The Roman legal system knew two forms of the death penalty: the summum supplicium was a more vindictive form involving burning alive, crucifixion, and exposure to wild animals, while the capite puniri involved a simple death by decapitation (Garnsey, Status, 124; A. Berger, Roman Law, 633). Further, two types of decollatio, “decapitation,” or capitis amputatio, “beheading,” were distinguished: that by the sword and that by the axe (Digest 48.19.8.1–2; Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, 916–25). Provincial governors had the right to execute by sword only, not by the axe, javelin, club, or noose (Digest 48.19.8.1). Capital penalties were graded in accordance with degrees of extremity; the most extreme penalty was condemnation to the gallows, then burning alive, then beheading (Digest 48.19.28).

Roman legal practice exhibited a dual penalty system, which meant that punishments were meted out not only in accordance with the nature of the offense but also in accordance with the dignitas, “status,” of the offender (Garnsey, Status, 103–80; Gagé, Les classes, 283; Latte, RESup 7:1612; A. Berger, Roman Law, 633). Harsher punishments, including more violent forms of the death penalty, were inflicted on members of the lower classes (later designated humiliores), while the death penalty was rarely used for members of the upper classes (later called honestiores). For the upper classes various forms of exile or deportation were customarily used (see Comment on Rev 1:9). Decurions, for example, could not be executed (Digest 48.19.15; 48.19.27.1). Thus those who were beheaded with the axe referred to in [Rev. 20] v 4 in all probability belonged to the honestiores (the honestiores/humiliores distinction became more common in the second and third centuries, but the distinction in status that these terms describe did exist in the first century A.D. [Garnsey, Status, 221–76]).

 Revelation 17-22, Volume 52C (Word Biblical Commentary), Loc. 1086.

[God’s] mercy is wider and deeper than the ocean of human misery.

“The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God” by Geerhardus Vos in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (Vol. XIII, 1902), 18.

So long as the intellect retained its legitimate place among the functions of the religious subject, so long as to know God was felt to be an essential part of glorifying God, the natural tendency was to make this knowledge as comprehensive and many-sided as possible — to have it mirror the full content of the divine nature, and not merely a single one of its perfections. Whatever may be charged against the intellectualism of the period when orthodoxy reigned supreme, it can claim credit at least for having been broad-minded and well-balanced in its appreciation of the infinite complexity and richness of the life of God. The music of that theology may not always please modern ears, because it seems lacking in sweetness; but it ranged over a wider scale and made better harmonics than the popular strains of to-day.

“The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God” by Geerhardus Vos in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (No. 49 – January 1902), 1-2.

Now since God’s majesty in itself far outstrips the capacity of human understanding and cannot even be comprehended by it at all, it is fitting for us to adore rather than to investigate its loftiness, lest we be utterly overwhelmed by such great splendor. Accordingly, we are to search out and trace God in his works, which are called in the Scriptures “the reflection of things invisible,” because they represent to us what otherwise we could not see of the Lord. This is not something that keeps our minds in suspense with vain and empty speculations, but something that is beneficent for us to know and which begets, nourishes, and strengthens perfect godliness in us, that is, faith joined with fear. For in this universe of things we contemplate the immortality of our God, from which flow the beginning and origin of everything; we contemplate his power which both framed this great mass and now sustains it; we contemplate his wisdom which composed in definite order this very great and confused variety and everlastingly governs it; we contemplate his goodness, itself the cause that these things were created and now continue to exist; we contemplate his righteousness marvelously preferring itself to defend the godly but to take vengeance of the ungodly; we contemplate his mercy which, to call us back to repentance, tolerates our iniquities with great gentleness.

From all this we ought abundantly to have been taught — as much as is sufficient for us — what God is like, but for the fact that our sluggishness was blinded by such great light. And not only do we sin out of blindness alone, but such is our perversity that in reckoning God’s works, there is nothing it does not interpret badly and wrongheadedly, and it turns completely upside down the whole heavenly wisdom which clearly shines in them. Therefore, we must come to God’s Word, where God is duly described to us from his works, while the works themselves are reckoned not from the depravity of our judgment but the eternal rule of truth. From this, therefore, we learn that God is for us the sole and eternal source of all life, righteousness, wisdom, power, goodness, and mercy. As all good flows, without any exception, from him, so ought all praise deservedly to return to him. And even if all these things appear most clearly in each part of heaven and earth, yet we at last comprehend their real goal, value, and true meaning for us only when we descend into ourselves and ponder in what ways the Lord reveals his life, wisdom, and power in us, and exercises toward us his righteousness, goodness, and mercy.

“3. What We Must Know of God” in Calvin’s Catechism (1538)

English Protestantism’s attention to Job’s complaints (rather than just his patience, as in patristic and medieval readings) signals a turn from using the Book of Job as hagiography to what early modern Protestants called “history” and what we might call psychological realism.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, ii.

This dissertation explores how post-Reformation literature—ranging from neo-Latin exegesis to religious lyric engages with the Old Testament figure of Job. Far from the patient Christian saint that dominates medieval commentary, Job in the early modern period is a racialized, masculine mortal; a complainer with free will; a mere atom in a heliocentric cosmos; and a discoverer of the sublime. He is a typological figure of Christ, the patron saint of syphilis and music, and an epic poet. His story was conjectured to be the most ancient in the world and his poetry the most difficult in the Bible.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 1.

Calvin’s use of Elihu is only one example of how early modern readers differ from contemporary readers in approaching the dating, authorship, and transmission of the Book of Job. Whereas contemporary scholars describe an anonymous (possibly postexilic) Hebrew author of Job’s prose frame and poetry, many early modern commentators believed Moses to be the author of the Book of Job (perhaps during his time wandering in Midian), or credited Job himself, Solomon, or Elihu with the book’s authorship.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 9.

It took Protestantism’s increased attention to the Book of Job itself (rather than oral legend, patristic commentary, apocryphal texts, and the Septuagint translation) to jumpstart a new way of understanding Job’s character. In his “Preface to Job,” Martin Luther inverts the patient Job tradition, suggesting that Job’s complaints are what make the Book of Job “magnificent and sublime” (chapter 1).61 In contrast to medieval commentators who praised Job for what he was able to endure, Luther highlights Job’s weakness for how it manifests his dependence on God’s grace. In his Sermons Upon Job, John Calvin, too, flips the “patient Job” tradition on its head. Instead of an exemplum of patience, Calvin understands Job as a complainer, who accuses God of injustice because he fails to comprehend God’s absolute power.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 17.

I. Of God

We confess and acknowledge one only God, to whom only we must cleave, whom only we must serve (Deut. 6), whom only we must worship (Isa. 44), and in whom only we put our trust (Deut. 4). Who is eternal, infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, invisible, one in substance and yet distinct in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28). By whom we confess and believe, all things in heaven and earth (Gen. 1), as well visible as invisible, to have been created, to be retained in their being, and to be ruled and guided by His inscrutable providence, to such end as His eternal wisdom (Prov. 16), goodness, and justice has appointed them to the manifestation of His own glory.

The Book of Job: Its Origin and Purpose by Norman H. Snaith (Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., 1968). The Book of Job; its origin and purpose : Snaith, Norman H. (Norman Henry), 1898-1982 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Book of Job by Norman H. Snaith (London: The Epworth Press, 1945). book-of-job_snaith.pdf (biblicalstudies.org.uk)

Interpreting the Book of Job by E. W. Hengstenberg in Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, 91-112. Classical evangelical essays in Old Testament interpretation : Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. (Walter Christian), 1933- compiler : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The History of Interpretation of Song of Songs by J. Paul Tanner in Bibliotheca Sacra 154: 613 (1997): 23-46 The History of Interpretation of the Song of Songs by J. Paul Tanner (biblicalstudies.org.uk)

The Message of the Song of Songs by J. Paul Tanner in Bibliotheca Sacra 154: 613 (1997): 142-161. The Message of the Song of Songs.doc (biblicalstudies.org.uk)

Bible Book of the Month – The Song of Songs by Meredith G. Kline in Christianity Today 3 (April 27, 1959): 22-23, 39. Microsoft Word – Bible Book of the Month – Song of Songs (Kline).doc (meredithkline.com)

A Parabolic View of the Song of Solomon by Thomas E. Fountain. 9-2_fountain.pdf (biblicalstudies.org.uk)

The Interpretation of the Song of Songs by F. Godet in Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, 151-75. Classical evangelical essays in Old Testament interpretation : Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. (Walter Christian), 1933- compiler : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The seed of the wicked are all who are wicked. For the law that impressed itself deeply on all who sought God, and is over and over insisted upon by the very prophets of the captivity, is that “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deut. xxiv. 16; 1 Kings xiv. 6; 2 Chron. xxv. 4; Jer. xxxi. 29, 30; Ezek. xviii. 1-32). When the Old or New Testaments speak of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, we must always remember that no child was ever punished by God simply for his father’s sin, but because he chose his father’s sin rather than the grace of God and increased in the depravity of his father. This is the reiterated testimony of Old and New Testaments. When the Saviour says “that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world” would be required of that generation, it was because they consented to the works of their fathers, and would not turn to God.

HOWARD OSGOOD, “DASHING THE LITTLE ONES AGAINST THE ROCK,” 36 (THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW : ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM PARK, 1874- COMP : FREE DOWNLOAD, BORROW, AND STREAMING : INTERNET ARCHIVE).

In the destruction of Babylon related in the Old Testament, as well as in the New, all who sought God are warned to flee from her before she was dashed in pieces. All who chose Babylon, its pride and power, rather than God, were dashed to pieces with her. Just as Jerusalem’s children, turning from Christ, were dashed to pieces with her, while those who turned to Christ escaped from her coming ruin.

What, then, does “Blessed shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy children by the cliff” mean? Since it was God who was to dash Babylon and her progeny to pieces, and this verse is part of a prayer to God, it means blessed shall every one be whom God shall use to destroy to the uttermost Babylon and her children that chose and followed in her sins. She was the mountain-high corrupting power of the world, defiant of God and the oppressor of all who loved God and righteousness and holiness. In her was found the blood of the saints and the prophets, Rev. xvii. 6, xviii. 24.

While the author of Ps. cxxxvii is unknown, we know well the circle of lofty, faithful souls to which he belonged. Were Ezekiel or Daniel a poet, this Psalm might well ahve come from the pen of either, for they were in full accord with its words and spirit. But this is sure that out of those few in captivity whose faith in and love for Jehovah and His words were victorious over every trial, this pure song of God’s own words arose, and found its echo in the tenderest heart and holiest mind this world has ever known, as he wept over Jerusalem and pronounced her doom.

Howard Osgood, “Dashing the Little Ones Against the Rock,” 36-37 (The Princeton Theological Review : Armstrong, William Park, 1874- comp : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive).