mstances is that which is unessential.
That a prophet had exclusively in view any single one from among those
divine manifestations of punishment, can be asserted, only where he
himself has given express declarations to such an effect; and even
then, the prophecy is limited to that single event, as to its _form_
only: its _idea_ is not lost by the single fulfilment.

Ver. 2. "_If they break through into hell, from thence My hand shall
take them; if they ascend up into heaven, from thence I will take them
down._"

The Future must not, either here, or in what follows, be understood as
_potentialis_: "Though they should conceal themselves;" but as the real
Future: "If they are to conceal themselves." That [Hebrew: aM] with the
Future is used only _de re dubia_, as _Winer_ asserts, is as erroneous
as to assert that, with the Preterite, [Pg 376] it supposes the
condition as existing. The correct view has been already given by
_Gesenius_ in the _Thesaurus_. By supposing the possibility of a
condition, impossible in reality, the denial of the consequence becomes
so much the more emphatic and expressive. That such a supposition is
made here, is evident from ver. 4, where the prophet passes over to the
territory of actual possibility, and where, therefore, we cannot
translate: "Though they should go." Such a supposition is, in general,
very frequent. It occurs, _e.g._, Matt. v. 29, where _Tholuch_
(_Comment. on the Sermon on the Mount_) has been led very far astray
from the right understanding of [Greek: ei de ho ophthalmos sou ho
dexios skandalizei se, k.t.l.], by overlooking this _usus loquendi_. We
are not indeed at liberty to translate, "Though thy right eye should
offend thee;" but it must be decided by other arguments, whether the
condition here _supposed_ be one really possible; and these arguments
show that it is only for the sake of greater emphasis that there has
here been supposed as possible, what is impossible.--Heaven and Sheol
form a constant contrast between the highest height and the lowest
depth. From a merely imagined possibility, the prophet descends to the
real one. If, then, even the former be not able to afford protection,
because God's hand reaches even where one has escaped far from any
human power, how much less the latter!--[Hebrew: Htr] with the Accus.
signifies "to break through," Job xxiv. 16; with [Hebrew: b], "to make
a hole in anything;" thus Ezek. viii. 8, xii. 7, 12 ([Hebrew: Htr
bqir], "to m