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Page 12
(76) This reference of things wonderful to God was not peculiar to the Jews.
(77) Pharaoh, on hearing the interpretation of his dream, exclaimed that the
mind of the gods was in Joseph. (78) Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel that he
possessed the mind of the holy gods; so also in Latin anything well made is
often said to be wrought with Divine hands, which is equivalent to the
Hebrew phrase, wrought with the hand of God.
(80) We can now very easily understand and explain those passages of
Scripture which speak of the Spirit of God. (81) In some places the
expression merely means a very strong, dry, and deadly wind, as in
Isaiah xl:7, "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of
the Lord bloweth upon it." (82) Similarly in Gen. i:2: "The Spirit of the
Lord moved over the face of the waters." (83) At other times it is used as
equivalent to a high courage, thus the spirit of Gideon and of Samson is
called the Spirit of the Lord, as being very bold, and prepared for any
emergency. (84) Any unusual virtue or power is called the Spirit or Virtue
of the Lord, Ex. xxxi:3: "I will fill him (Bezaleel) with the Spirit of the
Lord," i.e., as the Bible itself explains, with talent above man's usual
endowment. (85) So Isa. xi:2: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon
him," is explained afterwards in the text to mean the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, of counsel and might.
(86) The melancholy of Saul is called the melancholy of the Lord, or a very
deep melancholy, the persons who applied the term showing that they
understood by it nothing supernatural, in that they sent for a musician to
assuage it by harp-playing. (87) Again, the "Spirit of the Lord" is used
as equivalent to the mind of man, for instance, Job xxvii:3: "And the Spirit
of the Lord in my nostrils," the allusion being to Gen. ii:7: "And God
breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life." (88) Ezekiel also,
prophesying to the dead, says (xxvii:14), "And I will give to you My Spirit,
and ye shall live;" i.e. I will restore you to life. (89) In Job xxxiv:14,
we read: "If He gather unto Himself His Spirit and breath;" in Gen. vi:3:
"My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh,"
i.e. since man acts on the dictates of his body, and not the spirit which I
gave him to discern the good, I will let him alone. (90) So, too, Ps. li:12:
"Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within me; cast
me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." (91)
It was supposed that sin originated only from the body, and that good
impulses come from the mind; therefore the Psalmist invokes the aid of God
against the bodily appetites, but prays that the spirit which the Lord, the
Holy One, had given him might be renewed. (92) Again, inasmuch as the Bible,
in concession to popular ignorance, describes God as having a mind, a heart,
emotions - nay, even a body and breath - the expression Spirit of the Lord
is used for God's mind, disposition, emotion, strength, or breath.
(93) Thus, Isa. xl:13: "Who hath disposed the Spirit of the Lord?" i.e. who,
save Himself, hath caused the mind of the Lord to will anything,? and
Isa. lxiii:10: "But they rebelled, and vexed the Holy Spirit."
(94) The phrase comes to be used of the law of Moses, which in a sense
expounds God's will, Is. lxiii. 11, "Where is He that put His Holy Spirit
within him?" meaning, as we clearly gather from the context, the law of
Moses. (95) Nehemiah, speaking of the giving of the law, says, i:20,
"Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them." (96) This is referred
to in Deut. iv:6, "This is your wisdom and understanding," and in
Ps. cxliii:10, "Thy good Spirit will lead me into the land of uprightness."
(97) The Spirit of the Lord may mean the breath of the Lord, for breath, no
less than a mind, a heart, and a body are attributed to God in Scripture, as
in Ps. xxxiii:6. (98) Hence it gets to mean the power, strength, or faculty
of God, as in Job xxxiii:4, "The Spirit of the Lord made me," i.e. the
power, or, if you prefer, the decree of the Lord. (99) So the Psalmist in
poetic language declares, xxxiii:6, "By the word of the Lord were the
heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth," i.e. by
a mandate issued, as it were, in one breath. (100) Also Ps. cxxxix:7,
"Wither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy
presence?" i.e. whither shall I go so as to be beyond Thy power and Thy
presence?
(101) Lastly, the Spirit of the Lord is used in Scripture to express the
emotions of God, e.g. His kindness and mercy, Micah ii:7, "Is the Spirit
[i.e. the mercy] of the Lord straitened? (102) Are these cruelties His
doings?" (103) Zech. iv:6, "Not by might or by power, but My Spirit [i.e.
mercy], saith the Lord of hosts." (104) The twelfth verse of the seventh
chapter of the same prophet must, I think, be interpreted in like manner:
"Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the
law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit [i.e. in
His mercy] by the former prophets." (105) So also Haggai ii:5: "So My Spirit
remaineth among you: fear not."
(106) The passage in Isaiah xlviii:16, "And now the Lord and His Spirit hath
sent me," may be taken to refer to God's mercy or His revealed law; for the
prophet says, "From the beginning" (i.e. from the time when I first came to
you, to preach God's anger and His sentence forth against you) "I spoke not
in secret; from the time that it was, there am I," and now I am sent by
the mercy of God as a joyful messenger to preach your restoration. (107) Or
we may understand him to mean by the revealed law that he had before come to
warn them by the command of the law (Levit. xix:17) in the same manner under
the same conditions as Moses had warned them, that now, like Moses, he ends
by preaching their restoration. (108) But the first explanation seems to me
the best.
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