon was a tranquil portion of his empire, except during the temporary rebellion of the brother, whom he had placed over it, and whom he pardoned. His death, amid the tranquil promotion of literature , when he had no more enemies to conquer or rebels to chasten, left his empire at the zenith of its power, some 22 years before its destruction. "Culno" had become, as Sennacherib boasted Isa 10:9, "like Carehemish; Hamath like Arpad; Samaria as Damascus." He "had removed the bounds of the people and gathered all the earth, as one gathereth eggs, left" Isa 10:13-14 by the parent bird, undefended even by its impotent love. There was not a cloud on the horizon, not a token from where the whirlwind would come. The bas-reliefs attest, that neither the energy nor the cruelty of the Assyrians were diminished .
Of those twenty-two years, we have nothing reliable except their close. There was probably nothing to relate. There would not be anything, if Asshurbanipal had consolidated his empire, as he seems to have done, and if his son and successor inherited his father's later tastes, and was free from the thirst of boundless conquest, which had characterized the earlier rulers of Assyria. Anyhow, we know nothing authentic. The invasion of Assyria by Phraortes, which Herodotus relates, is held, on good grounds, to be a later history of a rebellion against Darius Hystaspes, adapted to times before the Medes became one nation . There was no reason why it should not have been recorded, had it taken place, since it is admitted to have been a total defeat, in which Phraortes lost his life . The invasion of the Scythians, which is to have stopped the siege of Nineveh under Cyaxares, was reported in a manifestly exaggerated form to Herodotus. The 28 years, during which Herodotus relates the Scythian rule to have lasted , is longer than the whole of the reign of the last king of Assyria; and yet, according to Herodotus, is to have been interposed between the two sieges of Cyaxares. And as its empire gave no sign of decay, so far as we can trace its history within 22 years before its destruction, so, with the like rapidity, did the empire rise, which was to destroy it.
The account which Herodotus received, that the Medians had thrown off the yoke of Assyria before Deioces , is in direct contradiction to the Assyrian inscriptions. This was, they state, the time, not of the revolt, but of the conquest of Media. They are confirmed by Holy Scripture, which says that the Assyrian king (Sargon) placed "in the cities of the Medes" Kg2 17:6 his Israelitish captives. The utmost, which Herodotus ascribes to Deioces however, is, that he consolidated the six Median tribes and built a capital, Agbatana . It is an union of wild hordes into one people, held together for the time by the will of one man and by their weariness of mutual oppressions. Even according to their accounts, Cyaxares (about 633 b.c., i. e., 8 years before the fall of Nineveh) first organized the Median army; the Greeks, in the time of Aeschylus, believed Cvaxares to have been the first of the Median kings ; rebels in Media and Sagartia claimed the Median throne against Darius, as descended from Cyaxares, as the founder of the Monarchy .
Further, the subsequent history supports the account of Abydenus against Herodotus, that not the Medes, but the rebel general of the last Monarch of Nineveh was, with his Babylonian troops, the chief author of the destruction of Nineveh. The chief share of the spoil, where no motives of refined policy intervene, falls to the strongest, who had chief portion in the victory. "The Medes," says Herodotus, "took Nineveh, and conquered all Assyria, except the Babylonian portion" . But Babylon was no spared province, escaping with its independence as a gain. Babylonia, not Media, succeeded to the Southern and Western dominions of the Assyrian empire, and the place, where Nineveh had stood, Cyaxares retaining the North. This was a friendly arrangement, since subsequently too we find a Babylonian prince in the expedition of Cyaxares against Asia Minor, and Medians assisting Nebuchadnezzar against the king of Egypt . Abydenus represents the Babylonians and Medes, as equal , but exhibits the rebel general, as the author of the attack . "After him (Sardanapal), Sarac held the empire of Assyria, who, being informed of a horde of mingled troops which were coming against him from the sea, sent Busalossor (Nebopalassar) general of his army, to Babylon. But he, having determined to revolt, betrothed to his son, Nebucbodrossor, Amuhea, daughter of Asdahag, prince of the Medes, and soon made a rapid attack on Nineveh. King Sarac, when he knew the whole, set the palace Evorita on fire. Then Nehuchodrossor, attaining to the empire, encircled Babylon with strong walls."
The "horde of mingled troops" "from the sea" were probably those same Susians and Elymaeans, whom the Assyrians had, in successive reigns, defeated. If the account of Herodotus were true, the father of the Median Monarch had perished in conflict with Assyria. The grandfather of the Assyrian Monarch had himself reigned in Babylon. Assyria ruled Babylon by viceroys to the end. It has been noticed that Nahum mentions no one enemy who should destroy Nineveh. True, for no one enemy did destroy her.
Even now its fall is unexplained. The conquests of its Monarchs had not been the victories of talented individuals. They were a race of world-wide conquerors. In the whole history, of which we have the annals, they are always on the aggressive. They exacted tribute where they willed. The tide of time bore them on in their conquests. Their latest conquests were the most distant. Egypt, her early rival, had been subdued by her. The powers, which did destroy her, had no common bond of interest. They were united, for one reign, not by natural interests, but, as far as we see, by the ambition of two individuals. These crushed, at once and for ever, the empire which for so many centuries had been the ravager of the world. But who could have foreseen such a combination and such results, save God, in Whose hands are human wills and the fate of empires?
The fiery empire of conquerors sank like a tropic sun. Its wrath had burned, unassuaged, "from" (in their own words) "the rising to the setting sun." No gathering cloud had tempered its heat or allayed its violence. Just ere it set, in those last hours of its course, it seemed, as if in its meridian. Its bloodstained disk cast its last glowing rays on that field of carnage in Susiana; then, without a twilight, it sank beneath those stormy waves, so strangely raised, at once and for ever. All, at once, was night. It knew no morrow.
Its fall is inexplicable still. It may have accelerated its own destruction by concentrating the fierce Chaldees at Babylon. It was weakened by the revolt of its own general, and with him the defection of an army. Still, in those days, the city of 1200 towers, each 200 feet high, its ordinary wall 100 feet high and of such breadth, that three chariots could drive on it abreast , could not be taken by mounds, except by some most gigantic army with patience inexhaustible. Famine could not reduce a city, which, in its 60 miles in circumference, enclosed, like Babylon, space for much cattle, and which could, within its walls, grow enough grain for its population of 600,000 Jon 4:11. With its perennial supply of provision, it might have laughed to scorn a more formidable foe than the Medes, Elamites and Babylonians, unaccustomed to sieges, except in as far as any had fought in its armies, while the Ninevites possessed the hereditary skill of centuries.
Babylon, smaller than Nineveh , was at rest amidst the siege of the more powerful grandson of Cyaxares. Cyrus could only take it by stratagem; Darius Hystaspes, by treachery. Then, every Ninevite was a warrior. Their descendants, the Curds, are still among the fiercest and most warlike people of Asia. The bas-reliefs, which bear internal evidence of truth, exhibit a wonderful blending of indomitable strength of will, recklessness of suffering, inherent physical energy, unimpaired by self-indulgence. A German writer on art says , "You recognize a strong thick-set race, of very powerful frame, yet inclined to corpulence, a very special blending of energy and luxury. The general impression of the figures, whether men, women or eunuchs, has uniformly something earnest and imposing." An English writer says still more vividly ; "All the figures indicate great physical development, animal propensities very strongly marked, a calm, settled ferocity, a perfect nonchalance amidst the most terrible scenes; no change of feature takes place, whether the individual is inflicting or experiencing horrid sufferings. The pictures are very remarkable as indicating the entire absence of higher mental and moral qualities: and the exuberance of brutal parts of man's nature. At the same time, there is not lacking a certain consciousness of dignity and of inherent power. There is a tranquil energy and fixed determination, which will not allow the beholder to feel any contempt of those stern warriors."
How then could it fall? The prophecy of Nahum describes, with terrible vividness, a siege; the rousing of its king from a torpor of indolence; "he remembereth his nobles" (Nah 2:5 (6)); the orderly advance, the confused preparations for defense; and then, when expectation is strung, and we see besiegers and besieged prepared for the last decisive strife, there is a sudden pause. No human strength overthrows the city "The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. And it is decreed, she shall be led away captive" (Nah 2:6-7 (7, 8)). Her captivity follows on the opening of "the gates of the rivers." The "rivers," ordinarily her strength, were also her weakness. The annals of Sennacherib relate, how he repaired a palace which had been undermined by the Tigris. : "The small palace, which was become very ruinous in every part, because the river Tigris, during 16 years, had undermined and ravaged it, (I repaired.)" Dionysius, the Jacobite patriarch, relates how in his own time, 763 a.d. : "the Tigris, overflowing, laid waste all the towns around it, and especially Mosul" (opposite to Nineveh). Barhebraeus, in four different years, mentions the destruction of houses in Bagdad through the overflow of the Tigris .
He mentions also a city-wall, overthrown by an inundation, so that 3,000 men were drowned in their houses . Ives relates : "The Bishop (of Babylon) remembers that" about 1733 "the Euphrates and Tigris were so overflown, that the whole country between them appeared as one large sea. Over all the plain between Bagdad and Hilla, people could pass only in boats. The water flowed quite up to the glacis, the ditch was full, the city also overflown, and the foundation of most of the buildings hurt; 300 houses were entirely destroyed. To prevent as much as possible" the recurrence of such a calamity, "the Turks now face the foundation-wall of their houses with a composition of charcoal, ashes, and Demar (bitumen)." "The river Khosar," also, which would be swollen by the same causes as the Tigris, "entered the city," says Ainsworth , "by an aperture in the walls on the East side, which appears to have formed part of the original plan and to have been protected by a gateway and walls, vestiges of which still remain." "The Khausser," says Mr. Rich , "is generally drawn off for irrigating the cotton-plantations in the alluvial ground of the river; when it is much overflowed, it discharges itself into the Tigris above the bridge." : "The Khausser now (Dec. 1. after "very heavy tropical rain,") discharges itself direct into the Tigris, and brings an immense body of water." : "After rain, it becomes an impetuous torrent, overflowing its banks and carrying all before it." : "The stone-bridge was carried away one night by the violence of the Khausser, on a sudden inundation." On a lesser swelling of the river - "the water-wheels were removed" in precaution "and the bridge of boats opened." Cazwini, the Arabic geographer, speaks of "the rivers of Nineveh."
Ctesias, being a writer of suspected authority, cannot safely be alleged in proof of the fulfillment of prophecy. Yet in this case his account, as it is in exact conformity with the obvious meaning of the prophecy of Nahum, so it solves a real difficulty, how Nineveh, so defended, could have fallen. It seems certain that the account of the siege taken from him by Diodorus, is that of the last siege. It bas been remarked that the only event of the siege, known from any other source, namely, that the last Assyrian king; when be had learned the combination of the Medes and Babylonians against him, set fire to his palace, is related also by Ctesias. Ctesias has also the same fact, that the Babylonian revolt was recent; the name of the revolted general in Ctesias, Belisis, is the latter half of that given to him by Abydenus, , Nebopalassar, omitting only the name of the god, Nebo. The rest of the history is in itself probable.
The success of the Assyrian monarch at first against the combined armies, and the consequent revelry, are that same blending of fierceness and sensuality which is stamped on all the Assyrian sculptures, continned to the end. The rest of his relation, which, on account of the filets of nature, which we know, but which, since they are gathered from sources so various, Ctesias probably did not know, is, in itself, probable, accounts for what is unaccounted for, and corresponds with the words of Nahum. It is , "Sardanapalus, seeing the whole kingdom in the greatest danger, sent his three sons and two daughters with much wealth to Paphlagonia to Cotta the Governor, being the best-disposed of his subjects. He himself sent by messengers to all his subjects for forces, and prepared what was needed for the siege. He had an oracle handed down from his forefathers, that no one should take Nineveh, unless the river first became an enemy to the city.
Conceiving that this never would be, he held to his hopes, purposing to abide the siege and awaited the armies to be sent by his subjects." "The rebels, elated by their successes, set themselves to the siege, but on account of the strength of the walls, could in no wise injure those in the city." "But these had great abundance of all necessaries through the foresight of the king. The siege then being prolonged for two years, they pressed upon it; assaulting the walls and cutting off those therein from any exit into the country." "In the 3rd year, the river, swollen by continuous and violent rains, inundated a part of the city and overthrew 20 stadia of the wall. Then the king, thinking that the oracle was fulfilled, and that the river was plainly an enemy to the city, despaired of safety. And, not to fall into the enemy's hands, he made an exceeding great pile in the palace, heaped up there all the gold and silver and the royal apparel, and having shut up his concubines and eunuchs in the house formed in the midst of the pile, consumed himself and all the royalties with them all. The rebels, hearing that Sardanapalus had perished, possessed themselves of the city, entering by the broken part of the wall."
Yet Nahum had also prophesied, "the fire shall devour thy bars;" "fortify thy strong holds, there shall the fire devour thee;" "I will burn her chariots in the smoke" Nah 3:13, Nah 3:15; Nah 2:13, and all the ruins of Nineveh still speak from beneath the earth where they lie interred, that, overthrown as they have been by some gigantic power, fire consumed them within. : "The palaces of Khorsabad (Dur Sarjina) and Nimrud shew equal traces of fire with those of Koyunjik." : "The recent excavations have strewn that fire was a great instrument in the destruction of the Nineveh palaces. Calcined alabaster, masses of charred wood and charcoal, colossal statues split through with the heat, are met with in parts of the Ninerite mounds, and attest the veracity of prophecy." . "It is evident from the ruins that Khorsabad and Nimroud were sacked; and set on fire."
Yet this does not exhaust the fullness of the prophecy. Nahum not only foretold the destruction of Nineveh, that it should "be empty, void, waste, there is no healing of thy bruise," but in emphatic words, that its site also should be a desolation. "With an overrunning flood He shall make the place thereof (mekomah) a desolation" Nah 1:8. This was then new in the history of the world. Cities have remained, while empires passed away. Rome, Constantinople, Athens, Damascus, Alexandria, Venice, abide, although their political might is extinct. No or Thebes itself survived its capture by Sargon and a yet later loss of its inhabitants nearly two centuries, when the more fatal conquest of Cambyses, anti perhaps the rise of Memphis perpetuated its destruction. Nahum foretells emphatically as to Nineveh, "He will make the place thereof an utter consumption." Not only would God destroy the then Nineveh; but the very place or site thereof should be an utter desolation.
There was, then, no instance of so great a city passing away. Such had not been Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian policy. It had become an established policy in Sennacherib's time to remove populations, not to destroy cities. And these two policies were incompatible. For a conqueror who would remove populations must have, whither to remove them. Nineveh itself had conquered Babylon and Shushun, and the cities of the Medes; but had placed her own lieutenants in them. The mere destruction of such a city as Nineveh was "contrary to experience." Even later than this, Babylon, notwithstanding its rebellions, was spared by its first conqueror, and survived to be the grave of its second, Alexander. Xenophon describes Nineveh under the name of Mespila (of which Mosul has been supposed to be a corruption) "a wall, void, large, lying against the city - the basement was of polished stone, full of shells, its width 50 feet, its height 50 feet. Thereon was built a wall of brick, its breadth 50 feet, the height 100; the circuit was six farsangs," i. e., 22 12 miles.
The shell remained; the tumult of life was gone. Its protecting bulwarks remained; all, which they protected, had disappeared. They had forgotten already on the spot what it had been or by whom it had perished. : "The Medes inhabited it formerly. It was said that Media, a kings wife, had fled thither, when the Medes were losing their power through the Persians. The Persian king, besieging this city, could not take it, either by time or force; but Zeus made the inhabitants senseless, and so it was taken." A little later, Alexander marched over its site to gain the world, not knowing that a world-empire, like that which he gave his life to found, was buried under his feet . Gaugamela, near which Darius lost his empire, must have been close to its site. Yet three centuries, and history, not its mere neighbors only, had forgotten when it had perished. Strabo says , "It was effaced immediately after the destruction of the Syrians." Nearly two centuries later is Lucian's saying , "Nineveh has perished, and there is no trace left where it once was." Yet before this time, in the reign of Claudius, the Romans had built a new Nineveh which they called by his name "Ninive Claudiopolis." In the 6th century, it is mentioned as a Christian see . Its episcopate was taken away, probably on account of its decline, early in the 9th century; and it was united to Mosul . It was still in being at the beginning of the 14th century . Yet, in the 12th century, as a whole, "it was desolate, but there were there many villages and castles." This was not the Nineveh of prophecy; but it too was swept away, and a few coins alone attest the existence of the Roman city. "The city, and even the ruins of the city," relates Gibbon of the last victory of Heraclius, "had long since disappeared; the vacant space afforded a spacious field for the operation of the two armies." A line of lofty mounds, on the East of Tigris, long drew but a momentary gaze from the passers-by; a few cottages surmounted the heaps, which entombed the palaces of kings, who were the terror of the East; the plow turned up, unheeded, the bricks, which recorded their deeds; the tide of war swept over it anew; the summer's sands again filled up "the stupendous mass of brick-work, occasionally laid bare by the winter rains." The eyes rested on nothing but "the stern shapeless mound, rising like a hill from the scorched plain." : "The traveler is at a loss to give any form to the rude heaps, upon which he is gazing. Those of whose works they are the remains, unlike the Roman and the Greek, have left no visible traces of their civilization or of their arts; their influence has long since passed away. The scene around him is worthy of the ruin he is contemplating; desolation meets desolation; a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder, for there is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope, or to tell of what has gone by. Those huge mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression upon me, gave rise to more serious thoughts and more earnest reflection, than the temples of Baalbee and the theaters of Ionia."
In 1827, Buckingham still wrote : "we came in about an hour to the principal mounds which are thought to mark the site of the ancient Nineveh. There are four of these mounds, disposed in the form of a square; and these, as they shew neither bricks, stones, nor other materials of building, but are in many places overgrown with grass, resemble the mounds left by entrenchments and fortifications of ancient Roman camps. The longest of these mounds runs nearly N. and S. and consists of several ridges of unequal height, the whole appearing to extend for four or five miles in length. There are three other distinct mounds, which are all near to the river, and in the direction of East and West - there are appearances of mounds and ruins extending for several miles to the southward; and still more distinctly seen to the Northward of this, though both are less marked than the mounds of the center.
The space between these is a level plain, over every part of the face of which, broken pottery, and the other usual debris of ruined cities are seen scattered about." "Mounds and smaller heaps of ruins were scattered widely over the plain, sufficient to prove, that the site of the original city occupied a vast extent." Niebuhr had ridden through Nineveh unknowingly. : "I did not learn that I was at so remarkable a spot, until near the river. Then they showed me a village on a great hill, which they call Nunia, and a mosque, in which the prophet Jonah was buried. Another hill in this district is called Kalla Nunia, or the Castle of Nineveh. On that lies a village Koindsjug. At Mosul, where I dwelt close by the Tigris, they strawed me in addition the walls of Nineveh, which in my journey through I had not observed, but supposed to be a set of hills." "It is well-known," begins an account of the recent discoveries , "that in the neighborhood of Mosul, travelers had observed some remarkable mounds, resembling small bills, and that Mr. Rich had, thirty years ago, called attention to one called Koyunjik, in which fragments of sculpture and pottery had been frequently discovered."
And yet, humanly speaking, even if destroyed, it was probable before hand, that it would not altogether perish. For a town near its site was needed for purposes of commerce. Of the two routes of commerce from the Persian gulf to the North by the Euphrates or by the Tigris, the Tigris-route was free from the perils of the arid wilderness, through which the line by the Euphrates passed. If, for the downward course, the Euphrates itself was navigable, yet the desert presented a difficulty for caravans returning upward from the Persian gulf. Arrian, who mentions the two lines of travel, says that Alexander , having crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, chose the less direct line by the Tigris, as having a better supply of all things, food for his cavalry, and a less scorching heat.
The mention of Haran (afterward Carrhae) Canneh, and Asshur in Ezekiel, (in one verse ) seems to indicate the continuation of the same line of commerce with Tyre, which must have existed from praehistoric times (i. e., from times of which we have no definite historic account), since there is no ground to question the statement of the Phoenicians themselves in Herodotus, that they had come from the Erythraean sea , i. e., the Persian gulf. The later hindrances to the navigation of the Tigris by the great dams (probably for irrigation), were of Persian date; but they could have had no great effect on the actual commerce; since for the greater part of the upward course on the Tigris line, this also must, on account of the rapidity of the river, have been by caravans.
The route was still used in the middle ages . : "The ancient road and the modern one on the upper Tigris follow, pretty nearly throughout, the same line, it being determined by the physical necessities of the soil." In the 16th century , "from the head of the Persian gulf two commercial lines existed: by one of them goods were carried some way up the Euphrates, and then by land to Bir, Aleppo, Iskonderun. By the other they followed the Tigris to Baghdad and were carried by Diyar-Bekr and Sires to Terabuzum." (But Mosul was necessarily on the way from Baghdad to Diyar Bekr). Mosul still lies on the line of commerce, from the Persian gulf, Basrah, Baghdad, Mosul, Mardin, Diyar-Bekr to Iskenderun, the port of Aleppo , or Trebizond (Tarabuzum ).
It still carries on some commerce with Kurdistan and other provinces (beside Diyar-Bekr and Baghdad). Col. Chesney, in 1850, advocated the advantages of extending the line of commerce by British stations at Diyar-Bekr and Mardin, in addition to and connection with those already existing at Baghdad and Mosul . There is, in fact, a consent as to this. Layard writes : "The only impediment between the Syrian coast and the Tigris and Euphrates in any part of their course, arises from the want of proper security. The navigation of the Persian gulf is, at all times, open and safe; and a glance at the map will shew that a line through the Mediterranean, the port of Suedia, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad, Busrah, and the Indian Ocean to Bombay is as direct as can well be desired.
With those prospects, and with the incalculable advantages, which a flourishing commerce and a safe and speedy transit through, perhaps, the richest portions of its dominions would confer upon the Turkish empire, it would seem that more than Eastern apathy is shown in not taking some steps, tending to restore security to the country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates." Ainsworth suggests a still wider commerce, of which Mosul might be the center. : "With a tranquil state of the surrounding country, Mosul presents mercantile advantages of no common order. There are several roads open to Persia, across the mountains; a transit from five to seven days, and by which, considering the short distance and good roads from Mosul to Iskenderun, British manufactures might be distributed into the heart of Persia, in a time and at an expense, which the line of Trebizond Erzrum and Tabriz, that of Bushire and Baghdad, or the Russian line of Astrakhan Bakhu and Mazenderan can never rival."
But although marked out by these advantages for continuance, even when its power was gone, Nineveh was to perish and it perished. Nor ought it to be alleged, that in other cases too, "if the position of the old capital was deemed, from political or commercial reasons more advantageous than any other, the population was settled in its neighborhood, as at Delhi, not amidst its ruins." For
1) there was, at the time of Nahum, no experience of the destruction of any such great city as Nineveh;
2) In the case of conquest, the capitol of the conquering empire became, ipso facto, the capital of the whole; but this did not, in itself, involve the destruction of the former.
Babylon, from having been the winter residence of Cyrus, became the chief residence of the Persian Emperor at the time of Alexander, and continued to exist for many centuries, oiler the foundation of Seleucia, although it ceased to be a great city . And this, notwithstanding its two rebellions under Darius , and that under Xerxes . There was no ground of human policy against Nineveh's continuing, such as Mosul became, anymore than Mosul itself. It existed for some time, as a Christian See.
The grandeur, energy, power, vividness of Nahum, naturally can be fully felt only in his own language. The force of his brief prophecy is much increased by its unity. Nahum had one sentence to pronounce, the judgments of God upon the power of this world, which had sought to annihilate the kingdom of God. God, in His then kingdom in Judah, and the world, were come face to face. What was to be the issue? The entire final utter overthrow of whatever opposed God. Nahum opens then with the calm majestic declaration of the majesty of God; Who God is, against whom they rebelled; the madness of their rebellion, and the extinction of its chief Nah 1:1-15; then in detail, what was to come long after that first overthrow, the siege and capture of Nineveh itself Nah 2:1-13; then, in wider compass, the overthrow of the whole power Nahum 3. It was to be the first instance, in the history of mankind, of a power so great, perishing and forever. Nahum's office was not, as Jonah's, to the people itself. There is then no call to repentance, no gleam of God's mercy toward them in this life. Nineveh was to perish wholly, as the habitable world had perished in the time of Noah. The only relief is in the cessation of so much violence. There is no human joy expressed at this destruction of the enemy of God and of His people; no sorrow, save that there can be no sorrow; "who will bemoan her? whence shall I find comforters for her?" Nah 3:7.
In conformity with this concentration of Nahum's subject, there is little in outward style or language to connect him with the other prophets. His opening (as already observed ) bears upon God's declarations of mercy and judgment; but, Nineveh having filled up the measure of its iniquites, he had to exhibit the dark side of those declarations; how much lay in those words, "that will by no means clear the guilty." : "Jonah and Nahum form connected parts of one moral history, the remission of God's judgment being illustrated in the one, the execution of it in the other: the clemency and the just severity of the divine government being contained in the mixed delineation of the two books." His evangelic character just gleams through, in the eight tender words, in which he seems to take breath, as it were; "Tob Yhvh lemaoz beyomtsarah, veyodeah chose bo," "Good is God (Yhvh), refuge in day of trouble, and knowing trusters in Him" Nah 1:7; then again, in the few words, which I think Isaiah expanded, "Lo on the mountains the feet of a good-tidings-bearer, peace-proclaimer" Nah 2:1. Else there is only the mingled tenderness and austereness of truth, which would sympathize with the human being, but that that object had, by putting off all humanity, alienated all which is man. "Who will bemoan her? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?" Who? and Whence? None had escaped evil from her. "Upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?"
It is difficult for us, who have to gather up our knowledge of the sacred language from the fragments which remain, in which also the number of words forms and idioms, which stand out singly here and there, seem but so many specimens of lest treasure, to judge with any certainty, whether any approximation of idiom, which we may observe, implies any connection between the writers in whom it occurs. Nahum has, especially in his picture of the capture of Nineveh, so many of those hapax legomena, consisting often of slight modifications, his language is so rich and so original, that one the more doubts whether in those idioms, in which he seems to approximate to other prophets, the expressions in common do not belong to the common stock of the language; and that the more, since mostly part of the idiom only coincides, the rest is different. As for the so-called Aramaisms or other peculiarities of language which Hitzig would have to be evidences of a later date, and from some of which others would infer that Nahum lived at Nineveh itself, "the wish has been father to the thought."
One only solid ground there would be why Nahum should not have written his prophecy, when, according to all history, it could alone have any interest for Judah, long before the event itself, namely, if He to whom all, past and future, are present, could not or did not declare beforehand things to come . If there be prophecy, the siege of Nineveh might be as vividly presented to the prophet's mind, as if he saw it with his bodily eyes . Next: Nahum Chapter 1
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Introduction to Habakkuk
Habakkuk is eminently the prophet of reverential, awe-filled faith. This is the soul and center of his prophecy. One word alone he addresses directly to his people. It is of marvel at their lack of faith Hab 1:5. "Behold among the heathen and gaze attentively, and marvel, marvel; for I am working a work in your days; ye will not believe, when it is declared unto you." He bids them behold, and gaze, for God is about to work in their own days; he bids them prepare themselves to marvel, and marvel on; for it was a matter, at which political wisdom would stagger; and they, since they did not have faith, would not believe it. The counterpart to this, is that great blessing of faith, which is the key-stone of his whole book Hab 2:4 : "the just shall live by his faith."
Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah that his treasures would be carried to Babylon, his sons would be eunuchs in the palace of its king Isa 39:6-7. He had foretold the destruction of Babylon and the restoration of the Jews Isa 12:1-6; Isa. 13; Isa 47:1-15. Prophecy in Habakkuk, full as it is, is almost subordinate. His main subject is, that which occupied Asaph in Ps. 73, the afflictions of the righteous amid the prosperity of the wicked. The answer is the same - the result of all will be one great reversal, the evil drawing upon themselves evil, God crowning the patient waiting of the righteous in still submission to His holy will. "The just shall live by his faith," occupies the same place in Habakkuk, as "I know that my Redeemer liveth," does in Job Job 19:25, or Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me into glow, in Asaph Psa 73:24.
His first subject is, faith struggling under the oppressive sight of the sufferings of the good from the bad within God's people; the second subject is the suffering at the hands of those who are God's instruments to avenge that wickedness. The third subject , that of his great hymn, is faith, not jubilant until the end, yet victorious, praying, believing, seeing in vision what it prays for, and triumphing in that, of which it sees no tokens, whose only earnest is God's old loving-kindnesses to His people, and His Name, under which He had revealed Himself, "He Who Is," the Unchangeable.
The whole prophecy is, so to speak, a colloquy between the prophet and God. He opens it with a reverential, earnest, appeal to God, like that of the saints under the heavenly Altar in the Book of Revelation Rev 6:10, "How long?" The prophet had prayed to God to end or mitigate the violence, oppressions, strife, contention, despoiling, powerlessness, of the law, crookedness of justice, entrapping of the righteous by the wicked Hab 1:2-4. God answers Hab 1:6-11, that a terrible day of retribution was coming, that He Himself would raise up the Chaldees, as the instruments of His chastisements, terrible, self-dependent, owning no law or authority but their own will, deifying their own power, sweeping the whole breadth of the land, possessing themselves of it, taking every fenced city, and gathering captives as the sand. This answers one-half of Habakkuk's question, as to the prosperity of the wicked among his people. It leaves the other half, as to the condition of the righteous, unanswered, for such scourges of God swept away the righteous with the wicked. Habakkuk then renews the question as to them. But, just Asaph began by declaring his faith Psa 73:1, "All-good is God to Israel," the true Israel, the pure of heart, so Habakkuk: "Israel would not die, because He, their God, is Unchangeable Hab 1:12. "Art not Thou of old, O Lord, my God, my holy One? We shall not die; Thou, O Lord, hast set him (the Aramaic) for judgment, and Thou, O Rock, hast founded him to chasten." Then he appeals to God, "Why then is this? "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil - wherefore keepest Thou silence, when the wicked devoureth him who is more righteous than he?" This closes the first chapter and the first vision, in which he describes, with the vividness of one who saw it before him, the irresistible invasion of the Chaldaeans. Israel was meshed as in a net; should that net be emptied Hab 1:17?
Hab. 2 exhibits the prophet waiting in silent expectation for the answer. This answer too dwells chiefly on those retributions in this life, which are the earnest of future judgments, the witness of the sovereignty of God. But although in few words, it does answer the question as to the righteous, that he has abiding life, that he lives and shall live. God impresses the importance of the answer in the words Hab 2:2, "Write the vision" i. e., the prophecy, "and make it plain on the tables," whereon the prophet was accustomed to write , "that he may run who reads it." He says also, that it is for a time fixed in the mind of God, and that however, in man's sight, it might seem to linger, it would not be anything behind the time Hab 2:3. Then he gives the answer itself in the words Hab 2:4, "Behold his soul which is puffed up is not upright in him; and the just shall live by his faith."
The swelling pride and self-dependence of the Chaldee stands in contrast with the trustful submission of faith. Of the one God says, it has no ground of uprightness, and consequently will not stand before God; of faith, he says, the righteous shall live by it. But the life plainly is not the life of the body. For Habakkuk's ground of complaint was the world-wasting cruelty of the Chaldees. The woe on the Chaldee which follows is even chiefly for bloodshed, in which the righteous and the wicked are massacred alike. The simple word, shall live, is an entire denial of death, a denial even of any interruption of life. It stands in the same fullness as those words of our Lord Joh 14:19, "because I live, ye shall live also." The other side of the picture, the fall of the Yet it is manifestly intensive. It most resembles Chaldees, is given in greater fullness, because the fulfillment of God's word in things seen was the pledge of the fulfillment of those beyond the veil of sense and time. In a measured dirge he pronounces a five-fold woe on the five great sins of the Chaldees, their ambition Hab 2:5, Hab 2:8, covetousness Hab 2:9-11, violence Hab 2:12-14, insolence Hab 2:15-17, idolatry Hab 2:18-20. It closes with the powerlessness of the Chaldee idols against God, and bids the whole world be hushed before the presence of the One God, its Maker, awaiting His sentence.
Then follows the prayer , that God would revive His work for Israel, which now seemed dead. He describes the revival as coming, under the images of God's miraculous deliverances of old. The division of the Red Sea and the Jordan, the standing-still of the sun and moon under Joshua, are images of future deliverances; all nature shakes and quivers at the presence of its Maker. Yet not it, but the wicked were the object of His displeasure. The prophet sees his people delivered as at the Red Sea, just when the enemy seemed ready to sweep them away, as with a whirlwind. And, in sight of the unseen, he closes with that wondrous declaration of faith, that all nature should be desolate, all subsistence gone, everything, contrary to God's promises of old to His people, should be around him," and I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult for joy in the God of my salvation."
This prophecy is not less distinct, because figurative. Rather it is the declaration of God's deliverance of His people, not from the Chaldees only, but at all times. The evil is concentrated in one Evil one, who stands over against the One anointed. "Thou art gone forth for the salvation of Thy people; for salvation with Thine anointed One. Thou crushedst the head out of the house of the wicked One, laying bare the foundation unto the neck," i. e., smiting the house at once, above and below; with an utter destruction. It belongs then the more to all times, until the closing strife between evil and good, Christ and Antichrist, the ἄνομος anomos and the Lord. It includes the Chaldee, and each great Empire which opposes itself to the kingdom of God, and declares that, as God delivered His people of old so He would unto the end.
It may be that Habakkuk chose this name to express the strong faith, whereby he embraced the promises of God. At least, it means one who "strongly enfolds."
Also, perhaps it is on account of the form in which his prophecy is cast, as being spoken (with the exception of that one verse) to God or to the Chaldaean, not to his own people, that he added the title of Prophet to his name. "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see" (Hab 1:1, add Hab 3:1). For, however the name "prophet" includes all to whom revelations from God came, it is nowhere, in the Old Testament, added as the name of an office to any one, who did not exercise the practical office of the Prophet. Our Lord quotes David as the Prophet Mat 13:35, and God says to Abimelech of Abraham Gen 20:7, He is a Prophet, and, in reference to this, the Psalmist speaks of the Patriarchs, as Prophets Psa 105:14-15. "He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm," and Hosea speaks of Moses as a prophet Hos 12:13, and Peter says of David, Act 2:30, "He being a prophet." But the title is nowhere in the Old Testament added to the name as it is here, Habakkuk the prophet, and as it is elsewhere Samuel the prophet Ch2 35:18, the prophet Gad, Sa1 22:5, Nathan the prophet Kg1 1:32, Ahijah the prophet Kg1 11:29, the prophet Jehu Kg1 16:7, Kg1 16:12, Elijah the prophet Kg1 18:36, Elisha the prophet Kg2 6:12, Shemaiah the prophet Ch2 12:5, the prophet Iddo, Ch2 13:22, the prophet Obed Ch2 15:8, Isaiah the prophet Kg2 19:2; Kg2 20:1, Jeremiah the prophet Jer 28:6; Jer 36:26; Ch2 36:12, Haggai the prophet Ezr 5:1; Ezr 6:14, unless any have exercised the prophetic office. The title of the Prophet is not, in the Old Testament, added to the names of Jacob or even of Moses or David or Solomon or Daniel, although they all prophesied of Christ.
Since Holy Scripture often conveys so much incidentally, it may be that a large range of ministerial office is hinted in the words "write on the tables;" for "the tables" must have been well-known tables, tables upon which prophets (as Isaiah) and probably Habakkuk himself was accustomed to write. The writing of a few emphatic unexplained words in a public place, which should arouse curiosity, or startle passers-by, would be in harmony with the symbolical actions, enjoined on the prophets and used by them. The "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," had, from their mysteriousness, an impressiveness of their own, apart from the miracle of the writing.
The words appended to the prophecy, "to the chief singer," (as we should say, "the leader of the band" ') "with or on my stringed instruments," imply, not only that the hymn became part of the devotions of the temple, but that Habakkuk too had a part in the sacred music which accompanied it. The word so rendered, neginothui, could only mean my stringed instrument's, or "my song accompanied with music," as Hezekiah says Isa 38:20, "we will sing my songs on the stringed instruments, nenaggen neginothai." But in Habakkuk's subscription, "To the chief musician binginothai," neginoth can have no other meaning than in the almost identical inscription of Psalms Psa 4:1-8; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 54:1-7; Ps. 55; Psa 61:1-8; Psa 67:1-7; Psa 76:1-12, "To the chief musician binginoth," nor this any other than with stringed instruments, "instruments struck with the hand." (Coll. Sa1 17:16, Sa1 17:23; Sa1 18:10; Sa1 19:9; Kg2 3:15). The addition, "with my stringed instruments," shows that Habakkuk himself was to accompany his hymn with instrumental music, and since the mention of the chief musician marks out that it was to form part of the temple-service, Habakkuk must have been entitled to take part in the temple-music, and so must have been a Levite. The Levitical order then had its prophet, as the sacerdotal in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The tradition in the title to Bel and the Dragon, whatever its value, agrees with this ; "from the prophecy of Ambakum, son of Jesus, of the tribe of Levi."
This, however, does not give us any hint as to the time when Habakkuk prophesied. For, bad as were the times of Manasseh and Amon, their idolatry consisted in associating idols with God, setting them up in His courts, bringing one even into His temple Kg2 21:7, not in doing away His service. They set the two services, and the two opinions Kg1 18:21, side by side, adding the false, but not abolishing the true, "consenting to differ," leaving to the worshipers of God their religion, while forcing them to endure, side by side, what seemed an addition, but what was, in fact, a denial. Habakkuk then might have been allowed to present his hymn for the temple-service, while the king placed in the same temple the statue of Astarte, and required its devil's worship to be carried on there. The temple was allowed to go into some degree of decay, for Josiah had it repaired; but we read only of his removing idols, Kg2 23:6, not or his having to restore the disused service of God. Of Ahaz it is recorded, that Ch2 28:24 he shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, which Hezekiah had to open Ch2 29:3. Nothing of this sort is told of Manasseh and Amon.
Habakkuk, however, has two hints, which determine his age within a few years. He says that the invasion of the Chaldaeans was to be in the days of those to whom he speaks; "in your days" Hab 1:5. Accordingly, he must have spoken to adults, many of whom would survive that invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, in the 4th year of Jehoiakim 605 b.c. He can hardly have prophesied before 645 b.c., about the close of Manasseh's reign; for at this date, those who were 20 at the time of the prophecy, would have been 60, at the time of its commenced fulfillment at the battle of Carchemish. On the other hand, in that he speaks of that invasion as a thing incredible to those to whom he was speaking, he must have prophesied before Babylon became independent by the overthrow of Nineveh, 625 b.c. For when Babylon had displaced Nineveh, and divided the Empire of the East with Media and Egypt, it was not a thing incredible, that it would invade Judah in their own days, although it was beyond human knowledge to declare that it certainly would. The Babylonian Empire itself lasted only 89 years; and, to human sight, Judah had as much or more to fear from Egypt as from Babylon. The Median Empire also might as well have swallowed up Judah for the time, as the Babylonian.
The relation of Zephaniah to Habakkuk coincides with this. Zephaniah certainly adopted the remarkable words Then when a writer, who uses much the language of those before him, has an idiom which occurs once beside in Holy Scripture, there being many other expressions, which might equally have been used, any one unbiased would think that he adopted the language of the other. Stahelin admits the connection, but inverts the argument, contrary to the character of both prophets), literally Zep 1:7, "Hush at the presence of the Lord God," from Habakkuk's fuller form; Hab 2:20, "the Lord is in His holy temple; hush at His presence all the earth!"
But Zephaniah prophesied under Josiah, before the destruction of Nineveh b.c. 625, which he foretold Zep 2:13. Habakkuk was also, at latest, an earlier contemporary of Jeremiah who, in one place, at least, in his earlier prophecies, used his language as he does so often, of set purpose, that of the prophets before him, in order to show that the fullness of their prophecies was not yet exhausted. But Jeremiah began to prophesy in the 13th year of Josiah 629 b.c. Jer 1:2; Jer 25:3 Habakkuk, on the other hand, joins himself on with the old prophets and Psalms by the employment of language of Isaiah (Hab 2:14, is from Isa 11:9; the form of Hab 1:5 seems suggested by Isa 29:9; the standing on the watch-tower Hab 2:1, occurs in Isa 21:8; the writing on tables occurs in Isa 8:1; Isa 30:8, and Hab 2:2; the imagery, "he bath enlarged his desire as hell," Hab 2:5, was probably suggested by Isa 5:14. Havernick Symb. ad defend. authentiam vat. Ies. c. 13 - xiv. 23. p. 37ff in Delitzsch Hab. p. viii) and perhaps of Micah (Hab 2:12, and Mic 3:10), by the use of language of Deuteronomy (From Deut. 32-33. See below), and by the expansion of a Psalm of Asaph in his own Psalm (Ps. 77:17-21, in Hab 3:10-15), but does not systematically renew their prophecies like Jeremiah or Zephaniah
The ministry then of Habakkuk falls in the latter half of the reign of Manasseh or the earlier half of that of Josiah (for the reign of Amon, being of two years only, is too short to come into account), and there is no decisive evidence for either against the other. In the reign of Manasseh, we are expressly told, that there were prophets, sent to foretell a destruction of Jerusalem as complete as that of Samaria, on account of the exceeding wickedness, into which Manasseh seduced his people. "The Lord spake by His servants, the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down; and I will forsake the remnant of their inheritance, and deliver them into the baud of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and spoil to all their enemies" Kg2 21:11-14.
The sinful great men of Manasseh's and Amon's court and judicature are but too likely to have maintained their power in the early years of the reign of Josiah. For a boy of eight years old (at which age Josiah succeeded his father) Kg2 22:1; Ch2 34:1 could, amid whatsoever sense of right and piety, do little to stem the established wrong and ungodliness of the evil counsellors and judges of his father and grandfather. The sins, which Jeremiah denounces, as the cause of the future captivity of Jerusalem, are the very same, of which Habakkuk complains, "oppression, violence, spoil" Zep 1:9. Jeremiah speaks, in the concrete, of total absence of right judgment (Jer 6:19. "My law they have despised it;" Jer 5:28. "they have not judged the cause, the cause of the fatherless, and they prosper; and the judgment of the poor have they not judged.") as Habakkuk, in the abstract, of the powerlessness of the law (Hab 1:4, "the law is chilled, and judgment will never go forth; for the wicked encompasseth the just; therefore judgment goeth forth perverted.") Zephaniah gives the like picture of those earlier years under Josiah (Zep 1:9. where he too foretells the punishment of those, "which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit" and Zep 3:1-4).
But Habakkuk's description would not suit the later years of Josiah, when judgment and justice were done. "Did not thy father," Jeremiah appeals to Jehoiakim, Jer 22:15-16, "eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him; he judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was well with him; was not this to know Me? saith the Lord." (Dr. Davidson rightly says, "the spoiling and violence, there Hab 1:2-3 depicted, refer to the internal condition of the theocracy, not to external injuries" (p. 305); but then he contradicts himself and Jeremiah when he says (p. 305) following Ewald (Proph. ii. 30), "The safest conclusion respecting the time of the prophet, is that he lived in the time of Jehoiakim (606-604 B. C), when the kingdom of Judah was in a good moral condition, justice and righteousness having entered into the life of the people after Josiah's reforms, and idolatry having almost disappeared.") But while there is nothing to preclude his having prophesied in either reign, the earliest tradition places him in the close of the reign of Manasseh .
Modern critics have assigned an earlier or later date to Habakkuk, accordingly as they believed that God did, or did not, reveal the future to man, that there was or was not, superhuman prophecy. Those who denied that God did endow His prophets with knowledge above nature, fell into two classes;
(1) Such as followed Eichhorn's unnatural hypothesis, that prophecies were only histories of the past, spoken of, as if it were still future, to which these critics gave the shameless title of "vaticinia post eventum." . These plainly involved the prophets in fraud.
(2) These who laid down that each prophet lived at a time, when he could, with human foresight, tell what would happen. Would that those who count certainty, as to even a near future, to be so easy a thing, would try their hands at predicting the events of the next few years or months, or even days and, if they fail, acknowledge God's Truth! This prejudice, that there could be no real prophecy, ruled, for a time, all German criticism. It cannot be denied, that "the unbelief was the parent of the criticism, not the criticism of the unbelief." It is simple matter of history, that the unbelief came first; and, if men, a priori, disbelieved that there could be prophecy, it must needs be a postulate of their criticism, that what seemed to be prophecy could not have belonged to a date, when human foresight did not suffice for positive prediction. I will use the words of Delitzsch rather than my own;
"The investigation into the age of Habakkuk could be easily and briefly settled, if we would start from the prejudice, which is the soul of modern criticism, that a prediction of the future, which rested, not on human inferences or on a natural gift of divination, but on supernatural illumination, is impossible. For since Habakkuk foretold the invasion of the Chaldees, he must, in such ease, have come forward at a time, at which natural acuteness could, with certainty, determine bcforehand that sad event; accordingly in or after the time of the battle of Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim Jer 46:2 606 b.c. In this decisive battle, Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necho, and it was more than probable that the king of Babylon would now turn against Judea, since Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, had been set on the throne by Pharaoh Necho Kg2 23:34-35, and so held with Egypt. And this is in reality the inference of modern critics.
They bring the Chaldaeans so close under the eyes of the prophet, that he could, by way of nature, foresee their invasion; and so much the closer under his eyes, the more deeply the prejudice, that there is no prophecy in the Biblical sense of the word, has taken root in them, and the more consistently they follow it out. "Habakkuk prophesied under Jehoiakim, for," so Jager expresses himself, "since Jehoiakim was on the side of the Egyptians, it was easy to foresee, that; etc." Just so Ewald; "One might readily be tempted to think, that Habakkuk wrote, while the pious king Josiah was still living; but since the first certain invasion of the Chaldaeans, of which our account speaks Kg2 24:1, falls within the reign of king Jehoiakim, somewhat between 608-604 b.c. we must abide by this date."
Hitzig defines the dates still more sharply, according to that principle of principles, to which history with its facts must adapt itself unconditionally. "The prophet announces the arrival of the Chaldaeans in Judea, as something marvelous." Well then, one would imagine, that it would follow from this, that at that time they had not yet come. But no! "Habakkuk," says Hitzig, "introduces the Chaldaeans as a new phenomenon, as yet entirely unknown; he prophesied accordingly at their first arrival into Palestine. But this beyond question falls in the reign of Jehoiakim Kg2 24:2. In Jehoiakim's fourth year, i. e., 606, they had fought the battle at Carchemish; in 605 the Chaldaean army seems to have been on its march; the writing of Habakkuk is placed most correctly in the beginning of the year 604 a.d., accordingly, at the time, when the Chaldaeans were already marching with all speed straight on Jerusalem, and (as Hitzig infers from Hab 1:9) after they had come down from the North along the coast, were now advancing from the West, when they, as Ewald too remarks (resting, like Maurer on Hab 1:2-4) , "already stood in the holy land, trampling everything under foot with irresistible might, and allowing their own right alone to count as right."
Holding fast to that naturalist a priori, we go yet further. In Hab 2:17, the judgment of God is threatened to the Chaldaean, on account of the violence practiced on Lebanon, and the destruction of its animals. Lebanon is, it is said, the holy land; the animals, its inhabitants: in Hab 3:14, Hab 3:17, the prophet sees the hostile hordes storming in: the devastation wrought through the war stands clearly before his eyes. This is not possible, unless the Chaldaean were at that time already established in Judaea. However, then, c. i. was written before their invasion, yet c. ii., iii. must have been written after it. "Wherefore," says Maurer, "since it is evident from Jer 46:2; Jer 36:9, that the Chaldaeans came in the year b.c. 605, in the 9th month of the 5th year of the reign of Jehoiakim, it follows that c. i. was written at that very time, but c. ii. iii. at the beginning of 604 b.c., the 6th of Jehoiakim."
"Turn we away from this cheap pseudo-criticism, with its ready-made results, which sacrifices all sense for historical truth to a prejudice, which it seems to have vowed not to allow to be shaken by anything. It seeks at any cost to disburden itself of any prophecy in Scripture, which can only be explained through supernatural agency; and yet it attains its end, neither elsewhere nor in our prophet. Hab. 2 contains a prediction of the overthrow of the Chaldaean empire and of the sins whereby that overthrow was effected, which has been so remarkably confirmed by history even in details, that that criticism, if it would be true to its principles, must assume that it was written while Cyrus, advancing against Babylon was employed in punishing the river Gyndes by dividing it off into 360 channels." This major premiss, "there can be no super-human prediction of the future" (in other words, "Almighty God, if He knows the future, cannot disclose it!") still lurks under the assumptions of that modern school of so-called criticism.
It seems to be held no more necessary, formally to declare it, than to enounce at full length any axiom of Euclid. Yet it may, on that very ground, escape notice, while it is the unseen mainspring of the theories, put forth in the name of criticism. "That Habakkuk falls at a later time," says Stahelin, "is clear out of his prophecy itself; for he speaks of the Chaldaeans, and the controversy is only, whether he announces their invasion, as Knobel, Umbreit, Delitzsch, Keil hold, or presupposes it, as Ewald, Hitzig, E. Meier maintain. To me the first opinion appears the right, since not only do Hab 1:5 ff plainly relate to the future, but the detailed description of the Chaldaeans points at something which has not yet taken place, at something hitherto unknown, and the terror of the prophet in announcing their coming, Hab 1:12 ff, recurs also Hab 3:1, Hab 3:16-17; and so, I think, that the time of Habakkuk's activity may be p aced very soon after the battle of Carchemish, in the first half of the reign of Jehoiakim, and so his prophecy as contemporary with Jer. 25." "Habakkuk," says DeWette, "lived and prophesied in the Chaldee period. It is, however, matter of dispute at what point of time in this period he lived. Hab 1:5. ff clearly points to its beginning, the reign of Jehoiakim. Even Hab. 3 seems to require no later point of time, since here the destruction of Judah is not yet anticipated. He was then Jeremiah's younger contemporary. Rightly do Perschke, Ranitz, Stickel, Knobel, Hitzig, Ewald, let the prophet prophesy a little before the invasion of the Chaldaeans in Judah, which the analogy of prophecy favors;" for prophecy may still be human at this date, since so far it foretells only, what any one could foresee. A prophet of God foretells, these critics admit, an invasion which all could foresee, and does not foretell, what could not humanly be foreseen, the destruction of Jerusalem. The theory then is saved, and within these limits Almighty God is permitted to send His prophet. Condescending criticism!
Mostly criticism kept itself within these limits, and used nothing more than its axiom, "there was no prophecy." The freshness and power of prophetic diction in Habakkuk deterred most from that other expedient of picking out some two or three words as indicative of a later style. Stahelin however says; "His language too, although on the whole pure and without Aramaisms," (truly so! since there is not even an alleged or imagined Aramaism in his prophecy,) "still betrays, in single cases, the later period." And then he alleges that:
(1) that one verb only occurs beside in the Books of Kings and in Ezekiel;
(2) that another word with the exception of Nahum, occurs only in Jeremiah and Malachi;
(3) that the image of the cup of destiny only occurs in prophecies subsequent to Jeremiah.
A marvelous precision of criticism, which can infer the date of a book from the facts:
(1) that a verb, formed from a noun, occurs four times only in Holy Scripture, in 2 Kings, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, whereas the noun from which it is derived occurs in a Psalm, which fits no later time than David's; Psa 44:14,
(2) that a word, slightly varied in pronunciation from a common Hebrew word occurs only in Nahum, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Malachi, once in each, when that word is the basis of the name of the river Pishon, mentioned in Genesis, and Stahelin himself places Nahum in the reign of Hezekiah; or,
(3) that no prophet before Jeremiah speaks of the image of the" cup of destiny," whereas the portion given by God for good (David, Psa 11:6; Asaph, Psa 75:8) or for ill (David. Psa 16:5; Psa 23:5), occurs under that same image in Psalms of David and Asaph; and if the question is to be begged as to the date of Isa 51:17, Isa 51:22, the corresponding image of "drinking wine, of reeling," occurs in a Psalm of David (Psa 60:5 (Psa 60:3 in English)) and being drunk, but not with wine" is imagery of an earlier chapter in Isaiah; Isa 29:9, the image occurs fully in Obadiah Oba 1:16.
Such criticism is altogether childish. No one would tolerate it, except that it is adduced to support a popular and foregone conclusion. It would be laughed to scorn, were it used by believers in revelation. In the small remains of the Hebrew Scriptures and language, an induction, if it is to be of any value, must be very distinct. The largeness of Greek literature enables critics to single out Homeric, Herodotean, Eschylean, Pindaric words. In Hebrew we meet with hapax legomena (unique occurrences) in perhaps every prophet, in many Psalms; but it requires far more than the occurrence of the word in one single place, to furnish any even probable inference, that it was framed by the Prophet or Psalmist himself. Still less can it be inferred safely that because, in the scanty remains of Hebrew, a word does not occur before, for example, a certain historical book, it did not exist before the date of that book.
Rather the occurrence of any word in language so simple as that of the historical books, is an evidence that it did exist and was in common use at the time. Poets and orators coin words, in order to give full expression for their thoughts. The characteristic of the sacred historians, both of the Old and New Testament, is to relate the facts in most absolute simplicity. It would be a singular "history of the Hebrew language," which should lay down as a principle, that all those are later words, which do not happen to occur before the books of Kings, Habakkuk, or any other prophet, whom this criticism is pleased to rank among the later books. What are we to do with Habakkuk's own hapax legomena? Granted, that he framed some of them, yet it is impossible that he framed them all. As specimens of the results of such a critical principle, that words, occurring for the first time in any book, are characteristic of the date of that word, let us only take roots beginning with "s."
Had then the Hebrew no name for "nails" (as distinct from hooks, pegs,) as Ecclesiastes and Isaiah 41? Or had they none for ceiling a building before the book of Kings; although the ark had a third story, and Lot speaks of "the shadow of my roof?" Or had they none for a "decked vessel" before Jonah although the Indian names of Solomon's imports show that Ophir, whither his navy sailed, was in India, Ophir itself being Abhira in the province of Cutch? Or had they no name for "divided opinions" before Elijah? (Kg1 18:21. As "branches," first occurs in Isaiah, Isa 17:6; Isa 27:10; Isa 10:33; Eze 31:5-6, Eze 31:8) Seed shed, which sprang up in the second year, was known in the Pentateuch but that of the third year would, on that hypothesis, remain unknown until Hezekiah; nor did the Hebrews express to "drag along the ground," until Hushai , and, after him, Jeremiah. They had no name for winter, as distinct from autumn, until the Canticles Sol 2:11, and, but for the act of the Philistines in stopping up Gen 26:15, Gen 26:18. Abraham's wells, it might have been said that Hebrew had no word for this act, until the time of Jehoshaphat .
Or as to the criticism itself, קלס qâlas is to be a later word, because, except in that Psalm of the sons of Korah, it occurs first in the history of Elisha Kg2 2:23. Perhaps it is so rare (and this may illustrate the history of Elisha) because, as used, it seems to have been one of the strongest words in the language for "derision;" at least the verb is used in an intensive form only, and always of strong derision. But then, did the old Hebrews never use derision? Happy exception for one nation, if they never used it wrongly or had no occasion to use it rightly! Yet even though (by a rare exception) Ewald allows the second Psalm to be David's (Job, however, being placed about the 7th century b.c.) the evidence for לעג lâ‛ag, as strong a word, would be of the time of David . "Scorning" "scoffing," (unless Psa 1:1-6 is allowed to be David's) did not begin until Soloman's time "Mocking" was yet later As belongs to a rude people, insult was only shown in acts, of which התעלל is used and from those simple times of the Patriarchs, they had no stronger word than "to laugh at." For this is the only word used in the Pentateuch
But to what end all this? To prove that Habakkuk had no superhuman knowledge of what he foretold? Prophecy occupies, as I said, a subordinate place in Habakkuk. He renews the "burden" of former prophets, both upon his own people and upon the Chaldaeans; but he does not speak even so definitely as they. His office is rather to enforce the connection of sin and punishment: he presupposes the details, which they had declared. Apart from those chapters, which pseudo-criticism denies to Isaiah (Isa. 13; Isa. 14:1-23; Isa. 40 ff), on account of the distinctness of the temporal prophecies, Isaiah had, in plainest words, declared to Hezekiah the carrying away of all the royal treasures to Babylon, and that his off-spring should be eunuchs there; Isa 39:6-7, Micah had declared not only the complete desolation of Jerusalem Mic 3:12, but that the people should be Mic 4:10 "carried to Babylon, and there delivered, there redeemed from the hands of the enemy."
In the 13th year of Josiah, 628 b.c., and so, three years before the fall of Nineveh, while Babylon was still dependent on Nineveh and governed by a viceroy, and while Nabopolassar was still in the service of the king of Nineveh, Jeremiah foretold, that Jer 1:14-16 "evil should break forth from the North upon all the inhabitants of the land, and all the families of the kingdoms of the North shall come and set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem and against all the walls thereof round about and against all the cities of Judah," to execute the judgments of God against them for their wickedness. This was his dirge over his country for 23 years (Jer 25:3, see also Jer 5:15-17; Jer 6:1, Jer 6:22-25; Jer 10:22. Also in the collection of all his prophecies from the time of Josiah, which God commanded him to make in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, Jer 36:2, Jer 36:29, he provides them also with a saving against idolatry (in Chaldee) for their use in their captivity in Chaldaea. Jer 10:11) ere yet there was a token of its fulfillment.
Babylon had succeeded to Nineveh in the West and Southwest, and Judah had fallen to the share of Babylon; but the relation of Josiah to Nabopolassar was of a tributary sovereign, which rebellion only could disturb. The greater part of Nabopolassar's 21 year's reign are almost a blank . Chastisement had come, but from the South, not from the North. Eighteen years had passed away, and Josiah had fallen, in resisting Pharaoh-Necho in discharge of his fealty to the king of Babylon. Pharaoh-Necho had taken away one king of Judah, Jehoahaz, the people's choice, whose continued fealty to Babylon represents their minds, and had set up another, Jehoiakim. For three years Judah's new allegiance was alloweth to continue. Who, but God, could tell the issue of the conflict of those two great armies at Carchemish? Egypt with her allies, the Ethiopians, Phut and Lud, were come, rising up like a flood Jer 46:8-9, covering the earth with her armies, as her rivers, when swollen, made her own land one sea.
Necho had apparently in his alliance all the kings of the countries West of the Euphrates: for to them all, in connection with Egypt and subordinate to her, does Jeremiah at that moment give to drink the cup of the wrath of God; to Jer 25:19-24. Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants and his princes and all his people, and all the mingled people (his auxiliaries) and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines and Ashkelon and Azzah and Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod; Edom and Moab and the children of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon and the kings of the isle beyond the sea (probably Caphtor Jer 47:4, or Crete, or Cyprus) Dedan and Tema and Buz, and those whose hair is shorn (Arabians) and all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Zimri . It was a mighty gathering.
All the kings of Elam, all the kings of the Medes, all the kings of the North far and near, all was hostile to Babylon; for all were to drink of the cup beforehand, at the hands of the king of Babylon, and then the king of Sheshach (Babylon) was to drink after them. Necho was one of the most enterprising monarchs . Nabopolassar had shown no signs of enterprise. Nebuchadnezzar, the first and last conqueror of the Babylonian empire, though the alliance with Media and his father's empire had been cemented by his marriage, had, as far as we know, remained inactive during 20 years of his father's life . He was as yet untried. So little did he himself feel secure as to his inheritance of the throne, even after his success at the head of his father's army, that his rapid march across the desert, with light troops, to secure it, and its preservation for him by the chief priest, are recorded in a very concise history .
Neither Egypt nor Jehoiakim foresaw the issue. Defeat taught neither. Two voices only gave, in God's name, one unheeded warning. Pharaoh Hophra, the Apries of Herodotus, succeeded Pharaoh Necho in his self-confidence, his aggressions, his defeat. "I am against time," God says Eze 29:3, "Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own and I have made it for myself." "It is said," relates Herodotus (Herodotus ii. 16), "that Apries believed that there was not a god which could east him down from his eminence, so firmly did he think that he had established himself in his kingdom."
For a time, Nebuchadnezzar must have been hindered by Eastern wars, since, on Jehoiakim's rebellion and perjury, he sent only bands of the Chaldees, with bands of tributary nations, the Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, against him Kg2 24:2. But not in his time only, even after the captivity under his son Jehoiachin and his men of might Kg2 24:14-16, the conviction that Nebuchadnezzar could be resisted, still remained in the time of Zedekiah both in Egypt and Judah. Judah would have continued to hold under Babylonia that same position toward Egypt which it did under Persia, only with subordinate kings instead of governors. Apart from God's general promise of averting evil on repentance, Jeremiah, too, expressly tells Israel Jer 4:1, "If thou wilt put away thine abominations out of My sight, thou shalt not remove;" (Jer 7:7, add Jer 17:25-26; Jer 22:2-5), "Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever."
And "in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim," Jer 26:1, (Jer 26:12, add Jer 26:2-3), "The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words which ye have heard. Therefore, now amend your ways and your doings and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will repent Him of the evil that He hath pronounced against you." Still later, to Zedekiah Jer 27:11, "The nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, "them will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord; and they shall till it and dwell therein" Jer 35:15. "I have sent unto you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to year fathers." Even on the very verge of the capture of Jerusalem, Jeremiah promised to Zedekiah Jer 38:17, "If thou wilt go forth to the king of Babylon's princes; - this city shall not be burned with fire."
Pharaoh Hophra was still strong enough to raise the siege of Jerusalem, when invested by the Chaldaean army Jer 37:5. Jeremiah had the king, his princes, his prophets, all the people of the land against him, because he prophesied that Jerusalem should be burned with fire, that those already taken captives should not return, until the whole had been carried away, and the seventy yearn of captivity were accomplished Jer 25:11-12; Jer 29:10. The warning and the promise of Jeremiah's inaugural vision had its accomplishment (Jer 1:18-19, renewed Jer 15:20). "I have made thee a defensed city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the king of Judah, against the princes thereof and against the people 'of the land; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." Had it been matter of human foresight, how was it, that all nations, all their politicians, all their wise men, all their prophets, all Judah, kings, priests, princes, people, were blinded (as in Him of Whom Jeremiah was a shadow,) and Jeremiah alone saw? "Vaticinia post eventum" are, in one sense, easy; namely, to imagine, after an event has taken place, that one could have foreseen it.
And yet who, after the retreat to Corunna, could have foreseen the victories of the Peninsular war? Or, when that tide of 647,000 men was roiling on toward Russia, who could imagine that only a small fraction of those hosts should return, that they should capture Moscow, but find it a tomb; and hunger and cold, reaching at last to 36 degrees below Zero, should destroy more than the sword? "What was the principal adversary of this tremendous power? By whom was it checked and resisted and put down? By none and by nothing but the direct and manifest interposition of God."
The distinctness and perseverance of the prophecy are the more remarkable, because the whole of the greatness of the Chaldaean empire was that of one man. Assyria, in this one case, overreached itself in its policy of transporting conquered populations. It had, probably to check the rebellions of Babylon, settled there a wild horde, which it hoped would neither assimilate with its people, nor itself rebel. Isaiah relates the fact in simple words Isa 23:13. Behold the land of the Chaldaeans; this people was not; the Assyrian founded, not that it should cease to be, it for them that dwelt in the wilderness. This does not seem to me necessarily to imply, that the wild people, for whom Assyria founded it, were Chaldaeans or Kurds, whom the king of Assyria had brought from their Northern dwellings in the Carduchaean mountains near Armenia, where Sennacherib conquered.
Isaiah simply uses the name, the land of the Chaldaeans, as does Jeremiah (Jer 24:5; Jer 50:8, Jer 50:25; Jer 51:4; and, united with the name Babylon, Jer 25:12; Jer 50:1, Jer 50:45; Eze 12:13, as Isaiah does Chasdim alone, Isa 48:14, Isa 48:20) after him, as the name of Babylonia; the ward Babylonia, had it existed, might have been substituted for it. Of this, he says, that it was not, i. e., was of no account but that Assur founded it for wild tribes, whom he placed there. Whence he brought those tribes, Isaiah does not say. Aeschylus (although indeed in later times) as well as Isaiah and Jeremiah, speak of the population of Babylon, as mingled of various nations; and the language is too large to be confined simply to its merchant-settlers. In Aeschylus "the all-mingled crowd," which "it sends out in long array," are its military contingents. it is its whole population, of which Isaiah and Jeremiah say, it will flee, each to his own land Isa 13:14 "It (Babylon) shall be as a chased roe, and as a sheep which no man gathereth; they shall, every man, turn to his own people, and flee every man to his own land. For fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people: Jer 50:16. And they shall flee, every one to his own land."
Thus, Babylonia received that solid accession of strength which ultimately made it a powerful people, 60 years before the beginning of the reign of Josiah; its ancient and new elements would take some time to blend: they did not assume importance until the capture of Nineveh; nor had Judah any reason to dread anything from them, until itself rebelled, early in the reign of Jehoiakim. But 18 years before the death of Josiah, while Judah was a trusted and faithful tributary kingdom, Jeremiah foretold that evil should come upon them from the North, i. e., as he himself explains it, from the Chaldees .
Even then if Habakkuk were brought down to be a contemporary of Jeremiah, still in the 13th year of Josiah, there was nothing to fear. Judah was not in the condition of an outlying country, which Babylonian ambition might desire to reduce into dependence on itself. It was already part of the Babylonian empire, having passed into it, in the partition with Assyria, and hall no more to fear from it, than any of the conquered nations of Europe have now from those who have annexed them, unless they rebel. God alone knew the new ambition of the kings of the smitten and subdued Egypt, their momentary success, Josiah's death, Judah's relapse into the old temptation of trusting in Egyypt - all, condilions of the fulfillment of Habakkuk's and Jeremiah's prophecies. Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Zidon, sent embassadors to Zedekiah, to concert measures of resistance against Nebachadnezzar; Jer 27:3, they were encouraged by their Jer 27:9, diviners, dreamers, enchanters, sorcerers, which spoke to them, ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. One alone told them that resistance would but bring upon them destruction, that submission was their only safety; there was prophecy against prophecy, (Jer 5:12-14; Jer 14:14-16; Jer 23:16-17, Jer 23:21, Jer 23:25-27, Jer 23:30 ff; Jer 27:14-18; 28), among these nations, in Jerusalem, in Babylon Jer 29:8-9, Jer 29:15, Jer 29:21, Jer 29:24; the recent knowledge of the political aspect of Babylon deterred not the false prophets there; all, with one voice, declared the breaking the yoke of the king of Babylon: Jeremiah only saw, that they were framing for themselves Jer 28:13-14 yokes of iron. Had Jehoiakim or Zedekiah, their nobles, and their people possessed that human foresight which that pseudo-critical school holds to be so easy, Judah had never gone into captivity to Babylon. But He Who fashioneth the heart of man knoweth alone the issue of the working of those hearts, which He overrules.
From the necessity of its case, the pseudo-critical school lowers down the words, in which Habakkuk declares the marvelousness of the event which he foretells, and the unbelief of his people. "Look well," he bids them, "marvel ye, marvel on; for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, when it shall be told you." It is "something which had not hitherto been, something hitherto unknown," says Stahelin . Yet things hitherto unknown, are not therefore incredible. "It is clear from the contents," says Bleek "that the Chaldees had at that time already extended to the West their expeditions of conquest and destruction, and on the other side, that this had only lately begun and that they were not yet come to Judah and Jerusalem, so that here they were hitherto little known." "The appearance of the Chaldees as world-conquerors was, in Judah, then a quite new phenomenon," says Ewald . "The description of the Chaldees altogether is of such sort, that they appear as a people still little known to the Jews," says Knobel . "That which is incredible for the people consists therein, that God employs just the Chaldees, such as they are described in what follows, for the unexpected chastisement of Israel," says even Umbreit .
What was there incredible, that, when the king of Jerusalem had revolted from Babylon, and had sided with Egypt, its chief enemy, the Chaldaeans, should come against it? As soon might it be said to be incredible that France should invade Prussia, when its hundred thousands were on their march toward the Rhine. During the reign of Manasseh it was incredible enough, that any peril should impend from Babylon; for Babylon was still subordinate to Assyria: in the early years of Josiah it was still incredible, for his 31 years were years of peace, until Pharaoh Necho disputed the cis-Euphratensian countries with Babylon. When the then East and West came to Carehemish, to decide whether the empire should be, with the East or with the West, nothing was beyond human foresight but the result. Expectation lately hung suspended, perplexed between the forces of Europe. None, the most sagacious, could predict for a single day.
Men might surmise; God only could predict. For 23 years Jeremiah foretold, that the evil would come from the North, not from the South. The powers were well-balanced. Take Habakkuk's prophecy as a whole - not that the Chaldaeans should invade Judaea (which in Jehoiakim's time was already certain) but that Egypt should be a vain help, and that the Chaldaeans should mesh its people like the fishes of the sea, yet they should still have to disgorge them, because God's judgment would come upon them also. This too were incredible. Incredible it was to the kings, the wise, the politicians, the political prophets of Judaea, that Jerusalem itself should be taken. Incredible it was, and there was much human reason for the incredulity. Egypt and Assyria had been matched during centuries. Until the Sargonides, Egypt had, during centuries, the unbroken advantage. But the Sargonides had passed away.
Yet Chaldaea had not, alone, prevailed against Assyria. Why should the yet untried Babylonian be so certain of success, when the whole West of the Euphrates was banded together against him, and fought within their own ground? The kings of Elam add the kings of the Medes Jer 25:25 were now, as under Cyrus, enemies of Babylon. Babylon had enemies before and behind. But God had raised up Nebuchadnezzar to be the hammer of the whole earth Jer 50:23 and had given those cis-Euphratensian lands which leagued against him into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, God says Jer 27:6-7, and all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son, until the very time of his land come; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. Whence this combination of almost superhuman but short-lived might, this certainty of wide sway down to the third generation, this certainty of its cessation afterward?
There was no time for decay. Alexander's empire was yet more short-lived, but it was divided among his successors. Alexander had, by his genius, founded his own empire, which the able generals, whom he had trained, divided among themselves. In the Chaldaean empire, we have an enterprising conspirator, who seizes an occasion, but does little beside which is recorded, nothing alone, nothing, beside that first grasp at power, for himself. He appears only as the ally of Media: (Herodotus i. 74) then a son, a world-wide conqueror, with a genius for consolidating the empire which he inherited, forming an impregnable city, which should also be a province, filling his empire with fortresses , but leaving none after him to maintain what he had so consolidated. By whom could this be foreknown save by Him, with Whom alone it is, to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant? Jer 1:10)
It has been common to praise the outside of Habakkuk's prophecy, the purity of his language, the sublimity of his imagery. Certainly it is, humanly speaking, magnicent: his measured cadence is impressive in its simplicity. He too has words and forms, which are unique to him among the remains of Hebrew. But his eminence is rather the condensed thought, expressed often in the simplest words; as when, having carried on the tide of victory of the Chaldaean to its height, everything human subdued before him, all resistance derided, he gathers up his fall and its cause in those eight words Hab 1:11, "Then sweeps-he-by, wind, and-passes, and-is-guilty; this his-strength (is) his-god." Yet more striking is the religious greatness, in which he sums up the meaning of all this oppressiveness of man Hab 1:12. "Thou, Lord, has placed him for judgment, and, O Rock, has founded him to correct." Or, take the picture, prolonged relatively to his conciseness, of the utter helplessness of God's people, meshed, hooked, dragged in their net; their captors worshiping the instrument of their success, revelling in their triumph, and then the sudden question Hab 1:17, "Shall they therefore empty their net?" He waits to hear the answer from God. Or, again, the antiphonal dirge of the materials of the blood-built city over him Hab 2:11. Or the cutting off of every stay, sustenance, hope, promise of God, and, amid this universal crash, what does he? It is not as the heathen , "fearless will the ruins strike him:" but, Hab 3:10, "And I," as if it were the continuance and consequence of the failure of all human things; "I would exult in the Lord, I would bound for joy in the God of my salvation." His faith triumphs most, when all, in human sight, is lost.
"Ill which Thou blessest is most good,
And unblest good is ill;
And all is right which seems most wrong,
So it be Thy sweet Will." Next: Habakkuk Chapter 1
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Introduction to Matthew
The word "Gospel" means "good news," or "a joyful message." It commonly signifies the message itself, but it is here used to denote "the book" containing the record of the message. The title "saint," given to the sacred writers of the New Testament, is of Roman Catholic origin, and is of no authority.
It has been generally believed that Matthew wrote his Gospel in his native tongue; that is, the language of Palestine. That language was not pure Hebrew but a mixture of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac, commonly called "Syro-Chaldaic" or "Aramaic." Our Saviour undoubtedly used this language in his conversation and his disciples would naturally use this language also, unless there were good reasons why they should write in a foreign tongue. It is agreed that the remainder of the New Testament was written in Greek. The reason for this, in preference to the native language of the writers, was that Greek was the language then generally spoken and understood throughout the eastern countries conquered by Alexander the Great, and particularly in Judea, and in the regions where the apostles first labored.
The Christian fathers, without any exception, assert that Matthew wrote his Gospel for the use of the Christians in Palestine, and say that it was written in the Hebrew dialect. It should be remarked, however, that many modern critics of much eminence do not suppose the evidence that Matthew wrote in Hebrew to be decisive, and believe that there is sufficient proof that, like the other writers of the New Testament, Matthew wrote in Greek. See Lardner's Works, vol. v. p. 308-318, London edition, 1829.
The Gospel of Matthew exists now, however, only in Greek. The original Hebrew, or Syro-Chaldaic, if it were written in that language, has been. designedly laid aside or undesignedly lost. The question, then, naturally arises, Who is the author of the greek translation which we possess? And is it to be regarded as of divine authority?
It has been conjectured by some that Matthew himself furnished a Greek translation of the Hebrew. This conjecture, in itself probable enough, is destitute, however, of testimony to support it. Athanasius, one of the early fathers, says that it was translated by "James, the brother of our Lord according to the flesh." Papias, another of the early fathers, says that "each one translated it as he was able." If James translated it, there can be no question about its inspiration and canonical authority. Nor does it affect the question of its inspiration, even if we are ignorant of the name of the translator. The proper inquiry is whether it had such evidence of inspiration as to be satisfactory to the Church in the times when they were under the direction of the apostles. None acquainted with ancient history will doubt that it had such evidence.
Epiphanius says that the Gospel by Matthew was written while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome. This was about 63 a.d., about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is now generally supposed that this Gospel was written about this time. There is very clear evidence in the Gospel that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. The destruction of the Holy City is clearly and minutely foretold, but there is not the slightest intimation in it that these predictions had been accomplished - a thing which we should naturally expect if the Gospel was not written until after these calamities came upon the Jews. Compare Act 11:28. It has been only recently uniformly regarded as having been written before either of the other evangelists. Some of late have, however, endeavored to show that the Gospel by Luke was written first. All testimony, and all ancient arrangements of the books, are against the opinion; and when such is the fact, it is of little consequence to attend to other arguments.
In all copies of the New Testament, and in all translations, this Gospel has been placed first. This, it is probable, would not have been done had not Matthew published his Gospel before any other was written.
Matthew, the writer of this Gospel, also called Levi, son of Alphaeus, was a publican (tax-gatherer) under the Romans. See the Mat 9:9 note; Luk 5:27 note. Of his life and death little is known with certainty. Socrates, a writer of the 5th century a.d., says that Matthew went to Ethiopia after the apostles were scattered abroad from Judea, and he died a martyr in a city called Nadebbar, but by what kind of death is altogether uncertain. However, others speak of his preaching and dying in Parthia or Persia, and the diversity of their accounts seems to show that they are all without good foundation. See Lardher's Works, vol. v. pp. 296, 297. Next: Matthew Chapter 1