The Pulpit Commentary — Nehemiah — Section 91

(Ps. xxxvi. 6) ; but this acknowledgment Vor. 15. -Bread from heaven. The falls very far short of the universality of the manna had been elrcndy called the "bread present p~sege. Man naturally, but fool- of hoavcn" (Ps. cv. 40) nnd the "corn of ishly, fancies that things once created are heaven" (Ps. lxxviii. 24) by tho national able to preserve themselves. Exact thought psalmists. The composer of this prayer sPes, that if ell things hRve been produced now for the first time calls it "bread from from nothi11{!, it requires precisely the same heaven "-a phrase consecrated to Christiana power to sustain as originally to produce by its employment in John vi (vers. 32, 61, them. Hence "preservation" has been 58). called '' a continual creation." Ver. 16.-They a.nd our fathers. Rather, Vers. 7--31.- CompRre with this long "they, our fathers." The vau is used historical resume the still longer ones in Ps. exegeticallr,. Dealt proudly. I. e. '' acted lxxviii 5-72 Rnd Acts vii. 2-47. God's insolently. ' Compare Deut. i. 43, where dealings with his people furnished e. moral the same verb is translated " were presump- lesson of extraordinary force, and moral tuous·• (marg. ). Hardened their necks. teachers, naturally, made frequent reference So in 2 Kings xvii. 14. to them. But it is not often that we have Ver. 17.-In their rebellion. Severe! so complete and elaborate a recapitulation as MSS. have b' Mitzraim for b'mirydnn, which the present, which, beginning with the call would give the sense "appointed a captain of Abraham, brings the history down to the to return to their bondage in Egypt.' So time of the Persian servitude. God's good- the Septuagint. Appointed a captain. The ness and his people's ingratitude form the reference is to Num. xiv. 4, where we are burthen of the whole. told that the Israelites "said one to another, Yer. 8.-Ca.nunites, &c. The nations Let us make a captain, and let us return driven out were actually seven (Deut. vii. 1), into Egypt." The Levites speak o.s if the but it is a common figure of speech to put appointment had been made, perhaps re- the part for the whole. In the present garding the intention as morally equivalent enumeration the Hivites are omitted. Hast to the act. A God ready to pardon. Literally, performed thy words. Though for a time '' a God of pardons." The word used is a remnants of the accursed nations were left in rare one, occurring only in Dan. ix. 9 nnd the land, "to pron Israel" (Judges iii 1), Ps. c=x. 4, besides the present passage. Yet ultimatelv all were either driven out or Gracious and merciful, llow to a.nger, and reduced to the condition of slaves (see the of great kindness. This is quoted from comment on Ezra ii. 55). Joel ii. 13, which is perhaps a conscious Yer. 10.-They dealt proudly. The reproduction of Jonah iv. 2. '' proud dealing " of the Egyptians is spoken Ver. 18.-Great provocations. Or "great of in Exod. xviii lL That God "got him- blasphemies," o.s the same word is rendered self a name " by the signs and wonders shown in Ezek. XXXV. 12. in Egypt is often declared (see Exod. ix. 16 ; Ver. 20.-Thou gaveat them also thy xiv. 17; xv. 14-16, &c.). . good Spirit to instruct them. The " good Ver. 11.-As a stone. This phrase is Spirit" of God is mentioned in Ps. cxliii. ta.ken from the " song of Moses" (Exod. xv. 10 ; and the fact of God's "instructing and 5 ). The composet_ of the address has also in teaching" men in Ps. xxx.ii. 8. But in• his mind Exod. xv. 10. The epithet given struction by God's Spirit is nowhere else to the "waters" is not, however, the same, distinctly mentioned in the Old Testament. as might appear from the A. V. Ver. 22.-Thou didst divide them into Ver. 13.-Right judgment■ , true lawa, comers. I. e. " didst plant them in every good atatutes, &c., are expressions which corner of the Holy Lana,"-" ~ave them to imply an immutable morality, a standard of possess the whole of it,"-ultimately, that right and wrong antecedent to command or IB, not at first (see the comment on ver. 8). precept, which standard is doubtless the The land of Bihon, and the land of the eternal goodness of God himself. The repe- king of Heahbon. The Levites must have tition of the epithets here shows the com- known that Sihon was king of Heshbon, poser of the fonn to be penetrated with the and (if the text is sound) must have ex- spirit of admiration for God's commandments pressed themselves as they did, by way of which breathes so remarkably through the rhetorical amplification ; perhaps, however, whole of Ps. cxix. the vau after " Sihon " is the mistake of 11, Ver. 14.-lladelt known unto them thy copyist. holy aabbath. The anterior e:ristence of the Ver. 23. -As the atar■ of heaven, There sabhath to the law is here implied, which is a reference here to the r.romise made to accords with Gen. ii. 2, 3, and Exod. xx. 11. Abraham (Gen. xv. 6; XXIL 17); On the Precept&, 1tatute1, and law■ . Rather a peri- great multiplication which took pince in phraaisfor "the law" generally, than a logical Egypt see Exod. i. 7, 12. divisioll of the law illto distinct partB. Ver. 24. - The Canaa11iteal Sometimes CA. IX. 1-38.] THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH. 95