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and rifle all the things of Edom; and shall search out all thy hidden commodities, and carry them away at once.

7. All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him.

All those of thy confederacy, to whom thou trustedst, even the Moabites and Ammonites, which were in league with thee, have deceived thee; and have driven thee out of thy own seat, even to the utmost borders of thy country: thine entire associates have craftily drawn thee into that inconvenience, which thou canst not avoid nor remedy; and, for all thy pretence of wisdom, thou hast no understanding of this plot laid for thy ruin. 9. And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.

As thy wise men, so thy valiant soldiers, even those of Teman, which are most famous for skill and courage, shall be utterly cut off, that there may be none left alive in all the mount of Esau.

11. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive, &c.

In the day of battle, thou stoodest opposite to thy brethren, the issue of Jacob; and wert willing enough, that the enemies should carry them away captive, &c.

13. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; &c.

Thou shouldest not have entered into the gates of the cities of Israel, my people, in the day of their calamity, to help to spoil and sack them; &c.

16. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

For, as ye my people, which dwell and worship upon my holy mountain, have drunk up the cup of my bitter affliction; so shall all the heathen pledge you continually of the same cup: yea, they shall drink it to the very dregs, and shall swallow it down; and they shall be so cut off, as if they had never been.

17. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

But, in the end, upon mount Zion shall be a happy restoration of my people: there shall be holy service performed to my name, in the re-edified temple; and the sons of Jacob shall be restored to their old possessions.

18. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.

And I will make the house of Jacob, both Judah and Ephraim, to be as a fire, while the posterity of Esau is as stubble; so as the fire of Israel shall consume the stubble of Esau, till there be none left of that accursed generation.

19. And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the plain the Philistines: and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

And they of the south, which are the tribe of Judah, shall possess the mountainous country of Edom; and they of Benjamin, which are of the plain, shall possess the cities of the Philistines; and the rest of Israel shall return to and recover their ancient bounds of inheritance, with much enlargement : in a figure of the spiritual extending of the borders of my Church, under the Gospel, over all the coasts of the earth.

20. And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the city of the south.

And the host of those Israelites, which shall be returned from their captivity, shall possess the land of the Canaanites, even to the utmost bounds thereof, which is Sarepta, as they formerly enjoyed it; and the returned captives of Judah,. which are in Sepharad the remotest part of Babylon, shall possess those cities of the south, which are their ancient limits.

21. And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S.

And God shall, from time to time, raise up mighty and gracious deliverers of his people, in that his royal and holy hill of Zion, which shall repress the rage of his enemies, and pull down the pride of Edom; and God shall challenge to himself the right and protection of his kingdom of Israel.

JONAH.

I. 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city of the Assyrians, and denounce my judgments against it; for their wickedness is grown to that height, that I can no longer forbear it.

I. 3. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, &c.

But Jonah, fearing that the mercy of God in sparing the city would leave him suspected of a false prediction, bent his course another way; and, going down to Joppa, and, finding a ship ready bound for her passage into the Mediterranean Sea, he put himself into her, and paid the fare thereof, &c.

1. 10. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Then, when Jonah had told the men, both his nation, and his religion, and his profession, and his heinous sin in fleeing from the charge that God had laid upon him, they were exceedingly afraid; as being stricken, both with the sense of their own danger, and of compassion towards a person of such quality, who had so freely confessed himself and his offence.

I. 16. Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.

Then the men were struck with an awful fear of the power and majesty of that God, whereof they saw such proof before their eyes: the sight whereof, being added to the religious sermon of Jonah, wrought so with them, that, disclaiming all their idol-Gods, they offered a sacrifice to the only true God; and made vows to him, which they would carefully perform upon their return, to worship him at Jerusalem.

II. 1. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly.

Then Jonah spent that time of the three days, wherein he was thus woefully imprisoned in the belly of the whale, in his earnest prayers unto God, and in his humble and hearty confessions of his great sin against his God.

II. 2. And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction, &c. And after, when he was by the power of God delivered from that death, he uttered and penned this song of thanksgiving, for so wonderful a mercy, &c.

Ibid. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my prayer.

Out of that place of unspeakable horror, wherein I was for the time buried, as in the belly of a living and moving grave, I then failed not to cry unto thee, and thou heardest me.

II. 3. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

It was not the act of the mariners, Lord, it was thy just act, to cast me into the deep: there I was, by thine appointment, in the midst of many seas; for so did that fearful monster carry me from one sea to another; and the floods compassed me about.

II. 4. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.

Then said I, Lord, I am justly cast out of thy sight, into this place of horror; yet, since thou still givest me life and being, I will trust in thy mighty power and infinite mercy, that thou hast reserved me for some further service to thee in thy Church.

II. 6. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever.

I went down, in the maw of that vast and dreadful beast, to the bottom of the sea, even to the lowest foundations of the mountains; the earth, with all her rocks and hills, was over my head, beyond all natural possibility of recovery.

II. 8. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own

mercy.

Those foolish men, that worship vain idols, which are nothing but lies and falsehood, forsake all the benefit of thy merciful protection and deliverance. But I, &c.

II. 10. And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

And the Lord commanded the whale, and it accordingly did cast up Jonah upon the dry land.

III. 4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And when Jonah had spent one day in his preaching, and had gone through one third part of the city, crying and saying, There are but yet forty days to come, ere Nineveh, except it repent, shall be destroyed;

III. 5. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proelaimed a fast, &c.

The people of Nineveh believed that word of God, delivered to them by his prophet, &c.

III. 7. Let them not feed, nor drink water.

Let not the very beasts feed, nor drink water; that the men may be the more moved with that woeful moan, which those dumb creatures must needs make in their extremity. III. 10. And God repented, &c. See Amos, vii. 3.

IV. 4. Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? Dost thou think this is a just cause for thee to be moved with anger, for that I have spared the Ninevites?

IV. 9. I do well to be angry, even unto death.

And he said, in much weakness and rash passion, I do well to be angry; and think that I have just cause to be so fretted with this, which thou hast done, as to wish, in the bitterness of my soul, to be rid of my life.

IV. 10, 11. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Then said the Lord, I have done this purposely to shew thee thine own error and weakness: thou hadst pity on a sorry plant, which cost thee no labour, which received no life from thee, which suddenly came up and suddenly vanished: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are sixscore thousand infants that have not lived to offend, and much cattle which are not capable of offence? How much are these better than the senseless plants of the earth! and these are the work of my hands, and have cost me much care and regard, and such as require time and leisure for their perfection; bethink thyself therefore, how just reason I have to be angry at thy unmercifulness, which art angry at my forbearance of Nineveh.

MICAH.

I. 3. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.

The Lord will, in a terrible sort, manifest his power from heaven; and, as in the height of his fury, coming down from above, will trample upon the loftiest tops of the mountains:

I. 4. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the vallies shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as waters that are poured down a steep place.

In such manner, as that the great mountains shall, as it were, melt and dissolve under his feet; and the deep vallies shall be cleft asunder and severed from the hills: the mountains, I say, shall melt like wax; and the vallies shall run from the hills, as waters, that are poured out from a steep place, run down from the place where they are poured. In short, all the whole earth shall be exceedingly moved and affected, with the dreadful presence of God descending to punish the wickednesses of his people.

I. 5. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

And all these judgments shall be for the idolatries of Israel and Judah: What then, or who, is the author of this great sin of Israel? Is it not the mother city Samaria, whose princes have erected and maintained those golden calves? And who

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