Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/5_100_p.lzh/5_151.TXT

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does not affect them, and they are not hurt by it, but
are safe and secure from it; which is a much better
sense than that ofKimchi mentioned by him, I will wa-
ter it every moment, titat not one leaf of itshould fail ;
the same is observed by Ben Melech, as the sense
given by DoneSh Ben Labrat: [ will keep it night and
day; that is, continually, for he never slumbers nor
sleeps; he has kept, and will keep, his church and
people, through all the vicissitudes of night and day,
of adversity and prosperity, they come into: how great
is the condescension of the Lord to take upon him the
irrigation and preservation of his peopleJ how dear
and precious must they be to him !' and what a pri-
vilege is it to be in such a plantation as this, watered
and defended by.. the Lord himself!
Ver. 4. Fury is not in me, &c.] Against his vine-
yard he takes so much care .of, his church and people,
whom he has loved with an everlasting love; they are
indeed deserving of his wrath, but he has not appointed
them to it, but has appointed his Son to bear it for them,
who has delivered them from wrath to come, and they
being justified by his blood and righteousness, are saved
from it; and though the Lord chastises them for their
sins, yet not in wrath and sore displeasure; there is no
wrath or fury in his heart towards them, nor any ex-
pressed in the dispensations of his providence: who
would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? either
suggesting the weakness of his people, who, was he to
deal with them as their sins and corruptions deserved,
for which they may be compared to thorns and briers,
they would be as unable to bear his wrath and fury. as
briers and thorns could to withstand a consuming
fire;or rather intimating, that should such persons rise
up in his vineyard, the church, as often' do, comparable
to briers and thorns for their unfruitfulhess and
unprofitablehess, for the hurt and mischief they do,
and the grief and trouble they give to the people of
Gbd, as hypocrites and false teachers, and all such as
are of unsound principles, and bad lives and conversa-
tions, and which are very offensive to the Lord ; and
therefore, though there is no fur. y in him against his
vineyard, the church, yet there is against those briers
imd thorns, wicked men, whom he accounts his ene-
mies, and will light against them in his wrath, and
consume them in his fury; see 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. Isa.
xxxiii. 14: I would go through them: or, step into it {p};
the vineyard, where those briers or thorns are set and.
grow up; the meaning is, that he would step into the
vineyard, and warily and cautiously tread there, lest
he should hurt any of the' vines, true believers, whilst
he is plucking up and destroying the briers and thorns;
or contending, m a warlike manner, with carnal and
hypocritical professors: I would burn them. together; or,
I would burn out of it {q}; that is, gather out of the vine-
yard the briers and thorns, and bind them up in bun-
dies, as the tares in the parable, which signify the same
as here, and burn them, or utterly destroy them;
though the words may be rendered, who will give, or
set, me a brier and thorn in battle, that I should go
against it, and burn it up together, or wholly r ? and the
meaning is, who shall irritate or provoke me to be as a
brier and thorn, to hurt, grieve, and distress my peo-
ple, to canse me to go into them, and against them, in
a military way, in wrath and fury to consume them ?
no one shall. This rendering and sense well agree
with the first clause of the verse. Jerom renders it
thus, who will make me an adamant stone ? as the word
shamir is rendered in Ezek. iii. 9. Zech. vii. l2. and
gives the sense, who will make me hard and cruel, so
.as to overcome my nature, my clemency, to go forth
in a fierce and warlike manner, and walk upon my
vineyard, which before I kept, and burn it, which
had hedged about?
Ver. 5. Or let him take hold of my strength, &c.]
Not on the law, as the Targum and Kimchi; but
Christ, as Jerom rightly interprets it; who is the
strength and power of God, the man of his right hand
ne has made strong for himself; a strong tower, as the
word signilies, a rock of defence, to whom saints may
betake themselves, and be safe; in him they have
righteousness and strength; in him is everlasting
strength. The sense is, let the people of God, any
and every one of them, when afflicted and chastised
by him particularly, and are ready to conclude that he
is wroth with them, and is dealing with them in hot
displeasure; let such look to Christ, and lay hold, and
a strong hold, on him by faith, which will be greatly
to their advantage and support. Fhe Targum
Jarchi 'render \^wa\^, translated or, by if; and then the
words are to be read thus, if he will, or should, take hold
of my strength, or fortress{s} ;, or, as some render them,
0 that he wouldt, &c. ;' it follows, that he may make
peace with me, and he shall make peace with me; or
rather, he shall make peace with me, peace shall he make
with me.. The phrase is doubled for the certainty of it;
and the meaning is, not that the believer who lays hold
by faith on' Christ, Jehovah's strength, shall make
peace with him; which is not in the power of any
person to do, no, not the believer by his faith, repent-.
ance, or good works; but Christ the powerof God, on
whom he lays hold, he shall make pe. ace, as he has, by
 the blood of his cross, and as the only peacemaker;
and hereby the believer may see himself reconciled to
God, and at peace with him; and therefore may com-
fortably conclude, under every providence, that there
is no fury in God towards him.
Ver. 6. He shall cause them that come of Jacob to
take root, &c.] That is, the posterity of Jacob, the
seed of Israel, in a spiritual sense; such who are
Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile; these
shall be so far from being plucked up, or rooted out of
the vineyard, the church, that they shall take deeper
root, and their roots shall spread yet more and more
they shall be rooted and grounded in the love of God,
and also in Christ, and be built up in him, as well as
timely settled and established in the church, F. phes. iii.
17. Col. 'ii. 7. or, them that come to 3acob{u}; .proselytes
unto him, converted Gentiles, that come to the church

{p} \^hb hevpa\^ so some in Vatablus; caute ingre-
diar eam, Piscator.
{q} \^hntyua\^ succendam ex ea, Junius & Tremellius; comburam illos
ex ipsa, Piscator.
{r} So De Dieu; and some in Vatablus; and which is approved by
Noldius, who renders it in like manner, to the same sense, Ebr. Con-
cord. Part. p. 4o9. No. 1671.
{s} \^wzemb qzxy wa\^ si prehenderit munitionem meam, Noldius.
{t} Utiuam; O si apprehenderit munitionem meam, Forerius.
{u} So some in Gataker.