it only serves to make the contrast more [Pg 276]prominent.[1] רֵעַ has only one signification--that of _friend_. It never, by itself, means "fellow-man," never "fellow-Jew," never "one with whom we have intercourse." The Pharisees were quite correct in understanding it as the opposite of enemy. In their gloss, Matt. v. 43, καὶ μισήσεις τὸν ἐχθρόν σου, there was one thing only objectionable--the most important, it is true--that by the friend, they understood only him whom their heart, void of love, loved indeed; not him whom they ought to have loved, because God had united him to them by the sacred ties of friendship and love. Thus, what ought to have awakened them to love, just served them as a palliation for their hatred. Now this signification, which alone is the settled one, is here also very suitable. He whom the wife criminally forsakes, is not a severe husband, but her loving friend, whom she herself formerly acknowledged as such, and who always remains the same. Entirely parallel is Jer. iii. 20: "As a wife is faithless towards her _friend_, so have ye been faithless to Me;" compare ver. 4: "Hast thou not formerly called me. My father, _friend_ of my youth art thou?" Compare also Song of Sol. v. 16. The correct meaning was long ago seen by _Calvin_: "There is," says he, "an expressiveness in this word. For often, when women prostitute themselves, they complain that they have done it on account of the too great severity of their husbands, and that they are not treated by their husbands with sufficient kindness. But if a husband delight in having his wife with him, if he treat her kindly and perform the duties of a husband, she is then less excusable. Hence, it is this most heinous ingratitude of the people that is here expressed, and set in opposition to the infinite mercy and kindness of the Lord." For a still better insight into the meaning of the first half of this verse, we subjoin the _paraphrasis_ by _Manger_: "Seek thee a wife in whom thou art to have thy delight, and whom thou art to treat with such love, that, even if she, by her unfaithfulness, violate the sacred rights of matrimony, and thou, for that reason, canst no longer live with her, [Pg 277]she shall still remain dear to thee, and shall be willingly received again into thy favour, as soon as she shall have reformed her life."--In the second half of the verse, there is a verbal agreement with passages of the Pentateuch, so close that it cannot certainly be accidental. Compare on כאהבת יהוה את־בני ישראל, Deut. vii. 8, מאהבת יהוה אתכם,--an agreement which undoubtedly deserves so much more attention, that we have already established the relationship of the passage with ver. 2. On פנים אל אלהים אחרים, compare Deut. xxxi. 18: "I will hide My face in that day for all the evil they are doing, for they turn to other gods," אשישי ענבים--.פנה אל אלהים אחרים, "grape-cakes," has, as to its substance, been already explained, p. 194 sqq. It is the