These words are too far away as that the prophet could have expected to
be understood, in thus referring to them in a manner so indefinite.
Several interpreters follow the explanation of _Tarnovius_: "Therefore,
because she is not corrected by so great calamities, I will try the
matter in another and more lenient way, by kindness." But the prophet
could not expect that his hearers and readers should themselves supply
the thought, which is not indicated by anything,--the thought, namely,
"because that former method was of no avail, or rather, because it
_alone_ did not suffice;" for it was by no means wholly in vain. When
the Lord had hedged up her way with thorns, the woman speaks: "I will
go and return;" and where tribulations are of no avail--tribulations
through which we must enter the kingdom of God--nothing else will. The
severity of God must precede His love. And even though this train of
thought should have occurred to them, they had no guarantee for its
correctness. It is most natural to take the [Hebrew: lkN] as being
simply co-ordinate with the [Hebrew: lkN] in vers. 8 and 11. The
"_because_," which, in all the three places, corresponds to the
_therefore_, is the wife's apostasy. Because she has forgotten God, He
recalls Himself to her remembrance, first by the punishment, and then,
after this has attained its end,--after the wife has spoken: "I will go
and return,"--by proofs of His love. The leading to Egypt, into the
wilderness, into the land of Canaan, rests on her unfaithfulness as its
foundation. Without it, the Congregation would have remained in
undisturbed possession of the promised land. By it, God is induced,
both according to His justice and His mercy, to take it from her, to
lead her back into the wilderness, and thence to the promised
land.--[Hebrew: pth], in the _Piel_, is a _verbum amatorium_; it
signifies "to allure by tender persuasion." There is to be a repetition
of the proceeding of God, by which He formerly, in Egypt, allured the
people to Himself, and induced them to follow Him into the wilderness,
from the spiritual and bodily bondage in Egypt. After the sufferings,
there always follows the alluring. God first takes away the objects of
sinful love, and then He comes alluring and persuading us that we
should choose, for the object of our love. Him who alone is worthy of,
and entitled to, love. He is not [Pg 255] satisfied with the strict
prosecution of His right, but endeavours to make d