Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 6.djvu/138

132 judgment on their oppressors; (signs, and wonders, Deut. 4. 34.) and at the expense of a great many lives, all the first-born qf Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his host, in the Red Sea; I gave Egypt for thy ransom, gave men for thee, Isa. 43. 3, 4.

(5.) That he had suffered their manners forty years in the wilderness, v. 18. . Some think it should be read, —he educated them, because that is the word the Septuagint use concerning the fatherly care God took of that people, Deut. 1. 31. Both may be included; for, [1.] God made a great deal of provision for them for forty years in the wilderness: miracles were their daily bread, and kept them from starving; they lacked not any thing. [2.] He exercised a great deal of patience with them; they were a provoking, murmuring, unbelieving people; and yet he bore with them, did not deal with them as they deserved, but suffered his anger many a time to be turned away by the prayer and intercession of Moses. So many years as we have each of us lived in this world, we must own that God has thus been as a tender Father to us, has supplied our wants; has fed us all our life long unto this day, has been indulgent to us, a God of pardons, (as he was to Israel, Neh. 9. 17.) and not extreme to mark what we have done amiss; we have tried his patience, and yet not tired it. Let not the Jews insist too much upon the privileges of their peculiarity, for they had forfeited them a thousand times.

(6.) That he had put them in possession of the land of Canaan; (v. 19.) When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, that were doomed to be rooted out to make room for them, he divided their land to them by lot, and put them in possession of it. This was a signal favour of God to them, and he owns that hereby a great honour was put upon them, which he would not in the least derogate from.

(7.) That he had raised up men, spirited from heaven, to deliver them out of the hands of those that invaded their rights, and oppressed them after their settlement in Canaan, v. 20, 21. [1.] He gave them judges, men qualified for public service, and, by an immediate impulse upon their spirits, called to it, pro re nata—as the occasion required. Though they were a provoking people, and were never in servitude but their sin brought them to it, yet upon their petition, a deliverer was raised up. The critics find some difficulty in computing these four hundred and fifty years. From the deliverance out of Egypt, to David's expulsion of the Jebusites from the strong-hold of Zion, which completed the casting out of the heathen nations, was four hundred and fifty years; and most of that time they were under judges. Others thus; The government of the judges, from the death of Joshua to the death of Eli, was just three hundred thirty-nine years, but it is said to be [][ὡς] [sic] as it were four hundred and fifty years; because the years of their servitude to the several nations that oppressed them, though really they were included in the years of the judges, are yet mentioned in the history as if they had been distinct from them. Now these, all put together, make one hundred and eleven years, and those added to the three hundred thirty-nine, make them four hundred and fifty; as so many, though not really so many. [2.] He governed them by a prophet, Samuel, a man divinely inspired to preside in their affairs. [3.] He afterward, at their request, set a king over them, (v. 21.) Saul, the son of Cis. Samuel's government and his lasted forty years; which was a kind of transition from the theocracy to the kingly government. [4.] At last, he made David their king, v. 22. When God had removed Saul, for his mal-administration, he raised up unto them David to be their king, and made a covenant of royalty with him, and with his seed. Then, when he had removed one king, he did not leave them as sheep without a shepherd, but soon raised up another; raised him up from a mean and low estate, raised him up on high, 2 Sam. 23. 1. He quotes the testimony God gave concerning him, First, that his choice was divine; I have found David, Ps. 89. 20. God himself pitched upon him. Finding implies seeking; as if God had ransacked all the families of Israel to find a man fit for his purpose, and this was he. Secondly, That his character was divine; a man after my own heart; such a one as I would have; one on whom the image of God is stamped, and therefore one in whom God is well pleased, and whom he approves. This character was given of him before he was first anointed, 1 Sam. 13. 14. The Lord hath sought him out a man after his own heart, such a one as he would have. Thirdly, That his conduct was divine, and under a divine direction; He shall fulfil all my will. He shall desire and endeavour to do the will of God, and shall be enabled to do it, and employed in the doing of it, and go through with it.

Now all this seems to shew not only the special favour of God to the people of Israel, (which the apostle is very willing to oblige them with the acknowledgment of,) but the further favours of another nature, which, he designed them, and which were now, by the preaching of the gospel, offered to them. Their deliverance out of Egypt, and settlement in Canaan, were types and figures of good things to come; the changes of their government shewed that it made nothing perfect, and therefore must give way to the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, which was now in the setting up, and which, if they would admit it, and submit to it, would be the glory of their people Israel; and therefore they needed not conceive any jealousy at all of the preaching of the gospel, as if it tended in the least to damage the true excellencies of the Jewish church.

2. He gives them a full account of our Lord Jesusf passing from David to the Son of David, and shews that this Jesus is his promised seed; (v. 23.) Of this man's seed, from that root of Jesse, from that man after God's own heart, hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus, who carries salvation in his name. How welcome should the preaching of the gospel of Christ be to the Jews, and how should they embrace it, as well worthy of all acceptation when it brought them the tidings, (1.) Of a Saviour, to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies, as the judges of old, who were therefore called saviours; but this a Saviour to do that for them, which, it appears by the history, those could not do—to save them from their sins, their worst enemies. (2.) A Saviour of God's raising up, that has his commission from heaven. (3.) Raised up to be a Saviour unto Israel, to them in the first place; he was sent to bless them; so far was the gospel from designing the rejection of Israel, that it designed the gathering of them. (4.) Raised up of the seed of David, that ancient, royal family, which the people of Israel gloried so much in, and which at this time, to the great disgrace of the whole nation, was buried in obscurity. It ought to be a great satisfaction to them, that God had raised up this horn of salvation for them in the house of his servant David, Luke 1. 69. (5.) Raised up according to his promise, the promise to David, (Ps. 132. 11.) the promise to the Old Testament church, in the latter times of it; I will raise unto David a righteous branch, Jer. 23. 5. This promise was it to which the twelve tribes hoped to come; (ch. 26. 7.) why then should they entertain it so coldly, now that it was brought to them?

Now, concerning this Jesus, he tells them,

[1.] That John the Baptist was his harbinger and forerunner; that great man, whom all