all the soul." The circumcision of the heart, and the removal of all its impurities-of which outward circumcision was both the type and pledge—are here represented as the substitution of a heart of flesh for one of stone. The words, "I will give you a heart, show that the people will seek the Lord with one accord, in direct contrast to the present state of affairs, in which only a few scattered individuals have turned to the Lord. The whole nation

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approaches the Lord like one man. There is a parallel passage in Jer. xxxii. 39: "And I give them one heart and one way to fear me continually." Zephaniah also says (iii. 9) "they serve the Lord with one shoulder." And in Acts iv. 32 we find Toû δὲ πλήθους τῶν πιστευσάντων ἦν ἡ καρδία καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ μία. The opinion expressed by several commentators, and among the last by Schmieder, that the oneness of the heart represents its uprightness and undivided state, cannot be sustained; on the contrary the standing expression for this is. The opposite to the one heart is described in Is. liii. 6: we turned every one to his own way." In the natural state there are as many different dispositions as hearts; God makes all hearts and dispositions There can only be "one heart," where there is a "new spirit." The old spirit always produces distraction. The heart of flesh in contradistinction to the heart of stone (the expressions are peculiar to Ezekiel) denotes a tender heart susceptible of impression from the mercy of God. The fact, that the heart of man is only rendered so by the mercy of God, is a proof of its *natural condition. So far as divine things are concerned, it is by nature as hard and unimpressible as a stone; the word of God and the outward dealings of his providence pass over it and leave no trace behind. The latter, indeed, may crush it, but not break it; not only do the fragments continue hard, but the hardness even increases. The spirit of God alone can produce a soft and broken heart. For a parallel in words see chap. xxxvi. 26; for one in sense see Jer. xxxi. 33 (compare the remarks on this passage).

Ver. 20. "That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and they become my people and I become their God."

This passage is founded upon Lev. xxvi. 3: "if ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments and do them (ver. 4),

I will give you rain in due season, &c.-(and after a long list of blessings the whole is summed up in ver. 12), I will be your God and ye shall be my people;" see Jer. xxxi. 33. It is through the operation of God alone, that the covenant nation becomes a covenant nation in its conduct, that the name of God is sanctified in it, and his will accomplished therein; and where this has once taken place, where the vocation of the covenant-people has been fulfilled in this respect, the rest necessarily follows: the nation becomes his nation in its condition, God is sanctified in it and becomes its portion with the whole fulness of his blessings.

Ver. 21. "But as for those, whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord Jehovah."

In conclusion, those who through their own fault do not receive the prerequisite of mercy, the new heart, and therefore do not walk in the commandments of God, are expressly excluded from the mercy itself. itself. Even in the people of the new covenant there is still a corrupt substratum; even among them a new object presents itself for the exercise of the justice of God. "Walking according to the heart of the idols" is opposed to walking according to the heart of God. Whether the idols have any outward existence, or not, does not affect the question. It is enough that their essential characteristic, sin, is really there. The idols are merely the personification, or objective expression of sin.

THE SECTION.-CHAP. XVI. 53-63

Jerusalem has acted even worse than Samaria and Sodom. Called to be the ruling power over the heathen world, she has fallen into heathenism herself, and thus has shown base ingratitude towards the Lord, who had compassion on her misery in the time of her youth and so richly adorned her with his gifts. As she has inwardly placed herself on a level with Sodom and

Samaria, she is also to become theif companion in misery, ver. 1 -52.

But this is not the end of the ways of God. Jerusalem is not left in misery, because of the covenant made with her in the time of her youth; and Samaria and Sodom are not left in misery, because they are even less guilty than Jerusalem, and may therefore share with her in the saving mercy of God, which must work all in all. Salvation goes forth from Jerusalem, and Samaria and Sodom are received into its fellowship. All boasting ceases. There remain to Judah only shame and confusion, because, notwithstanding the depth of its fall, the Lord still raises it to the height of its destination.

We have here a picture of the world's history, to which a New Testament parallel may be found in Rom. xi. 29 sqq. In this passage as in the former the fundamental thought is: ovvéκλεισε ὁ θεὸς τοὺς πάντας εἰς ἀπείθειαν ἵνα τοὺς πάντας ἐλεήσῃ. (Angl. God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all) Rom. xi. 32.

Ver. 53. "And I return to their captivity, to the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and to the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and to the captivity of thy captivity in the midst of them."

That always means to return to captivity,' and that the term captivity in this particular phrase is a figurative expression, denoting misery, I have already proved both in my commentary on Ps. xiv. 7 and in my Beiträge, vol. ii. p. 104 sqq. Captivity or imprisonment, in the strict sense of the word, is not applicable here, since the inhabitants of Sodom were not carried away captive, but exterminated. We have here a sacred parody, so to

1 We might appeal in favour of the transitive meaning of in Kal (reducere, restituere) to the Samaritan name of the Messiah, Hashab or Hathab, if Gesenius were right in rendering this name conversor (carm. Samarit p. 75). But de Sacy (in his notices et extraits, vol. xii. p. 29 and 209) has shown that the name more probably denotes the returning one; and Juynboll (chron. Samarit. p. 52) supposes that the Messiah was called by this name, because he was regarded as the returning Moses, an opinion which is favoured by the fact, that the Samaritans, who only recognised the authority of the Pentateuch, based their expectation of a Messiah upon Deut. xviii. 18, where the Lord says to Moses: "A prophet will I raise up unto them like unto thee;" cf. Bargès les Samaritains de Naplouse Par. 55 p. 90, Shiloh they did not regard as a name of the Messiah, but applied it to Solo mon, who was hated by them. (Part 1. p. 96. Burges p. 91).

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speak, on the original passage in Deut. xxx. 3 (cf. Zeph. ii. 7), which speaks of the return of the Lord to the captivity of Israel alone. In the present case the most notorious sinners in the heathen world are placed on a par with Israel. The daughters of Sodom are the cities of minor importance, which were punished along with her. Many commentators have been greatly perplexed by this announcement of the return of the Lord to the captivity of Sodom, "because," as the Berleburger Bible correctly observes, "the rest of their maxims prevented them from giving anything but a forced interpretation to the passage." It also says: "if we admit, what some affirm, that there is a peculiar restoration even after death, the whole becomes easy, and may be interpreted with strict literality, as meaning that the inhabitants of Sodom, by virtue of this visitation, will eventually find mercy;" but if we adopt this as correct, we must substitute for restoration, which is unscriptural, the continuation of the institutions of salvation even after death in the case of those who have not enjoyed the means of grace in the entire fulness upon earth. We cannot for a moment think of the physical restoration of the soil, on which these cities formerly stood. For, apart from other difficulties, this would not be a genuine return of the Lord to the captivity of Sodom, seeing that the substance of Sodom is to be found in its inhabitants, who have perished and left no trace behind, and who cannot obtain mercy even in their descendants. The mercy of the Lord, which is celebrated here, could only be manifested by the extension of grace to the same daring sinners, who formerly lived in Sodom, either personally, or in their descendants. We are just as little able to subscribe to the opinion expressed by Origen and Jerome among the ancients, and last of all, by Hävernick among the modern expositors, that Sodom is used here in a typical sense to represent heathenism in general. Undoubtedly, if even Sodom finds mercy, it follows that the same mercy will be extended to the whole heathen world. From the part we may confidently draw conclusions as to the whole, and the correctness of this conclusion is substantiated by chap. xlvii., where the waters of the Dead Sea of the world are represented as being healed by the stream from the sanctuary. At the same time the direct and primary reference can only be to Sodom itself. We are sustained in this

assertion by the relation in which it stands to Samaria and Jerusalem, and still more decidedly by the special reference to Sodom itself, to its sins and destruction, in ver. 48-50. If Sodom is interpreted as meaning the world, the allusion to its captivity becomes unintelligible, for nothing has hitherto been said about the misery of the world. The attempt, which several commentators have made, to show that the Ammonites and Moabites are intended, is also a mere loophole to escape from the difficulty. For there was no internal connexion whatever between these nations and Sodom and Gomorrha. Lot, their forefather, sojourned in Sodom merely as a foreigner (Gen. xix. 9, xiii. 12.) In the captivity of Sodom and its daughters the Moabites had no share. If it be admitted, that the passage can only relate to the forgiveness of the inhabitants of Sodom and the other cities in the valley of the Jordan in a future state, it is evident that we have here the Old Testament parallel to 1 Pet. iii. 19, iv. 6; especially as it is clear from ver. 61 that the salvation promised to Sodom was to consist in its reception into the kingdom of God, and the consequent enjoyment of all the blessings of that kingdom. One thought is common to all these passages, viz. that all judgments, inflicted before the time of Christ, were merely provisional in their character, and could not be regarded as a final decision. In the first: "by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient," &c., the primary reference is merely to the daring sinners before the flood, just as in this passage it is only to the notorious sinners in Sodom. But the second shows that the particular species represent the whole genus, since the dead generally are spoken of there: "for this cause was the gospel preached to them that are dead; that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." This passage serves so far to complete the first, that it

1 The explanation of J. Gerhard, which has been improved by Besser, that the preaching referred to was the preaching of Noah in the spirit of Christ, is completely refuted by the word nopeudeìs; (cf. ver. 22, where Topevoeìs is applied to the ascension of Christ, just as here it is applied to the descent to hell.)

2 Roos: Caro est humanitas terrestris, mortalis et infirma horum hominum, quae judicium dei experta est: spiritus vero eadem humanitas coelestem indolem nacta, quae exantlato judicio vitae secundum deum compos fit.