a father who stretches forth his arms, ready to receive his son kindly into his bosom. And he says
daily, that it might not seem strange to any one if he was wearied in showing kindness to them,
inasmuch as he succeeded not by his assiduity. A similar representation we have in Jeremiah 7:13;
and Jeremiah 11:7, where he says that he rose up early to warn them.
Their unfaithfulness is also set forth by two most suitable words. I have thought it right to render
the participle ἀπειθούντα, refractory, or rebellious, and yet the rendering of Erasmus and of the
Old Translator, which I have placed in the margin, is not to be wholly disapproved. But since the
Prophet accuses the people of perverseness, and then adds that they wandered through ways which
were not good, I doubt not but that the Greek Translator meant to express the Hebrew word ,
surer, by two words, calling them first disobedient or rebellious, and then gainsaying; for their
contumacy showed itself in this, because the people, with untamable pride and bitterness, obstinately
rejected the holy admonitions of the Prophets.^337
(^337) The passage is taken from Isaiah 65:2. The Septuagint is followed, except that the order of the words in the first part of the
sentence is changed, thought the Septuagint has preserved the order of the original. The version is according to the Hebrew, with
the exception of the last word, which from its form, the last radical letter being doubled, can hardly be expressed in another
language by a single term, and so the Septuagint has employed two. It means “revolting again and again,” or willfully revolting.
The simple verb , signifies to turn aside, to revolt, to apostatize: and in a reduplicate form, as here, it means either a repeated
or an obstinate revolt. Indeed the revolt or the apostasy of the Jews was both reiterated and perverse, as their history abundantly
testifies. — Ed.