REPROACH. This Word is used in two Senses; for the Disgrace or Confusion that any one suffers himself, or for that which he is the Cause of to another. Among the Hebrews, to be uncircumcised was a Reproach; and when Joshua circumcised the People that were born in the Wilderness, he tells them, This Day Josh. v. 9.have I rolled away the Reproach of Egypt from off you. Barrenness was also a Reproach. When Rachel had brought two Sons into the World, she said, The Lord has taken away my Gen. xxx. 23. Isai. iv. 1.Reproach. Isaiah says, That the time shall come when Men shall be so scarce in Israel, that seven Women shall lay hold of one Man, and shall say to him, We ask you nothing for our Maintenance, only deliver us from the Reproach of Sterility and a single Life. Take us to Wives, &c. The Lord struck the Philistines with a shameful Malady in ano, and thereby loaded them with an eternal Reproach.Psalm. lxxxviii. 65.
Servitude, Slavery, involuntary Poverty, Subjection to their Enemies, to be struck with any extraordinary Disease, as the Leprosy, &c. all these were reckon’d a Reproach, because it was supposed to be the Effect of Cowardice, or Idleness, or the bad Management of those that suffer’d them; or that they were a Correction sent from God, to punish their Injustice and Impiety. Thus God in an hundred Places threatens his People, to make them a Reproach and a Proverb to Men, and which has also come to pass in an hundred Instances, by the Servitudes with which they have been overwhelmed, and by the Misfortunes which have happened to them. The Psalmist often complains, that God had made him a Reproach to those that were about him, who insulted over his Misfortunes and Disgraces.
Psal. xv. 3. 1 Sam. xvii. 26. Ecclus. xlvii. 4. Jerem. xxxi. 19. Isai. liv. 4.To take up a Reproach against his Neighbour; opprobrium non accepit adversus proximos suos, is not to listen to the Slanders and Calumnies that are brought against him. David took away the Reproach from Israel, by slaying Goliah. Jeremiah says, I was ashamed, yea even confounded, because I did bear the Reproach of my Youth. Thou hast made the Shame of the Faults of my Youth fall upon me, thou hast shew’d me the Horror of them, and hast made me bear the Pain and Confusion that attends it. And Isaiah, Thou shalt forget the Shame of thy Youth, and shalt not remember the Reproach of thy Widowhood any more. He speaks to the Tribe of Judah, after the Return from the Captivity, Thou shalt no longer remember the Reproach thou hast suffered among strange Nations.