" and "sons of the living God" are, in the
passage before us, connected with each other. Not as though the
corporeal descent were altogether a matter of indifference. The
corporeal descendants of the Patriarchs had the nearest claims to
becoming their children in the full sense. It was to them that the
means of becoming so were first granted. To them pertained the
covenants, the promises, and the adoption, Rom. ix. 4. But all these
external advantages were of no avail to them when they allowed them to
[Pg 220] remain unused; in these circumstances, neither the promise to
Abraham, nor the announcement before us, had any reference to them.
Both of them would have remained to this day unfulfilled, although the
unconverted children of Israel had increased so as to have become the
most populous nation on the face of the whole earth. It thus appears
that the announcement before us was first truly realized in the time of
the Messiah; inasmuch as it was at that time that the family of the
Patriarchs was so mightily increased; and that it will yet be more
fully realized, partly by the reception of an innumerable multitude of
adopted sons, and partly by the elevation of those who were sons only
in a lower sense, to be sons in the highest. That which occurred at the
time after the Babylonish captivity, when the Lord stirred up a number
of Israelites to return to Palestine, we can regard as only an
insignificant prelude; partly because this number was too small to
correspond, even in any degree, to the infinite extent of the promise,
and partly because there were among them certainly a few only who, in
the fullest sense, deserved the name of "Children of Israel."
"Israel"--which is the higher name, and has reference to the relation
to God--is here used emphatically, as appears especially from a
comparison with ver. 4, where it is taken from the degenerate children,
and exchanged for the name "Jezreel."--In the second part of the verse,
we must first set aside the false interpretation of [Hebrew: bmqvM awr]
by "instead of," which is given by _Grotius_ and others. It has arisen
from an inappropriate reference to the Latin, which has, however, no
support in the Hebrew _usus loquendi_. The words can only mean (compare
Lev. iv. 24, 33; Jer. xxii. 12; Ezek. xxi. 35; Neh. iv. 14): "in the
place where," or, more literally still, "in the place that"--the wider
designation instead of the narrower. The _status constr._ is explained
by the circ