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109 illustrations
Jacob's blessing gave pre-eminence to Judah and Joseph's son Ephraim, yet structural inequality festered.
The scene required protection from popular commotion that would have hindered the gradual development of the Redeemer's ministry and its attendant evidences.
Delitzsch observed that holiness means separation from worldly corruption, superior in character.
The *hierarchs* (ἱεράρχης, those holding highest spiritual rank), distinguished from secular magistrates as recorded in 1 Chronicles 24:6, faced humiliation beyond mere political defeat.
Jewish beds were merely mattresses laid upon the floor, covered by a sheet or carpet in which the weary person wrapped himself seeking rest.
Consider a wealthy man of vigorous health who dwells in a handsome house and adds yearly to his estates, yet his soul is corrupt.
As William Thomson notes in *The Land and the Book*, the true force of this comparison emerges only after the harvest concludes and the keeper abandons the lodge.
Yet Exell extends the image to Christianity itself as the *helios* (sun) of our moral age.
The Husbandman planted a choice vine on a fruitful hill, fenced it carefully, built a watchtower, and hewn a winepress—yet it brought forth wild grapes (*beushim*, worthless fruit) instead of the expected harvest of righteousness.
Exell's Victorian analysis unfolds the nature of Messiah's government in three essential movements.
Two forms exist: assertory oaths affirm or deny past and present facts; promissory oaths pledge future action, becoming vows when made directly to Elohim, or covenants when between persons.
We hear denunciations of unfaithfulness and immediately agree; yet we fail to recognize ourselves in those very terms.
Paul (Galatians 3:19) and Stephen (Acts 7:53) explicitly affirm angelic agency in law-giving, yet the Pentateuch itself remains ambiguous.