The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for its people shall mourn over it, and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it, for its glory has departed from it.
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
The kine of Bet haven. The golden calves of Jeroboam, (Challoner) one of which (Haydock) was set up at Bethel. (Worthington)
The feminine cows, is spoken in ridicule; as (Calmet) O vere Phrygiæ, (Virgil) Æneid ix. Isis was represented with a cow's head. (Herodotus ii. 41.)
Rejoiced. To avoid this apparent contradiction, the Jews relate that the priests had sent a brazen calf to the Assyrian, and secreted the golden one. While they rejoiced at their success, Salmanasar, (Seder. Olam.) or Sennacherib, discovered the cheat, and came to destroy the kingdom. (St. Jerome)
This has the air of a fable. If (Calmet) we substitute é for g, in yagilu, (Haydock) we may give a good sense to the Hebrew. "The people shouting, or in black, (cemaraiv) have been in sorrow, because their glory is taken from them: so the idol is called, Psalm cv. 20. (Calmet) Ver. 6. Itself also is carried One of the golden calves was given by king Mana hem to Phul, king of the Assyrians, to engage him to stand by him. ...
And after their departure they stayed there until the death of Herod, the assassin of the babes of Bethlehem. Archelaus, who succeeded him, also died before Christ fulfilled by his crucifixion the Father’s plan of our redemption. And when Herod succeeded Archelaus and received what had fallen to his share, Pilate favored him by sending Jesus bound to him, which God in his foreknowledge foretold in these words: “And they brought him to the Assyrian, a present to the king.”
The Lord himself comes to a trial with “the elders and rulers of the people,” as Isaiah predicted. And then he fulfilled all that had been written of his passion. At that time “the heathen raged, and the people imagined vain things; the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers gathered themselves together against the Lord and against his Christ.” The heathen were Pilate and the Romans; the people were the tribes of Israel; the kings were represented in Herod and the rulers in the chief priests. When, indeed, he was sent to Herod gratuitously by Pilate, the words of Hosea were accomplished, for he had prophesied of Christ, “And they shall carry him bound as a present to the king.”
