Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/6_700.lzh/6_774.TXT

Text File | 1994-12-06 | 7KB | 129 lines

and because of the display of the righteousness of God
in him, in his sufferings and death, in atonement, par-
don, and justification by him; and because he is the
author and bringer in of righteousness to his people,
the glory of which outshines all others, is pure and
spotless like the sun, and is everlasting; those who
have it are said to be clothed with the sun, and on
such he shines in his beams of divine love, grace, and
mercy, which righteousness sometimes signifies; and
his rays of grace transform men into righteousness
and true holiness. The arising of this sun may de-
note the appearance of Christ in our nature; under
the former dispensation this sun was not risen, it was
then night with the world; John the Baptist was the
morning-star, the forerunner of it: Christ the sun is
now risen; the day-spring from on high hath visited
mankind, and has spread its light and heat, its benign
influences, by the ministration of the Gospel, the grace
of God, which has appeared and shone out, both in
Judea, and in the Gentile world: it may be accommo-
dated to his spiritual .appearance: this sun is some-
times under a cloud, or seems to be set, which occa-
sions trouble, and is for wise ends, but will and does
arise again to them that fear the Lord. The manner
is, with .healing in his wings; by which are meant its
rays and beams, which are to the sun as wings to a
bird, by which it swiftly spreads its light and heat;
so we read of the wings of the morning, Psal. exxxix.
9. Christ came as a 'physician, to heal the diseases of
men; he healed the bodily diseases of the Jews, and
he heals the soul-diseases of his people, their sins;
which healing he has procured by his blood and stripes:
pardon of sin by the blood of Christ is meant by heal-
ing, which is universal, infallible, and free, Psal. eiii. 3.
Isa. xxxiii. 24. and lift. 5. Hos. xiv. 4. it may denote
all tha.t preservation, protection, prosperity, and hap
piness, inward and outward, wbich they that feare~
the Lord enjoyed through Christ, when the unbelieving
Jews were destroyed; and which is further expressed
by what follows: and ye shall go forth ' not out of the
world, or out of their graves, as some think; but either
ou't of Jerusalem, as the Christians did a little before
its destruction, being warned so to dog, whereby they
were preserved from that calamity; or it .intends a
going forth wi'th liberty in the exercise of grace and
duty, in the exercise of faith .on Christ, love to him,
hope in him, repentance, humility, self-denial, &c.; and
in a cheerful obedience to his will; or else walking on in
his ways; having health and strength, with great plea-
sure and comfort; and, as Aben Ezra says, by the light
of this sun. And grow up as calves of the stall; such as
are fat, being put up there for that purpose; see Amos
vi. 4. :1 Sam. xxviii. c24. Bochart {} has proved, from
many passages out ofthe Talmud {i}, that the word which
the Targum here makes use of, and answers to that in
the Hebrew text, which is rendered stall, signifies a
yoke or co{tar, with which oxen or heifers were bound
together, whilst they were threshing or treading out
of corn; so that the calves or heifers here referred to
were such as were not put up in a stall, but were yoked
together, and employed in treading out the corn; now
as there was a law that such should not be muzzled
whilst they were thus employed, but might eat of the
corn on the floor freely and plentifuily, Deut. xxv. 4.
these usually grew fat, and so were the choicest and
most desirable, to which the allusion may be here, and
in Jer. xlvi. 21. Amos vi. 4. and are a fit emblem of saints
joined together in holy fellowship, walking together
in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord;
where they get spiritual food for their souls, and are in
thriving circumstances; where they meet with the
corn of heaven, with that corn which makes the young
men cheerful, and that bread which nourishes up to
everlasting life. The apostle alludes to the custom of
oxen yoked together, either in ploughing, or in treading
out the corn, when he says, speaking of church-fellow-
ship and commnnion in the ordinances of the Gospel,
be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers, 2 Cor. vi. 14.
for this .hinders spiritual edification, as well as the pro-
motion of the gloryof God; but where they are equally
yoked, and go hand in hand together in the work and
ways of the Lord, they grow and flourish; they are
comfortable in their souls, and hvely in the exercise of
grace; and they are the most thriving Christians, isene-
rally speaking, who are in church communion, and
most constantly attend the means of grace, and keep
closest to the word and ordinances: for the metaphor
here used is designed to express a spiritual increase
in all grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, and a
growing up into him in all things, through the use of
means, the word and ordinances; whereby saints be-
come fat and flourishing, being fed with the milk of
the word, and the breasts of ordinances, and having
fieilowship with one anot, her; and, above all, this spiri.
tual growth is owing to the dewsofthe grace of God,the
shining of the Snn of righteousness, and the comforta-
bte gales of the south wind of the Spirit of God,which
cause the spices to flow out. The Septuagint version,
and those that follow it, render it, ye shall leap or skip
as calves loosed from bonds; as such creatures well fed
do when at liberty; and may denote the spiritual joy
of the saints upon theis being healed, or because of
their secure, safe, and prosperous estate: and so the
word is explained in the Talmud {k}, they shall delight
themselves in it; and where the Rabbias interpret this
and the preceding verse of the natural snn in the firma-
ment, which will be the hell {l} in the world to come,
and which will burn the wicked, and heal the righteOUs.
Ver. & And ye shall tread down the wicked, &c.] As
grapes in the wine-press, as Christ did before them,
Isa. lxiii. 2, 3. and they by virtue of him; who makes
them more than conquerors through himself, over all
their enemies, spiritual and temporal: for they shall be
ashes under the soles of your feet; this refers to the
burning of them, vet. 1. and may be literally under-
stood of their being burnt with the city and temple;
when afterwards, as Groti us observes, the city of Jeru-
salem being in some measure rebuilt, and called AElia,

{g} Euseb. Hist. l. 3. c. 5.
{h} Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 31. col. 303.
{i} T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 53. 1. Bava Metzia, fol. 30. 1. Pesachim, fol.
26. 1. Eruvin, fol. 17. 2.
{k} T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 4. 1. Nedarim, fol. 8. 2.
{l} A notion they elsewhere frequently inculcate, and is not impro-
bable; and which has been of late advanced and defended by a very
learned man of our own country, Mr. Tobias Swinden, in a Treatise
called An Inquirer into the Nature and Place of Hell.