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 dispersed and suffering Israelites, inasmuch as it assures them that God has not cast them off, that He is still their beloved, and they are still his loved ones, and that he will speedily be reunited to them.

1040-1105. Through R. Solomon ben Isaac, the founder of the Germano-French Rabbinical literature, this encouraging allegorical interpretation was introduced into Germany and France, where the suffering Jews obtained consolation. This distinguished commentator, commonly called Rashi, and, through the misleading of Buxtorf, erroneously named Jarchi, was born at Troyes, in Champagne, in 1040, where he also died, about 1105. "My opinion is," says Rashi, "that Solomon foresaw, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, that Israel would be carried into sundry captivities, and undergo sundry dissolutions; that they would lament in their captivity over their former glory, and recall the former love, which God manifested for them above all other nations; that they would say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now' (Hos. ii. 9); that they would acknowledge His kindness and their own rebellion, and the good things which He promised to give them in the latter days (i. e., at the coming of Messiah.) "This book is written by inspiration, and represents a wife forsaken by her husband, and shut up, longing after him, recalling to her mind her love in youth to her beloved, and confessing her guilt; her beloved sympathising with her affection, and remembering the kindness of her youth, the charms of her beauty, and her good works, which had tied him to her with an everlasting love.

"The design of this book is to show to Israel that God has not afflicted her (i. e., Israel) willingly; that though He did send her away, He has not cast her off; that she is still His wife, and He her husband, and that He will again be united to her."