Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament, Volume 3

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ... it may easily be supposed that the prophet provoked hostility and persecution of most various kinds by the free utterances of such dark anticipations, many a prophetic word with a merely personal reference has found its way into this piece, comp. xv. 10; xvii. 15. This piece also falls into two halves, each of which closes with a strophe having a purely personal reference. In the first half the first strophe describes in vivid colours the drought and how the nation, at other times so stiff-necked in its relation to Yahve, is brought by it to prayer to Yahve: but the second strophe shows that Yahve is so little moved by their prayer, that, on the contrary, he immediately forbids the intercession of the prophet and does not listen to his remonstrance; the latter ventures nevertheless, as the third strophe describes, to present his intercession, but it is in vain, because still greater punishments, according to the fourth strophe, must follow on account of the complete degeneracy of the nation; to which a fifth strophe is added with personal reference. When the discourse has thus in the first half been brought to that point that it appears that deliverance is impossible, the second half with explanatory symbols is added to make the whole complete: the prophet receives in the first strophe the instruction to found no house and to visit no society--because general destruction has been determined by Yahve: and how little this threat has been pronounced without reason, the second and third strophes then explain in detail by a further consideration of the hopeless condition of the nation; until the discourse gradually loses itself in general prophetic reflections and in the fourth strophe connects with them some personal matters. Although the drought is referred t...