Volume 2 — THE PROPHET ZEPHANIAH. (continued 2)

^[1] Vitringa very correctly remarks on this passage: "בעל, properly ὁ ἔχων, he who has any thing in his possession is, by an ellipsis, applied to the husband who, in Exod. xxi. 3, is rightly called בעל אשה one who has a wife."

^[2] Against the explanation of Maurer: "For I am your Lord;" and that of Ewald: "I take you under my protection," it is decisive that בעל never means "to be Lord," far less "to take under protection." בעל, which properly means "to possess," is very commonly used of marriage;--as early as in the Decalogue, the wife appears as the noblest possession of the husband--so that a priori this signification is suggested and demanded.

^[3] It is from the circumstance that modern Exegesis is unable to comprehend the prophetic anticipation of the Future, that the assertion has proceeded (Movers, Hitzig) that, even before the Chaldean destruction, the Ark "must have disappeared in a mysterious manner." In the view of the Chaldean destruction the Lord is, in Ps. xcix. 1 (comp. Ps. lxxx. 2), designated as He who sitteth over the Cherubim. In 2 Chron. xxxv. 3, we have a distinct historical witness for the existence of the Ark, so late as the 18th year of Josiah. The fable in 2 Maccab. ii. 4, ff., supposes that the Ark was at its ordinary place, down to the time of the breaking in of the Chaldean catastrophe. One might as well infer from chap. iii. 18, that, at the time when these words were spoken, Judah must already, "in a mysterious manner," have come into the land of the North.

^[4] Bähr advances the assertion, "In a (the) cloud" is equivalent to: "in darkness." But the parallel passages, Exod. xl. 34 ff., Numb. ix. 15, 16, quoted by J. H. Michaelis, are quite sufficient to overthrow this assertion. And these parallel passages are so much the more to the point, that by the article the cloud is designated as being already known; compare Hofmann, Schriftbeweis ii. 1, S. 36. The cloud in ver. 13 is not identical with that in ver. 2, but is its necessary parallel. The cloud in ver. 2 symbolises the truth that the Lord is a consuming fire (compare my remarks on Rev. i. 7); that in ver. 13 is an embodied Kyrie eleison, compare remarks on Rev. v. 8. Cloud with cloud,--that is a noble advice for the Church when she is threatened by the judgments of God. A thorough refutation of Bähr has been given by W. Neumann: Beiträge zur Symbolik des Mos. Cultus, Zeitschr. f. Luth. Theol., 1851, i.

^[5] In a certain sense, one may say that שרירות לב is a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. It occurs independently in one single passage only, in Deut. xxix. 18; in the other passages (eight times in Jeremiah, and besides, in Ps. lxxxi. 13), it was evidently not taken from the living usus loquendi from which it had disappeared, but from the fundamental passage in the written code of law. This fact will, a priori, appear probable, when we keep in mind that, among all the books of the Pentateuch, Jeremiah has chiefly Deuteronomy before his eyes; and among all the chapters of Deuteronomy, none more than the 29th; and that Ps. lxxxi. is pervaded by literal allusions to the Pentateuch. But it is put beyond all doubt, when we enter upon a comparison of the passage in Deuteronomy with the parallel passages. Here we must begin with Jer. xxiii. 17, where the verbal agreement comes out most strongly, and then we shall, in the other passages also (vii. 24, ix. 13, xi. 8, xvi. 12, xviii. 12, and the passage under consideration), easily perceive that the word has been borrowed. From a comparison with the fundamental passage, it appears that it is the intention of the Prophet to convey here the promise of an eternal duration of the regained blessing, and to keep off the thought that possibly the people might again, as formerly, fall from grace. Of him who walks after the שרירות of his heart, it is said in Deut. xxix. 19 (20): "The Lord will not be willing to forgive him; for 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 blots out his name from under heaven."