3 + Gr. goes + Or, more remember now, what counsel Balac to hissing: and ye shall bear the reking of Moab took against thee, and proach of nations. what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, from the reeds to Galgal; that the righteousness of the Lord might be known. 6 Wherewithal shall I reach the Lord, and lay hold of my God most high? shall I reach him by whole-burnt-offerings, by calves of a year old? 7 Will the Lord accept thousands of rams, or ten thousands of fat goats? should I give my first-born for ungodliness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Has it not been told thee, O man, what is good? or what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and love mercy, and be ready to walk with the Lord thy God? The Lord's voice shall be proclaimed in the city, and he shall save those that fear his name: hear, O + Heb. tribe; and who shall order ambiguous. the city? 10 Is there not fire, and the house of the wicked heaping up wicked treasures, and that with the pride of unrighteousness? "Shall the wicked be justified by the balance, or deceitful weights in the bag, 12 whereby they have accumulated their ungodly wealth, and they that dwell in the city have uttered falsehoods, and their tongue has been exalted in their mouth? 13 Therefore will I begin to smite thee; I will destroy thee in thy sins. 14Thou shalt eat, and shalt not be satisfied; and there shall be darkness upon thee; and he shall depart from thee, and thou shalt not escape; and all that shall escape shall be delivered over to the sword. 15 Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt press the olive, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; and shalt make wine, but shall drink no wine: and the ye ordinances of my people shall be utterly abolished. 16 For thou hast kept the statutes of Zambri, and done all the works of the house of Achaab; and ye have walked in their ways, that I might deliver thee to utter destruction, and those that inhabit the city 7. Alas for me! for I am become as one gathering straw in harvest, and as one gathering grape-gleanings in the vintage, when there is no cluster for me to eat the first-ripe fruit: alas my soul! For the godly is perished from the earth; and there is none among men that orders his way aright: they all quarrel even to blood; they grievously afflict every one his neighbour: they prepare their hands for mischief, the prince asks a reward, and the judge speaks flattering words; it is the desire of their soul: therefore I will take away their goods as a devouring moth, and as one who acts by a rigid rule in a day of upon, &c. visitation. Woe, woe, thy lit. watching. times of vengeance are come; now shall be their lamentations. 5 Trust not in friends, and confide not in guides: beware of thy wife, so as not to commit anything to her. For the son dishonours his father, the daughter will rise up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her motherin-law: those in his house shall be all a man's enemies. But I will look to the Lord; I will wait upon God my Saviour: my God will hearken to me. Rejoice not against me, mine enemy; for I have fallen yet shall arise; for though I should sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me. 9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he make good my cause: he also shall maintain my right, and lit. execute shall bring me out to the my judgment. light, and I shall behold his rightcousness. 10 And she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shall clothe herself with shame, who says, Where is the Lord thy God? mine eyes shall look upon her: now shall she be for trampling as mire in the or, plasterways. "It is the day of 'mak- ingor, anointing of brick; that day shall be thine utter 8 + + Or, more ment. destruction, and that day shall utterly | their hands upon their mouth, their abolish thine ordinances. 12 And thy ears shall be deafened. 17They shall cities shall be levelled, and parted lick the dust as serpents crawling on among the Assyrians; and thy strong the earth, they shall be confounded in cities shall be parted from Tyre to the their 'holes; they shall be + Gr. confineriver, and from sea to sea, and from amazed at the Lord our mountain to mountain. 13 And the God, and will be afraid of thee. land shall be utterly desolate together 18 Who is a God like thee, cancelling with them that inhabit it, because of iniquities, and passing over the sins of the fruit of their doings. 14 Tend thy the remnant of his inheritance? and people with thy rod, the sheep of thine he has not kept his anger 'for a testiinheritance, those that inhabit by them- mony, for he delights in Vide supra, selves the thicket in the midst of Car- mercy. 19 He will return Amos 1.11. mel: they shall feed in the land of and have mercy upon us; he will sink Basan, and in the land of Galaad, as our iniquities, and they shall be cast in the days of old. 15 And according into the depths of the sea, even all our to the days of thy departure out of sins. 20 He shall give blessings truly Egypt shall ye see marvellous things. to Jacob, and mercy to Abraam, as 16 The nations shall see and be ashamed; thou sworest to our fathers, according and at all their might they shall lay to the former days. 902 Prov. 29. 14. NA UM. CHAPTER I.-II. VERSES 1-3. 5 stubble fully dry. "Out of thee shall 1. THE burden of Nineve: the book of the vision of Naum the Elkesite. God is jealous, and the Lord avenges; the Lord avenges with wrath; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he cuts off his enemies. The Lord is long-suffering, and his power is great, and the Lord will not hold any guiltless: his way is in destruction and in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He threatens the sea, and dries it up, and exhausts all the rivers: the land of Basan, and Carmel are brought low, and the flourishing trees of Libanus have come to nought. The moun+ Gr. by him. tains quake 'at him, and the hills are shaken, and the earth recoils at his presence, even the world, and all that dwell in it. Who shall stand before his anger? and who shall withstand in the anger of his wrath? his wrath brings to nought kingdoms, and the rocks are burst asunder by him. The Lord is good to them that wait on him in the day of affliction; and he knows them that reverence him. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end: darkness shall pursue those that rise up against 2 him and his enemies. What do ye devise against the Lord? he will make a complete end: he will not take vengeance by affliction twice at the same time. 10 For the enemy shall be laid bare even to the foundation, and shall be devoured as twisted yew, and as 6 15 Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings glad tidings, and publishes peace! O Juda, keep thy feasts, pay thy vows: Compare Heb. for they shall no more pass through thee to thy decay. the sense of 2. It is all over with him, he has been removed, one who has read with been delivered from afflic- T tion has come up panting into thy presence, watch the way, strengthen thy loins, be very valiant in thy strength. For the Lord has turned aside the pride of Jacob, as the pride of Israel: for they have utterly rejected them, and have destroyed their branches. 3 They have destroyed the arms of their power from among men, their mighty men sporting with fire: the reins of their chariots shall be destroyed in the 9 5 + 4 of the rumbling of wheels, and of the 6 day of his preparation, and the horsemen shall be thrown into confusion pursuing horse, and of the bounding in the ways, and the chariots shall chariot, and of the 'mount-Or, rider on clash together, and shall be entangled ing rider, and of the glitter- horseback. in each other in the broad ways: their ing sword, and of the gleaming arms, and appearance is as lamps of fire, and of a multitude of slain, and of heavy fallas gleaming lightnings. And their ing: and there was no end to her nations, + Or, be re- mighty men shall 'bethink but they shall be weak in their bodies membered. themselves and flee by day; because of the abundance of fornicaand they shall be weak as they go; tion: she is a fair harlot, and welland they shall hasten to her walls, and favoured, skilled in sorcery, that sells + Or, watches. shall prepare their de- the nations by her fornication, and fences. The gates of the cities have peoples by her sorceries. Behold, I been opened, and the palaces have am against thee, says the Lord God fallen into ruin, and the foundation Almighty, and I will uncover thy has been exposed; and she has gone skirts in thy presence, and I will show up, and her maid-servants were led the nations thy shame, and the kingaway as doves moaning in their hearts. doms thy disgrace. And I will cast 8 And as for Nineve, her waters shall abominable filth upon thee according be as a pool of water: and they fled, to thine unclean ways, and will make and staid not, and there was none to thee a public example. And it shall look back. They plundered the be that every one that sees thee shall silver, they plundered the gold, and go down from thee, and shall say, there was no end of their adorning; Wretched Nineve! who shall lament they were loaded with it upon all their for her? whence shall I seek comfort pleasant vessels. 10 There is thrusting for her? Prepare thee a portion, forth, and shaking, and tumult, and tune the chord, prepare a portion for heart-breaking, and loosing of knees, Ammon: she that dwells among the and pangs on all loins; and the faces rivers, water is round about her, whose of all are as the blackening of a pot. dominion is the sea, and whose walls Where is the dwelling-place of the are water. 9 And Ethiopia is her lions, and the pasture that belonged to strength, and Egypt; and there was the whelps? where did the lion go, no limit of the flight of her enemies ; that the lion's whelp should enter in and the Libyans became her helpers. there, and there was none to scare him 10 Yet she shall go as a prisoner into away? 12The lion seized enough prey captivity, and they shall dash her for his whelps, and strangled for his infants against the ground at the top young lions, and filled his lair with of all her ways: and they shall cast prey, and his dwelling-place with lots upon all her glorious possessions, spoil. 13 Behold, I am against thee, and all her nobles shall be bound in says the Lord Almighty, and I will chains. "And thou shalt be drunken, burn up thy multitude in the smoke, and shalt be overlooked; + Or, despised. and the sword shall devour thy lions; and thou shalt seek for thyand I will utterly destroy thy prey self strength because of from off the land, and thy deeds shall thine enemies. 12 All thy bably read as no more at all be heard of. strong-holds are as fig-trees 3. O city of blood, wholly false, + Or, felt after. full of unrighteousness; See Acts 17. 27. the prey shall not be handled. 2 The noise of whips, and the noise + 8 + + q. d. establishment. + -pro בכור having watchers: if they be shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, thy people within thee are as women: the gates of thy land shall surely be opened to thine enemies: + Gr. of. thou. the fire shall devour thy bars. 14 Draw | multitude has suddenly departed as the thee water for a siege, and grasshopper, as the locust perched on well secure thy strong-holds: enter a hedge in a frosty day; the sun arises, Alex. tread into the clay, and 'be thou and it flies off, and knows not its trodden in the chaff, make place: woe to them! 18 Thy shepherds the fortifications stronger than brick. have slumbered, the Assyrian king has 15 There the fire shall devour thee; laid low thy mighty men: thy people the sword shall utterly destroy thee, it departed to the mountains, and there shall devour thee as the locust, and was none to receive them. Or, wait for. thou shalt be pressed down as a palmer-19 There is no healing for thy bruise; worm. 16 Thou hast multiplied thy thy wound has rankled: all that hear merchandize beyond the stars of the report of thee shall clap their hands heaven: the palmerworm has attacked against thee: for upon whom has not it, and has flown away. 17Thy mixed thy wickedness passed continually? 905 |