Bible Commentaries

Exodus 25:1 — linen, and goats' hair, 4. Rams' skins, badgers' skins, (rather violet-coloured skins,) and shittim wood, 5. Oil and spices, 6. Onyx stones, and stones for the ephod and breastplate, 7. A sanctuary is to be made after the pattern of the tabernacle, 8, 9. The ark and its dimensions, 10. Its crown of gold, 11. Its rings, 12. Its staves, and their use, 13-15. The testimony to be laid up in the ark, 16. The mercy-seat and its dimensions, 17. The cherubim, how made and placed, 18-20. The mercy-seat to be

Exodus 32:20 — appear when they were obliged to drink their god, reduced to powder and strewed on the water! "But," says an objector, "how could gold, the most ductile of all metals, and the most ponderous, be stamped into dust and strewed on water?" In Deuteronomy 9:21, this matter is fully explained. I took, says Moses, your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, that is, melted it down, probably into ingots, or gross plates, and stamped it, that is, beat into thin laminae, something like our

1 Kings 11:1 — concubines, 3. In his old age they turn away his heart from God, 4. He builds temples to idols, burns incense and sacrifices to them, 5-8. The Lord is angry with him, and threatens to deprive him of the kingdom, but will leave one tribe for David's sake, 9-13. The Lord stirs up Hadad, the Edomite, to be his enemy; the history of this man, 14-22. He stirs another adversary against him, Rezon the son of Eliadah. He and Hadad plague Israel, 23-25. Jeroboam also becomes his enemy, and the reason why, 26-28.

1 Kings 15:16 — is, there was continual enmity; see on 1 Kings 15:6. But there was no open war till the thirty-sixth year of Asa, when Baasha, king of Israel, began to build Ramah, that he might prevent all communication between Israel and Judah; see 2 Chronicles 15:19; 2 Chronicles 16:1. But this does not agree with what is said here, 1 Kings 16:8-9, that Elah, the son and successor of Baasha, was killed by Zimri, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Asa. Chronologers endeavour to reconcile this by saying that

1 Kings 21:19 — Verse 1 Kings 21:19. In the place where dogs licked, c. — It is in vain to look for a literal fulfillment of this prediction. Thus it would have been fulfilled, but the humiliation of Ahab induced the merciful God to say, I will not bring the evil in his days, but

2 Kings 20:11 — ten, or any other number of degrees; so that the miracle might have been wrought by occasioning this extraordinary refraction, rather than by disturbing the course of the earth, or any other of the celestial bodies.The dial of Ahaz. — 2 Kings 9:13, and the observations and diagram at the end of this chapter. 2 Kings 20:20.

1 Chronicles 7:21 — the house of Ephraim; and they computed their period [or boundary, כיצא kitsa] from the time in which the Word of the Lord of the universe spake with Abraham between the divisions, [i.e., the separated parts of the covenant sacrifice; see Genesis 15:9-21,] but they erred, for they should have counted from the time in which Isaac was born; they went out of Egypt therefore thirty years before the period: for, thirty years before the birth of Isaac the Word of the Lord of the universe spake with Abraham

Numbers 18:1 — the tabernacle, 2-4. The priests alone to have the charge of the sanctuary, c., no stranger to come nigh on pain of death, 5-7 The portion allowed for their maintenance, 8. They shall have every meat-offering and they shall eat them in the holy place, 9, 10. The wave-offerings, 11. The first-fruits of the oil, wine, and wheat, and whatever is first ripe, and every devoted thing, 12-14; also, all the first-born of men and beasts, 15-18; and heave-offerings, 19. The priests shall have no inheritance,

Numbers 5:22 — be understood in this sense and the falling down of the thigh here must mean something similar to the prolapsus uteri, or falling down of the womb, which might be a natural effect of the preternatural distension of the abdomen. In 1 Corinthians 11:29, St. Paul seems to allude to the case of the guilty woman drinking the bitter cursed waters that caused her destruction: He who eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation (κριμα, condemnation or judgment) to himself; and there is

Deuteronomy 11:1 — CHAPTER XI The people are exhorted to obedience from a consideration of God's goodness to their fathers in Egypt, 1-4, and what he did in the wilderness, 5, and the judgment on Dathan and Abiram, 6, and from the mercies of God in general, 7-9. A comparative description of Egypt and Canaan, 19-12. Promises to obedience, 13-15. Dissuasives from idolatry, 16,17. The words of God to be laid up in their hearts, to be for a sign on their hands, foreheads, gates, c., 18, taught to their children,

Deuteronomy 22:1 — goods, 1-3. Humanity to oppressed cattle, 4. Men and women shall not wear each other's apparel, 5. No bird shall be taken with her nest of eggs or young ones, 6, 7. Battlements must be made on the roofs of houses, 8. Improper mixtures to be avoided, 9-11. Fringes on the garments, 12. Case of the hated wife, and the tokens of virginity, and the proceedings thereon, 13-21. The adulterer and adulteress to be put to death, 22. Case of the betrothed damsel corrupted in the city, 23, 24. Cases of rape

Deuteronomy 4:1 — 3; and preserved those who were faithful, 4. The excellence of the Divine law, 5, 6. No nation in the world could boast of any such statutes, judgments, c., 7, 8. They are exhorted to obedience by the wonderful manifestations of God in their behalf, 9-13. Moses exhorts them to beware of idolatry, and to make no likeness of any thing in heaven or earth as an object of adoration, 14-20. He informs them that he must die in that land as God had refused to let him go into the promised land, being angry

Judges 19:1 — Levite and his concubine disagree; and she leaves him and goes to her father's house, 1, 2. He follows to bring her back, and is kindly entertained by her father five days, 3-8. He returns; and lodges the first night at Gibeah, in the tribe of Benjamin, 9-21. The men of Gibeah attack the house, and insist on abusing the body of the Levite; who, to save himself, delivers to them his concubine, whose life falls a victim to their brutality, 22-27. The Levite divides her dead body into twelve pieces, and

Judges 4:9 — Verse Judges 4:9. The Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. — Does not this mean, If I go with thee, the conquest shall be attributed to me, and thou wilt have no honour? Or, is it a prediction of the exploit of Jael? In both these senses the words

Judges 9:15 — Verse Judges 9:15. Come and put your trust in any shadow — The vain boast of the would-be sovereign; and of the man who is seeking to be put into power by the suffrages of the people. All promise, no performance.Let fire come out of the bramble — A strong

Judges 9:45 — Verse Judges 9:45. And sowed it with salt. — Intending that the destruction of this city should be a perpetual memorial of his achievements. The salt was not designed to render it barren, as some have imagined; for who would think of cultivating a city? but

1 Samuel 2:10 — in his riches; but let him who glorieth rather glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth the Lord; and that he executeth judgment and righteousness in the midst of the earth. This is a very long addition, and appears to be taken from Jeremiah 9:23, but on collating the two places the reader will find the words to be materially different. This clause is wanting in the Complutensian Polyglot, but it is in the edition of Aldus, in that of Cardinal Caroffa, and in the Codex Alexandrinus.

2 Samuel 12:1 — David is comforted, 18-24. Solomon is born of Bath-sheba, 25, 26. Joab besieges Rabbah of the Ammonites, takes the city of waters, and sends for David to take Rabbah, 27, 28. He comes, takes it, gets much spoil, and puts the inhabitants to hard labor, 29-31. NOTES ON CHAP. XIIVerse 2 Samuel 12:1. There were two men in one city — See a discourse on fables at the end of Judges 9:56, and a discourse on parabolic writing at the end of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew.There is nothing in this parable

2 Samuel 21:1 — account of Saul and his bloody house, who had slain the Gibeonites, 1. David inquires of the Gibeonites what atonement they require, and they answer, seven sons of Saul, that they may hang them up in Gibeah, 2 6. Names of the seven sons thus given up, 7-9. Affecting account of Rizpah, who watched the bodies through the whole of the time of harvest, to prevent them frown being devoured by birds and beasts of prey, 10. David is informed of Rizpah's conduct, and collects the bones of Saul, Jonathan, and

2 Samuel 5:1 — CHAPTER V The elders of ad the tribes of Israel come and anoint David king over all Israel, 1-5. He goes against the Jebusites, and takes the strong hold of Zion, and afterwards the city itself; which is called the city of David, 6-9. David's prosperity, and friendship with Hiram, king of Tyre, 10-12. He takes more concubines, and begets several sons and daughters, 13-16. The Philistines gather together against him in the valley of Rephaim; he defeats them; they abandon their idols,