The question which here above all engages our attention, and requires to be answered, is this: Whether that which is reported in these chapters did, or did not, actually and outwardly take place. The history of the inquiries connected with this question is found most fully in _Marckius's_ "_Diatribe de uxore fornicationum_," Leyden, 1696, reprinted in the Commentary on the Minor Prophets by the same author. The various views may be divided into three classes. 1. It is maintained by very many interpreters, that all the events here narrated took place actually and outwardly. This opinion was advanced with the greatest confidence by _Theodoret_, _Cyril_ of Alexandria, and _Augustine_ from among the Fathers of the Church; by most interpreters belonging to the Lutheran and Reformed Churches (_e.g. Manger_); most recently, by _Stuck_, _Hofmann_ (_Weissag u. Erf._ S. 206), and, to a certain extent, by _Ewald_ also, who supposes "a free representation of an event actually experienced by the prophet." 2. Others consider it as a parabolical representation. Thus does Calvin, who expressly opposes the supposition not only of an external, but also of an internal event. He explains it thus: "When the prophet began to teach, he commenced thus: The Lord has placed me here as on a stage, that I might tell you, I have taken a wife," etc. Entirely similar was the opinion of the Chaldee Paraphrast, by whom the words, "Go," etc., are thus paraphrased: "Go and prophesy against the inhabitants of the adulterous city." Of a like purport is the view held, from among recent interpreters, by _Rosenmüller_, _Hitzig_ ("that which the prophet describes as actual, is only a fiction"), _Simson_ and others. The strange opinion of Luther, which, out of too great respect, was adopted by a few later theologians (_Osiander_, [Pg 185] _Gerhard_, _Tarnovius_), is only a modification of this. It is to the effect, that the prophet had only ascribed to his own chaste wife the name and works of an adulteress, and, hence, had performed with her, before the people, a kind of play. (Compare, against this view, _Buddeus_, _de peccatis typicis_ in the _Misc. s. t._ i. p. 262.) The same opinion is expressed by _Umbreit_: "His own wife is implicated in the general guilt, and hence she is a representative of the whole people." In opposition to this view, compare _Simson's_ Commentary.