Therefore the name of the place was called. The valley of Achor, unto this day." This particular dealing of God, however, is based upon His nature, and must, therefore, repeat itself when Israel again comes into similar circumstances,--must be repeated, in general, whensoever similar conditions arise. Even they who have already entered the [Pg 263] promised land, who have already come to the full enjoyment of salvation (_full_, in so far as it is considered as a whole, and designated as the last station; but as this last station again has several steps and gradations, this fulness can be relative only. If it were absolute, if nothing more of the wilderness were left, then, of course, the case here in question could no more occur; for a salvation absolutely full presupposes a righteousness absolutely full);--even they who have already come to the full enjoyment of salvation, and to a degree of righteousness corresponding to this salvation, require still the mercy of God; for, without it, they would soon lose their salvation again. This mercy, however, is vouchsafed to them in abundant measure. The whole manner in which God leads those who have obtained mercy, is a changing of the valley of trouble into a door of hope. He will order all things in such a way, that the bond of union betwixt Him and those for whom all things must work together for good, instead of being broken by sin--as it would be if He were justice alone--is only the more strengthened. The same idea occurs again in ver. 21. The new marriage-covenant is there founded not on justice only, but on mercy also.--The words וענתה שמה are commonly explained, "She sings there," or, "She there raises alternative songs." But both of these interpretations are unphilological. For 1. שמה does not signify "there," but "thither." Those passages which have been appealed to for the purpose of proving that it may also sometimes signify "there," or "at yonder place," all belong to the same class. The opposite of the construction of the verbs of motion with ב takes place in them. As, in these verbs, the idea of rest is, for the sake of brevity, omitted, so here, that of motion. Thus, _e.g._, Jer. xviii. 2, "Go down to the potter's house, and _thither_ will I cause thee to hear My voice," is a concise mode of expression for, "I will send My voice thither, and cause thee to hear there;" 1 Chron. iv. 41, "Which were found thither," instead of, "which were found there when they came thither." We might, in the case of the passage under consideration, most easily concede what we are contending against, that שמה is used instead of שם, as a kind of grammatical blunder; but that the writer knew the difference between these two forms clearly appears from the close of the verse, where, certainly, he would not have put שמה for שם. These are the instances adduced by _Winer_. _Gesenius_, further, refers [Pg 264]to Is. xxxiv. 15: "_Thither_ makes her nest;" but the making of the nest implies the placing of it.