of hosts." In such a connection, and with such a result, nothing
could be more vapid than to understand this shaking of heaven and earth,
sea and land, in a physical sense. It is the mighty overturnings among
the nations, social, moral, and political, that are here predicted, as
Jehovah says by Ezekiel: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it
shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it to
him." Chap. 21:27. Compare Isa. 13:13; Jer. 4:24; Ezek. 38:20; Joel
3:16. So when God announces that he "will cause the sun to go down at
noon, and darken the earth in the clear day" (Amos 8:9), we understand
at once that under this figure he forewarns the covenant people of the
sudden approach of great calamity. Compare Deut. 28:29; Job 5:14; Isa.
13:10; Jer. 4:23-28; Ezek. 32:7, 8; Joel 2:31; 3:15; etc. This subject
will be further discussed under the head of the interpretation of
prophecy.

In the sermon on the mount, the Saviour says: "Whosoever shall smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. 5:39); but
the preceding context gives the _scope_ of this and the other particular
precepts that follow, which is that Christ's followers should "resist
not evil," that is, by rendering evil for evil. It is the spirit of
meekness and forbearance that he inculcates, not a slavish regard to
this and that particular form of manifesting it. So when he says: "Give
to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn
not thou away" (ver. 42), he cannot mean, consistently with the scope of
the passage and his teachings elsewhere, that we should stultify
ourselves by literally giving to every asker and borrower, without
regard to his necessities, real or alleged. He means rather to inculcate
that liberal spirit which never withholds such help as it is able to
give from those who need it.

When the Saviour says again: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out
and cast it from thee," etc., both the preceding context and the general
tenor of the Scriptures teach us that he means what is expressed by the
apostle in another form: "Mortify, therefore, your members which are
upon the earth." Col. 3:5. To _mortify_ is to _deprive of life_, _make
dead_. We mortify our members which would seduce us into sin, not by
destroying them, but by keeping them in subjection to "the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus."

(3.) If the interpreter is liable to err by taking figurative la