CONTENTS This chapter is connected with the former. It relates to us the displeasure of the men of Ephraim against Jephthah, because he called them not to the battle with Ammon; and the sad consequence of this jealousy: the death of Jephthah; the three successive judges to Jephthah, lbzan, Elon, an... [ Continue Reading ]
If the Reader recollects the dying benediction of the Patriarch over the two sons of Joseph, how under the spirit of prophecy Jacob put Ephraim before Manasseh, he will here trace the fulfillment of it, and therefrom discover the foundation of the jealousy between those two houses. See Genesis 48:13... [ Continue Reading ]
Shibboleth means a river. The only difference between this and Sibboleth, arose from spelling the former with the Hebrew letter Shin, and the latter with Samech. But what is the spiritual illustration of the passage to mark the Shibboleth from the Sibboleth? Is it not, according to what our adored R... [ Continue Reading ]
How quick in succession the departure of men! It may be said of all God's servants, as it is of David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God, he fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But Reader! what a precious addition to this remark doth the Holy Gh... [ Continue Reading ]
I include the whole of these verses, and of the reign of three judges, comprising a period of twenty-five years, within the compass of one view, not only for the sake of brevity, but because the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to have nothing more recorded of those men but that they lived, and reigned,... [ Continue Reading ]
REFLECTIONS My soul! in all the contentions and animosities of life, and especially among brethren, never lose sight of Him, and his unequalled love, who passeth by the repeated provocations of thy sinful nature, and in return for thy manifold instances of ingratitude, pours himself, and his fullnes... [ Continue Reading ]