Bible Commentaries

Jeremiah 27:15 — so that it was necessary for God to execute his vengeance when their wickedness was incurable. Ever to be borne in mind then is that which is said in Deuteronomy, that God tried his people whenever he gave loose reins to false prophets, (Deuteronomy 13:3,) for every one who sincerely and undissemblingly loves him shall be guided by his Spirit. This then is the sure trial which God makes as to his faithful people, according to what Paul also says, who refers to this testimony of Moses, that heresies

Jeremiah 27:9 — submitting to the king of Babylon. It follows — (184) The five names here mentioned are thus explained by Venema, — 1.Prophets — who claimed divine inspiration; 2.Diviners — who prognosticated by means of lots and arrows; 3.Dreamers — who pretended that they had divine dreams; 4.Astrologers — who foretold events by the clouds and stars: 5.Sorcerers — who pretended to have familiar converse with some spirit. Parkhurst considers the second, diviners,

Jeremiah 31:33 — comparison ceases, this cannot be properly applied to the Law; but with regard to the Gospel it is said, that the Law is that of the letter, as it is called elsewhere, (Romans 7:6) and this also is the reason why Paul calls it the letter in 2 Corinthians 3:6, “the letter killeth,” etc. By “letter” he means not what Origen foolishly explained, for he perverted that passage as he did almost the whole Scripture: Paul does not mean there the simple and plain sense of the Law; for

Ezekiel 13:22 — or not., and thus they overthrow all assurance of faith. They retain, indeed, the name of faith, but meantime they wish wretched consciences to vacillate and be turned about with disquiet, since no one can know whether he can invoke God as a father. (31) That confidence which Paul says is common to all Christians, they call presumption and rashness. (Ephesians 3:12.) We see, then, how that point not only grieves the righteous, but disturbs innocent consciences: for a series of traditions is afterwards

Ezekiel 14:14 — inspiring life within men; and why? Bread has no life in it: how then can any one derive life from it? But the teaching of the law has been marked: that man lives not by bread only, but by every word proceeding from God’s mouth. (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Here Moses intends, that even if God has inserted the virtue of nourishment in bread, yet this is not to be so attributed to it as if it were inherent in it. What follows then? That as God breathes a secret virtue into the bread, it sustains and refreshes

Ezekiel 2:8 — impious conspiracy. We read the same in Isaiah, (Isaiah 8:12,) Thou shalt not say a conspiracy whenever this people says conspiracy: thou shalt not feel their fear nor their dread, but sanctify the Lord of hosts. Which passage Peter also cites, (1 Peter 3:14;) because the Jews, who then pertinaciously opposed the gospel, weakened the feeble by their boasting, by saying that they were the Church, and yet rejected and abominated the new teaching which was then spread abroad: Peter cites that place of the

Daniel 1:15 — Daniel and his companions in this their prayer and proposal. It is clear enough that there is no necessary virtue in bread to nourish us; for we are nourished by God’s secret blessing, as Moses says, Man lives not by bread alone, (Deuteronomy 8:3,) implying that the bread itself does not impart strength to men, for the bread has no life in it; how then can it afford us life? As bread possesses no virtue by itself, we are nourished by the word of God; and because God has determined that our life

Daniel 2:47 — of secrets This is our proof of Divinity, as we have said elsewhere. For Isaiah, when wishing to prove the existence of only one God, takes these two principles, viz., Nothing happens without his permission; and his foreseeing all things. (Daniel 48:3.) These two principles have been inseparably unified. Although Nebuchadnezzar did not understand what was the true peculiarity of Divinity, yet he is here impelled by the secret instinct of God’s Spirit clearly to set forth God’s power and

Daniel 9:14 — Therefore hath Jehovah closely attended to the calamity, and caused it to come upon us, says he. With the view of comprehending the Prophet’s intention more fully, we must notice what God pronounces by Jeremiah in the Lamentations, (Lamentations 3:38,) where he accuses the people of sloth, because they did not acknowledge the justice of the punishments which they suffered; he blames them in this way. Who is he who denies both good and evil to proceed from the mouth of God; as if he were pronouncing

Hosea 6:6 — and faith.” We now understand the main object of this verse. It is a remarkable passage; the Son of God has twice quoted it. The Pharisees reproached him for his intercourse with men of bad and abandoned life, and he said to them in Matthew (34) ‘Mercy I desire, and not sacrifice:’ he shows, by this defense, that God is not worshipped by external ceremonies, but when men forgive and bear with one another, and are not above measure rigid. Again, in the Matthew 12:0, (35) when the

Hosea 9:4 — the people, who continued in their own perfidy, would be like the bread of mourners; as Isaiah says, ‘When one kills an ox, it is the same as if he slew a man; when one sacrifices a lamb, it is the same as if he killed a dog,’ (Isaiah 66:3.) He compares sacrifices to murders; nor is it to be wondered at, for it is a more atrocious crime to abuse the sacred name of God than to kill a man, and this is what ungodly men do. Then he says, “If any one eats, he will be polluted.”

Joel 3:2 — We also see that the Prophet Haggai speaks in the same manner of the second temple, — that the glory of the second temple shall be greater than that of the first, (Haggai 2:3) He, however referred, no doubt, to the prophecy of Ezekiel; and Ezekiel speaks of the second temple, which was to be built after the return of the people from exile. Be it so, yet Ezekiel did not confine to four or five ages what he said of the second

Amos 8:11 — and shall seek the word of God, and nowhere find it. But that we may better understand the meaning of the Prophet, we must notice what Paul says, — that we are fed by the Lord as by the head of a family, when the word is offered to us, (Titus 1:3) for teachers go not forth of themselves, but when they are sent from above. As then the head of a family provides meat and sustenance for his children and servants, so also the Lord supplies us daily with spiritual food by true and faithful teachers,

Micah 6:16 — the case, changing place with the first letter of the verb. It is not always that this mood is reflective, but is sometimes passive, as we find to be the case with סתר, in Isaiah 29:14, and עבר, in Deuteronomy 3:26. And so here it does not retain its reflective meaning. But it may be, that intensity, diligence, or earnestness, is intended to be conveyed; that is, that the statutes of Omri were diligently and carefully observed. — Ed. (180) There is another

Nahum 1:3 — notwithstanding the insolence they manifest towards him.” He now adds, By clearing he will not clear. Some translate, “The innocent, he will not render innocent.” But the real meaning of this sentence is the same with that in Exodus 34:0; and what Moses meant was, that God is irreconcilable to the impenitent. It has another meaning at the end of Joel 3:0, where it is said, ‘I will cleanse the blood which I have not cleansed.’ On that text interpreters differ; because

Zephaniah 1:4 — name from their fervor, because they were madly devoted to their superstitions, or because they had marks on their foreheads, or because they imposed, as is commonly the case, on the simple by the ardor of their zeal. The name is also found in 2 Kings 23:1 in the account given of Josiah: for it is said there, that the כמרים, chemarim, were taken away, together with other abominations of superstition. But as Zephaniah connects priests with them, it is probable that

Zephaniah 2:9 — version, “A region of overrunning brambles.” This is far-fetched. The word, [חרול ], rendered “nettle” by Calvin, Grotius, and others, cannot be so taken, according to Drusius and Bochart, for in Job 30:7, men are said to gather under it. It is found besides only in Proverbs 24:31. It may be rendered either a thorn or a bramble. The other part of the sentence is literally “a digging place for salt.” Moab was to be like Sodom, and Ammon

Zechariah 10:2 — they shall not thirst, nor labor under any want. But at the same time we must bear in mind the exhortation of Christ — “Seek ye first the kingdom of God; other things,” he says, “shall afterwards be added.” (Matthew 6:33.) He then is strangely wrong who thinks that abundance of food was alone promised to the Jews; for God intended to lead them by degrees to things higher. The Prophet then no doubt includes here, under one kind, all things necessary for a happy life;

Zechariah 12:10 — render it “prayers,” but improperly, for they express not the force of the word. It is always put in the plural number, at least with this termination: and there is but one place where we can render it commiserations, that is, in Jeremiah 31:9 — “In commiserations will I restore them.” But even there it may be rendered lamentations consistently with the whole verse; for the Prophet says, “They shall weep,” and afterwards adds, “In lamentations will

Zechariah 14:21 — be a sacrifice to him: he therefore says, that all the kettles, or pots, or vessels, would be sacred to God. And this is fulfilled when men regard this end — to glorify God through their whole life, as Paul exhorts us to do. (1 Corinthians 10:31.) Our provisions and our beds, and all other things, become then holy to God, when we really devote ourselves to him, and regard in all the actions of our life the end which I have mentioned, even to testify in truth that he is our God, and that we