, like _Schultens_,
understand the whole verse as a threatening. That which precedes, as
well as that which follows, breathes nothing but pure love to poor
Israel. She is not terrified by threatenings, like Judah who has not
yet drunk of the cup of God's wrath, but allured by the call: "Come
unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, _for_ I will give you
rest." But they also labour under great difficulties who, after the
example of _Kimchi_ ("_ego fastidivi vos, eo scil. quod praeteriit
tempore, ac jam colligam vos_"), refer the [Hebrew: ki] not so much to
[Hebrew: belti], as rather to [Hebrew: lqhti]: "For I have, it is true,
rejected you formerly, but now I take," &c. This is the only shape in
which this interpretation can still appear; for it is altogether
arbitrary to explain [Hebrew: ki] by "although," an interpretation
still found in _De Wette_. If it had been the intention of the Prophet
to express this sense, nothing surely was less admissible, than to omit
just those words, upon which everything depended--the words _formerly_
and _now_. [Hebrew: lqHti] and [Hebrew: belti] evidently stand here in
the same relation; both together form the ground for the return to the
Lord. To these reasons we may still add the circumstance that,
according to our explanation, we obtain the beautiful parallelism with
ver. 12: "Return thou, apostate Israel, saith the Lord; I will not
cause mine anger to fall upon you; _for_ I am merciful; I do not keep
anger for ever,"--a circumstance which has already been [Pg 379]
pointed out by _Calvin_. Israel's haughtiness is broken; but
despondency now keeps them from returning to the Lord. He, therefore,
ever anew repeats His invitation, ever anew founds it upon the fact,
that He delights in showing mercy and love to those who have forsaken
Him. The rejection of Israel had, in ver. 8, been represented under the
image of divorce: "Because apostate Israel had committed adultery, I
had put her away, and given her the bill of divorce." What, therefore,
is more natural, than that her being received again, which was offered
to her out of pure mercy, should appear under the image of a new
marriage; and that so much the more, that the apostacy had, even in the
preceding verse, been represented as adultery and whoredom? ("_Thou
hast scattered thy ways_, _i.e._, thou hast been running about
to various places after the manner of an impudent whore seeking
lovers"--_Schmid_; compare ver. 6.) Farther t