From these licentious rites, therefore, originated this phrase, afterwards used to describe the worship of idols. But even admitting that it does suggest a marriage relationship between God and his people, the distance between a suggestive phrase of this kind and an entire book of marital descriptions is so great, that the one cannot be reasonably supposed to have suggested the other.
Third. We deny that even the language used by the prophets after the days of Solomon, in the passages cited, is at all analogous to that of this poem. Let us examine some of the passages themselves. Isa. l. 1:—
"Where is the bill of your mother's divorce
With which I dismissed her?"
Isa. liv. 4-6:—
"Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed,
And be not abashed, for thou shalt not blush;
For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth,
And the reproach of thy widowhood thou shalt remember no more.
For he weddeth thee who made thee.
Jehovah of hosts is his name,
And the Holy One of Israel redeemeth thee.
He is called the God of the whole earth.
For Jehovah calleth thee, as a forsaken wife, when spirit-broken,
And as a wife of youth when melting in repentance, saith thy Lord."
Isa. lxii. 4, 5:—
"No more shall it be said to thee, Thou forsaken!
And no more shall it be said to thy land, Thou desolate!
But thou shalt be called, The object of my delight,
And thy land, The married woman;
For Jehovah delighteth in thee,
And thy land shall be married;
For the young man shall marry the virgin;
Thy children shall marry thee;
And with the joy of a bridegroom over his bride
Shall thy God rejoice over thee."
Jer. iii. 20:—
"As a wife faithlessly departeth from her husband,
So have ye acted faithlessly towards me,
O house of Israel! saith Jehovah."
These, and several more of a similar kind, are the passages referred to, to prove that the bridegroom and bride in this Song mean the Lord and his people! How totally different
