The full performance of her duties corresponds with the full admission to her rights. The prophet expresses this thought, by announcing the removal of the two forms in which the apostasy of the people from the true God--the violation of the marriage-covenant which rested on exclusiveness--was at that time manifested. One of these was the mixing up of the religion of Jehovah with heathenism, according to which they called the true God "Baal," and worshipped Him as Baal; the other was still grosser--was pure idolatry. The abolition of the former (compare above, p. 176 f.) is predicted in this verse; the abolition of the latter, in the verse following. Both are in a similar way placed beside each other in Zech. xiv. 9: "In that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one;" where the first clause refers to the abolition of polytheism, and the second to the abolition of the mixing of religion--of the hidden apostasy--which, without venturing to forsake the true God entirely and openly, endeavours to mix up and identify Him with the world. To the fundamental thought there are several parallels; _e.g._, Deut. xxx. 5 ff.: "And the Lord thy God bringeth thee into the land which thy fathers possessed; and the Lord thy God circumciseth thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." This passage shows that the verse before us, no less than that which precedes, contains a _promise_, and that the "calling," and the "calling no more," is a work of divine [Pg 267]grace. To this we are led also by the words, "I shall take away," in ver. 19, as well as by the other parallel passages:--Jer. xxiv. 7: "And I give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be a people to Me, and I will be a God to them, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart;" Ezek. xi. 19: "And I give them one heart, and a new spirit I put within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh;" compare further Zech. xiii. 2. Another interpretation of the verse recommends itself by its apparent depth. According to it, בעל is to be taken as an appellative noun, the "marriage-Lord," in contrast with איש, "husband," and that the people are henceforth to be altogether governed by love. But this interpretation must be objected to, for a whole multitude of reasons. There is, _first_ of all, the relation of this verse to the following one, which does not allow that בעל, which there occurs as a proper name, should in this place be taken as an appellative. There is, _then_, the arbitrariness in defining the relation between איש and בעל, the former of which as little exclusively expresses the relation of love, as the latter excludes it. (Compare Is. liv. 5, 6, lxii. 4; 2 Sam. xi. 26.) Further, it is incorrect to say that בעל properly means "Lord;" it means "possessor." _Still further_,--There is the unsuitableness of the thought, which would be without any analogy in