6 spurious brood. Am not I the hus band of a wife of fornications? My people go daily a whoring after the God of Israel, bear this indignity, and 'shalt thou, a mortal man, proudly defy the calls of nature; fearing the disgrace of thy family, and the contamination of its blood by a woman's frailty? But this interpretation differs from the former only in the species of guilt imputed to the Israelites collectively; and the command to the prophet is still nothing more than to venture upon a wife, ill-qualified as the women of his times in general were for the duties of the married state. And the injunction seems to be given for no other purpose than to introduce a severe animadversion upon the Israelites, as infinitely more guilty with respect to God, than any adultress among women with respect to her husband. action, and in giving an account of the woman's character, supports his opinion in the following manner. "The Hebrew phrase, a wife of fornica-idols of the heathen. Shall I, the ⚫tions,' taken literally, certainly describes a prostitute, and children ⚫ of fornications;' are the offspring of a promiscuous commerce. Some, however, have thought, that a wife of fornications may signify nothing worse, than a wife taken from among the Israelites, who were re'markable for spiritual fornication, or idolatry.' And that children of 'fornications,' may signify children born of such a mother, in such a country, and likely to grow up in the habits of idolatry themselves, by the force of ill example. God, contemplating with indignation the frequent disloyalty of that chosen nation, to which he was, as it were, a husband, which owed him the fidelity of a wife, says to the prophet, Go, join thyself in marriage to one of those who have committed fornication against me, and raise up children who will themselves swerve to 'idolatry.' But the words thus interpreted contain a description only of public manners, without immediate application to the character of any individual, and the command to the prophet will be nothing more than to take a wife. "But the words may be more literally taken, and yet the impropriety as it should seem, of a dishonourable alliance formed by God's express command, as some have thought, avoided. Idolatry, by the principles on which it was founded, and by the licence and obscenity of its public rites, had a natural tendency to corrupt the morals of the sex; and it appears, by the sacred history, that the prevalence of it among the Israelites was actually followed with this dreadful effect. It may be supposed that, in the depraved state of public manners, the prophet was afraid to form the nuptial connexion, and purposed to devote himself to a single life and that he is commanded by God to take his chance: upon this principle, that no dishonour that might be put upon him by a lascivious wife, was to be compared with the affront daily put upon God by the idolatries of the chosen people. Go, take thyself a wife among these wantons. Haply she may play thee ⚫ false, and make thee a father of a "But it is evident, that a wife of fornications,' describes the sort of woman with whom the prophet is required to form the matrimonial connection. It expresses some quality in the woman, common perhaps to many women, but actually belonging to the prophet's wife in her individual character. And this quality was no other than gross incontinence in the literal meaning of the word, carnal, not spiritual fornication. The prophet's wife was, by the express declaration of the Spirit, to be the type or emblem of the Jewish nation, considered as the wife of God. The sin of the Jewish nation was idolatry, and the scriptural type of idolatry is carnal fornication; the woman, therefore, to typify the nation, must be guilty of the typical crime; and the only question that remains is, whe. ther this stain upon her character was previous to her connection with the prophet, or contracted afterwards?'' P. 11, 12. In prosecuting this subject, the author insists upon the woman's incontinence before, and infidelity after marriage, and adds the following arguments as an answer to objections founded upon the supposed immorality of the prophet's marriage as a reality. "If any one imagines, that the marriage of a prophet with an harlot, is something so contrary to moral purity as in no case whatever to be justified, let him recollect the case of Salmon the Just, as he is stiled in the targum upon Ruth, and Rahab the harlot. If that instance will not remove his scruples, he is at liberty to adopt the opinion, which I indeed reject, but many learned expositors have approved, that the whole was a transaction in vision only, or in trance. I reject it, conceiving that whatever was unfit to be really commanded, or really done, was not very fit to be presented as commanded, or as done, to the imagination of a prophet in his holy trance. Since this, therefore, was fit to be imagined, which is the least that can be granted, it was fit (in my judgment) under all the circumstances of the case, to be done. The greatness of the occasion, the importance of the end, as I conceive, justified the command in this extraordinary instance." P. 15. The remainder of the preface contains the import and design of the names, given to the children of the prophet's wife; with the reasons for the obscurity of Hosea's writings, and thus concludes, with giving the design of the work. With respect to my translation, I desire that it may be distinctly understood, that I give it not, as one that ought to supersede the use of the public translation in the service of the church. Had my intention been to give an amended translation for pubEc use, I should have conducted my work upon a very different plan, and observed rules in the execution of it, to which I have not confined myself. This work is intended for the edification of the Christian reader in his closet. The translation is such as, with the notes, may form a perpetual comment on the text of the holy prophet. For, a translation, accompanied with notes, I take to be the best perpetual comment upon any text in a dead language. My great object, therefore, in translating, has been to find such words and phrases as might convey neither more nor less than the exact sense of the original (I speak here of the exact sense of the words, not of the application of the prophecy.) For this purpose I have been obliged, in some few instances, to be paraphrastic. But this has only been when a single word, in the Hebrew, expresses more than can be rendered by any single word in the English, according to the established usage of the language. A translator, who, in such cases, will confine himself to give word for word, attempts in truth what cannot be done; and will give either a very obscure or a very defective translation; that is, he will leave something untranslated. The necessity of paraphrastic translation will particularly occur whenever the sense of the original turns upon a paranomasia; a figure frequent in all the prophets, but in the use of which Hosea, beyond any other of them, delights. With the same view of presenting the sense of my Author in language perspicuous to the English reader, for Hebrew phrases I have sometimes judged it expedient to put equivalent phrases of our own tongue (where such could be found) rather than to render the Hebrew word for word. But these liberties I have never used without apprising the learned reader of it in my critical notes, and assigning the reason. And sometimes, in the case of phrases, I have given the English reader a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase in the explanatory notes. In some instances, but in very few, I have changed words and forms of expression, in frequent use in our public translation, for others, equivalent in sense, of a more modern phraseology, ever keeping my great point in view, to be perspicuous to the generality of readers." P. 45. "The notes, which accompany my translation, are of two kinds; explanatory and critical. The first are intended to open the sense of the text, and point out the application of the prophecy to the English reader. The latter are disquisitions upon various points of antient learning, many of them purely philological, to ascertain the true sense of the text, to justify my translation of it, or the application of it that I teach the unlearned reader to make, to the satisfaction of the learned reader. The explanatory notes accompany the text, being given at the bottom of the page, and the reference to these is by the smaller letters. The critical notes are placed at the end by themselves, and the reference to these is by the capitals of the Roman alphabet...... I would observe, however, that in the critical notes, with the exception of such as are purely philological, the unlearned reader will find much, that may afford him both amusement and instruction. And many even of the philological may be of use to those who have a general acquaintance with antient literature, though but a superficial knowledge of the Oriental languages." P. 47, 48. 15. SPECIMEN OF THE TRANSLATION. Hosea, Chap. iv. ver. 15. If thou play the wanton, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. And come ye not unto Gilgal", neither go ye up to 16. Bethaven, and swear not, "JEHOVAH liveth "." Truly Israel 17. is rebellious, like an unruly heifer (L). Now will JEHOVAH 18. feed them as a lamb in a large place. A companion (N) of idols is Ephraim--Leave him to himself.-Their strong drink is vapid-Given up to lasciviousness, greedy of gifts, (O 19. shame!) (q) are her great men. The wind binds her up in its wings, and they shall be brought to shame because of their sacrifices. NOTES. Here a transition is made with great elegance and animation, from the general subject of the whole people, in both its branches, to the kingdom of the ten tribes in particular. "Whatever the obstinacy of the house of Israel may be in her corruptions, at least let Judah keep herself pure. Let her not join in the idolatrous worship of Gilgal or Bethaven, or mix idolatry with the profession of the true religion.-As for Israel, I give her up to a reprobate mind." Then the discourse passes naturally into the detail and amplification of Israel's guilt. Gilgal, in this period of the Jewish history, appears from Hosea and Amos, to have been a scene of the grossest idolatry. "Come ye not," I. e. Ye, O men of Judah. -Swear not, &c." i. e. Swear not the solemn oath of the living God in an idolatrous temple. x“ ——In a large place," i. e. in an uninclosed place, a wide common. They shall no longer be fed with care in the rich enclosures of God's cultivated farm; but be turned out to browze the scanty herbage of the waste. That is, they shall be driven into exile among the heathen, freed from what they thought their restraints, and of consequence deprived of all the blessings and benefits of religion. This dreadful menace is delivered in the form of severe derision, a figure much used by the prophets, especially by Hosea. Sheep love to feed at large. The sheep of Ephraim shall presently have room enough. They shall be scattered over the whole surface of the vast Assyrian empire, where they will be at liberty to turn very heathen. See (M). It is remarkable, however, that even in this state it is said Jehovah will feed them. They are still, in their utmost humiliation, an object of his care. "Vapid," sour, turned. The allusion is to libations made with wine grown dead, or turning sour. The image represents the want of all spirit of piety in their acts of worship, and the unacceptableness of such worship in the sight of God. Which is alledged as a reason for the determination, expressed in the preceding clause, to give Ephraim up to his own ways. Leave him to himself," says God to his prophet, "his pretended devotions are all false and bypocritical, I desire none of them. See (0). 66 z Heb. They love, Give ye. See Prov. xxx. 15. See (P). aa An admirable image of the condition of a people torn by a conqueror from their native land, scattered in exile to the four quarters of the world, and living thenceforward without any settled residence of their own, liable to be moved about at the will of arbitrary masters, like a thing tied to the wings of the wind, obliged to go with the wind whichever way it is set, but never suffered for a moment to lie still. The image is striking now, but must have been more striking, when a bird with expanded wings, or a huge pair of wings without head or body, was the hieroglyphic of the element of the air, or rather the general mundane atmosphere, one of the most irresistible of physical agents. " binds," or, "is binding," the present tense to denote instant futurity." כפרה קררה סרר ישראל ".unruly heiter -I restore the rendering of the Bishop's Bible and the English Geneva. It was changed into what we now read in the public translation,-" Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer,” upon a supposition, that the actions of the restive beast, refusing the yoke, are literally expressed in the original, by the word mp, and that the disobedience of the Israelites is represented under the image of the like action. A notion which the apparent affinity of the roots ( and D) might naturally suggest. The version of the LXX. too is evidently founded upon a similar notion of the original, as literally describing the actions of the animal, but actions of a very different kind, not those of restiveness, but the involuntary running about of the heifer stung by the gad-fly. Διοτι ὡς δάμαλις παραδρώσα παροίέρησεν Ισραήλ, But there is certainly no ground at all for this particular interpretation in any use of the verb (10, or D,) among the sacred writers; and our public translation is much more, than this of the LXX. to the purpose of the con text. The fact, however, is, that the verb TD, or the participle, is in no one passage of the Bible, except this, applied to a brute. It is true, in Lam. iii. 11. we find the word mp applied to a brute; but not to a domestic brute, in a restive or a frisky mood, but to a wild beast, sprung from his laire, and crossing the way of the traveller: and not to the wild beast immediately, but to Jehovah, in wrath and taking vengeance, represented under the image of the wild beast. And in the phrase in this passage 77, I take to be another word, not from the root D, but the Poel form of the verb no. “He turneth aside my ways;" that is, be scares me out of the strait path, and compels me to take a new direction. In the fifteen other passages (and no more) in which the word p YOL. I. It occurs, it invariably signifies the perverse disposition, or disorderly conduct of a moral agent, without any express allusion to any brute. seems therefore, at least doubtful, whether, in this passage of Hosea, the figure is not rather in the application of the participle to the heifer, than of the verb to Israel. And it seems safer to give what is indubitably the sense of the passage in plain terms, after the example of the author of the Syriac version, and the majority indeed of interpreters, than to affect to retain metaphors of the original, which may be merely imaginary. It is worthy of remark, that in many passages of Scripture, besides this, we read in our English Bible of "back-sliding Israel," and of “Israel's back-slidings.' But the Hebrew word, in all these other passages, is very different, and from quite another root. And that other word, in the sense of "back-sliding," is never, any more than this word D, applied to a brute. (M) feed them in a large place," apa. This word and is never used but in a good sense; and, for the most part, figuratively, as an image of the condition of liberty, ease, and abundance. I agree, therefore, with Grotius, that this is said with bitter irony. "Est hic xevaojòs i irrisio acerba; ex ambiguo. Late pascere amant agni. Deus Israelem disperget per totum Assyriorum reg num." (N)" חבור עצבאים A companion of idols,” See Psalm cxix. 63. Isaiah i. 23. (0) " Their strong drink is vapid," app. The verb with an accusative after it, without a preposi. tion or prefix, will not bear the sense of "going after," which some have given it in this place; nor can I think with Houbigant, that the verb in the Kal form is to be taken in the Hiphil sense, the noun a being its subject, and the pronominal suffix attached to the noun its object. I agree with those interpreters who take the noun No as the nominative of the neutral verb, which makes the construction natural, and the sense most apposite. It is well remarked by Drusius and Livelye, that wine, in that state which the Hebrew words describe, is called in Latin, vinum fugiens. "Si quis vinum fugiens vendat sciens, debeatne dicere." Cic. de Off. lib. 3. C 66 (P) The construction is certainly" avenging, or visiting, upon the uncommon. But I see nothing in it house of Jehu the blood of Jezrael," so harsh and obscure, as to make an will signify, that the family of Jehu alteration of the text necessary. I was to be punished for blood shed by give the sense which the learned Po- Jehu, or by his descendants in that cock approves, which seems to me place." to arise easily from the Hebrew words. It must be observed, however, in justice to Houbigant and Archbishop Newcome, that their omission of an has the authority of three manuscripts, of Kennicott's, of the Syriac version, and the LXX. and was suggested by Archbishop Secker. (Q) (0 shame) For a long time I thought myself original and single in this way of rendering. But I have the satisfaction to find, that the learned Drusius was before me in it. He renders thus: "Scortando scortati sunt, amant date (0 Dedecus) protectores ejus." And he makes this note upon, "O Dedecus, Primus ita exposui; an rectè, judicent periti harum rerum, xalxpo Ty κριτικών. NOTE ON CHAP. I. VER. 4. Blood of Jezrael. Heb bloods of Jezrael," i. e. blood of the holy seed, the faithful servants of God, shed by the idolatrous princes of Jehu's family in persecution, and the blood of children shed in their horrible rites upon the altars of their idols. P. 1. (n)“ Jezrael, the mystical name of the prophet's son, must be familiar to all who are conversant in the Holy Scriptures, as the name of a city in the tribe of Issachar, and of a valley or plain, in which the city stood: the city, famous for its vineyard, which cost the rightful owner, the unfortunate Naboth, his life; and, by the righteous judgment of God, gave occasion to the downfal of the royal house of Ahab: the plain, one of the finest parts of the whole land of Canaan, if we may judge from the partiality of the kings of Israel for the spot, who all fixed their residence in one or other of its numerous cities. Modern expositors, entirely forget ting the prophet's son, have thought of nothing in this passage but the place, the city, or the plain: a mis. take into which perhaps they have the more easily fallen, by reason of the explicit mention of the place at the end of the subsequent verse. But if the word Jezrael be taken here as the name of a place, the threat of Jehu himself shed the blood of Ahab's family, with unsparing hand, in Jezrael. But this was an execution of the judgment, which God had denounced by his prophet Elijah against the house of Ahab, for the cruel murder of Naboth: and it may justly seem extraordinary, that this should be mentioned as a crime of so deep a dye, as to bring down vengeance upon Jehu's house. It is true, that when the purposes of God are accomplished by the hand of man (which is the case indeed in some degree in every human action), the very same act may be just and good, as it proceeds from God, and makes a part of the scheme of Providence; and criminal in the highest degree, as it is performed by the man who is the immediate agent. The man may act from sinful motives of his own, without any consideration, or knowledge, of the end to which God directs the action. In many cases the man may be incited by enmity to God and the true religion to the very act, in which he accomplishes God's secret, or even his revealed, purpose. The man, therefore, may justly incur wrath and punishment, for those very deeds, in which, with much evil intention of his own, he is the instrument of God's good Providence. But these distinctions will not apply to the case of Jehu, in such manner as to solve the difficulty arising from this interpretation of the text. Jehu was specially commissioned by a prophet" to smite the house of Ahab his masterto avenge the blood of the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, at the hand of Jezabel*.” And, however the general corruption of human nature, and the recorded imperfections of Jehu's character, might give room to suspect, that in the excision of Ahab's family, and of the whole faction of Baal's worshippers, he might be instigated by motives of private ambition, and by a cruel sanguinary disposition, the fact appears from the history to have been otherwise; that he acted through the whole business with a conscientious regard to God's commands, and a zeal for his service; insomuch, that *2 Kings ix. 7. |