The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 488

being his chilclren, but El froward ancl orooked form"), the howlino of the 1r,il,lern,.~~- genomtion." " Israel is fignratively represented ns n mnn Vers. 6, 7.-Insload of grBtofully Rc- without food or water, nnd snrl'ounrled by knowlcdging the Divine beneficence, anrl howling, ferocious beasts, and who must dutifully oheying the Divine will, Israel needs have peri•hecl had not Gnrl found him hnd perversoly ancl foolishly req uitcd the and _rescuer) him" (Herxheimer). The apple Lord for all his benefits, by apostacy from of hl8 eye; literally, the mannilciri (fil:i'i<) of him. Do ye thus requite l 'fho verb hero his eye, the pupil ; so cnlled because in it, as signifies primarily to do to nny one either in a mirror, a peraon sees his own ima2;e re- gootl or evil, whether in return for what he flected in miniature (Gesenius). or because, hBs clone or not (cf. Gen. I. 15; 1 SBm. xxiv. being the tenderest part of the eye, it is 18 ; P1·ov. iii. 30) ; then, os n eeconclnry guarded as one would a bahe (cf. Ps. xvii. mcaning, to reward, repo.y, requite, ns here 8; Prov. vii. 2; Zech. ii. i2). By Dclitzsch and Ps. xviii. 21. 'fo bring more forcibly to and others this explanation of the wore! is their view the ingratitude nnd folly of their rejected as not philologically justified, there conduct, l\'[oses dwells upon what God was being no evidence that the termination Ji and h11d been to the nation : their Father, had a. diminutive force; a.nd as not in keep- in that he h11d, in his love, chosen them to ing with the earnestness of the passages in be his peopla (cf. Isa. lxiii. 16; lxiv. 7; which this word occurs. They prefer llfol. ii. 10) ; their Purchaser, who hnd ac- the explanation man image to mannil:in. quired possession of them by delivering them Anyhow, the use of the word here must ho out of Egypt (cf. Ps. lxxiv. 2); their ta.ken a.a indicating that Israel is ever in the Maker, who hacl constituted them o. nation; eye of the Lord, the object of his constant and their Establisher, by whom they had and tenderest care. been conducted through the wilderness and settled in Canaan. Days of old; the Ver. 11.-God's treatment of his people is times of Israel's deliverance from bondage, compared to that of an eagle towards its and the times during which successive young (cf. Exod. xix. 4). In the Authorized generations had lived and experienced the Version, the a.podosis of the s~ntenrc is goodness of the Lord. The form of the made to begin a.t ver. 12, a.nd ver. 11 is wholly word rendered "days " is poetical, and is understood of the eagle and its youn~. To found only here and in Ps. xc. ,15, which this arrangement it has been objected that is also o.scribed to l\'[oses. The years of many it overlooks the fact that the sntlixes to the generations; literally, years of generation verbs "taketh '' and "bea.reth" nre sin!!'D.la.rs and generation; '' mtatum singulo.rum _an- and are to be understood consequently. not nos" (Rosenmiiller). of the eaglets, but of Israel. It ha.s, there- Vera. 8, 9.-From the very beginning, fore, been proposed to render the p11ssage when God first o.llotted to the nations o. thus: .As an eagle which stirreth up its nest, place and II heritage, he had respect in his fluttereth 01:er its young, he spread out his o.rro.ngements to the sons of Israel, who were toings, took him up, and carried him on his his portion, and had as it were kept their pinions. The Lord alone did lead him, interest in view in all that he appointed etc. The comparison is thus made to pass and ordered. Accordin~ to the number of into a metaphorical represen ta.lion of the the children of Israel, When the Most High Lord's dee.ling with Israel. One feels tha.t portioned out to the nations the heritoge of there is something violent in this, for whilst each, he reserved for Israel, ns the people God's care for Israel might be fittingly of his choice, an inheritance proportioned to eompared to tha.t of an eo.gle towards her its numbers. The LXX. has "according to young, it is less fit to speak of God himself the number of the nngels of God," an arbi- as if he were o.n eagle with wings which he trary departure from tho original text, in' eprea.cl abroad and on which he ha.re Israel. accommodntion, probo.bly, to the later Jewish The rendering in the Authorized Version is notion of each n11tion having its guardian on this account to be preferred, if it ca.n he angel. The Lord's portion is his people ( cf. grammatically vindicated. And this it ma.y Exod. xv. 16; xix. 5 ; 1 Sam. x. 1 ; Pa. lxxviii. on the grouud tha.t the suffixes may be 71). The lot of his inheritance; litemlly, understood of the "nest" as containing tho the cord, eto., the o.llusion being to the mo11- young(" continens pro contento," El common suring of land by II oord, equivalent to the rhetorical trope in Scripture; see Glass., portion by measure which Jehovnh allotted • Phil. Sac.,' p. GS6; cf. Virgil, '.2EneiJ,' xii. to himself 11a his inheritBnce (cf. Ps. xvi. 6). 475, "niclisque loquacibus escam "); or tho Ver. 10.-God's fatherly cnre of Israel. young may be referred to individually, In the desert land, 11nd in the waste howling " taketh it, hearcth it," i. e. euch of them; or, wilderness; literally, ill the land of the desel't, if the nest ho umlerstootl, the whole body of in the waste (the. formless wnste; the wonl them o.s therein conttiinecl. Stineth ~ her used is tbo.t rendere,l, Gen. i. 2, " without [its]nest i.e. its nestlings; prowcansad L"Ola11- 1500 TIIE BOOK OF DEUTEHONlHIIY. [011. xxxn, 1-62.