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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Deuteronomy 32:23 - 32:23
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I will spend mine arrows upon them - The judgments of God in general are termed the arrows of God, Job 6:4; Psa 38:2, Psa 38:3; Psa 91:5; see also Eze 5:16; Jer 50:14; 2Sa 22:14, 2Sa 22:15. In this and the following verses, to the 28th inclusive, (Deu 32:23-28), God threatens this people with every species of calamity that could possibly fall upon man. How strange it is that, having this law continually in their hands, they should not discern those threatened judgments, and cleave to the Lord that they might be averted!
It was customary among the heathens to represent any judgment from their gods under the notion of arrows, especially a pestilence; and one of their greatest deities, Apollo, is ever represented as bearing a bow and quiver full of deadly arrows; so Homer, Il. i., ver. 43, where he represents him, in answer to the prayer of his priest Chryses, coming to smite the Greeks with the pestilence: -
Ὡς εφατ’ ευχομενος· του δ’ εκλυε Φοιβος Απολλων·
Βη δε κατ’ Ουλυμποιο καρηνων χωομενος κηρ,
Τοξ’ ωμοισιν εχων αμφηρεφεα τε φαρετρην. -
Ἑζετ’ επειτ’ απανευθε νεων· μετα δ’ ιον ἑηκε·
Δεινη δε κλαγγη γενετ’ αργυρεοιο βιοιο. κ. τ. λ.
“Thus Chryses pray’d; the favoring power attends,
And from Olympus’ lofty tops descends.
Bent was his bow the Grecian hearts to wound;
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound; -
The fleet in view, he twang’d his deadly’ bow,
And hissing fly the feather’d fates below.
On mules and dogs the infection first began;
And last the vengeful arrows fix’d in man.”
How frequently the same figure is employed in the sacred writings, every careful reader knows; and quotations need not be multiplied.