Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1507

 justly observes, “the expression no-people can no more denote a people of monsters, than the no-god was a monster, by which Israel had excited the Lord to jealousy.” This remark is quite sufficient to show that the opinion of Ewald and others is untenable and false, namely, that “the expression no-people signifies a truly inhuman people, terrible and repulsive.” No-god is a god to whom the predicate of godhead cannot properly be applied; and so also no-people is a people that does not deserve the name of a people or nation at all. The further definition of no-god is to be found in the word “vanities” No-god are the idols, who are called vanities or nothingnesses, because they deceive the confidence of men in their divinity; because, as Jeremiah says (Jer 14:22), they can give no showers of rain or drops of water from heaven. No-people is explained by a “foolish nation.” A “foolish nation” is the opposite of a wise and understanding people, as Israel is called in Deu 4:6, because it possessed righteous statutes and rights in the law of the Lord. The foolish nation therefore is not “an ungodly nation, which despises all laws both human and divine” (Ros., Maur.), but a people whose laws and rights are not founded upon divine revelation. Consequently the no-people is not “a barbarous and inhuman people” (Ros.), or “a horde of men that does not deserve to be called a people” (Maurer), but a people to which the name of a people or nation is to be refused, because its political and judicial constitution is the work of man, and because it has not the true God for its head and king; or, as Vitringa explains, “a people not chosen by the true God, passed by when a people was chosen, shut out from the fellowship and grace of God, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenant of promise (Eph 2:12).” In this respect every heathen nation was a “no-people,” even though it might not be behind the Israelites so far as its outward organization was concerned. This explanation cannot be set aside, either by the objection that at that time Israel had brought itself down to the level of the heathen, by its apostasy from the Eternal, - for the notion of people and no-people is not taken from the outward appearance of Israel at any particular time, but is derived from its divine idea and calling, - or by an appeal to the singular, “a foolish nation,” whereas we should expect “foolish nations” to correspond to the “vanities,” if we were to understand by the no-people not one particular heathen nation, but the heathen nations generally. The singular, “a foolish nation,” was required