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of an hireling, that is, three exact years, and the glory of Moab shall be contemned, with all that great multitude; their riches fhall be loft, and their multitudes become contemptible: and the remnant [fhall be] very small [and] feeble.

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REFLECTION S.

HE dealings of God with the nations of the earth, are defigned for the establishment of the church. This was the pious answer Hezekiah and his people were to make to those who came to congratulate him on his fuccefs. God is ftill carrying on this as his grand scheme; and, tho' we may not particularly fee how. the means conduce to the end, the thought is very encouraging. And fince God has fuch a regard to his church, and it is fo firmly fixed, it is our wisdom to betake ourselves to it, to truft in it, and rejoice in its fecurity. amidst all the attempts of its enemies.

2. We are taught from the idolatrous Moabites to make prayer our refuge in the time of trouble. It is natural in diftrefs for every man to cry unto his god. They cried to their idol gods; went up to their high places; wept, and mourned there; and when one god would not answer, they tried another. How wretched is the cafe of idolaters! how happy the people, whofe God is the Lord! to whom they can go at all times, affured that their prayers will not

be in vain.

3. We fhould lament the horrible defolations that war makes in the earth. What a dreadful defcription is here of the mifery of Moab, from the incurfions, ravages, and plunders of their enemies. The lords of the heathens devoured or carried away every thing. How fhould we pity our enemies, or our unkind and wicked neighbours, when they fuffer fuch a calamity. Let us think tenderly P 4

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God had long ago determined on their deftruction, but now, as their wickedness was increased, he fixed the time for it. Whether this prophecy was fent to Moab, or not, is uncertain: it probably might be fo, and it would ferve to confirm the Ifraelites in the belief of the divine foreknowledge and providence, and ftrengthen their faith in the prophecies relating to themfelves,

of them; and for their fakes, as well as our own, and our allies, earnestly pray that war may ceafe. The fervants of God, especially his prophets, fhould imitate the humanity and compaffion of Ifaiah, who fpeaks fo feelingly of the diftress of the enemies of God and Ifrael.

4. Let us learn to cultivate a readiness to help and relieve others in diftrefs, whatever their character or behaviour to us has been. Whether we understand the prophet's advice to Moab as ferious or ironical, it naturally fuggefts to us that we should help our fellow creatures under their fufferings, relieve the outcafts, fhelter the oppreffed from the cruelty of their oppreffors, labour to promote justice, and fhow humanity and kindness to them that are in trouble; then we may expect the fame affistance fhould we be in like diftrefs; and efpecially may we hope for the fupport and confolations of Chrift, who fits upon his throne, judging righteously. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

5. We fee how uncertain the poffeffions of this world are, which fhould lead us not to fet our hearts upon them. What the Moabites had gotten and laid up, their enemies carried away. Riches expofe men to plunder and rapine, and thus often take away the lives of the owners thereof. Joy may foon ceafe out of the field; and those who have no better or higher joy than fuch as the increase of wealth, corn, and wine, and oil affords, will then be very miserable. But there is a treasure that cannot be taken away, a joy that cannot be loft, a treasure laid up in heaven, where neither moth nor ruft can corrupt, nor thieves break through and fteal; a joy that fprings from the light of God's coun tenance, in whofe prefence there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. This we fhould be chiefly concerned to fecure. Let the language of our fouls be, Lord, lift up upon us the light of thy countenance; and then, tho' the fig tree does not bloffom, tho' there be no fruit on the vine, or calves in the fall, we may joy in the Lord, and rejoice in the God of our falvation.

CHAP.

CHA P. XVII, XVIII.

As Syria and Ifrael had been confederates against Judah, the deftruction of both of them is here foretold.

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HE burden of Damafcus. Behold, Damascus is, or shall be, taken away from [being] a city, and it fhall be a ruinous heap; it was foon after made fo 2 by the king of Affyria, fee 2 Kings xvi. 9. The cities of Aroer [are] forfaken; the province of Syria fhall be utterly defolate: they fhall be for flocks which fhall lie down, 3 and none fhall make [them] afraid. The fortress alfo fhall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damafcus, and the remnant of Syria, which shall be no longer a kingdom, but a province to Affyria: they fhall be as the glory of the children of Ifrael, faith the LORD of 4 hofts; they fhall share in a common destruction. And in that day it shall come to pafs, [that] the glory of Jacob fhall be made thin, and the fatness of his flefh fhall wax lean; fhall be wafted away, like a man in a confump5 tion. And it shall be as when the harveft man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it fhall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim, a fruitful valley near Jerufalem; he shall make clear riddance, fo that none shall be left; the Ifraelites fhall be carried into captivity by the Affyrians, (2 Kings xv. 29. xvii. 6.) with as much eafe as a field of corn is 6 reaped and carried in. Yet gleaning grapes fhall be left in it, (the image of the harvest is ftill carried on,) as the fhaking of an olive tree, two [or] three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, which were out of reach, four [or] five in the outmoft fruitful branches thereof, faith the LORD God of Ifrael; a small remnant shall be 7 reformed, and faved, and return to Judah. At that day fhall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have refpect to the Holy One of Ifrael, and fhall worship and 8 ferve him. And he fhall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither fhall refpect [that] which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images; 9 he shall no more truft in idols, or images in groves. In that

day

day fhall his ftrong cities be as a forfaken bough, and an uppermoft branch," which they left becaufe of the children of Ifrael; like the cities which they, that is, the Canaanites, left to Ifrael: and there fhall be defolation; as the land caft them out, fo it fhall Ifrael; or, as the Canaanites forfook their cities for fear of the children of Ifrael, when they came to poffefs the land, fo they shall be 10 forfaken again now for fear of the Affyrians. Because thou haft forgotten the God of thy falvation, and haft not been mindful of the rock of thy ftrength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and fhalt set it with strange II flips: In the day fhalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning fhalt thou make thy feed to flourish; [but] the harvest [fhall be] a heap in the day of grief and of defperate forrow; they shall be greatly disappointed in their most fanguine expectations, as the husbandman, when, after great pains, the harvest is ruined. We have then a prophecy of the destruction of the Affyrian army, to the end of the next chapter.

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Woe to the multitude of many people, to the many allies and auxiliaries of the Affyrians, [which] make a noise like the noise of the feas; and to the rushing of nations, [that] make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! who come violently, as if they would destroy my 13 people at once. The nations fhall rufh like the rushing of many waters; but [God,] who is able to do it, but whom they do not think of, fhall rebuke them, and they fhall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold at evening tide trouble; [and] before the morning he [is] not; referring to the destruction of the Affyrians in one night. This [is] the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us; of other enemies as well as those.

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CHAP. XVIII. Woe to the land fhadowing with
wings,

The Seventy render it, As the Hivites and Amorites.

2 The learned are much divided in opinion who this chapter refers to. Some think the Egyptians; others, Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia or Arabia, who came to help the Ifraelites against the Affyrians, but were deftroyed by them. I rather think it refers to the Affyrians.

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wings, that stretches out its long wings or armies, which [is] beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, or, which paffes to 2 the river of Ethiopia. That fendeth ambaffadors by the fea, as well as by land, even in veffels of bulrufhes, or reeds, upon the waters, [faying,] Go, ye fwift meffengers, to a nation fcattered and peeled, thus fcornfully and contemptuously fhall they speak of the jews, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whofe land the rivers, that is, 3 the Affyrians, (ch. xvii. 12.) have spoiled! All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an enfign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye; obferve the prediction and the accomplishment; fee what God will do. 4 For fo the LORD faid unto me, I will take my rest, and I will confider in my dwelling place, or, regard my fet dwelling place, like a clear heat upon herbs, [and] like a cloud of dew in the heat of harveft; tho' I seem to be afleep and unconcerned, yet I will defend my dwelling place, will make it a fafe and delightful repofe, and continually watch over it. For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the four grape is ripening in the flower, he fhall both cut off the fprigs with pruning hooks, and take away [and] cut down the branches; when their Schemes are ripening, and they think themselves fure of fuc6 cefs, the Affyrians fhall be utterly deftroyed. They, that' is, all the enemies of God's people, fhall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beafts of the earth and the fowls fhall fummer upon them, and 7 all the beafts of the earth fhall winter upon them. In that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hofts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whofe land the rivers have fpoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion. Here the prophet retorts upon the Affyrians: ambaladors fhall be fent to congratulate Hezekiah on the deftruction of their army; prefents shall be sent from Egypt and Ethiopia, whom the Affyrians had conquered, to the mount Zion: or it may mean, that the plunder of the Affyrian camp fhould be brought there.

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