Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_400.lzh/6_449.TXT

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were laid up among the treasures of divine omniscience,
in the mind of God, and not forgotten by him, as they
might be thought to be, and wouhl in due time be
brought to light, and vengeance took on them. So the
Targum, "the sins of the house of Ephraim are trea-
"sated up; they are reserved to punish all their 9f-
".fences ;" see Deut. xxxii. 34.
Ver. 13. Ttte sorrows o. f a trayoiling woman shall come
upon him, &c.] Upon Ephraim, or the ten tribes;
that is, afflictions, distresses, and calamities, which
are often in Scripture compared to the pains and sor-
rows of a woman in child-birth; and may denote the
suddenness and inevitableness of them; see Isa. xiii. 8.
Jer. xxs. 6, 7. So the Targurn, "distress and trouble
"shall come upon them, as pains on a woman with-
" child ;" which may respect the invasion of their
land, the siege of Sarnaria, and their captivity. He is
an unwise son; taking no warning by his ancestors, by
their sins, and what befell them on account of them,
but persisting in his sins, and in irapenitence and hard-
hess of heart: so the Targum," tie is not wise to know
"my fear :" for he should not stay long in the place of
the breaking forth of children: that is, in the womb,
as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it; though the
Targum and Jarchi understand it of the stool or seat of
women in travail. The sense is, either that he is
foolish and unwise, that he does not endearour to ex-
tricate himself from these troubles; or rather to pre-
vent them by repentance, by leaving his idols, and
returning to the Lord; or that, should he do so, be
would soon be delivered from all his sorrows, and not
stay a moment longer in them. Though the words
may be better rendered, for he stays sot, or would
not stay, the time for the breaking forth of children {p};
now this time is the time of the Gospel dispensation,
the time of the Messiah's birth, the fulness of time ap-
gointed for his coming, and the time of the church's
ringing forth many children in a spiritual sense; see
Isa. liv. 1. Gal. iv. 26, 27. for which 'Ephraim or the
ten tribes should have waited, but did not, which was
their folly and their ruin; they did not stand, or con-
tinue, in the belief and expectation of the Messiah, and
in the true worship of God, but left that, and served
idols; and so continued not to the times of the Mes-
siah, when the blessings mentioned in the following
verse would be obtained and enjoyed; so Schmidt.
 Vet. 14. I will ransom them from the power St" the
grave, &c.] That is, when or at which time before
spoken of, and here understood, as the above inter-
preter-rightly connects the words, Iwill do this and
what follows: I will redeem them from death ; these are
the words, not of Jehovah the Father, as in oh. i. 7.
but of the Son, who redeemed Israel out of Egypt,
which was a typical redemption, vet. 4. in whom is
the help of his people laid and found, vet. 9. the Word
ofthe Lord, as the Targum; who is the true God, the
mighty God, and so equal to this work of redemption
and who is also the near kinsman of the redeemed
as one of the words here used implies, and so to him
belonged the right of redemption: the persons re-
deemed are not Israel after the flesh, but spiritual
israel, whether Jews or Gentiles; a special and pe-
culiar people, chosen of God, and precious, out of
every kindred, tongue, people, and nation; and
who, in their nature-state, are under sin, in bond-
age to it, and liable to the curse of the law, the
wrath of God, hell anti damnation; which are meant
by the grave and death, and so needed a Redeemer
to ransom them: for the word for grace should be
rendered hells, as it often is; and death intends not
corporeal one only, but eternal death, or the second
death; and both signify the wrath of God due to sin,
and which Gocl's elect are deserving of, and Christ has
bore, and delivered them from; and the curse of the
law, which he has redeemed them from, being made a
curse for them; and eternal death, the equivalent to
which he has suffered, and so has saved them from it,
and all this by redeeming them from their sins, the
cause of it; and which he has done by giving a
demption or ransom-price, which is his blood, Iris life,
yea, himself, and which the first of the words here used
imports. It is indeed true, that, in consequence of all
this, there will be a redemption by him from a corporeal
death, and from the grave; not as yet, tbr the ran-
somcd of the Lord die as others, and are laid in the
grave, the house appointed fo,' all living; but in the
resurrection-morn there will be a redemption, a de-
flyerante of' the bodies of the saints from the grave,
from mortality and corruption; yea, Ot' them from the
moral corruption of sin, and all the defilements of it,
as well as from all afflictions and diseases, and from
death itself, which shall have no more dominion over
them; to which purpose the words are applied by the
apostle, t Cor. xv. 35. see the note there; and so by
some ancient Jews {} to the Messiah, and his tim,.s. 0
death, I will be thy plagues; 0 grace, I will be thy de-
struction; that is, the utter destruction of them. for
the plague or pestilence is a wasting d,.struction,
Psai. xci. 6. 'tis the same which in New-Testament
language is the abolishing ot' deatt,, e Tim. i. 10.
which is true of eternal death with respect to the
redeemed, which Christ's death is the death of, he
having by his death reconciled tht!m to Gof/, and
opened the way to eternal life for them, which he has
in his hands to give unto them; and of corporeal death
and the grave, which Christ has utterly destroyed
with respect to himserf having loosed the builds of
death, and set himself free, and on whom that shall
have no more dominion; and, with respect to his
pie, he has destroyed him that bad the power of it,
which is the devil; he has put away anti abolished sin,
the cause of it; he has took away that which is its
sting; so that it may be truly said, as the apostle
quotes these words, 0 death, wltere is thy sting? he
,has removed the curse from it, and made it a blessing;
he has abolished it as a penal evil, so theft it is cot in-
flicted as a punishment on his people; and in the last
day will entirely deliver them from the power of that,
and of the grave; and then that which has slain its
millions anti millions, a number not to be numbered, will

{p} \^Mynb rbvmb dmey al te yk\^ "nam tempus non subsistet in par
titudine filiorum", Cocceius; "quia tempus non stat in utero puerorum",
Schmidt; "quia tempore non stetissent in ruptura alvi filiorum, Mon-
taus.
{q} \^lwav\^ "inferni", Schmidt.
{r} Gloss. Heb. in Lyra in loc. Vid. Galatin. Arcan. Cathol. Ver. I. 6.
c. 21.