It is no mere fancy which sees a suggestion and a foreshadow- ing of the prophetic work of Jesus in the economy of salvation, in a third name closely akin to the former. Hoshea, which we know in our English Bible as Hosea, was the original name of Joshua (compare Rom. ix. 25, Rev.) and means saving. He is, in a peculiar sense, the prophet of grace and salvation, placing his hope in God’s personal coming as the refuge and strength of humanity ; in the purification of human life by its contact with the divine. The great truth which he has to teach is the love of Jehovah to Israel as expressed in the relation of husband, an idea which pervades his prophecy, and which is generated by his own sad domestic experience. He foreshadows Jesus in his pointed warnings against sin, his repeated offers of divine mercy, and his patient, forbearing love, as manifested in his
dealing with an unfaithful and dissolute wife, whose soul he 2
18 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. I.
succeeded in rescuing from sin and death (Hosea i-iii.). So long as he lived, he was one continual, living prophecy of the tenderness of God toward sinners; a picture of God’s love for us when alien from him, and with nothing in us to love. The faithfulness of the prophetic teacher thus blends in Hosea, as in our Lord, with the compassion and sympathy and sacrifice of the priest.
He (airds). Emphatic; and so rightly in Rev., “ For 22s He that shall save his people.”
Their sins (duapriav). Akin to duaptdve, to miss a mark ; as a warrior who throws his spear and fails to strike his adver- sary, or as a traveller who misses his way. In this word, there- fore, one of a large group which represent sin under different phases, sin is conceived as a failing and missing the true end and scope of our lives, which is God.
22. Through the prophet (6:4). So the Rev. rightly, in- stead of by. In quotations from the Old Testament, the writers habitually use the preposition dua (through) to denote the enstru- mentality through which God works or speaks, while they re- serve t7rd (by) to express the primary agency of God himself. So here the prophecy in ver. 23 was spoken by the Lord, but was communicated to men through his prophet.
23. The virgin (# wapSévos). Note the demonstrative force of the article, pointing to a particular person. Not, some wirgin or other.
They shall call (cadécovew.) In ver. 21, it is thow shalt call. The original of Isaiah (vii. 14) has she shall call ; but Matthew generalizes the singular into the plural, and quotes the prophecy in a form suited to its larger and final fulfilment: men shadl call his name Immanuel, as they shall come to the practical knowl- edge that God will indeed dwell with men upon the earth.
Immanuel (Hebrew, Godis with us). To protect and save. A comment is furnished by Isa. viii. 10, “‘ Devise a device, but it shall come to naught ; speak a word, but it shall not stand, for
Cu. II.] MATTHEW. 19
with us is God.” Some suppose that Isaiah embodied the pur- port of his message in the names of his children: Maher- shalal-hash-baz (speed-prey), a warning of the coming of the fierce Assyrians; Shear-Jashub (a remnant shall return), a re- minder of God’s mercy to Israel in captivity, and Jmmanuel (God is with us), a promise of God’s presence and succor. How- ever this may be, the promise of the name is fulfilled in Jesus (compare “ Lo, Lam with you alway,” Matt. xxviii. 20) by his helpful and saving presence with his people in their sorrow, their conflict with sin, and their struggle with death.
24. The or his sleep (rod trvov). The force of the defi- nite article; the sleep in which he had the vision. So Rey., “ Arose from his sleep.”