And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. [Is it] not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
Ver. 11. And I raised up your sons for prophets] The ministry is worthily instanced as a singular mercy, Psalms 147:19,20. Other nations had their prophets, such as they were, Titus 1:12, προφητης. Tragedians and comedians were said, εις διδαχην εργαζεσθαι, to labour in teaching the people, and were highly esteemed of the Athenians; insomuch as that after their discomfit in Sicily they were relieved out of the public stock who could repeat somewhat of Euripides. But what were these to Israel's prophets, those holy men of God, who spake as they were moved, acted, and, as it were, carried out of themselves by the Holy Ghost, to say and to do what God would have them? φερομενοι, 2 Peter 1:21; yea, those holy children, such as Samuel and Jeremiah (for of them especially the Rabbins understand this text), who devoted themselves to the work betimes, being more forwardly than either Athanasius, the boy bishop, or Cornelius Mus, who (if we may believe Sixtus Senensis) was a preacher at twelve years old, and such a one as with whom all Italy was in admiration.
And of your young men for Nazarites] The Chaldee hath it doctors, or teachers; it being the office of these holy votaries to teach the people. Heathens also had a kind of Nazarites, as Lucian setteth forth in his Dea Syria (Habent et vespae favos, simiae imitantur homines), and the Turks at this day have their Dermislars, and their Imailers, whom they call the religious brothers of love. Epicurian hogs they might better term them, saith the historian. The Papists would prove their monks to be Christian Nazarites: but the abolishing of that order is declared, Acts 21:25; and monks are so far from the abstinence of the Nazarites, that they eat of the best and drink of the sweetest that sea and land can afford. So far also from the singular sanctimony of the Nazarites, whereof see Lamentations 4:7, that the poet sung truly of them,
“ Non audet Stygius Pluto tentare quod audet
Effraenis Monachus. - ”
They may better profess themselves successors to the scribes and Pharisees, who may seem (saith one) to have fled and hid themselves in the monks and friars. Now, the Pharisees pretended to succeed the ancient Nazarites, as their very name imports, vitae sanctimonia et voto singulari ab aliis separati, but they were (as likewise the Popish monks) a generation never instituted by God, nor brought in by the prophets, but only a human invention, and through their own boldness; whence Chemnitius, upon the tenth of John, takes thieves there to be the Pharisees. An interpreter here showeth how God hath now made all his people Nazarites, i.e. separated and sanctified unto himself, by making them patterns of piety, as the Rechabites, holy, harmless, undefiled of dead works and evil works, from whom they are bid to stand off, 1 Timothy 6:5, as also not to "be drunk with wine, wherein is excess," but "to be filled with the Spirit"; abstaining from all appearance of evil, hating the garment spotted with the flesh, Ephesians 5:18 1Th 5:22 Judges 1:23. See Trapp on " Num 6:1 " &c
Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel?] If it be not testified against me, as Micah 6:3, and if ye cannot then read the sentence against yourselves, as Judas did, Matthew 27:4, that ye may appear to be subverted and self-condemned, Titus 3:11. God loveth to fetch witness from men's own consciences for the justifying his proceedings; and to convince them clearly that he is no way wanting to them, but they to themselves. A cunning carver can carve the similitude of any creature, but not on a rotten stick. What could God do more to his vineyard than he had done? Isaiah 5:4. "How oft would I have gathered thy children, as a hen her chickens," &c., Matthew 23:37. "How long shall, thy vain thoughts, lodge within, thee?" Jeremiah 4:14. God as so far from being guilty of Israel's misery as that, besides other undeniable arguments of his love, as bringing them out of Egypt, destroying the Amorite, &c., he had raised them up prophets and Nazarites, given them his word, sacraments, all good helps to mollify their hearts; and then appealeth to their consciences by this rhetorical interrogation, "Is it not even thus?" so to wring from them a confession of the truth, in spite of their teeth.