This is the transition to the kingdom of Christ, because these words ["They will have to seek me early"], 2) which are so glorious and magnificent, could not be understood of any other kingdom than the kingdom of Christ. The opinion is: This people will come to me after its captivity, since it was well afflicted and worried, and I will give it rest.
V. 2. He makes us alive after two days.
We will indeed die and be afflicted with misery, but he will raise us again after two days, that is, in a short time. Or more correctly, this passage is viewed according to that in which Paul boasts [1 Cor. 15:4.] that Christ will rise again on the third day, so that this is the opinion: that Christ by his resurrection would make us all alive. Therefore, he understands not only the resurrection itself, but also its power and effectiveness.
2) Inserted by us. Immediately before we have instead of: Uc>6 vsrdo angenomyren: kaso vsrba.
V. 6. for I delight in love (misericordiam).
"Love" is first of all that which is offered to us, which we accept, namely from God, and with which he does us good, then it is that which I owe to my neighbor. Therefore the opinion is: This I have purposed through the prophets who kill you [v. 5], that I might establish the kingdom of mercy, that I might do you all good according to my mercy, without your sacrifices and works.
V. 8. Gilead is a city of idolatry.
Gilead is a whole countryside, and not a city, and contemptuously he calls the princes, the kings and their households, and even the whole synagogue, "the great Hansen," under the name of "Gilead" as a city, because they are not worthy of the name of a countryside. - "And blood debts." The prophet attributes to this city that it had shed blood, that
means it is trampled under by the blood and becomes guilty of the shed blood.
V. 9. i.e. priests together with their multitude.
The priests in Bethel were so rebellious against God that they even continued to commit robbery on the road leading from Shechem to Jerusalem, namely, to prevent those who continued to sacrifice in the house of the Lord. This passage is rightly understood of the Christians, to whom the priests of the Jews refused Christianity, and even deterred them from it with death penalties. And the same is this: as they commit robbery in Shechem, so they deny admission here: Fauces virorum vel latronum, the Hebrew text has: maw of the men of war or
of the foot people, and it is those who resist the gospel who forcefully catch and corrupt the Chris part.
V. 11. But Judah will still have a harvest ahead of them.
He speaks of the return of the people, not from the Assyrian, nor from the Babylonian, nor even from the Roman captivity, but from the spiritual, in which they were as captives servile to idols and ceremonies, so that the opinion is: Although many robbers resist, and everywhere the way is occupied, nevertheless you will gather foreign peoples, and you will be freed at the same time, however much the robbers in Shechem oppose.