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A.C. 629. ble for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

e ch. xi. 13.

f Is. ix. 13. ch. v. 3.

29 Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the LORD.

30 In vain have I 'smitten your children; they received g Matt. xxiii. no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

29, &c.

h ver. 5.

*Heb. We have dominion

31 O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, * We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?

32 Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number. 33 Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.

+Heb.digging. the

+Heb. Saying.

4.

34 Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of poor innocents: I have not found it by + secret search, but upon all these.

35 Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

36 Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.

37 Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them.

JEREMIAH III. VER. 1-6.

1 God's great mercy in Judah's vile whoredom.

1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go i Deut. xxiv. from him, and become another man's, i shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

k Deut.xxviii.

1 ch. vi. 15.

2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.

3 Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there 12 hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.

4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?

5 Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to A.C.629. the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.

SECTION III.

The Temple repaired.

2 CHRONICLES XXXIV. VER. 8-33.

8 ¶ Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God.

9 And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem.

10 And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the LORD, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the LORD, to repair and amend the house:

624.

11 Even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings, and * to floor the * Or, to rafhouses which the kings of Judah had destroyed.

12 And the men did the work faithfully: and the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward; and other of the Levites, all that could skill of instruments of musick.

13 Also they were over the bearers of burdens, and were overseers of all that wrought the work in any manner of service and of the Levites there were scribes, and officers, and porters.

ter.

m 2 Kings xxii. 8, &c.

14¶ And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest I found a book of the law of the LORD given + by Moses. 15 And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, Heb by the I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.

16 And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it.

hand of.

+ Heb. to the hand of.

out, or, melt.

17 And they have § gathered together the money that Heb. poured was found in the house of the LORD, and have delivered it ed.

A. C. 624. into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the work

men.

18 Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read Heb. in it. it before the king.

19 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.

20 And the king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the +Or, Achbor, son of Shaphan, and † Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king's, saying,

2 Kings xxii.

12.

21 Go, enquire of the LORD for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do after all that is written in

this book.

22 And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son Or, Harhas. of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the § wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem ||in the college :) and they spake school, or, in to her to that effect.

Heb. gar.

ments.

|| Or, in the

the second

part.

23 And she answered them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me,

24 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah :

25 Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched.

26 And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire of the LORD, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard;

27 Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.

28 Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again.

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29 Then the king sent and gathered together all the A.C. 624. elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

*

n 2 Kings

* great even to

30 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, xxiii. 1, &c. and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great Heb. from and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the small book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD.

31 And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.

32 And he caused all that were † present in Jerusalem + Heb. found. and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.

SECTION IV.

Zephaniah exhorts the People to Repentance about the time of
Josiah's Reformation.

ZEPHANIAH I.

God's severe judgment against Judah for divers sins.

1 The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah 5.

58 We learn from Zephaniah i. 1. that he began to prophesy in the reign of Josiah. As he begins his predictions against the "remnant of Baal, and the name of the Chemarims;" against them that worshipped the host of heaven, and swore by Malcham, or Baal; he probably addressed those idolatrous priests who were not yet extirpated by the religious zeal of Josiah; compare Zeph. i. 4, 5-9. with 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 6—12. He foretold also the destruction of Nineveh; and from these considerations he may be supposed to have prophesied before the last reformation made by Josiah : and, as he preceded Jeremiah, that he entered on his office towards the commencement of the reign of that monarch. These two prophets resemble each other so much in the parts where they treat of the idolatries and wickedness of the Jews, that it has been supposed that Zephaniah was the abbreviator of Jeremiah, or that Jeremiah was the pupil of the former: Zephaniah apparently prophesied before Jeremiah, and the latter seems to speak of those abuses as partially removed, which the former describes as existing in the most flagitious extent. (Compare Zephan. i. 4, 5. 9. with Jerem. ii. 5. 20. 32.) The word Chemarim is translated idolatrous priests, (2 Kings xxiii. 5.) They were called Chemarim because clothed in black garments, which was the customary dress of these priests. Zephaniah in these books appears to have aided Josiah in his attempt to bring the people back to the worship

A. Č. 624.

* Heb. By

taking away I will make an

end.

+ Heb. the

face of the land.

+ Or, idols.

Fulfilled,

cir. 624.

2 *I will utterly consume all things from off † the land, saith the LORD.

3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.

4 I will stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and § I will cut off the rem 2 Kings xxiii. nant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;

4, 5.

Or, to the LORD.

5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;

6 And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those that have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for him. 7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the LORD God: for the day of the LORD is at hand: for the LORD hath preHeb. sancti- pared a sacrifice, he hath *bid his guests.

fied, or, prepared.

+ Heb. visit upon.

8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD'S sacrifice, that I will † punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel. 9 In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit.

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.

11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.

12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are Heb. curd settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.

ed, or, ened.

thick

of the true God. The first chapter denounces vengeance against Judah, and those who observed the rites of idolaters, or violently invaded the property of others, (ver. 9.) and declares that the great day of trouble, distress, and desolation was at hand, (ver. 15.) In the second chapter the prophet predicts woe to the Cherethites, the Moabites, Ammonites, and Ethiopians; and describes the desolation of Nineveh in terms singularly expressive. The Cherethites were the Philistines who bordered on the Mediterranean, called Cherethims. These prophecies were chiefly accomplished by the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. In the third chapter the prophet returns to Jerusalem, and inveighs against her pollutions and oppressions, which should be punished in God's general vengeance; and concludes, as usual, with predictions of a remnant, who shall trust in the Lord; and with promises of the general restoration of the Jews.--Lightfoot; Gray's Key in loc.

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