Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2

by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

In favour of the signification "to rule" in this verb, the following gloss from the Camus only can be quoted: "Both (the 1st and 10th conjugations) when construed with עליה super illum, denote: he has taken possession of a thing, and behaved himself proudly towards it." But the latter clause must be struck out; for it has flowed only from the false reading

in Schultens, for which (compare Freytag)

noluit must be read, בעל with על accordingly signifies "to be the possessor of a thing, and, as such, not to be willing to give it up to another." And thus every ground has been taken from those who, from the Hebrew usus loquendi, would interpret בעל in a bad sense,--The same result, however, which we have reached upon philological grounds, we shall obtain also, when we look to the context. From it, they are most easily refuted, who, like Schultens, understand the whole verse as a threatening. That which precedes, as well as that which follows, breathes nothing but pure love to poor Israel. She is not terrified by threatenings, like Judah who has not yet drunk of the cup of God's wrath, but allured by the call: "Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, for I will give you rest." But they also labour under great difficulties who, after the example of Kimchi ("ego fastidivi vos, eo scil. quod praeteriit tempore, ac jam colligam vos"), refer the כי not so much to בעלתי, as rather to לקהתי: "For I have, it is true, rejected you formerly, but now I take," &c. This is the only shape in which this interpretation can still appear; for it is altogether arbitrary to explain כי by "although," an interpretation still found in De Wette. If it had been the intention of the Prophet to express this sense, nothing surely was less admissible, than to omit just those words, upon which everything depended--the words formerly and now. לקחתי and בעלתי evidently stand here in the same relation; both together form the ground for the return to the Lord. To these reasons we may still add the circumstance that, according to our explanation, we obtain the beautiful parallelism with ver. 12: "Return thou, apostate Israel, saith the Lord; I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful; I do not keep anger for ever,"--a circumstance which has already been pointed out by Calvin. Israel's haughtiness is broken; but despondency now keeps them from returning to the Lord. He, therefore, ever anew repeats His invitation, ever anew founds it upon the fact, that He delights in showing mercy and love to those who have forsaken Him. The rejection of Israel had, in ver. 8, been represented under the image of divorce: "Because apostate Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her the bill of divorce." What, therefore, is more natural, than that her being received again, which was offered to her out of pure mercy, should appear under the image of a new marriage; and that so much the more, that the apostacy had, even in the preceding verse, been represented as adultery and whoredom? ("Thou hast scattered thy ways,

i.e., thou hast been running about to various places after the manner of an impudent whore seeking lovers"--Schmid; compare ver. 6.) Farther to be compared is ver. 22: "Return ye apostate children, (for) I will heal your apostacy. Behold we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God." The objection that בעל, in the signification "to take in marriage" is construed with the Accusative only, is of no weight. In a manner altogether similar, זכר, which else is connected with the simple Accusative, is, in ver. 16, followed by the Preposition ב. בעל with ב altogether corresponds to our "to join onesself in marriage;" and the construction has perhaps a certain emphasis, and indicates the close and indissoluble connection. Of still less weight is another objection, viz., that, in that case, the Suffix Plur. is inadmissible. It is just the Israelites who are the wife; and this is so much the more evident that, in the preceding verses, and even still in ver. 13, they had been treated as such. Hence nothing remains but to determine the sense of our passage, as was done by Calvin: "Because despair might take hold of them, in such a manner that they might be afraid of approaching Him.... He saith that He would marry himself to them, and that He had not yet forgotten that union which He once had bestowed upon them." This is the only correct view; and by thus determining the sense, we at the same time obtain the sure foundation for the exposition of chap. xxxi. 32; just as, vice versa, the sense which will result from an independent consideration of that passage, will serve to confirm that which was here established.^[2] In the right determination of the sense of the subsequent words, too, Calvin distinguishes himself advantageously from the earlier, and most of the later interpreters: "God shows that there was no reason why some should wait for others; and farther, although the very body of the people might be utterly corrupted in their sins, yet, if even a few were to return. He would show himself merciful to them. The covenant had been entered into with the whole people. The single individual might, therefore, have been disposed to imagine that his repentance was in vain. But in opposition to such fears, the Prophet says: 'Although only one of a town should come to me, he shall find an open door; although only two of one tribe come to me, I will admit even them.'" After him Loscanus too (in his Dissertation on this passage, Frankf. 1720) has thus correctly stated the sense: "The small number shall not prevent God from carrying out His counsel." Thus it is seen--and this is alone suitable in this context--that the apparent limitation of the promise is, in truth, an extension of it. How great must God's love and mercy be to Israel, in how wide an extent must the declaration be true: ἀμεταμέλητα τὰ χαρίσματα καὶ ἡ κλῆσις τοῦ θεοῦ, Rom. xi. 29, if even a single righteous Lot is by God delivered from the Sodom of Israel; if Joshua and Caleb, untouched by the punishment of the sins of the thousands, reach the Holy Land; if every penitent heart at once finds a gracious God! Thus it appears that this passage is not by any means in contradiction to other passages by which a complete restoration of Israel is promised. On the contrary, the ἐπιτυγχάνειν of the ἐκλογή (Rom. xi. 7) announced here, is a pledge and guarantee for the more comprehensive and general mercy.--Expositors are at variance as to the historical reference of the prophecy. Some, e.g. Theodoret, Grotius, think exclusively of the return from the Babylonish captivity. Others (after the example of Jerome and the Jewish interpreters) think of the Messianic time. It need scarcely be remarked, that here, as in so many other passages, this alternative is out of place. The prophecy has just the very same extent as the matter itself, and, hence, refers to all eternity. It was a commencement, that, at the time of Cyrus, many from among the ten tribes, induced by true love to the God of Israel, joined themselves to the returning Judeans, and were hence again engrafted by God into the olive-tree. It was a continuation of the fulfilment that, in later times, especially those of the Maccabees, this took place more and more frequently. It was a preparation and prelude of the complete fulfilment, although not the complete fulfilment itself, that, at the time of Christ, the blessings of God were poured upon the whole δωδεκάφυλον, Acts xxvi. 7. The words: "I bring you to Zion," in the verse under consideration, and: "They shall come out of the land of the North to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto their fathers," in ver. 18, do not at all oblige us to limit ourselves to those feeble beginnings; the idea appears here only in that form, in which it must be realised, in so far as its realisation belonged to the time of the Old Testament. Zion and the Holy Land were, at that time, the seat of the Kingdom of God; so that the return to the latter was inseparable from the return to the former. Those from among Israel who were converted to the true God, either returned altogether to Judea, or, at least, there offered up their sacrifices. But Zion and the Holy Land likewise come into consideration, as the seat of the Kingdom of God only; and, for that very reason, the course of the fulfilment goes on incessantly, even in those times when even the North has become Zion and Holy Land.--The circumstance that two are assigned to a family, while only one is assigned to a town, shows that we must here think of a larger family which occupied several towns; and the circumstance that the town is put together with the family, shows that it is cities of the land of Israel which are here spoken of, and not those which the exiled ones inhabited.

Ver. 15.

"And I give you shepherds according to mine heart, and they feed you with knowledge and understanding."

The question is:--Who are here to be understood by the shepherds? Calvin thinks that it is especially the prophets and priests, inasmuch as it was just the bad condition of these which had been the principal cause of the ruin of the people; and that it is the greatest blessing for the Church, when God raises up true and sincere teachers. Similar is the opinion of Vitringa (obs. lib. vi., p. 417), who, in a lower sense, refers it to Ezra and the learned men of that time, and, in a higher sense, to Christ. Among the Fathers of the Church, Jerome remarked: "These are the apostolical men who did not feed the multitude of the believers with Jewish ceremonies, but with knowledge and doctrine." Others refer it to leaders of every kind; thus Venema: Pastores sunt rectores, ductores. Others, finally, limit themselves to rulers; thus Kimchi (gubernatores Israelis cum rege Messia), Grotius, and Clericus. The latter interpretation is, for the following reasons, to be unconditionally preferred. 1. The image of the shepherd and of feeding occurs sometimes, indeed, in a wider sense, but ordinarily of the ruler specially. Thus, in the fundamental passage, 2 Sam. v. 2, it occurs of David, compare Micah v. 3. Thus also in Jeremiah ii. 8: "The priests said not. Where is the Lord, and they that handle the law knew me not, and the shepherds transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied in the name of Baal;" comp. ver. 26: "They, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets." 2. The word כלבי contains an evident allusion to 1 Sam. xiii. 14, where it is said of David: "The Lord hath sought him, a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath appointed him to be a prince over His people." 3. All doubt is removed by the parallel passage, chap. xxiii. 4: "And I raise shepherds over them, and they feed them, and they fear no more, nor are dismayed." That, by the shepherds, in this verse, only the rulers can be understood, is evident from the contrast to the bad rulers of the present, who were spoken of in chap. xxii., no less than from the connection with ver. 5, where that which, in ver. 4, was expressed in general, is circumscribed within narrow limits, and the concentration of the fulfilment of the preceding promise is placed in the Messiah: "Behold, days come, saith the Lord, and I raise unto David a righteous Branch, and He reigneth as a king and acteth wisely, and setteth up judgment and justice in the land." This parallel passage is, in so far also, of importance, as it shews that the prophecy under consideration likewise had its final reference to the Messiah. The kingdom of the ten tribes was punished by bad kings for its apostacy from the Lord, and from His visible representative. In the whole long series of Israelitish kings, we do not find any one like Jehoshaphat, or Hezekiah, or Josiah. And that is very natural, for the foundation of the Israelitish throne was rebellion. But, with the cessation of sin, punishment too shall cease. Israel again turns to that family which is the medium and channel through which all the divine mercies flow upon the Church of the Lord; and so they receive again a share in them, and particularly in their richest fulness in the exalted scion of David, the Messiah. The passage under consideration is thus completely parallel to Hosea iii. 5: "And they seek Jehovah their God, and David their king;" and that which we remarked on that passage is here more particularly applicable; compare also Ezek. xxxiv. 23: "And I raise over them one Shepherd, and He feedeth them, my servant David, he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd." The antithesis to the words: "According to mine heart," is formed by the words in Hos. viii. 4: "They have set up kings not by me, princes whom I knew not,"--words which refer to the past history of Israel. Formerly, the rebellious chose for themselves kings according to the desires of their own hearts. Now, they choose Him whom God hath chosen, and who, according to the same necessity, must be an instrument of blessing, as the former were of cursing.--דֵּעָה and הַשְׂכֵּיל stand adverbially. הִשְכִּיל "to act wisely" is, in appearance only, intransitive in Hiphil. The foundation of wisdom and knowledge is the living communion with the Lord, being according to His heart, walking after Him. The foolish counsels of the former rulers of Israel, by which they brought ruin upon their people, were a consequence of their apostacy from the Lord. The two fundamental passages are, Deut. iv. 6: "And ye shall keep and do (the law); for this is your wisdom and understanding;"

xxix. 8 (9): "Ye shall keep the words of this covenant and do them, that ye may act wisely." Besides the passage under consideration, the passages Josh. i. 7; 1 Sam. xviii. 14, 15; 1 Kings ii. 3; Is. lii. 13; Jer. x. 21, xxiii. 5, are founded upon these two passages. If all these passages are compared with one another, and with the fundamental passages, one cannot but wonder at the arbitrariness of interpreters and lexicographers who, severing several of these passages from the others, have forced upon the verb השכיל the signification "to prosper,"--a signification altogether fanciful God's servants act wisely, because they look up to God; and he who acts wisely finds prosperity for himself and his people. Hence, it is a proof of the greatest mercy of God towards His people, when He gives them His servants for kings.