(11) The stone shall cry out.--Every stone in those giant walls reared by the enforced labour of captives cries aloud to accuse the Babylonian. Every spar out of the woodwork attests the charge.
Verse 11. - Even inanimate things shall raise their voice to denounce the Chaldeans' wickedness. The stone shall cry out of the wall. A proverbial expression to denote the horror with which their cruelty and oppression were regarded; it is particularly appropriate here, as these crimes had been perpetrated in connection with the buildings in which they prided them. selves, and which were raised by the enforced labour of miserable captives and adorned with the fruits of fraud and pillage. Compare another application of the expression in Luke 19:40. Jerome quotes Cicero, 'Orat. pro Marcello,' 10, "Parietes, medius fidius, ut mihi videntur, hujus curiae tibi gratias agere gestiunt, quod brevi tempore futura sit ilia auctoritas in his majorum suorum et suis sedibus" (comp. Eurip., 'Hippol.,' 418, Τέρεμνά τ οἴκων μή ποτεφθογγὴν ἀφῇ: Ovid, 'Metam.,' 2:696, "Tutus eas: lapis iste prius tua furta loquetur"). Wordsworth sees a literal fulfilment of these words in the appalling circumstance at Belshazzar's feast, when a hand wrote on the palace wall the doom of Babylon (Daniel 5.). And the beam out of the timber shall answer it. "The tie beam out of the timber work shall" take up the refrain, and "answer" the stone from the wall. The Hebrew word (Kaphis) rendered "beam" is an ἄπαξ λεγόμενον. It is explained as above by St. Jerome, being referred to a verb meaning "to bind." Thus Symmachus and Theodotion translate it by σύνδεσμος. Henderson and others think it means "a half brick," and Aquila renders it by μᾶζα, "something baked." But we have no evidence that the Babylonians in their sumptuous edifices interlaced timber and half bricks (see Pusey, p. 419, note 23). The LXX. gives, κάνθαρος ἐκ ξύλου, a beetle, a worm, from the wood. Hence, referring to Christ on the cross, St. Ambrose ('Orat. de Obit. Theod.,' 46) writes, "Adoravit ilium qui pependit in ligno, illum inquam qui sicut scarabaeus clamavit, ut persecutoribus suis peccata condonaret." St. Cyril argues that tie beams were called κάνθαροι from their clinging to and supporting wall or roof. Some reason for this supposition is gained by the fact that the word canterius, or cantherius, is used in Latin in the sense of "rafter."
2:5-14 The prophet reads the doom of all proud and oppressive powers that bear hard upon God's people. The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, are the entangling snares of men; and we find him that led Israel captive, himself led captive by each of these. No more of what we have is to be reckoned ours, than what we come honestly by. Riches are but clay, thick clay; what are gold and silver but white and yellow earth? Those who travel through thick clay, are hindered and dirtied in their journey; so are those who go through the world in the midst of abundance of wealth. And what fools are those that burden themselves with continual care about it; with a great deal of guilt in getting, saving, and spending it, and with a heavy account which they must give another day! They overload themselves with this thick clay, and so sink themselves down into destruction and perdition. See what will be the end hereof; what is gotten by violence from others, others shall take away by violence. Covetousness brings disquiet and uneasiness into a family; he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house; what is worse, it brings the curse of God upon all the affairs of it. There is a lawful gain, which, by the blessing of God, may be a comfort to a house; but what is got by fraud and injustice, will bring poverty and ruin upon a family. Yet that is not the worst; Thou hast sinned against thine own soul, hast endangered it. Those who wrong their neighbours, do much greater wrong to their own souls. If the sinner thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with art and contrivance, the riches and possessions he heaped together will witness against him. There are not greater drudges in the world than those who are slaves to mere wordly pursuits. And what comes of it? They find themselves disappointed of it, and disappointed in it; they will own it is worse than vanity, it is vexation of spirit. By staining and sinking earthly glory, God manifests and magnifies his own glory, and fills the earth with the knowledge of it, as plentifully as waters cover the sea, which are deep, and spread far and wide.
For the stone shall cry out of the wall,.... Of their own house; some from among themselves, that truly feared God, seeing the evil practices done among them, and abhorring them, such as their covetousness, ambition, murders, excommunications, and anathemas, should cry out against them in their sermons and writings; such as were lively stones, eminent for religion and godliness, as Bernard, Wickliff, Huss, and others:
and the beam out of the timber shall answer it; such as were of eminent note in things civil, as beams and rafters in the house; emperors and governors of provinces, who observed the complaints of godly ministers and people, answered to them, and checked the evil bishops and clergy, and hindered them in the pursuit of their schemes, and so brought them to shame and confusion. Aben Ezra observes, that the word signifies the hard place in the wood; or the harder part of it, the knotty part, or the knot in it; and which is confirmed by the use of the word in the Arabic language, as Hottinger (g) observes; and so may have respect to such persons as were raised up at the beginning of the Reformation, who were of rough dispositions, and hardy spirits, fit to go through the work they were called to; such as Luther, and others, who answered and were correspondent to the doctrines of those before mentioned, who preceded them: for not a beetle, as the Septuagint version, which breeds, and lives not in wood, and so represents heretics, as Jerom; much better, as some other Greek versions, a "worm"; though rather the word may signify a brick, as it is used by the Talmudists (h) for one of a span and a half, which answers well enough to a stone in the former clause; nor is it unusual with heathen writers (i) to represent stones and timbers speaking, when any criminal silence is kept; see Luke 19:40.
(g) Smegma Orientale, l. 1. c. 7. p. 163. (h) T. Bava Metzia, fol. 117. 2. & Bathra, fol. 3. 1. (i) "----Secretum divitis ullum Esse putas? servi ut taceant, jumenta loquentur, Et canis, et postes, et marmora.----" Juvenal. Satyr. 9.
and the beam out of the timber shall answer it; such as were of eminent note in things civil, as beams and rafters in the house; emperors and governors of provinces, who observed the complaints of godly ministers and people, answered to them, and checked the evil bishops and clergy, and hindered them in the pursuit of their schemes, and so brought them to shame and confusion. Aben Ezra observes, that the word signifies the hard place in the wood; or the harder part of it, the knotty part, or the knot in it; and which is confirmed by the use of the word in the Arabic language, as Hottinger (g) observes; and so may have respect to such persons as were raised up at the beginning of the Reformation, who were of rough dispositions, and hardy spirits, fit to go through the work they were called to; such as Luther, and others, who answered and were correspondent to the doctrines of those before mentioned, who preceded them: for not a beetle, as the Septuagint version, which breeds, and lives not in wood, and so represents heretics, as Jerom; much better, as some other Greek versions, a "worm"; though rather the word may signify a brick, as it is used by the Talmudists (h) for one of a span and a half, which answers well enough to a stone in the former clause; nor is it unusual with heathen writers (i) to represent stones and timbers speaking, when any criminal silence is kept; see Luke 19:40.
(g) Smegma Orientale, l. 1. c. 7. p. 163. (h) T. Bava Metzia, fol. 117. 2. & Bathra, fol. 3. 1. (i) "----Secretum divitis ullum Esse putas? servi ut taceant, jumenta loquentur, Et canis, et postes, et marmora.----" Juvenal. Satyr. 9.