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Ask a QuestionBeat your ploughshares into swords--As the foes are desired to "beat their ploughshares into swords, and their pruning hooks into spears," that so they may perish in their unhallowed attack on...
Why is Jerusalem in such terror? Her slain men are not slain with the sword, but with famine; or, slain with fear, disheartened. Their rulers fled, but were overtaken. The servants of God, who...
the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem--The Danites, finding their inheritance too small, decided to enlarge its boundaries by the sword; and, having conquered Leshem (Laish), they...
the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword--This frightful vengeance, extending from Gibeah to the whole territory of Benjamin, was...
Whisperings and evil surmises, like a sword, separate those that have been dear to each other. The tongue of the wise is health, making all whole.
speaketh--literally, "speaketh hastily," or...not hear--because their prayers are hypocritical: their hearts are still idolatrous. God never refuses to hear real prayer (Jer 7:21, 22; Pr 1:28; Isa 1:15; 58:3). sword...famine...pestilence--the...
it is a trial--rather, "There is a trial" being made: the sword of the Lord will subject all to the ordeal. "What, then, if it contemn even the rod" (scepter of Judah)? Compare as to a similar...
Gammadims--rather, as the Tyrians were Syro-Phoenicians, from a Syriac root, meaning daring, "men of daring" [Ludovicus De Dieu]. It is not likely the keeping of watch "in the towers" would have...
arms--Not only the "one arm" broken already (Eze 30:21) was not to be healed, but the other two should be broken. Not a corporal wound, but a breaking of the power of Pharaoh is intended. ...
The prophet must shave off the hair of his head and beard, which signifies God's utter rejecting and abandoning that people. One part must be burned in the midst of the city, denoting the...
waste--literally, "eat up": following up the metaphor of "shepherds" (compare Nu 22:4; Jer 6:3). land of Nimrod--Babylon (Mic 4:10; Ge 10:10); or, including Assyria also, to which he extended his...
horseman--distinct from "the horses" (in the chariots, Na 3:2). lifteth up--denoting readiness for fight [Ewald]. Gesenius translates, "lifteth up (literally, 'makes to ascend') his horse."...
there shall cleave naught of the cursed thing to thine hand--No spoil shall be taken from a city thus solemnly devoted to destruction. Every living creature must be put to the sword--everything...
(Jer 5:3; 6:29; Isa 1:5; 9:13). your children--that is, your people, you. your...sword...devoured...prophets--(2Ch 36:16; Ne 9:26; Mt23:29, 31).
the people, and such--rather, explanatory, "the people," namely, "such as are left." seek their life--content with nothing short of their death; not content with plundering and enslaving them. ...
vengeance--for the slaughter of Josiah (2Ki 23:29). sword shall devour...be...drunk--poetical personification (De32:42). a sacrifice--(Isa 34:6; Eze 39:17). The slaughter of the Egyptians is...
He that is far off--namely, from the foe; those who in a distant exile fear no evil. he that remaineth--he that is left in the city; not carried away into captivity, nor having escaped into the...
Rabbath of the Ammonites--distinct from Rabbah in Judah (2Sa12:26). Rabbath is put first, as it was from her that Jerusalem, that doomed city, had borrowed many of her idols. to Judah in Jerusalem...
engines of war--literally, "an apparatus for striking." "He shall apply the stroke of the battering-ram against thy walls." Havernick translates, "His enginery of destruction"; literally, the...
Thou land devourest up men--alluding to the words of the spies (Nu13:32). The land personified is represented as doing that which was done in it. Like an unnatural mother it devoured, that is, it...
went out by a thousand--that is, "the city from which there used to go out a thousand" equipped for war. "City" is put for "the inhabitants of the city," as in Am 4:8. shall leave...hundred--shall...
Jeroboam shall die, &c.--Amos had not said this: but that "the house of Jeroboam" should fall "with the sword" (Am 7:9). But Amaziah exaggerates the charge, to excite Jeroboam against him. The...
How unbecoming is the worldly ambition of being the greatest, to the character of a follower of Jesus, who took upon him the form of a servant, and humbled himself to the death of the cross! In...
We read not that any Midianites died of the plague; God punished them with the sword of an enemy, not with the rod of a father. We must set ourselves against whatever is an occasion of sin to us,...
moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren--This was near Shechem (Ge 33:18; Joh 4:5; also Jos 16:1; 20:7). And it is probable that the Amorites, having seized upon it during one...
when Joshua was by Jericho--in the immediate vicinity of that city, probably engaged in surveying the fortifications, and in meditating the best plan of a siege. there stood a man over against him...
The ruin is depicted under several figures--a vineyard whose broken "hedges," and "strongholds," whose ruins invite spoilers and invaders; a warrior, whose enemies are aided by God, and whose...
beasts--perhaps meaning destructive conquerors (Da 7:4). Rather, literal "beasts," which infest desolated regions such as Judea was to become (compare Eze 34:28; Ex 23:29; De 32:24; 2Ki 17:25). The...
Neither shall one thrust another--that is, press upon so as to thrust his next neighbor out of his place, as usually occurs in a large multitude. when they fall upon the sword--that is, among...
Some of God's servants of old were appointed to execute vengeance according to his word. They did not do it from personal revenge or earthly politics, but in obedience to God's command. And the...