CHAP. III.

(A) —"addicted to wickedness." I adopt the rendering of the LXX and Syriac, which nothing opposes but the Masoretic pointing.

(B)" I owned her.", from the root See Parkhurst under . This was not a payment, in the shape of a dowry; for the woman was his property, if he thought fit to claim her, by virtue of the marriage already had: but it was a present sup ply of her necessary wants, by which he acknowledged her as his wife, and engaged to furnish her with alimony, not ample indeed, but suitable to the recluse life which he prescribed to her. Calvin observes, that the parsimonious gift, a sum of money which was but half the price of a female slave, and a pittance of black barley bread, typified the hard fare which the Israelites were to expect at the hand of God in their state of exile. See App. No. II.

(C) -" without statue, and without ephod and teraphim."

An Ephod seems to have been a garment, like a cloak without sleeves, covering the body as low as

the pit of the stomach before, and as low as the shoulder-blades behind. It seems to have taken its name from the straitness of its collar, and the manner in which it was fastened about the person. The ephod of the high priest was of costly materials, and the richest embroidery; and it made a very principal part of his robes of office. But something of a similar shape, and of the same name, but made of plain linen, was worn by the inferior priests,* and occasionally at least by other persons. But it appears also, that idolaters, at least the idolatrous Israelites, sometimes dressed up the images of the dei ties they worshipped, in a gorgeous ephod, resembling that of the high priest, and made perhaps in imitation of it. And this was so principal, and so sacred a part of the idol's robes, that the word was sometimes used as a name for the idol itself. Thus certainly we must understand Gideon's ephod; when it is said, "that he set it up () in his own city, in Ophrah, and that all Israel went a whoring after it; which thing became a snare unto Gideon and his house." This ephod was made, according

* 1 Sam. xxii, 18.

Judges viii, 27, 28.

+1 Sam. ii, 18.

to the sacred historian, of the spoils of the slaugh. tered Midianites, the purple robes of their kings, the gold of their ear-rings, and other ornaments. Insomuch that, in the costliness of the materials, it much resembled the sacred ephod of the high priest. But when it is said, that it "was set up in Ophrah, and that all Israel went a whoring after it," the robe is certainly put for an image, which was adorned with it, and drew so much admiration, that, whatever the original intention of the maker of it might be, in process of time it became an object of idolatrous adoration. The ephod, therefore, appears to have been a principal ornament both of the true and of the false worship. And when the word is used, in the figurative language of prophecy, as it is in this passage, to express in general the external grandeur of public institutions; it is in itself of ambigu ous import, and its connections in the context must determine, whether it refers to the approved forms of a pure service, or to idolatry. That it refers to the latter in the text, is evident from the connection with statues mentioned next before, and teraphim next after the ephod. For both these will be found to be produced here, as principal articles of the fur. niture of idolatry.

We find the teraphim among the faithful, in the patriarchal ages, and among idolaters afterwards. For Laban, who was a worshipper of Jehovah, had his teraphim,* and Nebuchadnezzar had his. They seem to have been images, made in some general resemblance of the person of a man. ‡ The teraphim of the idolaters were probably corrupt imitations of those of the true worshippers; for the antient idolatry was in every thing a mimickry and misapplication of the patriarchal symbols. The teraphim of idolaters were magical images, used for the purposes of divination; as appears in particular from Ezekiel in the place quoted. But the patriarchal teraphim were probably emblematical figures, like the cherubim; like those I mean of the simpler sort, which were seen in the ornaments of the more open parts of the tabernacle, and of the temple. The teraphim I take to have been figures of the like mystic import; but of materials less costly, of coarser work, and certainly upon a smaller scale: though not of so diminutive a size, as to be carried about by the high priest, according to Dr Spencer's wild notion,

* Gen. xxxi, 19.

1 Sam. xix, 13 and 16.

+ Ezek. xxi, 21.

concealed in the folds of the sacred breast-plate. For it appears, that one of these images was big enough to personate a sick man in bed. I imagine they were used, as most sacred ornaments of consecrated chapels, or oratories, in private houses. The use of them was certainly allowed before the law; and whether it might not be tolerated occasionally for some time afterward, when, by reason of the depressed situation of the Israelites, the tabernacle at Shilo might not be accessible to the greater part of the people, is a question, that may deserve consideration. For my own part, I would not take upon me to pronounce, that Micah, the man of Mount Ephraim, of whom we read in the book of Judges,† was an apostate, and an idolater. The circumstances of the story incline me indeed to the contrary opinion; though his worship seems to have been, in a considerable degree, corrupt. But however that may be, however innocent the use of these images might have been in the patriarchal ages, and however it might be tolerated (which, however, I assert not) upon particular occasions in the earliest periods of the Jewish history, when the public worship was

* 1 Sam. xix, 13 and 16.

+Chap. xvii and xviii.