[450] ii. 23, Heb.
[451] ii. 20, Heb.
[452] vi. 3, 4; vii. 8; ix. 10; xiv. 6, 7, 8.
[453] vii. 11, 12; x. 11; xi. 4, etc.
[454] Pregnant construction, _hath committed great harlotry from after Jehovah_.
[455] These personal names do not elsewhere occur. גֹּמֶר; Γομερ. דִּבְלַיִם; Δεβηλαιμ B; Δεβηλαειμ, AQ. They have, of course, been interpreted allegorically in the interests of the theory discussed below. גמר has been taken to mean "completion," and interpreted as various derivatives of that root: Jerome, "the perfect one"; Raschi, "that fulfilled all evil"; Kimchi, "fulfilment of punishment"; Calvin, "consumptio," and so on. דבלים has been traced to דִּבלה, Pl. דִּבְלִים, cakes of pressed figs, as if a name had been sought to connect the woman at once with the idol-worship and a rich sweetness; or to an Arabic root, דבל, to press, as if it referred either to the plumpness of the body (cf. Ezek. xvi. 7; so Hitzig) or to the woman's habits. But all these are far-fetched and vain. There is no reason to suppose that either of the two names is symbolic. The alternative (allowed by the language) naturally suggests itself that דבלים is the name of Gomer's birthplace. But there is nothing to prove this. No such place-name occurs elsewhere: one cannot adduce the Diblathaim in Moab (Num. xxxiii. 46 ff.; Jer. xlviii. 2).
[456] _Hist. Geog._, Chap. XVIII.
[457] רֻחָמָה לֹא, probably 3rd pers. sing. fem. Pual (in Pause cf. Prov. xxviii. 13); literally, _She is not loved_ or _pitied_. The word means love as pity: "such pity as a father hath unto his children dear" (Psalm ciii.), or God to a penitent man (Psalm xxviii. 13). The Greek versions alternate between love and pity. LXX. οὐκ ἠλεημένη διότι οὐ μὴ προσθήσω ἔτι ἠλεῆσαι, for which the Complutensian has ἀγαπῆσαι, the reading followed by Paul (Rom. ix, 25: cf. 1 Peter ii. 10).
[458] Here ver. 7 is to be omitted, as explained above, p. 213.
[459] Do not belong to you; but the _I am_, אהיה, recalls the _I am that I am_ of Exodus.
[460] Augustine, Ambrose, Theodoret, Cyril Alex. and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
[461] It is interesting to read in parallel the interpretations of Matthew Henry and Dr. Pusey. They are very alike, but the latter has the more delicate taste of his age.
[462] i. 2.
[463] The former is Matthew Henry's; the latter seems to be implied by Pusey.
[464] Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_.
[465] Apparently it was W. R. Smith's interpretation which caused Kuenen to give up the allegorical theory.
[466] Two instances are usually quoted. The one is Isaiah vi., where most are agreed that what Isaiah has stated there as his inaugural vision is not only what happened in the earliest moments of his prophetic life, but this spelt out and emphasised by his experience since. See _Isaiah I.-XXXIX._ (Exp. Bible), pp. 57 f. The other instance is Jeremiah xxxii. 8, where the prophet tells us that he became convinced that the Lord spoke to him on a certain occasion only after a subsequent event proved this to be the case.
[467] An Eastern woman seldom weans her child before the end of its second year.
[468] iii. 2.
[469] From a speech by John Bright.
[470] iv. 13, 14.
[471] Cf. the spiritual use of the term, Isa. lxii. 4.
[472] For proof and exposition of all this see Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 92 ff.
[473] ii. 8.
[474] So best is rendered חסד, ḥesedh, which means always not merely an affection, "lovingkindness," as our version puts it, but a relation loyally observed.
[475] An expansion of this will be found in the present writer's _Isaiah XL.-LXVI._ (Expositor's Bible Series), pp. 398 ff.
[476] ii. 13.