A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

Looking at the Scriptures with a puff of fresh air!

Then Isaac his father answered and prophesied, saying, “Thy dwelling shall be away from the fatness of the earth; and away from the dew of heaven above; Genesis 27:39

“And by your sword shall you live, you will go to every place, and wander, and you will be subject to your brother. But when his descendants abandon the commandments of the Torah, then you will break his yoke from your neck.”

“And Esau harbored hatred in his heart against Jacob, his brother, because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, ‘I will not do as Cain did, who killed Abel during their father’s lifetime and then their father had another son, Seth. Rather, I will wait until the days of mourning for my father have passed, and then I will kill Jacob my brother, and I will be the sole heir.'” Genesis 27:41-42 Targum (Jonathan)

“The anger of the Lord shall not return, until He has executed and until He has performed the intent of His thought; in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly.” Jeremiah 23:20

Genesis 25

¹ Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. — and her name was Keturah; who she was, or of what family, is not said. Abraham was 137 years of age at Sarah’s death, and lived to be 175;

— it is quite possible that, left solitary by Isaac’s marriage, he took Keturah to wife, and had by her six sons; yet Keturah is called Abraham’s concubine, or secondary wife (1Ch 1:32)

² And she bore him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan, and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. — Midian is the one son of Keturah who had a great future before him, for his race became famous traders (Genesis 37:28); Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, belonged to them (Exodus 2:15-16)

³ And Jokshan begot Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim. — Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim; these are certainly not the names of men, but of the three tribes;

⁴ And the sons of Midian: Ephah and Epher, and Hanoch and Abidah and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. — they to be sons of Abraham by Keturah, when they were his actually grandchildren;

⁵ And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. — And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac; as he was bound to do, not only in justice to Sarah his first wife, but also to Rebekah, who married Isaac upon this assurance;

⁶ But unto the sons of the concubines whom Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and while he yet lived he sent them away from Isaac his son, eastward unto the east country. — but unto the sons of the concubines; that is, of Hagar and Keturah; migrated to “the east country,” that is, Arabia and Southern Mesopotamia;

⁷ And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, a hundred threescore and fifteen years. — Abraham’s years were a hundred and seventy-five; he survived Sarah thirty-eight years, and Isaac’s marriage thirty-five, and Jacob and Esau must how be fifteen years of age at this time.

⁸ Then Abraham gave up the ghost and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. —‘full of years’ in the original it is only, “and full” and does not seem to be a mere synonym for longevity; but appreciating all the good and unpleasantness of life, much like Job and David also had;

⁹ And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre, — none of the six sons of Keturah were present; and had no particular blessing bestored upon them; perhaps they were apparently already sent far away into the far end of Arabia, while Ishmael was nearer at Paran;

¹⁰ the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth. There was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife. — there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife; Sarah had been buried there thirty eight years before, which was the reason why his sons buried, him there;

¹¹ And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi. — God blessed Isaac; for the blessing of Abraham did not die with him, but was perpetuated to his posterity, and especially to the children of the promise;

— the Targum of Jonatham adds some complexities, says:

And because Abraham had not designed to bless Ishmael, therefore he blessed not Izhak; for had he blessed Izhak and not Ishmael, it would have kept them in enmity.

But, after the death of Abraham, the Lord blessed Izhak; and Izhak dwelt near the well at which was revealed the glory of the Living and Eternal One, who seeth and is not seen.

¹² Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bore unto Abraham. — Ishmael had twelve sons, whose families became distinct tribes; they populated a very large country that lay between Egypt and Assyria, called Arabia.

¹³ And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam, — the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth: mentioned in Isaiah 60:7; and from whence a people of the Arabs are called Nabathaeans, and their country Nabathaea; they inhabit the town and capital at Petra;

¹⁴ and Mishma and Dumah and Massa,

¹⁵ Hadar and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.

¹⁶ These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns and by their castles, twelve princes according to their nations. — twelve princes according to their nations; these were princes, or heads of tribes, and there were twelve of them;

¹⁷ And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, a hundred and thirty and seven years; and he gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people. — then he also was gathered to his people at the age of a hundred and thirty-seven; he died in the presence of all his brethren;

¹⁸ And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt as thou goest toward Assyria; and he died in the presence of all his brethren. — and he died in the presence of all his brethren; they being present when he died, or in peace with them, in all prosperity along with them;

¹⁹ And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham begot Isaac.

²⁰ And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah for a wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. — the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian, they were originally Chaldees, being descended from Nahor the brother of Abraham, who both were of Ur of the Chaldees; so Jacob is called a Syrian.

²¹ And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord was entreated by him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. — and Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife; though God had promised to multiply his family, he prayed for it;

— the Targum of Jonathan says, that, after twenty years, Isaac took her and went with her to Mount Moriah, to the place where he was bound, and prayed that she might conceive; putting the Lord in mind of the promise he there made of the multiplication of Abraham’s seed; and Rebekah conceived; two sons at once;

²² And the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it be so, why am I thus?” And she went to inquire of the Lord. — say the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem; and she went to inquire of the Lord; to the school of Shem the great;

²³ And the Lord said unto her, “Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy body; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.”

— the Targums of Jonathan says

“And the children struggled within her, and it was like men fighting. And she said, ‘If this is the pain of pregnancy, why do I desire children?’ So she went to the study hall of Shem the Great to seek mercy from before the Lord.”

“And the Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two kingdoms will separate from your belly. One kingdom will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger if the descendants of the younger keep the commandments of the Torah.'” Genesis 25:22-23 Jonathan

²⁴ And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. — and when her days to be delivered were fulfilled; the nine months were up from the time of her conception; or, as the Targum of Jonathan, when the two hundred and seventy days she went with child were completed;

²⁵ And the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. — red, like a hairy garment; with red hair all over his body, as if he had been already a grown man, whence he had his name, Esau, made, reared already;

— the Targum of Jonathan says,

and the first came forth wholly red, as a garment of hair: and they called his name Esau, because he was born altogether complete, with the hair of the head, and the beard, and teeth, and grinders;

²⁶ And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was threescore years old when she bore them. — and his name was called Jacob; by his parents; because he took his brother by the heel, which his name has the signification of, and Esau has respect to in Genesis 27:36,

²⁷ And the boys grew. And Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. — Esau a cunning hunter and equally had a tent for his abode, but Jacob stayed at home, and busied about the flocks and cattle; hence he was the mother’s darling, while Isaac preferred his more enterprising son.

²⁸ And Isaac loved Esau, because he ate of his venison; but Rebekah loved Jacob. — because he did eat of his venison, literally, because the venison—that is, the produce of Esau’s hunting—was in his mouth; in our phrase, was to his taste—was what he liked;

— but Rebekah loved Jacob upon better grounds, both because of his more pious and meek temper, and because of the oracle and promise of God.

²⁹ And Jacob boiled pottage; and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. — and Esau came from the field, and be was faint: for want of food, and weary with hunting, and perhaps more so, having toiled and got nothing;

³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint”; therefore was his name called Edom. — therefore was his name called Edom; besides from his red hair, but more from this red pottage; for Edom signifies red;

³¹ And Jacob said, “Sell me this day thy birthright.” — and Jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright; which had many privileges annexed to it; a double portion of inheritance; some say the exercise of priesthood, but that is questioned; the parental blessing;

³² And Esau said, “Behold, I am at the point of dying. And what profit shall this birthright be to me?” — Esau said, I am at the point to die; that is, I am running daily risk of my life; and of what use will the birthright be to me;

³³ And Jacob said, “Swear to me this day.” And he swore unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. — and he sware unto him; that he would abide by the bargain, and never give him any trouble on that account; God himself being appealed to as a witness of it;

³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he ate and drank, and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. — thus Esau despised his birthright; he used no means to get the bargain revoked, made no appeal to his father about it.

Genesis 26

¹ And there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines, unto Gerar. — it is probable that Abraham was now dead; in that case, Esau and Jacob would be at least fifteen years of age when the following event occurred;

² And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, “Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. — and the Lord appeared unto Isaac, Go not down into Egypt; it being a very fruitful place, washed by the Nile; and Jonathan says it was in the heart of Isaac to go down into Egypt;

³ Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father.

— and I will be with thee, and I will bless thee; with his presence; with protection from all enemies; with a supply of all the necessaries of life; and with all spiritual blessings, and with eternal life and happiness: for unto thee, and to thy seed, will I give these countries; inhabited at that time by the Philistines, Canaanites, and the several tribes of them;

⁴ And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, — I will make thy seed to multiply; here we find a renewal to Isaac of all God’s promises made to Abraham; in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;

— perhaps Abraham might suppose God spoke of his immediate seed, namely, of Isaac; but when he came upon the stage of life, he brought no such blessing with him; and when the promise was renewed to him in the very same words, it became evident that the seed which was to be this universal blessing was still to come;

⁵ because Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” — my voice, my charge, my commandments: this variety of expression seems to be designed to show the universality and exactness of Abraham’s obedience, that he readily complied with every intimation of the divine will;

⁶ And Isaac dwelt in Gerar. — Gerar was probably a trading town between Syria and Egypt, and therefore Isaac’s needs during the famine are here supplied;

⁷ And the men of the place asked him concerning his wife. And he said, “She is my sister”; for he feared to say, “She is my wife,” lest, said he, “the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon.” — we now find Isaac imitating his father’s example with even less reason for his unjustifiable conduct;

⁸ And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was frolicking with Rebekah his wife. — Abimelek observes Isaac sporting with Rebekah as only husband and wife should;

— constrains him to confess that she is his wife, charges him with the impropriety of his conduct, and commands his people to refrain from harming either of them on pain of death;

⁹ And Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, of a surety she is thy wife; and how saidst thou, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said unto him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die for her.’” — lest I die for her; for her sake, that another might have and enjoy her; it was fear of losing his life that led him to take such a step, and give out that she was his sister, like his father, Abraham.

¹⁰ And Abimelech said, “What is this thou hast done unto us? One of the people might lightly have lain with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.”

¹¹ And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, “He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” — whoever shall go near to injure this man or his wife, shall verily be put to death.

¹² Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. — an hundredfold, that is, a hundred times as much as he sowed; the same degree of increase is repeated in Matthew 13:8;

¹³ And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great. — Isaac became increasingly great and strong, until he was very powerful and his wealth very great;

¹⁴ For he had possession of flocks and possession of herds, and great store of servants; and the Philistines envied him. — so that the Philistines envied Isaac, which makes men grieve at the good of others;

¹⁵ For all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth. — and the Philistines endeavoured to do him injury by stopping up and filling with rubbish all the wells that had been dug in his father’s time;

¹⁶ And Abimelech said unto Isaac, “Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we.” — and even Abimelech requested Isaac to depart, because he was afraid of his power; his family being greatly increased, his servants numerous;

¹⁷ And Isaac departed from thence, and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar and dwelt there. — Isaac’s retreats from Gerar and its suburbs, and takes up his abode in the valley, or wady of Gerar.

¹⁸ And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham; and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

— and Isaac digged those rather than new ones, partly to keep up his father’s memory, and partly because he had most right to them, and others less cause of quarrel with him about them.

¹⁹ And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. — and found there a well of springing water; or “living water” which flows continually;

²⁰ And the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” And he called the name of the well Esek [that is, Contention], because they strove with him. — and Isaac called the name of the well Esek: which signifies “contention” because they strove with him;

²¹ And they dug another well, and strove for that also; and he called the name of it Sitnah [that is, Hatred]. — signifies “hatred” it being out of hatred and malice to him that they gave him so much trouble;

²² And he removed from thence, and dug another well, and for that they strove not; and he called the name of it Rehoboth [that is, Room]. And he said, “For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

— and we shall be fruitful in the land; his flocks and his herds increase, having good pasturage and watering for them, and so he and his family be in prosperous circumstances.

²³ And he went up from thence to Beersheba. — and Isaac went south from thence to Beer-sheba;

— this was a very serious act on Isaac’s part as he leaves the solitudes where he had found a refuge from the enmity of the Philistines, and returns to a place scarcely five leagues distant from their city;

²⁴ And the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for My servant Abraham’s sake.” — Isaac is again and again reminded of the relation in which his father stood to God;

— fear not; any future famine, nor want of any good things, nor any enemies, the Philistines his neighbours, who had driven him from their country, and had harassed him from place to place;

— and multiply thy seed, for my servant Abraham’s sake; who was a faithful, diligent, servant of his; whose service was, not forgotten by him;

²⁵ And he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well. — and he builded an altar there; at Beersheba, where his father Abraham had planted a grove before, and very probably had built an altar also, though it might not be now standing, Genesis 21:33,

— and there Isaac’s servants digged a well; in order to find water for the family, and for the flocks and herds; and called upon the name of the Lord; and gave him thanks for all his mercies to him; for the care he had taken of him, and provision he had made for him especially during the time of famine; 

²⁶ Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath one of his friends and Phichol the chief captain of his army. — then Abimelech went to Isaac; as there was a lapse of ninety years between the visit of Abraham and of Isaac, the Abimelech and Phichol spoken of must have been different persons’ official titles;

— then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, after Isaac was settled at Beersheba, and was still increasing in his family and substance;

²⁷ And Isaac said unto them, “Why come ye to me, seeing ye hate me and have sent me away from you?” — wherefore come ye to me? Isaac’s return had brought matters to a crisis, and the king must now decide whether there was to be peace or war;

²⁸ And they said, “We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee; and we said, ‘Let there be now an oath between us, even between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, — Let there be now an oath; the word literally signifies a curse; each side uttered an imprecation, with the prayer that it might fall upon himself if he broke the terms of the covenant;

²⁹ that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace. Thou art now the blessed of the Lord.’” — as we have not touched thee; not done the least injury to him, to his person, family, and substance, but suffered him to go away with nothing but good; by royal authority;

³⁰ And he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. — and they did eat and drink; freely and in a friendly manner; for both having spoken their minds, they agreed to bury all former things oblivion, and live in peace and friendship;

³¹ And they rose up early in the morning and swore one to another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. — and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace; he took his leave of them in a friendly manner to mutual satisfaction;

³² And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac’s servants came and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said unto him, “We have found water.” — not only had dug a well, but they had found plenty of water, and that which was good; or otherwise it would not have been worth while to have troubled Isaac;

³³ And he called it Shebah [that is, An oath]; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba [that is, The well of the oath] unto this day. — the well of the oath: it had been so called by Abraham an hundred years ago or more; but now upon this occasion it was renewed and confirmed;

³⁴ And Esau was forty years old when he took for a wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, — Esau, by thus inter marrying with idolaters he violated the great principle laid down by Abraham (Genesis 24:3), forfeited thereby his birthright, and, as such marriages were beyond righteousness;

³⁵ who were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah. — which were a grief of mind unto Isaac, and to Rebekah; although Esau partially repented, and took as a third wife a daughter of Ishmael (Genesis 28:9).

Posted in Books of Moses

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Genesis 23

¹ And Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years old; these were the years of the life of Sarah. — Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old; Sarah is the only woman whose age at her death is mentioned in the Bible, an honour doubtless given her as the ancestress of the Hebrew heritage.

² And Sarah died in Kirjatharba (the same is Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. — Abraham came to mourn; at this period Abraham was in quiet possession of several homes, and apparently was himself at Beersheba when Sarah died at Hebron, where probably he had left Isaac in charge of his mother and the cattle;

— the Targum of Jonathan says, “And Sarah died in Kiryath Arba, which is Hebron. And Abraham came from the mountain of worship, and found that she was dead; and he sat to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.”

³ And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke unto the sons of Heth, saying, — the sons of Heth; it now appears that it was associates of the Hittites, a race who, while the Israelites sojourned in Egypt, became so powerful as to contend for empire with the Egyptians themselves;

⁴ “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me a possession for a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” — sell me a possession of a buryingplace with you; not that he desired it as a free gift, but that he might be allowed to make a purchase of a piece of ground to bury his dead in;

⁵ And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, — the children of Heth, so called from Heth the son of Canaan, Genesis 10:15, “And Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth;”

⁶ “Hear us, my lord: Thou art a mighty prince among us; in the choicest of our sepulchers bury thy dead. None of us shall withhold from thee his sepulcher, that thou mayest bury thy dead.” — in the choice of our sepulchres; the meeting between Abraham and the Hittites is marked by the utmost courtesy on both sides;

⁷ And Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. — Abraham bowed himself; thus returning them thanks for their kind offer, with all proper decency and respect.

⁸ And he communed with them, saying, “If it be in your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, — hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar; a principal man among the Hittites, who had a field and a cave in it;

⁹ that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which he hath, which is in the end of his field. For as much money as it is worth he shall give it to me as a possession for a burying place amongst you.” — the cave of Machpelah; seems like a double cave as the Targum of Jonathan renders it, “the double cave” consisting probably of an outer and an inner compartment;

— the Message Bible has these few verses as:

Then Abraham got up, bowed respectfully to the people of the land, the Hittites, and said, “If you’re serious about helping me give my wife a proper burial, intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar.

“Ask him to sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, the one at the end of his land. Ask him to sell it to me at its full price for a burial plot, with you as witnesses.” Genesis 23:87-9 MSG

¹⁰ And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all who went in at the gate of his city, saying, — the transaction now comes to be between Abraham and Ephron; the sons of Heth were seated in council, and Ephron among them.

¹¹ “Nay, my lord, hear me: The field give I thee; and the cave that is therein, I give it to thee. In the presence of the sons of my people give I it to thee; bury thy dead.” — the field give I thee; not only the cave had been mentioned, but for its quiet possession the land around it as well;

¹² And Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land. — and Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land; showing hereby great respect, and giving much honour both to them and Ephron; 

¹³ And he spoke unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, “But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me. I will give thee money for the field. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there.” — I will give thee money; Abraham was rich in silver and gold, and therefore thought it unjust to take advantage of Ephron’s generosity;

¹⁴ And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,

¹⁵ “My lord, hearken unto me: The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that between me and thee? Bury therefore thy dead.”

— the Message Bible has these few verses as:

Abraham bowed respectfully before the assembled council and answered Ephron: “Please allow me—I want to pay the price of the land; take my money so that I can go ahead and bury my wife.”

Then Ephron answered Abraham, “If you insist, master. What’s four hundred silver shekels between us? Now go ahead and bury your wife.” Genesis 23:12-15

¹⁶ And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed the silver for Ephron which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth: four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. — Abraham weighed; current money with the merchant; shekel literally means weight, and money was not coined until long afterwards;

¹⁷ And the field of Ephron which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field that were in all the borders round about, were secured

¹⁸ unto Abraham as a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city.

¹⁹ And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre (the same is Hebron) in the land of Canaan.

²⁰ And the field and the cave that is therein were secured unto Abraham as a possession for a burying place by the sons of Heth.

— the Message Bible has these few verses as:

That’s how Ephron’s field next to Mamre—the field, its cave, and all the trees within its borders—became Abraham’s property. The town council of Hittites witnessed the transaction.

Abraham then proceeded to bury his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah that is next to Mamre, present-day Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and its cave went from the Hittites into Abraham’s possession as a burial plot. Genesis 23:17-20

Genesis 24

¹ And Abraham was old and well stricken in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. — Abraham, who was a centenarian at Isaac’s birth, would now be nearly 140; as he lived to be 175 (Genesis 25:7), he survived Isaac’s marriage thirty-five years, and lived to see Esau and Jacob nearly grown up.

² And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh;

— Eliezer, his servant, the Targum of Jonathan named him, the senior of his house, put thy hand under my thigh; as Jacob requires that Joseph should swear to him in the same manner (Genesis 47:29), this form of oath was evidently regarded as a very solemn one;

³ and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. — that thou wilt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites; these being not only idolaters, and very wicked people, the seed of the accursed Canaan; 

⁴ But thou shalt go unto my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” — my kindred, the family of Nahor, concerning the increase whereof he had received information, Genesis 22:20, which he justly preferred before the wicked Canaanites;

⁵ And the servant said unto him, “Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land. Must I bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?” — must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest? that is, must I agree with the woman on these terms, and promise that Isaac shall come and dwell with her in Mesopotamia?

⁶ And Abraham said unto him, “Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again. — it was dangerous for Isaac to go, where, though there was some knowledge of the true God, yet there was much idolatry there, lest he should be corrupted, and degenerate from the true religion.

⁷ The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke unto me and who swore unto me, saying, ‘Unto thy seed will I give this land,’ He shall send His angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife for my son from thence.

— saying, unto thy seed will I give this land; the land of Canaan; and therefore his son, in whom his seed was to be called, must not be removed from hence, and settled in another country;

⁸ And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath; only bring not my son thither again.” — then thou shalt be clear from this my oath; the sense is, when he had done all he could to get the consent of the damsel to go with him and marry his master’s son; and after all she could not be prevailed upon to come with him, then he was free from his oath;

⁹ And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning that matter. — and the servant, Eliezer, put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master; or being satisfied of the nature and extent of his oath, and thoroughly understanding how he was to act upon it;

¹⁰ And the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master and departed, for all the goods of his master were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. — the servant took ten camels to the city of Nahor; this was Harran (Genesis 27:43); the city of Nahor; this was the brother of Abraham;

¹¹ And he made his camels to kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. — Eliezer made his camels to kneel down; probably to unload them; kneeling, however, is the posture in which they take their rest.

¹² And he said, “O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray Thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. — as a circumcised member of Abraham’s household, the servant also prays to Yehovah, Abraham’s God;

¹³ Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water. — Eliezer stand here by the well of water, wishing, hoping that something would turn out that would direct and instruct what further to do, and that would lead on to the business he came about;

— and during the evening, the daughters of the men of the city came out to draw water; which was the usual custom in those days.

¹⁴ And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, ‘Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink,’ and she shall say, ‘Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also’ — let the same be she whom Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that Thou hast shown kindness unto my master.”

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

The servant took ten of his master’s camels and, loaded with gifts from his master, traveled to Aram Naharaim and the city of Nahor. Outside the city, he made the camels kneel at a well.

It was evening, the time when the women came to draw water. He prayed, “O God, God of my master Abraham, make things go smoothly this day; treat my master Abraham well!

As I stand here by the spring while the young women of the town come out to get water, let the girl to whom I say, ‘Lower your jug and give me a drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and let me also water your camels’

—let her be the woman you have picked out for your servant Isaac. Then I’ll know that you’re working graciously behind the scenes for my master.” Genesis 24:10-14 MSG

¹⁵ And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. — the response was immediate and direct. “He had not yet done speaking,” when the answer came.

¹⁶ And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her; and she went down to the well and filled her pitcher and came up. — neither had any man known her; not only was reckoned a virgin, but was really one, pure and incorrupt;

¹⁷ And the servant ran to meet her and said, “Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water from thy pitcher.” — and said, let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher; or taste a little of it, or suffer me to swallow a little of it;

¹⁸ And she said, “Drink, my lord”; and she hastened and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. — and she said, drink, my lord, signifying at once that he was welcome to drink what he would, giving him a very respectable title;

¹⁹ And when she had done giving him drink, she said, “I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking.” — she said, I will draw water for thy camels also; she proposed to go back to the well, and did, and fill her pitcher, and repeat it as often as was necessary, until the camels had enough;

²⁰ And she hastened and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. — and ran again to the well to draw water; and which must be repeated several times to have enough for all the camels;

²¹ And the man, wondering at her, held his peace to learn whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. — the servant, Eliezer, was astonished at the exactness and quickness with which his prayer was being answered;

²² And it came to pass, as the camels were done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold, — earring; really nose-ring; for in Genesis 24:47 the man places it on her nose, wrongly translated face in our version;

²³ and said, “Whose daughter art thou? Tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy father’s house for us to lodge in?” — whose daughter art thou? the reason of this question is, because by her answer to it he would know whether she was of the family related to Abraham;

²⁴ And she said unto him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore unto Nahor.” — which she bare unto Nahor; Abraham’s brother; so that her father was Nahor’s son, not by his concubine Reumah, but by his lawful wife Milcah.

²⁵ She said moreover unto him, “We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in.” — we have both straw and provender enough; for the camels, straw for their litter, and provender for their food, as hay, barley;

— and room to lodge in; for him and his men; this she could venture to say, and invite him to come and take up his quarters in her father’s house;

²⁶ And the man bowed down his head, and worshiped the Lord. — Eliezer bowed his head and worshipped; the bowing of the head and of the body are here combined to indicate the aged servant’s deep thankfulness and respect for the guidance of the Lord.

²⁷ And he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master from His mercy and His truth. I, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” — blessed be the Lord God of my master; here again this servant shows a noble example in returning thanks to God, as soon as he finds that his errand is likely to succeed.

²⁸ And the damsel ran and told those of her mother’s house these things. — and the damsel ran; having invited him to come and lodge at her father’s house, that he might not be brought in abruptly, she ran before to acquaint the family of what had passed;

²⁹ And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban; and Laban ran out unto the man by the well. — her brother Laban had responsed to her account, hurried out to the stranger at the well, but her father Bethuel absent; perhaps being old, or sick in bed (but alive, verse 50), thus not involved;

³⁰ And it came to pass, when he saw the earring, and bracelets upon his sister’s hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, “Thus spoke the man unto me,” that he came unto the man; and behold, he stood by the camels at the well.

³¹ And he said, “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord. Why standest thou outside? For I have prepared the house, and room for the camels.” — being hospitable, Laban ready himself with his sister to find the man, and invite him, as a matter of course, to his father’s house.

³² And the man came into the house; and he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender to the camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. — and Eliezer ungirded his camels; took off their bridles, which hindered them from eating, as the Targum of Jonathan says; or loosed their girts and took off their burdens, that they might have rest;

³³ And there was meat set before him to eat; but he said, “I will not eat until I have told mine errand.” And he said, “Speak on.” — aware of this feeling, Abraham’s servant will not partake of Laban’s bread and salt until he has told his request;

³⁴ And he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. — I am Abraham’s servant, Eliezer; not Abraham himself, this undeceived Laban, if he so thought, but a servant of his;

³⁵ And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and He hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and menservants and maidservants, and camels and asses. — and he is become great; in the world, and highly honoured and esteemed among men:

³⁶ And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old, and unto him hath he given all that he hath. — and Sarah, my master’s wife; who must be well known to this family, by name at least, being, as is generally supposed, the sister of Milcah, Nahor’s wife, and Bethuel’s mother;

³⁷ And my master made me swear, saying, ‘Thou shalt not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell; — and my master made me swear; the servant relates the oath his master made him take, and the charge he gave him,

³⁸ but thou shalt go unto my father’s house and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.’ — the servant declined all attention to his own comforts till he had told his master’s mission and his errand;

³⁹ And I said unto my master, ‘Perhaps the woman will not follow me.’

⁴⁰ And he said unto me, ‘The Lord, before whom I walk, will send His angel with thee and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son from my kindred and from my father’s house. — Abraham’s other children by Hagar and Keturah were dismissed with portions during his life, but the main bulk of his property was conveyed to Isaac.

⁴¹ Then shalt thou be clear from this my oath when thou comest to my kindred; and if they give not thee one, thou shalt be clear from my oath.’ — the words oath and curse are often times indifferently used, because they commonly go together, and sometimes they are both expressed, as an example in Numbers:

then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman — “the Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot and thy belly to swell. Numbers 5:21

⁴² And I came this day unto the well and said, ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, if now Thou do prosper my way which I go, — and said, O Lord God of my master Abraham; being come to the well, he prayed:

⁴³ behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass that when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, “Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink,”

⁴⁴ and she say to me, “Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels,” let the same be the woman whom the Lord hath appointed out for my master’s son.’

⁴⁵ And before I was done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the well and drew water. And I said unto her, ‘Let me drink, I pray thee.’ — speaking in mine heart; the idiom is far more exact and true: namely, before I had done speaking to my heart;

⁴⁶ And she made haste and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also’; so I drank, and she made the camels drink also.

⁴⁷ And I asked her and said, ‘Whose daughter art thou?’ And she said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore unto him’; and I put the earring upon her face and the bracelets upon her hands. — and she said, the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bare unto him:

⁴⁸ And I bowed down my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, who had led me in the right way to take my master’s brother’s daughter for his son. — and Eliezer, the servant, bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord;

⁴⁹ And now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.” — and if not, tell me: if you do not choose to gratify my master, and are not hearty in this matter, let me know.

⁵⁰ Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “The thing proceedeth from the Lord; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. — Rebekah’s father, Bethuel, is placed after the brother; is now finally in the scene; and his consent was finally given;

— but Josephus testifies differently:

Nor did she disdain to satisfy his inquiries, but told him her family. “They,” says she, “call me Rebeka; my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity.” (Antiquities. l. 1. c. 16. sect. 2)

⁵¹ Behold, Rebekah is before thee; take her and go, and let her be thy master’s son’s wife, as the Lord hath spoken.” — Bethuel, the father, had confirmed giving his consent;

⁵² And it came to pass, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, that he worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth. — and Eliezer, the servant, worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth;

⁵³ And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah; he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. — and Eliezer brought forth more jewels of silver, and gold;

⁵⁴ And they ate and drank, he and the men who were with him, and tarried all night; and they arose up in the morning, and he said, “Send me away unto my master.” — and they did eat and drink, he, Eliezer and the men that were with him, every thing being settled with respect to the affair he came about,

⁵⁵ And her brother and her mother said, “Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten. After that she shall go.” — no reason was given why they ask for a delay of ten days; or more, but;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds the father died feasting, asking for delays:

But as they were talking in the evening, Bethuel had eaten of that prepared food; and in the morning they found that he was dead.

And the brother and mother said therefore, Let the damsel dwell with us the days of one year or ten months, and then she shall go.

⁵⁶ And he said unto them, “Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way. Send me away, that I may go to my master.” — but Eliezer, the servant, resisted any more delays; knowing his master could be too anxious for any delay; and might end like Bethuel;

⁵⁷ And they said, “We will call the damsel, and inquire from her mouth.” — still urging his suit for permission to depart, they proposed the matter so important for all concern; so they decided to hear that from the horses’s mouth;

⁵⁸ And they called Rebekah and said unto her, “Wilt thou go with this man?” And she said, “I will go.” — her agreeing to go with the man directly, having no manner of objection on her mind, perhaps was under a divine impulse;

⁵⁹ And they sent away Rebekah their sister and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant and his men. — Rebekah and her nurse, named as Deborah as appears in Genesis 35:8;

⁶⁰ And they blessed Rebekah and said unto her, “Thou art our sister; be thou the mother of thousands of millions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those who hate them.”

— they, her mother, father, and brother blessed Rebekah; the meaning of this verse is, that they prayed God to make her very fruitful, and to render her posterity, the Edomites and Israelites, both victorious over their enemies;

— and let thy seed possess the gate of those who hate them; exercise dominion and authority over their enemies: the Suez and Parama canals;

⁶¹ And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels and followed the man; and the servant took Rebekah and went his way. — and Rebekah arose, and her damsels; her maids that were given her by her parents to wait upon her, as was usual in those days and times;

⁶² And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country. — for he dwelt in the south country: at Beersheba, to which Abraham, it seems, was returned again; for that they dwelt together;

⁶³ And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide; and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, the camels were coming. — to meditate; this is a characteristic of Isaac’s retiring, contemplative mood. Abraham was the active, authoritative father; Isaac was the passive, submissive son;

⁶⁴ And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she alighted from the camel. — she concludes at once that this must be he, and, alighting, asks if it be.

⁶⁵ For she had said unto the servant, “What man is this who walketh in the field to meet us?” And the servant had said, “It is my master”; therefore she took a veil and covered herself. — on being informed by the servant that this is his young master, she puts on the veil, which covers the head;

⁶⁶ And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. — no reference was made of Abraham; where was he and what happened to him? Living elsewhere?

⁶⁷ And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. — Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, partly to give her possession of it, and partly to consummate the marriage. Women then had their tents apart from men.

— and flashing forward for prophetic significance in the Targum of Jonathan:

“And upon thy sword shalt thou depend, entering at every place: yet thou shalt be supple and credulous, and be in subjection to thy brother [Jacob]; but it will be that when his sons [the children of Israel] become evil, and fall from keeping the commandments of the law, thou shalt break his yoke of servitude from off thy neck….and then will I kill Jakob my brother,” Genesis 27:40-41 Jonathan

or for a more modern unabridge version:

“And by your sword shall you live, you will go to every place, and wander, and you will be subject to your brother. But if his descendants abandon the commandments of the Torah, then you will break his yoke from your neck.”

“And Esau harbored hatred in his heart against Jacob his brother because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, ‘I will not do as Cain did, who killed Abel during their father’s lifetime and then their father had another son, Seth. Rather, I will wait until the days of mourning for my father have passed, and then I will kill Jacob my brother, and I will be the sole heir.'” Genesis 27:40-41 Jonathan (unabridge)

Posted in Books of Moses

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Genesis 21

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¹ And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken. — and the Lord visited Sarah as he had said; to Abraham, Genesis 17:16; in a way of graciousness and kindness, by fulfilling his promise, giving strength to conceive and bear a child;

² For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. — and bare Abraham a son in his old age; which circumstance is remarkable, that the favour might appear the greater, and the more wonderful;

— at the set time of which God had spoken to him, Genesis 17:21; God was not only faithful in fulfilling his promise, but in keeping the exact time of it.

³ And Abraham called the name of his son who was born unto him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. — Isaac; this name not only recorded the fact of the laughter of the father (Genesis 17:17) and of the mother (Genesis 18:12),

— but was a standing memorial that Isaac’s birth was contrary to nature, and one of which the promise was provocative of ridicule in the sight even of his parents; who was born according to the promise, at the set time of which God had spoken;

⁴ And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. — he circumcised his son; the covenant being established with him, the seal of the covenant, according to God’s command, was administered to him.

⁵ And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. — and Abraham was an hundred years old when son Isaac was born unto him; so that this was years after his departure from Haran, and coming into the land of Canaan, for then he was seventy five years of age;

⁶ And Sarah said, “God hath made me laugh, so that all who hear will laugh with me.” — Sarah said, God has made me to laugh; not through diffidence and irreverence, as my own distrustful heart before made me to laugh; but through excess of holy joy. He hath given me both cause and a heart to rejoice.

⁷ And she said, “Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck? For I have borne him a son in his old age.” — Sarah will nurse children; children, though she had but one child, either by a usual enallage of the plural number for the singular, whereby the word sons or daughters is used when there was but one;

— for she shall bring forth a son in her old age! that she who was ninety years of age should bear a child, and suckle it, as she did; and in doing she set an example to her daughters to do likewise, since neither age nor grandeur, were any objection to this duty of nature;

⁸ And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. — the child grew, and was weaned; according to tradition, Isaac was two years old when weaned.

⁹ And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. — mocking; the verb used here is the same as that rendered to laugh in Genesis 21:6, but in an intensive conjugation.

¹⁰ Therefore she said unto Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” — for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac; which he would seem to be, if continued, and would think himself so, and there would be continual bickerings about it;

¹¹ And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. — the issue was very grievous in Abraham’s sight, the matter was evil exceedingly in Abraham’s eyes;

¹² And God said unto Abraham, “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman. In all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. — let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of the bondwoman:

— that is, let not the motion displease thee, which Sarah has made, to turn out the bondwoman and her son; do not look upon the new situation as an ill thing, or as an hard thing; it is but what is right and proper to be done, and leave the bondwoman and her son to me; I will take care of them, be under no concern for them and their welfare;

¹³ And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.” — the son of the bondwoman; the handmaid; Hagar is never acknowledged as Abraham’s wife, though her child, as Abraham’s son, receives a noble promise for the father’s sake.

¹⁴ And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water; and he gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

— and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder; that is, the bread and the water, which might be put in one parcel or bundle, or in a basket, and so laid and carried on her shoulder: the Targum of Jonathan adds, “and bound it to her loins, to show that she was an handmaid and dismissed her with a letter of divorce:”

¹⁵ And the water in the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. — and the water was spent in the bottle; it was all drank up by them, having wandered about some time in a wilderness, where they could not replenish their bottle;

¹⁶ And she went and sat down apart from him a good way off, as it were, a bowshot; for she said, “Let me not see the death of the child.” And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept. — Hagar, in distress said, Let me not see the death of the child; she could not bear to hear his dying groans, and see him in his dying agonies;

¹⁷ And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, “What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. — God had heard the voice of the lad: Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand;

¹⁸ Arise; lift up the lad and hold him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation.” — Hagar is assured that he would recover and live, and become a man and the father of children, who in time would become a great nation;

¹⁹ And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. — God opened her eyes: he regarded her and directed her to a fountain close beside her, probably hidden amid brushwood, by the waters of which her almost expiring son was revived.

²⁰ And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. — God was with the lad; He grew an archer, or multiplied into a tribe of archers.

²¹ And he dwelt in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt. — a wife out of the land of Egypt; in Paran; that is, Arabia, where his posterity has ever dwelt;

— so the Arabians that live in the deserts and round about them, called Nabathees, from Nabaioth, another son of Ishmael; however natural this might be on Hagar’s part, it would nevertheless strengthen the heathen element in Ishmael and his descendants:

— Abraham’s posterity could be broken into four major groups: (1) Ismael: Arabs: Islam; (2) Esau: Catholics; (3) 10 Northern Tribes: Protestants; (4) Southern Tribes: Judaism

²² And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the chief captain of his host, spoke unto Abraham, saying, “God is with thee in all that thou doest. — that Abimelech and Phichol, the chief captain of his host, spake unto Abraham; Abimelech was king of Gerar, the same that is spoken of in the preceding chapter, and Phichol was the general of his army; these two great personages came together and paid Abraham a visit;

²³ Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son; but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.” — Abimelek, accompanied by Phikol, his commander-in-chief, proposes to form a league with Abraham;

— that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son; perhaps he had heard that God had promised to give the whole land of Canaan to him and his posterity, and among the rest his kingdom, which was a part of it;

— and, seeing him grow great and powerful, he could not tell how soon it might be ere he was put in the possession of it, whether in his own time, or his son’s, or his grandson’s; and therefore desires Abraham that he would swear to do no hurt to them whenever it should be; and that they might not be driven out, but sojourn in it as he had done.

²⁴ And Abraham said, “I will swear.” — and Abraham said, I will swear; grateful of the many favours he had received from Abimelech in times past, he very readily agreed to his proposal;

— that it would be over four hundred years before his posterity should be put into the possession of the land of Canaan; and therefore could take an oath that neither he, nor his son, nor his grandson, should be injured or dispossessed.

²⁵ And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away. — which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away: that is, had by force taken the use of it to themselves for their cattle, and had deprived Abraham of it;

²⁶ And Abimelech said, “I know not who hath done this thing; neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it until today.” — neither yet heard of it but today: he had not heard of it from others, as the Targum of Jonathan rightly adds, by way of explanation, but that very day, and not till the moment he had it from Abraham himself;

²⁷ And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them unto Abimelech, and both of them made a covenant. — and Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; in gratitude for former favours he had received from him, in token of the friendship that subsisted between them;

²⁸ And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. — in the seven ewe-lambs which Abraham tenders, and Abimelek, in token of consent, accepts at his hand.

²⁹ And Abimelech said unto Abraham, “What mean these seven ewe lambs, which thou hast set by themselves?” — what mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves? he understood what the sheep and oxen were for, that they were presents to him,

— at least some of them, and the rest were for the solemnizing and ratifying the covenant between them; but what these were for he could not devise.

³⁰ And he said, “These seven ewe lambs shalt thou take from my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have dug this well.” — and he said; that is, Abraham replied to Abimelech:

— that they may be a witness to me that I have digged this well: these were to be a testimony that the well that had been taken away from Abraham was one that he had dug, and was his property, and which Abimelech acknowledged by his acceptance of these seven lambs; and his title to the well, which these were a witness of.

³¹ Therefore he called that place Beersheba [that is, The well of the oath], because there they swore, both of them. — the Targum of Jonathan says, “and therefore he called the well the well of seven lambs;” “Beer” signifying a well, and “sheba” seven; being expressed, because there they sware both of them; by the living God, to keep the covenant inviolably they had made between them;

³² Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. — and they returned into the land of the Philistines; from Beersheba, which was in the extreme border of it, unto Gerar, which was the capital city.

³³ And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. — what sort of trees this grove consisted of cannot with certainty be said, nut probably the oak.

³⁴ And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days. — and Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days; even many years, days being often times put for years.

Genesis 22

¹ And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham and said unto him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Behold, here I am.” — and he said, behold, here I am; signifying that he heard his voice, and was ready to obey his commands, be whatever they would be;

— and the Targum of Jerusalem says this was Abraham’s tenth trial “these things that the Lord tried Abraham with the tenth trial”

— and the Maimonides lists them as follows:

1. G‑d tells him to leave his homeland to be a stranger in the land of Canaan
2. Immediately after his arrival in the Promised Land, he encounters a famine
3. The Egyptians seize his beloved wife, Sarah, and bring her to Pharaoh
4. Abraham faces incredible odds in the battle of the four and five kings
5. He marries Hagar after not being able to have children with Sarah
6. G‑d tells him to circumcise himself at an advanced age
7. The king of Gerar captures Sarah, intending to take her for himself
8. G‑d tells him to send Hagar away after having a child with her
9. His son, Ishmael, becomes estranged
10. G‑d tells him to sacrifice his dear son Isaac upon an altar

— the Targum of Jonathan says Isaac was 36 years of age, same as Chabad’s reckoning, but Josephus (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 13. sect. 2) says he was 25 years of age;

— besides, the Targum of Jonathan adds much details of the rivary between Isaac and Ishmael, which would be prophetic on the claimacy of being the firstborn:

And it was after these things that Izhak and Ishmael contended; and Ishmael said, It is right that I should inherit what is the father’s because I am his firstborn son.

And Izhak said, It is right that I should inherit what is the father’s, because I am the son of Sarah his wife, and thou art the son of Hagar the handmaid of my mother.

Ishmael answered and said, I am more righteous than thou, because I was circumcised at thirteen years; and if it had been my will to hinder, they should not have delivered me to be circumcised; but thou wast circumcised a child eight days; if thou hadst had knowledge, perhaps they could not have delivered thee to be circumcised.

Izhak responded and said, Behold now, today I am thirty and six years old; and if the Holy One, blessed be He, were to require all my members, I would not delay.

These words were heard before the Lord of the world, and the Word of the Lord at once tried Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Behold me.

² And He said, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” — thine only son Isaac; the words in the original are emphatic: “Take, I pray, thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac.”

³ And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he cleaved the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. — and saddled his ass; for his journey, not to carry the wood and provision on, which probably were carried by his servants, but to ride on;

— and Isaac his son: who was the principal person to be taken, since he was to be the sacrifice: whether Abraham acquainted Sarah with the affairs and she consented to it, cannot be said with certainty;

⁴ Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. — afar off; the summit called the Mountain of the House, usually identified with Mount Moriah, cannot be seen by a traveller from Beer-sheba at a greater distance than three miles; but Mount Moriah being forty miles from Beersheba;

⁵ And Abraham said unto his young men, “Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” — I and the lad will come again to you; for he knew that God both could and would for his promise sake, either preserve Isaac from being sacrificed, or afterward raise him from the dead;

⁶ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. — and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; a vessel in one hand, in which fire was to kindle the wood, and a knife in the other hand to slay the sacrifice;

⁷ And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” And he said, “Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” — “Here am I, my son?” is a little formal as a rendering. It is equivalent to a father’s reply: “Well, boy, what is it?”

— and he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering; a great hint that the sacrificial system did not originate with Moses. Genesis 22:7; and will be there again during the Millennium: Ezekiel 40-48

⁸ And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” So they went both of them together. — God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering; in which answer Abraham may have reference to the Messiah, the Lamb of God, John 1:29, whom he had provided in covenant before the world was; and who in promise, and type, was slain from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8

⁹ And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. — to the place which God had told him of; that is, Mount Moriah; this is the place where, later, David and Solomon built an altar in the threshing floor;

¹⁰ And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. — and Abraham stretched forth his hand; all things being ready for execution, the altar built, the wood laid on it, the sacrifice bound and laid on that, nothing remained but to cut the throat of the sacrifice;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds further details:

And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

And Izhak answered and said to his father, Bind me properly (aright), lest I tremble from the affliction of my soul, and be cast into the pit of destruction, and there be found profaneness in thy offering.

(Now) the eyes of Abraham looked on the eyes of Izhak; but the eyes of Izhak looked towards the angels on high, (and) Izhak beheld them, but Abraham saw them not.

And the angels answered on high, Come, behold how these solitary ones who are in the world kill the one the other; he who slayeth delays not; he who is to be slain reacheth forth his neck.

¹¹ And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” — and the Angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven; most likely not an ordinary angel, but the Son of God, for that this was a divine Person is clear from his swearing by himself, and renewing the promise unto Abraham;

¹² And He said, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” — and he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad; which he was just going to stretch out, with his knife in it, to slay him; and though the Lord had bid him take his son, and offer him for a burnt offering, to try his faith;

— the Lord will provide; probably alluding to what Abraham had said, God will provide himself a lamb. The Lord will always have his eye upon his people, in their straits and distresses, that he may give them seasonable help;

¹³ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked; and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. — and looked, and, behold, a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; where Abraham was, behind him and he saw it;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds details which Christians could readily infer the ram foreordained before “the foundation of the world” as the Son, who would also later be ordained as the Messiah:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw, and, behold, a certain ram which had been created between the evenings of the foundation of the world, was held in the entanglement of a tree by his horns. And Abraham went and took him, and offered him an offering instead of his son. Genesis 22:13 Jonathan

¹⁴ And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh [that is, The Lord will provide]; as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” — God will provide himself a lamb; this was purely the Lord’s doing: where reference was made to the promised Messiah;

¹⁵ And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time — the angel having restrained him from slaying his son, and having provided another sacrifice, calls him again;

¹⁶ and said, “By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, — by myself have I sworn; is a great oath, and abides for ever; for because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, his own nature, perfections, and life;

¹⁷ in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.

— and this seed is also promised the possession of the gate of its enemies, that is, the conquest of the enemy and the capture of his cities (cf Genesis 24:60: “and let thy seed possess the gate of those who hate them”)

¹⁸ And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.” — and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore;

— both his natural seed, descending from him in the line of Isaac, and his spiritual seed, all the nations of the earth be blessed, both among Jews and Gentiles;

¹⁹ So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. — Beersheba being south of both Hebron and Jerusalem.

²⁰ And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, “Behold Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor: — saying, behold Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor;

— as Sarah, supposed to be the same with Iscah, a daughter of Haran, had borne a son to him; so Milcah, another daughter of Harsh, had borne children to his brother Nahor, whom he had left in Ur of the Chaldees, when he departed from thence, and who afterwards came and dwelt in Haran of Mesopotamia;

²¹ Huz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, — Huz his (Nahor) firstborn, and Buz his brother; the first of these gave name to the land of Uz, where Job dwelt, and some speculate could be a descendant or related to Job;

²² and Chesed and Hazo, and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.” — all the names of Nahor’s eight children; and Bethuel became the father of Rebekah and Laban,

²³ And Bethuel begot Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

²⁴ And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bore also Tebah and Gaham, and Thahash and Maachah.

Posted in Books of Moses

“We must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God,” Acts 14:22

Genesis 19

¹ And there came two angels to Sodom at evening, and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. And Lot, seeing them, rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; — here came two angels; that is, two of the three that had just before been with Abraham, the two angels, who were now sent to execute God’s purpose concerning Sodom;

² and he said, “Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways.” And they said, “Nay, but we will remain in the street all night.”

— they said, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night; so they said, not only to give Lot an opportunity of evincing the sincerity and cordiality of his invitation, but because it was their real intention to abide in the street, to manifest the great difference between Lot and the barbarous Sodomites.

³ And he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him and entered into his house; and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. — Lot’s invitation; at first declined, is at length accepted; and they entered his house.

⁴ But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom — both young and old, all the people from every quarter —compassed the house around. — here were the old and young, all vile and from every quarter; for practices too shameful to be mentioned!

⁵ And they called unto Lot and said unto him, “Where are the men who came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.”

— bring them out unto us, that we may know them; not who they were, or from whence they came, or what their business was; nor did they pretend anything of this kind to hide and cover their design from Lot, but they were open and impudent, and declared their sin without shame and blushing;

⁶ And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him — and Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him;

⁷ and said, “I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. — Lot pleaded, do not so wickedly; as to use ill a man’s guests, to abuse strangers, to break the laws and rules of hospitality, and especially to commit that unnatural sin they were bent upon.

⁸ Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes. Only unto these men do nothing, for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.”

— I have two daughters; this was unadvisedly and unjustifiably offered, probably through the great discomposure and perturbation which his mind was in.

⁹ And they said, “Stand back.” And they said again, “This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will become a judge! Now will we deal worse with thee than with them.” And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

— and they said, stand back; turn on one side, get away from the door, that we may come to it;

— this one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge; this one man, and he a stranger and sojourner, not a citizen of this city, sets himself against the whole body of the inhabitants, and takes upon himself to be judge what is right and wrong;

¹⁰ But the men put forth their hands, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. — but the men, who were the two angels who had met Abraham, put forth their hand; they came to the door, and opened it, and put out their hands, one on one side the door, and the other on the other;

¹¹ And they smote the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. — again the men, who were the two angels, smote the others with blindness;

¹² And the men said unto Lot, “Hast thou here any besides? Soninlaw, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whomsoever thou hast in the city — bring them out of this place. — the men said; these were the angels who had met Abraham earlier;

¹³ For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them has waxed great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.” — again, the “we” are the two angels; who said “we will destroy this place”

— might be clearer from the Message Bible:

^10-11 But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door. Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.

^12-13 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have any other family here? Sons, daughters—anybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now! We’re going to destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to God are deafening; we’ve been sent to blast this place into oblivion.” Genesis 19:10-12 MSG

¹⁴ And Lot went out and spoke unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said, “Up, get ye out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city!” But he seemed as one who mocked unto his sons-in-law. — Lot spoke to his sons-in-law; it is a possibilty that these sons-in- law had married other daughters of Lot;

— according to Jewish sources, Lot had two other daughters that perished in Sodom; but according to Josephus (Antiquities. l. 1. c. 11. sect. 4) were espoused to men in the city, but not yet married; and on account of such espousals, as were usual in the eastern countries, Lot calls them his sons-in-law;

¹⁵ And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, “Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” — when the morning arose; Lot had thus the night for making his preparations, part of this he spent in his visits to his sons-in-law;

¹⁶ And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him; and they brought him forth and set him outside the city.

— while he lingered; he did not make so much haste as the case required, and this would have been fatal to him, if the angels had not laid hold on his hand, and brought him forth. Herein the Lord was merciful to him; and if God had not been merciful to them, their lingering had been their ruin;

¹⁷ And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth outside, that he said, “Escape for thy life! Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!” — look not behind thee; they must not loiter by the way; stay not in all the plain;

— for it would all be made into one dead sea; he must not take up short of the place of refuge appointed him; escape to the mountain; such are the commands given to those who are delivered out of a sinful state: first, return not to sin and second, rest not in the world, for that is staying in the plain.

¹⁸ And Lot said unto them, “Oh, not so, my lord. — oh, not so, my Lord; that is, let me not be obliged to go so far as to the mountain;

¹⁹ Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die.

— lest some evil take me, and I die; or “that evil” the burning of Sodom, and the cities of the plain, lest that should overtake him before he got to the mountain;

— thus Lot had some distrust of the power of God to strengthen him to go thither, who had appeared so wonderfully for him in his present deliverance; and he might have assured himself, that he that brought him out of Sodom would never suffer him to perish in the destruction of it.

²⁰ Behold now, this city is near enough to flee unto, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” — the MSG version says:

But Lot protested, “No, masters, you can’t mean it! I know that you’ve taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can’t run for the mountains—who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead.

Look over there—that town is close enough to get to. It’s a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life—it’s a mere wide place in the road.” Genesis 19:19-21 MSG

²¹ And he said unto him, “See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city for which thou hast spoken. — the MSG version says:

“All right, Lot. If you insist. I’ll let you have your way. And I won’t stamp out the town you’ve spotted. But hurry up. Run for it! I can’t do anything until you get there.” That’s why the town was called Zoar, that is, Smalltown. Genesis 19:19-21 MSG

²² Hasten thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou hast come thither.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. — therefore the name of the city was called Zoar; in later times, and probably first by Lot, from his use of the word “little” which was his request, which Zoar signifies; called Bela, see Genesis 14:2

²³ The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. — in haste; the ruin of Sodom was suspended till he was secure.

²⁴ Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord out of heaven; — the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire; the Lord (Yehovah יְהוָ֖ה);

— from the Lord (Yehovah יְהוָ֖ה) out of heaven; this destruction was brought upon them by Yehovah the Son of God, who had appeared to Abraham in an human form, and gave him notice of it, and heard all he had to plead for those cities, and then departed from him to Sodom,

— and the Son, who was the author of this catastrophe; this amazing shower of fire and brimstone was re-inforced and rained by him from Yehovah his Father, out of heaven; as the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem both call him, the Word of the Lord;

²⁵ and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. — and he overthrew those cities; of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim: very probably at the same time that this fiery tempest was from the heavens; and all the plain; the plain of Jordan, and the cities on it, all but Zoar;

²⁶ But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. — but his wife looked back from behind him; herein she disobeyed an express command; according to the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, she was a native of Sodom; hence menories of her kinmen and sons-in-law; and she became a pillar of salt;

²⁷ And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord; — stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom; he has an extensive view spread out before him which would be the Dead Sea.

²⁸ and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld. And lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. — the violence of the fire is indicated by the last word, which is not the ordinary word for a furnace, but means a kiln, such as that used for burning chalk into lime, or for melting ores of metal;

— the smoke of a furnace; after the fiery shower was over, and the cities burnt down, the smoke ascended toward heaven, as the smoke of mystical Babylon will do, Revelation 19:3; like the reek of a boiling cauldron; or like the smoke of a lime kiln always burning.

²⁹ And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when He overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. — the prayer or promise made by Abraham, Genesis 18:23-32, who doubtless in his promise for Sodom would not forget Lot;

³⁰ And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt on the mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. — for he feared to dwell in Zoar; probably he found it as wicked as Sodom; and therefore concluded it could not survive long;

— and dwelt in the mountain; which the Lord had directed him to go to before, but was unwilling, and chose Zoar, and his two daughters with him; and they dwelt in a cave;

³¹ And the firstborn said unto the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. — the whole earth; for they thought the same deluge of fire which destroyed the four cities, and all other places;

³² Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.” — and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of our father; have children by him, and propagate and preserve the human species; this incestuous copulations, they might think lawful;

³³ And they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. — he perceived not; wherein there is nothing strange, it being usual with drunken men to do many things in that condition, which, when they come to themselves, they perfectly forget.

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³⁴ And it came to pass on the morrow that the firstborn said unto the younger, “Behold, I lay yesternight with my father. Let us make him drink wine this night also, and go thou in and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.”

— the firstborn said to the younger, behold, I lay last night with my father; informed her, that what they had contrived succeeded according to her wish, and therefore, with her encouragement to go on, proposes to take the same method again;

³⁵ And they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. — and the younger arose, and lay with him following the bad example of her sister; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose;

³⁶ Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. — Lot’s daughters had so little feeling of shame in connection with their conduct, that they gave names to the sons they bore, which have immortalized their paternity;

³⁷ And the firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. — his name Moab; the Moabites, who originally inhabited the country northeast of the Dead Sea, and afterward, they occupied the district east of the Salt Sea;

³⁸ And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Benammi; the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day. — the Ammonites dwelt to the northeast of Moab, where they had a capital called Rabbah; they both ultimately merged into the more general class of the Arabs;

— and according to Deuteronomy 2:9, Deuteronomy 2:19, Israel was ordered not to touch the territory of either of these tribes because of their descent from Lot, Abraham’s nephew.

Genesis 20

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¹ And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and sojourned in Gerar. — and Abraham sojourned in Gerar; in the southern border of Canaan which were occupied by the Philistines. We are not told upon what occasion he removed;

² And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. — she is my sister; twenty years before, Abraham had acted in the same way in Egypt, and Pharaoh had rebuked him; she was now ninety years of age, yet her naturally beauty had not faded.

³ But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Behold, thou art but a dead man, because of the woman whom thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.”

— God came to Abimelech in a dream by night; put fear into his mind, by which he cautioned him against taking Sarah to be his wife; so careful was the Lord that no wrong should be done to such a godly and virtuous person, to which she was exposed through the weakness of her husband;

— and said unto him, behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; that is, God would punish him with death, unless he restored the woman, whom he had taken, to her husband; 

⁴ But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, wilt Thou slay also a righteous nation? — “Thou wilt die,” the point of death if he persisted; wilt thou also slay a righteous nation?

— he probably referred to the late destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain, which, no doubt, must have caused great consternation; and or he knew that this had been usual for people to suffer for the crimes of their governors, or kings, if they sin;

⁵ Said he not unto me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.” — in the integrity of my heart; not only does Abimelech assert this, but God himself (Genesis 20:6) admits the plea.

⁶ And God said unto him in a dream, “Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against Me. Therefore I suffered thee not to touch her. — without any adulterous design in my heart, or outward actions tending to it, being wholly ignorant of what thou now informest him.

⁷ Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live. And if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine.” — for he is a prophet; of course he is a true prophet of God;

— to whom he communicates his secrets; is able to foretell things to come, as well as to interpret the mind of God, that he might pray for him and save his life, and threatened him with certain death to himself and all belonging to him in case he should refuse;

— a prophet is God’s spokesman, who speaks with authority the things of God Exodus 7:1; Exodus 4:15. This implies two things: first, the things of God are known only to him, and therefore must be communicated by him; secondly, the prophet must be enabled of God to announce in correct terms the things made known to him.;

— these things refer not only to the future, but in general to all such matters as fall within the purpose and procedure of God, like Moses and Aaron in Exodus 7:1. They may even include things otherwise known or knowable by man, so far as these are necessary to the exposition of the divine will. Now Abraham has heretofore received numerous communications from God; this, also constitutes him a prophet;

⁸ Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were sore afraid. — and the men were sore afraid; lest they should be struck with death; and perhaps they might call to mind the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins, they had lately heard of, and might fear that some such calamity would befall them.

⁹ Then Abimelech called Abraham and said unto him, “What hast thou done unto us? And how have I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? Thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done.” — thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done; in saying Sarah was his sister, and persuading her to say the same;

¹⁰ And Abimelech said unto Abraham, “What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing?” — that thou hast done this thing? he desires to know what he had observed, either in him or his people, that gave him any reason to conclude that they were a lustful people, lest they should kill him for his wife’s sake.

¹¹ And Abraham said, “Because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife’s sake. — surely the fear of God is not in this place; this is a certain truth, which he thought might be depended upon, and taken for granted, since it was everywhere;

¹² And yet indeed she is my sister: she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. — and yet indeed she is my sister; in the same sense as Lot was his brother; for she was sister to Lot, and both were the children of Haran, the brother of Abraham;

¹³ And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said unto her, ‘This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me: at every place whither we shall come, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

— at every place whither we shall come, say of me; or for the sake of me, in order to save me from the hands of wicked men, whom he feared would slay him for her sake: he is my brother; and so he hoped, instead of being ill used or killed, he should meet with favour and friendship on her account;

¹⁴ And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and menservants and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored to him Sarah his wife. — the Philistine gives atoning presents on restoring Sarah, and grants her husband permission to dwell in his land wherever it pleased him; this also implies that he had done Abraham a wrong.

¹⁵ And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before thee. Dwell where it pleaseth thee.” — and Abimelech said, behold, my whole land is before thee; instead of bidding him be gone, and sending him away in haste out of his country, as the king of Egypt did;

¹⁶ And unto Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver; behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes unto all who are with thee and with all other.” Thus she was reproved. — behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee; a protection of her chastity: so an husband, in our language, is said to be a cover to his wife, or that she is under a cover;

¹⁷ So Abraham prayed unto God. And God healed Abimelech, and his wife and his maidservants; and they bore children, — and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants: who by reason of some disease were rendered unfit for and incapable of cohabitation with their husbands, and they with them;

— and they bare children; cohabited and conceived, bare and brought forth children, all which are comprehended in this expression.

¹⁸ for the Lord had closed up fast all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. — for the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech; with large tumours probably, so that they could not cohabit with their husbands and conceive.

Posted in Books of Moses

In view of our current turmoil in Butler County, here’s a Prophecy for reflection:

“The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness” Deuteronomy 28:28-29

Genesis 17

¹ And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, “I am the Almighty God. Walk before Me, and be thou perfect. — Abram was ninety years old and nine; thirteen years, therefore, had passed by since the birth of Ishmael, who doubtless during this time had grown very dear to the childless old man;

² And I will make My covenant between Me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” — and will multiply thee exceedingly; as he had before promised at several times, and now renews it, lest be should think that Ishmael was the promised seed;

³ And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying, — and Abram fell on his face while God was talking to him;

⁴ “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. — and thou shalt be a father of many nations: as he was of many Arabian nations in the line of Ishmael;

— and of the Midianites, and others, in the line of his sons by Keturah; and of the Israelites in the line of Isaac, as well as of the Edomites in the line of Esau; and in a spiritual sense the father of all that believe, in all the nations of the world, circumcised or uncircumcised;

⁵ Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. — a multitude of nations and kings are to trace their descent from Abram; the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve princes of Ishmael, Keturah’s descendants, and the dukes of Edom sprang from him; and many Arab tribes;

⁶ And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. — and I will make nations of thee; as the nations of Israel and Judah;

— of the Midianites and Edomites, of the Arabs, and and kings shall come out of thee; as the twelve princes of Ishmael, the kings of Edom and Midian, of the Arabs, and of Israel and Judah;

⁷ And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. — thy name shall be Abraham; it signified some new circumstance in the history, rank, or religion of the individual who bears it.

⁸ And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” — all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; this respects only the natural seed of Abraham, and those in the line of Isaac and Jacob;

⁹ And God said unto Abraham, “Thou shalt keep My covenant, therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. — thou, and thy seed after thee, in their generations; in successive ages;

¹⁰ This is My covenant which ye shall keep between Me and you and thy seed after thee: every manchild among you shall be circumcised. — circumcision to be a sign of entering into a covenant, and especially into one to which children were to be admitted;

— and even until the new age, where the uncircumcised wouldn’t be allowed into his Sanctuary, Ezekiel 44:7, 9; if such requirement applied to strangers what more of the Israelites, especially those serving in the inner court;

¹¹ And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant between Me and you. — the covenant of circumcision; as the rainbow, might have been in existence before it was adopted as the token of a covenant; is here said to be the covenant which Abraham and his seed must keep, as a copy or counterpart; it is a sign and a seal;

— the covenant is about the land; wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, that God would give to Abram and his seed for an everlasting possession; and every manchild among Abram and his seed shall be sealed into a covenant by being circumcised;

¹² And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every manchild in your generations, he that is born in the house or bought with money from any stranger who is not of thy seed. — any stranger who is not of thy seed, but want to live in the same land with the seed of Abram, shall be circumcised among you;

¹³ He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money must be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. — the everlasting covenant is about the land that God was planning to bestow upon those who are part of the covenant; nothing about everlasting life that came later;

¹⁴ And the uncircumcised manchild whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.” — this sealed only the covenant of the land of Canaan to Isaac’s posterity;

¹⁵ And God said unto Abraham, “As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. — Sarai is now formally taken into the covenant, as she is to be the mother of the promised seed;

¹⁶ And I will bless her and give thee a son also by her. Yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.” — a son of her: this is the first place where it was definitely promised that Abram’s heir should be Sarah’s own son.

¹⁷ Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?” — and laughed; not through distrust of the promise, as Sarah did (Genesis 18:12), for he staggered not at that through unbelief, but for joy at such good news; and so Onkelos renders it, “and he rejoiced”

¹⁸ And Abraham said unto God, “O that Ishmael might live before Thee!” — O that Ishmael might live before thee; he prays that Ishmael’s might be preserved, and that it might be spent in the fear, worship, and service of God; so the Targum of Jonathan says, “O that Ishmael might live and worship before thee,”

¹⁹ And God said, “Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. — Thou shalt call his name Isaac; that is, he laughs; the name was to be a perpetual memorial that Isaac’s birth was naturally such an impossibility as to excite ridicule.

²⁰ And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. — the blessings of the covenant are reserved for Isaac, but common blessings were abundantly promised to Ishmael; or twelve sons of Ishmael, his son by Hagar; and, adds he, these going into Arabia;

²¹ But My covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.” — but my covenant will I establish with Isaac, implying the covenant wasn’t with Ishmael;

²² And He left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham. — and God went up from Abraham; from the earth, where he had been with Abraham, and ascended above him up to heaven;

²³ And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him.

— and Abraham took Ishmael his son; to circumcise him; he took his son first, to set an example to his servants; which were three hundred and eighteen when he rescued Lot from the kings, Genesis 14:14; and perhaps they might be now increased;

²⁴ And Abraham was ninety years old and nine when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. — and Abraham was ninety years old and nine; when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin;

²⁵ And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. — Ishmael was thirteen years old; hence Arabs and Mohammedans defer circumcision to the thirteenth year.

²⁶ In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. — in the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son; this is repeated, that it might be taken notice of that both were circumcised according to the command of God, and on the very day in which it was given.

²⁷ And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money from the stranger, were circumcised with him. — born in the house, or bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him; by their will, and with their consent; not forced on them.

Genesis 18

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

¹ And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. — as Abraham was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day, reposing; then three “men” stood before him;

² And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground — three men; these three men were three spiritual, heavenly beings, now assuming human shapes, that they might be visible to Abraham,

³ and said, “My lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. — my lord; Heb ‘donai, a term of simple respect, or denoting one having authority;

⁴ Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree; — and wash your feet; which was very refreshing to travellers in hot countries, who walked barefoot or in sandals; and this he proposes to be done by one of his servants;

⁵ and I will fetch a morsel of bread and comfort ye your hearts. After that ye shall pass on, for therefor are ye come to your servant.” And they said, “So do, as thou hast said.” — and they said, so do as thou hast said; they agreed to it, that water should be fetched to wash their feet, and food for them to eat.

⁶ And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.” — Sarah is tasked and occupied with the baking;

⁷ And Abraham ran unto the herd and fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it unto a young man, and he hastened to dress it.

— Abraham and his servant are responsible for the selection and killing of a calf, the cooking of the meat, and the procuring of butter and milk from the herd; a meal in which meat is provided is a rarity in a Bedouin’s life, and is the sign of the offering of hospitality.

⁸ And he took butter and milk and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they ate. — and they did eat; or seemed to eat, though as they assumed bodies so animated as to be capable of talking and walking, why not of eating and drinking? as the Targum of Jonathan implies;

⁹ And they said unto him, “Where is Sarah thy wife?” And he said, “Behold, in the tent.” — Where is Sarah thy wife? by naming her, they gave intimation to Abraham, that though they seemed strangers, yet they well knew him and his family.

¹⁰ And he said, “I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son.” And Sarah heard it from the tent door, which was behind him. — Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him; the women’s place is in the back of the tent, normally divided by a thin partition from the men’s.

¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. — and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women; her monthly visitors had left her, so that she was unfit for conception, and there could be no hope of it in a natural way; —

¹² Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” — Sarah laughed; not from joy and admiration, but from distrust and contempt, as if it were incredible;

— Heb; in her heart, that is, she secretly derided it, though none but herself, as she thought, knew it.

¹³ And the Lord said unto Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old?’ — which am old? suggesting there was no reason for it, and signifying his displeasure and indignation.

¹⁴ Is any thing too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” — at the time appointed will I return to thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son; which words are repeated not merely for the confirmation of Abraham’s faith, which staggered not, but to remove any of Sarah’s doubts;

¹⁵ Then Sarah denied, saying, “I laughed not,” for she was afraid. And He said, “Nay, but thou didst laugh.” — somewhat a lie, to say she did not laugh when she did; which she might be tempted to say in her confusion; for she was afraid;

¹⁶ And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. — and looked toward Sodom; set their faces and steered their course that way, by which it appeared they intended to go thither:

— the Targum of Jonathan says that he that brought the news to Sarah “ascended to high heavens,” and the other two looked toward Sodom; but it seems most likely, that, when the two went on their way to Sodom, Abraham went with them for a distance;

— and upon Abraham’s return, the first may have descended from the first atmosphere, which is the first heaven (not the highest heaven), and continue his discourse with Abraham;

¹⁷ And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, — and the Lord said; (וַֽיהֹוָ֖ה) Yehovah the Hebrew word we call Lord, shows that this angel was God himself: for this word Yehovah is God.

¹⁸ seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. — the Jonathan says: Abraham is to be a great and mighty people, and through him shall all the peoples of the earth be blessed.

¹⁹ For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.” — this judgment upon Sodom is to be explained to him, that he may train his household to avoid the sins of this doomed city;

— “to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; and all this to the further intent that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him,” to do justice and judgment; to attend to all the laws, statutes, and judgments of God;

²⁰ And the Lord said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, — because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great; their sins were grievous; attended with very aggravated circumstances;

²¹ I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come unto Me; and if not, I will know.” — their cry, which ascends to heaven, is an appeal for judgement or punishment;

— I will go down and see; these cities were to be made examples to all future ages of God’s severity; and therefore ample proof given that the judgment was neither rash nor excessive; but well considered by God himself, (Eze 18:23; Jer 18:7).

²² And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. — but Abraham stood yet before the Lord; before the first person, whom Abraham now began to know more clearly;

— he stood before him with all reverence and humility, to hear what the Lord (Yehovah יְהוָֽה) had further to say to him, as well as to say something to him himself; he stood “yet” that is, he continued to stand after the departure of the two angels that were gone to Sodom. Onkelos and Jonathan paraphrase it, “he ministered in prayer before the Lord.”

²³ And Abraham drew near and said, “Wilt Thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? — Abraham prayed or pleaded earnestly that Sodom might be spared, if but a few righteous persons should be found in it.

²⁴ Perhaps there be fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? — within the city, within the pentapolis, which consisted of five cities:

— the Targum of Jonathan says, “perhaps there may be fifty righteous persons in the city who pray before thee, ten for every city, answerable to the five cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar:”

²⁵ That be far from Thee to do in this manner — to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” — to slay the righteous with the wicked? which is true of temporal calamities but certainly not true of eternal punishment;

— shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? meaning the Lord, to whom he drew nigh, and was pleading with, even the Son of God in human form, who, as he made the world, was the Governor of it and Judge in it; and indeed, as Mediator, has all judgment committed to him, and is appointed to be Judge of quick and dead at the last day;

²⁶ And the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” — then will I spare all the place for their sakes; not Sodom only, but the whole country, (Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar) of which Sodom was the chief;

²⁷ And Abraham answered and said, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, I, who am but dust and ashes. — but dust and ashes, yet he speaks as one amazed at his own boldness, and the liberty God graciously allowed him, considering God’s greatness;

²⁸ Perhaps there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five?” And He said, “If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.” — and he asked, if l find there forty and five, I will not destroy it; that is, forty five righteous persons?

²⁹ And he spoke unto Him yet again and said, “Perhaps there shall be forty found there?” And He said, “I will not do it for forty’s sake.” — and he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake; but spare them for their sake.

³⁰ And he said unto Him, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Perhaps there shall thirty be found there.” And He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” — he said unto him, Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak; this he feared, through his importunity, he should be wearisome to him and incur his displeasure;

³¹ And he said, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Perhaps there shall be twenty found there.” And He said, “I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.” — and he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake; if there were no more in it, I would spare it for their sake.

³² And he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Perhaps ten shall be found there.” And He said, “I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.” — and he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake; though no more righteous persons were found in it;

— he ended at ten, perhaps because he supposed there were at least ten righteous persons in Lot’s family, Lot and his wife, and their four daughters, and their four husbands; but they forgot that two of Lot’s daughters were unmarried, and how many he had married is not known; ten they say make a congregation, and wherever there are ten righteous persons, a place is saved for their sakes.

³³ And the Lord went His way, as soon as He had finished communing with Abraham; and Abraham returned unto his place. — and Abraham returned unto his place; to his tent in the plains of Mamre, waiting to observe or hear what would be the issue and event of things respecting Sodom and Gomorrah.

Posted in Books of Moses

In view of our current turmoil in Butler County, here’s a Prophecy for reflection:

“The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness” Deuteronomy 28:28-29

Genesis 15

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¹ After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, “Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”

— up to this time Abram had received only general promises of offspring, and of the land being the possession of his seed; where is that land? and years were passing by, and the fulfilment of Abram’s hopes remained distant as ever;

— but the war with the Elamite king he had also made for himself powerful enemies; and though the immediate result was fortunate, yet many Canaanite nations may have witnessed with displeasure so remarkable an exhibition of the power and energy of an intruder, an “immigrant!”

— and thus the time had come when the patriarch needed and obtained more formal assurances, first, of the bestowal upon him of offspring (Genesis 15:1-6), and, secondly, of the future possession of that land, now called Palestine (Genesis 15:18-21);

² And Abram said, “Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?” — Abram is still childless and landless;

— what wilt thou give me? there is a slight tone of complaint in these words. God promised Abram a “reward great exceedingly”

— Abram answers that no reward can really be great so long as he has no heir.

³ And Abram said, “Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed; and lo, one born in my house is mine heir.” — “What wilt thou give me?” Of what use will land or wealth be to me, the immediate reward specified by the promise?

⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, “This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own loins shall be thine heir.” — but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir; that is, one shall inherit all thou hast, that shall be begotten by thee;

— an own son of Abram’s, and not a servant born in his house; one that should spring out of his own loins: one “out of thy womb”, that is, out of his wife’s, which was his; the phrase designs a genuine and legitimate son, who would be legally his heir.

⁵ And He brought him forth outdoors and said, “Look now toward heaven and count the stars, if thou be able to number them.” And He said unto him, “So shall thy seed be.” — Abram’s seed according to the flesh were like the “dust of the earth,” Genesis 13:16, and his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.

⁶ And he believed in the Lord; and He accounted it to him for righteousness. — Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abram’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.

⁷ And He said unto him, “I am the Lord who brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give thee this land to inherit it.” — the Lord next confirms and explains the promise of “the land” to Abram and further assurance was given tohim of “this land ” the land of Canaan for an inheritance.

⁸ And he said, “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” — he asks for a sign, not out of distrust of God’s promise, for he was strong in faith, but for further assurance and confirmation.

⁹ And He said unto him, “Take Me a heifer of three years old, and a shegoat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” — the sign to Abram is the sign of the covenant:

— take me an heifer; offer me a sacrifice, a occasion of great importance, when two or more parties join in a compact, they either observe precisely the same rites as Abram did, or, where they do not, they invoke the lamp as their witness;

¹⁰ And he took unto Him all these, and divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against another; but the birds divided he not. — divided them in the midst; that is, the three animals, the heifer, goat, and ram into two equal parts; this was done for two reasons:

• to ratify God’s covenant with Abram and his seed; for this was a rite used in making covenants, as appears both from Scripture, Jeremiah 34:18, and other authors;
• to represent the torn and distracted condition in which his seed was to lie for a season;

— laid each piece one against another, one half against the other, the left side against the right, shoulder against shoulder, and leg against leg, so that they might seem to join;

— partly in hope they would join together, that God would in his time put those parts together, and unite those dry bones, (to which the Israelites are compared, Ezekiel 37:1-28), and clothe them with flesh; and partly that the persons entering into covenant might pass between those parts, and so testify their union and conjunction in one and the same sacrifice.

— but the birds divided he not; but laid them one against another, as the pieces were laid; so the birds used in sacrifice under the law were not to be divided, Leviticus 1:17; which may signify that when the people of the Jews, in the latter day, are brought together into their own land, when they will better answer the character of turtles and doves than they ever did, will be no more divided and separated from each other;

— but the intended offerings were not burnt, hence, perhaps, God’s commitment of “I am thy shield!” is debatable; or conditional?

¹¹ And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. — and when the birds of prey came down upon the carcases, Abram scared them away;

— had there been a sacrifice the fire would have kept the vultures from approaching; but the bodies lay exposed, and Abram therefore kept guard over them, lest the purpose of the ceremonial should be frustrated by any want of respect shown to the outward symbols.

¹² And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. — when the sun was going down; the time described was the evening following the night on which he had received the assurance that his seed should be countless as the stars.

¹³ And He said unto Abram, “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. — thy seed shall be strangers; so they were in Canaan first and afterward in Egypt: before they were lords of their own land, they were strangers in a strange land;

— only by entering under Joshua 400 years later would the land be theirs, otherwise they were only strangers to the land;

¹⁴ And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. — that nation; had it been expressly revealed that the country that would afflict them was Egypt, the principal seat of their servitude, and the instrument of their sorest bondage;

— will I judge: that is, punish after judgement, which prediction was in due course fulfilled – and afterward shall they come out with great substance;

¹⁵ And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried at a good old age. — and thou shall go to thy fathers in peace; or die, which is a going the way of all flesh;

¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” — for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full; from this sentence we have much to learn:

— the Amorites in Amos 2:9, “whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above and his roots from beneath.“ Perhaps like Hamas today;

— first; the Lord foreknows the moral character of people; second. In his providence he administers the affairs of nations on the principle of moral rectitude; third. Nations are spared until their iniquity is full; fourth; they are then cut off in retributive justice in due time. 

¹⁷ And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. — behold a smoking furnace; this signified the affliction of his seed in Egypt: they were there in the furnace of affliction, and labouring in the very fire;

— a burning lamp; this speaks comfort in this affliction: and this God showed Abram at the same time with the smoking furnace. The lamp indicates direction in the smoke; God’s word was their lamp, a light shining in a dark place.

¹⁸ On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates:

— from the river of Egypt; the river of Egypt is the Nile, which overflowed annually and made the basin fruitful; so the Targum of Jonathan calls it the Nile of Egypt; it was rendered, “from the Nile of Mizraim” or Egypt to the great river, Euphrates;

— Keil and Delitzsch: the river (נהר) of Egypt is the Nile, and not the brook (נחל) of Egypt (Numbers 34:5); the character of the promise, the two large rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, are mentioned as the boundaries within which the seed of Abram would possess the promised land,

— and from hence to the river Euphrates, the eastern boundary, was the utmost extent of it in which it was ever possessed, as it was in the times of David and Solomon, II Samuel 8:3.

¹⁹ the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites, — the Kenites; thought to be the Idumeans, who sprung from Kenaz of Esau’s posterity; found among the Amalekites in the south (1 Samuel 15:6); note that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was a Kenite (Judges 1:16); he was also the priest of Midian; and they dwelt among the Midianites; so they were very mixed by comparing Exodus 3:1 with Judges 1:16;

— the Kenizzites are also supposed by some to be the descendants of Kenaz, a grandson of Esau, Genesis 36:11; but then they must be so called here by anticipation, or  that is, the land they were anticipated to live there; since Kenaz was not then born; Caleb, the head of the tribe of Judah, was a Kenizzite, Numbers 32:12, Joshua 14:6;

and from Deuteronomy 2:5:

Meddle not with them [the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir]; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth, because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.

— the Kadmonites; elsewhere the Kadmonites are never mentioned again; probably dwellers on the eastern desert frontier of the Jordan, an eastern or an ancient people, of whom we know nothing;

— besides, none of the land of the children of Esau, at least of those that dwelt about Mount Seir (Deuteronomy 2:5) was to be given to the children of Israel; henced could the Edomites or Idumeans (at least a portion of them had left, some remained) have moved away while the children of Israel were in Egypt?

²⁰ and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim, — the Hittites, who had their name from Heth, a son of Canaan, see Genesis 10:15; they dwelt about Hebron, in the south of the land of Canaan:

— the Perizzites and the Rephaim; probably these are included in the common name of Canaanites, those that lived in the land of Canaan; 

²¹ and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” —  v16 above; “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” but soon it would be full, like Hamas today;

— the Jebusites; who inhabited Jerusalem and its surroundings, which was first called Jebus, from the founder of this nation;

— in this and the previous verses ten nations are reckoned as occupying the land of Canaan at that time, whereas only seven are mentioned in the times of Moses and Joshua; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10;

— although the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates,” that seed were meant to be the whole house of Israel. Hence, during the Exodus, Moses was tasked of bringing the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, for “I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers” Exodus 6:4.

“When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee — the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou” Deuteronomy 7:1

And Joshua said, “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites” Joshua 3:10.

and from MSG

When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

— and from another perspective, the reason is given in the Book of Jubilees:

And Ham and his sons went into the land which he was to occupy, which he acquired as his portion in the land of the south.

And Canaan saw the land of Lebanon to the river of Egypt that it was very good, and he went not into the land of his inheritance to the west (that is to) the sea,

and he dwelt in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of Jordan and from the border of the sea.

And Ham, his father, and Cush and Mizraim, his brothers, said unto him: “Thou hast settled in a land which is not thine, and which did not fall to us by lot:

do not do so; for if thou dost do so, thou and thy sons will fall in the land and (be) accursed through sedition;

for by sedition ye have settled, and by sedition will thy children fall, and thou shalt be rooted out for ever.

Dwell not in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and to his sons did it come by their lot.

Cursed art thou, and cursed shalt thou be beyond all the sons of Noah, by the curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the holy judge, and in the presence of Noah our father.”

But he (Canaan) did not hearken unto them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons until this day.
And for this reason that land is named Canaan. Book of Jubilees Chapter 10:40-48

— again, the commitment earlier by an oath; from the Book of Jubilees:

And thus the sons of Noah divided unto their sons in the presence of Noah their father, and he bound them all by an oath, imprecating a curse on every one that sought to seize the portion which had not fallen (to him) by his lot.

And they all said, “So be it; so be it,” for themselves and their sons for ever throughout their generations Book of Jubilees Chapter 9:18-19

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— Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10; and these three – the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites- were not among them. Perhaps they were all from the children of Esau, a posterity of Shem (whereas the others are mostly posterity of Ham, and of Canaan), and during this time interval of over 400 years, they had already moved north and eventually settled in Spain and then westward onto the New World;

— note, too, that in the New World, several states of the United States (namely Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and California) have the Spanish Mexicans settled there first, then later during the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848, the American zionists took over, which accounted for a loss of 55% of Mexico’s territory;

— for a more indepth study of Esau or Edom, see Obadiah

Genesis 16

“The anger of the Lord shall not return, until He has executed and until He has performed the intent of His thought; in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly” Jeremiah 23:20

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. —  the marriage of Hagar to Abram, who was his secondary wife; and though he may be excused, he cannot be justified; for from the beginning it was not so;

² And Sarai said unto Abram, “Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her.” And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. — Sarah, despairing of bearing a son herself, as she was now seventy-five, and had been ten years in Canaan, concluded that her heir was to be born of a substitute.

³ And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. — after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan; so that he was now eighty five years of age;

⁴ And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. — her mistress was despised in her eyes; thus began the ill consequences of Abram’s marriage to Hagar;

⁵ And Sarai said unto Abram, “My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee.”

— my wrong be upon thee; that is, may the wrong done to me be avenged upon thee; Sarai’s act had been one of self-denial for Abram’s sake, and now that it has led to her being treated insolently she makes Abram answerable for it.

⁶ But Abram said unto Sarai, “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee.” And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her face. — do to her as it pleaseth thee: not giving her liberty to take away her life, nor to use her cruelly,

— but to deal with her as a mistress might lawfully do with a servant, or however exercise that power which a first wife had over a second;

⁷ And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain on the way to Shur. — by the fountain in the way to Shur; a place before or back to Egypt, from whence the wilderness had its name;

⁸ And he said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? And whither wilt thou go?” And she said, “I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.” — by this title he admonisheth her, that though she was Abram’s wife, yet she was Sarai’s maid;

⁹ And the angel of the Lord said unto her, “Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.” — the angel of the Lord interrogates her, and requires her to return to her mistress, and humble herself under her hands.

¹⁰ And the angel of the Lord said unto her, “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.” — the Hagarenes, Saracens, and various other tribes of Arabs were descended from Ishmael, and they have been, and still are, a great multitude of people.

¹¹ And the angel of the Lord said unto her, “Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son and shalt call his name Ishmael [that is, God shall hear], because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. — Ishmael; that is, God will hear; and the reason is, because the Lord hath heard; he hath, and therefore he will.

¹² And he will be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” — his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; signifying, that he would be of a quarrelsome temper and warlike disposition, continually engaged in fighting with his neighbours;

— and they with him in their own defence; and such the Arabs his posterity always have been, and still are, given to rapine and plunder, harassing their neighbours by continual excursions and robberies, and pillaging passengers of all nations, which they think they have a right to do;

— and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren; the sons of Abram by Keturah, the Midianites, and others; and the Edomites that sprung from Esau, the son of his brother Isaac; and the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, another son of Isaac; and his kinsmen the Moabites and Ammonites, upon all which he and his posterity bordered;

¹³ And she called the name of the Lord who spoke unto her: “Thou God seest me.” For she said, “Have I also here looked upon Him that seeth me?” — looked after him that seeth me, that is, seen the face of my gracious God! That God should appear to me in my master’s house,  that I should have such a favour;

¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beerlahairoi [that is, The well of Him that liveth and seeth me]. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. — behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered; Kadesh is the same with Kadesh Barnea in the wilderness;

— the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan call it Rekam, the same with Petra, the chief city of Arabia Petraea, near the wilderness of Kadesh, which in his times was inhabited by Saracens, inhabited in later times by the Nabathaeans, the posterity of Ishmael;

¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called his son’s name, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. — and Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael; that Hagar upon her return reported to Abram the whole of the conversation she had with the angel; wherefore Abram believing what she said, in obedience to the order and command of the angel, gave him this name.

¹⁶ And Abram was fourscore and six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. — and Abram was eighty years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. Which is easily reckoned, for he was seventy five years of age when he left Haran, Genesis 12:4

— and he had been ten years in Canaan when Hagar was given him by Sarai for his wife, Genesis 16:3; and so must be then eighty five years of age, and of course must be eighty six when Ishmael was born.

Posted in Books of Moses

“The anger of the Lord shall not return, until He has executed and until He has performed the intent of His thought; in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly” Jeremiah 23:20

Genesis 13

¹ And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

— ‘Get thee out from thy father’s house, and from thy country, and from thy kindred,’ was the command to Abram, and to most others called;

— and Lot with him; Lot accompanied him into Egypt, because he comes with him out of it; into the south; that is, into the Negev;

² And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. — and Abram was very rich; he was rich; in cattle, in silver, and in gold; cattle are mentioned first, as being the principal part of the riches of men in those days, such as sheep and oxen;

³ And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, — he went on to Beth-el; because there he had formerly had an altar, and although the altar had fallen down,

— between Bethel and Ai, or Hai; afterwards called Mount Ephraim, and was four miles from Jerusalem on the north; see Genesis 12:8.

⁴ unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. — unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first; when he first came to that place, and before he went down to Egypt;

⁵ And Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. — Lot; he, too, had possibly received presents in Egypt, for we find him rivalling his uncle in wealth;

⁶ And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together; for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. — both arises from a large increase of riches, that relations and friends are obliged to part; what one would think would make them more comfortable together, is the cause and occasion of their separation;

⁷ And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle; and the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled then in the land. — and there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle; not between the two masters, but between their servants;

⁸ And Abram said unto Lot, “Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we are brethren. — for we be brethren, that is, both by nature near kinsmen, as the word brother is oft used, and in the faith and religion too, amongst whom contentions are very indecent and scandalous.

⁹ Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” — the Targum of Jonathan says, “if thou wilt go to the north, I will go to the south, or if thou wilt go to the south, I will go to the north:’

¹⁰ And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest unto Zoar. — all the plain of Jordan; a great plain so called, because there the pleasant river Jordan divided itself into divers little streams or rivulets;

¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east, and they separated themselves the one from the other. — and Lot journeyed east; and that part of the land on which Sodom and Gomorrah stood, were to the east of Bethel;

¹² Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. — Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan; in that part of the land where the family of the Canaanites had their abode;

¹³ But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. — the men of Sodom were wicked; exceeding great sinners, guilty of the most notorious crimes, and addicted to the most scandalous and unnatural lusts; and these they committed openly and publicly in the sight of God;

¹⁴ And the Lord said unto Abram after Lot was separated from him, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward;

¹⁵ for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed for ever. — on top of Mount Ephraim: all the land which thou seest; so extensive a survey of the country, in all directions,

— northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; all point in the neighborhood; and those plains and hills, then lying desolate before the eyes of the solitary patriarch, were to be peopled with a mighty nation “like the dust of the earth in number”

¹⁶ And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. — and to thy seed for ever; the meaning is, that he gave it to his posterity to be enjoyed; in the days of Solomon, and as they will be in the latter day;

¹⁷ Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.” — Arise, walk through the land; enter and take possession, for thy posterity; survey the land, and it will appear better than upon a distant prospect;

¹⁸ Then Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord. — the city Hebron was called Mamre; an ancient city built seven years before Zoan or Tanis in Egypt, Numbers 13:22.

Genesis 14

¹ And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations, — and it came to pass, in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar; or Babylon, as Onkelos, says, where Nimrod began his kingdom,

² that these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. — the cities Sodom and Gomorrah were well established by then; even after the confusion of tongues and that they had dispersed;

³ All these were joined together in the Vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. — the Salt Sea; as afterwards so called, not at this time, but the Dead Sea, being 1300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean; for then it would not have been fit for armies to be drawn up in battle array in it;

⁴ Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. — they served; that is, paid a yearly tribute in those days;

⁵ And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, — in the fourteenth year; after some pause and preparation, Chedorlaomer, in conjunction with his allies, set himself to punish the revolters;

⁶ and the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness. — the Horites were the aboriginal inhabitants of Mount Seir, where they dwelt in caves; such as are still to be seen in Petra and other places around; they were centuries later absorbed into the Edomites.

⁷ And they returned and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites, who dwelt in Hazezontamar. — flashing forward, the country of the Amalekites; they were later inhabited by the prosterity of Esau;

⁸ And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar), and they joined battle with them in the Vale of Siddim, — five kings came out and joined battle with the four in the dale of Siddim;

⁹ against Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and against Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar — four kings against five.

¹⁰ And the Vale of Siddim was full of slime pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and those who remained fled to the mountain. — the five initiated the fight against the four but the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits, hence the four prevailed against the five;

¹¹ And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their victuals, and went their way. — and they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah; they entered these cities and pillaged them, and carried off everything valuable in them;

¹² And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods and departed. — the victors plundered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and carried off Lot, who dwelt in Sodom, and all his possessions, along with the rest of the captives, probably taking the route through the valley of the Jordan up to Damascus;

¹³ And there came one who had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt on the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner; and these were confederate with Abram. — the plain of Mamre; these were confederate with Abram; probably there was also a league for mutual defence between him and them.

¹⁴ And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house (three hundred and eighteen), and pursued them unto Dan. — and when Abram heard that his brother; regard Lot as his brother’s son, or at the same time his brother-in-law; or just brother;

¹⁵ And he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night, and smote them and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. — Hobah, on the left of Damascus, was over 200 miles toward the north from Hebron;

¹⁶ And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods, and the women also and the people. — he brought back all the goods which the victorious kings had taken from the princes and people mentioned earlier;

¹⁷ And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (which is the King’s Dale) after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and of the kings who were with him. — the king of Sodom, who had fled, came down from the mountain whither he had escaped, came down to meet Abram;

¹⁸ And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the Most High God. — and Melchizedek king of Salem; both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem say, this is Shem, the son of Noah;

— though it is highly probable Shem was living at this time, yet it is not easy to account for it why his name should be changed, or that he should reign in a country in the possession of his brother’s son; or that he should meet Abram, and congratulate him on the slaughter of one of his own descendants;

— some have thought him to be more than a mere man, even the Son of God himself, but he is manifestly distinguished from him in Hebrews 7:

“For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham, who was returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.

To him also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, Melchizedek first being by interpretation “king of righteousness,” and after that also king of Salem, which means “king of peace.”

Without father, without mother and without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, he abideth a priest continually.” Hebrews 7:1-3

¹⁹ And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth; — and Melchizedek blessed Abram, which was one part of his office as a priest; and said, blessed be Abram of the most high God;

²⁰ and blessed be the Most High God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.” And he gave him tithes of all. — and he gave him tithes of all; not Melchizedek to Abram, but Abram to Melchizedek, and these tithes were given not out of the goods that were recovered;

²¹ And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods for thyself.” — Grive me the persons; to this day it is the custom among the people there, that, if a camp be plundered, his own subjects that had been taken and carried away by the four kings, anyone who recovers the booty gives up only the persons, and takes the rest for himself.

²² And Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, — I have lifted up my hand; this is a serious matter with Abram, either before, or then and there, he made an oath before God, that he would not touch the property of Sodom.

²³ that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe strap, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say,‘I have made Abram rich’” — even to a shoelatchet; that is, from a thread used in sewing garments to, a shoelatchet, or the string which fastens the shoes to the foot,

²⁴ except only that which the young men have eaten and the portion of the men who went with me: Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.” — the young men have eaten; his three hundred and eighteen trained servants, and those of his confederates;

— who having recovered the victuals taken away from the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, had eaten of it for their refreshment, as it was but just and right.

Posted in Books of Moses

In view of our current turmoil in Butler County, here’s a Prophecy for reflection:

And to the others He said in mine hearing, “Go ye after him through the city and smite. Let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity.
Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.” Then they began with the elder men who were before the house.
And He said unto them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go ye forth.” And they went forth and slew in the city. Ezekiel 9:5-7

Genesis 11

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¹ And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. — the whole earth; that is, all mankind at that time;

— after giving the connection of the various races of the then known world: consisting of Armenia, the regions watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, the Arabian peninsula, the Nile valley, with the districts closely bordering on the Delta, Palestine, the Levant, and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete;

— the whole earth was of one language; this even heathen writers acknowledge; and that language was, probably, the Hebrew; as the Targum of Jonathan says: “in the holy language spake they, that by which the world had been created at the beginning;”

² And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. — “from the east” or “they journeyed east” or another version (AMP) “and as people journeyed eastward”

— Josephus (Antiquities: book I, chapter 4, section 1) explained that God admonished them again to send out colonies; to cultivate a great part of the earth, but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed in the cities as before, did not obey him, began to build cities.

³ And they said one to another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. — let us make brick, for in that low and fat soil they had no quarries of stones; the heathen writers agree that Babylon’s walls were made of brick;

⁴ And they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” — whose top may reach unto heaven: not that they imagined such a thing could be literally be done;

— but that it should be raised exceeding high, like the cities in Canaan, said to be walled up to heaven, Deuteronomy 1:28 hyperbolically speaking;

⁵ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. — and the Lord came down to see the city; this is an expression after the manner of men; he knew it as clearly as men know that which they come upon the place to view;

⁶ And the Lord said, “Behold, the people are one and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. — nothing will be withholden from them; they will be baulked with no limits; if they mount up to heaven, their arrogance will soon make them endeavour to rival God.

⁷ Come, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” — and the Lord said “let Us” not to the angels or to the spirit, but rather the Father to the Son;

⁸ So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off building the city. — they brought upon themselves the very thing they feared, and that more speedily and more mischievously to themselves; for now they were not only divided in place, but in language too;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And the Word of the Lord was revealed against the city, and with Him seventy angels, having reference to seventy nations, each having its own language, and thence the writing of its own hand:

and He dispersed them from thence upon the face of all the earth into seventy languages. And one knew not what his neighbour would say: but one slew the other; and they ceased from building the city. Jonathan

⁹ Therefore is the name of it called Babel [that is, Confusion], because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. — confound their language; it was a failure in utterance, occasioning a difference in dialect which was intelligible only to those of the same tribe.

¹⁰ These are the generations of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood; — Shem was one hundred years old, and begat Arphexad two years after the flood; by which it is pretty plain that he was younger than Japheth;

— for Noah was five hundred years old when he began to beget sons, Genesis 5:32 he was six hundred when he went into the ark, Genesis 7:11 two years after the flood Shem begat Arphaxad, when he was one hundred years old, and Noah six hundred and two, Genesis 11:10 so that Shem must be born when Noah was five hundred and two years old;

— these are the generations of Shem; here also, as in Genesis 5, there is a very considerable divergence between the statements of the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint. According to the Hebrew, the total number of years from Shem to the birth of Abram was 390, according to the Samaritan, 1,040, and according to the LXX, 1,270 1,140

— Masoretic: Shem (100 Gen 11:10); Arphaxad (35 Gen 11:12); Salah (30 Gen 11:14); Eber (34 Gen 11:16); Peleg (30 Gen 11:18); Reu (32 Gen 11:20); Serug (30 Gen 11:22); Nahor (29 Gen 11:24); Terah (70 Gen 11:26); Abram = 390

— Septuagint: Shem (100 Gen 11:10); Arphaxad (135 Gen 11:12); Salah (130 Gen 11:14); Eber (134 Gen 11:16); Peleg (130 Gen 11:18); Reu (132 Gen 11:20); Serug (130 Gen 11:22); Nahor (179 Gen 11:24); Terah (70 Gen 11:26); Abram = 1,140

— Samaritan: Shem (100 Gen 11:10); Arphaxad (135 Gen 11:12); Salah (130 Gen 11:14); Eber (134 Gen 11:16); Peleg (130 Gen 11:18); Reu (132 Gen 11:20); Serug (130 Gen 11:22); Nahor (79 Gen 11:24); Terah (70 Gen 11:26); Abram = 1,040

— Targum of Jonathan: Shem (100 Gen 11:10); Arphaxad (35 Gen 11:12); Salah (30 Gen 11:14); Eber (34 Gen 11:16); Peleg (30 Gen 11:18); Reu (32 Gen 11:20); Serug (30 Gen 11:22); Nahor (29 Gen 11:24); Terah (70 Gen 11:26); Abram = 390

— Josephus (Antiquities l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5) his figures go along mostly with the Septuagint and the Samaritan:

I will now treat of the Hebrews. The son of Phaleg, whose father Was Heber, was Ragau; whose son was Serug, to whom was born Nahor; his son was Terah, who was the father of Abraham, who accordingly was the tenth from Noah, and was born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge; for Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year.

Nahor begat Haran when he was one hundred and twenty years old; Nahor was born to Serug in his hundred and thirty-second year; Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty; at the same age also Phaleg had Ragau; Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty-fourth year; he himself being begotten by Sala when he was a hundred and thirty years old, whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty-fifth year of his age. Arphaxad was the son of Shem, and born twelve years after the deluge.

Now Abram had two brethren, Nahor and Haran: of these Haran left a son, Lot; as also Sarai and Milcha his daughters; and died among the Chaldeans, in a city of the Chaldeans, called Ur; and his monument is shown to this day.

These married their nieces. Nabor married Milcha, and Abram married Sarai. Now Terah hating Chaldea, on account of his mourning for Ilaran, they all removed to Haran of Mesopotamia, where Terah died, and was buried, when he had lived to be two hundred and five years old; for the life of man was already, by degrees, diminished, and became shorter than before, till the birth of Moses; after whom the term of human life was one hundred and twenty years, God determining it to the length that Moses happened to live.

Now Nahor had eight sons by Milcha; Uz and Buz, Kemuel, Chesed, Azau, Pheldas, Jadelph, and Bethuel. These were all the genuine sons of Nahor; for Teba, and Gaam, and Tachas, and Maaca, were born of Reuma his concubine: but Bethuel had a daughter, Rebecca, and a son, Laban. Josephus (Antiquities l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5)

¹¹ and Shem lived after he begot Arphaxad five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Shem lived, after he begat Arphaxad, five hundred years; so that his whole age was six hundred years, and therefore must live to the times of Abraham; which only true if the Masoretic Text is considered;

— and even throughout the life of Abraham, or near the end of it; and if he was the same with Melchizedek, as is the general beliefs of the Jews, they would have interrelation with each other; but what if the Samaritan and the Septuagint is true instead? Then Melchizedek won’t live until Abraham’s birth;

¹² And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years and begot Salah;

¹³ and Arphaxad lived after he begot Salah four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.

¹⁴ And Salah lived thirty years and begot Eber;

¹⁵ and Salah lived after he begot Eber four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.

¹⁶ And Eber lived four and thirty years and begot Peleg;

¹⁷ and Eber lived after he begot Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters.

¹⁸ And Peleg lived thirty years and begot Reu;

¹⁹ and Peleg lived after he begot Reu two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters.

²⁰ And Reu lived two and thirty years and begot Serug;

²¹ and Reu lived after he begot Serug two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters.

²² And Serug lived thirty years and begot Nahor;

²³ and Serug lived after he begot Nahor two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

²⁴ And Nahor lived nine and twenty years and begot Terah;

²⁵ and Nahor lived after he begot Terah one hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters.

²⁶ And Terah lived seventy years and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

— Terah was a idol-worshipper:

And Joshua said unto all the people, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the river in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods. Joshua 234:2

— and here is an abridged story about Abraham’s righteousness: from Bereshit Rabbah 38

Abraham’s father, Terah was an idol manufacturer and worshipper. He operated a shop selling idols; and while he was away, Abraham was asked to look after the shop, but he took a hammer, smashed the idols and placed the hammer in the hand of the largest idol.

When Terah returned, he asked what happened to all the idols, Abraham told him that the idols fought among themselves and then the largest idol took the hammer and smashed all the others. When his father challenged him, saying, “That’s ridiculous, idols are only statues and cannot move!”

Abraham replied, “Then why do you worship them?”

— Josephus wrote:

“Terah, who was the father of Abraham, who accordingly was the tenth from Noah, and was born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge” (Antiquities: book I, chapter 6, section 5);

— that is, the year 1948 (according to Jewish reckoning).

²⁷ Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. — and Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Abram, though named first, does not appear to be the eldest, but rather Nahor or more probably Haran;

— it seems pretty plain that Abram was not born until the 130th year of his father’s life, for Terah was 205 years old when he died, Genesis 11:32 and Abram was 75 of age when he went out of Haran to Canaan, Genesis 12:4 and that was after his father had died and buried there; so that if 75 years are taken out from 205, Terah would be 130, in which year Abram was born, assuming Abram journeyed on soon after Terah’s death;

And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran. Genesis 11:32 

So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. Genesis 12:4

— from here, Abram was born when Terah was 130 years, and not 70 as we believe; and secondly from this case, it proves that the names mentioned first in biblical genealogy may not necessarily be the eldest;

— hypothetically, if Abram’s departure from Haran had been delayed by, say, 2 years after his father’s death, then Terah would be 132 when Abram was born;

²⁸ And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldeans. — Haran died in Ur before his father Terah; thus Abram took Lot as an orphan with him when they left Haran to go to Canaan;

— Abram’s brethren were, Nahor, out of whose family both Isaac and Jacob had their wives; and Haran, the father of Lot, who died before his father. Children cannot be sure that they shall outlive their parents. Haran died in Ur, before the happy removal of the family out of that idolatrous country;

²⁹ And Abram and Nahor took for themselves wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

³⁰ But Sarai was barren; she had no child. — Joseph says as Abram has no son of his own, he adopted Lot, his brother Haran’s son, and his wife Sarai’s brother; (Antiquities: book I, chapter 7, section 1)

³¹ And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran and dwelt there.

— Abram and Nabor his brother married their nieces. Nabor married Milcha and Abram married Sarai, both daughters of Haran, who died in Ur;

³² And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

— concerning Abram’s courage, Jewish writings say:

Now Abram had two brethren, Nahor and Haran: of these Haran left a son, Lot; as also Sarai and Milcha his daughters; and died among the Chaldeans, in a city called Ur of the Chaldees, where, he adds, his grave is shown to this day:

the Jews have a fable concerning the death of Haran; they say that Terah was not only an idolater, but a maker and seller of images; and that one day going abroad, he left his son Abraham in the shop to sell them, who, during his father’s absence, broke them all to pieces,

except one; upon which, when Terah returned and found what was done, he had him [Abram] before Nimrod, who ordered him [Abram] to be cast into a burning furnace, and he should see whether the God he worshipped would come and save him; and while he was in it, they asked his brother Haran in whom he believed?

he [Haran] answered, if Abraham overcomes, he would believe in his God, but if not, in Nimrod; wherefore, they cast him [Haran] into the furnace, and he was burnt; and with respect to this it is said, “and Haran died before the face of Terah his father”; but Abraham came out safe before the eyes of them all. Now Terah, hating what he had witnessed, and on account of his mourning for his son, they all removed to Haran of Mesopotamia. (Bereshit Rabbah 38);

— Joshua 24:2 “even Terah, the father of Abraham, served other gods.”

Genesis 12

¹ Now the Lord had said unto Abram, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. — Abram was expressly commanded to leave “his kindred and his father’s house,” but Nahor wasn’t asked to, so Nahor didn’t join Abram;

² And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. — In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed; henceforward Abram and the nation sprung from him were to be the intermediaries between God and mankind;

³ And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” — and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed; that is, through his seed;

⁴ So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. — and Lot, being an orphan, went with him; of his own accord, and he only, besides Adram’s wife Sarai and his servants, for Terah was dead, and Nahor and his family stayed behind;

⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls whom they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. — into the land of Canaan they came; with all their substance that they had gathered; either in Ur of the Chaldees, or from Haran, or both;

⁶ And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. — Shechem; this name signifies “shoulder,” and was the name of the ridge uniting Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, the summits of which are about two miles apart;

— and the Canaanites were already then in the land; this simply implies that the land was not open for Abram to enter upon immediate possession without a challenge;

⁷ And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” And there built he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. — Unto thy seed will I give this land; the whole of it inhabited by Canaanites and others; no place or condition can shut us out from God’s gracious gifts;

⁸ And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. — and the life of God’s calling is ever a pilgrim life, and Bethel has soon to be the home instead of Shechem; here, too, Abram keeps outside the city, and pitches his tent;

— and there he builded an altar unto the Lord: as he had done at Shechem; for wherever he went he worshipped God, and offered sacrifice unto him;

⁹ And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. — going on still toward the south; the southern part of the land of Canaan, which lay nearest Egypt, into which he is said to go next;

¹⁰ And there was a famine in the land; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. — there was a famine in the land; this famine must have happened within a few years after Abram reached Canaan;

— for he was seventy-five years of age on leaving Haran, and as Ishmael, his son by an Egyptian slave-woman, was thirteen years old when Abram was ninety-nine, only about eight years are left for the events recorded in Genesis 12-16.

¹¹ And it came to pass, when he had come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, “Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. — though sixty five years of age, being ten years younger than her husband; yet might still be a fair woman, having a good complexion and comely features;

— Sarai’s complexion, coming from a mountainous country, would be fresh and fair compared with the faces of Egyptian women which were of unhealthy pale brown;

¹² Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. — Sarai then was sixty-five years of age and beauty does not vanish with middle age; but that Sarai’s age corresponds with twenty to thirty years in modern times,

¹³ Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee.” — Say thou art my sister; as his niece; for nephews and nieces are in Scripture called brethren and sisters; as Genesis 13:8

¹⁴ And it came to pass, when Abram had come into Egypt, that the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair. — the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair; Abram knew that Sarai was fair; but in the eyes of the Egyptians she was very fair; perhaps, they there were none of such fairness in Egypt.

¹⁵ The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. — the woman was taken into the royal palace of Pharaoh; kings have for ages claimed the privilege of taking to their harem any unmarried woman whom they like;

¹⁶ And he treated Abram well for her sake; and he had sheep and oxen and heasses, and menservants and maidservants, and sheasses and camels. — and he entreated Abram well for her sake; Pharaoh was very complaisant to him, showed him great respect,

— and bestowed many favours on him on account of Sarai, whom he took to be his sister, and which were done, that he would consent that she might be his wife; and Abram were given sheep, and oxen, and heasses, and menservants, and maidservants, and sheasses, and camels; 

¹⁷ And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. — not only Pharaoh was plagued, but those of his household also, his courtiers and servants, who were accessary to the bringing of Sarai into his house; for all this was because of Sarai, Abram’s wife;

— Jewish writings and Rashi have a notion, that an angel stood by Sarai with a scourge in his hand, and when Sarai bid the angel to smite Pharaoh, he smote him; signifying not just Pharaoh but his courtiers as well; because she was taken by these courtiers and detained in Pharaoh’s house, and designed Sarai to be made his wife or concubine; and thus for evil intentions was this punishment inflicted to all involved;

— but Josephus says it slightly different:

“but God put a stop to his unjust inclinations, by sending upon him a distemper, and a sedition against his government. And when he inquired of the priests how he might be freed from these calamities, they told him that this his miserable condition was derived from the wrath of God, upon account of his inclinations to abuse the stranger’s wife.

He then, out of fear, asked Sarai who she was, and who it was that she brought along with her. And when he had found out the truth, he excused himself to Abram, that supposing the woman to be his sister, and not his wife, he set his affections on her, as desiring an affinity with him by marrying her, but not as incited by lust to abuse her.

He also made him a large present in money, and gave him leave to enter into conversation with the most learned among the Egyptians; from which conversation his virtue and his reputation became more conspicuous than they had been before.” (Antiquities l. 1. c. 8. sect. 1)

¹⁸ And Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? — what is this that thou hast done unto me? to impose upon me, and deceive me after this manner, by giving out that Sarai was thy sister;

— when she is thy wife; by which means I have been led to prepare to take her for my wife, and have brought plagues upon myself and family? and thus he resented it as an injury done him, as he well might;

¹⁹ Why saidst thou, ‘She is my sister,’ so I might have taken her to me for a wife? Now therefore behold thy wife; take her and go thy way.” — now therefore, behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way; Sarai it seems was present at this interview, who was delivered to her husband untouched;

²⁰ And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. — and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had;

— they did not drive him out by force, or in any disgraceful manner, but being committed to a guard of men, appointed by the king, he had safe conduct out of the land, with his family, and all that he had; all that he brought with him, and all the increase he had made there, and all the gifts he had received of the king.

Posted in Books of Moses

The Targum was started by Ezra for those returning from the Babylon exile and for these returnees they could only understand the Scriptures in Aramaic. That is, the Targum is as if Ezra is speaking to us today from the Hebrew Bible quoted.

Genesis 9

¹ And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. — God blessed Noah and his sons; assuring them of his goodwill and his gracious intentions;

— and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth; depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam;

² And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. — and the fear of you and the dread of you; this not only reestablishes man’s dominion over the animals, but also incorporate the fear of humans;

— Jewish writings, however, say a new stage is reached where man hereafter is invested with the right to take the life of animals for food; perhaps this was also when certain animals or beasts became wild; lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, wolves and foxes;

³ Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. — the grant of sustenance is no longer confined to just vegetable, but extended to the animal kinds, with two solemn restrictions;

— animals were slain for sacrifice from the earliest times; but whether they were used for food before this time we are not certain; but now “every creeper that is alive” is granted for food.

— “every moving thing” is everything that moves with the body living, and therefore this seems to describe any animal, clean or unclean; the phrase “that is alive” seems to exclude animals that have died a natural death, or were killed by wild beasts, from being used as food.

⁴ “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. — the animal must be slain before any part of it is used for food; and as it lives so long as the blood flows in its veins, the life-blood must be drawn before its flesh may be eaten;

— Gill explains it another way: not that the blood is of itself the life, but because it is a means of life, should not be eaten; but blood properly let out, and dressed, or mixed with other things, might be eaten, only that it could not to be eaten with the flesh, though it might separately;

— the Targum of Jonathan says, “but flesh which is torn of the living beast, what time the life is in it, or that torn from a slaughtered animal before all the breath has gone forth, you shall not eat.”

⁵ And surely your blood of your lives will I require. At the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. — your blood of your lives; or your blood, which is for your souls;

⁶ Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. — whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; that is, he that is guilty of wilful murder shall surely be put to death;

— in the image of God made he man; so that murder is not only an offence against man, but also an injury to God, and a contempt of that image of God which all men are obliged to reverence and maintain;

⁷ And you, be ye fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.” — and you, be ye fruitful and multiply; instead of taking away the lives of men, the great concern should be to multiply them;

⁸ And God spoke unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

⁹ “And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you, — and I, behold, I establish my covenant with you; my covenant of the preservation of the creatures in common, a promise that they should not be destroyed any more by a flood;

¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you — of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth. — of every fowl, of every cattle, and of every beast of the earth, but no dinosaur exist as living creatures today; hence the obvious conclusion is that the dinosaurs were not among these “cattles” or beasts; otherwise they would be alive today;

¹¹ And I will establish My covenant with you: Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” — again, the obvious conclusion is that the dinosaurs were not among these “cattles” or beasts; otherwise, today, they would be in our zoos, or reserves, and not in our museums;

¹² And God said, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: — the covenant is made between God and Noah (and his posterity) and every living creature that is with you;

— that is, any creature that have survived through the Flood, in the ark, would be alive today, but the dinosaurs are only bones and skeletons today; destroyed amass millions of years ago;

— the Targum of Jonathan says,

“I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your children after you; and with every living soul that is with you, of birds, and of cattle, and of every beast of the earth that is with you, of all that go forth from the ark, of every beast of the earth.

And I will establish my covenant with you, and will not again cause all flesh to perish by the waters of a flood; and there shall not again be a flood to destroy the earth.

And the Lord said, This is the sign of the covenant which I establish between My Word and between you and every living soul that is with you, unto the generations of the world.” Genesis 9:9-12 Jonathan

— the Message Bible says:

Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.” Genesis 9:8-11 MSG

God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth.

From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.” Genesis 9:12-16 MSG

¹³ I do set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. — I set my bow in the clouds; the rainbow, was seen in the clouds before, but was never a seal of the covenant till now;

¹⁴ And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud. — that the bow shall be seen in the cloud; for the rainbow is always in a thin, not a thick cloud; after the heavy showers are fallen from the thick clouds, and a small thin one remains, then the rainbow is seen;

¹⁵ And I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. — and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh; this is repeated to remove those fears which would be repeated as God would remember his covenant, which he can never forget;

¹⁶ And the rainbow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” — and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth;

¹⁷ And God said unto Noah, “This is the token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth.” — unfortunately, “all flesh” doesn’t include the dinosaurs, otherwise they would still be alive today, in our zoos or in the wild;

¹⁸ And the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. — and the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham and Japheth, who are here again mentioned as the heads of the nations into which the family of man developed;

— and Ham is the father of Canaan; this is observed for the sake of the following history, concerning the behaviour of the one to Noah, and of the ultimate curse on Canaan;

¹⁹ These are the three sons of Noah, and from them was the whole earth overspread. — these are the three sons of Noah; and his only ones; and if he had any more, they left no posterity behind them; and of them was the whole earth overspread, with inhabitants, by them and their posterity only;

²⁰ And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. — Noah began to be an husbandman; or rather, Noah, being a husbandman, began to plant a vineyard;

²¹ And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. — SDAs (Seventh-day Adventists, over twenty millions of them spread all over the world) claim the use of grape juice in ancient times were masquerading as wine; but have they ever come to their senses and ask how could unfermented grape juice make Noah drunk?

— having already two great disappointments in quick succession in the 1840s might make a third less disappointing and painful than the first two;

²² And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren outside. — and Ham saw the nakedness of his father; he looked with pleasure and delight on his father’s nakedness; not offering to cover him; instead he just went off and told his brethren withside;

²³ And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. — and Shem and Japheth took a garment; they not only would not see it themselves, but provided that no one else might see it; herein setting an example of good deeds with reference to other men’s sin and shame;

²⁴ And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. — now Ham was not the youngest son, but Shem; but only younger, compared to Japheth; and it is not Ham who is cursed, but Canaan, Ham’s fourth or youngest son.

²⁵ And he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” — Cursed be Canaan; Noah declares a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham; perhaps this grandson of his was more guilty than the rest; a servant of servants, that is, the vilest and worst of servants; but why?

²⁶ And he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. — Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; Abraham and all his posterity were included in the descendants of Shem;

²⁷ God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” — God shall enlarge Japheth; it is the God of the universe to enlarge Japheth with the most numerous posterity; as most of the inhabitants of northern and eastern parts of Asia are descended from Japheth;

— other definitions or meanings for “enlarge” pathah H6601 (2) to be spacious, wide or open: Genesis 9:27 may God make wide for Japhet (give him an extensive inheritance); (3) entice or seduces as a man seduces a virgin;

— and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; inhabit the countries belonging to the posterity of Shem; the Targum of Jonathan says “the Lord shall beautify the borders of Japhet, and his sons shall be proselyted and dwell in the schools of Shem;”

— or from a more modern version of Jonathan:

“May the Lord enlarge the territory of Japheth, and may his descendants convert and dwell in the study hall of Shem, and let Canaan be a servant to them.” ChatGPT

“The Lord shall beautify the borders of Japhet, and his sons shall be proselyted and dwell in the schools of Shem, and Canaan shall be a servant to them.” CoPilot

Voice: May God make plenty of room for Japheth’s family and give them homes among Shem’s tents.

²⁸ And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. — and Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years; so that he not only saw the old wicked world, and its destruction, but another wickedness again: the building of the tower of Babel;

²⁹ And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died. — Noah lived twenty years more than Adam did, and within nineteen of Methuselah, and his age must be called a good old age; and what is honourable of all the patriarchs is also applicable to him.

Genesis 10

~~~~

¹ Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and unto them were sons born after the flood. — this chapter shows concerning the three sons of Noah, where the whole population were spread from one of these seventy, has come.

² The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. — the sons of Japheth; Japheth is placed first, because he was, the oldest brother: Genesis 9:24; Genesis 10:21; of seven sons and his descendants were the most numerous and most widely spread from the birthplace of mankind;

— they seem to have been settled north of the Caspian, and to have wandered north and east from that point;

³ And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.

⁴ And the sons of Javan: Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.

⁵ By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided into their lands, every one after his own tongue, according to their families, into their nations. — from these were distributed the tribes of the islands of the Gentiles, every one according to his language, to his kindred in their nations.

— the grandchildren of Noah are identified according to Josephus (Antiquities 1:6.1):

Now they were the grandchildren of Noah, in honor of whom names were imposed on the nations by those that first seized upon them. Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons: they inhabited so, that, beginning at the mountains Taurus and Amanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the river Tansis, and along Europe to Cadiz; and settling themselves on the lands which they light upon, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names.

For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians, [Galls,] but were then called Gomerites. Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians. Now as to Javan and Madai, the sons of Japhet; from Madai came the Madeans, who are called Medes, by the Greeks; but from Javan, Ionia, and all the Grecians, are derived. Thobel founded the Thobelites, who are now called Iberes; and the Mosocheni were founded by Mosoch; now they are Cappadocians.

There is also a mark of their ancient denomination still to be shown; for there is even now among them a city called Mazaca, which may inform those that are able to understand, that so was the entire nation once called. Thiras also called those whom he ruled over Thirasians; but the Greeks changed the name into Thracians. And so many were the countries that had the children of Japhet for their inhabitants.

Of the three sons of Gomer, Aschanax founded the Aschanaxians, who are now called by the Greeks Rheginians. So did Riphath found the Ripheans, now called Paphlagonians; and Thrugramma the Thrugrammeans, who, as the Greeks resolved, were named Phrygians.

Of the three sons of Javan also, the son of Japhet, Elisa gave name to the Eliseans, who were his subjects; they are now the Aeolians. Tharsus to the Tharsians, for so was Cilicia of old called; the sign of which is this, that the noblest city they have, and a metropolis also, is Tarsus, the tau being by change put for the theta.

Cethimus possessed the island Cethima: it is now called Cyprus; and from that it is that all islands, and the greatest part of the sea-coasts, are named Cethim by the Hebrews: and one city there is in Cyprus that has been able to preserve its denomination; it has been called Citius by those who use the language of the Greeks, and has not, by the use of that dialect, escaped the name of Cethim.

And so many nations have the children and grandchildren of Japhet possessed. Now when I have premised somewhat, which perhaps the Greeks do not know, I will return and explain what I have omitted; for such names are pronounced here after the manner of the Greeks, to please my readers; for our own country language does not so pronounce them: but the names in all cases are of one and the same ending; for the name we here pronounce Noeas, is there Noah, and in every case retains the same termination.

⁶ And the sons of Ham: Cush and Mizraim, and Put and Canaan.

⁷ And the sons of Cush: Seba and Havilah, and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabtechah; and the sons of Raamah: Sheba, and Dedan.

— the Targum of Jonathan says

And the sons of Kush, Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raama, and Sabteka, and the name of their provinces, Sinirai, and Hindiki, and Semadi, and Lubai, and Zingai. And the sons of Mauritinos, Zmargad and Mezag.

⁸ And Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.

⁹ He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.”

¹⁰ And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

¹¹ Out of that land he went forth to Assyria, and built Nineveh and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,

¹² and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city.

¹³ And Mizraim begot Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim — Mizraim has seven sons, most of the descendants of Mizraim settled in Africa, with the exception of the Philistines, who migrated into the country to which they gave their name; Palestine;

¹⁴ and Pathrusim and Casluhim (out of whom came the Philistines) and Caphtorim.

— the Philistines; were originally Egyptians, since they descended from Mizraim; they sprung from both the Casluhim and the Pathrusim; Rashi says they exchanged the intimacy of their wives with one another, hence the Philistines sprung from them both;

— they had five principal cities – Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron; but today, they are still dominating the Gaza strip;

¹⁵ And Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth; — today a city of Sidon (or Zidon); the firstborn, and is in Lebanon; where Joshua smote them: Joshua 11:8, 19:28;

— and Tyre, for that was built by the Sidonians; today they are part of Lebanon, and both cities are dominated by the Hezbollah;

¹⁶ and the Jebusite and the Amorite, and the Girgashite

¹⁷ and the Hivite, and the Arkite and the Sinite,

¹⁸ and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.

¹⁹ And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; and as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim, even unto Lasha.

²⁰ These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their tongues, in their countries and in their nations.

— the children of Ham are identified according to Josephus (Antiquities 1:6.2):

The children of Ham possessed the land from Syria and Amanus, and the mountains of Libanus; seizing upon all that was on its sea-coasts, and as far as the ocean, and keeping it as their own. Some indeed of its names are utterly vanished away; others of them being changed, and another sound given them, are hardly to be discovered; yet a few there are which have kept their denominations entire.

For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Chusites. The memory also of the Mesraites is preserved in their name; for all we who inhabit this country [of Judea] called Egypt Mestre, and the Egyptians Mestreans.

Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites, from himself: there is also a river in the country of Moors which bears that name; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river and the adjoining country by the apellation of Phut: but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mesraim, who was called Lybyos. We will inform you presently what has been the occasion why it has been called Africa also.

Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, inhabited the country now called Judea, and called it from his own name Canaan. The children of these [four] were these: Sabas, who founded the Sabeans; Evilas, who founded the Evileans, who are called Getuli; Sabathes founded the Sabathens, they are now called by the Greeks Astaborans; Sabactas settled the Sabactens; and Ragmus the Ragmeans; and he had two sons, the one of whom, Judadas, settled the Judadeans, a nation of the western Ethiopians, and left them his name; as did Sabas to the Sabeans: but Nimrod, the son of Chus, staid and tyrannized at Babylon, as we have already informed you.

Now all the children of Mesraim, being eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt, though it retained the name of one only, the Philistim; for the Greeks call part of that country Palestine. As for the rest, Ludieim, and Enemim, and Labim, who alone inhabited in Libya, and called the country from himself, Nedim, and Phethrosim, and Chesloim, and Cephthorim, we know nothing of them besides their names; for the Ethiopic war which we shall describe hereafter, was the cause that those cities were overthrown. The sons of Canaan were these: Sidonius, who also built a city of the same name; it is called by the Greeks Sidon

Amathus inhabited in Amathine, which is even now called Amathe by the inhabitants, although the Macedonians named it Epiphania, from one of his posterity: Arudeus possessed the island Aradus: Arucas possessed Arce, which is in Libanus. But for the seven others, [Eueus,] Chetteus, Jebuseus, Amorreus, Gergesus, Eudeus, Sineus, Samareus, we have nothing in the sacred books but their names, for the Hebrews overthrew their cities; and their calamities came upon them on the occasion following.

²¹ Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.

²² The children of Shem: Elam and Asshur, and Arphaxad and Lud and Aram.

²³ And the children of Aram: Uz and Hul, and Gether and Mash.

²⁴ And Arphaxad begot Salah, and Salah begot Eber.

²⁵ And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

²⁶ And Joktan begot Almodad and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth and Jerah,

²⁷ and Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah,

²⁸ and Obal and Abimael and Sheba,

²⁹ and Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

³⁰ And their dwelling was from Mesha as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east.

³¹ These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their tongues, in their lands, according to their nations.

— the children of Shem are identified according to Josephus (Antiquities 1:6.4):

Shem, the third son of Noah, had five sons, who inhabited the land that began at Euphrates, and reached to the Indian Ocean. For Elam left behind him the Elamites, the ancestors of the Persians.

Ashur lived at the city Nineve; and named his subjects Assyrians, who became the most fortunate nation, beyond others. Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, who are now called Chaldeans. Aram had the Aramites, which the Greeks called Syrians; as Laud founded the Laudites, which are now called Lydians.

Of the four sons of Aram, Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus: this country lies between Palestine and Celesyria. Ul founded Armenia; and Gather the Bactrians; and Mesa the Mesaneans; it is now called Charax Spasini.

Sala was the son of Arphaxad; and his son was Heber, from whom they originally called the Jews Hebrews. Heber begat Joetan and Phaleg: he was called Phaleg, because he was born at the dispersion of the nations to their several countries; for Phaleg among the Hebrews signifies division. 

Now Joctan, one of the sons of Heber, had these sons, Elmodad, Saleph, Asermoth, Jera, Adoram, Aizel, Decla, Ebal, Abimael, Sabeus, Ophir, Euilat, and Jobab. These inhabited from Cophen, an Indian river, and in part of Asiaadjoining to it. And this shall suffice concerning the sons of Shem.

³² These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided on the earth after the flood.

Posted in Books of Moses

Genesis 7

¹ And the Lord said unto Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. — thou and all thy family; which consisted only of eight persons; Noah and his three sons, and their four wives, Genesis 6:18.

² Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. — of every clean beast; of all clean cattle, thou shalt take to thee by sevens; or seven pairs.

³ Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. — of every clean fowls; by sevens or seven pairs.

⁴ For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” — yet seven days; or after seven days;

— and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights: this was not an ordinary but an extraordinary rain, and the quantity of water that fell;

⁵ And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. — and Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him; he prepared for his entrance into the ark, and all the creatures with him; got everything ready for them, the rooms for their habitation, and food for their sustenance;

⁶ And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. — Noah was six hundred years old; it follows that Shem was about one hundred years of age (Genesis 5:32), and his two brothers were all married, though apparently without children;

⁷ And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. — and Noah went in, and his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark;

— within the space of the seven days, between the command of God to go into it, and the coming of the flood; or rather on the seventh day, on which it began to rain; when he saw it was coming on;

⁸ Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, — of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean; there were no mention of a distinction between clean and not clean in the beasts, birds and the creeping things; or, perhaps, distinction were made but were not written down;

— the behemoth (H930 ḇə·hê·mō·wṯ), or known as as dinosaur in Job 40:15, is not mentioned in this verse or anywhere hereabout; indicating they were not in the ark;

⁹ there went in two by two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female as God had commanded Noah. — there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, being impressed with an instinct from God so to do; or by the ministry of angels;

¹⁰ And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. — and it came to pass after seven days; were ended, or on the seventh day, after God had given the orders to Noah, to prepare for his going into the ark, with his family, and all the creatures;

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, that same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. — the second month; either of the one sacred, for the celebration of feasts, beginning in March; or the other civil, for men’s political or civil affairs, beginning in September;

— Masoretic, the Flood was 1656 after the creation of Adam: Seth (130 Gen 5:3); Enosh (105 Gen 5:6); Cainan (90 Gen 5:9); Mahalalee (70 Gen 5:12); Jared (65 Gen 5:15); Enoch (162 Gen 5:18); Methuselah (65 Gen 5:21); Lamech (187 Gen 5:25); Noah (182 Gen 7:28-29) Noah (600 Gen 7:6,11) = 1656

— Septuagint, the Flood was 2242 after the creation of Adam: Seth (230 Gen 5:3); Enosh (205 Gen 5:6); Cainan (190 Gen 5:9); Mahalalee (170 Gen 5:12); Jared (165 Gen 5:15); Enoch (162 Gen 5:18); Methuselah (165 Gen 5:21); Lamech (167 Gen 5:25); Noah (188 Gen 5:28-29); Noah (600 Gen 7:6,11) = 2242 (a difference of 586 years)

— Samaritan, the Flood was 1407 after the creation of Adam: Seth (130 Gen 5:3); Enosh (105 Gen 5:6); Cainan (90 Gen 5:9); Mahalalee (70 Gen 5:12); Jared (65 Gen 5:15); Enoch (162 Gen 5:18); Methuselah (65 Gen 5:21); Lamech (67 Gen 5:25); Noah (53 Gen 7:28-29) Noah (600 Gen 7:6,11) = 1407 (a difference of 249 years from the Masoretic Text)

— Targum of Jonathan and the Peshitta both went along with the Masoretic figures; whereas the Armenian largely went along with the Greek Septuagint; both are of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

¹² And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. — forty days and forty nights; so long it was falling upon it, after the windows of heaven were opened.

¹³ In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark — a threefold description of the entrance of Noah and his retinue into the ark, first in the command, next in the actual process during the seven days, and, lastly, in the completed act on the seventh day;

¹⁴ they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. — they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind; all sorts of beasts and cattle, reckoned one hundred and thirty sorts, by some one hundred and fifty, including serpents;

¹⁵ And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two by two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. — two by two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life; they that went by sevens; being seven couples, as they went by pairs;

¹⁶ And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in. — went in male and female of all flesh; that is, two by two;

¹⁷ And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. — the flood was increasing for forty days; the waters rose so high, that the tops of the highest mountains were overflowed;

Orthodox Judaism says this happens in the year 1656 from Adam; but Josephus says 2656 from Adam, (Antiquities: book 1 chapter 3, section 3); a difference of a thousand years;

— a difference of a thousand years to reconcile:

¹⁸ And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters. — it raised the ark above the earth and above the mountains, and, on the other, destroyed every living being upon the dry land, from man to cattle, creeping things and birds;

¹⁹ And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. — all the high hills, and the mountains were covered; there were hills and mountains before the flood, and that these were not caused by the deluge.

²⁰ Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered. — fifteen cubits would be about twenty-two feet;

²¹ And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: — all the men, women, and children, that were in the world, excepting those in the ark, died;

²² all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was on the dry land, died. — all flesh, fowl, cattle, and creeping thing, died;

²³ And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. — of the millions of creatures that were upon the earth (except those who dwell in the sea), none was left, the flood came and destroyed them all;

²⁴ And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. — fifty and a hundred days; these, and the forty days of rain, make one hundred and ninety days: about six lunar months and thirteen days;

— this number “one hundred and ninety days” coincides with Ezekiel 4 in the Septuagint version where Ezekiel was asked to sleep for the iniquity for Israel: for more, see Ezekiel Timeline – 190/40 Years

Genesis 8

¹ And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were assuaged. — Noah, who having heard nothing of him for five months, and having been perhaps longer in the ark than expected, might begin to think that he was forgotten of God; but God remembered him;

² The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. — the subterraneous waters in great quantity upon the earth, and the clouds of heaven, which poured down water upon it like spouts, were stopped from sending forth any more;

³ And the waters returned from off the earth continually, and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. — the waters returned from off the earth; a vast wave from the sea had swept over the land, in addition to the forty days of rain; now it has return back to the ocean;

⁴ And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. — the ark rested upon one of the mountains of Ararat; some, Josephus and the Targum of Jonathan, think one of those mountains in Armenia, for other loose cannons, in Turkey;

⁵ And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. — the ark rested; it is stranded on some hill in Ararat; this country forms part of Armenia;

⁶ And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. — at the end of forty days; it is easy to imagine the ardent longing Noah and his family must have felt to enjoy again the sight of land as well as breathe the fresh air;

⁷ And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. — Noah sent forth a raven; through the window of the ark; which wentback and forth; until the waters were dried up from the earth;

⁸ Also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; — Noah sent forth the dove a second time, probably seven days after the first time, and the third time was after seven days too after the sending forth of the raven;

⁹ but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. — the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot; because the tops of the hills which then could not be landed;

¹⁰ And he stayed yet another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. — and he stayed yet other seven days; as he had stayed seven days between the sending out of the raven and the dove, so he stayed seven days more after he had sent out the dove, and it returned to him;

¹¹ And the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. — so Noah knew the waters were abated from off the earth: by this he perceived not only that they were gone off the mountains, but the lower grounds, at least the hills on which olive trees delight to grow;

¹² And he stayed yet another seven days and sent forth the dove, which returned not again unto him any more. — which returned not again unto him any more: the earth being dry, it found rest for the sole of its feet, sufficient food to eat; and liking to be at liberty in the open air, chose not to return to the ark;

¹³ And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

— and, behold, the face of the ground was dry; the ground or surface of the earth looked dry; but was not so dry and hard as to bear heavy bodies, or the foot to tread on it, being soft and tender;

¹⁴ And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. — Noah delays apparently another month, and, on the first day of the new year, ventures to remove the covering of the ark;

¹⁵ And God spoke unto Noah, saying, — and God spake unto Noah, saying; whether in a dream or vision, or by an articulate voice, appearing in an human form, or by an impulse on his mind, is not certain;

¹⁶ “Go forth from the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and thy sons’ wives with thee. — Go forth of the ark; though the earth was dry and fit to be inhabited, yet they would not go out without orders, as he had to go in; which he waited for before he would, and now he has them;

¹⁷ Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.”

— Question: how could these creatures which came out of the ark in Asia get thence to America, Australia, like the slow moving koalas or to the islands remote from the continent? A: perhaps with the help of angels;

¹⁸ And Noah went forth, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. — and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: in all eight persons, and no more were saved in the ark;

— interestingly the Chinese symbol for “boat” or 船 is made of 舟 (which means vessel), 八 (meaning eight) and 口 (meaning mouth); 船 literally translate “eight people in the boat.” This character was used in the ancient Chinese story of Noah’s ark.

¹⁹ Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. — after their kind; not in a confused disorderly manner, mixing with one another; but as they went in by pairs, male and female of every sort, so they came forth in like manner;

²⁰ And Noah built an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. — Noah builded an altar; literally, “a high place” probably a mound of earth, on which a sacrifice was offered;

²¹ And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in His heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. — the Lord said in his heart; same as “I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth” Isaiah 54:9.

²² While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” — while the earth remaineth; literally, as yet, all the days of the earth, that is, henceforth, so long as the earth continues.

Posted in Books of Moses

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Psalm 25:14

Genesis 5

¹ This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him. — in the likeness of God; man is now a fallen being, yet these words are repeated to show that the Divine likeness was not lost, nor the primæval blessing bestowed at his creation revoked.

² Male and female created He them, and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. — he called their name Adam; he gave this name both to the man and the woman, being at first one by nature, and afterward one by marriage, it was fit they should both have the same name in token of their union.

³ And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth. — in his own likeness, after his image; that is, Adam handed down to his posterity that Divine likeness which he had himself received.

⁴ And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters. — and the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth, were eight hundred years; the Septuagint has it as seven hundred; probably counting a hundred years later where Adam began to have other children; which Josephus agrees (Antiquities of the Jews: book I, chapter 2, section 3)

— and he begat sons and daughters; not only after the birth of Seth, but before, though we have no account from the Scriptures of any; and what their number is, either before or after;

— but Josephus says the number of children Adam had, according to the old tradition, was thirty three sons and twenty three daughters. Joseph. Antiquities of the Jews: book I, chapter 2, section 3, footnote 8

— below is from Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews: book I, chapter 2, section 3:

Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, [for our discourse must now be about him,] after Abel was slain, and Cain fled away, on account of his murder, was solicitous for posterity, and had a vehement desire of children, he being two hundred and thirty years old; after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then died. He had indeed many other children,⁸ but Seth in particular.

As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues. 

All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.

And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.

⁵ And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. — he was from thence sentenced the sentence of death, and liable to it; yea, death seized upon him till it brought him to the dust of it; his life, though so long protracted, was a dying life, and at last he submitted to the stroke of death, as all his posterity ever since;

— the MSG has these verses as:

When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son who was just like him, his very spirit and image, and named him Seth. After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, having more sons and daughters. Adam lived a total of 930 years. And he died. Genesis 5:3-5 MSG

⁶ And Seth lived a hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. — and Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos. Not that this was his firstborn, no doubt but he had other children before this time; but this is only mentioned, because it carried the lineage and descent directly from Adam to Noah;

⁷ And Seth lived after he begot Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. — and begat sons and daughters; very probably both before and after Enos was born; but how many is not said;

⁸ And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died. — and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years;

— Seth, according to Josephus (Antiquities: book 1 chapter 2, section 3), was a very good man, and brought up his children well, who trod in his steps, and who studied the nature of the heavenly bodies; and that the knowledge of these things they had acquired might not be lost, remembering a prophecy of Adam, that the world should be destroyed both by fire and by water;

⁹ And Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan. — and Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan, but according to the Septuagint, a hundred and ninety years;

¹⁰ And Enosh lived after he begot Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Enos lived, after he begat Cainan, eight hundred and fifteen years; the Septuagint is seven hundred and fifteen;

¹¹ And all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died. — he died in the year of his age nine hundred and five; and according to Gill, is AM 1340, and was buried in the holy mountain; 

¹² And Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalaleel. — and Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel; here the Septuagint adds an hundred years, as before;

¹³ And Cainan lived after he begot Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begot sons and daughters. — eight hundred and forty years; the Septuagint has seven hundred and forty, which, when added to the years given him before, makes the same sum;

¹⁴ And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.

¹⁵ And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begot Jared. — and Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared. A hundred and sixty, according to the Septuagint version;

¹⁶ And Mahalaleel lived after he begot Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters.

¹⁷ And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years; and he died.

¹⁸ And Jared lived a hundred sixty and two years, and he begot Enoch. — and Jared lived an hundred and sixty two years, and he begat Enoch. Here the Septuagint agrees with the Hebrew text, and the Samaritan version differs, reading only sixty two;

¹⁹ And Jared lived after he begot Enoch eight hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Jared lived, after he begat Enoch, eight hundred years; and so, the Septuagint version, but the Samaritan is seven hundred and eighty five;

²⁰ And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years; and he died.

²¹ And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begot Methuselah. — and Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah; here the Septuagint version adds again an hundred years;

²² And Enoch walked with God after he begot Methuselah three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three hundred years; the Septuagint version is two hundred;

²³ And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years. — their lives a getting shorter, and now approximately half the age of those older patriarchs;

²⁴ And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. — and he was not, for God took him; instead of the mournful refrain when one died, we have here an early removal into another world, suggesting Enoch, in this special case, may have the highest form of blessing;

— “another world” may mean into heaven, where God’s throne is, where he is with the holy angels and other saints; Revelation: he could be one of the 24 Elders in Revelation?

— the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it; “behold, he was not with the sojourners of the earth; for he was withdrawn, and he ascended to the firmament by the Word before the Lord,”

Who are the 24 Elders in Revelation?

²⁵ And Methuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and begot Lamech. — and Methuselah lived an hundred and eighty and seven years, and beget Lamech; the Septuagint version is an hundred and sixty seven;

²⁶ And Methuselah lived after he begot Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Methuselah lived, after he begat Lamech, seven hundred eighty and two years; but the Septuagint version is eight hundred and two years, and so makes the sum total of his life the same;

²⁷ And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years; and he died. — and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died; this was the oldest man that ever lived, no man ever lived to a thousand years;

²⁸ And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begot a son. — and Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat son; according to the Septuagint version he was an hundred and eighty eight years old; 

— Josephus says after the seventh generation, his posterity turned into wickedness:

Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers; and did neither pay those honors to God which were appointed them, nor had they any concern to do justice towards men. But for what degree of zeal they had formerly shown for virtue, they now showed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy. (Antiquities: book 1 chapter 3, section 1),

²⁹ And he called his name Noah, saying, “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” — the Lord hath cursed; because of the ground, which the Lord hath cursed;

— this he spake, foreseeing what his son would be, and of what advantage to him and his family, and to the world: the earth was cursed for the sin of man immediately after the fall, and continued under it to this time, bringing forth thorns and thistles in great abundance of itself, which occasioned much trouble to root and pluck them up, and nothing else, without digging, and planting and sowing;

— the Message version is:

When Lamech was 182 years old, he had a son. He named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us a break from the hard work of farming the ground that God cursed.” After Lamech had Noah, he lived another 595 years, having more sons and daughters. Lamech lived a total of 777 years. And he died. Genesis 5:28-30 MSG

³⁰ And Lamech lived after he begot Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begot sons and daughters. — and Lamech lived, after he begat Noah, five hundred ninety and five years; the Septuagint version is five hundred and sixty five;

³¹ And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years; and he died. — and all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years, and he died; the Septuagint version he lived but seven hundred and fifty three;

³² And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. — and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth; not together, but one after another;

— Shem was an hundred years old two years after the flood, Genesis 11:10 he must be born in the five hundred and second year of his father’s age; so that it seems most probable that Japheth was the eldest.

— for more, see Japheth, the Eldest

— discrepancies of dates in Jospehus (Antiquities: book 1.1 chapter 3 section 3): “and this was two thousand six hundred and fifty-six [one thousand six hundred and fifty-six] years from Adam, the first man.”

Genesis 6

¹ And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, — and it came to pass, when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth; either mankind in general, or rather the posterity of Cain;

— or the the posterity of Seth, or a mixture of the two; but then again, Josephus says the number of children Adam had, was thirty three sons and twenty three daughters;

² that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took for themselves wives of all whom they chose. — the sons of God saw the daughters of men; by the former, from God’s point of view, is meant the family of Seth, who were of good dispositions, virtuous and professedly religious;

— by the latter, the descendants of apostate Cain, the daughters of men; from God’s point of view, mixed marriages between parties of opposite principles and practice were necessarily sources of evils and corruption;

— persons of greatest eminency for place and power, for such are called gods, and children of the Most High, Psalm 82:6 ‘I have said, “Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High,”’ where, in contrast, also they are opposed to men, Genesis 6:7, that is, to meaner men.

³ And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for he also is flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” — my spirit shall not always strive with man; indicating his spirit strives with man up to a certain point; and there will a certain point beyond which he will not go; hence God reduced their days and it shall be an hundred and twenty years; given to them to repent;

⁴ There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown. — there were giants on the earth in those days; before those intermarriages were beginning to take place, and these intermarriages bare children unto them, or giants unto them;

— the same became mighty, which were of old: like those that were of old before; hence, perhaps, there were now two sets of giants?

— or a third set, from the evil angels: as Josephus says:

“For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.” This notion, that the fallen angels were, in some sense, the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity; (Antiquities: book 1 chapter 3, section 1).

⁵ And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagining of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. — and God saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth; that it spread throughout the earth, wherever it was inhabited, both among the posterity of Cain and Seth, who now were mixed together;

⁶ And the Lord repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. — and it repented the Lord; not in the sense the Lord wished he haven’t created man, since he was able to declare the end from the beginning; but that it grieved him at his heart to see man sinned;

— Rashi: it was a consolation to Him that He had created him [man] of the earthly beings, for had he been one of the heavenly beings, he would have caused them to rebel.

⁷ And the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for I repent that I have made them.” — for I repent that I have made them; same in the sense that he was able to declare the end from the beginning; but that God grieved that his creation had sinned;

⁸ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. — but Noah found grace; this is evidence that grace found in the Old Testament; that is, Noah obtained mercy and favour from the Lord;

⁹ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. — Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations; “Just” is, literally, righteous, one whose actions were sufficiently upright to exempt him from the punishment inflicted upon the rest of mankind;

¹⁰ And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. — Shem was an hundred years old two years after the flood, Genesis 11:10 he must be born in the five hundred and second year of his father’s age;

— so that it seems most probable that Japheth was the eldest; and born in the five hundred and first year of his age; though Shem is usually mentioned first, because of his superior dignity: Abraham and from whom king David and the Messiah was to spring from;

— for more, see Japheth, the Eldest

¹¹ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. — and the land was corrupt, abominable, and other enormous crimes; in contrast with Noah, the rest of the race were corrupt; entirely depraved by sin;

¹² And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. — the land was corrupt; the earth was filled with violence, with their uncleanness and wickedness of various sorts;

¹³ And God said unto Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. — the end of all flesh is come before me; that is, it was determined to put an end to the lives of all men, and of all cattle, and fowl and creeping things on the earth;

— before an order is executed the case is presented to the sovereign, that it may finally be examined, and if approved, receive the judgement, upon which it becomes a decree: “I will destroy them with the earth.”

¹⁴ Make thee an ark of gopherwood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt cover it within and without with pitch. — make thee an ark, or chest; an oblong box; not capable of sailing, but intended merely to float; the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him;

— the Targum of Jonathan says

“Make thee an ark of the wood of cedars; a hundred and fifty cells shalt thou make to the ark in its left side, and thirty and six in its breadth; and ten cabins in the midst, to lay up in them provision; and five repositories on the right, and five on the left; and thou shalt protect it within and without a pitch.”

¹⁵ And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. — the cubit is the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger;

— as, further, it was regarded as one-fourth of a man’s height, we may safely compute it at eighteen inches, except where the sacred or longer cubit is expressly mentioned; thus the ark was 450 feet long, 75 broad, and 45 in depth.

¹⁶ A window shalt thou make for the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. — it is not necessary to suppose that Noah and his three sons built this vast vessel with their own hands; he was probably a powerful chieftain, and many of the Sethites may have given him aid;

— the highest story was for men and birds; the second for provision for the brute creatures; the lowest for the beasts, under which was the bottom of the ark, which most probably was made sloping on both sides;

¹⁷ And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven; and every thing that is on the earth shall die. — every thing that is in the earth shall die; this limitation that the fishes are not included in the destruction because they did not live in the same element wherein men lived and sinned;

¹⁸ But with thee will I establish My covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife and thy sons’ wives with thee. — my covenant; there had been no covenant with Adam or with the Sethites, but in the higher state of things it began with Noah;

¹⁹ And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. — and of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark; that is, of fowls, cattle, and creeping things,

²⁰ Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive. — they shall be male and female; not any two, but one male and one female, they are to come in pairs for propagation;

²¹ And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be food for thee and for them.” — and take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten; by man and beast;

²² Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. — thus did Noah as he began without delay to prepare the colossal fabric, and in every step of his progress faithfully followed the divine directions he had received.

Posted in Books of Moses

Genesis 3

¹ Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” — the serpent was more subtle, or crafty, by its manipulation of God’s Words and its loathly form, is the natural symbol of such a deceiver of man;

— the tempter appreared unto the woman as the more susceptible and unguarded of the two creatures he would betray; and ventures upon a half-questioning, half-insinuating remark;

² And the woman said unto the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, — the woman said, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; indicating, Eve extolled the large extent of liberty they enjoyed in ranging at will amongst all the trees, except one;

³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’” — but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden; this tree, is highly probable, stood near the tree of life, since that is described in the same “midst of the garden,” Genesis 2:9

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not surely die; — ye shall not surely die; the serpent proceeded, in direct contradiction to divine command, not only to assure her of perfect impunity, but to promise great benefits from partaking of it;

⁵ for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” — your eyes shall be opened; his words meant more than met the ear “your eyes shall be opened”

— and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil: as “Elohim” which word is sometimes used of judges or magistrates, sometimes of angels, or “the mighty angels” as the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the word; and sometimes of God himself, and of the divine Persons in the Godhead;

— knowing good and evil; or, as God, like unto God himself in that their knowledge should be enlarged, knowing more than just good and evil as many are being deceived with a new version today: “and you’ll go to heaven”

— the Targum, whose origin was in the Aramaic language, could be traced to Ezra speaking to the returning exiles who couldn’t understand Hebrew, but was expounded to them in a language they could understand.

⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and ate, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he ate. — the prevailing motive to influence her to eat: pleasant to the eyes, of a beautiful colour, and very inviting to the taste; succumbed to the lust of the flesh;

— and a tree to be desired to make one wise; which promised not only what she perceived by the discourse she had with the serpent, which she believed that this would be the consequence of eating this fruit, which looked very desirable, and she concluded to justify herself to eat;

— and gave also to her husband with her; that he might eat as well as she, and partake of the same benefits and advantages she hoped to reap from hence;

— and he did eat; an emphasis upon his eating lies the fate of his posterity; not the woman for the man was the federal head, and he sinning, all his posterity sinned in him, and died in him; through this offence judgment came upon all to condemnation; all became sinners, and subject to death;

⁷ And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves things to gird about. — the eyes of them both were opened that they were naked; the consciousness of guilt striked upon them as soon as they had broken God’s commandment by eating of the forbidden fruit;

— and they sewed, or platted fig leaves together; to cover at least part of their shame one from another, made themselves aprons;

⁸ And they heard the voice of the Lord God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. — “the voice of the Lord God, walking” seems like he appears as of the same kind;

— Adam and his wife hid themselves: being sensible of God’s approach, filled with shame and conscience of their own guilt, and dread of judgment; instead of flying to God for mercy, they foolishly attempted to run away from him, whom it was impossible to avoid;

⁹ And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, “Where art thou?” — the question, “Where art thou?” implies that the Lord was aware of their endeavor to hide themselves from him to face the consequence;

¹⁰ And he said, “I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” — I was afraid, because I was naked; he confesses his nakedness, which was evident; but makes no mention of his sin; this he wished rather to hide, feeling the shameful effects of himself;

¹¹ And He said, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” — hast thou eaten of the tree; though God knows all our sins, yet he will know them from us, and requires from us an ingenuous confession of them, not that he may be informed, but that we may be humbled;

¹² And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” — the woman gave me; he shifts the blame to God; since the woman had been given him for his companion and help, he had eaten of the tree from her;

¹³ And the Lord God said unto the woman, “What is this that thou hast done?” And the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.” — the serpent beguiled me; that is, a spirit in the serpent, which she took for a good one, but proved a bad one, with lying words and deceitful language imposed upon her; thus similarily laying the blame on otheers;

¹⁴ And the Lord God said unto the serpent, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. — upon thy belly shalt thou go; thus “no longer on thy feet, or half erect,” but thou shalt crawl along, thy belly cleaving to the earth;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds more details:

And the Lord God brought the three unto judgment; and He said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou of all the cattle, and of all the beasts of the field: upon thy belly thou shalt go,

and thy feet shall be cut off, and thy skin thou shalt cast away once in seven years; and the poison of death shall be in thy mouth, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

¹⁵ And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” — I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and the man too, but the woman alone is mentioned, for the devil’s greater confusion;

— she conceived an antipathy against it, and which is become natural between the serpent and man; man abhors the sight of a serpent, and the serpent the sight of man; and are poison to each other;

¹⁶ Unto the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” — multiplies “her sorrow and her conception,” that is, her sorrow generally, but especially in connection with pregnancy, when with anguish and peril of life she wins the joy of bringing a man into the world;

¹⁷ And unto Adam He said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

— cursed is the ground for thy sake; it shall now yield both fewer and worse fruits, and not even those without more care and trouble to thy mind, and the minds of thy posterity, and more labour to your bodies than otherwise would have been requisite;

— in sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life, meaning that with much toil and trouble, in manuring and cultivating the earth, he should get his living out of the produce of it, though with great difficulty; and this would be his case as long as he was in it.

¹⁸ Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. — thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; to give him more trouble, and cause him more fatigue and sorrow to root them up;

— and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; not the fruits of the garden of Eden, but only the common herbs of the wild, such as even the beasts of the earth fed upon: to such a low condition was man, the lord of the whole earth; and this was according to the law of consequence effect, of eating the forbidden fruit should be deprived of them all;

¹⁹ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” — in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; sweat appearing chiefly on the forehead, from whence it trickles down by the nose in persons employed in hard labour;

— for dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return; his body was composed of the dust, was of the earth, earthly, and should be reduced to that again by death;

²⁰ And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. — Adam called his wife’s name Eve; named “Ishah” a woman, because taken from the man; for through her alone could human life be continued, and the “woman’s seed” be obtained who was to raise up man from his fall.

²¹ Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. — coats of skins; animals, therefore, were killed not just for food, but also for clothing, to defend them from the heat and cold, and other injuries of the air to which they were now to be exposed;

²² And the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become as one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever” — behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil; we are now prepared to understand the nature of the two trees which were in the midst of the garden;

— the tree of knowledge of good and evil; if man had obeyed, he would have come to this knowledge in a legitimate way; and to partake of the Divine nature of God;

— as one of us, if it concerning the angels, it is an unreasonable conceit that the great God should level himself with the angels, and give them a kind of equality with himself, as this expression indicates. To know all things, both good and evil; no, the “Us” incorporates just the Father and Son; see John 1:1-3

²³ therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. — therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden; gave him orders to depart immediately; sent or put him away as a man does his wife, when he divorces her;

— to till the ground, from whence he was taken: either the earth in general, out of which he was made, and to which he must return, and in the mean while must labour hard, in digging and ploughing, in planting and sowing, that so he might get a livelihood;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds more details, “and he went and dwelt in Mount Moriah, to till the ground from which he had been created.”

²⁴ So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. — so he drove out the man; this signified the exclusion of him and his guilty race from that communion with God which was the bliss and glory of paradise;

— cherubim, armed with a dreadful and irresistible power, represented by flaming swords which turned every way; on that side the garden which lay next to the place where Adam was sent, to keep the way that led to the tree of life.

Genesis 4

¹ And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” — Eve calls Cain “a man,” Hebrew, ish, a man;

— Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters, Genesis 5:4 “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters,” but Cain and Abel seem to have been the two eldest;

² And she again bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. — Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground; as Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3), there was a long period for the increase of Adam’s family (comp. Genesis 4:14-17);

³ And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. — in process of time; might be after a harvest, or after a long indefinite period, shown by the age of Adam at the birth of Seth to have been something less than 130 years;

— the Targum of Jonathan says “it was at the end of days, on the fourteenth of Nisan,” as if it was the preparation of the Passover;

— remember, the Targum, whose origin was in the Aramaic language, could be traced to Ezra speaking to the returning exiles who couldn’t understand Hebrew, but was expounded to them in a language they could understand.

⁴ And Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; — and the Lord God had respect to Abel and to his offering; and God showed his acceptance of his offering;

— Rashi adds more details: “Fire descended and consumed his offering”

⁵ but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. — and Cain was very angry, his countenance fell; a feeling of resentment, and a sense of disappointment and condemnation take possession of Cain’s heart; 

⁶ And the Lord said unto Cain, “Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? — Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? the Lord does not yet give up Cain but make an efford to deal with him;

— if thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted? to do well is to retrace his steps, to consider his ways, and find out wherein he has been wrong, and to amend his offering and his intention accordingly.

⁷ If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” — if thou doest well; but he (Cain) didn’t do well, hence Cain couldn’t qualify the last phase: “and thou shalt rule over him.”

— and unto thee shall be his desire; to whom do the pronouns “his” and “him” refer? Perhaps it should be read as: “And as to thy brother, unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over thee with all the right of the first born,” which is misleading since this clause is subjected to the first clause, “If thou doest well,”

— perhaps this verse could have been restructured this way: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted; and thou shalt rule over him? But if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door; and unto thee shall be his desire.”

⁸ And Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. — And Cain talked with Abel his brother; under the guise of brotherly familiarity, he concealed his premeditated purpose till a convenient time and place occurred for the murder;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds some step-by-step details:

And Kain said to Habel his brother, Come, and let us two go forth into the field.

And it was that when they two had gone forth into the field, Kain answered and said to Habel, I perceive that the world was created in goodness, but it is not governed (or conducted) according to the fruit of good works, for there is respect to persons in judgment; therefore it is that thy offering was accepted, and mine not accepted with good will.

Habel answered and said to Kain, In goodness was the world created, and according to the fruit of good works is it governed; and there is no respect of persons in judgment; but because the fruits of my works were better than thine, my oblation, before thine, hath been accepted with good will.

Kain answered and said to Habel, There is neither judgment nor Judge, nor another world; nor will good reward be given to the righteous, nor vengeance be taken of the wicked.

And Habel answered and said to Kain, There is a judgment, and there is a Judge; and there is another world, and a good reward given to the righteous, and vengeance taken of the wicked.

And because of these words they had contention upon the face of the field; and Kain arose against Habel his brother, and drave a stone into his forehead, and killed him.

— or for a more modern version:

“And Cain said to Abel his brother, ‘Let us go out to the field.’

And when they were in the field, Cain said to Abel, ‘I perceive that the world is created by mercy, but it does not operate according to good deeds; therefore, your offering was accepted while mine was not.’

Abel answered Cain, ‘The world is indeed created by mercy and operates according to good deeds; because my deeds were better than yours, my offering was accepted.’

Cain replied to Abel, ‘There is no judgment, no judge, no other world, no reward for the righteous, and no punishment for the wicked.’

Abel responded, ‘There is judgment, there is a judge, there is another world, there is reward for the righteous, and there is punishment for the wicked.’

And as they argued about these matters, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and struck him with a stone in his forehead, and killed him.”

⁹ And the Lord said unto Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” And he said, “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?” — it seems that Cain went away, scarcely conscious of the greatness of his crime; thus in Cain, like the devil, was both a murderer and a liar from the beginning;

— then the voice of God repeated it in his own heart, Where is Abel, thy brother! Not that God was ignorant where he was, but to inquire into the causes, and hear the accused speak for themselves, before passing sentence;

— am I my brother’s keeper? Why dost thou inquire of me concerning him who is of age to look to himself? Is he such a stripling that he needs a guardian? Or didst thou ever make me his guardian? all which was very saucily and impudently thought of in his harden heart;

¹⁰ And He said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground. — thy brother’s blood crieth unto me; the sight God has seen tells him that the blood he has shed calls aloud for judgement and vengeance;

¹¹ And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. — and now art thou cursed from the earth; from receiving its benefit and enjoying its fruits as before;

¹² When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth.” — a fugitive; condemned to perpetual exile; a degraded outcast; the miserable victim of an accusing conscience;

— “a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth” a vagabond shalt thou be, banished from thy own land and kindred; reminds us of the Gypsies; who are they?

¹³ And Cain said unto the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. — my punishment is greater than I can bear; what an overwhelming sense of misery; but no sign of repentence, nor cry for pardon;

¹⁴ Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. And it shall come to pass that every one who findeth me shall slay me.”

— he is driven, not “from the face of the earth,” which was impossible, but from the adâmâh, his dear native soil, banished from which, he must go into the silence and solitude of an earth unknown and untracked;

— whosoever findeth me, shall slay me; implies that the family of Adam had now become numerous. Not only sons and daughters, but their children and grandchildren may have been growing up when Cain was sent into exile; but in his present terror even an excited fancy suggested an enemy at every turn.

¹⁵ And the Lord said unto him, “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

— sevenfold; Cain’s punishment was severe, because his crime was the result of violent passions, but his life was not to be taken because God wanted the earth to be populated;

— and the Lord set a mark upon Cain; to distinguish him from the rest of man; what the mark was, God has not told us: therefore any conjectures of men are just conjectures; and the Targum of Jonathan says: “Behold now, any one who killeth Kain, unto seven generations vengeance shall be taken of him,”

¹⁶ And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod to the east of Eden. — Cain, on migrating from the whole land of Eden, regarded himself as beyond the range of the sight of his fellow humans and from God;

— the land of Nod; read the word Nod with different set of vowels, the place could well be India! The Sacred Text in its original doesn’t have any vowel; they were added later, so the possibility is there.

¹⁷ And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. — he calls his son Henok (Enoch), and his city after the name of his son; the same word is employed in the lines of Seth Genesis 5:18, of Midian Genesis 25:4, and of Reuben Genesis 46:9

¹⁸ And unto Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech. — and unto Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methusael; and Methusael begat Lamech;

— God, “declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,” Isaiah 46:10 hence he, by preserving Cains despite his sin, wants this line to be preserved;

¹⁹ And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. — Lamech took unto him two wives; contrary to the first institution of marriage, whereby only one man and one woman were to be joined together, and become one flesh, Genesis 2:24

²⁰ And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents, and of those who have cattle. — the father of such as dwelt in tents, and of such as have cattle: though his posterity might succeed the same business; since he was the first inventor of tents or movable habitations, which could be carried from place to place;

²¹ And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who handle the harp and organ. — he was the father of all such that handle the harp and organ: he was the inventor of instrumental music, both of stringed instruments;

²² And Zillah, she also bore Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron; and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah. — an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron; he taught men the way of melting metals, and of making armour and weapons of war, and other instruments, for various uses;

²³ And Lamech said unto his wives, “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech! For I have slain a man for my wounding, and a young man for my hurt. — and Lamech (Josephus says he had 77 children) said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah; besides confessing what he had done, he self boasting what he would do should he be attacked; as this he wasn’t backed by God; but acting as if he were God;

²⁴ If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” — the Septuagint has it “seventy times seven” which may also seem probable; in view of his boasting; like Nebuchadnezzar, saying, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?”

— the line of Cain is traced no further than the seventh generation from Adam, as Josephus says “the posterity of Cain became exceeding wicked, every one successively dying, one after another, more wicked than the former.” We cannot tell whether there were any more in that line before the flood; the other line through Noah and Abraham is from Seth; and from them the Messiah would descend;

— perhaps the seven generation in verse 15 above, the Targum of Jonathan: “Behold now, any one who killeth Kain, unto seven generations vengeance shall be taken of him,” may mean that Cain’s posterity would be protected only till the seventh generation;

²⁵ And Adam knew his wife again; and she bore a son and called his name Seth. “For God,” said she, “hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” — another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew; Cain, the firstborn, and Abel, who had outstripped him in prosperity, were both lost to Adam;

²⁶ And to Seth also there was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. — then began men to be called by the name of the Lord; to pray unto God, to worship God; or to call themselves by the name of the Lord;

— now Cain and those that had deserted God had built a city, they began to err, and they made themselves idols, and surnamed their idols by the name of the Lord; and begun to declare for themselves the sons of men. Those that adhered to God began to declare for him and his worship, and called themselves the sons of God.

Posted in Books of Moses

Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none other; I am God, and there is none like Me,

declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ Isaiah 46:9-10

Genesis 1

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. — created; not formed or made from any pre-existing materials, but created out of nothing; in the beginning of this sidereal system, of which our sun, with its planets; of this material, visible, and temporal world; not the the spiritual, invisible and eternal world;

— God; Heb. Elohim; a word plural in form (Father and Son), but joined with a verb singular; created; the idea of creating them out of nothing;

² And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. — and the earth; the conjunction “and” (וְ) negatives the well-meant attempt to harmonise geology and Scripture while studying Genesis 1:1

— and the earth became (hā·yə could be translated as “become” in some versions as in Genesis 3:20 and elsewhere) without form and void; it just doesn’t make sense that God created something that is already in a state of decay (bohû and tohû);

— this process of hā·yə could have taken many years, perhaps thousands, or even million, the details we’re not given; we’re only given the gist of it only; hence today, many trace marks could be gathered to prove that the earth is very old;

— one example is the Tibetan Plateau, sometimes called the “roof of the world,” and according to Bradley Hacker, a professor of geological sciences at the University of California, “the plateau dates back 13.5 million years and has reached a maximum average height of five kilometers.”

— a second example is the Hawaiian chain of islands; more from Britannica; “The origin of Hawaii’s islands, islets, and seamounts can be traced to at least 70 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous Period (145 million to 66 million years ago);”

— a third evidence is the absence of the creation of the dinosaurs in Genesis chapter two, indicating they were created and destroyed millions of years before another creation in Genesis 1:1

— both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, a waste and desert, empty and destitute of both men and beasts;

³ And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. — God said, Let there be light; he willed it, and at once there was light. Oh, the power of the Word of God!

⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. — divided between the light and between the darkness; God then separates light and darkness, by assigning to each its relative position in time and space; which refers to the division of day and night;

⁵ And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. — and the Evening and the Morning were the first day: the evening, the first and second part of the evening; about the space of twelve hours;

— and the morning, which is also the second part of the night, and the second morning, in the light, in all together they make the opposite space from Evening; and both form one natural day, consisting of twenty four hours; 

⁶ And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” — a firmament; an extension, or a space; or place extended or stretched out, and spread abroad like a tent or curtain, it indicates something solid;

— and let it be dividing between water and water; it appears that the water in the atmosphereic sphere was in contact with another mass of water ion the earth; hence the Targum of Jonathan says “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate between the waters above and the waters beneath.”

⁷ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. — the waters under the firmament are seas, rivers, lakes, fountains, and other waters in the bowels of the earth;

⁸ And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. — God called the firmament (the expanse) heaven; and means something heaved up; including the starry and airy heavens; being above the earth, and reaching to the third heaven;

— and the evening; and the morning were the second day; these together made up the space of twenty four hours, which was another natural day; 

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. — unto one place; the ocean bed. We must add the vast depth of the ocean to the height of the mountains before we can rightly estimate the intensity of the forces at work on the third day;

— and let the dry land appear: clear of the waters, dried by the expanded air, hardened by the fiery light, and as yet without any herb or tree upon it: and it was so; immediately done;

¹⁰ And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good. — he called them not sea, but seas; because of the differing quantity and nature both of several seas, and of the rivers, and other lesser collections of waters, all which the Hebrews call seas;

¹¹ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth”; and it was so. — and God said, Let the earth bring forth grass; which had been impregnated by the spirit of God that moved upon it when a fluid; and though now become dry land;

¹² And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was good. — and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind; as apples, pears, plums, apricots, nectars, peaches, oranges, lemons, and more;

¹³ And the evening and the morning were the third day. — the space of twenty four hours ran out, and were measured, either by the rotation of the body of light and heat around the earth, or of the earth upon its axis;

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years; — and God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven; in the upper part of it, commonly called the starry heaven;

— and let them be for signs and the times of the feasts, and to reckon with them the number of days, and, sanctify the beginnings of the months, and the beginnings of the years;

¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth”; and it was so. — to give light upon the earth; and the inhabitants of it, when formed: and it was so:

— the Targum of Jonathan adds “and let them be for signs and for festival times,”

¹⁶ And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. — the great light, the sun, which is really and considerably greater than the moon and with the little light, the stars, from man’s point of view, are insignificant;

¹⁷ And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, — and God set them in the firmament of the heaven; he not only ordered that there they should be, and made them that there they might be,

— but he placed them there with his own hands; and they are placed, particularly the sun, at such a particular distance as to be beneficial and not hurtful: had it been set nearer to the earth, its heat would have been intolerable; in the one case we should have been scorched with its heat, and in the other been frozen up for the lack of it;

¹⁸ and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. — in the fourth day’s work, the creation of the sun, moon, and stars is accounted for; all by the works of God;

¹⁹ And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. — the fourth day, made by the rotation of the earth on its own axis, in the space of twenty four hours;

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” — moving creature; all oviparous animals, both among the finny and the feathery tribes, remarkable for their rapid and prodigious increase: fowl, which means every flying thing;

²¹ And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it was good. — great whales; those vast sea monsters known by that name, though elsewhere this word be applied to great creatures of the earth, or under the seas;

²² And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the earth.” — be fruitful, and multiply; this blessing shows that the earth was replenished with animal life from a limited number of progenitors, and probably from a small number of centres, both for the flora and for the fauna;

²³ And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. — the evening and the morning were the fifth day; the sun now in the firmament, where it was fixed the day before, having gone round the earth, or the earth about that, in the space of twenty four hours; 

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind”; and it was so. — “cattle” which seem to design domestic cattle, and such as are for the use of man, either for carriage, food,

— or clothing, as horses, asses, camels, oxen, sheep and “creeping” things, which are different from the creeping things in the sea before mentioned, are such as either have no feet, and go upon their bellies, or are very short, and seem to do so, whether greater or lesser, as serpents, worms, ants and more;

²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was good. — and God saw that it was good; that every creature he had made would some way or other be for his glory, and for the benefit of man;

— the Behemoth (H930 ḇə·hê·mō·wṯ), or known as as dinosaur in Job 40:15, is a different word from Cattle (H929 bə·hê·māh) used in this verse and elsewhere; the word “dinosaur” was coined only in 1841 by an Englishman named Sir Richard Owen, hence most translations today continue to use the antiquated word Behemoth;

²⁶ And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

— in our image, in our form; after our likeness; with the ability to understand and to discern; these Words “let us” indicates the plurality of God (Elohim); are spoken by God the Father to the Son; hence the “US” and “OUR” plural form of a singuar God;

²⁷ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. — in our image, that is, in our form; after our likeness; with the ability to understand and to discern, showing man’s superior glory and dignity to the rest of the creations;

— the Jerusalem Targum says,

the Word of the Lord created man in his likeness; even that Word that was in the beginning with God, and in God’s presence, the Word created all things; which is closely linked to John 1:1;

— and the parallel revealing of the Word in John 1:1-3

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. John 1:1-3

²⁸ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” — so God created man in his own image; and with man’s superior intelligence, to subdue and have dominion over them;

²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. — to you it shall be for meat: which is generally thought to be the food; as the Hebrew word “meat” is an old English term for “food;” compares this Luke 24:41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, “Have ye here any meat?”

³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat”; and it was so. — and to every beast, and to every fowl and every thing that creepeth, are likewise for food;

³¹ And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. — it is affirmed here everything is good that flesh and meat as well as herbs and fruits, are granted to the first men for food;

— and therefore we are safe to ignore any false shepherds who came along later and preached derogatively the eating of meat as if eating corpses; it is sufficient for us that it was expressly allowed here; as was instructed to righteous Noah in Genesis 9:3 (except the blood);

— and Ellen G White is thus a false prophetess; for she wrote derogatively of eating meat as if eating corpses:

From the light God has given me, the prevalence of cancer and tumors is largely due to gross living on dead flesh.

I sincerely and prayerfully hope that, as a physician, you will not forever be blind on this subject, for blindness is mingled with a want of moral courage to deny our appetite, to lift the cross, which means, to take up the very duties which cut across the natural passions.

Feeding on flesh, the juices and fluids of what you eat pass into the circulation of your blood, and, as we are composed of what we eat, we become animalized; thus a feverish condition is created, because the animals are diseased, and by partaking of their flesh, we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood.

Then when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, these are more sensibly felt; also when we are exposed to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases the system is not in condition to resist the disease. TSDF 68.11

I have the subject presented to me in different aspects. The mortality caused by meat-eating is not discerned; if it were, we would hear no more arguments and excuses in favor of the indulgence of the appetite for dead flesh. We have plenty of good things to satisfy hunger without bringing CORPSES upon our table to compose our bill of fare. TSDF 68.12

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so. And what will ye do in the end thereof? Jeremiah 5:31

 For they prophesy falsely unto you in My name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 29:9

Genesis 2

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. — the host of them; that is, the creatures contained therein; the host of heaven, in Scripture language, sometimes signifies the stars and sometimes the angels;

² And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. — God ended his work; not all work (John 5:17), but the work of this specific creation;

³ And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. — God blessed the seventh day, by conferring special honours and privileges upon it above all other days, that it should be a day of solemn rest and rejoicing and celebration of God and his works.

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, —t hese are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created; that is, the above account is a history of the creation of the heavens and earth, and of all things in them; the creation of them being a kind of generation, and the day of their creation a sort of birthday;

⁵ and before every plant of the field was in the earth, and before every herb of the field grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

— for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: so the plants and herbs could not grow owing to that; since on the third day, when they were made, there was no sun to exhale and draw up the waters into the clouds, in order to be let down again in showers of rain;

— and there was not a man to till the ground; who was not created till the sixth day, and therefore could have no concern in the cultivation of the earth, and of the plants and herbs in it; but these were the produce of almighty power;

⁶ But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. — a mist; this mist, as we learn from Job 36:27, where the same word is translated vapour, is the measure and material of the rain;

⁷ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. — and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground; literally, formed the man (adam) dust from the ground;

— became a living soul, that is, a living man: not only capable of performing the functions of the animal life, of eating, drinking, walking and more; and of thinking, reasoning, and discoursing as a rational creature;

⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. — and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; or “had planted” for this wasn’t done after the formation of man;

⁹ And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. — the tree of life also; so called, because of assuring him of the continuance of life and happiness, on condition of his persevering in obedience;

— but also because God had given to the fruit of it a singular virtue for the support of nature, the prolongation of life, and the prevention of all diseases, infirmities, and decays through age;

— the tree of knowledge of good and evil; to man, who by the use of it would know, to his cost, how great and good things he did enjoy, and might have kept by his obedience, and how evil and bitter the fruits of his disobedience were to himself and all his posterity; thus knowing both the good and evil;

¹⁰ And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became four heads. — the Targum of Jonathan says And a river went forth from Eden, to water the garden, and from thence was separated, and became four heads of rivers (or four chief rivers).

¹¹ The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. — the first is Pishon; or Pison, perhaps an eminent branch of the river Tigris, probably that called by others Pasi-tigris, or Piso-tigris;

¹² And the gold of that land is good, and there is bdellium and the onyx stone. — there is the bdellium, and the onyx stone; the first of these is either an aromatic gum; the tree is black, and is of the size of an olive tree, has the leaf of an oak;

¹³ And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush. — Gihon, the second river, flows by the land of Kush; there is one other Gihon mentioned in 1 Kings 1:33, and in II Chronicles 32:30;

— the rivers Pishon and Gihon may have been greatly altered or even effaced by the deluge and other causes over time;

¹⁴ And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. — of the “Hiddekel” and “Euphrates” there high probability the former is the Tigris, or Tigres;

— and the fourth river is Euphrates; which retains its name till modern time as we know it today;

¹⁵ And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. — to dress it and to keep it; the first word literally means to work it; for though a paradise, yet the garden had to be tilled and planted; seeds must be sown and the cultivated plots kept in order;

— the other word, “to keep it,” implies, however, some difficulty and danger, though no unpropitious weather, nor blight nor mildew, spoiled the crop, yet apparently it had to be guarded against the incursion of wild animals and birds, and protected even against the violence of winds and the burning heat of the sun;

¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; — saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: a very generous, large, and liberal allowance this: or “in eating thou mayest eat”

¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” — the tree of knowledge of good and evil; a consequence to humanity of how evil and bitter the fruits of his disobedience were to himself and all his posterity; thus knowing both the good and evil;

— for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die; man became at once a mortal creature; but had he obeyed by eating of the tree of life, he would have lived an immortal life;

¹⁸ And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper meet for him.” — a new and final need of man is stated, a helper;  she is formed to be social, to hold converse, not only with her superior, but also with him, a co-worker;

¹⁹ And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

— whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof; his powers of perception and intelligence were supernaturally enlarged to know the characters, habits, and uses of each species that was brought to him.

²⁰ And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper meet for him. — power and dominian over the creatures were also given to man, and as a proof of this he named them all.

²¹ And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. — the Targum of Jonathan says, “and he took one of his ribs; it was the thirteenth rib of his right side:”

— that opening of his side and the taking away of his rib might be no grievance to him; while he knows no sin, God will take care that he shall feel no pain;

²² And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto the man. — the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he woman; was not made from the superior part of man, that she might not be thought to be above him, and have power over him; nor from any inferior part, as being below him, and to be trampled on by him; but out of his side;

²³ And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” — she shall be called Woman (Ishah), because she was taken out of Man (Ish); from hence the suffix ish is derived from: British (English, Scottish), Irish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish; indicating they are of Hebraic origin;

²⁴ Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. — one flesh; the human pair differed from all other pairs, that by peculiar formation of Eve, they were one; the man and his wife;

²⁵ And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. — and they were both naked, the man and his wife, but were not ashamed.

Posted in Books of Moses

Deuteronomy 33

¹ And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.— the blessing wherewith Moses blessed Israel; Moses, the prophet of the Lord, called upon upon Israel by foretelling the blessings which God would confer upon them in the latter days;

² And he said: “The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them. He shined forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand went a fiery law for them.

— the Lord came; under a beautiful metaphor, borrowed from the dawn and progressive splendor of the sun, the Majesty of God is sublimely described as a divine light which appeared in Sinai and scattered its beams on all the adjoining region in directing Israel’s march to Canaan;

— ten thousands of saints, that is, with a a great company of holy angels, Psalm 68:17 Daniel 7:10, which attended upon him in this great and glorious work of giving the law;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds that both the sons of Esau and Ishmael rejected the law:

And he said: The Lord was revealed at Sinai to give the law unto His people of Beth Israel, and the splendour of the glory of His Shekinah arose from Gebal to give itself to the sons of Esau: but they received it not.

It shined forth in majesty and glory from mount Pharan, to give itself to the sons of Ishmael; but they received it not.

It returned and revealed itself in holiness unto His people of Beth Israel, and with Him ten thousand times ten thousand holy angels. He wrote with His own right hand, and gave them His law and His commandments, out of the flaming fire. Deuteronomy 33:2 Targum

³ Yea, He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand; and they sat down at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words. — all God’s saints or holy ones, that is, his people, were in thy hand, that is, under God’s care, to protect, direct, and govern them;

— and from MSG

Moses, man of God, blessed the People of Israel with this blessing before his death. He said, God came down from Sinai, he dawned from Seir upon them; He radiated light from Mount Paran, coming with ten thousand holy angels And tongues of fire streaming from his right hand.

Oh, how you love the people, all his holy ones are palmed in your left hand. They sit at your feet, honoring your teaching, The Revelation commanded by Moses, as the assembly of Jacob’s inheritance. Thus God became king in Jeshurun as the leaders and tribes of Israel gathered. Deuteronomy 33:1-5 MSG

⁴ Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. — the Law, both Written and Oral, is Jacob’s inheritance, because the obligation to observe it was hereditary, passing from parents to their children, and because this was the best part of their inheritance, the greatest of all those gifts which God bestowed upon the children of Israel;

— this command to study the law by the house of Jacob is one example worth studying further from Sanhedrin, the Talmud:

And Rabbi Yoḥanan says: A Gentile who engages in Torah study is liable to receive the death penalty; as it is stated: “Moses commanded us a law [torah], an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob” (Deu 33:4), indicating that it is an inheritance for us, and not for them. Sanhedrin 59a

— to Rabbi Yoḥanan, God want the children of Israel to study the Torah, which is true, but he doesn’t want Gentiles to study and know the Scriptures; which is untrue, for God want “all people, nations, and languages should serve Him:” How could one serve God without an understanding of serving Him?

— for a more detailed analysis, see The Talmud: true or fake?

⁵ And He was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together. — He was king; that is, not Moses but the Lord became king. —

⁶ “Let Reuben live, and not die, and let not his men be few.” — Reuben (France), identified by most CoG Communities as France. Despite having gone to his father’s bed, let Reuben live, and not die. Yet no judge, prophet, or national hero arose out of this tribe. Napoleon might be an exception, but he ended in Waterloo with a defeat!

the Targum of Jonathan says

Let Reuben live in this world, nor die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come; and let his youths be numbered with the young men of his brethren of Beth Israel.

⁷ And this is the blessing of Judah; and he said: “Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people; let his hands be sufficient for him, and be Thou a help to him from his enemies.” — and this is the blessing of Judah, who are the Jews; the Targum of Jonathan adds, “Let his hand take vengeance on his enemies, and be Thou his help and support against his foes.”

— the Targum of Jonathan says in full

And this is the benediction of the tribe of Jehudah, conjoined with the portion and benediction of his brother Shemeon; and thus he spake: Receive, O Lord, the prayer of Jehudah when he goeth forth unto war, and bring Thou him back from war unto his people in peace. Let his hand take vengeance on his enemies, and be Thou his help and support against his foes.

⁸ And of Levi he said: “Let Thy Thummim and Thy Urim be with Thy holy one, whom Thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom Thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah,

— and of Levi (the Jews); next to Joseph, this tribe has the largest share in Moses’ last words, it being his own tribe. The character of the priest is the principal subject. The blessing may be thus paraphrased: “Let thy Thummim and thy Urim (the chief high-priestly ornaments) be ever with some saintly man of thine;

— the Targum of Jonathan says

And Mosheh the prophet blessed the tribe of Levi, and said, With Perfections and Lights hast Thou robed Aharon, the man whom Thou didst find devout before Thee, whom Thou didst try in the temptation, and he was sincere, and didst prove at the Contention Waters in Rekem, and he was found faithful.

⁹ who said unto his father and to his mother, ‘I have not seen him’; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children; for they have observed Thy word, and kept Thy covenant. — they kept thy covenant; while the rest broke their covenant with God by sin of idolatry, the priests and Levites kept themselves pure from that infection, and adhered to God and his worship.

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

The tribe of Levi go forth to the service of the tabernacle, and separate themselves from their dwellings, saying of their fathers and mothers, I have not regarded them and of their brethren, Since we were of thirty years we have not known them or their children, for that they abide twenty years in their charge according to Thy Word, and keep the service of the holy covenant.

¹⁰ They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments and Israel Thy law; they shall put incense before Thee and whole burnt sacrifice upon Thine altar. — they shall teach Jacob thy statutes, and Israel thy law; the priests and Levites, being dispersed among each of the tribes, having cities in them allotted to them, taught the people the laws, statutes, and ordinances of the Lord.

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Apt are they in teaching the orders of Thy judgments to them of Beth Jakob, and Thy law to them of Beth Israel. Their brethren the priests put incense on the censers to restrain the plague in the day of Thy wrath, and offer up the burnt sacrifice with acceptance at Thy altar.

¹¹ Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands; smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.” — Bless, Lord, his substance; because the priests and Levites hath no inheritance of his own, and therefore wholly depends upon thy blessing;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Bless Lord, the sacrifice of the house of Levi, who give the tenth of the tenth; and the oblation of the hand of Elijah the priest, which he will offer on Mount Karmela, receive Thou with acceptance: break the lons of Achab his enemy, and the neck of the false prophets who rise up against him, that the enemies of Johanan the high priest may not have a foot to stand.

¹² And of Benjamin he said: “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.” — Benjamin is put next to Levi, because the temple, where the work of the Levites lay, was upon the edge of the lot of this tribe;

— Benjamin (Norway and Iceland) was his father’s favourite child, and the imagery of this promise is throughout drawn from the relations between such a child and its father;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Mosheh the prophet blessed the tribe of Benjamin, and said: The beloved of the Lord shall abide in safety with Him, He will protect him all the days, and His Shekinah will dwell within his borders.

¹³ And of Joseph he said: “Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, — blessed of the Lord be his land; as the lands inherited by his sons were extremely fruitful, the countries of lead and Bashan by Manasseh, and the fields of Samaria by Ephraim;

— for the precious things of heaven; that is, the pleasant, precious, and excellent fruits, reproduced by the influence of the heavens, particularly showers of rain which descend from thence;

— and for the deep that coucheth beneath; that is, oil, coal, iron ore, tin, zinc and diamonds, beneath the earth, and breaks out upon it, and waters it, and makes it fruitful, which happiness the land of Joseph had, as well as the rain and dew of heaven: this is to be understood of springs and fountains that flow out of the earth to the enriching of it;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And Mosheh the prophet of the Lord blessed the tribe of Joseph, and said: The land of Joseph shall be blessed from before the Lord. From the bounty of the heavens shall it have goodly fruit, from the dew and the rain that come down from above, and from the bounty of the founts of the deep which rise up and flow and with good fruitage to water the herbage from beneath,

¹⁴ and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, — by the sun, which opens and warms the earth, cherisheth and improveth, and in due time ripeneth the seeds for all manner of fruits of the earth;

— by the moon, which by its moisture refreshes and promotes them; that onions, when the moon waxes old, increase, and flag when it is young, and at the increase of the moon all sort of corn grows bigger and larger. Hebrew, of the moons, or months, that is, which it bringeth forth in the several months or seasons of the year;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

age and produce that the earth maketh perfect by the aid (bringing out) of the sun, and with the bounty of the firstfruits of the trees which the ground yieldeth in the beginning of month after month,

¹⁵ and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, — and for the chief things of the ancient mountains; wWhich were from the beginning of the world, and for which the land, possessed by the children of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim, were famous;

— as the mountains of Gilead and Bashan, inherited by the former, and Mount Ephraim, and the mountains of Samaria, by the latter; which produced, besides great quantities of grass and corn, also vines, figs, olives, and more;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

and with the goodness through the birthright ordained of the mountain tops, him at the beginning by the benediction of the fathers who resemble the mountains, and with the goodness of the hills whose produce faileth not, which was given him in heritage by the benedictions of the mothers of old, who resemble the hills;

¹⁶ and for the precious things of the earth and fullness thereof, and for the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. — in the strength of this blessing, the tribe of Joseph would attain to such a development of power, that it would be able to tread down all brothers and all other nations;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

and with the goodness of the excel- lent fruits of the earth and its fulness and the favour towards him of Eloah who revealed Himself to Mosheh at the bush in the glory of His Shekinah: let all these blessings be combined, and be made a diadem of grandeur for the head of Joseph, and for the brow of the man who was chief and ruler in the land of Mizraim, and was the glory and honour of his brethren.

¹⁷ His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns. With them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth; and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”

— his glory is like the firstling of his bullock; or the prime and fairest bullock of the herd. For things that excel in their kind are called firstborn in Scripture; his horns are like the horns of unicorns;a horn is a common Scripture emblem of power and force; as of the monoceros or rhinoceros;

— here also it ascribes to Ephraim ten thousands, and to Manasseh only thousands; thus foreshowing, that Ephraim the younger was to be the more numerous of the two, as Jacob had before prophesied of them;

— ten thousands of Ephraim and thousands of Manasseh; another view refers this to the ten thousands slain by Joshua, the Ephraimite leader, and the thousands slain by Gideon, who was of the tribe of Manasseh;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

The birthright had belonged to Reuben, but was taken from him and given to Joseph at the beginning; from thence comes the splendour of his glory and praise.

For as it may not be that a man should work the ground with the firstling of his herd, so are not the children of Joseph to be reduced to servitude among the kingdoms; and as the reema pusheth with his horns the beasts of the wilderness, so will the sons of Joseph predominate together among the peoples in all the ends of the earth.

Myriads will be slain in Gulgela by Hoshea bar Nun who hath arisen from the house of Ephraim, and thousands of the Midyance by Gideon bar Yoash who will be of the tribe of Menasheh.

— refering to the posterity of Joseph should carry their conquests and spread their dominionin “among the peoples in all the ends of the earth” the Targum would refer such prophecy to the latter days, not just to the end of the land of Caanan during the days of Joshua and Gidean, which are only a forerunner;

— for more, see (1) Ephraim / The United States (2) The Ox without the Unicorn (3) Jacob prefers Ephraim over Manasseh

¹⁸ And of Zebulun he said: “Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out, and, Issachar, in thy tents. — Rejoice, Zebulun; in thy going out; first, to war, as this phrase is often used; second to sea, in the way of traffic, because their portion lay near the sea;

— Zebulun (Holland) and Issachar (Finland) were united with Judah, in the leading division of Israel in the wilderness; the warlike character of the first and the more peaceful wisdom of the second, are illustrated by Judges 5:18 and 1Chronicles 12:32-33;

— Issachar (Finland) is a strong ass couching down between two burdens (Genesis 49:14); between East and West, between Russia and Nato;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And Mosheh the prophet blessed the tribe of Zebulon, and said: Rejoice, O house of Zebulon, in your going forth for your commerce, and you, O house of Issakar, in the tabernacles of your schools.

¹⁹ They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness; for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand.”

— of the abundance of the sea; Holland shall grow rich by the traffic of the sea; and treasures of Finand are hidden in the sand; in which sometimes there is mixed a considerable quantity of gold, including iron, chromium, copper and nickel;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Many peoples shall pray at the mountain of the sanctuary, thither will they bring their oblations of truth: for they dwell by the side of the great sea, they are nourished with (its) dainties; and they take the shell-fish and dye with its blood in purple the threads of their vestments; and from the sands make mirrors and vessels of glass; for the treasures of their coasts are discovered to them.

²⁰ And of Gad he said: “Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad; he dwelleth as a lion and teareth the arm with the crown of the head. — and of Gad (Switzerland) he dwelleth as a lion; bold and courageous, secure, and without fear of any of his enemies, though near him, on his borders;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Mosheh the prophet of the Lord blessed the tribe of Gad, and said: Blessed be He who hath made wide the border of Gad. He reposeth as a lion in his habitation; but when he goeth out to battle against his adversaries, he slayeth kings and rulers, and his slaughtered ones are known from all the slain, for he striketh off the arm with the crown (of the head).

²¹ And he provided the first part for himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated. And he came with the heads of the people; he executed the justice of the Lord and His judgments with Israel.” — the first part; the first territory conquered by Moses was distributed between Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh;

— he executed the justice of the Lord, and his judgments with Israel; that is, either he justly and truly fulfilled all his promises and engagements, on condition of which he was placed on the other side; or he, together with the rest of the Israelites, executed the righteous judgment of God upon the Canaanites, in the expulsion and destruction of them;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And he saw that the land was good, and took his portion among the first; for there was a place strown with precious stones and pearls; for there is the place where Mosheh the prophet is hidden, who, as he went in and out at the head of the people in this world, will go in and out in the world that cometh; because he wrought righteousness before the Lord, and taught the orders of the judgments to the house of Israel his people.

²² And of Dan he said: “Dan is a lion’s whelp; he shall leap from Bashan.” — Dan (Ireland and Denmark) is a lion’s whelp; the lion of the tribe of Dan is not like the lion of the tribe of Judah; Jacob in Genesis 49:17 compared him to a serpent and an adder;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And Mosheh the prophet of the Lord blessed the tribe of Dan, and said: The tribe of Dan is like a lion’s whelp, his land is watered by the streams that flow from Mathnan, and his border cometh unto Batania.

²³ And of Naphtali he said: “O Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess thou the west and the south.” — O Naphtali, satisfied with favour; with the favour of men; and of Naphtali (Sweden); Genesis 49:21 says Naphtali is a hind let loosed indicating sexual immorality and promiscuity; this best describes modern Sweden;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And Mosheh the prophet of the Lord blessed the tribe of Naphtali, and said: {Naphtali is satisfied with favour, and hath delight in the fishes of the sea which falleth within his portion; and he will be replete with blessings in the fruits of the vale of Genesareth which hath been given him from the Lord; he shall inherit the water of Sopheni, and the sea of Tebaria.}

²⁴ And of Asher he said: “Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. — and of Asher (Belgium) be blessed with children; he shall have numerous, strong, and healthful children;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

{And Mosheh the prophet of the Lord blessed the tribe of Asher, and said:} Blessed is Asher of the sons of Jakob. He will be acceptable to his brethren, and will supply them with provender in the years of release: his border will produce many olives yielding oil, enough for him to bathe in it even his feet.

²⁵ Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. — thy shoes shall be iron and brass; perhaps it should be read, thy bars shall be iron and brass; or Iron and brass be thy castle; and as the days of thy life let thy rest continue;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

The tribe of Asher be sound as iron, and their feet-strong as brass in walking on the stony rocks; and as the days of their youth so shall they be strong in their age.

²⁶ “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven to thy help and in His excellency on the sky. — there is none like unto the God of Jeshurun; or Israel, as all the three Targums say; for this is one of the names of the God of Israel;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

There is no God like the God of Israel, whose Shekinah and Chariot dwell in the heavens. He will be your helper. He sitteth on His glorious throne in His majesty, in the expanse of the heavens above.

²⁷ The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, ‘Destroy them.’ — and shall say, destroy them; the Canaanites: to do which the people of Israel had an order from the Lord, Deuteronomy 7:1

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

The habitation of Eloha is from eternity; by the arm of His power beneath the world is upborne. He will scatter your adversaries before you, and will say by His Word, Destroy them.

²⁸ Israel then shall dwell in safety alone; the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew. — Israel then shall dwell in safety; that is, in confidence and security;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

And Israel shall dwell safely as of old according to the benediction with which Jakob their father did bless them, for whose righteousness sake He will cause them to inherit the good land that yieldeth corn and wine; the heavens also above them will drop with the dews of blessing, and the rains of lovingkindness.

²⁹ Happy art thou, O Israel! Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! And thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places.” — be found liars unto thee; or “shall lie unto thee” or be in such dread and fear as to tell lies to save themselves, perhaps even, “cringe before thee.”

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

Happy are you, O Israel: who of all the nations are like you, a people saved in the Name of the Word of the Lord? He is the shield of your help, and His sword, the strength of your excellency. And your enemies shall be found liars against you from terror, and you shall tread upon the necks of their kings.

Deuteronomy 34

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¹ And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, — Moses went up; when he knew the place of his death, he cheerfully mounted the hill to come to it;

² and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, — the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali . . . unto the utmost sea; that is, the Mediterranean;

— and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh: which lay in the midland part of the country; and he showed him all the land which was to be given to these several tribes; and all the land of Judah; which lay to the south;

— another explanation for “unto the utmost sea” offered by the Targum of Jonathan is “who would have dominion in the land until the latter sanctuary should be destroyed” of which “the latter sanctuary” is further explained by Rashi:

Do not understand the verse as stating הַיָּם הָאַחֲרוֹן, but read it as though it had said הַיּוֹם הָאַחֲרוֹן, “until the very last day,” meaning that the Holy One, blessed is He, showed him all the incidents that were destined to happen to Israel [until “the last day,” namely,] until the time that the dead would return to life. — [Sifrei 33:31]

— which means, Moses was shown by God all the days till the end of this age: the fall of the “latter” sanctuary, the Sword and Flaming Fire from the South; the Psalm 83 Prophecy; a Greater than the Egyptian “Exodus” and the coming Gog and Magog; for more, see Sequence of Prophecies till the Return of Israel

³ and the South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. — and the Desert of the “South,” that is, the Negeb; and the plain and valley of Jericho which lay before him;

⁴ And the Lord said unto him, “This is the land which I swore unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it unto thy seed.’ I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.”

— this is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed; to Abraham, Genesis 15:18 “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates:” to Isaac, Genesis 26:3; to Jacob, Genesis 28:13,

⁵ So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. — the land of Moab; which formerly belonged to Moab, and was taken from them by Sihon king of the Amorites, and now in the possession of Israel:and Moses dies

— here on a mountain in this land Moses died; according to the decree of the Lord; and is buried on Pisgah, and Joshua steps into his place, but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day;

⁶ And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor; but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. — and he buried him; Moses is alone in this honour: the Son of God was buried by sinful men, but Moses was buried by Yehovah himself;

— but no man knoweth of his sepulchre; men have always believed that the contention between Michael and the devil about the body of Moses (Jude 1:9) was in fact, a struggle for his body; bearing in mind the appearance of Moses at the Transfiguration Matthew 17:1-10, and what is said by Jude (Jude 1:9), we may conjecture that Moses after death passed into the same state with Enoch and Elijah; and that his grave could not be found because he was shortly translated (transported) from it.

⁷ And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated. — his age may be divided into three equal periods, forty years in Pharaoh’s court, forty years in Midian, and forty in the care and government of Israel, in Egypt and in the wilderness;

— Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; but though he lived the full length of human life, and to an age which, in others that live up to it, is accompanied with many diseases and infirmities, yet this had made little or no alteration in him;

⁸ And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. — the children of Israel wept for Moses thirty days; as they did for Aaron, his brother (Numbers 20:29);

— the Targum of Jonathan adds more details:

And the children of Israel wept for Mosheh in the plains of Moab thirty days; and the days of weeping in the mourning for Mosheh were completed on the eighth of the month of Nisan.

And on the ninth of Nisan the people of Beth Israel prepared their vessels and set their cattle in order, and passed over the Jordan on the tenth of Nisan.

And the manna ceased for them on the sixteenth of Nisan. They found manna to eat thirty seven days after the death of Mosheh, for the sake of his righteousness.

— “And the manna ceased for them on the sixteenth of Nisan” this being the fact that from the moment (morning) of the “wave sheaf” offering, the children of Israel were then allowed to eat the new grain; adding another proof that the wave sheaf was waved on the sixteenth of Nisan (and not at the end of that week).

— for numerous Issues and Critiques of Pentecost and Wave Sheaf Offering, see (1) Archive for the ‘Pentecost’ Category (2) Archive for the ‘Wave Sheaf Offering’ Category

⁹ And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him. And the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.

— Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom; as wisdom is mentioned as being most necessary for the government to which he was now called; for Moses had laid his hands upon him; which was a symbol of the government being committed to him;

¹⁰ And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, — there arose not a prophet since in Israel; such words like these can only indicate have been written some time later after the death of Moses;

¹¹ in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, — in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do; which the Lord sent him to do; ‘for he it was that appeared to him in the bush, and sent him to Egypt to work miracles, which he did by him;

— in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land; to whom they were visible, and who were all affected by the ten plagues inflicting upon all the Egyptians;

¹² and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel. — and in all that great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel; meaning either the terror the Egyptians were struck with by him, in the sight of all Israel,

— when he publicly and before them wrought the wonders he did in the land of Egypt, which threw them into a panic, especially the thunders and lightning, the three days darkness, and the slaying of their firstborn;

— the Targum of Jonathan adds more details of the content that were later deposited inside the Ark, especially “the two tables of sapphire stone:”

and in all the strength of the Mighty Hand by which he bare the rod whose weight was forty savin and that divided the sea, and smote the rock; and in all the solemn things which Mosheh did when he received the two tables of sapphire stone, whose weight was forty savin, and carried both of them in his hands in the sight of all Israel.

Posted in Books of Moses

Deuteronomy 31

¹ And Moses went and spoke these words unto all Israel. — these are the words Moses spoke unto all Israel, which is in great contrast to the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, where was usual to read “And the Lord spoke unto Moses” and “And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the Lord,”

² And he said unto them: “I am a hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in. Also the Lord hath said unto me, ‘Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.’ — and he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; perhaps on the selfsame day he was bid to go up to Mount Nebo and die;

³ The Lord thy God, He will go over before thee, and He will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them; and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said. — and He will destroy these nations from before thee; and he will destroy those nations from before thee; the seven nations which then inhabited the land;

— the Lord would fulfil His promise, to go before Israel and destroy the Canaanites, like the two kings of the Amorites; only they (the Israelites) were to do to them as the Lord had commanded them, that is, to root out the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:2; Numbers 33:51; Exodus 34:11)

⁴ And the Lord shall do unto them as He did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of those whom He destroyed. — and the Lord shall do unto them as he did unto Sihon, and to Og, kings of the Amorites; deliver them up into their hands; the story of this in Numbers 21:10

⁵ And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you. — and the Lord shall give them up before your face; to their ruin and destruction; the Targum of Jonathan says, “the Word of the Lord will deliver them up before you:”

⁶ Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, He it is who doth go with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee.” — fear not, nor be afraid of them; their enemies, though numerous and mighty, and some of them of a gigantic stature, and their cities strong and well fenced;

⁷ And Moses called unto Joshua and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage; for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them, and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.

— and Moses called unto Joshua; who might be at some distance from him, with the tribe to which he belonged; the Targum of Jonathan adds, “out of the midst of the people” and said unto him, in the sight of all Israel;

⁸ And the Lord, He it is who doth go before thee. He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee. Fear not, neither be dismayed.” — fear not, neither be dismayed; at the number and strength of the enemy, nor at any difficulties that might lie in the way of finishing so great an undertaking, since the Lord would be with him;

⁹ And Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. — and Moses wrote this law; the book of Deuteronomy, or the Torah, Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, which he had now finished, and which all of them together are sometimes called the law;

¹⁰ And Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, — at the end of every seven years; thou shalt read this law; at the return of the sabbatic year and during the feast of tabernacles, the law was to be publicly read;

¹¹ when all Israel has come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. — in the place which the Lord shall choose; the city of Jerusalem, and the Temple there.

¹² Gather the people together — men, and women, and children, and thy stranger who is within thy gates — that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law,

— thy stranger who is within thy gates; those strangers that couldn’t hear, see, learn and fear the Lord, these are the blind and unrepentent Gentiles, especially, First, from those of Psalm 83, and, Second, from those of “Gog and Magog;”

— for more, see Sequence of Prophecies for the Return of Israel

¹³ and that their children, who have not known any thing, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over the Jordan to possess it.” — may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God; hear the law of God, learn the meaning of it, and so be brought up in the fear, nurture, and admonition of the Lord, and serve him their Creator in the days of their youth;

¹⁴ And the Lord said unto Moses, “Behold, thy days approach that thou must die. Call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge.” And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation.

— that I may give him a charge; immediately from myself, for his great encouragement, and to gain him more authority with the people;

¹⁵ And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud, and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle. — the Targum of Jonathan adds, “Moses and Joshua went, and stood in the tabernacle of ordinance;”

¹⁶ And the Lord said unto Moses, “Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land whither they go to be among them, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. — this people will go after the gods of the strangers; first with the Canaanites;

— then later with others:

(a) Easters, a celebration of the Queen of heaven: Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols; and to those who actually think eggs and bunnies have something to do with the resurrection; Jeremiah 7:18 the women knead their dough to make cakes to the Queen of heaven; in Egypt, Jeremiah 44:17-19, 25, this is Ishtar: pronounced ‘Easter.’

(b) Christmas; Ezekiel 8:16 five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple; their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east; Christmas, which honor Mithraism, birthday on December 25th – a form of nature worship based on the Sun-Goddess Mithra who on the darkest night of the year (December 20/21), gives birth to “Light” causing each day thereafter to grow longer until the Summer solstice;

(c) Sundays; her sabbaths which is Sundays, where the original Sun-worshippers were the Samaritans, brought from Assyria: And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof, II Kings 17:24.

¹⁷ Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured; and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’

— and they shall be devoured; and they shall be devoured; by their enemies, or by the sore judgments of God, by famine, sword, pestilence, and evil beasts, they and their substance; and many evils and troubles shall befall them; both in their own land, and in other countries, where they would be carried captives;

¹⁸ And I will surely hide My face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. — for all the evils which they shall have wrought; for all the immoralities they should be guilty of, every transgression of his law, whether of the first or second table, or of LGBTqia; greed or other idolatries.

¹⁹ Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. — put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness; such method of perpetuating the truth was even better adapted to the times and to the condition of the people than the delivery of a written law.

²⁰ For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves and waxed fat, then will they turn unto other gods and serve them, and provoke Me and break My covenant.

— and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; that is, after they have for a considerable time enjoyed the good things of the land, and they abound with them, and increase in them, and have great fullness of them;

— then will they turn unto other gods: turn from the Lord who has brought them into all this plenty, from the fear, worship, and service of him, and turn to the worship of idols;

²¹ And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles have befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed. For I know their imagination and that which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.”

— this song shall testify against them as a witness; that they were sufficiently admonished of their duty, and forewarned what would be the consequence of their defection from me and my worship;

— for I know their imagination which they go about even now; there being a secret inclination in their minds to idolatry, which were working and contriving schemes to bring it about, and set it up;

²² Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel. — Moses therefore wrote this song the same day; that same day it was dictated to him by divine inspiration; and he wrote it;

²³ And He gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a charge and said, “Be strong and of good courage; for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore unto them, and I will be with thee.” — and said, be strong and of a good courage; that is, not fearing the people of the land, however tall their height or statue;

²⁴ And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book until they were finished, — and it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book; this book of Deuteronomy and those preceding it, and which concluded the Torah, or the Pentateuch;

²⁵ that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, — the Levites, which bare the ark; more specifically “the priests the sons of Levi” as in Deuteronomy 31:9

²⁶ “Take this Book of the Law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee; — the solemn delivery of the book of the law to the Levites, to be deposited in, or rather by the side, of the ark;

— the Targum of Jonathan says “Take the book of this law, and put it into a chest on the right side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be for a testament to you.”

²⁷ for I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord. And how much more after my death? — and how much more after my death? When he would be no more with them to instruct and advise them, to caution and reprove them, and to keep them in awe by his authority.

²⁸ Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. — the heads of the tribes, the princes, and magistrates;

²⁹ For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.”

— and evil will befall you in the latter days; not only in the times of the judges, nor even the time of the Babylonish captivity, but in their coming captivity, that is of “the latter days” as they call it;

— and here a revelation from Isaiah

Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none other; I am God, and there is none like Me,

declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ Isaiah 46:9-10

— for more, see Sequence of Prophecies for the Return of Israel

³⁰ And Moses spoke in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were ended: — and Moses spake; the words of this song; the exodus of Israel begins and ends with a song of Moses.

Deuteronomy 32

¹ “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

— the expression, “O earth” is expressed seven times throughout the OT, here by Moses, elsewhere by Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah, empahsizing that God, too, has a message for the whole of humanity;

— Give ear, O ye heavens; hear, O earth; by appealing, in this solemn manner, to the heavens and the earth in the beginning of this song, Moses intended to signify heaven and earth are here for the inhabitants of all, angels and men: both will agree to justify God in his proceedings against Israel, and to declare his righteousness.

² My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. — of such importance throughout, he desired that the words should trickle down like rain and dew upon grass and herb.

³ Because I will proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto our God. — it is the name YEHOVAH that I utter; Give ye greatness to our God.

⁴ “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment, a God of truth and without iniquity; just and right is He. — He is the Rock, his work is perfect; or rather, the Rock, perfect is his work.

⁵ They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of His children; they are a perverse and crooked generation. — they have corrupted themselves; that is, the Israelites by their frequent lapses and their inveterate attachment to idolatry.

⁶ “Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not He thy father that hath bought thee? Hath He not made thee and established thee? — is not he thy Father, that hath bought thee? thus the Father is also the Rock; verse 4 above;

⁷ Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee, thy elders, and they will tell thee. — the days of old, that is, the history and events of ancient days or former ages, and thou wilt find that I had a respect unto thee, not only in Abraham’s time, but long before it and also long after;

⁸ When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. — as the chosen people of God, the sons of Jacob were to be his messengers to the nations, the Gentiles; the LXX translate the latter half of Deuteronomy 32:8, “He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God”

— and here from the Targum of Jonathan in archaic English; “when by lot the Most High divided the world to the people that sprung from the sons of Noah:”

When the Most High made allotment of the world unto the nations which proceeded from the sons of Noach, in the separation of the writings and languages of the children of men at the time of the division, He cast the lot among the seventy angels, the princes of the nations with whom is the revelation to oversee the city, even at that time He established the limits of the nations according to the sum of the number of the seventy souls of Israel who went down into Mizraim.

⁹ For the Lord’S portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. — the Lord’s portion is his people.’  Jacob is the lot of his inheritance; because they were his part, his portion, his inheritance, which he chose by lot for himself

— and from the Message Bible

When the High God gave the nations their stake,
    gave them their place on Earth,
He put each of the peoples within boundaries
    under the care of divine guardians.
But God himself took charge of his people,
    took Jacob on as his personal concern. The Message Bible Deuteronomy 32:8-9

¹⁰ “He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. — he found him in a desert land; not by chance, but as it were looking out and seeking for him; he did, indeed, manifest himself to Israel in Egypt;

— as men use to keep the apple of their eye, that is, with singular care and diligence, this being, as a most tender, so a most useful part. What a striking idea does this give us of the care which God took of Israel.

¹¹ As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, — the eagle is observed by scientists to have a most tender affection to her young, and therefore the care of God over Israel is here well illustrated thereby.

¹² so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. — there was no strange god with him; no idolatry among them then;

— it signifies that the Lord alone was the leader of his people, and he had no assistant in that work, and therefore all the glory should be given to him: he is the leader of his people.

¹³ He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; — he made him ride on the high places; to conquer their strongest holds on the mountains, and their cities fenced with walls of the greatest height and strength;

— oil out of the flinty rocks; olive-trees growing and bearing fruit best in rocky or hilly places. The expressions are proverbial, and denote a most fertile land;

¹⁴ butter of cows and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. — the pure blood of the grape; this metaphor, as well as the preceding, is very elegant and natural, on account of the great resemblance between red wine and blood;

¹⁵ “But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked; thou hast waxed fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

— then he forsook God which made him; the worship of God, as the Targum of Jonathan says, giving into idolatry in times past; and the written word of God, by giving heed to neighbouring traditions of surrounding nations;

¹⁶ They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations provoked they Him to anger. — they provoked him to jealousy with strange gods; they sacrificed to devils, which were not-God; to gods whom they knew not, to new ones that had lately come up, whom their fathers knew not;

¹⁷ They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. — the devils; render unto idols or destroyers;

— whom your fathers feared not; paid no regard unto, put no trust or confidence in; or, as the Targum of Jonathan, “with whom your fathers had nothing to do.”

¹⁸ Of the Rock that begot thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. — that begat thee, that is, who hath adopted you to be his people, and hath showed as much care and kindness to you as if he had begotten you.

¹⁹ “And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of His sons and of His daughters. — when the Lord saw how they had departed from him to serve idols, he abhorred (rather, spurned or rejected) them in consequence of the provocation which their unworthy conduct israel had given to him;

²⁰ And He said: ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. — and he said, I will hide my face from them; to withdraw his favour and see what their end would be;

— I will see what their end will be; I will make them and others see what the fruit of such actions shall be; that their apostasy would bring nothing but evil and destruction;

²¹ They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities. And I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. — they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; by vanities are meant the fictitious deities of the nations with whose worship the Israelites corrupted themselves;

²² For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. — and set on fire the foundations of the mountains; that is, subvert their strongest fortresses, yea, Jerusalem itself, now London, Paris and Washington DC; founded on the holy mountains, which was perfectly fulfilled in its destruction, first, by Titus.

²³ “‘I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend Mine arrows upon them. — I will heap mischief upon them; I will send them one calamity upon another;

— I will spend mine arrows upon them; even empty my quiver, and send upon them all my plagues, which, like arrows (or missiles these days) shot by a skilful and strong hand, shall speedily reach, and certainly hit and mortally wound them.

²⁴ They shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. — burned with hunger; from War, famine, pestilence; burning heat; with burning fevers, or carbuncles or other inflaming distempers;

— poison of serpents of the dust; could not escape falling into the hands of wild beasts, and of meeting with poisonous serpents that go upon their bellies, and feed on the dust of the earth;

²⁵ The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. — these are accompanied by the evils of war, which sweeps away the men outside in the slaughter itself by the sword, and the defenceless; all inclusive, the youths and maidens, sucklings and old men;

²⁶ I said I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, — I would scatter them into corners, or rather, I would utterly disperse them to the end of the world,;

— I would make the remembrance of them cease from among men; as of the Amalekites, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, Chaldeans, and others, whose names as well as nations are no more;

²⁷ were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, “Our hand is high; and the Lord hath not done all this.”’ — the wrath of the enemy, that is their rage against me; their insolent and furious reproaches against my name, as if I were unnatural and cruel to my people, or unable to deliver them;

— and from MSG

I could have said, “I’ll hack them to pieces,
    wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,”
Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance
    to take credit for all of it,
Crowing, “Look what we did!
    God had nothing to do with this.” Deuteronomy 32:26-27 MSG

²⁸ “For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. — for they are a nation void of counsel; instances of their ingratitude, folly, and for lack of counsel and understanding;

²⁹ O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! — Moses, under a spirit of prophecy, foresees the ignorance and stupidity of the Israelites in the latter days;

— that they would consider their latter end; either the latter days of this age; had they wisdom, they would understand and observe that the displeasure of God against them, and their destruction among the nations.

³⁰ How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?

— except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up; that is, unless the Lord, who was their rock and fortress, and in whom they should have trusted as such, had forsaken them, and given them up into their enemies’ hands;

— if Israel were wise, they could easily overcome all their foes through the help of the Almighty (Leviticus 26:8); but having forsaken him, they were left by him, and so came under the power of the enemy.

³¹ For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. — for their rock is not as our rock; that is, the gods of the heathens, the rock in which they trusted, are not like the God of Israel.

³² For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. — Sodom and Gomorrah; here, as elsewhere, and often in the prophets, emblems of utter depravity and destruction; as the cities whose destruction for their wickedness was proverbial doomed.

³³ Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. —their wine is the poison of dragons; of these creatures, both land and sea dragons;

— and from MSG

They are a nation of idiots,
    they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.
If they had any sense at all, they’d know this;
    they would see what’s coming down the road.
How could one soldier chase a thousand enemies off,
    or two men run off two thousand,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
    unless God had given them away?
For their rock is nothing compared to our Rock;
    even our enemies say that.
They’re a vine that comes right out of Sodom,
    who they are is rooted in Gomorrah;
Their grapes are poison grapes,
    their grape-clusters bitter.
Their wine is rattlesnake venom,
    mixed with lethal cobra poison. Deuteronomy 32:28-33 MSG

³⁴ “‘Is not this laid up in store with Me, and sealed up among My treasures? — is not this laid up? “This” is generally taken to refer to what follows, but it is not clear. It may refer to the fact that “He looked for grapes, but the vine brought forth wild grapes” Isaiah 5:2

³⁵ To Me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.’ — a prophecy: their foot shall slide in due time; though not so soon as some may expect it, yet in at a latter time when it shall be most proper and seasonable, when they have filled up the measure of their sins.

³⁶ “For the Lord shall judge His people and repent for His servants, when He seeth that their power is gone and there is none shut up or left. — for the Lord shall judge his people; his chosen and covenant people;

— and there is none shut up or left; a phrase used to express the miserable state and condition of a people, when none are left, but all are carried off, or cut off, and destroyed, and there is none to help them;

³⁷ And He shall say: ’Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, — he shall ask: the Lord, before he deliver his people, will first convince them of their former folly in forsaking him and following idols; he will find an occasion from that miserable and hopeless condition into which their idols have brought them, to upbraid them with it;

³⁸ which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. — let them rise up and help you; their gods whom Israel had adopted from the Gentiles, upon whom judgment had fallen.

³⁹ “‘See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god besides Me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand. — the repetition of “I” is emphatic: “I, even I, am He, I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal” is expressive of his existence, eternity, immutability, and sovereignty;

⁴⁰ For I lift up My hand to heaven and say: I live for ever. — for I lift up my hand; this is the form in taking an oath;

⁴¹ If I whet My glittering sword and Mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to Mine enemies and will reward them that hate Me. — as to say, “As I live forever, if I whet my lightning sword, and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and repay them that hate me.”

⁴² I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.’ — I will make mine arrows drunk with blood; signifying, that by various judgments he would bring upon them, which, like arrows, would come suddenly, fly swiftly, and pierce deeply, there would be a prodigious effusion of blood;

— and that with the blood of the slain, and of the captives; that is, his arrows should be drunk not only with the blood of these that were wounded and killed, but of the captives; who commonly are spared, but in this case should not, their blood should be shed;

⁴³ “Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful unto His land and to His people.” — rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; or, “rejoice, ye nations” who are “his” people; the Gentiles, who are the Lord’s chosen and covenant people, redeemed and called;

⁴⁴ And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. — Joshua, who is here joined with Moses in this action, because though Moses only spake the words, yet Joshua consented to them; and, it may be, afterwards repeated them;

⁴⁵ And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel, — such rehearsal, once more impressed upon the hearts of the people the importance of observing all the commandments of God;

⁴⁶ and he said unto them: “Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. — which ye shall command; or rather, that ye may command your children to observe to do all the words of this law.

⁴⁷ For it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life; and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land whither ye go over the Jordan to possess it.” — for it is not a vain thing for you; not too light a thing for you, not unworthy of your attention;

— the law was no light and trifling matter, because it is your life, but of great importance and consequence, obedience to it being attended with rewards, and disobedience with punishment;

⁴⁸ And the Lord spoke unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, — the selfsame day; on which he finished the reading of the law, and the above song, which was the seventh of Adar (twelveth month) around February; according to the Targum of Jonathan, the day he died on;

⁴⁹ “Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab that is opposite Jericho, and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession. — unto Mount Nebo; where Moses was to die; which is in the land of Moab; it formerly belonged to it, but was taken from the Moabites by Sihon, and now possessed by Israel;

⁵⁰ And die on the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered unto his people, — as Aaron thy brother died in Mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people; of which Moses was an eyewitness; and which is observed, because there was a great likeness in their death;

⁵¹ because ye trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, because ye sanctified Me not in the midst of the children of Israel. — because ye trespassed; God reminds him of the sin he had committed long before, and this Moses records as an acknowledgment, made at his death, of God’s justice, and a warning to all people not to distrust or disobey the voice of God.

⁵² Yet thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.” — but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel; the land of Canaan was a gift of God to Israel.

Posted in Books of Moses

Deuteronomy 29

¹ These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.

— beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb; though it was substantially the same; but it was renewed now, in different circumstances;

— they had violated its conditions, hence Moses rehearses these, that they might have a better knowledge of its conditions and be more disposed to comply with them.

² And Moses called unto all Israel and said unto them, “Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh and unto all his servants and unto all his land,

— unto Pharaoh and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the plagues he inflicted on the person of Pharaoh, and on all his courtiers, and on all the people in Egypt, for they reached the whole land.

³ the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles. — the great temptations which thine eyes have seen; or trials, the ten plagues which tried the Egyptians; the signs and those great miracles: as the said plagues were such as were beyond the power of nature to produce.

⁴ Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day. — yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive; some of them seen the above miracles with their eyes, but had not discerned with their understanding the power of God displayed in them;

⁵ And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not waxed old upon you, and thy shoe has not waxed old upon thy foot. — your clothes are not waxen old upon you: were not worn out; all those forty years they had been in the wilderness, they had never wanted clothes fitting for them;

— and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot; which were to wear in travelling, and especially in a rugged wilderness; and yet, thought they had been always in use during so long a time, were not worn out.

⁶ Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink, that ye might know that I am the Lord your God. — ye have not eaten bread; not eaten bread made of corn, common bread, of their own preparing, by the labour of their own hands; but manna, the bread of heaven;

⁷ And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us unto battle, and we smote them. — and when ye came unto this place; the borders of Moab, the wilderness before it, to which joined the plains they were now in;

⁸ And we took their land and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the halftribe of Manasseh. — and we took their land; which belonged to the two kings, the lands of Jazer, Gilead, and Bashan, fine countries for pasturage:

⁹ Keep therefore the words of this covenant and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do. — the words of this covenant; that is, those spelt out in Deuteronomy 29:1 and on Deuteronomy 4:13;

¹⁰ “Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God— your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, — ye stand — before the Lord your God; they were assembled at the tabernacle, from whence he delivered these words to them by the priests and Levites;

¹¹ your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water—

— and thy stranger that is in thy camp; not only the proselyte of righteousness, who embraced the Israelite’s religion entirely, but the proselyte of the gate, who was admitted to dwell among them, having renounced idolatry;

¹² that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into His oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day, — the covenant was national, the whole congregation of Israel, of all ages and conditions, all, young as well as old; and therefore embraced all the elements which make up the nation;

¹³ that He may establish thee today for a people unto Himself, and that He may be unto thee a God, as He hath said unto thee and as He hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

— that he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself; it must be observed that this is the aspect of the covenant which makes Yehovah responsible for the fulfilment of the whole; he takes all this trouble for the sake of establishing thee in his presence for himself;

¹⁴ “Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, — neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; that is, Moses; for he was ordered to make this covenant with them in the name of the Lord;

¹⁵ but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day — so also with him that is not here; that is, with your posterity; and so with him that is not here with us this day; of the people of future generations;

¹⁶ (for ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the nations which ye passed by, — for ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; how long they and their fathers had dwelt there, the number of years they had been in the land;

— as the Targum of Jonathan, which was upwards of two hundred years; and being a country the inhabitants of which were much given to idolatry, they had seen many of their idols, and much of their idolatrous worship;

— and how we came through the nations which ye passed by; as the Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Midianites, through whose borders they came, as they passed by their countries in their journeys in the wilderness.

¹⁷ and ye have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them); — wood and stone, silver and gold; these are the materials of which the idols they had seen in the several countries they had been in, or passed through, were made of;

— some of wood, others of stone cut out of these, and carved; others more rich and costly were made of massive gold and silver, and were molten ones; or the images of wood were glided with gold and silver;

¹⁸ lest there should be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of these nations, lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood,

— lest there should be; to prevent their falling into idolatry, and preserve them from it, whether a single person of either sex, or a whole family, or even a tribe, which might be in danger of being infected with it, and so all the people;

¹⁹ and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart’—to add drunkenness to thirst.

— that he bless himself in his heart; inwardly pronounce himself blessed, thinking himself secure from the curse of the law, and flattering himself it will never reach him nor come upon him;

— saying, I shall have peace; all happiness and prosperity, in soul, body, and estate; inward peace of mind now, and eternal peace hereafter: though I walk in the imagination of my heart; in worshipping idols which he vainly and wickedly imagined to be gods; to the worship of which his wicked heart prompted him, and he was resolutely and stubbornly bent upon, and in which he continued;

²⁰ The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.

— then the Lord will not spare him; have no mercy upon him, nor forgive him, being an hardhearted, impenitent, stubborn, and obstinate sinner, as well as guilty of the grossest and most provoking sin, as idolatry is;

— and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him: for as he that offends in one point is guilty of all, and especially in such a principal point as this, which concerns the being and worship of God; so he makes himself liable to all the curses of the law;

²¹ And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law, — according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law; the evil of punishment he shall be separated unto shall be according to them, or include them all;

— and here is from MSG:

^14-21 I’m not making this Covenant and its oath with you alone. I am making it with you who are standing here today in the Presence of God, our God, yes, but also with those who are not here today.

You know the conditions in which we lived in Egypt and how we crisscrossed through nations in our travels. You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods.

Don’t let down your guard lest even now, today, someone—man or woman, clan or tribe—gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you, a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, “I’ll live just the way I please, thank you,” and ends up ruining life for everybody.

God won’t let him off the hook. God’s anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. God will delete his name from the records.

God will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation. Deuteronomy 29:18-20 The Message

²² so that the generation to come of your children who shall rise up after you, and the stranger who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it,

— and the stranger that shall come from a far land; the Assyrians and the Babylonians were from closeby; or for the sake of travelling from afar, his road either lying through it, or his curiosity leading him to see it;

²³ and that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burning, that it is not sown nor beareth nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath—

— like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; the whole land burnt of brimstone, and salt, and thereafter, is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein;

²⁴ even all nations shall say, ‘Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?’ — even all nations shall say; not just the Assyrians and the Babylonians from closeby; or even the Roman, but all nations shall wonder;

²⁵ Then men shall say, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; — then men shall say; these men are Gentiles; and they even know the answer: because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers;

²⁶ for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they knew not and whom He had not given unto them. — for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them; as did all Israel, in the times of Solomon, and the ten tribes under Jeroboam,

— and other succeeding kings of Israel; and the two tribes in the times of Ahaz, and especially of Manasseh, when they worshipped all the gods of the surrounding nations; 1 Kings 11:33,

²⁷ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; — to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; in this book of Deuteronomy, and particularly Deuteronomy 28:16; Daniel 9:11

²⁸ and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’ — and cast them another land, as it is this day; the ten tribes were cast into Assyria, and from thence into the cities of the Medes, the two tribes into the land of Chaldea;

— “and cast them into another land, as it is this day” this maybe a predicted statement of the forthcoming exiles; it could either be the writer’s own and if so betrays his foresight at that time, or it is a later editorial addition. In view of the language of the whole chapter, the former alternative is the more probable.

²⁹ “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. — secret things belong unto the Lord our God; that is, the counsels and secrets of God concerning persons or nations;

— but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever; the things of nature and Providence, which are plain and manifest, are for our use and instruction; and especially the word and ordinances of God, which are the revelation of his will, the doctrines and promises contained in the Scriptures, each of the duties of religion, and the commandments of God.

Deuteronomy 30

¹ “And it shall come to pass, when all these things have come upon thee, the blessing and the curse which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee,

— and thou shalt call them to mind; recollect the promises of blessings and cursings; an awakening among the people themselves must precede their restoration.

² and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy soul, — and shalt return unto the Lord thy God; by repentance, acknowledging their manifold sins and transgressions;

³ that then the Lord thy God will return thee from captivity and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.

— God will return thee from all the nations; not from Assyria, not from Babylon, not from Rome, but from “all the nations” that is, from the east, west, north, and south, where they are now dispersed;

— these are Prophecies of a sequence of Major events that will lead to the Return of the House of Israel, the Northern Lost 10-Tribes, back to the Promise Land that God had promised to Abraham, the land defined as the land between the two rivers;

— for more details written by the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah, see Sequence of Prophecies for the Return of Israel

⁴ If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee. — if any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven; again, emphasizing from the “outmost parts of heaven” that is, from the east, west, north, and south, where they are now dispersed;

— the timing is where the Targum of Jonathan indicates, “from thence will he bring you near by the hands of the King Messiah,” which means, at the close of this age;

⁵ And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers.

— and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; that these Israelites upon their conversion in the latter day will return to the land of Judea and Samaria again, and possess it, is the sense of many passages of other Scripture; written by the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel and Jeremiah;

⁶ And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. — the Lord will circumcise thy heart; will by his Word and Spirit change and purge thy heart from all thy idolatry and wickedness;

⁷ And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies and on them that hate thee, who persecuted thee. — the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies; from these blind and unrepentent Gentiles, especially, First, from those of Psalm 83, and, Second, from those of “Gog and Magog;”

⁸ And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all His commandments which I command thee this day. — and thou shalt return and do all his commandments; it is as certain that in this age that the laws of Deuteronomy have been forgotten or have never been kept perfectly.

⁹ And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good. For the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers,

— thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand; indicating these Israelites are humans, not spirit beings; in the fruit of thy body; abundance of children; and in the fruit of thy cattle; a large increase of oxen and sheep; and in the fruit of thy land for good;

¹⁰ if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul.

— to keep his commandments and his statutes, which are written in this book of the law; a constant reminder of keeping his laws and statutes, particularly at Mount Sinai and in this chapter;

¹¹ “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. — for this commandment is not hidden, either is it far off; that law of obeying God, which was the subject of Moses’ discourse, was well known to the Israelites; they could not plead ignorance of its existence and requirements.

¹² It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?’ — it is not in heaven; the scheme of it was formed in heaven, it was hid in the heart of God there, before revealed;

¹³ Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, ‘Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?’ — neither is it beyond the sea: the knowledge of this commandment is not to be fetched from far distant places;

¹⁴ But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. — in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it; the fulfilment of obeying God’s laws is not impossible, nor really very difficult;

¹⁵ “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, — see, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; the alternative of a good and happy, or a disobedient and miserable life.

¹⁶ in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply; and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. — a constant reminder of keeping his commandments, his statutes and judgments;

— and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it; with health and happiness, with an affluence of all good things, in the land between the two rivers they would enter into to take possession of.

¹⁷ But if thine heart turn away so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, — so that thou wilt not hear; the voice of the Lord and obey it, or hearken to his laws, and do them: but shalt be drawn away; by an evil heart, or by the ill examples of others;

¹⁸ I declare unto you this day that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land whither thou passest over the Jordan to go to possess it. — I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish; by one judgment or another; or else sent off into exile as captives;

¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live, — therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live; that is, prefer obedience to the law, and choose to perform that, the consequence of which is life;

²⁰ that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him; for He is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

— that thou mayest love the Lord thy God; here he shows them in short what their duty is; to love God as the Lord, a being most amiable, and as their God;

— that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them; the land of Canaan, the land between the two rivers.

Posted in Books of Moses

Deuteronomy 27

¹ And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep all the commandments which I command you this day.

— Moses with the elders; having in discourses at several times repeated the principal parts of the laws, and made several necessary additions to them, Moses called the council together, the seventy elders, at the head of whom was Moses, which made the great Sanhedrin, or council of the nation;

— keep all the commandments which I command you this day; not in his own name, as being the supreme legislator, but in the name of the Lord, whom they had avouched to be their God and King;

² And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over the Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster.

— they were ordered to take twelve stones, and did; but then they were set up in a different place, and for a different purpose; and plaster them with plaster: that so words might be written upon them, and be more conspicuous, and more easily read;

³ And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee.

— thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law; it might be, as some think, the Decalogue; but a greater probability is that it was “the blessings and curses,” which comprised in fact an epitome of the law (Joshua 8:34).

⁴ Therefore it shall be when ye have gone over the Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, on Mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. — in Mount Ebal; a mountain near Shechem in Samaria, the mount of cursing. Here the law is written, to signify that a curse was due to its violators;

⁵ And there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones. Thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them. — there shalt thou build an altar; of whole stones; these stones were to be in their natural state.

⁶ Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones, and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God. — whole stones; rough, not hewn, nor polished, whereby all manner of imagery was avoided.

⁷ And thou shalt offer peace offerings, and shalt eat there, and rejoice before the Lord thy God. — and thou shall offer peace offerings; part of which belonged to God, which was burnt on the altar, and part to the priest that offered them; and the rest to the owner that brought them, which he eat of with his friends;

⁸ And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.” — and thou shall write upon the stones all the words of this law; not upon the stones of the altar, but upon the first stones brought to Mount Ebal, and set up there before;

⁹ And Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke unto all Israel, saying, “Take heed and hearken, O Israel: This day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. — this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God; they were his people before; he had redeemed them out of Egypt; led them through the wilderness, and provided for them and protected them there;

— and had given them laws and statutes to observe to walk in; all which showed them to be his peculiar people: but now in a very formal and solemn manner they were vouched and declared by him to be his people;

¹⁰ Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day.” — thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God; in whatsoever he directs in his word, and by his prophets, his Son, eminently called the Word of the Lord:
and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day;

¹¹ And Moses charged the people the same day, saying,

¹² “These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people when ye have come over the Jordan: Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin. — the 12 tribes were divided on Gerizim and Ebal;

— on Mount Gerizim were stationed the descendants of Rachel and Leah, the two principal wives of Jacob, and to them was assigned the most pleasant and honorable office of pronouncing the benedictions;

¹³ And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. — on the twin hill of Ebal were placed the posterity of the bond-women, of the two secondary wives, Zilpah and Bilhah, with those of Reuben, who had lost the primogeniture, and Zebulun, Leah’s youngest son that the numbers might be equal;

¹⁴ And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice: — with a loud voice; so as they might be heard by a great number of the people, by whom the rest were informed and directed by some signal when they should answer.

¹⁵ “‘Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’ — the “Amen” attested the conviction of the utterers that the sentences to which they responded were true, just, and certain;

¹⁶ “‘Cursed be he that treateth lightly his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — cursed be he that setteth light by his father, or his mother; that secretly despises them in his heart, and by looks and gestures mocks at them in a private manner;

¹⁷ “‘Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark; removes it forward, and steals ground, this is commonly done secretly; Deuteronomy 19:14

¹⁸ “‘Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way; by directing him wrong knowingly, or laying a stumbling block in his way, Leviticus 19:14

— the Targum of Jonathan says, “that maketh a traveller wander out of the way, who like a blind man;” who knows his way no more than a blind man does.

¹⁹ “‘Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — there follow twelve curses; the fifth against those who pervert the right of strangers, orphans and widows;

²⁰ “‘Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife, because he uncovereth his father’s skirt.’ And all the people shall say, ’Amen.’ — the sixth against incest with a mother;

²¹ “‘Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — the seventh against unnatural vices (Leviticus 18:23);

²² “‘Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — the eighth and ninth against incest with a sister or a mother-in-law (Leviticus 18:9 and Leviticus 18:17);

²³ “‘Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²⁴ “‘Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — the tenth against secret murder (Exodus 20:13; Numbers 35:16.);

²⁵ “‘Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — the eleventh against judicial murder (“he that taketh reward to slay a soul, namely, innocent blood:” Exodus 23:7-8);

²⁶ “‘Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ — the twelfth against the man who does not set up the words of this law to do them, who does not make the laws the model and standard of his life and conduct.

Deuteronomy 28

¹ “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth;

— if thou hearken diligently; the foregoing blessings and curses being appointed to be pronounced in so solemn a manner, Moses takes occasion from thence to enlarge upon both of them, to show the Israelites what they and their posterity had to expect at the hands of God;

² and all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God: — all these blessings shall overtake thee; the blessings which others greedily follow after, and never overtake, shall follow after thee, and shall be thrown into thy lap by special kindness.

³ “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. — blessed shalt thou be in the city; not only in the city of Jerusalem, where the temple would be built, and there be blessed with the service, worship, and ordinances of God, but in all other cities of the land;

— where they should dwell in title, large, and spacious houses, and their cities should be walled and fenced, and be very populous; yet should enjoy health, and have plenty of all sorts of provisions brought unto them, as well as prosper in all kinds of merchandise there.

⁴ Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy herds, the increase of thy cattle, and the flocks of thy sheep. — blessed shall be the fruit of thy body; their children, of which they should have many, and these live; be healthful, thrive, and arrive to manhood, and increase and perpetuate their families;

— and the fruit of thy ground; of their gardens, orchards, and fields; grass for the cattle, and the wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates for the use of men: and the fruit of thy cattle; which being distinguished from oxen and sheep.

⁵ Blessed shall be thy basket and thy stores. — blessed shall be thy basket; which the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem restrain to the basket of firstfruits, and the cake of the first of their dough;

— but it intends any and every vessel in which they put their provisions for present use, and that that should never be empty of them, and that they should always have a sufficiency: and thy store; what remained, and was laid up in their barns, cellars, and storehouses, for future use, or in proper places for seed.

⁶ Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. — in all their business and employments of life whether within doors or outside;

— in the administration of every office, whether more public or private; and in all their journeys going out and coming home; and particularly when they went out to war, and returned, all should be attended with success.

⁷ “The Lord shall cause thine enemies who rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. — flee before thee seven ways—that is, in various directions, as always happens in a rout.

⁸ “The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. — in thy storehouses: barns, granaries, and cellar, where their corn, wine, and oil, were laid up; by preserving the corn from being devoured by vermin, and the casks of wine and oil from bursting and running out.

⁹ “The Lord shall establish thee a holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and walk in His ways. — an holy people unto himself, that is, shall confirm and establish his covenant with thee, by which he separated thee to himself as a holy and peculiar people, and shall publicly own thee for such.

¹⁰ And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. — compare this to Jeremiah 33:9 “And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity, that I provide unto it.”

¹¹ And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers to give thee. — in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee; the land of Canaan, often thus described; it evidence shows it is also true in the land of exile.

¹² The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.

— and thou shall lend unto many nations, and thou shall not borrow; that is, thou shalt be in such affluent circumstances, as to be capable, out of thy superfluous wealth, to give aid to thy poorer neighbors.

¹³ And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath, if thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them. — the head, and not the tail; give them dominion over others, and not make them subject to them; the head signifies rulers and governors, and the tail the common people that are subjects;

¹⁴ And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. — to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them; which to do was to break the first and principal table of the law, than which nothing was more abominable and provoking to God.

¹⁵ “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee: — that all these curses shall come upon thee; from the hand of God, certainly, suddenly and unexpectedly:

¹⁶ “Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. — in these curses are specified and delivered out in form, as the reverse of the blessings in Deuteronomy 28:3;

¹⁷ Cursed shall be thy basket and thy stores. — if under the curse, which, in summary, includes all misery, as the blessing all happiness.

¹⁸ Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy cattle, and the flocks of thy sheep. — cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land; — the Targum of Jonathan says “Accursed the children of your wombs, the fruits of your ground, the oxen of your herds, and the sheep of your flocks.”

¹⁹ Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. — in all their business and employments of life whether within doors or outside;

— in the administration of every office, whether more public or private; and in all their journeys going out and coming home; and particularly when they went out to war, and returned, all should be attended with success.

²⁰ “The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto to do until thou be destroyed and until thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings whereby thou hast forsaken Me.

— vexation; trouble, distress, and anguish of spirit: and rebuke; this may well be considered as a rebuke and correction for sins committed, to awaken to a sense and acknowledgment of them, and to repentance for them;

²¹ The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee until He have consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. — pestilence; some fatal epidemic, like Covid-19; there is no reason, however, to think that the plague, which is the great modern scourge worldwide, is referred to.

²² The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

— hard drugs such as methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin, and they shall pursue thee until thou perish; coincided with an increase in violence, including gun crime, and come so close one after another upon them, until they are utterly destroyed. In 2021, more than 80,000 deaths in the United States were related to opioids, with nearly 71,000 linked with fentanyl.

²³ And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. — thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass; for its dryness and hardness, no moisture being in it, or passing through it; no showers of rain nor dew being let down from it;

— and the earth that is under thee shall be iron; or like iron, hard and impenetrable, into which the plough and spade will not enter; nor anything spring out of it, for want of rain and dew to moisten and soften it.

²⁴ The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. — powder and dust; the great desert, that is, instead of showers of rain in their season, to water, refresh, and enrich the earth, now a land of powder and dust; becoming a great desert, makes this only too possible;

— the Targum of Jonathan says:

After the rain which cometh down on the earth, the Lord will send a wind that shall drive dust and ashes upon the herbage of your fields; and calamity will fall upon you from the heavens, until you are consumed.

²⁵ “The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

— the Lord shall cause thee to be smitten fore thine enemies; and by them, as they sometimes were by the Philistines and others, before their utter destruction, when they sinned against the Lord; and by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans;

— thou shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; march out against them in a body, promising themselves victory, but be utterly routed; so that they shall flee every way they can for their safety; Deuteronomy 28:7,

— and shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth; the ten tribes, when taken captive by Shalmaneser, were not carried into all the kingdoms of the earth, neither were the Jews; only to some particular places; but this prophecy is yet for the endtime: “into all the kingdoms of the earth”

— for a close parallel, see Jeremiah 23 (Another “Out of Egypt” Exodus)

“Therefore, behold, the days come,” saith the Lord, “that they shall no more say, ‘The Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’

but, ‘the Lord liveth who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land” Jeremiah 23:7-8

²⁶ And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall frighten them away. — it was to be a very grievous calamity, where their carcasses lying unburied; and as this have never happened, this prophecy is yet for the endtime;

²⁷ The Lord will smite thee with the boils of Egypt, and with the hemorrhoids, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. — the botch of Egypt; the “boil,” with which the Egyptians were plagued (Exodus 9:9); the “scab” and “itch” represent the various forms of the loathsome skin diseases;

²⁸ The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart; — and blindness; not of body, but of mind; with judicial blindness and hardness of heart: astonishment of heart; they shall be filled with wonder and horror, because of the strangeness and soreness of their calamities.

²⁹ and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways. “And thou shalt be only oppressed and despoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. — thou shalt grope at noonday, a general description of the painful uncertainty in which they would live.;

— and thou shall not prosper in thy ways; in any steps they may take to extricate themselves out of their difficulties, distresses, and calamities; they would be miserable, poor and wretched, mean and despicable.

³⁰ Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. Thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein. Thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof. — thou shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; espouse a woman in order to make her his wife, and before he can take her home, and consummate the marriage, some calamity or another would come upon them;

— thou shall build an house, and thou shall not dwell therein; being, before it is quite finished, or however before he is got into it, carried captive, or obliged to flee to a distant place;

³¹ Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof. Thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee. Thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.

— thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; shall be taken from the owner, and out of the field or stall, by the enemy, and killed for the soldiers to feed on, and not the least part of it given to them;

— thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored unto thee; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shall have none to rescue them; not given them by themselves, but they should be suffered to fall into their hands, and they should never be able to get them out again;

³² Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in thine hand. — thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people; this also was not true in the Babylonish captivity; for then their sons and daughters went with them, and continued with them, and returned again;

— but has been oftentimes verified on their captivity by the Romans; their sons and daughters taken from them by force, to be brought up in another religion, by the edicts of kings and popes, and by the canons of councils, and particularly of the fourth council of Toledo, in attendance by all the bishops of Hispania;

— but onone had happened with the lost 10 tribes; for then their sons and daughters went with them in captivity, and continued with them, though they never returned;

³³ The fruit of thy land and all thy labors shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed always,

— “a nation which thou knowest not” wouldn’t be Assyria, who took the 10 tribes, nor Babylon, who took the Jews; as they were neighbouring countries; nor Rome; more likely “a nation against thee from far” and “a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand” verse 49, it could be Russia or China at the endtimes;

— and thou shall be only oppressed and crushed always; this seems best to agree with their present case, or future tense; for in their former captivities they were not always oppressed and crushed;

³⁴ so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. — thou shalt be mad, for the sight of thine eyes that thou shall see; on account of the shocking things they saw, their dreadful calamities, oppressions, and persecutions;

³⁵ The Lord shall smite thee in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

— the Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch, that cannot be healed; this as being a disease of such a nature, that it would render it utterly impossible for those who were afflicted with it either to stand or walk, and then heightens the threat by adding the words, “from the sole of the foot to the top of the head.”

³⁶ “The Lord shall bring thee and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. — “a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known” seems very foreign; for they would have known the Assyrians, the Babylonians and even the Romans;

— and there shall thou serve other gods, wood and stone; which they were obliged to do as were in Babylon, and under subjection to a foreign power, and they should be made to serve other gods, wood and stone seduced or compelled into idolatry as were in the Assyrian and Babylonish captivities;

³⁷ And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. — an astonishment, and would become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among the nations;

³⁸ “Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field and shalt gather but little in, for the locust shall consume it. — consumption of corn by locusts and of grapes by worms, and casting of olives; for the locust shall consume it; which is a great destroyer of the fruits of the earth;

³⁹ Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. — even in their own land the curse would fall upon every kind of labour and enterprise; much seed would give little to reap, because the locust would devour the seed; the planting and dressing of the vineyard would furnish no wine to drink, because the worm would devour the vine;

⁴⁰ Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil, for thine olive shall cast his fruit. — thou shalt have olive trees throughout thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; nor any other relations, friends, guests, as were at entertainments;

⁴¹ Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them, for they shall go into captivity. — thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shall not enjoy them; for “they shall not be thine” being taken from them into captivity, and given to others;

⁴² All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. — the locust, a creature that not only consumes grass, and herbs, and the corn of the field, but all green trees;

⁴³ The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low. — the stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; in wealth and riches, in power and authority, in honour and dignity;

— and thou shall come down, very low; into a very mean condition, to be in great subjection, a vassal and a slave;

⁴⁴ He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him. He shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. — he shall lend to thee, and thou shall not lend to him; the stranger, or one of another nation, shall be in a capacity of lending to the Israelite, when the Israelite would not be able to lend to the Gentile.

⁴⁵ Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed, because thou hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded thee.

— and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee till thou be destroyed; which though they would endeavour to flee from and escape, should not be able, since they would follow them so closely and swiftly, and overtake them, and seize upon them;

⁴⁶ And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. — and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder; and what follow, should rest and remain upon them, continue with them, and be very visible on them; so as to be observed by others, as a sign of the wrath and displeasure of God.

⁴⁷ “Because thou served not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things, — with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; which they enjoyed in the land of Canaan, a land that abounded with all good things; which laid them under great obligations to serve the Lord:

⁴⁸ therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies whom the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things; and He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until He have destroyed thee.

— and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck; bring them into a state of subjection to their enemies, which would be intolerable to them, and from which they would not be able to free themselves, any more than to break an iron yoke; which, as were in the Babylonish captivity, and their subjection in that state.

⁴⁹ The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand, — the Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far; the invasion of the Romans: “they came from far.” But more likely for the endtime, the Russians and the Chinese , woule then be considered “the end of the earth.”

⁵⁰ a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old nor show favor to the young. — a nation of fierce countenance; the Russians had lost 20 millions to the Nazis; the Chinese a similar amount to the Japanese, all had toughened themselves;

⁵¹ And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle and the fruit of thy land until thou be destroyed; he also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy cattle, or flocks of thy sheep until he have destroyed thee.

— and your enemy shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, oxen and sheep, as their calves and lambs, and kids of the goat, and the fruit, wheat, barley, figs, grapes, pomegranates, olives, and dates, of thy land until thou be destroyed;

⁵² And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates until thy high and fortified walls come down wherein thou trusted, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

— and he, a modern type of Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar, shall besiege thee in all thy gates until thy high and fortified walls come down wherein thou trusted;

⁵³ And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the extremity wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee,

— thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body; this been confirmed during the siege of Samaria by the Syrians (II Kings 6:26-29; but also in Deuteronomy 28:56), and also in Jerusalem when besieged by Nebuchadnezzar (Lamentations 2:20; 4:10)

— during the siege of Samaria by the Syrians:

²⁶ And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

²⁷ And he said, “If the Lord do not help thee, from whence shall I help thee? Out of the barn floor or out of the wine press?”

²⁸ And the king said unto her, “What aileth thee?” And she answered, “This woman said unto me, ‘Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him. And I said unto her on the next day, ‘Give thy son, that we may eat him’; and she hath hid her son.” II Kings 6:26-29

— and from the MSG version:

²⁶ One day the king of Israel was walking along the city wall. A woman cried out, “Help! Your majesty!”

²⁷ He answered, “If God won’t help you, where on earth can I go for help? To the granary? To the dairy?”

^28-29 The king continued, “Tell me your story.”

She said, “This woman came to me and said, ‘Give up your son and we’ll have him for today’s supper; tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her, ‘Your turn—bring your son so we can have him for supper.’ But she had hidden her son away.” II Kings 6:26-28

⁵⁴ so that the man that is tender among you and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he shall leave, — his eye shall be evil towards his brother, and towards the wife of his bosom, and towards the remnant of his children which he shall leave;

— that is, he shall begrudge his brother, who is so nearly related to him, the least bit of food; yea, his wife, he dearly loved, and is one flesh with him, his other self, and even his children, which are parts of himself, such of them as were left not eaten by him; or his eye should be evil upon then, he should look with an evil eye on them, determining within himself to kill and eat them next.

⁵⁵ so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he hath nothing left him in the siege and in the extremity wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. — so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat; neither give to a brother, nor to a wife, nor to any of his remaining children, the least bit of the flesh of a child he has killed and dressed for his own food;

— because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates; every creature being eaten up, dogs, cats, anything dung of beasts, and whatsoever else could be any ways made food of;

⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son and toward her daughter,

— the stress being so immensed, character changed for fear of taking cold, or defiling her feet, her eye shall be evil towards the husband of her bosom, and towards her son, and towards her daughter; begrudge them every bit they eat, and restrain food from them as much as in her lies, and even snatch it out of their mouths;

⁵⁷ and toward her young one who cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them secretly for want of all things in the siege and extremity wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. — and toward her young one that cometh out from between her fee; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates;

⁵⁸ “If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, The Lord Thy God, — that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name of the Lord thy God;

— or that it might appear that the fear of God was before their eyes, and in their hearts, by their obedience to his law; that they had a proper awe and reverence of him, who is glorious in his titles and attributes, and whose name is Yehovah;

⁵⁹ then the Lord will make thy plagues wondrous, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. — then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful; visible, remarkable, distinguishable, and astonishing to all that see them;

— and the plagues of thy seed; for they were to continue, as they have done, with their posterity, age after age: even great plagues, and of long continuance; great as to quality and quantity;

⁶⁰ Moreover He will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee. — and would bring all the diseases and pestilences of Egypt; which thou wast afraid of; when living among them, and they shall cleave unto thee; not only should come upon them, but continue with them; they should not get rid of, or be cured;

⁶¹ Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee until thou be destroyed. — every plague which is not written in the book of this law; now Covid-19, bird flu; whatsoever sickness or disease that could be thought of or named;

⁶² And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God. — whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; and, as it is sometimes said, as the sand of the sea, as was promised to Abraham, Genesis 15:5; and was partly fulfilled in the days of Solomon 1 Kings 4:20;

— and ye shall be left few in number, because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God; in his law, and by his prophets;

⁶³ “And it shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. — rejoice over you to destroy you; his just indignation against them will be so great, that it will be a pleasure to him to take vengeance on them;

— the Emperor Adrian, to prevent their insurrections and rebellions, which had given him a great deal of trouble, ordered by an edict that no Jew should come into Jerusalem, nor into the land of Judea, or be seen; by which means the country had them cleared.

⁶⁴ And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. — and the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; which refers to their current situation, in all parts of the world, east, west, north, and south;

⁶⁵ And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind. — but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart; being always in fear lest their persons should be seized on, their children taken from them, and their goods confiscated; hence the epithet of “trembling”

⁶⁶ And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life. — and thou shalt fear day and night; being in continual dread of being killed: and shalt have none assurance of thy life; of its being continued a moment scarcely, but live in constant fear and expectation of its being taken away.

⁶⁷ In the morning thou shalt say, ‘Would God it were evening!’ and at evening thou shalt say, ‘Would God it were morning!’ for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. — in the morning thou shalt say, would God it were even; wishing they might get through the day well, fearing their life would be taken away before night, or some sad calamity befall them before the day could past;

— for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which, thou shalt see; often beholding such dreadful sights, as their countrymen put upon the rack, and cruelly tortured, and then burnt alive;

— and so their hearts would fear and tremble, lest they should be the next that would be taken up and used in this manner; besides other severities and hard usages, with which their brethren were treated, and they in continual fear of.

⁶⁸ And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships by the way whereof I spoke unto thee, ‘Thou shalt see it no more again.’ And there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.”

— into Egypt again, either into a state of hard bondage and slavery, like that their fathers were in; he hath now so gloriously delivered thee, and the remembrance of what they endured in Egypt could not but make the thoughts of returning thither again very terrible to them;

— no man shall buy you; that is, no one shall venture even to employ you as slaves, regarding you as accursed of God, and to be shunned in everything;

— in archaic English, the Targum of Jonathan says:

And the Word of the Lord will bring you captive to Mizraim in ships through the Sea of Suph, by the way you passed over, of which I said to you, No more shall you see it. And there will you be sold to your enemies, at the beginning for a dear price, as artificers, and afterward at a cheap price, as servants and handmaids, until you be worthless and (be consigned) to unpriced labour, and there be none who will take you.

Posted in Books of Moses

Deuteronomy 25

¹ “If there be a controversy between men and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them, then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. — if there be a controversy between men; a dispute between two or more:

— that the judges may judge them; who were never less than three; the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem consisted of seventy one, the lesser court was of twenty three, and the least of all three only;

² And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. — scourging is named as a penalty in Leviticus 19:20. The beating here spoken of would be on the back with a rod or stick, perhaps a rotan, which have been proven to be very effective in its desire effect;

³ Forty stripes he may give him, and no more, lest, if he should exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. — then thy brother should seem vile unto thee; as if he was a beast, and not a man, and much less a brother;

— the Targum of Jonathan says, “lest he be in danger, and that thy brother may not be made despicable in thy sight;” lest he be in danger of his life, and become vile, as a dead carcass;

⁴ “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. — thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn; the larger grains were beaten out by the feet of oxen, which, yoked together, day after day trod round the wide open spaces which form the threshing-floors; and to be humane, they were allowed freely to pick up a mouthful;

⁵ “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry outside unto a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him for a wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto her. — if brethren dwell together; in the same town, or at least, the same county.

⁶ And it shall be that the firstborn whom she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. — that his name be not put out of Israel; that a family be not lost. So this was a provision that the number of their families might not be diminished;

⁷ And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.’

⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak unto him; and if he stand by it and say, ‘I like not to take her,’ — the duty is recognized as one of affection for the memory of the deceased;

⁹ then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.’

— the root of the obligation here imposed upon the brother of the deceased husband lies in the idea of childlessness being a great calamity (compare with Hagar in Genesis 16:4), and extinction of name and family one of the greatest that could happen;

¹⁰ And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.’

— and from MSG

¹¹ “When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand and taketh him by the secret parts, — when men strive together, one with another; quarrel with one another, and come to blows, and strive for mastery, which shall beat, and be the best man;

¹² then thou shalt cut off her hand; thine eye shall not pity her. — thine eye shall not pity her; because of the plausible excuse that might be made for her action, as these considerations were to have no place with the magistrate, who was to order the punishment inflicted without pity;

¹³ “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. — in Proverbs 11:1, “a false balance is abomination to the Lord.”

¹⁴ Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. — the protection of the poor is the chief practical end in this; rich men can take care of themselves; poor men are doubly robbed by short weight and measure, because they cannot protect themselves against it.

¹⁵ But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have, that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. — that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee; long life was always reckoned a blessing, and is frequently promised to.

¹⁶ For all who do such things and all who do unrighteously are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. — and all that do unrighteously; what is not just and right between man and man, in any other instance whatever: are an abomination unto the Lord thy God; both they and their actions; he is a righteous God, and loves righteousness, and hates injustice of every kind.

¹⁷ “Remember what Amalek did unto thee on the way, when ye had come forth out of Egypt, — take warning from the case of the Amalekites; which was an aggravation of their cruel and inhuman action, that they not only came out against them unprovoked;

¹⁸ how he met thee on the way and smote the hindmost of thee, even all who were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.

— the Amalekites were the aggressors, and fell upon them as they were travelling on the road, but when they were just come out of Egypt, where they had been in hard bondage, and their spirits broken, and they not used to war; and so took them at all these disadvantages, a people that had not in the least injured them.

¹⁹ Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it. — that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven:

— that is, utterly destroy them, so that there should be none left of them anywhere, to put in mind that there ever were such a people on earth; men, women, children, cattle of all sorts, were to be destroyed, and nothing left that belonged unto them; that it might not be said this beast was Amalek’s; and to be destroyed.

Deuteronomy 26

¹ “And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it and dwellest therein, — and possessest it, and dwellest therein; not only had entered into it, but got the possession of it, and settled there;

² that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring from thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name there.

— and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there; which, as the event showed, was the city of Jerusalem; hither from all parts of the country were the firstfruits to be brought.

³ And thou shalt go unto the priest who shall be in those days, and say unto him, ‘I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I have come unto the country which the Lord swore unto our fathers to give us.’ — the priest that shall be in those clays; not the high priest, but the priests generally, or the individual priest whose function it was to officiate on the occasion;

⁴ And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. — the firstfruits here in question are to be distinguished alike from those offered in acknowledgment of the blessings of harvest;

⁵ “And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God: ‘A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

— a Syrian was my father; that is, Jacob; for though born in Canaan, he was a Syrian by descent, his mother Rebecca, and his grandfather Abraham, being both of Chaldea or Mesopotamia, which in Scripture is comprehended under the name of Syria;

— Jacob’s wives and children, by their mothers’ side, and his relations, were Syrians, and he himself had lived twenty years in Syria with Laban.

⁶ And the Egyptians evilly treated us and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. — and the Egyptians evilly entreated us; ordered their male children to be killed by the midwives, and by another edict to be drowned by the people: and afflicted us; by setting taskmasters over them, who put heavy burdens upon them;

⁷ And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression. — and the Lord heard our voice, and looked upon our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression; with a look of pity and compassion, heard their cries, answered their petitions, and sent them a deliverer, Exodus 2:25.

⁸ And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great fearsomeness, and with signs and with wonders; — with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; by his almighty power, of which full proof was given by what he then did, Deuteronomy 5:15,

— and with great terribleness: to Pharaoh and his people, through the plagues that were inflicted on them, especially the last, the slaying of their firstborn; Deuteronomy 4:34; and with signs and wonders; wrought by the hands of Moses and Aaron, meaning the ten plagues, often so called;

⁹ and He hath brought us into this place and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. — “a land flowing with milk and honey” was for ancient Israel; but “amber waves of grain” and “mountains of cheese and lakes of wine” for modern Israel;

¹⁰ And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land which Thou, O Lord, hast given me.’ And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God; — the person who offered his first-fruits, must remember and own the mean origin of that nation, particularly the family of Abraham began to develop into a nation, of which he was a member.

¹¹ and thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger who is among you. — thou and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you; by which it seems that not only a basket of firstfruits was brought and presented to the Lord, which is the perquisite of the priest,

— but there were others also brought, or bought with their money at Jerusalem, and a sort of a kept, which the Levite, and stranger or proselyte, from Pentecost to the feast of tabernacles a man may bring the firstfruits, and proclaim; must thankfully acknowledge God’s great goodness to Israel. 

¹² “When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates and be filled, — the third year, which was the year of tithing; that is, of the tithe for the poor, commanded to be paid every third year;

¹³ then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God: ‘I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all Thy commandments which Thou hast commanded me. I have not transgressed Thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them. — again, the tithe for the poor, or the third tithe; commanded to be paid every third year;

¹⁴ I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away aught thereof for any unclean use, nor given aught thereof for the dead; but I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God and have done according to all that Thou hast commanded me.

— I have not eaten thereof in my mourning; when in times of sorrow, which brought defilement on sacred things; under a pretense of poverty, and grudging to give any away to the poor.

¹⁵ Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel and the land which Thou hast given us as Thou swore unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey.’

— and the land which thou hast given us; with fertility and plenty of all good things, that it might be as thou swarest to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey;

¹⁶ “This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments; thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart and with all thy soul. — refer not only to the laws last mentioned, but to all others which he had been repeated and repeated;

— thou shall therefore keep and do them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; cordially, readily, willingly, sincerely, constantly, and to the utmost of their abilities.

¹⁷ Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes and His commandments and His judgments, and to hearken unto His voice.

— thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God; said, affirmed, pledged and in the most solemn manner declared, that the Lord was their God, and him only; and that they would have no other God, nor worship, serve, or obey any other;

¹⁸ And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all His commandments,

— and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments; at the same time declared this as his will, that they should observe all his precepts, to which they were laid under obligation by the special favour and peculiar privileges he bestowed upon them, Deuteronomy 7:6;

¹⁹ and to make thee high above all nations which He hath made in praise and in name and in honor, and that thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken.” — to make thee high above all nations; none of them having the Lord to be their God and King in such sense as Israel,

— nor they his people in such a peculiar sense as they were; nor having such laws and statutes as he had given to them; these things gave them a superiority over all other nations;

— and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken; the end of the Lord in being their God, and making them his people, was not only to make them high above all others, but to make them more holy than others; to set them apart for himself, as a people sacred to his worship and service, as he had both determined and declared, Deuteronomy 7:6.

Posted in Books of Moses