Then said the LORD unto me,
Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not turn toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.
Read Chapter 15
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
If. The Geneva Bible reads corruptly, "Though Moses. Stood "contrary to Hebrew and Greek. (Worthington)
And Samuel. These two had shown a particular love for the people, Exodus xxxii., and 2 Kings xii. (Calmet)
Ezechiel (xiv. 4.) specifies Noe, Daniel, and Job, who were eminent for sanctity. Daniel was still alive. Yet God will not grant their request; and he forbids his prophet to pray for those who were resolved not to repent, chap. xiv. 11. (Haydock)
Their punishment was fixed, and God will not remit it at the request either of the living or of the dead. Hence it is evident, that the dead could and did sometimes make intercession, otherwise they would not here be mentioned. To evade this argument, Protestants in the Geneva Bible, suppose God's "meaning to be, that if there were any man living, moved with so great zeal towards the people as were these two, yet he would not grant their request, for so much as he had determined the contrary. "Yet surely Jeremias, Daniel, had a similar zeal; and therefore the text speaks of Moses and Samuel in a state of happiness, where their charity is greater than in this life, as St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom (hom. 1. in 1 Thessalonians) and St. Gregory (Mor. ix. 12.) explain it. (Worthington)
Jeremias had been praying earnestly for the people in the temple. But God answers his request with a severity rarely witnessed in Scripture, ordering him to drive the people out, or to announce that they should be thus treated. (Calmet)
