but the former sense is best; for this last clause is a remember or proposition of itself,thou hast the dew of that youth; which expresses the open property Christ has in his people, when made willing; and when they appear in the beauty of holiness, as soon as they are born of the Spirit, and the true light of grace shines in them; then those who were secretly his, even while unwilling, manifestly appear to belong unto him: so young lambs, just weaned, are in Homer called ersai, "dews"; and it is remarkable that the Hebrew words for "dew" and "a lamb" are near in sound.
Young converts are Christ's lambs; they are Christ's youth, and the dew of it; they are regenerated by the grace of God, comparable to dew, of which they are begotten to a lively hope of heaven; and which, distilling upon them, makes them fruitful in good works; and who for their numbers, and which I take to be the thing chiefly designed by this figure, are like to the drops of the dew; which in great profusion is spread over trees, herbs, and plants, where it hangs in drops innumerable: and such a multitude of converts is here promised to Christ, and which he had in the first times of the Gospel, both in Judea, when three thousand persons were converted under one sermon; and especially in the Gentile world, where the savour of his knowledge was diffused in every place; and as will be in the latter day, when a nation shall be born at once, and the fulness of the Gentiles be brought in.
The sense given of these words, as formed upon the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, respecting the generation of Christ's human or divine nature, is without any foundation in the original text.
Klyx Mwyb "in die exercitus tui", Munster, Vatablus, Piscator, Gejerus; so Ainsworth; "quum educes tuas copias", Tigurine version; "die copiarum tuarum", Junius & Tremellius. twbdn "oblationes voluntariae", Junius & Tremellius; "spontanea oblatio", Cocceius, Gejerus.
"Milites voluntarii", Bootius. Epist. l. 11. Ep. 8. rxvm Mxdm "a vulya, ab aurora", Montanus. Odyss. ix. v.