PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2
Smith, George Adam · 165,161 words · 239 reading sections
First Series, 1887-8.
Transcriber’s notes This e-text includes Greek characters, Hebrew characters, uncommon diacritics, and punctuation that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) text readers: e.g. Μαλαχιας, מלאכיה, “malĕ’akhi”. If any of these characters do not display properly, make sure that your text reader’s “character set” or “file e…
270 wordsSECTION 2Sixth Series, 1892-3.
Galatians. By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A. The Pastoral Epistles. By Rev A. PLUMMER, D.D. Isaiah I.—XXXIX. By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I. The Book of Revelation. By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. 1 Corinthians By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. The Epistles of St. John. By Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh. Judges and R…
290 wordsSECTION 3Preface
2 Kings. By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. Romans. By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A., D.D. The Books of Chronicles. By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. 2 Corinthians. By JAMES DENNEY, D.D. Numbers. By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. The Psalms. By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III. Daniel. By Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. The Bo…
1,061 wordsSECTION 4Preface
[I may here add a word or two upon some of the critical conclusions reached in Vol. I., which have been recently contested. The student will find strong grounds offered by Canon Driver in his _Joel and Amos_[1] for the authenticity of those passages in Amos which, following other critics, I regarded or suspected as not…
875 wordsSECTION 5Xviii. Haggai And The Building Of The Temple 234
All this gives unity to the study of prophets so far separate in time, and so very distinct in character, from each other. From Zephaniah to Jonah, or over a period of three centuries, they illustrate the dissolution of Prophecy and its passage into other forms of religion. The scholars, to whom every worker in this f…
267 wordsSECTION 6Xxxiii. The Contents Of “Zechariah” Ix.—Xiv. 463
ZECHARIAH i. 1-6, ETC.; EZRA v. 1, vi. 14. ZECHARIAH i. 7—vi. THE FIRST: THE ANGEL-HORSEMEN (i. 7-17). THE SECOND: THE FOUR HORNS AND THE FOUR SMITHS (i. 18-21 ENG.). THE THIRD: THE CITY OF PEACE (ii. 1-5 ENG.). THE FOURTH: THE HIGH PRIEST AND THE SATAN (iii.). THE FIFTH: THE TEMPLE CANDLESTICK AND THE TWO OLIV…
296 wordsSECTION 7_The Seventh Century Before Christ_
JONAH i. JONAH ii. JONAH iii. JONAH iv. The three prophets who were treated in the first volume of this work belonged to the eighth century before Christ: if Micah lived into the seventh his labours were over by 675. The next group of our twelve, also three in number, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk, did not appear t…
461 wordsSECTION 81. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
Jerusalem was delivered in 701, and the Assyrians kept away from Palestine for twenty-three years.[4] Judah had peace, and Hezekiah was free to devote his latter days to the work of purifying the worship of his people. What he exactly achieved is uncertain. The historian imputes to him the removal of the high places, …
723 wordsSECTION 91. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
But the most certain consequence of a religion whose nerves are on edge is persecution, and this raged all the earlier years of Manasseh. The adherents of the purer faith were slaughtered, and Jerusalem drenched[11] with innocent blood. Her _own sword_, says Jeremiah, _devoured the prophets like a destroying lion_.[12]…
948 wordsSECTION 101. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
2. THE EARLY YEARS OF JOSIAH (639—625): JEREMIAH AND ZEPHANIAH. Amon had not reigned for two years when _his servants conspired against him, and he was slain in his own house_.[20] But the _people of the land_ rose against the court, slew the conspirators, and secured the throne for Amon’s son, Josiah, a child of eig…
907 wordsSECTION 111. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
Now, just as in the eighth century there had risen, contemporaneous with Israel’s social corruption, a cloud in the north, black and pregnant with destruction, so was it once more. But the cloud was not Assyria. From the hidden world beyond her, from the regions over Caucasus, vast, nameless hordes of men arose, and, s…
905 wordsSECTION 121. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
It was obvious that the vengeance which Western Asia thus hailed upon Assyria must come from one or other of two groups of peoples, standing respectively to the north and to the south of her. To the north, or north-east, between Mesopotamia and the Caspian, there were gathered a congeries of restless tribes known to t…
687 wordsSECTION 131. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
It is said that Kyaxares and Nabopolassar at last came to an agreement;[40] but more probably the crisis was hastened by the appearance of another claimant for the coveted spoil. In 608 Pharaoh Necho _went up against the king of Assyria towards the river Euphrates_.[41] This Egyptian advance may have forced the hand of…
757 wordsSECTION 141. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
Yet, through all this time of Assyria’s decline, Israel had her own sins, fears and convictions of judgment to come. The disappearance of the Scythians did not leave Zephaniah’s predictions of doom without means of fulfilment; nor did the great Reform of 621 remove the necessity of that doom. In the deepest hearts the …
707 wordsSECTION 151. Reaction Under Manasseh And Amon (695?—639).
But the extraordinary thing is, how little effect Josiah’s death seems to have had upon the people’s self-confidence at large, or upon their adherence to Jehovah. They immediately placed Josiah’s second son on the throne; but Necho, having got him by some means to his camp at Riblah between the Lebanons, sent him in fe…
1,019 wordsSECTION 16Footnotes:
* * * * * It has been necessary to follow so far the course of events, because of our prophets Zephaniah is placed in each of the three sections of Josiah’s reign, and by some even in Jehoiakim’s; Nahum has been assigned to different points between the eve of the first and the eve of the second siege of Niniveh; and H…
676 wordsSECTION 17[18] 621 B.C.
How deeply Manasseh had planted in Israel the worship of the heavenly host may be seen from the survival of the latter through all the reforms of Josiah and the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer. vii. 18, viii., xliv.; Ezek. viii. Cf. Stade, _Gesch. des V. Israel_, I., pp. 629 ff.). [16] The Jehovist and Elohist into the …
666 wordsSECTION 18[44] I. 106.
[43] See above, p. 20, n. 37. [45] A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum at Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king restored at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had destroyed fifty-four years before, _i.e._ 607. Whether the Medes did this before, du…
658 wordsSECTION 19_The Book Of Zephaniah_
[67] See above, p. 26, n. 56. [68] 2 Kings xxiv. 2. [69] Jer. xxxvii. 30, but see 2 Kings xxiv. 6. [70] So Josephus puts it (X. _Antiq._, vii. 1). Jehoiachin was unusually bewailed (Lam. iv. 20; Ezek. xvii. 22 ff.). He survived in captivity till the death of Nebuchadrezzar, whose successor Evil-Merodach in 561 took …
767 wordsSECTION 20_The Book Of Zephaniah_
The conditions reflected are thus twofold—the idolatrous and sceptical state of the people, and an impending invasion. But these suit, more or less exactly, each of the three sections of our period. For Jeremiah distinctly states that he had to attack idolatry in Judah for twenty-three years, 627 to 604;[81] he inveigh…
746 wordsSECTION 21_The Book Of Zephaniah_
Chap. ii. 1-4 is assigned by Schwally to a date later than Zephaniah’s, principally because of the term _meekness_ (ver. 3), which is a favourite one with post-exilic writers. He has been sufficiently answered;[93] and the close connection of vv. 1-3 with chap. i. has been clearly proved.[94] Chap. ii. 4-15 is the pass…
696 wordsSECTION 22Footnotes:
We reach more certainty when we come to the second section of the chapter, vv. 14-20. Since Kuenen it has been recognised by the majority of critics that we have here a prophecy from the end of the Exile or after the Return. The temper has changed. Instead of the austere and sombre outlook of chap. i.—ii. 3 and chap. i…
659 wordsSECTION 23Footnotes:
[78] So Hitzig, Ewald, Pusey, Kuenen, Robertson Smith (_Encyc. Brit._), Driver, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick, Budde, von Orelli, Cornill, Schwally, Davidson. [79] So Delitzsch, Kleinert, and Schulz (_Commentar über den Proph. Zeph._, 1892, p. 7, quoted by König). [80] So König. [81] Jer. xxv. [82] Jer. vii. 18. [83] i.…
702 wordsSECTION 24_The Prophet And The Reformers_
[97] Schwally (234) thinks that the epithet צדיק (ver. 5) was first applied to Jehovah by the Second Isaiah (xlv. 21, lxiv. 2, xlii. 21), and became frequent from his time on. In disproof Budde (3398) quotes Exod. ix. 27, Jer. xii. 1, Lam. i. 18. Schwally also points to נצדו as borrowed from Aramaic. [98] Budde, p. 3…
823 wordsSECTION 25_The Prophet And The Reformers_
The full truth, however, is that Zephaniah, though he found his material in the events of his own day, tears himself loose from history altogether. To the earlier prophets the Day of the Lord, the crisis of the world, is a definite point in history: full of terrible, divine events, yet “natural” ones—battle, siege, fam…
789 wordsSECTION 26_The Prophet And The Reformers_
Again, to the same elemental interests, as we may call them, is due the absence from Zephaniah’s pages of all the social and individual studies which form the charm of other prophets. With one exception, there is no analysis of character, no portrait, no satire. But the exception is worth dwelling upon: it describes th…
928 wordsSECTION 27_The Prophet And The Reformers_
It is perhaps the chief part of the sin of the obscure units, which form these great masses of indifference, that they think they escape notice and cover their individual responsibility. At all times many have sought obscurity, not because they are humble, but because they are slothful, cowardly or indifferent. Obvious…
670 wordsSECTION 28_The Prophet And The Reformers_
_A day of wrath is that Day![130] Day of siege and blockade, day of stress and distress,[131] day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and heavy mist, day of the war-horn and battle-roar, up against the fenced cities and against the highest turrets! And I will beleaguer men, and they shall walk like the blind, for they h…
269 wordsSECTION 29Footnotes:
[100] Josiah, born _c._ 648, succeeded _c._ 639, was about eighteen in 630, and then appears to have begun his reforms. [101] See above, pp. 40 f., n. 85. [102] Jer. i. 5. [103] See G. B. Gray, _Hebrew Proper Names_. [104] Josiah. [105] It is not usual in the O.T. to carry a man’s genealogy beyond his grandfather,…
654 wordsSECTION 30Footnotes:
[119] Or Molech = king. LXX. _by their king_. Other Greek versions: Moloch and Melchom. Vulg. Melchom. [120] LXX. _His._ [121] So LXX. Heb. _sons_. [122] Is this some superstitious rite of the idol-worshippers as described in the case of Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 5? Or is it a phrase for breaking into a house, and so paralle…
748 wordsSECTION 31_Ninive Delenda_
[137] LXX. πρὸ γένεσθαι ὑμᾶς ὡς ἄνθος (here in error reading נץ for מץ) παραπορευόμενον, πρὸ τοῦ ἐπελθεῖν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς ὀργὴν κυρίου (last clause omitted by א^{c.b}). According to this the Hebrew text, which is obviously disarranged, may be restored to בְּטֶרֶם לאֹ־תִהיוּ כַמֹּץ עֹבֵר בְּטֶרֶם לאֹ־יָבֹא עֲלֵיכֶם חֲרוֹן יהו.…
657 wordsSECTION 32_Ninive Delenda_
_Also ye, O Kushites, are the slain of My sword.[160]_ The elegiac measure is now renewed[161] in an oracle against Assyria, the climax and front of heathendom (vv. 13-15). It must have been written before 608: there is no reason to doubt that it is Zephaniah’s. _And may He stretch out His hand against the North, An…
351 wordsSECTION 33Footnotes:
[140] See above, pp. 41 ff. [141] Some, however, think the prophet is speaking in prospect of the Chaldean invasion of a few years later. This is not so likely, because he pictures the overthrow of Niniveh as subsequent to the invasion of Philistia, while the Chaldeans accomplished the latter only after Niniveh had fa…
667 wordsSECTION 34_So As By Fire_
[160] Wellhausen reads _His sword_, to agree with the next verse. Perhaps חרבי is an abbreviation for חרב יהוה. [161] See Budde, _Z.A.T.W._, 1882, 25. [162] Heb. reads _a nation_, and Wellhausen translates _ein buntes Gemisch von Volk_. LXX. _beasts of the earth_. [163] קאת, a water-bird according to Deut. xiv. 17,…
759 wordsSECTION 35_So As By Fire_
_Wherefore wait ye for Me—oracle of Jehovah—_wait_ for the day of My rising to testify, for ’tis My fixed purpose[179] to sweep nations together, to collect kingdoms, to pour upon them ...[180] all the heat of My wrath—yea, with the fire of My jealousy shall the whole earth be consumed.[181]_ _In that day thou shalt n…
696 wordsSECTION 36Verses 14-20.
But, on the other hand, is any one in despair at the darkness and cruelty of this life, let him hear how Zephaniah proclaims that, though all else be fraud, _the Lord is righteous in the midst_ of us, _He doth not let Himself fail_, that the resigned heart and the humble, the just and the pure heart, is imperishable, a…
406 wordsSECTION 37Footnotes:
[168] See above, pp. 43-45. [169] Heb. _the city the oppressor_. The two participles in the first clause are not predicates to the noun and adjective of the second (Schwally), but vocatives, though without the article, after הוֹי. [170] LXX. _wolves of Arabia_. [171] The verb left untranslated, גרמו, is quite uncert…
690 wordsSECTION 38Footnotes:
[182] Wellhausen _despair_. [183] Heb. _the jubilant ones of thine arrogance_. [184] See vv. 4, 5, 11. [185] Heb. _the_. [186] מִשְׁפָּטַיִךְ. But Wellhausen reads מְשׁוֹפְטַיִךְ, thine adversaries: cf. Job ix. 15. [187] Reading תִּרְאִי (with LXX., Wellhausen and Schwally) for תִּירָאִי of the Hebrew text, _fear…
478 wordsSECTION 391. The Position Of Elḳôsh.
_Woe to the City of Blood, All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!_ _Hark the whip, And the rumbling of wheels! Horses at the gallop, And the rattling dance of the chariot! Cavalry at the charge, Flash of sabres, and lightning of lances!_ The Book of Nahum consists of a double title and three odes. Th…
721 wordsSECTION 402. The Authenticity Of Chap. I.
Till recently no one doubted that the three chapters formed a unity. “Nahum’s prophecy,” said Kuenen in 1889, “is a whole.” In 1891[215] Cornill affirmed that no questions of authenticity arose in regard to the book; and in 1892 Wellhausen saw in chap. i. an introduction leading “in no awkward way to the proper subject…
711 wordsSECTION 413. The Date Of Chaps. Ii. And Iii.
Little is to be learned from the language. Wellhausen, who makes no objection to the genuineness of the passage, thinks that about ver. 7 we begin to catch the familiar dialect of the Psalms. Gunkel finds a want of originality in the language, with many touches that betray connection not only with the Psalms but with l…
910 wordsSECTION 423. The Date Of Chaps. Ii. And Iii.
Fortunately it is not necessary to come to a decision. Nahum, we cannot too often insist, expresses the feelings neither of this nor of that decade in the reign of Josiah, but the whole volume of hope, wrath and just passion of vengeance which had been gathering for more than a century and which at last broke into exul…
275 wordsSECTION 43Footnotes:
[199] In the English version, but in the Hebrew chap. ii. vv. 1 and 3; for the Hebrew text divides chap. i. from chap. ii. differently from the English, which follows the Greek. The Hebrew begins chap. ii. with what in the English and Greek is the fifteenth verse of chap. i.: _Behold, upon the mountains_, etc. [200] I…
835 wordsSECTION 44Footnotes:
[215] _Einleitung_, 1st ed. [216] Who seems to have owed the hint to a quotation by Delitzsch on Psalm ix. from G. Frohnmeyer to the effect that there were traces of “alphabetic” verses in chap, i., at least in vv. 3-7. See Bickell’s _Beiträge zur Semit. Metrik_, Separatabdruck, Wien, 1894. [217] _Z.A.T.W._, 1893, pp…
322 wordsSECTION 45[230] I. 103.
[231] Hitzig’s other reason, that the besiegers of Niniveh are described by Nahum in ii. 3 ff. as single, which was true of the siege in 625 _c._, but not of that of 607—6, when the Chaldeans joined the Medes, is disposed of by the proof on p. 22 above, that even in 607—6 the Medes carried on the siege alone. [232] Pa…
280 wordsSECTION 46_The Vengeance Of The Lord_
NAHUM i The prophet Nahum, as we have seen,[236] arose probably in Judah, if not about the same time as Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years later. Whether he prophesied before or after the great Reform of 621 we have no means of deciding. His book does not reflect the inner history, character or merits of his gen…
787 wordsSECTION 47_The Vengeance Of The Lord_
_A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah; Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath; Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies, And implacable He to His foes._ _Jehovah is long-suffering and great in might,[239] Yet He will not absolve. Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane, And clouds are the dust of His feet.[2…
422 wordsSECTION 48Footnotes:
[236] Above, pp. 78 ff., 85 ff. [237] See above, pp. 81 ff. [238] Ver. 3, if the reading be correct. [239] Gunkel amends to _in mercy_ to make the parallel exact. But see above, p. 82. [240] Gunkel’s emendation is quite unnecessary here. [241] See above, p. 83. [242] So LXX. Heb. = _for a stronghold in the day of…
406 wordsSECTION 49_The Siege And Fall Of Niniveh_
NAHUM ii., iii The scene now changes from the presence and awful arsenal of the Almighty to the historical consummation of His vengeance. Nahum foresees the siege of Niniveh. Probably the Medes have already overrun Assyria.[253] The _Old Lion_ has withdrawn to his inner den, and is making his last stand. The suburbs a…
1,067 wordsSECTION 50_The Siege And Fall Of Niniveh_
Upon the trebly fortified city the Medes drew in from east and north, far away from Kalchu and able to avoid even Dur-Sargina. The other fortresses on the frontier and the approaches fell into their hands, says Nahum, like _ripe fruit_.[258] He cries to Niniveh to prepare for the siege.[259] Military authorities[260] s…
665 wordsSECTION 51_The Siege And Fall Of Niniveh_
Two other points remain to be emphasised. There is a striking absence from both chapters of any reference to Israel.[270] Jehovah of Hosts is mentioned twice in the same formula,[271] but otherwise the author does not obtrude his nationality. It is not in Judah’s name he exults, but in that of all the peoples of Weste…
775 wordsSECTION 52_The Siege And Fall Of Niniveh_
We are now ready to follow Nahum’s two great poems delivered on the eve of the Fall of Niniveh. Probably, as we have said, the first of them has lost its original opening. It wants some notice at the outset of the object to which it is addressed: this is indicated only by the second personal pronoun. Other needful comm…
662 wordsSECTION 53Footnotes:
_Draw thee water for siege, strengthen thy forts! Get thee down to the mud, and tramp in the clay! Grip fast the brick-mould! There fire consumes thee, the sword cuts thee off.[308] Make thyself many as a locust swarm, Many as grasshoppers, Multiply thy traders more than heaven’s stars, —The locusts break off[30…
784 wordsSECTION 54Footnotes:
[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp. 94 f. [271] ii. 13, iii. 5. [272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. IV., especially pp. 54 ff. [273] ii. 8. [274] _Isaiah xl.—lxvi._ (Expositor’s Bible), pp. 197 ff. [275] Read מַפֵּץ with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s _Wörterbuch_, sub פּוּץ) for מֵפִיץ, _Bre…
661 wordsSECTION 55Footnotes:
Mr. Paul Ruben (_Academy_, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of העלתה, _is brought forth_, to read העתלה, and to translate it by analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted, _The Lady_. The line would then run _Huṣṣab, the lady, is stripped_. (With העתלה Cheyne, _Academy_, June 21st, 1896, …
558 wordsSECTION 561. Chap. I. 2—Ii. 4 (Or 8).
_Upon my watch-tower will I stand, And take up my post on the rampart. I will watch to see what He will say to me, And what answer I get back to my plea._ * * * * * _The righteous shall live by his faithfulness._ “The beginning of speculation in Israel.” As it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk, under the titl…
959 wordsSECTION 571. Chap. I. 2—Ii. 4 (Or 8).
_Second:_ others, however, deny that chap. i. 2-4 refers to the internal disorder of Judah, except as the effect of foreign tyranny. The _righteous_ mentioned there are Israel as a whole, _the wicked_ their heathen oppressors. So Hitzig, Ewald, König and practically Smend. Ewald is so clear that Habakkuk ascribes no si…
719 wordsSECTION 581. Chap. I. 2—Ii. 4 (Or 8).
Budde’s very able and ingenious argument has been subjected to a searching criticism by Professor Davidson, who emphasises first the difficulty of accounting for the transposition of chap. i. 5-11 from what Budde alleges to have been its original place after ii. 4 to its present position in chap. i.[322] He points out …
799 wordsSECTION 592. Chap. Ii. 5-20.
Therefore, the theory supported by the majority of critics being unnatural, we are, with our present meagre knowledge of the time, flung back upon Budde’s interpretation that the prophet in i. 2—ii. 4 appeals from oppression by a heathen power, which is not the Chaldean, but upon which the Chaldean shall bring the just…
577 wordsSECTION 603. Chap. Iii.
The third chapter, an Ode or Rhapsody, is ascribed to Habakkuk by its title. This, however, does not prove its authenticity: the title is too like those assigned to the Psalms in the period of the Second Temple.[339] On the contrary, the title itself, the occurrence of the musical sign Selah in the contents, and the co…
372 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.