t and the Church. What, then, if this case should again
occur? Her heart, it is true, is now filled with pure love; but who
knows whether this love shall not cool,--whether she shall not again
yield to temptation? A new consolation is applied to the new distress.
God Himself will bestow what it is not in the power of man to
bestow--viz., faithfulness towards Him (compare [Hebrew: amvnh] used of
human faithfulness, in Hab. ii. 4; Jer. v. 3, vii. 28; the faithfulness
in this verse forms the contrast to the whoredom in i. 2), [Pg 272] and
the knowledge of Him. "Thou knowest the Lord" is tantamount to--"in My
knowledge." The knowledge of God is here substantial knowledge.
Whosoever thus knows God cannot but love Him, and be faithful to Him.
All idolatry, all sin, has its foundation in a want of the knowledge of
God.

Ver. 23. "_And it comes to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the
Lord; I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;_ Ver. 24.
_And the earth shall hear the corn, and the must, and the oil; and they
shall hear Jezreel_" (_i.e._, him whom God sows).

The promise in this passage forms the contrast to the threatening in
Deut. xxviii. 23, 24: "And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be
brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord will
give for the rain of thy land, dust, and dust shall come down from
heaven upon thee." The second [Hebrew: aenh] is, by most interpreters,
considered as a resumption of the first. But we obtain a far more
expressive sense, if we isolate the first [Hebrew: aenh], "I shall
hear," namely, all prayers which will be offered up unto Me by you, and
for you. Parallel, among other passages, is Is. lviii. 9, where the
reformed people are promised: "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall
answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say. Here I am." By a bold
_prosopop[oe]ia_, the prophet makes heaven to pray that it might be
permitted to give to the earth that which is necessary for its
fruitfulness, etc. Hitherto they have been hindered from fulfilling
their _destination_, since God was obliged to withdraw His gifts from
the unworthy people, ii. 11; but now, since this obstacle has been
removed, they pray for permission to resume their vocation. The
prophets in this manner give, as it were, a visible representation of
the idea, that there is in the whole world no good independent of
God,--nothing which, in accordance with its destination, is not
ours, and would ind