I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness
Not Jacob or Israel personally, with the few souls that went down
with him into Egypt; for these died in Egypt, and never returned
from thence, or came into the wilderness to be found; nor Israel
in a spiritual sense, the objects of electing, redeeming, and
calling grace; though it may be accommodated to them, who in
their nature state are as in a wilderness, in a forlorn,
hopeless, helpless, and uncomfortable condition; in which the
Lord finds them, seeking them by his Son in redemption, and by
his Spirit in the effectual calling; when they are like grapes,
not in themselves, being destitute of all good, and having
nothing but sin and wickedness in them; for, whatever good thing
is in them at conversion, it is not found, but put there; but the
simile may serve to express the great and unmerited love of God
to his people, who are as agreeable to him as grapes in the
wilderness to a thirsty traveller; and in whom he takes great
delight and complacency, notwithstanding all their sinfulness and
unworthiness; and bestows abundance of grace upon them, and makes
them like clusters of grapes indeed; and such were many of the
Jewish fathers, and who are here intended, even the people of
Israel brought out of Egypt into the wilderness of Arabia,
through which they travelled to Canaan: here the Lord found them,
took notice and care of them, provided for them, and protected
them, and gave them, many tokens of his love and affection; see (
Deuteronomy 32:10 ) ;
and they were as acceptable to him, and he took as much delight
and pleasure in them, as one travelling through the deserts of
Arabia, or any other desert, would rejoice at finding a vine
laden with clusters of grapes. The design of this metaphor is not
to compare Israel with grapes, because of any goodness in them,
and as a reason of the Lord's delight in them; for neither for
quantity nor quality were they like them, being few, and very
obstinate and rebellious; but to set forth the great love of God
to them, and his delight and complacency in them; which arose and
sprung, not from any excellency in them, but from his own
sovereign good will and pleasure; see (
Deuteronomy 7:6-8 ) ( Deuteronomy
9:5 Deuteronomy
9:6 ) ( 10:15 )
; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at
her first time;
the Lord looked upon their ancestors when they were settled as a
people, in their civil and church state, upon their being brought
out of Egypt, with as much pleasure as a man beholds the first
ripe fig his fig tree produces after planting it, or the first it
produces in the season, the fig tree bearing twice in a year; but
the first is commonly most desired, as being most rare and
valuable; and such were the Israelites to the Lord at first, (
Micah 7:1 ) (
Jeremiah
2:2 ) . This is observed, to aggravate their ingratitude to
the Lord, which soon discovered itself; and to suggest that their
posterity were like them, who, though they had received many
favours from the Lord, as tokens of his affection to them, and
delight in them; yet behaved in a most shocking and shameful
manner to him: [but] they went to Baalpeor:
or "went into Baalpeor" F1; committed whoredom with that idol,
even in the wilderness where the Lord found them and showed so
much regard to them; this refers to the history in ( Numbers
25:1-18 ) . Baalpeor is by some interpreted "the lord" or
"god of opening": and was so called, either from his opening his
mouth in prophecy, as Ainsworth F2 thinks, as Nebo, a god of
Babylon, had his name from prophesying; or from his open mouth,
with which this idol was figured, as a Jewish writer F3
observes; whose worshipper took him to be inspired, and opened
their mouths to receive the divine afflatus from him: others
interpret it "the lord" or "god of nakedness"; because his
worshippers exposed to him their posteriors in a shameful manner,
and even those parts which ought to be covered; and this is the
sense of most of the Jewish writers. So, in the Jerusalem Talmud
F4, the worship of Peor is represented
in like manner, and as most filthy and obscene, as it is by
Jarchi F5, who seems to have taken his account
from thence; and even Maimonides F6 says it was a known thing
that the worship of Peor was by uncovering of the nakedness; and
this he makes to be the reason why God commanded the priests to
make themselves breeches to cover their nakedness in the time of
service, and why they might not go up to the altar by steps, that
their nakedness might not be discovered; in short, they took this
Peor to be no other than a Priapus; and in this they are followed
by many Christians, particularly by Jerom on this place, who
observes that Baalpeor is the god of the Moabites, whom we may
call Priapus; and so Isidore F7 says, there was an idol in
Moab called Baal, on Mount Fegor, whom the this call Priapus, the
god of gardens; but Mr. Selden F8 rejects this notion, and
contends that Peor is either the name of a mountain, of which
Isidore, just now mentioned, speaks; see ( Numbers
23:28 ) ; where Baal was worshipped, and so was called from
thence Baalpeor; as Jupiter Olympius, Capitolinus is so called
from the mountains of Olympus, Capitolinus where divine honours
are paid him; or else the name of a man, of some great person in
high esteem, who was deified by the Moabites, and worshipped by
them after his death; and so Baalpeor may be the same as "Lord
Peor"; and it seems most likely that Peor is the name of a man,
at least of an idol, since we read of Bethpeor, or the temple of
Peor, in ( Deuteronomy
34:6 ) ; and separated themselves unto [that]
shame;
they separated themselves from God and his worship, and joined
themselves to that shameful idol, and worshipped it, thought by
many, as before observed, to be the Priapus of the Gentiles, in
whose worship the greatest of obscenities were used, not fit to
be named: so that this epithet of shame is with great propriety
given it, and aggravates the sin of Israel, that such a people
should be guilty of such filthy practices; though Baal, without
supposing him to he a Priapus, may be called "that shame", for
Baal and Bosheth, which signifies shame, are some times put for
each other; so Jerubbaal, namely Gideon, is called Jerubbesheth,
( Judges
8:35 ) ( 2 Samuel
11:21 ) ; and Eshbaal appears plainly to be the same son of
Saul, whose name was Ishbosheth, ( 1 Chronicles
8:33 ) ( 2 Samuel
2:10 ) ; and Meribbaal is clearly the same with Mephibosheth
( 1
Chronicles 8:34 ) ( 2 Samuel 9:6
) ; yea, it may be observed that the prophets of Baal are called,
in the Septuagint version of ( 1 Kings
18:25 ) ; (profhtav thv
aiscunhv) , "the prophets of that shame"; every idol, and
all idolatry being shameful, and the cause of shame, sooner or
later, to their worshippers; especially when things obscene were
done in their religious rites, as were in many of the Heathens in
which the Jews followed them; see ( Jeremiah
3:24 Jeremiah
3:25 ) ( 11:13 ) ;
and [their] abominations were according as they
loved:
or, "as they loved them", the daughters of Moab; for it was
through their impure love of them that they were drawn into these
abominations, or to worship idols, which are often called
abominations; or, as Joseph Kimchi reads the words, and gives the
sense of them, "and they were abominations as I loved them"; that
is, according to the measure of the love wherewith I loved them,
so they were abominations in mine eyes; they were as detestable
now as they were loved before.
F1 (wab hmh) "ingressi sunt", Pagninus, Montanus, Calvin, Drusius.
F2 Annotations on Numb. xxv. 3.
F3 Racenatensis in Capito, apud Drusium in loc.
F4 T. Hieros. Sanhedrin, fol. 28. 4.
F5 Perush in Numb. xxv. 3.
F6 Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 45. p. 477.
F7 Origin. l. 8. c. 11. p. 70.
F8 De Dis Syris, Syntagma 1. c. 5. p. 162, 163. See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 73