other prophets also, the going up from, or
deliverance out of, Egypt, forms throughout the basis of the second
great deliverance. And this is quite natural; for both of those events
stand in the closest actual connection with each other;--both proceeded
from the same Divine Being; and the former was a prophecy _by fact_,
and a pledge of the latter. The deliverance of the people of God from
Egypt sealed their election; and from the latter the new deliverance
necessarily followed;--a relation which repeats itself in individuals
also. From this we may explain the fact that in the Psalms, they who
celebrate God's former mercies, prove from them to Him and to
themselves, throughout, that He must now also be their helper. It is
then by no means a mere external similarity which induces the prophets
ever and anon to refer to the deliverance from Egypt (compare the
passages Mic. ii. 12, 13; Jer. xxiii. 7, 8, which bear so close a
resemblance to the passage before us), any more than that the Passover
is a mere memorial. Such cannot occur in the true religion which has a
living God, and hence knows nothing of anything absolutely past.
_Ewald's_ [Pg 226] exposition, that they go up out of the country for
the purpose of further conquest, and that of _Simson_, that they go up
to Jerusalem, sever the three events which, as the example of previous
history shows, are evidently so closely allied; and these expositors,
moreover, give, by an addition of their own, that definiteness to the
words, "And they shall go up out of the land," which they can obtain
only by a reference to the history of the past. In their ambiguity,
they almost expressly point to such a commentary.--The article in
[Hebrew: harC], _the_ (_i.e._, the definite) land, is explained from
the circumstance that, in the previous context, there had been an
indirect allusion to their being carried away into a strange land. If
Israel was no more the people of God,--if they no longer enjoyed His
mercy, then it is supposed that they could not remain in the land which
they had received only as the people of God, and had hitherto retained
only through His mercy. But, primarily, the article refers to "the
place where it was said unto them," in the preceding verse.--That along
with the children of Israel, the children of Judah also assemble
themselves and go up, implies a fact which the prophet had not
expressly mentioned, because it did not stand immediately connected
with his purpo