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tween two objects, contemporaneous, or at hand, has nothing in common with the melancholy confusion, which traditional interpreters create by introducing at random heterogeneous thoughts, and an inconsistent horizon of events, into the speech of some simple, though sublime, writer, who expressed what he felt, describing what he saw. No verse in Nahum can be tortured into expectation of a Messiah. Nor, again, is there a word which, by want of harmony with its place, suggests suspicion of its entire genuineness.

The moral of Nahum is, that God governs the world. His inspiration rests upon his perception of this truth, the most purifying which the heart of man can conceive. It is expressed harshly, from local and national impulses : grace and truth had not then come by Jesus Christ. Such Scriptures have an historical value for perusal in our congregations, which no later works, even of higher inspiration, could possess. Yet their devotional use, proceeding as upon the absoluteness and finality of whatever is revealed, may, as in the case of the maledictory Psalms, sometimes generate a crooked interpretation, or often render the service less a medium of that direct and personal invocation between God and the soul of man, which no devout person willingly surrenders. It may be reverential and becoming to 'assist' as in a classical 'liturgy,' the objections to which may often admit of historical explanation: yet that hardly satisfies the hungering of the soul after God. A wiser selection of 'Psalms and Lessons,' better still, a larger freedom of substitution, such as our Reformers gave, and the Stuart Prelates took away, might do more to place consciences in unison with what is read, than projects which contain more to attract or alarm. It would satisfy those who can never forget that Christ's first words were blessing, and his last example forgiveness, better

than disquisitions on the "supernatural," devised as barriers against inquiry; better than playing a grave comedy with terms of subscription, without considering the things subscribed; better even than dispensing with subscription, which does not create the obligation of which it is but an act of deliberate recognition. Worthy of all respect, when genuine, is the charity which heals divisions of sects; yet the causes of these, originating as often in human nature as in religion, are infinitesimally small in comparison with difficulties which press upon all communions, or shut out serious minds in all, by some theory, from peace with our Heavenly Father. Both greater and lesser would best be remedied by investigations which may seem the longest, yet ultimately prove the safest way.

Few politicians now discover a Nineveh lording it over the nations. The name of the rival city is more familiarly symbolical. Wherever analogous wrongs exist, an unfaltering faith will still look for kindred, though lingering, retribution. If we apply our narrative, as a parable, in the better spirit of the ancient expositors, to Christendom, we may look for an after-time of days, when the two things most sacred in the world, the fear of God and the love of Truth, shall not be put asunder, so that a pure mind cannot take a step in either direction without a sense of perplexity or of sin; when reason shall not lift up sword agaist faith, nor faith against reason; but the Churches turn their cursings into blessings, neither in the name of charity shall they learn hatred any more.

The forces which create religion are as permanent as those which destroy it. The ladder set upon the earth, and reaching into heaven, is not fallen; but he who thinks so, dreams.

438

NAHUM.

I.

A Burden on Nineveh. The Book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

1. JEHOVAH is a jealous and vengeful God; JEhovah is vengeful and a lord of wrath; JEHOVAH is vengeful to his adversaries, and mindful' is He to his enemies.

2. JEHOVAH is enduring in anger, and great in power, and acquits no acquittal at all; JEHOVAH is in the whirlwind, and his way in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet;

3. He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry; and parches up all the rivers; so that Basan withers, and Carmel and withers the bloom of Lebanon.

1

Mindful. This attribute is the opposite of the description in Psalm ciii. 9. 2 Enduring, or patient. Hebr. Erech, long, Ezek. xvii. 3. usually of slowness to anger; longanimity.

A burden, or utterance, on Nineveh, seems an editor's description of the subject. The book of the vision, &c. is the older tradition of the authorship. Elkosh, according to Jerome, was a village in Galilee, but has been claimed by Jewish tradition, from Benjamin of Tudela downward, as the site of a synagogue near Mosul, i. e. Nineveh.

1-5. Not only the awful conception of the Lord God of the Hebrews, as jealous, and the hungry temper engendered by suffering, but the inexorableness of the Divine judgments, as traced on the face of Nature, and on

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4. The mountains tremble from him; and the hills are molten; so that the earth is lifted3 before him, the world, and all the dwellers therein.

5. Who can stand before his indignation, and who abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured forth like fire, and the rocks are shattered before him.

6. Gracious is JEHOVAH for a stronghold in the adversary's day; and one that acknowledges them that trust in him ;

7. And with an overflowing flood he works completion of her place; and drives his enemies into darkness;

8. What are you contriving against JEHOVAH? He works a complete work; the adversarye shall not rise a second time.

9. For even as thorns entangled, and as in their drink drunken, they are devoured, as stubble fully dry.

3 Is lifted. Vulg. Contremuit. LXX. àveotáλn.

4 The adversary's day; or, day of trouble; so in verse 8, below.

Of her place; or, from her rising ; i. e. so that she rise not again; which, with the slightest change of points, I believe would be a preferable reading. • Adversary, or trouble, as in v. 6 also.

7 Even as. Hebr. to.

the destiny of kingdoms, and specially the instance of an over-ruling Providence in the retribution wrought upon Nineveh, suggest to Nahum words of devout and stern exultation, in which he breaks forth declaring what sort of a God is Jehovah, and how impossible it is to resist Him.

6. Jehovah has a gracious side for those who trust in Him, but (7-9) makes an utter work of the city which he overthrows, although near it exiles may survive.

9. There may be a doubtful allusion to the banquets of the last Assyrian king, interrupted according to Greek tradition (Diodor. Sic. ii. 27, Athenæ, xii. p. 529) by the Median assault; but the simile may be taken as general.

10. Out of thee came a contriver of evil against JEHOVAH, a counsellor of wickedness; thus spake JEHOVAH, If they are tranquil, and mighty though they be, even so are they cut off, and have passed away;8

11. I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more; but now will shiver his yoke from off thee, and will break thy bonds in sunder.

12. But of thee [Nineveh] JEHOVAH has given command, Never sowing shall be of thy name again; out of the house of thy gods I will cut off graven image, and make molten image thy grave; for thou art despised.

8 Have passed away. The plural termination of the verb seems to have become entangled in the following word. The sentiment is as in Psalm xxxvii. 36.

9 Yoke; or rod. Vulg. virgam. LXX. páßdov, implying a different, perhaps, preferable, punctuation.

1 Sowing, here in a good sense; but in Hosea, in the double sense of sowing and scattering.

10. Out of Nineveh had come forth Pul and Sennacherib, but Jehovah had made their power transient.

12.

11. Turning to Judah, Nahum conceives, by the light of events, Jehovah promising to afflict her no more. Other destiny awaits the oppressor, as another Counsellor, even God, pronounces upon her, than the one whom she sent against Judah. We may note in Belial, which means un-profit-ableness, an instance of the personifying imagination, which has evoked from abstract non-entity the graceful demon of Milton's Hell; but reason concurs with faith in reminding us, if evil be an unsubstantial and fugitive disturbance, requiring no archetypal author, Good is positive by nature and permanent by design, so that in no phase of sane thought can it cease to require an eternal Providence as its creator or upholder.

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