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CHAPTER V.

OF THE PROPHETS WHO FLOURISHED BEFORE THE
BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.

SECTION I.

ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JONAH.

I. Title and author.-II. Occasion of the prophecy of Jonah. III. Scope.-IV. Synopsis of its contents.

BEFORE CHRIST, 856-784.

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I. THIS book is, by the Hebrews, called Nan), or the Book of Jonah, from its author Jonah, the son of Amittai, who was a native of Gath-Hepher in Galilee. (Jon. i. 1. with Josh. xix. 13.) He is supposed to have prophesied to the ten tribes, according to Bishop Lloyd, towards the close of Jehu's reign, or in the beginning of Jehoahaz's reign: though Blair and other chronologers place him under Joash and Jeroboam II. about forty years later. With the exception of his sublime ode in the second chapter, the book of Jonah is a simple narrative.

II. It is very probable, that, when Jonah promised the restoring and enlarging of the coasts of Israel in the days of Jeroboam II., when both the king and people were exceedingly wicked, he also invited them to repentance and reformation. But the Israelites still continuing impenitent and obdurate, God took occasion to send him to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, to denounce the impending divine judgments against its abandoned inhabitants. Jonah, declining the commission, was cast into the sea from the vessel in which he was sailing to Tarshish, and was swallowed by a large fish; not, says Irenæus, that he might be swallowed up, but that, by his miraculous deliverance (preparing Jonah to preach more dutifully, and the Ninevites to hear more effectually), the people of Israel might be provoked to repent by the repentance of Nineveh. The time of Jonah's continuance in the belly of the fish was a type of our Lord's continuance in the grave. (Luke xi. 30.) The fame of the prophet's miraculous preservation was so widely propagated as to reach even Greece; whence, as Grotius, Huet, Bochart, and other learned men have remarked, the story was derived of Hercules having escaped alive out of the fish's belly.2

1 Adversus Hæres. lib. iii. c. 22.

2 See Grotius de Veritate, lib. i. c. 16. in notis. Huet. Demonstr. Evangelica, prop. iv. vol. i. p. 433. 8vo. edit. Bocharti Opera, tom. iii. p. 742. et seq. Pfeiffer in Difficiliora Loca Scripturæ, Centuria 4. Locus lxxxvi. (Opp. tom. i. pp. 447, 448.)

III. The scope of this book is to show, by the very striking example of the Ninevites, the divine forbearance and long-suffering towards sinners, who were spared on their sincere repentance. From the conduct of the Ninevites, Jesus Christ takes occasion to reprove the perfidiousness of the Jews (Matt. xii. 41.) The evidence offered by Jonah was sufficient to convince and lead the former to repentance; while the Jews, who had the greater evidence of miracles, and the more convincing evidence of our Saviour's doctrine, continued obstinately impenitent. Some critics have imagined that the prophecy of Jonah is a parabolic history; but from the manner in which the sacred historians and Jesus Christ speak of him (2 Kings xiv. 25. Matt. xii. 39. 41. xvi. 4. and Luke xi. 29.), it is evident that this book is a true narrative of a real person, and that Jonah was a prophet of considerable eminence.

IV. The book of Jonah consists of two parts, viz.

PART I. His first mission to Nineveh, and his attempt to flee to Tarshish, and its frustration, together with his delivery from the stomach of the great fish which had swallowed him. (ch. i. ii.) PART II. His second mission, and its happy result to the Ninevites, who, in consequence of the prophet's preaching, repented in dust and ashes (iii.); and the discontent of Jonah, who, dreading to be thought a false prophet, repined at the divine mercy in sparing the Ninevites, whose destruction he seems to have expected. (iv.) No reproof can be more gentle than that given by God to the murmuring prophet (10, 11.), or present a more endearing picture of Him "whose tender mercies are over all his works."

SECTION II.

ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET AMOS.

I. Author.-II. Occasion of his prophecy.-III. Its scope. — IV. Sy nopsis of its contents. —V. Observations on its style.

BEFORE CHRIST, 810-785.

I. AMOS is the third of the minor prophets, according to the order adopted in cur modern Bibles: he is supposed to have been a native of Tekoah, a small town in the kingdom of Judah, situate about four leagues to the south of Jerusalem. There is however no proof of his being a native of this place, except his retiring thither when driven from Bethel by Amaziah, the high priest of Bethel. (Amos vii. 10. 13.) Calmet thinks he was born in the territories of Israel. We have more certain information of his rank and condition in life; for he himself tells us that he was "no prophet, neither a prophet's son ;" in other words, that he was not educated in the schools of the prophets, but was called to the prophetic office from being a herdsman and a gatherer (or cultivator) of sycamore fruit. That he prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah king of

Judah, and of Jeroboam II. the son of Joash, we are not only informed from the first verse of his predictions, but we also have internal evidence of it, from the argument or subject-matter of his book. For the prophet describes the state of the kingdom of Israel, particularly in chap. vi. 12-14., to be precisely such as is described in 2 Kings xiv. 23. et seq. We further learn from Amos i. 1., that he began to prophesy in the second year before the earthquake, in the reign of Uzziah; which is, by Josephus and most commentators, referred to that prince's usurpation of the sacerdotal office when he attempted to offer incense. Consequently Amos was contemporary with Hosea (though he is supposed not to have lived so long as the last-mentioned prophet), with Jonah, and probably also with Joel.

II. The occasion on which Amos delivered his predictions, was the oppression of the Jews and Israelites by the neighbouring nations, and the prosperous state of the two kingdoms under Uzziah and Jeroboam II. (Amos i. compared with 2 Kings xiv. 25-27. and 2 Chron. xxvi. 6-15.) But as the inhabitants of those kingdoms, especially the Israelites, abandoned themselves to idolatry, effeminacy, avarice, and cruelty to the poor, contrary to the divine command, the prophet takes occasion thence to reprove them with the utmost severity for their wickedness.

III. The scope of the book is, to certify to the twelve tribes the destruction of the neighbouring nations; to alarm those who "were at large in Zion," living in a state of carnal security, by the denunciation of imminent punishment, to lead them to repentance; and to cheer those who were truly penitent with the promise of deliverance from future captivity, and of the greater prosperity of the Messiah's kingdom, of which we have a particular prediction in ch. ix. 11. IV. The book of Amos contains nine chapters or discourses, of which Calmet thinks that the seventh is first in order of time: it be divided into three parts, viz.

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PART I. The judgments of God denounced against the neighbouring Gentile nations: as the Syrians (ch. i. 1-5.) which, see fulfilled in 2 Kings xvi. 9.; the Philistines (i. 6-8.), recorded as accomplished in 2 Kings xviii. 8. Jer. xlvii. 1. 5. and 2 Chron. xxvi. 6.; the Tyrians (i. 9, 10.); the Edomites (i. 11, 12., compared with Jer. xxv. 9. 21. xxvii. 3. 6. and 1 Mac. v. 3.); the Ammonites (13-15.); and the Moabites. (ii. 1—3.)

PART II. The divine judgments denounced against Judah and Israel (ii. 4. ix. 1-10.); and herein we have,

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SECT. 1. The divine judgments against Judah (ii. 4; 5.) which were literally executed about two hundred years afterwards:

SECT. 2. Against Israel, to whom the prophet's mission was chiefly directed, and to whom we have four distinct sermons delivered by him, viz.

DISCOURSE I. A general reproof and aggravation of their various sins against God (ii. 6-16.)

DISCOURSE II. A denunciation of the divine judgments, with a particular enume. ration of their several causes. (iii.)

DISCOURSE III. A reproof of the Israelites for their luxury and oppression. (iv.)

DISCOURSE IV. A lamentation over the house of Israel, with an earnest exhortation to them to repent, and to seek the Lord; and to abandon their idolatry, luxurious ease, and sinful alliances with their idolatrous neighbours. (v. vi.) In ch. v. 6. the carrying off the Israelites into captivity, beyond Damascus into Assyria, is explicitly announced: see its fulfilment in 2 Kings xv. 29. and xvii. 5-23. The certainty, nearness, and severity of the judgments thus denounced are confirmed by several prophetic visions, contained in chapters vii viii. and ix. 1-10.

PART III. Consolatory or evangelical promises describing the restoration of the church by the Messiah, first, under the type of raising up the fallen tabernacle of David (ix. 11, 12.); and secondly, announcing magnificent temporal blessings, viz. great abundance, return from captivity, and re-establishment in their own land, all of which were prophetic of the blessings to be bestowed under the reign of the Messiah. (ix. 13-15.)

V. Jerome calls Amos "rude in speech, but not in knowledge," applying to him what St. Paul modestly professes of himself. (2 Cor. xi. 6.)

Calmet and many others have followed the authority of Jerome, in speaking of this prophet, as if he were indeed quite rude, ineloquent, and destitute of all the embellishments of composition. The matter, however, as Bishop Lowth has remarked, is far otherwise: "Let any person, who has candour and perspicuity enough to judge, not from the man, but from his writings, open the volume of his predictions, and he will, I think, agree that our shepherd 'is not a whit behind the very chief of the prophets.' (2 Cor. xi. 5.) He will agree, that as, in sublimity and magnificence, he is almost equal to the greatest, so, in splendour of diction, and elegance of expression, he is scarcely inferior to any. The same celestial Spirit, indeed, actuated Isaiah and Daniel in the court, and Amos in the sheep-folds: constantly selecting such interpreters of the divine will as were best adapted to the occasion, and sometimes from the mouth of babes and sucklings perfecting praise,'- constantly employing the natural eloquence of some, and occasionally making others eloquent."3 Many of the most elegant images employed by Amos are drawn from objects in rural life, with which he was, from his avocations, most inti mately conversant.

1 An eminent commentator is of opinion that the prophet Amos, in viii. 9, 10. foretels that, during their solemn festivals, the sun should be darkened by an eclipse, which in those days was accounted ominous, and should turn their joy into mourning. According to Archbishop Usher (A. M. 3213), about eleven years after Amos prophesied, there were two great eclipses of the sun, one at the feast of tabernacles, the other at the time of the passover. This prophecy, therefore, may be considered as one of those numerous predictions which we have already shown have a double meaning, and apply to more than one event. See Lowth's Commentary on the Prophets, p. 453. 4th edit.

2 Hieronymi Præf. Comment. in Amos.

3 Bishop Lowth's Lectures, vol. ii. lect. xxi. p. 98.

SECTION III.

ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET HOSEA.

1. Author and date. - II. Occasion and scope of the prophecy.

Synopsis of its contents.-IV. Observations on its style.

BEFORE CHRIST, 810-725.

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III.

1. CONCERNING the family of Hosea, we have no certain information, except what is furnished to us by the first verse of his prophecy, which states that he was the son of Beeri, whom some Jewish commentators confound with Beerah, a prince of the Reubenites, who was carried into captivity with the ten tribes, by Tiglath-pilezer king of Assyria. He prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz, and in the third year of Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam II. king of Israel; and it is most probable that he was an Israelite, and lived in the kingdom of Samaria or of the ten tribes, as his predictions are chiefly directed against their wickedness and idolatry. But, with the severest denunciations of vengeance, he blends promises of mercy; and the transitions from the one to the other are frequently sudden and unexpected. Rosenmüller and Jahn, after Calmet, are of opinion that the title of this book is a subsequent addition, and that Hosea did not prophesy longer than from forty to sixty years, and that he died, or at least wrote his predictions, before the year 725 before the Christian æra. His writings unquestionably were, originally, in a metrical form, although that arrangement is now, perhaps, irrecoverably lost.

II. The ten tribes (whom this prophet often collectively terms Ephraim, Israel, and Samaria) having revolted from Rehoboam the son of Solomon to Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who set up the two idol calves at Dan and Bethel, consequently deprived themselves of the pure worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, and speedily fell into the grossest idolatry. Jeroboam II. the son of Joash, was equally wicked with the first sovereign of that name; and the Israelites were but too prone to follow the bad examples of their wicked kings, especially if their affairs were prosperous, as we learn those of Jeroboam II. were. (Compare 2 Kings xiv. 25-27.) In his days, therefore, Jehovah raised up the prophet Hosea, to convince them of their apostacy, and recover them to the worship of the true God. Bishop Horsley, however, is of opinion that Hosea's principal subject is that, which is the principal subject of all the prophets, viz. "the guilt of the Jewish nation in general, their disobedient refractory spirit, the heavy judgments that awaited them, their final conversion to God, their re-establishment in the land of promise, and their restoration to God's favour, and to a condition of the greatest national prosperity, and of high pre-eminence among the nations of the earth, under the immediate protection of the Messiah, in the latter ages of the world. He confines himself more closely to this single subject, than any other prophet. He seems, indeed, of all the prophets, if I may so express my conception of his peculiar character, to have been the most of a Jew. Comparatively, he seems to care but little about other people. He wanders not, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, into the collateral

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