|
Click a verse to see commentary
|
Select a resource above
|
A Call to Repentance6 “Come, let us return to the L ord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. 3 Let us know, let us press on to know the L ord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.” Impenitence of Israel and Judah4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. 5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
7 But at Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. 8 Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. 9 As robbers lie in wait for someone, so the priests are banded together; they murder on the road to Shechem, they commit a monstrous crime. 10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim’s whoredom is there, Israel is defiled.
11 For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
When I would restore the fortunes of my people, New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
|
The Prophet pursues more at large what he had briefly touched; for he does, not now confine himself to the common people, but directs his accusation against the sacerdotal order. “See,” he says, “the priests conspire among themselves like robbers, that they may slay wretched men, who may meet them in the way.” It is indeed certain that the Prophet speaks not here of open murders; for it is not credible that the priests had proceeded into so great a licentiousness, that Gilead had become a slaughter-house. But the Prophets, we know, are thus wont to speak, whenever they upbraid men with being sanguinary and cruel; they compare them to robbers, and that justly. Hence he says, The faction of the priests kill men in the way, as if they were robbers conspiring together. And then he shows that the priests were so void of every thing like the fear of God, that they perpetrated every kind of cruelty as if they were wholly given to robberies. This is the meaning. The word שכמה, shicame, is no doubt taken by the Prophet for “consent.” What is meant by שכם, shicam, is properly the “shoulder;” but it is metaphorically changed into the sense which I have mentioned; as it is in the Zephaniah 3 3838 Zephaniah 3:9. — fj. ‘They shall serve the Lord שכם אחד, shicam ached, with one shoulder;’ that is, “with one consent.” So also in this place, the priests conspire together שכמה, shicame, with consent.” For they who think that the name of a place is intended are much mistaken. Now in the last clause of the verse it is made evident why the Prophet had said that the priests were like robbers, ‘because,’ he says, ‘they do the thought,’ or ‘wickedness.’ The verb to זמם, zamem signifies “to think,” as it has been already said: hence זמה, zame is “thought” in general; but is often taken by the Hebrews in a bad sense, for a “bad design,” or “wicked trick:” They do then their conceived wickedness We hence learn that they were not open robbers, and publicly infamous in the sight of men, but that they were robbers before God, because the city was full of wicked devices, which were there concocted; and since they executed their schemes, it is justly said of them by the Prophet, that they imitated the licentiousness of robbers. Let us now go on — |