Joel

Chapter 1

Ver. 1. The word of the Lord that came, &c.] See the note on #Ho 1:1, with whom Jerome and some other interpreters make this prophet a contemporary, for the likeness of argument; and that common canon of the Jewish doctors, that the prophet who sets not down his time is to be held of the same time with him that is placed before him. The Seventy set him not only after Hosea, but also after Amos and Micah: and the ancient Hebrew Chronicle, called Sedar Olam, affirmeth that Joel prophesied together with Nahum and Habakkuk, the days of King Manasseh; which Drusius would prove out of #Joe 3:5. Others, with more show of reason, out of #2Ki 21:10 23:26. Joel might very well be one of those prophets that denounced God’s heavy judgments against Judah, for the sins and abominations of Manasseh, whom some make to be his convert. For although at first the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people, but they would not hearken, {#2Ch 33:10} yet the rod might set the word to work afterwards; for Manasseh, when he was in affliction, besought the Lord, and humbled himself greatly, {#2Ch 33:12} and Joel might very well be to him a son of Pethuel, or of God’s persuasion: God, by his ministry, might speak to his heart, #Ho 2:14, set before him an open door (another Etymology of the name Pethuel, ostium Dei mouth of God), #Re 3:8, minister unto him an entrance farther and farther into Christ’s everlasting kingdom, #2Pe 1:11. If any think it more likely that Joel prophesied under Josiah, king of Judah, when that great famine occured which is described in like terms by Jeremiah, #Jer 14:1,2 cf. 2Ki 23:26, I shall not strive with him. But that this Joel was the son of Samuel (here called Pethuel, a persuader of God, because what he asked of God he obtained), as R. Salomon would carry it, I cannot imagine: for that Joel was not a prophet, but a corrupt judge, #1Sa 8:1-5.

Ver. 2. Hear this, ye old men] Who, as ye are fittest to hear serious discourses (Aristotle excludeth young men from his ethic lectures, because raw and rash: green wood is ever shrinking and warping), so ye are more experienced; and yet not so wise, but that, by hearing, ye may become wiser, #Pr 1:5. Solon said, he could never be too old to learn, γηρασκω αιει πολλα διδασκομενος. Julianus, the lawyer, said, that when he had one foot in the grave, yet he would have the other in the school. David Chytraeus, when he lay dying, lifted up himself to hear the divine discourses of his friends that sat by him; and said, that he should die with better cheer if he might die learning something, Si moribundus etiam aliquid didicisset.

And give ear, all, &c.] Hear and give ear: draw up the ears of your minds to the ears of your bodies, that one sound may pierce both. When these two words are joined together, as they are often, the matter propounded is either very dark or very remarkable, and commands attention, as #De 1:45 Isa 1:2,10 Jer 13:15 Ho 5:1.

All ye inhabitants of the land] sc. of Judea, or all ye inhabitants of the whole earth, q.d. I shall speak of so great a matter, as that I could wish to be heard all the world over. And because all men love to hear news, I shall tell you that that was never known to happen in any age. Rem novam pollicetur emphaticoteros quam more Rhetorico, saith Oecolampadius. Prick up your ears, therefore, and listen.

Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers] Was there ever such havoc made by several sorts of vermin successively, for four years together? This was the very finger of God, #Ex 8:19, all whose works (by how small instruments soever) are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein, #Ps 111:2. His extraordinary works especially are to be noted and noticed; the memory of them is to be transmitted to all posterity. "This shall be written for the generation to come," #Ps 102:18. "They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this," #Ps 22:31. Sed vae stupori nostro. There is a woe to such as regard not the works of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, #Isa 5:12, that make of them but a nine days’ wonderment at best, and so pass them over. Whereas every judgment of God should be a warning peal to repentance. We be like the smith’s dog (saith one), who the harder the anvil is beaten on, lies by, and sleeps the sounder. Like the hen (saith another), which loseth her chickens one after another by the devouring kite; and yet still continues to pick up what lies before her: such a deep drowsiness and dressiness of spirit there is upon most of us.

Ver. 3. Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children] Heb. Cipher them up diligently, after the manner of mathameticians; reckon up the several years with the several calamities thereof to your children and nephews, that they may hear, and fear, and do no more so, #De 19:20. Let your woes be their warnings, your sufferings their standing sermons; your corrections their instructions. See #1Co 10:5-12. Ruina maiorum sit cautela minornm (Greg. Mot.). Hast thou marked the old way (saith Eliphaz to Job, #Job 22:15,16), which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time; whose foundation was overflown with a flood (Heb. a flood was poured upon their foundation), which said unto God, Depart from us? &c. He speaketh of those antediluvian atheists, buried in one universal grave of waters. See #Jos 22:20 Ne 13:26 Jude 5-7, and learn to keep a catalogue of God’s great works, whether of mercy or judgment; yea, to polish and garnish them for the use of posterity, not with vain affectation of wit, nor with pedantic pomp of words, but with sobriety and holy gravity, as here; such as may stick by our children, and leave impression.

Ver. 4. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten] The palmerworm hath its name in Hebrew from shaving, םזג (because it shaveth off the fruits of the earth). In Chaldee from creeping; in Greek from crookening; in Latin from gnawing. (Zachala. καμπη. Eruca ab erodendo.) The locust hath its name in Hebrew from multitude, wherewith the very sun is darkened; in Latin from burning places, where it spoileth, Locusts, quasi loca ustulans; in Greek from cropping the tops of grain and plants, which, as they fled, they fed upon. The cankerworm hath its name in Hebrew from licking; in Chaldee from fleeing; in Greek and Latin from feeding upon the flowers of apples and other fruits, Ακρις Μηλοχονθη. Comester some render it. Flemings call it, The preacher, a bombo quem palando edit, from the noise it maketh as it flies. The caterpillar hath its name, Chasil, from wasting, because it utterly consumeth all, not only fruits and leaves, but tender boughs and branches: Ut ita creseat oratio sicut ipsum malum, to show that as their sin increased so did their punishment. The Lord of hosts cannot possibly want a weapon wherewith to beat a rebel; neither may wicked men expect that he should lay down the bucklers first. To that bold question of Pharaoh, #Ex 5:2, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" God made a large reply, by his armies of locusts, lice, flies, &c., till Pharaoh was forced to answer himself, "The Lord is righteous." What spoil hath been made by these despicable creatures here mentioned in other countries, Pliny recordeth. Pierius testifieth that the Egyptians made the locust a hieroglyphic of famine. And although we find not expressly set down in the holy history when this particular plague was executed, yet we need not doubt but it was done according to #De 28:38,39. See #1Ki 8:37.

Ver. 5. Awake, ye drunkards] Ye ale stakes, and suckers (Heb. Shiccorim), that pour in heady and intoxicating drinks, such as soon lay you to sleep, and (besides) take away your heart, #Ho 4:11, rob you of yourselves, and lay a beast in your room. Portentosum sane potionis genus, saith Pliny concerning ale, that excessively drunk maketh men mere sleepy than dormice: besides that worse sleep of carnal security, #Eph 5:14 Ro 13:11. These, therefore, are here called upon to be sober and watch, {see #1Th 5:6 1Pe 5:8 1Pe 4:7} yea, to weep and howl, to turn their laughter into mourning, and their joy into heaviness. And why? For their sin they should have done (as that drunkard in the ecclesiastical history, that, touched with a sense of his sin, wept himself blind), but here they are sarcastically called upon to weep for their great loss, as they esteem it.

Because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth] As many things occur between the chin and the chalice, the cup and the lip: you made account to have mouthed it, to have swilled your souls, as they say, and to have swallowed it down your wide gullets, Vinum merum nondum dilutum. But behold, it happens somewhat otherwise; the caterpillar hath been before you, and left you nothing better than Adam’s ale to tipple. This as cold comfort to the drunkard, whose word is that of the vine in Jotham’s parable, Non possum relinquere vinum meum, I am not able to leave my wine. Take away my liquor, you take away my life. Austin brings him in saying, Malle se vitam quam vinum eripi, He would rather lose his life than his wine. And Ambrose tells of one Theotimus, that being told by his physicians, that much quaffing would make him blind, Vale lumen amicum, said he, Farewell, sweet eyes; if ye will not bear wine, ye are no eyes for me. This drunkard would rather lose his sight than his sin; his soul than his lust. Such kind of persons are like the panther, which is said to love the dung of man so much, as if it be hanged on high from it, it will skip and leap up, and never leave till it have burst itself in pieces to get it; and this is the way they take that creature. God will take these natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, #2Pe 2:14, after another manner. He will not only cut them short enough here, but turn a cup of fire and brimstone down their throats, #Ps 11:6, which will be worse to them than that ladleful of boiling lead poured down the throat of a drunken Turk, by the command of a bashaw.

Ver. 6. For a nation is come up upon my land] A nation, sc. of vermin, by swarms, as #Joe 2:9, called afterwards an army, #Joe 2:11, and a people, #Joe 2:2. See the like #Pr 30:25,26. "Is come," that is, shortly shall come, "upon my land," this glorious and goodly land, as it is called, #Da 11:16. Tarnovius makes this by a mimesis {a} to be the drunkard’s lamentation. "A nation is come up," &c.

Strong and without number] Yea, therefore strong, because without number; insuperable, because innumerable. Feeble they are, and yet formidable; because set on by God Almighty, whose warriors they are, as the Roman spoilers are called, #Mt 22:7. And perhaps the Assyrians may here be hinted at. I doubt not but the literal sense is chiefly intended; neither can I concur with Oecolampadius, who holdeth it to be propheta indignum, unbeseeming the prophet to preach thus concerning worms and locusts: for concerning such poor creatures deal the prophets by the instinct of the Holy Ghost, in sundry other places, #Pr 6:6 Am 4:9 7:1 Na 3:15.

Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion] That is, they devour all that is in their way; as there is no standing before a lion, no, not before a moth that hath commission to crush a man, #Job 4:19.

{a} Rhet. A figure of speech, whereby the supposed words or actions of another are imitated. ŒD

Ver. 7. He hath laid my vine waste] The prophet proceeds in aggravating the calamity, that he might make the people the more sensible. There is nothing in the world more stupid and more stubborn than a drunkard. Of such it is that that saying of an ancient is often verified, Ablatus est a peccantibus timor, ne possit esse cautela, Fear is taken away from offenders, that there should be no caution against it. Here therefore let the words of the wise be as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of the assemblies. Let them so preach with Peter, that their hearers may be pricked at heart, #Ac 2:37, may be galled and sawed, as it were, #Ac 7:54, may startle and tremble, as #Ac 24:25, may awaken out of that dead lethargy, whereinto Satan hath cast them, and recover out of his snare who are taken captive by him at his pleasure, #2Ti 2:26. True it is, we can hardly get men to believe that hell is so hot, or sin so heavy, or the devil so black or God so unmerciful as the preachers make him. The lion, say they, is not so terrible as he is painted; nor is our case so dangerous as is borne us in hand. Sed non pergamus exaggerare, saith Pareus here. Let God’s ministers lay load upon men’s sins, and set forth to the full the miseries that will fall upon them. The prophets did so for temporal (as here most graphically and to the life), shall not we much more for eternal punishments? "Oh" (saith one) "that I could get words to gore your very hearts with smarting pain; that this doctrine might be written in your flesh!"

And barked my fig tree] Take away the bark from the tree, and the sap can never find the way to the boughs. These vermin had barked the trees with their teeth, cast the bark out of their mouths upon the ground, and made the branches naked and all white as froth; so that the drunkards, deprived of their sweet draughts, were brought ad effiationem animae (as the Chaldee here expounded Chetsephah), to a yielding up of the ghost, yea, ad laqueum et restim, as the Latins, to the very halter.

Ver. 8. Lament like a virgin] Our prophet hath done with his drunkards; and now applieth himself to the soberer sort, whom also he calleth to deep and downright mourning, in this case of common calamity; there being not any so innocent and holy, but had some hand, if not upon the greater cart ropes, yet surely upon the smaller cords, that drew down dearth and judgment upon the land.

Lament therefore like a virgin] Betrothed, but bereft of her espoused husband before she was married to him: so Placater. Others understand it of her that (lately a virgin, but now newly married) passionately loved her husband and bitterly bewaileth his death; which some young women have taken so grievously, that they have refused to live any longer; but have chosen to put an end to their life and grief together, as historians testify.

Girded with sackcloth] Sacco non serico, with mourning weeds as a testimony of help to your humiliation. The dead we see may be lawfully lamented; indeed, it is one of the dues of the dead, τα νομιζομενα, iusta defunctorum. It is fit that the body, when sown in corruption, should be watered by the tears of those that plant it in the earth. Only we must not mourn in this case as heathens, without hope, #1Th 4:13. Our grief must not be excessive, either for measure or continuance; neither must we mourn so much for our friends departed as for our sins against God. In the former case baldness is forbidden; in the latter it is required, #Isa 22:12 Zec 12:10 11:13. One poor woman weeping over Christ shall be as deeply affected as all the people were in that unspeakable loss of their good king Josiah, at Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddo, where Jeremiah lamented, and all the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentation, and made them an ordinance, #2Ch 35:24,25.

Ver. 9. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off] Periit libatio et oblatio. This was the godly man’s greatest grief, that there wanted matter of testifying their thankfulness to God in his commanded worships; and that God was so deeply displeased, as that he had deprived himself and his ministers of the due allowance; so that they also mourned, and could not cheerfully execute their office, for lack of maintenance; for they were not of the chameleon kind.

Ver. 10. The field is wasted, the land mourneth] The sacrifices are not only cut off for present, but little hopes left for the future; for the field, that common storehouse, that horreum unde hauriatur, is wasted: Shuddad Sadeh, there is an elegant allusion in the original: as in the following words a personification not inferior to those of the poets, as Luther and Vatablus here note.

The land mourneth] By an ordinary metaphor among the Hebrews, those things are said to mourn that are wasted, desolated, corrupted, and changed for the worse. #La 2:8, the rampart and the wall are said to lament, and to languish together. When Ephestion died, Alexander not only clipped his horses’ and mules’ hair, but plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city; because it should appear that the wails and ramparts did mourn for his death (Plutarch): so #Isa 24:7, "The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry hearted do sigh." It is fit that if the land mourn and fail of her increase, men should much more mourn and be moved with a sense of their sins, the cause of such calamities. The earth lies under a curse of barrenness, at its best, #Ge 3:17, and was never so beautiful and cheerful since the fall of Adam. At this day it lieth bedridden, as it were, waiting for the coming of the Son of God, that it may be delivered from the bondage of corruption, #Ro 8:20. But in times of dearth it seemeth to mourn more than ordinary, yea, to blush and bleed.

The new wine is dried up] Or is abashed; as loth to look men in the face, because not answerable to their expectation: see #Isa 33:9.

The oil languisheth] Or, is sick. Grain, wine, and oil are the main supports of man’s life: all is gone.

Ver. 11. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen] This repetition of his former exhortation is not needless; for man is a stout and stubborn creature; neither goeth anything more against the hair and the heart with him than to come downward, and to be so soundly sensible of God’s judgments as seriously to repent. Hence St James’s extraordinary importunity in pressing this most needful but much neglected duty, #Jas 4:9,10. He knew, and so did our prophet, that this work must be done, or else men are undone. Hence that heap of words. Nunquam satis dicitur quod nunquam satis discitur (Seneca). That can never be too much taught that is never enough learned.

Ver. 12. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree lanquisheth] God cutteth you short of all things both for necessity and delight; and this is so much inculcated and iterated that you may not slight it as a common occurrence; but be deeply affected with it, as a sore affliction. Verba toties repetita viva sunt, vera sunt, sana sunt, plana sunt (Aug.). Let no man think that this is a superfluous tautology, or an idle repetition of the same thing. For, in sacred Scripture there is not a tittle in vain; there is not an apex whereon there hangs not a mountain of sense, as the Rabbis use to say. By one and the same thing repeated, memory is helped, affection is excited, and matters of moment are better minded, #Php 3:1. Besides, Repetitio confirmatio est, saith Ambrose, The repeating of a matter implieth, 1. The infallible truth of it; 2. The inexpressible excellency of it; 3. The profitable use of it; 4. The absolute necessity of it. Aut faciendum, aut patiendum. Either to do or to endure.

Ver. 13. Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests] Be you priest, and first in the practice of humiliation: be you an example of the believers in word, in conversation, &c., #1Ti 4:12, a pattern of piety, τυπος. Si vis ne flere, &c. If others shall lament, you must begin to them; and say, as Abimolech did to his soldiers, "What ye have seen me do, make haste and do likewise," #Jud 9:48; and as St Paul doth to his Philippians, "Those things which ye have both learned and received, and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you," #Php 4:9.

For the meat offering and the drink offering, &c.] Your maintenance is substracted, and (that which should more affect you) the sacred service of God is intermitted, and so the glory is departed, the daily sacrifice is neglected, which the Jews counted and called the abomination of desolation. Phineas’s wife was not without natural affection, #1Sa 4:21, but her spiritual affections prevailed. Therefore in the declaration of her sorrow, that of her father-in-law and husband is but once named; but twice it came in, The glory is departed, The glory is departed. All comforts are but Ichabods to a good heart without the ordinances: without the sincere milk of the word God’s new-born babes cannot be quitted. I could not live in paradise without the word (said Luther), as with the word I could easily live in hell itself.

Ver. 14. Sanctify ye a fast] Having humbled yourselves, preach repentance to others. That is the best sermon that is digged out of a man’s own breast. "Sanctify yourselves first, and then prepare your brethren," saith Josiah to the priests of his time, #2Ch 35:6. A religious fast (for that the prophet intends here by sanctify), rightly observed and referred to religious ends, is both a testimony of true repentance, and a furtherance thereunto; for it tames the rebel flesh, #1Co 9:27, which else will wantonize and overtop the spirit, #De 32:15. And it giveth wings to our prayers, which before grovelled on the ground, as it were. Fasting inflameth prayer; and prayer sanctifieth fasting.

Sanctify therefore a fast, call a solemn assembly] Heb. a day of restraint, separating yourselves, as #Zec 8:19, from all fleshly delights; amercing and punishing yourselves in that sort by a holy revenge, as #Ps 35:18, and afflicting your souls with voluntary sorrows for your sins and miseries.

Gather the elders] Both those qui canis et annis sunt tales, who are full of days and so of sins; and also those that are in place of authority, whose offences have soared higher on the wings of example and scandal.

And all the inhabitants of the land] For as all are sin guilty, so your unanimity and charity will further the service. All should get together in this case, and bring their buckets to quench a common fire; the more public and general the humiliation is, the more pleasing and prevalent, #Jud 20:26 2Ch 30:8,13 Jon 3:5,7,8.

Into the house of the Lord your God] Which house was a type of Christ (in whom God heareth his), and had made many promises to prayers there put up in faith, #1Ki 18:37-39 2Ch 6:28,29.

Of the Lord your God] Yours still by virtue of the covenant: be sure to keep faith in heart, when we are at the greatest under.

And cry unto the Lord] With the heart, at least, as Moses did at the Red Sea, when yet none heard him but the ear of heaven only ( Moses egit vocis silentio ut magis audiretur); and as Hannah did when she uttered no audible voice, and yet poured forth her soul to the Lord with such a strange and unwonted writing of her lips, that Eli thought she had been drunk, #1Sa 1:15.

Ver. 15. Alas, for the day, &c.] Gr. Alas, Alas, Alas; the Vulgate Latin A, A, A, which a Lapide makes much ado about, to little purpose.

For the day of the Lord] That is, the day of the greatest evils and miseries that ever hitherto they had suffered, if repentance prevent not. That they had suffered much already appeareth #Joe 2:25, but those were but the beginnings of their sorrows, if they yet went on in their sins.

For as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come] An elegant alliteration there is in the original; together with an allusion to that tremendis title of God, Shaddai. The Jews (probably) boasted much and bare themselves overly bold upon their interest in God Almighty. The prophet therefore tells them that God’s greatest power should be little to their profit while impenitent; for that it should be put forth and exercised for their utter destruction. Aben Ezra interpreteth Shaddai a conqueror, others a destroyer, which a conqueror must needs be. And hereto this text and that #Isa 13:6, do allude, when they say Shod shall come from Shaddai, Destruction from the Almighty. Here, also, we may learn when we are under affliction to ascend to the first cause thereof, #Am 3:6, as David did in that three years’ famine, #2Sa 21:1. See #Jas 3:3-8.

Ver. 16. Is not the meat cut off before your eyes] Heb. before your eyes: and so it appeareth to be the prophet’s speech, and not a form prescribed by him to the people, by adding the word (saying) to the end of the fourteenth verse, "Cry to the Lord, saying, Alas, for the day," &c. And it is as if the prophet should say; Do ye not yet see what case you are in? Are ye so stupid and so stout or sturdy, as not to stoop, though starved almost? should not vexation give understanding? are not the fiercest creatures tamed with hard hunger? Will not men in such case buy or beg food of their deadly enemies? O brawny breasts! O horny heart strings!

Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God] All God’s services were to be performed with joy; but now, for want of corn and wine (which cheereth God and man, #Jud 9:13), the daily sacrfice ceased, and all good hearts were thereby saddened. #Joe 1:9. {See Trapp on "Joe 1:9"}

Ver. 17. The seed is rotten under their clods] It lieth buried or drowned with excessive rain and moisture, corrupting the seed soon after it was sown: and that which was not so marred was afterwards, when it came to be grain, dried up with excessive heat.

The corn is withered] So that the garners were desolated, the barns broken down for want of stuffing, and for that there was no use of them, since they sowed but reaped not, #Mic 6:15. The husbandman was called to mourning, #Am 5:16, for a threefold calamity that lay upon his tillage. First, immoderate rain in or about seeding; secondly, locusts and other vermin at spring; thirdly, extreme drought after all, #Joe 1:19,20. Thus God followeth sinners with one plague in the neck of another (as he did Pharaoh, that sturdy rebel), till he have made his foes his footstools. To multiply sin is to multiply sorrow, #Ps 16:4; to heap up wickedness is to heap up wrath, #Ro 2:5. "I will heap mischiefs upon them," saith God; "I will spend mine arrows upon them," #De 32:23, which yet cannot be all spent up, as Ovid feared of his Jupiter, that if he should punish men for every offence his store of thunder bolts would be soon spent and exhausted.

“ Si queries peccent homines sua fulmina mittat

Iupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit.”

Ver. 18. How do the beasts groan] The wild beasts groan in their kind.

The herds of cattle] Home and tame beasts, as oxen,

&c., are perplexed] as not knowing what to do; it is the same word with that, #Es 3:15. God had "hid his face" (withdrawn his hand), "and they were troubled; he taketh away their breath" (for lack of pasture), "they die and return to their dust," as David telleth us in his psalm, #Ps 104:29. Epiphanius’s physiologer reporteth of the bird called Charadius, that being brought where a sick man lieth, if he look upon the sick with a fixed and unremoved eye there is hopes of recovery, but if he look another way the disease is deadly. Sure it is, that if God look in mercy upon man and beast they are cared and catered for, #Ps 36:7 104:27 145:15,16, &c. and the contrary. Yea, the flocks of sheep, &c., which yet can bite upon the bare, live with a little, and get pasture where the larger creatures cannot come.

Ver. 19. O Lord, to thee will I cry] I will, though others will not. I have called upon others to cry mightily unto thee, and to meet thee by repentance; but they, tanquam monstra marina, as so many sea monsters, pass by my words with a deaf ear, they refuse to return. "Thy hand is lifted up" in threatening, and will fall down in punishing, but "they will not see," #Isa 26:11, they will not search, they will not have their eyes (like the windows in Solomon’s temple) broad inward, #1Ki 6:4; the eyes of their minds are as ill set (for this matter) as the eyes of their bodies, they see not what is within. But whatever they do, "my soul shall weep in secret for their pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore," &c., #Jer 13:17, for their insensibleness of their misery.

For the fire hath devoured the pastures] That is, the immoderate scorching heat of the season. See #Ps 83:14 Jer 17:6. Or the blasting wind, as Lyra expounds it; or the locusts, as Drusius, or God (who is a consuming fire), by any, or all these instruments of his wrath, as Tarnovius.

And the flame hath burnt all the trees of the field] This was dreadful, but yet nothing to that conflagratio mundi, spoken of by St Peter, #2Pe 3:12, "when the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat" on the heads of the wicked; who shall give a terrible account, with the world all on a light fire about their ears.

Ver. 20. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee] Glocitant, a term taken from deer; they cry as they can, they cry by implication, imploring thine help, each for himself. See #Ps 149:9 Job 39:3 Ps 104:27; and should men be silent?

For the rivers of the waters are dried up] This maketh the hart bray after the waterbrooks, yea, shed tears, as hunters say the hart will, when hot and hard pressed for water. Hereto David seems to allude, #Ps 42:3, "My tears have been my meat," &c.

And the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness] This had been said before, #Joe 1:19. The reason of such repetitions, {See Trapp on "Joe 1:11"} {See Trapp on "Joe 1:12\} Neither let this last exaggeration of the common calamity, by that which befell the brute beasts, seem superfluous. For whereas the security and obstinace of most men is such, that they take little notice of present pressures, but promise themselves peace and safety, whatsoever God, by his servants, shall say to the contrary; it is but needful, surely, that their danger should be inculcated, and their calamity set out, and set on with utmost importunity and vehemence.

Chapter 2

Ver. 1. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion] Idem aliis verbis repetit, saith Mercer here. The prophet repeats the same as in the former chapter, only in other words, more at large, and after another manner; pressing the people further to the practice of repentance by many sweet promises of the blessings of this and a better life. Our prophet may seem to be of the same mind with Tertullian, who said that he was nulli rei natus nisi poenitentiae, born for no other end but to repent, and to call upon others so to do. Tot autem verbis et figuris utitur, saith Luther, he useth so many words and figures, because he had to do with a people that were harder than rocks, #Jer 5:8; as also, because there is an absolute necessity of repentance. Aut poenitendum, aut pereundum, as our Saviour tells his disciples twice in a breath, #Lu 13:2,5. The prophet had urged them hereunto from the evils they felt or feared, #Joe 1. Pain and penitence are words of one derivation. God plagueth men that he may make them cry peccavi; I have sinned, not peril only, I am undone, as Cain; but peccavi, I have done very foolishly, as David. The first seventeen verses of this chapter are hortatory, the rest consolatory. The day of the Lord cometh, therefore repent. This is the sum of the exhortation. It cometh, and that instantly: give warning therefore. God loveth to foresignify, saith the heathen historian, and to admonish before he punish, Φιλει ο Θεος προσημαινειν (Herod.). He dealt so with Cain, to whom he read the first lecture of repentance, #Ge 4:9-15, as he had done of faith to his father Adam, in the chapter before. He dealt so with the old world, with the Sodomites, Ninevites.

Sound an alarm in my holy mountain] Ring the bells backwards (as among us they do), the house is on fire, the enemy is at hand.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble] And take course to prevent or mitigate the ensuing mischief, to cut the cart ropes of sin that pull down wrath upon the land.

For the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand] "An end is come, is come, is come," as Ezekiel hath it, #Eze 7:6,7 "I will overturn, overturn, overturn," as the same prophet hath it elsewhere, #Eze 21:27, "Should we then make mirth?" as it is in the same chapter, #Eze 21:10; should we sleep upon a mast pole, dance upon a weather cock, go hallooing and whooping to the place of execution?

Ver. 2. A day of darkness and of gloominess] Lest they should imagine it to be some light matter that hath been, and is still threatened, he sets forth to the life, the bitterness of that day, so lowering and lightless, that it can hardly be called a day; a dark and doleful doomsday it will be to the impenitent, infaustus et infelix, dismal and dreadful. What better can be expected by those Tenebriones, that delight in the deeds of darkness, and are acted by those rulers of the darkness of this world, #Eph 6:12, the devils, whom they follow as they are led, #1Co 12:2, till they fall into outer darkness, σκοτος εξωτερον, even that darkness beyond a darkness (as the dungeon is beyond or below the prison), where they shall never see the light again till they see all the world on a light fire. Let those Lucifugae look to it, that love darkness better than light; for, besides what they meet with here, they shall one day have their bellies full of it in that dungeon of darkness.

A day of clouds and of thick darkness]. Caused by that huge army of locusts, coming in great swarms and darkening the air.

As the morning spread upon the mountains] i.e. longe, lateque, far and near, all the country over, and that in an instant; even as the morning spreadeth abroad suddenly over the tops of hills, though they be a great way off. Postera vix summos spargebat lumine montes Orta dies (Virg.) Lux subit, et primo feriente cacumina sole. (Ovid.) Hereby is imported that the calamity here threatened is such as they can neither avert nor avoid. Irretensibilis est, saith Luther.

A great people and a strong] So the locusts are called, see #Joe 1:4-6, not without some respect to the Chaldeans, that should afterwards carry them captive, as Jerome here glosseth.

There hath not been ever the like] sc. in the land of Judea, nor of the like continuance. See #Joe 1:2,3.

Even to the years of many generations] Heb. Of an age and an age, so #De 32:7 Joe 3:20. This assureth us of the greatness of this people’s sin, since they were so signally punished, for God doth not use to kill flies with beetles, as they say.

Ver. 3. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth] Such waste these vermin shall make, like as it is said of the Great Turk, that wherever he sets his foot there never grows grass again; he doth so eat up the countries where he comes with his huge armies. And the late Lord Brook, in his discourse of episcopacy, notes, that that unhappy proverb among us was not for nought, The bishop’s foot hath trodden here. In Biscay, a province of Spain, they admit no bishops to come among them; and when Ferdinand, the Catholic king, came in progress hither, accompanied among others by the Bishop of Pampelune, the people arose in arms, drove back the bishop, and gathering all the dust on the which they thought he had trodden, flung it into the sea. What fires they kindled here in Queen Mary’s days, devouring six or seven hundred, at least, of God’s faithful witnesses in five years’ time; and what work they made in our remembrance throughout the three kingdoms, to the embroiling of all and their own utter ruin, I need not relate. That renowned author cited before had told them time enough, but that they were destined to destruction, that if they forbear to touch the supreme authority of the land, which they affected, it was but as once Mercury spared Jupiter’s thunderbolts, which he dared not steal, lest they should roar too loud, or, at least, burn his fingers.

The land is as the garden of Eden] i.e. of all kind of pleasures and delights. See #Ge 2:8 13:10. Eden inde ηδονη. Strabo speaks spitefully of the land of Canaan, as if it were a dry, stony, and barren country, not worth the seeking after, Rabshakeh shows more ingenuity than this, Strabus et pravus Strabo (as one therefore calleth him), #2Ki 18:32. Tacitus commends it for a fertile soil, so doth Pliny; but above all, the holy Scripture setteth it forth to be Sumen totius orbis, the bread basket of the whole world, a land flowing with milk and honey, &c., #Ex 3:17 De 32:13.

And behind them a desolate wilderness] Not such a wilderness as yielded pastures, and habitations for shepherds, #Joe 1:19,20, but utterly desolate, and therefore unhabitable, as under the torrid zone. No place can be so pleasant but sin can lay it waste. "A fruitful land turneth the Lord into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein," #Ps 107:34. There is no footstep left to this day of that gallant garden, planted by God himself; or if any, cecidit rosa, est spina; the place remains in the upper part of Chaldea, but not the pleasantness of the place. The like we may say of Sodom, of Jerusalem, of Greece, of Asia the less, of Germany, Ireland, &c. England hath hitherto subsisted merely by a miracle of God’s mercy, and by a prop of his extraordinary patience. The Lord continue it to the glory of his name and the good of his poor people. Fiat, fiat.

Ver. 4. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen] i.e. the locusts and other insects come on amain; they march with much nimbleness and swiftness. A horse is a warlike creature, full of terror; so swift in service, that the Persians dedicated him to their god, the sun, as the swiftest creature to the swiftest god, ωσπερ το ταχιστον τω ταχυτατω (Pausan.). See #Job 41:20 Pr 21:31. In Persia they do all almost on horseback; they buy, sell, confer, but especially fight on horseback to this day. So they did of old, and so did the Chaldeans, from whom they took the monarchs. These were horsemen, and not as horsemen; the place, therefore, is properly and principally to be understood of the locusts. Confer #Re 9:7.

Ver. 5. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains] Not only on the tops of standing grain, as other locusts, which therehence also have their name Ακριδες, but as the hurry of chariots in stony places, #Re 9:9. For in that book of the Revelation, the penman borrows all the elegancies and flowers of the Old Testament, thereby to set out the story of the New in succeeding ages; as here hence the Popish priests are fitly called locusts for their numerosity and voracity, #Re 9:3. They are also likened unto horses, #Joe 2:7, fed and fierce to run, and rush into the battle not without noise. "Like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble," #Ec 7:6; or the rattling of "the jumping chariot wheels," #Na 3:2.

As a strong people set in battle array] In a bloody fight between Amurath, the third King of Turkey, and Lazarus, despot of Servia, many thousands fell on both sides. The brightness of the armour and weapons was as it had been the lightning the multitude of lances and other horsemen’s staves shadowed the light of the sun. Arrows and darts fell so fast that a man would have thought they had poured down from heaven. The noise of the instruments of war, with the neighing of horses and outcries of men, was so terrible and great, that the wild beasts in the mountains stood astonished therewith, and the Turkish histories, to express the terror of the day, vainly say that the angels in heaven, amazed with that hideous noise, for that time forgot the heavenly hymns, wherewith they always glorify God.

Ver. 6. Before their face the people shall be much pained] This is a confirmation of the former assertion. The people when they shall see those swarms of locusts, &c., mustering and marching in the air, they shall be much pained, as a travailing woman is, "pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them, their faces shall be as flames," #Isa 13:8, for fear lest they should light on their country and lay all waste.

All faces shall gather blackness] Pallorem, paleness, so Castalio rendereth it; a blackish lead-like paleness, such as on sooty pots. The original here is, "hath gathered a pot," that is, by a metonymy, a pot-like blackness, Nigricantern colorem significat (Mercer). See #Na 3:10 Jer 30:6 Ps 68:13, where, by blackness (such as slaves and scullions contract by lying among the pots, and smokey and sooty chimney corners), is set forth the exceeding great fear and affliction that God’s people are often in and from whence he graciously promiseth to deliver them that trust in him. Such shall not "be afraid whose heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." It was fear that now caused (the natural heat and the blood retiring to the heart to receive it, as, in a sudden surprise, the soldiers run to the castle) paleness and blackness of face. It was hunger afterwards that burnt them, #De 32:24, and made their visages blacker than a coal, as #La 4:8, or, "darker than blackness," as the original hath it.

Ver. 7. They shall run like mighty men] Horribiles, fortissimi ut gigantes. They shall strike terror into others, as in the former verse, but themselves, as giants and conquerors, shall overrun all with incredible swiftness and prowess. Strong soldiers have strong sinews, and thence their speedy marches and quick despatch. "Asahel was light of foot as a wild roe," #2Sa 2:18. Achilles is everywhere by Homer called swift-footed, ποδας ωκυς. Alexander the Great, being asked how he so quickly conquered so many countries, answered, Μηδεν αναβαλλομενος, by my nimbleness. Caesar in omnia princeps, Caesar in all things first, saith Lucan, he passed the Alps, and was at Rome with a trice, as they say. His word was, Veni, vidi, vici, I no sooner came, but I overcame. He is said to have taken a thousand towns, conquered three hundred nations, took prisoner one million of men, and to have slain as many. What a deal was done by Joshua in a short space at the conquest of Canaan? Charles V, Emperor of Germany, is reported to have won in the Indies, by his captains and commanders there, twenty-eight kingdoms in twenty-eight battles. Bajazet, the great Turk, for his swiftness and fierceness, was surnamed Gilderun, or lightning. To such worthy warriors, ready and speedy, prompt and present, are these locusts, God’s armed soldiers, here compared. "They shall run like mighty men, they shall climb the wall like men of war," that cannot be kept out, that will not be worsted.

They shall march every one (Heb., man) on his way] Though many, yet they shall not one hinder or hurt another, but hold a comely equipage, keep rank and file, observe the laws and rules of discipline, and so

“ Coniuneti pollent etiam vehementer inertes.”

They go forth all of them by bands, or gathered together, saith Solomon, #Pr 30:27. So do those locusts in the Revelation, the Popish clergy under their king, the destroyer, #Re 9:11. Locusts they are fitly called for their numerosity and voracity. The Jesuits alone have sometimes 200,000 scholars. And how they feed on the fat and drink the sweet where they swarm who knows not.

They shall not break their ranks] Or, writhe and pervert their paths, as Aben Ezra out of the Arabic idiom rendereth it. Jerome testifieth that he and others saw in Judea troops of locusts flying in so even an order, ut ne puncto quidem aut ungue transverso declinent ad alteram, that you could not say they brake rank at all; tanto ordine et dispositione iubentis Dei volitant, saith he, so strict and beautiful discipline there is in God’s whole army, to whom belong the shields of the earth, the militia of the whole world, #Ps 47:9.

Ver. 8. Neither shall one thrust another] Or straiten another. The Greek word διωκω, to press and persecute, seems to come from this Hebrew word Dakag. The prophet still alludeth to the matter of marshalling armies in such sort, as that neither may the soldiers hinder one another, nor the enemy have any advantage to break in upon them. Exercitus pulchre dispositus, et amicis pulcherrimus videtur, et hostibus inexpugnabilis, saith Xenophon (In Oeconom.); that is, a well ordered army seemeth both beautiful to their friends and invincible to their enemies.

They shall walk every one] Heb. רבג Man, mighty man, q.d. each locust shall walk and stalk, as a strong lusty man in his trodden track, in the path that God hath put him into, and shall hold to it. ( Vir validus, Mesillah, Via trita.)

And when they fall upon the sword] Heb. the long sword, or javelin, they shall not be wounded; as if they were unwoundable, or shot free, as the poet fabled of Achilles, and as the Persians, vanquished by the Athenians at the field of Marathon, cried out

Βαλλομεν, ου πιπτουσι τιτρωσκομεν, ου φοβεονται.

“We fell them, yet they fall not;

we them wound,

And think them dead, but they are

safe and sound” (Stobaeus).

Ver. 9. They shall run to and fro] As soldiers do when they have taken a town by assault, and have leave to plunder. En victoriam et hostilem insultationem, saith Mercer here. See the lively portraiture of victory and triumph.

They shall run upon the wall] After they have scaled it (as before) they shall walk or run upon it as conquerors, without fear of an enemy. Alexander the Great would do so.

They shall climb up upon the houses] No longer now the owners’ castles; for they shall be ferreted out of their retiring rooms, or forced to do as Sardanapalus the Assyrian monarch did; who, straited by the enemy, sacrificed himself with his wealth and wenches to Vulcan in a woodpile (as one phraseth it) in his royal palace.

They shall enter in at the windows, as a thief] Whose property is, 1. To climb up some other way and not to enter in by the door, #Joh 10:1; death also getteth in by the windows and that way entereth into palaces, #Jer 9:21; so doth Satan (that thief of the truth, as Basil calleth him) wind himself into the soul by the eyes, those windows of wickedness and loop holes of lust. 2. To rifle and ransack, and leave little enough behind him. What clean work these insects made, see before, #Joe 1:4, and take notice what great matters God Almighty can do by the most contemptible creatures. Quid cimice vilius, saith Philo the Jew, what can be baser than a louse? and yet all the strength of Egypt was brought down by that despicable vermin? Pliny in his eighth book and 24th chapter tells us out of Mr Varro, that a great town of Spain was undermined and overturned by conies; another in Thessaly by moles; a third in France undone by frogs; a fourth in Africa by locusts; a fifth in Italy by serpents, Clara exitii documenta sunt ex contemnendis animalibus (Plin.). Who hath not heard of Hatto, that merciless Archbishop of Mentz, devoured by mice, though he had moated up himself against their invasion in an island? God cannot possibly want a weapon wherewith to beat his rebels.

Ver. 10. The earth shall quake before them, &c.] Tragicis figuris calamitatem amplificat, saith Luther here. By such tragic terms the prophets used to set forth a horrible desolation, such as first the Assyrians and afterwards the Romans brought upon the Jews; the Turks and Saracens upon the Christian Churches. Whether there were any such earthquake or stupendous concussions of the heavenly bodies as is here described, is uncertain. Strange forerunners there were both in heaven and earth of the last destruction of Jerusalem, as Christ also had foretold. In the days of Justinian the emperor, the sun for the greatest part of a year gave so little light that it was but equal to the light of the moon, the sky being clear without clouds or anything to shadow it; after which, there followed a great famine, and much war and bloodshed.

The sun and the moon shall be dark] Wondrous expressions to meet with their wondrous stupidity. The Hebrew doctors (and Oecolampadius much disliketh it not) allegorize the text; and by the earth understand the common people, by the heavens the grandees, by the sun and moon the king and kingdom, as by the stars those of indifferent rank, all which are woe begone (as they say) by reason of the present calamities; as when upon the death of Prince Henry, Great Britain was said to be all in black; and as Demades was wont to say of the Athenians, nunquam eos sapere nisi pullis vestibus indutos, that they were never so wise as when they were in mourning weeds (Plutarch).

Ver. 11. And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army] In the head of his army, as generals used to do for encouraging the soldiers. A general should be like Quintilian’s orator, Vir bonus, dicendi peritus, both valiant and eloquent, as was Cato Censorius, Optimus Orator, Optimus etiam Imperator, saith Pliny; and Julius Caesar, and Hunniades, who were masters of speech as well as men of their hands; Si actu eius penitus ignorasses, per linguam tamen militem esse diceres, ut quidam de Caesare. So was Joab, David’s general, of whose speech to the army, #2Sa 10:12, Pellican saith, Non potuit vox Duce dignior cogitari, A braver speech could not have been uttered by the mouth of a mortal. But here God himself uttereth his voice before his army; for "the Lord is a man of war," #Ex 15:3, a victor of wars (as the Chaldee there hath it), and what wonder, since "the voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty," #Ps 29:4, he sets on and gives the signal of the battle to these locusts, he puts spirit into them and cries, Courage, my hearts; and thence it is that they are so valorous and victorious.

For his camp is very great] His camp these locusts are called, though they knew it not. He hisseth for the fly of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they shall come and rest all of them in the desolate valleys, #Isa 7:18,19. The Assyrian is the rod of God’s anger, and the staff in his hand. "I will send him," saith the Lord, "against an hypocritical nation, to avenge the quarrel of my covenant. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so," #Isa 10:5-7. But it is here as when, in applying horse-leeches, the physician seeketh the health, of his patient, the leech only the filling of his gorge. Almighty God, as he disposeth and ordereth membra culicis et pulicis, as Austin hath it, the members of the meanest creatures; so by the same power and providence he overruleth all their motions, to his own glory.

For he is strong that executeth his word] Or, that thing is strong, that weak locusts, set awork by God, shall do his will vigorously (and not faintly, as #Jer 48:10), shall go throughstitch with it, and none shall hinder it.

For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible] Tremble, therefore, and humble under this mighty hand of God; let this earthquake work in you a heartquake, these horrible commotions and calamities draw from you a shower of tears, or at least a storm of sighs, for your sins; unless ye hold it better to be carnally secured than soundly comforted.

Who can abide it] Or else avoid it, otherwise than by repentance? #Am 8:12. Fly, saith a reverend man, from God’s anger to God’s grace. Bloodletting is a cure of bleeding; and a burn a cure against a burn. Running to God is the way to escape him; as to close and get in with him that would strike you doth avoid the blow.

Ver. 12. Therefore also now, saith the Lord] Now, though it be late first, and, as you may think, too late, Nunquam sero si serio. Now, though the dreadful day of the Lord be very near at hand; yea, though the locusts be already come, as Kimchi senseth it. Oh that ye would know at the last in this your day of grace, the things that belong to your peace, before the gate be shut, the drawbridge taken up, the taper burnt out, &c. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," #2Co 6:2. The apostle (after the prophet Isaiah) purposely beateth upon the το νυν, as if he should say, Now, or never; since thou mayest, the very next minute, be cut off by the stroke of death from all further time of repentance and acceptation. Up, therefore, and be doing. It is the Lord himself that thus saith,

Turn ye even to me] Usque ad me, altogether as far as to me; give not the half turn only; begin not to repent, and then give over the work. Some are ever about to repent, but they can never find time and hearts to set seriously about it, to do it in good earnest, stultitia semper incipit vivere folly always begins to live (Sen.). Some wamblings they have, as I may say, and some short-winded wishes, some kind of willingness and velleity, but it doth not boil up to the full height of resolution to return. The prodigal changed many places ere he came home. Many came out of Egypt that yet never came into Canaan.

With all your heart] With the heart, #Jer 4:14 Pr 23:26, and with the whole heart, in opposition to a divided heart, #Ho 10:2, a double heart, #Jas 4:8, a heart and a heart, #Ps 12:2. This whole heart is elsewhere called a true heart, #Heb 10:22, a perfect heart, #2Ch 16:10, truth in the inwards, #Ps 51:6, where there is an unfeigned faith, #1Ti 1:5, laborious love, #1Th 1:3, sound and cordial repentance, as here, undissembled wisdom, #Jas 3:17, such holiness as rendereth a man like to a crystal glass with a light in the midst of it, doing the truth, #Joh 3:21, and having his works full, #Re 3:1,2, being a true worshipper, #Joh 4:24, an Israelite indeed, #Joh 1:47. God he knows to be just and jealous: he will not endure co-rivals or co-partners in the kingdom. His jurisdiction is without peculiar: he will not divide with the devil. Be the gods of heathen good fellows? saith one; the true God is a jealous God, and will not share his glory with another. He must be served truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving.

And with fasting, weeping, and with mourning] With deep and downright humiliation, suitable to your sins, as #Ezr 9:6. Ye have inveterate stains; such as will not be gotten out till the cloth be almost rubbed to pieces. Satan hath intrenched himself in your hearts, and will not be gotten out but by fasting and prayer. Fasting is of itself but a bodily exercise, and meriteth nothing; for religion consisteth not in meat and drink; in the belly, full or empty, #Ro 14:17 Col 2:23; but fasting is a singular furtherance to the practice of repentance and the enforcing of our prayers. See #Ezr 8:21. As full feeding increaseth corruption, #Jer 5:7,8, so religious abstinence macerateth, tameth, and subdueth the rebel flesh, #1Co 9:27, giving it the blue eye, υπωτιαζω, as there and #2Co 7:11, so that not the body so much as the soul is made more active by emptiness. Fasting days are soul fatting days, they fit men for conversion, as here, and make much to the humbling of the spirit; hence they are called days of humiliation and of self-affliction, #Le 16:31 23:37.

And with weeping] Drown your sins in a deluge of tears; cleanse your wounds by washing in this precious water; quench hell fire with it, kill the worm, fetch out sin’s venom: there is a healing property in these troubled waters. Tears of vine branches are said to cure the leprosy, and the olive is reported to be most fruitful when it most distilleth. These April showers bring on May flowers, and make the heart as a watered garden; or as some faces appear most oriently beautiful when most bedewed with tears. Peter never looked so sweetly as when he wept bitterly; David never sung more pathetically than when his heart was broken most penitentially, #Ps 6 Ps 51. when tears instead of gems were the ornament of his bed, as Chrysostom speaketh. Mary Magdalene (that great weeper), as she made her eyes a fountain to wash Christ’s feet in, so she had his wounds as a fountain to bathe her soul in; yea, she had afterwards the first sight of the revived Phoenix, whom she held fast by those feet that had lately trod upon the lion and the adder.

And with mourning] This is added, as a degree beyond the former. Men may fast, and yet find their pleasures, #Isa 58:13, weep out of stomach, as Esau, or compliment, as Phryne the harlot, who was surnamed κλαυσιγελως, weep-laugh, because she could easily do either: and as among the Brasilians tears are for a present salutation, and as soon gone as if they had said, How do ye? Ut flerent oculos erudiere suos (Ovid). What is a humbling day without a humbled heart? not only a religious incongruity, but a high provocation; like Zimri’s act, when all the congregation were weeping before the door of the tabernacle. Here, therefore, the Lord calleth to mourning, funeral mourning, as the word signifieth: with tabering upon the breast, #Na 2:7, smiting on the thigh, #Jer 31:19, beating on the head, face, and other parts, sicut mulierculae in puerperio facere solent, saith Luther there. Nudaque marmoreis percussit pectora palmis (Ovid). See #Isa 32:11 22:12. Sorrow for sin must not be slight and sudden, but sad and soaking: the heart must be turned into a Hadadrimmon, #Zec 12:10,11, where the prophet seems, in a sort, to be at a stand for comparisons fit enough and full enough to set forth their sorrow, who, looking upon Christ, whom they had pierced, felt the very nails sticking in their own hearts as so many sharp daggers, or stings of scorpions. The good soul (say the school-men) seeth more cause of grief for sinning than for the death of Christ: because therein was aliquid placens, something that pleaseth: but sin is simpliciter displicens, simply displeasing. So that God’s mourners need not send for mourning women to teach them to mourn, as #Jer 9:17, but rather have need to be comforted, lest they should be swallowed up with overmuch grief, #2Co 2:7, and lest Satan get an advantage against them, #2Co 2:11, by mixing the detestable darnel of desperation with the godly sorrow of a pure penitent heart, as Mr Philpot, martyr, speaketh.

Ver. 13. And rend your heart and not your garments] i.e. not your garments only, which was gestus perturbationis among the Jews, a gesture usual with them, to set forth the greatness of their grief and displeasure; as, 1. At funerals and loss of friends, as #Ge 37:34 2. In case of blasphemy, as #2Ki 18:37 3. In time of common calamity, #Es 4:1. Tum pius Aeneas humeris abseindere vestem Auxilioque vocare Deos, et tendere palmas (Virg.). Godly sorrow for sin should exceed all other sorrows whatsoever, both in intention and extension; the whole soul sending continual streams into it out of every faculty. And hence it is that the prophet here calleth upon them to rend, and as it were to discontinuate their hearts. Cor integram cor scissum, the broken heart is the only sound heart; and to rend the garment, and not the heart, is as very a fraud as that of players, who seem to wound themselves, but do not; and make a show of thrusting themselves through their bodies, but the sword passeth only through their clothes. Stage players can act to the life those whom they impersonate; yea, outstrip them in outward actions; so do hypocrites the true Christian. Doth good Josiah melt at the menaces of the law, and weep, and rend his clothes, and humble himself? #2Ch 34:27; wicked Ahab will also, in like case, rend his clothes, put sackcloth upon his flesh, fast, lie in sackcloth, and go softly and heavily, as sorrowful men and mourners use to do, #1Ki 21:27. Doth the publican fix his eyes on the ground? those hypocrites in Isaiah will hang down their heads as bulrushes. Doth holy Timothy weaken his constitution with religious abstinence? the false Pharisee will not only weaken his constitution, but wither and disfigure his complexion, αφανιζουσι, that he may appear to men to fast, #Mt 6:16. Such pains men will be at for applause, for a little stinking breath, which yet cannot blow one cold blast upon them when they shall be frying in hell for their seemingness. "Rend, therefore, your hearts," saith the prophet; "break up your fallow ground, circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the filthy foreskin of your hearts," #Jer 4:3,4, "wash them from wickedness, that ye may be saved," #Joe 2:14. Be ye active, and voluntaries in your sorrows for sin. Virtus nolentium nulla est, feigned and forced grief is nothing worth. Judas grieved, confessed, restored, and yet miscarried. He went not forth, as Peter, to weep bitterly; he did not cast himself into heaviness, as #Jas 4:9,10. It was fired out of him, as sweet water out of roses; it was squeezed out of him, as verjuice out of crabs. God’s people are commanded to afflict themselves with voluntary sorrows, #Le 16:31; to loathe themselves for all their abominations, #Eze 6:9, to mortify the deeds of the body by the spirit, #Ro 8:13, to do it with their own hands; and not to give over the practice of it till they feel their hearts to ache and quake within them, yea, to fall asunder in their bosoms, like drops of water. See all this done by David, after he had numbered the people, #2Sa 24:10. Some shadow of it we have in the example of Epaminondas, the Theban general, who the next day after the victory and triumph went drooping and hanging down his head: and being asked, why he did so? he answered, Yesterday I felt myself too much tickled with vain glory: therefore I correct myself for it today. But we have a better example in holy David, "whose heart smote him," saith the text, #2Sa 24:10, and made him smart inwardly. He was not yet smitten, either by God’s hand or the prophet’s reproach (as afterwards), but his sanctified conscience did its orifice of a faithful monitor and household chaplain; his heart misgave him. Bee masters tell us that those are the best hives that make the greatest noise. Sure it is that that is the best conscience that suffers not a man to sleep in sin. David’s heart smote him. But for what? for numbering the people. It was for his own sin, for a small, for a secret sin, for a failing in the manner only. David knew that a man may die as well of an inward bleeding as of an outward hurt. The good soul is oft afflicted for failings in that holy duty which others applaud and extol. "And David said unto the Lord": he could not rest till he had opened his mind unto him by confession and supplication, and so got a vent to his troubled spirit: as when a sore is opened there is ease immediately. To God, therefore, he addresseth himself, not to men (as Judas did and Papists do, and many among us, being in pain of conscience, will rather shark for ease than sue for pardon), and acknowledgeth with aggravation the iniquity of his sin, #Ps 32:3, the sinfulness of it, as Paul’s expression is, #Ro 7:13 (for sin is so vile that he could call it no worse than by its own name), "I have sinned greatly in that I have done": his sin swelled like a toad in his eyes, and he spat it out of his mouth with utmost indignation. He confesseth sorrowfully, but not desperately, as Judas; for he both cries for pardon, "Take away the iniquity" (for as for the punishment how he stood affected, see #Ro 7:17: "Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and my father’s house"), and concludeth himself God’s servant, yea, proveth himself so (as some godly learned think), by those following words, "For I have done foolishly"; q.d. If I deserve not to be called God’s servant in regard of my late sin (and indeed God calls him but plain David, #Joe 2:12, "Go and say to David," not to my servant David, as at other times), yet at least in regard of my later service of confession joined with reformation; for now I see "I have done very foolishly," who once thought I had done wondrous wisely and politicly.

And turn unto the Lord your God] Of turning to God see at large the note on #Zec 1:3. Here it is prescribed as a remedy against God’s wrath, and pressed again and again, to show the necessity of doing it, or we are utterly undone. So elsewhere, "Turn you, turn you, why will you die? except ye repent, ye must needsly perish." Aut poenitendum aut pereundum, either you must turn on earth or burn in hell; be born again, or ye cannot enter the kingdom of God, #Joh 3:3. Heaven was too hot to hold the apostate angels. And although the devil could get into paradise, yet no unclean thing ever got into heaven. No dirty dog may trample on that golden pavement. The pure in heart only can see God, as whole eyes can look upon the sunbeams, and as transparent bodies receive the light. "Turn you," therefore, "unto the Lord." If a man see a lion or a burning fire before him he will make some shift to turn another way. So here, biasse, for there is no safety in going forward; since our God is a consuming fire, and as a roaring lion will tear and rend the caul of our hearts in sunder, #Ho 13:8, if we rend not our hearts and turn unto him. By turning may well be here meant reformation, that repentance from sin, as humiliation, before required, is in Scripture called repentance for sin, for it is not enough to mourn unless we mend also, to bewail our wickedness, but we must embrace better courses, #Jer 26:13 Isa 1:16 Mt 3:8 Ro 12:9 13:11 Eph 4:22. God for this cause gives us the light of nature and Scripture, besides other means, and time enough. Had he given us but one prophet only, and but forty days, as he dealt by Nineveh, we should have done it as they did. How much more now that we abound with leisure (read Jezebel’s sin and sentence, #Re 2:21), and have so many prophets rising up early and speaking to us. "Turn ye again now every one from his evil way," #Jer 25:4,5. What will become of us if we refuse to be reclaimed, hate to be healed? This one prophet here fills his mouth with arguments, #Job 23:4. First, it is not to a tyrant or a stranger that you are exhorted to turn, but to the Lord your God, to him that is your head, husband, father, who hates putting away, having once betrothed you to himself in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in tender mercies, #Ho 2:19. Next, this Lord our God is, for his sweet and patient nature, here set forth, to be gracious, and will therefore love you freely, #Ho 14:4; merciful, and will therefore pity your misery; slow to anger, or not apt to snuff, but a master of his wrath, #Na 1:2, Bagnal Chemah, and one that can bear more than any other whatsoever, #Mic 7:17.

And of great kindness] Or much in goodness, doing good to the evil and unthankful, as our Saviour yokes them.

And repenteth him of the evil] A little punishment being enough to a father for a great fault, Pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis esto patri (Terent.). Where note, that God’s repentance is not a change of his will, but of his work only; and so he repents for his people when he seeth their power is gone, #De 32:36; when there is dignus vindice nodus, an extremity fit for Divine power to interpose, when the enemies are ready to devour the Church, or Satan to swallow down God’s child in despair, his bowels work, he can hold no longer, but cries, Save my child, save my Church, &c., #Jer 31:20; then he sends out his mandamus trust for deliverance, #Ps 44:4; then he comes with his non obstante, as #Ps 106:8 Isa 57:15. Now who would not return to such a God? and what heart can resist such powerful rhetoric? A heap of words we have here, taken for the most part out of #Ex 34:6, and all to draw out faith and encourage those that have any mind to look toward God. It is no such easy thing to believe, as fond folk conceit, and to comfort a conscience cast down in the sense of sin and fear of wrath is no less difficult, saith Luther, than to raise the dead from the grave. If men fear they shall fail of mercy upon their return to God, either they will fall into dedolency or despair. But persuade them once of the goodness of God, and it will lead them to repentance, #Ro 2:4. Let them see that in their Father’s house is bread enough, and they will home immediately; that God will abundantly pardon, and he shall have suitors great store, #Isa 55:7. The sweet and gracious nature of God should be as a perpetual picture in our hearts, and an effectual motive to make men turn unto him.

Ver. 14. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, &c.] Hitherto the prophet had argued from God’s gracious disposition; now here from his courteous and bounteous dealing with his converts.

Who knoweth if, &c.] This is not the speech of one that doubteth and is uncertain, as was that of David, #1Sa 12:22, who can tell that God will have mercy on me, that the child may live but of one earnestly affirming and avouching, as was that of Mordecai, #Es 4:14, "And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" q.d. It is sure thou art. And it is no less sure that if men turn to God he will turn to them, #Zec 1:3; and that whithersoever he comes, he leaves a blessing behind him. His favour is no empty favour, it is not like the winter sun, that casts a goodly countenance on the earth, but gives little heat and comfort. God ever comes with his cornucopia in his hand, and his steps drop fatness. "Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us," saith the Church, #Ps 67:6. He will do it the rather, saith our prophet, that his people may the more cheerfully serve him, when they shall have a meat offering and a drink offering, et sic maneat integer cultus ipsius, and so he may have his daily service duly performed (Calvin), for of this the saints are most solicitous. It is their desire that God should be glorified rather than that themselves should be gratified and their own turns served.

Ver. 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion] That all may hear and convene, those of Jerusalem in the temple, and the rest in their several synagogues, #Le 23:31, for that yearly fast was a standard to the rest, kept upon extraordinary and emergent occasions, as here, for the preventing of the forethreatened judgment. Papists appoint set fasting days, as Lent, and Friday in every week, eves of holidays, &c., whether the times be clear or cloudy. A. Lapide, also, the Jesuit, keeps a coil against Luther and the Centurists, for decrying their Popish processions and public litanies, which he thinks to be here and elsewhere authorized. A discourse he giveth us here, too, about the use and origin of bells among Christians, answerable to trumpets among the Jews. A symmist of his, Cenalis, Bishop of Auranches, to prove their Pope-holy Church the true Church, maketh no mention at all either of preaching or sacraments, but produceth bells for a sufficient mark of the Catholic true Church. "We have bells," saith he, "whereby our assemblies are ordinarily called together, but the Lutherans have claps of harquebuses and pistolets for signs whereby they congregate," between which and bells he maketh a long anti-thesis, and from hence inferreth that the Church of Rome is the true Church. A proper argument, and yet the man pleaseth himself as much in it as the second Council of Nice did in their profound proofs for idolatry, which, as one well saith of them, were such as that the images themselves, if they were sensible, would blush to hear repeated.

Sanctify a fast] {See Trapp on "Joe 1:14"} Proclaim a religious abstinence from all kind of sustenance, {#2Sa 12:17 Jon 3:5} for a season, either from morning till evening, as #Jud 20:26 2Sa 3:35, or from evening till evening, #Le 23:32, or longer, as #Es 4:16 Ac 9:9, as the hand and wrath of God is more or less felt or feared; but the least time that may be is a whole day. There is an old canon that our fasts should continue usque dum stellae in coelo appareant, till the stars appear in the sky. The very Turks in their solemn fasts eat nothing all the day till night; yea, so precise they are, that upon their fasting days they will not so much as wash their mouths in water till the stars appear; which maketh their fasts (especially in the summer, when the days be long and hot) to be unto them very tedious. Christians hold and teach that nature is by fasting to be chastised, and not disabled for service; and that such as cannot fast so long but they shall either endanger health or be unfitted for the spiritual duties of the day, may eat; provided that they abuse not this liberty to the satisfying of the flesh, #Col 2:23 1Ti 5:23.

Call a solemn assembly] See #Joe 1:14. {See Trapp on "Joe 1:14"}

Ver. 16. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, &c.] Let the priests, God’s ministers, see to it, that the people come together; and for the better too, as much as in them lies. For they are to the people in place of watchmen, of sentinels, of ambassadors, and in Christ’s own stead, who seems to say unto them, as #Ps 50:5, "Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice," that they may meet me with entreaties of peace, disarm mine indignation conceived against them, and quench the flame thereof with their tears; not quench the spirit in their teachers by their crossness and backwardness to business of this nature.

Assemble the elders] Whether for age, as #Job 15:10, or for place of authority, as #Jos 7:6 1Sa 15:30 Ru 4:4. These must be chief doers and most forward at fasts, as was Joshua, Jehoshaphat, the King of Nineveh, Ezra, &c. For, 1. They are most guilty in regard of their years and their office, which either addeth two wings to their sins, viz., example and scandal, whereby facile volant, non facile violant, they soar much higher, and fly much farther; 2. Their presence, counsel, and countenance may be a great furtherance to the work. See #Eze 46:10. The prince in the midst of the people, when they go in shall go in; and when they go forth shall go forth. A. Lapide saith, that the elder sort are to meet, because they are least lustful and more prayerful. It should be so, I confess; but how many old goats are there abroad that even hang over hell, which gapeth for them? and as the canker soonest entereth into the white rose, so doth corruption easily creep into the white head. He was a rare old man of whom we read, that being tempted to sin said, Nay: lest he should stain his white head.

Gather the children, and those that suck the breasts] For they are Church members, and to them also pertain the public dangers and calamities; out of which times and cases, children and novices are not to be tied to these austerities of religion (as our Saviour showeth, #Mt 9:17), as little, as new wine is to be put into old vessels. Add hereunto, that the parents might by the sight of their poor children (subject to God’s wrath by their default) be brought to a farther sense of their own sinfulness; and moved by their cries and laments ut ferventius orent, et plorent, to cry and pray more earnestly, #Eph 2:3 Ro 5:12.

Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber] The newly married man was by the law allowed to cheer up his wife, #De 24:5, and therefore exempted from warfare and other public employments abroad, #De 20:7, and the wedding day is called the "day of the rejoicing of a man’s heart," #So 3:11. They were wont to have a week of feasting at such times, #Ge 29:27. Fulfil her week, sc. of banquet and bride’s ale, as they call it. And it is noted as an absurd thing in Samson’s wife, that she wept all the seven days of such a feast, when mirth was so much in season, #Jud 14:17. But is it a time for men to hang their hearts upon the merry pin when God calls them to hang up their harps upon the willow trees? when the sword is sharpened to make a sore slaughter, when it is furbished and glittereth, and contemneth the rod (i.e. lesser and lighter judgments that usually forerun it), should we then make mirth? #Eze 21:10. Should men eat, and drink, and marry, and be merry, when tomorrow they may look to die, and are already stumbling in the valley of the shadow of death? Such a thing the old world may do, buried in security, and to be shortly therefore buried in one universal grave of waters. But holy Noah was vexed at it; and Ambrose thinks (not without reason) that during the time of the Deluge, all the while that he was in the ark, he came as little at his wife as Uriah did while the ark and Judah and Israel abode in tents, and Joab and the host encamped in the fields, #2Sa 11:11. Nehemiah, though a great courtier, and the king’s cupbearer, could not but be sad when it went ill with the Church; all comforts then were but Ichabods to him, he had no joy of them, #Ne 2:2,3. Sorrow at such a time is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better, #Ec 7:3. The mad world is a perfect stranger to the truth of this sacred position, as having so far banished sadness, that they are professed enemies to seriousness; and stick not to light a candle at the devil (as they say), for sinful lightsomeness. But woe be to such mad mirthmongers, saith our Saviour, #Lu 6:25, and after him St James, #Jas 5:1,5, and before them both, the prophet Isaiah, #Isa 22:12-14, and the prophet Amos, #Am 6:4,6. What so lawful as the use of the marriage bed? #Heb 13:4; and for whom more lawful than for the bridegroom and bride? Yet in a common calamity, and in a day of restraint (as a fast day is called, #Joe 2:15), married couples must abstain, #1Co 7:5, where the apostle speaketh of a public fast, as Peter Martyr observeth. Hence, #Zec 8:19, they separated themselves at such a time. And it is spoken of as a foul sin, #Isa 58:3, "Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure." All sensual delights, though never so lawful at other times, must be then suspended and laid aside; as music, mirth, perfumes, #Da 6:18, brave apparel, #Ex 33:4, all ornaments of the body, soft lying, #2Sa 12:16, all cheerfulness and outward joy, #Jud 20:26 1Sa 7:8. The Roman censor punished one that showed himself out of a window with a garland upon his head in the time of the second Punic war.

Ver. 17. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord] Let not them be either dull or dumb (as Popish mass-priests, with their dumb shows at divine service), but as (for their dignity) they are the Lord’s ministers, as likewise the good angels are, and their fellow-servants, so (according to their duty) they must be first in holy exercises, #Ps 103:21 Re 22:9, going in and out before God’s people in the performance of their trust, and that worthy work of theirs, #1Ti 3:1, for the which they are to be very highly esteemed in love, i Thess. v. 13. Let ministers, therefore, pray hard for their people, as did Aaron, Samuel, Paul, &c. Let their prayers (at fasts especially) be well watered with tears (those effectual orators, that cry to God for mercy, #Ps 39:12, as blood doth for vengeance, #Ge 4:16), as theirs were, #Jud 20:28 2:5 1Sa 7:6; and as Ezra, x. 1, and Jeremiah, ix. 1; xiii. 17; and why? but for corruption, in magistrates, ministers, all sorts; a general defection, drawing on a general desolation. Oh let God’s two faithful witnesses be clothed in sackcloth, #Re 11:3, teaching God’s people with many "tears and temptations, both publicly and from house to house"; yea, not "ceasing to warn them night and day with tears," to redeem their own sorrows by sound repentance, #Ac 20:19,20,31. It is said of Athanasius, that by his tears, as by the bleeding of a chaste vine, he cured the leprosy of that tainted age. And of Luther, that by his prayers and tears he had prevailed with God, that Popery should not overrun his country during his days. When I am dead, said he, let those pray that can pray, Melancthon, his colleague, writeth, that he constantly prayed with abundance of tears; for he knew, that as music upon the water sounds farther and more harmoniously than upon the land; so prayers, joined with tears, find much respect with Christ; who could not but look back upon the weeping women, and comfort them, though he was then going to his death.

Between the porch and the altar] This was that void place, where the priests prayed after the sacrifices were offered, #Eze 8:16. As in man there is body, soul, and spirit, #1Th 5:23, so in the temple at Jerusalem, 1. between Solomon’s porch, #Ac 3:11, and the altar of burnt-offering, was the outer great court, #2Ch 4:9, where the people met for preaching and prayer. Next, there was the second court, for the priests only; and here was the altar of incense, #Lu 1:9,10. Thirdly, the most holy place, for the high-priest to enter once a year, #Le 16:17. The first is here spoken of, the outer court, where the priests might be best heard to pray, and seen to weep; and the people might comport, and say, Amen; the want whereof St Paul counts no small loss, i Cor. xiv. 16.

And let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, &c.] Other exercises there were usually performed at public fasts; as reading the Scriptures, #Jer 36:5,27, expounding and preaching, #Ne 8:4,8, examining, censuring, and punishing such sins as then most reigned, #Ne 9:2 Ezr 9:2 Jos 7:6 22:5. Binding themselves to God by a covenant of better obedience, #Ne 10:18,29,30, contributing to good uses, #Isa 58:7 2Ch 31:3,4; but the chief business and duty of the day was, as here, prayer to God for pardon of sin, and removal of shame and other punishment; whence also it was called, a day of atonement, or expiation.

Spare thy people, O Lord, &c.] Brevis oratio, sed tota affeetibus ardens, saith Mercer, A short prayer, but very affectionate; so are all Scripture-forms: they have fulness of matter in fewness of words. Quam multa, quam paucis! How much in a little! as Cicero said of Brutus’s laconical epistle. See #Nu 6:24-26 Ho 14:2 Lu 18:13 Mt 6:9,10, &c., which is both a prayer and a pattern: as the standard is the exactest measure. Why, then, should any man fall out with forms, and call them idols, odious as swine’s-flesh, &c.? Why should they say, that the use of the Lord’s Prayer is the note of a formalist? Is not this to speak evil of good, &c.

And give not thine heritage to reproach] Suffer us not, for our sins, to be forced by famine to beg bread of our enemies, the Ammonites and Moabites; for that will reflect upon thee, Lord, and turn to thy dishonour, as if thou hadst no care of thine heritage, couldst not maintain thy servants. See a like prayer to this #Nu 14:11,12,16,17 De 9:26-28, and learn to deprecate shame and reproach as a fruit of sin, and a piece of the curse, #De 28 Le 26 1Sam 2:30. Beg of God, 1. To keep thee from reproachful courses, such as may expose thee to the scandal of the weak and scorn of the wicked. David is much in this petition. 2. To hide thee in a pavilion from the strife of tongues, #Ps 31:20, either to preserve thee from aspersions, or so to oil thy name, that they may not stick. 3. To give thee good repute and report among the best. It was God gave Solomon honour; and he promiseth it to all his, as a reward of religion, #Pr 22:4.

That the heathen should rule over them] It is a heavy hand of God upon his people, when Pagans or Papagans have dominion over them, #Ne 9:9,10,27 Ps 79:1 80:1,2 137:1,2 La 1:2,4,5. They are bloody in their positions and dispositions. See #Ro 1:31. Their government is tyrannical, such as the Spaniards’ is over the poor Indians, the Turks’ over Greece, the rebels over the English in Ireland, &c. The saints also are, 1. Conscientious, and cannot yield to their unlawful commands, as the three children; 2. Zealous, and cannot but contest, as Stephen, Paul at Athens, the martyrs; 3. Friendless and destitute, #Mt 10:16, as Paul before Nero, Christ before Pilate, forsaken of all. Pray, therefore, as here, and prevent such a mischief, by shunning Jerusalem’s sins of ignorance, ingratitude, incorrigibleness, formality, &c., and by putting our necks under the yoke of Christ’s obedience, observing from the heart that form of doctrine which he hath delivered unto us, #Ro 6:17.

Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?] q.d. Why should they cast our religion in our dish? why should they twit us with thy neglect of us? why should thy name be blasphemed and thy power traduced, as it were on a public theatre? This was that which most galled these good souls (as it had often done David before them), that God, with whom they quartered arms, should be reproached for their sakes, and through their sides; and his glory defaced. This was as a murdering knife in David’s bones, #Ps 42:10, and worse to him than all the evil that he had suffered from his youth up. Our nature is most impatient with reproach: for there is none so mean but thinks himself worthy of some regard; and a reproachful scorn shows an utter disrespect which flows from the very superfluity of malice. You shall find some (saith Erasmus) that if death be threatened can despise it; but to be belied or reproached they cannot brook, nor from revenge contain. God’s people can bear wrongs best of any; compel them to go a mile, they will be content, if it may do good, to go two, yea, as far as the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace will carry them. But if wrong be offered to God, if he be any way dishonoured, or his name bored through by blasphemies, O what a stomach they have presently, and how blessedly blown up are they with a zeal of God’s glory, which even eateth them up.

Ver. 18. Then will the Lord be jealous (or, zealous) for his land] Then dicto citius straight upon it: no sooner shall you repent (as is prescribed) but the Lord will be jealous, &c. Of God’s jealousy for his people, {See Trapp on "Zec 1:14 8:2"} And of the happy effect of fasting turned to feasting, {See Trapp on "Zec 8:19"} see also #Jud 20:23 Ezr 9:6 Da 9:20 2Ch 20:3,24,25 Bacah turned into Berachah; besides the constant experience of these and former times, of the happy success and unmiscarrying returns of holy fasting and prayer; no instance to the contrary. God usually answers his humbling people, as here, according to the desire of their hearts: neither so only, but according to the request of their lips also, #Ps 21:2, he fits his mercy ad cardinem desiderii; and lets it be to his, even as they will. They say, "Spare thy people," and accordingly he will pity or "spare his people," saith the prophet. They would not have God to give "his heritage to reproach" by inflicting famine upon them, as if they served a hard master that would affamish them. To this God gives a full answer in the next verse, "Behold, I will send you corn," &c. Again, they desire God to take care of his own great name, and to vindicate it. I will, saith God, by doing greatest things for you, #Joe 2:20, and by causing the blasphemers to return and discern that "their rock is not as your Rock, themselves being judges," #De 32:31; and that to ask, "Where is now their God?" is as great folly as if one should say, between the space of the new and old moon, Where is now the moon? when as it is never nearer the sun than at that time. There are some interpreters of good note, that read this verse not in the future, but in the preter tense, thus, Then was the Lord zealous for his land, and pitied his people; sc. when once he saw them seriously to repent he did all this that followeth for them. Neither maketh it anything against this interpretation, that the repentance of this people, their assembling and fasting, &c., is not recorded. For no more is it that Moses went to Pharaoh according to God’s command, to threaten those swarms of flies, #Ex 8:20, or that Isaiah took his son Shearjashub, and went to Ahaz to confirm and comfort him, as God had commanded, #Isa 7:3, which yet we doubt not but the prophet did. This is an ordinary aposiopesis.

And pity his people] Or, spare them, pardon them. The word signifies to show mercy to him whom by all right thou mayest justly destroy, #Eze 5:11 1Sa 15:3. Oh the Divine rhetoric and omnipotent efficacy of repentance! This is the rainbow, which if God seeth shining in our hearts, he will never drown our souls. Dat poenitentiam et postea indulgentiam (Fulgent.). He gives his people to repent, and then spareth them "as a man spareth his own son that serveth him," #Mal 3:17. But it is otherwise with those that partake not of the Divine nature: they are fierce, and implacable, as is the devil, who works effectually in them, as a smith doth in his forge. Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, came in the midst of a sore winter, upon his bare feet, to the gates of the castle of Canusium, and stood there fasting from morning to night for three days together, waiting for the judicial sentence of the pope, and craving pardon of him; which yet he could not obtain by his own or others’ tears, or by the intercession of any saint, save only of a certain harlot, with whom the pope was then taking his filthy pleasure. The emperor mistook, who thought that the pope could be pacified by fasting and prayer. This god required another kind sacrifice than these.

Ver. 19. Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people] He will say it in answer to their prayers (see the note on #Joe 2:18). Fear not, my people, that ye shall be a reproach among the heathen:

Behold, I will send you] As a token of my love, and a pledge of better blessings;

Corn, and wine, and oil] All that heart can wish or need require, a sufficiency of outward comforts, and (if not a superfluity, yet) an honest affluence, as #Ps 23:5,6, and boldness to conclude from temporals to spirituals, as there David doth; because bestowed in mercy and as an answer to prayer; for God never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain (he scorns that), whether it be for Bona throni or Bona scabelli, as Austin distinguisheth, good things of this life or a better, upper springs or nether springs, though we ask but the one (as here) yet we shall have both. "Nay, take two," saith he, as once Naaman did to Gehazi; take thy back-burden, take even as much as thou canst bring faith to bear away. God deals with his servants as the prophet did with the Shunammite; when he bade her ask what she needed, and she found not what to ask, he sent for her again and makes her a free promise of that she most wanted and desired, a son, #2Ki 4:16. So, often God is pleased to do for his servants exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or think. David asked but life of God, and he gave him "length of days for ever and ever," #Ps 21:4. This people prayed that God would not (for that turn) give his heritage a reproach among the heathen; and he graciously promiseth that he will never any more make them a reproach, &c. (so they continue penitent), for רוע here signifies perpetuity, as Mercer noteth, and not for a time only, as Lyra would have it.

Ver. 20. But I will remove far off from you the northern army] sc. of vermin, of those destroying creatures that came from the north. Ab Aquilone nihil boni was a proverb among this people. God promiseth here to free them of that mischief, and to disimpest the country of those noisome insects. Gratiae privativae plures sunt quam positivae, saith Gerson, God’s privative favours to us are more than his positive; hence man’s happiness is usually called salvation, which properly betokeneth the privative part thereof. Little do we consider or understand from how many deaths and dangers we are daily and hourly delivered. It is good to keep a catalogue of God’s providences, and to transmit them to posterity, such as was that of the gunpowder plot; and before that, of the Reformation begun by Henry VIII, and carried on by his son, to the ridding of the land of those popish locusts; which Reformation, how imperfect soever, to be done by so weak and simple means, yea, by casual and cross means, against the force of so puissant and political an adversary, is that miracle, which we are in these times to look for. An outlander speaketh thus of it, Ecclesiae Anglicanae reformationem desperasset aetas praeterita, admiratur praesens, obstupescet futura (Scultet.). This was the Lord’s own work, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Oh that the same Lord would be both author and finisher! and as he hath in good part cut off the names of the idols out of the land, so that they shall be no more remembered; so he would cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land, that he would send all false doctrine and heresy packing to hell from whence they came. Fiat, Fiat. Do it, do it!

And will drive him into a land barren and desolate] Or, dry and forlorn, where he shall perish for want of food. The body of this army shall be driven into the wilderness, the vanguard into the lake of Sodom toward the east; and the rearward into the Mediterranean Sea, toward the west; for the Western Ocean was hardly known to the Hebrews; as neither was it to the Romans, till the days of Julius Caesar.

And his stink shall come up, and his ill savour, &c.] se. by reason of their dead carcases covering the earth, and infecting the air. The old Hebrews understood this text concerning the destruction of the devil in the days of the Messiah. Oh that God would once destroy that firstborn of the devil, that king of locusts, Abaddon, the pope, and dung his vineyard with the dead carcases of his incurable complices, that their stink might ascend, and their ill savour come up into all men’s nostrils. Matthew Paris (an ingenuous Papist), speaking of the court of Rome long since, said, Huius foetor usque ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat, Her filthiness hath sent up a most noisome stench to the very clouds of heaven, as Sodom’s did. And Theodorus Vrias (another of her good sons in Germany) complained, A.D. 1414, that the Church of Rome was become ex aurea argenteam, ex argentea ferream, ex ferrea terream, superesse ut in stercus abiret, of gold silver, of silver iron, of iron earth, and that she would next become of earth dung, &c. She is so already, and stinks alive worse than any carrion, rotting in its slime. Oh that God would once put into the hearts of the kings of the earth to loathe her, and burn her, for an old stinking bawd, as is prophesied they shall, #Re 17:16.

Because he hath done great things] Heb. he hath magnified to do, he hath made great spoil and havoc, he hath revelled in the ruins of God’s poor people, and so hath hastened his own destruction, and their deliverance. The saints are many times more beholden to their enemies’ outrages than to their own deserts or duties for deliverance. Some interpreters, at Castalio, Leveley, &c., understand the text of God; and render it Quia magnifice aget, for the Lord shall do great things, as it is also in the following verse; there being here the same anomaly, or change of person, as is #Isa 22:19, "And I will drive thee from thy station and from thy state shall he pull thee down."

Ver. 21. Fear not, O land] O red earth, or O tilled land, that hast lain bedridden, as it were under the heavy curse of God, ever since the fall of Adam; and wast never beautiful on cheerful since that time, #Ge 3:17. Thou that hast lately been under that great and very terrible day of the Lord, #Joe 2:11, who hath made bloody wales upon thy back, and laid thee as a desolate wilderness, #Joe 2:3, to thy great grief and terror, cheer up now, and fear not thine inhabitants are penitents, and repentance hath turned their crosses into comforts as scarlet pulls out the teeth of a serpent; as wine draweth a nourishing virtue from the flesh of vipers, as the philosopher’s stone, they say, turns all into gold. See #1Pe 1:7. God will turn all thy sadness into gladness: neither shalt thou any more lie to those that manure thee (as the Scripture phrase is, #Hab 3:17), that is, disappoint and frustrate their expectation; but "thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee," #De 33:29. Spem mentita seges (Virg.). Victum seges aegra negabat (Horat.).

For the Lord will do great things] Magnificentius aget Deus; far greater things God will do for thee than the locust hath done against thee: so that thou shalt gain by thy losses and say, Periissem nisi periissem, I had been undone if I had not been undone. Wherefore be glad and rejoice with inward and outward joy. And because fear is a passion opposite to joy (for "fear hath torment," #1Jo 4:18. and that was a rare mixture in those good women that returned from our Saviour’s sepulchre "with fear and great joy," #Mt 28:8 see #Ps 2:11), therefore, "Fear not, O land," quit thine heart of that cowardly passion, and be as merry as mirth can make thee; for the Lord hath done great things for thee, whereof thou hast good cause to be glad. Faith in God’s power quelleth and killeth distrustful fears: filling the heart with unspeakable joys "and full of glory," #1Pe 1:8.

Ver. 22. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field] q.d. Ye shall have no cause to fear for the future: though hitherto ye have suffered hardship, #Joe 1:18. Beasts and birds do in diem vivere to live for the day, (as Quintilian saith of them), and take no further thought than for present sustenance. But by a personification (as before the land, so here) the beasts that till it are forbidden to fear want; for God, the great housekeeper of the world, will provide them their meat in due season, #Ps 104:27,28, and several meats according to their various appetites. He will hear the heaven, the heaven shall hear the earth, the earth shall bear all kind of fruits, both natural, as herbs of the field and grass of the wilderness, and such as are sown and planted, as wine, oil, figs; so that neither man nor beast shall want anything ad esum, vel ad usum, to eat or to use but have plenty without penury, &c. It shall be said of Judea, as Solinus saith of Spain, In Hispania nihil infructuosum, nihil sterile, that there is no unfruitfulness in any part of it; or, as it is said of Campania, in Italy, that it is the most fruitful plat of earth that is in the universe.

The fig tree and the vine] That before had been barked and wasted, #Joe 1:7,12,

do yield their strength] i.e. their utmost fruits; which they could not do without God, into whom therefore the prophet Hosea rightly resolveth the genealogy of grain, wine, oil, &c., #Ho 2:22. It is no otherwise with us in spiritual regards. For though we have grace, yet we cannot bring forth that grace to act without new grace; like as trees, though they be fitted to bear fruits, yet, without the influence of the heavens, they cannot put forth that fitness in fruit. Nolentem praevenit Deus ut velit: volentem subsequitur, ne frustra velit (Aug. Enchir. chap. 32).

Ver. 23. Be glad then, ye children of Zion] "Ye righteous ones," #Ps 32:11, and none else; for joy is the just man’s portion, and none have any reason to rejoice but such; nay, they are flatly forbidden it, #Ho 9:1. See the note there. "Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let the saints be joyful in glory," #Ps 149:2,5. Gaudeant in re, gaudeant in spe, gaudeant de possessione, gaudeant de promissione, saith Bernard. If Plato could tell the musicians, philosophers knew how to dine and sup without them, they could be merry without a fiddler, how much more may Zion’s children! Be it that there is a cord in the sin of the wicked, to strangle their joy with, yet the "righteous sing and are merry," #Pr 29:6. In the greatest fail of all outward comforts, they can "rejoice in the Lord their God," as here, and as David at the sack of Ziklag, #1Sa 30:6; and Habakkuk, amidst all the miseries of the world and malice of Satan, iii. 17. It is in the Lord their God that they rejoice, it is a holy and spiritual joy, not profane and carnal, as is the wordling’s, who feedeth upon ashes, &c., #Isa 44:20, rejoiceth in a thing of nought, #Am 6:13; his joy is no better than a little counterfeit complexion, crackling of thorns, &c.

For he hath given you the former rain moderately] As a pledge of his love, and as a fruit of the covenant. Moderate showers ye shall have, neither too much nor too hasty; rain of righteousness in such measure and moderation as shall be needful.

And he will cause to come down for you] The vanities of the heathen cannot give rain, #Jer 14:22, nor can the heavens yield showers. God therefore must be waited upon, #Jas 5:7; and prayed unto, #Joe 2:18, and the thundering legion, κεραυνοβολος, so famous in Church history. He must not have cause given him to complain of men’s brutishness and inadvertence, as #Jer 10:18,14.

The former rain] That fell in October, when they had sown. St James calleth it the morning rain, πρωιμον, #Jas 5:7.

And the latter rain] Heb. the gathering rain, because it fills and fits the corn for ingathering; as falling about May and a little before their harvest.

In the first] Not month, but primo quoque tempore, as soon as is fit. See #Zec 10:1. {See Trapp on "Zec 10:1"}

Ver. 24. And the floors shall be full of wheat] Such fatness shall God’s footsteps drop, that your houses shall be full of all "precious and pleasant riches," #Pr 24:4; so that you shall, as rich men love to do, de pleno tollere acervo. Only take heed you have not, as that rich fool, animam triticeam, a wheaten soul, that your abundance get not within you, Τα ενοντα, as the Pharisees’ did, #Lu 11:41 (so that they did not more possess than were possessed of what they had), that ye set not your hearts upon your riches, #Ps 62:11.

—“ difficile est opibus non tradere mentem.”

(Martial.)

And the fats shall overflow] There shall be plenty of all things, as #Pr 3:10, the fruits and effect of that rain promised before. And doth not God daily turn water into wine, when of water falling upon the vine, and concocted by the heat of the sun, he produceth the grape, whence wine is pressed?

Ver. 25. And I will restore to you the years, &c.] I will so make up your former losses, that there shall remain no sign nor sense thereof. See a like promise #Zec 10:6, "They shall be as though I had not cast them off," {See Trapp on "Zec 10:6"} See also #Isa 60:10.

My great army] sc. the locusts, see above, #Joe 2:2,5,11. God is Lord of Hosts, and (as the Rabbis well observe) he hath the upper and lower troops, as his horse and foot ready prest.

Ver. 26. And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied] Which, what a great blessing it is, see #Hag 1:6 Ec 6:1,2. {See Trapp on "Hag 1:6"} {See Trapp on "Ec 6:1"} {See Trapp on "Ec 6:2"}

And praise the name of the Lord your God] Not haunch up God’s creatures, as swine do swill, but tasting the sweetness of the Creator in them, lift up many a humble, joyful, and thankful heart to him. This was better than the former blessing, for naturally fulness breeds forgetfulness of God, #De 32:15.

That hath dealt wondrously with you] Heb. ad mirificandum, sc. in so sudden and strange a change of his hand, whereby he hath made himself marvellous, as he delights to do by working wonders, such as man’s power cannot perform, nor reason reach unto.

And my people shall never be ashamed] As they have been among the heathen, #Joe 2:19, and as those are that pray to no purpose. Deo confisi nunquam confusi. Their faith is unfeigned, and therefore their hopes unfailable, #Ro 5:5.

Ver. 27. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel] These temporal blessings shall seal up my love to you and presence of grace with you. True it is that no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them, #Ec 9:1; because all things come alike to all, #Joe 2:2. But yet from this text we may comfortably conclude, that if the good things of this life make us more cheerful, thankful, hopeful; if mercy excite us to duty, and the sense of God’s love make us love God, his ways, and people, with a desire to love them more; then we are loved of God, who is in us of a truth, #1Jo 4:10,19, and we may know it too. For if instinct of nature teach dams to know their young ones, and the young their dams, shall not God’s Spirit teach us to know him, that he is in the midst of us, not by his omnipresence only, but by his gracious presence? yea, that he is the Lord our God, and none else; and that while we hold us to this anchorhold of the faithful soul, we shall never be ashamed, #Ps 31:1. That was a brave speech of Luther, and one of those that a man would fetch upon his knees from Rome or Jerusalem to be author of them, Ipse videret ubi anima mea mansura sit, qui pro ea sic solicitus fuit, ut vitam pro ea posuerit, Let him see to it where my soul shall rest, who took so much care for it as that he laid down his life for it (Joh. Manl. loc. com.).

Ver. 28. And it shall come to pass afterwards] sc. In the days of the Messiah, which is called the "world to come," #Heb 2:5, but especially after his ascension, see #Joh 7:37 Ac 2:17-21, where this prophecy was fulfilled, and this place taken for the first text preached on by the apostles, #Joe 2:17, to the conversion of three thousand souls at one sermon. For together with the word there went forth a power, even that "spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind," #Lu 7:21 2Ti 1:7, here promised to be poured out, not distilled only, {See Trapp on "Zec 12:10"} and that upon all flesh. Spirit upon flesh, the best thing upon the basest; yea, upon all flesh, without respect of persons or difference made of sex, age, or condition, provided that they know and acknowledge themselves to be but flesh, #Ge 6:3, corrupt and carnal ( animas etiam incarnavimus, as St Bernard complaineth), and that whatsoever is of "the flesh is flesh," #Joh 3:6 (for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?) that whole man is in evil, and whole evil in man; neither can it be gotten out in any measure, till the heart be mollified and made tender as flesh, #Eze 11:19 36:26,27, which cannot be done till men be taught of God, and drawn out of darkness into his marvellous light; till they be spiritualized and "transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord," #2Co 3:18.

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy] This was fulfilled #Ac 2:17-21, as St Peter showeth. For the New Testament is but the Old unfolded and fulfilled, as was also typified in the two cherubims of the sanctuary, looking intently into the propitiatory, {Christ, #Ro 3:25} but with their faces turned one towards another: #Ex 25:20 Ac 26:22. It was fulfilled, I say, in that visible descension of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles and the rest, #Ac 2:8:15,17 10:44. So that this makes nothing at all for the enthusiasts’ raptures and dotages. The true offspring they are of those ancient Euchites or Messalanii, who, leaving their trades, gave themselves to much sleep, and called their dreams and phantasies prophecies (Funcc. Chronol., A.D. 371).

Your old men shall dream, &c., your young men shall see visions] i.e. God will no less open his will unto them than he did of old to the propbets by dreams and visions; for by the conduct of the Spirit they shall be led into all truth and holiness they shall be all a royal priesthood, #1Pe 2:5 Re 1:6, "full of all goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another," #Ro 15:14.

Ver. 29. And also upon the servants] They shall be the free men and women of Jesus Christ, #1Co 7:22, by as full a measure of God’s free and noble Spirit bestowed upon them as upon their masters and mistresses. The Trent translation hath it, upon my servants and my handmaids but there is no such pronoun in the original though it is true that all that have the Spirit are his; and the contrary, #Ro 8:9 Eph 1:13 The scope of the text is, as Mercer well noteth to show that ut gratuitum et commune Christ beneficium, sic et spiritus, as the benefits of Christ are free and common to all his people, so is the Spirit. And surely, next to the love of Christ indwelling in our nature, we may well wonder at the love of the Holy Ghost, that will dwell in our defiled souls, and act in them as he doth. For there are diversity of gifts, but the same Spirit, #1Co 12:4, as the diverse smells of flowers come from the same influence, and the diverse sounds in the organ from the same breath.

Ver. 30. And I will show wonders in the heavens] Prodigia beneficia credentibus, malefica et horrifica incredulis, saith Cornelius a Lapide, who interpreteth the text of those signs and wonders that shall precede the day of judgment: and for confirmation hereof allegeth #Joe 3:2, together with #Mt 24:29 Lu 21:25. And had he looked a little higher into those chapters, and taken in all the troubles that befell the Church from our Saviour’s ascension to his second coming, together with those horrible calamities and confusions that shall befall the wicked, for contempt of the gospel, and persecution of the professors thereof, he had done right, in mine opinion. It is ordinary with the prophets to set forth horrible commotions by such figurative expressions: see #Jer 4:23, &c.; #Isa 13:10 Re 6:12. Those that have received the spirit of adoption, must not dream of a delicacy, but expect persecution. Christ came to send fire on the earth, #Lu 12:49. Neither may persecutors hope to escape unpunished, but look to be pursued by Divine justice. {See Trapp on "Re 6:15"} How heavy was the hand of God upon Jerusalem, that slaughter house of the saints; and afterwards upon the ten persecutors of Rome! 1. Nero (whom Tertullian rightly calleth Dedicatorero damnationis Christianorum, quippe qui orientem fidem primus Romae cruentavit, the first bloody persecutor of the Christian religion) lost 80,000 of his subjects by the pestilence, had his army utterly routed and cut off in Brittany, both the Armenias revolted from him, the senators rose up against him, and compelled him to be his own executioner; 2. Domitian was butchered by his soldiers; 3. Trajan died of a dropsy; 4. Severus died miserably here at York; 5. Maximinus, with his son, was cut in pieces; 6. Decius died in a far country; 7. Valerian was flayed by Sapores, King of Persia, who took him prisoner. 8. Aurelian was slain by his own men; 9. Dioclesian poisoned himself; 10. Maximian hanged himself. What should I speak of Julian, Anastasius, Heraclius, &c.; the French persecutors, Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III, the Guises, &c.; Philip II of Spain, who returning out of the Low Countries, met a storm, and suffered shipwreck, to the great danger of his life? He said he was delivered by the singular providence of God to root out Lutheranism, which he presently began to do with all his might. He afterwards died miserably of the lousy disease. Queen Mary died of a tumour, or else of grief of heart for King Philip’s unkind departure, severe losses, Calais surrendered, harm done by thunders from heaven and by fire in the royal navy, extreme dearths raging, her conceptions failing. What heavy judgments befell various particular persecutors of those times, Poole, Gardiner, Bonner, Morgan, Story, Burton, see Acts and Mon. 1902, 1904, &c., 1915. George Eagles (alias Trudge-over-the-world) having hid himself in a grain field, was for money descried by one Ralph Lurdain, and burnt at Chelmsford: where afterwards the same Lurdain was hanged for stealing a horse (Mr Leigh’s Saints’ Encouragement, Epistle to Reader.)

Blood and fire] Signs terrifying, and testifying the wrath and displeasure of God for the sins of men, and such a face of the whole fabric of the universe; as that all the parts thereof may seem to have conspired for the destruction of mankind. Before the war between Pompey and Caesar the sea seemed to be bloody (Lucan. lib. 1, monstra enumerans quae bellum civilo praecesserunt).

—“ Superique minaces

Prodigiis terras implerant, aethera, pontum

Ignota obscure viderunt sidera noctes,

Ardentemque polum flammis, coeloquevolantes

Obliquas per inane faces—

Fulgura fallaci micuerunt crebra sereno,

Et varias ignis dense dedit aere ferrous.”

Before Caesar’s death not only drops of blood fell from heaven, but also pits and pools flowed with blood. Puteique cruore mutati (Claudian. lib. 1 in Eutropius). In the year of grace 874, at Brixia, in the entrance of Italy, it rained blood for three days and three nights together. In the year 1505 there appeared in Germany upon people’s garments and women’s rocks as they were spinning, diverse prints and token of the nails, of the spunge, of the spear, of the Lord’s coat, and of bloody crosses, &c. Maximilian the emperor had and showed the same to Francis Mirandula; who wrote thereupon his book called Staurostichon, wherein are these verses,

“ Non ignota cano, Caesar monstravit: et ipsi

Vidimus: innumeros prompsit Germania testes.”

It is not many years since a shower of blood fell about Gloucester, if our intelligence deceived us not. Such prodigies are usually sad presages, nec inania terriculamenta haec esse, res ipsa testatur, saith Gaulther here: and event proveth that these are no vain spectres. By fire here, understand those terrible flaming apparitions in the air, lightning, comets, &c., portending lamentable calamities. Such there were to be seen (as I have heard from eyewitnesses) on that very night wherein the gunpowder plot was detected and defeated, in a very terrible manner. And such were those meteors in the likeness of fiery serpents that fell here, A.D. 788, before the invasion of the Danes: whereunto we may add the new star that appeared in Cassiopeia in November, 1572, and continued sixteen months: soon after which Charles IX of France (author of the Parisian Massacre) died of exceeding bleeding at several parts of his body, inter horribilium blasphemiarum diras, saith the historian, cursing and swearing. And lastly that prodigious comet, A.D. 1618, forerunner of the German wars and our late troubles; whatever is yet behind to be suffered by us. Certainly if the sorcerers of Egypt were among us, they would wonder at men’s stupendous stupidity, and tell them that these extraordinary occurrents in heaven and earth were the very finger of God, for their warning.

And pillars of smoke] Heb. palms of smoke, {so #So 3:6} by similitude, because tall and straight as palm trees; which also lift up themselves under their burden, and will not be held down. Smokey vapours mounting upright are fitly compared thereunto, Elationes fumi, so Tremellius.

Ver. 31. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood] By strange and stupendous eclipses: such as was that of the moon for 12 nights together, a little before the last destruction of Jerusalem; and that of the sun this present 29th day of March, 1652, wherein I write these things, but could scarce see to write, or forbear to behold: for though busy enough to bring this work to an end, if God please, yet I cannot say, as the Duke of Alva did to the King of France, who asked him whether he had observed the late great eclipse? "No," said he, "I have so much to do upon earth, that I have no leisure to look toward heaven." Of this day’s eclipse I may well say, as Lucan doth of another,

“ Ipse caput medio Titan cum ferret Olympo,

Condidit ardentes atra caligine currus;

Involvitque orbem tenebris, gentesque coegit

Desperate diem.”

I heartily pray it do not presage a dreadful eclipse of the sun of Christ’s glorious Gospel among us; that this bright sun should go down at noon over our heads, and our earth be darkened in the clear day, #Am 8:9. And let every good soul pray that that dismal day may never arise unto us, wherein it shall be said that this glory is departed from our English Israel.

‘- nobiscum, Christe, maneto;

Extingui lucem nec patiare tuam.”

And the moon into blood] That is, into redness, as it was likewise on the 15th day of this instant March, in the morning. Two such eclipses so near together having seldom been seen, I fear we may have cause, ere the year come about, to sing sadly with the poet (Ovid. Metam. lib. 15)

“ Signa dabant luctus superi haud incerta futuri

Saepe faces visae, solis quoque tristis imago;

Caerulus et vulture ferrugine Lucifer atra

Sparsus erat, sparsi lunares sanguine currus.”

Before the great and terrible day of the Lord come] i.e. The great day of general judgment, called here the great day, because the great God will on that day do great things and determine great matters; and the terrible day, because it is a day of anger and of wrath, #Re 6:17; yea, the day of the declaration of the just judgment of God, according to the gospel, #Ro 2:5,16. It is elsewhere called "that day" by an appellative proper, #Mr 13:32 Lu 21:34 Mt 7:22. That day of note, wherein God will break silence, "execute judgment upon all, and convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him," #Jude 15. Enoch foretold this great day before Noah did the Deluge. This day is longer before it comes, but shall be more terrible when it is come. Whether it shall come in the year of our Lord, 1657, as some have gathered out of the numeral letters of these two words, Mundi Conflagratio, and because the year of the world 1657 was the year of the flood, let time determine: I have nothing to say to it.

Ver. 32. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever, &c.] Lest any good soul, hearing the former heavy menaces, should say with the disciples, #Mr 10:26, "Who then can be saved?" or, with those despondents in #Jer 2:25, "There is no hope," the prophet concludeth with this comfortable corollary,

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord] Yea, that but "nameth the name of Christ" in faithful prayer, desiring and endeavouring to "depart from iniquity," #2Ti 2:19; the same

shall be delivered] He shall have safety here and salvation hereafter, #Ro 10:13. "Watch ye therefore, and pray always," saith our Saviour, "that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man," #Lu 21:36,25. Something God will yield to the prayers of his people when he seemeth most bitterly bent and unchangeably resolved against them, #Mt 24:20, and when the tribulation is so great that it is not likely that any flesh shall be saved, #Joe 2:21,22. Prayer, saith one, is the best lever at a dead lift, provided that it be the prayer of faith; for mercy is the mother, faith the midwife of deliverances. Hence it followeth,

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem] Where the pure word of God was preached, #Isa 2:3, and men’s hearts purified by faith, #Ac 15:9,

shall be deliverance] From all evils and enemies. #Ps 76:3, "There brake he the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. Selah." There? where? In Salem, in Zion, #Joe 2:2, where God’s people were praying. This Moab knew, and therefore more feared a praying people than a numerous army, #Nu 22:3. This the queen mother of Scotland knew, and therefore said, that she feared more the fasting and prayers of John Knox and his disciples than an army of twenty thousand men. Let God’s suppliants but call upon him in the day of their trouble, and he will deliver them, that they may glorify him, #Ps 50:15. He will deliver them; yea, and honour them. With long life will he satisfy them, and show them his salvation, #Ps 91:16. Holy Merlin, chaplain to the Admiral of France, at the Parisian massacre, had the performance of this promise, among many others. For understanding the danger they were all in, he prayed in the Admiral’s chamber, and, by his command, a little before the murderers brake in, and by a singular providence, escaped into a hay mow, where he lay hidden for a fortnight, and was miraculously fed by a hen that that came daily and laid an egg near by him.

As the Lord hath said] And God’s suppliants have steadfastly believed, and do therefore put his promises in suit. In the want of other rhetoric, let Christians in their prayers burden God with what he hath said, sue him upon his own bond, urge this with repetition, Lord, thou hast promised, thou hast promised, and they shall find that he cannot deny himself; and he can as soon deny himself as his promises. "His covenant he will not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lips," #Ps 89:34.

And in the remnant whom God shall call] Those holy brethren that shall partake of the heavenly calling, #Heb 3:1, to glory and virtue, whether they be Jews or Gentiles. "Faithful is he that calleth them, who also will do it?" #1Th 5:24. And although they are but a remnant, which is but a small to the whole piece, a handful to a houseful, a fold to a field, a little, little flock, μικρον ποιμνιον, #Lu 12:32, yet being the called of Jesus Christ, #Ro 1:6, and such as call upon him in truth, they are not only his called, but chosen and faithful, #Re 17:14. They are also heirs of that promise, #Mic 5:7, which shall be fully made good to them, that, as for their propagation, "this remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as a dew from Jehovah." The dew is engendered and distilled from the Lord immediately, so, for their growth and increase, "they shall be as the flowers upon the grass, as the sprouting up of grass and herbs in the wilderness, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men," to come with watering pots to nourish them, as herbs in gardens do, but these have showers from heaven that give the increase.

Chapter 3

Ver. 1. For behold, in those days, and in that time] In his diebus illis ipsis, et in hoc tempore ipso, in those very selfsame days and in that selfsame time, sc. in the time of the Messiah, in the days of the gospel, when God shall deliver Jerusalem and call the remnant of the Gentiles, and so bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, of the whole Israel of God, preaching liberty to the captives, #Isa 61:1, and proclaiming the everlasting jubilee, #Job 8:3-6. In those happy days, I say, #Jer 23:5,6, woe to the wicked enemies of the Church, it shall go ill with them. They are sure to be broken with a rod of iron, to be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel, #Ps 2:9, dashed against Christ the King, who, as he is piorum rupes, a rock of refuge to his people, such as was that to Moses, #Ex 33:22, so he is reorum scopulus, a rock of revenge to persecutors, to split them to pieces, such a rock as that out of which fire arose, #Jud 6:21, the fire of God’s jealousy, #Zec 1:14, which burneth unto the lowest hell, #De 32:22. Let them, therefore, have grace (as the apostle from this ground adviseth, #Heb 12:28,29). Let them, at least, have so much wit for themselves as Pilate’s wife had in a dream, to take heed of having anything to do with just men. Let them do as Tertullian counselled Scapula, If thou wilt not spare us, yet spare thyself; if not thyself, yet spare Carthage thy country, which will certainly suffer for thy cruelty to Christians: si non nobis, tibi; si non tibi, Carthagini parcas. God will reduce the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, which shall be as a cup of poison to all the people round about, as a burdensome stone, as a hearth of fire, #Zec 12:2,3,6; {See Trapp on "Zec 12:2"} {See Trapp on "Zec 12:3"} {See Trapp on "Zec 12:6"} Their destruction must needs go along with the saints’ salvation, #Php 1:28,29 Isa 8:9 Pr 11:8. The Jewish doctors collect from this and other like places in the prophets, that when the Messiah cometh, he shall recollect the Jews into the land of Canaan, where they shall get the better of their enemies, and have a most flourishing commonwealth and glorious Church. For this they daily expect the visible appearance of the Messiah, often throwing open their windows to behold, and crying all together to God, Let thy kingdom come, let it come quickly, even in our days, quickly, quickly, quickly (Buxtorf). That he stays so long is for our sins, say they, which are many. {See Trapp on "Zec 14:2"}{see Trapp on "Zec 14:3"}

Ver. 2. I will also gather all nations] That are adverse to my Church, that I may have my pennyworths of them, and do execution upon them with ease (troubling those troublers of his Israel, #2Th 1:6, licet videantur plures et potiores), as he dealt by Jehoshaphat’s enemies, #2Ch 20:25, and leaving them no more place to escape than those have who are surrounded in a valley by a potent enemy, who hath gotten them into a pound, as the proverb is. And this God will do in the valley of Jehoshaphat (a valley, saith Lyra, Adrichomius, and Montanus, between Jerusalem and Mount Olivet), in the very view of the Church, that the righteous may rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, and wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous, see #Joe 3:4; verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth, as in the valley of divine judgment (so some render Jehoshaphat here, as if it were an appellative, Chaldeus R. Salmon, Mercer), called, #Joe 3:14, the valley of decision, and the words that next follow seem to favour, "and I will plead with them" ( iudicio I judge again), judicially plead with them there, for my people; which word also God useth when he foretelleth the destruction of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel. So that the valley of Jehoshaphat, saith Mercer, is the place wheresoever God shall please to punish the enemies of his people. As for that conceit of Lyra and others, who gather out of this text that this valley near Jerusalem shall be the very place where Christ shall sit to judge the world at the last day, and for confirmation allege #Ac 1:11. Mercer judgeth it to be a childish conceit, and Luther asketh where all mankind shall have room to stand in so small a valley? Though others judge it not unlikely that it shall be thereabouts, because Jerusalem is in the middle and about the centre of the earth, and besides, it will be the more for the glory of Christ, to sit there as judge where he himself was judged; but it is probable he will sit in the air, near the earth, whither the elect shall be raptured up to meet the Lord. #1Th 4:17, that the devils may be subdued and sentenced in the air, where they have ruled and played Rex, king, #Eph 2:2, and that the wicked may be doomed on the earth, where they have offended.

For my people and for my heritage Israel] All was his, and the wrongs done to them were done to God’s self, as the injury done to the subject is said to be done to the sovereign, his crown and dignity. See #Ac 9:4 Mt 25:45. So that ye cannot tread upon the least toe in Christ’s mystical body, but the head cries out from heaven, Why hurtest thou me? The saints’ sufferings are his, #Col 1:24, their reproach his, #Heb 13:13. Manet compassio, etiam cum impassibilitate (Bern.). Christ retaineth still compassion, though free from personal passion; and though without feeling, yet not without fellow feeling. He doth condolere proportionate ad miseriam, as Pareus rendereth the apostle, #Heb 5:2, condole, and that proportionably to his people’s misery, μετριοπαθειν.

And for my heritage Israel] Israel, εμφατικως, saith Mercer, the people of God’s purchase, that comprehend all his gettings, and are much more dear to him than Naboth’s inheritance was to him. He sets them before his face for ever, #Ps 41:12, as loving to look upon them; yea, upon the very "walls of the houses where they dwell," #Isa 49:16. They are his portion, #De 32:9; his inheritance, #Isa 19:25; the dearly beloved of his soul, #Jer 12:7; his glory, #Isa 46:13; dear to God, though despised and dispersed in the world. He may suffer them to be Anathema secundum dici, as Bucholcer said, but not secundum esse.

Whom they have scattered among the nations] The Jewish doctors refer this to Titus and Adrian, the Roman emperors. The first carried 97,000 of them captives, saith Josephus; the second drove them utterly out of Jewry, and by proclamation, commanded them not so much as look toward that land from any tower or high mountain. But all this was for their sedition and other wickednesses. And ever since they have continued a dejected and despised people, exiled out of the world, as it were, by a common consent of nations, specially for their inexpiable guilt in murdering Christ, and persecuting his people, concerning whom, therefore, this text is to be understood, #De 28:64. See how Christians were soon scattered abroad throughout the regions, #Ac 8:1 Jas 1:1 1Pe 1:1, where they are called strangers of the dispersion. Afterwards the heathen persecutors relegated and confined them to isles and mines, and scattered them into corners. So did the pope and his agents: forcing them to flee for their lives.

And parted my land] As Shalmaneser did to his new colonies; as Sennacherib also designed to do, had not God prevented him; as the pope taketh upon him to do, those countries whom he counteth heretical. He gave this land, in Henry VIII’s time, primo occupaturo, to him that could first seize it. He declared John, King of Navarre, schismatic, a heretic, an enemy to the see apostolic, and gave his kingdom to the Spaniard, because he took part with the French, and would not allow the Spaniard to march through his kingdom against the French; and what work he hath lately made in the palatinate and other parts of Germany, who knows not?

Ver. 3. And they have cast lots for my people] Impiously and imperiously domineering over them as those rude soldiers that cast the dice upon our Saviour’s coat, at his passion. It was ordinary to divide by lots the enemies they had taken in the fight, #Na 3:10 Ob 11 La 3:53 Jud 5:30; but at base rates thus to sell God’s people ignominiously, and that to satisfy their lewd lusts—this was unsufferable.

And have given a boy for an harlot] Heb. that boy, as afterwards that girl, with an emphasis; a son and daughter of Israel, those earthly angels Angli quasi Angeli, the English boys just as angels, as Gregory the Great once said of the English boys presented to him. "Thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire," said God not without very great indignation, to their idolatrous parents, #Eze 16:21. His they were more than theirs, by virtue of the covenant he had made with that people; hence #De 14:1, "Ye are the children of the Lord your God," and can he bear with your misusages? "Should he deal with our sister as a harlot?" said they with courage (as the great Zaijn, in Zonah, importeth) #Ge 34:31. So here, should they give a boy such a boy, for a harlot? that is, for the hire of a harlot, and to gratify such abhorred filths? In the reign of Henry II of France, A.D. 1554 many precious sons of Zion were burned there for religion, not without the indignation of honest men, who knew that the diligence used against those poor people was not for any piety or religion, but to satiate the covetousness of Diana Valentina, the king’s mistress, to whom he had given all the confiscations of goods made in the kingdom for cause of heresy.

And sold a girl for wine, that they might drink] "The wine of violence," #Pr 4:17; "drink and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more," #Jer 25:27; worthy, therefore, to be served as that drunken Turk was by that severe bashaw who caused a ladleful of boiling lead to be poured down his throat. God will turn a worse cup down their wide gullets one day, #Ps 11:6 Quorum vivere est bibere, and whose profane proverb it is, Bibere et sudare, est vita Cardiaci To drink and to sweat is the life of the heart. But what a heathenish baseness is that of the Papists, besides a horrible abuse of God’s holy ordinance, that at Rome a Jewish maid may not be admitted into the stews of whoredom unless she will first be baptized. Espensaeus, a modest Papist, writeth it, not without detestation.

Ver. 4. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, &c.] Or, what are ye to me? I value you not, but look upon you as vile persons, how great soever in the world. See #Da 11:21. Or, what have I to do with you? What wrong have I done you that ye invade my land and molest my subjects? It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of his members, from the head, and it was a malapert demand of the devil, "What have I to do with thee, O Jesus, the Son of the living God?" while he vexed a servant of his. But there is an old enmity between them and their seed, #Ge 3:15, and it will never be extinct while the world stands. Israel had given Tyre and Zidon as little cause to quarrel them, as once they had done Moab, whom they had assured that they would not meddle nor molest them. Howbeit, "Moab was distressed," or irked, fretted, vexed at them, #Nu 22:3, carried with satanical malice against God’s people, because of a different religion, and sought their ruin. Lo, this was the case of Tyre, Zidon, and Palestine, near neighbours, but bitter enemies to the Church. Bats fly against the light. Malice breaks all bonds, and vents itself by utmost inhumanity. Mercer understandeth by those nations, #Joe 3:2,3, the open and professed enemies of the Church, and by these neighbouring peoples here mentioned, those more subtle adversaries, that pretend love, and can draw a fair glove upon a foul hand, but will take the first opportunity to do the saints a mischief, and to spit their poison at them. This is an old stratagem of the devil, still practised by the renegade Jesuits among us.

Will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, &c.] Num meritum mihi refertis, an etiam infertis? so some render it. While ye afflict my people, is it to be avenged on me, for an old injury I have done you? or is it rather to pick a quarrel with me, who have done you no wrong? Surely, whether it be this or the other, I shall handle you according to your deserts.

Swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence] Repente e vestigio, while you will say, what is this? I will execute my fierce wrath upon you, and you shall soon feel what it is despitefully to spit in the face of Heaven, and to wrestle a fall with the Almighty: see #Ob 15. God cannot bear long with sins of this high nature: he resisteth the proud persecutors.

Ver. 5. Because ye have taken my silver, &c.] Sacrilege is a second sin they here stand charged with. Ye have taken, that is, taken away (by which observation, ye shall easily reconcile the Psalmist, #Ps 68:19, with the apostle, #Eph 4:8, saith Tarnovius here), my silver and my gold; vessels consecrated to my use and service; or mine, that is, my people’s, whom ye have robbed; but it shall not thrive with you; it shall prove as the gold of Toulouse (Aurum Tholosanum), fatal to them that had any part of it, or as Achan’s wedge, that cleft his body and soul asunder.

These ye have carried into your temples Or palaces, even my goodly pleasant things] My desirable goods, either to adorn your houses or your idols, to your own bane, as Belshazzar. It is surely a snare to a man who devoureth dedicated things, #Pr 20:25, that bowseth in the bowls of the sanctuary. And it was a sad complaint of Luther, that even in the reformed Churches, parishes and schools were robbed of their due maintenance; as if they meant to starve us all. The like saith Gualther in his homily upon this text: Non desunt pseudo-evangelici, saith he, There want not such false gospellers among us, who restore not the Church her wealth, pulled out of the Papists’ fingers; but make good that saying of one, Possidebant Papistae, possident Rapistae, Papists had Church livings, and now Rapists have gotten them; like as a good author observeth upon the battle of Montlecherye, that some lost their livings by running away, and they were given to those that ran ten miles farther.

Ver. 6. The children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem] "The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold," #La 4:2, with whom you were anciently confederate in the days of Solomon, #1Ki 4:25, and seemed to be then their prosperity proselytes.

Have ye sold unto the Grecians] That is, to the Gentiles in general, for so St Paul often useth the word Grecians, as contradistinct to Jews; who were barbarously sold, as if they had been brute beasts, and that into the farthest countries, that they might never ransom themselves, nor return to their native soil again. This was singular, yea, savage cruelty, which the merciful God cannot abide, but will severely punish, #Jas 2:13,14 Isa 47:6, "Thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke." See the Babylonian cruelty graphically described, and accordingly recompensed, #Jer 51:34,35, &c. The Spanish cruelty to the poor Indians is unspeakable. They have made away 50,000,000 of them in 42 years, as Acosta the Jesuit testieth, and that under pretence of converting them to the faith. They suppose they show the wretches great favour when they do not (for their pleasure) whip them with cords, and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon: such a devil is one man to another, when set to work by the devil, and spurred on by him. But "shall they thus escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the people, O God," #Ps 56:7. He will do it: for those words are not more a prayer than a prophecy.

Ver. 7. Behold, I will raise them out of the place, &c.] Seem it never so improbable or impossible, I will do it, saith God, and you shall see it. Behold, I will fetch home my banished, though they may seem to be as water spilt on the ground. I will make those dead bones live; and raise myself a name, and a praise, by outbidding their hopes, and marring your design of utter extermination. Ribera understands the words concerning the resurrection of the dead at the last day, because the Hebrew word properly signifieth, to raise one out of sleep. Some think it is meant of the apostles and martyrs, fetched out of banishment; as was John out of Patmos, Athanasius, Chrysostom, who yet in his last banishment, by reason of the barbarous usage of the soldiers that led him along, hired for that purpose, sweetly and blessedly breathed out his last, (Erasm. in Vita Chrysost.), the English exiles in Queen Mary’s time, whereof many returned and did excellent service here. But I doubt not, saith judicious Calvin (in loc.), but God intends here a spiritual gathering together of his people into one body, by the bond of faith; and this was principally fulfilled after the death of Christ, who died for that nation, "And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad," #Joh 11:52; so that those whom God hath gathered together and caused to return ( non pedibus vel navigio, for that needs not, to Jerusalem, which is above, which is the mother of us all), from the lands of the east, of the west, of the north, and of the south, shall praise the Lord together, as the psalmist hath it, #Ps 107:2,3.

And will return your recompence upon your own head] God delights to retaliate, to bloody and deceitful men especially; as were easy to instance in the Egyptians, Adonibezek, Agag, Attilius Regulus, the Roman general, who dealt most cruelly with the Carthaginians, and was shortly after as cruelly dealt with by them, when fallen into their hands (Polybius). Here at home, in King Edward VI’s time, the remembrance of Somerset much moved the people to fall from Northumberland (who had wrought his death) in his greatest attempts, and to leave him to his fatal fall; whereas also they openly rejoiced, and presented to him handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of Somerset, for whom they thought he suffered rather late than undeserved punishment. So certain it is (saith the historian), that the debts both of cruelty and mercy go never unpaid.

Ver. 8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters] And so the scene shall be soon altered, and a strange vicissitude easily observed. But when was this done? or was it ever done? Ego putarim factum, etsi scriptura non dicat quando, saith Tarnovius: I suppose it was done, though the Scripture say not when. Others fly to allegories, and understand the text of the conversion of the Gentiles. I like their way best, that say, That which God did for the Church’s sake, the Church itself is said to do it. For their cruelties to the Jews, God delivered these nations up into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar first (who had a hard tug of it, and had therefore Egypt given him for his wages), and afterwards by Alexander the Great, who took Tyre, and razed it. And this was that great service spoken of #Eze 29:18, wherein every head was made bald, and every shoulder bare, in filling up that strait of the sea, which separated it from the continent, before it could be taken. But taken it was, together with Sidon and Philistia; and their children sold as far as Sabaea, which was then counted the utmost part of the known earth, #Mt 12:42 Lu 11:31, being part of Arabia the Happy, or (as some will) the Desert. All this was done for the Jews’ sake, though the world little considereth it. It was enough for them that they knew it to be so, according to this prophecy; and that God did hereby show his high esteem of them, by avenging them of their enemies, and by thus giving men for them, and people for their life, #Isa 43:4.

For the Lord hath spoken it] And will therefore surely do it; neither could their Apollo deliver them out of God’s hands; though, to prevent his forsaking of them, when besieged by Alexander, the Tyrians chained and nailed that idol of theirs to a post, that they might be sure of it. But all would not do.

Ver. 9. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles] Oratio tota est figurata, saith Pareus: All this following discourse is figurative; Hortatio sarcasmon habens, saith Mercer. It is an ironic challenge to all God’s enemies, to do their worst to Christ and his Church; somewhat like that #Jud 9:29, "Increase thine army, and come out" (which seems to be the challenge that Gaal sent to Abimelech, by some messenger), or that of Rabshakeh, #Isa 36:8, "I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders on them," or that, #Isa 8:9,10.

Prepare war] Heb. sanctify war; that is, laying aside all other business, give yourselves wholly to it (like as at holy services they were called upon, Hoc agere, This to manage, to mind the business in hand, and nothing else), as Scanderbeg did; out of whose lips, while he was fighting, the very blood would start; so earnest he was at it.

Wake up the mighty men] The giants, the champions, such as were Goliath the Gittite, David’s band of worthies, Achilles, Albertus, Marquess of Brandenburg, who for his valour was called Achilles Teutonicus. Put what mettle you can into these your mighties, that they may do their utmost. But also know that they shall soon meet with their matches, viz. God’s "mighty ones" mentioned #Joe 3:11.

Let all the men of war draw near] That they may join battle, and not stand daring and facing one another; as the two armies of Christians and Turks did in the days of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, for three months together, and then rose and returned without any notable thing done. It is the ancient and manful fashion (saith our chronicler) of the English (who are naturally most impatient of lingering mischiefs) to put their public quarrels quickly to the trial of the sword. Praestat semel quam semper was Caesar’s motto; and his property was

“ Credere nil actum, dum quid superesset agendum” (Lucan).

Ver. 10. Beat your ploughshares into swords] Come with the best preparation you can make, that ye may seem (as they say of a travelling Turk) to be so many walking armouries.

Let the weak say, I am strong] Come forth full and whole, young and old, weak and strong, all that are able to bear arms, without excuse. It is an ancient custom in Scotland, in cases of importance, to command the fire cross to be carried, that is, two firebrands set in fashion of a cross, and pitched upon the point of a spear, and proclamation is thereupon made that all men over sixteen years of age and under sixty, shall come into the field to oppose the enemy. Those were desperate boys in Ket’s conspiracy, that at the battle near Norwich pulled the arrows out of their own flesh, and delivered them to be shot again by the archers on their side: and those other wounded and weakened, no less desperately resolved, who being disabled almost to hold up their weapons, would strive what they could to strike their enemies; others being thrust through the body with a spear, would run themselves further on, to reach those that wounded them deadly. The enemies of the truth will make hard shift, but they will bear arms against Christ; and though feeble, yet will say, "I am strong," a Satana impulsi et armati, saith Mercer here, as being pricked on, armed and agitated by the devil, that old manslayer; according to that of Bernard, Seest thou thy persecutor outrageous, marvel not; but know that the devil rides him, makes him run, Scito quia ab ascensore suo daemone perurgetur.

Ver. 11. Assemble yourselves, and come all ye heathen] Come and fetch your bane, whereof by your forwardness to come uncalled ye may seem to be ambitious; judgments need not go to find you out; for you associate yourselves, that ye may be broken in pieces, #Isa 8:9, as at Armageddon, #Re 16:16. Come on, therefore, since you will needs be so mad, and take what befalls you. "Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together," #Isa 27:4; see #Zec 14:2,3 Eze 38:4,16-23 Re 19:17,18. {See Trapp on "Zec 14:2"} {See Trapp on "Zec 14:3"} The word hero Englished assemble is by Jarchi rendered festinate, hasten; by others conglobamini, cluster together, that ye may be the sooner cut off, that the mouth of God s sword may have its full bit, that he may make an utter end, and your affliction may not rise up the second time, #Na 1:9.

Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down] Vel angeles vel alios, saith Mercer, either thine angels (called God’s mighties, #Ps 103:20 Isa 10:34 Ps 18:17, where these "mighty ones" are said to make Sion as dreadful to all her enemies as these angels made Sinai at the delivery of the law) or other thine officers and executioners, that by thy command they may fall on, and destroy these heathen armies, see #Joe 3:13; the answer to this prayer of the prophet, and the power of prayer which Luther fitly calleth bombardas et instrumenta bellica Christianorum, the great ordnance and warlike weapons of Christians.

Ver. 12. Let the heathen be awakened] Here begins God’s answer to the prophet’s prayer. The heathen, though at ease, #Zec 1:11, and fast asleep, must be aroused and assembled to the valley of Jehoshaphat, where God the righteous Judge (at the prophet’s request reminding him of his promise, "I am come for thy words," saith he to Daniel, #Da 10:12) gets up to the tribunal, and there sits to judge all the heathen round about. Let not us doubt of the like success of our suits; but, when wronged, run to the Judge of heaven and earth, who will do us right. So we pray over the promises, as here, and not faint, though he bear long with us. This our Saviour has taught us, by that famous parable of the uniust judge and the importunate widow, #Lu 18:2,3, wherein we may take notice of many excellent encouragements to pray down our enemies. 1. He was a judge only; but God is our Father also. 2. He was an unrighteous judge; but is there unrighteousness with God? #Ro 9:14. 3. He, as he feared not God, so he cared not for man; but God is φιλανθρωπος, properly and peculiarly loving to man above other creatures, #Tit 3:4 4. He avenged the widow, as wearied out with her, and merely to be rid of her; and shall not God do as much for us, out of his love to righteousness and hatred of wickedness? #Ps 45:7 5. It was troublesome to him to be sued unto; but God is displeased with us for nothing more than for our backwardness and bashfulness, #Joh 16:24. Quid est cur nihil petis? What meanest thou to ask me nothing? said Severus to his favourite. 6. The unjust judge had no care of his credit; but God is most tender of his glory; and delights much in that title of his, "O thou that hearest prayers."

Ver. 13. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.] It even hangs for mowing, as we say: the enemies are ready ripe for ruin; down with them, therefore, that they may not shed in the field and seed again; let this valley of decision be unto them a valley of excision; let it be as a winepress to those bunches and branches of the grapes lopped off the vine. Lacus iste locus caedis, see #Re 14:18,19 Mt 13:39. There is a stint set to men’s sins, #Ge 15:16 Zec 5:8,11 Mt 23:32. {See Trapp on "Mt 23:22"} What more beautiful to behold than a field for harvest, than a vineyard before the vintage? and yet how sudden an alteration, when workmen once take in hand!

For the wickedness is great] Here is that plainly that before was expressed parabolically. The Scripture often expounds itself in the same text; and is everywhere its own best interpreter.

Ver. 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision] Or concision, as Jerome and Tremellius, or of threshing, as Piscator, in reference to Jehoshaphat, who once threshed the Moabites and Ammonites there. These multitudes are thither summoned ( Turbae, Turbae adeste), or are there laid dead, even heaps upon heaps, with those Philistines, #Jud 15:16. So Aben Ezra senseth it, and thence the name of the valley of concision, or decision: to show that their having passed a definitive sentence upon the Church’s enemies, and a very severe one too, such as was that kind of punishment, to put men under harrows of iron, &c., #2Sa 12:31 Am 1:3, would now finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, #Ro 9:28, idque cito et certo, as sure and as soon as if that day of slaughter were at next door by.

For the day of the Lord is near] Lyra understands it of the last day, which cannot be far off; and Diodati was of the same mind; for upon the next words,

Ver. 15. The sun and the moon shall be darkened] he sets this note, "Signs which shall go before the last judgment," #Mt 24:29 Lu 21:25. {See Trapp on "Joe 2:13"} The prophets, by such forms of speech, use to decipher greatest calamities when all things look dark; as it fareth also with them that are under spiritual desertion, #Isa 50:10, who yet are exhorted there to "trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon their God"; to cast the anchor of hope, as Paul and his company did in the shipwreck, #Ac 27:20, when they saw neither sun nor moon for many days together, and no small tempest lay upon them; all hope that they should be saved being taken away.

Ver. 16. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion] Out of his Church he shall terrify his enemies, as the lion doth the rest of the creatures by his dreadful roar; so that they are amazed thereat, and have no power to stir from the place. Lyra interpreteth it of that terrible Discedite, Go, ye cursed, that shall be uttered by Christ at the last day; a sentence that breatheth out nothing better than fire and brimstone, stings and sorrows, woe, and, alas! torments without end and past imagination.

And the heavens and the earth shall shake] The heavens with thunder, the earth with earthquake, to the terror of the wicked, but comfort of the godly, #Hag 2:6.

For the Lord will be the hope (or, harbour) of his people] They shall have a good bush on their backs in the greatest tempest; they shall not be afraid, "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea," #Ps 46:2.

“ Si fractus illabatur orbis,

Impavidos ferient ruinae” (Horat.).

O the force of a lively faith, and the privy armour of proof that believers have about their hearts! O the dignity and safety of God’s people in the worst of times! #Hab 3:18,19. "Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, the sword of thine excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shall tread upon their high places," #De 33:29.

Ver. 17. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God] You shall experiment that which, during your deep afflictions, ye made some doubt of, and were ready to say, as Gideon did to the angel "If the Lord be for us, why is it thus with us?" or, as your unbelieving forefathers in the wilderness, "Is God among us?" as if that could not be, and they athirst.

Dwelling in Zion] Defending my people and dispensing my best blessings to them. "The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion," #Ps 134:3. The blessings that come out of Zion are far beyond those that otherwise come out of heaven and earth.

Then shall Jerusalem be holy] With a double holiness, imputed and imparted; the profane being purged out here in part, but hereafter in all perfection. This our Saviour sweetly sets forth in those two parables of the tares and of the dragnet, #Mt 13:24-30,36-42,47-50. Or, "It shall be holy," that is, dear to God, and under his care, favour, and protection from the dominion, direption, and possession of profane heathens.

And there shall no strangers pass through her any more] Either to subdue her and prejudice her (as the proverb runs of the Great Turk, that wherever he sets his foot no grass grows any more, such havoc he makes), or to fasten any filth or contagion upon her. See #Re 21:27, where St John alludeth to this text, as all along that book he borroweth the elegancies and flowers of the Old Testament to set out the state of the New in succeeding ages. If this promise be not so fully performed to us as we could wish, we must lay the blame upon our sins, whereby the reformation is ensnared and our prosperity hindered. "Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear," #Isa 59:1,2. Nothing intricates our actions more than sin; this is that devil in the air that hinders our happiness; this is that mischief-making hell-hag, Trouble-town. Charm this devil and make him fall from his heaven (which is to do hurt), and we shall inherit the promises. The godly man only prospers, #Ps 1:3.

Ver. 18. The mountains shall drop down new wine] By these hyperbolic expressions is promised plenty of all things pertaining to life and godliness, such a golden age as the poet describeth (Ovid. Metam.),

“ Flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant,

Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.”

Where it must be observed that spiritualy good things are promised under the notion of temporal, as of must, milk, &c., ob populi infantiam, by reason of the infancy of that people, of that time. The mountains, i.e. the most barren places, shall drop down απονητι, without our labour shall yield plentifully new wine, strong consolations, and Scripture comforts, for strong Christians; and the hills shall flow with milk, that unadulterated sincere milk of God’s word for his babes, #1Co 2:2 1Pe 2:2.

And all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters] Sanctuary waters, wholesome doctrines, such as have a healing, cooling, quenching, quickening property in them, #Isa 44:3.

And a fountain shall come forth] viz. Baptism, that laver of regeneration, #Tit 3:5; that fountain opened, #Zec 13:1; that pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, that washeth away sin, #Re 22:1 Ac 22:16.

And shall water the valley of Shittim] That dry valley in the borders of Moab, near to Jordan, and not far from the Dead Sea, #Nu 25:1 Jos 2:1. Here it was that the Israelites defiled themselves with the daughters of Moab, as Jarchi noteth, but shall be purified and sanctified with the washing of water by the word, #Eph 5:26. Tarnovius renders the text, Qui irrigabit vallem cedrorum, which shall water the valley of cedars, those choicest trees planted in the paradise of God, #Ps 92:13; for, saith he, as the Tabernacle was built and garnished of old with shittim wood for the most part, #Ex 25:5 26:15 27:1 30:1, so is the spiritual temple with these spiritual cedars.

Ver. 19. Egypt shall be a desolation] By Egypt and Edom are meant all Christ’s adversaries, whether they be professed open enemies, as were the Egyptians, or false brethren, as the Edomites. Romists have been both, and shall therefore be desolated, #Re 17:16 cf. 11:8.

For the violence against the children of Judah] From the very cradle of the Church, #Ex 1:8-14, yea, sooner; for Esau in the very womb jostled his brother Jacob, and offered violence against him, that he might lose no time.

Because they have shed innocent blood in the land] The saints’ blood is called innocent blood, 1. Because their sins are remitted; 2. Because they are causelessly killed. And this is a landdesolating sin. The innocent blood spilt by Manasseh brought the captivity: the Marian times, our late troubles. The blood of the martyrs, shed by Turk and Pope (whom the Jewish doctors understand by Egypt and Edom here), shall be the ruin of them both.

Ver. 20. But Judah shall dwell for ever] Perpetuitas Ecclesiae declaratur, saith Mercer, the perpetuity of the Church is declared and assured. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. Christ is with his to the end of the world; and those Roman persecutors who sought to root out Christian religion, and erected pillars in memory of what they had done, or rather attempted, that way, what got they thereby but perpetual ignominy, besides the irreparable loss of their souls, bodies, and fortunes?

“ Tu vero, Herodes sanguinolente, time.”

The Church, as the palm tree, spreadeth and springeth up the more it is oppressed, as the bottle or bladder that may be dipped, not drowned; as the oak, that taketh heart to grace from the maims and wounds given it, and sprouts out thicker, Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus (Horat.); as fenugreek, which the worse it is handled the better it grows, as Pliny. saith. No fowl is more preyed upon than the pigeon; no creature more killed up than sheep; yet are there more pigeons than birds of prey, more sheep than slaughtermen.

Ver. 21. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed] i.e. I will clear their consciences from dead works, from the stain and sting of all sin, that they may not question their right to these precious promises, but boldly take the comfort of them. I will say unto them, Such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are justified, but ye are sanctified. Be of good cheer, therefore, since your sins, your bloody sins, are forgiven you. Or thus, "I will cleanse their blood," that is, I will declare that the blood of the godly, which the world thought to have been justly spilt, was indeed innocent blood, and that they were slain without cause. This I will do, partly by rooting out and damning their enemies, and partly by clearing their innocence, and crowning their constancy. Thus Mercer, Levely, &c.

For the Lord dwelleth in Zion] This is the last promise, but not the least. It referreth, saith Danaeus, to Christ taking our flesh, by the which he dwelt among us, being God manifest in the flesh, #1Ti 3:16 Joh 1:14, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw the glory thereof," &c. This is reserved to the last place, as the causa et cumulus felicitatis, especially since he dwelleth with his Church for ever, as it is in the precedent verse, and maketh her a true Jehovah Shammah, as she is called #Eze 48:35.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3