2 Samuel 23:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And he shall be as the light, &c.— Bishop Sherlock suggested that interpretation of this verse which Dr. Grey has given: according to which, says the Bishop, taking the sun to be an image or character of the Just One, the sense will be, "This sun shall be like the kind gentle light of the morning free from clouds, and when the earth, refreshed by kind showers, is putting forth fresh verdure." The passage is beautiful, and gives an idea of a sun that never scorches, but is ever gentle, and shining with a genial heat; a sun with healing under his wings. Dr. Kennicott, in the first volume of his Dissertation, has confirmed this interpretation of the Bishop. He observes, that this song will certainly be determined to contain a prophesy of the Messiah, if a various reading in one of the oldest manuscripts, respecting the words above quoted, should appear to be genuine. It is said in our translation, that he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth. Now is not the sun the light of the morning? Or is not the morning light the certain effect of the sun-rising? And can any thing be compared to itself, or the cause to its effect? The various reading which, if true, not only frees us from this difficulty, but proves this passage to be prophetical, stands thus: and as the light of the morning, Jehovah, the sun shall arise. This word Jehovah is regularly written in the oldest manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, as here expressed, and seems to have been omitted on account of the similitude between the adjoining words יזרח iizrach, shall arise, and יהוה iehovah, Jehovah in the original. It is impossible to read these words without recollecting the allusion to them in Malachi (iv. 2.) Shall the sun of righteousness arise, &c. which words in the original farther confirm the reading in the manuscript; for in Malachi we have the same verb, and the same noun as in this place. Here we read,—shall Jehovah the sun arise:—in Malachi—shall the sun of righteousness arise:—in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:6; Jeremiah 33:16.)—Jehovah, our righteousness:—in Isaiah 60:1. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of JEHOVAH is risen upon thee. 2 Samuel 23:2. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but יהוה יזרח iizrach iehovah, JEHOVAH SHALL ARISE upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 2 Samuel 23:3. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. I leave the inference to the reader. It should be observed, that the two principal characters of Christ's kingdom are represented to us in the fine image contained in this verse: the first, that light or knowledge, which, when the sun of righteousness should arise, was to fill the earth, and to dispel the clouds of ignorance under which the world had so long sat: the other, that reviving consolation, or peace of mind, which a deliverance from the dominion of sin and death would afford true believers under the Gospel dispensation: a state, which cannot be more fitly represented than by that of the tender grass, when, after rain, it is cherished and invigorated by the kind and genial influence of the sun.