o,--yea, to them in a higher degree,
as will be seen immediately, when the ordinance is reduced to its
_idea_. The latter is easily inferred from the reason stated, [Pg 188]
viz., that the priests should be holy to their God. The servants of God
must represent His holiness; they are, therefore, not allowed, by so
close a contact with sin, to defile or desecrate themselves either
inwardly or outwardly. Although the inward pollution may be prevented
in individual cases by a specially effective assistance of divine
grace, yet there always remains the outward pollution.

It is inconceivable that, at the very commencement of his ministry, God
should have commanded to the prophet anything, the inevitable effect of
which was to mar its successful execution. Several--and especially
_Manger_--who felt the difficulties of this interpretation, substituted
for it another, by which, as they imagined, all objections were
removed. The prophet, they say, married a person who had formerly been
chaste, and fell only after her marriage. This view is no doubt the
correct one, as is obvious from the relation of the figure to the
reality. According to ver. 2, it is to be expressed figuratively that
the people went a-whoring from Jehovah. The spiritual adultery
presupposes that the spiritual marriage had already been concluded.
Hence, the wife can be called a whoring wife, only on account of the
whoredom which she practised after her marriage. This is confirmed by
chap. iii. 1, where the more limited expression "to commit adultery" is
substituted for "to whore," which has a wider sense, and comprehends
adultery also. The former unchastity of the wife would be without any
meaning, yea, would be in direct contradiction to the real state of the
case. For before the marriage concluded at Sinai, Israel was devoted to
the Lord in faithful love; comp. Jer. ii. 2: "I remember thee, the
kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, thy walking after
Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown." Compare also Ezek. xvi.,
where Israel, before her marriage, appears as a _virgo intacta_. But
how correct soever this view may be--and every other view perverts the
whole position--it is, nevertheless, erroneous to suppose that thereby
all difficulties are removed. All which has been urged against the
former view, may be urged here also. It might have been better for the
prophet to have married one who was previously unchaste, in the hope
that her subsequent