We have reserved till now those passages in which the term * rock ' is figuratively used of God. These are the following. The word vho is used in 2 S 22' [ = Ps IS^W (oTcp^u/ia)] 31*l'l (KpaTo'lw/xa) 42"' W ('\vtl. XtJ/chttwp) 71' (oT-ep^u/ta). The term employed is iis in Dt 32*- "• 18. so. si (^u g^f,,^ ^.^ ySt^^ 1 S 2^ (? SUaios), 2S 22» (0t'Xaf) 82 (xWo-rTjs) [ = P8 IS*' ("I ((»e6s)] " (<!>v\ai) [ = Ps 18-"H«) (Se6s)] 23' (Bebs), Ps 19i»l"i (|3or,Ws) 28' (fleis) 31» W («f 4s vTrepaffirtaHis) 62' <-l- '(«1- 8(71 (all eeds) 71' (»e6s {nrepa(nn<rr-f,^) 73=» (Ofis) 78'» (/3o7;«6s) 89" l=«l (a.vTi\i„j.Trruip) 92" ('"» (fleis) 94-- (/SoTjffA?) 95' 144' (both 9e4s), Is 17'" (/3o7796s) 26'' (? a^tos) .SO^^ (Oe6s) 44' (LXX om.), Hab 1'^ (LXX om.). In some of these passages it has been contended that zur has the force of a proper (Divine) name. Hommel, for instance, in support of his claim that a certain class of personal names found in P, which have been widely suspected of being late and artificial, are bona fde ancient Hebrew survivals, brings forward two compound names to show the exist- ence in early times of a Divine name Zur. These are Zuri-'nddana, from a S. Arabian inscription not later than B.C. 800, and Bir- (or Bar-) Ztir, from Zinjerli (8th cent. B.C.). But, while Hommel has rendered a service by calling attention to these names, one does well to rememoer that, whatever they may prove for the period and the place to which they belong, it is very questionable whether they justify the inference that Zur was used in a similar sense by the early Hebrews, and it remains as doubtful as before whether names like Pedahzur, Elizur, Zuriel, and Zuri-shaddai, Nu l"- «• '» 3» [why are these the only instances in the OT of compounds with zur, and why are they confined to P?], were at any time, and much more in early times, prevalent in Israel. To the present writer the probability appears to be that, as far as the OT is concerned, Dt 32 is the source to which all the above passages may be traced back ; and neither in Dt 32*- " nor in Hab 1", the passages which plead most strongly in favo\ir of Hommel's view, does it seem to be neceswary to take zur as a Dirine name in the proper sense. The circum- stance that seta' and zur are both employed in the sense we are examining (sometimes even side by side, e.y. Ps 18' <" [cf. v."] 71'), strengthens the conclusion that in all the instances cited we have to do simply with one of those metaphors of which Hebrew writers are so fond. ' It (zur) designates
Jehovah, by a forcible and expressive figure, aa the unchangeable support or refuge of His servants, and is used with evident appropriateness where the thought is of God's unvarying attitude towards His people. The figure is, no doubt, like crag, stronghold, high place, etc., derived from the natural scenery or Palestine' (Driver, Dcut. 350; similarly Bertliolet and Steuemagel. Homniel'a contentions will be found stated in his AHT, pp. 300, 319 f., where he opposes the views of G. Buch.anan Gray contained in IIPN, 195 f.j Gray replies to Hommel in tlie Expositor, Sept 1897, p. 173 ff. : cf. also Whitehou.se's Wew, .as expressed in art. Pillar in the present work, vol. iii. p. SSI").
In the NT ' rock ' always represents vlrpa. Its occurrences are as follows : Mt 7''''"- II Lk Q*^ * as a type of a sure foundation, in Jesus' simile of the two buildings ; Mt 16" ' upon this rock I -nTll build my church' [this passage is exhaustively discussed in art. PETER in vol. iii. p. 758] ; Mt 27*' tlie rocks were rent by the earthquake at the Crucifixion ; Mt 27** II Mk 15** Joseph's tomb was hewn out in the rock, cf. Is 22"* ; Lk 8'- " part of the seed scattered by the sower fell i-rrl t^v irirpav, ' upon rock,' which is interpreted by the ivl t4 nFrpJiS-ri of Mt 13'-^ [the expression means places where only a thin coatintj of soil covered the underlying rock, hence R\ appropriately 'rocky places ; AV infelicitously 'stony places,' whicn suggests ground in which a number of loose stones were found] ; Ro 9" ' As it is written. Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling {\t6ov TrpoaKd/i/iaTos] and a rock of offence {■n-^pav (XKavSaXov),' where Is S'* and 28" appear to be in view as in 1 P 2*-' ; in Rev 6'"- the caves and rocks of the mountains play the same part as in Is 2"*- and as the moun- tains and hills in Hos 10' (cf. Lk 23'"). Finally, there is 1 Co 10*, where St. Paul says of the Israelites who were led by Moses through the wilderness that ' they did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them : and the rock was Christ ' (Ittikok yap iK TTvev/MirtKTJs dKoXovdoOff-rj^ Tr^rpas, i] irh'pa 5^ ^v 6 Xpurrds). Not only does St. Paul here spiritualize the smitten rock and the water that flowed from it, giving to these a Eucharistic sense (cf. the foreshadowing of Baptism which he discovers in the Passage of the Red Sea and the Pillar of Cloud, y.', and St. Peter's treatment of the Deluge and the Ark, 1 P 3™-*'),t but he has drawn unon later Jewish expansions of the OT story. Neither in Ex il^"- nor in Nu 20*'- is it hinted even that the water continued to How from the rock after the temporary occasion for it had passed (contrast the case of Jg 15'°). Jewish haggdda, however, went much beyond this, describing how the rock accom- panied tlie Israelites all throu";h their march (cf. St. Paul's dKoXovOoi'xTTi w(Tpa), and how, wherever the Tabernacle was pitched, the princes came and sang to the rock, 'Spring up,0 well, sing ye unto it,' where- upon the waters gushed forth afresh [Bammidbar rabba Nu 21'"-; Delitzsch in ZA'IC, 1882, p. 455ff.; Driver, Expos. Jan. 1899, p. 15 ft'. ; Thackeray, St. Paul and Contemp. Jew. Thought, 204 ff. ; the Comm. on 1 Corinthians; cf., forinstancesof similar Jewish fancies, Sdiurer, GJV ii. 343 [HJP II. i. 344]).