Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/1409

 over the heathen world as well as over Israel, is quite sufficient in itself to overthrow the assumption of Hofmann and Koehler, that by the land of Hadrach we are to understand the land of Israel. For if the explanatory clause were understood as signifying that the burden, i.e., the judgment, would not only fall upon Hamath as the representative of the human race outside the limits of Israel, but also upon the land of Hadrach as the land of all the tribes of Israel, this view would be precluded not only by the circumstance that in what follows heathen nations alone are mentioned as the objects of the judgment, whereas salvation and peace are proclaimed to Israel, but also by the fact that no ground whatever can be discovered for the application of so mysterious an epithet to the land of Israel. According to Hofmann (Schriftb. ii. 2, p. 604), ארץ חדרך signifies the whole of the territory of the kingdom of David, which is so called as “the land of Israel, which, though weak in itself, was, through the strength of God, as sharp as a warrior's sword.” But if a judgment of destruction, which Hofmann finds in our prophecy, were announced “to all the nations dwelling within the bounds of what was once the Davidic kingdom,” the judgment would fall upon Israel in the same way as upon the heathen nations that are named, since the tribes of Israel formed the kernel of the nations who dwelt in what was once the Davidic kingdom, and Israel would therefore show itself as a sharp-soft people. Hence Koehler has modified this view, and supposes that only the heathen dwelling within the limits of the nation of the twelve tribes are threatened with Jehovah's judgment, - namely, all the heathen within the land which Jehovah promised to His people on their taking possession of Canaan (Num 34:1-12). But apart from the unfounded assumption that Hadrach is the name of a district of Syria on the border of Damascus and Hamath, this loophole is closed by the fact that, according to Num 34:1., Hamath and Damascus are not included in the possession promised to Israel. According to Num 34:8, the northern boundary of the land of Israel was to extend to Hamath, i.e., to the territory of the kingdom of Hamath, and Damascus is very far beyond the eastern boundary of the territory assigned to the Israelites (see the exposition of Num 34:1-12). Now, if the land of Hadrach, Damascus, and