Page:05.BCOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.A.vol.5.GreaterProphets.djvu/1972

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perfect is prophetic. The guilt is ended when it is atoned for; the punishment for it has reached its end, or grace begins. That this will take place in the Messianic times (as was pointed out long ago in the Chaldee paraphrase, et liberaberis per manum Messiae), is not indeed implied in the word תּם, but it is a necessary product of the Messianic hope of Israel; cf, for instance, Jer 50:20. To this it cannot be objected (with Gerlach), that it is inadmissible to transfer into the Messianic time also the punishment of Edom threatened in the second member: for, according to the prophetic mode of viewing things, the judgment on the heathen world falls, as a matter of course, in the Messianic age; and to refer the words to the chastisement of the Edomites by Nebuchadnezzar is against the context of both verses. "To reveal (discover) sins" means to punish them; for God uncovers the sins in order to punish them, quemadmodum Deus peccata tegere dicitur, cum eorum paenam remittit (Rosenmüller); cf. Psa 32:1, Psa 32:5; Psa 85:3, etc. A Prayer to the Lord by the Church, Languishing in Misery, for the Restoration of Her Former State of Grace   1  Remember, O Jahveh, what hath happened to us; consider, and behold our reproach.   2  Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to foreigners.   3  We are orphans, without a father; our mothers are as widows.   4  Our own water we drink for money, our own wood cometh to us in return for payment.   5  On our necks are we persecuted; we are jaded, - there is no rest for us.   6  [Towards] Egypt we reach our hand, - [towards] Assyria, to satisfy ourselves [with] bread.   7  Our fathers sinned, they are not; we bear their iniquities.   8  Servants rule us; there is none to deliver us out of their hand.   9  At the risk of our life we bring in our bread, because of the sword of the wilderness. 10  Our skin gloweth with heat like a furnace, because of the fever-heat of hunger. 11  They have forced women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah. 12  Princes are hung up by their hand; the face of the elders is not honoured. 13  Young men carry millstones, and lads stagger under [loads of] wood. 14  Elders cease from the gate, young men from their instrumental music.