Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/5_000_p.lzh/5_080.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-08 | 7KB | 127 lines

and Aben Ezra observes, that some interpret it of a na-
tion like the Ethiopians; and so it denotes, that the
Babylonians, their faces should be black with distress
and anguish; see \\#Joe 2:6\\.
\*Ver. 9. \\Behold, the day of the Lord cometh\\, &c.]
Or %is come% {e}; said in \\#Isa 13:6\\ to be at hand, but now it
is represented in prophecy as already come: \*\\cruel
both with wrath and fierce anger\\; which, whether re-
ferred to %the Lord%, or to %the day%, the sense is the same;
the day may be said to be cruel, and full of wrath and
fury, because of the severity and fierceness of the
Lord's anger, exercised upon the Babylonians in it;
and he may be said to be so, not that he really is cruel,
or exceeds the bounds of justice, but because he seemed
to be so to the objects of his displeasure; as a judge
may be thought to be cruel and severe by the male-
factor, when he only pronounces and executes a righte-
ous judgment on him; a heap of words are here
made use of, to express the greatness and fierceness of
divine wrath: \*\\to lay the land desolate\\; the land of the
Chaldeans: \*\\and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out
of it\\; this shews that what is before said most properly
belongs to the Lord, to whom the destruction of Bab-
ylon, and the country belonging to it, must be ascribed;
and indeed it was such as could not be brought about
by human force; the moving cause of which was the
sin of the inhabitants, some of whom were notorious
sinners, for whose sakes it was destroyed by the Lord,
and they in the midst of it, or out of it; see \\#Ps 104:35\\.
\*Ver. 10. \\For the stars of heaven\\, &c.] This and
what follows are to be understood, not literally, but
figuratively, as expressive of the dismalness and gloom-
iness of the dispensation, of the horror and terror of it,
in which there was no light, no comfort, no relief, nor
any hope of any; the heavens and all the celestial
bodies frowning upon them, declaring the displeasure
of him that dwells there: \*\\and the constellations thereof
shall not give their light\\; which are assemblages of
stars, or certain configurations of the heavenly bodies,
devised by the ancients; to which several names are
given for the help of the imagination and memory;
the number of them are forty eight, twelve in the
Zodiac, twenty one on the northern side of it, and
fifteen on the southern. R. Jonah, mentioned both
by Aben Ezra and Kimchi, says that %Cesil%, the word
here used, is a large star, called in the Arabic language
%Suel%, and the stars that are joined unto it are called by
its name %Cesilim%; so that, according to this, only one
constellation is meant; and Aben Ezra observes, that
there are some that say that Cesil is a star near to the
south pole, on which, if camels look, they die; but,
says he, in my opinion it is %the scorpion's heart%. Je-
rom's Hebrew master interpreted it to him Arcturus;
and it is in \\#Job 9:9 38:31 Am 5:8\\
rendered Orion, and by the Septuagint here; which is
one of the constellations, and one of the brightest;
and the word being here in the plural number, the
sense may be, were there ever so many Orions in the
heavens, they should none of them give light. The
Targum and Jarchi interpret it of the planets: \*\\the sun
shall be darkened in his going forth\\; as soon as it rises,
when it goes forth out of its chamber, as in \\#Ps 19:5\\
either by an eclipse of it, or by dark clouds cover-
ing it: \*\\and the moon shall not cause her light to shine\\:
by night, which she borrows from the sun; so that it
would be very uncomfortable, day and night, neither
sun, moon, nor stars appearing, see \\#Ac 27:20\\ by
the sun, moon, and stars, may be meant king, queen,
and nobles, whose destruction is here prophesied of;
it being usual in prophetic language, as well as in
other writers {f}, to express great personages hereby.
\*Ver. 11. \\And I will punish the world for [their] evil\\,
&c.] Not the whole world, but the kingdom of Ba-
bylon, so called because of its large extent, and the
number of its inhabitants, just as the Roman empire is
called the whole world, \\#Lu 2:1\\ %evil% may be meant,
either of the evil of sin, which was the cause of pu-
nishment, or else of the evil of punishment itself; and
the sense be this, I will visit, or, in a way of visitation,
I will bring evil, or evils, upon the world; so the
Targum, \*\\and the wicked for their iniquity\\, or %on the
wicked their iniquity%; that is, I will visit on them, or
inflict npon them, the punishment of their iniquity;
meaning the notorious and abandoned sinners among
them, see \\#Isa 13:9\\:
\*\\and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and I will\\
\\lay low the haughtiness of the terrible\\: such as Nebuchadnezzar and
Belshazzar, famous for their pride, arrogance, and haughtiness, ty-
ranny and oppression, whereby they became terrible to others.
\*Ver. 12. \\I will make a man more precious than fine gold\\,
&c.] Which may denote either the scarcity
of men in Babylon, through the slaughter made of them;
so things that are scarce and rare are said to be pre-
cious, \\#1Sa 3:1\\ or the resolution of the Medes to
spare none, though ever so much gold were offered to
them, they being not to be bribed therewith, \\#Isa 13:17\\
or that such should be the fear of men, that they would
not be prevailed upon to take up arms to defend them-
selves or their king, whatever quantity of gold, even
the best, was proposed unto them, a man was not to
be got for money: \*\\even a man than the golden wedge of
Ophir\\; which designs the same thing in different
words. The Targum gives another sense of the whole,
paraphrasing it thus, \*"I will love them that fear me
"more than gold, of which men glory; and those that
"keep the law more than the fine gold of Ophir;"\* un-
derstanding it of the Israelites, that were in Babylon
when it was taken, and who were precious and in high
esteem with the Medes and Persians, more than gold,
and whose lives they spared. Jarchi interprets it par-
ticularly of Daniel, and of the honour that was done him
by Belshazzar, upon his reading and interpreting the
writing on the wall, \\#Da 5:29\\. This is interpreted
by the Jews also of the King Messiah; for in an an-
cient writing {g} of theirs, where having mentioned this
passage, it is added, this is the Messiah, that shall
ascend and be more precious than all the children of
the world, and all the children of the world shall wor-
ship and bow before him. Some take %Phaz%, the word
for fine gold, to be the name of a place. from whence
it came, and therefore was so called; and that the

{e} \^ab\^ %venit%, Piscator; %veniens%, Montanus.
{f} Solem Asiae Brutum appellat, stellasque salubres appellat comites,
    Hor. Serm. 1. Satyr. 7.
{g} Zohar in Gen. fol. 71, 1.