FURROWS. Sulci. The Sacred writers sometimes borrow similitudes from Furrows, which it is of importance to explain Job xxxi. 38.in this place. Job, If my land cry against me, or that the Furrows likewise thereof complain; if I have imployed poor plowmen to till my ground, without paying Ps. lxv. 10.them for their pains. The Psalmist, Thou watererest the ridges thereof abundantly, thou settlest the Furrows thereof, thou breakest the clods of it, according to the Ecclus. xxxviii. 27.Hebrew. The Author of Ecclesiasticus says, that all the plowmen’s great care is to stir the earth, and form Furrows; Cor suum dabit ad versandos sulcos. So much for the literal sense of this word.
The same Author says in the figurative sense of it, Sow not upon the Furrows of unrighteousness, for if thou sowest iniquity, thou shalt reap all sorts of evils and mismisfortunes. See Galat. iv. 7. The Prophet Hosea; Judgment springeth up as hemlock in the Furrows of the field. Judgment, and the wrath of God, will produce bitterness, according to the Vulgate, in thy fields. Here is a double metaphor, Judgment denotes the vengeance of God; it springs, it produces bitterness, bitter herbs, and quasi super sulcos agri, as it were upon a ploughed field, ready to receive the