covenant fellowship with the Lord. So long the power of the world could do it no harm. The “shout of a king” in Israel is the rejoicing of Israel at the fact that Jehovah dwells and rules as King in the midst of it (cf. Exo 15:18; Deu 33:5). Jehovah had manifested Himself as King, by leading them out of Egypt.
Verse 22
“God brings them out of Egypt; his strength is like that of a buffalo.” אל is God as the strong, or mighty one. The participle מוציאם is not used for the preterite, but designates the leading out as still going on, and lasting till the introduction into Canaan. The plural suffix, ם-, is used ad sensum, with reference to Israel as a people. Because God leads them, they go forward with the strength of a buffalo. תּועפות, from יעף, to weary, signifies that which causes weariness, exertion, the putting forth of power; hence the fulness of strength, ability to make or bear exertions. ראם is the buffalo or wild ox, an indomitable animal, which is especially fearful on account of its horns (Job 39:9-11; Deu 33:17; Psa 22:22).
Verse 23
The fellowship of its God, in which Israel rejoiced, and to which it owed its strength, was an actual truth. “For there is no augury in Jacob, and no divination in Israel. At the time it is spoken to Jacob, and to Israel what God doeth.” כּי does not mean, “so that, as an introduction to the sequel,” as Knobel supposes, but “for,” as a causal particle. The fact that Israel was not directed, like other nations, to the uncertain and deceitful instrumentality of augury and divination, but enjoyed in all its concerns the immediate revelation of its God, furnished the proof that it had its God in the midst of it, and was guided and endowed with power by God Himself. נחשׁ and קסם, οἰωνισμός and μαντεία, augurium et divinatio (lxx, Vulg.), were the two means employed by the heathen for looking into futurity. The former (see at Lev 19:26) was the unfolding of the future from signs in the phenomena of nature, and inexplicable occurrences in animal and human life; the latter, prophesying from a pretended or supposed revelation of the Deity within the human mind. כּעת, “according to the time,” i.e., at the right time, God revealed His acts, His counsel, and His will to Israel in His word, which He had spoken at first to the patriarchs, and afterwards through Moses and the prophets. In this He revealed to His people in truth, and in a way that could not deceive, what the heathen attempted in vain to discover through augury and divination (cf. Deu 18:14-19).[1]
Verse 24
Through
- ↑ “What is here affirmed of Israel, applies to the Church of all ages, and also to every individual believer. The Church of God knows from His word what God does, and what it has to do in consequence. The wisdom of this world resembles augury and divination. The Church of God, which is in possession of His word, has no need of it, and it only leads its followers to destruction, from inability to discern the will of God. To discover this with certainty, is the great privilege of the Church of God” (Hengstenberg).
