Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_500.lzh/6_529.TXT

Text File | 1994-09-10 | 7KB | 127 lines

a shadow, type, and figure; but spiritual deliverance
from the law, sin, Satan, the world, death, hell', and
wrath to come, by Christ;' who is the Deliverer that
should both come to Zion and out of Zion, and who has
wrought the above deliverance for Zion, his church ahd
people; and where it is preached and proclaimed, and
where those who are delivered come and dwell: or,
upon Mount Zion shall be an escape; or, they that
escape {b}; the pollutions of the world, the vengeance of
divine justice, the curses of the law, and the damnation
of hell, by fleeing to Christ for refuge: and there shah be
holiness: that is, on Mount Zion, on the church, which
is the holy hill of God, and where only holy persons
should dwell; and for whomsoever deliverance .is
wrought out, 'sooner or later there will be in them
holiness, both of heart and life; and indeed, without
this, complete deliverance and salvation, which will
be in. heaven, will not be enjoyed; hence those that
are chosen to this salvation are chosen through
sanctification of the Spirit; and such as are redeemed
and delivered by Christ are purified to be a peculiar
people, zealous of good works; and are, in consequence
of such deliverance and redemption, called with a
holy-calling, and have principles of holiness implanted
in them, and liveholy lives and conversations; and such
kind of holiness, as it appeared in Zion, in the churches
of Christ in the first times of the Gospel, so it will be
more conspicuous among them in the latter day; see
Isa. iv. 3. and lii. 1. Zech. xiv. 20, 21. or, there shah be an
holy One, or thing {}; the holy Jesus, who is holy in both
his natures, in ail his offices, works, and words; the
Lamb that should, andhas been, seen on Mount Zion;
and the Holy Spirit of God, who dwells and abides in Iris
church, and among his people, to anoint and assist the
ministers of the word; to accompany the word with
power, and make it successful; and to sanctify and
comfort the Lord's people in Zion; and there are the
· holy word of God, the doctrines of grace according to
godliness preached, and the sacred ordinances of bap-
tism and the Lord's supper administered. The Targum
is, "and they shall be holy ;" the Lord's people: and
so Kimchi interprets it of Israel being holy to the
Lord. And the house of Jacob shall possess their posses-
sions: that is, eithe, the Israelites shall possess the
possessions of the tieathens, particularly of the Edom-
ires; so the Targum," and they of the house of Jacob
"shall possess the substance of the people that
"possessed them ;" see Amos ix. 11, 12. which was
fulfilled spiritually in the first times of the Gospel,
when the apostles, who were of the house of Jacob,
and were Israelites indeed, preached the Gospel to the
Gentiles, and were the means of converting many of
them, and of bringing them into the Gospel church;
which may be called the house of Jacob, when they
and theirs become their possession, and Christ, the
master of this house, had the Heathen given him for
his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for his possession, Psat. ii. 8. or else the sense is, that
the people of God, true Christians, .shall in Gospel
,lines possess their own possessions; God himself,
who.is their portion and inheritttnCe, and shall enjoy
communion with him; Christ, and all that are his, all
spiritual blessings in him; the Spirit and his graces, as
the earnest of a futureand eternal inheritance; exceed-
ing great and_ preciotis promises they are heirs' of, and
a kingdom. and glory hereafter; of which the posses-
sions in the .land of Canaan, restored to the right
owners of them in the year of jubilee, were a type.
R. Moses says this prophecy has r.espect to the times
of Hezekiah; in which he is followed by Grotius, very
wrongly ; R. Jeshuah, better, to the times of the second
temple; but Japhet, best ofali, to time to come, to the
times of the Messiah, to which it no doubt belongs :
here. begin the! prophecies concerning Christ, his
church,and kingdom.
· Ver. iS. And the ttouse ofJa,cob shallbe afire, and
the house of Joseph a flame, &c.] The former may de-
note the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, th'e latter
the ten tribes, which after the separation in Reho-
boam's time were called Ephraim, and sometimes
Joseph; though they may here signify one and the
same, since all the tribes will be united, and become
one people, at the. time the prophecy refers to: the
meaning is, that the people of Judah and Israel shall
have strength and power to Conquer and destroy their
enemies, with as much ease, as flames of fire consume
chaff or stubble, or ady such combustible matter they
light upon, as it follows: and the house of Esau for
stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them;
that is, the Israelites shall fall upon the Edomites, who
will be no more able to withstand them. than stubble
can stand before devouring flames of fire, and shall
utterly waste and destroy them: and there shall not be
any remaining of the house or Esan ; they shall all be
cut off by, or swallowed up 'among, the Jews; not so
much as a torch-bearer left, one that carries the lights
before an army, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions;
which versions, and the custom alluded to, serve very
much to illustrate the passage. It was a custom with
the Greeks, as we are told {}, when armies were about
to engage, that before the first ensignsstood a prophet
Or priest, bearing. branches of laurels and garlands,
who was called pyrophOrus, or the torCh-bearer, be-
cat/se he held a lamp or torch; and it was accounted
a most criminal thing to do trim any hurt, seeing he
performed the office of an ambassador; for those sort
of men were priests of Mars, and sacred to him, so tha.t
those that were conquerors always spared them: hence,
when a total destruction of an army, place, or people,
was hyperbolically expressed, it used to be said, not so
much as a torch-bearer or fire-carrier escaped {}; hence
this phrase was proverbially used of the most entire
defeat of an army, or ruin of a people. SoPhilo f the
Jew, speaking of the destruction of Pharaoh and his
host at the Red sea, says, there was not so much as a
torCh-bearer left, to declare the calamity to .the. Egyp-
tians; and 'thus here, so general should be the .de-
struction of the Edomites, that not one should be left..,
no, nora person in such a post and office.as described.
The Targum of the whole is, "and they of the house'

{b} \^hjylp hyht\^ "erit evasio", Vatablus, Piscator. Mercerus, Liveleus.
{c} \^vdq hyhw\^ "erit sanctus", V. L. Liveleus, Drusius.
{d} Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. I. 5. c. 3.
{e} Herodot. Urania, sive I. 8. c. 6.
{f} De Vita Mosis, 1. 1. p. 630.