Читать книгу The Threshold Covenant; or, The Beginning of Religious Rites - H. Clay Trumbull - Страница 11
Оглавление“Blessed is the man that heareth me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at the posts of my doors.”[172]
The Lord’s call to Israel, through the prophets, was: “Establish judgment in the gate,”[173] and “Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates.”[174] A reference to a just and righteous man is to “him that reproveth in the gate.”[175]
Lazarus in his need is laid daily at the gate of the rich Dives, seeking help.[176] So, again, the poor man who was a cripple from his birth was “laid daily at the door of the temple … called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple.”[177]
It is written in the Mosaic law, that, when a bondman would bind himself and his family in permanent servitude to his loved master, “his master shall bring him unto God [or to the place of judgment and of covenant], and shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall [thenceforward] serve him forever;”[178] or, as it is elsewhere said, the master shall thrust the awl “through his ear, unto [or into] the door.”[179] Here, apparently, the master and servant appeal together at the household altar, in witness of their sacred covenant.
The high court of Turkey is still called the “Sublime Porte,” the “Exalted Gateway;” and the subjects of the Sultan seek imperial favor at his palace door. He, or his representative, administers justice there, to those who are waiting at his gate.
A promise to Abraham was: “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”[180] And again Jesus says of his Church, that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”[181] In both these cases “gates” are obviously equivalent to the power of those who are within the gates. Thus, also, when the overthrow of a city is foretold in prophecy, it is said, that “the gate is smitten with destruction.”[182]
