8:1-4 When Israel was hard pressed, they would claim protection from God, but this would be disregarded. What stead will it stand in to say, My God, I know thee, if we cannot say, My God, I love thee, serve thee, and cleave to thee only?

Verse 2. - Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee. The more literal as well as more exact rendering is, to me wilt they cry, My God, we know thee, we Israel! Notwithstanding their provocation, their unfaithfulness to the covenant of God, and their disobedience to the Law, they appeal unitedly and severally to God in the day of their distress, and urge two pleas - their knowledge of God, or acknowledgment of him as the true God; and their high position as his people. Thus the Chaldee paraphrase has: "As often as calamity comes upon them they pray and say before me, Now we acknowledge that we have no God beside thee; deliver us, because we are thy people Israel." As to the construction, either "Israel" is in apposition to anachnu, the subject of the verb, or there is a transposition. Thus Rashi: "We must transpose the words, and explain, ' To me, cries Israel, My God, we know thee; '" so also Kimchi and Aben Ezra. The former says, "' Israel ' which comes after, should be before, after לייו, and many inversions of this kind occur in Scripture, as Ezekiel 39:11 and Psalm 141:10." The word "Israel" is omitted by the LXX. and Syriac, and in many manuscripts of Kennicott and De Rossi.

Israel shall cry unto me, my God, we know thee. In their distress they shall cry to the Lord to help them, and have mercy on them, as they used to do when in trouble, Isaiah 26:16; when the eagle is come upon them, and just ready to devour them; when Samaria is besieged with file Assyrian army, their king taken prisoner, and they just ready to fall into the hands of the enemy, then they shall cry to God, though in a hypocritical manner; own him to be the true God, and claim their interest in him, and pretend knowledge of him, and acquaintance with him; though they have not served and worshipped him, but idols, and that for hundreds of years; like others who profess to know God, but in works deny him, Titus 1:16. Israel is the last word in the verse, and occasions different versions: "they shall cry unto me"; these transgressors of the covenant and the law, these hypocrites, shall pray to God in trouble, saying, "my God, we Israel", or Israelites, "know thee"; or, "we know thee who are Israel" (x); and to this sense is the Targum,

"in every time that distress comes upon them, they pray before me, and say, now we know that we have no God besides thee; redeem us, for we are thy people Israel;''

why may they not be rendered thus, "they shall cry unto me; my God, we know thee, Israel" shall say? Castalio renders them to this sense, "my God", say they; but "we know thee, Israel"; we, the three Persons in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, we know thy hypocrisy and wickedness, that it is only outwardly and hypocritically, and not sincerely, that thou criest unto and callest upon God.

(x) "ad me clamant, Deus mi, novimus te nos Israel", De Dieu; "clamabunt ad me, O Deus meus, nos Israelitae cognoscimus te", Tigurine version, so Tarnovius; "mihi vocant, Deus mi, cognovimus, vel agnoscimus te Israel", vel "nos lsrael, seu Israelitae", Schmidt.

2. My God, we know thee—the singular, "My," is used distributively, each one so addressing God. They, in their hour of need, plead their knowledge of God as the covenant-people, while in their acts they acknowledge Him not (compare Mt 7:21, 22; Tit 1:16; also Isa 29:13; Jer 7:4). The Hebrew joins "Israel," not as English Version, with "shall cry," but "We, Israel, know thee"; God denies the claim thus urged on the ground of their descent from Israel.

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