question, it is immediately subjoined, "away from Jehovah." The subject of consideration is only the relation of the wife and children to the prophet, as the type of the Lord; and with this view, it is only the origin of the children from an adulterous wife which can be of importance. That this alone is regarded, appears from ii. 6 (4), compared with ver. 7 (5). That the children, as children of whoredoms, deserve no compassion, is founded upon the fact that their mother plays the harlot. אשת זנונים is stronger than זונה; it expresses the idea that the woman is given, soul and body, to whoredoms. The same emphasis is expressed also by the analogous designations: man of blood, of deceit, etc.--Calvin says, "She is called a wife of whoredoms, because she was long accustomed to them, gave herself over to the lusts of all indiscriminately, did not prostitute herself once, or twice, or to a few, but to the debauchery of every one." It is not without reason that "_take_" is connected with the children also. The prophet shall, as it were, receive and take, along with the wife, those who, without his agency, have been born of her. It is self-evident, and has been, moreover, formerly proved, that we cannot speak of children who were previously born of the prophet's wife; but that, on the contrary, the children are they whose birth is narrated in ver. 4 seqq. And that we cannot consider these children as children of the prophet, as is done by several interpreters (_Drus._: "_Accipe uxorem et suscipe ex eâ liberos_"), is obvious from their being designated "children of whoredoms;" from the word "take" itself, which is expressive of the passive conduct of the prophet; from the fact that, in the subsequent verses, the conceiving and bearing of the wife are alone constantly spoken of, but never, as in Is. viii. 3, the begetting by the prophet; and, _finally_, from the relation of the type to the thing typified. By the latter, it is absolutely required that children and mother stand in the same relation of alienation from the legitimate husband and father. The words in ver. 3, "She bare him a son," are not indeed in opposition to it, for these words are only intended to mark the deceit of the wife who [Pg 201] offers to her husband the children begotten in adultery, as if they were his, and, at the same time, to bring out the patience and forbearance of the husband who receives them, and brings them up as if they were his, although he knows that they are not. In like manner, the Lord treated, for centuries, the rebellious Israelites as if they were His children, and granted to them the inheritance which was destined only for the children, along with so many other blessings, until at length He declared them to be bastards, by carrying them away into captivity. The last words state the ground of the symbolical action. The causal כי is explained from the fact that the import of a symbolical action is also its ground. The _Inf. absol._ preceding the