Mga Komentaryo sa Bibliya

And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.

And he set Ephraim before. — God many times sets the younger before the elder; makes the last to be first, and the first last; to show the freedom of his grace, and that "he seeth not as man seeth." 1 Samuel 16:7 The maids were first purified and perfmned, before Ahasuerus chose one. But Christ first loves, and then purifies his Church, Ephesians 5:25-26 and loves, because he loves. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 "And hath mercy on whom he will have mercy." Romans 9:18

return to '

And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.

Behold, I die. — This was a speech of faith, uttered without the least fear, consternation, or dismayment. As it was no more betwixt God and Moses, but "Go up and die"; so betwixt God and Jacob, but "Behold, I die." Death, he knew, to him should neither be total, but of the body only; nor perpetual of the body, but for a season only. See both these set forth by the apostle, Romans 8:10-11 . The Chaldee Paraphrast on this text hath: Behold, I die; and the word of the Lord, i.e., Christ, shall be your help.

return to '

And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you [that] which shall befall you in the last days.

Gather yourselves together. — This is Jacob’s swan-like song, Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abiectus in herbis, Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor. - Ovid., Epist. his last bequeath, his farewell to the world; and it is a most heavenly one. The wine of God’s Spirit is usually strongest and best at last in the hearts of his people: his motions, quickest when natural motions are slowest; most sensible when the body begins to be senseless most lively when holy men are dying. Look how the sun shines most amiably toward the descent and rivers, the nearer they draw to the sea, the sooner they are met by the tide: so it is with the saints when nigh to death; when grace is changing into glory, they deliver themselves usually to the standers-by most sweetly. So, besides Jacob, did Moses, Joshua, Paul, and he in whose one example is a globe of precepts, our Lord Jesus Christ, in that last heavenly sermon and prayer of his, John 14:1-31 ; John 15:1-27 ; John 16:1-33 ; John 17:1-26 Whereunto let me add that faithful martyr, John Diazius, who was cruelly butchered by his own brother Alphonsus Diazius, and that merely for his religion. See Trapp on " Genesis 4:8 " I remember, saith Senarclaeus, his friend and bedfellow, who wrote the history of his death, when he and I were at Newburg, the very night before he was murdered, he prayed before he went to bed more ardently than ordinary, and for a longer time together. After which he spent a good part of the night in discoursing of the great works of God, and exhorting me to the practice of true piety. And truly I felt myself so inflamed and quickened by his words, that when I heard him discoursing, I thought I heard the Spirit of God speaking unto me. This, and much more, Senarclaeus writes to Bucer, Ego vero illius oratione sic incendebar, ut cum eum disserentem audirem, Spiritus sancti verba me audire existimarem. - Ibid. who at that time had employed Diazius to overlook the correct printing of a book of his that was then in the press.

That I may tell you that which shall befall you. — But how knew Moses this last speech of Jacob, being born so long after? Partly by revelation, and partly also by tradition. For the words of dying men are living oracles, and their last speeches are long remembered. And the accomplishment of all these prophecies in their due time, as the following scriptures show, adds much to the authority of Moses’s writings, and confirms them to be "faithful and true," as he saith, John 21:24 .

return to '

Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

Hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken. — Draw up the ears of your souls to the ears of your bodies, that one sound may pierce both at once. "Let him that hath an ear to hear, hear": not only with that outward gristle that grows upon his head, but with his utmost intention of mind, attention of body, and retention of memory, and of practice also, He that hears the word of God, must hear as ff he did, for so he doth, hear for life and death; he must, as Jacob bids his sons, "hear and hearken."

return to '

Reuben, thou [art] my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:

My might, and beginning of my strength. — Nate meae vires … The word here used signifieth the straining of the body forcibly to effect a thing much desired: such as was that of St Paul, επεκτεινομενος , Philippians 3:14 and that of Elijah, 1 Kings 18:42 when he prayed and prayed, as St James hath it, that is, with utmost intention of affection ( προσευχη προσνυξατο , James 5:17 ).

The excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. — That is, saith the Chaldee Paraphrast, Excellens principatu et sacerdotio. Both these he forfeited and fell from; so cannot Christians. Revelation 1:6

return to '

Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou [it]: he went up to my couch.

Unstable as water. — Easily drawn to sin, and suddenly down from his dignity. Reuben, for a short sinful pleasure, lost great privileges and blessings. So do all epicures that lose heaven for a base lust, their souls for their sin. As Ambrose reports of one Theotinus, that having a diseased body, and told by the physician that unless he lived temperately he would lose his eyes; Vale lumen amicum, said he; if my eyes will not away with my lusts, they are no eyes for me. So here; men will have their swing in sin, whatever come of it. They may so, and for a time, hear no more of it; as Reuben did not for almost forty years after his incest was committed. But, quod defertur non statim aufertur. The heathen historian could see, and say, That, sooner or later, great sins will have great punishments from God. των μεγαλων αδικηματων μεγαλαι εισι και αι τιμωριαι παρα τους Yεους . Deus horrenda peccata horrendis poenis immutabiliter vindicat, saith Pareus on this text.

He went up to my couch. — The fact was so odious to Jacob, that, "abhorring" Romans 12:9 , αποστυγουντες the very thought of it, he turneth his speech from Reuben to the rest. Hate as hell that which is evil, saith Paul. And, as for "fornication, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named amongst you." Ephesians 5:3 Spit it out of your mouths, as the devil’s drivel.

return to '

Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of cruelty [are in] their habitations.

Simeon and Levi are brethren. — Nobile par fratrum Horat. Metaphora et latens Antanaclasis. - Piscat. not more in nature than in iniquity. Here Moses blancheth not over the blemishes of his progenitors, but wrote as he was inspired by the impartial Spirit of truth. If it could be said of Suetonius, Ea libertate scripsit Imperatorum vitas, qua ipsi vixerunt. that in writing the lives of the twelve Caesars, he took the same liberty to set down their faults that they took to commit them; how much more truly may this be said of the holy penmen, they spared not themselves, much less their friends. See my "True Treasure," page 21.

Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. — Or, Are their swords. Mekerah [ îëøä ] alii reddunt per Graecam vocem, Machoeroe eorum. Non incommode. - Pareus. Barbarous and brutish peraons they were; skilful to destroy. Ezekiel 21:31 Such a one was Drusus, the son of Tiberius the Emperor; so set upon bloodshed that the sharpest swords were from him called in Rome, Drusians. ωστερ και τα οξυτατα των ξιφων Dρουσιανα απ αυτου κληθηναι . - Dio. The Spaniards are said to try the goodness of their swords upon the bodies of the poor Indians: and they suppose, saith Sir Francis Drake, The World Encomp., by Sir Fr. Drake, p. 53. that they show the wretches great favour, when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords; and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon, which is one of their least cruelties.

return to '

O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.

O my soul, come not thou, … — Jacob here meaneth that neither should any, neither would he approve of their perfidy, saith an interpreter. And yet Thuanus writes that the Pope caused the massacre of Paris to be painted in his palace. Another of them highly extolled in his consistory the noble act of Clement the monk, that killed the king of France, comparing it with the work of creation, incarnation, … Friar Garnet, our chief gunpowder plotter, had his picture set among the rest of their saints, in the Jesuits’ Church at Rome. And Cornel. a Lapide, upon Apoc. vii. 3, crowns this traitor with fresh encomiastics. Jacob Revius, De Vitis Pont., p. 291. Gir. i. Apol. contra Jesuit.

In their anger they slew a man. — Yea, many innocents; and then cried out, O rem regiam! as Valesius did when he had slain three hundred. O pulchrum spectaculum! as Hannibal, when he saw a pit full of man’s blood. Quam bonus est odor hostis mortui! as Charles IX, in the massacre of Paris; where they poisoned the Queen of Navarre; pistoled the Prince of Conde; murdered the most part of the peerless peers of France, their wives and children; with a great sort of the common people, in various parts of the realm, - thirty thousand in one month, three hundred thousand in the space of a year! Mohammed I, Emperor of the Turks, was thought, in his time, to have been the death of eighty thousand men. Selymus II, in revenge of the loss he had received at the battle of Lepanto, would have put to death all the Christians in his dominion, in number infinite. Mithridates, king of Pontus, with one letter, slew eighty thousand citizens of Rome in Asia, that were scattered up and down the country for traffic’s sake. It was the cruel manner of Uladus, prince of Wallachia, together with the offenders, to execute the whole family; yea, sometimes the whole kindred. Answer: to Cathol. Supplic., by Gab. Powel, 885. Val. Max., lib. ix. Turk. Hist., fol. 363. Did not these two brethren in sin do so, and worse?

return to '