A fruitfull commentarie vpon the twelue small prophets briefe, plaine, and easie, going ouer the same verse by verse, and shewing every where the method, points of doctrine, and figures of rhetoricke, to the no small profit of all godly and well disposed readers, with very necessarie fore-notes for the vnderstanding of both of these, and also all other the prophets. The text of these prophets together with that of the quotations omitted by the author, faithfully supplied by the translatour, and purged of faults in the Latine coppie almost innumerable, with a table of all the chiefe matters herein handled, and marginall notes very plentifull and profitable; so that it may in manner be counted a new booke in regard of these additions. VVritten in Latin by Lambertus Danæus, and newly turned into English by Iohn Stockwood minister and preacher at Tunbridge.

Ver. 15.

Blowe the trumpet in Zion, sanctifie a fast, call a solemne assembly.

ANd first of all they shew the place: then the fast adioyned vnto it: afterward the assembly: last of all the publike praiers.* 1.1 In this verse are contained the place, the fast, the assembly. The place is

Siō, that is Ierusalem. For by the mountaine, or one part the whole city is vnderstood by the figure Synecdoche.* 1.2 But here mention is made of Sion, because the first warning of the fast, and the proclai∣ming of that solemne and publike repentance ought to be made in the temple, and by the councell of the priestes which had the rule of holy things, and that with a trumpet, after a solemne manner, that afterwardes it might be proclaimed in the other cities of Iu∣dah. Yet was it not needfull, that whosoeuer would then fast, and vse that publike repentance, should come to Sion, but euery one might do that abiding in his owne city, after the publike fast pro∣claimed, and euery one fasted that day, in the which that action was proclaimed, and commaunded to be done. For Leuit. 23. ver. 31. it appeareth that the feast of reconciliation (and so consequently o∣ther the like) was to be held the tenth day of the seauenth moneth not only at Ierusalem, but also throughout all their dwellings. But at Ierusalem the Iewes are commaunded to come and be ioyned together, into the Temple: but at other places, into their Syna∣gogues in the day of the fast, and of the solemne and publike repen∣tance: & not into the alehouses and tauernes, and into their shops to vse merchandise and feastinges at that time, as now adayes they doe euery where when a publike fast is warned. And in this place a fast is commaunded to be proclaimed,* 1.3 and that an holy fast, the which must be referred vnto the preparing of the mindes of the parties, that they may serue God the more earnestly. For there are many kindes of fastes, & many endes off eastes. One kinde may be constrained,* 1.4 as in a time of famin: an other may be a medicinall fast appoynted by phisitiōs for health sake: an other by meanes that all appetite and desire of meate is done in vs: & lastly, an other is a reli∣gious fast, the which is made, that we may the more cheerfully giue and applie our selues vnto prayer, may the more acknowledge our selues to be guilty before God, & cast down and humble our selues. The which last end, for as much as it is an holy end, for the same also publike abstinence from moderate and ordinary meat is cōmaunded: or else is priuately for a time willingly and of our own accord taken vpon vs: and then is it indeed a sanctified fast: and not if it be held to be a meritorious or deseruing worke of ours. The which is flat blasphemie. Moreouer here also is mention made of the assembly of the people, the which in the verse following is more at large declared and expounded.

Notes

• * 1.1

  1. The place. 2. The fast. 3. The assem∣bly.
• * 1.2

  What the figure Synecdo∣che is, see Amos cap. 5. ver. 21.
• * 1.3

  An holy fast.
• * 1.4

  Many kindes of fastes.